Four Proven Strategies to Breakaway from Your Home Care Competition (Aaron Marcum Pt. 2)

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[ 00:00:03 ] Hello and welcome everyone to Home Care U. It's great to be back with all of you. I hope you're having a great day. I'm Miriam Allred, your host and head of partnerships here at Careswitch. It's great to be back with you again. Hope everyone's having a great week, a great month, enjoying some time out in the sun if you can. I'm really excited to be back with Aaron Marcum today. We had an awesome session last week. I hope everyone has listened to it. If not, go back there, take a listen. It was a really great setup for today's conversation. We also did an extended introduction and background on Aaron Marcum. If you don't know him, I am happy to be introducing you to him.

[ 00:00:36 ] He's been in the home care space for a long time, has worked on a number of brands, projects, companies that you've probably heard of. Whether or not you know him yet, I'm happy to introduce you to him today. Aaron, I know we did a long introduction on the last call and it was fantastic, but I want to give you just a couple of minutes to overview yourself. I know you've got a lot of notes. Yeah, I know. It's a lot to cover, but give me just kind of a couple minutes summary of your career and the things you've accomplished. Yeah, so I was 28, started my first home care company in Salt Lake City, Utah. Yeah, and grew that to be the largest in the region. And back then, the industry was in its infancy.

[ 00:01:15 ] Large back then was two and a half, three million, somewhere in there. It's interesting just how much the industry has grown over the years. Halfway through that journey, got the idea that the industry needed more data and analytics and survey, satisfaction surveys, and got the idea behind Home Care Pulse, founded and started Home Care Pulse, which is a national brand, satisfaction surveys, now training, benchmarking, all of those things. They just recently changed their name, which was hard for me to see that, but I totally get why. But started that company. 2008 is when we started that company. Sold my own care company in 2009. And just grew and scaled that and really got fascinated with the field of positive psychology because my own well-being was suffering.

[ 00:02:11 ] And 2016, really invested in my own personal well-being, had hockey stick growth in Home Care Pulse, exited Home Care Pulse in 2020. And I went back and got my master's degree in applied positive psychology. And then I went back and got my master's degree in applied positive psychology. Became an EOS implementer, ended up coaching some of the top brands in the home care space, invested and helped scale a company with the team. It's a very much a team effort at Golden Harmony in North Carolina. So I am also still, I've been in the home care space. A lot of people thought I exited the home care space when they exited Home Care Pulse. Not true. I actually even got more into, kind of more intimately involved in it in that sense. And now I wrote a bestselling book, EntreThrive.

[ 00:02:55 ] I don't know if I'm saying it right now. I don't know if I'm saying it right now. Still over my two minutes, but it's a positive psychology meets entrepreneurship that came out earlier this year. Super proud of how well that's done. And now we have created a tire framework that uses all of those things from the last 22 years to help home care providers accelerate their personal and professional growth, their agency as well as themselves. Amazing. And on top of it all, you're a father of six kids. Yes. Thank you. Is that right? You're most proud accolade, I'm assuming. My most proud. I have three boys, three girls, been married for almost 28 years. We celebrate in September. Amazing. Amazing. So on top of it all, all the success, all the businesses, you're a father raising six kids.

[ 00:03:44 ] I hope everyone hears that. Six kids. That's a lot of kids in today's world. Probably the reason I got into positive psychology is so I can be a better father, which really, truly has helped for sure. Amazing. Amazing. Well, and I said this on the last episode, you and I have got a lot in common. Aaron and I live just a couple of miles apart here in beautiful Southeast Idaho. So can't complain. We live a pretty good life here just outside of Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, an incredible place to live. So thank you again for being here. And thank you for all that you've done for the industry. I think Home Care Pulse, the benchmarking report is. I think you're 15 this year. So it's been a journey, a very successful journey for them and for you.

[ 00:04:24 ] And so you have contributed so much to this industry. And I think you've done so much for this industry. You think back to when you started your agency in Salt Lake to where we are today, to the amount of information, resources, benchmarking data, like we've come such a long way. And I think you pioneered a lot of those efforts. And so thank you on behalf of everyone in the industry, really. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. It's a, you know, it's fun to see. It's fun to see how more sophisticated we are as an industry than we were even 12 years ago. So. And we've still got our work cut out for us. I think, you know, we've turned some big corners, but I don't, I think you and I probably feel the same.

[ 00:04:58 ] There's a lot left for us to accomplish here. And I think that's why we're here and why you've stuck around in the industry. So I want to start by talking a little bit about the term breakaway. So it's in your company name, you talk about in your book, kind of your philosophy, your approach is stems from this term breakaway, which I think is pretty unique. And so I want to give you a couple of minutes to talk about like the breakaway concept, the breakaway mindsets. And then forever listening today, we're going to talk through steps two through five in his approach, the breakaway mindset approach. First session we covered number one, which was think; that was kind of the foundation for everything that we're going to cover today.

[ 00:05:36 ] So if you missed that, go back, listen to it, kind of deep dive on that first topic, which is all about thinking. And now today we're going to cover two through five and talk about, you know, hiring, finding, retaining top talent. We're going to talk about systems, processes, operations. And then we're going to talk about financial freedom, you know, that abundance, that's a big, big concept that you preach. And so we're going to kind of round out the episode with that. So a little, little teaser there, but I want to give you a minute to talk about breakaway. You know, what does that mean? And why, why is that a term that you've coined? Yeah. Yeah. Breakaway.

[ 00:06:06 ] And you, you appreciate this, Miriam, as a fellow cyclist, but breakaway is when you break away from, from the pack, from, from, especially in a race, right. When you're in a pack of riders to break away, usually you need a team. We call them drafting partners, a drafting team is when you get behind someone's wheel and about six inches is really ideal, especially if there's a nice headwind and you can save 33% or more of your energy by drafting. And so we, we turn the breakaway accelerator because we want to be the drafting partners with home care providers, right. And help them break away from where they are today and break away from the pack and create, I use the term blue ocean because I'm certified in blue ocean strategy, and that's creating your own kind of competition-free zone in that sense in home care, which is very unique.

