#72 - You’re Not Just Bringing a Glass of Water: Redefining Service in Long-Term Care with Petra Marquart

Summary

In this episode of 'From Leads to Leases', host Jerry Vinci speaks with Petra Marquart, an expert in customer service training for the long-term care industry. They discuss Petra's journey from performing on stage to advocating for compassionate service in senior care. The conversation delves into the philosophy behind the See Me Training program, which emphasizes the importance of seeing and respecting residents as individuals. Petra shares insights on leadership, culture, and the critical role of self-esteem in caregiving. The episode concludes with practical advice for leaders looking to transform their communities and foster a culture of care.

Learn More

• Connect with Petra Marquart on LinkedIn
• Hire Petra for a Keynote Appearance
• Learn more about See Me Training

Takeaways

• Customer service should be a philosophy, not a checklist.
• The See Me Training focuses on seeing and respecting individuals.
• Leadership directly influences the culture of care.
• Self-esteem in caregivers affects the quality of service.
• Training must be ongoing and integrated into the culture.
• Great service is about how residents feel about themselves.
• Leaders should model the behaviors they want to see.
• Empowerment and dignity are crucial for residents and staff.
• Hiring the right people is essential for maintaining culture.
• Transforming culture requires patience, investment, and commitment.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to From Leads to Leases - A Senior Living Business Podcast

01:46 Petra Marquart - Keynote Speaker, Author, and Trainer

02:31 How Petra Found Herself in Senior Living Customer Service Training

05:35 How a Crisis Helped Shape Petra's Customer Service Program

12:30 See Me Training's Core Philosophy

14:25 What Senior Living Customer Service is Really All About

19:57 The Correlation Between Staffing Shortages and Subpar Service

29:28 Great Customer Service Starts with Great Culture

36:57 Are They Residents or Are They Customers?

40:01 Residents Hold a Silent Fear of Retaliation

47:03 The Disconnect Between What Leaders Say and Actually Do

53:20 Service Leadership in Practice

57:19 How Leaders Can Identify Low Self-Esteem in Caregivers

01:02:27 First Steps to Transforming Culture in Your Community

Keywords

senior living, customer service, long-term care, leadership, empowerment, training, culture, See Me Training, Petra Marquart, caregiving

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I think they're teaching the wrong things.
Bringing the glass of water is really a small part of this
interaction. You might be the first person
that's brought a smile or a touch to their arm.
You might be the first person that day who's truly seen them,
looked at them, notice the way they combed their hair, notice
the new glasses they'd gotten the day before.

(00:23):
This is an entirely different experience than having somebody
bring you a glass of water. What if we stopped treating
custody, customer service and long term care as a checklist
and started treating it like a philosophy of dignity?
Today's guest has spent her career reshaping how staff,
leaders and communities deliver care by teaching them what it
really means to see someone. Welcome to From Leeds to Leases

(00:48):
ACCR Growth podcast that helps senior living providers
transform their complex challenges into opportunities.
Listen in for stories from industry leaders, innovative
strategies and insights, and with our expertise, learn how to
increase occupancy faster, Guaranteed.
Welcome back to another episode.From Lease to Lease is the

(01:09):
podcast that dives deep into thesenior living and senior care
industries, bringing you insights, strategies, and
stories from experts at the forefront of innovation,
leadership, and care. I'm your host, Jerry Vinci, CEO
of CCR Growth. For those of you who don't know
about us, CCR Growth is a full service marketing and growth
agency exclusive to the senior living industry.
And through this podcast, I'm here to guide you through the

(01:30):
evolving landscape of senior care, exploring the innovations,
strategies, and leadership insights that are shaping the
future of the industry. So whether you're a provider, a
caregiver, an industry leader, the show is here to help you
make informed decisions and create meaningful impact.
All right, today's guest is Petra Marquart and
internationally acclaimed speaker, author of The Power of

(01:52):
Service, and the founder of See Me Training Petra's journey from
the Las Vegas stage where she once performed with Elvis
Presley and Tina Turner. That's so cool to developing
culture shaping training for long term care communities is
nothing short of remarkable. Her Simi framework is redefining
what it means to serve with compassion, intentionality and

(02:13):
respect and aging services. Petra, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you so much, Jerry. You know, when I hear that life
played back to me, I think, yeah, that is kind of crazy,
actually. And so I'm delighted that we're
starting kind of from the beginning.
What? What a lifetime we've lived,
right? Yeah, exactly.
You know, how did I get from thestage to this message on

(02:35):
customer service is a great question.
And it was sort of part of my learning experience on the stage
when I first started performing.You know, I was young and I was
on stage with my friends and we were singing wonderful songs and
we were traveling. And it was just a real heady
experience, as I'm sure anybody who's done this can tell you.

(02:56):
And I thought I loved performinguntil one night I learned my
lesson that is woven into our customer service program right
now. We had been singing a medley of
Burt Bacharach songs for about two years.
We did it six nights a week and sometimes twice a night

(03:17):
depending on the place we were playing.
And we were in Las Vegas and theBurt Bacharach medley was on the
docket to be done. And the other two girls, there
are three women in our group. The other two girls had other
solos as the medley and my solo was Do You Know the Way to San
Jose? And I remember I was on stage

(03:38):
and I was dreading it. I just thought my mouth is going
to lock. I cannot sing this song again.
It was just more than my spirit could take.
But I remember that the the beats to come into that song,
there are three beats that kind of goes bump, bump, bump and
then you walk up and sing. Do you know the Well, I heard

(03:59):
the bump, bump, bumps. And I walked into the spotlight
and I was just enduring the dread.
And I looked into the audience. In about the second row, there
was a woman who literally slid forward on her seat and sat up
really straight. And I could tell she really

(04:19):
wanted to hear this song. And so in that moment, I learned
that my interaction with her wasn't about me and how bored I
was and how much I couldn't stand to hear the song again.
This moment was about her. And when I began to change my

(04:40):
thinking that performing and delivering works of art or
songs, whatever it might be, is about the other and not
yourself. When When my voice touched her
heart, then I really understood joy on stage.
It was fun until that moment. But after that moment, I
realized when you're doing something that somebody's paying

(05:03):
for, you owe it to them to standup and do it at your best.
And that transferred right over to customer service because I
know that customers can be dreadful.
I know you're tired, I know you've got family problems.
There are all kinds of things that happen.
But when you go in to meet with a resident and you walk into

(05:25):
that room, the spotlight is on them.
And once you get that, I want you to know providing great
service is really easy. And I know now you've developed
See me your see me training in response to a massive crisis in
Minnesota. There was over 24,000 unresolved
complaints. What was your mindset when you

(05:46):
took that on? You know, I was sort of already
in the place of transferring what I had learned when I left
music. I was hired at a college to work
in their customized training department.
And I got there because the interim job I had between
singing and doing this was I worked in property management
and I oversaw the management of about 20 apartment communities.

