Transcript – Bradley Scoggins, Charter Senior Living
[00:00:00] Michael Mahoney: Hi Bradley, welcome to the show.
[00:00:01] Bradley Scoggins: Hey, good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:03] Michael Mahoney: Hey, I’m really excited to be able to talk with you. I saw some remarkable posts about your facilities on LinkedIn and some of the accomplishments that your team is having at some newly launched facilities with Charter Senior Living.
[00:00:20] Michael Mahoney: And so, I really want to get in that, but tell us first, who is Charter Senior Living and what’s your role there?
[00:00:29] Bradley Scoggins: Charter Senior Living is a senior living operator. We have 46 communities in the country. We’re family owned and operated and most of our communities are east of the Mississippi.
[00:00:43] Bradley Scoggins: My role at Charter Senior Living is a Senior Regional Director of Sales and Marketing. I support four communities and also several of our new construction. .
[00:00:55] Michael Mahoney: Okay, so what is, you know this show is all about brand promise, right? So we like talking about brand promise in senior living, senior housing and, and how you use that to, you know, help grow your communities.
[00:01:09] Michael Mahoney: What’s the brand promise of Charter Senior Living?
[00:01:14] Bradley Scoggins: Our promise to what we promise our residents is to always do what’s right for them, no matter the cost. We’re in the business of providing exceptional care and not only from a clinical aspect, but our purposeful programming is also care.
[00:01:33] Bradley Scoggins: So we provide a lifestyle where older adults can live good, and age successfully in our communities.
[00:01:39] Michael Mahoney: What is purposeful programming? That’s the name of your particular programming that you’ve got set up?
[00:01:45] Bradley Scoggins: No, the name of our programming is Flourish. But when I, when I mean purposeful, okay. I mean person centered.
[00:01:52] Bradley Scoggins: So we hear a lot of person-centered care, but we also have a, a very strong person-centered approach to our programming and our IL, ALPC and memory care communities.
[00:02:05] Michael Mahoney: Okay. Alright. So you call it Flourish?
[00:02:06] Bradley Scoggins: Yes, sir.
Michael Mahoney: Great So what got my attention with Charter was what you’re doing at a couple of your communities, maybe more that I haven’t heard of, but Hopkinsville and Paducah, both in Kentucky and you and your team have managed to basically to pre-sell these, to get advanced deposits prior to launch to where they are approaching occupancy, I think exceeding 80%. Can you talk about how you and your team are managing to achieve those kinds of results?
[00:02:43] Bradley Scoggins: Well, Michael, it is nothing to do with me. Right? It is the amazing leaders we have on site.
[00:02:51] Bradley Scoggins: I think, you know, it all, all comes from our culture and when we look at onboarding and bringing on leaders in the market, we want people that are ingrained. people who really leave live and breathe by our culture of enhancing the human spirit. One of our big campaigns is really grassroots marketing to make sure we’re part of the community hub.
[00:03:16] Bradley Scoggins: Because with new developments, they have their own challenges. You know, sometimes we always can’t predict construction or, or whatever that looks like. But making sure that we are known as the specialist in the market and building trust. I think that’s what separates us and it has, has, has us on a good track record for opening north of 80% in both of these communities.
[00:03:41] Michael Mahoney: Amazing. Congratulations. What can you share some specific strategies or tactics that your team has used to encourage people to make these advanced deposits?
[00:03:53] Bradley Scoggins: Well, Michael, I really think it always starts at the very beginning, partnering with our, our partners, DMK is our construction partner there at both of these communities.
[00:04:03] Bradley Scoggins: So finding really good locations. Okay. You know, somewhere that we can really bring awareness on how we help older adults. And then once we start there, it’s recruiting, making sure that we’re recruiting folks who will live and breed our culture as we continue to on our mission to enhance the human spirit.
[00:04:27] Bradley Scoggins: And I think from tactical standpoint, we always have to start very first with a, a social, with a, with a, a media standpoint of our PP sync PPC campaign, our SEO campaign, to make sure that we start bringing awareness in the market once we really dive in and get those campaigns going.
[00:04:51] Bradley Scoggins: It’s really grassroots marketing. It’s building trust with medical, non-medical leaders of faith, nonprofit people in the market that trust each other. And I think that’s, that’s the cornerstone, Michael, I really think there’s a lot of options for families, but how you separate is just building trust through being authentic and, and really going through our mission.
