Pricing in the Dark: The Rate-Setting Mistake Home Care Owners Repeat

Setting your rates without real market data is a gamble. And in home care, that gamble shows up in your margins, your caregiver pay, and your ability to grow.

In this episode, Paul and Joan sit down with Raymond Mascola of Targeting Sales Group, a competitive pricing researcher who works exclusively with Visiting Angels franchises, to talk through what it actually takes to price with confidence in your market.

If your rates feel like a best guess, this episode is worth your full attention.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Hello, and welcome to the Home Care Millionaire Podcast, the show where compassion meets prosperity. I am Paul Timband. Alongside of people who have John here, we're honored to be your host. Together, John and I have built a home care agency from a little bit of a $12,000 credit card loan. Okay, some people call it a gambler at that time. So that you can do.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

We launched this podcast because the home care industry is often misunderstood. Too many people don't see the sacrifices to owners and their caregivers make every single day, or the powerful impact agencies have on seniors and their communities. And truthfully, we looked around and realized there were not many podcasts out there shining a light on this industry. So we tried hard to create the home care millionaire podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:09

This podcast is designed for the purpose-driven provider. For those of you who feel auto-care, but also want to build a thriving business instead of a business. Each week we're going to share with you real life stories of strategies and powerful mindset chips that will help you move from just surviving to thriving.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Absolutely. Confession is your calling, wealth is your reward. And here on the Onecore Millennium Podcast, we're going to show you how to upgrade more.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

So get ready for inspiration, practical insight, and encouragement you need to impact lives, build wealth, and create a legacy through your agency. So hit subscribe, folks. Join us on this journey to transform your business, your mindset, and your future. Welcome, folks, to the Home Care Millionaire Podcast. Today, John and I are excited to welcome one of our partners, a gentleman who uh has been a client and now serves home care owners in this industry to better perform and serve seniors in our community. Uh, the gentleman's name is Mr. Ray Mascola. He's with Targeting Sales Growth Company. He's gonna tell us what he does. But again, like I said, we just love Ray, we respect Ray. He's based out of Boston, Massachusetts. Actually, at north of uh, you know, she in the state of Massachusetts, he's gonna say more about that to us. Uh Ray, we've known Ray for years, and like I said, he does a lot of service for support services for the home care agencies, owners, and stuff. And we're gonna have a talk. Do you want to say a few things about Ray?

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Yeah, welcome, Ray. We are really excited to have you on here. Having been your clients, also, right? We have used the services and we're very satisfied with your services. So we are excited to have you on here to share with our audience, you know, fellow home care owners, how you can help them, you know, just make it easy for them to grow um their agencies with less headaches, right? At least when it comes to you know pricing for their services and so forth. Yeah, so get into that. We would like to hear a little bit about your background, how you got started, and how you got into this industry.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Okay. Well, first of all, uh uh Joan and Paul, thank you so much for inviting me. This is exciting. Uh, when Paul reached out to me a couple weeks ago, I I didn't realize all of what you do, and I saw your podcast. And and you're right. Uh I've worked with you folks. You've got um some franchises in Maryland and um DC. Um what I do is I'm a preferred vendor on the visiting angels internet site. Um, I don't think there's any vendors who do what I do. I research the um the client and the caregiver rates of my clients' competitors. So, and I work uh across the country, I only work with visiting angels. Uh I've now worked with 147 visiting angels franchises in 32 states, and then thanks to you, Washington, DC. Um so um so that's what I do. I I can get into some background on how it all happened. Um yeah, so um I live in Westford Mass, uh 45 minutes north of Boston, but I work around the country. My my mother lived three hours away, and my father going into a facility, he had um hip replacement surgery, wasn't doing too well with the rehab, and I was three hours away, my sister was in New York, and I started to look into something called home care. And uh, you know, so my mother was very leery, and my sister was sort of on the fence, and um gradually uh we did hire a home care agency in in my hometown in Connecticut. Um it was not visiting angels, okay, and I and I learned a lot about the industry, I learned a lot about what you shouldn't do. So, and um, you know, gradually I, you know, my mother has since passed away, my father's passed away, but we did do it. I uh it was a little difficult because I was three hours away and um the agency wasn't giving me um uh much uh information. Uh but I happened to um know that in the next town is a visiting angels franchise. So I said, What is visiting angels? And I did the research and found out that visiting angels is the cream of the crop. Um and uh so started to work with visiting angels locally, um, and then through Zoom expanded it to where it is now. And again, I only work with visiting angels, and uh I got um vetted by Rick Maid, the the national sales director, and he put he put me on um your internet site and through pro uh word of mouth prospecting uh I happen to expand it. And what I do is I uh I work with owners like yourself. Uh we identify your top competitors, uh kind of a mix of I always encourage my um my owners to have a mix of national franchises and locals because the locals are always gonna be cheaper. And then what I do is I um uh go over a list of questions I'm gonna ask to make sure there's any special questions that my owners want me to ask on the client side and on the caregiver side, um, and um you know try to make it as custom as possible so it's meaningful you locally. Um I find out what your top competitors are um are charging their clients, okay, and then my son handles the the caregiver part, um, finding out what those same competitors are paying their people. Okay. Um and uh, you know, and it's um sometimes the information is easy to get, sometimes it's not. And when I'm calling, uh I might get the owner of the franchise, I might get a care manager, different people. Um and when I'm done, uh I send, like I did for you folks, three reports. There's this uh what I call a competitive pricing spreadsheet, and on the top line is all your information, and below it is all your competitors' information. The second report I call uh competitive evaluation report. And what it does is gets into the interview, the actual interview I had uh with the competitor, who it was, owner, whoever, how the call went. And the call this is with your competitors, and the and the and the calls go from A plus to not very good. I could say F, but um there and and so I get you information on my impression of your competitors, um, and then some other what I call operational information. How do they go about doing the assessment? Do they charge for the assessment? Um all of that, and then um do they take assignment of benefits? But I don't say that because I'm just calling for my mom.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I don't even know what that means, but I find out, and then um some other details of uh do they have an upfront deposit requirement? Do they how do they handle their billing? Um ACH, uh, credit cards, checks, none of it. And then the third report is a caregiver report where I we come back with some information on what your um what your competitors are charging or paying their people.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

