In this FDD Talk post, you’ll learn the following:
- Section I – Background information on the Senior Helpers franchise opportunity, including relevant news updates
- Section II – Estimated initial investment for a Senior Helpers franchise, based on Item 7 of the company’s 2021 FDD
- Section III – Initial franchise fee, royalty fee, marketing fee, and other fees for a Senior Helpers franchise, based on Items 5 and 6 of the company’s 2021 FDD
- Section IV – Number of franchised and company-owned Senior Helpers outlets at the start of the year and the end of the year for 2018, 2019, and 2020, based on Item 20 of the company’s 2021 FDD
- Section V – Presentation and analysis of Senior Helpers’ financial performance representations, based on Item 19 of the company’s 2021 FDD, including information on the:
- 2020 average, median, high, and low gross revenue for the 209 Senior Helpers franchised businesses that have been operating for 60 months or more as of December 31, 2020
- 2020 average, median, high, and low gross revenue for the 17 Senior Helpers franchised businesses that have been operating between 48 and 59 months as of December 31, 2020
- 2020 average, median, high, and low gross revenue for the 18 Senior Helpers franchised businesses that have been operating between 36 and 47 months as of December 31, 2020
- 2020 average, median, high, and low gross revenue for the 19 Senior Helpers franchised businesses that have been operating between 24 and 35 months as of December 31, 2020
- 2020 average, median, high, and low gross revenue for the 17 Senior Helpers franchised businesses that have been operating between 12 and 23 months as of December 31, 2020
Section I – Background Information
19 Things You Need to Know About the Senior Helpers Franchise
Earns 2021 Great Place to Work Certification for Third Consecutive Year
1. In late May 2021, Senior Helpers announced it has achieved the prestigious Great Place to Work certification for the third consecutive year. As the first and only national in-home care company to be awarded this distinction since earning the initial recognition in 2019, Senior Helpers’ rapidly growing business is continually dedicated to providing safe, quality, and compassionate care to older adults and their families. Since 2019, Senior Helpers has opened 48 new locations across the U.S. and has a strong pipeline of new openings for the remainder of 2021.
2. Peter Ross, CEO of Senior Helpers, said, “Year over year, our community of caregivers and team members builds upon our foundation and strengthens our values of inclusion, appreciation, respect and compassion. Having the Great Place to Work certification awarded to us for the third consecutive year underscores our commitment to creating a culture that fosters positive experiences. It’s rewarding to me and the rest of the executive team to know our team members and caregivers consistently report a positive experience with our company – something that hasn’t changed even as our business has expanded. After all, we firmly believe that happy employees provide the best care for deserving seniors.”
3. Senior Helpers was granted this prominent designation by Great Place to Work for the third year after undergoing a rigorous, data-driven evaluation which considers more than 60 elements of the team member experience derived from surveys and feedback from more than 12,000 employees, regardless of their role in the organization. The evaluation considers employee pride and camaraderie, as well as the company’s positive community impact.
4. The belief that each employee’s work makes a true difference for clients, and the recognition that the time and care team members put in everyday has special meaning is especially critical to the assessment process. The Great Place to Work Trust Index methodology includes an exacting survey taken by millions of employees in thousands of companies annually. It represents the gold standard in measuring culture and employee engagement.
5. According to Dr. Jacquelyn Kung of Great Place to Work’s senior care affiliate Activated Insights, “We applaud Senior Helpers for seeking certification and releasing its employees’ feedback. These ratings measure Senior Helpers’ capacity to earn its employees’ trust and create a great workplace for high performance.”
Home Care Companies Create New Revenue Streams by Helping Businesses Safely Reopen
6. In early August 2020, Home Health Care News reported that as shops, manufacturing plants, and warehouses began attempting to reopen following several months of temporary closures, many businesses have turned to traditionally consumer-facing home care providers for backup. To help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Senior Helpers, BrightStar Care, 24 Hour Home Care, and several other organizations have expanded their service lines to offer screening services for unexpected business partners.
7. It’s a revenue-diversification opportunity that wasn’t on the home care industry’s radar, but it’s one likely to stick around for a while, according to Senior Helpers CEO Peter Ross. “It’s a service that you and I would never have dreamed of months ago, but it’s come to fruition,” Ross told Home Health Care News. “I wouldn’t say our numbers are better than last year because of that, but certainly it has shown our flexibility and our ability to help the community.”
8. With a corporate headquarters in Maryland, Senior Helpers has more than 320 home care offices in its global franchise network, which covers parts of Canada and Australia in addition to the United States. Many of Senior Helpers’ franchise owners have struck contracts to do temperature checks and related COVID-19 screenings for local businesses, Ross said. To support them in that mission, the franchisor sent forehead thermometers to owners and created an electronic brochure to help with marketing.
9. Ross added, “We’ve noticed a bunch of opportunities across our system. We’ve been finding a lot of manufacturing plants, warehouses, different types of factories … weren’t taking the proper precautions to do what they needed to do.”
10. In 2019, home care agencies typically sourced the bulk of their revenue from hourly in-home care, followed by live-in care, geriatric care, and alert monitoring, according to the 2020 Home Care Benchmarking Study from market research and education firm Home Care Pulse. But many of the home care professionals who participated in the benchmarking study said they expect to generate revenue from new avenues brought on by health screenings tied to the public health emergency in 2020.
