Transcript – Jenni Bost, VP of Marketing for Radiant Senior Living
[00:00:00] Michael Mahoney: Hello, Jenny, and
welcome.
[00:00:05] Jenni Bost: Hi, thank you for having
me.
[00:00:10] Michael Mahoney: I’m so excited to talk
with you this morning and talk about Radiant Senior Living. To start us off, can
you tell us about the founding of Radiant Senior Living? What’s the story?
[00:00:23] Jenni Bost: Sure. I love our story.
Radiant Senior Living, even though it says in all of our stuff that we started
in 2011, it really started in the seventies. My owner, Jodi Guffee and her
husband, James Guffee, are our owners and operators. They actually bought the
company from Jody’s family who started it in the seventies. Jody grew up under
the desk of her father who ran skilled nursing communities and then, throughout
the years, she tried to get out of the business, but her heart kept coming back
to it where she was volunteering and ended up going to school for it and worked
outside of the family business for many years, and then came back. James and
Jody took over in 2011.
[00:01:17] Michael Mahoney: Wow. That’s quite a
story. This is really in Jodi’s blood. It’s in her DNA.
[00:01:22] Jenni Bost: It really is.
[00:01:24] Michael Mahoney: Wow. Roughly what size
is Radiant Senior Living now?
[00:01:32] Jenni Bost: Radiant Senior Living has
communities in six different states. We have around 800 residents at this
moment, and the same amount for staff. We have been slowly growing throughout
the years. I’ve started many years ago, and so it’s been really impressive to
see the growth and how many lives we’ve been able to touch over the years.
[00:02:01] Michael Mahoney: Well, you’ve been
there for nine years, so you’ve been there for a good part of the life of the
company, at least the modern iteration.
[00:02:10] Jenni Bost: Yes. I got to come in a
couple years after they had really started growing and becoming radiant, as we
like to say, and I’ve been privy to seeing all of the different people come in
and out and influence the company and help it grow. The management staff, many
of us have been there for the life of the company in different iterations, of
course. Our HR director just celebrated her 30th year at the company and she
started as a part-time caregiver many years ago.
[00:02:48] Michael Mahoney: That’s impressive.
[00:02:50] Jenni Bost: It is.
[00:02:51] Michael Mahoney: What we love talking
about on this show is brand, and how brand drives growth. Our definition of a
brand promise is a value or an experience your company’s customers can expect
to receive every time they interact with your company. What is the brand
promise of Radiant Senior Living and how does it differentiate you?
[00:03:23] Jenni Bost: We like to keep our brand
promise front and center. Our name, Radiant Senior Living, and our tagline,
Live Radiantly, really speak to our overall brand promise. If you ask our
owners, we want to be the light in the lives of the people we engage with. We
want to be a ray of hope in moments of darkness. We want those who interact
with our brand to feel as if they’ve received the care they needed, the
education they saw, and the comfort they craved. When it comes down to it
though, the overall feeling that the brand promise leads to is we want our
residents, family, and staff to feel like part of our family. It sounds like a
line, but it really does start at the top with it being a company that is family-owned
and operated with how James and Jodi treat our resident staff and family. I
think that it really makes a difference.
[00:04:14] Michael Mahoney: What do you think
inspired this concept of radiance and being the light. What inspired that in
James and Jodi?
[00:04:27] Jenni Bost: I know that the inspiration
came actually from the Bible and where they felt their lives needed to lead, but
for me, seeing and working with them, it’s just the way that their hearts are.
They have a heart for people, and I feel like that really inspires each of the
moves and decisions that they make going forward. Over the years, I’ve been
fortunate enough to watch each of them and different staff members really
champion all of our stakeholders, our staff, our residents, our families, and
those who also invest in the company. One of my favorite things that my owner
James has said to me, which I keep coming back to and share with all new staff
members is that he wants to be a good steward of the company. I think that
really is evident in the way that they treat people and the way that they make
business decisions.
[00:05:28] Michael Mahoney: That’s an interesting
way of putting it. He wants to be a good steward of the company, which the way
I hear it is that he’s thinking of the company and the community around it as
being larger and more important and maybe longer lasting than him. It’s something
that’s intergenerational and it’s his turn to take care of it and hopefully
leave it better than he found it. I haven’t heard anyone describe their role as
the founder and CEO as a steward. That’s a beautiful perspective.
[00:06:02] Jenni Bost: It was new for me whenever
I heard it too, which is why I share it on high. I think probably sometimes he
gets tired of hearing it. I’m sure. It definitely made an impact. I don’t know
if you know about my generation but my generation, which is a millennial
generation, is not used to company loyalty in a way. My first job out of
college was mass layoffs, because I graduated right in that zone of 2007. That’s
happened to so many of my peers. Not having a place to grow up like some of our
parents did. My dad was at a company for 35 plus years, so that was the
expectation I had. Then right out of college, it was definitely a splash of
cold water. I think that a lot of my generation doesn’t really get to
experience a company who is dedicated to their employees and their customers in
the way that I have been privy to in my position at this company. I think it
makes a big difference. When we talk about brand promise, that comes back to me
over and over again, that feeling of family. It’s something that you hear
people say a lot when we talk about differentiating ourselves. The words of
family and maximum independence and comfort and care. All of those things are
things that all senior living companies will say about themselves, and I think
that the words themselves don’t really differentiate us, but when I go through
our customer reviews and whenever I read about staff members who have grown
within the company, and then of course, my own experience, I really feel that
our differentiator is the fact that we actually live that brand promise.
