In the next five years we need about 2.5 million more care providers in the industry. We’ve also developed programs to allow our franchisees to go out and find what might be a non-traditional caregiver and provide them the training and the education that they need to become the best caregiver possible. We last year won the first place award in franchising for our recruitment retention efforts that we do and really we’re proud of that. We’re really focused on how we help our franchisees sleep at night when they know they have enough caregivers. That’s the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge that’s faced day by day.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to another episode of the Home Health 360 podcast, where we speak to home-based care professionals from around the globe. I’m your host, Erin Valliere, and today I am joined by special guest Todd Houghton. Todd joined HomeWatch Caregivers in 2022 as their brand president, bringing with him over 20 years of franchise experience, including several years in the home care sector, with folks like Bright Star Group Holdings and Comfort Keepers. Todd focuses on defining success and developing operational excellence, including brand growth, quality of care and technological advancements. He graduated from Illinois State University with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Business and now he resides in beautiful Colorado and enjoys all the things outdoors with his family and his dogs and, as a fellow Coloradan, I am right there with you on the outdoor stuff. Welcome to the show, Todd.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for having me, erin, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, before we dive into the topic, I’m just real curious. It’s transitioning, fall Ski season’s going to be here. What keeps you outdoors in the winter?
Speaker 1:
Skiing, absolutely skiing, yeah, yeah. What’s your favorite mountain Right now? If it’s going to be in Colorado, it’s Breckenridge. I love to go to Breckenridge, but in all honesty, I prefer to head over to Utah and ski over there, if I can.
Speaker 2:
Oh, yep, I hear you. Both good choices. Maybe I’ll see you on the slopes. Yeah, I know I’m super excited to talk to you about franchising today. I know as new entrepreneurs enter the market, there’s got to be this question of do I enter into a franchise model with all the support and everything it has to offer, or do I try to do this myself? So I’d kind of like to start the conversation there. What would you say are some key advantages to choosing a franchise model like HomeWatch Caregivers over starting an independent business from the ground up? Are there any factors that might sway someone one way or the other?
Speaker 1:
Franchise model is absolutely the way to go. Personal note I’ve been in franchising since I was in the seventh grade and fully believe in the model and what it does, because it provides a system for somebody to walk into and tried and true processes that help them really get their feet right in the deep end and grow the business quickly. Everything from the outstanding training specifically with us that we offer, the systems that are available, the platforms that are available the person that’s looking at getting into the business models through franchising just allows them the ability to escalate a lot quicker.
Speaker 2:
Gotcha, instead of having to figure it out all by yourself, you already have everything in place and you have a group around you to support you. I like that idea. It’s a little less scary. I imagine that the relationship between franchisor and franchisees is pretty important. What are some crucial factors that contribute to a strong and productive relationship?
Speaker 1:
There’s many and I would say it’s transparency, open and honest communication, accountability are some of the key pieces to it, and engagement is huge. So, from the franchisor perspective, again for HomeWatch, we’ve been around for over four decades. We have tried and true processes. We focus on engagement with our franchisees, as any franchise system should, but it’s a two-way street when it comes to that as well. The franchisee needs to be willing to engage to help grow their success. We have our franchise advisory council and we have working groups, so we’re really doing many things to hear the voice of our franchisees and let them help influence the direction of our organization.
Speaker 2:
Gotcha. So it really depends on the franchisee’s willingness to get involved. Do you ever struggle getting somebody to speak up so you can hear their voice?
Speaker 1:
Yes, and transparency absolutely. And having been in franchising as long as I had, I think you could ask any franchisor and we all pretty much have that 80-20 rule. So you have about 80% of the network that’s always engaged and you’re going to have 20% that just want to do it on their own and it doesn’t really help the brand because you want everybody’s collective voice to be heard. So we really try to find ways to meet them where they’re at and get that other 20%, if you will, to be engaged in some fashion. They may not be 100% engaged, but at least get some engagement so their voice can be heard as well.
Speaker 2:
I think it probably behooves them to do so, because if they’re not voting, if they’re not there, then they don’t have any influence over decisions. Which is my next question, because once you enter into a franchise agreement, you’ve got this big document that sort of tells you how you have to run your business and what it’s going to look like, and that’s largely dictated by the decisions made at the franchise level, like headquarters level. Can you talk to us about how major decisions are typically made in that franchise network and how much input do the franchisees actually have in those decisions?
