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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 (00:00)
Welcome to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. Thank you all for tuning in week after week. This has been amazing. Today in the lab, I'm joined by Clint Nobles, the founder and CEO of Home Care Ops.
Clint, you were what some may call an influencer in the space back when I came to Home Care about six years ago. We've been partners, friends, co-hosts on numerous occasions. And back when I was putting together my first ⁓ list of maybe 20 or 30 guests for this new show, I thought Clint Nobles is on the list because I think of you as Mr. Formula. Every time I see you speak, host, present, you always add in an equation or a formula.
for what you're talking about. And as you know, that is part of the premise for this show is I wanna put home care leaders and operations under the microscope to see what works, what doesn't and why. And so naturally you were a good fit for this show. So thank you for being here in the lab. I'm super excited for our conversation today.
Clint Nobles (01:03)
Thank you so much, Miriam. I tell you, ⁓ I said this in the beginning, you're killing it with this. You're owning the strategy lab. You are really walking in and giving people not just something else to listen to, but something that I love, which I teach is you listen to do and then learn to do better. And I see that throughout all of the things you do. It's like, don't just listen to this, listen to do.
like go out and do this. So it is an honor to be considered ⁓ as part of this. And I tell you, I'm super excited about today.
Miriam Allred (01:42)
Thank you, Clint. The feeling is mutual. You all always say take action and I agree. We're not all here just to waste our time, just to listen, just to be bystanders. It's like, let's get serious. Let's listen, let's learn and let's actually go out and do in our markets. So know that some of that is inspired by what you and Jess have done the last several years as well. So you guys have worked with upwards of a thousand or thousands of home here businesses at this point. And I'm talking like
closely with them. Like you've been up close and personal in their business and you've done that with thousands of home care businesses. So today we're actually going to talk about like behaviors, leadership behaviors and particularly the bad ones, which is kind of a twist. I want you to share things that you've seen that you want to advise leaders to actually stop doing because again, you've worked with so many, you see the good, the bad, the ugly.
I want you to tell people what they need to actually stop doing. So before we do that, let's jump in and have you introduce yourself. And I told you before the show, throw in some things that people don't know about you and your background, pre-home care, getting into home care, starting home care ops, like give us a little story time, but throw in some of the juice that others may not know.
Clint Nobles (02:55)
All right, well thank you so much. ⁓ So, I showed you this a minute ago. My story starts with a balloon animal. ⁓ Well, at least today it does. I love being an entrepreneur. And when I was ⁓ a kid, one of the first things I did as a business is we actually set up in front of Walmart and I learned to tie balloon animals. Now this was before the internet, this is before any of that. I went out and found a clown.
which sounds a little risky as a kid. But I went out and found this clown and he told us how to do it. And I had like the whole outfit. I was giggled. I talked my sister into doing this with me. She was freckles, who probably would kill me when she watches this. But it was fantastic. We did the makeup, we did all that. And I did that for years. Like it was one of the, it was my second full business that I started. I started my first one in seven.
But that's probably something that like nobody knows unless they went to the Corbin Walmart and they were like, you look like that dude that had the freckles on. But yeah, so that's probably something nobody really knows. ⁓ But I tell you, the road and the journey here has been really incredible. know, Jessica and I, we founded Home Care Ops back in 2020 and
Miriam Allred (04:00)
You
God.
Clint Nobles (04:25)
As of right now, from what we have tracked, we have helped owners grow almost one billion dollars in revenue. That is, like, it's mind boggling to think of this, right? And when in reality, we didn't start to do any of this. ⁓ Jess and I are home care owners. We own a home care business. I come from corporate world before that.
We come into this and COVID hits, right? And we start giving out documents like candy. We start giving out documents, doing free classes because the industry has no, they have no parachute for this. Well, our business tripled or more during this time. And people were like, how is this? So we were like, you gotta have this document. You gotta have this clause. You gotta have this. We start handing all this out. We got PPE.
millions of dollars of PPE and shipped it out across the nation at no markup. And all along the way, people were like, how are you doing this?
You know, coaches in the industry and across every industry, they always talk about the secrets, the behind the scenes stuff. ⁓
I gotta watch what I say. That's BS. I have to watch what I say here. That's BS. Because there's business, it's not a secret. And my mission in life is the democratization of operational intelligence.
Miriam Allred (05:52)
It's all good.
Clint Nobles (06:08)
I think about my dad running a business. I think about the business as I started. And I tell you, I'm not a coach. I'll tell anybody. I'm nobody's coach. I'm a strategic guide. I am somebody who has walked the road and I'm like, there's a hole over there. And if you want to know how I got around the hole, this is how it happens. And you mentioned working with the owners. Being able to watch owners transform into something new.
that they didn't know could actually happen has been incredible because we're not just talking about freedom. We're not just talking about increased revenue. Home Care Ops, what we founded Home Care Ops on is to be the guide, to be the person that says, I've been there. This is how it is. You can do it if you want. If not, that's fine. Just learn.
Learn from somebody, whether it's me or whether it's one of our action leaders, learn from somebody. So that's why I love what you're doing here, because you're blowing the doors off and saying, let's get down to the nitty gritty and let's find out the frameworks, the formulas, the things that truly make success possible, because success is not a reward. It is a result. And it's a result of doing.
Miriam Allred (07:37)
This is why we're friends, Clint. You and I are on the same wavelength with a lot of this, of just, like you said, blowing the doors off on education and information and business best practices. It shouldn't be secret. It shouldn't be behind closed doors. It should be, we are trying to elevate this industry. We're trying to elevate home care and we're trying to help as many seniors and caregivers and families as possible. And we all win when we share so openly. And that was such a good introduction. You actually just like took me back.
down memory lane to 2020 when you and Jess were handing out documents like candy. That is what I remember you both for. It was the pandemic. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew what to do. Nobody knew what documents they needed. And I was at home care pulse at the time and we were all just unleashing documents to try and help one another and the PPE. And so I love that you mentioned that because that was I came in in 2019. That was 2020. And wow, it was a gong show for everyone. But that's where we
we elevated was like, let's help each other through this by sharing information. And that's what you all do best.
