Latest / None of Your Business Podcast / He Left the System… and Built His Own

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He Left the System… and Built His Own · None of Your Business Podcast

• 0:00
  I'm so curious. I know podcasts are all the rage
• 0:02
  and all of that now, but I mean, you have so much on your plate.
• 0:06
  How and why did you decide to get this thing off the ground?
• 0:09
  And how did it become as popular as it has become so quickly?
• 0:17
  Business Oshi none of your business, Michael, it's the none
• 0:20
  of your business. Podcast.
• 0:22
  Hosted by Michael Anoshi. Welcome back everybody, to the
• 0:25
  None of Your Business podcast. I'm your host, Michael
• 0:28
  Greenfield, with me as Oshi Schwartz and a wonderful guest,
• 0:32
  Judah Gutwein. Thank you for having me.
• 0:34
  Judah, welcome to the program. I'm excited to have you here
• 0:36
  because we've done a lot of work together and you throw an
• 0:39
  amazing event once a year and I think that's just a little part
• 0:42
  of what you do, which is so an amazing.
• 0:46
  The process of what happens throughout that event is great.
• 0:48
  It's what I love. You can get a drink at the bar
• 0:51
  and there's not a line because there are people waiting to get
• 0:53
  their spray paint on their hat and there's music and then
• 0:56
  there's panels, which I was a part of and thank God I had a
• 1:00
  full room, which was great and it was very nice.
• 1:03
  So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:05
  We're so. Happy to have you here.
• 1:07
  So Michael, did you do any research on on Judah?
• 1:09
  Like, do you know his his background?
• 1:12
  You know his secret talents? I mean, that's what we're doing
• 1:14
  here. We're going to find it out.
• 1:15
  I mean, I, I, you know, I Chat GPTD you and yeah, it has a lot
• 1:19
  to say, a lot of good things. Cool.
• 1:23
  The only thing I know about you, Judah, I know two things about
• 1:25
  you. I know #1 is that you're part of
• 1:28
  the Zimmet conference. Is that the conference we were
• 1:30
  talking about? No, not the Zimmet conference.
• 1:32
  The CEO event this not. Part of the event, The CEO
• 1:35
  event. Yes, yes, OK.
• 1:37
  It's the local show here as well, right, Isn't it?
• 1:39
  And you've been doing that for five years, for five years, very
• 1:44
  big show, very popular in healthcare.
• 1:47
  You know, a lot of operators come, a lot of vendors come,
• 1:50
  wonderful, amazing. And the second thing I know
• 1:53
  about you is that you run a media company, correct?
• 1:56
  And that entails, you know, dual marketing and specifically for
• 2:00
  healthcare. Only healthcare.
• 2:01
  Only healthcare. Mostly anyone in the CCRC
• 2:04
  continuum. So nursing homes, independent
• 2:07
  living, assisted living, some adult daycares and all of the
• 2:10
  ancillary businesses that feed the industry.
• 2:13
  OK, cool. We have.
• 2:14
  Farm pharmaceuticals, things like.
• 2:16
  That and you were doing this for how long?
• 2:18
  How long do you have this company?
• 2:19
  The company is 8 years old, so I'm doing this eight years, but
• 2:23
  before that I was a licensed nursing home administrator for
• 2:26
  five years. So cumulatively, I'm in this
• 2:29
  industry, in the healthcare industry, about 13 years at this
• 2:32
  point between being a nursing home admissions director and
• 2:36
  working my way up to being an administrator or regional
• 2:39
  administrator. And then after five years on
• 2:41
  that side, I went out and I started the Sky Care Media.
• 2:45
  So interesting, right? You're an anomaly.
• 2:48
  I mean, you really are you. Thinking what I'm thinking of,
• 2:50
  yeah. Of course, I'm thinking, yeah,
• 2:51
  it's it's very common nursing. Home administrator you want to
• 2:53
  buy a nursing. Exactly like the, the natural
• 2:56
  course, like the sequence that should take place is that you're
• 2:59
  an administrator, you learn the ropes, you're managing your
• 3:02
  facility and then you say, hey, I, I'm basically doing
• 3:04
  everything anyway. I can buy my own facility and
• 3:07
  run it myself. And that's what people typically
• 3:09
  do. Some of the largest operators
• 3:11
  today were at one point themselves an administrator,
• 3:14
  right. So you didn't go down that path.
• 3:17
  You decided, you know what, I want to go on the other side
• 3:19
  entirely and go on the vendor side pretty much.
• 3:22
  So like that shift was a little bit unnatural.
• 3:25
  So what led you to to make that decision?
• 3:28
  I appreciate that. So I'll tell you, I'm going to
• 3:30
  be vulnerable for a second. I specifically made a different
• 3:33
  decision. I started out as a concierge.
• 3:36
  I became an admissions director, became an administrator.
• 3:39
  I got to a point where I would break out in hives almost when
• 3:42
  the ombudsman would walk into the building.
• 3:45
  When you had these litigious families who had the ombudsman
• 3:48
  on speed dial, those people, the customers from hell that you'd
• 3:51
  never make happy regardless of the circumstances.
• 3:54
  So when I was at the tail end of my time as an administrator and
• 3:58
  I had to make that jump because I needed to increase my revenue,
• 4:01
  my salary, and I felt like I hit my cap.
• 4:03
  I think everybody in the industry as an administrator
• 4:05
  gets to a point where irrespective of whether they're
• 4:08
  in New Jersey and New York, it's just difference of revenue in
• 4:11
  terms of salary. But their package, the
• 4:14
  compensation hits their cat. You know, they hit their cap and
• 4:16
  they either have to recreate themselves to make themselves
• 4:20
  more valuable or they leave. Those are the people that have
• 4:22
  become owners, The ones you're talking about where they say be
• 4:24
  nice to the administrator. He's a feature owner.
• 4:27
  I said to myself, if I'm an administrator now and I get
• 4:30
  heart palpitations, like on the end of a holiday when, you know,
• 4:35
  I'm worried that my phone is blowing up or, you know, at
• 4:38
  night during a snow season where I'm worried they're going to
• 4:40
  call me saying, you know, the, the, the parking lot isn't
• 4:43
  plowed or somebody fell. I said as an owner, you just
• 4:47
  compound that by 10 and how can I do it?
• 4:51
  I, you know, I want to live, I want to be healthy.
• 4:53
  You know, you can't put a price tag on health.
• 4:55
  So I said I have to go in a totally different direction.
• 4:58
  I would just digress for a second, if you don't mind on
• 5:01
  this question. It's interesting.
• 5:03
  I feel like, and some of the listeners will clearly remember
• 5:06
  this. I feel like my foray into this
• 5:10
  portion of healthcare, when I started Skycare, I broke out, so
• 5:14
  to say with this controversial. It was an article, a post that I
• 5:18
  wrote that I put on LinkedIn about this phenomenon where I
• 5:21
  basically said that there are kids today who become owners
• 5:25
  post administration. They find some rich uncle and
• 5:29
  the uncle says, oh, you know, today you got to either own a
• 5:31
  nursing home, you got to be in real estate.
• 5:33
  There's nothing else. And they throw some money at him
• 5:36
  and the kid buys a nursing home. And I said in this article, I
• 5:39
  said, you know, I'm thunderstruck how some of these
• 5:43
  administrators, they were failures.
• 5:45
  They couldn't manage a survey. They couldn't run a building
• 5:47
  properly. And all of a sudden they get
• 5:49
  their hands on some money and they decide that they'd be a
• 5:52
  better owner, owning the place, operating the place when they
• 5:56
  couldn't get it done as an administrator.
• 5:58
  And I went on to say that some of the old owners, the old
• 6:00
  soldiers who have buildings that they basically squeezed until
• 6:05
  they couldn't, you know, justify keeping the building, they go
• 6:09
  and sell these buildings to these young hot shots that are
• 6:13
  wet behind the ears. They make a killing.
• 6:15
  And I ended the article by writing that the old owners are
• 6:18
  laughing all the way to the bank.
• 6:20
  And I posted it. If I tell you, I believe that's
• 6:23
  when Judah, that's when I got placed on the map, both positive
• 6:27
  and negative. A lot of feedback.
• 6:29
  Some people said, oh, you know, you're saying things that people
• 6:32
  are thinking they didn't want to say it.
• 6:34
  Some people say, you know, you're putting you throwing some
• 6:36
  of us under the rug. You know, this industry, we have
• 6:38
  to protect each other, watch each other, but it's really this
• 6:41
  phenomenon. Every administrator has that
• 6:43
  ambition. Some of them are successful,
• 6:46
  some of them it's an abject disaster.
• 6:48
  And they wind up selling the facility very, very soon
• 6:51
  thereafter for pennies on the dollar.
• 6:53
  And that's why we'll see this facilities change hands all the
• 6:56
  time. It's like a cyclical thing.
• 6:59
  But because of all those reasons, I said there's no way.
• 7:01
  Even if I get my hands on money, I'm not becoming an owner.
• 7:04
  I just didn't have the Constitution.
• 7:06
  So you had no interest, no interest in continuing and
• 7:09
  really just doubling down right on the nursing home operations
• 7:12
  side because you respected it too much.
• 7:14
  You knew what it really takes to run a nursing home, and by
• 7:18
  becoming an owner and buying a second and a third nursing home,
• 7:21
  you knew that your life was going to be chaotic.
• 7:24
  You knew that you weren't going to have a lot of time for
• 7:25
  yourself. I actually respect that.
• 7:28
  You and more people, more owners like you should be very scared.
• 7:31
  But it's a huge responsibility. You know, you're running a
• 7:33
  facility where people are living.
• 7:36
  They have to receive care, and it's a really big
• 7:39
  responsibility. And I also think that every
• 7:42
  nursing home owner should have the requirement that they were a
• 7:46
  nursing home administrator at one point, because it's not just
• 7:50
  a, you know, transaction, right? This is not just you managing
• 7:53
  somebody's portfolio. You're managing money, right?
• 7:55
  You're not a financial advisor like you, You're actually like,
• 7:58
  there's, there's so many regulations and there's so many,
• 8:01
  there's so many categories within a nursing home that you
• 8:03
  have to be educated on to understand how to run it.
• 8:05
  Like that should actually be the norm.
• 8:07
  I think that's a baseline. We should be, we should really
• 8:09
  vet out the people who are buying nursing homes.
• 8:11
  Would you agree with that? I agree to A, to an extent.
• 8:15
  Michael and I, we were having this discussion at the CU event
• 8:18
  where we were saying exactly what you just referred to is
• 8:21
  these are people that are being cared for.
• 8:24
  They're not widgets. This is a very different type of
• 8:27
  business. Healthcare is something that you
• 8:29
  really ought to want to make a difference.
• 8:31
  It's God's work. I believe that it's the toughest
• 8:33
  job in the world. People in the trenches every day
• 8:35
  caring for elderly, frail, compromised people.
• 8:39
  And I think you're right, I think a prerequisite to owning a
• 8:42
  nursing home should be some basic background, some basic
• 8:46
  experience in the healthcare sector, because that gives you
• 8:49
  an appreciation for the work, gives you an appreciation for
• 8:52
  the responsibility that comes along with ownership.
• 8:56
  And also the idea that yes, it's a way to pay the bills, but at
• 9:00
  the end of the day, there's a million things you could be
• 9:03
  doing where you don't have your hands in this kind of a
• 9:08
  incredibly response responsible position in terms of elderly
• 9:13
  people and their health. If you don't have the
• 9:16
  wherewithal, the gumption, the desire to not just make a
• 9:20
  living, but to really care about people, go do something else.
• 9:25
  It's, it's not for you. So for those reasons, I I think
• 9:27
  the background in healthcare definitely helps, definitely
• 9:30
  helps for all the right reasons. People don't recognize also when
• 9:33
  your license is on the wall, you're responsible legally for
• 9:37
  everything that goes on. So we, we had a client and a
• 9:40
  friend that was a nursing home administrator that got arrested
• 9:43
  one day and he didn't understand why.