(06:08):
And I really didn't like the job.
It wasn't me. It was against my nature.
I'd be more apt to try to find somebody to help find a house
then I would kick them out because they didn't pay the
rent. But I did love a part of the
job, and that was the part of training, hiring, training,
writing manuals. And I loved doing that.
And I heard of a job opening at a local college and their

(06:31):
customized training department got the job.
And as soon as I got the job, a woman who had written a program
called Treating Your Customers Like Gold had left.
Because she was so successful, she was able to take the show on
the road. And so I became the stepmother
of that program and a door opened for me.
And that was when the Mall of America was searching for

(06:52):
somebody to write a customer service program for their their
their employees. I got the call through the
school and I was able to write that program.
And you know what, once I wrote that program, everything else
came easy. After that I wrote service
training programs for U.S. bank,the Target Center, Arena,
Honeywell Space Systems. I was a consultant to Male

(07:12):
Clinic for about 9 years. And so it was just like I all of
a sudden overnight became an expert in customer service.
And in the early years, I promise you, there was a lot of
faking going on. I would see people taking notes
when I was speaking and I wantedto say what are you writing
down? I don't know what I'm talking
about up, but eventually you getreally good at something.
And I felt that I had sort of arrived at that place and there

(07:35):
were several things that happened that made me, in
addition to what you're referencing, and I'll tell you
about that in a second. But there were a couple other
things that happened that I thought I need to get into this
sector of business, into long term care #1 I had a friend
injured. She fell on the ice.
Of course, we live in Minnesota and she had a bad break and she

(07:58):
had surgery and she went into transition care and she was
there. And I want you to hear what
happened to her the first night.She was sort of out of it.
You know how that happens when somebody's been in surgery.
Yeah. She buzzed for did the call the
pushed the button for somebody to come and help her use the
restroom. Well, she pushed the button, but
then she sort of drifted back off and fell back asleep.

(08:21):
She said she was only asleep fora few minutes and all of a
sudden she felt something, a presence, and she opened her
eyes and there was someone standing at the end of her bed
with a hooded sweatshirt pulled up.
And she panicked. And she just said, who are you?
What are you doing here? And the person didn't answer.

(08:42):
And so consequently, obviously, she was really freaked out and,
and afraid. Well, eventually somebody came
and helped her and she got up. Well, this was indeed a CNA on
duty at night who had come in. It was a guy, now that can
happen, I'll give you that. But what really surprised me is
he had his job for months after that.

(09:03):
And I said to my friend, did youtell the manager?
And they said she said, yeah, I did, but nothing happened.
So I became really suspicious and somewhat worried about what
kind of preparation somebody hadhad.
And so I started looking at someof the long term care
community's training material. What did it look like?

(09:28):
What did it include? And I'm going to be straight up
honest with you, I thought it was degrading.
It was so elementary and so watered down that it basically
treated, I think the person, theemployee watching it or taking
the class, that what they did wasn't that sophisticated and it

(09:50):
wasn't really a professional. We're just going to give you a
couple of things to think about.So with my friend Mary and with
that kind of review of material and with what you brought up,
the state of Minnesota found itself in a position that the
Department of Health had received 24,000 unresolved

(10:15):
complaints and they included neglect, they included abuse,
they included injury. But you know what the public
didn't know that all communities, all, all long term
care communities have to report of a resident trips and stubs
their toe. And that was one of the 24,000.
But you can imagine the image that was going around the state

(10:39):
on what it was like to live in long term care.
During that time, I was sort of finishing up the program that I
was writing for long term care, and I happened to know the
commissioner of health in Minnesota.
He had been the director of health at the University of
Minnesota, and I had done quite a bit of work with him.
So after I saw this in the paper, it was in the paper every

(11:01):
day, you know, just every day when people do really nice
things and help people out. You never read about it, but as
soon as there's bad news it would page after pay.
Of. Course in long term care you you
know how that is good news is always more interesting.
So I called the commissioner of health and I said you know what
you have got APR nightmare on your hands.

(11:24):
People don't want to go into long term care and the people
who have loved ones in long termcare, they want to take them
out. And I said I have a program that
I've been working on and it's almost done.
I think if I partner with the state, maybe we can put that out
to there to all the constituentsthat this is what we're doing
about what you've been reading about.

(11:45):
But unfortunately, he lost his job prior to that due to the
chaos and, and the news. So it kind of went dormant from
there. But I decided that the need was
still there. And even though I wasn't able to
do something for all of the citizens of the state and
provide something that they could be comforted by, I did
have the opportunity to create the program, see me person

(12:09):
centered customer service training.
And so it still lives, but it wedidn't get a chance to take care
of that. But thanks for asking that
question. It was quite, a quite a time for
us here in Minnesota. And it was certainly a time that
gave me an opportunity to do something good for people.
Yeah. Yeah, what an opportunity to
help turn things around like that.
That's excellent. So how does CME training differ

(12:32):
from other traditional service training programs?
Like what's the core philosophy around it?
Well, you know, I can only base it on what I saw when I did the
review of some of those other customer service training
programs. I haven't seen all of the
customer service training programs in the country so but I
would say this, I don't, I can'timagine there's one better than

(12:56):
ours. First of all, the material that
we created and based it on were the tenants of service that
major organizations said are critical to customer
satisfaction. We also filmed everything we
have. The whole thing is on video.
You can use it as a as a self study or you can use it as a

(13:16):
classroom using the video for your common viewing.
In that program, we've got 15 modules that address a variety.
It's very comprehensive of things that actually happen.
And the really exciting fun thing for us was we got to film
them inside long term care communities.
We use the staff and we use the residents as our as our cast.

(13:40):
And we actually did not start filming until we ran the
material past two of the largestlong term care organizations in
the state for them to say, are we addressing the right things?
Is this really what you want your CNA or nurse or whomever to
do when they're in that situation?
And so the materials been scrutinized and it is delivered

(14:03):
in such a way that people are not only entertained, but they
are they are informed and there is a real great learning
process. We also have certificates and
workbooks and quizzes and all kinds of things.
So it's a true class. It isn't just a training like
you throw something out and hopesomething sticks.
This is a. This is a learning process.

