Senior Care Academy
Senior Care Academy is a podcast dedicated to providing valuable information and expert advice on navigating the world of senior care for both senior care providers, and families with aging parents. Hosted by industry professionals, each episode covers a wide range of topics including healthcare options, legal considerations, financial planning, and emotional support for caregivers. If you are a healthcare provider, have aging parents, or are a senior adult, this podcast is for you! Tune in to gain valuable insights and resources to help you make informed decisions and provide the best care for your loved ones.
Senior Care Academy
Sales and Compassion: Insights from Cameron Harris
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Cameron Harris, the Chief Sales Officer at Sal Management, as he takes us through his remarkable journey from EMT to executive leadership in the senior care industry. Cameron's story is not just about a career shift but a heartfelt mission to transform healthcare culture through compassionate business practices. You'll learn how his experiences at places like Silverado ignited his passion for senior care and how he balances empathy with business acumen to improve the lives of seniors.
Ever wondered what it takes to truly excel in sales, especially in senior living? Cameron demystifies the world of sales by focusing on problem-solving and genuine customer care. Forget everything you know about pushy sales tactics; this episode emphasizes understanding customer needs through meaningful questions and compassionate interactions. Discover how ethical sales practices can not only achieve business goals but also enhance the quality of life for seniors. We also touch on the importance of emotional engagement and how leveraging technology can foster community growth and reduce reliance on referral agencies.
Curious about what the future holds for senior care sales? From the power of persistence and resilience to the significance of emotional engagement, Cameron shares invaluable insights that can transform your approach. Learn about the importance of feedback through personalized calls and performance reviews to continuously improve your sales strategies. Plus, get a glimpse into the exciting developments at SAL Management, including the remodel of the Beaumont Assisted Living facility. Finally, Cameron highlights the value of engaging with the Utah Assisted Living Association (UALA) for networking and legislative support, reinforcing his commitment to advancing the senior care industry. Tune in and be inspired by Cameron's dedication to making a positive impact.
Welcome to the Senior Care Academy podcast. Our guest today to kick off season two is Cameron Harris, the Chief Sales Officer at Sal Management. Cameron brings a wealth of experience in sales leadership, customer acquisition and operational execution, specifically in the assisted living and senior care space. With a bachelor's degree in business admin from the University of Utah, cameron's career also includes a successful stint as the Director of Marketing at Lighten Home Health and Hospice. As a board member of the Utah Assisted Living Association, he serves on a few committees the membership, legislative and marketing committees. Cameron is deeply involved in shaping the future of senior care and we're excited to dive into his strategies for sales success and his vision for assisted living. Welcome, cameron.
Speaker 2:Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so to start, I always like to kind of learn more about the person, because I think it's interesting when people, a lot of kind hearted people, get into senior care and then don't last because it can be tough. So what originally got you from studying business at the University of Utah to becoming the chief sales officer at Sal?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so years ago and it actually was. It's deep rooted from even my graduation from high school I knew that I wanted to do something that was cool. Like you know, you're thinking you're a young, young man, you think you're pretty darn cool when you're 18 years old and you graduate and and you just you think you're something hot, right. And one. One of my thoughts was well, it'd be really cool to be an EMT, you know cause? I grew up watching shows about firefighters and that'd be, that'd be really fun. So I did just that. I got my EMT license. I worked in Arizona and in the hospital for several years and realized that I think I want to be a doctor, so went from wanting to be an EMT to elevating myself to become a physician assistant, studied in Arizona for two years it's called physician assistant studies and then decided I would move to Utah continue my studies at the University of Utah and once I got there I was working in the hospital in Murray, intermountain Healthcare.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was on their trauma team. I'd worked there for several years at this point and had some experiences where I felt like healthcare was super valuable, but I felt like it was kind of going the wrong direction. I felt like the culture was a little toxic and I wanted to do something a little bit different. I wanted to help people recover from their traumatic illnesses and their crisis, but at the same time, I realized through a traumatic experience in the ER that I needed to help more people than just the singular patient in front of me. That if I was to study business, that I could put myself in a position where I could direct cultures of companies. Yeah, I could help people achieve higher levels of success all in either any type of healthcare really but I coincidentally landed in mostly senior care.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And haven't really looked back since then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, care, yeah, and haven't really looked back since then. Yeah, so what originally drew you into, like this senior living industry and then what kept you passionate about it over all these years? Because it can be hectic sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what drew me to senior care was a company back many years. It was called Silverado. I met some people that worked there. They were super friendly, down to earth, kind, compassionate, and I felt like a valuable team member and I felt like I wanted to be part of a culture that represented that. You know, graduating from the university, you're kind of trying to find your way right and you're trying to figure out where, where do I belong, when can I make the greatest good but yet still elevate myself and still progress Right? Yeah, so I joined that team and that's where I initially actually first experienced marketing and sales.
