Denise Brown took her caregiving experience and turned it into a business — one that trains other caregivers to turn their own experiences into a business. Graduates of The Caregiving Years Training Academy have turned the business of caregiving into careers in speaking, coaching mentoring, leading support groups, and many other things.
The business of caregiving is set to increase, because the need for caregivers is increasing. This is due to our aging population, growing health risks and healthcare disparity, as well as the ongoing shortage of healthcare workers of all types.
And those caregivers will need help and support as well, leading to lots of business opportunities. There are and will continue to be plenty of opportunities to create valuable businesses, but also provide meaningful help and support to others.
Denise shares with The Savvy Entrepreneur some of the many challenges of being a caregiver, as well as the challenges of being an entrepreneur. Hers is a meaningful and heartfelt startup journey.
Below is a transcript of the interview. If you’d prefer to listen to the original interview on demand, go here.
Doris Nagel 042
Good morning, all you entrepreneurs out there! Welcome to The Savvy Entrepreneur Show!
If you’re an entrepreneur or small businessperson, or thinking about becoming one, listen up because this show is for you.
I’m Doris Nagel, your host for the next hour. And I’ve counseled lots of startups and small businesses over the past 30 years. But I’ve also started or helped start at least nine different businesses myself, I have made so many mistakes over the years, I have seen many mistakes.
My goal is to help people by sharing helpful information and resources. If I can help just one of you entrepreneurs out there not make some of the mistakes I’ve made or seen, then I’ve been successful.
The second goal is to inspire, because I found being an entrepreneur, confusing, and often lonely.
To help with both of those goals, I have guests on the show every week who are willing to share their stories and their advice.
This week’s guest is Denise Brown, the owner and founder of the Caregiving Years Training Academy. And she’s here to talk about her journey, and to tell us a little bit about both caregiving as well as online training and being an entrepreneur.
Denise, welcome to The Savvy Entrepreneur Show. Thanks so much for being with me today.
Denise Brown
Grateful to connect with you, Doris. And I’m looking forward to our conversation.
Doris Nagel
I am too! What I didn’t tell listeners is that Denise and I are both English major alumni from the University of Illinois. This is a great tale of two U of I English majors who have found their way and found their passions.
The natural place to start is: what is the caregiving gears training academy? What does it provide and in who is it designed to help?
Denise Brown 2:50
Through the academy, I transform personal caregiving experiences. It’s for anyone who currently or previously cared for a family member, and they want to take that experience and turn it into a career.
Their career could be working for another organization, as for instance, a certified caregiving consultant, or it could be starting their own business. What I do is I take the personal caregiving experience that individuals have gone through, and I help them find the skills and insights and wisdom that they’ve gained.
And then I couple it with my industry insights, my life coaching skills, and my marketing insights. So at the end of the training, and there’s several different training programs that they can enroll in, they come out of it with an insight about their caregiving experience that they didn’t have before that it can actually enhance their career. What’s so important about that, is that during our personal caregiving experience, we feel like we have to give up so much. Yeah, the training does is yeah, it shows that you can actually gain from the experience that you have gained skills and wisdom and insights and a knowledge base that can help another.
Doris Nagel
I am guessing that experience is twofold, right? There is first of all, just the understanding and the patience and the balancing and dealing with the stress. There’s that whole psychological spiritual sort of piece of it.
But there’s also a knowledge base. For example, if your elderly parent has dementia, helping to manage her assets, to helping with powers of attorney, making sure she’s getting her medicines, and navigating all the health insurance stuff for eldercare, just as one example. And maybe there are more dimensions? Talk a little about that.
Denise Brown 4:50
We’re talking about family caregivers, which is different than professional caregivers. So it’s important to make that differentiation.
Family caregivers are the only individuals that touch all aspects of the healthcare system. The healthcare system is very siloed, except for the family caregiver experience.
So we work with home care, home health, hospice, palliative care, hospitals, doctors, specialists, we are the only ones that do that. So our knowledge about the system is incomparable. No one else has that insight into that.
Oh, I should have also mentioned the payer system as well as part of the healthcare system, we are the ones that touch it on all levels, and understand how to work through it. We are the navigators, we are the managers.
Oftentimes, I see descriptions of family caregivers, and what our responsibilities are, and those descriptions missed the mark, because oftentimes, they talk about that we cook and clean, and that’s maybe what we do. But really what we do….
It’s very frustrating. And very irritating, actually.
