Success Story: Meet Anthony Coleman

In this interview, we sit down with Anthony Coleman to talk about the impact CarePatrol has had on his life. Anthony shares several personal stories that highlight why he entered the world of elder care and how it continues to have meaning for him.

Anthony has been a franchisee for more than seven years and has acquired a wealth of knowledge about how to be successful. He shares some of his keys to success and things to avoid in this wide-ranging chat.

Anthony, can you tell us a little bit about your career path and your journey to CarePatrol?

My career path began when I wrestled in college. After graduation, I got into coaching and then did a couple of different things. I did restoration work, indoor air quality, air testing, mold remediation, and that sort of work. I then transitioned into working for a gentleman who did shredding, document storage, and medical waste. I wore a lot of different hats for him. 

From that business, I transitioned into a business partnership with him in restoration work for the insurance business. During the transition, I went through the process with my parents, trying to figure out what to do with my grandparents—They were aging; they were not doing well, and they were in and out of the hospital. My grandma in Dayton had several strokes, which led to vascular dementia. She went from being as sweet as pie to being a difficult patient. 

My dad moved in with her and was her caregiver. I kind of watched what this experience did to my dad. It burnt him out; he didn’t know what to do or where to go. There’s no playbook for this kind of thing. 

I was moving out of the restoration space and looking to start something on my own. My old business partner actually called me and said, “Hey, what are you gonna do with the rest of your life?” And I said, “I’m thinking about that.” And he goes, “I just read an article about this business called CarePatrol.” He goes, “I think you should check it out.” He said, “You went through this process with your family. Based on what I’ve learned, I think this would be a great business for you to get into.” 

I went to the website, did my research, and it really hit my heart. I picked up the phone and called the person who was in charge of selling franchises at the time. We had an hour-and-a-half conversation. Sixty days later, they awarded me a franchise. That was seven years ago, and the rest is history.

You mentioned you have been in this space for about seven years, and thinking back, how has having a CarePatrol franchise changed your life and your family’s life? 

Being an owner of a CarePatrol franchise has dramatically changed my life and my wife’s; she was a high school teacher for 17 years. I started the business on my own. I worked on it for about two years and started having some conversations with my wife. When we met, I could tell she was visibly getting a little burnt out with education and the system itself.

I hoped that as I ramped up this business, I could help her transition from teaching. We have very complementary skills. We’re very opposite. She likes to do many things I don’t like to do and vice versa. So we are a good kind of yin and yang, not only in our personal relationship but in the business. 

So, I was able to get her to transition out of teaching, and she joined me. She’s been able to direct the operations and really help take care of all the backend stuff in the business, which has been amazing. I’ve watched her grow as a professional. 

This business gives us the flexibility to make our own schedule. We have two kids now. We have twins about to turn 10, and she is a great mom. She’s the organizer of the events in the calendar, and she can drop the kids off and pick them up, be engaged with school activities, and balance her work schedule with everything that we have going on with our family. So we’ve really been able to balance our life because of this business. 

It wasn’t until I brought her on board and then we started hiring team members that we got some more freedom and flexibility. But if you do the right thing, hire the right people, and have the right systems in place, you can definitely achieve that balance with the CarePatrol business model and the CarePatrol system. 

That’s wonderful! Twins. Boys or girls? 

One of each. Best of all worlds, right? 

Can you expand on why you chose CarePatrol out of all the franchises available?

I didn’t even look at any other ones. I went to the website, and I picked it without even doing my research. I talked to some of these people who are looking to buy franchises, and they told me about all the research they’ve done. 

And I’m like, “Hey, to be honest, if I can do it based on what you’ve just told me, you’re way ahead of the game compared to me, you’ll figure it out, and you’ll be just fine. Cause I just picked one, and I’m like, let’s just go full speed ahead.” 

Now, looking back, it was probably a little naive of me to do it, but I felt connected to the brand, and I went full speed ahead, and we’re good to go.

Throughout these seven years, can you share about the support that you received as a new brand owner and the support you receive today?

The support I received when I first got into CarePatrol was great. It wasn’t just after I committed. It was the whole process of them vetting me to become a franchise owner. It wasn’t, “Oh, I want to be a franchise owner, I have the money to invest. We’re just going to give you a franchise.” 

