Women Leaders in Franchising: Shelly Sun of BrightStar Care

In 2002, Shelly Sun co-founded BrightStar Care with her husband J.D. as a family business that would strive to provide the full continuum of home care, child care and medical staffing services for individuals, families and healthcare facilities. Born out of a northwest Chicago suburban home, BrightStar Care went on to open three additional locations across Chicago, and soon thereafter, Sun quickly learned that BrightStar Care had the foundation to expand with the right business model in place.

 

In 2005, just three years after founding BrightStar Care, Sun signed their first franchisee. Today, BrightStar Care is one of the most recognized brands in franchising with more than 280 locations nationwide.

 

1851 recently had the chance to talk with Shelly Sun to learn a little bit more about what drives her to continue to grow and develop her brand.

 

In mid-2004, my mother-in-law invested in two hotels and invited my husband and I to invest as well. I attended the franchise’s new-owner and new-manager training with her and came away realizing that BrightStar Care could work as a franchise, expanding much more quickly than if we were to open locations on our own. After successfully opening our second and third locations, we knew we had a business model that could be successfully replicated. We sold our first franchise location in late 2005 and moved forward from there.

 

One person that I admire as a mother and entrepreneur is Gloria Jean Kvetko, founder of Gloria Jean's Coffee, the first flavored coffee franchise even before Starbucks. She was a member of my advisory board for many years and constantly encourages me to see a different perspective. She has been a great role model and friend to me over the years. She took such a risk to follow her passion and establish the flavored coffee industry despite naysayers. She is brilliant, yet humble, and is the most resilient, positive person I know.

 

Catherine Monson, CEO of FASTSIGNS, is also an outstanding female leader. A couple times a year we get together for a girls trip to, not only recharge, but to bounce ideas back and forth. Catherine is an amazing leader. She never settles for the status quo and is always reading, learning and sharing to make herself and others better. As a woman, I feel it is extremely important to have other women in my life I can relate to and talk through problems with.

 

Overall, mentoring has made a huge impact in my professional life. From very early on, I recognized that learning from the experts in franchising to accelerate my growth was a key to success. My mentors continue to provide valuable input and have become dear friends. Mentorship has made a profound impact on my personal life as well. I get great joy from mentoring others and I continue to make more and more time for mentoring – usually having 10-20 active mentees at any one time.

 

I believe in high performance for our entire team and also myself. I believe in sharing success with our team because they are the key to our growth. Every employee in our organization, from the receptionist to the president, has stock options in our company. We work hard and we play hard – we enjoy each other’s company inside and outside of work. I also believe in empowering others to make decisions and ensuring everyone in the organization is clear on our plan for the future – from the one-year plan to the 10-year plan and everything in between so we are all moving in the same direction.

 

Believe in yourself, surround yourself with positive influences and be adequately capitalized to reach 50-75 units. That’s the level it typically takes for recurring revenue to exceed expenses.

 

By 2018, we plan to have three brands in total and we will be operating and in at least five international markets. In the next 10 years, I predict that BrightStar Care will be serving 250,000 families and will have grown from $300 million in revenue to $3 billion. I am excited about the start-up phase of our second brand, BrightStar Senior Living and Memory Care, and the international expansion of BrightStar Care in 2016.