Tech Sales to Memory Care | Sam Markovich of Millennium Memory Care | The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast
- Acy Rodriguez
- 14 hours ago
- 30 min read
On this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast by Left Brain AI, we sit down with Sam Markovich, Head of Sales & Marketing at Millennium Memory Care, to explore how specialized Alzheimer’s and dementia care can transform crisis situations into compassionate, sustainable solutions.
With a background in tech sales and a passion for innovation, Sam shares how he helped grow occupancy from 62% to 96% in just over a year by combining modern marketing tactics with deep community relationships. We talk about the urgent reality of memory care admissions, why many facilities can’t handle severe behavioral cases, and the guarantees that set Millennium apart from others in the industry.
From battling stigma and misinformation to navigating hospital social worker turnover, Sam opens up about the unique challenges of elder care, and his ambitious goal to bring Millennium’s model to every state in America.
Whether you’re in healthcare, marketing, or leadership, this conversation is full of practical insights on scaling a mission-driven business while staying rooted in empathy and operational excellence.
Full transcript below.
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⏱ In this episode, we discuss:
00:00 – Intro
00:20 – Meet Sam Markovich & Millennium Memory Care
01:25 – From Tech Sales to Healthcare
02:16 – Growing Occupancy from 62% to 96%
04:06 – Balancing Growth with Compassionate Care
05:25 – Specializing in Severe Behavioral Cases
06:19 – Learning the Industry Through Networking
07:19 – Expansion Plans & Industry Insights
08:25 – B2B2C Marketing in Elder Care
09:53 – Working with Hospital Social Workers
13:39 – Emergency Admissions & Crisis Scenarios
15:29 – Combating Stigma & Misinformation
17:06 – The Guarantees That Set Millennium Apart
19:21 – Common Misconceptions in Memory Care
21:02 – Simplifying Pricing & Care Levels
22:03 – Experimenting with AI Chatbots for Lead Gen
23:52 – The Challenge of Digital Targeting for Seniors
25:31 – Future Marketing Plans & Tools
27:33 – Ideal Sales & Marketing Ecosystem
29:31 – Lead Quality: Google vs. Referral Networks
31:23 – Nationwide Expansion Goals
34:03 – Why Florida is the Next Location
35:49 – Navigating State Regulations & Quality Control
36:19 – Getting Certified to Work Alongside Staff
37:34 – The Role of AI in Care & Operations
39:01 – Where to Find Millennium Memory Care
🔗 Sam Markovich
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammarkovich/
Millennium Memory Care
📞 732-523-5797
Website → https://millenniummemorycare.com
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Episode Full Transcript:
Kyle: Welcome, everyone, to The Brainiac Blueprint. Today’s podcast is part of our healthcare series. We’re joined by Sam Markovich, Head of Sales and Marketing at Millennium Memory Care. They’re committed to providing individualized care for residents that have Alzheimer’s disease and other memory care needs. You can check them out at millenniummemorycare.com. How’s it going, Sam?
Sam: Good, good. How are you, Kyle? Thanks for having me.
Kyle: Yeah, of course. I’m excited for us to have this conversation, kick things off, and talk good stuff about healthcare. I think you guys have a very interesting and unique role in healthcare. We talked a bit about how you have some competitive advantages based on who you treat and how specialized you are. But before we jump into that, I’d love for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little about you and your experience.
Sam: Definitely appreciate it. I’m Sam Markovich, Head of Sales and Marketing for Millennium Memory Care. Millennium was founded by my mom, Galena, about twelve or thirteen years ago in New Jersey. She started with one location and has grown it to six, all in the state.
I grew up in Jersey and went to Montclair State University. I primarily worked in the tech industry for about eight or nine years. About a year ago, I quit my job in tech to come work with my mom and help grow Millennium, spread the mission, and provide care for people who need it most.
I’ve been here about a year and a half now, learning a lot about healthcare and specifically Alzheimer’s and dementia, which I didn’t know much about before. It’s been a hell of a ride, but awesome.
Kyle: That’s awesome. When you and I were chatting, you mentioned that when you took over, you were around 62% occupancy and have grown to 96%. That’s almost full - clear success right there. Can you tie that to any specific initiatives or channels that helped you grow?
