Caring COO, Jeff Bevis, had a chance to chat with Doug Noll from the Listening with Leaders podcast. The discussion highlights what sets Caring Senior Service apart, the home care industry, and franchising. Watch or listen to the discussion or read the full transcript below.
Full Podcast Transcript
Doug Noll – 00:03
Jeff Bevis, thanks for joining Listening with Leaders. You are the chief operating officer of Caring Senior Service found at caringseniorservice.com. I think I got that right.
Jeff Bevis – 0:14
Yes.
Doug Noll – 0:15
Thank you so much for joining us. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this business of providing home care for seniors.
Jeff Bevis – 0:24
Absolutely Doug. I appreciate being with you today. I have been in this industry for 19 years, in the home care industry. I have been in franchising for 36 years. To me, the best of both worlds was when I went into the home care industry in 19 years ago to rebuild a brand. I had also been a caregiver to elderly grandparents, aunts and uncles previously, but really saw a great combination of taking my franchising experience, and then kind of a calling in a servant-leadership aspect of home care. And having the best of both worlds here for the last 19 years to rebuild home care brands, built a home care brand from scratch myself, and now at Caring Senior Service to really kind of leverage a great opportunity here as well.
Doug Noll – 01:25
Yeah, I mean, I read your bio on your website and I said, "Boy, this company is really lucky to have you."
Jeff Bevis – 01:34
I appreciate that.
Doug Noll – 01:36
I mean you have got such a deep and wide background in so many aspects of business. Tell us a little bit about, you said you’ve been in the franchising business for 36 years. I presume operating as a franchisor or working for a franchisor, or you’ve been a franchisee?
Jeff Bevis – 01:55
I have not been a franchisee. So it’s always been working for a franchisor or being a franchisor. I have actually led seven different companies in five different industries all in a franchise environment, car rental, truck rental, airport parking, employment staffing and home decorating services, in addition to home care.
Doug Noll – 02:20
What attracted you to the franchise business?
Jeff Bevis – 02:22
You know, I’ve really enjoyed working with entrepreneurs. and early on I was working with licensees, who are very much a franchisee too, and just really enjoyed helping them build their business, grow their business, give them advice, support, and the franchise world. As you may know, is all about giving that guidance and advisory and let them be in business for themselves not by themselves.
Doug Noll - 02:51
Right. Because the success of the franchisor is totally based on the success of the franchisee.
Jeff Bevis – 02:59
Yes, completely.
Doug Noll – 03:01
And if you don’t have success with franchisees, you’re out of business.
Jeff Bevis – 03:04
That’s right.
Doug Noll – 03:06
Interesting. What do you see, we were just talking a moment ago about the growth that you see in Caring Senior Service. I want to talk about that but let’s talk a little bit about what Caring Senior Service provides. It’s non-medical senior care. What kind of services are provided?
Jeff Bevis – 03:23
Yeah, so it is definitely non-medical in-home care so services like meal preparation, light housekeeping, transportation, errands, also personal care, bathing, feeding, grooming and incontinence care but again non-medical. So these are not nurses. They are caregivers or what are called personal care aids. Everything is provided by the hour so it’s caring for a senior or really anyone over 18 years of age, just oftentimes because of the market being so deep on the senior side it’s oftentimes an aging family member but we are caring for them in their homes, also within facilities so inside assisted living facilities with memory care units are all opportunities for us too.
Doug Noll – 04:16
Wow, and how many franchisees do you have?
Jeff Bevis – 04:18
We have 55 owners/markets in the US today in 18 states.
Doug Noll – 04:26
That covers a big portion of the country doesn’t it?
Jeff Bevis – 04:29
It does. We’re literally coast to coast. We’re in Florida. We’re in California, heavily in Texas but also across the Midwest and northeast too.
Doug Noll – 04:39
And, I commented before we started recording that I thought you were in a major growth industry right now. What’s going on with the opportunities in providing in-home care for seniors?
