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Revolutionizing Senior Care: John Darby's Boutique Approach to Assisted Living | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:17
the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
0:20
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Codaspodi, and today's guest is John Darby,
0:30
CEO of Mercy House, a company with eight assisted living and
0:34
memory care facilities in Central Texas.
0:37
They know that it can be difficult to find the right
0:39
community for yourself or a loved one, which is why they
0:42
provide the best elder care in and around Central TX.
0:46
They specialize in providing assisted living and memory care
0:49
and their small facilities where they use a family oriented model
0:53
of care to ensure that everyone feels at home.
0:56
At Mercy House, they offer tours so you can see first hand the
1:00
quality of the facility and the care that is delivered
1:02
consistently. John is also the CEO of Torch,
1:06
the Texas organization of residential care homes.
1:10
He holds the certified assisted Living manager credential.
1:13
He was honored by the Business Examiner's 40 Under 40 Emerging
1:16
Leaders list and also honored by the Olympians Leaders for the
1:20
21st Century. John is a 1997 graduate of the
1:24
University of Washington and earned a master's degree in
1:27
business administration from Concordia University.
1:30
He graduated with the 2001 Leadership Thurston County class
1:33
and later earned his Six Sigma Greenbelt.
1:37
Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:40
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2:05
Now back to our guest today, the CEO of the Mercy House.
2:08
John, I appreciate you making the time to Share your story
2:11
today. Anthony, I'm excited to be here.
2:14
All right. So, John, tell us about the
2:16
journey that led you into the senior care industry in the
2:19
first place. Sure.
2:21
So, you know, I spent most of my years growing up sitting in in a
2:28
Medicaid nursing home, you know, that that made headlines from
2:32
from the 80s, had an uncle that was, had Ms. and also had some
2:40
intellectual disabilities. And he's the last, I mean, he
2:47
was, he was declared after he was declared terminal.
2:50
He lived another 15 years just by sheer willpower.
2:54
And, and so we would go to, you know, every holiday, every
2:58
birthday, every anniversary was spent with, with Uncle John
3:02
because that was, that was going to be his last Mother's Day.
3:05
That was going to be the last Christmas.
3:06
And, and he managed to hang on. But as you know, as I sat there
3:12
as a teenager looking around, not really knowing the way the
3:15
world works, but thinking that there's got to be a better way
3:19
to care for our loved ones. And Fast forward to, to 30 years
3:24
later when I came across this boutique model of senior care.
3:29
It was like I, I, you know, the heavens opened up and I heard
3:32
angels singing Beethoven's night.
3:36
And I came across it working for, for Torch, the trade
3:40
association for, for boutique assisted living facilities and
3:45
found myself spending time with successful business owners that
3:49
run these small homes. And a couple of years of
3:53
spending time with them, it kind of started to rub off.
3:55
And I thought maybe I could do this, maybe I know how to do it.
4:00
And after thinking about it for a little while, a friend
4:03
approached me and said, I think you're right.
4:05
This is, this is a great model. And spent a little bit of time
4:10
looking around. The right opportunity came along
4:13
and and we jumped in certainly I want to say at the right time.
4:19
You know, when you look at the the aging of the baby boomers,
4:24
there's, you know, many in the industry call that the silver
4:27
tsunami is that there's going to be far more seniors that need
4:32
care than what currently we have space for.
4:35
So it felt right. It was kind of a perfect storm,
4:38
and so we jumped. So prior to this, you had
4:42
different work experience outside senior living and you
4:45
came to work at Torch as an association that was supporting
4:49
these boutique senior living centers.
4:52
And so that was kind of your first foray into this world.
4:55
Aside from what you witnessed, you know, with your, your uncle
4:58
growing up. This was kind of your first
5:00
foray on the business side of things to oh, that that thought
5:04
I had 30 years ago as as a teenager.
5:07
There has to be a better way. Somebody has, in fact, multiple
5:10
people have in fact come up with the better way.
5:12
This is really intriguing. This is something I want to be
5:15
involved with. Is that right?
5:16
Yeah, it. It turns out I wasn't the only
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one thinking that and bam, here we are.
5:22
And So what was the first opportunity that came up?
5:24
Was it an existing facility that you could buy into or was it the
5:28
ability to to build a new one? How did it get started it?
5:32
Was it was an existing facility, There was, there was an owner
5:35
who was looking to to exit the industry and he actually closed
5:41
the facility. You know, gave everybody 30 days
5:45
notice when I found out about it.
5:47
And over the next, you know, 5 or 6 weeks, we negotiated a deal
5:52
for us to purchase it. And as, as we were doing that,
5:57
just as we were coming in, the last resident was moving out.
6:01
And so while we, we purchased an existing facility, it was with
6:06
no staff and no, and no residents.
6:08
And so, you know, we immediately began scrambling to try and save
6:11
the staff and, and work on our tails off to, to get residents.
6:15
So we actually spent probably the first six weeks of of of
6:20
operating it with no residents so that you know that fun time
6:25
when there's money flowing out and nothing coming in.
6:28
And and you're probably like shake your fist at the sky.
6:31
Like, why couldn't we have done this deal like a month earlier
6:33
before they started having the residents leave?
6:37
Exactly. And so, OK, so you're hitting
6:40
the ground, I'm not even going to say running.
6:43
You're, you're, you're stumbling, right?
6:44
Because like you said, you get all this money going out and no
6:48
money coming in because all the residents are gone.
6:50
I guess I got 2 questions here. How did you fund this and how
6:55
did you start getting residents back in the doors?
6:59
Sure. So, so it turns out that SBA
7:02
loves these boutique assisted living facilities because you
7:07
know, the, the majority of the asset that in this case that we
7:10
purchased was real estate. And so we were able to secure,
7:14
secure an SBA loan that was, you know, pretty heavily
7:18
collateralized against the real estate of of the home.
7:21
And so in this case, we were able to, to purchase the
7:24
facility for the cost of the real estate, but it had much
7:28
more value as a business. And so my partner and I came up
7:33
with, with a little bit of money and went off running.
7:36
And then when it comes to filling it up, you know, you,
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you, you commented that I was stumbling.
7:42
Yes, we were stumbling, but we were stumbling you, you know how
7:46
when you're running downhill and your, your, your body is going
7:49
faster than your legs will carry you.
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It was at that pace that we were stumbling and, and I think that,
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you know, one of the things that I've, I've been in and around
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small businesses and, and business in general, you know,
8:03
one of the miscalculations I, I made when it came to coming into
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this industry is it never stops. It never closes.
8:12
You know, I, when, when you're, you know, if you're in a, a
8:15
subway franchise or you're an insurance agent or, or any
8:19
myriad of other small business opportunities, you know, you get
8:23
to at some point hang up the phone and go home.
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We don't get to do that. It, it follows us, you know,
8:31
and, and we've got, you know, we're staffed 24/7 until we're
8:35
not, until somebody gets sick. And so guess what?
8:38
That's, that's me. So I always say that, you know,
8:42
getting into this business, I didn't know it at the time, but
8:45
but you're going to stick your hand in somebody else's butt
8:47
crack to clean it up. And I have done that more times
8:51
than than I care to think about. And so, you know, we're, when
8:56
we're as we're being successful filling it up, that just created
9:00
more work for us on the back end, having to race into, you
9:04
know, to fulfill the, the holes in the schedule.
9:07
Because in a lot of places it's let's just have less customers.
9:10
Let's you know, if you're in, in fast food, you can close the
9:14
close the drive through or close the lobby or close early or, or
9:17
it just takes longer to get your lunch.
