Join me as we connect with Amanda Barton with Seniors Blue Book to learn more about the business!

Good morning, Southwest Florida, and good morning to those near and far. My name is Renee Hahn, and I am bringing you Connections in Southwest Florida. Amanda, I originally started these Connections interviews when COVID hit as a way to continue to make sure that our businesses locally stayed top of mind, but I've enjoyed continuing to do them even though things are starting to get back to some resemblance of, of normal. Yes, in the quotes. So I am honored today to have Amanda Barton with us with Seniors Blue Book, and I'm sure the audience is going to be just as curious about what the Seniors Blue Book is as I was when we first came into contact. So Amanda, I always like to start though, before we get into business, and give the audience an opportunity to get to know you and meet you a little bit. So tell us a little bit about yourself.

You know, Renee, thank you so much, first of all, for having me on the show today. I really appreciate it. A lot of people know me by looking at my Facebook posts that I am a rescue and dog fanatic. So as far as something just personal about me as an individual, I love animals and I'm obsessed with my two four-legged children. One of them is a little boy rescue. He's a Cherry or Chihuahua mix, and his name is Archie David Barton. And my little girl dog is Millie Mae Barton.

And they're just— yes, so cute that by name alone I want to come hang out with them.

Obviously, with my addiction to— I love seniors. I love, you know, this generation and their stories. So I wanted to come up with some names that were, you know, back in the day. So Archie, obviously, and then Mildred's actual legal name is— or Millie's legal name is Mildred.

So I love it. Well, it conveys such personality, as I'm sure they have. And thank you, Amanda, for your personal interest, because I too— in fact, two of your loves, the senior population and the animals, just always pull at my heartstrings. So thank you for your, your piece in both of those.

Yes.

And Amanda, how much— how long have you been in the area? Where are you originally from?

So I don't know if you can tell from my accent, but I'm from Georgia. Um, I have been in Southwest Florida for— oh gosh, I hate to admit it— it's going on 20 years now, believe it or not. Um, and most of that has been right here in the Lee and Collier arena. I did start off in the Tampa area. I was there for almost 10 years and then, you know, ventured down this way.

Well, that's something we have in common. My first entrée into Florida was also in the Tampa area, but we can talk about that later. Well, again, I'm honored to hear about your business and to have the audience get a chance to meet you. Start us out, Amanda, by telling us a little bit about what is Seniors Blue Book. We'll get deeper into that, but at a high level, what is Seniors Blue Book?

Yeah, for sure. So I'll tell you a little story that brought me to the company. So my background is in senior living. I did inside, outside sales and was the corporate director of sales for Discovery Senior Living. So they will— they're near and dear to my heart. My great-grandmother actually lived at one of those properties. And as you know, being familiar with the, the Seniors Blue Book as an advertiser myself, I knew the owner really well and we became great friends. Her last name is Barton as well, with no relation whatsoever. We just happen to have the same last name. So her and I became really good friends and then I began to work for her. And to tell you a little bit about the book itself, it's a resource directory for aging well. The bread and butter of what it started with was comparing senior housing, home care, and home health options apples to apples. And I actually have a copy of it so everyone could kind of see what the Seniors Blue Book looks like. It's about 300 pages. It started off as a trifold 37 years ago with just a little bit of information. And it has blossomed into a national organization now, where my boss and her brother and mother started it the 37 years ago and started selling franchises. So the brother is the CEO of the company. And then my boss, Samantha, owns Lee Collier, Sarasota, Manatee, and Charlotte County territories down here in Southwest Florida.

Oh, that's fantastic. And I have so many questions, but I first want to acknowledge the very good taste of putting a pineapple on your cover.

I knew you'd like that, Renee.

If you don't, if you can't tell, I'm kind of a pineapple fanatic. So anyways, I love that. Let me ask this, and again, I want to talk about the types of vendors you may showcase solutions, but let me start by asking a question in terms of for the end user. Amanda, where does somebody find this resource?

