Matt McGinty, CEO of CareConnect - AI-powered workforce optimization for home healthcare agencies

0:00 No liability explicitor implies shall be extended to W four c Y Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four CY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin helen N believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helenn.

0:41 Thanks everybody for joining in today on this busy holiday week. I'm Kevin Halenan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W four cy dot com. We're streaming live on talk for tv dot com in addition to Facebook, and that's at Winning Business Radio. And of course we're available after the live show and podcast form pretty much wherever you listen to your podcasts, YouTube by Heart, Radio, Spotify, Apple. The list goes on. The mission of this show, as regular listeners and viewers know, is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others right to learn best practices. Those are the how tos, the what tos, the what not tos, to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others. Who are those others? Those are consultants, coaches, advisors, authors, founders and owners, leaders, entrepreneurs, people with expertise. But you know, virtually every successful person I've ever had a chance to talk to has had some form of failure in their lives and careers. I say it every week. While we all have to get our knee skin once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery.

1:45 Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent the better part of my career equipping businesses to growth. That's from solopreneurs to small and medium sized companies all the way up to the Fortune fifty. And I've seen those companies win and to varying degrees. I've seen some fail and fed the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the highest performing people around, and some with probably some who probably should have found other jobs. In my own businesses, I've had lots of success, but some failures too, So I like to think I've learned a lot from those experiences. Oh yeah, you'll hear from me but we really want you to hear from others, and that other today is Matt McGinty. He's the CEO of care Connect. Care connect is an AI powered workforce optimization platform for home healthcare organizations, and he was a guest of the show back in April of twenty twenty two, so this is a welcome back. Here's his bio. Matt McGuinty is the CEO of care Connect, where he drives the company's vision, strategy, growth and expansion. With over twenty years of cross industry SaaS that's software as a service experience, he's led sales, marketing, product development, and operations. Most recently, Matt served as Chief revenue Officer for Intellcare, where he led fifteen x growth across all commercial functions and helped the company achieve Unicorn evaluation status. He managed the creation and engagement of a nation excuse me, nationwide network of millions of caregivers servicing eighty five percent of the accessible long term care market. At care Connect, Matt focuses on positioning, positioning the company as the go to platform for caregivers

3:18 and home care agencies, with a deep emphasis on AI and machine learning to improve outcomes for caregivers and enhance workforce engagement. Matt's professional goal is to be a respected, successful, high integrity executive leader who sets and exceeds goals and expectations while adding shareholder value. He achieves this by. Enabling others around him to do the same through management training and active coaching. His ultimate aimage to build successful companies with double digit revenue growth and winning teams. Matt has trained in leadership and organizational growth and holds both the BS in Business Administration and an MBA from Western New England University, where he serves as Chairman of the Board for the College of Business and as an adjunct graduate professor. When not focused on business, Matt's dedicated to being the best father and husband he can be and suring his kids have every opportunity to chase their dreams.

4:07 He's also an active, active and avid cyclist, hiker and Dave Matthews band devotee. Matt Welcome to Winning Business. Rail other Dave Matthew's been sneaking there. So absolutely absolutely Actually let's start with that. How'd you become a Dave Matthews fan? Yeah, it's a funny story. These two posters, one there that's blurred out one back there. Yeah, so a lot of us. You're lost when you're a teenager, right. This was September third, nineteen ninety four, and a friend of mine, I used to go to the music store called Strawberries from a town called Field Sure, and I knew the guy behind the counter. We were good buddies because I spent whatever money I could steal from my mother's purse.

4:53 And she knows now, she does. And he handed me these two tickets. He said, you're always in here. This is the tickets of a horrid festival, which was Blues Traveler and a bunch of great bands. It's called Saratoga Performing Arts Center. And I went with a friend of mine and went all the way out there. I smelled and saw a bunch of things I had never smelled and seen before. As it's like a fourteen year old kid. I think I was there fifteen or whatever. I forget what it is. And yeah, Dave Matthews played at three h five in the afternoon or three fifteen in the afternoon. He was like a nobody, and I literally was just walked into the venue, walked over this famous bridge and it's this beautiful venue in the pines, and like there weren't seats, Like he just walked right down into the shed because you know, Blues traveler whoever.

5:39 The main event wasn't on until hours later. And I sat down and said, who the hell is this guy with pajama pants? And is this band? And I just sat down. I could tell you the seat I sat in. I can just tell you. I sat down and I was like, wow. You know, just think about that point in the nineties. You know, it was an It was an odd thing for a ghostly white guy to have a band full of people that are a different color and a different background of him. And you had a vital South Africa saxophone, and you have this drummer who is like crazy, and you had the violinists just like swinging his dreads. And like you're like, what the hell is this?

6:19 And yeah, I just kind of fell in love with it, and in many ways saved my life. You know, because you're as a teenager, you're trying to find your way. You can make a lot of bad decisions. And you know, I don't drink it onto drugs. They don't gamble, So I guess my worst habit is I spend money on concerts, and. So that's been a long time. How many concerts I think you know the number. It's over two hundred and fifty, but it's like one hundred and fifty with the full band, but then there's him and his guitarist, and then festivals I don't count, so a lot. And now the coolest part is my daughter's into it now, so. Uh shaw a post. Yeah, I go with my. Daughter and now she's a little bit of a groupie. The guy who plays the keyboards always looks at her because he's right in front, and she gets setless and gloves and sticks a whole bunch of cool stuff.

