Franchising with Heart: Jerod Evanich on Growing A Place at Home

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

Anthony Codispoti (13:32.005)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Jared Evinich, president and co -founder of A Place at Home, which was created by Jared and his business partner, Dustin DiStefano, to provide the same level of care that they themselves would provide their loving grandparents.

and they created a system to be able to provide this level of care nationwide. A place at home assists caring, entrepreneurial minded people in realizing the freedom and satisfaction that comes with owning their own business. And whether you’re looking for companionship and connection, medication management and care coordination or recovery help from a specific ailment or procedure, a place at home can help. Now, before we get into all that good stuff,

Today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cashflow by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefitsagency .com.

Now, back to our guest today, the president and co -founder of A Place at Home. Jared, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Jerod (15:00.978)
Absolutely, Anthony. Glad to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (15:03.429)
So Jared, tell me about the inspiration for first starting a play set.

Jerod (15:08.962)
Yeah, most certainly. So my background in general has been in entrepreneurship, but really was focused out of college back in the 2008 kind of recession era was real estate. so, you know, really zero connection to health care, about as close to health care as I ever got was actually marrying a nurse who still married to this day 16 years later. But

What brought awareness to me, to the in -home senior care industry was the need. It was the need within my family, my grandparents needing progressively more help, more help around the house, eventually more help with things such as activities, daily living, and us having a very small family unit to be able to continue to keep up with some of their demands. And rightfully so, my grandparents were absolutely amazing people and would…

go above and beyond at any time to try to do whatever I could for them, given all the experiences and things that they have provided me throughout my life. when they needed more care and there wasn’t enough time to help, we needed to find a solution. And so in -home senior care ultimately was that solution. And as you had mentioned in your intro, actually started this business with a best friend of mine from childhood, Dustin DiStefano, friends since

fourth great business partners now for what, 13 years. So that has been a great experience, but Dustin had also had some circumstances within his family that really rose awareness to the need for in -home care. And so, you know, one evening, you know, Anthony, we were just talking here before starting this, but conversations with friends and family about entrepreneurship.

about kind of bettering yourselves and family. That’s really where the conversation took place. Combine that with a bottle of wine and a couple of weeks later we were starting a business.

Anthony Codispoti (17:21.585)
Some of the best laid business plans happen over a cocktail or two. So, but how did specifically the idea to start your own in -home care business come up? Like you both had exposure to, this was an industry, this was an area of need because of your grandparents. Did you look at maybe what the service providers you were using were doing and saying, I think we can do that and maybe do that a little bit better? Was that part of what was going on?

Jerod (17:26.498)
For sure.

Jerod (17:49.506)
Yeah, know, 100%. So again, I really had no experience or I didn’t even know what in -home senior care was. When seeing this as an option to really keep our grandparents at home, we started looking at the competition and it was pretty robust even at that time. You know, at that time in Omaha, Nebraska, right, born and raised here.

There was upwards of about 40 competitors. A lot of them were mom and pop, but also some of the biggest names in home care, some of the biggest names in franchising, and even a couple of the largest competitors in franchising in the world, two of which are headquartered right here in Omaha. And fantastic companies couldn’t say enough great things about them. But overall, what we were noticing is when trying to receive services, the professionalism

really was lacking, whether it be from people not picking up the phone call when we’re trying to request services, perhaps it is trying to have an assessment done for our family to receive care and people either not showing up or being unprofessional in one way or another during that process. the consistent caregiver issue where people aren’t showing up, we just saw a lot of areas to where we could put in a little bit more

energy and effort and focus to really be a game changer, a big differentiator. I say to our franchisees a lot of the times, if you want to set yourself apart from your competition right now, currently in your market, answer the phone. Answer the phone, do what you say you’re going to do. And right now you’re above 75 plus percent of those that you’re competing against. And so we saw that

you know, that opening to make it a better experience and really start something that was solution focused. Again, not having the background in healthcare, we needed a solution. And so we just continue to keep that at the forefront. What kind of solutions can we provide? How can we continue these conversations? How can we continue to help people but also grow a business around

Anthony Codispoti (20:04.423)
So without that background in any sort of healthcare solutions previously, how did you guys first get started? Like how did you make your first hire? How did you find your first client? Like those first steps, I mean, they can feel like giant leaps to take.