Doris Nagel
My mom is in a memory care facility, and my sister has primary care for her. And we chat quite a bit, and when she’s frustrated, she’ll get into some of the details of what you’re talking about. And I never cease to be amazed — and grateful– to my sister, for all the battles that she fights, many that we never even hear about, you know.
Denise Brown 6:34
Every day, every day, there’s some kind of battle. So what we are, in essence, as family caregivers, are CEOs of a caregiving experience. We are running small businesses, we are managing, we are organizing, were overseeing, we are making strategies, we’re creating plans, we’re making the decisions.
And that’s who we are. We are leaders. And because of our leadership role during our family caregiving experience, it positions us to be leaders after our caregiving experience.
In whatever way we want to lead. That could be leading as a volunteer, leading as a small business owner, or leading in a career that’s inspired by our caregiving experience.
Doris Nagel
Are there a lot of people that want to do that? I know people who have been through it, and a lot of them are just so relieved that they just want to take a break and do something way far away from that. But I’m guessing that’s not everybody.
Denise Brown 7:33
Typically, I suggest you wait two years before enrolling in our consultant training, which is life coach training to help you consult with family caregivers. And it’s that two year period where you actually close out the business of caregiving. You may have to close out in a state, you have to settle the will, you work out the situation with your siblings, to the best of your ability.
But then you also close out the emotional impact of your caregiving experience. And that takes time. So I think typically, if you’re looking at doing this, it usually is about two years after your caregiving experience has ended.
There’s definitely a grieving component to this. That’s particularly typical for family caregivers. There’s grief around a death. And sometimes it’s grief and relief. It’s a combination, because you’re relieved that the pain and suffering is over.
But there’s also a grief around the loss of your role, regardless of how you felt about the personal caregiving experience. Oftentimes, we just really don’t like it, because it’s that hard. It’s that frustrating. It’s that overwhelming.
But we still understand the meaning and the importance of that role. We get what we are doing for another person. We are enhancing and proving protecting their quality of life. There’s a tremendous amount of meaning that we derive from that role. And when caregiving ends, that role ends and we have to look at our life in a different way and who we are. And there’s a grief component to that as well.
Doris Nagel
I would guess that’s especially true when you’re talking about elder care and taking care of someone who was your parent, right? They were the ones who took care of you for a lot of years. And that role reversal is unsettling, I think, for a lot of reasons.
It’s unsettling because it’s a reflection of time passing. Suddently, we’re very acutely aware now that we’re the generation that we always saw our parents being. I’m sure there’s a lot of pieces to it.
Is your business focused on elder care? Because I do kno, a number of parents who take care of special needs kids, so is this offering designed for them as well? Or is that a whole different set of challenges?
Denise Brown 10:12
The training is for anyone in a caregiving situation. So it’s not specific to the relationship you have with your carry, or specific to a diagnosis or specific to your situation.
But I’m going to tell you a little bit about why that’s important. So we’ve had individuals who have gone through the training who have cared for parents, grandparents, spouses, children, siblings, cousins, friends, it’s the gamut. It’s the gamut. Yeah, so you have a personal caregiving experience. And then you take your personal experience and create your niche from it. So for instance, parents, caregivers who go through the training will then coach parent caregivers, you might have a situation where you cared for a spouse and a parent at the same time. So your niche then would be coaching, those who are caring for a parent and a spouse at the same time. Some are specific niches to a disease process like caring for someone with dementia, if you’ve had that personal experience, you’d want to help family caregivers in that particular situation. So the training is for anyone in a caregiving experience, or anyone interested in working in supporting with family caregivers, and it’s that your specific situation then then inspires who you help after the training.
Doris Nagel
Talk about your background a little bit and how you decided to create this business.
Denise Brown 11:37
So I was an English major. After graduating in 1985, I worked in trade publishing, for about five years. And trade publishing means that you’re working for a industry specific magazine, and writing about topics specific to that industry. So the trade magazines I worked on, were for bakeries, if you can believe that.
Doris Nagel
Bakeries! I was expecting you to say caregiving.
Denise Brown 12:06
Yes, bakeries! I actually was an editor, and I also was a writer. And I would go into bakeries in the middle of the night, which is when they had their production, right?
So I would go in and take photos of their process and write about how they marketed their store. And it was okay. I did learn a ton about publishing.
But after a while — about five years — I thought, you know, no one really is reading what I’m writing. And I wanted to write about something more meaningful. I was living out east at the time.
So I quit my job. And I thought, well, I’ll just do some freelance writing. I lived about an hour from New York City. So I thought, You know what, I bet I could get some freelance writing gigs.
