“It’s really important that the people who join us at this early stage work directly with me in defi ning what this business will look like over the course of the next 10 years”
What sort of investment does the opportunity involve and what support do you provide? Financially, they are substantial. There’s a cost associated with social care because there are elements you need in place before you can be registered that have to be paid for, so there’s a working capital requirement. Investment is around £70,000 to £100,000. Funding is available – but we’re looking for people with personal capital investment capability of between £30,000 and £50,000. They’ll be supported by a guy that’s running a business the same way they do. I’m keen to stress this: I’ve walked in their shoes. It’s really important that the people who join at this early stage work directly with me in defining what this business will look like over the next 10 years. It means some prospective franchisees are going to want to join in five years when we’ve got 50 franchisees or so – which will be great – but I’m sure there’s a group of people that wants to be closely involved at that early stage. Apart from me and my team and the
knowledge we have – which is 25 years of experience of the care industry – we’ve also got the US business. All franchisees will be partly trained there and supported in part by the US team. We have webinars, training sessions, the Visiting Angels University – which each franchisee goes through – monthly conference calls... Plus, they’ll get me – I’ll be sitting with them once a quarter, reviewing the business plan, walking the streets of their area helping them to understand how you communicate the difference that is Visiting Angels.
How successful is Visiting Angels in the US? They’re massive and they’re America’s choice in homecare and a very well-established brand... When I brought the company to the UK I didn’t know how well that brand would translate – but it does so immensely well. People refer to
our caregivers as angels: “Can you send me an angel?” So its been accepted quite readily by the UK market. The feedback we get from clients is amazing; the relationships we have with caregivers are underlining why our approach is the right one.
What are you looking for in a franchisee? Again, it’s that element of iconoclast; someone that’s questioning the status quo, that looks at the model of care that’s been delivered time and time again and says: “No. There has to be a different way.” People who not only understand why it’s important that you put a caregiver at the heart of what you do but can also then be the difference by actually making sure it happens on a daily basis. Also, it’s useful if they’ve personal experience
of finding care for a loved one. It’s difficult to talk theoretically about problems in the care sector, it’s far easier if you’ve seen it first hand. In the first eight weeks of care for my nana, we had 12 separate caregivers. One day, they didn’t turn up, she tried to get out of bed on her own, fell, ended up in hospital and didn’t come home. We couldn’t get the care provider to deliver care any other way because they couldn’t and wouldn’t see an alternative. So personal exposure to that can be very valuable. I share my story because the families I talk to identify with it. I want to prevent others from experiencing that themselves. A visiting angel is exactly where and when they say they will be. I also want to attract a ‘people person’ – it’s a people business. They need to have resilience and persistence to make sure things are done, and done differently, and are able to communicate the difference. It’s really important. We are fixing the recruitment and retention issue that the care industry is subject to and we need people who can communicate the difference that’s going to make to a family.
The practical difference it makes is that I have clients in Sheffield where 100 per cent of the care has been delivered by the same caregiver. We operate an initiative that’s very well received by families called ‘choose your caregiver’, where the final decision on whether that person delivers the care is with the family. They’ll say yes or no to that person, and from our point of view if someone has chosen a particular person, that’s who they’ll get.
Where are you looking to expand? UK-wide. But it’s about finding the right people more than the geography. The advantage of getting into the business in the relatively early years is that there’s flexibility; we’ll modify the territory according to where they might see potential, more than we’ll be able to when we have a full network.
What’s in the future? Our five-year mission: to become the UK’s care employer of choice. The way to do that is to think differently about what it is to be a caregiver, to make it an attractive career choice, reward people that provide care but feel under- rewarded. But also offer a career choice to those who might have otherwise ruled it out – I know that we’ve recruited caregivers that wouldn’t have worked in another organisation because they didn’t want to do short-term visits for a minimum wage, not get paid for their travel time, and so on. They’ve been able to come into our business because we address those concerns. So that’s opening up a potential caregiver market that’s not been tapped previously. Franchisees will enable us to meet that mission – I genuinely believe that to change the perception of a caregiver in society, we couldn’t have done it in any other structure. Franchisees who buy into what we are saying will see it’s the right way of doing it. n
29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196
