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 & Community Engagement: Interview with Christina Ramos, Successful Home Care Marketer
How can engaging your community redefine your approach to home care marketing? Tune in to this enlightening episode where we welcome Christina Ramos, who shares her inspiring journey of initiating impactful community fundraising events during the COVID-19 pandemic. We begin with some essential housekeeping notes, invite our listeners to participate actively, and introduce our experienced hosts, Dawn Fiala and Annette Ziegler, alongside Valerie Van Booven, who sets the stage for today’s insightful session.
We then dive into the practical tools you need to excel in home care sales, highlighting the Kollab app available on both Android and iPhone. Discover how to access the 2024 Continuum Sales Mastery Circle courses and resources. Plus, we discuss innovative ideas for leave-behinds tailored for National Wellness Month, emphasizing the importance of self-care for healthcare professionals. These personalized tokens of appreciation help build stronger relationships with referral sources and showcase the thoughtful side of your business.
Christina Ramos joins us to share her heartwarming and creative community engagement strategies—including delivering 5,000 Krispy Kreme donuts to healthcare heroes and organizing memorable events like indoor pickleball showcases. Learn how these consistent, annual events not only foster joy but also enhance community recognition and strengthen professional bonds. We wrap up with insights into managing event planning and its positive impact on caregiver recruitment and retention, ensuring your organization stands out as a desirable place to work. Join us for a session brimming with fresh perspectives and actionable advice!
Visit our website at https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
Get Your 11 Free Home Care Marketing Guides: https://bit.ly/homecarerev
Today we are so lucky to have a special guest with us, and so I'm going to go through the housekeeping stuff, sort of you know, give her a few minutes to get on here and then we'll go from there. It's very exciting. So, housekeeping, everybody, keep your lines muted. Share stories, experiences, tips. Be sure to ask our guests questions if you'd like she's very sweet. Make recommendations if you guys, if there are things that you want us to talk about, you want Annette to research or bring up or tell you her experience, or Dawn or anybody, let us know what those things are so we can help and tell us what you want to know. But we definitely want you to interact and talk to our guests. Today I'll be talking to her, but we want you to talk to know. But we definitely want you to interact and talk to our guests. Today I'll be talking to her, but we want you to talk to her. So, introductions, dawn Fiala, you can go first. Hi, I'm.
Speaker 2:Dawn Fiala. I've been with the Proof Senior Network for over two years now. I have a background in home care, sales operations, recruiting, retention. I've kind of done it all and I think that's pretty typical in home care. We wear lots of hats. I'm probably best, my best. I guess skill would be growing the private pay side of the business. I was able to not by myself but with a great team get to 3.5 million in just under four years in private pay billing. We're really happy you're here today. I know Christina is going to share a wealth of information. I'm really excited that she's here today and we get to listen to her and her expertise. And Lisa is out today, so we'll move on to Annette.
Speaker 3:Okay, hi everybody. My name is Annette Ziegler and I am one of the sales training experts here at ASN. I have had over 20 years experience in marketing and senior care. My most recent was almost eight years in a non-medical companion care agency and I was a community liaison, and I, too, helped grow our business from one million to four million with all the proven sales tactics that we have in our sales training course. So I'm really happy to be here. I'm glad you guys are here today. We have a great topic. I can't wait to listen to Christine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm Valerie Van Boeven. I'm the co-owner of Approved Senior Network. I'm a registered nurse by trade. I do not actively use that. I don't touch people anymore is what I usually say, and I also tell people usually I'm 200 years old and nurse years is sort of like dog years for every year that you're a nurse. Oh wait, it ages you like 10 years at a time, I don't know.
Speaker 1:So today I was kind of, I guess, tasked with figuring out you know what are some of the things that we haven't talked about yet, or maybe we've talked about them, but we could use a new perspective. So that's why I'm kind of doing this one today, and I think I did the one last week on LinkedIn, but I knew we needed a good guest speaker who could show you guys how it's done. So that's what we're going to do today. All right, oh, it's me. I'm flipping the slides, all right. So let's talk about how to watch the meetings that you missed. So I don't have this on the screen, but I want you guys to know that any podcast platform that you might listen to, so if you are out in your car or you have a long drive back and forth to work, if you listen to music or podcasts or whatever. Every single one of these that we do is posted on every podcast platform. You can think of Apple, spotify, google, um, anyway. So if you have a special one that you like, the search you should do is home care marketing. If you, if you do home care or home care marketing and sales and you'll find this sort of purpley thing and you'll find either dawn's face or my face or some combo, maybe look for that and you'll find our podcast's face or my face or some combo. Maybe Look for that and you'll find our podcast and you can see all the episodes are posted. We do that because we know that you guys oftentimes are wanting to listen to or watch things that you didn't get to attend live. So that's why we do that. If you want to see, want to watch the videos or interact with all of us, we have a very active sales forum Home Care Sales Support Forum. So if you go to homecaresalesupportforumcom, put in your username, which is your email address, that we've been sending all of these notes to reminders and that, and then, if you don't know your password, if you haven't logged in, and then, if you don't know your password, if you haven't logged in there before, you don't know your password, just use forgot password feature and it'll help you reset your own password. And if that fails and you just can't figure it out, send us a note through support support at asnsupportcom and we will help you. No problem, all right, this is what it looks like when you go to the form.
Speaker 1:Now this is a desktop view, but there's also an app that you can download. I don't know if we put that on here. We should. It's called the Colab app, k-o-l-l-a-b. K-o-l-l-a-b is the app. You can get it on Android or iPhone, and then you want to search for us. We need to put the directions in the slide deck so people can find it. Anyway, this is the desktop.
