I had a chance to talk with Julie Wentz who is a stellar person to be around. She discusses what the Real Time app does and how it helps seniors and their families find assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing, and other services for seniors. The Arizona Sunset Assisted Living is proud to be a supporter of the platform and our facility is listed on their app. Please enjoy the audio of the conversation here:
https://www.spreaker.com/user/10870139
Or read the full transcript:
Audra: Hey everyone, this is Audra Owens, today in our podcast we have Julie Wentz who is the vice president of Real time Senior Living. Which is a new app that helps connect families to assisted living facilities and care homes. And with that let’s hear what they’re all about.
Justin: So let’s start, I’ve got some of your back ground here.
Julie: Okay.
Justin: And it seems that you’ve done quite a bit, I do notice there’s a theme of being involved with people, with brands, business development, visionary was one of the words I’ve written down. Just give me a quick background on what brought you to where you’re at your position here as currently the VP of Business enhancement at Real time Senior Living.
Julie: So I moved to Arizona about three years ago, I lived in Oregon for about 23 years. And I worked for a large CCOC Mennonite village up there and that really brought me into the place of really wanting to work with seniors. I had taken care of my mom’s cousin for about three years also, she was 90, she was with us for about three years and she had dementia, so she was living along. So having that one on one relationship with taking care of someone really kind of started putting me in that direction. I have a lot of other background so I ran a Target store, Goodwill store, so a lot of different things, having my own event business. So a lot entrepreneurial pieces but a lot of management, people management, and then brand development. So that kind of lead me into the senior living and then when I moved down here to Arizona for sunshine, cause I was tired of the gray and dreary in Arizona, I started kind of looking around and I ended up dealing with two recruiters at Brookdale, so I started working for Brookdale, I had two communities that I was marketing for, memory care and in assisted living which was great because depending on what the people needed, I could lead them either direction and then they pulled me out of that and had me start doing the business development for Arizona. So at that point we had about 27 communities, and what was interesting how this kind of tied in was I would have referral agents calling me all the time, what’s open here, what’s open here, they would text me, they’d call me, and I had access to sims or intrenet, but if a business office manager or the marketer hadn’t put that room in as sold, I didn’t really have accurate information of what was truly available. And I thought ‘why don’t we have something that actually has all these information together?’ so I called my daughter’s boyfriend at that time who is a developer at Nashville, and I said ‘can we create an app for Brookdale that has, at that point, all 1450 communities has the availability, all that kind of stuff, and he’s like ‘yeah, we do this, this, this.’ So I pitched that to Brookdale, so that was about two and a half years ago going ‘you know we need to do something like this.’ So two IT, Andy Smith, West coast regional VP, and they’re like ‘well we are going to do down the road?’ it was that moment that Steve reached out to me and said ‘I’m working on something, I want your feedback.’ So when we met, and he told me what he was doing with Real time, I was just ecstatic because I thought ‘oh my gosh, somebody’s doing it, this is awesome.’ So just knowing the potential, knowing the industry needed it, knowing we need those direct connections for people and everything has always been one way. Waiting for referral agents to bring someone into a home whether it’s a discharge, whether it’s a client to patient, whatever, but opening it up so more people could see what was available. So that was kind of how I came to this point, so I was at Brookdale for about two and a half years, I did that, I worked in a hospice division for a while, I was helping them and then I just decided to give notice and just kind of put it out there and reach out to Steve going ‘hey, you know I’m starting to look, just keep your ears open for me.’ And he’s like ‘I want to talk to you.’ So that was a year ago, March that this all came into play.
Justin: So you give it notice before you have that conversation with Steve.
Julie: Oh yeah, I didn’t have anything lined up, I just gave it to God, it’s like ‘you’re in charge, wherever I’m going you’re going to lead me, so let’s just see what happens.’
Justin: And your thought was with a Brookdale type system was just to simplify gathering information from their facilities across the nation, you’re making it accessible to people like you who are in the, I don’t know if you’re a director of marketing, or business development at that time but basically making it more accessible just internally?
