From Printing Schedules to Overseeing 135 Franchises: Andrew Dahle's Assisting Hands Success Story

[0:16]  Welcome back to another episode here on the Hard Hustle Podcast. Our guest today says, "We've got franchises who didn't grow up with Facebook, but they've been able to build sevenf figureure businesses, helping families stay whole. That's what scaling with heart actually looks like. Andrew, welcome man. How you doing?

[0:31]  Hey Fran, thank you. I I appreciate the invite to join the podcast.

[0:35]  Oh man, I'm actually excited kind of going back and realizing what we were able to do on the first conversation. Um I think there's so much insight that you really bring, man. I I really want to kind of start here. You didn't step in with a suit. You didn't come in with a slide deck. You were really printing schedules and answering calls. You were doing the groundwork before you become who you are today. Um, what did working those early frontline shifts actually teach you that business school couldn't?

[0:58]  Yeah, it when I first started with assisting hands, it was in 2010, and this was before a lot of the technology that we have. So, we had our caregivers that were filling out their progress notes on the carbon paper. You know, they would keep a copy, they'd bring a copy into the office, leave a copy with the client, and it was very tedious. And I am just wired to make things efficient. And so even just like the filing of them where how can we file it more efficiently and I remember just putting in you know some headphones and just trying to file everything alphabetically but it you know is just it taught me that in business there are some work that you have to do some of it's tedious but uh if you can get through and kind of cut through that and you can uh improve the efficiencies of it then you can focus on why you're doing it and that for us that's the clients for their uh the caregivers focusing on the caregivers helping them uh fulfill you the empathy that they have and the caring heart that they are uh that they possess and then having the clients get the care that they need because our the service that we're in is just helping our clients get through their day with a little bit more care, a little more more dignity and you know that's what we try and do. So ultimately, yes, we're in business, but that's why we're doing what we're doing.

[2:10]  I mean, I really guess we can kind of go back a little bit and figure out how did you get here, man? H why why this space? you know, you could be doing anything else, but you're here helping in the health care industry. Um, is it something that you kind of grew up where people were in healthcare or did you just grow up and realizing, hey, there's such a need here? How did you get started into it?

[2:29]  Yeah, I actually started with assisting hands in in 2010 because I was interested in the business aspect of it. So, that's why I was doing everything from the quality assurance visits to outside marketing to the on call. I was really just learning the business. I knew I was going to go to business school, so I thought, hey, it'd be helpful if I was in business and could understand it a little bit. So, I had the opportunity for a few months to work before I went off to college. And it really helped me kind of lay the groundwork, my foundation for understanding business before I got into all the textbooks.

[3:00]  So, you're saying that you because I believe I kind of did the same something similar. You went and learned onhand business, right? Really, what it looks like. So when you were actually in business classes, it becomes a little easier. Is that correct?

[3:13]  Yeah. Not only were the classes easier and a little bit more intuitive, but there were things that were theoretical in business class. I like look that's not how the real world real world works.

[3:22]  Like you know the mission statements, like you have to have your mission statement. Uh and in class it made it seem like that's the most important. You can't open your doors before you have your mission statement, you know, and and you know, it's important to have a mission statement, but in the day-to-day grind,

[3:35]  that's not what you're looking back and opening up your binder and okay, what is exactly a mission statement, you know, like so it's just interesting on some of the things that they focus on at at college compared to the real world and how to make a business successful.

[3:47]  Yeah. No, I agree. I I was able to be already a general manager and open up my cafe, close the cafe, and then go back to school. So when I went back to school realizing like man all these things I was literally learning by just doing which I you know nothing against people that go to school but it's more of hands-on training without be a certificate any single day or a degree any single day and I used to get so frustrated because I spent eight years in an organization where I'm like I know the ins and outs. You can't teach people skills. You could teach somebody black and white but you still can't teach people how to how to treat other people, right? How to lead other people. um they would just kind of teach you just more black and white as you mentioned the mission statement making that such a big priority when in reality there's so much more things that you can actually make a priority there um but I felt when I was in these classes there was still some things that I was actually learning you know from a space of not being able to do hands-on do you recall anything that you said hey I got it all but then school really gave me that thing that I still to this day actually utilize

[4:46]  yeah I' I've joked with people that the most important skill that I got from college is excel and it's a little bit of a joke because it's like you go to college for all the knowledge, right? But I had some really good technology teachers that really forced us to learn Excel. And that has actually been a tremendous blessing for our business because we've been able to take things that are like a little bit clunky and streamline it, make it more efficient, have it so everybody could see it and kind of spits out some more KPIs, uh, key performance indicators. Uh, but that has been something that's been like a hard skill that I can definitely say this was worth going to college for. And that was before AI. So

