Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff – Senior Downsizing

You are listening to Boomers Today with your host Frank Samson. Oh, welcome to Boomers Today. I’m your host, Frank Samson. Of course, each week we bring you import and very useful information on issues facing maybe boomers, their parents and other loved ones.

And as I do on every one of our shows, I thank all of you, and I thank all. Of you because our listeners are. Growing each and every day, growing organically, and it’s because of you. We know you’re sharing individual podcasts or our entire show with friends and family, and I know why you do is because we have great guests and we’re not going to disappoint you today.

I’ll introduce you to our guests in just a moment. So many of you again on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible work pretty much on all the podcast stations. Some of you just go to Alexan’s area and ask for to take you to Boomers Today, or you go to our website at Boomersdayradio dot com. So, as I said, we got another great guest today, Andy Bruceman.

Andy, that I pronounced your last. Name right, It’s actually Brussman, but Usman. All right, I’m glad. I so Andy, Brussman.

Andy has been an entrepreneur and advisor to emerging growth companies for over twenty years. He currently serves as the CEO of CTCH Advisors, LLC, where he provides corporate finance and capital raising services to global emerging growth companies in the sports, media and entertainment sectors. As founder and CEO of silver Gen Holdings, which invests in companies providing products and services to the fifty five plus silver generation market. And we’re going to discuss one of those companies, but maybe before we get into a little bit about Clutter Cleaner and its services, maybe just give us a little more overview of your organization.

So, Frank, Silvergen Holdings I launched with my partners last year, and this came about from and this is a common story I know, but my direct experience with my parents going through the downsizing up in Virginia a couple of years ago. It had me starting to just look at the overall industry and I came to the conclusion that this was one of the biggest growth opportunities of any industry I’ve ever seen. So we launched silver Gen to launch, invest in or acquire companies that provide products and services to the fifty five plus Silver Generation. So we’ve invested in Transition Franchise Brands, which is a company that owns brands that focus on this space.

We then basically invested and have the state of South Carolina franchise for Clutter Cleaner, which we’ll talk a little bit about today. And then we also started our own creative agency called Silver Gen Creative. So we’re really really excited about what we’re seeing and the opportunities in the space overall. That’s great, that’s great.

So yeah, let’s talk a little bit about Clutter Cleaner, you know, and it’s services certainly, you know, listen, as you know, I’m in the senior care industry and we deal with families all the time and sometimes they go to make a move and it’s tough on the kids because mom or dad didn’t get rid of many things through their many years of marriage and it is a lot of clutter. So talk to us about that, just kind of what recommendations, you know, the company gives to families that are in that type of a situation. Well, this is in someone’s life, you know, probably in the top three most difficult decisions that a family is going to have to make and once the decision is finally made, it becomes very overwhelming because you have been in a home for twenty five plus years, it’s a larger home, so you have lots of storage, and what really becomes overwhelming is how do I do this? How do I go about this whole thing? And you know, that’s where clutter Cleaner is in a really interesting part of the market. Clutter Cleaner can come in and provide an end and white gloves solution for everything families are going to go through.

And what families are going to you know, go through is you know, obviously determining where they’re going to end up, which leads them to what are they going to bring with them? And then what do you do with all the other stuff? Do you sell it, do you donate it? Do you throw it out? And that’s what clutter Cleaner can come in and do. Clutter Cleaner can come in and start with the space planning for the new home. Can you know, oversee the packing and the movers for what is going with them, and then the asset disbursement. We will oversee the selling of all the items that could be using platforms like everything but the house or max sold could involve using local estate sales organizations.

You know, we handle the donation of items and then we handle the disbursement what would be getting thrown out and the end result is ideally a smooth transition into the new home and a completely clean home ready to be put on the market. Right. Yeah. It’s interesting because recently my wife and I start going through a bunch of our stuff and we started, you know, asking our kids, hey, do you want this? Do you want this? You know that generation they don’t want a thing.

That’s what we’re learning. I don’t want to things. So it’s like we’ve been hanging on to this stuff for them, and then I don’t want it. Is that what you’re finding? One hundred and that was that was me.