9:20
Not an option for us, right? We've got these residents that
9:23
we've looked their family in the eye and said we're going to take
9:26
care of them. We're going to give them the
9:28
care that they deserve. And as I was saying, we really,
9:32
I was thinking about this awesome team that I had just
9:35
hired and it, you know, it turns out that they were indeed
9:37
awesome, but life happens. And so it ended up being me
9:43
quite a bit more than than I thought it would happen.
9:45
You know, I would, I would take my, my tie off from my day job
9:48
and roll my sleeves up and go, go love on some residents.
9:52
But you know, having said that, you know, nobody else do I know
9:56
where the middle of their work day might involve playing bingo
9:59
or sitting down with the resident and playing cards.
10:02
I, I learned early in my, in my tenure with, with this business
10:06
that if, if somebody in one of our buildings wants to play
10:10
cards for money, don't do it. They're sharks, huh?
10:16
Yeah. They, they, they can, you know,
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they can play pinochle like nobody's business.
10:21
You know, once, once lost all of my lunch money to, to a guy
10:25
playing poker. Good times.
10:27
But, you know, it's certainly been fun when it comes to, you
10:30
know, when it comes to filling our beds is, is how we think
10:34
about it. Yeah, I, I suppose that we're,
10:36
we're the same as most other companies when we think about
10:39
census getting more customers. But I think that we come at it
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from a different perspective. When I talk with my team about
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it, I honestly believe that we provide the best care possible
10:53
in the communities that we operate in.
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And so when I have a, when I have an empty bed, that means
11:00
that there's somebody out in the community who's getting less
11:04
care than what they deserve or than what's available to them
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because they're getting it somewhere else.
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One of my most powerful calls to action, this is about two years
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ago, there was a, one of a larger facility down the street
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from from us that had had an elopement.
11:23
Somebody disappeared out of their building and and.
11:26
What's the term for that? Elopement.
11:30
They eloped and they went looking for for the resident.
11:34
Couldn't find them, you know, they're calling 911.
11:38
There's the Silver Alert that goes out.
11:40
We're looking for this, this elderly gentleman who was found
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two days later in the building. He had passed away.
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And I tell my team that is a is a boutique.
11:52
There's no way that's happening just just because of our layout,
11:56
our, our buildings are small residents sitting right there.
11:59
You, you know, hide and seek is a really quick game in our
12:02
buildings because they're small. That's not possible.
12:06
And I feel the responsibility to my community and I tell my team
12:10
that man would be alive today if he were in one of our buildings
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just because of the model of care.
12:19
And you know, I understand that bad things happen and you just
12:22
you can't fix all of those things.
12:24
But the model that we have care delivery that that we deploy
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just doesn't allow for things like that.
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And so we talked about census, we talked about filling our
12:36
beds, but it really is from the perspective of delivering the
12:41
highest level of care that our seniors deserve.
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When we go to grow our team, our number one hiring criteria is do
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you love people? I can teach you everything else
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that I need you to know, but I can't teach you to love people.
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And so in our industry, you know, you tend to look for
13:01
people with experience. You know, we certainly like that
13:03
just as much as anybody else does.
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But if I have to pick between two staff members, potential
13:09
staff members where one has worked in another facility
13:13
taking care of multiple seniors and another one has gotten their
13:17
experience at home caregiving for their grandmother, I'm going
13:21
to pick that one because they're doing that because they love
13:25
their, their grandmother, they love their family.
13:27
And so again, I can teach you how to, how to, you know,
13:30
properly bathe different types of, of people with different
13:33
types of, of conditions. And I can teach you to Med pass,
13:36
But at its core, I I can't teach you to love people.
13:41
You know, several things there I want to unpack, but the, the
13:44
last one in particular, I have a great aunt who just went into a
13:48
senior facility here. She's still very mobile and
13:50
active and, and can care for herself.
13:52
And we went to visit her a couple months ago and it sounds
13:57
exactly like the type of facility that you have.
14:01
She was so happy and excited to be there.
14:04
We spent most of our two hour visit getting introduced to
14:10
other residents, but mostly to the other people who the people
14:14
who work there. And she's like, oh, and this is
14:16
Billy and he does this for us and he's so great.
14:19
And, and and so. Yeah, what a difference that
14:22
experience makes compared to what you described, you know,
14:26
for your uncle when you were younger.
14:27
Well, and, and it, it's a calling, right?
14:29
My staff members drive right past that Dairy Queen with the
14:33
sign that says starting at $16.00 an hour to come work at
14:37
my building for something less than $16.00 an hour to take care
14:42
of people because that's that's who they are.
14:44
We call our staff caregivers because that's what they do.
14:48
And it is easy to just think of that as a title.
14:52
It's not just a title, it's a reflection of, of what it is
14:55
that they're doing. And so, you know, one of my
14:57
favorite things to do both in an interview, but I'll just check
15:00
in with my staff is what do you love about your job?
15:03
And whether it's whether they're working for somebody else and,
15:07
and, and, or working, looking to work for us or working, or they
15:11
do work for us. The most frequent answer I get
15:13
is they love their residents. They love spending time with
15:16
their, with their people and, and just fortunately in our
15:19
case, and then again, I want to reiterate this is that the
15:22
working down at the, the, the building down the road, they
15:25
love their people too. It's a calling for them as well.
15:29
For us, it's just the care delivery model is different.
15:32
We actually give you time to, to, to be able to spend time
15:37
with the, with the residents and people that you're developing a
15:40
relationship with. It's, it's not uncommon.
15:42
In fact, probably one of the highlights of, of me being in
15:46
this industry came during COVID when the city of Austin was, was
15:50
limiting funerals to 10 people. And one of my residents past 10
15:56
people got to go to her funeral and they asked me to be one of
15:59
her pallbearers. It's, it's not uncommon for
16:04
somebody's obituary to actually call out specific staff members
16:08
names. You know, we're a private
16:10
business, we're for profit, but we on a regular basis get
16:14
families wanting to make donations to a private business.
16:18
And I'm like, no, no, no, you know, we're we're, we're for
16:20
profit. We're good.
16:21
They're like, no, no, you guys took such great care of mom and,
16:25
and I actually love that when that happens because I didn't
16:27
turn that around to our staff and I'm like, well, it wasn't me
16:30
that did that every day. Let's have a party, let's buy
16:33
some gifts. Let's do you know, a spa day for
16:35
the girls that did take care of your mom.
16:38
It ends up being a win win. So yeah, talk to me more about
16:42
what makes your model different. So, well, we put our resources
16:51
into, into payroll and into care as opposed into real estate.
16:57
And so when you come into my buildings, I don't have marble
16:59
countertops. I don't have, you know,
17:01
stainless steel appliances or anything.
17:03
And and that's on purpose because I've never sat with
17:07
somebody in their family as they're passing on and heard
17:12
somebody say, I wish there were marble countertops in here.
17:16
But rather I hear, hey, we love the level of care slash the
17:21
frequency of care. And so for us, our model is one
17:26
direct caregiver to seven residents.
17:29
The industry really is, is probably 1 to 16 on average,
17:34
just the way you look at the way the cost breakdown.
17:37
And so for us, you just have more time to spend with
17:39
residents, but then we put resident care 1st.
17:43
And, and when I say that I don't, you know, I don't mean to
17:45
imply that others don't as well. But with the way we
17:49
operationalize that is, you know, if you're in a residence
17:52
room cleaning their room and you know, you're about to take out
17:55
their garbage, but they're like, hey, you know, let's chat.
17:59
If you have your choice between taking the garbage out or
18:02
spending a few minutes with the resident, spend it with the
18:05
resident. Absolutely.
18:07
I'll pop by and and take out the garbage.
18:09
And, you know, I'm fortunate that we're still a small
18:11
business. And so I do get to do that.
18:13
I do get to call bingo. I do get to stop and grab coffee
18:16
and bring it to the girls on the way in.