Sam: It’s been pretty challenging because when I came in, I didn’t know the business. I only knew what my mom had told me over the years. I didn’t know about healthcare sales or memory care. My mom basically put me through a crash course on the business and how to develop leads, build relationships, and earn the trust of consumers and social workers who make referrals.
For the first few months, I was grinding - calling people, building lists, doing digital marketing, things like that. I think the people who did this before me weren’t really innovating. Coming from tech, I was used to faster, modern systems. I’d worked my way from SDR to account executive, so I already had sales skills that transferred well.
At the end of the day, sales is about talking to people, understanding their problems, and providing solutions. I think the combination of my sales skills and bringing in a more modern approach helped a lot. In about eight or nine months, we got to 96%. It's tough because there's a lot of turnover. You know, unfortunately, we work with a lot of people that whose health conditions aren't that great. So it's kind of always a race of saying, hey, you know, how many beds can we fill? And obviously, how long can we prolong people's life to make sure that they receive the best quality of life?
Kyle: Healthcare is always such an interesting topic for me in terms of marketing, because kind of like you mentioned, there's turnover and unfortunately, I think that turnover a lot of times means death. Right. And so it's weird to kind of be, you know, doing marketing and hoping to grow a business. But in the end, you are providing a service for people. Right. You are helping them. Them getting into your facility is a good thing for them. So I'm wondering if you kind of have a balance like that in your head that you think about at all.
Sam: Yeah, definitely. The thing is, what makes Millennium so unique compared to other assisted livings and memory cares is a lot of people, unfortunately, most of the calls that we get are crisis. So a lot of the calls that we get are someone saying, hey, you know, my loved one had an accident at home, or my loved one ended up in the hospital, we need a memory care solution, and we need to move in tomorrow. So we are able to help them and get them into our Millennium Memory Care facilities. But at the end of the day, you know, we understand that people are in crisis and they need something.
Because we specialize in behavior specifically and no one else can do that, a lot of the times people are struggling to find placement for their loved ones. And so when they come across us, they see that we specialize in the behaviors. It's very easy for us to help them. And a lot of the times when they come in and see our facilities, it's pretty much, you know, they've made the decision on the spot. So it's very different compared to selling software.
Kyle: 100%. 100%. Yeah, it's an interesting challenge. I'm sure you're not the only person that's in your boat or in your shoes that jumps into a new industry and has to learn a lot really quickly. So I was wondering if there's any kind of a tool, maybe it's an influencer or something like that that you use to kind of help get you up to speed or at least stay in the front of the industry to kind of keep your knowledge fresh and anything like that. Is there a regular source that you have?
Sam: Yeah, I mean, a lot of what I've come to learn about the industry specifically, like senior living, is a lot of it is networking based and relationship based. And it is the same true in like software and advertising, which I used to do before. But the community of people that work in senior living, they're super friendly and they're super open to network.
I've been going to a lot of networking events. The thing is it's hard because I'm one person and I cover the entire state of New Jersey. So we have different communities in different towns and all of those towns have specific networking meetings and stuff like that. So I'm always kind of trying to branch out and try to go to those people.
I have seen some influencers. There are some dementia and Alzheimer's influencers, primarily caregivers. So people that, you know, kind of document their journey of taking care of their parents or spouses and something like that. And so I've tried to collaborate with a few of them and I've spoken to them and they're based all over the country, which is pretty interesting because my goal with Millennium is to expand Millennium to be in every state in America.
While that is hard to do, I'm always curious to see if there are other places like Millennium that exist in other parts of the country. Because we service New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, very rarely Connecticut. But curious if there's something in Florida or Texas or California or another state. And so honestly, just also reading about the news and innovations in dementia, because I know dementia is a big issue.
You know, I guess, illness that is trying to be cured. And there's drugs that are coming out that are helping people with dementia and stuff like that. So it's always kind of staying in touch with everything and meeting new people and talking to them.
Kyle: Expanding to every state. That's a big lofty goal. I love to hear it. That's awesome. That's awesome.
Well, cool. So you mentioned the network of people and how you lean on them and kind of talk to them to kind of share ideas and see how you can service your patients. When you and I first connected, we talked about how you guys work with social workers a lot and different hospitals and how your approach is kind of a B2B2C. So, you know, you partner up with these hospitals and then you get the actual patient.
