Creating a successful business plan for your home care agency
Your domiciliary care business plan should be flawless when you submit it. And you need to make sure that you’ve covered all your bases so that you stand a better chance of having your loan request approved. With this in mind, consider these criteria of a solid business plan and what each one entails.
1: Executive summary: As the name implies, an executive summary is a summary or overview of your entire business. It will factor in the business name, legal structure, operational and systemic flows, financial projections, marketing plans, organisational structure, management, market research and more. Remember that you’re providing a snapshot of your business and this should be no longer than a single page. You should therefore be as concise as possible, covering the most important elements that will be discussed in more detail in the actual business plan itself.
2: Company description: With the executive summary out of the way, you’re ready to get down to the nitty gritty. The second most important part of your business plan is to write a detailed company description. This should contain the vision you have for your business. Where do you see it over the short, medium and long term? In addition, you need to add your mission statement, too. This refers to what your business’ overall objectives are. What do you want to achieve with your business? Another crucial element to add here is a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. This means that you need to carefully consider each aspect above as it relates to your business. For threats and weaknesses, focus on how you will mitigate these. For strengths and opportunities, think about how you plan on expanding and exploiting these to your business’ advantage.
3: Industry analysis and market research: Every business operates within a particular industry. Your home care business is no different. You therefore need to begin by studying the industry as a whole. What do recent reports indicate about its overall value? What are the strengths of being in this sector? What type of market are you going to cater to and why have you chosen this market in particular? What solid data substantiates your reasoning? Once you’ve done this, you’ll also need to do market research, which is research about your target market. This will entail looking at demographic profiling for the area you’ve chosen to operate in. It is also highly recommended that you create an ideal customer profile or avatar to ensure that you know exactly who you are catering to and so that you can tailor your marketing to these fictional clients.
4: Management and structure of your organisation: Starting a home healthcare business will necessarily involve employing staff. However, there are certain legal requirements you need to be compliant with. For example, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) requires a Registered Manager to run the operations. Even if you are not qualified to take on this role, you will be responsible for appointing such a suitably qualified individual. You also need to hire carers that will perform the service, administrative and support staff and add yourself to the organisational hierarchy as its acting leader or head.
5: Service description: You will also need to be very specific about the types of services that you will be offering. You can have a broader portfolio of services or work within a narrow niche. Either way, these need to be clearly set out in addition to what your prices for each service will be. For example, some service providers offer a broad range of services including after-injury, palliative, post-operative, Alzheimer’s, dementia, live-in/24-hour care and others. Be specific about each service you will offer.
8: Financial forecasting: You’ll spend quite a bit of time at this stage of your business plan and it’s probably best to sit with a person who has sound financial knowledge. Important aspects to consider are your financial projections over the short, medium and long term, when you expect to break even, how soon you expect to reach profitability and what sort of profitability levels can be achieved. You’ll also need to think about your expenses. These will include furniture and movables, equipment, uniforms, marketing budget, salaries and payroll, insurance (both for general liability and cybersecurity), and any other expense you will encounter along the way. All this while factoring in how these expenses will be mitigated against your anticipated income.
9: Appendix: The final section in your business plan is your appendix. This is where you will attach all supporting documentation to support your plan.
Do you want to start a home health agency?
Care franchises in the UK offer a broad range of opportunities for growth. And in order for your franchise business to be successful from the outset, you need to create your business plan to ensure you can approach a lender with confidence.
While the research process may take time, you can always seek the assistance of your franchisor to see where they can help you out in creating and refining the business plan. Once it’s prepared, you’re one step closer to achieving your dream
