Assisting Hands Franchise Radio Show Interview
Welcome to the Franchise Radio Show™, where we bring you insights and stories from successful franchise businesses around the world. On today’s episode, we’re excited to have two special guests with us, Dan Durney and Greg Kling from Assisting Hands, a home care franchise with locations across the United States. Dan is the Director of Franchise Development of Assisting Hands, while Greg is an Area Representative franchise owner. With over 25 years of experience in the home care industry, Dan and Greg have a wealth of knowledge to share about what it takes to build a successful franchise business in this space. You NEED to listen to this episode, it was AMAZING! Make sure to visit Assisting Hands online here: https://assistinghands.com/franchise/
Transcript of the Franchise Radio Show interview is below if you would like to read it:
John Henning 0:00
All right, folks, John Henning here with the Franchise Radio Show™. And you know, those of you that heard me do these interviews, you know that I get very excited about them. But I am super excited with two supers on there. Because today we’re not only joined by someone from the franchise headquarters, we’ve also got an area representative here as well. We’re gonna get a chance to talk to Greg Clang, area representative and Dan Durney, the director of franchise development for assisting hands, homecare, guys, thank you so much for jumping on. Good morning, John. Looking forward to it. Yeah, my pleasure. I am there’s there was two supers in there. In case you didn’t catch that. Okay. So before we get into the franchise stuff, you know, if anybody’s ever listen to any of our interviews, they know that I like to focus in on people do business with people, right. And so we’ll get to the business stuff in just a minute. But if each of you could just take just one minute or less and just kind of give us a who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself personally. Well, my name is Dan Durney. I live in Arizona, just had our 14th grandchild was born last month, and I have a side gig that I do stand up comedy, and have a show. In fact, sometimes I do with one of my daughters with five daughters. And one of them’s a singer, so do some shows sometimes together comedy, music, etc. Deal. Good deal. So you don’t you don’t care if you’re funny, as long as you think you’re funny, right? That’s all the counts. Exactly. Right. All right. How about you, Greg? i Yeah, so I’ve got a wife and three kids and they’re fantastic. And we live in the Cincinnati Ohio area. That’s pretty much home. I got a son who’s actually in the Peace Corps in Peru right now. So we miss him but love to ride motorcycles lead ride bicycles. And that’s that’s pretty much it. You’re not a comedian, too. I am not a commuter. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. So good deal. Good deal. Let’s get into the business side of it here a little bit. Dan, why don’t we start with you kind of how did you get into franchising? Well, after my 17 year career in IT, actually near the tail end of it, I was introduced to franchise development, and was actually asked to do some IT stuff for the person at a spreadsheet and a website, etc. And I was being taught the franchise business for a year and a half. And that that at that time, my franchise income equal part time franchise income, equaled my full time it income and so made it pretty obvious and made the switch and haven’t looked back. And this is my 20th year in franchising. Good deal. How about you, Greg, how did you get involved in franchising? Yeah, so I had always had the book to start a business, I tried a couple different times looked at some different things. And my wife and I were just at the right moment in our careers that we thought it made a lot of sense to go do it. And this was the time and we had a life experience that led us towards assisting hands in terms of senior care. And so we kind of made a jump and never looked back a lot. And that mentioned, that’s a fairly common story. I think Dan and I talked about this before, I had a very similar situation as well for my wife’s mom. So hey, before we go any further, just want to clarify something here, guys. Dan, could you just maybe explain for just a minute, what is an area representative with assisted assisting hands home care.
