Ep.5: 5 Steps to Exit Daily Operations at Your Agency

Linda Leekley (00:08):

Hi everyone. This is Linda Leekley, Chief Clinical Officer from Home Care Pulse.

Amanda Sternklar (00:13):

And I’m Amanda Stenklar, our director of marketing,

Linda Leekley (00:17):

And you’re listening to Vision, the podcast for leaders and forward thinkers in the care industry. Today, you’re in for a treat. We’re going to discuss how post-acute care leaders can increase their influence in their organizations even while they’re exiting daily operations. And to tackle this subject, we are joined by none other than Jessica Nobles. Jess, thanks so much for joining us. You know, I’m sure all of you know Jess has been in home care leadership for more than 15 years. Can can you give us a little rundown of your experience in home care?

Jessica Nobles (00:50):

Yeah, absolutely. So I love home care. I’ve always, it seems like I’ve always been in home care. I started my home care business when I was 18 years old, and that is what I have been striving and instant of leveling my entire career. I started as a home care owner work well, home care caregiver actually, and then worked in management, started my own company, ended up becoming a franchise developer. Went back in and together me and my husband, we built a multi-state, multi-million dollar agency. And we created it. We developed it so that we could scale and grow it by leveraging our team. So now, years later, we have a completely team managed agency in multiple states, and we’re completely outta daily operations. So, and it give us the opportunity. We found that home care ops, so we support hundreds, well really thousands of home care owners all across the nation.

Jessica Nobles (01:50):

We help them to establish structure and systems so that they can also leverage a team manage agency and exit daily operations. So many of you may be a part of our home care operators community on Facebook. It’s incredible community of home care owners. But yeah, I’ve been around home care for a long time. I will be around home care for a lot longer, just helping home care owners to create an incredible experience. So thank you. As always. We love being a part of anything Home Care Pulse does, and we love the Vision podcast. So thank you for having me on here.

Linda Leekley (02:26):

Oh, well thanks so much. Thanks. Thanks

Amanda Sternklar (02:27):

So much. Thank you for joining us. Hey, before we dive in, I wanted to remind everyone listening that you can be the first to hear these episodes by joining us for Vision Live every other Tuesday at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time. You can go to home care pulse.com/podcast to register, and you can also find all of our previous episodes there or wherever you listen to podcasts really quickly. We also got a question about whether closed captioning is available. We don’t have that, but when the podcast recording comes out next week as an episode, there will be a transcript available in the same place, just [email protected]

Jessica Nobles (02:59):

Com slash podcast.

Linda Leekley (03:01):

Great. And, and thanks for those questions. Keep them coming. You know, Jess, you talked about how it’s team run and they’re managing your, your big agency. So how did you do that? You’ve got this five step program, right? Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Jessica Nobles (03:16):

Yeah, so I know now I’ve been in home care for a long time guys. So I was in home care back when, you know, 10 90 nines for the thing. And we could call communities facilities, like I’ve been in home care for a really long time and I have done home care, like, you know, kind of what I’m just gonna say, old fashioned way. I did that for a long time to where, as a home care owner, I built a business, I worked in it daily. I felt like my sacrifice was really, really great. Like at the end of the day, I would sometimes ask myself, Is it worth it? And I did that successfully. I built a million dollar agency, you know, and I kind of teetered around that spot for many years. And I felt like I did that well.

Jessica Nobles (04:00):

I did a great job. But then when, actually when we, we relocated, we moved actually due to my husband’s position and I started my other home care business. Like this was gonna be my baby, my hobby, you know, I’m sure we’ve all kind of felt like we’ve had a hobby, home care business. And with that I got super clear on who my right fit client was, who, who my wrong fit client was. And I really drilled down on what I wanted as a home care owner, like what I wanted to see out of my agency, and instantly begin to see a better outcome instantly to the point that within the first six months of my business, I knew I needed an operations director to help me just to support the growth that I was seeing. And my husband, who was an operational methodologist or a corporate fixer said, Hey, I, I can do that.

Jessica Nobles (04:57):

Like, I’m literally, I am the operations guy. So after probably a lot more prayer should have happened before he come over, but he come over and I tell you best decision I think we’ve ever made as a family, as a unit and as a business because he brought in all of these business principles, operational structure, and he brought business into home care. And here I am, the successful home care owner. I’ve been in business for years. I’ve already been a consultant to like franchises and other home care agencies, and here it is, my entire life is changing for the better. Like my dinners aren’t getting interrupted, my weekends are now I can go to the river or whatever I wanna do. I don’t answer phone calls first thing in the morning. But small win by small win, we begin to see some incredible changes in our home care agency.

