Jeff Bevis, Caring COO, had the opportunity to dive into a discussion with Lance Graulich from the Eye on Franchising podcast. He shares what motivated him to join the home care industry and what it takes to become a successful home care franchise owner. Throughout the conversation, Jeff reflects on his achievements and provides listeners with priceless advice for those interested in seizing franchising opportunities.
Watch the interview or read the transcript below.
Full Podcast Transcript
Lance Graulich 00:02
Welcome to Eye on Franchising. Are you looking for business opportunities? Well, you are in the right place. We represent over 650 franchises and business opportunities. We will help you find your perfect franchise for free. We even have a free assessment on our website that will help us determine what the best businesses for you based on your investment level mindset, skill set, and life experiences. This is Eye on Franchising, where we share our vision for your franchise future. I'm your host, Lance Graulich. Each week we will speak to fascinating folks from the world of franchising, franchisors and founders, franchise funders, and franchisees. Are you looking to find your perfect franchise? Or perhaps you are an independent business owner looking to grow and scale your business by setting up a franchise? Either way, our team can help you Eye on Franchising, where you will learn the A to Zs of franchise. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another fabulous episode of Ion Franchising. I'm your host, Lance Graulich, and today it is, not often that I speak to a 37-year veteran. You heard that right. This is not, an audio issue. It is true. 37 years in the world of franchising. I'm going to welcome a gentleman that is now the chief Operating officer of Caring Senior Service. And this is Jeff Beavis. So welcome to the show, Mr. Jeff Bevis.
Jeff Bevis 01:38
Hey, Lance. Thanks for having me.
Lance Graulich 01:40
My pleasure. So, Jeff, we're going to go way deep. We're going to go way back. What did Jeff Bevis want to be when he grew up? Because clearly, all those years ago, you didn't want to get into franchising.
Jeff Bevis 01:54
Nobody even knew about it. Right. That's very true. Yeah. I think way back when, I thought I would be an architect, which is actually kind of cool because it has a twist back to I think eventually I became a builder of brands. A builder?
Lance Graulich 02:10
You are an architect?
Jeff Bevis 02:11
Yeah, I kind of, became at least partially one franchise architect.
Lance Graulich 02:17
And by the way, I don't want to do you a disservice. You have done an absolute ton in the world of franchising. So, as you tell your story, of course, you've ran all kinds of brands. So, you're not just, hey, I'm just working at one brand right now. You have an incredible history. So, I want to give you your do. So, make sure weave that into the story, obviously, because everybody wants to hear, how does this dynamo do so well in franchising?
Jeff Bevis 02:47
Okay, I will do it.
Lance Graulich 02:49
So go for it.
Jeff Bevis 02:51
So, I originally, was in transportation logistics out of college, and the old Rider Truck rental system. And one of the positions I had lands was as a dealer manager, working with many storage, gas stations, tool rental, entrepreneurs. Fell in love with it. Just absolutely loved working. That part of the business. Was recruited away to budget car and truck rental at the time. that was a franchise system. Was, one of three gentlemen recruited to start the budget truck rental business way back when. So the car rental side was already there, obviously. but kind of had a baptism by fire into the franchise world. Going to budget more, working with entrepreneurs, obviously just, really enjoy that. so over the years, I have done truck, rental and franchising. Also, car rental and franchising at Thrifty Car Rental airport, um, parking franchising, and that's a tough one. That was at Thrifty. Also, employment staffing, Express Personnel, Home Care, the first go round at Comfort Keepers to rebuild that brand. and then when we sold Comfort Keepers, I had a brief break based on non-compete and was president of a home decorating franchise called Interiors by Decorating Den. But really knew I wanted to come back into the home care world. To me, that's kind of the best of both worlds. I've been a caregiver five times my life. and then marry that with franchising. So my son and I started a brand from scratch called First Light Home Care.
Lance Graulich 04:41
I knew you did. First light. So, was First Light your first ownership participation?
Jeff Bevis 04:48
It was, yeah, I was kind of a fix it guy, if you will, for franchise brands up until that time, always enjoyed the challenge, whether it be a, ah, long standing brand like a Thrifty Car Rental that had been around for decades and decades or a newer brand. when I was at Express Personnel, they were only about 15 years old. and Comfort Keepers was literally four years old when I went there. Going from the founders to their first, um, private equity owned group. So, yes, went to First Light or started First Light in, early 2010. I always wanted to be in business with my son. We thought we'd really be franchisees, quite honestly. He worked at Thrifty when he was in high school washing cars. So, he got to see how ah, a, ah, franchise works. but we really wanted to work together and we're able to put together a great foundation with First Light. I love it.
