Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Heart of Home Care: Chad Tracey's Journey from Finance to Family-First Business | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care

Transcript

The Heart of Home Care: Chad Tracey's Journey from Finance to Family-First Business | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders
0:07
share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
0:10
how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
0:13
they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
0:18
the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their
0:21
experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
0:24
by how they've overcome adversity.
0:26
My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today's guest is Chad Tracy.
0:30
Chad is the Co founder and President of Second Family, a
0:33
family owned home care franchise specializing in fully managed
0:38
Home Care Services for elderly individuals.
0:41
Founded in 2011, Second Family was born from Chad's personal
0:45
experience where he and his cousin struggled to find
0:49
suitable Alzheimer's care for their grandmother.
0:52
Their mission is to provide compassionate, personalized in
0:55
home care that helps seniors live independently with dignity.
1:00
They offer services like personal care, Alzheimer's and
1:03
dementia care, companion care, respite care and transportation
1:07
services. The company is known for its
1:10
Grandma Guarantee, assuring safe and reliable caregiving.
1:15
Now, under Chad's leadership, Second Family has been
1:17
recognized as Small Business of the Year multiple times, has
1:22
received numerous Service of Excellence Awards and was named
1:26
a Top Workplace by The Baltimore Sun.
1:29
Before venturing into healthcare, Chad was the
1:31
president of Serenity First Financial and managed operations
1:35
at Savings First Mortgage. His transition from financial
1:39
management to senior care was driven by his passion to enhance
1:42
the quality of life for the elderly.
1:44
Now before we get into all that good stuff, today's episode is
1:47
brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where
1:50
we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that
1:53
are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your
1:56
bottom line. One recent client was able to
1:59
add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by
2:03
implementing one of our proprietary programs.
2:05
Results vary for each company and some organizations may not
2:08
be eligible. To find out if your company
2:10
qualifies, contact us today at AD back benefitsagency.com.
2:15
Now back to our guest today, the Co founder and President of
2:18
Second Family, Chad Tracy. I appreciate you making the time
2:21
to Share your story today. I really appreciate the you
2:24
inviting me today Anthony. Looking forward to it.
2:27
So Chad, you made a pretty significant career shift from
2:30
financial management to Co founding a home care company.
2:35
What motivated this transition? I'd say it was 2 fold, Anthony.
2:42
You know, I, I was going through a period of time in my life
2:45
where I just felt like I needed more satisfaction out of my
2:49
career. I really didn't know what that
2:54
was ultimately going to be. I just had started looking into
2:58
other things. I mean, I felt like I was
3:00
helping people, but not in a, in a way that was like super
3:04
meaningful to me. And it was around the same time
3:08
that that our grandmother was, was going through, you know,
3:11
the, the, the tail end of the Alzheimer's.
3:14
And, you know, literally, it literally hit me one day like a
3:18
ton of bricks that the business I had been seeking was right in
3:24
front of my eyes really. And, and so, you know, we could
3:28
talk more about the story and how, how we got it off the
3:31
ground. But it really stemmed from, you
3:34
know, wanting more satisfaction out of my career and, and doing
3:38
it in a, in a, in a way that we kind of honor our family and
3:42
maybe do a better job of helping other seniors in the future than
3:46
than what our family had seen. Let's talk a little bit about
3:50
how you got this off the ground because you were coming from a
3:53
very different professional background.
3:56
I'm curious, you know, how did you guys, was there like a
3:59
course you could take to sort of learn the ropes?
4:01
You know were. You guys just bumping your heads
4:03
against the wall, sort of figuring things out in the early
4:05
days. Yeah, well, we formed the
4:08
company 2011. The, you know, the idea really
4:10
started right around the time my grandmother passed in 2010.
4:13
So we spent about a year formulating things.
4:16
But I, I had been a business owner for many years, so I
4:19
understood, you know, a lot of the insurance and outs of, of,
4:22
of starting a business from scratch and, and learning how to
4:25
do that. But as far as, you know, getting
4:28
it to senior care or healthcare in general, I had 0 background,
4:31
right? And so I guess the, the story
4:35
started, you know, as, as you said, you know, I was owner of
4:39
a, of a financial company. I was very busy at the time.
4:45
I didn't really have the bandwidth.
4:48
Once I had decided to kind of start this other business in the
4:52
senior care space, I didn't really have the bandwidth to do
4:54
it. I'd done a lot of research, kind
4:57
of figured out, you know, what was necessary to get started,
5:00
but I was kind of at a loss because I didn't know how I was
5:05
going to be able to get it started.
5:07
So I approached a work colleague and we did some research
5:11
together and we were going to kind of jump in together and,
5:14
and share the duties and start that way.
5:16
That ended up not working out. And literally, I mean, if you
5:20
want me to get a little bit in the weeds, my dad was in surgery
5:23
and my aunt was there and you were, you know, he would had a
5:28
pretty major surgery. And it was many hours that we're
5:30
just sitting there just kind of talking.
5:32
And I was like, you know, I got this idea for this other
5:34
business and it could be a family business.
5:37
My partner that I thought was going to move forward with us is
5:40
not. And I just can't do it all the
5:44
time. I don't know what to do.
5:47
And it just so happened that her son, my cousin, was the one that
5:51
ultimately became my partner. Now, I had no idea that that
5:56
would occur. He's 10 years younger than me.
6:00
So at the time I was in my, I don't know, mid to late 30s.
6:03
And he was, you know, in his, you know, mid to late 20s and,
6:08
and he was kind of going through a transition and, you know, he
6:12
didn't really know what he wanted to do.
6:15
We were kind of both in the same place in, in a, in a, in a
6:18
certain way. And to make a Long story short,
6:22
he was just kind of picking up some odd jobs.
6:25
He was doing some painting. So I invited him.
6:28
He was lived about 3 or 4 hours away and invited him to come to
6:31
my house and do some painting and, and got got really got to
6:35
know him. Because if, if anyone out there
6:37
has a cousin that's 10 years younger than them, right?
6:40
It's like you go off, the older one goes off to college and
6:43
they're still a kid, you know, and then you kind of lose touch
6:45
for a little bit and then you kind of circle back when they
6:49
become an adult, you're like, oh, you're a whole new person,
6:52
right? I don't.
6:53
And so you really don't know what kind of person they are.
6:58
And so, you know, I actually, after he was painting, I asked
7:02
him to, to come and help me to stay for a few months, help me
7:07
get this new idea, this new business licensed and, you know,
7:12
also helped me with my other business.