Jeff Bevis – 04:53
Yeah, it is truly exploding and has been growing rapidly Doug for decades. I mentioned that I’ve been in it 19 years, and we are probably not quite at the midpoint today. So we have at least another 2+ decades of pretty dramatic growth with aging baby boomers, aging demographics of the US. So, yeah, the demand for services it just keeps going higher and higher. Our biggest challenge quite honestly is labor, is having enough quality caregivers.
Doug Noll – 05:32
I was going to ask you. That’s is what strikes me as being a choke-point for this sort of thing, finding people who are willing to work doing this kind of work paying them a decent wage to attract them but mostly vetting them to make sure their qualified, and them training them, maintaining quality control. How do you manage all that?
Jeff Bevis – 05:49
Yeah, really it’s the training and retaining ends up being the biggest challenges. It is definitely something that I think sets the successful from the not so successful part in this industry, you know not unlike any industry too. So it’s the consistency, the execution of the process, the hiring, the on-boarding, the training, especially the training and education, kind of profession development. Most of our brands in this industry don’t invest in their caregivers the way they really should, and that ends up setting people apart and gives them a lower caregiver turnover rate and a higher caregiver retention rate.
Doug Noll – 06:34
Right, and how do you guys separate yourselves from everybody else?
Jeff Bevis – 06:40
Yeah, at Caring Senior Service we have a couple of major differentiators. One, we are a tablet-based technology platform, the only home care in the US that is tablet-based. What that means Doug is that we have a tablet in each client’s home. And not only does the caregiver clock in and clock out off that tablet, but that’s also where the family or the client can see caregiver notes, schedules, updates. Plus, it gives us kind of a look into the client’s environment and how we can try to help him or her ongoing like how to avoiding fall risks, education and training for the caregivers.
We have quite a few additional services we are going to be adding to the tablets, but that is a major differentiator in itself. It does give us also what we call our GreatCare methodology, which is a high focus on a higher level of care, higher level of quality, that really includes caregiver training and professional development like I mentioned before that is not, as much you would hope it is a constant in our industry, it’s not in place in every single brand.
Doug Noll – 07:56
Well, what gets you excited every morning to get up and go to work?
Jeff Bevis – 08:01
Well, I really enjoy growing organizations, growing teams, building teams. When I was a young kid I thought I wanted to be an architect, and I’ve thought about this since many times. But I kind of see myself as being an architect of companies and teams and brands now so that’s what gets me excited every day is to come in and how are we going to grow or build or perfect our model to serve more and more people.
Doug Noll – 08:36
Roughly how many employees do you have in the company Caring Senior Service?
Jeff Bevis – 08:42
Across the system we have about 1,900 employees on a daily basis.
Doug Noll – 08:50
This would be across the whole franchise system?
Jeff Bevis – 08:51
Yes.
Doug Noll – 08:53
And with 55 franchisors or franchisees so that’s a big operation.
Jeff Bevis – 08:59
It is, it is and probably if you want to make it even more daunting, (laughter) we really need to be adding close to another 1,000 caregivers this year alone just to keep up.
Doug Noll – 09:13
Wow. Where do you find people that are willing to do this work?
Jeff Bevis – 09:17
It’s certainly a diverse list of sources. We use job boards just like most other employers in the industry and outside the industry. But what we find more and more successful, Doug, is what I call grassroots recruiting, which is churches, CNA schools which are certified nursing assistant schools, community colleges. Those are really the sources where we end up getting more of our quality caregivers that we are looking for, that we need.
Doug Noll – 09:50
What draws people to do this kind of work? This is hard work. It can be hard work.
Jeff Bevis – 09:55
It can be, you’re right. It’s a great way to give back. You definitely make a difference in people’s lives in the community you serve so that’s what we look for and I think that’s what drives most people and in may cases they’ve been a family caregiver themselves so they want to try to help someone else or help other families.
Doug Noll – 10:18
Wow, I mean that is really neat. I’m glad there are people out there who are really willing to do the work because it is service to others.
Jeff Bevis – 10:25
Very, very true, and it kind of crosses generations as well. We see many, many retired teachers, retired nurses, almost like people who want a second or third career that are also staying in the work force or coming back into the work force as well as you have kids that are in college or nursing school and are looking for a part-time job and everybody in between.