18:19
And then have, you know, the resident who realizes what I'm
18:22
doing, like, Hey, what you know, where's mine?
18:25
A couple of weeks ago, I was coming into a building and was
18:27
passing a, passing the grocery store and just on a, on a whim,
18:31
stopped and grabbed a couple of dozen roses and, and took both
18:34
all the staff and all the residents a flower and said,
18:37
Hey, I, I just, I got you a flower.
18:39
And they're looking at me like, are you crazy?
18:40
Why not, You know, I got these 90 year old ladies that, you
18:44
know, with dementia, you know, looking at me kind of kind of
18:47
suspiciously. And I'm like, look, you can't
18:49
tell my wife that I'm buying you a flowers, but I got this for
18:52
you. That's great.
18:54
And you know, what's cool there is I think one of the things
18:57
that we saw, especially going through COVID is how important
19:01
that human contact and that human connection is.
19:04
I had a friend who, you know, works in elder care facilities
19:08
and she was saying, you know, the lack of that contact during
19:13
COVID, there were people who took such a nosedive in terms of
19:17
their physical state and especially their mental state.
19:21
And it's probably a year ago I saw her and she's like, and it
19:25
doesn't seem like it's coming back, like.
19:27
And so I think that really highlights the importance of
19:31
what you and your team are able to do right.
19:33
Hey, this person wants to talk. I don't have to take the trash
19:36
out right now. Like our ratios are a little bit
19:38
better than most places. I got a little extra time.
19:41
Let me spend a few minutes with them.
19:43
That's going to light them up inside.
19:45
That's going to make those that brain, you know, neurochemistry,
19:49
you know, fire in just the right ways.
19:50
That's going to make them. A little bit happier that day.
19:53
Yeah. Well, and the other thing is,
19:55
you know, when I go into large facilities and there's some
19:57
gorgeous opportunities out there and, and they do deliver the
20:01
level of care that their model allows.
20:03
But, you know, you go into their dining room, it's a beautiful
20:05
dining room. It's big and there's tables
20:06
everywhere and there's one or two people sitting at every
20:09
table. For us, we recognize that it's a
20:12
smaller facility. And then some people's concerns
20:14
are, hey, I, you know, I want more interactions and more
20:16
sociability. Unfortunately, you can't depend
20:20
on that from, from other residents.
20:23
And so we fill that gap with our staff.
20:25
And you know, not too long ago we had a resident who, who,
20:29
while she loved to read, her eyes would get tired after the
20:32
first page or so me or one of our, one of our team members
20:35
would stop and the, hey, let's, let's finish this out.
20:38
You know, she wanted to do her daily Bible reading so that she
20:40
could get through it in a year, but her eyes wouldn't let her.
20:43
She got to do that at Mercy House.
20:46
That's cool. Now I'm curious, you've gone
20:49
after this model of smaller facilities.
20:52
Is there something about the smaller facility itself that
20:55
allows you to deliver this more connected version of care?
21:01
Could your same care model apply in a larger facility?
21:06
So I would generally say no. And so when I say, when I say
21:12
small. So most, most small residential
21:15
assisted living, right. So in Texas, there's about 1200
21:19
smalls. A whole bunch of those are just
21:21
a home that have 6-8 or ten people.
21:24
They don't have a sign out. You don't know what it is,
21:26
right? Just every now and then you'll
21:27
see a different home health or Hospice companies car sitting
21:30
out front. Our buildings are a little bit
21:32
bigger in that they're 16 beds apiece.
21:35
But you know, I, I think the difference is while, while we
21:39
do, I do think that our people are the best, which isn't to say
21:44
that that those folks working in the bigger buildings aren't
21:47
good. But when I talk about the model
21:49
being different, you know, the, the story really comes out when
21:53
you look at COVID, COVID hit larger buildings much harder
21:57
than it did the small ones. Because in the small ones, we
22:00
not only know the residents as the administrator, we're on a
22:03
first name basis with the residents themselves, but with
22:06
their families. And we're able to recognize that
22:11
our customer isn't just the resident, but it's the family.
22:15
You know, a large portion of our, of our residents that come,
22:19
are coming from home with a spouse that's a caregiver or a,
22:23
you know, a son or a daughter that they're trying to manage
22:26
their own life. They're trying to raise kids
22:28
and, and work and do all of those things.
22:31
And now they've added on trying to care for mom in this small
22:36
model. What we tell folks is that, that
22:38
you're able to be the husband again.
22:41
You get to, you know, when you've got some time to spend
22:43
with your wife, it's your wife. It's not somebody that you're
22:46
caring for. You know, I don't ever, ever
22:50
want to see my, my mom butt naked.
22:52
But that's what a lot of these folks are doing, right?
22:55
I'm going to have to go help bathe my mom.
22:57
And that that's uncomfortable for mom.
22:58
It's uncomfortable for me. And there's a lot of guilt that
23:02
goes with that. You know, there's a reversal of
23:04
roles is mom wiped my butt and now, now I'm wiping hers.
23:08
But that, that diminishes mom's quality of life and it
23:12
diminishes mine. Whereas in the boutique setting
23:16
that we offer, come and hang out with mom and you get to, you
23:20
know, you get to do the puzzle like you used to do.
23:22
You don't got to worry about tracking down medications in any
23:24
of that. And so I, I think that just the
23:27
smaller scale allows us to have a relationship in place that
23:31
when you're dealing with a couple of 100 families or even
23:34
100 families just is a lot more difficult.
23:38
John, I want to go back to a little bit more at the beginning
23:42
because you had become familiar with the senior care industry
23:45
from your time at Torch, but you'd never actually run one of
23:49
these businesses. I'm going to guess that there
23:51
was some kind of a learning curve both in delivering the
23:55
care, right? And then on the business side of
23:59
things, what was that like? What resources did you have
24:03
available to kind of help you with the learning curve on each
24:06
of those? So, you know, I certainly had.
24:11
So, you know, spending time with Torch, I'm spending time with
24:14
other successful owners. I always tell people that that
24:18
My Mercy House is a conglomeration of best
24:21
practices. You know, we're able to see
24:24
who's doing medications the best, who's got the best
24:28
culinary program, who's got an amazing activity program, and
24:33
the industry is very collaborative.
24:35
But in my role with Torch, I got to spend time with those
24:38
individuals to be able to learn from them on a regular basis.
24:42
And so I would say from the technical portion of the
24:49
industry, I was far ahead of others.
24:52
And as I say that, I don't think that's unique to me.
24:55
Regardless of what industry you're in, you've got a trade
24:58
association, you've got a state association, you've got a local
25:02
Chamber of Commerce where you can go and meet what tends to be
25:05
the more successful people. And you can learn from those.
25:09
Not just because I work for a trade association, I tell
25:12
everybody, go join your association, volunteer, because
25:15
that's where you're going to learn.
25:17
You'll save yourself a whole bunch of time on the learning
25:20
curve and a whole bunch of money.
25:23
And so, you know, I would say that that I started out on first
25:26
base because we bought an existing one.
25:28
There was still all the policies and procedures in place and we
25:31
were able to save most of the staff.
25:33
And so they were able to point things out and and teach us how
25:36
things were done. So I would say that just by
25:38
buying a business, we got to first base.
25:41
I would say that, you know, having the, the, the
25:44
relationships with other successful owners in the space
25:47
got me to second base. And then I would tell you that I
25:50
struck out three times in a row. I tell people that if, if
25:54
there's a mistake to be made in this industry, I've made it.
25:58
Fortunately, it's never been on the on the care side.
