like the reason everybody goes to the gym is because you see the weights go up and you see your body improve, like you see the motivation, you see the feedback loop. That's why we're so obsessed with being able to measure the data is because it's motivated. Welcome to season seven of Bridge the Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. Powered by sponsors, AccuShilt, Align, NICMAP Vision, ProCare HR, Sage, Hamilton Capital, Service Master, the Bridge Group Construction and Salinity, and produced by Salinity Marketing. Welcome to Bridge the Gap Podcast, the senior living podcast with Josh and Lucas. We've got a battle of CEOs on the show today, no just kidding, but we do have some great friends and some movers and shakers and it's going to be a great conversation about how two great entities have come together to help change the outcomes for senior housing. And we got two passionate leaders. We want to welcome Brett Landrum of ProCare and Paul Jarvis of Clerant. Welcome back to the show, guys. Thanks. Appreciate you having us having us on. Excited to dig in. Brett, we're going to start with you. Talk to us about how ProCare and Clerant and this kind of new merger of great leadership and great companies have come together. We actually had a client of ours that made the introduction to Paul and I, and I'll start, maybe I'll start with actually kind of long-term vision for ProCare that we've been running towards for the last number of years and I think that should provide some clarity as to kind of the why. ProCare are, you know, the mission that we really describe ourselves as a mission-based growth company. And so the vision that we've been running towards over the last nine years has been, you know, proving out the thesis that incremental improvements in people and people related functions can translate to, you know, the main business outcomes of, you know, senior housing operators. So resident satisfaction, quality of care, and ultimate financial performance. And we've positioned ourselves really to have a strategy that's three layers. The first is, you know, comprehensive HR services, really optimized for senior housing, you know, delivered consistently and predictably, scalability, et cetera. The second layer is building and buying highly value additive services that really don't exist in the marketplace today that can, you know, really be the tip of the spear to drive those those better business outcomes for operators. And then the third layer is, is data. And, you know, I would say I had in my head one thing. And, you know, as as Clarence and Paula Henry have came in, and they've, you know, challenged that thesis and given that they know a lot more about senior living data, technology and business intelligence, they have, you know, they have one that argument. But we have, you know, we're starting to develop a vision for, you know, how can we leverage data to, you know, inform our actions, better serve our clients, drive better outcomes, and, you know, also inform clients on, you know, what our actions they can take to pull, you know, drive, keep, you know, pull different levers and drive key outcomes in their organization. You know, Brett, our audiences come to know, grow care, those that didn't already know. I mean, you guys have been grinding for nine plus years, as you mentioned. And we've also known Paul and his team for years in the industry. So, Paul, I mean, tell us similar, kind of from your perspective, the why of Clarence, what you've learned through the years being in industry and serving clients and providers, and why this made sense for you guys as well. Yeah, it was funny, you know, it all started with, I missed a call from Brett and he left the voicemail, and I actually kept the voicemail because it's a nice little souvenir now. But we've been at this for kind of five years, and what we did was business intelligence for senior living owners and operators. So, we were pulling data out of financial and operational systems. We were looking at rent role, CRM, payroll, and chart of accounts, so really everything with the dollar sign. And what we were very good at was kind of what Brett alluded to, though, like reporting the news side of the world. You know, I could show you every number from every system for all time. Where we needed to go to the next level was, you know, how do we help our customers change the news, right? You hear a lot about actionable data. We were really good about the data part. We didn't really have the ability to do the actionable part. And that's because, you know, we were building a dashboard. We were putting numbers in front of people. So, the more I talked to Brett, the organization that he's built at ProCare has this really unique model where they have a lot of trust and a lot of really close touch points with their clients. And so, you know, when you talk again, the actionable data piece, like the action may not live with the CFO, right? The action may live with a scheduler, a community, with an executive director. And so, it seemed like a really cool marriage of our expertise on the data and technology side and their expertise in terms of the people that they've hired who know the industry, who work really closely on a day-to-day basis with their partners. So, it made a lot of sense the more we got into it. I'm curious, you know, give us a little behind the scenes of action steps for the partnership. I mean, because you guys, great thought leaders in the space, great strong companies, lots of clients, and so many opportunities, I imagine, on the whiteboard. No pun intended. You've got that whiteboard behind you. I'm sure there's going to be tons of great things rolling out. But for you guys, what is like top of mind