Grow Your Occupancy (Julie Podewitz)

Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development at Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Tiffany Marino, Founder, Creator, and Host of the Manis With Grannies Podcast, about helping seniors share their stories and the importance of passing them along as part of their legacy.

Check out the podcast here: https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/qbijn-2bdfdd/Manis-with-Grannies-Podcast

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Amy DePreker, Vice President of Sales & Marketing and Andrea Marchesotti, National Sales Director at Artis Senior Living. Amy and Andrea share how they attract, develop, and retain senior living sales talent by focusing on 4 Key Areas of Sales Talent and how doing this supports their company mission.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, and Matt Reiners, Co-Founder of Eversound, cover a wide variety of fun topics in this first Grow Your Occupancy podcast of 2023!

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Suzette Graham, CEO of Patriot Angels, about helping senior Veterans navigate the VA Benefits available to them and their surviving spouses, including the VA Aid and Attendance benefit. Fun fact: Suzette is a former Mrs. Alaska!

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Joshua LeBlanc, Director of Sales & Marketing with Paul Davis Restoration, Inc., about having accepting, supportive and proud parents from a young age, and why coming out to his peers was a challenge. Learn more about how you can support your LGBTQ loved ones and friends at https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ and https://itgetsbetter.org/ .

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Maggie Seybold, Vice President of Customer Insights at WelcomeHome Software, about their 2023 Year in Review report.

In this first part, Julie and Maggie talk about the key trends that shaped senior living sales in 2023 and some of the observed traits of the most successful communities.

Join Grow Your Occupancy's CEO and Founder Julie Podewitz and Vice President of Strategic Development Dani Merlino as they share what's on their minds! In this episode, they talk about the heat, the impact of home visits in senior living sales, and doing chores!

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, recently talked with Jessi Weldon, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Primrose Communities.

Jessi shared her family's recent Make-A-Wish trip to Morgan's Wonderland, an ultra-accessible theme park in San Antonio, Texas, a bit about her daughter Lauren's experience, how kindness and compassion affect customer service, and what she has learned from the entire experience.

In senior living sales we sometimes hear from families of loved ones, "I told mom I would never put her in a nursing home." In this podcast, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupany, offers advice and tips for overcoming this common objection.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, and Sherrie Bebell, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Columbia Pacific Advisors, LLC, are back for part 2 of their conversation about Sherrie's strategies for overcoming sales challenges in senior living communities.

We hear it all the time: "Outreach is dead." We also see outreach becoming a priority only when occupancy growth becomes urgent.

Julie Podewitz, Grow Your Occupancy's CEO and Founder, talks about outreach in senior living sales, the value and results it brings, and why it needs to have an ongoing place in your sales and marketing strategy. She also shares some new ways to approach it that you may not have thought of (hint: they're digital!).

Dani Merlino, COO of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with The Ridge Senior Living's Marti Milligan, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, and Diane Macheers, Vice President of Corporate Communications.

Marti and Diane discuss The Ridge Senior Living's boots on the ground approach to leadership, and give an update on their strategic plan initiative to eliminate paid referral sources (hint: it's working!).

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Staci Lynn, Chief Operating Officer of Wickshire Senior Living, about Wickshire's focus on external business development in its sales strategy.

External business development has had a tremendously positive impact on occupancy in Wickshire's senior living communities. Watch to find out more about this winning sales strategy!

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Sara Robertson, CEO of The Arbors and Ivy Senior Living Residential Communities.

Sara tells about their transformation from not being "numbers people" to using data to make decisions, and how it has impacted revenue and sales.

Sara also shares her thoughts about women in senior leadership roles in the industry, her journey up through the ranks, and how she is leads by both her head and her heart.

In part 2, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, is back with senior living investor Rick Shamberg, Managing Director of Scarp Ridge Capital Partners. Rick talks about changes in the market, what he foresees for the industry, and how starting as a sales counselor has shaped his approach to operations and investing.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Robbie Voloshin, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at United Methodist Communities. Robbie shares what her sales and marketing teams did to maintain occupancy in their senior living communities during the Great Recession and what they're doing for the year ahead.

In March of 2024, The Aspenwood Company experienced a perfect storm of portfolio growth, expanding their footprint 63% in a single month through the addition of a number of properties.