7:14
So he, he agreed to do that. And through that period of time,
7:17
I was able to, to understand a couple things.
7:20
Number one, you know, I, I have more of a sales marketing
7:24
background. I had been a business owner
7:26
managing people, but there's plenty of things I admittedly
7:30
am, am not good at, you know, a lot of the operation stuff, a
7:34
lot of tech stuff. And I came to realize that he
7:37
was really great at those things.
7:40
And so it was, we always say it was like divine intervention
7:43
that, you know, we have a lot of divine intervention stories that
7:47
we could probably talk about today, how it all came together.
7:49
But again, I didn't know his skill set.
7:52
He didn't know mine, but it worked out perfectly that what I
7:56
was poor at, he was great at and vice versa.
7:59
And so we worked out a deal and the, and the rest is history.
8:05
You know, it's, it's, it's interesting how, how these,
8:08
these things sometimes happen. So you've got these
8:11
complementary skill sets, but neither one of you really had
8:14
experience in this home care space that you guys were
8:18
entering. How did you overcome that
8:20
learning curve? Well, we always say that that
8:23
was probably a blessing in disguise, to be honest with you,
8:26
because we, you know, there, there's plenty of people out
8:28
there that have been in, in the, the senior care space for a long
8:32
time, right? Healthcare, senior care, there's
8:37
different aspects to senior care, but, and I would say that
8:40
a lot of them are kind of stuck in the old school way of doing
8:45
things. We wanted to bring a fresh
8:47
approach, right? We had to learn everything,
8:50
obviously. But the one thing we saw when
8:53
doing our research is there was, there was definitely a lot of
8:57
complaints in our industry. This was back 2010, 2011, there
9:01
was a lack of technology and even even today sometimes, you
9:07
know, people are like seniors don't use computers, right?
9:11
But that didn't, that wasn't satisfactory in in our minds.
9:16
And and the, the lack of technology caused a lack of
9:19
reliability, poor customer service, and then the
9:23
complaints, right? So that those were the things
9:26
that we knew we needed to attack, not really knowing how
9:30
to do it. We learned as we went, but we
9:32
didn't have a blueprint at all. You know, we'll talk later about
9:36
how we're franchisors now. We have a blueprint, we can give
9:39
it to someone else, but we didn't have that luxury.
9:41
So we'd really just learned from research.
9:45
We learned a lot by going to some local like senior
9:48
networking groups, talking to people, going to all the events,
9:53
just just learning as we went. You know, at first though,
9:58
people would say these acronyms in the senior care space, they
10:01
were like saying sniff, sniff, sniff.
10:02
Like what's a sniff? I go back and look up what, what
10:06
the heck they were talking about skilled nursing facility.
10:09
It's like a a, you know, so just one example of many things that
10:13
we kind of had to learn, but a lot of it man, was was just kind
10:16
of faking it till we made it and learning as we went.
10:20
How did you get that very first client?
10:24
Well, that's an interesting story.
10:26
We we found our first clients through online, you know, just
10:31
just kind of putting out that some feelers online as far as,
10:35
you know, trying to do the Google Adwords thing.
10:38
There's also ways that you can buy leads, people Google, you
10:44
know, senior care in, in Baltimore, MD and you know, it
10:49
goes to a lead generating company and then it comes to us
10:53
and three other companies and we fight it out to see who's going
10:55
to get that client. So yeah, that was, and, but
10:58
really the, the way we got our first client was it was a
11:02
daughter. Often we talk to the, the
11:04
children of the, the care recipient.
11:06
By the time it gets to us, the care recipient is often not the
11:10
decision maker. They're just maybe just not, not
11:13
able to do it anymore. So the daughter was caring for
11:16
the mother, but she had just signed on to get a, a personal
11:21
trainer from 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM three days a week to so she
11:28
could go to the gym. And that was normally the time
11:32
when she would help her mom before she went to work, right.
11:36
And so no, most even today, we would wouldn't probably take
11:40
that on. Most senior care companies find
11:42
it too difficult to do 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM three days a week.
11:47
It's just too much work. But we did it because, hey, we
11:50
were brand new. So that in the beginning when
11:53
you're starting a senior care business, you do whatever it
11:55
takes to to get started. What do you think have been some
11:59
of the biggest levers for you to pull to fuel growth along the
12:03
way? I, I always point back to our
12:06
technology. You know, I'm just constantly
12:09
learning in the senior Care World as you grow, a lot of
12:16
companies can't scale properly. And I learned this talking to
12:20
other people because we, we would, like I said, go to these
12:22
networking groups and people would lament.
12:24
Well, I had 12 clients, but four of them passed away and two went
12:27
through assisted living. And now I'm down to and the, and
12:30
the reason is because they get, I'll call it get too caught into
12:34
the weeds on the day-to-day care for this particular, the set of
12:39
clients that you have at the time.
12:41
And you need to get, get into the weeds, right.
12:45
You need to make the client feel heard and, and helped and, and
12:49
all that. But it doesn't have to, it
12:52
shouldn't be the owner of the business doing that.
12:55
The owner of the business should be overseeing and scaling.
13:00
And so a unique thing that we did beyond the technology was we
13:06
utilize, we, we would bring on RNS to be our care managers.
13:12
And even today we call them RN care coordinators.
13:15
And So what we did was when a family comes on board, the nurse
13:21
goes out, does an assessment and says, Hey, I'm going to be your
13:25
point of contact, you know, let me know as things go and the
13:29
nurses involved and, and it really enables the, the families
13:33
to have a better experience because seniors don't decline in
13:40
this manner. It's, it's ebbs and flows, you
13:43
know, peaks and valleys. And the nurses kind of along
13:49
with, you know, with them for the ride.
13:51
And so I feel like it really helped A, the family get a
13:55
better experience from an RN and B, allowed us to kind of get out
13:59
of the weeds of the day-to-day and work on scaling the
14:02
business. How'd you come up with this
14:04
idea? Was this a a brainchild of yours
14:07
or are you influenced by some peers?
14:10
No, it it really hadn't been done.
14:12
So in, in most States and, and in Maryland at the time, you are
14:17
required to have an RN do an initial assessment and then the
14:21
requirement is for the RN to do reassessments every 90 days.
14:25
Some states are different, but, but that's what it was in
14:28
Maryland where our Home Office is located.
14:31
And, and so we said, OK, so it was customary for an RN to get
14:35
paid when he did an assessment, pay an RN go do an assessment
14:38
and they go home, right. A lot of those RNS would have
14:40
maybe other jobs and, and they picked up stuff on, you know,
14:44
kind of a la carte. We said, why don't we just pay
14:47
the nurse a little bit more to kind of, you know, work with the
14:51
client and the family over the course of time because we knew
14:54
to scale the business we had, we couldn't be doing this.
