Franchise Senior Care Opportunity: How to Get Started

What Is A Senior Care Franchise?

It’s important to note that the type of business we’re talking about is a senior home care franchise. You’re not opening up a brick-and-mortar facility for senior care. Of course, you could do that but that requires a lot more permitting, licensing, and education.

What we’re talking about is a senior care business that you can start with no prior education or background.

A large portion of the elderly population just wants to be comfortable in their own home during their golden years. When you franchise senior care, you’ll be providing exactly that. Your business model will revolve around providing seniors the care and company they need in the comfort of their own homes.

Your clients are people who can’t look after themselves but don’t want to be a resident of an official senior care facility. They would rather live out their days in the comfort of their own home. And who can blame them?

I think we all can agree that at that stage of our lives it would be much better to be comfortable and be set up in familiar surroundings. And it’s that exact sentiment that makes senior care franchises in such high demand.

Why A Senior Care Franchise?

There is no better time than now to start your senior care franchise. The baby boomers, the largest sector of America’s population, are all reaching retirement age. By the year 2030, every member of the baby boomer population will be age 65 or older.

In addition to this startling fact, there has been a trend among the elderly toward “aging in place”. This is the idea that more and more seniors are turning away from traditional nursing homes and assisted living facilities. If these people are living out the end of their lives, they want to do it at home.

They want to be able to be surrounded by family and loved ones, and they want to preserve some dignity by staying where they’ve lived their entire lives.

Experts also predict the size of the franchise market in senior care to reach $5 billion. That means there’s plenty of room for you to get started and be profitable.

How To Franchise Senior Care With No Experience

So, you’re probably wondering how it’s possible to get started without any experience right? It’s a valid question.

Senior care is an important job. And caring for a family’s aging relatives is a relationship that’s built on trust and reputation. So how, then, do you provide this service without any experience?

There are a few options. The first option would be to go through the years and months of study to get the appropriate degrees for senior care. And even after that, you’ll have to go through about ten years of training and then start your business from the ground up.

To be clear, we’re not suggesting that route here. When you sign on with a senior care franchise, you’re instantly able to leverage the training, advertising, online presence, and reputation of a much larger company. You’ll be able to associate yourself with a well-established brand in the senior care space that people will know and trust.

The company you sign on with will be responsible for maintaining all of their licensing and permitting. This allows you to focus on running the day-to-day operations of your business and providing the best care and customer service you can.

Benefits of A Senior Care Franchise

There are several benefits to starting a senior care franchise as opposed to working your way up through the industry on your own. Let’s go over some of them briefly down below.

Startup Costs

Signing on with an established senior care company as a franchisee will drastically reduce the amount of money it takes you to get started. No paying for training, no paying for licensing, and no paying for education, books, and materials.

The company you choose to franchise with will require a small startup fee to get your business going. This is your “fee” to buy into their business and leverage their brand and credentials.

The amount of this fee can vary from company to company, but it’s always going to be a fraction of what it would cost to start a senior care business by yourself from the ground up. What the fee includes will also vary depending on the company you choose.

Generally, however, the fee covers your franchise fee, computer equipment needed, signage, appropriate uniform, and any other overhead expenses. Some companies may require you to have an office setup. If this is required of you, those costs are generally included in your franchise fee.

Professional Training

Choosing to work with a reputable senior care brand will provide you with access to some of the best training in the industry. Now, it’s up to you to choose your company carefully, but most companies will be able to provide you with excellent senior care training.

They will offer you training on how to run your franchise, and they will even offer you training on senior care best practices. Most companies will even offer you, classes, on how to train your team, develop your back office, and how to give your customers the best on-site support possible.

The Recipe

One of the biggest advantages to working with a proven senior care company is that they’ll give you “the recipe”. Depending on which company you choose, they’ve already established themselves for years, maybe even decades in this industry. Whatever “recipe” or business model they’re using is working.

You get to jump the learning curve and come in with all of their knowledge under your belt. What works, in theory, may not necessarily work out in the field. You’ll have the benefit of all the years of experience your company already has under its belt.

Following your company’s established business plan allows you to jump right in and be profitable. There’s no need for you to waste money on trial and error trying to reinvent the wheel.