Despite the many distractions at the home office that onboarding the new communities brought, their existing portfolio grew occupancy in that same timeframe.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Heather Tussing, President, and Eric Varin, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing, of The Aspenwood Company about their secrets to occupancy growth in their existing communities while the company was in a period of tremendous portfolio growth.

Grow Your Occupancy's senior living sales specialists talk with CEO and Founder Julie Podewitz about some of the most common challenges they see when they're in the sales seat at senior living communities, and offer solutions that work to overcome them.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Dallas Shipp, CEO, and Luke Adams, Marketing Director, with SeniorLivingPROS. Dallas and Luke share their insights from their recent case study of 2,500 web-inquiry mystery shops, and the power of combining automation and the human connection in senior living sales.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with senior living provider Merrill Gardens' Amanda Warren, VP of Marketing, and Corneil Vacirca, VP of Sales.

They share the advantages of the collaboration between their different sales and marketing roles, how they use data to inform their sales and marketing strategy and decisions, and when to close out a lead in the database.

Julie talks with Heather Freemont, Vice President of Marketing at Maplewood Senior Living, about - our most frequently requested podcast topic - outreach and managing a wait list.

Join Grow Your Occupancy's CEO and Founder Julie Podewitz and Vice President of Strategic Development Dani Merlino as they share what's on their minds!

In this episode, they talk about "cool vibes" in senior living communities, 90s music, and freshly cut grass!

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with senior living sales specialist Jeff Gronemeyer about the senior living business and why we should think of it like an ecosystem.

Grow Your Occupancy guest host Jeff Gronemeyer, Vice President of New Business Development at Conversion Logix, talks with David Smith, Sales Director at New Perspective Senior Living. David, a three decade veteran of the senior living industry, shares why ongoing sales training is so important in the industry, no matter where you are in your sales career.

Julie Podewitz talks with Matt Reiners, Co-Founder of Eversound, about how senior living sales outcomes can benefit from assistive hearing devices. By enhancing their sense of hearing, older adults with hearing loss can experience a tour of a senior living community more fully, as well as be more present during the inquiry and decision-making process.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Kara Marinko, Vice President of New Development at Phoenix Senior Living about best practices for new senior living community construction lease up, expectations for a timeline to stabilization and what she is committed to during 2023.

Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development at Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Ryan Galea, CEO of Icon, about the importance of experience management in senior living communities.

Creating a high quality experience for the entire senior living community - including residents, families, and staff - involves communicating and engaging efficiently and effectively. Find out how Icon (goicon.com) has integrated the tools needed to do so into its experience management platform.

Julie talks with David Hopkins, keynote speaker, author, and healthcare magic maker, about the Disney customer service experience and how to use it to promote growth, culture change, and increase sales in the senior living industry.

The hot topic in senior living sales going into 2023 is external business development - building a strong sales pipeline of prospects who have been referred by professional referral sources. Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Stephanie Signore, Senior VP of Sales, Marketing, and Communications with Health Dimensions Group, and Julie Flaig Smith, Corporate Director of Sales with Ebenezer, to learn their secrets for success in external business development.

Julie Podewitz talks with Mary Greer, Director of Sales, Senior Living at Engrain, about how the use of technology is enhancing the senior living customer experience.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, welcomes back Brooke Saxon-Spencer, Vice President of Marketing at Claiborne Senior Living.

The last time Julie and Brooke talked, Brooke shared how Claiborne make the cutting-edge marketing move of eliminating virtually all paper from their marketing department.

In this episode, Brooke shares Claiborne's decision 2 years ago to shut off all lead aggregators, and what the company is seeing as a result.

If you're considering saying no to senior living lead aggregators, here's some advice on what to do and how to prepare for the change.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Sherrie Bebell, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Columbia Pacific Advisors, LLC.

In this first part, Sherrie shares her winning strategies for overcoming sales challenges in senior living communities.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Greg Anderson, Managing Director of Northbridge Advisory Services, about the highlights of 2024 and the challenges he sees with owner/operator misalignment.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, shares her takeaways from Valorie Burton's keynote address, "Coaching for Leaders: How to Bring Out the Best in Yourself and Others" at the Georgia Senior Living Association 2023 Conference & Trade Show.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Jayne Sallerson, Chief Operating Officer and Partner of Charter Senior Living. This is part 1 of 2 of this insightful discussion with one of the senior living industry's predominant leaders.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Scott Bell, CEO, and Ana Cristina Reaves, Key Account Manager, at High Level Marketing. Scott and Ana share their insights, advice, and clarity on digital marketing.

