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Is there a single right way to run a home care agency? We sure don’t think so. That’s why we’re interviewing home care leaders across the industry and asking them tough questions about the strategies, operations, and decisions behind their success. Join host Miriam Allred, veteran home care podcaster known for Home Care U and Vision: The Home Care Leaders’ Podcast, as she puts high-growth home care agencies under the microscope to see what works, what doesn’t, and why. Get ready to listen, learn, and build the winning formula for your own success. In the Home Care Strategy Lab, you are the scientist.
Miriam Allred (00:01.005)
Welcome to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host Miriam Allred. It's great to be back with all of you. Today in the lab, I'm joined by Jeff Stevens, the co-founder and CEO of Village Caregivering in Barbersville, West Virginia. Jeff, welcome to the show.
Jeff (00:18.606)
Thank you for having me. We're all big fans of Village Caregiving, this podcast. Whenever people make trips out there, they listen to it in the car, come back, talk about it. I hear about it all the time. So bravo to your work.
Miriam Allred (00:29.827)
You're too kind. Somebody recommended that I have you on the show from your company. So we're coming full circle and it's time to have you on. And in total transparency, you're one of maybe a handful of people that I've met from West Virginia. So I said to you before, lean into that, share that story. We want to know more. So let's go ahead and start with that. Tell us a little bit about your personal and professional background and what essentially has inspired you to start Village Caregiving.
Jeff (00:36.44)
See?
Jeff (00:58.008)
Yeah, well, West Virginia is my home state, Barbersville, where Village Caregiving is headquartered is my hometown. So there's an extra level of pride, as you can guess, that goes into making that the headquarters still. And now that we've scaled up, we'll talk a lot about this, but sometimes I can be watching a show. Like we have an executive director on the North Dakota Today Show.
and they're talking about Village Caregiving, which is headquartered in Barbersville, West Virginia. It almost makes me more proud to hear my hometown said than my company. There's something, that's the surreal part to me sometimes, it's like, wow, they're talking about Barbersville and I like take a clip of it and send it to the mayor and say, look at this, man, how cool is this? So it means a lot and I really mean that genuinely. Yeah, we started the company, there were three of us, Matt Walker, Andrew Moss and...
We all had grandparents that needed the service. So we put it on our radar and the care was pretty good. It was inconsistent. That was the problem. There just was too much of caregivers not showing up. And even when I was a kid in my own home, my grandfather moved in with us temporarily and we had caregivers back then. So you're talking like early eighties type stuff.
Same deal. My mom had would have to leave her job frequently enough that it almost cost her her job because the caregivers just didn't show up as consistently. So Matt and Andrew and I saw an opportunity to start a home care agency, offer more consistency, make it as affordable as we could and just do good work. And, and we'll talk about it again. We'll talk about it, but I didn't think that it was going to become what it's become. That's just being honest. I mean, but it did.
Miriam Allred (02:51.715)
That was going to be my next question. The three of you, when you got started, you just wanted to get out there and provide consistent, reliable, affordable care. Beyond that, what was your initial vision? Let's just grow a single office and see where we can take this thing. Or did you think bigger from day one or not necessarily?
Jeff (03:11.532)
Yeah, I love questions like this because it forces me to go back in time and try to remember exactly what I was thinking, even who I was. It's tough. know, that's everybody listening to this will relate to that. It's tough to put yourself back in time like that. No, we didn't think that we would have a whole bunch of offices. started with, pretty sure with the idea that we would just have the one location. and we had a friend who was finishing law school.
And the three of us had all gone to law school and I'm an attorney. I don't practice much, but, he knew that we were doing something else, some lawyers that were doing something else and he had done an internship with us and he asked, Hey, I would be interested in opening a second office. And that was in Charleston, West Virginia. And we just kind of thought, we're not opposed to it. This was three years after we had already launched the company. So we didn't, we weren't trying to microwave our success and have a
bunch of, you know, scale out. That wasn't the plan. It was really organic. And so we told him, his name is Wade McGlone. we said, okay, well do your homework, come into the office, give us a presentation, research the market. How many agencies are up there? What would your business plan be? How would you run the office? And to his credit, he showed up suit and tie, had a PowerPoint, ran through it. It was good. And we said, okay, let's give it a shot.
then you do the second office. You see that it can be successful too. Now it changes because it's easier to envision the next one, the third one, then the fourth one. And then you did the ball just kind of rolls. But that's the genesis of how we even had a second office.
Miriam Allred (04:55.681)
Okay, we're gonna get into this more. I love that you're already going down this path because I want to, we're gonna kind of break down all of these different chapters in the business. Before we do that though, give us a little preview of the size of village today. How many locations, how many states, how many employees, like give us a broad stroke of the size of the company today.
Jeff (05:15.47)
Yeah. Well, depending on exactly when this will air, we're going to have around 60 offices that are in about 20, 22 States. You know, there's some satellites here and there. So it's, that's why I hesitate on the exact number. It kind of can come and go a hair, but about 60 offices, about 22 States.
Miriam Allred (05:33.947)
Okay, and employees or clients off the top of your head kind of ballpark numbers.
Jeff (05:39.106)
Yeah, we have upwards of 4,000 employees, probably double that number of clients or so, six to 8,000. Sorry, I should have come more prepared with exact numbers for you, but.
Miriam Allred (05:49.783)
Okay. No, that's okay. And if my sources are correct, I think you all are maybe the largest privately owned home care company in the U.S. So we're talking, we're talking large.
Jeff (06:02.496)
Yeah, I think that that is still privately held that, you know, isn't private equity back to that sort of a thing. That's what I've been told. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (06:09.643)
Absolutely. That's what we've both been told, so we'll roll with it. Let's go back to the early days. I like what you said. It's hard for you to almost go back and put yourself back in those shoes, but let's try our best. In those early days, let's talk about that zero to one people in business say, which is just those very early days of you three are with lawyer backgrounds, legal background, starting this home care company. You went through it with your grandparents.
but you are savvy and you know what you want to accomplish. Talk about the early challenges that you face just getting that first office up and running.