Jessica Nobles (05:57):

And what I realized is that there’s five things. There’s one of five things we’ll always be doing as a home care owner, As a leader in general, I was either learning, doing, teaching, training, or coaching. Now as a home care owner, like all five of those things is something we should do. But now it’s a gradual process. But across the board, what I was doing at the time, and what I see so many home care owners and operators doing right now is they’re doing so much doing. I’m always doing, I’m always taking action, I’m doing all the time. And taking action gets you results. Absolutely. But the only way to get intentional results is to take intentional action. So, and when I sit down and I begin to evaluate, okay, I, I need to learn how to do it better. I need to learn how to put actual business principles into my business.

Jessica Nobles (06:55):

I need to learn how to put structure into my business so that I can support my growth. I need to put systems in place so that I can actually scale. And I began doing that. And as I began doing that, I found myself, I was freeing myself up, but in some ways I was still working a lot. So I was like, Okay, I’ve done the learning, I’m doing the doing now. While I’m doing the doing, I’m gonna start teaching my team how to do everything that I’m doing. Because in home care there’s actually very few owner level responsibilities. Most of the owner level responsibilities we have can be managed in a short time span, or they can be taught, trained and coached to our team. But it does take all three steps to actually delegate it and walk away. It takes teaching and then it takes training where they watch me, then I watch them, and then it takes me coaching, allowing them to step away. You know what, sometimes they’re gonna make mistakes, but then I’m gonna coach ’em. Well, how could have you done this better? Could you seen this coming? Like how can we instant up level what you just learned and what you just did? And that’s what we really begin practicing. We put our own structure and methodology into our home care business and into our coaching program to help home care owners really learn how to go from the doing stage to the teaching, training, coaching, where then they can exit daily operations.

Linda Leekley (08:30):

Not just That’s awesome. It’s great information, It’s perfect. You know, that idea of sort of letting go of the vine, you know, and and training the people that work with you to take over, but it’s not always that simple, right? You, there must have been part of you that thought, Well, I can’t let go of, this is my baby. Right? so what, what are the problems like that, that that can trip up an owner and stop them from following your

Jessica Nobles (08:58):

Process? Yeah, so first thing, just being an owner can get in the way of this is my responsibility. Like, I cannot let go of this. So first how I really overcome of this is my baby. I can do this better than anybody. This is something I need to do. At first, I had to get really clear on what was my end result, what was my end result for me? What was my end result for my business and for the solutions that I deliver. And then when I got really clear on number one, my goal was to deliver the consistent delivery of service for, for my team and for my clients. Cuz I just, you know, I knew I couldn’t be all thanks to all people. As much as we think that we are superheroes, we still cannot be a superhero to everybody all at the same time.

Jessica Nobles (09:49):

So it got really clear on what it, what is it that I am wanting to do and to achieve. And I knew personally I wanted to be able to build a business that I could exit out of. And so I began making decisions based off of, is my actions today gonna help me achieve my results today and tomorrow? And it’s so easy as a home care owner to feel like the rescuer and the fire chief firefighter and run in and put out the fire. But I don’t wanna do that every single day of my life. Whereas if I can teach my team, So I got a lot of clarity on I wanna build a team managed agency. At that time, it was unheard of in home care. I don’t even think that’s home care terminology. But I knew that’s what I wanted to do and it helped me make better decisions based on the end result.

Jessica Nobles (10:38):

And then I knew that I wanted to deliver consistent delivery of service. Like I might not can be able to help everybody exactly when they went exactly when they want it, with exactly who they want. But I do understand that they wanted the consistent delivery of service. So I began to get a lot more clear on who my right fit client was, who, And when I got that clarity, I then could teach my team on how to replicate that clarity. And then, so as an owner, that was how I like overcome that, that like that owner limiting belief. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. The second big thing like huge stone that I had to figure out how to overcome is when I take it to my team and my team don’t wanna do it, or my team does it, and they’re like, I’m doing this and it doesn’t work, like you said it does, I’m not getting the outcome that I want.

Jessica Nobles (11:29):

Or this is so much harder, this is taking so much more time. Or whenever they say, Hey, just get outta the office, I’ll take care of this. Go on. You ain’t gotta worry about it. For me to stop and say, Okay, let’s evaluate what we’re trying to achieve out of this, and let me make sure that you really understand the outcomes we’re trying to achieve here. And we, we teach something called keeping your, like getting your team on point. And it really, we teach them the point. And the point is an acronym for anybody who follows anything Home care ops you know, I love acronyms, but point P O I N T, they need to know the process, the outcome, the intent, next steps team and timeline. And when they understand those five things, and then I back that up with supportive accountability, then they begin to see those quick wins with, with like, I don’t, I don’t try to throw them the entire vision.

Jessica Nobles (12:27):

I just give them step by step, quick win by quick win. And we all know that success, it’s just quick wins repeated consistently. So if we can create quick wins that our team can repeat consistently, our team will be successful. And when our team feels successful, we will feel more successful. And we also can feel like we can successfully walk away and our team will still be able to grow and thrive. It comes down to supportive accountability and clarity on what, what are we trying to achieve and how can we support our team in achieving that, that mission.

Amanda Sternklar (13:06):

I love that term supportive accountability.