Speaker 1:
So in our network again, we really believe in the voice of our franchisees.
Speaker 1:
Every year we start our planning session, we survey our network for priorities that they’re looking for in the next year and their thoughts have to play into one of our pillars. We operate under six pillars. It’s all around owner profit, revenue, technology you’re the caregivers, the care, quality, delivery, marketing, just a high level, what the pillars are. And so their recommendations or their thoughts have to play into one of the pillars. And then, as we start to plan for the following year, we establish working groups of our franchisees to help conquer some of those initiatives, really allowing for their voice to be heard. So when we launch a new initiative, if somebody is like I don’t like that or how did I not know this was happening, it’s really about them probably not being engaged in because it’s been out there everywhere across the network. We try to make sure that it cascades down and cascades back up so that both ways of the communication and accepting initiatives- that’s pretty comforting to know that franchisees have a good influence over this.
Speaker 1:
They’re out there every day and they know what’s going on, and so we need their voices, we need to let them be heard, and I always think, in franchising in general, some of the biggest revenue drivers that have come for brands have come from their franchisees. Whether it’s Home Watch, caregivers or a lot of the other well-known brands out there. Their initiatives have come from their franchisees.
Speaker 2:
Fantastic. Let’s talk about something else I know you’re passionate about, which is growth. What does growth look like from an individual franchisee’s perspective versus the overall brand, and do you have any specific milestones and strategies that you implement with your franchisees?
Speaker 1:
So with our franchisees, we very much focus on their generational wealth and their generational growth. Those are big buzzwords that we like to use and we’re seeing a shift in the demographics, a little bit of owners. We’re seeing a lot younger owners wanting to come in. So we really talk about hey, it’s time for you to think about building that wealth for your children, handing something off to them as they get through college and things like that. And so we help them set their goals. What are their personal goals? Is it the revenue amount? Is it buying that mountain home out in Breckenridge? Whatever it might be?
Speaker 1:
We really want to meet them where they’re at and help them with that. And then we establish milestones based on the length of time that they’ve been open and their success is really dictated by that revenue and in their profitability as well. We like to look at both those numbers. We have those milestones of being a million dollars, two million dollars, three million dollars, five million dollars. Just keep growing their business and the opportunity is absolutely there in our space. We’re looking at 10,000 people turning 65 every day. We’re going to approach a billion people over the age of 65 in the next 30 years. So the opportunity is limitless in the aging space. And then we also have about one third of our business that comes from people younger than 65 that have neurological disorders and really trying to help families understand that they can keep those individuals at home. They don’t have to put them into institutional. You said I was passionate about it. I am passionate about it. Growth is there. We want our franchisees to be successful from each one of their seats across the country.
Speaker 2:
I love that you take a more holistic approach. It isn’t just about what can you do for me today, how much revenue are you bringing in? You’re helping these people really understand how to leave a legacy of their own Impact not just their family, but the geography around them and keeping people safe in their home. That’s fantastic. I love that approach. You guys have a lot of influence over how people run their business right, but to have somebody have your back that also has your best interest at heart, that feels good. What are some of the common challenges that franchisees face in the home care industry and what kind of support can they expect from the franchisor?
Speaker 1:
There’s a number of things that can be challenges. I always like to say there are opportunities, you know. The first one is they are going into business through the franchise model, so it can be scary, even though they have all the support they need. But one of the things that definitely keeps me awake at night and keeps some of my franchisees awake at night, is the talent that they need to help provide the care the caregivers. In the next five years, we need about 2.5 million more care providers in the industry. So we have to, as the franchisor, hold our responsibility to help our franchisees find that talent. And what can we do to help them?
Speaker 1:
And so we’re always looking for ways to improve the caregiver efficiency. We’ve brought some technology in which we can talk about a little bit later, but that helps improve the efficiencies. We’ve also developed programs to allow our franchisees to go out and find what might be a non-traditional caregiver and provide them the training and the education that they need to become the best caregiver possible. We last year won the first place award in franchising for our recruitment retention efforts that we do, and really we’re proud of that. We’re really focused on how we help our franchisees sleep at night when they know they have enough caregivers. That’s the biggest opportunity and the biggest challenge that’s faced day by day. Absolutely no concerns around what we call the demand issue. The population needs us, so it’s really the supply issue and making sure that they have enough caregivers to provide the care.
Speaker 2:
For sure. So what do you guys consider a non-traditional caregiver, and how do you approach recruiting those people?