[ 00:07:02 ] And so the breakaway is just, yeah, it's a cycling term. I love the bike to get them, you know, break away from the pack because in home care, unfortunately, there's a lot of pack mentality that goes on. A lot of people trying the same things, doing the same things. And so we're not standing out, we're not differentiating. And I think that, that we have to be doing things differently. And, you know, we use the word maybe innovative is, is overused, but really be innovative about how we separate ourselves from, from where the industry's at today and really think about the future. And like the old Wayne Gretzky analogy, skate where the puck's going to be, you know, seven, seven hits ahead, you know, he's always thinking ahead. So anyway, that's the breakaway.

[ 00:07:52 ] Yeah. I really like the visual of the pack because you, you quite literally think of, you know, a big metropolitan area and the number of home care agencies in one Metro area, we're talking five, six, seven, eight, 900 upwards of a thousand agencies in one metropolitan area. And so I just liked the visual of a pack, you know, it's not very common, you know, you maybe like kind of lump all the home care brands in a Metro together. But if you think about it in that essence, like you're up against hundreds of other businesses and you look and feel and say, you know, you're not going to be able to do that. They, you know, kind of the same things as them, or are you differentiated going to see the same people?

[ 00:08:30 ] You know, it's, it's very much like, I think it's a great analogy for our industry. And that's why I use it is we want to help them find their breakaway. If they want a yellow Jersey, you know, using the Tour de France analogy, if they want a yellow Jersey and they want to really break away, they've got to do things differently, almost drop the 80% that no longer works like, and focus on the 20% that really does work, you know, and, and that's really important. That's, that's the only way to accelerate. Like you can't, anything that slows you down from exponential growth is holding you back, you know, so. Then the, the neat thing is you were in home care, you know, two decades ago, and you were one of a few in a market, you know, Salt Lake City, decent sized market.

[ 00:09:20 ] Now, you know, you were just, and still I think are involved, so you've seen like full circle what it was like when, you know, home care was pretty sparse and there wasn't a lot of competition to now very different circumstances, especially post pandemic, everything has changed. There's a lot of competition. There's mom and pop agencies opening up everywhere. So very, very different, which is cool to just, you know, for you to see the contrast and to understand what it used to be like. And you just said, drop the 80%, you know, that we were doing 20 years ago. That does not work in today's landscape. Yeah. And there's things that I have to fully admit, even when I was leading home care polls and I was speaking all over the country, I, the, some of the things I said back then, then are no longer applicable now.

[ 00:10:04 ] And I'll be the first one to own that; that we've evolved as an industry and we have to evolve with it. That's why I invested so much into knowledge, not just in our industry, but what are other industries doing? I spent the last couple of days learning from the senior living industry. I brought some people in. I mean, it's just so important to understand where we're going, you know, and, and, and the whole, the whole continuum of care was senior was with our seniors, you know, and how to best care for them and what makes the most sense. And anyway, that's the only way to break away, I think really in today's market. Yeah. Well, let's talk about point number two of your approach, which is all about people.

[ 00:10:48 ] And this is something near and dear to your heart that you have a lot of experience with, which is finding, hiring, and retaining top talent. And we talk a lot about recruitment and retention on the caregiver front, and we're not going to kind of dive in there today, but I actually want to talk about like office team, administrative staff, hiring, finding, retaining your top people. So because it is such a competitive market right now, inside and outside of home care, finding good people is a challenge for a lot of people. So let's start there on attracting these people. What are some approach approaches that you've taken when it comes to attracting these people? Yeah. Yeah. And I call it creating a keeping culture, which also attracts, right.

[ 00:11:29 ] And the second breakaway is keep and how to keep, you know, the fine part though. I mean, I've been saying this for years on, and this is still applicable: that retention starts at higher, right? Is that you've got to find the right people that fit, you know, what you want to do as a company, especially internally. We have probably no concept and there still isn't, I think great data on this. And I think it's important to think about these things and the, the real, the real impact of the impact of the impact that our office team has on turnover on care professionals and really what the impact, the entrepreneur, the CEO of a home care agency has on turnover, both internally with their office staff, as well as care professionals. And so when you're, when you're thinking about finding, and I know this, this is out there and, and, you know, I've been an EOS implementer - that's to say you've got to know what you want out of your business as an entrepreneur.

[ 00:12:22 ] So, you know, who who you're going to be looking for to get there, if that makes sense. And so really identifying what's, I call them your guiding truths. What are, what are those, what's my purpose? What are the things that are most important to me that lead to your core values as a company that tie together and creating those core values? And there's, there's a, there's a format in which you go through to get to your core value. You don't want to just say, 'what are my core values?' There's, there's really a process in doing that. And then really being focused, even with your care professionals, not to hire anyone that doesn't fit your purpose, what you want out of your business, what you want to grow, what type of even clients you want to attract.

[ 00:13:07 ] Because if you're not clear on that, then you end up hiring or find or looking for the wrong people often just to fill in the gaps. And I've, you know, even recently, I mean, constantly, where I think as, as entrepreneurs, we struggle with that because we want to fill those gaps. We want to, I'm what's called a quick start. And so I want to jump right now. I want to hire that person now. So I don't have to deal with this issue anymore. And so when it comes to your office staff, it's that, it's that go slow to go fast, you know, is, is like, you know, 15. I think when we were at Home Care Pulse, we had 15 different staff, we had 15 different staff.

[ 00:13:51 ] And so I think that's one of the steps of hiring, especially leadership team members or internal office staff, culminating in an interview with my wife and me. At a restaurant, with their spouse or with their significant other, you know, and so we took very special care on making sure, and I still do that. We just recently did this with a marketing leader that we hired. We met him and his, his, his wife at a restaurant. And you just find out so much more about some, you know, a person. And, and my, my wife finds out more about what, you know, what they're like about Eastern Idaho? And if they don't like winners about East, you know, if they're, if they're from California and this is their first winter, I'm a little, little iffy about hiring someone locally, you know, here, if they, if they haven't been through two or three of the winners here.

