Jerome bouillon welcome to acquiring minds I will good afternoon happy to be there thank you for what you're doing for all of us business owners thank you for listening Jerome you bought a Home Care Agency in Asheville North Carolina you were recently to the area having moved with your family from Florida today that business operates smoothly mostly on its own and you've acquired another location in Lenoir North Carolina about an hour away both of these locations are part of the Visiting Angels franchise so we've got a lot of ground to cover your interesting story how and why you bought these particular businesses the world of home care which is one we hear about a lot in this space and of course franchising so let's start with your interesting story Jerome can you start us off with a little background please well as your listener will hear I am French so I hope you are subtitled somewhere for some of y'all I move in the U.S in 2010 year now actually this year will be 10 years in 2013. uh prior to being in the US I used to be in uh in France and in Belgium and in the UK I used to do Banking and 2008 2010 was big banking crisis and I was made redundant and looking for jobs in Europe and couldn't find anything so my wife who has an American passport say let's go explore my American roots and we we moved to the US okay Jerome so what year is it now that you guys land in Asheville and how old are you in at this moment if you don't mind uh 49 years old 2017. okay and you the concept of buying a business is obviously not new to you you were a business broker for a while and you come from the world of banking so you're probably sophisticated in the worlds of in the world of buying and selling businesses and the possibilities there um but how how is it that you decide if that's what you want to do to buy a business in Asheville buying a business is in professionally I've always been a bit uh some people call it I don't know if it's a word in American entrepreneur you know trying to from inside the business I always wanted to provide value to my different employer the problem when you have this attitude is sometimes you you kind of want to run the show and not be run so uh I think it was I should have actually bought a business way before my 50th birthday but I was scared I mean it's scary it's stressful you know you I'm originally French English is not my first language so you know it's kind of somewhere but you know being an entrepreneur is basically jumping out of the of the plane with someone catching you with a parachute and you say hey you know at the grace of God or inshallah or whatever and just pray for the best and hope that you feel right right so that's that's what it is about so I I decided to describe the plunge uh so I cold call in that industry because that's where I wanted to be and for the guy who wanted to sell and make a deal and move on so you decide then that you want to be in the Home Care space and you start cold calling around Home Care businesses in Asheville so I assume at this point you haven't been plugged into the world of search or read by then build I mean I'm not even sure it was published in 2017 or I think it was right this is just you do following your own nose yeah I was just a SM bash the small business conference this weekend and there was a there was a panel discussion about how to approach owners when you're interested in having a conversation about buying their business because it is kind of hard to walk in the front door and say hey can I talk to the boss because I want to buy this business uh or maybe I want to buy this business so what what what did what did your script look like when you were cold calling around well I am French or politically correct is not in my nature so I just I just called the front desk say hey can I speak to the owners they say what is regarding to I say it's personal but I can ensure you they want to talk with me and I can't remember exactly what what how I found my way there but I was able to call to people are always interested my my my gift somewhere is this deep thick French accent that's probably what get me through the door because even if I was mambling something the person on the phone didn't understand the thing and told to the owner you probably want to talk to that guy so that's probably how I did it more than you know having a fan station just after I'm kind of pretty you know like what you see so I just say hey there is no turning around say oh I love your videos you say hey do you want to sell your business that's literally how I presented to uh to the previous owner of visiting address say hey my name is Jerome I'm used to be a business broker I always wanted to be in that field I would like to buy you business would you be open to sell it and the the guys say well actually there is never a good time to sell I was expecting to sell in one or two years but we can have that conversation and that's it so on the three or four I I I imagine this was not allowed at the time on the three or four I called uh uh one didn't want to sell because she just bought it the other one uh wanted to keep the business for our kids she had several already uh it's another franchise slightly different than Visiting Angels because at visiting address we just do home care and the guys from Visiting Angels no that's it great and what was the next step did you did you take this gentleman to to lunch or talk us through the conference right we went with my wife I mean we we met with both wives uh because the his wife was helping in operating the business and my wife would say well I can help you at the beginning I don't want to do that all my life but I can help you at the beginning so we went for lunch together and we cannot start talking around you know what it looks like what we need to do there was also from him educating me about you know what it is to call to buy your front size that you need to talk to the franchisor and to visit you you need to have the right background you know it's a thing for me it was very new the franchise area it's it's basically you have to be vetted passive test and talk with I don't know franchise level but I must say that the folks in Visiting Angels were very very easy to to talk with and make that happen pretty quickly and did you have any particular bias about franchises like you didn't want it or wanted it or you were you were just kind of pretty open actually I I was I was open I know that there is a lot of tool okay hey franchises why you want to pay a fee or something like that but only man if you want to be in a service industry you want to have a brand which is recognized by everyone okay and you with your little pocket cannot make that happen I you know at the state of Western North Carolina or you know in Korean moment and why is my rules of fun time so buying in someone who have a National Recovery name is fantastic then after Europe 2 and we can talk more about franchising but you have to look what they offer and the value for money at leaving us the front lighter is called leading assistant is just fantastic so actually I was I was very lucky because I learned that proposal franchisor in our industry that