Jessica Nobles (13:08):

Yeah, absolutely. And that’s something that I would really encourage everyone to adopt that supportive accountability because so often we think supportive like accountability is instantly aggressive. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, it should always be supportive. And when your team feels that supportive accountability, they will also become more enrolled and they will, they will actually feel like they’re part of the solution and not just someone who is in the office.

Linda Leekley (13:39):

Just, did you lose any team members during this process? I mean, sort of did they decide maybe this isn’t for me and, you know, I’m just curious as to whether that happened for you?

Jessica Nobles (13:51):

You know, that’s a good question. And so thinking back in creating a team managed agency, did I lose some team members? Yes. There were some team members that I I don’t feel like I lost them. I felt like we kind of pluck them. Like sometimes, sometimes team members are toxic and we keep them because we feel like somebody else getting it done is better than us doing it, or it not getting done at all. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. But unfortunately the only way to create a beautiful garden is to, to pluck the weeds. <Laugh>. So continuing to water a weed doesn’t make it become a beautiful flower. So yes, there was team, there was people on the team that we realized they weren’t a great fit. Now throughout this transition, we didn’t really lose a lot of team members just due to them not liking the new ways.

Jessica Nobles (14:45):

The way we did that is by making sure that transparent communication and clear and defined expectations was along every single step. So you mix that transparent communication, clear and defined expectations with a roadmap for success, which is we let ’em know the process, we let ’em know the outcomes, we let them know the intent of the actions that they were doing to reach that outcome. We always let them know. And the next step is, and the next step is, And they were always aware of the team that was involved and the timeline of which they should get it done. And so we actually saw a huge, tremendous growth in the culture that we wanted, the outcomes that we wanted. I felt supported, like as a home care owner, I actually felt like my team was lifting me up. And to some people they may, you may be saying that’s supposed to be the way it was.

Jessica Nobles (15:44):

Well, for years I was in home care to where I literally felt like I had the weight of the, you know, the business. And not only that, every single employee that I was invested in, I felt like I had the weight of them on me in some sense. But with this, I, like, I felt their support, which in turn gave me more really ability to have a bigger role in offering that supportive accountability. Where we say, and with supportive accountability, it’s, do you like this is what we’re wanting to achieve is this, what are the steps we need to do to get this done? And then we ask them are, do you think you could accomplish these steps by the end of the month? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And they say, Yes, great. What are the next three steps you need to do to put that in motion?

Jessica Nobles (16:37):

Now I’m gonna follow back up with you at the end of next week. If you need anything in the meantime, reach out to me. But then you gotta follow up with them at the end of next week. And then at the end of the month, whenever maybe they haven’t got it done, you’re set down and you talk about how could we have done this differently? Is there a gap that we’re missing? You can learn so much from people not getting things done as you do when they actually accomplish things. It’s being a great leader. It’s not about having all the right answers, it’s, it’s actually just about knowing the right questions to ask. And that’s something we’ve definitely learned along my journey as an, an entrepreneur, a home care owner, a leader

Linda Leekley (17:24):

That is truer words, We’ve never spoken. That is for sure. <Laugh>.

Amanda Sternklar (17:29):

I wanna take a step back a little bit to something else. You mentioned, Linda and I have talked on the podcast before about how a lot of home care owners feel like there’s already no time in their, in their schedule. And you’ve talked about feeling at the beginning of this process almost like you were working more, more hours. And I imagine we have some folks in the audience right now thinking like, this all sounds great, but like, who, who can implement this? Who has the time? Yeah. So I guess what do you what do you say to owners who feel a, that like there’s not space right now and to folks who start this process and and feel like they’re working even more?

Jessica Nobles (18:08):

Yeah. Well, as far as home care owners, whenever, cuz I felt that same way. I feel like I’m working a little bit more. The truth of the matter is, is we were already working a lot and you can either work, you’re gonna put time in now, and I was actually just talking to one of our action leaders on Friday and he said, You know what, I have been working hard for months, really for years in home care. So I would rather make the time that I am working very intentful be be intent with the time that I’m doing. And if you take literally, if you take six weeks of intentional actions and really understand the outcomes you’re trying to achieve and the intent of those actions and why it is really productivity and why is just busy business overwhelm. As home care owners, we get in this busy business overwhelm where we’re like always on the hamster wheel, but we don’t get anywhere.

Jessica Nobles (19:07):

It’s because we really don’t understand what, what is the end result that we’re trying to get? Here are the 10 of our actions getting us there. Have we set objectives to help us reach the goals so that we can actually reach our end result? So yes, it does take more focused attention and for us home care owners, sometimes that seems like way more work, but action leads to clarity. Clarity leads to consistency and consistency to success. So we’re already taking action, so let’s get some clarity on the action, what’s working, what isn’t, what do we need to repeat, what do we need to evaluate, what do we need to eliminate? And then once we get that clarity, we can make a consistent system, a consistent process. And whenever we get a consistent system or consistent process, then we don’t have to be the only one doing it.

