How to Build Trust That Drives Occupancy and Retention w/Adrienne Mansfield

What if trust is the only metric that actually matters?

In this episode of Aspire for More with Erin, Erin sits down with Adrienne Mansfield, co-founder of Adage Marketing Group, to unpack one of the most overlooked truths in senior living:

Trust isn’t just important… it’s the foundation of everything.

From marketing and sales to operations and retention, trust is the through line that determines whether families move forward—or walk away.

This conversation dives into:

•  where trust is built 
•  where it breaks 
•  and how leaders can intentionally design experiences that create it 

If you’ve ever wondered why momentum stalls, why families hesitate, or why referrals aren’t happening, this episode will challenge how you think about leadership, communication, and growth.

In This Episode:

•  Why families are managing risk, not just making decisions 
•  Where trust actually breaks down inside communities 
•  The concept of “seams” and why they matter 
•  How follow-up strategy impacts occupancy 
•  The “Heaven or Hell” rule for sales and leadership 
•  Why experience matters more than messaging 
•  How systems can reinforce trust instead of replace it 
•  The shift from SEO to AEO (Ask Engine Optimization) 

Key Takeaway:

Trust is not a soft skill. It is your growth strategy.

Learn more about the 100% Leader here 

New ED's Playbook to Creating and IMpactful Community Cultrue

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Transcript

Erin 1:05

Welcome back to another episode of Aspire for More with Erin, where you are in for a treat today. Because this is a topic of conversation I love, uh, believe in, operate in, and only know how to operate this way, but my guest today is gonna take it to a whole nother level. But today we're gonna be talking about one question that I think more leaders need to sit with, and it is, what if trust is the only metric that actually matters? And my guest, Adrian Mansfield, co-founder of adage Marketing Group, is here to dive into that question. She's been doing some deep work on the buyer journey, friction, trust breakdowns, and how communities unintentionally lose momentum in the seams. That just sounds so fancy, and the seam are the handoffs, the gaps, and the inconsistent follow through. That shape whether families move forward or walk away. And so this is a very important topic because I feel like we don't get spoken to this way. And there's an entire article that Adrian has written about this, which really ignited my curiosity. So I'm gonna link it in the show notes so you can have that. So welcome Adrian. Thank you for being here today.

Adrienne 2:23

Erin, thank you so much for having me. It means so much to get to team up with another person who's out here, inspiring leaders to do more with what they have and really look at what they can do to, to better our industry's perception. Uh, so thank you for having me.

Erin 2:39

Yes. And y'all are in for a treat. Seriously, stay through this entire episode because she has these one-liners that I am in awe of. She just can pull them out of thin air. She's edgy. She, you literally inspire me to be my true, authentic self because you just like rock it and I love it. So thank

Adrienne 3:02

you. I think that our industry would be best served by a little extra dash of badassery and um, that's, you know, our at adage marketing group, our hashtag is welcome disruption. And to me what that really means is the status quo. Even if it's working now, won't continue to work in the future because change is inevitable and inescapable. So welcome. Disruption is an approach that really you walk into acknowledging that things are as they are and that we can make them better, so we share that particular attitude. Erin, you and I,

Erin 3:38

yes, it's true. And I think, like you said, the world is going to do. We're all gonna be better because we are our authentic selves. But what I have learned, and even talking to you and the experience that we've had since we met first time at Think Tank in person was and is your energy, your authenticity is actually going to attract the people that want what you have to offer. And so much of us. Are scared to really ex exude that kind of energy. We try to be who we think we have to be, and then we attract people who are not going to really benefit from what we have to offer. And that's been a, a, a journey for me and really like being around you and watching you shine at Think Tank was a. Big eyeopening experience. There's so many one-liners, like I don't sell a relationship, or there's a gap in the market and there's a market in the gap. And I'm like, oh my God, that's so good.