[00:08:16] Michael Mahoney: Talk more about that,
Jenni. Tell us how you and your team integrate your brand in this concept of
being the light in people’s lives. How do you integrate that brand promise into
your culture, both employees and residents?
[00:08:38] Jenni Bost: I’ve said this many times,
but it really starts at the top. James and Jodi have surrounded themselves with
a group of individuals who’ve worked many years in the industry and who will just
get down alongside our staff members and work alongside them. There are many
ways that we incorporate our culture into our processes. From the fact that we
start every day with the question, “What’s going well?” We are starting the day
off with a good note and a positive step forward, reflecting on the things that
are going well, and focusing on those to the fact that we allow our team
members to grow within our company and become part of that family. The resident
part of it is somewhat my favorite because our whole goal with bringing on new
prospects and helping them through the process is that it we are going to
always look for their best intentions. It’s one of our radiant commandments is
what we call them. We’re going to help those prospects through the process,
whether they end up at our community or not, whether we’re the best fit or not.
We’re going to help lead them through the process. Senior living is such a
difficult thing. I remember whenever I stepped into my role, I had no senior
living experience and was just learning, it took me months of learning the ins
and outs and I’m still learning. When somebody’s going through a moment of need,
it’s very difficult to go through that, so part of our jobs is being educators,
and I think that’s important to us.
[00:10:36] Michael Mahoney: When residents or
prospective residents come to you, what kind of condition or mental state are
they typically in?
[00:10:46] Jenni Bost: It’s across the board
because we have everything from independent living to memory care. Some people
who are coming into the independent living side are looking for change. They’re
looking for less on their plates. They want some people to be around in case
anything happens, and so that whenever they’re coming into the process, it’s a
little bit lighter and easier to step them through that process and see what’s
going forward. What we serve a lot in many of our communities is the assisted
and memory care resident who this may not be a change that they are looking
forward to. It may be something that is difficult for them. It’s one of the
biggest purchases of our lives. Moving into a new home and getting the care
that is necessary. It can be stressful. There are a lot of people involved,
usually family members, the resident themselves, and sometimes other entities
that are going to help make this decision. There can be a lot of stress
involved with this decision, so we get people sometimes in our communities
crying or upset, and our team members have to really lead them through that and
recognize what they’re going through.
[00:12:19] Michael Mahoney: Wow. What you just
said takes me back to the importance of what you said a few moments ago about
starting every day with this question, “What’s going well?” It sounds
like there can be times of a stressful process even for the employees to be
managing this process with new residents and their families coming in. You’re going
back to the idea of thinking positive, “What’s going well?” Also, as you said,
their purpose is to be the light for those people. To be a light of positivity
for them and a beacon of hope as you said, is like drawing the employees back
to the core values and the mission and the brand promise. What you’re bringing
probably helps them to sustain and to do a better job and deliver for these
people when they’re coming in.
[00:13:20] Jenni Bost: I really think so. It’s one
of the pleasures of my job. Sometimes, I get to listen to our team members talk
through the process with prospective residents and hear how much of themselves
they put into it, and how much of their own experiences and lives while they
listen to the prospective resident and help guide them through the process. I
do think that that starts again from the very beginning, from that first step
of what’s going well and making sure that we are treating them in a similar
fashion as we expect them to treat our perspective residents.
[00:14:08] Michael Mahoney: Jenni, let’s shift
gears and talk about some of the challenges that Radiant Senior Living faces in
keeping the brand consistent across your locations. What kind of challenges do
you run into with keeping the brand consistent?
[00:14:25] Jenni Bost: For many who works in
marketing and branding, the hardest challenge I felt I’ve had to deal with over
the years is the fact that our company is an umbrella company to many well-known
brands. Radiant Senior Living is that umbrella company and have communities
underneath that with different names, logos, brand, colors, and identities. It
would be so much easier from a branding standpoint to just have everything
named the same, but the reason that we made that decision goes back to that
brand promise and what’s important to us. Our company really loves the history
and local identity that each of our communities have in their respective locations.
When we gain new communities, our desire isn’t to just wipe out their old
identity and rubber stamp a new one on top of it. It’s to really blend our
support and experience and that radiant promise into a community that’s rich
with local history and dedicated staff and families. It’s been interesting,
although the Meta transition with Facebook and Instagram makes me feel that
it’s totally worth it.
[00:15:33] Michael Mahoney: What do you mean by
that?
[00:15:34] Jenni Bost: Well, they have different
brands as well. Facebook decided to have all of their different brands, their
own identities, and Meta is the parent company and, they’re doing whole
different brand identities with each of them. That kind of speaks to the
importance of this is that while it’s extra work and extra effort, it’s well
worth it.
