From the 2025 Aline Innovation Summit, Del Reed, VP of Sales at Oxford Senior Living, discusses how Oxford is using new programs to receive crucial data to stay on top of lead trends and learn the resident story during the sales process. 

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Produced by Solinity Marketing.

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Intro

Welcome to season eight of Bridge the Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. The BTG network is powered by sponsors, Aline, NIC MAP, Procare HR, Sage, Hamilton CapTel, ServiceMaster, The Bridge Group Construction, and Solinty and produced by Solinity Marketing. Bridge the Gap in three, two.

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00:36 - 01:02

Lucas McCurdy

Welcome to Bridge the Gap podcast the Senior Living podcast with Josh and Lucas here in beautiful Nashville at the Aline Innovation Summit. We got a great number of guests coming in to give us their ideas in their thought leadership around what's going on, the industry and how Aline has really helped them accomplish their goals and welcome  Del Reed, VP of sales, Oxford Senior Living. Welcome to the show.

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01:02 - 01:04

Del Reed

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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01:04 - 01:46

Lucas McCurdy

It's great to see you. You know, you walk in, he's got his American hat, cowboy hat on. And I was like, yeah, I like this guy already. You know, this is it. This is it. Yeah. So, Del, we had a great, just kind of introduction conversation about Oxford, around 23 communities. Some of the flyover states and then kind of southeast here. Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska. Right. Largely AL and memory care, very good portfolio. And you have one project in particular that is really, really interesting. And I think this ties in to our conversation, of a non-purpose build, historical building. Tell us about that project.

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01:46 - 02:30

Del Reed

The Vista in Wichita is our latest acquisition, if you would. It's a historical building in the city. It's been there for over 100 years. It's got a lot of history to it. It was originally started by the Masons as an orphanage. And, of course, there's been a lot of building since then and a lot of add ons.

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And there was a fire at one point, it almost took out the entire building. But, we've got an IL, AL, and memory care there that we've been filling for the last year. And it's a fantastic building. It's got a great story to it. It's a big part of the city. Everyone in the city knows it. They know where it's at. If you bring it up, it's kind of the center point of the city. It's really a great community, and we're honored to be a part of it for sure.

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02:30 - 02:39

Lucas McCurdy

That's so neat. And so, that sounds like it's been a long term project, that maybe you guys completed and started, lease up about a year ago. Correct?

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02:39 - 03:01

Del Reed

We reopened it about a year ago, actually, almost a year ago. It was a year ago last week. So it was our official opening. And there's a lot of work. It had sat empty for a little bit. So there was a lot of work to get it there and get it ready for. There's still a lot of work. There's stuff going on every day. It's like I said, it's an older historical building. So it's got its own personality, if you would.

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03:01 - 03:56

Lucas McCurdy

I bet that sounds like a very unique, campus community to be built. And frankly, given the demographics and this the boom that is going to be happening over the next three, 4 or 5 years, I think those types of repurposing of maybe not traditional purpose built buildings into senior housing is going to be more of an attraction to people.

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And so, like you said, to your point, it creates its own set of complications of really getting that, building open and occupied, from a physical plant perspective, but also just, repositioning the branding, the marketing, and kind of the responsibility and the reputation inside the community. How has using the Aline dashboard helped you with that community in your portfolio?

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03:56 - 04:42

Del Reed

Aline has been a great tool for us. It's something that's enabled us to dig deeper and to look at where we're having success and where we need to work. And I think anybody who is in this industry, you have to have you have to be on top of the trends and the changes and it's constant.

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So you need to be able to look at what's happening, what's going on, what's working for you, what's not working for you, where you think you need to maybe lean into a little more and where you need to back off of. And I think with the tools that you have in Aline, that help you to track everything that's going on and helps to give you that story? It makes it a lot easier for myself and others like me to kind of deep dive into it and look at it and then evaluate what we need to do and where we need to go.

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04:42 - 05:32

Josh Crisp

Well, and I imagine so we were talking with you a little bit, before we sat down here and just got to know you a little bit. I mean, you've been in the industry a long time. You've seen a lot of changes. Communication has changed. Care coordination, delivery of change, obviously, the emergence of all the technology coming in. So I'm sure when you start thinking back to how you operated before you implemented the Aline ecosystem, as I will call it. I mean, how does that change not only your ability and your horsepower, but I imagine that changes like how you spend some of your time.It frees you up to do some things that, maybe you were getting so bogged down in the weeds that you can perform at a higher level now. So talk to us a little bit about that for maybe those that aren't familiar with with that and have it implemented that type of system

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05:32 - 06:01

Del Reed

You know, one of the and I guess earlier I didn't want to really name our old system, but, we had one that was quite antiquated and to, to get some of the information that you needed out of it would take you half of a morning and pull reports and dig into things and look at different stuff in different ways, and, and and whenever you, whenever you're responsible for, you know, 23 buildings and you're putting reports together for investors and everyone else to look at, you want to have everything together and you want to have it right is the is the big thing. And what used to take me half a day to do, now takes me an hour, you know, and that's and that's diving into areas that I never got to dive into before. So that's been a big improvement for us. You know, we were able to get a better picture of it.

