Skot Waldron:
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When you see my next guest, do not be surprised by his beard. His beard is something that threw me off. I was like, "Is this the right guy?" But anyway, it was Tim. Tim Miller is a entrepreneur. He is now building a company. He bought a company. Why not do both, right? So Tim did both, and he's about a year-and-a-half, two years into this thing. It is growing like gangbusters.
You're going to hear about his story, where he came from and why he is where he is right now. He's in a small rural town in Kansas, and he serves a big community, or I guess you would say small community, but a big area of his community. He uses this term called Tim-ol-ogy. He's going to tell you about that term and what that means and how he uses that to serve other people. We also talked a little bit about brand and about your external brand strategy and how that reflects your internal brand strategy and who you are and what you're about.
Tim is a really, really interesting guy that has some really, really good insights into what it takes to develop people, especially in the medical field. So let's listen to what Tim has to say. Enjoy the interview.
Welcome to Unlocked. This is going to be a fun interview. Tim has a lot of experience with a lot of different things. It's really fascinating how you ended up where you are and what you've been doing. It, I can imagine, isn't easy. It's somewhat new to you still, the industry you're in now. So give us a little bit of background on where you were, how you got to where you are and what that's doing for you now.
Tim Miller:
It's good to be with you, Skot. As you said, I have had a lot of different kinds of jobs in a number of different industries. I spent a number of years in healthcare and even pharmaceuticals, clinical research and some of those kinds of areas. And then a lot of sales and marketing experience in different capacities. Software consulting. I've been in project management for technology for some healthcare businesses. And also even a little manufacturing. My first couple of jobs out of school and college were with licensed manufacturers, and that was a really fun place to work.
But about two-and-a-half years ago, I came to know what turned out to be our owners, who felt like there was an opportunity to invest in home health. We're in a rural part of northwest Kansas, mostly agricultural economy, really small towns. They decided that we should invest and try and take care of some folks that are in the senior older Medicare-type marketplace and provide home care and home health services. We talked about building or buy and decided that we would eventually do both. So we acquired a small home care business that just helped people with housekeeping and trips to the doctor and shopping and things like that. Personal care. And then we started as a startup what turned out to be a Medicare accredited skilled nursing and therapy business for home health. So less than three years for both of those businesses and a new space for all of us, frankly.
SKOT WALDRON:
So you were bored before and you're like, "I'm going to just go all out. I'm going to be the CEO. I'm going to start this company. I'm going to buy a company and I'm going to grow a company." It's just like, why not? Let's just do this thing. Let's just go all out.
TIM MILLER:
It's been a bit of a whirlwind, but it has been fun and definitely challenging. We're learning and we're stumbling in skinning our knees all the time. But that's how you get better.
SKOT WALDRON:
That is. I look at my kid's legs and I'm like, "Man, what did you do to your legs?" I'm like, "Oh, he's being a kid." It's all part of that growth journey. So, that's really funny. You have around 100 employees now. You go out and serve a pretty large area compared to what your competitors would do.
TIM MILLER:
Right.
SKOT WALDRON:
Unpack that for me. Why?
TIM MILLER:
So, our owners have a couple of pharmacies and so they have firsthand experiences of people in a senior older market coming them for medical equipment, for filling prescriptions and the stories of, "I need home care and I can't find it," were pretty prolific. It was a common theme, and so that was one of the motivations. "Hey, this is a business opportunity. These are neighbors in need. Maybe we can figure out a way to serve them."
When we purchased a small home care business, they had some contracts with the state that covered that geography. We decided that's what we would mark out. We also looked pretty significantly at the competitor base and it was reasonably thin, which is a good problem, business reality to add experience is not having a significant number of competitors. We just decided that's what we would try and tackle. We're heavier in some counties than in others, and we're growing in some counties, but there's definitely a need out here.
SKOT WALDRON:
You talk about, you have this term that was awesome. I looked at it on your LinkedIn profile. Tim-ol-ogy. It's an actual noun. I don't know if it really is, but you say it is. What is Tim-ol-ogy? Tell me about that.
TIM MILLER:
Regardless of the job that I've had, I've taken the mindset that I want to figure out a way to be helpful to others. To do just quality compassionate work, whatever I'm doing. I've done a lot of different kinds of things. When you do good work and you can have a healthy business, it gives you opportunity to help those in need. That's one of our goals as we grow and enjoy some margin that we want to be able to give back and do some of those things.