Jeff (06:50.188)
Yeah, that sort of gets me launched into the premise of the show, which is the formula for success. I don't know if you're wanting to hold off on getting to that or can I go ahead and start? Okay. Well, so let me disclaim upfront. I am just the kind of person. I'm the kind of guy who just thinks that what works for me might not work for you and what works for you may not for me. I'm not very comfortable telling other people how to
Miriam Allred (06:59.759)
Jump right in, jump right in.
Jeff (07:17.774)
act or what to think or what it's just not who I am. I've been like that since I was a little kid and that's could be politics or business, religion, whatever. just, I'm not that comfortable with it, but I'm a good sport and I've come so, so giving you a formula. That was what I'm saying. It's a little bit tough for me because I just, I'm not sure. Take whatever you hear today. If you're listening to this, like you would read a book, you're not going to digest the entire thing, but if you can walk away with two or three nuggets,
that are jumping off point where you can brainstorm from there and fit something I said into your own style, that's cool. Like that would be my suggestion. But like I say, I'm a good sport. So I've come not only with a formula, but two formulas today.
Miriam Allred (07:58.841)
And I don't know these, so I'm excited. I'm on the edge of my seat. Give them to us. Let's hear it.
Jeff (08:02.282)
Okay. Here's where I'm going with this. So the formula you hit on it, right? Going from, you know, you're you want to scale the topic of the show is how to scale your business. Okay. Let's say you're listening to this right now and you have one office and you were thinking about maybe opening a second one, or maybe you've got two and you want to get to eight, whatever. It's a different formula when you want to go from one office to two or four, or maybe as high as eight.
That's a thing. And I'll talk about that to answer your question, but there is a different formula when you want to go from like eight to up to 60, we're at, it's a whole different thing that you're not even doing the same thing. So it's two different things. I want to talk about both of them if that's okay. Yeah. So the first one here is I'll give you what I wrote out and then get into each element of the formula. So upfront launching that first office or making a second office. I have said it's
Miriam Allred (08:45.456)
Yes.
Jeff (09:01.49)
scale equals drive plus courage plus competency plus agility. So the drive, that's kind of what you're getting at. What is the purpose behind your work? Do you even want to start your own business? Start there. If you're listening and thinking about it, don't ever let anybody make you feel like you're not good enough or you made a bad decision or didn't have the
courage enough to start your own business because if you have other priorities in your life, your family, your kids, your own personal time and other interests, your mental health on some days, right? If that's a bigger priority to you to spend time with your family, then start your own business. There's nothing wrong with that. Do that. That's a beautiful thing. If you feel very, very called that you want to be an entrepreneur, I want to start my own business, then you should.
And then you think about what is the purpose? And so that's to your question. Is it that I'm a competitive person and I want to succeed? I want to have success in business. That's fine. That's what it is. Is it that you want to see change in the world? You're very socially conscious. You want to do good for as many people as you can. Beautiful too. Even if it comes from a place of like,
I've never felt good enough and people always judge me and I want to have something in my life that's an identity and I want to succeed. Use that energy too. Use it for good. Now, careful there, but like use it for good purposes. But understand, you're gonna have to have a deeper purpose that means something special to you that creates this drive and determination or you're just not gonna get there. At some point it will fizzle out on you. So be intentionally thoughtful about what your purpose is. That's the...
Miriam Allred (10:35.044)
you
Jeff (10:55.054)
That's the drive piece along with keep your focus. Once you know what that purpose is, keep your focus. It's like, um, the hedgehog concept and good. Is it good to great Jim Collins? Was that where he talked about hedgehog? Like, yeah, don't go for every flashy thing that comes by with a shiny ribbon attached. Like know what your strength is, what your purpose is and stick to that focus and don't be a lured away. So there's the drive piece. Do you want to interrupt with a thought?
Miriam Allred (11:05.915)
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (11:23.235)
Well, one question on that, on the shiny object syndrome with Drive, what were, and we're talking about the small term scale, which I like, and then we'll talk about the big term scale. Small term scale, what were maybe some of those shiny objects in your first few years? What distracted you and your co-founders early on to just maybe rattle off a few things?
Jeff (11:45.87)
Sure. Well, I mean, if you're in home care, which is what we're talking about, maybe it was to get into skilled care. Maybe it was that you started an assisted living facility or a nursing home. Maybe you want to do durable medical equipment. I mean, it's all kinds of options out there to just think we could do more stuff and get bigger. We were kind of more of the mindset of we're a home care agency. This is what we do. This is what we're good at. And this is what we're going to stick to. So those sorts of things.
Miriam Allred (12:10.895)
Yeah, just and like you said every business is different, but there's a lot of like home care adjacent verticals and early days, know, you're excited and you're passionate you have that drive and it's easy to get distracted. So I like what you're saying about like early days, especially stay focused on your one single purpose and passion. So this is great. Part two is formula. Part two of the formula is courage. Talk about that.
Jeff (12:17.453)
Right.
Jeff (12:36.558)
Yes, so where I wrap that up is like self belief you need to believe that you can succeed Almost to like a borderline delusional level there's a reason you're trying to do this and hardly anyone else is and you will have days and moments where you're like Why am I doing you know what I mean? You're gonna question that a little bit. You got to really believe in yourself believe in that purpose that gave you the drive and really stick with that
And it will be tough. And that's why it's important to intimately know yourself and your purpose because there's just going to be days where your, your conscience is, will be your only guiding star. There's when you're at the top of that pyramid and if you're not, you've managed a lot of people, maybe you listen to this, you're not the CEO, but you, you know, a VP or something, right? You're responsible for a lot of stuff. It can be kind of a lonely role.
There's no some days. There's nobody behind the curtain that's gonna come save the day for you and so it's just you and your belief and your guiding star and that's what you follow and And that will keep you on course. So that's early day stuff. You've got to have self-belief and courage that you can do
the third piece competency, that right there is kind of just being real with yourself. unless you have a ton of money behind you and we sure didn't, you're going to likely need to run lean at first. I mean, to get your business going. and so how skilled are you and what will you need to hire out as you scale? You know, can you run payroll for four offices?
Can you handle the legal aspect of it? Can you reconcile all the accounts receivable? I mean, could go on and on. There's a million pieces to it. How competent are you at these things? And that's where I'm actually really lucky. I had no idea. My undergrad degree is in accounting and then I went to law school. No earthly clue how valuable these things would be in the home care industry, right? It's not on your radar, but it enabled me to do a lot of pulling that bus.
