Unlock the secrets of thriving in the home care industry as we dish out a wealth of strategies for boosting your agency's revenue. Together with Lisa, whose zeal for community engagement brings an extra layer of depth to our conversations, we cut through the noise to deliver actionable tips on everything from extending service lengths for current clients to innovative marketing ploys. Though Valerie couldn't join us, her expertise as an RN and founder of Approved Senior Network echoes in our advice-packed discussion on caregiver retention—a linchpin in the quest for financial success.
Navigate the twists and turns of revenue maximization with us; we'll arm you with the knowledge to tackle hiring slowdowns head-on, share personal narratives of overcoming seasonal staffing hurdles, and provide a blueprint for using Key Performance Indicators to keep your business on the path to its financial targets. Learn to benchmark against competitors, rekindle connections with past clients, and manage your caregiver relationships with finesse. You'll come away equipped with insider knowledge on how to keep your caregivers motivated and your clients satisfied.
Finally, prepare to get creative with your marketing efforts. We share tips on how to leave a lasting impression with cleverly themed promotional items and discuss strategies for special events like Older Americans Month and Occupational Therapy Month. From pun-filled campaigns for National Lobster Day to thoughtful Father's Day giveaways, we reveal how a dash of creativity can transform your marketing approach. Join us and let's turn your home care agency into a revenue-generating powerhouse.
Unlock the secrets of thriving in the home care industry as we dish out a wealth of strategies for boosting your agency's revenue. Together with Lisa, whose zeal for community engagement brings an extra layer of depth to our conversations, we cut through the noise to deliver actionable tips on everything from extending service lengths for current clients to innovative marketing ploys. Though Valerie couldn't join us, her expertise as an RN and founder of Approved Senior Network echoes in our advice-packed discussion on caregiver retention—a linchpin in the quest for financial success.
Navigate the twists and turns of revenue maximization with us; we'll arm you with the knowledge to tackle hiring slowdowns head-on, share personal narratives of overcoming seasonal staffing hurdles, and provide a blueprint for using Key Performance Indicators to keep your business on the path to its financial targets. Learn to benchmark against competitors, rekindle connections with past clients, and manage your caregiver relationships with finesse. You'll come away equipped with insider knowledge on how to keep your caregivers motivated and your clients satisfied.
Finally, prepare to get creative with your marketing efforts. We share tips on how to leave a lasting impression with cleverly themed promotional items and discuss strategies for special events like Older Americans Month and Occupational Therapy Month. From pun-filled campaigns for National Lobster Day to thoughtful Father's Day giveaways, we reveal how a dash of creativity can transform your marketing approach. Join us and let's turn your home care agency into a revenue-generating powerhouse.
so today's march 29th, 2024, I guess I will do housekeeping valerie's so good at this part. Um lines should be muted unless you want to share. So we you know, just so we don't have any background noise. We would love for you to share stories, experiences and tips. We want to hear from you, we want to know what you'd like us to cover. A lot of the times we come up with topics based on what we hear from you guys. Sometimes it's not in the meeting, but we get emails and texts and stuff later on. Feel free to ask questions. We do have a chat feature. Lisa will send you all a little chat so you know where that's at. So if you didn't, you know, want to raise your hand or speak, you could also chat a question. A lot of people will choose that feature as well. Make recommendations, tell us what you want to know. We're really interested in hearing that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to reintroduce myself. Most of you probably know all of us. I won't get into all of it, I just have a very long. I'm not going to say my age background. In home care I've done everything from operations, sales, recruiting, retention, kind of all of it. I've worked for a franchise, I've worked for an independent, and my specialty, I guess, has been growing the private pay side of the businesses. I've been pretty successful at that, and training marketers too. Lisa, go ahead and reintroduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Lisa Marcella. I have been in home care for just forever as well and, you know, done everything. You know how it is in home care. You can't really stay in your own lane. You've got to constantly be moving and grooving. I love what we do here with you guys because I feel like we're still a part of home care and I love what you guys are doing and I'm just happy to be involved with you and part of it all and see what you guys are moving and shaking out there.
Speaker 1:And Valerie is an RN by, I guess, career choice. That was her first career. She is the founder and co-owner of Approved Senior Network and again, she's not here today, but she will be editing this. Hi, valerie, all right, the forum. If you have not yet logged into our forum, this is how you get in there. This is the URL you put in your email address, the email that we've been communicating to you with. That's the email address, and then password is whatever we emailed you. If you don't remember it, I'm so bad at that kind of thing myself. The forget your password feature is really good. It's really fast and easy. I know some of them take you through like 15 steps. It's not like that. It's a really really easy.
Speaker 1:Go into the form. We've got lots of great questions going on in there. You know we put instructions. Sometimes we'll get a question like the social worker month handout was hiding the contact information in the Google form, and so we did a quick video to show you how to get around that. So there's lots of great stuff going on in the forum.
Speaker 1:All the time we have our discussion, which is here, and then learning is where you will find all of the past videos for this year, all the past trainings and all of the documents that we show you are in. When you go to learning, you'll see each video and then, when you click on that, to the right is the PDF of the slides, and the slides have hyperlinks to all the documents. So if you can't find anything that's where it is You'll choose mastery circle when you're in this. This is what it looks like and these are the different presentations we've done, so you would just click on that. You can go back and watch the video when you click on this link, or, if you just want to see the slides, you can access the slides there, all right? So today we're going to talk about. The first quarter is ending. It's coming to an end. Are you hitting your revenue goals? If you're not, what can you do now to hit them for next quarter so that you end the year well, you end it where you wanted to and you meet those goals?
Speaker 1:I have found through the years and Lisa can probably attempt and I've actually talked to three clients that agreed with me no one wants to work right now. What's going on? And the hiring has slowed down. Usually this is the time of year that this happens. We're going to get into why that's happening and what you can do now to find more caregivers and how can you be ready for this. No one wants to work or get hired. Slow down next time Some little. We'll give you some ideas on how to know it's coming and be ready for it so that you don't feel the effects of it All right. So revenue how can we get our revenue up? So we're going to go into different ways to increase your revenue when it's not where you want it to be. Or you're starting to nosedive, or you just lost a 24, or whatever the case may be to be. Or you're starting to nosedive, or you just lost a 24, or whatever the case may be. We're going to give you some tips there. So, increasing billable hours with current clients this is a pretty powerful thing to do. So how long, on average, does your current home care client stay on your services? If it's not very long, you know, increasing that length of time alone will increase your revenue.
