General Managers in senior living are 100% accountable for revenue performance. With an average $5.6M in top-line annual revenue at stake in a typical community, leadership in sales is not optional—it’s essential.
Typically one salesperson is responsible for the prospect pipeline leaving the General Manager to assume a leadership position for revenue generation and topping that position is sales leadership.
Leading a relationship-based sales environment and seeing beyond the numbers that line the monthly P&L reports is the calling for all GM’s who run top performing communities. Unlike other industries, sales leadership in senior living has no standard check list when strategizing over prospects.
There is no "easy button" to resolve concerns and fears prospect’s have over their decision to move to senior living. This is a sales cycle that asks elders to leave their beloved homes (homes that hold the final morsel of their independence) and move to a new community with 100 strangers.
Leading the Revenue Team to Success webinar, offered free of charge and available for you at www.seniorlivingpro.ca , outlines a 10-step management framework to lead high performance teams that command occupancy performance.
Inside these 10-steps is the single most effective tool at your disposal. A Weekly Sales Performance Meeting.
These meetings do not discuss suite turnover, move-ins, or marketing campaigns - that's for another time. They are laser-focused, fast-paced, and designed to inspire prospect momentum through the sales journey.
Here’s how to lead them with impact:
The Setup
- Meet weekly in the sales office with the CRM open.
- Require attendance of the Revenue Team, cover the front desk as needed.
- Schedule at a standing time, ideally during slower front desk traffic.
Who Attends
- General Manager – leads the meeting.
- Sales Team – accountable for discovery knowledge and forward momentum with prospects.
- Revenue Team – contributes ideas and acts as guides and supporters of the prospect journey.
The Purpose
This is a sales performance meeting – not operations, not marketing and not “story time”.
This is not a meeting regarding resident movement or maintenance suite turnover. This is not a discussion over model suites or the latest pay-per-click subject line.
Your goal is to create momentum, sharpen skills, and keep the focus squarely on moving prospects toward a decision.
The Four Steps to Success
Step 1: Check in & status
- Bring forward all new inquiries that have surfaced in the last week to establish the team’s knowledge
- Touch on all engaged Prospects with recent activity
- Seek a status update – what has happened since we last strategized and implemented a creative follow up
Step 2: Test for knowledge
Strong sales begins with strong discovery. Ask 2 questions consistently:
- Why are they leaving their home?
- Why haven’t they already moved into senior living?
These questions quickly expose the depth of discovery skills and help sharpen relationship-based selling.
Step 3: Surface gaps
Gaps will come in two categories; gaps in effort or effectiveness.
Effort is all about time – or rather time management. Did the sales team follow through on last week’s commitments? Effort I partially revealed in the numbers from management reports and gaps can be addressed with discussion.
Effectiveness is all about skills. Did the discovery test questions land with a blank stare or a robust and thoughtful response? Relationship based skills are rooted in language and communication. Did conversations with prospects yield meaningful insights?
HOT TIP – Save individual red-flags that emerge for the next 1:1 coaching sessions with individual team members.
Step 4; Lead with a Coaching Mindset
Your role as a GM isn’t to hand out answers – it’s to build capability. A coaching mindset helps people discover solutions, build confidence and develop long-term capacity.
A learning organization is one that continually seeks to transform by encouraging and enabling people at all levels to learn, adapt and grow. Using a shared vision and open collaborative dialogue are hallmarks.
By modeling inquiry, curiosity, and shared accountability, you’re building not just a sales culture, but a learning organization—one that adapts, grows, and sustains high occupancy performance.
Key Takeaway
The Weekly Sales Performance Meeting is far more than a routine check-in— it is the single most powerful tool a General Manager has to influence occupancy success. In a business where NOI gains cannot be driven by expense control alone, consistent revenue growth depends on how well a community manages its sales process.
By carving out structured, focused time each week, GMs sharpen their team’s discovery skills, surface gaps in both effort and effectiveness, and coach with intent.
The meeting keeps prospects moving forward, ensures accountability, and builds the culture of inquiry and collaboration that defines high-performing communities. Over time, this rhythm creates a compound effect: stronger sales execution, deeper relationships with prospects, and ultimately, higher sustained occupancy.
Interested in watching my complimentary webinar on Leading the Revenue Team to Success? A highly targeted 45-minute video that delivers incredible value for General Managers to build high-performance occupancy teams? (Click the link above.)
Wondering where to next or want to connect? Send me an email [email protected] Happy to provide a 30-minute free consultation - let's talk about what you need face-to-face.
Until next time, my warmest regards,
Jodi
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