Timothy A. Zercher (00:00)
Obviously you are in a competitive state—or several states. How does your team go about gaining new clients, and what is working best for you right now?

Amber Vaughan (00:08)
Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna answer this question how you might think I would. But really, I don't believe in competition in this space. I believe, truthfully, that competition is a fallacy. So according to SAMHSA, seven out of ten people who reach out for care do not connect with care. So,
the real issue is not who is my competitor, who's taking business from me. The real issue is what do we need to do better to connect people to care?

And if I'm being really transparent, that's my style. Anybody who's familiar or follows me on LinkedIn knows that's the case.

I think that it's something that we tell ourselves too, to make us feel better about why our beds are empty and why we're not doing a good enough job to connect people to care.

But to answer your question about what is working well for Cornerstone Healing Center, we put the product first. That is by far what drives our success. We are constantly iterating and reiterating and obsessed about providing the best service that we possibly can to our clients. And because we do that, we have great outcomes. And that has built us an incredible reputation within our space.

And we're very present in our community as well. You know, that's another core tenet of who we are—being present in our community, giving back to the community, being a resource for the community. So, you know, if you were to come to Phoenix and ask about Cornerstone, chances are good people are going to know who we are, what we do, and that we do it well. And my job in the marketing space is just to tell that story.

Timothy A. Zercher (02:03)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think for every clinic—when we interview potential clients, we always ask, like, "Where are you generating most of your new business from?" And if they don't say "word of mouth" as 60-70% of their business, then you're doing something wrong, right? You have to focus on that quality of work. And if you focus on that first, like you guys do, the results should follow.

Amber Vaughan (02:26)
Yeah, absolutely. If we have a good product, if we have a good service, there are more than enough people who need care and they'll find their way to us.

Timothy A. Zercher (02:32)
More than that, absolutely.
Often more than we can provide care for, right?
So, you have launched multiple locations. You guys are in three locations, I think, right now. What is the hardest part about building out a brand-new location, building out a brand-new team?

Amber Vaughan (02:36)
Yeah, absolutely, yes.
Yeah, so I have not been with Cornerstone for very long, so I don't want to speak too far back, but I can speak in my experience in my time here. In the time that I've been here, we've doubled census and we're about to double it again. So I've got a good understanding, and without a doubt, it's about finding the right people on our staff. You know, our culture is king here at Cornerstone. That's a core tenet of our product.

Making sure that we're hiring people into that culture, the right people and putting them in the right seats—that's been the biggest challenge. Often looking at operations like, let's go, get it going, where are we at? Because we have—really our biggest challenge is that we have more people who need care than we currently can provide beds for.

So we're just trying to keep up with that cadence and it's simultaneously making sure that as we scale, we're doing it the right way. We keep our culture, we keep the integrity of our service, we keep the integrity of who we are and what we want to do, even at scale.

Timothy A. Zercher (03:45)
That's awesome, that's awesome. I think a lot of people are aware of and focus on maintaining quality of care as they grow. I don't think a lot of people understand and pay attention to maintaining quality of culture for your internal team, because that definitely can get lost.

Amber Vaughan (03:57)
Yeah, crucial.
Yeah, you can't have one without the other, really.

Timothy A. Zercher (04:01)
True, very true, very true.
So what does being kind of a disruptor in the behavioral health sector mean to you, and how has it been working so far?

Amber Vaughan (04:12)
You know, for me, it's being the voice that's willing to stand up in the room and demand that we do better—whether that's with my team or whether that's on LinkedIn or at a conference. That seven out of ten metric is the driver here, right?

I don't care what's been working. I don't care for how long it's been working. It's actually not working, right? Even if we feel like we're successful in this space, we're not—because we're not solving the problem if more people who are seeking care aren't getting it.

So, that number's flipped. Someone has to be constantly challenging the narrative of "how do we do better?" "What drives that needle forward?" "Where are our deficits?" Let's look at it a little bit differently than everybody else has. You have to be willing to challenge that.

Timothy A. Zercher (04:52)
Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense.
There has to be someone that challenges the status quo or it never changes, right?
So, you've spoken pretty openly about turning personal pain into purpose. How has that shaped your leadership style and how you lead your teams?

Amber Vaughan (04:58)
Yeah, so with radical authenticity and candor is how I show up for my team.
I really believe that one of the biggest detriments that we have done to our teams in corporate America is expect people to show up and wear a corporate mask—to follow the rules, to jump when I say jump, to put the period where the period goes. That's not how solid teams are built. That’s not leadership.