[00:05:16] Bradley Scoggins: So that’s kind our first step.
[00:05:21] Michael Mahoney: Talk a little bit more if you would, specifically about the recruiting. So you mentioned location, recruiting and then generating awareness in the market, right? Mm-hmm. with respect to recruiting, you know, it’s such a challenge now on this labor market to find people and then of course to retain them.
[00:05:40] Michael Mahoney: Can you talk a little bit more about your strategy? and finding good people to, to who then turn around and, you know, and, and work with your grassroots campaign and generating awareness in the market.
[00:05:53] Bradley Scoggins: Yeah, I think it’s a lot. I mean, we’re talking about branding, right? Your brand and I think that goes a lot to who we are.
[00:06:02] Bradley Scoggins: So we’re, we’re looking for those folks on the ground. You know, they, they’ve heard of us, they kind of know of us. And they know what. You know, our reputation’s like and, and our reputation’s everything for us. So I think the biggest goal is to really find someone from new developments who’s ingrained in the market already.
[00:06:26] Bradley Scoggins: Because you, it’s kind of hard to take someone to another market, especially these small markets like Hopkinsville, Kentucky and Paducah, Kentucky, and Owensboro, Kentucky. So really getting someone from the area, from the market that kind of knows the people. I think that’s kind of the first piece.
[00:06:45] Bradley Scoggins: Mm-hmm. . And then we can, we can teach our processes. We can teach build; we can teach prospect centered selling. We can teach, you know, what we do. But finding that person who is driven, who embodies our culture. Those are the two biggest pieces. And we make sure that we, we do our due diligence when it comes to recruiting because that’s, that’s the biggest piece of what we do.
[00:07:11] Bradley Scoggins: You know, we’re, we’re humans taking care of humans, right? So we need to make sure we find the right person for our organization.
[00:07:21] Michael Mahoney: Okay. So Charter Senior Living has a, a very well established brand position within the industry. How do you incorporate your brand position into your process of attracting advanced deposits?
[00:07:34] Bradley Scoggins: Well, I think like anything, your, your, your brand, your culture is systemic from the top. So I think that filters down from our CEO, Kevin Venema and our, our COO Jane Sellon of, of kind of our mission of bringing the awareness to the market. Mm-hmm. And then using testimonials, using our reputation of how we’ve helped people in the past to really show, because like, you know, Michael the hardest thing for new developments is you’re sell, you’re, you’re selling something that’s not tangible. You, you can’t see it, you can’t hold it. But what you have to do is you have to build that trust fast and then you’ve gotta do things like home visits, keeping your depositors engaged to always make sure they know that after you capture the deposit, they still have trust in you.
[00:08:29] Bradley Scoggins: And that’s the big piece of bringing our branding around is to continue to live by it.
[00:08:37] Michael Mahoney: Okay. So you build that trust and then you’re, you’re maintaining communication throughout the process and once you’ve received the deposit, you’re keeping them engaged, so that you’re holding onto that trust.
[00:08:50] Bradley Scoggins: Correct. I mean, I think that’s the, the hardest part because we all know. When you open, you’re not gonna have the same amount of deposits as you started with, you know, cuz we have attrition, stuff happens, but you know, it, it would not be charter or the charter difference of not to maintain and continue to build that trust of the process.
[00:09:14] Michael Mahoney: So you make this sound really easy, but there has to be challenges and obstacles that you faced in, in putting together, you know, these programs and getting these advanced deposits for your new community. As you said, it’s, you’re selling something that’s not even tangible. It’s like, what were some of the challenges or obstacles you faced, and what did you and your team do to overcome them?
[00:09:34] Bradley Scoggins: I think the biggest challenge is, is people wanting to move right now Right? They’re like, well, I, I see the building. I can, I really want to be there, but we have to make sure we have TCOCO right? And get our occupancy certificates and everything in line. So I think how we’ve kind of overcome that is have, while we’re building trust in the market we’re able to help them with home health.
[00:10:02] Bradley Scoggins: We’re able to bring some additional medical needs that are in the market to help them while they’re at. And then also we have a good relationship with other communities because at the end of the day, we’re in the business of helping the greatest generation. Right? So if we need to help them to another community, then, then that’s great because at the end of the day, we’ll have the seniors to serve mm-hmm.