Dan Durney 3:14
So in franchising, there are basically four levels you have a single unit ownership, then you have multi unit ownership, which could be in different geographies, and even amongst different brands. Third levels, commonly known as an area developer, which is really a multi unit owner, that is focused on developing X number of units of a particular brand in a protected geography. The fourth level is an area representative, sometimes also known as area developers. So there’s little confusion, there’s its times, and also often referred to as a master franchise. And this scenario is where you have someone who acquires the development rights for a brand of say, four to 6 million in population, and 15 to 25 units, they will typically have opened one unit to learn the business, and then they will help recruit and more importantly mentor and coach, the other franchisees, and for that they share in the royalties and the franchise fees. And that’s why I asked because I knew that different folks use different terminology for the area developer area rep master franchise. That’s why I wanted to clarify that before we really jumped into the business side. Back in the day originally, it was known as regional developer. Yeah, yeah. I remember those days. Yeah, that’s, that’s saying something. Hey, let’s talk about the history of the company kind of, what do you do who you are as a company? How did the company get to where it is like, how did it get started as a franchise company itself? So I was with a franchise development company at the time that the founder started a company called care corner in Phoenix, Arizona market. And in three years, she had built it up to about 5 million in gross revenue, couple of offices couple of 100 caregivers. We approached her to franchise her business model. She agreed to do that. And the investors for that were two farmers and a dentist up in Idaho, which is that where the headquarters is.
So we’ve been developing this as a franchise brand. The name care corner was not available nationally when we started franchising, so it was changed to assisting hands, which is more descriptive of what we do, and had the side benefit of moving up alphabetically in the referral source list. I love it. Okay. C’s to the A’s. Yeah. All right. Good deal. Good deal. And what’s the what’s the growth been like here over that time, you know, look, give us just an idea of trajectory where the companies come. So I was on board for about the first 10 units that came in, and Illinois, Texas, Florida and California were the original areas where we had at the time regional developers growing the market. And we’re now in 27 states, over 170 territories awarded to a little over 85 franchisees and we just crossed the 100 million dollar gross revenue Mark during COVID. Which by the way, we grew over 20%. That is a testament I love hearing. I love hearing regular growth stories. But that’s that trajectory just warms my heart. So in franchising, I love hearing seeing the steady growth and the healthy growth, of course that we’re all looking for. And then you know, even in a tougher time, you were still able to grow the business as well. That’s absolutely good deal. Can you share with us a little bit about the uniqueness of your franchise opportunity, what really sets you apart in the in the senior space, right of the industry, what really sets you guys apart? Well, I’ll speak from the franchise development side, and then we’ll have Greg talks about at the ground level.
I would have to say probably forced things that separate us apart. Number one would be our family culture, we have a very strong family culture in assisting hands,
which actually turns into an extra layer of support.
And then our second is a strong use of technology that helps minimize a lot of back office accounting, schedule optimization, things like that. Our third would be our area rep program, because it’s a benefit for the franchisees that are in a market where there’s an area rep to provide an extra layer of support from a local
area rep there. And then the fourth would I would refer to as our flexibility because we do not micromanage our franchisees businesses. The core business is in home non medical targeted to seniors. But if a franchisee wants to offer, post op recuperation services, whether they’re a senior or not,
they want to provide care for women who are in bed rest on like high risk pregnancies, or shortly thereafter, we have some franchisees that offer programs for developmentally disabled adults. So those are all different options, but not requirements. And we do also offer the option if they want to get into skilled as well. So flexibility in the services offered in and then the payor sources between private pay, long term care, disability insurance, Medicaid, or medical in California, and veterans benefits. Those are all different options. So at a higher level, there’s a lot of flexibility for someone to get into the business, and really make it their own. Under the assisting hands brand. Yeah, I like that a lot. I like the franchise umbrella, with the support and systems but the I love your words of not micromanaging. Right, you’re not? You’re not trying to do it. All right. They’re telling them what they have to do every hour of every day. Now, Greg, give us