In this episode of The Roots Podcast by 12 Oaks, host Greg Puklicz, President of 12 Oaks, sits down with Chief Revenue Officer Aaron Catoe to explore the evolving role of the CRO in today’s senior living landscape. Together, they dive into the strategies behind driving sustainable growth, optimizing team performance, and achieving and maintaining 90% occupancy across communities.
From the power of emotional intelligence and relational dynamics to the importance of aligning leadership with operational excellence, this episode offers practical insights and a deeper look into the leadership mindset that fuels success at 12 Oaks.
Produced by Solinity Marketing.
Intro 00:00
You’re listening to The Roots Podcast by 12 Oaks, where we’ll be joined by industry leaders to discuss and highlight the character, competency and care that is required to successfully manage senior living portfolios.
Greg 00:14
Well hello again. It’s Greg Puklicz of 12 Oaks Senior Living, and welcome to The Roots Podcast. I’m glad to be back with you. We’ve had some guest hosts here recently. And I’ve let others sit in the host chair. And I hope you’ve been watching and keeping up with all those podcasts. They’ve been some really good content and material there from my colleagues here at 12 Oaks Senior Living. I’m back in the host chair. And as I come back in, I’m here with one of my most favorite guests, the esteemed Aaron Catoe. Aaron, welcome once again to The Roots Podcast.
Aaron 00:56
And once again, it is an honor and pleasure to be here. Thank you, Greg, and very excited about this.
Greg 01:01
You bet. So since we last talked on The Roots Podcast, there’s been big news here at 12 Oaks and big news for Aaron Catoe, as you’ve recently been installed as the Chief Revenue Officer of 12 Oaks Senior Living. So congratulations.
Aaron 01:21
I will receive that, thank you. Very honored to be here and have that title as well.
Greg 01:25
So tell us, I guess maybe first of all, about your journey. What got you here? How did you get here?
Aaron 01:35
That is a long journey. However, let me summarize. Through on site roles, I had many mentors and coaches and people that developed, poured into the skill sets that I listened to, received and employed and practiced and moved from on site type roles, to corporate roles. Selling nature and of operations, nature and some of care nature and some of HR nature. So many, many hats over the career tenure and through all those experiences, I think it culminated and came together in the CRO role or a Chief Revenue Officer role. And, it’s important to me to note that in that role it’s amazing. But I think one of the biggest influencers is through trusted partners and executive coaches that I’ve utilized throughout the years. In any C-suite role, I think it’s very important that people carry who they are, their identity if you want to say that, into the role versus following that setting, the identity for you. For example, the Chief Revenue Officer role and this case at 12 Oaks is hugely focused on and restoration of properties, restoration of occupancy, restoration of revenue, all sorts of distressed assets and all sorts of great assets to maximize their potential. And it’s like a restoration role that I bring of who I am, and it’s expressed through that role. It’s very amazing the coaching I’ve received in the past.
Greg 03:19
Good. No, that’s a great explanation, great journey. And you’re what? I heard recently in your 20th year at 12 Oaks Senior Living?
Aaron 03:29
20th year, two stints and a combined 20 years.
Greg 03:32
There you go. Awesome. To help educate our listeners, not that they need education. They’re some of the most highly educated and sophisticated people I know. What is a CRO exactly? And what is the role and function of a CRO in a senior living company?
Aaron 03:51
Let’s break it into two components that really helps the goal. The goal of a Chief Revenue Officer role is to maximize the revenue of a given property in its market area. So that’s the goal is to maximize revenue. Now I want to break two components that I’ve spoken to before. There’s a difference in purpose and goal. Like when a family unit or parents send a child to college or a young adult to college, their purpose is for that young man or woman to learn social interactions, emotional intelligence, and academic excellence. That’s their purpose. Now, their goal is for that person that is graduating to get off the payroll. And so there’s a difference between purpose and goal, which I’m sure that resonates with those that have children in college. With that, the goal of the CRO is to maximize the revenue in a given area, right?
Now, the purpose is completely different than that. It’s how the goal’s accomplished. The purpose is maximizing development, executive directors and leasing staff and all people that influence that revenue capture on a property. That’s a huge purpose of it. And that’s done in different ways that we can talk about as well. It’s development of processes and understanding and data driven decisions and analysis. That’s another purpose of the role, also.
And then third is the employee and oversee redirection that may need to be done to have people be back on track or help get the property back on track. So that’s the difference in purpose and goal. And I really like those delineations that help others and myself understand the role.