Clint Nobles (08:37)
Mm-hmm.
Thank you. And I remember coming in and one of the first times we got to work together was actually on Home Care Pulse's stage and they had some things happening. And I remember telling Jessica at the time, man.
When an operator takes center stage, that's crazy. Like that's so great. And I told you this before we started. I love seeing you in your element and creating your brand and creating all of this because you're owning a voice that you have helped an industry hear.
Miriam Allred (09:20)
Thank you. I appreciate that. It's an honor for me. Like it is an honor for you. We love what we do and we love home care and we love the people in it. I talk to you, I talk to owners every single day, every single week. Like I just love the people here. So many good people with such passion and heart for this work that I just feel lucky to be surrounded by all these incredible business people and home care people that just have a passion for this. And we're all just colliding and sharing ideas, which is phenomenal. So
Great introduction, Clint. I actually loved like every bit of that. So thank you for sharing. Let's get into the meat of this. I am super excited. You sent me these ideas and I was like, I am so excited to hear your take on all of this and to hear examples and stories of operations that you've worked with where you have seen these things. So one kind of question before we get into about these like seven concepts, ⁓ what's the hardest part of working with home care owners who want to change?
but can't get out of their own way. We both see a lot of that in this industry and in other industries as well that leaders can't get out of their own way, but they want to change. What do you say to that? How do you guide people through that issue?
Clint Nobles (10:16)
Mm-hmm.
So with this, ⁓ and you mentioned the term guide, and that's what I believe. So when I say this, no, if this hits home to anybody listening to this, I say it with the most love I can possibly say because I have walked this road. I know the hardship of this. But we just brought in some action leaders ⁓ to our Action Leader Experience, our strategic guidance program.
And agencies ranging from, you know, a million to 20 million and like everywhere in between.
And they all come in for the same thing, I want freedom. And one of my mentors told me one time, his name's Keith Cunningham, and he said, in life, so often as entrepreneurs, we chase freedom and are upset and disappointed when all we have is success. And I see it every day. I talk to owners every single day. And the hardest thing for them to get over
is they want freedom. want time, money, freedom. They want the ingredients of a fulfilled life.
But every action they take, every story they tell themselves ends with I don't trust anyone else but me. And let me tell you, I walked that road. It's one of the hardest things to do, but what I learned is it takes about six months to start exiting daily operations in a business when you commit to it. But that doesn't mean it's easy. It's simple, but it's not easy.
Business is complex, but operations are simple. And to me, that's the biggest thing. Because what they don't realize is you're either building a business that depends on you or a business that runs through you. And ⁓ you can't have both. It's one or the other.
Miriam Allred (12:44)
Okay, already some follow up questions because that was good. You said it perfectly. They struggle to trust other people as much as they trust themselves. Tell me how you break down that barrier. How do you break down that barrier to where you can trust people as much as you would trust yourself?
Clint Nobles (13:05)
So, let's see, best way can do this without going on a diatribe. I have an entire, I was the son of a Pentecostal minister, so trust me, I have a sermon on like everything. But, ⁓ without going into like my doctrine on this, I believe the two currencies that we have in life is trust and faith. And, trust,
Miriam Allred (13:17)
you
Clint Nobles (13:33)
happens from learned experience. Faith is what you have when you only have the substance of what you hope for, right? So I have faith, an employee. I hire a new CEO of my company or a new CFO or a new operator, a new scheduler. As the employer, I have faith, right, that they are going to
show up on time, they're gonna do their job, they're gonna learn. I have no example of this except exterior things. But they have to trust based on the fact that I'm running a successful business, I have current employees, so that probably means I'm gonna pay them, that probably means I'm not an a-hole, right? All of these things, they have an experience to draw from because of what's happening. I have faith.
At some point in every relationship, that flips. Because at some point in time, my best employee who has built up a lot of trust with me fractures it. Car breaks down two weeks in a row. A grandmother and an aunt dies within a month. And all these different excuses that we have. All of a sudden, now my faith that has become trust
Now, faith has to walk where trust can. So, and I know that's crazy ethereal and that's crazy like woo woo. But before we get into any of the depth of it, if we do not understand as owners that we are trading in a currency of faith and trust, then we look at trust as acquisition. I have to earn trust. I have to merit trust. No, no, no, no.
See, trust is actually incredibly easy to build. We think trust is hard, but it's not. Trust is built by delivering on small promises consistently. The more small promises I deliver, the more my team will trust me. The more quick wins I allow my team to achieve,
the more I can trust them. Trust is simply, you talk about formulas, trust is simply the output of consistent repeatable actions. That's all trust is. So for us the hardest thing to get rid of is trust. Why? It's not because it's hard, it's because of fear. What if they do it better than
What if they are better than I am? What if they aren't as good as I am and I can't save it in time? At the end of the day, the hardest thing to release for trust is the fear of failure. And it's why I built what I call the speed of success. It's a framework called the speed of success because failure, it's not optional, it's inevitable.
It's part of the process. So as owners, if we fear failing, we'll never trust our team. We have to leverage failure.
Miriam Allred (16:59)
I love this. And this is why you hear people say fail fast, because it's a part of the journey. It's a part of the process. Fail fast and then rebuild that trust. I like what you're saying about like, breaking down building trust. It's not hard to build trust if you break it down. But then when that trust is broken, the rebuilding happens and it's not hard again to rebuild. It's no, let's break it down and rebuild that trust. And I think you get
Clint Nobles (17:03)
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (17:29)
less afraid of broken trust when you learn how to rebuild that trust over and over. It's like one broken trust isn't the end of the world. It's I know how to rebuild this and I know how to come back from this and it's actually good for both parties.
Clint Nobles (17:37)
And you don't take it, post.
and you don't take it personal. We look at breaking trust as an affront to humanity and it's where anarchy starts. ⁓ The reality is nobody woke up this morning and was like, you know what I'm gonna do? Get this. I am gonna have a dead battery and a flat tire and I severely hope it ruins Clinton's day. Like nobody does that, right? It's not personal. It's problematic. That's all it is.
