December 10, 2025 • 49 mins
Summary In this episode, Jerry Vinci sits down with Shea Irvine, founder and CEO of Bay County Caregivers in Florida and the US Caregiver Network. Shae shares her unexpected journey into home care, which began in 2020 when she discovered that Hurricane Michael and the pandemic had left Bay County without in-home care providers. What started as a test project for a marketing company quickly evolved into a thriving caregiving business serving 20 caregivers and a growing client base. The conversation explores how home care agencies fill critical gaps in senior living, providing essential support both for seniors aging at home and for residents in senior living communities who need additional assistance. Shae reveals the realities of building a caregiving company from scratch with minimal investment, managing quality across independent caregivers, and why this industry offers unprecedented job security in an AI-driven economy.
Key Insights
Shea emphasizes that home care and senior living should work together rather than compete, with caregivers often helping families transition loved ones into communities and continuing to provide supplemental care once they move in. She challenges the stigma some communities have toward outside caregivers, advocating for collaborative relationships where caregivers address concerns with community directors first before involving families. The discussion reveals alarming workforce projections—by 2040, the industry will need 20 million long-term care workers compared to today's 880,000—making home care entrepreneurship an increasingly viable career path. Shae shares innovative partnership models, including working with placement specialists who refer clients needing interim care until they're ready for senior living, with communities paying the placement fee. She also advocates for converting existing homes into private care facilities as occupancy rates exceed 90% in many markets, suggesting partnerships between investors and baby boomers who could transition their own homes into multi-resident care settings.
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Takeaways
Home care fills the gap for seniors who need help but aren't ready to leave their homes
Caregivers can ease transitions into senior living by providing familiar support during moves
Senior living communities should view home care agencies as partners, not competitors
Starting a caregiving business requires minimal investment and no special degrees in most states
Independent contractor models provide flexibility for both caregivers and business owners
Nearly 50% of direct care workers leave within the first year due to low pay and limited advancement
By 2040, the industry will need 20 million care workers—a 22x increase from current levels
Private care homes in existing properties offer a scalable solution to capacity shortages
Caregiving offers job security that AI cannot threaten—human connection cannot be automated
Placement specialists who know local communities provide better outcomes than national referral agencies
Quality caregiving requires wild curiosity, empathy, and respect for elderly dignity
Younger caregivers (18-26) are easier to train and less likely to have developed bad habits
(00:00:00) Welcome to From Leads to Leases - A Senior Living Business Podcast (00:01:40) Meet Shea Irvine - Founder of Bay County Caregivers (00:03:07) From Marketing Company to Caregiving Business - An Accidental Journey (00:07:49) Why Home Care and Senior Living Should Work Together (00:08:54) Navigating the Perception Problem - Building Trust with Communities (00:10:36) The Caregiver Shortage Crisis - Finding and Keeping Quality Staff (00:11:17) Buildi
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And a lot of times senior livingcommunities do not like to see
caregivers come in and there's this stigma around it that they
feel as a caregiver. Obviously the family is in the
clients paying us, not the senior living community.
And so they feel like we're going to tattle on them or say
things because there's there's gaps, there's gaps in care in
(00:23):
senior living and it's just going to happen because staffing
is an issue. Getting quality people is an
issue. What happens when a hurricane
wipes out an entire region's care providers, leaving older
adults with nowhere to turn? This week's guest found herself
in that exact situation, and what began as a side project
quickly became a lifeline for her community and a business
(00:45):
model that's now inspiring caregivers nationwide.
Welcome to From Leads to Leases,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 toincrease occupancy faster,
(01:07):
Guaranteed. Welcome back to another episode.
From Lease to Lease is the podcast that dives deep into the
senior living and senior care industries, bringing you
insights, strategies and storiesfrom the experts at the
forefront of innovation, leadership and care.
I'm your host, Jerry Vincey, CEOof CCR Growth, full service
marketing and growth agency that's exclusive to the senior
(01:29):
living industry. And through this podcast, I'm
here to guide you through the evolving landscape of senior
care, exploring the innovations,the strategies and leadership
insights that are shaping the future of the industry.
Today's guest is Shay Irvine, founder and CEO of Bay County
Caregivers in Florida and the USCaregiver Network.
Shay started her business in 2020 almost by accident after
(01:53):
discovering that post Hurricane Michael and the pandemic, Bay
County had been left with no in home care providers.
What began as a test project quickly became a thriving home
care agency and today she not only runs her own caregiving
company, but also coaches aspiring entrepreneurs to launch
their own agencies helping meet the rapidly growing demand for
(02:16):
elder care. So, Shay, welcome to the show.
Well, thanks for having me, Jerry.
I really am excited to do this. This is actually one of my first
podcast guest host or guest spots.
So I'm I'm excited. Awesome, Yeah, I'm so glad to
have you here. You know, I feel like there's a
big part of the senior living experience right now for senior
(02:36):
living staff where you hear all the time about burnout, right?
And I just feel like this Ave. like the thought of starting a
caregiving business sounds daunting #1 but I do think that
there's a lot of staff that potentially they love working
with older adults. That's the reason they got into
the industry, most of them. And they might be burned out on
(02:57):
senior living, but they may not be burned out on working with
elders. So I think that what you offer
is such a cool solution to that problem.
So I definitely I definitely want to talk about that today.
OK. Maybe just start telling us a
little bit about that story about how how this came to
because I know you didn't start out in a caregiving business, a
(03:19):
setting. No, not at all.
I had actually started a advertising and marketing
company basically. And it will, I live in Florida
and so is going to target small local businesses and not just
the vacation stuff because there's, you know, there's all
the vacationers stuff, but not stuff for locals.
And so I had to create a test company to put through my
(03:42):
program to see because I needed analytics.
I needed to see if this was going to work.
And if I'm actually selling something, I wanted to see that
I could take a business from pretty much nothing and get them
clients and help them actually grow their business through our
marketing. And so I was like, oh, well,
I'll just start a sitting company and if somebody calls,
I'll just do it myself. Like whether it's pets, elderly,
(04:04):
waiting on an electrician, whatever, I would just, you
know, be that person. Well, I didn't realize that
there was such a lack of caregiving resources in this
area. So as soon as I started, it took
no time for people to find me and have me come talk to like
their case managers and their staff and saying to for me to
(04:26):
tell them what I offered. And I had no idea what I was
doing. So I was charging way less than
I should have because I was justlike, it's just me, you know?
There was no company. There was no nothing.
And so my roster of clients started growing extremely
quickly and I realized this is where I needed to be, the
marketing company. I would like to say that that's
(04:47):
why I grew up through this, but it wasn't.
It wasn't that my marketing company was all that great.
It was just, there was such a lack of services and I popped in
at the right time. And from there I knew I couldn't
do it all myself. And I could either walk away
from it or take on just a littlefew clients that I can handle.
Or I could provide a resource for the community and bring on
(05:10):
other caregivers that would liketo get into the space and that I
knew could handle this demographic.
And so from there, it just kind of grew into what it is now,
which is a thriving caregiving company.
We have over 20 caregivers that I, we work with and a whole, you
know, staff of all my back ends team and marketing and all that
kind of stuff. So I had to.
(05:31):
I walked away from the original business that I had created and
spent a lot of time and money onto put my focus in this.
And that was hard at the time because I'd put so much time and
energy into that other business.But the community tells you what
they need. And they weren't telling me they
needed the marketing and advertising.
They were telling me they neededa caregiving company.
(05:52):
Yeah, now that's amazing. And I know caregiving isn't for
everyone. Was there a personal experience
that LED you down that path to begin with?
I had always worked with elderly.
I used to sell life insurance and it was more of the burial
policies, things like that. So I had a lot of experience
working and meeting with elderlyand seeing their struggles.
(06:16):
And then also my grandmother hadhad a pretty significant injury
in the fall and my parents, because there wasn't really any
other options, they had to move in with her for almost 6 months
and then off and on for an entire year to help take care of
her. And just the stress that I saw
(06:37):
it put on them. And, and my grandmother, I was
like, there's got to be more resources for this demographic
when these things happen becauseshe went from being healthy,
happy, did everything, was driving all this stuff to now
she couldn't even get up off thecouch without assistance.
And so it was a big wake up call, I guess, for our family.
(06:58):
And I realized that there was such a need for this.
So I know that a lot of senior living providers, well, I don't
want to say senior living providers, but I think the
industry in general sees there'sthese two different paths you
can go down, right? You can go down the the senior
living community route or you can go down the in home care
route until in home care is no longer an option.
But if we look at the recent data around senior housing, Q1
(07:23):
of 25, I think there it's, it's around 87% occupancy overall
right across all living options.And I think in Q2, I think it
even went up to like 8088 or 89%.
So and new construction is at its lowest point since 2009.
So clearly we're not in a position to, to only look at
(07:46):
senior living communities as an option.
How? How do you think home in home
care works alongside senior living providers rather than
competing with them? So in a lot of different ways,
but one of the things is a lot of people, they are just needing
a little extra assistance and they can't do certain things
that they used to be able to do and they're not ready to go into
(08:08):
senior living. They still want the freedom of
being at their home, being around what's familiar to them,
and so being able to have a caregiver come in to their home
even 2-3 hours a day just to help them with certain things
can keep them out of senior living for quite some time.
And then when it gets to where it's too much, you know, we
actually transition people into senior living.
(08:30):
So they're used to us, they're comfortable with us.
They, you know, we've been in their home for however long.
And so when they're moving into these other communities, we kind
of help, you know, make that a little easier and a smoother
transition by going with them, helping set up their stuff in
their rooms and, you know, getting them acclimated to this
new normal for them. And a lot of times I will say
(08:53):
that senior living communities do not like to see caregivers
come in and there's a stigma around it that they feel like as
a caregiver, obviously the family is in the clients paying
us, not the senior living community.
And so they feel like we're going to tattle on them or, you
(09:14):
know, say things that because there's, there's gaps, there's
gaps in care in senior living and it's just going to happen
because staffing is an issue, getting quality people is an
issue. And so when those gaps happen,
they feel like we're there to let the families know.
