How do you care for your franchisees? How do you support them and guide them? Our guest today is Ray Fabik, who shares with us how Caring Transitions focuses on supporting their franchisees.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Take great care of the franchise holder and create a happy client, a happy franchisee, and a happy franchisor.
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- https://www.linkedin.com/company/caring-transitions-franchise-opportunities
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Ray is CEO of Caring Transitions, a national franchise system with 375 franchise locations. He is a proven leader in strategically driving growth and supporting franchise owners using over 25 years of experience in various executive and operational leadership roles. Prior to Caring Transitions, Ray gained his experience in the senior space as Vice President of Operations at Comfort Keepers, an in-home senior care franchise system. Ray was also the President of The Growth Coach prior to Caring Transitions and spent many years of his career in executive roles at Luxottica Retail, the global leader in eyewear. Today, Ray’s experience and passion for franchising, the senior care industry, and growing organizations makes Caring Transitions the perfect fit and he has led next-level success for the brand.
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TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Tom DuFore (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open, I’m wondering how you might care for your franchisees. How do you take care of them? How do you support them? Or maybe if you’re thinking about franchising, how do you plan to do so and guide them and support them? And our guest today is Ray Fabik who shares with us how Caring Transitions focuses on supporting their franchisees.
(00:37):
Now, Ray is the CEO of Caring Transitions, which is a national franchise system with more than 375 locations. He’s a proven leader in franchising and driving and supporting franchise growth with more than 25 years of experience. And prior to Caring Transitions, Ray gained a wealth of experience working for a system such as Comfort Keepers, The Growth Coach, and Luxottica Retail. You’re going to love this interview, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
(01:06):
Thank you so much for being here. And just as an entry point, I’d like for you just to talk about a little maybe history or background on Caring Transitions and how you’ve grown over the years and maybe we’ll jump into what some of those factors might’ve been that contributed to that growth.
Ray Fabik (01:24):
Caring Transitions started in 2009, so we’ve been around a little bit. And it really came about from an in-home senior care company that realized that when they would help people age in place, that they had so much stuff and what should we do with all this stuff and should it be in a state sale and how do we get mom or dad moved and how do we move them to either senior housing or if they’re going to stay in place, how do we keep the home safe? So Caring Transitions really started with this concept of, “What do we do with the stuff?” So it really started as an estate sale company and then really evolved into something a lot different, really evolved into relocations.
(02:02):
If you’re moving mom and dad, leaving your lifetime home of 40 years and then you find yourself from a 3,000 square foot house to a 800 square foot room, what memories can you bring with you? What should you throw away? What should you keep? What does that process look like? What are the key components? If you always had a picture of your family hanging above your bed in your lifetime home, can we have that same picture above your bed in your new home? So it really became about how do we create a caring transition for seniors and their families as they transition through life’s stages? And I think a lot of people focus on, “Where are mom and dad going to go and even once they pass, what’s their funeral going to look like?”
(02:44):
What they don’t think about is, “I’ve got their house full of stuff, how do I possibly handle that?” So that’s really how it started. It was through caregivers seeing houses full and families not knowing what to do with it. So it really grew organically that way. And here we are 15, 16 years later, 375 locations throughout the country because I think people really understand what that pain point is in the process. We always meet people who say, “I wish I would’ve known about you guys,” it’s a frustrating thing to hear, but I also appreciate it, which is, “I wish I would’ve known about you when I was transitioning my parents.”
Dr. Tom DuFore (03:21):
Being on the podcast circuit and getting out and communicating in these different avenues is certainly spreading the message of the service that you offer. And with 375 territories and growing, what would you say are some of those factors that have contributed or maybe contributed most to that growth?
Ray Fabik (03:40):
I think the foundation of it all is you have to have successful franchisees who are supported and franchisees that are profitable. For us it’s about, “Why do you want to grow? Do you want Caring Transitions to be big just for the sake of being big?” Because I’m not always a fan that bigger is better. I don’t know that a 400-unit franchisor is better than a 200-unit franchisor unless you have a compelling reason to grow. And our reason for growth is we want to be where the client is moving from and where they’re moving to. And that’s really our number one spot because you can’t give a caring transition in general if there’s one company helping on one end and then there’s a different company on the other end. So we know that if we grow and expand, we can help more clients.
