This week, we were excited to celebrate Varsity’s 150th Sales & Marketing Roundtable with a fascinating presentation by acclaimed Disney expert and author Andrew Lock: 5 Disney-Inspired Ways to Improve Your Business.
We started these virtual conversations in March 2020 when our clients asked how other communities were dealing with the unprecedented events of the coronavirus. To help marketing leaders across the country come together and share their knowledge, we coordinated a roundtable discussion via Google Meet. We never thought we’d still be doing these weekly gatherings as masks came off and mandates were lifted, but we’ve now hosted 150 roundtables, and we’re still going strong.
Our focus changed over the course of the pandemic, as our participants’ needs changed. Here are 10 of our most popular topics over the past three years:
- Resident isolation
- Shifting to virtual selling
- Dealing with loss (residents, team members, family)
- Vaccine rollout
- Compliance with vaccine requirements
- Workforce challenges/retention
- Event ideas
- Dealing with crises beyond the pandemic such as fires, hurricanes, ice storms and active shooters
- New technologies such as AI
- Best practices in creative messaging, online search and social media engagement
More important than any one topic is the camaraderie and community that’s grown among sales and marketing leaders across the country as they’ve shared their challenges, tips and ideas. Since the beginning, we’ve had 26 states represented, from Washington to Florida and California to Massachusetts.
Here are a few comments from our participants on what they’ve found most beneficial about the roundtables:
“Collaboration with peers is ALWAYS beneficial! You can never stop learning new ideas and thoughts.”
“Sharing best practices, learning from presenters, getting to know other communities around the country, the Varsity team’s commitment to making them happen every week through COVID-19.”
“The info shared by the speakers has been relevant and thought-provoking.”
And here are some of the topics participants would like to see next:
“How to market legacy apartments next to shiny, new ones.”
“Some medical insight into the deadly fungal illness turning up in healthcare facilities.”
We hope you’ll join us as we explore these topics and others every Thursday at 12 p.m. ET, 11 a.m. CT and 9 a.m. PT
