Mission-Driven Franchising: Todd Treml’s Approach to Building Touching Hearts at Home | Nursing Home Series | Senior Care

Anthony Codispoti : 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 Codispoti and today’s guest is Todd Treml, Chief Executive Officer at Touching Hearts at Home.

Founded in 2006 in a headquarter in Adina, Minnesota, Touching Hearts at Home is a care provider that offers in-home services emphasizing dignity and integrity in every interaction. Under Todd’s leadership, they focus on companionship, lighthouse keeping, meal preparation, and Alzheimer’s and dementia care to help seniors and others remain comfortable in their own homes. Todd has over 30 years of experience in franchising, specializing in sales development, operations, and marketing. He has built effective teams across multiple brands and holds a BA in political science and economics from the University of Minnesota. He has also been recognized for building high-performing teams and elevating franchise sales across the country. He is known for driving franchise sales performance and has guided Touching Hearts at Home to expand its heartfelt services nationwide. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBacc 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, and extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, the CEO of Touching Hearts at Home. Todd, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

Todd Treml : Anthony, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti : So Todd, you’ve had a long career in helping franchise brands drive towards success. What is it specifically about this business model that you love so much?

Todd Treml : Well, franchising is a very unique business model in and of itself. It’s not really an industry as much as it is a model of distributing a proven operating system in a brand. What I love so much about it is the opportunity to help potential and future business owners really make their dream come true. We’re part of every aspect of helping them get into business, supporting them, training them, and helping them nurture and grow their business from the day they come in until as long as they want to be in this business. It’s a very rewarding type of business that we’re in. Franchising dominates every industry in America today. It’s just been wonderful to be a part of it and build teams to support these business owners. Ultimately, America is built on small business and we’re a massive part of it in franchising. So it’s been a wonderful experience.

Anthony Codispoti : And so maybe let’s talk about one or two stops along the way where you’re kind of regaining some experience and building up your track record of success in franchise development before you got to a place at home.

Todd Treml : I’m sorry, touching hearts. Yeah. So a long history of franchising experience. So I’ll quickly summarize some of those stops along the way, getting to touching hearts at home. And it’s been all really a culmination of experiences that I’ve had, which I’ve been very fortunate to get, but really started my career very young with a small little retailer called Play-Dagain Sports when at the time there were only two retail stores. And I was one of the early management team that helped to expand that retail business and then ultimately turn on franchising and build that organization to upwards to 400 locations. That was the start of my career, but it didn’t end there with that organization.

Today that organization is called Windmark Corporation, but we ended up becoming the scale player in resale retail and built once upon a child Play-Dos Closet style on-card musical round along with Play-Dagain Sports. So we had five brands that we built and I had the benefit to really be a part of that the entire way. Growing that organization, building teams, and being able to oversee different parts of the operation, whether it was merchandising, operations training, marketing, and so forth. That was an incredibly informative and rewarding experience for me to learn what I truly believe carried my career forward, which is operational excellence. And it’s something that Windmark Corporation today does very well. When I left the organization, I started with two locations, two stores, one brand. I left, we had five brands, 1200 locations, and we’re doing a billion at retail.

Just something that a lot of people don’t get a chance to experience. That startup to that level of success also took the company public. From there, really, what I wanted to do with my career is fill in all the pieces that I didn’t have experience in. I had 20 years of experience with this organization, but I wanted to also learn the sales side of it.

I wanted to learn more about the marketing side of the business, all in franchising. And so I took on important roles with organizations to do just that. I was a director of franchise development for a company called Snap Fitness, one of the largest franchise brands in health and wellness. I was a VP at a company called United Franchise Group, where I oversaw operations and development for eight different brands. And then was part of another organization where I eventually led multiple brands in a portfolio experiential concepts. All of those things were stops along the way to lead up to touching hearts at home, which has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

Anthony Codispoti : So talk about how that opportunity first became available to you and why you decided to go for it. It’s still in the franchise world, but a little bit of a different industry than what you had played in before.

Todd Treml : Yeah, it’s different. And it’s a different brand. I’ve been involved, Anthony, in multiple industries, 20 plus brands, consumer brands to B &B, to B2C, you name it. But when I had the opportunity, I was asked to come in to consider being the CEO of the company. I didn’t realize how great of an opportunity it was until I started talking to the franchisees and really starting to explore the industry. Home care is absolutely booming right now.

Aging population, the opportunity to provide compassionate care to seniors, elderly and disabled at home. It’s not hard to get behind this mission. And so when I spoke with every franchisee, and we have 70 locations today, and it’s a very hands-on business, it’s not an absentee business, it’s not a executive model business. This is a business where every franchisee that got into it has a story. They have a story, whether it’s personal or not, about why they want to be in this business hands-on providing this service in their communities. And so it’s very mission-driven. It’s very purpose-driven work and more than anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. And each of these franchisees are passionate, they’re selfless, they’re hardworking, they have a growth mindset, and it matches my core values.