My parents every week would call my sister or me asking if we wanted something, and the answer was always thanks, but no. We had a conversation the other day with someone who was had extremely high end furniture, lived in a townhouse up in New York City and they basically couldn’t sell a thing. If it’s brown, it’s not going to sell, unfortunately. And and that is that is one of the more challenging aspects for families that are going through this process, and it’s not it’s not really the the table in the dining room that they care so much about, but it’s the memories that were made around that table that they associated with, right, And I think what what we try to do is we really try to focus on on holding on to those memories and not trying to separate them from from that table or you know something else that in their mind is the is like the key item here, it’s it’s it’s it’s all emotions.

Yeah, sure, so interesting. You and I spoke about this right before we uh went on the air here, and I had a guy by name of Matt Paxon. I know, you know, I don’t know how long ago, but he was on the podcast and speaking about you know, hoarders and whoa he had some stories. But talk to us about about that and when you when your company has done confront hunted with that, you walk into the house and go, whoa, we got a hoarder here.

So what do you do? Yeah, situations. So the background Matt and I go back over twenty years. We were both living in Richmond, Virginia, and I actually gave him a desk in my office when he was trying to figure out kind of what to do. And then in one year he lost both grandfathers, a stepfather and a father, and he was responsible for cleaning out their homes and that eventually led Matt into creating Clutter Cleaner, which was kind of focused on it was helping seniors with their homes.

It quickly transitioned into hoarding, and as listeners may recall, Matt became kind of the star of the show Hoarders for fifteen seasons. We really focus more on a state downsizing. However, we’ve already seen this in a number of jobs where state downsizing also includes somebody that is a borderline order and it’s it’s a little different for us because typically we’re not dealing directly with the person that has been hoarding, but that introduces a whole different level of emotional challenges, and you know, it’s our job to get in there and and take care of the person if we are dealing with them or if it’s with the kids. But we have come across some really challenging situations that we just have to work through, and the ultimate goal is always getting that home into you know, pristine conditions.

So that either the ones that do live there or the family are in a position to go ahead and put it on the market. Yeah. Yeah, so you have a term they have on I think on your site. I think I saw it downsizing versus rights.

So talk to us about that. Yeah, so I think it’s again it goes back to the emotions, right and getting people’s arms around what this transition, you know, is going to look like downsizing versus right sizing. Right sizing is just for that point in life, getting you and your home in a place that is manageable. And ultimately, what we find is once people have kind of end up going through the process, they actually start to embrace the fact that there they are moving on, they don’t have so much stuff.

It takes away responsibilities that they may have had with taking care of the home. So it does start to transition in. But you know, right sizing I think is just more of a positive mindset than anything else. Yeah, and so talk those on what your recommendation is to the families when you’re going through and trying to help them sort everything out.

Are the kids there too? All right? Let’s just say the parents are living okay, and they’re going to be moving, let’s just say, and to maybe senior some sort of senior living. So do you sit down with the family and say, hey, kids stay away, or hey mom and dad stay away, or does everybody there together with you? So every situation is unique, and we will work with the family however they want to work with us. So we’ll never say you can’t be involved. We for insurance purposes a lot of time we’ll ask that, you know, kids not be moving stuff around and things like that.

But you know, typically if if the parents are both living or even it’s just one parent, most likely you know, it’s usually the oldest daughter. But you know, a child or children will will be involved and some point of the process and it’s you know, and it also occurs if they’re out of state. We’re finishing up a job right now where the Sun lives in Arkansas, and we are overseeing work up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and you know, we’re on the phone with the Sun, you know, every other day and probably texting in between. So the biggest key with doing work like this, and this is true in many industries, but over communicating, managing expectations, making sure that you’re constantly communicating about where you are in the process, the progress that you’re making, because at the end of the day, it just helps put people at ease, and that is a big part of our job.

We need to make them feel, you know, less stressed about this this whole process, and that they know that they have somebody that can handle the whole thing for them and take that off of their plate, right. Right, Well, good, good, So the let’s do this because I want to get into something, you know, after the break, kind of talking more about neutral third parties, you know, and I want to get into that maybe after we take a quick break here and just we’re going to recognize our sponsors. Certainly we’ll come back, give you the opportunity to tell people a little bit more about Clutter Cleaner and how they could learn more, and we’ll do that, you know, just going to recognize our sponsor. Okay, perfect, All right, great.