And our course of action is always to work within the
community first. Take it to the community
(09:36):
director, if there's an issue that is not helping or is
hurting the care of our client or, you know, keeping them from
progressing or whatever it is, or we address it within the
community first. The only time we go to the
families outside of that is if the community doesn't try to
help correct the situation or weget a lot of pushback or things
(09:57):
like that. Because I do think it needs to
be a coexisting team of people that can, you know, they hear us
and we hear them and we don't step over our, you know,
boundaries and they, you know, don't cross into our boundaries
of what we do. And I wish more senior living
providers and residential facilities would look at it more
that way rather than a, a competition or us coming in to
(10:20):
like tell them they're not doingtheir job right or something
like that. Yeah, Yeah, that makes total
sense. And you mentioned, you know,
limited staff, not enough staff,low quality staff.
I mean, I think that that's an issue across the board.
And one of the data points I sawrecently was that nearly 50% of
direct care workers leave withinthe first year.
(10:41):
And usually that's due to low pay or, you know, advancement
opportunities. But I feel like that that
percentage is probably higher than that.
So in your space, I mean, how doyou identify and keep caregivers
who see this as more than just apaycheck?
Well, that took some time. We had to test a lot of
different things to make sure wehad something that really did
(11:03):
pinpoint ones that were good. But then secondly, keeping them
because, you know, we can only charge so much as a home care
agency to individuals because we're mostly private pay.
And so that does limit us on what we can pay our provide our
caregivers. However, we put in bonuses, a
bonus structure we, I actually incorporate like yoga classes, I
(11:25):
pay for things like their CPR trainings and certifications
because once I get good caregivers, I want to keep them.
And so we do evaluations after the 1st 90 days to see where
they can do better and where we can do better.
And we give an automatic pay raise after that 90 days if
they're still with us And you know, we're working well
together and I'm not having to micromanage my caregivers, but
(11:48):
we check in a lot. We have, we try to do some
because caregivers, a lot of times they feel very isolated in
their work because they're not, you're not going into an office,
you're not like talking to all the different caregivers on a
regular basis. So we have an app that we use to
kind of keep that communication line open between them as well.
But then also we try to plan events where they can all hang
(12:08):
out together and it feels more like a team rather than they're
out here on this island by themselves and having to come up
with solutions for themselves. And how do you maintain quality
across the board? Like what, how do you maintain
those standards, especially because it's not like you're
able to monitor everything each caregiver is doing.
I mean, they're, they're going into someone else's home often
(12:30):
by themselves. I mean, how, how do you assess
that? Well, there's a couple ways we
do that too. So in the app that we use, every
time a caregiver works with the client, they have to put notes
in the app of what they did, what happened that day.
And that's more to, for us to know if there's an issue or
something, something has changedwith the client that we maybe
need to address or talk to the family about things like that.
(12:51):
But then also too, we screen ourcaregivers very well.
We before we even hire them. And then I do pop insurance like
I will just drop in on a caregiver and a client and just
kind of observe how they interact with that client, how
they redirect a client with dementia.
And if we see in their notes, because their notes are usually
(13:14):
pretty decent, if they're good caregiver, we can see if they're
struggling in a certain area on how to deal with things.
Because just like for instance, 2 weeks ago, we have this client
and she unfortunately, she had lived with a family member that
pretty much gave her PTSD because she doesn't think she
can do anything without the family member's permission
(13:36):
because he would always get upset with her and kind of yell
at her. And so she was this the shell of
a person when she moved into a senior living facility.
And so now whenever we're talking to her or the client was
trying to get her to do something, she'd be like, I need
to check with so And so I need to call my family.
And they're getting calls all day from the client.
And we're there. So that doesn't happen, you
(13:58):
know, so that we can make sure that they can still live their
lives while we're taking care ofher, in her, you know, new
environment. And I kept seeing this in the
notes and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to pop in,
I'm going to go, I'm going to observe and I'm going to figure
out ways to redirect her and give that information to the
caregiver so that she's not picking up the phone and calling
her family every time somebody asks her a question or, you
(14:22):
know, she feels like she can't do something because her family
will get mad at her or whatever.So I went and, you know, I
observed the caregiver was doinga great job.
But while the first thing I she did, when I got there, I was
talking to her and she was, I was like, I need to call my son.
I need to see if it's OK for me to answer these questions.
And I was, and they were just like basic questions.
(14:44):
And I was like, OK, OK. And I said, well, you know, I
want to tell you, can I tell youabout something real quick?
And I just started telling her astory about these deer that I
saw on the beach. Completely redirected her
mindset. She forgot about calling her
son. And then she was fine.
And we went into playing music. She really loves music.
She loves to sing. And so I'd brought like a little
speaker for her to play in us tolike dance and play around.
(15:07):
And the caregiver got to see that.
And now the caregiver does that.We she brings her Bluetooth
speaker with her. They play music.
Anytime she gets in this place where she feels like she needs
to call her family, she distracts her, redirects her.
And there's been a lot less calls since then.
So those types of things happen often.
And just as an owner of the company, I want to support my
(15:29):
caregivers as much as possible in those ways so that they feel
like they can do their job and do it do it well.
And but my job is equipping themwith those skills to do that
because a lot of caregivers, they're not really experienced
with elderly. They just know they can take
care of somebody or they may be going to school for their CNA or
(15:52):
RN or, you know, whatever. And they're just in that the
stepping stone of trying to see if this is a demographic they
want to work with. And as much as that I can equip
them, you know, I want to even for them to go on to whatever
else they may do after being with us.
It's just an, I guess an operational question for you.
In less than 10 years, there'll be more adults over the age of
(16:13):
65 than there will be children under the age of 18 in this
country. Clearly, clearly there's there's
going to be an overabundance of of older adults coming into the
market. I mean, what do you think about
your business structure as it stands now?
I mean, are you looking to scaleto get larger?
Are you in a space where you feel like this is a manageable
(16:35):
number and you're going to stay here, or what does that look
like? I definitely am looking to
scale. I have actually been talking to
a couple different people about franchising and growing the
company across the nation ratherthan just being here in Bay
County. And then also, I think you
mentioned it before, I coach other people to to start their
(16:57):
own caregiving companies, because this is going to be a
wake up call for our government and our country when they
realize there's nobody to take care of this demographic.
There's going to be people that have the money to pay for it,
but there's just not going to bethe providers.
And so that's, that's one thing that we are looking to grow and
scale always, But then also to, you know, private care homes are
(17:18):
common in a lot of states, but not as common as they should be.
And that's going to be an Ave. that is going to have to be
explored. There's going to have to be long
term care homes or not long termcare homes, a private care homes
for other options. Because like you said earlier,
(17:39):
you know, we're at 8090%, you know, occupancy rates for the
senior living places now. So where are they going to put
everybody when and and they're not building a lot more.
We are overflowing here. Yeah.
And we're overflowing here in Florida.
We're at over 90% occupancy and all of our assisted livings
right now. And so where are these people
(17:59):
going to go? We have Margaritaville down the
road, which is 55 and up and they're it's massive.
There are already people in there that have to have full
time caregivers. So like, again, where are these
people going to go? And so the only solution I see
is either they're going to have to start building a lot more
senior living communities, or we're going to have to take
existing properties that are sitting on the market and no
(18:22):
one's buying right now and turn them into private care homes.
And you know, there's a opportunity there not just for
people who want to work with elderly, but for investors who
want an opportunity to cash flowa good amount of money every
month because it's a lot different renting A room rather
than renting a whole house. And you can also get very much
(18:43):
more specific and specialized inyour care because you only have
four or five residents there. So you can cook according to
their dietary needs. You can bring in services that
they need. There's a lot more one-on-one
attention. It feels like a family home and
their families don't feel all this guilt leaving them in this
big huge facility every time they go and visit and then leave
(19:04):
because it is kind of, you know,the one of the biggest things we
deal with is the guilt of the family.
The families don't feel like they are parents or grandparents
or whatever should be in this setting, but they have no other
option for them. So and a lot of people can't pay
for, you know, in home care and especially when it gets to be
(19:25):
1012 hours a day. So private care homes is is
going to have to pick up and there's going to have to be more
investors and people that want to take care of elderly kind of
teaming up and making those things happen.
I. Was thinking too, Wouldn't it be
neat if investors partnered withthe baby boomers who many of
(19:48):
them own homes, right? And we're all sitting here
talking about how you know, the Gen.
X, Gen. Z generation is having a hard
time or millennials as well purchasing homes, right?
So wouldn't it make sense for the investors to partner with a
baby boomer and convert their existing home into what you're
talking about a private care home where then then they don't
(20:10):
have to leave, right? They would just move into one
room in their home. A caregiver would come in and
and. And then they could have other
people come in as well. And I mean, that would be such a
easy transition because we're atthe recent data I saw from from
building and development standpoint, I think from 2024,
it said if every construction project slated from then till
(20:33):
2026 was even if it was completed, it would still only
account for about 30% of the housing that's needed in the
industry right now. So we're so far behind.
I don't know how they're going to pick it up unless they do
what you're talking about and start transitioning actual
existing homes into these private care facilities.
And that model you're talking about, there's actually a couple
(20:55):
places in the country that have where the younger person
genetics and whatever, I don't know all the millennials, gins,
whatever, but they, there's too many of the of the names.
But they can actually partner with some like an elderly person
or a group of elderly people where they are not just moving
(21:19):
into the home, but also helping take care of them, helping with
their technology needs. Because you match somebody
that's grown up with the Internet and social media and
everything else. They know how to find whatever
so quickly. And then you have these older
people who have no idea and how to go about the Internet and
they're getting ripped off and taken advantage of and people
(21:40):
are scamming them left and rightbecause anytime they do go on
the Internet, people realize like, hey, this is an easy
target and you have all these older people.
I had one lady sending money to this man that she thought was
George Strait for years. And I'm like, George Strait does
not need your money. Like he's not going to be asking
you for money. But anyway, she still believed
it was George Strait. So, you know, pairing them
(22:02):
together and you know, it'll letelder people will live longer
because they have that youthful person in their home.
And then these youth will actually learn skills and be
able to, you know, provide a living space for their family
down the road. Because also too, there can be
at the end of life when that happens, you know, there could
even be an agreement of like, you know, they could buy the
(22:24):
home for this amount or, you know, they could even deed it to
them or whatever. But there's a lot of opportunity
between matching those demographics together so that
they can actually help each other rather than one helping
the other or, you know, but you know, just one way St. and the
people that are doing it are on the cutting edge.
And I wish more people were looking at that as an option.
(22:48):
And I think we're going to have to at some point because kids
cannot afford to pay rent, let alone buy a home right now.