14:58
And it seemed to make a lot of sense to do it this way with an
15:01
RN versus hiring a full time employee to do that.
15:04
And plus, they're not even an RN.
15:07
And so, you know, we, we just got, you know, we had to get to
15:11
the point where we made it worth the RNS while.
15:14
And so we pay the nurses per case.
15:18
So as long as this is a client of ours, it's a client of yours
15:21
and you're going to get paid. So everybody's kind of in it
15:24
together, right? And several.
15:25
Goals and incentives are aligned right They everybody wants to
15:28
keep the clients happy, keep them on board.
15:31
Exactly. Yep, Yep.
15:32
And, and we also allowed the RNS to, to choose how many clients
15:37
they wanted to have. I've had plenty of nurses.
15:39
I just want 5 clients. That's it.
15:42
I just want to, I just, you know, I'm, I'm tired of working
15:45
12 hour shifts in the hospital. I have kids at home.
15:48
I want to keep my license active.
15:51
I want to help families, but I don't want to, you know, I don't
15:54
want to work, you know, 40 hours a week.
15:57
And so we allowed them that flexibility and, and, and if we
16:01
need more nursing, we just bring more nurses on.
16:03
They all get paid per case. So it doesn't cost you any more
16:06
money as a business owner. And if they want, they can kind
16:09
of do it part time. Absolutely.
16:11
Vast majority. Give me a few cases, yeah.
16:14
Vast majority of our nurses are that scenario I just described
16:16
kids at home flexibility. Not a lot of RN jobs out there
16:21
where you could pick your own hours.
16:23
Right? We, we basically said, hey, you
16:25
do the assessments before the time they're due and be
16:28
available. That's essentially it, you know,
16:32
and, and they liked. It Chad, talk to me about the
16:36
core of services that you first started with and then how that's
16:39
evolved over time. Yeah.
16:42
So the the licensure that we're under is would be considered non
16:47
skilled care, but it is hands on care.
16:50
So clients don't really need us to just sit there and, and, and
16:57
play cards with mom, right. There's there's some additional
17:01
issue that's going on, whether it's cognitively with dementia
17:05
or confusion or physically with mobility usually.
17:10
And so hands on care would could be, you know, dressing, bathing,
17:15
helping them in, in the bathroom with hygiene, stuff like that.
17:19
You know, we can help with like laundry, some light
17:22
housekeeping, helping prepare meals, transportation, and I, I
17:26
like to call it just just allowing that senior to get
17:30
through their days safely. And so honestly, that's really
17:36
never changed. We kind of stay in our lane and
17:39
provide the same types of services that are allowed under
17:42
our license. Although we have in our Maryland
17:45
office begun to do some skilled care with nurses and LPNS.
17:51
But primarily our bread and butter is, is the private duty
17:55
non non skilled care keeping that senior safe as as they go
18:00
throughout their day and it and kind of will continue to be
18:03
that. So I'm not exactly sure what
18:06
this is, but I love the name Grandma.
18:09
Guarantee what? What is that exactly?
18:13
Yeah, Grandma guarantee is, is is something we trademarked.
18:16
It's kind of what we have have used ourselves when we first got
18:20
started in the business and it's it's been passed on to our
18:24
hiring specialists, our HR department and to our
18:27
franchisees that we'll talk about later.
18:29
But basically the Grandma guarantee is when I'm, when I'm
18:34
vetting caregivers that we're going to bring on board, I'm
18:39
basically thinking to myself, is this someone I would trust with
18:42
my own grandmother, with my own mother, with my own father?
18:47
And so that's really what it boils down to.
18:49
We have a process. Obviously you got to meet
18:51
certain criteria. In Maryland, you have to be a
18:54
licensed caregiver, what's called a CNAA, certified nursing
18:57
assistant. Other states have different
18:59
requirements, but regardless of what the requirements are, would
19:03
I put this person with my own loved one?
19:07
And it's simple as that. So I'd be curious to hear, Chad,
19:12
how your previous experiences in finance have influenced your
19:18
leadership here at Second Family.
19:22
Yeah, well, I was always used to running teams and, and building
19:27
something and, and, you know, going through the, the sales and
19:31
marketing funnel, all the things you got to do at the top of the
19:34
funnel to get, you know, business at the bottom of the
19:37
funnel and, and constantly just trying to, to drive sales and do
19:42
it effectively communicating. Well, the different I there were
19:47
plenty of differences though. The biggest difference was I
19:51
came from more of a cutthroat, harder sell kind of industry,
19:56
right? More competition.
19:59
And in our space, it's not like that at all.
20:02
It's really, you know, when I, I, I'm involved quite a bit now
20:06
with training and in sales and marketing and, and senior care
20:11
and it's very much more passive approach.
20:14
Number one, you got to be an outstanding listener, right?
20:18
You got to you're, it's, it's, it's a business about stories.
20:21
I need to hear your story. I need to maybe share my story,
20:25
why I'm passionate about this business, why I got into the
20:29
business. That means a lot.
20:32
And and, you know, just listening to their concerns,
20:36
what the situation is and, and then maybe providing a solution.
20:41
You know, hey, look, you know, I'm really sorry you're going
20:44
through this with your mom. I know it's a really difficult
20:47
time. We see it every day, but you're
20:49
not alone. This is the kind of situation
20:53
that we deal with all the time. We've been able to help other
20:55
people in this type of situation.
20:57
And here's how our program works, right?
21:00
And and then letting, allowing them to kind of decide what they
21:03
want to do moving forward. It's being a resource too,
21:08
right? We, we don't do everything
21:10
related to senior care. For example, if if we have a new
21:14
client and they need a lift, something to lift them up out of
21:17
bed because they're not able to move, mobility has gotten to
21:21
that point, then we call in other partners in the local
21:24
community that maybe handle that.
21:25
That's not something that we do, but we're we're giving them
21:28
resources. A lot of our business is about
21:33
connecting with other types of businesses that also cater to
21:37
seniors. That could be anything, you
21:40
know, equipment company, it could be a Hospice company, it
21:42
could be a elder care attorney because the the family needs
21:46
some advice on finances. We don't, we don't do everything
21:50
for seniors, Clearly not. We just do a small portion, but
21:54
we need to connect in the community with others that that
21:57
can help this particular individual.