Speaker 2:And then I started interacting with people and I realized that my personality when I, when I talk with people, I tend to get deep, real quick with them. I don't fear asking the hard questions. I'd rather have a quality conversation versus a shallow conversation, and so that's what made me, I think, a little bit more successful in those roles, because I was more interested in the person than the job, and I feel like that's just a something that we can always live by period. I think if you're always more interested in the people, you'll always be successful, and so that's what kind of gave me the energy to stay in senior care despite being around a lot of, I guess, death events for lack of better words. You know seniors are passing. Seniors need help. They're debilitated and they're frail. You know that can bring hardship in your own life. You know people that you love that you come to get to know passing and moving on, and moving on. But it's so inspiring because I'm the one that's helping them find the peace, elevating their life in those final days that they're here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that's an important people that stay in the industry long enough. Like you said, it's the phase of life that a lot of the time seniors are in, and so it's either you are able to find the beauty in it or it wears on you for years and years and losing friends that you become close with on a regular basis. Yeah, so it's better to find the beauty in realizing like you're a part of the journey of life rather than, oh, there's just death all around me, you know, like the positive aspect of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and most of the time, you know, seniors seem to be ignored, you know, by by most of the younger generation and it, to me, is more of like a challenge. It's like when I find someone that looks lonely and unhappy. To me it's a challenge when I identify that, that senior, I want to get close to them, I want to understand them, and almost it becomes a game. I want to win them over and I want to see them smile, yeah, and be able to get a few tears deeper with them, them, and almost it becomes a game.
Speaker 1:I want to win them over and I want to see them smile, yeah, and be able to get, yeah, a few tears deeper with them, because I think a lot of the times it happens where maybe their closest relatives or friends have either passed or estranged or they just don't visit as much, they start to feel less and less valuable or like their, their life experiences, they don't share them as much, and so you kind kind of have to get, you know, the peel back the onion and then you get to the core and it's like this person's extraordinary yeah and being able to see that as huge.
Speaker 2:I mean, you'd feel the same way, right, as a senior, feeling like you're, you're discounted, you know and and you forgot. And if you were essentially put in assisted living? Yeah, You'd essentially put in assisted living and you felt like you didn't have control, Right. And I think that's where that's where those feelings of sadness and come in and that that chronic anxiety that you can see sometimes and depression, and you can really make a difference in the senior industry if you truly focus on the person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you originally started in marketing. How was kind of that transition from marketing into, like the sales, leadership roles and what challenges did you have? It's definitely a little bit different. Marketing You're getting people in the door versus sales You're taking them all the way through to starting with you and the differences.
