Digital Revolution in Nursing Home Marketing

I'm so curious. I know podcasts are all the rage and all of that now, but I mean, you have so much on your plate. How and why did you decide to get this thing off the ground? And how did it become as popular as it has become so quickly? [Music] None of your business, Oshi. None of your business, Michael. It's the None of Your Business podcast hosted by Michael and Oshi. Welcome back everybody to the None of Your Business Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Greenfield. With me is Ushi Schwarz and a wonderful guest, Judah Gutwin. Thank you for having me. Judah, welcome to the program. I'm excited to have you here because we've done a lot of work together and uh you throw an amazing event once a year and I think that's just a little part of what you do, which is so amazing. Uh the process of what happens throughout that event is great, which is what I love. You could get a drink at the bar and there's not a line because there are people waiting to get their spray paint on their hat and there there's music and then there's panels which I was a part of and uh thank god I had a full room which was great and uh it was very nice. So welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. I'm so happy to have you here. So Michael, did you do any research on on Judah? Like do you know his his background? You know his secret talents? I mean that's what we're doing here. We're going to find it out. I mean I I you know I chat GPT you and uh yeah it has a lot to say a lot of good things. Cool. The only thing I know about you Judah I know two things about you. I know number one is that you're part of the Zimtt conference. Is that the conference we were talking about? No not the Zim conference. The CEU event. Yes. Yes. Okay. It's the local show here as well, right? It's And you've been doing that for how many years? For five years. Uh very big show, very popular in healthcare. You know, a lot of operators come, a lot of vendors come. Wonderful. Amazing. And the second thing I know about you is that you run a media company. Correct. Correct. And that entails, you know, doing marketing and specifically for healthare. Only healthare. Only healthare. Mostly anyone in the CCRC continuum. So, nursing homes, uh, independent living, assisted living, some adult daycarees, and all of the ancillary businesses that feed the industry. Okay, cool. We have far pharmaceuticals, things like that. And you were doing this for how long? How long do you have this company? The company is 8 years old. So, I'm doing this eight years, but before that, I was a licensed nursing home administrator for 5 years. M so cumulatively I'm in this industry in the healthcare industry about 13 years at this point between being a nursing home admissions director and working my way up to being an administrator regional administrator and then after 5 years on that side I went out and I started uh Skyare Media. So interesting, right? You're an anomaly. I mean you really are. Are you thinking what I'm thinking of? Yeah, of course I'm thinking it's it's become a nursing home administrator. You want to buy a nursing home. Exactly. like the the natural course uh like the sequence that should take place is that you're an administrator. You learn the ropes. You're managing your facility and then you say, "Hey, I'm basically doing everything anyway. I can buy my own facility and run it myself." And that's what people typically do. Some of the largest operators today were at one point themselves an administrator. Right. Right. So you didn't go down that path. You decided, you know what, I want to go on the other side entirely and go on the vendor side pretty much. So like that shift was a little bit unnatural. So what led you to to make that decision? I appreciate that. So I'll tell you, I'm going to be vulnerable for a second. I specifically made a different decision. I started out as a concierge. I became an admissions director, became an administrator. I got to a point where I would break out in hives almost when the embudsman would walk into the building. When you had these latigious families who had the embudsman on speed dial. those people, the customers from hell that you'd never make happy regardless of the circumstances. So when I was at the tail end of my time as an administrator and I had to make that jump because I needed to increase my revenue, my salary and I felt like I hit my cap. I think everybody in the industry as an administrator gets to a point where irrespective of whether they're in New Jersey and New York it's just difference of revenue in terms of salary but their package the compensation hits their cap you know they hit their cap and they either have to recreate themselves to make themselves more valuable or they leave those are the people that become owners the ones you're talking about where they say be nice to the administrator he's a future owner exactly I said to myself if I'm an administrator now and I get heart palpitations like uh on at the end of a holiday when, you know, I'm worried that my phone is blowing up or, you know, at night during a snow season where I'm worried they're going to call me saying, you know, the the parking lot isn't plowed or somebody fell. I said, as an owner, you just compound that by 10 and how can I do it? I, you know, I want to live. I want to be healthy. You know, you can't put a price tag on health. So, I said, I have to go in a totally different direction. I would just digress for a second if you don't mind on this question. It's interesting. I feel like um and some of the listeners will clearly remember this. I feel like my foray into this portion of healthcare when I started Skyare, I broke out so to say with this controversial, it was an article, a post that I wrote that I put on LinkedIn about this phenomenon where I basically said that there are kids today who become owners post administration. They find some rich uncle and the uncle says, "Oh, you know, today you got to either own a nursing home or you got to be in real estate. There's nothing else." And they throw some money at him and the kid buys a nursing home. And I said in this article, I said, you know, I'm thunderruck how some of these administrators, they were failures. They couldn't manage a survey. They couldn't run a building properly. and all of a sudden they get their hands on some money and they decide that they'd be a better owner owning the place, operating the place when they couldn't get it done as an administrator. And I went on to say that some of the old owners, the old soldiers who have buildings that they basically squeezed until they couldn't, you know, justify keeping the building. They go and sell these buildings to these young hot shots that are wet behind the ears. They make a killing. And I ended the article by writing that the old owners are laughing all the way to the bank and I posted it. If I tell you I believe that's when Judah that's when I got placed on the map both positive and negative. A lot of feedback. Some people said oh you know you're saying things that people are thinking they didn't want to say it. Some people said you know you're putting you're throwing some of us under the rug. You know this industry we have to protect each other watch each other. But it's really this phenomenon. Every administrator has that ambition. Some of them are successful, some of them it's an abject disaster and they wind up selling the facility very very soon thereafter for pennies on the dollar. And that's why we all see this facilities change hands all the time. It's like a cyclical thing. Um but because of all those reasons I said there's no way even if I get my hands on money I'm not becoming an owner. I just didn't have the constitution for it. So you had no interest in no interest in continuing and really just uh doubling down, right, on the nursing home operation side because you respected it too much. You knew what it really takes to run a nursing home. And by becoming an owner and buying a second and a third nursing home, you knew that your life was going to be chaotic. You knew that you weren't going to have a lot of time for yourself. I actually respect that you and more people, more owners like you should be very scared because it's a huge responsibility. you know, you're running a facility where people are living. They have to receive care and and it's a really big responsibility. And I also think that every nursing home owner should have the requirement that they were a nursing home administrator at one point because it's not just a, you know, transaction, right? This is not just you're managing somebody's portfolio, you're managing money, right? you're not a financial adviser. Like you're you're actually like there's there's so many regulations and there's so many there's so many categories within a nursing home that you have to be educated on to understand how to run it. Like that should actually be the norm. I think as a baseline we should we should really vet out the people who are buying nursing homes. Would you agree with that? I agree to to an extent. Um Michael and I we were having this discussion at the CU event where we were saying exactly what you just referred to is these are people that are being cared for. They're not widgets. This is a very different type of business. Health care is something that you really ought to want to make a difference. It's God's work. I believe that it's the toughest job in the world. People in the trenches every day caring for elderly, frail, compromised people. And I think you're right. I think a prerequisite to owning a a nursing home should be some basic background, some basic experience in the health care sector because that gives you an appreciation for the work, gives you an appreciation for the responsibility that comes along with ownership. And also the idea that yes, it's a way to pay the bills, but at the end of the day, there's a million things you could be doing where you don't have your hands in this kind of a incredibly respons responsible position in terms of elderly people and their health. If you don't have the wherewithal, the gumption, the desire to not just make a living, but to really care about people, go do something