But I wanted to have a part time gig to have a cash flow. I ended up finding a job managing a congregate meal site in a small town in New Jersey along the Delaware River. And at this congregate meal site,we served hot lunches at noon to seniors who lived in this community. And we also delivered meals on wheels to the homebound seniors in this rural county. And it was the adult children who would call me and ask, “Did mom come for lunch today/”
That really started me thinking about caregiving.
I worked for an agency who ran congregate meal sites, and they also had a contract to manage a respite care program for this county in New Jersey. They promoted me to manage the respite program. So I started connecting with family caregivers to help them give regular breaks. We had monies that they could use for home health aides, or a short-term stay in a nursing home, and adult day centers.
I would do in home visits to connect with family caregivers. And they were the nicest people I’d ever met. They always had a pot of tea ready to go for me when I arrived in their home, and they would always give me cookies and Danish. It was amazing. That was amazing perk to this job.
And they would tell me stories about their caregiving experience that were just profound. And as a writer, I loved hearing the stories. The stories of caregiving include drama and mystery, sometimes there’s a little bit of a romance in there. There’s family dysfunction. There was this tremendous rawness in the emotions that we feel. So as this as a writer, the stories of caregiving just compelled me, I’m sure, to work with family caregivers.
And then I started a small business to help them, because I could see that there was a lack of support for family caregivers. So in 1995, I launched a business, and I created a monthly newsletter. I combined my insights about the personal caregiving experience with my knowledge about publishing. And I launched a monthly newsletter called “Caregiving”. And the first issue went out in January of 1995. And I continued to publish that for another 10 years, wow.
And then a friend told me about this newfangled thing called the internet. Over Christmas – it was December 1995 — I signed up with Prodigy, which was an Internet service provider way back when they had message boards. One of their message boards actually taught you how to launch a website, how to build a website. So I took this online course.
And then I launched a very rudimentary website through Prodigy, just to see if people would come. Well, people came!
Then I secured a domain name in August of 1996 for caregiving.com. And then I launched the website. And then I managed that for another 24 years. And I sold caregiving.com to Ohio’s Hospice in March of 2020. To really focus in on training, I had launched the training programs in 2016. And they were, what I felt, was the future of my business, that’s where the revenue was.
Doris Nagel
Online training courses, you mean?
Denise Brown 16:17
Absolutely. So I sold the content and the URL, and I retained the revenue. So I could focus on generating the revenue, I want it for the business, and thinking about generating revenue for individuals who went through the training program. So that’s the goal.
Doris Nagel
The need out there is quite large. And it’s also multi layered, or multi headed, I’m not sure what the right word is to say. You could certainly find people interested in a lot of different aspects of caregiving, whether it’s the substantive pieces of it, or navigating the health care system.
For example, my sister went to a conference recently with an entire day talking about strategies for managing care of people with dementia, and some of the latest medical findings.
How did you focus on this piece of it?
Denise Brown 17:22
It’s interesting, because I used to do a national caregiving conference here in the Chicago area. I did it for four years, between 2016 and 2019. And the presenters were all family caregivers, or former family caregivers, because the experts in that experience are ourselves.
I had been to many conferences and meetings where there was s a doctor or lawyer telling us about what we are experiencing. But I wanted it to be a conversation with other experts like me. I started helping my parents after my dad’s bladder cancer diagnosis in 2004.
So I always wanted the voice of family caregivers to be front and center. They were the bloggers on my online community, the presenters at my conference, and then the enrollees in my training program.
And I see this now becoming so prevalent: family caregivers are really considered to be the expert. And the next step we want is for them to be the expert on the healthcare team as well. They are not just the one who can tell you about their father.
There are often treatment options. And it should be Ok to get together with all the healthcare providers and have a conversation all of them. The caregiver should be considered an important part of the healthcare team to figure out what’s next.
So I see this movement around family caregivers as really being the team member on the healthcare team that has this vast knowledge base because of all the pieces we touch. And that’s why we’re invaluable.
Doris Nagel
I agree with that. For example, my sister is the one who suggested putting my mom on hospice. The rest of the family wondered, “Does she really qualify for hospice?”
And my sister said, “I think she does. I’ve done a lot of investigation, and hospice doesn’t mean what people think it means” or what a lot of us might think it means.
So she was the one who pushed for it and the extra services it provides. The push certainly wasn’t from her doctor, it wasn’t from the health care facility, and it wasn’t coming from hospice services. It was something she had to investigate and initiate on her own.
Denise Brown 19:39
Yes, it’s really frustrating, how we have to fight for services that are available to us but that no one tells us about.