your perspective in the trenches? What’s what’s unique about the franchise opportunity? What, what really sets you apart in the industry? Yeah, sure. And so I bring the added the added experience of having run an actual site or a couple of different sites for last 10 years, and then also being an area representative as well. You know, I think the things that really stand out stand out is you know, we call it our friend or family of franchise owners are FOFA. Right. And you have the the operational support from the franchise franchisor organization itself and the operational excellence that come with that. But you also have a broad network of supporting owners that you can see what they’re doing, how are they, you know, how are they taking the toolkit that assisting hands provides us? And how are they adopting that into the local market and see what’s working well for them? And what things that may be changing or maybe coming into our area in the future? We can see that and we corrected that ahead of time. Right. So it’s really as a culture of good people working together trying to help seniors. Greg, I want to ask one more question on that little piece there because it’s something Dan mentioned, being part of that family of franchise owners, right? Is the coaching and mentoring side of it. I would assume that’s probably another big differentiator for you guys too, because not every every franchisor provides support right from a headquarters level, but having an area representative and correct me if I’m wrong, and we’ll just cut this out of the section right but the area rep scenario you’re providing more direct support to the front of the local franchise owner
Greg Kling 10:00
then. That’s exactly yeah. So you know, my responsibility as an RA rep is really helped to ensure as much as we can, that that new franchisee is successful, right? So we want to try to make them successful. And so because of the on our pitch, you’re gonna case we’ve been running a very successful operation for 10 years, we can bring a lot of expertise in terms of the day to day operations of the business, how to sell how to go to market, how to manage your caregiver team, how to manage your back office, the tools and technology to utilize so that new franchisees don’t have to spend their time you know, recreating the wheel, we can bring that to them and coach them along the way. And we really take a lot of pride and ownership of helping them be successful. Yeah, no, I knew I knew that were the case there. That’s why I prompted you for that one. Because I knew there was a big difference from a normal from most franchise companies have some form of field support. But when you have true ownership in it from an area representative, it’s got to be just a much better quality of support as well. So it’s a different level of detail, because you know, we’ve all been there and done that. So who’s the target owner here? Dan, let’s start with you like from a single unit owner, who you’re looking for who would be ideal to say, hey, I’m interested in your franchise. Well, interestingly, none of our franchisees have ever owned or operated a homecare agency. But they all have a heart for the business, they’ve all had some kind of connection to a parent or a grandparent where care was provided, in some cases, not a good experience. In a couple of cases, our franchisees or their current currently are the primary caregivers for loved one. So they all have a heart for the businesses, I’d like to say with all due respect to Cold Stone Creamery the saint shop and ice cream.
Dan Durney 11:45
Right, and so taking care of mom and dad.
And so I would say that people have had have a heart for the business, they have some people management skills, and they have some business acumen, a little business development experience, would be the three things we look for, you know, Greg, they don’t have to have any experience in senior care, the system is going to help them with that what I’m hearing, Dan, say is, you’re looking for those transferable people skills, have a heart in the business, that type of thing. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, my experience is, you know, I was professional business management experience for many, many years, I had had some experience in market development, but I came from a business background, I had no experience in senior care other than a short, you know, personal experience. And so it’s really those good operation management skills. You know, if you can, if you can manage a department and a business and you’re able to do that and effect effectively work as a manager, managing people, you can do that, you know, someone who’s comfortable speaking to senior speaking to their families, somebody who’s comfortable speaking to referral sources about the benefits of your business, somebody who’s got some good people skills to manage your team, and good organizational skills, you know, all those skills are transferable to this business. See, this is why I like having the area rep on here, Dan, totally agree. That inner trenches detail for sure, um, man, thanks for suggesting that I love it. I might, I might almost have to adopt that for for my show going forward here. Now we want exclusives on that.
John Henning 13:16
You got exclusive till the end of the show?