7:04 They never happened. Yeah, it's fun to adopt it. Yeah, well, thank you for being here. Tell us about your actually get to Stephanie the second. Tell us about Hayley and aj your two kids. Yeah, you know, I just walked out of I'm freezing right now. So if you see the flea shirt for those watching, I just got out of a hockey riding. My daughter had our first varsity hockey game, so that was a lot of fun. She's a freshman, so you know, playing varsity hockey as a freshman is she played great, didn't make any mistakes. Perhaps it was a little tight because she can want to make any mistakes, but played really well. Team played well, gets a really good team. And yeah, she's at her Slane Academy. And then aj is at he's a junior at Sabarian Brothers High School Division.

7:51 We can say state champion. I'm going to say state champion Xaverian Brothers High School football football. He plays across track and cross country. But he was one of those guys in the freezing cold with a white shirt on screaming for Zavarian a couple of weeks back. So it's just such a great school. You know, both are great schools because their brother's sister school of one a gent But you know, it's it's good to see your kids be able to. It's good to be able to, you know, provide that for your kids so that they can go out and live their dreams. So it's exciting. Absolutely. And tell us about the lovely Stephanie. Yeah, I think she's downstairs somewhere taking care of our new dog.

8:32 Yeah. Stephan and I've been together twenty nine years. You know, truthfully, she's been struggling with a lot of health challenges the past couple of years. And I probably shouldn't be saying this in the podcast. She'd be mad at me. But you know, teaches you a lot about perseverance and teaches you a lot about you know, what's important in life short but yeah, you know, I think, like a lot of folks, I would I would say, like, be careful what you put in your body. So I think what happened with COVID had some adverse effects with a lot of people, and she's one of them. So but yeah, just living day by day, trying to help her get healthy and trying to raise our kids. And it's always a tripman, it's a journey.

9:14 Yeah, my wife has long COVID for sure. It's kind of respiratory not respiratory vascular thing that affects breathing. But yeah, all good aside from that. So you grew up in Western Mass. Tell us what it was like to grow up in Western Mass. Yeah. I grew up in the plates where things like plastic and electricity, modern electricity and night skiing were born and Moby Dick was written. I'm a little proud of where I'm from, like most people are from there a town called Pittsfield, mass and the border of New York and Massachusetts. Yes, Moby Dick was written there. Yes, night skiing was invented there because Jack Welsh wanted his executives to be productive, so he gave free lights to the ski mountain in town. I did not know that, so that the executives would ski at night and not take days off. True story.

10:00 That's cool. Yeah, Pittsfield is well known for being at one point, I think number three and number four on places that Russia was going to send a nuclear weapon because they made a guidance chips for nuclear bombs during the Cold War. So General Electric was big there. It's a cool place to grow up because you have this you're kind of vibrant business community surrounding Electric, but you also had this like really gritty, you know, kind of blue collar town. But at the same time, the arts is really big in the Berkshire's and you know, you have Tanglewood that it's the next town over. So I don't know, I'm a little biased, but I couldn't have asked for a better place to grow up than the Berkshires of western mass They still own a house out there, and I'll tell most people that's that's actually my home. This may be my home in eastern Massachusetts, but you know that's that's really where the majority of my friends are and my home is. So I love it out there. Couldn't couldn't that serve a better place to be?

10:56 And for a large part of the audience that's not in Massachusetts. Pittsfield. It was about two hours from Boston, so it's due west and it's you know, Massachusetts is probably bigger than It's still a smaller state, but it's bigger than I think others give credit too. So all right, so you are clearly a business guy. How'd you get involved or interested rather not involved? Interested in business? Yeah, that's a good question. You know, my dad was an accounting teacher at Pittsfield High School and he also ran a back He was a treasurer of a credit union and was a banker before that, so you know, I think he bestowed this, you know kind of you know, deep understanding of business into all of us in money management, and I was probably the worst of that. It's funny now that I managed these large budgets. What goes through comes around, and my dad is laughing at me from his grave.

11:44 That's funny, but yeah, you know, I just believe it or not. It was going to be a lawyer for a while. I was going to do the three plus three program at Western England University. When Bill Clinton was president, he was funding people. To get a lot of degree under the National Labor Relations Sport. So I was going to be a lawyer for a while. As you know, I'm pretty good at winning an argument, but I wanted to be on the business side of law, like really understanding how to craft deals and how, you know, I'll bring people together. And that was leaning towards that side of law anyways, and then you know, a little thing called the Balance Budget Amendment happened in nineteen ninety. I'm going to date myself, so I'm going to stop talking, and they kind of cut funding for that program. So I just stayed in the business school. And I was really pumped up about a couple of things. I say pumped up and most people don't want to get pumped up about this, but probability and statistics I really enjoyed. I had a teacher called Nancy Pelosi. She was awesome. Another great teacher name is Peter Hasse who passed away years back at Western Downgland University and he taught a class called Performance Team Leadership where he came in gave us goals and he said, all right, I'll see you at the end of the semester.