Jessica Nobles (20:03):

Cuz you know what we’re gonna do, then we’re gonna take that next step of ownership and say, Hey, I’m not doing this system all by myself for just with one or two people on my team anymore. I’m gonna teach, I’m gonna train and I’m gonna coach. And the thing about it is, is I taught, I trained and I coached One Care first she was a care provider, then I taught training, coached her as a care lead, I taught training and coached her as a care manager. That one care lead that become a care manager, train three other care leads who two of those care leads become care managers. And then that care manager become director of care that managed our other care managers and then that care manager that become the director of care, become a managing partner in our company and completely managed an entire territory.

Jessica Nobles (20:54):

So was those three months a focused intentional action? Was I, was I being more focused? Was I making sure that the 30, the 40 hours I was in the office, that I was actually productive? Yes, it took intentional actions, but it paid off in dividends. And we’re talking about home care. I was the home care owner that was literally like, service is sacrifice and the more I give, the more I’ll achieve. And like, like really struggled today and I’ll win tomorrow. I was that type of home care owner until I realized there is a easier, faster slump, simpler way to do it that creates better outcomes, not only for my clients, my clients’ retention and satisfaction level increased drastically. Our, like, we don’t even call it turnover rate in our office, we call it the retention rate. The retention rate was incredible. And I mean, we’re talking about for like three years.

Jessica Nobles (21:56):

We kept a solid 80% retention rate in home care. That is incredible. And then my, our team, our team was no longer just some caregivers out in the field doing some sit in services. They were care providers who were there to provide a solution to build a career, to have enhanced opportunities. So I’ve seen home care both ways. I’ve lived home care both ways. I’ve taught training, coached home care both ways. But to see home care as not only a passion or a mission or a purpose, but to see it as a business, a solution, something that when you get your business in line, your profit margins, your systems, your structure, your impact can be like mag like maximized so much greater because then you’re not in the weeds, you’re not in the weeds of daily operations, you’re not in the weeds of doubt, you’re not in the weeds of uncertainty and overwhelm because you have clarity, you have intention. Your actions are those of intention and not just of running in the same circles and putting out the same fires. So as you can tell, like, I’m passionate about this because I want <laugh>, I want everyone, I, I spent 10 years doing home care like the other way and for the last five years just by truly putting structures and systems and getting clarity into place, it’s helped me tremendously

Linda Leekley (23:34):

Working on the business. Not in the

Jessica Nobles (23:37):

Business, huh? Yes. Yeah.

Linda Leekley (23:41):

I’d like to know a little more about how you, how you take the, the five steps of, of learning, doing training. Wait a minute, am I gonna get

Jessica Nobles (23:53):

Learning, doing teaching, training, coaching. There

Linda Leekley (23:54):

You go. Thank you. I understand taking it into the, through the office staff, How do you get that that great motivation into the, the care staff who are out, you know, working remotely in, in clients’ homes in order to enjoy that incredible retention rate that you have had?

Jessica Nobles (24:17):

Yeah, so I love that. And I, I always love answering this because as much as I would like to take credit for that, and I, I suppose like my actions is what led to that. My team, my leadership team and my care team has been instrumental in that. Because as I was talking about how that one care manager whenever we, I really began shifting my mindset and it wasn’t like, it really is a, was shifting my mindset. If you were to compare my outward actions that people were looking at, they might not have looked that different to the people on the outside. But my mindset was, it was, it was, it was different. Whenever I brought this to my care team, and at that time I had very few people in the office with me really I was the only full-time staff doing everything, like kinda wearing all the hats.

Jessica Nobles (25:14):

And I brought in the, the care providers and I brought in my top five care providers and I told them, I said I’m really, we are care provider or caregiver owned and operated. I want you to be a part of the growth. I’m wanting to truly build a hierarchy system for you so that you can be successful so that we can grow together. And then as I began promoting those five care providers, and I did it one at a time they got so enrolled in it, like I, whenever I was clear on the point and the outcome, the intent, they decided, and you know, we say within marketing, there’s six steps that the people that have to know, like, and trust you. And then they have to decide, commit and enroll <laugh>. Same goes with your team. First.

Jessica Nobles (26:07):

They have to know you, what you’re about. They have to like you to get behind you. They have to trust you to follow you. But then they have to decide, this is the right place for me. I’m committed to this company and I am enrolled in their culture. So that’s exactly the steps I took with my team. And whenever I got to, you know, I promoted my care lead and she as a care lead she went out and began training our new caregivers that was coming in, our care providers. And then when she become care manager, she would come up and she would say, Hey, this, this care provider, she’s doing a great job. I really think she’d be great at Care Lead. And she would help boost their confidence. And she together, me and her together, would create small wins. Because a lot of times with our care providers, we don’t, we think they don’t wanna be more than what they are.

