Starting an assisted living business is a great business as long as you start right and stay right. So what do you need ot know?
My name is Cyndi Presler and I am co-owner of a group called F&P Consulting here in San Antonio, Texas. We are dedicated to helping persons who are interested in the care home / assisted living industry with specifically here in Texas, falling under the state of Texas regulation codes. Our motto is “start right, stay right and you’ll save time and money.”
The reason we have that motto is because it’s a huge key to being successful in business. Most of our clients’ first question is, “I’m interested in the assisted living business can I make money at it?” And my answer is yes, absolutely. And the second question is, “well, what do I need to know?” And my answer is a lot. And the third question usually is, “well, how do I get started then?”
About the Assisted Living Industry
I love working with people. I love this industry. The industry can be personally rewarding – and it can be lucrative. So let’s talk about some things. What are the answers to all those questions? How do you get there? What do you need to know? That involves a lot of information.
Is Assisted Living a hard business?
No, assisted living is not a hard business, but there is a lot of information. But I’ve always found if you have the information you can usually solve the problem.
Right? So learning to ask the right questions, learning who’s in the network that can help you, who are your support people, learning how to access resources. All those things are very, very important. So opening a care home in Texas can be very lucrative, but you do have regulations to follow and you do have some, some trends and some things to know about. You need to know a little bit about seniors and their families and all those things.
The Assisted Living Business Development Roadmap
I’ve broken down a roadmap that I like to use when I’m talking with people about starting their residential care homes. The first thing I like to talk about is something called the three stages of business development: initiate, educate, and advocate.
The Initate State
The first stage of the assisted living business development roadmap is called initiate. What does initiate mean? It’s when you’re dreaming and thinking you’re initiating in your mind an idea. Okay? You’re wrapping your head around it, so to speak. So you’re thinking about it and you’re talking about it to a few people and you’re dreaming about it and you’re picturing it. And then you start wondering about it and wondering is where the questions start coming in.
The Educate Stage
Wondering leads right into the next stage, which is called the educate stage. So this is the stage where you’re like, okay, I’m thinking about this. I think I really like the idea of it. It feels good. It feels right. I wanna know more information. So you start educating yourself. You start gathering some resources and information. You take your talking to people a little bit further instead of just sitting around at coffee group talking about, well, I might do this, or what do you think about this business? You might actually take some time and spend some energy going to talk to some professionals. You might even even pay a consultant just ask questions for an hour like you would a lawyer to get some information.
Consultants have done a lot of work. With their experience they can save you some time and money just by pointing you in the right direction. Assisted living consulttans will also answer your basic questions and give you some ideas to think about. A mentor, a friend in the business, or just another business owner that you have respect for that’s tis successful is a great rsource. There are lots of different ways to gather resources. Get on the web – there’s ton of information on the web these days about everything, but there’s a lot on there about assisted living in Texas. So, you kind of went through the initiate stage. You’re you’re walking through the educate stage and you’re decided, you know what, I’m gonna take the next step. I’m actually gonna get serious about this.
The Advocate Stage
Taking the next step in your assisted living business is called the advocate stage and the reason I call it that is ’cause you need to advocate for yourself. You need to take yourself seriously if you’re going to invest time and money into a business venture that you want to be profitable. I don’t see any reason why you would invest time and money in something if you didn’t wanna be profitable. Well, that’s kind of, sometimes people look at assisted living and they stop a minute and they go, well, wait a minute. That’s about people. That’s about caring. That’s about a lot of emotional bonding and things like that.
How do I couple that with earning money? Well, you wanna be accountable to those people that you’re serving. So if you wanna open a care home and have people come and live, you wanna be accountable for how, what services they’re gonna get and are you gonna be able to afford to keep your doors open so that they won’t have to move again? Very important. Yes, there’s a lot of emotion, but it’s a good business for that. Very reason.
I had a friend one time tell me that if you’re going to be in a business and it’s serving God’s creation, you’re making a good choice and don’t worry about it. Do it right. Treat people right. And all things will come around. Um, but they also come around because you are pay paying attention to the dollar factor, right? Your cost factors and those things. So it’s good to get that education and then start advocating for yourself by continuing that education and building up on it.