12:58 I'm in my office every day. Put us into teams and made us figure it out, gave us a thesis, gave us a why. It made us figure it out. And I think that's really where I kind of fell in love with business, because you know me well enough, we've known each other on was twenty years now. That I really like to be told what to do. And what I thought was really awesome about that that. Setup is we had to form a team quickly. We had to find out what our strengths and weaknesses work quickly because we all came from different backgrounds. We had to figure out what the thesis of the project was and how to be successful, and then more importantly, how to use him right. He was trying to teach us like he use me as much as you want.

13:40 We used him a ton. We got an a other people who just screwed around the rest of the semester and then handed in a paper at the bit and didn't do well, so you realize that, like, you know, really good leadership isn't about micromanagement, but it's also not about you know, just putting your finger in your head and telling you you did it wrong. And he really provided this nurturing, yet you know, kind of entrepreneurial environment to operate in, and then you're kind of understanding the statistics side of it was awesome too, because you then learn how to make decisions based on the subjective and the objective. It those two classes. Together really made me love business. And then I worked at a place called Investors Bank and Trust, the typical interim place to work when you get out of college, a finance you know, a company, met some great friends, realized that the last thing that I wanted to do was work in finance because it's so slow. And actually I had a friend of the family who said, you should be a sales guy. He's like, you have a way of, you know, working on the technical side of things and have a way of listening to people and figure out how to pull those together.

14:44 And I really kind of sound like what's his name from office Space when he says I'm the people person. But you know, I kind of I saw that, and then I got into technical sales, which is when I met you when I was at passed and that was a Unicorn exit in two thousand and seven. And I say that I've been really kind of chasing those one billion my first one, my first startup was a billion dollar exit, and I've kind of been chasing that ever since. But it's been a fun ride going along the way. Well, we'll get back to telecare shortly, or get to and telecare shortly. Last question before the break is what made you choose I know you're really involved and we'll get to that too, But Western R England University. What made you choose that school? Yeah, Initially was going to try to go to a school to play lacrosse, and that was one of the schools.

15:29 It was on my list. And you know, then I was, like most. People, leaning towards some big university or something like that, probably ego. Then I realized that big university was just going to swallow me up. And spit me out. I came from a small called Saint Joseph Central High School in pitts Uel, Mass Multi generational McGuinty to go to that school, my aunt's my uncles, my dad is, siblings, you know, the whole nine yards. It was a very last McGinty to graduate from there, and then it closed down a few years ago, which is pretty. Sad, but yeah, you know, I. Had seventy eight people in my graduating class, so I just, you know, I was committed to go to a larger school and to try to play lacrosse. And I was like, wait a minute, this is going to gobble me up. So kind of the university spoke to me. My brothers are thirteen and fourteen years old than me. They were out here in the Boston area and I'm from Pittsfield, and Springfield's kind of the perfect middle ground and beautiful campus, similar, bigger size, obviously class but certainly classes were comparable. And just kind of fell in love with the whole environment.

16:29 And I was still going to play lacrosse. And then I hurt my name my very last game of my high school career and ended up trying to recover and just never did. Decided why not enjoy school and I know this the podcast suppression and maybe drink a little beer and have some fun. And I probably took a little bit too much of that, but I wouldn't change it. Ended up getting two degrees from their master's degree as well. And anybody who's thinking about a university ACSB accredited, same thing as Bentley, Baps and Bryant and really getting you know, you're getting scrappy that type of university. It's just it's a beautiful place and the people there are just the best. They care and I think that's that's what I love it about the most.

17:10 That's great to hear. All Right, we're going to take our first break, everybody. We'll be back in just about one minute with Matt McGuinty of care Connect. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenet on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the radio, Well, now it's your chance be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free. Yes you heard it, free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com.

17:54 Call five six to one five zero six four zero three one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three one Get You're free advertising now. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helene. All right, we're back with Matt McGuinty, CEO of care Connect. Matt, you got your your MBA pretty early. What was behind that decision?

18:41 Competitiveness and mine. Don't want to give too much of coaching to folks because again unsolicited advice. But you know we are having this conversation. Sure, probably in hindsight, would wait a little bit longer. That would be my advice to people who are on the younger side considering it, particularly since I think since I was in school, which is a long time ago now it's now, it's become more of a checkbox. Like when I was in school, it wasn't a checkbox. So I did it to push myself. To be honest with you, I got through college without having to work very hard. It kind of came easy to me. Again, I'm a school like Saint Joseph. It really got me ready, and I think I was an underachiever in high school. But by the time I got to college, I was like, wow, like this is easy compared to high school.

19:24 And I again I wanted to have to balance. I did a lot of things on campus. I was like it ran the peer advising program and orientation group leader and like all the funny acronyms you can come up for what you have on a college campus was me. So I really enjoyed like the being part of the campus, you know. So, you know, when I did my MBA, I think somebody said something to me about, you know, I was the only person. My middle brother gave up on his MBA a couple like a class or too short. Then somebody made a smart ass comment to be honest with you about me and doing something like that, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to go get my MBA and I'm going to ace it. And that's what I did. I got my MBA and I used it for a little self competition. And and then I tell you, when you're you know, getting started in business and working full time, and I was traveling all over the world actually Norway and a bunch of plays to a company called fast I worked at. You know, it teaches it a lot about discipline and discipline is freedom.

