Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Dawn Fiala, Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie VanBooven RN BSN provide insight into home care marketing strategies. They cover in-person, in-field sales and online marketing every other week. These podcast episodes are part of the Home Care Marketing Mastermind, sponsored by Approved Senior Network®. Find more information at https://ASNHomeCareMarketing.com
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Home Care Marketing and Sales: PART 3- Keys to Growing a 24-Hour Home Care Service
Strap in for a masterclass in nurturing a flourishing home care service, where we zero in on the lifeblood of any 24-hour operation: client retention and communication. Our seasoned team, including Dawn, Lisa, and the invaluable Annette, a geriatric care manager with commendable dedication, unveils a treasure trove of wisdom. They unfold the subtleties of housekeeping, recount personal journeys, and guide you through the financial tightrope of billing stability amid the ever-present risk of client turnover. This episode is a wellspring of knowledge for those ignited with a passion for senior care excellence.
Picture this: marketers weaving through homes, gathering unfiltered insights to fortify client bonds, while outside, the leaves turn and December looms, threatening with its historical spike in client loss. We arm you with proactive marketing arsenals, from contests to educational blitzes, ensuring your services are engraved in the minds of healthcare professionals. We lay out a blueprint for success, from setting audacious goals like securing a new 24-hour client each week to extending client engagements with grace and innovation. All the while, Annette illuminates the tailored approach necessary for elderly care, ensuring each service is as unique as the clients we serve.
As the conversation shifts, we expose you to a variety of ingenious outreach tactics designed to keep your home care brand buzzing in the ears of social workers and case managers. Imagine the smile on a social worker's face as they receive a motivational stress ball or the gratitude when offered a free home safety assessment during National Safe at Home Week. Our personal stories of fostering connections over coffee with case managers will inspire you to inject that personal touch into every professional relationship. Prepare to elevate your home care business, as we share strategies and heartfelt advice that could reshape your future in the industry.
Visit our website at https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
Get Your 11 Free Home Care Marketing Guides: https://bit.ly/homecarerev
it's time to start. Happy friday, everybody. Thank you for joining us. We'll go ahead and get started. Um, it is may 10th. Wow, wild, so val, you are up.
Speaker 2:All righty, so a little housekeeping as we get started here. Lines muted unless you're speaking. Share stories, experiences, any tips that you might have we want you to share. All you have to do is unmute your line or go to the chat and you can put questions and information in there. Ask questions, make recommendations and tell us what you want to know. We do get some regular requests for things, so we're happy to take requests. If there's something you want to learn about or know more about, or we just barely touched on and you need more information, we will happily add it to our slides.
Speaker 1:And the introductions yeah, yeah, so I'm Dawn Fiella. I have been today. I've been in approved senior networks for two years. Yeah, I have a long history in home care, in the trenches of home care close to 20 years. I've been in sales marketing. I've been an operations manager and have helped grow the private pay side of the business. So I'm really happy you're here. I get to still be in home care too, and I love what you're doing day, every single day. I get it and I understand. So thank you for taking care of those seniors across the country. Lisa.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm Lisa Marcella. I've been with the Proof Senior Network for a little over a year and I worked in home care. In every. I wore every single hat imaginable, because you guys know how it is in home care. It is hard to stay in your own lane. I love home care, love that I'm here with you guys. I love what you do and I love being a part of all of that and helping you with whatever you need on this end, annette.
Speaker 4:Okay, hi everybody. I am new to Senior Care Network and I am loving it. I am not new to the senior business. I have over 20 years of experience in home care and marketing and I'm just so glad to join the team in helping with the sales training classes. I most recently worked for a non-medical companion care company that I helped grow from a $1 million yearly business to $4 million. So I'm happy to be here and thanks for joining today.
Speaker 2:And our nurse. Okay, I'm Valerie, I'm a registered nurse and I am the founder and co-owner of Approved Senior Network, and these ladies are the experts. I like the digital side of marketing that's my forte but they are, I mean, amazing All the things they've done in their sales careers. So, if you're going to learn from anybody, these are the folks to learn from. That's it. Oh, how to watch the meetings you missed. I'm still on.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're going to want to watch the meetings that you missed because because this is part three of how to get more 24-hour clients, so you're going to want to do this Now. All you have to do is go to homecaresalesforumcom, add your email address in it's the one we've been sending you the reminders to Check your spam and then whatever was emailed to you as your password is your password, or, if you've already changed it, you might know your password. You might not Just use the forgot your password feature and it will help you. And if you still can't get in, then we will help you through support. So there's also a brand new app that I didn't prepare a slide for. You can download our forum as an app on your phone, so you don't have to go through all this, but anyway, homecaresalesforumcom for now, and I will send out information about the app.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about the app, really excited. Oh my God, so nice. Okay, so when you log into the forum, you're going to see us chatting about stuff, some examples, pictures of stuff other people have done, which is pretty cool. But if you go to learning in the middle see my little arrow there there's discussion, learning and people If you go to learning, you're going to be able to see all the videos from the past, so not all of them, but from 2024. So, starting in January of this year, anything we've talked about so the first two parts of the 24 hour getting more 24 hour clients are in there now and then sometime this weekend, the third part three, this one we're doing today will be in there as well. So please log in and look. If you're on a mobile, if you're looking at this from your mobile device, which you can without the app then the learning tab or whatever, is going to be at the bottom of your screen, I believe. So, anyway, just go to learning. That's good to know.