Jerod (20:09.676)
Mm

Jerod (20:23.34)
Yeah, most certainly. Well, it wasn’t a decision creating this company. It didn’t come lightly, right? It was something that took a lot of time and energy and effort in the creation of it. So after that night where we were really discussing the creation of this business, it was almost a year later before we actually launched. we really did our legwork, our homework and studied the industry, saw what we needed to do in order to

have a client base and learn the marketing techniques and the community in which we are entering into. On top of that, Dustin and I both got our certified nursing certificates. So certified CNA right here, he needs some help with ADLs. I might be a little dusty, you know, may have been a while since I’ve myself have provided any care, but we wanted to know what our employees knew. And so that.

was important to us to be able to have that kind of training and get into some of that clinical experience as well as being able to fill in for some of our staff and our employees should they not be able to show up for a shift. So that was most certainly important to us. The road to the first client, right, that is a little different for everybody, including our franchise owners. But given our research and our kind of

in the community awareness and what we did even to start the company is we’d already essentially started a referral base. So a lot of the people we were talking to, we would ask, if you were me, where would you go to find business? You’ve been in this industry for 15 years, sitting across the table from perhaps an executive director of an assisted living. If you were to open an in -home care company, where would you go? Who would you talk to? Do you have anybody you’d recommend for us to talk to? Any kind of lessons learned that you could provide?

And a lot of times these people who are contacting and making relationships with, even before we started a company, they started becoming our referral sources. And so through networking, through research, and through kind of navigating what referral partners are good, bad, or the other, that’s really where we started and got our first clients.

Anthony Codispoti (22:43.439)
And so I guess, as I think about your business model, you’re kind of recruiting and marketing to kind of three different groups, right? Like the potential franchisees is one group. You’ve got the caretakers and then you’ve got the customers who are using the services, right? So you kind of have to, you as I put on my business hat, my

my sales and marketing hat, you kind of have three different sales funnels that you’re running there. Is that kind of how you visualize or think about that?

Jerod (23:22.838)
Yes. So even let’s just take franchising out of the equation for a second. It is still a three part sale, right? Because the foundation of our business is built, as I mentioned, on referral marketing. And so you have to find some of those kind of key referral sources and you have to sell them on you on why they should be referring you and your business.

So you have to sell the referral source to then trust you enough to send that first prospect. Then that first prospect, you’re to have to essentially sell them as to why they should have trust in you and in your services that you’re providing. And then as you mentioned, as well as the caregiver. The caregiver, there’s countless places out there that they can go and get work. They can get hours. Why should they work with you or for you?

or for the clients of place at home. So that it most certainly is a sale process in itself. not just anybody can be a part of it, know, as caregiver and even client for that matter, right? We most certainly will validate and make sure that they are a good fit for our brand. But overall, it is those good ones. It’s a sales process.

Anthony Codispoti (24:42.597)
Yeah, you mentioned in our pre interview about kind of the environment that you’re in, the culture that you’ve built. It’s kind of like an exclusive club that, you you want people to feel like, Hey, that’s something I really want to be a part of. Can you describe what that culture means to you and kind of how you you’ve built that?

Jerod (25:01.346)
Yeah, so it’s, I would say the key term would be relationship. It’d be relationship driven. Our franchisees refer to our brand as a franchise family. They know we have their back. When we’re looking for people to come into a place at home and start a new location, it’s an awarding process. It’s not a sales process, right? We have about a 60 day awarding process.

that ultimately they have to go in front of who they’re going to be working with, our operations team, our coaching team, our marketing team, and final checkoff by my business partner and CEO, Dustin DeStefano, right? So we’re kind of teeing it up for potential franchisees for that special day where they get to meet the team, get the checkoff from them before they then move forward. But it all starts at the beginning of our validation process, what we call for franchisees.

Let’s make sure that they’re the right fit. How is that? Well, we want them to be in line with our values, right? We live that we are care philosophy, which is compassionate, accountable, respectful, and ethical. So we are bringing that into the process early. If our conversation revolves around just making a profit or just taking advantage of an industry with booming potential client base, like all those, although those things are absolutely important, right? That’s really not where our conversation starts. There has to be meaning.

you know, behind it. Why would you be in this industry versus something else? Why would you want to be a part of your community and bettering not only your community, but the lives of clients and caregivers, right? Why this business? And so that’s really where it starts. So when we can get our qualified individuals and validate them through the process now, right, best offense is a good defense. Now we’ve really kind of protected our special brand. And when someone’s into it, right, our other franchisees welcome.

welcome them with open arms. We have a group chat every day. It’s going off all the time. It’s supporting people. It’s cheering about their successes. Also, they’re when they may have a hard time. It’s the kind of easy button when you have a quick question, we’re like, gosh, I just can’t remember exactly how to do this or what is somebody doing in this market? Boom, boom, boom. And, you know, someone puts a question out there immediately. They’re getting answered not only, you know, by

Jerod (27:26.21)
corporate, but it’s other franchisees. So it’s very supportive.

Anthony Codispoti (27:30.275)
You’ve got your basically own built -in internal mastermind going on there.

Jerod (27:36.574)
Absolutely. And that’s evolved. It’s evolved into some mentorships that we have and we support a few different membership functions, as well as a franchise advisory council that we are on our third year of our franchise advisory council, actually having our four year would be our reelection. And so we highly encourage the voice of the owner.

putting our efforts, energy, our money into areas that are going to best support them, right? So we want to hear what the franchise owners have to say.