Speaker 1:So once you're in the forum and you're, you can see this. You go to learning that little tab at the top If you're on your iPhone or your cell phone, then it's at the bottom, I believe and once you click on learning, you're going to see any courses that you're enrolled in. But really the only one you need is 2024, continuum Sales Mastery Circle and you click on that and boom, you can see. You can see all of the episodes or all of the meetings we've had since January 2024. We try to name them something that you can since January 2024. We try to name them something that you can you know, see or you can like kind of make a decision as to whether you want to watch that, so you know what's in it. And also, when you click on one of these wait, oh no, I didn't do that when you click on one of these and open it up, the video's there and also the PDF of the slides that we created to give out to all of you. Now, those are emailed to you pretty quickly, but if you want to download the slides from inside of there because all the links are live and I think that's part of what you're looking for is the links to all the handouts and things like that. So that definitely is all in there for you, all right.
Speaker 1:So today do we have Christine yet? Is she here yet? No, no, christine, okay. So Christine said she was going to be a couple minutes late, so what time is it? Oh, it's 1208. She should be here anytime, all right.
Speaker 1:So what we're going to do is interview Christina Ramos and I'll just do some introductions and then, if we need to, we can talk about lead behinds until she gets here. That's a good idea, but I'll do a little introduction of her Touching Hearts at Home, gainesville. This is who she. This is her home care agency and she's part of that with her whole family. Her mom and dad started this Ruben and Rose and the reason they started it is because of Nana, who's right here in the middle. I'm not going to talk too much more about that, but that's Christina on the right hand side there. So Christina is the daughter of Ruben and Rose and she is a fabulous marketer. So since she's not quite here yet, let's talk about handouts. I'm going to scroll forward here. Let's talk about leave behinds. So we usually take that wait till the end to do this, but this works out just fine. So who wants to talk about leave behinds? I think Annette or Dawn. Do you want to do it? Yeah, ok.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to do it. Ok, so for August, august is National Wellness Month and, as you guys know, if you've been watching us for any time at all or if you are in our sales training program, you really need to have a good two to three leave-behinds a month or maybe in order to go see your referral sources every eight to 10 days. One face-to-face a month per referral source and the others are leave-behinds. So you have to have things outside of brochures, right? You have to have things outside of your business cards. So we try to supply you with some great creative things to go out there and leave behind, because you're not going to get a face-to-face and you shouldn't expect a face-to-face every single every eight to 10 days. So August is National Wellness Month. Remember to take care of yourself. Research shows self-care helps manage stress and promotes happiness. So you've got your Canva link and you've got your Google Docs link here you can go in and swap out the logo, contact information in Google, and if you want to swap out colors and maybe the font and what it says, you can do that in Canva. Next slide Valerie, I'm not running the slides, it's weird. Okay, and with that, so you can always take those little leave-behinds, poke a hole in the top corner and put it a ribbon through it and tie it to a bag, and then inside the bag you can put things. And so, because it's wellness month, we've got some shower steamers, we've got some eye masks. The string is like just cute because you're tying it around the finger. I would probably use that string to tie the leaf behind, because it kind of goes with the picture on the leaf behind. So we're just reminding them to take care of themselves. Again, you want to go from being a resource to your social worker, to your independent living, assisted living, to a partner, and so there's lots of ways to do that. We get into that in the training program. But a good way to do it too, and a piece of getting to do that, is just letting them know you care about them as a person. Right, they're in a hard job. I've actually had a social worker say I wish I could have a catheter because like she couldn't even get up and go to the bathroom. Like it's just crazy. It's busy all day long, and so we're letting them know we want you to take care of yourself. Okay, next slide To go along with that National Wellness Month prescription for self-care you must take a 10-minute break, perfectly outside, take a deep breath, pop open one capsule for maximum relief.
Speaker 2:You're probably thinking capsule, what are you talking about? So, again, you've got the Canva and Google Doc. So, valerie, we go to the next one. And these, this capsules, this little bottle of capsules, the capsules when you open them, they have these sayings in them. They're kind of like a fortune cookie and you get a little tag inside the fortune cookie. And so putting a couple of those in one of these like gingham drawstring bags for wellness month is a great, a great thing to do as well. And so I thought these were so cute. Lisa found this and I just think they're really, really cute and we're telling them to take a capsule. Really, they're opening it and getting a positive statement with the capsule, all right.
Speaker 2:Next slide the importance of exercise, promoting health and wellness. Still, we're still in the health and wellness. We like to tie our leave-behinds to what we do as a business also, and so the importance of exercise. We're trained in guiding patients through their prescribed home exercise regimen. Call Valerie today. Again, you've got the Google doc and you've got the Canva link here so that you can come in and make this document your own and to go with that. With Amazon, we have some stress balls, there's some bracelets that come with the stress balls, and so this could be a really good lead behind. Again, we're just trying to make that connection with them and make sure they're taking care of themselves and remembering to do that during wellness month in August.