they have a more straight jacket than hers yeah and we are going to get into more of that and and how you perceive the Visiting Angels franchise why it's so valuable to you okay so you have you that you and and your respective wives go to lunch and you're filling each other out the rough terms of what it what it would feel like to buy this are are coming together in a few conversations and the deal just evolves and eventually yes I know yeah I I we both sign no ndas and he stopped sharing exactly what the number was looking like what did experience what was the difficulty of the business where was the business before where you think it should be uh it was it was a it used to be in a in a pharmaceutical industry uh quite high up in one of those Pfizer kind of thing there so uh it was a very process-oriented guy yes so we we just talked about it he come up with a number I say I don't agree I came with a different number but I was I was pretty generous in terms of uh 10 on my offer two reasons um one of the times there was a only a numerous Clauses you know there was only a certain number of franchise for home care that was allowed in the state of North Carolina they took that cap so the valuation so to speak from down so there was that element and the territory is up the guy we started the franchise here in Asheville was an Army Ranger and they know how to read maps so he's done a good job of you know carving out a nice territory so that there's I mean I I could do much more than what I'm doing now a bit frustrated not to be there but I can do much more that's what I'm doing now so it's so I pay a bit Yeah I pay yeah I pay him a good price but you know at the end of the day you can always try to any counter sorry but when there is an opportunity what is it for you what is it worth for you I mean at the time I had no job no Revenue well certainly any kind of opportunity where there's a cap on the supply and you're buying into that capped Supply so you're going to be one of it's basically a regulated you know there's regulatory capture in a way and you're being able to participate in that that's worth something now sadly for you I guess that that that went away a little bit a little bit later but you seem to be doing just fine thank you very much so Jerome can you share any of the numbers around the size of the business or the the deal and or the deal yeah well I I I a buddy was around I think after a million dollar a year uh we are both are the million dollar Maple is here it was at half a million dollars in Revenue when you acquired it and it now it's over a million yeah okay and it was 2018 it was 2018 when you acquired it 20 yeah I bought it for in December so I mean for my 50s birthday for December 31st okay so I don't know if it's 2017 or 2008 beginning of 2018 or end of 2017 so yes uh and I I just uh so we'll post some LinkedIn that where people say hey when you buy a business there's a deep and yeah yeah they are the the other huge customers I was a 24 7 case uh we call that well in our industry he calls a Mobile Customer because they're just addiction of money and I I was not comfortable with this because it was representing property 20 or 25 percent of the revenue of the business so in a way I bought the business I I didn't add any Bank financing okay the seller issue notes and the rest I bought cash um and in the financing in the notes there was a some provision in place that customer disappear before three months or six months and uh once I was after a year when I was comfortable with the business and there was no you know hidden thing like that I just I just paid back so you know time not a big fan of credit uh I don't like to owe money oh I change a bit when you want to go bigger you have to change but at the beginning I just I just yeah we self-financy a lot of it and multiple was probably in a high series uh or mid Street uh three and a half probably uh and that's it so we yeah I was the first six month I was you know if you sit in front of us hose and you get hose down that's how I felt for six months drinking from the fire hose drinking from the firehouse yes yes I was that was that was a journey well well let's let's hear about that Jerome so you you recognized you were buying a job um so talk to us about what the the first I guess six months but also year or two in the business from our pre-call I recall that you were very much working in the business for a while and it took some time to figure out how to smooth out the operation so that you could extract yourself which is where you are now so let's kind of get into that progression what to talk to talk to us more about that that fire hose in the first six months yes so first you have to know that um I am a bit of a I was I am still but I was a bit of a control freak so if you are a control freak and don't want to change do not buy home care business okay because I used to be in finance you know you buy bonds and the behavior which supposed to behave and pay you back the way it's supposed to behave normally right here in the business you don't care it's not the case it's just like people who buy businesses you know when you walk into the office you never know what's going to happen you don't care it's particularly true so the first six months was learning the schedule learning the caregiver learning the customer how to hire people uh to I mean signing up customer at the time we were going in people's house and you know explaining what we were doing and you know it's it's a very very lengthy process so that was not very efficient I think probably changed things was the best uh personally but in terms of the way people react now to technology but at the time it was pretty means and the business was run uh yeah it was not run as I we run it now it was more a lot of paper a lot of you know the the by the seller are the node scheduling softwares I was not even supported by the business so one holds a little thing about you know the state regulation when it's come to Home Care the state regulation when it come to payrolls uh Federal Regulation so there was a lot uh and my wife and I was my wife was doing the schedule and we're trying to learn how to do it and that was her myself and an assistant the owners stay for a while he stayed probably up to three months and then because I was not at the time a director I had the previous owner State as a interim director or consultant for a year which was great because that sometime when I have question or issue I can always talk to her say hey how'd you deal with that in the past anything like that because sometimes your story that's that's pretty funny I mean the story that I can't see on on here right now but there's some probably someone can write a book because we all face with the same thing uh when you deal with people and so generally funny but yeah so well Jerome okay actually you don't maybe if this particular story is one you can't tell although I'd love for you to we're gonna spend some time here learning about the home care business because we hear about it a lot um do give us uh a story or two or an example or two about some of the craziness that can happen in this world paint paint