21:58
And if you do those things, you're going to, in their eyes,
22:02
be very trustworthy. And I'm not going to move
22:06
forward with a senior care agency that I don't deem is
22:09
trustworthy. They're sending strangers into
22:12
people's homes, right? So their families are relying on
22:16
us to do all the things that we have to do to provide the best
22:19
possible care. So it's all starts in the
22:21
beginning with, with building that trust.
22:23
And, and I'd say that's a big different, very different circle
22:27
back to your original question from from what I used to do in
22:31
a, in a different industry. You've talked several times
22:35
about the importance of the technology that you guys have
22:38
implemented. Can you say more about that tech
22:41
stack and how it's helping your team as well as your clients?
22:46
Absolutely, yeah, we everything that we do is 100% electronic,
22:52
mobile and paperless. So we've developed that over the
22:55
course of time. It all starts.
22:58
I, you know, everything is used by all parties.
23:02
So in the beginning, we, we used the word transparency, right?
23:07
So we want to be transparent with everything we do,
23:11
everything we do internally with our staff, right, needs to be
23:15
seen externally by our client. And, and I'll, I'll say they're
23:20
families, you know, we families love our, our software because
23:25
they feel like they're part of the care, even though they might
23:29
live across the country, right. And so, you know, basically I'd,
23:35
I'll use our second family app as an example.
23:38
So our competitors, what, what we would hear in the beginning
23:42
was, well, my mom has dementia and she said that the caregiver
23:48
got there at 10, but the caregiver was supposed to be
23:50
there at 9. I, I don't know, mom's got
23:53
dementia. I'm not sure what time they got
23:54
there. So there was this lack of
23:56
transparency that was going on with our competitors.
24:00
And so the way we solve that is we give the clients access to an
24:05
app which allows them to see exactly what time the caregiver
24:10
clocked in, which is GPS verified.
24:14
So they can't, in other words, the caregiver can't clock in
24:17
when they're down the street at McDonald's, right?
24:19
And so the family can see exactly what time we clocked in.
24:24
They can also see right from the app all the things that we did
24:28
on the shift. You know, we, we helped mom with
24:30
a bath, we gave her lunch, we took her to the doctor, what
24:33
whatever we did. And then they could see the
24:35
exact minute that we clocked out.
24:37
All of that flows into our billing.
24:39
So the clients can see exactly, you know, you know, how much the
24:43
bill is or if it's a third party payer, you know, it's all
24:47
verified. And so these are the same things
24:51
that my internal office staff is, is looking at, right?
24:54
Like if a caregiver's not clocked into a shift, we got to,
24:57
we got to find out why what's going on.
25:00
So you know, I think all of our technology from a general
25:03
standpoint allows everybody to stay in the loop.
25:06
It really makes it seamless to do like billing, seamless to do
25:11
payroll, everything integrates with each other.
25:15
So that's really a big part of what we've built.
25:17
It sounds like maybe unlike some legacy competitors who came up
25:23
in a time where the technology wasn't as sort of well formed,
25:27
you guys were able to hit the ground running with a a strong
25:31
tech platform under you that has allowed you to have these
25:35
efficiencies right from the very start.
25:39
No, exactly. And that's really an advantage
25:41
for us in the franchise system. You know, a lot of our
25:44
competitors expanded quite a bit in the 90s, early 2000s.
25:48
That was kind of the the initial boom, I'll call it for for
25:53
senior care. You probably heard of some of
25:55
the brands, but but yeah, when when technology started coming
25:59
along, right? Because it used to be and even
26:01
now some of these companies are using paper.
26:04
But, but back then it was really hard to to turn the ship, I
26:09
guess because you have hundreds of of locations that are kind of
26:14
adding technology when they feel like it or when they want it
26:18
versus US. You know, we didn't start
26:21
franchising when our first franchise opened in 2020.
26:25
So by then we had a a system in place.
26:27
We were thinking ahead like, hey, if we're going to be
26:29
franchisors, we need to make sure that the software platform
26:34
is going to be the same for everybody.
26:36
We're going to give it to you here is the platform.
26:38
But not only that, the most important thing probably is it's
26:42
upgradeable. So maybe about every six months
26:45
or so, you know, we listen to our franchisees.
26:48
Any suggestions? We we add to our software
26:52
platform and then we roll it out to everybody at the same time
26:58
with instructions. Hey, here are the changes that
27:00
we made. It's like it's like upgrading
27:01
your app on your phone or something, right?
27:03
Like here's all the bugs and fixes that we change, right?
27:07
So it's the same kind of thing that that comes along with a
27:10
video that they watch and they can kind of see all of the
27:13
changes that they made. And it also really helps with
27:17
making them feel like they're being heard, right?
27:21
It's not just us telling them here's what we should be doing.
27:25
It's. It's us listening to them and
27:26
and and implementing their ideas.
27:29
So you mentioned that you brought your first franchise on
27:32
in 2020. Where in sort of your growth
27:36
curve did you guys kind of get to a point thinking, hey, we've
27:40
got something that's that can be replicated?
27:43
We've, we've sort of figured out a system, this works.
27:46
We've ironed out a lot of the kinks.
27:48
We're we're ready to take this to the the franchising market.
27:53
Well, we didn't even start the idea of franchising until we
27:58
thought that we were in a good place with that.
28:00
You know, we kind of, I'd say a few years before that.
28:03
It's kind of when we started saying, OK, we're going to
28:05
become a franchisor. And for for any business owner
28:09
that's thinking about doing that, that's not a small feat.
28:13
You know, that takes a lot of time, like years, not months,
28:16
probably maybe a year. And, and it's very expensive.
28:21
And so as you go through the process of a year or more to
28:26
become a franchise or be eligible to, to sell franchises,
28:31
you know, through that process is kind of when you're, you're
28:33
buttoning everything up, making sure that your, your system is
28:36
replicatable and can be passed on to someone else.
28:40
That includes, you know, your instruction, your training
28:44
manuals, how you're training them, how you, you know,
28:48
obviously how do you find franchise candidates, right?
28:52
You know, how do I vet those candidates?
28:55
How do I find the right candidates?
28:58
So that was kind of done internally, but we also learned
29:02
a lot more, a lot of that through joining the IFA.
29:06
The International Franchise Association was very, very
29:10
instrumental in helping us because the whole point of the
29:14
IFA and if anybody's again thinking about franchising their
29:17
business, you got to join the IFA because they're tasked with
29:24
helping all types of franchisors, brand new emerging
29:29
franchisors. Let's OK, let's get you in some,
29:32
some round tables and teach you the ideas.