else. it's it's not for you. So for those reasons, I I think the background in healthcare definitely helps. Definitely helps for all the right reasons. And people don't recognize also when your licenses on the wall, you're responsible legally for everything that goes on. Correct. So, uh we we had a client and a friend that was a nursing home administrator that got arrested one day and he didn't understand why. Like they walked into the facility and they arrested him and and he found out only a few hours later that a resident had passed away a year and a half before. And because the oxygen tank wasn't monitored properly and something happened to that resident, it was the fault of the administrator whose license is on the wall and that person took the fall. And and and the reality is like you're saying the hard palpitations and the afterhour calls and the responsibilities and so many staff members that can do so many challenging things that's on your head. I don't think people appreciate that about running a nursing home. I've I've said it once at a at a table at at a dinner table and I had so many friends of mine that were insulted when I said running a nursing home is one of the most difficult jobs in the world. It's like running 10 different consecutive businesses at once. You're running a restaurant, you're running a payroll company, you're running a, you know, a maintenance company all at once and all those risks are on you. So, it's pretty cool that you went out of it. But when you went when you went out of it, like what was that transition like? I'm curious about how that happened like you decided one day that's it. I'm out. I'm going to open a media company. So it's interesting. My first boss, my trajectory is very irregular. Who'd you work for, by the way? For David Gross. Okay. New Jersey. Somebody like my hero. Sure. Taught me everything I know. Family owned business. He has a few facilities. Familyowned business. Old school. Old school. Good people. Somebody who really, really cares. I was selling diamonds and jewelry till I was 33. I'm 46. So I pivoted in a massive way. I was working for my dad in the industry. the industry, if you know anything about the diamond line, it it's become a rat race. Everybody's chasing their tails. They're selling $50,000 diamonds at 2% margins. I had to get out. I knew nothing about healthcare. David Gross is somebody that I pray with and and we we attend the same synagogue and uh we know each other from town. I admired him a great deal already then. This goes back uh 13 years because I started in the industry 13 years ago. I worked for him for 5 years and Skyare Media is about 8 years old. And I approached him and I said, you know, could you give me a shot? I got to get out of diamonds. Give me a chance. Let me work for you. Initially, he he said no. He said, this is a business where if you don't know how to care for people, you have no right to be in the business. I'll be a good character reference for you, he said. But I don't mix business and pleasure. You have no familiarity with my industry. Try something else. I actually did. And I got rejected from all kinds of companies. Uh David's Cookies all the way to like Home and Stone on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn. These You were really a free agent. I was You were testing the waters with everybody. You had enough of 47th Street. I had enough of 47th Street. Wow. I would have done anything. And at one point I badgered him enough. I'll never forget it was Purim. He sends me a text message. He says, "Okay, go meet with Marty." Marty is uh an administrator, also old school, an amazing amazing person at uh Regency Heritage in Somerset, New Jersey. And let's see what we can do. He took a chance on me when nobody else would. And that's because he's he's brilliant. He sees things people don't see. And I guess it worked out for him. He started me as a concierge. I I was the guy that massaged all of the post-accute admissions from the hospital. And then I worked my way up to an admissions director. And then I became an administrator. Um, I got my license. I would go to different facilities on weekends, on Sundays, do floor rounds. I promised him five years. I gave him a five-year commitment. My word was my honor. We didn't sign any documents. He taught me everything I know. Literally, my acumen, everything I learned, everything I developed was from him and from the people closest to him. One of his biggest strength is strengths. He knows how to delegate. So, he actually surrounds himself with amazing people. I got offers during the you know the five years and I wouldn't entertain anything of course on my fifth anniversary I approached him I said now what so he says to me he was paying you the same amount throughout the five years incremental increases so he gave you slight increases especially when you became licensed right got me a car became you took over the facility as the administrator at some point I I was I didn't I was that guy that would be like the the equivalent of a excuse me a roving administrator so I wasn't the hands-on administrator in the building but I would go from building to building trying to uh to do floors, see where there's gaps that need to be filled, make sure everybody was doing their jobs. You became like a regional managing multiple. I'm curious, you know, in the five years, I'm always curious about this. How long did it take you for you to become valuable for him? It's an excellent question. Um I would love to say probably within the first half year, definitely after a year. Okay. And it's it's to his credit because he didn't he didn't hold back. In other words, we had monthly meetings, we had quarterly meetings. The healthcare industry is predicated. There's a everything is about data. It's data driven. So whether it's your utilization review meeting once a week where you discuss your post accute admissions and when they're going to plateau and when the you know rehab team together with the social service team thinks that they may baseline and and be required actually to go home or a quarterly meeting to talk about marketing initiatives etc. Everything is data driven. So we would have meetings and he would assess on a regular basis where is Judah, where is he? And and if he didn't feel like I was keeping up, you know, the pace, he would teach me and he would let me learn really on his dime. So at year number five, you've given him four good years. Yes. Right. Okay, cool. So you're coming over to him. I come over to him and I says, "So now what?" And this is the the amazing thing about him. I my thought at the time was this conversation go any one of two directions. He can either elevate me, give me some sort of u I don't know sometimes people get distributions and they get some small interest and profit sharing I you know I didn't even know at the time or you can actually be elevated so that you incorporate new responsibilities thereby making yourself more valuable to justify a higher salary but he says to me he says look I love you you're an amazing employee or amazing asset but your job description requires wires and and you know mandates that you get paid up to a certain amount you know and at that cap at that ceiling you could be the best in the world at what you do but it's like the it's like the Peter principle right you're only so good up to the threshold of where the job description really inherently lies and then after that you could be a better administrator a better regional but you're inherently limited you say Peter principal Yeah. You're familiar with this? No, I don't know what that is. Okay, I'll tell the PETA principle. Well, it's not it's not a great analogy. It's not an exact analogy, but the Peter principle stipulates everybody's got their threshold of competency. So, the analogy I give you is imagine you have a guy, he's flipping burgers, right? He's great. He's doing an amazing job. The next guy can only flip five burgers in 20 minutes. This guy's doing 20. So, he's really good because he's increasing revenue for his owner. The owner, you know, comes together one day with his partner. He says, "We got to elevate this guy. He He's not He's not doing, you know, his His value isn't in flipping. Let's put him at the cashier. Now, we're giving him responsibility with real money. He's awesome." They put him at the cashier. He's doing out change. He's getting customers in and out very, very quickly. So, they meet again. They say, "This guy's even better than this new job. We got to elevate him." So, they put him in the back office. Now he's in charge of purchasing AP and he's and it it just the guy implodes. Not only does he move backwards, not only does he regress visav where he was before, but he implodes. The the whole thing just blows up. Question is why? What happened? You know, maybe he shouldn't be as good because he's out of his element, but like the whole thing should go bust. The answer is the PETA principle which says everybody's got their threshold of competency. Up to that point, they could be better, better, better job, do it better, do it fast, do it quicker. But the minute you're asking them to exceed simply to exceed where they're at, it just it implodes because they're not equipped. So, I was using it in a different framework. I'm saying the job itself demands a certain salary package. And when you hit that cap, you could be the best in the world at doing that job, but the the job itself doesn't allow for simply because they can replace you, correct? With somebody younger who needs less money to do the same job, maybe not as good as you. They'll also get there. they'll build up. But he could not just he can't justify paying you just an endless amount and keep going up when he can find somebody else to do that list of responsibilities for a lot less which is usually the time to separate ways and say I've reached my my cap. It's served you well until now. You've served me. Thank you. This was a good arrangement and here's where I go embark on my own journey and uh buy my own nursing home. It's typically how it would go but you you go that direction. He says to me, 'Look, you've developed your acumen during the five years that you've been here, developed your acumen with respect