What is a senior home care business?
How to start your own senior home care business?
Choose the services you’re going to offer and the flexibility of your staff: for example, some staff may be required to perform services from as little as half an hour to an hour at a given client’s home per day while others may be required to perform live-in care and actually live in the client’s home while helping to take care of their needs. You need to factor this in when deciding what type of services and at what frequencies your business will be offering.
Choose your business structure: this is a crucial aspect of getting your business off the ground because the legal structure will ultimately dictate your responsibilities and obligations. For example, if you were buying a care home business – you may choose from either a franchise or an independent operation. Franchising comes with a whole host of opportunities and benefits, whereas buying an independent operation or starting from scratch can not only be costly but quite difficult to build up on your own.
Create a business plan: a business plan is a document that is specific to your unique business needs and objectives. It will start out with an executive summary to give potential investors an idea of your business at a glance. It will then discuss your business objectives, financial projections, staffing and recruitment needs, marketing and advertising plans and budgets, etc.
Get insurance: insurance is critical because, as with any business, mishaps could occur and things may go awry and you don’t want to be held responsible for this. This is why opting for a wide scope of insurance types to cover all your business needs is vital. It’s a great way of keeping your business out of any legal suits that can end up being costly and could damage your business’ reputation.
Draft formal policies and procedures: your formal policies and procedures need to cover the following aspects: new client admissions, plans of care, scheduling, employee and payroll records, hiring practices, orientation, training, client billing, as well as client rights and responsibilities.
Set your rates: as a good rule of thumb, it’s advisable to add between 30% and 35% on top of the wages you’re planning to pay yourself so that you have room for growth. Setting your rates may seem like a difficult process because it will entail doing a competitor analysis, studying your fixed and variable expenses, etc. but if you were to work with a franchise partner, these rates are all worked out for you and you don’t need to get the calculator out to start doing manual calculations of all anticipated income and projected expenses to see you to the break even or profit line.
Market and advertise: once again, this is essential for any business that is trying to create a reputation for itself. While a reputation may take years to build if you’re starting from scratch, with a franchise partner, you already have an established brand to work with. What’s more is that a franchise partner can usually help you with your website needs and provide you with marketing materials to ensure you get out there and start offering services as soon as possible without having to look for clients.
Provide excellent customer service: when you’ve taken care of all of the above, it’s time to dig in and get started with providing the customer service you’ve chosen. A care business for sale is an ongoing initiative and you will want each and every customer to be happy with your carers and the service that they provide. To ensure you are on the right track, consider regularly calling your clients to see what is working and what could be improved upon and take their suggestions to heart. It’s also wise to keep in regular contact with your carers and see where there are gaps in the service that you could improve upon.