Miriam Allred (18:06)
Yeah.
Clint Nobles (18:14)
And it typically is a result of not anticipating a known variable. What's going to help me in this? What's going to hurt me in this?
Miriam Allred (18:23)
Mm-hmm properly setting expectations. It's going to happen. It's bound to happen. It's not if but when and so just like being prepared for that and I like how you're talking about fear already because fear Holds a lot of us back and a lot of different ways. It just manifests differently for all of us But it's very common in business to just like have fear and reservations around things So I'm glad you're already mentioning that because I think that's surface throughout this conversation
Clint Nobles (18:29)
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (18:47)
⁓ This is a perfect segue into these seven things that owners need to stop doing. So I'm gonna share each one and then I want you to explain them like a principle basically and then share stories, examples of exactly how you've seen this in home care. So number one is stop being the savior of your business. I think that's a perfect one to start with. Owners leaders are this savior of their business. Why?
What do you mean by that? Like what's your take on what's happening there?
Clint Nobles (19:20)
So, being the saver of the business, really the principle behind this ⁓ comes down to understanding that you have to have a business by design, not default. And ultimately, as the owner, as the CEO, as the executive decision maker,
Being the savior means you have a monopoly on decision. Think about it. So I remember, as a matter of fact, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to one of our, $15 million agencies in the home care boardroom. And he was like, my team, they're on fire, they're doing great. But every time I leave, I come back to a
crazy show happening. You I never know what's gonna happen. If I'm going for more than four days, five days, it just, I never know what I'm walking into. And I said, okay, ⁓ well what's your decision making framework? And he said, excuse me, and I was like, what is the parameters you have for making decisions? And he goes, well I make them. I was like, no you don't. No you don't. ⁓
That's making choices. In other words, making choices is when you do something from the options given you. Making a decision is when you look at the options you have and then decide which road you want to take based on skill, resources, actions, and support, right? That's how you make a decision. And he was like, well, I mean, I guess I don't have one. I said, okay. So it's not your team's fault, it's yours. Because every time you leave,
you take the decision making framework with you. And in business, you have to build a business that runs through you, not because of you. And that only happens when you stop delegating task and start delegating decision. And once this shift happened, right, so he would leave.
meltdown happens, he comes back, you know, whatever. But once he made this shift and he sat down with his leadership and started actually saying, okay, this is the reason I made this decision. This is how I got there. I walked him through the, you know, the meeting routine that I built for this. But once he did that, he shifted to weekly, I call interactions, not meetings, and to delegation rhythm.
All of a sudden, he could be gone for 10 days, 15 days. And it changed. And with his team, he had a 12 plus million dollar agency, his team was great. They just needed the ability to make decisions and not wait on him to return. And that's what being the savior is. We think making the decisions is our job, it's not.
Our job as leaders is to build people to make decisions through us.
Miriam Allred (22:41)
So, so good. This is kind of where we started the conversation, which is leaders just get in their own way. And this is the bottleneck. They make all of the decisions and their team isn't empowered or trusted or delegated to make the decisions. So the leader, and you're saying a 15 million, I think a $15 million business, we're talking to a large business with a large office team. The owner is still making the decisions. And you know, it comes to mind, I think we've all worked at companies where
Literally, the CEO is out of town, like literally on vacation for a week in the summer. Everything goes wrong. Things are breaking. People are upset. It's like, my gosh, that's like a thing in business when someone, the CEO leaves and everything starts falling apart. But I think it comes back to this is there's not proper delegation. There's not that trust to let everybody else make decisions in their lane.
Clint Nobles (23:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, on average, don't actually delegate. What we do is we abdicate as leaders. And that's what I see every time someone comes into one of our strategic guidance programs. It's the very first thing we tackle. Okay, let's look at your abdication list. And they're like, what? And I delegate, no, you don't. You've told someone, go get this result, and you've gave them no tools or resources to make that happen. Or you've gave them a tool, but no outcomes or intentions.
so that they truly get the result you want.
Miriam Allred (24:07)
Can you share a little bit more about that interaction meeting? Like that's what you advise this leader to go and do. Can you explain a little bit more of like kind of what that looks like?
Clint Nobles (24:17)
Yeah, so ⁓ in like a 60 second viewpoint, we have an entire training I do on this where I walk through each level of it, but ultimately I hate meetings. I despise them. I don't know if anybody out there loves meetings, but I do not. ⁓ But it's because meetings turn into gripefests. They turn into solution factories. And that's not what a meeting is supposed to be. ⁓ So I...
Miriam Allred (24:33)
Thank
Clint Nobles (24:46)
eliminated the word meeting for my companies. ⁓ We have either intentional team interactions or intentional connections. That's the one-on-ones. So if you're looking at it, the first thing you have to do is understand there's three principles that every meeting must achieve. Number one,
it has to make the people look good. In other words, when they come to the meeting, it can't be like, great, we're going into the principal's office again. It needs to make them look good. They need to be able to talk about the wins that they've had, the wisdoms that they've learned, the things that have transpired. The second thing is it needs to make them feel good, right? So look good, feel good, meaning...
They need to have ownership in something. It isn't just me asking questions back and forth. The third piece of this is they have to do good, meaning clear next steps. ⁓ I call it my million dollar phrase. ⁓ But it is, and the next step is. ⁓ As if you achieve those three things in a meeting, look good, feel good, do good.
your meetings work.
Miriam Allred (26:04)
I love this so much. I don't know why we're all still talking about meetings. We just need to erase that word from the dictionary. Actually, you get on LinkedIn, you get in these business forums, you're in business, all we talk about is meetings. It's like, why don't we just remove that word meeting and come up what it looks like for your organization? I really like interactions and connections. That's a great...
Clint Nobles (26:12)
100 %
Miriam Allred (26:26)
one that people can steal listening to this, but also like come up what that looks like in your organization. Like it's not a meeting, it's a connection, it's a forum, it's a, you know, whatever it is, turn it into that and like lean into that. I like that a lot. ⁓ Clint, wow, we're going to want to go, I'm going want to dig into each of these, but I also want to get through all of them. So we're going to keep going. The second one is stop managing your business based on triage. What do you mean by that?
