Remotely Managing Your Assisted Living Facility Made Easy!
Sep 12, 2025
Managing an assisted living facility remotely can feel complicated. How do you make sure everything runs smoothly without being there every day? This guide breaks down everything you need to know about managing your assisted living business from a distance, from hiring the right people to navigating licensing and communication.
Let’s dive in! π
Check out this video, too:
Why Remote Management Works
Remote management opens doors to more opportunities outside crowded local markets. It also lets you, as an owner, focus on growing the business instead of getting stuck in daily tasks.
Ask yourself:
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Could remote management help me reach more markets?
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Do I want to avoid burnout by not handling day-to-day operations?
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Am I ready to delegate key tasks to trusted staff?
Step 1: Hire the Right Administrator
A skilled, experienced administrator is critical to success. This person will handle daily operations and represent the business on-site.
Key qualities to look for:
π Knowledge of rules, regulations, and compliance
π Ability to manage staff and communicate with families
π Skilled in coordinating meals, maintenance, and resident care
Take time to hire carefully and don’t hesitate to let go if they don’t meet expectations. Hiring slowly and firing quickly keeps your business strong.
Step 2: Set Clear Expectations & Communicate Often
Clear communication is essential when managing remotely. Owners should set expectations about:
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How and when the administrator reports updates
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Procedures for handling issues or emergencies
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How staff should communicate needs and challenges
Regular check-ins help build trust and prevent surprises.
Step 3: Prevent Burnout with Support Staff
The administrator’s job can be overwhelming. Adding an assistant administrator or administrative support can reduce stress by sharing paperwork and workload.
Think about:
π Hiring an assistant administrator or admin assistant
π Offering support for extra shifts or duties
π Monitoring staff workload regularly
Step 4: Understand Licensing Requirements
Two types of licenses are essential:
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Facility License – Authorizes the property as an assisted living facility
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Administrator License – Certifies the individual managing day-to-day operations
The administrator must be licensed in the state where the facility operates and be physically on-site. Owners don’t have to be licensed administrators, but must ensure compliance.
Step 5: Weigh the Pros and Cons of Remote Management
Pros:
π Access to facilities beyond your local area
π Less daily burnout and micromanagement
π Ability to focus on scaling and improving your business
Cons:
β οΈ Lower personal income since the administrator is a paid employee
β οΈ Delegating control can be difficult—trust is essential
Next Steps: Build Your Remote Management Success
Managing remotely takes planning but can lead to greater freedom and business growth. To get started:
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Hire carefully and communicate clearly
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Build a support system for your administrator
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Understand and comply with all licensing requirements
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Prepare for the financial impact of hiring skilled staff
Take Action Today!
π Ready to manage your assisted living business remotely and successfully?
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Step 1: Download the Business Plan Checklist to start planning
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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.
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Step 3: Follow the plan, hire right, and communicate well to grow your business!
Got questions? Drop them in the comments below! β¬οΈ
Show full transcript π
Transcript
00:00:08
Hey friend, it's Brandon Gustafson with Assisted Living Investing. Excited to have you here with me on the channel today. Um, today we are going to be talking about um how to manage remotely effectively. How how to do that. Um, I have been managing facilities remotely since 2020. U, so quite a long time and have a lot of experience with it. So excited to dive into that topic with you today and help you if if that's something that you're interested in. I I was getting quite a few comments on it
00:00:37
on YouTube and in the Facebook group and so I thought, you know what, this might be a really good time to to um get on here and and share this with with people like you who are trying to figure out how to um make progress and and launch their own assisted living business. For those of you who don't need know me, my name is Brandon Gustafson. Okay. Um, oh, I I actually, you know what? I'm going to shift over here. Um, and we are going to Sorry, I'm on a different laptop today. My other one needed to do an
00:01:06
update and it's taken a good 30 minutes. So, we are uh I'm I'm kind of fumbling around. That's why I'm late. Um, if you need some help, make sure you go grab the free business plan checklist um right over here. Um, go to assisted livinginvesting.net/bp checklist. you can get get that get that free checklist um to help you out. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Brandon Gustafson. I have owned owned assisted living facilities since 2020. I've been operating them remotely as
00:01:33
well since that time. I live in Utah. I've operated in Colorado and in Idaho. Um I have secured over $1.5 million in SBA funding. Uh so I understand that process as well and how to help you um obtain that type of funding as you're trying to um as you're trying to move things along. Uh I have my goodness, what else? I have a masters in healthcare administration. Uh so I've been in the healthcare industry since 2011. I have a lot of experience and I love coaching people. It's one of my
00:02:01
favorite things to do. I would love to help you and coach you as you are trying to launch your assisted living business. So that's a little bit about me. Uh as as we get into this now, my experience, as I mentioned, I have done this in Colorado. Um I have done this in Idaho. Uh, I purchased my first facility in Colorado in September of 2020. We actually just sold it um two or three weeks ago. Uh, we did a video on that. Uh, so if you haven't watched that yet, um, make sure you comment down below.