Speaker 1:I've always said to the marketers or whoever is signing clients up in the home or at skilled nursing facilities set the stage during the assessment. This isn't like a one and done. Now if they're terrified to sign up and they're really giving you a hard time, you're not going to probably do this. You're going to get in the home first and let them see how wonderful the service is. But typically I'll say you fell, you broke your hip, we don't want this to happen again. You were in the shower, so we're going to come back. We're going to get you up, we're going to get you strong, we're going to get you moving again and then ongoing. You need somebody here when you bathe. Set that stage that services aren't ending. When you're signing the client up, I think that really helps as long as they're not, you know, really upset about having to do it in the first place. You don't want to rub it in. But for those that are open to it. They know they need a caregiver. They understand and it's going to be a lot of hours, maybe a start and it may taper down. I always talk about the tapering down and being there as a preventative ongoing. Set yourself up as the expert. During the assessment, most expect you to tell them how many hours they need. Don't schedule them for hours they don't need. But if you're an expert and they trust your expertise and you've seen this the hip maybe be broken 15 times. You've had clients with this issue. If they trust that you're the expert in this, then they're going to trust. When you say you really should have somebody here for bathing ongoing, they're going to trust that you're the expert in this. Then they're going to trust when you say you really should have somebody here for bathing ongoing, they're going to trust what you're saying to them because you're the expert. You've established yourself as the expert and I think we talked a lot about that even just last time.
Speaker 1:Train your caregivers to notify the office of any changes in clients' conditions. Encourage them to be very vocal about what they are seeing in the home, any concerns they may have. Maybe we're doing overnight shifts during the week but not on the weekends and there's a lot going on overnight, right? The caregiver that's working maybe two, three nights a week with this person, monday through Friday, is thinking what in the world is she doing on Saturday and Sunday night? What's happening? Because I am up and running around and helping her and she would fall. What's happening with her on the weekends? Train your caregivers to bring this information to you. In that situation I would send my marketer whoever signed them up back out to the home to talk to that family or call the adult child if they're out of state and just say you know the caregiver is doing a lot overnight for your mom. We're really worried about what's happening on the weekends. So train your caregivers to give you that kind of feedback.
Speaker 1:Conduct follow-up visits after the services start. If they're on Medicaid and some of you are in states where you have to do this anyway but going back every 30 days or so to see how things are going, it's a great way to supervise your caregivers. You know if you go and the caregiver happens to be there and it's a great way to see you know that there are changes, things are happening. You need to keep that care plan up to date. We don't want surprises for the caregivers when they come in.
Speaker 1:Conduct reassessments anytime a client is admitted and discharged from the hospital or SNF. If they've been hospitalized or gone to a SNF, you have to go in. You should be going in anyway to meet up with those case managers and social workers. They have a brilliant way to get into a hospital and a SNF. When your client is in one of those places, you want to go in and you want to bring a plant, bring flowers and put your label on there with your logo, your phone number, so that they see how nice you are to your clients.
Speaker 1:It's a great time to connect with the case manager and social worker, but it's also a good time to find out who's this person now when they discharge. Is the care plan totally different? Is it going to be different for a while or is it totally different? Either way, we need to know because we want the care to be successful. We don't want the caregivers to be surprised because a lot of times they go in, you know, and before maybe they were just a light arm, you know, walking through the house and now they're a full transfer assist and a walker and that kind of thing. Lisa, you've unmuted, you got something to add.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to say also that you know you also want to make sure that that client remains your client when they do come home. And so your presence is very key to make sure that you do go visit them, not just for selfish reasons to keep them. You know, on billing, but I mean you know that's true, they could discharge to a different home care company, and that's happened me.
Speaker 1:It is devastating. I had a 24 discharge to a different home care agency and when she got home I called her and she says well, darling, isn't this the same company?
Speaker 2:and I said no, it is not this is not the same.
Speaker 1:I was able to get her back, but it was still devastating, because if they don't know they have a home care agency, they're going to refer when they discharge. So thank you, lisa, for a very good point. Conduct assessments anytime.
Speaker 2:Oh, we already did that.
Speaker 1:Notify clients if more hours days open up with their current caregivers. Sometimes they just love their caregiver and they're thinking if she was available, you know, maybe she's two days a week. If gosh, if she anything else opened up with her, I would add those hours. So notify them. If a caregiver comes to you and says hey, I can work Fridays, now see who she's with and maybe those clients would like to have her services also on Friday During the assessment. Let clients know about the time and a half on holidays. So the holidays can really if you've paid time and a half to your caregivers. Some people bill their clients that some don't. We did, but if they were on Medicaid we felt like we couldn't because we weren't getting paid time and a half. But we paid the caregivers time and a half.
Speaker 1:So when I would do an assessment I would figure out okay, they want Mondays, that's a holiday day, right? There's a lot of holidays on Mondays. I would have that conversation with them. And if you want Mondays, it is time and a half, we can move your schedule to a Tuesday when those weeks come. Or maybe we shouldn't schedule you on Mondays. How do you feel about that? At least have that conversation with them. It's an important conversation to have. So, conversation with them, it's an important conversation to have. So you can increase revenue by increasing billable hours with your current clients. The other thing you can do is hold on to those scheduled billable hours. Don't lose them.
Speaker 1:I don't know how many of you use WellSky. There is a live view of billable hours that you can look at at any time. I train myself, my marketers, to look at that at the beginning of every week and we might start each marketer, I think, was at like 1200 hours, 1300 hours a week, and they got commissioned based on that. We'd look Monday or Saturday. Sunday was Sunday, cause I think that weekends on Saturday, we'd look on Sunday with 13 billboards, 1300. Yay, wonderful, awesome. We'd go in there Wednesday and it would be like 900. What happened? What happened? People get hospitalized, things do happen. Families in town, there's things that go on that you can't really control, but call-ups. We found out call-ups were a very big part of us losing some of these billable hours.
Speaker 1:When a caregiver calls out sick and your scheduler calls that family, that adult child or the senior themselves, the language should be your caregiver is out sick today. We are working on a replacement who will be there as soon as possible. Or your caregiver is out sick today, mary. Tell them something good about Mary. We'll be there at 2 pm. Or your caregiver is out sick today, but our lead caregiver, lisa, tell them what that is, we'll be there in 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:Do not ask them do you still want care? Would you like a replacement? They're going to say no. Seniors don't want the care to begin with. And the adult child gets mad when that happens too, because they're like why are you asking my mom that question? You know she's going to say no, call me. I want to be the one you call. We were losing a lot of billable hours here. So check in with your schedules. Make sure they have the language. I know it is a scary thing for them to say because they have to find that replacement. It's hard to say we're going to have somebody in the home as soon as possible or in the next hour, when they have no idea who that person is going to be. But they cannot say would you like a replacement? Do you still want services? You're going to lose those billable hours that you worked so hard to get right. And it just adds up. The bigger the company, it seems like it adds up faster.
