When a person chooses caregiving as a career path, it’s a calling.
You are intrinsically compassionate. You are eager to aid others and your actions show that love is in the details. You are attentive, dependable and trustworthy. It takes a lot of heart and determination to be in this field of work and caregivers deserve the utmost admiration and respect for the work they do.
As of January 2020, Nurse Next Door home care services has completed over 3 million client visits. We are a people business focused on making lives better and our caregivers are the heart of our business.
Nurse Next Door provides quality care to seniors so they can continue to live happily, healthily and safely at home. With so many senior care competitors in the industry, how do we recruit the best caregivers to join our Care Team?
This is why we revamped our approach to our people. We internally-launched the initiative, “Caregiving as a Career”.
We caught up with some of our Franchise Partners who come from caregiving backgrounds and asked them some questions! (Click to scroll):
- Tammy Bale, owner of Nurse Next Door Home Care – London, ON
- Josh Mitchell & Cheryl Klondinski – owners of Nurse Next Door Home Care – West Michigan
- Some of our other professional caregiver to entrepreneur Franchise Partners
Caregivers often work multiple part-time jobs which could mean less stability. Nurse Next Door addresses that issue by encouraging our local Franchise Partners to revamp our hiring practices. Since then, many of our franchise locations started to implement and offer: above-industry rates, guaranteed hours, full-time positions, benefits and more. This creates a stable job environment for our caregivers, which improves the overall employee experience (ie higher job satisfaction), fosters loyalty and word of mouth referrals. We aim to become the home care career destination for all great caregivers!
You might think, that’s all nice and dandy, but what does that have to do with a franchise opportunity?
Well, Nurse Next Door is looking to have “Caregiving as a Career” to be reflected on our franchising side of the business as well. As we’ve stated before, caregivers are the heart of our business. We are excited to share our new initiative, “Caregiver to Business Owner”!
As the title might convey, we are looking to professional caregivers who are interested in starting their own home care business. So many admirable jobs fall under the professional caregiver category, such as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), Home Health Aide (HHA), Personal Support Worker (PSW), Registered Nurse (RN), Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) etc…we want you!
The objective is to expand our Nurse Next Door family and it will entail a different pricing structure that will work for any budget.
Here are a few reasons why we think Caregivers could translate into great business owners.
First-Hand Experience
The reason why we’re gearing this towards caregivers who want to become business owners is that they have the first-hand experience and knowledge of the care being delivered. Coming from the industry, you will know the gaps and opportunities that could be optimized for a better client experience.
You, as the owner, may have to fill some shifts when you first launch your business as you are growing your team. You will have the expertise to do so effortlessly and get to know the clients better and once you find the perfect caregiver match, the hand-off will be smooth.
Reliable and Knowledgeable
Before anyone becomes your client, you will conduct an in-person consultation. You’ll get to meet the client, assess their needs and put together a customized plan for their care. You are the face of your business! As a caregiver, you are natural at being sympathetic and understanding, so you will be able to easily identify the needs of a client and create a connection with those you speak with. As a business owner, you may not be providing the care yourself anymore, but will be incredibly adept at answering the questions the senior or their family members may have. You’re the real deal, you know what you’re talking about! You are trustworthy, reliable and those are must-have characteristics for a home care franchise owner.
This also applies to when you hire caregivers to join your Care Team! Whether your home care business provides skilled care and/or non-skilled care, you will be able to provide robust, additional training to your team members!
Your knowledge and experience as a professional caregiver will be invaluable.
Nurse Next Door’s Franchise Partners come from all walks of life. There are 4 characteristics we look for in every Franchise Partner candidate:
- Wanting to Build a Business of Equal Purpose and Profit
- Sales & Marketing Aptitude
- Strong Leadership
- Tenacity
See if you got what it takes to be an owner of a Nurse Next Door franchise on our Steps to Ownership page.
Access Your Welcome Package which includes
- Discovery Video – 15 min overview of this opportunity
- Franchisee Testimonials
- The Nurse Next Door opportunity
- Access to our calendar to book a 1×1 call.
Tammy Bale, owner of Nurse Next Door Home Care – London, ON
Tammy is a Personal Support Worker (PSW) in Ontario, Canada and had a great love for people, especially the senior population. She had been a PSW for over 25 years.
She says, “The reason why I was attracted to Nurse Next Door was that unlike other home care companies that were very task-oriented, Nurse Next Door spends time dedicated to each client to figure out what makes them happy. It allows caregivers to form relationships with their clients.”
Tammy was working for the original London location and they promoted her to a Care Designer role. After a few years, the owners were looking for someone to take over their business and thought that Tammy would be the best person as she knew the business inside out.
Tammy says, “The difficulty I found in the beginning was with operating capital. Having a line of credit would have been most helpful but I was not in a position to obtain one. I was quite lucky; the previous owners made the transition easy for me. Basically, they crafted a repayment program so I could pay for the business in a manageable way while working towards growing the business.”
The London location has been around for 11 years and Tammy has owned it since 2015.
