Relax, enjoy the training! Although our 5 day training program is the best in the industry, you don't have to try to memorize everything in training. The good news is that you can relax, and enjoy the training. We take the attitude that you will forget everything immediately after training and we will start all over again in teaching you our business every week. We are not going to go away. At Visiting Angels, the strength of our program is the ONGOING GUIDANCE we provide. We are available every day to answer questions by telephone (toll-free), e-mail (this has become extremely popular) or fax.


Face to Face Consultation
Visiting Angels  Regional “Business Builder Meetings”

In recent years, Visiting Angels has focused on providing as much ongoing “face to face” consultation to our franchisees as possible. We regularly conduct regional “Regional Business Builder Meetings" in various locations across the country. Our directors have traveled to locations such as Dallas, TX, Orlando, FL, Chicago, IL, Atlanta, GA, Detroit, MI, Clearwater Beach, FL, Houston, TX, Los Angeles, CA, Las Vegas, NV and Monterey, CA for such meetings. We invite all franchisees to spend a full day with us in a “refresher meeting” in regional locations, 4 times per year. The meetings are informal sessions where we conduct director and guest workshops and listen as franchisees make presentations to our group on the operations of their businesses (they also participate in general Q & A sessions, franchisee discussions etc.). We also have a group lunch. These meetings have been tremendously valuable for our franchisees.

In the field support

Pat Drea, our Chief Operations Officer, takes to the road and conducts regional one-on-one sessions with our franchisees to assist them in getting their business to the next level. Pat's wealth of experience and knowledge is second to none in our industry and is one of the many benefits when joining Visiting Angels.

Karon Austin, our Vice President of Operations, also conducts these valuable one-on-one sessions and shares her wealth of experience (along with Pat Drea) at our Regional Business Builder meetings and annual National conferences.

Annual Conferences & Guest Seminars

The Visiting Angels annual conference is a wonderful way for you to meet other franchisees in person and to receive information on new industry trends, new products and services and other topics in home care. We held our annual conference for 2007 at the Hilton Frontenac Hotel in St. Louis, MO and our 2006 annual conference was held in Kissimmee, FL. Visiting Angels has conducted past conferences in Colorado Springs, Colorado (2005) Las Vegas (2004), Maryland (2003), San Diego (2002) and Orlando (2001). Past conferences have included numerous guest workshops from guests who have been successful in establishing home care companies. Pat Drea has spoken at our last two conferences and has become our Vice President of Operations. Pat has operated, managed and built multi-million dollar home care businesses and brings her wealth of knowledge and experience to our team. Other speakers have included Adam Bishop and Mike Ferris of the Home Care Marketing Resource Group; Louis Feuer of Dynamic Seminars & Consulting and Private Duty Care home care specialist Karon Austin (formerly a Visiting Angels director) who managed a home care agency that achieved annual revenues of $50 million; home healthcare marketing expert Lori Moshier (formerly of Kelly Assisted Living) conducted a hospital marketing workshop.

New Information Each Week!

We DON'T WAIT FOR OUR FRANCHISEES TO CONTACT US, WE CONTACT THEM every week. EACH WEEK, we compile all the e-mail questions and the answers we have written and send them by e-mail to ALL of our franchisees (up to 20 pages each week). In addition, we send out a WEEKLY MESSAGE that is an essay on a different topic in home care each week to all the franchisees in our system. We also send out additional information such as electronic newsletters, new graphic designs for ads, brochures etc., suggestions for marketing, tips on vendors etc. Its common for us to contact franchisees 3-4 times each week with new information.

You Won't Have Missed A Thing!

As a new franchisee, in addition to our training manual, you'll receive our CONTINUING GUIDANCE MANUAL (nearly 1000 pages) in hard copy and on computer disc which contains all of our previous continuing guidance to our franchise system. You won't have missed a thing! We have indexed all of the questions which we have previously answered in writing for our franchisees into 22 categories and have assigned a catalog number to each question to make it easy for you to look up any question on any topic you select. It is the most valuable instrument for learning our business in the home care service industry! In addition, you’ll also receive our new MARKETING & ADVERTISING TRAINING MANUAL (more than 2000 pages of manuals in all!) The series includes: Operations, Policies and Procedures, Marketing and Advertising and our Continuing Guidance Manual. We are constantly updating them to provide the latest information to assure your success.


