Special Feature
Cashflow Quadrant. The principles in the book have made more people wealthy than anyone else’s. PPP seemed to match these principles. The company has allowed me a passive income with tangible assets, properties that appreciate and generate cashflow. I now present seminars on it for PPP. The franchise system is invaluable, it has empowered us.
Did you face any challenges in the beginning? We didn’t have any earned income. We needed to find a mortgage broker to take us on as we were classed as inexperienced landlords. That’s all changed now, of course. But one of the great benefits is the collective strength of franchising – the non-competitive sharing of knowledge and support. PPP has a culture of co-operation, freely given.
How did you combine your strengths/ talents to make the business work? I built on skills I already had in property development, as well as using my business management and IT skills. My property development skills really helped when it came to the refurbishment of the shared houses we bought with PPP’s help. My wife is a great organiser and her household management skills meant she was great at sourcing the right properties for the right price and equipping our shared houses as they are fully kitted out for our tenants. We work together to find the right tenants, interview them and manage their tenancies.
Do you keep a day job or do you have to dedicate yourself to the franchise? I work full-time but Linda works for half the year at Royal Ascot, which is pretty glamorous!
Has being in business together strengthened your relationship as a couple? Yes, because I feel free now. I have more free time. I was always travelling and worried about the deals I was working on before. To give you an example – the day after my son was born, I had to get on a plane to Dallas for a business meeting! Now work no longer rules my life. Sometimes, we bring work issues home with us but it’s always the enjoyable stuff that we talk about.
What skills have you learnt? Too many to mention! Financial skills, planning laws, how to refurbish properties, marketing, maintaining customer satisfaction, plus being a great landlord that people want to rent from.
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What has your family gained by taking on a franchise? We have built a lasting legacy for our family. We have a nest egg in our portfolio, which will grow to 10 properties. The children can choose to get involved in the business in the future, if they decide.
Caremark
build good relationships with GPs, together with her marketing skills, are key. My financial and management background and my experience of operating in a regulated field gives us, I feel, a particularly good foundation to develop a care services franchise from scratch. Varsha focuses on marketing and developing the business, while I focus on business planning and financial management. We review all documentation together to ensure that the staff are adhering to the Caremark system fully.
Husband-and-wife team Girish, 56, and Varsha Khubchandani, 48, are joint directors of Caremark in Harrow, establishing the franchise in August 2008. Caremark provides care and support to people who wish to remain living independently at home but require support. Girish recalls how a chance conversation led to them taking on the franchise.
What were you doing before you bought your Caremark business?
I had spent the past 20 years as a chartered accountant. Varsha had worked in sales and management, spending the last 10 years as a medical sales representative for a large pharmaceutical company.
Why did a Caremark franchise appeal to you particularly?
About 11 years ago, we needed some help caring for my mother and at that time there was very little help available and what was available was of a very poor quality. Caremark was recommended to us by contacts who had recently acquired their own franchise. When we met company principal Kevin Lewis and international development director Sean Cragg in the company offices, what attracted us to Caremark was their passion in seeking to deliver the highest standards of care to the public and their commitment to making it happen. We were very impressed with their commitment and dedication in seeking to provide a quality care service. In particular, Kevin’s previous track record in developing a very successful nationwide care service franchise impressed us.
What do you feel are your individual strengths and how do they complement each other within the business? Varsha’s experience in sales and her ability to
What challenges have you faced and how have your different skill-sets assisted you? We had to develop a business where there were no block contracts available for tender and consequently we had to focus on developing relationships with the various direct payments teams of social workers within our area to acquire work. The recessionary economic conditions meant we each had to use our core skills to: firstly, develop the business through building relationships with key people and, secondly, keep a strong hold on the financial management of the business. Only by doing so were we able to ensure the ongoing financial viability of the business.
What would you say were the main contributing factors to the success of your franchise? We quickly identified a niche where there was insufficient provision in our area and then focused on providing a successful quality service, which then encouraged social workers to refer more mainstream customers to us. This enabled us to develop a very good professional relationship with a number of social workers who now regularly refer customers to us.
Are you involved with any external agencies? We are closely involved with a charity, appointed by the local authority as a broker to advise and assist in managing the personal budgets granted by the council to their customers. For the provision of care services to older people, we are now one of their preferred providers and have been informed they would like to nominate us as their sole provider of care services.
Do you have any specific plans for the future of the business? To provide more specific care services to other customer groups, for example, younger adults with learning difficulties, those with physical disabilities as well as children. In addition, we plan to continually grow the business and one day expand into another territory.
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