to online marketing. When I started, the internet was relatively speaking in its infancy terms of healthcare. Owners didn't, you know, they were scared about the wild, wild west that is the internet. They were afraid, oh, with Hippo, we don't want to be online. We're putting ourselves out there. People are going to get uh, you know, they're going to get familiar with ownership or, you know, we're we're not going to be able to put our best foot forward. and so on and so forth. I developed my acumen there where I started blogging. I would create these authoritative articles to bring in more and more traffic and it became very relevant because prior to my time in the in the healthcare industry working for David Gross, the referrals were very very traditional. You had your medical director who was getting a stipen from the building. He or she had entree in the hospital, the feeder hospitals. Patients spent three nights. They had a qualifying hospital stay. They were then ready for a discharge to a post-accute rehab for short-term rehab. The hospitals have a mandate to give three options to the family. And basically, whoever was getting greased by the nursing home that also had the ear, the family at the hospital would subtly or not so subtly direct traffic to the facility of their choice. And that's kind of how it worked. And that's why nursing homes relied on stipens. But the hospitals were supposed to be neutral, correct? In which nursing home the patient goes to, give them their choices, right, and let the family decide. But that's not what was happening. Everybody had sort of a favorite and everybody had a place where they would steer the patient towards. And it was your job as the nursing home to be on that list, on that good list, right? And your marketer's job was to build those relationships. Build those relationships. Then what happened? Hospitalists became a big thing. Hospitals are people who have no allegiance to any particular nursing home to any sniff. They work typically at the hospitals. A lot of them work in the emergency room. So they start following patients and they follow him from the hospital all the way through to the discharge. So what ended up happening is now you have a disconnect because the primary care physician who's been seeing that patient in the community for forever and then followed the patient when they were admitted to the hospital post hip fracture, knee replacement, what have you and then directed the patient to the nursing home of their choice because they also get a stipen there. Now they got cut off from said patient because the hospitalists took over and the hospitalists have no allegiance. They don't care about any particular facility. So now all bets are off. Well, they care a little bit a little bit. They want to make sure the facility that they're sending to is going to care is gonna to the point that they're not going to send the patient back cuz they get penalized. But that came later. That came later. The the rehospization rehospization the Medicare did. You're absolutely right. So before, you know, we can get to that, but before that all of a sudden now nursing homes can no longer rely heavily on just paying medical directors who are doctors in the community and also have privileges at the hospital. So what ends up happening is the families themselves are going online in droves more and more to do their due diligence because they can't rely on the hospitalists. They don't have a relationship with the hospitalist. Hospital is not the primary care physician in the community. Families, the children next of kin, they're not familiar with these people. They don't trust them. They don't know them. So they're going on the internet and they're they're clicking, you know, typing in any conceivable permutation search query related to the buzzwords, the breadandbut keywords that these nursing homes rely on for traffic. And and three generations minimally, right? Because we're living longer than ever. So now you have baby boomers, generation Xers, millennials, they're all going online. Many of them aren't visiting the nursing home either. They live in a different state. Mom is in an assisted living here in the community. They're doing it all remotely. All remotely. So now nursing homes are starting to realize, hey, we need to exist online. Not only do we need to exist, but our footprint has to be pristine. We need to look good, smell good, because it's a double-edged sword. Sometimes you say, well, if the nursing home has a really bad reputation with a terrible CMS rating, they, you know, they'd be better off not having any visibility online. No news is good news, but that's like an ostrich with with its head in the sand because it's not a question of if, it's a question of when the nursing home gets pulled up online. and they will find another nursing home that does have their their display in a in a much nicer way and they're going to get to business. Correct. So David Gross, so I segueed and I digress, but this is what's important. He says to me, you've developed that acumen. You've done all this digital marketing manually, manually. On the ground, in person, on the ground, in person, on the internet, from our facility, whether blogging, whether social media, four major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, all of them have their place. And all of that digital marketing to bring eyeballs to us. Why don't you parlay that into an independent full-blown marketing agency to the healthcare industry? I'll support you in it. I'll I'll invest my effort, my time, my training. I'll I'll give you the gumption and the impetus to get this off the ground. You'll be you'll be great at it. And that's exactly what I did. I brother-in-law. So, he became your partner. He didn't become my partner, which ma which makes it all the more astounding. More like a mentor. Wow. Makes it more astounding. Kudos to him. He had no vested interest other than looking to help to train and the continued mentorship. There was no unbelievable. Unbelievable purely for you to become successful. And this is this is a situation where you're leaving him, right? He's sending you out the door, but he's setting you up at the same time. Correct? He says, "I can't keep you more on salary. I can't pay you more. And by the way, not only can I not pay you more, but it's a shame for you to stay even if I could. You're worth more on your own. And so, I'm going to help you make it happen." So, he didn't just cut the cord. He supported me on the on the way out. And I built this company with that level of support and confidence because let's let's face it, I was always an employee. It's a scary venture. It's the, you know, the fear of the unknown. As an employee, you're on salary. You get a paycheck at the end of the week or the end of the month or by week, by monthly. A lot to be said for that. Sure. This is the conundrum. Everybody's salary ownership. And then the owners tell the employees, hey, it's very lonely at the top. And when you have trouble with income, revenue, you got to pay. Payroll doesn't stop. And then who takes the hit in tough times? Who's got to tighten the belt? The owner. So there's so I was scared going from a steady salary to uh starting a business. And he helped me and I started Skyare Media. Initially we were doing just digital marketing. So we were doing uh search engine optimization. We were doing social media. We were doing reputation management on some of these major platforms like caring.com and a place form.com, wellness.com. These are all the equivalent of like trip advisor for hotels. This this would be the equivalent for people looking for a solution for an elderly loved one who needs help. And basically that was what we were doing to make our clients shine. And then subsequently as we evolved and as we morphed we undertook new responsibilities. We got into the graphic design game. We got into the traditional marketing with, you know, rebrands and flyers and trifolds and biffolds and chachkis because I got into a place where people were coming to me and they were saying, you know, we want not only the social media, but we need somebody to rebrand. And then I'm looking and I'm saying taking a lay of the land. I'm saying if I'm going to push them away to my competition because I can't service this need and I'm not a turnkey operation super. You got to have the full ecosystem. got to have the full ecosystem otherwise you're in to look to look elsewhere right so I started doing all of that stuff as well but it started from internet marketing and and really that's where that it's at and I always say you know if you have a terrible reputation online it's like somebody plastering a billboard on every major thoroughare saying this place uh you'll excuse me s and it sits there in perpetuity online till the cows come home it's incredibly damaging because I was mentioning earlier clear that this is a datadriven industry. How do you quantify lost revenue when you don't even know you squandered the opportunity? Right? In other words, what what do I mean by that? The people who go online looking for a nursing home and they hit the Google business page and one review after the other. If you want your dad to die, literally, we're not talking about a burger joint, a nail salon. Healthc care is vicious. It's brutal when the reviews are nasty because it's not just like, oh, the burger was cold or they chipped my nail. It's like, "Oh, I wound up finding dad in septic shock." Yeah. On a weekend where you had like agency, you know, temps, you know, people on that that were there perdeium who don't give a hoot. And my dad died, you know, maybe it's exaggerated. Maybe it's even fabricated. Who knows? But in the court of public opinion, it's incredibly damaging. Those people don't bother calling the admissions director. They just say a pox on this place. I'm not placing dad there. So again, it's lost revenue. you don't even know you squandered. So that's why it's so important making sure that the you know the the nursing home has a great reputation online because if they don't it's like they're pouring water into a cup. All the traditional marketing all the liaison's going out and they're doing a job fair and now they go to a church