The 2026 Recruiting Playbook: Less No-Shows and More Conversations — Rachel Gartner

How I Stopped Being the On-Call Bottleneck and Let AI Handle the Chaos — Lisa Hall

Lisa Hall, owner of Griswold Home Care, joins host David Knack to share how she scaled her home care agency from under 1,000 weekly hours to more than 2,000 hours while avoiding staff burnout. With a background in engineering and automotive quality systems, Lisa explains how operational discipline, SOPs, and AI-powered scheduling transformed her agency's growth trajectory. She shares the story of landing a major CCRC partnership after simply helping someone with a "pet project," and how that relationship ultimately doubled her business. Lisa also breaks down the operational chaos of traditional on-call systems and how implementing AI scheduling and call management allowed her team to reclaim evenings, weekends, and holidays without sacrificing quality of care. Lesson Takeaways: 1. Relationships Create Unexpected Growth: Helping others without expecting immediate returns can lead to major business opportunities later. 2. SOPs Make AI Powerful: AI only works effectively when clear procedures and escalation rules are already in place. 3. Operational Freedom Matters: Eliminating repetitive after-hours interruptions reduced burnout and allowed Lisa's team to scale without hiring additional schedulers. 4. AI Should Remove Friction, Not Humanity: AI handled repetitive coordination while human staff stayed focused on emotionally important situations. 5. Don't Buy Everything at Conferences: Early-stage operators often overbuy software and tools before fully understanding operational needs. 6. Vet Vendors Carefully: Talk to real operators already using a product before committing to new technology. 7. Scale Requires Systems, Not Heroics: Growth became manageable because processes, dashboards, and automation reduced "all hands on deck" emergencies. Timestamps: 00:00 — Lisa realizes AI handled the entire evening without a single phone call 01:31 — Introduction to Lisa Hall and Griswold Home Care 02:01 — Lisa's engineering and automotive background working with Tesla 03:19 — From struggling below 1,000 hours to explosive growth 04:39 — How a CCRC partnership unexpectedly transformed the business 05:46 — Employee appreciation and caregiver retention success stories 07:15 — Transitioning from traditional answering services to AI operations 09:06 — How the AI scheduling system works overnight and on weekends 10:17 — The two-day trial that convinced Lisa's entire team 12:43 — Managing hospitalizations and caregiver coordination with AI 15:49 — Handling complex hospital shift changes without human intervention 18:32 — Riley resolves caregiver call-offs before management even notices 20:22 — Lisa's biggest business mistake: buying everything at conferences 21:27 — How Lisa now evaluates vendors and adopts new technology Quotes: Lisa Hall: "By day two, we were like, 'How fast can we turn this on completely?'" Lisa Hall: "It was literally night and day because we were not getting all those repetitive questions anymore." Lisa Hall: "Riley handled everything. It was just fabulous." David Knack: "Riley filled that call-out before we knew it happened." Lisa Hall: "You can't implement everything at once." Resources: 1. Connect with Lisa Hall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-hall-5507a728/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-hall-5507a728/] 2. Learn more about Griswold Home Care: https://www.griswoldhomecare.com/ [https://www.griswoldhomecare.com/] 3. Connect with David Knack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/] 4. Powered by Zingage: https://zingage.com [https://zingage.com] 5. Watch this episode on Zingage's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage [https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage]

The 2026 Recruiting Playbook: Less No-Shows and More Conversations — Rachel Gartner

