Franchise Owner Mark H. Friedman on Life & Longevity

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Franchise Owner Mark H. Friedman Mark H. Friedman has more than 25 years of expertise developing high-end, multimillion-dollar turnaround strategies for large firms. However, he claims that his decision to invest in the Senior Helpers home healthcare franchise was his best investment to date.

As a consultant, Friedman, owner of Senior Helpers Boston and Senior Helpers South Shore in Massachusetts and 2017 MVP recipient of the Spirit of Franchising Award for demonstrating exceptional performance and providing invaluable community assistance.

Friedman was working as vice president and head of retail for Adidas North America in 2008 when he decided to invest in a Senior Helpers franchise as a silent partner. When he left the global sports brand a year later to start his consulting firm, he stepped in to accelerate the return on his investment, eventually growing the business by 420 percent until the agency’s separation in 2013. Friedman formally stepped down from consulting in 2016 to focus only on multi-unit franchising.

Friedman approaches his business as if he were a client. He chooses to concentrate on what will happen in 12, 24, or 36 months and then on developing the operation that will manage itself today under my leadership to concentrate on what we need to worry about next.

Franchise Owner Mark H. Friedman does not have to travel far to find inspiration for his mission to love what he does and that is look after people dear to him. His formative inspirations include a personal link to United Airlines Flight 175, which departed from Boston on 9/11 and crashed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower.

Massachusetts is unregulated, which means that it’s chaos even on a good day, he explains. He feels that regardless of whether a license is required, he set the bar for how my agency runs far higher than any level of licensing you could imagine.

He explains what makes franchising successful is when franchisees reinvest in the system. If all franchisees cease to contribute to the system, opportunities will stagnate. A franchise’s worth is enhanced because we have 200 franchisees in the United States, representing 300 regions. Royalties are all about building on one another’s triumphs. It is investing in the collective so that we can all improve more quickly, refine things more quickly, and make fewer mistakes—especially in this business, where we are directly involved in people’s lives. If we make a mistake and 199 other people do not, it can make a significant difference.