But there's a lot of high turnover in social work and hospitals. So it's hard to have those long term relationships and partnerships. So I was just curious, you know, if you have anything going on right now that helps you to overcome this issue, is there something that you have on the horizon that you're trying to put in place? And is this something that's common with other similar facilities that are in like elder care and things like that? Is that a common issue that people have to deal with?
Sam: Yeah, I think it definitely is a pretty common issue. And the difficult part about it is actually even getting in contact with them sometimes because social workers, and I didn't realize this until I started working for Millennium, is they are some of the busiest people I've ever seen in my life. So it's like so hard to reach someone that's constantly so busy and someone that's constantly not at their desk.
And so the turnover is pretty big. I don't know why. And I've tried to kind of look into it, but I haven't really been able to find a specific reason for why the turnover is so high. But yeah, our business depends on a referral network of social workers. The reason is, is because it's a win-win for all of us. If somebody ends up in the hospital, there's a chance that they will have to go home at some point, right? And so in most cases, the insurance company pays for a certain stay in the hospital. And after that, families are paying out of pocket. Not everybody has enough money to keep their loved ones in a hospital. So we try to work with social workers to make the discharge process as smooth as possible. It's very different when I contact a social worker because I'm not trying to sell them something. I'm trying to say, hey, here's how we can help you. And so in some cases, it's been successful where we've developed relationships with hospitals. But unfortunately, because of the high turnover, they completely rotate their staff every six, seven months. And then I have to go through that same cycle over and over and over again.
So that's been a big challenge and specifically just finding their contact info, getting in contact with them, scheduling a presentation with them. I feel like after COVID a lot has changed in terms of accessibility to these hospitals. My mom was telling me that when she first started Millennium, she would just be able to walk into a hospital without an appointment and go up to this office of the social workers and speak to them.
I have never been able to do that. And I have traveled to a lot of hospitals and I get stopped every time in the security at the lobby. So I think the dynamic of actually entering the hospital and getting in contact with them has changed dramatically since COVID.
Kyle: That's interesting. Yeah, I never really thought about that. But COVID has changed everything. So I'm not surprised.
So you kind of touched on something that I was thinking about. You know, I think we all would like to have a warm, rosy feeling and think that, you know, all social workers are angels and do it because they care about people. And I think most of them do. But, you know, they still have to go out of their way to establish this partnership with you and make that referral and that transition. So, you know, why would a social worker do that?
Is there a benefit for them for having this relationship with you or other facilities? Or is it really just hoping that they want to actually take care of their patient and that you guys provide good care so they want you to be that next step?
Sam: Yeah, I think it's both. Having us be kind of a resource for social workers is great for everybody. It's great for the social workers because they are able to conduct a smooth discharge process and not put a family in crisis and having to spend a lot more money to stay in the hospital. It's good for us because it guarantees us another resident and somebody that we can obviously take in and care for and make sure that they're getting better quality of care than they would be at the hospital.
The other part is it makes the family happy because now the family has an option of where to send somebody. Our goal is not to compete with other memory care and senior living facilities. Our goal is to work together with them and say, hey, we're a resource to you and the social workers at the hospital because we will accept people that you cannot accept, meaning that they have serious behaviors, they have other psych issues like schizophrenia, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, anything like that. That is our kind of bread and butter. So, a lot of the times the way the process works is somebody ends up in the hospital and the social worker is looking to discharge them. The social worker will start recommending options to the family. Hey, you should check out Millennium or hey, you should check out this other memory care facility. But the issue runs into that no one can accept this patient. So the social worker is stuck making these calls, wasting their time and getting the same answer over and over and over again. If they call them in the beginning, we can take them. It's a done deal. The social worker looks good. The person gets the best care and the family's happy.
Kyle: That's incredible. Good stuff. Good stuff. I don't want to put you on the spot here or, you know, obviously with HIPAA, you can't use PII, any identifiable information, but I'm wondering if you have any kind of a great story, a testimonial or anything like that that may have happened with a social worker was in a tough spot and they got in contact with you and now this person is, for lack of a better word, thriving, if that is such a thing. I'm wondering if there is kind of a really nice story there that you can think of off the top of your head.