20:26 JOCKO Willing if anybody's read that book, ownership, Discipline is freedom. And I think that's really where I first learned in college as an orientation group leader for Ted Zern, Dean Zern who worked at Western New England, and he was just he had a level that was here in terms of expectations and being exceptional and not being perfectly being exceptional and really our work and it planted is s e to me that. Then when I got my MBA, You're like, wow, you know, discipline is freedom. If I can get my brain working faster and be more effective and efficient, that actually gives more me more freedom to do the things I love to do. So for that purpose, I wouldn't change a thing. But I did it there because the true story the dean I was going to go to Bentley, and the dean found out I was going to go to Bentley and he called me and said, you're not going to Bentley, You're going here.

21:14 He was a good friend of mine. And I was like, no, I'm not. I'm going, you know, going to Eventley or Bets. And he's like, may You're not you're coming here. We have this new hybrid program where it was online and it was in the class. This is way back one wells ago, and he's like, I want you to try it and give me feedback. And so it was great because, you know, it was something new and it was different. And by the way, it taught me a lot about how to work remotely because I had eighty people in thirty two countries reporting to me at that time, so like that was normal for me to work in that environment. So I helped you with that. But what you missed was the all the networking you get when you're in person. So like it was, it was an interesting experience for me. I would probably wait if I was most people. You know kind of the how you can then apply it more.

21:57 I've applied it later, definitely accounting and finance and those things. As you applied right away probability statistics, but you're kind of the network. I think my advice to people is think about what you want of it, right, Like, if you want the network, if you want that, then you know, kind of pick that environment if you want to build that foundation that you feel like you're missing. You know, maybe I didn't pay enough attention to accounting class, which I think my best man and roommate is listening to this at some point and he would tell me, and I didn't. Then you know, it's good for those types of things, So I don't know it was. I wouldn't change a thing because I wouldn't be where I am today without that and not one of those people that looks back and tries to change the past because you can. But you know, it's it's interesting. I would definitely tell kids that are just trying to do it because they think that's what you have to do to check yourself before you wreck yourself. And that's a rep quote there, because you're going to be then doing it for the wrong reason and you're not going to get the right things out of it.

22:54 So don't do it unless you want to. Either build a network or build those foundational things that you think are going to help you get there. But just having an NBA doesn't get you anything. There's plenty of people that I read resumes for or they put comment NBA after things, and they're doing it to have the comment NBA. They're not doing it. I never never talk about it. As a matter of fact. I think you're the first time I've really been asked about it and talk about it ever. So you know, for me, I did it for me. I didn't do it for somebody else to see me. Let me put that. Great answer, all right, I want to take you through a few of your roles here, just not the company or you know, like Fast, but you were global director Technical Sales Operations, and I just want people to know, what did you learn from that three four years you were there.

23:42 I mean that's a big question. No, it's it defined me, to be honest, like it defined me, and in particular a number of mistakes I've made since then I'm really aware of. Yeah, I think the thing I learned the most was start it really are. But also I always said no. No, definitely not for the faint of heart, but you know, in a tech sales role. So I'll give you one specific answer, and I think it ties to our relationship quite a bit. I remember the first time we met. A friend of mine invited me in one of your seminars and said you got to check this out, and I was like, sure, you know, I'm in, And you know I was probably your most difficult person in the room, and I'm understating.

24:26 That when I say that, and I remember what you said to me. You said, you said, can you just do me. One favor because you're probably sick of me at that point? And I said sure. He said, the next time somebody asked you a question on your next call, just say that's a great question. Why do you ask? Uh? And I was like, yeah, sure. So I lead your seminar, you know, free pizza or whatever. And I go back to my office just a couple of miles down the road, and I get on this call and it's a big book publisher. I won't say who they were. And we were very late in this deal, and it was pretty large, you know, it was a multimillion dollar deal and we were. At the very end of it. And at that time in enterprise search, we were definitely afraid of siecurity questions because enterprise search they didn't have the best security, so you could basically scan everybody's laptop and expose stuff that's on it, and that was scary to people. And it was so early on in that tech.

25:12 So they asked me a question. Now, mind you, they were going to be on a public website, but they asked me a question. They said, Matt, tell me about your security standards, and I literally think I swept through my shirt instantly, and I said, shoot to myself in my head, and I said, well, that's a great question. Why do you ask? I waited and I was like starting to come up with my answers and like, oh my god. And he said, I'm just curious. I don't really need to know the answer. On a public website, security doesn't matter. And I was like, I probably would have spent the next twelve weeks proving our security standards and going through jumping through hoops. So I think that moment, that role taught me that customers don't always It's okay to manage the customer. It's okay to be inquisitive and try to understand the context behind their question. It's not important to just always answer the question, particularly without knowing the context. So I think that goal I thought my job was as a sales engineer tech problem tech solution tech, problem tech solution tech, and that your confidence in being able to answer those that completeness in your ability to answer those was the measure of whether they would do business with you. I think I learned that that was total bs and that ultimately where success really came from was curiosity. So you know, I think that's the thing that role taught me. And then starting as a manager, bringing of my former employees that are listening to this,

26:43 that were my employees at fast, I'm so sorry. It was such a you know, like I was driving so hard, so so much perfection, so much everything that you kind of learn over time, and I have a couple of other life events like almost dying a year and a half ago or whatever that was that you're kind of like, wait a minute, like there's there's other ways to go about doing this. So I think curiosity and then you know, how to be a better manager, you know, not just trying to drive results all the time, but there's humans on the other side of that and how to do a better job. And that I reflect back at that and think, man, how is it beat man? Sure? So, yeah, I think those are the things I take out of it. We all grow, all right. And then you were an entrepreneur.

