Storytelling In Sales a Winning Strategy with Mitch Waks

CEO, Author, and Consultant Mitch Waks exhibited the gift of entrepreneurship at a young age; elementary school to be exact. He realized the profit to be had in making is own cinnamon toothpicks and selling them to his classmates.

During his college years, Mitch quickly realized his side-gig in a band would not pay the bills, therefore he established a “party planning” business, using his sociable personality to his advantage. Mitch may be the only college student who did not eat ramen noodles during that time.

During his experience as a student-teacher, Mitch understood he made a grave mistake in career choices. Sticking with it until after graduation, Mitch went into sales instead of teaching. Mitch eventually et and married his first wife whose mother owned a home tutoring business with around 12 students. Mitch, during his time as an investment salesman discovered investing in senior care to be a lucrative move. Mitch spoke with his mother-in-law who agreed, and thus, Cooperative Home Care was born. Under Mitch’s leadership, Cooperative grew from a small tutoring business to a leader in the home healthcare and hospice industry with offices in two states.

After 35 years, Mitch expressed a desire to share his knowledge. He took a sabbatical, hid out in the woods, and wrote his soon-to-be best seller On Entrepreneurship. Mitch continues to share his business acumen through consulting start-ups and established businesses alike.

www.mitchwaks.com

314.368.9445

Home - Cooperative Home Care

www.seniorlivingsalesandmarketing.com

 

Full Transcript Below

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (00:03):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of senior living sales and marketing. I'm Roy. Uh, today we have a fascinating guest with us, uh, Mitch wax. He is the owner of cooperative home care out of St. Louis, Missouri, and, uh, Mitch. First off, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking time out of your day to be here.

Mitch (00:23):

Well, thank you Roy so much for having me on your show and hoping I have some interesting knowledge to pass on to your listeners.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (00:31):

So you do, you've got such an interesting background and unfortunately we're not going to be able to cover it all because I'm sure that we could talk three or four hours, uh, you know, based on our previous conversations, but, uh, you know, a couple of things I think, uh, as we talked earlier, that really stand out is number one, you've been in business for 35 years. So, I mean, that says a lot for the way that you treat your customers, the way that you treat your employees, the way that you, your sales process. So communication communication with seniors, their families. And I think maybe more specifically, uh, we kind of agree on that storytelling aspect that telling our stories, our company stories, our personal stories, our values stories, those are all very important. So I think that'd be a great jumping off place.

Mitch (01:22):

Sure. Well, I think any sales person or marketing person in our industry has to be able to utilize storytelling in a different types of setting, because what we do is not selling a hard product like paint or ladders or cars. What we are doing is connecting with individuals and we need to connect with them at the heart level, right? And sales people can have a great advantage over many of their peers. If they just learn the art of telling a story often, that's a true story of why they're working for the company they're working for or how the company helps somebody through a great tragedy and was able to bring that family peace of mind, right. Or it can really be any story that connects. And the story obviously needs to fit the opportunity that you're talking to a presenting to, but the best salespeople I've ever seen in any industry are ones that can make a good heart connection with their prospects and get them to agree that the service is exactly what they need and they're willing to sign up. Um, yeah.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (02:47):

Yeah. And I think that's a great point that, um, you know, in this business, we it's, we're not, um, we need to connect at that level because we're not taking home can of paint. We're actually entrusting you to care for our loved ones. And I think you have to have such a deep, personal connection and build that trust with those, with, uh, you know, there, the trust needs to be between the sales person and the prospects that you can deliver on this care that you've told me you can for my loved one.

