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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 (00:01.337)
Hello and welcome to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host Miriam Allred. It's great to be back in the lab today. And today I'm joined by Mike Hoskin, the managing partner of A Better Solution franchise in Boise, Idaho and Reno, Nevada. Mike, thanks for being here today.
Mike Hoskin (00:18.702)
Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
Miriam Allred (00:20.853)
Amazing. I am super excited to get into our conversation today. You and I are recently acquainted and I've learned a lot about you and your business and so naturally I wanted to have you on the show. Let's take a couple of minutes to let everyone get to know you a little bit. Talk about your personal background and your journey to buying and starting your home care business.
Mike Hoskin (00:41.366)
Okay, great. Nothing special about me. Just one of a million folks who went to school, studied, got a job, big company, worked a long time, branched out into consulting about 20 years into a career, did that for another 20, ready to retire. And my wife and I talked about post retirement, what it would look like. And let's invest in some businesses or...
a business that we could operate sort of hands off, but that would provide us post retirement income. Hired a broker and that process went over several years. And then life happened. We ended up being the caregivers of all four of our parents. And we're there for the final breath of all four of our parents, which...
is a real blessing. everybody, somebody gets the phone. Some people get the phone call that, hey, bad news, dad passed, mom passed, whatever. And we didn't get that phone call because we were there for all four. And that, that process touched a part of our heart for the elderly and infirm. And we saw people that were strong and who we looked up to become weak and vulnerable. And there's millions of those. And that led us to, boy, we could, we could really do this full time.
And then the second thing is in that process, the available people to you to help you service your family members and loved ones isn't super robust. So we thought there's a place in the market for people who care about the elderly and infirmed. And we approached that with really with full force. That's how we got into the business. Nothing special about us, but life happened and we were very, very fortunate.
to be teamed up with A Better Solution out of San Diego.
Miriam Allred (02:38.575)
Thank you so much for sharing that. It's maybe safe to say that home care is your third career, 20 years in manufacturing, 20 years in I think, IT consulting, and now here you are launching into your third career. How special though. And like you said, you and your wife got to see all four of your parents age dignified in their home and be a part of that journey, which then attracted you to this industry that is so, so special. And something you shared with me is when you were looking into senior care,
Mike Hoskin (02:48.332)
Yes. Yes.
Miriam Allred (03:08.429)
You also looked into, you know, senior living facilities and skilled nursing. And so you, you also looked broader than just home care. Tell us a little bit about kind of looking at greater senior care.
Mike Hoskin (03:19.768)
We did, Miriam Our initial thought was, let's open up an assisted living center because one of our four parents actually spent the last few months of their life in a facility a mile from us. And so we were there every day and saw how that place operated and thought, wow, there's a real place in the market for assisted livings. And then our friend group also had parents in similar type.
facilities and we thought we could really do a good job with that. The roadblock is it's really expensive. It's really, really, really expensive to open a facility to keep it running and so that's what prevented that option.
Miriam Allred (04:08.845)
And you decided to go the franchise route and not the independent route and you were the 11th franchisee with A Better Solution Talk to us a little bit about your thinking of the independent versus the franchise route.
Mike Hoskin (04:12.107)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (04:20.13)
We did the franchise route, the broker that we worked with, Dave Whalen is super guy and he approached us with numerous business opportunities and systems and structures and setups. We also talked to, I spoke with my friend network and the franchise route, what it does is it accelerates your ramp up because they have vetted systems, they vetted processes, they vetted third party vendors.
that you can access for different types of services. And to do that on your own, you can do it on your own and not pay the franchisor. I made the decision to go that route because the acceleration was so much, the ramp up was so much faster. And I don't know that we could have ever really...
got into the same level of support in terms of people, third party support and certainly applications that we did going with A Better Solution. And then the second choice was size. You can be the 15,000 McDonald's owner or Chick-fil-A owner or Subway owner, or you can be the 10th or the 11th. And based on my background, I wanted to help grow the organization.
their goal, headquarters goal, and Leah, our CEO, is a dynamo in home care. And she wants to provide excellent care to seniors first, in as many places second. So quality is paramount for her, second is growth, and that's the same way we approached it too. So we had a very close melding of the minds, and her staff is very, very good. All of them put clients first, care first.
high quality first and growth second. So I knew it was the right company. it was really, I gotta tell you, I know there's many, many, systems out there and not to diminish or demean any of them, but Leah and her team run a very, very good operation. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (06:34.057)
Amazing, great context. And thank you for sharing all of that. A couple of more contextual questions. We're going to talk about systems and processes and what that looks like for you today. But tell everyone how many years in business you've been and about how many hours of care are you providing?
Mike Hoskin (06:50.498)
We started in 21, so this is our fifth year in business. And I did a pro forma for the business where I thought that we could probably generate one to 200 hours a week and maybe hit break even at 400 hours a week. Hours per week is kind of the barometer that you use to determine the health of the business. And by the end of the first year, we had hoped to be
near breakeven at 400 hours a week. And we barely didn't make that the first year. And then the second year blew through that number, double breakeven, passed the million dollar mark, and then the multi-million dollar mark, and it continued on that stretch.
Miriam Allred (07:49.839)
And this was out of one location in Boise. Your first several years were just out of the Boise location, but recently you're now launching in Reno as of right now, correct?
