S2 Episode 1: The Ultimate SNF & ALF Podcast ft. Ryan Harris

All right, so we are about to begin. You're good. You're ready? I was born ready. Oh man, good guy. All right, welcome everybody to the ultimate SNF and ALF podcast. So excited to have you guys here. Today we have a very special treat. We have a champion, a superstar in the making and his name is Mr. Ryan Harris. He comes from an incredible company, Solstice Senior Living and what these guys do is they take care of people in the best possible way. Ryan is the he's a senior director of sales and marketing for the company. He's a champion. He has a great story and today's podcast we're going to be talking about his story. We're going to be talking about marketing, how to market facilities and communities in the best way and we're going to be talking about some of the challenges that the industry is facing today. So thank you so much for joining us Ryan. I really appreciate it. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. I like your energy and I I was showing some people around the office. They they they everyone will know your name fairly soon but definitely were like this guy's got the same energy as you have and I was like I don't know man. This guy he's he's next level so we appreciate that. I appreciate that too man. Do you actually have the the little thing that I sent you today? I got it. I got it right here. It's uh fantastic. Look at this thing. Beautiful man. You open it up. Boom. Look at that. Nice. Mr. Harris, how you doing? Daryl Solomon here. I'm so excited for Hey, I know that my name on it. It's amazing. I love it. I love it. Personal. Cool. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for that love. I really appreciate that. So Ryan, I just want to ask you a few questions for our viewers today because everybody wants to hear what you got to say. I just want to first ask you, you know, how did you get started in the in the senior in the senior care senior care market? I would say I always tell people it's been about nine years or so. I don't want to date myself but you know, I got started my grandfather actually had Lou Gehrig's disease ALS. I didn't I didn't make the distinction between the two. I didn't know it was you know, one in the same and especially during the ice bucket challenge and all that most recently. So so nine years ago he he comes down with this you know, horrible horrible disease. It moved very fast and so we had to look for a place. You know, he's losing his motor skills. He's cognitively you know, it started with mild cognitive and then went to full on dementia. You know, he at least he knew I was family but he would my my uncle Stewart, he thought I was my uncle. Right? Well, so that was pretty tough going through that seeing that and that's your almost that that was well, that was 15 16 years ago. Sorry and so that's like kind of the first thing is you know, taking care of grandpa until we could find him basically a place where he could go and and have the one-on-one. So took care of him. I took care of my dad who was also sick and had a bone marrow disease. Yeah and he was a teacher and he was he was a landscape architect guy and he didn't use gloves and it got in his bloodstream this benzene product and he got very sick and ended up passing away too. So you know, taking care of my two favorite people, it just came naturally naturally to me. I was in I was working for radio at Entercom. I was doing promotions and I just graduated with a sound engineering degree of all things because life is short. You should do what you want to do and music was was my passion. It still is. Uh So you know, the radio it was looking pretty pretty dim for a little bit. You know, we have Pandora, we got I Heart Radio coming out, you know, Spotify. And so you know, I was talking to a guy and the guy is like you're not going to make a lot of money unless you get into management. You know, going on and being a radio personality was something that I felt like I needed to do when I was younger and he he just took me aside and said listen, I cannot pay for my kids education for this and that. So anyways, I get into senior living. I take the first job I can get, right? And it's in it's in the kitchen. Like I'm serving tables. Like this is years ago. And the one thing I I wanted to do as I said, you know, I'll take the job, you know, as long as I can as long as you guys promote from within. You know, so I just kind of moved up the ranks over an extended period of time. So over eight years each year I was just doing a different job. And you know, most recently over the last few years I've gotten into sales and excelled because I've always been man, I was I was the guy even though I wasn't a salesperson salesperson wasn't available, they'd come get me and I was the driver. You know, what I'm saying or a med tech or the engage life director, you know, which is like a activities director on steroids, right? And I was the one I would go take them over to the apartments. I would sign them up. I'd have those hard conversations with family, you know, the something needs to change conversations and it's something I've been comfortable with and so it's I've had the highest honor of helping out seniors and taking care of seniors for a long period of time and that's something it's something