Doris Nagel
And that’s just one tiny example.
Let’s talk about the caregiving business. What are some of the most common challenges that caregivers face that you’ve seen?
Denise Brown 20:02
There’s challenges that came up because of the pandemic. So, if you’re in a family caregivers situation, you had a disruption in services during the pandemic. And it could be that those services haven’t come back, or you haven’t been able to access them, or they’re no longer available.
So the direct care workforce shortage is significant, and impacts family caregivers. So maybe you had a home health aide, come into the home to help with your caries personal care before the pandemic. And then maybe you thought, “You know what, during the pandemic, I’m not sure if this is a safe situation for us.” So you might have paused it.
And then afterward, when we had vaccines and you felt “Okay, I think we can start it again,” there might not have been a professional caregiver available through the agency.
So we are really struggling with how we manage the care. And I also think we have concerns about who we trust within the healthcare system. So for me with my parents, I just worried so much that something would happen, and they’re going to have to go to the hospital. And I worried that there would not be enough staffing in the hospital to manage their care.
Doris Nagel
Staffing is definitely an issue. There’s no question about that. Even not only on the home health care side, but even within nursing homes and care facilities. My sister has noticed it takes a lot of effort to make sure that I’m mom gets a shower regularly — just really basic stuff like that.
Denise Brown 21:44
It’s a huge concern.
So we might, at one point, have thought, “You know what, we’ll manage care at home. And then we’ll think about a facility.”
But now we might be in a situation where we think we’re just going to manage care at home. We’re not going to consider a facility because of the concerns around staffing shortages.
And depending on where you live, facilities may have closed – hospitals, or long term care facilities. So you might be in a situation where if there’s a health crisis, it could be that you have to go to a hospital a couple hours away.
And then you think, okay, if my loved one is hospitalized couple hours away, I have to be there. So then it’s an interruption in your career. So you might feel like you have to take family medical leave because I have to be available for at least a couple of weeks, if not longer, to ensure that my loved one receives the care he or she needs.
So there’s such a dramatic impact on us. And yes, there was an impact before the pandemic, but I would say it’s dramatic now. We are so focused on impact: strategies, decisions and plans around how do we ensure our caree remains safe and well cared for.
And the services that we use to count on might not be available for us anymore. So we’re figuring it out ourselves. And we have that much more pressure and stress.
Doris Nagel
You know, this might be a good place to chat a little bit about some of the demographics that are involved here, not only about staffing, but life expectancy.
Talk a little bit about that, and what you see as the future for caregiving, and some of the things that we as a country need to come to grips with.
Denise Brown 23:37
There’s a little bit of discrepancy around the number of family caregivers here in the United States. Some say 55 million, some say 90 million. I personally believe it’s closer to 90 million.
Part of that discrepancy relates to the definition of “family caregiver.” So I shared the typical definition that organizations use: which is someone who cares for and helps someone else. And really, the defining emotion of a family caregiver is “worry.” And if we were to define family caregiving as: “Who are you worried about in terms of their health?” Whether it be physical or emotional or mental, I think we’re all family caregivers because we all worry about a loved one’s health.
Doris Nagel
Or our own health. Because so much of it falls on us. So if anything happens to us, then what?
Denise Brown 24:25
Absolutely. And if we look at the demographics around chronic illness in our country, we are really at a crisis. There are stats that say 60% of US adults have one chronic illness, and 40% have two chronic illnesses.
And then there was a study that was released earlier this week that showed how many young people are pre diabetic. It’s something like 20% of kids who are aged between 12 and 19 years of age are pre diabetic.
Doris Nagel
Why in the world is that? That’s shocking.
Denise Brown 25:03
It IS shocking. And, gosh, I went to a conference, I would say 20 years ago, where they said that we are really moving into a huge crisis with the number of individuals diagnosed with diabetes in our country. And its lifestyle.
Doris Nagel
And diet, I’m sure.
You know, I think some people maybe hide under the hide under the covers and think, “Well, I don’t have to worry about that. Fortunately, I have great health, my parents have great health.”
And yet, given the size of the population and the problems — the health comorbidities that people talked about during COVID – those numbers are a big challenge for everybody. Because those people are going to need more of the health care system, which eventually might mean less for me, even if I’m healthy, right.
Denise Brown 28:49
I think certainly the strain we’re seeing on the healthcare system right now is going only going to intensify. Because we know that the need for health care services is going to increase.
And I agree that we have a tendency to say, “You know what, everybody in my family is okay.” And we want everybody in your family to be okay. But we can’t predict what’s going to happen.