Speaker 2:All right, next slide New York Valley. Okay, august is also. Oh. National Safe at Home Week is the last week of August. Let's light the way. Call now for a free home safety assessment. Sometimes, if we can't get in and you know, you've got a social worker saying this guy really needs home care and I just can't get him to agree to it. Sometimes offering to do a free home safety assessment is a great way to get you in the door and look at the home, and I know you guys have all been to lots of homes. There's extension cords running across the living room with throw rugs over the top. It can be really unsafe, and so sometimes people just need a little assistance in letting you come in so you can talk to them about that, and it may end there. It may be that you go in there. You do the safety check and all is good Down the road. They'll remember that you did that. To go with this, we have key chains that light up because we're lighting the way. So this is a great lead behind for August. August, another lead behind. You could do this anytime.
Speaker 2:Annette used this in her past life as a home care rep, a community liaison, coffee time on me, redeemed by text, only to set a date Coffee or tea, it's on me, we can add, you can add on here, I will bring it to you. If you think they're not gonna have time to go do coffee, a lot of them don't. The idea here is that they're texting you. If you can get on a texting basis with your referral sources, especially those social workers in SNIPS, if they can text you when they have a quick discharge versus having to call other people, it just puts you on another level with your referral sources. This was a very good great handout for Annette. It brought her a lot of referral, got that connection going.
Speaker 1:All right, next slide, Valerie. Hey, August is really tough, so take these, because there's not a lot to celebrate in August.
Speaker 2:It's like that is true. That is true. And remember, we create these leave-behinds for you in one face-to-face a month with your referral sources, and the rest are usually leave-behinds. We usually will create a leave-behind that is going to cause a face-to-face every month for you to help you get them to come out and talk to you. That coffee is a great one for August. September is fall. Right, it's the beginning of the fall. It is also fall prevention month. Just like these socks, our services can help prevent falls. So the next slide we have the grip socks and I've used this leap behind for years and they love it. They love how clever it is and it's fall and we're preventing falls. Um, they usually will give these to their patients, you can.
Speaker 2:We ordered socks from China and had our logo across the toe. Um ordered thousands of them, Um, and they went over really well. The social was like can I have like five pair? I've got patients in here and they don't like the, the, the socks in the hospital, or they don't like the socks. Can we have more? Absolutely, you can have more. So we even put the phone number under the logo. So that's an option too. I mean, we gave you a link for Amazon.
Speaker 2:But you know, next September you don't have time to order from China now, Probably it's probably. Well, maybe you do, I'm not sure, but it's a great, they love the socks. Okay, Next one September, leave behind this is they'll get you that face-to-face. It is rehab week, September 16th through the 22nd. Call now to schedule your ice cream social. You could do this in PT offices. You can do this in skilled nursing facilities because they're doing rehab. You can do this in the back in their break room, just for the staff. You can opt to do it for the SNF if you feel that you want to do that for everybody there. Be careful because they may all say, yes, let's do it.
Speaker 2:And you don't have time to do 100. So think about it carefully. Reward those that are giving you referrals. It can help you break in to get in front of somebody face to face. And we thought ice cream cups that you could order. I would probably tie that leaf behind around an ice cream scooper just to make it really stand out. I'm hoping they're going to come out and see me when I leave that, but if not, I'm going to see them at the ice cream social. So that's another way to get in front of everybody.
Speaker 2:Inspiring Generations National Assisted Living Week is September 8th through the 14th. This is their theme the Assisted Living National Association. This is their theme. The Assisted Living National Association this is their theme. So we are using their theme. Inspiring Generations celebrate the individuals who live and work in assisted living. It's just a blank statement about like, let's just celebrate you and you've got your link so you can make this your own. We have these really cute jars with the solar light up strings that go inside of it. Inspire means to fill someone with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. So we thought this was creative and fun and really feels, you know, fits the theme here.
Speaker 2:Next one we also have you could order from the National Assisted Living Association. They have their own pins and put those in little drawstring bags and then they will have a pin that they're wearing during that week out. This ties to the fact that you can get them discharged quickly. It sets that tone of now, now, now, and they get to a place the social workers where they think someone's discharging Friday and now it's going to be Tuesday and they're scrambling for help. If they've seen this and they know that you can do it quickly, you're going to come to mind and you're always giving them an option to text you on every leave behind. This is really cute to go with it. Snap it, cheese it and snap peas. There's a snappy discharge. All right, I think that's all of my secrets, christina. Hi, christina, how are you Good to see you? Is that all of them? I think that was it that got us. That's it, that's it All.
Speaker 1:Right Now you get to hear from the queen of doing all this. Okay, wait, don't look at all these slides. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 4:I didn't even have to make that PowerPoint. This is the best one I've ever seen, oh man.
Speaker 1:I just went through your Facebook and stole every picture, okay, so I'd like to introduce to you all You've been waiting for this Touching Hearts at Home, gainesville, florida. This is Christina Ramos, and put the website down there. If you want to see their website and I thought I would just give a brief on you can fill in, because I'm sure that I'm not getting this all right, but Ruben and Rose started the agency and Christina is their daughter, correct? Yep, and it all started because of Nana. Yep, she's our muse, so, and that's you can see Christina and her mom and Nana there. And so I know that most of you do have a story, a reason why your why is usually an older adult in your life, your mom and dad, a grandparent, somebody who needed home care at one point, and that's what Nana is their why.
Speaker 1:So here's a picture of everybody all together, including Teddy. He's my boy. That's our boy right there. He's so cute boy. That's our boy, right there, he's so cute. And so, by the way, you need to go online and vote for them, for the best to be the best. All right, christina does. Now I went back through Facebook. Christina does something easily every month, right, I have to Yep. Yeah, so it looks to me and, christina, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me like you pick one kind of big thing every month, or almost every month, and this was one of them that you did. You want to tell us a little bit about this?
