What are the secrets to a successful management approach in senior living? Chris Sides, Founder of Senior Solutions Management Group, dives into his philosophy on focusing on the basics of senior care, including the importance of relationships. Plus, Chris shares insights on how his innovative barbecue program has become a cornerstone of community engagement and charitable giving.

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Produced by Solinity Marketing.

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Intro

Welcome to season seven 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, NIC MAP Vision, ProCare HR, Sage, Hamilton CapTel, Service Master, The Bridge Group Construction and Solinity. And produced by Solinity Marketng.

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00:33 - 00:52

Lucas McCurdy

Welcome to Bridge the Gap podcast, the senior living podcast with Josh and Lucas. Some great recordings here in Atlanta. Hotlanta, Georgia on a great August afternoon. We're here at a conference where there's a lot of great conversations going on, and we've got a good friend and industry veteran on the show. Chris Sides, welcome to the show.

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00:52 - 00:53

Chris Sides

Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

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00:00:53:50 - 01:11

Lucas McCurdy

We had a mastermind dinner, I selfishly enjoyed picking your brain over a variety of different topics. And the first topic is the most important topic that I want to start out with is, about your barbecue program.

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01:11 - 02:53

Chris Sides

It gets a lot of attention. So, it started back in ‘08. We were very new operators at that point in time, and we were in the Knoxville market. And that if you remember the, the collapse of ‘08, you know, a lot of manufacturing in Knoxville and we were there in the Loudon area. So Malibu Boats and places like this. And we had, we had people that were, pulling their families out of the communities and taking them home to live because they needed their Social Security check to survive. So being in the South, you know, we used to always say we can fix anything, with an antibiotic and a casserole.

So you go back to the old potluck dinners and we would cook, barbecue, provide to meet the families, would bring in, you know, side dishes and everything else. And that's how it all started. And so those, all those potluck dinners turned into recipes, turned into two cookbooks. The first printing we did many, many years ago was 5000. We gave them away. We didn't even use them for a marketing event. We’ve since done two more printings for a total of 10,000. We have a few left. but here again, every time we get a new community, we take cookbooks and we, you know, that's it's just it's kind of a grassroots internal. It's got a lot of legs, a lot more than we are. But at the end of the day, we're not caterers. We're here too. And we have to remind people sometimes we're not caterers. But it just is one of those things that was born out of necessity, and has just moved forward.

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02:53:39 - 03:02

Lucas McCurdy

And so you take this show on the road though. Let's take it a little further. This is not just a well, we do this at our company Christmas party.

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03:02 - 04:39

Chris Sides

So, we developed another phase of that called Fast Friday Barbecue. And here again, this started, because we had a location. It was actually a Dominion location that was off the beaten path. And it was like, well, how do we get people to this location? And those were the days before Waze and some of these GPS apps. And so we created a box is called a Doc in a Box.

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You get a pound of barbecue, a couple of side dishes and some various other things. And, we would just sell it, you know, for $5 for a box. But the idea was they had to drive that community drive under the portico so they knew where the community was, and we would just sponsor a local like the Boys and Girls Club. Something local to that, you know, being a good neighbor here again that got legs and that took itself. And, we raised, I guess it was back in maybe 2017 or ‘18, about $30,000. For the local charities, we did everything from childhood cancer to Boys and Girls clubs, Meals on Wheels. We did a lot of Meals on Wheels. And then through Covid, during Covid, we would go to different locations and do it for first responders. It makes zero money. It's just a give back. Sure. So we used it there. But typically we still do the fast Fridays, but we do it at new locations. We can only do about 4 or 5 a year because it takes a whole week. It's just a lot of work. But they always pay. They always pay dividends. And people always remember.

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04:39 - 04:57

Josh Crisp

I know it wasn't your intention, but also brilliant marketing. And, that's been a cool thing. And last night, obviously, me and Lucas are thinking, well, the next mastermind, we've got to have the barbecue doctor. They're going to do some, to do some barbecue instead of paying for catering services, even though you're not a caterer. That would be super cool.

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04:57:47 - 04:58

Chris Sides

Just got to find the right place.

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04:59 - 05:34

Lucas McCurdy

That's right. This actually has a point, to the conversation because it brings us back to a really core issue in senior care that you elaborated on last night in our dinner, which is what are the basics? What are our older adults inside the community? What do they need most? There's so many things that they need. And yes, technology, a beautiful building, activities, all of these things. But there's a couple of the basics that if you can't get right, you're going to miss the boat, right? Elaborate.

