Grow Your Occupancy

About Grow Your Occupancy

Don‘t sell yourself short. Find ways to optimize sales, improve customer experience, differentiate yourself in a competitive senior living, active adult, 55+ living market. Hear what your prospects, residents, influencers have to say. Learn from sales experts both in and out of the senior living business. Elevate sales processes, shorten sales cycle, become one of the top 10% in a growing industry. With staffing becoming as much of a concern as occupancy, guests who specialize in attracting talent, identifying talent, hiring, onboarding and retention will also be featured. Grow Your Occupancy podcast offers everything from sales coaching, the psychology of sales, the buying cycle, the complexity of the emotional sale, informative discussions, and casual, fun conversations. The senior living and active adult markets continue to explode. Are you ready to GROW?

Publisher

Julie Podewitz

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

31 Jan 2022

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

175 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Oct 2026

   Finish 2026 Strong by Building Trust & Strengthening Pipelines: Julie Talks With Allison Matthews

   What does it take to build and maintain a senior living sales pipeline that produces results today while creating momentum for the future? In this episode of The Grow Your Occupancy Podcast, host Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, welcomes Allison Matthews, Vice President of Strategic Growth at Grow Your Occupancy, for a conversation about relationships, nurturing, outreach, and sustainable sales growth. With more than two decades of experience in senior living, Allison has served in a variety of community, regional, and business development roles. She shares why one of the biggest opportunities for sales teams is learning how to effectively nurture prospects who may not be ready to make a decision today. Julie and Allison discuss the balance between achieving short-term sales goals and staying committed to families throughout their individual journeys. They explore why curiosity, patience, personalization, and consistent follow-up are essential for building the trust that ultimately drives decisions. They also look ahead to Q4 and the holiday season, including the importance of planning for sales coverage, maintaining activity when team members are away, and continuing to nurture prospects so communities enter the new year with momentum. The conversation then turns to outreach and business development, where Allison shares an important principle: bring value before you ask for anything. Successful referral relationships require research, personalization, consistency, and a genuine understanding of what matters to the person or organization you hope to partner with. In this episode, you’ll learn more about: Building a long-term prospect nurturing strategy Balancing immediate sales goals with relationship development Preparing your sales team for Q4 and holiday coverage Creating momentum heading into the new year Developing stronger referral-source relationships Personalizing business development outreach Building trust through consistent, value-driven communication Whether you lead a senior living sales team, work directly with prospects and families, or are responsible for business development and referral relationships, this episode offers practical ideas for creating stronger relationships and a stronger pipeline.

2. 

   1 Oct 2026

   How Primrose Retirement Communities Built a Sustainable Lead Referral Pipeline

   Professional referral sources are one of the most fruitful sources of senior living leads. When things get busy at the community, though, external business development often gets pushed down the list of priorities. In this episode of The Grow Your Occupancy Podcast, host Julie Podewitz, CEO & Founder of Grow Your Occupancy, welcomes Jessi Weldon, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Primrose Retirement Communities, and Amanda Daughters, Executive Vice President of Operations at Primrose Retirement Communities, for a candid conversation about building an outreach culture that produces measurable results. Jessi and Amanda share how Primrose transformed external business development from an “if I have time” activity into a non-negotiable part of its sales strategy, and why alignment between sales, operations, executive directors, and regional leadership is essential to making it work. Their conversation explores how Primrose establishes outreach expectations, measures face-to-face appointments and referred leads, coaches teams weekly, identifies the right referral partners for individual markets, and helps sales leaders build relationships beyond traditional hospital and healthcare sources. They also discuss why successful outreach can do much more than generate leads, it can strengthen programming, create community partnerships, support current residents, and connect senior living communities more deeply with the markets they serve. The results speak for themselves: referred leads represented about a quarter of Primrose’s leads last year, while nearly half of its move-ins came from referred sources. Julie and Jessi will continue the conversation at the 2026 SMASH Conference in Las Vegas in October during their educational session, “Beyond the Hospital: Diversifying Referral Sources for Sustainable Growth.” For senior living sales leaders, executive directors, operators, and regional teams looking to generate more organic referrals and create a sustainable outreach strategy, this episode offers practical lessons from an organization that has made business development part of its culture.

3. 

   2 Sept 2026

   The Coaching Mindset That Helps Senior Living Salespeople Grow: Julie Talks With Jeff Gronemeyer

   Host Julie Podewitz interviews Jeff Gronemeyer about cultivating a coaching mindset that empowers senior living salespeople through continuous learning and genuine discovery.

Who has been a guest on Grow Your Occupancy

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Jeff Gronemeyer
• Matt Kelley
• Sharon LaGaipa
• Susan Eakin
• Dan Covert

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

28,511

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

10 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 61 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

62

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

77

Contact Grow Your Occupancy

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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• 

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• 

  The Mel Robbins Podcast

Questions about Grow Your Occupancy