Within those three stages, the five Ws are also key to helping you get that vision out of your head and out of your heart and onto paper to create a roadmap that you can follow from start to finish. From opening from beginning, from building, from researching, from all of that down the road for whatever your timeline is to the day you’d open your doors and admit your first assisted living resident.
The Five Ws of Assisted Living Business Development
So let’s talk about those Five Ws of Assisted Living Business Development. The five Ws are who, what, why, where, when, how. So let’s look at who. Who am I? You gotta have a story to tell. People are all about stories; that’s how we connect with each other. So if you’re gonna have your business, you need a story to tell. Who am I? Why am I doing this? What do I wanna be known as? How do I wanna attract people to me? How am I gonna connect? So that’s your who.
And why. What’s my motivation. You know, what is my motivation? Why am I doing this is part of your story.
And where, where am I going to go with this? Where am I gonna build my assisted living facility? Or am I gonna build a building? Am I gonna lease a house? Do I have a home already? Am I’m gonna renovate? Do I wanna be in the city? Do I wanna be in the country? Lots of things that you need to identify as you’re getting ready to build your assisted living roadmap.
And when? Set a target date for when you wanna open your doors and work backward.
There’s a wonderful book by Stephen Covey, the title is “First Things Tirst.” It’s good for all time; it’s been around a while. I’ve read it three or four times at different times of my life. It will help you with a lot of things in your life personally, as well as in business. So you start with first things.
First and first things first is figuring out where’s my endpoint. What do I wanna see happen at the end of this venture? Okay. And then you work backwards and you set some goals and some dates and you figure out as you’re learning what the action steps are that you need to get yourself to your goal – to your end point. But that when you do it from the back to your present day, your current start point, that will help you build a workable map so that you can take one step at a time.
Dates Can Change; Your Goals Don’t
Now, listen, let me warn you. The dates for all those things during that timeline are probably going to change. Some of them not — and many of them will because they build on each other. And also when you’re in business and you’re getting steps done and tasks done, sometimes that’s dependent on a contractor or on the weather or on many, many, many other factors that life can throw at you. So just know that while your dates may change your overall goal and your intent does not change. Okay? You just adjust it to life situations and your situation as you go and it’ll be fine.
Okay. So why, when, where, who, and then how. How am I gonna do this? Well, you’ve gathered information. Hopefully you may have hired, or you may have a great mentor or maybe you’ve had to hire a consultant to help you.
And just remember that is not an uncommon business expense for someone who’s got experience, who’s crossed some of these roads before in their career. And that’s why they’re in the consulting business now because they wanna take another approach to helping impact the industry. And they’re there for you. They are there for you. So there’s many different ways to, to get those things done and to learn what to do, conferences, research on the web but the very best thing I can encourage you to do is get with someone who knows what that roadmap should look like. That can mentor you and help you along the way.
As you can see, this is a business, but it’s a feel good business. Okay? It does require lots of commitment and lots of understanding and knowledge of regulations – how to get your life safety code, how to get your license, how to do all the things that you need in order to pass a survey, from a state state surveyor.
Are You Ready for the Next Step in Your Assisted Living Business?
I hope that this has helped you a little bit. I hope it’s piqued your interest in learning more about your dream. I thank you so much for listening. I’ve enjoyed, um, spending time with you and I look forward to hearing from you. If we can be of help, we will be.
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Start Right. Stay Right.
Watch the Video with Expert, Cyndi Pressler
Cyndi Pressler has a 50+ year career in geriatric health care. She is skilled in working with multigenerational programming; nonprofit grant writing and program development; contract development, implementation, and oversight.
Her experience also includes staff recruitment; education & training to include Alzheimer-type dementia program development & implementation. Cyndi Pressler is a visionary with the ability to lead & motivate others to join team efforts by identifying individual skills of team players and creating opportunities for the empowerment of said team members to positively contribute to team goals; excellent presenter/teacher/trainer.
Care Home Consulting is the culmination of her passion, drive, and expertise.