Mike Hoskin (07:52.426)
Thank you.
That's correct.
Mike Hoskin (07:59.884)
Yeah, it's really exciting. We were able to secure multiple markets within A Better Solution and opening them up a year or two at a time. And ultimately, we'd like to have four to six branches before I think my brain taps out. like I quality of care is first. We have to be...
Miriam Allred (08:23.407)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (08:28.43)
quality of care, the right people, the right processes, know, the systems processes people, when that's running well, then you can branch. And then when you prove you can do two well, then you go for three. And when you can prove you do three, well, then you go to four. So I think slow, sustained growth is smart. And so that's what we're doing.
Miriam Allred (08:46.317)
And when you got into the business, you anticipated being a hands-off owner. so what, to some extent, what did that mean to you when you first signed up for this journey? What did being a hands-off owner mean to you at the time?
Mike Hoskin (08:57.879)
Okay.
All right, to your listeners of your podcast, if you hear anything, listen for the next 30 seconds. There is no such thing as a passive business. In the beginning, when we talked to our broker, Dave, and we met Lee and her staff, and like I said, it was in his infancy. Her desire to take what she did for 25 years, a outstanding home care business, and franchise it out to fuel her growth was...
Miriam Allred (09:05.485)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (09:28.834)
The headquarters group can support you and you provide the seed capital. And you might have a once a month touch point meeting with headquarters. That has since morphed largely because of us and other folks like us, my wife and I, Anita and I. But they've morphed into, know, as the owner, you need to be more involved in terms of not day to day, you're not actually
providing the caregiving or the hiring and firing of staff and monitoring. But remotely you are. You are remotely involved in the daily operations of the business and you are one step more involved than a board of directors. It's like it's a managing board of directors.
Miriam Allred (10:15.245)
And currently you're not in Boise. Have you ever actually lived in Boise since starting the Boise branch? You haven't, correct? Which is another just like kind of glimpse into what your reality looks like as you're not there locally with this business.
Mike Hoskin (10:18.926)
Never. No, no.
Mike Hoskin (10:28.494)
Right, during the second phase of, you know, I had three careers. The manufacturing supply chain portion, I was tied to warehouses or manufacturing plants. In IT, I traveled the country. So I sold and worked as a consultant to companies all over. So traveling was not a big deal. I was comfortable with multiple time zones, had breakfast, lunch, dinner in three different states multiple times.
So I was comfortable with that. So not living where the business was, fine. I hop on a plane, go there. Not everybody can do that. Not everyone likes to travel, can travel. My wife actually gets, Anita actually gets travel jitters. Not because of the fear, but the logistics are overwhelming. But I don't have that, I've never really had that issue. So not living there is fine as long as, I mean, we'll get into this later with systems and such.
But I do show up on site three to five times a year on site.
Miriam Allred (11:28.109)
And so a minute ago you were saying that there's no such thing as a passive business. Is that something you've learned the last five years? Were you anticipating it being more passive than it actually is?
Mike Hoskin (11:40.77)
My tendency is to get involved and to not stay away. Headquarters warned me to, hey, let us do what we do best, let your team do best what they do best and you kind of don't get, so I had to resist. So my anticipation was I'm an owner, I'm a remote owner, I'm not day to day, I'm somewhere in between. we have to, my team,
our team and we are a team in Boise is so good. We can get into that in a minute, but they are so good that our relationship is so solid and both of us have that team and I have worked equally well to stay in sync. And my director is, I mean, absolutely the best, one of the best partners I've ever had. She's an outstanding partner. I trust her completely and she trusts me. You have to have trust, good communication.
similar vision, strategy, vision, and I guess if you have, yeah, that's basically a vision, strategy, support, trust, and I stand away. Let them do their job.
Miriam Allred (12:55.959)
Okay. So before we get into hiring and finding her, because that was also a journey. one last question around just like hours in the business year one, year two, how much, how many hours a week were you spending on the business? And then today about how many hours are you spending on the business?
Mike Hoskin (13:10.062)
Um, the first year, uh, an hour a week, second year, probably, I don't know, 10, 20 hours a week when things weren't working as well as we thought. Um, and then years three and four to 10 and now I'm 10 hours a week tops.
Miriam Allred (13:32.833)
Okay. Okay. That's great context as well. So let's talk about hiring your first general manager because as being a remote owner, you need someone there in Boise from day one and you had to find and source that person. So tell us about finding that first hire, that first general manager in Boise.
Mike Hoskin (13:46.028)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (13:53.218)
Yeah, worked hand in hand with headquarters and they provided a lot of assistance. We found we had a range of candidates whittled that down to the top two or three, conducted those interviews and came up with a person who was really good. That individual had some personal things in their life that they had to back out. We weren't on a super strong trajectory, but doing okay.
But like I said, the personal situation, had to move on to do something else. And thank God, their personal stuff all cleared up and then they became a referral partner to us. So very happy for her and how that worked out. The second person, just a bad fit. Great person, bad fit for the role of an operations director. Third person, we had a little bit more rigorous search process.
and only two bubbled out to the top from an entire slate of candidates, only two. And it was tough because one was, knew everybody in town, well connected, sales dynamo. And the other person was quieter, nicer, softer, long in caregiving. And I knew in the first,
two minutes that she was the person because her heart came through.