Speaker 1:
You know, non-traditional caregiver there’s a lot of people out there that are in the sandwich generation, so they’re taking care of, maybe their kids and taking care of their grandparents or their parents, and they’re potentially working at the local coffee shop and so they could be the best barista. They’re very engaging, they’re very compassionate because your coffee is very important to you. But as you talk to them you get to understand like gosh, they’re really about 90% of what we do is really showing compassion to that aging person, really being there to just interact with them and help them feel less lonely and less isolated. And so we know, like out there in the marketplace, that barista or server at your favorite restaurant or the other big one too, is really looking at preschool teachers. They’re taking care of 20 children at a time and so they may not want to be in that aspect of things anymore, unlike the one-on-one approach of taking care of a senior. So you can absolutely take the time, have them go through our training program and become a great caregiver.
Speaker 2:
Or a summer gig. They do have the whole summer off Very cool. I like the out-of-the-box approach there. As we continue on down this path, there is more demand. There’s more changes coming legislatively and technologically as we continue to face these ongoing challenges. How do you see the home care franchising model evolving over the next five to 10 years?
Speaker 1:
It’s going to continue to become a bigger part of the healthcare continuum and that’s one of our big focuses in our three, five and 10-year model is everything that we’re doing is becoming closer to being part of the healthcare ecosystem, and there’s a big focus on hospital to home. Hospitals should be for sick people. They can recuperate at home. Our services really help do that. That’s going to be a big change. Interoperability is becoming bigger.
Speaker 1:
Home care is going to be part of the interoperability aspect of healthcare and in the next five years or even less, it’ll just be part of what happens for somebody that is coming home from the hospital. They’ll go into home care and that’s where the demand will continue to grow for us, not just home watch caregivers, but the home care space in general. Change is really the technology becoming part of the care as well. Recently just read a stat I can’t find the US stat, but in Canada 92% of people over the age of 65 have a smart device at this point in time, and I’m sure it’s similar in the US. I just can’t find that number anywhere and so we know that they’re getting more and more used to being connected through technology. So that’ll become a big part of how home care is delivered as well.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and there’s no more excuses from people who say it’s an elder. I can’t get them to use the phone.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 2:
And that kind of leads me to a question about what you’ve got going on. I know that you released a new technology in April. It’s called HomeWatch Connect. What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, first we went and evaluated all of our service lines and really reformulated all our service lines to have a total care solution from end to end. So get people in earlier that need care, keep them longer and having technology help supplement the direct care visits. So HomeWatch Connect was developed as our technology service line. Currently we have two components in our technology line. It’s our smart camera. So the smart camera operates through the TV. It provides a closed, safe environment for that senior. They all know how to use the remote, they all know how to use TV. As you just said, there’s no more excuses of like they don’t know how to do that. They absolutely do and they are under that secure environment.
Speaker 1:
We’re really focused on fighting the loneliness epidemic and keeping them engaged and connected with their family, with their loved ones, the local office. So we can have virtual visits through the technology with the local office. In the industry, most companies and we were the same way. Based on state regulations, reassessments had to be done every 60 or 90 days, depending on the states. I think we all agree that an 80-year-old can change daily and so with the technology we can have eyes on them through a virtual visit every day if necessary, identify changes and advance the care that might be needed so they can live at home. 77% of them want to live at home, so let’s help keep them at home.
Speaker 2:
Let’s help keep them home. So it’s a device that sits on top of their television with a camera, and it turns it into this giant Zoom meeting. In essence, very cool.
Speaker 1:
So it helps them be connected. It also has apps that are associated into it that allow for exercise, that allow for video sharing, music for dementia patients, clients all that exciting stuff. And there’s a lot more advancements coming in the next year with it as well, which is super exciting. And again, the big thing is that it is a secure, closed environment, right. 80-year-old mom or dad or grandma and grandpa aren’t getting phished by somebody or somebody trying to get their financial information, which is scary, very important. And then also what it does is it really helps us collect data to improve outcomes as a franchisor, as a franchise organization. Hopefully next year we can go to payer sources like the insurance companies and get them to understand why they should be paying better reimbursement rates or paying for services in general for their insured.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. And in that vein, what kind of benefits are you seeing already?
