When their family business was sold on in early 2015, cousins Vimal and Nitesh Amin were itching to get back to the drawing board and reassess where their drive for success could take them.

When their family business was sold on in early 2015, cousins Vimal and Nitesh Amin were itching to get back to the drawing board and reassess where their drive for success could take them.

With much of their extended family and friends already operating various healthcare franchises, they saw potential in the growing sector and spared no time in researching their options and realising their dream. 

After a handful of meetings with domiciliary healthcare franchises, the pair discovered Kare Plus and how beneficial the franchise’s unique multi-service offering could be – and by November 2015, Kare Plus Hertfordshire was on the road to success.

Now, less than three months later, they’ve become the fastest Kare Plus franchise owners to ever start making profit. We recently caught up with them to find out more about how the dream scenario came to fruition.

Q: What made you enter the care sector?
N: “I had just left university, and during my time there I had spent a lot of time working part-time in pharmacies and care homes, so I knew bits and bobs about the care industry.

Our family and friends work in the sector too, so after speaking to them, contacting some of the care home managers where I used to work and researching the potential the sector holds, we both knew with a bit of drive we could make a very successful healthcare business.”

Q: Why did you invest in a franchise?
V:“After conducting our own research, it was very apparent we couldn’t enter the healthcare industry on our own. There’s a lot of paperwork, lots of legalities, you’re dealing with people’s health and caring for those who’re coming towards the end of their lives – so it’s important to get everything correct. Because of this it soon became clear that a franchise with a proven business model and good support was vital in this industry.”

Q: What appealed to you about Kare Plus?
V: “It wasn’t the first franchise we looked at. Initially, we wanted to go into domiciliary care and met with many dom-care franchises. Once we came across Kare Plus and its unique multiple service offering, we thought, why limit ourselves?

We arranged a meeting with them, and the passion of directors Steve and Tom seemed very natural. They both started out as franchisees, so their understanding of our needs and wants was excellent.

The brand appeal was very high also. Compared to others, the brand image is strong and people seemed to respond positively to it.”

Q: How is running your franchise rewarding?
V: “Well, we have just managed to break even in less than three months. Obviously this is great, but we’re not happy yet. We’re ambitious, there’s the two of us working on the business, so we want to get a wage for ourselves next.

It is one of those situations where you really do get out what you put in. It’s not like a normal job where you’re waiting for the clock to reach 5pm. If you finish before, great. If not, you finish once the work is done – that’s how we’ve had such a successful first few months.

The reaction we’ve had to the Kare Plus brand has been really positive – which is nice to hear and reassuring. We’ve had people phone us up saying: “we’ve heard of Kare Plus, can I join your agency?” That’s when you know you really are doing a good job of it all.”

Q: What kind of person do you think would suit a Kare Plus franchise?
V: “I think people from all walks of life could suit a Kare Plus franchise. If you have the drive to run your own business, follow the model and pick the right location, nothing can stop you if you have the right frame of mind.”

Q: What do you think of Kare Plus training and support?
V: “We attended a very in-depth training week back in October that taught us all about industry compliance, recruitment, marketing, finances and much more. Following this, we were put in touch with support admin, Jas who helped who set up our office and get Kare Plus Hertfordshire off the ground.

Our business development manager Dan has been very good too. We are in regular contact and he has been so helpful and fundamental in us breaking even so fast.
To be honest, all the support has been so good; we’re fairly self-sufficient in terms of operational challenges now. But it is all still available if we ever do need it to fall back on.”

Q: What challenges have you faced on your business journey?
V: “Of course, the initial stages of this journey were very challenging. Making the decision of which business model suited us, which franchise showed most promise and managing all our finances was quite a challenging time.

Now we are with Kare Plus though, our biggest obstacle is finding the right volume of staff. We are lucky that we have many clients who are after staff, but sourcing the right volume of carers and nurses to fill their needs is challenging – a problem the whole UK healthcare industry is experiencing.”

Q: Describe a typical day at Kare Plus Hertfordshire
V: “Myself and Nitesh run the business ourselves; everything from writing rotas, managing payroll to recruiting new staff. We get an influx of interviews, either here in the office or out at local coffee shops if needs be – but that keeps us busy and fills a lot of our time.

On top of this we are managing clients, liaising with staff, answering emails, recruiting staff, arranging interviews, maintaining compliance standards and much more.

It is all still early days for us though, and we hope to bring onboard a recruitment consultant and more office members – which will mean our daily roles in the business will change and develop.”

Q: What are your plans for the future of your business?
V:“We want to have multiple territories. Many of the local ones are getting snapped up fast, but things can change and we are motivated to succeed. We have always had a figure of £100K net profit, but once we have achieved this goal we will continually set new objectives.

Currently, we are both working in very hands-on roles. Eventually we want this to change so that we can work on the business rather than in it. The good thing is though, we are learning all the roles of the business first-hand – so when we do move into new positions, we will understand what our staff will be doing and how we can help them.”

If Vimal and Nitesh have inspired you to operate a unique healthcare franchise that provides more opportunities than domiciliary care, contact Kare Plus by filling out the enquiry form. 

INFO

Name and age: Vimal Amin – 29, Nitesh Amin – 22.

Location: Work and live in Hatfield.

Began trading: 2nd November, first client on 18th December.