26:02
We've always had really successful outcomes with our
26:04
residents. But on the business side, let me
26:08
tell you, you know, I tell people that the, the longest
26:11
I've ever worked is 36 hours straight where I'm not just, I'm
26:16
not just working where it's a, hey, let me grab my phone and
26:19
sit here and run to the bathroom.
26:21
There was no bathroom break like in 36 hours, I'm working
26:25
straight through because I was it.
26:28
I was the last line of defense. And you know, as with in any
26:32
entrepreneurial efforts, you know, you're the only one as the
26:35
owner in the organization that doesn't get to say no.
26:38
And you know, people say, hey, you own it.
26:41
And I'm like, sometimes I own it, but most of the time it owns
26:46
me because again, I don't get to say no.
26:49
And so somebody can say they don't want to work that
26:51
overnight shift. They can say, no, I don't want
26:53
to go to the grocery store. No, I don't want to go and pass
26:55
that Med. Everybody in my organization can
26:58
say no but me. And OK, yes, there's it'll be
27:00
ramifications for those. But at the end of the day, you
27:03
know, something needs to be done on Christmas Day.
27:06
Not only am I the only one that doesn't get to say no, how good
27:10
do I feel about ganking somebody away from their family when it's
27:13
my business? And so you know, this, this is
27:17
the hardest thing I've ever done.
27:20
And if you know, there's been sometimes where, you know, they
27:24
say, oh, you hit rock bottom and there's nowhere to go up from
27:26
there. You can find a new level.
27:30
So, well, for me it was just, you know, I hit rock bottom and
27:33
then I smacked my face as I was getting drug along the bottom.
27:36
So it wasn't, I hit rock bottom and I popped right back up.
27:41
And so, you know, again, this, this business does have a
27:44
tendency to, to, to chew you up and spit you out and then laugh
27:48
at you when you're sitting there like, what did I get into?
27:52
And so, you know, I would say the first two years in this
27:54
business was, was really difficult.
27:57
We started to get things figured out and then once we, once we
28:02
thought we had it figured out, we're like, hey, let's just go
28:04
buy 5 buildings at one time. And it didn't just start all
28:09
over again. It, it started all over with a
28:12
couple of tons of bricks just beating down on us.
28:16
And it went back into a couple of years of, of tough times
28:20
before we were able to, to start to get our, our, our feet under
28:24
us and figure that piece out as well.
28:26
Can we maybe get into like a specific example of a particular
28:31
struggle that you guys went through during this time and,
28:34
and, and how you came through it?
28:36
So, so for us again, you know, my, my philosophy of offering
28:40
the best level of care and that everybody deserves a great life.
28:44
We sometimes give more grace to a potential resident then then
28:50
what we ought. And what I mean by that is, you
28:52
know, you will, you know, 80% of all assisted living residents
28:56
have some form of memory deficit.
28:59
And they're individuals who, who dementia has just taken so much
29:05
of their identity that they're not who they used to be.
29:10
And some, some of them can be, you know, have the diseases has
29:13
turned them into, into a monster really.
29:15
And we took in a resident that that had been removed from a
29:20
couple of other facilities. We had hoped that the smaller
29:24
boutique setting with a higher level of care would meet his
29:28
needs. And, and so we accepted a
29:31
resident who we should know of. And the resident, you know,
29:38
again, he wasn't who he used to be.
29:42
We're we're faced with, you know, struggling with the
29:45
disease as much as he is. And so, you know, he would, you
29:51
know, his life was miserable. He would, he was an amputee.
29:56
So he only had one leg. And so he's, you know, not
29:59
mobile, had had extreme behaviors, became violent when,
30:06
when the sun went down. And if if you got within arm's
30:10
reach of him, he would smack you.
30:14
If you got within his throwing reach of you, he would throw
30:19
anything he could get his hands on at you again, not him.
30:23
You know, it's it's definitely the disease to run on its horse.
30:26
And we worked really hard to try and meet his needs and we just
30:32
weren't able to well, you know, and and that's, you know, that's
30:36
just the physical stuff. The verbal abuse was just
30:39
non-stop. Recognize that, you know, we're
30:42
taking care of a population that grew up in a very different
30:44
time. So they have a very different
30:46
view of race relations, a very different view of gender
30:50
relations. And while, you know, most of the
30:55
population is adjusted and I would say that our residents
30:58
adjust as well. Once dementia starts taking away
31:01
your faculties, all of that propriety goes out.
31:06
And so there was a significant amount of, of, of verbal abuse
31:09
that our staff was taking. Again, this is a really small
31:12
home. It's, it's just two caregivers
31:15
and it got to the point where staff was calling out because
31:18
they couldn't take the abuse. And, and I, I couldn't blame
31:22
them. You know, somebody who was, who
31:24
was screaming at the top of their lungs for 12 hours
31:28
straight in a small home. It wears on everybody.
31:32
And there just wasn't a good solution.
31:34
And unfortunately, there's a gap in our, in our system in being
31:40
able to deliver care to, to somebody in this situation.
31:44
I'm happy to say that that eventually, you know, his, his
31:48
medical team was able to get him on the right, you know, on the
31:52
right mix of, of medication that helped him be who he really is.
31:57
And he ended up living, living successfully for a number of
32:00
years in the larger facility. But there was about a 15 day
32:04
period where, you know, my shortest day was 16 days where I
32:09
was the direct caregiver. You know, that's the point where
32:12
I worked, you know, worked 36 hours straight where I didn't
32:15
dare take eyes off of him because, I mean, not only was he
32:18
a danger to other residents and to staff, he was a danger to
32:20
himself as well. And so I, you know, there was in
32:26
that 15 day period, can be honest with you, there was more
32:30
than one time where I was pushed past my breaking point where I
32:36
didn't know if I, if I wanted to come back from there.
32:40
I mean, I was so far past that breaking point that I didn't
32:42
know if I wanted to come back from that breaking point.
32:45
And, you know, in a, in a time like that, it's really hard to
32:49
remember that, that it's a business.
32:52
It's really hard to remember that that this is a person, that
32:56
this is a person who deserves care and that this person
33:00
deserves love. But the disease had had had, you
33:04
know, just taken his mind so far that, you know, they're just,
33:09
there weren't good solutions that we could offer.
33:12
And it again, it took us a couple of weeks to be able to
33:15
help him get a solution. But during that time, again,
33:18
more than one point where I was pushed past my, my breaking
33:21
point, where I was glad I was alone, where, you know, I, I'm,
33:27
I'm sure that I looked like a zombie, but didn't know because
33:31
I was afraid to look in the mirror.
33:33
And, and at that point, you know, I, it, it was an act of
33:38
God that, that I made through it.
33:40
It was only by the grace of God that I made it through and, you
33:45
know, was able to, you know, him.
33:48
Him having a successful outcome really had nothing to do with us
33:52
except that we were able to, you know, provide him a safe place
33:57
to be while a solution was able to reveal.
34:02
You guys were a bridge during this difficult time while the
34:05
medical team was, you know, working on his meds to get into
34:09
a more stabilized place. You know, and I think one of the
34:14
nice things that comes out of a really challenging situation
34:17
like that that you went through is you find, you discover that
34:22
you are capable of even more than you thought was possible.
34:27
You find a new level of inner strength.
34:31
Not that you, you, you never want to be back into a situation
34:35
that pushes you so far again, but you know that you've,
34:41
you've, you're made of tough stuff like you, you can, you can
34:45
endure and, and come through it. And I'm curious, you know, after
34:49
having gone through that, was there anything about your
34:52
procedures or your policies that you guys changed going forward?
34:56
Or if it was just kind of like, man, that was kind of a just
35:00
just an outlier and nothing we could do differently next time.