• 9:45
  Like they walked into the facility and they arrested him
• 9:47
  and, and he found out only a few hours later that a resident had
• 9:51
  passed away a year and a half before.
• 9:54
  And because the oxygen tank wasn't monitored properly and
• 9:57
  something happened to that resident, it was the fault of
• 10:00
  the administrator whose license is on the wall.
• 10:02
  And that person took the fault and, and, and the reality is
• 10:06
  like you're saying, the heart palpitations and the after hour
• 10:09
  calls and the responsibilities and so many staff members that
• 10:12
  can do so many challenging things that's on your head.
• 10:15
  I don't think people appreciate that about running a nursing
• 10:18
  home. I've, I've said it once at A, at
• 10:20
  a table at, at a dinner table, and I had so many friends of
• 10:23
  mine that were insulted when I said running a nursing home is
• 10:25
  one of the most difficult jobs in the world.
• 10:27
  It's like running 10 different consecutive businesses at once.
• 10:30
  You're running a restaurant, you're running a payroll
• 10:32
  company, you're running a, you know, a maintenance company all
• 10:35
  at once. And all those risks are on you.
• 10:38
  So it's pretty cool that you went out of it.
• 10:39
  But when you went, when you went out of it, like what was that
• 10:41
  transition like? I'm curious about how that
• 10:43
  happened. Like you decided one day that's
• 10:45
  it, I'm out, I'm going to open a media company like.
• 10:47
  So it's interesting, my first boss, my trajectory is very
• 10:51
  irregular. Would you work for by the way?
• 10:52
  For David Gross, OK, in New Jersey, somebody like my hero
• 10:56
  sure taught me everything I know.
• 10:58
  Family owned business there's. A few facilities, family owned
• 11:00
  business, old school, old school, good people, somebody
• 11:03
  who really, really cares. I was selling diamonds and
• 11:06
  jewelry till I was 33. I'm 46, so I pivoted in a
• 11:11
  massive way. I was working for my dad in the
• 11:13
  industry. The industry, if you know
• 11:15
  anything about the diamond line, it it's become a rat race.
• 11:18
  Everybody's chasing their tails. They're selling $50,000 diamonds
• 11:22
  at 2% margins. I had to get out.
• 11:25
  I knew nothing about healthcare. David Gross is somebody that I
• 11:29
  pray with and and we we attend the same synagogue and we know
• 11:33
  each other from town. I admired him a great deal
• 11:35
  already. Then this goes back 13 years
• 11:39
  because I started in the industry 13 years ago.
• 11:42
  I worked for him for five years and Sky Care Media is about 8
• 11:44
  years old. And I approached him and I said,
• 11:47
  you know, could you give me a shot?
• 11:48
  I got to get out of diamonds. Give me a chance.
• 11:51
  Let me work for you. Initially, he'd he said no.
• 11:54
  He said this is a business where if you don't know how to care
• 11:56
  for people, you have no right to be in the business.
• 12:01
  I'll be a good character reference for you, he said.
• 12:03
  But I don't mix business and pleasure.
• 12:05
  You have no familiarity with my industry.
• 12:08
  Try something else. I actually did, and I got
• 12:11
  rejected from all kinds of companies.
• 12:15
  David's Cookies all the way to Like Home in Stone on Coney
• 12:19
  Island Ave. in Brooklyn. You were really a free agent.
• 12:22
  I was. You were testing the waters with
• 12:23
  everybody. We had enough of 47th.
• 12:25
  Street, I had enough of 47th St. I would have done anything and
• 12:29
  at one point I badgered him enough.
• 12:31
  I'll never forget it was Purim. He sends me a text message.
• 12:34
  He says OK, go meet with Marty. Marty is an administrator also
• 12:38
  old school and amazing, amazing person at the Regency Heritage
• 12:42
  in Somerset, NJ and let's see what we can do.
• 12:45
  He took a chance on me when nobody else would and that's
• 12:48
  because he's he's brilliant. He sees things people don't see
• 12:51
  and I guess it worked out for him.
• 12:53
  He started me as a concierge. I, I was the guy that massaged
• 12:56
  all of the post acute admissions from the hospital and then I
• 12:59
  worked my way up to an admissions director and then I
• 13:02
  became an administrator. I got my license.
• 13:06
  I would go to different facilities on weekends, on
• 13:08
  Sundays, do floor rounds. I promised him five years.
• 13:12
  I gave him a five year commitment.
• 13:14
  My word was my honor. We didn't sign any documents.
• 13:17
  He taught me everything I know, literally my acumen, Everything
• 13:21
  I learned, everything I developed, it was from him and
• 13:23
  from the people closest to him. One of his biggest strength is
• 13:26
  strengths. He knows how to delegate, so he
• 13:29
  actually surrounds himself with amazing people.
• 13:32
  I got offers during the, you know, the five years and I
• 13:35
  wouldn't entertain anything. Of course, on my 5th
• 13:38
  anniversary, I approached him. I said, now what?
• 13:40
  So he says to me, he. Was paying you the same amount
• 13:43
  throughout the five years? Incremental increase, so.
• 13:45
  He gave you slight increases. He was actually when you became
• 13:47
  licensed. Right and got me a car became
• 13:50
  you. Took over the facility as the
• 13:51
  administrator at some point. I would, I didn't.
• 13:53
  I was that guy. That would be like the the
• 13:55
  equivalent of a, excuse me, a roving administrator.
• 13:58
  So I wasn't the hands on administrator in the building,
• 14:01
  but I would go from building to building trying to to do floor
• 14:04
  rounds, see where there's gaps that need to be filled, make
• 14:08
  sure everybody was doing their jobs.
• 14:09
  He became like a regional, like a regional in multiple.
• 14:12
  I'm curious. How you know in the five years?
• 14:14
  I'm always curious about this. How long did it take you for you
• 14:17
  to become valuable for him? That's an excellent question.
• 14:23
  I would love to say probably within the first half year,
• 14:27
  definitely after a year and it's, it's to his credit because
• 14:31
  he didn't, he didn't hold back. In other words, we had monthly
• 14:36
  meetings, we had quarterly meetings.
• 14:38
  The healthcare industry is predicated and there's a,
• 14:40
  everything is about data. It's data-driven.
• 14:42
  So whether it's your utilization review meeting once a week where
• 14:46
  you discuss your post acute admissions and when they're
• 14:48
  going to plateau and when the, you know, rehab team together
• 14:51
  with the social service team thinks that they may baseline
• 14:55
  and, and be required to go home or a quarterly meeting to talk
• 14:59
  about marketing initiatives, etcetera.
• 15:01
  Everything is data-driven. So we would have meetings and he
• 15:04
  would assess on a regular basis. Where's Judah?
• 15:06
  Where is he? And, and if he didn't feel like
• 15:09
  I was keeping up, you know, the pace, he would teach me and he
• 15:13
  would let me learn really on his dime.
• 15:16
  So that. Year #5 you've given him 4 good
• 15:18
  years. Yes, right.
• 15:19
  Yes, OK. Cool, So you're coming over to
• 15:21
  him? I come over to him and I said,
• 15:22
  so now what? And this is the the amazing
• 15:25
  thing about him. I my thought at the time was
• 15:27
  this conversation go any one of two directions.
• 15:30
  He can either elevate me, give me some sort of, I don't know,
• 15:35
  Sometimes people get distributions and they get some
• 15:37
  small interest in. Profit cheering.
• 15:41
  I you know, I didn't even know at the time.
• 15:44
  Or you can actually be elevated so that you incorporate new
• 15:46
  responsibilities, thereby making yourself more valuable to
• 15:50
  justify a higher salary. But he says to me, he says,
• 15:54
  look, I love you. You're an amazing employee or
• 15:57
  amazing asset, but your job description requires and, and
• 16:02
  you know, mandates that you get paid up to a certain amount, you
• 16:06
  know, and at that cap, at that ceiling, you could be the best
• 16:11
  in the world at what you do. But it's like the, it's like the
• 16:15
  Peter Principle, right? You're only so good up to the
• 16:18
  threshold of where the job description really inherently
• 16:21
  lies. And then after that, you could
• 16:23
  be a better administrator, a better regional, but you're
• 16:27
  inherently limited. Peter Principle.
• 16:29
  Yeah, you're. Familiar with this?
• 16:30
  No, I don't know what that is. OK, I'll tell the Peter
• 16:33
  Principle. Well, it's not a, it's not a
• 16:35
  great analogy, It's not an exact analogy, but the Peter Principle
• 16:38
  stipulates everybody's got their threshold of competency.
• 16:42
  So the analogy I give you is you imagine you have a guy, he's
• 16:44
  flipping burgers, right? He's great.
• 16:47
  He's doing an amazing job. The next guy can only flip 5
• 16:50
  burgers in 20 minutes. This guy's doing 20.
• 16:52
  So he's really good because he's increasing revenue for his
• 16:55
  owner. The owner cut, you know, comes
• 16:57
  together one day with his partner.
• 16:58
  He says we got to elevate this guy.
• 17:01
  He's not, he's not doing, you know, his, his value isn't
• 17:04
  flipping. Let's put him at the cashier.
• 17:07
  Now we're giving him responsibility with real money.
• 17:10
  He's awesome. They put him at the cashier.
• 17:12
  He's doling out change. He's getting customers in and
• 17:15
  out very, very quickly. So they meet again.
• 17:17
  They say this guy is even better than this new job.
• 17:19
  We got to elevate him. So they put him in the back
• 17:22
  office. Now he's in charge of purchasing
• 17:24
  AP and he's in. And it it just the guy implodes.
• 17:28
  Not only does he move backwards, not only does he regress vis a
• 17:33
  vis where he was before, but he implodes the, the whole thing
• 17:37
  just blows up. Question is why?
• 17:39
  What happened? You know, maybe he shouldn't be
• 17:41
  as good because he's out of his element, but like the whole
• 17:44
  thing should go bust. The answer is the Peter
• 17:46
  Principle, which says everybody's got the threshold of
• 17:50
  competency up to that point. They could be better, better,
• 17:54
  better job, do it better, do it fast, do it quicker.
• 17:57
  But the minute you're asking them to exceed, simply to exceed
• 18:01
  where they're at, it just, it implodes 'cause they're not
• 18:05
  equipped. So I was using it in a different
• 18:07
  framework. I'm saying the job itself
• 18:10
  demands a certain salary package.
• 18:12
  And when you hit that cap, you could be the best in the world
• 18:15
  at doing that job, but the the job itself doesn't allow.
• 18:19
  Simply because they can replace you, correct?
• 18:22
  With somebody younger who needs less money to do the same job,
• 18:26
  maybe not as good as you, they'll also get there, They'll
• 18:29
  build up. But he could not just he can't
• 18:31
  justify paying you just an endless amount and keep going up
• 18:34
  when he can find somebody else to do that with the
• 18:36
  responsibilities for a lot less, which is usually the time to
• 18:40
  separate ways and say I've reached my my cap.
• 18:44
  It served you well until now. You've served me.
• 18:46
  Thank you. This was a good arrangement.
• 18:48
  And here's where I go embark on my own journey and buy my own
• 18:51
  nursing home. It is typically how it would go,
• 18:54
  but you you go that direction. He says to me, look, you've
• 18:59
  developed your acumen during the five years that you've been
• 19:01
  here. Developed your acumen with
• 19:03
  respect to online marketing. When I started, the Internet
• 19:07
  was, relatively speaking, in its infancy terms of healthcare
• 19:10
  owners. Didn't you know?
• 19:11
  They were scared about the wild, Wild West that is the Internet.
• 19:15
  They were afraid. Y'all with Hippo, we don't want
• 19:17
  to be online. We're putting ourselves out
• 19:19
  there. People are going to get, you
• 19:21
  know, they're going to get familiar with ownership or you
• 19:23
  know, we're going to, we're not going to be able to put our best
• 19:26
  foot forward and so on and so forth.
