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Is there a single right way to run a home care agency? We sure don’t think so. That’s why we’re interviewing home care leaders across the industry and asking them tough questions about the strategies, operations, and decisions behind their success. Join host Miriam Allred, veteran home care podcaster known for Home Care U and Vision: The Home Care Leaders’ Podcast, as she puts high-growth home care agencies under the microscope to see what works, what doesn’t, and why. Get ready to listen, learn, and build the winning formula for your own success. In the Home Care Strategy Lab, you are the scientist.
Miriam Allred (00:01)
Welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. Thank you for tuning in week after week. I'm so glad you're here today. This is going to be a good one. I have been trying to get someone on from Senior1Care in Indiana for some time now. And after meeting today's guest, it has been worth the wait. So in the lab today, I am joined by Jane Francis, the Executive Vice President of Senior1Care. Jane, thank you for joining me and welcome to the lab.
Jane Francis (00:30)
It's an honor, I feel like I'm with a movie star and a friend at the same time.
Miriam Allred (00:34)
That is, okay, that I love. When people say movie star, I blush and I get uncomfortable. But a friend, I want you to feel like you know me because you have been an avid listener, consumer of this podcast for a very long time. And then I got to know you and we met and I'm like, I want you on the show tomorrow. When can you join me? But you're busy, but the timing is right. So I'm so excited to have this conversation.
Jane Francis (00:41)
Exactly.
Miriam Allred (00:57)
I want to give a little teaser of your background and then I want you to fill it in with some of the details. But when we met a couple of weeks ago, you gave me the long version. So I'm going to give the short version and then you can kind of fill it in. you were born into a big family. I think you said nine of 13, born creative in a family of maybe like right brain people. So you started out as a hairdresser, turned nurse from degree from Purdue, turned top sales rep in the jewelry industry.
and then went on to lead Bus Dev at a huge senior living business And then you channeled all of that and now you are growing a home care company like crazy. And I want to know what you're doing and how you're doing it. So before we get into that, highlight some of your lessons learned in your career that have led you to where you are today.
Jane Francis (01:51)
Well, you I always say, when you look at life experience, and I think of our clients, you know, one of the first questions we ask our clients when we get to know them is, tell me about your life. And, what's neat about that is you learn, number one, how remarkable they are as a person and what they've accomplished in their life. And it necessarily wasn't always easy, right?
But the common denominators that I would hear over and over and over again, working with our clients is, is they had, a belief system. they, had either someone believe enough in them to start their journey, whatever, their career path, or they just had that belief already innately inside themselves that they could just, that was their launching pad. And then the next step was, is they connected with
people in their life that you always hear about people who say, if it wasn't for Blake, they really made an impact on my life. They made me a better version of myself. They invested in me. And so that connection of mentorship and people who are going to to invest in you. And then the third was is really that same successful person has that grit and tenacity.
You can just see it there. They're they're failing forward. They're taking it and they're just going to keep repeating they're honing need their craft and they're not going to quit until they get there. And so I look at kind of my journey of where I started and vulnerability. I will tell you I was a person that didn't believe in myself. I had a lovely upbringing. I love my family, but I I had.
suffered from like I would compare myself to other people. And so I had to have someone believe in me until I could believe in myself. And my family did great, but it was all in my head. It was my husband, we said, know what Jane, you are a great hairdresser, but boy, you would be an amazing nurse. And I was fearful, because I'm like, well, I don't know if I could start an IV or I don't know if I could, you what happens if something happened in.
You know, I kept thinking of all the what ifs. But what I would say to all that is, I did that, I became a nurse, and it really is the backbone of who I am. I love helping people, I love serving. But then it got to the point where I still had that creative side of me. I had that entrepreneur side of me. that, I wanted to keep growing. I wanted to keep learning.
And I was 34 years old. I was the director of a very progressive surgical center back in the 90s when that really was when surgical centers were just becoming surgical centers. I had a great job, but I felt like something was missing. A part of me, like I needed to do more. I wanted to have a little more flexibility as well. And so,
I was introduced to a direct sales company and this direct sales company was based out of Dallas, Texas. And at the time I started, they had been in business for about 15 years and they had a top reputation and their values aligned with my values. And I thought, I think this is a place where it's going to make me a better version of myself. I could see myself.
really learning how to build a business. And I knew nothing about jewelry or sales, but other than the fact that I knew I was drawn to the mission of enriching lives and making a difference. And they called it direct service business, not a direct sales business. So for 19 years that I worked with Premier Designs, it was all about your serving.
Serving, serving. We weren't selling anything. So with that, I think it's really important that I note that these 19 years were probably the most crucial building blocks for me personally as a person. I became a better wife, a better mother, a better leader, a better everything because of this company.
invested so much on the inside of us to make us a really good person that allowed us ultimately to create pretty large profits. When you focus on the people, the profits come. And so that's really what happened. But when I was at 34 years old, when I started this business, I still had my full-time nursing job. I did not leave it right away because I wanted to make sure I could be successful in this.
And I still needed a little bit of that belief. And so I got in and I did exactly what I just said at the very beginning. I did everything in my power to have the right mindset to believe that I could do it. Number two, I hung out with people way more successful and smarter than me. I really wasn't that smart and I had a lot to learn and I was willing to do anything it took.
to learn how to do the business. And so I identified that when hang out with my mentors and successful people that were already to the top of the company, I knew there was eight levels of the company, all right? And you start out at the bottom rung. To get to the eight levels is a huge feat. so I would learn every day from those people. And what I identified, there was building blocks.