Sam: Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch. You know, the kind of the worst case I think that we were able to help out is there was someone that was basically bouncing around between the regular hospital and the psych hospital. So I didn't mention this earlier, but if a social worker is not able to place somebody in our facility, and let's say this person has behaviors to a point where the actual hospital can't manage them. The next step is to send them to a psychiatric hospital. Now, the psychiatric hospital is something that we try to avoid at all times. We do not want people to go there because we can take them.
But we have gotten a few cases, specifically this one case that I want to tell you about, where this woman was basically going from psych hospital back to normal hospital, back to the psych hospital, back to normal hospital over the course of, five, six months. And unfortunately we were not aware and no one was able to reach us. And then the only way that we were able to get in contact with them was because the one social worker that was assigned to handle her when she came back to the hospital knew me. And she called me and said, Hey, this is the situation, you know, and I spoke to the family and the family was very emotional and saying, you know, we're done, we're tired. We want my mom to get the best care. What can we do? And we were able to get her out of the psych hospital immediately after get her into our facility.
So a lot of cases that we have are very similar to that. You know, we do get cases sometimes where someone's like, Hey, I'm kind of exploring my options, stuff like that. But I would say about 85 to 90% of our cases are emergencies. And unfortunately, that's the nature of the business.
Kyle: It's crazy stuff to think about. You know, I think you kind of touched on a point that I wanted to bring up. You know, there's a lot of crisis. There's a lot of emergency. There's frustration in having to figure it out. And I think that there's a lot of stigma that comes with, you know, these kind of cases and patients.
And, you know, I whenever I do a health care marketing campaign, there's kind of three questions that I try to answer and build my strategy off of. One is, you know, what is wrong with me or what is the condition that I have. Two, how are you the facility going to treat me? And three, how am I going to pay for it?
And I think if you answer those three questions, you're able to alleviate some fear, some uncertainty, some frustration that these users may have, whether it's the end patient or the decision makers and caretakers for them. So I'm curious how you currently think about the stigma and your marketing and how you try to counteract any misinformation that might be out there when you're dealing with people that might need your services.
Sam: Yeah, it's a really good question. There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of stigma associated with memory care. When a lot of people call us, like I said earlier, they are in crisis. So they're a little emotional and they kind of are turning to us when they have no other option, right? Like I also said earlier, our goal is not to compete with other memory care facilities. So when I speak to families, I am very upfront and truthful when I tell them, you know, this is what you'll get with Millennium and this is what you'll get with the other options that you're considering.
My goal is not to bad mouth or say anything negative about other senior living facilities because I have very good relationships with a lot of them. I've been there, I've seen them, and I understand the type of care that they provide versus the type of care that we provide. When somebody calls me and says, my loved one has behaviors, my loved one is a fall risk or any other of those issues, I will do my best to try to show them why Millennium is the actual best fit. The reason why we are the best fit is because we have guarantees that other facilities don't have.
The first guarantee is that we will never hospitalize somebody for behavioral issues. A lot of times what happens and you know, it's not I don't want to say it's their fault, but it's because of how these other facilities operate. Their staff is not equipped to handle those types of cases. So if somebody is being behavioral, a lot of the times they will just send them to the hospital and then the hospital will send them back.
The other thing we guarantee families is that we will take anybody no matter how severe their behaviors are. So a lot of times places require an evaluation to see how behavioral is this person. Can we work with them? Some places will straight up say, no, we cannot take this person. You need to find another option. Some places will take them knowing that they have behaviors, get four or five months of money out of the family, and then force them to either hire one-on-one help, pay for medication management, or just remove them from the facility altogether.
If somebody comes to me and says, "Hey, my mom has super great cognitive function and her dementia is very mild. She just needs help with taking meds and going to the bathroom." I wouldn't say Millennium is the best fit for her. And I would tell people out on the phone and I would make a referral to another assisted living facility that I know personally. That I know can guarantee that good quality of care. So that's kind of some of the different things I try to explain to families and kind of guide them into making the right decision. My goal is not to force them to do anything or to say, you know, we're better than everybody else because of X, Y, and Z. My goal at the end of the day is to provide the best possible care, whether it's Millennium or something else.
Kyle: Those guarantees are powerful. I'm sure that resonates with a lot of people when you can say, you know, X, Y, and Z and truly deliver on it. That's some great stuff.