(04:27):
And that’s really kind of what started it. So you get a few successful franchisees that feel supported and they’re profitable. And then I think as we’ve expanded over the years, it’s really become don’t let anybody in who just has the franchisee money. And I think every franchisor goes through that at some point where you’re reliant on the income coming in through franchise sales. And our goal was to always get to a point where we’re okay if we don’t sell any franchises. And we’re okay if we don’t sell any franchises and then that helps you focus on support and grow the network internally. And we’re far from the perfect organization, but I think we’ve shown that if we support the franchisee or tend to what they are, treat them as the customer as much as we possibly can, then they’re going to be happy and they’re going to tell more people and the brand will expand.
(05:18):
I think the best example I can give you, Atlanta, Georgia was always a struggle market for us. We could never get any traction there. And then along came two franchisees, they were just terrific. They just came in, they built their businesses up, executed the model, they did great. They got off to two of our fastest starts ever of any of our new franchisees. And then three years later we’ve got 15 franchisees in the greater Atlanta area. And it just shows that success breeds success. And we didn’t advertise any differently in Atlanta or Georgia, but you meet referral partners and through our auctions and all of those things, people just start to hear about you. So it is that if you do the right thing and get strong franchisees, you’ll grow organically at a really good pace.
Dr. Tom DuFore (06:03):
Great story. And I’ve heard other franchise systems that go through similar with one market here or there, for whatever reason, it just seems to be a challenge or a pain point to break into. And that really leads me to the next question is you’ve talked about supporting and helping those franchisees grow. Talk about how you’ve helped support the franchisees in accomplishing their professional goals or business goals all the while also helping them accomplish some of their personal goals or maybe some of their personal ambitions as to why they decided to buy a franchise.
Ray Fabik (06:38):
One of the things we require as you’re going through the training process, it kind of culminates in coming to our home office and spending a week with us, but there’s certainly training weeks prior to that, but one of the things they have to do at the end of the process is present their business plan to us. So all these weeks of training build up to the big day where they’re going to present their business plan. And that is not a process where we’re going to evaluate how good their business plan is. It really is designed for us to understand where they want to go and what they want out of the business. And you’re going to get some people that come in and say, “We want to be the king and queen of Caring Transitions. We want to make the most money anyone’s ever made at Caring Transitions. We want multiple territories,” all that.
(07:18):
And then you get the opposite, which is, “We just want to help as many people as we can in our community. We want to give back, we want to do this, we want to do that.” So I think the first step is us understanding, not where do we want the franchisee to go, but where do they want to go? And if we can understand that, then the coaching is different. If someone is coming in with a high amount of cash flow, that conversation is different about hiring and bringing people along than the person who comes in maybe a little cash strapped. We should be coaching that person differently. So it really does start with what do they want out of the business? What does their life balance be… What goal? And we do talk about, from a financial standpoint, do they want to go on vacation? Do they want to buy another business? Do they want to do this?
(08:05):
And us understanding that really helps us coach them. So once they leave that process, then we do have a team of coaches who are all trained specifically to what can they do to support the franchise owner and have those frequent conversations about growing their business and holding them accountable and having the tough conversations and all of those things. And then I think, not to simplify it, but accessibility of our brand team, I think, is so important is can you get ahold of any of us when you need us? And for me personally, I never want to be the president that they only see during the sales process or that they only see when there’s something wrong. Are we accessible to just have those conversations along the way? So full-blown training and all the things you’ve heard probably a lot when it simplifies it’s be there for the franchisee, hold them accountable, have tough conversations, and understand where they want to go so we can get them there.
Dr. Tom DuFore (09:01):
Excellent. Well, you mentioned about this ongoing coaching and training and support. So I’m just curious, I don’t know how much you’re able to share, but this is one of those areas that I noticed over the years that really starts to differentiate one franchisor from another, those that really do well and excel in franchising versus those that maybe are average or below average. I’d love for you to share maybe some best practices or things that you do that help differentiate in your space about that ongoing coaching and support that you provide to franchisees.
