In today’s episode of A Drink With The Hurricane, Steve discusses the pros and cons of small and large home care businesses.
So, knowing the audience, knowing the people who watch these videos, that question that I just asked, which was a question that somebody submitted at the last Bootcamp on how can we do all of the things that you’re teaching us at the bootcamp here when we have a very small office staff.
That is a very, very real situation that many of us are feeling in our businesses right now. And so the first question I would always ask somebody who would ask that question is how small is your office staff, but I’m gonna assume, ’cause this is what I would consider a small home care company, that the weekly billable hours are less than 500, the business is doing less than a half a million dollars in revenue, and there is two, maybe three people that work in the organization from an operational standpoint. You have an owner, operator, an assistant and maybe a part-time nurse or something of that nature. So, how can I do all of these strategies?
So, the easiest way to do it is realize and recognize this. The advantage of being a small business is you can make changes quickly. We have a client that is doing $30 million in total revenue, we work with franchises that are doing a half a billion dollars in annual revenue, and then we work with people who are just getting started, and everywhere in between, so we have a huge range of people that we work within this particular space.
The advantages of the small business, again, is you can do things and implement them much faster than the bigger businesses. The businesses that are doing 10 million, $20 million, they wanna do something company-wide, it takes months for them to be able to do it. It’s like a giant ship that you wanna have turn in one direction, it takes a big amount of effort to make that ship turn. Whereas a small, personal jet ski can turn a lot faster because they are much smaller. So this is to your advantage.
When you are a small business with less than 500 weekly billable hours or doing less than half a million dollars in revenue, that says to me we don’t have many clients, which is a good thing, at least from the time necessary to do the sales and marketing. Less than half a million dollars in revenue, we’re talking about 10 clients, maybe 12 clients, on our census, that we do not need to see our clients every single week. I like to see our clients once every two weeks, so if I have 10 clients on my census, which is very common for a business this size, and it’s me, say it’s me and an assistant, full-time, 10 clients, I’m gonna set my schedule up where I’m gonna see five clients each week just to check in and make sure that they’re okay. That will give me 10 hours of time to do that.
Now, what other things do I have to do? I have to interview. I don’t have to interview every single day because we’re a small business. I probably should interview caregivers two to three times a week. Give two hours per interview, and make ’em group interviews so that it makes it a little bit easier for you to do them. Two hours for each group interview, you do it three times a week, that’s six hours there.
So now I’ve dedicated 16 out of, we’ll just do a 40-hour work week, but I know, if you’re the owner, you’re probably working more like 60 hours, I want you, I need you to dedicate, ’cause at this point in the game, we don’t have a lot of business, you need to dedicate 15 to 20 hours of your week for sales and marketing time. And so, that’s going to be a big chunk of your time because you have to go out, you have to develop relationships, you have to get people who are going to send you direct referrals of the big, juicy clients that you’re after so that you can help those people stay home and out of the hospital, help improve outcomes, all of that.
So, 16 hours, plus another 15 hours for marketing, now we’re at roughly 30 hours a week doing the majority of the tasks that a small business should be doing at this stage of the game. Now, your invoicing, your accounts receivables, your accounts payables, your payroll, all of that other stuff are things that can be done after hours. You do not have to send invoices Monday through Friday, nine to five. You do not have to run payroll Monday through Friday, nine to five.
I think back to when I first started Hurricane Marketing Enterprises, I did a lot of those administrative type items after my children went to bed, after my wife went to bed, it’s midnight, it’s one o’clock in the morning, that’s what we have to do. It is definitely a burning the candle on both ends, I’m not gonna kid you, but it’s a short-term effort of doing this burning the candle at both ends to get the business to, say, 800 hours a week, a thousand hours a week, which is now more along the lines of a million dollar a year in revenue, and I could hire more staff to help me so that I can continue to execute what I have to do.
So, the answer I just gave you and described, summing it all up is prioritize. What are the highest priorities for me and my new, small organization? Getting referrals and getting caregivers, that is your number one tied opportunity. That is where you’re gonna spend the majority of your time. All the other administrative things, you can do during non-peak business. And then you just make it happen and then you visit your clients and you maintain it. That’s how you handle that situation.
Now, if you find yourself having a hard time doing what I’m saying doing, if you find yourself not able to be able to execute or, easier said than done, Steve, how can I do that? Pick up the phone. Call us. We have programs and things that fit all budgets, from as little as a couple hundred dollars to as much as 25, $30,000, and everywhere in between.
We can help you find something that fits within your budget to give you everything you need so that you can BLOW AWAY THE COMPETITION.
https://www.homecaremarketing.net/contact_us