Anthony Codispoti (28:13.383)
Do you find that most of your franchise owners come from a particular type of background? Were they in healthcare before? Did they own another franchise? Is there any sort of commonalities that you see?

Jerod (28:28.406)
You know, we have franchise owners from every walk of life, background, position, healthcare related, non healthcare related, entrepreneurial backgrounds, multitude of different cultures and ethnicities. So it’s a great kind of melting pot of, of owners as well as their skill sets. But to this day, we don’t necessarily have like a common theme as to what

our owners have in terms of their background. Now, there are things that are going to help them kind of hit the fast forward button in different areas, right? Cut that learning curve perhaps, or be better prepared for leadership or management type experiences if they hadn’t had it before. But I would say everyone hits some type of learning curve, whether it be not, you know, whether it be learning healthcare in the lingo, hiring and managing staff.

Perhaps, as I mentioned, leadership and their ability to create a team around them. So, and then marketing. I mean, I can’t leave that out. If we were to say some of our quickest people to market, those that have had like really quick success, it’s those that aren’t afraid to be out in the community making the name for themselves, being the kind of mayor of their town per se.

you know, not having a problem talking to people, right? So if people have been in that type of capacity, absolutely throw some management on top, you know, ability on top of that. The rest could be history. We have multiple owners with no healthcare background.

Anthony Codispoti (30:13.349)
And the reason that that sort of marketing background or that sort of ability to be the mayor in their local market is so important, I’m guessing is because it sounds like a core piece of your business is sort of incorporating the referral network. And I’m curious to know like who those people would be, who are sort of best positioned to be able to refer people to you that need those services.

Jerod (30:40.94)
Yeah. So in essence, we do have two prong marketing approach. One is digital, right? Everything online, YouTube videos, social media, ads, you name it, right? That is one part. And that’s a great part. And that allows us to get branding and awareness out to so many in the market. But where I say the foundation and where the kind of

which bears fruit the longest and has the most impact on your business is going to be referral -based marketing, right? It’s relationships, getting out to some of those key referral partners, putting your marketing hat on. If you want to find a key referral source, you want to talk to those that are in front of your potential customer when they need your service.

Follow your client’s journey, right? Like where are you picking up? Where do they leave off? Where are they leaving? Who are they talking to? Who are they around? What are their services? Are they having or needing or utilizing at that time? Is there different life changes, right? Are they selling a house, for example? Is their long -term care insurance policy coming into place? Are they needing medical equipment in their home?

Do they have a home health care need from a hospitalization? Are they in rehab and not yet back home? Are they in the hospital not going to rehab because it was a short, you know, in and out type stay and they’re not being admitted? Perhaps they just had an ER visit, but they do need that extra help at home. finding the people who are that last kind of touch point before they need the service and you’re gonna have you’re gonna have a plethora of different referral.

you know, relationships that are that are there for for the take, right?

Anthony Codispoti (32:42.019)
And why, I’m guessing other competitors are probably having the same sort of thought strategy. What puts you guys sort of front of the line? Like, why is one of these referral sources saying, nope, I’m going to send them to Jared and a place at home. That’s my source.

Jerod (32:57.846)
Yeah. Multiple, multiple reasons. Now, number one, and why we start with the right franchisees is because when you’re sitting across the table from somebody who’s been in this industry and has a dozen other people just like you coming by talking to them, is they’re gonna wanna see the story. They’re gonna wanna see your why. They’re gonna know that you’re here not just to start a business, but to take care of people, right? That you’re in it for the right reasons. That you’re honest.

that you can sit down and talk about family and not necessarily just about business. Some of those kind of indicators. Now that, I’ll say that just goes without saying. You’ve got all that and you’re still going up against people who are providing the same type of services. That’s where Place at Home brings in senior focused care, right? We call it senior focused care. That’s our core differentiator because we do have a foundation built on in -home care and there’s a lot of things we do within the home to even separate our services in the home.

but I would say revenue source service number one in home care. On top of that, we provide care coordination. Care coordination allows us to have a hands off, sometimes nursing approach, sometimes more social work type approach, but it’s in helping our clients navigate the healthcare continuum, right? Outside of the home, doctor’s appointments, geriatric specialists, hospitalizations, what comes next, right? Is it going to be?

durable medical equipment and putting in some ramps and widening a doorway and having some different things installed, we can help coordinate all that. Right. On top of that, we also do placement services. So within the senior industry, it’s known as placement. call it senior living alternatives. And so that allows us to have one of our clients can no longer live at home. If their next best place is an assisted living community, for example, we can help with that placement. We can help them with that alternative to their home.

Right. And that also allows us to have that relationship, that relationship with that assisted living. And then we also do staffing. So our staffing utilizes our in -home care staff in a clinical type setting or a health care organizational type setting, assisted livings and so forth, potentially nursing homes or skilled nursing facilities. And it

Jerod (35:21.874)
again, is a way for us to be able to partner with a lot of those strong referral sources. So not to get too far into the weeds here, but when we are sitting across the table, for example, from a director of nursing at an assisted living, we can help their residents stay there longer. Some of them are more difficult or more higher, know, higher acuity, higher need residents. We can help them with care coordination.