One of our consultants, Emily, who was at work on a Friday before a long weekend, her husband had taken the day off, and he went swimming with friends and he dove and then had a significant spinal cord injury on Emily got the got the call at work. She never went back to work. And her life is now caring for her husband, which she would not trade. She loves her husband and feels grateful that he is here and that she can care for him. But it completely interrupted and disrupted her life.
We can’t know what our next moment will bring. We want to stay healthy. It’s one of the reasons that we are so focused on taking good care of ourselves. But we can’t predict to how our life will unfold.
Doris Nagel
Right. Or those of the lives of those around us who we love and care for.
We were talking about some of the demographics and some of the challenges that our health care system overall is facing. Everything from nursing shortages, to home health care to nursing home staffing issues. And, you know, obviously, we’ve got some demographic challenges, even without those, right, because the boomers, it’s a pretty large generation, and is aging and our birth rates been falling. So you know, I think there’s probably just some natural demographic challenges that the US and other more mature, I guess, Western societies are really facing in terms of overall demographics, too, right?
Denise Brown 26:02
Absolutely. The stats show us that we probably will be caring for more than one person at some point in our life.
So I think about my situation. I helped my parents. My sister helps my parents and supports her husband who helps his mother. So we’re gonna be in an intense caregiving situation at some point in our life, caring for more than one.
And you could be caring for your parents while you’re also raising your kids, and one of your kids might have special needs or a disability. So I think ultimately, what we all struggle with during our personal caregiving experience is: How do I have enough for everyone who needs me?
Doris Nagel
Let’s talk about your business model. You’re helping the folks who have been through that kind of experience, and helping them to find ways to make a career out of it, or maybe part time work out of it. What are some of the kinds of things you’ve seen people do with their caregiving experience and turning it into a business opportunity?
Denise Brown 29:20
Graduates of our Certified Caregiving Consultant Training, which is life coaching for family caregivers, become social media influencers. They launch podcasts, and they are content providers. For example, one of our consultants provides content for AARP. They become presenters. Another consultant presented twice in November and made $4,000 presenting for an organization.
They also coach family caregivers, one on one. They also have group coaching practices, so they might coach a group of family caregivers.
Another one of our consultants just inked a contract with her county to provide support for direct service providers, which include family caregivers in her county.
So what I like about this training, and what I’ve really focused on creating, is helping caregivers to turn their career into what speaks to them. So for instance, someone who wants to be a social media influencer, that speaks to them, but might not speak to, for instance, the content providers, someone who wants to write.
So you can turn the training into whatever it is that fits your skill set, your ambitions, your goals, your purpose. And that’s what I love about it.
Doris Nagel
Does your program help people explore some of those options? Or do most people already have some idea of what they want to do? And the training just helps them sharpen those ideas?
Denise Brown 31:01
Yes, sometimes people have a very specific idea about what they want to achieve after the training. And then sometimes people have a specific idea, and then completely change it because of the training. And others come out of the training and just say, “You know what, I’m just gonna throw spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks.”
What I like about what you said at the beginning of the program is that as entrepreneurs, we have a lonely experience. So we’ve also created as a community for the graduates of our consultant training, so we meet every month to connect and share. We do an annual virtual meeting with our consultant.
Our next one is coming up in just a couple of days where the consultants actually will present tips and ideas and marketing opportunities to the other consultants. So we support each other, we encourage each other, we want each other to be successful, because when one is successful, all are successful.
Doris Nagel
So just to be clear, when you say, consultants or our consultants, you’re talking about graduates of one of your programs?
Denise Brown 32:06
It’s the Certified Caregiving Consultant Training program. And that teaches former and current family caregivers how to become a life coach to serve other family caregivers.
The skills that I teach are skills that you can use one on one coaching and group coaching, but they’re also helpful on social media, or when you facilitate support groups, or when you’re writing about caregiving.
So the skills that you learn in the training program are transferable. You then decide how you want to use the skills. And it’s not just skills, but it’s insights about the personal caregiving experience.
Doris Nagel
Maybe it would be helpful to talk a little bit about the programs that you offer, and how each of them differs in terms of what the what the core of each looks like. Because I know from looking at your website that you’ve got different options.
So talk a little bit about what those programs look like and if people might be interested in what, what they could expect.
Denise Brown 33:05
I think of family caregivers as leading a small business. Their personal caregiving experience is really what it’s like to manage a small business, but focused around managing the care of a family member.
