The ‘demographic timebomb’ is nothing of the sort for entrepreneurs in the senior care franchise sector.
That we’re an ageing population promises further growth in the nursing sector.
That we’re an ageing population promises further growth in the nursing sector
What’s more it should be relatively unimpeded by recession, as few sectors can more credibly claim to be recession-proof.
BusinessWings talked to the founder of the Home Instead care franchise, Paul Hogan, and the buyer of the UK master franchise, Trevor Brocklebank, about a safe bet in uncertain times.
Just don’t expect it to be easy.
Adam Bannister: Paul, tell me about how you started the business?
Paul Hogan: My 88-year old grandmother couldn’t even get out of her own chair and looked like she might only have a few months to live.
We didn’t want to put her in a nursing home so we had her stay with my mother for her final year – which turned into 11 years. She regained the will to live, so I realised you don’t need to be a doctor or a nurse to make a big impact.
We organised a group of caregivers in Omaha and provided for other families what we provided for my grandmother. And that’s how the concept was born.
Now we’re in 15 countries with 900 franchise offices.
AB: And how did you get involved, Trevor?
Trevor Brocklebank: I was looking for care for my grandfather and wanted someone to look in on him for a couple of hours a day, cook him a decent meal and do some basic cleaning. I wanted to have the same person every day so if his health deteriorated I’d get a call.
Only I couldn’t find anybody. I thought well, this isn’t rocket science.
All the healthcare franchises in the UK perpetuated the old social services type care model, so I jumped on a plane and met a number of companies in the US. Home Instead was by far the best so I bought the master franchise.
AB: What do you look for in a franchisee?
TB: We’re extremely selective. We could have twice as many franchisees as we have now if we took cheques off everybody who wanted to buy one.
But in this business you’re dealing with vulnerable people and you need a real passion for what we do as well as a great business head. It’s no good finding someone immensely caring who can’t run their own business, but you don’t want someone in it purely to make money.
Industry experience isn’t important because we can teach them all that. They need to have good people skills, whether with your clients, caregivers or out in the community with the people who refer business to us.
You’ve got to have a track record of success. That could be anything from being a success in a high profile band or in sport through to a good career in business.
This isn’t get-rich-quick scheme; it’s a making money by working extremely hard over a long period of time scheme. We need people who are prepared to roll their sleeves up and work hard.
We’re also looking for people who can run a multi-million pound business. We’re talking about a large business three or four years down the line, so they’ve got to have ambition and desire to run that size of organisation.
A lot of people have been very successful in their business career but they want to do something which makes a difference. And they want to run their own business rather than being part of a corporate machine.
AB: Can you give a broad outline of what running a Home Instead care franchise involves?
TB: There are two halves to what we do.
One half is the quality side. We have very rigorous quality assurance policies to make sure we deliver the highest quality care consistently to all our clients.
The other half is the entrepreneurial side, where you need to go out into the community to get referrals and create a fantastic working environment for your team and the caregivers.
So we need people who are comfortable following the procedures that we have, but are creative and entrepreneurial as well.
And this really is running your own business. Some franchises tell you exactly what it is and how it works.
This isn’t like that. The phone won’t ring unless you get out there and make it happen.