Speaker 4:Sure. So just tying in my family during COVID it's when I first joined the family business. During COVID, it's when I first joined the family business, Didn't really know what to expect and then boom, COVID hit. So my Nana is in a rehab in their memory care because she has a wander risk and she needs that medical 24 seven. So she has her touching arts at home caregiver with her.
Speaker 4:You know we can't get in and out to see her, but Miss Shirley, her caregiver, who we've had since we opened our doors. She's been with her every single day and throughout COVID. So this was just being scared at home, trying to figure out what quarantining meant and what this COVID-19 was all about, and I was trying to think of what could I do for Nana to support her from afar. And if you know my Nana, you would know that there is no donut in the world like a Krispy Kreme donut. So one thing led to the other found out Krispy Kreme does a fundraising program and, Valerie, our first year was during COVID. We started a GoFundMe page. We had businesses. Our first year was during COVID. We started a GoFundMe page. We had businesses. We had individuals, we had families, we had our own clients donating money and we donated 5,000 donuts just in our small town of Gainesville, Florida. So we went to every nursing home, rehab, the hospitals, we went to specialty doctor's offices and we got all of these donuts donated. A portion of every donation went to the Alzheimer's Association. And then my little touching hearts at home mobile was the delivery van and ever since then we've kept the program in motion. There's nothing like seeing a healthcare hero or one of our seniors, the look they get when that hot, fresh donut is coming at them. So this is our way of spreading joy, and again, it initially started during COVID, during some of those dark times, but we love it. We do it for our caregivers too. They're on shift. Their parents will make sure they come by to pick up their donuts. So we send it to our referral sources now as well and it's just, it's an annual program that everybody I mean businesses will call us and say when's the donuts? So we do it surrounding National Donut Day and it's just a blast. And we do donut parties at a lot of our partner rehabs and ALFs. But yeah, we love it. Couldn't say enough about it.
Speaker 1:So and so this kind of ties into. Just so you guys who've been with us for a long time, you know that Dawn Fiala talks about things that she did annually and people asked you know the pumpkin decorating and the Christmas stuff and whatever they ask about, when is that starting? And this is another one of those things that you can pick up and do annually so you don't have to come up with something brand new for that month. Every year you do this and you know how to do it. By the second year You're pretty darn good at it. It's a lot of work, but doing something like this annually, I think, is a great job and it'll grow over time. It'll get bigger and bigger. I'm sure it has for you. I'm sure you're four years in or three years in with this.
Speaker 4:And then the first year we did it, we were on the front page of our community newspaper. I mean, the whole page was me and my mom with our masks on and the little hats doing donuts. So people still remember me at these nurses You're the donut girl. So now hey, I'll take it, I only ate two donuts throughout my whole delivery routes in about three weeks. So that was an improvement.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, I would eat a lot more than that probably. Oh yeah, are you?
Speaker 1:kidding, oh my gosh. Okay, so this is another thing that I picked up, and this just I think you just posted about this recently, but you also do and this might be newer, I think an indoor pickleball showcase right.
Speaker 4:So this was another COVID brainchild. You know, coming into this business I knew our target audience was slightly older and you know Alzheimer's just thinking of my Nana it doesn't hit someone healthy or unhealthy, it could happen to anybody. So just trying to think about where we could actually engage and speak to our target audience or our potential target audience, and at the time this is about five years ago, four years ago I Googled pickleball because I heard early on that this was a sensation sweep in the nation and it was an older audience. And we learned that our local sports commission hosts this indoor pickleball showcase every year. So I created a deck, found someone who played pickleball and said, look, teach me a little bit about this game so I can speak intelligently to it. And said, look, teach me a little bit about this game so I can speak intelligently to it. And we approached Gainesville Sports Commission to add a charity component to their tournament. So they very happily and quickly obliged. They loved the idea that we would take care of all the marketing, the PR, the promotions and secure sponsors surrounding the event, because that's something they'd never done before, and they also just loved this idea that we would be able to do some good. So Pickleball with a Purpose is what we called it. I'm pretty proud of this one and I'm very thankful for the opportunity they gave us to partner, because the first few years people were kind of like, well, it's Pickleball, this sounds insane, Christina's doing something crazy again. And now everybody and their brother has a pickleball tournament and there's one every weekend, if not every weeknight. So this was one of the originals here in town.
Speaker 4:Last year we switched it to this brand new indoor facility. We were the first tournament in the building. We actually had over 400 players register A to play in our tournament. I'm shocked because I still can't believe it. It was a huge blessing. So the first year we partnered with the Alzheimer's Association and that was great. But Eldercare here in our hometown they run our senior centers, our Meals on Wheels programs, our Seniors with Low Vision, our Rideshare program for seniors. So they're definitely a very worthy organization and my grandma benefited from their adult daycare for seniors with dementia. So she went to Al's place as soon as she had her diagnosis. So she went to Al's place as soon as she had her diagnosis and unfortunately can no longer go, but it was really the happiest part of her life once she got that diagnosis. So we just can't thank them enough. This year we've got more sponsors signed up than ever and now it's such a blessing because companies are literally knocking on our doors and banging on them, wanting to sponsor. We've had to increase sponsorship rights. We're in a beautiful venue. We couldn't thank the team at the Gainesville Sports Commission enough, and the CEO from Eldercare comes dressed as a pickle all three days and she walks around getting donations. So it's just, it's one of our other favorite events, and all to support such a great cause. So we love, we love this.