Jeff (14:51.436)
down the road and you know, I've told this story before, but it was like, I would go to work all day because you got to run, you know, your own office too. Still in Barbersville, we were the director of the office, scheduling the jobs, customer or the client engagement, all the issues with all the employees call offs all day long. So you're doing all that. I go home, have dinner, spend an evening with the wife and kids. They go to bed at like 10 and then I would just go downstairs into the basement for like shift number two.
of the night and work commonly on, you know, all the behind the scenes stuff. I was just talking about like tax and the finance and invoicing stuff, all that until like two, three, four o'clock in the morning. I had a skillset that allowed me to do it. It's what I was educated to do and that drive that I was talking about and the belief and the courage. Like, so it all starts to come together.
But you got to be real. Like, can I do this much? Or am I going to have to hire out the accounting? Cause I have no idea about this. And every time I get some kind of a legal question, I got to get an attorney. That's going to cost me a fortune. Right. Like, so honestly assess that. if you feel like it could be a problem, you know, I suggest being real with it. I can have all of the drive and all of the courage and self belief I want in this world, but I'm never going to play center for the Los Angeles Lakers. It just ain't going to happen. Right. So there's an element to like, what are my skillsets? How do I play to that?
that you just can't overlook it.
Miriam Allred (16:12.219)
If I've got it right, your other two co-founders also have backgrounds in, are they also attorneys, law school? Is that right? All three of you do?
Jeff (16:23.487)
Three of us went to law school, yeah.
Miriam Allred (16:25.337)
So similar backgrounds, but I like what you're saying about competency is like you have to know your own strengths, know what you're capable of, and then likely higher to your weaknesses or higher what you're not capable of. With the three of you coming from similar backgrounds, was that a strength or was that a weakness early on?
Jeff (16:45.262)
Probably a weakness because it was duplicative. I mean, we would have probably been better served had one of us spent more time in a more corporatey environment because it could have probably led to better processes early on. And so about five years into the journey, another very close friend of ours since childhood named Ben Keenan, he had a big important job at a regional or a national bank. And he came over.
and joined the team, he's now the COO of the company. When he came, we got all kinds of new processes and just different thought patterns that weren't in our current world. And it was really helpful. So yeah, honestly, the fact that we were all from the same cloth, probably a bit of a weakness.
Miriam Allred (17:31.619)
And what about the clinical side? None of you had healthcare related backgrounds. Was that something that you had to hire to early on?
Jeff (17:39.842)
Totally dependent on the nurses for that. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a nurse. I don't have that side of the game, but we have great nurses and I've found I put a lot of trust in them and they did great work.
Miriam Allred (17:52.251)
Yeah, I like that you're mentioning this competency because every owner, that's one of the things that I love most about home care. Every owner comes with a very different background and has a set of strengths that they bring to the business. But we talk a lot about this part of hiring to your weaknesses, hiring to your gaps, and oftentimes hiring people that are smarter than you to fill those gaps. And then that really creates this unique, powerful office team that thrives.
Jeff (18:17.848)
That's right. That's right. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (18:19.543)
Okay, part number four agility, I think you said is the last one, right? Speak to that.
Jeff (18:23.724)
Yep. So.
You should just really be prepared to pivot. think that's true in any business, but in healthcare and in home care, boy, doesn't it feel like the rules change on us pretty frequently. It's hard sometimes to even know what you're supposed to be doing. Maybe not if you're only in one state, but as you go to different states like we have, it gets complicated because not all states look alike at all. and you have to be really all the buzzwords, agile, flexible, nimble, that stuff's all just true.
your purpose won't change your values that you're believing in that won't change, but your processes will. And the people that you're hiring for will, there may be some point where I, you've heard me say already some friends that we've hired well early in the company, that's not like nepotistic type stuff. That's because that's the only people that will trust your vision and come work for you. Like that's the only people that will take the chance. So you go from familiar people to now as you spread out, you have to hire people you've never met before.
It's a different thing. You go from looking for self-starting people because you just don't have the bandwidth yet in the company to manage them very closely and you need them to take the ball and run to, at some point, we need you to follow the process a little bit more. You know, that kind of a thought process. So it's going to change in what you're looking for. It's always gonna change. Be agile. Don't get stuck.
Miriam Allred (19:44.907)
Yeah.
Jeff (19:56.694)
And embrace the fun of that. I mean, I think that that's the best part of not just business, that's life. I don't understand. Well, I understand it, but you'll hear people say, I just can't stand change. Okay. That's a mindset. like I'm looking at my office right here. have a huge poster from a movie called perfect days. And the line that says at the bottom is next time is next time. Now is now if nothing ever changed, wouldn't it be absurd?
I prefer that mindset to I want to continue to grow and develop in the company and personally and change. That's a good healthy attitude. So I would encourage that spirit. If you're listening to this, be open to that change, stay as agile as you can. So there's my formula for early days.
Miriam Allred (20:43.701)
Love it. You have me on my toes here, Jeff. This is awesome. Again, I did not know this beforehand, but you're really delivering, which I love. This is early day formula. Scale equals drive plus courage plus competency plus agility. Phenomenal. I love this. I'm looking at our outline and you're baking in the answers to all these questions that I prepared, which is amazing. Especially, you're speaking to early hires and early partners. I love your transparency about hiring friends.
people that are just willing to jump in early and do their part and believe in you. And that's just the nature, the reality of early of starting a business. You just have to turn to the people you know. Any other, I'll just ask you though, Any other key partners in the community, technology partners, any other like really pivotal partnerships in those early years that come to mind?
Jeff (21:37.368)
Well, in home care, you're going to be likely taking some governmental pay, whether that's Medicaid or veterans. You're going to have to foster those relationships and treat them well and earn their trust. spend a lot of time thinking about that. When then you have the families that just pay out of pocket for the service, how do you serve them best? How do you even get those clients to start with? That's, that's probably more along the lines of what you're asking about, which is
to get those kinds of clients, it's almost a lifestyle. You cannot just sit in your office at your desk and a new client's gonna walk across the tabletop. You have to be out there and have a spirit of, even if you're not very extroverted by nature, that's fine. Be open to maybe trying some new relationships, taking a genuine interest in other people. I don't think it really matters who it is.
