Good morning, this is Paul Martin, and I am back to you for another episode of Paul Martin's New Friday Morning Moment, and the Martin Rehab M&A Advisory. I come to you today, just a few weeks before the holidays begin, and we are definitely in a holiday season as of today.

What I want to talk to you about today is how you can make this holiday season as the owner, as the leader, how you can make this holiday season not only very special for you and your family, but also for your business and your staff. And I think your business and your staff deserve that this year. You know, this is not a typical holiday season. We still have a lot of uncertainty in this country. We are talking to many companies right now that are having record highs in numbers of new patients and visits.

But record lows in terms of staffing, especially as it relates to support staffing. So what happens when you have this onslaught of patients and you're just not able to provide what you want and what you know the patients deserve? It causes anxiety. It causes stress. It causes internal tension through your company. And as leaders, this is the time when we need to step up and bring our staff even closer together than they ever have been, and there could not be a better time than this holiday season.

So let me give you some thoughts and ideas on how you, as the leader of your company, could make this holiday season a very special holiday season for you and your staff. You know, one idea is one that we're doing here at Martin Healthcare Advisers, I've reached out to the church that I attend and I have requested and asked if there is a family in need, whether it's leaf clean up, whether it's fixing odd jobs around the house, whether it's food, meals or a number of families, and how we as a staff could come together and help those families this holiday season.

You know, an idea that I've seen some companies do is to put together - in order to make a gesture like that - is to put together a committee, you know, let's call it the Good Fortune Committee and that committee of three or four people can find ways that you and your staff can serve in your communities. There's no better way to bring you and your staff together than to serve others and serve those in need. And I think that would make this holiday season extremely special. You know, simply a holiday Christmas party and many of us do holiday Christmas parties or holiday parties.

I should call that. Well, let's make this year special. And how can we do that? First of all, you know, there's been a lot of things that have happened this year that have been out of the ordinary. Folks have stepped up and done things above and beyond what they typically would do. Could we give some awards to those people who have worked many, many hours of overtime or who have gone out of their way to serve others within your company, as well as within your communities? So some awards would be really nice.

You know. I was talking to a salesperson yesterday, and he has been in medical sales for 25 plus years and I really respect this individual. He has done a phenomenal job. And he said typically what he does is he takes the last two weeks prior to the Christmas holiday. He takes those two weeks off and he takes three full days of one of those weeks and sends personalized texts to each and every customer, as well as to each and every person that he touches when he is with those customers. If he's in hospitals, he's talking about nursing support staff, obviously the physicians. And it is a personalized text, each and every one. He said he used to do personalized letters to each one. And then he has to field the responses because each one is very personal. This is not something where he creates a template and sends it out to 200 people. And he said, you know, it typically takes about a good day and a half to two days to send all of the messages out, and then it takes at least a day to respond to those messages.

What a great way to show how much you care for the folks and the people that support you and your business that could be passed on to your clinical directors to do to their, maybe their current patients, as well as the physicians that most support them.

And so, you know, those are some ideas that we've discussed here, and I know there's many more. I would love to hear from some of you because I know there are some great ideas out there and we could share some of those next week, as well as how to really, really double down on that opportunity to serve or the opportunity within a party that you may have to celebrate your staff, how we can really double down on that and make that extra special. So click below, and I'll set up a time that we can talk, and I would love to hear how you are planning to make this holiday season most special for you, your staff and your businesses. Thanks. I look forward to talking to you very soon.