Mitch (03:21):

Yeah. Um, yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Roy. You understand it? And the story can be the company's story. And I would say, if you don't know your company's story, you need to go to the leadership or the owner, uh, or the CEO of the company and say, Hey, can you tell me your story of why you started this company? Why did you start this assisted living? Why did you open up this nursing home? Why did you decide to get into metal liquid medical equipment, uh, and learn their, their why story? And I believe for those listeners, uh, in your, uh, in your listening area and in your, who are listening to you, I think if they haven't, um, heard Simon cynics presentation is very famous. Now, Ted talk on why on starting with why they need to go, uh, to, uh, Ted talks or YouTube look up Simon Sinek. And, uh, it's about 15 minutes and it's one of the best sales tools that, uh, uh, and any sales or marketing person can learn and start to understand. Now, once they understand that, then even if they don't have their own story, but I'm going to tell you, everyone has a story. Right. But even if they don't know that they have a story, they can begin with the why story of their company and use that.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (04:46):

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, uh, uh, you know, we need to connect on that emotional level in this really goes for all products you need to get, because unless you're, uh, in a unique position that you have no competition, you've got, you're the only person that makes this product, or the only person that provides this service, which I think very few people are lucky enough to be in that position. We all have competition and we have to differentiate ourself from that competition. And sometimes that is reaching down to an emotional level. I can give you all the facts and figures about my industry, about my product, about how awesome of a salesperson I am. But, you know, at some point people begin to glaze over with all these facts and figures. Whereas if we, if we try to reach them on the emotional level, it has such, such a more impact. Sometimes it's because we're being vulnerable and putting our story out there. But I just feel like that is a must for most, any salesperson.

Mitch (05:52):

I love how you phrase that Roy, the idea of being vulnerable, most salespeople, I meet early in your career who want to consider themselves rock stars. They want to dress fancy. They want to sound fancy. They want to have all kinds of literature that talks about, as you said, the facts and figures that eventually people will begin to glaze over. Right? If I come to you and as a physician and say, we have the best assisted living in all of Texas, how much, how many times has that position heard that? Right. And do you really believe the position cares that you've just said those words or believes you, right. Right. But if you can, uh, communicate with that physician, a why story that connects with him or her and her patients, um, now you have a chance to grab their attention and you're absolutely right. It being vulnerable and open, uh, can often mean the difference between people trusting you and not try and thinking of you as just a slick salesperson. Right. Exactly. And we know slick salespeople that that method just doesn't work anymore. I mean, I don't know if it ever did, but it clearly doesn't work in healthcare.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (07:11):

Yeah. I think our consumers, uh, have become, become much more smarter than that. And then the, with the internet being so popular now, a lot of times our consumers have done more research on us and our competition. You, you try to slide something by them and they're going to call you out on it. It's not, it's not as easy as it was back in the, you know, in the stone age prior to the internet.

Mitch (07:35):

You're absolutely right. Our consumers are much more knowledgeable today. And I think part of the, uh, which story you're choosing to tell depends on who your audience is. I may tell a very different story, um, to an adult daughter of, uh, uh, one of our patients, um, then I will to a referral source, um, like a social worker. Um, and it also depends on the situation. So there's going to be situational stories. And over the years I have accumulated so many real life stories that pretty much any, any different type of person I'm presenting to or talking to, I can find the right kind of story to match their situation.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (08:21):

Well, you just led into my next, I just, uh, you know, I'm not being rude here. I'm actually writing notes down. And so you just led into something I just wrote down is listening. So prior to being a great storyteller, I think we have to be good listeners. And this is something that, you know, we have a canned presentation and sometimes salespeople just feel like I don't care what you, as the prospect have to say or what you look like, you know, I've got this, I've got this thing I've got to get through. And I've heard it on phone calls before where they, uh, the prospect throws up all the stop signs, but we just keep running through it because it's like, I've got, uh, all this to say. So sometimes, uh, listening is what listening is always good, because we want to hear what they have to say, but we have to know where to start. I mean, when somebody comes to you, why, why did you come here? Is, you know, that's the why, but then are we trying to meet a security issue, a health issue medication, you know, why, what is, what is the need? And then that way you can address your story to what the need for that specific prospect is.

Mitch (09:36):

Well, Roy, uh, when are you available to come train some of my sales staff, please? Because you really know your stuff. Uh, you're absolutely right. Um, in many of our new, or even sometimes our seasoned, um, in, uh, sales and marketing staff, they do what we refer to as show up and throw up. Right. You've heard that one. And it's like, just what you said. They, they want to get through as much data dumping as they possibly can. And that's the exact opposite. We try hard to train all of our sales and marketing people to do the opposite. Don't show up and throw up, it's sit down and shut up. Right. And then just begin by asking questions. Right, right. Uh, don't don't tell them anything yet because they don't care yet until they know that you care. Right. Right. So how do they know you care?