Doug Noll – 10:49
Wow, interesting. What is it you think that is unique about you, that you bring to the table for Caring Senior Service?
Jeff Bevis - 11:00
Well I’ve always been a little bit different. So I’ll just make that statement right upfront. But I guess I have a different way of thinking, and you know, we are all very unique obviously. But my approach has always been to leverage individual talents and try to unify teams and unify organizations to serve and operate and really perform at a higher level. I have always been very service-oriented, very service-focused so my approach is probably tilted more heavily to how are we kind of in a block and tackling mode even though in a C-suite position I am still very much focused on how are we accomplishing the day-to-day, week-by-week and block and tackling fundamentals of the business — whether it is home care or any other business. That’s really going to provide the right experience or better experience putting in views of the consumer or the client.
Doug Noll – 12:09
Right. So let’s shift to listening. How important is listening in your work as a chief operating officer?
Jeff Bevis – 12:17
Oh my gosh, I think it’s paramount.
Doug Noll – 12:19
Tell me why.
Jeff Bevis – 12:21
Oh well, I think for a couple of reasons. One, it’s how we know what’s really happening, and I think some of this is probably age or maturity. If I can tell you 40 years ago when I started my business career I probably wasn’t a very good listener. In fact, I’m sure I wasn’t a very good listener. But I had my own ideas and I was probably a little more of a hard charger, not that I’m pretty aggressive and a maximizer now, but I do see and have learned over my career, Doug, the importance of listening and team building, collaboration, cohesion, and that hey I don’t have all the ideas, I don’t have all the solutions and, in fact I may not have most of them, but the power of the team around me and the people we all work with is usually much greater than the individual.
Doug Noll – 13:21
Right. So I am going to assume, I won’t assume. So how much mentoring do you do in your organization?
Jeff Bevis – 13:30
Constantly, constantly. I think any successful franchise system has mentoring rippling all through it whether it be franchisee-to-franchisee, franchisor-to-franchisee, that is an absolute bedrock piece of successful franchise.
Doug Noll – 13:51
And what are the kinds of skills that you are imparting to the people that you’re mentoring?
Jeff Bevis – 13:57
It’s a combination of what I would say hard skills and soft skills. So you know it is hard skills like business planning, projections, the financial side of the business, legal compliance types of things, HR, payroll. But then also on the soft side, it’s you know how to build relationships with clients or better relationships with clients, employees, coworkers, so both the soft and the hard skills actually all the time.
Doug Noll – 14:29
And you’re doing this system wide?
Jeff Bevis – 14:32
We are.
Doug Noll – 14:33
As well as within the actual company that you work for.
Jeff Bevis – 14:37
Yeah, so we have 17 employees here as the franchisor supporting all of three offices, so yeah, it’s kind of a dual level mentoring if you will.
Doug Noll – 14:49
Yeah that’s a pretty lean organization to be supporting 55 franchisees and 1,900 employees.
Jeff Bevis – 14:56
It is, it is. I would say not too far outside the range of normal franchising success. Because once we get to probably 75 or 80 units, then we’re kind of at a tipping point where you do start growing the franchisor team because you’ve got a growing network at that point. Yeah we’re lean right now but I think...
Doug Noll – 15:22
You see growth coming down the...
Jeff Bevis – 15:23
Oh yeah. Yeah, I think we’ll double in size the next three years.
Doug Noll – 15:28
How do you do that and manage and not lose touch with quality control and service standards?
Jeff Bevis – 15:37
That is the big question, the big challenge. So you’re trying to be very vigilant on culture, on communications, listening, the collaboration of mentoring, so even though you’re having 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 locations and 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 franchisees so that’s 50 different personalities now that you’re trying to help or work with. You got t stay true to your core.
Doug Noll – 16:11
Yeah, and well, rapid growth means that you gotta really stay true to your core and your values, Jeff, because otherwise you know people come in and they’re not assimilating the values of the company and things shift and can shift sideways really quickly.