I called it the four wheels in Premier. I knew that if I could take these four wheels and really hyper-focus on just those four wheels and get better than average in those four wheels and get them all running at the same time in a forward motion, I could get to the top rung. And that's the very thing I did. I became the youngest executive director. I got to that top rung.
Most of the people that were at the top rung had been in the company from the very beginning. I was a newbie and I got in and I was the youngest one to be able to get to that executive level. And it was just an honor. The higher you went, the more you served. You were just a servant leader. So that was really kind of the start of
building a business, it was exhilarating, it was fun. I could use my creativity. I could serve people. I could build leaders. All that was really, really important to me. Unfortunately, in 2015 was the time when Amazon was making a big headway. And really, as we all know, Amazon changed the world. And it changed our business.
because the way consumers shopped were now changing. And that really directly affected our company. With 45,000 sales reps in that company, I was the top 10 of that company. I was working with the owner of the company of looking at how could we change the model? How could reinvent ourselves? And we did for four years. We tried to as fast as we could.
Miriam Allred (09:10)
Wow.
Jane Francis (09:25)
but we couldn't turn the ship around to 45,000 reps fast enough and then COVID hit.
So at 2020, 2020, 2021, Premier Designs closes stores and it was a debt-free company, if that tells you anything. They were at the top of their game for 30 years. So I had to reinvent myself at that point. And I knew I was either gonna start my own business, retire early, which that wasn't really in my cards.
or find something that was passionate about and had I was called to do. And I saw an Indeed ad and it was for a very reputable, very awesome senior living community that's a top company in the nation. And I loved their value systems and their core beliefs. I bought into it. I applied.
And I basically worked for quite, I mean, a big difference, salary difference from what I, when I had built my own business and had created. I had to start all over, essentially start over. But to me, I didn't look at it. I looked at it as I was gonna, once again, I was going to learn the industry and that would someday would be valuable for me. And that's the very thing I did. I was a business development specialist there.
did that for two years and then they pulled me into a new community in the Fort Wayne marketplace and I was their inside sales specialist and that's where Senior1 found me.
Miriam Allred (11:06)
my goodness. I'm so glad you just dialed through all of that because there's going to be so many parallels to your previous lives that have influenced what you've done at Senior1 So I'm glad you dialed through all of that. And I look at you and to hear you say that you
weren't confident in yourself and you know, had to like surround yourself with smart people. look at you now and I think, my gosh, you're absolutely one of those people. But there's that imposter syndrome in all of us that we're not good enough that we can't do it, that we're not cut out for this. But I look at you and I think of your track record and I think, my goodness, like you are a top performer, but you've, you've become that over time and you're a lifelong learner and you've surround yourself with these mentors and with smarter people. And I think we all are doing that.
to some extent and that's how we learn and that's how we grow. But you have started over. The other thing I wanted to note is a lot of people in home care, it's kind of like their second or third career. They've kind of like run their course on different things and they get into home care. For you, this is like career five or six and you've taken so much accumulated knowledge and now you're channeling it into your role today. And that's what I wanna unpack is you joined Senior1 about four years ago, right? Not very long ago, just four years ago.
Jane Francis (12:15)
Correct.
Miriam Allred (12:18)
And your track record at Senior1 is extremely impressive. And so I want to unpack what you've done to achieve this year over year growth that you've achieved. let's go back to four years ago. Senior1 is about a 20 year old company. And at the time when you joined four years ago, there were just the three offices and they were doing maybe 14, 15 million in revenue.
and they hired you to launch a new office, a new market that they were starting up at the time in Fort Wayne. So you come in and mind you, it's a family owned and operated business and has been for a long time. And so you're the first outsider, non-familial operator coming into this. Talk about like your first 90 days. This is like baptism by fire. You're new to home care, new to Senior1, outsider coming in.
What did you experience that first 90 days?
Jane Francis (13:11)
Well, first I can say the Bossing family is amazing. They have been nothing but supported me from the very beginning. They gave me, mean, they just allowed, created an environment for me. It's almost like I had no preconceived notions and they weren't giving them to me. They're like, hey Jane, this is your office. they were like cheering me on, like, do what, you know, just go after it, and kind of, and so that was kind of high bar to hit. But I, I'm...
I knew that I could just channel in what I've done in the past and if I could be successful in other areas of my life, I could do the same in this company. ⁓ Senior1 had acquired a sleepy Medicaid business. So that's the business model that ⁓ they acquired in Fort Wayne. And it had a great reputation, but it was very tired. It was a family-owned company. And so...
The first 90 days was in my mind is I had to really learn. I wanted to build relationships with the team that was already there. I had to come into them. They didn't have to conform to me. I had to conform to learn who they were. I knew that the only way I would gain influence is to really build relationships with them.
You know, people don't care how much you know till they know how much you care. So I had to show them I cared and they had to learn how to trust me. I'll never forget when we had our first 24-7 case and one of my top leaders, Christy, said to me, she said, she's like, I don't know how we're going to staff this because they weren't used to the private pay coming in. And what I was going to do and what they knew we were going to do is that was going to be our focus. We were going to focus on building the private pay.
And I said to Christy, said, I'll do it. I said, I'll do the shift. I'll do the, give me the hardest, the shift you can't staff, I'll do it. And I think that's kind of what it took is that I was in the camp with them. I'm a big visionary. So I just already knew we were gonna dominate the marketplace. We were gonna be the very best.
We were going to serve with excellence because that's my track record of being part of those type of companies. And so in my mind, ⁓ I would always share, as a visionary does, where we're going, how we're going to get there and get buckled in. We're all going for a ride and it's going to be fun. And so they had that mindset.