Speaker 1:Okay, so here we go. We have covered where to market for 24-hour private pay client referrals, how to turn 24-hour private pay referrals into 24-hour clients, and today we're going to talk about ensure you, teach you how to ensure billing stability despite losing a 24-hour client, and Lisa has done some wonderful. I know some of you have already seen May, june, july leave-behinds, but Lisa has done August and they're beautiful. So we will make sure there's enough time to get through all of those All right. So ensuring billing stability despite losing a 24-hour client is the most painful thing you can ever go through in home care to lose a 24-hour client and I know some of you just got that pit in your stomach because that's exactly what it feels like. It is the most painful thing. So we're going to talk about just keeping them and what you can do.
Speaker 3:It's inevitable.
Speaker 1:They go away, and so we're going to just talk about all of that. So communication equals prevention of loss of 24s. Be prepared for it and take action. December, rest in peace. I will get into that. Some of you already know what that is. You should always be looking for 24 hours clients, always in forever. So 24 hour leave behinds. You should be doing those at least quarterly and add this to some of your weekly marketing goals. So we're going to dig into each one of these bullets. That's why I'm not going deep right now. So communication communication equals prevention.
Speaker 1:Spend time communicating with your 24 hour clients. Okay, the thing is, they're the best, right, like they're the best billing, but they can also be the hardest, because you're in there 24, seven. They're the most needy the caregiver's with them for 12 hours straight. Some people do three, eights, so even eight hours straight. It's a long time to be with the person. There are people in my family that I would not want to spend 12 hours a day with. I mean, think about this. It's a lot. There's a lot of reason this could blow. They're just it and they're needy too. So you have to pay high attention to these clients. It's worth it. It's hard to get a 24. So when you get one, you've got to pay a lot of attention to them and communicate with them, and you need to react when things are going down, downhill, going south.
Speaker 1:You might even need a different scheduler or staffer for your bigger jobs. We did that. We took our big jobs Anyone that was. I'm trying to remember 12-hour shifts or more a week. Those were our big jobs. And maybe your big jobs start at 40 hours a week. I don't know what that is, but we had a separate scheduler staffer handling those jobs. Our red carpet jobs is what we call them. They wanted red carpet service. They needed red carpet service because your everyday scheduler is dealing with so much. Right, it's just like, oh, this stuff is going on and then maybe they have a couple of big clients and a bunch of little ones. Those little ones are distracting them and pulling them away from the big ones, and the big ones need communication. So it might make sense for you to pull those big jobs and have somebody that has really good customer service skills that are on high alert. So here's an example If a caregiver is late twice in one week, that's a problem.
Speaker 1:It's a problem and it's easy to just move on. Well, she's there, she made it, I don't have to worry, it'll probably never happen again. You got to react to that because that's enough. That is enough to lose a job over. And someone who's really busy with all these tiny clients and just like buzzing around with them sees this caregiver late twice in a week on the 24. And she's like well, she's there, so that's good, she showed up, that's good and it is good. But that's a red flag. We've got to stop and react to that, which is why you might want to pull those bigger jobs and have a different person covering those, staffing those kinds of jobs and taking care of those kinds of clients. You might also have a different pool of caregivers that are for your red carpet clients. We did that too for a while. The ones that we knew were more dependable were going to show up, who were diehard caregivers. We might even pay them a little bit more. So those are just some things to think about.
Speaker 1:If the client is refusing to bathe or refusing to do the exercises, or arguing with the caregiver every time they show up, that's a problem. You need to react to that. Sometimes it's like well, she got in the door. We're good now. He let her in. He you know he argues every morning, but he let her in. You've got to stop and handle that. Someone may have to come to the home whoever signed that client and say this is my caregiver. Remember when I came and you agreed to service? She's a part of me, we're at the same company. Sometimes they need that. You know, if you do your intro at the beginning of services, that can help with that kind of thing too. But the point here is if there's something rough going on or tardiness or missing or any of those things, you got to just take care of it. You have to react right away and handle it. Don't let it fester and sit, because there's a lot of other home care agencies out there. They probably interviewed other ones when they interviewed you or when you sat down and did the assessment. They're just a phone call away. Their brochure is probably still in their house, so it's not hard to just call another one and replace you.
Speaker 1:Check in and update. So check in with the adult child and update that adult child, probably weekly if they're out of town, especially if they're out of state, if they are involved. If they were at the assessment and they wanted to meet the caregiver and they're very involved. Keep updating them, check in with them, let them know your mom's doing well, she's, you know. She took two showers this week, or three showers. Caregiver says they're getting along great. They went to a movie, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Whatever little update you can get that adult child, that communication is going to mean a lot to them. You're their eyes and ears, especially if they're out of state. So I would do that at least weekly. Some of the adult children are going to check in with you more than once a week and then you're communicating with them. My point here is 24-hour.