Greg 05:33
I guess to get a little more granular, particularly as it applies to the role here at 12 Old Senior Living, how do you see the role serving the needs of the communities of our investor clients of all our trusted partners?
Aaron 05:40
Okay. Yeah. So, as we worked together for years, I liked seeing things through lenses. So specifically, through investor partners and through other stakeholders from a financial lens, so to speak. The CRO role’s, very specific. I don’t want to call it niche, but it’s specific, is we have traditional Chief Operating Officer roles that are very consumed and very busy and very talented in handling urgent items and staffing and expense control and sometimes capital projects. And then we can break out the revenue generation side, which is also very specific in nature, and it deals with some urgency as well. Like we want to act urgently, like in response to prospects and family members. We want urgency in that, but we also want an important focus. But things that aren’t pressing upon us that we can sit and think and plan and analyze, and that CRO role is very beneficial to the investor side and to the stakeholder side as it protects time to really analyze without the other factors pulling on a traditional CRO role. And so it’s very beneficial because it allows us to really maximize and make efforts and adjustments intentionally, but with intentionality so that we can maximize the revenue in a property. And then comes the component of expense control and efficiencies. And so I think that’s how it really impacts in a favorable manner from an investor lens.
Greg 07:30
Looking at the 12 Oaks portfolio, what do you see as specific, either initiatives? Well let’s start with initiatives. So what things in your past few months now in the role, what initiatives do you see emerging for 12 Oaks.
Aaron 07:52
We see lots of opportunities and different ways as we analyze them. I was speaking with a group of folks yesterday that I think it’s a mistake amongst many corporations that when everything’s important, nothing’s important. And when we have so advanced measurements at 12 Oaks like many other operators do too. There’s so many gauges we can see and look at that we can be focused on everything, and it dilutes the main primary focus. From a revenue standpoint, from my lens, that would be occupancy growth and gain. So that is an initiative at 12 Oaks is that we can gain occupancy from where we are today and reach and knock on the door of a 90%, say, by year’s end. So that’s a huge initiative that we’ve undertaken and we can expand on.
Greg 08:47
And are there any things you’re doing now that you think are unique that set 12 Oaks apart? Vis-a-vis our marketing efforts, be it, in our actual means of marketing or in our selling techniques or in monitoring our sales efforts?
Aaron 09:07
There’s a number, but let’s focus on two, is one for you human behavior people on the ground, which I am one you will love this. We have really focused and honed in at 12 Oaks on the leasing staff and the executive directors in their ability to meet the demands of reality. Right? And the true reality, like in a leasing or in a selling zone where prospects aren’t just looking at what people refer to as bricks and mortar or just the asset of a property, or just the physical plant of a property, that is very important. You want cleanliness, you want things up to date, you want everything in that. But what we focus on with the sales staff is how to truly connect authentically with a prospect or influencer so that they can untangle emotional barriers that this person’s dealing with, whether that’s grief or shame or uncertainty or apprehension or anxiety or confusion, whatever it is that you can untangle that. And this is important, and also work and untangle with the prospect’s identity as it is changing from someone of career-based or a supporter or a leader as independent into a position of dependence. Hence the considering for a move. And that change in identity takes much skill and attunement and listening as someone helps as another metabolizes emotions and process that change of identity that’s occurring. And so an initiative and a process we’ve had for a long standing time at 12 Oaks is developing that skill set of someone to help another and counsel another and coach another through that process in change of emotional barriers and identity change as well. And so that’s something from a human behavior standpoint that really stands out at 12 Oaks that we’re doing that’s different than other operators.
Greg 11:13
In what ways have you been able to embrace technology? I keep hearing AI is going to save the world. So I’m wondering if AI is going to save revenue generation?
Aaron 11:27
Side note, any time I hear savior complex and Messiah complex, it’s something external is going to help us, I have hesitation now because through my own experience is it’s internal, that we’ve internalized things that had growth and development that have helped us. So anything external that makes it easy, I have great hesitation. However, I am an AI advocate and fan, and so I’ve got to integrate these two kind of opposing opinions that I have within myself and integrate these two things together.
We have looked at AI at a number of different areas, popular and unpopular, and something that we’re really focusing on now as an initiative, is the emergence of AI, whether it comes to search engines, namely, say, Google, where there’s generative optimization, engine optimization or GEO versus SEO that has been king for so long. And we love SEO and we want to focus on SEO, but now the search is being done through ChatGPT and other AI platforms. Hey, tell me the good assisted livings in the area, or tell me those with high rankings in Houston or Dallas, Texas, or whatever market it may be. And so we’re now looking at websites in development of how to attract AI and how for it to read favorably in a manner as people are increasingly using AI research that wasn’t done before. So it’s a huge initiative we’re undertaking as well.