[ 00:14:41 ] Right. I mean, that's one example, but when it comes to finding, I think you have to be slow about it. You have to make sure they fit what you want out of your, your business. And of course, going back to my EOS days is getting clear on what the roles and responsibilities are and what the outcomes are for your, for your team. We call it the accountability chart. Right. And so putting that together in a way that, that again gets to where you want out of your business. Like you have to keep coming back to that when you're putting the structure together to say, okay, how much focus are we going to put on recruitment? Do we need a recruiter? Okay. Well, yes, we do. We want to make sure we're getting the right people.

[ 00:15:22 ] Do we need a marketing person that is that do we separate that from the sales person? And the challenge that we have in an industry is we, we just start copying what other people are doing and not, not to say not to put down what I did for years and benchmarking, but if we get too laser focused on benchmarking on how other people are finding people, then we end up again, doing things that may not work for us. And if we're reading reports and I'm not just talking about the benchmarking study and, and, and doing everything the industry's doing, then we're going to probably miss opportunities to find the right people in our market. And, and so we've got to just pay attention to what works for our market and what we, how we want to hire them.

[ 00:16:09 ] Again, obviously Indeed and other places are pretty noisy. And so where else can you go to help to find the right people? And what other networks do you need to be a part of locally to be connected to the right people? Because the right people are typically not looking for a job, you know? So when it comes to your internal office staff, frankly, And hiring is a perfect example of not getting too laser focused on the quantitative. It's very qualitative, you know, the personality, the attributes, the skillsets, you know, you can't, you can't really, you can't really quantify people when it comes to that just like interpersonal type stuff. So you mentioned, I want to dig in a little bit. You mentioned, you know, you throw out like 15 step process, taking people out to dinner with their significant others.

[ 00:17:03 ] What, what are some other, you know, like tactics that you've found are helpful when vetting people? Because this, like, I love that concept, go slow to go fast. You know, you don't want to make rash decisions, you know, obviously, like you said, you're a quick start. There's like urgency. I want to get this stuff off my plate. I want to, I want to hire her for these needs, but you don't want to misconstrue that for, you know, just jumping the gun on someone without the vetting. So any other, yeah. Specific tactics like taking people out to dinner that you found that are really useful. That was the last one. Right. And sometimes I'd even come with the offer in hand.

[ 00:17:37 ] And if we felt really good about it, we there's your offer, you know, or, and there were times I did and I held it back. So I've been doing this for years. The team at Home Care Pulse can attest to this; the team interview is. I think it's a really good way to get involved. So, I think the team at Home Care Pulse interviews are really great. Where, where you have three to five other people. And often, I wasn't in the room until later on, until they got two to three top cat candidates; that's when I would get involved. We have team members, especially people who might be direct reports to that person. You know, and we did, especially. We did a lot of this between like 2014 to about 2017, 2018. We did a lot of these group interviews to help really build the right team.

[ 00:18:21 ] And, and in that interview, they're asking questions relative to even to what they're doing and how they might interact with this person. They're all getting different ways of how this person communicates. And to see how they, they do under pressure, especially if it's a leader on your team. On your team. And I had my brother, my youngest brother was our director of marketing for years. I don't know if you ever knew Chris. But he started the. He and his wife started at Chris loves Julia and he's they've done really, really well, but. He was my director of marketing and he would ask the funniest questions in these team interviews, but they were really good questions from the standpoint to see how they would react.

[ 00:19:06 ] Questions about the food they ate, last and how they organize their fridge or how. You know what he was getting somewhere with it, but he was kind of a master at interview questions. But he was. Kind of a great leader. But it helped the team kind of get a sense. And that person would leave. And usually these would last an hour or so. And then the team would discuss and they would come with the recommendations to me. On. If this candidate really fit, but I also had to help them be clear on what, what it is. What is it that we're looking for? What does this person, not only just doing, but again, going back to. The purpose of the company and the core values of the company is I wanted them to spend time on what was important to this person.

[ 00:19:52 ] Like what was their purpose? Do they even know. What they wanted or what their purpose was. And not that that was a deal killer. Cause a lot of people don't aren't super clear on that. But I, you know, you have to at least understand what drives them. You know, other things we've done is. So go ahead. Well, I was going to say, I want to, I want to kind of gear this now towards like retention, you know, a lot in a home care office changes. You may hire someone. From for one position, kind of one job. Things change. You discover things about them. The business is growing. There's new needs. How do you, how do you then, you know, get, get people to stay and to stay long-term?

[ 00:20:36 ] How do you build this keeping culture that motivates people? To stay, you know, what are kind of like the pillars to keep people. Yeah. Yeah. And that for me has evolved and I've gotten much better at it, especially since I'm going through and learning about The science behind wellbeing, which is positive psychology. To understand why people thrive, why some people don't. And one of the key factors is to creating, if you want a culture where people are self-determined and they really are focused and they really want to. Do the work for you and the company. There's three, three areas. That are really important. We may have, I don't know if we talked about self-determination theory last time, but that the autonomy. Is the first pillar, like creating an environment. An autonomous environment.

[ 00:21:28 ] So think of it in this sense that you're putting up the scaffolding for your company and the scaffolding might be an operating system like EOS or whatever that is, you know, just how the, the processes, the operations and so forth. But within that scaffolding, they get to decide what they're going to create and what they're going to paint. Like if they're, if you're painting a wall and you all the scaffolding up, you know, you want that autonomy and that autonomy creates freedom. It creates satisfaction and they want to work for you. So think about your office staff. What kind of autonomy are you creating? This theory has been around for years, self-determination theory. And the second one. Which is one of the most important ones is relatedness. Like if you can create a culture.

[ 00:22:15 ] A keeping culture where people. Connect they relate and we hear this, but in what ways are you doing it in your home care company? And we're not talking necessarily going team outings and all of these things that maybe you're already doing. Is that are you as the entrepreneur relating to them? As the home care leader. Are you sitting down with them and asking what's their greatest frustration, what's getting in their way? How can I help in that way? What resources can we provide to help you do your job better and getting down in the, into the details. I remember Eric at Home Care Pulse used to sit down with our satisfaction research team, and he would ask those kinds of questions. Of the satisfaction research associates. And these were college kids, mostly right.