27:25 You have an opportunity to buy into a franchise, had a pretty good run. What was your key takeaway from that experience? And then we'll go to commercial. Yeah, extreme ownership right when concept didn't exist at that point from Joco Willing, the book didn't exist. But you know when you're. And you know this is you know, ironic when I say extreme ownership about owning a business, but you know you have to do everything. So I think it teaches you about marketing, It teaches you about sales, it teaches you about customer success, it teaches you about networking in the whole nine yards. And until you own a business and have a new mortgage and have a new baby, you don't really understand, like and I'm sorry if that offends somebody. That's not meant to be offensive because everybody has their own life experiences. I think when you have to your output literally in that day is taking a spoon and putting it in your new baby's mouth, and it is putting it in bache account.

28:14 I think it taught me a lot about extreme ownership. And look there we went from the last to some of the top two or three, and of course my beat me on a regular basis, and now's trying to knock them off the pedestal. But you know, again, but that was about the team. We built an incredible team and people that still have worked with me since then that aren't from fitness, like Jim who has come to me, other come with me up their stage, and I think that's where I really started to learn about building those relationships and the team. Now, the team ultimately is what delivers success because you can't be everywhere right. You've got to teach them how to have their own extreme ownership within their role so that when when something goes wrong, we all look at each other and say, like you, no, no, no, it wasn't you.

28:57 I could have picked that up. I could have done that. No, no, it wasn't you. I think we created that culture and that's the first time I really saw it, and it reminded me of like sports when I was a kid, what that feels like being on a high performance sea. Love it good answer. All right, we're going to take our second break. We'll be back in just about one minute with Matt McGuinty. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if your car breaks down, you can use the YP app to find the closest repair shop.

29:47 Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. While it has great local coupons for all sorts of things in your area no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP Local Search can help you find it. So go to yp dot com download the app to search local, find local, and save local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helene.

30:27 All right, we're back with Matt McGuinty, CEO of care Connect, and Mada'm going to read off some titles. I know you know your titles, just for the for the audience. VP of Sales, Strategy and Customer Success, then COO, than Interim VP Sales, then Chief Revenue Officer, then Senior VP Global Sales and account Management, and then Chief Revenue Officer once again at intellycare Less. Pause there, second time at Reaching a really landmark of unicorn. Talk about you know how you got there, that what I took out of your bio and what people heard you led fifteen x growth across all commercial functions help the company achieve unicorn status.

31:10 So tell the audience what is unicorn status? Yeah, unicorn status is when the company reaches evaluation greater than a billion dollars. I think that's when the market values at that. I want to be very careful though. I think people throw that termo around a lot unless you somehow seller convert that value for the shareholders. Billion dollars is only good as the piece of paper it's written on. So I'm pretty try to be humble when I talk about that because I hear people talk about, you know, building unicorns and those types of things that I think, you know, unless you create a billion dollars of value on the other end, it did certainly for a while, but kind of maintaining that and expanding that that's it's a hard thing to do. And it's a verb, it's not a noun, so you know that's important. But yeah, it was a a fun ride again, all about the team all at the end of the day.

32:04 A man all right, let's see one more question before we get the care connector will spend the rest of the time on care connect. You're a big believer in training and coaching, and I'm not looking for this is not directed to me. So if the you know, the audience knows me pretty well, those that know us together know that you've brought me into Now I checked it. It's almost twenty years seven. This is the seventh company that you brought me to. I'm very appreciateive, but that's I'm not going for that. I'm simply saying, you're a big believer in training, development, mentoring. Why should other leaders truly and meaningfully invest in their team and leaders. Yeah, it's a great question because nothing else really matters, right, And people canvey me about that, and I'm open to the debate. But you know, we spend more time with our teams at work than we spend with families, right, And if you don't want to go to war with those folks, to be in the trenches with them every day, maybe war is a strong word, but if you don't want to, you know, go to the office and whether it's remote or in person, and want to be arm in arm with somebody and build something right, like that's what's so important about it? So you know, I think I personally, I think there's I ask a famous question of everybody in an interview, and anybody who's listened to this, who has worked for me will know I have asked the question, and I've kept a spreadsheet of every single person I've ever interviewed. It's thousands now and then still I add this tality to the bottom, and I've kept

33:34 it since two thousand and four. I think it's like Office ninety seven or something like that, or a version that. I asked one question, which is do you like to win or do you hate to lose? And there really isn't a wrong answer, it's how you answer the question, because you know, at the end of the day, we all like to win. The question is are you willing to do the sacrifices for the team to get to the outcome? And to me, those are usually people I hate to lose, So I'd say I hate to lose. And if you hate to lose, you realize that we're always in this constant state of learning. You're always in a constant state of learning. You can't be teaching yourself you have to get outside feedback. You know, I just went through you know, a couple of years ago, pretty intense executive coaching, great woman named Tammy Jersey, another person that changed in of all my life, and a lot of things were going on. You're coming off of COVID, you know, I had an injury that almost had me die of substance. You know, like all those things happen at the same time, and it really helps you reflect.