[00:15:59] Michael Mahoney: That makes sense. To
be clear, Radiant Senior Living has grown to this point through acquiring and taking
over the operations of existing communities, which is why you’re saying that
you want to retain the history and the rich traditions of these organizations
in these communities versus rebranding them.
[00:16:22] Jenni Bost: Absolutely, yes. So far, at
least in my time, I know that the company before my time had built many and,
and had those type of things, but in my time we’ve done really strategic growth
where we are finding opportunities that works well with our current communities,
so assisted memory care, and our favorite taglines over the years were “Small Enough
to Care a Little More.” We’ve been able to find these wonderful communities who
have such a presence in their local areas and have history and just be able to
not come in and override them but take those really great things and then
support them up with our infrastructure and our overall promise. It’s really
helpful.
[00:17:30] Michael Mahoney: Can you share a story
or two about how your brand promise has positively impacted a resident or an
employee?
[00:17:40] Jenni Bost: Sure. After nine years, I probably
have more stories, and it would take us many hours to go through this, especially
because I get to see every review that comes in for our company. Every note
from a family member who was touched by our services and helped through end-of-life,
I get the privilege of responding to each of those. But when I’m really coming
down to it, I think that for me, and again, this may come back to the fact that
I find it so unique for a company to have such growth within its ranks and a
dedicated employee base. For me, the big example of our brand promise is in our
staff. It’s from that 30-year HR director. It’s from our environmental services
director who started as a part-time landscaper many years ago, or in myself, when
I started nine years ago, and came on as a social media marketing specialist.
Back when my first year of training people, it was just on the importance of
social media and content marketing, which of course now we know it’s very
important, but that start and the fact that over the years, I’ve received a lot
of dedicated growth opportunities. I’ve had people invest their time in me and
in the people around me, of course. In all of that I’ve also been able to go
through my life with their support. Not just company support in my role and how
well I’m doing for the company, but I’ve gone through a cancer diagnosis. I’ve
had my second child. I’ve gone through many moves. I’ve had many creative
endeavors in my personal life take off, and this company has supported me
throughout that. That is such a reflection of how our brand promise really
invests in the people that we serve. How that promise to be a good steward of
the company didn’t stop at investors or didn’t stop at the customers, but also
bled into the people who are serving our customers and our investors. I think
it’s important.
[00:20:24] Michael Mahoney: Sounds like Radiant
Senior Living has been that brand promise in your life, this beacon of light
and of hope, and it sounds like you really take that to heart in a deep and
meaningful way.
[00:20:39] Jenni Bost: I do, and if it just
stopped at me, I’d be like, “Wow. I’m just really lucky.” But I’ve seen them
also do the same thing in so many different lives. We have staff members that
have been here 16 plus years, and we have many executive directors that started
off as housekeepers or life enrichment or people who have started at our
company and started to grow and then moved on to other companies and in the end
come back to us with all of the new experiences that they have created. I think
that one time is a fluke, but many people who have been in invested in. And
loved on through this company makes a real difference in the lives of the
people that we serve.
[00:20:32] Michael Mahoney: Take us to the future
then. I know on your website that you say that it’s the vision of Radiant
Senior Living to be recognized as an innovative provider of quality of
lifestyle choices for seniors. What do you think is the vision for your future
as a brand?
[00:21:57] Jenni Bost: We’re going to continue
with strategic growth and finding those local communities that we can help
serve and reach the most seniors as possible. The really great part of being in
my position and getting to have the ear of the owners and operators is that I
get the opportunity to bring these innovations to them and they’re always
bringing new things to the table as well. Over the many years, we’ve integrated
different technologies to help us better serve our team members and our
residents from touchscreen engagement systems for all of our residents to
having a health record system that can be done from an iPad as we’re going
throughout the day just to make the lives of our staff easier. All of these
innovations and technologies have been taken on with a lot of research and planning
and strategic moves, and those things will help continue to set us apart from
our competitors and continue to serve our residents and staff in a better way.
I just can’t wait to see it grow.
[00:23:18] Michael Mahoney: What a beautiful
thing. This has really been a remarkable discussion. I’ve enjoyed talking with
you and I think that you’ve delivered some original thoughts and ideas and
inspirations to our listeners. I particularly like the line that you had. We’re
small enough to care a little more. I love that. It makes a lot of sense. I
would say that today, you have been a really strong ambassador. Your company, Radiant
Senior Livings’ brand promise is bringing a very positive force and a beacon of
light and inspiration to all of us listening. This has been a lot of fun and I
commend you for being just a great steward of the brand and sharing your story
with us today. Hopefully, you’ve inspired some others.
[00:24:13] Jenni Bost: Thank you. I do hope so. I
think that we have the opportunity to help many people. The more the merrier.
[00:24:25] Michael Mahoney: Thanks so much Jenni,
and I hope our paths will cross again soon. That’s all for today. Bye bye,
everybody.