The other big thing is I learned my competition. So I didn't do it myself, but I had someone do it in secret shop, all the competitors in the market, because I wanted to know how Senior1, how I was going to differentiate. And remember, I still was learning the industry. So not only was I learning the industry, but I also was learning to be able to build this private pay from Medicaid.
like shifting the model, literally shifting the model. Because at that time, 98 % of our business was Medicaid, the model we had. Today, 80%, roughly 75 to 80 % of our business is private pay.
Miriam Allred (16:26)
Hmm.
Mm.
Jane Francis (16:42)
So we literally went, we just shifted it in four years.
Miriam Allred (16:46)
And tell me how big was the team that you walked into again? They acquired that company, acquired that team about how many people were in place in the office.
Jane Francis (16:55)
So we had an excellent CFO, which we still have today, is a very good friend of mine, Evan, and we had Christy, which is our director of care coordination, and then we had three other care coordinators. In the first 90 days, we lost one person. And it was OK. We were going to keep moving through. So that's about the size of the office.
Miriam Allred (17:20)
of the team. Okay, yeah, just curious how many people you came in to kind of like lead at that time. You come with a clinical background and then the senior living piece. And so you, you had kind of a sense of like clinically what this would look like, but I'm curious of your perspective. What surprised you? You walk into home care for the first time. What stands out to you? What surprises you? What just like maybe caught you off guard in those early days?
Jane Francis (17:23)
Yeah.
You know, I felt like it wasn't as hard as kind of what I thought it would be in the fact of I just knew that if we could focus on being customer-centric, so really focusing on, and customer-centric really is our caregivers and our clients. So what surprised me probably the most is knowing we had, like from the office we acquired,
we had to do a whole big shift on that. I mean, because it just really wasn't the focus. And that's what probably surprised me the most. And...
Miriam Allred (18:28)
Well, I think it's easy in home care. There's this balancing act of people and operations. You have to run the business. You have to run the operations. You have to do the documentation, the scheduling, the billing, the payroll. Like there's operations and then there's culture and people. And I think you thrive with people, with your 20 years of sales experience. All of your experience has been social, but like the people side was your strength. You say that the people side was maybe lacking. Is that because they were bogged down by the operations?
Jane Francis (18:33)
Mm-hmm.
Miriam Allred (18:58)
or what was lacking.
Jane Francis (19:00)
Probably what was lacking, it was just a different business model of Medicaid and more private pay is sometimes can be a lot more, you're investing and serving at a higher level, because the expectations are higher typically. But probably yes, more transactional, more operational. And I knew that, like, you when I talked about those four wheels in direct sales, ⁓ in direct sales it was,
You got to develop yourself as a person. I knew if I could make a stronger me, if I could get stronger every day, I could build stronger leaders. I couldn't get to the top rungs of direct sales and doing what I did without building a massive amount of leaders. At the end of it, I had 50 leaders and I had over 450 sales reps. And I was building mini franchises across the country.
Literally. And so if I didn't know leadership and if I couldn't develop people, there is no way that would have ever happened because it'd be impossible. Right. And then I knew I had to learn the other wheel was more the sales component. I had to learn, how do I create a duplicatable sales process for all my leaders? And then how do I recruit good leaders? So
I had developed that sales process. So that was my four wheels in direct sales. When I moved over to Senior1 and to home care, I just flipped it. And I said, okay, this makes sense. I'm going to take my four wheels. I'm going to bring in clients. I'm going to retain the clients. I'm going to bring in caregivers and I'm going to retain the caregivers. All right. But I'm going to do all of that through leadership and culture and people development.
And if I do the leadership, the culture, and the people development, that's the secret sauce to the four wheels of Senior1. And that was the Rocketfuel which, P.S. is one of my favorite new books, ⁓ where it talks about having a visionary and an integrator in any successful business. And I was the visionary. I'm the kind of person that...
I have 20 new ideas a week. And sometimes that can be a little much, you know? And they have to rein me back in. I'll say, Jane, let's just focus on this idea. And that's what I love about Scott and Kyle and Carl. They can rein me in and even Patrick. But at the end of the day, you got to have the operations and the integrative and the detailed stuff. I was more the visionary.
the people, the big ideas, here's where we're going, this is why we're gonna do it, kind of person.
Miriam Allred (21:56)
you come in as an outsider and so you can't just come in, know, hot and fast, bulldoze, let me, you know, develop you all as leaders. Like it's a process and probably takes time. We talked about like that first 90 days. Were you kind of like sitting back analyzing for 90 days, six months? Like how long were you kind of in like the listener, the observer seat before you kind of like turn on the let's get out, let's make the changes, let's do this seat?
Jane Francis (22:22)
Yeah, one thing is, I will say in the first 90 days, you're right, it was like you have to be an observer, build those relationships, build as much trust as you can. But, you know, take the time to know the people you're working with. Like if you don't know their kids' names, if you don't know what their husbands do for a living, if you don't know what, you know, we used to have wind down Wednesdays. We'd all hang out together on Wednesdays after work. We would, I would, I always,
invested in a Wednesday meeting. And that meeting was inspirational. So I would highlight what we were doing really well. And kudos to the people that were doing it. I would identify their strengths. I knew their personalities. ⁓ And I started building them instantly as leaders. And then I just, best way for leadership is you model the behavior you want them to be.
So I did a lot of just modeling of behavior and that started clicking. But I loved our Wednesday meetings because I would always do an inspirational video. I would talk about like whatever challenge we had, I would do a video on that challenge. Like if it was teamwork, if it was whatever it might be. But I always kept them, I kept their eyes on the prize of where we were going and how excited we were to get there.
and they just jumped on the bus with me.