I've met people in line at the grocery store, the post office or anything else, whether it's caregivers or clients. I just enjoy people a lot and embrace talking to them. But it's like a spirit of that more than like any one person I might identify. You know what I mean?
Miriam Allred (22:49.495)
Mm-hmm. And it sounds like you and your co-founders probably built and forged those early relationships. know, some owners think, I need to hire a sales rep that has all these relationships in the community to get us off the ground running faster. But it sounds like you all had this mentality of we're going to build and forge those relationships ourselves. And that probably proved really valuable in the long term. Does that feel fair to say?
Jeff (23:14.318)
You're going right back to the competency piece. Are you comfortable with doing your own outreach? And Andrew did a lot of that for us. You know, that's going to a senior home and playing bingo with them and just being there to let them know you exist, educate the community that you even are around to provide these services. But yeah, you need to get out there and do those things and be real with yourself again. Is that something I'm good at?
And fortunately, we were comfortable with that and we did a fine enough job of it without having to have a sales team. That's part of the running lean and being competent at some things.
Miriam Allred (23:52.047)
I don't know the West Virginia market super well. You were talking about government payers, government dollars. Did you all focus on private pay at first and then expand to government support or other way around or what was kind of your payer breakdown in the early days?
Jeff (24:11.726)
Part of our purpose that we're talking about is that we really truly wanted to be able to provide the service to anyone out there on earth. So from day one, we, yes, we wanted private pay. We also got signed up with the VA. We also enrolled in the Medicaid program. I just didn't, that wasn't our thing. We didn't want to put ourselves into only one lane. And it meant a lot to us to be able to serve everybody in our little hometown, like I said, regardless of how you get the service.
So we did everything from the start.
Miriam Allred (24:42.873)
And was that a pretty big learning curve? Again, was that maybe an early challenge was just understanding the nuances of each of those opportunities or did that come pretty natural to someone on the team?
Jeff (24:56.202)
It did. now, so I mentioned Andrew for the outreach. That was a lot of his role. Matt Walker and the co-founder I mentioned, he is a policy minded guy. He will sit in his office all day long and read every regulation manual that exists and he's good at it. He enjoys it. So back to the competency and running lean that he, was a huge strong point for him. So yeah, it's hard to navigate. It's real hard, but he's real good at it.
Miriam Allred (25:25.817)
And like with the competency piece, you know, that is not one person's strength. You've got to find someone that that can be their strength because that can be a really key component of just the financials and the health of the business. And like you said, not limiting yourself to one lane, but being able to diversify to essentially meet the needs of everyone in your market, because there's a little bit of each everywhere in this country. So you talked earlier about, I think his name was Wade that came to you and said,
Jeff (25:46.658)
Yep. Yep.
Miriam Allred (25:54.571)
let me start office number two and he made the business pitch and that went well and he started that office. What were kind of the indicators that you were ready to keep scaling across West Virginia? You started office one took a couple of years and he said about three, four years. Wade starts office two, but then you scale across West Virginia. What are the indicators that you know that you're ready?
to start scaling across the state to five, 10 offices.
Jeff (26:29.198)
That's a great question. Well, number one, both offices were financially viable. I mean, if you went and opened the second one and it failed, there's your answer pretty quickly. So that didn't rule that out. Once you get that second office going, it just felt easier. I don't remember exactly. You trust the process, you just get better. I mean, at that point we had been doing it for four years and so there's no real magic other than.
You're just better. You've been doing it longer. It's like playing basketball or doing ice skating. You you just get better at stuff. I felt more confident. We knew what we were doing. We had refined some processes.
and you begin to see, I have this moment, I do vividly remember this one moment, like I was in bed one night and I couldn't fall asleep yet, and I just, it's kind of like a light bulb moment where I could see how we could take this thing and successfully scale it out. And it just kind of made sense that I don't really have a great answer for that though, sorry.
Miriam Allred (27:33.103)
That's okay. Was that A-ha Lightbulb night when you had just the two offices?
Jeff (27:41.036)
Yeah, I think so.
Miriam Allred (27:42.285)
So it was early on, you thought, okay, we've done it. Like you said, maybe that one to two was kind of like zero to one is one thing, then one to two is another thing, but then it's like, wow, I think we can scale this big time.
Jeff (27:53.858)
Yeah. Yeah. And part of what I mean there is I was doing some other stuff, all of us. you know, I was still practicing as an attorney a little bit and we had some other entrepreneur, we had other businesses, entrepreneurial bone in our body. But I think part of that moment too, is like, my gosh, this is the one. Like I can see it, how this can become bigger than it is and serve a way bigger net of
people and do a lot of good, not just in my hometown and this area, but really everywhere. I just didn't see an obstacle to it at that point. And it made me really passionate. You probably tell I get a little bit fired up talking about it. it's just like, we can take this and help thousands of people, not 75, you know?
Miriam Allred (28:39.481)
Yeah. So one of my questions is, and a lot of owners like come up against this crossroads of when you open a second office, open a third office, do you run the core operations out of the headquarters, out of the mothership or, and what do you let that office run out on its own? You know, there's like, there's all these different pieces to operations. What does headquarters own versus other offices own?
What was your approach with the second office? Who owns what?
Jeff (29:11.038)
We'll see this is why you're the pro because you are perfectly leading right into that second formula, but we're not quite there, right? So It totally changes at first when you're still in this phase one We're talking about of one or two or four or maybe as much as about eight ish offices Each office is really doing everything. There's not a whole lot of core function going on We're here for advice and support, but you're gonna have to do your own building and all
Miriam Allred (29:18.212)
Almost.
Jeff (29:40.782)
Administrative tasks sort of stuff send us in your payroll. I'll run it through the software for you, but you got to do all the stuff At some point that completely changes until now most all functions are done Here here at the home office aside from the day-to-day operations and you know assessing the clients obviously scheduling the jobs deal with call-offs, but Our offices all work inside of a CRM and a lot of the functionality the admin work
has been taken and done here at home. But that's again, in those early days, man, you're going to work your tail off. You're doing, you're pulling the bus at every office. And so a couple, good.