High Level Marketing is giving our audience a free SEO Consultation! To schedule, please visit https://meetings.hubspot.com/kim-conway and add code, "GrowYourOccupancy" to the "Enter Coupon Code" field.

In part 1, Grow Your Occupancy's senior living sales specialists shared some of the most common challenges they see when they're in the sales seat at senior living communities, and offered solutions that work to overcome them.

Here in part 2, our sales specialists are back to share some specific advice for senior living salespeople.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Amy Birkel, Chief Operating Officer of Heritage Communities, about the company's core values of compassion, respect, trust, and fun, and how they led to the home office team performing some "dirty jobs"!

One day each month, the home office team gives back to one of the senior living communities in Heritage Communities' portfolio by going on-site to do some of the many "dirty jobs" needed to keep a senior living community running.

Listen to find out some of the dirty jobs the home office team has performed!

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Jill Berry, Vice President of Sales & Marketing of Country Meadows Retirement Communities, about compensating senior living sales and marketing professionals.

Jill shares her compensation strategies for increasing retention, improving sales and move-ins outcomes, and building team member loyalty.

Grow Your Occupancy is celebrating Pride Month! Julie Podewitz talks with Eric Varin, Vice President of Client Success at OneDay, who shares his coming out story.

A challenge facing the senior living industry today is attracting talent. Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Max McNamara, CEO, and Katie Churchill, Division Director - Senior Living, with Full Spectrum Search Group, about how the recruiting funnel mirrors the sales funnel.

Julie talks with Lauren Foley, Director of Enterprise Sales at It's Never 2 Late (iN2L), about her journey as an adult daughter supporting her mother's recent move to an assisted living community.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Alex Smith, a Certified Pricing Professional and Senior Vice President of Pricing Optimization at Further, about the art and science of pricing senior living communities competitively.

Alex developed CompIntelPro, a tool to proactively price, position and promote senior living communities within their individual local market, and is now building upon that product at Further as they develop the Further Pricing Assistant. Learn more at talkfurther.com.

In part 2 of 2, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, continues her talk with Paul Helgren, Associate Athletic Director for Communications at University of Toledo. Paul and Julie take a look at the similarities between sports and senior living sales: the importance of practicing, why coaching is so important, and the "not giving up" mindset that make come-from-behind victories possible.

Dani Merlino, VP of Strategic Development with Grow Your Occupancy, had an incredibly insightful conversation about senior living with TV host, author, and downsizing expert Matt Paxton.

Here in part 2, Matt talked about the importance of giving storytelling its place in senior living communities.

Matt is host of the 2-time Emmy nominated series Legacy List with Matt Paxton on PBS and was a featured cleaner on the hit television show HOARDERS for 15 seasons. Matt is also the author of the best-selling book, Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff.

What could senior living sales counselors and trial attorneys possibly have in common?

More than you might think!

Trial attorneys who practice-practice-practice before stepping into the courtroom and commit to bringing their authentic self win cases.

Likewise, sales counselors who practice-practice-practice their sales skills, and bring their authentic self to their meetings and calls with prospects, win more sales.

Dani Merlino, VP of Strategic Development with Grow Your Occupancy, had an incredibly insightful conversation about senior living with TV host, author, and downsizing expert Matt Paxton.

In part 1, Matt shared his Oldest Adult Daughter (OAD) Theory, and discussed the part it plays in marketing and selling senior living communities to families of older adults.

Matt is host of the 2-time Emmy nominated series Legacy List with Matt Paxton on PBS and was a featured cleaner on the hit television show HOARDERS for 15 seasons. Matt is also the author of the best-selling book, Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff.

Julie talks with Chris Guay, CEO and Founder of Vitality Living, about the mission–margin balance in a senior living company, how a sales-focused culture helps to achieve the balance, and the importance of sales leadership by the executive directors at the community level.

Grow Your Occupancy's Dani Merlino, VP of Strategic Development, and Heidi Benard, Senior Living Sales Specialist, talk about the importance of creative follow up and how to build genuine connections with your prospects.