And so when I saw that, I’ve just simply not seen this level of passion in franchise owners and any other brand that I’ve been involved in. And so coming on board was something that really meant a lot to me because, again, it aligned very well with my personal mission in life, which is to impact as many people as possible in a positive manner.

Anthony Codispoti : So as you touched on, some of the changing demographics have made this industry in particular really necessary. It’s come to the forefront in a big way. There are other companies out there that are doing similar things. What is it that sets touching hearts at home apart from those?

Todd Treml : I get that question all the time. And quite frankly, some of the, you could look at it from an outside point of view and say that the home care industry has been commoditized.

We all sort of do the same thing. We provide companion care, personal care, skilled nursing. We provide Alzheimer’s and dementia care and a variety of other service lines that numerous competitors, and many of them already do. But what we do and how we win isn’t about what we’re doing. It’s how we do it and why clients choose us over the competition.

So we excel in two areas. We deliver personalized service at scale. So personalization at scale is really important. We become the employer of choice, which is really important here because you don’t have a client without a caregiver. And you want to talk about recruiting and retention in the labor market critically important.

So we provide ongoing training, we provided recognition and career growth. But at the end of the day, what I’m really talking about is standards. And our standards are the difference maker here. We can do the same thing that everybody else does, but I believe that we excel in what we do and how we do it in the marketplace.

Anthony Codispoti : Say more about the recruiting and the retention piece. Because it occurs to me that in your business model, I was going to say two, but actually I think you’ve got sort of three different clients that you’re serving, correct me if I’m wrong, as the franchise or you’re serving the franchisee, you’re also serving the patient, the client, and you’re serving the employee. Because like you said, there’s no care to give if you don’t have the caregiver. And so as I think about sort of those three different pillars there, maybe talk first about like the caregiver side of things. What is it that you guys are doing that’s different to find good folks and hold on to them?

Todd Treml : Yeah, I think ultimately, if you look at our network of franchisees in all of our locations, what we do really well is align with mission. And so a caregiver can go and work wherever they choose. There’s not enough there’s not enough caregivers in the marketplace today to satisfy the entire need.

So there’s plenty of options in front of them. So I think it comes down to how do you do it, how do you do it best in class? You need to be competitive with your wages. You need to be able to provide them with things like career path. We’ve had many caregivers that have become part of our administrative staff. Caregivers ultimately become owners of businesses. And so we want to where we recognize caregivers regularly and acknowledge the work that they do. Oftentimes, one of the most important things we can do in any business, but really specifically in this type of business is acknowledgement and making sure that we’re checking in regularly with our caregivers to make sure we’re meeting their needs. Making sure that we’re flexible with their schedules. They really need flexibility in their life. When you think about a caregiver and the market wages, it’s not always about the wage.

It’s really, you know, they can make this same money in a lot of places. But what they really want is the things I’m talking about, which is purpose driven work, align with the company they’re working with, flexibility in hours, those kind of things that are important to us. We’re continuing to add as we go along and we may talk about technology, but technology also plays a key role as we get downstream in discussions about how do we become more effective in our day to day business. So those are a few things, Anthony, about the caregiver side of the business. But recruitment and retention specifically is so important.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, talk a little bit more about the technology that you guys are using to enhance this.

Todd Treml : Yeah, so the marketplaces is really trying to sort of from a technology standpoint, figure out how to work within a very human to human business. We have caregivers, we have clients, we have franchisees, we have admin staff, as you said, franchisor.

But really, it’s a people business. And so what we’re beginning to see right now in the marketplace is smart home devices are coming on right now. Your AI is starting to play a bigger role in making us more efficient.

Remote monitoring is coming in. All of these things help us to maybe fill gaps when a caregiver is not there, when they can’t be in the house at all times. These are things that help families stay connected with us and their loved one. So anything that technology can do to enhance the care are things that we look at. And there’s a variety of things that we’re looking at. And so the key to this whole thing really is to embrace the technology and improve the care, but not replace the human touch.

And that’s so, so important. On the caregiver side, really, it’s the same type of thing. It’s how we recruit, it’s how we attract and train and value caregivers. And again, tying it all to our culture, all to our mission. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : So let’s talk about another one of the clients that you serve, the franchisees. Is that sort of the right way to think about it? Is there a client that you’re serving? Yeah.

Todd Treml : I’m grateful for all the mentors that I’ve had in my life. And I’m going to use one of the taglines from one of my very close mentors. And it’s really about the franchisee as the customer. And ultimately, when they succeed, we succeed. There is no scenario where a franchisee fails or doesn’t do well, but yet the home office does great. We are in an interdependent relationship with our franchises. In the basic outline of how the relationship works is that we bring people into our franchise. They have the rights to license our brand. They follow and get trained on a proven operating model and system. And we provide them ongoing support. They have the brand, they have all of those assets available to them to run that business.