00:02:30
We'll just get you the link um, in the chat. So, make sure if if you're interested in in learning a little bit more about that, just comment sell um down below and we'll make sure we get you the the link to it so that you can um so that you can, you know, go forward and uh and look at that at that video um and and and and try to um figure out what that what that was like. Uh but I'd love to share that with you a little bit as well. I've also done this in Idaho. We closed on our Idaho facility in uh
00:02:58
February of 2021. So, I've been doing this for a while. um everything that I have ever done uh has been remote in in this world. And the reason that I decided to do it that way um was was a few reasons. One, it was what was available um to me at the time uh as as I was getting into this. And number two, uh what I found and and I actually really enjoy operating these facilities remotely is it allows me to be a little bit more focused on um running the business and I don't get so caught up in
00:03:28
in the day-to-day. I don't have to be at the facility. I don't get caught up in like trying to micromanage people. I manage them from afar and I make sure that they are doing the things that they need to be doing and that they have the resources that they need to have. If they have questions or they need anything, um I'm here to help them and guide them and uh jump in there and and make sure that they have uh everything that they need so that they can be successful as they're launching their
00:03:54
assisted living business. Uh that's what I do for you guys. Uh but for the ones that are running the business, um it really and I've heard from my my administrators, they really appreciate that. Um it really for them uh lets them feel confident that they uh they have my trust that they're going to do the things that that they should be doing uh as they try to to run our business and and do their job uh to help us be profitable. That's the big reason why I do it this way. Um it it has helped me
00:04:23
out a ton. Uh it it didn't take me very long. Like it it took me when I first started I was a little bit scared honestly about doing this remotely and and be like oh my gosh how am I going to handle this um being out of state. Uh but as I got into it I realized I actually really enjoy it. Uh it works really well for the type of um management I would do cuz I would be in there um consistently. My my initial look at a facility was somewhere that was pretty close to me here in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. And um I'm I'm I'm
00:04:53
glad I didn't get that because it allows me to to just work on the business and and help people. Uh from that standpoint, it is a little bit difficult. It's different because I'm not in the facility all the time. I don't have the same relationship with um with my residents that those of you who who do operate um locally um have, but we still go to our facilities multip multiple times a year. we'll take donuts or something that's maybe uh diet appropriate for our residents and uh
00:05:22
just go in there, hang out, get to to meet with them, talk to them, and um it it's kind of good and kind of fun. And also um from a uh it it allows our administrators I I've heard this feedback from them as well for us sometimes to be this nebulous person that they can use um with other staff or even uh residents who may be out of line that okay well I'm going to escalate this up to Brandon. Um which whether they do or not is is another thing and I'm not a person that's going to come
00:05:52
down and uh and you know uh just really hit somebody hard for doing something. But um it is uh it has allowed for some some really good opportunities there. Uh so I or options I guess not opportunities options for for how to to handle those situations. That's why I do it. Um it works really really well for me. So now let's get into a little bit more of the how. So I talked a little bit there about the why why I do this um how I've been where I've been doing it. But I want to talk to you a little bit
00:06:23
about the how. How can you operate remotely? That's probably why you're here watching this video. So, um, when it comes to this, you want to be hiring the right people. You have to have really good, solid people inside of your facility that can can manage the day-to-day. Uh, and you have to be able to trust that person. Um, because they are running the day-to-day. They have access to a lot of different things and they're they're doing hopefully what you have asked them to do. And and a lot of
00:06:52
the time it works. like we've we've had very very few instances where we've had to have a tough conversation uh with our administrators. They do a great job, but you have to hire the right people, specifically your your administrator. You need to make sure that you have somebody that knows the rules and the regulations, that they can run the business well, that they know how to hire other staff members, that they know how to handle families and interact with families, that they uh can just take
00:07:17
care of all the meal planning and coordinating uh all of the the extra, you know, maintenance things that are happening at the facility and all of those things. You have to hire somebody that has that experience because there is a lot that goes into it. So, you need to h have a really really good person at that um and hire hire the right person. I talked about this uh video or two ago um where you need to um hire slowly and fire quickly. You need to hire somebody. Take a lot of time to make sure you are
00:07:48
comfortable with that person before you um before you sign off and and offer them a position. Uh, and if they are not meeting expectations, you need to probably let them go quickly because otherwise you're going to get yourself in a in a bad situation. So, uh, you want to make sure you're doing that. Um, in that vein, you want to be setting very clear expectations. Um whether that's reporting into you, responding to you when you ask questions, how you want things run, when you're going to be
00:08:15
checking in, you will want to as an owner operator that is out of state want to come up with a criteria that you have, the expectations that you have and make sure that is very clearly communicated out to your administrator uh and the rest of your staff and the and the people in your facility. That's going to help out quite a bit. Um next is communicating. Communicating is key. When you're out of state, you need to have a good communicator both ways. You need to communicate your needs, your