Speaker 1:
We’re already seeing reductions in hospital visits or ER visits through our beta testers that we had from late last year because we’re still having them in the system. So we’ve experienced on those individuals that we were monitoring, if you will. On that We’ve seen about a 33% reduction in ER visits, which is huge, and we know that typically those frequent flyers, as they’re called in the healthcare industry, are going to the ER because they’re lonely, dehydrated or maybe have a UTI. And being able to keep them actively engaged through the technology sending reminders that come across the bottom of the screen to stay hydrated or drink their water or whatever it might be that helps. Just really touching base with them frequently helps them feel less isolated, less lonely, and hydration helps reduce the UTIs as well. So all of that stuff plays in and helps reduce the ER visits.
Speaker 2:
So does it? Flash the drink your water over their afternoon stories. Everybody loves soap operas.
Speaker 1:
It scrolls just like if you’re watching the news channel. You know how it scrolls across to the bottom, does the same thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:
We are interrupting the as the world turns. Is that even on still? I’ll ask my mother. I’m pretty sure it is.
Speaker 1:
It was a college favor. You know, when you had to go into the student union during class break, you’d watch it.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I love the reduction of ER visits. Have you gotten any more subjective data in terms of how they’re feeling about it? Do they report like feeling less lonely or anything like that?
Speaker 1:
Yes, absolutely so. You know, as we reach out for testimonials because we obviously just launched earlier this year and so we constantly want to get testimonials and so many of them are just great. We had one recently. She wrote that her grandkids live overseas and she had not been able to see them. I don’t know if she didn’t auto FaceTime or whatever it might have been, but as soon as she got set up with this, she has weekly conversations with her grandkids, and so you just hear these stories where they connect. And then we had another one lady who she had not seen some of her friends in several years and she was able to get them connected through the technology and visit with them, and they visited for over an hour is what she said in the testimonials. Things like that make me feel good. I hate to say it like that, but it makes me feel good when I get to read things like that that come across to my email or whatever. And just making a difference in people’s lives every day is what it’s all about.
Speaker 2:
It sure is. That’s very touching, very touching. Oh, I love it. And I only have one more question for you. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the audience before we say goodbye? About the industry, about HomeWatch, about franchising in general? Floor is yours. What’s your parting wisdom?
Speaker 1:
Franchising is a phenomenal model for anybody that wants to get into business ownership. So, as we started the conversation, why do it with franchising as opposed to yourself? Franchising is going to help you grow quickly, produce that generational wealth, that generational growth. Home care space we touched on it. The demand is there. It’s going to continue to grow for many years to come. Home Watch we’re one of the leaders in the space, absolutely looking to continue to grow across the country. Lots of areas that we’re not in yet that we want to hit. For anybody that’s looking to get into the home care space, look out for us. We’re at homewatchcaregiverscom. Forward, slash franchising and take the opportunity to see what we’re all about. We talked about HomeWatch Connect. We have a video out there. On that site. People can see that they can learn all about some of our highlights from our FDD on there as well. So let’s see what we’re all about.
Speaker 2:
Great Thanks for sharing and thanks for sharing your knowledge. This was a brief but very powerful conversation about franchising and we really do appreciate you coming on the show.
Speaker 1:
I appreciate you having me, aaron. I always love to talk about franchising, my passion.
Speaker 2:
Home Health 360 is presented by Alaya Care and hosted by Aaron Valier. First, we want to thank our amazing guests and listeners. Second, new episodes air every month, so be sure to subscribe today so you don’t miss an episode. And, last but not least, if you like this episode and want to learn more about all things home-based care, you can explore all of our episodes at aliacarecom slash homehealth360 or visit us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Episode Description
With 10,000 people turning 65 every day, it’s estimated that the home-based care industry will need a staggering 2.5 million additional care workers over the next five years. In this episode, Todd Houghton, Brand President of Homewatch CareGivers, shares his passion for franchising and discussed how his company is enabling franchisees to meet the ever-increasing demand for home-based care services by embracing the benefits of the franchise model and deploying innovative technology. Todd shares how the franchise model provides a strong position for franchisees to grow their businesses and accelerate their entrepreneurial journey and how his company has helped franchisees recruit and retain quality employees, including programs to provide training and education to develop non-traditional caregivers.
Todd also shares details about a new, technology-driven virtual care service line launched by his company that’s proven highly impactful for enriching client experience by reducing hospital visits, combating loneliness and isolation, enhancing connectivity, and delivering higher quality care all while enhancing caregiver efficiency. Check out this episode to see how franchising and technology can converge in the future to meet the continuous demand for quality home-based care.