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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 (00:03)
Welcome to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. We are live in Palm Springs, California at the Home Care Innovation Forum. And this podcast is brought to you by Phoebe, our sponsor. And I am sitting across from Brad Gilmore, the Chief Growth Officer at Family Tree Private Care. Brad, welcome.
Brad Gilmore (00:24)
Thank you, Miriam. Excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Thankful we're in a beautiful location to have this podcast. This is amazing. Yeah. This is more than I thought it would be. And yeah, it's great being surrounded by so many just thought leaders in our industry and yeah, just hearing all the innovative technology that's coming out. I know.
Miriam Allred (00:29)
And we're gonna be we're gonna be talking about sales, but maybe there will be some like AI nuggets in here as well because that's all we're talking about, right?
Brad Gilmore (00:49)
Yeah, I think there's AI nuggets in everything right now. So yeah, yeah, it's definitely being built in as we speak.
Miriam Allred (00:54)
So before we get into all the sales stuff, in just like a minute or two overview family tree for those listening to this that don't know much about the business or the origin and kind of like your presence today, give us kind of a quick overview.
Brad Gilmore (01:06)
Yeah, absolutely. So Family Tree Private Care, we have been around for about 12 going on 13 years now. ⁓ we are a private duty home care agency. So we have three service lines that we provide. So we started as a just non-medical home care agency. And in about 2017, we actually went out and got our LHH license or licensed home health ⁓ and introduced private duty nursing to our service line as well. So we'll talk a little bit more about why.
We did that throughout the throughout our conversation. And then in twenty eighteen, we actually acquired a care management company that does aging life care management. So for us it was really about, you know, meeting meeting our patients, our clients where they're at. Right. Because we're seeing just healthcare evolve such a at such a rapid pace and the acuity of clients is getting higher every day. That was kind of accelerated by the pandemic. So, you know, not knowing the pandemic was coming, we did all this preparation so we could just kind of
Provide that full private pay continuum for our clients. And yeah, it's been a very unique service model, but something that has just really helped us impact our communities and grow our business. And from a you know, ⁓ our footprint per se. So we are based in Houston, Texas. that's where we were founded and that's where we kind of remain. That's probably one of our largest markets, but we're in
Pretty much every major Texas Metroplex, so DFW, ⁓ Austin, San Antonio, we have offices out in East Texas as well in Tyler. And we are also in Denver, Boulder, Colorado, Oklahoma City. And recently we expanded out through acquisition to the Florida market. So we are now cover a large portion of Florida as well.
Miriam Allred (02:46)
So you've grown primarily via acquisition, is that correct? That's kind of a unique growth path.
Brad Gilmore (02:50)
Yeah, absolutely. So we have two kind of growth focuses. So MA is definitely something that we've put a lot of time and effort to expanding our business over the last really four to five years, I'd say we've really gotten more serious about it. However, we do have a huge huge emphasis on organic growth. ⁓ that's one of our big things. That's what we have done well, and we've done that well for a long period of time. So throughout all the acquisitions, we have not lost that sense. Yeah, more importantly. But we do understand with just today's health healthcare landscape.
It's one of the quickest ways to grow and continue scaling. So yeah, we we have ⁓ pulled both levers pretty often. But yeah, w I think at the core we want to continue growing organically and have successfully done so. ⁓ and that so that remains a big focus of ours because that is how you sustain these acquisitions. is by having a solid organic growth strategy to back it up.
Miriam Allred (03:39)
So let's talk about sales. Sales has been a big focus for you in your career and also in growing in growing this company. I want to start with a couple of metric questions. you've listened to my show, I'm very like formulaic and want to start with metrics and and start with things that are universal to anyone listening to this. There's small to large agencies that that are going to listen to this. And so I want to start kind of with universal concepts and then we'll zoom out and talk about as you scale, how do you support sales reps across multiple states, et cetera. And so let's start with the sales rep specifically. And so you oversee a lot of sales reps.
What are some of the most important metrics or activities that you need every sales rep essentially needs to be tracking?