Mitch (10:31):

Unless you start asking real questions about them, about their family, about their fears, about their concerns about mom or dad being left alone, you have to understand why they need help, why they're out there looking what they hope to accomplish. And all of that takes questions. You need to understand the personality of the end-user, but you also need to understand the needs of the secondary party, which I, in our industry, it's usually the adult child, right? Who's who's making the phone call to me. It's not Mrs. Jones, the end client for us. It's the daughter of Mrs. Jones often, or the daughter in law who calls and says I'm having trouble with my mom. I'm concerned about mom. And so rather than tell her how wonderful my company is. Most of the stuff I will tell her will be irrelevant because there is so much to share until I know what they need exactly. And what their event. So if you're out there listening today and you're just getting started in sales and marketing, if there is one lesson, I would reiterate with an asterix, what Roy just tried to teach you. And that is, listen, listen, listen, ask questions and learn what they're about. Yeah.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (11:54):

Yeah. I hear the old saying all the time that that's why God gave us two ears and one mouth, we should be listening twice as much as we're talking. Uh, you know, and a lot of this depends on the need. You know, sometimes people come to us in emergency situations. They gotta make a decision immediately, but typically people start looking quite a while before they make a decision. And so we may have anywhere between, you know, eight to 10 touches before we finally get somebody signed up for our service. And so I think the other great part about if you're truly asking thoughtful questions and listening, you have a built in followup mechanism already. You don't have to, you know, because I sounded like a broken record on this show because one thing I can't stand is for, you know, me to reach out and say, Hey Mitch, remember this is Roy.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (12:50):

We talked the other day, are you ready to buy yet? It's like, Oh my gosh. Instead of like, uh, you know, Hey Mitch, you know, whatever is going on in your life at the time, you know, how's your mother doing? How's your father, uh, you know, whatever their situation to have that thoughtful conversation bef you know, we don't, Oh, we need to ask for the sale. And I'm not, I'm not discouraging that, but we need to know when to ask for the sale. And we need to know when to have that thoughtful conversation that shows that we really do care about your, you, your family, your prospect. We want to help you solve the problem. Not just, uh, I need to get another sale book today and moving on.

Mitch (13:33):

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think a new even experienced sales and marketing people could learn from what you're talking about and the idea that we need to get away from. I think the label of being salespeople, even though we know that's kind of what we do, but what I teach all of our sales staff and marketing staff is you need to learn how to be a trusted advisor, right? And we reiterate that phrase over and over. You are a trusted advisor. People have to trust that you will give them advice that's in their best interest. So just those two words combined together are very powerful tool for marketing and sales people to keep in the back of their head. As a matter of fact, there's a wonderful book out there. I would recommend it's not mine, but it's a wonderful book. And it's called the trusted advisor.

Mitch (14:30):

And it goes into the concept of how do you begin by asking questions and then trying to solve people's problem. And often, and this is especially powerful, right? And you know this, if you can't solve their problem today, you have to be outrageously honest and you don't have to say, I can't solve this problem, but Hey, I know somebody who can write and I want to introduce you to a different company who is a much better fit for what you really need. Yes. And I'm going to actually reach out and make the connection. So you don't have to, cause I know you're stressed right now. I'm going to have this person call you today. And um, if you ever do need our services down the road, great. Or if you ever have questions down the road about senior care, don't hesitate to call me. Even if it's not about my company, I'm going to help you get what you need. Right. That's a true the trusted advisor. And if you get to that status, man, you have loyalty Roy.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (15:34):

Exactly. Yeah. And it it's, we shouldn't, um, it's not a bad thing that we can't serve. Everybody. We all have our niches that we try to fall into. And so being honest is much better to me then, uh, signing somebody up, not being able to meet their needs and then having an unhappy customer on our hands. Because you know, the numbers that I see on that as a happy customer tells one person, an unhappy customer tells eight people. So word of mouth, especially when you're not providing what you said you could or what they need. And that's another thing, uh, to kind of going back to the listening is we really have to listen and ask those questions to know what is the actual need. Because sometimes we feel like everybody just needs our service. You know, it's like they say, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but that's not always the case. Everybody has very specific needs.

