Duration: 16m 59s
This year, Ryan Naegele and his business partner Brian Hensley will celebrate their 10th year in business with Right at Home. Beginning with a single Chattanooga territory in 2016, they now oversee three territories in the Southeastern Tennessee region.
But as Ryan recalls now, “when we opened our first territory, it was from scratch. It was not previously owned, and so we had zero hours on the calendar and zero employees that first day.”
The partners have come quite a long way in the decade since, establishing a growing business and embedding themselves in the communities they serve. So how did Ryan and Brian build a thriving home care franchise from the ground up?
Tipping the Scales Toward Home Care
Well, it helped a lot that the future business partners both worked in the non-profit sector before moving into caregiving. In fact, the two originally crossed paths while serving in similar fundraising roles for different entities. So when Brian approached Ryan about the prospect of starting a business together, it was clear that they shared a lot of the same values.
Indeed, after exploring a variety of prospective business opportunities, it was this common ground that would ultimately lead them to Right at Home.
“With the nonprofit background,” says Ryan, “as I learned about Right at Home, the opportunity to help people really stood out among the other opportunities we had to start businesses.”
“With this opportunity, you could have a very clear impact, and one that would help you sleep at night. That was really what tipped the scales towards home care and Right at Home,” Ryan recalls.
Starting from Scratch
Though Ryan and Brian could see a clear path toward making an impact, traveling that path would take a lot of hard work and on-the-job learning.
“In those early days,” Ryan tells us, “it was a lot of hiring people for work that didn’t exist yet, and then scrambling to backfill and give them that work.”
“It was tough. It was slow for us,” says Ryan. “The homecare field is ripe for faster growth these days than it used to be. I think people can get up and off the ground quite a bit quicker than we were able to.”
In particular, Ryan recalls, they struggled in the early stages to recruit strong healthcare referral sources. But with a lot of persistence, a bit of creative thinking, and incredible support from the Right at Home corporate office, they managed to find their own unique channels for referrals.
“We had a couple early wins in the Elder Law attorney space, and with some complicated clients,” says Ryan. “That was really where we ended up finding our niche – with wealth managers, elder law attorneys, and trustees. We found different markets for referrals.”
This was the beginning of an amazing upward trajectory for Ryan and Brian.
Finding Focus
Once Ryan and Brian hit their stride, their franchise grew quite rapidly. As they added territories to their portfolio, they had to make some thoughtful decisions about how to scale upward. In particular, this meant establishing a clear divide between the kinds of responsibilities that they preferred to handle in-house and those they would ultimately choose to outsource.
As Ryan explains, “For recruiting, we work with a vendor. For our HR and benefits administration, we work with a professional employer organization (PEO). For after-hours on-call, bookkeeping, even our staff hiring, we work with a vendor.”
So why do they outsource so many administrative tasks?
“We do our best to assemble our team in such a way that anyone who’s working directly in the office is really focused on caregiver retention, caregiver satisfaction and client satisfaction,” explains Ryan. “And then, of course, sales – getting people in the top of the funnel and closing those clients.”
This strategic division of labor made it possible for Ryan and Brian to expand their footprint without getting bogged down by a growing set of administrative demands. The result of this approach is a franchise where the attention remains at all times on exactly what matters most – the clients, the caregivers, and their families
Reflecting on Relationships
Clearly, this approach is working. But as Ryan acknowledges, he and his partner have had a lot of help along the way, especially from Right at Home’s coaching staff.
“They’re all, in our experience, very responsive, very knowledgeable, and the best resource if you’re looking to connect to other owners as well,” says Ryan. In fact, Ryan places special emphasis on the value of connecting with other franchise owners.
“That’s just an invaluable part of the system,” says Ryan. “This is my first experience with a franchise even with my entrepreneurial background. And truthfully, I didn’t really know what to expect. But the amount of transparency and access that we have to each other has just been amazing.”
Tapping Into the Network
Ryan strongly urges aspiring franchisees to take advantage of this access.
“I think everyone needs to ask as many questions as they can,” he says. “When I went through validation, the recommendation was to speak to three to five owners. Well, we ended up speaking to about 35 owners and every single one of them offered their time.”
Ryan stresses the value of the relationships he’s formed and the knowledge he’s gained through these connections. He notes that the most successful franchisees he’s met are also “the kindest and most welcoming people that you can imagine, and they’re all very happy to share some advice, and some cautionary tales as well.”
So why are Right at Home franchisees so generous with their time and knowledge?
“If they’re in the system, they believe in it,” says Ryan. “There’s no automatic button or magic wand. But it’s very clear that when the work goes in, there’s a benefit that comes out.”
If you are interested in learning more about joining the Right at Home franchise system, visit https://rightathomefranchise.com/.