Clint Nobles (26:29)
100%.
you
Okay, so ⁓ I used to joke all the time that ⁓ in business you're not the CEO, you're actually the chief executive firefighter, right? And that's what everybody always talks about. It's like, all I'm doing is fighting fires. But constant firefighting is not a strategy. It's a schedule for burnout. That's what it is.
If, and this goes back to decisions, what you'll find with me is business is complex, but operations are simple. I call it gears because it all works together, like it all leads together. But if we think about decisions as a paramount feature of this, if our business is constantly in triage, if we're constantly looking at it saying, what's the most important, what's the most important, we are...
We are the slaves of reaction. And ultimately, my internal soapbox, if you will, is I want owners to quit living a life of reaction. Because the most important and powerful force in your future is the moment you're in. It's the response you give, not the reaction. And response is based off of skill.
resources, actions, and support, right? That's how a response is structured, much like a decision, right? It's the same construct. Why? Because the moment you surrender to reaction, you're letting whatever is important in the moment, the fire, dictate and determine your next moves.
And I remember for me, one of the things in our business that showed this tremendously ⁓ was we got a ton of clients in all at once. At this point we had, what was it, 10 or 12 clients in one week enter in, and this time we only had two offices. So between these two offices, relatively close, we had 10 clients come in. Some short shifts, some long shifts, some medium, right?
They were this mix. Hellacious, right? If you've ever done scheduling, it's like, my God, 10 clients. It felt good when we said yes, but instantly I lost control of the business because the decision I made or the choice I made to say yes to these clients instantly made me a slave to whatever I had to do in the moment. So all of my decisions was based off of
Miriam Allred (29:19)
Thank you.
Clint Nobles (29:45)
The priority of the second.
But the problem happens when we make all these choices in the moment. And then a week from now, two weeks from now, we're like, crap, I need to recruit some caregivers. Or ⁓ man, this is, so what has happened is all of my energy has went where my focus goes. Energy flows where focus goes. So if I focus on something, all of my energy goes there.
Well then all of a sudden I say, fire starts burning over here. Now I run over here to do it. Well, in order to change this in our business, what we did is we looked at it and said, okay, what is actually the most consistent clients we serve? I mean, without fail, who can we serve? Great, that's our right fit client.
All these other clients, they're ideal. But we fill RightFit first, and then we start filling the back end. Because RightFit gives us cash flow, it allows us to create predictable revenue, predictable outcomes. And in our business, what it amounted to is I could predict six months, within crazy accuracy, how many clients we would get from our clients.
how many clients we would get from our care providers, how many clients we would get from our referral partners, how many new referral partners we would get. I knew the phases of my business because I stopped letting the business control my decisions and I built a business by my design, not by default.
Miriam Allred (31:40)
Okay, I am eating this up and chewing on this because this is really, really good. My question around this is like trimming, trimming the fat, like getting rid of the edge cases. Like you're saying, your energy flows where your focus goes, that's amazing. But it's so easy to focus on the edge cases, so easy to focus on the fire, so easy to focus on the things that are going wrong because
It's reactionary. Home care is real time. There are real issues happening every single day. But how do you like remove that? It's not at least what I'm picking up is like you almost have to like remove those edge cases so that you can stay focused on what you do best.
Clint Nobles (32:04)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Well, you can, you can remove them. ⁓ There's definitely, when that is an option for us, ⁓ we had at this time two offices, we had ⁓ quite a few caregivers. We had the resources. Remember what I said about making a decision. You have to have what I call skill, in other words, the things it actually takes, resources, actions, and support. Those are the things you have to have. So we had the resources to handle
these outside cases. The problem was the actions we were doing was putting all of our highest profit care providers with low profit clients. So that was hurting the support structure. So instead of just going in and ripping the bandaid off or ⁓ getting rid of clients, now if someone's listening to this and you're at a point of like mental breakdown, mental break, yes.
Get rid of a client. Like don't die because you think you were born to sacrifice your life. You weren't. Okay, you were born to move the world. And you can't move the world if you're dead. So do that. But look at your ecosystem of a business and recognize it's just that, an ecosystem. One piece feeds the other. So if you're in this moment and you're like, my God, all these fires are happening. We have all this stuff going on.
Look for the thing that you are the best at. Quit trying to fix the crap you're horrible at. You're horrible at it. Why are you still trying to fix it? You're terrible at it. Go take the thing that you're awesome at, either delegate that decision out, train somebody how to do it, and open up some bandwidth. Because you don't need to solve the problem, you just have to open up the opportunity for it to be solved.
Miriam Allred (34:17)
Hmm.
Clint Nobles (34:17)
and
it might not come from you. So yeah, you can get rid of clients. That's a simple fix. But if you're like, I don't want to get rid of clients, well, that's fine. Look at the clients and you might have to restructure. That's why in Action Leaders we teach structured scheduling. We teach structured profit, right? It's one of the first things we teach when people come into Action Leaders because you have to understand the structural support of both of those things in your business in order to build anything that's a legacy.
Miriam Allred (34:46)
Really well said, Clint. Again, just a lot of like really fine points here that owners need to hear to rewire some of their thinking on this. Like this concept about stopping being in triage mode all of the time. Like that is like rewiring the way that we've been thinking for so long. And it's just like unlearning that and rewiring that.
and you've explained it super well. I wanna move on to this next one, is around number three, stop confusing production with productivity. That is another pitfall in home care and pitfall in businesses confusing production with productivity. Explain what that looks like.
Clint Nobles (35:31)
Alright, so I'll start with this with a little while back I was talking to an owner ⁓ and ⁓ his name is Angel and he is a dynamite owner. I'm not kidding. Sharp dressed man. I mean if ever there was a man that was, I mean even his socks are cool. Like every time he's like, even his socks are awesome. But, now I joke with him all the time about it. But seriously though, he's an incredible owner and a go-getter.
started as a clinician, come up the ranks, has a business. And when he first came into action leaders, I was talking to Angel, and he was like, I'm working 70 hours a week, I'm doing this. And I was like, great. So tell me, what moved your business forward? Silence. And he's like, well, maybe this, maybe that.