I'm curious if there's, you know, we talked about misinformation for a second there. I'm curious if there is something that you see, you know, one or two things that are common misconceptions or misinformation that you see out there a lot. And if you have a viewpoint or a dispelling of any of those, you know, misinformation that are out there.
Sam: Yeah, a lot of misinformation comes specifically with the behavioral piece because a lot of the times, you know, they also have that. So when they see somebody and they do an evaluation and they see some red flags, in some cases, they won't be completely upfront with the families. But it also goes both ways because some families are afraid to admit that this person has behaviors because of the fact that they might not get accepted or might have to pay extra and stuff like that.
So it works both ways. And so when I speak to families, I say, I want you to be as truthful and honest with me as possible. Tell me everything. How bad is it? Like, I want to hear it, right? You tell me the truth, I can help you. I can help guide you and say the millennium is the place or the millennium is not the place. The other thing is something called levels of care. So while this isn't, I guess, necessarily misinformation, it's kind of confusing, right? So what a level of care is, is when somebody goes to a senior living facility, they have usually between three and four levels. Level one being the smallest possible, doesn't need a lot of help type of care versus level four saying this person needs one-on-one supervision. They need to have eyes on them. They need help with going to the bathroom, showering, bathing, everything. Millennium doesn't have that.
So a lot of the times we have like all inclusive pricing. So the price that I give you on the phone is the price that you pay, no matter how much care your loved one needs in the future. A lot of facilities have levels of care. So you may start at one price and then over time you may go up an extra four or five, six grand a month based on the level of care that your loved one needs. So that's kind of a lot of people don't understand that.
In the beginning, and then they get very upset when they get hit with a bill that's $4,000 more than what they paid last month, because of the type of care that's required. So I also try to explain that when I speak to people. But you know, some of those things that I mentioned, I think are the biggest kind of misconceptions and misinformation that's out there. And it's kind of my job to help combat that.
Kyle: That's great stuff. I mean, again, I feel like when you can make things simple and you eliminate these levels and just say like, look, we're here, you know, we're either, yes, the best option for you or we're not the best option for you. That just eliminates that frustration from the family and the people that are making this decision. That's that seems so simple to me. That's awesome.
Cool. So, you know, I want to pivot quickly. You know, again, we are a an AI service and an AI agency. And when you and I connected, we did talk a little bit about marketing and sales. And obviously, that's that's your role at Millennium. You had mentioned that you were testing out a chat bot.
So I wanted to kind of just dive into that a little bit, kind of understand if there's a specific tool that you're using, did you buy it or build it, and kind of wondering what you're trying to accomplish with this chatbot and what issues you're running into. Because I think you mentioned it isn't quite dialed into what you want it to be just yet.
Sam: Yeah. So a big thing that I did try to focus on, especially when I first started working for Millennium, is implementing tools that can help me do digital marketing and sales better. Right. Coming from a company that where I sold software, you know, we worked at a large company. We had a lot of tools like Outreach, Apollo, you know, all these different types of tools that can allow you to optimize sending emails, follow up, stuff like that.
I tried to do that for Millennium in the beginning. It's a little hard to do it for us because we're kind of in the middle of like super small business versus large company. Um, and we don't have a lot of employees, um, outreach. I don't know if you're familiar with outreach, um, but it's a, it's a great tool, right? I use it at every company I worked at. Um, they don't have single seats anymore, which sucks, um, because I would a hundred percent sign up for it. I think it's an awesome tool. And I can't afford to pay for five seats that are not being used by four other people. So I did a lot of research when I first started and kind of fizzled out, but then I started looking back into it. Our biggest problem is leads.
So, you know, we do have some operational issues, but I don't really focus on those. But from my perspective, our biggest issue is leads basically getting in front of the right people at the right time, whether it's the social workers that we talked about earlier, whether it's people that are on Google looking for memory care, if they're in crisis, social media, podcasts, magazines, you know, whatever it is. Right.
I also noticed that we did get a lot of visitors on our website. Thousands of people are seeing our site, but it's not converting to people filling out an inquiry form or calling our number. So I figured, I went on our competition and some other senior living facilities and saw that they all have these AI chatbots that can interact with people and lead to a meeting. So I found this company that actually cold called me.