Speaker 1:I don't know, because we had like 400 clients and it would you know, we probably had five, six call-offs a day. It just really added up quickly and our billable hours dropped fast. Sometimes, when I say lead caregiver, people ask me what that means. For us it was a higher skill set caregiver who can be placed in any situation and just handle it. They're guaranteed to be paid a certain amount of hours a week, whether they work or not. Trust me, they will be working. They are told they must be open from this time to this time on these days. This means they must be able to leave when called, Does not mean they have kids at home. They have to be dropped off at a babysitter or a doctor's appointment. They have to be able to leave at a moment's notice, and so they get paid 20 hours a week. Whether they work 20 hours a week or not, we would.
Speaker 1:They did work though, trust me, because they did fill in, they did call-offs, they did my immediate starts and I would put them strategically Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Friday. Mondays are those call off days typically. So it can be a great, a great thing. So that's what a lead caregiver was where, where I was, Holidays the week before. This is a big thing. We lost a lot of billable hours here, too, because the schedulers would call and we felt like we, even though they signed an agreement that said this holidays are time and it happened, these are the holidays. We felt like we still needed to let them know as it was coming, because they get the bill later and go. Why was I charged or why didn't you tell me? And I signed up three years ago, I don't remember that.
Speaker 1:So we would always check in with them, maybe the week before, and say, hey, monday is a time and a half holiday, right? The schedulers were doing this. And they would say do you still want services? And again, we don't want to say that, we want to say time, it's time and a half. If you don't want to pay time and a half, what day that week would you like your services to be on instead? Don't lose those billable hours you don't have to. Services are usually on Monday. You don't want to pay time and a half, okay, do you want Tuesday, wednesday, thursday? What day works for you? That is a better way to handle that piece of it. Any questions? We're doing good. All right, I will keep going.
Speaker 2:We're doing good we're doing good.
Speaker 1:Another way to keep your revenue up is to keep track of your billable hours weekly. You want to be watching this. Anything that you watch in your business, you shine a light on anything that's getting your attention. That's what is going to, you're paying attention to it, so if it's starting to drop, you're going to see it right away, and so KPIs is a great way to do that. So are you on track for the quarter? You need to be watching your billable hours weekly. So maybe you want to hit $700,000 in annual revenue and private pay billing KPIs key performance indicators can help you to do this. You can take your KPIs the things that are important to you, your goals and look at them every single week. When you do that, you're setting expectations, you're identifying problems, you're tracking performance, you're maintaining accountability. It's motivating your employees and improves decision making.
Speaker 1:I've been through this sheet lots of times. It might be the first time some of you are seeing it, but I just wanted to touch on it real quickly Again. This is just the marketing person. These are could be their goals for the week. So their KPIs how many stops? This is your meeting with them weekly and you're right there filling this out what they actually did. You're also keeping track of your run rate. If you want to do $700,000 in private pay billing for the year quarterly, you need to hit $175,000. And so as I'm entering over here on the left, what happened this week in billing? Watch the $1,900, it pops up. It's tracking my billing all the time and I'm looking at it and if you're going through here and you can look at this, the weekly billing should be $13,461. So I'm not hitting that. Week after week. I'm not hitting that. What can I do? We're talking about what you can do to get it up, but if you're not watching this at all until the quarter's over, it's over you can't go back and fix anything right.
Speaker 1:You're going to have to make up for it now. It is much better to be watching it as the weeks are happening, so that you can do something now, before the quarter is over. So that is the KPI sheet you can meet with. Marketing Staffing has their own goals and so does recruiting and retention. You will have access to this sheet with this live live. This will be a live hyperlink in the pdf after. After we're done, you'll probably get it by monday. I would say okay. So kpis, keeping track of those billable hours weekly is going to help with revenue as well. You can also increase revenue by picking up your phone. Stop your or shop your competitors quarterly. You can star six, seven call them. You're blocking your phone number so they can't see it and find out what they're charging. Do they have a minimum? Do they have any package rates? You may find you aren't charging enough. Increasing your hourly rate by $1 will increase your revenue. Don't do it unless you know that you're low in the marketplace.
Speaker 1:I call all my competitors quarterly for on the caregiver side and the client side. I wanna know what they're paying the caregivers, if they have bonuses, what they're doing. You just pretend to be an adult child, pretend to be an applicant. It's really easy. I don't know. No one's ever said anything about it, so it's just a great way. Usually, what happens is that I will have a caregiver say your pay is really low, You're not paying very much. So then that forces me to call the competitors as an applicant, and I find out we are low paying. Well then we're probably not charging enough either, and sure enough I'll call the competitors and find out what they're charging and we are low. So, quarterly at least, shop your competitors on both sides of your business.
Speaker 1:Check in with clients that are no longer on your service to see how they're doing. Check in with clients that are no longer on your service to see how they're doing. Maybe many times you hear I'm so glad you called, we forgot what company we were using last time this happened, or I would love to start services again. Make sure, though, that if someone has died, that that is in. You know you don't want to call if someone has died and be looking for them, right? So be sure that you're keeping really good notes in your scheduling software. You don't want to call under that circumstance, but I have had clients sign back up from just calling to see how, checking in on them, checking in to see how you're doing. Reach out to all of your leads, new and old, to see how they're doing. Mom maybe finally will agree to an assessment. You might have called and she's actually in the hospital.
Speaker 1:The timing on this can be crazy. Anytime it got slow I would call all my old prospects, my old leads. It's very important to take their own notes when you are calling in regards to leads and clients. They should be good enough that you can call and refer to something you discussed before. It's always great to grab something from your prior conversation and throw it into this conversation. It reconnects them. They're like oh, I told her that I must have really trusted her. I must like her because she wouldn't know that my son is Bill. She wouldn't know that if I didn't trust her. So try to have something you can throw back into the conversation in all of your notes. Okay, this is a reminder revenues tool reminder sheet. When it gets slow I like to quickly cause. Sometimes I'm in panic mode. I'm like what's happening.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, you know I want something quick that I can go to. That will help me remember how do I get revenue up quick, how do I do it again? And so these are the things you can do. There's a link to this document as well. I just print this up, keep it up in my office and it helps me to remember the things that I can do to get my revenue up right now. Because it's down, all right.
