Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of South Charlotte.
Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Ep. # 122 Moving Forward: The Art of Senior Relocation
When life forces a change in living situation, whether through choice or necessity, the emotional and physical toll of downsizing can be overwhelming. Cindy Greer, founder of Transition with Care, joins the Good Neighbor Podcast to reveal how her Charlotte-based company has been helping seniors navigate these challenging transitions since 2009.
From creating custom floor plans to determine what treasured possessions can make the move, to acting as "little elves" who unpack and perfectly set up the new home, Transition with Care offers a complete relocation solution. Cindy shares the story of her journey from interior designer to pioneering senior move manager—a path that began with personally helping her mother through multiple downsizing moves after her father passed away.
What sets Transition with Care apart is their deeply compassionate, person-centered approach. As Cindy explains, "We never judge our clients... we just meet them where they're at and we just really want to help them get to where it is that they want to go." This philosophy becomes particularly vital when working with recent widows and widowers or those with dementia diagnoses, where emotional support is as important as logistical expertise.
Drawing from a particularly challenging case study involving a depressed client with an overwhelmingly cluttered home, Cindy demonstrates how proper senior move management transforms seemingly impossible situations into successful transitions. Her team's certifications, including Cindy's credentials as a Certified Dementia Practitioner, ensure clients receive knowledgeable, professional care during these vulnerable life moments.
Have you been considering downsizing or helping a loved one transition to a smaller living space? Visit transitionwithcare.net or call 704-945-7108 to discover how this team of compassionate professionals can make your next move your best move.
Transition with Care
Cindy Greer
704-945-7108
6135 Park South Dr., Suite 510, Charlotte, NC 28210
cgreer@transitionwithcare.net
transitionwithcare.net
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Regina Lee.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm here in the South Charlotte area and my favorite thing to do is talk with local business owners and learn about them and let them share their story. Very excited today to talk with Cindy Greer. She is the founder and owner of Transition with Care, based here in Charlotte. Welcome, cindy.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, regina, I'm excited to be talking with you today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anything in that senior care world is very near and dear to my heart, I discovered with my father in memory care. You don't even know that these businesses exist until you are, you know, faced with having to do things. So you know, this is a cool, cool business. Let's first talk about what you do and what took you, what was your journey and your why for starting this great company. What took you, what was your journey and your why for starting this great company?
Speaker 3:Sure, sure. Well, the name of the company is Transition with Care and planning a move to a smaller home. So we are focused on helping our clients decide what to take, what not to take, and we do that by doing a custom floor plan. And then we are not movers, but over the course of our years in business, we have established relationships with moving companies that we know will handle our clients' belongings with the care that we do, and so we oversee that process.
Speaker 3:We provide the packing of the household goods and then on moving day, if it's a local move, we are there to meet the mo home. And then we're like little elves. We unpack and put everything away according to our clients' wishes. We'll make their beds, hang their pictures, get their TVs hung, resettled. Then they will want us to help with the home clean out or the dispersal of the belongings that didn't move with them, and so we make all those plans as well. So, and and you know, while we do everything, you know, from soup to nuts, so to speak we can be as much help or as little help for our clients too.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm guessing. Then, if your client, let's say, is elderly or even has dementia, you're working then with their kids oftentimes.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so, we are. We're working with, you know, those proactive empty nesters that are ready to downsize and maybe get to a 55 and older community. And then we're also getting questions and inquiries from the adult children whose family member or mom or dad has a diagnosis of dementia and now they're looking at you know other options. So we are definitely involved in moves to assisted living. I like to say that you know, a lot of times that doesn't involve a lot of stuff because those are smaller apartments, but they're very complex moves sometimes and they require a very high level of care and understanding. So, great question, we are. We're working with the adult children too.
Speaker 2:So what made you get into this, to the point of even starting this company?
Speaker 3:Wow, well, that's a great question too. So, honestly, I was a senior move manager before I even was a senior move manager.
Speaker 2:Okay, here comes the personal part. I can tell.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, get ready. So I started out my career as an interior designer and during the course of my early career in fact, I'll date myself I was working at Boyle's Furniture on Nations Ford Road, probably about 15, 20 years ago Well, 25 years ago actually. One of my favorite places.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that? Oh gosh, yeah, Many of my things came from there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So anyway I digress. But so I was working in interior design and then my own mother started having some problems. My father had passed away and so my mom, you know I helped her downsize from the house on the lake up at Lake Norman and she moved into a two bedroom condo. And then she had a health decline and she moved up to a community in Winston-Salem and that was to be closer to her mother, and so then that worked out for a their power of attorney, so that all kind of led up to me discovering the world of senior move management, and I was kind of it was a very, very newly organized niche industry and so I hung out my shingle in 2009. And it's been an amazing journey ever since. So does that make?
Speaker 2:you kind of a pioneer in this area, in this industry.
Speaker 3:I would say it probably does. I would say it probably does. I would say our company does have you know, the most experience, being that we started in 2009.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that sets you apart having that all of that personal journey and then this many years doing this. So do you have to have any qualifications, certifications? You know what do you do. That qualifies you to be able to do this or call yourself this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we are. My company is a member of the National Association of Specialty and Senior Move Managers and we have an A-plus accreditation with the association, which means that you know our business and operations have been reviewed, they're sound, we provide the workers' comp for our employees, we have operations manual and that type of thing. I am also a certified senior move manager, so with that certification comes, you know, study, exam and ongoing CEUs, and most recently I pursued the certificate of certified dementia practitioner so I have additional coursework and understanding for individuals that are, you know, living with dementia. So I strongly say to anybody who you know may be interested in, you know, working with a senior MOVE manager, to make sure that you know working with a senior move manager, to make sure that you know they do have a membership excuse me in this association and, you know, maybe have a minimum of five years of experience.
