66. The Vectre- Transforming Senior Living Sales with Virtual Tours

We’re excited to welcome Hoyle Koontz, a senior living industry veteran with over 15 years of experience! Hoyle is the co-founder of The Vectre, and his innovative sales enablement platform, YourTour, is driving efficiency in over 60 senior living communities, helping teams make memorable first impressions. 🌟

Listen as Hoyle shares his journey from TV photojournalism to leading digital transformation in senior living sales. We’ll also dive into how virtual tours are revolutionizing the way communities showcase their lifestyle value proposition and attract new prospects.

Find Hoyle on LinkedIn & learn more about The Vectre on their website. 

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Transcript

Welcome to Raising Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Amber Bardon and today our guest is Hoyle Koontz. Hoyle is a senior living industry veteran with over half of his career dedicated to senior living. It's quite an accomplishment. The Vectre, his latest venture incorporates 15 years of experience. 

The Vectre's sales enablement platform called YourTour is utilized in over 60 communities to drive sales efficiency that helps sales teams make the best first impression. So welcome to the show Hoyle. 

Thanks so much Amber. Thank you for having me. 

So tell me a little bit more about your background. How did you get into senior living, having been at, been in it for so long, where did you start?

Sure. My background is I like to say that my background is all about storytelling. I started my career as a TV news photojournalist and that progressed into starting my first company. In 2002, believe it or not, in virtual tour photography certainly bleeding edge at that particular time.

Hard to believe that's been over 2 decades ago now, but virtual tour photography, of course, [00:01:00] showcasing the locations and various I did a lot of work for hotels. I did a lot of work for master plan real estate. And so I live in North Carolina. We did a lot of work in master plan, real estate in the mountains of North Carolina and the coast of North and South Carolina.

In 2008, I started an agency called Frogman Interactive with a buddy of mine. And we were doing a lot of work in that master plan space, but 2008 was not the time to start a company in that space. So when things went sideways, we pivoted into senior living. We did our first project, which was building a website

for a senior living community here in our backyard of Winston Salem called Salem town retirement community. And then from there it really progressed. So we built Frogman Interactive working primarily with life plan communities throughout the country, [00:02:00] building highly interactive, very rich, very engaging websites.

Largely which had interactive map technology embedded into the website. From there in 2017, we were acquired by a large national agency. I went to work for that agency as vice president of product development, where we iterated on a number of the digital products that we built for the senior living space over the course of the next couple of years.

We were part of a reduction in force from that group just before the pandemic hit in 2020. Fortunately, we were able to start the Vectre at that point just before the pandemic. And then we built YourTour shortly after the pandemic hit largely to respond to the challenges that all of our senior living clients were having relative to the sales challenges that COVID created.

 Thanks for sharing all that background. I always [00:03:00] think it's so interesting to find out how people got into senior living, because a lot of times it's just an accident and then you get in it and you just end up staying in it for your whole career.

So I'm really curious to learn a little bit more, your background coming from videography and digital platforms and things like that. We know that this industry is very invested in the sales and marketing side from just that in person, high touch mentality. So how have you seen this evolve over the last couple of years?

 Are you seeing like a wide embracement of different ways of doing things more virtually and more digitally across the board, or do you still think this is a struggle for a lot of organizations? 

I do think it's a struggle for a lot of organizations simply because, as we all know, technology has lagged in the senior living space.

That's no secret. And so it's certainly gotten better. I think largely in part to the work that folks like Parasol Alliance are doing with communities across the country in terms of helping to [00:04:00] create some digital transformation, but I think, in terms of the senior living sales perspective in particular, it has lagged and it still is lagging and that's, I think, part of what we have seen in the space are quite honestly opportunities here in the sales

arena for senior living communities. What's interesting is that, we've seen a lot of investment in technology on the marketing side of the equation. So many communities have created beautiful websites. They've tied marketing automation to them. There has been a substantial amount of investment on the marketing side.