right now, like one, two, or three? Like, what is going to happen first for client and industry through this kind of mega partnership coming together? I joined ProCare along with my business partner, Henry. He's really the technical genius behind a lot of what we did. And so, the first thing that we're looking at is, you know, ProCare has a very large client base where they do a lot of different things for folks, right? They're doing payroll, benefits, workers comp. They're helping in some cases with scheduling, with talent acquisition. There's a lot of stuff to look at. If you kind of break it into a couple different categories, like one of the first places to look at is, how can we give our clients a very clear picture of the value that we're providing so that they can see, you know, we set out together as a partnership, you know, to move this number from here to here and move this number from here to here, and we made progress on that in the last few months. And I think that that is always a challenge when it comes to data is, you know, this is a complicated business, particularly when you look at the labor side, you have people coming in and out, you may be acquiring new properties, different organizations, you know, dining services, culinary department, like there's just a lot to chew through. So that's the first step is like, can we prove the value that we're providing is is what we believe it to be and what we hear from clients? Can we get a number for them to be excited about? The next piece, and this is where I think the ProCare model is really unique, is we have developed and we're building more of these kind of unique industry specific services that go on top of data. And this gets again to that actionable data piece is, so there's a product that we're already in market called Schedule A, which is for labor management. And it's a really cool idea because, for example, like we used to a client show a number on a dashboard that was percentage of overtime by community, and we would show that to CFOs and VP's of FP&A. The real decision maker on that is a scheduler at the community level, right? It's not the person who is looking at our dashboard. And so the magic of what we're doing with these services is it's showing people the right number, like a very small set of data, and then working very closely with the right person to make sure that the action actually gets taken to rebalance the schedule in a way that works for the employees and works for the budget. And so it's been an interesting process coming from Clarence, where it was like, more is more, you know, like, let's get all the data, let's do everything to let's be more narrow, let's give people like specific views of data, then match them up with the right person to procure and the right person at their organization to actually drive action, and then let's measure it. And let's just do that over and over again. So there's a labor management piece, there's a talent acquisition piece, we're looking at some other really important sides of workforce management, so talking about retention, things like that. And that's what's really cool for me is going again from like, instead of just trying to pull as much data as you possibly can, let's really drive change. And that sometimes requires looking at a much narrower review of data and saying goodbye to the dashboard, and hello to maybe more manual, traditional kind of look at a report, meet with the right person, follow up on it, but you tile that together in a way that's really powerful. A great example of this that was kind of my aha, when we started doing the brain storming around, what do we do now? Where do we take this? What's the first step was, and just this is kind of a non HR example is, you know, what's your average rent rate? And, you know, if I'm a, if I'm a CEO, and I look at my average rent rate, and I say, wow, like, I got a problem here, I'm much lower across the board than I should be, that's, you know, whether I look at that every week, or every month, that's a really big, meaty thing to action across my entire organization. And it's like, for me to go action that, and we see this in our business too, when we look at, you know, these KPIs, there's the, okay, it's not where I want it to be, what do I do now? How do I action it? And, and where do I find the resourcing, and, and, and, organization, organizational energy, to go action it? And so, like, use the rent example, okay, now I have to do analysis on every single resident, and the different markets I'm in, and, you know, it's this really big strategic shift. And frankly, we as an operator probably have a bunch of other initiatives going on. And so, then we have to put it in the queue, and by the time we get to it, and action it, and start seeing that number change, maybe we're a couple of quarters for now. And versus, it's that, like, if we get 1% better a day, what happens at the end of the year? And, and I think that's the, the philosophy that Paul and Henry are really driving within pro care is, what are the incremental actions we can do to impact that, you know, every single day, with the right stakeholders, so that when, you know, the CEO or the executive team looks at these, these, you know, these, their data set around how they measure the success of the business, you're making those, those gains every day versus having to look at it once a month and say, oh, it's not where we want to be, now it's this big strategic shift, and how do we, how do we manage it, how do we action? So, it's this concept of micro actions every single day, to get incrementally better, so that when we get to the time that we're looking at the really important business metrics, they're where we want them to