Heidi also shares the benefits of teaming up with Grow Your Occupancy's team of skilled and talented Virtual Sales Specialists to meet your senior living community occupancy goals.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Chad Carnes, COO of YMP Senior Living and Shelli Webster, Sales Specialist at Grow Your Occupancy, about YMP's entry into the southeast Florida senior living market.

Chad shares his tips for competing against much larger and more established senior living providers including tailoring your efforts for the local area and focusing on the 3 Ps: Product, Pricing, and People.

Julie Podewitz talks with Heather Tussing, Chief Operating Officer at Morning Pointe Senior Living, about her leadership role in senior living operations, her background in sales, and how her experience helps to foster successful collaboration between the two.

Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development at Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Melisa Jones-Knight, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Elegance Senior Living, about breaking down the department silos and working together in senior living communities.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Margaret Henney, Director of Marketing at Covideo, about using personalized video as a sales tool for differentiating your senior living community from your competitors.

In part 2 of 2, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Jason Kohler, Executive Vice President of Senior Living at Beztak Companies, about aligning sales and operations mindsets, maintaining a positive outlook, and thinking in abundance.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Michael Morris, CEO and Founder of Willow Ridge Senior Living.

At age 15, Michael first caught the senior living “bug” as a dining room server. Years later, he and his wife invested their life savings to open a senior living community. Fast forward to today when he and his wife now own and operate ten communities. Mike shares his passion for all things senior living.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Maggie Seybold, Vice President of Customer Insights at WelcomeHome Software, about their 2023 Year in Review report.

In this second part, Julie and Maggie dig into the report to find some surprises in the data, and identify some takeaways that can be used to improve senior living sales outcomes in 2024.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with John Lariccia, CEO and Co-Founder of WelcomeHome Software, about growing your senior living sales using your CRM data as a tool, and living life with passion.

Why do sports analogies work so well in business and sales? In part 1 of 2, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Paul Helgren, Associate Athletic Director for Communications at University of Toledo, about sports analogies like teamwork, coaching, recruiting the right players, and how to lose gracefully and why they relate so well to business and senior living sales.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, and Chris Hoard, Chief Development Officer at Distinctive Living, reflect on the lessons of 2022 in the senior living industry and their takeaways for 2023.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with John Lariccia, CEO, and Maggie Seybold, VP of Customer Insights, at WelcomeHome Software.

John and Maggie share some of the findings in their 2022 Year in Review report representing the sales activity of over 1,500 senior living communities now using the WelcomeHome CRM.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Paula Rathgaber-Gomez, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Sequoia Living, about how putting people first and leading by the heart has impacted her career and company outcomes.

Grow Your Occupancy is celebrating Pride Month! Julie Podewitz introduces her daughter Ava, who shares her coming out story.

It's the "nature vs. nurture" argument: are successful salespeople born with their talents as part of their nature, or do their talents require nurturing through training and coaching to bloom?

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy talks with Dan Fantasia, President of Treeline, Inc. about this question.

Plus, Dan explains the importance of matching a top candidate with a company based on its culture, and gives his advice on improving how you can identify top talent and attract it to your organization.

Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development at Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Debbie Tedesco, Director of Admissions & Outreach at ACTS Retirement-Life Communities, about outreach in senior living sales the importance of making connections for outreach success.

Julie Podewitz, Founder & CEO of Grow Your Occupancy, recently talked with Mona Hilton, Founder of sales and marketing automation software Advantage Anywhere.

Mona shared how the right technology can increase your senior living sales teams' productivity, lower costs, and improve sales outcomes.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Patrick Dooley and Natalie Ross, the Co-Founders and Partners of One Extra Consulting.

Patrick and Natalie chat about the challenges they both experienced as senior living operators, their passion for helping the residents of senior living communities and those who serve them, and what inspired them to continue contributing to the industry by co-founding One Extra Consulting.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, recently conducted 4 in-person mystery shops for a client.

What's it like to be a senior living prospect visiting a community for the first time? It's exhausting, confusing, overwhelming.

Find out what really things really stand out, and what you can do to improve your prospect's touring experience and sales outcomes.

Dani Merlino, COO of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Christie Freeze, Founder of Care By Christie and author of the recently published "Roadmap for Eldercare: A Simple Guide Equipping You with Tools and Resources for Eldercare Ease".

Christie shares her purpose in writing the book: to be a resource to families in finding the best eldercare for their older loved ones.