00:08:41
expectations. You need to communicate those things very clearly, but you need to have a standard of communication with the people that are in the facility. Uh that's how you're going to, you know, be able to tell um if uh if they're doing if they're doing their job or not. Um this is one of the most difficult pieces and and I have dealt with administrators in the past that are not good communicators and it's extremely frustrating. um when when you're out of state. And so that's something that you
00:09:07
have to to make sure that you have, you know, in place or else you're just not going to be successful. The other thing with it is with the administrator being the person that handles all of the stuff for you and running the business and doing the day-to-day and all the things that they are doing, which is extremely important and and and you want to make sure you have a good person, you have to still be aware of burnout. Um, I have suggested to my administrators in the past that they should have some kind of
00:09:34
an assistant, whether it's an assistant administrator or an administrative assistant um, that can help out with paperwork because there's so much that goes into this job when you're an administrator and it's really hard to to keep your head on straight and and and just handle and manage everything going on there. Uh, it can be very difficult and um, so you want to to make sure that you're encouraging those people. maybe you're going to have to pay a little bit more to have that extra person there.
00:10:01
But um having that person there to help your administrator not get burned out because they have to uh cover all of the extra shifts and and do all of the things that an administrator does and all of those all of those things uh is going to help out quite a bit. So you want to make sure that you are uh that you're doing that um for sure as you get into that. So hire the right people. It's really important. Next is let's talk a little bit more about how to do it. um you as the owner or operator. I
00:10:29
want to make sure this is clear because I've seen a lot of confusion with this. I get this comment on some of my videos quite often actually couple a month um it seems like where they ask you know how how are you doing this? How are you the administrator? At one point, I've I've actually had two administrators quit on me um in the past. Three, no, three administrators quit on me in the past with very short notice. And I done videos on those and have been they're really raw. Um and and me telling you a
00:10:55
little bit about what that what that looks like. And um the comments that I get, the questions that I get are often something along the lines of why don't you just, you know, hop in and and take care of it? Why don't you be the administrator? And there's a few reasons why. I am I don't live there, number one, but I'm also not a licensed administrator for my facilities. So, I cannot do that for my facilities. I don't have an administrator license. Um, I understand the process of getting it
00:11:24
and and I could go get it if I wanted to, but I don't I don't have a need to do it and I don't I frankly I don't have the time to to go and do that. That's why I hire people for it. Okay. So, you as an owner operator do not have to be the administrator. There's there's three um big roles in here. There's the owner, the operator, and the administrator. You can be all three, or you can be any one of those three depending on where you're at in this process. Uh and you can be
00:11:50
any combination of those three, but those are the three big key roles um that are kind of at this high level. So, if you think of all your staff down here and your residents are down below there, um up here at this high level, you have those three positions. Okay? And you know, there's there's tearing there, but um that that's what you're going to see. Now the administrator has to be on site. There are rules. The administrator needs to be there. They have to have a a license in that state to be an
00:12:16
administrator. They have to have their license on the facility. They can delegate in certain circumstances. Um but they have to have their license over the facility stating that they are being compliant with all the rules and regulations. They're following all the stuff with it. If there's an issue, then it falls on that administrator and their license. But you getting into this, if you don't want to, you don't have to be the administrator. So, I want that that to be very clear. And there could be some
00:12:44
of you out there that are caregivers or RNs or even uh administrators that are watching this video. And maybe you don't have the ability to like get into this and uh maybe you don't have the financial means to do it um or something along those lines. You don't have to be an owner operator or maybe you can be the administrator/operator or like an administrator owner. Um but there there's ways to do this where the value you are bringing to this business opportunity to this investment
00:13:12
opportunity is your skill set and your knowledge and your ability to be the administrator. And so you need to find people that have funds uh that can can work with you. And there's probably people out there that are watching this right now who just have the money and and you're really interested in assisted living because of the income earning potential of of this type of a business. and you know that that that type of income is real uh which is really exciting but you don't have the
00:13:39
experience with healthcare and you don't know how to do it and and you don't know how to get into it. Um, so that that's where creating those types of partnerships can be really beneficial, but as an owner, as an operator, you don't have to be the administrator, which uh which is good um for for people like me, right? Uh it works really well for for how I do this. Now, let's talk about licensing because there is a little bit of confusion on this as well. When it comes to licensing, I kind of
00:14:06
