Tips on how to Start a Canadian Home Care Company

January 10, 2022 Alyssa Kay

Canadian Home Care Business 15 years ago I started my own Canadian Home Care Company with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

I would love to tell you that I did all the right things and within a few weeks of launching we were off and running with a full caregiver team and a bunch of clients but that is not even close to true!

Early on I wasted a lot of time and money doing all sorts of the wrong stuff.

Now I get the chance to meet lots of young new business owners who want to start their own Canadian Home Care Company and they all ask me the same questions:

If I could go back in time and start a Home Care Business all over again, what would I do differently?

I get asked the question so often I decided I would write this article to share it with everyone!

So here you go, my top 3 things I would do differently if I was starting all over again:

#1 - Focus Online and Keep it Simple

When I started out I spent way too much time and money having a professional web designer build a complicated custom website for me.

On top of that I did not spend enough time creating 'evergreen' content that I could use for social media traffic referrals.

(NOTE: if none of this makes sense to you don't worry! We built HomeCare 101 to provide resources to you to help you learn all these things!)

How I would do it now

I would start by using a simple website builder (Wix, Weebly, Shopify, SquareSpace, or even Wordpress) and build a clean 4 or 5 page site that I could use to start to build history with Google.

I would write 5 or 6 'evergreen' blog posts (meaning they'll still be relevant a year from now) and then I would use Facebook Ads and Google Ads to promote those with whatever money I had set aside for marketing.

Voila! You are officially findable where most people will find you!

#2 - Make sure you price yourself to pay yourself!

Most small business owners start out by pricing their services way too low.

They do this because they believe that since they are just starting out they have no justification to charge higher prices. As a result they set up a business with low margins that means the business does a good job of paying everyone except themselves.

How I would do it now

Price yourself at the high end!

Remember that you are going to run your business with a really great service level and because of that you should never feel bad about charging the higher prices that your great service level justifies.

In my article The Financials of a Successful Home Care Business I give you some great outlines on exactly how to set your pricing to leave enough margin to pay yourself and provide great service.

Also, in the HomeCare 101 Starter Kit we provide a great cashflow worksheet to help you turn you price list into a monthly and yearly cash flow plan so you can see what you get paid!

#3 - Setup your policies and procedures BEFORE it gets crazy busy

At the beginning it feels like your business is going nowhere fast. The phone does not ring that often and you find yourself with lots of a very precious commodity - FREE TIME!

Then, all of a sudden, the clients start to roll in and before you know it you're running around like crazy doing interviews, caregiver introductions, running to the bank, looking at offices, and hiring staff.

Before you know it you've gone from having your phone not ring that often to having a whole office of phones that never stop ringing!

How I would do it now

If I could go back and talk to myself in those really early days I would tell myself to take advantage of that early time to setup all my policies and procedures so that the rules for my employees are setup even before I start hiring them.

Policies about vacation time, how to book off sick, what the company uniform is, how payroll will be handled, are all much easier to setup in the beginning than when you're really busy. So take advantage of the time!

You can save TONS of time by getting the HomeCare 101 Starter Kit that has everything you need to build your employee handbook and lots more!

If you want to talk to someone who has done it before. Book a consultation with me!

Conclusion

Starting your own Canadian Home Care Business is one of the most rewarding things you can do if you decide you want to be an Entrepreneur.

I know because 12 years ago I started my own and went from right where you are now to providing thousands of hours of care every week!

I hope you enjoyed my 3 things I would do differently and feel free to leave a comment and I promise I'll respond!

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128 comments

My daugther and me planning to have a business home care since we are both working in a facility. My daughter is rn and I’m health care aide so we are really interested to start this business. We need more ideas, comments how to start and become a successful owner.

Hello ,i have been a personal support worker for few years and have always dream of having my own home care Company because of the love I have for the job and also opportunity to assist people to live there best life regardless of there age or abilities.
I have contacted a company that helps people who want to open a company, I have given them the name and would really need your knowledge and experience on how to go about it .
Cheers

Hi Yetty, I haven’t really been doing phone consults lately because of the amount of interest there was (I’m still running my business so there is not a lot of time to devote to it) but if you send me an email I’d be happy to try!

Cheers,

Please can we talk on the phone

@Carol

Thanks for your comment!

I don’t know too much about the facility you’re referring to except what you’ve shared so it’s hard for me to pass any judgements on it.

But regarding your fears about bankruptcy happening nearby, I would say that for someone who puts clients first and focuses on delivering extremely high quality service and exceptional experiences for everyone (both employees and clients) then they WILL be successful.

I’ve always believed as long as you’re doing right by your employees and clients, success will follow.

Good luck!