How to Form Profitable Partnerships in the Assisted Living Industry
May 07, 2025
Creating a partnership in assisted living is a great way to pool resources, expertise, and skills to launch a successful business. But what steps do you need to take to create a strong, effective partnership?
This guide will walk you through the process of creating a successful partnership in your assisted living business. From identifying the right partner to setting clear expectations, we’ve got you covered. Let’s dive in! π
Check out this video, too;
Why a Strong Partnership Matters
In assisted living, having a partner can be crucial to growing your business, reducing risks, and managing day-to-day operations. But like any relationship, a partnership needs a solid foundation to succeed.
Ask yourself:
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What skills or resources does my partner bring to the table?
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How will we share responsibilities and decision-making?
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Are we aligned on the vision for our business?
Setting clear expectations at the start can help avoid misunderstandings later. If you need expert guidance, consider applying to the Success System program for more advice.
Step 1: Find the Right Partner
Finding the right partner is the first step in creating a successful partnership. This person should compliment your strengths and fill in any gaps in your knowledge or experience.
Here’s what to consider:
π Skills and Experience – Do they have experience in healthcare, real estate, or business management?
π Values and Vision – Do you both agree on your long-term goals for the business?
π Financial Stability – Can they contribute to funding the project and handle financial responsibilities?
π‘ Tip: Look for someone who shares your passion for providing quality care and has a track record of success in the industry.
Step 2: Define Roles and Responsibilities
A successful partnership relies on clear roles and responsibilities. Be sure to define who is in charge of what, from managing day-to-day operations to making big business decisions.
Consider the following:
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Operations – Who will manage the facility’s daily operations?
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Finances – Who will handle budgeting, accounting, and financial planning?
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Compliance – Who will take care of licensing, inspections, and regulations?
π‘ Download our Business Plan Checklist to help clearly outline your roles and responsibilities.
Step 3: Establish Clear Legal Agreements
It’s critical to formalize your partnership legally. Without a contract, you may run into complications down the road. A partnership agreement protects both parties and sets the groundwork for your business relationship.
What should you include?
π Ownership Structure – Will it be a 50/50 split or another arrangement?
π Decision-Making Process – How will you make decisions, especially in case of disagreement?
π Exit Strategy – What happens if one partner wants to leave the business?
π‘ Work with an attorney to ensure that your partnership agreement is solid and protects both partners.
Step 4: Plan for Funding and Financials
Every business needs a strong financial plan, and your partnership is no different. Be transparent with each other about financial contributions, expectations, and goals.
Here’s how to get started:
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Identify Initial Capital – How much money is each partner contributing upfront?
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Agree on Profit Distribution – How will profits be split between partners?
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Secure Funding – If necessary, consider getting external funding through loans, grants, or investors.
π‘ Use our Underwriting Calculator to help model your financials and see what you need to succeed.
Step 5: Communicate and Align Regularly
Once your partnership is up and running, communication is key! Regular meetings help ensure everyone is on the same page and that any challenges are addressed quickly.
Here’s how to stay aligned:
π Set Regular Check-ins – Schedule meetings to discuss business progress, challenges, and goals.
π Stay Transparent – Keep each other informed about business decisions, finances, and operational changes.
π Evaluate the Partnership – Periodically evaluate the success of your partnership and make adjustments if necessary.
Next Steps: Take Action Today!
π Ready to create your partnership and start your assisted living business?
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Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start organizing your partnership.
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Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
β Step 3: Take action, collaborate with your partner, and build your successful business!