35:05
Yeah. Well, so we, you know, we
35:07
certainly swore to ourselves that that if there was anybody
35:10
questionable in terms of their behaviors that we would just
35:14
help them find someplace else to live, but, you know, wouldn't,
35:17
wouldn't accept them into our building.
35:19
And so, you know, coming out of that experience, it was just a
35:22
hard know if if somebody had any even suspected behaviors, we
35:26
were going to, you know, let them find another place to live
35:29
or somewhere else to live. Having said that, we're our, our
35:34
heart is for seniors. And so we have, we've never had
35:39
had a situation get that bad. We've had some close because we
35:45
do tend to lead with grace. A lot of our peers in this
35:49
industry are, are corporate or much larger entities owned by
35:53
much larger entities. And so they have some boxes that
35:56
got to be checked or not checked for them to be be willing to, to
36:00
care for somebody. And you know, sometimes there's
36:03
a story beyond the, the assessment.
36:05
There's a story to be told that that just isn't told in the, in
36:09
the paperwork. And so and so we do find
36:12
ourselves tending more toward the, I'd say leading with grace.
36:17
It's how we think we can do it. Let's let's go ahead and try and
36:21
take care of this, this individual.
36:23
We have gotten a lot more, you know, with our with our legal
36:27
agreements and things gotten better at making sure that the
36:31
family understands that we're willing to try this, but if it
36:35
doesn't work, we need to have something lined up after the
36:39
fact. And in that first situation, it
36:41
obviously was the the family had never been in that situation.
36:44
It was our first time going through something like that.
36:46
So we didn't have a contingency if, you know, we took him in
36:50
without knowing if we could take care of him if we didn't, you
36:53
know, and when we found out we couldn't, we're like, we don't
36:55
know what to do. Whereas now we're much more
36:58
careful that when we do take somebody in that we're
37:00
questionable about whether their behaviors are going to fit into
37:04
our, to our, our population. We've got a contingency plan in
37:09
place to, to mitigate that sooner.
37:11
So I would say that was the biggest thing.
37:13
OK, so you know, when I talked to a lot of business owners who
37:17
are the founders, right, And they started something small, in
37:21
your case one facility, and it took them a lot of effort and a
37:25
lot of work, a lot of sweat and tears to figure out how to run
37:30
this small entity, right? A lot of learning curves,
37:33
business side, care side, and it takes a certain set of skills to
37:37
be that start up guy. You don't often see that same
37:42
person be successful as the business grows because it
37:46
requires a different set of skills.
37:50
You've got to put different structure, different processes
37:54
in place. And it can be hard to kind of
37:57
step back and and delegate some of that.
38:00
Talk to me about what that arc has been like for you.
38:03
Sure. So certainly it's not been a
38:07
smooth arc, I'll tell you that never is.
38:10
But yeah. But I would say that I actually
38:14
with with my skill set went the other direction.
38:18
I wasn't a, you know, a skilled, you know, day-to-day operations
38:24
guy. I was much more of the skilled
38:26
back office leadership. Let me focus on those things
38:31
that went in to learn the day-to-day operations.
38:35
And so, you know, I, I came to it with a business background
38:39
with, you know, working in management and nonprofits for so
38:42
many years and managing people. I would say that it's easier to
38:47
learn the, how to pass the Med than it is how to run a staff
38:51
meeting. And so I had those, those run
38:54
the business skills already, not all of them that I needed.
39:00
And so, and you know, like with for us within our organization,
39:04
you know, we'll take the best caregiver and, and promote them
39:09
up to be the supervisor. And then we're telling them,
39:12
look, your, your job is no longer to be the best caregiver.
39:16
Your job is to help all the caregivers be the best
39:18
caregiver. And that's a different skill
39:21
set. And that takes a different level
39:24
of humility in a different level of of self-discipline to not be
39:31
the one to jump in and help. And if I see a task that needs
39:35
to be done, if I do jump in and do it, that means I'm not doing
39:38
these other three things. And so for many people in an
39:43
organization, that's a hard shift.
39:46
I would say that that for me it was easier because I, you know,
39:51
I started out with that those that business knowledge slash
39:54
business skills jumped into the day-to-day operations for the
39:58
first two years and then slowly worked my way back out of that.
40:03
Having said that, you know the growth curve in learning how to
40:07
run 1 was just as steep from zero to 1 as it was one to two.
40:15
And then a completely new just as steep learning curve when we
40:20
went from 2:00 to 5:00 to then seven.
40:26
And I would say that so we we just we acquired our 8th, our
40:29
8th facility this year. Knock on wood.
40:32
Thank you, Lord. That was a fairly, fairly flat
40:37
learning curve there. And as we were able to
40:40
assimilate that, but I would say that that's primarily because
40:43
the learning curves before us were so steep.
40:46
And, and you know, when I say that the learning curves were
40:49
steep, there was a Cliff in there.
40:52
You know, we came out of, of COVID when we went from 2:00 to
40:55
to seven because we bought 5 at one time when we went from 2:00
40:58
to 7:00. You know, we, all of our
41:02
projections said, hey, this is going to be great.
41:04
We're going to be profitable from day one.
41:07
And oh, by the way, all of our projections were based on 4%
41:10
interest rates and they didn't stay 4%.
41:14
And so now our debt service is 50% more than our original
41:18
projections. That's just one.
41:20
We also didn't anticipate, you know, what it would take for us
41:23
to grow when it they're so far away.
41:26
You know, initially our, all of our buildings were, you know,
41:29
within a couple of minutes of each other.
41:31
Now my two furthest ones apart are 4 1/2 hours, 4 1/2 hours, 3
41:36
1/2 hours apart where, you know, it's, it's, it's a trek just to
41:41
get there. And so the work doesn't start
41:44
until I get there. And so as you know, as when we,
41:47
when we went from 2:00 to 7:00, there was a financial Cliff that
41:53
without a, you know, a couple of acts of God, we wouldn't be
41:56
here. And of course, the stress level
41:59
and making payroll for five people is very different than
42:03
when you've got 75 people standing there saying, hey, you
42:06
know, I got a car payment coming up, I need to pay for daycare.
42:09
I've got very different level of stress than either that, you
42:14
know, that sole proprietorship. And so, you know, sometimes it
42:16
did make me think, man, what? Just go be a CPA and work for
42:20
myself. And it's just me and.
42:22
Take some of that stress off. Yeah.
42:25
So I. Think but when I talk to my CPA
42:27
buddies they seem to be just as stressed so.
42:31
The grass is always greener, right John?
42:33
Right. Yeah, exactly.
42:34
So, so how has your role evolved then as you've gone from 1:00 to
42:38
8:00 facilities? So interestingly enough, that's
42:43
been a really hard transition. Whereas, you know, there was a
42:47
time where it was my job to take care of all of my people.
42:52
And over the five years there's as the company has grown, the
42:57
number of people that it's my responsibility to take care of
43:01
has gotten smaller and smaller. Till now I've got, you know,
43:06
while there's somewhere between 80 and 90 total staff members
43:10
for the company and I've got 4 direct reports that I spend most
43:14
of my time with. And then there's a larger
43:18
leadership team of about 12 people that I'll spend time with
43:22
developing them. But a lot of them, it's my four
43:26
direct reports that it's their job to develop them.
43:29
And so it really has gone away from the day-to-day operations.
43:35
You know, I, I still jump into QuickBooks and in fact, our, our
43:38
bookkeeper just hates it. She's like, hey, I'm going to be
43:40
gone for two days, but only if you promise not to get into
43:43
QuickBooks. And you know, it's, it's, we've
43:45
got a date that the books are supposed to be closed by.
43:48
And if, you know, that day's getting close, I'm I'll find
43:51
myself and they're like, well, here, I'll just go ahead and do
43:53
this. And she's like, no, stop, quit.