SKOT WALDRON:
Part of unlocking the potential of your business is unlocking the people inside your business. How do you do that with 100 people, new business, something that you're learning as well, just the trade itself, and the actual, I guess, vertical that you're in? On your LinkedIn profile and other things you talk a lot about leadership. You talk a lot about dignity and integrity. What is that all about? Where did that come from? Why is it so important to you now?
TIM MILLER:
I've really been fortunate and blessed to work for some different leaders at some small companies, startups, and then also for some huge global companies. They've been invested in me, and some of those companies had the resources to put you through courses on leadership and personality profile. We talk a little bit here about DISC or StrengthsFinders or lately the Enneagram. Those are things that I found really helpful to me personally in my growth, just as a person and as a leader. But also I find those things helpful in just growing individuals, getting the most out of people. More than maybe what they would expect. When we're interviewing people to hire, especially for a leadership position, one of the things we say as it relates to, why work for Guardian, it's because your voice matters. We're going to ask you your input. You're going to have a seat at the table and be a part of crafting what we're going to do.
We give some guidelines, framework tied to our values. Do good referenceable work, be compassionate and be nimble because we're going to be learning, and this is an environment that's changing all the time. Federally, state regulations and things like that, and give them kind of a framework to work from, and then just tweak and manage and grow their culture with their teams. Because as you can imagine with 18 counties, we're covering a lot of windshield time, and there's a lot of people involved that you can't be in front of every day. I have to turn loose and invest in my key people and let them invest in their teams because, I'll go crazy trying to keep personal tabs on every single employee. I start to lose track.
SKOT WALDRON:
So I'm going to push you a little bit here, Tim. First of all, did I just hear you recite your own values? Do you know your own values?
TIM MILLER:
Yeah. We talk about them.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's awesome.
TIM MILLER:
Yes, we try and be deliberate.
SKOT WALDRON:
I say it a little sarcastically because there's a lot of companies out there that just plaster their values on a poster in the break room and nobody knows what they are nor do they care or try to implement them. So I think that's fantastic, number one. But number two, you say, "You're going to have a seat at the table. You're going to have a voice. Come work here. This one of the reasons you're going to do it." Sure, a lot of people can say that, but how does Tim, how does Guardian implement that? How do you actually do that?
TIM MILLER:
Number one, it's frequent communication. I mean, it's daily spending time with those leaders. One business has three managers. The other business has two, and we're regularly talking about what are we doing well, what do we need to change, is there something at risk that's a threat that we need to address. How do we do it? And just openly sort of humbly learning together and realizing that we don't know it all. I certainly don't know it all. I'm learning every day. If I'm transparent with people that are working here and a little vulnerable, they tend to reciprocate and they see value in that and realize that they really are crafting who we're going to be in three years, in five years. They're a part of making that happen. So that so far is working, and people seem to be invested and motivated by it. They seem to continue to be encouraged to want to go out and do the next big thing as necessary. So, that's been fun. It's been rewarding.
SKOT WALDRON:
You invest in them, they invest in you. That's what it sounds like to me.
TIM MILLER:
Yeah. Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
Is that one of those principles ... You said something earlier about, I mean, you've worked for big companies, you've worked for small companies and those leadership principles ... That seems to be one of the leadership principles you've carried with you, that you learned from somebody else, have wanted to implement that in your own business. What are some other best practices, leadership practices, other things that you've wanted to implement?
TIM MILLER:
One of the things ... I was at a technology company, Netsmart, and had a great manager, Kevin. He allowed me, where possible, to stumble, have a misstep, make a decision that maybe wasn't the best decision as long as it wasn't really detrimental to the company. He allowed me to figure that out on my own. I would typically come back to him and say, "I should have done that differently. In retrospect, that probably wasn't the best choice." Multiple times he would say, "I know," and I'd say, "Why didn't you mention something to me? Why didn't you say something?" He'd say, "I knew there was learning. You figuring it out over time. If it was something significant, I just stepped in and I'd say, this is going to be detrimental. Let's just, course-correct."
I've carried that through in working and managing my own people. I think honoring someone's integrity, honoring just them as a person and recognizing that they're not perfect as opposed to immediately coaching every time, that there's some value in that. That's part of culture building to me. "I'm a part of something. I matter here. I make a difference here. I'm part of who we are," as opposed to, "I'm punching a clock and doing a series of daily tasks."
SKOT WALDRON:
Letting people fail. Looking back at kids. Not catching that kid every time they fall. Sometimes you just can't. But you do everything you can to help them not fall down the stairs. That would be bad. So taking care of them otherwise.