a picture so people can really get a feel for this business I I can give you a story of the beauty of it uh because they are there are some beauty of it um one of my uh we have caregiver from all ages okay one of my caregivers 81 years old so she's wow yes she's basically older that some of the customer she works for us I don't know 25 or 30 hours then she volunteer on the plenty of Charity on a Saturday on a Friday on a Sunday or I don't know how she find time for herself but she's an amazing she's an amazing caregiver when we hire her she had the flip phone so and we all walks out from an app so flip phone and app doesn't really work and I tell her Nancy you know you probably want to get a smartphone okay so she basically went to buy your smartphone come back two days later say show me how it works in 81 years old and pick up how to use a smartphone and an app so that's already genius I love it for that yeah and but yeah the other day she impressed me she was taking care of a gentleman and he was a veteran because we do service veteran and that's also uh hyena knows I'm Bleak story about that but uh the guy was a veteran and uh she took good care of him and the family loved her for you know helping the veteran and the veteran was very sick and he was expecting a I think her granddaughter that arrived I do believe they gave her the name of the caregivers gave her the name of Nancy the baby was named Nancy after the caregiver because they loved okay so much so that's already fantastic and she came back to the office and she get me cry I never cry she said Jerome I want you to show you something and she threw the phone uh there was a picture there the the veteran passed away uh and he basically was a picture Bishop told her to show us the picture so she went to say my Bishop told me that I need to show you a picture so okay what's a picture of that I was intrigued and it was a picture of that gentleman looking face to a newborn baby and the stories waited for a newborn baby to come and it passed away two hours after wow wow that's that's amazing that's the beauty of our industry so you have people like that you say well it's it's come to the white that we talked about why are you there when I have that I know why I'm here to facilitate that love and compassion and we're going to talk more about that um but actually Jerome that reminds me so when you first arrived in Asheville and decided that this was the type of business that you wanted to acquire was it because you were motivated by some sort of emotional why or was it kind of purely a business decision no I think I mean from what I saw around me everyone was in that industry involving that industry as of why okay there is a reason why people want bad reading like that I lost my mom when I was 30 years old from cancer and I saw my dad taking care of her and how hard he was to you know how to family member attacker have take care of a loved one so that was that's my why and then in a business decision it's it's I mean being in in that segment of the market it's no you you have I don't have any issue having customer normally I mean we we have more and more people are growing older and wanting to stay at home too so so the problem in that business is not to get the customer so that's also for me uh being an ex-bond fund manager it was a you know it's kind of buying a bond basically I know I'm going to have customer okay the difficulty I found out after probably the first three months is in a business is uh I need to find caregiver so when I bought the business I said oh that's fine I'm gonna you know we haven't done that on the segment of customer and I can and after three months I didn't know I get it completely wrong the case to find the caregiver and keeps them not not to find customers and did your seller not communicate that or maybe you hadn't told him or yes but you know it's it's always you know you listen to someone that you kind of issue an entrepreneur you cannot beat of an alpha male somewhere or no no at all so you listen and say yeah yeah but yeah he probably communicate to me but I was not listening so but I found I found out very quickly that in that business is we have two types of customers we have the person who want to stay longer at home if possible safely and we have our employee yeah our customer too well in our pre-call you said that and I that really stayed with me that that was kind of an epiphany for you that yes you you stop seeing your caregivers as your staff as your employees which they are technically of course but you start started seeing them as customers as well because hiring and retention is the big bottleneck is the Big Challenge in this business um and so when that shifted in your mind to seeing the caregivers your caregivers as your quote-unquote customers as well how did that change your behavior as their employer I didn't really change my behavior because I I was never I mean the wherever in my office is a very fast structure my office people can call me out if I don't think I'm supposed to do I could do it because we all you know it's kind of a hole in the same boat somewhere so I need to show example even if I don't do something I need they don't dare really do it but I would like them to do it more and because I have no issue with that and for my caregiver I always you know when you hear the story of Nancy I have a lot of respect for what they do I I could not do it I was in a couple of times in a situation when I had to you know be there for safety for a customer waiting for the caregiver to arrive and once it was a he was an elderly lady that was Alzheimer and it was in the morning and I I was praying praying all my heart that she doesn't wake up it might have been surprised so no I think what what happened is is actually make me realize that the way we were addressing our caregiver needs were not completely addressed and we needed to and that's very recent we chant the whole pattern a few months ago so we decided that I don't want to enter into details to have a different way of looking our caregiver and explaining what we do to them and how we treat them and things like that so the hairs are all you put a whole package and we I'm looking right now to see how it works and if we ever to have retention uh I know that we are one of the good agents in town in terms of Revenue but people will not leave you because of the morning people will leave you because you don't respect them you yell at them you don't give them opportunity to grow for growth you don't you don't offer stuff that you could offer easily so I mean one of the first thing I did when I joined business is a I put all my caregiver on Aflac and instead of you know abstract normally pay 50 and they pay 50 percentile pay 100 of it period it's not a question of course it is a and I don't want to start a debate on a scare in the U.S but I think that was at least the minimum I can do for my caregiver so I give them bit time offs and I give them a Aflac 100 Terrible so it doesn't make use it doesn't necessarily they don't necessarily realize what the gift is but I can tell you that I have two caregivers that was not able to work and both of them get a