Mitch (16:34):

Right? You can't show up with only a hammer. You have to show up with your whole tool balance. Right? Exactly. And, and then you need to measure if we're going to use this, uh, perpetrator analogy, right? You need to understand where the, uh, where the problem is and the construction you need to measure twice. And what I mean by that, you need to ask twice, ask lots of questions before you come up with a solution, right. And then decide which tool is best for that particular situation. Can I tell you one story certainly of being a trusted advisor and problem-solving certainly, so here's an example I'm going to share, um, that all of your, um, potential, uh, sales and marketing audience, um, uh, could use something like this. I believe we had a position who did a lot of referrals for home care, but we weren't getting any of them.

Mitch (17:26):

And we kept marketing to him. We kept visiting and he kept blowing us off and just, I don't have time and I'm too busy and we knew he'd been on his day offs. Uh, he could find time. So, uh, during one of the sales meetings, one of my sales marketing, people said, Mitch, I just can't get into this doctor. And, uh, he could a great referral source for us. So I said, okay, let me give it a shot. And I just dropped by. And instead of trying to give the physician a pitch, I said, Hey, uh, it seems like to me, you are really stressed and outrageously busy. What's going on with you. And it was that very simple question. What's going on with you, right? That, uh, without him the safety to open up and say, Mitch, I lost my billing person. Well, I fired my billing person, Mitch and the new person is clueless.

Mitch (18:23):

And I have not been able to bill Medicare, Medicaid insurances for three months. And I'm about to go bankrupt. Wow. And I can't fix this so immediately I knew he could care less about listening to one of my sales people right now. Right. Tell him how wonderful we are. Yes. He needed to fix his billing issue. So I said, Hey, I have the most experienced billing person in St. Louis, hands down. I'm tell you what, how about if I send her to your office and have her talk to your new billing person and teach her how to do what she needs to do and maiden, we can get your billing back on track. Now, is that a sales call? Yeah. Hell yes it is. Yeah. Excuse me. It's a sales call. Right. But what kind of sales call was that? That's called building trust, becoming a trusted advisor.

Mitch (19:24):

Right? I know how to fix your problem. Cause I'm the only one who bothered to ask. So what happened? I sent one of my employees. She spent a few days, um, and opened up, uh, the, the pathway for all the back billing to start flooding in right now. Uh, about 30 days later, I reached back out one. He took my call and immediately he was incredibly grateful. So thankful and said, when do you want to come by and start talking about referrals? I can give you like that anytime you want. Right. We ended up going out to dinner later. We cemented a relationship. And so for me, that was, um, well, two touches for me overall, you know, my billing person made a few touches. One of my original marketing people made some touches. So we're starting to get to your idea of 10, but, um, it was the right type of touch eventually. Right?

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (20:23):

And that's important that, uh, X and especially with referral sources is we can't always be a taker. And I think that's a great example of, we have to give, sometimes we get some reciprocation, then there's times we don't, but we can feel good about, you know, helping somebody else. But in the end, when you show people that you're willing to give it that's to me, an instant trust builder. And then all of a sudden, you may not be instantaneously. Like you said, it was a 30 days, but still you were able to start seeing how that comes back to you. So that's an awesome, awesome example. I love that.

Mitch (21:00):

Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that we teach our marketing salespeople, Roy is the following phrase, and then there's a whole kind of teaching lesson behind it. But the phrase does business moves at the speed of trust.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (21:15):

I love that. I'm going to actually write that one down.