[5:21]  Excel, man. Yeah, Excel was one of those things. I didn't even know it did what it did. And um I can't remember what the class was called, but it was very Excel driven and we had to build all these different things and and I'm like, "Wow, don't now because it's one of those things that when you learn and you don't really practice, you forget about it." So now I'm like trying to, as you mentioned, chat DPT to get me back in in line. But yeah, man, Excel, it's such a good thing. And I think so many people sleep on Excel, Google Sheets as well. like it just kind of gives you that same aspect. But there's people want to get the highest CRM. And I tell you what, my CRM before I actually got an actual CRM one of these companies, I was using Google Sheets, man. I had all these things lined up and I was creating these columns. Nowadays, you can just get a, you know, CRM and it'll do everything for you. But yeah, I was doing the ground work on building that, man. And it is pretty cool when you can make Excel do exactly what you need to. And a lot of organizations, if you're starting from the bottom, Excel is probably one of those great opportunities that maybe you need. Do you agree, Andrew?

[6:20]  Yeah. And let me just connect that to business because with Excel, you're always trying to solve a problem. You're analyzing the data or uh and you're just trying to solve the problem. And that if you can get good at solving problems in Excel, I think you can get really good at solving problems in business because every day is just another problem. You know, you know, it could be a caregiver calling off. It could be a client that needs an additional caregiver for the day. Uh it could be a special client where you have they need an additional shift that day. Whatever it is, you're solving problems. And so if you can learn to solve problems in in Excel where it's an environment where it's not going to jump through the screen and bite you, you know, and you can get comfortable kind of in the chaos, well, I think you can then turn that and turn it into confidence where now in business, you can be comfortable in the chaos of business and really succeed.

[7:08]  That's so true, man. And I really want to talk about the business that you're in. You mentioned last time I spoke to you that it's more than a franchise. It's truly a family. Um you travel, you go and have dinners. I think last time you said you were you may have went or you came back from golfing with some of the other franchisee owners and stuff like that. And really being able to create that I think is huge from a franchisee perspective. Uh most franchises sell opportunity but you built something people tattoo on license plate per se, right? What does family of franchise owners actually look like behind the scenes? Yeah, we Assisting Hands is very proud of our culture of having a family of franchise owners. In fact, that is my license plate on my F-150. It's that fo the FO. So, when I send emails out to the whole system, I'll say, you know, dear FO or FOFO, this is what, you know, we're announcing or whatever. We treat each other like family. We're in the business of caring for people that are in their most vulnerable state. We're sending people to care for their mothers in their own home, helping them with dressing and with grooming. And since we're in the business of caring for people as a franchiseor, we need to be in the business of caring for our people, our franchises. And so we treat them like family. And yeah, I mentioned on our previous call that I went to North Carolina, we visited some of our newer offices. And you know, we had the meetings and that kind of thing, but then we went to mini golf and just played putt putt and had ice cream afterward. And it was so fun because all of us come from different backgrounds, have different families, and we were able to still connect and enjoy each other's time. Uh, and it's it's more than just the business. It's the relationships, too.

[8:41]  And really both of you guys filling each other's cups. I can imagine your cup left pretty full, right? Being in that in that space, but also their cups. I think a lot of the times, I think you may have mentioned this, but a lot of the people that you work with are 50 plus year olds that have left corporate America. So for them being in the corporate world is not always as good as you as you're doing it right now, right? Like I'm involved. I'm taking them out. I'm making them feel seen and valued. Like that's a win. I can only imagine that their cup is like, man, I've never experienced this in my whole time in corporate world, but look what I'm experiencing now. So of course, you make them excited, more driven to go back to the offices and do more. Um, I think also what you're you're creating is the ability to, hey, I'm available at any time that I'm just like you. feel free to reach out. You know, as a good leader, you you show good leadership in just the small things that we do. Showing up, man, and go play putt putt and ice cream. Such a huge big win for you, man. Is there anything else like any personal touches that you just love to um like fishing and putt that really scale better than strategy decks?