Miriam Allred (23:54)
love that so much. And I love how specific you're being like the dinners, the Wednesday meetings, getting to know them deeply personally, like home care is a personal business, but really getting to know your team on that personal level because you, you bond over this business. It's really demanding. It's really emotional. It's not for the faint of heart. And you really have to be all in with your team from a trust perspective. And it sounds like that's what you did really well. And it sounds like you did that from day one. You modeled the behavior.
you got to know them really well, you develop that trust, and then you were making those like micro changes as you go, which then leads to the sum of all the parts of the success, the changing of the model, like all of those things start to happen naturally. What about culture? And maybe this goes hand in hand with what you were just saying, but it's not easy to change culture. Like likely some of these people were pretty set in their ways and they were used to doing things a certain way. How do you get...
people to change their mindset? How do you slowly start to break down bad culture and replace it with good culture?
Jane Francis (25:00)
So everything that I don't like to do now as a leader, meaning I like to be able to delegate and hand off, delegate, hand off, delegate, hand off, because I want everyone working at the top of their license, as Carl Baussing would say. ⁓ I 100 % believe in that, and I always love doing that. However, in those first 90 days, I had to
be with them so they could pick up on what I was doing. So for example, I, would, interviews would come in. I would sit in on the interviews and I would let them interview, but then I would do kind of character questions and I wanted to know their soft skills and I started to, be inspirational.
at those interviews and show the vision of where we're going and ask them if they wanted to be a part of a winning team. And I would be vulnerable on orientation day. And I would use in third party my story of not feeling adequate or not feeling like I could be a nurse or my belief in myself was low and my confidence wasn't great.
And I share that story in third party and orientation. And then at the end I would say, that person was me. And they would all be like, my gosh. And I go, you know what? We're all in the camp together. You know, we're here to make each, each, all of us better versions of ourselves. You know, we're going to challenge each other. But I'm going to believe more in you than you.
you do in yourself and so is this team. And I would have the team around me when I said it. And then I would say, we have mentorships here. We're gonna mentor, we're gonna invest in you as a person. Because my whole life, I've been so blessed and so grateful for all the people who've invested in me. That's my belief, I wanna invest in you. And I share to them what success looks like.
And then I said, and then we're gonna all have grit. We're gonna work hard because we know why we're working hard. We're serving the best clients out there. We're gonna give them the very best care. We're gonna allow them to thrive, not just survive. And so I was in there with them in all those steps. So in recruiting until all my leaders were doing it without me. If that makes sense.
Miriam Allred (27:45)
Yeah, you're the third person that I've talked to recently that's highlighted grit as a quality or trait that they're looking for in caregivers. Grit specifically. We talk a lot about compassion and heart. We talk about kind of like that side of things, but like I said a minute ago, home care is not for the faint of heart, especially for the caregivers. And you're looking for that grit and you're trying to identify if they have it or not in that interview process. And I love that you cited
Jane Francis (27:54)
Yes!
Miriam Allred (28:11)
the interview process is something specific that you came in and you saw that there was room for improvement and then you led by example. And then it's just that ripple effect. Everyone starts to notice, starts to feel the change and then long story short, people are doing it themselves. operationally, what else wasn't maybe going well that you helped kind of tweak and turn? what other operational things, billing, payroll, scheduling, like what else?
wasn't going super well that you had to kind of like course correct on.
Jane Francis (28:41)
Well, truthfully, that was all awesome because Evan, at that time, and he does more now and he has a team, but that couldn't, I I couldn't, I didn't even have to worry about that. Like that was, that was a godsend. I didn't have to worry about that. But I think probably the biggest thing was the sales process. Like when someone calls the discovery, they're really in all of Senior1, there wasn't.
necessarily a strong process. It was more, ⁓ how can I help you? You know, that kind of thing. But I wanted to be really, really dialed in on that customer centric approach. And so probably my biggest passions was was building that right out of the gate. And so that's probably what grew our private pace so quickly is that strong discovery sales process. ⁓
And then it just, and then when you had the four wheels going of, you know, the teams fired up, the culture's great. They're feeling and acting like leaders. They're excited to come to work every day. we just know our mission. We know our why. This just, everything compounded in the right direction for us. So we were having a hundred percent growth year after year. And so, so it was,
That was, I would say, what I knew I had to fix is more kind of that, okay, now it's up to me, Jane. You know, I was taking the discovery calls. Put your money where your mouth is. How are you gonna make this part good? So we developed a really solid program for that.
Miriam Allred (30:22)
This is super interesting to hear because back to operations and people, that is the constant balancing act in home care. And it's really interesting to hear you cite that operations were going extremely well. That was like a well-oiled machine, but the culture and the people side and the leadership side has slipped. And I think that's an issue in home care is you focus on an area of the businesses struggling and then you...
you kind of lose sight of one area of the business and then you have to paradigm shift and go back and focus on that. Like that is the constant juggle. And I think that also leads to some of the plateaus we see these home care businesses go through is operationally we're great, but then we lose sight of the personal touch in the sales intake call. And now we're not getting enough business, but wait, we've got the operations to support that. Like it's that balancing act and being able to find leaders that can.
Jane Francis (30:59)
Yes.
Miriam Allred (31:17)
spearhead and focus on that area of the business constantly so that things aren't slipping. Can we talk about that intake call though? Because this is an area of your expertise. And like you said, it led to a lot of success on the private pay side. You said when you first got there, it was a conversation, but there was no structure. There was no substance to it. It's just, thanks for calling. know, tell us about your family or your loved one. It was so, yeah, a little nonchalant, like unstructured.
Jane Francis (31:39)
Thanks for your questions. Right.