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:04
hey friend it is Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living investing at Assisted Living investing we're here to help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months excited to have you here with us on our topic today we're going to be talking about how to create a partnership in Assisted Living this is something uh we actually put this as a comment uh uh to to ask a few people um on the Facebook group and it kind of blew up um over there and there were a lot of people
00:00:29
that wanted to understand how to create Partnerships and so I figured I would do this video for you all um to help give you some guidance on what this looks like how to create a partnership um and how to have something that is successful um as As you move things forward so um that is what we're going to be talking about today before we get too deep into it though I want to remind you to get over to the um get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net and you get your free business plan checklist we
00:01:02
have a ticker going across the bottom here um go to Assisted Living investing. netb checklist and you can get access to that free resource and it will help you um just kind of build the the type of business plan that you need so you can be more successful as you get things going um I'm going to add this over here um so Assisted Living Partnerships again is what we're talking about today um for those of you who uh let me click over here okay okay for those of you who are new here uh if you're new type in newbie
00:01:33
first of all I would love to see uh when there's new people here and it's so much fun to see people comment that down below as well um when I'm reviewing things so thanks for being here uh but if you don't know who I am my name is Brandon Guston I own and operate two assisted living facilities and I do that out of state so I live in Utah I have a facility in Colorado and have one in Idaho and have operated those since uh 2020 I have secured over one and a half million in SBA funding as well and have
00:02:04
a solid background in the healthcare industry have a masters in healthcare administration have worked um in the industry for um over a decade now and have a lot of experience I'm going to put my mic by me um hopefully it was working well enough without that uh sorry for the beginning there um anyways uh so that that's my background um and uh for those of you that might need some assistance as you're moving through things uh I mentioned this at the beginning but I help beginners like you
00:02:31
launch their Assisted Living business in in a 12-month period we do that through our Mastermind program and you can go and apply for that it's free application process it just lets me see what your goals are where you're at on the on your journey uh to see if I can help you out so you can do that at alism mastermind.com application we'll have links down below but love seeing what I can do to help people out and we just did a webinar on that last week you can get access to that free webinar as well that goes
00:02:58
really deep into the process of launching an assisted living business so go ahead and watch that and get the free webinar Alim mastermind.com application to get to to go fill that out so let's talk about Partnerships and it all begins here with uh as as everything uh that I teach is um is is building a foundation so you want to become an attractive partner um to the people that you want to partner with and the best way for you to do that is to build a strong Foundation to build the type of foundation um that that makes people
00:03:33
feel confident in their in working with you so by doing that what you need to have is a really solid business plan that's why we give away the the business plan checklist so Assisted Living investing. netb checklist we've got that going across the bottom so go get that free resource but you build a solid business plan you do the underwriting so you make sure you have a solid investment um you know where you're going to do this you do your market research you just have a really Sol ID
00:04:00
understanding of everything that is going to go into creating a successful Assisted Living business and once you do this once you build that Foundation um it is so much easier to do everything um whether that's getting funding or going through your licensing process or finding a property um you're you're building this foundation and what's more is it gives you something to go to a partner and say I want to do an assisted living business it's the thing that I want to do I'm really passionate about I
00:04:29
want to have this imp impact on my community I want this time of Financial Freedom and I have done my research and I know that assisted living is the way for me to do that and so I built this business plan and I would love to share it with you are are you interested in partnering it's a lot easier to have that conversation when you go and do The Upfront work um especially if you don't have a lot of funds and you're the person that's coming into this with Sweat Equity to show that you've done
00:04:55
that background and it just makes you a much more attractive partner to go in and and work with people so you want to build this Foundation whether you know even if you don't have that partner right now it is kind of like fied of dreams if you build it they will come it might not be immediate uh or or anything like that but if you build that foundation and then you start looking for opportunities and start looking for people you're going to find them and you're going to be successful that way
00:05:22
so you have to build this Foundation to make yourself a more attractive partner now let's talk about some of the potential partners that you could be looking at some people that you could go ask hey do you want to partner with me I want to do this sistic living thing um are you interested in in working with me so some of the people that you could do this with are family members like myself I partnered with my dad um and and we're the ones that that went through this and and move forward with it could be
