Home Care U - How Leadership was the Key to Grow the Business to 1 Million Hours of Care Annually (Emily Isbell Pt. 2)

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

The successes and failures of all home care operations tie back to leadership. Emily Isbell returns to break down her approach to roles, responsibilities, meetings, accountability, and development of the office team. The path to success wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, so she’ll include hard lessons learned and honest mistakes made along the way.Enjoying the show? Send me a text and let me know!Learn more about Careswitch at: careswitch.comConnect with the host on LinkedIn: Miriam Allred This episode was produced by parkerkane.co

welcome back to home care you i'm miriam allred host of the show head of partnerships at care switch it's great to be back with all of you i'm joined again today by the lovely emily isbell for session number two one call out here at the start of the episode i am just so grateful for everyone that's listening to this episode i continue to get just a lot of great feedback about the sessions about the guests about the content which just puts me over the moon one thing that i listening to this episode. I continue to get just a lot of great feedback about the sessions, about the guests, about the content, which just puts me over the moon. One thing that I wanted to call out, I mentioned this on LinkedIn

and a couple of different places. There's a text line for the show now. So in the show notes, if you're listening to this on Apple or Spotify or Google, wherever, in the show notes, there's actually a text line. So if you yourself wanna be on the show, if you have a topic to suggest, if you want to say hi, I'm here for all of that, but just want to open up that line of communication

because I love to hear from all of you. So before we jump into today's episode with Emily, last time I didn't give her enough time to talk about her consulting services and about this exciting announcement she has. So I'm going to break tradition a little bit today and give her some time to talk about her consulting services and about this exciting announcement she has. So I'm going to break tradition a little bit today and give her some time to kind of continue her story and talk a little bit more about her services and what she's doing today before we get into the meat of the show. So Emily, I want to start by asking you why you left such a successful business, a successful operation, a title and role that you had aspired to, why you left, and now why you've decided to become a consultant.

So let's start there. Sure. There's two parts to it or two major reasons. And the first is, last episode, I talked about how I went and asked the owner, how can I be in your seat one day? And he took me under his wing and mentored me. In that same conversation, or even shortly after, he knew all the while I wanted to be an entrepreneur. So as we worked together to build this business together, there was always

a plan for me to leave one day. I had essentially gave my notice at the time and said, you've got me until I'm 45. So at that time was a 25-year notice on when I would be leaving him. So I gave that notice. He knew that. He knew I had the entrepreneur itch then, but I also knew that I needed to earn my stripes and feel confident in being able to do that one day. I'm not 45 yet. I did not meet my notice necessarily. And the reason why is because

when COVID happened in 2020, we were successful and things were going well. And actually, even amidst COVID, once we were essential, there was a scary part where it's like, they might say we don't need to go to clients' homes, which is a scary thought. So thank goodness that was determined in the right direction. Once we were essential, I just had a breath of relief where I saw friends who were getting laid off and very unsure about their roles or they weren't essential. And so once that happened, while I had relief and was grateful and I could tell my team all day long, thank goodness we get to do what we're doing. And I believed it with team all day long, thank goodness we get to do what

we're doing. And I believed it with every ounce of my body. I still had a part of me that said, at the same time, I may not make it to 45. As you watch the news back then, which is hard to think now, like as we get COVID now or anybody we know, it's like, get well soon. Whereas back then, we were just so unsure and we're watching the news and what happened in Italy with their older population. It's just, we know people who didn't have pre-existing and they're not making it. So all those scary things are happening. And so my voice was, I might not make it to 45. And so I worked out an exit plan. I made the decision, difficult decision to essentially know that I

had an entrepreneur itch, but not know what I wanted to do next and also not have the space to even think about it. Meaning like I was so dedicated to my team and leading them to the very last day that I essentially just made the plan to leave and have a sabbatical and take time off. And what I told myself was my plan was to not have a plan, which after doing home care and building businesses for 14 years was so much harder than you might imagine. So it's kind of funny because I actually would make a plan every day on going for a hike or getting a massage. I mean, I've kind of lived it up there for a little bit in the first few weeks. But still, anyway, that's what happened. And then during that sabbatical, I was sought after by colleagues that I used to work with and found myself coaching and consulting

them on aspects of their operations and ways to support their business. And in that time, when I wasn't working, they were essentially telling me what I needed to do next by reaching out. And what I looked back on and loved the most during my time building businesses was the leadership development I did of other leaders. So people working underneath me. And so that is a passion of mine. And I thought if I can do that for home care providers, then I want to be able to do that. On top of that, my grandmother had experiences with home care. And honestly, they weren't great. And I share this up front. This owner is not an owner today, and it's not personal,

but a Home Instead owner. So I was in the Home Instead network. Somebody that I knew was supposed to take care of my grandmother. And I think I'm going to hold back telling the whole story. But in short, we never even started with them because the first impression was just so poor that I didn't trust that they would respond well anytime my grandmother or my family needed something. So we went with an independent home care provider, even though I had a contact and I was a leading franchisee, word would spread. That's how the experience went down. So that's not just home and said, that's true everywhere. It's just, and I don't even think

it was malicious what happened. I think it's just not knowing what you don't know. So the experience of my grandmother with that, then the experience of my grandmother with her independent home care provider was disappointing. It was better in some cases, but it was still disappointing to the point where the horror story that happened, horror is kind of an exaggerated word, but the most unfortunate instance that happened was when my mom had surgery, my grandmother needed care. She made plans. She called every day saying, make sure that there's a plan for my grandmother. So my dad didn't have to leave my mom's side. Unfortunately, on the day of, after a history of no call, no shows and not responding well, this is why my mom called every day to make sure there was a plan. Sure enough, a no call, no show happened and they couldn't do anything to support. My dad had to drive back and forth from the hospital to take care of my grandmother.