I had to go through some interviews and had to talk to a handful of different owners. They were kind of interviewing me and giving feedback on whether I was a good candidate or not. I had to go through a personality profile. In all, they weighed a lot of different metrics before they actually awarded me a franchise. 

And I can remember the day that I had my call with Chuck, where we got on the phone, and he said, “What’s your plan B?” And I said, I kind of looked at my wife, and I’m like, “Plan B? I don’t have a plan B, Chuck.” And he goes, “That’s the perfect answer.” And he goes, “That’s exactly why we want to award you a franchise.” 

I felt like I really earned the ability to get into this great organization. And then after I got into the organization and started meeting some of the franchise owners and feeling the love for what they do and how they help people, I knew that I made the right choice. 

After the training, I felt prepared to go out and get provider agreements. I felt very prepared to go to market in my territory to get referrals. Then, after I got the referrals, I felt very ready to work the families through the process by discovering their needs and touring them to the providers. And then, after moving in, follow up with them and connect them with resources to guide them through the whole process. 

Fast forward to seven years, I know a lot’s changed with the organization. A lot has changed with onboarding. I don’t know what the training is like in today’s market compared to mine, but some of the new franchisees, when I talk to them, I know that it’s definitely improved. 

There is focused support with the RPC, Nancy is my Regional Performance Coach. We have calls with her every two weeks. We check in with her, and she gives us a very unique perspective on our business, from employee issues to contract issues, trying to make sure that we’re in great partnerships with our CarePatrol neighbors and kind of bridging that gap and being that mediator in certain circumstances. 

The support we’ve got from our corporate office has been great. Just being part of this organization has been an excellent experience for us because not only do we get great support from corporate, but we also get great support from some of our fellow franchisees.

You mentioned your personal story really helped you get into this. Could you share a little about how your business has impacted a client’s or a family’s life that you’ve served? 

This is such a hard question to answer because we make so much of an impact on so many clients, really now on a weekly basis. But one situation I can think of is that there was a gal that got connected to us by a social worker from a home health organization. 

This lady was living in a small residential care home, and the circumstances were not good. It was a bit of a deplorable situation for her. She was not getting the care she needed. She didn’t have any family or anybody to help her. So, I connected with her. I did a needs analysis and located a community that would be a good fit for her. I actually picked her up and toured her there. She loved it. She placed the deposit down and made plans to move in. 

And because she didn’t have anybody, we had to physically move her. I had to go into this house and sort through all of her things, gather her belongings, and throw them into the minivan. My wife and I had to pick her up and move her into her new apartment.

Even after she moved in, she didn’t have anything. She didn’t have a bed, so we had to give her a bed. We had to go out and get bed sheets and pillows for her. And luckily, there was an apartment in this particular community she was moving into where a previous resident had passed. It was going through probate, and as soon as probate cleared, they were gonna allow our client to actually go into this apartment and shop for whatever furniture she wanted. 

So we moved her into an unfurnished apartment. She had to kind of limp through the first couple of weeks, and then she was able to go and get all the furniture she wanted: a couch, a chair, a TV, a chest of drawers, dressers. 

Her apartment ended up turning out to be really beautiful. Her situation changed dramatically from being in a place where she wasn’t getting the best care and she just didn’t feel very well into a situation where it was fantastic. 

Her hug, her tears of joy, and talking about how awesome it was to be treated in such a kind way by my wife and me were really heartwarming, and it was fantastic to be able to help her.

Recently, that community referred her back to us because she needed to move somewhere to get a little bit more care. They called our advisor, and our advisor stepped in and moved her to a community where she could get a little bit more support. So, everything comes full circle.  

That’s a remarkable story. Thank you for sharing. What are the top three things that you would tell a new franchisee what they must do to be successful? 

If I had to talk to a new franchisee and give them three suggestions, the first one would be to hire, hire quickly. Figure out what it is that they really wanna do in the business and write down a list of things they enjoy doing and don’t enjoy doing and find somebody that can do the things they don’t enjoy doing so they can spend their time doing what they love, spend their time growing the business. That would be the first one.

