Episode 9: The Referral Engine – How to Get Professionals to Send You Clients.

🏥 Hospital to Home: The Secret to Infinite Referrals!

"Where do I get my next client?" 🤷‍♂️

If you are relying on word-of-mouth or expensive ads, you are leaving your growth to chance. In Episode 9: The Referral Engine, we are going B2B. I’m showing you how to build professional relationships that act as a 24/7 sales team for your business.

I'm covering: 

✅ The "Gatekeeper" Strategy: How to talk to social workers so they actually listen. 

✅ Why you should stop using brochures (and what to use instead). 

✅ The "5-Visit Rule" for building unbreakable professional trust. 

✅ Mapping your territory: How to find the top 10 sources in your zip code.

Stop chasing clients and start building an engine that brings them to you. See you in the studio!

https://daytodayseniorcare.com/about-us

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Hey everyone, how are you today? Welcome to Day to Day Senior Care's starting your own senior care business. Most senior owners treat marketing like a lottery. They throw some money at Google, point print some flyers out, and hope for the best. But hope is not a business strategy, folks. The most second, the most successful owners I know don't chase clients. They build engines that deliver clients to their door on autopilot. Welcome to episode nine, everyone. Today we're building our referral engine. As you can see in the title, look at the screen. We're taking B2B strategy, social worker problem solving, and the five-second rule. It's time to scale your business.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Hey, all right. So we're gonna get started, everyone. I just wanted to uh bring you in. Um thank everybody, um, especially uh our YouTube channel. We're over 36,000 views, and we I think we we cleared 400 subscribers as of today. It just keeps going up and up and up, and I am like beyond grateful for all of the um attention that I'm receiving. Um, but more importantly, that the families of loved ones hopefully are going to our care with confidence podcast series so they could learn more about the the um you know the general business, um how our companions work. We do interviews with our companions, we uh bring in other staff. Um, I certainly talk about um certain uh situations in day-to-day operations, um, helping our clients. We answer questions from families that may have um, you know, questions like, you know, how do I get my mom out of the hospital into a nursing home or my mom's not doing well at home? Do you have a companion? Oh, I heard you have furry companions. We do those as well, too. In fact, I have somebody in Waiting River that's going to um have their mom uh be visited by uh Mitzi, our uh Pomeranian furry companion. But um, yeah, so the care with confidence. I appreciate everyone going there. We do that weekly on um Tuesdays around 9:30-ish a.m. Sometimes I'm a little late, but I appreciate everyone um with patience. Um, and then we also have our on the road series. Uh, we didn't hold one last night. I had something I had to do business. Um, but we are uh we have some guests that are booked as we go through the uh consecutive weeks into our new um series, uh very, very informative for both families, care, you know, and and and uh future entrepreneurs that want to know about the business, because I know some of you are coming to our start our own, start your own senior care business, which we are doing right now. So welcome, welcome everybody. Okay, so before I get into the uh today's um episode nine, the referral engine, which um um we're shifting from operations to growth now, okay? We aren't just waiting for the phone to ring. Um, we're building a system where doctors and social workers and discharge plans planners send clients to us, okay? To you, if you were to start your own senior care business. Very, very important. But um, before I get started, too, I wanted to let people know that we do have a live chat. We do have a live chat. I'm gonna open it now. I'm gonna say hello again. And we are on LinkedIn, Instagram now. Uh, we're still on our, you know, obviously our YouTube channel. That's our main hub. And uh Facebook Live. Um, we also I I forget to mention folks, but I know some people like audio uh podcasting because you may be driving and you know and things like that, or or you're on the go and you just you don't have time to look at a video. So you can go to our Buzz Sprout website, okay, which is um another venue that you can use. And each of our series are in that bud Buzz Sprout Buzz Sprout um dot com. I can get you the link if you want, I can put the link in here for you. Um, but let me say hello first. Okay, and then I'll quickly get the um I have it up right now, so just give me a second here. Um let's see. Let's go into the website and I'll give you the link here. Copy link and I'll put it into our um right