We asked her how her experience as a caregiver prepared her for the role as an owner. Tammy says, “I feel like it has been such an asset having a background in caregiving! It allows me to have a clear understanding of the challenges that both our clients and caregiving team come across. It allows me to support our team, share advice and be approachable. I feel like it gave me an advantage to really know what things I did not want to see happen in my business as well. I was so excited at the opportunity to provide care and to lead a team of caregivers that felt as passionate as I did when it came to good quality care.”
Tammy, third to the left, with her Care Team
What were the challenges you faced? Was there a learning curve?
There definitely was a = learning curve when it came to the business side of things. But I learnt as I went along. I would reach out for help when needed. I would be reminded that as long as our team and clients were happy all other things would fall into place in due time. And it did! I look back to see how far we have come, and I am so amazed. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to grow the way I have over the past 5 years. It definitely wasn’t easy in the beginning, but it has been well worth it. It has allowed me to grow my business, to support my family as a single mom and to have a sense of purpose. I also get great satisfaction in the ongoing knowledge that is gain throughout this process.
What are you current 3 favorite things being a business owner?
- The flexibility it has afforded to me and my family
- The sense of pride it gives me to be leading a fantastic team in making lives better
- The opportunity for continued growth and gain of knowledge both personally and professionally
What are your top 3 challenges as a business owner?
- Having enough time to accomplish everything you would like to.
- Strategizing to increase profitability
- Providing a good Work/life balance for my management team
Josh Mitchell & Cheryl Klondinski – owners of Nurse Next Door Home Care – West Michigan
Josh Mitchell and Cheryl Klondzinski joined forces to purchase Nurse Next Door West Michigan. They recently just celebrated their one year anniversary in January 2020!
Cheryl was a caregiver for her elderly father. Josh and Cheryl had worked for various home care and healthcare companies coordinating care, managing staffing and client care management. Having a combination of over a decade of first-hand experience in the industry of caring, they decided to start their own business. They wanted to do things differently with their caregivers and clients.
Was financing the franchise a hurdle in the beginning?
Yes, it took quite awhile. Originally we worked with a local gentleman in finance who was going to guide us through the entire process, however, after not getting much help we decided to meet with Huntington Bank who provides a lot of Small Business Loans in Michigan. After receiving help from Nurse Next Door HeartQuarters- we were able to provide the information that Huntington required. It took a lot longer than we planned, and at times we didn’t think this would be possible. However, we eventually made it through the long process!
How do you think your previous experience and expertise in the caregiving field has prepared you for running a home care business?
Knowing what caregivers deal with on a regular basis on many different cases, I am able to deal with situations more delicately.
What are your top 3 challenges as a business owner?
Being responsible for every aspect of the business can be overwhelming at times, cash flow and keeping everyone happy can be challenging at times!
What are you enjoying as a business owner?
I love being my own boss and having flexibility to be able to do things without asking for permission from a boss!
Some of our other professional caregiver to entrepreneur Franchise Partners include:
Debbie Perdue – owner of Nurse Next Door Home Care – Tulsa, OK
Debbie Perdue is a Registered Nurse with over 35 years of experience. Her nursing career has been at Veteran Administration Hospital in Oklahoma as well as the surrounding Community Outpatient Clinics. Her expertise ranges from: medical-surgical, emergency department, surgical intensive care, management of medical units to primary care.
Joseph Kiarie – owner of Nurse Next Door Home Care – Gardner, MA
Joseph started out as a Certified Nurse Assistant and in the last 12 years, he worked as a Registered Nurse (RN). He has extensive experience caring for seniors in the nursing homes, acute rehabilitation facilities, and an acute care hospital. In the hospital, Joseph cared for patients with complex surgical procedures, and telemetry issues including various heart medication drips. He has also cared for those with chronic diseases, like diabetes, COPD, CHF, CKD among others. Joseph is certified in CPR, BLS, and ACLS.
Kaylene Landers – owner of Nurse Next Door Home Care – Hampton Roads, VA
Kaylene is a Registered Nurse with a background in nursing is Labor and Delivery. She has worked as a floor nurse/charge nurse at two different hospitals in Virginia for 6 years. Her clinical skills are vast, you learn a little bit of everything when you deliver babies. In life, her skills center around being really tenacious about doing the best job she can with whatever she is working on, and making sure the people around me are well taken care of and happy.
She decided to open a home care business because she wanted to care for others more than how her profession as a Registered Nurse allows. Those constraints really pushed her to explore options on how she could deliver better care to people, not only as an RN, but as a leader in the health profession. Kaylene says, “I feel like most health professionals genuinely care for others, so in lieu of fighting the system that leaves us frustrated, why not become the change to the system?”
Read more about Kaylene’s story here: Why Registered Nurses Are Perfect For a Home Care Business
Access Your Welcome Package which includes
- Discovery Video – 15 min overview of this opportunity
- Franchisee Testimonials
- The Nurse Next Door opportunity
- Access to our calendar to book a 1×1 call.
