If you want to invest in a franchise but don’t see your future in the popular yet demanding food retail environment, then perhaps a closer look at the opportunities in the domestic sector could prove fruitful. Domestic in many people’s minds equates to cleaning, and that’s certainly a significant contributor to the franchised line-up. Time poor Australians are keen to have help in the home, and according to franchisors, customer demand is greater than franchisee uptake — there just aren’t enough franchisees to go round to meet the business potential.
But there’s also a growing band of customers looking for aged or disability care in the home. Trish Noakes, the founder of the Just Better Care franchise, explains that experience within the healthcare industry is simply not required for a successful franchisee. “We look for owner operators who will manage the business and employ people to co-ordinate services, manage HR and recruit trainers. Franchisees generally oversee the whole of the business.
“Some of our best franchisees come from outside the industry, owning a garage or childcare centre. But they are used to being in business. We tend not to get franchisees from the industry, they’re not entrepreneurial, and are more conservative. We want people who are business savvy,” says Noakes.
A benefit of the franchise set up is an interstate presence and with many organisations represented around the country there can be flow on benefits for franchisees if one franchise has established a relationship with a particular business.
Clients could be a church group, an insurance company, or a hospital looking for care with discharged patients, says Noakes. There is also a not for profit community services arm to Just Better Care too, already funded for aged and disability care and this sub contracts to franchise offices, providing another way to boost business.
Meeting with funded providers who purchase services and networking in the sector are active roles for any Just Better Care franchisee.
“They attend relevant healthcare meetings, they work with professionals, and with the general public in understanding how to access the services. They work with the team who deliver the services,” she explains.
However getting experience with the logistics of the business can be worthwhile. “Some might start with some co-ordination of services, it’s very good for franchisees to start as hands-on.”
Franchisees can be managing several hundred clients a week, up to 2,000 hours a week of services ranging from children’s disability to dementia, MS, Parkinsons and palliative care. “We do simple domestic services, driving people to appointments, taking them shopping, out to the sea for a cup of coffee, everyday chores. We match the right person and the right task.”
The right person could be someone who just wants to do something more meaningful, and maybe just work a few hours a week, like a retired man who can then be a great companion for an older male client, she suggests. Franchisees are trained to do inductions but for more complex training they might employ a trainer in the field to do the training.
So what of the future? “There’s a volume of people staying at home that just keeps growing. And the government wants people out of hospital, it’s putting money into community care rather than hospitals,” she says.
This is another management franchise; franchisees don’t work in the business but recruit the right people to provide the service, network, and assign the work. The operations manual advises on recruitment, explains Angela Feery-Richards, and franchisees can source through agencies and employment ads.
“Clients can be private individuals. But a large component is brokerage clients working in healthcare, workcover, with disability and aged care clients already funded. Brokers can also refer clients,” she says.
The services range from babysitting to gardening, housekeeping, pet sitting, dog walking, nannies, aged care and disability care.
While two out of the three current franchisees in regional Victoria don’t come from the sector an understanding of networking in the industry gained by a background in the sector can help, says Feery-Richards, who started as a healthcare information administrator, and was CEO of a private hospital before starting her franchise business.
What are important in a franchisee are strong people skills, initiative, and an understanding of what it means to be part of a franchise system; what it takes to work within a franchise business, to be compliant, to follow rules.
There is plenty of potential for the business, she says. “It’s regarded as a blue sky industry. Because we’re increasingly time poor with an ageing demographic and the government is keen on home care, more services are required,” she says.
The Duster Dollies
A franchisee in The Duster Dollies cleaning system acts as the middle man, says franchisor Julie Finch-Scally. “So it’s a lot easier, most people prefer this. This is a reliable and stable business, so franchisees can relax and enjoy the lifestyle.”
And lifestyle is the key to the opportunity, she believes. “This suits anyone keen to run a business from home. Young mums can also look after children, it’s a lifestyle option. You can have spare time, and take weekends off and the business still runs along even if you’re not there.”
While the role of a franchisee is all about matching clients with cleaners, it is pertinent to have good people skills. Client enquiries on 1300 numbers go to franchisees direct for one on one contact. “You get to know customers, it’s all about relationships,” says Finch-Scally.
A new franchisee is firstly trained in an established agency close to their home territory. In the second week the start of business set-up begins, with contract cleaners sourced. In the third week a series of ads are placed, and contractors come on board.
United Home Services/Housework Heroes
Mike Stringer heads up United Home Services, a franchised business acquired in May by a company that also runs the Housework Heroes and Car Care franchise systems.
“It’s very comparable to the Housework Heroes business, it was a good fit,” he says. UHS provided new opportunities in NSW and Victoria while Housework Heroes is Perth based.
Stringer believes the acquisition was a “pretty smooth transition, the culture is fairly similar”. There are differences however, with Housework Heroes structure comprising a number of employees/contractors to supplement the franchisee base and United Home Services with a culture based on owner-operator units.
The two businesses are being managed separately but the benefits of acquisition will mean the best of one can be translated to the other. And with Housework Heroes customer conversion rate of about 80 percent, and United Home Services nearer to 50 percent, there is room for improvement with the newly acquired system. So franchisees can expect more of a move towards a career path within United Home Services.
“Originally, appointing regional franchisees was a way of retaining good franchisees,” says Stringer. “They would clean for five or six years, didn’t want to do it anymore, but we didn’t want to lose their skills.”
The master roles are about managing, recruiting, and growth, he says.
In both systems though, trust is the key. Some Housework Heroes franchisees work with up to a dozen contractors. “You really have to maintain quality, you have to know your contractors,” advises Stringer. The United Home Services hands-on franchisee can run a franchise to capacity with about 30 clients.
A franchisee’s primary attribute is good people skills and some experience with customer service is useful too. In a business where people are letting strangers into their home, the role is less about an ability to clean exceptionally well and more about customers being comfortable with someone coming into their lives. “Clients are long term so the franchisee must be highly trusted,” he stresses.