Mitch (21:18):

Yeah. And in today's day and age, it's very easy for people, as you pointed out yourself earlier to do a little research and realize if you exaggerated some numbers or just made something up on the fly because they're more educated than ever. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So they have to trust you.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (21:36):

Yeah. And I think trust, uh, sometimes, well, like we talked about earlier, sometimes it's like, Hey, we can't really provide that service, but let me help you. But the other thing is that it's not a defeat. If you tell your prospect, you know what? I don't know the answer to that, but I will get back to you. I have much more respect for a sales person that will tell me that. Then you can see the eyes roll back in their head. Like they're really thinking of a good story that they think is going to reach out to you. But you know that it's probably probably may not be, uh, all, all truth.

Mitch (22:13):

Right? Well, another thing that we try to teach our salespeople, and I don't know if you have experience with this, but if they haven't taken a disc profile test for themselves, D I S C disc, it's a personality profile. That is very simple. It's similar to Myers-Briggs, but it's much simpler. Uh, there's only four categories. And, um, what you're going to do is learn two things. One, what is your, what is your disc profile? What drives you as a salesperson, right? And the other thing that you really need to take away from that training and this training is available all over online. Lots of people who can come into your agency and company and help you with it. The other thing you're going to learn is how do I identify the disc profile of your prospect? So if I am talking to a person, let's say I'm a CFO of a hospital.

Mitch (23:16):

They don't need the touchy feely stuff. Right. Often when do you identify what kind of personality they have, you have to adjust your approach to them. Right? And the biggest mistake I see of young sales and marketing people is they have a one approach they've memorized it. And it's like, it's one size fits all. And that just doesn't work unless you get lucky and you happen to find the match for which the, that, for that, uh, for that experience sharing. Right. Um, and that's one out of four maybe, right? So you're already cutting yourself off at the knees. Am I going to give the same presentation to a CFO as I do to a social worker? Well, you know the answer, Roy and I hope you're listening to the answers. No, you can't. Yeah. A social worker is a very different type of person. You know, they want to make sure that whoever the referring to you is, is cared for in a, in a nurturing and loving way.

Mitch (24:16):

They want to know that, Hey, you're gonna, you're going to take care of these people. A physician wants to know that, Hey, I don't want to get any late night phone calls from this patient complaining. I've got so much on my plate. Right? And so they have a different need. The CFO of that hospital, man. Don't tell me how wonderful your caregivers are. Uh, tell me, what's your percentage of readmissions, uh, after they get home care, right? So you have to know your audience and tailor your presentation, which is another reason you don't show up and throw up, you ask you observe, look at their office space. W you know, what kind of person are they, and then you need to tailor your, your, uh, problem solving to that individual style. Does that make sense?

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (25:03):

No, it makes a lot of sense because, well, in, uh, you know, it's like the, um, a lot of times you're the CEO executive types that they are fact-based whereas your social workers, very caring based. And so it's got to be a different message to, to reach the, I guess, the, the people that they are as well. And, you know, they kind of something I wrote down earlier was we market a lot to adult children, or we speak with adult children trying to help mom and dad make decisions. And so, but there is a gap there because if you're speaking to, um, one of the silent generation, maybe it's their partner that needs the help, or, um, they are more involved in the decision than say the adult child who is of the baby boomer generation. There's a lot of differences of messaging toward them. You know, the thing that I think about is, um, the silent generation, they were about things. You can give them a coffee cup, a pencil, a pad, they love that stuff. They love to collect stuff. We're baby boomers. We are more about the experience. I want to know what is the, if I sign up with your company, what is that experience going to be like for me?

Mitch (26:22):

Oh, that's a great point. And I think Roy, that your listeners, your followers need to understand that in when all of a sudden done, if we're talking about the decision maker, it's not just the adult child, it's 92 of the time. In my experience, according to everything that we track, we track numbers deliberate, gently 92% of the time, Roy it's the adult daughter or daughter-in-law right. You are talking to the female. That's in charge. Yes. Interestingly enough. Um, what happens in the dynamic is fascinating, the male of the party, but the son of let's say that the client will say, you know what, I'm going to deal with. Mom's finances. You deal with all the soft stuff. Right? Right. You deal with hiring the caregiver and the bad person. And, uh, let me just feel what the hand I'll pay her bills. And so we don't just get adult daughter it's we get adult daughter and was calling for their mother-in-law or their father-in-law because the son just can't handle that or wants to handle something different.

