Join Allison Dudas from Franchise Business Review as she interviews Maeghan Scott, a Right At Home franchisee from West Orange, New Jersey. Discover Maeghan’s inspiring journey from taking over her family’s franchise to innovating in senior care. Learn about the challenges and rewards of running a family-owned business, the importance of community support, and the creative ways Maeghan is expanding her services to improve the quality of life for her clients. Don’t miss this heartfelt discussion on the impact of compassionate care and the power of franchise networks.
More about Right At Home
Right At Home is a senior care franchise that has been surveying with us for over 10 years. This means they care about the success of their franchisees so much that they continually check-in on them to find out how they could support them better.
- 87% of franchisees believe their franchisor acts with a high level of honesty and integrity
- 89% Enjoy being part of the organization
- 91% of franchisees would recommend this franchise to others
Franchise Business Review Awards
In addition to a longstanding tradition of franchisee surveys, Right At Home appears on many of Franchise Business Reviews “Top” lists!
- Top Recession-Resistant Franchise
- Top Franchises in Culture
- Most Profitable Franchises
- Top Franchises for Veterans
- Top 200 + Hall of Fame (10+ years)
Be sure to visit Right At Home to find out more about this franchise opportunity. Plus, you can read more about Maeghan Scott’s story.
Transcript
Allison Dudas (00:00)
Hi, my name is Allison Dudas and I’m here from Franchise Business Review. I work in the marketing department and part of my job is getting to talk to amazing franchisees and telling their stories about how they got into franchising and what it’s like owning their franchise. Today I am joined by Right At Home franchisee, Megan Scott from West Orange, New Jersey. Welcome Megan.
Maeghan Scott (00:24)
Hi Allison, thank you so much for having me.
Allison Dudas (00:26)
Oh, it’s so good to have you. So before I get into talking a little bit more about you and your experience, I wanna talk about the Right at Home franchise. So Right At Home appears on our lists here at Franchise Business Review. We love lists quite a bit. So just in 2025, they are a top recession-proof franchise. They are a top franchise for culture. They are a most profitable franchise. are a top…
franchise for veterans. They’ve been in the top 200 franchises for over 10 years. And Megan Scott, as you’ll hear in a moment, is one of our rock star recipients for 2025, meaning that she stands out in the field. Just a couple things about the right at home franchise. So 87 % of franchisees surveyed believe their franchiser acts with a high level of honesty and integrity.
89 % enjoy being a part of the Right at Home organization, and 91 % of franchisees would recommend this franchise to others. So pretty great stats. So let’s get into it, Megan. I want to talk a little bit about your background, and then I’m going to grill you with some questions about the franchise. So Megan Scott has been proudly leading Right At Home of Essex County in West Orange, New Jersey since 2017.
Maeghan Scott (01:43)
Perfect.
Allison Dudas (01:52)
This has allowed her to continue a family legacy that began when her father opened the franchise in 2004. Drawn to the mission-driven roots of the brand and inspired by its founders’ first-hand caregiving experience, Megan stepped into ownership with a passion for serving others and a deep commitment to community care. With strong support from Right at Home and a powerful family partnership, she brings innovation, adaptability, and heart to everything she does.
She was recognized as a Franchise Business Review Rockstar in the Family-Owned category this year. All right. So, Megan, lot of good things to say about you, lots of good things to say about the Right At Home franchise. So, just a first question for you. What first drew you to this franchise opportunity? Because I know you have an interesting story.
Maeghan Scott (02:34)
Absolutely. ⁓
Yeah, so our story certainly isn’t traditional. I guess I could say so. Back in 2004, it was actually my dad who first purchased the franchise. He had a corporate background, so he was doing something totally different. He was working for larger companies like AT &T and Avaya, and he decided he wanted to step away from that and do something a little bit different. So he took a pause from his career and he actually started seeking different franchise opportunities. Right at home, had always been on
the top of his list, but he was really drawn to it because my grandmother actually lived with Alzheimer’s and had a really terrific caregiver. So it’s something that was always really special to him. And so that’s why the Right at Home franchise really spoke to him. He thought the idea of getting into home care would be really powerful and hopefully he’d be able to give people the experience that we were able to have for my grandmother. So that’s how he got drawn to Right at Home. He loved the organization.
loved
the founder. He was really drawn to Alan’s story as we all are. And he was just really impressed by what they offered. The level of support, the opportunity, and the potential for growth.