Miriam Allred (15:25.005)
I was going to ask with all three general managers that you've had, did the first two have home care experience or what was kind of their background and profile?
Mike Hoskin (15:32.686)
Yes, yeah, they did.
Miriam Allred (15:35.833)
home care specifically or senior care? Or can you give us a little bit more insight into what both of their backgrounds were?
Mike Hoskin (15:37.55)
the second one.
Mike Hoskin (15:41.324)
No, I don't remember. Our pool of candidates was all senior care, but you bring up a good point because when you talk about hospice, home health, skilled nursing, assisted living, independent living, or hospital, all of those entities are in the elder care community, the circle of care for an individual client slash patient. So anybody from any of those entities is a good candidate.
And whether they're operational or financial or sales or whatever their functional skill is, their heart for the elderly is what's important. They don't necessarily have to come specifically from the home care end of the business. But our third candidate, third person, Maureen, she did come from the home care industry specifically.
Miriam Allred (16:28.377)
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (16:36.335)
Okay. And one more question about the second hire that you said was not a right fit. And I know this is a couple of years ago, so I'm kind of like pulling you back to that time period, but you said they weren't a right fit, didn't last very long. Looking back, were there any red flags or things that you missed that you, again, in hindsight can look back to?
Mike Hoskin (16:54.732)
Yeah, yeah, there is. And we just went through this in the expansion to Reno, we just went through this and I was very careful in the interview process. We started out with 40 people and I opened up ads on, I don't know if I can I use names? I opened up ads on LinkedIn, Zip and Indeed. It was kind of a personal case study for me to see, because back in my day, I'm talking 20 years ago,
Miriam Allred (17:13.219)
Yep, go for it.
Mike Hoskin (17:24.056)
there was monster.com or careers.com and career builder. Those are all pretty much gone. So I went LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter and Indeed and had contacts from all three with the majority of contacts from Indeed. know, Indeed can send me a royalty check. They're the ones that people use and that provided us the most candidates but we had finalists from each of the three, oddly enough.
Miriam Allred (17:45.199)
Yeah
Mike Hoskin (17:55.414)
So, yeah, yeah. The red flags, right, the red flag here is when you're interviewing your slate of candidates, when you're screening your candidates, what I look for is specific experience with elder care. They must be involved in some fashion with elder care. Then when you talk to the ones that bubble up to the top, I conduct phone interviews in my second round. I specifically tell them,
Miriam Allred (17:56.271)
So take me back to red flags with the bad hire because there's a lot of learnings for other owners.
Mike Hoskin (18:23.65)
this will be one of the hardest jobs you ever had because you may be the best care person in the world, but are you good with financials? Are you good with sales and marketing, community liaison? Are you good with staffing and recruiting? You may be the best staffer. I interviewed two people this go around, each of them staff scheduled over a hundred people managing schedules for a hundred people really good with recruiting and training and onboarding and monitoring performance. Excellent.
never sold or marketed a day in their life. So they wouldn't be a great candidate. Other people we interviewed very strong sales, maybe not strong in the care end of it or the staffing end of it. So you must be good in care, sales and marketing and staffing if you want to run an operation. When you get large, you can hire people to help to do that for you. But in the beginning, it's all you. And that person who didn't quite make it very well was really good on the care side.
On the sales and marketing side, they just couldn't, they didn't have that skill and they knew it and we knew it.
Miriam Allred (19:29.199)
Okay, see, this is super good to hear you unpack this because this is also Mike's brain. You know, this is how you think. Every owner thinks a little bit differently, but again, you're this remote hands-off owner. And so you need someone that can walk the walk and talk the talk in all of these buckets like you're talking about. And it sounds like you found maybe the diamond in the rough and Boise, your owner there or your manager there is just phenomenal. And so speak to some of her strengths, you know, what sets her apart and what
Mike Hoskin (19:53.272)
Yeah. Yes.
Miriam Allred (19:58.767)
you know, sets her up for success.
Mike Hoskin (20:00.654)
Just two, three things, that's it. And two of them you can't teach. Heart for the elderly and energy. I guess three, willingness to learn. You can't teach someone the willingness to learn. You can't teach energy and self-starting. And you can't teach heart for the elderly. You just can't, you either have it or you don't. And there's wonderful people who don't possess any of those three characteristics. But in our business for that job,
any job within our company, have to have those, you have to have those three. and she did. And then on top of it, 10 years in home care, just really a phenomenal.
Miriam Allred (20:46.223)
And I think you told me she's pretty young. Is she under 30 or is she about 30? Just barely 30, so she's young.
Mike Hoskin (20:50.286)
Yeah, just barely 30. So we got some 55 year old guy whose partners are the 30 year old. And I love her. I love her. She's, yeah, I love her. She's great.
Miriam Allred (20:56.887)
Amazing.
You can tell I'm a young and over here too, but I just think it's remarkable. Like you said, you, you outline the strengths that she has and she has that 10 years of experience and then she's got the energy, you know, she's got the drive and the desire. And so it just seems like an amazing fit.