43:56
You know, not only is that my job, it's you don't know how to
43:58
do it right. So, you know, it's been
44:01
completely different to where now the job is really just
44:04
leading people and helping them, you know, grow decisions.
44:09
And so while, you know, the, the beginning of my career, I spent
44:13
a lot of time in trainings on, you know, the technical, the
44:16
technical portions of the job is let me go learn the best care
44:19
and the best trends in, in dementia care.
44:22
And, you know, what are the trends showing on, on, you know,
44:25
dietary supplements and in all of the technical portions of the
44:29
job. Now my, you know, my trainings
44:31
are more of along the lines of say, John Maxwell and how do I
44:35
help my people go get that information?
44:38
How do I help them be the best that they can?
44:40
And, and sometimes that's uncomfortable right there.
44:42
There isn't the, the direct, the the the joy of the direct
44:46
resident care. You know, nobody smiles at me.
44:49
You know at the end of the staff meeting the way they do at the
44:52
end of the bingo game where you know when I get to hand them the
44:55
prize. Yeah, I was talking with someone
44:58
the other day. I want to see if I can find the
45:00
quote. I wonder if this is something
45:03
similar to maybe what you've used in giving employees
45:06
feedback. I have very high standards and
45:08
I'm confident you can meet them, which is why I want to give you
45:11
some feedback. I thought that was pretty great.
45:15
I think that comes from the author Adam Grant.
45:19
That's that's a great quote. I love that.
45:23
So are you still in a position where you occasionally cover
45:26
shifts and you're wiping poop out of people's cracks?
45:29
And is it a little? Bit a little bit removed from
45:31
that. I'm a little bit removed from
45:34
that. And, and as I say that sometimes
45:37
I kind of miss it. I, I don't miss the have to do
45:40
it. And maybe that's, you know, I've
45:40
got the, I've got the luxury of, of being able to miss it, right?
45:43
Because there was a day when, you know, I've got a full day of
45:46
meetings planned today, but you know, for tomorrow and now I've
45:50
got to go in and cover a shift overnight.
45:53
You know, this, this business is a, is a human resources
45:56
business. It's pure HR and we rise and
46:01
fall on our staff members. And in the smaller facilities
46:05
like ours, we don't have, you know, backup to the backup staff
46:10
members. You know, I've got, you know,
46:13
10-12 people in each of my buildings covering, you know,
46:18
to, to, to cover my floor. And so I don't have a whole
46:23
bunch of people I can call if somebody gets sick.
46:26
And so I do have the luxury of missing it, you know, but as I
46:31
say that, I'm certainly saying that through the lens of when I
46:35
do work alongside of my staff, they kind of pushed me out of
46:39
the way for the more difficult stuff.
46:41
They'll be like, no, no, no, I, I, I know how to change the,
46:43
the, you know, their pull up better than you do.
46:47
Even when I'm there coming through a building for a staff
46:49
meeting or something and I see the garbage, I'm, I'm going to
46:51
grab the garbage and take the garbage out.
46:53
There's things like, no, no, no, you, you, you know, don't do
46:55
that. I'm like, no, no, I'm, I'm I
46:58
could take the garbage out when I see something done.
47:00
I expect you guys, when you see something that needs to be done
47:03
to do it, you're setting the. Example.
47:06
Yeah, exactly. Says I've got to be able to to
47:08
accept that as well. So, So sometimes I miss it.
47:11
Honestly, I miss the call and bingo a little more than I miss
47:14
the helping somebody go to the bathroom.
47:17
I don't think anybody would fault you for that.
47:20
You made an interesting point about your business being an HR
47:23
business, right? And it's, man, it's tough work
47:27
and you don't have the margins to pay folks a lot.
47:30
I'm sure you'd like to pay them even more.
47:32
I mean, you talk about how people you know are driving past
47:35
the Dairy Queen on the way to work at your facility and
47:39
there's an opportunity to make more per hour there.
47:42
I'm I'm curious, John, what kinds of things that you've
47:45
tried and found success with to 1st recruit good folks and then
47:51
once you get them in the door to retain them?
47:55
Sure. So I mean the first thing is, is
47:57
just as we're looking for people that love people, therefore IE
48:01
love our residents, we love people.
48:05
And so, you know, first and foremost, we we take care of
48:08
people period. And you know, as I say that
48:12
there was a, there was a caregiver who on shift her, and
48:18
this is a little bit earlier in, in our, in our business, but the
48:21
ethos is carried through. She got off shift at 10:00 PM.
48:26
At 8:45, she found out that her dad had passed away.
48:31
And so she called the, the manager at 8:45, tears in her
48:35
eyes who who called me and I live 30 minutes away.
48:40
I said, I'm on my way. I wouldn't have, you know, by
48:45
the time I got there or by the time I found out it's 9:00 to be
48:47
on my way. It's 9:30 PM, it's 9:00 PM.
48:50
And so I'm going to get there at 9:30.
48:52
I'm going to give her 30 minutes back.
48:55
It's going to take my whole evening, but I'm going to give
48:57
her 30 minutes back, 30 minutes that she can go be with family.
49:01
She can go and do what needs to be done for her family.
49:05
And so there was, that was an easy decision.
49:08
I'll, I'll be there. I will go and give you this 30
49:10
minutes. And so then, you know, as you
49:12
know, the ensuing days comes, we're like, Hey, what, what can
49:14
we do? How, how can we help?
49:16
And you know, Oh no, there's nothing we can do.
49:19
And well, then we got wind of that, that again, unexpected
49:22
event. The family didn't have money for
49:24
a family dinner after the funeral.
49:27
I stepped up and said, we're there.
49:29
We will take care of it right now.
49:31
So, you know, we're, it's, it's, you know, it's not a 7 course
49:33
meal or anything, but, but we went out and got fried chicken
49:37
and grabbed some, some potato salad and some rolls and all of
49:40
that and we brought it. That story happened earlier in
49:44
our career. But now that I'm thinking about
49:46
it, this, this in the last couple of months, one of our,
49:50
our key leadership team members, dad died.
49:55
And when, when I went to the funeral, I was blown away that
50:00
half of the people at the funeral came from Mercedes is
50:04
that we take care of, of people and, and, and our team knows
50:08
that when I come through and ask, how are you doing?
50:10
I might mean, how's your shift going?
50:12
How's Mercy house going? But I, but I probably mean,
50:15
how's life? I want to know about your son.
50:17
Did he make the, you know, he was trying out for the football
50:19
team? How did that go?
50:20
And, and so it's not uncommon for, you know, me to get invited
50:24
to, to funerals of, of our team members or, or the marriage, the
50:28
weddings of our team members and things.
50:29
And, and so we just love on our people.
50:32
We're also pretty creative with how we spend our money.
50:35
And so I just was in one of our buildings for our employee
50:38
appreciation day where, where we, we rented a, a bounce house
50:45
with, with water as a bounce house.
50:47
It was kind of an obstacle course and then we ran races
50:51
through it, right. So it was for the kids, but of
50:53
course, there's only a prize for the adults for races.
50:56
And, you know, gave away $100.00 gift card.
50:59
We're a fun place to work. I just, I was in a staff meeting
51:01
in another building and I realized that, you know, I'm
51:04
about to, to get up and dress the team and I don't really have
51:07
any opening warm remarks. Hey, I love you guys.
51:10
So I'm like, hey, everybody stand up.
51:11
We're doing rock, paper, scissors turn to the person next
51:15
to you. The winner takes me on and the
51:17
winner gets $100.00 gift card of their choice.
51:20
So we certainly like to have fun.
51:23
We're all in it for the same reason as with any team, you
51:27
know, we're, we're that's working together 24/7.
