Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Rebuilding After Crisis: Tracy Powers on Navigating Home Care Through the Pandemic | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care

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Rebuilding After Crisis: Tracy Powers on Navigating Home Care Through the Pandemic | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:16
  today's guest is Tracy Powers, general manager and owner of
• 0:20
  Synergy Home Care of E King County, North Seattle and South
• 0:25
  Snohomish in Washington. Synergy Home Care is a provider
• 0:29
  of non medical in home care for individuals of all ages and
• 0:33
  abilities. They focus on providing a
• 0:35
  comprehensive range of in Home Care Services that enable
• 0:39
  individuals to maintain their independence and enhance their
• 0:42
  quality of life within the comfort of their own homes.
• 0:45
  Their offerings include personal care, assistance with daily
• 0:48
  activities, companionships to alleviate loneliness and
• 0:52
  housekeeping support along with errand and transportation
• 0:55
  services. Specialized care for those with
• 0:57
  chronic illnesses or memory impairments, hospital to Home
• 1:01
  transitional care and 24 hour Live in care for continuous
• 1:06
  support. By delivering compassionate and
• 1:08
  personalized care, Synergy Home Care strives to improve the
• 1:12
  well-being of their clients and bring Peace of Mind to their
• 1:15
  families. Recognize for its consistent
• 1:18
  achievements, Synergy Home Care has experienced consecutive
• 1:21
  years of historic growth. Headquartered in Tempe in
• 1:24
  Arizona, they have over 400 offices across the country,
• 1:28
  ensuring compassionate care remains widely accessible.
• 1:31
  Now, Tracy has owned and LED his franchise since 2009.
• 1:35
  He continues to expand the reach of his team, ensuring people
• 1:39
  receive care that meets their unique needs.
• 1:42
  With over a decade of experience in home care management, Tracy
• 1:45
  understands the importance of personal attention, compassion,
• 1:49
  and innovation. He's committed to helping
• 1:51
  families and individuals find comfort and independence within
• 1:55
  their own homes. Now before we get into all that
• 1:57
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 2:00
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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  AD back benefitsagency.com. All right now back to our guest
• 2:30
  today, the General Manager and Owner of Synergy Home Care,
• 2:33
  Tracy Powers. I appreciate you making the time
• 2:35
  to Share your story today. Glad I could be here.
• 2:39
  So Tracy, the first thing is I need to check in on my
• 2:42
  pronunciation of Snohomish. Yeah, it's Snohomish.
• 2:47
  Snohomish, thank you. Snohomish, yes.
• 2:50
  I knew I butchered that. I'm glad you were here to get me
• 2:53
  back on track. All right, so Tracy, before you
• 2:57
  got started with Synergy and in home healthcare, what were you
• 3:02
  doing before? What's what was sort of your
• 3:04
  career trajectory actually started leave a little bit
• 3:07
  earlier than that. What What did you study in
• 3:08
  college? Yeah, OK.
• 3:10
  So I studied. I went to Iowa State University,
• 3:15
  majored in mechanical engineering and from there I
• 3:19
  went to work for a company down in Texas, Texas Instrument,
• 3:23
  where we were designing. Actually these were top secret
• 3:26
  projects that at the time we weren't able to talk to about it
• 3:30
  much, but but I end up doing a quite a bit of a design work
• 3:35
  down there as a mechanical engineering.
• 3:37
  But while attending there, I, I end up getting my MBA and once I
• 3:42
  got my MBA, I worked for Tia little longer, went to Compaq
• 3:46
  computers design, started designing computers and then I
• 3:49
  had a taste for robotics and went into sales.
• 3:53
  From here, I started out robotics design and then end up
• 3:56
  going into sales and sales and then I thought of was in that
• 4:03
  area for the rest of my technical career as I went
• 4:07
  through Compaq Computers. I end up joining Hewlett Packard
• 4:12
  again into technical sales and marketing.
• 4:15
  And then from there I joined Sun Microsystem and, and it was
• 4:20
  still in and that's where I finished my career on the
• 4:24
  corporate side before I pursued the entrepreneuring opportunity
• 4:29
  that I'm I've been in since then, so.
• 4:31
  Well, you walked, you worked for a lot of the big tech Titans
• 4:34
  back in the day, TI Compaq Sun, I mean, these, these are some of
• 4:38
  the, the, the biggest names out there.
• 4:40
  And I'm curious, you mentioned it at Texas Instruments, you
• 4:43
  worked on some top secret programs.
• 4:45
  Are they still top secret or are you allowed to sell?
• 4:47
  They were, you know, yeah, you can say something about it.
• 4:49
  It was, you know, it was, you know, the, you know, missiles,
• 4:52
  missiles and things like that, working on packaging a lot of
• 4:56
  those components. So you know, you work with a
• 4:59
  group of engineers and you're trying to figure out how things
• 5:01
  are packaging. There was the manufacturing
• 5:04
  element. And so, well, I kind of worked
• 5:06
  through that designing a lot of manufacturing equipment that
• 5:09
  kept, you know, a lot of the workers safe and all that.
• 5:12
  And as they were going into. So I kind of had a just a host
• 5:15
  of things you were doing and again, that was again a long
• 5:18
  time ago and and so but you know, since then, a lot of the
• 5:22
  things that you know, that's happened with TI, they've gone
• 5:26
  public with it. But but it was, you know, a part
• 5:29
  of the military, you know, a lot of the military offerings that
• 5:32
  was for the most part so. Well, that's interesting to me
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  because when I think of Texas Instruments, I think of my
• 5:38
  graphing calculator from back in the day.
• 5:40
  Yeah, the. Graphing calculator and they do
• 5:43
  that, you know, they did a lot of that, but they work a lot of
• 5:48
  you know, it was a lot of military applications that they
• 5:51
  have for they designed a lot of the the warheads and things that
• 5:56
  were a part of missiles and all that when when I worked for them
• 5:59
  so. OK, so before we talk about
• 6:02
  specifically why you chose Synergy as as an option, why did
• 6:08
  you decide to leave corporate America and start something on
• 6:11
  your own? Well, I had been doing the work
• 6:15
  at corporate for a while and is that was it was at a point where
• 6:19
  I was trying to figure out should I do anything on my own?
• 6:22
  You know, I was getting paid to do a lot of things.
• 6:26
  I was a leader, you know, senior management and, and I think I
• 6:30
  was at a point when, when I worked for Sun Microsystem, they
• 6:36
  got bought out by Oracle and everything changed and I was in
• 6:38
  a point where I could make the decision to leave or continue
• 6:42
  alone to pass. So I made that decision because
• 6:45
  I thought it was time for me at that point.
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  I had been working for over 25 years at that time.
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  And so I just kind of, it was just the, the, the right timing
• 6:57
  for the most part, you know, and if, you know, people have asked
• 7:00
  that what I've made that decision.
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  If if Oracle hadn't bought out Sun, you know, probably not at
• 7:08
  that time, I probably would have finished.
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  But that just presented an opportunity for me to figure out
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  what I wanted to do on my own and to test my ability and
• 7:17
  skills to see if I can, you know, start something and, you
• 7:20
  know, and build it up and make a success of it.
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  OK, So I understand why I decided to to move on and try
• 7:28
  something on your own. What specifically drew you into
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  the home healthcare space? And then how did you pick
• 7:34
  specifically synergy to be a franchise for?
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  My family, which you know, I have lots of Aunt Taco in my
• 7:43
  mom. My mom was a caregiver all her
• 7:46
  life and so and I noticed, you know, how she worked and, and I
• 7:52
  have also a lot of my aunts and nurses, they all have been sort
• 7:56
  of touching in the, you know, sort of the healthcare space,
• 7:59
  but it was my mom that really drew me to it.
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  I, you know, I, I saw how she work and, you know, and I, you
• 8:08
  know, I realized that a lot of the caregivers and I met other
• 8:11
  people through her that did that type of work as well as I was
• 8:15
  growing up. And I just, I realized that, you
• 8:18
  know, a lot of those caregivers felt they weren't treated right.