Mike Hoskin (21:14.954)
And the team around her that we've jointly hired all came from the caregiving staff. So we promoted from within all trained by her. And then they've migrated to with our specialty. So we have someone focused on care, someone focused on sales and marketing, community liaison, and someone focused on staffing recruiting. And each of them have risen to the top of their particular functional area. And all of, all three of them have heart for the elderly.
willingness to learn and high energy self-starting. So that team of four we've had together now our third year together, all four of them. And our industry to have no turnover in three years is really remarkable. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (21:53.721)
and the-
Miriam Allred (21:59.009)
Remarkable in home care. I'll say it remarkable in home care. So the other three were all caregivers for your business and have all been promoted from within. Amazing. And now here you are, you were talking about hiring for Reno. So this is very top of mind for you because you're literally hiring and hired for Reno. Was that the example you were sharing with someone that was very well connected in?
Mike Hoskin (22:08.557)
Yes.
Miriam Allred (22:25.699)
the market had a really strong sales background and then this other more conservative, quiet individual that was Boise. Okay. I was curious if that, okay. So that was Boise and we just talked about her. So for Reno, was that the 40 candidates whittled down or you're in that process now?
Mike Hoskin (22:31.182)
That was noisy.
Mike Hoskin (22:43.554)
already went through 14 resumes, 15 phone calls, seven face-to-face interviews, three bubbled up to the top and we went with one.
Miriam Allred (22:57.783)
and you've picked one. And I love what you said about telling them point blank that this is the hardest job you'll ever work. What are people's responses to that? Do they look at you? Do they laugh? Do they chuckle? Do they like wide-eye? What's their response to that?
Mike Hoskin (23:13.174)
It's funny, some people are surprised by the directness of that. Nobody walked out and said, I'm scared to death, I don't want to do this.
Miriam Allred (23:26.147)
I think it's a glimpse into you and your leadership and your bluntness and whether or not that's people's style, at least they can appreciate you being direct with them, right?
Mike Hoskin (23:35.512)
Well, I don't want him to be surprised. I don't want somebody to say you didn't tell me or I didn't know. So yeah, direct, I think direct works.
Miriam Allred (23:46.881)
Okay, direct. think that's a good thing and I don't think you're far off from the truth. It's likely the hardest job that they'll ever work even if they have experience in home care or senior care. Being a general manager of a home care business, everyone listening to this, they know it's no joke. They know that every single day is different and every single day you're putting out fires. It's just the nature of this business.
Mike Hoskin (23:58.253)
I think so.
Mike Hoskin (24:08.822)
And in our particular franchise system, you can be an owner operator. You can participate in a particular market area and be that operational director yourself. Having remote locations, I think, steps up the requirement of that person for me. So because I'm not there serving as the community liaison or the care coordinator or the staff or myself, I'm not running operations day to day.
I really depend on those people to take the reins and run with it. So not only do you have to have the skill in the three functional areas, Miriam but you also have to display some kind of leadership potential. And, you know, a couple of the folks that we've met through this process were really strong already in the leadership side of it. So it's really, there's some really, really good talent. The home care community.
is blessed with a lot of people with a lot of good experience with great hearts. It's wonderful. My wife was a, Anita was a teacher for a long time. Teachers, great hearts, work hard. Nurses, firemen, home care people. There's just, you just know these people with big hearts and good work ethic are like the best people there is.
Miriam Allred (25:22.991)
you
Miriam Allred (25:32.555)
Agreed. And it's so good to hear you explain this that you're, and just to backtrack a little bit, your first hire was good, lasted maybe six or so months. Your second hire, not so good. Some red flags overlooked. Your third hire, good person, wrong fit. But then your third diamond in the rough, been with you for three years, just absolute, you know, all star. And so this is so good for owners to hear because
Mike Hoskin (25:44.024)
Good person, wrong fit.
Miriam Allred (25:56.961)
you make good and bad hires along your journey and not every hire is that diamond in the rough and it's unfortunate, but that's okay. And so it's just, it's really good to hear you kind of track through how this experience played out for you. Let's talk about systems and processes and let's start with you and your role at the top. What do you have ownership over? You know, what is in your purview that you're thinking about and talking about on a weekly basis?
Mike Hoskin (26:25.354)
as the, and I go with, some people go with the term owner. I hate that. I like managing partner because the buck does stop here on this desk. It's nobody's fault, but mine. And we're partners. I'm partners with my teammates and I really genuinely view them as that because I'm nothing without them. So what's my job in this position is to plan the strategy for the entity.
So here's our strategy, here's our growth strategy, here's our who are we? Are we the cheapest offer in town? Are we the best? Are we the highest quality? Are we fastest responders? The widest array of services to the elderly? What niche do we fill? What do we wanna be? So what do we wanna be? What's our growth strategy? Hiring and firing, what kind of people are we looking for? So I set that tone. What's our culture? I told you.
Clients first, employees second, financials third. And it's my responsibility to set that, honor that tone, support that tone, make sure the team understands that tone, and then knock down anything that's in their way to hit the objectives. So I expect the team to do the day to day, and my job is to knock down any obstacles in their way.
What's my role? What's my responsibility is we have a once a week meeting. have, we've jointly developed KPIs, so key performance indicators, and they're very quick. Our meetings are 20 to 30 minutes every Monday. And we go through the functional areas. What's your KPI? What's your KPI? What's your performance for that particular week? There's no surprises. There's no such thing as bad news. It's only the truth. This didn't go well, that didn't go well. This went great.
you know, um, Mrs. Smith passed away. Mrs. Smith got better. Hooray. Canceled services with us cause she's better. Wow. Okay. Um, we're very open and honest and fair. You gotta be open. You have to have your team be safe, feel safe to share. You know, in business there's good news and bad news and you have to create an environment where people are safe to share bad news. Um, and you celebrate good news around the board.