So I set the standard and the precedent by showing up as an authentic human every day and creating space for my team to do that as well. And it's really a beautiful thing when you do that, because when people feel free to show up and be themselves, you get to see—

We’ve all been given these different gifts, right? We all have different skill sets, and our job as leaders is to match those skill sets to deficits and create a well-rounded team. And we use that connectedness, that togetherness to solve the problem.

We can't do that when we're wearing a mask. We can't do that when we're following the rules. So yeah, man—my team knows when I fail. They know when I fail big. We say "I'm sorry" a lot—whether it's a six-figure mistake or, you know, yesterday I read a Slack wrong, right? And I responded, I was like, "Hey, I would have done that differently." And they were like, "Hey, did you catch this part?" I was like, "Actually, I didn’t. I read it too fast."

So, you know, just being a human and allowing our people to be humans—it changes the game.

Timothy A. Zercher (06:31)
Yeah, well—I mean, who wants to work in a place where you have to wear a mask if you have a choice and you can find a place where you can be genuinely yourself, right?

Amber Vaughan (06:50)
Unfortunately, I think that's the case more often than not though. Not many places can you be yourself unless it's your place.

Timothy A. Zercher (06:53)
Yeah, well—and unless leadership like you tries to make it an actual priority, it can’t be an open space.

Amber Vaughan (07:05)
I think more people are doing it. I’m seeing it a lot more and I hope it continues to become the norm.

Timothy A. Zercher (07:10)
Absolutely. I think it helps combat burnout. It helps combat disengaged employees. It helps combat a lot of those issues that are facing a lot of behavioral health groups.
So in a field where trust is absolutely everything, how do you teach and lead ethical marketing without losing the impact, the growth, the results—“filling the beds,” so to speak?

Amber Vaughan (07:32)
Yeah, that’s how you fill the beds, right?
That’s the beginning of the patient journey—is marketing. It's your sales and marketing team, their experience, and how you acquire that client or patient—that's the precedent for their treatment experience.

So the last thing I would want to do is have an inauthentic or deceptive experience for that patient, and then drop them into a program and expect them to be successful—expect them to be vulnerable, to build rapport with our clinical teams.

You’re setting yourself up for failure, and it’s a house of cards.
 You have to do it the right way if you're focused on the right outcomes.

Timothy A. Zercher (08:16)
Or it won’t last. It’ll fall apart eventually.

Amber Vaughan (08:19)
Yeah—and it’s a great disservice to the patient. It’s tragic, actually.

Timothy A. Zercher (08:24)
Absolutely.
So, you’ve led both admissions and branding, strategy, and leadership. What is one lesson that you’ve taken from the front lines—actually talking to potential clients—and how have you applied that to leadership?

Amber Vaughan (08:39)
You know, I’ve had the honor of working in—not every role—but a lot of different roles in this space. I’ve been a BHT, a case manager, I’ve led clinical teams, I went to school to be a therapist—I have my master’s but not my license.

Then somehow I ended up in clinical outreach and admissions, and now I’m in marketing. I’ve seen a lot of different facets of this industry.

If I could share or challenge anything, it would be:
 Why are you doing this work? Why are you in this space?
Why do you own the company that you own, as a treatment center owner? What’s your motivation?

Because whatever your mission, vision, and values are—authentically—bleeds into every part of that treatment experience.

Are you people-focused or revenue-focused?
 If revenue is first, that experience finds its way into the entire patient journey. And the patients know it.
 If you're people-first, that also finds its way through the entire ecosystem. And they know it. And our clients are more successful.

If I had to say anything to other leaders out there—it’s this:
 If you're in it for revenue first—man, there’s a lot of other land grabs out there. Go work in AI. Go work in tech. This is not the space for that.

Timothy A. Zercher (10:01)
Yeah.

Amber Vaughan (10:04)
You have to be people first. You have to be mission-oriented in this space—or you’re just hurting people, and you’re not going to be successful. Those things are not disconnected.

And sometimes when you're in leadership, you’re up here, and the patient is way down here in the funnel—and you don’t see that connection. But it bleeds the whole way through.

Why you're doing what you're doing matters.
And you have to challenge yourself to ask that question.

Timothy A. Zercher (10:28)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. I think that’s one of those truths of life more people should know and understand better. You have to actually see how things are working in the real world, not just lead the team who leads the team who does the actual work.

Amber Vaughan (10:46)
Yeah. It all is connected. It all matters.
Especially in a space that is here to save lives. That’s what we’re here to do.

Timothy A. Zercher (10:54)
Absolutely. Or that’s what you should be here for, right?
If you're just in it for the money, it's not going to work.
That makes complete sense.