Right? So they’re loving that. Great. You do more than just help somebody within, you know, this assisted living who wants more care placement, right? If that senior community is lower on their occupancy, maybe they’re 70, 80 % full and they’re looking for people to move in. That’s our SLA. We can help them to increase their occupancy by referring some of our clients. And then ultimately, lastly, staffing. Right? So

Almost everybody out there is looking for great staff or at least a backup. And so if it’s Thursday and they have somebody calling for a Friday, Saturday shift, they can give us a call and say, hey, we need some little extra help. Can a place at home help us with a great care provider who’s going to come in and work as if they’re one of our staff? Right. So now when we are out in the community talking to some of our best referral sources, we’re not just coming with our hand out. We can partner. We can partner with them in helping them increase their occupancy.

increase their staffing rates with their higher acuity clients and residents that they have.

Anthony Codispoti (36:53.067)
Is this something that differentiates you from other in -home care companies being able to sort of offer this breadth of services like this with the staffing, the in -home care, and all the referrals that go back and forth?

Jerod (37:08.618)
Yeah, so absolutely. Now there are a handful of in -home care providers who may also do care coordination. There’s a few that do home care as well as maybe placement services. There’s a few that do home care and maybe staffing. But we put it all together into one senior focused approach.

Anthony Codispoti (37:30.577)
So for somebody listening who may think, this is interesting from a franchise perspective, I would like to hear more. Aside from the things that you’ve already mentioned about the great support and the built -in mastermind, as I put it, what are some of the other attractive things about this kind of a franchise opportunity with a place at home?

Jerod (37:54.694)
Yeah, no, great, great question. I talked about the franchise like family and community that really resonates with people who are wanting to be a part of this business. They want to know that they’re not all on their own, that they do have people that are going to help them out along the way. Now, they better get that help no matter what franchise they goes to, right? That had better be a part of it. Not everywhere do you get.

know, open arms from other owners and dropping and you know what they’re doing to get that additional support. It’s fantastic, right? They most certainly know that they’re a part of a bigger system of community. But our support is hands down the one of the best in the industry. Three years running franchise business, business review, FBR, we’re top 50 company and satisfaction of our owners. Right? So our owners are happy. They want to be a part of it. They want to grow with this.

They want to continue. And if asked, you would you do this again? They most certainly would. So that’s absolutely very attractive. Now we’ve invested heavily this last one. We have always really focused on our support, but this last year and really providing more and additional options for our owners. We have started another service that can help and do a lot of their bookkeeping services for them so they can just focus on

driving in business and not have to continually focus on their general ledger, for example, and making sure that we can be on top of their accounts receivable, for example, if they get a little out of control, which doesn’t happen too often, but it’s good to have an extra set of eyes on it. But we internally have increased our support with our coaches. Right now we have one coach who’s 15 plus years in franchise support.

across numerous industries. She’s just fantastic in terms of keeping people accountable and driving people to success. We have another owner who owned multiple other, it’s a different brand, but they owned a home care business within a different brand. And years past, they own multiple locations. One of the largest franchisees of that prior system who we have coaching, right? That’s enterprise level.

Jerod (40:16.776)
management and coaching that they’re getting, that we have access to. And another owner who grew one of the largest home care businesses in Dallas, has people who’ve been there done that. Something else?

Anthony Codispoti (40:29.083)
That’s hard to find. That’s really hard to find that level of expertise that you can tap into and draw from.

Jerod (40:35.202)
Yeah, you know, and the thing is, is that even within our internal staff, right, we have staff here that are now on the corporate level helping our franchisees. And they’ve been with Dustin and me for 10 years, right? One in which who started as a caregiver, got their CNA, got their certified medication aid, worked into the office, into a staffing capacity, eventually became an office administrator and now is coaching our franchisees and

QuickBooks certified, but she’s everybody’s easy button. You want to know where to go to for a third party pay source? that’s who you go to, right? And she helps all of our franchisees launch the business. So a lot of tenured staff as well.

Anthony Codispoti (41:19.847)
And so how many franchise locations are there now? Or just total locations in general, whether they’re corporate or franchise?

Jerod (41:24.898)
Yeah, so we’ve got over 40 owners, about 46 open locations, about 60 territories total. So we are growing our goal by 2027. We want to hit the 100 territory mark. You know, a large part of what we do is not only have goals of new owners, but growth within existing owners. Every year we have a number we want to hit.

as to how many current owners want to add other locations. Right now, we’ve already hit that goal for 2024, but we’ve got three other potentials that may current owners that may be expanding into future locations by the end of the year. So that would that would be a great testimonial, not only to to us, but obviously to the systems. And they’re wanting not only to do it once, but over and over again and to buy more territories.