Yeah. And I just think because of the
number of caregivers, I mean even just in long term care,
what was it February of this year, I was, I was in Washington
DC at the Argentum Public PolicyInstitute and they were talking
about the number of caregivers just in the assisted living
(23:09):
space that are going to be needed by 2040.
And like right now it said we had somewhere around 880,000
long term care workers and by 2040 we were going to need like
20 million. Yeah, such a crazy number.
I mean, that's, yeah, I know, I know.
And what's good. And I mean that, you know, you
need that many people coming into the healthcare space, but
(23:31):
it's not just senior living thatneeds healthcare workers, it's
the entire industry that needs it, you know, from hospitals to
doctors offices and everywhere in between.
For all of those people to then choose senior living is going to
be a pretty tall order. So I'm not sure how we're going
to fulfill that. And like you're saying, I mean,
I think getting younger people involved sooner, you know,
(23:53):
getting them in maybe a high school internship type situation
where they can go work in a homecaregiving agency or a senior
living community. And then, you know, after
college, start looking at these types of options about becoming
a caregiver because I think it'sgoing to be such a valuable,
rewarding experience you. Know, and the positive side to
that, well, you can be positive or negative the way you look at
(24:15):
it, but to be a caregiver in most of the country, there's not
really a lot of special licensesor degrees or anything that you
have to have here where I live, it's just a application process
where they fingerprint you. They pretty much just make sure
you're a legitimate, legitimate company and then that's it.
They give you your license and there you go.
(24:35):
And so you don't have to go to school for, for eight years
after even high school to be able to be a caregiver.
And so there's a lot of opportunity for people who don't
really know what they want to doto do or they're not really
wanting to go to college and, you know, get all these loans
and all this debt backed up behind them.
Because honestly then this is just my opinion.
(24:55):
But like, I think college is a thing of the past.
I don't think that. I was just about to say that.
Yeah, I mean, college kids thesedays, unless you're going to be
a doctor, something that you have to get a college or medical
degree for, I just think it's overrated.
It's not what it used to be. Yeah, no, I totally agree with
that. I was just sitting here thinking
(25:16):
about the proliferation of AI across all industries and how
everybody's talking about job security and how it's at risk
and all these other places, you know, AI is going to make so
many jobs obsolete that people are going to school for right
now. I mean, my son is about to turn
13, so he's got five years untilhe's in college and I have no
(25:37):
idea what he's what he's going to go to school for or if he
will go to school, right. But this type of job, there's
job security here because while AII think there's AI software
and tools that can help enhance the experience for the caregiver
or, you know, the client themself, it's never going to
replace the caregiver, right? Like there's always going to
(25:58):
need to be a human being in the room with someone else.
And that's just the nature of the industry we're in.
So I think that it is a brilliant option for people to
choose, so long as they enjoy working with other people.
Right. I think it's a safe bet.
Yeah. And I, I would encourage anybody
to explore that if you're just not really sure, if you feel
(26:19):
like you could, you know, help with just daily tasks of
somebody you know, that they need, like shopping, running
errands, go on the doctor's appointments with them.
Because there's, it's a very rewarding job too.
If, if you can, if it's meant for you, if it's something you
enjoy, if you actually like being around elderly.
(26:39):
And you know, we, I've never been in a, in a spot as far as
this day and age where the elderly is not as, are not as
valued as they have been in the past.
And there's so much we can stilllearn from them.
And I really think that putting younger people in that sphere of
influence would be a huge benefit because just like normal
(27:03):
manners and things that we grew up.
Yes, ma'am, no ma'am. You know, like I had a certain
level of respect for my elders. Even with caregiving.
I see it like, you know, there'scaregivers that have come across
my table and I realized, like, you don't have respect for
elderly people in any capacity. So you can't really work with
them. But I think we need to get back
(27:25):
to that because they're not just, you know, there's not
there's they have so much to teach and so much life
experience. They have lived through how many
progresses like, I mean, you, they went from like typewriters
to Internet to, I mean, AI. Like they have experienced so
much in their lifetime and it's just there's so much we could
(27:45):
learn from them. And I really think there's a,
there's got to be a way of putting that, those pieces
together for both people's sake.Absolutely, absolutely agree
with that. I want you mentioned earlier
about your coaching the next generation of care leaders, so
through your US caregiver Network.
Tell us about that. What does that entail?
So if somebody, for example somebody a professional, is
(28:07):
working inside senior living, they feel stuck.
How can starting a home care business give them a new way to
impact older adults? Well, first of all, you have a
lot more freedom and you can kind of pick the clients you
want to work with. You can pick the ones that are
your demographic, your avatar. Would you say?
You might say as to the people that you want to work with?
Now, whether you want to just doit on your own and not work for
(28:30):
a company and you set your own hours, you set your own
schedule, or you take the clients you want.
That's an avenue a lot of peoplemay want to go.
They may not want to own a business, but they don't want to
work for a company anymore because they feel like the
company is not appreciating themor, you know, paying them what
they need. And then take it one step
further. You know, if they want to
actually start a caregiving company, you know, you don't
(28:52):
have to start with all this money.
You don't have to start with, you know, employees and all this
stuff. Like I started just on my own,
providing the services by myself.
And then I, all of my caregiversare independent contractors and
they like it that way because they want to do other jobs, they
want to go to school, they want to be able to set their own
schedules, you know as well. So, you know, I don't have all
(29:14):
the encumbrances of AW2 employeeas far as you know, I have a lot
more flexibility with them as independent contractors.
And it's not hard to bring people on board as long as you
are. I feel like as long as your
heart is in the right place and you are really trying to provide
(29:35):
and take care of a need in your community or whatever place
you're at. I do think that you will find
the people that want to go alongside of you and you will
have people that you know, end up being on your management
teams and not just a caregiver caring for them.
It's just kind of a natural progression.
The people that are working in this industry with elderly
(29:58):
there, everybody kind of understands.
So like, you know, you have thiscamaraderie within it because we
all have the stories of this lady who was a sweet Angel and
then she got a UTI and she thought everybody was taking her
money and she thought you were, you know, coming to kidnap her.
You know, there's like this big,you know, discrepancy or
(30:18):
whatever. So there's a lot of opportunity
there. And as far as what we do, you
know we have things as little as$67 a month to go through our
group coaching where you can, you can start your business, you
know, just being in our you knowmonthly class.
And then if you want to move faster and you don't want to do
it, you know, in a group setting, we have one-on-one
coaching that, you know, gets people there faster.
(30:39):
And then we also work with people that are already
caregiving and already have a caregiving company, but they
just haven't figured out the systems and processes.
And so they're still doing Google Calendars rather than
having an app where you have your caregivers accepting jobs,
declining jobs, all of it goes through 1 space.
And so we can even help them grow their company and be more
(31:01):
automated instead of having to do everything by themselves.
And they can move a lot faster and grow a lot bigger in that
case and provide a lot more services.
So if somebody was starting a caregiver for giving business or
wanted to start a caregiving business, I mean what would be
the the first steps that you would advise them on a board of
operations? Well, first, if it were me, I
(31:22):
would go talk to people in my community.
I would go to the rehabs that are the ones that are, you know,
repairing hips, not your drug rehabs, but your rehabs from
like a, you know, a fall or kneereplacement or, you know,
whatever. And go talk to them and find
out, you know, do they need caregivers?
Is this so lack of a service that you see in their area?
(31:43):
And I guarantee you if you live in the United States, they're
going to say yes. We don't have enough caregivers
because when they send people home because they can only have
them there for a certain amount of time.
And unfortunately, the rehabs, they get paid the same amount
whether somebody is there for a week or a month.
And so they want those beds emptied and they don't want them
there as long as possible. So they need to be able to send
(32:04):
them home safely. And so just plugging into those
resources and saying, hey, you know, is this a need in my
community? Once you identify the need at
that point, you know, you, you can start just as your own.
You don't have to even have a company name.
You can just do business ads, you know, like there's you can
bootstrap this from the very, you know, smallest minute
(32:26):
detail. Like I didn't spend money on
advertising. I didn't, I didn't have the
money at the time. I dumped it all into the
company. So like I did this with no
investment, no, nothing. And anybody can, I'm not some
genius that, you know, was like,oh, you know, I've got this
great idea. No, it was, it was an actual
accident. And so if I can, if I can do it,
if you have, you know, the desire and mental capacity to
(32:50):
deal with people, anybody could do this business.
Even if you don't have a lot of experience working with elderly,
start putting yourself around elderly.
Go to your Senior Center, volunteer, see, you know, do you
like this? Do you like being a part of, you
know, working with them? Because if you don't, go ahead
and bow out. But just, you know, go to local
(33:10):
church groups that focus on to elderly.
You know, pastors are a great resource for us because they see
the needs in their churches. And they're like, hey, you know,
Miss Betty can't, you know, get her shopping done because she
can't drive anymore because theytook her license away.
And they call us sometimes. And even, you know, the local
sheriff's and Police Department call us because they get the
(33:31):
calls from the people that are being taken advantage of by
people they thought they could trust.
Like, for instance, one lady that we are working with, she
had her neighbor going to the grocery store for her.
And every time her neighbor went, she was taking $500 out in
cash back and just robbing this woman blind.
And she didn't know it, but finally she figured it out,
(33:52):
called the cops and they call usto kind of go in and, and help,
you know, get that straightened out or whatever.
So I mean, there's, there's a lot of options you can tackle
this. It just depends on, you know,
how much money you got, if you want to invest money, if you
want to start big and fast, or if you want to just kind of
start slow and grow slow. I mean, either way is fine.
You'll get to the same result. It just depends on how quickly
(34:13):
you want to go. What about that transition point
from being the caregiver yourself to managing A-Team who
is doing the caregiving for you?What does that look like?
For me, because I've kind of always been an entrepreneur,
managing, I will say managing isalways difficult when you're
(34:34):
dealing with people. But as long as you are fair and
you're taking care of your caregivers and you're not
expecting them to do things thatyou wouldn't do yourself.
Because honestly, I do think if you're going to have a team of
caregivers and you're going to hire caregivers, it really
benefits you to have been a caregiver at some point in your
life so that you can see what they go through and know exactly
(34:58):
what they're experiencing. But bringing on caregivers is
not a hard thing to do. Managing them if you have a
system set up properly is not hard to do as far as like the
paperwork and stuff like that. I have admin person now that
does all that. But before you know, I just
would send them a contract because again, I used AI to help
me get the contracts and then had them cleaned up and read by
(35:21):
attorneys and stuff like that later down the road.
