Pete First With BrightStar Care

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Lee Kantor: [00:00:32] Lee Kantor here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Pete first with Brightstar Care. Welcome, Pete.

Pete First: [00:00:42] Thanks. Appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Well, before we get too far into things, tell us a little bit about Bright Star Care. How are you serving folks?

Pete First: [00:00:49] So we provide in-home in-home health care for seniors all across the country. We’ve got about 340 locations around the US. A big differentiator for us is all of our franchisees are joint commission accredited, which is the highest accreditation that we have out there. And so we’ve got different multiple different areas of revenue stream that our franchisees can enjoy. So they’ve got the in-home care. We have skilled care that we can provide in the home. We also have external staffing to other communities as well. So a lot of different things that are that our franchisees can do.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] So how did the brand come about? Did it start with franchising in mind or did it start as kind of a mom and pop?

Pete First: [00:01:34] Well, Shelly Sun, who’s our founder and CEO, she started this started the business looking for care for her grandparents. And so that’s where things really began. And she was actually a franchisee before she was a franchisor. So she was involved with a couple of hotel brands and was in in the new owner training program for the hotel brands and realized, you know, this is something that we can we can really take this and we can franchise it. And so that’s really where where it started. So being a franchisee kind of led to this. And then the most important thing that we have today is being able to provide such a higher standard of care. And that really is the differentiator. And one of the differentiators for us was being able to provide that and then expand that via the franchising model.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:17] Then what does that ideal franchisee prospect look like?

Pete First: [00:02:22] Our franchisees today. You know, we’re really looking for franchisees that come in and want to be able to scale their business and want to expand. You know, in looking at folks that don’t necessarily have a health care background. In fact, most of our franchisees don’t most of our franchisees come to us because they’ve had some experience with home care in some capacity, whether it was their own family member, their grandparents, their own parents. And they realize that there’s got to be a better way to provide this type of service. So they have that passion about the business already, but they come in with a lot of our top franchisees, have quite a bit of management experience, and they used to running teams because if you think about the business that we have, we really have two, two types of businesses that people are running. They’re running the business of providing care and providing service to the community. But also they’ve got, in some cases, hundreds of caregivers that are working with them and working for them. And it’s managing that that large team as well, so that that people that have the management experience really build well in this.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:25] Well, there’s a lot in the news about, you know, shortages of nurses and those type of caregivers. Is that one of the challenges in this organization as well?

Pete First: [00:03:36] It’s nationally and globally. It’s a challenge when it comes to this because there is a shortage of caregivers and nurses. And what we strive for is being, you know, being that employer of choice and finding ways to keep and retain our best people. So retention and having a recruiting and retention arm within our company to support our franchisees is really important. And we do we do that. So, you know, it’s one thing to have to hire a lot of people and bring people onto the team, but you’ve got to onboard them properly and you have to make sure that they’re going to stay. So retention and focusing on keeping that team together, it’s a big part of what we’re doing right now.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] So what is a day in the life of a franchisee or a new franchisee look like?

Pete First: [00:04:19] So there’s a lot of a lot of managing the team and the caregivers. So our our franchise owner really oversees everything. They’ve got a director of nursing that manages the nursing team. They’ve got an office manager that helps with the director of operations, kind of helps within managing the building. And the franchisee is the face of the business. This is a business that is networking is very important. Working with the discharge planners and referral sources and having that relationship is really key and then being out there and building that business. So there’s a lot of moving parts to this because especially as you scale, you’re providing care and service to multiple locations every single day. And so there’s a lot of coordination that goes with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:05] Now, you mentioned earlier that the ideal franchisee doesn’t necessarily have to be in the health care industry before jumping into Brightstar. They do, though, have to build relationships with people in the health care industry, right. Like there is, I would imagine a lot of locally they have to know the hospice people, the nursing home people that assisted. They have to know kind of all the players in that space or at least have somebody on the team that is kind of immersed in those communities as well.