Julie: Just internally, right, so if we had something where all the information was because the referral agents would reach out all the time to me, what’s open here, what’s open here. Why don’t we have this information accessible to everybody? Why isn’t it there? Why wouldn’t you want to have something that gets the information faster? That they could find quicker? Because a normal referral agents is going to spend 6 hours to maybe 3 days calling, calling every home and community ‘do you have anything open?’ if that first question isn’t answered off the bat like ‘do you have anything open?’ if it’s a no, then the rest of the questions don’t matter. You’re going to keep going until you find an opening, then ‘is the price right?’, then ‘are the care needs there? Can you take care of the person? What kind of room’s open?’ so if all of those questions aren’t answered, all the time that it takes to get that done, Real time takes that entire piece out, so it would have taken them 6 hours to 3 days is now seconds. So why wouldn’t you want to try and expedite the process for everybody and create more visibility in the homes?
Justin: When you were with Brookdale, did you have access to the information?
Julie: Uh-huh.
Justin: Okay, but you just want an easier way to get it to other people without having to answer the phone and disseminate that to them right?
Julie: Well, access was the internet, but if a community if a room have been sold but the business staff coordinator and manager hadn’t put it in the system yet, it wasn’t true information, so even if I thought there was something open down in Broadway Mesa, it may not be. So there wasn’t real data of what was open at any given time.
Justin: Okay. When Steve says ‘hey Julie, I got this idea.’ What did he picture that time? What was the idea?
Julie: So he was telling me that he had created the app and it was going to be live data of availability and it was just you know, literally peel me off the ceiling, I’m so excited because I knew the potential of how this was going to help people, and really, the whole goal came from how do we get more eyes on the availability? And even so Steve’s background was years with Wells Fargo, so you know when you take a picture of a check and deposit it, that was him and his team. So all that simple technology that Wells Fargo has and banks have, that came from him and his team, so for a period of time he was also a referral agent and years ago he was trying to find a place for his folks. So even if you’re here in the industry, and he was getting frustrated, why is this so difficult? Why can’t we find what’s open? Why can’t we see what’s actually available out there? And I guess his wife Katie said ‘you’re a smart guy, figure it out.’ Well he did, so he’d been working with this for a while, getting ready for it to launch. And we met up and he asked for my feedback, I’m just like ‘there’s so many things and ways this is going to help people, just so many ways.’ And even the things that we’re doing in the future, that are coming, we’d even talked about back then how many things that we can add to the platform that will end up helping people.
Justin: I know how you’ve developed it, now can you take just a few minutes or as much time as you need and let’s go back to the app, and we’re talking about the Real Time Senior Living search app, the orange one, if say I’ve got a parent, a grandparent, someone that needs assistance, what is the best way to explain the app to that individual and how to use it, what it can be used for at this point?
Julie: Well and there’s two pieces to that, so there’s the facility app which is a separate one at the homes and the community is uploaded, there are available information. That’s the platform where the information is kept. The search app and that facility app is the green logo, the green and blue logo, the search app is one with little magnifying glass, the orange one. That’s the one that literally mimics the information or mirrors the information that’s in the facility so if someone wants to search, the first way that people search is they’re looking for an area that they want to live, whether familily is there, whether their home’s been there, whether their friends are there, the first place they’re going to look is an area, so say it’s Phoenix, say it’s Scottsdale, say it’s Peoria, where they’re looking, the next things is, what is their price point going to be? Because people are not going to go looking for something if it’s out of their price range, there’s always some starting price point that someone can afford, you’re not going to look for a six thousand dollar room if you only have three thousand. So that’s part of the search piece, and then what are the care needs that we need for that resident that’s going to be coming in? Usually there’s, and then the type of room is the last piece of the search, so it’s weighted that way. But a lot of times, it’ll be some trigger event that puts folks in the hospital and they may not be able to go home, so then it’s a matter of ‘okay, now where are they going to go?’ so it’s always happen in the past just somehow they’ve gotten in touch with fiduciary or an elder law attorney or a referral agent that now has to start their process of trying to find a place for these folks to go. So therein lies days of calling, taking the family out, what is that look like. So this quicker search not only helps the family with finding the best fit, it’s expediting the processes out of the hospitals and the rehabs, because instead of waiting for someone to find a place to go, they literally can do that search for the family and in seconds have choices, be able to print it out, hand to the family, give it to them, say ‘hey, these are open right now, go ahead and check it out.’ A good example is I have a friend who works for a hospice and their protocol is the marketer is back at the office making those 20 to 30 phone calls, trying to find a place to go, social workers in the hospital with the family, my friend pulls out her phone, does the search for the family, and in seconds has options. ‘well, these are open, go check them out.’ That’s saving the hospital time, that’s creating more good will for the hospital because now they have more choices, but one of the things I love the most is it’s empowering families with the best fit for their loved one or themselves because there’s a lot of care homes out there, just in the area and then each of the states, but no one knows they exist. So when I talk to a care home owner I say ‘do you have a vacancy sign outside? Not only is there not a vacancy sign, you don’t have a sign out here.’ So most of the communities have at least signs but no one knows what’s available at any given time in any of the places. So this now opens it up to all the care homes in that area, for that family member to go find the best fit, we’ve narrowed your search, we can connect you through the phone, we’ve got driving directions to get you there, give them a call, go check them out. But it really empowers that family for more choices because odds are maybe the last place that person’s going to live. It needs to be the best fit for that person, let them decide where they want to go, so it’s empowering the families with more choices but it’s also opening it up to huge visibilities for the homes.