So as a small business owner, I like to have a coach and I also like to have a virtual assistant. So we have two training options that provide those services to a family caregiver. So the certified caregiving consultant training provides life coaching and training, so that you as a family caregiver could hire a coach or consultant to help with stress management, decisions, strategies, plans.
And then you want someone else to help you with organizing, scheduling, just managing the tasks. And that’s a certified caregiving specialist. So a family caregiver could have a team that supports him or her, which includes a certified caregiving consultant and a certified caregiving specialist.
You also could take a facilitator training if you want to offer support groups. And then there also is a grief facilitators support group training, if you want to offer grief support groups, for those who are in a after caregiving situation.
Doris Nagel
What’s the delivery model for each of those offerings? Are they online courses? Weekly zoom meetings? Hourly group coaching? I’m just trying to understand what each of those look like in terms of a business model.
Denise Brown 34:40
It’s a combination of recorded modules and live training. Depending on which training program you pick, you might have a more intense training experience. The consultant training, for example, typically takes a couple of months to go through that training, because you have nine archived modules that you go through. And then you join me for eight hours of live training, where you practice the skills that you learned in the archived training.
Doris Nagel
Did you create all these modules yourself?
Denise Brown
Yep.
Doris Nagel
Wow. How long did it take you to do that?
Denise Brown 35:14
It’s been an evolution. I really started the Caregiving Experience in 1997, and have updated that concept over the past 20-some years.
There are six stages to a personal caregiving experience. So when I first developed the consultant training, I developed a module for each of the stages. We take a deep dive into the personal caregiving experience. And then I wove in skills I had learned as a life coach. So there always were nine modules.
But what I’ve done is enhanced and increased the material in each of the modules. So at the end of the consultant training, I want you to have an insight about the personal caregiving experience that’s more than just knowledge of your experience.
I want you to step back and say, “Oh, my gosh, I get the themes of this experience.” And I also want you to have planning sessions that you can lead a family caregiver through.
So you receive tools, you receive techniques, you receive a really effective communication strategy. And then you have this insight, this broader understanding of the personal caregiving experience through the consultant training.
Doris Nagel
Wow, so it’s multi layered. And it’s a fruit of a lot of years of personal experience, not just your own, but of all of the people who have come through your various programs and that you’ve interacted with over the years, which I’m sure is a wealth of experiences.
Denise Brown 36:57
Yes. So it’s paying attention to what do the students need in order to be successful after graduating? And then it also was a learning experience around pricing. How do I price this? That was very helpful for me…. I guess [laughs].
Doris Nagel
How did you sort through that? That’s kind of a key question for a lot of people who offer online training and coaching or services businesses in general, right?
Denise Brown 37:27
So when I first launched the program, I had a marketing campaign in the fall of 2015. And I thought, “Gosh, this is such a great program, I want all family caregivers who are interested in this to be able to enroll in this program.” So I priced it at 400 bucks. And then I had scholarships. And what I learned and you’ll know this, Doris…
Doris Nagel
I was gonna say that sounds like a bargain.
Denise Brown 37:53
Right, it was! But then I learned that people equated the value of the program with how much time they put into the program. So because it felt so affordable, they didn’t actually invest the time in making the commitment.
Doris Nagel
Oh, we human beings are funny people, aren’t we?
Denise Brown 38:15
Yes. So the program got better the more I raised the pricing, and it got better also, because I also really wanted to deliver the value that I priced it at.
I want you to graduate from the program with tools and, and planning sessions that you could sell, so that you left the program with an ability to make money.
Doris Nagel
Interesting.
Denise, I’m curious about you and your journey through all of this. It’s quite a leap, when you think about it — you make it sound very casual — but it’s quite a leap to go from writing for trade publications about bakeries to I’m going to start this online business.
What do you think it was about your makeup and your situation that allowed you to make that pivot? I don’t know if it really was that easy or not, but you make it sound easy.
Denise Brown 39:20
Oh, it was torture at times. Absolutely torture. And I think what kept me going was my experience and my creative writing classes at U of I. I never could think of anything to write about. So I love to write but I couldn’t think of anything to write about. And then when I connected with family caregivers, I couldn’t stop writing. So because I found the subject matter that I was passionate about it, it kept me going.
Doris Nagel
So you’re a person who can use the pencil or the keyboard, but you need to speak from the heart.
Denise Brown 40:00
Yes, it has to be. I have this thing about time. I don’t like to waste time. And if I’m not writing about something that is meaningful, it is a waste of my time.
Which is why I had that need to change careers. I needed to find something that’s meaningful that I can write about. And caregiving has always provided that meaning to me.