Pete First: [00:05:35] Yeah. And a lot of that comes over time where they may not have those relationships initially, but part of our training process and onboarding and new franchisees is to work with them to build those relationships and then know who those contacts are and who the key players are within the market. Because you’re right, those referral sources are your are your key to growing your business and we help our franchisees develop those relationships as well. So it’s kind of a part of the part of the boot camp program that we go through is building up those contacts, who’s who and how to ought to be able to reach them. Because ultimately what our referral sources are looking for is a solution. And we can we can provide that beyond beyond companion care. We can provide that if they have other needs. And one of the things that we really are focused on today is national accounts and building the national relationships with various payers and with whether it’s auto owners or other types of insurance companies and things where we’re involved directly with the payer and helping provide those that business out to our franchise network.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:41] Now, when someone’s considering this as a franchise for themselves and taking the leap into franchising, what are some of kind of their their concerns when it comes to this? Because it doesn’t seem like an obvious choice for a lot of folks. I know you mentioned that they’ve had some personal experience, maybe their parent or grandparent, they saw them go through that and they saw, you know, what a mess that can be. But what was their do they feel like, hey, I’m not who am I to be doing this kind of work? I don’t know anything about this. You know, the medicine, the medical side is that fear of not being immersed in the medical or having that health care background hold them back for even considering this.

Pete First: [00:07:22] Well, you know, we get we get through that hurdle as we take candidates through our process of reviewing the brand before they even become a franchisee. So we’ve answered a lot of those questions along the way. And we also have have all of our candidates do a lot of validation with with existing owners so they know they get a true day in the life of explanation from the owners and what to expect. And it’s it’s it is a 24 seven business. I mean, that’s the nature of what we do. So people have to be prepared for that. And it’s not it’s not right for everybody. I mean, we we say no to a lot more people than we say yes to as far as coming into the brand, because we are looking for that person who who really wants to come in and build and scale. But the medical piece of it, yeah. I mean, if you don’t have that background, let’s say you’re not in you haven’t been a nurse or you haven’t been involved in in medical capacity in any capacity. It is a little bit overwhelming. But working through the training program, through the question and getting the questions answered prior to coming on as a franchisee, we try to work through all of that ahead of time. So when you come in and they’re ready to open, you know, they don’t you only take the types of cases that you’re prepared to take as you open, so you sort of crawl, walk, run through this process. And so by the time you get to some of those higher level cases, you’re ready to handle it.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:42] Now are you finding kind of post-pandemic or hopefully we’re post-pandemic, that more people are open to the idea of franchising as kind of that second act or third act in their career?

Pete First: [00:08:55] We’re seeing a lot of that. I mean, it’s it is definitely just franchising in general continues to expand and there’s more and more opportunities out there for if you think about it, there’s there’s a franchise opportunity for almost everything and almost everyone’s interests. So there’s there’s there’s a match out there. I mean, what we want to do with franchising is make sure that people are making the right choices. They’re doing their investigation and doing their legwork. And that’s what we expect when they’re coming. And considering Brightstar as their opportunity and we want them to talk to as many franchises as we can, but the if you hear about the great resignation and there’s a lot of of people that are out there now looking so I can see franchising continue to grow because it’s such a great model. I mean, where else would you want to go? We see a lot of people that try to start things on their own, but why have the mental anguish and the expense and all of the things that go with that when when there’s probably a system out there for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:09:49] Now you’ve been in franchising for a minute and you’ve worked with brands outside of Brightstar. Can you share some advice for those franchise owners, maybe from emerging companies like what are some of the do’s and don’ts? What are some of the must do things that they should be doing to get to the level of a bright star.

Pete First: [00:10:10] I think in the beginning you just really be selective with your franchisees. I know that it’s it is hard when you’re just getting started because you need to get to that scale. But but it’s so important to have a really good foundation of franchisees that you can build with because they’re going to be the folks that are out there helping you validate the item. 19 is going to be based upon how they’re doing and how well they’re doing, how well you’re supporting them and getting them up and started getting getting up and running and being able to provide that validation for you as you continue to grow. So I think that’s the biggest thing. Don’t be afraid to say no to a candidate if you just don’t feel like they’ve got the same core values as you, and they’re not going to be working in lockstep with you as as you grow and have the same vision for the brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:59] Now, do you find that when you’re an emerging brand, should you just, even if they’re the perfect fit, should you just take anybody anywhere in the country, or should you kind of grow from your initial location outward?