And it is our responsibility and obligation to make sure that they get the support they need to succeed. Ultimately, unlike a very traditional corporation where you have an organizational chart where the CEO is at the top and everybody comes down until you get to the bottom, we actually flip the organizational chart. The franchisee is at the top. We are at the bottom supporting and serving that franchisee in their success.

So ultimately, that’s the most important thing. So it’s not a command and control environment that we have. It’s more of an influencer strategy that we have to support. That franchisee is our business and they are our client because they serve the community. So how do we help them succeed? How do we help them be profitable? How do we help them with their marketing? All of these things they need to succeed. And then ultimately, if they’re successful, we succeed as well on our side.

Anthony Codispoti : You know, you were talking about the operational excellence that you really got to be a part of when you were at Play It Against Sports and how you grew from just a handful of locations in a single brand of five brands.

And I forget how many hundreds of locations. What lessons were you able to take from because you don’t grow that fast, that many different brands without having your stuff together, without having great systems and processes in place. How have you been able to take some of that operational excellence that you were a part of there and introduce it to touching hearts at home in a way that not only is helping the overall corporate strategy, but each of these individual franchisees that signs on?

Todd Treml : Yeah, great question. So I always talk about my takeaway from that experience as well as other meaningful experiences along the way. But that particular one taught me that if you focus your energy and put your energy into supporting franchisees, that means every day when you walk into the building and you’re focused on one thing, how do I make my franchisees better today? If that is your focus and you don’t have other things that are going to distract you, corporate locations, other things that take your focus away, then you can focus on the franchisee and support. And what I learned there and that I apply to our companies, the companies I’ve been with and this company today is if we put our resources in support, we’re talking about training, operations, marketing, technology. I haven’t mentioned sales. And if you put your support there and you grow your franchisee successfully, you are ultimately rewarded with good franchise sales development.

And what I mean by that, Anthony, is great companies that have great franchise performance, get lots of organic leads, and they get a lot of interest in their brand to continue to sell more franchises. And that’s the biggest thing that I learned at Limer Corporation was if you focus on that, the rest will follow and it does. And so that alone along with now what do you do when you get into the company is a couple of things. You listen, you learn, you collaborate with your franchisees. Those things are the most important is that you have to have a working relationship and trust between franchisee and franchisor. And that’s absolutely critical. Those relationships mean everything. And if the franchisee believes that you’re giving them everything you’ve got and you are supporting them, you have a really great relationship that you can grow on.

Anthony Codispoti : I’d like to explore for a moment, Todd, your own personal journey to and now where you are is the CEO of a successful and growing company. Obviously, along the way you’ve worked your way up, kind of director and VP and different roles. And now you’re at sort of the top of the heat, so to say. What has that growth and that transition been like for you?

Todd Treml : Yeah, it’s really been, first of all, I think I would tell you that there are no shortcuts. It has been a lot of hard work. It’s a lot of persistence.

It isn’t spend time for a couple years and do this and then all of a sudden you’re leading companies. You have to, especially in this business, you have to walk on a lot of glass. You have to have lots of experiences. And so all along the way, what I have done is really add to my skill sets, but also continue to learn from experiences along the way and in franchising, sometimes it can get messy and there can be bumps in the road because you’re dealing with lots of franchise owners and everybody has needs.

But you have to be able to navigate that. And what I have learned in every one of these steps to get to where I’m at today is, how do you deal with adversity? How do you deal with chaos that goes on around you?

How do you deal with relationships? And ultimately, how do you build the right teams that can also do that? Because this is not a one man show.

I mean, people like to point to the CEO as being kind of the status symbol of the company, but the reality is it’s really about the team that does the really important work with the franchisees who do really important work. It is a culmination of experiences that you can’t get unless you go through it. Like I said before, there’s no shortcuts here. And it just takes persistence. So all along the way, that is what I’ve done to get to this point.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, as I think about what it must be like to be the CEO of a franchise with multiple franchisees, it does seem like there would be a lot of challenging moments because each one of these franchisees, they’re a business owner. And it takes a certain type of personality to be a business owner. You’ve got to be take charge. You’re somebody with your own ideas. You go out there and you problem solve and you get things done. And that’s great. That’s what you want. But then it can be challenging sometimes to work with those personalities to still fit under the umbrella and the identity of the master brand itself.

Todd Treml : It’s really true. You have a wide variety and an array of personalities and experiences that come into franchising. In most cases, some way that comes into a franchise has no business background in terms of ownership. So they’re owning usually their first business ever. Some come from professional backgrounds, very successful in management or some other professional background or maybe they had a different background.