Adrienne 4:46

I you describing when you were describing like, authenticity to me, I, my immediate thought was your vibe attracts your tribe. Yes. And I've spent 20 years in senior living, and, and in the agency life, and it really does. I have some people that I reach out to because they're just, they're my tribe. I've collected them wherever they are in the world. and I was thrilled that we got to meet at Think Tank and really expand both of our tribes. and then when we started talking about the idea that what if trust is the only KPI, it becomes this, this immense conversation about what is trust? Where does it break down? Where does it start at? And I think that's, that was the crux of our article, was understanding that the public perception is not our perception. Of our industry, of our community, of our leadership, of our staff, they have a gestalt in their mind already of, and if you get on Reddit and you look. Even briefly, you'll see that they think that we're going to, you know, kidnap their grandma and steal all our money. They do not have a clear picture. Even now as we've expanded beyond the term nursing home, they have not, in a lot of cases, when you listen to their own natural language in forums like Reddit, but also. there's just a baseline of connection and trust that has to be built right up front between any representative of aging services and the public. And I think your, your work is really equipping people to do that effect effectively.

Erin 6:24

Yeah, because we know. In 2026, just like what you said, people are on Reddit, people are searching their stories after stories, whether positive or negative on the news, on the internet to look for. And so we know it's almost like families aren't evaluating a brochure anymore. You know? It is the risk.

Adrienne 6:44

risk, it's risk management for them. It's not. This is not buying a couch. This is more complex than combining your medical decisions and your real estate decisions and your financial decisions. It's more than sending a kid to college. Like these are huge life-changing things that also have a longstanding relational effect within the family. So one of our, um, one of our recent articles, we talked about moral injury and what that does, and here's where I'm gonna spin it back to operations, which is gonna blow your mind. But if we don't recognize that they are risk managing this decision. Are coming from a place of fear and lack of clarity, no matter how much educational content we push at them as marketers, and that there are entrenched family dynamics at play that we absolutely do not understand, could not begin to understand. When you realize that, that ultimately that sale becomes an operational headache, because that family feels like they made the wrong choice and they're looking for any possible reason. That they made the wrong choice. You know, our reticular activating system, if you're gonna buy a yellow car, you'll start to see yellow cars everywhere.'cause you've tuned your brain to believe that that's important. A yellow car, in this case, I've made the decision to move my loved one into a community, and I don't feel a hundred percent confident about it. I'm getting pushback from my family about it. I'm now looking for every hard thing. So it's one of those public perception might not seem like an operational kind of occupancy issue. It really is. it runs that whole gamut. So trust is the continuous factor. If you establish trust right up front, we start to to be. representatives of our, of the aging services industry, educating everywhere we go, normalizing everywhere we go. Then we're able to have a little bit more of that public interaction on a level playing field that then can carry through to your last move in becoming your next referral source.

Erin 8:50

Yeah, so true. People are always asking themselves a question and I think we, we are asking ourselves these questions then. Our entire lives, right? Can I trust you? Can you help me? And are you gonna do what you say that you're gonna do? do you see me like, and especially inside senior living, especially because it's vulnerable. Like it's just, it's one, literally one of the most vulnerable experiences ever. I compare it to, well, I have compared it to taking your child to daycare for the first time. my own experience of having a child who was in the NICU for four months being born so premature, like, and I was inside the community at that time and I had no idea what a NICU was, but no idea. And that experience taught me just how powerful connection is and having somebody pride you through a process that you clearly, I didn't even know a place like this existed. Out of the blue. My life changed forever,

Adrienne 9:52

We don't leave it at work. So one of the things I, I have a, at adage we have EQ matters, which is an emotional intelligence training for organizations. And it goes all the way from frontline to C-suite.'cause emotional intelligence, soft skills are not, in great supply, especially a across generations. And, and so that's one of the things, you know, that emotional intelligence of, I've been through this. I've been through something similar enough that I can understand. I think that when we start to look at. I say relationships are, relationships are relationships. So when we start to look at it as a relationship, the sales process, one of the things that I've found most successful is in training for follow up. we say we have two rules. One is heaven or hell. So we follow up until they go to heaven or they tell us to go to hell. And that just really built in one

Erin 10:42

liner. One liner. Go ahead.

Adrienne 10:45

Yes. Uh, that built in that marathon grit that we need in our teams. and then separately from that, I always use the example of if your best friend's mom, your best friend since you were 11, her mom is struggling with dementia. How long would you keep calling? Forever. How many different ways would you try to support her? A dozen. And so when we really look at the relationship that way, and I don't isolate this just to the sales side, just for clarification purposes, I see the same model exist when we talk about employees and retention. if you're struggling with a connection with an employee or a team member. It really takes being willing to sit on the other side of the desk and find three strengths about them that they can use to overcome this one weakness or whatever a framework works best for you. But really looking at it as if this were my best friend's. Son, how long would I continue to try? How many different ways would I attempt to do this? and I think it really does, it just helps us have the framework for this is a relationship. This is a long running relationship, and it's one that you're gonna continue to invest in one way or another. And the same is true operationally for family. The salesperson put a ton of work in to getting that, that perspective family into the community. How well equipped are we on the life enrichment side or on the communication side to keep that relationship going? you know, that's where one, that's one of the ways that I hope technology can help us by creating more unified profiles and my by more unified software systems. But ultimately it's the relationship and we just have to keep nurturing them all the time.