Brad Gilmore (04:15)
Yeah, great question. So I think the default answer here is going to be your common things like referrals, admissions, revenue, and those are all vastly important. But for us, there's really two tracks that we look at. So the reality is we look at our, you know, newer reps, you know, typically people that have been with us maybe twelve, eighteen months or less. So they have a specific set of metrics we look at. And then once they progress beyond that point and kind of have their sustained book of business, then we switch that up.
We we have a diff or a different set of metrics that we look at. So the one common metric that we look at for both is weekly new revenue. ⁓ this is a little unique because I think a lot of companies are probably thinking, why do you look at this weekly? It's very common in our industry to look at it on a monthly basis is usually your your shortest cadence. but a lot of people look at like trelling 12 months and lifetime revenue residuals. We look at all that as well. But for us, we want to see where is our business coming from in real time.
Right. And that's important for your new reps. That's important for your existing reps. So it doesn't matter how long you've been here. You want to measure that on a weekly basis because that's how you also keep your team informed on where their business is coming from. Beyond that, for your newer rep, it kind of falls into your more common categories from that. We're really looking at what are their sales activities, right? Are they hitting their the right number of accounts? Are they hitting the right accounts? And more importantly when those accounts what are they doing when they're in those accounts? What type of activity are they doing? And does it follow their
referral progression as well. Because if I see let's say I have a new rep that is getting their first, you know, first amount of business from this hospital. And then I see that they don't go to that hospital for three more weeks, I'm questioning why are we not going following up on that, you know, kind of strike while the iron hot or the iron hot, what we like to say. So just making sure their activity kind of follows the referral track that they're generating. And then from that, we also do look at, you know, for beyond the activity and the revenue, we look at
What is their referral volume? Right. Where are we getting the business from? Where are they making the traction? Because those are the areas that we want them to continue focusing on. And also how many new accounts are they opening up? Because when you're in newer rep, most your accounts are newer. And the reality is, is your goal should be to go get in as many accounts as you can get into. Right. Like some people say the shotgun approach doesn't work. And I think if you can control where it's going a little bit, it does work.
⁓ so really just going in and opening those new accounts and getting in the door in places and you may get in some doors and realize like, hey, this isn't gonna be the best long term account for me. But that's okay. That's part of the vetting process, right? And obviously just over time, especially if it's an existing market, there's a lot more data, a lot more information we can feed them to help better direct them. But when you go into a new market, sometimes that's just part of the research process. So I know, yeah, yeah. I kind of got rolling on that one.
Miriam Allred (06:59)
A handful of follow up questions in regard.
That's great. ⁓ to define further weekly new revenue so that people understand exactly what that means, is that what the client would bring in on a weekly basis?
Brad Gilmore (07:13)
Yeah, so th that's how much they bring into that first week of care. Okay. ⁓ and yeah, so we look at it on a referral or a referral source standpoint. So because if you go get three referrals from ABC hospital, then you're gonna have multiple clients that are contributing to that. And really what we like to look at it to us, that's a leading indicator, right? You know, I always like to say you know, y y a good company focuses on leading indicators, lagging indicators. For your sales team, you should be looking leading forward as much as possible. Right. Because you know, to me, revenue is a lagging indicator, it's result.
⁓ and the reality is is a lot of times you don't see that until your PLs come out on a you know monthly basis or whatever it may be. And if you are trying to fix the problem once it's on your P and L's, it's too late. It's too late. Right. At that point you are being reactive with your response instead of proactive. So this weekly revenue cadence gives us a better insight into what we're bringing in, what we're doing, and are we doing the right activities that are yielding results? Okay. And
Miriam Allred (08:09)
And you also mentioned that there is an element of you have to get out in front of as many accounts as possible. Like it is a volume game. Yep. For maybe this is a two parter, for new reps and also tenured reps, how many accounts should they be interfacing with and then how many target accounts should they have?
Brad Gilmore (08:27)
Yeah, and d are you talking about like a weekly basis or just in general?
Miriam Allred (08:32)
I guess I'm thinking in general of how many accounts, you know, in a in a longer period of time should they be interfacing with
Brad Gilmore (08:39)
Yeah, I mean, depending on the territory and the rep, the reality is is if I see more than let's say fifty accounts on your list, I'm questioning what are we doing here? Right. Exactly, right? Like how much time can you spend in these accounts? And you know, what I've seen just over time is a lot of reps will kind of put what I call their maintenance accounts on their list. It th I call them their just in case accounts. Just in case they send a referral, I wanna make sure that it's on my list and maybe I touch base with them every
Miriam Allred (08:49)
And you go deep with them.