00:05:53
friends um just people you know maybe somebody that you went to high school with or uh just somebody in your network um that that that uh that's a good person for you co-workers even um are a really good spot for you to to start off with this so friends and family um and then when you get into the next phase of this this could be people that um maybe they're not in your direct network but they are really good people for you to start uh networking with and potential Partners For You So Real Estate
00:06:23
Investors going to Real Estate meetups um a lot of Real Estate Investors they hear about Assisted Living it's on podcast it's all over the place and they think oh that's a really cool thing but I don't want to I don't want to spend the time to to try to figure all of it out you know I've got my bread and butter multif family single family homes whatever it is um and I know how hard it was to do that I don't want to try to learn a new thing and so you know but maybe they have the funds or they're
00:06:50
interested in moving forward with it and so they would look at partnering with somebody that has the right expertise and does the background and Things So Real Estate Investors are a really good person for to to some networking with as a potential partner experienced operators so let's say that you're the real estate investor and you really like this idea of getting into assisted living but you have no experience you're not in the healthcare industry you don't really have a that much of an interest
00:07:16
in being the operator either like you want to have the impact on the community but you don't want to go through the process to learn all of these new things and this new industry and everything finding operators that are out there is a really good spot to do this um operator are a little more difficult to find they uh oftentimes they're a little more closed off they're they're not as open um to from a mindset perspective they're not as open to being like you know this is what I want to do and
00:07:44
actively seeking things out they they might think this is what I want to do but they're not actively out there there's not like a a an operator Meetup type of a thing um that I'm aware of at least if there is then please comment that down below because I think that would help out the community immensely um and it's maybe something we could start um so if you are interested in doing an operator Meetup then type in Meetup down below and let's see if we can figure out some kind of a virtual
00:08:11
Meetup for that so comment Meetup if you're interested in doing an operator Meetup of sorts but going back to this as a real estate investor if you're trying to find an operator um you got to get out there you got to be active in Facebook groups like like the Assisted Living investing Facebook group and there's a ton of other ones and start networking with them and see if you can find operators that are out there or even going to other assisted living facilities you can get this as all public information uh
00:08:41
look at the administrators and and start reaching out to them and saying Hey I want to you know start an assisted living business are you interested in partnering with me you can be my operator you can run things U from that standpoint I'll be the money person and and help get the real estate and things like that um are you interested in creating a partnership that's another good way for you to create this partnership so that you can move things forward because you might need this person to help you get the loan or or
00:09:09
you know whatever process you may end up needing them in licensing those types of of things um it's really good to build this relationship there and then the other one is local business owners so business owners oftentimes entrepreneurs they they have their hands in so many fires they want to be in all of the things and this is another opportunity when you show the um how profitable it can be and how much people can make uh business owners are going to be interested in doing that and they have
00:09:39
the experience of running businesses not necessarily assisted living but businesses in general and uh that is going to be something that's a boon to you and helping you just understand how to run a successful business and uh help you get funding and things like that these are all options for you as potential Partners to seek out to find um and have conversations with I mean the worst they can say is nope I'm not interested and you're not out anything so you want to have these conversations
00:10:08
those are potential partners that you could be looking at so how do you go and approach a partner so this is something that is really important for you to to understand and and get a feel for as you're trying to figure out um how to go and you found a partner um you're like this is this is who I want to to talk to um you have to build solid relationships you have to build again this foundational relationship and and you know go get to know them as a person their goals what do they want to do how
00:10:40
what they're doing is going to fit in um is it going to um are you going to align are you going to work well together you need to build a relationship so that you know if it's going to be successful or not so that's that's number one number two is share that business plan you spent the time building that Foundation Building uh taking your vision that's in your mind putting it on paper and sending it to other people so you can see it you might as well use that it's not just a thing a tool for lenders or a
00:11:12
tool to give to the state to get your license it is a tool for everything and you want to share that and let people catch your vision that's what's going to get them really excited about wanting to work with you so you got to share that business plan and I would suggest that you look for complimentary skill sets so you don't want to have you know I'm I'm very big into data and analytics if you looked at my calculator which you can get uh by going to Assisted Living investing.
