Namrata Yocom-Jan and Daniel Jan with Seniors Helping Seniors

Speaker1: [00:00:07] Welcome to Franchise Marketing Radio, brought to you by Akosombo comprehensive, high performing marketing solutions for mature and emerging franchise brands. To supercharge your franchise marketing, go to Sambar Dotcom. That’s CEO S.A.M.. Be a dotcom.

Speaker2: [00:00:32] We can’t talk here another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, and this is going to be a good one today, we have with us non-metal yocum, Jan and Daniel Jan with seniors helping seniors. Welcome.

Speaker3: [00:00:44] Thank you for having us.

Speaker2: [00:00:46] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about seniors helping seniors. How are you serving, folks?

Speaker4: [00:00:52] Well, for us, first of all, I should thank you for having us here and introducing ourselves as well as a branch. We actually are seniors helping seniors. We started to do something seniors way back in nineteen ninety eight. It was started by my mother, who actually comes from India, work with Mother Teresa for 14 plus years and out of mission. She started this because she saw a need for it in the US. So that’s how we came about. Seniors helping seniors and we provide nonmedical services such as my housekeeping, companionship services, taking so much the doctor, basically anything and everything that a senior might need in order for them to be able to live independently in their own homes. And in addition to that, nowadays, you know, with the seniors, there’s a lot of need for expanded dementia care and there’s a lot of need for personal care where people need just activities of daily living to be taken care of. We provide all of that. And and much, much more

Speaker2: [00:01:54] Now what was kind of the catalyst for the idea, because that seems like that was pretty early in the thinking about serving the senior market in that way, was this out was, you know, a personal need or did this how did the idea turn from an idea into, you know, hey, you know, people will pay us to help them solve this problem?

Speaker4: [00:02:15] I will tell you, this started as a personal idea, because my mother was completely absorbed by the idea of how she was just being asked to go to nursing homes and there was really nothing for them to be able to do. And in fact, I still remember to this day when my mother approached a 78 year old retired nurse, a military nurse, to come and work for her. And she said, you are crazy. Nobody wants me to come and work. And she ended up working for us for, I think, 15 years, if I remember correctly. So this is something that was really true to my mother’s heart, because coming from India, where people take care of their seniors in their own homes, this was different for her. And she wanted to do something about it where she could help seniors remain independently living in their own homes while maintaining their dignity. And that’s how it really emerged. And then the services, I mean, expanded because the clients asked for different services.

Speaker2: [00:03:15] Now, when you started there, there obviously wasn’t as many competitors as there is now. And as the aging population just keeps getting, you know, more and more of them, there’s been a lot more competition in this space. How do you kind of differentiate yourself from the other players?

Speaker3: [00:03:34] That’s a great question. So when we first started franchising, we were one of the first franchise organizations to get started and homecare and now there are over one hundred and thirty franchises in the same space. And it all comes down to differentiation. And I think that’s where we have the market cornered because we are seniors helping seniors, which means we hire active, mature adults typically over the age of 50, helping less active seniors that need care, staying in their own homes. And so we kind of have a monopoly on the name seniors helping seniors. And we also recruit a disproportionate number of seniors to come and work for us. I would say probably eighty five percent of our workforce is 55 plus. We do have some, you know, younger workers in areas like Florida where licensing requires them to be certified home health aides. But we look for mature people because we think it’s really important that we match our caregivers with our clients, not only based on what their needs are and what somebody is able to provide, but based on their personalities, interests, hobbies, life experiences. We want them to be friends and not only receive care.

Speaker2: [00:05:03] Now, you mentioned this earlier that there’s a lot of I think over a hundred different kind of people that are working in this space. But for the people who aren’t familiar with this type of a service, can you educate people on the importance of if you can pull this off of keeping your parent or grandparent in their home as long as possible, that that really is way more affordable and more it’s better for the individual rather than kind of sending them to a nursing home or some sort of facility.

Speaker3: [00:05:35] Yeah, that’s that’s a great question. It’s something that we get with a lot of families trying to figure out what’s better for their loved one. According to AARP, 90 percent of seniors want to remain in their own home. That’s where they want to age in place. They don’t want to be removed from their community, from their friends, and move to a facility, if at all. It can be helped. If you think about the cost of going to a facility, I would say an average assisted living facility costs around four thousand dollars a month and the average nursing home is probably in the eight thousand dollars a month range. What’s great about our services is that, you know, we can provide as much or as little that someone needs. We can provide the 24/7 care. But most seniors, most seniors don’t require that. You know, if they get somebody to prepare their meals or help them in the shower and they’re cognitively all there, that they don’t need 24/7 care. And so we can keep them at home for a lot longer than what traditionally has been done. So I don’t know if that answer your question.