I'm really glad you asked that question because things are changing with COVID but pre-COVID, we have 1,800 different distribution locations. The place that you can always pick them up now, and, you know, before COVID and now, is any CVS Pharmacy, Walgreens Pharmacy, your Millennium Physician Group offices, Lee Health offices, Physicians Regional. Senior centers have always had them. Now they may not because a lot of them are still starting to, like you said, the new normal isn't quite there yet. So we are adding bulk distribution to our distribution. So the new books are coming out. I'm at the tail end of my campaign to put the book to press right now, actually. And anyone that would like a book mailed directly to them can just give us a call. And I see that you have my phone number scrolling across the bottom here. So any senior caregiver, adult children, or industry professional that would like one of the new books mailed to them, just give me a call and we will get one in the mail to you.

Now, that's fantastic. I'm a little sad that the pineapple is likely going away, but that's okay. It's time for a new one. We're in the new year after all, Amanda. That's great. Would you take any to— does the chamber keep any on hand or no?

Yes, they always have had them in the offices. Again, with COVID I don't know what they have that they're having people pick up and flip through because there's always that fear that they're going to put it back down. And I think that's why a lot of doctors' offices are not necessarily wanting to have the books in the waiting room, because it'd be great if a senior would take the book with them. And that's the purpose of it. Pick it up. Put it in your purse and look at it when you get home or flip through it, but still put it in your purse. They're afraid people are going to pick it up, flip through it, and set it back down, and it may be a health hazard with the pandemic. So a chamber, same thing, you know, the Naples Chamber I know has moved down to where the museum is in the county offices, and we do have books available down there, but again, I'm not sure how many people are walking through those doors right now because it's a tourist location.

Well, and what a great resource, because unlike, you know, not to liken it to my field, but in real estate, somebody wants to look for houses, there's kind of a common— some common places you go. When someone, whether it's, you know, a child, a family member, or the individual themselves wants to look for resources that you're providing, that's not something you, you know your whole life about where to go. You need it when you need it. And what a great resource to put together. I get asked about those kind of things all the time, and I didn't know about Seniors Blue Book. So for you real estate agents out there, we come into contact with people at all points in their life, and this is a great resource to maybe have a couple copies yourself on hand and be able to share with people.

And a lot of these communities do pay a realtor referral fee as well. And I did want to touch on one thing that is really exciting to us right now, um, It's been 3 or 4 years in the making. We've been redesigning our new website and it launched last week. So we have a brand new website. It's www.seniorsbluebook.com and we have our local homepage. So when you go to our national website, if you just scroll down a little bit, you're going to see an option to click on Lee and Collier County. It's a picture of the Naples Pier, and when you do that, you're going to see a lot of the events and activities that are here locally in our area, and it allows you to really look at everything that's in the printed book, and you can just narrow your search down. So for example, if you're looking for senior living, you would just go to the Lee Call Your Home page, click on senior housing. On the right-hand side, there's actually a map, just like Renee in real estate. I know that you can zoom in on a specific area It's the same thing on our website. If you know that you're looking for a senior housing community for your, your loved one, your spouse, you can actually zoom right in on the area and draw a map out. Again, I'm a real estate agent as well, don't practice real estate, but I know the MLS system allows you to really hone in on the area that you want to look for. So it's pretty cool. You can narrow down choices based on whether or not they take pets, which Renee, I know that you know, that would be a deal breaker for me. If they didn't take pets, I'm not moving there.

So. No, what a great resource. And we'll make sure when I post this, Amanda, I'll get that link from you and we can include that to make it easy for folks. So we talked about the fact that this book is a compilation of resources. Those resources obviously get populated by businesses who are offering those services. So not only do you connect out with the end user, if you will, the people that may be looking for these resources, for businesses that are interested in connecting with you, Amanda, to put something in your book, what are, you know, are there categories of services you cover? Talk a little bit about that.