Speaker 1:Clients are high maintenance, their family members are high maintenance, the client is high maintenance. The caregivers on those jobs can feel high maintenance because they're handling so many things. So check in with that adult child. And again, because of all the high maintenance stuff, you might need someone else staffing, one person dedicated to your larger clients and we're just continuing on Spend time communicating Again.
Speaker 1:Another way to do that is supervisory visits a pop-in visit, surprise visit. Of course you need to let them know you're going to be doing this when you sign them up. You know you do the assessment. You say we're going to have pop-in visits. We're going to stop in every 30 days or so and just see how things are going. You need kind of their permission to do that, but the caregiver doesn't know you're coming and I think it's important to do pop-in visits on these large jobs.
Speaker 1:You need to make sure the house is clean right. Are they doing the things that they're supposed to be doing? If you walk in and the house is a mess and there's dishes piled high in the sink and you know, and it's a disaster, it's going to end. The job is going to end eventually. So it's important that you're doing some supervised, refilled visits.
Speaker 1:You need to create a process for this. Who's going to do that? Do you have somebody that can do that every month? Who's going to do it? Also, the process with creating a process, with checking in with that adult child weekly who's going to do that? It's important to set a process or it'll never happen. We know how home care is. It's just really busy. There's a lot of balls in the air all day long happened. We know how home care is. It's just really busy. There's a lot of balls in the air all day long. And for the people to remember that to call or check in or do that field visit. It needs to be on a calendar. There needs to be a process attached to it.
Speaker 1:I've always and we went through this we had a meeting, a mastery circle about marketing and commission and where I've worked we tied commission to the clients that we signed and so the larger clients. It was a percentage, the more commission that the marketer made. So if they signed a 24, they had more commission from that client. So now they have an interest, they have a stake in this client staying too and so they can go by and stop in home care agency. You know, I mean that was very uncomfortable. They didn't go with them but they were interviewing other companies when she showed up. So the marketer coming back that's the reason they signed that person got them to sign on the dialed line.
Speaker 1:Yes, I want 24-hour care. There's a relationship there and keeping that relationship going is important. It's important to because they're going to tell the marketer things that maybe they won't tell the scheduler over the phone. You know they're going to show. You know this caregiver is nice and everything, but you know she she's not really keeping up the laundry or whatever it is they're going to. They're going to spill the tea to the marketer and we need the tea. We need to know what's going on in that house. We do, and so the marketer going back is a great idea. Bring them birthday flowers. It's on their birthday. Bring them some birthday flowers to their home. Make them feel special. Again, this is red carpet service. It's expensive, it's not. It's not a cheap. You know, 24 hour care is very expensive. So they're expecting red carpet service and they should get it.
Speaker 1:Communicating with them can help prevent the loss of 24s. So be prepared, take action. So December, and you guys can tell me if you agree, clients just die in December, they just do. I know it's coming. It has happened every year the entire time, and I have, you know, as I'm out marketing my, my assisted living people, that I talked to my independent people, the memory cares. I'm like how's your son says oh, everybody's dying. Yeah, I hate this time of year. So we know that this is coming. I don't know, and that, lisa, is this something? I've talked to other people? I don't know if I've asked you, but did this happen for you too?
Speaker 4:Always December, january, it's just it's. It's just the time. Even when I worked in senior living, it's just the time of year and 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Lisa, did you recognize? Notice this too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's kind of close to like flu season and even the holidays. I think people get a little depressed too. I also wanted to touch on just the talking to the adult children and communicating. Sometimes that's true for, like a fiduciary or a conservator as well, instead of an adult child, if they don't have, you know, family.
Speaker 1:Or a geriatric care manager, right, whoever referred if they're on an ongoing relationship with that, with that client. That's an important yeah, that's a good point. So, knowing that the deaths are coming in December and that's sad I'm not trying to make light of it at all it's really, really sad. It also will affect your billing. So, knowing that that's coming, you need to start marketing hard for 24s in October and November. We have a pumpkin decorating contest in October.
Speaker 1:I know that sounds silly, but it gets you in front of the social workers. You feel close to them. They're texting you pictures of their pumpkins. It's a great way to start this path. You know is in October. That's how long it's going to take you and what you want to do is pad as many 24s as you can, because you know some are going to go, and so in October I'm always going to really hit the field hard for 24s in October and we talked about how to get 24s in part one and part two, so that. But getting in front of them and getting a face-to-face is going to be important and the pumpkin decorating contest is a great way to do that and we start that in early October, 1st of October.
Speaker 3:Yeah, everybody loves the pumpkin decorating.
