Franchise Interview – Mr. Jeff Flood, Founder and CEO, Mercy Works Senior Care Franchise

Mercy Works Senior Care was founded in response to the rapidly growing need for compassionate care in the senior community. I had two grandparents who were in need of care prior to our founding. They hired help from two well known brands in the industry and the experience was extremely poor. My grandmother, who had dementia, had 10 difference caregivers during her first two weeks of service. The lack of continuity only compounded an already difficult situation. My other grandmother had four different shifts no show her for service during her first month with this company. After witnessing the struggles my grandparents faced finding quality care, I just felt the calling to get into this industry and build a business focused on consistency with scheduling and extraordinary care.

The home care industry was primed to boom based on the population curve in the United States. This “boom” was expedited by the COVID situation and we are seeing incredible demand for services in the home. More and more seniors are choosing to stay home longer and that is great for non-medical care providers like Mercy Works. We are able to allow these seniors to remain safe and independent longer than they could in an assisted living or nursing facility.

The opportunities for growing an “in home” care business is unlimited right now. The aging population is growing rapidly and the entire senior services industry is primed for growth. The biggest challenge will be growing a team of compassionate caregivers in a highly competitive industry. Managers will have to build loyalty among staff to keep these high demand employees with them long term.

Mercy Works Senior Care is looking to take our decade of success in Louisville, KY and build a team nationally to deliver on our promise of extraordinary care. We want to help keep as many people safe in their homes as possible to improve quality of life and reduce the strain on the medical industry by limiting hospitalizations and nursing placement among our clients.

The biggest key is hiring quality and caring people to deliver upon our promise to clients. We will not be able to train or teach someone to care about others, but we can train people who do care on safety procedures and techniques to help those in need. Most services we provide are common sense tasks that most people do daily such as bathe, use the restroom and make a meal. We have not seen benefit in doing “weeks long” trainings in classrooms for new staff. Rather, we like to spend time with new caregivers in the homes of the clients they are assigned to assist.

We are a new franchise business so we’ve yet to experience many challenges in the field. Up to this point, we have just been fine tuning the training manuals and documents our franchise partners will use in building their brands.

Our goal is to get our franchisees open for business as soon as possible. We’ve built a very thorough training model that can be completed in just a couple of weeks. You will spend a few days in Louisville, KY learning systems, software and business practices that will help you get up and running. Ongoing support will be available around the clock via phone or video conference as you need.

We wanted our franchise fee to be as competitive as possible while providing the initial and ongoing support that’s needed for new business owners. Franchisees will pay a $40,000 franchise fee and a 5% royalty on gross sales.

Territories will be defined by Mercy Works Senior Care during conversations leading up to the purchase of a franchise. Territories will consist of areas with 20,000-30,000 population of those aged 65 or above. This ensures each territory will have plenty of opportunity for steady growth.

A day in the life of a Franchisee will be fast paced, exciting and rewarding. Whether hiring, marketing, selling or servicing clients, you will be growing a business that truly helps those in need. Each day, you’ll spend time working with families to help them through a difficult time in their lives. You will build a team of caring people to help accomplish the goals in each home. Each day presents an opportunity grow revenues while truly providing meaningful assistance to those in need. You will love this job!

The Franchisee will need to determine each day where the focus of the business needs to be. Hiring, human resources, marketing and sales activities are performed regularly but your numbers will determine which of these activities will be prioritized that day or week. Our training team will help you understand how to project forward regarding hiring and marketing decisions. No day or week is the same and that is one of the exciting things about being a Mercy Works Franchise owner.

The ideal candidate for franchising will be one who has a desire to help others while possessing strong leadership skills. While business ownership experience will help, it is not necessary for success. Great communication and organization will be extremely vital to the flourishing of the franchise business.

Once again, we are a new franchise business so we have had neither success or failure from our partners. Our home office in Louisville, KY has had consistent growth over the past 10 years and has eclipsed 1M in sales the past few years.

As mentioned earlier, we’d love to see Mercy Works around the country helping families in need. I would love to have 10- 20 franchise locations by 2025 and reach 50-100 in the next few years after. If our focus is on serving those who entrust their loved ones to us, we will undoubtedly see great growth in our brand. We would love to see our franchise owners improve their quality of life as well by having more control over their time and revenues.