Care, Connection & Growth: Building Closer Care with Alineh Agon

Alineh Agon (00:00)
So I’ve trained my whole team on the most important fundamentals, which is connection. Sit down, listen, have a cup of tea or coffee and just connect. Our clients have so many stories. Some of them are 60, 65 years old. So there’s so much to learn from them and there’s so much to connect on. And through connection, you can really help engage and drive results and create change for our clients.

Craig Minter (00:43)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Healthy Business Lab podcast where we interview amazing allied health business owners and related to allied health types of businesses. And today I’m extremely excited to have Alineh Agon from Closer Care on the episode today. Alineh, welcome to the conversation.

Alineh Agon (01:02)
Thank you so much, Craig, for having me.

Craig Minter (01:04)
Yeah, so I’ve known Alineh for a bunch of time now and I know she’s got lots of cool experiments to share, things that she’s done in a business and she’s learned and built an amazing business there. But first off, Alineh, I’d love for you to introduce yourself and share a bit of your backstory of your expertise and what you’re doing there at Closer Care.

Alineh Agon (01:24)
Sure. I’m Alineh. So I’ve been in the disability and mental health sector for 13 years now. And I started Closer Care about six and a half years ago. And my journey started as a psychology student. So I entered the disability sector to gain some experience as a student.

And I was willing to work with all kinds of people. Wherever they would send me, I would go, no matter how far it was or no matter how complex the case. And I was very passionate about mental health. About seven years ago, I really made the decision to lean completely into it and start my own business, Closer Care, to really fill some gaps that I felt existed in the sector, to provide that holistic care that was based around

building

connection, really strong relationships and supporting our clients who live with disabilities and struggle with day-to-day living to be more fulfilled, to have more independence and lead a more enriching and meaningful life. We’ve been doing that mission ever since and so many of our clients are enjoying the benefits of the care that we provide and we’re so happy about the

community we’ve built as well.

Craig Minter (02:37)
Yeah, it’s so cool. And I know from when we very first met that whole ethos of the holistic approach and the design of everything you’ve done with that in mind has been super cool to see. And I think I’ll go back to you highlighting there as well, which we’ve seen a common theme with many of our guests,

you notice some gaps. through that, then it was, hang on a second, you’ve gone into problem solving mode. Can you sort of just unpack that a little bit further as to, the evolution of, what was your approach once you started to notice them and think, what’s my approach for filling that void that you touch upon? How did you go about that?

Alineh Agon (03:16)
I would be one of those people that would say my university degree really did help me with my career.

A lot of people say, university isn’t what they thought it was going to be, it didn’t kind of help that much in their career or their development. In my master’s degree, we learnt about how to identify the gap in the literature that we were studying. And the gap in the literature, we had to really identify to understand what’s missing, what’s needed.

What I was writing about was

working with children, school-aged children who are living with depression and what are some gaps in terms of the therapies that exist, like with cognitive behaviour therapy, what are some of the gaps that are identified so that therapeutic approach could be more effective to really trick depression and have the long-term effects of it. So there were so many different gaps and doing that thesis for about six months helped

me really analyse what are the gaps of the disability sector.

What are clients needing and not getting? What are they asking for? What is the pain points? What is their frustration? What are service providers not doing? What are they doing that’s causing them pain and suffering? And so when I observed that and heard them and listened to them, I really was able to identify that so many of them were having care workers come and support them, but yet they were isolated and they didn’t know who was gonna come the next day. So they weren’t getting familiar

consistent care that was connection and connected and relational, but it was more tasks driven and it was ticking off a checklist. And I never saw care like that. I saw it so much more. I saw it as a meaningful relationship and connection being one of my highest values. I knew that the sector was craving it and needing it. So I was…

really focused on making that happen. So I’ve trained my whole team on the most important fundamentals, which is connection. Sit down, listen, have a cup of tea or coffee and just connect. Our clients have so many stories. Some of them are 60, 65 years old. So there’s so much to learn from them and there’s so much to connect on. And through connection, you can really help engage and drive results and create change for our clients.

