Seniors Helping Seniors are looking for a few ordinary people with extraordinary hearts to help raise the expectations of ageing
Driving your own destiny while you’re in your prime is appealing and management skills are transferable skills.
People management, finance, budgeting, marketing and problem solving skills are honed in business-to consumer and business-to-business environments.
Take the time to consider what’s important to you. What do you most enjoy doing? How much are you willing to learn? What gets you jumping out of bed in the morning? Ultimately, how do you want to define yourself and be defined?
Assess all the skills you have and plough your energies and your expertise into your own business.
Being brave
The next big questions are about being brave enough to start your own business and having a great idea that’s strong enough.
If you feel more confident adapting proven ideas to your own tastes, you could find inspiration in franchises. Franchises are proven to be safer than starting new businesses. Statistically, 10 per cent of new business start-ups succeed in three years. 93 per cent of franchises succeed in the same time period.
There are thousands of franchise options. New businesses are uncharted, but you can search for successful franchises by investment, where you want to work, what you want to do and the network you see yourself in.
If you like an element of teamwork with your independence, choose a management franchise with a solid support network.
Choose a business you love and prepare for commitment and hard work. Meet the people involved and make sure the chemistry is right. Franchising is a partnership between franchisor and franchisee. Trust your gut feel.
After the first year, you can expect to have the salary you dreamt of earning well in your sights and a work-life balance you can control.
Ethical franchises
Franchising rules are easy to understand. You’ll replace yourself when you are ready, retaining an income from your work if you care to or selling your territory.
Some franchises are more profit motivated than others. Franchisors motivated by their own profits are identifiable. So talk to existing franchisees and ask how they feel about their franchisor one or two years into their experiences.
Ethical franchises are not greedy for profits for themselves. Ethical franchisors see their role as helping you grow as much as you want to and there are codes of conduct. Look for awards for growth and customer service as good indicators.
Ethics is core to Seniors Helping Seniors. The company’s manual contains 20 years’ best practice and proprietary processes for carers, customers and business owners.
The UK franchisors used it step by step to build in their own territory. They built an award winning care service in Kent and their UK franchisees are thoroughly supported to do the same.
Seniors Helping Seniors have no outside investors to answer to and they advise their franchisees to build solid foundations in their communities. They take time to support their franchisees with hands-on help. The element of having been through the experiences first hand is essential and the passion is contagious.
They are looking for a few ordinary people with extraordinary hearts to help raise the expectations of ageing in the UK, so Seniors Helping Seniors UK have kept the franchise fee low (£10,000) for potential franchisees with the right attitude. Operational costs are also low.
The care at home sector is exciting. One in six people alive today will live to be 100 years old and the age markers are changing rapidly.
The master license holders in the UK have been told by independent commentators that their care model takes friction out of the system. Less friction for clients to use the service and less friction for carers to care.
More than 300 Seniors Helping Seniors franchisees have left the corporate world to concentrate on doing something worthwhile with their management skills. In many cases, retirement didn’t appeal as much as the drive to ‘give back’ and help others. 95 per cent of the 300 franchisees are over 50 years of age.
Problem solver
Seniors Helping Seniors is a citizen led service that helps solve two big social problems: older workers’ employment opportunities and elderly care. The focus is well-being as opposed to nursing and it resonates well in a society that desperately needs to care for people in a community setting.
Offering fulfilling, flexible, local and well paid work on terms that appeal to older people with caring experience is the job of the Seniors Helping Seniors franchisee.
The reliable care option that doesn’t make people feel like patients wins awards for customer service. And the magic of matching people who have the experience and want to help people, with people who need a little help to live the lives they want, appeals to the manager come entrepreneur who knows there are no quick fixes in life.
The fully managed care service uses customer management skills, human resources skills and logistics. Local networking, local knowledge and marketing skills are all relevant.
Franchisees rarely possess all the skills they need when they step into the process, so new business owners are taken through everything in two initial training sessions. Support pertaining to their own skill set and exclusive territory is continual.
Managers looking for fulfilment, levels of profit and personal satisfaction are attracted to Seniors Helping Seniors because it’s purposeful. It ‘does good’.
So there’s a way to use management skills, an instinct to do good and to give back, while growing your own healthy future and helping your community.