Allison Dudas (03:57)
Yeah, and just a note about that. So Allen Hager, I think that’s how you say his last name, right? Hager? Okay. I believe he started right at home in 1995 and he had been in hospital administration.
Maeghan Scott (04:01)
Yeah.
Yes.
Allison Dudas (04:10)
And then like so many people, feel like in the senior care industry, they see some things firsthand and they either have a really positive experience or they have a negative experience. And he saw so many older folks from the hospital that he worked at, the hospitals that he was in, leaving the hospital to go home with no care. So we knew that there was a gap that he could fill.
Maeghan Scott (04:21)
Yes.
Allison Dudas (04:36)
Your dad got into it. Your dad purchased the franchise in 2004 and then you took it over in 2017. Were you involved at all in your dad’s business prior to 2017?
Maeghan Scott (04:49)
So I’ll say it always been a family business. We always kind of knew what was going on and we all helped my dad out to whatever degree that we were able to, right? So at the time I was in high school and college and then I actually did eventually start my own career as a PR professional, but we were always here for him whenever he needed something. He actually did also have a lot of support for my brother who used to help him with some marketing efforts. My other brother who used to help him with some IT issues. So we had all been
involved and aware but certainly not to the degree that we would have needed to be when we stepped in and took over the business. There was still a lot to learn in 2017.
Allison Dudas (05:32)
I’m sure,
I’m sure. And it’s interesting that you all brought different things to the table. And sometimes people think with investing in a franchise that they have to already be good at that thing, right? ⁓ But would you say that that was the case or did you feel like when you stepped in, you could bring a lot of your PR marketing experience or ⁓ yeah, what kind of experience did you bring in with you that you felt like it was helpful?
Maeghan Scott (06:00)
Yeah, so I certainly think that my PR and marketing background was helpful, but to be honest, when I stepped in and took over the business, I still didn’t really know how to run the business. So what had happened in 2017 is unfortunately my dad, became sick and passed away, and this all happened really within like a couple months span. So it was pretty quick, and there was not an opportunity for like transition, right? Like he couldn’t sit with us and say, okay, this is how we run the day to day. So when my mom and I
in and took over, really had a lot to figure out. So it was kind of like step one, figure out what’s going on here, learn about the services, learn about the clients, learn about the caregivers and figure out how to keep things going. Once we were able to stabilize, that’s when I started to think, okay, well what else can I offer here? And how can I do things differently, better, however you want to look at it? ⁓ And so yes, leaning back on my background in marketing
PR, that was the first thing I thought of. How do I grow this business? How do I message this business? And how do I get us to stand out in such a competitive field? ⁓ But really throughout life, mean, I think this type of business is all about the experiences that you’ve had. ⁓ It’s about the compassion that you have for people, the empathy, your ability to relate and connect. So all of those skills are helpful when coming into a business like this.
Allison Dudas (07:25)
Yeah,
yes and owning a business really asks so much of every part of you. I can imagine, What do you feel like when you first took over and obviously you were dealing with not only the grief of your father but trying to figure out just some of the logistics. ⁓ What did you feel like were biggest challenges for you that had to do more with like being a franchisee ⁓
figuring out how to move forward.
Maeghan Scott (07:54)
Yes, so I think we’ll first just hopping in and like learning the systems of Right at Home. That was a challenge, but also that was something that Right at Home really supported us on. And I mean, I’m sure we’ll get to the question, right, of why we love the Right at Home franchise and why I feel so strongly about like the franchise structure in general. But they came in and helped us with so much. We felt so supportive. They taught us everything as if we were brand new. And we actually even,
and I both went out to Nebraska to do like the two weeks of training that they offer to new owners. They offered that to us as well and that was like completely invaluable. So ⁓ yeah, the challenge is really just figuring out how are we operationally, what does the day-to-day look like? What software, what systems do we have to use? What software, what systems do we want to use? ⁓ And then just also trying to figure out how to make it our own at the same time.
you
Allison Dudas (08:55)
Yeah, and you had such a unique experience where you were coming on as a new franchisee, but yet the business wasn’t new.
in general and it wasn’t new to your family. So it sounds like Right at Home offers a two week training when you first sign on that they offered to you when you took over. And then what does the ⁓ what did sort of because you really were sort of onboarding as a new franchisee. What does that look like? Did you get a mentor? Do you get regular check ins? Did you get what was that like from the franchise or franchisee perspective?