nice check from Aflac and they realize after the gift it was because one of them get a chance of four thousand dollar another one eight thousand dollars because they were out of work for I don't know four six months I paid them halves like 100 so it didn't cost them anything and so Jerome for people who don't know tell tell them what Aflac is Aflac is a he's a I think they call it a cafeteria plan so it's a supplementary health care that you can pay for your employee Aflac or you have Colonial Life or you have plenty of things are dedicated to small business where you give them you know kind of a package of you know if they injure outside of works and they can get to set the number off because in our industry our caregiver our own employee are not full-time okay we don't guarantee hours so um because of that we don't necessarily have the same package up Big Box Company offer but Aflac is basically there for uh you can life insurance accident Insurance there's a couple of things that you can pay for for you and they if they want to have some staff themselves they have access to it at a very very low prices a caregiver will bought a life insurance I think it's a 20 I can't remember if it's ten thousand or Twenty Thousand subscribe she paid five dollar a month or five dollar ten dollar a month for it so it's nothing so yeah it's uh it's not health care but it's it can help from time to time that's great Jerome thank you for that and going back to the retention of of caregivers in in this industry it's a industry with a strong why most people operating in this business have a strong why um as you said you know maybe many of them have had a family situation where they've seen the power of home care or the need for it when it wasn't there and so they're motivated by a why much less so than money um I would think my kind of intuitively if if folks are motivated by doing the work rather than money they'd actually be easier to retain not harder why do you find that why is it that not the case well the people we we hires need to make a living okay I mean we have several kind of we have segments several kind of segments of caregiver okay some of them are I mean some of them are retirees and they are bored and they want to give back I mean we have one of our caregivers a retired pediatrician MD uh she just do caregiving and I ask her why and say well it's it's pay for my mission trip the money I want again I give it for the mission trade you have people who have been working in that industry for many years and you know I was there they can't do they can't work in facility anymore because sometimes facility it's a lot of hours but it's hard work and it's hard on them back and the body so they're coming home care when we're not supposed to leave more than 25 I mean informing not more than 25 pounds and they kind of you know it's supplemental revenue for when they retired so we have their some nurses some retired activity director from nursing homes in like that and those guys know how to train their customers the iron industry in that industry because I have to talk to them often because they took care of a middle Arena they were younger or two jobs in Moser and basically stayed in love with it but this is extra money so and you know why work from near 10 bucks if they can work for the other team so we still need to be competitive right so there is a element there and then after you have single moms that or moms that you know need to take care of the kid and pick them up after three or you know kids call out because the school can have him because he took coughing or just called it well you can't walk in a regular facility with this kind of people because you get terminated but in home care we offer that I mean for me for my business I offer that flexibility of you know if you sometimes not good but if you sometimes have to call out we understand and we can work with you so it's not only people are not people are motivated by money because they need to pay the gas and the thing but it's a two together which is important when you have people who are just there for the money I don't know for other agency but with me we don't stay long one of the the characteristics of this business too that you're making clear is the scheduling is a big part of it you any Home Care Agency they have a full-time person as I understand it if not more devoted just to scheduling and the nature of the work you said at least in your case your employees are not full-time um and and so there's flexibility there but it's also on the other side for your customers your your true your your actual customers the folks receiving the care they also all have different needs right so somebody might need three hours every Monday whereas somebody else needs five hours every day sort of thing and so you're always playing Tetris with these with these schedules to match your supply with their demand right yes it's Tetris exactly you need to practice Tetris first before doing scheduling it's a good one yes it's uh well well another let me use your metaphor that you said to me pre-call uh which I thought was good it it's also a train that never stops running so there's never a pause because people have care needs people's care needs never stop so it's not like at five o'clock everybody goes home this scheduling challenge is just persistent and there's no pause no no respite no no it's uh I mean when when you talk about you ask me the question about working in the business and how I get out and I can revert back to that my wife don't do scheduling for I don't know how many months or a year and and I don't know how she did it uh I did in six months and I met Larry which is the owner of and creator of the our brand Visiting Angels our living assistant and he's up with fantastic leader fantastic person and say you look at Mr Jerome who's doing the schedule and said me and kind of look at me say you crazy or what so you think I should get his kids receipt yeah and actually I it's helped me to you know step out I learned a lot of things doing scheduling back to one of your previous interview it's probably important to do what especially in small business to be very Hands-On at the beginning because you can call DS when people are you know not doing what is supposed to be Sarah I you've you've been there before so you know exactly what happened and scheduling is probably one of the most important function uh in our in our business so yes it's uh so I bought a scheduler and actually pay for very quickly so I didn't it's part of the thing is sometimes it's difficult uh and that was one of my tech at the beginning is I was trying to sit on my purse you know I didn't want to spend too much and I was you know uh I was afraid to spend money and not having money at the end of the month from bear hunting like that so kind of in fear and fear is never you need to be fearless and uh I I probably uh could have done better if I was more uh investing more in my business and trusting role in my guts and in my and in the brand so a good advice for everyone don't don't have diapers I try to short I mean something for my team I I pay people but I don't want them pay too much and I