As you read this, I’m following up on a wonderful trip speaking to the Synergy Home Care Annual Franchise Meeting in Scottsdale, AZ. I had a wonderful time working with this group of amazing Home Care business owners on strategies and insights to find their best clients, and to attract and retain their best caregivers.

Synergy Home Care is one of the fastest growing Home Care franchise organizations, growing from 140 locations in 2013 when we first started tracking Home Care Franchises, to over 450 locations today and the sixth largest franchisor based on our tracking of numbers of locations.

Yesterday, I presented two programs:

• Scale Your Home Care Business with Data Oriented Decision Making – You know me. I love facts, data, and information, and this program was designed to help Home Care leaders make some key strategic decisions my analyzing and synthesizing their own data to find their ideal client and find their best caregivers.
• The Latest Lessons in Caregiver Recruiting and Retention – the caregiver shortage is still a major pain point for Home Care CEOs. This program provides the latest lessons we have learned about what works and what doesn’t work in caregiver recruiting and retention. The seven key lessons are based on our Industry Research, and on our work over ten years with the top tier leaders in our Top 5% and Top 7% Mastermind Groups.

Several weeks ago, I presented a pre-conference webinar on “Six Secrets to Selling Home Care to Your Ideal Client”, and after the conference I’ll be presenting two post-conference webinars. I’ve found that presenting pre-conference and post-conference sessions in addition to my live presentations at the conference helps me to connect with the participants and provide a layered learning experience. I want them to be able to apply the strategies and insights I’m sharing.

Three Reasons to Attend your Annual Franchise Meeting or your Association Conference

If you are the owner or CEO of a Home Care company, whether you are a franchise or an independent, I encourage you to attend and actively participate in your annual conference, There are three reasons I think you should go out of your way, and make the investment of time and money to attend your conference:

1. Knowledge – if you pay attention to the presentations, you will gain information and knowledge, that when applied, will help you grow your business.
2. Innovative Ideas – You’ll learn a lot from your hallway and lunch time conversations with the other conference attendees. Some of my best learning has come from those conversations outside the meeting room.
3. Community – one of the greatest benefits of being a regular attendee at Home Care association conferences and franchise meetings is building community. You get to know other owners and industry leaders, and the friendships you make will bless you for many years to come. No one understands you and your business like another Home Care owner, and these conversations can be meaningful and long lasting.

Develop Your Action Plan

I encourage everyone who attends my presentations to develop a personal action plan based on two questions:

• What are three things you are taking away from this presentation that you will put into action between now and the next meeting?
• What is one thing you want to learn more about between now and the next meeting?

One of the things we do at the Home Care CEO Forum in our Home Care Mastermind Groups is we have each member answer these two questions. Then we collect the answers and create a summary matrix with all the members of the group and their takeaways. Then we remind them of what they said they are going to do and to learn.