What changed things for Hannah were two terribly close, tragic events. Firstly, her younger sister was diagnosed with cancer. This led to Hannah’s first encounter with homecare, and she saw immediately how valuable it was. “Being able to have palliative care at home gave her a good end-of-life experience, as far as they go ­– and particularly when you're that young”. Her sister sadly died aged just 18. The whole family saw the worth of high-quality homecare in that period – so shortly afterwards her stepfather Simon decided to become a Caremark franchisee.

Heartbreakingly, it wasn’t long before he too was diagnosed with a terminal illness. “About six months into starting his Caremark franchise, he got diagnosed with motor neurone disease,” says Hannah. Simon’s rapid deterioration was soon going to become impossible for him to bear, and he began to plan for an assisted death overseas. Up to this point, Hannah had little knowledge of Simon’s business. When he was first considering joining Caremark, she had gone with Simon to a franchise exhibition and “Although I was aware of things like McDonald’s, I didn't have a very deep understanding. I was just there for fun - for a day out, really.”

Then one day, while preparing for the end of his life, Simon suddenly asked Hannah to lunch. “Prezzo in Banstead. I remember the table,” says Hannah, “And he asked me – at 23 with two babies and not much work experience – if I wanted to take it over.” How she replied is a perfect demonstration of her fearlessness. “I just said, ‘Yeah, sure’!” Simon could see the entrepreneur in Hannah. “I've got a can-do attitude and I love a challenge. He saw in me the qualities that a business actually needs, rather than just things on paper.”

In that instant, she took on the Caremark franchisee experience. “We just went for it. I moved into my mum and stepdad’s house, and I would learn everything from him.” Just a few months after Simon’s diagnosis, Hannah was undertaking the Caremark training and starting to run the operation. “The training was great. A really motivating experience, because you finish and then you're all set free to go and do all the things that you've talked about. And I'm still really good friends with someone that I did the training with.”

“My stepdad was really keen on only doing a business that was something that people needed, not just wanted. He never wanted to be in a position where you're trying to sell something that people don't actually need,” Hannah proudly remembers – so she wasn’t initially motivated by profit so much as delivering exemplary home care. However, her attitude has evolved over time, “The financial side probably wasn't even a consideration of mine when I first started out. But when you're running a business and you get to understand the numbers more, and then you see them growing, it's addictive!” Simon died in 2015 – several years on, and the franchise that he started is now prospering in Hannah’s hands. The can-do attitude that he identified in Hannah is matched by her passion for superb quality care, and business is booming.

It’s clear that the roots of Hannah’s success lie in her spirited dedication to doing good work. While Hannah recommends not “overthinking things”, she’s very thoughtful – considerate about the wellbeing of those around her and paying close attention to the smallest details of how she can best support her care assistants. Given that her introduction to Caremark was in her own home – Simon was even cared for by his own staff – it’s also no surprise that closeness in the team is important to her. “When you come in here, it's like a family. And however big we get we try and maintain that.” Aware of her wider family too, Hannah calls on readily-available support from the network and Caremark Franchise Support Centre – thankfully receiving the perspective of “fresh eyes” when a Caremark team member visited to help assess office premises, for example.

Hannah may have left school early, but she’s not stopped developing her talents in parallel with her business growth. She’s now a yoga teacher and, having left a psychology degree to join Caremark, is now considering other courses that focus on human behaviour – all the time passing on the benefits of her self-improvement to customers and staff. With her background, she also understands the value of homecare more than most, but modestly thinks “Even my understanding is lacking,” and recommends that “Anybody going into this industry should try and spend time on the on the frontline – understanding what you're delivering is key.”

In contrast to her initial unfamiliarity with franchises, Hannah is now an enthusiastic advocate of the business model, noting how the Caremark formula delivers a perfect mix of support from the central business, plus local-level autonomy keeping “the soul” of a company, that larger corporates can lack. “It gives you a solid base to be able to run a business, to test all your entrepreneurial ideas and spirit and see if you can do it – but with that safety net of a tried-and-tested model.”

With this in mind, it’s inspiring to see that her extraordinary journey is being recognised by the franchising industry itself. Still in her 20s, Hannah’s now been a ‘Young Franchisee of the Year’ an incredible four times – and has won other awards too. Her mantlepiece must be very crowded! While her younger days saw her partying for the fun of it, she’s still out celebrating – but now it’s about toasting her many achievements in homecare franchising with Caremark.

