How a Caregiver Built a Home Care Agency in Six Weeks

any space I could be in where I wasn't

looking at our surroundings and saying, who operates this? How much do they bring in? What did it take?

“You know, everything from then on just put my mind”

in a business placement. So, that's just learned many skills, but I think the biggest thing I learned on that time is how-- - Crystal Smith is a compassionate, dedicated,

and community-focused advocate, and the founder of the Stark Youth Technology Center. Guided by a mission to uplift vulnerable populations. She provides personalized support and life skills training for foster youth and individuals

with developmental disabilities. Fostering an environment of compassionate care, true inclusion, and empowered independence. - I want people to know that, you know, no matter what your cards, the cards you were dealt

in life and how things started, you get to choose how things turn out. As I know, there are some people that would tell you, well, I had a $500,000 start my first home care agency. I met those people.

I had a million, you know, and it's like, that's great,

but I had negative in all honesty. And yet, I've got to done six weeks,

“and it was just because I didn't give myself any other option,”

would this had to work. (upbeat music) - It spans the globe, like a super high school, internet Elvis, really high school. - Today, Apple is going to reinvent the globe.

- It's not over, I'm telling how we are. - The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. (upbeat music) - Awesome, awesome, awesome.

- Oh, that is sensational. (upbeat music) - Check how the whistle is, you said, "Oh, it's the bottom of the planet." - You can live your dream. - Welcome back everybody to another episode

of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I am your host for today, Jason Tyler, and today, I am joined by Ms. Crystal Smith. Crystal, how you doing? - I'm doing wonderful, and I'm so happy to be here.

It's my first time in Miami and-- - Hope first time. - First time. - And I absolutely love it. The energy here is amazing. And of course, I mean, the weather's been up and down,

but-- - It's the humidity that it gets you. - It's the humidity, I said that. I can't get my makeup to stay on, right? It's okay though, it's okay. We're here, and I am very grateful.

- So we're about to go into filming your episode of "Women in Power."

And this is, you know, I always want to ask people

that before we get into the episode,

“what would you say is like the key lesson”

that you want people to be able to take away from your story? - I want people to know that, you know, no matter what your cards, the cards you were dealt in life and how things started, you get to choose

how things turn out. You get to create your reality. - You are the writer of your own story. - Absolutely. - I love that, I love that.

So, you know, we got to talk a little bit about this off-camera. You are very multifaceted. - Yeah. - You got businesses here, there.

You're doing stuff all over the place. Talk to me a little bit about what drove you down the path of entrepreneurship. - Oh my goodness, so I would say my dad, for sure. Growing up, he, 'cause my dad's from Alabama,

from a farm, he grew up on a farm. And he watched his grandmother and grandfather just create, everything, they had, you know, their own animals, they grew their own vegetables. And then, you know, as time progressed,

they ended up purchasing the land, you know, that they lived on as sharecroppers, right? And then eventually, my grandmother had a, she had a deal with the local grocery stores where she would sell their her produce

and products at the grocery stores. So, you know, they just became this very prominent family from nothing, you know. And also, my grandmother worked for local politicians, such as judges, doctors.

And even though, you know, this is in the deep south, you know, at a time where, you know, people of color were definitely, you know, it's not something we're having a rough day. We were having a rough go.

She was able to learn many things from, you know, the people that she worked for, spending time in their homes and spending time with them. And they taught her how to be an excellent business woman.

I heard many stories about her.

“And I just feel like it just, it's just in my DNA.”

And so, you know, moving forward to my early 10 years, just any time me and my dad were together, aside from, you know, obviously him telling me the many stories of my great grandparents, we just talked business all the time

because my dad really wanted to, you know, become a business owner such as his grandparents were. And we would just put together like business plans all the time. And just strategize. Like, if we were driving the car somewhere any time,

we were alone, it was just me and him. We didn't talk sports, we didn't talk, you know, a lot of other things that I guess father and daughter

talk about, we always talk business.

And he would say things like, you know, I would love a Popeye chicken because at the time, where we lived and can, there was no Popeye chicken. And it still isn't. You have to, you have to, you don't.

No, there's still no Popeye chicken.

“And you would think there's not a place.”

There's not a city in America that Popeye is in touch now. We did not have that we had, we had churches chicken. And so, still good. It's still good, yeah, still good. And sometimes similar, depending on what you're speaking to,

right, right. But, you know, that just got my mind really, you know, going because then we started investigating,

what would it take to start a Popeye chicken?

And we come up with business names. And so, from that point on, I don't think there was any place I could go, any space I could be in where I wasn't looking at our surroundings and saying, who operates this, how much do they bring in?