So the book is actually, um, about the size of a Reader's Digest, and, and it's very much, I, I say it's a telephone guide or reseller's guide for aging well, and it's, it's kind of designed very much like that in alphabetical order. So it's an A through Z directory of resources for aging well. You have categories such as elder law attorneys, ophthalmologists, audiologists, elder law, financial advisors, real estate, hospitals, physicians, All of those are in alphabetical order. So that I can actually show you, that's the first half of the book. You know, it's got these resources. There's even a 7-page spread in here for, you know, Lee Health and Physicians Regional also has their spread, and that's in the hospital section for H. Now, in the back of the book, this is where we have our senior housing, and these are grids. So these grids allow you to compare senior housing, home care, and home health options apples to apples. So the first half of the book is the directory that's in A through Z. The back half of the book is senior housing, home care, home health, and your grids. And the grids are very valuable because they're going to have all the information right there at your fingertips so you don't have to really look through every single detail to find out what the minimum price range is to start. So if budget constraints are something that's important to you, you'll be able to narrow down which communities you should start looking at. Um, it also will tell you if they have studios, one bedrooms, if their community offers memory care. Let's say you don't necessarily need memory support for your loved one right away. You're just looking for assisted living. But there's, there's a little bit of cognitive decline or a diagnosis of early onset dementia, and you want to make sure you're in a community that will at one point allow for a memory care transition. You'll be able to see that right there in the Grids. So those are very, very valuable. But I don't want to take away from the fact that the book has grown substantially to include all the resources for aging well. You know, we even have a whole section in the front for aging in place resources. So that's where you're going to find services such as, I'll just throw a bone out for like, say, CapTel, which is a closed caption telephone. That's a resource for helping you stay in your home and age safely. So that's just one example of another type of advertiser that would be in there. If you're interested in becoming a partner, Renee, I appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to talk about that. Now is the time. The book is actually annually distributed. Well, I shouldn't say distributed annually, it's produced annually, it's distributed each month throughout the year. We fill the racks at the CVS, Walgreens, and all of our doctor's offices. But now's the time to get into the publication because it is only printed once a year. And our deadline is coming up here towards the, the end of the month, beginning of September. And again, I see my phone number scrolling across the bottom. My email address is very simple as well. It's abarton, my first initial last name at seniorsbluebook.com.

Great. And you actually beat me to it because the next thing I was gonna ask was about if somebody was interested in being included in the publication. So that's fantastic to hear that there's still time to do that. If with the online one, let me ask this, Amanda, given that the print happens once a year, if somebody say you're cut off later this month or early next month. If somebody comes in in October and would like to be included, can they still be on the online version?

Absolutely. And I'll tell you a couple of things. If we're going to talk, you know, professionals and go away for a minute from seniors, this is not just a publication. The Seniors Blue Book, I call it a referral network. We do very much like Renee is doing. We do a daily interview with our partners as well, and we have well over 300, probably closer to 400 partners that I actually feature on a virtual interview each day as well. So Renee, I give you kudos for doing this. I think it's absolutely fantastic. We have about 7 different social media platforms. So we have 2 Facebook pages. One of them is for our professionals, the others for seniors. We have a YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, all of the different accounts that you can go to. And we do livestream our videos on all of those social media platforms. So we also do education for seniors, which is phenomenal. We, you know, we've taken all of that virtual. I started a little program called SBB University. Prior to COVID, we would have, you know, a full house and we would host these at different locations like the Healthy Life Center in Cape Coral and the Healthy Life Center in Coconut Point by Lee Health, but also in senior centers and the recreation centers. Now, post-COVID, we are doing all that virtually and we've started doing virtual health fairs. And these interviews. So joining the Seniors Blue Book Network, I always like to say that the print is very important, but it's just on a pie chart of services, it's a small sliver of what you get when you join the network. So I'll give you an example, Renee. If you wanted to join the network or someone wanted to join the network and the book had already gone to press, you could go ahead and start paying you know, and join and pay for 21 months or 24 months or however long it is. And your ad would be in the next publication, but it would give you access to still be a part of all of the different networking things that we do, including networking meetings themselves for healthcare professionals. We usually had upwards of 70 professionals each month in Lee and in Collier County and I would host them at different senior living communities. So those communities would have an opportunity to show off their beautiful buildings. So since we can't do that in person, we're doing it virtually with fun games and networking opportunities.

So I'll give you an example.

I had speed networking, which is kind of like speed dating. The first week of the month, I do a virtual bingo the second week.. And then I play a game called Identity Theft on the third week, and then we do trivia on week four. And that's all to keep my professionals connected. And then I also interview seniors that live in the senior living communities to keep them connected. And I just got done actually doing an SVB Live Pet Edition with a good friend of mine that works at Amavita Living, and she brings her dog in for gosh, I wish I could remember the name of it. It's like, you know, Tagging Tails or Tuesday and Ruffing Feathers. I don't remember, but it's—

it brings them in to interact with people.