(14:25):
Something else you said too, last time we spoke, which I
love, is you said it's not aboutbringing a glass of water, it's
about how you make people feel when you bring it.
Can you unpack that for us? Yeah, I remember us talking
about that. Well, first of all, I want to
acknowledge that there's a ton of customer service training
going on in this country, and I think they're doing the teaching

(14:49):
the wrong things. That's just my bias on this.
Bringing the glass of water is really a small part of this
interaction. You might be the first person
that's brought a smile or a touch to their arm, or in fact
what the program is called See me.
You might be the first person that day who's truly seen them,

(15:11):
looked at them, notice the way they combed their hair, notice
the new glasses they'd gotten the day before.
This is an entirely different experience than having somebody
bring you a glass of water. But I want to tell you what has
concerned me most about customerservice, training and and just
what you you brought up. I'm sure you've gone to a

(15:32):
restaurant, even out in beautiful California and had a
wait person come out a little too exuberant.
Have you had that? I'm kind of here at some of the
chain restaurants, you know, they've got balloons and they've
got when they come to your tableand they're oh, so excited and
happy to see you. And what do you want tonight?

(15:52):
Yeah, it's like manic, you know?Exactly.
And so I can tell you on a Friday night when we go out to
dinner, I am not in the mood forthat, to be honest with you.
I'm exhausted. I can have them bring balloons
and whoop it up during dessert, but I can't do that right out of
the chute. But they have gone to a customer

(16:13):
service training program their companies provided.
And do you know what they've been taught?
They've been taught to make their customers like them.
So you know, be fun, be positive, be energetic because
you want your customers to thinksomething positive.
But that is not what I believe the truth is and that is not

(16:36):
what this program is built on. Great customer service has
nothing to do with how your customers feel about you.
It's how your customers, your residents, family members feel
about themselves in your presence.
In other words, how do I feel about me when I'm with you?

(17:01):
Do I feel welcome? Do I feel a value?
Do I feel important? Do I feel seen for who I am?
Or do I feel like a duty, a task?
You came in here because you're paid to do it and you went
through the motions. You see, I can feel the
difference right down to my bones.

(17:22):
So when you talk about bringing in a glass of water, Yep, Yep,
you're delivering some kind of service.
There's no question about that. But that is nothing to do with
what we're talking about in the See Me programs.
This is about bringing somebody's sense of self back
into focus, and it's a critical part, especially in long term.

(17:43):
Previous guest of mine, we were talking about just being unseen
as an older adult and how prevalent that is, how isolating
that is. We were talking about just like
the grocery store. If you go to a grocery store and
just watch, if you see an older person and you just watch how
people move around them or don'tinteract with them or try try to
avoid them in some cases, right?It's very interesting how that

(18:07):
happens. Yeah, and don't forget how
frustrated they get when that person is having a hard time
fighting their credit card. Exactly.
Or they can put it into the dealy that takes your credit.
You know, there there's that's exactly right.
So one of the things that I found really interesting when I
was doing research on this is that people begin to lose their

(18:28):
self esteem and self-confidence,their sense of self starting at
about the age of 70. And it continues to diminish
kind of progressively every decade after that.
So imagine being in a facility and sitting in your room or in a
chair in the lobby or wherever in the dining room for hours and

(18:53):
people walk by you. They are talking to other
people, other coworkers, but youbecome invisible.
And every year that that happensto this person who has been
graced with a long life, something we should celebrate
and honor, they instead shrink deeper into themselves.
You've been in long term care communities.
I have. And we a lot of times see people

(19:15):
sitting with their heads down, pulled into themselves, kind of
like I need to bring my world inhere because out there there's
nothing for me. And I find that truly sad and
disturbing. And truthfully, I, I have to say
it ticks me off. There's a sense of anger with
that too. We seem to be a lot more selfish
in this country about our energyand time.

(19:37):
And I and I even want to say that I noticed that I think
during the pandemic when we had people saying, you know, you
know, it's not that dangerous. The people dying are the older
people and who needs them that you know.
And I thought, man, this is an indictment and what we see every
day with what exactly you're talking about.
And it's just a shame. I know we're talking about

(19:58):
staffing shortages too. That's such a prevalent industry
wide issue, but it's led to a lot of subpar service, yeah.
Why do you believe that mindset so damage and what needs to
shift at the leadership level tofix that?
Boy, if I could really get paid to answer this question, I
could, I could come out and visit you and go out to dinner

(20:18):
at a nice place. I think what happened, I mean,
it has always been a difficult job being a manager, a leader, a
director of nursing, administrator, whoever you are
in a long term care community, it's it's hard.
It seems that staffing has always been an issue.
Financing money has always been an issue.

(20:39):
Your customers really don't havea lot of choices.
They're not going to go to another home the next week or
another facility the next week. They're there.
What do I have to worry about losing you?
But I think what happened with the pandemic was that I've heard
not it, not every of course, butI've heard a few long term care

(21:00):
community administrators and directors talk about the fact
that, well, we can't provide great service.
We just can't. We can't because we're short
staffed. We can't because we've got
burnout. We can't because the census is
lower now than it was before thepandemic.
And it's just on and on and on and on.

(21:23):
And you know what? I think a lot of people have
bought into it. I mean, families say, well, you
know, we understand they're short staffed.
But you see, there's a difference between bad service
and being under stress. Being under stress as you might
answer a call light later than you want it to.
It might be that something got mixed up as you were talking

(21:46):
about. There's confusion.
It might be simply that they didn't get what they wanted and
they had to ask again. Those are real things that
happen and those service experiences aren't good, but it
doesn't have to transfer to rudeness or indifference or
people becoming defensive. Those are really bad service

(22:08):
things that I'm worried about are becoming more acceptable
because they're using their really hard working situation
because of a variety of things. So I think that we are looking
at times at leaders and you can define them any way you want,

(22:30):
who have allowed themselves to buy into the fact that what can
I do? You know, I I can't get good
people, I can't interview good people.
But I'll tell you, as a manager,a leader of an organization,
your most important job is to hireright.
I know that's hard to do when your pool is small, but I can

(22:53):
tell you that a lot of organizations don't do the work
it takes to be sure that you do match the candidate as well.
First of all, they don't seem tohave kind of the the the
requirements needed to be in that particular position kind of
the the highest potential. What skills do you need to be a

(23:14):
receptionist in our community? Do you know what they are or do
you just have somebody come and they seem nice?
Organizational leaders need to know what are the behaviors,
skills and traits needed for youto be successful in this
community? What is our reputation?
And we want to maintain that. I, I worked with a group of

(23:35):
bankers many years ago, I think now, and they were hiring
tellers and they wanted to hire,you know, the best teller they
could that could fit in. And so I had them do this
exercise that we're talking about.
I had them sit in a room and putdown all of the skills, traits
and behaviors needed for a successful teller at that bank.

