5 Tips for Running a Home Care Franchise

If you enjoy running your own business and helping people in your local community, then why not start a home care franchise? The industry is highly profitable and ripe for investment… But it’s also very competitive. Read on, and discover Point Franchise’s five tips for running a home care franchise effectively and efficiently, and you’ll always be a few important steps ahead of the competition.

Starting a homecare franchise is an excellent opportunity to enjoy all the perks of running a meaningful AND profitable business. There are a growing number of people in need of domiciliary care in the UK [homecare.co.uk], and if you can run your franchise business well, you can benefit from this rising and largely recession-proof demand.

Why start a home care business? 

Before we dive into those five top tips, let’s briefly explore why you might want to start a home care franchise. The more you know, the more you’ll be sure whether this avenue of investment is right for you. The biggest two reasons to start working in home care have already been touched upon - the chance to genuinely help others, and the chance to capitalise on high and rising levels of demand. But beyond these? There are even more advantages to running a home care franchise, including:

• Flexible working hours/the freedom of being your own boss
• Plenty of franchisor support, training and guidance readily available to you
• The chance to enjoy a dynamic, varied and interesting working life
• The opportunity to build a highly scalable business for a low-cost initial investment

In response to our ever-growing ageing population, demand for domiciliary (or home-based) care services in the UK is skyrocketing – and the industry is worth a whopping £7.8bn per year. While the NHS provides care to countless vulnerable adults and elderly people, there’s plenty of room for new independent care agencies to offer care services to those who need them.
- Julia Watts, Startups

5 tips for running a home care franchise 

1. Invest plenty of time and money into marketing your caregiving franchise effectively

Marketing is your home care franchise’s friend, and it’s something you should be actively investing in even if your franchisor is also lending their support in this area. But the keyword in the sentence above, when it comes to marketing, is EFFECTIVELY. Adopt the wrong strategy or target the wrong audience, and all the hard work you put into your essential marketing strategies will amount to very little. Build a strong target profile and carefully tailor your advertising and marketing efforts to appeal to the right kind of person, and your homecare business will 100% benefit.

What separates a successful franchise marketing campaign and an unsuccessful one really boils down to understanding the personas that you’re targeting and using the correct channels to reach each one in a profitable manner.
- Jordan Choo, Kogneta

2. Stay on top of the latest industry trends and developments

As a franchisee and a business owner, you can’t simply rely on your franchisor to deliver important care industry news to your doorstep. Even if you’ve had no prior experience in the healthcare sector, once you’re in it it’ll be your responsibility to stay up-to-date. That means taking note of the latest developments and tracking the latest trends. Here are some examples of trends and developments to watch out for in the home care sector in 2022:

• The introduction of monitoring technology 
• An increased focus on battling loneliness (especially elderly loneliness) 
• An increased number of roles offering flexible working hours
• Rising demand for companionship services rather than solely care-based services

3. Actively listen to clients, employees and patients

The best way to ensure that your home care franchise is running successfully? Listen. Hear and promptly respond to any concerns or questions that are raised, whether they come from your patients, your patients’ family members or your own employees. 

Plus, remember that active listening isn’t just about making eye contact and nodding along when someone comes to you with an issue, it’s about hearing the content of their words and making the changes that need to be made in accordance with the issue they’ve raised. Burying your head in the sand is never a good way to go, and even if you’re co-ordinating a huge territory, you should still work to make yourself available and accountable. You should still actively solve problems. You should still care - it is the name of the industry, after all.

4. Take advantage of all training and support opportunities offered by your franchisor

Starting a home care franchise isn’t like starting a home care business from scratch for many different reasons, but the biggest is the broad fact that as a franchisee, you won’t be doing it all alone. You’ll receive a comprehensive franchise package of training and support that equips you extremely well for success in the home care industry.

Plus, if your franchisor is worth their salt, your support will by no means come to an end when you launch your franchise and start actively running a home care business. Instead, you’ll continue to be provided with marketing assistance, advice and professional development opportunities across your entire franchise term. Don’t underestimate the value of this kind of support, and don’t ever turn down a chance to learn something new, because there is definitely always something new to learn.

5. Create, update and stick to a franchise business plan

Creating, regularly updating and sticking to your business plan will help you massively when it comes to running your home care franchise smoothly. If you always know what you’re aiming for and what path you’re on, you’ll always be able to make adjustments when they’re necessary. And you’ll always know that you and your franchisor are on the same page. Think of your business plan as your home care franchise’s bible, and treat it with respect and care.

A business plan is a very important and strategic tool for entrepreneurs. A good business plan not only helps entrepreneurs focus on the specific steps necessary for them to make business ideas succeed, but it also helps them to achieve short-term and long-term objectives.
- Rich Longo, SBDC Pennsylvania

Become a franchisee in the home care industry today, and enjoy all the benefits of running your own business 

Hopefully, you now have a stronger sense of what you’d need to do, after making a career change with a home care franchise, in order to see it thriving. If you’re about ready to narrow down your ideal home care franchise investment opportunity, check out Point Franchise’s wide range of great options, from Acacia Homecare to Blossom Home Care.