Miriam Allred (31:46)
Talk about how you approached structuring that and what you built and what it turned into.
Jane Francis (31:54)
So I think what's exciting about it is that, truly to do a really good discovery, you're talking about 30 or 40 percent and they're talking the majority. So the person calling in, they're usually calling in for in a crisis situation. So being able to.
Become you you it's it's a fine balance right you want to be the trusted advisor But it's got to be with heart like they got to know like my gosh. They care So people don't care how much you know till they know how much you care So you got to lead with the heart but with some trusted advisor backbone so for example when a call comes in you have to be able to Let them know
professionally that you are in control of the call, but you are going to ask them a series of questions that are going to help them, help me help them. So I'll say to them, I'm going to ask you a series of questions that are going to help me help you. Is that okay? I asked for permission. Once I asked for permission, then they start to open up to me and they become, instead of, most of the time, if you think about it, if you don't do that, when the calls come in,
they're just gonna just start telling you stuff and it's gonna be random and it's gonna be all over the map. And so you're guiding the call. And when you guide the call, you as a nurse, so we have all of our nurses doing the discovery calls. And we've learned at the end of the day, ⁓ that's the most successful. And the reason is, is majority of our clients that are families that are calling in,
They have multiple chronic diseases, sometimes three, right? And so knowledge is power. Nurses understand those chronic diseases. And even though we're in non-medical world, we are faced with clinically sick people every day. So to understand that is massive. So unpacking that is really important.
So sometimes that's just about a 25 minute right there, drilling down the problems from the issues. And we dive into the health side, right?
Miriam Allred (34:22)
And I think
you jog my memory, before you started, it wasn't the nurses taking those calls.
Jane Francis (34:28)
So what happened was is, what we realized as a company is that the executive directors in all the offices, they did, they had three main hats. They oversaw the office. They typically were a nurse. So, but they also, they did the intake calls, but they also did business development. So as we know, the market is becoming more and more competitive and crowded.
And what I realized when I took on the new role I took on a year ago and talked with the owners about it is like, hey, it's getting tough. And I know I've been able to build and do this, but at the end of the day, if we really want to scale this thing, we've got to have less hats for our executive directors. So we currently have nurses from beginning to end.
who strictly do the intake calls. The executive directors are not nurses. They can be, but our current ones are not. They still kind of oversee the operations of the company, of their office, but they're predominantly focused on 75 % business development and then the rest, culture and leadership in the office.
Miriam Allred (35:54)
These distinctions are so important because I think it's so easy for some of these roles to get lumped together. And oftentimes in an office, you're wearing multiple hats. But this was an area that you saw a need to change because it wasn't the right person answering the phone. It wasn't the right person having the right conversation at the right time. Like those are little distinctions that go such a long way because say it is the executive director and they're hit with a clinical question, a chronic illness that they can't address.
Jane Francis (36:21)
It's tough.
Miriam Allred (36:24)
You talk about being a trusted advisor and being able to advise on that call. If you can't give advice in that first call, there's a hundred other home care companies in your backyard and they may go somewhere else. So that distinction is so important. share that one more time. each office, so today there's four offices, share kind of the leadership hierarchy in each of those offices again.
Jane Francis (36:42)
So, and really quick, there's actually, there's, I gotta think here, it's helping, Carmel or Elkhart, and then there's actually, there's six offices. So, there's six offices, oh my gosh, I to make me think. So yeah, so six offices, and how it pretty much looks is there's an executive director, there is a nurse that oversees
Miriam Allred (36:54)
That's right.
Jane Francis (37:12)
an office and that our nurse can be is is hybrid. So she's virtual and she's she's also in person a few days a week in the field. So we have nurses oversight in all the offices. Then we have a director of care experience. That's Christy who I talked about earlier, but we have one of those in all the offices and they're now pretty much overseeing the office.
the executive director just focuses on the high level. Like if anything really gets to a certain point, gets to the executive director, but their really main focus is business development and making sure operations beginning at the end of the day, everything's going good. And then we have a care support specialist, as I was growing, and I think what has been nice is that
I have the business development experience. I have nursing experience. I have sales experience. So every one of these, I can live and breathe. I can jump into it because I've had that experience. And so as I was building our office, ⁓ and it wasn't just me, obviously, it's our team was building it. ⁓ I could identify things and change things. And what I realized is I was,
growing the Fort Wayne marketplace is I'm all about delegating and building leaders. And I knew, okay, the business was coming in so fast, the private pay. So what I needed to do is make sure that on the back end, we were retaining our clients and caregivers. I had Jamie that was in our office. She's a great leader. She's a strong people person, right? And she's a certified nursing assistant. She was a past educator.
And I said, you're going to follow me. I'm going to start up these cases, but you're going to follow me and make sure these cases go well. I said, you are me in the field. And she's just like, yes, ma'am. And that's how we created care support specialists in all the offices. Because we knew quality and our standard of care and excellence is
massively important to Senior1 and to me. And we're not going to compromise on quality. So they invested in that role because they knew, you know, we're going to make sure that we've got more field presence in the field.
Miriam Allred (39:43)
And you kind of created this structure. And I think we're talking kind of like in past tense and present tense, you created this structure in Fort Wayne, kind of like massaged all of this out. And now you have or are rolling it out to the rest of the company or implementing this structure in all the offices.
