Unlocking Success in Senior Care Franchising: Insights with Rob Cantrell of Senior Helpers

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This week's episode highlights Senior Helpers' VP of Franchising, Rob Crantrell. Tune in to discover why senior care is a fantastic franchise opportunity and could be the most cost-effective route to recession-resistant seven-figure business ownership.

Rob shares why territories are being rapidly claimed and how the aging population is driving explosive growth in this sector. Discover the financial merits of Senior Helpers' flexible model, which proves lucrative even with a small client base. We also discuss the critical role of compassionate care for seniors with Alzheimer's and dementia and the transformative impact of programs like Senior Gems on their quality of life.

Ever wondered how Senior Helpers ensures the success of its franchisees? In this episode, we delve into their top-notch support system, from specialized operational teams and continuous training to effective marketing strategies and staffing support. Rob shares his passion for helping franchisees at every stage of their journey, making it clear why Senior Helpers is a rewarding investment. As we close out with a nod to the 4th of July holiday, we reflect on the promising opportunities ahead. Don't miss our signature sign-off, featuring Rob's enthusiasm for helping people find their path in the franchise world. Tune in and get ready to be inspired by what's possible in the senior care sector.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:22

Hi everyone, I'm Jack and I'm Jill and we've got a very special guest today for you. On the we Bought a Franchise podcast, we have Rob Cantrell. Rob is the Executive Vice President of Franchise. Is it Franchise Development, Rob, or Franchising for Senior Helpers?

Speaker 3: 0:38

Franchise Development sounds great.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Rob has been there since 2016. I'm not trying to date you, rob, but dude, you are like. I think that speaks volumes for you and for senior helpers.

Speaker 3: 0:52

I think I'm going to go from working with senior helpers staff to being a client, probably before it's done.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Yeah, I mean, listen, Rob, we've been working together for a long time and obviously you know, Jill and I have history in senior care. It was a family business that we were involved in prior to becoming franchise consultants. And, Rob, I think we're seeing senior care. There's been so much buzz around home services franchises over the past few years but, man, I think senior care like we're starting to notice, as we do territory checks for clients it's really it's starting to sell at a crazy pace again. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:34

Yeah, I mean Senior Helpers has been fortunate. We've had a strong pipeline of great folks for a number of years. But I think you're right, I don't know whether it's the industry, the job market, the way it is, it's just exploding. Right now, we're struggling to keep up with talking to folks and having meetings every day with new prospective franchisees. It's super exciting, I mean. I have been here a number of years and to have you always wonder is when's it going to run out? It just seems like it's got a never ending interest and supply and I guess that makes sense because the industry you know we're serving a population that's growing and expanding. I mean the number of seniors 2020, what was 56 million by 2050 will be 86 million. That's such a long runway of opportunity and especially in our space, million that's such a long runway of opportunity, and especially in our space.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Yeah, I mean, I look at an experience we just had last week with a client that we were trying to get territory for them. Rob and every senior care company in their market is gone, literally. We've been franchise consultants a long time and it's rare when we have to go as deep as we have and we're seeing this in multiple markets right now where I mean you guys are, look, senior helpers If you can get a senior helpers territory and it's available.

Speaker 3: 2:56

Yeah, we've got I think we're up to 384 locations now, but we still have a lot of great markets and you know, I think the you know it's not just the big cities now that are getting interested in it, it's a lot of you know mid USA markets, that the population bloom is happening there too, and it's such a great model because it scales whether you're in a you know, a more rural or as well as as more of an urban type setting. It's just the unit economics work out so nicely for folks in all markets to really get in and capture some of this.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Yeah, I mean the, the as I look at it, looking at the value of this business, you know. And numbers, industry numbers are always. There's always lots of different numbers, right, but from from what we've seen in senior care, the average client spends around a thousand bucks a week. Um, if you had 20 clients spending a thousand dollars a week over the course of 52 weeks a year, you've got a million dollar business.

Speaker 3: 3:55

Yeah, and not a lot of franchises I know of. You can get in there and say, okay, if I only have 20 clients, is that a million dollar business?