Speaker2: [00:06:48] Yeah. And I think that it’s important, especially a lot of times the the the younger kind of the child is making a decision for the parent. And a lot of folks nowadays are living in different places where the parent is. And it’s so important to have somebody like your service available to them that is kind of watching over their parent to let them know that everything is OK, because it’s hard to know when the child is, you know, hundreds or thousands of miles away from the parent. Is the parent throwing out spoiled food? Is the parent taking their medicine at the right time? You know, all these little things that the parent might say, yeah, I’m good, everything’s fine. They may not be fine. And to have somebody in there that’s kind of watching that even on the part time basis, is invaluable.

Speaker3: [00:07:37] That sounds like you’re speaking from experience and we find that even a lot of our franchise owners have a personal experience with caring for their loved ones. It’s one of the blessings and curses of living in a big country. It’s easy to be twenty five hundred miles away from our loved ones and we can’t be there every day. And even if we are in the same metro area like Atlanta, it’s difficult to drive all the way across town to check on a mom every day. And that’s why these services are so critical. We can be there every day and we can provide a lot of comfort to family members who are worried about their loved ones.

Speaker2: [00:08:15] Now, over the years, has the business model changed at all?

Speaker3: [00:08:20] Yes, so when we first started franchising and providing services ourselves, we provided mostly companionship and homemaker services, so we would go in and play cards and cook a meal and take someone to the doctor and going outings, do handyman services. And then I want to say about 10 years ago, we got into the personal care side as well. And personal care involves helping with activities of daily living, which includes dressing, bathing, feeding, toileting, mobility, assistance. And it’s a it’s a higher level of care. And and so it also requires additional training for our caregivers. And then over the last year or so, we’ve expanded our dementia and Alzheimer’s care services to be able to tackle those clients and that have moderate to advanced dementia. We rolled out a new service called Healthcare, where we check in on family members telephonically and sometimes by video phone to see how they’re doing. So if we’re only there on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we make sure we check in on Tuesday and Thursday and over the weekend to make sure the seniors has everything taken care of. If they need additional services, will go out and provide those services. We’ve also introduced electronic health monitoring solutions through a company called Electronic Caregiver. So if a senior were to fall and can’t get up, that the system picks that up and nine one one gets called and we also expand it into a number of various disease specific services, including Parkinson’s, cancer care, congestive heart failure and so on. So over the last twenty three years now, we have expanded our services and we continue to look at opportunities for our franchise owners, which is really driven by the need from clients.

Speaker2: [00:10:39] Yeah, it sounds like you’re really listening to your clients and adjusting the service according to their needs.

Speaker3: [00:10:47] Absolutely.

Speaker2: [00:10:49] So now when you’re talking about a franchisee is a person, a typical franchisee, somebody that’s been in this space before and now wants to run their own show or what is a typical franchisee or an ideal franchisee look like?

Speaker4: [00:11:03] You know, our franchise owners come from all different walks of life. I think one of the most important thing is for them to have the passion for this kind of work. A lot of times, in fact, most of the times are franchise owners that have a personal story as to why they want to help the seniors in the community. And it’s that passion that’s first and foremost the most important thing. But at the same time, it’s also making sure that they have the business minded and have the drive to want to build a business and do good and make money at the same time. So really, that’s what it comes down to. Not not so much, you know, what degrees they have or what experience they have. Because if you have compassion in this type of business, that’s the most important thing. And combining that with business and being business oriented just is icing on the cake.

Speaker2: [00:11:52] Now, is the typical franchisee someone who is kind of taking over one territory or this is something that a professional franchisee where they’re kind of adding this to a portfolio of complementary services.

Speaker3: [00:12:08] Typically, it’s folks that want to start their own business that may or may not have a they have not run a business before, it’s typically not added on to something that that they are already doing, although we have people that have been in elder law, some health related fields. But typically it is like number two said, from every walk of life.

Speaker2: [00:12:39] And are you are you looking for franchisees in a certain region right now or is this kind of the countries available?

Speaker3: [00:12:49] We we have currently about one hundred franchise owners and one hundred and seventy territories granted, and we still have lots of space available in every state here in the United States. We also have a few franchise owners internationally in the UK and Malta, but we still have a lot of open territory. So all throughout the United States.

Speaker2: [00:13:17] And when someone takes on a franchise, is it all of those services available or can you choose which services you want to offer?

Speaker3: [00:13:27] So in the past, we’ve been pretty flexible as to what services our franchise owners would provide. There are certain states that require licensing for some of these services, but at this point, we’ve really expanded our services. And the reason that we expanded our services is to be able to provide additional services to clients and also increase the number of services that our franchise owners can provide. So we’re really looking for franchise owners that are providing our full suite of services.