Jane Francis (40:01)
Yeah, so we now thank God too, we brought on an awesome chief operating officer. So Scott Leigh is, he's my, he's the integrator, right? And you know, I'm a person that I can, because I'm in the field, I got a really good, I had a ⁓ pulse on everything, like real time. And I could see the changes in the industry, meaning I could see customer changes,
I'm really good at, that's something I'm good at. Data I love, but I'm a pattern person. I see patterns, I see trends, I study that. And that's when I realized like, okay, yeah, so yeah, so Scott, I'd say Scott, here's my, know, and I'd work with Patrick and Kyle, here are the ideas. Here's what I'm seeing, here's what we need to formulate. And then they're the detail guys, so they would.
Miriam Allred (40:34)
Trends.
Jane Francis (40:55)
detail it all out because I'm not the detail girl. I can give you the concept and why it's important and it's needed and I'm going to create it but I need someone behind me to be the integrator.
Miriam Allred (41:09)
And to make sure I understand, are some of the other operational functions taking place at the headquarters? Like we haven't really talked about like scheduling and billing. I know you mentioned a CFO, but you talked about what exists out in each office. Is some of the operations that kind of the backend ⁓ operationalize at the headquarters?
Jane Francis (41:27)
So the financial office is out of the Fort Wayne location. So the financial arm of it ⁓ is out of the Fort Wayne location. Scott is out of the South Bend office. He's the COO. So that's separated. But what's unique is, as we were building the Fort Wayne marketplace, we had one location.
Well, within a year, year and a half, I'm talking to Kyle, I'm like, Kyle, we need to go north. I mean, I was building business 45 minutes north of our office. he's like, you think we need an office there? I'm like, yeah, we need an office here. He said, where should we put it? But we had to put an office. So we had a second off. I mean, on my part, just the Fort Wayne market.
We added a second office and then we added a third office in Warsaw, Indiana. So in four years, we've added three more offices based off of the growth of just the Fort Wayne. was just exploding 45 minutes or an hour north. And it's funny because it reminds me of indirect sales. That's how I built the business. I ended up having 20 states where I had leaders in.
Because one state was next to the next, I build the next leader in that next state.
Miriam Allred (42:51)
And the reason why this is interesting is every home care company, when they hit this type of growth stride, they have to decide how to structure this. What is owned out in the individual offices? What is owned at headquarters? What is centralized? What is divided? And there's no one right way. look at you're saying your leadership team is not all in one place. They're actually out in these different markets, which is probably advantageous. Sometimes when you have all the corporate team, all the leadership team in one place,
Jane Francis (42:59)
Yes.
Miriam Allred (43:20)
You can become disconnected from all of the offices and your whole territory, but you actually have people kind of intentionally in different markets, which helps bring perspective to where the business is at collectively in all the different areas.
Jane Francis (43:35)
Right? So one thing that is centralized for those three offices in the Fort Wayne and the counties near it is centralized scheduling. So the scheduling is centralized, which is really nice.
Miriam Allred (43:52)
You say you're not a data girl and I get that. You're more of like a culture people person. What then and now has been kind of like your North Star? Because we have to be semi-focused on the numbers, whether that be revenue or hours or roster. Even though you're not a data person, what are the metrics that matter most to you?
Jane Francis (44:15)
You know, it's funny because I always say if you focus on the people, the profits come. So for me, If I I know that the metrics in the in the number of the know the numbers are really important and it's always our focus.
that we're always looking at them weekly because you have to be looking at them. But I'm constantly reminding my leaders and my team about the four wheels in Senior1. probably the biggest challenge for me is when I had one office, I could model my behavior. They could see me in action. They cannot see me in action at every location anymore.
I can get to them once a week because they're all within a two hour driving range. However, that's not even enough. So I've created what they call Monday Mindset. So I do a meeting, one hour meeting with my top leaders that I lead every Monday. And we do leadership principles. And it might feel like a lecture. know, Carl says sometimes, you're kind of doing a lecture. Well, but the reality is,
Leaders have to, you I always say the best leaders are leaders who have high expectations and high edification. High expectations, high edification. What do I mean by that? Well, you look at any successful sports team, any successful family, any successful company. That's how they get there. And I do it with love.
but I have very high expectations. And the edification is morally and intellectually constantly educating our team, right? And edifying when I see those actions from them. So that's the high edification, high expectations. And so that Monday mindset to me is pivotal because
They're getting stronger and I tell them this every week, we're getting stronger every week. We're getting stronger every week. But if we want to invest and provide the very best care, we're only gonna be as strong, the stronger we become, the stronger our client experience is gonna be. So, and the stronger our teams will be. And that's a John Maxwell, you know, thing.
Miriam Allred (46:34)
Mm.
Mm.
I love that. I love the expectation and edification. To be honest, I'm just like stewing personally on like the edification piece because I agree and have thought a lot about like the expectation setting and how crucial that is. But this edification piece, you bring up a lot of really good points of what that looks like and what that means and how do you implement that. And I love what you're saying of Jane can't be everywhere all the time. You want to be and you are really connected and really close with your team.
but you're to the point where you can't be everywhere all at once. But what you can do is still model that behavior, meet with that team, give them that like energy boost. Like that's what I get from you too. It's just like this energy boost and every company needs that. Like again, this is a hard business. There are long hard days that you don't think you can get through, but you are just like this breath of life for the whole company and they feel that. And then they're motivated to go out and do that themselves. I wanted to ask a question about
You have a good pulse on your leaders and on your business. Some companies do satisfaction surveys. How do you keep a pulse on not just your leaders, but all the administrative staff and all the way down to the caregivers? How are you personally keeping a pulse on those things? Is it something like surveys? Is it something else? Is it phone calls? Is it check-ins? What is that process?
