1. Founding and History

2. Corporate Philosophy

3. Prospect-Centered Selling

4. References

• Alexandra Fisher^[1]
• David Smith ^[1]

Founding and History

Sherpa CRM and its parent organization, One On One Sherpa LLC, was able to secure $3 million during its first year from private investors, with $750,000 of that being earmarked specifically to further develop its signature relationship management platform. At the time, Co-founder Alex Fisher described the goal of the software, purpose-built for the senior housing industry, as offering functionality which "[goes] beyond simply gathering facts, dictating quotas and counting tasks." Sherpa had 10 employees at the time, One on One had 24 and they were working in 75 senior living communities in the US.^[2]

By Q3 of 2016, Sherpa was recording a greater than 200% year-over-year revenue growth, with the number of communities using its software growing to roughly 500. ^[5] By Q4 of 2016 the company doubled its employee headcount and secured an additional $1.5 million in funding and reported a final year-over-year revenue increase of 327%.^[6] Sherpa’s offices are located in a building in the Historic Midtown Alley neighborhood in St. Louis, which was renovated under the direction of architect Jassen Johnson. ^[6]

In 2017 Sherpa CRM was engaged by the American Seniors Housing Association to collaborate along with ProMatura Group in a multiyear research project aimed at quantifying the efficacy of sales initiatives across a range of senior housing options. The research, which is described as multifactorial ad-hoc analysis, seeks to find relationships between a variety of sales metrics, and a range of stakeholder information. It is scheduled to conclude in 2019.^[7]

Corporate Philosophy

The company’s name is an intentional reference to the colloquial synecdoche of "Sherpa" which refers to a skilled guide, particularly with complicated mountaineering endeavors. The intended parallel is that the software can act as a guide throughout the "difficult journey of transitioning to a senior housing community." ^[6]

In discussing the vision of Sherpa David stresses the importance of empathy in sales for an industry "rooted in transactional, need based sales" and Fisher noted one goal of Prospect-Centered Selling is putting "the person before the sale," something she describes as "a novel concept" within the senior housing industry. The team explains that one key feature of PCS is the requirement to know prospects on "a human level" by capturing hard to quantify data such as daily routines, personal values, and legacies which drive their decision-making.^[8]

Prospect-Centered Selling

The company describes its flagship paradigm as an "evidence-based best-practice sales protocol"^[9], and the patent surrounding the intellectual property which lies at the core of the Sherpa software outlines a data-driven system which manages prospect information, but moreover, modulates the behavior of the sales professional in order to promote optimal outcomes^[10], placing the paradigm within the purview of the "psychology of change" movement. ^[11]

ProMatura, a global marketing and research firm, conducted a study to compare the Prospect-Centered Selling paradigm to a control group following a more traditional product-centered approach which typically values higher prospect throughput over increased prospect interaction. ^[12] The study which looked at sales interaction data over the course of a year, showed that users of the Prospect-Centered Selling paradigm "significantly outperformed" average benchmarks for the industry, with the highest performers showing the greatest increase in time commitment during the planning phase of the process.[8] The data indicated that time spent planning for prospect interactions was roughly nine times as effective as equivalent time spent in traditional post-visit follow-up tactics. ^[12]

Fisher explains the underlying concept of the Prospect Centered Selling platform as a system which simplifies the multivariate nature of evidence-based sales behavior, and cites this data as supporting the idea that the quality and quantity of time devoted to each prospect correlates with increased sales to a greater degree than the quantity of prospects contacted.^[5] The CEO of ProMatura, the firm which released the study, attributed the increased performance under the Prospect Centered Selling model to the increased ability to provide personally relevant transition strategies to uncertain prospects, and attributed the underperformance of traditional sales techniques as "simply [giving] up too soon."^[13]

The study suggests that a paradigm shift away from time spent identifying and engaging new leads towards cultivating relationships with existing leads will net an increase in sales conversions, within a closed system.^[14] The strategy has received endorsements from industry observers as well as end-users for its efficacy in navigating an objectively difficult process. ^[15]

References

• Anjatha Nenjangal
• Anjatha Singam
• Anjathe Sridhar
• Anja Trisic
• Anja Trišić
• Anjauru
• Anjavarud
• Anjaverud
• Anja von Rekowski
• Anja Weisser
• Anja Zavadlav
• Anja Štefan
• Anja Štefan (writer)
• Anja štefan
• ANJ (disambiguation)
• An Jea-Won
• Anjedan
• Anjeer Halwa
• Anjeer Kohi
• Anjeh
• Anjehpol
• Anjeh Pol
• Anjel (Girl Group)
• Anjelibei
• Anjelica Castillo