Following a One On One training session in St. Louis, Helen Holt, sales & marketing associate for Heritage Oaks in Richmond, Virginia, returned to her community and inspired a married couple to move in.

Holt worked with the husband, as the wife had onsets of dementia. They needed help, and so Holt carefully assessed their situation. “He gave a lot of information about himself which helped me relate to him, and it made him feel comfortable,” she said. Following the basics of One On One’s relationship-based selling style, Holt embarked on a process of discovery to learn as much as she could about the potential resident in order to see if they were the right fit, and also to appeal to the emotional side of the transaction. “I didn’t have to use everything I learned, but I did use as much as I could come up with.”

Holt found out about the prospect’s favorite pastimes. An important selling point was the proximity of the community to the church both the she and the prospect attended. But despite needing to move, the couple were hesitant to leave their home, and she responded by going over other possibilities rather than ending the conversation.

“I offered suggestions and told him he could have help come to his own house,” she said, as the prospects needed medical care. Holt worked with them to find a solution, even though it included the possibility of losing the sale. “But when he saw that [home care] was more expensive, he changed his mind. It worked!”

Once Holt established herself as being helpful and genuinely interested in the prospects themselves, she was able to advance the sale. “They didn’t feel like they were getting sold a bill of goods,” Holt says. “I didn’t give them the high-pressure pitch, I just told them that they should do whatever they needed to do.”

With relationship-building techniques and by appealing to the emotional side of the sale, Holt was able to move the prospect into her community. The extra time and the attention to the details of the prospect’s life made the decision-making process more about the prospect’s feelings rather than amenities offered. Caring conversations and connections such as these will turn an opportunity into a sale, without the use of scripts or formulas. “It’s very simple,” Holt says.