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05:34 - 07:07

Chris Sides

I think your question last night, if we come back in a year and we have a toast, what will we celebrate? And I said, well, you know, hopefully we're all still here and we're solvent. That's what we celebrate in this environment. but this really goes down to a lot, even what we've heard here at the conference today, we never focus a lot on what everybody else is doing, and we don't really worry about competition.

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We don't really look at a lot of national statistics. We don't look at technology a whole lot. We just try to simply focus on being the best we can be within our own bounds. And that means that, you know, every pill is given on time, every resident's fed, a proper meal on time. They're clean. They're, you know, dignified and in a safe environment. So we just call it the simplistic approach.

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And we do a lot of that, and look, and a lot of, you know, trust the process. We work on the process we work on, like, you know, one day at the time, not needing to, you know, far, don't focus on the scoreboard. Just focus on being the best. It's a full time job. And we really say until we can do that flawlessly. You know, we can't really focus on anything else. And truth be told, it's very hard to do as well. We really just try to stay in our box and focus on what we can do best for the community.

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07:07 - 07:34

Josh Crisp

That's so awesome. It's such a great way to look at it. And it is so difficult. Chris, what are practical ways you keep your team focused on that? Because with all the distractions, all the noise, all the challenges that you deal with in all these communities that you operate every day with all these different leaders, what are some practical ways you keep your team motivated on what's the most important thing? The blocking and tackling, as you say, that we got to do every day.

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07:34 - 09:03

Chris Sides

I think for us, we try to be in those communities as much as possible. I tried to, I think last year over 220 nights. I like to get in. We like to spend time there. We we spend a lot of time. We had hurricanes here several weeks ago. I was at a community. It's just providing the support. That's all we can do. We changed so many things back in 2021, 2022, when the staffing crisis really kicked in, you know, we have the best to you.

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I think that you can have a really rich program. We looked at benefits. We have all of that in place and it didn't really help when it was down to it. It's just about spending the time there, listening, knowing as many employee names as you can know when you go in, cook for them. So when we go, when we, when we do go out for a week, and we may be doing a fast Friday, on Friday, we're always there.

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On Monday we're doing a meal on Tuesday for the residents. We're feeding the employees on Wednesday. Thursday is kind of a catch, a breath. They get ready for Friday. but we're there in Trenton trying to take stuff in, and it's really about the human side of it, more so I just don't think there's enough money out there. to buy your way. It's the relationship. People ask us all the time what's the secret sauce. So there is no secret sauce, just the relationship. Yeah. It's just having those relationships.

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09:03 - 09:36

Josh Crisp

you've been able to scale operations and somehow be able to scale to not lose touch with the relationships. What you're talking about,. Is there a certain way that you've been able to do that? Because you know, I know there's a lot of startup companies out there that are trying to get to scale. And then it's like, where's the line where it's a fine line where you get maybe too big, where you can't still feel like the relationship recipe that you're talking about, that you've got to constantly try to work on. What have you finally found that's helped you be able to scale and not lose that?

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09:36 - 11:53

Chris Sides

We have been so fortunate when we have done an acquisition per se. We've been so fortunate. And this is a really good opportunity because I didn't want to end here today without recognizing the people that work for us and our team. So, believe it or not, 36 communities, nine states, 2500 apartments. There are seven corporate employees. Seven. There are seven of us. and we're spread all over and they're just good at what they do. And it's really my job to support them and give them autonomy. They all know how to, you know, where to focus and we didn't have HR until about two years ago.

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And we had an excellent opportunity to hire from a previous company, and she came on with us. She has an HR background. and she had some senior housing experience, but then she also had a counterpart that had retail experience in McDonald's and, you know, so we get so focused sometimes on senior housing. Well, an hourly employee to a certain degree is an hourly employee, whether that's hamburgers or, you know, senior living, or grandma, if you will, and just being able to, again, it’s this relationship and we do those Zooms every two weeks, we're constantly in touch.