You know, I connected with a freelance writer a few years ago who was writing about caregiving. And she asked me, “How do you keep writing about this for all these years?”
My answer was: but how do you not keep writing about this? It’s just such a nuanced experience. And every caregiving experience is different. Everyone has different challenges. Everyone has different availability of resources. Everyone has something that’s unique about their experience.
So connecting with family caregivers never gets tiresome to me, because everybody has a different story to tell. And I like to collect those stories.
Doris Nagel
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds like for you personally, when you find something that speaks to you from the depths of your heart, it’s almost like I don’t want to say it’s not work. But it’s almost like, you need to find that you need to be connected to that, in order for you to produce your best work, and be the best you can be. Is that that’s fair?
Denise Brown
Absolutely, absolutely.
Doris Nagel
Many of other entrepreneurs I’ve had on the show say that you need to follow your passion. There are some people out there who can say, well, I’d like to build this widget, and I’ll grow the production of this widget, and then I’m gonna spin it off. They’re very methodical about it.
But frankly, the majority of entrepreneurs will tell you to find what you are truly passionate about. Because if you’re not, there’s just so obstacles along the way, that you may find yourself thrown off the path, if you’re not just so passionate about it that you’re just going to find a way to work.
Does that describe you?
Denise Brown 42:29
Yes. And I also think when you are passionate about something that you’re creating, you find inspiration from those who use what you’re creating. So I think the passion connects you to your market in a way that drives you to serve them. And I think if you’re not driven to serve your market, you’re missing a piece of the passion.
I will also say that what I find is that you have to stay connected to your market. I’ve seen many, many organizations come and go in my space, and those that go, go because they didn’t think it was important to stay connected to family caregivers. They had this idea that maybe they had a personal experience. And that meant they knew enough.
You have to stay connected to your market, you have to listen to them, you have to look to them as the experts. So the other piece of this that I teach in the consultant training is that family caregivers are our clients and our teachers, we are always learning from them. And if you’re not connected to that experience of learning from your market, you are missing a piece of your success.
Doris Nagel
What are some of the best ways people have used, or that maybe you suggest they try, in order to stay connected to their community?
Denise Brown 43:56
It’s so easy now because of social media. Join Facebook support groups, for instance, around your subject matter interest, follow conversations on Twitter, connect to others on LinkedIn. It is so easy to stay a part of the conversation.
Doris Nagel
As you built this business, what have been some of the biggest challenges for you?
Denise Brown 44:24
Where to start? There’s so many.
There’s always a new bug. Something that I have regularly encountered that I have not figured out how to overcome –and I want to say this in a way that is kind – and that is the lack of collaboration. I guess, oftentimes, you encounter too many egos in the space, and the egos won’t work together. So you find yourself then in this crowded space, trying to work your way through the noise. And that can be frustrating.
Doris Nagel
I’m genuinely surprised to hear that. To me care, caregiving is one of the most humbling experiences you will ever go through. Wow, it’s some of the most painful base kinds of things that you will ever deal with. So I’m surprised there are egos, but I guess there are egos everywhere.
Denise Brown 45:44
If you think about what it’s like to start a small business, you are taking huge risks, and you’re putting yourself out in a vulnerable way.
And you might come from a place of there’s not enough here in this space. So I need to protect what it is that I have. And I have to look at everybody as a threat. So then you have a different perspective,
Doris Nagel
So a zero sum game approach? My gain is your loss and your loss is my gain? As opposed to we can all be better and grow. That’s unfortunate. But that’s probably human nature everywhere, right?
Denise Brown 46:26
Absolutely. It’s not just in this space. It’s common to other spaces. And I’ve yet to connect with somebody who has figured out how to work through this.
And I think what the challenge for us as individuals, then, is to avoid feeling completely burnt out from how much of a fight it is to rise above the noise.
And I think that’s why you need to stay connected to your market, to who you’re serving, because they are not noise, they are insights, they are your inspiration, they’re going to give you some nugget of wisdom that’s going to help your business.
And if you do that, you’re going to separate yourself from the competition.
Doris Nagel
Obviously, some of us have bigger insecurities than others. And I wonder if for some people, the caregiving experience is strikes, fear in, in those people’s hearts and touches on and maybe amplifies those insecurities. For some people, it’s probably very humbling. For others, it may just touch off, you know, a lot, a lot of fear and amplify those insecurities?
