December 22, 2021
“I’ve been in different businesses,” says Rob Rister, owner of HomeWell Care Services in Lexington, KY. “To me, this is a moral business. You’re taking families who need help, and caregivers who would like to work and would like to help, and you’re putting them together. It’s an ethical business model and I just love it.”
“Before we owned our HomeWell Care Services franchise, I was working in retail as a manager,” Rob recalls. “I’d done some work in the insurance business. My wife, Dee, and I were bantering about going into business, kicking around ideas for something we would enjoy working on that would bring her background and mine together. Then, I was walking through the house one day and I saw a picture of my mom hanging on the wall—and it was like she spoke to me: Home care, Rob.”
“Forty years ago, my mom had a little home care agency when I was in high school,” Rob says. “I was playing sports and doing typical teenage boy things, so I didn’t really pay much attention to what my mom did for a living. But, at that moment, I sprinted up the stairs and said: Dee, you’re not going to believe this, but I think we should be looking at home care. She said: let’s look at it.”
“So, we investigated it and interviewed several home care agencies—and we really loved HomeWell.”
Discovering the HomeWell difference
“I’m a big logo fan. You can’t look at a yellow ‘M’ or a white swoosh and not know what those are. When I was first looking at different home care franchises, the HomeWell name and logo really caught my attention. I thought that if it caught my eye, it was going to catch other people’s. I put HomeWell at the top of my list of franchises to investigate.”
“The HomeWell team did a great job explaining the advantages of owning a home care agency and the pitfalls, too. When we went to Texas to meet the corporate team on discovery day, we found that we felt connected, like we knew them personally. Dee felt the same way: they really know what they’re doing, and that they’re passionate about it.”
“From discovery day until we got our license, I never felt like I was alone in the process. If I had a question, I could just pick up the phone. It felt like HomeWell had our best interests at heart: a vested interest. And that meant a lot to me.”
Every day brings a sense of fulfillment
“Running a great home care agency takes patience,” says Rob. “Nothing is built overnight. You’re going to have great days and bad days—but at the end of the day, you’re helping a lot. That’s what I take pride in.”
“Every day, when I go home, we’ve helped families that day. I know that our caregivers are getting paid. I love that we’ve created jobs in our community that didn’t exist. I’m excited that sons and daughters in our community could go to work that day, knowing that their mom and dad was taken care of by one of our caregivers.”
“I talk to our office staff a lot about how many people we help during a week a month or a day. We get a lot of calls at our office; often from a daughter who does most of the caregiving. She’s in tears. She has a mom who’s sick and she has her own kids too. She’s stuck in the middle, doesn’t know what to do, and doesn’t have the skills to help her mom.”
“We’re able to send out our community outreach director to sit down with her and let her know that it’s okay. We’re here to help and we’re in this together. You’re not alone anymore and you have a team to help you with your mom. We call it team HomeWell, and it’s what we believe in.”
“Today, I know that within months, there’s going to be another family that’s so grateful for our HomeWell team. I haven’t met them yet, but they’re coming, and it’s never going to stop.”
“I would recommend that future owners grasp this concept. When you get into the home care business, understand you’re looking down the road. You’re not looking months ahead; you’re looking years down the road. So be patient. Those families that you’re going to help—you haven’t even met them yet, but you’re going to help them. That’s so exciting to me.”
Do you have the conviction and passion to build an impactful business that makes a difference in the lives of others? A HomeWell Care Services franchise could be your path to life-changing success. Take the first step and download our franchising kit today.