00:11:39
netal uh you'll look at that and say man this guy he uh has a little too much time on his hands loves Excel um and that is very true I love Excel so um but I would not want to partner with somebody that also loves Excel and is a data geek because we are probably going to be doing a lot of the same things and there's not a lot of overlap what I want um for me I'm big into analytics I'm big into Network and building Partnerships and and underwriting and and building relationships with like lenders and
00:12:13
things like that um what I would like is somebody that's a little more um focused at kind of the the process oriented things that need to happen in running an assisted living business and and how to put those things together like that's the type of partner for me that would make the most sense because it's a complimentary skill set and we can play off of each other and delegate things so that we're not all doing the same things and the things that need to get done that maybe we're not great at um are are
00:12:42
not being uh maximized so you need to find people that uh you can play off of and not duplicate your work too much I actually had partnership conversations in the past with people and what we realized was they already had somebody that was like me um that would run the numbers and build a relationship with lenders and and those types of things and so it just didn't work out and so we moved on and you know still great relationships with those people is just duplicative um skill sets and and that's
00:13:13
fine so you just want to be careful when you're building these Partnerships that's how you can approach a partner and build these relationships with them now let's talk about structuring a partnership and exactly what that looks like so first off I am not an attorney I suggest every single time 100% of the time that you go and consult with one so all this advice here is not legal advice at all so with that out of the way um I would tell you to spend time creating an operating agreement an operating
00:13:45
agreement is essentially a document that says these are our different roles I will do this set of things over here you will do those set of things over there um and we are agreeing to to do those things that is an operating agreement the more defined you can get on this um the better off you will be it just makes your life a lot easier it doesn't mean that you can't crisscross and and things like that it doesn't tie you into that it's it's just you coming to an agreement with your partner or partners
00:14:15
that say you know this is who's doing what and and how they will do that um and who's making decisions and how decisions will be made and what happens if we come to a disagreement and mediation and all of those things you want to have that in an operating agreement um so I highly suggest you do that I would suggest actually that you build that a lot on your own and then give that to an attorney to review so that they can adjust it I was actually listening to a podcast earlier today uh with my attorney's office uh one that
00:14:44
they do yes I I listen to podcasts about accounting and um legal issues um that's how exciting I am uh but anyways they were they were talking about it is so much less expensive for you to go and uh create something on your own or find a draft or or find something online that's free or extremely cheap make some adjustments and then give it to an attorney rather than having them build it from scratch uh it's it's going to take them less time and be less expensive for you so I would suggest
00:15:15
taking the time to do a lot of this on your own up front before you get it over to them so that's one and then two is just creating an entity I would suggest that you have an entity again I'm not an attorney um so do what you want to do uh but having a partnership LLC will provide some protection for you and your partners um in the event that something does go bad and you know it just gives you that level of of security that you're not going to get otherwise so that would be my suggestion I would
00:15:47
again talk to an attorney for your specific situation as you're trying to put these things together but um and it doesn't need to be an S corp or a C Corp or anything like that talk to an attorney uh an LLC I think would be sufficient but um I I think it is something that I would personally recommend um but your situation is different than everybody else's so only you can decide that um now let's talk about working together let's so now you have you've created the partnership you
00:16:18
found the partner you created The Entity uh you have the operating agreement you have got the funding now you're going forward with the business now you got to actually work together and what you want to do here again and this is kind of in line with the the operating agreement is you want to outline responsibilities who's going to do what um and and how are decisions made and and who reports to who and and how does this all work you have to outline those responsibilities to make sure number one
00:16:49
everything is getting done and number two that um people aren't duplicating work um as as you go into this it's extremely important for you to outline those responsibilities so that you um don't have anything fall through the cracks and you can really make progress at launching a successful and profitable Assisted Living business um I would suggest as well that you hold regular meetings and this could be weekly or monthly whatever Cadence you want it to be on uh but you talk regularly about
00:17:20
things about what's going on and and how you can improve and um just what needs to happen inside of your business the more that you are on the same page the more aligned you are the better decisions you're going to make as you try to move things forward and and run this successful and profitable business it Mak sure that nothing is falling through the cracks you're sharing what has been done what is progressing and what's going to happen in the future um and doing this is going to just give you