And that's a 15. They're out in the country. It's like a 15 minute drive. So that experience, not to say that we ran a perfect operation. We didn't. But we had backups upon backups upon backups and systems to protect. And so I realized that owners don't know what they don't know. And if I can help both developing them as leaders and also their operational systems,

then maybe somebody like my grandmother won't have the care that they had. And unfortunately, the other piece of that is a lot of people just give up on home care. So instead of going to a different provider who maybe will do better, they're just like, home care is not for me. And so maybe they hire a private person. So they do home care, but they hire private and that private person doesn't have all the protections an agency provides, or they just give up and move mom into a facility. And it's just unfortunate. So I'm passionate about that. And so today, after that long-winded story of why I started, after getting into it and getting behind the curtain and starting this business and working with home care owners,

I realized how right that was and how much people just don't know what they don't know. I started my business in 2021. And as of today, we have a team of eight individuals. We work with both franchisees and independent home care operators and owners. But then we also work with franchisors. And so there's NDAs, but we work with the CEOs and COOs behind the scenes, kind of helping them strategize how to better serve their franchisees and better serve the senior and the caregiver. I have team members that came from my time at Home Instead who were in the corporate office there, who mentored me and advised me, and now get to work with me and advise others.

And I have team members that used to work with me on the operational side of things whenever I oversaw direct operations in the different states that we worked in. That's what we do today. And I think I hit the bullet points that you wanted me to hit. Yeah, that was awesome. And I wanted you to do that so that everyone is aware and that you offer up consulting services with a broad spectrum, not just to franchisees or franchisors, like you said, but also to independents. So there's room for opportunity for anyone that's listening to this to engage with Emily and her team and to get to know them and understand where they can help you in your business stage today. At the top here, let's just do a quick tease. You have got a really exciting announcement

this week. And I'll just say it. You've written a book. You've documented all of your learnings and tools and put them in a book that is available to home care owners and operators. So quick, maybe 60-second teaser of what people can expect with that. And then we'll talk more in depth about what all is in there at the end of the episode. Sure. So the title of the book is The 24-7 Solution. And the subtitle is Proven Strategies for Home Care Business Leaders. And while you said I put all of it into a book, I wish I could have. But I think that would be an encyclopedia set, to be honest. But what I did do was create a foundational starting point and hopefully also help readers know how to then make the decision,

the next right decision in their business without even my guidance, because they've got the foundation to do that. It does include over 30 tools. And selfishly, I wrote it. I wrote it for two reasons. I know I'm going past 60 seconds. I will keep it to 120. I wrote it for two reasons. One, what I just talked about with my grandmother and the fact that there's people who don't know what they don't know.

And I know our company cannot get to everyone. And there are so many owners and operators out there who started, most of them started wanting to do right by a senior and provide good care. And so if they can read my book and make a few minor tweaks in their business that helps that senior have a better service, then I did my part by writing this book. The second reason is it's the guide I use with my one-on-one clients when I work with what I call a co-leadership client, which is my most premier service where I'll work with them 12 months to 18 months. And then hopefully, the whole point of that is they've set a foundation to not need me anymore. That's my

goal. And so it's kind of my guide that I lean into to get us to the graduation point of them working with me. I love that you've included all of the tools. So let me just plug for everyone listening to this. You didn't shy away. Some business books are high level and generic and you leave wanting more, which is kind of the point, but you have quite literally and graciously like put the tools in there. So at the end, we'll talk a little bit more about the tools and what's included and what people can expect there.

But I just think it's incredible that you've given away so many of the tools because that's really what people want and need and you've decided to give it away. So transitioning slightly, one of the things that has stuck out to me in our time getting to know each other, you know, understanding kind of your success and what set you apart

and really created, you know, what I would say, like maybe one of a kind of success story in home care is a, how you structure, how you think about the business from an operational standpoint, and then how you talk about leadership. And I think you've said it to me is like you chalk up your success to quality leadership. And at the service level, that might sound kind of generic, but put into practice, it's a very different and very real thing is the most successful businesses have really successful leaders, really high quality leaders. And I think that's part of what you have said has driven a lot of your success. And so I want to start by letting you

break down kind of the five operations. And I do this because every business, every home care agency, you and I both know structures, operations differently, calls, different departments, different things. I really like how simple and clean you break down kind of the five areas of the business. And then from there, we'll kind of transition into leadership specifically, but start just kind of laying that foundation of the pillars, then we'll segue. Sure. So the way I break it down is, this is not so much department. So I want to clarify in case listeners are like, oh, so her departments are called this. It's different. So it's the pillars of what you need at working well in your business to succeed. And so it's client acquisition, client retention, caregiver acquisition

and caregiver retention. If everything you do in your business is going towards one of those four, then you're succeeding. You're going to succeed. Now, the fifth piece is what it's wrapped up in, and that is leadership. Now, I didn't mention finance because finance is just kind of a piece within. And I like to bring it up because they're larger size organizations will have a finance department. And I think that's valuable. I don't want you to dismiss that and get confused because the pillars don't say it. So that's why I want to bring that up. But really, it's those four pillars and then the foundation of good leadership that holds them up and holds them strong. Yeah. And I have you do that because sometimes it can get fluffy or convoluted in a business, especially a business at scale.