Jessica Nobles (27:00):

You know, we say we, we get, we, we tried to promote them to scheduler, but they said, No, I wouldn’t be a scheduler. You know, like, I don’t wanna be a scheduler either. Like but by having them be a care lead, by having them be a care manager, staying in the field that they love directly with the clients directly with the care providers, and then just having them teach training coach what they were already doing well. And then also we had meetings and trainings where we would train them on how to identify talent out in the field. Like if there was someone at a grocery store or at assisted living community, how to tell them about job opportunities, how to kind of recruit them into your agency. We’ve literally had a training session on that. With our care providers and our care leads.

Jessica Nobles (27:53):

We train them on the messaging behind the company. Like, why do we call our self care providers and not caregivers? Why do we say we’re, we provide more than just care, We provide solutions. Why do we say what we say and how do we say that to a doctor or home health or hospice that may be dealing directly with our shared patient or client. So we told, we taught them how to create the messaging and how to talk about us out in the field which instantly they enrolled more in us. They understood how to talk about what they did other than say, Hey, I’m a caregiver. We go help clients in the field. So we offered them that additional training and it didn’t take a lot, like in four hours, we taught them how to identify talent, how to talk about our services, and how to walk into a home you’ve never been into how to read a care plan and how to introduce yourself.

Jessica Nobles (28:53):

So because with, with our care leads, sometimes they would walk into homes where they hadn’t met the client before or been trained by a care manager, but by teaching them how to read that care plan and how to actually say the words to verbalize a nice introduction and build confidence in the people that they’re caring for and their own confidence help them tremendously. So by giving them the training, by giving them the support of accountability and by making sure that transparent communication and clear and defined expectations was a part of every step along the way, it made our job so much more easier. Cause I didn’t start a team managed agency by hiring people in my office. I started it by every single person that come in as a care provider distributing the weight of responsibility within my office. So now I don’t have, like if I, if for those of you listening right now, if you have a hundred care providers and four in the, and four people in your office, that weight should be distributed among 104 people, not four.

Jessica Nobles (30:10):

So the only way to make that happen is really by structures, by systems, by all the action you’re taking as the owner by getting clarity on it and say, What do I all want repeated? What do I need to evaluate? What can I delegate? What can I automate? And it’s quick wins. Like a team managed agency seems like it’s such a big thing. I could never, never, never achieve that. But whenever you look at it, step by step, by by, by quick win, by quick win. Like we, we have an action leader. We actually have several, but Kelly is the first one that pops to mind whenever she started our coaching program. She was, she was in it, but she wasn’t really enrolled in it until she went on vacation and her care manager quit in the middle of her being on vacation. And when she, like, she called me and she was like, I’m on vacation, what do I do?

Jessica Nobles (31:07):

And I was like, First off, enjoy your vacation. Like this will be fine until you get back. So she got back and she was like, Okay, it’s time. I gotta build that team managed agency. And had she just run in and tried to do every single thing at one time, she would’ve been overwhelmed. But instead quick win by quick win, she started with her care team and then she started promoting from her care team. And a year later she now has a completely team managed agency and every single person on her office staff have been promoted from her care team. And so, and this past September, she completely exited daily operations. So it can happen, it will happen, but you have to focus on quick wins. Like no one starts out to run a marathon by choosing the, the fastest marathon out there, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, the first thing they do is probably decide to get up every morning in enough time to just run a quick jog around their house, right? <Laugh> quick win by quick win. So God knows I would not survive even a five mile marathon <laugh>, but I could survive a jog around my house every day for three weeks, and then I could add to that quick win by quick win.

Linda Leekley (32:27):

That’s wonderful. Yes. That’s, that’s incredible advice. What is a good quick win for, for the owners and administrators out there who are, who feel frustrated? I see it every day. I hear it every day where they say, Oh, you know, I, I can’t get anybody to come in for an interview. I can’t, you know, they just aren’t showing up or I interview ’em and then they don’t show up for the first shift. So what’s a good quick win at that level to just get rolling?

Jessica Nobles (32:59):

Yeah. So, and I don’t know, staffing, staffing is a big issue. And a lot of times right now it’s easy to kind of, if we asked everybody, what is your most challenging thing right now? Everybody’s gonna stay staffing. And we do something. I did the, I do this personally. We do this within our office with all of our home care owners that we coach. And there’s two things that I feel like is important that we learn how to do. And then we teach our team to do is have an, if I’m being really honest moment, and sometimes we like to say staffing, staffing is my biggest issue. Like, I can’t find quality hires is my biggest issue. None of my care team wants to join me in the office, like, whatever it is. And then like literally step back and then clear everybody else’s expectations of you or what you feel like those expectations are and say, if I’m being really honest, the reason why I feel like staffing is my biggest challenge is I’m not seeing the results.