What did it take? You know, everything from then on just, you know, put my mind in a business, you know, a place name. You got, you got your MBA long, probably, before you even touched college.

- Yeah. - 'Cause you were almost being bred towards that end. So, let's fast forward to today. We talked a little bit about this off-camera as well, but you started your business in home care.

- I did. - Talk to me a little bit about what, you know, why that avenue was something that's stuck out to you. - Okay, well, I will say, despite that my parents, I have a two-parent home that I come from.

A wonderful home, but my parents, even though they worked, my mother was a welder, my father was the supervisor, you know, on a factory, and they made just enough to not qualify for, you know, public assistance, but really, we still, you know, they were struggling family

with three children, and, you know, there just wasn't a lot to fill in that gap, but I'm sorry, what was the question again? - How do we get to home care? - Right, so being that my parents worked a lot,

my great-grandmother, my maternal great-grandmother, lived with us, right, my entire life. My maternal great-grandmother lived with us, and at some point she had a stroke, and she really couldn't, you know, move around very well anymore.

So, while my parents were at work, and I was the oldest, you know, they relied on me, and my siblings to make sure we take care of our grandmother. So, and, you know, my mother didn't, she didn't play about her, about her grandmother.

So, it's like, you better make sure that she has three square meals, and they better, you know,

be home-cooked, and she'd always even tell me, you know,

presentation is everything, like, you know, give my, give our grandmother the best, make sure she's baked, make sure her room is clean, and then, and get her out of the house, you know, because even though she isn't as mobile,

as she used to be, get her up, get her outside, even because at some point in time, you know, I was driving, I had my license, I had a car, and she's like, no, get her out of the house, and so we would do that.

And so, you know, without really knowing it, my mother was really trying us how to be, you know,

“home care providers, caregivers, I think, management.”

I mean, we were really being trained. All of us, me and my sister and brother. - I'm seeing a pattern here. - Absolutely. - You got your training from your dad,

as far as just your business acumen. You got your training from, you know, life and your mom on how to provide home care, and then those two roads met, and now you're doing, so then at some point in time, I was a single mother, you know, I started out,

and in order to help, you know, provide for my children,

“I became a CNA, and so, you know, of course,”

you know, working in a nursing home, you learn a number of different skills. - Not an easy job. - Not an easy job. Not a job that pays, well, especially at that time,

now CNAs, today, a lot different than when I was, you know, in my 20s. - We've had a couple of CNAs turn business owners on the show, so like, I've heard some stories from you. - Absolutely.

- So that, just being in that space of seeing how, you know, I'm working with these mostly other women in most cases,

not always, and, you know, they're tasking us with two halls,

like, sometimes, literally, you come on shift, and it's like you have hall A and B, and, you know, and of course, our job is to get them fed, bathed, you know,

“and then, like twice, in the course of an eight-hour shift,”

and then sometimes you may be even working, you know, longer hours, and so, you know, I learned leadership, I learned documentation, you know, I learned how to, how to care for people, even though I already came from a care-back where I was just from being at home.

It's just really just, like I said, it's in my DNA. So, that's just learned many skills, but I think the biggest thing I learned and that time is how unfair things were. Like, you gave me two halls.

I have anywhere from 15 to 20 people, you know, to care for within my shift. We are very understaffed, our leadership at this time

are not always a nice as people,

and it just seemed like a very, in many cases, unfair setting. And, but, obviously, I learned some very valuable skills and lessons, and I took, I just took the good with the bed, and I thought, you know, one day I'm going to figure out, you know,

how I can either own or manage one of these. I'm going to find my place in this world, because I know in this home care world, or this healthcare world. And that would be, you know, some years up the road

before I actually started my home care agency, but, but initially, I started a child care center from home first, a 24 hour child care center. Just, just from the need of child care, I have, I had two children at the time,

and I really, I just didn't like how they were being cared for in the child care centers they were at. I didn't feel comfortable when I go to work and have to leave them there. And I said, okay, well, it looks like I'm going to have

to be the one to take this task on. And so, even that setting really, you know, I didn't know that the time was really setting me up to be an owner, a CEO, a founder. - That's a path that I see a lot of our clients go down

is you'll be in an organization. You'll see that the way that that organization is run and you'll identify that, hey, I actually think I might need to set one of these up myself. - Absolutely.

- And you identify a need within the market. - Yep. - You address that need and wouldn't you know it? Clients will come to you because that needed to be addressed. - It needed to be addressed, yeah.

So as a child care owner, I never wasn't at full enrollment

and you know, and I just took that, those skills and the fact that people trusted me and I built a community of trust and I did good work in my center and eventually what happened is when COVID, during COVID, my parents, they weren't going back to work.

