Miriam Allred (00:01)
Welcome everyone to the Home Care Strategy Lab. I'm your host, Miriam Allred. On this show, I put high growth home care agencies under the microscope to see what works, what doesn't, and why. Today in the lab, I'm joined by Deanna Keppel, the Vice President of Assisting Hands Corporate Office. Deanna, thank you for joining me today.
Deanna Keppel (00:22.7)
Thank you for having me.
Miriam Allred (00:24.3)
I don't know if everybody knows you very well, so I want to start out with your background and your introduction, and then we'll talk a bit more about Assisting Hands can you start and just tell us a little bit about yourself?
Deanna Keppel (00:35.7)
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm originally from Rochester, New York, went to college in upstate New York, and after that moved down to Boston.
And while I was in Boston, I worked for the Area Agency on Aging and did everything from case management to information and referrals, as well as protective services for the elderly. So really got my first taste of home care and working with that population right out of college. I moved to Chicago about 16 years ago.
And that's when I first found Assisting Hands. So I started off as the office manager for one of our locations in the Chicagoland area and really helped. He was brand new, just signed his franchise agreement. I was his first hire from Craigslist, that old, and started getting his business up and running. did one year in our first year, we did one million in revenue during 2009, which was the recession. And I stayed with him for about seven years before coming over onto the corporate national team, where I've been in my role in similar support services role for the last eight years.
Miriam Allred (01:55.6)
Amazing. So you've really been brought up in both home care and senior care and you've been with Assisting Hands for a long time being on the franchisee side and now the franchisor side. Incredible. Tell us a little bit more about Assisting Hands. So you work on the corporate side now, so you know probably more than the average owner on just, you know, the behind the scenes, the founding story, the origin story. Tell us a little bit more about Assisting Hands.
Deanna Keppel (02:18.3)
Absolutely. So we were actually founded by Dr. Gail Silverstein. She had a home care agency in Arizona. And it was back in 2006 that she was introduced to three Idaho farmers that were also very savvy businessmen. And they partnered up and began franchising in 2007.
What's a little different with Assisting Hands is we have the area rep model. So we have our franchise or our national corporate team, which is very lean. And we are because we have area reps, which are local support franchises that have a vested interest in the offices in their territory. So really with Assisting Hands, you kind of get double layer of support, not only from the national level, but also boots on the ground and AR in your territory, helping you be successful and grow.
Miriam Allred (03:20.4)
Amazing. Has that always been the structure or was that something that was implemented later on?
Deanna Keppel (03:25.3)
No, it had always been the structure from the beginning. The franchisee I started with, he was one of the first ARs as well. So we've had that in and truly see the difference in the franchisees that fall under an AR and those that don't. We don't have ARs in every market, but the majority of our franchisees do fall under one. And you can see that extra level of support and how beneficial it is to them.
Miriam Allred (03:53.2)
Yeah, thank you for sharing that and explaining that again. Every model is a little bit different and some people may or may not know about that. Tell us a little bit about just like service lines and payers, you know, obviously your national footprint at this point. And so you've got a lot of different franchisees and different markets with different strengths and weaknesses, but just give us kind of a highlight of, of services and payers.
Deanna Keppel (04:13.5)
Yeah, we are all non-medical home care services. So that's help with ADLs, IADLs in the home. majority of our clients are private pay, but we do have a very good mix of Medicaid and VA as our other top two providers or payer sources.
Miriam Allred (04:35.7)
Okay. Yeah. Well, that sounds, that sounds great. Thanks for sharing all of that. And I don't know if you mentioned it, but Gail was in Arizona. Corporate office is now in Nampa, Boise, Idaho, and approximately how many territories franchisees do you all have today?
Deanna Keppel (04:49.6)
Yeah, we have we have over 200 territories sold in about 120 office locations with a handful opening within the next few months. So we're in 28 states now, and I believe we have 26 area reps throughout throughout the country.
Miriam Allred (05:09.)
Okay, fantastic. And you have probably seen a lot of that growth firsthand, right?
Deanna Keppel (05:13.2)
I think when I came on we were at 45 or 50 franchisees. So have more than doubled since I since I started on the corporate side of things.
Miriam Allred (05:26.4)
Yeah, exciting. So you've learned a thing or two in all of your experience, which is what we're going to dig into today. I want to talk about what you observe that these owners maybe is holding these owners back and how you all essentially set them up for success. Because again, you look, you've helped, you know, probably onboard and train and orient dozens of owners at this point in time. And you see different markets and you hear different things and you're also kind of on the front lines yourself. So, I want to talk about that. What's holding owners back and how you're setting them up for success. So the first question I want to ask is kind of high level. It's around, um, a lot of business owners and a lot of your franchisees, they know what they should be doing, but they may not be doing it. And so from your perspective, what are the psychological or operational barriers that are just, that's just holding people back?
Deanna Keppel (06:21.3)
Yeah, think, you know, there's definitely patterns that I've seen throughout. Definitely fear of failure is one of those psychological barriers that just continues to hold franchisees back. They're trying to play it safe just because this is probably new. They're usually first time business owners and they're really, you know, they got a lot of eggs in one basket. So they're definitely fear of failure.
We see a lot of individuals that fall into the analysis paralysis. A lot of this is new for them and they just don't know where to start. So they kind of often think I've got tons of things to do and I just don't know where to start. So they just don't do anything. So those are probably the two psychological barriers that we see all the time.
operational, they kind of tie in, you know, you've got an owner that is wearing too many hats, they're not wanting to let go of anything because they're afraid, you know, if if I can't do it, and I hire somebody to do it, and they fail, then it's a reflection on me. So they're always trying to do a little bit of everything, which can certainly slow up the process and the trajectory of growth. Poor time management.
You know, they're not able to focus on the things that they should be focusing on, working too much in the system or in the weeds instead of on the business. So that's really the the two things that we see as the operational is they're just not they don't have enough internal staff to get them to where they want to go.