Jeff Bevis – 16:27
Yeah that’s very true. Plus, you know, in a franchising world that oftentimes most often the franchisees are coming in, the new ones, because they see that core. They see that culture. They want to be part of that culture. So, to your point, if they come in and two or three years later they say, "Oh my gosh, this culture has changed," then you’ve got angst and you’ve got disagreement and that’s not going to help you grow.
Doug Noll – 16:50
No. No, you need to have everybody pretty much in walk-step all the way down the way. What kind of training do your franchisees go through?
Jeff Bevis – 17:00
Pretty extensive. We have 40 hours of virtual training that a new owner goes through and then five days of classroom training here in San Antonio. And then we go out into the market within the first 30- days of a new office opening and do additional training on-site. After that there are quarterly training conferences that owners can attend that we hold all across the country. Um and then we have quite an extensive learning management system for the owner’s staff to be able to go through extensive training on a continual basis too.
Doug Noll – 17:38
And as a typical franchisee how many other than the caregivers themselves, how many employees would a typical franchisee have?
Jeff Bevis – 17:45
Well the core office has three FTE (full-time equivalent) based start. Agency director, the care manager and a marketer or what we call a home care consultant. And then the average, every operation has right now between 40 and 50 caregivers. So it’s a 45 to 55 employee operation on average.
Doug Noll – 18:07
That’s a lot.
Jeff Bevis – 18:09
It is, and you can scale to where you have 100, 120, 140 caregivers. So yeah, it can become quite a large operation.
Doug Noll – 18:22
Yeah I’m just thinking, you know, I‘m a lawyer and just thinking of all the compliance stuff that comes along with that. And the issues of working in homes. That can get complicated fast.
Jeff Bevis – 18:33
It can, it can. There’s a core liability structure that we have in place for the franchise owner to take advantage of and obviously again it’s their own business independently owned and operated but as a franchisor we have got a really strong solid professional liability kind of package. We also have bonding so that to your point they’re not wide open to many risks.
Doug Noll – 19:02
And as long as they follow the rules that you set down and follow your practices they probably remain pretty clean.
Jeff Bevis – 19:08
Yeah, and you know just basic state labor laws, they’re in great shape. It’s really not a business that is high risk or high legal potential to it if it’s run right, to your point.
Doug Noll – 19:24
So what kind of messiness do you see?
Jeff Bevis – 19:29
Quite a bit.
Doug Noll – 19:32
Give me some examples of what kinds of problems.
Jeff Bevis – 19:35
Yeah, you know, I guess it’s kind of a double-edged sword because, if we do our job well and provide great care we, become like part of the family. So then that pulls us into family dynamics. And you and I were talking before we started about you know having aging parents that we care for, so if we insert ourselves as the caregiver and we’re really trying to serve the aging parent but also in many cases report to, if you will, or update to the adult child. Because more and more in our business today, the adult child actually controls the finances and controls the care. So we’ve got this kind of three-legged stool that we’re trying to manage so the messiness comes in play oftentimes because of those family dynamics. We’ll have siblings that don’t agree on how to take care of Mom or Dad. We’ll have a finite pool of money funds that are going toward Mom or Dad’s care. We have to be careful in what we recommend, how we care. So that’s where the messiness usually comes in to play.
Doug Noll – 20:45
Okay, I’m very familiar with that as a mediator. I have mediated an infinite number of care cases where the siblings, I’ll never forget one case. Nine siblings aged 35 to 55. They had aging parents in their 90s who were failing and got into a law suit over who was going to care for Mom and Dad. Unbelievable.
Jeff Bevis – 21:14
It’s interesting that you mentioned that. That is not unusual. Though nine siblings is probably a little bit higher than the average. But that scenario, Doug, is not unusual in our industry at all, and especially intensifies or can intensify as Mom or Dad’s condition deteriorates, right?
Doug Noll – 21:33
Because there are all kinds of psychological dynamics that are going on as Mom and Dad come to the end. They’ve always been the anchor for the family and the siblings have never built a relationship between themselves absent of the anchor of the parents and when the parents are failing now the siblings have to start reinstructing the relationships with each other.
Jeff Bevis – 21:55
Very true.