Maybe they were in other lines of work, whatever the case may be. You have individuals that are true entrepreneurs that come in and they just want to go. And what we say is, and what is so important in the franchising model is we’ve approved an operating system.

We ask our franchisees to follow that model. Stay on course. Don’t deviate off of it. It’s been proven successful. This is what you’ve invested in. And if you just follow the model and again, we’re not asking them to be robots, but follow the model at least for the first couple of years, figure out this business. And as you see other opportunities to grow your business, share those with us and let’s talk. The best ideas always come from our franchisees. But in terms of the business model itself is something that I will not yield on in terms of making sure that they really follow that because too often in franchising, franchisees can go off track and it leads to problems.

And so we have to pull them back in. So that’s something that’s very important when you’re dealing with lots of different personalities and skill sets and backgrounds in franchising. And again, that gets back to trust and everybody being aligned on the mission of what we’re trying to accomplish.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, because as a franchise, you want to make sure that the service is consistent across all locations. I mean, for folks who maybe need something a little more tangible, think about a McDonald’s. You want the hamburger and the french fries and the milkshakes to all taste and smell the same wherever you go.

It’s a similar kind of thing with the brand that you’re building, touching hearts at home. You want the service to be consistent. You want the way that employees are being treated to be the same. You want the way that patients and clients are being treated to be the same.

But you also made an interesting point that if a franchisee has an idea for something new to try, an idea for growth, a different way to do things, share it with the larger team. Let’s talk about it. And maybe there’s a way to introduce this to everybody. Can you think of a specific example of an idea that came from a franchisee where you’re like, this is great. Let’s roll this out to everybody.

Todd Treml : There are literally hundreds. I’ll just start by saying, as a franchisor, as the home office, we’re not a bunch of geniuses that sit around all day thinking about ideas on how to enhance and improve our systems and our networks. That’s why we throw so much behind support. And what that means is we’re in constant communication with our franchisees. And I’ve been doing this for 35 years with over 5,000 franchisees in different brands and industries. And when you’re connected, you’re hearing about best practices and you’re hearing about these ideas.

And ultimately, our job is to look at it, listen, learn. And if it’s a really great idea and it’s working in a location or more than one, we bring it back in, we package it, and we push it out to the network. Now, instead of one or two franchisees benefiting from this incredible idea, the entire network can. That’s franchising in a nutshell right there.

It’s this network of people that are working together. So I mean, there’s tremendous options. I’ll give you one that just recently came up in our company. We have an advisory board that’s very important to us in Touching Hearts at Home, a group of seven highly passionate and committed franchisees that represent our network. And they literally came up with tons of ideas already that we’re implementing.

One of them was something called an owner form. They wanted an opportunity to have franchisees speak on topics every single month to our network. Great idea. We implemented it. We put it in place. Now, every single month, a franchisee picks a topic and leads the discussion peer to peer from an overall networking meeting standpoint. I have implemented software, technology, marketing ideas, tons of marketing ideas that come from franchisees. So it honestly never ends. And that’s the beauty of what we do.

Anthony Codispoti : Talk to me about growth strategies. What do you found as maybe the most successful growth strategy for you guys?

Todd Treml : Well, there’s a couple of them to think about. So when I think about growth strategies, we have company growth strategies, the franchise are, we have individual unit growth strategies as well. Let me begin with the franchisee first. And I think that’s most important. And I think the biggest growth strategy we have today is in how we market the business. And for viewers, they may not understand what that means exactly, but we implement something called referral marketing.

Whereas we build these community relationships with hospitals and skilled nursing facilities and rehab centers, hospice, discharge planners, and we provide a home solution for the client. And that is in a community based, but very highly effective growth strategy for us, because it builds on trust. And it also shortens that sales cycle so that we’re not just waiting for a lead to come in. We’re actually getting that referred to us and it’s extremely cost effective versus maybe digital marketing to try to get leads or trying to get clients. So really important growth strategy for us is referral marketing.

It’s not uncommon in home care, but it’s how you do it and the relationships that you build in that business. So that’s one area. I think in terms of growth strategy when we look at how does a franchise organization grow the amount of units they have?

Okay, so at one point everybody started at zero or one and they grew to whatever they are today. And the fact is it’s not easy. In fact over 80% of all franchise companies never get over 100 locations. It’s really a staggering statistic. So you have about 4,000 franchise business models that are in the marketplace today and the vast majority of them never get over 100.