A business can have six departments with six to eight people. So it can get complicated. It can get, you know, wide and broad, but I like how you just clarify. It's like these four functions, if you have them in lockstep and things are going well and they're growing, like that's how you're going to grow a successful business by focusing on these four areas and you tie it all up with leadership. And so start by explaining why you think leadership has been kind of the linchpin to your success. I think, and I always get uncomfortable having these conversations because I haven't arrived at all. But I do think the constant looking in the mirror about yourself as a leader is such a

key part. And me doing that over the course of 14 years is what kept me showing up every day. And I had dark moments. I mean, I didn't mention it in my story, but I mean, there was a point where I was going to hang up my hat. And I think maybe I did mention it, but either way. And so those are moments where you're like, what's the point anymore? But when you have self-leadership is what I call it and what's been said to me, I did not create that term, you're able to kind of pull away and have perspective and recognize that all you can control is you and what you do in response to anything around you. So yeah, I think having self-leadership and being

able to not take personal something and just realize it starts with me and I'm struggling here because it's so broad, but it's also like so specific to the situation. I'm going to give one. I'm going to give one that just happened today and hope that and not name the client because that's not the point, but just because it's easier for me to work with a real situation. But someone who is it was younger that they hired and invested in and believed in just gave their notice. And this owner is very upset about upset about it quietly and frustrated. And the reality is nobody else on that team needs to feel that. So he has to look at himself in the mirror and say, okay, she's going to move on.

That's unfortunate. I hate that. But who matters right now, not as a human being in life, but just in my organization is the other people on my team. And so what can I do to lead those other people amidst this change? It's frustrating. I don't want this person to leave. I've done everything to set them up for success. And they found this quote unquote dream job. And what's funny is we all as leaders will say, I actually see it makes sense. Like this person's

leaving on good terms. They're in a good situation. But here's the self-leadership of this situation. This person, due to my time working with them, signed an agreement of 30-day notice and to give a 30-day notice to leave in good standing. And they are giving a two-week notice instead. And so the leadership opportunity here for that leader, operator, is to acknowledge that. Instead, they didn't. And I'm coaching him to say, pause for a second. You have other people in this room. We've agreed to a 30-day notice.

If they see two weeks is allowed, then we have to be careful because that's setting a precedence. And so as much as you're frustrated and mad, we have to stop and realize the other people in the room and your future business. And so the coaching I did for him was to make sure to acknowledge. And if they want to give a two-week notice, that's fine. And I apologize if this is in the weeds too far, but I'm not harping on that. I'm harping on the message it sends to the rest of the team. And if you're too stuck in your emotions and frustration

and you don't recognize that your job as the leader is to step up for your organization, your business, the clients and caregivers, and the other team members on that team, then you're going to continue to be on the cycle, the vicious cycle of just two steps forward, one step backwards, or whichever, whatever the saying is. And so I don't know if that made sense. And I'd love your interaction to help me make sure that lands. But yeah, I really like the example, actually. And you know, what thought that is just kind of like coming to me personally is like, is leadership inherent? Or is it learned? And I think, you know, I that is just kind of like coming to me personally is like, is leadership inherent or is it learned?

And I think, you know, I'm like leaning towards the latter because look at you coaching and mentoring other business owners in ways that may not be inherent to them. You know, of course, we all get frustrated, you know, when something doesn't go our way, when we have to let go of someone or someone leaves. Like leadership, good leadership is learned. And I think that's just like an underlying tone that I'm already getting from you. But I do want to ask about qualities of a good leader. You know, what qualities did you maybe come to home care with, even at an early age in your twenties and what qualities have you learned over time? And I'm kind of putting you on the spot here, but think about like qualities, you know, that a good leader that someone may come with, but then also ones that you've had to like learn and develop over time.

What sticks out to me when you say that is the saying that was told to me young, which is leaders are readers. So I've always been a reader. It's funny because I can't read nonfiction. I've tried. It's just not for me. But I love reading books like the one I wrote just to help me improve in processes in my life. And that's not just business, but anything that's self-development to kind of have better perspective on what we look at and how we approach what happens to us. So I think leaders are readers. I think paying attention to that. And nowadays we can do Audible or listen to a book. And so that still counts because it's growth for yourself as a person, as a professional. And that, but the point of that is though, for me, what I know about me is I'm a learner.