[9:42]  Anytime I go somewhere, I try and meet with one of our franchises and just go to their office, get to know them, get to know their office staff. So, for example, I was in Napa Valley for a conference earlier this year with all uh you know, with tons of home care CEOs, both franchisee, a franchise and then not. Um, and while I was there, I was like, hey, you know, I need to go visit one of our locations, one of our franchises. And one of them was busy, so I went and visited another one. It was in the Bay Area. And it was so awesome to connect with him again, but also get to know his staff. And he's able to show off his office. you know, he's built his own culture in his office, and it was great to support him and recognize him and the office office staff and and they like to see somebody coming from the national team and visiting them and helps them feel special. Uh, but it really just solidifies our relationships. So, anytime I travel, I try and go visit our franchises and and just, you know, it's kind of like visiting people in the trenches and saying, "Hey, you're doing a great job." You know, like make sure that they know that you care for them and you appreciate them.

[10:48]  Makes a difference, man. It truly just makes a difference when someone feels seen and heard, you know, and it seems like you're definitely the man to always make sure you're checking up on somebody and I think that's pretty cool and will definitely take you far in whatever it is that you do, man. But just leadership in general. I think it it lacks that at times. So that's kudos to you on on however you may have picked that up, whether it was school, hands-on training, family. But I I actually would ask you because we talked about just before getting on that you have a family of four, man. You you have a wife. um you're still making sure that you're pouring into others. There's there's a lot to really learn from just your family and leadership. What is some of the things that you felt you take away from being a dad, being a husband that you continue to also pour into your leadership in the business world?

[11:33]  Great question. Being a dad is very stressful, right? You know, I got four kids, uh 12 and under, and so there's just a lot of challenges that come with that. there's resistance, there's disobedience, there's uh you know, uh discipline, and all of those things translate into business. Sometimes we have franchises that disagree with some of our policies. And so, how do we work through that? And so, being a dad where I've trying to practice love and caring for my children, and it's not just my way, the highway has helped because I can explain why we're doing it the way it is and have some give and take. And then that translates translates into business and say, "Hey, this is our policy." And sometimes we might need to adjust our policy. Uh but it really starts back at the very beginning when we first meet the franchises when we come to Boyisey. We have discovery day and I can go into more details about that if you'd like, but we really try and solidify the relationship there. And so with my kids, it's the same thing. I'm trying to have a relationship with them all the time that's positive. That way when there is conflict that comes up, they can look back like, "Okay, this is a point of conflict, but I know dad loves me and he loves me no matter what."

[12:43]  I love it. You know, the biggest thing that I take away from I mean, I'm so early on, you have kids that are a little older, but for me, I feel like I'm learning patience. Like patience with my kids, and also patient with people, patient within the business. It it we're we're in a time where technology gives us things so instantly, right? You can get you can order something from Amazon and get it within two days sometime next day. You can go to chat GPT and do research on something that would have taken you 30 days and figure it out maybe within 30 minutes. So I think we're kind of in this space man where I'm learning patience. You know my my kids they as you mentioned could definitely give you a run for your money. Just got to be patient man. You know it they don't know any better. It's up to us as leaders and as parents and really what we are we're just naturalb born leaders when we become parents. um that you really kind of pour into these different things. So, one of the biggest things I say, man, is patience. But I'm I'm still learning everything else that you're talking about as well as the kids get a little older, I can imagine I'll be there as well. But anytime I tell someone that's not a parent, I said what a child is going to teach you teach you is patience. And I guess I didn't realize I didn't have too much patience, right? I was I'm that young kid that just wanted things fast. And now

[13:54]  I will say one other thing that I've learned from my kids is the ability to forgive quickly. Sometimes it amazes me where I do something and I have to discipline my child and they're mad at me

[14:06]  and then, you know, a few minutes later they're just back to playing and they, you know, they come give me a hug and they love me. I'm like, man,

[14:14]  I need to learn from them. I need to be able to forgive people faster and just when they say I'm sorry, just actually let them be sorry, you know, be sorry and then just move on and and you know, just let let it slide off you. So,