Miriam Allred (28:49.101)
I want to talk about getting to this point because it sounds like today it's a pretty well-oiled machine and you've got the systems and the processes in place, but it probably wasn't like that early on. You joined the franchise model. There was kind of a managed model offering with tools and resources and structure. Was that your foundation year one? And how have you built upon that? You know, what, what was the process of building this out?
Mike Hoskin (28:51.747)
Okay.
Mike Hoskin (29:09.752)
Yep. Yep.
Two people. Yep, two people. First person is a friend of yours, Dana, Dana Charumbira She's...
Dana is a, I wanna call her a dear friend. I haven't known her long enough to be a dear friend, but I love her. I didn't make a move initially without talking to her. She ran all of our payroll, billing, financials. She broke off and started a company called the Home Care CFO. We used.
Miriam Allred (29:45.827)
And this was day one that you started working with her.
Mike Hoskin (29:48.482)
From day one, she was part of the support model. And for a year she was part of the support model. Sometime between year two, three-ish, she broke off and started her own firm, which we had talked about together. You you're pretty good at this. She's thinking, I'm thinking about doing it. You'd be great at it. And if you did, I'd go with you. And today I view her as one of our key, if we had a board, an official board of directors, she would be on it. She provides.
We have monthly dashboard. All of our payroll and billing is the day-to-day operations that they do for us. Monthly, they do the closing of the books and provide financial statements. In addition to all of that, they also provide a performance dashboard, which we review every month with Dana.
I wouldn't be where I am without her. Weston Soto, Weston is with corporate. He is again, young guy, low 30 something, but spent a long time in home care and had run three, four, $5 million branches himself. I well, you know what? My branch is not that big. Yours was. I want to do what you do. And I don't really care how old you are or how many years you have.
You've got the experience. I don't have it. You have the performance. I don't have it. I don't make a move. didn't make the move for two years without talking to him. So the message to the owners and operators who are listening to this recording, build a strong group of advisors and don't get hung up on, you know, the Oscar Meyer, you know, the fat kids, skinny kids, with chicken pie. It doesn't matter what they look like, who they are, man, woman, 60, 30.
who they are, where they are, what they look like. If they have the experience and they have the heart for the elderly and you can trust them, use your advisors and I do. I use my circle of advisors for every move.
Miriam Allred (31:47.661)
I love this. I love this. So just to recount this a little bit. So this was you working with A Better Solution corporate from the beginning. So Weston is from corporate and it sounds like Dana Charumbira who is now with The Home Care CPAs was working with A Better Solution, but has since branched off, but they were your two kind of backbone sounding boards from day one. And it sounds like they're still involved today, five years later, and have supported you through the journey.
Mike Hoskin (31:54.936)
Bye.
Mike Hoskin (32:10.946)
They are. They are. our CEO, Leah, I'm telling you, she has someone named Diana on her team. She's got, I mean, Steve, Diana, her team is so good. I don't really need them as much because, you know, we've got very strong leadership at the branch level and we've got Dana over here. My weekly calls with Weston, I hardly talk to him anymore, but I know they're there if I need them.
Lee and her staff is there, they're excellent and they're there. One phone call I can have on the phone right now if you needed to talk to them. Don't really need them as much anymore because we kind of, you know, we've got our seed legs now, but in the beginning.
My message to the people who are watching the podcast is build a circle of trust, board that you can, not an official board of directors, but a board that you can depend on and bounce ideas off of. Because sitting alone in your office, your ideas sound pretty good to you. And when you're running by two, three, four other people, they don't sound as good. Two heads are better than one, three's better than two.
Miriam Allred (33:18.606)
Mic it.
It sounds like your fourth career is gonna be a home care consultant. Not what Anita wants to hear, but it sounds like you're building a strong foundation and other people are gonna need your support.
Mike Hoskin (33:31.822)
I don't know about that.
Miriam Allred (33:33.391)
So how do you balance delegation? How do you balance being less of a daily in the weeds decision maker and being more of an advisor and a partner to these GMs?
Mike Hoskin (33:50.414)
The GMs know their responsibility, the branch is theirs. The success and failure of the branch is theirs. If they succeed, them. If they fail, it's me. I've missed something. I've miscommunicated something, what didn't listen, directed them the wrong way, didn't knock down a block they needed. Something I didn't do because they're really good. They're really good at what they do. So the delegation's 100%. They're running, yeah.
Miriam Allred (34:18.069)
Is this all spelled out in a SOP manual agency Bible? Like what, where, where is all of this clearly defined and how do you make sure it is clearly defined?
Mike Hoskin (34:28.622)
Yeah, yeah, that's not, didn't, I haven't written anything out. It's up here. We talk all the time. There's the set meeting every Monday, our KPI meeting, but there are impromptu sessions throughout the week just to bounce things off each other or to...
QA check, how are you doing? How are things?
Miriam Allred (34:56.333)
And that seems to work for you and for them. It's more of just a style. That's what you prefer. That's what they prefer.