Justin: Now you’re targeting the rehab centres, the doctors, the hospitals, not necessarily the families.
Julie: Everybody.
Justin: Everybody.
Julie: Everybody.
Justin: If you’re printing it up and handing it to them, it could be after rehab, after surgery, here are some options, everything?
Julie: Right, right, so it’s everybody. So we know the referral agents aren’t even who we target to share with, because they know where the homes are, we know that they’re using it, it totally helps them expedite their processes, but we go after because the referral agents don’t have enough people to actually fill all the empty beds out there, they have a set number of clients, so we were after everybody else that could potentially need to help someone find a place to go, so discharge planners, rehabs, I talk to real estate agents all the time, home health, hospice, doctor’s offices, so having that information out to that group, now they can search and find a place for them to go. So it empowers everybody and then we have some collateral that’s in the works that will be going out to doctor’s offices, it’s already going into the elder law attorney’s offices, fiduciaries, so they have access when they’re dealing with their clients or just the general public, they can pick it up, download this free search app which is anonymous and free, we’re not tracking anybody’s searches, but it allows them to go look themselves, so they could look online themselves or they could look on the app themselves, and it’s super simple.
Justin: Well I didn’t realized that but you have access to your website with the same data so they can do like a search through the site.
Julie: Same thing.
Justin: They can download the app and do it on their phone when they’re on about.
Julie: Yeah, same thing. And the only thing that’s different with the app, you’re going to pop up because it’s a smaller screen, there’s the first screen of where they want to live, then their price, then the care needs in the room, well, on the computer, on the computer screen, that’s one screen, so when I go and talk to case managers and discharge planners, all showing on their desktop, cause they’re on the computer all the time, it’s one screen, they click all of the buttons and search and they could literally print it out from there but it’s all in one screen. So anyone can search at any time, whether they’re at their desktop or on their phone.
Justin: So you mentioned some of the search criteria, so as a facility, when they’re registering, they put in their availability, what type of bedroom they have, needs, I noticed there’s a long list of illness or whether it’s catheters or mobile, not mobile wheelchairs, geriatric like everything, and they just, they put what they can, what services they can provide.
Julie: Right.
Justin: Right, they kind of specify exactly everything that they offer.
Julie: Right, right, and it’s important that they do exactly what they say that they do. So they download the app, and we have access to the state database, so when they put in their name or their license number, we can just pull it up, their names is attached, their license number is attached, and their address is attached. And then after that it goes into the care needs. What care do you provide at this facility? Then what beds do you have open? What are the prices? So it’s literally, once it’s downloaded, it can be like a 5 minute process, it’s super simple, so when people are searching, it just mirrors what that care home community is put in.
Justin: So as long as the care home providers are keeping the information update on what they have available, then it’s real-time.