[14:27]  I love that. Let's get into the space of of tech, man. Um because you did we mentioned early in the beginning that your owners didn't grow up on with Facebook. Um social media, you know, internet was something probably new at that time, but now they're using AI, which is which is kind of crazy to think about. A lot of people are not using AI because of the fear on being uncomfortable. But what are you guys doing that people don't expect to be utilized when it comes to AI and how you're using it? Many of our franchises come from corporate America. They felt like they were a cog in their, you know, the corporate machine and they so they wanted to start their own business, give back to their community, and they wanted to do something that, you know, had to do with their family or some family field. And so they're perfect fit for us. But where they lack is, you know, their technology, their techsavviness. So a lot of them didn't grow up with Facebook or some of the other social media platforms and just technology in general. So at our goal as the national office, the national team is to create an environment where they can thrive utilizing the technology even if they're not experts in the technology. So an example of that would be with social media. If our franchises don't have Facebook and they're not posting, they're not going to know the best way to post and the kinds of posts that going to get lots of engagement, right? But we have a platform where they can log in and they can see what other franchises are posting and then they can just reuse that in their location and it'll tweak to their information and they can see the analytics behind that. But we also use AI within that as well. So we can use AI to respond to online reviews. So if somebody gets a three, four, five star Google review, our system can actually use AI to generate a good response where it takes the person's name and if they mention one of our caregivers, it takes that and puts that in there and it's just actually pretty incredible. And then our franchises can choose, okay, do they want the AI to respond to all the reviews or just, you know, like we have some franchises that only want to they personally want to respond to all the onestar reviews and that's great. And so we have the settings in there. So, it's it's basically as much or as little as the franchises want to use, but they don't feel completely overwhelmed with all the social media platforms that are out there. Another thing that this does, it allows our franchises to post to all the platforms out of one place. So, they don't have to log in and out of all the different platforms. It saves them time. And then we also post on their behalf so that they don't even have to be posting all the time. So, it gives them a competitive edge in the marketplace. It's where our franchises don't have to hire someone full-time to be doing social media compared to one of their competitors, maybe a mom and pop who's if they want to turn out the same quality and uh quantity of social media posts, they're going to be spending a lot more resources. And that's really the power of franchising.

[17:19]  If the Heart and Hustle podcast has ever sparked any idea or made you think differently, do us a favor. Make sure to guys share this, post it on LinkedIn or even text that nonprofit friend that you just have. Whatever works. This is what keeps the conversation going and allows us to just grow this community together. Seriously, we appreciate you. Yeah. And I tell you what, I've spoken to some individuals that are actually franchisee owners, not to your organization, but to others. And um you guys are really ahead of the game on the way as you look at AI and automation because it looks like you guys are using both AI and automation um allowing the the um responses to be triggered right once this person if it's a one star review. I I think that's hella cool. But how do you get these people to adopt these systems? I mean these are probably people that are already overwhelmed. They're confused. They're nervous. How do you get them to really adopt the systems? Is it easy? Is it something that you just got to kind of walk them through? Um because so many people right now hear it, need it, but afraid of it.

[18:23]  That is a great question. Adopting new technology is always tough. It's hard because it's change. None of us like change. All of us are resistance. Resistant to change whether it's a new diet or you know, whatever it is. If you get a new phone, oh like you might like it, but the fact that you have to change, it's tough.

[18:39]  So we're already just kind of

[18:41]  pushing up against human nature with that. Uh but if we can explain the benefits of it, this is going to save you time. It's going to give you a competitive edge. It's going to um help you with local branding. Your your brand is going to be better locally. All of those things help kind of make that change a little bit more palatable. So our franchises, we also give them access to have their office staff do it. So they may be like, look, I don't want to do it. Can I have an employee do it? Yes, we want to be very flexible. We want to offer the flexibility to our franchises that if they want to do it, they can. But if they want to have their fr one of their employees run it, great. Turn over the keys and let them go with it.

[19:19]  I love it. And probably sometimes the best thing to do, right, like is to delegate the work to someone that's probably excited about it. If anything, um, I'll tell you what, I always say there's things I don't like, like admin work or anything that's repetitive, even posting on social media. So, I've hired someone to do that part. I don't mind being on camera and doing that, but sometimes having to edit, having to pose, having So, yeah, I think at times a lot of business owners, franchisee owners in in your case, need to always think like that is that you don't have to do it all. Find someone that can actually do it. You know, as a leader, one of the biggest things I always hear um is as I coach is um I can't find anybody to do the work, you know, the way that I do it. And I always ask the same question. Are you a leader? Nine times out of 10, they're going to give me the yes response. Well, if you're a good leader, you should be able to lead someone to do it even better than you or just as good. And then they look at me like, I guess you're right. But it that's truly the case, man. As leaders, especially when you're running the show, it's not to wear every single hat. It's to know they exist and who to give them to. Am I right?

[20:27]  Yep. Absolutely right. One of the things that I should say another thing that we have in the technology is leaderboards where they can see who's getting the most reviews, what's the average response time. So there's a little competitiveness to this person got 20 reviews uh you know in the last year and then we recognized them at our annual convention for getting the most reviews that kind of thing. So that also helps with the adoption.