What would you say is a is a day in the typical life of a franchise owner, typical franchise owner out there grinding it out? What does that day look? Like? I know, there’s a lot of things that happen and, you know, things they have to do on a daily but what does that day normally look like on an average day? Yeah, well, I think it obviously it’s gonna vary greatly between, you know, when you’re starting your business to kind of, you know, my daily activities now, you know, it’s very different. Right. But the typical franchisee, and the first, you know, getting started in the first couple years in the business. First of all, they have different organizational roles, right? So there’s a primary organizational role of somebody needs to do, you know, the business development aspects, and that person is going out on a daily basis, contacting hospitals, nursing homes, rehab facilities, Sister living communities, you know, those organizations that provide us referrals for new clients. Okay, so that’s a part of it, you know, the other aspects of it is recruiting your caregiver team. So that’s a big part of it. And so, that’s a key role that has to happen within the organization and you’re going to be having caregivers that join you on a weekly basis, right? Could be one could be two could be many. So those are things that you’re going to be doing and then you have the call it the back office type operations thing that you have to manage in terms of you know, all the bookkeeping, accounting, those types of things, scheduling live your caregivers, right. So those are the major tasks. And so the franchise owner has to kind of decide, you know, where his or her strengths or weaknesses, where do they want to focus, right, so, typically, I always encourage them to get out in the market. But if that’s not your strength or strength
Greg Kling 15:00
Then, then you need to identify somebody that’s going to be able to do that for you. So
and then you’re going to be meeting with clients and you know, doing client intakes and being with them and trying to sell your business to them as well. So, you really, it’s a lot of those those core activities and how you manage and structure your team is gonna be based on your own strengths and weaknesses as well. It’s all about hiring and keeping the good people, right. So, but I like what you said, there, I didn’t realize that in the model that what you’re saying is higher to your weakness, right, which logically, I mean, it’s just makes so much sense. But you’re not saying, hey, we want everybody do the exact same activity, let’s look at the three different core things that have to happen in the business. My weakness and or the things I don’t want to do right away, might be good at it, it just might not want to do it, and hire folks that are there and get out in the marketplace to start out with, get a feel for it. So you’re living the day in the life, right? Sure. That is, that’s very revealing. I didn’t realize that, that your business operated that way. Yeah. exibility.
Dan Durney 16:05
Go ahead, I want to throw in something. And then I’m actually going to ask you a question.
Okay, wrenching it.
I tell people do what you do best and hire the rest. Greg has been a great example of building quite an infrastructure. Greg, would you share a little bit about what you look for? Not as a franchise? I mean, being a franchisee? What do you look for, in those different positions? From an employee standpoint?
Greg Kling 16:36
Well, so from an employee standpoint is is again, you know, we’re larger, so it’s a little bit of a different,
you know, a different model, right. But in terms of I say, business development people, we’re looking for people who have great ability to create opportunities, you know, get in meeting, create opportunities, and then organize and manage accounts, right. So I needed somebody without going, somebody is energetic, somebody who’s quick to make decisions and very, very active. For our, we have a nursing team that really acts to manage, and that works to manage all of our caregivers, as well as our clients. There we want, you know, besides having nursing skills, we want them to have great compassion, and open heart for seniors and also good management, organizational skills. And then we have various, you know, back office functions, including scheduling as well as recruiting. And those people just need to one they need to have a careful what we’re doing pride and the care that you’re providing for seniors, you know, hard for caring for them patients, right? Because sometimes seniors give you a call and that conversation can last longer than a day with a son or daughter. So you need those various skills, right. But everyone has to have some type of basic heart and passion for helping seniors.
John Henning 17:54
Good deal. Thanks for sharing that. Can I ask just one quick follow up on that one? As a new franchise owner, just generally speaking, no hardened, specific number? What’s the staffing look like in the hiring three people or 33? People? Three? Yeah. Yeah, they wanted you answer that because I know you’ve got a specific model. Typically three. As we describe those, each of those three departments, the internal ops HR that Greg was talking about accounting and business development, accounting could be arguably two and a half as you just first get started with the first few clients. But eventually, you’ll need to have someone focused on the billing and invoicing and payroll. But three people including the franchisee this, by the way, is something that is office based. It’s not part time or semi absentee. So it’s an owner operator model. And the caregivers, by the way, are all employees. We don’t send contractors into people’s homes. So we tend to take a higher level of professionalism and the things that we do. Interviewing people at a Starbucks is not doesn’t fit with that model. No, I’m with you. I’m with you understand. Thanks for sharing that. Now. from the business standpoint, what would you say is the top misconception often this is the thing you hear quite often when folks come to you for the first time Dan and say, hey, I’m interested in learning more. What’s the top misconception about the business that the franchisee is going to be having to provide care?