Brad Gilmore (09:05)
Four to six weeks, right? And you know, I I like to limit those, but the reality is I want them focusing on primarily a top ten. Like that is where that should be the foundation of their week, every week. And then from there we have what we call our tier B accounts, which are typically anywhere from like the next ten to fifteen focus accounts. And that depicts, you know, how often their activity should be or how often they should be visiting that account, what we hope to gain out of that account as well, because if they put
you know, a low-yielding account of there, you know, I'm gonna question what are we doing here? All right. Like are we putting this there maybe because they're nice to us and you know, they give us a hug every time we walk in the door, or are we putting them up there because there's just maybe an opportunity that we're not seeing over there that you've uncovered? And if so, like, you know, how do we achieve that success within that account? So to me it's like, you know, 10 10 to 20 really targeted accounts is what's gonna build your book of business. But if you have 40 to 50 to kind of continually focus on
It it provides some additional insulation for you as well in case there is, you know, a dry spell with an account or something happens at one of those.
Miriam Allred (10:07)
big challenge with sales in home care is the activity and activity tracking. Do you all use an external CRM? If so, which one?
Brad Gilmore (10:15)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So we do use the CRM. we use HubSpot, which is a very a com very common one in our industry. And the reality is is it's ⁓ we use our CRM actually a lot more for our referral tracking. so as we get leads in just putting them tracking them throughout kind of that referral ⁓ pipeline, but it also works for our sales team because we're able to track their activity and the nice thing, and I always say this with CRMs, it has to be efficient.
that's the worst thing I can tell you. I tried to track our activity and our EMR system when I first got to Family Tree a long time ago because we just weren't quite ready for a CRM, just weren't at that size and it was the most tedious grueling process there was. I mean, it would take them you know, it take my team an hour or more every week just to try to get their activity in. And that's not what you want your cell tribes doing. So you wanted them to be able to put it in on the fly. So we transitioned to HuffSpot. we were able to kind of
do a custom build out on what works for our business and things like that. So not only can we track the activity, what type of activity, the outcomes of the activity, but our team can do it pretty quickly. So that's the most important thing. So what you notice is their actual uptake from your team is significantly better if they can go in and log their activity in 10 or 15 minutes.
Miriam Allred (11:29)
So And that's a good segue into what leaders should be focused on. So you as a sales leader, you didn't actually say how many reps you have, but there's what, upwards of twenty
Brad Gilmore (11:37)
Yeah, so throughout our yeah, so we have about twenty-five. Okay. there's yeah, there's a layer beneath or beneath me. So the way that we do it is we actually have some local ⁓ we call my market leaders and they actually are so call local sales and ops leadership. So the sales report directly to them. This was actually a function we decentralized. ⁓
Miriam Allred (11:43)
And they all report up to you or is there a
Brad Gilmore (12:03)
used to all the sales reps did report to you, but as we continued growing it just from a scalability standpoint, it was pretty tough to manage them all. So we actually found a lot more success just putting these individuals in markets and having the sales team work with them because while they do report to them, the way we define it is it's a partnership there, right? I have you know, there's always a struggle between sales and ops. I think every company can relate to that. This model has not fully fixed that problem.
But there's been a reduced amount of friction over time. And honestly, I feel like it's helped us operationally as well because it doesn't feel like we're fighting each other. Okay. Right? There's just a s a sense of unification within the different markets that we serve because every market's also a little different. ⁓ so yeah, we we've had a lot of success with this. It's actually I feel like our sales team performs better doing this without me having to try to go manage twenty five different people and see what's going on all the time.
Like they have a local person they can check in with on a daily basis, whatever that cadence is. And then I come in for support more on like a weekly, bi weekly basis, just whatever we need.
Miriam Allred (13:06)
And I love that it's a sales and ops role because a lot of times businesses we've talked about this star two D
decentralize and silo out all of these functions, but sales and operations go hand in hand. Sales and recruitment, sales and care coordination, they all go hand in hand. And so having a leader that's focused on all three of those and giving equal weight to all three of them. Do so think of that sales and ops role. I was thinking, you know, we want to talk about like what metrics you're going to focus on. And maybe they overlap, but those sales and ops kind of directors, what are the the metrics from the sales lens that they are most focused on?
