Franchising Wisdom Senior Care gave Carolyn’s business the scalability it needed to grow, serve her patients, and create opportunities for employees. Early on, Carolyn saw the potential in her employees and the compassion with which they performed their jobs and treated their patients. By empowering her employees and investing in their education, their livelihoods, and their professional development, Carolyn was able to grow her business from within and encourage more employee-to-owner success stories. “We train all of our business owners to look for these key people who come into their organization. They may come in as a direct caregiver, and you know what, they can have the opportunity to become a Wisdom business owner and we set that at the very beginning,” Carolyn says.

Carolyn believes that the franchise system can lay the groundwork for someone who wants to own their own business by affording employees the opportunity to learn intimate details about how to operate a business. And she works to educate those she interacts with about the endless possibilities franchising has given to her and could provide for so many others.

From donating emergency funds for when an employee’s car breaks down, to providing one-on-one business coaching and training, Carolyn understands the tools it takes for someone to be successful. She knows because she could have benefitted from these same tools when she started her business in 2006. Now, she can provide these resources to those who need them through the franchise system. Carolyn shares, “We’ve created a foundation, per se, that is really focused on our caregivers and how to assure that their needs are taken care of. Not just by giving them the resources all the time, but taking them through a training process of how to get out of debt, how to get enough money saved up so that they’re able to afford to put a down payment on an apartment.”

Carolyn Thurston is a local business owner, and she is Open for Opportunity.