But to begin with, I wasn't doing any of that stuff.
The main thing I had was a release of liability for the
caregivers and the clients so that we weren't liable for
anything that might happen. And then of course, you know,
you just want to hire people that have some experience
hopefully. But even if they don't, I've
given people a chance that have no experience.
(35:43):
We have a girl right now, she's 18 and she actually started with
us when she was 17. But I really wanted to see how
she would do because she's, she really seemed like she had a
passion and a really good work ethic.
And so she's been with us. She's 18 now.
And, you know, I'm trying to even give younger people more of
an opportunity to explore this industry to see if this is
(36:07):
something they want to go into. But you know, finding caregivers
is easy, keeping caregivers and getting good quality caregivers,
that's a little bit more of the struggle.
Now you will, you will need a background check app or
something that you can check people's backgrounds because you
can't just send anybody into anybody's home.
(36:28):
You got to do a background check.
But other than that, you know, we check references and we
pretty much train them. We do shadowing and things like
that to get them acclimated and not just throw them in on the
client to begin with. And then also so that we can
kind of see how they work with the elderly and to have eyes on
them for a little bit longer. But it's not, it's not hard to
(36:48):
manage them if you put a good team together.
It's just wedding out the ones that aren't a good fit mainly.
Yeah, I think, I think there's probably an appeal for a lot of
people to bring in some younger caregivers just because you
could essentially mold them into, you know, the type of
caregiver that you want because they don't have previous
experience or training, right. I mean, So what does that look
(37:10):
like when you bring someone in who's 18 or I mean, did, is
there a job shadow time that they're with someone?
And is it a specific person thatyou you set them up with?
Yeah. So when we bring anybody on, not
just you know the younger ones, but anybody, we bring them on,
we get them, we train them. You know, we have, they have to
go through our training and thenwe have them shadow a couple
(37:32):
different caregivers and a couple different clients so that
they can have an idea of what they might run into dealing with
different types of people in different, you know,
personalities and things like that.
With the younger ones, I put more emphasis on me being
involved because I don't want toleave it to a caregiver to train
that person, especially if the caregiver maybe has some bad
(37:54):
habits already. You want to make sure like
they're not picking up those badhabits.
So I'm more involved in the younger ones and I keep a better
eye on them just because they'reyounger and you know, we got to
make sure that there's nothing that slipped through the cracks.
They're not going to have an extensive background report,
things like that. But I, I find that my younger
(38:17):
ones and 18, that was the youngest I've had.
But you know that 18 to 2526 demographic, they are way more
easy to work with as far as likegetting them trained and not
having to get them past bad habits.
Because people get complacent inthis industry, especially if
(38:38):
you've worked in senior living and you've been in these
facilities and you have all these other people working
beside you on the floor. You've got all these people you
have to attend to in a day, not just one client.
It becomes just a job and it thecompassion can go away and the
understanding can go away. And so we try to make sure our
(39:01):
caregivers know that this is still a person and it's just as
hard for them to let you help them as it is for you to do your
job. Because these people are usually
pretty accomplished because they're, most of our clients are
private pay. So they have a good bit of money
set aside. So they've been doctors,
lawyers, teachers. They've never needed help with
(39:23):
anything. And now they need help going to
the bathroom. And it's very they, they feel
like they're losing a lot of their dignity.
And so we really stress that it is important to realize these
are still people. These are even if they've got
dementia and they're not remembering things, they still
know it's my cares about them when somebody when they can
(39:45):
trust somebody. And that's that's the hardest
thing to teach. I would say that's just more of
a character thing. And it does it does shine
through. You know you will find the ones
that care and the ones that don't just in there probably
first couple weeks. Of being with you and working
with your clients. There was a recent data point, I
(40:07):
think it's from 20 said that at least 774 nursing homes have
closed nationwide, which displaced over 28,000 residents,
putting more pressure on families to find transitional
care solutions. So I wanted to talk just a
little bit about building partnerships with senior living
providers. And when we talked last time,
you'd mentioned a partnership with the placement specialist
(40:30):
where you provided interim care until resident was ready for
senior living and then the community paid the placement
fee, which is pretty, pretty cool set up.
What lessons can senior living operators learn from these types
of referral partnerships? Those are your, you need those
like those are your bread and butter.
Those people have the ear of thecommunity because they don't
(40:52):
just go in and go, OK, well, we're going to put you over in
this one. They have gone through their
finances. They have gone through, you
know, what they can afford, whatthey can't afford, what
resources they already have. They have connections with home
health agencies, which is, you know, your rehabs, your Hospice,
you they have all of those. They're in the community.
And so the senior living facilities, if they don't value
(41:16):
those relationships, because I can tell you, the girl that I
work with, when she tells the family this is the best fit for
your mom, for your dad, they trust her and she has a great
reputation. Now don't partner with people
that don't have a good reputation, but if they're in
there doing the work and they're, you know, taking people
(41:37):
on the tours, they're making sure they know the directors of
all the senior living communities around, you know,
those will they will like fill up your beds at no, like there's
no reason why one month of that rent or whatever being paid to a
placement is not worth it. It is 100% worth it.
I will say that the I would get a person in their community
(42:01):
that's not like, and I don't want to name call, so I'm not
going to say the name of a place, But there's a big
organization that's very nationally known and that if a
lead comes through their call center, they pretty much go in
and put that person's name on the list of all the communities
in this area. So that if that person, even if
(42:22):
a senior living specialist is the one that brings them towards
them, shows them they're alreadyon that list with that
residential facility. And so like if that payment,
that placement fee then goes to them, not to the person that's
actually put in the work. So before anybody calls one of
these big nationally known ones,just understand there are people
(42:43):
in your community that know yourcommunity, they're in your
community and they will have a much better handle on what's
going on. And they need to get paid and
you're the clients aren't payingthem, it's the facilities that
are paying them. And so I recommend going that
direction rather than the big conglomerates nationally known
if the. Company's name we will not
speak. Right, right.
(43:06):
I would not say we're all angels.
Yeah, no. And I definitely advise the same
to my to the communities we helpmanage as well because those
larger referral companies, they're essentially just putting
your community up on a website with all of your competitors.
They have I think somewhere between 500 to 600 agents
(43:28):
nationwide. How in the world do those 5 or
600 agents know those communities inside and out?
They don't know anything about those communities.
They just know that they may know a geographic area.
And even now it's probably all just AI driven, somebody puts in
a search for say, Panama City, FL, all the communities that are
on that website for Panama City,FL are going to come up.
(43:49):
And then if, if they express interest in one, then that lead
goes to all of them. It's just the way it works.
And then, you know, then you're off to the races.
So it's just it's a bad, it's bad business for everyone.
It is. And you know, my, the girl I
work with closely, bless her heart, she does a lot of stuff
for free because she still won'tturn the family down.
(44:11):
Even if she knows she's not getting that placement fee
because it's going to go to one of the bigger ones.
She still puts in the same amount of work with that family
as she would as somebody that she knew she was going to get
that placement fee. Because you know, up front, like
when you call a facility and say, hey, I'm going to be
bringing this person around a tour, this is her name,
birthday, whatever, they're going to go, OK, well, we
(44:33):
already have her from this. And so she knows, but she still
puts in the time and that's why she's created such a name for
herself in our community, because she does work for free a
lot. And it shouldn't be that way,
but unfortunately it is. My last question about placement
agents. Has there ever been a situation
where a placement agent has taken a client away from you
(44:57):
unexpectedly? Does that ever happen?
I haven't had that happen, but only because the one that I work
closely with, like we wouldn't do that to each other like.
Yeah. And I don't work with any other
ones in the community just because there's a limited amount
of facilities here that they canplace people.
And so I just only work with my girl.
(45:17):
But she does the same thing likewhen she goes and meets with
people in their home and they'renot ready to move into, you
know, senior living residential,you know, right now she'll call
me and be like, they need an extra, you know, a little bit
extra hands, some extra help, 3 or 4 hours a day.
They're not ready to go here yet.
So then I keep her abreast of what's going on.
I let her know like the progression of the client so
(45:38):
that, you know, when she needs to step back in, she can.
So it's a two way St. and we respect that, you know, about
each other. I wouldn't work with every
senior placement person in this area because they're there's
still some good ones and there'sstill some not so good ones.
But but she I've never had anybody try to, you know, take
somebody from me. Yeah, kind of be like biting the
(45:59):
hand that feeds. And essentially because you're,
you're kind of in the, the firststage of, of the caregiving
journey with an older adult. But then eventually you may come
back into the picture. You know, even if they're in a
community, sometimes they still need some extra help with their
Adls and things like that. So and the staff may not have
the capability to do that. So I know a lot of times they
(46:21):
bring caregivers in from the outside.
Yes, we have multiple clients and senior living facilities
right now because they're in assisted living, which is
somebody's there 24/7, but they're not in their room 24/7.
And so, you know, we are there to help get them to activities
and make sure they're not sleeping all day and things like
that. Yeah.
(46:43):
Well, Shay, thank you so much for this great conversation.
Where can our audience go to learn more about Bay County
Caregivers or the US Caregiver Network, or connect with you
directly? Well, we have a website,
baycountycaregivers.com. They can go check us out there.
We got a lot of information on that website.
All of my socials are at Bay County Caregivers.
(47:04):
So we're on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, you can find me there.
Same with US Caregiver Network. We're on TikTok under US
Caregiver Network, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
And then you can they can call or e-mail me directly at Shea
SHE a@baycountycaregivers.com and I will respond to any e-mail
(47:24):
that I get. So if you really want to just
connect with me first, feel freeto send me an e-mail.
I'll even do, I do 30 minute free discovery calls just to
kind of talk people through thisprocess of if this is a good
fit, if they want to move into, you know, doing caregiving, if
they want to open their own company and kind of just see
where they're at And if this is something that you know, they
(47:44):
want to do rather than them, youknow, having to try and figure
it out themselves. Awesome.