Speaker 1:The caregiver hiring slowdown. Possible reasons that the caregiver hiring is slowing down. Your ads may need to be refreshed. I have refreshed my ads every single week so that they stay at the top. Ad headline might need to be more heartfelt and include a pay range. You do need to pull at the heartstrings of these applicants. The good caregivers are not in this for the money. Of course, everyone needs to pay their rent, but the really good ones care. You need to pull at their heartstrings. A senior near you needs your help. Do you have a heart for seniors? Pull at their heartstrings and I usually will include a pay range in that headline. A lot of times they're scrolling headlines, scrolling headlines. If you have your pay range there and I do arrange, not an exact do your top, your bottom that they may click on it just because they've seen your pay range and it looks pretty good.
Speaker 1:You may not be getting to the applicant soon enough. This can also affect caregiver quality. When somebody applies, the sooner you get in touch with them, the better They've applied to other places. You need to connect with them emotionally when you get them on the phone. If you're not getting to them soon enough, the good caregivers are gone. Somebody else has already snatched them up. So this when you, if you notice your caregiver quality, your applicant quality isn't very good this could be the reason for that Could be a part of it. You've got to get to them quickly. You need to move them through as quick as you can. This does not mean you're not vetting them. Of course you're going to vet them. Don't make them come into your office more than one time.
Speaker 1:Doing a phone interview is a great idea. Not having them fill out the application before the phone interview. I know all of this sounds crazy and backwards, but the sooner you can talk to them, the sooner, and the easier you make this for them and they don't have to jump through hoops, the better If they don't fill out the application prior. They should fill out something. You need to know something about them, obviously, but when you get them on the phone and you're doing the interview, you can ask some of those application questions that you want to know. If you make this difficult for them jumping through hoops and an application for caregivers can be jumping through hoops sometimes that just takes a long time Bring them in one time for orientation, training, whatever you call it. That's when they can file the application. They're there, they're captive, they're in your office. Have them do all of that paperwork stuff. Then, after you've seen them, you've met them, now you do want to hire them. That's when you do that. I know this seems very counterintuitive and backwards, but it works. It had made a huge difference, a big impact for us.
Speaker 1:If there are too many rules or regulations at the top of your ad, this can also affect caregiver quality and quantity. Just put your benefits in the beginning. The benefit. That heartfelt headline is good because that is a benefit to people who really care about the clients and the seniors. The rules and regulations can come at a later time in the ad or you can do that when you're over the phone with them.
Speaker 1:A lot of people want to tell them all the things that they have to do to be a caregiver here. That just puts them off. They don't want to hear about that. If they need to be a lawyer, maybe you want everyone to be lawyer trained or understand how to use a lawyer, that's fine. You don't need to say that in your ad if you only have some lawyer clients. Not all of your clients are going to brief care, so you don't need to list all of that on your ad because it's going to scare away the ones that don't want to do that. And not all of your clients are lawyers in brief care. Maybe you want all your caregivers to have that background and that knowledge and that's fine, but you don't need to put that in your ad.
Speaker 1:The ad is just to get an interview. It's to get them to call you. You want them to take an action and that's to apply for the job. Again, too many requirements. Part of the interview we already talked about that. Competitors are paying more. That could be a reason. Again, case your competitors. If you find they're paying more, call them and find out what they're charging. Could be that you're not charging your clients enough. It could be holiday, back to school, tax refunds we're going to talk about that. You also may not have a call to action in your ad. I know like Indeed seems to be the big one and I like Indeed, indeed works great. But the call to action in there is you get they apply through Indeed right and you get an Indeed email for them and all the things. I always put a phone number in my ad. I always put a Texas number to apply so that they could do it right then and there, and a lot will do that.
Speaker 1:A lot of them don't want to go through the whole Indeed thing. I just want to talk to this company, right? So give them a call to action outside of that so they can reach you. And texting works great. It works really, really well. We do that in our recruiting program and it's beautiful. They want to text All right solutions.
Speaker 1:The caregiver hiring slowdown. First, figure out why this is happening. Case your competitors we already talked about that. Add private pay cases. If you're only Medicaid now Most states Medicaid is not a very good reimbursement. There's not a lot of margin to pay your caregivers a lot. Some are getting better. If you have some private pay cases now, your margins are a little bit higher and you might be able to afford to pay your caregivers a little bit more. And then, of course, case your competitors. Do you need to change your process? How can you get them in faster? So we already talked about this.
Speaker 1:One thing I didn't touch on is when they're in your office for orientation, training, whatever you call it. It's very disheartening for them to leave without work. They do this with several companies and when they leave without work, they just feel deflated. It just feels terrible to them. We had a rule that we had to give them at least one assignment before they left the office. It may not be the 40 hours they want. It may not be the 40 hours they want, it may not be the 20 hours they want, but it's something. And then our goal was within two weeks of their orientation, they have to be fully staffed. They need all the hours that they asked for. We were a high volume office so it might be a little bit different maybe than what some of you are doing, but don't let them leave your office without work If you're getting ghosted after somebody does orientation.
Speaker 1:This is why they went through all the hoops. They came to orientation, they did all the things and they don't have any work. And then you call them and they don't answer your call. This is why they're not answering your call. Don't let them leave without something, even a fill-in, just something. And then the other thing is there are holiday back to school, tax refunds. We'll get into that. So that's all.
Speaker 1:The caregiver hiring slowdown. What can you do? What can you do about the caregiver working slowdown? These are people that work for you that just don't want to work right now. They're not answering your calls. They just are not wanting to work. What can you do? What are the reasons it's happening? Maybe the competitor is paying more, offering better hours, the holiday back to school, tax refunds we'll talk about.
Speaker 1:Have you lost contact with your caregivers? Are you doing any kind of retention? Are you rewarding them? Are you recognizing them? Remember they're heart people. They need that from us. They need that back from us.
Speaker 1:We have a retention program your caregivers that have been there less than 90 days. They need to hear from you once a week, absolutely. And where's your TV? Get your CPR done. Can you work Saturday? That doesn't count. That's not hearing from you. Hearing from you is how did your first shift go? What can I do to make your job better? Do you like the clients you have right now? That's hearing from you. If you need help with retention, let us know. We have a great program, but either way, if they're there 90 days or less, they need to hear from you every single week. Everybody over 90 days needs to hear from you at least monthly birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, all the things.