Caremark Belfast and North Down is clearly a powerhouse of homecare provision. But despite all these big numbers, that’s not what drives this husband-and-wife team. For them, delivering quality care to customers – and caring for everyone around them, really – beats personal gain any day. “Your focus should be people. Profit will follow if you look after people,” advises Richard, and looking at their incredible growth, who could disagree?

One of the keystones of this people-first ethic comes from their emphasis on family. It’s been an intrinsic part of their approach, right from day one – which was many years ago, as Emily relates, when “Richard sat down beside me as I was feeding our six-month-old baby and said, ‘I think we should start a business together’. I said, ‘no’ – and he said, ‘yes’!”. After taking Emily to a franchise exhibition, he finally won her over. Nearly ten years later, they have four children, with the older ones now even starting to help with the business. They’ve cultivated a familial warmth that extends to all staff – “I know it’s cheesy,” says Emily, “but we very much have tried to create a Caremark family here.”

Naturally, the Caremark formula provided the platform for their amazing growth. Before starting with Caremark, Richard was a successful businessman – however, as he explains, “I was involved in property during the 2008 crash that a lot of people were badly burned by, so I wanted to get into something that is pretty much recession-proof, and that has a good future.” A franchise model in the homecare sector answered their needs for both stability, and the community-mindedness that the two are passionate about. Plus, with Caremark on their side, their lack of sector experience was readily dealt with. “Franchising was safer and enabled us to quickly hit the ground running. We didn't have experience of the health and social care sector, so to have a blueprint that says, ‘this is how you get started’ was great.”

Even though they met with many other homecare franchisors in this research stage, Caremark were head-and-shoulders above the rest. Others didn’t come across so well – “Yes, I'm a businessman, but just ‘money, money, money’ didn't sit well with us,” says Richard. “There was one meeting like that which lasted just 10 minutes. But then when we met with Caremark, money wasn’t really mentioned. They said, ‘We build our brand on the quality of care that we give vulnerable people in the community’. Emily and I wanted to raise the bar in the standard of care – we could see Caremark did too”.

Caremark’s Franchise Support Centre have provided a lot of support to the pair over the years – now Richard and Emily’s franchise has flourished to the point where they are able to help others in the care industry themselves. In fact, they’re promoting excellence in the sector throughout their region, with the second floor in their office mostly dedicated to a new Training Academy. They’ve also created a local Dementia Café, they’ve recruited a dedicated Wellbeing Officer for staff, and have done their own research to identify the hours of unmet caring needs in their community. Generating all this ambitious, socially positive work while raising four boys must be exhausting! As Emily says, “It's not all rosy in the beginning, it is hard work – but it's worth it” – and thankfully they are now able to take well-earned family holidays.

Outside of holidays though, when it comes to enjoying the rewards of their progress, this family-minded couple don’t keep it to themselves – they’re far keener to show gratitude to staff than to just pat each other on the back. They often bring lunch for everyone, they give staff bonuses, every office birthday is marked – “We celebrate success a lot in the office with food!” says Emily. “Those are our values – it's how we treat people,” Richard adds. “We don't ask anybody to do something that we’re not prepared to do ourselves. We treat people with courtesy – the way that we would like to be treated ourselves, I guess.”

And despite all the hard work, would you recommend becoming a Caremark franchisee? A big ‘yes’ from both – “We are making a big change in people's lives. That's what's also the bottom line is. We're making a huge impact on vulnerable people in our community – that’s my mother and my grandmother, you know? It's very, very rewarding.” To them, the importance and value of homecare can only increase. “Residential care is probably a thing of the past,” Richard suggests. “And for somebody to stay in their home, to recognise the pictures on the wall or, the carpet, the seats in the room – simple stuff like that – it's very important to people as they get older. If we can keep people in their own home, the longer the better.”

Of course, we all want to hear some words of advice from Caremark’s biggest franchise, and Richard and Emily do have some useful pointers for those starting out. The first is to plan for growth – for example, don’t let yourself get into a ‘panic recruitment process’, having let the need for a role take you by surprise. Secondly, ‘recruit for character’ – think about how someone would fit with the Caremark culture, not just their on-paper ability. As Richard says, “Ability can always be taught to a certain extent, but if someone’s character isn’t right for the team, they’re not really going to be able to learn”.