All right, Well, we'll make surewe put all that in the show
notes for our audience. And so as we wrap up today's
episode, I want to thank you, Shay Irvine, for sharing your
journey from an accidental founder to a voice for caregiver
entrepreneurship. Her perspective highlights the
(48:05):
crucial role home care plays in easing capacity challenges for
senior living, while also inspiring new leaders to step
into this field. So if you want to connect with
Shay or learn more about Bay County Caregivers or the US
Caregiver Network, we've included her links in the show
notes. As always, we hope you found
this episode insightful and inspiring.
Don't forget to subscribe to ourpodcast on your favorite
(48:27):
platform and stay tuned for moreepisodes where we continue to
explore the evolving world of senior care, covering everything
from innovative care models and leadership strategies to family
support, technology, and the future of aging.
Also, remember that From Leads to Leases isn't just an audio
experience, we're also a video podcast.
So if you want to see the video versions of our episodes, make
(48:48):
sure to subscribe to our YouTubeor Spotify channels.
I'm Jerry Vinci, CEO of CCR Growth.
Thank you for joining us on FromLeads to Leases.
Please like, subscribe and sharethis episode with anyone who
might find it useful. And until next time, lead with
strategy and with heart. Chat with you again soon.
Thanks, Jay. Thank you, it was a pleasure.
(49:10):
Thanks for listening to From Leads to Leases.
Are you ready to fill your roomsfaster and increase occupancy?
Visit ccrgrowth.com to learn about our Senior Growth
Innovation Suite, a proven system to generate highly
qualified tour ready leads, accelerate sales and reduce
acquisition costs. Let's connect and turn your
challenges into opportunities. See you next time.
And a lot of times senior livingcommunities do not like to see
caregivers come in and there's this stigma around it that they
feel as a caregiver. Obviously the family is in the
clients paying us, not the senior living community.
And so they feel like we're going to tattle on them or say
things because there's there's gaps, there's gaps in care in
(00:23):
senior living and it's just going to happen because staffing
is an issue. Getting quality people is an
issue. What happens when a hurricane
wipes out an entire region's care providers, leaving older
adults with nowhere to turn? This week's guest found herself
in that exact situation, and what began as a side project
quickly became a lifeline for her community and a business
(00:45):
model that's now inspiring caregivers nationwide.
Welcome to From Leads to Leases,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 toincrease occupancy faster,
(01:07):
Guaranteed. Welcome back to another episode.
From Lease to Lease is the podcast that dives deep into the
senior living and senior care industries, bringing you
insights, strategies and storiesfrom the experts at the
forefront of innovation, leadership and care.
I'm your host, Jerry Vincey, CEOof CCR Growth, full service
marketing and growth agency that's exclusive to the senior
(01:29):
living industry. And through this podcast, I'm
here to guide you through the evolving landscape of senior
care, exploring the innovations,the strategies and leadership
insights that are shaping the future of the industry.
Today's guest is Shay Irvine, founder and CEO of Bay County
Caregivers in Florida and the USCaregiver Network.
Shay started her business in 2020 almost by accident after
(01:53):
discovering that post Hurricane Michael and the pandemic, Bay
County had been left with no in home care providers.
What began as a test project quickly became a thriving home
care agency and today she not only runs her own caregiving
company, but also coaches aspiring entrepreneurs to launch
their own agencies helping meet the rapidly growing demand for
(02:16):
elder care. So, Shay, welcome to the show.
Well, thanks for having me, Jerry.
I really am excited to do this. This is actually one of my first
podcast guest host or guest spots.
So I'm I'm excited. Awesome, Yeah, I'm so glad to
have you here. You know, I feel like there's a
big part of the senior living experience right now for senior
(02:36):
living staff where you hear all the time about burnout, right?
And I just feel like this Ave. like the thought of starting a
caregiving business sounds daunting #1 but I do think that
there's a lot of staff that potentially they love working
with older adults. That's the reason they got into
the industry, most of them. And they might be burned out on
(02:57):
senior living, but they may not be burned out on working with
elders. So I think that what you offer
is such a cool solution to that problem.
So I definitely I definitely want to talk about that today.
OK. Maybe just start telling us a
little bit about that story about how how this came to
because I know you didn't start out in a caregiving business, a
(03:19):
setting. No, not at all.
I had actually started a advertising and marketing
company basically. And it will, I live in Florida
and so is going to target small local businesses and not just
the vacation stuff because there's, you know, there's all
the vacationers stuff, but not stuff for locals.
And so I had to create a test company to put through my
(03:42):
program to see because I needed analytics.
I needed to see if this was going to work.
And if I'm actually selling something, I wanted to see that
I could take a business from pretty much nothing and get them
clients and help them actually grow their business through our
marketing. And so I was like, oh, well,
I'll just start a sitting company and if somebody calls,
I'll just do it myself. Like whether it's pets, elderly,
(04:04):
waiting on an electrician, whatever, I would just, you
know, be that person. Well, I didn't realize that
there was such a lack of caregiving resources in this
area. So as soon as I started, it took
no time for people to find me and have me come talk to like
their case managers and their staff and saying to for me to
(04:26):
tell them what I offered. And I had no idea what I was
doing. So I was charging way less than
I should have because I was justlike, it's just me, you know?
There was no company. There was no nothing.
And so my roster of clients started growing extremely
quickly and I realized this is where I needed to be, the
marketing company. I would like to say that that's
(04:47):
why I grew up through this, but it wasn't.
It wasn't that my marketing company was all that great.
It was just, there was such a lack of services and I popped in
at the right time. And from there I knew I couldn't
do it all myself. And I could either walk away
from it or take on just a littlefew clients that I can handle.
Or I could provide a resource for the community and bring on
(05:10):
other caregivers that would liketo get into the space and that I
knew could handle this demographic.
And so from there, it just kind of grew into what it is now,
which is a thriving caregiving company.
We have over 20 caregivers that I, we work with and a whole, you
know, staff of all my back ends team and marketing and all that
kind of stuff. So I had to.
(05:31):
I walked away from the original business that I had created and
spent a lot of time and money onto put my focus in this.
And that was hard at the time because I'd put so much time and
energy into that other business.But the community tells you what
they need. And they weren't telling me they
needed the marketing and advertising.
They were telling me they neededa caregiving company.
(05:52):
Yeah, now that's amazing. And I know caregiving isn't for
everyone. Was there a personal experience
that LED you down that path to begin with?
I had always worked with elderly.
I used to sell life insurance and it was more of the burial
policies, things like that. So I had a lot of experience
working and meeting with elderlyand seeing their struggles.
(06:16):
And then also my grandmother hadhad a pretty significant injury
in the fall and my parents, because there wasn't really any
other options, they had to move in with her for almost 6 months
and then off and on for an entire year to help take care of
her. And just the stress that I saw
(06:37):
it put on them. And, and my grandmother, I was
like, there's got to be more resources for this demographic
when these things happen becauseshe went from being healthy,
happy, did everything, was driving all this stuff to now
she couldn't even get up off thecouch without assistance.
And so it was a big wake up call, I guess, for our family.
(06:58):
And I realized that there was such a need for this.
So I know that a lot of senior living providers, well, I don't
want to say senior living providers, but I think the
industry in general sees there'sthese two different paths you
can go down, right? You can go down the the senior
living community route or you can go down the in home care
route until in home care is no longer an option.
But if we look at the recent data around senior housing, Q1
(07:23):
of 25, I think there it's, it's around 87% occupancy overall
right across all living options.And I think in Q2, I think it
even went up to like 8088 or 89%.
So and new construction is at its lowest point since 2009.
So clearly we're not in a position to, to only look at
(07:46):
senior living communities as an option.
How? How do you think home in home
care works alongside senior living providers rather than
competing with them? So in a lot of different ways,
but one of the things is a lot of people, they are just needing
a little extra assistance and they can't do certain things
that they used to be able to do and they're not ready to go into
(08:08):
senior living. They still want the freedom of
being at their home, being around what's familiar to them,
and so being able to have a caregiver come in to their home
even 2-3 hours a day just to help them with certain things
can keep them out of senior living for quite some time.
And then when it gets to where it's too much, you know, we
actually transition people into senior living.
(08:30):
So they're used to us, they're comfortable with us.
They, you know, we've been in their home for however long.
And so when they're moving into these other communities, we kind
of help, you know, make that a little easier and a smoother
transition by going with them, helping set up their stuff in
their rooms and, you know, getting them acclimated to this
new normal for them. And a lot of times I will say
(08:53):
that senior living communities do not like to see caregivers
come in and there's a stigma around it that they feel like as
a caregiver, obviously the family is in the clients paying
us, not the senior living community.
And so they feel like we're going to tattle on them or, you
(09:14):
know, say things that because there's, there's gaps, there's
gaps in care in senior living and it's just going to happen
because staffing is an issue, getting quality people is an
issue. And so when those gaps happen,
they feel like we're there to let the families know.
And our course of action is always to work within the
community first. Take it to the community
(09:36):
director, if there's an issue that is not helping or is
hurting the care of our client or, you know, keeping them from
progressing or whatever it is, or we address it within the
community first. The only time we go to the
families outside of that is if the community doesn't try to
help correct the situation or weget a lot of pushback or things
(09:57):
like that. Because I do think it needs to
be a coexisting team of people that can, you know, they hear us
and we hear them and we don't step over our, you know,
boundaries and they, you know, don't cross into our boundaries
of what we do. And I wish more senior living
providers and residential facilities would look at it more
that way rather than a, a competition or us coming in to
(10:20):
like tell them they're not doingtheir job right or something
like that. Yeah, Yeah, that makes total
sense. And you mentioned, you know,
limited staff, not enough staff,low quality staff.
I mean, I think that that's an issue across the board.
And one of the data points I sawrecently was that nearly 50% of
direct care workers leave withinthe first year.
(10:41):
And usually that's due to low pay or, you know, advancement
opportunities. But I feel like that that
percentage is probably higher than that.
So in your space, I mean, how doyou identify and keep caregivers
who see this as more than just apaycheck?
Well, that took some time. We had to test a lot of
different things to make sure wehad something that really did
(11:03):
pinpoint ones that were good. But then secondly, keeping them
because, you know, we can only charge so much as a home care
agency to individuals because we're mostly private pay.
And so that does limit us on what we can pay our provide our
caregivers. However, we put in bonuses, a
bonus structure we, I actually incorporate like yoga classes, I
(11:25):
pay for things like their CPR trainings and certifications
because once I get good caregivers, I want to keep them.
And so we do evaluations after the 1st 90 days to see where
they can do better and where we can do better.