[ 00:23:06 ] That we're doing some of these phone calls. And I was always impressed by that. Like really getting to know and, and, and, and having that relatedness. So that there's not a barrier of information. So often in our home care companies, we create barriers or that information is not flowing through the organization. And there's silos that are being created between care professionals and what's happening out in the field and what's happening in the office. And even in the office, you're creating self-care silos. Where the schedulers or the care coordinators are keeping the information tight. They don't want to admit they're making a mistake and so forth. So that relatedness, like the more you can create that culture where they, where you're approachable, where people can come to you and, and also training your other leadership team members, the same thing.

[ 00:24:00 ] And there's actually a science behind it. We actually, in our program teach that science of, of, okay. This is how how you connect. We call them high quality connections. And here's your goal. You're gonna have one or two high quality connections a day. And this is how you have a high-quality connection. You know, and that's a term Jane Dutton. She's a psychologist. She coined years ago. But how can we have high-quality connections in, in the office more often with the leadership team with all everyone in the office? Anyway, that relatedness is really important. The third pillar. When it comes to determination and creating an environment where people are just getting the work done, right. And they're, they're motivated, intrinsically motivated to do the work. This competency, like people need to know expectations, obviously.

[ 00:24:52 ] Clearly, on your vision, understanding where you want to take this company so they can support that vision. And I don't know if you recall. The. And this, I think. I can't remember. Our overlap Miranda at home. But anyway, we had, we had the rocks, you know, that we were doing the quarterly rocks. And when we started having other team members involved in doing rocks. That tied to the overall vision. And then we'd have them share every quarter. And I do this even now. Is that every quarter they would share what they accomplished with those rocks and the outcomes. Sometimes people get emotional about it because they were doing something. That tied to the overall vision of the company. And they were doing something that created more competence in their work.

[ 00:25:42 ] They were becoming better people, smarter, more engaged. And so. I try to keep things simple. So if you, you know, autonomy relatedness, competency. You know, that alone creates more positive cultures. I love that. This is actually the first time I've heard this and I'm, you'll see me looking down. I'm taking notes because this is actually the first time I've heard this. And there's, there's a lot of self-reflection here. I hope owners operators like hearing this are reflecting like, oh, wow. Maybe we're really good at autonomy. But we're lacking some of like the relatedness or vice versa. We've got the competence competency down, but we struggle with autonomy because there's like lack of trust. So this is really good. And I'm glad you've highlighted this. Because I think there's a lot here for office teams.

[ 00:26:27 ] I want to, before we move on to the next one, I want to flip the script here briefly. The reverse of this, which I don't want to like take this down, like a kind of a pessimistic route, but hiring the wrong people and getting people off the bus. I was just talking to someone about this earlier this week. They made a big hire. You know, it's been months in the making. They've just, they've identified that this just is not the right person. And, and they're a big office. We're talking, you know, 20, 30 people here. But even to like take someone away puts more burden on other people. And there's a whole shift and it's. It's really tough to let people go because it puts a lot of stress and pressure on everyone else in the office.

[ 00:27:07 ] So. I know you also feel strongly about this of like, you know, getting people in the right seats, but also getting people off the bus. And I'm sure you've experienced that. What advice or thoughts do I have around that for owners who may be in this situation where they don't want to make this tough decision? This is where I'm going to create some relatedness with your audience, because even where I'm at in my career, it happens like even more, even recently I had to let someone go, unfortunately. Right. Is that. I'm a person. And I think that with all the information we have about a person and all the social media that we can like check out their LinkedIn and we can even talk to their references and have detailed discussions and the group interviews, the 15 steps.

[ 00:27:49 ] That can all not be perfect. Right. It's never perfect. And. Someone can, I wouldn't say even does is like, it's just not a good fit. And in, again, EOS calls it the get it, want it capacity. Is that sometimes. You don't know if someone gets it until they're actually doing it. They might be able to sell you that they get it, but. And they might even feel like they're going to get it. Like, I don't think people are intentionally selling you a bill of goods that they, they get it. Although some do. They can do that. But. What we've got to do faster. And it's, it's for their good as well, is that when we know it's not the right foot fit and get it as one of those things, that's really hard to teach people.

[ 00:28:33 ] If they're not wired to do this. And, and you don't have another seat for them. Then, You've got to take the action. That's why you're doing what you're doing. When you decided to start your home care business. You also took on that kind of responsibility. And what usually happens in Dave Ramsey talks about this and his EntreLeadership book. Is that what usually happens when you let go of the wrong person? People, other people, on the team saying, 'Oh my gosh, why did it take you so long?' You know, you know, or maybe they don't have the guts to say that, but it comes out somehow that, that they are grateful that the change was made. Not that they even disliked the person. It's just that maybe that person wasn't doing their job, right?

[ 00:29:22 ] So it fell on them. And they were already doing what they were doing. My counsel, a friend of mine recently, another completely unrelated industry. And so forth, where they were running into this. And, and they had a wrong person in, in the company. And you know, and they had waited way too long to make the change. And it created quite a discord in the company. And so, creating a keeping culture in order to do that. You've got to be willing to get rid of the wrong people early. When, you know, it's not a good fit and you've had those conversations, at least one conversation. And that, you know, that they're not a good core value fit. Now here's, here's to me, the hardest thing to do. Let's say someone is a good core value fit.

[ 00:30:13 ] But not a good seat fit. To me, that's the harder decision is that this is a great person. They fit all your core values. But they don't get the seat. They might, they might be a sales person. Community liaison, you know, in our industry, we often use that term. Where they did a lot of industry. And they're not used to being inside sales. A lot of people call them, but they're not used to networking and getting out into the scene. And so they're always in front of their computer. And no matter what you say, they're just not getting out like you want them to get out. But they fit all your core values. What do you do in that situation? Well, if you don't have another seat, you have to make that tough call and let them have another opportunity elsewhere, because it's probably just not a good fit.