The starting rate, what's the path to an increase, how do you get to the increase, benefits, um uh, how does their training program go? Um, sometimes that do they have an advanced pay system like tap check? Do they have any incentives? And then I priority mail these reports to you folks. Um, and then I set up a what I call a debrief. I send you a Zoom link at a time that works for you, and then I send you the reports online. So I like to send you a nice wide 11 by 17 physical spreadsheet. So you have the reports both ways, and then here's where I try to earn my keep. Uh I do a debrief with you folks, and we go into a dive into the data, and I have your information on the top line, and try to uh take a look together and see um how does your pricing compare to the competitors? Um we go through all and these are the competitors that you folks came up with. Um and some of the things some of the things that come up. Um we try to look at what's the um what's their pricing, but what is their hourly shift? What are the what are the minimum hours per week? Like their their pricing might be 3840, but they might have a 12, 16, 20 hour weekly minimum that they require. So as opposed to what does my client have. Um, we find out um how do their how do their rates go? Um, what is their flexibility? What is their couple care rate? What is their weekend rate? All of that. Uh um and then the whole idea is to find out where my client might want to make some adjustments in their pricing based on um what we see with the competitors. And this is a real good time to do this because my experience is that competitors change their pricing in the first quarter. Some of them do it by January, some of it do it by the end of the quarter, but by now, most of those competitors have made their 2026 pricing. So this is a good time for owners to take a look at um adjustments they might make. Okay. Um, so um what questions do you might have before I rattle on?

SPEAKER_03 11:46

I was just gonna ask something real quick before Joan jumps in uh right here. The question I was gonna ask is do you do the because this is considered market analysis? Is that correct? That's what you do, competitive market analysis, correct?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, yeah, we got it.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Would you recommend us doing it once a year, two times a year, three times? What's your recommendation?

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Well, it depends on how often you want to consider adjusting your prices. Okay, you might want to consider it twice a year, uh, once about now, because the good thing about now um is we're pretty sure all the competitors have changed their their into their 26 pricing. So this is a good time, March, April. Uh, another time might be um in the fall. Sometimes agencies change their price, like kind of like back to school, you know, things change, and September, October is another time period that I see competitors make changes. So that's my recommendation. Um, the other thing I say is, and this is a judgment call, I work for you. Um, sometimes when we're doing uh uh an update, competitors, sorry, clients want me to use the same competitors. What I always say is take a look, who are your competitors now? Maybe it's a mix of some of the old ones versus the ones we did six months a year ago. Um and and so when I work with owners, it's kind of a 50% split. Some of them want me to do the same competitors, some of them want me to do a mix. I always say, just take a look at who you're seeing right now as opposed to what we did last time, um, but still have that mix of national franchises and locals. Um, did you have something, Joan, that you wanted to say?