Lance Graulich 05:52
So, Jeff, unfortunately, I'm quite familiar with home care with my mom, my dad, my uncle. But most people aren't familiar with home care. So why don't you share with us what home care is and also your inspiration for starting First Life?
Jeff Bevis 06:08
Sure. Well, home care, first of all, is specifically non-medical services. So, we all think of home health, which is a nurse in the home, and it's been around for decades and decades. Home care, non-medical home care is caregivers personal, care aides, home health aides. They're called different things in different states that are providing, just as it said, non-medical care in someone's home. Also, could be in facilities, assisted living facilities, independent living facilities, or memory care. As well. And again, most people think of home care as being home health. The reality is there really is a separation. There's a couple of interesting statistics within the industry of surveys that have been done in the last seven, eight years of the general population that only 10% of the general population even knows home care exists.
Lance Graulich 07:04
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Jeff Bevis 07:06
Yeah. Even though we have so many experiences and so many friends, neighbors, family who have gone through that home care challenge, most people don't think of really the home care need now. As an industry, we are just exploding. And having been in industry now for 20 years, we're not quite to the midpoint. We have about another 30 years ahead of us as an industry. And those of us have been in the home care industry know that it has been crazy for 20 years based on just growth, baby boomers, aging, demographics have all been wins at our backs. That's only going to intensify in the next 25 to 30 years too. So, this business is not a business where you have to be a nurse or a doctor or have healthcare background. In fact, it's almost the exact opposite. Got it.
Lance Graulich 08:01
So let's talk about from first light. You exited that and then what?
Jeff Bevis 08:06
From, first light, exited in late 2020, had a period of not compete and have done consulting, but then also have known Jeff Salter and Ian Clay here, Caring Senior Service industry for years and years. Reached out to them and to see if they could use a little added help. And, so I came in, did some consulting here for a brief period, and now have been the COO for the last year and a half. Love it.
Lance Graulich 08:32
They probably said, are you kidding me? Come on in here. You sometimes probably felt like you created an industry, being in it as long as you have been.
Jeff Bevis 08:42
It has been something that, I do feel like I know it very well. I don't think I have all the answers, but you have had tremendous success now with three brands. And, I just really feel like the industry has still the upside, still needs a higher level of care, higher level of service. Wonderful.
Lance Graulich 09:01
So, Caring Senior Service, tell us what that brand is all about, what the secret sauce is. You can reveal it here.
Jeff Bevis 09:09
It's okay.
Lance Graulich 09:10
Your secret is safe with me. What is all the good stuff going on there? Why does somebody want to be a franchisee there? Go.
Jeff Bevis 09:19
Okay, so Caring Senior Service is non-medical and home care. We've been in business for 31 years, franchising for 20 years. And I think in many respects, lands we're the best kept secret in the industry our differentiation is our technology platform, our great care method of doing business, which is literally a higher level of quality, higher level of, service. We have 55 offices in 17 states today. Over 600 territories available across the US. And like I said, just best kept secret. When I was at first light, my son and I thought we were the first home care brand to be tablet based. In 2018, we put 200 iPads out to the field, and we were becoming tablet based. Heck, Jeff was doing it here in 2016. So we are tablet based here. We have our own proprietary staffing scheduling software called Tendio that is light years ahead of everything else in the industry. So, we like to think of it as we're high touch, high tech. So, we're very, again, high touch on the quality side, the service side. This is very much a people business, as you might expect. We're dealing with seniors and clients and families every day. So, u it's not something that we can automate or turn with AI, or robotics, or chat GPT.
Lance Graulich 10:45
You're not getting replaced by Amazon anytime soon.
Jeff Bevis 10:48
No, we are not. So, we have great opportunity here, and I'm just excited to be at Carrie.
Lance Graulich 10:55
Love it. So, investment, how much is it? What is that investment to get involved in your brand?