Pete First: [00:11:14] You know, I guess it depends on the. It depends on the franchisee, on the candidate and their and your ability to support them. So, you know, I suppose it’s the type of brand to we don’t want to I wouldn’t want to hold back development with the right candidate in the right place, even though they may be further from our corporate location, especially today. We can do so much support online and we can do so much support via Zoom. And the pandemic has taught us how to support our franchisees remotely. So I think that that’s opened up a lot of doors. And I wouldn’t be I wouldn’t hesitate if it was the right person.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:54] Now, maybe back in the day at the early, early franchising history, the people started as kind of the one person that’s going to go into a market, and now you’re finding more and more kind of I call them professional franchisees, where they have a portfolio of brands that might be in complementary industries and they have an infrastructure where they can support, you know, where there are some economies of scale. Is that kind of part of your profile now at this stage of Brightstar, you’re looking for that type of professional franchisee.

Pete First: [00:12:29] We see that a little bit. And they come to us from from differing industries. So it’s almost like they’ve had and they’re looking to diversify their portfolio. So they may have multiple food concepts or they may come from other types of industries. So we’re seeing some industry crossover where they’re not necessarily having complementary businesses to Brightstar per se, but they see the opportunity with where the demographics, with seniors and where this where this type of industry is heading. And they see it as an opportunity to be diverse with where they’re at and they’ve got some great teams that they’re that they already have. And some people may be able to be plugged into this and potentially run this for them as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:10] Now, is hospitality one of those kind of crossover industries, like if you have a bunch of hotels, is this kind of a make sense as part of a portfolio?

Pete First: [00:13:21] Yeah, we see we do get we do get quite a few inquiries from that. And one of the reasons that we do is because we also have Brightstar Senior Living and Brightstar Care Homes, which are brick and mortar senior living communities. And that’s where we’ve really seen a lot of folks from the hospitality side come and have interest because they see senior living as an opportunity. That’s fairly similar when it comes to running, running the business itself. It’s about occupancy and it’s about revenue per available room and it’s about providing great service and the hospitality industry bodes well for that, really ties in nicely.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:58] So now is there some locations that Brightstar is looking to expand into next? Are there territories or is it kind of the world is your oyster at this point?

Pete First: [00:14:08] So we’re only in the U.S. so we’re not looking internationally, but we still have areas in the northeast. There are territories available in most of the major markets. What we have done, if you think about how people develop, we’re pretty established and we’re going on 20 years and so we have quite a few. A lot of the major markets are fairly sold out, but what we’ve done this year to increase interest in some of the markets that may be not in the central area but maybe a suburb or something like that. We’ve introduced a medium density territory and so what we’ve done is looked at territories that are under 200,000 population where we know that we need to provide service and the need is there and the demand is there. But we’re looking at these smaller medium density markets. We’ve cut our franchise fee in half, so we’re dropping that down in 50%. And then there are some some aspects of that where they may not have to have an office or may be able to work differently with a salesperson. But it’s really being able to enter into some of these markets that still need service but may not be a 400,000 population territory. But we know that are still very, very viable and areas that we need to provide service and we have national account needs. And this is a way to enter into some of those some of those markets.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:32] Yeah. The demographics of this of aging are definitely working in your favor. And, you know, it doesn’t matter the size of the city, there’s going to be a need to at least some level.

Pete First: [00:15:44] Absolutely. Absolutely. We want to be able to provide that and want to be able to say yes to inquiries that come in.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:50] Right. And if you can create an offering that makes sense financially in each of those markets, why not?

Pete First: [00:15:58] Yeah. I mean, most senior care franchises have have minimum thresholds that franchisees need to meet as part of developing their market. And with the medium density territories that we’re doing today, we don’t have any of those minimums. So it allows people to to really build to the maximum potential within within a territory of that size. And we’re really excited about that and see that as a great growth opportunity.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:20] Yeah, and it’s great for those consumers and those markets because those are the people that really have a hard time.

Pete First: [00:16:27] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:29] Well, Pete, congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the coordinates?

Pete First: [00:16:36] I would go to Brightstar franchising dot com and that will give you all of the information on the agency in our circular agency development and growth along with Brightstar senior living and those opportunities as well so bright star franchising dot com.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:50] All right well thank you again for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Pete First: [00:16:55] Thank you, Lee. Appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:56] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.