Erin 12:30

Yeah. to me, senior living sits at the intersection of a relationship, a real estate, and a regulatory business. Mm-hmm. And too many times they're all fighting each other instead of working together into, inside the middle of the Venn diagram is trust. Mm-hmm. Period. Trust. The family members are customers. The one who's paying a ton of money, wants it to be a relationship business. Okay. And then the people who are investing in the business see it as a real estate business. In the regulatory piece, the policy and procedure and the state regs, all those pieces really work in building trust. They want to know a good leader who builds trust with the customers and with the higher ups and your investors, understand that you have to know all three, and you have to make all three work together. And so when we start thinking about the big picture. What made you start kind of seeing and thinking about trust being the primary metric? Because if you look at all six, I think there's six key stakeholders, six being the vendors, but you have the family members, the residents, um, the associates, you know, your home office, corporate office, and then the regulatory agencies. I see a line that runs through it and it's trust period.

Adrienne 13:51

Yeah.

Erin 13:51

What made you start looking at it from that perspective?

Adrienne 13:54

Yeah. No, the, the idea that there, there can be no relationship without trust. Even regulation can exist without trust. even real estate can exist without trust and stewardship, right? So I absolutely 100%, but I also, I think that when it comes to the stakeholders. I would expand that even further, obviously, as a marketer to all of those, adjacent, and nearby referral sources. chaplains, you know, schools intergenerational programming, all there's, there's so many ways that we can serve both aging services and the greater community together. but I, I think it comes down to. When I say the experience, um, for me or the EKPI, right? The experience, KPI, I can tell you when I, when we get with a new organization, we do our, our consulting intake, we look at the entirety of the business, the operations, like you were talking about, you know, investors. We're looking at the entirety of the business, and what I see is I can look at your dining feedback and tell you whether your resident referral rates are up or down. I can look at your, I can look at your Google reviews and tell you how your professional referral sources are going. Why? Because if I see pressure wound as a professional referral source, I'm not mistaken my reputation on that lo that particular community or that particular location. when I say the trust is the, the through line to your point, we have to be trusted by the outside and the inside. and it does start with, I think everybody believing that we have their best interests at heart. So whether it's the associates believing that we really do have a pathway to the future for you, we really do wanna be a part of your growth and expansion. or whether it's the family saying you didn't just drop them off. We're here to have a relationship with you and tell your friends. Right there are, that's where we prove, the way my mom defined trust for me growing up was trust is doing what you say you're gonna do, being where you say you're gonna be, and being with who you said you were gonna be with because I was a teenager. But that definition still holds. Mm-hmm. If you do what you say you're gonna do, be where you say you're gonna be and be doing the things, or with the people that you said you're gonna be doing, you will be achieving a trustworthy, life. And so I think the same is true for organizations. Sometimes that means not over promising. Sometimes that means scaling back to polish and making it a little bit more believable. it doesn't always mean doing more. Sometimes it means doing less, more intentionally. and so that might mean if we have a, for example, a community with a public relations issue. Maybe there was an acquisition, maybe there was a merger. We've all been through this for the last couple years for, you're inheriting that reputation. So the first thing we need to do is really get a proof pack together of here's why we walk the talk and not just talk at them. words are wind. So I think that this is a great opportunity to use trust as a stopping point. That's a Game of Thrones quote, just for the record.

Erin 17:11

Are wind and really that, that really ties me into people are not gonna believe what you say anymore. Uh, we're there Words are wind, right? Words are perfectly curated by ai. Like they're so words are wind. I love that. But they will trust their experience. And more importantly, they will trust someone else's experience, which is a huge strategy for communities to build trust.