One of their SDRs called me and I thought it sounded great. So I'm currently doing a free trial with them. Unfortunately, I'm not too happy with it just because of maybe the results that I'm getting because we've actually gotten less results, less leads since we implemented this chatbot because we removed the contact form from our website and replaced it with this. It's actually very difficult to target specific people because sometimes it's much easier to target someone that's maybe 21, 22, 23 versus someone that's 75, specifically on the Internet, because these people are not really on the Internet and they're not great with technology. So how do you do that? That's our biggest problem right now. And something that if we were to find the right AI tool, we would 100 percent do it because it's so difficult to target that population.
Kyle: That makes total sense. So I'm wondering, you know, that's a very clear and defined obstacle that you are trying to overcome right now. So I'm curious if you have anything on the plan or on the horizon that you're investigating or you want to test or anything like that, that, you know, whether it's providing a better experience and more leads on the website or targeting these 75 year old people or anything in between. I'm curious as to, you know, what's what's on the horizon for you.
Sam: Yeah, so I did try this company. There's a company called Vibe. It's a pretty brand new company. I found them actually on Reddit, and I was communicating with the CEO of the company. Vibe. V-I-B-E. Well, basically it's like commercials, like TV commercials, specifically for like streaming networks. So it's a cheaper way for you to kind of build a commercial and advertise through streaming networks like Hulu, Netflix, HBO, stuff like that.
And we tried to campaign with them. It didn't work as well as I intended to, but I understand why. And I think it's because of the hyper targeting, you know, versus targeting everybody in that population. It doesn't really make sense. It makes sense for us to target people that have somebody that has Alzheimer's and dementia.
So a lot of the times something that we've been doing is like doing presentations at senior centers where we actually have gotten some referrals. So a lot of it is like going in front of them physically, not digitally. And so physically, I know what to do digitally. I don't. And that's my problem.
Kyle: Got it. Got it. Yep. I mean, that's always the issue, especially like you said, an older demographic with health concerns may not necessarily be online. So you got to be a little bit creative here and figure out ways to get in front of people.
So I want to take a macro view and a kind of step back in terms of marketing and sales. Based on our conversations, I'm assuming you don't have a huge sales team. The sales team might be just you. And same with the marketing. Exactly. So you kind of have this tabula rasa kind of blank slate where you can build your own plan. I'm guessing obviously within budget and everything.
But I'm curious as to what your ideal ecosystem looks like in terms of sales and marketing and some of these tools. And, you know, how does it all work together with all the multiple touch points in the journey? What does that ideal process look like from you from marketing to sales to, you know, patient getting a bed?
Sam: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the thing is, is that because we get leads from so many different places, um, it would be a way for us to just basically have all eyes on us from these different places. So, you know, if all the hospitals can know exactly who we are, that would be the perfect world for me because I don't have to worry about, you know, spamming them with emails and cold calling them and going to see them.
Our digital presence, I would say, is actually pretty good. The person who was doing this before me has done a really great job of building up our SEO and ultimately just placing us so well on Google that when somebody searches right now, Memory Care Behaviors New Jersey, we're the first ones that come up and we don't pay anything for it in terms of ads. So staying on top of Google is definitely the most ideal way for me.
You're right, I'm the only person that does it. So my day kind of just revolves around following up with old leads, cold calling hospitals, doing tours, meeting, driving around and basically doing cold calls, but in person and actually showing up to facilities and showing up to hospitals. So a lot of it revolves around me just spreading the name out. We also don't really have like a marketing budget. So, and what I mean by that is, we don't spend, you know, we probably spend maybe a couple hundred dollars maintaining certain things. But overall, if I see something and I'm sold and I can sell my owners, which is my mom and another partner, on the idea, we can do it. Depending on how much it is.
So it's kind of tricky to figure out a marketing strategy when you don't have a marketing budget. Like I'm always kind of just on the lookout for new tools. And if I see a tool and I say, okay, this is pretty inexpensive and I think this could actually help us. It's like a no brainer for us.
Kyle: That makes sense. Is Google your biggest lead driver right now? Is it your partners and referral network? What would you say is driving the highest quality leads for you guys right now?