• 8:21
  The company didn't look at them right, and all that stuff.
• 8:23
  And I felt like it was something I can get into and, and, and
• 8:27
  make a change. And it was because she's kind of
• 8:29
  led me to, you know, thinking about all that as well as, you
• 8:32
  know, my, my aunt saw was telling me you should try to get
• 8:35
  in the healthcare industry, you know, it's great and all that.
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  And so after that, I decided to do the research and, and after
• 8:42
  looking at I was when I was trying to figure out what I was
• 8:45
  going to do, I looked at multiple.
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  But this when I took the avenue and start really researching the
• 8:53
  healthcare aspect and what home care was all about, it kind of
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  like it just spoke to me in a way, in a sense that I could do
• 9:01
  something here and make a difference in a lot of people
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  lives. I can help because I have that
• 9:06
  tendency to want to help. I love helping people.
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  I love doing things to just improve, you know, people's
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  quality of life. It was just all about who I've
• 9:16
  always been. And, and it was from that
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  standpoint, it it, you know, I made the decision that, you
• 9:22
  know, this is what I wanted to do.
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  And I also, you know, looked at the, you know, the senior
• 9:25
  population is continuing to grow and this is something that's
• 9:29
  going to be around for a while. This won't be going away.
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  I wanted to find something that was steady, that I can, you
• 9:34
  know, just do it forever if I wanted to.
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  Why specifically synergy? Lots of other franchise
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  opportunities in the space. What did you like?
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  Well, you know, when I looked at, because I had looked at, you
• 9:45
  know, other agencies as well, It's just that when I went to
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  visit Synergy, it was just the professionalism and the way they
• 9:52
  walk around and also the type of people that they were
• 9:55
  recruiting. They were recruiting a lot of
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  people who had, you know, really good diverse background that was
• 10:02
  educated, that was that just kind of knew had a good feel for
• 10:08
  how to run a business. It was just a really, really
• 10:10
  good feeling. They just wasn't just picking
• 10:12
  people and saying, hey, you need to start a franchise because you
• 10:15
  have the funds to start it. It was really about their
• 10:19
  selection process and, and how their, the, the franchise
• 10:24
  support center, how they were going and what they were going
• 10:27
  to do to help support people trying to get up.
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  And so now big, big shine help in that area that that really,
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  really kind of spoke to me as well is the, the, the support
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  that they were discussing with us and that they promised they
• 10:42
  will do and they delivered on all those things.
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  So we talked a little bit in the intro about some of the services
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  that you guys provide, basically any kind of non medical care
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  that somebody would need in the home, all kinds of different
• 10:57
  assistance. What do you think sets what
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  you're doing Tracy apart from what others in the same space
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  are doing? Well, what sets an organization
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  apart? Because all organization that
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  are working in the home care space, they do the same thing.
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  And so really what it comes down to is how you are managing your
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  organization, how you are treating your customers.
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  You know, it's all about how you're responding to things that
• 11:29
  are happening. You know, because The thing is
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  that when you have, you know, 100 people out in the field, you
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  can't control what they're going to do.
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  They're going to make mistakes. So really it's really all about
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  how you are, you know, responding to those issues that
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  come up. You know, we make sure that
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  we're on the phone, we're calling, they always have
• 11:48
  someone to call that, you know, we realize they are going to
• 11:51
  make mistake. It's what we do to mitigate
• 11:53
  those mistakes. We go out of our way to mitigate
• 11:56
  issues that are happening in field.
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  You know, people are calling out, what are we doing?
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  You know, having a staff around that could fill those voids and
• 12:04
  that will make sure the client know that we're doing what
• 12:08
  should be doing. It's really the, the, the
• 12:11
  management of your organization is what set us apart.
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  And that's why I think Synergy really focus on getting a lot of
• 12:17
  leaders who have those skill sets to do that, because
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  otherwise if you don't, you can get lost if you really don't
• 12:25
  know what you're doing or how to go about doing it.
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  So it's really important trying to find people who have the
• 12:30
  correct skill sets to really be able to manage and lead the
• 12:33
  organization when there's so many moving parts in that
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  organization and you're dealing with the the the public, you're
• 12:40
  dealing with individual who are you're going in their home and
• 12:44
  you're going in and you're trying to help them to live
• 12:47
  their life better as they are getting closer to the end.
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  Because a lot of the clients that we work with are seniors
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  and seniors at the final stage. And, you know, the families are
• 12:58
  usually in disarray when you meet with them and they need
• 13:01
  people to go in to kind of help them figure out, you know, what
• 13:05
  direction they want to go and how they need us to help them
• 13:09
  out. And having the right people on
• 13:11
  board, who does that have people who have the passion to and want
• 13:15
  to do it. And that's the key to having
• 13:17
  people in your organization that really, really want to do it,
• 13:20
  that really enjoy doing the work because they will be the ones
• 13:24
  that will be around longer and that will go out of this way to
• 13:27
  make sure people are getting the help that they need.
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  So, so I think you know, again, just setting yourselves apart
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  that is that is key is responding to adversity,
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  expanding, responding to issues that come up and making sure
• 13:41
  that your customers and clients have someone to work with and
• 13:46
  reacting timely as well. That's another good piece.
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  So you want to make sure that you're communicating with the
• 13:53
  patients as well as their families about anything that's
• 13:56
  going on. Here's the care that we're going
• 13:58
  to be providing. Hey, here's an issue that popped
• 14:01
  up. Here's what happened.
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  Here's what we're doing to deal with it.
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  You know, making sure that you're developing that trust
• 14:07
  with them and, and putting their minds at ease so they know that
• 14:10
  their loved ones are being cared for in the right way.
• 14:12
  Yeah, communication is a key, and I speak to that at all my
• 14:15
  employees all the time. You know, we have to
• 14:17
  communicate, communicate. You know, when something
• 14:19
  changed, we communicate to the family.
• 14:21
  If someone calls out and we have a new person showing up, we need
• 14:24
  to contact the family and let them know that this is
• 14:26
  happening. There should be no surprises.
• 14:29
  You know, when you're working with these individual, it's, you
• 14:32
  know, building that trust is key.
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  You know, and I always tell myself, even when we go in and
• 14:38
  we interview these families, you know, trying to set up care, you
• 14:42
  know, even if we make the decision that we can't help
• 14:45
  them, I feel if it is our job to make sure that they get off on
• 14:50
  the right foot, we will make recommendation.
• 14:52
  And we want to not only we would, we want to be sort of an,
• 14:55
  a trusted advisor. So we kind of go in with that
• 14:57
  approach, working with these families, making sure that if we
• 15:00
  don't have what they need, we going to, we know a lot of
• 15:03
  resources. We going to connect them with
• 15:04
  the correct resources that they should be connected with.
• 15:07
  So. So that's the that's we talked
• 15:12
  about the importance there, the communication with the the
• 15:14
  families and with the patients. What about the communication
• 15:17
  with doctors, hospitals, community organizations to make
• 15:22
  sure that there's a smooth transition from hospital to home
• 15:26
  care? What's your approach there?
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  Well, the approach there is we go out to, you know, hospitals
• 15:33
  to meet with their social workers to kind of let them know
• 15:36
  what we do and how we go about doing these things.
• 15:40
  You know, communicating to those social worker, getting know all
• 15:43
  the social workers in the hospitals in there, you know, in
• 15:46
  in the community and all is very, very key to getting I'm
• 15:50
  building trust with those social workers as well.
• 15:53
  And they will try you out. You know, you know, one of our
• 15:56
  policies that we go out and we are set ourselves up to
• 16:00
  communicate, to tell them that, you know, if they need somebody
• 16:02
  right away, give us a call. We'll do.
• 16:05
  We'll go to whatever length it takes to get them care in less
• 16:09
  than 24 hours. And there's a lot it is
• 16:11
  difficult for some agencies to do that, you know, having a fast
• 16:15
  response time because of the shortage of caregivers that are
• 16:19
  out there today. But going in and letting them
• 16:24
  know that you're capable of doing this just says a lot
• 16:27
  because they may come out on a Friday when they have to
• 16:29
  discharge people out of the hospital and they need to be
• 16:32
  home with somebody they want to be able to call.