11. Another Home Care Pulse report highlighting the impact of the COVID-19 virus on home care had similar findings. “In our impact report that we [previously] released, a little over 50% of businesses said that their service lines were going to adapt and change based on learnings in the middle of the pandemic versus post pandemic,” Home Care Pulse COO Todd Austin told HHCN. “This is definitely one example – screening.”
12. Besides helping warehouses and manufacturing plants safely reopen, Austin said he’s also heard agencies are doing screenings at airports and various retail locations. Austin added, “Home care has had a little bit of B2B exposure through providing staffing and shipping to some facilities, but it’s never been a true B2B [industry]. And that’s what 2021 will likely bring. Home care agencies won’t just focus on B2C, but also more B2B service lines to where they can go out and network with other businesses.”
13. Per its screening contracts with non-health care businesses, Senior Helpers sends in rotating teams of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) or home health aides to cover different shifts of employees going into work. It typically does temperature checks, charging by the hour for those services. According to Ross, “The last thing you want to do in a factory is let an employee who’s got COVID in with another couple hundred other people, with all of them working a few feet apart. Look at what happened with all the different meatpacking plants in the country because of that issue.”
14. A July 2020 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 23 states had COVID-19 outbreaks in meat and poultry processing facilities, with 16,233 cases in 239 facilities. Those outbreaks included 86 COVID-19-related deaths.
15. Senior Helpers has also used its screening contracts as an organic way of touting its caregiving services, Ross said. “People say, ‘Oh, well, tell me more about Senior Helpers.’ They might need help in the home for their mother, their uncle, their grandfather,” he said. “From our perspective, it’s just a great investment in the community to keep people safe. And it certainly helps to drive the brand.”
16. That organic information campaign may also inspire some people to branch out into home care, perhaps even opening their own Senior Helpers franchise location one day, Ross said. It’s something that could factor into the strong growth the franchisor has seen lately. “We’ve been growing really well, to the tune of 25 to 30 new owners a year,” Ross said. “We’ve been bringing more people on at a higher pace during COVID.”
Company History
17. Senior Helpers was founded in 2001 by Peter Ross and his business partners in Timonium, Maryland. Ross wanted to provide services that would help seniors age in place, comfortably in their own homes. In 2004, Ross partnered with Tony Bonacuse to launch SH Franchising and the first franchised location opened the following year.
18. Over the next decade, Senior Helpers continued to grow around the United States and by 2016, there were 300 locations in operation. Later that year, Senior Helpers was acquired by private equity firm Altaris Capital for $125 million from Los Angeles-based private equity firm Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP), which had owned Senior Helpers since 2012. Today, there are Senior Helpers locations around the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500
19. Senior Helpers ranked No. 135 on Entrepreneur’s 2021 Franchise 500 list.
Section II – Estimated Costs
- Please click here for detailed estimates of Senior Helpers franchise costs, based on Item 7 of the company’s 2021 FDD.
Section III – Initial Franchise Fee, Royalty Fee, Marketing Fee, and Other Fees
- Please click here for detailed information on Senior Helpers’ initial franchise fee, royalty fee, marketing fee, and other fees, based on Items 5 and 6 of the company’s 2021 FDD.
Section IV – Number of Franchised and Company-Owned Outlets
Franchised
2018
- Outlets at the Start of the Year: 280
- Outlets at the End of the Year: 289
- Net Change: +9
2019
- Outlets at the Start of the Year: 289
- Outlets at the End of the Year: 299
- Net Change: +10
2020
- Outlets at the Start of the Year: 299
- Outlets at the End of the Year: 303
- Net Change: +4
Company-Owned
2018
- Outlets at the Start of the Year: 3
- Outlets at the End of the Year: 5
- Net Change: +2
2019
- Outlets at the Start of the Year: 5
- Outlets at the End of the Year: 4
- Net Change: -1
2020
- Outlets at the Start of the Year: 4
- Outlets at the End of the Year: 4
- Net Change: 0
Section V – Financial Performance Representations (Item 19, 2021 FDD) and Analysis
- Presented below are the gross revenue figures for some franchised Senior Helpers Home Care Businesses in 2020.
- The information below contains data for certain franchised Senior Helpers Home Care Businesses that have been operating for at least 12 months as of December 31, 2020. The information is organized into five categories:
- (a) franchised businesses that have been operating for 60 months or more as of December 31, 2020;
- (b) franchised businesses that have been operating between 48 and 59 months as of December 31, 2020;
- (c) franchised businesses that have been operating between 36 and 47 months as of December 31, 2020;
- (d) franchised businesses that have been operating between 24 and 35 months as of December 31, 2020; and
- (e) franchised businesses that have been operating between 12 and 23 months as of December 31, 2020.
- The results from some franchised Senior Helpers Home Care Businesses were not included in the table below; please see the notes that follow for an explanation.
Franchised Senior Helpers Home Care Businesses: 2020 Gross Revenue (Unaudited)
Franchised Businesses (Open 60+ Months)
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