Miriam Allred (30:20.709)
Okay, I wanna push a, yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, I wanna push a little deeper because here you are so large, it's hard to take you back to like every office opening, but a lot of people listening to this are in this stage, going from two to three, three to four, five to eight, eight to 10, and so that's why I wanna lean into this a little bit because a lot of people are in this stage. What does, like you said, when it's early and you're in this phase,
every office has to run independently and own all of their own processes. So what did maybe, if you can ballpark, like office like two to five, two to six, what did each of those offices look like? How there was like a director, like what were the seats at each of those offices?
Jeff (31:08.47)
Yeah, so this is perfect. I said that Ben Keenan, who I described, he runs, he was the fourth and fifth office. He started those friend. I think the next couple were, Corey Watson, who's now a president of sales and marketing. Another friend that we knew really well, took that chance on us, came on board. Andy Hess, who my college roommate, brilliant guy, lawyer. He's now the general counsel.
took a chance on us, left a great job at a law firm. This is what I'm saying. Like there's not that many people that would give you that level of trust and respect to even take the chance on you. They were the directors of the offices. And boy, by the way, side note, how well that serves us as a company to have people in these high ranking positions that know exactly what it's like to run an office. They went through all the grind. They did all the stuff and that makes them more...
patient and relatable with the directors because they've been in their shoes. They know exactly what they're talking about. but yeah, they just, each office was kind of its own pizza shop. I still like the office to have the autonomy to run their day to day operations as much as makes sense. Like their own shop. I think that's a beautiful thing. But back then they were really their own pizza shop. Like, you know, it's almost their own business and we're here to help you any way we can and answer your questions. Cause we've been doing it a little bit longer, but they had to pull the bus.
And so if you're listening to this and you're in that, you're in that space, say two to five offices, like you mentioned, I don't know what it's like for you. Maybe you have a great big team of people. but again, unless you have a big bucket of money behind you to support it, I'm not exactly sure how you are making that financially viable to continue to grow that much. You know what I mean? Like that.
Miriam Allred (32:54.679)
Yeah, I actually love what you're saying where each of these branches offices early on were like their own pizza shop. So you hired these really intentional, competent directors, and then it sounds like entrusted them to build their own team, approach things the way that they thought. Like you said, there's processes in place and you have to like kind of standardize the most important things, but it sounds like you gave them a lot of autonomy probably to even hire
and market in their territory the way that they see fit, right?
Jeff (33:26.254)
Yeah, another benefit of knowing these people. I know that I can trust them. I know how talented they are, how smart they are, what good human beings they are. And I'll give myself some credit. Again, since I was a kid, I don't know how this came about. I guess my mom and dad, but the whole thing like you don't associate with people that you don't want to be associated with. Your reputation is their reputation. I took that to heart and unknowingly.
kind of cultivated a friend group that's just really amazing. And I will get to work with so many of them now. It's really rare. but yeah, you're right. I did, I was able to give them autonomy cause I just didn't have to worry about them that much. I was there to support them again, but like they're awesome. Probably better than me. So, you know,
Miriam Allred (34:10.113)
Any horror stories though? think, you know, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Obviously you knew them. They're smart. They're competent. They're capable. But did it ever feel like, not the Wild West, but it was like, whoa, we're losing control because every office is so autonomous and doing their own thing that like we're losing that control or we're losing that culture or we're losing that vision or did it never feel like that?
Jeff (34:36.886)
Not at that point, because we were so connected as a group of individuals and a small enough family that we were really, really on the same page and we never felt like we were losing control. And we never had any blow up moments. I hate this question, you know, because it makes me sound like I'm arrogant about it. And I get asked this all the time, like even when we take interns here, it's always the first question is like, so what was the biggest mistake you ever made that you regret and like it led to a failure that you learned from?
We've made a million mistakes, but they're all just micro stuff that we've never got. I'm jinxing myself here. We've never had anything like that. And it's to the credit of the people I'm talking about. They were just really, really good. I think.
Miriam Allred (35:19.609)
And like you said, it sounds like they're all still with you at kind of like the corporatized level. Now they all started out as directors and now they've all elevated. And so clearly they're happy and clearly you're doing something right.
Jeff (35:31.948)
Yeah, yeah, we've very, very, very rarely. In fact, I don't know if anyone has ever left a corporate position in the company. Here at headquarters, there are about 50 people on campus spread around various buildings in Barbersville, West Virginia, and we just built a new headquarters. I don't think anyone's ever left one of those roles. This is me live on the spot thinking through this. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't remember one.
Miriam Allred (35:59.163)
That's phenomenal. I think that's every office's dream as well. How do we hire top talent and keep them for as long as possible? So that's really impressive. Let's continue talking about this scale. So if I've got the story straight, you scaled across West Virginia first before you went out of state. And then we'll talk about like big scale. You opened up, how many offices do you have in West Virginia? Seven, eight, nine offices.
Jeff (36:27.384)
We have nine offices in West Virginia. Before we had all nine of those though, we did have an office in one in Ohio and one in Kentucky. And that's because where we're situated, if you look at a map right now, like we're right on the border. I can see Ohio from my house, right? So, but we were in that little region, but we did, then we did fill up close to home first, home state first, and before we expanded other places, yeah.
Miriam Allred (36:51.395)
Okay. And that's what I wanted to ask is just like expansion, you know, what, what are the primary factors? it geography? Is it, okay, we've got a friend up in Ohio that can be the director. Like, again, what are the indicators or the factors that you were considering when you just started to expand?
Jeff (37:12.75)
Probably the main one was just does this make sense and are we going there because we're just kind of throwing a dart at a map or are we actually being pulled there? You will feel in your office, pick any city, USA, doesn't matter. If you're constantly getting more referrals up here in the northeast section of the map, like you get pulled to places and you can begin to feel where the need is.
So not only does it help your company financially, but it's the best purpose in the world. You're going there to people who can't get the care any other way and they desperately need it. So it's great all the way around. think that's the main factor that we relied on then and really still do. and sometimes that takes, you know, market research ahead of time, reach out to different payer sources and
rehab centers and say, hey, would we be of help there? And sometimes you'll hear, have a million options. And so, okay, well, there's not a whole lot of need there. And other times it's, my God, yes, that would be so wonderful. When can you be here? Well, there you go. I mean.