Jeff Bevis 11:03
Our item seven Lance is $110 to $170,000. Our initial franchise fee today is $49,000. we have a 5% royalty, 2% ad fee. It is not an expensive challenge to get in business with caring. We have several other services that we provide, I think that even make it easier versus competition. But it's really a business that's designed for a very moderate, initial working capital range.
Lance Graulich 11:34
Are most of the franchisees or the prospects coming to you, doing a loan, an SBA loan, or are they just using hard earned cash?
Jeff Bevis 11:45
Yeah, most are using hard earned cash or their own liquidity. We are SBA approved. We do have folks that do take the SBA route, but again, it's not usually a big number if they are pursuing an outside loan. Got it.
Lance Graulich 12:01
So, if you're going to look at the top 10% of your franchisees, your best franchisees today, where do they come from? What do they look like?
Jeff Bevis 12:11
How old are they? Yeah, that's always one of the intriguing aspects, I think, of any franchise system, isn't it? Because in our case, we have people from all walks of life, teachers, bankers. It, engineering.
Lance Graulich 12:27
It's probably a lawyer in the group.
Jeff Bevis 12:30
I think there's actually a retired lawyer in the group.
Lance Graulich 12:33
Yes.
Jeff Bevis 12:34
But it's just amazing how in our business, if you have good operational skills, good organizational skills, good communication skills, you can be very successful. Not unlike a lot of other franchise brands. But this is not against something that takes a highly specialized background. Yeah.
Lance Graulich 12:52
So what is that secret to success? If you're looking at those, again, in my example, the top 10% of best franchisees. Ah, now and in your past life as well, what are those secret ingredients to success in a franchise.
Jeff Bevis 13:07
Yeah. it's probably not that mysterious at the end of the day, but it's basically following the system, using the tools, and working at it and making it work for you effectively. There are certainly franchise brands out there, lands that are absentee ownership, and you can have somebody else that's operating the business for you day to day. Most of the successful ones that I'm aware of, borrowing a QSR or a food type of brand, it takes an active ownership role to really make it successful.
Lance Graulich 13:41
Yeah, well, and then there's a special skill, and I know this from being a franchisee, is to work successfully and collaboratively with a team. And most people, if you've never been your own boss, it's tough to create a team and work through a team and keep your day job. So that's a big, skill in and of itself.
Jeff Bevis 14:03
Sure. Especially if you want to scale and have multiple markets, multiple offices, in the home care world, you absolutely need to build a strong team. No one can be in two places at one time. Right. So, you've got to make sure you've got that great team of people in each market that are going to be able to follow the system, execute the model, u and do it consistently every day.
Lance Graulich 14:24
Yeah, but to your earlier point, I totally agree, Jeff, in that if you're going to be the full time owner operator, like your concept desires and requires, even if you have no experience in the industry, like probably the large majority of your franchisees, you could be successful following the system and working hard, being there.
Jeff Bevis 14:44
Yes. Just using the strengths or the talents that you have that you pulled from corporate America or, whatever background you've come from. But then, putting those tools and experience to work with the franchise. Yeah.
Lance Graulich 14:59
My favorite expression. Your skills, whatever they are from your past life, are transferable to a franchise.
Jeff Bevis 15:06
Oh, yes, that's very true. I would agree.
Lance Graulich 15:09
So, let's talk about, uh, launching this thing. Well, let's talk about process. So, myself as a franchise broker, or I bring you a candidate, what is that process like for you? They might find you on the Internet. Obviously, I call the first phone call with the brand, the coffee date. But you can take it. Do that in your own words and go through the whole process, please.
Jeff Bevis 15:32
Sure. Yeah. And it is kind of a coffee date. First, we like to talk with the candidate. Just understand asking just a couple of questions and let them share more with us. And we try to listen very well. Tell us more about their background, what they're looking for, aspirations. Timing is always important. They're going to have family partners. Who's going to be involved in that whole decision-making process. As you know, that's important. On the franchise development side, I want to make sure we have the right players involved right from the start.
But our process itself is a nine-step process that's from first contact to actually opening the franchise, we are going to get to know them very well over a series of calls. We do have a qualification application. We have a couple of little, short decks to take them through the Caring Senior Service model, so they understand what our requirements are and really what our secret sauce and our points of differentiation are and how that really helps them within the total industry. We do give them quite a bit of industry knowledge and learning because we think that's very important too there's a pro forma template that's built into the process so that they can do their own pro forma. We do industry benchmarking studies that we provide to them, so they have the industry data to also reference to. We map the territory with them together using a mapping software.