So my question to all of you is, do you know anyone who may be concerned about an older driver? Well Senior Care Authorities Beyond Driving with Dignity program is a facilitated self assessment program for older drivers. This program has been designed to serve as a vital tool to facilitate older drivers and their families as they make appropriate decision regarding the future of one safe driving career. If the individual is a safe driver, an advisor will provide him or her with strategies and how to remain a safe driver as they progress through the aging process. If driving retirement is the appropriate decision, then the individual and their family are offered possible alternatives, resources and a specific plan to ensure a smooth and successful transition from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat.

So to learn more, you could go to www. Beyond Driving nitty dot com and you can connect with a local senior care authority advisor in your area. We are back with Andy Brussman, who’s an entrepreneur in the senior space and company that we’re speaking about is clutter clean So, uh, Andy, go ahead, and why don’t you tell people how they can learn more in anything you’d like to share about the about the organization. So the website is just clutter cleaner dot com.

We are the South Carolina location, so the company is able and we currently are handling and working with clients across the country, so we may end up going into some bordering states where we don’t have existing franchises right now, and then at the national level we’ll send teams in to also handle things. So you know our website, you know, my email address is Andy dot Brussman b r us m a n at cluttercleaner dot com. And you know, like you, Frank, we are here to answer any questions that anyone may have about this process. Right So people in other parts of the country.

Uh, so you’ll kind of subcontract out, send your own people or refer it out or how will that work. I know you’re planning on expanding the company, but until that happens, so how how would that work? So what I should also say is our our parent company is you know, actively looking for new markets for clutter Cleaner franchises. So I encourage people that may be thinking about something like this to to take a look at that. On markets where we don’t have a franchise, we’ll do it one of two ways.

We have national corporate teams from clutter Cleaner that we will send in and and they’ll go, you know, and be there for the three or four days to do the job. The second is we are a proud partner of NASAM and so we will work with move managers in markets where it may be more appropriate to you know, bring a local move manager in to oversee all of it. Yeah yeah, okay, great, great. So you know, at the break I talked about one of the services that a senior care authority has beyond driving with dignity.

And the reason I’m bringing that up is we all, you know, are always telling the family when it’s maybe mom or dad maybe shouldn’t be driving, maybe that if they try to try to get them to stop driving themselves, it’s usually a battle that’s bringing in a neutral third party like us. I like senior care authority. It’s proven to work out much better in that situation, and it seems to be similar in your business. Talk to us more about that.

It’s a it’s a tough conversation to have, and as I shared with you, I mean I I had the conversation with my parents several years ago go and the message was basically, look, you know, we can do this now where you’re the one who’s in charge and can make the decisions. What we don’t want to have to get to is where you know I’m having to make them or my sister, you know, just like my boys don’t want to hear from me a lot of times. Bringing this up with your parents, it just it’s just an incredibly challenging conversation and can’t be It’s uncomfortable for everyone involved. So when you can bring somebody in, like a senior care authority or somebody like a clutter cleaner who is an independent third party, it just always helps temper down that conversation and a lot of times it.

Takes the stress out of it as well. And it is incredibly stressful. You’re you’re asking your parents to basically kind of admit to in this case, that maybe they shouldn’t be driving anymore, which you know directly addresses their independence, and it’s a cascading wave of emotions that come from that. So having that neutral third party is I think a key way to navigate through a very difficult conversation.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you and that that’s for sure. So I’d love to learn more about your your vision. I mean, I think it’s wonderful. Obviously, I’ve been in the senior care space for quite a while and I see you’re a big believer and a bit involved in making investments in companies, So talk to us about your personal why and your vision.

Excuse me, My personal why. Starts with the night of that conversation that went really, really well, and I shared this with you, Frank before we came on. Yeah, my dad and I stayed up, had another glass of wine and he said good night, walked up the three steps to the landing, walked up the next eleven in the next and you know, I heard this massive boom and my dad was lying at the bottom of the stairs, and at the time, I honestly thought I was losing my dad in my arms. We went to the hospital, they took every image possible and came back in and said, mister Brussman, you don’t have a concussion.

You’re absolutely fine. And I looked at my dad and I said, you know why, It’s because that wine. You were so relaxed going down, there was no tension in your body. And he actually laughed at that.