Rachel Gartner, CEO of Carework, joins host David Knack to discuss the state of recruiting in 2026. Rachel shares her big mistake of running the old 2025 playbook where relying on free Indeed job postings and scheduling interviews caused massive inefficiencies. She explains how using AI to automatically schedule interviews actually caused her recruiters' live phone time to plummet. Instead of playing phone tag, Carework now uses AI to filter out unqualified applicants and immediately transfer ready caregivers to a live human. Lesson Takeaways: 1. Texting is Out, Calling is In: Texting engages caregivers but lacks commitment. Using AI to call candidates scales efficiently and connects you with applicants who are actually ready to work. 2. Stop Scheduling Interviews: Automated scheduling leads to massive no show rates and lowers recruiter efficiency. Instead, use AI to qualify candidates and transfer them live to a human. 3. Treat Scheduled Interviews as Missed Calls: If a candidate schedules a time, do not wait for the appointment. Call them right away because the first agency to offer a job usually wins. 4. Free Indeed Ads No Longer Work: You can no longer dump free job posts and hope for results. Agencies must sponsor their ads and stay in contact with their Indeed reps. 5. Let AI Handle Unqualified Calls: Recruiters burn out answering unqualified applicants or people ordering fast food. AI filters these out so your team only talks to qualified caregivers. Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction to the 2026 recruiting playbook 02:29 — Rachel introduces Carework and staff recruiting 06:41 — The big mistake of relying on free Indeed ads 09:57 — Why caregivers are completely comfortable with AI 11:40 — The hot take that texting is out and calling is in 15:55 — Why scheduling interviews ruins recruiter efficiency 18:54 — Tracking live conversations instead of booked appointments 22:20 — The frustration of no shows for high volume agencies 26:22 — High leverage emergencies versus silly caller requests 30:47 — How AI filters out applicants calling from the drive through 33:48 — Preventing burnout for the recruiters who actually care 37:22 — How the new hiring process feels like a recruiter dream Quotes: Rachel Gartner: "We're not trying to use AI here to replace humans, it actually is really helping us have more good conversations with caregivers." Rachel Gartner: "Your mindset should be, 'They tried to get in touch with us. I need to call them right now.'" David Knack: "Because AI's here, because caregivers are adopting AI, actually this provides as good or better an experience than a person did." David Knack: "A successful recruiter was a recruiter who had a calendar full of scheduled interviews, the new metric to measure is conversations." Resources: 1. Connect with Rachel Gartner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelgartner/ 2. Learn more about Carework: https://www.careworkus.com/ 3. Email Rachel: rachel@careworkus.com 4. Connect with David Knack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/ 5. Powered by Zingage: https://zingage.com 6. Watch this episode on Zingage's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage

How I Stopped Leading Without Understanding Myself and Started Building Teams That Actually Worked — Tiffany Dutcher

Tiffany Dutcher joins host David Knack to unpack the leadership blind spots that quietly drive burnout in home care. After spending 15 years in the industry as an agency owner, franchise business coach, and now author, Tiffany shares the core lesson behind her new book, The Unfiltered Truth About Home Care: most owners are trying to scale businesses without first understanding themselves. The conversation explores Tiffany's framework of four home care owner types — Drivers, Methodicals, Humanitarians, and Connectors — and how each personality type experiences burnout differently. Tiffany explains why some owners unintentionally burn through teams, why others freeze growth through perfectionism, and why many agencies struggle because leaders keep hiring people exactly like themselves. Tiffany also discusses the dangers of "one-size-fits-all" coaching in home care, why copying another owner's playbook often backfires, and how intentionally building teams that complement your weaknesses can create healthier, more sustainable businesses. Lesson Takeaways: 1. Self-Awareness Is a Leadership Skill: Many home care owners focus on fixing operations without understanding their own tendencies first. Your leadership wiring impacts how you hire, communicate, scale, and burn out. 2. Burnout Looks Different for Every Owner Type: Drivers burn out through constant turnover and unrealistic pace. Methodicals burn out through perfectionism and indecision. Humanitarians burn out through over-giving. Connectors burn out by avoiding hard conversations and keeping the wrong people in the wrong roles. 3. Stop Hiring People Exactly Like You: Strong teams are intentionally designed with complementary strengths. Drivers need brakes. Methodicals need gas. Humanitarians need accountability. Connectors need structure and compliance support. 4. One-Size-Fits-All Playbooks Don't Work: Two owners can attend the same conference and leave with completely different results because execution depends on personality, leadership style, and team dynamics. 5. Structure Allows You to Help More People: Humanitarian leaders often resist systems because they fear losing the personal touch. But without infrastructure, growth stalls — and fewer families ultimately receive care. 6. Resumes Don't Tell the Whole Story: Hiring should focus on the deliverables of the role and the type of person wired to succeed in it, not just experience listed on paper. Timestamps: 00:00 — The emotional reality of burnout in home care 01:01 — Introducing Tiffany Dutcher and her new book 02:05 — Tiffany's unconventional path into home care 03:49 — Tiffany's biggest mistake as a leader 04:50 — The employee conversation that changed Tiffany's perspective 05:27 — Why burnout happens so often in home care 06:31 — The four home care owner personality types 07:22 — Drivers: visionary leaders who unintentionally burn through teams 08:05 — Methodicals: perfectionism, risk aversion, and frozen teams 08:47 — Humanitarians: over-giving and losing structure 09:18 — Connectors: avoiding hard conversations and accountability 10:01 — How Tiffany developed her leadership framework through coaching 11:14 — Helping owners understand the psychology behind their decisions 13:01 — Why "copying successful owners" is overrated 14:16 — The danger of comparing your business to someone else's 15:05 — Why personal awareness must come before operational fixes 15:52 — Technology, AI, and the future of home care leadership 16:30 — "You can't out-coach leadership or a bad team" 17:21 — A coaching story about balancing a methodical owner with a fast-moving salesperson 18:43 — Learning to trust complementary personalities on your team 19:15 — Why humanitarians struggle with sales and asking for business 20:42 — Why connectors often resist compliance-focused team members 22:01 — The hiring mistake most owners keep making Quotes: Tiffany Dutcher: "The biggest mistake I made was not understanding how I was wired as a leader." Tiffany Dutcher: "Everybody burns out a little bit differently. The whole point of the book is to understand where your burnout usually shows up and why." Tiffany Dutcher: "If you don't take a look at what's going on inside of you first, and you're trying to fix everything else on the outside, you're not gonna see progress." Tiffany Dutcher: "I can't out-coach leadership, and I can't out-coach a bad team." David Knack: "There's people in this business where it just feels like home care is easier for them than for other people." David Knack: "Trying to be just like somebody else without understanding who you are as a leader sounds like a recipe for disaster." Resources: 1. Connect with Tiffany Dutcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffdutcher/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffdutcher/] 2. Watch out for The Unfiltered Truth About Home Care on Amazon 3. Connect with David Knack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/] 4. Powered by Zingage: https://zingage.com [https://zingage.com] 5. Watch this episode on Zingage's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage [https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage]

