Sailynn Doyle Grew Her Business to $3.3M While Cutting Her Hours to 16 a Week. Here Is What She Teaches Owners Now

By year three, Sailynn Doyle’s senior home care franchise was doing $1M a year, and she was working 80 hours a week to keep it there. Her franchisor’s advice was to work more.

Doyle kept asking a question nobody could answer: why does more revenue mean more hours?

Key takeaways

• Doyle bought a senior home care franchise in 2007 and reached $1M in revenue by year three while working 80-plus hours a week.
• After a breaking point in 2010, she spent two years redesigning the business so it no longer depended on her.
• She reports the business grew to $3.3M a year on 16 of her hours a week, with 17 women in the office and 150 in the field.
• She sold the franchise in 2017, before age 40, at what she says was the highest multiplier the franchise had seen.
• Her core message for owners: if your business relies on you for anything, you will not get top dollar for it.

What was Sailynn Doyle’s breaking point?

In 2010, a caregiver didn’t show up for a 6 a.m. shift, so Doyle covered it herself. Afterward she sat in her car and sobbed. That morning she drew a line in the sand.

Her conclusion surprised her. “My team wasn’t the problem,” she writes. “My business had no structure, and I was the only system in it.”

How did she rebuild the business?

Doyle spent the next two years redesigning the business from the ground up. In October 2012 she tested it: she left for 30 days in her RV, and the business ran without her.

By the end of that redesign, according to Doyle, 17 women in the office and 150 in the field were running a $3.3M business on 16 of her hours a week. Her team started asking, “Why are you here? We don’t even need you.”

She shares a few other numbers from those years:

• Her office ranked in the top 9% of the franchise network by revenue while she worked the least of any owner in it.
• Team turnover was 17%, against what she cites as a 120% industry norm.
• The business brought in $303K in a single month from a small territory and more than $17M over its life.

Why did her exit command a higher price?

Doyle sold the franchise in 2017, before she turned 40, at the highest multiplier the franchise had seen. She is direct about the reason: it sold for the most because she only worked 16 hours a week.

“If your business relies on you for anything, you will not get top dollar,” she writes. Getting the owner out of the operation, in her view, is what turns a business from a liability into an asset worth something.

She cites figures that only 2% of women ever reach $1M in business revenue and only 0.3% of female founders ever exit with a sale. She has done both.

Who does she work with now?

Through The Simply Rich Business Experience, a 12-month engagement, Doyle works with service-based women business owners around the $1M mark whose teams still run every decision through them. “She’s proud of what she built and tired of being the answer to every question,” Doyle writes. “She hasn’t failed. She’s hit the limit of where she can take it alone.”

Doyle teaches these owners what she did over those two years, faster and with a proven roadmap, so their businesses can run without them. Her message, in one line: more revenue should not mean more of you.

She has also shared her story with Authority Magazine and on the podcast What Actually Matters to Make Millions Without Burning Out.

Frequently asked questions

Who is Sailynn Doyle?

Sailynn Doyle is a business strategist and the founder of Passion Purpose Posture. She grew a senior home care franchise to $3.3M a year on 16 hours a week, sold it in 2017, and now teaches women owners to build businesses that run without them.

What is The Simply Rich Business Experience?

It is Doyle’s 12-month engagement for service-based women business owners around the $1M mark who have become the single point of failure in their businesses.

Why does owner dependency lower a business’s value?

According to Doyle, a business that relies on its owner for anything will not sell for top dollar. Removing the owner from daily operations is what makes it an asset a buyer will pay more for.

How can I tell if my business depends too much on me?

Doyle suggests one question: if ten new clients signed tomorrow, could your business handle them without you? If not, she recommends starting with her free Blind Spot Guide.