Our territories are all 250,270, 5000 total population. One of our differentiating points too, is we use five different kinds of tiers levels of demographic data to really dig into things like not just average household income, but average age, by zip code and also type of disability by zip code because those are all potential clients for us. So, we do a very detailed dive into the territory mapping, come up with a territory that they feel comfortable with, and then ultimately have a meet the team day where they come and meet us here in San Antonio and become comfortable with the team. I think, as you would agree, it shouldn't be a surprise day. It should be just confirming what we've already learned over the series of the process. But then take them through five days of virtual training, five days of classroom training, then we go on site to help them open. Love it.
Lance Graulich 18:00
Sounds logical. And you help them open. So, let's go right into marketing. Or should we talk about training? Let's do marketing first.
Jeff Bevis 18:08
Okay, so marketing is something in our business where we're really kind of B2B. And what I mean by that is we're marketing to referral sources that we have web presence and digital campaigns to seniors, or what we call the adult child, who's more and more the decision maker for our type of service. But the marketing day to day lands takes place with referral sources. So, hospitals, elder, law, attorneys, both medical and non-medical healthcare, non-healthcare referral sources to just build relationships in your local market. And that's who refers clients to us. So that marketing. To me, it's kind of two wheels that turn all the time. The marketing wheel never stops and then the recruiting wheel never stops.
Lance Graulich 18:55
Yeah, it seems like obviously it's a very personal type of business. And when this starts to happen to a family and there's a need you're going to ask everybody you know, or you're the people that obviously you trust when my mom first was going downhill, we're like, I'm in the business. So, I took it upon myself to call a couple of my favorite franchises like you to say, "hey, guys, need a little help over here."
Jeff Bevis 19:25
Good.
Lance Graulich 19:26
Let's talk a little bit about training. So, what is the training? Considering that most, if not all, franchisees have never done anything like this, what does the training entail? How much is done in their market versus in your market? Let's say San Antonio. They come to training in San Antonio, right?
Jeff Bevis 19:46
Right.
Lance Graulich 19:48
Go through that, please.
Jeff Bevis 19:49
Sure. Yeah. They go through the five days of virtual training with us as kind of a lead up. But part of that virtual training involves some projects for them to do, local market surveys. this business, as you said, is very personal business, but we focus on having them call and email so separately communicate with at least six different competitors in their market. Because we want them to not only hear a price or hear how the services are priced, but also hear how do they answer the phone, how well do they respond, how quick do they respond? As you mentioned, too, in your example with your mom, oftentimes when we have inquiries, it's a life urgent type of, request.
Lance Graulich 20:36
Can you start today?
Jeff Bevis 20:37
Yeah. It's not like, hey, could you have a caregiver for me to start in a month? So, we want to be very sensitive to that type of phone handling and kind of how we manage the inquiry. So, we tilt our training to that very heavily. Then when they come into San Antonio for five days of classroom training, that's a lot of role plays, group activities, and kind of practicing the marketing, the recruiting, the operations, the team building, as well as the financial management of the business.
Lance Graulich 21:08
So how do people know, like, the day to day of this? I had a gentleman not too long ago. I can't wrap my head around it. where do I get the customers from? And I kept telling him, I said, don't worry about the customers. As you said earlier, Jeff, there's an enormous need for this service.
Jeff Bevis 21:31
Yes.
Lance Graulich 21:31
What I tell people in home care and you're the expert, it's really you as the franchisee, working with all the caretakers to make sure they're taking care of your customers. I mean, what are we, in the middle of the silver tsunami? I think they call it everybody. Every day, another 10,000 people are turning 65.
Jeff Bevis 21:53
Yeah, it's up to 12,000 now, by the way.
Lance Graulich 21:55
12,000? Oh, my gosh. So, I mean, thank goodness people are living longer. They need, longer term care. So, what is it like in the day to day? Because, as you know, when people folks listening right now, they don't know. Some people immediately feel good when they hear about home care, and they start to understand it.
Jeff Bevis 22:16
And then other people are like, I.
Lance Graulich 22:19
Don’t know, that doesn't sound like something I want to do. So how do you walk people through that? How do you know?