If you've ever done the Strength Finders, that's my number one. So I'm always looking. If you've ever done the strength finders, that's my number one. So I'm always looking to learn something new. And I realize not everybody has that, but you have to try and make effort in that direction, or you're going to stay stuck. If you're not willing to learn or whether that's out of insecurity or arrogance, you're going to stay stuck. And so I think the qualities I had always was to be willing to look at something else and say, that's different. I don't know that I would do it that way. In other words, another home instead owner when I would see them at a conference. But then I'd always take that and say, but what would I do from that? What nugget can I take from that and apply back to the business

and tweak and make better? And that's actually how I approach clients. I'm not trying to plug by any means, but I don't come in here and work with a client and just bulldoze and say, you need to copy and paste exactly what I did because it may not work for them. As the owner, they might have their own flavor that they need to do. And some owners are much more direct and they need to calm that down. Other owners are much more apologetic and worried about hurting feelings. And they need to

be a little bit more confident and think about the senior and the caregiver that they're protecting. Because a lot of times these interactions are with office staff that I'm kind of referencing and where the leadership really gets tested. Here's what I'll say. I did have a phase I can remember where I was super, super cocky to use an maybe inappropriate word, but and I can remember how quickly the ground fell beneath me in terms of suddenly somebody was quitting, another person's quitting. We've had a client who just a horrible thing happened and we're at risk for a lawsuit. So like, I'm not going to go into too much. And then we're getting audited left and right. And so I will say, don't ever get too cocky, too confident. Always be willing to recognize that things could change on a dime. And I think what I did learn the most in home care and what I think is different, granted, I don't have a lot of outside of home care experience,

but I still, still in talking with friends and people I know, I think what's different in home care is we actually need like truly not just plan B, we need plan C, D, E, F, G, as long as you can go because of how many moving parts with caregivers taking care of clients. It's simple. The business is pretty simple. But when you realize that there's no capacity, meaning if you oversee a nursing home, I don't even know why I used that word. I've never used that word. Oversee a skilled nursing facility. You have X amount of beds you have to fill and you have so many staff you need to do that. There is a capacity. In home care, you can keep going and going and going. And I guess the capacity is the census, which if you're taking care of the entire senior population and your territory, wow. So there is no capacity. And so you need to have all kinds

of plans as backups for things and be prepared for that growth and possibility. So I'll turn it back over to you because I can keep going, but I'll... Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask about, like you mentioned, and I think we've talked about this. One of the things that I love about home care is just the melting pot of people, the melting pot of owners from every background you can think of. Like I literally, professional musicians, military, like I have met some of the most interesting people with various backgrounds that are now here in home care. And so I think it's actually a strength. Everyone comes with different strengths,

qualities, attributes, ideas that make their business their own. I'm curious to get your take on, you know, given all of like the variants, like what are some of the core qualities interpersonal to like business technical that make a good leader? You know, what are some of the core competencies or attributes that you make a good leader? What are some of the core competencies or attributes that you think a good leader really does need to have? In home care, again, I think it's different than a lot of other industries. We have to be empathetic. We are hiring caregivers and those caregivers, the term is they give care. They are caring.

If you are cold and opposite of that, you're not going to succeed. Or if you do, there comes a point where it implodes, in my opinion. Like there gets to a point where it's like, no, we see how you really are. And so I think empathy is the biggest thing and recognizing that you have people who have tremendous amount of empathy for others. So caregivers and then the office staff who take care of them. And so if you don't have that for them, then there is going to be a disconnect. You're not going to have the trust you need with that scheduling coordinator, with whomever is on your staff to actually execute on the business goals. So I think you have to start with empathy and meeting people where they're at. So the key

about that is not being sympathetic. And that's where I see a lot of mistakes made with owners is that they are sympathetic. And so they think essentially they ignore the issue and they feel bad for the person. Instead of asking that person to rise up to whatever situation is they're facing amidst their reality. So for example, gosh, I hate to use this, but say somebody's going through a bad divorce and they know that, the owner knows that, you should have empathy. I mean, that's not a great place for that person to be in at that time. However, sympathy would be you feel sorry for them and you allow everything in their business that they do for the business to kind of start slacking. So empathy is about you look at them

and you recognize the situation they're facing and you problem solve what the business needs because you, at the end of the day, you didn't know this situation or this person when you started your business. You knew you wanted to serve more seniors and caregivers and provide the best quality service, I assume, is what most people wanted. And so when you put that over and hold that weight, then come back to the situation, then you have to approach it with empathy and acknowledge that this person's in a rough spot. Maybe they do need a day off or two.

Sure. I'm not saying don't do things of that nature. However, at the end of the day, you need to work with them on their role to still achieve the goals you have in the business, still take care of those clients and caregivers. And so I think that's the missing piece a lot of times that I see with owners is that they think they're being empathetic, but really they're being sympathetic. Then two weeks, six weeks goes by and you haven't hired any caregivers because they're not doing their recruiting. And then what does that mean? Clients aren't getting the care they need. You're canceling hours. You're not accepting new clients. So much of a ripple effect from that.