Adrienne 17:39

Well, one, so one of, I'll scale back to an old example, but I used to expect that anytime we did a respite for a family, that we would have a 50% conversion rate. Now what can totally change that conversion rate is how much you communicated with the family during that respite and ultimately that person's experience and the feedback that they all decide, right? That's what changes that conversion experience. But that's one experience. If you do a really good job with one and they tell three people, and those people tell three people, this is an exponential growth model by doing one thing at a time really well, because here comes a quote, how you do anything is how you do everything. So even if you did a great job. With my friend's mom, I'm gonna give you a better baseline, but I'm still gonna need to see, I'm gonna need to believe it for myself before I tell a friend. I'll trust my friend's word enough to move them in, but I'm not gonna refer anyone else until my experience matches. But we also got really good during that respite program of creating a system that then allowed us to do that at scale over and over again. It made our overall onboarding for that community way better. and increase their referral rates in addition to the respite conversions. So you can see the numbers touch each other.

Erin 19:02

Yeah. Yeah. You're so good. I think to me, trust is, is any, trust is culture, you know, I mean, trust is another name for culture and obviously culture is gonna be, Hard to sometimes pin down and, and, and hopefully have a team, well, we'll just say this. I had a, I had a really awful experience inside of a community that went public and went viral and, all these things. and it was very traumatic and I didn't lose a resident. in fact, all my family members rallied around, rallied around me and rallied around the community. and the heat was intense. But every single one of those families and residents knew who we were, if you have a good culture. You can't have one negative public. And when I say public, it was, it was horrific and it was awful. But you can't have one person's decision tear down everything. If you've spent years creating something that was consistent and over, and you attack it proactively, you literally attack it and you say, we're still the same people, and this was a really bad choice, you know, that this person made,

Adrienne 20:20

You in that instance, you built an infrastructure of trust that allowed you to withstand the storm of whatever would happen. And that's what we want for our organizations. And to tie it back to how you do anything is how you do everything. I just recently sent an email out and the quote that I led with was, trust grows at the speed of a coconut tree and drops at the speed of a coconut. And so when you realize that trust is, is very intentionally built, but I also think that you can define the trust within an organization because the culture is lived experience, right? Culture is defined by lived experience. And when I was in a previous life, um, one of the most powerful phrases I heard was, your culture is defined by the worst behavior you're willing to tolerate. Which goes back to what you said about it being proactively managed and addressed, right? The worst behavior you're willing to tolerate. And so how you do anything is how you do everything. and that's what makes people trust you. You can have a small mistake when you've built. A, a deep infrastructure of trust. And the same is true with our staff. The same is true with our vendors. We can, it works that same way. When you build a relationship based on trust, you then can have grace for one another. You know that 99 times out of a hundred that's coming through. So what happened this one time? You can be curious instead of aggressive, which I think is on the vendor side, a lovely thing. But I think we can extend that same thing, like I said, from an HR perspective to our teams or from family members who are typically quite happy and they're raising an alarm. Let's be curious instead of upset, I think that makes a big difference,

Erin 22:06

which is why trust is the best metric to measure. Truly.

Adrienne 22:10

Yeah.

Erin 22:11

It's the biggest strategy.

Adrienne 22:12

It's measured in consistency, like you brought up earlier about the handoffs and the seams.

Erin 22:16

Mm-hmm.

Adrienne 22:17

That's where it gets dropped. It doesn't get dropped in our pr that's polished and perfect and on time. It doesn't get dropped in our, our email addresses or our email communications or even really our social media, except I will tell you a funny story. Yes. Real quick. One time I was scrolling, long enough ago, I think it was a blackberry through my client's social media. And I saw one of my memory care clients on an outing at Hooters Bar and Grow. And I raised every alarm in my brain and I was like, who posted this? How did this happen? It was their best engaging post and such a lovely, authentic, believable representation. and so it's one of those things where, like you said, you can't be overly polished. We have to be believable. and. So that was the sidebar story. But to bring it back the idea that trust is the only metric that we have and we can build our organizations on it, we can give each other grace around it. Um, and then we can leverage that trust per exponential growth if we do it right.

Erin 23:26

Love how you described trust in the seams, or we lose trust in the seams. So let's dive into that a little bit. What is. The seams. Describe to me in your, your most, you know, your marketing, speak of seams, which I love. So let's get real. What are the seams?

