Is a Business Plan REALLY Holding You Back from Startup Success?
Apr 25, 2025
Starting an assisted living business is exciting, but without a solid plan, it can feel overwhelming. Where do you start? How do you make sure you’re setting yourself up for success?
Good news! A business plan is the first step to launching your care home the right way. It’s your roadmap—helping you stay focused, attract funding, and avoid costly mistakes.
If you’ve been putting this off, you’re not alone! But don’t worry—this guide breaks down exactly how to create a winning business plan, step by step.
Let’s dive in! 🚀
Check out this video, too;
Why a Business Plan Matters
Some people think they can wing it—but skipping a business plan leads to confusion, wasted money, and stalled progress.
A business plan helps you:
✅ Define your vision and goals
✅ Find the right property for your care home
✅ Secure funding from banks and investors
✅ Prepare for licensing and compliance
Without a plan, it’s easy to get stuck. But with the right strategy, you’ll move forward faster and smarter.
Step 1: Define Your Assisted Living Vision
Before you start writing, take a step back. Ask yourself:
✅ Who will you serve? Seniors, dementia patients, or another group?
✅ What type of home will you operate? A small 6-bed care home or a larger facility?
✅ Do you plan to own or lease the property?
✅ How will residents pay? Private pay, Medicaid, or both?
A clear vision makes every decision easier. Check out the Success System for expert coaching.
Step 2: Build a Winning Business Plan
A business plan isn’t just paperwork—it’s your blueprint for success.
📌 Mission & Goals – What’s your purpose? What impact do you want to make?
📌 Market Research – Is there demand for assisted living in your area? Who are your competitors?
📌 Operations Plan – How will you handle staffing, resident care, and daily tasks?
📌 Financial Projections – What will your costs, pricing, and revenue look like?
💡 Need help? Download the Business Plan Checklist for a step-by-step guide!
Step 3: Find the Perfect Location
Your property can make or break your business.
🔍 Key things to research:
✅ Demand – Are there enough seniors in your area who need care?
✅ Competition – Are there too many facilities, or is there room for more?
✅ Zoning & Regulations – Can you legally run an assisted living home in your chosen location?
💡 Pro Tip: Before buying or leasing a home, check local zoning laws!
Step 4: Secure Funding for Your Assisted Living Business
If you need an SBA loan, grant, or investor, you MUST have a strong business plan.
Lenders want to see:
✔️ A clear vision for your business
✔️ Financial projections and expected revenue
✔️ A plan for staffing, licensing, and operations
Step 5: Get Licensed & Stay Compliant
Every state has different requirements for assisted living facilities. You’ll need to know:
✅ How many residents you can have
✅ Staffing and training requirements
✅ Safety and compliance rules (fire, health codes, etc.)
📌 Good news: If you’ve completed your business plan, you’re already ahead in the licensing process!
Next Steps: Take Action Today!
🚀 Want to launch your assisted living business in the next 12 months?
✅ Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start planning.
✅ Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.
✅ Step 3: Follow this guide, take action, and bring your vision to life!
Got questions? Drop them in the comments below! ⬇️
Show full transcript 👇
Transcript
00:00:04
hey friend it's Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living investing excited to have you here on the Channel with me today at Assisted Living investing I help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months so excited to be chatting with you today um sorry to be a little bit late we were uh doing our our live session or our Workshop um with the business Foundation Basics course today uh and had a lot of fun doing that so um for those of you that uh joined thank you and for those that didn't um we have
00:00:33
a live session tomorrow so you've got one more chance to to hop in on that um so make sure you go and um join their Assisted Living investing. net BFB if you'd like to sign up for that um for our session that we're going to do tomorrow um otherwise uh I want to remind you to go and grab your free business plan checklist we've got a ticker going across the bottom there um go to Assisted Living investing. netb checklist you can get access to that free resource and help you along now for
00:01:02
today's video we're going to be talking about um what what A business plan is used for and and why you need a business plan um and really wanted to focus in on that because that's what I've been talk talking to people about for the last couple hours um and uh it's kind of on my mind and and helping you build that that business plan build that foundation and why it's so important for you as you are trying to get things started um so we've got this up on Facebook now okay let us
00:01:36
shift over here and we we got time for Q&A today um but I have a limited amount of time so if you have questions feel free to type those in uh so I can make sure I get those answered um and for those of you that are here live go ahead and type in you know hi or something like that I want to make sure you can hear me with the issues that we had with audio uh earlier uh last week I guess so to give you a quick background on on me um my background in Assisted Living I own and operate to assisted living
00:02:05
facilities I've done this since 2020 um I've secured over1 and a half million dollars in SBA funding as well and I operate out of state um I also have a masters in healthcare administration so I've been doing this for a long time I understand the healthcare industry have a lot of experience there um and have worked with banks enough to know how to get the funding that you need and a key part of that is is your business plan if you're new here would love to hear from you just go ahead and type and newbie
00:02:30
down below um so I can see um who who's new love hearing from the people that are new and what you need and as you're looking to get started here in the Assisted Living World now let's dive into this why you need this business plan uh why it's why it's so important why it's a crucial piece to what you're trying to do here um number one is it really gives you Clarity so Clarity is something that um is you're as you're looking to get started as you're trying to you know
00:03:04
figure out what you want to do um it's easy for you to say I want to do assisted living and and and think to yourself cool you know I I've said it i' I've put it out into the world now it's going to happen uh the reality is uh that that's cool uh I applaud you for deciding that's what you want to do but now you've got to put that down into paper you've got to outline your goals um you want to be able to talk about your plans and when you start talking to people and saying I want to do assisted
00:03:32
