Shelley Kanther With Griswold Home Care

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Lee Kantor: [00:00:43] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Shelley Kanther with Griswold Home Care. Welcome, Shelley.

Shelley Kantor: [00:00:54] Thanks, Lee. I’m excited to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:56] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Griswold. How are you serving folks?

Shelley Kantor: [00:01:02] Well, Griswold home care actually is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and is billed as the first non-medical home care franchise in the country. And so we operate about 170 locations in 30 states and growing. So we’re just really thrilled to have such a great legacy to base our company on and to continue the good work of taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves fully and allow them to live in the place that they love longer.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:33] Can you share a little bit about the back story? How did kind of this concept get birthed and what was kind of the pain that we’re trying to solve for? I guess back in the early eighties.

Shelley Kantor: [00:01:44] Yes. But we do have a very interesting history and legacy, as I mentioned. Our company was founded, as I said, in 1982 by Dr. Jean Griswold, and she was a true visionary. What the story goes that there was a parishioner in the parish where her husband was pastor that passed away for reasons that could have been easily prevented. She dehydration and malnutrition issues. And it just turned out that she didn’t have anyone looking in on her or helping her and supporting her in her home. And if there would have been someone, it would have been prevented. And so at that point, Jean started thinking about all of the great people that she knew who wanted to make an honest living, but also had caring, loving hearts and just thought, hey, there’s there’s a need. There’s also people that need good, solid work. And so she started matching them up. And really the rest is history. It started growing from there. The really special thing to note is that Dr. Jean Griswold herself suffered from multiple sclerosis and was wheelchair bound for much of her life. So she understood first hand the importance of having that support and providing a way for folks to continue living their life and and having a positive experience. So it really was born out of many different facets of her love for providing care, her love for caregivers, and also her own experience.

Lee Kantor: [00:03:16] So then what was kind of the impetus to say, hey, you know what, if it’s working well here, why don’t we see if we can help other folks around the country? Right.

Shelley Kantor: [00:03:25] I mean, it just sort of happened organically. People started that were working with her saying, hey, we could use some help over here or, hey, you know, I was wondering if you’d be willing to open an office over here and the business model just sort of transpired from there, realizing that she couldn’t be everywhere. And there was also an opportunity that people in general might might have a desire to own their own business, in essence, and and to make it into something even more than just helping potential caregivers find work, but helping those who aspire to have their own business that has a purpose. It’s not just making money, but for people who really just want to have that higher calling, that helping others and supporting folks in their community. And so it just sort of happened organically over time and began to grow and become successful. And one key thing that happened at one point in the in the nineties, there was a there was a segment done on Dr. Jean Griswold and the business on The Today Show. There was also an article in Forbes magazine about her. And so because it was such a compelling story and she’s such an interesting person, and so that really some inquiries started coming in, and that’s where many of our very early franchisees from further distances transpired. And so it’s just a really great story. To tell and really interesting for people to to hear about how it just started so small at a at a dining room table to now being a national brand.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:09] Now you use the phrase non-medical home health care. Can you talk about kind of where the lines are for that so a potential franchisee can understand kind of what they’re getting themselves into?

Shelley Kantor: [00:05:24] Right. Absolutely. So we talk about non-medical home care and that just really means it’s not skilled. And as far as skilled, it means people are not pushing meds, they’re not doing IVs, they’re not doing those medical tasks that often a nurse or someone who has that training will come in and do. And what non-medical home care is, is more of those day to day activities of daily living that people need support on. Maybe it’s getting up, getting out of bed, getting dressed, making, helping with meal preparation, helping with bathing and toileting, you know, giving reminders about medication, just that companionship piece. Some people are very alone. And as we saw so starkly in the pandemic, when people are left alone, mental health declines. So you need to keep keep that interaction going. And so that companionship piece is really important. So it’s kind of like somebody can come in and do those medical tasks that are necessary, but you don’t necessarily need to have somebody like that there to support in those other ways that it’s very easy for just someone who has a caring heart and maybe a little bit of training can actually come in and handle. And so that’s the difference really between medical and non-medical home care intervention.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:59] And for folks who aren’t aware that to allow the elder parent to stay at home longer in a safe environment can save a lot of money because the alternative is pretty expensive, isn’t it?