Speaker 2:you know. I've always been involved in both sides of it. Oh right, Lead generation versus closing the cell. Yeah, you have to be persistent. Right, you have to understand your why. You got to have a certain level of tenacity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not everyone has it and you've posted about that on LinkedIn extensively about like staying dedicated, consistent. How do you like instill that kind of into the culture when, especially kind of a lot of times in senior living, the sales cycle can be months, like a long, long time, of just following up and maintaining a relationship? So how do you stay consistent and stay tenacious and and then also balancing that with the what's the word Not vulnerable, but like in a sensitive sale sometimes it's definitely a unique thing to have tenacity and empathy Like how do you manage that and instill that into the culture at sell?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the comment that you're referring to on on LinkedIn is self-discipline is the rocket fuel.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it. It's that right Realizing that one may or may not have as much self-discipline, and being willing and humble enough to generate that Right and and to be the humility is is really key right. In the senior industry it. I feel like it's a little bit easier to be humble because you're surrounded by people that are going through challenging things, and so it's a, it's a reminder, but being self-disciplined is really the key to being successful, and in building that into a culture is a little bit more difficult. It's not super challenging, but the reason being is because there are certain people that are going to be good at a specific job yeah Right.
Speaker 2:And you, you want to make sure that you have the right person in the right seat in the bus yeah Right. Because they might be good at giving care Doesn't mean that they they will be good at helping an individual find peace and assisted living whether whatever service that might be that could be from personal care agencies all the way up to assisted living or even skilled nursing facilities right. There's certain natural talents and characteristics that we have that we need to leverage and, as a leader, identifying those skills and talents that are innate in people and then using those and helping them sharpen maybe those other skills that aren't so sharp. Right Is where you provide the most value to your team as a leader in healthcare.
Speaker 1:So I so kind of talking about getting sharpening skills that people don't have. So sales in the senior living space and just senior care in general, I think is very different compared to a lot of industries and but working with seniors is going to be an exceptional industry for like the next 80 years. People always talk about the baby boomers and this week I was like well, I wonder about Gen X, millennials and Gen Z and it's like you have like 70 something million baby boomers and then you have 68 or 69 Gen X and then 72 million millennials and then like six. So it's like a hundred years worth of exceptional industry to be in. So how do you approach sales differently in senior living and and maybe management that's trying to recruit sales professionals from other industries where, like door-to-door tenacity is like a given into senior living? How do you balance that?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a fun. That's a fun fun. You know, I'll turn around a little bit and ask you a question. If I ask you what sales means to you, right, what would what would you say? What does that mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think sales is helping find. Well, really it's just helping solve a problem. To me, if they don't have a problem, then there's not a sale to be made. But if they can's just helping solve a problem. To me, If they don't have a problem, then there's not a sale to be made. But if they can, if they have a problem and you can help them realize that your solution is the answer, then you're just problem solving.
Speaker 2:So that's what sales is to me yeah, so it sells is problem solving. But see, most people don't think of it like that. Yeah, when you say hey, you're, you're going to go talk to our sales rep, immediately they kind of clam up and become frustrated. Walls, walls, barriers grow, right. Yeah, because their interaction in sales were mostly negative up until that moment. Yeah, their experiences, that of buying a car? Yeah, right, who likes going to buy a car and dealing with the sales rep? Not many people like to do that. Yeah, now there's special individuals out there that enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Or enjoy somebody knocking on their door at 2 pm on.
Speaker 2:Thursday Selling solar panels right, they don't like enjoying with it, so those interactions were purely negative, right. And so step one is really to understand what cells truly is helping, overcome the perceived, the negative perception of what cells is. Cells isn't negative. C Sales is creating value, helping people solve their problems. It's actually asking more questions than talking yeah, right. And so if you can get into that habit where you're actually trying to help a person, well, you're going to be a really good salesperson at the end of the day. And that's the difference. We're not dealing with a widget, we're dealing with a gadget that you're selling, right, we're dealing with people's lives. So it's a lot easier to overcome that negative perception of sales Once you understand that internally. I grew up my whole life hating sales because of those negative experiences. Now, overcoming that and then leveraging my ability to care for people and create value, it becomes fun. Yeah, right. And then then there's those natural rewards of people having higher quality of life because of something you did. Yeah, in some widget you change their life. Yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what misconceptions then are there in senior living sales? I feel like there's some where it's like you know, you're less of a salesperson and more of like a tour guide, almost like there's just different little random misconceptions that you don't like.
