Home Care Owner FAQs
We've brought together a team of educators and home care experts to answer the burning questions that you and every home care owner will ask at some point.
Jeff Wiberg President of the Home Care Association of America board and CEO of Family Resource Home Care
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Debbie Miller Former pharma sales rep who built a $10M home care company and founded 52 Weeks Marketing
Debbie Miller Former pharma sales rep who built a $10M home care company and founded 52 Weeks Marketing
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion
Mark Johnson EA specializing in home care agencies
Jason Chagnon CEO of Home Care Marketing Pros; digital marketing consultant to senior care businesses
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Becki Harrington-Davis Senior Content Marketing Manager at CareAcademy
Sabrina Sattler Account Executive at Careswitch, home care agency advisor specializing in startup success and longevity
Ilya Vakhutinsky Careswitch CEO, home health aide's son, Forbes 30 Under 30, caregiver advocate
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Rachel Gartner Former home care recruiter who was so successful that she founded her own recruitment firm (Carework)
Gregg Mazza Founded a home care agency, almost ran out of capital after two years, figured things out and scaled past $5M
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion
Erica Horner Home care sales consultant & project manager at corecubed
Erica Horner Home care sales consultant & project manager at corecubed
Brett Ringold Vice President of A Long-Term Companion
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Angelo Spinola Home health, home care and hospice chair at Polsinelli
Jennifer Ramos Managed and sold three different home care agencies; CEO of JR3 Consulting
Adam Corcoran Director of Business Development at Golden Care, owner of Home Care Flyers, helped build a multimillion dollar agency from the ground up
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Greg Coopman President at SeniorCareCX
Miriam Allred Head of Partnerships @Careswitch, former host of Vision: The Home Care Leaders Podcast
Brian Cottone Jr. Benefits expert at VItable Health
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Jeremy Fuller Managing Director of Grow Home Care Marketing; website, SEO, and digital marketing expert
Julio Briones Home care consultant specializing in helping 7-figure home care agencies grow
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
Connor Kunz VP @Careswitch, former head of education @ Home Care Pulse, scaled a service business 7 figures in 3 years
I just started my agency. How should I go about getting my first five clients?
I would take a two-pronged approach: internet lead sites and direct relationships with referral partners.
Consider Internet lead sites includes sites like Caring.com and A Place For Mom or others like it. These sites require you to contact the leads quickly (because the sites typically pass leads to multiple agencies) and the quicker you contact them the more effective you'll be in closing them. However, if you're just starting your agency you probably have an advantage in being able to focus your time and energy on these leads at a level that a more established agency might not.
An advantage of internet lead sites is that they could work quickly. If you're a startup, you want to get out of the red as quickly as possible. You have all these expenses and you might not even have office space yet. So while they come with an obvious cost and can be lower-converting than leads from direct referral sources, internet leads can be a great way to get some actual revenue coming in rapidly.
If you have the resources, I'd also invest in a pay-per-click search ads campaign on Google, SEO, or Facebook ads. . . but with the right company that actually knows what they're doing.
Referral partnerships typically take a little bit of time, but it's very possible that you can get several referral sources sending you referrals within 30-60 days. Some sources, like hospitals, sometimes look for a partner with a little more experience, but you'd be surprised how often a new agency can win business from big referral partners if they're highly organized, present/position themselves well, have a strong proven sales process, and make it clear that they're prioritizing the needs of the partner/addressing what's in it for them.
When I ran my agency it took me three weeks to get my first client, and the lead came from the internet, but I was able to scale my business with more consistent referrals through direct referral relationships with online marketing as a supplement.
Related content: How can I decide how many referral partners to work with? Should I focus on local SEO rankings? How can I appear first in Google searches?