and they grease the skids. They're giving gift baskets and whatnot. But it's like the the cup that they're pouring into has this gaping hole on the bottom. the hole is the internet presence that's lackluster or terrible and they're wondering how come we're not filling our beds. Yeah. What's the matter with census? And they don't realize because they really don't look good online if you'll permit. I I'll give you I was you know earlier I was telling you about Trip Advisor for hotels. I always say hotels and nursing homes have a lot in common. The hotels have no problem selling the, you know, oceanfront, you know, rooms overlooking the that those are easy sell, you know, but the side of the buildings overlooking like the neighbor's parking lot, the toilet, they're not so popular. How do they fill those rooms? It's not easy. Nursing homes, same thing. I was an admissions director. When you take a tour as a prospective admission, the admissions director shows that family the money room, flat screen TV, private room with the fancy room. Yeah. Yeah, with the bed, the model room, they don't take them down to the basement, show them in the three bedded room where by today's regulations, you mentioned regulations earlier, those rooms would never fly, but because they were grandfathered in from like who knows when. So now you have middle beds and the pipes are sticking out of the ceilings, they stay far away from those rooms. Those rooms are tough cells, just like the hotel rooms in the side of the building, right? How do you fill those beds? So, it's funny. They did a they did a study that was a a chain of hotels. It's a fabulous study. It wasn't too long ago. I don't know if it was a Ritz Carton. These these are independently owned hotels. And there was one that opened up on the West Coast. Stunning stunning hotel. And they said in line with the ribbon cutting ceremony, opening up this brand new hotel. They said, "Let's put a full page ad for five months in the Rob Report." Are you familiar with the Rob Report? Sure. I am not. Rob Report is a magazine for the uber wealthy. Comes out. That's why I'm not familiar. No. Oh, we probably have it because it's coffee table reading. I was going to say we grew up reading it. You want to feel rich. You want to feel rich or it's amazing. No, I don't like to see what I'm missing out on. You know, I like to live on my level, right? Things we'll never be able to afford in a lifetime. Okay. And it comes out once a month. You're talking about like private jets and yachts and that protective island for sale. Yeah. Like where you're like, "Oh, should I buy the watch for $300,000 or should I keep saving for that mortgage for the for the home?" You know? So, they said, "Let's put a full page ad in the Rob Report." a a full page ad in the Rob Report for a hotel. I wouldn't say it's like on s Super Bowl commercial level in terms of the ad spend, but it's way up there. You're talking about a few hundred thousand dollars. Wow. And then five months later, they get together in the corporate office because they're just not filling the beds, the m you know, the the side of the hotel, those rooms overlooking the parking lot. They're just not filling those rooms. And they're scratching their heads. They're like, "What's going on? We have an ad in the Rob Report every month. We have a a stunning hotel. It's brand new, right? So, somebody there had an epiphany. They said, "Anybody been online recently, like since we opened this place to see what customers are saying on Expedia or Trip Advisor, just like a place for mom and caring.com for nursing homes and so on and so forth." They said, "No, I don't." So, they said, "Let's go online right here from the screen. Let's see what people are saying." They were being excoriated. They were being flamed up the wazoo. You'll excuse me. At least twice a week on all of these websites. So, I know what you're thinking. You're saying like, "What could people be saying about the place? Brand new, stunning, gorgeous. How do you complain about a brand new facility, a brand new hotel?" So, the answer is the complaints had nothing to do with the amenities, the aesthetics, nothing. The complaints took on one theme. Basically, everybody was saying before you become a guest at the hotel, they whine you and dine you. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. It's all wonderful. The minute you put your credit card in the in the machine, now everybody's uppidity. They talk down to you. They talk to you like a like a prude. You know, it's like second class. That was one complaint. The other complaint was everything in the hotel is an extra fee. You know, you want to take an Evian water bottle from the from the counter in the room, five bucks. You want a cabana by the poolside, few hundred. You want an extra towel for the beach. So, the consensus was if we're putting down $1,000 a night for a hotel room, I don't want you to start nickel and dimming me. Everything is an extra charge. Go around the corner of the other hotel, maybe 5 years old, may not be as nice. The amenities may not be up to, but at least you'll feel like a king. So, what did they do? They said, "Oh my god, we've been pouring all this money into the Rob Report. That's the cup with the hole on the bottom." and we didn't realize on the internet nobody's watching the house and we're losing revenue and we don't even know we're losing it because people aren't they're just not coming. So they said to heck with the Rob report they they took the money out. They paid a fraction of that to mind their reputation online whether they did it in-house or they hired a company I don't know it wasn't and uh within a short period of time they changed the narrative and they were able to turn things around because they plugged the hole. It's the same thing with nursing homes and that's what we were doing with Sky Care Media and that's what we do until today. CU Healthcare Events, that's a baby that was born 5 years ago. It uh you know, I'm going to jump in. Okay, I'm going to make that connection. I'm taking a total guess here because obviously the next you know question is how did you get to the CU events? That's the conference, right? But it's very in line actually with what you're doing because your whole your whole essence is connecting the consumer with the with the server, right? With the proprietor, with the nursing home that's providing the service, the kid, right? And you're providing that bridge to them so they can each have visibility to see what they're doing, right? So you're really that that connection, right? You're making this party look good so that the other party uh looks at it and says, "Oh, this is what we need. this looks appealing and this is attractive to me and I want to go there. So, you're really connecting the two. I think the CU events is very similar to that. You're really connecting the operators with the suppliers with with the vendors. You're putting them into the same room and you're providing an environment that everybody feels good and everything is nice. People are having a good time. You're creating an ambiance. You're creating an aesthetic that everybody is getting what they need out of it and you're putting it all under one roof. That's kind of what Skyare does. That's what you've been doing. And I think this is the new wave as well in our industry is that it's very digital. Everything is very like you said, you're not really going down to the places. You know, you have parents that have kids all over the country and they don't want to all come together. Let's go searching place. You go online and you're searching. That's what everybody does. First thing you do, you whip out your phone. You go to Google. First thing you do is, you know, you go online, start testing different websites, checking things out. It's like, if you don't have this at your disposal today, you're not just one or two steps behind, you're decades behind. you're losing to other people that are so way advanced than you are that you're out of the game. You're in the minor leagues. They're all playing in the in the it's a different type of league that you're playing in, right? So, I want to say that connection to see you events formulated in your mind from this is what I do sort of in a digital world. Let me also do this in person for in the industry that I'm in. Making that connection. Does that does that make sense? 100%. You said something brilliant a minute ago. You said that in this industry it's out of sight, out of mind, right? Everything is digital and there's an inherent problem there. It's out of sight, out of mind. You have to increase value, but everybody is going online. So, this this basic conundrum, you want to make sure that you're working online, but how do you keep that that personal touch? How do you keep in touch with your consumer? That's how CU events came to be. I had a real problem. What was my problem? Skyare Media is all about it's predicated everything is done online. So for all intents and purposes, we meet the client, we sell them, you know, word of mouth, whatever it shouldn't be. But then when we pick up the baton and we actually run with the football, everything is done in my office over the computer and I seldom get to see my clients. So I started saying to myself this is this is not a good recipe because in today's you know marketing you know today's industry irrespective of what you're doing selling product services there's no more you know loyalty in business everything is about unfortunately I I don't buy this I don't believe in it but it's all about you know what's the best value and if I can get somebody to do the same thing for a little bit less money you're always at you know at a disadvantage. if you're out of sight, out of mind because your competition is just waiting in the wings to pull the rug out. And if they can sell the same service for $2 less, you're stuck. So, I'm saying to myself, I need to see my clients because on that lonely cold winter day, you know, if I'm not there to grease the skids or I don't at least say hello, it's so nice to see you and that personal touch and somebody else comes in and works their magic, I stand to lose a customer. Y So, I said, you know what, this CEU concept, I