Richard and Emily are a very down-to-earth couple, and they’re 100% motivated by the good work they do. Although they’ve accomplished a vast amount, for them it’s all about gratitude rather than glory – on their amazing journey, Emily reflects, “What we have got out of it over the years, the people that we've met and the team that we've created, has been wonderful for us”. Before long they’ll hit 10,000 hours of care, and mark the 10th anniversary of their industrious, highly-motivated office. You can be sure they’ll celebrate these remarkable milestones as a family …all 350 of them.

This seed of an idea began to grow further after his extensive career in retail, encompassing just about everything from delivering TVs in Birmingham, to setting up the first-ever branch of Next in Moscow. When a final spell back in the UK ended in redundancy, he found himself looking around and thinking ‘what am I going to do?’. Initially Robert – now an impressively youthful 62 – thought he’d be happy to leave things there. “At first I said, I'm just going to retire. Yeah, I've got a reasonable pension, I can downsize my house, a little cottage out in the country. And that’ll be me.”  However, he and his wife Tracey quickly realised he wasn't cut out for a sleepy country cottage retirement. He seems allergic to boredom – he always takes his work laptop on holiday.

So various ideas were considered – “We sat around for probably over 18 months, looking at different things” – before the idea of homecare franchising crystalised as the ideal choice. This initiated a typically thorough search for the right fit. “I found about ten different companies that all offered homecare franchising, I wrote to them all. I spoke to six of them, and eventually met face to face with three.” In the end, Caremark was Robert’s top choice among them all. Alongside Caremark’s unbeatable management service fee, it was the great rapport with the team that made the key difference. “It was a better fit in terms of Caremark’s vision and their approach – how they saw things in the future. It really resonated with me.” In his own words Robert is a “very decisive person” once he’s made his mind up, so it wasn’t long before he and Tracey found themselves directors of their new Caremark business.

It's also clear that he and Tracey embody a useful blend of Caremark skills. Robert is very proud to give back to his community and to be a great local employer, however, “I'm not the carer type of person”, he admits with a smile, “…but my wife is!” Together, Tracey’s caring experience and his business experience have aided their journey – “Tracey found all the initial clients, and she helped me with all the understanding of the care sector.” Although, as he is keen to add, Caremark’s comprehensive training and ongoing guidance means that experience in either field isn’t by any means a requirement.

Enthusiastic about both learning, and sharing his learning, Robert is an active business development mentor to some franchisees – while himself seeking advice about care sector issues from others. There’s a wealth of knowhow within Caremark that’s of huge benefit to franchisees, and it shouldn't be left unused, notes Robert. “In a business like this all the other franchisees go through the same as you're going through, but some of them have been going a bit longer, so you can pick their brains about how they dealt with something. You've just got to ask the question and reach out to people.”

It was also Caremark’s knowledge capital that helped Robert truly appreciate – even after signing the franchise agreement – the real difference in quality that the company delivers. The training course involved some real studying ­– and this just further demonstrated to him that Caremark were serious about being the best. “I came away from that two weeks training thinking, wow, I'm glad I chose Caremark. It was good fun - but it also pushes you a bit and challenges you, which was good. I was actually a bit put out at first because it's not an easy ride, but that training really stood me in good stead.”

This was back in 2018 – how are things looking in 2021? “We're way past break-even and making some money. And that's great. Watching the bank account grow is just a fantastic feeling. Anybody that doesn't tell you that, I'm not sure why they're running their own business!” – so even the work-loving Robert has no excuse not to put his feet up on holidays to Italy, plus a cruise trip coming up soon. It's not all plain sailing though… “Recruitment can be a challenge.” he freely admits. As well as finding the right people, you need to be prepared for the swings and roundabouts of staff being suddenly unavailable, or simply moving on – but then that’s why it makes good business sense to be a fair employer and have better retention than your competitors.

And the future is bright – asked what the prospects for even further market growth are, “Huge” is the verdict. Robert also has plans to expand the way technology can add value and help clients when a carer isn’t on duty. Always looking ahead, the next goal is in his sights already.

Robert is clearly proud of creating an outstanding business that provides excellent care. He’s a ‘bluntly honest’ person rather than a show-off, but the fact is the vast majority of feedback for his Caremark office has been overwhelmingly positive – “We get inundated with 'thank yous’ and 'well dones.” He’s never regretted choosing Caremark, whose business model and ethos pair perfectly with his own tremendously high standards. As he puts it, ‘it’s a no-brainer’, with quality making the difference. “If this business was anything like the one that my wife and her mum spoke about that Saturday night,” he says, “I’d have to sell up and do something else!”

Interested in finding out more about the Caremark franchise opportunity?
Get in touch with the team today!