Empowering Women in Senior Living: a Conversation with Rachel Keller

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Transcript

Erin: 0:35

Today, my friends, I have the Rachel Keller with me and I'm super excited to actually turn the microphone around and learn about the female Friday and more about everything that Rachel has to offer, which is pretty cool. So welcome Rachel. Thank you. Thank you.

Rachel: 0:56

Thank you so much, Aaron. I'm honestly honored to be here. And yeah, I'm a little nervous. Usually I'm the one doing the interviewing, so we'll see how this goes.

Erin: 1:06

Yes, I think everybody wants to know more about you, and the amazing content that you put out on LinkedIn to empower women and through your career with Servium Care Network and how you empower communities. Those are all important topics, but you do live in Kansas City or near Kansas City, right?

Rachel: 1:28

Yes, I do. And

Erin: 1:30

you're a Taylor Swift fan, if I can remember correctly.

Rachel: 1:33

Yes.

Erin: 1:35

talk about the electricity inside the city this football season. Oh my gosh.

Rachel: 1:42

Was it choppable? Yes, it was so fine to be a Kansas City and especially this year. And I think people look at me, I'm very girly and they may think, Oh, she doesn't watch football, but I do watch every game of the chiefs because I am a hardcore fan. The first time they won the super bowl, I went to the super bowl parade. I'm like, this is awesome. I should be watching this. So I did become a fan, but it's been even more fun to have Taylor there. And I definitely have all the friendship bracelets and the Taylor Swift football gear and everything, because why not? It just adds to the fun.

Erin: 2:18

I've never been a huge Swifty and I have become more of a Swifty in the last year and a half than I've ever been. And there has been some kind of magical gravitation. Because she is dating a football player. I don't know how to explain it, but I'm just excited for her to. Experience that. I'm glad they won the Superbowl. So Taylor can experience it

Rachel: 2:44

on her rookie year. Yeah, I get what you mean though. It's almost like a romance, a teen romance book that she's this pop star and he's a, But pro football player and they somehow were able to find love. It is magnetic, but I'm the same as you. I have been a Taylor Swift fan. I do like her music, but then especially this year with all the attention on her, I've been able to learn more about her story. And I love her because as we're talking about promoting women, she is incredible. Credible in her own right. But she is very passionate about bringing women along up with her and being this great role model. And that just makes me respect her so much more.

Erin: 3:30

Yeah, she gets a bad rap for a lot of things, but I don't see all the negative stuff. I really do see her empowering women and choosing good and tipping well at the football stadiums and doing. I love, and I know. we're talking about Taylor Swift here, but in empowering women, one of the things that drew me to her is how she has overcome this songwriting scandal that happened to her. And that is why she's changing the industry of the music profession and empowering other artists because of it. And for me, that more than anything has been so fun to watch. She basically said, okay, you're going to do this fine. I'm going to do this.

Rachel: 4:18

Yeah. taking her power back and saying, okay, I don't like what you did and it's okay for me to be upset about it and it's okay for me to take a stand. that message alone, which people don't know what we're talking about. She rerecorded her own music and then called it Taylor's version. So now she owns the right to her music and she's able to make more money off of it. And what a great lesson to all the women out there. Of just, Hey, take a stand when you know, something is wrong and don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in

Erin: 4:50

and chart new courses. She has done that. And it's been amazing to watch. And it's the perfect segue into what you have done for women inside of senior living with your female Friday, interviews. Still a podcast really, but it's a an interview every Friday of a woman

Rachel: 5:10

inside

Erin: 5:10

senior living. And I fell in love with it immediately. I didn't know about it right away, but then when it came to my attention, I started watching them and. I saw sides of people in high positions in the C suite and the VP roles, personal sides of them. And it really was inspiring to hear that, to see people who may have similar stories to me, but in higher level positions and give me hope, right? Like I was just like, Oh, so you can have this going on in life and still be In a position, up the food chain a little bit, so to speak. And so that was really important to me. So how did, what was the catalyst of this and how did it get started?