Speaker 4:People have heard about us. People will call How'd you hear about us? Pickleball. It's like, okay, great, We'll take it. So as the sport becomes younger, it's been really cool to see you know who we've taken care of. It used to be the player themselves, now maybe it's the player's child is taking or playing lessons, and then they hear about us through this. So we take care of their parents, um, and now even grandchildren, because a lot younger demo is playing now too I mean they sell pickleball stuff at target now, so I'm on cute stuff too, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:okay, we do have a question for you, and this might kind of rewind back to donuts too. And, by the way, last year I mean I remember seeing all your pictures, at least from last year's pickleball tournament. It was amazing. So I can't wait to see how it works out this year. So the question is, when you say small town, how big is Gainesville, and has the donut thing generated revenue for your team?
Speaker 4:You know we do track our referral inquiries. I think it's built a lot of goodwill and it's been a lot of great brand awareness. And for us it's all about supporting the seniors and showing those health care workers how much we appreciate them, especially during COVID supporting the seniors and showing those healthcare workers how much we appreciate them, especially during COVID. So our intent with all these programs is not, you know, did we make a sale? We won't do it next year if we didn't, for us it just it's the right thing to do and it feels good.
Speaker 4:Gainesville is a really fun town. We obviously have the university here. So right now all the college students have left town and it feels great because there's less traffic. But we're at about 145,000 people in town I bet a lot less without the students. We're fortunate, to thank the Lord above, we have UF Health here in our community along with HCA North Florida. So two really big hospitals along with HCA North Florida. So two really big hospitals and a lot of people. We realize and recognize that people are flown in out of town for our specialty hospitals and some of the amazing humans and brains that we have working here to do specialty surgeries and amazing things in the healthcare field. So you know, small to me coming from Miami, florida, but definitely nothing to joke about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and you know what I mean. Just looking at all these sponsors, every single sponsor that you have up here Florida Blue UF Health Rehab Hospital, oh my gosh, Not only do they know your name, but you have a connection at every single one of these places.
Speaker 4:Now we couldn't do it without them, so yeah, and you know it's a huge compliment to know that we get their support. You know, what do we know about pickleball or running events? But they trust us and they respect what we're doing and they know if it's a charity with support, it's got to be a really great cause. And they know our events are going to be first class, so that's that's very important to us, that they trust us.
Speaker 1:We love that. And, oh boy, are her events first class. So let's just check this out. Okay. Next up Now these are. This is a variety of things that you've done, but I wanted, I liked skilled nursing week and I don't know, let's see. Oh, you did a complimentary lunch. You also did cookie happy hour. That's a great idea.
Speaker 4:That was a hit, you know. You got to have the whole milk, the half and a half milk and then the skim milk, because people are very picky. And when I, when we do this again, we'll have, like the nut milk and milk alternatives because people are very big into that, apparently. Now that's great, Um, but we just went and got the ooey, gooey, crazy flavored cookies and we set up. You know, a lot of people got lunches from us.
Speaker 4:This community is a rehab and a CCRC, so they are very meaningful partners. So we did bring them lunch one day and then we wanted to surprise them with a cookie bar, so it was happy hour, just with no alcohol. If they let us do it with alcohol, that would be really fun, like a bourbon milk or salted caramel shot or something like that. You know, I love what someone said earlier, don, it may have been you, valerie, it may have been you, but we are very strategic with with what partners we treat, to our events and our goodies and our gifts, and you know those that we give all of our time and attention to.
Speaker 4:Um, we get asked so many times to participate, to sponsor, to be involved, to donate, to donate, to donate, to give, to give, to give, to provide, to provide, to provide, and we are very clear on the causes that we will support.
Speaker 4:So it has to impact seniors directly in our community which, if you look at the charities we do refer and raise monies for, the money stays in our local community and then we do. We have to actually have a real meaningful relationship with an organization before we just start showering them with gifts, because you know, I talk to a lot of reps out there and they'll buy lunch after lunch, after lunch after lunch for the entire office of a doctor or whatnot, and in two years they haven't gotten a single referral. And I look at them and I'm like that's crazy, like what are you doing? That is the definition of spinning your wheels. So we want to make sure that our stuff is fun and out of the box, but also that it's to really thank the people that really trust us and let us support them and their clients.
Speaker 1:And these two humans in this picture with you. I believe that you do a lot of marketing with these two people and they must be really good marketing partners because they're in a lot of pictures.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know that's important too. So Kyle back there you can see his little shirt Haven Hospice, julie's with a transport company. So I know a lot of traditional companies that sell coaching to home care reps they don't even talk about, like the transport business I know sometimes they mentioned DME Health Insurance is another one, Florida Blue we're partners with them. They're incredible referral sources, as well as our transport partner that's Julie with Life Care. With the hospice I mean there's a million hospices in town. Um, with the hospice, I mean there's a million hospices in town and we just feel like if we put our name on another organization, that's not only our family name but our business name and the name of our entire team and all of our amazing caregivers and our leadership team. So we don't always partner with companies either. You know we we try to be very kind and gracious when someone asks us if we want to partner, but we take our partnerships very seriously. So with that hospice company it's the preferred hospice that our own family uses and it's the only one in town that we can recommend to our clients wholeheartedly.
Speaker 4:We know that if there's a problem anytime morning, noon or night, on nights or weekends they're going to react and respond. We know with Julie she's not going to drop a patient, god forbid. That happens all the time with some transport companies that don't care about what they do. Um, we know their vans are always going to be clean, inspected. You know the tires won't be flat or old, um, and we know the blankets they're using aren't going to be disgusting with someone else's body guts. Yeah, we hear these horror stories. Our caregivers report them.