Reputation

Another benefit of signing on with an established senior care company is leveraging its reputation. Senior care is an industry that’s based on trust. People want to know they’re leaving their family members in good hands by signing on with your senior care company.

It can be a challenge for someone just starting out in the industry to establish that type of trust and credibility. This is especially true when you’re a new company battling against dozens of other more-established brands for the same clientele.

Paying the fee, and signing on with your franchise company, is the quickest way to establish yourself as a senior care professional with an amazing reputation and an impeccable track record within the industry.

Now, it’s important to note that the reputation piece of the puzzle can go both ways. Not all franchise companies are alike, so it’s important that you do your research and check home care franchise reviews. The last thing you want is to pay a franchise fee to be a part of a company that has bad reviews and a history of not following through on what they say they’ll do.

You want to make sure you’re attaching your name to some of the best in the business. Not only will it give you a sense of pride, but it will make gaining clients easier in the long run.

Franchise Senior Care With These Companies

By now you’re probably wondering where to get started. Well, there are a wide variety of companies out there that will allow you to get started with them as a franchisee. But, how do you know which one is best for you?

Below, we’ve outlined some of the major companies available to franchise senior care. Let’s take a look at some of them.

1. FirstLight HomeCare

FirstLight is a unique company because they offer a pre-existing home franchise model for their senior care services. What does that mean for you? Well, it means there’s less for you to set up when you get started.

FirstLight offers its clients meal prep services, mental care support, and hygiene services. The company also offers pre-training and classroom training to their franchisees and home help aides.

The startup costs to work with FirstLight are an initial fee of $111,000 to $168,000 and another franchise fee of $48,000. After setting up their business, however, franchisees can expect to make an income of $1,000,000 on average.

2. CarePatrol

CarePatrol offers live training sessions to its franchisees. This is a great fit for those franchisees who learn better in a hands-on setting. They also offer additional “refresher” training courses every few months to help franchisees and home aides on top of senior care best practices.

CarePatrol also offers one of the more unique marketing programs among the senior care franchise companies. The way they structure their marketing allows franchisees access to a pool of referral leads which the company will then distribute to each franchisee in a particular area.

3. Visiting Angels

Visiting Angels is one of the most notable names in the franchise senior care space. One of the benefits of working with this company is that you don’t need any prior experience. This is because the services that Visiting Angels offers are considered “non-medical” services.

These franchises have a unique structure. Each Visiting Angels franchise is owner-operated. And although you’ll be able to leverage the Visiting Angels name, it will take you a little bit more to get into this franchise.

The company requires a franchise fee of $59,950 on average and they also require you to have a net worth of at least $100,000. Each franchisee will also go through a screening process that takes anywhere from 120 to 150 days before being allowed to open their franchise.

However, going through all of the red tape upfront will pay off in the long run. Visiting Angels franchises make $1.4 million on average.

4. Preferred Care At Home

We at Preferred Care At Home can offer a unique opportunity to all of our potential franchisees. You’ll be able to leverage the knowledge, training, and experience we’ve gained since starting in the industry in 1984.

We know how competitive the senior care market can be. Our goal is to put our franchisees in a position to win and succeed with their very own senior care business. For each franchisee that succeeds, it helps us to further expand our market share across the country and, ultimately, help more people.

We are very selective about the people we choose to bring aboard. Our franchisee opportunities are given by invitation only. We want to make sure you align with our company values and are the right fit for the level of care we like to give our customers.

We also want to create a team environment. You’re more than just an individual with a checkbook to us. There is so much more to you, and so much more that matters in our decision, than just your net worth or ability to pay a franchise fee.

Get Your Share of Senior Care

By now we hope you see the reasons to franchise senior care. It enables you to jump right in and get involved in a rewarding industry with no further education or schooling required. All you need to do is go through the required training after your franchise requirements have been met, and you can hit the ground running!

If you have any other questions about joining our awesome team of franchisees, or you just have questions about a non-medical home care franchise in general, don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team is standing by and we are ready to help. We’ll answer any questions you need and hopefully, we’ll have you on the team!

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