Greg 13:01
As Chief Revenue Officer, how has the portfolio been performing? And have you seen improvements in occupancy and move in volume over the past few months?
Aaron 13:13
We have. We have and we’re very proud of this. Generally speaking, our entire net last year and measured in net units, we have surpassed that number at the end of May. And it appears and projects that we’re going to continue to surpass that and grow even in the upcoming months.
Greg 13:36
So you’re saying for the five months ended May 31st, we’ve had as many move-ins as we had for all of 2024?
Aaron 13:45
I’m saying we have had higher net volume, higher net volume. We haven’t had as many move-ins because we are comparing the whole 12 months. However, we’ve had more net volume in this year than we did in all of 2024 in the first five months, which is really, really amazing.
Greg 14:04
To what do you attribute that success?
Aaron 14:07
A couple of things. A) the intensity and increase of what I spoke to earlier when I said human behavior about a person’s ability to connect authentically, untangle and therefore advance the sale has been shifts in that which has had an impact. There’s also been shifts that we’ve seen and an increased volume of people’s willingness to tour. And when I say that specifically, if you have a baseline of your amount of qualified leads, that has remained relatively the same. But we’ve seen a large uptick or a large swing and people’s willingness to have an initial tour and come in to tour, and also an upswing in a person’s willingness to have re-tour as well. So those two metrics have really increased permitting our inquiry to move in and tour to move in ratio is also correspondingly increase with it.
Greg 15:05
Where do you see the next opportunities? Where is your focus going to be on revenue generation for the next few months?
Aaron 15:14
Probably in 2 to 3 key areas. Level of care is one, as we have a shift in our structure, a level of care that we can speak to, probably on a whole nother podcast, but also in good old fashioned staying on the main gauge of occupancy increase. It’s a huge opportunity. Any time we say we should be in a higher occupancy, this is important. Should is a funny thing? And people don’t like it when their should on. You know, it’s one of those things, Greg, that we say around 12 Oaks. And should is only applicable when everything is in place.
For example, if, let’s use a mechanics example, if I go out to the parking garage and I turn the key on my car and it doesn’t start it just clicks and I say my car should start, that’s incorrect. It should do exactly what it would do, because if it has a dead battery, it shouldn’t start. It should do exactly that: it should click when you hit the key. So it’s doing exactly what it should. So to say it should start is inaccurate. Now if everything is in place, the battery in place in your engines in tune, you should start and it will because everything’s in place.
So with occupancy gain when I say we should be higher, if I’m honest with myself and as a team and as a CRO, what is missing that’s prohibiting us from reaching that goal? Because it should be doing exactly what it’s doing today. And so when we look at that, we’ve looked at several traditional components and one as response time. And amongst the portfolio, we have some pretty decent response times. But, of the managed properties that we have, there’s about 6 or 7 that seem to be holding us back, you know, from reaching this goal with lower percentage averages. We’ve tried all sorts of things with department head coverage, with expanded hours, with push notification from our CRM to the sales staff and the ED, through the front desk monitoring. But no matter what, we’re still unable to cover all the days of the year and holidays and from early morning to late night. And so we’ve been looking at partnering with a call center, and we’ve had some real internal hesitancy because you have this image of a call center or like a boiler room somewhere and hard sales. But after interviewing a number of call centers, we’ve moved forward with one. And then we’re going to partner with a trusted partner as a trial for 6 or 7 properties that can cover 15 hours a day, and answer in 6 to 10 minutes versus, say, three hours. And I just can’t help but think that may not solve all our problems, but if we can answer in 6 to 10 minutes to someone that’s in a mindset searching for senior housing, that’s got to have a favorable impact and help our goal. So that’s been a huge component.
Greg 18:30
Listen, this has been a wonderful conversation. We’re really excited about you and tracking your continued success at 12 Oaks in this new role as CRO, Chief Revenue Officer. And, once again, enjoy having you on another podcast here at 12 Oaks on The Roots Podcast.
Aaron 15:52
The pleasure has been mine. Look forward to the next one.
Greg 18:54
All right. Well, thank you all for listening. I hope you enjoyed that little segment, and we’ll see you next time on The Roots Podcast. Brought to you by 12 Oaks Senior Living.
Outro
We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Roots podcast by 12 Oaks. Get connected with us on social media and at 12oaks.com.