Miriam Allred (38:15.611)
Leaving the state though for the first time was probably a big milestone because again, home care is very state specific. Even geographically, you look at West Virginia and you look at Ohio and it's like, just miles away, but crossing that state border comes with a slew of challenges and regulations. Did you ever pause and think, let's just stay in West Virginia or?
Were the barriers to entry low enough to where you thought like we're going to accelerate and cross the border and get out into several states?
Jeff (38:49.496)
they were low enough in most states that we felt good about it. Again, if we don't live like right on the border, maybe we wouldn't have as fast. But if you live in a tri-state area, that just still feels like the same place almost. And people listen, this will know what I mean. Like it just was so natural that I don't even think it really crossed our minds that we were going out of state that much. And then when you get there, you realize there's a different process and that maybe there's part of the learning curve, right? You're like, okay, this is different. But you adjust, there's your agility piece.
Miriam Allred (39:21.219)
What about acquisition? So we're getting into kind of like your mid growth years, let's call them. It's natural for owners to make the assessment of do we grow organically into these new markets or do we acquire existing businesses and grow that way? Did you come up against that juncture and what was your thought process?
Jeff (39:45.656)
We have had some small, I mean quite small acquisitions during the journey. And it wasn't like we really ever even went out looking for it. I think in every instance that I recall, there was someone who, kind of a mom and pop shop, they wanted to wind down, they wanted their employees to have a landing spot with a new agency and they approached us and so we made a deal to...
do that, but it's not something that we sought out a whole lot, but I don't think it's a bad idea if you do. I mean, that's not one warning. Jeff is trying to get out on this podcast. I think if you have the ability to do it and it makes sense and it's a fine thing to do.
Miriam Allred (40:26.971)
So sounds like those opportunities came to you, which is great. It's like if they come to you, then you can assess and make the right decision. I'm just curious about how many of those opportunities, well, two questions. How many of those opportunities have surfaced over the years and how many have you acted on? About how many acquisitions have you made, big or small?
Jeff (40:51.054)
many at all, three maybe, I'm to throw a number, I don't remember. It's been a long time since we've done one and we do get approached that people, know, cause now they see our size and they think we probably have the money to buy them. But it's almost going back to the hedgehog concept thing. It's really not what we've ever done. Maybe we should, me being real in the moment here, maybe we should explore that more frequently, but you know, it's a lot of money.
It's not what we do. There's a little bit of messiness to like, how do you get all the clients and employees on board exactly? Is that even the process? Let's say it's Medicaid, they might not let that happen. So it's a little bit complicated and it's just not something that we do a lot of. But again, if another agency did, good for them. I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
Miriam Allred (41:38.085)
Yeah, I...
Miriam Allred (41:42.745)
Yeah, I honestly like this response of like, know, yourselves, you know, your business, you know, what you're capable of. back to the shiny objects. It's like, that's not us, you know, acquisition mode is not our style, not our preference. And we can kind of like keep that at bay, you know, not let it become a distraction. Let's, let's jump into formula number two, because I know you've got it up your sleeve and I'm curious to hear what it is. And then we can talk about the challenges of like big time scale going from.
nine, ten offices to the sixty, but let's start with the formula if you feel like it's the right time.
Jeff (42:18.158)
Sure, this one only has three elements to equal scale and that is agility plus velocity plus integration. And obviously I got to unpack each one of those a little bit. You want me to go one at a time? Okay, and let me.
Miriam Allred (42:33.018)
Let's go for it. It's great. Yep.
Jeff (42:36.44)
Preface, you still need the driving purpose. You still need the courage and self-belief. It's not like these things stop. You still need competency, but that's gonna be spread out. It's not gonna be just you pulling the bus and you gotta be Superman anymore, That'll be spread out. And the courage and self-belief, you're just not gonna have as many moments where you, is this even going to work? Like you've had more success now. And the drive and the purpose, the company sort of starts to take care of that on its own.
Like it's an organization. What is the root of that word? Organism. It's a living, breathing, changing thing that has a life to it at this point. It's not like if I go out here and get hit by a bus, the company stops. This thing's going to outlive me. So it kind of takes on, there's a bit of a magic in that.
But all those things are still necessary, but I don't put them in this cause it's a different ball game. Now, the only one you'll notice that stayed is still agility. That one I leave in there because that doesn't ever stop. You will always be in a different season, a different phase of the company. So everything I said about that, keep on doing that. Velocity. That is you, as you get bigger,
It's really easy to become more bureaucratic and you lose the very essence and vibe and that spirit of that start scrappy startup company that got you to this point. Like you want to keep the velocity going and don't slow down. You want to refine processes. Yes. And you want to begin to make more data-driven decisions and measure more variables. Cause if you can measure it, you can manage it. You can manage it. You can improve it. You are going to get better.
But overall, like big picture, don't get bogged down into the quicksand of it to the point where you stop moving. That's so easy to have happen. so velocity is a big word for our company. And if some reading material for the listeners, there's a...
Jeff (44:37.58)
Dr. Echak Adizes, last name is about A-D-I-Z-E-S Adizes. He wrote a book called Corporate Life Cycles, which will show you and you can place your company, where am I at on the life cycle of a corporation. It starts from infancy and it goes through, it matures into...
you know, like teenage years and go-go mode and then prime, like that's the top of the curve. And Benigno begins to fall off as you head towards bureaucracy and more red tape and all the stuff that people don't really like, try to not let that creep into the point where it paralyzes what you're trying to do. Right? So that's a hundred percent of what you'll find between office eight and office 60. Cause you think we're
big company now we've got to act. That's right. But again, don't lose that scrappiness. Keep that in there. Keep going.
Miriam Allred (45:30.041)
Okay, the million dollar question though is how and we could talk for a whole hour on probably the how of this, but again, think back to maybe like sleepless nights or times when you were really like stewing on this of like, wow, we're crossing this threshold of small scrappy startup that's fun and energetic and agile and we're moving to not falling into the quicksand of bureaucracy.
How do you walk that line? What has helped like Jeff? What has helped you personally avoid the quicksand?
Jeff (46:07.576)
This is so like you and I should be best friends or something. That's perfectly what the integration piece is. It's like we've rehearsed this. Yeah. How do you keep that? Well, you're going to have to become a different version of who you are. And that's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot these days. I hear like you're going to have to become a different. What does that mean exactly? Well, your job isn't the same job.