Anthony Codispoti (42:23.616)
So what are some of the geographies that you are looking for applicants you’re looking to grow into that you’re not already established?

Jerod (42:32.502)
You know, great question. I would say first off, we look for the right people. There’s very few areas in which we cannot have the right number of seniors and the need to support our services. So we’ve always been focused on the person. And so outside of that, I mean, every major metropolitan area we have available outside of Omaha Metro, would say Little Rock, Arkansas is taken.

Anthony Codispoti (42:37.404)
Yeah.

Jerod (43:01.538)
Portland, is gone, but outside of that, we’ve got availability clear across the country. We’ve been wanting and have some owners in the Northeast now where we’ve had a lot of growth into areas we want to continue to grow. Connecticut would be a fantastic area of growth. We have a huge last year was one of our largest growth years in Texas, but we’ve only scratched the surface in Texas. We know the area.

We know the licensing. Florida is the land of opportunity for us. Very few locations in Florida and one of the meccas of senior living. So fantastic target there. Michigan. Michigan’s a great area. We want to continue to grow in. They have low barriers of entry, which can help us to grow pretty quickly with the right owner who can.

go in and know that you may be facing a little bit more competition because of the low barriers, but still be able to take advantage of market share. Detroit Metro for sure. Ohio continues to be a focus of ours as well. We have what, three or four, I think we just four owners now in Ohio. Still a lot of open space there. I mean, could give you benefits of multitude of different areas, but.

Anthony Codispoti (44:28.529)
Sounds like there’s a lot of open territory. You mentioned specifically about Michigan having low barriers to entry. What does that mean? What do they do differently there?

Jerod (44:28.588)
For that, there’s a lot of open territory.

Jerod (44:38.466)
Just there’s a handful of states that still have no license for our service. And so when we enter a market, we don’t have to have that additional step of a license to have our services in that metro. So that is usually the most the lengthiest part of our launch process. know, 60 days would be phenomenal if we can get a license within 60 days. But

more commonly, it’s going into 90, maybe 120 days. In years past, we’ve had some license go almost 10 months to be able to finalize and secure a license to be able to operate. So if there’s, and again, there’s a handful of states that still do not have that license, but also with lower barriers of entry, you’re gonna have a few more competitors. But as…

we go into those markets, we still bring our same standards of care. And so it doesn’t matter if you’re licensed or not, we have a standard of care as if you were, right? So that itself has a built -in differentiator from what they may be receiving from some of their competition who’s not licensed.

Anthony Codispoti (45:49.175)
Jared, most of the people I talk to continue to tell me it’s a pretty tight labor market. I’m curious what you guys have tried and found success with in terms of recruiting and maintaining good caregivers.

Jerod (46:05.41)
you know, so many things. It’s it’s it’s been a focus of ours ever since we launched the business, you know, going back, doing our market research almost 14 years ago into this industry. The number one concern was caregiver turnover. Right. And the ability to get caregivers. And so it has always, always been an issue. And now

COVID, during COVID and kind of those post -COVID couple of years, it was rough. It was not easy to find staff. It was one of the first times in a place at home’s history when we have multiple locations on a waiting list. We have clients who need care, but we don’t have the caregivers to provide it. Things have swung back into the employee, into the employer side of things now to where

We have again, an abundance of applicants coming through. We have kind of shifted back again from putting so much time and energy and emphasis in finding people that now we have all these people and we need to shift our attention back to getting clients, right? So there has been that swing. We currently have about 1300 caregivers active across the US currently.

And that number has only gone up, you know, since, well, it’s always going up. But I mean, we were at a thousand even as of February of this year. So we have really kind of hit new heights in terms of total number of caregivers. So it has not been as big of an issue of finding them.

It always remains one of our key priorities in planning on retention and being able to make sure we keep them. So that continues to be a focus of ours. We have done countless things throughout the years to help in this category. I’ll name a few. But we have, for example, certificates of care that we have.

Jerod (48:26.742)
designated for our caregivers that if they complete a certain care certification, say for example, for dementia care, perhaps they’re getting a raise to their franchise owner, right? Again, as we were talking before, each of our locations are owned and operated by a specific company utilizing our branding, but should that franchisee implement in a bonus structure around the development, it’s something we highly, highly encourage, but developing your staff, right? Making sure that they become bigger, better.

caregivers and potentially showing them that pathway to this not being just a stepping stone. So we have a career path that we show all of our employees as to where they are now and where potentially they could go, whether it be from a CNA to a CMA to a field supervisor, a scheduler, recruitment or retention specialist, know, potentially again, the office manager or care coordinator, and then all the way into, they could be a franchisee right at some point in time or take over the

the business and we know of many companies. We have not yet had one at the place at home, but definitely have heard of many companies that caregivers have grown their way into franchise ownership. So that is a future that we show is possible with our business. Continuing education, continually making sure that our best offense is a good defense and putting in more steps and qualifications to be

you know, qualified and eligible for the position. We have a very robust electronic applicant tracking software where it’s one app. Everybody goes to, they can do all their paperwork. They can submit everything through all the way from hours to interviews and just kind of one stop shop.

that has taken our hiring process and which used to take upwards of two to three weeks, including orientation to where we can find someone, get the right information, do a phone interview and have them into orientation next day. So it gives us the opportunity to just be that much more quick to get the good ones that are out there and that want to work. Anthony, could probably have a whole nother session on things that we’ve done to try to continue to promote retention.