[ 00:30:55 ] Yeah. All of this is easier said than done. I would just say like, to tee you up for people listening to this. You would be, you would be an R a great resource for something. Well, I empower people to do this. Yeah. You've been through it. I don’t want to be called. I don’t want to be the ax man. Right. I don’t want to be called the ax man. That’s not my role. But I’m. I’m a pretty good. I try to be pretty graceful. In, in doing this. Not perfect at it. And sometimes people. Don’t take me the right way. Because I. I don’t. The first thing out of my word is. this isn’t working out, you know, and this is why, and here’s what’s going on. Yeah.

[ 00:31:37 ] So, so I, I totally agree not to, not to paint you with the axe man either, but it, for people that are feeling this, thinking this, going through this, to have a mentor, to talk through this, this, these hard conversations with, and, you know, just kind of have a sounding board is really important. This actually leads us really nicely. Can I say one more thing, Marianne? That's really important because I, if I don't say it, people are going to misconstrue it. Is the first thing you ought to look at though, is yourself. Like if you, if they're your direct report or someone on your team, have you done all you could do to provide the resources, the training and the support? Like, let's not overlook that sometimes it is us.

[ 00:32:16 ] And so you have to always say, 'Is it I, am I the problem?' and take that extreme ownership, I think is really important. Yeah. Yeah. I had, uh, Emily Isbell on, on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and she said that really eloquently: business owners, entrepreneurs have to take hard looks in the mirror at themselves before they make judgment calls before they hire fire. You know, a lot of the times there's pieces of the pie that you as the owner influence, and it's not for everyone. It's hard to, you know, look at yourself in the mirror and give yourself the hard truth, let alone do that for someone else. I'm glad, I'm glad you pointed that out. And Emily made a really good point about that.

[ 00:32:56 ] Um, this concept actually ties really well with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, with the, really nicely into the third concept, which is accelerate because you think about getting the wrong people off the bus, getting the people in the right seats that leads to acceleration when you're, you know, slowing down, you know, that's the opposite of accelerating. And sometimes it's the people or the processes or, you know, the product that does that. So, um, this, this third concept is acceleration. I think I read somewhere recently, you said accelerating a home care business is actually easier than maybe. Slow, steady growth. I read something along those lines, which is really interesting. So I want to hear your philosophy there. Why is acceleration easier? What does that mean?

[ 00:33:41 ] Yeah, it is easier because slow growth when you're, when you're doing things that are like what Dan soul of a non-strategic codes called two X growth - that you're doing some of the same things. Think about like, if I were to, for example, when I first started home care pulse, I think this is a good example is that I took kind of the slow approach early on. And what I mean, slow approach is I, I tried to do a lot of things on my own because I didn't want to spend the money. And I had just had an exit. I had the money, the, the, the investment to invest in the right people, but I chose the slow route of like, 'Oh, let me put in all the processes.' Let me get all this stuff in place.

[ 00:34:28 ] Let me; I want to, you know, organically grow this and then get the right people. And so the first four years was pretty slow and pushing the string and the marketing and the messaging. And I was taking way too much of benchmarking study was on my shoulders. And we take that approach. Like we, we feel like we, we should be the ones doing it, or we have to have this just right. And that's kind of the slow growth. And through that, it puts way too much burden on us, and it's hard. And we, we are two X-ing our business and we're not delegating properly. And we're not trying to create a self-managed company in that, in that sense. It wasn't until 2016 where that all changed for me.

[ 00:35:13 ] As I started, I started investing in all the right people and also in my own wellbeing, which is important. And the processes, the mentors, and started you know, dropping the things that, that were no longer working. Acceleration requires that, right? If we have to get all the obstacles out of the way, and some of those obstacles are people, processes that don't work anymore, technology that's getting in our way that might, some technology is too cumbersome or too hard to manage or too complicated. We, I won't say, cause I don't want to, I don't want to be accused of defamation or, or, you know, saying some negative, but we had a technology early on. That was so confusing and was getting in our way. And, and because we were trying to save money, right?

[ 00:36:06 ] We were the, we had the two X mentality. And so we dropped that. It was painful to transition to a new CRM and a new technology that once we got that in place, acceleration was then possible, you know? And so when I say acceleration, it's easier because you have to drop everything that, that, that is hard. That is, that, doesn't work. And that means sometimes making investments, you know, into the right strategies and systems and so forth. So an acceleration also requires dropping what everyone else is doing in the industry. If it's because what works for someone in San Francisco may not work for you in Albuquerque, right? And so we're, you've got to just think completely different.

[ 00:36:58 ] You know, when it comes to acceleration and once you do, once you start adopting that kind of mentality and there's a wonderful book called 10 X is easier than two X Dan Solo and my, my coach at strategic coach, he and Ben Hardy wrote it and they make this case. Like I've never heard anyone make this case before, just as eloquently as they do in that book. So home care is, is different, is inherently different. You know, clients come and go, pass away. There's a lot of flux in home care. And so there can't always be acceleration, you know, and in my mind, we see in the industry, a lot of businesses can, can go from one from zero to 2 million quickly can go from three to 5 million quickly.

[ 00:37:47 ] You know, I don't know how people, how fast people can go from five to 10. And then, and then it kind of tapers off above that, you know, home care isn't just like kind of always on this like steady upward trajectory. You think about there, it really ebbs and flows. So when you, when you think about and talk about acceleration for home care, is that how you imagine it is like, there's periods of acceleration and then there's periods of, you know, stagnation that just come after acceleration or how do you think about like the flux? Yeah. You know, it's the evolution is probably a great term to say, you know, that, that there's plateaus there's that we hit the ceilings and then what we have to do.

[ 00:38:24 ] And I, I coached on this when I was in EOS, is that, you know, you have to, you know, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you have to, you know, if you think of growth as kind of a line, right. And then there's ceilings along the way that you hit and you hit that ceiling and you've got to figure out how to accelerate past that ceiling and then you hit this next ceiling and accelerate past that next ceiling. So you're right. It does ebb and flow, but I also want to change the paradigm a little bit that acceleration doesn't always include revenue growth or even billable hour, hour growth. And that's why it's really important when we work with our clients in this program, is to really dial in what do they want out of their business?