Adrienne 23:44

um, the seams come from when you think about something that is, that is either faulty or weak, and or something that is overly filled, right? So there's a couple ways to look at it. When we talk about as eem, it might be that the database is full to bursting. but there's no marketing automation plan in place and there's no nurture happening, and so it's just gonna become a cold dead database. That's an example of the seams. an example, uh, another example of a weak point or a handoff point would be, going from marketing to sales. I'll give you a great story for that. I interviewed, Evan Friedkin from Rubrik a few years ago, and one gentleman had put all of his information into a rubric, right? And then somehow it accidentally got routed to, to Evan. And he found out that the salesperson asked all of the same questions that were already on the rubric and the guy was like, why did I even bother to fill this out? A waste of my time? One, it's a vulnerable act. You're exchanging information. and two, it's often emotional information that's being exchanged. And so an example of. That seam is going from marketing to sales. Marketing. Got put the rubric survey out there, got it filled out for you. Sales did not bother to read it before they picked up the phone to call him back, right? That's an example. Another example is the handoffs. Going back to, converting a respite, the seam is true for onboarding a resident. I recently released a social media, piece that said, stop saying compassionate care. Start telling me what day seven looks like. Or day three, because I don't want to hear another promise. I want that everyone else is saying, by the way, everyone says compassionate care. Everyone says person centered. Everyone says we feel like family. Everyone says that. but we need to prove it with the experience and let them describe it for us. So those are some examples of handoffs or, or transitions where things can go poorly. Also, like I said, a family that's typically very happy all of a sudden raising an alarm, that transition from the front desk to whoever it gets handed off to that may not go well, that's gonna exacerbate the situation.

Erin 25:55

Yes.

Adrienne 25:56

You know, the emotional intelligence at every layer of the organization really makes a difference.

Erin 26:02

And when you're trying to overcome that. Broken seam. It's really just about accountability. Accountability builds trust. Period. Just own it.

Adrienne 26:12

Builds trust. Build a system that makes it consistent. Yes. If you know that your salesperson, let's say, doesn't check their voicemail after five, I'm just silly example, right? They don't check their voicemail after five. What that means is that I need to have a, a role plan for if it heads to that person's voicemail. What's my role plan? It's going to the front desk, it's going to wherever a backup salesperson, a call center. I don't care who, as long as the phone gets answered,'cause about 30% of calls go missed, um, at most of the organizations that we've seen. So finding a system to create trust using systems to create trust is another great way. Even if it's an automated, yes, I got your email.'cause really that alone brings the person's stress down. And I'll explain why. So an Uber is not different than a taxi, except trust. With a taxi, you don't know if it's coming. You called and ordered it. You're looking at your hotel window. You don't know if it's coming. But Uber, all they solved was transparency and trust. That same car is on its way, same driver, but now you trust that it's coming because you can see it on your phone.

Erin 27:22

That's communication that's so important.

Adrienne 27:26

Yes. Yes, a hundred percent.

Erin 27:30

I, people don't understand, like people look at that from a front loading perspective and they're like, this is a lot of work from on the front end. And yes, it is. It's a lot of tension. It's a lot of intentionality. It's a lot of consistency on the front end, especially if you don't have those systems in play already in, you're building them. But once you reach that tipping point. The backend becomes so much easier and so much easier for an extended amount of time.

Adrienne 28:03

Yes,

Erin 28:03

and it's so worth the time and effort and investment in doing that.

Adrienne 28:08

Excellence has to be scalable. So I love a good creative follow up, right? That's my jam. I love a good creative follow up. You really heard what that person said, and you went to their house with bird seed. Yes. That is what I want to hear. I want active listening. I want good discovery. I want intentional follow up, right? Those are all wonderful things, but can you do it at scale?