Rachel: 6:05

first of all, thank you so much for your kind words. that is very inspiring for me to hear and I'm glad that you felt inspired by the interviews because that is my ultimate goal of what I'm trying to do. this actually started, in an interesting way. I feel like I need to back up just a little bit because for those of you all who don't know my story, I actually started out in broadcast journalism and I was that crazy kid that from the time I was 16, I had a 10 year plan for my life. And I knew I wanted to be a national talk show host and nothing was going to get in my way. So picture this, I was anchoring the morning news. At my high school, like competing nationally. I was just a broadcast nerd and I went to school at Mizzou because they have one of the best journalism schools in the country and got my senior year capstone class. So I'm thrilled. I'm thinking this is going to be the most important thing I need to know in my journalism education before I graduate and I'm off to the races becoming a national talk show host. And it was taught by the Dean of the journalism school. And. He made the whole semester, the whole topic the entire time was about the journalism of outrage and how you could anger people every day to take action. Now, if you look at the news, you will see that checks out, right? You see a lot of stories that are tough and they anger you every day. And I do think there is a place for that. But what happened was I had a crisis of faith because I thought I don't want to anger people every day for the rest of my life until I work my way up to a talk show position. And so I just went left field and ended up going into marketing, which led me to Servium, which eventually led me to the Argentum conference where I was attending one of the women in leadership sessions and was so inspired by the work that they were doing. And I left and I thought, what can I do to help? What can I do to promote women? And so I just asked people in my network, hey, I would love to interview you, post it on LinkedIn. And that's how Female Fridays was born. And at the time that we're recording, this was about a year ago. And now it's become something more than I ever thought it would become.

Erin: 8:28

That's amazing. did you have trouble getting people to want to do it, or did they say yes, absolutely, I want to do this right away?

Rachel: 8:36

thankfully, I had some women that were already friends, so I just asked them first, and thankfully, they saw something in me that they were like, okay, sure, I guess we'll do this. And once I was able to have a few people on, It's a great case study for others to be willing to come on from that. And another thing that I do is when I interview somebody, I like to ask, Hey, who else would be a good guest? So I work a lot off of referrals, which makes it easier to get guests.

Erin: 9:07

It was such a huge win for me to be on an episode of female Fridays, like a huge win. And to see, to be in that list and then to see who you're interviewing now and in the future interviews, it's just, there is something powerful about what you have created. A to be chosen, women love that feeling. And then to give them an opportunity to talk about their passion projects and how they've overcome and how to build confidence and, vulnerable and yet strategic questions. That really can empower other women. Like you really have a good thing. You really do.

Rachel: 9:53

thank you. And I'm honored to be on your show. So it's definitely, the feeling is mutual. And I always say that you are definitely one of my favorite episodes. I said that before we were recording, but I will say it for everyone to hear. And the guests that you bring me, I'm like, Oh yeah. She just has a circle of friends who are all so wise. So you also bring me the best guests. So thank you for that.

Erin: 10:15

I appreciate that. So you do this to promote obviously and empower women, but also as a way to. Talk about Servium care network, which I am interested in knowing more about. So talk to me. About what Servium Care Network is, and then what your role is there.

Rachel: 10:36

Yeah, I think that I do confuse people a little bit with my Female Fridays and Servium because they are separate things. my purpose of Female Fridays is that I want to have women on the show across all ages. And I interview operators and vendors because I think sometimes vendors aren't able to always get their voice out there too. And we can learn from each other no matter which side we're on. But the goal is I want women to share their stories and be vulnerable about things that went well for them. But then also things that didn't go so well. So that other women and even men watching can see themselves in this story and think, okay, if she did it, then I can too. And if she's successful, but still has imposter syndrome, then maybe it's okay. If I don't have it figured out and just embrace the fact that we're all normal, we're all human, we're all figuring it out. And that this industry is so amazing. There's so many opportunities for you. So that's female Friday and that's more so of what I'm active on LinkedIn, but Servium is equally as awesome. So people haven't heard of Servium Care Network. We are a purpose driven organization and our mission is to transform the way that America cares for seniors, which is a really big goal. I know. I, but the way that we do that right now is we're bringing senior living operators together in new ways to tap into new possibilities. So what that looks like is operators can be part of our network services. We have a lab, a pharmacy, a call center, procurement services, and then local value based care alliances. it's just, it's very exciting that we have all of that to offer. And we're really able to bring operators together to really be part of something collectively that they wouldn't be able to do on their own.

Erin: 12:25

I hear the term value based. A lot.

Rachel: 12:29

Yes, value based care. What the heck is it?

Erin: 12:31

Yes. Let's dive into that for community level leaders or whoever who hear this, but don't necessarily feel comfortable in asking those questions. What is value based care?