Speaker 1: 4:07

Right, yeah, no, I've always loved that, yeah, yeah. And Rob, let's be real. I mean we just no one's immune to this. We just saw it on on full display last week. I mean, look there, it happens, right. And I think sometimes when people come to us looking at this type of business, you know, when we really look at the kinds of clients that can use our help and actually Jill and I we were just at a memory care facility a couple weeks ago I mean, you see those places and the good that can come out of having a loved one who might be struggling with cognitive decline or physical decline at home versus assisted living or memory care, yeah, Even having that person in memory care with their client, you can see makes a big difference that they have like a companion with them, so like just whatever form, whatever way you can incorporate it, you can see it just makes a big difference in that senior or whoever is needing that assistance.

Speaker 3: 5:08

Yeah, and that is one of the target areas for senior helpers that I think we've really done a fantastic job Our Senior Gems Alzheimer and Dementia Care Program that we've developed. It really equips the caregiver to know, during that journey with that client, at their level of physical, cognitive difficulty, how to adapt and really get the most out of what life they have and really bring enrichment to it. You don't have to be jumping into a facility right away. There's so much more time that can go by if the person working with that individual knows what the changes look like. And yeah, that's what we try to avoid. Ultimately, there's not a cure currently Hopefully there will be for Alzheimer's, but there's some new drugs being introduced and maybe that'll have a great outcome for folks that are faced with this terrible illness. I hope so.

Speaker 1: 6:01

Yeah, rob, I've always thought that that was something great that you guys focused on with Senior Gems. I really do think. And look, you know, it's a fine line when we talk about this, right? Because the first thing is we want to take care of people. We want to take care of seniors. For people getting into this business, you can't just get in based on the money, but let's also be real. Let's also be real. I think the most valuable clients and the place where a home care company can be of the most value is when someone is struggling with cognitive decline and with senior helpers. With you guys having that senior gems, I just think you put your clients in such a strong position to capitalize and to help people who have that need. And that's going to be a client. And, like Jill said, this is something I'll bet most people who even come to you don't even think about. You could staff someone in a memory care, rob. Can you guys also staff like, if someone's staying in a hospital, can a caregiver help with that too?

Speaker 3: 6:54

Yeah, we've got you know when they're in, if we've got agreements with that facility. Absolutely, We've got you know. It's not just in the home that we have our caregivers going out there. I mean whether it's a facility or whether someone has their private duty caregiver. Once you're in a hospital stay, that's certainly a possibility for having that caregiver ready in all situations.

Speaker 1: 7:17

So my question, rob, is when we look at home care companies, home care franchises, it seems to me like the average across the industry is. It seems to me like the average across the industry. Everyone's got, hey, our average is a million bucks or more gross revenue. But every home care company and I want to be careful not to throw numbers out that aren't in item 19s, but just anecdotally speaking I think every home care company has a $10 million plus office somewhere, and there probably are offices in the middle. What is it that separates top home care, senior care franchisees from the average million dollar franchisees? What are you guys seeing that that makes it help someone go to the next level?

Speaker 3: 7:58

Yeah, that's something we've really looked at because you know a million dollar business is great and we've got a lot of them out there. But you know why, stop there with a business that scales, you know, 20, 30 clients, and get you to that first tier, and we want, we want them to grow five, 10, you know, and beyond you know, and we've got offices that have done that.

Speaker 3: 8:18

One of the things we started doing was what is the mindset of the owner that's doing a million dollar business versus one's doing a five million and what's their role in the business? And we found that it evolves. I mean, you've got in the beginning, let's face it. You're going to be a player coach. You're going to be, you're going to be jumping in where you need to to make that business run and operate and get off the ground. But as you do it, over time you're going to build a team that's going to start working and you have to kind of change your thinking that from player coach to more coach and you become very much CEO like of that organization and I think that's a little different skill set. And you know we get a lot of type A's that really want to have control and involvement in the business, that have to really trust and build the team that can take some of that workload. To get to the next level, you've got to have some leadership, some management skills. You've got to really be able to delegate what needs to happen for that size operation and that's where we've built.

Speaker 3: 9:19

We've got organizational charts of all size offices that we have kind of on a roadmap for franchise owners so as they get to those levels, what your staff should look like. Your role as an owner is going to evolve over time, so much so that we put a secondary training in our mix for owners. We call it our senior helpers grad school, and about year two to year three we're taking owners out of their office back into training and it's all about that next level. It's analyzing the KPIs, it's looking for the right talent that's going to lead your subgroups within your franchise and it's had fantastic results. It's peer kind of peer guided by other owners in that same and they hold each other accountable. So it's a lot of fun to have owners that are really starting to take off in the business to work with other owners and you get some competitiveness there. But really the ultimate is to get those offices the right size for that kind of growth and really the owners the right mindset to do it.