Speaker 4:You know when clients go home, and so we just want to make sure that we can handle any part of our clients continuum of care. You know even these outside companies, like a transport company. So the other important thing you know when we do commit, I think other agencies realize, like how seriously we take that. That's a relationship. You're part of our family now. So we know with any of them we could come up with a wild idea, and we do lots of wild ideas. So we know they're fully on board and they'll support it and they just we have a blast and they know they can come up with crazy ideas and we'll be right there. So, easter festivals, we did shamrock shakes at different rehabs during rehab week. We love to do things that they don't receive every day. So you know we're always trying to think. I love Dawn's ideas earlier too, like they've probably never seen or heard some of those cutie slogans and sayings Cause we want, we want to stand out Definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, doing something different is definitely the right, the right idea.
Speaker 3:Of course, here's a big one.
Speaker 4:My favorite event. So this was inspired by my Nana again. Um, I mentioned earlier she used to go to the senior daycare of Al's Place for seniors with Alzheimer's and they used to always just make life so special for those seniors. One of the things they did was like a fall frolic, but it was kind of like a.
Speaker 4:I don't know, I guess maybe we just treated Nana like she was going to the prom that day, but we got her all dolled up and she took a picture with her Owl's Place boyfriend and they took a picture in front of the barrels of hay and I've never seen Nana smiles so bright, knowing you know that she had no idea what she was going through. So, thinking of Nana, during COVID we wanted to figure out a way to create a fun moment, like Nana had at that fall frolic. So what better way and day to do it than on Valentine's Day? So we rent out our senior center and we buy a ton of roses so every woman you can see the ladies with their roses. I mean it is such a huge hit, these seniors. We didn't have a dress code but they dressed to the nines. We have gentlemen coming and wearing their army bests or their Navy suits and you know, the ladies pull out prom dresses. I told one lady, being as young as I am, you know, oh my gosh, you didn't buy that dress off Amazon, it's real vintage, like this is not a costume. She was wearing her flappers dress and she said she got married in it. So if you see here these are women from the bridge club, the little group there in the middle, our prom queen. She is part of a ballroom dancing group for seniors and we called them to have them come perform. And she had no idea she was going to win, but the phone was ringing off the hook. Do I wear my red dress? Do I wear my sparkly dress? Should I wear a long gown? And I mean we just love it. I can't tell you how much we love it.
Speaker 4:The King this year and I just showed this or shared this story yesterday, but he showed up the first year of the senior prom, let's just say it was from 12 to 3 PM. He showed up at 3 PM and I mean the man was looking dapper as ever, with the cool shoes and the suit and you could tell like he really was ready for this. And he had no idea that he arrived when we were ending. So the look of defeat on his face was just heartbreaking. So this year we called him to make sure he knew what time and we just surprised him silly, when he was named prom king. So I know he's loving it.
Speaker 4:We get couples that show up. We get news reporters that show up. We've got a group of college kids that always come and they tell us like, can we please come next year? I'm like, oh my gosh, please Are you kidding me, I should be begging you. But they just love it. So it's meaningful events like this. I wish I had a picture up, but one of our rehabs actually rented a limo for their seven lucky residents who were able to come so they could fit their wheelchairs, their rollators, and they got them corsages and boutonnieres and when that thing rolled up, I mean I was weeping. It was so beautiful. I get chills. So we just we love this event. But again, talk about events that people count down and cannot wait. We've already had to book the date and the musician and people call all the time Is it going to be February 14th? Okay, what time? What time? What time? So we just love to share the love.
Speaker 1:So well, I wanted I always use as an example when I talk to people about you want to see what it looks like, you want to see what this looks like, what this life is really like. Here are all the pictures of someone who does an amazing job. So we'll be sure to share your Facebook page with, because I know everything's posted there, obviously, so we'll be sure to share that so people can see all the cool stuff you do all year long. And I this kind of went backwards, so I just started in February and went forward, um, or just you know, came back up and just got all the different events and if you look through all these slides, you can see that Christina does something, and so you know a couple of these events are big, maybe more than a couple, but throughout the year and some of them are not as big but still meaningful and fun and different from what everybody else is doing.
Speaker 1:And I would imagine that you've gotten to this place where people constantly are wanting information from you or partner with you, and that's probably come over a long period of time. You've built that reputation in town and now everybody wants to partner. So I imagine that when you look at this entire year of all these events, that your business has grown tremendously from the PR. All you know, the all of the people that know, all the sponsors. I mean leads can come from anywhere. It could be a sponsor's grandma who needs home care in the area or something like that. So I would imagine that you've seen a revenue just grow and grow as you've taken over all of this marketing and, yeah, it's amazing and you know, truly, we do it to give back.
Speaker 4:We don't spend money with local advertisers. I don't pay for tv commercials or radio spots or digital ads, like we get that stuff for free. So right now, for pickleball we're on tv, we're on nine radio stations. We get newspaper publicity for free. Youball we're on TV, we're on nine radio stations. We get newspaper publicity for free.