How I Stopped Ignoring Management and Started Empowering My Team — Emily Isbell

Emily Isbell, founder of 24/7 Solutions, joins host David Knack to discuss her career-defining mistake: assuming that strong leadership could compensate for weak management. After nearly ending her home care career due to burnout, Emily realized that passion and vision alone cannot sustain a growing agency. She opens up about learning to build systems, establish KPIs, and empower team members to become "miniature entrepreneurs." The conversation explores the critical difference between leadership (soft skills, vision) and management (structure, accountability, systems). Emily shares her four-stage framework for management maturity, from simply surviving to having team members report not just their results but their action plans for improvement. She also explains why owners cannot simply delegate management and walk away, and why self-reflection must remain a human-led process. Lesson Takeaways: 1. You Cannot Out-Lead a Management Problem: Strong vision and passion are not enough. Believing that leadership alone will drive growth is a false assumption. You must develop concrete management skills and systems to support your team and scale your business. 2. Management Has Four Stages of Maturity: Stage one is surviving day to day. Stage two is owners reporting numbers to the team. Stage three is the team mining and reporting data back. Stage four is the team reporting their plan to improve results — this is where real empowerment lives. 3. Empower Your Team to Become Miniature Entrepreneurs: A lead scheduler should work on the scheduling department, not just in it. Give team members 3–6 KPIs, have them track results, and require them to present their own plan for improvement or doubling down on what works. 4. Don't Automate Self-Reflection: AI can surface data, but team members must type their own plans to improve. Owning the feeling of missing a goal drives accountability in ways an automated report never can. Keep the human in the loop for this critical step. 5. Management Systems Protect Your Promise to Families: When caregivers no-call no-show, families don't care whose fault it is. They care if you keep your promise. Having contingency plans, a bench of caregivers, and rapid response systems is how you honor the commitment made in the living room. Timestamps: 00:00 — The false assumption about leadership and management 01:48 — Emily's rebrand to 24/7 Solutions and the story behind the name 03:49 — Why home care is a 24/7 business but shouldn't be a 24/7 job 05:33 — The big mistake: Being an incredible leader but sucking at management 07:44 — The difference between leadership and management (Emily's definition) 09:54 — The false assumption that management will organically happen 11:13 — Why owners hire managers but fail to hold them accountable 12:30 — What happens when management is missing: Burnout, plateauing, bottlenecking 14:08 — How to know when management is done right: Results and retention 19:28 — The four stages of management maturity in home care 26:37 — Building "pause points" into your systems to prevent bad decisions 29:11 — When Emily made the shift: 2016 burnout and the evolution to KPIs 32:44 — Why self-reflection cannot be automated (keep humans in the loop) 33:47 — Your lead scheduler needs to work on the department, not just in it 34:27 — How 24/7 Solutions helps with management systems and team empowerment Quotes: Emily Isbell: "The false assumption is that you can be a leader, have this strong passion, be a visionary, and delegate out the management practices or just believe that they'll organically happen. What's missing is owners thinking that you can out-lead that problem." Emily Isbell: "When you create a systematic pause, you're not micromanaging. You're just double checking that you're thinking through this fully. It's a system that says, let's just double check before we pull the trigger on the easy button." David Knack: "Home care is a 24/7 business, but it shouldn't be a 24/7 job. You can't get rid of the 24/7 aspect if you want a seat at the healthcare table. However, you can create systems and you don't have to burn your team out." David Knack: "Self-reflection is an inefficient process, but it's a really effective process. We need people to go through the process of figuring out what their results were and why those results were the way they were. That's a step not to skip." Resources: 1. Connect with Emily Isbell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyisbell/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyisbell/] 2. Learn more about 24 7 Solutions: https://247solutions.co/ [https://247solutions.co/] 3. Email for free management evaluation tool: info@247solutions.co [info@247solutions.co] 4. Connect with David Knack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/] 5. Powered by Zingage: https://zingage.com [https://zingage.com]6. Watch this episode on Zingage's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage [https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage] 7. Prior conversation with Emily: https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/stop-thinking-like-a-manager-when-youre-an-owner/id1766508914?i=1000669821027 [https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/stop-thinking-like-a-manager-when-youre-an-owner/id1766508914?i=1000669821027]