34:40 So part of it is timing of when you do these things too. And I think being an athlete, I'm just never a good one. But being an athlete and hating to lose and always wanting to get better. Now, what I've realized is you've got to be really disciplined about building a culture that does that. And if you don't have a culture of people that want to get better, you have a culture of a whole bunch of people who want paths in the back. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of companies like that out there, and they're great companies. They're just not mine. I want to be very clear, I need to get better. I expect my team to tell me how I need to get better. I seek outside input about how to get better on a daily basis.

35:21 I asked that they do, and they all do on their own. Not because I hust them, right, because that's what they want, Like, Hey, how can I do this better? This call better? This? What's your feedback? I just went through a meeting this morning. It was like, hey, we put this together, we know it's not perfect. What's your feedback? And it's like, this is exactly what I wanted. And you have a bunch of people that say that, and they more important, They don't just say that, they live like they literally come in wanted to sponge it up and evolve because like only life is compound interests. There's a great book called The Compound Effect. If you haven't read it, everybody should read it. It's right here, Darren Harry. Right now is life is about getting one percent better every day. And if you get one one percent better every day, the compound interest on that we're thousands percent better in certain time periods. Right, Because it's the compound interest in building on top of each other and not see athletes when I hire them. When I say athletes, you don't necessarily have to be a sports athlete although I think they get this concept out of the gate better than many people. But business athletes that are really inquisitive about getting evolving and getting better because business doesn't stay still. No company we've looked at Amazon is no longer a book company. You know, bart People doesn't even exist anymore. Really it does. But you know what I'm saying, like malls don't exist where you go shopping, you know, they don't exist.

36:37 Everything is evolving and you can either be a part. Of the evolution or you can That's totally right. You left to behind. You got to be learning constantly and evolving and trying things and failing, not being afraid. To and just you know, kind of keeping them all ball moving forward. Great, all right, just talk about care Connect. You described the go to platform for caregivers and home care agencies with the deep emphasis on AI and machine learning to improve outcomes for caregivers and enhanced workforce engagement. Tell us more about care Connect. Yeah, I got to stop letting my marketing team do these. Answer that was off the website. By the way they do, they do a great job at simple level, Like nobody gets into anything in.

37:22 Post acute healthcare unless you really care right. So I think first of all to say what care connect is a lot of people care. And what I mean by that is, you know, my dad passed away to nursing home. Before that, you know, home care, my mom was his caregiver as well. Nobody gets into this part of health care unless you care about it. So you know, I'd say that's the first part about care connect is everybody cares. But the other problem is there's a lot of turnover in this space because a lot of folks just get burned out. I mean, dealing with the elderly or individuals or disabilities. It's really hard, right, And that problem is ballooning. This is huge balloon that just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and we're not kind of making any progress of this at all. If you look at the rate of disengagement in home care and home health, it's up to eighty percent. It means eighty percent in a year, people who join that profession or within it or in it in the beginning of the year are churned by the end of the year. Just imagine your college professor is going back to college per second.

38:23 Eighty percent of them churned every year. Let's look at the. NFL, right, which is certainly a performance based business. Imagine eighty percent of every NFL team look completely different the next year, right, Like, Now that's what it's like in healthcare and home care. Yeah, that's hard to succeed. Yeah, And at the end of the day, we're using AI and machine learning and you know, tech platforms in order to help people solve problems with recruiting, retention, and engagement. So how do we use software and services to help them find caregivers? And then how do we have the right tools to show them work in a way that work is the mirage of the desert that they're chasing after, not you know kind of compliance. I think in healthcare there's so much compliance. We all feel right while we're do a doctory's office. Unfortunately, how I beat up my body?

39:10 I'm in an orthopedis office. I feel like every week. And every time you have to though out a form, right. You have to sign a hip a form, You've got to write this off, you got to write the space is full of compliance. Right. The nurses, imagine being a nurse or an AID or a CNA. Or whatever your goal is, if you're feeling it as a patient, imagine how they're feeling it with every patient they deal with. Right, So compliance is so hard, and that's. What exists, and there's this kind of antiquated way of looking at things where it's like we have to keep doing it the way we always did it because that's what works. But that clearly isn't what works eighty percent turn and it's really right for technology where the supply is not growing at a rate that exponentially matches that of the demand. Right, So after COVID, I think none of us watch TV and thought, let me send my parents are loved one to a nursing home. And by the way, no disrespect because I still work in that space and they are just the most selfless people. They are absolutely did an awful job to that industry.

40:11 So basically government and they're good intent. And then I will make any political statements basically said, you know, like people should agent home and we're going to set the whole system up so people will age at home that it was already not keeping up. And there's just no tech in that world. They're limited tech in that world. You know, our our co founders, Great Guides came out of a company called Sanata you know, good friends of mine, great leaders, brought me into help with this, So I'm really carrying on a vision that they started. And you know, this concept around we have to make it easier to get people working. We have to remove all these redundancies. Why why should you have to go take the same you know tests, go work at three places when you've already taken it. It's it's so you wonder why Medicare and Medicaid are out of control.