Speaker 2:I don't know if there's anything particularly negative to it. I'm also not one that's hypercritical and in things that I don't agree with, typically go in one ear and out the other real quick, because I'm that sort of person, right, I'm confident enough in my skin.
Speaker 2:But if there was a problem with the industry is that it isn't easy, right, there's a reason. You said that people get burnt out, right, and there is a lot of turnover in the senior care and even healthcare industry in general, especially after COVID. And so I would suggest, if, if there was one thing, it would be just understanding that each industry has its own challenges. Yeah, right, and the grass isn't always greener on the other side, it's just a different color, right, yeah, and, and. And that there's going to be challenges. In whatever industry that you work in, and and especially in healthcare, you can't let your ego get in the way, right, healthcare is about other people, it's not about you. Yeah, go get in the way. Right, healthcare is about other people, it's not about you. Yeah, and other industries. You know it's really easy. Salespeople get a bad rap, right, because they're egotistical in other industries, right, they're hard to deal with. In the healthcare industry, I believe they're some of the most compassionate, kind people I've probably ever met, and that's probably our own downfall as an industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true, like it's hard because you want to help everybody and like and it's also difficult, especially as Sal's a sizable senior living space, one of the biggest in Utah and like it's it's hard because you have to have standards and routines and things to be able to scale and have the size that you guys are at. But then, as like an individual salesperson or just a person that's in the space, you are compassionate and you want to help everybody, but then, as like an individual salesperson or just a person that's in the space, you are compassionate and you want to help everybody, but some it's just like tough and that's what makes them great. Like you said, it's having the compassion to be able to ask questions and want to help them, rather than like get a commission.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then there's other inherent challenges with that, because you're so compassionate, right, you don't want to come across pushy, right, and so there's just challenges that come with being an ultra compassionate industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah. How do you balance that with your salespeople of like be compassionate, but also we need them to. You know, we have to fill our census, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:When you find a need and you know you can help someone, are you obligated to at least let them know that you can help them? Morally, yeah, you'd be obligated to right. Ethically, yes, you wouldn't let a child run into a street, just as much as you wouldn't let someone receive no care that needed care, no care that needed care. And so in the sales industry that's what we got to remember it might be uncomfortable to help someone through the sales cycle, whatever sales cycle is established in that organization, but if you truly believe you can help them, then you should self-obligate to speak up and help them through that sales cycle. Right, it's actually a courageous and admirable action that you'd be taking, that's true.
Speaker 1:And if there's pushback or they're resistant, it's like do you know that their life is going to be better if they move forward? So I like that a lot of just like truly being, I guess, bought in or believing in the service that you provide and the level of care and the impact like I said, changing lives A lot of times, that last phase of life. If you believe that you can make it the best possible experience for them, you know you should feel excited about pushing them and trying to overcome the resistance or hesitancy and just like, how do I solve these questions that you have? That's making you hesitant because this is going to help you. Yeah, so I like that a lot. Yeah, it's very cool, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:So this also has an interesting thing that I think I'd love your intake, your put your input on in this space. I guess in most sales cycles there's different decision makers or influencers of the decision maker, but in this space, a lot of the time, the adult, children or some sort of secondary person is looped in. So how are you, how do you build relationships and trust, not only with the senior that's ultimately moving in, but the family, everybody that needs to be bought into the idea of moving to senior living.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I yeah. This is where the art of the cell comes in right, because in the senior industry I think it's kind of unique where it's the children helping the parent make the decision. Usually it's the other way around, right. So there's kind of a role swap here and you have to realize there's different personalities. Personalities play a big role in this. Who's the supporter, who's the one that's there just because they feel like they have to be there to support everyone?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Who's there? That's the controller, that's really driving the conversations, asking the difficult questions right. And who's there? That's just the relationship person. They're the talker. They're there because they care about their mom and they want to make sure that the people who are caring for their mom or their dad or whoever these whichever loved one, it is right, is's Jacob. That's like in my own family, yeah, Like who's the decision maker? Who's just there for support.