[20:52]  I love me a little competition. Anytime I feel like there's a competition definitely you know I'm working even harder. So, I love that you guys are implementing so many good strategies that it's so easy to implement and not a lot of people look into it, man. Like, is this something that is just a was already in place? Was this a collaboration between you and and your colleagues that just kind of thought strategically like this? There's a lot of strategy in what you guys are doing and how you're doing it.

[21:17]  When we when I first joined the national team, let me back up a little bit. So, I started with the assisting hands in 2010, then stopped, went to college, went to a different career path for a little while, came back to Idaho, and then joined the national team in 2016. So, I've been on the national team for almost a decade now. And when we when I was on the national team in 2016, we had 35 offices. And now we're up to 135 offices. So, there's this incredible growth that's happened. And when I first, you know, was gung-ho in 35 offices, we were trying to streamline everything. That was actually one of the reasons why I was hired was, okay, we're going to continue to grow. How do we streamline things right now so that when we're at 135 offices and we're at 200 offices that we're not just running around with our heads cut off, you know, that systems and processes in place. And so,

[22:08]  um, I lost just about lost my train of thought right there. Uh what was your

[22:14]  No, we were just we were pretty much just talking about um the the way that we we the systems in place, right? Like you guys have all these systems in place. Is it a collaborative effort? Is it something?

[22:26]  That's right.

[22:27]  Got it.

[22:28]  Yeah. So when we had 35 offices and I first when we first got started when I first joined the national team I recognized hey we need to make something that's has economies of scale that benefits all the franchises but they only have to incrementally put into right and that's when we first adopted this social media platform and uh we've been using them ever since. So one important key is to not just jump to the next one just because it's you know saves a little bit of money or they have a new bell and whistle like to have consistency and it's weird to say how can you have consistency while trying to improve efficiency right like improving efficiency means there's going to be change which isn't consistent right you know the only thing constant is change but having consistency within the platform makes it easier for our franchises because they don't have to be jumping back and forth between like hey what what software are we using now so come up with the core software, you know, core technology they're going to use. And then it really is just about training and refining that and improving it. I

[23:27]  think there's people going to be asking because you're dropping a lot of good stuff here. There's going to be a lot of people asking like, well, how do you know when a system is actually supporting people versus not just adding noise? What is your response to that?

[23:39]  A lot of times we ask for feedback. So, we're getting feedback from our franchises. Is this something that's useful or is it not? And you can tell if something's not useful if they're not using it. You know, sometimes sometimes it could be really useful and they just need better training on it. But

[23:53]  correct,

[23:54]  if it's not being used, franchises have a barometer of what's actually moving their business, what's moving the needle, what's helping them grow. And so if something isn't useful, don't be afraid to just move on and say, "Hey, yeah, like that was that might have been good at the time where we were, but now we're moving on to something else." So some of the best practices that we have in place have come from our franchises where they've said, "Hey, this is this is really what's working in our market. Let's share it with everybody else." And then we adopt that and we have this culture of collaboration and sharing. And we're not afraid to listen to our franchises. We want their input. Yes. Uh yes, you know, we're the franchiseor and we have the brand and we need to protect the brand, but they're the ones that are boots on the ground day in and day out running the business. So, we want to listen to them and adopt the best practices and the best ideas they have and share it with everybody for everybody's benefit.

[24:48]  Andrew, I think we're also going to have people thinking, "Wow, I love this franchisee model." A lot of people don't really understand the model. Um, talk about the model, man. What does it look like? Someone wants to get in and they want their own franchise. They want to continue to go from 135 to 136. They just don't know where to get started and what it even entails to be a part of a a franchise. Could we kind of dig into that as well? Yes, I'm a true believer of the franchising model. So, franchising is you have a company, a franchiseor that has the business down path. They have the processes in place. They have uh the the people, the tools, the software, all of that ready. And then you have people that have the capital. So, they have the money to run the business. And then you bring them together and say, "Hey, we have a brand. We have a business. You have the money." And so, they, you know, they partner, they become a franchisee. And in in our instance with home care, it's inh home care. So our franchises, they rent a small office space and then they hire and train caregivers to go into people's own homes and help them with activities of daily living. So our clients, they might need help with making their bed or with some laundry or with meal preparation or with dressing, grooming, bathing, that kind of thing. So we're not doing anything medical. We're not doing like wound care, uh anything like that. We're just helping people get through their day with a little bit more dignity and a little bit more grace and and it's a really great model because it's e it's very easy to scale and it's very scalable. So a lot of franchises you'll you if you want to open up a restaurant it's going to be a couple million dollars. You got to build the restaurant. You're heavily invested into it.