Ray Fabik (09:35):
Yeah, so the first step is engagement, that if you can engage with the franchisee, so let’s have regular conversations and let’s have set times to talk. For us, it’s a lot about the numbers. What are the numbers telling you and let’s review those and are you profitable? Let’s go back to that business plan you wrote a year ago that said, “This is where you want to be.” Are you there? And let’s take inventory on where you’re at. So there is a financial approach to it that says… Because for me it’s the example of I don’t know what halftime speech to give at halftime of the basketball game if I don’t know what the score is. If you’re down by 30, the halftime speech sits down differently than if you’re up by 30 or if you’re tied. So that coaching approach of what’s the score?
(10:23):
So let’s start there because with owners and all the minutiae that can happen with owning your own business, you could have a great hour conversation but not really talk about the big rocks and talk about what’s most important. So if you start with the numbers, if you tell me you’re not at goal, well that just becomes the most important thing we need to talk about, if you had a goal and you’re not making it or if you’re short on employees or if you’re off on some metrics, so let’s start there. So I think having meaningful coaching conversations is important and then that leads to the accountability part, and I think that’s always a challenge with a coach, how do you hold an independent business owner accountable to do what they say they were going to do? And I think that happens with follow-up, trust, and all of those conversations.
(11:08):
We do a lot of frequent touch points where we’ll have group coaching calls, so it’s not just one-on-one coaching calls, but we’ll do them in a group setting. So we may get 10 franchise owners together on a certain topic to talk about X, or we’ll send out a local marketing guide and then we can have local marketing guide conversations about, “What are you trying to accomplish from a local marketing standpoint?” So we have a guide which has kind of a beginner, medium, and advanced on how much you want to invest in your marketing. And there’s a checklist that goes along with that and that allows the coach to really understand quickly what kind of category that owner may fall in. So just some examples of the kind of coaching that goes on.
Dr. Tom DuFore (11:48):
You’re fast approaching 400 operating franchise territories now, and with that many in a system, you’re going to have some franchisees, you mentioned that beginner, intermediate, advance for marketing, but it made me think, “Okay, well, you’re going to have beginner franchisees, you’re going to have intermediate franchisees that are maybe a few years in operation, then you’re going to have these more mature franchisees, maybe five years plus or 10 years plus in a system at this point.” So how do you take into account in providing the types of support to those franchisees and is it the same, is it different?
Ray Fabik (12:24):
We have a specific onboarding coach that’s going to help your first six months. So they are the nuts and bolts, “Let’s get your corporation set up, let’s do this, let’s make sure you have this checklist.” Then they transition to their first-year coach, which is a coach who really handles all their first-year operations. And our first-year coaches have run Caring Transitions or have been in a Caring Transitions. And that was a move we made a couple of years ago and that made a big difference. Certainly, we hear the feedback, “How can you coach me if you’ve never run a Caring Transitions?” I don’t buy into that 100% because I think coaches can be helpful. I don’t have to be the best basketball player to be able to coach basketball.
(13:00):
But there is an element to that, especially at that stage of the onboarding of having someone who has run every aspect of a Caring Transitions be that first-year coach. So we have coaches who do have a specialty in those particular areas. And then I think as owners get more tenured, what kind of support they’re getting does shift and does change. We’ve got owner panels where we’ve got, I think, right now six owner panels, so if an owner wants to get on a particular panel. So we have an auction part of our business, so if an owner is really interested in the auction part, they can be on the auction panel, or if they’re a marketing expert, they can be in a marketing panel. So we do have some things that our more experienced owners can get involved into.
Dr. Tom DuFore (13:47):
One of the things that I had a question on, Ray, is as you’ve expanded and you’ve continued to expand across the country, we’ve talked about training and support, but how are you able to keep this certain standard or the priority of caring for the seniors and their families, how are you able to help keep that central or keep that standard up?
Ray Fabik (14:08):
That’s a great question and it’s a challenge. Generally, before four years ago, we attracted folks, 99% of the people who bought a Caring Transitions connected with seniors and were buying a Caring Transitions because of the senior space. Then with our auction part being so successful, we have found that now about a third of our folks are buying a Caring Transitions because they love auctions, antiques, reselling, and those types of things. So how do you not shift away from senior services? So that has been a challenge for us.