• 16:34
  And so we go and we market to those hospitals, letting them
• 16:37
  know that, you know, give us a call.
• 16:39
  Not only we, we ask, like, try us out, you know, we understand
• 16:43
  that you need to build trust, but give us try us out.
• 16:45
  And if we don't deliver, we understand why you're not, you
• 16:48
  know, making referral to us. And that's one of the things
• 16:51
  that we always ask for these social work with the build Trust
• 16:55
  as well as doctor's office. We have people that's going out,
• 16:58
  leaving information, trying to meet with these doctors to kind
• 17:01
  of let them know when individuals needs help.
• 17:05
  There's a ton of networking meetings where a lot of these
• 17:09
  folks that are trying to market other areas of home care where
• 17:13
  we meet and we kind of strategize.
• 17:15
  We work with those individuals that kind of spread the word on
• 17:19
  how we can go about supporting the community.
• 17:21
  We go to senior centers to work with those individual rehabs
• 17:26
  and, and things like that. We're out, you know, just really
• 17:29
  marketing, letting them know and that we're out there and that we
• 17:33
  can support you when you need it.
• 17:34
  Just trying to get them. You can call us when when the
• 17:37
  need arise. So, yeah, it strikes me, Tracy,
• 17:40
  that you are probably pretty constantly recruiting two
• 17:45
  different groups of people, right?
• 17:47
  You're trying to find, you know, new clients, new new patient
• 17:51
  inflow. And at the same time, you know,
• 17:54
  for every new patient that you get, you've got to have a a
• 17:57
  caregiver that can service them as well.
• 18:00
  Thinking about first the the caregiver side of things, what's
• 18:04
  what strategies have you tried and found success with in terms
• 18:09
  of, first of all, finding those folks, recruiting good folks,
• 18:12
  and then once you've got good folks, how do you hold on to
• 18:14
  them? Well, if the recruiting is
• 18:18
  something that goes on constantly in home care because
• 18:21
  we need to have a strong bench. There's a people that we haven't
• 18:25
  working, but we need to have a bench of caregivers that are
• 18:29
  sort of ready to work when you call on them.
• 18:31
  So that is one of the key things because I talk about the
• 18:37
  response time. If we're gonna respond fast, we
• 18:40
  can't. When people need us, we can't go
• 18:43
  out and hire new people. We have to have those people
• 18:45
  ready to go. So we're constantly building our
• 18:48
  bench. Now the problem with building a
• 18:51
  bench, if you don't have work for them, they go somewhere else
• 18:54
  and work. That's a huge problem and, and
• 18:57
  we know that. And so we typically just build
• 19:00
  up our bench a little extra because we know when the work
• 19:03
  comes, when these caregivers, you know, our field employees
• 19:08
  hear about opportunity, they will come over and if you can
• 19:10
  keep them busy, they will stay with you.
• 19:13
  And that's just how it works in, in home care.
• 19:17
  So we're constantly, you know, sort of working at, we're
• 19:20
  advertising through, you know, the things like in deeds and
• 19:24
  we're putting information out. We have Flyers out at churches
• 19:29
  and things like that to try to see who we can recruit because
• 19:32
  the best caregiver we, it typically it's just, you know,
• 19:36
  my, my thinking on this here, typically the best caregivers
• 19:39
  are the ones that love to go out and volunteer.
• 19:42
  They tend to make the best caregiver.
• 19:44
  They have a giving heart because caregiver is one of those jobs
• 19:48
  where you, when you're going in someone home and, and they feel
• 19:51
  good about caring for that individual, not, not just the
• 19:55
  money making thing, just that this is what they enjoy doing.
• 19:59
  And you know, and those are the people who tend to stick around
• 20:03
  long and they will be loyal to you.
• 20:06
  It's provided, you know, if you're, you know, treating them
• 20:09
  right, of course, and doing things with them.
• 20:11
  And that's, you know, one of the things that we focus on as well,
• 20:15
  but just the constant recruiting.
• 20:18
  And then we kind of know when we bring them in to interview, we
• 20:21
  have a know there are some that are around.
• 20:24
  That they just love doing and some just running where they
• 20:27
  just want to, you know, collect a check and you have that, you
• 20:31
  know, and that's not saying the ones that fear to collect check
• 20:34
  and not good caregiver. It's just that this is what they
• 20:36
  can do and this they want to do. But the great ones are the ones
• 20:40
  that it's just in their hearts and they just love doing it.
• 20:44
  They will be doing this even if they had a chance to do anything
• 20:46
  else. OK.
• 20:48
  So that's the strategy for building recruiting, retaining
• 20:53
  your bench. And then as you think about the
• 20:56
  patient side of things, in hearing you talk earlier, it
• 20:59
  sounds like maybe the best approach There has been
• 21:02
  developing relationships with doctors offices, hospitals,
• 21:05
  people working in the those discharge environments so that
• 21:08
  when they've got somebody who needs that care and needs it
• 21:12
  right away, you're the one that they think of.
• 21:15
  Yeah. And and it's, it's all about,
• 21:17
  you know, branding and that's where, you know, the corporate
• 21:19
  office come in, they, you know, they are doing their branding on
• 21:21
  the outside. And then you, you know, to go
• 21:24
  out and you have to connect to people.
• 21:26
  You know, we use the Internet a lot.
• 21:28
  You know, we, you know, the pay per clicks, you know, those are
• 21:31
  huge things when people are searching and looking for home
• 21:37
  care. They go out.
• 21:37
  You know, usually it's a family member.
• 21:40
  It's realized that mom, dad, grandma, grandpa is having
• 21:44
  issues and they get on their phone and they start searching.
• 21:46
  So you want to make sure you show up from that stamp that
• 21:50
  they are, that they see you and that gives you an opportunity
• 21:53
  because they may pick two or three agency they want to call
• 21:56
  and then it's a sort of a competitive situation.
• 21:59
  And then they just have to feel whoever they feel good about,
• 22:03
  that's who they end up going with.
• 22:05
  So but yeah, just that constant, you know, where we get
• 22:09
  information out, you know, there's a paid leave sources and
• 22:13
  everything that you go out, you go out it it's really just how
• 22:17
  you go out. You have to have someone that
• 22:19
  knowledgeable in developing your business and reaching all those
• 22:23
  touch points to get to those clients.
• 22:25
  But the Internet is a huge strategy.
• 22:27
  If you can't, it is difficult to have a business without an
• 22:31
  Internet strategy. And if you don't, you're not
• 22:34
  going to not doing these times, you're not going to do well.
• 22:36
  So you have to have some presence on the Internet and you
• 22:39
  got to invest, you know, really heavily in that to keep your
• 22:43
  name on the forefront because not only are you seeking out
• 22:46
  clients, but your branding as well.
• 22:48
  You know, you have those organic sites where you want yourself to
• 22:51
  show up and where people are looking because a lot of times
• 22:54
  they're they have to touch those sites several times before they
• 22:56
  make a decision to to do anything.
• 22:58
  And so you have to be located and everyone knows that everyone
• 23:02
  has a cell phone in their hand and you're on that thing all the
• 23:05
  time when you're looking for anything, so.
• 23:07
  So you started the business back in 2009.
• 23:10
  You've been at this for over 15 years.
• 23:13
  As you think about that time, what was maybe the biggest
• 23:17
  challenge, personal or professional, that you had to
• 23:20
  work through? What was that like getting
• 23:22
  through it? What were some lessons that you
• 23:23
  learned? Well, I think the, the, you
• 23:26
  know, they're really tests that I had the, the biggest test
• 23:30
  because not until then, it was during the pandemic.
• 23:34
  That was probably the, the, I would say the biggest hurdle
• 23:37
  because before the pandemic, you know, I was just on a constant
• 23:42
  rise, never saw any. I mean, I just was doing things
• 23:46
  where I considered right enough where we constantly saw revenue
• 23:49
  growth for, you know, for that entire time from 2009.