Erin 28:29

And there are ways,

Adrienne 28:30

and I, I keep going back to technologies and systems. I'll give you an example of a way to do that at scale. Exceptional, creative follow up at scale could look like. and I'll go relatively generic at first and then I'll get more specific. So it could be doing a search in your CRM, hopefully you're taking good notes. You're doing a search in your CRM for dog, cat pet, right? And for those people you do a custom order of portable dog bowls. That carabiner to their leash and you go drop those off or you mail those out. Who doesn't love that? Who isn't gonna use that? It feels like you remembered that I told you I had a dog. It's that simple. But it's doable at scale as long as we take great notes. another example would be I've, I've always wanted the CMS to add a checkbox for veteran status, just'cause it would make life easier. But to reach out intentionally around Veterans Day and thank them for their service. Take something by, right? There are ways that you can do great excellence at scale, but you have to, to your point, front load and be intentional or have a partner that's walking through it with you real time. That's a lot of the strategy that we help our clients with. I'll give you another example of intentionality, making a huge difference in perception. When a new CRM comes out and they really start to saturate a market, and everybody has their same standard onboarding template. You don't change them. Then when I'm mystery shopping, you or a consumer is actually researching their options. They just got three emails that all said the same thing with a different logo on the bottom, and I was just speaking with Katie Holt from Smart Girl Digital and I shared the exercise. If you pull up three competitors' websites and cover their logos, can you still tell who they are? The sea of sameness. So again, these are ways that we can be different. These are ways that we can be better, more with just a little more intentionality and just being a little more awareness.

Erin 30:29

Yeah. So good. You are so good with your words. It is insane. Folks, I know you're enjoying this because I'm enjoying this. Sea of sameness. Words are wind, ah, this is so good. I'm so glad you're here.

Adrienne 30:43

Yeah. I call'em, I have back pocket phrases that I teach during my sales trainings and I actually got to use one the other day'cause we were wrapping up. I had shared that with you. We were wrapping up with a client who I had worked on training them to ask for. Google reviews and as we were wrapping up our final meeting, um, I said, is there anything else you know you wanna add? And he shared some kind words and I said, would you be willing to put that in writing? And he sure did go right to Google Review and I was like, okay, we can, we can teach the skill and we can make sure it works. So those are just some of the ways that 20 years in the industry and six years of that being, you know, a scrappy entrepreneur has been a phenomenal experience.

Erin 31:23

Yeah, so good. Alright, so let's talk about, since you know follow up consistency is your jam. You talked about it earlier, but I think it's important for us to kind of dive into a little bit, it's the heaven or hell rule because again. Our industry teaches, you know, the first impression is the best impression. Well, really the last impression is your legacy, period. It's your legacy, it's your brand, it's your referral source. Like you, you are, the last impression is the most important. And typically it's not the sales director who's responsible for that. It's the nursing director and the executive director. Okay. When you talk about the heaven and Hell role, the industry is sitting here telling you speed to lead speed to lead, speed to lead. And yes, speed to lead is important. But Adrian says,

Adrienne 32:07

Last man standing wins the game. Yes, last chance I will die on that hill forever and ever. And here's why. If we go back to the Reddit thread, if we go back to the stakeholders and we really sit in their seat for a minute, I may not take your call today. especially speed to lead, if I have 42 other people calling me because I made the mistake of filling out a certain websites form. We all know what I'm talking about. Yes. They're overwhelmed. Speed to lead. I have shied away from speed to response. Yes. When I hit submit on that form, I better get a confirmation immediately that I know that it went through and I can move on with my day. Closes the loop, but when it comes right down to it, until there is a crisis, until there is some tipping point internally within the family dynamics, whatever that looks like. They're not gonna move forward. what will stall that inertia even more is no more follow up. I believe that in the moment of crisis, the last phone call that I got is the one that's gonna be the most memorable, the one that didn't give up, the one that just sent me a handwritten note. A year later when I haven't responded to anything, and I know that some communities are capable of doing this. Not just because we've trained them, but also because in the market research that we do, we are getting those responses. A year later, it might be a whole new salesperson and they're just cleaning up the database. But kudos to you. There is nothing like a treasure trove of a lost leads bank because they aren't lost. They weren't ready, or it, it wasn't the right time. Let's not even say ready.'cause I think we've really beaten the heck outta that too, but. When it comes to last man standing, I've sent cleanup emails to lost leads, databases that have converted. That person was always primed to go. Another example of a follow up, I was reviewing a client's database and one of the, one of the families had decided to move the loved one with memory loss in with her 22-year-old granddaughter. Six months ago. I said, do you know who is perfect to be followed up with right now? That one, how's it working out? Okay. That's last man standing. That's heaven or hell. That also allows us to move away from the mentality of more to better quality, and then we're really confident when we close someone out that they told us to go to hell. This isn't for them. That's all right. I had one client that when I came in and started working with them, they were closing all leads after 45 days. I haven't made a decision in less than 45 days, maybe ever. I think we need to be with all of that brings us back to that kind of human first philosophy of these are people in crisis making massive life decisions with devastating implications if it goes wrong. And our job is to be their guide. Our job is to be their support system. and our job is to, to stay until they tell us to go.