Julie: It’s real-time. Right, and that’s why we use an app, because they get two push notifications a week just to remind them ‘hey, is anything changed, do you have any new availability?’ but most homes in communities have just a certain set of rooms that they have. Like a care home may have a private room and a private bath, or shared room and a shared bath, the community might have a studio or one bedroom or a shared, so until those have been sold, it’s going to be up on the platform, we have a lot of homes that are fully occupied that are invisible. So when they don’t have something available, they’re invisible on the platform. Once they have something coming open, they can put it out into the future in that date so if people are looking I doubt they won’t see it, and it will self populate and come up that day, so it’s live data. And I kind of think of it as like AirBnb or MLS for senior living, because you have what’s open right now, so when we go on a trip and we’re going to go somewhere and we want a hotel, we’re going to find that hotel, we’re see if our days are open, we’re going to see if the price meets what we need and we can reserve it. Well it’s kind of the same thing with the senior living. What’s open today that meets my needs, I get to go check it out.
Justin: I think it’s interesting that you have that option to look into the future if someone is being respite or rehab, you know and they are moving back home and they have those dates in there, they can left or we expect that at the end at lease, or at the end of whatever time period at the moment ‘we’re going to move Mom into a home.’ That’s very cool.
Julie: Right, and then that home will be able to also have that room available when that respite’s over.
Justin: Okay. Cool. Is there anything else, I want to talk about some of the upcoming additional to the app but, oh actually, you mentioned when a facility applies to the facility app,
Julie: Correct.
Justin: You verify the licensure is up to date and current.
Julie: Right, it’s automatically cause it comes from the State, it automatically come from the State their license number.
Justin: And is that as far as the verification goes on the facilities?
Julie: Right, because all we’re looking at is making sure that they’re an actual licensed facility and that comes from the State, so if they have their license, their license with the State for assisted living or memory care.
Justin: For the services they’re claiming that they provide.
Julie: Correct.
Justin: Okay, so the results that come from the search query would be based on the needs that the individual is looking for and the needs that the homes are saying that they can provide, and it’s making that match.
Julie: Correct.
Justin: But at the end of the day, with those search results, the person looking for the home’s still needs to do their diligence, check out the homes, check out the facilities, verify that it’s all accurate and that the facility is at a level of condition they want to care is there. There’s still some diligence too on the part of that the individual or the family or whoever is helping/assisting them.
Julie: Absolutely, absolutely, because we provide that base information, and it even says you know on the website in the briefing ‘we’re not endorsing anyone, it’s your due diligence to go check it out, here’s what you’re looking for in the area, here’s your price range, here’s the care needs, here’s the type of room go check them out. Find which one’s the best fit for you. And we know the homes have to have their license on the wall when you walk in, they should have all of their information available if there have been deficiencies, we tell people ‘you know, go ahead and check the State database and see if there’s been any deficiencies.’
Justin: That part in the data that it provides.
Julie: No, well that’s a whole other story when you talk about the deficiencies from the state because they could be small ones, they could be large ones, but they also don’t take them out of the list even if they have been corrected they stay there, so you might have this amazing care-home that had something really small happen and you need to go check out for yourself. So we don’t review, we don’t grade, we don’t judge, we provide that base information for folks to do their due diligence. Because you really need to go see, meet the owners or see the community, make sure it’s a great fit, how does it feel, what’s the best for your loved one going in there.
Justin: I think it’s a good start using the app because it provides that information, it saves you time calling around, trying to figure out where are these homes and google-ing them and it really gives a lot of information in their hands. It’s a much better starting point than what exists prior.
Julie: Right.
Justin: Right, but there’s some leg work to do.
Julie: Right, well and we think about, I mean even just getting to the point of google-ing, what happens when you go online? What happens to people when they go online and just google assisted living and chandler? What’s going to happen? Well the first thing they’re going to get is a ‘place for mom’, caring.com, senior.net, and all of those are paid ads, they’re all paid ads, it will always be the first thing that comes up. So you’re going to get pulled in to the ads first, the reason that the online directories really don’t work as well as they do. So number one, those are all the ones that they’re going to have a paid referral attached to, when you get, I called it ‘getting sucked into the vortex’ of those ads online. They’re going to gather your information, they’re going to send it out and you’re still going to get charged that referral fee which I don’t think a lot of people realized that that referral fee is attached at least now at the lost that are their disclosure on the part of the referral agents, what they will charge those homes or communities for placement, so that’s really important, that transparency there. But unless this visibility, especially for the homes, when you go search google for assisted living, you’re not going to see Arizona Sunset Assisted Living coming up because anything that has to do with assisted living won’t come up unless you know the name of that care-home or that community or that specific web directory, you won’t find it. And when people starts searching for assisted living for mom or assisted living for dad or memory care, everything that comes up to begin with will be these paid for ads by these large internet companies, and then some of the larger communities that are paying big money to optimize, to be at the top, so you’ll start seeing Brookdale, or you’ll see Sunrise, some of the other ones where there’s a lot of money that’s being paid to be optimized. So those homes are not going to be as visible and it’s going to be very hard to find them on the internet unless you know the name, when people are looking, they don’t know the names of anything, they just know they need assisted living or memory care. So it’s really helping the visibility of these homes be visible in an invisible marketplace. So whether it’s just optimization or someone’s paying for ads through their SEO and whatever they want to do, it’s tough, I think it’s tough for folks to be visible in that environment.
