By Amanda Corrigan, Home Helpers Home Care

When IFA asked me to share my story ahead of the 2026 Emerging Franchisor Conference in Nashville, I kept thinking about the version of me running nursing homes, years before I knew what an FDD was. So, I wrote her a letter.

Dear Amanda,

Right now, you’re a regional VP of operations with six facilities to oversee, and your biggest building, 300 beds, just lost its administrator. Someone asks what you want to do. You’re about to say, “I’ll sit it till we fill it.”

I know why. Your first company never hired interim help. When an administrator left, the VP became the administrator on top of the regional job, and it started to feel like leadership. So you’ll move into that building and try to keep all six facilities on track from one desk.

Eventually you’ll ask the right question: why am I doing this? You never had to carry the building yourself while you looked. An interim would have held it steady.

You’re going to leave nursing homes for franchising. You left Louisiana after Louisiana Tech, started your career in Texas, and built your family there with your husband and three kids. You’ll move home unexpectedly, the same year Home Helpers Home Care hires you. Right now, franchising means McDonald’s to you. Home Helpers will hire you anyway, betting they can teach you franchising and that your healthcare, leadership and team-building experience is the harder part to find. Three and a half years in, you’ll be COO. You’ll still feel a little intimidated in rooms full of people who’ve done this for decades. Say yes when they ask you to speak anyway.

The job won’t change as much as you’d think. As a regional VP, you don’t run the buildings. Your administrators do, and their licenses are on the line. You’re there to coach, support, oversee and protect quality. Swap administrators for franchise owners and you’ve described a franchisor.

You’ll love this work for a reason anyone from Louisiana would understand. Franchising is gumbo. The roux is the foundation, and it doesn’t change. But walk through a gumbo cook-off in a church parking lot and every pot is different. Seafood in one, chicken and sausage in the next. Some people even add tomatoes, which where we come from is a cardinal sin. That is not gumbo. The franchisor makes the roux. The franchise owners bring their own seasoning. That’s what makes this model the American dream.

You’ll also end up on the IFA task force building the 2026 Emerging Franchisor Conference. You’ll want to tell those founders that the people they hire early are part of the roux. And you’ll want to teach them what that building is about to teach you: when to bring someone on for good, when to borrow the help you need, and when to stop volunteering yourself as the fill.

That building is where you’ll learn the lesson, so let’s go back to it. Before you decide to sit it till you fill it, you need to understand what you’re actually choosing between.

You already know the difference between coverage and ownership. When you’re short, you call the agency, and for a gap an agency nurse is exactly right. But she doesn’t know the resident in 214 eats better when her daughter calls first. When her contract ends, what she learned walks out with her.

In franchising, the agency nurse is the consultant, the fractional hire, the outside firm. They’re often the smartest move a young system can make, bringing in real expertise without betting the runway on a salary. The trouble starts when the need stops being occasional. When you’re paying someone to relearn your business every month, you’ve crossed a line.

So how do you know when you’ve crossed it? Three signals tell you a role is ready for a full-time owner. The need repeats, so you can predict next month’s version of the problem. Decisions come faster than a consultant’s schedule and pile up waiting for the next check-in. And if your contractor walked out tomorrow, too much knowledge would walk out with them.

Be just as wary of the signals that lie. Revenue milestones. Unit count. Headcount envy: the brand at the next booth has a full-time person for that, so you should too. Size tells you what you can afford. It doesn’t tell you what you need.

Timing matters in both directions, and you’ll miss on both sides before you figure it out. Think back to when you were an administrator and your social worker couldn’t keep up. You hired a second one, a friend who didn’t really know the job. Coaching a friend turned out to be almost impossible, and you ended up laying the position off. It drained money and left angst and uncertainty that hurt the culture more than the workload ever did. That role could have covered more than one gap. You hired too soon, and you hired someone you couldn’t hold accountable.

Hire too late and the bottleneck is you, which you’ll learn firsthand in that 300-bed building. Every decision routes through your phone at 10 at night. Either way, it becomes a costly correction.

So watch for the window. Before you post the job, write down what this person will do on an ordinary Tuesday in their third month. If you can’t, the role isn’t ready yet, so borrow the help. If you can, and the three signals line up, stop waiting. That’s your window. A friend you can’t hold accountable is an expensive favor. And hire for what you can’t teach. Home Helpers did that with you.

When a key seat opens before you’re ready to fill it, don’t make yourself the default. Interim help isn’t a failure to commit. It buys you time to hire right.

That’s the idea behind a session I’m organizing for the 2026 IFA Emerging Franchisor Conference in Nashville, November 16-18, “Right Role, Right Window: Reading Your Org Before You Hire.” It’s built for franchisors with 25 units or fewer. This letter gives you the idea. In the room, founders at the same stage walk away with a practical framework for their next key hire, whether that’s operations, marketing, or franchise development.

Being new to franchising, one of the best breaks you’ll get is a company that values the IFA and this conference in particular. So, to everyone reading over your shoulder, whether you’re brand new to the franchisor side or you’ve been here a while and want to grow: be part of the IFA and be in Nashville this November. It’s worth every bit of the time and money. And if you want a hand in shaping what comes next, get involved with an IFA committee or task force.

So the next time someone asks what you want to do, don’t say you’ll sit it till you fill it. Call for help. Your own job is still waiting for you.

With a little hindsight,
Amanda

P.S. If you’re a founder reading this, come find me in Nashville, November 16-18. Bring the hire you’ve been going back and forth on, and we’ll figure out if it’s your window.

Amanda Corrigan is chief operating officer of Home Helpers Home Care and a member of the IFA task force for the 2026 Emerging Franchisor Conference. For more information about IFA franchisor member Home Helpers Home Care, please visit franchise.org/franchise-opportunities/home-helpers-home-care/.