Mike Hoskin (35:02.124)
Yeah, I think so.
Miriam Allred (35:03.991)
Okay. But corporate likely gave you kind of like out of the box manuals, some sort of documents. Do you utilize those and do you have that in place? Maybe you don't use it, but do you have that and do you rely on that or really that's just not how you operate?
Mike Hoskin (35:12.876)
year at the most.
Mike Hoskin (35:16.876)
Yeah, at the branch level they do.
Miriam Allred (35:20.535)
Okay. And are they, again, I just think it's interesting, you you're sharing all of this, but what does it look like when it comes to like application? Are you referencing these manuals or it's more loose and casual than that?
Mike Hoskin (35:34.144)
I referenced the KPIs. The KPIs came from corporate and Dana and me. 40 % corporate, 40 % Dana, 20 % me. Okay? My advisors were very, very, very good at, Mike, here's what you need to be measuring. It's okay. All I've done is whittle them down from the 37 they gave me combined to maybe we look at eight to 10 every week.
Miriam Allred (35:46.127)
you
Miriam Allred (36:00.013)
Okay. And those, sounds like that's your North star. Really the KPI, the KPIs are your North star. And that's probably the North star for these branch managers as well.
Mike Hoskin (36:03.298)
This my north side.
Mike Hoskin (36:12.044)
Yep. And the branch, the branch, the branch directors and their team are all bonused on hitting KPIs. So the success of everybody is rewarded.
Miriam Allred (36:23.951)
Has that always been the case since day one or is that something you implemented later on? Day one, okay. You sound like you know these KPIs probably by heart. Can I put you on the spot to share, you know, your maybe top three to five or what are you looking at daily or weekly?
Mike Hoskin (36:26.072)
For me, For me, day one, yeah.
Mike Hoskin (36:43.33)
well, yes, I do know that by heart. we look at, we look at hours, we look at staff shifts, we look at turnover, we look at the recruiting, we look at QA visits and assessments and turnover, starts of care, stops of care.
Miriam Allred (37:05.203)
I asked you this before, what keeps you up at night? Which of these numbers are you thinking about before you go to bed? Sorry. Receivables, unpack that. Why is that the case?
Mike Hoskin (37:10.626)
Receivables. Receivables. Receivables.
Mike Hoskin (37:18.702)
Because people are slow to pay, people in facilities, so you gotta stay on top of it. It's really hard because we're dealing with elderly and with, you know, and that's one thing.
Second thing is, this is tough, duration of care. You know, we're taking care of 40 people, 50 people, 60 people, 100 people. Next Monday, we're taking care of 10 less people. What happened? Well, Mrs. Smith, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Jones died. God. In our business, people pass and that's just part of it. But it's really hard because...
If you look at our website or look at any of our social posts, we have our caregivers and our clients and pictures and there's birthday cakes and cupcakes and banners and congratulations on your 80th, your 90th birthday, whatever. And just when you get to know them and love them and then they pass on. So.
I mean, that doesn't keep you up at night, but it does kind of bother you. In our business, you don't have.
10 year, maybe five year, three year clients. You don't. So from the business perspective, yeah, longevity is not something that we have. That's kind of, it's tough. It's tough.
Miriam Allred (38:48.119)
So how are you dealing with that? How you've been doing this for five years and you've had time to kind of meddle with the struggle. How are you dealing with it? How are you thinking differently about it? How are you measuring tracking to keep on the up and up? How are you thinking about that issue?
Mike Hoskin (38:52.29)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (39:04.974)
The team has shared with me how they feel about this. And oddly enough, during the recruiting process, some of the folks I've spoken to from the elder community shared, Mike, it's not sad, it's beautiful. We're there to help people pass to the next phase of eternity. And we're there with them and making their last moments in this life as
as good as possible. So it's not sad. You look upon it as happy and positive, not as sad. And that completely changed my outlook.
Miriam Allred (39:49.015)
And that's the emotional side of things, which I appreciate you sharing that. And that is the nature of this business. And it's extremely challenging as someone who saw all four of their parents pass. It's heartbreaking, but also so heartwarming at the same time to let them age at home. How are you thinking about it and dealing with it from a financial and a strategic standpoint? You you see the numbers go up and down and that's weighs on you mentally. So how are you dealing with that aspect?
Mike Hoskin (39:51.48)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (40:08.215)
Okay, huh?
Mike Hoskin (40:18.018)
That's a great question. Two things. Number one, you are always marketing and our marketers in our business feel bad when, numbers are down. And what I tell them is, look, it is not, we're not selling cell phones or, or, or drinks or pens. We're, we're selling service and as hard as we
try and as good as we are. We can't make people any older and we can't make people any sicker. People are going to get old. They're going to be infirmed. They're going to be rehabbed. They're going to need a little bit extra assistance to get through life. We just want to be there when they get there. And the elder care community of the markets that we're in, when that community needs a home care service,
We want them to think of us, but we cannot create clients. You can't make people older or sicker. So don't feel bad. When they're ready, we want them to think of us. So you're always selling, always marketing, making sure your name is everywhere. So everybody knows who you are and they think positively of you when they think of you.