Maeghan Scott (09:11)
Hope.
Yeah, so we had our business coach, Brian, who is my dad’s business coach, actually newly at the time. But he came in as our business coach and really played like an extremely crucial role in helping to make sure that we had everything that we need. I mean, there’s so many different team members at Right at Home. And so he would say, OK, talk to this person for this. And Brian, we need help with, you know, I need some brochures. OK, talk to this person and they’ll tell you how to do that. So he was really like the point person. We would contact him and he would get us where we need.
to go. Another thing that I also did was connect with a lot of the other local right at home New Jersey owners. New Jersey is an incredible state in that right at home owners here have been here for a long time. So you my dad, our franchise is going on 21 years but we have others in the area who are the same if not a little bit more. You know a lot of them were even actually at the services for my dad because of his relationship that you know he had
with them over the years. They were all incredibly supportive and they came up to me that day even though I had no idea who anyone was and they said call me, come sit with me, come talk to me and we’ll help you through this. So having the other owners really was powerful as well and we sat down with them and I tried to figure out how does everyone do things and everyone did things a little bit different but I really liked that because I took from each person what I liked about their style and brought it back into our business.
Allison Dudas (10:58)
Right,
and it just goes to show why being a part of a franchise system versus just opening your own senior care location is beneficial. get to rely on fellow franchisees, and again, it sounds like the network in New Jersey is so strong, but we do hear time and again from franchisees, you’re in business for yourself, but you’re not in business by yourself.
Maeghan Scott (11:09)
Absolutely.
Allison Dudas (11:25)
and that is truly invaluable having that support of other franchisees in the event, especially if something does go wrong and you need that scaffolding to kind of hold you up. Are you, now Megan, are you full-time at right at home in the business?
Maeghan Scott (11:36)
Exactly.
sure am, I’m full time and more.
Allison Dudas (11:45)
Well, I’m in more. I know, right?
There are so many questions people who are considering buying a franchise are sometimes looking for something that they can ⁓ invest in and then just kind of like let roll. ⁓ So I’m curious as to what kind of employees structure do you have? How many employees do you have? What are you involved in in terms of the running of the business? Are you ⁓ connecting with your clients at all? Are you more overseeing your employees? I’m curious about that.
Maeghan Scott (12:18)
Yeah, so the way that we operate, we’re heavily involved in the day to day. And that’s myself and my mom as a co-owner of the business. ⁓ I am constantly connecting with clients and I’m also very heavily in touch with my caregivers. So we found that really building like a trusting and genuine relationship on both sides has helped us to get the results that we’re looking for in terms of like performance from caregivers, but also just, you know, openness and honesty and community.
communication on the side of the clients. So when you actually are here to help support and build those relationships, you know, we’ve seen a lot of growth because of the way that we’ve run our day to day. And we’ve seen that a lot of people put trust in us repeatedly. We have clients who come back to us year over year. You know, maybe it’s just an injury, they need short term help, but then they call us next time something comes up. We also see often we’ll service a client and then, you know, in a few months we’ll get a call from a friend of theirs or another family member.
So again to say I’m very heavily involved in the day to day. I tend to know what’s going on with all of my clients, all of the caregivers. And I assist in approving staffing choices because really matching the caregivers and the clients are one of the main things. ⁓ I also help with lot of the marketing and business development efforts. And because of that, that brings me out of the office from time to time. Always taking a meeting here, going there, and trying to meet new people. So I do have a really good supportive office staff.
as well. So we have our staffing coordinator, we have a client care coordinator, we have hiring team, and then we have my mom who also handles the financials. So I’d say we have about, you know, six or seven here in the office. Of course a large field team that goes out to perform the care, and then we also have a team of RNs or nurses who work in a supervisory fashion. So I think when structuring your support, you have to think
about first what is the most important and what’s the priority because I know when my dad first started the business you know we couldn’t hire this whole team. You have to really be selective and figure out what comes first and maybe at first you have to be a little bit more on the weeds until you can afford to have that extra support but I think for us it’s always been figuring out well what do we need to stay involved in and what can we pull in others to support and we’ve made the decision to remain
Allison Dudas (14:27)
Of course.
Maeghan Scott (14:48)
really involved in the day-to-day and let others kind of run some of the behind-the-scenes stuff.