Speaker 1:And it's kind of fun. It's interesting. You don't think about that as you're.
Speaker 2:As you interview people.
Speaker 2:If you're out of it. Yeah, yeah, and, and so it's as it's as simple as asking how are you guys going to make this decision? Who's going to be the decision maker in this? You know, and and they're typically pretty vulnerable with you oh, we're going to lean a lot on my brother because he's the financial POA. Oh, perfect, but you guys still want to be involved in this conversation, right? Absolutely, because we want to make sure mom's getting the best care, right? So it's identifying who the decision maker is and then who else is going to be involved in that conversation, and then helping them through the process. Many times, you focus solely on one person and then you get frustrated later on in the sell cycle that another person's holding it all up. Yeah, you didn't even realize that they had any say in it. So your discovery process is actually what is the foundation for a really successful conversation and follow-up process as you work the sales cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and understanding that upfront in the first consultation, if you can. So that way you're playing to the different dynamics throughout the whole thing, like I said, so you don't get side-blinded at the end of like wait, you're the one, like this whole time you were the one that was going to make the decision, or like you're have all this influence. And when I started I was like, oh, it's just, you were quiet so I assumed you didn't. You know, it's interesting taking that time up front and being kind of direct of just like okay, like what does this look like? Not direct, but understanding the different personality types, like I said, asking, like you know, is it a family effort? Everybody's contributing? Are you relying on one person more than the other financially? And just that's interesting, it's called.
Speaker 2:You know the approach in the interview phase of the, of the whole cell cycle, right Of the, of the discovery process. The approach is building trust and credibility. How do you do that? Right. And then there's the interview phase. The interview phase is understanding what is really their challenges and you really work it from. There's a logical perspective and an emotional perspective. Most cells where are they made their emotion? For sure, right. So the sooner you get to the emotional perspective, right, the better the conversation is going to go. Yeah, but the logical is also has to be addressed as well, right. So it's questions around like hey, what is the current situation? What is your desired situation? Yeah, right. What is your urgency? Yeah, right, how, how soon does this need to actually happen? Then you get down to if things weren't going to change, right, what are you afraid would happen? That's a. They walked in the front door and said, hey, I need your help.
Speaker 1:They're not there for fun. They're not walking in saying oh how can I spend $5,000 a month somewhere?
Speaker 2:And those are the successful people right that are able to get into that sooner than later, because a lot of people they get worried about getting into the emotional side, but that's why they're there. Yeah, it's not because of the logic.
Speaker 1:You know there are the, the controllers that function a lot in the logic right and stay out of the emotion but uh, even still, they feel it as well, like yeah, yeah, yeah, everything is an emotional decision and just justified by logic. But if you're fighting in in a logic battle, you're, it's just like a loss, it's so much harder to win. I'm listening to a book right now called Pitch Anything and it talks about that. Like you have the emotional frame and then you have a logic frame, an analyst frame, and if you're trying yeah, if you don't get into the emotional frame and you're combating somebody that has a stronger will or something, or they're the ones giving up the money, you're going to lose in an analytical frame. Absolutely Get to the emotion. Yep, can you talk a little bit about how you're getting feedback from your residents and families to play into improving your sales strategy, so like after they move in? Or you know, if they don't move in, how are you getting that feedback and to using it to improve, make it better? Next, time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have different systems and each one is almost unique to the specific family, but there's some standardization. One is there's family surveys that go out that question you know our ability to meet their needs and their experience and their satisfaction. Those are really helpful. I mean, I don't know how often you fill out a survey, but it's probably not very often, like you get probably a couple and you maybe fill out one out of every 10 or 15.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm not good at filling out surveys, so you can imagine that respond the respond rate's pretty low on surveys. But then it's the team member calling and simply asking how was it? And there's a series of questions that we've established that help us rate our ability to care for someone, to address their concerns or needs, and I feel like as long as that person who's calling had worked in that community or or, I think you'll get pretty sincere responses, yeah, from people. I think the phone call is the most powerful way to get an honest answer and not to mention, if you wanted to take a step further, you could actually even just go visit them at their home. You know, the feedback is what allows us to improve. We shouldn't be afraid of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was thinking about it recently. Just like how, if an employee leaves, you want to have an exit interview like what went wrong, what would have kept you here, and just giving them genuine appreciation for working with you. So like the same idea of like a 30, 60, 90 day performance reviews with new employees, like having that same kind of structure with clients and then, if a client chooses to leave or a resident chooses to leave, having like an exit interview, if you can, to just be like hey, what? Like we want to be better for the next person and just be genuine with it and they're, they want to help. And even if you had a terrible experience, you know they'll tell you about it and you can make a change.