that I figured, you know, if I'm going to do something, you got to be the best and I love it. Good for you man. Good for you. And could you could you tell us some of what some of your responsibilities, some of your roles over at Solstice right now? What what you're you know, what you're charged with there? Oh my goodness gracious. Yeah, right. There's always what's in the job description and then there's a little bit extra too. So what I really like about this is it's so it's sales and marketing. So I also I set appointments. I meet with families. I go do home visits. I go to the skilled nursing facilities or the SNFs as we call them out here in the wild wild west. Hospitals, you know, I go to their houses, things like that. So lots of visits, appointments but my favorite thing is marketing and advertising and actually what goes into the advertising and I have what's really cool about about the company that I'm currently working for Solstice is they give us autonomy. They don't tell us well, you're running an ad here or you're doing this and that. They they kind of let us do what we want to do and that's what I went to school for. I mean who who said who can who can say that they went to school for something and actually use it these days? Like barely anybody. You know. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. So you're you're very you're involved in the marketing. You're involved in client acquisition. You're involved in getting you know, people into your facility, right? That's one of your one of your tasks. Any which way any any way I do it, you know, as long as it's moral, you know, as they say and and yeah, absolutely. I'm a census driver. You know, get this thing to 100% with a wait list. That's what that's what any community could ask for. Absolutely. Love that and you know, I say all the time to our clients that you know, much more than a video production company, much more than an ads company or a video brochure company, we're a census driven company because you at the end of the day, that's where everything starts and that's where everything ends, right? If there's no if there's no clients, if there's no residents, if there's no patients, nobody's getting the care and everything stops. So that's where everything begins. You know, another thing too what I really enjoy is you know, it's really important to be good to your employees, right? It's good to be good to your your sometimes they're fam sometimes they become family. You work with these people like you know, I've so I'm nothing without my frontline staff. I'm nothing without my direct lines up, right? So what's the best way you can take care of somebody is make sure they have enough hours. Their hours don't get cut. You know, so it's not just the residents that we affect. It's the employees that we you know, we affect in that way too. So you know, I I make sure this place is full. We got enough hours for everybody and then not only that is it rolls. It's just like this effect like a domino effect in a good way where they can have enough money to take care of their family. So they can you know, they can bank on that. Good man. So take care take care of your people. I love it. Absolutely. So I want to ask you some questions here. So what what is what is what have you seen is your best method for attracting new rate new residents and new patients into your into your community? The best method I would say are you know, you you got to throw a really large events every so often. So it's good to have little events here and there and and and I know going and promoting it at the senior centers and going and calling your industry friends and you know, going outside the box and inviting community people to the churches, all those different things and inviting them in. The one thing you want to do is you want to get somebody into your community. You want to get somebody into your business, you know, or on the phone in a lot of cases too. I've done a tour with FaceTime and sold them from states away, you know, and you just do what you have to do. And so getting in front of them, showing off what you have, showing off your culinary. That that's was my favorite thing. That's always my favorite thing is obviously the food, right? People are going to come if you put food and drink in front of them. Yeah. Oldest trick in the book. Oldest trick in the book, baby. You sell sell with the food, right? Get something that they're going to want to come out for and and show off your best thing. Make sure that community is looking good and get all your directors there and and have a good time. It's all good. That that's you know, benefits everybody. So you'd say events is a is a strong way one of your strongest attractors for for for residents, new residents and new patients? Yeah, so so one of the things too is is the the community that I'm currently in right now, my home base is Normandy Park. It's just outside of Seattle. Um a lot of the referrals actually come from the residents. So, I take that marketing money and I I have mixed events where I have some, you know, industry folks come in. I have their family come in and we know we have throw a nice event for the residents on top of the other stuff going on. And uh we've had, I don't know, about six friends of residents move in over the last 6 months. That's 20%, you know, 15% of my business right there. Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing. So, uh also also maintaining, uh you know, there's the referral uh things too. Of course, you always want to grow things organically, right? Yep. So, so you don't have to pay for a referral source or anything like that. So, that doesn't always happen for all communities. There's different sizes of communities. There's different, you know, for skilled nursing, assisted living, memory care, all those different things too. The last thing that I mean, what sometimes if you get a qualified lead, right? Say it's a place for mom or caring.com or there's a thousand different Sometimes they're referral agents or well, you know, agencies. Right, right. So, so sometimes you got to pay for these qualified leads, you know, they've already talked to them. They know that they can financially uh they have the insurance uh you know, if it's skilled nursing or if it's assisted living or memory care, long-term care and insurance um that their finances are cuz these things are expensive. All of this costs lots of money. Yeah. it is not free. No, I mean, that that is You get what you pay for. Yeah, yeah. I hear you, man. Solid. So, that's great. Um I want to ask you what what do you what Here's another question for you. What is the biggest problem um that you are facing getting a little personal here that you are facing in terms of census um that you're that you're seeing. Uh status quo. So, you know, them staying at home. So, it really, you know, I I was looking at your different podcasts, crushing the competitor and things like that. I love it. I love Oh, you saw that one. Busted. I'm busted. Yeah, right? So, how do we crush the competitor? How do we do that, you know? Um the competitor is them staying at home and thinking they're safe right there. very interesting, actually. That's I never heard anyone say it. Your biggest competitor is them staying at home. Yes, so That's a very very very intelligent um an intelligent point. I appreciate that. Yeah, so so what does that mean? Let's break that down. Um you know, so they're at home. Um yes, you can get in-home care. Um yes, you can have home health come in and and uh do those kind of things. Yes, you can get, you know, let's go down the rabbit hole even further. Say you need an X-ray or like a urinalysis cuz you have a urinary tract infection, right? And that could cause major confusion. You know, one just totally out of character, you know, oh, mom wasn't like this before. You know, you can get all that done in the household, absolutely. Um but um you know, what happened and you can have a companion one-on-one, but you know, that's that's very spendy. So, if you want to kind of if you don't have the money to do that, um you can come to a community. You can get the same exact thing done. It can be done in in one of these atmospheres here where they have the nurse oversight where they can get the care. Major thing, number one, socialization. Could you imagine if you went to work by yourself and didn't contact anybody all day at all? Wow. That would be horrible, you know? Yeah. So, imagine waking up and just walking outside your your apartment door and you got stuff going on good stuff going on. You got seated exercise, chair chi, that's the thing. It's tai chi in the chair. You got I like that. It's cool. Yeah, you got uh trivia things going on. You can go on trips and all these different things and you're meeting you're socializing with these people, you know, with all these layers of dimensions in the um to where they're going to not be alone. They're going to have stimulization, you know? And uh they're using their brain. Wow, I love that. I love that. That's very cool. So, biggest competitor is staying at home. Um you mentioned a place for mom, you know, they're the elephant in the room. Um or you know, there's definitely there's definitely other ones as well. How has your experience been with outside companies in terms of helping you guys build census? Yeah, definitely some some are better than others um and then also coming from California, working in Oregon and then now in in Washington, pretty much all along the West Coast there, um there's there's uh kind of um I don't know, a consensus that they are better in different regions for different companies. So, um you know, say caring.com is better down south in Southern California and maybe a place for mom is a little bit better up here. What am I What am I saying there? I'm saying that, you know, qualifying So, say somebody says, "Well, I really like the big library. I need to be close to the water." Um and then it has to be, you know, "I don't like this hospital. I like this hospital." Whatever specialist. Some of sometimes they'll just get too many leads, you know, and that's bad for the industry because they're really going to these people as the specialist saying, "I have these three or four needs. These four things need to happen. Can you give me um some communities, you know, do the legwork so I can go and pre-qualify these communities for these families, like communities like mine, to where it's going to be a good fit? Because fit is huge." Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely, totally agree with you. Cool. What would your number one um advice be? I mean, you're in you're, you know, head of sales and marketing. Um what is your number one advice to all the other people who are in sales and marketing in the SNF and the ALF industry? Ah. I guess um for for the entire industry, what's what's like my biggest I guess for anybody in relating it that it relates to sales and marketing for ALFs and SNFs. Yeah, what would that What is your What is your number one advice you've accumulated over all your over all of your years of experience? Following up. Following up. Follow through. And um I I feel like that's probably the biggest thing. If you don't call somebody back, if you don't you say, "I'm going to call you at 2:00 or I'm going to meet you here and that." Just make sure you do it. Um you would be surprised uh who doesn't call people back, you know? If you don't call somebody back, then that pretty much is telling them that we don't want your business or I'm too busy for you. Wow. You know, I love that I love that advice cuz it's it's simple. It's actionable and it's something that people could take for granted. It's not something fancy like geo-targeting and this and that. Just follow up, return a phone call, be available, and follow up. You know, in sales, I know it's a little bit different, but in sales, we we have a saying that the money's in the follow-up. Um a lot of people get excited about that when that referral comes in and it's fresh and it's new, but but any good salesperson knows or marketing person knows that it's in that it's in that second, third, fifth, sixth, 10th touch, 12th, yeah. Well, the average is 12 for a move-in. It's 12 12 communication, whether it's a text, an email, a call, 12 on average. Yeah, because people could be getting, you know, incredible leads. Their lead source could be great. Their sales and marketing team are, you know, great at driving those leads, but if nobody's there following up and making, you know, bringing them home, um then they're they're being wasted. So, I love that. Simple, actionable. Thank you for that. And my last question to you Ryan is And this has been great. I've really enjoyed this and you've been awesome. Um is what Where do you see the future of the industry going in the next 5 10 years? Yeah, I I I uh hear I don't know lots of different sources uh 17 years, you know, almost 20 years it's supposed to be really good. I've I've uh I've heard that, you know, there's literally only one other industry and it's warehouse fulfillment, like Amazons and stuff like that. Um you know, so senior living is is literally the number two thing you could even invest in yourself right now, like a real estate investment trust. So, it's huge right now. Jimmy Buffett's got his thing going down and uh it's Florida. It's got the wait You know, when Jimmy gets in, it's time to get in. Oh my god, right? Yeah, so so literally, like if you want to be ahead of the curve, you know, uh you got to make these places fun. And 30 years ago, when you think of these places, like uh they were just they called them all convalescent homes. I mean, they were all places terrible Yeah, isn't that horrible? A place where you go to die? Why would you ever want to Yeah. So, so uh whether it's a sniff, a skilled nursing uh facility, an assisted living uh community, uh independent living community where I'm at right now or senior living or some places are tri-level where it's independent, assisted, and memory care, and some of them even have the skilled nursing on the same campus, it's got to be fun. It has to be fun because we can do that. Why would you not make things fun? Why wouldn't you have some kind of attraction, you know what I'm saying? With activities and trips and just kind of just a little bit of variety. I mean, that that's that's if that's the ahead of the curve thing and that's where we're going to see things go. Um and that's probably the most important thing to focus on, especially all these folks, you know, getting into this game. Maybe they're coming from just straight real estate or other industries cuz it's lucrative right now. Please, if you're out there, please make these places fun. It's it's better for the sales people, it's easier to market, funner to market, and imagine yourself living at these places. You want people saying, "Oh, you're going to so-and-so? You're going to that place? You're going to go to Solstice? Ah, I wish I could do that." You know? That's what you want. Beautiful. Beautiful. There you have it, folks. You heard it from the man himself, Mr. Ryan Harris, senior director of sales and marketing at Solstice Senior Living. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. This has been amazing. If you guys need to reach out to him, you can find him on LinkedIn, Ryan Harris, super available. Anywhere else you would like for them to to to follow you? Uh no, that's it, man. Just you can find me on LinkedIn right now, and otherwise I just got a bunch of family stuff on the Facebook and Instagram. Awesome. Let's keep it LinkedIn. All right, man. Thank you so much for your time again. Looking forward to to God willing work God willing working with you guys in the future, and let's let's let's keep the industry strong. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. You guys have a great one. All right, man. Be well. All right, you too. Bye.