Betty Long of Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates On 5 Things You Need to Know To Successfully Scale Your Business

I have been committed to growing the team internally, especially in leadership positions. I bring people onto the leadership team that already have knowledge of Guardian Nurses, purposefully so that they understand and love the culture. Creating a culture of mentorship and learning has helped our team be successful. I am always looking for opportunities to teach my nurses something new, so that they can go on and grow in their career.

Startups usually start with a small cohort of close colleagues. But what happens when you add a bunch of new people into this close cohort? How do you maintain the company culture? In addition, what is needed to successfully scale a business to increase market share or to increase offerings? How can a small startup grow successfully to a midsize and then large company? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experiences about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Betty Long.

Betty Long, RN, MHA is the President/CEO and Founder of Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates which provides nurses to serve as a patient advocate to patients and families. She is a nationally recognized expert and speaker on patient advocacy and has a long history of healthcare advocacy with special expertise in critical care, long-term care and geriatric care management. She is a member of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Case Management Society of America, the Forum of Executive Women in Philadelphia and serves as President of the Board of Trustees for The Nightingale Awards of Pennsylvania.

Thank you for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I’m the President/CEO and Founder of Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates which provides nurses to serve as a patient advocate to patients and families. I founded the company after guiding several elderly family members through the healthcare system. As a registered nurse since 1986, I have experience in clinical, management and consulting capacities. In addition, I’m a long-time healthcare advocate with special expertise in critical care, long-term care and geriatric care management.

You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?

There are two key decisions in my career journey that I believe have made a vital impact on where I am today. When I was a journalism student, senior year in college, my mom was diagnosed with cancer.

Three months after receiving her diagnosis, she passed away. Her passing made a profound impact on me. So much so, that post-graduation, while working at the Philadelphia Inquirer, I decided that I wanted to change direction and pursue nursing school. My family’s reaction was understandably, shock, but I graduated and have never felt regret in that decision.

The second decision happened in 1999, when my 85 y/o Uncle George fell down the stairs in his home.

He was taken to Jefferson Hospital, in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the ICU. A doctor was explaining to my Aunt Betty, who was 84 at the time, how they were going to intubate or place a tube down his throat so that he could breathe. I could see her nodding her head, clueless as to what intubating meant but agreeing to have it done. At that moment I had the thought, “What do other people do at times like these when they DON’T have a nurse to help them understand?” That was the moment that the idea for Guardian Nurses was born.

What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?

Besides creating Guardian Nurses, in 2013, I was asked by a former client to create a model of care management. The client admitted that they had been paying a large amount of money to an insurance company for similar services they believed they were receiving little to know value for. In response to this, I created the Mobile Care Coordinator Program as a high touch, mobile model of patient engagement. Nurses receive daily data feeds about where inpatient residents are. They mobilize to that hospital and offer support to the patient at a time when they are scared and vulnerable.

Our engagement rate is close to 50% when other telephonic models are closer to 10%.

Sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away from it?

I think one of the biggest mistakes any professional can make is not believing in the value of their services. Early on in my career I often had trouble believing that my abilities were worth the prices I was charging my patients and their families. It wasn’t until I started to believe in my skills as a nurse and patient advocate that Guardian Nurses took off.

How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?

A woman named Karen Kirby was my biggest mentor. I left my part time job with her nurse executive search firm and fell full time into getting GN off the ground. Karen, who passed away last August, was a nurse executive who purchased an existing nurse executive search firm and grew it before she sold it and retired. Her mentorship was invaluable to me and most importantly she believed in me. As my business has grown, I have always been open to talking with other nurse entrepreneurs. I will always share my experiences and offer tips or introduce them to someone who might help them.

Since leaving a hospital setting and creating Guardian Nurses, I have purposely sought out nurses and businesspeople who would help me become a better business owner. I was a clinical nurse for 17 years and didn’t have the knowledge on how to start a business. What I did have was a strong desire to help patients and their families and the belief that my idea for Guardian Nurses could help people across the nation.

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?

There are three-character traits that I model my leadership style after.

1. Always be willing to pitch in and do the job.
2. Always listen to your team.
3. Keep the focus on taking care of patients.

My brother was an officer in the US Army and gave me advice that I live by to this day as a business leader. “Take care of your people, they’ll take care of your mission”

Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s talk about scaling a business from a small startup to a midsize and then large company. Based on your experience, can you share with our readers the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”? Please give a story or example for each.

1. Pay Attention to the Details
2. Find Good People you can Trust (accountants, lawyers, etc.)
3. Build Good Relationships Along the Way
4. Believe in Your Value; Charge a Fair Price
5. Focus on Service, not Profit — Know Who You Are

Can you share a few of the mistakes that companies make when they try to scale a business? What would you suggest to address those errors?

The biggest mistake businesses can make is losing sight of their mission. At the end of the day everything you do should have meaning and be purposeful.

Over the years, I’ve been approached by people who wanted me to add services or change the model of my business. I never wanted to grow the business and lose sight of what our core service is.

Patient advocacy is and always will be our mission.

Scaling includes bringing new people into the organization. How can a company preserve its company culture and ethos when new people are brought in?

Guardian Nurses has continued to grow our team, particularly over the last nine years with our Mobile Care Coordinator or MCC Program, but I am proud to say that we’ve maintained our company culture. I built Guardian Nurses’ culture and I continue to make it my top priority. We formally have what we call “Our Fundamentals” which defines the values we work and live by. Those fundamentals are wrapped into each day at GN. We start each meeting identifying the fundamental of the week and our nurses will share stories which embody one or two fundamentals. Over the last five years it’s become part of our DNA.

Many times, a key aspect of scaling your business is scaling your team’s knowledge and internal procedures. What tools or techniques have helped your teams be successful at scaling internally?

I have been committed to growing the team internally, especially in leadership positions. I bring people onto the leadership team that already have knowledge of Guardian Nurses, purposefully so that they understand and love the culture. Creating a culture of mentorship and learning has helped our team be successful. I am always looking for opportunities to teach my nurses something new, so that they can go on and grow in their career.

Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.

I would love to empower patients to ask more questions of their providers. Patients often put a great deal of trust in their doctors. Sometimes compromising on less than stellar Interactions, treatment, rude answers because they believe their doctor is all knowing. I want patients to know that doctors are a dime a dozen.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can learn more about Guardian Nurses at our website https://www.guardiannurses.com/. In addition to the site’s content, it also has links to my blog and podcast, which over a variety of issues in healthcare and nursing.

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!