Speaker 1:So make sure you haven't lost contact with your caregivers. Do you have a drop in billing? Did you lose some good clients in some good hours and now your caregivers that had those and were used to those types of clients. They don't want to pick up a twice a week client. You've got to keep your billing up, not just for you but for retention. It sounds crazy, but you've got to keep those big, meaty jobs for retention. So that's another reason to have somebody out in the field doing your marketing, getting out in front of those social workers, so you can get some of those really good, meaty, private pay jobs. So those good hours are going to be important for your retention as well.
Speaker 1:Depth of clients when a caregiver's client dies, it's important to check in on them. It's also important to say we have another client for you. I've had several caregivers leave the company because their client died. Well, my client died. I thought my job was over. No, but that's how some of them think. That's not at all what's going on and even if we know the end is coming, reaching out to them and saying you know you've been wonderful caregiver to her, I know she's on hospice, it's getting close. I'm looking for another client for you right now. Or do you want another client? How much time do you think you'll need? Because, remember, some of them really grieve when their client dies. They're very attached to them, so keep keep that in mind. Falling out with a scheduler, I've had this happen. Unfortunately, the schedulers lose their patience with the caregivers, you know her grandma died eight times.
Speaker 1:I'm sick of this. I know she's not telling me the truth. They get frustrated with the caregivers. If this kind of thing is happening, it may not be a bad idea to have somebody else be their scheduler, possibly, or to having a talk with your scheduler. We had three schedulers where I worked and there were times I would take a caregiver mover to someone else, even though cause we did it kind of by territory I would.
Speaker 1:I would just move her cause it just it just wasn't working and it wasn't good for anybody. So you know, think about that. If they're having trouble with the scheduler, you gotta figure that out right away because they'll leave. They're not gonna do any favors for the scheduler. And that's how they see it. A lot of times they pick up a Saturday they're like oh, I'm doing her a favor. If they're having a falling out with that schedule, they're not gonna do any favors for her, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Caregiver working slowdown Case your competitors Again, add those private pay cases. Improve your communication with your caregivers. Implement a retention program. Improve the trust you have with them. Some open communication. Be there for your caregivers. What do they need, not what you need from them. It's a very different thing.
Speaker 1:We joined Home Care Pulse so excited to hear how it was going. We had been so nice to this before I implemented a retention program, but we've been really nice. We were trying to be really nice. Reach out, happy birthday, how are you? We felt so connected to our caregivers. Again, we had 400. It's hard to stay connected.
Speaker 1:We did Home Care Pulse. We were so excited to get the survey result and basically they said you only call us when you want something and you know what. It was true. It was absolutely true. It felt sickening to hear that. So don't be that. Be there for them and what they need. Train your admin staff to support the caregivers as well. We need the caregivers. As much as the schedulers get frustrated with them, we still need them and we need to be nice to them. Keep your good hour clients always. If you lose one, go get another one now. If you have good communication, trust with your caregivers, they will give you a heads up if a client's going to leave. I've had caregivers say there's another home care agency here, there's somebody here right now.
Speaker 1:Do you have somebody there? Did you send somebody to the home? Nope, and now the home care agency is in there talking to my 24. Uh-oh, that's not good news. So, again, training those caregivers to communicate with you is a really good idea. You need a mixture of hourly clients, ranging from a few hours every day to every other day, up to 12 hours and more. This will keep your caregivers working. They leave when you can't offer the hours they need or want. This itself can be a great retention strategy. So you need a good mixture of types of clients Medicaid, maybe VA, private pay, you know, weekdays mornings, weekday nights you need 12s, you need 24s, you need it all so that you can hit everyone.
Speaker 2:All the carers have different schedules.
Speaker 1:They all want something different. So having a variety of hours and shifts with your clients is really important for that. Okay, so we talked about this slowdown and what could be happening. So what I found through the years and it used to get me, I'm like next year I'm going to be on, I'm going to remember that this happens every January or every March or whatever it is. I'm going to remember and I wouldn't. And by the time I realized what was going on, it was almost too late to fix it. So I've just put together a quick calendar of the things that could be going on that is affecting the slowdowns, the hiring and the working slowdowns. New Year's always affects it.
Speaker 1:Martin Luther King third Monday in January. A lot of this is because the kids are out of school and the caregivers didn't plan for this. They didn't think, oh, martin Luther is coming up or whatever is coming up, and now their kid's home and they have no daycare. So it's better and I talk to my schedulers about this it's better to alert them, talk to them about it before the holiday gets here than to have it be a call off. Because when I said to them maybe we should contact the caregivers ahead. Send a text out to all of them. Martin Luther King is coming out, you know, do you have daycare? I mean I. You know the wording needs to be good, but they the first thing was they're all going to call off now.
Speaker 1:They're all now no one's going to want to work, and that could happen. I mean it could backfire. But then we said well, what happens if we don't tell them? And they all call off on Martin Luther King Day because their kids are home and they're just realizing it. So you need to decide what works best for you. But my schedulers agreed it was better to reach out ahead of time or if you had them on the phone already, to just kind of hey, are you? You have daycare, you have that settled because you know you're scheduled that day, february, tax refunds.
Speaker 1:For some reason, when caregivers get their refunds, they just don't want to work. And it's so funny because I was talking to somebody about the slowdown the other day and she goes oh, it's slow because tax refunds, and I thought, my God, she was in Minnesota and I thought, wow, so this is definitely a thing, so it could be slow right now. That's why I thought I'd talk about this Super Bowl. It's always Valentine's Day, president's Day, march tax refunds. St Patrick's Day, spring break. Spring break's a big one that if you're slow right now, this could be a very big one because they're off with their kids. Good Friday, easter, april, tax refunds. Good Friday, easter, may, cinco de Mayo, mother's Day, memorial Day, ending of school. It seems when school starts and school ends, there's an influx of nobody wanting to work and it's because they're just trying to figure it out, like who's going to watch the kids, what days can I work? Now it's summer, they're just trying to figure all that out Vacations, july 4th, back to school, all of these things. So what I've done, you know, here's some work. We don't have to dig into all of them. It's basically holidays and some other things. What I've done is I go into my calendar and two weeks before any of these things are happening, I will put a reminder in my calendar that this is coming at least two weeks before. And what can you do? You can run extra caregiver ads ahead of time in preparation for the slowdowns. Front load on hiring before the slowdown Interview more and hire more. Run a job fair before a slowdown. I'm going to show you a job fair example. Reach out to caregivers that are still on the roster and qualified to work and get them working again. Use Christmas to your advantage. From just after Thanksgiving until mid-December, reach out to current caregivers about working more now so they have money for Christmas gifts. Also, you can place this in your ads from just after Thanksgiving until mid-December for caregivers that need Christmas money. They do, they do and we'll get a lot to apply.