(14:45):
So a couple of years ago we hired an aging specialist, one of our primary consultants with us, and her primary role is to make sure that we educate each of our franchisees on aging, Alzheimer’s, interacting with families, what language to use with a senior, what language not to use, training in those areas. Just before my eyes, I started to see this culture shift of folks working with seniors that that just wasn’t their background or their passion, which is such an integral part of the organization. So again, it’s one of those shifts where bigger may not always be better unless you’re moving along with it. So that was one way that we have moved along with it, which is, “Hey, let’s make sure we continue to focus on the senior aspect of it.”
Dr. Tom DuFore (15:32):
It’s always a topic of discussion and leadership and business leadership circles, but really, as you grow for the corporate franchisor and then for each individual franchisee to grow, how are you helping keep this core mission of the business? I know they’re kind of interrelated to that last question, but really zeroing in on that mission or the purpose of Caring Transitions, how are you helping keep that alive and well?
Ray Fabik (15:58):
Yeah, storytelling is such a great way to do that and we’re such a storytelling brand. Share your story. We just had a husband and wife who got diagnosed with cancer within two weeks of each other, and definitely went from being great to not being great. The family lived four hours away from their parents and we handled the move for them coming back to their kids. So it’s sharing stories like that and those heartwarming stories and the heartbreaking stories too. And I think that keeps everyone really grounded in to what we’re doing.
(16:34):
And you talk about the mission and you talk about the vision and you talk about the brand promise. So whenever I hear one of those stories, I’ll connect it to that. And I think if everyone on the brand team does that and our owners do that, it really keeps the culture alive. So we share testimonials every week. So if we hear from a customer or a client, we’re going to share that story with the entire network. That’s just one way, but that’s probably the most effective way that we keep that alive because it is why we’re here and every member on the brand team has a story with a parent or a grandparent that went through this. So we certainly all connect to it.
Dr. Tom DuFore (17:14):
If someone’s interested in learning more about what you’re doing or getting more information, how can they do that?
Ray Fabik (17:19):
Your best way, we’ll keep it easy, caringtransitions.com or caringtransitionsfranchising.com, that’s an easy way. You can get there and get all the information.
Dr. Tom DuFore (17:29):
Well, Ray, this is the time in the show where we ask every guest the same four questions before they go, and the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?
Ray Fabik (17:39):
Yeah, so the list is long. I’ve also learned a lot in franchising about watching other folks. And I worked my way up through franchising and it was one of deals where, “Wow, if I’m ever in charge, we’re going to do it this way and we’re going to do it that way.” And I think it’s always remembering who our customer is and that we’re only successful if the franchisee is successful. And I think there’s times even, as we said, if you’re all about selling franchises or we’ve just got to hit this number, I think that can really stump the growth at the very beginning.
(18:11):
So I think there’s those growing pains where you’re trying to figure it out, where you’re trying to make the business successful as a franchisor, but realizing you’ve always got to bring everybody along with that. And probably my other one is when I first started in this role of running a whole network, trying to make decisions that made the whole entire network happy and quickly coming to that realization that is an impossible task that ultimately, you’ve got to do what you think is right for the brand and the owners as a whole versus, “Okay, how do I keep everyone happy?” So those are my big two.
Dr. Tom DuFore (18:46):
Your answer reminded me, I always like to ask leaders of franchisors, our primary audience tends to be either successful entrepreneurs that are thinking about maybe franchising their business or maybe emerging brand franchisors that tune in. So if you were to think back, what advice might you give to an emerging brand franchisor as they’re starting to launch?
Ray Fabik (19:08):
Systems and processes, getting those in place as early as possible. We touched on this before, but certainly bringing in high-quality franchisees, don’t settle. Even though they’re ready to buy, it doesn’t mean that they should run a location in your brand. So those would be two of the biggest, get the training and the processes set and then be fairly selective about who you bring in.
Dr. Tom DuFore (19:34):
Very good. Well, thank you for that. And the next question we ask is have you had a make, so a highlight or two you’d like to share?
Ray Fabik (19:44):
I think the big one for us, and I get this fairly often, “What’s our biggest success?” And I’m going to go back to the pandemic because I look back at that year of 2020, which the first month it started, I think we were down 40%. And you look and go, “What is this? What’s the future of Caring Transitions going to be?” We ended 2020 with a double-digit increase over the previous year. And that has nothing to do with me and really has everything to do with our franchise owners. And of course, I’m a fan of franchising, but I think it was a perfect example of, which is cliche now, that being in business for yourself and not by yourself. We really did come together as a group and say, “Let’s figure this out.”