Jeff Bevis 22:27
Yeah, it's definitely a combination of a couple of things. So, you're definitely building a team right from the start. In our case of caring, we have a three FTE, base. So, you have a home care consultant, which is the outside marketer. You have a care manager who's the inside recruiting HR operations person, if you will. You have an agency director. So, kind of that general manager oversight. So right from the start, you're building a team of not only, your staff management in those three roles, and oftentimes the owner is in one of those roles, depending on his or her background.
But then you're definitely recruiting that other wheel that I mentioned, the recruiting wheel. And you're recruiting both from, we consider grassroots sources, local sources, almost like a marketing approach where you're calling on local community colleges of nursing schools and churches to recruit people to become caregivers with you. The industry is very heavily skewed lands to part-timers. So, most of our caregivers are part timers. And we want as much variability there as possible because we're going to have client requests for just care in the morning, just care in the afternoon, just care at night, just care overnight, maybe even 24/7. So that day in the life is very much keeping those two wheels turning.
But I would say, especially in the early going, it's that focus on people and the interviewing process, hiring, training, and then retaining a growing caregiver base. Because to your point, we do not have a lack of lack of demand. If our marketing efforts are in the field every day and building those relationships, the referrals come in. The worst thing can happen is not to have caregivers enough caregivers in place to fill and meet the referral need.
Lance Graulich 24:17
Yeah, there's just an incredible demand. absolutely. For sure. So, let's talk about your item, 19. The FDD, a lot of people, for those listening, if you've never investigated and looked at a franchise, the franchise disclosure document is the first stack of paperwork, so to speak, that you'll receive from a brand when you're investigating. And the item number 19 of 23 items is my favorite. It's most people's favorite because they want to understand, show me the money. How much money can I make? What is the potential? And look, the goal is everybody wants to build a million-dollar business, and you can do that with home care. So, what is your item 19? What are just some of the highlights? They'll get it when they want to investigate.
Jeff Bevis 25:04
Sure. Our item 19, and again, something I agree with you, Lance, I don't shy away from item 19 at all. I think that's kind of a point of entry. You better make sure any franchise that you're talking to has an item 19. If they don't not ah, into the world, but that's probably more of a potential red flag. Our item 19 is based on all of our offices, on total revenues, gross revenues, top line. We take candidates through a couple of different cuts based on years in business, so they can see a progression and what the average, median and high, ranges are, based on office and based on the number of years that they are in business. As you mentioned, home care can very much be a million dollar, $2 million, $5 million. I see them as big as nine and $10 million in annual revenue, just because, again, the increasing demand overall hours per week of care, by the way, is kind of our metric in the industry. So even with our price per hour going higher and higher lately, 1000 hours per week that you're providing care, is typically about a million to million, one in top on revenue, annual.
Lance Graulich 26:17
Got it. That's a pretty, fascinating metric. I'm doing math here, but no, look, as you know, a lot of people, they come to me and they're like, where's my best bang for my buck? Where's my best ROI? I don't know. Should I do a restaurant? And I look at them, I go, restaurants can be fantastic if you have restaurant experience. But it's the biggest learning curve. You're dealing with perishable goods and supply chain, difficult, unskilled employees that maybe can get a job anywhere. So maybe that's not the business for you. So, you look at home care and you go, look, it's a low cost, about 150 grand. You're in business, including some working capital, franchise fee paid. Then leverage your money, put some money down, get an SBA loan.
Jeff Bevis 27:07
And look, I mean, it doesn't take.
Lance Graulich 27:09
That long to ramp up, right?
Jeff Bevis 27:11
Right.
Lance Graulich 27:12
Tell me about your smartest, best owners as they ramp up in the first year and they tell everybody they know.
Jeff Bevis 27:19
All of a sudden, they have an amazing cash flowing business.
Lance Graulich 27:21
What does it really take to ramp up in this business?.
Jeff Bevis 27:25
Up in this business? Yeah, it is definitely not something that takes years and years. Typical home care business, typical caring senior service business. We're ramping up in seven, eight, nine months from, a, cash flow break even positive standpoint, some even shorter than that. Our current rookie of the Year was a little bit north of 900 hours per week in the first twelve months. that's a very solid return in your first twelve months in your first year in business.