Unfortunately, in business, and I see this a lot, and I've experienced this a ton, ⁓
but we confuse production, okay, with productivity. Just because I produce a lot of things, I solve a lot of problems, I hire a lot of caregivers, we produce a lot of things, that doesn't actually mean we're being productive. Productivity in my book, now this is Gospel According to Clint, Webster may have a different example of this, but productivity to me is tied to profitability.
And just because I'm doing something doesn't make it profitable, right? I schedule a caregiver, I schedule my best caregiver with this short shift case because I can give it to them quick, I know they're gonna show up and they can get it done. Well, great, but I'm also not making a lot of money on the short shift case. I really need dependability on this harder case over here. So I need to switch that. I need a
higher profitable caregiver with my higher profitable clients so that I can create true profitability. Well, in business, just because we get a client doesn't mean we've gained profit. So the same thing goes with this. It doesn't matter how much you work in your business. If that work does not produce profitable productivity, stop doing it.
Miriam Allred (38:02)
Do you see this at every size? Because that's the thing that's interesting to me is you guys have your home care boardrooms. So you're talking like large agencies. Sometimes I've seen this as well, those large businesses, you think they have it all figured out. You would think this concept especially, production versus productivity, they'd have that sorted out. But oftentimes they're still scrappy and they're still triaging and they're still figuring these things out. So I guess I just want to ask like,
Clint Nobles (38:04)
Mm-hmm, every size.
Yeah.
Miriam Allred (38:31)
Do you see this at every size and why?
Clint Nobles (38:34)
100%. See it every size, every level, and in all transparency. Remember, I'm a guide, not a coach. I'm not gonna sit up here and be like, I got all this stuff figured out. You just listen to me. Like, no. Literally, two weeks ago, I did this myself. I was working my rear end off, right? And I was doing all this stuff, and I felt really good about myself. And then one day I looked up and I was like, well, holy crap. Turns out, feeling rewarded is completely different than being rewarded. So...
You know, it may burst somebody's bubble out there or pop somebody's balloon. But ultimately, these are principles, right? They're not pillars. You don't set them and they never move and they never adapt. These are principles. So there's a saying that says, every level, right, new level, new devil. Okay? Don't agree with it. I don't agree with it at all.
Because at every level it's the same devil. It's uncertainty. I just haven't done this level before so I'm uncertain of what to do next. Overwhelm is a mask for uncertainty. The moment you feel overwhelmed, clock it. I'm uncertain of and the next step is. If I figure out that next step, overwhelm leaves. It's amazing how it works.
Miriam Allred (39:35)
Yeah
I want to ask you are also Mr. KPI and you're big on the data and I think sometimes we get lost in the data and the numbers and the hours and the revenue and I want to hear your take on this from production to productivity. Is there a shift in how we look at numbers when you're more focused on productivity versus production? Is there like, is there a mindset shift with metrics and with numbers?
Clint Nobles (40:21)
Yep, such a good question. I love it. And this is why everyone needs to listen to the show. Because it's those questions, right, that go a little deeper. And ultimately, the mindset shift that has to come in is recognizing what profitability really is. We look at revenue as the ⁓ gold standard of, does this make me money?
Well, a revenue generating activity, I teach owners all the time in the boardroom. We actually just had our Q2 boardroom sessions and owners from three million to 20 million plus were setting in at their board meeting and the same things kept coming up. And they were like, well, my team needs to track this, my team needs to track that. And I was like, why? If you cannot functionally give a reason why what you're tracking is moving,
an outcome you want, don't track it. You don't understand it. ⁓ And I'll answer this in two ways, if you don't mind. I'll give ⁓ kind of a foundational answer, and then I'm gonna talk to the owners that are like, yeah, Clint, I know this, I got this. And so give a little bit more advanced. So foundationally, there's three things in your business that is required to grow, okay?
Functionally, you have to track these three things to grow. Number one, you have to track your conversions. You have to know your conversions. Number two, you have to track how much you're making. That means you have to know how much people are paying you, right? And then third, you have to know the frequency with which you're getting paid. When you know those three things,
you can grow your business. Because number one, you can start predicting how many new clients you're gonna get, or how many new care providers you're going to hire, or how many new referral partners. You can start predicting how much revenue versus profit you're going to make, right? Because you understand how much you're getting paid. Frequency helps you understand lifetime value. In other words, if I spend $1,000,
To make 500, I don't wanna do that again, right? But if I spend $1,000 to get a client that nets me 20,000, well, that's an ATM. How many thousands can I put in, right? But you don't know that if you don't try those three things. And you have to. So that's foundational, kind of that next step, come up higher is what I always tell owners.
That's KPIs, or as I jokingly call them, keep people inquiring. What KPI is the best? The best one to track. What's the best one to track? The best one you need to look at. Well, where is it? So the KPIs, that's kind of KPIs. What I teach at the boardroom and our master operators, I teach what I call IPMs, or integrated performance metrics. And this is where you take one or two
things and say, okay, I'm not looking at trends here, I'm looking at triggers. So if I look at conversion, okay, I can look at conversion, but I need to see what referral sources have the highest profitable conversions versus just converting. Because Medicaid converts, but it's not that profitable in most cases, right?
So going out and becoming, I'm gonna do Medicare, I'm gonna do Medicare, I'm gonna get all these short shift cases, that'll cripple you if you're just starting out. You have to be really selective. So understanding how does these performance metrics integrate with one another, that's the come up higher level that I always talk about.
Miriam Allred (44:36)
Gold mine, Clint. You don't just talk the talk, but you walk the walk. And that was so well said. And man, my mind is like racing on a few different areas we could take this, but I think that's exactly what people needed to hear about that point. Production is not productivity. And again, it's that unlearning and rewiring, and you just explained how to rewire that thinking, which is so good. But we're gonna keep going. Number four, and I'm just like drilling you here and you are taking this.
Clint Nobles (45:02)
I love it.