Dan Durney 19:21
And, and the second would be caregivers. What’s the what’s that look like today, which Greg is going to be able to really address directly but what’s it look like from an employment standpoint today for caregivers? Yeah, Greg, would you mind sharing how what that landscape looks like right now from a caregiver standpoint? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. You know, I think there’s always there’s always two things and I always tell the my my staff will never have enough caregivers and we never have enough clients and so we always have to stay focused on know those two things. And my counsel to a new franchisee has never stopped recruiting caregivers, even if you don’t think you have to work and still have to recruit caregivers. We
Greg Kling 20:00
Seeing a lot of ebb and flow in the last few years, pandemic, other governmental incentives and things like that, that people out of the workforce.
And so I have seen more recently, in the last six months, somewhat of a stabilization of that, in terms of the caregiver resource pool, the labor market isn’t as tight for those resources, as it was, say, a year ago, a year and a half ago, particularly. And so it’s just something that you just have to keep working at, you just have to keep focus on it. And once you start to build your team, and ask your caregivers, to give referrals for new caregivers, and make sure you have your programs to support your caregiver team. And so I wouldn’t say it’s any different than any other businesses hiring hourly staff, I think you’re managing those hourly staff in a very similar way.
John Henning 20:52
Now, I don’t want to go into detail, but I’m assuming and just correct me if I’m wrong, there’s probably a stair step type hiring system here that if it’s not specific, you must have some kind of a formula don’t like don’t go into details on the formula. But there must be a system where you say, when we get here, we need to have this many caregivers, you’ve got that kind of system set up right?
Greg Kling 21:10
Well, from a from a caregiver perspective,
you know, we’re constantly bringing on new work, and we’re constantly bringing on caregivers, in our system caregivers. They’re only paid when a work
is really not a stair step, per se. stair stepping would come in terms of like your back office team, your scheduling team, your sales team at different levels. Hey, we should add a scheduler we should add a an additional sales rep or maybe additional recruiter, those are the stairsteps come in make sense. Nice. The nice thing about the business is the fact that the caregiver team is very variable and you know your business. Can Evan flow a little bit, you can adjust your cost structure very at the same time. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Okay. Yeah, right. That makes it a comment. I would. The other comment I would add to that is that the cases vary from franchisee the franchisee. Even within your bit, you’ll have a mix of clients where you have some that are providing companion care for a few hours a day, maybe a few days a week more of as a respite for the family all the way to the other extreme where it’s 24 by seven around the clock, there might be multiple caregivers for one client. So it’s hard to nail down to direct ratio of clients to caregivers, because the mix of clients varies. Yeah, I didn’t even consider that you’re right about a thought about that. When I before I asked her that just makes so much sense because you have because of the fact that they can have so many different things that they could be doing types of clients, that makes more sense. And and Greg, what you said about having that in place for the back end, because you know how much this business is going to generate this much, you know, billing or payment or whatever it is, you know, HR type stuff, right. Good deal. Exactly. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the industry. We’ve talked a little bit about your businesses. Let’s talk about the industry. Why should someone consider getting into this industry?
Dan Durney 23:03
Well, the number that’s bandied about a lot is about 10,000 people everyday turns 65. I ran it in spreadsheets every 8.64 seconds. So if we figure out how long we’ve been talking, that’s how many people turn 65 in the US
in franchising, currently, basically the three top categories are seniors, kids and pets. And they’re all recession resistant pandemic resilient. And it’s, there’s 70 plus million baby boomers and the oldest of us. Yes, I said us is, is just turning 75. So there’s a huge, huge need out there. And so it’s definitely not any kind of fad or anything like that. So it’s a very solid business. Yeah, definitely not going anywhere. A lot of good healthy growth and what was it 8.67 seconds. I’m going to start using that one now.
