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Faculty

Marissa Gardner

NA
NA

With a background spanning sales leadership, operations, and portfolio-level strategy, Marissa became known for her ability to identify the hidden operational and systems issues often driving inconsistent occupancy growth, reactive decision-making, and performance breakdowns across communities.

Prior to founding Bloomsy, she led sales and marketing initiatives across multi-community senior living portfolios, helping organizations improve conversion performance, streamline operational focus, and uncover significant areas of inefficiency and missed revenue opportunity.

Today, her work centers on helping senior living leaders reduce operational noise, improve visibility across teams, and focus more strategically on the behaviors and priorities that drive sustainable growth.

2026 Sessions

Stop Chasing Leads: The Missing Strategy Between Inquiry and Move-In

<p>Sponsored By:<br><img src=https://naccme.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/SMASH+2026/SM_logolockup_sirv… alt="Upload Image" width="200" /></p>

Marketing teams are fighting harder than ever for every lead. We have adapted to Google's constant changes, leaned into AI, optimized SEO, invested in paid media, and worked to create compelling content. Yet despite all of that effort, many organizations continue to lose opportunities in the same place: the middle of the funnel. <br> <br>

Consider these familiar scenarios (all true cases in my organization): <br>

Case 1: A prospect finally submits an inquiry. The salesperson calls, leaves a voicemail, sends an email, and maybe attempts one more follow-up before daily priorities take over. <br>
Case 2: A prospect schedules and attends a great tour. The interaction goes well, but no next step is defined. Weeks later, the prospect resurfaces saying “I never heard back from the sales person” or even worst, they inquire through a Third Party Online Referral Agency! <br>
Case 3: Someone attends an event, engages deeply, and leaves inspired, but contact information is never captured or follow-up never happens. <br><br>

The issue often isn't lead volume. It's what happens after the lead enters the funnel. <br><br>

This session will explore how senior living organizations can build a practical Middle of Funnel (MOFU) strategy that nurtures prospects with intention, creates emotional connection, reduces anxiety, and builds trust over time. <br><br>

Participants will learn: <br>
• How to identify where opportunities leak from the funnel <br>
• Which MOFU metrics actually matter beyond lead volume <br>
• How to use resident stories and authentic content to create emotional connection <br>
• Ways to reduce barriers through education and personalized experiences <br>
• How to use behavior-triggered automation without losing the human touch <br>
• Small commitments that gradually move prospects toward sales readiness <br>
• Real examples of how Emerald Communities improved engagement, waitlist growth, and occupancy while remaining under budget <br><br>

Attendees will walk away with a framework that can be implemented immediately: <br>
1. Inspire <br>
2. Educate <br>
3. Visualize <br>
4. Community Connection <br>
5. Micro-Commitments <br><br>
Because generating leads is only half the battle. The organizations that win will be the ones that know what to do after the inquiry arrives.
Potential panel discussion questions: <br>
- Are we over-investing in top-of-funnel and under-investing in nurture? <br>
- What behaviors signal that a prospect is ready for the next step? <br>
- How many touch points does today's senior living consumer actually need? <br>
- What role should residents play in the nurturing journey? <br>
- How can automation support relationships without replacing them? <br>
- What metrics should sales and marketing teams own together?

Presenter

Monday, October 05 11:30–12:15 PM
Room Marquis 4
Marketing Strategy and Management
Faculty

Sandra Cook

VP of Marketing and PR
Emerald Communities

Sandra Cook is the Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations for Emerald Communities, where she leads the organization's strategic marketing, sales, communications, public relations, and brand initiatives for Emerald Heights in Redmond and Heron's Key in Gig Harbor, two of Washington's premier Life Plan Communities.

With more than 30 years of experience in senior living, luxury hospitality, and sales leadership, Sandra has built a reputation for driving growth through innovative marketing strategies, exceptional customer experiences, and data driven decision making. Before joining Emerald Communities, she spent 16 years with Aegis Living, where she played a key role in opening 15 new communities and supporting the growth and success of more than 20 additional locations throughout the western United States.

Sandra is passionate about redefining the perception of aging and helping older adults discover communities where they can continue to live purposeful, active, and fulfilling lives. She has led award winning branding initiatives, digital marketing strategies, public relations campaigns, and sales innovations that have contributed to record occupancy, successful expansion projects, and national recognition for the organizations she has served.