Speaker 1:Be staffed out 48 hours ahead and I know that when you're a smaller company, a job comes in. Maybe it's Monday, it's seven days a week. You staff the whole thing, you're done, hands are clean, you're good, good to go. When you're a larger company and you're signing five to seven jobs a week and you're also staffing 400 clients, what ends up happening? Is you staff Monday, tuesday, wednesday or Monday Wednesday, friday, and then three or four days later. Now you're staffing Saturday, sunday. There's always something on the open shift list. Always and forever there's something, and so staffing out 48 hours ahead can help you. It helps get these caregivers work too, but it also helps you just with everything. You can take quick starts because you're staffed out 48 hours. So what I mean by that is, if it's Monday right now, I'm going to be staffed through Wednesday before it's over. That's being staffed out 48 hours. It allows you to deal with call-offs more effectively. It keeps caregivers working, all the things. So staffing out 48 hours is a really good thing to do regardless.
Speaker 1:Okay, the job fair. This is a go-to tool that I've used for a long time. It is a job fair. You have your Google link and your Canva link. The dates are here. You can go in and swap this out, change it. This is what the ad might look like on Indeed, because they're not usually display ads. The reason for this yes, you can have a job fair. Yes, people can come into your office and you can do interviews on the spot. All of that's well and good and wonderful.
Speaker 1:The purpose of it isn't really that for me. Not many people came to my job fairs. I might have like six, seven people, and it was really a letdown, but what I found when I did this was people would call and text now to schedule the interview, either during the job fair or right now. What it did was it placed a sense of urgency, and when someone's having a job fair, it just means, oh, they're hiring, they must have a lot of work. I'm going to go, I'm going to do this, and so it. What happened, though, was people would call and text as soon as they saw this ad or or this.
Speaker 1:We would put this out in churches and we would hand it out at um. We'd hang it up in like laundromats and apartment buildings. We would hand it out to people, coffee shops when we were doing orientation. We'd say give this to all of your friends, we've got a job fair coming up. So it's just this sense of urgency that it creates, and they want to be ahead of everybody else. Call or text now to schedule an interview. They're going to take an action. It forces them to take an action now. Do they need to come to the job fair? No, if you do phone interviews, just do the phone interview. You know what I can do phone interview with you right now or I can do one tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Let's do that, and then you won't have to come to the job fair. It's just getting them to take an action right now. This happens quickly.
Speaker 1:Do it on a Wednesday or a Thursday. Mondays aren't good, fridays aren't good. I found Tuesday or Wednesday Thursdays are good days for job fairs. And you know, post it maybe two weeks out before the job fair is going to happen and see what happens. You'll start getting those texts and calls. I've always put these little asterisks you can't do much in display ads and indeed like this so it really stands out when they're scrolling this, the asterisks with job fair. They see job fair. They pay more attention. So this has been a great tool for me through the years. You've got your Google and Canva link so that you can do your own job fair. If it is slow right now, I would absolutely recommend it. All right, we are going to get into some of our any questions. I guess before we get into leave behinds Everybody good. Anyone have any questions or comments anything?
Speaker 2:We have some people that are expanding right now and this is gonna be a great tool for them to use. Oh good, expanding to different counties and expanding their home care agency, so this would be really nice for them. Yeah, this is a great way In that area yes, it's a great and the other areas too, right.
Speaker 1:And the Google link. If you guys have not done this kind of thing yet, wow, that's huge. The Google can swap out the logo, the dates and times and all the things down here you do. Though I will say this is an original document. The system is not going to let you edit this. You have to go to file, make a copy, create your own copy and then you can edit away the Canva link. You can go in and change the pictures. You can change the colors. None of the text is here. You can do that in the Google link. You can certainly add text if you want to, but we like to create a template that people can use in the Google link, in the Google doc.
Speaker 2:All right, so now we need to keep you from having to go reinvent the wheel.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, cause half the battle is just creating this stuff. You're busy wearing like literally, you're wearing a million hats. Who has time to create this stuff? This stuff we've created is coming up, and it's great. I've got some examples for you, though. Johanna Weeks from Chinook Home Health Care created these really cute chickies for her social workers. She gave them, if you guys remember, the key chain and the bag and a little thank you. They got those, and other people got Easter chocolate, easter candies and little chickies. And Susan Lenser at Health as Well has done the vitamin C we want to see you stay healthy and she attached it to. I think that is so cute.
Speaker 2:So so cute.
Speaker 1:All of these just blew my mind. It's so nice to see yes and Susan also gave out some some chocolate, easter eggs and Vital Sign Home Care said giving one to the gatekeeper worked like a charm. It absolutely does. Do not forget that, gatekeeper. When you walk in. They get ignored in the stiff. Nobody really says hi to them. People are walking by and they just don't feel important. Get their name, call them by name every single time and always bring them something. When you're bringing something to everyone else, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And look at that. I mean they wrote a personal note. I love that.
Speaker 1:Enjoy your weekend. Spring yes, very cute Hopping into spring. This is one of Lisa's leave behinds. Here's what the bags look like. And, lisa, you are up.
Speaker 2:Yay, okay, so this is an April leave behind, so we wanted to hand this out in about March.
Speaker 2:So we still have what like a couple of days and I'm not, I guess, not anymore. But you wanted to hand this out and just keep it kind of limited to a few different places that you want to go into maybe senior center, maybe, you know, an assisted living, even an independent living at SNF. Maybe get the person, the social worker, whomever it is, to let you know kind of how many books you should be bringing, how many people they want they think will be involved. I think that the key thing here is don't, don't overcommit, but you do want to bring this out. And then when you do come out with the books and you know kind of, maybe lay this on top we actually have a different, a different piece for that but when you do go out, you want to make sure that you're slapping a sticker with your information on each of those books so that each person there knows exactly who they need to call when they need services and who this is coming from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can hand this out all of April too, because it's for May. May is older month, so you'll bring these books by and get them to commit. You know they'll text or call you and say I want books. Don't don't don't tell them how many you're bringing, cause if you take this out to 50 places and all of them want books, you have to bring probably two to each place. So keep that in mind. You've got your amazon link, canva link, google link. The amazon link takes you to the large. They're large print books too for puzzles, so I thought that was fun yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it. So april, world parkinson's day and we did want to make sure that we did something for for here and we want to keep. We keep adding messages here, that kind of talk to you know different things that you can do as a home care agency, but also speaking to you know the category or the subjects matter. So home care can make a significant difference in managing the symptoms and improving quality of life for those living with Parkinson's. You know there's a mobility issue, so we want them to know that you understand that and that you can deliver on that and that your caregivers are trained and healthy. And there's you know the links here.
