Understanding and navigating the next steps for growth as a small business owner is always a daunting proposition. That’s especially true in the highly fragmented home care industry.
Home Care Ops founder Clint Nobles and Elder Independence owner Kim Clatworthy addressed that topic last month at the 2022 Home Care Growth Summit, hosted by research and education firm Home Care Pulse. The pair specifically discussed what home care operators should do with their businesses after hitting $2 million in revenue.
Mainly, they detailed the importance of evaluating impact when considering a business’s next steps.
Home Care Ops is an educational resource center for home care owners and operators, while Elder Independence is an Arkansas-based home care provider.
“What are you ready to achieve? Because that becomes your compass,” Nobles said. “When you understand that it’s not just about your business but it’s about what you personally can achieve, what you can accomplish and what can be accomplished through you, that becomes an incredible moment. And it brings us to a realization that it’s about impact and income.”
Despite challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the home care industry’s median revenue has continued to climb, Home Care Pulse data suggests.
In 2021, the industry’s median revenue was $2.02 million, up 3.6% compared to $1.95 million in 2020. In 2016, in comparison, the industry’s median revenue was $1.62 million.
Typically, financial growth will come to home care operators if their businesses are organized and innovative, Nobles and Clatworthy explained.
There are many companies in the at-home care industry in the purpose-driven or team-building stages of their business, Nobles said. Those are the first two steps of a five-step process in what he calls the “Home Care Owner Continuum.”
What follows is building an empire, having diversified investors and eventually becoming a legacy entrepreneur.
“Your purpose and your passion in the beginning has built you each step because that purpose through your repeatable systems now is built into your team and your influence has grown,” Nobles said. “And it’s not about replacing influence. You’re not absent, right? You actually are replacing your presence and not your influence.”
Clatworthy said it’s important for at-home care business owners to not skip any of these steps. The ups and downs will happen, but going through each step along the way will help you make smarter, more informed decisions.
“I think probably the most important thing is to understand where you are,” Clatworthy said. “We can’t know where we’re going if we don’t know where we are. As an owner, once I went through some of those pains and those difficult times, I was really able to see the pieces of the puzzle come together.”
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