• 23:54
  But we got to the pandemic when the borders were shut, you know,
• 23:59
  PPE became a a big thing in pricing with with all the PPE
• 24:07
  went just sky rocketed. We couldn't get gloves anywhere.
• 24:11
  No one wanted to, to, to go out and we have this client base
• 24:16
  where, you know, all of a sudden your, your, your clients are
• 24:21
  kind of winging back and they're afraid to let people in their
• 24:24
  homes and all that. So that was that was just huge
• 24:28
  trying to navigate through that situation.
• 24:32
  The first year of the pandemic, we navigated OK, because we were
• 24:36
  with people who really needed the care.
• 24:38
  It was the aftermath the the second and third year where
• 24:43
  things really what because the borders were closed.
• 24:46
  We hire a lot of immigrants, you know, caregivers, a lot of
• 24:48
  caregivers that we hire, especially in the Seattle area,
• 24:52
  you know, there are a lot of immigrants.
• 24:53
  And so when those borders shut, you didn't have any new influx
• 24:59
  of individuals coming in, you know, getting those jobs.
• 25:02
  So everyone that was here was here.
• 25:05
  And what happened was because things changed so much and
• 25:09
  families didn't let, they didn't want individual to come in.
• 25:13
  So caregivers that were here, they weren't working, so they
• 25:18
  had to look to other things. And we lost a large portion of
• 25:22
  those caregivers to Uber Eats, Uber, you know, doing all these
• 25:27
  other things to, you know, to, to, to figure out a way to work.
• 25:31
  And and So what that did is just that even hurt the hot industry
• 25:37
  even more. That made it very, very
• 25:39
  challenging to be able to staff. Our expenses are way up.
• 25:44
  So what happens we increase the price of our services to offset
• 25:49
  those expense. And and what happened during
• 25:53
  that period, we end up pricing ourselves where home care, we
• 25:57
  end up becoming a really, really high expensive thing to having
• 26:01
  at home. And when that occurred, it
• 26:04
  causes a shift in our private pay market.
• 26:07
  The private pay being the market where people are just paying out
• 26:11
  of pocket. And when that happened, things
• 26:14
  just slowed down. You had a lot of agencies like
• 26:18
  mines that were working, trying to secure business from a
• 26:24
  smaller market at a shrunk because people couldn't afford
• 26:28
  it, like they were affording it in the past.
• 26:31
  And that just created a lot of issues.
• 26:33
  And so from my standpoint, you know, business just started
• 26:37
  going down. It went down, you know, two
• 26:39
  years in a row and then we couldn't figure it out.
• 26:41
  So, you know, the biggest hurdle was trying to figure out, OK,
• 26:45
  how do we get more employees? How do we get clients to feel
• 26:48
  more comfortable with us and, and we need to look at
• 26:52
  investigating new revenue sources.
• 26:56
  And so, So what I did I've, I put a lot of time into searching
• 27:02
  out revenue sources and figuring out what we need to do and I've
• 27:06
  got to work. We've had to secure additional
• 27:09
  contracts with insurance is and that's a difficult thing to do
• 27:13
  for any agency is to because you're non medical.
• 27:15
  But you know, there's a huge company in Washington called
• 27:19
  Microsoft. They have a Microsoft respite
• 27:22
  program that that leverage insurance insurances and we end
• 27:28
  up securing some of those contract with with those
• 27:30
  insurance that allow us to work with Microsoft.
• 27:33
  So. So some of these insurance
• 27:35
  providers, they will reimburse for your non medical services.
• 27:40
  Through a major company through like again, Microsoft has a, a
• 27:47
  respite program in which they will reimburse they, what they
• 27:52
  do is allow the employees if they have a family member that
• 27:55
  needs help, they will pay for that and pray for that for that
• 28:00
  employee so that employee can go back to work.
• 28:02
  And then we are contracted with the insurance company that's
• 28:05
  working with Microsoft funds. So that's how that work.
• 28:09
  And that was one thing that we found that's been, you know, you
• 28:12
  know, key for us that's been, we've been doing well, well in
• 28:15
  and it was really looking at, when, when I say look at these
• 28:19
  revenues, which is we, we just had to figure out what do we
• 28:24
  need in addition to just the private pay.
• 28:27
  And and so there's the likes of, you know, looking at Medicaid,
• 28:30
  you know, Medicaid, securing contracts with Medicaid, that
• 28:33
  was another thing that came into play as well.
• 28:36
  And and then just just honing in on, you know, these EAP program,
• 28:43
  these employees assistant program in which employees are,
• 28:46
  you know, helping employee, employer employees out when they
• 28:50
  are needing the help, but just putting that time and focusing
• 28:54
  on, on generating that. And so now by increasing those
• 28:57
  revenue sources that may US not so reliable on private pay and
• 29:02
  that's been a huge help and that's gotten us back on track
• 29:06
  and we're up that you know, incline again from a revenue
• 29:09
  standpoint coming back from the loss that we've seen in during
• 29:15
  the pandemic. It was just a huge and that was
• 29:17
  a lot of agencies went out of business during that time
• 29:20
  because it was that tough. It was that tough.
• 29:22
  I mean, people forget, you know, we're here, we are recording
• 29:25
  this in February of 2025. We're not that far removed from
• 29:29
  the worst parts of COVID. But I think a lot of people
• 29:33
  forget just how uncertain those early times were.
• 29:36
  It's all shut down. We didn't know when there were
• 29:38
  going to be vaccines. We didn't know when the laws
• 29:40
  were going to allow things to open back up.
• 29:43
  You know, it's just, it's not like we knew, hey, and just hold
• 29:46
  on for six months. Just hold on for 12 months and
• 29:48
  we'll get back to normal. And so, you know, as you're
• 29:52
  going through these uncertain times and you're seeing the
• 29:54
  revenue drop because, you know, there's a shortage of care
• 29:56
  workers, you know, a lot of your clients are afraid to have
• 29:59
  people come into their homes. Was there a point where you were
• 30:02
  like Tracy? I don't know this.
• 30:04
  This might be when we pack it in.
• 30:07
  Oh, that thought went through that it went through my head
• 30:10
  several times, like, wow, you know, can we?
• 30:12
  Because, you know, I always thought this was a business that
• 30:15
  was just, it was just kind of keep going regardless.
• 30:18
  And there's no way I could have predicted something like that
• 30:22
  happening, you know, where you were just stuck, you couldn't
• 30:25
  really do anything and just nothing.
• 30:28
  So yeah, that the thought ran through my head a lot.
• 30:32
  So wow, if I don't figure this thing out, you know, what are we
• 30:36
  going to do? And so, but no, I just, I just
• 30:40
  hunkered down and look at, you know, just what do we need to do
• 30:44
  and start looking at I start putting a lot of that energy on
• 30:47
  some of these additional revenue sources and contract.
• 30:51
  And I was hoping we started trying to get more and more
• 30:55
  caregivers to come in and start working.
• 30:58
  And it was a very slow process. And we still, you know, we, we
• 31:03
  end up getting business that we couldn't staff because of the
• 31:06
  caregiver situation. So you just have to keep
• 31:09
  pounding, pounding, pounding until you start seeing it start
• 31:12
  floating all the way. I knew it had to turn around.
• 31:15
  The question for me is how long can I do it before I turn
• 31:18
  around? And it, you know, and it took a
• 31:20
  while. It took a while, but we kept, we
• 31:23
  just kept putting more, adding more and more caregivers on to,
• 31:28
  to to help us out and we slowly reached the point where it start
• 31:31
  working out for us. And I would imagine that the the
• 31:35
  need for the care has returned, right?
• 31:37
  People have opened up their homes again.
• 31:38
  They're comfortable having caregivers come back in.
• 31:41
  But probably the more it sounds like the more challenging part
• 31:43
  is how to get caregivers back into the industry.