Miriam Allred (45:02)
so well and I'm so impressed. I'm so impressed. Number
Clint Nobles (45:03)
I'm here all day. Tip your servers.
Miriam Allred (45:07)
four is stop letting your feelings be the CFO. Get on the soapbox because this is an issue. Letting your feelings be the CFO. Letting your feelings be the dictator.
Clint Nobles (45:12)
my God, I love this one.
Yes, so emotion.
can cast an incredible vision.
but it is terrible at running a budget. Like it's 100%, I mean, for example, I love tech. I love buying tech. You and I were talking about this. I spend so much money on tech. I didn't need it. I wanted it. But emotionally, it made me feel good, right? And I see owners do this a lot and I'm gonna make this real, okay? So I'm going in.
to get a computer. Now I personally, I have switched over, I have been, what is it, indoctrinated and I now use Apple products. But say you're an owner and you're going in and you're like, I need to get computers for our people, okay? I did this, I got iPads early on for our people so they could do electronic signatures and stuff in homes. And I went out and got iPads, because I wasn't gonna get those dirty, no good.
Miriam Allred (46:10)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Clint Nobles (46:28)
Android tablets,
it was no good. So what did I do? I went and I got the iPad. But I didn't want to just get the iPad because you know just for a thousand dollars more and I'm paying on it monthly, I'm gonna get this. Because it has more RAM, it's sexier, it comes in this gold color. And why did I do that? Because emotionally, I wanted my people to feel like they had something precious.
But the reality is, I could have got a Fire, an Amazon Fire tablet, And done the same thing. It just needed to be able to see a PDF. I could have got an MP3 player, not an iPod, right? you know, I could have... Now, don't get me wrong, I love buying tech. But in business, we give raises based on emotion. How many times has, and I would love to be talking to an owner, because I've had these conversations, and I've done this myself.
But how many times have you given somebody a raise, not because they deserved it, but because they were having a really bad time right now?
And I just, it was time for them to get a raise, but they hadn't really done the work. But God, I couldn't just not give them a raise on top of all this other stuff that's happening to
See, we give raises based on emotion, not metrics. And in my business, I made a rule. And y'all, I live this, that's why this is a rule, right? I made a rule. A raise never comes because you did a job well. You do a job well to access a higher level of responsibility that comes with a raise.
Doing the job, if I just pay somebody more to do a job that they were doing yesterday, well then I'm just a, I have a lock on my wall, I'm a Scrooge, because I should have paid them that yesterday, because I'm willing to pay them for it right now. Emotion, completely.
destroys finances in a business.
Cash flow is a bloodline. Emotion. It's a knife. It'll slice it wide open.
Miriam Allred (48:57)
I love that you stated this around emotion tied to the CFO role around the finances. I love where you started though, which is emotion is good for vision. I want you to share where emotion is a good thing as a leader. You just talked about where emotion can be a bad thing and where it can be dangerous and where you need to be aware of, but flip the script a little bit and talk about where emotion.
is really important to like master to be a good leader.
Clint Nobles (49:26)
So emotion, creates motion. So when I am excited, when I'm happy, when I'm moving, I move quicker, right? For example, work with me here, y'all watching this, if you're listening to this, I'm gonna tell you what I'm doing. But Miriam, do this with me, okay? One, I want you to...
Hold your hands up like this. Okay, so hold your hands straight up. Shake them around. Okay, like that. Right? Okay? Now, what did that feel like to you?
Miriam Allred (50:02)
Energy. Excitement.
Clint Nobles (50:03)
It felt like energy.
You started smiling a little bit. You were like, my God, I'm doing this on my own show. And like, people are gonna this is gonna be a meme. Like, all of that stuff, right? But now take and just slump your shoulders, hang your head. Don't have to frown.
Miriam Allred (50:06)
Yeah.
Clint Nobles (50:20)
Does that feel different?
Miriam Allred (50:22)
Yeah, feel sluggish, slow.
Clint Nobles (50:23)
It feels
sluggish because motion is controlled by emotion
In our business, we have to master emotion. We don't have to come in and be the most excited person all day. You don't have to walk in and, how you doing today? Man, it's a great day to be alive. It's a great day to be alive. Right? You don't have to do that in your business. What you have to do is make sure that your business has your influence, not your presence. And your influence is the emotion that you bring to your business. It's the culture.
Miriam Allred (50:45)
Thank
Clint Nobles (51:00)
Culture isn't donuts and cereal bars, right? Culture is how you treat people. It's what you do when nobody gives a...
That's culture. And that lives and breathes off the emotion that is pumped in by leadership.
Miriam Allred (51:22)
I think this is so fascinating because emotion's tricky. It's kind of like this balancing act. Do you let people into your personal life? Do you let people into your emotions? Do you let people in 100%, 80 % or are we these kind of stoic, cold, rock solid leaders? Where is the balance? I see both. And is it like, do you shoot the gap or do you not? It's tough.
Clint Nobles (51:48)
I'll say one thing on this really quick. So you remember the old saying, know, grown men never cry and like all this stuff and like we just cry on the inside. And like we have all this, you know, ⁓ elements that we're taught about what leadership is. And the truth is I want my team to know when I'm having a bad day. I actually do.
Miriam Allred (52:01)
Good.
Clint Nobles (52:14)
And I tell my team, if you ever talk to my team, my team will tell you some days I come in and I'll message on our Slack channel and be like, hey y'all, had a rough ⁓ night last night, didn't get sleep, didn't get this, couple of reasons. Number one, I'm probably gonna be irritated that day. And when they come to me, or I'm feeling sick, hey team, you know, thrown up all last night, coming to work this morning, I'm not feeling that great, so if I talk to you and like I seem a little down,
I'm not irritated, I just don't feel great. Why would I do that? As a leader, why would I expose my team to my coaster of emotions? Because they're writing it anyway. Number one, they need to know when the leadership is going to feel something because we're not stoic. How you master emotion is by acknowledging it. That's the first step you have to do. Secondly,
I want my team to see, Clint was throwing up last night and he came in. So the next time they're throwing up, right, they may be like, well, it's probably because I drank too much and I'm not really sick, but well, dang it, Clint's leading by example, so should I. Or I need the freedom to go to my team, my leadership team, and say, hey, and I've done this. As a matter of fact, I just did it a few weeks ago, went to a leader and I said,
Hey, I wanted to check in on you. ⁓ You seem kind of irritated in that last ⁓ connection we did, our last team connection. You just kind of sat there quietly, you didn't interact. You good? Like, are you feeling okay? Is there something wrong? No, just having a rough day. Okay, ⁓ talk to me a little bit about it. So we talked about it. Come to find out, they just didn't like the fact that they were having to be part of this meeting because they felt like it was micromanagement, right? And I was like, okay, so it's not...
you're having an ego illness. And I'm like, yeah, I said, okay, we'll get over that because we got to feedback in our business. One of the principles that we live by is feedback fuels the future. And as leaders, if we can't accept feedback, then we have no fuel for our future.