Christie's book is available on Amazon.

In part 1, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with senior living investor Rick Shamberg, Managing Director of Scarp Ridge Capital Partners, about what every senior living community owner should know about occupancy and sales. An interesting fact: Rick started as a community leasing counselor!

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Elizabeth Clubb, CEO and Founder of myFloc. Elizabeth shares her expertise on fraud and financial exploitation of older adults, and offers tips for families to best educate and communicate with one another to keep their older loved ones financially safe and secure.

myFloc™ is an expense management platform purpose-built to empower older adults to choose how they live as they age, connect networks of caregivers, prevent elder financial exploitation, and take the financial friction out of caregiving.

Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development at Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Katie Churchill, Managing Partner at Full Spectrum Search Group, about recruiting top talent into senior living sales positions.

Katie shares the importance of treating job candidates like sales leads, why culture and training matter, and the cost to senior living operators of vacancies in sales director positions.

A lot of senior living operators have been seeking to cut out senior living lead aggregators from the occupancy equation lately. Some have been successful in doing so, and you can be too!

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Jenni Bost, Vice President of Marketing at Radiant Senior Living, about how they not only got rid of lead aggregators but are organically ranking high in their local markets!

Senior living prospects and their family members often face a variety of emotional and logistical challenges that can prevent them from moving forward with a senior living decision. Vetting movers and real estate agents, downsizing possessions and furnishings, preparing to sell their home, and actually moving are tops on the list of challenges.

In this podcast, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Maureen Longoria, CEO and Co-founder of LivNow Relocation, about some recent AARP survey results from seniors considering senior living, the challenges they're facing, and why finding solutions can help you convert more prospects to move-ins.

Senior living communities generate a lot of data in the course of their marketing activities to attract leads. How that data is used – or isn't used – can make a big difference in sales and occupancy success.

At Primrose Retirement Communities, the marketing team pulls the data together to tell a story, and the sales leadership uses that story to influence the behavior of the sales teams.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, is back with Jessi Weldon, EVP of Sales & Marketing, and Brandon Christiansen, Director of Marketing, from Primrose Retirement Communities. They share how they use their senior living marketing data to tell a story that can be used to influence their sales team's behavior to improve outcomes.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Laurie Schultz, Principal and Co-Founder of Avenue and Viva Bene.

Avenue is a full-service senior living development company with a purpose: to address the crisis of affordability in the senior living industry. The result is Viva Bene, an active adult platform focusing on affordability and incorporating primary care coordination for their residents.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Dr. Raquel Muller, Ph.D., a financial educator and coach who helps empower women to learn about money to achieve financial wellbeing and reach their dreams. Learn more at www.howmoneyworks.com/raquelmuller

Grow Your Occupancy Founder and CEO Julie Podewitz talks with Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development, about how she started in senior living as a dietary aide and the path she's taken to lead her to her position at Grow Your Occupancy.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Melinda Haney, a Sales Success Specialist on the Grow Your Occupancy team, about being abundantly proud of who we are as individuals, and the rights to love who we want to love and be who we want to be.

Learn more about how you can support your LGBTQ loved ones and friends at https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ and https://itgetsbetter.org/ .

Seniors and their family members look to senior living communities for guidance and information to help them make the choice of where to live.

While most senior living community websites provide the basic details like services, amenities, floor plans, and levels of care, what the prospects really want is for every aspect of the senior living experience to be demystified. Compelling storytelling about real people's experiences in senior living is vital to meet this want.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Dan Hutson, VP of Marketing at Priya Living, a senior living marketing thought leader and early proponent of content marketing, about how we can be a resource of help and knowledge for seniors and their families considering senior living.

In part 2 of this insightful discussion, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Jayne Sallerson, Chief Operating Officer and Partner of Charter Senior Living and one of the senior living industry's predominant leaders.

In part 1 of 2, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Jason Kohler, Executive Vice President of Senior Living at Beztak Companies, about his perspective on sales leadership from an operations perspective, and leading sales in a "wants-driven" market.

Dani Merlino, Grow Your Occupancy's VP of Strategic Development, talks with Dawn Holtz, one of our outstanding Senior Living Sales Specialists, about common pitfalls of tours, why executive directors should get involved in tours, and the importance of post-tour follow-up.