• 31:47
  So many folks that left now they found, you know, career
• 31:50
  somewhere else. And so how do we shore up that
• 31:53
  part of it? That's why you say like you're
• 31:54
  always recruiting, you're always looking for new caregivers.
• 31:59
  Yep, you have to, you have to always be looking and bring them
• 32:02
  in and you know, one of the things to, to, to basically
• 32:06
  retain them. You, you have to treat these
• 32:10
  caregivers with the utmost respect to and you know, I like
• 32:14
  try to talk, I try to talk to as many as I can.
• 32:16
  I, you know, we try to have little things going on in office
• 32:20
  to, you know, bring them in to just, you know, just celebrate
• 32:23
  them being caregivers for us. We always looking at ways to
• 32:27
  make them feel good about what they do and what we're doing for
• 32:32
  them. So we open up our office.
• 32:35
  They can come in and do any kind of training in the office for
• 32:38
  them if they need to do that. So our office is always open.
• 32:41
  So it's again again, what Link got me started in this first
• 32:45
  place. I looked at how my mom did it
• 32:47
  and I said I wanted to be a better organization and I want
• 32:50
  to be someone that's really that is for the caregiver because
• 32:53
  without the caregivers, you don't have anything at all.
• 32:56
  You as good as the caregiver that you have worked for me.
• 32:59
  If you don't get that right, you're not going to, you're not
• 33:02
  going to make it, not going to make it at all.
• 33:06
  Tracy, if you had to recommend a book, a podcast, a course that's
• 33:11
  been helpful to you, that may be helpful to some of our
• 33:13
  listeners, what would it be? Well, there was a book and I
• 33:19
  haven't, you know, read it in a while and I was looking it up
• 33:24
  where my phone is out now. So I'm trying to think of that.
• 33:29
  It was it was a, you know, for it was a home care, like one O 1
• 33:35
  and where it just talks about the insurance and outs of home
• 33:38
  care. It's like home care for dummies,
• 33:40
  if you will. And, and, and if for someone
• 33:42
  that was looking to get in it, it was a good, it was a good
• 33:46
  book on how you go about, you know, starting an organization
• 33:51
  and, and filling and, and, and figuring out how that you know,
• 33:55
  how it all would work for, for you.
• 33:57
  And then trying to give you a feel for what you'll be signing
• 34:00
  up for when you're looking, you know, looking to come into the
• 34:03
  business because there are so many, as I said earlier, there's
• 34:07
  so many moving parts to home care that if you're not set to,
• 34:15
  to work in these areas, it's going to be a problem.
• 34:18
  Like for me starting the organization, you know, I looked
• 34:23
  at doing, I did everything when I first started the organization
• 34:27
  and you have to come in at looking at that.
• 34:29
  And so that when you you do everything that kind of lets you
• 34:32
  know what you know, what your first hire need to be, you know,
• 34:37
  so who do I need to hire? So you look at the things that
• 34:39
  you know, the things that you do best, but the things that you
• 34:41
  struggle with those where you focus on getting hired.
• 34:44
  You know, that book is kind of, you know, lets you know, and it
• 34:48
  kind of beat that kind of guideline to you to try to get
• 34:50
  you make sure you're focusing on the right, you know, on the
• 34:53
  right areas when you come into the business.
• 34:55
  So you understand clearly what you signed up for and all that.
• 34:58
  So what's? The future look like Tracy.
• 35:01
  Where? Where's where are you going from
• 35:03
  here? Are you continuing add on more
• 35:06
  services looking for clients in different creative ways?
• 35:10
  Are you looking to grow your geography?
• 35:13
  Yeah, so my my goal was to right now, as I mentioned to you
• 35:19
  before, we had to, you know, the crash of the pandemic.
• 35:23
  And so my goal and I I'm still trying to get back to my pre
• 35:29
  pandemic stage. So the goal is to get back
• 35:32
  there. I'm on a, I think this year is
• 35:34
  gonna be a year where I'm back if I not even exceed from that
• 35:38
  time period. And so, but I've put a lot of
• 35:41
  things in place as I said, I've added additional revenue sources
• 35:46
  that I've put in place. I've made sure that we have a
• 35:49
  strong marketing, strong marketing presence and making
• 35:56
  sure that people can find this. So getting back and focusing on,
• 36:01
  you know, just the the growth and getting to the point because
• 36:04
  I really want to be able to to excel and be, you know, one of
• 36:08
  the sort of the agencies leader in the area.
• 36:11
  And I think that I'm on track to doing that.
• 36:16
  So, so the focus is, is really that because again, our seniors
• 36:21
  are population are going to continue to grow.
• 36:23
  So that this need is going to be around now that we've gotten out
• 36:26
  of the pandemic. So everything is starting to,
• 36:29
  you know, get back on track. And, and the focus is, you know,
• 36:33
  I see a just a clear path to getting this the success, the
• 36:37
  success that I want. So how far I plan to go, you
• 36:41
  know, that's yet to be determined how far I will go,
• 36:43
  but I want to be able to get back and, and feel good about
• 36:47
  being on track. So I'm not worried about that
• 36:49
  anymore. That makes sense.
• 36:52
  When you were going through kind of the worst of that COVID
• 36:54
  experience and there's all that uncertainty and you're not sure
• 36:58
  what the future holds for you, where did you go for support?
• 37:02
  Who or what were you able to rely on to help get you through
• 37:05
  that? Well, I relied on some of the,
• 37:10
  the franchise partners we meet, you know, a lot and talk about
• 37:14
  the struggles and everything that we're having and so that we
• 37:17
  can figure out what that we should be doing and what we need
• 37:21
  to do to get things started. We have these brainstorming
• 37:25
  session. It kind of helps.
• 37:26
  But what we found out is that, you know, problem that you have
• 37:29
  in one area may not be the problem you have in another.
• 37:32
  And so, but it, it does help, you know, having those
• 37:36
  conversation and trying to, to, you know, figure out what, you
• 37:40
  know, what direction you want to go, what are you going to do to
• 37:43
  correct. So I'm sort of, I kind of see
• 37:46
  myself as a, a pioneer in this, in this space because I'm, I'm
• 37:52
  not afraid to take chances. If I think that is something
• 37:56
  that's going to work, I go out of my way.
• 37:59
  I, I set my mind on, on something and I, I, I'm just
• 38:03
  laser focused on trying to accomplish it.
• 38:05
  I think about, I'm a strategist. I think about strategy all the
• 38:08
  time. And what do we need to be?
• 38:11
  Where, where do, where the grocery want to see where, how
• 38:13
  many caregivers we want to have at a certain time?
• 38:16
  You know, the quantity to the clients.
• 38:17
  I set these goals and I try to hit those all the time, but the,
• 38:22
  you know, the biggest part of a strategy is knowing, OK, how you
• 38:24
  going to get there, you have a goal, how you going to get
• 38:26
  there. And then that's why, again, a
• 38:28
  lot of folks have been securing a lot of contracts other than
• 38:32
  private pay. And, and that's, you know, been
• 38:36
  the key to me getting to where I'm at now and where again,
• 38:41
  we're planning on having a just a knockout year this year.
• 38:44
  And, and, and so I think we're well on track doing that so.
• 38:49
  Self-described as a pioneer, you know, getting away from, not
• 38:52
  getting away from, but finding additional revenue sources
• 38:55
  besides the self pay. Did you find that some of your
• 38:59
  friends, some of your peers at at Synergy Home Care have have
• 39:02
  kind of followed your lead in that respect?
• 39:05
  Well, yeah, we have the discussion.
• 39:07
  I, I, you know, we talk about these things.
• 39:09
  Yeah. And some have followed lead.
• 39:11
  I, you know, a lot of time we have our, you know, franchise
• 39:14
  meetings or whatever. We have a lot of people come
• 39:16
  from all over the United States and we all are always talking
• 39:19
  about, and you always leave that, that those with, you know,
• 39:23
  with people taking away information.