living it can feel scary but if you have a business plan put together it uh it makes those conversations go a lot more simple U it allows you to uh to really go in and and have better conversations with people uh about what's going on uh and and what you're trying to accomplish so that Clarity that it gives you um gives you a lot of confidence to have conversations with people and so that's something that uh I think is is really important and underrated about why you should be building a business plan so that's
00:04:07
number one let's talk um here about the house excuse me um and for those of you that are live if you could just like give me a high or something like that I want to make sure you can hear me um and I've got again limited time for for Q&A so go ahead and type your questions in now um so I make sure I can hit on those um when we get to that part of the video so the second reason that you need a business business plan is it's going to help you out with getting the house it's going to help you find the property
00:04:35
because you're you're identifying your your criteria how many beds do you want to have what population do you want to serve um and and then as you think through that what style of home is going to be best for helping me serve that population um those are all things that that you want to be thinking about there um it is going to help you have better informed conversations with City and the fire department as well uh they will ask you a lot of questions what what population are you going to serve who how many residents
00:05:08
are going to be in there what's what style of home do you have um what's the the regulations with the state with this um you know they'll ask you a bunch of questions and if you haven't thought about it it can feel very overwhelming we have somebody in the Mastermind program that actually experienced this as she was getting started and and she had to tell the city uh hold on I'll get back to you later then we ched about it and we worked on the business plan and we got some clarity on what that was
00:05:33
going to look like and and then when she went back to the the city it was a much easier conversation she was coming to it from a point of authority a point of I've thought about this I know exactly what to do and and how this is going to work and it made those conversations go so much easier okay I want to touch back here on the finding the property piece um building out that market research and understanding what it looks like you know how many houses are out there and and how many cities and counties and and
00:06:05
States uh could I be doing this in and you really need to to narrow that all down and figure out where you want to go and your business plan is the perfect spot for you to be able to do that um we we give you the if you get the business Foundation Basics or the business planning guide you get access to the market research guide and that really is going to allow you to to make some some Headway there um so go ahead and sign up for one of those programs uh because it will allow you to to Really hone in on
00:06:33
this piece right here of finding the the right house um for you um so I've got a um okay I got a question here I'll get to that later so thank you for the question um I'm gonna assume you can hear me because you you responded when I said type in your questions now okay let's get into this uh funding this is the next piece of it um A business plan is going to help you get funding and this is probably one of the the bigger reasons why you should be building a business plan because it is number one
00:07:05
is required by by Banks they will ask for a business plan is absolutely required by a bank um but it also demonstrates that you've thought a lot about the business that you know what you're talking about that you know um how to help people out and in the workshop that we just did on the business Foundation Basics we got into like the key the thing that really sets you apart on there and we Dove really deep into into that and why um why you need to spend time building a business plan and what it can do for you as as
00:07:37
you're making progress so you can go sign up for that again it's Assisted Living investing. net BFB we have one more live session tomorrow uh and then you you'd get access to the recordings um after afterwards um but that when you come to this and you have a wellth thought out plan it will make a lender want to work with you more than the other dozens of of people that have signed up um to try to get funding so you really have to spend some time honing in on what you're trying to do
00:08:10
and and when you do that it's going to lead to a lot of success um it demonstrates Financial viability as well so you will have in your business plan you you go through your underwriting and and you are going to articulate that in your business plan and that's going to show that this will actually make money and and that it's an opportunity that a bank can feel confident in the amount of risk that they are putting into uh in into working with you so that's another big one and then you you have to ask for
00:08:38
the amount of money and your business plan is the spot where you do that you informally ask for it in other places but your business plan is where you have really solidified it you've demonstrated that I've thought through this and now I know how much money I need to ask for and you're putting that in in your business plan it's absolutely crucial if you want to get funding you've got to have a business plan it is it's it's required but it's it's crucial it is the
00:09:05
Difference Maker in helping you get through that that that phase um A business plan is also going to help you get the facility license and the reason why is it helps you answer questions that are going to come up in that application process um they there will be in the application that they give you um they'll ask you how many residents you want to have um who which population you want to serve if you're doing uh if you're doing Medicaid which waivers you're you're going to be serving um it
00:09:33
really allows you to to answer those questions how many staff you're going to have who your administrator is going to be um these are all questions are actually on that application page on the application that you have to fill out to obtain your license and so when you've thought through all of this and you go through that in your business plan it really um accelerates your ability to answer those questions and it gives you confidence that that you know what you're doing and it makes it so that the
00:09:58
mental exercise of having to do all this is just a lot easier because you've already gone through the process so um it's it's not going to be required like Most states are not going to say well give me your business plan or you can't get your license but it does really help you out in um putting everything together so you can very quickly and confidently answer a lot of those questions it's also going to just help you get organized because when you put your business plan together you have the
00:10:23