here. This is for anyone that it is interested in audio. Um we this Buzzsprout website that we have, I really like it because um again, and this is for business too, guys, because you know, this this is an uh a marketing and advertising uh, you know, uh I'm losing my train of thought here. A marketing and advertising um leverage tool that you can use um when you're you know doing you know starting your senior care business for whatever reasons. But um, if you are going to go into podcasting, I highly recommend it. It um it also uh links me to iHeartRadio, to um Spotify, Apple Podcasting, um, a lot of the venues. Um, it's all included in a package, but it's very good to have. Um also um what another great thing about it is that um now they started doing video podcasting on Apple and Spotify and iHearts. And so it's it's good to have you know your your um podcast explaining your business in all these different venues. It just helps for exposure. But again, with all these things that I've learned over the first year in my business, because everyone who's following me knows that I'm in my uh second quarter of my second year, folks. That's real important for all of you to know that are listening and spread the word. Okay, you can have people out there that are in the business for five years or they franchised in their business for two years or 10 years, don't matter. Okay, if I was an if I was new, and when I was new, I did look at a lot of different uh of my competitors, okay. But what you want to do is you definitely want to research your competition. Now, we all are folks, we're all friendly competitors, so that's you know, it's the way it is. Um, we all help each other, you know, we're all out to help each other. But uh just a word of advice is that um you can choose between, you know, um someone that's presenting a business, uh, how to start a senior care company and they've been in the business 20 years, they've got great uh education, experience, knowledge, which is important when you're doing decades of that. So, yeah, you want to listen to those as well, you know, and you want to learn from them. And I go, I go to some of those and I learn, you know, even Tony Robbins, you know, I'm trying to get uh just uh listen to him again. Um, but the thing is, is um I am boots on the ground right now. So to see somebody from inception to their second year, that's very important. That's very important because you can see all the turbulence, you can see all the all the uh you know problems that we've had along the way, um, things I've learned, things that I've made mistakes on. Um, it's there's a lot. There's a lot involved. But do remember that my background is in three decades of of of the senior care industry, regardless. I mean, I was in assisted living for a good number of decades, and you know, like hospitals, 17 years per diem on and off, and six years uh in nursing home administration after I received my uh active nursing home license. So the credibility and my knowledge of leadership and how to build teams and how to uh work with families, it's all been with me for my whole career. So there's nothing that I'm gonna hide. I'm gonna tell you the real truth about everything. Um, and you make your informed decisions on how you want to start your business. All right. But let's let's dive in. I don't want to be talking about myself here. I want to get into this um excellent um episode that we have tonight. Because again, we we've moved from the operations to growth, okay? So again, the referral engine, how to get professionals to send you clients. Okay, let's get into the slide. All right, and again, if anyone wants to comment in the chat section, go right ahead. I sent you the link for audio. All right, but um okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Who holds the keys?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Okay, the hospital social workers, high urgency, fast turnaround. Folks, I have a lot of family and peers that work in hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted living. I've known them growing up in the business. A lot of them are still entrenched in the um healthcare system. Those are my first contacts, those are the people that I've already met last year. All right. And I still frequent them and I still go to see them. And then there's a lot of new uh social workers. And now in year two, what I'm doing is I'm gonna start uh, you know, uh going to the uh to those awesome events that the caregivers uh companies and and the assisted livings and the nursing homes and the social workers and the owners of home cares. They have all these great um venues um for uh meet and greets and and all that. And you know what? It's it's a great place to go. I was able to get one or two last year, but I was so busy because I had to take all my clients that I had, and I was working at least 30 hours a week and trying to build a business. This year