Yes, in the memory care, which is— it's just beautiful. People that wouldn't, you know, music and pets really do connect with seniors with cognitive issues. So pet therapy and music therapy is so important. So I applaud her for bringing in her dog, Ellie. It's a beautiful thing.

Now, and I love, you know, I am a little bit goofy in that I am, I'm very marketing oriented. I think about the experience, not the service. And one of the things I love about what you've talked about, Amanda, is, you know, Senior's Blue Book obviously conjures up the image of a book. But I love that you guys think about and take a holistic approach to how to both provide benefits to your end users, who are the people that may be interested in seeking out those types of services, but also how to provide a benefit to your partners. And, you know, the wide array of things that you've talked about are quite impressive. I think that's fantastic. And I, You know, I certainly, you know, would love to hear— see more people know that this even exists because, like I said, it's— you probably need to know when you need to know. But this information out proactively and repeatedly is fantastic.

That's right. It is really fun to get a call from a senior and say, I have a book, but it's about 6 years old. Can you send me a new one? So it's— we call ourselves an authoritative publication because it's not like picking up, you know, a magazine that you would flip through once and then throw away. A lot of these resources are, are still going to be very much valid in the next, you know, 5 to 6 years. But they do call and ask for an updated copy. So it's, it's very, uh, it has a shelf life that you wouldn't believe.

Well, and Amanda, I don't— I may not use the right words for this, but I imagine, you know, Senior's Blue Book is not necessarily endorsing or vetting each of these, um, resources, you're connecting people and that responsibility would lay on their shoulders, I imagine, to make sure they've got the right service or product for them.

It would, but we do put the information right in the book on where to go to look, like the state website, AHCA, if they want to go and check out, you know, some of these skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, they, they have state surveys and that information is public record.

Okay, fantastic. That's great. I want to— before we wrap up, I want to give you an open forum opportunity. I've obviously asked some questions, but Amanda, what additional information would you like to impart on our audience that's either with us live or perhaps watching at a later time?

No, I'm glad you asked. Yes, we— I want to try to drive people to our new website because we're looking for feedback and also to start watching some of these virtual education through our platform on Facebook, YouTube, and our other social media platforms. So Renee, I'll just, I'll make sure to get all of that information over to you. Know that the new book is coming out, as I mentioned. Would love to hear from you right away if you'd like to be added to that mailing list so we can have the book mailed directly from the printer to you so you are getting it hot off the press.

Great. And remind me again, the cutoff for the partners that might want to be included in that is Uh, give me a call and we'll talk about it.

It depends if it's coming in camera ready or if we're creating the artwork for you, but we're really trying to wrap things up by the end of next week.

Great. And then for those that are looking forward to receiving the new book, those will be out about when?

Uh, coming straight from the printer will be the 1st of October. We send it to press in September.

Fantastic. Well, Amanda, I so appreciate your time today and sharing with not just myself, but the audience about the great things that Seniors Blue Book is doing. And I certainly appreciate your personal passion around this topic. It's, you know, obviously something you're very well versed in and a great valuable resource to those of us living in Southwest Florida.

Well, thank you so much, Renee. I appreciate you taking the time to interview me and have me on the show today and giving me this opportunity to express my passion, because you're absolutely right. It comes It comes from deep within. I think that you'll probably find a lot of us in the healthcare field aren't doing it for the money. We're doing it because we love what we do.

Amen to that. Well, for those of you joining us, or again, if you're watching this on instant replay, if you're a business owner locally and you'd like to have your business showcased, don't hesitate to reach out to me, Renee, Renee@YourNaplesExpert.com, and I'd be happy to do it. These are my way of giving back to the community. There's no charge for them. I I actually personally love it. It's a great opportunity, just like today, to learn more about a resource that I may not know about selfishly. So I love doing them. Feel free to reach out, and thank you so much to all of you tuning in. I hope you have a fabulous weekend. Thank you, Amanda.

Thank you so much.