Craig Minter (05:28)
So good. I just got the nice tingles and the goosebumps that I get when I hear such well articulated ideas and how you’ve unpacked that and the gaps that you’ve sought and then the approach that you’ve taken. So I’d love to then think about the experiment. So you started your business and you’re going into business. It’s very different journey than doing the masses and learning about things, but then practically getting on the ground. How did you go about setting up

up your business with connection at the heart of it and your goal to change the approach from the task-based to the more care-based approach. What experiments did you do and what challenges did you find in those early days of setting up the model that you’ve got?

Alineh Agon (06:12)
Yeah

I saw the industry that was split in half where there was a lot of care workers that were providing care that was very task driven. To me, I would consider that quite outdated, a care model.

I was really passionate about aligning my organisation to the NDIS framework, which is about giving clients choice and control, personalising the service to them, increasing their independence and capacity. So I felt like the holistic approach to care that I was creating and implementing was so aligned in the vision of the NDIS and so I was very committed to doing that.

And as soon as I started doing it, I was getting a lot of great feedback. The clients

were really engaging with it and the team that I was also hiring and training them on how important connection was. And I hadn’t yet established that holistic approach to care, you know, when I started almost seven years ago. So it was, to me, it was just connection. Now it’s so much more, but people were really responding very positively to it.

So it was something that was very much needed. So people were just running towards it and really wanting to access that kind of care and service. So I really identified what the niche was.

Craig Minter (07:23)
Yeah, cool.

Yeah, and I think coming back to being so clear and focused on

your values, that’s sung through in what you’ve shared so far but then flowing through to getting the right team members on board who potentially some of them may have been down the task approach before in different organisations or the likes. So how did you go about, recruiting, getting great people on board and what were the learnings as you were bringing people on, especially in those early days,

lot of people out there that those first, you know, couple of years, you’re still finding your way a little bit. How did you go about that process of identifying and messaging what you were doing and what your approach was to bring that into the recruitment and your onboarding of team members?

Alineh Agon (07:59)
Yeah.

I remember being so clear about what kind of team members I wanted to work for me and be part of the organisation. I wanted people that were wanting to enter the industry of disability care and mental health support because they have passion.

Because they might be a student or maybe they’ve been working in corporate for a long time and they just want to give back. So people that were really aligned with our mission and vision of providing care that was very positive and very outcomes driven.

So lot of university students were very aligned because I remembered me as a university student and all I wanted was experience and be given the chance because being a psychology student it’s just so competitive. You’re never really seen, you’re never really given a chance because you never get the experience and you’re always told you don’t have the experience.

So many people that were social work students or psychology students, they were coming to me wanting to get that industry experience with a passion.

And they were so aligned with learning from me. Or if someone was in an organisation that they hadn’t really understood the holistic approach to care, but they wanted to do care differently and better, and they saw Closer Care and they could see clearly what we were about, a lot of the right people were coming to us. And I could quickly start to identify if someone wasn’t aligned as well through my really good onboarding process.

But the niche of my team kept coming to us, which was really amazing. And I just was so grateful that I had spent so much time just visualizing and imagining who is this team, like who is going to do this alongside me.

Craig Minter (09:47)
Yeah, I love that. The clarity of thought just rings through of being so hyper-focused on the outcomes, the goals. When you’ve designed the business in the first place, it’s been a very intentional approach, which then has just made that whole process whole lot smoother because then it’s just that notion of going, well, how am I found the right people? And, the words that I’ve scribbled down here that stood out is just that

alignment and the passion. It’s that notion that if you’ve got that, that just then flows in because then it sounds like well moving on to your onboarding, it’s just an extension of that and then it’s just a natural flow. Is that a fair comment that it just feels like a nice natural flow with how it’s evolved?