Justin: Well, the results on google are going to be based on playing the google game, not based on whether a home is a good home, a good fit or not and not all the criteria that people can, they’re looking for a name, a word, something like that but whereas your app allows them to search by all sorts of criteria to help narrow that field down.
Julie: Right, right. And ultimately that’s what people are looking for anyway. It’s not necessarily a name it’s not necessarily how big or how well known are they. “where do I want my mom or dad to be that’s a great fit for them?” “are they very social? Do they need to be in a social environment? Are they really home bodies and really just want to be home with a couple of people? Do they need that extra one on one care that the homes provide maybe over a larger community?” so what is the actual need for that person? And really narrowing that search and helping them find that, plus it’s free and it’s anonymous. So people can search anytime whenever they want. And we look at the Baby Boomers coming in, we look at how tech savvy people are now, we’re on our phone all day long, everything we use is an app, messenger, facebook, texting, email, it’s all apps, so it’s really simple to use. So the simpler we could make it for people to find what they’re looking for in their terms in their time, it’s just a benefit.
Justin: So we talked about the end user would use the app, how the referring agent or the individual who works with the senior would provide the information from the app, how does the app make money? How do you have money to build the app and to reach out to all these agents and people who work on the senior space?
Julie: So the facilities themselves are the ones that actually pay for the app, so the care homes and the communities would go on to either a Google, through the Google Play store or the itunes apps store. And since it is an app, they literally just go on there, pay that yearly subscription fee, there’s a one-time fee, and they pay that and then they’ll upload their information and once their information is on there, then they’re live. So they’re the only ones that pay for it, we’re not referral agents, we don’t collect referral fees, it’s just that one-time application fee and it’s a yearly subscription so it’ll renew a year later.
Justin: And you said as far as the people who are accessing the search, they’re not, you’re not collecting email addresses, names, nothing, you’re just searching whatever terms you want and you provide that.
Julie: Right, people for signup, they’ll signup online or on their phone and they’ll put that initial information in but every time they open that search again, they’re searching anonymously. So we are not tracking who is searching a specific place, you’ll show on the app how many times you’ve been searched, but we don’t know who’s searching you and that’s why it’s really important we teach the homes and the communities to really ask when that call comes in “how did you find out about us?” you know we provide marketing materials for the homes in the communities, let everybody know ‘hey, you don’t have to call me, you don’t have to text me to find out what we have open, just look on the Real Time app,” but really to ask because if someone calls and says ‘hey, you know I want to come and see your room that’s $3500.’ There is nowhere that anyone will ever find that information except through the Real Time app. So unless someone’s called you or knows you, or is a friend or family that knows you have that room open, this is the only place that you can find that live active data of what’s really available.
Justin: I think that the big benefit to someone using the app, because then they know that if you’re not collecting the information, you can’t sell the information, they’re going to get called by every people, every facility that has an open bad half, it’s like you’re looking you know.
Julie: Right, right, and that decision had to be made in the beginning of how this was going to look, there was a few decisions that were really big decisions of what are we really going to do to be the most beneficial and we know when people search online and they happen to get pulled into some of those online websites that are for looking for senior living or assisted living, that people have to put their information, email address, phone numbers, names, in there to be able to be contacted, but then again that contact starts from those online web directories. So we don’t do that, we let people search from their terms in their time for what they want to find.
Justin: Good, do you want to talk a little bit, I know we’ve, in conversation have mentioned some of the changes at least here in Arizona regarding how placement agents work, the laws, the ones that just came in, I believe it was 2592 or 2595, and the new one that has been proposed, 2601, can you talk about that briefly?