was trying to you know Penny pinch and at the end of the day that's a very bad calculation because I have now a team in Nashville I touch wood because you never know but for the last for the last year uh more careful hiring I spent a month doing three jobs at the same one I have no one in the office but me and I was doing everything because I didn't want to hire the wrong people because I've done it in the past many times two or three times I hired to rise of drunk people and I I basically didn't listen to myself and I just need I hire anyone and that will do and I will train that person that's not true that's not how it works so I hire first my OfficeMax who is because my office assistant that now an office manager and when we wanted to hire a new scheduler because when she joined there was a scheduler there we sit down and we just visualized what is the scheduler that we want what is the experience she wants what is the female is it male you know kind of getting a general idea of a good picture of what that person looked like and we found out scheduler can like that and she's been with us since doing great also as well Jerome so it sounds like you you went from being really hesitant to hiring anybody resistant to hiring anybody because you were overly Frugal and kind and as you said you're a control freak A micromanager to then once you opened oh and by the way the metaphor what was the the expression sitting on your purse that's a French idiom I don't know what it is but what typers or whatever oh yeah okay well I like sitting on your purse that works so you're sitting on your purse you're not wanting to spend any money you're micromanaging and then you realize that this is madness and you you're open to hiring people and then it sounds like you kind of went through some hires where you had hired too quickly not selectively enough not wisely enough and so you kind of compensated in the wrong direction and then now you've settled back into a good place where you guys got a little bit more refined in your hiring process and more selective and more patient and then that was The Sweet Spot and now you've got really good people in there and this is one of the reason you need to know how to do their job you can do it and if you want it won't be funny that people can leave you in and you know it in a day say I'm done thank you it's happened to me with the other location at the beginning okay so you have to do it yourself so that's the reason why you need to know have an idea of how to do it I'm not just being you know coming from the top and I have no idea what's going on on small businesses bigger businesses is less of an issue but small businesses we always have a key person issue all the time because we're not big enough so yeah that's also one of the reason why I bought a second franchise is to to have kind of you know trying to add a bigger team like that I can piggyback on the choser which we did uh thankfully when I had a couple of issue with a new location my office manager at my Asheville location was able to take some of the burden from me like that I could focus on doing the scheduling there while looking for schedule let's um get up to speed what does a mature office look like so in Asheville you're at over a million dollars tell us how many people are working in that business and then I and then I want to get into the numbers a little more whatever you can share so what does the people look like yeah probably between yeah we probably have 30 or we all have the ability to employ in 1999 I was already a 30 or 40 on payroll some of them are not full-time but the office admin team there is uh there is office managers there is uh there is a care coordinator slash scheduler uh we have a part-time nurse and I'm looking now High hiring probably a marketer person to go in a community and Market our services to you know rehab center a hospital thing like that and I'm probably also as well we look at recruiting a person just specifically to hiring and you know we have a couple of things above sleeves that we want to develop so I'm gonna Splurge I'm gonna I'm gonna get four but I'm sure that it will pay full I mean it will be full how many will pay so I'm not I'm not I'm not stressed and so yes and that's probably what we're gonna do so right now we have yeah and I have two two in a Lenovo location two which are an office manager and a care coordinator okay but they have a less number of hours so they have a bit of free time for themselves so I need to find me to find them stuff to do and that's just because it's a smaller office it used to be a bigger one but the owner of didn't drop the pole but he had other issue family and business-wide and it basically was not as involved in a business as he was one created it because it created a business from from the bottom up which I mean I I have a lot of respect for people who do startup so uh I basically bought it uh not very I mean once again I do a certain price probably higher than I should have but you know it's a territory which is just adjusting to my to me so it's kind of a no-brainer for me to to expand there and create a platform because there is a bit of energy between the two so you now have these contiguous territories for Visiting Angels yeah and and I hear someone in podcast say one day you need to wait to be before buying your second business and I think there is a lot of wisdom in that you know like you you can do all the mistakes for the first one uh I wanted to buy one last year I missed it uh and I was for you in a business and our franchisor also asked us to reach out in my stone to be able to buy a second business which also is is very wise I think like that to make sure that you have enough you know knowledge and a big enough office to be able to to buy a second one and don't get you know overwhelmed don't be failure because at the end of the day if you fail they fail so yeah yeah and and so uh when did you acquire Lenore December 14 but I told the guy you run the show that the previous owner you run the show until uh January 3rd because I I about my family and my kids that I will not spend when it was a Christmas so yeah so that was that was for my 50 I'm going to turn 55 so it was like it was this past January yeah yeah it was my 5th birthday so uh I don't know I might be buy another one but before my 60 probably Jerome can we get into a little bit of just the the business numbers so what do margins look like in a Home Care Agency doing a million dollars a year 10 to 15 if you really run your show very well in Berlin you can probably achieve twenty percent all right it's all a question of size right now we not where I want us to be but I can probably 20 will be achievable in the next two years uh it's just a question of volume uh so yeah yeah 15 to 20 is probably the good a good number there explain to us a little bit about the different types of of home care because there's tiers and it's I mean there can be hospice I think in some cases all the way down to like no medical like no medical care at all and everything in between so how does that work yeah so the first uh you have agency who do Medicare and Medicare an agency we do not