• 19:28
  I developed my acumen there where I started blogging.
• 19:31
  I would create these authoritative articles to bring
• 19:34
  in more and more traffic. And it became very relevant
• 19:37
  because prior to my time in the, in the healthcare industry
• 19:41
  working for David Gross, the referrals were very, very
• 19:44
  traditional. You had your medical director
• 19:46
  who was getting a stipend from the building.
• 19:48
  He or she had entree in the hospital.
• 19:50
  The feeder hospitals patients spent three nights.
• 19:53
  They had a qualifying hospital stay.
• 19:56
  They were then ready for a discharge to a post acute rehab.
• 19:59
  For short term rehab, the hospitals have a mandate to give
• 20:03
  three options to the family. And basically whoever was
• 20:07
  getting greased by the nursing home that also had the ear of
• 20:11
  the family at the hospital would subtly or not so subtly direct
• 20:14
  traffic to the facility of their choice.
• 20:17
  And that's kind of how it worked.
• 20:18
  And that's why nursing homes relied on stipends.
• 20:21
  But the hospitals were supposed to be neutral, correct?
• 20:23
  In which nursing home the patient goes to give them the
• 20:26
  choices, right, and let the family decide.
• 20:28
  But that's not what was happening.
• 20:30
  Everybody had sort of a favorite and everybody had a place where
• 20:33
  they would steer the patient towards.
• 20:35
  And it was to be on that list, on that good list.
• 20:38
  And your marketer's job was to build those relationships, build
• 20:41
  those relationships. Then what happened?
• 20:43
  Hospitalists became a big thing. Hospitalists are people who have
• 20:48
  no allegiance to any particular nursing home, to any sniff.
• 20:52
  They work typically at the hospitals.
• 20:54
  A lot of them work in the emergency room.
• 20:56
  So they start following patients and they follow him from the
• 20:59
  hospital all the way through to the discharge.
• 21:02
  So what ended up happening is now you have a disconnect
• 21:06
  because the primary care physician who's been seeing that
• 21:09
  patient in the community for forever and then followed the
• 21:13
  patient when they were admitted to the hospital post hip
• 21:15
  fracture, knee replacement, what have you, and then directed the
• 21:19
  patient to the nursing home of their choice, 'cause they also
• 21:21
  get a stipend there. Now they got cut off from said
• 21:26
  patient because the hospitalists took over and the hospitalists
• 21:30
  have no allegiance. They don't care about any
• 21:32
  particular facility. So now all bets are off.
• 21:34
  Well, they care a little. Bit a little bit.
• 21:36
  They want to make sure the facility that they're sending to
• 21:38
  is going to care. Is going.
• 21:39
  To the point that they're not going to send the patient back
• 21:42
  because they get penalized. But that came later.
• 21:44
  That came later. The re hospitalization.
• 21:45
  Re hospitalization. The Medicare day.
• 21:47
  You're absolutely right. So before we, you know, we can
• 21:49
  get to that, but before that, all of a sudden now nursing
• 21:52
  homes can no longer rely heavily on just paying local directors
• 21:56
  who are doctors in the community and also have privileges at the
• 21:58
  hospital. So what ends up happening is the
• 22:02
  families themselves are going online in droves more and more
• 22:06
  to do their due diligence because it can't rely on the
• 22:09
  hospitalist. They don't have a relationship
• 22:10
  with the hospitalist. Hospitalist is not the primary
• 22:12
  care physician in the community. Families, the children next of
• 22:15
  kin, they're not familiar with these people.
• 22:17
  They don't trust them. They don't know him.
• 22:20
  So they're going on the Internet and they're, they're clicking,
• 22:23
  you know, typing in any conceivable permutation search
• 22:26
  query related to the buzzwords, the bread and butter keywords
• 22:28
  that these nursing homes rely on for traffic.
• 22:32
  And, and three generations minimally, right, 'cause we're
• 22:34
  living longer than ever. So now you have baby boomers,
• 22:37
  generation Xers, millennials, they're all going online.
• 22:40
  Many of them aren't visiting the nursing home either.
• 22:42
  They live in a different state. Mom is in an assisted living
• 22:45
  here in the community remotely. All remotely.
• 22:48
  So now nursing homes are starting to realize, hey, we
• 22:51
  need to exist online. Not only do we need to exist,
• 22:55
  but our footprint has to be pristine.
• 22:57
  We need to look good, smell good 'cause it's a double edged
• 23:00
  sword. Sometimes you say, well, if the
• 23:01
  nursing home has a really bad reputation with a terrible CMS
• 23:05
  rating, they bit the you know, they'd be better off not having
• 23:08
  any visibility online. No news is good news.
• 23:10
  But that's like an ostrich with with its head in the sand.
• 23:12
  Because it's not a question of if, it's a question of when the
• 23:15
  nursing home gets pulled up online and they will find.
• 23:17
  Another nursing home that does have their their display in a in
• 23:21
  a much nicer way and they're going to get the business
• 23:23
  correct. So David Gross, so I segued and
• 23:26
  I digress, but this is what's important, he says to me.
• 23:28
  You've developed that acumen. You've done all this digital
• 23:31
  marketing manually. Manually, on the ground, in
• 23:34
  person, In person. On the Internet from our
• 23:36
  facility, whether blogging, whether social media for major
• 23:40
  platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn,
• 23:43
  all of them have their place and all of that digital marketing to
• 23:47
  bring eyeballs to us. Why don't you parlay that into
• 23:51
  an independent full blown marketing agency to the
• 23:55
  healthcare industry? I'll support you in it.
• 23:58
  I'll, I'll invest my effort, my time, my training.
• 24:02
  I'll, I'll give you the gumption and the impetus to get this off
• 24:05
  the ground. You'll be, you'll be great at
• 24:08
  it. And that's exactly what I did.
• 24:11
  Really, brother-in-law? He became your partner?
• 24:12
  He didn't become my. Partner which made which makes
• 24:15
  it all the more astounding. More like a mentor.
• 24:17
  Yeah, wow, makes it more astounding.
• 24:19
  Kudos to him. He had no vested interest other
• 24:21
  than looking to help to train and the continued mentorship.
• 24:25
  Wow, not a guy. Unbelievable.
• 24:28
  Purely. For you to become successful and
• 24:31
  this is, this is a, a situation where you're leaving him, right?
• 24:34
  He's sending you out the door, but he's setting you up at the
• 24:37
  same time, correct? He says.
• 24:39
  I can't keep, I can't pay you more.
• 24:40
  On salary I can't. Pay you more.
• 24:42
  And by the way, not only can I not pay you more, but it's a
• 24:45
  shame for you to stay even if I could.
• 24:47
  You're worth more on your own and so I'm going to help you
• 24:50
  make it happen. So he didn't just cut the cord.
• 24:53
  He supported me on the on the way out.
• 24:56
  And I built this company with that level of support and
• 24:59
  confidence because let's let's face it, I was always an
• 25:02
  employee. It's a scary venture.
• 25:04
  It's the, you know, the fear of the unknown.
• 25:07
  As an employee, you're on salary.
• 25:08
  You got a paycheck at the end of the week or the end of the month
• 25:10
  or bi week bimonthly a lot to be said for that This is the
• 25:13
  conundrum. Everybody's a salary ownership
• 25:16
  and then the owners tell the employees, hey, it's very lonely
• 25:19
  at the top and when you have trouble with income revenue, you
• 25:23
  got to pay payroll doesn't stop and then who takes the hit in
• 25:27
  tough times Who's got to tighten the belt?
• 25:28
  The owner, so there's, so I was scared going from a steady
• 25:32
  salary to starting a business and he helped me and I started
• 25:37
  Sky Care Media. Initially we were doing just
• 25:39
  digital marketing. So we were doing search engine
• 25:42
  optimization, we were doing social media, we were doing
• 25:45
  reputation management on some of these major platforms like
• 25:48
  caring.com and aplaceformom.com, wellness.com.
• 25:52
  These are all the equivalent of like TripAdvisor for hotels.
• 25:56
  This, this would be the equivalent for people looking
• 25:58
  for a solution for an elderly loved one who needs help.
• 26:02
  And basically that was what we were doing to make our clients
• 26:05
  shine. And then subsequently, as we
• 26:07
  evolved and as we morphed, we undertook new responsibilities.
• 26:11
  We got into the graphic design game.
• 26:13
  We got into the traditional marketing with, you know,
• 26:17
  rebrands and Flyers and trifolds and bifolds and tchotchkes
• 26:20
  because I got into a place where people were coming to me and
• 26:24
  they were saying, you know, we want not only the social media,
• 26:27
  but we need somebody to rebrand. And then I'm looking and I'm
• 26:30
  saying taking a lay of the land. I'm saying if I'm going to push
• 26:32
  them away to my competition because I can't service this
• 26:35
  need and I'm not a turnkey operation, you got to have the
• 26:38
  full. Ecosystem got to have the full.
• 26:40
  Ecosystem, right? Otherwise you everything under
• 26:42
  one room looks. To look.
• 26:43
  Elsewhere, right? So I started doing all of that
• 26:45
  stuff as well, but it started from Internet marketing and and
• 26:49
  really that's where that it's AT.
• 26:51
  And I always say, you know, if you have a terrible reputation
• 26:54
  online, it's like somebody plastering a billboard on every
• 26:57
  major thoroughfare saying this place, you'll excuse me and it
• 27:02
  sits there in perpetuity online till the cows come home.
• 27:05
  It's incredibly damaging because I was mentioning earlier that
• 27:09
  this is a data-driven industry. How do you quantify lost revenue
• 27:13
  when you don't even know you squandered the opportunity?
• 27:16
  Right. In other words, what what do I
• 27:17
  mean by that? The people who go online looking
• 27:20
  for a nursing home and they hit the Google business page and one
• 27:23
  review after the other, If you want your dad to die, literally,
• 27:28
  we're not talking about a burger joint, a nail salon.
• 27:30
  Healthcare is vicious. It's brutal when the reviews are
• 27:33
  nasty because it's not just like, oh, the burger was cold or
• 27:36
  they chipped my nail. It's like, oh, I wound up
• 27:40
  finding dad in septic shock on a weekend where you had like
• 27:44
  agency, you know, temps, you know, people on that, that with
• 27:48
  their per diem who don't give a hoot and my dad died.
• 27:52
  You know, maybe it's exaggerated, maybe it's even
• 27:55
  fabricated, who knows. But in the court of public
• 27:57
  opinion, it's incredibly damaging.
• 28:00
  Those people don't bother calling the admissions director.
• 28:02
  They just say a pox on this place.
• 28:04
  I'm not placing dad there. So again, it's lost revenue.
• 28:07
  You don't even know you squandered.
• 28:09
  So that's why it's so important making sure that the, you know,
• 28:12
  the, the nursing home has a great reputation online because
• 28:16
  if they don't, it's like they're pouring water into a cup.
• 28:19
  All the traditional marketing, all the liaisons going out and
• 28:22
  they're doing a job fair and now they go to a church and they
• 28:25
  grease the skids. They're giving gift baskets and
• 28:27
  whatnot. But it's like the, the cup that
• 28:29
  they're pouring into as this gaping hole on the bottom.
• 28:32
  The hole is the Internet presence that's lackluster or
• 28:35
  terrible and they're wondering how come we're not filling our
• 28:38
  beds? What's the matter with census?
• 28:41
  And they don't realize because they really don't look good
• 28:43
  online. If you'll permit, I'll give you
• 28:45
  I was you know, earlier I was telling you about TripAdvisor
• 28:48
  for hotels. I always say hotels and nursing
• 28:51
  homes have a lot in common. The hotels have no problem
• 28:54
  selling the, you know, oceanfront, you know, rooms
• 28:57
  overlooking the that those are easy sell, you know, but the
• 29:01
  side of the building is overlooking like the neighbors
• 29:03
  parking lot, the toilet. They're not so popular.
• 29:07
  How do they fill those rooms? It's not easy.
