How to Write a Winning Business Plan for Your Assisted Living Business
Jul 01, 2024
Starting an assisted living business can be fulfilling and profitable, but it requires meticulous planning and preparation. Creating a comprehensive business plan is one of the most crucial steps in launching your assisted living business. In this blog post, we'll guide you through writing a business plan that will set you up for success. We'll cover the essentials you must include, why they're important, and how they can help you achieve your goals. Let’s dive in!
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What is a Business Plan?
A business plan is a detailed document that outlines your business goals, strategies, and the steps you’ll take to achieve them. Get your free Business Plan Checklist to help you better understand everything that goes into creating a successful business plan. The business plan will help you clarify your vision and articulate your plans on paper, ensuring you clearly understand your business trajectory. It provides a clear outline that can be shared with stakeholders, such as investors, lenders, and partners, to communicate your business strategy effectively. Additionally, it acts as a roadmap to guide your business operations and growth, helping you stay on track as your business develops.
Why Do You Need a Business Plan?
Having a business plan is vital for several reasons. It helps you map out your ideas and strategies, providing a clear path forward, which is crucial for maintaining focus and direction. Lenders, investors, and partners often require a business plan to understand your business and its potential before committing to any financial support. A business plan also serves as a reference for you and your team, ensuring everyone is aligned with the business goals and strategies, which can enhance team cohesion and efficiency. If you need help getting your business plan off the ground, check out the Business Planning Guide to help you get started today!
Now, let's get into the different sections of a business plan:
Executive Summary
Summarize your business plan in a few compelling paragraphs. Highlight your mission, vision, key goals, and the unique value your assisted living facility will provide. This section should grab the reader's attention and provide a quick overview of your plan. What you're trying to do here is convince the reader that they should either work with you or that they should read more to learn about everything you're trying to do; nearly everybody who reviews your business plan will only go through the Executive Summary, so make sure it's good!
Mission, Vision, and Values
This section outlines the core purpose of your business. The mission statement explains what your business aims to achieve, guiding your daily operations and strategic decisions. The vision statement describes the long-term goals and the impact you want to make, providing a future-oriented perspective that inspires stakeholders and employees. The values section outlines the principles and ethics that guide your business operations, shaping your company culture and decision-making processes.
Company Goals
Here, you specify your business objectives in detail. These can include the number of facilities you aim to open, the population you intend to serve (e.g., elderly, mental health), and specific milestones and timelines. Clearly defined goals help you measure progress and stay focused on your strategic priorities. Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals can enhance your planning and execution, making it easier to track and achieve your business objectives.
Legal Structure
Detail the legal structure of your business. This includes the type of entity (e.g., LLC, sole proprietorship), the state of registration, and any other relevant legal information. Understanding your legal structure is crucial as it affects your tax obligations, liability, and regulatory requirements. This section should explain why you chose this particular legal structure and how it benefits your business.
Management Biographies
Provide short biographies for the owners and key management team members. Include their professional background, relevant experience, and their role in the business. Highlighting the expertise and experience of your management team can build confidence among investors and stakeholders. This section should explain how each team member contributes to the business's success and their specific responsibilities.
Overview of Operations
This is the most detailed section of your business plan and will cover how your business will operate. It should include a description of the services offered, the target population, and location details. Outline your daily operations and management structure, including staffing requirements and workflow processes. This section should provide a comprehensive understanding of how your business will function on a day-to-day basis, ensuring efficiency and effectiveness.
Financial Projections
Outline your financial forecasts, including revenue projections, expense estimates, and profit margins. A summary of your financial model and assumptions should also be included. Providing realistic and detailed financial projections is crucial for attracting investors and securing financing.
Summary
The summary is the final part of the business plan and is a recap of everything that has been talked about to this point; it's kind of like a shortened version of your Executive Summary. The summary typically is just a paragraph and quickly encapsulates everything you've talked in your business plan to this point.
Want to Learn More?
Launching an assisted living business involves careful planning and execution. With a solid business plan, the right property, sufficient funding, proper licenses, and efficient management, you can build a successful and rewarding business within 12 months.
Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:00
hey friend I'm Brandon Gustafson I help new and aspiring Real Estate Investors launch their Assisted Living business in today's video we're going to be talking about how to write a business plan that is going to help you launch your Assisted Living business if you're interested in learning about that make sure you stick around for today's [Music] video hey friend welcome back to the channel so excited to have you here today before we get into the topic for today's video I want to get remind you
00:00:28
to get over to the website if you go to Assisted Living investing. netb checklist and we'll have links down below for this it's going to give you a tool a checklist for your business plan which is what we're going to be talking about today so make sure you get over there and you get the free underwriting calculator on the website as well while you're over there it's going to just help you along your investment journey and help you launch that Assisted Living business now let's get into the topic
00:00:50
for today's video again we are talking about how to build a business plan for your Assisted Living business so let's talk about it all right so let's first talk about what is is a business plan like what is it there's you've probably heard of business plans you probably you know know they're important but you may not know exactly what it is really at its core what you're using a business plan for is to help clarify your vision help clarify the things that are in your brain get it on paper and and make it so
00:01:19
that it's out there um and no longer in your brain it's on paper and and ready to move and what is important about that um and and what you need that business plan for here again is to outline everything um because it's it's so hard for us to take everything that's in our brain and articulate that in a way whereas if we put it on paper uh we're able to build that outline everything and and make it clear to everybody that's around us now let's talk a little bit about why why do you need that business plan and very similar to the
00:01:48
what is a business plan and being that outline and and clarifying your goals the reason why is it gives you that Clarity it allows you to see exactly what's in your brain helps you really kind of map that out and create a vision for yourself and the reason why you want that is it's going to make things a lot easier for you as you are starting down the path of launching your Assisted Living business and getting things moving the second reason for why you want to have a business plan is it's going to be something you need if you're
00:02:19
working with lenders or investors or Partners or anybody else um even the state when they're giving you your your license for your facility they're often times going to want to look at a business plan so there are so many stakeholders that want to look at this business plan and want to see what you are forming and what you're are trying to accomplish and having that business plan is so much easier than like remembering oh yeah and you talk to somebody about this thing and then two weeks later you have conversation with a
00:02:47
different lender and you're like oh you know what I like this other idea I'm going to incorporate it here and and you become very scatterbrained but if you put this all into one document it's easy to know exactly what it is hand it off and say this is exactly what we want to do um and why we want to do it and it's going to help instill some extra confidence in them um in your ability to run this business and gives just that level of of security and confidence in you that's going to allow you to get the
00:03:13
funding or find the partner or get the investor to work with you all of those things come into play when you have this all set up this is why you need to have a business plan and why it's so important this is why one of the things that I make the most available on my website is the business planning guide because it is a tool that that's pretty inexpensive goes through underwriting and creating a business plan plus a few other extra bonuses there and it's going to help you get to where you need to be
00:03:39
um and I make that as accessible as I possibly can because I know it's going to be the thing that just like the Catalyst that launches you into the next thing so if you are interested in that we'll have a link below but go to Assisted Living investing. net BPG for business planning guide it's going to really help you uh get to where you want to go and where you need to go so you can really start launching that Assisted Living business now let's get a little bit deeper into exactly what are some of
00:04:03
the sections that you need to have in the business plan and if you go over to Assisted Living investing. netb checklist you can get this checklist and it goes really deep and in-depth into each of these plus I think an extra one or two and gives you a lot of outline of what I'm going to be telling you today in in our video today uh but uh I wanted to give you an overview because I know some of you learn a little bit better when you're watching me and and listening to me and so I want to give you that that extra benefit so the first
00:04:31
thing that you're going to have in your business plan though this is going to be the last thing you write probably is going to be your executive summary basically your executive summary it's going to be one to five paragraphs it varies in length depending on how in depth you want your business plan to be but you're going to take that business plan you're going to succinctly put it into an executive summary and it's going to be at the top and and it makes it so that those people that are really high
00:04:56
up at the bank or or lenders or things that don't want to read your 20page pay plan or however long it's going to be can read this little succinct and this little part and understand exactly what's going in the reason why you want to write this last and this is just an awesome tip for you is because then you know exactly what's in the in the business plan it's a lot easier to write that executive summary once you have everything written down so that's why I suggest that you um write that thing last the the next section here is going
00:05:24
to be your mission vision and values so this is where you are saying this is what we want to accomplish this is the purpose behind the business that I have and why I set it up and the vision that I have for where it's going to go and the vision here is not like the full you know 300 Page Vision it's like a one or two sentence vision for what you want to look like what you want this to look like and what you want to accomplish and uh you could also and and put your values in there just you know a few
00:05:50
little things that say um these are the things that are really important to me um I really uh love being Innovative um I love caring for people what are what are some buzzword that are really important to you that are going to help you along that's the type of stuff that you want to be putting in here for your values the third section that we're going to talk about is company goals so this is kind of an extension of that mission and vision and values but you're going to have goals in there what are
00:06:14
your goals do you want to have three facilities do you want to have one facility do you want to serve a population that is the elderly or do you want to serve uh you know a mental health population this is where you're going to outline those goals be very specific and explicit what you want to be doing at your facility setting those goals is going to give you the clarity to know what you're shooting for but also let people know okay they're bringing me along this journey and what are we trying to accomplish they're
00:06:42