Jessica Nobles (34:04):

Okay, tell me more. I tell myself all the time. Tell me more. Tell me more. Well, I’m not consistently, I’m not consistently putting out those ads like I should. I’m not consistently following up like I should. I don’t have a consistent system to really capture the amount of numbers that I need to capture to have conversions. And so anytime that there’s a challenging thing that po that comes up, I, I really, I challenge you to have, if I’m being really honest, have if I’m being really honest moment and get clarity on what it is. And then when you feel like you’ve got clarity on where the challenge is, then tell yourself, tell me more, tell me more. And then what you actually find yourself doing is walking yourself to a solution. Because as a home care owners, we usually always already know the answer or have a way to get to the answer, but we don’t wanna strategize enough to get there.

Jessica Nobles (35:14):

And we have a strategy first approach to anything really in business. If you can strategize before you do something, you’re probably already going to increase your success rate. But for those right now who feel like things are like happening and, and even what’s the first step to to having a team managed agency, if I’m being really honest, Like do this exercise with yourself. If I’m being really honest, the way that I could exit daily operations and support my team, the first step I need to do is whatever just popped into your head is exactly what you need to do. For some of you, it may be removing toxic staff. And I know that’s always a horrible answer in the middle of short staffing. For some of you, it’s going to be really looking at your care team and saying, Who am I already dependent on?

Jessica Nobles (36:13):

Like, if I had just 10 more care providers like Susie, amazing over here, then I would be golden, right? There’s your first step, Susie, amazing. Bring her into the office and say, Hey Susie, we absolutely appreciate all that you’re doing. We love the way that you are attentive. We love your level of awareness. And that’s something that we wanna recreate. We want every client to experience what your clients are experiencing. And we would love for you to simply over the next two weeks, I want you to write down everything you’re doing and not from a care note like for care notes, but for actually, like when you walk in, what do you say? What is your demeanor when you talk to them? If you get down on one knee or if you stand to their side, whatever you’re doing, that’s really, it’s what it’s really is just awareness. I want you to write it down and when you write it down, then we’re gonna talk about it and see how can we begin teaching and training the other care providers to have that same level of awareness.

Jessica Nobles (37:23):

And a lot of times when it comes to our team, our lack of awareness is really is the root of clients to satisfaction. Our lack of awareness and what our care providers actually need is the root of our care providers to satisfaction. And the lack of awareness of what we’re actually trying to achieve as a home care owner is definitely the root of our dissatisfaction. So by having if I’m being really honest, and then follow that up with, tell me more, you’ll begin to get clarity because you’re already taking the action, action leads to clarity. Okay? That means you gotta have a clarity moment, then clarity leads to consistency, and consistency leads to success. And when you follow those steps, then it’s like, I never thought I would say, Hey, I have a team managed agency. Hey, I’m completely outta daily operations. Hey, I’ve just created one of the largest network of home care owners out there.

Jessica Nobles (38:26):

Hey, I’m literally coaching and training thousands of home care owners on now how they can go and replicate that. Like whenever created my three year vision, when I created my 10 year vision, I’ve already surpassed that in so many ways. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, because I, I understood having a clarity moment, if I’m being really honest. Tell me more. If I can get clarity, I can get consistency. And if I can get consistency, I can successfully be consistent. I can consistently win. I can consistently staff, I can consistently grow and scale and enroll other people. And then there is where success lies. And with success is freedom. And as a home care owner, we want freedom. We want time freedom, money freedom, freedom to do as we want when we want. And more than anything, we want the freedom to be able to have an incredible impact on our family, on our community, and on the care providers on their lives. When I make more, when I succeed, then I can do more for those who have really empowered me and enabled me to achieve it.

Linda Leekley (39:42):

Yeah. You know, we’re at Home Care Pulse, we’re big fans of, of clarity as well. You know, we, we build clarity breaks into our week and every every employee is is empowered to take a break and just kind of do what you say, you know, think about you know, the forest for the trees, right? Because if you’re so busy doing, doing, doing you, it’s impossible to get clarity. So I, I totally hear what you’re saying. Amanda, anything that that you wanna add to what Jess was saying or ask her about?

Amanda Sternklar (40:22):

I think we’ve covered a, a lot of it. I loved what you were mentioning about the, if I’m being really honest moment, cause we do, we do kind of know a lot of the time and it’s the thing that you don’t, you don’t really want to admit to yourself, but we kind of have to. Speaking of that clarity, I loved something that you said to me when we were preparing for this call, which was, I don’t wanna be the best at everything. And I think the reason why ties into everything that we’re trying to tell folks here and, and that I know you try to tell folks through your coaching. Can you tell me more about what you mean and and how you accomplish that?

Jessica Nobles (41:02):

Yeah, absolutely. I, I don’t, I, there for a while I thought I wanted to be the best at everything because I felt like I could do everything the best. Maybe not the best it could be. And I felt like it was an owner level responsibility to be the best at everything. But that’s not true As a leader. Leader, you don’t need to be the best at everything. You need to bring out the best and those around you. And you do that by giving them that supportive accountability, by teaching, by training, and by coaching them. And I will tell you the most amazing thing, like super Proud Mama moment is whenever my care team, I mean these people who sometimes they come in as part-time care, care providers didn’t even know if they wanted to be a caregiver at all. You know, like they just, they had a heart and so they wanted to at least try it part-time.