Miriam Allred (54:33)
Hmm.
Clint Nobles (54:35)
But my team has to be able to come to me and say that too. And they have.
Miriam Allred (54:40)
Yeah, I met with an owner a really impressive operation here locally last week. And the way that he put this that's coming to mind is we're doing life together. Like, we're doing business together, but we're doing life together. And we're on this life journey together with our co workers. We all know we spend as much time, more time with our co workers than our family. And quite literally, we're doing life together and emotions are such a huge part of life.
Clint Nobles (54:50)
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (55:07)
to where we have to let people in. Of course there's balance and there's boundaries, but it's we're doing life together and emotion is part of the equation and it's good to accept that early and set those boundaries, but let people in. have this mentality that we're really doing life together through these businesses. Three more Clint and.
Clint Nobles (55:24)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Let's do
it!
Miriam Allred (55:30)
Two of them, two of them are a little overlappy. So maybe we'll And then I really want to get to number seven. so number five is stop making choices and start making decisions. Again, we're kind of like wash, rinse, repeat here, but any additional thoughts on stop making choices and what our choices and start making decisions and what that means.
Clint Nobles (55:50)
All right, so the main thing to understand when you really break down, stop making choices, start making decisions, is recognizing that choices are passive. This is crazy, crazy important because decisions are leadership. And ultimately it comes down to understanding how can I actually realign myself? It's like a GPS.
okay, what's my ultimate unmovable outcome? I call it the chaos funnel. What's my unmovable outcome that simply must occur? My end result. What's the known variables? What's gonna help or hurt me? And then what is the skill? Which breaks down to resources, actions, and next steps, right? Or support. What is the support I have? And to get through it as quickly as possible, to show you kind of how this works.
Create a decision framework in your business because ultimately the decision framework comes down to five questions.
Two things you absolutely must have and a timeline.
So if you're vacillating between which software should we use, which this, which that, what's five questions you need answered, what's two must haves you absolutely have to have, and put the timeline on.
Miriam Allred (57:17)
I love it. I want to ask, are we erasing choices? Like the concept being stop making choices, start making decisions. Is that from like the leader? The leader needs to stop that behavior, but there still are choices. I'm just making sure I understand.
Clint Nobles (57:23)
No.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, there's
choices. It's more a reframing of mindset, like you were talking about earlier. Instead of just accepting what comes at you, right? So like a GPS, I mentioned the GPS. I want to go to Disney World. What's the number one thing I have to do? Well, I actually have to put in which Disney World I want to go to.
Then, the next thing that has to happen is the GPS says, well, where are you right now? So five questions, right? Number one, where do I wanna go? Number two, where am I at right now? Number three, what's the gap between this? Number four, what actions can I take immediately over the next seven days to make this possible?
Number five, does this actually get me to my end result? That's the five questions. You're not erasing choice, you're redefining options.
Because the moment you do that, take a detour, recalculating, you're still on the fastest route to your destination. Doesn't mean the best, but you're getting back to where you're needing to go.
Miriam Allred (58:44)
This is the.
this is a perfect segue into number six, which is about delegation and I want to hear your take on delegation and if that's the right word that we should be using. Number six is stop delegating tasks and start delegating decisions. What is your opinion on delegation? Good leaders delegate? Is that accurate?
Clint Nobles (59:17)
Yeah, 100%. Crappy leaders abdicate. And delegation's a great word. ⁓ It's like critiquing. People get all up in their feelings about, like, ooh, they critiqued me. Good. It's like micromanaging. Micromanaging is a part of leadership. We all look at it like it's thing with like lice or something, and it's like, ⁓ don't get around me. But the reality is micromanagement
is a level of leadership. CEOs, executives, they deal in what I call macro management. You're managing outcomes, not task. Well, the same thing is true of delegation. If we delegate task, we're task dumping. Go do this, do that. Instead, we need to delegate decisions to build leaders because we're trying to replace our presence with our influence.
The only way that happens, right? You hire a scheduler and you tell them what to do every day, they're gonna get burned out. You try and promote them and they're like, well, they were amazing as a scheduler, but they're terrible as an ops manager or a care coordinator. Of course they are. Because you went from telling them, click here, do this, do that, to I expect you to know everything and I'm gonna hold you accountable to crap I haven't even.
learned myself. But it doesn't work that way. We have to delegate decision, not the task. That's the only way it works.
Miriam Allred (1:00:57)
I'm thinking of the phrase that we use like task force, you know, like what that really means. And if you look at a lot of home care offices, it feels like that. It is just tasks. You get in, you've got your checklist, you've got your tasks, and your goal is just to crank through that list by the end of the day. There is too much of that happening. Sit down, get started, cross off that task list.
Clint Nobles (1:01:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (1:01:19)
you're like, again, rewiring that mindset of it's not all about tasks or we will be reactive day in and day out. We've got to think of what this looks like from a decision perspective and start delegating, making decisions.
Clint Nobles (1:01:34)
Yeah, agreed, 100%.
Miriam Allred (1:01:37)
Okay, number seven, last but not least here, I'm excited about this one. Number seven is stop thinking success is an end of life achievement. You started at the top talking about this, the expectation around success versus freedom. And I think a lot of leaders have this wrong. So explain why leaders need to stop thinking of success as an end of life achievement.