[ 00:39:02 ] You know, for example, is this a lifestyle business for you, you know, or is this something you want to expand at other locations? One great way to accelerate is expansion right into, into other locations. Once you have your proven processes down and so forth for that acceleration to happen. But again, it is this like to grow, you have to get through those ceilings that just come. Some of them are external, like COVID, you know, in order to accelerate past that, we had to figure new things out, new ways of operating. But some of them are, are self-imposed. Some of them are local geographic things that are causing that some of them are people often, right. Or processes that are broken, but failing fast is another term that I use is that is if you have the right thinking strategies, like if you have the right thinking strategies, like if you have the right thinking when we work with our clients, we're not saying, Hey, use this strategy because so-and-so used it.

[ 00:40:03 ] What we're doing is we're giving them a tool and saying, okay, we're going to go through this process. We're going to get some, go through the answers that apply to you. We ask the right questions and then help them understand what does the acceleration look like for them? Where are they going to go with this acceleration? And what's the potential ceilings that are going to get in the way so that we know how to get through them faster. You can fail fast and you hit that ceiling and say, okay, I've been here before. I know how to handle, like, I mean, we just brought up one in the last section about firing fast. I mean, I hate to use the word fire, but it is the reality is that to make sure you're clear on what you want and what your people look like from a, from a skill, from a, I'm not talking physically look like, I don't want to make sure that's clear, but what they, what their skills,

[ 00:40:57 ] what their, what their get it, want it capacity, again, EOS, but getting clear on all of those things so that you can get through those ceilings a lot faster. Yeah. Really, really good points. I was definitely thinking in terms of revenue growth and scale, but you've made some really good points about acceleration. Oftentimes looks like efficiency gains. How do we make people more efficient? How do we make processes more efficient? What technology, technology do we introduce or eliminate to just create like more fluidity? And efficiency in the office accelerations, like the natural outcome of that, but, you know, it looks a little bit different when you're translating acceleration into a person or into a process. Yeah. Or impact, right? Is what are we going to accelerate to?

[ 00:41:45 ] What's the impact we want to make and how do, how do we best get there? And I love impact goals for, for companies; that, you know, what, what is the impact in their community? How do they best get there? And which influences how they package their products and services, you know? So, yeah. Yeah. Really, really good points. I want to, I want to keep going here. Accelerate was number three. Number four is transform. So this is like a natural progression of kind of what we were just talking about, which is all of this acceleration. Naturally you're transforming the business, the processes, the system, the people, this like evolution of the business. So, um, transform is once you have the systems in place, you know, are they working for you?

[ 00:42:36 ] Are they working for your team? Are they hindering you? Um, you mentioned, you know, eliminating a technology that was just slowing you down. So any other examples that come to mind of transformations, maybe, I don't know if you can draw from like Golden Harmony Days, um, transformations that you made to systems or processes that really move the needle. Yeah. Yeah. Transformations. And when, and let me be clear on transformation, we're also thinking about the home care owner transformation. Like for me, my impact when it comes to the Breakaway Accelerator, when I think about what I want to accelerate to and what I want to help with is to help these home care leaders, whether it's the CEO, often the CEO executive director, um, not only get their lives back, but live their, the lives that they set out to do when they're in the home care world.

[ 00:43:28 ] Right. They have, we have this big picture in mind and that's when, when I say transform, want to transform their agency, but also transform their lives in a way that they'd never thought possible. At least currently they thought it was possible when they started. It's amazing how our mind and the picture we have in our mind when we first started our home care business and what we wanted out of it. And, and, and that we were leaving corporate America or however you got into your home care business. That's how I got into my home care business. Excited. And then two to three years into my home care business, I lost sight of all of that. And, and so helping people reconnect with that is really important.

[ 00:44:09 ] And, you know, when you think about golden harmony and what we're trying to create over there, and I'm not really careful about our own blue ocean is unique and I'm not going to share what that is, but, but the, uh, but blue, I use that term blue ocean in our transformation breakaway. Because once you do those first three, once you think bigger, cause your home care business will never grow beyond your thinking. And we use positive psychology and the science behind that to help them think bigger, keep their top talent internally, as well as out in the field, learn how to accelerate their growth with the right thinking tools and strategies, and so forth to move that forward. Then to transform that's where the blue ocean is.

[ 00:44:54 ] How do we create help this home care business? Well, I think one of the things that we're trying to do is create their own blue ocean in the home care space. We talk about that pack early on with the breakaway. Another analogy is the red ocean, right? As we have a feeding frenzy, if you think of the red ocean, that's, I mean, it's kind of gory, but the sharks and the they're feeding out there and that's where a lot of us are playing. So we're in there and we get confused and we look like everyone else. And it's, we're, we're, we're doing a lot of the same things. We're charging hourly. We're doing a lot of the same things. We're really all those things that everyone's doing. The blue ocean, when we can migrate over to the blue ocean, and it's usually market specific and locale or whatever, is that how can we create a competition-free zone where we kind of stand out in this blue ocean?

[ 00:45:49 ] That's the transformation. You really, truly transform your business and your life. When you're in the blue ocean, you're having a lot of fun. You're having more fun. You're, you're far more engaged with your team. You know, a big example, or, you know, an obvious example is Home Care Pulse was a blue ocean, you know, especially, and people say it was a blue ocean from day one. I don't think it was, I think it was a blue ocean when we hit about 2015, 2016 - that's when we really started creating that blue ocean. And it was so much more fun when we did, and we started becoming more special, more differentiated. And, and I personally was enjoying my work a lot more at that point, working around people I loved to work around.

[ 00:46:36 ] And so, that's the transformation when you can create that for yourself and your business, then the valuation, like if you're, if you're, if you want to exit at some point, the valuations go up when you create that kind of market space or that kind of free zone. Free zone is a term that strategic coaches use. So I want to give them kudos for that, but you know, and I'm, I'm certified in blue ocean. And so I'm qualified. I went to INSEAD. INSEAD is the only, it's the top five business school in the world. And they're the only ones who teach the blue ocean strategy. The professors who wrote that blue ocean strategy book come from INSEAD.