Speaker2: [00:14:03] And the franchise owner isn’t the one that’s going into the home. They’re the ones that are managing the team.

Speaker3: [00:14:11] I would say in the long run, yes, I think we do believe it’s very important that the franchise owner understands every part of the business and so they will be involved in hiring and scheduling and going out and meeting with family members and marketing and so on. Over time, typically, the franchise owner does take more of a management role. There are certain franchise owners that hold on to one aspect of the business because they’ve really enjoyed doing it. And a lot of times we see, you know, the interaction with the family when they go out and do the home visits or assessments, as we call them, that they retain that for a much longer period than, let’s say, scheduling

Speaker4: [00:14:52] Logistics amongst the franchise owners are not the ones providing the services.

Speaker2: [00:14:58] Right, so they’re hiring a team

Speaker4: [00:15:01] That’s not as correct.

Speaker2: [00:15:03] Yes, and then that’s what you help them with, is to create kind of the processes and systems that make it easier for them to identify the right caregiver and to match them properly with the client’s.

Speaker3: [00:15:16] Absolutely, and we have a lot of technologies that help us to do that. We work with a company called Clear Care who has modified their platform to to the way that we do business. And it has a feature called The Care Finder, which matches people based on their which matches people based on their needs, based on their preferences, whether it’s language or needlepoint or, you know, so it matches people on a lot of different aspects.

Speaker2: [00:15:50] And then so for the franchise, the potential franchisee, the first step is to reach out to you is our website.

Speaker4: [00:16:01] We actually have some brand one. Are you familiar with brand one? Now, we think we actually have outsourced our franchise development sales to when one team, which is very well versed in franchise development and we actually just did that starting last year. We do have a website where anybody who is interested in franchising can reach out to us to a website. And certainly there’s also a phone number and they can also reach out to us by phone. And and those are the different ways of people reaching out to us in case the interest in starting their own franchise.

Speaker2: [00:16:39] And the main website for your organization is Seniors Helping Seniors Dotcom.

Speaker4: [00:16:46] That is correct, yes, and

Speaker2: [00:16:47] That’s where folks that are just needing help can find a location near them as well as if you have some questions about the franchise, I think there’s a tab for that as well.

Speaker4: [00:16:57] Absolutely, yeah.

Speaker2: [00:16:59] Now, what do you need more of right now? How can we help? You need more caregivers. Do you need more franchisee’s? What are you looking for?

Speaker3: [00:17:08] We’re always looking for great franchise owners to bring seniors helping seniors to their areas. I think there’s such a huge need out there, especially after covid as well. Right. So we’re getting close to the end of Kobad, which is exciting. And we’ve had families be much more involved with their parents than prior to covid. Right. So they’re checking Endemol all the time and they’ve really identified that the parents need more care. So we get a ton of calls from clients needing care. Our business is booming right now. So we’re looking for franchise owners that want to take our model to their markets. And we’re always looking for great caregivers as well. There are lots of seniors out there that may not know that this is something that they want to do, but maybe they help their parents and need something to do in their retirement. Call seniors helping seniors would be happy to talk to you and see if we might be a great fit for each of them

Speaker2: [00:18:15] And the folks that are the caregivers. Is it available for them to do some of that remote care where they are just answering calls through the TELLA medicine or telo or.

Speaker3: [00:18:28] Yeah, in some locations, I would say most of our caregivers still go out and physically provide care, that’s really ideally what they want to do and that’s where most of our need is. And some of our locations absolutely provide the care as well. We typically like to do telic care, where the caregiver of that client, that they have already built the relationship with calls rather than a random person in the office. And it makes a much more personal level and they get the companionship even though it’s over the phone.

Speaker2: [00:19:00] Right. And they know intimately what the Canadia synchronises of the client.

Speaker3: [00:19:04] And that’s exactly what we had

Speaker2: [00:19:06] Now going forward. You mentioned that there’s a lot of areas available. Is there any specific region that you’re targeting or is it kind of where there’s a need then there can be a franchise?

Speaker3: [00:19:20] Now, it’s pretty much throughout the United States, in some areas in the northeast where we got started, we have a few more franchise owners than other areas, but, you know, pretty wide open.

Speaker2: [00:19:31] Well, congratulations on all the success. It’s a great it’s a great story. And it’s an important mission that you’re on to help folks and to be able to deliver care as needed and have people age at home is so important in today’s world. So thank you for doing what you do.

Speaker4: [00:19:52] Well, thank you, Lee. Really appreciate that. And thank you for having us on the sports podcast.

Speaker2: [00:19:58] You got it. And that website once again is seniors helping seniors. All one word, dot com. Go there, check them out. And if this is the right fit for you, definitely give him a call and see if it’s fit. This is Lee Kanter. We will see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.