But it was almost the world saying to us, hey, like, now’s the time you don’t need to be living in a two or three story home, which my parents were at the time. And that just opened my eyes to the stress and the challenges that families are going through here. So you know, I held on to that and then it was about a year ago I was speaking with Matt Paxton on a number of things and we were talking about them getting ready to start franchising Clutter Cleaner. And that’s when I just I really took a deep dive into it it and I just got it.

I mean, I just I understood it. I’ve been living it. You know, I’m fifty five, I’m you know, I’m now part of the Silver Generation. And so just with the background in private equity and investment banking, it just had me looking at, you know what the opportunity you know, was here and it’s going to be you know, one of the fastest growing uh you know, spaces in this in the country.

So you know, this is why we’ve set up Silver Gen. You know, we believe that over time we will have an ecosystem of companies that will approach this the challenges that families are facing from a number of different angles, and that is our ultimate goal to almost be a one stop provider. So, you know, we have Clutter Cleaner, we have the creative agency. You know, we are actively looking for a business that we could buy that will that allows people to stay in their homes longer.

So it would allow us to establish a relationship with a family sooner and have that relationship ready to go when they are ready to start considering, you know, moving to a senior living community or something else. So so we’re we’re really really excited about the vertical right now and the growth opportunities. That’s great, that’s great. So listen, we have many listeners who obviously Boomer generation.

We have many listeners who are within the senior care industry and the healthcare industry that listen to listen to us. So I don’t want to end our podcast without giving you the opportunity to address anything you’d like to address. I don’t I don’t want you to feel God, I wish Frank would have asked me this, or I wish you would have asked me this. So I’m going to give you the you know, open rain here to anything that you would like to address to our to our listeners.

I think, for me, what’s so fascinating about this industry is I think that all the service providers, everyone is coming at it from the same angle, and that is one of empathy. And it’s a really unique space because you could look at somebody that you know, maybe providing some of the same services as as we do, but you don’t view them as a competitor. You view them as actually, like we we should be collaborating. So the first time I’ve ever seen an industry where collaboration makes sense with virtually all the service providers that are focused on this industry, and and and I found that, I mean, every single person that we have, we have met and we have spoken with, you know, feels the same way.

And that is really really unique. You know. I think for us, the biggest differentiator is the ability to come in and handle the end to end solution here. You know, as I mentioned in the beginning, it could be space planning all the way through to the disposition of assets, and we can really take that overwhelming amount of stress just off of the table here.

But I really I value the relationships that we have and that we’re making with the other service providers, and I just think that there’s an incredible opportunity to help families navigate through one of the biggest decisions of their life. Yeah, you refer to you have a couple terms that you have. Maybe you could expound upon it as relates to clutter cleaner. You have the ten minute role.

What’s the ten minute rule. So if you know, this is one that Matt Paxton I believe, kind of came up with when he was writing keep the memories and lose the stuff, and it’s it’s giving yourself a period of time to assess, you know, what you’re considering doing with something, and it’s just it’s a part of a process to help a family navigate through the solution. It breaks it down down to bite size increments. So instead of focusing on the entire house, you’re going to start to focus on for ten minutes, you know, one particular room that allows you to kind of check the boxes and gradually move through the process.

Great. Great, And then you also refer to the three pile method. Talk to us a little bit more about that. So this is where it comes down to what you’re going to keep with you, what you’re going to donate, and what you’re going to throw out.

And then i’d argue that there’s even the fourth and that is the what are you going to sell? And so you know once you start in the beginning, and this is why you always start with the space planning for where you may be going, because it will determine exactly what you’re going to be able to bring with you. And once you’ve made that decision, everything else becomes throw out, donate or sell, and again it starts to break things down into smaller pieces here so that it is again it’s. Not so overwhelming. Uh.

And so it’s just it’s just a way to navigate through what you’re doing with the physical things in your home. Great, great, Andy, thank you so much for joining us. I I I really enjoy talking to you, and I wish you. I wish you the best of luck on all your future endeavors.

Frank, I appreciate it’s been great spending time with you. Todet, thank you. Yeah, and thank you everybody for joining us. Check it out, uh, clutter Cleaner dot com.

Check them out. Thank you everybody for joining us on Boomer Today. Please be say I talk to everybody next week. You’ve been listening to Boomers Today with Frank Sampson.

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