get a chance to create an event once a year. Some people do it more often. And there are companies that only do events because this is not my primary business. I said once a year is adequate. We could talk about that why I believe that's a great recipe. But inherently I said if I do an event once a year and I bring together not only vendors but also my clients many of my clients or many people who I hope will one day become my clients and they get a chance to see me. I get a chance to say thank you. I get a chance to give them a great time. So even if I don't make a dime on CU events, even if I break even, some would argue even if I lose money, it's it still has the value for me because it's like you said, it's handinand glove with my core business. Why wouldn't I do it? It's such an easy it's such an easy extension to my to my core business model. So that was one motivation. There were you obviously I thought it was a it would be a lucrative model. What I tried is are you making money from CEU? Yeah, I think I think it's unique because you know what? There are these massive uh you mentioned Zimit earlier. There are these massive He's been around by the way. Yeah, Mark. I think one of the longest. He's he's been doing this conference how many years? Uh 20 years, 18 years, two decades. Yeah. A long long time. And he's been very consistent and he's been very successful for a long time. And he also like you has his core business. This is not what he does. I think also one show a year and that's it. And it's very much synergistic to what his business is and he made the show about about reimbursements, right? That's the business that he has. Correct. So, uh you guys are actually very similar in that sense. Very similar but but different. You obviously cater to something different but you have that same model where you have your business and then you have this ancillary thing that you do as well that feeds into your business. Right. what what I want to do what what inspired me about people like Mark and shows like Zimit like HCA andJ in in New Jersey the healthcare association of New Jersey and other na nish other national events those national events are so popular they're empowering they teach they give you an opportunity to see people you don't see ordinarily throughout the course of the year and it's an amazing networking event the problem is a lot of these events are over a few day period you got to travel. Some of them are expensive and it's not for everybody. You know, some of the administrative level people types can't get there whether because it's prohibitive in terms of the expense or frankly it's just logistically impossible because they have a building they need to manage. Now, the humrum events that occur sporadically throughout the year in terms of CU requirements, CU basically stands for continuing education university, I think. And you know administrators require a certain amount of credits every year to maintain their lensure. They have to be up on regulations, regulatory stuff. You know, for example, it used to be uh you had rug scoring for short-termers. Today you have PDPM. It's a totally different animal. So without that continuing education, you fall behind. So it's like doctors and lawyers. So we got credentialed with a governing body, National Administrators Board, NAB, to offer credits. And we wanted to be that daily, you know, that not daily, that day event that occurs locally but on a but to the next level. So we wanted to take the national concept and make a day event once a year that would mimic the vibe, the energy, the excitement of those national events. So it would no longer just be about administrators like straggling into a a CU saying, you know, there's nobody who wants to be here, but we have no choice. We got to get the credits and it's boring as all hell and there's no entertainment. There's no vibe. There's nothing like that, which unfortunately is the case for some uh um of these events that occur throughout the year. I said, "Let me take it to a next level. I'm going to do an event that's going to offer credits, but it's not just going to appeal to the administrators. It's going to appeal to owners, operators, sea level executives. Why? They don't need the credits. They own the buildings, but they want to be there because it's it's got a great energy. It's a great day out. It's got great food, catering, all kinds of entertainment. Now, the vendors want to be there, too. Because with the humrum events, vendors don't want to be caught dead at these events because there's no revenue. There's no there's no prospects. Some of them say, now I personally think every administrator is a great prospect. I was an administrator myself. I love administrators. You mentioned earlier you mentioned every administrator is a future owner. True. But unfortunately the administrator a lot of the administrators don't have executive decision making power with vendors specifically because that's driven mostly by the corporate office. You know they're the ones from the top making those decisions. So their hands are a little bit tied, right? But there are some administrators, a lot of administrators that they let they give the autonomy to the facility that you're the you're an executive administrator, you can do whatever you please and let each facility do what they want. So, you know, we tell our reps that are selling. Uh we tell them all the time like don't underestimate meeting with an administrator, especially even if it's a big group, a good gateway to get into this group is by convincing one of the administrators about your products and services and it's valuable and let them be your advocate to the people up top. So, if they bring you in because you made an impression on them, it it's very useful and it's it's worked for us. And and I I think the administrators don't get enough credit at the end of the day. I believe I've said this before on this on this podcast. I've said this before and the thing is with with the Yissi turns, right? Because I was asking Yissi, why is it that administrators come and go, you rarely see an administrator that's in a nursing home for 20 years, for 25 years? You don't see that a lot. They're always shifting from one nursing home to another or they become themselves an owner or they go like you into a different industry, not different industry, but a different part of the industry. And what he said was they're just not getting paid enough. And and I agreed with him is I think that administrators should be getting profit sharing in their buildings in each building that they're in. I think it would be great for the owner to do that because it'll motivate the administrator. Skin in the game. Skin in the game. So now he has vested interest in making sure the census stays up, making sure that they're profitable, making sure he's getting the right patients into the building, you know, good paying patients as well. Um, and and that would be, you know, instead of the nursing home owners being so like narrow-minded and just trying to squeeze every dollar, pay as least as as as little as they can and get as much of it. Like this would be like that's the most important person in the room. He's literally running your building. Everybody in the building reports up to this administrator. Every single director, every department is reporting like why wouldn't this guy be the one who's technically your partner? He's technically your partner and he's in the building. He's the one that's on the he's coming into the office every eyes and ears in this building. It just it's beyond me why they wouldn't make these administrators at least profit share. I think some of them do by the way after like a 5y year 10 year there are certain organizations that started this trend. Remember by the way for the record director of nurses also runs the building not as much they're running the they're running really one within the buildings over who is they're running a very important part of the nursing home which is the patient care. Yes. But the administrator oversees every aspect of what goes on in the nursery from the maintenance to the housekeeping to the to the food service director, right? They're involved in every the director of nursing has no hand in what kind of food is being served. And you know that's not their department. They stick to their lane. The administrator has to know I want to say that without a good DO, the administrator is up the creek. Everybody says the DO is what empowers the administrator to run. I'm saying you have two people to worry about that run your building that actually would want profit sharing, you know. Yeah. But the truth is that every most organizations have that become bigger and bigger, they usually have a CNO, like a chief nursing operator who's a very important person who a lot of times is an equitable partner in in the business. So, you know, it you you see that they're definitely very both very important pieces. Uh, but I want to shift gears for a second. By the way, your story is fascinating. I I I love how you know, you started out as an administrator uh and then you totally went in a different turn than a lot of others would and you started this business which I can say here is very successful. You have a good amount of clients and growing and you're very good at what you do. I've had engagement with you. I've got to see it firsthand. I think you're you're excellent. You're amazing. But I want to talk a little bit about you. Okay. Away from the professional side for a second. You seem like a very calm person. Have you ever yelled at anybody before? My wife. Yeah. Have you ever yelled at anybody? Like, have you ever got into a fist fight with someone? You seem like you're just you're very easygoing, very, very laid-back almost. I dare I say easy to take advantage of, you know, like you like you you like and you're very successful, right? But maybe like, you know, uh being even more aggressive, you know, you could really build this like crazy company and be and get on this magazine that you're talking about. Rob reports that you can actually buy something from there. Like what are your real aspirations? What's your end goal? What are you trying to really get to? Like what's important