[26:29]  With us with home care it's a small office space. You hire and train your caregivers and they're WD employees, but you don't pay them until they go to work and that's once you have clients and they're in clients own homes. So once you have five clients, 10 clients, 20 clients, that's not really increasing your overhead. Your overhead is growing incrementally, you know, by getting more clients, but your revenue can grow exponentially. You don't need more office space, you know, from from 25 to 50 clients, you might need to hire one more office person, but it's not a onetoone. So, it's very interesting that in our industry, you don't need as much capital as you would to buy a McDonald's or a Subway, but you're able to still really scale it and grow it. And I just actually looked this morning and we're publishing a a magazine article in a franchise dictionary highlighting one of our franchises who grossed a million dollars their first full year of business. And there's just not a lot of industries where you can get in a business, open your doors for under a couple hundred thousand dollars and then grow to gross over a million in the first year.

[27:31]  Yeah, I know. That's amazing. It's funny you say Subway. That's like if it wasn't for Subway, I don't know franchise, but I was in the Subway model, so I understood it and I realized how, you know, one owner had 120 locations, right? And and to a lot of these, it could be that one person has multiple locations, right? So it's not you just having that one office. you could go and open up another office in a different city, different state because you guys already have the mindset behind it. You guys have the business structure behind it. And really seems like you guys are holding someone's hand from the beginning of it all the way to the whole process of it. As long as they're with you, you're holding hands, you're pouring into them, you're um helping them become a better version of themselves as a leader. And I think that's so important as well. A lot of times you could be a business owner, but that doesn't mean you know how to lead. And it looks like Andrew, the what you guys really focus on is I don't want you to just run this business and be a franchisee. I want you to understand how to lead people, how to how to lead yourself, and how to lead this company. Is that correct? Like you guys are kind of almost one-stop shop in all this.

[28:30]  Yes. So that's brings back to the power of franchising. We are incentivized to help the franchise franchisee grow their office because they pay us royalties based off of the growth of their business. So, you know, they're incentivized to grow because they're the business owner. they get the lion share of the profits, but they're they share royalties. They, you know, they will pay us royalties. So, we're incentivized to grow, help them, share our expertise and everything like that.

[28:55]  Where can somebody find more information on this?

[28:58]  Uh, they can reach out to assisting.com and then there's uh if you want to know about the franchising, there's a place that says franchise opportunity.

[29:05]  No, that's great, man. I I definitely love it what you guys are doing and just to see how excited you are to talk about it, too. I think since I first seen you, man, you could tell you love what you do and it's just truly just out of purpose. Say it every single time. It's more of a purpose- driven thing that you're doing versus I'm just here to collect money to pay for my, you know, my family and food and all this. No, you literally just love what you do. That's pretty cool.

[29:27]  Yeah. Let me tell you one other thing about um franchising and kind of how what we're looking for in a franchisee. So, we're looking for a franchisee that has some some business experience. It could be managing a couple of people, but they understand kind of how business works. They don't have to have owned their own business. And we do not require anybody with any experience in the medical field or home, you know, healthcare, homeare, anything like that. They don't have to have any experience of that. The two things that we want, somebody that has some business experience and then someone that has a heart for the business because we are caring for the elderly. We're caring for those that are disabled. And so if they have a heart for it and they're not in it for the money, the money will come. You know, there everybody's in business ultimately to make money, right? Uh and you have to make money otherwise you go out of business. But for the people that come to to come to Assisting Hands that are there for the right reason because they have a heart for the business because they have a parent or a grandparent, a loved one that at the end of their life they needed a caregiver and they saw how much they needed it and they're like, I want to make a difference in my community. I want to give back. Those are the types of people that that we're looking forward to assisting hands to become franchises.

[30:37]  I love that. And Andrew, do you have a story, by the way, that reminds you on why business matters on a human level?

[30:46]  You know, I I think that we're all here on this earth all together, right? I And I've heard stories of astronauts when they go up in the atmosphere, they look down and they see everybody together and like all of the things like why is everybody fighting, you know? Like why are there these wars and and still famine? like why can't we all get along because we're all sharing the same same place. And I think the beauty of business is you're incentivized to help somebody else. If you help somebody else in a way that they want, they're willing to pay you for it. And so successful businesses that I've seen are people that are just help lots of people. So the more you can help people get what they want or what they need, the more you know, yeah, you'll get paid for it, but really to me, it's just a matter of like, okay, they've helped them a lot, they've helped a lot of people, and the more people they help, yeah, they have a reward for that, and sometimes that's monetary.

