Dave Bean, like so many successful senior care leaders, was first exposed to the industry while looking for Alzheimer’s care for his father. When his father was first diagnosed, Dave had a thriving career in medical device and pharmaceutical sales. Even though there were challenges when he transitioned to the senior care industry eight years ago, he was able to overcome them to build a thriving business. Now he’s an entrepreneur that runs three Amada Senior Care franchises in Ogden, Salt Lake City, and Park City, Utah with roughly 170 caregivers.
When he sat down with me to share his perspective on the challenges of running his business at a pivotal point in the industry, nothing was theoretical. These five hard-won successes he shares on the Growth Operator podcast are growth plays you can use today.
1. Caregiver retention is the whole game
“If you don’t have good caregivers, you can’t take care of clients.”
Dave says the biggest risk in home care continues to be caregiver retention. “If you don’t have good caregivers, you can’t take care of clients,” Dave says. “It doesn’t matter how many caregivers you hire if you have just as many quitting on the back side.”
His point is no matter what technology or workflow you onboard for your agency, senior care will always need people to deliver the superior care experience. So, with your limited time and financial expenditures, you need to consider recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding caregivers. And, while having a robust pipeline of candidates is important, effective caregiver retention is a precondition of business growth. Think of all the knowledge and resources that go into enabling and supporting a senior caregiver. All of that goes out the door each time you lose an employee to better benefits or a better culture.
For Dave, that means a dedicated caregiver coordinator in each office, a points-based recognition system tied directly to gift cards delivered through a payroll app, and quarterly meetings that function as appreciation parties. Small gestures land bigger than most owners expect.
“Most of the time, it’s even just little, small things — like a $5 Starbucks card — that means the world to them,” Dave says.
2. Know your 20-60-20
“We have certain people we know will do it if we call them. But you have to be careful not to put them into burnout mode.”
Dave has a mental model for his caregiver workforce he considers when planning employee programs. Roughly 20% of caregivers are mission-driven, they do this work because they love it. Another 60% are middle-of-the-pack workers who like the job well enough. The bottom 20% are only there for a paycheck.
“The vast majority are in the middle,” Dave says.
To manage your workforce, your recognition programs, your training investments, and your coordinator’s attention should concentrate on converting the 60% into the mindset of the top 20%. The goal is to expand the number of employees in the top 20%, so as to protect the dedicated top performers from burnout. An important rule of thumb is to not use the same folks to cover shifts every time someone calls off.
“We have certain people we know will do it if we call them,” Dave says. “But you have to be careful not to put them into burnout mode.”
3. Reputation is your moat, protect it
“It’s hard to earn a good referral source, but it’s very easy to lose it.”
In a market where every senior care agency offers the same services using similar-looking brochures, reputation is the only differentiator.
“It’s hard to earn a good referral source, but it’s very easy to lose it,” Dave says. “Word gets out pretty fast in this industry about what’s going on.”
That’s why you need to consider how your tech stack can elevate your reputation. Once Dave put Sensi in front of referral partners, he knew the documented care data and proactive alerts proved a standard of care competitors could not easily replicate. And, if you’re in a room full of agencies making identical pitches, showing up with outcome data shifts the conversation.
“There are only so many times you can go to a referral source and say, ‘We have the best caregivers,'” Dave says. “You have to do things differently.”
4. Automate the mundane so your team can do meaningful work
“When you get that lead, you better be calling within 5 or 10 minutes.”
One of Dave’s growth insights is about where his office staff’s time goes versus where he thinks it should go. He describes a situation where a team member’s entire job was responding to inbound leads from platforms like A Place for Mom and AgingCare. Agencies need to be the first to follow up on leads since the same lead goes to four or five competitors simultaneously.
“I told her, ‘I don’t care if it’s nights or weekends; when you get that lead, you better be calling within 5 or 10 minutes,'” Dave says.
Sally, the Sensi growth agent, can automate that first response to chase leads and schedule assessments so employees can focus on relationship-building. In senior care, relationships drive retention and referrals and need a human touch. Dave believes every hour of staff time spent on a task a system could handle is an hour not spent on a client, a caregiver, or a referral partner.
For in-home care, Sensi is an immediate value-add to seniors and their caregivers. When a caregiver arrives at a client’s home they can concentrate on spending time with their senior clients rather than playing catch-up to understand what happened during the hours they weren’t there.
5. Different stages demand different focus
“It’s completely different running a company when you’re trying to hit your first $100,000 versus trying to hit the $2 million or $3 million mark.”
“It’s completely different running a company when you’re trying to hit your first $100,000 versus trying to hit the $2 million or $3 million mark,” Dave says.
Understanding what stage your agency is at and what type of growth engine you need at that stage is foundational to your success. Dave remembers when his Amada franchise network hit the “Million Dollar Club,” roughly $86,000 a month in revenue. Before he hit that milestone, the business felt like it was in survival mode. After he passed that goal post, he began thinking in systems, scale, and healthy growth rather than just keeping the lights on.
Dave’s advice for new owners is to invest in administrative staff before you think you need it. If you’re taking care of anything and things start falling through the cracks before you start hiring, it might be already too late. Get organized before it’s a necessity or you might have to dig yourself out of an administrative mess.
“When things start falling through the cracks, you need to make the investment to hire somebody else,” Dave says. “You won’t get to the next level unless you do.”
Eight years in, three franchises, and 170 caregivers later, Dave’s roadmap for growing his business remains the same. He says every agency will grow as long as they take care of their caregivers and train them well. Tools and systems are constantly evolving, but the path to success is constant.
Want to see how Sensi can automate your operations so you can concentrate on delivering superior senior care? Book a demo and we will show you how it works.