Alineh Agon (10:32)
Yeah, and very intentional. I like how you noticed that. For me, if it wasn’t the right team member, I wasn’t going to hire fast. My approach was hire slow and hire the right fit. Not everyone’s going to be the right fit, and that’s okay. They might even find something more aligned to them,

but I knew exactly who we wanted to be part of this Closer Care journey. And we’ve got amazing stories about our team members as well and what they’ve achieved.

Craig Minter (10:59)
We might share some of the transformation of team members later on. We love talking transformation here, but for the listeners and the viewers there, just doubling down on that idea of hiring slow. There’s a lot of people that like to grow fast and the like, but it’s that notion of taking out time with the intentional, well-thought out plan that reaps so much more rewards in the long term

seven years on from the initial beginnings of taking that from the very start. No doubt you’re seeing brilliant pathways developing from people. Some of those people that were in the early days and now grown themselves becoming leaders in this space and the like. Is that a fair comment?

Alineh Agon (11:43)
we’ve had some people that have been with us from the beginning. So I was the first person I hired. And then I think within four weeks, there was a new person that joined the team. And so a lot of people are celebrating almost six and a half years with the organisation. Yeah, so there’s been that long retention.

Craig Minter (11:48)
Yep.

So good.

And I also just want to pick up what you just said there. Some people may not have noticed the importance of the idea of, I was the first person I hired.

I love that comment from the aspect of you’re both a business owner because you’ve created it in the first place, but you also hired yourself to do the work in. There’s that natural thought process of there’s me as the owner and there’s me as filling in those early days, that first month, you were every role within the business. Then when you in the first person on, then, okay, I’m starting to get other people in on that as well. And I love that. And I wanted to make sure we highlight.

How are you thinking with that as you’ve grown the team of me being the owner versus you know doing a few of the different roles? How has that evolution gone over the last seven years?

Alineh Agon (12:43)
Yeah, I just remember when I was starting, I was really good at service delivery. I know that was my strength. And then I quickly identified that I was good at leadership too. Everything else had to learn. But I was willing to learn. And then I wore all the hats. And I had capabilities to do that. But there’s also a downside, because you find yourself

close to burnout, exhausted, you’re working all day, you can work up to seven days a week. And you can do that for a long period of time. And for me, that was a big struggle and very challenging. I would experience brain fog.

I would experience a lot of painful things like panic attacks and it was getting a lot and I just thought I had to do it and I couldn’t see a way out so I felt like I got stuck in that pattern and then I trusted some people to do certain roles and then that didn’t work so then I stepped back into the roles and then I was doing everything.

Yeah, so it was definitely a process and a decision that I had to make and to trust and to be willing to be let down and to go through any pain or discomfort so that I can start to get the right people around me and have the dream high performing team

to run the organisation because the people on the field were fabulous. They were amazing, doing really good work because I knew exactly everything about service delivery and how I wanted to deliver really good, high quality, safe, excellent care. But the other operating side of the business was something I had to figure out. So I did invest a lot of time and a lot in coaching and mentoring and that made a massive difference.

Craig Minter (14:21)
Yeah, I love that you brought that up because I know it’s through those avenues that we’ve first got sort of connected and I know you’ve done a bunch of experiments in further education for yourself and the like. I’d love for you to share some of the insights of even some.

things that you tried that, you know, hey, that didn’t quite work for me, but I learned from it. And then once we tried something else, you’re like, yeah, this is what’s going to work with me with my leadership style and those sorts of things. There’s some great little insights that our listeners could get from those challenges. And then what you found, what you tried and no doubt changed path a few different times, especially when it comes to the working on the business, being the owner, being the leader in all of facets

of the service delivery part.

Alineh Agon (15:04)
There’s a lot of trial and error.

When I look back on my journey when it started, I wish I had like a really good understanding of the service delivery, but I didn’t understand business and how to operate a business. I didn’t have knowledge, didn’t have skills, I had never worked in an office. All I had done was groundwork. So I had to figure all of those things out. And I look back and I’m like, I wish I had some kind of knowledge, some skills, some support. I didn’t even believe in support that much. I didn’t think it was possible for me to

have a coach or someone to talk to, a counselor regarding business. I don’t know, I didn’t see that as an option. But there was a lot of trial and error, figuring things out as I went along. I hired the first person to work on the phones and do a lot of the client conversations and scheduling and updating and if there were any incidences to support them through that and navigate through that.

