We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Charlie Redmond a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Charlie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
I grew up on a small cattle ranch in NW Colorado. By 5 or 6 years old I had ranch chores I had to do everyday before breakfast, before school, before opening presents on Christmas morning, before anything else. There were no exceptions, no days off. This instilled into me a very serious work ethic. On good days, when I feel like doing the work, I do the work. On bad days, when I don’t feel like doing the work, I do the work. On days when I don’t think I’m physically capable of doing the work, I do the work. Owning your own business is a lot of work and can be a grind. You have got to keep grinding.
Charlie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My wife and I were in a totally different industry for 30 years, but my mom had Alzheimer’s and spent the last couple of years of her life in a memory care facility. Then my father-in-law had a stroke and went into an assisted living facility. To make a long story short, we were always disappointed in how they were taken care of. We started our business as an effort to help other families avoid going through what we went through. We provide non-medical in-home care. Our primary customers are the elderly, but we’ll provide service to anyone who needs it. We’ve had a number of younger clients who needed our help due to knee or hip replacements, cancer or other medical conditions.
We are very hands-on business owners. We meet with all of our clients personally so we understands their wants and needs. We interview all of our caregivers personally./ We don’t hire anyone who we would not feel comfortable sending them to our own parents, if they were still with us.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Our best source of new clients, is word of mouth from satisfied customers. One unhappy customer will tell 10 time more people than a satisfied customer. You must take care of your current clients. Go above and beyond for your clients and they will bring you more clients.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
First and foremost, recruit the right people. We only hire people who have a exuberant passion for what they do. In our business, people who do the job just for a paycheck, do it poorly and do not last. The more time you spend properly recruiting and vetting the less time you will have to spend motivating and coaching. That is not to say motivating and coaching are not important, but it is very helpful if more people love their jobs. We try to give them some ownership of their clients, making sure they are able to build a relationship with them and get their buy-in for any changes we make.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.absihc.com/southdenver/