Seniors Helping Seniors® | WHY I BOUGHT
Seniors Helping Seniors® Franchise Owners Are Giving Residents of Western Pennsylvania a New Lease on Life
Husband and wife Rob and Elizabeth McGoff invested in the in-home care franchise as a way to find fulfillment while bringing compassionate and empathetic care to seniors in their community.
Seniors Helping Seniors®—a companion care company that practices employing senior caregivers in pursuit of its mission to ensure its senior clients live fulfilled, independent lives—has spent the past year working to brighten the lives of seniors in Hermitage, Pennsylvania and the Shenango Valley. Franchise owners Rob and Elizabeth McGoff opened their Seniors Helping Seniors® location on September 15, 2018. The husband-and-wife team serve Mercer, Lawrence and Crawford Counties in Pennsylvania. The McGoffs are also actively involved in the community outside of the organization and sit on the Board of Directors for Meals on Wheels, Senior Food Boxes, and The Walk to End Alzheimer's. In a relatively short period of time, the McGoffs have experienced the transformative power of Seniors Helping Seniors® and the life-changing bonds that occur between the caregivers and clients.
Baby Boomers account for approximately 80 million individuals, roughly 10,000 reach retirement age every day in the U.S., and a significant 41% expect to continue working beyond age 65. Seniors Helping Seniors® impact has gradually grown as Boomers increasingly require assistance, companionship and in-home care to complete day-to-day tasks. Concurrently, there is also a growing population of active seniors who wish to continue working beyond retirement or who are looking at opportunities for supplemental income.
The Seniors Helping Seniors® differentiating force in the senior care industry is The Power of Love®, as both the brand’s caregivers and franchise owners are passionate about servant leadership and look forward to giving back to those in their community, every day. Seniors Helping Seniors® offers compassionate hands-on care which facilitates lasting, mutually rewarding bonds between caregivers and clients. Meanwhile, clients are able to continue living independent lives full of richness and vitality in their own homes. While some business acumen is preferred, Seniors Helping Seniors® seeks franchise owners from all walks of life who are committed to serving in the interest of the greater good.
The McGoffs—who felt driven to give back by their strong Catholic faith and a willingness to do good—serve as an exemplary model of Seniors Helping Seniors® franchise owners. Before franchising with Seniors Helping Seniors®, Rob graduated with a degree in pre-medicine from Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. “I was completely prepared to go the medical route, but I met my wife Elizabeth six months before I graduated and she changed all of my plans,” said Rob.
He forewent medical school and relocated to Masury, Ohio with Elizabeth and began working as a hospital-based mental health counselor for children with autism before moving through several other departments within the hospital. The McGoffs had their first daughter and Rob began to feel that the midnight shifts at the hospital were getting to be too much for him and Elizabeth as young parents. He transferred into the business sector, but hospital-wide restructuring left him once again looking for more.
“I wanted something that I could have ownership of and which offered more stability, so we started looking at franchises,” said Rob. “We initially found a caregiving opportunity that did similar work to Seniors Helping Seniors®, but we didn’t feel like the corporate team was going to offer us the kind of support we needed,” he continued. “Eventually I found Seniors Helping Seniors®. The more research we did on the brand, the more we liked it. My wife and I are both relatively young, so we are not the typical franchise owners, but I assured the executive team that I was committed to this business.”
The Seniors Helping Seniors® mission deeply resonated with Rob, who witnessed his own grandfather’s 20-year struggle with Alzheimer’s. “I was very close to my grandparents and I watched my grandfather struggle with Alzheimer’s for 20 years, during which my grandmother became his 24-hour caregiver,” said Rob. “I come from a large family, so we had a big support network around to help. Still, I saw the stress that it created for my grandmother. I entered this industry because I want to be there for people who are experiencing similar challenges.”
“The difference in our business is the caregivers—they genuinely want to help people,” said Rob of his hardworking, compassionate staff. “The level of love, empathy and care they put into their work is unmatched by that of any other company.”
Rob told a touching story of one such caregiver. “We had a client who, after losing her leg, had very little mobility and was almost never able to leave her home. We assigned someone to run a few simple errands with her—taking her to a doctor’s appointment, going to the grocery store and so on.”
When Rob followed up to see how everything had gone, she was overjoyed. “Do you want to know what really made my day?” she asked. “My caregiver stopped and got me a milkshake.”
She told her caregiver that it had been a long time—two entire years—since she’d had a milkshake. “It’s such a simple thing,” said Rob, “but I was so moved by the light in her eyes and how excited she was for something that we all take for granted.”
With just over a year of business under their belt, the McGoffs couldn’t be happier with the support they have been provided and the lives they have changed through Seniors Helping Seniors®. ”I still have weekly calls with Howard Algeo, Director of Business Development and Training, and to me that is invaluable,” said Rob. “He’s a great sounding board and the executive team provides so much for us.”
Rob thoughtfully reflected on his experience thus far with the devoted senior care franchise, as well as on what he hopes to do in the future. “Western Pennsylvania is surprisingly saturated with a very diverse group of senior citizens, so our plan is definitely to expand to wherever people need our services,” said Rob.
The initial investment range for opening a Seniors Helping Seniors® franchise is $86,785 to $141,390 with a franchise fee of $40,000. For more information, visit https://franchise.seniorshelpingseniors.com/.