How I Stopped Building a Practice and Built a Company Instead — Stephen Tweed

Stephen Tweed, CEO of Leading Home Care and Founder of the Home Care CEO Forum, joins host David Knack to discuss his biggest career regret: choosing to build a solo practice instead of a scalable company. With over three decades in the industry, Stephen explains why "working on the business" rather than "in the business" is the key to long-term survival and impact. The conversation covers Stephen's philosophy on mixing work with adventure (including a memorable trip to Japan), the three major causes of 90-day caregiver turnover, and why home care owners must stop answering the phone like an administrative assistant. Stephen also shares actionable advice on developing a clear vision, systematizing operations, and shifting to a caregiver-first culture to drive growth. Lesson Takeaways: 1. Build a Company, Not Just a Practice: Choosing to remain a solopreneur limits your resources and impact. Building a team and infrastructure allows you to serve more clients, support your community, and create a lasting legacy beyond your personal involvement . 2. Solve the "Paycheck Match" for Caregivers: Caregivers don't leave for 25 cents an hour. They leave because their paycheck doesn't match their needs. Move beyond asking "how many hours?" to asking "how much money do you need this week?" and then help them get the shifts to get there. 3. Shift from Client-First to Caregiver-First: In home care, high-quality clients follow high-quality caregivers. Prioritizing caregiver retention and satisfaction creates the capacity to deliver exceptional service, making the traditional "customer is always right" model secondary to caregiver support . 4. Work On the Business, Not In It: If you are answering every phone call or putting out every fire, you have a job, not a scalable company. Develop systems and a leadership team that allows you to focus on strategy, vision, and future-proofing your agency. 5. Don't Underrate the Phone Call: The person answering your phones is your front line. A poorly trained admin with a bad phone voice kills conversion rates. Hiring a competent phone presence who can convert callers into in-home assessments is a small fix with massive revenue consequences. Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction and Stephen's role in home care 01:49 — Stephen's recent trip to Japan and mixing work with play 04:27 — The role of travel and adventure in Stephen's marriage 06:05 — The big mistake: Building a practice instead of a company 09:18 — How a bigger company gives you resources for greater impact 12:03 — Moving from a "practice" mindset to a "company" mindset 15:15 — The travel story that changed Stephen's view on regret 21:51 — The most underrated thing in home care: Caregiver retention 24:04 — The three big causes of 90-day caregiver turnover 27:52 — The little mistake: Hiring the wrong person to answer phones 31:34 — How a bad phone voice kills your conversion rates 34:22 — Stephen's recent win: Transferring ownership of the CEO Forum 37:42 — How to future proof your home care business 40:52 — One trend Stephen predicted correctly: Industry consolidation 43:52 — One innovation that will have the largest impact over three years Quotes: Stephen Tweed: "If we really want to grow a business, then we need to focus on the whole process of recruiting, selection, onboarding, training, retention…it starts with high-quality applicants." Stephen Tweed: "A number of members have made a conscious decision…We're going to put our caregivers first. And you say that to most business people and they say, no, the customer is always first. But we're saying in this case, no, because if we can get high quality caregivers and keep them, we can get clients." David Knack: "Get super specific about your brags. Somebody may not have the exact same situation, but they can relate to it. That specificity, even though it's not exactly what they're looking at, is way better than saying we work with lots of clients." David Knack: "You've got to stop being the 'hit by a bus' problems in our own businesses. It's gotta get out of our brains. Thanks to the innovations of AI, you can systematize that knowledge." Resources: 1. Connect with Stephen Tweed on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentweed/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentweed/] 2. Learn more about the Home Care CEO Forum: https://homecareceo.com/ [https://homecareceo.com/] 3. Visit Leading Home Care: https://leadinghomecare.com/ [https://leadinghomecare.com/] 4. Connect with David Knack on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-knack/] 5. Powered by Zingage: https://zingage.com [https://zingage.com] 6. Watch this episode on Zingage's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage [https://www.youtube.com/@Zingage]