And we give an automatic pay raise after that 90 days if
they're still with us And you know, we're working well
together and I'm not having to micromanage my caregivers, but
(11:48):
we check in a lot. We have, we try to do some
because caregivers, a lot of times they feel very isolated in
their work because they're not, you're not going into an office,
you're not like talking to all the different caregivers on a
regular basis. So we have an app that we use to
kind of keep that communication line open between them as well.
But then also we try to plan events where they can all hang
(12:08):
out together and it feels more like a team rather than they're
out here on this island by themselves and having to come up
with solutions for themselves. And how do you maintain quality
across the board? Like what, how do you maintain
those standards, especially because it's not like you're
able to monitor everything each caregiver is doing.
I mean, they're, they're going into someone else's home often
(12:30):
by themselves. I mean, how, how do you assess
that? Well, there's a couple ways we
do that too. So in the app that we use, every
time a caregiver works with the client, they have to put notes
in the app of what they did, what happened that day.
And that's more to, for us to know if there's an issue or
something, something has changedwith the client that we maybe
need to address or talk to the family about things like that.
(12:51):
But then also too, we screen ourcaregivers very well.
We before we even hire them. And then I do pop insurance like
I will just drop in on a caregiver and a client and just
kind of observe how they interact with that client, how
they redirect a client with dementia.
And if we see in their notes, because their notes are usually
(13:14):
pretty decent, if they're good caregiver, we can see if they're
struggling in a certain area on how to deal with things.
Because just like for instance, 2 weeks ago, we have this client
and she unfortunately, she had lived with a family member that
pretty much gave her PTSD because she doesn't think she
can do anything without the family member's permission
(13:36):
because he would always get upset with her and kind of yell
at her. And so she was this the shell of
a person when she moved into a senior living facility.
And so now whenever we're talking to her or the client was
trying to get her to do something, she'd be like, I need
to check with so And so I need to call my family.
And they're getting calls all day from the client.
And we're there. So that doesn't happen, you
(13:58):
know, so that we can make sure that they can still live their
lives while we're taking care ofher, in her, you know, new
environment. And I kept seeing this in the
notes and I was like, you know what, I'm just going to pop in,
I'm going to go, I'm going to observe and I'm going to figure
out ways to redirect her and give that information to the
caregiver so that she's not picking up the phone and calling
her family every time somebody asks her a question or, you
(14:22):
know, she feels like she can't do something because her family
will get mad at her or whatever.So I went and, you know, I
observed the caregiver was doinga great job.
But while the first thing I she did, when I got there, I was
talking to her and she was, I was like, I need to call my son.
I need to see if it's OK for me to answer these questions.
And I was, and they were just like basic questions.
(14:44):
And I was like, OK, OK. And I said, well, you know, I
want to tell you, can I tell youabout something real quick?
And I just started telling her astory about these deer that I
saw on the beach. Completely redirected her
mindset. She forgot about calling her
son. And then she was fine.
And we went into playing music. She really loves music.
She loves to sing. And so I'd brought like a little
speaker for her to play in us tolike dance and play around.
(15:07):
And the caregiver got to see that.
And now the caregiver does that.We she brings her Bluetooth
speaker with her. They play music.
Anytime she gets in this place where she feels like she needs
to call her family, she distracts her, redirects her.
And there's been a lot less calls since then.
So those types of things happen often.
And just as an owner of the company, I want to support my
(15:29):
caregivers as much as possible in those ways so that they feel
like they can do their job and do it do it well.
And but my job is equipping themwith those skills to do that
because a lot of caregivers, they're not really experienced
with elderly. They just know they can take
care of somebody or they may be going to school for their CNA or
(15:52):
RN or, you know, whatever. And they're just in that the
stepping stone of trying to see if this is a demographic they
want to work with. And as much as that I can equip
them, you know, I want to even for them to go on to whatever
else they may do after being with us.
It's just an, I guess an operational question for you.
In less than 10 years, there'll be more adults over the age of
(16:13):
65 than there will be children under the age of 18 in this
country. Clearly, clearly there's there's
going to be an overabundance of of older adults coming into the
market. I mean, what do you think about
your business structure as it stands now?
I mean, are you looking to scaleto get larger?
Are you in a space where you feel like this is a manageable
(16:35):
number and you're going to stay here, or what does that look
like? I definitely am looking to
scale. I have actually been talking to
a couple different people about franchising and growing the
company across the nation ratherthan just being here in Bay
County. And then also, I think you
mentioned it before, I coach other people to to start their
(16:57):
own caregiving companies, because this is going to be a
wake up call for our government and our country when they
realize there's nobody to take care of this demographic.
There's going to be people that have the money to pay for it,
but there's just not going to bethe providers.
And so that's, that's one thing that we are looking to grow and
scale always, But then also to, you know, private care homes are
(17:18):
common in a lot of states, but not as common as they should be.
And that's going to be an Ave. that is going to have to be
explored. There's going to have to be long
term care homes or not long termcare homes, a private care homes
for other options. Because like you said earlier,
(17:39):
you know, we're at 8090%, you know, occupancy rates for the
senior living places now. So where are they going to put
everybody when and and they're not building a lot more.
We are overflowing here. Yeah.
And we're overflowing here in Florida.
We're at over 90% occupancy and all of our assisted livings
right now. And so where are these people
(17:59):
going to go? We have Margaritaville down the
road, which is 55 and up and they're it's massive.
There are already people in there that have to have full
time caregivers. So like, again, where are these
people going to go? And so the only solution I see
is either they're going to have to start building a lot more
senior living communities, or we're going to have to take
existing properties that are sitting on the market and no
(18:22):
one's buying right now and turn them into private care homes.
And you know, there's a opportunity there not just for
people who want to work with elderly, but for investors who
want an opportunity to cash flowa good amount of money every
month because it's a lot different renting A room rather
than renting a whole house. And you can also get very much
(18:43):
more specific and specialized inyour care because you only have
four or five residents there. So you can cook according to
their dietary needs. You can bring in services that
they need. There's a lot more one-on-one
attention. It feels like a family home and
their families don't feel all this guilt leaving them in this
big huge facility every time they go and visit and then leave
(19:04):
because it is kind of, you know,the one of the biggest things we
deal with is the guilt of the family.
The families don't feel like they are parents or grandparents
or whatever should be in this setting, but they have no other
option for them. So and a lot of people can't pay
for, you know, in home care and especially when it gets to be
(19:25):
1012 hours a day. So private care homes is is
going to have to pick up and there's going to have to be more
investors and people that want to take care of elderly kind of
teaming up and making those things happen.
I. Was thinking too, Wouldn't it be
neat if investors partnered withthe baby boomers who many of
(19:48):
them own homes, right? And we're all sitting here
talking about how you know, the Gen.
X, Gen. Z generation is having a hard
time or millennials as well purchasing homes, right?
So wouldn't it make sense for the investors to partner with a
baby boomer and convert their existing home into what you're
talking about a private care home where then then they don't
(20:10):
have to leave, right? They would just move into one
room in their home. A caregiver would come in and
and. And then they could have other
people come in as well. And I mean, that would be such a
easy transition because we're atthe recent data I saw from from
building and development standpoint, I think from 2024,
it said if every construction project slated from then till
(20:33):
2026 was even if it was completed, it would still only
account for about 30% of the housing that's needed in the
industry right now. So we're so far behind.
I don't know how they're going to pick it up unless they do
what you're talking about and start transitioning actual
existing homes into these private care facilities.
And that model you're talking about, there's actually a couple
(20:55):
places in the country that have where the younger person
genetics and whatever, I don't know all the millennials, gins,
whatever, but they, there's too many of the of the names.
But they can actually partner with some like an elderly person
or a group of elderly people where they are not just moving
(21:19):
into the home, but also helping take care of them, helping with
their technology needs. Because you match somebody
that's grown up with the Internet and social media and
everything else. They know how to find whatever
so quickly. And then you have these older
people who have no idea and how to go about the Internet and
they're getting ripped off and taken advantage of and people
(21:40):
are scamming them left and rightbecause anytime they do go on
the Internet, people realize like, hey, this is an easy
target and you have all these older people.
I had one lady sending money to this man that she thought was
George Strait for years. And I'm like, George Strait does
not need your money. Like he's not going to be asking
you for money. But anyway, she still believed
it was George Strait. So, you know, pairing them
(22:02):
together and you know, it'll letelder people will live longer
because they have that youthful person in their home.
And then these youth will actually learn skills and be
able to, you know, provide a living space for their family
down the road. Because also too, there can be
at the end of life when that happens, you know, there could
even be an agreement of like, you know, they could buy the
(22:24):
home for this amount or, you know, they could even deed it to
them or whatever. But there's a lot of opportunity
between matching those demographics together so that
they can actually help each other rather than one helping
the other or, you know, but you know, just one way St. and the
people that are doing it are on the cutting edge.
And I wish more people were looking at that as an option.
(22:48):
And I think we're going to have to at some point because kids
cannot afford to pay rent, let alone buy a home right now.
Yeah. And I just think because of the
number of caregivers, I mean even just in long term care,
what was it February of this year, I was, I was in Washington
DC at the Argentum Public PolicyInstitute and they were talking
about the number of caregivers just in the assisted living
(23:09):
space that are going to be needed by 2040.
And like right now it said we had somewhere around 880,000
long term care workers and by 2040 we were going to need like
20 million. Yeah, such a crazy number.
I mean, that's, yeah, I know, I know.
And what's good. And I mean that, you know, you
need that many people coming into the healthcare space, but
(23:31):
it's not just senior living thatneeds healthcare workers, it's
the entire industry that needs it, you know, from hospitals to
doctors offices and everywhere in between.
For all of those people to then choose senior living is going to
be a pretty tall order. So I'm not sure how we're going
to fulfill that. And like you're saying, I mean,
I think getting younger people involved sooner, you know,
(23:53):
getting them in maybe a high school internship type situation
where they can go work in a homecaregiving agency or a senior
living community. And then, you know, after
college, start looking at these types of options about becoming
a caregiver because I think it'sgoing to be such a valuable,
rewarding experience you. Know, and the positive side to
that, well, you can be positive or negative the way you look at
(24:15):
it, but to be a caregiver in most of the country, there's not
really a lot of special licensesor degrees or anything that you
have to have here where I live, it's just a application process
where they fingerprint you. They pretty much just make sure
you're a legitimate, legitimate company and then that's it.