Erin 35:06

Yeah. You know, just to add. Specificity to that. I'm working with a client right now who had to hire an additional sales director. And the two sales directors are, struggling to figure out whose territory is what, right? Mm-hmm. And so I'm, I'm, I'm helping, the leader walk through that, sensitive time and the way that the policy is structured. That the most tenured sales director gets to keep the leads from two years forward. And then the new sales director gets to keep, after the two years. So if there's database in there that's been there for three, four, you know, whatever years, and I had to reorient the leader or to let her know, like. There is gold in the cold. You know, you have to, you, this new sales director and it's a CRC, so you know, the lead, the sales is a long sales cycle, so this is legit good for this sales director. You just have to frame it that way. You have to frame it that way.

Adrienne 36:21

Right.

Erin 36:22

And I think slowly it's starting to kind of evolve. but the speed to lead has ta has like sucked out all the logic and common sense in people's brains.

Adrienne 36:35

That's why I, I've been pounding the drum of last man standing for a couple of years now and I'm, I'm not gonna let it off the other side of it too. to your point about the operations, getting change management is the order of the day. And there are some organizations that have good change managers within them, um, who can, who can do that well and naturally, but sometimes it does help to have that external person come in and say, woo, we're gonna move some things around. It's gonna be a little tough. I'm gonna be here for the process. Be here after if you need me. And that's how, we're gonna get the, we're gonna get through this. Um, and we're doing it with intention and we're doing it with support. And I don't know that enough organizations necessarily, especially around adopting new things, have a change management expert on hand. To help them with that process, but it does make a massive amount of difference in the reframe. Um, one of my favorite marketing books, I strongly recommend everyone read it, it's called Alchemy by Rory Sutherland, and we did a review of it. It's on our website, on the adage Marketing Group blog. Um, but his whole thing is the reframe. So the example that he uses is he's sitting on the tarmac in an airplane and they roll up. The jet bridge and he's like, oh, we, not the jet bridge. The walkway. he's like, ah, we have to take a bus. Are you kidding me? So annoyed the pilot comes over the speaker and says, I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news, we can't get you a jet bridge. The good news, this bus is gonna take you through customs all the way to baggage. Now that completely reframes. I don't even want the jet bridge. I want the bus. it, I think there's, to your point, there's gold in the cold and, I, I love, there was A-C-R-M-I came across years ago called Gold Mine and I was like, that's the point. It's supposed to be a gold mine.

Erin 38:31

Yes. So for people who are listening who love what we have talked about today and not really want, because like that head and heart leader who want to put both the head and the heart. in their actions, in their hands, what are some of the quickest ways from a marketing perspective, from your perspective, that they can start building trust immediately? Where should they start? Like where are the starting points?

Adrienne 38:57

So two things that I would recommend right off the bat. Number one is an organizational listening tour. And that is finding a way to schedule time across all departments and all levels to really get a feel for what's going on. Now, depending on the size of the organization, that's not always possible. You can do a small sample subset, having authentic conversations. Will help suss out a whole lot more than, how satisfied are you with your job or how satisfied are you with your lifestyle here? Right? So having some conversations, getting some qualitative data. and then separately from that. this is a super fun one. You gotta get a big piece of paper. But really doing a, buying a journey map for each person, each stakeholder that you listed. So for me, that means that there's a journey map for a new employee. There's a journey map for. a new prospect. There's a journey map for a new family, and they are all different. They need different platforms for communication. They need different messages. but when you understand what the, the longevity of your relationship with that person's gonna look like, getting it right in the start is really worth the investment. So I would strongly counsel everyone grab a journey map if you don't have one. I have a few templates I'm happy to share. Um, but start with, you know, if you can, a qualitative listening tour and then, just an interactive buying journey. Exercise.

Erin 40:30

Yeah. And from a future focus, because I think this is important for everybody to hear. In some previous conversations you and I have discussed like Ai, a EO, which if you're in the marketing world, it's like SEO, but then you started saying a EO, and I was like a EO. Oh, what is that? And, and just hanging around smart people with different perspectives, folks, it truly does pay off. So why don't you explain what a EO is and how we should actually be thinking about a EO instead of SEO.