And you thought you were doing the right thing because that person was going through a tough time. And you were, but you only did 50% of it. Right. You still had the other part, which was the business and everybody else to think about. And I want to make sure I say this pretty loud. I'm not saying, so have empathy, offer condolences for whatever the situation is, but then don't just say, I still need your goals. I still need you to meet your goals. Like, sorry, you're dealing with that. So it's a balance of

you're facing the situation. And as the leader, you turn around and you say, with all that going on, how can I help you achieve your goals? And you as an owner being willing to possibly get back into the weeds. And I can tell you that in my time doing this and having that approach, very rarely did anybody ask me to. Very rarely. I think owners don't want to do that because it's like, well, that's a slippery slope. It could be. You're still the owner. You can still set boundaries and recognize the situation and only go so far. But most often, I found that people were just

thankful for the gesture and actually turned their focus to achieving the goals. I wouldn't say necessarily better, but in spite of the situation they were in, they wanted to have something going right in their life. I think that's a key part. And I've already forgotten your question, but I think that's a key part to leadership. I'll pick it up from there. I think you're exactly right that empathy is like a table stakes for a home care owner, for someone to be successful. I want to hear kind of the flip side of that, which is like business acumen. Personally, I would say a lot of the larger, more successful owners and operators in this space have a really

good grasp on business acumen. Doesn't mean they always had that. A lot of people come into this industry with a big heart, a lot of empathy with a, you know, caregiver and client first mindset. But in order to grow a successful business, there needs to be, you know, sophistication in the business and business acumen. Do you see owners, you know, do they need to have kind of a baseline understanding of all the core functions or can they be really good in finance and, you know, have people that can fill in the gaps elsewhere? What's your take on the balance of maybe empathy with business acumen and how much does a successful owner really need to know about the business, I guess? Yeah, that's a good question. I do think,

I think going back to previous question and just being a learner, you have to be willing to learn. I think that it's very risky to just hire people to handle it for you. So a common mistake I see with owners is they came from the music industry or whatever they came from, and they have the empathy necessary, but then they bring on somebody who worked for 10 years at another home care agency. 10 years is a great track record. But what you don't know when you hire that person is, was that 10 years with a home care agency that served like 10 clients that kept a really small census? I mean, you can ask those questions in an interview. So I'm not saying don't hire someone with 10 years experience. But the problem is the owners don't have the business acumen to ask those questions.

Then they bring on somebody with 10 years of bad habits and possibly not a willingness to align with the mission you have and the vision you had. So you do have to be willing to learn and you can. And I'm all about, like for my team right now, I have, I call them my number nerds because I'm not a number person. I love data to tell me what I need to do and then I can go do it. And I also love data to tell me how I did. But in terms of like calculating it or any kind of spreadsheet to, I mean, I can read them, but I don't like to create them. So I have two team members on my team that if it weren't for them, I mean, I would be lost in a lot of ways. So I am for finding people who are better than you, but you still can't let yourself completely

trust. It's not about trusting them as a human. It's just completely trusting them to do the things that you would do if you had the knowledge they had. So you have to, I'm all about trust, but verify is something I say a lot. So having systems in place that allow for you to let them have autonomy, but then have the ability to verify that they're aligning with what you would do if you had, like I said, had their knowledge. So business acumen is important and it doesn't mean you have to start today. Like if you wanted to start today that you have to have had an MBA or any sort of training, you can learn that.

It's definitely possible. Like I'm not even, I'm trying to make sure I'm telling the truth. I'm pausing a little bit, but there's plenty of resources in the home care industry for people to learn what they need to learn to have the right business acumen. The only exception I will say is that bookkeeping is possibly something that if you're really bad at it, maybe you need to just know how to ask the right questions and outsource that. If your numbers are not accurate in terms of your finances, you can get in a lot of trouble that way. So don't be such a learner that you're stubborn and not willing to outsource it and have somebody tell you you're in good shape or not good shape. Yeah. While you were talking, I was thinking of a few specific examples that

I've seen of people that have scaled, you know, multimillion dollar business, three, four, five million. And as maybe like a lifestyle owner where they do bring on someone that's been doing home care operations for 10 years and they do kind of offload a lot of the operations. But like you were talking about before, like people leave, people move on, people find their dream job, people have, you know, family to put first, like people do leave. And so as an owner, be really cautious of offloading all of the core functions and not having a good understanding, base understanding of everything and that everyone's doing. Because, yeah, I'm just thinking of a few specific examples where I've seen that and,

you know, nobody wants to go through that, but it does happen. And so be really cautious of that and have, yeah, like I'm saying, a good understanding of all the core competencies and what these people are doing and be the learner. You know, don't be too proud or have an ego to not go ask the scheduler what their day in and day out looks like, because that's important for you as an owner to understand finances, bookkeeping. You don't have to be an expert. You don't have to be the one managing the books, but you have to know enough to ask the right questions, to know when things are off, et cetera. So really good points there, I think. Yeah. I got to echo that because that's

something I say a lot to clients, which actually my client care coordinator in like 2013 taught me this. And I loved it. It's a little morbid. She said, I'm always funeral ready. And she was leaving. She was walking past my office. And I was like, what? What does that mean?