Julie: Well, and I’m not completely fluent on all of the laws, I know the ones that passed last year and I think it’s that 2592 or whatever the number is. Where it comes into the piece of disclosure, so when online directories where thet information’s out there, that it’s a free service to be placed. It’s free to the families using that referral company, but the referral companies like some of these online directories charge that home or community for that placement. So it ends up coming from the home or community to pay for that placements, so it’s free to the family, it’s not free to that facility, they have to pay for that person for that placement fee. So some of the pieces that are going on is really that disclosure, that first law talked about having that referral company disclosed to the family how much they’re collecting for that placement. And there’s other laws that are in the works where it really starts kind of bringing a little bit of regulation into the industry, there’s some amazing referral agents you know that we have here in Arizona and were heading into other states already, in California we’re heading to Colorado in the North-West, they do a great service, great, great service. And like any other businesses, there’s fees that are collected. But that piece of transparency needs to be there that it really isn’t a free service, it is for the family but in the long run that home or community do have to pay something for that referral to come in. So I think it’s helpful as some of these groups including some of our local referral agent groups like passers, and now it’s NPRA where they’re really working to have transparency and have honesty and ethics really be a part of what they’re doing because they provide a great service and they help folks with maybe coming in from out of town for families, and there might need to be hand holding, taking them home and stuffs, so they provide a great service. But there’s a lot of people that just want to find out on their own or like when we have hospital discharge planners or fiduciaries search on their own to find something faster for someone, so all of that works together really to help the families find the best place for them to go.
Justin: And then was there with the new one, the 2601, was there more than that? I mean are they? It’s on their mind, the legislators, at least here in Arizona, it’s on their minds, they’re looking at this industry and make something needs to be done.
Julie: There is something that popped up and I don’t remember the numbers but it popped up the first week or two in January and I believe it was the house representatives, but there is even more criteria that they wanted to pass in regards to this industry and I think a part of it had to be also with the referral companies having to make sure they’ve actually visited the homes that they’re sending people to place, I know there’s 4, 5 pieces of information in that bill that they want to pass, so it really just, it helps everyone in the long run having more regulation to help people across the board, I think it really supports and protects the residents and the families, just in all aspects and in it protects the referral companies as well with what’s going on.
Justin: It prevents them from bad, bad actors that might help either get them get out of business or clean up so they’re not having to compete with those people who aren’t abiding by the same world ethical standards that they would be.
Julie: Yeah, maybe.
Justin: Maybe?
Julie: Yeah. Maybe.
Justin: Hopefully.
Julie: Who knows?
Justin: Looking at the future, I know I’ve seen some of the information that you put out there, where does Real Time go from here? What else are you looking expanding into?
Julie: So we have the ability to expand across the US, we have access to the whole US database so we can step into any state and create the same search base and facility in home base in any state. Some of the request that we’ve had as we talk to emergency professionals is adding sober living and behavioural homes. So we’re adding that, we’ll be doing a platform enhancement midyear where we’ll be adding on behavioural/sober living and then another piece, I mean senior living is a pretty decent size industry and there’s a lot of seniors services out there like home health, hospice, fiduciaries, elder law attorneys, there’s a lot of businesses out there that also want to be seen and be able to be utilize, so we’re going to be adding a business search platform, so not only when someone might be looking for a care home or community, they may need a real estate agent now because they have to sell their home. Or they may need an elder law attorney to do their paperwork or a power of attorney. So folks would be able to search the communities in care homes and the businesses at the same time so everything will be at their fingertips and I think what’s just so cool about all of these is it’s live and active. So if you have a periodical or a magazine or a newspaper that’s done an advertisement, as soon as that’s printed, it’s out of date. That information is out of date. And it can be pretty expensive. So this is something that’s working for our homes and communities and in the future our business is 24/7, so people would be able to search in an area whatever their needs are and directly connect with them through a phone call, brick and mortar or to the person if they’re a value wide, and then also map and driving directions. So we’ll get them and narrow down that search for the business, let’s say in the West Valley they’re looking for a facility or care home, that real estate agent, elder law attorney, everyone in that area that fits that criteria will also pop up. So we’re saving everybody time by putting everything in one place for them.
