Home care provider Home Halo is officially entering the franchise space, opening the door to expansion with a long-term goal of adding 20 to 30 new locations annually.
The Greenwood Village, Colorado-based company currently has one franchisee operating multiple territories in the Boston area, which have been active since September. The company used that initial rollout to refine its operating model before bringing on additional franchisees.
“We want to set our franchisees up for success, and part of that is ensuring that all of our operational practices are in place, not only for our corporate locations, but then being able to implement those in franchise locations,” Dan Deak, founder and CEO of Home Halo, told Home Health Care News. “We purposely took some time once we signed that first franchisee, just to get them up and running, to make sure that they had a good, solid foundation under them, and that they continue to grow their business. We didn’t want to open up the doors and launch 10 franchises simultaneously. … We want to have a systematic approach towards building our franchise.”
Home Halo is a non-medical home care company that offers respite and dementia care in eight states, with seven corporate-owned locations.
The company’s first franchisee is a “well-capitalized group” that Deak met at a franchising conference, who are “looking to make a big splash in the home care space.” The franchisee purchased the rights to 12 territories in eastern Massachusetts and other states.
The shift into franchising allows Home Halo to rapidly expand nationally and increase its name presence, Deak said.
“There are some really big players in the home care space that have been around for 25 or 30 years,” he said. “For us to compete on a national level, it’s important that we have a presence throughout the country. So franchising is a way for us to quickly expand the Home Halo franchise model quickly throughout the U.S.”
On a personal level, Deak was excited to get into the franchise space because of his love of coaching people looking to build their business – creating a synergistic relationship, he said. Home Halo has developed a launch process that includes 160 steps, including help with steps like setting up the business entity, as well as ongoing support after business launch. Deak created the plan for his corporate-owned offices and is now applying that exact checklist to the franchise model, he said.
Goals for growth
Deak aims to open 10 to 15 franchise locations in the next 12 months. After that year, he plans to grow by 20 to 30 locations each year in the years following, a pace he said is sustainable for the home care industry. Deak is focusing on finding the right franchisees, rather than growing Home Halo in specific geographies, with potential franchisees enjoying a significant amount of white space.
“The demand is huge in every single state, so the right person can be successful in any of those markets,” Deak said. “The great thing about us is that we have a lot of white space throughout the United States. We have a ton of prime territories that are available. [Our] competitors that have been around for 25 or 30 years, they really don’t have much left to sell. They have territories that have failed and they’ve bought them back. Or they’re selling territories that other people didn’t want. We have the best of the best territories available for people that want to make a difference in their communities.”
In addition to growing its franchise footprint, Home Halo is “cautiously approaching” expanding its reimbursement portfolio. The provider currently accepts private pay, veterans assistance (VA) and long-term care insurance, but is considering expanding into the Medicaid space. While Medicaid rates vary by state, accepting Medicaid makes sense in some markets, Deak said.
The company is currently working to build brand awareness among potential franchisees, “putting a lot of money and resources” towards its marketing strategy. Specifically, the company is working to build its social media presence and be discoverable through both search engine optimization (SEO) and AI.