Speaker 1:It draws a big crowd it does, and I mean I had my, you know, come September. You're going to include me again, right? When are you doing it? When is it starting? I want to be a part of it. You're going to include me, right? So they love it. They absolutely look forward to it every year and they love it. It is a great way to get in front of them, face to face, starting 1st of October, so that you can start padding for what's coming in December, and I've not had a December January where it hasn't happened. So it's better to your billing will be great, it'll be fabulous in October, November, and then it'll drop a little, but it won't hurt as much as it would have if you hadn't padded Any questions.
Speaker 1:Are there questions up there? Are you guys? Oh, we're just talking about. Yeah, it is Looked at the chat. Okay, you should always be on the lookout for 24s. You should be doing leave behinds for 24 hour jobs, at least quarterly, at least quarterly probably more often than that, but at least quarterly.
Speaker 1:The best place to get 24s again is SNF, skilled nursing facilities, rehabs and hospitals. Hospitals can be really hard to get into. I have found smaller hospitals and something that's going on in my territory is rehab hospitals. They're small and they're only in there for rehab and I think some of the hospitals kind of have gotten like thought about hmm, these rehabs you know all these people are just charging to rehab. So what if we were a rehab hospital? Then they wouldn't go to a SNF, they could just go into our rehab part of our hospital. It's usually a separate building, maybe in the same parking lot, same campus, but I think we have three or four of them now and when the first one opened we were first in there and they were referring to us and we didn't have to go through all the stuff you have to go through for like a regular hospital, maybe because it was new, I don't know. But it was breaking ground and we were there Soon as the door opened, grand opening.
Speaker 1:We, you know here we are, and they did refer to us, so I'm not sure if it's because it was brand new or if it's because it's a rehab hospital. They let us come in and talk to the social workers and do lunch and learns and everything. Workers and do lunch and learns and everything. So you should always be on the lookout for 24. So go back and watch the recordings that we did for part one and part two. But these are the leave behinds that are going to help you to get 24 hour jobs. Now you can do a whole lunch and learn around what happens after discharge. The social workers don't know what happens after discharge and the patients don't know what's going to happen after discharge. So this large one is for them to hand to their patients so that they understand that when they get home, the first few days are going to be difficult, harder than how they're feeling right now in the SNP, and the reasons are listed here. This one you can attach to a bag or a goodie or something when you're out and about for the social worker or the case manager in a hospital. So here these are two great leap behind that are going to help you to get 24 hour jobs. We help reduce readmissions. This is a great one all year long, but especially December, january, because they are getting hit from their corporate offices with your readmission rate is too high. We need to get it down, please get it down. And so when you're coming along talking about readmission, they're like oh, they get it, they get it, I didn't. Okay, I'm going to use them. So this is another great lead behind.
Speaker 1:You could do an in-service around this as well. Discharge package and I'm not going to go into great detail because I already did this in the part one, part two, so go back and watch those recordings. But just calling it a discharge package, you don't have to do a flat rate if you don't want to. The math behind the flat rate is in the other recordings. If you missed it, go back and watch it. But the fact that you have a discharge package, you're speaking their language. They feel like you understand what a discharge is and their day to day and what they're going through. And you've got the Canva and Google link for all of these. You can go in and change them and make them yours. But all of these are great leave behinds and handouts to remind them that you provide 24 hour care.
Speaker 1:I think I mentioned before I was getting 24s all the time from this one social worker and she like kind of just quit and I asked her about I go, has your census changed? Are you taking care of different types of patients? And she goes no. And I said, oh, because you haven't had a 24 hour discharge in a while. We had a really good relationship. She goes, oh, I'm using 24 hour home care now because they specialize in 24 hour home care.
Speaker 1:I about died. I couldn't. I mean I don't know what my face looked like. I'm not good at hiding my thoughts from my face, but I'm not a good poker face person. I'm sure my face was in awe. I went just shock. So good name of a company 24-hour home care. I mean you know she thought that's where all my 24-hour jobs should go, because that's what they do. So tell them you specialize in 24 hour home care. If you want 24 hour jobs, they need to know that you specialize in that and you've done it before and you do a great job at it. Lisa, did you have something to add? I saw you unmuted.
Speaker 3:No, I just was. Yeah, what a great name, right, 24 hour home care. But yeah, you've got to tell them what you do and all of the things you do, and keep reminding them constantly.
Speaker 1:You do. They need constant reminders. So going out with these lead but this is a lot of this will get you through more than this is quarterly right here, and then you can use all of the other lead behinds that that we create throughout the year too. All right. The other thing you can do is add the goal to your weekly marketing goals. So these are the goals that we've had. I've shared these several several times.
Speaker 1:For your marketing person that's out in the field, 40 to 50 stops a week, eight to 10 daily. Out of those 40 to 50, 15 to 20 of those are face-to-face. From that you're going to get five to seven referrals. They're not all going to probably turn into jobs, but your booking ratio for assessments should be 70% around 70%. Signing ratio should be about 90%. You'll get about three to four signed jobs from your referral sources a week. Eventually, this doesn't happen overnight. You could add this as a goal one signed 24-hour client every week. It's definitely an option.