Rachel: 12:42

Okay, I'm so glad you asked because this is something that is starting to become a buzzword in our industry. And yet, we're all figuring it out together. So it's a concept that does seem complicated, but does have the potential to revolutionize the way we provide and pay for care. And jump right into it. And senior living communities. So the best way that I would describe it is thinking about traditionally the health care that health care has been based on a fee for service model. And so providers are paid for the quantity of care that's delivered. the more procedures and services and materials they bill for, the more they get paid. So that's like the traditional way we're seeing right now. But value based care is a shift, so it links payments to the quality of care. So providers are rewarded for helping people who improve their health, reduce the, chronic disease, for example, and live healthier lives in an evidence based way that we'd be able to use data to prove.

Erin: 13:45

That is a big job, right? Yes.

Rachel: 13:48

Yes. It is a big job

Erin: 13:50

shift.

Rachel: 13:51

Yes. We were talking about that. It is a mindset shift, but the really, the goal is to help seniors maintain the highest possible level of wellness rather than waiting until they get sick to provide care. Because that's how it is now. Oh, I fell now I need to go to the hospital. It's what can we do to prevent that fall? In the 1st place, and that's a value based care model.

Erin: 14:14

The it's the pro it's the question, the proactive versus reactive. Right when you have surgery, you don't want to chase pain. You want to keep pain away. Yeah. when you have, or when you're trying to eat healthier, don't wait until you're starving to eat. Snack, throughout the day, that's that proactive or reactive decision making model that we all need to use. So yes, senior living and even families touring for senior living communities have a tendency to be reactive.

Rachel: 14:51

We don't

Erin: 14:51

know what we If we're proactive in our decisions, within side senior living, family choosing senior living, but we will always know what we could have prevented through a reactive mindset. So it sounds like value based is just constantly trying to be proactive. in healthcare.

Rachel: 15:13

Yeah, you think about your choices every day that stack up, right? And it's if you continue to just be reactive, that is going to keep building on itself to the point where you're in some serious trouble. But let's reverse that and say, every day I'm doing this proactive thing. you can think about it with working out, right? let's say you work out every day, you eat right every day, then eventually your outcome is going to look much different than if you are going to McDonald's every day. Like we saw super size, it just is a different outcome. So it's just a different way of thinking about things.

Erin: 15:49

When you're not used to proactive and the peace that it brings, you could be like, I don't need to do these things anymore, how many times have we seen that?

Rachel: 15:59

But totally

Erin: 16:00

It is a very healthy approach to health care and living life.

Rachel: 16:07

And

Erin: 16:09

I'm glad that we're having that perspective inside senior living now. That value based versus service, quantity of service based kind of approach.

Rachel: 16:20

Yeah, there's a doctor that I follow. His name is Peter Atiyah. Have you heard of him before? Sure. I think you would like him, but he does studies and he asked his clients. Okay. What do you want? your, I don't know if he calls it defining decade or that last 10 years of your life. what do you want it to look like? And people say, I want to be playing with my grandkids. I want to be doing this. like I want to go on trips. It's okay, if you want to be able to lift your toddler or lift your grandkids, then what kind of weights do you need to be lifting now? In order to do that in those last 10 years of your life. And so just thinking backwards about what you want and then what you need to do in order to achieve it.

Erin: 17:01

That future you model really what you do today sets up what you want to do later. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So within Servium Care Network, you're what are you in the sales? You're in the sales portion, right?

Rachel: 17:17

so I have started to do a little bit of sales, but, mostly what I do is I'm over all the marketing for the company. yeah, so I do a little bit of both. It's really fun. And the sales that I'm starting to do is on the call center side.

Erin: 17:31

So because you're in marketing and a little bit of sales, what. And you see a big picture perspective inside Senior Living through, through the services that you provide. What trends do you see happening right now? Through your lens.