She's like, I make sure before I leave that my desk, if something were to happen to me, you could pick up the pieces and take care of the clients. And I just love that. It is a bit morbid to think about, but it's so true. And we need everybody in our offices to be funeral ready. And especially as the owner, you need to be funeral ready. And then your operational leader, if you are having someone kind of run the operations, if something happens to them, you as the owner ultimately have to have a plan to step in. And what I love that you said was you can ask

them, tell me what your day is. You can have them create manuals so that it is funeral ready, truly, to where somebody could step in. And then you're being taught what the organization does if you are more absent like that. You don't have to get too involved. You can actually have them. It empowers them and it gets them excited to tell you what they do in their role. I like the funeral ready. It's like a literal and metaphorical example in this industry. But I think the concept is really strong, which is, you know, be prepared, be prepared for both. I want to take you back to a point in time, probably, I don't know how many years ago, I'm not going to say, but when you had an established team, we're talking, you got up

to seven offices, you were managing a lot of people, a lot of operations, things were complex. I want you to think about how you manage those people when you were managing, I don't know how many people at a given time. What were some ways that you developed those leaders in the office, specific strategies, meetings, outings, like what, what did you, what did you do that you saw was really beneficial to develop leaders inside, inside the office? So there's, that's a lot to unpack. I mean, honestly, but what comes to mind,

and then if you ask me this tomorrow, I might have a different answer, just how our brains work. What comes to mind is, number one, policies and procedures, as boring as those words are, having those for people to lean on and know and expecting them to know them and as the leader, knowing them. So if you create policies and procedures, what I see a lot of owners do is like, oh, we've had this happen. This is a good idea. And then they blast out an email and said, moving forward, this is our policy and procedure. It's not anywhere else. And six months later, they make another policy and procedure because something happens similar to it. And the difference is off by like one day versus two days. And some staff will be like, yeah, we had one and call it out. But a lot of staff don't even realize it. And that's because

they're not making it such a standard in the operation. So you need to have policies and procedures. As boring as that is, you have got to set a foundational guideline. And what I was going to say that a lot of owners do similar to what I just said is they'll create them, but then not remember them and not have them somewhere. So you can't expect your team to honor them if you yourself don't even know them. So don't create ones that you can't keep up with. Like that's a huge one is you have something happen. So you create a policy around it. you have something else happen, you create a policy around it. And I'm all about having the backup plans on top of backup plans. But sometimes you just have clutter. So be mindful of what you're actually creating

policies and procedures around. So having that and as a baseline that like we know the rules of the game for all of the people in your organization. Let's see. The other thing is, it's not flashy, it's not exciting, but you have to have regular interactions with your team structured. I talked about that last time when we met, and that is having that space for you to just kind of do a check-in is such a healthy way to make sure that your leaders are still leading, that you are leading them, that they feel supported, that you're hashing out the things that need to be hashed out. A lot of people have heard of the concept of work on the business,

not working in it. Those meetings are you and that team member working on the business together. And so those are just so sacred, really. And if you don't honor them, then they become not important and your team member thinks it's okay to just get stuck in the 24-hour cycle. this concept that I'll get a little long-winded here, but I worked with a client who, when I first started with them, I was at their onsite and they had a 24-hour wooden block. Like it was a 24-hour piece of wood. And there was one on every desk. And this owner was really proud to share that with me because their team member had brought it for everybody and said, and when they presented it to everybody, they said, look, don't worry. We just got to get through these next 24 hours. That's all we have to ever worry about. And this person was in the scheduling department.

And so she was doing this to just kind of say, like, it's going to be okay, which I appreciate that. Problem with that 24-hour mindset. And so it's like, it's looking at, I look at it as like a piece of machinery. It's like, it's always known that this cog is going to break in the next morning, and we're going to have to fix it. But at least we get it done for tonight or for the next 24 hours. And so that's where this came from. I talk about in my book, I'm probably do a better job explaining in my book. But nonetheless, the 24 seven solution mindset, especially specific to scheduling, is just having a mindset that, yeah, let's fix it

for the next 24 hours. But how can we prevent any other broken cogs in the future as much as possible and understand that maybe they will shows and say, well, it's going to happen anyway. So I might as well not prepare for it. So backing up to your question about leadership, it's just having creating mindsets around don't just get through the next 24 hours, be thinking timeless. Like, what do we need to do to fix this problem in the future? Not just this problem right now. We probably will face another workers' comp situation like this again. So what do we need to do differently in a procedural way to fix this? Do we need to do training on this differently? Do we need to set up some sort of safety checklist in the client's home and be willing to do that, but also not just be impulsive and throw it into play without really vetting it and making sure. So as much as I said in the beginning, don't make a bunch of policies and procedures that are kind of clutter, be willing

to, but also be willing to vet it and sleep on it a little bit to make sure it makes sense for the business. The meeting cadences, the policies and procedures that we just all knew we had these standards, and I think empowering them to be leaders in those meetings, like not just showing up and saying, hi, how are you? Like actually empowering them was a key part to us having success and developing leaders. And then knowing where the goalpost is and not moving it. So having goals that they knew what they were supposed to achieve that week, that month, that year, and making sure we're just always testing to that versus saying,