Jessica Nobles (41:56):

But then them become like incredible, make an incredible impact in our, in our agency. And then go on to like, we had one who was a part-time who ended up becoming a managing partner and her and her husband went into business together running their own agency. And it was incredible. Like I was more proud of that than like the day that I cleared a million in revenue for the first time. And then like even with our home care owners, it’s one thing, it’s one thing for me and Clint to do it cuz we’re doers. We’re action takers. We’re action leaders. We will do it no matter what. We will power through and get it done. We may not ever wanna repeat it <laugh>, but we’ll get it done at least one time and we’ll get it done well. So it’s one thing for us to get it done because we knew we could do it.

Jessica Nobles (42:50):

We, we do what it took. But when we started coaching we thought, Oh my gosh, are we gonna coach these people and they’re not gonna be able to do it? And they are like not gonna get the results that we do. And then, you know, all of the, all of the doubts began to happen. But then seeing other home care owners who had come in just like I was, and just like so many of you listening to this podcast right now, seeing them come in, come in and thinking, Oh my God, this seems like work. I hope this works. I’m just gonna go for it. I’m gonna do this intentional quick win stuff for a little while. Like it can’t be worse than one I’m currently doing. Right? But then them come in and them apply themselves and them achieve it as well.

Jessica Nobles (43:32):

Like some, a lot of our, you know, our action leaders, our home care owners who come through our coaching program, they are speaking at some of the major conferences. Actually one of them spoke on a panel with Kristen from Home Care Pulse. And like, I think, I think that makes me more happy and more proud then achieving it myself. And I, I really learned that in home care, working with care providers, care providers who could barely make their car payment like even late, like they barely make their car payment to be promoted to physicians to where not only could they buy a new car, but they could buy a new house. And like that is the type of impact that I don’t want that to stop with me. I want that to be a thing in home care across the industry that we have an incredible impact, that we’re making a difference.

Jessica Nobles (44:30):

That we’re not only being a solution to seniors and those that we help with our services, but we’re, we’re someone who’s helped shaping the culture of our workforce. And so, and I, I can’t be the best at everything for everybody, but if I can teach someone else on how to find the best in themself mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and then I can teach them how to teach training, coach that to somebody else, it’s like a small ripple, like can create a major, major impact. So, and I I love that. And it all comes down to really increasing our influence and not our presence. We do not need to increase our presence to have incredible impact. We need to increase our influence. How do we increase our influence? We teach and we train and we coach people on this is the outcomes, this is the intent, this is the reason why we do it.

Jessica Nobles (45:29):

This is the outcomes we want, we want to achieve. And whether I’m in the building or not, whenever I can teach my influence, when I can teach the process of understanding the mindset behind my influence, I don’t have to walk in an office or I don’t have to go to a marketing meeting, or I don’t have to be on an assessment or I don’t have to be in an orientation for my influence to be in every little single area of my business. And the thing I love is that it gets instant upleveled by my team. So my team will take my influence and be like, Oh, and I tried this and I actually realized this got more results. And oh, I tried this and I got this type of outcome. And I love seeing that and being a part of that and seeing that continue on long outside of my direct reach.

Linda Leekley (46:22):

It’s inspiring to listen to you for sure. And I think I know the answer to this, but just for, for all of our listeners, a term that that has irked me forever is unskilled workers, right? Yes. And, and you know, I just hate when I <laugh> when I hear that term, you know, our, our our non-medical care staff to, to refer to them that way is just criminal, in my opinion. So what are your thoughts on this and, and how can we really, I I, you talked some about it, but how can we really uplift care providers? It’s what I’ve been trying to do for my career in, in training and really help them be seen by society as the professionals they are.

Jessica Nobles (47:14):

Yes. And I love that question because just like you, I’m very, very passionate about that. And I wanna refer back to something I’ve already said. Do you remember whenever facilities was like, we’re not a facility, we’re a community, and they made us reshape like senior living communities. We do not call them senior living facilities anymore, right? It’s disrespectful. But they got real clear on who they were and what they were about and how they wanna be perceived. It is our responsibility as not only home care owners, but as home care influencers like industry wide. It is our responsibility to craft our own perception, right? Like we have to craft to create the perception we want people to know us by. And so whenever people call, like, and I hear them, if they ever call our team, Oh no, they’re not home health, they’re non-skilled.

Jessica Nobles (48:05):

Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, I will pipe up and I teach our team and even our other home care owners to pipe up and say, Oh, you must not be talking about our team. We have a skilled and competent care providers and, and like we reshape. Yeah. Like we, and like, just like whenever they say, Oh yeah, you’re, you’re the one who does sitter services. Oh no, that’s not our agency. We would never pay anyone just to sit. Like we pay them to provide a service and a solution. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that’s exactly why we don’t call our caregivers in a professional sense. We don’t call them caregivers, we call them care providers. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, I never expect them to give anything away. I expect them to provide a service, a consistent service based off their training that we provide, the support that we provide, the clear and defined expectations that we provide, and also the solutions that the family are actually paying for.