Adrienne 41:04

This is actually the perfect time to kind of fold it into the conversation too, because so far we've been talking about technology helping fill the gaps, and we've also been talking about the human first philosophy and our, and approaching our stakeholders. So a EO is ask engine optimization. So that means that your website, your content, whatever you're publishing is optimized for a large language model like Claude or, chat GPT or copilot or Gemini, to read and understand quickly, ask engine optimization. You are optimized for the ask engines to know who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. That's fantastic. it's like SEO only human first in that you need to be using natural language to answer questions. You need to actually be answering questions and not just abouting a bunch of marketing nonsense, right? you need to be taking into consideration the type of language your users use. Going back to my Reddit comment, um, the other side of this though, that makes it much more crucial than just SEO oh, can they find us? SEO's done a great job. Google does a great job of helping people locate where you are. they don't necessarily do a great job of clarifying who you are, what you do, and for that, that's where people are. They're skipping right over Google. They're going right into their Ask Engine, and they're saying very specifically, often verbally, my loved one has dementia. I've decided that it's time to make a move. I don't know where to go. Where do I start? So someone who has my loved one has dementia. Where do I start? Their content will naturally be surfaced for the answer. Now, there's also this thing called zero click attribution. So unfortunately, step one is ask engine optimization and getting in front of the audience. And if you don't do that, just know you're not even gonna be on the short list that they're gonna come visit you will be excluded from the conversation. It's not like Google where they're gonna list everybody who's got an address in an hour radius. you will just be excluded from the conversation. So that's one important aspect of a EO. the other part of it though, like I said, I really love that it makes us have to be human first in answering the questions that our prospects have, but the zero click. This is why it's important. The zero click means they're not going to your website. It's not like they're reading a snippet and then clicking on your link. They're not likely even going to the sources of their co-pilot or Gemini generated summary. All right, so what that means is that you need to be in and part of the conversation need to be showing up in the source links. But you also have to be looking at online and offline as an integrated experience. So they're gonna be asking chat, GPT, they're going to be in asking referral sources locally as well. Leveraging those two things together makes a huge difference as we move from. Again,'cause there's gonna come a time where people aren't trusting the ask engines as much. Just as we all got a little weird about sponsored results in Google. Um, this is gonna be an evolutionary conversation and we've been in on it for a long time and, and every use case is a little bit different. But I strongly recommend, again, everyone get on Reddit, even as an organization because that does help your ask engine optimization. also if you don't have a Wikipedia page, this is a super, super hot take new information. If you don't have a Wikipedia page, get one. Because ask engines trust Wikipedia. So those are some quick tips.

Erin 44:39

That's our quick tips. Wow. God, I can talk to you all day. I hope that people feel the same way. so we'll ask the listeners this since I just learned about the scenes myself. A good reflection question, which I think is a really good thing I should start doing at the end of every podcast. So thank you for this idea. This is why you hire Adrian folks. Yeah. But what seem in your organization needs your attention right now? And she says seem, because it's a little bit more specific, I would say, lens, if you look at it from a regulatory relationship and real estate perspective. But what she's asking here is where are the cracks in your operations?

Adrienne 45:28

Oh, and I'll just end us with a little quote that goes with that, and that is, tell me where it hurts. Mm-hmm. Because behind that pain is where the solution is. So if it hurts in dining, the solutions behind that. If it hurts in retention, the solutions behind that. So start with where it hurt.

Erin 45:46

So good. Okay. Tell'em how they can find out more about you, how they can work with you. you know, whatever it is.

Adrienne 45:53

Absolutely. Short plug adage Marketing group. Um, we are on LinkedIn. We are on Instagram, we are on Facebook. But most importantly, I would invite everyone to check out our blogs, check out our case studies, and I am happy to always give. Some time just to connect, with everyone within the aging services industry, whether it's operations, whether it's sales, whether it's marketing, to talk about where the struggles are and see where solutions might already exist. and our website is ad adage marketing group.com. Um, and you can email me at adrian@adagemarketinggroup.com.

Erin 46:31

Such a pleasure. Just being around you makes my creative juices flow, and I really hope that you guys enjoyed this episode. And again, I'm going to link. The article that really just shot this conversation up in the show notes. It's really important why trust is the only metric that matters. And if you look in every single metric that we're measured by, it is in there. It is the through line. So check that out in the show notes and always for all my listeners, aspire for more for you knowing that you're already enough. Have a great day. Thank you, Adrian.