00:17:49
a level of security and confidence that everything is is going as planned I think this is really important actually as you're in the startup phase um because there's so many things especially when you're going if you're buying something um there's a lot of conversations email conversations and needing to get um things for like a needs list for a uh A lender or working on the application to get things approved um so you can have your facility licens all of those things there's so much that goes into it and
00:18:19
you want to have good communication as you are working on those things just to make sure everybody is aware of what's going on because um this person over here might not be working on the thing that's over over on this side but they're having a conversation with somebody that needs to know about the progress report there and rather than saying oh hold on I need to go talk to this person and this person's at a meeting and they have to wait for a little bit you just have regular touch
00:18:42
points with with things this person talking to the lender can say oh yeah we we worked on that we just had a conversation with um the state on on that license application and this is where we're at with it just really helps expedite the process and when you are working with um people as you're trying to get things going um it is so important for you to have quick and accurate communication with those other stakeholders lenders um people at the State uh Brokers whoever it is that you're working with um the the more the
00:19:16
quicker and the more accurate you can have that information the better off you're going to be and again overc communicate just say everything as much as you possibly can uh say it again and again and again and make sure everybody body knows uh exactly what is going on and it can get to a point where it feels annoying but you have to overcommunication you have to make sure everybody's on the same page or else you will have things fall through cracks um deals will fall through you will um lose
00:19:45
out on opportunities to run a profitable business everything there so you just have to make sure that you are not assuming that somebody knows what's going on make sure you ask or tell what is going on so that nothing falls through the cracks it is so important that you do that um I just I cannot stress that enough you have to you have to be doing good you have to have good communication um and everything that you do as you're starting this Assisted Living business so that is how to create
00:20:15
a good and successful Partnership if you have questions I would love to answer them so um go ahead and please type those in now I know we have a little bit of a smaller group than we've had in the past but um for those of you that are here live um please just go ahead and type your question I would love to answer them and while you're doing that I want to remind everybody to like uh the video subscribe and ring the bell as well so you get notified every time we go live on Tuesdays and also put out content on
00:20:39
Thursdays so you get notified there um and if you need some help if you need some guidance as you're trying to figure some of this stuff out and you're just feeling stuck and like your head's beating up against the wall go check out The Mastermind program go apply for it Alim mastermind.com application takes you less than 5 minutes uh let's me me see if I can help you and if I can I will send you the information including a webinar that talks about our program uh in The Mastermind program to to let you decide
00:21:08
if it's a good fit for you or not I love helping people I love coaching and getting in and mentoring people and guiding them along their path uh it is something that uh for me is extremely gratifying I I've got a background in teaching and I love it and something that I miss doing and love that I get to do it again here um and if you joined today we have a Q&A session um our our monthly Q&A session there any questions that you want about your specific situation that get really deep on them
00:21:38
that is coming up uh we do one of those a month and as the recording of this we've got one in two days so uh if you are really interested and want to jump in and get in and ask me a bunch of questions um now is a perfect time to do that Alim mastermind.com application so uh with that said uh I don't see that we have any other questions um but I hope this has been inform this has been helpful information for you on just how to build partnership build something that is successful and going to allow you to have a really good
00:22:09
solid successful partnership so that you can move things forward and and you can have success in in everything that you're trying to do and build a successful profitable business that allows you to give back to the community and have that time and Financial Freedom for you if you need some help um go grab our business plan checklist it's free resource Assisted Living investing. netb checklist um have a bunch of other free resources that on YouTube will link down below or if you go over to the website
00:22:39
you can get a bunch of those as well um and just want to remind those of you that are watching know does residential Assisted Living sound interesting but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we are here to help you through the process start to finish to help you launch that Assisted Living business in the next 12 months I love coaching people again as I mentioned uh but I want to thank everybody for watching and thanks for being here and we will talk to you next
00:23:05
week have a great day
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