well, now that you've done that, we're going to change it and move it over here. Like having a standard that could be reviewed on a regular basis. Yeah. I actually really like that you started with policies and procedures. To be honest, I wasn't expecting that. But I think everyone appreciates structure and accountability. And, you know, some people may just be checking the box on getting their policies and procedures stood up, you know, when they get started, or, you know, looking over them every couple of years, but really take that into the core of your business. Take that into like your identity as a business and turn it into a structure and empowerment accountability to your team. And I think that starts as the owner. I want to ask this, this may seem like trivial, but like the flip side of that question, which was there ever a time you tried something to like

develop a team or develop a person that just fell flat. Like maybe you had this idea of, you know, I think this will work really well to empower this person, but it didn't like, I guess like a pitfall or a mistake that you made as a leader that backfired that you could share that might help others avoid maybe that same pitfall. There were so many. I mean, honestly, there was no perfection that existed. And where my mind wants to go to is just every case of turnover that happened, even in most were in good terms. I really had rare situations where it was a negative turnover. It was thankfully. So let's see pitfalls. And you could talk about that. Like if, you know, when you had to let people go or people left, you know, what did you

learn? What were the hard lessons learned? Did you, you know, everyone says like, you know, wish them well on their way. It's really hard to do that. You know, were there any lessons learned in that regard? I want to think about a turnover example that happened early on. So when I, in 2012, I was 24 and I held on to someone because I was just new to the idea of leading people and in that capacity, having my own operation.

And I held on to this person way too long. And so this is going to still be a little bit broad. I wish I could give you a more juicy example. Now, when I say I held on to this person, what I did do right was I counseled them on a regular basis. I coached them. I never let them get away with just acting and doing the behaviors they were doing. There was constant coaching. And so that's one thing, step one, I'm glad I did do.

And if you aren't doing that, that's the first step. It's having some sort of paper trail to support that they're not meeting up to standard. Either way, I justified every write-up, every coaching. I'm like, but you know, there's more good than bad here. Ultimately, she was on final warning and she, gosh, I can't remember the quote, but it was something awful. She basically, a mistake happened or a call- out happened or somebody was staffed poorly. Meaning, let's just use the example. They were supposed to go to a doctor's appointment and somebody staffed a person who couldn't drive. That's a common mistake that schedulers make at times. And so, let's say that that happened. Instead of like, I don't know, just this person

ended up saying awful things to everybody. She just went off the handle at everybody. Like, are you a bunch of idiots? It was not something she had been coached on before. It was just continued things. Anyway, all that to say is that whenever I let her go, we had a conversation. Thankfully, because of how I approached everything, she wasn't surprised. So that's also a common pitfall that people fall into, but it wasn't in this case. But when I let her go, everybody was so grateful. And in hindsight, it's like, I should have done that a lot sooner. And I think that's a common thing I see with owners too. I was like, why didn't I do this three months ago or six months ago? So if anything,

just the lesson learned is trust your gut on that. Don't hold on for too long. That was a common pitfall for me in the early days. And I see still with owners. Yeah. And you said somewhere in there, she was like on her final warning that comes back to policies and procedures. You have to have accountability in place, policies in place so that you as an employer can let people go. You know, it's, you can't just really like let people go off the cuff necessarily. But like you said, it's like you had all of this in place. You knew, you know, in your gut that it was the right thing to do, but there had to be kind of a process to get there. So I think it kind of, you know, goes two ways on that front. We've just got a few more minutes here. I want to just ask kind of an open-ended question about, you use the word like quality leadership. And I think

like you said, that kind of is, you know, the overarching influence on a business. You're training and talking to owners all the time as a part of your consulting services. What is it about quality leadership that really kind of like moves the needle in a business? Why is it so essential and how does it really like ripple effect and lead to success or, you know, not success? Well, when I define quality leadership today, I'm thinking about that ability to do self-leadership and reflect and look in the mirror. And if you can't do that, you're always going to be in like the blame mode. Well, it's because I didn't have a good scheduler. It's because I didn't,

the marketer was going to happy hour and not inviting anybody to network with on a daily basis. It was because of this, it was because of them. And really quality leadership is looking at the mirror and saying, well, what can I do differently so that I don't have that happen again? And you can't control someone else. I'm not trying to create this lie. But what you can do is stack, I say this a lot, stack the cards in your favor. So what could you do differently based on the situation you're finding yourself in to stack the cards in your favor better next time? Because I actually sent this in a text today that I want to quote it real quick because I think it was just so true.

I said, everything in operational leadership is about recognizing perfection is impossible and still trying to achieve it. And so I followed that up with this particular person. I said, right now, in this situation, you're forgetting the former, meaning that everything in operational leadership is about recognizing perfection. You're forgetting that it's impossible. You're holding on to perfection right now because you're frustrated, disappointed. And so I think the self-leadership, the quality leadership is holding those at equal and as best you can. I mean, they're a little bit of a, they fight each other. So that's why I think it's,

otherwise you get stuck in blame and excuses and why things can't work. And home care is a 24-7 business. The reason I called the book The 24-7 Solution is because it's the story of when I was 24-7 stuck to the time then I realized how to create leaders and processes, procedures, policies, and procedures that allowed me to finally go home at five o'clock and go for an hour run if I wanted to and not have my phone. But I didn't get there by blaming everybody else. I got there by like saying, all right, what do I need to do differently? I'm a leader. It's on me. And so that's quality leadership, I think, and why it's so powerful. I appreciate you sharing that and being a little bit vulnerable because I think it's hard for everyone to face kind of those hard realities, but I like how you frame it of like blame. You

