Our Franchise Partners come from all walks of life. Through our Franchise Discovery Process, we get to learn about our future Franchise Partners’ background and to both see if it’s the right fit for one another. During this process, we learned that Tina Hodgson has a huge passion for community engagement and relationship building, which is huge in building a successful home care business.
Tina has now teamed up with her daughter, Dakota to start a home care business in their community: Chatham-Kent, Ontario!
Let’s learn a little more about this mother and daughter business duo!
You’re taking on a Nurse Next Door franchise as a mother-daughter duo. How did you find out about Nurse Next Door? Were you two actively seeking out an entrepreneurial venture? What drew you guys to home care?
T&D: We believe Nurse Next Door found us! Tina has an extensive background in business, with vast experience in project management in the telecommunications (10 years) and natural gas industry (18 years). She was looking for a way to build her own business. Dakota completed a Bachelor of Science degree and was searching for a career path in health care.
During this time, Tina’s mom (Dakota’s grandmother) had a pretty rough fall. This gave our family first-hand insight into some of the gaps in our health system. The need for quality home care–Nurse Next Door in our community was overwhelming and our ability to bring it here made perfect sense for us.
Tina, you have extensive experience in business and project management. What experiences will you be bringing to your new business? You’re also very active in your community, can you tell us more?
T: My life experiences at work and in the community have always been around getting something up and running. I’ve been part of small business start-ups, project start-ups and implementation, fundraising and creating an event for a worthy cause in our community. Working with people to create something together is always fun. My two biggest community efforts were creating the Chatham-Kent Amazing Race for the local United Way, which ran for a decade and raised approximately $300,000, and initiating the campaign to build a new gymnastics building in Blenheim, which is also a community in Chatham-Kent. I most enjoy the relationships built and laughter experiences along the journey.
Dakota, can you tell us more about your background?
D: Since graduating from Western University with a BSc in Genetics and Pharmacology I have traveled the world – spending almost a year in Australia and some months in South East Asia. My work and life experiences have always been about Making Lives Better. In everything I do, I tend to take on a natural leadership role, from being Captain and Executive of my student-run dance team in University, to piloting brand new tours while working as a guide in Alberta.
My world was flipped when my mom and I decided to go for Nurse Next Door. I actually have been accepted into school to become a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine but decided to stay home to help with the business for a while first. My drive is around helping people and creating something locally to change lives is exactly what I aim to do in life. I feel lucky to have an amazing business partner and mom to do it with!
What are your hobbies and interests?
T&D: We have a very tight-knit family. We love spending time together with our loved ones and embracing every day. In the wintertime, we love to take ski trips and in the summer you’ll find us lounging by the pool in the sun. We both just got our scuba diving license – so that’s definitely an exciting thing we get to do together now too!
What does Happier Ageing mean to you?
T&D: Happier Ageing to us means loving and laughing at every chance! Infusing things that makes us happy into everyday life, and appreciating the unexpected moments that life brings my way.
You got to join us at HeartQuarters for a week of training. What was your biggest takeaway? What was your favourite part of it?
D: Our biggest takeaway was definitely Nurse Next Door’s culture. We really felt what it’s like to be part of something bigger – to make a real difference in people’s lives. We left full of excitement to bring that to our own community!
Tina & Dakota with their fellow new Franchise Partners (San Diego, Vaughn) during Training Week
How are the two of you finding working with family?
T: We both can’t imagine getting along any better! The biggest asset of working together has been the trust we put in each other. In any regular job, it would take some time before you really understand what the other people around you excel at. With us, we know we can trust each other to do the things we say we are going to do and to do them well!
D: My mom uses her extensive background in business to handle most of the business planning and I am the go-to for all things employees as well as social media touchpoints. Sometimes we have to remind each other to take breaks from work to enjoy our family time, but that is something any business owner needs to be reminded of!
In Part 2 of their blog, we ask them more about their community and what their business priorities and challenges to overcome are in the first few months of launch.
With a core purpose of Making Lives Better®, Nurse Next Door, under the leadership of Melbourne based Master Franchisors Matt Fitton and Amber Biesse, provides in-home aged care and disability support services built on our philosophy of Happier Ageing® focusing on possibility rather than disability.
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