They give you your license and there you go.
(24:35):
And so you don't have to go to school for, for eight years
after even high school to be able to be a caregiver.
And so there's a lot of opportunity for people who don't
really know what they want to doto do or they're not really
wanting to go to college and, you know, get all these loans
and all this debt backed up behind them.
Because honestly then this is just my opinion.
(24:55):
But like, I think college is a thing of the past.
I don't think that. I was just about to say that.
Yeah, I mean, college kids thesedays, unless you're going to be
a doctor, something that you have to get a college or medical
degree for, I just think it's overrated.
It's not what it used to be. Yeah, no, I totally agree with
that. I was just sitting here thinking
(25:16):
about the proliferation of AI across all industries and how
everybody's talking about job security and how it's at risk
and all these other places, you know, AI is going to make so
many jobs obsolete that people are going to school for right
now. I mean, my son is about to turn
13, so he's got five years untilhe's in college and I have no
(25:37):
idea what he's what he's going to go to school for or if he
will go to school, right. But this type of job, there's
job security here because while AII think there's AI software
and tools that can help enhance the experience for the caregiver
or, you know, the client themself, it's never going to
replace the caregiver, right? Like there's always going to
(25:58):
need to be a human being in the room with someone else.
And that's just the nature of the industry we're in.
So I think that it is a brilliant option for people to
choose, so long as they enjoy working with other people.
Right. I think it's a safe bet.
Yeah. And I, I would encourage anybody
to explore that if you're just not really sure, if you feel
(26:19):
like you could, you know, help with just daily tasks of
somebody you know, that they need, like shopping, running
errands, go on the doctor's appointments with them.
Because there's, it's a very rewarding job too.
If, if you can, if it's meant for you, if it's something you
enjoy, if you actually like being around elderly.
(26:39):
And you know, we, I've never been in a, in a spot as far as
this day and age where the elderly is not as, are not as
valued as they have been in the past.
And there's so much we can stilllearn from them.
And I really think that putting younger people in that sphere of
influence would be a huge benefit because just like normal
(27:03):
manners and things that we grew up.
Yes, ma'am, no ma'am. You know, like I had a certain
level of respect for my elders. Even with caregiving.
I see it like, you know, there'scaregivers that have come across
my table and I realized, like, you don't have respect for
elderly people in any capacity. So you can't really work with
them. But I think we need to get back
(27:25):
to that because they're not just, you know, there's not
there's they have so much to teach and so much life
experience. They have lived through how many
progresses like, I mean, you, they went from like typewriters
to Internet to, I mean, AI. Like they have experienced so
much in their lifetime and it's just there's so much we could
(27:45):
learn from them. And I really think there's a,
there's got to be a way of putting that, those pieces
together for both people's sake.Absolutely, absolutely agree
with that. I want you mentioned earlier
about your coaching the next generation of care leaders, so
through your US caregiver Network.
Tell us about that. What does that entail?
So if somebody, for example somebody a professional, is
(28:07):
working inside senior living, they feel stuck.
How can starting a home care business give them a new way to
impact older adults? Well, first of all, you have a
lot more freedom and you can kind of pick the clients you
want to work with. You can pick the ones that are
your demographic, your avatar. Would you say?
You might say as to the people that you want to work with?
Now, whether you want to just doit on your own and not work for
(28:30):
a company and you set your own hours, you set your own
schedule, or you take the clients you want.
That's an avenue a lot of peoplemay want to go.
They may not want to own a business, but they don't want to
work for a company anymore because they feel like the
company is not appreciating themor, you know, paying them what
they need. And then take it one step
further. You know, if they want to
actually start a caregiving company, you know, you don't
(28:52):
have to start with all this money.
You don't have to start with, you know, employees and all this
stuff. Like I started just on my own,
providing the services by myself.
And then I, all of my caregiversare independent contractors and
they like it that way because they want to do other jobs, they
want to go to school, they want to be able to set their own
schedules, you know as well. So, you know, I don't have all
(29:14):
the encumbrances of AW2 employeeas far as you know, I have a lot
more flexibility with them as independent contractors.
And it's not hard to bring people on board as long as you
are. I feel like as long as your
heart is in the right place and you are really trying to provide
(29:35):
and take care of a need in your community or whatever place
you're at. I do think that you will find
the people that want to go alongside of you and you will
have people that you know, end up being on your management
teams and not just a caregiver caring for them.
It's just kind of a natural progression.
The people that are working in this industry with elderly
(29:58):
there, everybody kind of understands.
So like, you know, you have thiscamaraderie within it because we
all have the stories of this lady who was a sweet Angel and
then she got a UTI and she thought everybody was taking her
money and she thought you were, you know, coming to kidnap her.
You know, there's like this big,you know, discrepancy or
(30:18):
whatever. So there's a lot of opportunity
there. And as far as what we do, you
know we have things as little as$67 a month to go through our
group coaching where you can, you can start your business, you
know, just being in our you knowmonthly class.
And then if you want to move faster and you don't want to do
it, you know, in a group setting, we have one-on-one
coaching that, you know, gets people there faster.
(30:39):
And then we also work with people that are already
caregiving and already have a caregiving company, but they
just haven't figured out the systems and processes.
And so they're still doing Google Calendars rather than
having an app where you have your caregivers accepting jobs,
declining jobs, all of it goes through 1 space.
And so we can even help them grow their company and be more
(31:01):
automated instead of having to do everything by themselves.
And they can move a lot faster and grow a lot bigger in that
case and provide a lot more services.
So if somebody was starting a caregiver for giving business or
wanted to start a caregiving business, I mean what would be
the the first steps that you would advise them on a board of
operations? Well, first, if it were me, I
(31:22):
would go talk to people in my community.
I would go to the rehabs that are the ones that are, you know,
repairing hips, not your drug rehabs, but your rehabs from
like a, you know, a fall or kneereplacement or, you know,
whatever. And go talk to them and find
out, you know, do they need caregivers?
Is this so lack of a service that you see in their area?
(31:43):
And I guarantee you if you live in the United States, they're
going to say yes. We don't have enough caregivers
because when they send people home because they can only have
them there for a certain amount of time.
And unfortunately, the rehabs, they get paid the same amount
whether somebody is there for a week or a month.
And so they want those beds emptied and they don't want them
there as long as possible. So they need to be able to send
(32:04):
them home safely. And so just plugging into those
resources and saying, hey, you know, is this a need in my
community? Once you identify the need at
that point, you know, you, you can start just as your own.
You don't have to even have a company name.
You can just do business ads, you know, like there's you can
bootstrap this from the very, you know, smallest minute
(32:26):
detail. Like I didn't spend money on
advertising. I didn't, I didn't have the
money at the time. I dumped it all into the
company. So like I did this with no
investment, no, nothing. And anybody can, I'm not some
genius that, you know, was like,oh, you know, I've got this
great idea. No, it was, it was an actual
accident. And so if I can, if I can do it,
if you have, you know, the desire and mental capacity to
(32:50):
deal with people, anybody could do this business.
Even if you don't have a lot of experience working with elderly,
start putting yourself around elderly.
Go to your Senior Center, volunteer, see, you know, do you
like this? Do you like being a part of, you
know, working with them? Because if you don't, go ahead
and bow out. But just, you know, go to local
(33:10):
church groups that focus on to elderly.
You know, pastors are a great resource for us because they see
the needs in their churches. And they're like, hey, you know,
Miss Betty can't, you know, get her shopping done because she
can't drive anymore because theytook her license away.
And they call us sometimes. And even, you know, the local
sheriff's and Police Department call us because they get the
(33:31):
calls from the people that are being taken advantage of by
people they thought they could trust.
Like, for instance, one lady that we are working with, she
had her neighbor going to the grocery store for her.
And every time her neighbor went, she was taking $500 out in
cash back and just robbing this woman blind.
And she didn't know it, but finally she figured it out,
(33:52):
called the cops and they call usto kind of go in and, and help,
you know, get that straightened out or whatever.
So I mean, there's, there's a lot of options you can tackle
this. It just depends on, you know,
how much money you got, if you want to invest money, if you
want to start big and fast, or if you want to just kind of
start slow and grow slow. I mean, either way is fine.
You'll get to the same result. It just depends on how quickly
(34:13):
you want to go. What about that transition point
from being the caregiver yourself to managing A-Team who
is doing the caregiving for you?What does that look like?
For me, because I've kind of always been an entrepreneur,
managing, I will say managing isalways difficult when you're
(34:34):
dealing with people. But as long as you are fair and
you're taking care of your caregivers and you're not
expecting them to do things thatyou wouldn't do yourself.
Because honestly, I do think if you're going to have a team of
caregivers and you're going to hire caregivers, it really
benefits you to have been a caregiver at some point in your
life so that you can see what they go through and know exactly
(34:58):
what they're experiencing. But bringing on caregivers is
not a hard thing to do. Managing them if you have a
system set up properly is not hard to do as far as like the
paperwork and stuff like that. I have admin person now that
does all that. But before you know, I just
would send them a contract because again, I used AI to help
me get the contracts and then had them cleaned up and read by
(35:21):
attorneys and stuff like that later down the road.
But to begin with, I wasn't doing any of that stuff.
The main thing I had was a release of liability for the
caregivers and the clients so that we weren't liable for
anything that might happen. And then of course, you know,
you just want to hire people that have some experience
hopefully. But even if they don't, I've
given people a chance that have no experience.
(35:43):
We have a girl right now, she's 18 and she actually started with
us when she was 17. But I really wanted to see how
she would do because she's, she really seemed like she had a
passion and a really good work ethic.
And so she's been with us. She's 18 now.
And, you know, I'm trying to even give younger people more of
an opportunity to explore this industry to see if this is
(36:07):
something they want to go into. But you know, finding caregivers
is easy, keeping caregivers and getting good quality caregivers,
that's a little bit more of the struggle.
Now you will, you will need a background check app or
something that you can check people's backgrounds because you
can't just send anybody into anybody's home.
(36:28):
You got to do a background check.
But other than that, you know, we check references and we
pretty much train them. We do shadowing and things like
that to get them acclimated and not just throw them in on the
client to begin with. And then also so that we can
kind of see how they work with the elderly and to have eyes on
them for a little bit longer. But it's not, it's not hard to
(36:48):
manage them if you put a good team together.