What we still see, though, is a very analog sales experience, and so that is ultimately what we're beginning to see. We know that our prospects are changing, right? Our prospects will never be less technologically savvy than they are today. And we've seen that primarily [00:05:00] as part of the pandemic as a catalyst to technology adoption and older adults.

I think the other piece of that is in many communities that we work with. We're seeing a 3rd, maybe even half in certain markets of prospects coming from outside of their primary or secondary markets within these communities. When we're working with clients who are in destination spaces, that is a major dynamic where we're seeing prospects come from well, outside of that market. And what we really try to challenge our clients to think about is. How do you take the community to them versus them coming to the community? And of course, doing that virtually is a major win for those clients. 

That was one of the questions I was thinking about when you were speaking earlier, I was curious, do you see any differentiation and the thought process and [00:06:00] approach between different sectors of.

Senior living for example, for profit versus not for profit. More of like the CCRC versus the assisted, memory care. How are you seeing, like, how are you seeing that breakout? I know, obviously the destination places, like you mentioned, but I think, my experience having been to like 70 different communities is a lot of people are local.

They want to stay where they grew up and they want to, go to those communities that are in their area. 

Sure, and I no doubt about it. There are reasons that these communities have those primary and even secondary markets that might be in a concentric circle just out outside of that primary market.

Most of the work that we do is with life plan communities. Where there is a very rich focus on lifestyle 1st and foremost I think it's interesting that the shift that we've seen in the senior living space. What kind of not emphasizing the care focus as much with life plan communities as they are the lifestyle focus 1st and foremost.

We do some [00:07:00] work with assisted living and memory care communities. I think what's interesting there is, of course, the prospect. In that case, for AL and memory care communities, typically the prospect is the adult child. The adult child is often struggling because of that immediate need that a loved one might have in terms of figuring out what is the right fit for their loved one.

And that, of course, is where technology can come into play to create that sort of short list. If you will, we often talk about how client communities need to be more transparent relative to showcasing their particular community and their amenities and so forth. So I think it's an interesting dynamic.

So a couple of the communities I've been at actually one was in Winston Salem and one in Santa Barbara, and they have really long waiting lists.

Like in, The community in Santa Barbara is like a five year waiting list. So when I'm talking to them and I'm talking about, [00:08:00] companies like yours and what are some of the innovation and things we can do differently in sales and marketing? And they say we have a five year waiting list, so we don't need to do anything differently.

What are your thoughts on that? What are the opportunities for the fortunate communities with that situation what could they be doing differently? 

1st and foremost, they should be master planning for more opportunities to to build new inventory. And that's really where YourTour

kind of comes into play. It's interesting. We work in 2 different segments. In the senior living space, we work, of course, with operational communities that are simply looking for sales efficiencies. They may be to your point, they may have long wait lists, or they may have great occupancy, but they're looking for ways to create efficiencies within their existing sales process.

But we also work largely with communities that are engaging in some sort of new development. Perhaps it's an expansion, perhaps it's a sister community. , on an [00:09:00] ancillary community, or maybe, of course, we're seeing a lot of a lot of mergers and acquisitions, even in the senior living space where communities are acquiring other communities.

And so they're bringing those. Up to par, if you will, with sales process. I think there are a lot of different ways that communities can create those efficiencies on the sales and marketing side using a virtual platform. And I think that's really what we've tried to hone in on is that we're not trying to help communities necessarily revolutionize their sales process.

We want to help them figure out ways to work smarter, not harder with their sales process by injecting some of the technology that we've built into the platform in their existing sales process. 

Yeah, that makes sense. And actually that leads me to another question. I was curious, when I go to an organization's website and I'm often going on our clients websites just to learn more about them, a lot of the websites look the same.

So they have a lot of the same kind of information [00:10:00] about this is our communities, this is our services, this is our team. What are your thoughts on like additional content and types of information that. People could that communities could start putting on their website to be a little bit of differentiator.