Shelley Kantor: [00:07:18] Yeah. I mean, at sure, ten bills can really mount up for that because you’re paying for 24 seven care in a facility. The costs for everything that goes along with that in an actual, say, a nursing home facility or something like that. With home care, the way that it works is you may not need to have somebody in the home all the time, although we do provide live in. But you might just need somebody to be there, you know, the 6 hours of the day that are most crucial to ensure that the person is living a healthy life. And so it might just be that from morning until middle of the afternoon and the caregiver leaves a nice meal for dinner and then the person can get themselves to bed. Or it might be the opposite. Maybe it’s they need help. Towards the end of the day, it’s it’s definitely a more cost effective way. And, you know, honestly and I’ll mention the pandemic again, because there was no time that was more evident than during the pandemic, that if you could be in your own home and be safe, that was the place to be. And the problems that occurred in those facilities and nursing homes with the spread of the virus just pointed to the need for more in-home caregivers so that people can live safely at home rather than having to resort to going to a nursing home or facility if they don’t need to.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:52] Right. And then if you have an elderly parent especially and you don’t live nearby, which a lot of people nowadays are not kind of in the same town as their parent or grandparent, it just that it’s challenging to keep up with those kind of basic things, like is the food in their refrigerator, you know, six months old and expired. Like little things become big things as your parent or grandparent ages and to have kind of a trusted person in the home with them to make sure everything’s running smoothly. I mean, you can’t put a price on that.

Shelley Kantor: [00:09:29] Yeah, I mean, that’s really true. And we right around the holidays and right after the holidays, we do an awareness campaign. And it’s about the idea that you’re as you’re coming home to visit loved ones, that seniors in your life, people are more likely to be visiting grandma, grandpa, your great aunt know your mom, your dad around the holiday time frame. What are some of those signs that you should take note? To solve that, your loved one might need some additional support in their home. And you nailed one of them. You look in the refrigerator and food is expired, or you look at their their pillboxes and it’s relatively full, meaning they haven’t been taking them. Maybe they’re looking a little bit more disheveled. They’re not. As their personal care is not up to par to what it was even six months or a year ago. And so we put that information out there and kind of do a little quiz so people can jog people’s brain to sort of think, oh, gosh, you know, I didn’t consider that a quote unquote warning sign, but maybe it is. And maybe we should start considering what kind of support mom or dad need to help keep them healthy or longer.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:45] So when it comes to your ideal franchisee, what is the profile of that person look like? Do they have to have some kind of nursing background or some kind of caregiver background or are they, like you said, kind of that person that just cares about people and has a heart for this?

Shelley Kantor: [00:11:04] I mean, the prerequisite for any franchisee is that they need to have that giving, loving, caring spirit and want to support those in their community that that need that help, that extra help, most of the time, elderly and seniors in the communities. That’s really the biggest, most important quality that we look for. It’s great to have some level of a decent level of business acumen, whether it was in sort of operations of another business or finance or marketing, really just having some sort of business background because you are operating your own business at that point. So that’s something that we look for. Also, we do like to have someone who is outgoing and engaging because it’s really very important to be comfortable getting out in your community, networking with different facilities, rehabs, hospital systems and things like that, so that they think of Griswold at top of mind when somebody maybe is being released that would need that extra care. But again, I’ll just go back to the fact that if you have a caring heart, you want to help people and you want to support those in your community that need it, it could be a really good opportunity for you.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:21] Now is the idea of franchisees, somebody who is kind of an empire builder that wants to kind of be that trusted resource in their city or community, or is it something that they’re like kind of a one off like, Oh, I’m just in this area here and that’s enough for me.

Shelley Kantor: [00:12:39] It’s both. We have both types of franchisees. We have very successful franchisees who have one office location that’s just doing very, very well and they’re satisfied with that. And therefore, any territories around that are open for sale and they can work together with whomever the other owners are in their area to share best practices and perhaps even share cases if there needs to be help with staffing, if it’s close enough. So we have those types and then we have others, other franchisees who do have groups of offices maybe in one area, you know, over over a region or perhaps even in different states. We do have a franchise group that has some offices in New Jersey, some offices in South Carolina, and then also some offices in Florida. And they’re doing a fantastic job and they really are motivated to expand and continue to grow. So it really runs the gamut. There’s those in between as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:45] Now the caregivers are an important component because they’re the ones that are in the homes with these folks. Is there things that Griswold does to kind of help the franchisee identify, find and serve these caregivers? Or is there something that you you do to help them kind of reward maybe the caregivers that are doing above and beyond?

