In The Homecare Business, Who Will You Be Working For?
If you're planning on getting into the homecare business
, you have to be working for the clients' otherwise you're in the wrong business. This focus should color your every decision, not the least of which is how you start an in-home agency.When you first open your agency, there are two options before you: You can work independently or you can join a franchise. If your interest is in taking care of the elderly to the best of your ability, then working independently is the smart choice.
In any global franchise company you are working for the franchisor. They provide little or no advantage to the new agency in the areas that they really need it. The start up costs are out of sight and the royalty fees never end. Statistics show that new independent agencies are more likely to succeed than newly franchised ones. This is especially true in highly regulated states like Georgia.
Franchises don't help agencies obtain their state licenses, and they don't help them maintain compliance to state regulations. This means that you could find yourself faced with several red flags during a state audit, have a limited time to correct them, but have to deal with the franchisor to make the necessary changes if they even go that extra mile.
Probably the most complicated part of starting your agency in Georgia and many other states is the licensing process. If you don't have assistance with this process, you could easily find yourself in a "trial and error" process, which could expand your application time from over six months to one year. If you have everything together in the beginning as the consultant guarantees, it takes as little as two months.
Knowing now that franchises generally don't give you help where you need it the most, where can you turn for the help you need? You need a senior care consulting firm. They can guide you through the entire process of getting your license and guiding the compliance process to help assure that you remain in conformance with state regulations. Besides this, provide impressive innovative marketing and help you establish an effective operational system for a fraction of the cost that you would pay to use the franchise's name.
The advantages of using a consultant go beyond having help with the legal hoops you have to jump through. With a franchise, you would have to comply with business structures which may not meet state regulations or the social climate of your client base, renting an expensive office space and marketing strategies that they decide for you. You're now faced with the reality of franchising: Do you work for them, or independently serve and work for your clients? Should your profit go to the franchisor or back to you as the sole owner of your agency?
Do you go with a franchisor, and pay your employees less and charge your clients higher rates in order to survive the current downturn in the economy? Or do you go it independently, so you can pay employees more for less turnover and charge clients less for competitive pricing? Do you go with the franchise option and boxed in business approaches or go independently for out-of-the-box marketing, quick responses and innovative approaches to meet the changing needs of clients?
How much easier would it be if you were an independent business? Your "bosses" would not be a faceless corporate entity; they would be your clients. After guidance from your consultant, you could effortlessly adapt to any changes in the state's regulations and innovatively market to the families and clients in large group settings.
There's another important consideration to make when choosing between independence and franchising. Franchises will only allow you to work within a certain geographic area. This can be disastrous for a new agency since they need all the clients they can get.
If you're stuck with a zip code or area that has a low senior population density, it's entirely likely that you could not build enough of a client base to keep yourself afloat. While you may suffer financial hurts from working with a franchise, who do you think suffers the most for you being held back in your efforts? Your rightful bosses, the senior citizens, will.
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