The number of opportunities for home care businesses has exploded in the last several years. Baby boomers and post baby boomers are now reaching the age when they need full or partial home care. Savvy entrepreneurs are noticing and many are taking steps toward owning their own business in the home care industry.
There are at least two ways to get involved in the home care business – going it alone, or opening a home care franchise. There are many reasons why savvy entrepreneurs choose to open a home care franchise.
Less Financial Risk
The first thing new business owners have to look at is the level of financial risk they can comfortably assume. It’s been said that 80% of new businesses fail within the first five years. That’s long enough to lose plenty of money and traction that could have been better put to use elsewhere.
When you open a home care franchise, you assume far less financial risk because you already have several important components in place that you don’t have when going it alone, including:
* Proof of concept
* Branding and name recognition
* Customer loyalty
* Business infrastructure
* Credit terms
These are all critical factors to building a successful business that cost new business owners a lot of time and effort to set up and maintain. With a franchise home care business, the work has already been done for you.
General Support
Home care franchises offer an abundance of support for their franchise operators. When you open a home care franchise business, you can be assured of:
Telephone Support
Most home care franchise owners have access to an 800 number they can call for help with spur of the moment problems or questions, as well as to get information about where to go to get more complicated questions answered.
Seminars and Meetings
Real, face-to-face meetings and training seminars are the hallmark of quality home care franchises. Franchise operators will be able to attend meetings and seminars held all over the country. At these meetings, you can meet other franchise operators and compare experiences, meet one-on-one with franchise owners to address problems and share tips, and feel supported in the same kind of nurturing environment offered to clients and customers.
On-Site Visits
Franchise owners will often make the time to visit franchise operations personally. At that time, franchise operators can show how they run the business, express concerns and expect to get those concerns met individually and expeditiously.
On the contrary, those who choose to open an independent home care business receive none of this support. Their questions go unanswered unless they go out themselves and seek the answers. They will have no one to talk to about problems or concerns in the business except their friends and family, who may not understand the business at all. No one will visit to comment on how well they’re doing or to offer helpful advice about how to grow or improve the business. When home care business owners choose to go it alone, they are truly alone in every sense of the word.
Help With Insurance
Home care franchise business operators receive all kinds of help with insurance. Commonly, home care clients have expensive and complicated insurance issues to deal with. Whether its equipment to aid with walking, transportation or meal delivery services, home care clients are always communicating with insurance representatives. In turn, home care providers need to understand the ins and outs of insurance issues so that they will have access to the equipment needed to properly care for their customers. Home care franchise operators receive that help from franchise owners. There is an abundance of support materials specifically designed to help franchise operators navigate the insurance minefield.
On the other hand, home care business owners who go it alone have to figure out how to navigate the insurance industry rules and regulations all by themselves. Often they are unsuccessful, and the lack of compensation and reimbursement for services and equipment push them further and further into debt, eventually causing them to lose the business entirely.
Which avenue will you take? Will you choose to go it alone? Or is opening a home care franchise with a massive support system and hundreds of helpful documents available to help you with every aspect of your business the best choice for you?
When you choose a home care franchise, that’s exactly what you get. You receive the benefits of years of experience, a network of professionals on call to answer all your questions, built-in branding and customer loyalty and access to credit at agreeable rates. There’s no better time to get in on the home care industry and no better way than to open a home care franchise.