I scaled down, I'm down much lower in my amount. I may be doing 10, 15 hours of uh my own clients. Um, I've given many away to uh our great companions this year so I can continue operations and build a business. And I'm a social butterfly, so I want to go out, I want to see everyone. I I love um that type of atmosphere. I'm looking forward to doing conferences. You can certainly invite me if you want me to do a speaking engagement. Um, I'm going to be doing webinars, uh uh more intense leadership training and building your business uh as I get through year two and go into year three. I, you know, I want to get a book together uh explaining my my journey here, um, so I can offer that free as uh as a um a gift for all my um visitors and and uh people that are uh following me as I grow here. Um offer that for free, and then we can do our monthly webinars. I'd love to see people in in person, so I'm meeting a lot of people already. Okay. All right, let me get a sip of my coffee. And then we look at the primary care physicians. Next long trust, long-term trust, slow burn. Same thing, folks. Now, again, I did have an advantage being in the business so long that I also had a lot of uh primary care physicians I know. I've had physicians, doctors working in my nursing homes. I hired some um, you know, per diemes, and and um we even had a uh hire uh medical director at one time at one of our facilities. So I'm still in touch with many, many of them. Dr. Desire is uh uh he him and I have partnered up. He does home calls to um clients. So um that's a great thing going on with with doctors as well, and they're great referrals, too, folks. They're great referrals, and so are your elder law attorneys. High net worth private pays mostly. Okay, and I do know a few law attorneys that I've that have worked in my assisted living buildings I was in. They're still in business, nursing homes, hospitals, they're still in business. And then I'm meeting new ones. When I was at the HR East Northport, um there was a conference hosted uh by Jennifer Benjamin, and um she uh she had uh some uh elder law attorneys there, Tully uh Law Services, and I got to meet them, and and they're beautiful, you know, excellent people, and they're all they're all doing the same thing uh you would need to do when you start your senior care business is grow with everyone, network, and um always be um aware that we're friendly competitors and not to um you know cause trouble and to uh be a part of of the growing gray wave because honestly, folks, I'm in New York, Suffolk County, Nassau County. I don't care how many competitors are out there, I'm still generating business. And slow and steady wins the race, folks. I will continue to grow. It's I'm passionate about it. Our client ratio of retention is at like 90 percent. We keep our clients engaged, okay? And the families know that we're taking care of their client of their loved ones, we're keeping them engaged, we're keeping them active, we're taking them for transportation, we're there for emergencies, we've done overnight shifts, we're always um in touch with. I personally talk with all of um, we're up to 23 uh clients right now. I'm in touch with every one of them. Some of them are in uh companion care, others are being transferred from uh different facilities. I'm getting really busy, and you know what? I'm loving it. I'm loving it because I'm helping people. So very important. Now, the gatekeeper strategy: don't sell, solve problems. All right, they don't care about your logo, they don't care about uh your extensive experience, they don't care about your ego. What they care about is reducing admissions, they care about clearing hospital beds. Okay, so I don't care how many people are going in there to see them. Their job is to reduce readmissions and clear hospital beds. They're under federal law, federal guidelines. I've been in both uh assisted living and nursing and gone through many surveys. I know the uh rules and regulations for both of them. And yes, you can, you know, look, you want to be friendly, you want to uh, you know, and I am friendly with many of them, but I know they're running a business like I'm running a business. So at the end of the day, if I have uh a companion ready to go, I'm gonna let that social worker know, yeah, we're ready to do it. Or if I have a family that hired me, uh, like for instance, to go into uh Girwin, or um, I've been in Carillon, I've been in a lot of the nursing homes already. If they need to go, then I'm going to do whatever I can as a transition specialist. I need more, by the way. I need some more trans transition specialists. Um so I'm helping doing the best I can to reduce their readmissions and clear their hospital beds. Okay. Quick pause. Let me just check. Okay. Just seeing if anyone in live chat. Okay, if anyone has a question, you can certainly stop me.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