Jane Francis (48:09)
So Lori Allen, that is a great friend of mine, she is with Senior1 and her role is basically quality control or she's executive director of client and caregiver experience. So she is really diving into, and she's so good for that role because she's so like,
emotionally intelligent and she she's such a good listener and she's such a detailed person and way I could never do what she does to the level that she's doing it and she's really diving into the the ⁓ surveys. She just recently just met with key caregiver groups in all the company and asked them a series of questions because we want to provide a better caregiver experience.
So she got all the data from them and then from there she's gonna build out how we're gonna roll out from beginning to end, what can we be doing better? And one of the biggest things I will say is like, that's the biggest thing. I would say if you were to ask me what's, and maybe you were gonna ask me this, but I'll already say it, what's the number one book that changed your life, right? I would say the book was Mindset by Carol Dweck.
And because it's a growth mindset and any more in this day and age and doing what we are doing or being in any company, you have to have a serious growth mindset. And I will say probably the biggest challenge I have is getting everyone to understand it's okay to make a mistake. We're gonna make them every day. I make them every day and no one's perfect and you don't have to be a perfectionist.
Having that mindset in our offices are what's going well? I do these on our way and my leaders lead these questions on Wednesday meetings now that they do with their own teams. What's going well? What can we do better? What have we learned? And how are we going to fix it? And to the point that that is the meeting. Yeah, we're to some inspiration.
But really, when you have that mindset, you're not focused on what you can't control. You're actually focusing on what you can control, which gives you energy, which is the very thing you need for this business.
Miriam Allred (50:46)
Yeah, I'll say amen to that. That is so true. I want to ask you, granted everything that you've shared, you are now in the process still of rolling this out company-wide. We've talked about a lot of bits and pieces of what you've done, what you did in Fort Wayne, but now you're still in this, if I understand right, you're still in this transition of rolling this out and ingraining this new culture across the entire company.
What snags are you hitting? Where does this get challenging to implement basically a new culture, a new mindset across a well-established company with people that have maybe been doing this for 15 to 20 years? That is a challenge in and of itself, right, to try and kind of bring a new mindset into people that have been in these seats for a long time.
Jane Francis (51:26)
All right.
Well, you know, when you read the book Rocket Fuel, it really gave me hope because I read the book and at first I was all excited because I was like, okay, yeah, you know, they make you take a test and kind of identify who you are. And I've done a lot of those throughout my career. But this one was more, are you a visionary? And I, you know, I scored like off the charts on it, but your, your,
superhero cape you know what you're great at can also be your biggest weakness your downfall your kryptonite thank you and so what i you know what i realized is that as i'm going through this change i'm excited i got i i know it i feel it i've got energy you know some people you know i've i've had people call you know and they say it in a funny way but
Miriam Allred (52:08)
Your downfall, your kryptonite.
Jane Francis (52:27)
I'll come into an office and I'll go, there's the Tasmanian devil. Like I'm in, all over, I'm excited. Because I'm excited, but I have to slow down.
and articulate and communicate why we're changing.
And so I have to remind myself, Jane, you got to go slow to go fast. And, this is a lot for everyone and, 70 % of people resist change. So it was very insightful just talking with you ⁓ when we first talked to talk about this podcast and you asked, what did you do in the first 90 days? You know, and that made me really think.
And I sat back and I thought, you know, I need to never forget that. Like never forget how I started a new, new branch. Because I think what I did when I was able to oversee and blessed to do it, the business development over all the offices, the six offices, I kind of went into action mode and I needed to do what...
I did initially, and that is build relationships, get them to trust me, and get them to understand the why what we're doing. ⁓ so that's been the challenge, but I think we're kind of over that hurdle now. communication, you can't have enough of it. There's never enough time for all the communication. And I love to communicate. So I always tell my leaders just,
Miriam Allred (53:46)
Mm-hmm.
Jane Francis (54:06)
Pick up the phone and call me or let's do a teams like or I'll be at your office. I am always saying I'm in the camp with you because I really am.
Miriam Allred (54:14)
I love the vulnerability of what you just shared because you have all these ideas and you have a proven track record. You know what you did in Fort Wayne, you could easily think, I'm going to go and just implement everything that I did in every other office and they're going to have that level of success. But I love what you're saying of that's not the way and you have to meet people where they are. As a company, you want everyone to be at that level, you know, in six months, but it's like everyone.
resists change differently. Everybody approaches new processes differently. And so you really have to meet people where they are, go slow to go fast and get that buy-in, right? You're working with people, again, established people, and you have to get that buy-in for them to really be bought into this mindset and into this new culture.
You've highlighted several books and you haven't mentioned any podcasts, but you are a continuous learner. You are an avid learner. You've mentioned Rocket Fuel. You've mentioned Mindset. I think Rocket Fuel is part of like the EOS bundle and you're a big kind of ⁓ advocate for, the visionary and the integrator and all those different roles. Any other books or podcasts that have helped you in your role, especially in the last four years, like in this home care seat,
Jane Francis (55:21)
Yes.
Miriam Allred (55:35)
in this role that you've, I know your role has changed, but in like your home care tenure, like what other books or podcasts have been most influential for you?
Jane Francis (55:44)
I have a stack behind me, like I'm looking at them right now, of 25 books that I've read in the last few months. Amen.
Miriam Allred (55:54)
Rally off a couple
of the most influential ones.
Jane Francis (55:57)
Well, the biggest ones I'm most fascinated with, like, and here's the thing, like, whatever you need help with, that's the book you should read. So, for example, if it's sales, read some sales books, which Mike Weinberg, I follow him, sales simplified. I really like him and I like his podcast. So if I like marketing, I'm reading Blue Ocean Strategy. If I'm reading, doing ⁓ culture, it's Culture Code.