I’m surprised Greg didn’t already do that calculation. He’s the expert. He was. Yeah.
John Henning 24:05
Now let’s talk about area a little bit. What are some hot areas throughout the country that you guys are considering expanding in?
Dan Durney 24:13
So we currently have 20 area reps around the country. Greg is the area rep for Northern Indiana so the Indianapolis market, we have area reps in the Carolinas in Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Tennessee in the Nashville area, Georgia, and then in Texas, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas markets, Houston markets all have good availability with area reps in those places. And then even in California, we have an area rep out in Orange County. So lots of good opportunities. Yeah, it does sound like you have a lot of opportunity. Now my next question is one I’ve been waiting to ask you because I’ve already heard this answer before. And it’s super exciting for our listeners. What is the due diligence process look like and Dan
John Henning 25:00
They say that that way, because I’ve heard you tell me this before, on on what someone does to meet the folks and everything. So I’m really excited to be talking about that when what is the due diligence when somebody says, I’m interested, just walk us through a couple of minutes of what that looks like, learn about the business. Sure. So first thing I’ll say is, we’re more like a tour guide, we none of us like pushy salespeople. So we’re not like that. So it’s more about a mutual discovery to find out if it’s a good fit, if there’s a good culture fit. The minimum financials are 100k, liquid and 300k. Net Worth. But the discovery process itself, basically is five steps, we have an initial call to get to know one another and find out why they’re interested in senior care. And to give an overview of the business model, many of the things we’ve talked about today, we also get into the territories and the investment, our onboarding process, and what differentiates 16 hands. So then we the next step is they are sent a disclosure document, the FTD, which is a fun little booklet to read. They’re a couple 100 pages from everybody. But we go through
Dan Durney 26:09
the get their questions answered about the agreements, etc. In the business model. Then the third step, because there’s licensure in this industry, many states have required licensure for home care, even non medical.
So we have a operations call with our Senior VP. And we go through the state specific licensure requirements,
so that they have an understanding of cost timelines, if there’s any credential requirements on the part of the admins or the caregivers, etc, which could affect your cost, because you may have to hire someone with industry experience if you’re in a state where that’s required.
And then the fourth step is validation. That’s my favorite part. second favorite part is to admit where the franchise candidate now gets to talk to franchisees, and to validate the things that they’re hearing from us and from the FTD. And from the ops call, and they’re able to talk with the franchisees about what how their business has grown, what their experience has been with support questions like what you asked, Would you do it? Again, that’s always a great question to ask. And we just, we have like a weekly catch up call to find out how their validation calls are going, who they chatted with, what did they learn. And of course, they can talk with anybody in the system completely. And then once the candidate is done with validation calls, they should be about nice 90% convinced this is what they want to do next. And then we invite them to discovery day, and we have a very unique discovery day. Ours are in person in Idaho, and may involve riding a horse.
Our CEO and his family live on a working ranch. And the day before discovery day, we go out to the ranch and just have dinner at the CEOs home with his family. And they have a full roping arena because they have a son who’s a nationally ranked roper. So they have horses and cattle and goats and chickens and packageName Napoleon that thinks he’s a horse runs around with him.
And we go out after dinner, weather permitting, and we saddle up and ride around the property and watch roping demonstration cetera. Then the next day is the discovery day at the office and we get a chance to meet with the franchise candidate they meet the rest of the support team, et cetera. We do a call in from our marketing director, which we didn’t talk about marketing yet. But there’s a lot of marketing things that we do both electronic, etc. For client acquisition, as well as for caregiver recruiting. And then the candidate goes home and and the national team gets together and decides if that looks like that’s a good fit. And if the candidate gets an approval letter, then we just go through the process to get the franchise doc signed and the franchise fee paid. And then the whole onboarding process, like I said, we haven’t even gotten into but as begins. Now I jokingly said that about liking to hear that process because I’ve heard it before and it is very unique with the you know, potentially even riding a horse. I thought about going through it myself. But no. But no, I’m saying because it actually relates back to the the photo, right? I mean, the reason you’re doing this is it’s not just to give everybody a ride on an alpaca horse, right? No, yeah, it’s very important bonding situation for us. Greg,
tell us about your experience when you went through your discovery day.