Frankly, the vast majority never get over 50. So first of all, it’s hard. It’s hard work. But as I said before, we’re looking to expand our business into being more underserved communities. We have a lot of white space in front of us right now as a brand. And so how do we get from 70 locations to 100? Well, it starts with really good sales process, really good people. We’ve got an incredible development department here with a vice president that’s our leader in that area. And we do all kinds of things to generate leads that come into us to grow our brand. Some of that is invested actual lead generation spend. But the best of it is organic leads that come in because they see the success of our franchise owners in the marketplace and they want to be a part of the brand. That’s the inflection point that happens in franchising which is it could be a customer, a client or somebody in the community sees that and says, I want to be a part of this.

This is an incredible opportunity. So we bring them into our process and we’ve been highly effective at it. So two different types of growth strategies, Anthony, that we look at franchise or franchisee.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. Once you guys sort of get to a little bit of a critical mass of locations, that word of mouth engine really starts to become even more powerful. How would somebody learn more about the opportunity and if where they live there’s a market available for them if this is something they’re interested in?

Todd Treml : Yeah, the best place is our website, touchinghearts.com. And there resides all the information you need whether you’re a family member looking for a loved one for care and a location that we have and the services we provide or if you’re interested in becoming a franchise owner, you can go on our website and find all the content about what makes up the process, what the investment looks like, what the opportunity is and what territories are available. All that’s on the website.

It’s a click away. People fill out a form. It comes to us. We get back to them the same day and we are looking for a really good fit. We like to say in franchising that we don’t sell, we award and we’re looking for people in the right markets with the right intentions that are financially and operationally qualified and that really can share in the mission statement.

Anthony Codispoti : Say a little bit more about the fit that you’re looking for. Obviously, there has to be a certain amount of financial capability there to be able to invest and support the opportunity. But personality-wise or experience-wise, what makes a good fit for you guys?

Todd Treml : You said it, you know, and I said it, which is you kind of go through a process, a selection process to look at, okay, the basics, right? Are they operationally qualified? Do they have some level of experience in business management, managing people, being in departments, running it? Are they financially qualified? Because we don’t want to lead someone into business that doesn’t have the financial wherewithal to succeed and put them in peril. So we don’t want to do that.

So those two things are critical. We do not require experience in the home care business or the health care business. We do not have specific backgrounds that we require for you to be an owner of this, unlike a lot of franchise opportunities, especially in places like food where you need background in it.

We’ll train you up on every aspect of how to run this business. We are looking for people that really ultimately can understand two things. Number one, what is the job they’re going to do? And are they really clear on the job itself? Okay, this is not a executive role, position, franchise, absentee situation.

We need to have them understand what it is they’re going to be doing on a day-to-day basis. And are they willing to do that? And number two, are they willing to follow the business model, the franchise operating system? Again, as I said earlier, if they can, if they do that, we can help them be very successful. So if they have those two things, and of course, they need to have a level of passion behind it.

It’s very rare that we get a candidate that comes in to become an owner that doesn’t have a story, a story about a parent, a grandparent, a loved one where they had to deal with health care issues or home care at some point in time. So we’re looking for those people that have that passion. And generally, it’s naturally that just happens. They have that. That’s why they come to us. But we also want to make sure they’re going to stay real focused on the operating model. We won’t yield on that. That’s something that’s very important to us.

Anthony Codispoti : Are there any fun projects that you’re working on right now, maybe new technology, new services that you intend to roll out, anything that would be fun to get voiced to?

Todd Treml : Yeah, the technology side is really pretty interesting. It seems like it’s a weekly, daily thing where we get hit with a new technology or enhancement in services somehow, some way. We have a lot of fun on the marketing side, running contests. And we’re very much in the social media platforms doing some great things. I think just to share one item that we’re looking at right now is basically a monitoring system that is not invasive at all.

The client wears a bracelet and it just allows us to measure certain things that are going off that client. And the family can, too, how much time do they sleep? Wandering. What is their gate so that we can maybe predict if there’s going to be falls? How long did they sleep? How long are they sitting up?

How long are they walking around? I mean, all these things that take place, some biometrics involved in this as well, help us to just monitor and more importantly, fill the gaps when somebody’s not there. Because certainly we provide 24-7 care and what we call live-in. But technologies like this, and you’re going to see more of this in home care, really help to fill the gaps when somebody’s not there.

Anthony Codispoti : So it can alert somebody if they’ve maybe wandered outside the home. If there’s some memory care issues there, it can let you know if the person, something’s wrong with the way that they’re walking. Maybe they’ve fallen or there’s indicators that they may be struggling, but their gate is this accurate?

Todd Treml : Yeah, 100%. Yeah, you got it. Exactly what it does. So there’s technologies like this that are fun and that are practical. Our job is to not jump at every shiny object that comes in here because there’s a lot of them, Anthony. But we do vet it properly and we always vet it through our franchisees first.

Anthony Codispoti : Is this something that’s in place now or is it coming?

