Franchise Canada Magazine
May / June 2009
Driving Success with a Smile
Alyshia Vogt finds happiness and fulfillment the Nurse Next Door way
by D'ArcyJenish, Franchise Canada Magazine
Alyshia Vogt doesn’t have far to go every morning to start work as the Victoria franchisee for Nurse Next Door Senior Care Services. In fact, she usually begins her day before getting out of bed. The first thing she does is reach for the iPhone on the night table and check for overnight messages or emergencies. Then it’s downstairs to turn on the coffee and fire up the computer in the dining room of her townhouse. After that, no two days are ever the same, except to say that she spends most of her time recruiting caregivers for her fast-growing business and networking for new clients. The day ends when she hits the pillow at night and checks the iPhone one last time for incoming calls.
Being new to the business (she’s been a full-time franchisee since the spring of 2008) Vogt acknowledges she’s putting in the hours, but has no regrets. “You can get through the difficult parts of starting a business if you’re getting something out of it,” says Vogt. “This is very fulfilling work. Over time, you see how many lives you touch.”
As a newcomer to franchising, she’s also very pleased with the level of ongoing support and training she’s received from Nurse Next Door. “I love their philosophy,” says Vogt. “I love their core values. They have a really smart team doing planning and development.”
Vancouver, British Columbia-based Nurse Next Door has been in business since 2001 and has been franchising since 2007. The company began this year with 21 franchises, concentrated in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario and has been adding an average of two locations per month. Arif Abdulla, Communications and Public Relations Manager, says Nurse Next Door is expanding into Atlantic Canada and the Prairies. Nurse Next Door currently has territories available in all provinces and territories.
Vogt is a registered nurse – though a nursing background is not a prerequisite for franchisees or caregivers – and had worked in the profession for only three years. She was providing transitional care for patients, most of whom were older or elderly and had suffered strokes, fractured hips or other problems and required long-term care.
“I wasn’t completely happy with my job,” she recalls. “I was flipping through the paper one day in December of 2007 and saw an ad for Nurse Next Door. That night, I woke my husband in bed and said: ‘I have to do this.’ On January 10, I had my final interview. In February we were putting our money down and in April we launched.”
She got her business rolling just about that fast as well. She started by hiring five caregivers. By the end of January 2009, she had built a roster of 34 and was looking for another five or six. They are a mix of older people, some of them retired and looking for a few hours of rewarding work a week, and young people, some of them college trained in caregiving, while others are young mothers who can put in 10 to 20 hours weekly.
A few members of her team are Licensed Practical Nurses or Registered Nurses, but the majority do not have a medical background. Indeed, most of the services they provide are non-medical in nature. Generally, they are helping elderly people get dressed in the morning, reminding them to take their medication, preparing meals, buying the groceries or cleaning the house.
Given the nature of the work, she looks for people with the right temperament and interests. “I want individuals who are friendly, who want to help people, want to make a difference in their lives and have lots of hobbies so they can be great companions for the clients,” says Vogt.
Tuesday is usually what she calls her human resources day. She interviews prospective caregivers or provides orientation sessions for those who are joining the service. Vogt devotes considerable time to looking for new clients, which was a core part of her mandate when she invested. “The franchisee’s job is to build the business and find the right people to provide the service,” says Abdulla.
And that means networking. When she’s not dealing with her caregivers, Vogt is out there in the community meeting with nurses, social workers, doctors and pharmacists, among others. She attends job fairs at local post-secondary institutions as well as meetings of organizations like the local Chamber of Commerce and service clubs such as the Rotary Club. Her first objective is to let them know about the service and her second is to look for referrals, which are very important when dealing with the elderly.
“Our clients want to hear about us from someone they know rather than by reading an ad in the newspaper,” she says. “Creating word of mouth is a lot of what I do.”
Vogt adds that one of the things she likes about Nurse Next Door is the level of ongoing support she receives from the Vancouver head office and the opportunities to network with and to share ideas with fellow franchisees. “You’re really respected by the franchisor,” she says. “They provide a lot of training. I have regular coaching calls for business development.
The key piece of continuing support is caregiver scheduling. The company handles it all. Otherwise, she’d be tied to her phone and computer all day – like a taxi dispatcher – sending caregivers here and there to ensure that all her clients are receiving the care they need. “They have a full team of excellent schedulers, the computer technology, everything,” says Vogt. “They always let us know if a caregiver is sick or can’t take a shift for some reason. We have clients who can’t get out of bed without help. If a caregiver can’t get there, they’re stuck.”
The highlight of the job, she says, is connecting with people and she deals with quite a mix every day, including community groups as part of her marketing efforts, prospective caregivers and new hires who need to be trained. Nurse Next Door franchisees should bring certain qualities to the table, Vogt adds. They should be friendly, caring, organized, hard-working, tenacious and passionate.
“You should ask yourself if you’re really serious about it because it’s going to be a lot of work,” she continues. “You should believe in the core values of the company. If you don’t you won’t benefit Nurse Next Door or yourself. And don’t do it solely as an investment. Do it because you believe in it.”
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