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The first day when it hit me was on Christmas day and sadly, my mother didn’t know her favorite holiday was today. I asked her, “what month is it mom?” and she replied, “sometime in the spring time”.  Moments like these are the minor events that bring up the question in my mind, is it time to look at senior living for my parents and where do I start? Who do I know who has been through this before me? What is senior living? My dad is physically and mentally strong, albeit he has caretakers fatigue, but who do I talk to for help finding a place for both of them? My quest had begun!

The first days of searching for senior living

As one would expect, I first let my fingers do the walking. I went straight to Google. What did I find? I found a lot of senior living communities and some referral agencies. Considering my background in the hotel booking business, I was not a newbie to gathering information or even some recon to get the information I needed. I didn’t want to call a specific place, I wanted to speak to someone who knew all the locations around Austin Texas and could help me not waste time “water bugging” around the city meeting with senior living community sales people. Next move, a referral agency. I went to ‘A Place for Mom’. They are the gorilla in the industry apparently. A massive amount of content online, 70k locations etc. They obviously know the industry. I spoke to a lovely and very helpful senior living consultant. She could not have been nicer or more helpful. I know, it sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? Well yes and no. Yes, she was able to filter down my parents needs and wants. She was fantastic on setting my expectations. SHE, was great, however that was my only conversation with her. Unfortunately she sent my phone number and email out to 20 communities and my phone and email blew up for two months daily. If I owned those communities I would be proud of my sales staff.  They rocked!

I spoke to some of the kindest sales people I have ever spoken to in my life.  I decided one thing for sure, the senior living community of sales people are some of the most compassionate people I have ever dealt with. If only car sales people could be so wonderful!  This kindness presented me with a dilemma. They were all kind and also aggressive, in a good way, and very organized. As an entrepreneur I thought, how could I do this differently? I need to be more focused on the new seniors as well as still be a partner with the communities. Fortunately I had done that in my last venture and there came the a-ha moment!

A hand holding solution to senior living search

The first thing I did was discuss the business process with my Dad. After all, he had been dealing with this for several months before I got involved, and he’s my mentor, my dad. He agreed that shotgunning leads to 20 communities was difficult for someone his age to juggle and deal with effectively. My thoughts are this, keep it simple. We want to deal with one person. One contact who gets to know you and builds a relationship with you. That was the impetus for starting SeniorLivingSearch.com.  After a lengthy discussion with two of the industry’s top operators I had my plan to set in motion.  And here’s our point of difference…

We don’t leave you

When you email or call SeniorLivingSearch.com we will assign one person to your family to handle all of your questions. Our ultimate goal is to find out everything we need to know about your loved ones so we can place them in a home away from home. Our concierge service approach is a gentle guidance down a difficult road. We help prepare you for the future by managing expectations and counseling you ahead of time.

So, if you are at the point with a loved one, all you need to do is email or call us and we’ll take care of the rest!  It’s that simple.

Written by Founder/CEO Rod Williams