Speaker 2:You can make changes to all of this. You're going to want to change out the logos and the contact information. Occupational therapy month in April Links again are here. You want to take this out. I think the theme this year was advancing health, well-being, quality of life, so I wanted to include that in the handout. And then their theme colors are kind of like this slate blue. So the actual little tchotchkes that go with this I think really tie into what they're doing.
Speaker 1:But you want to make sure that you take these out and thanking them for all they do, and I don't know if the next slide is the no, I think it's further back, but the occupational therapists I mean I think, if you don't know, they work in skilled nursing facilities, in hospitals and also home health.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and they even go out to schools and you know they're everywhere.
Speaker 1:So they're running and I think the slide, the other slide for what you can hand out is later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's coming. Yeah, we want a vitamin C. You stay healthy. So back in the day I think I've said this every time we show this but back in the day I used to bring out, you know, when you could go into the hospital and go to the nurse's desk and that nurse's station, I would take it just a bag, I swear, just a bag of cuties or a bag of halos, and I basically used to kind of write that out, sometimes with my, just with my business card, and they already knew who I was. But I was like I'm tired of bringing donuts out for one. You know, I want to do something different. So we want to vitamin C, stay healthy, it really people loved it People loved it every time I did it.
Speaker 1:This is the best.
Speaker 2:This would really go. I was just thinking that this really just tied into the theme, just the theme of OT folks. I mean, they're running, they're everywhere and so this is a little more of an expensive leave behind or giveaway. But I just really liked it and found that it will be useful and they're going to remember you because you cared and you know the struggle they're running. They probably don't get to use the restroom that often or stop and get food. So if they have something like this, these little reusables, uh lunch bags, um, I just think that it's just a really nice piece. And then these motivational silicone, um key chains. I just liked that. What they say really spoke to me on what OT is out doing. You know, uh, strength and and just hustle and all of these things. And the colors kind of tied into their theme colors too. So I really liked that.
Speaker 1:I like these bags too for caregiver gifts. I mean they're $2.58 each. It's not too bad, because they're also, you know, they're also running. That might be a caregiver bag giveaway too. I've never seen, I mean that's a really good price for what it is. I know we don't spend usually over a dollar on each way, but for caregivers maybe too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I thought too, because caregivers, a lot like you said, a lot like OT, they're running and you know your client care folks that are running, you know, I think, for anyone who's just running out there.
Speaker 1:this is a really good gift. It is, and you've got your Amazon link to get in there to look at it too.
Speaker 2:Okay. So this could go with a couple of different things, but I just really feel like, with that vitamin C or anything, really, you know, here's the halos. I mean, of course, you can just run into the grocery store and grab some, but have some water. You could even do a whole like, take a big thing of water with some of these little hydration, you know, these single, these single servings here of vitamin C.
Speaker 2:I mean, what's the one thing that I feel like we forget to do is drink water, and so, and to stay healthy, we're caring for others but not ourselves, Right? And so I feel like that if we remind people that we care and we want them to care about themselves too, that maybe just, you know, put a little pep in their step and get them to take care and drink water and have their vitamin C and all that. But there's Amazon links for everything and you know you could take a water bottle and just maybe tie a little you know ribbon around it and just add one of these little single servings and, you know, take out that vitamin C or something else and just include it all, even taking a case of water, with a couple boxes of these hydration, you know, because we have.
Speaker 1:you have a hydration leave behind, too, don't you? I think you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that could be cute with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So here it is again, kind of circling back to this. May is Older Americans Month and you know, trying to think of how I had so much verbiage and I had to like shorten it to you know, our care staff eliminates isolation, loneliness and neglect. Social connections and meaningful relationships help with overall health and well being. That is the theme of older Americans month this year, of older Americans month this year. Um, just keeping them connected. Um, I feel like during COVID people were just so isolated and so now everyone's coming back out from the shadows and it's. It would just really spoke to me. Um, I've seen a lot of isolation after that.
Speaker 1:They bring this with the books right. This is right.
Speaker 2:Right, right, sorry, yeah, yeah, places on top of the books when you take it out. Um, again, remember, I think I put here guys remember to add a sticker with your logo and contact information outside the book, be on the top, bottom or the back, but just make sure that you you brand it and they know where it's coming from. Um, and you should already know who you're bringing these out to. Um, you know, maybe you can stop in and drop some off at other places too, but, um, great, I like that one. So, mother's day, celebrate mother's day.
Speaker 2:Um, I just thought this was really pretty and we want to take it out and just celebrate the little things like this too. So you know, um, yeah, I just really wanted to make sure we included a better say, and then I had different little things. I was trying to come up with anything different. I really like these pens. They change, they change color and I just think they're really cute. It'll brighten an office, brighten your day and instead of taking out a flower that you know is going to, you know, die.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:The ink changes color or no? The it's the um, it's the, it's the top the flower. So if you take so in indoors, it's like a more of a lighter shade, and then when you turn maybe, I'm hoping, when you like open your window in the office.
Speaker 1:It'll, it'll oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I didn't realize it changed colors, I love that, yeah, it's more vibrant when you open your window and so you're just trying to think of little things. I mean, there's these little easels you can, you can paint something with with you know, if you have kids at home or just use it for I don't know. Just wanted to be a little different, Very cool.
Speaker 2:I really love the pens. Yeah, nurses week, may 6th to May 12th. You want to let them know that we know they are making all of the difference. Thank you so much. But you also want to let them know you know our caregivers provide 24-7 care. Again, I like to put in you know some type of service, their service lines. You know they don't always understand that, oh, you're not only a couple of hours, but you can do 24-7 too. So I like to always add little pieces to that.
Speaker 2:And then you know patients needing one-on-one support. It's another like kind of a buzzword one-on-one support with limited mobility, higher risk for falls, bedside sitting and care. You want them to know that you understand these things and that you have caregivers. You have people in place that are trained to help with these types of things. Safety concerns. So I like to change that wording out and give you other ammo. Love it. Um, to go with some of this. I mean there's these little. If we ever get to de-stress, you know this. This could be for your, your uh nurses, this could be for mother's day. These little lotions. These uh nurses love retractable pens. That's like you're. You're going in uh with the big guns when you take these in they love them, they lose their pens.