Denise Brown 47:42
Well, I think it’s just important to know we’re talking about entrepreneurs right now. And other organizations within the space that are businesses. And as business owners within a space, you might be moving from ego, trying to protect your space in the industry, and then perceive other organizations and other businesses as a threat.
And that’s so important to stay connected to your market, staying engaged with a conversation of who you’re serving, because that moves you away from the egos in the space, want to stay connected to the community.
Doris Nagel
How do most of your customers find you or do you find them?
Denise Brown 48:29
I try to have lots of opportunities for people to connect with me. I’m active on social media. I’m engaged in conversations with family caregivers, and I do regular events, so people can experience me as a host of an event as a presenter within an event.
And they do find me through my website, too. I started from scratch after I sold my online community. And I learned SEO when I built my website. So I used what I learned when I built my second one. People will come to the website and they’ll take different assessments. And then the assessment is the lead generator to have a one on one phone call with me.
I also have a community on Mighty Networks, which is awesome. So they can connect with me through that community.
I try to be open to the connection, I try to be engaged in relationships, because ultimately, what I find is it’s word of mouth. The consultants who have gone through the training, for instance, will refer individuals that they know, to the training program as well. So it’s an affiliate program for them, too
Doris Nagel
Yes, I can see where word of mouth would be very helpful.
Looking back what, if anything, would you have done differently?
Denise Brown 56:06
I would have avoided panicking. And I know that it’s so hard for us not to panic when we don’t have enough resources, money, time, manpower, right.
And I didn’t get how the panic wasn’t helping until afterward. And I thought, gosh, if I had just stayed calm, and given myself a little more time, I probably would have made a different decision. But you often feel like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have time, I’ve gotta just make a decision.” But a decision during a panic time I don’t think is ever really a good decision. I think I would have given myself more chances.
And I also think I would reflect more on my successes. Oftentimes, we just focus on what isn’t going well. So instead, step back and say, “Okay, this piece isn’t going well. But these pieces are.”
Oftentimes, I would take one piece of failure and just let it overshadow the other pieces of success. And I think it would have been helpful for me if I hadn’t panicked by what felt like a failure, and instead thought, “Okay, that didn’t work. But here’s what’s going great. Okay, I can figure this out.”
Doris Nagel
So focus on the ability to step back and move away from the urgent to focus on what’s important and always keep the big picture in mind — is that fair?
Denise Brown 49:50
Yes, And be open to the idea that getting another job is sometimes the best thing you can do for your business.
Doris Nagel
That’s interesting. Talk about that a little bit.
Denise Brown 51:33
Cash flow is important. And even if it’s cash flow from another job, it helps your business because it takes the stress and strain off of you to bring in cash flow. Right? I think entrepreneurs look at another job as a failure, when in essence, another job offering can be just exactly what you need for your business to continue.
Doris Nagel
A bridge.
Denise Brown
Yes. A good bridge.
Doris Nagel
Interesting observation. Well, where do you see your business growing? What will the caregiving years training academy look like in say, two or three years, if you’re successful?
Denise Brown 58:40
I would say within the next five years, I will have trainers. So I will not be the one who’s training, I’ll have trainers, and then I’ll be more focused on a nonprofit I launched, which probably will be where I spend my retirement years, really working on advocacy efforts to improve the personal caregiving experience and raising money to help family caregivers.
So I see both pieces — the for profit and nonprofit — in my future, but I see myself really looking at the for profit being run by others. So that I have time for the nonprofit.
Doris Nagel
Good for you. That sounds like a wonderful goal.
Denise, let people know how they can learn more about your programs or sign up for your services, and how to reach you if they’d like more information.
Denise Brown 52:15
Yeah, just please go to my website, which is careyearsacademy.com.
Doris Nagel
Denise, thank you so much for being with me today. It was really a delight having you on the show.
Denise Brown
Thank you so much, Doris. I just loved the conversation.
Doris Nagel
Me too.
A big thanks again to my special guest this week, Denise Brown, the owner and founder of the caregiving years training academy.
And thank you as well, to all my listeners. You’re the reason I do this.
You can find more helpful information and resources on my consulting & coaching website, globalocityservices.com. That’s my consulting website. There’s a library there of free blogs, tools, podcasts and other resources. But you will also find more and more content on my new radio show website that’s focused just on the show, thesavvyentrepreneur.org
My door’s always open for questions, comments, questions, suggestions, or just to shoot the breeze you can email me at dnagel@thesavvyentrepreneur.org
Be sure to join me again next Saturday at 11am Central/noon Eastern.
But until then, I’m Doris Nagel, wishing you happy, entrepreneuring!
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