okay um when you do Medicare or Medicaid you have more uh regulations I don't do it I think for one territory I would like to do it but it's it's more there's more constraint in term of you know the way you do things okay so is that the first thing then after you have no medical Home Care so basically home care and what you call home health care which is basically have a medical connotation you know like it's called it's like non-skilled and skilled same thing okay we are Visiting Angels only focus on non-skill we only do non-medical care which is basically uh basing dressing transferring Mobility uh offering some transportation services a medicational minder laundry Lighthouse keeping and and a couple of this thing helping to dress and go to the bathroom and personal care and get clean and things like that so that's what we do exclusively okay when I was looking to buy a business you have other agencies who do both who do medical and non-medical okay and we with inside I seen the model to be more focused on one instead of two is probably much better even so I understand that when both you probably have synergies that work together also as well but I I'm more comfortable to just non-medical and maybe I don't know maybe if I want to expand them to something else I might buy just a medical agency because I'm not being I can I could do that also had one but so many child is basically drawing blood wound dressing cutting Nails that's medical I mean Thursday so you basically need people who have more skill and more expensive but you charge your services more but for a shorter period of time so medical Home Health agency might come to give you showers they probably will be there for 30 minutes or now Max okay a nurse might go there to help you with just dialysis or something like that or you wouldn't care the nurse will be there for 15 minutes no more home care we can we can be there for a whole day 24 7 maybe later night okay so it's a longer shift but it's a lower cost even so it still cost it to our cost so that's how it works and then after a side dark you have a OSP Square so when people get a nose piece is basically they've been diagnosed with a seminary Mess by a doctor who says you have one six months to leave so just for the people out there it's not because you know space you're gonna die I had customer awareness reason was went out of hospice okay so it's not a fertility all right okay so you have hospice and you have uh I think that's one of the main one product reviews that I know of I'm pretty much in my in my silos I don't really look at the rest of the industry but that's what I understand great I want to ask um about growth and what a a larger version of your business could look like if somebody wanted to grow to a five million dollar 10 million dollar home care business um what what would that look like do you do you have to basically do that inorganically or are the Tailwinds such that you could do that organically um yeah that's right there you can do it organically we have a lot of franchise here physique angels that I'll run that side I also five million dollar businesses I think actually you're not really stuff the branch the brand owner is probably I don't know what his number is but it's probably very high but he's in the city but yes you you can grow it organically um bigger than 10 million that's going to be difficult because as a franchise you have territory so you probably will need to buy another territory to go to that side but I think it's possible to yeah I know that there's one agency in my territory one city we're doing one million dollar a year just on that small territory and I've got three or four of them so yeah I can yes it's it's all a question of finding a caregiver but also having the right church because if you grow with you know not pressure again on that so what I did the last four or five years I put together a platform with a lot of trial and error with tools that can help me grow very quickly okay if you tell me two years ago three years ago can you wire your 10 caregiver a week or say yes but it's a lot of work right now we can hire 10 caregiver Wing very very easily without any without button your eye it's not an issue anymore can you onboard six new customer a week for me that two years ago I didn't add the organization for that no yes I can do six action on board 610 customer weeks and the nurse because in our state we have to send a nurse and everything else yes I have I have I've organized in a way that we can do that so now I have the platform so next step is to grow the platform and yeah organically it's probably the one I want to do and what we do and Jerome assuming you can find the customers what capacity do you think you're you're at like this platform that you've built what what capacity do you think it could support oh right now I'm nowhere to where I couldn't be it's great oh yeah yeah okay I don't know where I mean okay I can't be at 10 million but I think it growing to two three million dollars uh to two or three million dollars is probably feasible I was in the max in 23 years uh then after it depends of you know plenty of seeing you know it's I've seen as Mike Tyson on Wednesday we say everyone I've got a strategy and until they receive the first punch right so right so something can happen you know kovid was a rectal in our industry but we all want a better and hunger after it you shape the way we do business so it's it's somewhere it's it's a it's not a blessing to have covered but it help us you know it helped people evolve also as well so you don't we don't know what what we cannot you know the fact that we had you know Valentini was detrimental to a business because we couldn't stand to caregivers it wasn't available so we're losing ours so there was impact or covet so it was not all or easy but yeah I mean the the business yeah it's it's a good business uh if you have a strong why and another control freak and in terms of the capacity that are or the the market the addressable market for a Home Care Agency does it correlate basically to the population Center so Asheville is a small City or or does Visiting Angels like in the middle of you know DC the DC Metro area there's just I mean do they allocate um territories based on population or based on actual basically based on population okay I think it's basically if I remember as a basic on population and possible referral sources Doctors Hospital uh short-term rehab facility or those kind of I don't know what the recipe is in terms of analyst probably question for them but I mean yeah well I like with them it people say franchise is a straight jacket but what I like with Visiting Angels is one and I listen to people or talk to people who have put the brand we have a good amount of Liberty inside the jacket to you have enough Liberty inside the jacket to have time okay it's not it's not the Army there or I mean I've never been here it's what I say in France okay it's not very strict and there is thing that you need to do and and but they are they are a wise there are wise decision taking by a franchisor in terms of the thing we need to do I think they make frame I mean from a business 