And I'm specifically interested in the technology aspect. So 1 of the questions I ask at all the organizations I work with and I talked to you is I asked the sales and marketing team. Are you getting asked questions about technology as part of the decision making process for? Which community to move into. Are people asking questions like, how do you know if I fall or how do you make sure I got up in the morning and just like life safety questions and how technology can enhance that. I know I'm got a long question here, but do you see things like that being, having a place on websites and what other content or like differentiating ideas do you think we'll start to see emerging in the next couple of years?

Yeah, I think, technology and honing that in on the website. 1st and foremost, I think communities need to really understand what their website is meant [00:11:00] to do. And often we talk about that concept of, The front door of the community is the website. And primarily it is designed to of course, be prospect facing.

Secondarily, often it is focused on careers, and recruitment and that sort of dynamic. And I think if we can get, that, that focus first and foremost, Is where websites should be for the senior living space. Now, there, we do believe that there should be secondary websites for instance, internal portals and resident portals, maybe even depositor portals that are very focused on communication to those respective audience groups.

I think what we're going to see in terms of community website focus is a large focus around personalization. And certainly that's where YourTour is positioned. But I think, our [00:12:00] prospects are trying to answer the question, what's in it for me. And to your point, I think Amber, So many communities have websites that do look very similar.

But the communities that, that I think shine in that regard are doing the exceptional storytelling that lift the resident voice to talk about ultimately what that value proposition means to them. And in many cases. There are a substantial amount of prospects that fit that same sort of profile, if you will, that are trying to answer those questions.

And they really want to hear from the residents, tell their stories versus quite candidly, the sales team saying, you know what you really should move in sooner rather than later. 

Yeah. I really like that. A couple of points that you hit on one is having the website, not just be a place that Is for prospects and families, but it's actually useful for people in the community for both staff and for [00:13:00] residents.

Having it be more interactive and more of a source of information for people to go to on a regular basis. I think the other really interesting thing you said was storytelling because I feel like this is just like a trend, across the world and all industries is to have a lot more storytelling and video marketing and just like personalization and engagement.

 Let's talk about how does YourTour enable all of these things that we're talking about? 

Sure. YourTour is very focused around the concept of personalizing the sales process for each prospect that comes through the sales funnel.

And so the platform truly is a sales tool. Now we do have elements that do live out on the marketing website for our communities including a very robust interactive map that Allows prospects to take that deep dive into the community and really begin to see the community well before they may ever step foot on the community's campus.

But YourTour is really focused [00:14:00] on showcasing the community's lifestyle value proposition and enabling those sales counselors. To get away from the concept of feature dumping, which I think goes back to your other question about how community websites look so similar, right? Our sales teams often get into a scenario where they feature dump.

And what I mean by that is, Hey, we have a bistro. Hey, we have a pool. Hey, we have a fitness center. Every community Has those items, right? Ultimately it's how you're going to differentiate with your prospect so that you're aligning their interests with your lifestyle value proposition. So the whole concept here is aligning those two taking the sales discovery that that the sales team member has to do in order to learn who that prospect truly is.

And really aligning it and showcasing the various [00:15:00] programming that they do within those fitness centers that enables that sort of life enrichment And that ultimately is helping the prospect understand what their day in the life might look like, right? So we really try to focus

our efforts on selling the lifestyle first and then the residential element. And so enabling that sales team member to hone in on what that lifestyle interest of that prospect might look like from a residential perspective. Maybe they need a 2 bedroom, maybe they want a 2 bedroom with den, or maybe they're looking for a cottage, right?

And so being able to showcase the exact inventory that may be available within that community, or if they're in process with a new expansion or new development, really honing in on the opportunities that prospect would have to potentially even personalize [00:16:00] their own residence by selecting features and finish selections within that respective residence.

Yeah, that really ties a lot of the themes all together with not only creating the website as a more interactive, personalized. But to take those pieces of storytelling and individualize.