The second one is that this is a hard business. There’s gonna be good days. There’s gonna be bad days. You’re gonna be on the entrepreneurial roller coaster. You need to be able to ride it, and you need to be able to stay on the course, stick with the system, and really develop that grit because there are gonna be days where it’s gonna be tough. And, on the days that are hard, you’re gonna need that grit to get through things. 

Lastly, I would say really stick to the system. Follow the system, and use the database that corporate gives us to make sure you’re capturing your leads. You have good information in the database for your providers, so you can be prepared to match your clients with the right communities.

Make sure you’re capturing all that information and using the tools that corporate gives you to run your business, to run efficient reports, to give you metrics that show you and tell you how your business is running, where you can improve things, and where you can do better so you know how to move forward and grow your business.

It’s fantastic to have these tools and support to help you. We kind of navigate all of them. 

What do you think are the most important characteristics an individual has to possess in order to be successful as a CarePatrol franchisee? 

The most important characteristics that somebody needs to possess to be a CarePatrol franchisee, I think, first and foremost, are hard work and compassion; what we do is hard. These people need somebody who cares and can listen to them—not to listen to speak but to really listen to determine their needs and help them. 

I also think you have to have grit. You have to be creative. You have to be solution-oriented. You have to be friendly, kind and nice. You have to be open to change and know that every day is a new day, and you have no idea what this business is gonna throw at you. So, you have to be open-minded to be able to create solutions and think on your toes. And I think if you have those characteristics or you can hone in on those and improve those, you’re gonna be a successful CarePatrol franchise owner. 

Conversely, what are a few things that you would tell a new franchisee to avoid doing?

That’s a tough question.

I would say you gotta be careful even though you wanna help everybody. You gotta be careful not to be everyone’s hero.

There are certain situations that warrant a lot of attention and focus from CarePatrol, and there are other situations where people will take your kindness as a weakness. Unfortunately, most CarePatrol owners are so caring and compassionate that they will help people to death and sometimes even to their detriment. So you’ve gotta be careful in how you help certain families. You need to create resource lists and give those to families that may be in a situation where they financially can’t afford some of the offerings that we put on the table, but you can help move them forward in the process anyway. 

That’s really a big important piece of advice because you’re still helping them in a way, but that way, they’re not going to take up so much of your time that you’re sacrificing that you could be using to help some of your other clients that are gonna benefit from that time that you need to give them.

That’s a tough question to answer because I don’t even like answering that, but it’s the truth. You can’t help everyone, even though you want to. 

Is there anything else you’d like to share with potential franchisee candidates about why they should join CarePatrol?

Here are some things that I could share with people who want to join CarePatrol. I don’t want to scare anyone away from doing this, but this is a business where you have to sell yourself, and you have to sell your services. So if you’re uncomfortable with selling, selling yourself, and selling services, either you need to hire somebody right away to do it for you, or you need to get really comfortable being uncomfortable. You need to lean into the fear, knowing that when you first start anything, you’re probably not gonna be really good at it. 

If you stay the course, you go through the training, you follow the system, you lean on your other franchise owners to give you wisdom and to be able to bestow the boons upon you so that you can get up and running, that you’re gonna be able to overcome things that maybe you thought that you could never overcome. 

It’s definitely a sales process that you have to be comfortable with, or you’ve got to figure out a solution because if you’re not out and about marketing yourself and marketing this incredible service, you’re not gonna get the phone to ring. And if the phone’s not ringing, you’re not gonna have families to help, and you’re not gonna be able to make the placements that drive the revenue to grow your business.

What does CarePatrol mean to you in a single word? 

What does CarePatrol mean to me in a single word? It’s compassion.

What we do every day is filled with compassion. Compassion for working with our referral partners, our clients, and our providers to better the lives of everybody in the process. This is such an incredible organization that’s filled with some of the most amazing individuals that I’ve had the pleasure to meet in my life. 

The compassion is just overflowing. 

When we come together at our annual conference, you can just feel the love in the room, the respect, the camaraderie, and the fact that we make such a big impact on thousands and thousands of families every day, every week, every month, and every year. It really makes it special to be part of this incredible organization. So, my word is compassion.