• 39:25
  A lot of people when they, you know, they, when they see that
• 39:29
  I'm there, they like for us to talk because I know I'm always
• 39:32
  trying things new and, and they're open to those ideas
• 39:35
  about what we're doing new. And I, you know, enjoy helping
• 39:39
  people to, to, to move on. I always express, well, this is
• 39:42
  working in our area and this is one of the things you should try
• 39:45
  to do. But we always look exchanging
• 39:48
  ideas and about, you know, the success of the business and what
• 39:52
  we need to do to be successful. And so but yeah, it does help to
• 39:56
  have people to bounce things off of and, and it works out a lot.
• 40:01
  But as I say, I'm not afraid to. To dig into something that's
• 40:06
  haven't been done before. You know, I'm a big fan of
• 40:11
  professional support groups, masterminds, networking groups,
• 40:14
  you know, whatever you want to call them.
• 40:16
  And I think one of the neat things about the franchise model
• 40:18
  is what you've just touched on there, Tracy, which is you've
• 40:21
  got your own built in networking slash mastermind group with
• 40:26
  folks that know exactly your business model inside and out.
• 40:31
  And you're you're in different geographies, so you're not
• 40:34
  competing with each other. So there's just this natural
• 40:38
  willingness to share information and to support each other with
• 40:41
  ideas. Yeah.
• 40:44
  And that and that really helps out a lot, you know, going to
• 40:48
  those meetings and having those conversations.
• 40:50
  And not only that, you know, we, you know, we have these regional
• 40:53
  meetings where that we're meeting monthly to just, you
• 40:57
  know, hear about things that are going on to, you know, to talk
• 41:01
  about problems and that, and that helps out as well.
• 41:04
  You know, a lot of times, you know, you don't have to
• 41:05
  participate just to go in and just hear about these things
• 41:07
  that are going on. So it's truly helpful, you know,
• 41:10
  and, and I think that that's one of the things that, again, that
• 41:14
  synergy that's bringing on. They're great.
• 41:16
  They're the franchise support center.
• 41:19
  They go to the ends of the earth to make sure that especially the
• 41:24
  people because a lot of those franchise support center, a lot
• 41:27
  of the focus is on the newer offices that are coming up
• 41:29
  because they the one that needs the most help.
• 41:31
  They rely on people have been doing it a while to share their
• 41:35
  ideas with these people so that they can help get to where they
• 41:38
  want to be. And having a lot of these
• 41:41
  regional meetings allow that because you get newer people who
• 41:45
  are just don't have the knowledge of know how and what
• 41:48
  it takes to get to 1st year to 2nd year and what you have to
• 41:52
  do. And you have people that's been
• 41:54
  around long enough that will let them just take them by the wings
• 41:59
  and, and just help them out as much as they can.
• 42:01
  And I think, you know, the group that I work with Synergy, they
• 42:05
  enjoy, they enjoy helping one another out.
• 42:08
  And that's, that's really a, a great thing.
• 42:10
  And that's what makes you know Synergy such a great
• 42:13
  organization. Any daily practices or, you
• 42:17
  know, habits, rituals that have been helpful to you and keeping
• 42:20
  you centered and on track, Tracy.
• 42:23
  Yeah, one of the things I do, I think every right before I get
• 42:27
  up, I, you know, before it's time for me to get up, I sit
• 42:29
  through him and I think about everything that I want to do.
• 42:34
  You know, it's just almost like an outline of everything I need
• 42:37
  to do before I go into the office.
• 42:38
  And I usually, you know, have those things in my, in my mind
• 42:42
  and I still just kind of work through the things I want to
• 42:44
  talk about and what I want to focus on and what situation I
• 42:48
  want to drive because I like to make sure that all the
• 42:50
  initiatives that we're working on that they're being driven.
• 42:53
  And so I kind of, I think about those things and when I come in
• 42:56
  the office, I already have a, a good ideal of what I'm going to
• 43:01
  focus on for that day. You know, sometime my wife asked
• 43:03
  me, what are you thinking about? What, you know, like I'm, I'm in
• 43:07
  that laser focus mode trying to figure out, you know, everything
• 43:10
  that we're going to do. So that's sort of my ritual.
• 43:12
  I have that time and I put that those thoughts together in my
• 43:15
  head and then I go and I execute, you know, throughout
• 43:18
  the rest of the day. And your memory's good enough
• 43:20
  that you don't need to write it down.
• 43:21
  You just kind of got the mental picture of what needs to happen
• 43:25
  to go do it. Yeah, that's how it works for
• 43:27
  me. And that just just a good thing
• 43:29
  for me. So yeah.
• 43:32
  You're better than I am. I have.
• 43:33
  I've got to write everything down or it's.
• 43:35
  Yeah, just in one ear, out the other.
• 43:37
  I can't hold on to it for very long.
• 43:39
  Yeah, yeah, I I get that so, but but yeah, that's, you know,
• 43:44
  that's, you know, I aren't prepared for a lot of things.
• 43:46
  If I feel I know it, I feel like, you know, I can just talk
• 43:49
  to it, but but I just try to stay focused on the things that
• 43:56
  really, really need to be done and making sure that I spend a
• 43:59
  lot of time trying to make sure that the people that work for me
• 44:03
  are, you know, doing things that they love to doing.
• 44:06
  Because I always tell people that I manage by the individual
• 44:10
  and not, you know, and not just focus on just getting a job
• 44:15
  done. I look at who they are and I
• 44:18
  look at what their skill sets are and I don't want to push
• 44:21
  them too far outside, outside of their comfort zone, if you will.
• 44:25
  And just making sure that they're happy.
• 44:27
  And that's again, that's one of the things that leads toward
• 44:29
  retention as well. Making sure that you don't push
• 44:32
  people a little bit too far or get them exposed to something
• 44:35
  that's going to cause, you know them to be working in a
• 44:38
  situation that's not good for SO.
• 44:41
  You know, in my experience, sometimes I'll make a mistake in
• 44:46
  my work or my personal life and I'll, I'll be hard on myself
• 44:49
  about it. But if I use that as a learning
• 44:53
  opportunity, years later, I will look back at that moment and
• 44:57
  I'll actually be grateful for it.
• 44:59
  It ends up being a great teacher or it, it pushed me to go in a
• 45:03
  different direction than what I was going.
• 45:05
  Can you think of a moment that you initially thought was a, a
• 45:09
  huge mistake? You know, like, what was I
• 45:11
  doing? And now you look back on it
• 45:13
  with, you know, gratitude because something better came
• 45:17
  out of it. Well, you know, I, I even think
• 45:23
  about, you know, like, you know, this, this business, when I got
• 45:26
  into it, I got into the first year of it and, and that's
• 45:31
  exactly what I thought I said, man, this is what have I done,
• 45:34
  You know, it's just, this is, you know, so, you know, I, I,
• 45:38
  you know, cuz I came from a background where I was working
• 45:41
  with, you know, other engineers. I was working with, you know,
• 45:47
  vice presidents and, you know, working with the CEO and, you
• 45:52
  know, working all these design presenting to all these kinds of
• 45:55
  people and to turn and go into home care where, you know, now,
• 46:01
  you know, I'm interviewing caregivers and who or some of
• 46:06
  the greatest people on the planet.
• 46:07
  I feel strongly about that. But, but it was just that change
• 46:12
  where I'm kind of like holding down the Fort to every aspect.
• 46:17
  You know, I'm, I'm, I'm in accounting, I'm, I'm a sales
• 46:20
  guy. I'm, I'm trying to recruit, I'm
• 46:26
  trying to figure out the Internet strategy.
• 46:29
  I'm looking at, you know, the billing as it comes in and I'm
• 46:33
  like, wow, you know, and after when you're doing that for a
• 46:36
  while and you don't, you're trying to build up your
• 46:38
  organization. Yeah, you, you, you wonder, wow.
• 46:42
  Before I only, you know, working in a corporate environment, I
• 46:46
  was just focused on just that thing, just, you know, selling
• 46:50
  these components or, you know, giving someone advice on a
• 46:53
  component and and that was it. I didn't have to worry about
• 46:56
  anything else. But, you know, having a a
• 46:59
  business like this that has so many moving parts, I mean, yeah,
• 47:04
  I question that first year was a very questionable standpoint.