alluded to this um on that previous slide where it comes to the administrator being a facility admin a licensed administrator in that state to be an assisted living administrator. So when it comes to licensing, there's there's two types of licensing. One is for the facility itself. Um now when you are starting an assisted living business, I teach a five-phase process. You have to build a foundation. You have to find the perfect property. You have to obtain funding. Phase four is going to be navigating the rules and
00:14:36
regulations and obtaining your facility license that says basically this house can have assisted living in it. We can serve people that need assisted living services in this house. And phase five, if you if you don't know, is running and scaling the business. Okay. But phase four, you need to get that that facility license. The next thing they have to do, the other type of license is the assisted living facility administrator license. There's a kind of a big long word there, right? Uh or a big phrase, but this is
00:15:10
an individual who is the administrator of the facility. They have to have a license to be an administrator of an assisted living facility. Okay? And now states, they may call it, they may call it something different. there's care homes, there's certified family homes, whatever. There's all kinds of different um phrases for this. And so the administrator may not be called an assisted living administrator in your state, but there's there's an equivalent, right? So, I'm just speaking
00:15:36
in generalities here uh because I don't know who you specifically are that that's watching this, but you can figure that out pretty easily. Now, that administrator um license, you have to have the facility needs to have a license on it, and you need to have a a person, an administrator that has a license. Those two things have to go together for you to um for you to uh run the run this business. In fact, one of the things that you need to have when you are obtaining your facility license
00:16:02
is the person that's going to be your administrator. You have to have them on your application. What is their license number, their qualifications, basically a resume of of that person as part of your application process. So, you need that person to be there. So, the administrator, like I mentioned, is needed for the application, but that person does not need to be you. In the case where, like me, uh, where you're filling out the facility license application, you go, you hire an administrator, you have their
00:16:29
information, then you have the owner, um, information on there as well, where you know their their qualifications, their uh, the contact information where they live, the kind of a bio on there is kind of how that ends up working. They're they're not going to turn you away because you don't have experience working in assisted living. that's not going to be a thing, but they just need to have some of this information. Each state has their own kind of, um, application process, uh, forms and
00:16:52
things you got to fill out. So, this is kind of what it looks like. Okay. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about the pros and cons of doing this remotely because there are some good and some bad things. And I've talked about this a little bit as as I've gone through the video today. Um, on the positive side for why I I really enjoy doing this, why I think operating out of state is is a great way to run this business. Um, and this one's actually not listed on on here. Um, but it opens
00:17:21
up a lot more doors. So, if you are in your state and it is too saturated um with assisted living or it's too complex and too hard for you to obtain a license in your state for whatever reason, um it opens up more doors for you to do this in other states. So, when I was getting started, I couldn't find anything in Utah. Like, I just I couldn't I looked really hard. There just wasn't anything out there that was going to fit for me. Now, after I purchased my first facility, all of a sudden, I started
00:17:49
finding them like, you know, multiple a day. Uh they're they're just coming out of the woodwork. But at the time, I could not find them. I I just couldn't. And I really wanted to do this. And so, rather than just sitting there and waiting, I started looking in other places. And that's how I found my facility in Colorado and how I started moving forward and and owning that business. Okay. So, that's that's number one. U number two here is you're not doing the dayto-day work. So for you as
00:18:17
an owner, there's a lot less burnout. You don't get tired of it. You don't get uh so entrenched in it that that you're micromanaging everything and everybody in in the business. Um gives you the ability to focus on those higher level things that that need to be done to be a successful business. And in that vein, you're able to work on the business and not in the business. So you can look at ways to improve processes, reduce costs, scale your business. you can focus on those things rather than getting so
00:18:48
entrenched in all the things that you have going on uh to just kind of keep the the business running. Uh you just hire somebody and they do that for you. Uh and and that's it's a great way to do it. Now, on the negative side, um you're going to make less money. So, that's something you have to be aware of. You are hiring to do you are hiring somebody to do the work for you. And because you are hiring somebody to do that to free up your time to work on all these other things, that money that could have been
00:19:12
coming to you as the administrator is not going to come to you anymore. So it does reduce your income earning potential. So that's something you you have to be aware of. That's why I tell you when you are doing your business foundation, you need to spend a lot of time doing your underwriting. You need to figure out what type of costs are these going to entail and how many residences, what's my break even point. You want to figure out all of these numbers so that you know, okay, I have
00:19:36
the ability to pay somebody to do this. Your administrator is going to be your highest paid employee by quite a bit. Um, and wages are going to be your highest expense. So, this is on a per individual basis. Your administrator is your most costly um thing inside of your entire business. So you want to make sure that you can justify that from a budgetary standpoint and that you're going to be able to pay that person and that means you're going to make less money. So you got to be okay with that.