Todd Treml : It’s in place now and we’ll have a bigger rollout as we go forward.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s exciting because like you said, it helps to fill in the gap. I mean, you’re not going to replace humans in the care model. You absolutely don’t want to do that because that human interaction is so important. But how can you enhance that? How can you fill in the gaps when somebody isn’t there, can’t be there?

Correct. How about a serious challenge that you’ve overcome, Todd? Whether it’s something in your personal life or your professional life, what was it? How did you get through it and what did you learn?

Todd Treml : Yeah, no, that’s a good question. I’ll share a little bit about some of my experiences here, both personal and professional. And I think the first thing that kind of comes to mind is on a personal level, I don’t know, maybe 20 years ago or so, I lost my brother and best friend. And he was an only brother that I had. We were, you know, young to mid-aged adults and it had a profound effect on me, impact on me. And, you know, it was tragic. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to have spent time with him because I learned so much about gratitude and relationship building from him. And that sticks with me every single day. And part of going through any personal life challenges or tragic issues, traumatic issues is really that how do you deal with it?

What is the after effect? And for me, it was all about getting balance in my life, making sure that every aspect of my life, you know, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, were all working and I was focused on those things to make sure that I was, you know, keeping myself healthy. So that was really important to me and ultimately made me who I am today, really shaped, really shaped my life.

And so grateful for the time that I had with him. On a business level, I realized that, you know, losing a job is not the end, you know, but rather it’s kind of the beginning of an opportunity. And for that matter, it can be the beginning of an incredible opportunity for growth. You end up getting very diverse experiences and relationships that help you grow. You end up going from a company where you’re thinking, I’m no longer there.

Now what am I going to do? And everybody goes through this, you know, nobody is, you know, immune to these kind of things. So, but what I learned through not being able to work in a company that I wanted to be in is doors opened everywhere. And if you never stop learning, and you’re always executing against the knowledge that you have, you can get better and better and you can continue to grow. So, you know, persistence and grit are important here. But I always tell people that if you get downsized or you lose a job, congratulations, you just got promoted, you get ready for the next opportunity because it’s coming. Okay. And that’s the mindset that I always have. And I have a bit of a prosperity mindset. And so that’s what’s got me through.

Anthony Codispoti : Thanks for sharing both of those. So sorry to hear about your brother. I’m kind of curious to explore that a bit. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve gotten to a point where you have so much gratitude for the time that the two of you had together and the lessons that you learned about gratitude from him. What did it take to kind of get to that point? When we lose somebody, there’s a lot of emotion, there’s a lot of healing that needs to take place first. Can you talk a little bit about how you kind of bridged from mourning that loss to now being in a place of gratitude?

Todd Treml : It starts with being self-aware. You have to be very self-aware of where you’re at, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And for me, the most important thing that I did is I kind of attacked it, meaning you can come out of this one of two ways. You can either come out of it, continue to struggle and get worse, or you can actually grow out of it.

Take your pick, but this is the one I’m going to choose. And so what I did immediately is I surrounded myself with as many people as possible that could be positive influences in my life. I surrounded myself with them, I reached out to them, I got mentors, I did whatever I could to continue to get support. People are out there to support you and they will do it. And so this level of support that I had, that I received was so important in bridging, kind of getting through some tough times, and then being able to sort of reset and say, okay, I’m ready for these next challenges. And that is gratitude in my life. I mean, I think personal life, professional life, gratitude is incredibly important, but I reflect on it all the time. And so those things help. And what’s so interesting about going through that is where I’m at today. I’m in a sharing, caring, helping business, dealing with people that need support and service and care, compassionate care in their homes. And I mean, they’re incredibly grateful, but we’re grateful for just servicing them. So it’s very interesting how this circle has come around.

Anthony Codispoti : Switching to the professional challenge that you talked about, how, you know, powerful lesson for a lot of people to hear, you know, losing a job is not the end, especially, you know, in today’s economy, and kind of look at it as an opportunity.

Doors open everywhere. Congratulations, you’ve just been promoted. I find that in my life, when I’m faced with a challenge, anytime I can approach it with curiosity, my whole mood, my whole mindset changes. But getting to that point isn’t always easy, especially when you’re faced with something so dramatic as, you know, the loss of a job. Do you have any words of wisdom, any coaching to give people that have maybe gone through that recently to help them sort of get from here to there?

Todd Treml : Yeah, you know, it could be a big blow to your ego, right? When you, when somebody is sitting down with you and they say, you know, you, sorry, but you’ve been downsized out of the company, and I hear it all the time. And I think that what you need to look at as an individual is, first of all, it’s not the end, it’s the beginning. And you’ve put in a lot of great work, or you’ve built value somewhere.

So, you know, evaluate the value that you have. And then, curiosity is a good thing. I mean, I like that, but continue to look at opportunities, be very open to opportunities. I would tell somebody that the first thing that you should be doing is networking and continue to network. But if you are, and this is what I did, my advice is, is when I, for the first time, didn’t have a job.

