FRANCHISEFOCUS IN V ESTMENT: FROM £9,995 Facing the challenges for you
Dan Archer, of home care franchise Visiting Angels, explains why it’s important for the team supporting a franchisee to have direct experience of the business model
F
ranchising success depends on the ability of a franchisor to transfer the know-how of running the business
to a new franchisee in order for them to replicate the franchisor’s success. It is common for franchisors to provide initial training courses to new franchisees. A franchisor should also provide an operations manual, which details all elements of the business operations. Managing director of Visiting Angels, Dan Archer, says: “Both initial training courses and operations manuals are quite static ways of supporting a new franchisee. Whilst they are really important, what’s actually taught on the training course and the content of the operations manuals will change quite infrequently.” Ongoing support for franchisees will be
provided throughout the life of the business and Dan believes that the support provided by the franchisor’s staff has a crucial role to play in business success. He explains: “On a day-to-day basis franchisees should be able to rely on members of the franchise support team for the more dynamic challenges associated with running a business. When I brought Visiting Angels to the UK over a year ago, I wanted to be able to say to a franchisee that I had done everything in the business – and faced every challenge that they might need help with. I wanted to make sure that the franchisee support team and I had first-hand experience of running the business.”
When Dan launched the Visiting Angels pilot in 2017, he took an already established business model and tailored it for the UK market. Operating in five countries and with over 600 franchisees across the world, Visiting Angels was already one of the world’s largest home care franchises. Dan, however, felt that it was important that he stood in the shoes of every franchisee that would follow. He says, “I have been involved in franchising for 20 years and I’ve always spent time in the operational business. I had an opportunity with Visiting
Angels to take an already successful formula and bring it to the UK. I wanted to make sure that, after we had piloted the business and we moved into franchise recruitment, I could truly understand and support a franchisee because I had done it myself. I believe it’s important that anyone supporting franchisees have both theoretical and practical experience of running the business.” The piloting of Visiting Angels in the UK has been very successful and Dan now believes that the business is well placed to support its founding franchisees: “Our pilot has outperformed the business plan in both the hours of care we have delivered and the number of clients that we support. Our business is ahead of both its turnover and profit targets. We are now seeking the first five founding franchisees to help us expand the brand in the UK. These first five franchisees will benefit from a reduced franchise fee and will have a chance to help
us direct the development of the support structure for all future franchisees.” Visiting Angels is launching the
franchise opportunity at the National Franchise Exhibition at Birmingham NEC on 5 and 6 October. The reduced fee for founding franchisees is £9,995 plus vat. Franchisees will receive comprehensive initial training and ongoing support from a team that has over 30 years’ experience in social care, as well as continuous business mentoring from Dan and his team, responsible for launching and running the original UK operation. l
CONTACT Visiting Angels Care
0114 433 3000
www.visiting-angels.co.uk darcher@visiting-angels.co.uk
BUSINESSFRANCHISE.COM 79
Investment level: Under £10k
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