A frequent speaker and thought leader within the senior living industry, Sandra enjoys sharing practical strategies around marketing, consumer engagement, artificial intelligence, sales performance, and the evolving customer journey. She is particularly passionate about helping organizations improve the often overlooked sales funnel by creating meaningful experiences that transform inquiries into lasting relationships.

Outside of work, Sandra is an active community volunteer and mentor. She serves with youth focused organizations, participates in leadership initiatives that support women in business, and is committed to advancing the future of senior living through innovation, collaboration, and service. She believes the best marketing begins with genuine human connection and that every interaction is an opportunity to improve someone's life.

Faculty

Marissa Gardner

NA
NA

With a background spanning sales leadership, operations, and portfolio-level strategy, Marissa became known for her ability to identify the hidden operational and systems issues often driving inconsistent occupancy growth, reactive decision-making, and performance breakdowns across communities.

Prior to founding Bloomsy, she led sales and marketing initiatives across multi-community senior living portfolios, helping organizations improve conversion performance, streamline operational focus, and uncover significant areas of inefficiency and missed revenue opportunity.

Today, her work centers on helping senior living leaders reduce operational noise, improve visibility across teams, and focus more strategically on the behaviors and priorities that drive sustainable growth.

The Visibility Problem: Why Your Occupancy Gaps Aren't a Sales Issue

When occupancy stalls or move-ins slow, the first place leaders look is the sales team. But the root cause is often elsewhere — buried in operational inconsistency, siloed communication, and organizational structures that make it hard to see what's actually happening across communities. This conversation examines the systemic dynamics that quietly erode occupancy and revenue performance, and what leadership can do to get ahead of them. <br><br>

Three Things You'll Walk Away With: <br>
1. A practical way to tell the difference between a true sales problem and a systems or process breakdown that's been misread as one — so your interventions actually land. <br>
2. Early warning signals that visibility gaps exist across your communities before they show up in your occupancy numbers or your bottom line. <br>
3. Concrete steps for building the kind of cross-functional alignment — across sales, operations, and leadership — that creates consistent performance at scale rather than community by community.
<br><br>
Track Sponsored By: <img src=https://naccme.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/SMASH+2026/Rilla+logo+(1).png alt="Upload Image" width="200" /></p>

Presenter

Tuesday, October 06 2:15–3:00 PM
Room Grand C
Sales Strategy and Management
Faculty

Marissa Gardner

NA
NA

With a background spanning sales leadership, operations, and portfolio-level strategy, Marissa became known for her ability to identify the hidden operational and systems issues often driving inconsistent occupancy growth, reactive decision-making, and performance breakdowns across communities.

Prior to founding Bloomsy, she led sales and marketing initiatives across multi-community senior living portfolios, helping organizations improve conversion performance, streamline operational focus, and uncover significant areas of inefficiency and missed revenue opportunity.

Today, her work centers on helping senior living leaders reduce operational noise, improve visibility across teams, and focus more strategically on the behaviors and priorities that drive sustainable growth.

Faculty

Jill Valdez

MS, Rev
Owner
n/a

Jill Valdez is the owner of LINK Consulting, where she helps senior care and senior living organizations improve performance by addressing the operational, leadership, and communication breakdowns that often limit growth.

Drawing on more than two decades of experience across healthcare, senior care, operations, leadership development, and organizational performance, Jill works with organizations to identify the hidden barriers that prevent teams from achieving consistent results. Her work focuses on helping leaders move beyond surface-level symptoms to uncover the underlying issues affecting accountability, execution, team alignment, and organizational effectiveness.

Through her consulting work with senior care organizations, as well as her role facilitating the Executive Collaborative for Marketing Excellence (ECME), Jill has a unique vantage point into the challenges facing senior living organizations as they navigate occupancy pressures, workforce challenges, operational complexity, and changing market dynamics.

Known for asking tough questions and challenging conventional thinking, Jill helps leaders see what is often hiding in plain sight: the organizational habits, communication patterns, and leadership behaviors that quietly shape performance outcomes.

At SMASH, Jill will join Marissa Gardner for a fireside chat exploring why organizations often misdiagnose performance problems and what leaders can do to create greater visibility, alignment, and sustainable performance across their organizations.
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