to you? It's an amazing question. Wow. I threw a lot in there, by the way, so you can pick apart which which ones you want to run with. Wow. It's that's an amazing question. Um, I mean, look, the I think the primary point to all of what we do is we want to support our families, but we also want to find personal fulfillment. How we reconcile the two is really where our greatest challenge lies. I mean, how sometimes by definition, those two items don't dove. I mean, people tell you they're not mutually exclusive and yada yada and so on and so forth, but it's tough because you want to make money, money, money, money, so you stay late at the office. You're not present when you're at home. You're tethered to your phone. Um, you know, you ask me, uh, if I be more stern, you I don't want to use the word angry. I get frustrated. I do I do get frustrated. A lot of it has carryover from my time on the inside, you know, in the nursing homes, seeing um, you know, families that weren't uh, reasonable, sometimes seeing staff that just didn't pull their weight um or didn't belong, you know, working in the industry. And there's a lot of frustration there. Um, and then there's, you know, your familial obligations, raising children, raising family, and all of the financial obligations that come along with it. I wouldn't say that I'm this, you know, uh, easygoing, uh, fluffy, fuzzy, cozy kind of guy. I try to be affable. I try to be good with people. I think it's a prerequisite. I think in order to be successful, you don't want to be that guy that, uh, or that woman that alienates people. somebody who's a terrorist to be next to is typically not winning Dale Carnegy's uh what was the guy's book again? How to win friends and uh influence people. Yeah. You're not you're not getting any awards in that category, but it's a it's a struggle, you know. I'm I'm definitely not this is a cutthroat business. It's a cutthroat business. It it it almost brings the worst out on you sometimes, you know, and you still you seem unscathed by everything that you know, you've you've been on the inside as an administrator and you start you have your own company now. Like is the plan to blow this up and like make this as big as like do you even want that or or do you want to sort of stay in your lane, keep things smooth and and grow a little bit? Like what's your end goal? I want to stay in my lane. I think in in 2025, I think anybody that tries to be like a jack of all trades, I do this, I do that, I you know, they end up becoming bad at everything. Instead of becoming great at everything, they're either mediocre at everything or just downright bad because, you know, nobody, none of us are an octopus. We can't be in eight different places at the same time. Industries are very very niche oriented today. And I feel like if I don't stay in my lane, I know healthcare. That's my background. That's what I do. I'm a I'm a Polish Jew. So, I still maintain my license. You know, I earned my LNHA. I'm going to refuse to give it up. I refuse to. So, you're still a licensed nursing home. I'm still a licensed nursing home administrator in the state of New Jersey. In fact, you were mentioning early. I'll digress for a second if you'll allow it. You said something earlier that's amazing. You I don't know if you remember, you said the ultimately the buck stops with the administrator because it's his or her license on the wall, right? You were saying that it's like scary almost because somebody on the bottom of that totem pole messes up, filters all the way up to the top and the nursing home administrator gets fried because their license on the wall. After I started Skyare Media, there were occasions where clients, a few of them I recall, says, uh, guy says to me, you know, we're in a transitional period. We're, you know, just lost an administrator looking for a new one. We know you have a license. Maybe you give us your license. Let us hang it on the wall for a couple of weeks. Let's borrow it for Let's borrow it for a couple of weeks. I said, "No way. Not a chance. My license on the wall. The embudsman comes in. Hey, that guy, good wine. Oh, let's go get him." For those people that don't know, by the way, it's like by law, you have to put in every elevator and everywhere you go in a facility, if you're feeling abused, neglected, just call this number and they'll pick up faster than 911. Literally, they'll have someone in the building within 24 hours to And in some states, by the way, you were saying billboards earlier. And I was thinking that in some states, it's much easier to sue the nursing home and to win for nothing, you know, like, you know, you know, you feel like you were mishandled, a little bit, mistreated, you sue. And you see billboards, you know, I think in Florida you it's the most common billboard you see. Injury lawyer talking about injury lawyer injury lawyers specifically in nursing homes. Yeah. It's so bad today. I'll tell you with the with the CMS require with the state regulations requirements. I'll tell you in a second, but I just want to get back just to finish that thought. I still maintain my license. So that's my lane. You were asking about segueing into new frontiers or tackling new initiatives. I I believe for me my success is do what I do, do what I know, stay with Skyare Media, stay with CU for that once a year event. And my aspirations, yeah, you know, if I can get more clients and make them happy. For me, it's not about the quantity, it's about quality. There's only few of us in this space who do what Skyare Media does. They're all friendly competitors. I'm very content to be maybe even the smaller terms of quantity of those several companies terms of clients, you know, just raw numbers and be the one that everybody says they get it done. They don't just act as a vendor. They're almost like partners. They partner with us to give us that kind of pristine reputation we're looking for online. So, that's what I want to do. I don't want to get into other stuff and I don't think I'll be good at other stuff, frankly. Did you try in the past? I never tried. Okay, good for you. Never tried. How many uh employees are with Skyare today? 13. Nice. And they're all in the office. They all come in every day. No, we have five in the office. Five in the office and the rest are remote. I quickly learned it's interesting when I said it's a great question. When I started, I said, "Oh, you got to Everybody's got to be in the office. Everybody because quality control." Sure. I believe along with delegation inevitably somebody can call me on this. Anybody watching this podcast listening could call me on this. Maybe I'm wrong. I I don't claim to have all the answers. A business that's successful today will have someone or someone's plural working remotely, of course. And not not just because it's a post-pandemic world and we all learned that, you know, we can be successful working from home or yada yada and so on and so forth. No, because frankly, and I'm going to say it. I'm going to say what people the big elephant in the room. I can hire somebody in Bangladesh depending on what they do. Obviously, I can't give him too much autonomy, latitude, responsibility, whatever. But I can hire somebody in Bangladesh to do light bookkeeping or what have you, that w will be as good as the person here locally for a fraction, literally a fraction of the price. So, in terms of overhead, in terms of, you know, being a leader, you don't have to pay tariffs. And you don't have to pay tariffs. And frankly, if you hire and fire, yes, you don't have to pay that is awesome. And if you hire and fire, you don't get blitz with a lawsuit and you don't have two weeks notice and all of that. They're there. I'm here. And so, you know, I I don't believe there's a company out there that doesn't have somebody on payroll who's working remote. So, I'm proud of it. I You say not just remote, but you're saying you're out of the country. Out of the country. Overseas. Overseas. And they're working Eastern Standard Time. They have we give him an extension you know call skyare media 101 somebody picks up the phone immediately working 9 to5 somebody who can articulate in English write emails in English nobody has any clue maybe my clients do if they if they didn't now they know because everybody watches your you guys got a great pop popular podcast maybe they're watching now they know cats out of the bag but they think they're that you know this person is working in my office they're not they're in I have a few people in the Philippines you know but you are managing it You are you're you're a leader and when it comes to that and you have obviously a terrific command of the English language. Oh, thank you. Listening. I'm enjoying listening. He does. He does. You have a lot of a lot of big words. He also compliments our questions every time which I love. By the way, permission. Yes. That's a great question. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yes. I thought of that all by myself. I wish he used much bigger words than you ever. I know. I know. I I have a question real quick about the the reviews and stuff on the internet. I was in Chicago a few months ago and I had like six hours to kill in the evening and I was with a few friends and we wanted to go to a comedy club and Chicago is pretty famous for comedy clubs and we were googling you know comedy club near me and we found one comedy club and it had 4.8 star reviews over 300 reviews and we were so excited. Wow. Show starting in 45 minutes. We were 10 minutes away. We went there. It was the worst experience we ever had as a comedy club ever. Was it an improv show? Yes. Right. So that's very they're very famous, but they didn't they didn't advertise as improv. But what ended up what ended up happening was right and that's my point. What ended up happening was is all the local comedians were the ones giving the reviews. So you didn't really get a flavor for what it's really like until you actually showed up. So I'm curious like what happens in the industry when people give review. Your job so to speak is to make sure that the reviews are good and part of that hole that you described. So there is an unauthentic way also to fill that hole in getting reviews and positive, you know, things. If somebody were to ask you, and I get this question a lot, oh, you're in the industry, I have a great aunt or someone that just broke their hip coming out of the hospital, what nursing home should they go to? Where do you guide them? How would you, the person that is responsible for the reviews online, how do you guide them to find the right facility for their loved one? That's a weird question. It's a great question. By the way, I I'm going to say it now. That is a great question. It is a great question because everybody at some point has to look into a nursing home for a loved one or an assisted living for a loved one, right? People say, "Oh, the food's great, but is is it really what is the best? What's your what's the what's some of the tips and tricks?" And by extension, the reason your question is so valuable is because what you essentially experienced is, and you were nice about it, you're saying like there's a disconnect. I got a 4.8, you know, overall rating out of five for this for this comedy club. hundreds and hundreds of reviews and then I show up and it's a dud. So who who wrote these reviews? Is it somebody's mother-in-law on payroll in the back room churning out rah rah rah? So you know inherently it casts like you know now everything is suspect. You're saying I can't trust reviews because I showed up and the thing my personal experience was so far removed from the reviews that I read. So the answer is I don't believe there's any one platform that would be the end all and be all when it comes to making a nursing home look good online. Yes, people will tell you the Google My Business page by far and away is the most important of those platforms. You know whether a place for momcaring.com wellness.com senioradvisor.com to me cumulatively in totality all of them together paint a really good picture. Now let me just ask you this. You know, you're talking about legitimate reviews. Are they authentic? It's a struggle. I ask you this in your private life, in our private lives, if if we're looking to buy Nike sneakers, I don't know. You go on Amazon, you see two sellers. Now, first off, you got to find the seller. Same thing with the sniff. If they don't exist on page one for those search terms, and they're buried on page 52, they're not selling. No, it's just those nursing homes that come up on the top page one either because of search engine optimization or pay-per-click campaigns, which is a whole other animal we could talk or not talk about. Whoever even gets to page four or five, like what's the point of that? It's nobody. Yeah. Literally nobody. So, what ends up happening is you find two sellers on Amazon. One seller is uh on Amazon from three months ago. You know, they started or whatever January of 2025. During that time, they've racked up 300 reviews, you know, five stars, all of them, and they all sound the same. They all read the same. Best things since Apple Pie, you know, it's like verbatim. It's almost like somebody just cut, copy, and paste. Then you find the other guy. The other guy's been on Amazon since 2017. Maybe they don't have 300 reviews. They have 250 reviews. They don't have a fivestar rating. Every once in a while they get flamed, you know, and then somebody immediately gets on, takes ownership. We're so sorry that you had bad experience. Call us at this and this number. We want to make things right for you. Ask yourself, who do you think you're going to give your business to? Is it the guy that's in business three months with 300 reviews, all of them positive, and they all sound the same, or is it the one that's in business, has longevity, 2017, fewer reviews, but they're all unique. They're all written differently. They all actually mimic what seems to be a very personal experience. And when they mess up, we're all human. Everyone's entitled to mess up every once in a while. They take ownership, right? Subliminally, most of us would give the business to the one that looks real. And the one that looks real is the one that does get flamed every once in a while. The one that doesn't have a five-star over overall rating. The one where the verbiage is unique and specific. Same thing with nursing homes. You get a families get a feel for it. They go on and same thing with comedy clubs. They go online, you look at the reviews. First off, some of the reviews have so much specificity where the person's actually saying, I, you know, I do business with them. You know, I'm a vendor. Of course, a vendor is going to give a fivestar review. He's ingratiating himself. He wants to stay in the good graces of the nursing home. Now, I I distinguish between employees and vendors. Employees today, it's very important in a post-pandemic world. Staffing is a major issue in nursing homes. Major. You know, you can't fill a b a building. You can have all of the admissions in the world. You can have a hospital that loves you so much they're going to send you all their patients. If you don't have the required ratio of aids to patients, you cannot fill your beds. It's craziness. It's like the owners are saying, "Give me staff. I have the patients." It's like I'm leaving money on the table. So, when you get positive reviews from employees who say, "I've been in this building 10 years. I love the owners. I love my, you know, uh uh administrator. I love my uh social service director. it resonates, goes a long way. Um, but you get a feel for the reviews and you know what's authentic and you know what's fake, you know, not just for the positive, even the negative reviews. That disgruntled, terminated employee who you just fired, who gets online and, you know, jumps on you and then, you know, gets the whole family to like five yard penalty in football for piling on. They all pile on. So, I think over time we get a feel for that, what's real, what isn't real. Um, you know, but it is a struggle and reviews do matter. You got to do the work. You got to scroll through it and you got to read them and then you just use your judgment as to how, you know, yeah, how real it is, you know, what kind of truth is being told. And if it's something you really care about, you'll read the reviews and you'll take the time to do it. And you're right, if somebody had even less than 200, they had 50 reviews, but each of those reviews, you know, looks like somebody took the time to outline exactly what their experience was. And I and I I I I look at it and I say, "Wow, this is this is great." That's where I'm going to go. Not with the guy that's got a thousand reviews and every great service done, great job. You know, stars without text, by the way. Google gives the algorithm, the Google algorithm gives more credence to a review that is connected with text. Textual. Yeah. So, when you post a review on Google, you have an opportunity to give stars. Yeah. One through five. Exactly. And you could write your experience, right? A lot of people are lazy through the stars. Yeah. They get online of five stars, one star, and they walk away. I just did that yesterday. Yeah, I I did a Somebody sent me the link afterwards to give them a review, and I just did the stars. I did five stars. I said, "Submit. I got to write stuff down right now." And that's worthless because it took me a second. I didn't really care. I'm like, "H, what's the I gave him five stars, right?" But if I would have actually had to articulate words and describe why I gave whatever I gave, people can read through that in between the lines and see how authentic it really is, right? So, it doesn't just resonate with the consumer. It resonates with the algorithm. The algorithm pumps up those reviews because the perception is if somebody took the pain and the time to actually, you know, provide context around their experience. Not just, you know, five stars, one star, this is legit. This is legit. So that's why we always encourage our clients. We always say, don't just solicit, don't just get five star reviews. Make sure you tell your happy customers to take a couple of seconds and qualify the fivestar review by writing what it is they're happy about. And by the same token, when somebody's unhappy and they leave a one-star review without the text, it's not nearly as damaging as the one-star review where the, you know, the there's like a paragraph of text and it's all in caps. You know, dad was wallowing in his own feces, you know, excuse me for using that example, but it's a real example. It's a real thing. Very, very damaging. Do you have a sales team? Do you have anybody that goes out in the and does marketing for you? I'm the sales team. Just you? I'm the sales team. Yeah. Yeah. And what's your techniques? What's your tactics? How are you I try to be authentic. I try not to oversell. I try to But how are you meeting people other than the CEO of other than CEO? Yeah. How are you actually branding yourself and getting your name out there? You know what? It's a lot of word of mouth. I'll be honest. It's a lot of word of mouth. A lot of clients who do right by me, the best form of charity, they say, is to uh referral. Actually, a referral is to pass it along. It's also the best compliment. Best compliment. So, those are my biggest advocates. I mean the the people whether we've built a website for them and the website is front and center and somebody says, "Oh, wow. That's beautiful." You know, we're very heavily involved in websites. It's amazing. I didn't always build websites, but now it's probably like one of the core components to my business. Every nursing home, you were mentioning before like in internet years, if you're a little bit archaic, you're like prehistoric. Yes. And it's the same thing with a website. If you if you're on the sidelines, you're Yeah. You're like, so we do a lot of websites and it's like word of mouth. Somebody if I see a website that looks antiquated, it looks old. Next, I'm next. You must everything about you. Yes. Feels that way. You extrapolate. It's such a like it's a bad It turns me off. Correct. You're saying it rubs me the wrong way. Like if your website looks like in old text, you know, the certain and the care must be reflected. Exactly. Like is every like are your machines that you have from 1960s? Exactly. Like everything just looks like dinosaurs. Like I'm not interested in that, you Speaking of dinosaurs, by the way, and we have to close up soon, so I just want to mention this. The virtual check-in system, I think, to me is the best advancement to reviews and understanding what's going on in your building, whether it's a hotel, whether it's your office, whether it's a nursing home, as opposed to having a book write down, a sign-in book, having a virtual check-in so that they can text you afterwards, how was your experience? Then taking that positive experience and then putting that on the internet. 