Brad Gilmore (13:40)
Yeah, so they're so for our our sales team, so they're focused on kind of what I call referral velocity, right? Their job is to help fill the top of the funnel. ⁓ and the more that they can fill it, the better. And this is something that we look at pretty regularly. We look week over week, month over month, and you we even do year over year comparisons just to make sure we're growing the business and we're focused in the right areas. But once that business comes in the door, that's where that partnership starts, right? Because this is where your sales team kind of has to figure out how do I hand this over to operations.
At what point does operations step in and actually take this over? Because that's a big struggle in home care. and I don't think people realize that, especially as you grow. You know, your salespeople, they want to go out there and sell, right? They're incentivized to bring in business, they want to be out in front of their referral sources as much as possible, but there's a relationship with that client, right? And that that is the most important relationship that you have.
And a lot of times, you know, for salespeople, these people are being directly referred to them, right? They're not just calling or phone number into an office, like you're getting a text message from a case manager saying, hey, I've got a patient for you. I'd love for you to go meet with. And as a sales rep, I want you jumping all over that, right? Like I want you to go meet the patient, I want you to go talk to that case manager after the fact. But then all of a sudden, you know, you've gotten FaceTime with this person, you've connected with them, and now you have to go hand this off, right, to your ops team.
And sometimes that handoff can be tricky because the family knows you, they trust you, like they're they signed up with our company because of you, and they don't want to let go of that relationship. So even though like we have an entire dedicated case management team for our clients, that handoff is tough sometimes. So we kind of had to figure out over time, like, you know, is it best for our sales team to go out and do these assessments, or do we have our case manager step in early? And we've tried a lot of different things here, ⁓ to be completely honest. Like
At one point I was like, nope, I want my sales team fully focused on business development, right? I want you out in the field, you bring in the referral, you hand it off to our intake team, our intake team will go have a conversation with the family, convert it, and hand it to our case manager. And we've we follow that model to a certain extent today. But even at one point we actually tried to introduce somebody else that their job was just to go out and meet with families. Like go out and do the assessments. And this was I wouldn't say this was like a full centralization effort, but it was a regional centralization effort.
Right, because we were doing some analysis of our sales team and what we found is we were growing at a rapid pace at that time organically. And one of the biggest pain points for our sales reps is they were doing four or five assessments a week. ⁓ and if you go out and do an assessment, by the time you take a lot of time. Go to the assessment completed, do all the paperwork, you know, get stuff set up, you've committed on average three hours to that. And I mean that's half a day of sales that you're doing. And don't get me wrong, you brought on an opportunity we're getting to take care of someone and that's amazing. But that's
four or five accounts that we potentially didn't go visit that day. So I was like, let's get you out in the field more, let's go hire, you know, find people that can do this for us. And it worked to a certain extent and it didn't work. ⁓ I would say the part that worked is we didn't see a huge impact to our conversion rates. ⁓ we were able to convert, we were able to still get clients across the finish line and make sure that they got great care. What it did complicate though was that client handoff because it just introduced one more person to the process. It was one more name and
The reality is they were with this client for such a short period of time that it c it was kind of confusing. ⁓ because you know, they were going from a salesperson to this person and then they were being handed off to our operations or kind of our care delivery team. So they were going through three different steps to become a client with us and just from a client interface and a client experience standpoint, yeah, it it it was burning them out. especially on these urgent starts where people needed to start within, you know, three or four hours of contacting us and they already meet three people.
So we kind of transitioned away from that and we've, you know, really set some boundaries in terms of like when do we want our salespeople going and doing these assessments versus when do we want like our case managers to go out and kind of take ownership from the get-go on those things.
Miriam Allred (17:39)
It reminds me of the session that we just heard about are we creating generalists or specialists and that was pertaining to AI. But I think it's all roles in home care. Do we and that's what you go through as a large organization. You start to centralize and then you realize we've overcentralized and now we need to decentralize. But I that's what I love about home care and about this industry is like even big successful businesses like you all, you try things and they work for a period of time, but then you have to dial it back and retry things and and it's just it's kind of a moving top
target and it's hard and it's frustrating but it's like that's the nature of this business is kind of realigning and trying different things as you go.