29:35
Here's what you need to be doing all the way through like, you
29:39
know, mature systems, you know, and so that was very, very
29:44
helpful in getting us moving as well.
29:47
So just listening like just like starting the home care business,
29:51
you know, just listening, learning.
29:52
It's, you know, we've never done franchising obviously before.
29:56
So you just got to be alert. You never stop learning.
30:00
Right. You guys weren't afraid to get
30:01
into the home care space, which you had no prior experience in.
30:05
And so it seems like that same kind of confidence came through
30:10
and deciding, hey, we're going to take what we've figured out
30:12
here over the years and we're going to learn how to do it in a
30:15
in a franchise model. So tell us a little bit about
30:18
what the franchise opportunity looks like.
30:22
Yeah. And and just to piggyback on
30:23
what you say, it's like, you know, you have to believe in
30:27
what you're doing, right? It's like, it's like I believe
30:31
that that we're going to start this company and it's going to
30:34
be amazing. I don't know how we're going to
30:35
get there, but you guys got to, if you have that belief, you
30:40
know, everything else is going to work itself out.
30:42
So, yeah. So, so I guess, you know, we, we
30:47
got started in, in franchising around 2018 as I guess when we
30:53
were official, we had to learn how to kind of take it to the
30:56
next level. That was really the hardest
30:58
thing I've ever done in my career was trying to get
31:03
strangers to buy in to what you're doing without any other
31:11
than our Home Office operations. We could show them what we were
31:14
doing there, you know, financially and just how we were
31:17
operating. But it really started the the
31:21
initial way that we got the word out there involved a lot of
31:25
videos. You know, if you go to my second
31:28
family franchise.com, which is geared toward bringing on, you
31:31
know, perspective franchisees, it's just tons and tons of
31:35
videos, content, learn getting being transparent, just, you
31:41
know, for example, just saying, Hey, you might you might have
31:47
questions about how to get licensed in the senior Care
31:49
World. Well, here's how it works and do
31:51
a three or four minute long video.
31:53
So we get a lot of hits from stuff like that and wasn't
31:56
really a direct way of saying, Hey, you should come be a
32:00
franchise of ours. It was more just providing
32:02
content again, that hands off more passive sales approach
32:08
where you're providing value in some way.
32:12
And then hey, by the way, we're franchisors.
32:14
What do you think? So that's kind of the initial
32:17
stages of of how we got started. And then what is it that
32:22
franchisees are getting when they sign up?
32:26
Yeah. So once they sign up, you know,
32:28
it's, it's what it's what we're providing to them and it, and
32:33
it's also what we're asking them to do for, for us, right?
32:37
A franchise system, you know, you need both.
32:40
It's a symbiotic relationship, it's a partnership.
32:44
So it all starts with, you know, our training.
32:48
So this is how we do everything we have a, our training consists
32:52
of tons and tons of, of educational videos.
32:57
Here's how you operate our system.
32:58
Everything from our CRM software, which is you know
33:04
would would would include, you know, marketing to senior care
33:09
professionals, right? It's a lot of what we do.
33:12
We want to we want to be create a referral relationship with a
33:17
lot of people out there that are working in the senior care
33:19
space. So our CRM software works with
33:22
that. And then once we have a
33:23
prospective client, you know, our CRM software kind of walks
33:27
you through that process. I mean, we have automations
33:29
built in which text messaging, emailing, e-mail drips, stuff
33:36
like that. It's all automated for the
33:39
franchise. Our entire hiring process is
33:43
completely automated. And not going to get too much in
33:45
the weeds with this, but we do use a series of AI technology
33:49
that we've been expanding upon to kind of vet our caregiver
33:53
applicants. Literally, Anthony, it's like
33:56
it, it replaced an entire employee.
33:59
I mean, we didn't fire the employee, but we just
34:01
transferred them. But but it eliminated a
34:04
position, you know, so I think that, and then all of you know,
34:09
we have our scheduling software that they kind of piggyback on
34:14
and, and it's all flows together.
34:16
That all flows into billing to payroll.
34:20
There's just so many things that a franchise doesn't have to
34:25
think about when they get started that we did.
34:29
And I, I think that when you're a franchisor, you know,
34:34
obviously if you take, if, if you have two different groups of
34:37
people, one of them decides to start a senior care business on
34:40
their own and the other goes through a franchise system.
34:43
I guarantee you that the person that goes through our franchise
34:46
system, I'm providing speed for them, taking away all the things
34:51
they have to learn and, and they're going to be able to hit
34:54
the ground running. And so they're going to get to
34:58
10 clients faster. They're going to get to
35:00
profitability much faster. They're going to get to much
35:04
higher profitability much faster than they'd be able to.
35:07
Obviously there's a cost for that, right?
35:09
They franchisees pay royalties to franchisors.
35:11
That's how it works. But if I can make you profitable
35:17
faster then then that's really the reason why you would go, you
35:21
know, with us versus maybe try to do it on your own.
35:25
Yeah, they're learning from all the experiences that you guys
35:28
have gone through over the years.
35:30
They're getting to take part in the tech platform that you put
35:33
in place. They're getting the efficiencies
35:35
of the, you know, AI assisted hiring process.
35:38
There's there's certainly a value to that.
35:41
Not only does it get them there faster, but ostensibly it would
35:44
make them more profitable than if, you know, they had to do it
35:47
on their own. And I'll add that you know what,
35:51
what we're, we're asking them primarily to be the face of the
35:57
business in their local community right there.
36:00
There's a reason why this has traditionally been a franchise
36:03
concept 'cause we could have expanded through hiring, you
36:08
know, regional managers and but in order to preserve quality, we
36:13
need the people with skin in the game and people that were going
36:16
to be the boots on the ground and represent their company in
36:19
their local market. Now we're going to teach them
36:21
how to get out there and market, how to handle sales.
36:24
Remember I said in the beginning, we didn't have a
36:26
playbook. We didn't have someone helping
36:28
us. We had to learn everything.
36:30
And if they went on their own, that's what they would have have
36:32
to do as well. I understand if people want to
36:35
do that. We did that right.
36:37
But we had higher aspirations. We wanted to create a national
36:39
brand, but you know, we're going to give them the playbook, train
36:44
them, meet with them all the time, look at in their, I could
36:48
see in their software platform to see what they're doing, maybe
36:51
how they could be doing it better.
36:53
But at the same time, we're asking them to drive business in
36:56
their local community following our process.
36:58
So it's it's kind of give and take what we give to them and
37:00
and what they can maybe do for us.
37:03
So what is it that you're looking for in a franchise?