(23:58):
And they did, they just sat and they wrangled and they came up
with a list of about 12 things. And I came back in and I said,
I'd like you now to rank them ofwhat's most important down to
what's least important. And so I left them for about 15
minutes. And I came back in and I said,
do you have that? And they said, Oh yes, they were

(24:21):
all tense. They were all tense.
I said, you can have them all bethe most important thing that
people have to do. So they did went in the
assignment then. And then they came up with a
list that they all agreed was probably the most important top
three. Now, here's where we get in
trouble with that behavior. You've got your list of trade

(24:45):
skills and behaviors that are going to be successful in your
organization. But how do you interview for
that? I mean, you don't say are you
friendly? That's not what you're doing.
You can't do that. But here is what I believe is
the best tool for leaders, managers and anybody doing

(25:05):
interviewing for new hires. You ask situational questions.
So let's just say we're hiring for a receptionist.
And we decided as a leadership team, you and I did, Jerry.
We sat down and we said the mostimportant thing for a
receptionist in our facility is friendliness.

(25:26):
They might not be able to use the computer they night and you
know, whatever, but we want people greeted genuinely to come
through the door. And so during the interview
after you, you know, confirm, you say you graduated from here
or you did this and you're goingto, you're going to confirm
what's on their resume. But now you come up to this, I'm

(25:46):
going to give you a situation, Mary, and tell me what you would
do. The situation is this, we have
hours for visiting between 8:00 AM and 8:00 PM and it's pretty
strict because we have people going to bed and medicines and
so on. So it's pretty strict.
So let's just say a family member came up to the front desk

(26:07):
at 8:10 in the evening and oh, I'm so sorry.
You know, the bus was late. I've been in the bus since
morning and blah, blah, blah. What would you do with this
family member? And here's what we're looking
for. And this is what you have to
look for. Where do they go for the answer?
If somebody says, well, you know, 8 to 8, those are our

(26:30):
hours, and they're late, so I'llhave to tell them.
They'll have to come back the next day.
Well, this person went to their head, and that's OK.
That might be what your organization's looking for,
people who kind of stick to the rules.
But if you have another mindset and the candidate would say,
boy, that'd really be hard. I mean, they've been to the bus

(26:52):
all day. It wasn't their fault.
I don't know what I'd do. You know where they went.
They went to their heart, and maybe your organization is one
of those organizations. If you're going to be put to
make a choice, you're going to choose on the side of compassion
or whatever that might be as opposed to rules and whatever.
Neither is wrong, but it is. Who are you and how would you

(27:14):
like to make sure your organization is represented at
the front front desk? And so when we talk about that
and how we indeed can get peopleand organizations and leaders to
do the right things, then of course, it starts with hiring.
But I want to add another thing to this because high turnover
has been such an enormous part of the experience and it's such

(27:37):
a shame. People have told me straight up,
we just don't want to invest that time.
We don't want to invest trainingdollars in them.
But I can tell you this, that when you don't invest in
training, you have some real risks taking place #1 they're
going to do some damage. I don't know what that might be.
But you also have habits that begin to grow as they try things

(28:01):
out and don't get blamed for them.
And I'll do it again, and I'll do it again.
Really bad habits can grow from that.
The real skill is this. It's leaders and managers
adopting great customer service skills themselves so that when
they bring to attention or reprimand or give critical
feedback, they do it in such a way that no damage is done.

(28:26):
The employee doesn't feel defensive and that they just got
yelled at or I got laid into because of that.
Instead, they hear from you, leader, why it matters that
you're there to support them andyou're encouraging them to be
better at what they do in every situation.
Now, instead of having leaders tacitly put up with marginal to

(28:49):
bad behavior, they instead have the tools when they can come to
an employee and say, I really appreciate you working here and
so do the residents. But this situation is something
that I'd like you to be a littlebit better AT and let me help
you do that. When they ask questions of their
people, they don't have explain yourself questions, they have

(29:12):
tell me more questions, which isa whole different thing.
So yeah, those things are all indeed make a difference, I
think in leadership and how theyare indeed going to keep people
on staff and have them bringing really goodwill and good work.
One word circling around everything you just said to me
is culture. I think habits become part of

(29:33):
the culture, good or bad. So I think if leadership isn't
aware of those things that are happening when their team
members are not trained properly, when, when people
aren't on the same page and everybody's just left to their
own devices and no one has a clear direction of how we are
supposed to handle the situation.
What's the mindset of our community?
You know, how do we want to showup?
Do we want to show up heart letter, lead with our with our

(29:54):
brains? You know, that's a big thing.
How do we maintain culture whileshort staffed?
That's the biggest challenge. People use that excuse and then
culture goes out the window. Yeah, right.
Oh boy. That's a really big question.
I think what I can say is that if I if I could do training to
only leaders at whatever level they are, mid management,

(30:16):
whatever they are. And they were the only people I
ever had in the room when I was doing any kind of work.
I would be happy because when leadership gets it, it does
trickle down. And it does continue to maintain
the integrity of the culture. You know, culture is, it sounds

(30:37):
like a big thing. But there was a guy here in
Minnesota, his name was Earl Bakke, and he started a little
company called Medtronic and he started it by trying to make an
artificial heart. That was his big thing and he
did it in his garage. Well, he had one person that was
helping him. And I will tell you that the

(30:59):
culture of the beginning Medtronic was Earl Bachy, who he
was his his rules, regulations, whatever he believed was true
and his assistant or his partners.
And that was the culture of thatorganization.
What happens as you begin to grow?
The culture begins to change as personnel changes.

(31:21):
But if you are looking at an organization that you want to
maintain a culture, like you mentioned, everybody has to
learn the same thing day one. You know, a lot of organizations
hire people and then they have them come to work the first day
and follow somebody around. Well, you come to work and

(31:43):
you're going to follow Marge around.
Marge has been here for 40 years, and she knows all the
ropes, and she'll take care of you.
Yeah. But you see, what happens is
Marge doesn't do that process like you wanted her to.
She does it a little different. You know, she learns something
she could do and kind of get by.That's what she teaches.

(32:04):
March had a little thing with one of the assistant supervisors
one night, and she sort of maybementions that during that
person's first day of work. You don't want to entrust
whatever it is you want the culture to grow from into the
hands of anybody other than you or the leader or the director or
the HR person because you want them to get the serum pure and

(32:29):
simple as you want it to be. And even in the training, you
can say things like, I'm sure once you start work, you're
going to notice a lot of people do this differently.
But I want you to know why I'm asking you to do it this way.
You start out by putting it, in fact, the organization is a
family and you're marrying in and you want to kind of be able

(32:51):
to know, you know, where do you go for Thanksgiving?
We have to have those conversations so people before
they start work understand what it's about.
And that's why for the last, well, I think we've been working
on the program. We've had it up for sale for the
last about four years, the CME program.
And we've been challenged to do that because do you know what?