But they were working remotely and I couldn’t manage what they were doing. There was no transparency. I didn’t have a process in place or a system in place. So they were supposedly working, but then I was asking them, could you show me this documentation? Could you show me what you’ve done here? Can you show me what the outcome of this was? And there was nothing to show. So I was questioning what were they actually doing in the 40 hour week? So started getting

skeptical and I think pretty much nothing. But I had no way to track and no visibility on it and no process and nothing to back me. So that failed. So I was like, that’s not working. They’re the wrong person. No one’s going to be right. So then I’m going into that role because I was doing it so well. Every time the client would give me a feedback or there was a problem, I was always showing them how I was wanting to resolve that. It very solution focused, turning their pain into something

that was a resolution, something that would cause them peace, so they could be seen and heard. So I stepped back into that role. I remember there was a time where our industry, disability sector started getting really saturated. We had so many new providers entering the sector, so many providers that were unregistered and Closer Care was spending thousands, hundreds and thousands of hours every year to be compliant,

to maintain our registration, whereas another provider was not spending any of that time. So then our business started plateauing and I had challenges around that because the competition became so fierce. So then again I had to think how am I pivoting, what am I doing next.

And so I invested in some marketing. And I thought Google Ads was the way. It’s social media ads. And that brought nothing. So I spent there, and it brought me no ROI. And I spent so much time on it and quite a bit of money. And it didn’t get me any further. And then so I became really clear, and it raised some blind spots where my sector isn’t online advertising. It’s really that relationship marketing. It’s in-person meetings. So then I focused even more on

the in-person meetings and phone conversations and the connection, the touch points that can happen in a face-to-face way rather than digitally.

Craig Minter (18:09)
I love that. We sort of delve into two parts of that, but if I go back to the wider picture

you had some experiences, experiential learning, revise, what do we then need to do? And it sounds like you’ve leaned in on your processes and systems and they’ve continued to evolve and improve a bunch over time leveraging some of that knowledge that you’ve got there to go, ⁓ okay, cool. This is what it is, we’ve seen it, let’s try that second thing or whatever it is and then just lean into it.

Alineh Agon (18:25)
Mm.

Craig Minter (18:41)
Also give it a go. Be willing to actually give it a go, give it a try, put some parameters around it and then see where you get to from there. Is that on point?

Alineh Agon (18:49)
Yeah, so at the 3-year mark, I realised at that time when I was doing everything, I had my field workers, but I was also seeing clients and I was doing payroll, I was doing invoicing, I was doing sales, I was doing recruitment, I was doing the phones and all the client relations role and wearing all the hats and didn’t have any support, no one to delegate anything to. And at that point, I was at a crossroad.

Because one day I was just sitting down working away and I was doing 12 hour days and I remember thinking I’m just getting emotional thinking about it because yeah, it’s a thought that came and I think that thought made all the difference because it was there’s more to life than this. There’s something more out there than just working tirelessly and

trying to, and I was working really fast. Now I don’t have the capabilities to work fast like that, no, not at all. But I was working incredibly fast. My speed was 1.5 times, 1.75 times what an average person would do in a day just to get all the work done.

But I knew there was something more and I didn’t think that it was going to be 12 hour days and just working all the time. I was imagining there was something more. I started investing in business coaching and mentoring and learning about business and really educating myself. So I learned a lot of things about business. I got really educated with finance. I got educated in the sales process, the recruitment process.

And then I started to identify what were the gaps within my own structure. What was missing? Who was missing? What did I need? And so I started building processes. And that took a long time because all the processes I did was in my mind. It wasn’t in ChatGPT, It was in my brain. So I had to bring it out and put it on paper and start building processes. And so I did it that. And I invested in a system so that we had a really good system.