37:08
Whether it's I don't know personality or skills or
37:12
background. Yeah, that's a great question.
37:16
You know, we do look at personalities quite a bit.
37:19
Actually. Most, most candidates that come
37:21
our way have already done some sort of personality test.
37:27
A lot of them come from franchise brokers, franchise
37:30
consultants who kind of find candidates and then pass them
37:34
your way if they're the right fit.
37:36
So we're really looking for the personality type that would be
37:39
considered an achiever, someone that really wants to drive sales
37:44
and, and be kind of that person that is really excited to get
37:52
out in the community, meet people, you know, really you,
37:56
you, it's kind of a combination of personalities.
37:59
You have to really be compassionate.
38:01
A lot of people come our way because they're super
38:02
compassionate and, and want to help people and, and they love
38:06
that. But they're not really drivers
38:08
of business, right? They're more like a belonger.
38:11
They want to help people and they're very empathetic.
38:14
So it's a little bit of a unique type of personality of someone
38:18
that really cares. Maybe a lot of our franchisees
38:20
have their own personal story that made them consider this,
38:24
this industry, but also someone that really wants to, to drive
38:29
business, to drive sales. And so that's really the type of
38:34
of person that we're looking for.
38:36
I, I often say like somebody who's like really good at
38:40
organizing, like the friends birthday parties, you know, like
38:44
someone like that type of personality that's just really
38:49
excited to do those things. Not, not everyone is types of
38:53
types of industries that typically are successful.
38:59
I'd say anybody that's got a background in like B to B sales
39:02
is very helpful, right? Somebody who has already kind of
39:06
done some of the same things because what we're asking them
39:10
to do is go make connections in the community with other senior
39:14
care type of businesses. Could be Hospice, could be a
39:19
skilled nursing facility, could be someone that's just out boots
39:23
on the has done boots on the ground in the past, has made
39:26
connections. A lot of that nowadays, of
39:27
course, is through like LinkedIn and, and connecting.
39:30
And we have a playbook that we go over with them before they,
39:34
you know, as they go through the process of learning about our
39:36
franchise system. We, we get into this stuff,
39:39
right? We, we talk about like, you
39:41
know, what we're asking them to do.
39:43
We have what's called a, a launch guide where we kind of
39:47
tell them exactly what they need to be doing on a daily, weekly
39:51
basis to get this business off the ground.
39:55
You know, nurses can be a a big help.
39:58
You know, some of our locations have an RN in the ownership
40:01
group. It's not necessary.
40:03
We didn't have that in our Maryland location, but some do.
40:10
Anybody if now some people do have some sort of medical or
40:14
healthcare background. Like for example, I have one
40:17
franchise that's a pharmacist and, and he really loved the
40:21
concept and, and kind of already was, you know, had had some
40:25
local people in the area that knew him.
40:29
We like people that have maybe lived in their community for
40:32
quite some time and built connections in any way really
40:36
like maybe through their business or, you know, we've got
40:39
people we talked to that their kids are on sports teams and,
40:43
and they just, they're, they're, they're, they're coaches or
40:46
they're just, you know, they're part of the local Chamber of
40:49
Commerce. They, they just are entrenched
40:52
in their local community that those, those things.
40:55
And you don't need all of those things.
40:57
You, you just need some of those things, right?
40:59
And, and, and, and a strong desire.
41:01
So, you know, I, I think that it could be a, a few different
41:06
types of professions, but I think that at the root, the
41:10
personality type that I described earlier is, is really
41:13
the main thing that we're looking for.
41:15
So from what you described there, it sounds like perhaps a
41:18
lot of the, I'm going to call it deal flow because that's you
41:23
know, sort of a business term. A lot of the clients that come
41:26
in are coming in as referrals from other places from a a
41:32
doctor or, you know, a hospital or something like that where
41:35
they're like, Oh yes, you have a need, here's a flyer, here's who
41:38
we recommend. Is that right?
41:40
Yeah, you nailed it, Anthony. I mean, it's people that are
41:45
people don't typically investigate getting in home
41:49
senior care until they need it. And often when they need it,
41:55
they need it now, right when you need care for from us, you know,
42:01
you, you really need it right now.
42:02
It's it's you're not going to if, if, if I say, well, OK,
42:05
great. Well, thanks for telling me your
42:07
story. I'm going to now try to find
42:09
some caregivers for you and you know, I'll call you when we find
42:13
something. They're going to go move right
42:14
on to the next company. So you got to be positioned well
42:17
with your staff to be able to take on clients like whenever
42:20
they come your way. And so that's why the
42:24
professional referrals to your point is, is so important.
42:27
That's what we need the franchisees out there doing, you
42:31
know, social workers, nursing staff, physical therapy
42:34
departments, doctors like you said, they're the ones that are
42:39
recommending to families who have no clue where to go next to
42:44
people like us. And the conversion rate of you
42:49
know, getting a professional referrals close to 50% to get
42:53
that client versus someone that just Googles you is maybe 5%.
42:58
So it goes such a long way. And not only that, you know,
43:03
those type of professions, nurses, physical therapists,
43:07
social workers, they're not, they're not typically leaving
43:11
that profession. They're going to be in this
43:13
profession forever. So short of them moving to
43:15
another city or state, you know, that's going to be a long term
43:19
relationship. I personally did that role and
43:22
some of my best friends are, are people that I met in those roles
43:26
doing marketing, right. And so you know, it's, it's,
43:31
it's the best way to get good business.
43:33
It's the best converting type of referral, intakes of referrals
43:40
and and it's sustainable over the course of time.
43:43
So it's really important that our franchisees understand that
43:47
and are comfortable handling that role.
43:50
What geographies are you looking to move into Chad or is it kind
43:53
of wide open at this point? It is wide open.
43:58
You know, we have total of 6 locations right now, more coming
44:02
very soon. And we've been, I'll, I'll
44:05
answer the question by saying we've been successful in, in
44:08
urban locations as well as very rural locations.
44:13
You know, and, and that's kind of a new thing actually with,
44:17
with the way things are working in our industry.
44:19
So we're not really targeting anything specifically.
44:25
We're available in I think 45 states right now.
44:29
The few states that we're not in is only because of difficulties
44:33
with that state with licensing. And so the answer is we're,
44:38
we're looking all over and, and we've got a plan for, for how
44:41
people can be successful in just, you know, outside of New
44:45
York City. We have a location and, and in
44:48
the very rural area of East Central Ohio, we've got a
44:51
successful, profitable location as well.
44:54
So the answer is all over. Where in Ohio?