[00:10:29] Bradley Scoggins: But the folks who need it immediately, you know, it’s, it, we have a fiduciary responsibility to help them now. So we’ll use the market, our position. To really go ahead and, and kind of overcome that objection. And then, you know, Michael, the, probably the second biggest one is I’m not ready to leave home yet.
[00:10:49] Bradley Scoggins: And, you know, we can understand. If you’ve lived in a home for 55 years, why that would be hard to leave that. And I think, you know, following Prospect Center selling and how we sell from building trust and leading through empathy and compassion, if they want to stay home, our first plan is how can we help them do that?
[00:11:14] Bradley Scoggins: Right? How can we help you get to your goal? Because at the end of the day, we’re still gonna be. And we’re still going to be here to, to, to help you. And then if that doesn’t work for them, then they always have the opportunity to become a family member at Charter.
[00:11:34] Michael Mahoney: How far in advance of opening the doors to the facility are you working with the community to, you know, to start generating awareness and actually accepting deposits?
[00:11:45] Bradley Scoggins: Nine months
[00:11:47] Michael Mahoney: About nine months. Okay. Are there any particular marketing channels or methods that you found to be particularly in this process?
[00:11:59] Bradley Scoggins: Well, I think you’ve gotta look at market specific, Michael, right? So we have some openings, kind of like in Miami. I’m not gonna do the same thing in Miami that I’m gonna do and put Duka, Kentucky. Right. I’ll give you an example.
[00:12:13] Michael Mahoney: How are those different?
[00:12:14] Bradley Scoggins: Well I think like for Hopkinsville we’ve really seen a lot of success with everyone in the market uses radio.
[00:12:23] Bradley Scoggins: In smaller markets, we see a better capturing of leads through print. Right. So, I mean, we’re still going to do the main basis stuff of, of digital direct mail. Making sure that we have layered approaches, but always what we do in any market we open is to make sure we have a strategic grassroots approach to business development.
[00:12:54] Bradley Scoggins: And I think that’s where we see a lot of those deposits in the process.
[00:13:00] Michael Mahoney: Okay. So let’s look forward then. How do you think your team will continue to build on this success? And you know what do you have new communities in the pipeline who are scheduled to be opening soon?
[00:13:19] Bradley Scoggins: We do. So we have our community in Hopkinsville was gonna be opening hopefully, anytime soon. We got Paducah, Kentucky Charter Senior Living of Paducah. We have Charter Senior Living, Callam Trace, which is in Owensboro, Kentucky. And then we’re also breaking ground in White House Tennessee and in Lindon, Michigan as well.
[00:13:45] Michael Mahoney: Well, these are smaller markets, right?
[00:13:47] Bradley Scoggins: They are and we’re, we’re actually also having a project in Bristol, Bristol, Connecticut as well. So we’re kind of broadening that up a little bit, but we kind of have a playbook, Michael, right? And the playbook of our process. And each market, it might differ a little bit, but it is still leading with empathy and compassion and, and the processes work, right? As long as we work the plan will execute at a high level.
[00:14:24] Michael Mahoney: Fantastic. For our listeners, those in the industry? There could be some people who have questions or wanna partner or might be looking for employment opportunities. Are you guys hiring team members? Yes.
[00:14:39] Bradley Scoggins: Yes, sir. We’re always looking for, for good people, right?
[00:14:44] Michael Mahoney: Absolutely.
[00:14:45] Michael Mahoney: So if someone is looking to explore opportunities with Charter or to reach you, how do they go about that? How would they start?
[00:14:56] Bradley Scoggins: You can reach out to the Charter Senior Living website. We have a career page there, or you can always look me up on LinkedIn at Bradley Scoggins.
[00:15:06] Bradley Scoggins: And my email is, bscoggins@charterseniorliving.com.
[00:15:14] Michael Mahoney: Fantastic. Bradley, thank you so much for taking the time. You are really articulate, you explained really well, and I learned a lot in talking with you. I love the mission statement, enhancing the human spirit. And you know, I wish you guys a lot of success.
[00:15:30] Michael Mahoney: I look forward to seeing your next openings and see, you know, your team continue to, to achieve.
[00:15:36] Bradley Scoggins: Well, thank you Michael. Thank you for the time and thank you for allowing me to speak about an organization that I love.
[00:15:43] Michael Mahoney: Fantastic. All the best to you. Take care, Bradley. Thanks.
[00:15:46] Bradley Scoggins: All right. Bye.