Craig Minter (20:30)
Thank

Alineh Agon (20:40)
how we scheduled our team and then like a CRM system which is really good and I could monitor things and start getting more transparency and visibility and then I started trusting and I started hiring people to do my scheduling and

and speak to the clients on the phone so I could focus on working on the business rather than working in. So I have to say goodbye to some of my clients that I was actively supporting. I was supporting four clients a week and I had 81 clients, 38 team members and I still seeing four clients every week. So I had to say goodbye to them and it was hard having those conversations but I was doing it for me and I knew I was handing them over to really capable, amazing support workers to take over

that had been trained by myself. And so the work had to be done and I had to keep studying and learning about business. And so three and a half years on, I’m investing in my education every year. I have mentors, I have coaches, I travel to maintain my education and keep learning new things and adapt and evolve. And now I’m really focused on automisations in my business. So I moved past the

processes and now we’re into automisations and really good systems. We’re noticing we’ve got sub-businesses now in closer care, so we need really good systems for those sub-businesses and automisations. So that’s a big focus now.

Craig Minter (21:50)
Yeah.

So good, if the listeners and our viewers there just follow the bouncing ball of what you’ve just shared and taking you back to the start of that is a very big investment in yourself, that whole thought process of there’s more to life than this.

Where are the things that I need to learn or I need to do to become who I want to be personally, but then also how that then flows and goes through the business as well. That idea of investing in self, then into the processes, then building the trust around that, and then it’s this nice, you know, cyclical effect of then it’s kind of the automation of those systems and the continuous improvement and refinement of that

which is such a nice, I’ve got a nice visual of that and I’m sure our listeners do as well and what I’d love to hear is…

the transformations and the outcomes of that. you’ve got it come full circle as you talked about there, you had your own client load, but you’re able to hand them off to probably that were, because they’ve been through your systems, your processes and you’ve educated them and they’ve got the more time than you have to actually give the clients their outcomes. We’re actually doing them a great service for that. And then you’re able to elevate yourself to have that bigger impact that you’re

that you’re wanting to do. As that’s evolved and over the time you sit here today seven years on, what are one or two of the transformations that you’ve seen with team members or clients that just makes you go, yes, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing and that’s why I’m gonna do more of it and impact more people’s lives.

Alineh Agon (23:38)
Yeah, that’s a nice thought to have. I’ve been someone that’s gotten myself into fantasy land so much. I remember investing in a business coach and mentor and I’m like, yep, all my problems are gonna get solved. It’s gonna be instant. I just had so much faith that it was just suddenly gonna get better. Nothing, I realised nothing was sudden. Everything was effort, everything was so…

much consistent work and then when it works, you know it works, just do the same thing again and then do it for all the departments of your business because our business has finance, it’s got the scheduling side of the business, it’s got sales, it has the recruitment, it has the reputation, the compliance, there’s so many different departments so when you figure out what works it’s really important to put a lens out on all businesses.

So the most transformative things I’ve invested in and the changes I’ve made is the one such thing, because I was really stuck. We were having such immense cash flow problems.

Because before when I’m doing everything, my costs are low. Now I’m hiring a team, my costs are really high, so I’ve got this massive cash flow problem. That was incredibly stressful. No one warned me about that. But I remember the pain I was experiencing of it. It was so difficult because for three, four years, me being pretty good with finances, I didn’t have that cash flow strain and stress.

So when I was in a conversation with one of my peers in our coaching group, she mentioned how she was using a cash flow system. And so she introduced me to you, Craig, and your services with the Profit First Profit, and how that has been something we’ve incorporated in Closer Care. And we use it every single week. And it helps put money into Profit First and then money everywhere else. And then the cash flow has incredibly improved. It’s given me more visibility

Craig Minter (25:13)
Yeah.