don't want to live in this, you know, kind of blame game in this denial mode as a leader, you want to be proactive, empowering, you want to be confident and setting the example. But if you're kind of stuck in, in the blame mode, you know, you can't really do that. I want to ask a quick question before we talk about your book again. You referenced earlier that leaders are readers. A lot of people ask this in the home care industry and in other industries as well. What are maybe one or two influential books for you that you've read that have helped you as a leader, as a home care owner? Is there one or two books that come to mind or maybe more, one or two at least that you would recommend? I just got excited for any watching the video because I hadn't thought about this in a while. I strongly recommend QBQ. It's by John Miller, I think, but just look up QBQ. It stands for

question behind the question. Have you ever heard of it by chance? That's not one that I hear very frequently. So I'm going to look that one up myself. So it's really short. And I had every team member read it as a part of onboarding. We started with, and if you owners want to do this, we started with just doing it as a book club. Basically, the first time I read it, I read it during a pedicure for anybody who's ever had a pedicure. They don't last very long. So it's a really quick read. And so that was my sales pitch to the team. I said, it's a really quick read. I want us to read it together, but I want us to digest it together and have like at our team meetings weekly,

let's spend 15 minutes talking about what were our takeaways. And it was so, it's so powerful. But I just remember what was music to my ears was just hearing people like, I recommended it to my sister. I recommended it to my wife. Like we're doing, we're spreading the word

because it's all about self-leadership and reflection and realizing you're ultimately responsible for what you can control. But the way he writes it is just really powerful and succinct. So I would go with that. On a less business side of things, I really appreciate the book called The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And it's similar to The Core Pillars, I guess, but he has four things if you just can agree to. Again, perfection is not possible here. But if you continue to recognize that you're, you kind of let go of some of that stuff that just keeps pulling you back into blame and other

things. So those would be the two that I would strongly recommend. Yeah, great recommendations. I'm not familiar with either. So I've jotted them down myself and I'm going to look into them. And I do love a quick read. I do read a decent amount of business books, but I do like kind of the shorter, punchier ones that are like, give it to me on fast.

Because as you imagine, let's do a lot of podcasts, read a lot of online articles, content. So I need the quick need that a quick one. So let's, let's talk about your book a little bit more. You mentioned earlier, there's 30 plus tools in this book. So for anyone, you know, that's looking for, you know, a resource that can really get you started or also help, you know, layer onto your foundation, this is a great place to start. Talk about maybe an offer you want to offer up to our listeners or subscribers, and then talk about where people should get it and when they should get it. Cause I know there's kind of like a timing here. That's important that I want you to mention. Absolutely. So the offer for you guys,

for anybody listening, subscribing is we, as you mentioned, there's 30 tools. Well, there are about five or six that you have to purchase. They're just so impactful. And I just couldn't give it away for free. There's so much that's free, but there's five or six that you have to pay for. And I mentioned that in my book. And so one of those, to echo what we talked about last week in terms of retention, is the client retention worksheet. And I love that. I'm not going to get on a soapbox about it, but in short, it can help guide you as you're working with clients who want to leave your services or be ahead of even proactively communicating to them what it looks like to go for an avenue other than home care. And it's a worksheet that you can do

with them or your team members can do and at least be more knowledgeable before meeting with clients. And so instead of having you guys have to pay for it, all you have to do is email support at the 247solution.com and just reference Home Care U. And you can get the client retention worksheet for no cost at all. We'll send it to you free. May 30th is launch day. And so tomorrow at 11 a.m. Central, 9 Pacific, we'll be launching. And you can get the Kindle version for just $1.99. And so all you have to do is go to Amazon.

And you can see that there's a paperback. You can get that too. But it's not at a low, easy price. And so the Kindle is going to give you access to the tools and everything you need. So $1.99, you just go to Amazon to get that. I can share with you the link that they could click on if you wanted to include that somewhere. But yeah, that's tomorrow. It's pretty exciting.

Awesome. Well, good for you. Writing a book is no small feat. Yeah, I've seen people kind of go through the process and I know what that looks like. So, so good for you for a writing it, but really just imparting so much knowledge to other owners and operators. So I'll, that was a lot of information. I'll make sure I get that from you and we'll put it on LinkedIn in the show notes, send it out in an email with this episode as well.

So Emily, thank you so much for the last two sessions. These have been so fun and so insightful. I do recommend anyone that's looking for a mentor or a coach or someone that's really been in the weeds and operations, both in kind of a small business and in a very large business. Emily and her team are definitely someone that should be on your list to reach out to if you're looking for that. So Emily, thank you for being here and I'll look forward to staying connected and happy launch day tomorrow. I know you have got probably more things to wrap up, but congratulations. And I hope everything goes

well tomorrow. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome. Take care, everyone. We'll look forward to seeing you back same day, same time next week. Goodbye for now. That's a wrap. This podcast was made by the team at CareSwitch, the first AI-powered management software for home care agencies. If you want to automate away the menial of your day-to-day with AI

so that you and your team can focus on giving great care, check us out at careswitch.com.