SPEAKER_04 13:40

Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for really giving us the details, you know, of the process. That is really helpful. Um, for some of our audience who may not know, we coach and mentor home care owners as well. And in talking with one today, I asked her, I said, Did you get to do a market analysis? She said, Oh, yes, I called three agencies. I'm like, that is nowhere near, unless you have maybe only five in your market, you know, then of course you want to call all five of them. But I think you offer such a valuable, vitally important service, a great resource, yeah, especially for those who are looking to come into the industry because we tell them, and of course, those who are already in the industry, but for those looking to come into the industry, we tell them to do their homework, right? Because you want to make sure that you are not the lowest because you think, okay, I'm the newbie. Let me price my my services really low because you may be leaving money on the table. On the other hand, if you don't do your homework, you may be pricing yourself out of business. So this your service is one that any home care owner, new or existing, should really take advantage of.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

You know, thank you. You know, and I have worked with new owners, I've worked with um uh visiting angels corporate has contacted me when um when different people are in the process of applying for a franchise. Yeah, and they and I've worked with several, and what I do is I uh they know what their region is. Together we come up with the competitors because they're not sure who they are, and I can give them information so they can figure out what their pricing should be. And and I help them with information to put into their marketing plan. And you're right when you say uh you can't lowball because you've got to think of your your pay for your people, and that's got to be competitive, then you've got to think of your profit margin, and then you got to think of what's the demographic of where you are. That is true. Uh you may be maybe blue collar, might be white collar, but you've got to figure that out and then have a mix of competitors. So I've helped with new new people as well. And you're right. Um, it's uh I've worked with franchises where they had me do uh four competitors, I've done one with 15 competitors. And and like with you folks, I've worked with agencies with multiple locations. And the locations may be different in terms of the demographic mix, what you're paying your caregivers. Um and I handle if I'm doing a um a project where there's multiple locations, I handle each one as a separate project. Oh wow, and you get a separate whole set of reports on each location because it's different than maybe another location.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Um Paul, did you have something?

SPEAKER_03 16:42

No, I was just agreeing with you. So true. Every market is different. You can't you gotta know your market, you're so right. I was agreeing with that.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

One of the things I talk to my owners about are trends that we see that can help my owners figure out what they want to do. Like uh one trend is having a higher weekly minimum. Some there's different philosophies on this. Some people may say, well, we're gonna have only require one visit a week, and other competitors may say, no, we have a again, I see um 8, 12, 16, 20, and you've got to figure out where you fit in the mix there with your competitors. Um and um, you know, and also it's the mix of figuring out uh how do you keep your caregivers happy by giving them work versus trying to be flexible with your client and not having high levels of weekly minimums. Um so one of the ways to figure that out is see what your competitors are doing, okay, both in terms of what they're paying and in terms of what their minimums are. Um, another trend I see is um well, for for visiting angels, most places don't do pricing based on levels of service. About half of the competitors do. In other words, this price for companion care, this price for um personal care. Okay. Most visiting angels don't do that, they based on number of hours, okay. But what I found with these competitors is you can figure two-thirds are charging the higher hands-on rate. What they do is they may bring them in at a companion care. And I've seen this, and what happens is they talk to the children and say, mom really needs more hands-on care. So they upsell that. And of course, the price differential could be three, four, five, seven dollars more for the personal care versus the hands-on care.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Visiting angels don't do that, yeah. Um, and um the other thing I've seen in in terms of couple care, and this really applied to my parents. What I'm seeing is agencies don't don't give a price, hourly price for couple care. What they do is they give a placeholder of like one 1.5 times.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

The reason is they're gonna wait till they do the assessment of mom and dad before they quote the price.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

And this really worked with my folks because my mom really just needed companion care, but my father really needed a lot of hands-on work. So, what these agencies are doing is not giving a price until after they do the assessment. Um I see that with visiting angels, some as well as the competitors. Um, okay. Another thing I wanted to mention when I do the debrief, uh, we talk about the competitors' website. That's important. I before I got into this, I have a background in software um management, software sales, and I work with in website um software. One of the things we talked about when I was in that business is have things on your site that we call make it sticky. So they go here, look at that. Oh, that's interesting. So, what I talk to my owners about, um, I give them a link to every one of their webs, their competitors' website on my report.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