And I’m an adult and I have a family to feed. I attacked it every single day, like a job. So what I did is in my search for what I wanted to do next, I got up every morning at the same time, I got dressed for work, and I put eight hours in. And I did networking, I did, I, you know, I was self recruiting, I did everything that I could possibly do, go to classes, go to courses, read, join associations, anything and everything.

I approached it every day, as that is my full-time job. And within 45 days, I landed in even a better spot than I had previously. And then two years after that, a better spot than I was at. And then four years later, another promotion, and then on and on and on. And so I approached everything with a lot of discipline. And that’s really what I did and what I would recommend.

Anthony Codispoti : That’s such a powerful lesson there, right? Because I think when folks, they find themselves out of work, it’s very natural to human reaction to be sort of depressed and withdraw and, you know, to go into sort of comfort seeking mode. And you’re not as productive when you’re kind of in that mindset, when you’re in that place. And when you can shift gears and say, Hey, now I’ve got a new full-time job. And my new full-time job is to look for a full-time job and do that by, you know, you said, like networking. And I’m curious, what did that networking look like for you? Is this just sending out like lots of connection requests on LinkedIn? What does this look like?

Todd Treml : Yeah, it’s that. It’s connection requests. But actually, you know, even then, it wasn’t so much that, Anthony, as it was, sending emails out to the network, sending emails out to your friends, people that you’ve worked with, people in industry, whether it’s suppliers you’ve worked with, customers you’ve worked with, staying in touch with them, you know, joining groups locally, trying to get together with people that you can get together with, still staying, if you want to stay in industry, get yourself to conferences and workshops, and do these things to stay in the business. Again, you may not do the same thing that you were doing. I didn’t do exactly the same thing that I was doing when I went to my next role.

I should do something very different. I went into sales, franchise sales. I had been in operations my whole life. I decided that I wanted to go into a different area of franchising and found out that I was actually good at it. And that actually rounded out my experience. So then now I have this diverse background that I can bring, that I’ve worn all these hats, and you just become more valuable to each organization as you build. So it’s not always about going back and trying to do the exact same thing that you’re doing. You know, take a risk. You know, you know, get to the plate and swing a little bit. And you know, you might make some mistakes and learn something, but I don’t know how else you grow. So that’s what I would suggest.

Anthony Codispoti : Make you more attractive and more versatile in the next role that you’re going to land. When you have the varied experiences, you could have stayed in the operations silo forever. I’m like, no, I’m going to round this out. I’m going to do sales. And so now, whether my next position is sales or operations or something else, I come with more of a 360 kind of view of what’s going on in business. Yeah, 100% right.

Todd Treml : And you bring more value to those organizations. And now when you get to a company, you really can, you really can sort of apply yourself to the leadership of the organization, because if you’ve done these things, and again, the key thing is you’ve actually done them. You’ve actually been in the trenches, you’ve actually worked in these roles, you’ve actually gone to, in my case, open to locations, consulted franchisees, built marketing programs, sold franchises, understand the financial side of the business through all of it. Now, as a CEO coming in, you’re pretty valuable because you’ve done all these things, versus just maybe one or two of those things.

Anthony Codispoti : And Todd, you strike me obviously as a guy who’s very disciplined. What kinds of daily practices do you employ that help to keep you centered and on track?

Todd Treml : Well, you know, habits are a great thing, good and bad. But I would tell you initially, every single day, there’s a bunch of things that I do, but every single day, I have a real belief in the power of prayer. And every single day I start my morning on my commute to thank God for all the blessings in my life, and ask for his guidance and his wisdom and his strength and the decisions I make each day as a CEO.

And I pray for clarity in these decisions. And the ability to lead with integrity, because that’s what I believe in and the opportunity to do what I said earlier, which is to make a positive impact in the lives of those I serve, both in business and professional life. That’s really important to me. So that is a daily ritual for me. I have many other things that I do from a business standpoint when I come into the office and I put my planning together every single day and do those things. But like a lot of CEOs, managers have planners and different things, staff meetings, I have rituals and plans, staying disciplined to what we do, but also staying very creative too. There’s a balance between creative and being disciplined. So that’s one example of one of my rituals.

Anthony Codispoti : You strike me as somebody with very much a growth mindset. You’re self-aware, you’re able to reflect on things. And I’d be curious to hear your take on this because there are times in my life where I make a mistake.

It seems like a big mistake at the time. And then when I get a little bit of distance from it, I can look back on that mistake and it was a launch pad or some kind of a turning point in my understanding of things. And now I can look back at it with a sense of gratitude. Is there a particular moment like that that you can think of that seemed like a big mistake at the time, but was actually very helpful to you?

