Caremark : Serial Franchisee Charles Folkes Now Leads 300+ Caremark Staff
How to use this video
This video features insights from a current franchisee sharing their experience with the Caremark franchise. As you watch, listen for details about daily involvement, support, and challenges as well as successes. If this perspective resonates, the next step is to request more information and speak directly with the franchisor.
About This Video
This Caremark UK case study features Charles Folkes, a Caremark Cleveland franchise owner with a notable serial-franchisee track record before joining the brand. Charles started his career as a hotel manager, spending around 15 years in hospitality before launching his own catering business. He went on to run a printing business, made his first venture into franchising with Rainbow International (a fire and flood restoration brand), and finally found Caremark, the right business he had been working toward across multiple business iterations.
The franchise-versus-independent question is one Charles addresses directly. Running an independent business can be a very lonely place; franchising gives the operator the support, peer network, and people around them that he had always valued. Across his various business careers, he has had more success inside franchise networks than running independent businesses; that comparative success is itself a meaningful brand-selection signal for prospective partners weighing the same trade-off.
Charles's reason for choosing Caremark specifically, having tried other franchise networks before, was the integrity and leadership of founder Kevin Lewis combined with the brand's right philosophy, ethos, and forward direction. The same Kevin Lewis-led brand selection pattern recurs across Caremark partner accounts. Charles came in with no prior care-sector experience but extensive business operating experience, which let the franchise's training and support focus on the care side of the business while letting him lever his existing operating capability.
The most rewarding aspects Charles names are threefold. First, the contribution to community; specifically, helping vulnerable people change their lives. Second, the team development: Charles started with himself and a single care manager in a small office and has grown to 300+ staff, with most of his head office, admin, and management team having started as care workers internally. Third, the financial reward.