Speaker 1:Then your marketer will be or you marketers that are here will be trying every week to get a 24. You may not get one every week. You might get one every month or a couple of months or something like that and these I don't mean like one that's going to last forever and ever. We know that a lot of them are temporary because it's expensive. It's an expensive service, but they could shoot for it and try to get a 24. If you're in with the sniffs, you're there all the time and they're not. You know a high Medicaid building. There's a good chance you'll get some and you're. And you're also educating these social workers about what happens after discharge and that they need some eyes on them for a while. And 24-hour care, maybe the first day or two. That's going to help you to turn those into 24s.
Speaker 1:We talked about all of that in the other recordings. Turn those into 24s. We talked about all of that in the other recordings. And you'll also get some signed jobs from your website, caringcom, agingcom. You should be also getting some signed jobs from there, but you could add this as one of those goals. Maybe it's one signed 24 every month, or two a month or something, but either way, adding that to the goals and looking at it every week will help you to get some 24s as well.
Speaker 1:So, to summarize, you will lose some 24s. It's going to happen. They're not permanent most of the time. To begin with, have the mindset this is the mindset that I shared with my marketers and it worked for us for years Replace what you have and then some. We have seven 24s right now. They may last a couple weeks. I'm going to just always have the mindset of replacing what I have and adding another. Replace and add, replace and add. We lost two this week. Okay, I need to get three this week, because that's how you grow. If you're constantly replacing what you're losing and adding, then that's how you grow.
Speaker 1:Give them red carpet service. Pull out all the stops, all the stops for your 24s. We would give them calendars in January, you know, at Christmas time we'd bring them poinsettias. On their birthday, we brought them flowers. The marketers were stopping by to see how they were doing. Maybe bring them a coffee. We really, really treated them well because we wanted them to stay and you know they didn't expect all of that. But for what they're paying, they are going to expect some red carpet service.
Speaker 1:That's why I say they're a little bit more high maintenance. You have the ones that are high maintenance physically, but you also have the ones that are high maintenance mentally. Right, I mean, we had a 24 that just wanted us to just take her to the grocery store, take her to the movies, take her to lunch, and we thought this would be a fun job. But she was really, really wanting you know, a lot, a lot. She expected a lot, and so, while it was fun for the caregiver to be able to go to all those places, she, she really wanted an assistant managing everything. So just that, that's a piece of it. Sometimes too, annette and Lisa, do you guys have anything to add? I think we're going to get into the leave-behinds after this and does anybody have?
Speaker 1:any questions too, Go ahead.
Speaker 4:Annette, I was just going to add in too. It's true, a lot of the 24-7s are temporary, but then every so often, every four or five, they continue with you. And also, when they want to end services, I would always try to say, before we just end it, right now, let's try and cut back. Maybe let's cut back the day shift hours, let's keep the overnights for a couple more weeks, and then they realize they still need a little help and you may end up just having, you know, four hours a day, but try to keep them a little longer and maybe as a you know, a permanent client with just less hours, that's really a good idea.
Speaker 1:When someone wanted to quit their 24s, I would talk to the caregiver how are they doing at night? Are you helping them a lot? And then when you go back to talk to the client or the adult child, you have ammunition. You can say I talked to your overnight caregivers, your mom's overnight caregivers. They are up there with her. They're helping her to the bathroom. She gets up four times a night. Like we are not recommending that you drop the overnight, that's a really good point, annette.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, and it's true. The caregivers would be like, oh my gosh, she needs us. Are like, oh my gosh, she needs us. Are you kidding me? So you know, cause they're with them every day and they see it.
Speaker 1:So you know, just to try and hang on maybe it's not going to be 24 seven, but you can have them in some some sort of way. Yeah, and usually it's the overnights that need to stay for a while, from what I my experience, Lisa, did you have anything to add to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just feel like a lot of the times when a caregiver is with them so much that they also do spoil the client. They bring flowers on their birthdays and they do all these things. I remember one time we had a caregiver that her and her client dressed the same, wore the same lipstick, went and got their nails done the same color and it was just the cutest and little things like that. They just become so close, so it is, they do really spoil them, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good, a good point. Anybody have any questions about the 24s, and even from the last? I mean, if you haven't watched the recording, you'll need to watch it. But if you have seen all of them, do you have any questions about 24s or how to get them?
Speaker 3:No, are we good? You know another thing too sorry, if you're thinking of ways to keep them happy to outside of the box. I know we had a couple of people that we actually went grocery shopping for and like build them or build their you know whomever was in charge of the billing but instead of having them, you know, pay, you know, upfront, cause maybe they had an issue with. I don't want to do this. You know how some people are. They're very, very picky on who. Who can do what, who can touch a card, or you know we would do gift cards but we would do the monthly shopping and then just bill the person and that worked out really well. But you have to keep keep an inventory too. And it's very like hand we used to call it handle with pear but yeah, yeah, definitely, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, lisa, I'm gonna move into the leave behind.