10 point of view it's it's make a lot of sense like you are for example an obligation to spend on SEO and something like that but that makes sense you know it's not something that they force you to do it but somewhere they don't force you because if you don't do SEO you're not going to go anywhere anyhow and it's not just about the straight jacket when you're considering a franchise um a franchise Network it's also about the royalties you're paying and are they delivering value to you yes yes and it sounds like you you touched on this earlier you feel like you're oh yeah I mean but it's a lot of value we have an intranet man I mean there is so much value there I mean I mean there is stuff that I didn't need that you know issue a starter at Visiting Angels I mean it's or it's plug and play and they basically map out everything you just you know choose to apply the books and and it's fantastic the amount of of into intellectual uh properties that I put in that we have an income in it's called intranet and there is so many documents and uh how to do a marketing plan or what in the USU or which vendor you can type who have who have been invaded by head office to help you with abz you know so how to train your caregiver how to I mean it's it's just it's huge huge what the amount of data that the furnishes yeah it's good value for money and and the brand is one of the stronger brand in that field in the US so it's also it's what we buy at the end of the day your business is going to do between 10 and 20 bottom line whether it's your franchise or not because what you don't spend what you spend on franchising fee you're gonna have to spend it to make yourself known in a community so you will need to spend more in marketing that with a franchise because the market for you right I think I think people often Overlook they think of the franchise the license fees just a tax but in if it's a good franchise or that money that you're spend paying them you would be paying yeah otherwise and doing the services for yourself at the franchisor is providing to you hopefully an even better value for example if they ask you to commit to a certain you know events that shouldn't to go and think like that it's not five times a year but it makes sense because you meet other functions or franchisee and you can you know share and discuss what's working with them so it's also it's also a good system where you're not alone in your little Ivory tour Tower and you can talk and speak with those people who basically have the same issues on you and say how we did that we did that so it's a it's a it's a community and as I said there seems to be quite a bit of interest in this type of business among people buying businesses and also from private Equity so from larger better capitalized players are you do you see that as well is that something that's talked about from inside this industry uh not I mean I heard it I read it I think one of our competitors have been bought by private Equity uh I don't know what's what's going to happen with visiting answers I don't think that they want to do that I don't think that the owner would like to do that also it's it's up to him at the end of the day even if a private Equity buys a brand they will make sure that we on the ground are happy with them so it's it's not like the franchisor is a boss and we are employee right it's a it's a it's like a it's a wedding you know it's it's like any partnership you know you they think you don't like and it's a new like and you just have to go with the flow unless you're not happy you send your business and do something else so yeah so private Equity I heard family office also as well were present in that field you need to have a very good operator to do that you really need to have someone who knows the field knows the volatility of the the employee because we have it's like the restaurant business we have a high rate of you know people coming and leaving so yeah the on the paper it's a good industry to be raised but you really need to have good operator to do that well actually let me ask that a little bit to remember let's say in your case say you you know you've gotten Asheville to the point where you it's kind of running it itself you you know it's I want to call I don't want to say the p word passive but it's kind of running itself um and you know then Lenore you'll get it there maybe you have another couple of uh maybe you buy another territory or two and you get them each to two three million that seems realistic you say you're now you're at 10 15 million across three or four territories and at some point you want to let's say step out of the business altogether um what is a an operator look like to to do this a a really a strategic operator not just somebody who is under you know doing the scheduling and doing the hiring but somebody who who you would really feel comfortable moving back to Destin and giving them the business to run while you you retain your ownership of the business what is that what is that painted picture of that strategic operator and it's a question that uh I'm gonna address this Friday with a person who let me with a business because that's actually uh the question that I have and he asked me uh why do you want someone I mean you know you just integrate Lenor so it should be easier but I think it's someone who understands the industry is someone which is very very good with administrative I'm I'm crap you know it it asked me to fill a paperwork texting like that I just have I basically I can't do it right so my wife's very good at it so we're very very compliment each other on that but uh administratively someone who is strong we can I never been a guy who like to have photo processed and sitting like that you know I think I read the book traction and I says that's it that's exactly what I need I'm happy to do business development to have the vision to talk with other guys and try to assisting and put the vision and we have a strong Vision in our I design All Vision we design an old vision and we want to be the best agent which you work for in our territory that's a very strong statement that we're making and we we work with with three big value which are on Integrity communication and professionalism that's really the how we control our decision so someone we can understand my vision there to be the best agency to work for in my territory I want my caregiver to say hey don't go anywhere else go walk with physique angels as the best in town because if I have the best caregivers and I've got the best and then having that person who can basically do the day-to-day operation you know customer consideration you know workers comp we are just a ninja caregiver today there's plenty of little things every day in the office that you need to you know tick the boxes and I'm not good at ticking boxes I'm good I'm doing this but I'm not good at following them so them so basically someone I can do a list for and hand it over and say hey there's your week so yeah and someone will basically also want to be part of the adventure to to grow something big because we really have right now I really have some two agencies that can be much much bigger