Greg Kling 29:21
Yeah, well, so the discovery day but also want to add in that that process a little bit. You know, my experience going through the process and I had looked at different franchise opportunities and I had looked at the competitive assisting hands as well. The things that impressed me going through the assisting hands process was that one wasn’t salesy. It was very potential franchisee driven. And we think that that’s really important because they have to show that initiative and make sure that hey, this is really something I want to do. It was supported through the process. And then you know, is Dan pointed out you know, the
Experience is going through that process, as well as going and meeting you know, the franchise owner and the family made me feel that, you know, at some point in time, you know, this is a relationship, it’s a long term relationship, there’s gonna be good sides, there’s gonna be, there’s gonna be good days, there’s gonna be bad days. And you need to be able to make sure that you have a relationship where you can work those things out. And myself as well as my wife, we both went through the process together, we felt that it was really important, really came away with you know, if there were bad days, we had a partner that we can have a good discussion with and working out. So and all those things have been proven true. And you know what I was back back to where I started this thing with guys, too, is people do business with people. Right? Okay. We might, we might sign an agreement with a company but we do business with people, right.
Dan Durney 30:52
One of our area reps in Virginia and Maryland on his discovery day he helped birth a calf.
John Henning 30:59
Never forget that one. I’ll tell you.
I’ve done that before. I know exactly what he did. Oh, have you really? Wow. Yeah, I grew up on a farm.
Yep, in Bullitt, Central Pennsylvania. I know exactly what he did.
Hey, a look. Let’s talk about and thank you for sharing that too. I know it’s a it’s a different kind of answer to the question that I asked when folks say Oh, normally we go through these five steps. And but you guys, it sounds like you’re really trying to get to know them. And get them to know you and your team as well. That’s that’s kind of what I’m taking out of it. Right? Definitely.
So somebody goes through that process and says, you know, I mean, they get approved, you go through the closing process, the inks dry, everything’s ready to go. How long does it take someone to get open from the time that they come on board until the time they’ve and I know it’s an office based business kind of turning the key? What does that look like? So the probably the biggest differentiator in that is, what state they’re in in what the licensure is. In some states like Maryland, Virginia, it’s 10 months to a year in Arizona you can be opened in 45 days.
Dan Durney 32:06
So, part of the process is called byo see before you open checklists and other acronyms are co loves acronyms of fo fo B Y O see our annual conferences called fear franchise education adventure retreat. So
but as soon as the franchise agreement is signed and funded, the national team reaches out to the franchisee and begins this. It’s basically about a 12 week program. But it involves helping them start putting together the documents for licensure, they work with the area rep who coordinates a lot of these activities with a franchisee, finding an office getting a business license. So there’s like 100 Different checklist items. And then about 30 days before their license goes live in their state. They’ll go down to Miami for a week of training, new owner training. Then when they get back there’s ongoing office visits, Greg would be supporting his franchisees and the AR is in those different markets. And then they have vendor training, and then marketing initiatives where they launched their market. We do the website and all the social media for the franchisee and we have a marketing director that works one on one with each of the franchisees to put together their market launch and ongoing activities, etc. So a lot of a lot of hand holding and support to get started. But to answer the question, it totally depends on where they are can be.