Rachel: 17:50

I love that you asked this question because I'm fresh off a conference where I got to sit in on a bunch of panel discussions. So I'm like, Oh yeah, this is fresh on my brain. obviously Occupancy and staffing are always going to be two really big issues in our industry. On the staffing side, one thing that was said quite a bit at this conference was just getting more creative about the types of people that we hire and retaining them. And one thing that I'm actually hearing a lot, even from people who I'm interviewing on female Fridays, are people coming from a background that has nothing to do with senior living. So think about your skillset And how that can transfer over to the senior living industry. So like teachers, for example, teachers would be so great in our industry. some people are talking about, just like retail sales and things like that. So just looking outside of our industry when it comes to recruiting and thinking more so about the skillset they have and how they could be part of senior living was a big one on the staffing side. And then honestly, on the occupancy side, the thing that I was hearing a lot of sales leaders say is a need for something just called centralized sales. So they recognize they have all these great lead platforms that are helping them get more people to the communities. But then. What are they doing with that to create a really smooth lead management process to know that they're not dropping any leads. If leads are coming in on the weekend, they have a system in place so that nothing is getting missed.

Erin: 19:23

So inside the community, like a tour tree, or the manager on duty. Yeah. Yeah. or the manager on duty knows what's going on. Is confident in the tour when they come in and can make the phone calls. And Yeah. It's important to know. What your weekend managers or the manager on duty know, or don't know, and how, that, that communication and education to them would be important. So yes, those are good. Those are good facts. I interviewed, a teacher that is now an executive director and my sister's a teacher. And, I'm speaking, I'm doing some workshops within education. And it is very parallel. People don't give enough credit to schools and education and senior living professions.

Rachel: 20:17

Yes.

Erin: 20:18

We, my, the teachers and the principals are literally caring for two of the most important people in my life. Number one, and I want their guidance and I want their input and I want their feedback and I want their passion for my kids.

Rachel: 20:32

And

Erin: 20:33

on the flip side of that, in senior living, we're caring for two or three or whoever the most important people in adult, people in their lives and they want my feedback. They want to know that my passion is there and they want their parents, their aunts, or their friends to be important to me as the executive director. So it's almost like if you look at what You're a baseball coach of your kids, your football coach, the principal and the teachers, when you want your kids to be special to those people, you have to turn around and look at the leadership inside the community. And it's the same thing goes in the reverse.

Rachel: 21:14

I like that a lot. I think that what you hit on is so true and why it's such a natural fit on your sister's a teacher. My parents were both teachers and then some of my closest friends are also teachers. So I feel so connected to the teacher industry, but there's a lot of burnout happening right now in the teaching profession. And so if you have. The chance to say, Hey, you can still join this industry where you're going to get the purpose. Because to your point, that is what teachers are in the business for. they want to do something bigger than themselves are very purpose driven individuals. And so if you can still give them that, and yet say, here's a way for you to do something different. It's such a natural transition. And, I think is a huge opportunity for senior living professionals.

Erin: 22:05

And they're used to the craziness.

Rachel: 22:07

Yeah, that too.

Erin: 22:09

Never know what's going to be said inside of a classroom and inside of senior living. never know when people, I heard the reference, like a teacher has to, it's like a computer with many tabs open and you have to be able to flip between them. And when I heard that, I was like, I used to tell people all the time in order to work in senior living, you have to be able to stop. Adjust, go back, stop, adjust, go back, stop. And it's just the same concept. So we should not sleep on teachers entering our industry. That is for sure.

Rachel: 22:40

I know. I'm like, I would love to see that. Love to see it.

Erin: 22:44

All right. Last question. I've seen your LinkedIn posts and a lot of them is about AI. And I know that I've dabbled a little bit, in the AI space. I haven't done the pictures yet. I need to do that. Oh, yeah.

Rachel: 22:58

The headshots. Yes.

Erin: 23:00

I need to do that. But give me your best advice for a layman with AI and then what you think the future holds inside senior living.

Rachel: 23:12

Yeah. So AI is something that I'm really passionate about learning about. And the reason why is just that, when the internet was created and everybody's what's that? What's Google. And now it's what do you mean? What's Google? everybody uses it. It's just something that's second nature, but the ones who maybe don't know how to use it as much, it's tougher. Like it's just tougher. So I think we're in a similar age right now where it's the beginning of it where people are like, what's AI? But over time, it really will change our world completely. And so if we are not adapting to it and keeping up with it, then we will be at a disadvantage. And especially looking at the future of work, I want to make sure that I can still say, In my career, wherever I continue to go that I have those skill sets. It's just I think it's going to end up being critically important. So I think just individually, we all need to keep up with it for that reason, but it can totally transform care in senior living. we're seeing companies who are doing it right now who are focused only on AI, like SkyPoint Cloud, SafelyU are two that heavily use AI. But even in our call center, we're starting to use it to help us improve different things like quality monitoring to help improve efficiency. I think that. It is a thing that we can all use, but if you personally want to start with it, I would consider just doing some prompt engineering, which is essentially like how you prompt chat GPT. And then don't be afraid to just start, start playing around with it if you haven't. but one piece of advice I'll give one actual takeaway tip is when you're prompting chat GPT say, I want you to act as blank. let's say you are sending an email on to somebody who you're working with. You're an executive director. You could say, I want you to act as an expert and, this field or in, in senior living care or whatever it is that you want to say, or I want you to write a, a. Act as an expert in email copywriting, and then give it your prompt. And then at the end, before you hit enter, always ask, do you understand what I'm asking you to do? Because then if chat GPT needs more information to give you a better output, it will tell you like, either, yes, I understand we're good to go, or I need this extra information from you in order to give you the best output.