The reason I do that is they can click on that, see what's attractive in the website. Oh, they have something that explains their services, they have something that explains how they put together a plan of care. Oh, here's something on a podcast or a video. Um, so anything you can have on your site that holds the attention of the adult children will increase the chances they're going to contact you. So, what I do, I give them information on their competitors' website because that's another way to promote your site, to promote your business. Um and um so we go into that during the uh during the debrief. Um and um uh, you know, I work with, I try to make the questions that I ask the competitors important to you, um, you know, to so that when we're doing the analysis, I make sure I cover things that you care about. Um like uh one of the things that's come up now is what are people charging, what are they paying their caregivers for the live-in services? Yeah, because that's a real thing, you know, because it varies not only what the the live in daily rate is, but states have different requirements in terms of number of hours, labor laws of hours that the the caregiver is gonna work versus not work. So we find that out, and we also find out. what the um what the caregivers getting paid for the live in work if if they have that and i'm saying somewhere between a third and half of the um competitors have live in services it kind of varies um so i try to find things that help my clients um have a better understanding of their competitors so they can make adjustments in their pricing or make adjustments in their operations uh charges like one of the things that's come up is should we charge for the paperwork you know processing all the paperwork i find that out okay do when i do the interview um first of all do you do you handle the paperwork for the client every now and then i get a competitor that says no which really shocks me but then they're one starting to see is agencies that charge a fee to process the paperwork say uh 30 bucks a month or sometimes 30 bucks a transaction um it's good for my clients to know what's happening there or do they is there a fee for the assessment sometimes there's no fee for assessment but this is a little gotcha I see an administrative startup fee okay yeah and another way these agencies are making money um if the agency has a has an RN on staff I'm seeing um this could be tricky a med management service okay but then you got to make sure the paperwork is covered in terms of liability but some agencies are starting not med reminder but med management so somebody um my sister handled this for my mother and my mother was um messy up with um and so but some agencies will do that if they have an IR where um they'll offer that service um um yeah so try to get as much information as I can that when I'm doing the debrief with my client um we're giving them a broad um um piece of information on not only on pricing but some operational stuff what is the competitor doing with fees uh do they charge uh processing fee for credit cards uh do they what do they offer so one of the trends I see is no checks um the other the other thing I'm starting to see ACH preferred or every now and then ACH required um so people yeah and and one of the um some I ran into this with a couple of uh competitors they will waive the upfront deposit if the person will go on an ACH okay yes so the um the client thinks they're getting something but it's really the agency is getting them right on ACH to begin with um so which is the way they should have started to begin with so what what questions do you have?

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Yeah I was just gonna touch on this when you started you talked about you know if from your experience you've worked with some competitors who are like a plus and some were like a minus or something like could you just share some of your experience yeah in that with how many competitors I'm sorry no no no like what did you mean when you said you've worked with some competitors in doing your analysis that were like a plus that were like like zeros or something.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

So one of the things I in in my interview report I find out who I'm talking to because if it's the I always know the research beforehand to find out who the owner is. So I have had some owners I ask their name but they don't tell me they're the the owner they try to be a little sneaky but what I look for is and I have their website up in front of me okay when I'm talking to them and I I I give my name um I'm looking for home care for my mom and what I then do is um you know I I I'm looking for some information I'm trying to get my mother um uh and my sister because my sister was involved to consider home care because my mother's alone out of state so what's happened and I put this in my report to my client um the response I get can vary with I've talked to owners or care managers or people who were very receptive. They you know it was a very good call they handled their agency well and sometimes it might even be an office manager who's handling the call well which is a credit to her owners that she's been trained so well. Okay. And so um you know sometimes the call goes very well and I put all that in my notes um who I talked to what's more important what was the title of that person. And we know of course it was Homenstead or Convercabris whoever and then I explained why I thought it was a good call. They asked me some questions they listened to my answers they were um um they had a very uh upbeat manner uh they were informative that they they handled themselves well and they represented their agency well so this is you getting information on competitors or how they handling a call from somebody calling in you know the other the other way is and it could be an owner or it could be a care manager where I've had calls where well first of all I've had calls where somebody answers the phone hello and you know as opposed to hey this is um Homestead you know uh whatever uh it wasn't professional um or that I got a answering service or I got a lot of music to get to the point where I could leave a message okay and then there's cases where they don't call you back okay um but then on the other side I've left a message and somebody does call me back and I mentioned that in my report but if it doesn't go well and I've had owners that were um uh not receptive I mean I'm calling in looking for service from my mom you know I'm a possible client for them and so it's good for you to know what my experience with was with your competitors and also who did I talk to okay and just so you know it's part of the impression you're getting not only in the money side but how do they handle their clients okay and it could be it could be some positive things that yeah I I noticed that they um uh asked me um uh questions about what my concerns were or my expectations everything some questions that were and they listened to my answers um so so that's a real key getting um you I've I've said things to my owners during the debrief that could be things they might want to include when when they're training their people be sure to ask about um be sure to ask about um is it just for your mom or where is your father because it could be we're talking about couple care services um so we get into that um and it it's just a way for you to know more about your client what is good about them and what's not so good about them.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