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And so it's a lot of communication. And you just have to realize, I think that some of them, maybe people coming in, I'll often refer to this. This business stops for nothing. It doesn’t stop for a hurricane. You have a family emergency it keeps on going. you get Covid, keep on going. A family member keeps on going. It just keeps on going. And you just have to keep that in perspective. 2022, we took on seven buildings, 700 employees, close to 843 apartments, in one fell swoop. Wow. So trial by fire, right? How we do it. It's just that relationship piece of the pie. And I just look at myself as one of them, and we've had great relationships, and we all get along.

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11:53 - 12:06

Josh Crisp

Forecast ahead for you. you've been growing, steadily through the years, and you've obviously picked up a lot of new business, new communities. What is your forecast for growth? What are you looking for? What are you excited about?

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12:06 - 13:22

Chris Sides

Well, we're happy where we're at. We have, we're the largest shop operator for, a REIT based out in California. It's a RIDEA structure. So it's not a leaseback. We actually JB with some of them. That's been good for us. We've always looked at growth as needing to make sense for everybody. We just don't take stuff to add to a number. Add to a community count. I don't know what growth is.

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We're at 36 right now. Actually, we would like to contract a little, with some underperformers and things like that and kind of, you know, step back. I just don't mean that we're good at what we got and we've got room to grow. So, you know, we've got certain buckets that, you know, are about 90% occupied. So that ten equals 70 rooms somewhere. There's our growth. And, that was taught to me for a long time by a mentor I had back in Horizon Bay. Thilo Best, who I think is now retired. But he used to always say the growth is in the vacant rooms.

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He wasn't worried about running around him. You know what? We need more. We need more. He's like, oh, like we got 80 units, you know? How much is that? There is growth. So the growth for us is is in the vacant units

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13:22 - 13:54

Josh Crisp

That's a brilliant way to look at it. Chris, I appreciate you saying that. And so I would imagine knowing what kind of if we do look at industry averages, almost every operator out there has numerous vacancies. So if there is an opportunity there, what would you say is your strategy in-house to as you're looking at the opportunity?

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It sounds like your occupancy is amazing. So that's good. But you still have opportunities like we all do. So what are some ways that you guys. Is it is it building refreshes or is it retooling some marketing or what are you doing?

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13:54 - 15:50

Chris Sides

Most of all of our stuff is acquisition. And if you look at the average, most of our stuff was probably built in the late 90s, you know, 96, 97. It is tiring and, so, you know, I, I've known you for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years. And then, I’d seen your relationship with Lucas, and then we took over some communities out in Texas that he had done some work for.

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And then lo and behold, we had a freeze and a pipe burst, and, I was like, well, I better introduce myself to Lucas. I got a big mess I need cleaned up in Tyler, Texas. And he answered the phone and it sort of went from there. So, we're trying to do some fresh ups. So, you know, we can't do as much as we would like to do, but paint, carpet, lighting and some furniture go along, go a long way.

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So, we're, we're doing, quite a bit of that, from an occupancy standpoint, you know, where we can sometimes where we are highly occupied. We just have to look at revenues. but be mindful of it. You know, there is a limit, that people can only pay what they pay. And there is a limit.

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So you have to look at you know, maximizing, I think we're good expense managers. We have always been good expense managers. I think it has a lot to do with what we looked at. And staying small, to, to look towards vendors. And we've also kind of changed our approach in some areas, there are local vendors that do much better for us than the big guys.

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So we'll go local in those particular scenarios. but where we can mostly just, you know, freshen up and continue to, to make the best we can with what we have. Yeah. This is the state we're working in our box, you know, here's our box. Let's figure out what we can do with what we got.

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15:50 - 16:06

Josh Crisp

Absolutely. Lucas. The philosophy is consistent, and it's been a successful recipe. I know a lot of our listeners whose ears are perking up and appreciate the value that Chris is providing to the industry and the communities that that you serve. So thanks for being a guest with us today.

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15:50 - 16:17

Chris Sides

Great. I appreciate your time. And, we'll figure out, well, you can come to League City where we're cooking barbecue. Yes, I'm over and we'll let you know next time we're in Knoxville.

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16:17 - 16:18

Josh Crisp

That's awesome.

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16:18 - 16:34

Lucas McCurdy

Yes. I can't wait for that. That's going to be a fun event. And, you know, I really enjoy these. I kind of consider this a bit of a mentor podcast. These are core principles that, so many in the industry, really resonate with. So, Chris, very much appreciate your time. And so, to our listeners, if you'd like to connect with Chris and his team, scroll down on your podcast

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Outro

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

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