Lance Graulich 27:57
So more or less because of the number you already gave us, he was pretty close to a million dollars in his first year.
Jeff Bevis 28:04
Yeah, it can be done. Not unusual. And then out, uh, years, 2345 years out, the growth of the industry average is about 8% right now, of the industry. And we think that's pretty low. We're just under 15% right now as a system, first four months, and we think 2020 5% is very realistic. Wow.
Lance Graulich 28:28
Fantastic. So, Jeff, a lot of people listening, maybe they've never investigated a franchise. Some people come to me and like, Lance, how do I, can't I just create my own concept? You've done both. You've created your own concepts. You've been in the franchise world. Give some advice to folks listening. Why would you do a franchise versus starting your own? Give me the good, the bad, and the ugly. That was years of experience.
Jeff Bevis 28:59
Sure. Okay. Well, I think, first of all, people need to be true to themselves and make sure they're clear or determined what they do best and what experiences they can draw on the best. Whether they've been in healthcare or banking or tech or any occupation, those all draw experiences. I think they want to make sure they determine what those experiences are. 1st, 2nd, have a clear understanding of what type of business they want to get in. Now, you and I both know as a franchise consultant, business broker, that's a great role. They can give great guidance to candidates. I think we as franchisors can do some of that too. If we're doing our jobs right, we're helping them walk through kind of a self-awareness, self-discovery to really see, hey, what type of business do you want to be in? What do you want your average typical day to look like?
So, to what you're saying before, if a restaurant environment is where they came from and that's what they thrive in, then maybe that's what they should actually pursue. But most of us, I think, coming out of a corporate world with sales and marketing or management background in some way, shape, or form could really be very conducive to the home care space. And then it's just a matter of narrowing down and understanding.
I think this may be the most important point if I could make this, Lance, is for candidates to understand that all brands are not equal. There is wide disparity between brands in the same sector, same industry, and then certainly in between different industries. But to look at home care, boy, we've got 45, 50 franchise brands in a growing space, but there's a unique difference to every single one. Make sure you look under the hood. Make sure you really check those out. Make sure you see what the differences are.
Lance Graulich 30:57
Without throwing any other brands under the bus. What are those top few things that you see out there that people should check for? I mean, obviously you look at the franchise disclosure document. That's my favorite thing. Step one. And then the last part, besides feeling good as you go through each step with the brand that you feel like you belong. The most valuable, I always think, is talking to existing franchisees and getting that true sort of barometer or validation.
Jeff Bevis 31:29
What do you mean? Yeah, I think. That's definitely where you want to start. Um, you got to make sure that you have, uh, an open book. I think if any franchise or says, hey, here's the three owners I want you to talk to, that's not validation. We want to be able to talk to any owner right at any time through this process, whether they've been there six months or six years or 16 years. That's very important. I think you also want to make sure that you're asking and, digging into things like support things like franchisee satisfaction. I'm a big believer in the outside companies that do the franchise satisfaction surveys. I think franchisors that really excel have a deep commitment to doing those surveys every single year. And they should show you the data, the survey responses, whether they were ranked number one in their category or number 200. You want to make sure you dig into that. Because if a brand is not focused on the franchisee satisfaction, that's a gaping hole too. Love it.
Lance Graulich 32:38
Jeff, you've shared a lot of information. What do we miss? Let's hear your final thoughts, final words of wisdom from the guy that's been doing this a really long time.
Jeff Bevis 32:50
Well, I would say franchisee is not for everybody. To one of the quick references, you made earlier. Lance, you could be in business for yourself as an independent, a mom and pop in any industry, and potentially do very well. We all know the statistics, the history, the numbers show a franchise business is far, far more likely to be successful than doing it on your own. But I think that's a point of separation right from the start. Understand, if you are looking to follow a system, follow a model, have a much better chance of success. Franchising is a great way to go. We know we have franchises in almost every industry that the world knows today. But it can be a tremendous industry, a tremendous opportunity for, personal wealth, generational wealth, and just can't speak high enough of franchise sizing overall.
Lance Graulich 33:47
Well, Jeff, thank you for sharing all of your experience and knowledge today. And it's been a pleasure.
Jeff Bevis 33:53
I appreciate it. Thanks for allowing me to be with you, Lance.
Lance Graulich 33:58
My pleasure.
Jeff Bevis 33:59
Take care.