Speaker 1: 10:25

I mean, I think that's that's awesome and I guarantee you not many other companies are doing that. But that's a huge pain point and I remember being when, when I was at home care assistance, same thing, our top franchisees who are doing, you know, over three, four or $5 million we'd say to us look, we need different coaching. It's a different, fundamentally a different business. The fact that you guys do that, I think is huge. I think it's it's huge to have a roadmap for someone to see. This is where you can go with this business. And pound for pound, I mean when you consider and Rob, tell me if you think I'm wrong Okay, franchise fee, they range $40,000 to $60,000. What's your guys' current franchise?

Speaker 3: 11:06

fee $55,000, but we do have discount programs. If they're a military or minority candidate, we're going to help those out and it takes that down 10% to 15% off of that $55,000. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 11:20

And then working capital-wise. I mean, what do you think? 100k to 150K is the right amount.

Speaker 3: 11:27

Yeah, I mean our range of investment is going to be in the low 127 all the way up to 171. Some of the more prominent markets have higher costs to do business, so you're going to have a little higher in California and New York and Florida, some of these areas where that range might be up a tick. So I would definitely look at the market you're in, be prepared for the full range wherever it is, because one of the worst things and you know this too, jack and Jill is being undercapitalized. Starting out a franchise is not a good start. I mean you really, if you're buying into the brand and the franchise and the model, they've figured out what the cost points need to and where, where those those funds are allocated. So I would certainly say, pay attention to your, your item seven and your, your, your franchise disclosure document.

Speaker 1: 12:18

Yeah, I mean. What's the saying? No one ever went out of business for being overcapitalized? Yeah, I mean what's the saying?

Speaker 3: 12:23

No one ever went out of business for being overcapitalized. Yeah, exactly, If you plan for the worst and then you come up not needing as much, then hey, you've just given yourself your first paycheck, right.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Hey, you know. So, Rob, this is something I wanted to kind of bring up because we learned a lesson last week with our Pinks franchise. We worked two really big jobs and, frankly, out in the heat in Florida this time of year we burnt our team out and what I learned was we probably should have had more guys available to us one client. With our PINX business, we're like we want to have a deep bench of at least 10 guys that we can call and we can rotate, especially in the weather conditions. Any staffing thoughts on your end tips for franchise owners.

Speaker 3: 13:12

Yeah, that's something we track very closely and part of our model is to build that bench, always because you don't know if you're going to have a call out, you don't know if you're going to have a shift, you know, a lot of times we get the call after the client may be leaving a hospital stay and the son or daughter, like we got to go to work tomorrow, we need someone in there and if you don't have that caregiver ready for that situation you just got to, you've got to really work towards creating a bench, have backup players, on-call caregivers, really prepare for any scenario that could come, because, to your point, what you don't want to do is overwork who you've got and then they're burned out and then now you've lost those folks, now you've got to hire that person and more folks for your bench.

Speaker 3: 13:56

So yeah, less alert, less alert. So much so that we put part of our marketing fund allocation towards caregiver recruiting. That's a big area that we support, our franchise Getting enough resumes, enough applications in so we can keep that healthy bench and there's a cadence to it. You don't want to have too many on the bench and too many that are waiting for work.

Speaker 3: 14:23

But our model's kind of got the KPIs figured out. It's actually for us about 1.5 to 1 ratio.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Okay, hey, one more question on staffing, and I think this is really important for listeners out there. What Jill and I spend a lot of time talking to people about when we're searching for franchises is how deep is the franchise support team? Because, rob, there are some franchises out there that when you buy the franchise they hand you a binder. You know you're on your own. We know with senior helpers that's not the case, but can you speak to your support team and how deep that is and how you guys sort of handle that?

Speaker 3: 14:57

Oh yeah, that is probably one of the things when people go through our discovery process that I'm always surprised because I take it as a normal thing the amount of support that we provide our franchise owners operational support and you talked about franchise owners growing to the next level support. And you talked about franchise owners growing to the next level. We actually put our franchisees with the right operations coach for the right time in their business. So we've got a team that works with the high performing offices that are at that next level. We have a team that works with only the new franchise owners. So we're always going to have a rotation of operational support which is really your go-to person day to day. That's the person that helps you get open. They look at your statistical information, they know you, they know your business. So that's always as an owner, you're going to have that go-to person. But on top of that you need help with other things staffing, marketing.