Miriam Allred (46:14.522)
Hey
Jeff (46:35.166)
Never ever do I run payroll anymore. I don't schedule the jobs. What I do now is I lead a lot of people well how you know, I've had to develop that in myself and for me the way that I started that was understanding who I am why I am putting in the work on
reading all the books, not just like self-help stuff, but all the business type books, whether it's Thinking Fast and Slow or Malcolm Gladwell stuff.
And also I will throw in there, read fiction too. Don't ever get locked in this trap where you have to just read all these non-fiction business books. How many moments in your life, if you're listening to this, been influenced by a line from a movie, like your favorite film that gave you some inspiration to do something? Like fiction is good stuff too, that does a lot of sparks. But you begin to think differently about everything. And so when I use the word integration,
What does that mean exactly? I think it's the most important part of all. And it would take us several of these episodes to talk through this. I mean, it just would. But I'll do my best to condense it down. This is the culture piece. It's the communication piece. It's the fun and love and connectedness and trust and the spirit piece. This is the magic of what...
get you to that down the road that far. There's magic in it and you have to see it, believe it, live and breathe it.
Jeff (48:15.178)
and love everybody. And this is just not, wasn't important. It's always important that I have this spirit in life. But like when you're trying to make a second office, you're not living in this world. You don't even have a culture yet. There's not even enough people to have a culture hardly, right? You think about these things later, but then it becomes the most important part. Your job is completely different. What you do at day to day is different and you have to be different too and embrace that and lean into it. And I use the word integration specifically because
If you want to go to the next level in your personal life, and it's my belief that you do not separate your personal development from your professional development, they are the same thing. I can promise you how I show up at home and how I develop myself personally is a million percent going to affect the employees here. It just does. You don't, you can't separate that out. So the integration piece is you take the best attributes of
all people, not just employees, but everybody, your clients, your caregivers, your staff, the world, the best attributes of all people and all worldviews, and you accept all of them, and you lead from that place.
And that does something special. And whenever I tell people at one of our regional meetings, we want to continue to have that scrappy startup vibe and have agility and have velocity. They will follow that because they know I want their success and I care about them more than myself. And, and that's where I think that's the secret sauce of village caregiving. And, it's like a few weeks ago at my cousin's wedding, I read.
the verse that you hear at weddings a lot, 1 Corinthians 13. And it is, you know what it is, it's love is patient, love is kind. Take the love piece. That's you think like this is husband and wife talking. This is talking to employees. Just think about these adjectives being applied to your employees.
Jeff (50:26.284)
And that is, patient, love is patient, kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it does not dishonor others, it's not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with truth, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes.
always perseveres. Love never fails. I get choked up talking about that because I love the people that work here. I love them. And whenever we want to have a culture that's like, let's stay together, that connectedness, if you don't have that, it's just going to start to fall apart at some point. And you got to love everybody and treat them with that spirit. And that's how 60 offices in 22 states still feels like a family. And I love it's a favorite part of my job.
Miriam Allred (51:21.721)
Jeff, I am like almost speechless. You summed that up exceptionally well. Thank you for sharing all of that. That was beyond what I could have even imagined. That was so good. And I love the word choice of integration and the way that you have defined that because we use integration in a lot of different ways in business. But the way that you just described it is really like the essence of integration.
So many nuggets in there. You mentioned at the start, people are going to listen to that like five minutes alone. The nugget of like personal development is professional development. Those two things are one in the same when you are a CEO of a company. And I love your transparency and vulnerability of, you you show up for your employees, like you show up for your wife and for your kids and you focus on reading.
and reading everything, just consuming ideas and creativity and it all just connects for you as the CEO and then translates into the way that you lead this company. I almost have no questions because that was so good, but as a CEO, you probably feel this weight, this pressure of I have to be the model of everything that you just said and that can get heavy.
that can get intense and you've felt that weight, what has helped you in those moments where you feel the weight is just too much maybe?
Jeff (52:56.012)
Yeah, you're spot on again, but that's a responsibility that I take really, really seriously. I don't take that lightly. I've enrolled in leadership programs and have an executive coach myself because I have a duty. I'm not gonna be able to keep asking everybody else to up their game and develop if I'm not gonna go do it myself. So I'm totally committed to that. Now.
There's all those things I said, it's on some level, it's still aspirational. I fall down and I betray those values too sometimes and then I kind of beat myself up about it. But that shows up in a way like I walk into an executive team meeting and on this particular day, I didn't exercise humility. I didn't listen to other people. I was a know it all and I steamrolled the room and I screwed up. Like I'm, you you mess up.
But I take it really, really seriously to try to be my best all the time. but it is tough. And so I have an analogy. I don't know how much time do we have left? This, this takes me a second.
Miriam Allred (53:57.955)
You have five or 10 minutes. This is great. Keep going.
Jeff (54:01.9)
never told this before because it took me a long time to understand. I've said on other podcasts and things like the role can be if you're listening to this and you're a manager of a lot of people or a CEO or just a business owner, entrepreneur in home care, it can be lonely and not like sad, lonely, like just here's why it's lonely. I've thought about this for years to try to express exactly what I'm thinking.
And the analogy is, it's like you're in a boat. Okay. You with me? Think back when you're a kid, you ever go to the beach and you start to swim out and like you look back and it's like, I'm getting kind of far. Like I better go back in a little bit. And you get out in deeper water and then you're like, okay, now I'm getting nervous. Like the tide might take me out. Like you can feel it like in your gut, right? You know, you're listening to this. You know what I mean? Like I got to get a little bit closer to shore. This is too much. Okay.
Miriam Allred (54:54.671)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff (54:59.864)
Take that feeling. So your company is the boat, right? And it's easy. We're still on shore. We're going to go make a company and grow and do all these things. And everybody piles on. Yay. Right. And you start going out there and you look back, but you're in a boat. It's not as daunting as being just swimming. Right.