• 47:09
  But as I continue to go and things start moving and I got
• 47:13
  the hang of it and I really got the nature of, you know, dealing
• 47:19
  with the various people, I learned a lot about myself.
• 47:22
  I realized how versatile I can be because I'm dealing with all
• 47:28
  different levels of individuals with that brings different
• 47:32
  things to, you know, to the, to the game.
• 47:35
  And so for me, that was, you know, that was the, the, the,
• 47:41
  the really, really big challenging part and realizing
• 47:44
  it wasn't mistaken, but just, and I, I use this word grinding,
• 47:48
  grinding, grinding, because that's what it's truly all about
• 47:51
  to get to pull yourself out of something that you think is not
• 47:54
  right. Because I did question it for a
• 47:55
  while and then it's just start coming around and it it, it
• 47:58
  worked out great. So you started in 2009, Things
• 48:02
  were tough in the early days. Obviously COVID happened years
• 48:06
  later. But thinking back before that
• 48:09
  from 2009, how far along were you before?
• 48:12
  You're like, OK, I got this. This is working, it's
• 48:16
  profitable. This is something I can stick
• 48:18
  with and, you know, and pay my bills and, you know, provide for
• 48:21
  my family with. Yeah, I would say you're 2 1/2,
• 48:25
  about 2 1/2 years into it. That's when the things, you
• 48:28
  know, turned around and it got to the point where, OK, I reset
• 48:32
  point where it was profitable and if paying the bills and all
• 48:35
  that stuff. And so, you know, during that
• 48:37
  other time, of course it was I had to work, reduce salary from
• 48:42
  what I was accustomed to. But I just felt strongly as I,
• 48:46
  you know, I just for me, you have to look at it from a road
• 48:49
  map standpoint. I looked at, you know, it was a
• 48:51
  question for me, how long is it going to take me to get there?
• 48:54
  You know that how long because I came from a corporate
• 48:57
  environment where my salary was a lot, you know, it was larger
• 49:02
  than I then I thought it would take for me to get to that
• 49:07
  point. So I had to, I had a lot of gap.
• 49:09
  I had a lot of, I had a lot of room to make up to get to the
• 49:13
  point from a salary standpoint. And, and it was like, and that's
• 49:17
  what I'm saying that 2 1/2 year and 2 1/2 year point was the
• 49:20
  point where I said, OK, now he's driving in from there and just
• 49:23
  started to, to, to go in there correct the right direction.
• 49:28
  So, but but yeah, it was, yeah, it was something going through
• 49:33
  that time as I think about it, it really was.
• 49:37
  Well, this is important part of the story for people to hear,
• 49:40
  Tracy, because these are the parts of the story that don't
• 49:43
  often get told. You know, when people, they see
• 49:47
  the result, they see, you know, the nice home, the nice car,
• 49:51
  they, they, you know, see that you're leading a successful
• 49:54
  business. And what they didn't see was all
• 49:57
  the sweat, all the the tears, all the, you know, just the
• 50:01
  grind that it took to get there. And so, you know, to hear that,
• 50:05
  hey, 2 1/2 years, I didn't know. I like, I, I thought it was a
• 50:09
  mistake at first. Like, man, I, what did I get
• 50:11
  myself into? I got all kinds of ground to
• 50:13
  make up, you know, to fill in the gaps on what my salary used
• 50:16
  to look like. So yeah, it's good for folks to
• 50:19
  hear this part their their struggle there in the early
• 50:22
  days. Well, that's what they want to
• 50:24
  know because you know, when you, when anyone gets in this
• 50:27
  business for the first time, you know, and the franchise can't
• 50:31
  say anything to them about it. So what they do is say, why
• 50:35
  don't you talk with someone who's been doing it?
• 50:38
  And, and, and usually and you see it when someone is talking
• 50:42
  with you, the first thing they want to know, it's like, well,
• 50:45
  when did you become profitable? When did you you know, they want
• 50:47
  to know what is that point? And what you don't realize is
• 50:50
  that, well, that depend on it depend a lot on you, who you
• 50:54
  are. It depend on the territory that
• 50:56
  you got, if it's territory that's going to produce and and
• 51:02
  then your, you know, your ability to just continue to
• 51:05
  drive and from there. And that's what's going to
• 51:08
  determine because there's been individual that, you know, after
• 51:12
  a year they were very, very profitable.
• 51:14
  And then somewhere after five years, they still haven't
• 51:17
  reached that point. I mean, it just, it really
• 51:19
  varies, but having the work ethics, having to know how you
• 51:25
  know is a key to being successful.
• 51:28
  And if you don't have any of those and you think you're
• 51:31
  signing up for something that's gonna be easy, I think you're
• 51:34
  gonna make a big mistake. You have to be prepared for
• 51:37
  everything. You have to have some sense.
• 51:39
  You have to have some skill sets to be able to drive and see what
• 51:46
  you can make of what you decided to go into so.
• 51:50
  What's a piece of advice that you would give someone looking
• 51:54
  to enter into this field about best way to balance obviously
• 51:59
  that need that desire for growth, but alongside of, you
• 52:03
  know, providing compassionate service at the same time.
• 52:07
  Well, I think that, you know, you always do your research on
• 52:12
  what you want to do and understand what it takes to run
• 52:16
  the business. And when I say when you're
• 52:18
  signing up for, you know, you know, so an entrepreneur role,
• 52:24
  that means that, you know, you need to have some kind of
• 52:28
  knowledge about business and what it takes to be successful.
• 52:32
  And, and understanding that is, is the key.
• 52:38
  And, and also being organized, organized is the key as well,
• 52:43
  because if you are not organized and you're trying to start a
• 52:46
  business, you know, you're kind of like going to go in the wrong
• 52:50
  direction from day one. So I mean, just, you know,
• 52:54
  putting in the time to understanding what you signed up
• 52:57
  for and then coming up with some initial strategy on what it's
• 53:01
  going to take, understanding, you know, the roles that you
• 53:04
  think you can take on yourself and what you need to go out and
• 53:07
  bring some other people in to help you.
• 53:10
  And then a lot of that's going to depend on, you know, how much
• 53:14
  you know, can you, how much funding do you have to do that?
• 53:17
  Because when you first start a business, there's typically no
• 53:20
  revenue coming in, you know, especially a business like home
• 53:23
  care, I mean, you have to go out and get those clients.
• 53:26
  If you don't have any clients, there's nothing.
• 53:28
  So you're looking at, you know, making sure that you have the
• 53:32
  funding if you're going to bring someone on to be able to pay
• 53:35
  that individual to, to, to work for you.
• 53:38
  So you need to think about that having the funds, you know,
• 53:41
  always say starting a business like you, you need to, you know,
• 53:45
  there's a chance you might not take pay for a year, year and a
• 53:48
  half. Can you do that?
• 53:50
  You know, because you're not going to be able to draw a
• 53:53
  salary if you don't have the clients and you just don't know
• 53:55
  how many. And just having that
• 53:57
  understanding of that, that's the most difficult part of, you
• 54:01
  know, jumping into a business or being an entrepreneur is if you
• 54:06
  know someone that's looking to do it that don't have the deep
• 54:08
  pockets to be able to sustain themselves to the time it takes
• 54:12
  for them to get to success. So I just said it needs, these
• 54:17
  are things they need to be aware of things that they need to make
• 54:21
  sure that they have done the research so that they don't get
• 54:25
  to a point where they start panicking.
• 54:27
  And, and, and they do people, I've talked a lot of them that
• 54:29
  panic and say I'm not, I'm not making the money I need to make.
• 54:32
  And they, some of them get out because of it.
• 54:33
  And you know, there's some that, that hold out and you know, and
• 54:36
  sometimes it works or sometimes it don't.
• 54:39
  So there's nothing easy about it.