Mitch (27:29):

Right. So, so you need to practice your approach to that age of women, um, and how you're going to approach them and talk to them and what they're, what they want to know from you, which is different than if you're talking to the son. Yeah. And, and we know that, and we approach people there. And that's why, if you're, if your listeners in sales and marketing can really start to learn disk that whole training, again, that's not mine, I'm not pitching it, but, um, they need to learn it. And then quickly they will be able to identify what is that type I'm speaking to now I can approach, um, how I deliver the message. Right? Right. So the first part we talked about is how do you deliver the right message? Well, it's about understanding their problem and pain points. And then speaking to those, yeah. Now, how now, how do you deliver the message? Well, based on four personality types, you're going to have the same exact data to come back to them to solve their problem. But in four different ways, if they can master the combination, now they will see their sales numbers really start to increase.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (28:42):

Yeah. And that's something I'm thinking, my mother figured that out because she takes a lot better care of my girlfriend than she does me. She makes, cause she knows who's going to, she knows he is going to have to be making decisions for her at some point in time.

Speaker 3 (28:55):

There you go. She knows. She's right. Well, Mitch, uh, it's been great. Uh,

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (29:01):

I appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us, but before we let you go, so what is one tool, our ritual or habit, something that you do in your daily life, whether it's work or personal related that you just feel like you couldn't do without.

Mitch (29:17):

Okay. So I am going to mention yet another person's book. Um, his name is Howe L rod and his book is called the morning miracle. How has written a great book? That's a very short, easy to read that talks about a method to start your day with a few separate principles that are very flexible and very easy to incorporate. And it's a great start to get yourself in the mindset of how to be a great person, but a great, but also good at sales and marketing and helping other people. Okay. So I will close with, uh, these four recommendations for people, right? The first one we talked about was go look up Simon Sinek and his Ted talk on why and learn that pick up, um, a copy of the morning, miracle by how Al Rob read that and learn that pick up a copy of the trusted advisor again on Amazon. Um, and, um, understand that approach to selling and marketing. And then, um, what was the fourth? Uh, it was, Oh, the disc, get yourself a disc assessment and then learn how to read the person you're standing in front of so that you can, uh, sell to them in the manner they want to be sold. So hopefully those are four and I think very solid takeaways.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (30:44):

Awesome advice, Mitch. Well, and also, why don't you tell people, uh, number one, if they're in the St Louis area or have a loved one in the St. Louis area that, um, that needs home care, uh, be sure. And let them know how, you know, the one thing we didn't get to, if we could just touch briefly on, I wanted to, you know, um, home care and senior living can be partners to success for everyone, because some people may be asking the unwise, the, you know, why are we having home care on a senior living, you know, focus show, but, well, number one, we reach out to the same audiences, but number two, um, working in concert with each other, you have proven, uh, that it, it can be a benefit to both companies. Can you just speak to that?

Mitch (31:36):

Sure. Um, well quickly it's never been my strong suit, but I'll try for you. Um, there's a couple of things to unpack there. One, uh, why are we talking to somebody in home care? Well, the answer to that is because the largest desire of any senior by a long shot, when you ask them where they want to age in place is at home, right? So all of your people, whether they are selling in a nursing home or an assisted living or independent living, or one of these new, wonderful senior communities, they need to understand how to incorporate home care into their package. Right. And they need to partner up with home care agencies, because if they can do that, they can sell more services or they can bridge the gap. When somebody says, boy, that's just not right for me. Right. So, um, that's the why you need your salespeople who are listening, need to get to know home care, other home care salespeople in their market.

Mitch (32:39):

Now, um, how do they go about, um, uh, uh, partnering? Well, I can give you some real life examples of what we do. We often will go in to senior living complexes with, uh, an arrangement where we will rent an office, um, in that assisted living we're in that independent living and re or even the nursing home. Don't remember, uh, uh, the senior living places, especially the, um, the early process ones is to keep those rooms filled, to keep the beds filled, to keep the census as high as possible. So if you're in charge of the census and if you're being judged by your own or your boss CEO, Hey, what's our census today. You want that to be as close to a hundred percent as possible? Is that marketing person right? Right. Well, one way to do it is to make sure that people, as they are aging in your institution, and let's say your assisted living, don't say, Oh my God, it's, my mom is too bad off.