Jessica Nobles (48:58):

We know at the end of the day, clients aren’t just paying for bathing, grooming and dressing. They’re paying for a solution, an outcome, peace of mind, consistent service, an an enhanced opportunity, a better quality of life. Like those are solutions that my team providers, that my care providers can, they can provide. And they do that through us as owners and as leadership, making sure that there’s training in place, there’s clear and defined expectations, there’s a success path that they know that they can follow. And that, so our care providers, every, a lot of people say, Why do you always say care providers? Because that’s what we call our care team. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, that’s what we call our entry level is care provider, Care lead the care manager to leadership, to managing partner. We have a hierarchy all the way up to we help you really start your own office, start your manager on territory. And I, I would love to see that all across the home care industry is that type of attention, that type of awareness, that type of clarity on who we are, what we’re about. And if we can really be unified in creating the consistent delivery of care and creating teams that are not just caregivers coming into our company and then us relying on their skill, but we actually teach, train and coach them to actually be great care providers. We could change the industry as a whole.

Linda Leekley (50:35):

Thank you for sharing all of your incredible words of wisdom and for all the work you do to improve and expand our industry. It’s it doesn’t go without notice for anyone here on this podcast. For sure. Absolutely.

Jessica Nobles (50:49):

Well, thank you. And we, we love, which we love working with Home Care Pulse and we love working with home care owners all across the nation. Because what they do has a reflection on us. And what we do has a reflection on them. And I want the impact, I want the legacy, I want the messaging that, that I put in place. I want it to have an impact that everyone can, everyone can feel everyone can be a part of. Because I’ve been the home care owner where the, the agency next door, their, their negative review created a negative impact on me. So if that can happen, then I can be the positive influence that creates a positive message and a positive outcome across the industry. And that’s what I wanna do is unite together we are stronger together. If we can learn by each other’s clarity moments, if we can learn by each other’s instant up levels, we will only be more stronger, we’ll be more successful, we’ll be more profitable, and we’ll make a greater impact than we ever could if it, if we were just all, all on our own trying to figure out individuals.

Jessica Nobles (52:01):

All the hard lessons and all the hard knocks all by ourself.

Linda Leekley (52:05):

Right. Absolutely. Totally agree.

Jessica Nobles (52:07):

Well,

Amanda Sternklar (52:08):

I wanna make sure, I know, I feel like we could keep asking questions for the next several hours. I wanna make sure our guests who have joined us can ask any questions they have. Folks, you’re welcome to put those in the chat or you can raise your hand. And I can unmute your microphone so you can ask them out loud. But in the meantime Jessica, where can folks find you online if they have more questions about about your methods?

Jessica Nobles (52:34):

Yeah, so the first place I always tell everybody to get plugged into is the Home Care Operators community on Facebook. It’s a free group and there’s over, there’s over 5,000 home care owners there. So that’s the first place I want ’em to get ’em plugged in, like plugged into a network, a community of home care owners of their peers that they can go share wins, ask questions, get support. Also we’re, I’m on LinkedIn and I’m on Facebook, just Jessica Nobles, you could also go to home care ops.com and find more about our, we have free monthly master classes that people can get plugged into. And then also that will connect you to all the different resources that we have. And that’s the best way to, to stay connected. And then for, and whenever you come to Home Care Operators community, like shout it out, let everybody know that, that you heard about it through Vision Podcast so that we can keep the circle going and drive more people to Vision podcast as well. Because working together in Unity will truly create an incredible, incredible impact that has a positive effect on all of us and for all of us.

Linda Leekley (53:53):

Absolutely. Power, powerful words of wisdom. For sure. Thank you so much, Jessica, for, for hanging with us this afternoon and for sharing all, all that you did.

Jessica Nobles (54:05):

Absolutely. It was a pleasure. As always,

Amanda Sternklar (54:08):

If you’re interested in appearing on the podcast, you have a story you’d really like to share. Linda and I are, I think, most accessible on LinkedIn. Linda’s Linda Leekley, l e e k l e y. And I’m Amanda Sternklar. A m a n d a s t e r n k l a r. Or you can, our email addresses are first and last names @homecarepulse.com. Thank you again so much for joining us. If you’re listening to this as a recorded podcast and you wanna be one of the folks asking questions on our live podcast, again, you can just go to homecare pulse.com/podcast and sign up to attend our vision live recording every other Tuesday. That’s also where you can find any of our previous episodes and you can also find them wherever you usually get your podcasts. Again, thank you guys so much for joining us, and we’ll

Linda Leekley (54:55):

See you in two weeks. Thanks everyone. Thanks Jess.

Jessica Nobles (54:59):

Thank you.