Miriam Allred (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. It is great to be back in the lab with all of you. This week I am joined by Adam and Marlene Bartlett, the owners of Uplift Home Care in California. Adam and Marlene, welcome to the show.
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (00:18)
Thank you. Thank you, Mario. Pleasure to be here. Yes. Big fans. Can't believe I'm the one talking instead of the one listening for once. Yes. Yeah.
Miriam Allred (00:26)
Full full circle for both of us. You are almost two years into building this home care
company. And boy, is it time to put you in the hot seat and give you a little bit of the limelight. You guys have been following me so closely for so many years, and I've been following you. Feels like we know each other.
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (00:36)
Yeah. Yes.
Miriam Allred (00:43)
but also so much I was just saying, so much has happened for both of us in the last two years. But now it's time to catch up and just record this conversation because there's so much for so many providers to learn from you. So I am just elated to be here with you guys.
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (00:57)
I too. Yeah, I feel like you basically helped launch our agency. So I felt like we go way back, even though this is only our first time on the show. So And just so excited to give back. Like we have learned so much from agency owners all over the country. And people in the beginning were just so kind to us to talk on the phone and just, you know, we know how busy they are now and that people would just drop things and just speak with us was so kind and so we just really want to give back as well.
Miriam Allred (01:22)
Yeah. So now here I am sending referrals your way. It's like that's just how this industry works. It's like you meet someone and you
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (01:26)
Yeah.
Miriam Allred (01:27)
have this connection and you hit it off. It's like here we are just helping each other and giving back, which I love. let's kind of forego a traditional introduction because we're gonna talk about just some of the most important lessons and live through experiences that you guys have gone through the last two years. I said this a couple of episodes, but a lot of newer providers have reached out to me recently and said, like,
The tenured owners on the show are great, but sometimes we can't relate when they're doing, 10,000 hours, 20,000 hours. They're like, interview some of the little guys that are newer and scrappier. And so you guys came to mind in that like you've had a lot of success in a short period of time, but also it's all just fresh. And so we're just gonna kind of punch through some of the lessons learned. And you guys are gonna share numbers and statistics and stories, and it's gonna be really rich. So I'm excited. So let's kind of start at the beginning, which is one of the biggest decisions you make.
when you're getting into this, which is the independent versus the franchise route. I know you guys asked me about that and a lot of other people in the industry and did a lot of research getting into this. So I wanna just hear your initial take on the independent versus the franchise route and some of the factors that drove that decision for you. So Marlene, why don't you start with that?
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (02:34)
Yeah, no, it was it was we were definitely going down the franchise route initially, you know, just the security you have with that, kind of like business in a box, like everything a lot of it is done for you initially, right? So you can launch pretty quickly. but you know, we had been listening to your podcast, I say binge listening to it, and just had learned about all of these different industry experts and learned a lot more about
industry and we were still going down the franchise route and you know kind of at the 11th hour Adam was like you know what I think we could do this ourself and you know I kind of thought like well that seems a little scary but just given our backgrounds you know I have a marketing and brand management background Adam is in from finance and operations and so you know we kind of have that skill set that we can put together and then yeah I mean a big part of it also was initially connecting with Becky Reels
Who we learned about on your podcast, just having a conversation with her. because I thought, okay, if we're gonna kind of go this alone, I wanna learn from the best of the best and work with the best of the best. So yeah, and I think that's where when we were making that decision, franchise versus independent,
we saw the value of the franchise, but at the same time, in doing our due diligence, we talked to other owners, franchise owners, and they kind of said, well, after the first couple of years, you know, it's you know, the franchise is there and they provide some support, but it's really those first 24 months where having like a launch coach and you know having the operations manual and the website ready to go, then you can really, you know, hit the starting line with a lot of momentum. but yeah, when we learned about Becky, talk to her.
We was like, we can have our own private launch coach to tailor the business to exactly the way we want to build it. and Marlene, coming from a kind of sales and marketing background, you know, she looked at some of the franchise websites. And no offense to anyone out there or the franchise, but some of the color palettes and logos she wasn't that excited about. And she's like, I really want to make it ours with a look and feel that, you know, speaks to who we are and also speaks to the target market and the demographics in our area. so we're in the
San Francisco Bay Area, very affluent. and you know, there's a certain kind of expectation there for the service providers in our area. So we just saw that the freedom that independent allowed us, even though it was gonna be more work, was probably gonna be a little bit better fit for us. And I think, you know, finding that industry consultant that could kind of help us lay the groundwork so we weren't just completely, doing it on our own is what then kind of gave us the confidence to to move forward as an independent.
Miriam Allred (05:03)
Yeah.
And I didn't I don't have this in front of me, but and I'll put you guys on the spot with this. But before this decision, it's really like, How did you find out about home care? How much did you know about home care and why were you getting into this? I should have started there, but yeah, one of you can take that of like,
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (05:12)
yeah.
Miriam Allred (05:17)
Why home care? And also transparently, how much did you know about home care before you started this?
Adam & Marlene Bartlett (05:22)
Some. So coincidentally, you know, so we both had kind of corporate careers. I was over 20 years in kind of corporate finance and operations roles. And we kind of got to that mid-career point where I was like, do I want to do this for the next 20 years or not? And we both kind of had an entrepreneurial itch that we were looking to scratch, but we didn't really know what that was gonna be. and
Both of our grandmothers had home care in their final years. and like my grandmother in particular, you know, she was 90 something. My dad had freshly retired and he thought he's gonna, you know, sit in the on the couch and just relax. And then, but then his 97-year-old mother at the time was, you know, just having the needs that home care helps with. it was hard for her to prep meals, needed help in the shower, and he ended up being a a caregiver at 70 years old.
And it was taking a toll on him until we figured out, there's this thing called home care and they can come and help with that. And he can go back to being a son and grandma doesn't have to have her son helping her in the shower. It's all good things. and you know, Marlene kind of had a similar experience with her grandma and some live-in caregivers in those final years. And so then just out of the blue one day, a franchise like a recruiter reached out and said, Hey, I've got all these different franchise businesses, you interested in this one, that one.
And home care was one of And then we immediately started thinking like, we know what that is. Huh. We do want to do something. I'm sorry, I just get to do because we we came to him with the home care idea. 'Cause I started googling what franchise art
Are there? What franchises? Because when I think franchise, I usually think food or, a gym. And I'm like, well, what else is there besides food and a gym? And there were all these different things, one of them being home care. And that's when I was like, home care is something that's privately owned. I always thought it was part of like, you know, the medical industrial complex in some way. And so that's when it r you know, sparked our memory of like, our grandmas had this and you know, so we told him, Find us a home care franchise.