Erin: 25:49

Do you pay to have the latest version of ai?

Rachel: 25:53

I do. I pay the$20 a month for chat. GPT plus, I think it's totally worth it. One, you have 24 7 access. So if you're a small team, it's a way for you to cheaply get some extra resources. And it also includes the plugins. It's more updated. I think it's worth it for the$20 a month.

Erin: 26:14

See, I don't pay yet. But I have been contemplating on what the, or trying to understand like what the difference would be because you can use ChatGPT for free and it's valuable, but it is limited.

Rachel: 26:27

Yeah.

Erin: 26:28

Compared to the newer version.

Rachel: 26:31

Yeah, and last time I checked, if you have the free version, I don't know if you can use the plugins. And so if let's say you're going on a trip, this is not work related, but let's say you're going on a trip and you want it to completely plan your entire seven day itinerary to Italy and have this budget and book your flights and find the hotels and the restaurants. You could have all of that done with chat GPT. It's pretty amazing. I

Erin: 26:55

didn't know that.

Rachel: 26:56

Yeah. You're like, Oh, I might go get a little behind here.

Erin: 27:01

Have you heard of perplexity?

Rachel: 27:03

That sounds familiar, but tell me more.

Erin: 27:06

It's a, it's similar to chat GPT, but I think it's a little different. I don't quite have the words to compare, but I have heard positive things about it, but I haven't used it. I know somebody who does, and this person values it more than chat GPT for whatever reason. So it's perplexity. So I need to dive into understanding those differences.

Rachel: 27:33

That's a nice thing is that there are so many different tools. So even if you Google like AI tools for blank, whatever it is for marketing, for sales, for operations, like there's going to be a ton of things to pop up. It's not just chat GPT. It's a chat. GPT is like the Google, it's a household name. Everybody knows what you're talking about, but there's several other engines and now everybody wants piece of the AI pie. So there's a lot of options out there.

Erin: 28:02

You're just a wealth of information, Rachel. You're defining terms. You're giving us industry trends, like you're a big deal. You're

Rachel: 28:13

so sweet.

Erin: 28:14

anything else that you feel valuable to share? we know that female Friday episodes are on Friday. So you can follow Rachel Keller on LinkedIn for that.

Rachel: 28:26

Yeah, I would just say, if anybody has. certain topics that they are really curious about, or maybe would want to get advice from if they had a mentor, but maybe just don't have the resources and they want me to explore that. I'd be happy to just send me a message on LinkedIn and I'm always willing to connect.

Erin: 28:47

And I think the main takeaway from how you started that honestly is you had an idea. You took an action and then you just kept going, you were just consistent with it. And, that's just, that's how we all do things. Yeah.

Rachel: 29:02

It doesn't have to be perfect. And I think the other theme in the story is that I had the stream in my heart from when I was 16. Yes. And my life looks different now that I'm 29. But it's not bad or it's just different. And it's you notice how the dream in your heart can still be accomplished in this way that you never would have imagined when you were trying to plan it yourself.

Erin: 29:29

Yeah. Always leave the door cracked because

Rachel: 29:32

yeah.

Erin: 29:33

thank you so much for being with us today. And for those who are interested in Servium Care Network, there's Value based care, but that call center sounds amazing. And just being able to talk to Rachel is obviously amazing. And message her and let her know about the topics because that's important. It's not every day you get to hear women in the industry talk about strategies and vulnerabilities and, what they did to be successful. There's a lot of powerful insights in those conversations. So there certainly look those up for Rachel. So thank you so much. For being here and always for my listeners aspire for more for you.