44:58
I'm in Columbus, OH. I wonder if I'm familiar.
45:00
With the area, yeah, he's not too far.
45:02
He's like East Central Ohio, which would his office is in New
45:05
Philadelphia. Oh, sure.
45:07
So I went to Side Story. I went to visit him and help him
45:10
out and, and I mean half of the vehicles on the road were like
45:14
horse and buggy, not a not no, no motorized vehicle.
45:19
So that that gives you an idea of.
45:22
There's a strong, strong Amish population in that part of the
45:24
state. Yeah.
45:25
Yeah. It's not too far, maybe an hour
45:28
or so from where I grew up. So I'm.
45:29
I'm familiar with the area. Yeah.
45:31
Nice people there. So Chad, you guys have been
45:35
recognized multiple times as Small Business of the Year in a
45:39
top workplace by Baltimore Sun. What, aside from the tech that
45:44
you have in place to help make everybody's lives easier, What
45:48
what are you guys doing differently that sets you apart
45:52
in, you know, this competitive home care industry?
45:56
Well, a lot of a lot of those awards, you know, the small
46:01
business of the year really comes from year over year growth
46:03
and and things like that. So a lot of it's financial
46:05
based, but you know, and so I would attribute that to just
46:09
everything, you know, it's like the technology improving just
46:13
at, you know, our reputation that that's out there, just word
46:16
of mouth. I mean, it's definitely the kind
46:19
of business where as the longer you're in business, the less you
46:22
have to, to, to market out there, right?
46:25
Like like you're still marketing, but but people have
46:27
heard about you. It's like sometimes people will
46:29
call and looking, we always try to write in business.
46:33
You always want to know where they called from.
46:36
And a lot of times it's like, I don't know, I, I just heard
46:38
about you in the community. Well, you don't, don't have that
46:41
luxury in, in year 1, right? No one heard about you in the
46:46
community when you just opened. You got to work a little harder.
46:51
So a lot of it, it's really, really a lot of word of mouth
46:53
and, and then hearing about you in a few different ways.
46:57
The other part, interesting that people don't often search online
47:03
for like senior care in my city. It's more like they look up,
47:08
they've heard about you from someone else or somewhere else
47:12
and they Google your the name of your company.
47:15
So that's a far more search term in our space than what you then
47:21
if I'm, I don't know, let me think of something else if I'm
47:24
selling like. If I'm a plumber, look at I'm,
47:27
I'm typing in plumber. But in your case, people aren't
47:30
typing in senior home care, Alzheimer's care, they're typing
47:34
in second family because they've heard about it from somebody
47:37
else. Yeah, and that that's a great
47:39
example exactly. And then and then what do you do
47:42
when you when you find a plumber, you start looking at
47:44
reviews, right, stuff like that. So that's important top
47:48
workplace, you know, that that's driven by your employees.
47:52
And so we've gotten plenty of business.
47:55
I can remember people saying, you know, I really, I really saw
47:59
it's important to me that that your employees were, you know,
48:03
gave gave you good reviews. So that's where that comes from
48:06
is, is your employees reviewing their experience with you.
48:11
And there's a lot of companies honestly in our space that that
48:13
have poor employee reviews, primarily from caregivers for,
48:17
for whatever reason. I mean, you're not going to, we
48:20
all know that when you, when you're dealing with a lot of
48:22
caregivers, you know, you're not going to keep everyone happy.
48:25
You know, we all know that in business and every client's not
48:27
going to be happy, you know, and, and you know, as a business
48:31
owner, sometimes you think that, that, you know, they, they
48:33
weren't being fair or, or just kind of being a little angry or
48:37
whatever it is. Take the good with the bad.
48:39
But overall, you got to treat your employees right.
48:41
You know, I, I always say, I knew that I would get tons of
48:45
satisfaction before I got into this biz.
48:48
I knew I'd get tons of satisfaction by being in this
48:50
business, by helping these seniors.
48:51
I always had a soft place in my heart for seniors ever since I
48:54
was a little kid. I knew I would love that, but
48:57
what I didn't realize was how much satisfaction I would get
49:02
with my employees, caregivers, nurses, our we have a general
49:07
manager now in our Maryland location.
49:11
She's been with us almost nine years.
49:12
She started right out of college.
49:14
The reason she started we couldn't pay her a ton of money
49:16
back then, but she believed in our story.
49:20
Her, she had grandparents that were going through similar
49:23
things that we had seen. She believed in our story.
49:25
She's still with us. My director of nursing has been
49:28
with us over 10 years. She believed in our story.
49:32
And so it's getting your employees to buy in, I think is
49:37
just as important, if not more important than getting your
49:40
clients to buy in. Clients are not clients.
49:44
They're not, but we're not selling a fancy brand new car.
49:46
We're not selling a nice brand fancy watch, right?
49:50
Like, it's not an exciting thing to pay for.
49:53
I don't want to have to pay you guys because that means there's
49:55
a problem there. Someone in my family's lost us
49:58
their independence. And sometimes I'm a little
50:00
grumpy because who wants to deal with all that, right?
50:05
And it's understandable. But it could be a challenging
50:11
time that sort of has connected you with the client, yeah.
50:15
I can't tell you how many times yet that I said to my employees,
50:19
take it with a grain of salt. They're going through a hard
50:21
time. And, and a lot of times when
50:24
you, when you treat these people back with kindness that they're
50:26
going to be like, oh, you know, I'm sorry, I'm just dealing with
50:29
a lot, you know, you know, so you try to keep, I tell my
50:34
staff, whatever you do, when a client leaves us for whatever
50:37
reason, they leave us. I don't care if they leave it.
50:40
You know, obviously sometimes they leave because someone
50:44
passes away, but it could be that that here and there that
50:47
they're just not satisfied for whatever reason.
50:49
I'm like, make sure they go away happy.
50:51
That's all I care about. I don't care what you have to
50:53
do. Make sure they go away happy.
50:56
Chad, I've just got one more question for you.
50:58
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things.
51:00
First of all, for everyone listening today, I know that you
51:02
love today's content. Please hit the like Share
51:04
subscribe button on your favorite podcast app.
51:07
I also want to point people to your website so they know how to
51:10
get in touch with you. We've got Second family.com,
51:12
which is more of like the customer facing.
51:15
And then we've got Second Family franchise.com, which is for
51:18
folks who might be interested in the franchise opportunity, what
51:22
that might entail. And so the last question that I
51:24
have for you today, Chad, is I'm kind of curious to hear about a
51:28
serious challenge that you've overcome, either something
51:31
personal or professional, maybe how you got through that and
51:34
some lessons that you learned coming out the other side.