Shelley Kantor: [00:14:11] Yeah, absolutely. Several things we have made recruitment and retention of quality caregivers at our Griswold locations a real priority. Not only do we provide different campaigns and communications that are very engaging for our franchisees to implement at the local level, we have very dedicated operations folks who have just done a ton of research and work on what works with recruiting, how to do it, how to streamline it, how to make it most efficient, and then how to keep those folks once you do hire them. So we make it a real priority, especially in the face of the labor shortages that everybody is hearing about, that seem to be alleviating a bit. But still, we’re just going to continue pushing on that. We created a really beautiful campaign back in 20. At the onset of 2020, which was the Care With US campaign. And what we did was we took a bunch of caregivers from around the mid-Atlantic region and we brought them all to a production house and gave them the star treatment. Of course, they loved this. We had makeup and food was brought in like a green room and and they just felt very special, which they are. And we just sat each one of them down by themselves on the set with a white screen behind them and just had conversations sort of like you and I are doing here today. And boy, did we get some really amazing stories, some really touching moments occurred. And then we took all of that footage and we created all kinds of campaign assets that we could use to help reach the right people, the kind of people who make a good caregiver. Maybe they could see some of these video clips and these social media assets and the all the different types of communications we created out of this footage and these interviews. Maybe they could see themselves in that person, and that’s been super successful for us. It’s just been wonderful.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:25] So now what do you need more of? How can we help? Are you looking? I know you’re in. You’re not in all 50 states yet, but I’m sure you aspire to be like, where are you at currently and what could we be doing to help you grow?

Shelley Kantor: [00:16:38] Well, I mean, there’s there’s a couple of things. Honestly, I do want to mention that we have a very unique way also of supporting these caregivers. And so one way that we would love to get help from folks is to see if they might want to be a part of our campaign with our Jean Griswold Foundation. And that foundation was created back in 2010, basically to help support other organizations that support seniors, such as Meals on Wheels and things. But we’ve transitioned away from that again, with our pinpoint focus on supporting caregivers. We’ve transitioned to focusing on solely on caregivers and their education. And so we just this year, for the first time, we awarded six scholarships to caregivers across the country. They did not have to be Griswald employees or associated with a Griswald office in any way. And in fact, one of them turned out not to be. But from all across the country, we had these amazing caregivers apply for these scholarships, and they were awarded just back in at the end of July on Founder’s Day, which was Jean Griswold’s birthday. And these are folks who wanted some money to be able to get their CNA or to go get one, wanted to go into occupational therapy. One woman even was accepted into medical school and we’ll be using it for that.

Shelley Kantor: [00:18:03] And so the Jean Griswold Foundation is really an amazing way that you can support our efforts to support caregivers. You can go to Jean Griswold Foundation dot org to donate because we’re currently under our annual 2022 campaign in which our goal is 140,040, of course, for our anniversary. So that’s one way you can help us grow and support caregivers. But I assume you also were interested in how we can help grow Griswold and in general and really just getting the word out about Griswold home care. We aren’t the largest home care franchise company out there. We don’t have a huge national media budget. Everything we do is done very thoughtfully. When we expand, we make sure we have the right fit of the right type of people, as we mentioned, those who really are interested in caring and supporting their communities. And so just getting the word out there about Griswold is just a bit of a of a different type of of home care company. We really pride ourselves in giving end to end support from day one all the way through to help us franchise be successful. We have a wonderful home care academy. We provide field visits and one on one trainings.

Shelley Kantor: [00:19:30] We have all kinds of special webinars and different kinds of support that we give operationally. I know my marketing department that my team is just thrilled to talk to franchisees any time to help them understand how to use some of the platforms and programs we put together. We have an amazing conference every year in October and this year being our 40th, we’re going to Nashville and we’re really having a major celebration. And so the awareness piece for us is what can sometimes be a challenge, because again, we don’t have some of those large, huge national media budgets, but we are one of the best kept secrets in the country when it comes to home care franchise. We have relatively low entry costs. We have amazing training. Like I said, we have an extraordinary network of caring, wonderful people who just can’t wait to help each other grow and be successful. And so, yeah, I mean, spread the word. We’re actively selling territories all across the country. We have some really great places available. We just opened a new office out in Southern California in the San Diego area, and we’re really excited about that franchisee. They’re going to do great things. It’s we’re so we’re ready to go.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:53] So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website.

Shelley Kantor: [00:21:00] You can go to Griswold home care dot.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:02] Com.

Shelley Kantor: [00:21:03] And from there it’s pretty clear the navigation is pretty streamlined. You just you know, you can look and see if you want to be an owner, you can click on that. If you’re interested in finding care for your loved one. It’s very simple to find that and put in your zip code. Yeah, we will get right back to you. We’ve we’ve streamlined our processes and we are ready to quickly get back to anyone who’s interested in our services or interested in a franchise.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:28] Well, Shelley, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Shelley Kantor: [00:21:34] Oh, thanks, Lee. I really do enjoy it. It’s great to be in a career where. It has a deeper meaning. And I appreciate you having us on today. It was it was a wonderful conversation.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:44] Yeah. You’re doing important work and the impact is real. I mean, this is affecting people every single day. So thank you.

Shelley Kantor: [00:21:52] Thank you. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:53] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.