Brad Gilmore (18:17)
Exactly. You're always trying to figure out how to optimize your teams. And that's the biggest thing because, you know, in home care, we, you know, across probably large providers, smaller providers, we typically run with leaner teams. It's just the reality of it. So everybody does multiple roles is what it feels like, right? Like if you have somebody that is a specialist in one thing, that is great. But the likelihood of that that is all that they do is not very likely. Right? Like our sales team, our best salespeople are not just salespeople. They are people that have
kind done all aspects of the business from scheduling to, you know, care coordination to r you maybe even recruiting. And they are just so well versed in the industry as a whole, that's what makes them a great salesperson.
Miriam Allred (18:59)
And it's just important to set expectations when you're hiring these people. We talk how hard it is to hire caregivers, little office staff. It's all about expectation setting, letting them know you're not gonna just be business development, you're not just gonna be sales, but you're gonna do intake and you're gonna talk to families and you're gonna interface with all of these different parties and you need to be able to do that successfully.
Brad Gilmore (19:18)
Exactly,
exactly. So yeah, a lot of times when people come from outside the industry, it's a a little bit of a rude awakening for them. And I'm not saying that they don't adapt, they don't do a great job, but it you know, they come in at first thing like I'm just gonna be out there selling, you know, forty hours a week or whatever it is. Occasionally maybe I'll get a call on the weekend for some help and it yeah, I guess there is a model where you can do that, but I can just, you know, speak from doing this a long time, work with a lot of other great companies. Like the more involved you are.
Typically the better the outcomes are. Is the big thing. So
Miriam Allred (19:48)
You're
at such a high you're at such a high level. You're still very much like on the ground floor, you know, interfacing with reps and very ⁓ familiar with what's happening out in these markets. What is top of mind for you? What's kinda like your north star in your position right now? Like what are you most focused on?
Brad Gilmore (20:04)
Yeah, I would say I mean growth is it's in the title. right. So I mean can Yeah. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (20:09)
What does that boil down to what
are like the the three things that you're like, these are the most important things for me to keep my eye on?
Brad Gilmore (20:16)
Yeah, absolutely. So for me, really the way that I look at my role is we want to continue growing. And the best way that I can do that is to inform our reps. Right. Like I kind of look at my role and some of the people that support me as we are a not a growth department, we're a sales enablement department. So for us, you know, we're we're big on data, right? We've talked a lot about this at the you know, so far at this forum where, you know, data is just it has not creeped into our industry.
I mean it has just catapulted its way into our industry and I think that's great. ⁓ I think the reality is though it's what do you do with your data?
Miriam Allred (20:54)
Is it getting noisy? That's kind of what they were saying.
Brad Gilmore (20:57)
It's very noisy. So that that is my job and my like my team's job when it comes to supporting our reps is getting them data, but getting them the right data. And the way I look at it is the most powerful thing that I can do is I can inform my rep with what is the important information you need you need to know when you walk into this account so that you are more prepared than the person sitting across the table from you thinks you are. And it's not anything crazy. You know, it's simple stuff like, hey, what is our recent referral volume from this account?
What is our conversion rate coming from here? ⁓ what you know, what is your new revenue coming out of this account or what are the quality of the cases that you're bringing on? And specifically for us, actually one of the things we look at is case mix. So are you just bringing in caregiving from this client or this referral source, or are they also, you know, referring nursing or care management as well? ⁓ because those are three very different service lines, right? And those are three very different problems that we're able to solve within one referral source.
So those are some of the things that I'm looking at and I'm the information I'm giving to my team because the reality is the amount of data that's available is it's mind boggling, right?
Miriam Allred (22:01)
And you've been doing this a long time and you talk about educating and supporting your reps with all of these different referral sources. Because you've been doing this for such a long time, do you feel like the talk track and the talking points are different, are like fundamentally different, or is it a lot of like more of the same?