Alineh Agon (25:29)
on how to understand and budget and look at my finances and have a really good system that works. So that’s been something that’s been very transformative. And now I’m investing in two days

workshop about money mindset and healthy money mindset in Bali. So one thing leads to the next because there’s always something more. There’s a new blind spot. Another thing that I realised really helped was not giving up, not giving up when people let you down. And in business, there’s going to be so many people that are going to let you down in ways you didn’t even imagine. That was my

Craig Minter (25:49)
Yeah.

Alineh Agon (26:05)
story, but when I speak to my peers in business, so many people share the same experiences. But for me, it was an absolute blind side. No one ever warned me, no one prepared me. I trusted someone to do my bookkeeping when I hired the first person outside of me. And it was a really painful, traumatic experience, I was being lied to. My accounts receivable was so massive, so extensive.

It was piling up year after year. And that was, they were in the role for two years and it’s been a three and a half year journey of just getting out of that painful experience and riding off three years of bad debt.

But I didn’t give up there. I hired my second bookkeeper that said, we’re going to turn this around, we’re going to get things right, you can trust me. And they did nothing to help the situation. It just kind of went deeper and deeper into more accounts receivable that were piling up and all the things they promised they didn’t deliver on. And then I realised, okay, I’ve been lied to again. So people lie. That was something I had to learn because it’s not my default. So

I was very tempted to go back and start doing all the invoicing and payroll and save the day.

But something inside me said, just try again. And so my operations manager had someone that was in bookkeeping looking for a new job. She had spoken to them. She knew them from the industry. And someone came to us and I said, I’m going to give it another go. Third time, let’s see if third time is lucky. So I gave them a go and they’re in the role. And then now I’ve got a fourth person because they’re on maternity leave. So I’ve got a fourth person and they’re also doing so amazing in the role.

They’re just really reliable. So I’ve got two great people and the latest two people have been amazing. So it does turn around and you just get better at intuitively working out who’s aligned to your business and who isn’t. And that’s a skill I’ve had to learn and I’ve endured the pain and suffering. And now I’m on the other side where I can be like, I’ve got a collaborative, high performing team and now we’re just going to go to the next level together.

Craig Minter (28:00)
I love that the financial side of again as you know I talk about financial teams all the time and having that financial team and a system we obviously love that you’ve put that as a transformation that you’ve seen over the years as well it’s definitely something that we find.

With many people that we find that once the mindset around that gets, the stress levels get lowered, it obviously makes a massive difference.

I covered a lot of ground here today, Alineh. Really appreciate what you’ve shared. We will start to wrap it up, but I’d love, as you talked about the relationship marketing side of things, you know, being integral in the industry and in the space that you work. I’d love for you to share how can people connect with you, contact you, follow you, where is your best place for people to reach out and connect?

Alineh Agon (28:50)
So the best place to reach out and connect with me would be through my website, alinehagon.com.au That’s a great place. You can learn more about what I do. I do coaching and consulting for business owners. I also run amazing high-rises events based in Gladesville. So come along, reach out to me through there or through LinkedIn. Happy to connect. I’m always happy to share my experiences and see

what I can offer other people in the healthcare space and disability or NDIS and then see what I can learn from them because I’m always learning and I see it as everyone can receive value if you’re just open and if you’re bringing you know your best intentions and you know really have that supportive collaborative mindset.

Craig Minter (29:39)
Awesome. Well, we’ll include those details in the show notes there as well. And if there are any…

listeners or viewers who are heading along to of Alineh’s live events, let me know because I need to make it to one as well. I need to make the trip across Sydney to get there myself. So the more the merrier, if anybody’s going, then that’ll be a prompt for me to make sure I get to one of those as well. But once again, Alineh, really appreciate your time on this podcast episode and what you’ve shared. There’s gonna be loads of learnings off the back of it. So thank you once again.

Alineh Agon (30:12)
Thank you so much Craig, I appreciate it. It’s been wonderful.

Craig Minter (30:15)
Awesome. So thank you very much for you listening out there as well. That’s a wrap here at the Healthy Business Lab podcast. And as always, like, subscribe and make sure you connect with our awesome guests for collaborations and awesome knowledge moving forward. Over and out from us.