Speaker 2:They're always looking for a new pen. Um, you know, hands get dry while they're out using all that hand sanitizer and washing their hands over and over. So all of these things are really cute to take out and just, you know, give with a couple of those different handouts shows that you appreciate them. All the links are, you don't have to do any any legwork, it's all right there for you. Um, tech, your skin. This was because it was skin cancer awareness month in may, and so you know, don actually found these really cute stickers that once you've been hit with so many UV rays, it actually will tell you hey, you need to reapply some, some sunscreen. So I found these little cute sunscreens to go with it. But I think that this is just another. You know we care, we're caring people and we care about you and want to make sure that you're taking care. You can take like, um, you can cut up this up the top there, so they each get like a four either way, like the way of different shapes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good idea. Either way, like the way of different shapes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good idea. So you get four you can cut across or you can give them a whole. Um, I forget how they come, I think it's, it's 80.
Speaker 1:So I believe it's like 10 or eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they change colors when it's time to reapply sunblock.
Speaker 2:So super cute. Didn't even know those existed, and I think that that's something that you can take out with this Just kind of attach it here, maybe a little baggie, and give a couple other things too, but this is just really, really cute.
Speaker 1:Here's hydration. There's my hydration.
Speaker 2:So National Hydration Day is June 23rd. Again, nobody likes to drink water. I don't know what it is, but I drink water constantly. But water is life and you add flavor, so that's just a play on. You know we love them, but also, you know we're bringing in the water, we're bringing in those little flavor. You know, single, single uh servings. Tie it up with a ribbon and just bring it out. Show them that you care and you want them to care about themselves too and drink water, cause it's good for us. Yes, there they are. There you go. There's another little, another little. I like this one, the raspberry lemonade. It's still a good one. I like that one too.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, june is also Alzheimer's and brain awareness month. So you know we're, we like to take out themed themed things as well. Um, I think I used this last year. I just added as well. I think I used this last year. I just added I think just this little forget me, not the little flower. I just thought it was cute, but when we take these out, we want to.
Speaker 2:You know, we do want them to know that our caregivers can help with this. We can help with people that are suffering from dementia or living with these things. And then I wanted to repurpose some of those books in case you guys bought too many and just use those also to take out for brain games. They're, you know, they're large print. Again, remember to when you do take these out, just take a couple maybe just make sure you slap your stickers on there so that they know who they're coming from. And then you know the purple silicone bracelets. I think that's just a nice piece. I find that that's one of the more like traditional type of things that we take out, but it's a nice piece that people look forward to actually.
Speaker 1:And this is a great way to get into some of those memory cares too, guys, because you know, this is this is what they do all day long. So it's a good, a good way to get into the memory care places. Love this one.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of kind of corny, but you know we love that National Lobster Day is June 15th. Who would have thought it? But I just thought a really cute play on words is you know, call us for snappy discharges or snappy discharges, Call us now home in time for dinner. You can put, you could put home in time for lobster dinner, whatever. But I want them to understand that we are, we are running to them, we are helping them get people home safely right away. Just give us a call.
Speaker 1:The best thing, the best lead behind I've ever seen is like tying the holiday or whatever it is, to your service lines, and that's exactly what Lisa did here. And it's snappy, it's a fast discharge and sometimes that's what they have to, that's what they're up against, the social workers. I love this one and it's just very, very cool.
Speaker 2:Stands out for sure. And then you know, let's, let's continue the theme here. So we have some snapped cheeses or some. If you want to be a little healthier, there's the snapped peas. And you know, you can just take these out and attach that to um oh, we have, yeah, a very cute, good comment, carla.
Speaker 1:Another idea for Alzheimer's. These are from the dollar tree flower seeds called forget me knots. They're 25 cents and you can put them with that extra potion. Love that, carla.
Speaker 2:That is so cool. I think I've seen those two out there, the little like um. They even have like the little pots. I think too, but the little packets with forget me knots, it would be really cute for that Great idea. Yeah, and going back to here, you know, here's the Amazon links. I'm sure you can go into the grocery store too, but this will give you a little bulk deal.
Speaker 1:They go with the snap, the snapping. Yeah, I like it, get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1:Get it the snap.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, we don't want to forget our father, so celebrate father's day. Here's just a nice little you know. Take this out to all the guys that you know. You know, you know that they're fathers or you know that they're maybe going to be fathers. Take this out. And then you know, I was like, okay, let's continue this. Here's a bottle opener here, little key chain bottle opener, and then dad's root beer pieces uh, the root beer barrels.
Speaker 2:I just thought that that would maintain the theme, but I just thought it was really cute there and add a little bag, a little ribbon, um, add this, you know, to the outside of the bag, a little key chain, and go with that yeah, I love it well, we are.
Speaker 1:That's it, guys. Anybody have any questions?
Speaker 2:we're everyone with one minute to spare, one minute to spare.
Speaker 1:We did good because there was a lot of content today and leave behind. So we've got a lot going on. So, um, anybody need anything. We're all, we're all good, thanks for coming. Can I have a great ask, a quick question?
Speaker 2:sure, okay, so when it comes to leave a behind, so we start implementing that around the third, fourth visit after we get our first lead, when we actually start doing like gifts leave behinds.
Speaker 1:Is this Corey?
Speaker 1:Yes, Corey just signed up for our training program. She's going to be starting pretty soon. A leave behind can get you in the door too, so I do it right away. Whatever theme, whatever I'm working on right now, I bring that with me, and I bring one for that front desk person, as we were talking about. Sometimes when you come with gift in hand, they are more apt to let you back there because, like you brought something.
Speaker 1:If it's your first time, of course you're going to include your brochure business card because they don't know who you are yet. You wouldn't just leave the leave behind with them. They're having no knowledge of who you are. Always staple your business card to your brochure. Social workers don't like to give out a brochure without a contact person and they get separated if there's a paperclip. So find a place to staple it to the brochure and include that with the leave behind. If you don't get in the first time, leave it with the people at the front desk. Always call and let your social worker email. Let them know you left them something. So yeah, so you can start with the leave behind, did you?
Speaker 2:is that does that?
Speaker 1:help Corey yeah that was perfect.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Donna.
Speaker 1:Of course you're welcome, Anybody else, All right. Well, happy Easter, Happy Friday. Have a great weekend everybody.
Speaker 2:Bye-bye, see you guys next time.