They were getting on employment. So things were declining very quickly with my husband's job as well.

“So again, fast forward at some point, I get married, right?”

And then, and I'm still operating my home care agency and then COVID happens and I find myself in a position where it's like, oh, you gotta pivot. Like you have to get... - That's what I like to get.

- Refer to COVID as the big pivot. - Yes, it's a big hit, it sure is. Because it was definitely a sinker of swimming moment for me and I was pretty scared because I know me working

that really isn't for me.

“Now I did it, you know, I did it as long as I needed to do it.”

And I'm not saying if I didn't have to, I wouldn't again, but I just knew that even in that moment

and my first thought was, oh, you might have to go back to work,

but I knew what that looked like. Like I know it's just not a good idea for me. - Not a good look. - No, not a good idea for me. And so, I looked into going to home care as an agency and becoming an agency owner.

So I had some friends who had already been in this field and I just asked them, you know, what do I need to do? To get started or point me in the right direction. And they did and I got started actually pretty quickly because I know people need to quite some time

to do what I did and probably matter six weeks. - And so, guys, if you're still tuned at this point, I just want to make sure that you guys check out Christle's episode of Women in Power, which will be coming out shortly after this podcast episode.

Ares, so make sure you guys check that out for a full deep dive on her story. We got a ton of your story here, but I don't want to give them too much. - I need y'all to tune into this episode.

- Yes, please tune in for the episode. If you could give a piece of advice to an entrepreneur, a business owner, or an aspiring entrepreneur out there,

“what's your key piece of advice that you would give them?”

- You know, mine is so simple. I hate to say this, but it's just, it's very simple. It's just doing, like, I swear, so I'm not gonna go, I promise you, I'm about to go then because I say this

to people so much the man, because that's just what it is, like, at that time, in my life, something that I did not know was about to change my entire life, even though I was scared, and I wasn't sure, I just did it.

I don't know what else to say, but I just did it. I just started on the path, I started doing small things, making small steps and before you know it, it was done, you know. And so that's what I tell people, don't, because if you overthink things too much,

it just doesn't happen. And I see, in today's world, most of the time when I speak to even my clients, there's just so much overthinking happening, so much overthinking happening.

- You spend too much time thinking about it, you don't spend enough time action.

- Just the key for me has always been,

the most successful people have found a way to compress the time between idea and action. - Absolutely. - Short of that window becomes the more successful you'll. - Yes, yes, because I don't know,

and then this might be a little too much, but you're like a time traveler at that point, because something it took someone, like a lifetime to do, you've done it in a record time. And I kind of think of everything in that,

in that manner, just compressing like you said, just compress that amount of time, because we can. - And do it scared. - Just do it.

- You're gonna do it scared, you're gonna do it unprepared, you're gonna do it, don't do it unprepared, prepare yourself, but like, do it anyway. And I'm a big proponent of take imperfect action. - Absolutely.

- Even if it's not the ideal exact scenario that you imagine in your head, just start taking action, and I promise you, I promise all of you out there watching, you are smart enough to figure it out along the way,

identify your mistakes, correct for them as time goes on, but just start, just take one step at a time.

“- Absolutely, but I think that things start to really shift”

once you start starting as so important, because then you just, you've created this shift that is gonna take place as you're going through the steps, because then what you need starts to appear. So that's why, yes, do it scared.

And I'm gonna tell you truth, I wasn't prepared. And I didn't have, I was in the negatives. I mean, things were, we were average for losing our home, vehicles, everything. So I was in, I would say I was not prepared,

because I didn't have a hundred thousand dollars to start a new business, you know what I mean? Because I know there are some people that would tell you, well, I had a five hundred thousand dollars to start my first home care agency, I met those people.

I had a million, and it's like,

that's great, but I had negative in all honesty. And yet, I got it done, I got it done six weeks, and it was just because I didn't give myself any other option, this had to work. - That's how I go, that's how I go.

So guys, if you're still tuning at this point,

episode of Women in Power, coming out shortly.

“Crystal, where can people find you on social media,”

on the internet worldwide web?

So I'm Crystal Smith, or in Facebook, my podcast

is www.caretoceo.com, and I hopefully we can leave

“my link for if anyone wants to book me as a consulting.”

- We will have that link somewhere down here on the screen,

and I'm just gonna point in directions and have the editors figure that out. But this has been an immense joy. - Have a wonderful show, thanks so much. - Thank you so much for being here.

“And are you ready now, we're gonna go record your episode?”

- I am ready, guys. - Let's do it. All right, guys, this has been another episode of the Living or Legacy podcast. Again, I am your host Jason Tyler,

and I will catch you guys in the next one. (upbeat music)