Anthony Codispoti (50:31.76)
Wow.

Jerod (50:47.588)
But those are some that we’re kind of focused on now.

Anthony Codispoti (50:50.181)
Well, that’s great stuff, Jared. Excuse me. Cause yeah, like I said, this has been a big theme with a lot of the folks I’ve talked to is it’s hard to find good folks. And it sounds like you guys have sort of crested that, hill of a challenge coming out of COVID now, but right then, once you find somebody, how do you hold on to them? You know, and that’s, that’s not easy. And I like what you’re saying about investing so much into employee development, right.

their education and furthering their career and showing them that there’s a path if they’re interested to work their way up and to possibly, you one day even, you know, running and owning one of their own franchises. And so, yeah, I think this was terrific to hear that. The other thing that really struck me was the software that you’ve got in place now that really cuts down on that hiring and onboarding time.

Cause I’ve heard this from a lot of employers too. They’re like, yeah, we like, we keep missing out. Like we find somebody who’s really good, but by the time we get around making them an offer, they’re already somewhere else. It sounds like you’ve, you know, kind of shortcutted that challenge too. If you find somebody, you can make them an offer and get them started right away. That’s gotta help with that conversion rate of getting people onboarded.

Jerod (52:06.687)
Absolutely.

Yeah, most certainly. It definitely has helped eliminate a lot of that time consuming process and along the way reduced our administrative tasks, right? Which makes us more efficient, allows us to use our office staff or franchisees kind of office or administrative staff, but they’re focused in other places.

Anthony Codispoti (52:30.555)
You know, sometimes it’s interesting and fun to sort of highlight a specific success story, whether it would be on the caregiver side or a senior that was in need of care, you know, maybe a particularly challenging situation and something that you guys were able to do to kind of to help them that, you know, it’s it’s a story that warms your heart and you know that you can sort of draw attention to and to.

to help continue to build that culture inside your company. Can you think of anything like that?

Jerod (53:03.84)
Yeah, so you want successes, you want challenges, do you want successes that came out of challenges or perhaps great stories of past clients or caregivers? I’ve got a lot of stories. If nothing else, I have a lot of stories and experiences that I would be happy to share. I’ll rattle off a few and stop me if I get too long -winded.

Anthony Codispoti (53:31.057)
All right.

Jerod (53:33.484)
You know, to start, would say that, you know, Dustin and I were two young guys in a predominantly older and female industry. And we didn’t have healthcare experience. Right. We had to roll with the punches, learn as we go. And we got some punches. We said some of the wrong things to people and you know, we, learned from it. Right. So being able to kind of overcome what you may think.

should stop you in business or pursuing your passion or what is it that you want to do is just go after it. Just get it done. Do it. Find those experiences. Make those mistakes. Learn from those mistakes and be better for it.

Anthony Codispoti (54:15.783)
So let’s do a little bit of a deep dive on this if you don’t mind. Like tell me a little bit more about those first days, right? Because you guys were outsiders. had no healthcare experience. You were young, you’re guys in an industry that’s more female driven, you know, with older folks, you know, more established folks that, you know, working in it. You guys had to feel like you were complete outsiders and they’re, I’m guessing, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but were there times where you’re like, what are we doing? Like.

This doesn’t make any sense. Like we’re just hitting our heads against the wall. Do you have some of those times in the early days, especially?

Jerod (54:50.912)
You know, once our mind was set on it, to tell you the truth, there wasn’t a whole lot of hitting the head on the wall. There really wasn’t. There was only moving forward and figuring out ways that, you know, finding the solution. Dustin and I, if you look at your strengths finder, right, if you ever done your strengths finder, both of our number one attributes is competition.

Anthony Codispoti (54:58.055)
Okay.