Brad Gilmore (22:17)
Yeah,
great question. So fundamentally, sales is still sales, regardless of how long you've been doing this for hospital. Exactly. The accounts are still the accounts. Now, so I'll say at the at the foundation of it, building relationships, more importantly, building relationships on trust is the foundation of sales. The second thing I preach to my team is don't just be visible, be present. ⁓ being visible is part of it, and I've heard many of sales leaders say you gotta be visible.
Miriam Allred (22:24)
Hospitals are still hospitals.
Brad Gilmore (22:43)
visible, visibility is key and they're not wrong. You've got to be visible because there are up teen thousands of home care companies throughout the you know, every market, ⁓ that are fighting for the same business, right? So you've got to be visible, but with our preacher my teams, you've got to be present. You know, one of my pet peeves is being you know, being in a ⁓ you know, one of our accounts with a rep and they're talking to somebody and they pull their phone out. Right. Just
Answer a phone or just to answer an email or answer a text message. And again, it may be important and they may be working on it and I understand that, but it's this person in front of you is the most important person for you right now. Like I want you focused on them listening engaged because what I do think has changed is the conversation about what we do. I think the complexity of care has evolved over time and I like I said this was slowly evolving, you know, pre-pandemic, and I think the pandemic just accelerated this.
What we're seeing is just people are accessing care. They are going to the hospitals later on in their disease progressions or they're going in much worse shape. So the reality is they are coming to us at a higher acuity. So we're see so the the complexity of the clients that we're taking on has evolved, right? It's not just your simple, you know, patient that just has some general ADLs they need support with, maybe some like light housekeeping mold preparation.
You we're we get clients on a daily basis that are coming out with feeding tubes or pick lines or all these other things that need skilled support. Right. And while they can get some they can get home health support and things like that, a lot of times their need goes beyond that. So that was, you know, not knowing the pandemic was gonna happen that actually kinda like built in or kind of fed into the model we built, but at some point we knew healthcare was gonna get there. Right. That's just part of it, especially with kind of the we're in the midst of the silver tsunami as we like to say, and
Unfortunately, we're not becoming we are not becoming a healthier you know country or anything like that. So so that that's the big thing. And what that has also led to is outcomes being more important. Because like you said, hospitals are still hospitals, you know, discharge planners are still discharge planners. But one of the things we've seen just in our conversations is they are becoming more and more accountable for outcomes. ⁓ you know, this it's talked a lot about or talked a lot more about in their meetings with their leadership and things like that. So if you're
I'd say kind of the day of the sales rep just showing up with a good personality and a brochure is slowly dissipating. Right. It's who can come in there, who can really speak to the services and who can speak to the pain points of what these case managers, you know, care managers, senior living communities are going through and more importantly, who can who has the service model that can solve the problems? Yeah. So that has changed a lot because I will say even in the last probably twenty four to thirty-six months, the top tracks that we use have changed drastically.
And a lot more of our conversations now are more clinical even without the even without salespeople being clinicians. There's a much heavier just I think just I don't know what to call it. Fog around it. ⁓ so we've Yeah, right. So we've had to put in a lot of training with our team. So I mean, to the point where they can almost sound clinical without being clinical. Yeah. Right? Because
Miriam Allred (25:52)
Really good sign. It's almost like we're we're pushing everyone in the office to be able to talk the clinical language.
Brad Gilmore (25:58)
Exactly.
So yeah, it's becoming more important. So it's again, the the fundamentals haven't changed, but the conversations and the how you have an impactful conversation or conversation has drastically changed in the last four or five years.
Miriam Allred (26:10)
So last last question. There's like so many more questions that I can ask. But one more Exactly. One more to realist in though to end with. ⁓ we're talking to all these leaders of these home care companies. Yeah. What is one what is one thing they they need to start doing and one thing they need to stop doing regarding their reps? So think of all the people, kinda like yourself managing all of these sales people out in the field. What is you you see you interface with other owners, there's good behavior, there's bad behavior. What's one thing they need to start doing?
differently with their reps and then think about what's one thing they need to stop doing with their reps. Putting on the spot.