51:38
Yeah. And, and I'd say both personal
51:42
and professional, the the hardest challenge that I had to
51:45
overcome was just selling those first couple franchises.
51:50
There's no question about it that that was the hardest thing
51:53
I've ever done in my career. Very emotionally draining, a lot
51:58
of hours, a lot of sweat and tears, a lot of just really
52:04
going through the process of thinking that you have people
52:08
ready to buy in and at the last minute they changed their mind
52:11
or something like that. And, and I, I always say every
52:16
franchise that you sell makes the next one a little bit easier
52:19
than the last by maybe by 1%. And so it was, you know, I just,
52:26
I had this vision of when we sold our first franchise and by
52:30
the way, our first franchise in Philadelphia, they they've done
52:33
amazing. They they opened literally a
52:35
month before COVID hit. And so so you go through all
52:39
this, you know, trial, tribulation, blood, sweat and
52:42
tears, and then they open and it's a month before COVID.
52:45
And so that that was just a whole another world.
52:48
Giant football. Yeah.
52:50
I mean, we're all about taking a negative and turning into a
52:53
positive here. And we got a lot of examples of
52:55
that, But but yeah, it's just going through that whole
52:59
process. I, I, I, I had like vision, I,
53:05
I, I had like these moments where like, OK, this is what I'm
53:09
going to feel like when we finally sell our first one, you
53:12
know? And, and it's going to be this
53:13
amazing euphoria. And, and it really honestly,
53:18
like when it happened, I was just like, all right, who's
53:20
next? You know, I was just like, it
53:22
was like it was. Classic entrepreneur you don't
53:25
take any time to celebrate the win, you're just you're on to
53:28
the next one I. Remember I took a picture and I,
53:31
I've heard a lot of stories like this going to conventions and
53:34
franchise conventions and you know, where people just break
53:37
down and cry. They got their first check and
53:39
it's so hard to get that first group to buy in And, and, and I
53:44
was thinking that's what would happen, but you know, it didn't
53:48
happen that way. I, I had like, but I did, I did,
53:51
I have this one picture where I took a picture of, of the, the
53:55
check and, and in the background we in, in my office, I have a
53:59
picture of our grandparents, you know, from the 70s.
54:03
And it's really a reminder. We encourage our franchisees to
54:06
do this. There's a reminder to of why
54:08
you're doing what you're doing every, every day.
54:10
So sometimes we have a bad day. You walk around the office and,
54:13
and we have pictures of my grandparents, we have pictures
54:16
of clients and caregivers in, in our office.
54:18
And so it helps me remember even when I'm having a hard day.
54:21
But I took the picture of the check and in the background was
54:24
my grandparents. And I smiled and took the
54:26
picture. And I thought there would be
54:28
this moment of just like tearful joy.
54:33
But no, I just went back in the office and started grinding some
54:35
more. So no, but it, it was very
54:38
challenging man. And only about 10% of people
54:42
that set out to become franchise or succeed.
54:46
And we're still in very in many ways just getting started.
54:50
But you know, think the momentum is is really phenomenal right
54:54
now. So we're really pumped about
54:55
where we are. So we feel like the that really
54:59
hard hump that you have to overcome is past us.
55:04
Was there any point before you got that first franchise that
55:08
you thought maybe this isn't going to work?
55:10
Like just throw in the towel. All the time and every day,
55:13
Anthony. Every single day.
55:16
But I. How do you get through that?
55:20
Well, for me, like I said, I I would walk out and just like
55:23
look at my grandparents. I, I would just like, I'm not a
55:26
quitter, man. Like, like I can't.
55:28
I would be letting my entire family down, my kids down, my
55:33
partner down, my, my employees down and my all the people in my
55:39
life that had passed, my grandparents, I'd be letting
55:42
them down and it just wasn't going to happen.
55:45
And like you said, now you're, you're kind of over that hump,
55:47
right? Like you've got the first ones
55:49
under your belt, you've got proof of concept.
55:51
That first one that opened in Philly opened up right before
55:54
COVID and look at them now. They are doing amazing.
55:57
And you were telling me a little bit off air that you've got a
56:01
new franchise partner that's working really well, helping to
56:05
open up some doors. Do you want to get some voice to
56:06
that? Yeah.
56:08
So we partnered not too long ago with the Repam Group and the
56:12
Repam Group is a full service franchise sales organization
56:16
that we've partnered with to to take over our franchise sales.
56:21
It's been amazing so far. I've been with them about six
56:24
months and we've we've sold one recent franchise in Fort Worth,
56:29
TX and and we've got many, many others coming along.
56:35
But yeah, it it's been, it's been outstanding.
56:38
It's really, it can be a common wave for companies like us to
56:43
scale because you can't do everything as franchisors.
56:48
You can't handle all the franchise sales and and also on
56:52
board new franchisees, train those new franchisees and then
56:56
even as they scale up, how you going to help them get to where
56:59
they need to go. And oh, by the way, you got to
57:01
keep improving your systems. You got to stay, you know,
57:04
knowledgeable about the industry trends.
57:07
There's just so many things you have to do.
57:09
So it is a pretty common thing when you get to our stage that
57:11
you would maybe outsource your franchise sales.
57:14
But at the same time, we're still very much involved.
57:17
We do founders calls when, when a franchise prospect gets toward
57:22
the end of the really the very end of the process, We've
57:26
already vetted them. We've already given the green
57:27
light for these people. They've already basically given
57:30
the green light that they want to move forward with us.
57:33
We all break bread together. They come into, they fly into
57:35
Maryland Home Office. And at that point, you know,
57:40
we'll, we'll go to dinner, We'll, we'll kind of learn more
57:43
about each other, talk about each other, learn more about
57:45
each other. And then we give a, about 1/2 a
57:48
day long presentation for them where they, it's very
57:51
interactive. They can ask questions.
57:55
So we're very, very involved, even though they're, they've
57:57
kind of taken over the, the bulk of the vetting of franchise
58:00
candidates. So we're going to continue down
58:04
this path for, for now. And it's, it's going really,
58:06
really well so far. Sounds very exciting, Chad.
58:10
I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your
58:12
time and your story with us today.
58:13
I really appreciate it. No, this has been great,
58:15
Anthony. Really, really appreciate the
58:17
invite. And yeah, looking forward to
58:20
continue to, to, to get to know you and and see you out there.
58:24
Absolutely. I'd enjoy that very much.
58:26
Folks. That's a wrap on another episode
58:28
of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us
58:31
today.