Always Best Care supports all the people in their network, including their franchisees. One way is through financial performance groups to boost their financial knowledge.
Senior care concept Always Best Care also cares for their franchisees through its use of financial performance groups. Lisa Hafetz, Always Best Care’s vice president of financial management, has been the one in charge of these groups, even before joining the company.
The idea was first brought to Always Best Care in 2017 through Profit Mastery. The idea behind Profit Mastery is fairly simple: franchisors bring them in to educate their franchisees, focusing on increasing profits. The performance groups are just one of their tactics.
“Most small business owners or franchisees do not come into the business with a strong financial acumen,” said Hafetz. “Even if they do, they have never applied it to their own business.”
Lisa Hafetz, Vice President of financial management at Always Best Care.
As a consultant, Hafetz had the chance to team up with Always Best regarding the financial performance groups. Always Best Care eventually signed a licensing agreement to make the program permanent and hired Hafetz as vice president to utilize her experience.
There are four performance groups made up of eight members each and meet four times per year. After the first orientation session, the discussions focus on finances, benchmark reports and goals.
Once the goals are established, the performance groups look at areas that need improvement. The groups then prepare activities in order to help fill in those gaps. They also hold each other accountable in reaching those goals, Hafetz said.
“The financial information tells the story about what’s going on in your business,” said Hafetz. “The bottom-line goal is always to help them achieve profitability and success.”
Since these started in 2017, the effect has already been clear, even with the pandemic in the middle. The franchisees participating saw increases and stability in profits, and were able to continue doing so. Due to the way the meetings are structured, changes are implemented in the interest of financial performance.
Since they started the financial performance groups in 2017, Always Best Care franchisees have seen a boost in their profits.
One specific example stood out to Hafetz in terms of franchisee success. A group member was doing well with their revenue, but not in profitability, “which was really frustrating,” Hafetz said. That franchisee began to work with the performance groups and within two years saw a turnaround in her business.
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Calling the financials “the story of their business,” Hafetz sees the groups as a way for franchisees to not only have better profits, but in general be better business owners.
“They get educated on understanding the financials,” she said. “It becomes more of a tool to run their business as opposed to a necessary paperwork activity that they have to go through.”
Hafetz also recommends that all franchisors try to put together educational groups. Being able to read and understand their own financials benefits everyone in the business, regardless of the industry.
“The one thing that doesn’t change from industry to industry is financial information and what you need to know about it,” said Hafetz. “Once you have that financial acumen, you can take it anywhere you go.”