You look back at shore and it's getting a little bit farther away and farther away and farther away. And you know, like you ever been on a boat, you look back at some point, it just kind of becomes a dot and disappears. Well, now you're out there. This is scaling the business and there will be the analogy holds true all the way around. There will be people that will jump off your boat and go get on another boat. Cause it looks safer. That's in, that's a director leaves the company to go to something else. you've got your main.
rah rah like team right behind you. They're helping you paddle along. There's obstacles out here. There's storms, that's environmental external factors that aren't in your control. There's pirates out here, that's like competition market factors and stuff like that, right? There's all kinds of dangers out there in these waters. And you go farther and farther until you can't see the land anymore.
Some people that's kind of where they're like, I'm not comfortable anymore. What are we doing? Right. And now this is where the self belief piece comes in from early on and then has to continue from this place of almost like faith. And my faith does play a really pivotal role in how I am able to continue to lead. because what happens at some point you get out there far enough.
and everybody's doing their job. That looks like patching holes in the boat. And the people that run the finances are like meeting out the rations of food and water to everybody. It's all the same analogy. And at some point, enough people that were your rah-rah guy, like the ride or dies, right? They are looking at you like, Jeff, I think this is far enough, man. Like this is, we're good.
Miriam Allred (56:59.611)
phone.
Jeff (57:04.032)
And then the moment happens. That's the lonely nugget I'm talking about here because if you're the leader of the place, you understand on some days, not all that often, but on some days when I stopped rowing this thing out here, that's exactly where the company stops. That's where it will stop. And.
There are some days when you're the only one that's like, let's go a little bit farther. We'll be okay. Let's push it a little bit farther out there, just a little bit more. And then maybe the weather improves. You catch a bunch of fish. You got more of it. Yeah, we're back. And you all get back into it and go and go and go. And then you hit another cycle where something has storm comes. And again, you find yourself. Let's, we can go a little bit farther. Let's go a little bit more, but then the, what creeps in is.
the self doubt of why am I doing maybe they're right. Is there something wrong with me? Am I crazy? This is dangerous. We could crash into rocks out here and ruin the whole, you know, that is the lonely feeling of just like there's some days when it's just going to be you paddling that thing. And that's exactly how I, it makes sense to my mind. I don't know if anybody relates to that or not, but that's the analogy. I tried to boil it down.
Miriam Allred (58:23.387)
Absolutely phenomenal. Jeff, I had high expectations for today, but you were blowing all of my expectations out of the water. And I'm not just saying that, you know, as well as I do. I've interviewed a lot of people, I've talked to a lot of people, but you are just really nailing some of these concepts. I'm just part of while you're talking, I'm thinking of all of the people listening to this, just like eating this up, absorbing this, like, wow, this is so relevant, especially
Jeff (58:48.437)
gosh, don't be that nice. Now you're making me uncomfortable.
Miriam Allred (58:51.147)
No, no, I'm not. I'm serious. Other CEOs listening to this that have never been able to like put in their mind into words what they're feeling. And I think they're going to hear that analogy and be like, my goodness, like, that's exactly how I feel. So thank you for sharing that maybe publicly for the first time and know that a lot of leaders are going to hear that. And it's going to resonate with them. I only have one last question. I almost want to end there, but I want to ask you one more thing, which
stems off of what you just shared, which is here you are, village caregiving, massive, 22 states, like you're at this scale and it's really impressive and things are going well. What is next? You're here. What do you want next? What is the next year, three years, five years? Like what, what do you have your sights set on? And that's okay if it's
you know, like plateau in a good way, like just maintain what we have. It's okay if you say we want to double and be a hundred locations. Like what, what's the sentiment for you today of where you want to take village caregiving?
Jeff (59:56.43)
That's a great question and it's my job as a CEO to provide that vision.
Jeff (01:00:04.586)
I'd just be totally transparent. I'm not gonna hide behind it's gonna make me look weak if I don't have a great answer. just, now I'm still kind of feeling that out for myself, the company, along with, you know, Matt and Andrew and Ben and partners and the executive team. Like what? There was a time where you can go back and look at interviews and...
things I've said, is we want to be in all 50 states. We want to serve everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. We will be there for you. I still would love to do that, but it's not at the expense of what makes sense. more, I'm kind of more in the mold right now in the mindset of we'll pick a state we're not in, whatever, Florida.
We'll go to Florida if there's a need for it and it's financially viable and that people there actually could use the help. But it's not gonna be just because we wanna plant a flag and conquer the earth. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. mean, so I think that we want to continue to refine our processes, number one, and get as good as we can possibly get at exactly what we're doing right now.
Miriam Allred (01:01:08.411)
Check the box. Check the Florida box. Yeah.
Jeff (01:01:24.844)
While we do that, continue to grow, but going back to that phrase, when we get pulled to the place, instead of going out and just trying to actively have new offices, that's not where my head's at right now.
Miriam Allred (01:01:41.519)
Jeff, good, answer. Good, honest, open answer because I ask it because I also think others are curious. Like what's in the mind of a 60 office CEO? That's a great answer. A really honest, real answer of we're figuring that out. We're figuring that out as an executive team of how do we refine what we've got and how do we slowly expand if it makes sense.
Jeff (01:02:04.716)
Yeah, well, thanks for saying that. You're making me feel better about it. You know, that's just the season that we're in at the moment. We want to get better at some things. And then whenever we feel really, really confident, maybe we, you know, get the Ferrari back out of the garage and start going, you know, but that's just not the season we're in this exact moment.
Miriam Allred (01:02:25.171)
That is okay. That's amazing. Jeff, we're going to wrap here. This was phenomenal. This was, again, better than I could have even imagined. Thank you for coming prepared. This will be my model episode for formulas because everyone that I asked to bring a formula is like, whoa, what does that mean? How does this work? You have thought about it and been so intentional. These two formulas that you shared are so simple, but the way that you've described them and elaborated on what they mean is,
So great. Like this is what I want to get to of just how you have proven your success and how other owners can pick it apart and pick and choose what works for them and what works for them at one office versus 10 offices versus 100 offices. Like this is the essence of what I personally am trying to accomplish. And so you have delivered so well. So thank you for being in here in the lab. Thank you for joining me and thank you for everything that you've shared today.
Jeff (01:03:18.83)
Thanks very much. I'll accept the compliment. It's making me little uncomfortable. And thank you for letting me be long winded there a few times. So I really enjoyed it and I enjoy the podcast. Big fan.
Miriam Allred (01:03:29.442)
Absolutely.