structure that you want to follow go grab the business planning uh the business plan checklist uh the ticker that we have down below here um but that organization makes it a lot easier for you when there's a question on the application or when you're talking with the state to get the facility license to say oh yeah um give me one second and and then you just go to that section in your business plan we're we're going to serve this population I'm going to have you know I know that the the requirement in the
00:10:51
state is one to eight caregiver to resident ratio and so we're going to make sure that we have enough to to meet that but we also are going to make sure we focus on meeting the needs of the the residents based off of their care plans you know those types of things is is how you're going to to make progress and when you do that you come at this from a point of I know what I'm talking about and it gives the the people at the state a lot more confidence that you know what you're talking about and that
00:11:21
you know they can trust that you're going to be able to to launch this this business really well all right let's talk about uh this one as well it's going to help you run the business um when you go through your business plan it is going to allow you to outline your operations make sure you're hiring the right people the right amount of people um which population you're going to be serving what you need to do to serve that population uh is there anything special that you've got
00:11:49
to put together um as you're working through that process with them um you're going to refine it because as you're building your business plan today uh and it takes you three four 6 12 months to to launch that business things will change your your view of the world will change and so that's going to to be adjusted but you're going to have thought through it today and that's going to um give you a lot more confidence that you know what to do and how to handle certain situations as you
00:12:20
are starting to operate the business um and that's a lot of the types of things that I I can really help you out with um through through my coaching and and the programs that I have as well online so if you do need some help um we have a live business plan Workshop tomorrow um you can go sign up for that at Assisted Living investing. netb FB we will send you the link um the automated thing will tell you about session one and session two session one was today so ignore that one you'll want to register
00:12:50
for session two um and then you will get access to the replays both the one of today and the one that we're going to do tomorrow um so you can go do that I would love to help you as well if you if you need some extra guidance um especially as as you're diving deep into this um go apply to The Mastermind program Ali mastermind.com and uh simple application process takes you five minutes I can see if I can help you or not and if I can I will send you the details and you can sign up right there
00:13:18
if you'd like to uh no sales calls or anything like that involved um unless you have questions and I'm I'm happy to jump on and and answer those questions for you to see to make sure it's a good fit for you again that's Alim mastermind.com so let's get into questions I have a whopping five minutes before my next meeting this this day has been just stacked on me um so if you have questions please uh and thank you for confirming that I sound good uh got a new mic and that seems to
00:13:46
be helping out immensely so um let's see let's get into your questions here um so you know it's not necessary but if you're going to get licensed should you do the business plan first and I just answered that for you so yes I would highly suggest that you do the business plan um it is you're right in Most states not required that you have a business plan to obtain your facility license but I for all the reasons that I just talked about I think it's important for you to um to have a business plan
00:14:16
because it just it will make the process a lot easier for you because you will have thought about the things that you um need to to put together in there so yeah um you'll be there how how does it work with Banks when you don't have um financials yet so if you don't have financials yet this is a good question so um there there's a few scenarios like that one is you're buying an existing facility and who you're buying from has crappy financials that could be a scenario um you could be buying
00:14:50
something that used to be up and running as a facility but it's been shut down now for years or even decades um so it used to have that license um but it doesn't anymore or the the third option is you're starting something from the ground up or you're you're renovating a house and you're doing this like something that has never been Assisted Living before um in each of those scenarios what you want to do is make sure you have solid underwriting um and and you can articulate why it is solid
00:15:19
um before you send that into a lender so um if you're able to do that it really can help um benefit you there and in in the business planning guide and you can do that at a listed living investing. net BPG I give you my expenses and really what you want to do is get an understanding of what the expenses is you can back into the income piece of this pretty easily just through research but it's getting real numbers of the expenses is the important thing so I give you access to that in the business
00:15:48
planning guide um and can kind of help you paint that picture there um but you want to in the business plan articulate how you arrived at those numbers and and what that's going to look like for you so um that that's that piece right there um and so you and if you cannot find those things and you just are going to do your best to to try to get that all put together okay so that's that's kind of how you handle that if you don't have the financials uh talking with the lender communicating with them saying
00:16:18
this is how we're doing our underwriting I'm getting my expenses from this Source right here and this is why I feel confident in that um you're referring to the admin license first admin license not going to be required yes this would be for your yeah that you wouldn't need that for for the the admin license that would be a facility license cool I have somebody at the door and I've got a meeting so I've got to jump so I want to thank everybody for watching um thank you go grab the
00:16:49
business plan checklist Assisted Living investing. netb checklist uh thanks for watching everybody and we will talk to you next week sorry to be on here and run um thanks but uh you know we'll chat with you next week and have a great you those residential Assisted Living sound interesting to you but you don't know how to get started at Assisted Living investing. net we're here to help you help beginners like you launch their Assisted Living business in the next 12 months and remember it doesn't take a
00:17:13
lot just a little bit keep going step by step by step and I promise you that if you do and you're consistent and persistent you're going to be successful thanks for watching and have a great day
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