(33:12):
We get the push back on. We get the push back on this.
We have so much mandatory training to do before someone
can start work. We don't have time or money to
do the other kind of training. And yet before I wrote the
program, I did focus groups for families that had loved ones in
long term care. And I sat with them and asked

(33:33):
them many questions. But one of them was, So what
keeps you up at night? Not one of them said blood borne
pathogens. Not one of them said
transferring from the bed to thechair.
Every one of them said that theydon't get my dad's jokes and

(33:54):
that he's going to feel bad, or that my mother is sitting in her
room and no one's talking to her.
That's their fear. Or maybe when they do talk to
her, they're not that nice to her.
I understand that mandatory training is just so you have to
know what you're doing, the skills mandatory.

(34:15):
But I want you to know, as far as the medical organizations I
worked with, you know, we have healing and curing.
And I want you to know that the medical skills are part of the
curing. You know, they go and they can
suture the wound, but part of the healing are the service
skills, the way they're comforted and the way they're

(34:37):
dealt with when that happens. And they are totally equal.
If you're to ask anybody, they're going to say, I want
them to sew up the wound, but I certainly want them to be nice
to me in the process or treat mewell, talk to me, do something
that matters to me. And so you cannot diminish
service just because others takea lot of time.

(34:58):
That's how culture grows. Everybody comes from the same
yogurt. You know, when you're stayed
with starter yogurt, they all start there and they all begin
to grow into that same particular thing.
So that's sort of the, the, the short answer.
I'm sure we could talk about it for a long time, but culture
comes from the inside out. You reward what you value, you

(35:21):
can correct bad behavior withoutdoing damage, and you are part
of the group. You never are above them or
below them. You are part of their effort and
you become part of a team. And so that's how it works best.
I'll tell you, even in my space,we don't hire.
We don't hire based on proficiency.
We hire on culture, you know, wefollow the Jim Collins method of

(35:45):
in good to great that find, you know, find the right people, get
them on the bus and then then you figure out what seat they
sit in. And I can tell you probably
every one of our team members has moved seats a couple times
to find what they really love todo.
And that's been one of the most empowering thing for us as
agency owners to be able to do that for our team and just watch
people kind of blossom in that space.

(36:07):
You know, obviously they have tohave some baseline skill level.
But if somebody, if this person over here is amazing, they're an
expert, they can do all these things, but they don't have that
cultural fit, we'll never even consider them for the role.
Oh my gosh. People have to love working with
you. They do.
I mean, when you're treated likethat, when they, the leaders

(36:28):
say, I see you, I know what you bring.
I have an idea what your problems or concerns or
challenges are and I'll help youwith those and I'll celebrate
you being part of our success. Who wouldn't work there?
I, I congratulate you for doing that.
A lot of organizations know exactly what you know, but they
don't do it. Yeah, Yeah.

(36:50):
I think scarcity drives most businesses or organizations, and
that's unfortunate. Yeah, right, right.
Do long term care communities have residents or customers?
Yeah. Well, let me let me answer that
by saying how I define a customer.
A customer is anyone who receives the benefit of what you

(37:13):
do in exchange for something of value.
And they have, they have rights,they have expectations and most
often they have choices. And if the people living in your
community have those things, they are customers.
I see. I understand why people don't

(37:34):
think maybe long term care residents are customers per SE
because it's a very intimate situation.
You know, when people say we treat them like family, honest
to goodness, I have seen many families that I don't want to be
a part of. And please don't treat me like
some family members treat. You know, it is something that

(37:56):
they try to say. The intimacy means you're going
to love them and treat them so well.
And that is simply not true. Here's the thing, there are
going to be residents that you really love.
There are going to be residents that you can hardly stand being
in the room with. But a casual observer should

(38:19):
never know which is which. If you have people that you are
serving that are paying for yourservices and you are providing
the quality of service based on how you feel about them, then I
would suggest that they don't have to pay if their family,
they should live there for threefor for three.

(38:41):
But if they are paying for it, they are always customers and
you always have to maintain the decorum dignity that we always
have to give to any customer. And that line, that Gray line
about, you know, your family andall of this, it sounds nice on

(39:01):
paper, but in reality, it cannotexist.
And so when we talk about what we call, I ran into the same
problem when I was doing work for medical centers.
We're not, we can't call our patients customers.
That's just too, you know, disenfranchised.
That's just too haphazard. And but the reality is they are,

(39:23):
if they pay for what you're doing, serving your service, and
they have other places they could go and they have
expectations of you and they have rights and they pay you,
those are customers. And so I would hope if
somebody's lived in your community for 10 years, when you

(39:43):
walk through the door, you stillunderstand that you are there to
provide a service to a paying customer.
And every paying customer shouldbe treated really well.
So treat them all like family ifyou come from a good family.
Only if you come from a good. Family.
Yeah, Only if you do, yes. There was a 2021 study that was
published that said the fear of retaliation remains a top reason

(40:06):
residents don't report mistreatment or neglect and care
settings. Can you talk about the silent
fears that residents carry? Yeah, I sure can.
One of the things we know about people in long term care
communities, probably starting with Senior High rises and
senior living and then it goes to assisted living and skilled
nursing all the way through, is that we begin to lose our power.

(40:31):
And power is something that all of our lives we're aware of.
Little guys know what it's like to be in a fight with a big guy.
And females know what it's like to be bullied by a guy or a big
girl. And you start going through your
life and you're kind of always measuring how am I going to
survive in this particular situation?

(40:52):
And we might not be that dramatic, but we're also
wondering, you know, how, where do I fit here?
Am I going to be OK? As you age and your bodies begin
to sort of turn on you, you can't get up as fast, your legs
are shaky, you can't open a jar and you can't take the medicine.