And the second thing I said there was two the second thing is staffing you're right, Miriam you said that the the business is up and down and and as an owner as the the sole investor The ups and downs directly affect me And I don't staff accordingly I I staffed to the level that
Mike Hoskin (42:11.948)
I don't adjust staff down when sales are down. I keep the staff together. And we suffer together, suffer. We hold on during the weaker times so that when the times get good again, we're all ready to go. I don't, I don't.
Miriam Allred (42:27.311)
Share a little bit more about that, meaning you're paying them until you find another client. Is there some sort of guarantee? How do you approach that?
Mike Hoskin (42:31.82)
Yeah.
Yeah, our management staff is in place. Everybody in the management staff is in place and they don't fluctuate. Now, if we drop down a lot, then we'd have to make some tough decisions. So the team is all focused on results and all know when we're bumping up against where it maybe doesn't make sense to have the full team we have, it's all hands on deck to get back up to a comfortable level. But they know they're not looking over their shoulder like, Mike's gonna come in and.
We're not some big corporation. We don't answer to shareholders. And I understand, I worked in that environment. Think about it, for 20 years I worked in that environment. I don't begrudge people who have to make that decision. It's hard, but when you're beholden to shareholders or Wall Street, you have to make those tough decisions. I don't.
Miriam Allred (43:21.101)
What about with the caregivers though? You know, when you lose the 24 seven, when you lose a big client and you have those caregivers, that that's where the fluctuation happens. I was, I wasn't thinking about the management staff keeping them, but the caregivers, that's where it gets really tough to hold onto them if you can, if you have more cases and always be marketing. But if not, you know, sometimes you have to turn them away, which is hard.
Mike Hoskin (43:24.61)
They fluctuate a lot. They fluctuate a lot.
Mike Hoskin (43:44.536)
So one of the functions, Randy runs our caregiver staff management end of it. Kim and Allie are on the caregiving coordination community liaison side and Randy, she runs the caregiving angle of it. It is really her job to communicate with the caregiving staff. Look, we're down a little bit. only have 30 hours to give you this week, but next week I'll have 40 again. If you hang with me this week, I can fill you back up.
to 40 next week or whatever you're at. If you're comfortable at 20, I'm down to 10, know, whatever the, she constantly is communicating with the folks to keep them on. And sometimes people are like, look, I got it. I've got, you know, three kids and the car and blah, blah, blah. And I need the four. If you don't have the full 40, I've got to go somewhere else. And you say, well, at least give me, you know, she really, really has to manage that. We're highly flexible, really try to accommodate to the best of our ability, but
Good communication, you you hear this everywhere, good communication matters. It really matters with your caregiving staff because they're your feet on the street. Sometimes the caregivers themselves are the only people that our clients see from our company. They're everything for us. And we love them. I mean, our caregivings, they're just wonderful people. And I wish that I could keep everyone as busy as they wanna be all the time. But we can't.
Miriam Allred (45:09.039)
Yeah, we respect them. They are your employees. You owe it to them to be honest and upfront. Like you said, they're with the clients. The writing's on the wall if things aren't going well. It's just vocalizing what's going on.
Mike Hoskin (45:17.379)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (45:21.068)
Our caregivers, Miriam, our caregivers are everything. I hope the owners that watch this podcast know your caregivers are everything. You can be the best planner. You can have the best management staff in the world, but your caregiver staff is everything. That's what you deliver. They're the service you deliver. They're the people. They're the face of the franchise. They're everything. And our management team knows that. They were all caregivers, all of them. They know what it's like.
Miriam Allred (45:46.799)
Mm.
Mike Hoskin (45:48.77)
My wife and I were caregiving it. We know what it's like. You have to have done it and see the eyes of the person to know what the business, the business you're in. So it's a tough balance. The people who are watching, the owners, it's a tough balance. You're running a business, but you're taking care of people at their most vulnerable time. And your teammates are those that have care, have hearts for those elderly. But they also know that you're running a business. It's a tough, tough balancing act.
Miriam Allred (45:51.343)
Yeah.
Miriam Allred (46:18.093)
Let's go back to receivables. That was the other number metric that keeps you up at night. That's an ongoing battle like you've experienced, but how are you getting better at that? What have you learned along the way to help you manage that?
Mike Hoskin (46:22.968)
Yeah.
Happy Day.
Mike Hoskin (46:34.062)
You watch it every day. You look at QuickBooks every morning. And Dana and her team help. Morgan, our director, is on top of it.
almost every day. And it's really bad. is so, it's the worst. Miriam, it's the worst. Mr. Smith, you owe $500. And I'm sorry to call you because I know Mrs. Smith just died. And we have to collect money from you for the care we provided last week before she died on Sunday. I'm so sorry to call you and ask you.
And so you got a guy who just lost his wife, happened to write you a chat. It's awful, but you have to do it. mean, you have to do it, but it stinks. It stinks. God, it's the worst.
Miriam Allred (47:30.315)
It's the reality, which is so hard. I get it. That's just the nature of receivables and collections and nobody wants to do it, but it has to be done. Thinking about it from more of a contractual standpoint and documentations and agreements, are there things that you've implemented over the years to tighten up your agreements to help with that? Speak to-
Mike Hoskin (47:52.174)
Sure. Corporate has all that covered. yeah, corporate has all that covered with the agreements they gave us, the contracts they gave us are rock solid, they're airtight, perfect. Corporate did all that for us. That's correct.