Awesome well thank you Ray I mean I think we're any other questions um maybe if you have any last minute closing comments you'd like to share yeah I'll ask John even why it's important to use your services because it is a big deal you've said a lot in here I mean if you want to just in you know in the one or two minutes no more just why is it important for because I think it's an investment right John and Joe can speak to this I think it is an investment I mean because the somebody starting out may think well why area I mean you know but you work with you you mean you you you price your services so that um folks starting out can certainly be able to afford you is that not correct Greg yeah well right and and so it's all based on the number of competitors okay when I go to work for um an owner again I give them a discount if they're a repeat customer you know we come up with some sort of a discount a proposal um I'm just looking at some notes here um what I do is help um my owners figure out where they have a convettive advantage where they might need to make adjustments not only adjustments to their pricing but adjustments to their website adjustments to how they can train their people adjustments where um how they're gonna what serve what um stop what billing will they accept um when they look at maybe all their competitors are not accepting checks and they're still accepting checks um what uh what are the competitors doing in terms of uh service charges on credit cards okay um uh what other things are competitors doing that can help you in terms of what you do um one of the things I I talk about I'm looking at some notes here is try to talk to my owners about multiple streams of income what are some short-term and long-term options that you might consider and also I happen to be a veteran uh do you work with the VA ser um but um the biggest thing is um I enjoy working with you folks I say you folks you and all of the other visiting angels owners I've been doing this for five years um I um you know I have I only work as I said in the beginning with visiting angels people can go to targeting salesgrowth slash home care and they can see my website um and uh it's fun plus it's very rewarding if I can come up with some information that that helped my owners awesome thank you so much yes yes I appreciate the time thank you so much for having me thank you Ray thank you this has been awesome I think that our audience will try to benefit from this I mean you're talking about competitive analysis for a vantage point that is outside of your the confines of your office right so no bias involved in here um you take your and then you have your questions it's very it's very professionally done as an expert you want to speak to that joint oh yes just exactly like Ray said it you know you got your reports three reports you have a session discussion with Ray explaining everything and we learnt a lot yeah we learned a lot the one important thing to point out it's not just about the price it's about your operations you know it's about how you handle that phone call that comes in yeah the whole yeah from the beginning to end you're right yeah yeah but yeah you're right um and you you it's kind of nice to know how do your competitors treat people that call into their office that's true yeah um which it gives you another picture of them um and uh you know it it's fun plus particularly this time of the year um it's a good time where um owners can figure out what they want to do uh um in terms of their pricing and if they don't if they don't understand what their competitors are doing they're they're flying um blinded away yeah no um yeah they don't have that which is which is noise care yeah all right john just so thank you again Ray I think we're good you know we're yeah you want to just close that out here joan so thank you all so much for joining us as we had a chat with Ray Mascola of targeting sales growth we've learned a lot from this session um and there's so much more that his company can offer especially if you're starting out but for those who are already in the industry please give Ray a call contact Ray on targeting sales growth slash home care correct Ray yes you got well all right I want to thank you for inviting me it's been fun thank you so much thank you so much Ray and God bless bye for now bye bye thank you bye thank you so much for joining us today on the Home Care Millionaire podcast we hope you found inspiration encouragement and practical tools you can apply right away in your own journey I'm making it simple folks to shine a light on the incredible impact that home care owners and their caregivers every single day and to give you the mindset of strategists and fulfill wisdom to build both purpose and prosperity.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

Because here is what we believe compartment is your calling wealth is your reward if this episode subscribe so you never missed an episode and if you'd like more resources or have questions for Paul and I just head over to askjooncole.com. We'll be honored to connect with you there.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Until next time folks remember we have what it takes to build wealth, create freedom and live a legacy through your identity. We're here turning on every step of the way. Bye for now