Speaker 3: 15:50

You know for us there's so many different payer sources out there now of new opportunities to contract with large health care groups to get the care we provide paid for. So we've got an internal staff of ops folks. We've got a training department. You know our training and education starts the day they sign their franchise agreement. They've got formal training here, but we've got a whole arsenal and really a live calendar of training throughout every month that goes on.

Speaker 3: 16:19

One of our core values as a company has always been continuous, continual advancement. So developing people and they will, you know, they will give back multiple times over with that investment that you put in training and that's really been part of our DNA at Senior Helpers is support in all aspects, because you get franchise owners that they might have a different background or experience coming into this. Some may need more marketing support, some might need more operational support, training, leadership. So you've really got to be able to, I would say, customize to an extent to the individual that buys the franchise, but have enough support that you can cover all your bases and don't just throw a manual and a sign they can put on the wall. Those are the franchises that are not going to last or be around. You need to go with one that's more established in their systems.

Speaker 1: 17:12

I mean, there's a reason why, Rob, senior helpers is mainly and even though you guys have lots of great territories left there's a reason why the franchise has been such a popular investment for years and years and years. When you hear those things, when you hear deep support, when you hear powerful ability to have a high earning business, but not only that, a business that fundamentally helps people, and add that together with a very low investment opportunity I'm not trying to sell the franchise here, but, Rob, it's kind of hard not to sell it.

Speaker 3: 17:46

It's really about having the right candidate come to the table, because, to your point this is a mission driven for profit business.

Speaker 3: 17:51

You're helping others, you're providing a service. For-profit business You're helping others, you're providing a service, you're doing good by doing good for others. And that checks the box for a lot of people that are frustrated maybe a corporate prior experience where they haven't felt that value of what they're doing for their work. And it's such an impactful one for helping families and being the employer of choice and providing jobs. There's so many feel-good benefits, aside from the financial reward that you can get from this particular industry. So, yeah, for me, obviously, my career passed. I've worked prior to this in childcare franchising, which was very similar. I get the same feel from that as I do from this. It's family, it's helping others, it's providing a needed service. So, yeah, I'm certainly a little biased in talking about how great the opportunity is.

Speaker 1: 18:48

I think you have every reason to be and for those of you listening and want to talk to senior helpers, you really have two options. One, you can obviously contact Jill and I by going to WeBoughtAFranchisecom. Or, if you'd like to contact Rob directly, rob, what's the best way? Or senior helpers directly Rob. What's the best contact for you guys?

Speaker 3: 19:07

Yeah, so feel free to email me personally, rcantrell, with two L's at SeniorHelpersCorp C-O-R-Pcom, or just with two L's at SeniorHelpersCorp C-O-R-P dot com, or just go on the website SeniorHelpersFranchisecom, and there's lots of information and videos that we've put together for some self-guided discovery. And then, if you want to have a conversation, reach out. I'd be happy to talk to you, or talk to the experts here, jack and Jill, and finding what that right fit is for you. You know they have a wealth of knowledge and you know, if we check those boxes, we'd love to talk to you and obviously we've worked together many times, jack and Jill, and always love when a candidate comes through after they've worked with you guys.

Speaker 1: 19:50

Well, yeah, I mean, we play so many over the years with you guys and we've never heard any negative feedback and I know we've got some, some great franchisees there. So, yeah, if you'll contact Rob directly, make sure you mention Jack, and Jill sent you a podcast.

Speaker 3: 20:07

A lot of those franchisees from years past are superstars today in our system. So you guys do a fantastic job of getting good people that we're looking for.

Speaker 1: 20:13

So thanks for all you do, of course it's a great thing. So, rob, I think we've said it all for this week's episode. Any other things, any other thoughts we didn't cover?

Speaker 3: 20:23

that you want to cover. No, just hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July. We've got the holiday coming up and looking forward to a great summer, and Senior Helpers is here and ready if anyone's looking for a great opportunity and be happy to share with them.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Well, I think we've said it all. So, for this week, I'm going to sign off with our classic sign off, which, of course, is I'm Jack. And I'm Jill. And we bought a franchise.

Speaker 3: 20:49

And I'm Rob and I help people buy a franchise. Love it. Love that.

Speaker 1: 20:53

Rob, thanks so much for joining the podcast.