• 54:42
  You know, and as I'm listening to your story and I'm thinking
• 54:45
  back to your beginnings, you know, the, that, you know,
• 54:48
  mechanical engineering background, you know, all the
• 54:51
  technical sales, the MBA that you have a lot of these.
• 54:56
  I think it probably served you really well and taking a very
• 55:00
  logical, practical, rational approach to, you know, how you
• 55:05
  run this business and how you think about sales and business
• 55:08
  growth. Yeah, it had a lot to do that
• 55:11
  because doing it my corporate state, I've gone through a lot
• 55:14
  of training dealing with people how to manage people.
• 55:18
  I learned all about that. And there was working in
• 55:21
  corporate there's a lot of struggles that you learn from
• 55:25
  those struggles or whatever. But yeah, that, you know, having
• 55:30
  the background that I had was a huge help and me to, you know,
• 55:34
  come on board and do what I need to do.
• 55:36
  And as I said, it was a huge test for me because I was
• 55:39
  successful, you know, working in corporate and and a lot of time
• 55:43
  I ask myself, well, let's see if I'm worth the money they pay me,
• 55:46
  if I can go off and do this on my own.
• 55:48
  So, you know, that was, you know, the kind of the way I
• 55:51
  looked at it, can I really do this, do these things or, or did
• 55:54
  I just have a cushion job that I just voted along?
• 55:58
  Do I have the skills to be successful and build a company
• 56:03
  to a point where it's doing what I need it to do for me?
• 56:08
  Tracy, what's something that you wish more people knew about your
• 56:10
  industry? Well, yeah, I think that, you
• 56:19
  know, they need to know that as far as this, this industry, it's
• 56:27
  it's really the people. I I think about the people
• 56:29
  aspect of it because you get into a lot of things when you
• 56:34
  are dealing with people at the stage, people who are, you know,
• 56:38
  at the, you know, end of their life stage, if you will.
• 56:42
  And you learn a lot about families.
• 56:44
  I mean, you get into some very, very difficult situation
• 56:48
  dynamics with the family and all that.
• 56:50
  And it's to the point where a lot of it, you kind of need
• 56:54
  cancelling to deal with this, but you're kind of catapult in
• 56:57
  that situation. And and it's just there's so
• 57:02
  much with families and, you know, setting up, you know, PO
• 57:07
  as you know, power of attorneys and trying to deal with, you
• 57:10
  know, siblings, sibling rivalry and trying to deal with their
• 57:14
  family members. And there's just so much of that
• 57:19
  going on, you get and you sort of get catapulted in, you know,
• 57:22
  saying and you have people that are dealing with that kind of
• 57:24
  stuff on a daily basis and it just doesn't go away.
• 57:27
  I mean, there's some really nasty stuff that can happen
• 57:31
  sometime with family members and you feel like you're trying to,
• 57:36
  you know, advise them on what direction they should go to just
• 57:39
  go get help and all that. So I mean, that's, you know,
• 57:42
  it's like for a lot of people that work with me that's dealing
• 57:44
  with this in the field, it is a struggle sometime of the things
• 57:48
  that they have to deal with, not just our client, but their
• 57:52
  family members and all that. It's the coaching is trying to
• 57:55
  make things wholesome. And then our caregivers are on
• 57:57
  the, they're on the front line and they're, they're getting a
• 58:00
  lot of that when they feel like family members are not doing
• 58:03
  what they should be doing. And it it's, it's a really tough
• 58:07
  part of the business, you know, and it's not all families.
• 58:10
  Some families are great or whatever, but you do have those
• 58:13
  that makes the business tough, not only for our office staff,
• 58:17
  for our caregivers as well. And they, you know, just
• 58:22
  understanding that aspect that you're going to be getting into
• 58:24
  that when you're in the home care industry, so.
• 58:27
  Yeah, those family dynamics, they can get to be really tense
• 58:30
  and you know, you're just trying to do the best you can and
• 58:33
  sometimes you feel like you're stuck in the middle.
• 58:35
  But you are. Tracy, I've just got one more
• 58:38
  question for you, and before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
• 58:41
  Everyone listening today, I know that you love today's content
• 58:44
  because Tracy's been an amazing guest.
• 58:46
  Please hit the follow or subscribe button on your
• 58:48
  favorite podcast app. You'll continue to get more
• 58:50
  episodes like this. Tracy, I also want to let people
• 58:53
  know the best way to get in touch with you.
• 58:56
  What would that be? Well bet I can be reached
• 59:00
  online. So my as I say in the office is
• 59:03
  out of Seattle, WA. So it's Synergy Home Care of of
• 59:10
  E King County, that's the primary one.
• 59:12
  I'm heads up, you go online and you know that number.
• 59:16
  You can follow up with me on that.
• 59:18
  If you want to e-mail me directory directly, you can just
• 59:22
  reach out to tracypowers@synergyhomecare.com.
• 59:26
  Again, that's Tracy Powers at synergyhomecare.com.
• 59:30
  Be glad to follow up on any questions you have, any
• 59:34
  questions at all. You can also give me a call in
• 59:36
  the office. I can be reached just about any
• 59:39
  time of the day during the business hours, so.
• 59:42
  Terrific. And we'll make sure we include
• 59:43
  all that information in the show notes too.
• 59:45
  The last question I have for you, Tracy, is as you look to
• 59:48
  the future, what are the most exciting changes coming to the
• 59:52
  home care industry that you can't wait to see them full?
• 59:56
  Well, I think that the, the exciting changes that are coming
• 59:59
  are, you know, it's, it's most likely at the federal level in
• 1:00:03
  order, you know, I mentioned earlier.
• 1:00:06
  That, you know, the senior population is continuing to grow
• 1:00:10
  and it's, and it's to the point where, you know, private pay is,
• 1:00:14
  is, is getting too expensive. And a lot of people that are,
• 1:00:19
  you know, typically are even moving to Medicaid because you
• 1:00:23
  know, things are just, you know, getting very, very expensive.
• 1:00:26
  So the future of home care is you're going to have to have
• 1:00:31
  these private insurances and Medicare to step in and help,
• 1:00:37
  you know, offset these costs. And I think that there's been a
• 1:00:40
  lot of work around it. There's been sort of pockets of
• 1:00:43
  evidence that it's kind of getting traction.
• 1:00:46
  In fact, there was a lot of traction before the pandemic.
• 1:00:49
  In fact, Medicare was going to jump on board and they were
• 1:00:52
  going to do this non medical home care, but it kind of got
• 1:00:55
  stopped in its tracks. But that's starting to gear up
• 1:00:58
  again because there was a huge distraction with the pandemic,
• 1:01:01
  but it's starting to gear up again.
• 1:01:02
  So I think for individuals that are going to be in need of home
• 1:01:07
  care, I think the future is that medical insurances and you know,
• 1:01:12
  Medicare is going to step up and, and it's going to be part
• 1:01:15
  of the solution so that everybody can get this kind of
• 1:01:18
  care in their home. Because this is something that,
• 1:01:21
  you know, everyone is going to touch this, whether they, you
• 1:01:25
  know, believe it or not, at some point, you know, someone is
• 1:01:28
  going to get older and they're going to need some kind of help
• 1:01:31
  like this. And so it is, you know,
• 1:01:33
  expensive. But again, I think the
• 1:01:37
  insurances and are going to step up and provide some support.
• 1:01:42
  We know this being worked on it just how long?
• 1:01:44
  Well. That would be a real game
• 1:01:46
  changer if insurance can step in and help with this because
• 1:01:49
  that's a, it's a big out of pocket expense for families
• 1:01:51
  right now. Yeah.
• 1:01:53
  Tracy, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing
• 1:01:55
  both your time and your story with us today.
• 1:01:57
  I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem.
• 1:02:00
  I I enjoyed it Anthony. I really, I really did so
• 1:02:02
  appreciate having the conversation so.
• 1:02:04
  Absolutely, folks. That's a wrap on another episode
• 1:02:07
  of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
• 1:02:10
  today.