(41:13):
You can't open all of those things.
Everything that we stop being able to do disempowers us and as
we become less and less powerfulphysically, we often times
become less and less powerful. Our sense of self, our self
esteem, who I am as well emotionally, psychologically and

(41:36):
personally, we begin to fade away.
And as we do that, we don't feelwe can defend ourselves in any
capacity that means physically, emotionally or mentally.
My grandmother many years ago was in a long term care
community. I went to see her and I remember

(41:58):
I went into the room and I said,how you doing grandma?
And she said no, not good. And I said well what's going on?
And she said, and she had a heavy Norwegian brogue.
She said that she had tried to call her brother Nils in Norway,
and nobody would help her do it.And of course, I got really

(42:18):
huffy. I said, well, I'm going to go
find somebody and I'm going to tell them that you need help and
I'll take care of it. And she said, no, no, don't do
this. And I said, why?
And she said, because I'm afraidthey're not going to be nice to
me when you. And you know what, that can
still be happening in a lot of organizations around the country

(42:39):
today. I'm not going to tell you about
my unhappiness. I'm not going to tell you how
diminished I felt when you talked to me that way.
I'm not going to hold myself up and dignity, dignity and, and
asking you to be dignified as you deal with me.
I'm not going to do that becauseI'm afraid of what you're going
to do. This doesn't mean that

(43:00):
somebody's going to come into the room in the night and, you
know, do something horrific. But it does mean with that turn
on your light, your call light for help.
They're not going to come. They'll wait.
You'll be the last one on the list.
So they fake it. I think that is probably one of
the most terrifying things as weall think about going into some

(43:21):
sort of aging care services one day would be the fact that I
would be a victim of someone else's cruelty.
And it's a real thing. Service cannot stop a cruel
person for from doing something cruel.
No training in the world will dothat.

(43:41):
That's why I mentioned hiring isso important.
If you hire somebody who doesn'tturn out to be what you thought,
I don't care how much hassle it is, you've got to let them go if
they really did not turn out to be the person that you thought
they were. And I will tell you that no
training and no salary can make the wrong person the right

(44:04):
person. So if somebody really wants to
scare somebody, they're going todo it.
That guy that scared my friend that night should have been
fired on the spot, but they wereshort staffed and they didn't
want to have to hire somebody new.
And that thinking has to go awaybecause I would rather wait for
my call to be answered than to have somebody walk in the room

(44:26):
and threaten my life. At least that's how she felt.
And you can't have people like that on staff on.
A lesser scale to fear of retaliation.
I also think there's a fear of being a burden.
I noticed every older adult I'veever had in my life has always
said I didn't want to bother youwith that, or I didn't want to
make that your problem. Or, you know, they internalize

(44:47):
so much as they as they age. And I'm curious if you see that
a lot too, and if that's something that we can help with
or if that's just, you know, themindset of somebody who's more
reliant on someone than they were.
Yeah, well, I will tell you thatpart of the problem is as you
lose self esteem, you have to apologize for taking up space on

(45:08):
Earth. You know, you don't feel like
you've got the right to do anything.
And I, I have seen that many times with aging people's
apologizing for having to take someone's time.
And of course, truthfully, it's really hard to restore self

(45:29):
esteem in someone who's lost it.So no matter if you say to the
people in your life that that are apologizing, oh, but you're
no, I love being with you, you know, happy to do it.
This is not going to change how they feel because this is the
nature of aging. As you lose your usefulness,

(45:50):
your perceived sense of importance is can almost say
there's not a lot that you coulddo, but sort of that's true.
It's almost like the other, the person you're trying to counsel
and say, no, I'm glad to do it. They need to say I'm losing my
sense of self. I don't feel like I did.
I need help and they need some professional help to help them

(46:13):
restore that. But unfortunately most of the
people, no matter how much they love them and want to support
them, when you've lost that within yourself, it has to be
built back within yourself. And that usually is with
professional help. I'm still encouraging you to
tell them, oh, it's no problem. I love doing it for you, but

(46:33):
don't expect going to change their behavior because that loss
inside themselves is genuine. Yeah, We have been identified
for too long on what we do, whatwe contribute that that we can
possibly now at this point, not contributing at all, not doing
anything. You know, it's hard to fill that

(46:55):
back up with something, but it'sgoing to be our individual
responsibility to find our own self.
Yeah. So it's so tough going back to
to leadership a little bit. I know I've seen this a lot with
anyone who sells training. When you're when you're in a
session, when you're presenting to a group, everyone's excited,
everyone, you know, everyone raises their hand especially

(47:17):
like if you're asking them is customer service important,
everybody's hand goes up. But then when it comes time for
them to commit to doing the training, like you were saying
earlier, there are, they're saying we already have all these
other trainings that we have. Why do you think there's such a
disconnect between what leaders say and what they're willing to
invest in? Boy, I wish I had that answer, I
really do. But I will tell you there are

(47:39):
some thoughts around it. First of all, I think part of it
has to do again with the heavy load that they carry where I'm
not sure. Let me just say it this way.
I know that the bank called me and the mall and all these
places really because they want their customers to be happy.

(48:00):
They really want you to have a nice time at the Target Center
arena when you go in there for abasketball game or whatever it
is. They don't want mopiness
anywhere. They want that at the bank.
They want the energy when you come in.
They want you back again and again.
But the risk of losing customersin long term care facilities is

(48:20):
pretty minimal. Family members took all their
energy to get them to go in here.
They know the ropes at this facility.
Mom knows she can wheel down there and she can get this.
So taking them out to another facility is really not
practical. The family members and this
sounds just cruel and I, I don'tmean that I know many, many

(48:43):
family members come loyally and they love their loved ones.
But a lot of family members, I'mjust glad to have them taken
care of somewhere else because they were so worried and nervous
about them living at home and they were burdened if they lived
with them because they hardly could go to work afraid what
would happen. So there's this on loading of
the responsibility, which is a combination of grief and guilt.

(49:06):
The families feel guilty and they feel grief all at the same
time. So what we have to do basically
in in finding out indeed why people leaders need to look at
this is to first of all, understand that just because
they're not going to leave as easily as another industry

(49:30):
doesn't mean that you can ignoreit.
I'll tell you what happens out there.
They, the resident might not leave, but the family will be
bad mouthing. So any anybody who's saying we
don't have to do customer service training because where
are they going to go? You know, they're not going to
go anyplace else, especially small towns.

(49:51):
There's maybe one facility or two in the whole town where they
going to go, go ahead and go. So the reality of it is, is that
even though family members may not move them out, they are
sitting at the local cafe saying, yeah, I was, oh, my mom
last night. She's and they blab the whole
story. Sometimes people in the next
booth hear it. So it doesn't go without some

(50:13):
sort of punishment or, or, or effect.
The other thing about it is, is that I, I think I mentioned this
and alluded to it, is that the investment in an employee, first
of all the mandatory training was a was a lot and then you
want to do more training and theodds are they're going to be

(50:33):
gone by the end of the week. And I hear that a lot of people
from a lot of leaders and managers and administrators.
Yeah, I would, but you know, I put all this effort and then
they're gone. So I think the problems with
those are around those things. Number one, that they, they
don't have much to lose. Somebody's not going to move out
even though there is bad breath and also that there isn't the

(50:56):
time and energy to put into training and they're going to
leave anyway. And so I think that's part of
the sort of difficulty in sayingyou need to help your staff
provide good service. They might get it
intellectually, but there's no real effect that they have to
try to avoid. And I think that's the problem.