• 29:09
  Nursing homes, same thing. I was an admissions director.
• 29:12
  When you take a tour as a prospective admission, the
• 29:15
  admissions director shows that family, the money room, flat
• 29:18
  screen TV, private room with the yeah, with the model room.
• 29:23
  They don't take him down to the basement, show him the three
• 29:26
  bedded room. Where by today's regulations,
• 29:28
  you mentioned regulations earlier, those rooms would never
• 29:31
  fly, but because they were grandfathered in from like who
• 29:33
  knows when. So now you have middle beds and
• 29:35
  the pipes are sticking out of the ceilings.
• 29:38
  They stay far away from those rooms.
• 29:40
  Those rooms are tough sells just like the hotel rooms on the side
• 29:43
  of the building, right? How do you fill those beds?
• 29:46
  So it's funny, they did a they did a study that was a, a chain
• 29:49
  of hotels. It's fabulous study.
• 29:52
  Wasn't too long ago. I don't know if it was a Ritz
• 29:53
  Carlton. These these are independently
• 29:55
  owned hotels and there was one that opened up on the West
• 29:58
  Coast. Stunning, stunning hotel.
• 30:00
  And they said in line with the ribbon cutting ceremony opening
• 30:04
  up this brand new hotel, they said, let's put a full page ad
• 30:06
  for five months in the Rob report.
• 30:09
  Are you familiar with the Rob report?
• 30:10
  I am not. Rob.
• 30:11
  Report is a magazine for the Uber wealthy comes out and that
• 30:15
  that's why I'm not. Familiar.
• 30:16
  No. No.
• 30:16
  We probably have it because it's coffee table reading.
• 30:19
  I was gonna say we grew up. Reading it, you want to feel
• 30:20
  rich. You want to feel.
• 30:21
  Rich or It's amazing. Yeah.
• 30:22
  I don't like to see what. I'm missing out on, you know, I
• 30:25
  like. To live on my.
• 30:25
  Level right things will never. Be able to afford in a lifetime
• 30:28
  OK and it comes out once a month you're talking about like
• 30:30
  private jets and yachts and that protect for islands for.
• 30:33
  Sale. Yeah, like.
• 30:35
  Where you're like, oh, should I buy the watch for $300,000 or
• 30:37
  should I keep saving for that mortgage for the, for the home?
• 30:40
  You know, so they said, let's put a full page ad in the Rob
• 30:42
  report. A full page ad in the ROB report
• 30:45
  for a hotel. I wouldn't say it's like on
• 30:47
  Super Bowl commercial level in terms of the ad spend, but it's
• 30:51
  way up there. You're talking about a few
• 30:52
  $100,000. And then five months later they
• 30:56
  get together in the corporate office because they're just not
• 30:59
  filling the beds. The mid, you know, the, the side
• 31:02
  of the hotel, those rooms overlooking the parking lot,
• 31:04
  they're just not filling those rooms and they're scratching
• 31:06
  their heads. They're like, what's going on?
• 31:10
  We have an ad in the Rob report every month.
• 31:12
  We have a, a stunning hotel. It's brand new, right?
• 31:16
  So somebody there had an epiphany.
• 31:18
  They said, anybody been online recently?
• 31:20
  Like since we opened this place to see what customers are saying
• 31:23
  on Expedia or TripAdvisor, just like a place for mom and
• 31:27
  caring.com for nursing homes and so on and so forth.
• 31:30
  So they said, no, I don't know. So they said, let's go online
• 31:33
  right here from the screen. Let's see what people are
• 31:35
  saying. They were being excoriated.
• 31:38
  They were being flamed up to Wazoo, you'll excuse me at least
• 31:41
  twice a week on all of these websites.
• 31:44
  So I know what you're thinking. You're saying like, what could
• 31:46
  people be saying about the place?
• 31:48
  Brand new, stunning, gorgeous. How do you complain about a
• 31:51
  brand new facility, a brand new hotel?
• 31:53
  So the answer is the complaints had nothing to do with the
• 31:56
  amenities, the aesthetics, nothing.
• 31:58
  The complaints took on one theme.
• 32:00
  Basically everybody was saying before you become a guest at the
• 32:04
  hotel, they whine you and dine you.
• 32:07
  Yes Sir, yes ma'am. It's all wonderful.
• 32:10
  The minute you put your credit card in the in the machine, now
• 32:13
  everybody's uppity. They talk down to you.
• 32:15
  They talk to you like a like a prude.
• 32:18
  You know, it's like a second class.
• 32:20
  That was 1 complaint. The other complaint was
• 32:22
  everything in the hotel is an extra fee.
• 32:24
  You know, you want to take an Evian water bottle from the from
• 32:27
  the counter in the room, 5 bucks.
• 32:30
  You want a cabana by the poolside few $100.
• 32:33
  You want an extra towel for the beach.
• 32:35
  So the consensus was if we're putting down $1000 a night for a
• 32:39
  hotel room, I don't want you to start nickel and diming me.
• 32:42
  Everything is an extra charge. Go around the corner of the
• 32:44
  other hotel, maybe five years old, may not be as nice, the
• 32:47
  amenities may not be up to, but at least you'll feel like a
• 32:51
  king. So what did they do?
• 32:53
  They said, Oh my God, we've been pouring all this money into the
• 32:55
  Rob report. That's the cup with the hole on
• 32:58
  the bottom. And we didn't realize on the
• 33:00
  Internet, nobody's watching the house and we're losing revenue
• 33:04
  and we don't even know we're losing it because people aren't,
• 33:06
  they're just not coming. So they said to heck with the
• 33:09
  Rob report. They they took the money out,
• 33:12
  They paid a fraction of that to mine their reputation online.
• 33:16
  Whether they did it in the house or they hired a company, I don't
• 33:19
  know that it wasn't. And within a short period of
• 33:22
  time, they changed the narrative and they were able to turn
• 33:25
  things around because they plug the hole.
• 33:28
  It's the same thing with nursing homes.
• 33:29
  And that's what we were doing with Sky Care Media.
• 33:31
  And that's what we do until today.
• 33:34
  CU Healthcare events, That's a baby that was born five years
• 33:37
  ago. It you know, I'm gonna jump in.
• 33:40
  OK, I'm gonna make that connection.
• 33:42
  OK, I'm taking a total guess here because obviously the next,
• 33:45
  you know, question is how did you get to the CEU events?
• 33:47
  That's the conference, right? But it's very in line actually
• 33:50
  with what you're doing because your whole, your whole essence
• 33:54
  is connecting the consumer with the, with the server, right,
• 34:00
  with the proprietor, with the nursing home that's providing
• 34:03
  the service, the key, right? And you're providing that bridge
• 34:06
  to them so they can each have visibility and to see what
• 34:08
  they're doing, right? So you're really that, that
• 34:10
  connection, right? You're making this party look
• 34:13
  good so that the other party looks at it and says, oh, this
• 34:16
  is what we need. This looks appealing and this is
• 34:18
  attractive to me and I want to go there.
• 34:20
  So you're really connecting the two.
• 34:22
  I think the CEU events is very similar to that.
• 34:25
  You're really connecting the operators with the suppliers
• 34:29
  with with the vendors. You're putting them into the
• 34:31
  same room and you're providing the environment that everybody
• 34:34
  feels good and everything is nice.
• 34:35
  People are having a good time. You're creating an ambiance,
• 34:38
  you're creating an aesthetic that everybody is getting what
• 34:41
  they need out of it and you're putting it all under one roof.
• 34:43
  And that's kind of what Sky Care does.
• 34:45
  That's what you've been doing. And I think this is the new wave
• 34:48
  as well in our industry is that it's very digital.
• 34:51
  Everything is very, like you said, you're not really going
• 34:53
  down to the places. You know, you have parents that
• 34:56
  have kids all over the country and they don't want to all come
• 34:58
  together. Let's go searching.
• 34:59
  But you go online and you're searching.
• 35:00
  That's what everybody does. First thing you do, you whip out
• 35:02
  your phone, you go to Google, first thing you do is, you know,
• 35:04
  you go online, start testing different websites, checking
• 35:07
  things out. It's like if you don't have this
• 35:09
  at your disposal today, you're not just one or two steps
• 35:12
  behind, you're decades behind. You're losing to other for
• 35:15
  people that are so way advanced than you are that you're out of
• 35:19
  the game, you're in the minor leagues, they're all playing in
• 35:21
  the it's a different type of league that you're playing in.
• 35:24
  So I want to say that connection, the CU events
• 35:26
  formulated in your mind from this is what I do sort of in the
• 35:30
  digital world. Let me also do this in person
• 35:32
  for in the industry that I'm in making that connection.
• 35:36
  Does that does that make sense? 100% you said.
• 35:38
  Something brilliant. A minute ago you said that in
• 35:41
  this industry it's out of sight, out of mind, right?
• 35:44
  Everything is digital and there's an inherent problem
• 35:47
  there. It's out of sight, out of mind.
• 35:48
  You have to increase value, but everybody is going online.
• 35:51
  So that's this basic conundrum. You want to make sure that
• 35:54
  you're working online, but how do you keep that that personal
• 35:57
  touch? How do you keep in touch with
• 35:58
  your consumer? That's how CU events came to be.
• 36:03
  I had a real problem. What was my problem?
• 36:05
  Sky Care Media is all about, it's predicated.
• 36:08
  Everything is done online. So for all intents and purposes,
• 36:11
  we meet the client, we sell them, you know, word of mouth,
• 36:14
  whatever it shouldn't be. But then when we pick up the
• 36:17
  baton and we actually run with the football, everything is done
• 36:20
  in my office over the computer and I seldom get to see my
• 36:24
  clients. So I started saying to myself,
• 36:28
  this is, this is not a good recipe because in today's, you
• 36:32
  know, marketing, you know, today's industry, irrespective
• 36:35
  of what you're doing, selling products, services, there's no
• 36:38
  more, you know, loyalty in business.
• 36:40
  Everything is about unfortunately, I, I don't buy
• 36:44
  this, I don't believe in it, but it's all about, you know, what's
• 36:47
  the best value. And if I can get somebody to do
• 36:50
  the same thing for a little bit less money, you're always at,
• 36:54
  you know, at a disadvantage. If you're out of sight, out of
• 36:57
  mind, because your competition is just waiting in the wings to
• 37:00
  pull the rug out. And if they can sell the same
• 37:02
  service for $2.00 less, you're stuck.
• 37:05
  So I'm saying to myself, I need to see my clients because on
• 37:09
  that lonely cold winter day, you know, if I'm not there to grease
• 37:14
  the skids or I don't at least say hello, it's so nice to see
• 37:17
  you and that personal touch and somebody else comes in and works
• 37:23
  their magic. I stand to lose a customer.
• 37:26
  So I said, you know what, this CEO concept, I get a chance to
• 37:31
  create an event once a year. Some people do it more often.
• 37:34
  There are companies that only do events because this is not my
• 37:37
  primary business. I said once a year is adequate
• 37:39
  and we can talk about that. Why I believe that's a great
• 37:41
  recipe. But inherently, I said if I do
• 37:43
  an event once a year and I bring together not only vendors, but
• 37:47
  also my clients, many of my clients or many people who I
• 37:50
  hope will one day become my clients and they get a chance to
• 37:54
  see me, I get a chance to say thank you.
• 37:56
  I get a chance to give them a great time.
• 37:59
  So even if I don't make a dime on CU events, even if I break
• 38:03
  even, some would argue even if I lose money, it's it still has
• 38:07
  the value for me because it's like you said, it's hand in
• 38:10
  glove with my core business. Why wouldn't I do it?
• 38:13
  It's such an easy, it's such an easy extension to my to my core
• 38:17
  business model. So that was 1 motivation that
• 38:20
  were obviously I thought it was a it would be a lucrative model.
• 38:25
  What I tried. Are you?
• 38:26
  Making money from the CEO? Yeah, yeah.