All right, let's go to slide three.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Okay, the five visit rule. Consistency wins the contract. The social worker at the hospital is stressed out and overworked. Oh, wait, sorry, wrong. People buy from people they know. You can't walk in once and expect a client. It takes an average of five touch points before a professional will risk their reputation by recommending you. Did you know that? Okay. All right. Not everyone sees it that way, but again, I look at this as a business, okay? And everything is everything I everyone I deal with is, you know, they have their business. Um, and when I deal with families and clients, that's more of a personal nature. That's where I I I'm there to help, whatever they need. Okay. But when you're working with, you know, other agencies, you need to know um just how to be genuinely um approachable, um, not to oversell, um, and just let them know that you know you have some companions, leave them some information. Um, you don't need to do brochures today, bro. Folks, I I I I that's just me. I don't do brochures. I'll give you a card with a QR code to see my website. Or I'd rather talk on the phone or meet in person with any family. So, and uh you know, a one-page thing is fine. You can certainly hand a one-page thing out, you know, like a uh like a flyer or something like that. Business cards with QR code on it to your website, very important. Okay, so first you do your introduction, you go in, you introduce yourself. Hey, I'm Charlie Dave from Day to Day Senior Care. How are you? And then I share a little bit of who I am in my background and the services I offer you. You want to add value too. You want to let them know that you will be available if they call you. All right, that you have companions ready to go. Nothing worse than getting calls and not being able to have a companion place that, because they're very quickly they're gonna go to the next person in line, the next company that saw them. And if they've had long relationships with many of your competitors, then obviously prioritizing uh those um is just the way it is in the business. But do not worry, do not worry. Everything takes time. You don't want to drop your business or feel like you're failing because you're having a slow month or a slow couple of months. Um, I've been through it. Okay, I've been through it for my first January, February, March. I had nobody. All I did was continue to just build the business, get the website going, do all the legal work to get my articles of organization and my LLC and all that stuff. So, you know, it takes time. And in even in April and May and June took a while as I got out there and started talking with people. But most of my referrals in the beginning were people that I was able to reach out outside of the nursing homes and the assisted livings and the hospitals, people that already live in the community. You can find a lot of people right in the community as well. Okay, and a lot of competitors take advantage of that, including myself. Whether you're gonna go to a uh, you know, a senior care community, um, you know, a uh 55 and older community, or you're gonna go to a uh a library meeting where seniors are doing some advocating with other seniors, whatever. You know, there's there's so much, so much out there you can leverage. All right. Share your success story, you know. Uh, you know, share what you've done. I've shared what I've done. So that's how that's my speech. That's what I mention when I'm with them. Let them know that I'm not just some guy that you know did plumbing for 15 years and then jumped into senior care. I'm not a franchise. I prefer not to be because I'm allowed to go much further outside the perimeters. All right. I am working on other businesses too. I don't just solely have uh this business. Um, I know some of you know that I'm also involved in um RV rentals and uh senior camping getaways, and we're gonna be looking um with my partner up in Maine. To uh finish uh securing this property where we're gonna create a campground that's gonna get bigger and bigger over time for seniors, especially up in Maine, who love to camp. It's a great opportunity up there. And again, there's room for a lot of people up there. My active nursing home license is still up there in Maine, so I can certainly reactivate it and start the uh day-to-day senior care in Maine. And our camping camp camping companion program will already be uh off and going. And uh, I also have other property management, um, other revenues, very important. I know I'm going off topic here real quick, but for business owners listening, you want to have as many revenue streams you can get. Okay, you need as many revenue streams you can get because if you're solely gonna rely on a non-medical companion program right now without any third-party um um reimbursement, then you're gonna have to have either a lot of capital to help fund your business cash flow-wise, or you're gonna have to um also uh take into consideration um trying to uh branch out with some other ways to uh, you know, we do furry companions, we do handyman's, we do lawn maintenance, we do, I have contractors that'll help me on on a moment's notice if a family needs some some work in the home. Um it's their insurance, it's their job. I just give them the referral. Okay. Um the specific ask, visit number four. Now you're getting a little more specific. You're you know, you're asking, hey, anyone potentially uh going to be discharged in the next 30 days? Nothing wrong with that. And then you do your follow-ups, you stop in now and then, you join those um those uh what do you call the um the events that they'll hold. A lot of them hold the events right in the nursing homes or right in the assisted living facilities. So it's great, it's great for networking. You have to be a social butterfly as an owner. You can't be uh someone that hides and doesn't people like to see real raw footage. They want to see somebody who's running the business and and doing the right thing, and a part of it rolls up their sleeves and gets involved. I'm giving you just reasons why I have uh I'm still continuing to grow and still continuing to um follow my path to success and have that exit plan. Everyone has to have the exit plan. My exit plan is to retire up north with a beautiful log cabin on the lake with our campground and happy seniors and uh happy vacationers at uh, I don't know, Jolly Day Camping. Still coming or trying to come up with the uh the campground uh name. But anyway, these are the things you want to do, folks. Okay, all right, let's go on to the next. I do go off script. I'm so sorry. Let me check my uh chat box again. All right, okay, on to the next.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