Brad Gilmore (26:43)
Yeah. ⁓
yeah, no, you're good. I would say probably the biggest thing they need to stop doing is looking at revenue as a sales metric and looking at that more as a measurement. What are the inputs that are gonna impact your revenue is the biggest thing because in private pay home care there's not a lot of additional information that you can get. So revenue is king and I'm not gonna take that away or anything because we do look at revenue, but
What are the inputs, right? Like what are the activities that are driving it? What are the conversion rates? What are the retention rates of clients? And again, some of that falls operationally as well. So I think again, the more ingrained your salespeople are with your operations leaders, the more impactful it's gonna be and honestly the better outcomes you're gonna get as a company. But also the way you're looking at your revenue as well, right? Is you know, I know a lot of people out there look at lifetime revenue and that's great, but you know, if I bring in a big client.
two years ago, well, I can ride that wave for a long time. So really what I want to make sure is my reps are continually bringing in new business, new opportunities. And for our tenured reps, you know, we kind of moved on from this, but what I'm looking at is what is their retention rate of their referral sources? Where are we getting repeat business from? And are we protecting that? Because a good experienced rep isn't really going to go open a bunch of new doors for you. But what they're going to do is take that one door they've opened and continue
cracking it open, right? Put a door stop in it, make sure they don't lose traction, open it a little bit more, put the door stop back and they're gonna continually open that. So I would say that's the one thing I would start doing.
Miriam Allred (28:17)
I love that and and focused on the tenured reps specifically. I was literally gonna say that, like focus on the tenured reps because sometimes these these sales leaders, yeah, they're they're with you for two, three, four years and the the owner may feel like how else can I support this person but helping and keep sight of retention of these accounts.
Brad Gilmore (28:33)
Absolutely. So that's what you should start doing. What you should stop doing is overloading your teams with data. ⁓ again, there's so much data available. Like we all get really excited about it. AI is even producing more and putting in great visuals for us to roll it out to the team. But keep it simple, right? Like one, I don't ask our salespeople to pull data. Our job is to provide that for them, to support them. And if we're if they don't if they look at the data and they're telling me, Brad, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.
That tells me I'm not providing the right information for them. Because the one thing I'm a firm believer in, and I've worked sales and ops in this industry for a long time, if you don't listen to your salespeople, you're not gonna improve. ⁓ I don't care where you are in your company, if you're a mid-level manager, you're an executive, you're an owner, nobody knows what's happening more than your sales reps do, right? They're the face of your company in the community. And when they bring feedback, it's very easy for you for you know, myself even to say sometimes like
Maybe you're just having trouble with that account. I'm sure it's not that big of a deal. Don't take it with a grain of salt. Listen to them, dig into it more, figure out if there's, you know, something real bigger to this, and then act on it. Right. Don't wait till your financials are taking that I talked about earlier, but don't wait till your financials are taking a hit three months down the road because of something one of your reps told you about. If you hear it, dig into it, validate it. And if there's an issue, be proactive with your response.
Miriam Allred (29:57)
⁓ I think that's a great start doing for owners as well is the leader, the sales leader should actually be the one to to quarterback the data. Don't put the burden on the reps to pull and own all of that data because that's taking time away from them doing the work.
Brad Gilmore (30:13)
Absolutely. And their dates are chaotic enough. ⁓ I can tell you this, any rep will speak to it. If you plan out a day and you actually get to follow that day in full, that's a miracle, right? So many good disruptions happen, referrals, up new opportunities, whatever it may be. And you know, in our industry, it's about response. ⁓ that was mentioned in the last one, right? Your response time is your biggest quality assurance measure, right? Because every second you waste in home care.
That person's condition could change, right? Or they could go talk to a different company, right? Just because you took five minutes to call somebody back. So respond, help, but at the same time, like, yeah, that's gonna pull them away. So just don't add more stuff to their plate. And I think that's an easy thing to do, is want your sales team to be the expert within their territory. But the reality is they are the expert in the field. Like you just you provide the data to show what's working and not working for them.
Miriam Allred (31:09)
Brad, this has been awesome. I've been in the hot seat and you have delivered. So thank you so much. And thank you to the Home Care Innovation Forum for letting us use the stage. This has been fantastic. We'll wrap here.
Brad Gilmore (31:18)
Absolutely, Miriam. Thank you for having me. Hopefully we'll get to do this again and continue talking about it. So thank you.
Miriam Allred (31:23)
Absolutely. Thank you so much.