be. So, Brett, would, would it be fair to say that if you looked at traditional PEO services, and even the services that pro cares traditionally offered, is this just making those services better, or is this give you the ability to actually expand those services? I would say it's both. One, you know, Paul and Henry and I talked a lot of the last few weeks, and, and, you know, they have a lot of conviction that there's a lot of low hanging fruit actually make the traditional HR model that we're delivering much better, clear for, for our clients, and our clients investors as well. But then there's also additional, I would say, you know, product development that, that we're anticipating doing with the, you know, with the program. And I mean, look, like pro care, we're a tech enabled service company. What we're really good at is delivering comprehensive HR services, developing new products that are tech enabled services around, you know, the needs of senior housing. But we have traditionally what we're really good at, like, finding great technology, you know, building the team to configure it and deploy it within our clients. What we're not really, what we have not traditionally been good at is anything that requires development or deep data analysis. Like, I have described us as we were really technology be incompetent, really, and kind of poor. And, you know, really, both with client and then some moves that, you know, they've made and we've been making in conjunction with them. Like, it's, it's really exciting because like, there's a light switch, and we just went from like technology port and technology rich overnight. And that's something that, you know, we're really, really excited about. Well, and Paul, I think you were touching on this and saying in such a eloquent way, it probably went over my head a little bit. But I mean, you know, data out there for years, our industry has really started, I would say, at least throwing around the use of that term, right? And I would say collecting a lot of data. But where I'm not sure we've done great on yet, there's definitely a lot of room for improvement is, is like, what do you do with that data? What does it mean? And how do you turn that into actionable items? And I think that's what you were speaking to. So, I mean, what do you think, like, for example, for existing PEO clients or people that are thinking like, maybe on the fence about, do I need a PEO solution? What do you think is going to be the main advantage of this partnership for clients and prospective clients, now that you guys are together? I think really you get access to a lot of expertise. And you get access to a lot of, not just expertise in the sense of, you know, here's a book, go read it like people who will help you, who will teach you to fish, who will hold your hand and make sure that you actually get there. And again, I think you kind of hit on it, Josh, like the evolution of data is, you know, first, are you capturing it? Like, have you migrated from spreadsheets to using some kind of software where it now exists in a computer somewhere? Then it's bringing it all together, then it's actually doing something with it. And each of those is a pretty significant organizational leap on its own. And I think what we can really help people with is providing kind of, I would honestly use discipline is the right word. Like, one of my mentors, so I used to work at a company called Palantir for seven years that did data analysis for the Fortune 500 and the US government. It's now like a big publicly traded company. But one of my mentors there used to say, we're never going to build a dashboard without a meeting. Like, I'm never going to put numbers up unless we're actually going to look at it and we're all going to agree about what we're going to do with it. And I think that that's a lot of what we can provide now is this kind of full service experience. Brett said, they're a tech enabled services company. I want, you know, Clarence part of Prokir to be a services enabled tech company. They didn't think of that way. Like, we build the dashboard, they help provide the meeting. And when I say the meeting, it's someone who understands the industry who probably did that job before, right? Like the lady who runs the schedule program that I alluded to earlier, she was a scheduler. So she really, really gets it. And then they're going to help you actually do it. And the most important thing is seeing the follow through, right? Like the reason everybody goes to the gym is because you see the weights go up and you see your body improve, like you see the motivation, you see the feedback loop. That's why we're so obsessed with being able to measure the data is because it's motivating and it reinforces the action that you want to take in the right direction. Or it tells you, Hey, this isn't working, right? Like I've invested all this time in this one thing is not getting the results. I got to do something else. So that's where I see the value for potential clients is we will not just bring you kind of the data, we'll bring you the discipline, we'll bring you the practice to actually get there and we'll help you see the results. It makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I think a lot of people probably naively, maybe just ignorance and not meaning that disrespectfully or, and I'm putting myself in this category, you think of when you think of PEO services, you're thinking of it's in this little box, right? And it's probably for small mom and pop companies up to a certain level of company. But I mean, everything that you guys are describing the depth and breadth of services, I mean, this is relevant for all organizations and whether you're a huge company that struggles with quick being quick to deliver on strategy and action and execute all the way down to, Hey, maybe I am a smaller regional operator and I just don't have the bandwidth to do all these things. And I need more maybe than what a traditional PEO service would option would offer because I'm going to have my hand held a little bit more and have the accountability and boots on the ground power to help me roll out, you know, understand what my data means, but I don't have all the resources to help make effective change in my organization. It sounds like this is going to be a perfect blend of both of your worlds to better equip all operators out there, no matter whether they're a huge company or a small company. I mean, I may be kind of misinterpreting that, but that sounds like what it means to me, Brett, would you agree? 