Let's talk about your brand strategy. I'm a brand strategist. I come from the world of external marketing and sales and communication. The last several years, I've put a huge emphasis on what I call internal brand strategy: developing internal communication, internal teams, and what that means. I believe you have to be healthy on the inside first before you can be healthy on the outside. You too come from the marketing and sales world and that external communication. But now you're leading a company and you've had to put a huge emphasis on the internal brand strategy of your company whether you talk about it like that or not. How's the external brand strategy and your positioning in the marketplace been shaped by your internal brand strategy, your internal communication and strategy?
TIM MILLER:
The first thing I think of is doing good referenceable work regardless of where you are and what you're doing because that will carry through word of mouth and recommendations from people regardless of the business. That's imperative. In the market we serve, we're working with retirees and older that are struggling with different activities of daily living, health concerns, sometimes visual and hearing challenges that we deal with a lot. Being compassionate and being patient with them, their view of us is that we truly do care, we do take the time and that we are patient and trying to make things simple and that we do good quality work. So when they're at coffee with their friends, when they're talking with their niece over the phone, they're saying, "Guardian's doing really good work for me. I would recommend them to someone else."
I would say from a external branding standpoint, we chose to focus on hiring neighbors to take care of neighbors. Small town America where we are, is a little bit different in people's expectations about relationships. If you're in a metroplex ... I used to live in the Kansas City metro market ... The likelihood that you know the person that's going to come to your house to care for you in whatever capacity is pretty low. That's just something that you accept. But in small town America, when you're used to knowing something about pretty much everybody ... You know their family, a distant relative, you work with somebody, whatever, there's some expectations and there's some value and importance to that. We find that when we don't have someone that's local, it's a little harder for them to want to let us in to the house to start at first. There's some barriers to get past. So hiring neighbors to take care of their neighbors, there's a lot of value.
The other thing I would say is out in this part of the state, the people that are in this business typically do one or the other, but not both. They either do skilled doctor-ordered nursing and therapy in a home health setting, or they're doing homemaker services. So things a CNA or a homemaker might be helping people around the house with basic, non-nursing non-therapy kind of work. We chose to do both because we felt like there was a need there that was underserved. There was some business opportunities, people to be served.
I would say the other thing, lastly we have a pretty significant Medicaid, State Medicaid population out here. So people that are struggling financially, those aren't necessarily the best, most lucrative business verticals to be in. But because that percentage of the population out here was a significant majority, we chose to serve them anyway, and we're honored to do that.
So those are probably three external branding. What do people think of Guardian? What's their view? That's our focus. We hope that, that's the external view of the brand and the company.
SKOT WALDRON:
I love that. Hiring neighbors to take care of neighbors. In a small town, you're right, it's leave your door open. We know everybody, and there's a reputation there. There's also pressure to perform, I would think. Trying to foster relationships, because it's all about relationship. It's all about who you know and who said this. One thing is that your reputation could skyrocket because of word of mouth. It gets around fast. But your reputation could also get crushed really fast based on that.
TIM MILLER:
Yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
It all has to do with how your people and the trust that you put in your people to treat your clients the way they need to be treated.
TIM MILLER:
Agreed. At first, when we were really small and just had a handful of employees, I was, and had to be like any startup, intimately engaged in client, patient, employee, pretty much everything. Because all hands on deck. As we grew somewhat rapidly and continue to do so, thankfully, it gets out of hand. It's a team sport. This what we're doing is a team sport. Sometimes I lose track of who's that patient, I don't know that name and I can't, and then my leaders will say, "Hey, that's what you have us for. You invest in us. Our job is to take great care of those people and make them feel valued and do good work." And, "You're right. You're right." But it's hard sometimes. You feel like you're not doing your part.
SKOT WALDRON:
I have felt like that so many times. After being a solopreneur for a while, kind of having a few contractors here and there, and then growing and having a team and trying to let go as a leader is really hard because you want it to be done how you want it to be done. It's your reputation. There's a lot of pressure there to perform and grow. Not only do you have the responsibility to serve your patients and your clients, but you have the responsibility to serve your employees and your team to make sure they are successful, they're thriving and they're happy. That helps everybody.
TIM MILLER:
Agreed.
SKOT WALDRON:
This last statement was really powerful. You said how you treat people really matters. That was it. Just that one statement. Unpack that for me. Why is that so significant?