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And I think everything in business is, you know, it's so easy to overlook little things that are affecting and making big impacts. And if you're able to dig down and get a true story of what's happening inside and looking at what's going on, it just gives everybody a better picture and it helps everybody out.

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Mid-Roll

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07:14 - 07:39

Josh Crisp

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that sales professionals in our industry and sales leaders and managers are facing right now? As you know, everybody's talking about this transition from, you know, the greatest generation to the boomer generation. Everybody's looking forward to 2027, 2030 as we start hitting these booms of demographics coming in and their changes. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges that you're equipping your team to be ready for?

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07:39 - 09:33

Del Reed

I think some of the biggest things that are coming, some of the things that are already here is that, you know, in this day and age, information is everywhere. And a lot of times and from, you know, in the last 10 or 15 years in the past, even if you would, you know, it was much more word of mouth industry. People are much more educated on our industry now. So when they start looking, they're looking earlier and they're looking more on the internet and they're digging in deeper. And so they're finding out the things that really affect them. You know, life engagement, or those types of things that they're looking for for their family. So the big thing that I try to stress to all of us, our sales professionals, is that when you come into this industry, you have to be constantly aware of who your customer is and what they really want. You have to understand that we're not the only place in this city anymore. What makes us different?

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What makes us better, what keeps us ahead of the curve? And so you've got to know your industry and you've got to know it better. And you've got to be on top of it constantly. You've got to educate yourself. You know, one thing that I constantly talk to our sales managers about is being educated in all parts of our industry so that you can be ahead of everybody else down the road because they're going to, you know, when we all do tours, they all show the same things anymore.

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You know, it's here's our beauty shop and here's the spa and here's, you know, you have all these amenities, but do you really know about what they want? Do you really know what they need? Have you dug? Did you do good discovery? Did you make the connections that you should? Did you hear the stories? Did you talk to them about it? Because if you don't do all that, if you don't take that time, if you don't dig in deep, and if you don't really put in an effort in on every lead, then you're going to end up behind.

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09:33 - 10:18

Josh Crisp

Sure. So a very sophisticated, growing, more educated consumer is coming to us. So the baseline of information that our teams have to have. But I also heard a big part that I think is, is often overlooked is the understanding and the desire and the passion to really understand and listen to what the consumer needs, whether that's the adult son or daughter, the potential resident, and to be able to provide them the information that they need to be able to make a great decision. So you could be in a lot of places. Need to be in a lot of places, with all that you have on your plate at the Aline Summit, you've obviously taken time to be here. What are you most hopeful to take away from the Aline Summit 25?

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10:18 - 11:18

Del Reed

I think again, it's about education and learning what's coming, what's what's ahead, what's ahead for us. It's really easy. And I think if you go back and you look at some areas in our, in our industry, we've gotten comfortable at times thinking that that, you know, we know what people want. We understand what the issues are. And sometimes I think that's gotten us this type of thing, this kind of set up, this, this, this, this gathering, if you would, it really helps you to connect with other people. It lets you see what's coming. People are talking about the things they're seeing, the trends that are developing. And it helps you to stay on top of those.

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And because if you don't stay on top of it, you're just you're you're going to end up so far behind. And that's what we're you know, unfortunately we see that more and more in the smaller companies, you know, that, you know, three, 4 or 5 communities. It's hard for them to stay up and it's hard to stay current. And if you don't do that, then what's going to happen is it all trickles down and it affects occupancy in the long run, which at the end of the day, and that's what we're here for.

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11:18 - 11:35

Lucas McCurdy

Okay. Final sendoff. You know, you deal with a lot of different team members for the sales and marketing professionals out there. They're listening to this. What's your kind of sendoff, your word of encouragement coming into 2025 and beyond?

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I'm excited about where the industry is and where we're headed. A lot of people look at, you know, our, our, our demographic and, and they, they're I think they're upset a little bit in, in some ways that there's so much more educated now that they're learning more. And I think that's a great thing for us.

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They can see value. They can see people who are passionate about the industry. So my, my, my, my message to sales professionals is always be passionate about what you do. Let them see the excitement that you have in it. You know, tell the story. Tell the story of your building. Tell the story of your experience. Let them know you know we get into such a rut sometimes.

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You know, you're doing the same thing over and over and you're and and you're seeing it day in and day out. You forget people need to see your excitement. And if you're not excited, they're not going to be excited. And the excitement is contagious. You know, you let them hear your story. They'll buy in and then that'll make you successful. Great final word of encouragement, Del Reed, VP of sales, Oxford Senior Living. Thank you so much for your time today.

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12:38 - 12:39

Del Reed

Thank you, I enjoyed it.

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12:39 - 12:50

Lucas McCurdy

And to our listeners that want to learn more, you can scroll down in the show notes there, hit those links, go to btgvoice and download this content and so much more. And thanks for listening to another great episode of Bridge the Gap.

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Outro

Thanks for listening to Bridge the Gap podcast with Josh and Lucas. Connect with the BTG network team and use your voice to influence the industry by connecting with us at btgvoice.com.

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