(20:28):
So whether it was brand team or whether it was owners, we met twice a week on Zoom for hours and just talked about, “How do we figure this out? How do we do estate sales without meeting the actual people? How do we get a hold of gloves and sanitizer and all of those things?” And it was just really cool to see a group of really smart people in a situation where we didn’t know the answers to and figure it out together as a group. And at the end of it, we ended up with an up year. So that’s where I kind of go back to and say, “Wow, we did something there and the owners did something there that’s actually pretty cool.” And we were able to continue to help clients and continue to help people move mom and dad in a time of, it’s almost not as clear, but back then there was a lot of fear. So being able to safely move mom and dad was a big deal. So that’s our number one.
Dr. Tom DuFore (21:18):
That’s a great, great story and it’s one of my favorite things in franchising that I think you don’t necessarily realize until you’re in a franchise system, the power of the community that you have with your fellow franchisees and being able to, what you did with your system, is help provide a platform for those conversations to have and say, “I have open dialogue and communication.”
(21:40):
I know when I was a franchisee it was one of those things I knew existed, but until you’re in the thick of it, you don’t realize how valuable it really is to have other owners, in addition to corporate support, always great, but those other owners are just lifesavers for me when I went through, and I’ve seen it in other franchisees too. Have you used a multiplier to grow yourself personally, professionally, or any organizations you’ve been a part of?
Ray Fabik (22:06):
Yeah, I think the multiplier for us has been that common bond about seniors. I have found that when we hire folks here on the brand team who have had a family member or a senior that they have transitioned through this process, they connect to it. And it kind of goes back to that, “Do we really understand what it’s like to run a Caring Transitions?” It does multiply. The culture multiplies when we get a bunch of like-minded people who really want to help seniors and their families, and you get a lot of people together who really care about seniors, that really does multiply our success and multiplies the culture.
Dr. Tom DuFore (22:49):
The final question we ask here, Ray, is what does success mean to you?
Ray Fabik (22:54):
I think ultimately for us, especially as it concerns Caring Transitions is the client and their family having a caring transition. That if we’ve relieved stress off that family, then we’re in a good spot. And then you work it backwards. If we take great care of the client and the customer and their family, we’re in a great spot. If that happens, then we’ve taken great care of the franchise owner.
(23:18):
And if we’ve taken good care of the franchise owner, then the brand’s going to be taken care of. I talk about stakeholders and it kind of goes in that order. So when I look at success, all three of those elements have to be successful because if the owner’s successful but the client’s not happy, that doesn’t help. Or if the franchisor is successful, but the owners aren’t, that doesn’t help anyone either. So it really is that trifecta of success looks like happy client, happy franchisee, happy brand.
Dr. Tom DuFore (23:47):
Ray, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. Takeaway number one is when Ray talked about the factors that have contributed to growth. And he said they were things such as successful franchisees, having profitable franchisees, and their reason for growth is helping their client go from where they are to where they will be going. And he said, “Don’t let anyone just buy a franchise.” Takeaway number two is when Ray talked about the ongoing coaching and support that they provide to their franchisees. And here’s just a quick summary. He said, “Number one, engage with your franchisees. Schedule time to talk. Review their financials and their numbers with them. Review the business plan that the franchisees have put together at the first of the year.” As Ray said, “If you don’t know what the score is, then you don’t know which speech to give at halftime.”
(24:44):
I thought that was a great, great little nugget there. So those were just some of the ongoing coaching calls. Takeaway number three is the advice that he gave to a new franchisor and he said, “Have your systems and processes in place as soon as possible and make sure to bring in quality franchisees into your system.” And now it’s time for today’s Win-Win. Today’s Win-Win came at the end of the episode when Ray talked about what success means to him. I think he really summarized it as having happy clients, which lead to happy franchisees, which lead to a happy franchisor. So by providing this ongoing support and coaching that Ray talked about throughout the episode of helping that franchisee, you ultimately provide a better customer experience to the end client, which then makes the franchisee happy, which then comes back to you as the franchisor. Just I thought that was a great Win-Win. It’s a win for all parties involved there.
(25:51):
Well, that’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in and we look forward to having you back next week.