Allison Dudas (14:56)
Given that makes sense, just given that it sounds like this business is more than just a business for you, right? It’s family, it’s heart and soul, it’s caring for others. In that vein, what do you love most about your business?
Maeghan Scott (15:13)
I love a lot of things. I mean, it’s a hard business. I’ll be honest. You know, I’m always on, but the reward is so great that it’s hard not to love. I love the people.
I love being there for people and supporting them when they call us frantically, having no idea what to do next and we’re able to help them kind of take a breath and solve the problems and get the care in place that they need. It’s incredibly rewarding and it’s a really nice feeling to know that we can be that resource for people in our community. And these aren’t just people, right? These are our friends. ⁓
Allison Dudas (15:56)
Right, it’s your community, right?
Maeghan Scott (15:58)
This is actually my community. Yeah, the territory that we own is where I grew up. So I do get calls from friends. We’ve helped family members. So it means so much during this time that a lot of us don’t always even expect that we’re going to get to. Like I even have friends now who are dealing with parents who are sick and they’re coming to me like, we don’t want to bother you, but I’m like, no, no, no, this isn’t bothering. This is what I do and this is why I’m
here because I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it is for people to navigate this time in life. So for us to be able to be here and form these relationships and have people call us, you know, in tears not knowing what direction to go and then the next week we figured out we’ve really made a difference, it’s incredibly, incredibly powerful and I feel fortunate to be able to do it. And the other thing too is that sometimes we’re really with people
Allison Dudas (16:34)
Yes.
Maeghan Scott (16:58)
until like the end of their life. We do a lot of supportive hospice care and I can’t tell you like the impact of being able to help someone have a peaceful end of life, right? That’s all that we can hope for and that’s really what we strive for.
Allison Dudas (17:13)
Yeah.
And I think it takes a really special person to be with people during these times. And I love what you said about people are in maybe a moment of panic and you’re able to offer them some solutions. You’re able to offer them some next steps. And that’s everything. When we are at the worst moments of our lives, when we are at these crisis points, we need that guidance. We need the people in the room who can say, and this is what
what
we can do. Here’s how we can help you. So it definitely sounds like it’s my point before it’s more than just a job for you. There’s a lot of here. What? That’s so.
Maeghan Scott (17:57)
Thanks.
There it ends.
Also,
on the positive side, yes, we’re there for people end of life. Yes, we’re there for people when they’re really ill. But sometimes we could just be there for people to make them smile. So we recently started a new program having to do with companionship and literally just going and playing games with someone or doing a sticker book or markers and coloring, whatever it is, just having conversation with someone who might be a little bit lonely. So that might not be as significant in people’s
minds, right? Like it’s not a huge medical issue, but we’re able to actually improve the quality of their life, which is what we say at Bright at Home, just by making them smile and making them a little bit happier. And that’s really nice too.
Allison Dudas (18:46)
Yeah,
that’s really cool that you just started that different aspect of your business. So, Megan, what do you feel like is next? What does the future hold for Right at Home in West Orange, New Jersey?
Maeghan Scott (19:00)
So that’s a funny question. I mean, this is what’s it for me at the moment. It’s really hard to picture doing anything else. But I have to say what’s fun to me about owning your own business or this type of business is there are ways to innovate. Like it might seem pretty straightforward, like, okay, well, this is personal care, companion care, we provide home healthies, that’s it. But that’s not true. You can get creative and try to do things a little bit differently. So we’re always looking for different creative opportunities.
opportunities, different ways to expand our business and still stay within the guidelines of what it is that we’re approved to do and what it is our caregivers are skilled to do. And then we’re also always looking for different like payer sources. So right now our business is primarily private pay, but we work with Right at Home to keep an eye out for different government programs and things that can help people pay for home care. So always just looking forward and seeing how can we serve more people.
And how can we do it a little bit differently? I think that’s what we’re always looking forward to.
Allison Dudas (20:07)
Thank you so much, Megan. It was really, really nice to talk to you. I appreciate your time immensely. Right at Home is such a special senior care franchise that is definitely worth checking out. ⁓ Yeah, and clearly Right at Home cares a lot about its franchisees. They survey their franchisees with us every year and have for over 10 years. So you can check out their website for the Right at Home franchise. And you can also check out their page on franchise business review to learn more.
Maeghan Scott (20:10)
too.
Absolutely.
Allison Dudas (20:37)
Thank you very much Megan, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye.
Maeghan Scott (20:40)
Thanks Allison, you too.