TIM MILLER:
I have to reflect back over some jobs that I've had for large and small companies. The larger the company, the harder it is to have personal relationships. It's just very difficult. In some of those experiences, decisions were made that maybe didn't consider the person, but other objectives. Sometimes it's just the reality of the way things go. But I've kind of seen the flaw in not treating people well and been on the wrong side of the fence of that. Maybe the intentions weren't malice, but that's just kind of how it rolled, and then I've seen the opposite regardless of the size of the company where I was treated [inaudible 00:22:56]
SKOT WALDRON:
Oh, Tim, your audio. Oh, say that again. Where ... Go back and repeat that statement.
TIM MILLER:
I've been on both sides of the fence as far as how I was treated in different companies and the feelings that I had, the investment back into the company, my willingness to want to stay and contribute and do as best I could was certainly motivated when I was treated with dignity and respect. Really, you've got to slow down, consider some of those things, but it's not difficult. It's not an investment in technology. It's not change management ... It's just treating people the way you want to be treated and spending time. When you're in a small startup and you don't have significant budgets like a global Fortune 100 company might, those are things you can do that you can control and they make a big difference.
SKOT WALDRON:
It's all about the people. The people are what make us who we are. They're what represent our brand on the outside. I've said this statement to a lot of my clients is that it's interesting that if you look at this from big corporations all over the country, that sometimes the people that are most responsible for our brand are the people that we pay the least. Whether it's somebody popping popcorn at a movie theater, or it's somebody stocking shelves at a grocery store or a cash register person at the mall, those people are responsible for how they reflect our brand and our reputation and what we do. When we make them feel like part of the dream, make them feel like part of what they're doing, what they're giving, they will be so much more inclined to serve that customer well.
TIM MILLER:
I've got to tell you, we spend a lot of energy on that, but it keeps me up at night. We're pretty sparse as far as our geography that we're covering. It's easy to be distant, stay distant from some of those folks. It keeps me up at night. Because I know that all it takes is one person to have a negative disparaging conversation at the local hamburger joint, and they feel bad for whatever reason, and then that hurts the brand. Definitely got to be working on that all the time.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, it sounds like you've taken a lot of risks. You're going to take more, I'm sure, as you grow this thing and you are going to continue to invest in your people, understanding that they are the ones who are going to, at the end of the day, make you successful. Serving them well will help them serve your clients and your patients well. So good for you. I really appreciate you being here. Is there anything that you can offer, any way for people to get in touch with you?
TIM MILLER:
From a company standpoint, our website's pretty easy. It's a guardianks.com. K-S like Kansas. I have a LinkedIn profile under Tim Miller. We've got a number here, (785) 622-4254. You can reach me direct any time or any of our people if there's healthcare related issues somebody's interested in. Granted, we're a long ways from one another. Atlanta versus Kansas. But there are people here that I'd love to connect with, I'm sure, that are local.
Lastly, I would say although I'm a big fan of innovation and technology, sometimes if you take a risk, place some bets like we've done, you don't have to be the most innovative person. You can find an underserved market that has opportunity. If you invest in culture and good people, you can have a very successful business. So it's been fun.
SKOT WALDRON:
Right on. That's where the gold is. Don't go to everywhere else everybody else is going because they've already mined the gold. You can find it in those underserved, underperforming markets, and there's stuff there. There's opportunity. I really appreciate you being on Tim. Good luck to you in growing this thing and keep crushing it. Well done.
TIM MILLER:
A pleasure. Thanks, Skot. I appreciate the opportunity. Good visiting with you.
SKOT WALDRON:
How you treat people really matters. I love that. That is the basis of why Tim is growing so fast. That's the basis of why he's having success in the business he's having success in. He understands that he has a company of about 100 or so. He is one of the few males in this industry in this company. There's a lot of dynamics that go along with that. We talked about that a little bit after the interview, and what is going to make him even more successful is the fact that he listens and that he's trying. That he's intentional about understanding his staff and understanding how he can serve them and understanding how they can serve other people.
It's also another cool principle that he taught was about letting people fail and letting that happen. Sometimes it hurts a little bit, but that's okay because that's how we grow. So I'm really grateful for Tim and those insights.
If you want to find more of these interviews, you can go to skotwaldron.com. They're all listed there on my blog. I've got some free resources there for you as well. And then you can find them on YouTube. I've got all my videos there and some educational stuff for you as well. So, thank you for being here. I will see you next time on Unlocked.
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