Jerod (55:19.338)
And so you put us into a competitive industry and tell us we can’t do something. It’s only going to drive us harder. When we told our families and friends that, you know, these two young guys are going to start a senior care business, they thought we were nuts, right? What are you guys, what are you talking about? You have no idea what you’re doing, right? But didn’t let, didn’t let that stop us. And again, really that only, that really only had fueled us throughout the years. But, you know, I would say we were never

ones to think we knew it all and that we wanted to keep our minds open to what could make us better. We joined a entrepreneurial boot camp that was at the time hosted through Creighton University and got to talk to some of their great business college professors in kind of an incubator type program. We were at the end

of our business planning. We were at launch phase when we met them and basically submitted everything we had done. And they’re like, hey, you guys are like ready to go. But, you know, looking at your SWOT analysis again, you got your guys and women, you know, female industry, you’re young in an old industry. think we were 27 at the time and we were talking to them and you have no healthcare background, right? That’s kind of what brought that to light. Like, how did we not think of these things? Right. So

With the healthcare background, we had planned always on getting our CNA certificate and did to be able to help check that box and let people know we’re not going to be asking them to do something we wouldn’t do ourselves. I think that spoke volumes to our referral sources as well and helped us early on. But the female aspect and healthcare and something that helped us to complete that kind of SWOT analysis, we took on an early partner, we took on an early business partner who we met through that program who

Paula Howard is her name, who was a former nurse who had that healthcare experience. They had some connections in healthcare, right? They also, female, right? So they kind of checked all those boxes for us. And so we helped and she had helped us to kind of grow until she had an exit, gosh, about eight, nine years ago now into where she’s retired out in Florida. But it was again, an opportunity for us to

Jerod (57:41.728)
say, what do we need to grow and how are we going to do that? And so that was definitely a very helpful experience that we had. And I don’t think we’d have seen the immediate kind of growth and success without being open to other people’s perspective and open to ways that we can approach the market fully looking at who we are and what struggles that we may have coming ahead of us.

Anthony Codispoti (58:06.769)
That’s great that you were able to find somebody that helped to fill some of those early holes for you guys and help kind of serve as a little bit of a launch pad in your education and your understanding. I kind of got you sidetracked on that. We were going to start talking about some success stories of caregivers and clients, if you’ve got some to share.

Jerod (58:30.182)
yeah, no, absolutely. So even some of our first clients that we ever had, the connections that they had had with the caregivers. again, these are some of our very first caregivers that we had ever had. It’s it’s it’s one it’s something that you won’t forget. Those clients knew them like they were their family. They trusted us with their care.

as if we were a part of their family. I was at the bedside of one of our first clients who was on hospice there in the last kind of moments of life, by her side, hand in mine caregiver who had just put together a beautiful arrangement of family photos and flowers and making it as special and as comfortable as could be, you know, and just

having those kind of conversations, being a part of that is something I’ll most certainly never forget. Throughout the years, I’ve been able to invest in education. It led me down a road into getting my executive MBA. Post -MBA, I was back talking to a class and telling them about the experience. And after class, I had one of the students who was,

an adult, probably mid forties who said, Jerry, you’re the reason why I’m here. And I said, well, thank you. What do you mean? And he said, well, a place at home has taken care of my mom right now. And that allows me to come and get my executive MBA. And so she just wanted us to know the kind of impact that we may not always get to see.

Anthony Codispoti (01:00:20.956)
Wow.

Jerod (01:00:25.32)
And so experiencing those kinds of impacts and having those stories show you that it’s just, much larger even than what you may think, or, of course, much larger than yourself. And now our franchisees, you know, they have those stories, right? They’re by the bedside and they’re the ones making the impact and having caregivers who are growing with them, not only through being a caregiver and a lot of times struggling to make ends meet, to now being administrators within their agency and

you know, giving them a life that they’ve never had. Right. So there’s, there’s, there’s so many of those stories out there. And that really is what drives a lot of our, our owners, right? If not all of our owners, those are the stories that, that keep them, keep them coming back every day and wanting more.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:10.811)
That’s great. That’s great fuel for the fire. Let me shift gears on you now, Jared. I’m kind of curious. Maybe it’s a fun fact most people wouldn’t know about you.

Jerod (01:01:23.65)
Fun fact, I think I’d be ready for this one.

Anthony Codispoti (01:01:28.581)
interesting that maybe not everybody who knows Jared knows about Jared.

Jerod (01:01:32.834)
Yeah, let’s see here. I would say kind of started my my started my first business when I was 10 years old with selling vegetables out of the out of our garden. We’re in a, you know, rural, not that rural. We were in a growing kind of metro in Omaha, Nebraska.

Don’t get me wrong, when I was really young, cows get loose from some of the local farms, come running through the neighborhood. But by the time I was 10 or 11 years old, we were surrounded by a city in a growing metro. But yeah, started my first business at 10, kind of transitioned that into mowing yards, have always raised my first money from my car. I wanted to go on a trip.

You know, in high school, so I started selling pizzas through at the time working at Hy -Vee. I’ll never forget that. But my parents said, yeah, if you want to go to Australia and play football, great, but you’re going to have to come up with the funds. And so raised the funds by selling frozen pizzas, right? It’s always been and always have had that entrepreneurial spirit. And yeah, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anthony Codispoti (01:02:52.965)
that business owner drives been there since a very young age. I can relate. Any specific mentors, books or experiences that have helped shaped you in your professional career?