Speaker 4:You know, if you're doing the right thing for the right reasons, I feel like all the good stuff comes, thank the Lord above. But you know, definitely for brand awareness. Again, you know, looking at KPIs, if we had given up on our first year pickleball because maybe the phone didn't ring within a week, then that would have been a big mistake. But the impact and the touch points, I mean it's memorable. These are meaningful, meaningful touch points when we interact with these audiences. And they might not be for three years, valerie, but they sure remember us and they vote for us and you know they just love to see what we're doing. So we're really thankful and appreciative that we can do this. But really the primary objective is just to serve and give back and to take care of our seniors, so we really love it.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much. I will say there's Well, thank you so much, wearing your logo on their shirts, or it's the VFW Hall, or you're really involved with the local senior center. It doesn't have to be the pickleball tournament-sized event. It can be smaller ones. You start small and work your way up, and so doing stuff like this, even on a smaller level, it's just such an amazing gift to your community and definitely will give back to you in karma points.
Speaker 3:For sure.
Speaker 1:Does anybody have any questions for us or for Christina about how they got started in anything? Or you know, I don't know anything. You want Anybody. We had the one question, but I don't know if we have any others. Annette or Dawn, do you have any questions or comments about Christina's?
Speaker 2:I just have a question. Operationally so it looks like you're really, really busy, like you're out there, you're, you're meeting everybody and you're, you're the face of the company. Really, do you also cause where I've worked to the marketing community? Liaison also does the signing of clients and I'm just wondering if you have time for that. It would seem when I would be out marketing I'd have a great week and I'd be effective and out in the field and the next week I would be so busy signing from what happened the week before that I didn't have time to market and then the next week would be slow. But the social workers do like to see that you're the one with the family because they trust you. So could you speak to that? I'm just curious all that.
Speaker 4:So I do this in my free time all the events and all the marketing, and I don't sleep much. I want iced coffee and donuts.
Speaker 2:She's a vampire. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4:But we do have a really fun Dracula's vampire blood drive in October, and people love that too.
Speaker 4:Oh goodness, okay, no, I know that my nine to five, my responsibilities are being with our families, responding to those case managers. So this stuff happens before work and after work and on weekends. And you know, I think the other beautiful part about annual events is you're not reinventing the wheel every time, so you just update your quick script, you update your posts, your graphics and you plug and play every year. Update your posts, your graphics, and you plug and play every year. Yeah, donuts for seniors. We just decided, hey, next week let's do the donuts for seniors, cause it was donut day and it caught up on us.
Speaker 4:So you know, luckily, when you get in the rhythm and the role, it's a lot easier. But definitely, you know people don't see the hard work and the hours and the sleepless nights. You know I may skip a trip or I try to travel a lot. I do have a lot of balance. So thank God for that. But it is.
Speaker 4:It's a lot of commitment, but it's so important and it's such a calling for us and our family and our organization and you know everybody here in our leadership team. They love it just as much as I do. So it's it's all hands on deck on event days and on event weekends. But if you look at our times, we're very strategic about when we plan events. So, like this will be Friday, saturday and Sunday. That Friday, everybody already knows I'll be on call, but at our pickle ball tournament and if they need me to come to the hospital or with a family, I'm there because the team's got me covered at the tournament. You know we do a lot of lunchtime events because that's a meaningful way to get a really good marketing break during a busy day and, yeah, it's a great question, but I do a lot of this before and after work, thankfully.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause you're, you're very, very active and that creates more of the assessments. So one is always feeding the other and it would. It was hard to to balance sometimes. So I was just curious how you were, how you were met, and it's good that you have the team support because, you know, it doesn't always I mean, I've worked at different companies it doesn't always work out like that's a marketing event. Why do I have to go, you know, and it's, it's it's like because this is for the company and for the, the whole. You know everybody. So, yeah, it's great that you have that support. That's. That's really, really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have a question that kind of surrounds that, but it's more about the caregiver side. Do you find that and I could be totally in space about this but do you find that caregivers want to work for you guys because they see you everywhere, or it's easier to recruit because they see you everywhere? Is that still a challenge, no matter what?
Speaker 4:You know, I think that as much as we've tried to build our reputation in the community as an exceptional home care provider and a real steward of our community, we have a separate I mean it's like an official or unofficial marketing campaign towards caregivers and potential caregivers or recruits. So our current caregivers, our existing caregivers, they love to see this and I think during COVID everything was just so crazy and hectic and scary that we didn't really do a good job messaging this to our current team. So maybe they heard about our Donuts for Seniors when they opened up the newspaper that day and that's where we were like, hey, let's give our care here donuts. So then they got those, but they had no idea what donuts for seniors meant. So year two it was hey care team, best care team ever, we're doing this. I love it that they feel so proud that they love that we do this stuff. You know they're out and about in the communities talking about, oh yeah, our pickleball. I love that they have that we do this stuff. You know they're out and about in the communities talking about, oh yeah, our pickleball. I love that. They have that sense of ownership in the community in terms of what other caregivers think about us. What other buildings think about us.
Speaker 4:You know our reputation in town is we're the hardest agency to get a job with, and I couldn't be more thrilled, you know. I want our clients to know that and I want any potential recruit or potential candidate to know that too. You know, when they come walking through the door of our office, our office is super decorated from things hanging down to. You know, whatever. People always want to stop by and our caregivers love to stop by, bring their family, their kids, just to see what the decor will be like. But you know, candidates will walk through the door and they'll be beaming and I promise you it's not the decor, it's just when they get to the door. And I'll even ask him like hey, are you having a great day? Like you look super happy. And we hear all the time this is the hardest interview to get. I'm so proud I just got the interview.