40:58 It's like that that same care as to take the same three tests, and our tax dollars are paying for that. It's wildly inefficient. So we're solving problems around that. With compliance, getting them working with hiring tools like Apple contracting systems, and then automating the scheduling process. Think about an uber within a homecare agency. You can very very use, very quickly used the tech to manage or match the best caregiver with the right aid or aids to meet that care plan. And then how do you complete that circle by you know, making compliance to them doing their job more integrated into their work, not somebody putting their finger in their head or taking away money or you know, beating them with a stick. And five thousand emails and calls. They haven't done your training, you haven't done this.

41:41 So you know, we're trying to bring software. And services to market to help this industry, which is largely neglected. But the government is like, go there. But the market isn't fully developed yet, and we see this as an opportunity for us to get back and help. So we're providing services to the agency side of the big Those are the ones that employ those caregivers. Describe a this is maybe a little unfair, but just for the audience, is describe a typical home care agency. Yeah. I mean we work with a lot of very large agencies in New York. They will feel like big business in many ways where they have all these different departments and groups. Most of them know across the country are mom and pops. The folks were either a nurse or they were an aid.

42:26 At one point they got great care from a nurse or an aid for their loved one, and they were like, Hey, I know these nurses and aids. I'm going to start an agency. And they signed up and they did all their courses, they did everything they needed to do, and they get reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid depending on if it's own health, which is home health is more skilled that nurses, PTOT and then the unskilled side is somebody to stick with mom and dad, blood pressure checks and basic things like that, and the side that's more home care. Most of them are these folks that just did it because they cared. They don't have software tools, they don't perhaps have all the experience on the business side of it. They don't know how to do billing, they don't know how to get reimbursement from the government for these types of things and how to go about doing that. So you know, that is ripe for technology to come in and say, like you don't have to hire five people demand.

43:14 The phones to get a caregiver to go somewhere. And I mean, this is you know, technology that's in our hands and we use every single day already. Does let's let us give you that. Because the healthcare system now is really set up around having the same person. I think what I've kind of learned since the Intellcare day, so Intellcare is a tech enabled agency. They're about getting the caregiver in the right place the right time, And it was more I don't want to say transactional because there was a lot of care in what the folks in Tellcare did at all those aids that they did. But I think you know kind of what happened in post COVID was the government looked at things and said, hey, we want the same caregiver providing care because we find hospitalization is lower when the patient sees.

43:56 The same person and talkable with them and everything else. So that's why it's nice about care Connects is we work with those agencies to give them those tools so essentially build their nation engine to allow people to come in out rather than having to seek some outside an additional outside agency to help them do that, which adds more layers. In a market where your margins are single digits, there's just not enough dollars to split. So you can get them the tech and get it in their hands. They don't have to split those dollars. They can then spend the time not making phone calls and texts, but spend the time helping with the care plans, helping the patient have a better experience and help the caregiver have a better experience, rather than mundane scheduling tasks or hiring tasks, and things.

44:40 Like that, and who are those caregivers? Yeah, they're on skilled caregivers. So the folks like if you've seen somebody sit down and you know, spend some time, if they get a care plan, it's happened to all of us, where sit down and come in and check on your mom or dads see or anybody see how they're doing some basic medical things. I some oayer lift like that. They're the equivalent of a CNA that you would you would see in a nursing home. Is where skilled caregiver is. But what people forget is because you're trying to keep the healthcare costs down, they're trying to use the skill level that is required of the unskilled caregiver, and the skilled skill level required by a skilled caregiver has just gone up.

45:21 So just think about I don't want to date you, Kevin. I know how you are all the old ian A nurse does probably one hundred times more than a nurse did than we were kid, right, And you know a physician's assistant didn't exist when we were growing up, Like you saw the doctor and he was in your town and one to your sporting events sometimes, like totally different world than exists now where a lot more is being required going down the skill level to try to keep the costs down because these baby boomers are growing at a rate that is faster than the tax base is allowing to do. I don't want to say the so the taxpace has definitely grown a lot. Our efficiency of how to use that has a there's a lot of people pulling on those dollars. So you know, this is the right time to help these unskilled caregivers become skilled, keep them in the industry so that they want to become nurses. So right now, a lot of these unskilled caregivers tend to be immigrants, They tend to be, you know, people that aren't sure they want to work in healthcare and they're testing the waters.

46:28 We should give them all the more reason to stay. And want to evolve in that market, rather than choose things like an unskilled caregiver could potentially make more being a greater at Walmart. That's problem we have to fix. Right This has to be a profession. That you can grow and want to become a nurser, want to you know, or be able to find enough work as a caregiver because you're fulfilled by that, not have to choose to leave the industry because that is just creating this this revolving door problem. And tell us about consumer directed care caregiver choice. Yeah, yeah, so well there's two things there. So caregiver choice, there's there's something called the consumer directed business in New York.