100%. It's more even more than that. The reason you're so right about that is because the these check-in systems provide much greater value than just the empowerment and the text message. I'll tell you how. It's unbelievable. You know, nursing homes get a bad rap from the 5% of consumers who are upset. 95% of the time we really our industry there's so much to be said for the people we love these colleagues of our we know all of our good. There's a lot of good. I don't know if I'd be uh vote 955. All right. It's a little generous, but I I hear what you're saying. A majority is 51. A majority are But then it's live and let live. You know, the family goes home. They say, "Oh, it's been great." You know, right? You know, and you never hear from them again until like all script sends the facility a new referral. Oh, the patient's back at the hospital. You get a curus ban. Oh my god. Do they have a hundred? How many Medicare days do they have left? It's out of sight, out of mind. Nobody wants to be in the in the facility. Let's face it, right? the 5% of people who are ticked off, they have an agenda. They're going to go online. They're going to flame the facility. So, they're the ones that are writing these Google reviews. Now, what this kiosk that you're talking about, Michael, what it does is it basically provides a closed ecosystem whereby it solicits somebody for a review, positive or negative, but in such a way that if the person says, "I am ticked off. I am really unhappy. Instead of pushing them anywhere near the important online pages like Google, like a place for mom, it sends them in this vacuum via text message feedback directly to the administrator, to the social service director. It says, "Oh, your feedback is really important." They may think it's wafting off into the hereafter in cyerspace somewhere and it's doing this irreparable harm to the facility. It's not. It's going to only the people who are on a need to- know basis and they ameliorate. they deal with it. Hopefully, they take care of it, which is great. And the five and the 95% of people who are happy is going to the right places. It pushes them to the Google business page. So, it parses and the most interesting part is the book of signing in. It doesn't do that. It was only created if, god forbid, there's a fire in the building, you know who's in the building. That's the only reason when people don't sign out. Is that the reason why they have that check-in? Yeah, that's the original. It's not just in nursing homes. It's really in any business, they require you to check in. Want to know who's in the building? That they want to know who's in the building. That's why it always boggles my mind when people don't sign out. Like, what's the whole point? They do. just ride Mickey Mouse. You know how many times I've seen signed by Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse? I just thought they're being nosy or they just they want to keep a record of who came in that day and like to see the foot traffic that they have. I'm just thinking it's using technology and making advancements, which is what I really enjoy. And by the way, that's the sponsor of today's podcast, Tapestry. And uh we love Tapestry. You know, Tapestry is a great company that's taking advancements of technology and maximizing care in nursing using artificial intelligence. They're one of the They were one of the first to do it to really do it in a way that they can provide actual information to the nurses so they can apply that for the kind of care that they give. You know, they're adopting radar where they can detect where a resident is and if they've gone to the restroom or if they, god forbid, fell using Israeli technology nonetheless, by the way, which is fascinating stuff. So, I love all those kind of things using technology to advance healthcare, advance senior cares, and you're doing a lot of it in your world. And I have to say congratulations to your CU kickoff that you had 5 years ago. It's doing amazing. Thank you for being a part of it this year. People are only coming for the panel. You were amazing. My kids loved you. I heard he was put up to the spot last second. I heard he wasn't even God. It worked out well. We filled up the room and and it was really really nice. Michael's good at that. He's And really congratulations on everything you did. Before we let you go, Jud, I have to ask you because we always ask our guests before we let them leave is if you can pick a guest to be on our podcast after this experience, who do you think would add value and who would you pick? Wow. Um, I would say my mentor that I just we talked about so much at the beginning of the interview. I would be highly doubtful whether he'd come on. He's one of these uh old school rather modest. That's the ones I really want to hear from. I got to be honest with you. So much knowledge. You can call him and ask him and there won't be no harm in doing that. So, so much knowledge to share. Let's make believe he says no. If he said no and we're this is relegated to the industry, right? Doesn't have to be doesn't have to be the industry. Someone that inspires you. Someone that uh you're you know you can we'll lend our growth of our journey to basically who's the biggest celebrity you know is what we're asking. We're doing name name dropping now. Right. Right. That's another way. That's another way to ask it. We could always edit out. Well, I would say some some of the people that really are at the forefront of technological advancements in the industry. I I don't want to be on coup and make it sound like this is so contrived, but a guy like Morty from Tapestry. Yeah. I don't know if you've had him or you haven't. We haven't yet, but we actually Morty would be an amazing person to interview. Not just from his business, but his personal life. Personal life, his story. And uh you know what? That's a great that's a great He'd be a great interview. He's also very well spoken as well. Yeah. and he's uh the sponsor of this uh of this episode. So, uh that's a great idea and I'm gonna I'm gonna hold him to that. I'll send you an invoice. No, and I really appreciate. Do you have any questions for us before we wrap up? I do actually. I'm I'm intrigued as it can be a quick answer or whatever the I'm intrigued by this. I I You guys had such a mammoth. You have not had not past tense, a mammoth business that you're so busy with. How did you like I'm so curious. I know podcasts are all the rage and all of that now, but I mean you have so much on your plate. How and why did you decide to get this thing off the ground and how did it become as popular as it has become so quickly? Do you I'm going to answer the second question first. I believe that Ushi and I thank God compliment each other tremendously and uh the one thing that we have both in our foundation of our values is being authentic and being real. So people are feeling that and it's uh it's easy to connect with us and we're on a very interesting journey. We're meeting a lot of people and we're inviting people into our journey as we grow. So that's really the the beauty of it and the second part of your question. But the first part is it's branding, it's business, it's marketing, it's top of mind and it's something that we talk about from our prime source brand, you know, uh perspective talk about all the time. How can you stay top of mind? So a decade ago it was LinkedIn and that's it. Right. And then around 5 years ago, the podcast world started to blow up. And uh we realized it around a year and a half ago is when we started planning for it. And we're over 40 episodes in. And thank God we're doing we're doing some great stuff. We're enjoying we're enjoying the growth part of it. And you're like a Dwight Gooden, Doc Gooden. He's part of our journey. One of the heroes of my youth. What Michael didn't tell you is and I'm going to say it is that we love to talk. And this basically forces people for like an hour and a half that they have to listen to us. They don't have to. We put them in a chair and captive audience. Can I tell you that Oshi and I are kind of different in many ways. So yeah, we also love to listen and uh we're learning from it and it's great. So it's really a top of- mind approach. It's, you know, you enjoy the marketing world. You understand top of mind approach. You know, we go to events, we go to trade shows. Hey, I just saw your podcast. You know, Shmeily, who we just had, which is a, you know, world, you know, renowned musician, singer, right? Right. He tells us that when he finishes singing these days and he gets off the stage, people come up to him and say, "I just saw you on your podcast." Like, I I just performed now for my life. You know, and that's a top of- mind uh you know, marketing. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, you you guys are everywhere. Pow. Wow. See, I mean, you look appreciate that. Speaking of, you know, we are backed by the Prime Source production team. So, we thank the Prime Source team for uh doing everything they do to get us here. You know, we have our new wall behind us for those who are watching us. So, uh, thank you the Prime Source production team for making that happen. And, uh, yeah, please don't forget to like, subscribe, comment, get involved. Like you mentioned, commenting and sharing your authentic information, helping the algorithm, helping the algorithm, helping us understand, help the algorithm, guys. We also like to help understand what works for others. And we're trying to listen to as many people as we can, taking suggestions of, you know, guests. So, great to have you, Judah. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. All right, that's a wrap.