Clint Nobles (1:01:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
So, and this is really, really personal to me because this is something that I had to overcome a lot. And there's a lot of limiting beliefs and all the other psychological words that we can pull from here that tie into this. But.
I want you to think, and you can do this too, and those listening to this do this too, I want you to think, what does success mean to you? Now, just that statement, what does success mean to you? On average, when I ask an owner that, and I ask them this every day, owners typically respond with, when I hit five million, when my business gets to three million, or when I get a...
when I get enough caregivers to staff the people, they go down this list of things.
So when an owner says, when I hit five million, I can finally breathe.
I asked one question.
So are you suffocating now?
Are you not breathing now? Why don't you want to breathe now? ⁓ well, I do. That's what I'm trying to get to five minutes. No, no, no, no, no. That just makes you run harder. That doesn't make you run better.
So, what I want the people listening to this to understand, and this took me decades, decades to learn this, a lot of learned and earned experience, success is not a reward. It is a result. It is a result of moving through the failure faster. There's something I teach.
and it's called the speed of success. And it breaks down into think it, do it, fix it, leverage it. That's the speed of success. I want my business to operate at the speed of success, but I'm so scared my people will fail that I don't truly delegate things out to them and I don't trust them with things. I want my business to succeed, but I lay everything on data.
that I have no control over. What's our revenue? I can't twist somebody's arm and make them hire our company. If we could, we'd be way busier because people need care, right? But the reality is, I can't base everything in my business off a non-controllable outcome. If I want to truly create a legacy and move through the continuum, I call it the legacy continuum.
and I wanna go from purpose driven to legacy entrepreneur, the only way that happens is if I understand what success looks like along the way. Because I personally do not believe success is an end of life achievement. I believe it is a state of being. I am being successful. So when I talk about that decision, where do you wanna go, where are you at, what's the gap between you?
Right, it's called a gap analysis. When you do that, you're not evaluating from the gap, right? You're evaluating from the gain. What have I gained? Where have I leveraged every single week in my business? And I've done this for years. Every single week in my business, I do what I call a wins and wisdom. My team.
emails me, because I don't do meetings, ⁓ my team emails me wins and wisdom every Friday. And what does it mean? It means they tell me what they did that week that was a win. Does it have to net a million dollars of revenue? Does it have to be 50 new caregivers hired? It can be, I figured out the bus route and I get to work on time every day. Or it can just be, I had a really good conversation.
with a care provider I think we can develop into. Or I figured out how to do this, a win. Because I need to repeat wins. So I need to know what's helping. What's helped my team that week? And the wisdom. What's hurt? What's something that you can leverage moving into next week? It could be a win. It could be a wisdom.
But either way, I think it, do it, fix it, leverage it. Every single week in my business, we operate at the speed of success.
Miriam Allred (1:07:02)
Clint, man, I am impressed. you're on fire and this has been so, so, so, so good. I want to just ask you one last question. Like we just unloaded so much good information. Think of all of the people listening to this. know, imagine we're in a room full of owners right now listening to what you just shared.
what's one thing you see 90 % of owners nodding their heads to but not changing? You just download all of this. What are they all nodding their heads to but not actually gonna go out and change? Like what's the one thing that they need to hear and actually do differently based off what you just shared?
Clint Nobles (1:07:38)
managing my triage. It's so alluring and seductive to handle the crisis.
Everyone knows reacting isn't sustainable. Business isn't, there's no secrets in business, right? ⁓ Everyone knows it's not sustainable, but they keep doing it because urgency feels productive. Structure feels boring.
The reality is structure is supportive, not rigid. Yes, crisis happens, you adapt. Don't evolve your business. I know that, and this is semantics, but tell people never evolve your business. Adapt it. Evolution is from one thing becoming something completely new. I don't want that in my business. I want my business to adapt.
I'll leave evolution to the things willing to become extinct. For me, I have to look at this as what structure can I build to support the outcome? What's the outcome I want? Managing by triage is esteeming the fire more important than the fuel.
Miriam Allred (1:09:07)
You are a testimony of this because like I said at the top, I have been working alongside you for six years. Every time I talk to you, you're doing something different. You've said like so many phrases today that to be honest, I haven't heard you say. Yes, there's been some nuggets that I've heard you share before, but like more often than not today, you have shared these like phrases, these concepts, these frameworks that I haven't heard you share.
And again, you are just an example of adapting your business, your thinking. You learn new wisdom every single week and then that feeds into your business, into your concepts. And so I love that we're ending with this because I think you personally and professionally are a really good example of this. And anyone that knows you, that's followed you for years and years has seen how you and Jess and team have grown your business and
You're not doing things that you were doing five years ago because things are different now and you've learned from these owners and operators and you're thinking differently and doing differently. So Clint, thank you for joining me in the lab. Fantastic session today. What is the best way for people to learn more? Some people that are hearing this episode may not know you, may not know what you're about. Where should people go if they want to subscribe or get more information from you and Jess and team?
Clint Nobles (1:10:25)
⁓ Obviously social media, Home Care Ops social media, but the easiest way to do it is go to scalemyhomecare.com. ⁓ I believe simple, right? Make things simple. Scalemyhomecare.com. ⁓ You can take quizzes there. There's all kind of information. ⁓ I may even put a balloon animal tying video up there. I don't know. But yeah, just go to scalemyhomecare.com. If you want to know where you're at in the continuum, there's three stages.
that you have to understand where you are. Take a quiz, like six questions, tells you exactly what it is and your next steps.
Miriam Allred (1:11:01)
Love it. Clint, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This has been so good. I'm excited to see you in person in a few months. Lots of conferences and events this fall. So more to come, but thank you so much. Awesome job today.
Clint Nobles (1:11:12)
My pleasure and if somebody's listening to this right now, like it, subscribe and share it. Tell somebody else because leaders don't let other people drown. Go share this. What you do, go find an episode of Strategy Lab and share that one because what you do needs to be shared.
Miriam Allred (1:11:35)
Thank you so much, Clint. You're awesome. This has been fantastic.