Justin: That is going to be a big addition because I think a lot of people like you said, it’s event driven and you don’t know what you need until you need it, and then when the event comes, it may not just be rehab or assisted living, it may be a lot of things, it’ll be trust the attorneys, the services, not just the help but all the other, they may have end up living on their own for too long and they need to trash out on how because you’ve mentioned a real estate agent to sell it, there’s so many things that until that event happen.
Julie: Right, moving companies. You know all of those things and I go out and speak all the time especially to younger folks going ‘you need to get your affairs in order.’ I can’t remember the percentages but it’s something like 75% of folks over 75 haven’t even done their power of attorneys or their wills or DNRs. And I just go out and talk to people going ‘we’re all going to get there someday, we’re all going to be there. And if you haven’t gone out and looked, or you haven’t made a decision or you don’t have your affairs in order and something happens, someone else is going to make that decision for you, whether it’s your kids, whether it’s a fiduciary, whoever is in your life at that time, someone’s going to make that decision so get your paperwork in order, get that power of attorney done, make sure your DNR is done if you want that, get that done and then go visit homes and communities and know yourself, who are you, what do you like to do, who have I been my whole life, where would I like to be? And then have that information there for your kids, your family just in case. Just in case. We say our prayers that it never happens but just in case have those things done, because at some point we are all going to be there, you might as well do it now.
Justin: Be prepared. That’s boys scouts, that’s what I learned in boys scouts.
Julie: Yeah. Be prepared, that’s right.
Justin: Is there anything else as far as the app goes that we haven’t covered yet that you think is important?
Julie: I think the homes in the communities really need to realized that this is a different way of being visible, the way things have always been done have worked to a degree but now we have an industry and a time coming in where it’s becoming really competitive and you really need to do everything you can to set yourself apart and be different from what’s actually happening and that’s something that the app really does. You’re now getting yourself more visible, you’re helping market yourself in a different way, so when they look at their marketing strategies of how they get their word out, or how they let people know that they have availability, they really need to do everything thing they can to create a spot for themselves to be more visible, and that’s something that we really do with the apps, so I think a lot of it is check it out, go online, go to realtimeseniorliving.com, look at how the search app works, let us know if you want to be a new community or facility on the app and we can help you walk through that. But it’s the type of marketing that is the way of the future but it’s actually now, so people can search now at their fingertips and find you where you were never visible before.
Justin: One last question. From the conversations, the limited conversations that I’ve had with you and following you on the various platforms that I have, social media and whatnot, you seem to be a very positive person, how do you maintain that and where is that coming from?
Julie: The positivity? Well I’ve always been a super happy positive person, that’s kind of, that’s just kind of been there. My faith has a lot to do with it, I believe that God’s taking care of everything and guides us through the right direction, and I think, I just see life as being the glass is half full, or always full, and it’s like you’re going to drink a little bit but you’re going to refill it, and I think you have that choice, in life you have the choice to be positive or negative, and I chose to be happy. I chose to be happy, I chose to be positive, I chose to love people and take care of people. So I think it’s kind of comes from there.
Justin: Love it.
Julie: I chose to be positive.
Justin: Is there any information that you want to provide as far as contact information, what’s the best way to get hold of you?
Julie: Me specifically? I’m at jwentz@realtimeseniorliving.com, it’s J-W-E-N-T-Z at realtime SL dot com, they can go to the website, they can contact us through there, there’s a contact us page, there’s a phone number, it’s pretty easy to get a hold of us but they can just go to the apps store as well and download the free search app whether it’s Google Play or the iTunes store, just look for Real Time Search and Real Time Senior Living Facility app. One’s green and blue for the communities and the care home and then the other search one is orange.
Justin: Julie thank you for your time today, you have a lot of good information, I think this app will help a lot of people and hopefully as you continue to grow and to get the word out that it’s just going to create a snowball that will be able to put this information into the referring people professionals and families able to find the best place for them to get care for their loved ones and soon services for the seniors. So thank you for your time today.
Julie: Thank you for having me, appreciate it.
Outro: We really appreciate Julie Wentz coming and spending time with us today and telling us all about Real Time Senior Living. It is going to be a game changer in this industry, and if you would like to check it out, go to your preferred play store app, and it’s a free download and you can get an idea of the different ways that you can search for facilities for your loved ones.