47:09 So I don't want to confuse people. That is where it's called CDPAP business where the consumer is basically, but. It's an interesting trend. Yeah, very interesting trend. It's actually kind of evolving in the state of New York where it's moving back towards the license agency to create more accountability because during COVID, unfortunately a lot of people use these government programs and defrauded them. Billions of dollars have been arauded by folks. We're final. Right on that side is caregiver. Choice though, is an automated scheduling platform. So think about a new Uber and left where the caregiver is basically saying here's how I want to build my schedule. And the Uber equivalent I will give you is, if you've ever been in an Uber, ask them if you're their first or the last ride of the day. What Uber is doing is stitching together these rides and this radius that the driver wants to do, right, and it's learning what the driver likes to do and what time the driver is going to end their day and usually the ride that they pick up, you know, Uber knows that's the ride to get back to their house. Right, So there's this kind of circle use to essentially do or zigzag you do to get back to your house. And Uber that's what caregiver choice is. So we're allowing the caregivers to speak up and say, here, let me build my own schedule until the agency when I want to work, because I'll tell you there's nothing in it would cross post acute care, whether it's home care hold out or even long term care where telecare works. These caregivers really care and they really really pulls in their heart strings when they get a phone call saying, come on, missus, Smith really needs you to work at it.

48:38 You may have already worked twelve. Hours and you're like another two hours, fourteen hours, right, And they'll end up doing it because they care. But what ultimately happens is they're burning out and eventually just say I can't do this anymore. I can't always be an emergency or you can't always be pulling on the heart strings because we all have to have balance in our life. Right, I'm probably the biggest hypocrite in the world talking about having balance my life. You know, we all have to have that. So I think that's the problem, and caregiver choice really solves that. Let the caregiver's voice be heard of when, where, how they want to work, so that you're not sending them a million texts, boll calls. And emails saying can you work? Can you work? Can you work? Because what happens is humans will always go back to the human that they trust and give them the work where the machine will learn their habits. And what I like to tell people is what they look at, isn't it as important as what they don't. A caregiver who doesn't want to work has never looked at a weekend visit.

49:32 Clearly doesn't want to work at weekend. So stop eating on them and asking to work a weekend. And what we hear all the time is, well, they filled out their hiring form and said they'll work weekends. Yeah, but they were looking for a job. They may be embellished their. Desire to work a weekend a little bit, right, So Instead, we notice the people that are looking at weekend visits verst the ones that won't, and we kind of really cohort those groups and really use the AI to show them visits. But maybe the person that wants a Tuesday night we can go or with those groups. So you have much smarter scheduling that then you leave the human care coordinator to deal with those really hard to match cases rather than a lot of volume. You're not having a lot of quality. You let your humans for the interaction work on the quality rather than the than the volume, so you don't have this again ballooning problem with the market.

50:22 That's a good explanation, all right, believe it or not. Last question, Wow, I know it goes fast. Who in the listening and viewing audience audiences gives me sort of reach out to you? And why? Yeah? First of all, I believe my at one point I was being At many points in my life, I've had this indiscretion. So I won't just say at one point where you know, maybe I didn't have the right focus on people the way I should. I tend to go fast. I tend to be type A. You know, I make this mistake a lot and have to check myself. And the one book that checked myself is a book called The Giving Tree, Right, so I think my brother put that in front of me when I was a teenager and as a guide post to how to live your life. And look, I fail at a lot of things, but when somebody calls me and asks me for help, I don't think you'll ever hear me say no. So I'd say, first of all, if you want to know all the mistakes I made, call me, because the list is way longer than any ridiculous titles that I've had that are meetingless unless you have people around you that want to be around you at the end. And I'm really blessed to care connect that I have a whole group of people that I've worked at many different stops that just represent this team of selfless people that have a desire to learn and just put the customer and each other at the center. And I really mean that.

51:39 I'm just so freaking excited about this team and how selfless they are and how awesome they are. I'm just really humbled to be able to come to work every day and serve them as their servant leader. Right, So people want to know all the mistakes I made, or want to push me on them and tell me on all the mistakes I made. Send me a note madic Care connect mobile. You know, people want to understand the startup world and you know kind of the good, the bad, and the ugly associated with that. You know, I'm happy to listen to those folks. People Again, I'm on the board of my university and I'm still an adjunct professor. I don't have time to teach right this moment, but you. Know, people want to kind of understand those decision points and the good, the bad, and the ugly of you know, how I made a decision around those things, or what the options are out there. And certainly, you know, folks that are in the homecare industry, we certainly would love to talk to them. You know. You know me, I'm not a big push salesperson, but you know, there's there's a lot of homecare agencies out there that are small, medium large that need help around trying to solve this problem the eighty percent.

52:44 Un I had somebody say to me once, oh, ours. Is in depth, and I was like, what time is that they were like, or where it's a business that hard? And I said, you know, we're three minutes over. Yeah, we got to go. We got to go, so listen. He's Matt McGinty. Sorry, oh, CEO. Of keer Kanec. We gott to spend another hour on this. This is great. I'm sorry we didn't have more time. Reach out if you feel like you want to share something or you might need their help. This is a show about business and business challenges. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me. You can find me at Kevin at Winning Business Radio. Do join us next Monday, December thirtieth.

53:26 My guest is going to be Eliza Josette, inventor of the Spherehead pillow, the founder of Sphearhead Spearhead LLC. Until then, thanks for joining. This is Kevin helenon. You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode. The podcast is available on Top four Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to the Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio, W four c y dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Helenan and Winning Business Radio