51:29
Sometimes in stressful situations, you know, the, the,
51:33
the work pushes us, but you know, we're just consistent
51:36
reminding us, hey, we all want the same thing.
51:39
We do work very hard on developing our staff members.
51:42
And so at a leadership level, we'll read books together.
51:46
So my leadership team, we've, we've read Radical Candor and
51:50
we've committed ourselves to be radically candid with each
51:52
other. We're going to give each other
51:54
feedback whether it's comfortable or not.
51:57
You know, we just got done with Dale Carnegie's How to Win
52:01
Friends and Influence People. We've read Jocko's Extreme
52:05
Ownership and I've actually negotiated buying cars for some
52:10
of our staff members that didn't have, you know, they didn't have
52:12
any skills, They've never done it before.
52:14
They didn't have anybody in their life that they could do it
52:16
for them. So I've helped them buy cars,
52:18
actually gone to the dealership and sat there and said, no,
52:21
we're not doing that. You need to come back with a
52:23
better price. And and so it's, you know,
52:26
that's what I love about being a small business is that, you
52:28
know, you walk into any business and, and they want to do those
52:31
things, but many of them just the way they're set up, they
52:34
just don't have the ability to do that.
52:36
So it's still a relatively. Small business, right, you've
52:39
got 8 facilities. What are the future growth plans
52:43
like? John, what do you think this is?
52:46
So we're we're. Determined to grow, right.
52:51
And, you know, as I say that the, our, our desire for growth
52:55
really comes from, from the, the realization or the belief that
53:00
we offer the best care, that our model gives seniors the care
53:05
that they deserve. And again, that's nothing
53:08
against anybody else. It's just the way that we're set
53:11
up allows us to deliver that. And so our growth plans start
53:16
there. Is that where can we genuinely
53:19
help people? But I do believe that the best
53:23
way we can help people is by being a successful business.
53:27
You know, if, if we weren't a successful business, we're not
53:30
able to pay for a family dinner for a staff member who's having
53:33
a funeral. We had a had a staff member who
53:37
lost her FoB on shift to her car.
53:41
And so she worked the overnight. It's 6:00 AM, it's time to go
53:44
home. Can't find the FoB.
53:47
I spent five hours looking through.
53:49
We went through the garbage twice.
53:51
It never turned up well. A FoB on her car was like $500.
53:57
She didn't have $500. We bought the FoB.
54:01
I can't do that if I'm not running a successful business.
54:04
And so we're determined to grow where we can actually make a
54:09
difference, which of course does come back to ensuring that we're
54:13
going to stay a profitable business.
54:15
Because, you know, the worst thing in the world would be for
54:17
us to grow beyond our ability to grow, which hurts our ability to
54:22
to help the, you know, the promises that we've already made
54:25
to families that live in in our mercy houses today.
54:28
So we'll grow how big, I don't know.
54:33
You know, I think that, you know, when you look at, at the
54:37
population growth just in, in Texas, for example, the, the
54:41
population of, of seniors and assisted living is expected to
54:45
double in the next 10 years. But there's only about 15% of
54:49
the beds of today are available and we just don't see a lot
54:53
coming online. So I think that we're, you know,
54:56
we're in an industry, a growth industry for sure.
54:59
We're fairly committed to only buying facilities.
55:03
All of the, the eight that we have are our facilities that
55:06
that we acquired. I've, you know, come to the
55:09
realization that I know how to run a successful assisted living
55:12
facility. I don't know how to successfully
55:14
build a building. So rather than go through that
55:16
learning curve, we'll just focus on what we've already learned.
55:21
And so we'll, you know, in the right opportunity.
55:23
And, and you know, a big part of that is geographically, I
55:27
actually spend time in every one of our buildings every week.
55:31
And so we recently had an opportunity that was that was
55:34
about the same distance as most of our buildings are from from
55:38
where I live, but it was just the opposite direction and felt
55:42
that, you know, I really couldn't, couldn't do that
55:44
justice at being in the opposite direction.
55:46
So we're certainly looking for opportunities to grow, but we
55:49
want to make sure that it's the right growth that makes sense,
55:53
you know. I'm a big fan of creative
55:55
problem solvings. I'm curious, I did a little
55:59
background that there's an innovation that you sort of
56:02
introduced in terms of scheduling.
56:05
Can you tell us more about that so?
56:09
Yeah, most, most of our peers in the industry and most of the the
56:13
folks that I'm learning from really focused on, on you know 8
56:18
hour shifts and we'd stepped away from the 8 hour shifts and
56:23
just says when does care need to be delivered and realized that
56:27
first of all overnight. And most, most folks in the
56:29
industry, you know, are, are lower their staffing overnight
56:32
because residents are sleeping in any less care needs.
56:35
But we got a little bit more creative with that and said,
56:37
well, you know, rather than stick to, to, you know, just 8
56:40
hour shifts that run six to two, 2:00 to 10:10 to 6:00 is we've
56:44
got that, that, you know, the first person that's running
56:46
that. But then let's look at our
56:48
population and and you know, if you'll get a, you know, set of
56:51
residents that, you know, they're, they're kind of late
56:54
risers. They don't get up until till
56:55
8:00 AM or so. I did just call 8:00 AM late
56:59
Verizon in this industry that's, you know, we'll have folks
57:02
getting up at 5:00 and 6:00 AM. But but we don't have a, you
57:05
know, we don't have a wake up time.
57:07
You know, it's we're, this is our philosophy is this is your
57:09
home. We just happen to work here.
57:11
So if you get to staying up late watching Gunsmoke and end up
57:16
wanting to sleep late, knock yourself out.
57:18
We'll be here ready with breakfast when you are in your
57:20
Med pass when, when you're ready to get up.
57:23
And so we would look at our population and say, hey, you
57:25
know, we're noticing that our, our, our residents aren't
57:28
getting up till later. Rather than have somebody come
57:30
in at six and then have nothing to do, let's run them from from
57:34
7:00 to 3:00 instead of six to two.
57:36
Or, you know, we've got a group of residents that, you know,
57:40
they're really just going to go down for a nap after lunch.
57:42
Let's just have a 5 hour shift. And so we really begin to focus
57:47
on the metric of, of what we call that an hours per resident
57:51
per day. And you know, kind of with that
57:54
business background on that NBA, you know, doing some, some
57:58
learning from, from Wall Street, Wall Street and venture
58:02
capitalist came across the Adiva dashboard where you know, a lot
58:06
of venture capitalists, they'll, they'll acquire business that
58:08
they don't know much about. They'll define key metrics as
58:12
here are the things that we're going to focus on.
58:14
And then I've just got a one sheet piece of paper that gives
58:18
a graphical depiction of what's going on with that metric.
58:22
And so we focused on, amongst other things, hours per resident
58:27
per day. Our biggest expense is payroll.
58:31
Payroll is twice as much as everything else put together.
58:34
And so we watch that very closely.
58:37
And so we're looking for a key number that changes with, you
58:42
know, with the population. If I've got residents on the
58:44
higher needs of the of the of the care level, we'll have more
58:49
hours per resident per day. But we focus on that very
58:53
carefully. And when are the number of
58:55
residents go up, the number of hours we're spending go up,
58:59
that's really easy. Everybody's all quick to hire
59:01
and add staffing, but we're just as quick to lower hours.
59:06
If our, if our population declines or if we've got
59:10
residents who don't have as much care needs, we're going to lower
59:15
those. Once we arrive at the target,
59:18
we're going to really hit really hard, work really hard to hit
59:20
the target. From a business perspective, of
59:23
course, I want the least hours possible.
59:25
From a care perspective, I want the most hours possible, right?
59:28
The answer is really in the middle.
59:30
If, if I get too low, that means my residents aren't getting the
59:33
care that they deserve. If I get too high, that means
59:36
that I'm not running a sustainable business.