100%. I think an important point that really highlights what got Eric and I, my business partner and Paul and Henry really excited about this marriage is for the last nine years, like I've had this vision and I had that I don't want to be a PEO. Like, if you look at what is the goal of most PEOs, they're going to, you know, it's to deliver, yeah, you know, really deliver, you know, shareholder value, stamp out more PEO clients, have great retention, good client satisfaction. The vision for pro care is we want to turn the industry on its head and improve, you know, improve the industry holistically by the work that we're doing. And, you know, that really spans far outside of PEO. We use a PEO contract, but the breadth and depth and scope of our services that we have today and will continue to build is going to be much, much broader and deeper than a traditional PEO. We happen to use the PEO contract because we get, you know, we get efficiencies that and, you know, economic buying power that ultimately, you know, go back to our clients in the form of more competitive pricing, but so we do use the PEO contract, but we don't, we don't consider ourselves a PEO. We consider ourselves a comprehensive, you know, HR partner and business advisor for senior care operators. And, you know, like the vision is we want to give our operators an unfair advantage in the marketplace where because of all the work and all the services that we're providing, we can have demonstrable impact on, you know, quality of care, risk and satisfaction and financial results that we can measure and prove. And, you know, the, the, like when I think about what does success for pro care look like in 15 or 20 years, it's not we're a billion dollar company, we do X amount of revenue, we serve this many employees, it's do we have copycats? Are people like having to avoid it? Are other operators having to evolve and change because of the work that we're doing in partnership with, with our clients? And that's the, like that's the rallying cry. And that's the thing that, you know, that that's the mission that really is getting our team excited about, you know, the future of this, this marriage. Well, Lucas, what an awesome mission. And we talk about, you know, this industry so much. And it is all about if any industry is about people, it's this industry, not only the residents and their families and all these partners that we, that join us in our community to, to provide that care, but really starts with the team and those teams out there. And so exciting to have two great guys that have two great companies that have seen the strength of being better together, that to use Brett's term to help, term to help turn the industry upside down on its head. And so we need that change so thankful for you guys. And Lucas, you know, I know this is a special, special time and we're glad that we're able to talk about this on Bridge the Gap Network. That's right. I think it's the definition of bridging the gap, Brett. Everything that you just said reminds me back to you and I's first conversation. It's probably almost a year ago now. Hearing you say these things and wanting to set these goals and now seeing it actually happen is really fun to watch. And you know, I've been at this 15 years in the industry and Josh has been in the industry longer and I've seen the evolution of different things along the way. And kind of one of the, I guess, maybe a knock on the industry or a criticism is that the industry has been slow to adopt technology. And over the years, I've kind of seen that, you know, where it's like buildings don't have a Wi-Fi yet, but I feel like that there has been a massive acceleration in the senior housing space over the last maybe two, three years or so where it is really entering the cutting edge comparatively to other verticals. And I think that YouTube gentlemen are on that cutting edge, maybe even bleeding edge of moving these technologies and these mergers forward. And it sounds like this, this kind of suite of services is a great next step as a part of the larger mission for both of your companies. And it's exciting to hear, it was exciting to listen to myself and appreciate all of your hard work. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. We're excited about it. Well, Paul, Brett, thanks for being on the show today. And to all our listeners, if you want to connect with Paul and Brett and follow this journey or have some questions, go down to your show notes and hit those links and you can find out more. Go to BTGVoice.com, listen to this episode and so much more. Connect with us on social media, hit us up on LinkedIn, be a part of the conversation. And thanks for listening to another great episode of Bridge to Gap. Thanks for listening to Bridge the Gap podcast with Josh and Lucas. Connect with the BTG network team and use your voice to influence the industry by connecting with us at BTGVoice.com.