Speaker 2:Good point, very good point, because you don't know what you don't know when you're starting this journey, and it's such a big deal. I'd love for you to describe one of the more complex or moves or situations that you've had. That either is funny or you know. It was great how it ended.
Speaker 3:And we just completed it, actually in January, and we had started working with this woman in November. Let's see, probably met with her in late October, but when I met with her she lived in a three-bedroom townhouse and just a lovely woman. But when I walked into her home it was completely full and it was full with items on the floor, just, you know, everything on the wall, lots of bookshelves, and then, you know, walked upstairs, because we always do a free consultation. So this was the first meeting with her. So I was a little overwhelmed with what I was seeing. But that's, you know, that comes with the territory. This was not the first time that I have been, you know, kind of overwhelmed with what I'm seeing. But anyway, the circumstances were she was probably in her actually late 50s, maybe early 60s. She had just become a grandmother for the first time and her goal was to move from the Fort Mill area back to Pennsylvania where she had her family, a lot of family there. So we, you know, provided her our estimate to help her. She wanted to move like ASAP. She was very anxious to get moved and get closer to her grandchild, but it took a lot of relocation work sessions to help her, you know, get downsized, go through her clutter and to get her packed. We really had to get things out of her house so we would have room to pack.
Speaker 3:And let me just say that you know this woman. Her circumstances were that she had been divorced, she moved down to Fort Mill to be closer to her daughter who was in college, and she just became pretty depressed with the move and she also had some medical issues that developed and so she was just really struggling with keeping up with the house and she had a lot of interests. So she, you know, had a lot of you know kind of crafting things and that type of thing. So you know, one thing that we never do is judge our clients, because you know, we just meet them where they're at and we just really want to help them get to where it is that they want to go.
Speaker 3:But anyway, all of that being said and done, it took almost it took two moving trucks to get her moved up to, and that was even after the downsizing, and she was actually a little bit of an anomaly because she was moving into a little bit larger square footage so she could keep some of her things. But she was really happy. She was excited to get up to her grandchild for his first birthday and you know we made it happen and that's a real feel good. So how do you?
Speaker 2:determine pricing for the projects for the projects Right.
Speaker 3:So, as you can imagine, because we're working with individual people and different quantities of stuff, we always provide a complimentary consultation and that way we can meet with our client and or their families to in the home and see, you know, what may need to be packed and moved, what needs to be downsized, and then we provide a written estimate, line item by line item, of what we feel, what we know it will cost. And our estimates are based on the number of team members that you know would be involved, the quantity of supplies and then the amount of time. And we're very transparent with you know our estimates and then our service agreement because we want to make sure there are no surprises, and then our service agreement because we want to make sure there are no surprises.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, I'm guessing in that even situation there's a lot of emotion. That happens. You know, her having to decide yeah, I'm going to have to let go of this or that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, regina, not only from the letting go of this or that, which you know, some of us are much more tied to our things. You know, they tend to remind us of, you know, different times in our life that can be positive or negative. But also a lot of our clientele, you know, are recent widows or widowers, and so they're also sometimes going through grief, and so, again, we really are very compassionate in how we provide our services. We're very patient. This is not a one size fits all. The process is all pretty much the same I mean what we have to do but the way that we work with our clients. It's very person centered, and I think that's what also sets us apart too.
Speaker 2:Well, that's such an important key, very important. So how do most people find you guys? Yeah, you know, does your industry exist?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great question too. So we get a lot of our referrals from the retirement communities in our area, the assisted living communities as well as the memory care. We also receive referrals from care managers, elder law attorneys, realtors. You know we try to really network with a lot of different industries that you know are, you know, working with people. Anything that has to do with an older adult and a home, you know we could potentially get a referral from, and we all have families and so, having been in business as long as we have, we have repeat clients too. In fact, we just had a call from a gentleman who we had moved his mother, you know, probably about 10, 15 years ago one of our early clients, and now he's looking to do some downsizing and moving.
Speaker 3:And because he really, you know, appreciated how we worked with his mom, you know he'd like to work with us as well. And you know we're also able to help our clients move in and out of the area, as I illustrated with, you know, the woman moving to the state. Yeah, we can connect clients coming in or out of the area with other senior move managers across the country and in fact, that's one of that's a great referral source for us is other senior move managers, because Charlotte's a hotspot, you know. So, yeah, so we get referrals from all over the place.
Speaker 2:Well, with all of us baby boomers in this huge movement. I think you're going to be very fulfilled for many years to come. I can tell you're passionate about what you do and you do a fantastic job, so tell our listeners how to find you guys oh, thank you, regina.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Um, yeah, we do love what we are doing. Um, so people can find us by going to our website, which is www. transitionwithcare. net. There's a lot of great information there. You can contact us through the website. You're also able to give us a call at 704-945-7108. And we would be happy to talk to you and, you know, provide any kind of service and or other resources too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just learn about what you guys do Transition with Care based here in Charlotte. Thank you, Cindy. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and the journey and what you guys offer here in the Charlotte Metro area.
Speaker 3:Well. Thanks, regina, it's been a pleasure to be with you, and thanks so much for bringing great resources to the community. It's really important. I appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPSouthCharlotte. com. GNPSouthCharlotte. com GNPSouthCharlottecom, or call 980-351-5719.