Speaker 2:Well, and then something that's become more prominent in the senior care industry is even google reviews.
Speaker 2:You know that's also really good feedback yeah, as well right yeah, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but you sometimes you get maybe a one-star review because it's a simple miscommunication that occurred Right, and then, through just working with the family, that one-star review can turn into a full. You know a full five-star review, right, and so you know. Even monitoring your Google reviews is a good way to get feedback. Or you want to go even further. You talk to your employees, right, and you hear what they have to see. Your team members are super valuable when it comes to feedback and they leave reviews on Indeed and Glassdoor, and so, as you monitor those sources as well, it gives you a really good feel of some of the potential challenges you might face and how to change them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when we spoke before, you were talking about how you're trying to move away from referral agencies. I'm curious, like, what role technology and digital marketing play currently in your role? Like, do you do meta? What do you have success or are you hopeful for success there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of the things that I'm most proud of when it comes to sales in our communities, in our communities, in our portfolio is the simple fact that families and friends are our number one referral source. That's awesome, which means that's the community saying we support you, right, and we want to live with you. We want to interact with you right.
Speaker 2:And then you start getting into the digital sources In healthcare, you see that Google searches are increasing almost exponentially in the senior industry, senior care industry specifically. It used to not be that way. If you were to go back and look at the graph, it's pretty flat and then it's pretty exponential after that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I haven't really been a big fan of Google ads. I think organic growth is more important. So being consistent, because what people want to see is happy, lots of activity, bright communities. They want to see healthy individuals and you want to paint that picture of what you really offer. So Facebook is one of your greatest tools in the senior care industry. Facebook Instagram can be also a great tool. So your Facebook lives right and your videos and your photos, boosting those, and if you're doing an ad on there, obviously you're making sure that you're setting the, the specific parameters to meet your ideal resident, or whoever the influencer is of that ideal resident that you're trying to attract. But I think you you really in the in the senior care industry, for long-term success, you want your top referral source to be families and friends yeah, yeah, getting to the point, and it's just saying that you're doing a good job, like they.
Speaker 1:Like I said, they trust you, they support you enough to bring in another loved one into the space. Makes it, makes your job easier if you have.
Speaker 2:If you have, you know, 700 advocates out in the city yeah, talking about how awesome you are yeah, that, that there's what, what, what digital source of marketing is better than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know and that's what, like I said, google something that I. It's like Google, you can buy for keyword and things like that. But a lot of the times when you're buying for that keyword, it's somebody that's already in the buying phase and I've found a lot of times like just meta and different ad spaces or digital spaces. Absolutely it's hard to get the right targeting, you know, until they're like ready to start doing, um, yeah, tours and whatnot.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so as long as you're ranking, like you know, top three in your listings and you're in the top three in your map listings as well, right, yeah, I think you're going to be okay in the digital space. I think it's going to become more competitive over the next couple of years, yeah, um, and you're going to have to. You're going to have to be better at understanding your keywords and making sure that you're back linking correctly and building enough credibility. Your blogs are going to be come even more important. Right, and so, but and so but. For now, I think it's really important to focus on your families and friends. I think that's just where the power is at.