[31:37]  Okay. And and if we could pitch something to those that still stuck in the rat race into the corporate world, but they're scared to jump. And I think that's a lot of people. They um scared of the unknown. We talked about it getting uncomfortable. What do you say to them? What's your pitch to them?

[31:51]  You have to learn to thrive in the chaos. There is change is constant. There's always going to be change. And whether it's the economy or whether there's an election or, you know, the weather, whatever it is, you can't let yourself get in this paralysis of or just this state of well in the future, you know, I'm going to be happy then or if I can only get there. You need to live in the present and you got to work through the present and you just got to solve one problem at a time. And if you can solve one problem at a time, then eventually you'll have solved a lot of problems. I leave you with this last question before we get into the blind question, but what should every family know about home care before the crisis actually hits? I think that's another thing that people don't realize is what home care even looks like until they're actually in it. Now they're all kind of scattered trying to find the right one. I'd venture to say that most people don't even know the home care industry exists and that includes unfortunately a lot of people in the health care field. I was at a doctor's office, a wound care doctor who was serving a lot of people that are on Medicare. They're elderly. They have wounds and I was explaining, you know, our business model. And he had he had never heard of he didn't know that the homeare industry existed.

[33:07]  Wow.

[33:07]  So, a lot of people they think, "Oh, that's hospice." I'm like, "No, it's not hospice. This is very different. Oh, it's assisted living. No, it's not assisted living. And so, the first thing is just explain that the industry exists. Most people say, "I wish I would have known that I could have had somebody that I didn't have to pay a nurse to come visit my mom. I just needed my mom to make sure she gets out of bed in the morning, has a meal for the day, and then, you know, like that's so a lot of it is just educating people that the market itself exists." You, you know, our whole life we grow, we grow up and we we buy cars. You can name five types of cars. We buy tennis shoes. You can name five brands of tennis shoes, but you probably can't name five companies that do home care because you don't buy it until you need it. And usually it's in a time of crisis. Mom falls, she's in the hospital, you're out of state, you fly to visit her, and then you're in this state of crisis of what am I going to do? She needs care. And hopefully you're like, okay, I can do home care and we don't have to go to a facility or a nursing home or something. So then you start calling and the unfortunately or fortunately the first company that answers that you feel like you can trust you go with in the homeare industry. So if I could change one thing you know with a snap of my fingers it would be educating people that the homeare industry exists and that you have options and that you don't have to live in your state of crisis. So when when mom's coming home from the hospital take a breath. You have time to do a little bit of research.

[34:32]  Yeah. and you can find somebody that really does uh a company that provides the same values that you do. One of our trademarks is quality home care you can trust. And that comes from our very beginning, our founder who got in the business because his parents were being needed care and he never knew if the caregiver was showing up, what the caregiver was doing. And this is before any of the technology we have now. Right now we have the caregiver that has that clocks in with the app with the geoence and they they can only we only pay them when they're actually at the house working. Right? So, but all of that goes back to the quality home care that you can trust and that's one thing that we strive to strive to have.

[35:07]  And I don't know if this is true, but I just want to make sure we don't box you in from a company perspective. So, let's say that uh knock on wood, I I get hurt and I can't move and wife has to go to work, kids. That assisted living could be for someone like me. It doesn't only have to be for the elderly. Is that correct?

[35:23]  Home care does not have to be for the elderly only. Um it could be for the disabled. Uh it could be for uh recent mothers who, you know, they they just had a baby child and they're trying to to help the child, but they're also trying to recover from

[35:39]  meals and do all these different things. Yeah.

[35:41]  Yeah. So home care can look very uh you know have lots of different faces. for the most of it, most part it's those that are elderly. But sometimes it's disabled children, sometimes it's um respit care where the caregiver is a family member and they just need a break. Like you're caring for your grandmother and you have to be with her all the time and you just need a break. So you can go take a shower, you can go shopping, you can go watch a movie and so you just have somebody that doesn't really need to care for your grandma but just sits with her and just make sure she's okay.

[36:13]  She's good. Yeah. So home care can have a lot of different faces. Most of the time it's in people's homes, but sometimes it's in facilities where you have a facility where there's a nurse that has 12 rooms she has to be going through and that one person can't be left alone because they're on a change of medication. So we have a caregiver that comes in and just make sure that they're safe and that, you know, they're not a harm to themselves or to others. Uh because it's one-on-one care. Home care is one-on-one whereas a lot of places it's like, well, the nurse will make their rounds.