• 38:28
  I think, I think it's unique because you know what, there are
• 38:31
  these massive, you mentioned Zimmet earlier, There are these
• 38:36
  massive. He's been around by the.
• 38:37
  Way. Yeah, Marcus.
• 38:37
  I think one of the longest. He's, he's been doing this
• 38:40
  conference how many years, 20 years, 18 years, decades, Yeah,
• 38:45
  a long, long time. And he's been very consistent
• 38:48
  and he's been very successful for a long time.
• 38:51
  And he also like you has his core business.
• 38:53
  This is not what he does. I think also one show a year,
• 38:55
  that's it. And it's very much synergistic
• 38:58
  to what his business is. And he made the show about,
• 39:00
  about reimbursements, right? That's the business that he has.
• 39:03
  So you guys are actually very similar in that sense, very
• 39:06
  similar. But yeah, but different you
• 39:07
  obviously cater. To something different, right,
• 39:09
  But you have that same model where you have your business and
• 39:12
  then you have this ancillary thing that you do as well that's
• 39:14
  right into your business, right? What?
• 39:16
  What? I want to do what what inspired
• 39:18
  me about people like Mark and shows like Zimmet, like HCA and
• 39:22
  J in New Jersey, the Healthcare Association of New Jersey and
• 39:26
  other net initial, the other national events.
• 39:29
  Those national events are so popular, they're empowering,
• 39:33
  they teach, they give you an opportunity to see people you
• 39:36
  don't see ordinarily throughout the course of the year and it's
• 39:39
  an amazing networking event. The problem is a lot of these
• 39:43
  events are over a few day period.
• 39:45
  You got to travel. Some of them are expensive and
• 39:48
  it's not for everybody. You know, some of the
• 39:52
  administrative level people types can't get there, whether
• 39:55
  because it's prohibitive in terms of the expense.
• 39:58
  Well, frankly it's just logistically impossible because
• 40:00
  they have a building they need to manage now the humdrum events
• 40:03
  that occur sporadically throughout the year.
• 40:06
  In terms of CU requirements, CU basically stands for a
• 40:09
  continuing education university, I think.
• 40:12
  And you know, administrators require a certain amount of
• 40:15
  credits every year to maintain their licensure.
• 40:17
  They have to be up on regulations, regulatory stuff.
• 40:20
  You know, for example, it used to be you had rug scoring for
• 40:23
  short termers. Today you have PDPM.
• 40:25
  It's totally different animal. So without that continuing
• 40:28
  education, you fall behind. So it's like doctors and
• 40:31
  lawyers. So we got credentialed with a
• 40:33
  governing body, National Administrators Board, NAB to
• 40:36
  offer credits. And we wanted to be that daily,
• 40:41
  you know that not daily that day event that occurs locally, but
• 40:46
  on a but to the next level. So we wanted to take the
• 40:48
  national concept and make a day event once a year that would
• 40:54
  mimic the vibe, the energy, the excitement of those national
• 40:59
  events. So it would no longer just be
• 41:01
  about administrators, like straggling into AACU saying, you
• 41:06
  know, there's nobody who wants to be here, but we have no
• 41:10
  choice. We got to get the credits.
• 41:12
  And it's boring as all hell. And there's no entertainment,
• 41:14
  There's no vibe. There's nothing like that, which
• 41:17
  unfortunately is the case for some of these events that occur
• 41:21
  throughout the year. I said, let me take it to a next
• 41:23
  level. I'm going to do an event that's
• 41:25
  going to offer credits, but it's not just going to appeal to the
• 41:28
  administrators, it's going to appeal to owners, operators, C
• 41:30
  level executives. Why?
• 41:33
  They don't need the credits, they own the buildings, but they
• 41:36
  want to be there because it's it's got a great energy, it's a
• 41:39
  great day out, it's got great food, catering, all kinds of
• 41:42
  entertainment. Now the vendors want to be there
• 41:46
  too, because with the humdrum events, vendors don't want to be
• 41:49
  caught dead at these events because there's no revenue.
• 41:52
  There's no, there's no prospects.
• 41:54
  Some of them say. Now, I personally think every
• 41:56
  administrator is a great prospect.
• 41:57
  I was an administrator myself. I love administrators.
• 42:00
  You mentioned earlier, you mentioned every administrator is
• 42:02
  a future owner. True, but.
• 42:03
  Unfortunately, the administrator, a lot of
• 42:05
  administrators don't have executive decision with vendors
• 42:09
  specifically because that's driven mostly by the corporate
• 42:12
  office. You know, they're the ones from
• 42:13
  the top making those decisions. So their hands are a little bit
• 42:16
  tied, but there are some administrators, a lot of
• 42:18
  administrators that they let they give the autonomy to the
• 42:21
  facility that you, you're an executive administrator, you can
• 42:24
  do whatever you please and let each facility do what they want.
• 42:28
  So, you know, we tell our reps that are selling, we tell them
• 42:31
  all the time, like don't underestimate meeting with an
• 42:34
  administrator, especially even if it's a big Group, A good
• 42:37
  gateway to get into this group is by convincing one of the
• 42:40
  administrators about your products and services.
• 42:42
  And it's valuable and let them be your advocate to the people
• 42:46
  up top. So if they bring you in because
• 42:48
  you made an impression on them, it's very useful.
• 42:50
  And it's, it's worked for us 100%.
• 42:52
  And, and I think that administrators don't get enough
• 42:55
  credit at the end of the day. I believe I've said this before
• 42:57
  on this, on this podcast, I've said this before.
• 42:59
  And The thing is with the, with the UC turns right, Because I
• 43:02
  was asking, you see, why is it that administrators come and go?
• 43:06
  You really see an administrator that's in a nursing home for 20
• 43:09
  years, for 25 years, you don't see that a lot.
• 43:11
  They're always shifting from one nursing home to another or they
• 43:13
  becoming themselves an owner, or they go like you into a
• 43:15
  different industry, not a different industry, but a
• 43:18
  different part of the industry. And what he said was they're
• 43:21
  just not getting paid enough. And I and I agreed with him as I
• 43:24
  think that administrators should be getting profit sharing in
• 43:27
  their buildings in each building that they're in.
• 43:29
  I think it would be great for the owner to do that cuz it'll
• 43:32
  motivate the administrator skin in the game.
• 43:34
  Skin in the game. So now he has vested interest in
• 43:37
  making sure that the census stays up, making sure that
• 43:39
  they're profitable, make sure it's getting the right patients
• 43:42
  into the building, you know, good paying patients as well.
• 43:45
  And, and, and that would be, you know, instead of the nursing
• 43:48
  home owners being so like narrow minded and just trying to
• 43:50
  squeeze every dollar, pay as least as as little as they can
• 43:55
  and get as much of it like this would be like, that's the most
• 43:57
  important person in the room. He's literally running your
• 43:59
  building. Everybody in the building
• 44:01
  reports up to this administrator.
• 44:02
  Every single director, every department is reporting.
• 44:06
  Why wouldn't this guy be the one who's technically your partner?
• 44:09
  He's technically your partner and he's in the building.
• 44:12
  He's the one that's on the way. He's coming into the office.
• 44:13
  Ever see he's your eyes and ears in this building.
• 44:16
  It just it's beyond me why they wouldn't make these
• 44:19
  administrators at least profit chair, I think.
• 44:22
  Some of them do by the way, after like a five year tenure,
• 44:24
  there are certain. Organizations that started this
• 44:26
  trend remember, by the way, for. The record director of nurses
• 44:29
  also runs the building. Not as much.
• 44:31
  They're running the. They're running really one
• 44:33
  within the. Buildings over who they're
• 44:35
  running a very important. Part of the nursing home, which
• 44:37
  is the patient care, yes, but the administrator overseas every
• 44:41
  aspect respect of what goes on in the nurse from the
• 44:43
  maintenance to the housekeeping to the to the food service
• 44:47
  director. They're they're involved in
• 44:48
  everything. The director of nursing has no
• 44:50
  hand in what kind of food is being served and you know that's
• 44:53
  not their department. They stick to their lane.
• 44:55
  The administrator has to know. I want to say that without a
• 44:57
  good. Don, the administrator is up the
• 44:59
  Creek. Everybody says the Don is what
• 45:01
  empowers the administrator to run.
• 45:03
  I'm saying you have two. People to worry about that run
• 45:05
  your building that actually would want profit sharing yeah
• 45:07
  but the. Truth is that every most
• 45:09
  organizations that become bigger and bigger, they usually have a
• 45:12
  CNN like a chief nursing opera who's a very important person a
• 45:15
  lot of times is an equitable partner in in the business.
• 45:18
  So you know, it, you, you see that they're definitely very,
• 45:21
  both very important pieces. But I want to shift the gears
• 45:24
  for a second. But your story is fascinating.
• 45:26
  I, I, I love how, you know, you started out as an administrator
• 45:30
  and then you totally went in a different turn than a lot of
• 45:32
  others would. And you started this business,
• 45:34
  which I can say here is very successful.
• 45:36
  You have a good amount of clients and growing and you're
• 45:39
  very good at what you do. I've had engagement with you.
• 45:42
  I've got to see it first hand. I think you're, you're
• 45:44
  excellent, you're amazing. But I want to talk a little bit
• 45:46
  about you. OK.
• 45:47
  Away from the professional ciphers, you seem like a very
• 45:50
  calm person. Have you ever yelled at anybody
• 45:52
  before? Yeah.
• 45:53
  I mean, have you ever yelled at anybody?
• 45:55
  Like, have you ever got into a fist fight with someone?
• 45:58
  You seem like you're just. You're very easy going, Very,
• 46:01
  very laid back, almost, I dare I say easy to take advantage of.
• 46:05
  You know, like you, like you. You're like you're and you're
• 46:08
  very successful, right, But maybe like, you know, being even
• 46:11
  more aggressive, you know, you can really build this like crazy
• 46:14
  company and be and get on this magazine that you were talking
• 46:17
  about Rob reports. Rob reports that you can
• 46:19
  actually buy something from there.
• 46:21
  Like what are your real aspirations?
• 46:22
  What's your end goal? What are you trying to really
• 46:24
  get to like what's important to you?
• 46:26
  It's an. Amazing question.
• 46:28
  Wow, I threw a lot in. There by the way, so you can
• 46:30
  pick apart which which ones you want to run with.
• 46:33
  Wow. That's an amazing question.
• 46:37
  I mean, look, the, I think the primary point to all of what we
• 46:41
  do is we want to support our families, but we also want to
• 46:45
  find personal fulfillment. How we reconcile the 2 is really
• 46:49
  where our greatest challenge lies.
• 46:52
  I mean, how sometimes by definition, those two items
• 46:55
  don't dove to, I mean, people tell you they're not mutually
• 46:57
  exclusive and yada, yada, and so on and so forth.
• 47:01
  But it's tough because you want to make money, money, money,
• 47:03
  money. So you stay late at the office.
• 47:05
  You're not present when you're at home.
• 47:06
  You're tethered to your phone. You know, you asked me if I'd be
• 47:11
  more stern. I, I don't want to use the word
• 47:14
  angry. I get frustrated.
• 47:15
  I do, I do get frustrated. A lot of it is carry over from
• 47:19
  my time on the inside, you know, in the nursing homes, seeing,
• 47:24
  you know, families that weren't reasonable sometimes seeing
• 47:29
  staff that just didn't pull their weight or didn't belong,
• 47:34
  you know, working in the industry.
• 47:36
  And there's a lot of frustration there.
• 47:40
  And then there's, you know, your familial obligations, raising
• 47:44
  children, raising family and all of the financial obligations
• 47:47
  that come along with it. I wouldn't say that I'm this,
• 47:50
  you know, easygoing, fluffy, fuzzy, cozy kind of guy.
• 47:54
  I try to be affable. I try to be good with people.
• 47:57
  I think it's a prerequisite, I think in order to be successful.
• 48:00
  You don't want to be that guy that or that woman that
• 48:03
  alienates people. Somebody who's a terrorist to be
• 48:06
  next to is typically not winning.