[ 00:47:21 ] And so I've, I love the concept and I love the tools that they allow us to use to help people create those blue oceans, which we're trying to create for, for, for home care agencies. That's transformation to me. Yeah. So thinking about, you know, transformation, you have to be in one place and be trying to get to another place. And so you talking about like the red ocean versus the blue ocean, a lot of people are caught in the red ocean. Do you have to, do you have to, or do you find home care agencies have to spend time in the red ocean to establish and get out of the blue ocean? And I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question. I think that's a really good question.

[ 00:47:56 ] I think that's And get into the blue ocean or are there exceptions when you start the business from a differentiated perspective, but is that common in home care or do you find a lot of people are, are they have to go through that transformation? And I guess, yeah, I want to like, that's kind of a question, a statement, but also the, the timing of transformation, you know, do you find that that can be at year one? Is that at year 10? Like, are there any, uh, like, metrics or milestones that kind of coordinate with like the timing of transformation or is it really dependent on like the business? Is that making sense? It is somewhat dependent, but if I were to put some numbers to it and say, okay, when they're really true, really ready for to begin that transformation.

[ 00:48:45 ] Um, and it's right where the market's at one and a half, two million in revenue is a good, you're still small enough to where you can pivot and you can make some, some big changes. And you have the typically, hopefully the cash flow to be able to invest in, in, in programs like this, programs like ours, to help with the transformation, but not just a program, but, but there's, there's investments you have to make to make that transition, depending on what you want to do and what that blue ocean is going to be for you. And so I typically say that's probably minimum one to 2 million is minimum. Um, ideally three to 5 million is kind of a great little sweet spot.

[ 00:49:26 ] But anyone we've worked with, with, you know, I have great case studies of, of home care providers, 12 million, turning it into a 20 million, um, you know, 1 million to 4 million, uh, you know, in, in, in a short period of time, there's, uh, there's even large where you think about a large ship and we hear it's, they're harder to move or whatever they can accelerate and transform and hit record goals that have never hit before. I've helped even, even, you know, I've helped franchise brands do that. And, uh, and so it's just, it's making, it's, it's being committed to, um, again, getting rid of that. I keep coming back to that 80%, but getting rid of everything in the past that didn't work and really kind of retooling and resetting and preparing for that transformation to happen.

[ 00:50:18 ] And that's why it's the fourth and not the second, you know, is that there's, there's a process you really need to go through to make, to make that possible now can a new or a $200,000 agency start that process probably more than most and, and to be able to follow this. Uh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can, you can do that. Is it right to assume that things have, there has to be something going right in the business. You know, you're, you're throwing out this like 80, 20, there has to be like some traction, some momentum, something going right in order to, you know, like accelerate and go through the transition.

[ 00:51:20 ] I mean, that's, that's a tongue-in-cheek, you know, comment, but it is some, there's some truth to that, is we're in a market that has a lot of demand, you know, and that that's why the barrier of entry is, is, is not like, that's why we have so many providers in the industry and we're doing so much good. And so what's going right to me. And I mentioned this last, last episode one is that a majority of people who get into this space have the right intentions. They have the right heart. They, they really truly want to make sure that they're doing the right thing. They want to make a difference. I think what's good. I think if I were to say what's going right as that is that it's, you know, it's the right, they have the right lack of a better term intentions and just how to get there is really maybe where they're misguided or misdirected might be the case.

[ 00:52:17 ] Some people have a good, a couple of really good team members, you know, that they've just really are blessed to be able to find. I mean, there's, every agency has the right things they're doing, you know, and that's the 2X. 2X is not a bad thing for some people, you know, and I don't want to paint that as an ugly way to grow either. Is that 2X is often a lifestyle home care business where it's one to two million. That's they're really happy there. And that's where they want to be. And I, we still work with companies like that, that want to transform in a different way, right? Maybe a more creative, more positive culture and they're in there and more purpose-driven company. Maybe they want to create even at that market, a greater valuation.

[ 00:53:05 ] So they have to make some tweaks in, in, in the way that they're doing things. But I don't know if I'm answering the question correctly, but it's, it's really, you know, I've, I've, I can't even think of a company that I've worked with that wasn't doing some things right. And the fact they even reach out for help, what they're doing right as they were humble and they're willing and they want to, they want to learn and they want to be, they're coachable. They, they, they want to grow. They want to make a difference. So anyway. Yeah, that, that was good. I was kind of, yeah, not articulating that, but you came around to it, which is, you know, there, there are some bad actors in this industry and some people hear the numbers, hear the demand.

[ 00:53:53 ] And, and I've seen this, you know, firsthand people that get into it, think it's going to be easy. No, there's demand, but struggle for a year or two years or three years. And, you know, I think there does have to be things going right. You do have to hire the right people. You do have to have some momentum, some traction in order to, you know, go through this transformation. It's not just, you know, you, you get into it and you can do it and you can build something amazing and create that blue ocean there; there's work, there's grind at the beginning to, they have to be willing to do. And there's bad actors that have a lot of money coming into the space that, that are that will buy companies.

[ 00:54:35 ] And because they have the, the ability to do that, but the culture of those companies end up kind of fading. Right. And so we see that all the time. And so we also in this program help protect from that a little bit as you know, you know, what does that look like for you? As an exit and how do you, how do you, how do you do it the right way and the way you want to do it on your own timetable, that kind of thing. So, yeah. In our last few minutes, let's cover this fifth one, which is abundance, gaining flexibility, control, which leads to financial freedom. And when we talk about this, I think everyone, you know, ears perk up. Everybody wants this in life, in their business, as an entrepreneur, you want to achieve this.

[ 00:55:20 ] And I like what you said about that transformation, transforming yourself as a business owner, when you gain more freedom, more brainpower, more fun, you're spending time with your family, you're taking time off, like being that example, you know, personally, you, you reap the benefits of, you know, the financial freedom, but it ripples throughout the entire company. So share, you know, take a couple minutes, talk about abundance and how all of this like builds towards, you know, this concept. Yeah. And this is one of the things I got out of my, you know, my master's degree. So I went to UPenn, which was applied positive psychology. And this word abundance came up a lot in line with the term, the good life, which is an Aristotle term.

