Better operations create better outcomes. Erin Hayes, President of Aline, discusses the success of the merger and features upcoming services offerings and data reports that will aide operators with benchmarks and improved data.

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‍Aline is an Exclusive Sponsor.

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Welcome to season six of Bridge The Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. Powered by sponsors Accushield, Aline, ProCare HR, Hamilton CapTel, Service Master, Patriot Angels, The Bridge Group Construction and Solinity. And produced by Solinity Marketing.

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Lucas 00:53

Welcome to Bridge The Gap podcast, this senior living podcast with Josh and Lucas. We have an incredible guest on today, back on the show, one of our big supporter sponsors. We want to welcome Erin Hayes of Aline. Welcome back to the show.

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Erin 1:08

Thanks for having me guys.

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Lucas 1:10

It's so good to see you again and we love to cross paths with you at the various conferences that you attend and live vicariously through your travels. You go to so many amazing places. We would love to get an update. We are really excited to kind of break the news about the multi-merger that's created Aline. How is that integration process going?

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Erin 1:34

It's going great. I mean, we like a good challenge, so we didn't want to just merge two companies together. We wanted to merge three. Honestly, it's given me a really valuable perspective, especially as we go and went from being friendly competitors to being one and really truly spending time with the executives at each company and understanding the unique value propositions around each of the different products and services that all of us had created through a passion for senior living. It's really inspiring to hear all the different stories. I know we did a fireside chat with Brad Frasher and Matt Jesperson and myself, which was really a fun time. Gave us a lot of insight into the benefits of all the different products and services coming together. So it's been really great and really rewarding and I feel truly blessed to be a part of it. And so overall, just positive and we're trucking along. We came out of the gates integrating our data model and already had a plan before things were signed. So really excited to share what we've been up to.

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Josh 2:39

Well, that's super exciting. So let's talk about post-integration. You guys are aligned, no pun intended, with Aline. It's a cool name, a cool brand, but value proposition to an ever-changing industry where there are so many moving parts and pieces. What do you see with this as the kind of number one value proposition to the industry to help improve things?

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Erin 3:06

When we came into this industry, we were really focused on sales and marketing. As we began to learn about the industry, because Lucas and I did not come from senior housing or senior living and started to talk to clients and really immerse ourselves in what the industry was all about and what they do just came to the realization that tying the revenue piece and the care piece back to sales and marketing and tracking the entire journey is very important to the operators and the owners. So we began to look at what we could do to offer something that's a competitive experience, software that can track the whole journey. And so when this merger came up, we got a good place to merge with a company that provided all the different modules besides sales and marketing, and then also enhance the sales and marketing through Sherpa and what they did as far as the prospect centered selling and really focusing on the resident journey there.

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Erin 4:01

We definitely were at the place where we wanted to do something bigger. And what I really like about what we're able to offer is that our software, all the modules were born in senior living, and senior housing, and not from multifamily or skilled nursing. And not that that's a bad thing, but it's just a very different sales process. Enquire supports many skilled nursing, home health, and hospice with a referral process and that is very different than what an assisted living, or memory care would have as far as their sales process. So really very excited to have a purpose-built platform for the industry that simplifies everything. One of the things that come across is just the move-in process, for example. It's very disjointed, it's labor intensive and it's not very efficient and everyone does it a little bit differently. As a company, we're looking at how we really integrate sales with the business office manager, billing, leasing, and all of that. So it's one seamless process with e-signature and how do we make that where a salesperson can really take the person through the whole process pretty seamlessly without having a lot of emails back and forth and having billing, leasing, and accounting not be involved? So that's kind of one of the areas that I think we're really helping among others.

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Josh 5:20

Want to put you on the spot, just a little bit, because for our listeners who have seen you, and heard you on our show many times, you always are providing a wealth of information based on data. Benchmark report has been something that you have been leading that effort and that charge on for years. I can only imagine the insights that you've got and from that through the years have helped your company serve the industry better by the collection and even helping us understand what the data means. Now with Aline touching so many different data points, what is that going to mean for the industry and can you give us any kind of a teaser? Are we going to be able to still tap into this resource that you guys have been so good at producing?

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Erin 6:12

I mean I couldn't wait to get my hands on all the data from the three companies. It was one of the things that really excited me about what we offer because I will tell you from a data perspective as an industry, we don't have a lot of baseline data and I think as we go into the future, we're going to need some sort of baseline, whether we have to provide it to payers or there are changes with what we're offering within senior living. And so we're going to be offering monthly and quarterly updates, but we'll also offer real-time data on a subscription basis. And I think that the real value there is tying everything, incorporating care, incorporating leasing and billing, and having the front-end sales process actually measured and being able to provide that data to operators will be extremely important.

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Erin 7:04

And the difference really, I mean there's really kind of five things that are different. First of all, most of the data that's out there is a quarterly survey, about 80% of the data and ours would be offered in real-time, which I think is really great, especially as operators are trying to pivot and understand the patterns and the trends that are happening now. And none of the data out there really tracks the front-end sales aspect of this. What are high-performing operators doing? How are people getting to 90% or above? What are the actions that are being taken? So we'll be able to provide that. And typically the other sources, occupancy is an average, it's a street rate. They're calling and asking what that is. Ours would be based on actual rent rolls.