I can’t even average it out. Probably, I would say three to six months depending on where they are can be shorter, it could be longer. Well with the answer you did answer it 100% It absolutely is going to depend on the state done right you know if it’s 45 to 12 months, right 45 days to 12 months, but that’s what they would notice Indiana look like Greg Do you know you know Indian is a very short process some of the some of the organization the states to depends on the state. But as soon as you submit your licensing you can be begin to operate your business. So you’re not so as contingent upon your completion and things like that. But some of the you know, different states have different rules than we started in Ohio might be a little bit different now. But we started Ohio, there’s real life scenario. We did our we signed a paper system hands and August 15. We went to orientation with system hands and last week in September. We had our first client last week in September. I’m sorry, last week of August for orientation. First client last week in September, we moved into our office October 1.
Greg Kling 34:39
It can move it can move pretty fast if you want it to move pretty fast.
John Henning 34:44
Now from a support standpoint, Dan especially Greg because the area rep scenario, what is the support look like? Like in my if I’m a franchise owner, am I reaching out to Greg Am I reaching out to Dan or somebody at headquarters? What does the support look like?
Dan Durney 35:01
It’s designed to be first line support with the area rep. But it kind of depends if it’s a it’s a tech question internal, you know, get your email set up things like that. So it kind of depends on what the nature of the question is. gotcha gotcha from but Dan from a, from a what the franchisee you’ll probably experience within those first three to six months, is they’ll go through the orientation process with assisting hands in Florida, that’s a week long process of go through, to acclimate to educate them on the on the model and how to go to market and those things, then the area wrap really owns the relationship initially, from that point forward, helping them with the day to day activities and execution of the business and supporting them and coaching them along the way. Yeah, that’s something that I love to hear the coaching and mentoring phrasing that we’ve been using throughout this, you know, being part of that relationship and building it with the that local area rep as well, right? Yep, exactly. Definitely. All right. So look, you know, we talked about a lot of good information, want to give you guys the last couple of minutes here to kind of wrap it up and recap for us, if you want to go ahead and do that, and take a minute and make sure we’ll make sure to include all of the contact information underneath of the interview for you guys as well. Okay. Thank you, I appreciate that.
So basically, I would just sum it up is that we wear as a badge of honor, we’re not owned by private equity, we get approached all the time, the culture is very important for us. Many people are familiar with the 8020 rule. The Pareto principle for us the 8020 rule for franchisors is 80% of their headaches come from 20% of franchisees they never should have let in the system in the first place. So so we’re very selective, we want to definitely have minimal headaches for everybody involved. And we just love being part of a great family and the support that that provides for the franchisees
Greg Kling 37:02
and just, you know, as a franchisee, and as a representative, you know, it’s something that my wife and I are very, very glad that we made the decision 10 years ago to do. We love being an entrepreneur, we love being part of that system, hands system. We love being a part of the local business community and helping a whole bunch of people along the way. So
it can be a very, very fulfilling experience.
Dan Durney 37:28
And Dan, why don’t you let our listeners know, what’s the best way to reach out to you guys, what where should they take the first step? What should they do to say, hey, I’m interested? Well, they could definitely visit our website assist enhance.com There’s a link for people interested in franchising. There’s a little chatbot that pops up if they expressed an interest in a particular area, it’ll take them through that process. So same chat bot that asks whether they’re looking for a job or also looking for care for a loved one.
Or they can.
That’s probably the best way to do that. Or they can text the word care to 888-745-2844. That’ll get them my business card. All right, well make sure to include all that information here underneath the interview for you guys as well, including a direct link and everything. So all right, good deal. So my pleasure, guys, man, this has been a great interview, I don’t often get a chance to talk with franchise owners, which was super exciting for me. And the area rep model as well. So we’ve got Greg Kling area representative, Dan Durney, Director of franchise development assisting hands home care, guys, thank you so much. Thank you, John. Thank you. And folks, if you’re listening in make sure you let these guys know you’ve heard about them on the franchise radio show. We’d appreciate that.
Assisting Hands Franchise Radio Show Interview
Make sure to visit Assisting Hands online here: https://assistinghands.com/franchise/