Helping Franchisees to Get New Clients!

Our Visiting Angels website is designed to generate home care client leads for our franchisees. Our website has excellent rankings on most major search engines. Visiting Angels is the only Franchise Company in non-medical home care which has TWO WEBSITES, including one which is solely dedicated to home care services (not to the franchise opportunity). This is www.visitingangels.com . Our website generates hundreds of home care client leads each week for our franchisees. We also have hired web experts who are dedicated to establishing the strongest possible search engine placement for our websites. Our goal is for both sites to achieve great visibility over time.

Extra-net Site!

In recent years, Visiting Angels franchisees have been using our fantastic "Extra-net" website. The Extra-net was designed to provide download capability for Visiting Angels Franchisees for hundreds of forms, graphics, promotional and operations files that they utilize in our business. In addition to our extensive service forms package, the extranet includes more than 300 Visiting Angels proprietary marketing and advertising pieces for use by our group (each is customizable). Each Visiting Angels franchisee has a user name and password to access the site. The extra-net site also includes a number of power point group presentations for referral sources which explain the benefits of using our Visiting Angels home care services to referral sources such as social workers, doctors etc. The presentations are loaded on the Extra-net site and are available to all franchisees to download and use at their convenience. Also included on the extranet is our enormous “Q & A library”. We have more than 2500 pages of questions from our franchisees (and answers provided by us) that have been catalogued into a "library" of 22 topics. This Q & A library is posted on the Extra-net site and is continually updated for daily use by franchisees. Visiting Angels franchisees have downloaded as many as 17,000 files in a single month from the extra-net website!

Cooperative National Advertising

Our cooperative advertising program has provided tremendous national exposure for Visiting Angels franchises and their home care services in nationally circulated magazines, trade shows, internet advertising (Google, MSN, Yahoo) and publicity.
 

Client Outcome Data "Benchmarking"

Visiting Angels is the first national non-medical senior home care provider in the U.S. to offer Private Duty client outcome data compilation (“benchmarking”) for our client/families, case managers and other referral sources. At the request of and in consultation with Visiting Angels, Outcome Concept Systems, Inc. (OCS) developed an innovative client data benchmarking system for our franchisees.

Designed to help prospective clients make informed decisions when choosing a provider, the benchmarks measure quality of service, operational efficiency and marketing. Data is collected on such factors as how long an average client remains with an agency (client retention), how many caregivers are assigned to a single client over a specified period of time, and how well clients respond to caregivers. Resulting reports and data will be made available online to end users selected by our franchisees and corporate office.

“Innovative Private Duty organizations need comparative information that can drive marketing efforts,” said Amanda Twiss, OCS president. “Over the last year, we worked with Visiting Angels to develop custom measures, and we have subsequently honed our processes to create the first Private Duty benchmark offering focused on marketing, operations and quality of services. We are delighted to be working with Visiting Angels to bring these tools to the market.”
In 2005 the National Private Duty Association (NPDA) recommended the client data benchmarking program developed by Visiting Angels and OCS to NPDA members.

Our Philosophy

At Visiting Angels, we believe our business is not just about getting clients, it is about KEEPING CLIENTS. And our track record in keeping clients far surpasses industry data which indicates that so many agencies keep clients only for weeks or months while we keep so many of ours for years. How do we do it? "RELATIONSHIP BUILDING". You would think that other agencies would be doing things the way Visiting Angels does. Few seem to. It's probably because, as a social worker, Jeffrey Johnson developed a system that is so personalized, with the emphasis on building strong and lasting relationships not just with our clients, with our caregivers as well.  

"America's Choice In Home Care"…

Visiting Angels has established 300 senior home care franchises (non-medical) in 46 states across the United States. We advertise and market nationally for home care client leads and distribute thousands of home care client leads each week to our franchisees! Visiting Angels has been ranked by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the fastest growing franchises in America.

Visiting Angels Family Advantages Program

Our Visiting Angels Family Advantages Program gives us a huge edge in recruiting home care clients. Families receive discounts on products from Energizer (hearing aid batteries), Caregivers Marketplace(Depends Incontinence Products and more) and other top manufacturers. Our in-house corporate marketing team has established hundreds of relationships with national organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA), National Association of Homecare and Hospice, corporations and other national entities to generate referrals for our franchisees.