A care business with no carers to employ.
Home Scouter advisors help families choose a care home. One person, one area, paid by providers when a family settles somewhere good. If you have worked in care, this is the part of the job you probably liked.
What you would actually be doing
A relationship business with an unusually clear purpose. Britain has the directories. It does not yet have the advisors. That is the opening, and it is also the risk, and we would rather you weighed both.
The work
- Long phone calls with families in a difficult week
- Visiting care homes so you know them properly
- Building a shortlist and going on visits with people
- Keeping relationships with discharge teams and GPs
- Checking back after someone moves in
Not the work
- Recruiting and keeping carers
- Covering a shift at six in the morning
- A CQC inspection
- Payroll for forty people
- An office lease
A week in the role
The shape of it
Deliberately small. You are the product.
- Home basedYou need a laptop, a phone and a car. There is no premises cost, which is most of why the model works.
- One territory eachDrawn by postcode around a population of roughly 25,000 to 35,000 people aged 75 and over, then adjusted for how many care homes and beds sit inside it.
- No clinical background neededYou are not a nurse and you are not pretending to be. Our advisors come from sales, service, teaching and management as well as from care. What cannot be trained is warmth and the nerve to tell someone the truth.
- You stay solo, if you wantThis is designed as an owner operated business. Some people add a second advisor later. Plenty never do.
- Paid on completionProviders pay a fee when a family you introduced moves in. Nothing is due from the family, ever. Placements are slow to start and slower to pay than anyone expects.
One area. Yours.
Territories are drawn around the population who actually move into care, then adjusted for how many homes and beds sit inside the boundary. A dense area needs less ground than a rural one to reach the same opportunity.
residents aged 75 and over in a typical territory
advisor per territory, with no overlap
Territories are opening across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Choose your region on the map, tell us the town, and we will say whether it is still open.
Choose a region on the map.
What it costs
Published here rather than held back until a third meeting. If the numbers do not work for you, better that you find out now.
| Joining fee | £10,000, covering your territory, training and launch support. |
|---|---|
| Royalty | 10 per cent of gross placement fees, with a monthly minimum that steps up as the territory matures, starting around £250 and rising toward £800. |
| Marketing levy | Ring fenced for national brand and lead generation. A minimum monthly contribution or 1 per cent, whichever is greater. |
| Technology | £150 to £200 a month for the CRM, the provider database and the systems that track a placement through to payment. |
| Your own marketing | A required local spend, set at launch. You are building relationships in one area and that costs money as well as time. |
| Working capital | Enough to live on for the first six months. Placements are slow to start and slower to pay than anyone expects. |
What we are not going to show you
An earnings projection. Home Scouter is early, and referral fees from British care providers are not yet standardised the way they are in the United States. Any franchisor putting American placement numbers in a British brochure is guessing, and you would be the one carrying the guess.
When we have enough completed placements across enough territories to say something honest, we will publish it. Until then, ask us what our existing advisors are actually billing, and we will tell you on the phone.
Is this you?
We turn down more people than we take. Not because we are precious. The wrong person loses their money slowly, which is worse than being told no. Answer these honestly and the page will be honest back.
Nothing here is saved unless you choose to send it with your enquiry.
Answer all nine to see where you stand.
How we take this forward
Roughly six weeks, if it is right for both of us.
A call
Forty minutes. You ask about the money. We ask what you have done and why you are looking.
The full numbers
The fee structure in writing, what current advisors are billing, and the territory we think fits you.
A day with an advisor
You spend a working day with someone already doing it. They are told to be honest with you, including about the bad parts.
Your own advice
Take the agreement to a solicitor who knows franchising, and speak to every advisor on our list rather than the two we liked best.
Decide, then launch
Training runs over two weeks, with your first provider introductions arranged before you open.
Request the details
Tell us where you are and what you have done. We will send the fee structure in writing and let you know whether your area is still open. We are pre-launch, so early conversations are about interest and fit, and nobody will ask you for a deposit.