• 48:08
  Dale Carnegie's What was the guy's book again?
• 48:11
  How to Win Friends and Influence People.
• 48:13
  Yeah, you're not, you're not getting any awards in that
• 48:15
  category. But it's a it's a struggle, you
• 48:17
  know, I'm I'm definitely not. This is a cut to a.
• 48:19
  Business, it's a cut. It's it, it, it almost brings
• 48:23
  the worst out on you sometimes, you know, and you still, you
• 48:26
  seem unscathed by everything that you know.
• 48:28
  You've, you've been on the inside as an administrator and
• 48:31
  you start, you have your own company now.
• 48:32
  Like is the plan to blow this up and like make this as big as do
• 48:37
  you even want that? Or, or do you want to sort of
• 48:40
  stay in your lane, keep things smooth and, and grow a little
• 48:44
  bit? Like what's your end goal?
• 48:46
  I want to. Stay in my lane.
• 48:48
  I think in in 2025, I think anybody that tries to be like a
• 48:52
  Jack of all trades or I do this, I do that.
• 48:55
  I, I, you know, they end up becoming bad at everything
• 48:59
  instead of becoming great at everything.
• 49:02
  They're either mediocre at everything or just downright
• 49:05
  bad. Because, you know, nobody, none
• 49:09
  of us are an octopus. We can't be in eight different
• 49:11
  places at the same time. Industries are very, very niche
• 49:15
  oriented today and I feel like if I don't stay in my lane, I
• 49:18
  know healthcare. That's my background, that's
• 49:21
  what I do. I'm a I'm a Polish Jew, so I
• 49:23
  still maintain my license. You know, I earned my LNHA.
• 49:27
  I'm gonna refuse to give it up. I.
• 49:28
  Refuse. But you're still a.
• 49:29
  Licensed nursing. I'm still a licensed nursing.
• 49:31
  Administrator in the state of New Jersey fact you were
• 49:34
  mentioning early. I'll digress for a second if
• 49:36
  you'll allow it. You said something earlier
• 49:38
  that's amazing, you said. I don't know if you remember you
• 49:39
  said ultimately the buck stops with the administrator because
• 49:43
  it's his or her license on the wall, right?
• 49:45
  You're saying that it's like scary almost because somebody on
• 49:48
  the bottom of that totem pole messes up filters all the way up
• 49:51
  to the top, and the nursing home administrator gets fried because
• 49:54
  their license on the wall. After I started Sky Care Media,
• 49:57
  there were occasions where clients, a few of them I recall,
• 50:01
  says Guy says to me, you know, we're in a transitional period
• 50:05
  where, you know, just lost an administrator looking for a new
• 50:08
  one. We know you have a license.
• 50:10
  Maybe you give us your license. Let us hang it on the wall for a
• 50:13
  couple of weeks. Borrow it for.
• 50:14
  Let's borrow it for. A couple of weeks I said no way,
• 50:18
  not a chance. My license on the wall.
• 50:20
  The ombudsman comes in. Hey, that guy, good wine.
• 50:23
  Let's go get him for those people that don't.
• 50:25
  Know, by the way, it's like by law you have to put in every
• 50:27
  elevator and everywhere you go in a facility.
• 50:30
  If you're feeling abused, neglected, just call this number
• 50:33
  and they'll pick up faster than 911.
• 50:36
  Literally they'll have someone in the building within 24 hours
• 50:39
  to. And in some states, by the way,
• 50:40
  you were saying billboards earlier.
• 50:42
  And I was thinking that in some states it's much easier to sue
• 50:45
  the nursing home and to win for nothing.
• 50:48
  You know, like, you know, you know, you feel like you were
• 50:50
  mishandled a little bit, mistreated, used to.
• 50:52
  And you see billboards, you know, I think in Florida it's
• 50:55
  the most common. Billboards you see injury
• 50:57
  lawyer. It's not an injury lawyer.
• 50:58
  Bad lawyers. Are specifically in nursing
• 51:00
  homes. Yeah, it's so bad.
• 51:01
  Today I'll tell you with the with the CMS required, with the
• 51:04
  state regulations requirements. I'll tell you in a second, but I
• 51:06
  just want to get back just to finish that thought.
• 51:09
  I still maintain my license. So that's my lane.
• 51:11
  You were asking about segueing into new frontiers or tackling a
• 51:15
  new initiatives. I I believe for me, my success
• 51:20
  is do what I do, do what I know, stay with Sky Care Media, stay
• 51:24
  with CU for that once a year event.
• 51:27
  And my aspirations. Yeah, you know, if I can get
• 51:29
  more clients and make them happy.
• 51:31
  For me, it's not about the quantity, it's about quality.
• 51:34
  There's only a few of us in this space who do what Sky Care Media
• 51:37
  does. They're all friendly
• 51:38
  competitors. I'm very content to be maybe
• 51:40
  even the smaller terms of quantity of those several
• 51:44
  companies, terms of clients, you know, just raw numbers and be
• 51:49
  the one that everybody says they get it done.
• 51:52
  They don't just act as a vendor. They're almost like partners.
• 51:56
  They partner with us to give us that kind of pristine reputation
• 52:00
  we're looking for online. So that's what I want to do.
• 52:02
  I don't want to get into other stuff and I don't think I'll be
• 52:04
  good at other stuff, frankly. Did you try?
• 52:06
  I, I never tried. OK, good for you.
• 52:09
  How many? Employees are with Sky Care
• 52:11
  Today 13. Nice.
• 52:13
  And they're all in the office. They all come in today.
• 52:15
  No, we have. Five in the office, 5 in the
• 52:17
  office, and the rest are remote. I quickly learned this.
• 52:20
  Interesting. When I said it's a great
• 52:21
  question, when I started, I said, oh, you got to everybody's
• 52:24
  got to be in the office, everybody because quality
• 52:27
  control, I believe, along with delegation, inevitably somebody
• 52:32
  can call me on this. Anybody watching this podcast
• 52:34
  listening could call me on this. Maybe I'm wrong.
• 52:36
  I don't claim to have all the answers.
• 52:38
  A business that's successful today will have someone or
• 52:43
  someone's plural working remotely and not, not just
• 52:47
  because it's a post pandemic world and we all learned that,
• 52:49
  you know, we can be successful working from home or yada ya and
• 52:53
  so on and so forth. No, because frankly, and I'm
• 52:55
  going to say it, I'm going to say what?
• 52:56
  People are the big elephant in the room.
• 52:58
  I can hire somebody in Bangladesh, depending on what
• 53:01
  they do. Obviously I can't give them too
• 53:03
  much autonomy, latitude, responsibility, whatever.
• 53:07
  But I can hire somebody in Bangladesh to do like,
• 53:10
  bookkeeping or what have you, that will be as good as the
• 53:15
  person here locally for a fraction, literally a fraction
• 53:21
  of the price. So in terms of overhead, in
• 53:24
  terms of, you know, being a leader to pay tariffs and you
• 53:27
  don't have to pay tariffs. And frankly, if you hire and
• 53:29
  fire, yes, you know, the pay tariff is awesome.
• 53:32
  Yeah. And if you hire and fire, you
• 53:33
  don't get blitzed with a lawsuit and you have two weeks notice
• 53:37
  and all of that. They're there, I'm here.
• 53:40
  And so, you know, I, I don't believe there's a company out
• 53:43
  there that doesn't have somebody on payroll who's working remote.
• 53:46
  So I'm proud of it. I you say not just.
• 53:48
  Remote, but you're saying out of the country, out of the country.
• 53:50
  Overseas just. Overseas and they're.
• 53:52
  Working Eastern Standard Time they have, we give them an
• 53:54
  extension, you know, call Sky Care Media 101.
• 53:58
  Somebody picks up the phone immediately working 9:00 to
• 54:00
  5:00, somebody who can articulate in English, write
• 54:03
  emails in English. Nobody has any clue.
• 54:05
  Maybe my clients do. If they if they didn't, now they
• 54:07
  know because everybody watches here.
• 54:09
  You guys got a great pop popular podcast.
• 54:11
  Maybe they're watching now they know cats out of the bag, but
• 54:14
  they think they're the, you know, this person is working in
• 54:18
  my office. They're not they're in.
• 54:20
  I have a few people in the Philippines, you know, but you
• 54:22
  are managing. It all you are, you're you're a
• 54:24
  leader and when it comes to that and you have obviously a
• 54:27
  terrific command of the English language.
• 54:29
  Thank you. Listen, I'm enjoying.
• 54:31
  Listening. He does.
• 54:31
  He does. You have a lot of a lot of big
• 54:33
  words. Exactly.
• 54:34
  He also compliments our questions every time, which I
• 54:36
  love by the permission. I love.
• 54:38
  Yes. Yes, that's a great question.
• 54:40
  Yeah. Who?
• 54:41
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 54:41
  Yes. I thought of that all by myself.
• 54:44
  I know she used much. Bigger words than you ever.
• 54:46
  I know, I know. I have a.
• 54:47
  Question real quick about the the reviews and stuff on the
• 54:50
  Internet. I was in Chicago a few months
• 54:52
  ago and I had like 6 hours to kill in the evening.
• 54:55
  I was with a few friends and we wanted to go to a comedy club
• 54:59
  and Chicago is pretty famous for comedy clubs.
• 55:01
  And we were Googling you know comedy club near me and we found
• 55:04
  one comedy club and it had 4.8 star reviews over 300 reviews
• 55:08
  and we were so excited. Wow.
• 55:10
  Show starting in 45 minutes. We were 10 minutes away.
• 55:13
  We went there. It was the worst experience we
• 55:16
  ever had as a comedy club ever. Was it an improv show?
• 55:19
  Yes, right. So that's very, they're very
• 55:21
  famous, but they didn't advertise as improv, but right.
• 55:23
  But that's a known thing. What ended up happening was
• 55:25
  right, And that's my point. What ended up happening was, is
• 55:27
  all the local comedians were the ones giving the reviews.
• 55:31
  So you didn't really get a flavor for what it's really like
• 55:33
  until you actually showed up. So I'm curious, like what
• 55:36
  happens in the industry when people give review?
• 55:39
  Your your job, so to speak, is to make sure that the reviews
• 55:41
  are good and you're part of that hole that you described.
• 55:44
  So there is an unauthentic way also to fill that hole and
• 55:48
  getting reviews and positive, you know, things.
• 55:52
  If somebody were to ask you, and I get this question a lot.
• 55:54
  Oh, you're in the industry. I have a great aunt or someone
• 55:57
  that just broke their hip coming out of the hospital.
• 56:00
  What nursing home should they go to?
• 56:01
  Where do you guide them? How would you the person that is
• 56:04
  responsible for the reviews online?
• 56:07
  How do you guide them to find the right facility for their
• 56:10
  loved one? That's a weird question.
• 56:11
  It's a great. Question by the way it is.
• 56:13
  I'm gonna say it now. That is a great question.
• 56:15
  It is a great. Question because everybody.
• 56:16
  At some point has to look into a nursing home for a loved one or
• 56:19
  an assisted living for a loved one.
• 56:21
  People say oh, the food. 'S great, but is it really what?
• 56:24
  What is? The best What's your what's the
• 56:25
  best approach? What's some of the tips and
• 56:27
  tricks? And by extension.
• 56:28
  The reason your questions so valuable is because what you
• 56:31
  essentially experienced is, and you were nice about it.
• 56:34
  You're saying like there's a disconnect.
• 56:36
  I got a 4.8, you know, overall rating out of five for this, for
• 56:40
  this comedy club with hundreds and hundreds.
• 56:42
  Of reviews and then I show up and it's.
• 56:43
  A dud. So who?
• 56:45
  Who wrote these reviews? Is it somebody's mother-in-law
• 56:47
  on payroll in the backroom churning out rah, rah, rah?
• 56:51
  So, you know, inherently it casts like, you know, now
• 56:54
  everything is suspect. You're saying I can't trust
• 56:56
  reviews because I showed up and the thing, my personal
• 56:58
  experience was so far removed from the reviews that I read.