Miriam Allred (48:03.929)
but it doesn't necessarily make it any easier. Is that what I'm picking up? Okay. It's the actual execution. It's like you can have all of it signed and dotted, but the execution, the implementation is really tough. Okay. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. think it's, it is again, the both of these two things that you mentioned that keep you up at night are just the hard cold reality of home care and there's no quick fixes, but I like to hear you just talk through.
Mike Hoskin (48:16.92)
Yes.
Mike Hoskin (48:29.475)
Yeah.
Miriam Allred (48:32.983)
you're thinking around it, what you've learned, how you've improved over the years. And there's things that you can do and there's things that you can't do, right?
Mike Hoskin (48:40.174)
Yeah, another thing we've done, you talked about caregiver turnover, we provide training. And at certain levels of, when you've worked so many hours with us and have achieved all your online training, you get a bump in your classification and a bump in your wage. And we have three levels. And then above that, there's a CNA. And so we try to provide a career path. And with a little bump in wage,
So it helps you to stay with us for a while, longevity, and it helps, I pay for the training online. And if you're willing to do it, commit the time to the training, it's a little bump in wage So there's a little bit of things you can do. We have caregiver appreciation and our team is really good at honoring caregivers. have, know, caregiver of the month, caregiver of the year. You try to do things, nothing replaces hours But we try to do the little things to...
show our appreciation for them and also create loyalty.
Miriam Allred (49:41.857)
Yeah, loyalty, career path, trust, longevity, all those little things really do add up and move the needle. I want to ask you a couple last big picture questions here, Mike. Would you say that the business could run without you? You signed up to be a hands-off owner, here you are today. Would you say the business could essentially run without you today?
Mike Hoskin (49:47.8)
video.
Mike Hoskin (49:51.95)
Yeah.
Mike Hoskin (50:02.712)
Sure, team knows exactly what to do. They're very, yep, they could.
Miriam Allred (50:05.647)
which is a job well done, which speaks to everything that you've done these last few years and putting it all into practice.
Mike Hoskin (50:12.46)
It really speaks to them. I mean, that's nice of you to say that, but it really speaks to them.
Miriam Allred (50:18.563)
the people that you hired.
Mike Hoskin (50:19.768)
They've up, yeah, they've really stepped up and embraced the job and they love our clients and they trust each other, which is really important. Your team, your leader, your general manager has to create a culture of care and trust where they can actually be out at an event and know that their local branch office is running. And I've seen it, I've seen it. So yeah, they could run without me easily.
Miriam Allred (50:46.409)
Easily. That's good to hear you say. What's been the most surprising thing in your whole five years in home care? What has been something that has surprised you about starting this business?
Mike Hoskin (51:01.134)
I was surprised at how short of a time people stay with us, our clients stay with us. If I were a hospice company, I could see. But I really thought that elderly and infirm people would live one to two years. But our average stay is more like three months. Hospice is like one or two weeks. We're three months.
So that was a big surprise. I expected to find a client and have them for one, two, three years. some you do, some you do, but most you don't.
Miriam Allred (51:43.823)
That's good. That's really interesting to hear you say that that's been the biggest surprise to you. And you know what's coming next is, is that change how you market and sell and who your right fit client is, or there's nothing you can do to change that outcome.
Mike Hoskin (52:01.678)
I know, I don't think, I don't know, that's a great question. That's the best, the magic, that's the silver bullet question. Are there other things that we could do as a business to expand our offering to attract people at a less vulnerable stage of their life?
So it's possible we could do other things that would, you know, maybe breach into the people in their 80s and 70s and not in their 90s.
But I suppose that's possible.
Miriam Allred (52:39.609)
Maybe a good question for you to bring up in your next meetings to think about that as a team is what are we doing to attract who we're attracting and is there something else we could be doing to attract a different demographic?
Mike Hoskin (52:52.034)
Yeah, that would, that would, that would.
Miriam Allred (52:55.695)
I'm planting some seeds. This is good. We're learning from each other. Last, last, last question. What are you looking forward to the rest of 2025, 2026? What's on your mind? What are you looking forward to?
Mike Hoskin (52:57.196)
You are, you are, you are.
Mike Hoskin (53:08.206)
The rest of 2025 is for Reno to get up to the level where they're self-sustaining and on their way to approach the success we've had in Boise and to prepare for Salt Lake in 26.
Miriam Allred (53:26.767)
Okay, so more offices on the horizon.
Mike Hoskin (53:29.418)
We have for kind of, we like the mountain states and we like that part of the country. so yeah, we're gonna hopefully move forward.
Miriam Allred (53:40.725)
Amazing. And you said you want to get up to maybe four or five, six branches and see how it goes.
Mike Hoskin (53:44.056)
We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. You have to crawl before you run or walk and walk before you run. So we're crawling pretty good. So we got to prove we can walk before we start to run.
Miriam Allred (53:51.0)
Awesome.
Miriam Allred (53:55.457)
Mike, I'm so glad we got connected. When we first met, you said, I don't know if we're going to talk for an hour or so. I think I've proved that you have a lot to say and you've shared so much today. Thank you for sharing so openly and willingly. A lot of great information.
Mike Hoskin (54:04.664)
I don't know.
Thanks for your time. Okay, thank you very much, Miriam. Take care.