Speaker 1:And just asking ultimately, hey, do you have anybody? You know that you'd want to live with you. Yeah, absolutely. Running short on time, the questions I like to ask towards the end what advice would you give to somebody that's looking to transition into, like a sales client relations role within the senior living space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, brand new, huh, brand new, fresh. Don't take it too seriously. Be consistent and make sure that you're being yourself Right. Most of the time you see people change who they are. Yeah, right, put on a little yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. And they they dress up and they they live this different life at work than what's at home, having harmony between the two. You shouldn't be any different at work than you are at home. That's how you can survive 40 years. That's how you survive, because imagine living two different lifestyles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that's that's exhausting. Yeah, so be confident in yourself. Times Like that's that's exhausting. Yeah, so be confident in yourself. You're going to add value where you are Right and your personality.
Speaker 2:Maybe you're not going to fit in in your first job, you know, as in the sales industry, right, but that doesn't mean you're not good at it. You're going to have weaknesses. Try again. Yeah, right, be persistent, have grit. Don't be afraid of failure, right, don't be afraid of the no.
Speaker 2:I think the most interesting thing when it comes to sales is watching people address failures when they get a no. How do they process it? Well, what is there to process? If you feel like the no was premature, then go after it again. And what's wrong with another? No, the no was premature, then go after it again, right. And what's wrong with another no, right. Just be persistent and be yourself. People will love you for who you are and they'll buy into you for who you are and as as more people buy into you for who you are and what you do, and I think you'll gain momentum and that momentum is just going to snowball. Yeah, it's going to be hard at first. You're going to have to put in a lot of work, but that momentum grows soon enough. You're cruising, you're doing well.
Speaker 1:Love it, show up every day, be consistent, believe in yourself and live the characteristics that you actually have, rather than trying to like put on, put lipstick on a pig or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you're not, and if you're struggling, ask for help. Right, there's so many people in the healthcare industry and seniors, senior care specifically. There are people rooting for you. You just have to be brave enough and humble enough to ask for help. Yeah, and most people, you'd be amazed They'll. They'll lift you up where you stand and they'll carry you along the way. Soon enough you'll be walking, running and then sprinting. Yeah, you know, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I apologize about this. We didn't get a bunch of time to talk about SAL or UALA. But the last question is what are you excited about and working on right now at SAL management? And then part two what are you excited about working on at the UALA board?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited. You know there's always opportunities in SAL In the number of communities're at 16 communities. Right now we have the Beaumont Assisted Living out in Bountiful. It's undergone a huge remodel. I'm super excited about that. We took Utah's first assisted living and have turned it into something of a pearl in Bountiful. I just encourage you guys, whoever wants to come out, check it out. It's beautiful and I'm just happy that we're able to help preserve that community building in that community. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:And then, as far as UALA is concerned, you know I think you don't know what you don't know. So get involved in UALA. You know, reach out, contact us, figure out what services we have that we can provide you, figure out how we can support you in your, in assisted living communities. It's a network. We're here to support each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, one of the greatest things we're fighting right now, something to be aware of is the new choices waiver and the rate adjustments right now. So there's a lot of seniors that are vulnerable due to their own financial decisions and they could potentially not be receiving the care that they need or even deserve. And so we're fighting really hard on UALA to make sure that new choice waiver. Daily rate increases happen at the legislative level. That's huge. We're super involved in that. So if you want to be part of that effort and give us a holler, as well as there's round table events that you can go to, there's our annual conferences, semi-annual conferences that you can go to. There's hundreds of thousands of people that are doing the same thing we're doing all over the state in the United States as well, and this is just one small way that you can be part of this big group and really find people that have common interest. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks so much, cameron, for just coming on today. I love your passion, just what you stand for as a sales leader, but also just a leader in the senior living space and just everything you're doing. I'm excited to share this with everybody. I think, whether they are a salesperson or they manage salespeople in the senior living space, there's just a lot of gold nuggets today. So