We've got your marketing kit, essentials.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Professional leave behind. Okay, so take a look at that, and I'll get into that in a minute. Okay, definitely leave a one-page capability statement, like a flyer or something like that, when you're visiting, okay? Um, give them a uh a quick case study on how you help the local family, just show them that personal touch, okay? And the rule of reciprocity: food, coffee works, okay? You bring some food and some donuts if you're stopping by, some coffee. Um, I know when I was working in the nursing homes and the assisted livings, boy, I looked forward to those uh marketeers that would come into uh my buildings that I that I uh was in charge of, and um, and ones that I was just the director, but we would all run to the to the guy who brought the donuts and the coffee, Dunkin' Donuts. I I and I remember myself too, there were times that um I was hosting events and I would bring, you know, some uh you know cold cuts, you know, sprawled out on a platter, and you know, a little uh tray of uh bag ziti. You know, people uh you know, you'll learn too that when you're working in a healthcare environment, and I know a lot of people will raise their hands right now. If I said, how many professionals in the field of senior care and assisted living and nursing homes and hospitals, daycare centers, don't really get the chance to have a sit-down meal. It's a lot of meals are on the go, especially in healthcare. Oh, those memories. Okay, I'm still doing it when running this business. I've lost a lot of weight, folks. So they tell me. Okay, so next steps. All right. We're going the the action item is map out your top uh ten local referral sources, okay? Map them out, write them in, make a plan to visit each one and just do it. Get out there and do it. Okay. I gotta make sure I register for this taco event they're having. Senior taco. It's gonna be a great event. Um at the uh Chelsea in Brookhaven. Um, there's other events coming out this summer. You may want to go to those, and you'll meet you'll meet your solar workers, you'll meet your uh care staff, you'll meet the owners. Some uh sometimes the owners will be there of uh companion companies, their representatives. Um, you'll see that there's people uh in all facets of the business, uh, all expertise. Um, and I've I've bumped in with the best part is when I bump into people I know. Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you for 10 years. There you are. You know, it's just a great feeling. Um, and I know as I go out on my journey, aside from our on the road series, where we're bringing in titans of the industry, and we're also bringing in caregivers, we're bringing in uh people I've worked with in uh all the industries, and I don't care what department you're in, you're welcome on the road series um to talk about you know how you've grown successfully, what you're doing now in the business, some memory, memorable moments that we shared, whether I was your uh direct report, your you know, your administrator or director or or our fellow peer. You know, when I was an aide, we did all the I have so many aides that I worked with in the business, and especially at Southside Hospital, that are out there that I'm bringing a few in that are gonna be our special guests. Okay. All right. Next week we're gonna go into um digital trust. Okay, very, very important um to go into this because um there's a lot involved in a website, and I did have to switch from one website that I had to the one that uh Cantone Marketing is doing for me now. Big difference, folks. There's a lot of reasons behind it. It is a place, it is your face of the business. You you know, people do go there. I get a report every month. I see my growth, I see people, uh Google growth. Um, we have 11 um Google positive Google reviews already, more on their way. Um, for this year, I don't rush it. I like to give my clients at least 60 days, 90 days before I ask for a Google review. Um, and sometimes I just get so busy I forget, but anyway, um, and then other times they just put it in and surprise me. So, all right, we're at the 30-minute mark. Any last uh minute questions? I can certainly stay on for an additional few minutes if there's any questions out there on either Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel, or LinkedIn. If not, I'm a busy, busy, busy guy. I gotta get going and uh do some more things. But I will see you all um again. Have a great weekend too, and get some restful rest, some good sleep. I know we all work very, very hard. Okay now. Bye bye.