• 57:02
  So the answer is I don't believe there's anyone platform that
• 57:07
  would be the end all and be all when it comes to making a
• 57:11
  nursing home look good online. Yes, people will tell you the
• 57:14
  Google My Business page by far and away is the most important
• 57:17
  of those platforms. You know whether or a place for
• 57:20
  mom caring.com, wellness.com, senioradvisor.com.
• 57:24
  To me cumulatively in totality, all of them together paint a
• 57:28
  really good picture. Now let me just ask you this.
• 57:31
  You know you're talking about legitimate reviews.
• 57:33
  Are they authentic? It's a struggle.
• 57:35
  I ask you this in your private life, in our private lives, if
• 57:39
  if we're looking to buy Nike sneakers, I don't know, you go
• 57:42
  on Amazon, you see 2 sellers. Now First off, you got to find
• 57:46
  the seller. Same thing with the sniff.
• 57:48
  If they don't exist on page one for those search terms and
• 57:51
  they're buried on page 52, they're not selling.
• 57:54
  No, it's just those nursing homes that come up on the top
• 57:56
  page one either because of search engine optimization or
• 57:59
  pay per click campaigns, which is a whole other animal we could
• 58:01
  talk or not talk about. Whoever even gets the.
• 58:03
  Page 4 or five. Like what's the point of that?
• 58:05
  It's. Nobody.
• 58:07
  Literally nobody. So what ends up happening is you
• 58:10
  find 2 sellers on Amazon. One seller is on Amazon from
• 58:14
  three months ago. You know, they started or
• 58:16
  whatever, January of 2025. During that time, they've racked
• 58:21
  up 300 reviews, You know, five stars, all of them, and they all
• 58:27
  sound the same. They all read the same best
• 58:29
  thing since apple pie. And you know, it's like
• 58:32
  verbatim. It's almost like somebody just
• 58:33
  cut, copy and paste. Then you find the other guy.
• 58:37
  The other guy's been on Amazon since 2017.
• 58:41
  Maybe they don't have 300 reviews.
• 58:42
  They have 250 reviews. They don't have a five star
• 58:46
  rating. Every once in a while they get
• 58:48
  flamed, you know, and then somebody immediately gets on,
• 58:51
  takes ownership. We're so sorry that you had a
• 58:53
  bad experience. Call us at this and this number.
• 58:55
  We want to make things right for you.
• 58:57
  Ask yourself, who do you think you're going to give your
• 59:00
  business to? Is it the guy that's in business
• 59:02
  three months with 300 reviews, all of them positive and they
• 59:05
  all sound the same? Or is it the one that's in
• 59:07
  business has longevity 2017 fewer reviews, but they're all
• 59:13
  unique. They're all written differently.
• 59:15
  They all actually mimic what seems to be a very personal
• 59:18
  experience. And when they mess up, we're all
• 59:21
  human. Everyone's entitled to mess up
• 59:23
  every once in a while. They take ownership, right?
• 59:26
  Subliminally, most of us would give the business to the one
• 59:30
  that looks real. And the one that looks real is
• 59:32
  the one that does get flamed every once in a while.
• 59:34
  The one that doesn't have a five star over overall rating.
• 59:37
  The one where the verbiage is unique and specific.
• 59:41
  Same thing with nursing homes, you get it, Families get a feel
• 59:43
  for it. They go on.
• 59:44
  And same thing with comedy clubs, they go online.
• 59:47
  You look at the reviews. First off, some of the reviews
• 59:50
  have so much specificity where the person actually saying I,
• 59:53
  you know, I do business with them.
• 59:56
  You know, I'm a vendor. Of course the vendor's going to
• 59:59
  give a five star review. He's ingratiating himself.
• 1:00:01
  He wants to stay in the good graces of the nursing home.
• 1:00:04
  Now I, I distinguish between employees and vendors.
• 1:00:07
  Employees today, it's very important.
• 1:00:09
  In a post pandemic world, staffing is a major issue in
• 1:00:11
  nursing homes major, you know, you can't fill a a building.
• 1:00:15
  You can have all of the admissions in the world.
• 1:00:17
  You can have a hospital that loves you so much they're going
• 1:00:18
  to send you all their patients. If you don't have the required
• 1:00:21
  ratio of aids to patients, you cannot fill your beds.
• 1:00:25
  It's craziness. It's like the owners are saying,
• 1:00:27
  give me staff, I have the patients.
• 1:00:29
  It's like I'm leaving money on the table.
• 1:00:31
  So when you get positive reviews from employees who say I've been
• 1:00:34
  in this building 10 years, I love the owners, I love my, you
• 1:00:38
  know, administrator, I love my social service director, it
• 1:00:42
  resonates. It goes a long way.
• 1:00:45
  But you get a feel for the reviews and you know what's
• 1:00:47
  authentic and you know what's fake.
• 1:00:49
  You know, not just for the positive, even the negative
• 1:00:52
  reviews, that disgruntled terminated employee who you just
• 1:00:56
  fired, who gets online and, you know, jumps on you and then, you
• 1:01:00
  know, gets the whole family to do like 5 yard penalty in
• 1:01:03
  football for piling on. They all pile on.
• 1:01:05
  So I think over time we get a feel for that.
• 1:01:07
  What's real, what isn't real, you know?
• 1:01:10
  But it is a struggle and reviews do matter.
• 1:01:13
  You got to do the work. You got to scroll through it and
• 1:01:15
  you got to read them, and then you just use your judgement as
• 1:01:18
  to how you know, yeah, how real it is, you know, what kind of
• 1:01:22
  truth is being told. And if it's something you really
• 1:01:24
  care about, you'll read the reviews and you'll take the time
• 1:01:27
  to do it. And you're right, if somebody
• 1:01:28
  had even less than tools, they had 50 reviews, But each of
• 1:01:32
  those reviews, you know, looks like somebody took the time to
• 1:01:35
  outline exactly what their experience was.
• 1:01:37
  And I, and I, I, I, I look at it and say, wow, this is, this is
• 1:01:40
  great. That's where I'm going to go.
• 1:01:42
  Not with the guy that's got 1000 reviews.
• 1:01:44
  And there was that great service done, great job, you know, or.
• 1:01:47
  Stars without text by the Google gives the algorithm.
• 1:01:51
  The Google algorithm gives more credence to a review that is
• 1:01:55
  connected with text textual. Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  So when you post a review on Google, you have an opportunity
• 1:01:59
  to give stars. Yeah, one through 5.
• 1:02:01
  Exactly. And you could write your
• 1:02:03
  experience, right. A lot of people are lazy just
• 1:02:05
  with the stars. Yeah.
• 1:02:06
  They get online of five stars, one star, and they walk away.
• 1:02:09
  I just did that yesterday. Yeah, I, I did a, somebody sent
• 1:02:12
  me the link afterwards to give them a review and I just did the
• 1:02:15
  stars. I did five stars that submit how
• 1:02:17
  to write stuff down right now. And that's worthless because it
• 1:02:20
  took me a second. I didn't really care.
• 1:02:21
  I'm like, yeah, what's today? I gave them five stars right,
• 1:02:23
  but if I would have actually had to articulated words and
• 1:02:26
  describe why I gave whatever I gave, people can read through
• 1:02:30
  that in between the lines and see how authentic it really
• 1:02:33
  right so it. Doesn't just resonate with the
• 1:02:35
  consumer, it resonates with the algorithm.
• 1:02:37
  The algorithm pumps up those reviews because the perception
• 1:02:41
  is if somebody took the pain and the time to actually, you know,
• 1:02:44
  provide context around their experience, not just, you know,
• 1:02:48
  five stars, one star, this is legit.
• 1:02:50
  This is legit. So that's why we always
• 1:02:52
  encourage our clients. We always say don't just
• 1:02:54
  solicit, don't just get 5 star reviews.
• 1:02:57
  Make sure you tell your happy customers to take a couple of
• 1:03:00
  seconds and qualify the five star review by writing what it
• 1:03:04
  is they're happy about. And by the same token, when
• 1:03:06
  somebody's unhappy and they leave a one star review without
• 1:03:10
  the text, it's not nearly as damaging as the one star of you
• 1:03:14
  where the, you know, there there's like a paragraph of text
• 1:03:17
  and it's all in caps. You know, Dad was wallowing in
• 1:03:21
  his own feces. You know, excuse me for using
• 1:03:23
  that example, but it's a real example.
• 1:03:25
  It's a real thing. Very, very damaging.
• 1:03:27
  Do you have a? Sales team, do you have anybody
• 1:03:29
  that goes out on the and does marketing for you?
• 1:03:31
  I'm the sales. Team does to you.
• 1:03:33
  I'm the. Sales.
• 1:03:34
  Team, Yeah, And what's your? Techniques.
• 1:03:35
  What's your tactics? How are you?
• 1:03:37
  I try to be. Authentic I try not to Oversell,
• 1:03:40
  I try to How are you meeting? People other than the CU, other
• 1:03:43
  than the CEO, yeah. How are you actually?
• 1:03:44
  Branding yourself and getting your name out.
• 1:03:45
  You know what? It's a.
• 1:03:46
  Lot of word of mouth, I'll be honest, a lot of words, a lot of
• 1:03:49
  word of mouth, a lot of clients who do right by me.
• 1:03:51
  The best form of charity, they say, is to referral.
• 1:03:55
  Actually a referral is to pass it along.
• 1:03:57
  It's also the best compliment, best compliment.
• 1:03:59
  So those are my biggest advocates.
• 1:04:01
  I mean, the the people, whether we've built a website for them
• 1:04:05
  and the website is front and center and somebody says, oh,
• 1:04:07
  wow, that's beautiful. You know, we're very heavily
• 1:04:09
  involved in websites. It's amazing.
• 1:04:11
  I didn't always build websites, but now it's probably like one
• 1:04:15
  of the core components to my business.
• 1:04:18
  Every nursing home you were mentioning before, like in
• 1:04:20
  Internet years, if you're a little bit archaic, you're like
• 1:04:24
  prehistoric, yes. And it's the same thing with a
• 1:04:26
  website. If you if you're, you get those
• 1:04:28
  sidelines, you're. Yeah, you're.
• 1:04:30
  Like so we do a lot of websites and it's like word of mouth,
• 1:04:33
  somebody if I see a website. That looks antiquated.
• 1:04:35
  It looks old. Next I'm next.
• 1:04:37
  You must. Everything about you, Yes, feels
• 1:04:39
  that way. You extrapolate.
• 1:04:41
  It's such a like. It's a bad.
• 1:04:42
  It turns me off correct. It rubs me the wrong way.
• 1:04:45
  Like if your website looks like in the old text, you know the
• 1:04:48
  certainly and the care must. Be reflected exactly.
• 1:04:50
  Like is everything, are you in machines that you have from
• 1:04:53
  1960s, Right, exactly. Everything just looks like
• 1:04:54
  dinosaurs. Like I'm not interested in that.
• 1:04:57
  You know you have dinosaurs. By the way, and we have to close
• 1:04:59
  up soon, so I just want to mention this, The virtual check
• 1:05:02
  in system I think to me is the best advancement to reviews and
• 1:05:06
  understanding what's going on in your building, whether it's a
• 1:05:08
  hotel, whether it's your office, whether it's a nursing home as
• 1:05:11
  opposed to having a book right now, the sign in book, having a
• 1:05:15
  virtual check in so that they can text you afterwards.
• 1:05:17
  How was your experience and taking that positive experience
• 1:05:20
  and then putting that on the Internet 100%?
• 1:05:22
  It's more even more than that. The reason you're so right about
• 1:05:25
  that is because these check in systems provide much greater
• 1:05:30
  value than than just the empowerment and the text
• 1:05:33
  message. I'll tell you how it's
• 1:05:34
  unbelievable. You know, nursing homes get a
• 1:05:37
  bad rap from the 5% of consumers who are upset 95% of the time.