Speaker 3:You are up okay, yay, leave behind. Okay. So this one, this may leave behind. It is, uh, older americans month and um, this is where we take out those larger print books for like word searches and things like that, just kind of like brain games. And you know, I think that this year's older americans month was all about social connections and, you know, not being isolated.
Speaker 3:I think there was a lot of that during covid, maybe not so much now, but people I think got into that kind of groove. But so this you would take out to and you would talk to, you know, different SNFs or senior centers or whatever, and make sure that you know this was an okay thing to do. Bring a couple of books, make sure that you you know I was thinking to get like a little sheet of stickers, you know, maybe like it's like 30 stickers per sheet, and print out your information so that you can slap that on each of those little books and then take this flyer out and, just you know, put it on top of those books. Make sure you do connect with the social worker or someone. They may have. You take some to an activity director or whatever, but make sure you do connect with the social worker on this and you know that they know what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Sure you do connect with a social worker on this and, um, you know that they know what it's all about, and at least stephanie winzie said I've taken these out last week and this week activities directors loved books. Yay, we're so happy to hear that. Awesome thank you for sharing?
Speaker 3:yeah, definitely um, and you know all the links are there too. So may is also um, skin cancer awareness Month, so this is the cutest idea. I love these little stickers that go with this, but just take this out because you want to give them. You know, right now I think it's starting to warm up and people are doing like starting to do luau's at assisted livings and the sniffs and things like that, where they get a little bit of sunshine or they're doing gardening or whatever. So protect your skin from too much SPF fun in the sun. And the next slide shows you the stickers. They're really, really cute. So if you have these, maybe, like I would cut them. Maybe this way, cut the sheets out unless you want to give a whole sheet to someone but just like, cut so they get one of each of the shapes and just include that in in a giveaway. The little, the little sunscreens as well. They're like a single use or maybe like a couple different uses, but these little stickers are so cute. You put them on your skin and if you've had too much sun, too many UV rays, it's basically an indicator. It changes color and tells you to put on some more sunscreen. So I think those are the cutest ever and everyone should have those when they go outside. Yeah, they're great, Okay ever. And everyone should have those when they go outside. Yeah, they're great, okay.
Speaker 3:National Hydration Day is June 23. And you know, water is life. You add the flavor. So literally we're giving them water and flavor packets and we just want people to stay hydrated. It's getting warmer again, as I mentioned, and people don't take the time to drink their water, especially if they're out in the field or they're just running around like crazy. So you could do lead to you know a social worker, nurses that you love, or you could take out a whole case with a couple of different boxes of this, these little flavor packets. There's 50 individually wrapped, so super cool. I think that just taking this, showing them that you care and that they're getting you know wrapped so super cool.
Speaker 3:I think that just taking this, showing them that you care and that they're getting you know hydrating and they're taking care of themselves Alzheimer's and brain awareness month, you want to take these out and let those social workers know. Or let's say it's a memory care and they're waiting for placement or something like that, and so they need someone to be there with. You know their patient or client or loved one and you want to let them know that your caregivers are skilled and trained in. You know Alzheimer's and brain awareness. They can help with. You know brain games. They can help with all different things exercising whatever it is that they are trained to understand. You know anyone who's combative or doesn't want to do things for a certain reason anything that comes with you know Alzheimer's and anything else going on there with dementias. And so here again these paperback brain games, word searches, crossword puzzles these are just really cute. They're extra large so, you know, easier on the eyes. And then you have your standard silicone bracelets that I think you know are typically given out during this time, but I just thought these are really cute. And these are the same books that we are giving out for the older Americans month, so you can like. You probably will have extras, so you can just repurpose them here too. All right, this is my favorite.
Speaker 3:National Lobster Day is June 15th. I don't know if anyone cares about that, but it's a great play on words because you can say call us now for snappy discharges like little lobster claws, and then you know you're getting home in time for lobster dinner. You want these social workers to know that you can get their patients home safely and quickly. It's not a burden at all. You know, put it on our plate. We'd love to take from you and and be able to keep them safe at home. And then you know you can pair this with you know I just play on words snapped Cheez-Its. I think this is really great because you know it's just a little different. And then these harvest snaps for a little bit of a healthier option. But you could pair the two or give a couple and you know they'll have a snack for the day. Sometimes people don't take a break.
Speaker 1:I love this one yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's my favorite Celebrate Father's Day. So we're not only giving this to fathers or anyone else, we're just celebrating Father's Day. Like Dawn said, if she got this she would just re-gift it. I would, and I would too, or I might eat the. I might eat the root beer barrels, but whatever. But you know, I thought this would go, this would go really well. Dad's root beer barrels and, you know, bottle opener key chains really cute. Um, you know, just something cute to have.
Speaker 1:Even if they re-gift it, it's still saving them time.
Speaker 3:Like they don't have to go get this. So, yeah, amen to that, amen to that, love it, love it. Um, and now let's see, I think we have june. Okay, next slide, july. Uh, it's cool to care, because it so is.