59:38
And so we take those six key metrics and we measure them on a
59:43
weekly basis. For most of us as small
59:45
businesses, you know, we close the book around, you know, the
59:49
middle of the month for the previous month, which means that
59:53
we we lost money last month, but it's six weeks past it.
59:56
There's nothing I can do about it for us, because we're
59:59
measuring those metrics on a weekly basis, We can jump in.
1:00:03
And so, for example, if you know, one of the, the metrics
1:00:06
that we watch is his household expenses.
1:00:08
And so if you're running low on your household expenses and you
1:00:12
come across a great deal on Amazon for.
1:00:15
You know, say, for latex gloves, which we use a lot of latex
1:00:19
gloves. At heart I'm a bootstrapper.
1:00:22
There's got to be a less expensive way to do that.
1:00:25
I learned early on the one thing you don't go cheap on is gloves.
1:00:30
We're asking people to stick their hands down in places that
1:00:33
we don't ever want to think about again, let alone stick our
1:00:35
hand there. You better be giving them good
1:00:38
gloves to do that. So as you're looking at your
1:00:40
household expenses, you, you found a sale, but if your
1:00:43
metrics off, you can't afford to buy those.
1:00:47
Whereas again, most of us would just say, oh hey, we've got a
1:00:49
great deal here, let's go ahead and buy it.
1:00:51
And so we measure those on a regular basis and have those
1:00:54
conversations so that we can manage what's going on in our
1:00:57
business. And so while it all does revolve
1:01:00
around the care and it's all hugs and kisses on the front
1:01:04
end, we've got some pretty solid metrics that we're watching
1:01:07
closely on the back end to make sure that we've got the the
1:01:11
sustainable business model to be able to continue hugging and
1:01:14
kissing for the for the long haul.
1:01:17
John, you've obviously learned a.
1:01:18
Lot in the years that you've been operating these facilities
1:01:23
and and growing the business I understand that you offer master
1:01:28
classes where you take some of that knowledge and you help
1:01:32
support other facility owners can you tell me more about that?
1:01:35
Sure. So.
1:01:37
You know, in my role at Torch, so we're trade association for
1:01:40
the boutique facilities. As I said, when I said that
1:01:43
there's a mistake to be made, I've made it.
1:01:46
And so I've kind of developed a, hey, here's what I wish I knew.
1:01:49
But because Torch is a nonprofit that serves the industry, I also
1:01:54
have access to the best experts. And so both from, you know,
1:01:59
I'll, I'll teach some of those master classes, but we'll go out
1:02:01
and get folks from the agency, the, the licensing agency to
1:02:06
actually spend time saying, here's here's what you really
1:02:09
need to know. And so I would say that, you
1:02:12
know, my perspective as an operator has really helped us
1:02:15
put together this startup master class that helps people
1:02:19
understand what it is that they they need to know.
1:02:22
And I would say, you know, a consistent theme is this is, is
1:02:26
hard work from the outside looking in.
1:02:29
You know, we all dress up nice when we're when we're on camera,
1:02:33
But you know, there's a chance that when the camera goes off,
1:02:36
this comes off and I'm going to go and scrub out a toilet that
1:02:39
somebody clogged up. And so, you know, that's a kind
1:02:43
of a consistent theme for us. But that master class really is,
1:02:47
is to try and help people understand what you're getting
1:02:49
into. That's great, John.
1:02:52
I just have one. More question for you, but
1:02:53
before I ask it, I want to do 2 things for those listening
1:02:57
today. If you like today's content,
1:03:00
please hit the subscribe, like or share button on your favorite
1:03:02
podcast app so you'll hear more of it.
1:03:04
I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch
1:03:08
with you. What's that?
1:03:10
So go to our. Trade association website which
1:03:13
is just TX torch like a burning, flaming torch@txtorch.com.
1:03:20
There's a contact us on there. You'll find me and my assistant
1:03:24
on there and we'll be able to answer any questions that you
1:03:26
might have. And then the website.
1:03:29
For Mercy house is just mercy dot house, correct?
1:03:34
Yep, Yep, Yep. So anybody looking for senior
1:03:38
care in the Central Texas area, check it out.
1:03:40
They've got 8 facilities and growing.
1:03:43
So last question I have for you, John, I'm curious what do you
1:03:48
see the big changes are that are coming to your industry in the
1:03:52
next 5 years, so? You know, more specifically my
1:03:57
industry in Texas, 95% of assisted living in Texas is
1:04:04
private pay and yet only 15% of baby boomers can afford private
1:04:11
pay. Assisted living when it comes to
1:04:14
care delivery, assisted living is one of the most cost
1:04:19
effective ways to care for our loved ones.
1:04:23
And yet, you know, having said that, it's, it's, it's still
1:04:27
expensive. And so when you look at many
1:04:30
other states, they're a lot more aggressive with utilizing
1:04:35
assisted living on the public pay side as part of the
1:04:39
continuum of care. And so I do think that there's
1:04:43
coming a crisis where there are many, many, many more of our
1:04:49
seniors that need assisted living that just can't, can't,
1:04:53
can't pay for it. And so I do see a, you know,
1:04:57
that there's, there's a crisis that's going to at some point
1:05:00
explode. I don't know that we're really
1:05:03
talking about solutions at a national level to a lesser
1:05:08
degree that's on a state by state basis.
1:05:10
But I don't think that we have enough capacity to care for our
1:05:15
loved ones. And you know, I, I do come from
1:05:18
a, from a background of, of we're going to take care of our
1:05:20
own. But what I see from this side of
1:05:24
the business is when, you know, if if I were to break my leg, my
1:05:30
family wouldn't think twice about making sure that I got the
1:05:33
best care available without the guilt of, oh, hey, we're taking
1:05:38
him to the hospital and letting somebody else take care of his
1:05:41
needs. But when it comes to to assisted
1:05:44
living and more specifically memory care, we have this guilt
1:05:48
about no, no, no, it needs to be me that takes care of him as
1:05:52
opposed to seeking out the best care possible.
1:05:55
There are going to be situations where there's the best care
1:05:58
possible. And not only is not assisted
1:06:00
living not best for everybody, my assisted living isn't best
1:06:03
for everybody. You know, I say that we deliver
1:06:06
the best level of care possible. We had somebody come tour one of
1:06:10
our buildings where he ended up deciding his family really
1:06:13
wanted to move in with us and he decided to to move in another
1:06:17
building that he had toured. When I got to talking to him
1:06:20
about it came to the realization that his wife, who had died 2
1:06:25
years before was living in that other building when she passed
1:06:29
away and he wanted to live there.
1:06:31
Because just that that that moment when he was able to run
1:06:35
his power cart past the room that she lived in gave him just
1:06:39
that little warm and fuzzy that, that that touch of connection to
1:06:43
the love of his life. I was the first one to say, let
1:06:47
me help get your stuff in there. Let let me help you get there.
1:06:51
And so while, you know, not only is my assisted living, but
1:06:55
assisted living in general isn't right for everybody, it is a
1:06:59
much bigger piece of the pie than what we're currently able
1:07:03
to serve. And so, you know, I would say
1:07:06
that, you know, there certainly is that that silver tsunami is a
1:07:09
real thing. I expect that at some point in
1:07:12
the future I'm going to have to turn people away just because we
1:07:15
don't have the beds. Well, John, I want to be the
1:07:19
first to. Thank you for sharing both your
1:07:21
time and your story with us today.
1:07:23
I really appreciate it, Anthony. I appreciate the opportunity.
1:07:26
It's been a lot of fun, folks. That's a wrap on.
1:07:30
Another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
1:07:32
Thanks for learning with us today.