than what they are so it's basically probably sharing also as well products that grows great Jerome last question since you've started this adventure in the Home Care space um what muscles would you say you've developed and what muscles would you say have atrophied uh the desire for control is smaller than it used to be not because I wanted it because I can't that's a good one uh a listening skill is probably something that I pick up um trying to follow the process Visiting Angels give you plenty of good tips as a franchisor and I was not always listening but now I'd rather you know one of the guy I talked to was very successful business I was visiting Andrew said it's very simple we just do everything that head office we call the head office the ensures that it works and I think that's probably that maybe more listening skill uh and I learned not to fear anymore trust myself and that was a big one because I didn't trust myself as a business owner to have told me five years ago once you're gonna end up in agency and there's a lot of probably 60 70 on problem wow now it's just like yeah I want to grow bigger but I want to have a business where people are enjoy being there that's important and anything that you think May skill that you previously had that has uh not that's not as strong anymore yes uh very funny uh I used to be grew that looking at finance and spreadsheet and things like that not anymore I can I can still get into it but I used to be like geek in term of a strawberry financial and I it's just like if you send me you know the business to buy I will probably dig into it but less intensively than the first one because you get instead of going too much into details you you go you know when you run one or two business you know you go straight to the essentials so that's probably something that I did not more wiser you know being able to go straight sorry whether it's hiring person or making a decision right now you know I need to make a decision about my Ico spending on both agency and there were people and at some point it's gonna be okay what's essential and okay let's go Jerome this has been great is there anything that I didn't ask that you would want to share with the audience well if that's funny you're asking that question I always ask question to people also as well whether it's an interview or someone I talk to or I say always what is the question I have asked I haven't asked you that I should have asked you it's a good question right I don't know yeah it's a very good question it's a good question too I I don't work probably what's next and uh the answer is I don't know I should say probably I don't know if I'm gonna buy one or two more or if I'm gonna buy something different or look for something different um or there is a lot of uncertainty uh I'm actually looking at a couple of things too we we're going back and forth in my wife her parents get not getting younger and they're in Europe so their possibility that maybe we've moved to Europe that it won't be now because so there is a lot of things in New York right now so it's uh it's a bit more complicated but I need first to get those two puppy up and running very well well here's a question for each room because we asked this I we talked about this in the pre-call you know you the way you're talking about your business today it seems like it's it's basically quite successful and you're really happy with this but it but those hard moments particularly you know those first six months and then in learning how to do this business learning how to schedule correctly hire correctly how to treat your your caregivers like customers um was actually quite challenging really hard and what I asked you was would you do it would you do this all over again like if you you know now you knew then would you would you go down this path and I think you said no but that your wife would say yes or did I have do I have that backwards but one of you was a no my wife was a no one okay okay my wife was strong no the strong though for me huh I'm a yes I think I think I'm where I'm supposed to be okay being a control fake I bought the business that helped me not being a control freak anymore or less of a controlled freak anymore so I bought my own medicine so if that makes sense you know I bought something that take me out of my ways and you know destroy complete me and I would all over the place and help me reconstruct that a person and a business owner so I loved it for that there is probably things I will do different and uh sitting on my personals probably I would probably spend more quicker I lost time there I really lost time in terms of you know how I should have done seeing and because I was in fear and you know when you're in fear you take that decision and I forgot that I was a guy who decide on a win to go live in the US or move from Destiny to Asheville jobs following the flow so I don't know it's uh if the if the flow happened again I will be more following the flow whatever it means okay whether it's home care but I I look at other business I look at you know fencing company or when I was investing in I look at plenty of other businesses I bought Rentals Management company that I always wanted to do something that has a meaning and some of the employees that I have are here because of business has a meaning they just don't want to be in a business they want to be in a business that has a meaning yeah engineering good caregiver for Mom and Dad it's it has a meaning basically and we all very very have to office level we are very careful with what happened to our we communicate on a regular basis to make sure that our caregiver do surviving and the customer will treat you that's very important to me and to my staff too they really I'll close with one other little visual that you've given me in our pre-call that this is the type of business where when people are wearing your your caregivers are wearing their um Visiting Angels t-shirts at the grocery store or whatever people will come up to them and thank them for their service do I have that right yeah I mean I mean our wizard it's a mirror so pte OT caregiver CNAs it's not an easy job you know you go in people's home sometimes you're not you you are wanted but not wanted because Mom and Dad need knows that they have to have a caregiver if they want to stay at home if they don't then the family will stand in a nursing home so there is that kind of so it's not easy and to take care of you know personal I mean cleaning someone it's okay to clean I mean I have done the diaper for my for my kids but for an elderly it's not necessarily easy so yeah yeah I have a lot of respect for those guys they they're really Heroes Jerome thank you very much for coming on and sharing uh this story what uh an adventure and an adventure with uh real why and meaning behind it uh beautiful stuff great to hear about this industry thank you very much thank you very much goodbye I hope you enjoyed that interview make sure you subscribe to the acquiring minds Channel below we are now publishing twice a week so tons of new interviews and stories to come stories that will help you along your own path to acquiring a business