Doug Noll – 21:54
That either works or it doesn’t.
Jeff Bevis – 21:57
Yes, and then you also have the dynamic of the sibling now can be, maybe in a caregiver role, which is very different from being you know a son or a daughter. So that can add a twist to everything as well. So, yeah it’s again I would still say it’s very rewarding and we provide a great service, able to help families provide a great level of care in the community but because we become part of the family dynamic...
Doug Noll – 22:37
So how do you coach your people to navigate that sort of stuff?
Jeff Bevis – 22:41
Yes, there is extensive ongoing training. We’re always communicating with staff. And I say we, the franchise owner, is always communicating with the staff on how to manage through family dynamics, family communication. What I mentioned before about the tablet and having care notes is a big, big part of that because then that can be an objective third party, impartial view or data base that the siblings or an aunt or uncle can always access or always look at that’s not tainted or shaded by what one sibling thinks.
Doug Noll – 23:17
That’s what I like about your tablet system, Jeff, is that anybody can get the app and have access to the information about Mom or Dad or what’s going on. If they’re across the country they can see it and information is key on this stuff.
Jeff Bevis – 23:32
Exactly right, yeah.
Doug Noll – 23:34
That just by itself can probably avoid a lot of conflict.
Jeff Bevis – 23:37
It can. It can also from a technology standpoint help the family see more and more firsthand okay Mom or Dad is deteriorating or they do need this additional care so it kind of helps you plan in advance.
Doug Noll – 23:53
Wow, that’s amazing. What an interesting world you work in.
Jeff Bevis – 24:00
It really is a great, great business. Like I said in the beginning for me, Doug, it’s kind of the confluence of franchising and home care so I just love the industry and love being able to give back.
Doug Noll – 24:14
If people were interesting in becoming a franchisee, how would they go about doing that?
Jeff Bevis – 24:18
Absolutely. Our website at caringseniorservice.com would be the first place to go whether it be for services or a franchise. We do not require a health care background. Oftentimes people think don’t I have to be a nurse or something. Absolutely not for Caring Senior Service. We have franchisees from all walks of life, occupations in banking, sales, telecommunications, technology. If you have good organizational skills, good people skills as in management skills, good presentation skills, to me in what I have seen and found, those are the traits that really enable someone to be very successful.
Doug Noll – 25:01
And if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of income levels or revenue levels do franchisees typically earn?
Jeff Bevis – 25:10
The earnings are a little bit variable by their expense structure, but all franchises are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. We have what is called a franchise disclosure document that we all have to post on an annual basis. It has our initial working capital estimate so it can help answer your question too Doug. Our working capital estimate is $110,000 to $170,000. That’s the working capital requirement to get into this type of business with Caring Senior Service. The incomes can vary widely but can be very much in the mid to upper six-figure numbers. After multiple years in business the industry stats show a very strong gross margin and that margin ranges.
Doug Noll – 26:01
So, you get in for less than $100,000, and you know, if you work hard and do well you can push seven figures.
Jeff Bevis – 26:13
I’m not sure about seven figures but certainly the six-figure range, yes.
Doug Noll – 26:20
That’s a reasonable return on an investment so it’s a good business opportunity for people.
Jeff Bevis – 26:27
It really helps, as I mentioned. You’re helping your community, giving back, making a difference in people’s lives and what we’re finding now too is that it can be generational so we have more and more franchise owners that have been in 10, 15 to 20 years and now they’re passing the business to their daughter, their son, that’s a very appealing aspect of it too.
Doug Noll – 26:49
Absolutely. All right well this has been a great conversation. I have one more question for you before I let you go. What is one thing about yourself that we wouldn’t know about unless you revealed it to us?
Jeff Bevis – 27:01
Oh gosh. I played college basketball for a brief period of time. You can’t tell on a Zoom call but I’m fairly tall so yeah.
Doug Noll – 27:17
All right, well thank you. Jeff, this has been a really amazing conversation. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to meet with us.
Jeff Bevis – 27:25
Thanks for having me Doug. I really enjoyed speaking with you, thanks again.
Doug Noll – 27:28
You’re welcome.