Sam: So in terms of volume, I would say Google. But in terms of quality, I would say hospitals, assisted livings and placement agencies. So I actually didn't mention this earlier, but a third way that we get leads or something called placement agencies. The largest one is called a place for mom. Have you heard of them before?
Kyle: I have not.
Sam: Well, so they are probably the largest agency senior living placement company in America. They are in, it's an insane business. Basically, they speak with, let's say you're looking for senior living, you contact them, you speak with one of their advisors, they help you get placed. We pay them and it's free to the consumers. So we pay them 80% of first month's rent, which is a lot of money. Yeah, that's a lot. Right. And so their leads are good. But the issue with them is that when somebody speaks to them, they blast them to us plus 10 other communities and then communities are fighting over that one lead.
Then there are some other companies that are smaller that maybe are run by two or three people. They're smaller mom and pop agencies that do the same type of work. They'll send us leads. Usually, those leads are good because they're only sending them to us because they know exactly who we are. To answer your question, the best quality comes from those hospitals and assisted living and quantity comes from people.
Kyle: Got it. Got it. So remind me, are you just one location or do you have multiple?
Sam: We have six.
Kyle: I thought you said six. OK, great. So I want to take a circle back. I think a great way to kind of bring everything together here into kind of a final talking point would be that that goal that you mentioned of expansion, expansion. And you want to get into every state. You're doing a lot of research. I'm curious how much pen to paper has been done for this. And if there's like specific milestones or do you want to accomplish it by a certain year? You know, it's such a lofty goal. And I love the ambitious goals you know, efforts and goals like that. So I'm just kind of curious if there's anything specific that you can share about how you're trying to accomplish this kind of where you are in the process. You know, obviously, you're in one state with 49 more to go, even though you are helping.Connecticut and PA and everything in different ways. But it's such a beautiful lofty goal. So I was just kind of curious as to where things stand and what you're hoping to accomplish.
Sam: Yeah. So, I mean, with Florida, we already actually purchased some land in Florida. That is definitely something that we are looking to start opening pretty soon. Hopefully towards the end of this year, if not early next year. The also unique thing about us is that we build everything from scratch. So my mom has a partner who owns a portion of the business who is a contractor and his goal and his job is to build all of our facilities. So because of our unique model, it's more of like a home like setting. So it looks like a house on the inside. It looks like a house on the outside. And it's very specifically built to cater to the exact type of care and services that we provide.
So we want him to obviously build Florida. It takes a while to do. The other challenge with that is to essentially establish presence and brand awareness in a market that has never heard of us before. So in Jersey, you know, when we started, my mom started with one and then she opened others.
At a certain point, people already kind of understand what Millennium is and the brand and the types of care that we provide. Florida is a different game because nobody knows who we are. And while we have had success in Jersey, it's much harder. We have to start everything from scratch.
We have also considered the possibility of franchising Millennium, so making it a little bit easier for us to expand, but not necessarily own everything and kind of manage everything. But we have had concerns about quality control because at the end of the day, we provide a very, very unique service that not everybody can do. And it's very, very hard for us to maintain that quality and those standards that we maintain right now where we manage everything privately.
Obviously, the goal is to expand to every state, like I told you, but Florida's first up and then hopefully many more to come.
Kyle: Is there a specific reason that Florida is the first one?
Sam: So, yes, Florida has a very large senior population.
Kyle: Makes sense.
Sam: And there's nothing like this that exists in Florida at the moment. We actually have had a few residents who have moved to us from Florida to New Jersey because they have family in Jersey. And because they were just, they ran out of options and they didn't have anything in Florida that can specifically handle the type of care that we provide. The other part of it is that my mom lives in Florida now as well.
Um, they, they completely relocated to, uh, the West coast of Florida. Um, and so it'll be easier for her to kind of, you know, have eyes on a millennium location full-time, um, but also just, you know, expanding into a market that desperately needs something like this.
Kyle: Do you know if there's a lot of red tape or regulation or anything like that that varies from state to state that you guys need to be taking into account? Like, is it drastically going to change your model? Or is it just, you know, like certain levels of care needs to be met or something like that?
Sam: Yeah. That's a really good question. So in New Jersey, I would say from what I know about the regulations and kind of the licensing that we have, I feel like New Jersey is extremely strict when it comes to stuff like this. I think in Florida, it's a little bit more relaxed. The one thing I do know that I was actually pretty surprised about was in our homes, we have something called the certified medication aid.