[ 00:56:02 ] Aristotle described the good life as the complete life, a virtuous life. It's a journey. We hear that a lot, that there's no real destination necessarily, but you're, you're, you're thriving regardless of circumstance. And so when we think of abundance, it's, it's, it's living that abundant life where, you know, you're, you're, you're where regardless of there's things that go on in our lives that are outside of our control. We have a child who's made a poor decision that we didn't really agree with that affects us that way, or someone passes away. And so we have things that, that hit us on a, on a continuous basis. And how do we create that abundant life regardless of circumstance? And that's where we want to help home care CEOs, entrepreneurs get there like with their business, making sure that they, their business is there to support that life.

[ 00:56:56 ] How do they, how do they build that business? So it does that and create not just financial freedom, but more time or freedom with their family, with their relationships, more freedom to pursue their passions, the things that outside of work, you know, like for me, it's been cycling or fishing or traveling. If you follow me on any of our socials, we travel. A lot as a family, I just took my family to Greece last year, and we've been to Europe several times where we've done something, you know, not just the exotic, we go local. We like to just do things, and, and, and experience things, and creating that space. So that's what I want for people is like, for me, my number one freedom isn't financial.

[ 00:57:44 ] Even that helps me with my freedom of time, which is my number one freedom; I want more time to do the things that I want to do. Especially where I'm at in my life. But, but that might be different for someone else. Like they might want a different kind of freedom or, or a different there. What the abundant life for them might look completely different than mine. And so whatever that is, we want to help create that. And we have the process and working up to that. That's why it's the last one. It's the outcome. We do have a goal for our clients to at least take a four week sabbatical where they don't check in. They actually just are completely checked out for four weeks.

[ 00:58:27 ] And I did that at home care pulse in 2018 was the first time I really did that. I've done it a few times since, but I did a seven week sabbatical, you know, there, and it was it was wanted. I had confidence in the team, but Eric calls it the time I was testing their competence. Like, could they actually, could they actually do this? And they did, they did a wonderful job. And it was shortly after that, I stepped down as CEO. I stayed as a visionary, but I stepped down as CEO because it was a test and I knew what I was doing. I knew why I was doing it. And so we want that for, for our, for our members in this program is to say, okay, can you, can you take a four-week sabbatical and not just take the four-week sabbatical, but can you be at peace during those four weeks and know that your company is going to be just fine and be okay.

[ 00:59:22 ] So, and it may sound like a pipe dream, but it's not, it's not, you know, you're a testament of that. A lot of owners, operators I've, I've seen and talked to, like, you know, for some people in it, it seems like a pipe dream to step away from the business for four weeks, but that should and could be the goal is being able to step back. And I love what you're saying about, you know, it's not all about financial freedom. It's just about gaining control of your life and being happy and having balance. The thing that the line that I think I like most of, what you just said is thriving regardless of circumstance. Like I'm going to chew on that personally. I think there's just a lot to unpack there of how do you thrive regardless of circumstance.

[ 01:00:00 ] And that is so applicable to home care, you know, putting out fires, dealing with really, really difficult things, you know, in personal, in these clients Lives and their family's lives. Like it's not, it's not lighthearted. It's really kind of serious, intimate things. And there's a lot that you can't control, but learning how to thrive and remain in control, despite the circumstances. Yeah. And let me be clear though, thriving. I learned this in positive psychology, is it's not this rosy, like as someone passes away, thriving in that situation, like you had your mom pass away, for example, thriving in that example is you're, you're growing from it. You're learning from it. It's not beating you down and paralyzing you, right? You're grieving and you can thrive and still grieve at the same time.

[ 01:00:49 ] Yeah. And so that's what I'm talking about. Like, I don't want to paint this rosy picture. Like, you know, you're, you're bouncing around regardless of circumstance is that you're finding growth in every opportunity, every circumstance and grieving if you need to and processing if you need to. That's, that's thriving. Yeah. The words that come to mind are like control and balance, you know, like not letting. Circumstances make you spiral out of control, you know, thriving is maintaining balance and control, despite things that you can't control, it's kind of how I perceive that. I know, I know we're at this point here. I and you've referenced this a few times, clients and people that you work with. I want people to walk away with a good understanding of exactly what you do and how you help people. Cause to my understanding, you know, you're not casting a wide net helping everyone, but who, who exactly do you help and what would it look like for someone to work with you all? Yeah. So obviously home care. Yeah,

[ 01:01:59 ] for sure is definitely a positive

[ 01:02:06 ]thing about home care. We, we, you know, over over the last three years, like I say, I've I we've worked with couples. Yeah. We, we, I start the program officially in September. We're filling up. So, you know, reach out to breakawayaccelerator.com is the website. Now we're updating the website right now. So, so just click on the learn more, the apply button. I think it's apply, click on that and let's have a conversation. We've, we've, we've done some really cool things with the program and even made it more valuable while making it even more affordable, which I know people would love to hear. And so please, please reach out. Let's have that conversation, but it's for home care owners who are ready to accelerate their business. And we work with all sizes, really, because everyone's goals are different.

[ 01:03:03 ] It's a customized; it's not a mastermind. I want to be clear about that. I love a good mastermind, but it's a, it's a very individualized, we build community through it, but it's a very individualized accountability. Coaching is involved with this where they're getting a lot of attention from me and my team over the next 12 months to help them accelerate. So. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that, Aaron. It's been such a pleasure to be with you the last couple of weeks. I know we live close, but we're both busy, but I'm just excited for what's ahead for you again. Thank you for everything that you've done for this industry. And again, we've got a lot, a lot ahead of us.

[ 01:03:39 ] I'm excited to follow your journey, see how things shake up for you, continue to see all these businesses that you help. You know, there are so many agencies, agency owners, CEOs that need to be involved in this. So I'm excited to see all of the support and coaching that you provide. And so I'm just excited for what's in store for both of us. So thanks for giving me time, let's stay connected. Had a ton of fun. Thank you, Miriam. It's been an honor. Good seeing you and great being here. Thank you. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. I hope you've enjoyed this session. Great to be with you as always. And we'll look forward to seeing everyone back again next week for Home Care U. Alright. Take care. Bye-bye for now.