• 1:05:44
  We really our industry, there's so much to be said for the
• 1:05:47
  people we love these colleagues about.
• 1:05:49
  We know all of a lot of good there's.
• 1:05:50
  A lot of good. I don't know if I'd be.
• 1:05:52
  So complementary 95.5, all right.
• 1:05:55
  That's a little generous. But I I hear what you're saying,
• 1:05:57
  a majority is majority 51 a majority or but then it's live.
• 1:06:01
  And let live, you know, the family goes home.
• 1:06:04
  They say, oh, it's been great, you know, right, you know, and
• 1:06:06
  you never hear from them again until like all scripts sends the
• 1:06:09
  facility a a a new referral. Oh, the patient's back at the
• 1:06:11
  hospital. You got a curious ban.
• 1:06:12
  Oh my God, they do. They have a 100.
• 1:06:14
  How many Medicare days do they have left?
• 1:06:16
  It's out of sight, out of mind. Nobody wants to be in the in the
• 1:06:19
  facility. Let's face it, right?
• 1:06:21
  The 5% of people who are ticked off, they have an agenda.
• 1:06:24
  They're going to go online, they're going to flame the
• 1:06:27
  facility. So they're the ones that are
• 1:06:29
  writing these Google reviews. Now, what this kiosk that you're
• 1:06:33
  talking about, Michael, what it does is it basically provides a
• 1:06:37
  closed ecosystem whereby it solicits somebody for a review,
• 1:06:42
  positive or negative, but in such a way that if the person
• 1:06:46
  says I am ticked off, I am really unhappy.
• 1:06:50
  Instead of pushing them anywhere near the important online pages,
• 1:06:54
  like Google, like a place for mom, it sends them in this
• 1:06:57
  vacuum via text message feedback directly to the administrator,
• 1:07:03
  to the social service director. It says, oh, your feedback is
• 1:07:05
  really important. They may think it's wafting off
• 1:07:09
  into the year after in cyberspace somewhere and it's
• 1:07:11
  doing this irreparable harm to the facility.
• 1:07:13
  It's not. It's going to only the people
• 1:07:15
  who are on a need to know basis and they ameliorate, they deal
• 1:07:18
  with it. Hopefully they take care of it,
• 1:07:19
  which is great. And the five and the 95% of
• 1:07:22
  people who are happy, it is going to the right.
• 1:07:24
  Places it pushes them to. The Google business page, so it
• 1:07:26
  parses and the most interesting part.
• 1:07:28
  Is the book of signing in. It doesn't do that.
• 1:07:30
  It was only created if, God forbid, there's a fire in the
• 1:07:33
  building. You know who's in the building.
• 1:07:34
  That's the only reason, yeah, when people don't sign out.
• 1:07:36
  Is that the reason why? They have that check in.
• 1:07:37
  Yeah, that's the original. It's not just in their films.
• 1:07:39
  It's really in any business they require you to check.
• 1:07:41
  They want to know who's in the build.
• 1:07:42
  That they want to know who's. In the build it always boggles
• 1:07:43
  my mind. People don't sign out like
• 1:07:45
  what's the whole they do? They just.
• 1:07:46
  Ride Mickey Mouse. You know how many times I've
• 1:07:48
  seen sign by Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse?
• 1:07:50
  I'm saying it's using. I just.
• 1:07:51
  Thought they're being nosy or they just they want to keep a
• 1:07:53
  record of who came in that day and like to see the foot traffic
• 1:07:56
  that they have. I'm just thinking it's using.
• 1:07:58
  Using technology and making advancements, which is what I
• 1:08:00
  really enjoy. And by the way, that's the
• 1:08:02
  sponsor of today's podcast Tapestry, and we love to know
• 1:08:05
  it's. Tapestry.
• 1:08:06
  Is a great company that's taking advancements of technology and
• 1:08:09
  maximizing care in using artificial.
• 1:08:12
  Intelligence and even they're one of the, they're one of the
• 1:08:14
  first to do it, to really do it in a way that they can provide
• 1:08:17
  actual information to the nurses so they can apply that for the
• 1:08:21
  kind of cure that they give. You know they're adapting.
• 1:08:22
  Radar where they can detect where a resident is and if
• 1:08:26
  they've gone to the restroom or if they God forbid fell and
• 1:08:29
  using Israeli technology nonetheless, by the way, which
• 1:08:32
  is fascinating stuff. So I love all those kind of
• 1:08:35
  things, using technology to advance healthcare, advance
• 1:08:37
  senior cares and you're doing a lot of it in your world.
• 1:08:40
  And I have to say congratulations to your CEO kick
• 1:08:43
  off that you had five years ago. It's doing amazing.
• 1:08:45
  Thank you for being a. Part of it this year, people are
• 1:08:48
  only coming for the panel. They were amazing.
• 1:08:51
  My kids loved you. I heard he was put.
• 1:08:53
  Up to the spot last second I heard he wasn't there.
• 1:08:55
  Thank God it worked. Out.
• 1:08:56
  Well, we filled up the room and and it was really, really nice.
• 1:08:59
  Michael's good at that. He's and really congratulations.
• 1:09:00
  On everything you did before we let you go, Jude, I have to ask
• 1:09:03
  you, because we always ask our guests before we let them leave,
• 1:09:06
  is if you can pick a guest to be on our podcast after this
• 1:09:10
  experience, who do you think would add value and who would
• 1:09:12
  you pick? Wow.
• 1:09:16
  I would say my mentor that this we talked about so much at the
• 1:09:20
  beginning of the interview. I would be highly doubtful
• 1:09:23
  whether he'd come on. He's one of these old school,
• 1:09:26
  old school rather, that's the ones I really.
• 1:09:28
  Want to hear from? Yeah, you got to.
• 1:09:29
  Be honest with so much knowledge you can call him.
• 1:09:31
  And ask him and there won't be no harm in doing that so, so
• 1:09:34
  much. Knowledge to share.
• 1:09:35
  Let's make believe he. Says no.
• 1:09:37
  If he said no and we're this is relegated to the industry,
• 1:09:40
  right, doesn't have to be doesn't have to be the industry
• 1:09:43
  someone that. Inspires you someone that you're
• 1:09:45
  you know you can we'll lend our growth of our journey basically
• 1:09:50
  well who's. The biggest celebrity, you know,
• 1:09:52
  is what we're asking, we're doing.
• 1:09:53
  Name name dropping now, right, Right.
• 1:09:55
  That's another. Way.
• 1:09:56
  That's another way to ask it. We could always.
• 1:09:58
  Edit Out Well I would say some some of the people that really
• 1:10:02
  are at the forefront of technological advancements in
• 1:10:05
  the industry I I don't want to be on coup there and make it
• 1:10:08
  sound like this is so contrived but a guy like Morty from
• 1:10:11
  Tapestry yeah I don't know if you've had him or you haven't we
• 1:10:14
  haven't yet but we. Actually, but Morty would be an
• 1:10:16
  amazing person. Not just from.
• 1:10:18
  His business, but his personal life.
• 1:10:20
  Personal life his. Story And you know what?
• 1:10:21
  That's a great. That's a great.
• 1:10:23
  It'd be a great. Interview.
• 1:10:24
  He's also very well. Spoken as well, Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  And he's. The sponsor of this of this
• 1:10:29
  episode. So that's a great idea and I'm
• 1:10:31
  gonna, I'm gonna hold him to that.
• 1:10:33
  I'll send you an invoice. No, and I really appreciate it.
• 1:10:36
  You have any questions for us before we wrap up?
• 1:10:39
  I do. Actually, I'm I'm intrigued as
• 1:10:41
  it can be a quick answer or whatever the I'm intrigued by
• 1:10:44
  this. I, I, you guys had such a
• 1:10:47
  mammoth. You have not had not past tense
• 1:10:50
  a mammoth business that you're so busy with.
• 1:10:54
  How did you like? I'm so curious.
• 1:10:56
  I know podcasts are all the rage and all of that now, but I mean,
• 1:11:00
  you have so much on your plate. How and why did you decide to
• 1:11:03
  get this thing off the ground? And how'd it become as popular
• 1:11:06
  as it has become so quickly? Do you answer the second?
• 1:11:09
  Question first, I believe that Ushi and I thank God complement
• 1:11:12
  each other tremendously. And the one thing that we have
• 1:11:15
  both in our foundation of our values is being authentic and
• 1:11:18
  being real. So people are feeling that and
• 1:11:20
  it's, it's easy to connect with us and we're on a very
• 1:11:23
  interesting journey. We're meeting a lot of people
• 1:11:25
  and we're inviting people into our journey as we grow.
• 1:11:28
  So that's really the the beauty of it.
• 1:11:30
  And the second part of your question, but the first part is
• 1:11:32
  it's branding, it's business, it's marketing, it's top of
• 1:11:35
  mind. And it's something that we
• 1:11:37
  talked about from our prime source brand, you know,
• 1:11:40
  perspective. We talk about it all the time.
• 1:11:41
  How can you stay top of mind? So a decade ago it was LinkedIn
• 1:11:45
  and that's it. And then around five years ago,
• 1:11:47
  the podcast world started to blow up.
• 1:11:49
  And we realized that around a year and a half ago is when we
• 1:11:52
  started planning for it. And we're over 40 episodes in,
• 1:11:55
  and thank God we're doing we're. Doing some great.
• 1:11:57
  Stuff we're enjoying, we're enjoying the growth part of it
• 1:11:59
  and you're the most. Part of the place like a Dwight
• 1:12:01
  Gooden, He's part of our. Journey, one of the heroes.
• 1:12:05
  Of my youth. Well, Michael didn't.
• 1:12:06
  Tell you is, and I'm going to say it is that we love to talk
• 1:12:10
  and this basically forces people for like an hour and a half that
• 1:12:13
  they have to listen to us there's another trouble we put
• 1:12:15
  them in a chair and the audience and I.
• 1:12:17
  Tell you that you and I. Are kind of different in many
• 1:12:19
  ways. So yeah, we also love to listen
• 1:12:21
  and we're learning from it and it's great.
• 1:12:23
  So it's really a top of mind approach.
• 1:12:24
  It's, you know, you enjoy the marketing world, you understand
• 1:12:27
  top of mind approach. You know, we go to events, we go
• 1:12:30
  to trade shows. Hey, I just saw your podcast,
• 1:12:32
  you know, Shamili Unger, who we just had, which is a, you know,
• 1:12:34
  world, you know, renowned musician singer, right?
• 1:12:39
  He tells us that when he finishes singing these days and
• 1:12:41
  he gets off the stage, people come up to him and say, I just
• 1:12:44
  saw you on your podcast. I just performed for my life,
• 1:12:48
  you know, and that's a top of mind, you know, marketing.
• 1:12:52
  It's amazing. Yeah.
• 1:12:53
  I. Mean you guys are everywhere pow
• 1:12:55
  wow see you appreciate that speaking.
• 1:12:57
  Of, you know, we are backed by the Prime Source production
• 1:13:00
  team, so we thank the Prime Source team for doing everything
• 1:13:03
  they do to get us here. You know, we have our new wall
• 1:13:06
  behind us for those who are watching us.
• 1:13:08
  So thank you, the Prime Source production team for making that
• 1:13:10
  happen. And yeah, please don't forget to
• 1:13:13
  like, subscribe, comment, get involved like you mentioned,
• 1:13:16
  commenting and sharing your authentic information, helping
• 1:13:19
  the algorithm. Helping the algorithm.
• 1:13:21
  Helping us understand the algorithm guys, we also like to
• 1:13:24
  help understand what works for others and we're trying to
• 1:13:28
  listen to as many people as we can taking suggestions of, you
• 1:13:31
  know, guests. So great to have you, Judah.
• 1:13:33
  Thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:13:34
  Thank you. I really.
• 1:13:35
  Appreciate your time. We appreciate you.
• 1:13:37
  Thank. You so much.
• 1:13:37
  All right, that's a wrap. Awesome.