Speaker 4:I'm like well, well well, you know it's a we're just beginning that process but we'll see what happens. You know kind of thing. So we know we're picky, we know our standards are high, but it's really important. You know that's someone else's Nana out there that we're taking care of and people know, like, if you are going to come work here, we have very high expectations in you. Don't just have to meet them, you have to exceed them and what we look for. You know someone I say this all the time you're going to have an 18-page resume working at the Mayo Clinic, graduated from Harvard, that's fine and dandy. But if we ask you why you're here, why you want to work with us, how you heard about us, and it's just that you want to get a paycheck, that you're looking for a job, that the holidays are coming, you want extra hours, we literally hand them a list with eight other agencies in town and tell them we don't have any openings right now, but here's a list of eight other agencies that would love to have you. So you know, for us it's all about the care, the compassion, the experience is very important. So they have to have minimum of one to two years, and they know that I can't tell you how many times people will call. They may or may not have any experience, they may be young, they may be older, but they'll call back in a year to two years time.
Speaker 4:I went and I got the experience. Like you told me, can I apply now? And we're like, yeah, but it doesn't mean you're getting the job. So we like that. That's our reputation, that you know. We want the best of the best and that's that's the brand we put out there in any job ad and our posts. We are not just good caregivers or good home care company company. We have an exceptional care team and we provide exceptional home care and if anybody you know mentions that they've not experienced that, you know you can read our Google reviews. We will handle it very promptly, swiftly, quickly, like there's no waiting or delaying over here. So it's important you know people. I think people expect that when they see your name out there in the community. So then when they actually experience it for themselves, it's we walk the walk and we talk the talk.
Speaker 1:So that is a great place to be.
Speaker 1:Everybody listening to this is like oh, that is such a great place to be with caregivers that you are tough and that they want to work for you, and so it occurs to me that this, all this stuff that you do, is just it's a big part of what you do, but it's just one part, it's just one piece of that mission. It's, it's, it's all the way through is excellence, not in not only in your marketing and your community involvement, but also in your caregivers and hiring, training and your office staff. It's excellence 100 across the board. Yeah for sure, I knew you were the person I needed to interview the queen of home care community involvement.
Speaker 4:Thank you, but that's too kind.
Speaker 1:Well, do you guys have any more of the questions? Annette, anybody. I think we're good.
Speaker 3:I was very impressed, christina, you're doing awesome.
Speaker 4:Thank you, but I'm totally taking your coffee or tea on me.
Speaker 3:Oh, go ahead. But the pickleball, pickleballs. It's like um valerie said target, you see it everywhere now, but you picked up on it.
Speaker 1:It's popular, very popular yeah, thinking this coffee time thing. And then, after she left her current, yes, well, you were for touching hearts as well, didn't you?
Speaker 3:yes, were you Rochester? Oh my gosh, we talked about four. Okay, that's great.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know, I was like oh yeah, so Annette, annette, we, we stole her away, yeah, but you know everybody was was all happy. But um, anyway, she is this. And after she came to work for us, you were here a month or so and somebody from your area texted you for coffee or tea.
Speaker 3:They sent me a picture of the ticket in her drawer and she said is this still valid?
Speaker 1:If I were you, I would have taken her coffee or tea. I said sure that's cute. Yeah, it works. And the secret there is. That's how you get their texting phone number yeah, right, so you are on a texting basis with that person after. Yes, you know to that.
Speaker 4:to that end, I always learned you know you want their cell phone, definitely, but to really make that meaningful relationship or to take that professional referral relationship to the next step, the ultimate is when you get to meet their family. So you know, people look at me like we're crazy because we'll do special events just for our referral sources and their families, or kid centric events for our referral sources, and I'm like, please keep thinking we're crazy. Keep thinking we're crazy because we will do this more and more and more. You know how often do their children or their spouses get to enjoy some of the perks? So one of my other favorites we rented out a blueberry farm, catered in you know, little lunches and told people our referral sources bring your family, bring your kids, bring your friends, whatever you want, but just come pick blueberries with us.
Speaker 4:And that was a massive hit. So they could have their family time, they could have their photo taken with us, they could come eat with us. We had an open bar drink with us and people still talk about it. So I got to figure out you know when blueberry season is. But the truth is we were like the last weekend of blueberry season and the blueberry farm. Their farmers went out and clipped all the remaining blueberries, so there were literally no blueberries left, except for some that they had pre-batched in a refrigerator. So that was kind of a bummer, but nobody cared because it was such a fun time and we always, when we open up to families or do things for the kids, we see way better results.
Speaker 1:That's great, yeah, do something. Get them out of the office on a Saturday or Sunday or sometime or an evening. Get them out of there and do something fun.
Speaker 4:We'll do like our cocktail, happy hours, parties. We'll have it set up for kids. You know the kids foods the kids, candy bars the kids, you know activities just to that way. Again, we know a lot of people, like our caregivers. They have to pick up their kids by five o'clock or that daycare is closing. So go ahead, pick up your kid and let's, let's meet your kiddo and let's all have fun together. So very sweet.
Speaker 1:That's great. That's great that they're bringing their kids, so they feel like you know it's more it. It becomes more of a friendship when, yeah, you've met their whole family, so that's they've met my family, so, so that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 4:They've met my family, so I want to meet theirs.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thank you very much for doing this today. We appreciate it, and, of course, the dogs. You definitely have given us all some amazing ideas and insight into what life is like, and your amazing community involvement. So thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you all for having me. It was an honor and we're here anytime anybody needs anything.
Speaker 3:All right, Thanks Irina, Thanks again Christina. Bye guys, Bye-bye.
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