It's just wedding out the ones that aren't a good fit mainly.
Yeah, I think, I think there's probably an appeal for a lot of
people to bring in some younger caregivers just because you
could essentially mold them into, you know, the type of
caregiver that you want because they don't have previous
experience or training, right. I mean, So what does that look
(37:10):
like when you bring someone in who's 18 or I mean, did, is
there a job shadow time that they're with someone?
And is it a specific person thatyou you set them up with?
Yeah. So when we bring anybody on, not
just you know the younger ones, but anybody, we bring them on,
we get them, we train them. You know, we have, they have to
go through our training and thenwe have them shadow a couple
(37:32):
different caregivers and a couple different clients so that
they can have an idea of what they might run into dealing with
different types of people in different, you know,
personalities and things like that.
With the younger ones, I put more emphasis on me being
involved because I don't want toleave it to a caregiver to train
that person, especially if the caregiver maybe has some bad
(37:54):
habits already. You want to make sure like
they're not picking up those badhabits.
So I'm more involved in the younger ones and I keep a better
eye on them just because they'reyounger and you know, we got to
make sure that there's nothing that slipped through the cracks.
They're not going to have an extensive background report,
things like that. But I, I find that my younger
(38:17):
ones and 18, that was the youngest I've had.
But you know that 18 to 2526 demographic, they are way more
easy to work with as far as likegetting them trained and not
having to get them past bad habits.
Because people get complacent inthis industry, especially if
(38:38):
you've worked in senior living and you've been in these
facilities and you have all these other people working
beside you on the floor. You've got all these people you
have to attend to in a day, not just one client.
It becomes just a job and it thecompassion can go away and the
understanding can go away. And so we try to make sure our
(39:01):
caregivers know that this is still a person and it's just as
hard for them to let you help them as it is for you to do your
job. Because these people are usually
pretty accomplished because they're, most of our clients are
private pay. So they have a good bit of money
set aside. So they've been doctors,
lawyers, teachers. They've never needed help with
(39:23):
anything. And now they need help going to
the bathroom. And it's very they, they feel
like they're losing a lot of their dignity.
And so we really stress that it is important to realize these
are still people. These are even if they've got
dementia and they're not remembering things, they still
know it's my cares about them when somebody when they can
(39:45):
trust somebody. And that's that's the hardest
thing to teach. I would say that's just more of
a character thing. And it does it does shine
through. You know you will find the ones
that care and the ones that don't just in there probably
first couple weeks. Of being with you and working
with your clients. There was a recent data point, I
(40:07):
think it's from 20 said that at least 774 nursing homes have
closed nationwide, which displaced over 28,000 residents,
putting more pressure on families to find transitional
care solutions. So I wanted to talk just a
little bit about building partnerships with senior living
providers. And when we talked last time,
you'd mentioned a partnership with the placement specialist
(40:30):
where you provided interim care until resident was ready for
senior living and then the community paid the placement
fee, which is pretty, pretty cool set up.
What lessons can senior living operators learn from these types
of referral partnerships? Those are your, you need those
like those are your bread and butter.
Those people have the ear of thecommunity because they don't
(40:52):
just go in and go, OK, well, we're going to put you over in
this one. They have gone through their
finances. They have gone through, you
know, what they can afford, whatthey can't afford, what
resources they already have. They have connections with home
health agencies, which is, you know, your rehabs, your Hospice,
you they have all of those. They're in the community.
And so the senior living facilities, if they don't value
(41:16):
those relationships, because I can tell you, the girl that I
work with, when she tells the family this is the best fit for
your mom, for your dad, they trust her and she has a great
reputation. Now don't partner with people
that don't have a good reputation, but if they're in
there doing the work and they're, you know, taking people
(41:37):
on the tours, they're making sure they know the directors of
all the senior living communities around, you know,
those will they will like fill up your beds at no, like there's
no reason why one month of that rent or whatever being paid to a
placement is not worth it. It is 100% worth it.
I will say that the I would get a person in their community
(42:01):
that's not like, and I don't want to name call, so I'm not
going to say the name of a place, But there's a big
organization that's very nationally known and that if a
lead comes through their call center, they pretty much go in
and put that person's name on the list of all the communities
in this area. So that if that person, even if
(42:22):
a senior living specialist is the one that brings them towards
them, shows them they're alreadyon that list with that
residential facility. And so like if that payment,
that placement fee then goes to them, not to the person that's
actually put in the work. So before anybody calls one of
these big nationally known ones,just understand there are people
(42:43):
in your community that know yourcommunity, they're in your
community and they will have a much better handle on what's
going on. And they need to get paid and
you're the clients aren't payingthem, it's the facilities that
are paying them. And so I recommend going that
direction rather than the big conglomerates nationally known
if the. Company's name we will not
speak. Right, right.
(43:06):
I would not say we're all angels.
Yeah, no. And I definitely advise the same
to my to the communities we helpmanage as well because those
larger referral companies, they're essentially just putting
your community up on a website with all of your competitors.
They have I think somewhere between 500 to 600 agents
(43:28):
nationwide. How in the world do those 5 or
600 agents know those communities inside and out?
They don't know anything about those communities.
They just know that they may know a geographic area.
And even now it's probably all just AI driven, somebody puts in
a search for say, Panama City, FL, all the communities that are
on that website for Panama City,FL are going to come up.
(43:49):
And then if, if they express interest in one, then that lead
goes to all of them. It's just the way it works.
And then, you know, then you're off to the races.
So it's just it's a bad, it's bad business for everyone.
It is. And you know, my, the girl I
work with closely, bless her heart, she does a lot of stuff
for free because she still won'tturn the family down.
(44:11):
Even if she knows she's not getting that placement fee
because it's going to go to one of the bigger ones.
She still puts in the same amount of work with that family
as she would as somebody that she knew she was going to get
that placement fee. Because you know, up front, like
when you call a facility and say, hey, I'm going to be
bringing this person around a tour, this is her name,
birthday, whatever, they're going to go, OK, well, we
(44:33):
already have her from this. And so she knows, but she still
puts in the time and that's why she's created such a name for
herself in our community, because she does work for free a
lot. And it shouldn't be that way,
but unfortunately it is. My last question about placement
agents. Has there ever been a situation
where a placement agent has taken a client away from you
(44:57):
unexpectedly? Does that ever happen?
I haven't had that happen, but only because the one that I work
closely with, like we wouldn't do that to each other like.
Yeah. And I don't work with any other
ones in the community just because there's a limited amount
of facilities here that they canplace people.
And so I just only work with my girl.
(45:17):
But she does the same thing likewhen she goes and meets with
people in their home and they'renot ready to move into, you
know, senior living residential,you know, right now she'll call
me and be like, they need an extra, you know, a little bit
extra hands, some extra help, 3 or 4 hours a day.
They're not ready to go here yet.
So then I keep her abreast of what's going on.
I let her know like the progression of the client so
(45:38):
that, you know, when she needs to step back in, she can.
So it's a two way St. and we respect that, you know, about
each other. I wouldn't work with every
senior placement person in this area because they're there's
still some good ones and there'sstill some not so good ones.
But but she I've never had anybody try to, you know, take
somebody from me. Yeah, kind of be like biting the
(45:59):
hand that feeds. And essentially because you're,
you're kind of in the, the firststage of, of the caregiving
journey with an older adult. But then eventually you may come
back into the picture. You know, even if they're in a
community, sometimes they still need some extra help with their
Adls and things like that. So and the staff may not have
the capability to do that. So I know a lot of times they
(46:21):
bring caregivers in from the outside.
Yes, we have multiple clients and senior living facilities
right now because they're in assisted living, which is
somebody's there 24/7, but they're not in their room 24/7.
And so, you know, we are there to help get them to activities
and make sure they're not sleeping all day and things like
that. Yeah.
(46:43):
Well, Shay, thank you so much for this great conversation.
Where can our audience go to learn more about Bay County
Caregivers or the US Caregiver Network, or connect with you
directly? Well, we have a website,
baycountycaregivers.com. They can go check us out there.
We got a lot of information on that website.
All of my socials are at Bay County Caregivers.
(47:04):
So we're on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, you can find me there.
Same with US Caregiver Network. We're on TikTok under US
Caregiver Network, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.
And then you can they can call or e-mail me directly at Shea
SHE a@baycountycaregivers.com and I will respond to any e-mail
(47:24):
that I get. So if you really want to just
connect with me first, feel freeto send me an e-mail.
I'll even do, I do 30 minute free discovery calls just to
kind of talk people through thisprocess of if this is a good
fit, if they want to move into, you know, doing caregiving, if
they want to open their own company and kind of just see
where they're at And if this is something that you know, they
(47:44):
want to do rather than them, youknow, having to try and figure
it out themselves. Awesome.
All right, Well, we'll make surewe put all that in the show
notes for our audience. And so as we wrap up today's
episode, I want to thank you, Shay Irvine, for sharing your
journey from an accidental founder to a voice for caregiver
entrepreneurship. Her perspective highlights the
(48:05):
crucial role home care plays in easing capacity challenges for
senior living, while also inspiring new leaders to step
into this field. So if you want to connect with
Shay or learn more about Bay County Caregivers or the US
Caregiver Network, we've included her links in the show
notes. As always, we hope you found
this episode insightful and inspiring.
Don't forget to subscribe to ourpodcast on your favorite
(48:27):
platform and stay tuned for moreepisodes where we continue to
explore the evolving world of senior care, covering everything
from innovative care models and leadership strategies to family
support, technology, and the future of aging.
Also, remember that From Leads to Leases isn't just an audio
experience, we're also a video podcast.
So if you want to see the video versions of our episodes, make
(48:48):
sure to subscribe to our YouTubeor Spotify channels.
I'm Jerry Vinci, CEO of CCR Growth.
Thank you for joining us on FromLeads to Leases.
Please like, subscribe and sharethis episode with anyone who
might find it useful. And until next time, lead with
strategy and with heart. Chat with you again soon.
Thanks, Jay. Thank you, it was a pleasure.
(49:10):
Thanks for listening to From Leads to Leases.
Are you ready to fill your roomsfaster and increase occupancy?
Visit ccrgrowth.com to learn about our Senior Growth
Innovation Suite, a proven system to generate highly
qualified tour ready leads, accelerate sales and reduce
acquisition costs. Let's connect and turn your
challenges into opportunities. See you next time.
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