Spring break 2024! We (the family- Valerie, Charlie, and the triplets – Maddie, Sam, and Sophia) had a lovely drive across the midwest with stops in Versailles, KY (Lexington) and Gatlinburg, TN. We saw lots of family members and lots of tourists! This was a wonderful week spent with my girls and Charlie.

Vacations like this give me time to reflect and decompress. Anyone who owns a business knows the joy and the stress of worrying about clients, team members, software, websites, errors, victories, payroll, taxes, systems, efficiency, bloat, productivity, non-productive activities, and more.

I also had time to catch up on videos on various marketing strategies and interesting stuff I’ve wanted to dive into for a while.

Here are some of my thoughts from my “brain break”.

1. Our company (Approved Senior Network® Marketing) has grown by leaps and bounds in the last year. I can point to 2 people who have spurred that change. Dawn Fiala and Lisa Marsolais . I don’t know where these two amazing ladies came from, but they are absolutely superstars in our lives. They are changing the way home care agencies market themselves in their local communities. They are teaching home care agency owners and salespeople how to do it right and get more referrals. Thank you ladies!
2. You cannot have a successful home care business if you are not willing to put in the hard work. And it’s hard. It’s harder than ever. But it’s possible. Invest in your online presence and support it with your in-person marketing (or the other way around). Either way, both are important and neither work well without the other. BOTH online and offline marketing are important.
3. Train your salespeople. Send them to training. Send them to training with Dawn Fiala and Lisa Marsolais (and coming up, another mega-sales star that I can’t mention just yet, you know who you are! ;)) If they are seasoned salespeople and not pulling the numbers in, send them to training to refresh and renew their strategies. If they are brand new, don’t let them fail, send them to training, and let us help them set achievable goals. I’ve never shouted this from the mountaintop before, but I am now! TRAIN YOUR HOME CARE SALES PEOPLE!!! Winging it doesn’t win.
4. Online home care marketing is changing again, for the 1 millionth time. Yes, it changes all the time. At the moment we are in the “era” of video. We have BEEN in this “era” for a long time, but my home care people are slow to adopt this methodology. It’s important folks. It’s trust, authority, expertise, and proof of life. Convince me that I would be foolish to do business with anyone else in the local area. How? Talk to me. Tell me. Show me in a video. Explain to me WHY you do what you do. Tell me why I should trust your home care agency. MAKE A VIDEO, on your phone, in your car, no makeup necessary, no perfect hair required. Be real, be you, and tell me what kind of day you had, and why you care so much for seniors. I’ve said this for 10 years: “Come out from behind your website and tell people who you are.” Or don’t, and your competitor wins the day.
5. We are doubling down on marketing for our own company, and you should double down on marketing for your company. Don’t sit still. Don’t get lost on Netflix. Spend some time figuring out what makes your business LIGHT UP, and do it.
6. Don’t be afraid to change, make changes, change directions, or whatever it is you need to do to move the needle for your company. We all go through being “stuck”. Get out of “stuck” and try something new.
7. Take brain breaks. Brain breaks inspire me to be more creative. When I can get out of the day-to-day work, I can think. I can do more. I can make more “rain” to support the other 20ish humans who depend on this company to not just survive, but thrive!

What happens when you take a brain break? I highly recommend it. For a day, an afternoon, a week, whatever you can squeeze in. Worth. Every. Minute. I’m thankful for brain breaks!