There's a habit that takes 12 minutes a day and will add another move-in on your senior living census this year! Julie Podewitz talks with Arrow Senior Living's CEO Stephanie Harris and Chief Sales Officer Cassie Tweten to find out what it is.

When a prospective resident calls a senior living community, so many times the salesperson doesn't take the time to really learn about the person before listing all the details of the community. Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, shares the benefits of not jumping to solve, including better sales outcomes.

It's a hot topic in senior living sales: saying no to costly paid referral sources for leads.

But how do you do it?

In this podcast, Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Cindy Robinson, Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Capri Senior Communities, about their decision to stop using lead aggregators six years ago, how they did it, and how it's paid off for them.

The will to succeed is within every one of us, but success in senior living sales also requires skill.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks about the will and the skill, and making the decision to use both to succeed.

Dani Merlino, Vice President of Strategic Development with Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Brandi Sharp, VP of Sales and Marketing, and Samantha Prinster, VP of Marketing at Allegro Senior Living, about the dynamic relationship between sales and marketing. Brandi and Samantha share ways they collaborate on a daily basis, and the importance of a united front.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with independent living resident Marilyn Breed about her experiences while researching, choosing, and living in a senior living community. Marilyn's advice? "You need to stay interested in things - it makes you more interesting!"

Whether you're selling senior living or just about any other service, the fundamentals of sales and great salesmanship that yield results are very similar.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Wallie Garrett, Sales Consultant at Two Sisters Maid to Clean, about the sales skills she uses when selling home cleaning services that result in sales success.

What are they doing over at Claiborne Senior Living that is not only cutting-edge, it's also shocking to many?

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Brooke Saxon-Spencer, Vice President of Marketing at Claiborne Senior Living, about their decision to eliminate virtually all paper from their marketing department! Find out how their strategy of driving prospects toward the valuable content on their website instead of handing them printed materials is paying off!

Grow Your Occupancy is celebrating Pride Month! Julie Podewitz talks with Jess Bryant, Customer Success Manager at WelcomeHome Software, who shares her coming out story.

There are many valid reasons why it's challenging to grow occupancy in senior living communities today: higher monthly rates, stronger competition, the economy, and the lingering effects of the pandemic are just a few.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks about why investing in the success of your highly skilled salespeople can be the key to help them make a difference in your bottom line.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Sylvia Kurinsky, Sales Advocate at Charter Senior Living. Sylvia shares her PRIDE, her story and her advice for others walking through their own journeys in this special PRIDE Grow Your Love edition of the Grow Your Occupancy podcast. Learn more about how you can support your LGBTQ loved ones and friends at https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ and https://itgetsbetter.org/ .

Dani Merlino, COO of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Aaron Fish, CEO and Founder of Trestle Hospitality Concepts, about creating exceptional resident experiences in senior living communities.

The resident experience is more than the calendar of activities, it's the community's spaces, programming, dining. It's also understanding the residents you're serving and the market you're in.

Aaron shares his pro tips for creating exceptional resident experiences in your senior living community.

Julie Podewitz, CEO and Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Meredith Mills, President & CEO of Country Meadows Retirement Communities, about how the sales skills she learned are also leadership and relationship skills that serve her in her leadership role.

PLUS: Meredith shares how Country Meadows successfully grows senior living occupancy WITHOUT using paid aggregators!

Grow Your Occupancy's Dani Merlino, VP of Strategic Development, and Dresden Cincurak, VP of Training & Internal Development, talk about Virtual Sales Specialists: what they do for senior living communities to warm up cold leads in prospect databases, and some of the results they've produced for our clients in 2023.

10 move ins in a month at a senior living community may seem impossible, but with a success mindset and systems and processes in place it can happen.

Grow Your Occupancy Founder and CEO Julie Podewitz and Vice President of Strategic Development Dani Merlino share 5 tips for making it happen.

Grow Your Occupancy's CEO & Founder Julie Podewitz and VP of Business Development Dresden Cincurak share some special tips for senior living specialists to stay motivated and keep the leads warm during the holidays and through the winter months.

Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, talks with Lori Wimmer, CEO & Founder of Simplified HR. Lori is an entrepreneur and master recruiter who helps her clients fill job openings with her signature recruiting methods. Lori talks about facing her fear of leaving corporate America to start her own company, what benefits are important to today's job candidates, and the importance of KPIs: Key Performance Indicators.