So what is it really like to live here outside of just the generic information that you can get, like you said, at any community and that differentiator. So I'm curious. One of the things I talk about all the time is technology culture. So what's the technology culture and organization?

How do people think about technology? How do we change that? And this is making me think about what is the sales and marketing culture? And what does the industry need to change the way that they think about this and start thinking about. Making this shift in just like mindset technology, the tools we're using, what are your thoughts around like the challenges around that and how we can get there?

I think our sales teams need to, certainly we know that they have empathy [00:17:00] for the prospect first and foremost, but they may not know that some of the barriers that they're going through the prospect is going through to make their decision can be mitigated or can at least be reduced.

To a certain degree. And so one of those things that we coach our clients about is the concept around the paradox of choice where too many decisions will inhibit a decision. And really the best way to illustrate that Amber is if you've ever been to the cheesecake factory and you know how thick that menu is, right?

You go through a very acute case of the paradox of choice where you've just got too many decisions. To make that final decision. So that's 1 element that we really try to coach our clients on relative to their prospects. The other is a very interesting thing called the forgetting curve and the forgetting curve has a bit of a misnomer relative to the senior living space and that we think that.

That may be [00:18:00] relevant to just simply older adults. But it has truly nothing to do with older adults. It has to do with the human condition of how we learn new information and ultimately how we recall that information. And so our prospects, sadly, we'll forget about half of our presentation. Within the 1st hour, 70 percent of it within the 1st day, 90 percent of it within the week.

Unless they have very powerful visual reinforcement to the content that they learned. And so I think that's really where, when we talk about this sort of technology culture, it's, How do you overcome some of those barriers that you face by using technology to truly help them either figure out how to make a decision more quickly or how to remember some of the content that you need to share with them so that they can make a more informed decision.

Yeah, that makes sense. [00:19:00] So What do you feel are differentiators between YourTour and other products out there on the marketplace? 

Yeah, I think there are a lot of differentiators relative to YourTour, we only work in the senior living space. And so the platform that we've built is solely focused on the senior living sales process.

 Part of that is. Selling lifestyle over the residential aspect. That's a critical piece to YourTour is really that lifestyle value proposition then I think as it relates to the platform itself. Our clients can make changes within our platform instantly.

And part of that you would think is table stakes, but, a lot of platforms certainly don't have that capability to make. Instant changes in the platform. They often have to have support tickets that get resolved over the course of time by the company. We want to empower our clients to make [00:20:00] changes rapidly without ever contacting us.

And so that's part of what we do. And then I think the other piece of it is. We want to democratize, if you will the use of the tool. We want to empower the sales teams that, that use YourTour to do it from wherever they are. So that doesn't mean that they have to be in the sales discovery room, for instance.

To be able to use YourTour, they can truly use it from wherever they have their device, as long as they have internet access. And so that might be at a coffee shop where they're meeting with a prospect, or maybe they're actually even going into that prospect's home to make an in home visit.

And so they're essentially able to take the community with them to make a meaningful advancement in the sales process. So I think utilizing the platform truly from anywhere is a major advantage of YourTour. 

Yeah, that makes sense. And of course that's the [00:21:00] future. We want to be able to do everything mobily.

Indeed. 

I have really enjoyed our conversation.

I always love talking to other people who've been in the industry a long time, who are senior living specific as well as us. So thank you for joining us today. If our listeners want to learn more, how can they find you? 

Certainly. So they can go to our website, the Vectre. com. We spell the Vectre V E C T R E.

So it's the Vectre. com. You can do a Google search for YourTour and you can also find us on linked in. And you can certainly connect both with myself. Or with the company through LinkedIn and learn more about us there. And we're going to be at major conferences smash, of course, and LeadingAge are two major conferences that we're at.

And so we're present throughout the industry at various conferences outside of those as well. 

Thank you so much for joining us today. 

Thank you, Amber. It's been a pleasure.