Senior Housing’s Only Operator-Aligned, Prospect-Centered CRM Strengthens Leadership Team
St. Louis, MO (October 10, 2016) – Sherpa, a St. Louis-based company offering the only prospect-centered sales tracking and management software in the senior housing industry, today announced revenue growth in excess of 200% year-over-year.
Founders David Smith and Alex Fisher note that during the first nine months of the year, Sherpa’s customer base grew significantly and exceeded projected growth forecasts for the CRM.
“Our customers represent nearly 100 companies and 500 communities in the senior housing industry and we expect that number to continue outpacing projections through year-end,” said Smith. “With our extraordinary growth during the past 2 years since the initial launch, Sherpa is generating significant revenue and operating profits. We think it’s time to officially drop our ‘start-up’ label and launch a new phase of growth that will further enhance the user experience and bring evidence based, relationship selling into new market segments.”
According to Fisher, who also owns and operates a portfolio of retirement communities, the company’s growth confirms that Sherpa’s focus on promoting and tracking core selling behaviors helps prospects navigate the various stages of readiness for change.
“Our CRM platform is nimble, approachable and personal,” said Fisher. “Sherpa supports Prospect-Centered Sellingsm (“PCS”) with patent pending workflows as well as unique metrics to measure time spent per activity, per sales team and per prospect worked. An extensive review of our data conducted by The ProMatura Group, overwhelmingly supports what we already know – if our sales teams spend more quality time working with fewer prospects, they will make more sales.”
In alignment with that philosophy, the St. Louis entrepreneurs have quietly assembled a Leadership Team with some of the most experienced and successful senior housing sales and operations professionals in the industry.
Newly-appointed Chief Operating Officer Matt Jesperson has more than 15 years of marketing and sales experience with stints as a Partner and Chief Marketing Officer for Havensworth Senior Living and Courtyard Senior Living.
Together, those companies owned and managed 970 assisted living and memory care units in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Florida.
“I have held varying titles and responsibilities throughout my career, but my specialty has always been filling up underperforming buildings,” said Jesperson.
“Before a CRM like Sherpa existed, I was applying Prospect-Centered Selling with manual systems across my portfolio and the results were uniformly exceptional. For any particular building, we were able to help dozens of senior adults overcome their emotional resistance to moving. With Sherpa, we now we have an opportunity to scale the PCS methodology and improve sales results for hundreds of senior housing providers and over 1 million of their combined prospects.”
In addition to Jesperson, Sherpa recently announced that Katie Davis was joining the team as Chief Strategy Officer. Davis most recently served as Chief Operating Officer for Senior Living Communities, a senior housing company which develops and manages high-end retirement portfolios containing continuing care retirement communities, assisted living, memory care and skilled nursing communities, and private duty home care companies.
“I have personally overseen the adoption of PCS and the implementation of Sherpa in my position as COO for Senior Living Communities,” said Davis. “For SLC, this sales approach was new, it was different, and it was most certainly a journey. Sales Managers and their Investors want and deserve to know when they can expect to see results. Thanks in large part to the systematic change in our sales and operating culture that were possible with Sherpa, we were able to deliver results above and beyond our projected goals. I couldn’t be a stronger advocate for this CRM and for a prospect-centered sales culture.”
Sherpa’s leadership team also includes Chief Technology Officer Adam Levinson who wrote the first lines of code for the CRM in 2014. With the addition of Jesperson and Davis, founders Smith and Fisher believe the company is uniquely focused on behaviors that improve conversion ratios, reduce the costs of new lead generation, and attract higher-functioning residents. As such, Sherpa is primed to attract additional market share in an industry that has become drunk on generating new leads and transactional data.
“Big data isn’t the enemy; bad data is,” said Fisher. “Sherpa delivers an operator-aligned platform that rewards evidence-based sales behaviors which improves results on a per prospect basis. People are hungry for that simplicity – they build reports upon reports because they’re lacking results. We cut through the clutter and show them a path to getting full.”