00:20:04
But if you do your underwriting correctly and you're confident in your numbers there, it's not going to be a big deal. You just need to be aware of it. And the other one is delegating to other people can be really hard for some people. Like some of you watching this right now are probably thinking to yourself, there's no way. Like I I could not trust anybody to run this business business for me. Like if that's you, then type in um type in delegate down below cuz I I I just I'd love to I'm
00:20:32
super interested in in hearing uh from people like you that like it's it's hard for you to delegate. Type in delegate. Like I'm I'm interested. Um and why? Like I I'd love to hear why, but I also get it because you are taking this investment. You're putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into this to purchase an assisted living facility to to start one from scratch, you know, whatever route you want to go to start your assisted living business. You're putting a lot of money, blood, sweat,
00:20:59
tears. You're putting all the things into it and it's really hard to give that up. And now you're going to trust somebody to to take your baby and run with it, right? And it's it's really hard. So delegating is hard. I totally get it. But man, the time that it frees up for you, um, when you do this correctly and you have the right people, it's why I tell you to hire the right people and go through the process correctly, uh, it makes things so much better for you. Um, so it's it's a great
00:21:24
experience. You just have to kind of get, uh, beyond that that fear of delegating. Okay, so for those of you that have been here live, um, thank you. I appreciate it. Uh, we're going to get into to questions right now. So if you have any questions, uh, go ahead and start typing those in. But I do want to remind those of you who who are watching that we have our ALI basics community. You can go check that out. Go to assistedl livinginvesting.netbasics um and check that out. Um now would be the best time for you to get in. I don't
00:21:53
know how much longer I'm going to be keeping this open. I' I've been uh rethinking a little bit of the way that I do courses and so um this this could be one of the the last opportunities to to join this for a while. So if you're interested, go check it out. um ali assisted livinginvesting.netbasics um get in our our monthly member onlyly calls um get priority answers here on YouTube and Facebook uh lives and and get a bunch of the other resources that are out there for you. Uh so go check
00:22:21
that out. Now for those of you again that are live, go ahead and type in your questions. I want to thank you for uh watching. Make sure you like and uh like the video, subscribe, ring the bell, all those things so you get notified every time we put out content like this. Uh because I do a lot of content and love helping people like you launch their assisted living business. It is one of my favorite, excuse me, one of my favorite things to do is is helping people like you make progress and launch
00:22:45
your assisted living business as you're you're trying to make uh you know trying to reach your goals, time, financial freedom, everything that you are interested in doing this, having a huge impact on the communities where where you live. Um it's I love I love the impact that people get to make. Um it's it's a lot of fun for me to to see that type of impact that uh that that you get to have and for me as a coach is super rewarding. So um yeah uh let's let's see here. Um I've stalled long enough for
00:23:14
people to type in their questions I think. So let's see if I've got any here. Um okay. Well with that I'm going to just move on. I'm not going to sit here with dead air. Uh I was already a little bit late getting started. So uh we we'll just go ahead and close out. I want to thank you for watching. Make sure you go and grab your free business plan checklist at assistedlivinginvesting.net/bp checklist. Go grab that free resource. Make sure you're you're getting in our
00:23:37
ecosystem so I can help you um as you try to to make progress and launch your assisted living business. Again, it is one of my favorite things to do. I love coaching people. I really do. I would love to coach you. So, does residential assisted living sound interesting to you, but you don't know how to get started at assisted living investing? I'm here to help beginners like you launch their assisted living business in the next 12 months. And remember, it doesn't take a lot, just a little bit.
00:24:00
Just keep going step by step by step. And I promise you, 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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