(51:18):
And, and I want to always say because it's the right thing to
do, I don't have to give you any.
We find out people, organizations that really focus
on training retention goes way up, census goes way up,
complaints to the health department go down and lawsuits

(51:41):
or other actions taken begin to become eliminated.
So the impact isn't like real time dollars in the bottom line
right now. But indeed, in the end, we find
organizations that really, really understand the
compatibility between skills training and service training
tend to have a richer outcome down the.
Road. I found another interesting

(52:02):
statistic around that too. Organizations that integrated
person centered care. There was 31% fewer
hospitalizations and 22% fewer emergency room visits.
Wow, wow. I, I don't argue that at all.
That just makes so much sense. What happens is in the skills
training, they will learn how tohelp somebody come up, get off

(52:23):
the floor, or if they fall or they, whatever it is that
happens. But what we teach them is how to
talk to them while that's happening, how to comfort them,
how to help them calm down, how to help them be at peace around
things that are disturbing. Because many times people are

(52:43):
taken to the ER because they're panicking.
And that the people, the care providers or the caregivers
can't discern, is this a real broken arm or are they just
really afraid? And so they have to take them
in. But when they can really deal
with their emotions and deal to their humanity and talk to that,
the resident can calm down. Not all of them, but some can

(53:07):
calm down. And then you can find out
whether this is truly an emergency room problem or
something that we can just take care of here.
So yeah, it makes a huge difference.
Those those numbers don't surprise me at all.
For leaders who want to do better, for the ones who are
seeing the incentive to invest in in staff training, what does
service leadership look like in practice?

(53:30):
Oh I love that question. I'm going to send you a dollar
for that one. That's a good one.
Service is an inside out job. How the leadership at all levels
treat their staff is oftentimes how their staff will treat
residents and their family members.
It is the trickle down theory working at its best.
We have 7 principles written into the program and these are

(53:54):
the principles that staff is learning to deal with their
residents and that if leaders model these 7 principles in
dealing with their staff, you will see a culture change within
the organization. The principles that we are
talking about are see me, hear me, talk with me, respect me,

(54:20):
tell me, calm me and protect me.And when leaders do that with
their staff, they see their staff.
They know their challenges, theyknow their skills, they know
their weaknesses, they know their heartaches.
They know those things that theycarry with them as they work
with residents throughout the organization.

(54:42):
Hear me, give me your ideas leader will say, I love to hear
new ideas on how things can be better and not just nodding.
It means that somewhere down theroad they see their ideas come
to fruition. They see what they suggested
when we have tell me or when we have talk with me rather, this

(55:03):
means that you stop on occasion and say, how's your daughter
doing? And listen, my daughter, you
know, kind of have this circle conversation.
Nobody talks above you or beneath you or below you.
We talk together on the same plane.
I know you as a human being and as a care provider, a caregiver.
Respect me. Respect those two ways.

(55:26):
You as a manager, administrator,director, certainly want your
staff to respect you. But you can only do that through
mutual respect. I treat you with dignity.
I acknowledge your accomplishments.
I I point out those things that you've done.
If I reprimand you, it's in private.
If I praise you, I can do it in front of people.

(55:46):
I feel that you this is who you are and how you can do this.
Tell me if it's about me. It's my right to know.
I don't want to hear from another manager.
Something that you're concerned about me or at the rumor mill.
What am I hearing this about me for?
You either come directly to me or our relationships breach.
I've got anxiety because of this.
The resident yelled at me, the mother came in, she yelled at

(56:09):
me. The daughters did this and I'm
distraught. I need you manager, to calm me
down, not blame me, not corner me.
I need you to help me. And then the final one is to
protect me is to protect me. If I'm making mistakes, talk to
me before you fire me. Let me have a chance to do it

(56:30):
right. Protect my job, protect my
dignity, protect me as a human. So when you're talking about how
does a leader do the things thatmatter in order to keep a really
strong, healthy organization, you provide the behaviors that
you're asking others to provide.In other words, you net it down

(56:51):
to this. You become the person you want
others to be. I love that.
I was just thinking about how profound that perspective is on
leadership. It's not just you dragging
people along, it's you literallyjust being that person in all
different ways for everyone. Right.
A lot of leaders would rather pay their people to do anything

(57:13):
other than have to influence them or inspire them from their
own behavior. It's just amazing so.
What should leaders be watching for when it comes to low self
esteem among caregivers? I know that can affect residents
experience. Yeah, this is really a tough one
because first of all, why does self esteem matter?
Well, I mentioned it to you earlier that we already start

(57:34):
losing our self esteem when our 70s and then 80s and 90s and
it's just down, down. So imagine that a caregiver or
any employee had low self esteemand they go into the room and
the resident snaps at them or complaints about something or
gets upset when somebody's challenged inside that they

(57:56):
don't have a lot of beef at homehere.
If there's an emptiness in there, they're going to freak
out. They're going to handle this
inappropriately because they don't know where to go inside to
bring the strength out, to calm the resident down, to even say I
can understand why you're mad atme.
I do. I understand that.
I know I was late getting here and I'm really, they don't have

(58:19):
that. They just can get defensive.
They can fight back, they can whatever do things that are
totally inappropriate, which often time leads to a situation
and then the families called in because the and on and on and on
it goes. So that's the only reason that I
would suggest that leaders and I'm using that again at all.

(58:42):
So supervisors, directors noticewhen they have an employee who
seems to struggle with their ownsense of self.
And you'll notice that either byreprimand, when you say
something to them, they, they can hardly cope.
And you can notice that in some people, just by praise, you can
say, Johnny, you did just this great job when you did this.

(59:03):
And they'll go, oh, no, it's nothing.
No, no. And and they don't, they don't
believe what you're saying because I don't believe that
about themselves. Here's what I want all managers
and leaders to hear me say. This is really important.
It is not your job to fix this. It's just not.
First of all, you don't have thecapacity, and second of all,
it's too dangerous. You could do something that

(59:24):
completely changes them in another way or something
happens. But what you do have to do is
you have to learn how to say things that are not destructive
when you say them, and they haveto be something that's innocuous
in that you might say to a caregiver.
Mary, I want you to know that the residents love you and I

(59:49):
certainly enjoy working with you.
But you know what? I'm a little worried that
sometimes you don't take some feedback for what it really
means, just to give you some information and you kind of take
it to heart. And I'm afraid that that might
indeed get in your way. Do you think that's true?
Do you find that true about yourself, Mary?