If I'm doing, you know, so that's it. But my biggest passion right now and it's something it's a whole nother podcast, a whole nother day for a whole nother time for all another podcast. But to me, the future of our business is changing and reframing like I'm really focused on longevity. I'm really focused on health. I'm focused on prevention.
you know, having a functional and integrative mindset and a holistic approach to our care, which is what we do here at Senior1. And we mean it, you know, we're going in and sometimes I think, and I don't want to offend anyone at all by this, but what I'm noticing is our clients don't want to hear the word caregiver anymore. They want to hear, I'm not ready for a caregiver. They almost feel
Like I don't want a caregiver because that feels like they're defeated. So like a wellness coach or a support specialist or a personal assistant. I'm starting to see just I can't begin to tell you how much of that I see. So Mark Hyman on Forever Young, Gary Brekka is massive to be paying attention to. And Peter Attia from Outlive.
Those are, I'm all in on that. And so I listen to a ton of podcasts on longevity, health, and the fact of the matter is, what we're providing can be better than any pill that any of our clients could ever take sometimes when you look at that functional approach. So our value goes through the roof if we can focus more on that. Because in my opinion,
If you want to talk about like trends and where things are going, it's that way.
Miriam Allred (58:19)
Literally before we got on the podcast, I was on LinkedIn and I see more of this happening where home care companies are highlighting their clients that turn 100. I think we're all seeing more people than we ever have turning 100 and we see it in home care. These people, I think a lot of home care companies have someone that's over 100 at this point in time. And I think you're right. Like we are just all learning together where health is going.
and where home care's portion in all of this is.
Jane Francis (58:51)
So it's the Blue Zones, that's another one, Dan Buchner. But yes, we're going to be doing a presentation series across all the offices of the Secrets of Centenarians. So taking our 100-year-olds and putting them on a panel and inviting people from the community to be a part of it, to me, that's empowering.
Miriam Allred (58:56)
Mm-hmm.
Amazing.
Jane Francis (59:19)
That's what I want. I want to see our clients redefined, like redefine their sense of purpose, have something to look forward to, and they're ready just to take their life by storm. And they need...
Miriam Allred (59:33)
Amazing,
amazing. Wait, so just highlight what you're saying. You're gonna have a panel of those people. You're gonna take the lessons learned from them or you're actually gonna have a panel of them for the community?
Jane Francis (59:44)
Well, they're, so I'm gonna take actually them and make them a panel. And so people can learn from that. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (59:51)
I absolutely love this.
because we
want to know their secrets. And the thing is, the thing that I love about this topic specifically is it's different for all of them. Some of them cite like, I've had my chocolate every single day, or, I've been out in the garden every single day, or, oh, I prioritize my sewing group. Every response is different, and that's why I love to hear it, because there is no silver bullet to make it to 100. And that's not even everybody's goal necessarily, but it's like, what are the habits?
the hobbies, the relationships that they've created to get them there. And there's something for all of us to learn. Jane, I want to ask you one more question. You're talking about this trend that you're seeing of going towards holistic care and taking Senior1 there. Any other trends or things that you have your eye on, the next 12 to 18 months, the next three to five years, like what other, you say you're good at identifying these trends and patterns. What others are you thinking about and maybe even doing something about today?
Jane Francis (1:00:48)
I just think more services beyond, just the care. Like I feel I envision senior groups stemming off of what we do to provide a sense of community. But it's almost like, you know, a place where they can be educated, where, and they're almost, it's like they become a part of your, in your fold because it's almost like, I hate to use it from like high school to college.
You know, this is the high school level, this is college level. Like, what are we doing to create, that next step where they just go from high school to college? So I envision something like that. I think it's much needed in the communities and I think I just haven't had time to get there yet with all of that. But it's my dream, it's one of my goals to do.
I think a lot of it is going to be that preventative. think the adult children are really buying, that's what they really want to see their mom and dad eat better. They really want to see their mom and dad move more. They really want to see their mom and dad not sit on the couch all day and not have a purpose. So I think just that in itself is really kind of taken me on
to the point where I feel like it's a lot to think about, but it's something I'm really passionate about.
Miriam Allred (1:02:15)
Yeah, I feel your passion. Jane, I've learned so much from you in our original calls to this call. Like you are just such a breath of fresh air. And again, an incredible backstory and incredible track record. And I just feel like you're this kind of powerhouse in home care and Senior1 is lucky to have you. But I wanted to kind of bring you to this national stage on this podcast so other people can learn from you and just get kind of a dose of your energy and your motivation. And I want to encourage listeners to reach out to you again. I know you're busy. We're all busy, but there's there's a lot of
little kind of nuanced things that everyone listening to this can learn from Jane. And so I'm teeing you up maybe for a little bit of a little bit of a promo so people can reach out to you. But Jane, thank you so much for the work that you're doing, the impact that you're having, but also for sharing a lot of your expertise so so openly with this group. So thank you for joining me in the lab. I've really enjoyed our time together.
Jane Francis (1:03:07)
I appreciate it, Miriam. You're amazing. And just this podcast itself is to me, I wouldn't probably be where I am without it because there wasn't an episode that I didn't listen to. I could be on your billboard or definitely I share your podcast weekly to my team, to people I know. And I think it's definitely very needed in this day and age. Like we need something.
to become stronger and better together. And you provide that.
Miriam Allred (1:03:39)
Thank you so much. You're so sweet. We learn alongside of each other. I look up to people like you and we're all just learning right alongside each other. And that's the beauty of home care. That's the beauty of education. That's the beauty of podcasting. It's just we're right alongside each other in the trenches. And so the feeling is mutual.
Jane Francis (1:03:56)
Thank you.