Jerod (01:03:07.19)
most certainly there’s, there’s quite a few. I would say, the E -Myth Revisited was a great book that taught and still teaches people on how to work on a business, not in a business. the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lincione, great book. really helps you, especially as a business owner, focus on, what is important and that’s building a foundation of trust.

within your executive team and leadership. We right now manage our business through the entrepreneurial operating system. Now we’ve modified it to kind of make it our own, but we still utilize the book, for example, Traction by Gina Wickman to really kind of format our weekly meetings, our quarterly goals, our…

annual goals, three -year goals, tenure goals, and so forth. So that has been a big and great impact on our business most recently. Mentors, I’ve been lucky to have great family and great support. My grandpa was a tremendous person, individual, did so many for so many people, athletic administrator.

at our largest school sy always striving for more, infrastructure, building in different youth sports, building, you know, swimmin like just growing the infa He was absolutely always a me and just how much somebo as his doctorate in educat

that are very accomplished life in education as well and helping to impact people in school districts. My dad was an entrepreneur owning a small business who really showed me the ability to take a risk, but always to work hard. Hardest worker, I most certainly know. Early on in the A Place at Home years, I had mentioned some of the competitors here in Omaha, but we have got right at home that former

Jerod (01:05:29.043)
owner and the founder of Ride at Home was a great mentor to us as well. So I mean, we’ve been pretty blessed with mentorship and me personally with a lot of people that help impact my life.

Anthony Codispoti (01:05:43.481)
I love that you had such a long list of folks to call out there. Sometimes that gets lost a little bit in the success stories. Some folks can sometimes forget the folks that kind of helped them get there. So was cool that you were able to give call outs to a lot of those people.

Jared, I just have one more question for you, but before I ask it, I wanna do two things. For those listening today, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, share, or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Jared, I also wanna tell people the best way to get in touch with you, whether they just wanna make a personal connection, they’re interested in a franchise, they’re maybe a potential client, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Jerod (01:06:03.287)
Yeah.

Jerod (01:06:26.418)
Yeah, email, I’m only an email away. It’s firstname .lastname .ataplaceathome .com, Jared .Evidenceataplaceathome .com. Check me out on LinkedIn. Feel free to shoot me a message there. Although an email will most certainly get recognized faster. I get a lot of, like I’m sure so many people do, lot of LinkedIn messages that sometimes get buried.

give me a call direct 402 -281 -0738, placeathome .com, backslash franchise, should you want to connect or fill out a form there. Lots of different ways. But at end of the day, love talking entrepreneurship. Talk to people all the time who maybe even just have ideas for businesses. Of course, if you want to talk about a place at home, we’ve got a process for you as well.

as I talked about in determining whether or not you’re the right fit for us and we the right fit for you. So happy to have those discussions as well.

Anthony Codispoti (01:07:32.945)
Terrific. And for anybody who missed all those wonderful ways to contact Jared, we will have them in the show notes. So last question for you, Jared. I’m curious, how do you see your industry evolving in the next five years? What do you think the big changes are that are coming?

Jerod (01:07:49.942)
Five years from now, I would say that number one, there’s going to continue to be consolidation through merger and acquisitions in our industry. It’s highly fragmented and ripe for consolidation. It continues to be a huge focus on a lot of private equity and &A firms. So you’re going to continue to see franchise systems enter that &A world.

Outside of that, technology is always making impacts. I’d mentioned just one small technology that allowed us to take a multiple week hiring process and turn it into a day and a half, right? So that’s one small piece of technology. AI is helping us in scheduling and it’s helping us in better recruitment as well as better assessing the needs of our clients. Technology will continue to be a big part of

not only our back -end infrastructure, but in the homes of clients. There’s a lot of great tools and lot of great companies out there now providing some kind of services and sensory type services in the home. It’s pretty amazing, the right sensors and what it can show you is happening in the home. But what that I think will do is allow people who not be ready.

for a person in their home to have that technology and accept that technology in their home. We’re seeing more boomers getting to the point to where they’re starting to need care. And as that happens and as that age kind of continues to go up, we have people now that are more accepting of technology. And so they’re okay with having a sensor in their home. They’re okay with being able to have a laptop or have a tablet to be able to drive some of the need and some of the function. So I think that open kind of communication is only gonna get better.

within the industry. those are most certainly some of the top things that I can see happening within the industry.

Anthony Codispoti (01:09:51.419)
Do you see a place at home getting involved in the &A space at all down the road?

Jerod (01:09:56.442)
you know, I would say it’s, it’s, we would never, not consider any opportunity, right? But they would have to be something that would bring some major firepower to our brand. we want to grow with this brand. We want to grow with our franchise owners. Again, they’re like family. so we’re not, we’re not jumping ship, but if someone can bring some high powered,

know, synergies, then, you know, it’s worth the discussion.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:30.297)
sure. It’s always good to be open -minded about those things. Jared, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Jerod (01:10:40.236)
You bet, Anthony, it’s been great. Appreciate having me.

Anthony Codispoti (01:10:42.961)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.