(01:00:10):
If Mary says no? Then the leader might say
something to the effect. Well, let me give you an
example. I overheard this or I saw the
other day or whatever, and now you're kind of giving them some
think about it. Here's here's what I'm wanting
you to think. If they say yes, I do think that
could be true about me, Just saysomething to the effect.
Well, it'd be really great if somehow you could maybe work

(01:00:33):
through that or get some help ifyou know somebody that you could
talk to about this, that you trust, or we even in our EAP
program, our employees assistance program, we've got
some folks you could talk to. And I think it would just add to
your skills. I think it would give you a real
step up on already the work you already do.
So well, see, Mary can't be threatened when you're asking

(01:00:55):
her to do this. And you have to know that if you
don't put it in a way that she can live with, that she can
hear, she really hear, then you're just piling on.
So that's why I say that managers, leaders, directors,
it's their responsibility to notice.
It's their responsibility to give some good feedback, loving

(01:01:17):
feedback, I will even say. And then it is not their
responsibility to fix it. And I will add this as bottom
line, never get involved with personal issues.
Let me tell you, I can handle your husband.
I think it's all a bit. Oh man.
But you know, it's only behaviors at work you've noticed
and your whole message is. I noted this and I think you

(01:01:39):
could be even better at what youdo if you addressed it.
And that's it. That's all you need to say.
So and that's why I kind of think self I in fact, Mike, Oh,
I didn't tell you I wrote a book.
Did I tell you I wrote a book? I mentioned it but.
Yeah, well, I. Just about that.
I was just going to say that oneof the chapters in here is on
self esteem and I am excited to say this became a bestseller and

(01:02:01):
I actually have to thank the lowstandards for that particular
honor that they require for a best seller.
So yeah, so self esteem is really important and I but I do
want to make sure that line is very clear of what your job is
to. But but it matters because
people won't handle certain things well if indeed they're at

(01:02:24):
work with nobody. Home is basically what happened.
Petra, my last question for you today, if someone listening
who's in leadership wants to transform the culture in their
community, where would you say they should begin?
That's a really good question too.
You know what I think? I think a lot of leader and when
I say leaders, you know, there'stheir leadership teams.
It can be the topping of the whole whatever that that group

(01:02:46):
of people that kind of influenceand make decisions have to ask
themselves. Number one, really, really.
I mean, we know that customer service is important and we
should get on the bandwagon because all kinds of
organizations are doing it. But I'm going to ask you if you

(01:03:07):
truly deeply want to do this. It requires patience, it
requires investment, it requirestime, it requires sacrifice, it
requires all kinds of things. And if you do it not fully, then
don't do it at all. I've had people say, well, you

(01:03:30):
know, we did customer service training last year.
So this year we're going to talkabout, well, no, see, if you're
going to do this, this is woven into the fabric of your
organization. And that means, and I'll tell
you, you can do training day one, which of course, I truly
encourage. And I have an idea of what
training you could use, but you can do that.

(01:03:52):
But that conversation has to come up on an ongoing basis
every meeting. So what are you finding good in
service? What do you do?
Have you seen? Is there anything that we're not
getting in the way of service? That conversation goes on all
the time. And if you're not going to
become immersed in it, I'm goingto say don't do it.
It won't pass the snicker test. Your your staff is going to be

(01:04:16):
going when they say, yeah, you know what, we want you to treat
everybody really well. They kind of, yeah, you have to
make sure that this passes, thateverybody really knows that this
is the genuine article. It cannot be a one and done.
It has to be an ongoing trick, ongoing training.
There have to be all kinds of inserts to do it.

(01:04:37):
If they want to pretend they cantake a customer service training
class and everything's going to be better, well, I got to tell
them they're mistaken. It's not going to happen.
A few people will take the information and run with it, but
the organization will not change.
This is a deep seated, deep hearted commitment to being
better tomorrow than you were yesterday.

(01:05:00):
And if you're wanting to do that, we would have a program
that we'd love to share with youthat you could do it.
But if you're not going to do it, don't frustrate people by
making them sit somewhere for anhour or two or three and then go
back to the same environment they've always been in where no
one else has changed their behavior.
So I would say that would be my real honest response.

(01:05:22):
That's a great response. It just culture.
Culture is a daily practice for sure.
I mean, it makes me think of gardening, you know, like I can
go into my garden and I could just prune a couple of things or
I can tend to the soil. I can, you know, put the proper
nutrients in the soil. I can watch something grow from
the ground up and then every every step of the way.

(01:05:42):
And that's how culture is formedand and stays in place.
Yeah, you're absolutely right, Jerry.
You're the gardener. The leader is the gardener.
They're going to weed, they're going to water, they're going to
nurture. They're going to do all of those
things in your garden, and they're going to have to do it
until everything comes to fruition.
They're grown. We've got the product.

(01:06:03):
We we're where we want to be. Yeah.
Now, I love that analogy, that metaphor of a garden, because it
is exactly what this is. Yeah, Patrick, thank you so
much. This is a great conversation.
My mind is still reeling from all this information and I think
this topic is just so vital and so many organizations need more
help when it comes to customer service, right?

(01:06:25):
Where can our audience go to learn more about See Me Training
or connect with you directly? Well, the best place to start is
at our website, and that is see me training.com and of course,
if you'd like to get in touch with me, I come out and speak.
I speak at conferences and conventions around the world,

(01:06:47):
and I also do work on site. You could contact me at
[e-mail]. And even if you go to the
website, you can still get to usthrough that.
So we would love to be a part ofyour your walk towards great
service and I'd love to hear from you.
All right. Well, as we wrap up today's
episode, I want to extend a hugethank you to you, Petra

(01:07:08):
Marcourt, for joining us and sharing your wisdom on the real
power of service and long term care.
From the psychology of dignity to the need for cultural
accountability, Petra's voice isa Clarion call for
transformation and how we care for aging adults.
If you want to connect with Petra or learn more about C Me
training, her website is LinkedIn the show notes.

(01:07:28):
So as always, we hope you found this episode insightful and
inspiring. And don't forget to subscribe to
our podcast on your favorite platform.
And stay tuned for more episodeswhere we continue to explore the
evolving world of senior care, covering everything from
innovative care models and leadership strategies to family
support technology in the futureof aging.
And remember that From Leads to Leases isn't just an audio

(01:07:49):
experience. We're also a video podcast, so
you can subscribe to our YouTubeor Spotify channels for the full
video episodes. I'm Jerry Vinci, CEO of CCR
growth. Thank you for joining us on From
Leads to Leases and please like,subscribe and share this episode
with anyone who might find it useful.
Until next time, lead with strategy and with heart.
Chat with you again soon. Thanks, Petra.

(01:08:13):
Thanks for listening to From Leads to Leases.
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