Speaker 3:Um, I wanted to pair these, pair these with some, um, they don't need to be frozen. Uh, you want to actually take them out, not frozen, because you don't want them. You know, uh, leaking out everywhere. But you want to take a couple of these and attach this here, put a little ribbon through it with a hole punch, and take some water pops. They can keep them in their freezer and have them later on. Um, you know, I just think it's a really cute idea, super cute. Um, all right, celebrate our independence since 1776. So I just, you know it, it is Independence Day and I just want to recognize that and take out.
Speaker 3:I found these really cute lapel pens with the flag, and then these little handheld American flags. I had one of these forever. I kept it in my, you know, pencil holder or my pen holder on my desk. I just loved it. So, and I think that people really appreciate these two. And then we do have some Canadian clients. I saw one logged in actually today, so I wanted to do this for you guys too. Um, because I did want to. I want you guys to know we love you too and I'm thinking of you. And, uh, stay strong and free. Happy Canada day. And then we did find some Canadian flag lapel pins as well Kind of the same thing, but the little flags I just thought was really cute, super cute. And to include you guys too, okay, we have a couple different. What was that?
Speaker 4:No, I was just saying thanks, I'm the Canadian. Yay, I know You're the one I saw James Hello.
Speaker 3:Hi, hi, that, that's like I know you're the one I saw, james hello, hi, hi, hi, good, good, I'm glad, I'm glad you're here, um, yeah, I always enjoy your um, I guess you call it podcast.
Speaker 4:It's really really interesting and informative. Really I enjoy it thank you, james yeah lots of information perfect.
Speaker 3:Thank you for the feedback, love it no problem okay, so august leave behind.
Speaker 3:it is it is national wellness month, so I have a couple different slides actually for that and different aspects of wellness, but this one just remember to take care of yourself, reach research shows self-care helps manage stress and promote happiness. It really does. You have to take some time for yourself and just take this out and let the social workers or whomever know that you know you do care and it's a reminder for them, right? And so that's what this little string is for. I love this. This was actually a Don Fiala idea and I really loved this string. It was just the cutest thing ever.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember something. Yeah, string, it was just the cutest thing ever.
Speaker 3:I think I learned that from Sesame Street to be honest.
Speaker 3:But I wanted to put in these little. There's like 30 pairs of these. It's just really cute. And then you guys might these might look familiar the little shower steamers. But I just thought if you had extras we could repurpose that. Here too. I want to make sure that everything I'm giving you is you're able to use all of the products and, you know, use them again and again too. If you bought extra Prescription for self-care, again for national wellness month, this I just came up with this idea and I just thought it was really cute.
Speaker 3:It's going to pair with something really cute you'll see in a second. But you know, take a 10 minute break, preferably outside, take a deep breath, pop open a capsule for maximum wellness. You know it really energizes, it puts you in an excellent mood, increased happiness, and then call Valerie at ASN home care for refills. But I felt these really cute positive capsules and they have like this cute little. You pop them open and there's a cute little like motivational, just positive message there for you. And I think that if you could just, you know, put a couple in this little bag here. It came with different, different colors here or anything that you have like, maybe three in there. You can add something else too, but I just think it's a really cute. It was just a really cute idea, and I like the little.
Speaker 1:So, lisa, it's a capsule. And then, inside, a little message rolls out with a statement yes, yes, you pop it open and you.
Speaker 3:it's almost like like a fortune cookie in a way, but it has a. It's just a different vibe, right? So I just I just thought it was super, super cute.
Speaker 4:It is. I love this idea, adorable, adorable.
Speaker 3:Love it. And then I did want to touch on exercise because I think that we all kind of skip it at times. And so the importance of exercise. We're promoting health and wellness. You know it's good for your body, your mental, your social, emotional, moral, spiritual, and it's all about you there. So, but you do want to let people know to the social workers, nurses, whomever you're talking to, that we're trained in guiding patients through their prescribed home exercise regimen. You know, we want them to know that, okay, we're not PT, but I can guide them through those exercises, that they need to stay safe, healthy and mobile, and so, yeah, so love that. And then you know, I was trying to come up with something and I found these really cute motivational stress balls with bracelets. I didn't picture the bracelets here, but the stress balls are just really cute. You could give these out to the social workers. You could give it out to clients, to caregivers, what have you? I'm using the same little baggies just for reference, so you can see what it might look like, but yeah, I think it's really cute. You can pair it with lots of different little things. Love that Cute.
Speaker 3:All right, now out of wellness month, but National Safe at Home Week. It's the last week of August. Let's light the way you know. Call now for a free home safety assessment. That could be a way in, you know, just a home safety assessment. That could be a way in, you know, just a home safety assessment. What does this look like? Do I need DME? What do I need? Can you tell me what I need? You know, do you have resources to? You know, add these things in.