[36:42]  Yeah, this is good information, man. And I wish I would continue to conversate on it, but I learned a lot and I hope the people that are watching actually also learned a lot on it. But actually, this is a blind question, man. This is the last question before we move um have to end the conversation. You've helped build 100 plus businesses, but what's one conversation with a franchisee? The one where you almost quit that really shaped who you are now, if that even happened.

[37:03]  Well, I almost quit. I thought you were going a different direction with that. Um there was there was a franchisee uh there was an email exchange back and forth and this was you know coming up on I don't know seven eight years ago and he emailed the entire system so we probably had 80 offices at that point and he just railed into me and he was saying that this you know email like this and the news like this should have come from the CEO should the line that he said was this should not should not have come from a third echelon employee and and so I mean that one you know kind of cut a little bit and there was a little bit of pride you know being like hey well that you know you know I'm not a third echelon employee you know um but I I had to just take a breath I typed a really long email and did not send it and then just moved on with it and I actually had a lot of franchises reach out to me and say hey that guy was that guy was wrong he was in the wrong he should not have you know if he had a grievance he should have just done it privately really should not have tried to publicly and the way I you didn't respond like that was the the right thing to do.

[38:14]  Correct. Yeah. Yeah. In those moments, man, it's so it's like that fight or flight moment, right? You you're ready to kind of fight, but got to understand we can't meet people at where they're at all the time because that person was clearly not having a good day. And if you probably send that email, it's going to get probably 10 times worse than what it actually was, right? Uh but here we are today, you know, all these years later, man, doing amazing. could imagine there's so many people that can attest to the work that you do. No matter where you are on the totem pole, I think that's really um really good to talk about. No matter where you at the totem pole doesn't mean that you're less than anybody else, you know, and I was talking to what was I forgot where the conversation was that I had this this week, but we were talking about um being in a room and not being confident. And a lot of times it's because we look at somebody's title. we're in a room with a CEO. We're in a room with an executive director. Maybe we're just front line. But if we go into that room, that doesn't mean anybody in there is smarter than us. They just hold a higher title than us. So, it's why not continue to show up confident and where you're at today because that doesn't mean that you can't be in that seat. And I think, you know, for you is realizing that is like listen, I don't care what anybody says on where you think I am on the totem pole. I know the value that I bring to this company and that's it. You know, and you don't like it, you know, there's other ways around it. But yeah, kudos to you, man. I don't think you were going to quit, but I can see where there was a little bit of sense of is he trying my life right now?

[39:36]  Yeah. Well, I I did definitely worry a little bit about what all the other franchises were were thinking because, you know, I didn't want him to, you know, stir up a hornets nest and maybe there were other people that felt the same way. And you know, it ended up that he was not a good fit for our culture and he ended up just kind of walking away. Um because he was all about the corporate America and and that's just not us.

[40:01]  Yeah, that's funny. I was going to ask you. I'm like, you know what? I don't know if the person's watching or probably still with the company or not, but I kind of figured that if they were like that, then yeah, that was probably the decision that they uh made. Um we have to end the podcast here, man. But I ask you, where can people find you if they want more information on just you, Andrew, the individual? Are you on LinkedIn? But also, I think we mentioned the website a little earlier. Let's talk about the websites, the socials where people can find you guys.

[40:23]  Uh, yes, I'm on uh LinkedIn, Andrew Dolly, and you just look for assisting hands. Our main website is assisting.com and then we also have like assisting hands, our ah our you can find assisting hands, the national, you know, company on Facebook, but also our franchise opportunity. Uh and the franchise opportunity is a lot of fun because you get to hear testimonials from franchises uh you know talking about how the business has changed their life.

[40:49]  I love it.

[40:50]  We're also we're also on YouTube as well just assisting hands homeare

[40:54]  doing like what kind what kind of videos on YouTube?

[40:57]  Uh we have some of our commercials that our franchises use videos they put us on their website. We also have videos of testimonials of brokers. So a lot of times brokers will find prospective franchises for us and so then we invite the brokers to get to know our brand and get to know us better and when they do that you know we ask for a you know video testimonial from them and we've done a lot of fun things with brokers. We've taken them horseback riding whitewater rafting in Idaho just everything to build a relationship with them.

[41:24]  That's it. That's what matters man. Andrew thank you so much. Thank you so much for all the gems for really educating us on what it looks like to have that at home care. Um, so thank you in home care and I and it doesn't even have to be in a home as you mentioned. It could be a facility. So hopefully that people took so many gems out of this man. We thank you so much. If you guys are enjoying these conversations, make sure you do like, comment, and subscribe. My name is Ephrain. This is Andrew. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Latest. Thank you.