going to look at those goals and they're going to say that's it you know this makes a ton of sense to me the fourth one that we're going to talk about is legal structure so in here you're going to say you know what type of entity are you are you an LLC are you um doing being a sole proprietorship um are you registered in whichever State you you want to put this information in there it does not need to be long you know one to three sentences to say our entity is you know Assisted Living investing and we
00:07:11
are registered in the state of Hawaii whatever it is and and you want to put that in there um you could put your EIN number in there if you needed to um you can put a lot of that in just a very small section uh of this of this business plan but you want to have it in there it's just going to make it a little bit easier to explain exactly what type of entity you are and gives that other person that bank that partner um some just confidence that you are setting things up correctly from a legal standpoint the fifth section that we're
00:07:42
going to add here is your management biographies and this is something that I honestly was not aware of that you needed to do in a business plan but after kind of going through the process of purchasing two facilities found out this is extremely valuable and so you need to have a biography written one to two paragraphs nothing super long but just highlights who you are as an owner you need to have this for all of the owners that are going to be participating in the business and also if you I've seen a lot of lenders and a
00:08:11
lot of people want to have a bio for the administrator of the facility and if this is you then you know you don't need to write an extra one but you want to have that information in there it's just basically pumping yourself up saying this is the experience that we have this is why I'm passionate about this uh you could get online and see bios for different people all over the place and and you can really write something solid that kind of puts yourself in a really good light and and makes you attractive
00:08:39
to lenders or Partners or investors and lets them see who you are and why you are good fit for them to work with you the sixth section that we're going to be talking about here is the overview of operations and this honestly is the longest section everything up to this point can generally be one to two paragraphs maybe even just a couple sentences but when you get into the overview of operations this is where you have to dive really deep into exactly how you're operating that business um who's going to be the administrator what
00:09:11
population are you going to serve uh you're going to be talking about uh where the house is located you're going to be talking about the different services that you provide services that you don't provide uh you have to go really really deep into this and this H like I mentioned it it is the most in-depth thing so if you have a 10-page business plan your operation section is going to probably be about six to seven pages of it it's a huge chunk of the business plan because this is how you are going to operate that business again
00:09:39
the business plan checklist that we have linked down below is going to give you a little bit of an overview there and if you get the business planning guide I give you the the exact template I've used to secure over $1.5 million in SBA funding and it really kind of gives you the guidance of those different steps that are inside of this operation section of your business plan which is you know as we mentioned beneficial to those lenders and and all those people but also gives you the clarity to know
00:10:06
exactly how you're going to operate that business and what that's going to look like for you as an operator the next section is going to be your financial projections and often times this actually kind of falls into the operations um piece of things but it is something that's a little bit more in- depth and the way I like to do this is take the underwriting so you can get my underwriting calculator on the website for free you're going to take that you're going to go really deep in depth you're going to make sure you're
00:10:29
comfortable able with that investment that you're creating uh and that everything is good and then you're going to take that and the hours that you spend underwriting this and making sure it's a good opportunity and you're going to put it down into like a onepage overview of exactly what that those financial projections are so you can share that with the the investors and and the lenders and those people that you could be working with so they can see that yes this is a profitable business and then I always reference
00:10:55
that hey as an addendum you can go look at the full calculator with 24 month projection over here um and here's the link and so you can put that on there the last section that you're going to be putting into your business plan is the summary and this is like your executive summary you're going to write this at the very end it's just going to be your executive summary is this long your summary is this long um it's very it's one maybe two paragraphs very short um and and you just are saying you know I'm
00:11:23
super excited to run this business and excited for what it's going to do uh for me as I move forward so that is the summary to recap what we talked about we talked a little bit about what a business plan is why you need a business plan and then we went through a bunch of different sections for what exactly is inside of that business plan all of these things put together you is going to help you build that solid business plan get over to the website get the business plan checklist it's going to give you something a really tangible
00:11:51
thing that you can use to really start getting some traction on building out that business plan if you need some extra help go and get the business plan planning guide on the website Assisted Living investing. netb checklist or sorry Assisted Living investing. net BPG that's where you can get the business planning guide if you need some extra help and and extra support as you're doing this the The Mastermind that we've just launched here at Assisted Living investing one of the key things that we
00:12:18
teach about in there is business plans and creating that business plan it is one of the four pillars to helping you launch that Assisted Living business so if you um want some extra support and guidance and and some group coaching and and direct feedback make sure you go and check out that Mastermind it's a great opportunity for you to get some extra support and help you along your investment journey to help you reach your investment goals and you know help you launch that Assisted Living business
00:12:43
it's it's what it's there for I love coaching people helping you out through the process and uh for a year you'd get to work with me and and you can continue doing it for longer if you'd like um based off the program and but you know you get that full year to work with me dive through and help you uh write the business plan find the property get the funding and obtain the license for your facility that's what the um Mastermind is designed to do to help you really launch that Assisted Living business
00:13:11
does residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you 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 your Assisted Living business and create that time and Financial Freedom that you are seeking I want to thank you for watching I'm so grateful for you to be here uh and participating with with me and helping you along your journey to launch your Assisted Living business and want to remind you that it doesn't take a lot
00:13:36
just a little bit just keep going step by step by step and I promise you if you keep making progress you're consistent and persistent you will be successful thanks again for watching and have a great day [Music]
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