Speaker 3:So we did this last year too, and I saw some other really cute lights. They're a little more expensive but that you could like attach to, like a stairway or, you know, to light each step and things like that. You can really play with this idea. I just, um, uh, just wanted to pull these. You know, these are, these are quick, use little flashlights that you can attach to your your um key chain, or even those you know, those retractable pens that we're always doing. You know something like that, um, so you have it uh, close by. But, yeah, just wanted to show that one too.
Speaker 3:This one came from Annette had an idea she used to use back in back in the day and it was like text me for coffee, so, and we'll talk about you know how to help, you know, percolate each other's businesses or what, what have you, and so you know, get to know each other like a little one-on-one networking. So I just turned it into something and I turned it into this little flyer and I think this would be so cute if you could even pair it with like a cute envelope, maybe even wrap the envelope with a little like, I don't know, like a gold ribbon or something I don't know. You know, the sky's the limit here. But it's redeemed by text only coffee time on me, uh, redeemed by text only to set a date. And then you know text this number for Valerie coffee or tea. It's on me, valid 2024, trying to make it look kind of like a coupon, but I think this is a really cute idea.
Speaker 3:Um, and you just take this out. I don't, there's nothing to give with it. This is the gift and they're going to text you and you're going to have a meeting and you know, buy them a coffee or a tea or what have you. I thought this was really it's a great way to get to texting status with a social worker and that's the main. That's. I feel like that's. The main takeaway from this is that you'll be on texting status with that social worker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everything changes once you're on texting status with a social worker. It's just a game changer. So every time we do the pumpkin decorating contest or any of the things you know for the large print books, we're asking them to text us. Because once you're on a texting basis, it does seem to change the relationship. When they have a last minute discharge and they have to call everybody else, but they can text you, you just hear that person when they've shared their cell phone number with you. I don't know how to explain it, but it's a game changer for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I wanted to add to that when sometimes I would fold this up and put it in a little note card when I was sending my thank you note for the referral and I really did have people text me and we set up coffee dates so I mean, not everybody does it, but you know they don't get something like this that often and to get out of the office and then you get on a better level and, like Lisa said, then we have their cell number. Did anybody?
Speaker 1:ever want you to just like, bring them a coffee and you could sit there at their sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so so you know they're so busy sometimes. One time I you know I could stop at starbucks and I could bring you the coffee. We don't have to meet out, you know, because a lot of times they don't have time, but sure sure, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:I would definitely bring them a coffee. If that's, if that's what it took to be with them, I'm be hired I'll be covered in black.
Speaker 4:Son of a bitch.
Speaker 1:Oh, someone needs to mute themselves, okay, um, is there any more? That is it, we are done. We got done quickly. I went kind of fast because I knew we had a lot of leave-behinds. Does anybody have any questions? Um, about 24s or about any of the leave-behinds? Have you had something? Great success with one of the leave-behinds that you've used?
Speaker 1:Kimberly said I had a coffee date in the hospital Starbucks just yesterday with 15 of the case managers. Wow, way to go. That's awesome. This is Kim in our class, isn't it? Yeah, oh, kim, look at you. I. That is awesome. Way to go, kim, very happy. I hope it went. I'm sure that it went really, really well. That's a brilliant idea. They have a Starbucks in the hospital. Just that's easy for them. They get to go to Starbucks, but they also don't have to get in their car and drive anywhere. That's, that's awesome. Anybody else have anything to share? We're all okay and everybody knows how to get to all of this. So we're going to send you the slides after with the video. It'll probably be this weekend sometime and all of these links are hyperlinks, so in the PDF slide that you get, so you can go right in and you can change in Canva, or you can change in Google anything that you want to.
Speaker 3:Yes, and please, please, be sure to send us photos of anything that you guys use. I'd love to see the ideas that you take from this and turn into your, your own ideas. Yes, I'd love, love, love to see that.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to show them this is. These are the little guys, things that are rolled up in the capsules, so they do. They're kind of like little fortune cookies. I love it. I think this is such a clever. They're not going to get anything else like this Part of it is just being clever and standing out too. So this is, this is really cute. So you give them a few capsules in a bag and yeah, that's great. Yeah, all right. Well, thank you everybody. It was great to see you again. We'll see you in a couple of weeks and next time, annette, what is it we're?
Speaker 4:discussing geriatric. We are going to talk about how to work with geriatric care managers, and at one time I would usually have at least 15 cases with geriatric care managers and they're known for giving you really big cases. So we're going to kind of talk a little bit about how to connect with them, what they do, who they serve. So that's going to be May 24th and then June 7th we are going to have a special person speaking with Valerie, a geriatric care manager. Her name is Kathy Jacobs, so it's going to be a two-part series. It's going to be great. I hope you can all make it.
Speaker 1:I'm excited about the geriatric care managers. I had a couple. I never had 15 clients for one, so it sounds like Annette is really special here. This is a specialty, you know. Everybody kind of hones in on their own kind of thing, so the geriatric manager is a really good one and I'm glad Annette's going to be able to do that to us. Okay, everybody. Well, thank you so much. Have a great weekend and we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4:All right, Bye everybody, Bye everybody.
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