This is somebody that passes an exam, takes a class, and that is licensed by the state of New Jersey Department of Health or the Department of Nursing, one of those, to distribute medications to a resident. In Florida, you do not need to pass this exam and to be licensed specifically to distribute medication. So I'm sure that for the actual care, the CMAs in Florida do not need to go through the same type of stuff that the ones in New Jersey do.
Other stuff I'm not too familiar on, but that was actually something that was pretty interesting to me, just because I'm actually going through this right now as well. So I've gotten my certifications. I'm waiting to pass my CMA exam in New Jersey. My mom wants me to actually start working in the homes, getting a feel for what it's like, distributing medication, learning the operations, caring for the residents actually, right? Just to see what our staff goes through because they do incredible work and I want to know what it's like for them and I want to see it. So-
Kyle: Hey, I mean, I truly believe that the best marketing and sales and operations comes from a level of, you know, just deep understanding. Um, and you're going to be way more empathetic and, uh, authentic when you're thinking about this kind of stuff, if you're actually, um, you know, rolling up your sleeves and getting in there, so to speak. So that's, that's awesome stuff. Uh, good luck. That's probably gonna be challenging.
Sam: It's been rough. Yeah. My goal was to essentially, you know, work my nine to five and then do like a four to eight shift, uh ,at one of our communities or maybe like a night shift on a weekend or something like that. Wow. That's 24 seven. So, you know, I'm excited.
Kyle: That's one of those things. I have some family in healthcare and I think about it all the time that, you know, you get the really good situations and the really bad situations that like, you know, bring you down, but then you have that, you know, Oh wow, I really helped someone. So you feel really good at the same time. So I have to assume you're going to be going through some similar situations like that. So yeah, I, Again, all I can say is good luck. That's going to be a great experience.
Sam: I appreciate it.
Kyle: This is awesome. You know, we're going to kind of just open forum this. Anything else that you'd like to share, whether it be about Millennium, you know, marketing, health care, AI, just anything that you want to talk about, anything you're passionate about, something like that?
Sam: Yeah, no, I mean, I think that the combination of AI and healthcare is definitely growing. You know, AI, I'm sure, as you know, has exploded over the last couple of years, just in terms of popularity and actual, you know, good stuff that it's done for businesses and for people.
I think that I do have a goal to essentially include as much AI as possible into the millennium business, not only from a sales and marketing side, but also from a care perspective, because I have actually spoken to somebody who built like kind of like an AI companion specifically for people with Alzheimer's and dementia. So like, that's kind of something also that we've been looking into. He's still in the very early stages of it, but.
You know, something like that, right? Where we can introduce AI to the care and AI to the sales and marketing, but also just spreading our mission and spreading our goal and telling people, hey, this is who we are. This is the type of care that we provide. We are probably the only place in the Northeast that does this. But it's hard for us to get in front of people because we don't have a large marketing budget. We don't have a large team. You know, we're kind of like a small business that's looking to solve a huge problem.
Kyle: That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I'm an AI nerd. I love to see how it kind of changes for all industries. And I think healthcare is definitely going to be, you know, it's just such a big industry in general, but there's so many unique use cases for it. And I think this is a perfect example of, you know, that companion thing is, it would be so cool to kind of hear about and, you know, if we could have some, some positive effects, that's a, that's great stuff.
So, Sam, I really appreciate your time, man. This has been awesome. Again, everybody can find Millennium at MillenniumMemoryCare.com. Sam, you can share their phone number. It's 732-523-5797. Feel free to call or reach out. Sam, do you have any handles or anything like that that you would want to plug or share personally or anything like that?
Sam: Yeah, I mean, you can just find Millennium Memory Care on Facebook. And then if I've been trying to make some LinkedIn posts as well on my own personal page. So just Sam Markovich on LinkedIn. You'll see me director of head of director and head of sales of marketing.
Kyle: So awesome. We'll make sure to add everything into the comment into the comment section as well. So, Sam, thank you so much for joining me on the Brainiac Blueprint. This has been great. And thank you, everybody, so much for tuning in. Stay brilliant, you Brainiacs.
Sam: Thanks Kyle.