Lessons Learned from Years of Running a Group Home

When I started my first group home, I made a lot of mistakes that cost me precious time and money. By the time I opened my second group home, I’d learned some valuable lessons.

Here are the biggest ones:

1.     Don’t pay retail for furniture or appliances. Use Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and thrift stores to find low cost, durable options.

2.     Use a phone script when cold-calling caseworkers. If you get nervous when you’re smiling and dialing, refer to your script and remember that you are offering a service. If the person on the other end doesn’t want or need what you’re offering, then they are not your ideal client. On to the next one!

3.     Keep a list of my go-to contractors. When running a group home from afar, it’s important to have a list of your go-to plumber, handyman, general contractor, etc. Nurture those relationships and document all maintenance.

4.     Don’t let anyone in without paying and without signing a lease. Trust me, I have a horror story about this one.

5.     Schedule and honor my CEO hour – preschedule the known tasks so you can focus on the actual fires. For example, replacing air filters should not sneak up on me. I already know that they need to be replaced on a schedule, so I should go ahead and buy them for the year if I have the space. Or have a recurring auto-buy set up on Amazon.

6.     Add Frequently Asked Questions to your business website to reduce answering the same questions repeatedly.

P.S. – If you want to know alllll of my secrets to running a profitable group home remotely, sign up for my email list here: Group Home on Autopilot.

Katrina Robinson