Mitch (33:44):

Now she has progressed beyond the capabilities. I'm moving into a nursing home. Well, you don't want that to happen. Right. So what happens? Oh, so what you can do to prevent that and to lengthen the average stay of your residents is to partner with a home care agency and say, um, you're going to provide the care that we're not allowed to. So in an example, we're in a few independent living centers. Well, you know, that there's a certain threshold before they can't stay there any longer. Right. And they're going to be asked to leave, right? Well, that's another open apartment, another open bed that, that marketing person that's the EO doesn't want. Right. So, um, and they're not allowed and they don't have the license to provide skilled care. Well, they come and talk to me or any home care that has a licensed home care agency in their market.

Mitch (34:38):

And they say, Hey, I need you to keep these people here longer with your services. And that's what we can do. So we're going to go in and we're going to do the skilled nursing. We're going to do the skilled PT, the OT, the speech therapy, post a stroke, um, um, the range of motion we're going to do whatever it takes to keep them in there longer. So they don't have to exit that facility and then go to the next level up. Right, right. That puts a lot of dollars in that institution's pocket. And, um, it's, it's often just about, um, tweaking the numbers just a little bit here, a little bit there, squeezing that lemon just a little bit better to get the most juice out of it. Right. So if you can take your average length of stay from 18 months to 23 months, well, that's a win, that's a big win.

Mitch (35:31):

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. So, uh, that's how and why you need to up with home care companies. And, um, and like I said, well, we do our arrangement. This we'll just pay rent. We'll, uh, to have a small little room there, we'll have one staff member there that goes around and continually looks at the, um, needs, the safety, uh, the med needs of all the residents. And if we find an opportunity to make a difference, we're gonna provide the staff to come in in there and do it. Okay. That also means less money spent by that, um, facility on another nurse to do rounds and do checks cause we're already doing it. Right. Right. So not only are there getting people to last longer, not only are they collecting some extra income from us from in rent now they're cutting some of their, um, overhead costs of labor, which is, you know, it's a pretty substantial costs, correct. Because we're providing some staff in there, right. That's a win, win, win, win for my company is home care when for the independent or assisted living and a win for the patient who gets to stay there a little bit longer because they don't want move. Right. Yeah. Who wants to keep moving? Yeah.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (36:51):

Yeah. Changes the, um, you know, the hardest thing for the elderly, for sure. And especially the more, um, you know, the sicker, they are, the harder it is on them. So anything we can do to extend the stay and provide a higher level of care. So, well, I appreciate you running through that. I, um, you know, that's something I wanted to get to earlier and we just got, uh, talking to, you know, the sales and marketing and storytelling. Like I said, before we started, I know we could talk three or four hours, but thank you for taking time to be with us today. And if you don't mind, if somebody wants to, like I said, if they have a loved one or maybe there's somebody that wants to partner with you in the St. Louis area, or just want to call and talk about sales, uh, how could they get ahold of you?

Mitch (37:36):

Sure. Well, in the unlikely event, your, uh, your viewership, uh, extends up to, uh, Missouri or Illinois because we have offices in both States. Um, they can reach us through, um, just going to our [email protected]. But if most of your listeners are actually in sales and marketing, uh, and they have some other questions on techniques or ideas, I would say, have them call my personal cell phone. And I, I love to teach people I'm happy to do it. There's no cost associated. There's no consulting fee. They can follow me at (314) 368-9445.

Roy with Senior Living Sales and Marketing (38:19):

All right. Great Mitch. Well, thank you so much. Uh, again, uh, this is Roy. Uh, we are the senior living sales and marketing. You can find us at www dot senior living sales and marketing, uh, Facebook, Instagram. And, uh, now we will be posting these, uh, uh, video recordings on YouTube as well. So until next time, thank you very much and take care of each other.