Executive Update with Margaret Haynes CEO

Duration: 30m 02s

Description:

Right at Home Margaret Haynes, president & CEO, is interviewed by Jen Chaney, CFE, VP of Fran Dev, providing an update on the brand’s history and how the company’s vision has evolved. Margaret talks about the journey of a prospective franchisee. She includes Discovery Day, training, ongoing support, franchisee validation, and the steps to ensure a good fit between the franchise and the potential franchisee.  Next year is Right at Home’s 30th Anniversary of being a brand and 25th year of franchising.

The Inspiration

What inspired the founder to start Right at Home and how his vision evolved? Allen Hager was a hospital administrator in Omaha and started noticing individuals were being discharged but didn’t have the support resources to ensure they didn’t return to the hospital. Hager left the hospital, got his CNA license, and became a caregiver to understand the challenges of going into someone’s home and supporting them with daily living tasks. Ultimately it led to the first Right at Home office in 1995. In 2000, he decided to take this concept and franchise it. Margaret adds, “Next year is our 30th Anniversary of being a brand and 25th year of franchising, and there’s not a lot of brands that can say they’ve been in business that long.  And, we’ve got so much opportunity in front of us.”

The Support

How does Right at Home Support its Franchisees with Training, Support, and Development? Haynes discusses the process of being a franchisee. Once a prospect expresses interest, it all starts. They will attend Discovery Day and determine if they would like to be associated with us. Right at Home doesn’t just give someone a franchise because they can write a check. We want to make sure this person can really be successful. Once you sign a franchise agreement, you will start engaging with our team from a support perspective. You will attend Residence Week in Omaha, engaging with our subject matter experts and learning more about home care. You will also be assigned a coach who will help you in the initial startup. Eventually, you will have an ongoing coach throughout your lifecycle with the brand to help you build a sustainable, profitable business. 

Transparency

What is Validation? Right at Home encourages prospective owners to talk with other existing franchise owners about what life is really like, encouraging prospects to ask about good days and challenging days. We encourage prospective owners to get a balanced perspective.  It’s a key part of the franchise discovery process and due diligence.  It helps the prospective franchisee make an informed decision about whether to invest in a franchise business and compare their expectations.

The Challenges

What are some of the challenges that you may face as a Right at Home franchise owner? At Residence Week, owners are exposed to a lot of information and learn what it takes to become a franchisee.  Margaret notes that some may feel like they are drinking from a fire hose because there’s so much information. The goal is to expose you to the information, but we are going to give you the garden hose so you can control the flow of that information.  Coaches will give you what you need along the journey to help you get your business up and running. As a new franchise owner, you will be wearing many hats, as the business starts with just a few staff, so you may be doing different things that weren’t in your previous role. This business is 24-7/365 business. People get discharged from hospitals, and families can have a crisis at any time during the day or night. So it is not an 8-5 business. However, this is a great opportunity to show your local community about who you are, why you’re so passionate about home care, and our mission: to improve the quality of life for those that we serve. We also help tenured owners when they are ready to leave the business. We help them decide if they want to pass it down or sell it. We also encourage owners to pick up the phone and call us on good days or bad days.  

The Future

What do you foresee happening with Medicare paying for certain in-home care? Margaret notes this is such a timely question.  VP Harris announced a new package of support services within Medicare. Not knowing all the details, the high-level summary is that it would pay for some of the in-home health care services that Right at Home provides. Haynes says, “It’s a great thing that we’re getting more and more input from our federal government and at the state level in terms of supporting families in the payment of these types of services. That’s what we need to do with what’s coming in the future with the baby boomers that are going to be moving into that age range where they’re going to want to use our services.”

How does Right at Home handle innovation and adapt to changes in the home care industry as far as technology goes? A team within the Right at Home corporate office has been dedicated to innovation and technology within the business, reviewing innovations that can make things better. We are developing a new CRM system, which is a new technology that will help drive efficiency.  We are always looking at in-home technology and different services and bundling of services to meet our customers’ demands. We have resources focused on AI developments, looking into ways to protect privacy. There are certain things that technology can’t do and that the human touch is important. We have members in the network that can perform pilot tests. Once tested, we know if they are a good return on investment to roll out to other franchisees.

Franchise Owner Input

How do you get feedback from our franchise owners? Right at Home is a very collaborative ecosystem in franchising.  Margaret believes it is one of the things that sets us apart from even others in the industry.  One way Right at Home gets feedback from our franchise owners is through a group of elected franchisees.  This group made up of representatives from the eight regions, called the Strategic Leadership Council (SLC), helps drive our strategic direction. Coaches are also great at bringing back owner ideas to the corporate office on better ways we can support. Franchise owner performance groups meet about operational and growth challenges. We also survey our franchisees for written feedback. Weekly webinars showcase best practices, and our big annual meeting “Home Improvement” brings everybody together.

Marketing to Specific Demographics

Can marketing help target specific demographics? Our Online Marketing Specialists can help target your specific demographics from an online presence. We work to give you marketing tools, and brand fund helps deliver local and national marketing, and drive leads to your local office. We are also making adjustments based on what your demographics might look like.

NEXT SCHEDULED TALK

November 12 – 2 pm CST

Register here:

Executive Update with Margaret Haynes, CEO, and Jen Chaney, VP of Franchise Development

Watch the previous Interview with Margaret Haynes

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