Todd Treml : Yeah, my last company, we had a portfolio of franchise brands in the experiential economy. So really fun stuff. And I’d made the decision to convert our software system to a new platform. You know, better technology, better speed to market, better analytics, more cost effective.

I mean, a slam dunk, right? This makes all the sense in the world. And although everything worked out in the end, it was a very, very rough conversion. Lots of criticism, lots of second guessing, lot of pushback from franchisees. And what I learned is that through that painful year that we went through, I learned that you need to bring in when you’re making big decisions like this, that affect a lot of people, you need to bring in all the stakeholders, bring in the bring in everybody that has a part of this, this product or the outcomes and field and stress test it thoroughly, get by in and then execute it. We simply went too fast. And I made the decision to go too fast.

But you have to have the discipline also and the willingness to make some mistakes, you got to own them, and then you go and fix them. And so that’s one example that’s actually quite recent over the last probably 12 to 18 months.

Anthony Codispoti : What’s something you wish more people knew about your industry? That’s a great question.

Todd Treml : Home care will be the future of healthcare. More seniors will age at home. Healthcare systems are going to rely on us to keep people out of hospitals. There’s been numerous surveys, Anthony, that 90% of seniors want to age in place at home. A lot of people don’t know that. Touching hearts at home franchises provide those services, those amazing services at a very, very high level in their communities. And that is why we are so driven on expanding to the underserved markets. Because the statistics are crazy in the, what I’ll call the aging population right now.

You can look up any statistic. It’s what we call the silver tsunami that is coming our way. So that’s what I want people to know about our industry is that it is growing, it is vibrant, and we are doing important work.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, I’ll second that. My grandmother who passed away a few years ago, but when she was getting towards the end of her life, we really wanted her to go to some kind of a senior care facility. The social aspect would have been great for her. She would have really thrived there. And the times where she did need to go because she was doing rehab or something, she really enjoyed herself.

But just like you said, she very much wanted to be at home. That’s where her memories were. That’s where she was comfortable. That’s where all her stuff is. She knows it, the layout. And so, it was my first introduction to this several years ago.

This industry was the services of being able to have a trusted person come into the home and spend some time with her and help her with things. And so, yeah, I kind of had a front row seat to exactly what you’re talking about. Yeah. Last question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things, Todd. First of all, I’m going to invite everyone to hit the follow button on their favorite podcast apps so they can get more great interviews like we’ve had today with Todd Tremble, the CEO of Touching Hearts at home. Todd, I also want to let people know the best way to either get in touch with you personally, the brand, or just continue to follow your story.

We’ve got obviously the website, which is touchinghearts.com. And like you mentioned before, there’s a giant start of franchise button in the top right corner if that’s what people are interested in. But any other ways that folks could connect with either you or the brand?

Todd Treml : Yeah, you’ve nailed the one on the brand. Websites, the quickest and easiest way. We’re on social platforms. So, we’re on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube. We’re on everything. So, you can always find us there. We’re very active in those areas at touchinhearts.com. We’ll get you where you want to go from me personally.

And I truly mean this. If you have any questions or would like to chat with me, you can reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn. Just look me up. I’m on LinkedIn. You can message me anytime.

I spend a lot of my time every month just mentoring and talking to other CEOs or want to be leaders in businesses. I enjoy it immensely. It’s something that I love to give.

I’m a big believer that givers gain. And so, I invite you to contact me. And I also do the same thing, by the way. I’m constantly networking and talking to others is what I have a big practice on. So, that’s how you get a hold of me.

Anthony Codispoti : And we’ll include links to everything in the show notes. But if you’re listening on the go right now, Todd Tremel, T-O-D-D, and the last name is T-R-E-M-L. And if you just look for that plus Touching Hearts on LinkedIn, you’ll find him.

So, last question for you, Todd. As you look to the future, what exciting changes do you see coming in your industry? And I don’t know, how can listeners in your field prepare to be part of that story?

Todd Treml : We talked a little bit about this earlier. And I think there’s two things that I think are the future. Number one is technology is going to enhance care. We talked about smart devices, home devices, AI, monitoring, helping keep families and caregivers and clients connected is really, really important. So, more you’re going to see on that front.

We’re just at the beginning stages. And I think the second thing is, and it’s really the people side of this business, is that caregivers will ultimately drive the success of the business. The best agencies will attract them, train them, put lots of value on them.

And those are the ones that are going to win in the marketplace. So, really, the future is about investing in people, not just process. And the culture matters when you’re going to attract and retain and recruit these caregivers. But they are a big key to our future success.

Anthony Codispoti : That makes a lot of sense to me. Every great organization is only as good as the people that are the foundation of it. So, that really resonates. Todd, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Todd Treml : Anthony, I had a blast. Thank you for having me.

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