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Erin 7:48

So I think we'll be able to do some cool stuff and I won't give away too much roadmap here, but some cool things with that. Also, the price is usually high for data. We'll be able to offer it at a great price point, especially for clients in subscription and also for free to the industry just as a resource. Lastly, I think the fifth thing is we cover really every demographic of buildings where some of the data that's out there is urban, 20 plus units, non-rural. We monitor about 1.6 million inquiries a year. So we have a lot of data through all the different sources coming in and we have national coverage. And so I think that as you begin to pull in just all the data that not only Enquire and Sherpa had, but that the whole Aline suite is going to be able to pull out and of course have to be anonymous, but be able to give that to all the operators. I think that that's at a really good price point. I think that that's, and then for free of course, that's going to be really great for the industry.

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Josh 8:49

I would agree. And just to make sure I understood what I think you said this data is coming directly from a congregate of the data from the users, like from the frontline, from the communities, from the sales and marketing teams. This is not a post-use survey where people are taking their data and then summarizing that it's actually coming from a congregate of all the data that you have in your system. Is that correct?

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Erin 9:20

Correct, yes. And so even to the point where obviously it's anonymous data, but we can say this community or this group of communities are rural versus urban based on census information that we're pulling in, demographics of unit count by region, and even high traffic areas like Florida and Texas and some of those that get a lot more inquiries than maybe someone who's comparing a Midwest rural building with 50 or less units in it or apartments. So very much being able to drill into the baselines, not an average based on a ton of data, but just the baseline for certain types of communities and where they're located.

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Josh 10:01

We've been lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with you at a lot of events throughout the years. You've been a great partner. With all this congregate data and the amount of reach you guys, Lucas over here, he travels a lot, he eats a lot of tacos. For our listeners who don't know, are you going to be able to count and gather the data around how many tacos Lucas eats in any day and where he ranks his restaurants? That's what I really want to know. That's what our listeners want to know, Erin.

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Erin 10:28

Well our data team, they're very, very, very good. So I would not put that past them.

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Josh 10:34

If you could put in a special request that I want to see that data point. Our listeners want to see that data point. He's smiling 'cause he knows it, he talks about it.

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Lucas 10:43

It would be more of an intervention really for me on the taco front.

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Erin 10:47

For Lucas, it's Taco Tuesday every day.

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Josh 10:50

That's exactly right. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

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Lucas 10:54

I didn't know there was any other food group.

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Erin 10:58

You can basically have every food group on a taco.

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Lucas 11:02

I know. Well, that's what I'm saying. So, took the words out of my mouth. Okay, Josh, he's got me. You got me on that one. Okay, so we digress off of my taco addiction and then if anybody's traveling to Texas or the DFW area, I've got some good spots I can recommend, by the way. Okay, so Erin, there's a lot going on and a lot of really good information. Final words of encouragement to operators out there that are, I mean there's so many different areas that they are struggling in right now trying to climb back out of the chaos. And some are winning and some are still really climbing any words of encouragement.

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Erin 11:42

We've got a lot of things as an industry we've got to solve too. I won't go into it. It's pretty obvious. I think we talk about it a lot. I just was at an ASHA round and it's really great to see providers, operators, and owners all coming together and working together. And that's really kind of what we want to do as far as helping with the data and going forward plans and kind of looking into the future. A lot of data is historical and what we really want to be as a provider of what it's going to look like in the future. I'm going to be moderating at the Argentum Senior Living Conference, a session on AI and I've got some great panel panelists that'll be there. And I think that we can really fill some of the gaps that we're struggling with right now as an industry with that.

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Erin 12:28

And I think it's kind of a double-edged sword sometimes, but I do think there are some things that it can help with and we're definitely incorporating it into our solutions. And also just as far as our roadmap, I think some of the things, I mean we're listening to what the industry needs and I think one of the things as far as just collecting payments, revenue, I mean that's always a big struggle. Assessed versus build. Are we actually collecting what is assessed? What is the lag time on that? How do we shorten that? And so all of that is at the top of mind for us. We just came out with a payment solution so clients don't have to use a third party. What does this do? Well, it reduces the time for reconciliation from hours to minutes. It's less expensive for our operators. And there's a client portal, ACH credit card that allows people to pay faster. So that will be coming out and just making it simpler to collect on that piece so that I was once told, you can't have mission without margin. And so anything that we can do to make that come true for our clients and for operators is really what we're looking at doing. And so just very excited for the future. I think the industry is great. Lots of new developments out there, and occupancy going up. I'm excited to be a part of this industry. I'm excited to stay a part of it. Looking forward to what's going to happen in 2024.

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Lucas 13:53

Well, we always love having you on the program, Erin and we're really excited to get this great update and we also are excited to continue that conversation. Aline is such a great sponsor, and supporter of the Bridge The Gap mission. And so for all of our listeners out there, if you're on the fence or what you've heard today interests you check out our show notes and we're going to connect with Aline and Erin's team there and you can reach out and I'm sure get somebody to schedule a demo or walk you through the different various offerings that they have to help you meet and reach your goals. So Erin, thank you so much for spending time with us today.

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Erin 14:31

Thanks guys. Good to see you.

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Lucas 14:33

And for all of our listeners, go to btgvoice.com, download this episode, and many more. Check out our store if you want to get some merch and some BTG swag. And thanks for listening to another great episode of Bridge The Gap.

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14:45

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.