With an ever-changing economic landscape, it’s important to attempt to predict where you might experience rising costs. Accurate projections for future expenses help you create a functional budget and keep your business from getting overextended to the point where cash flow can become a concern. Increases in expenses also result in a net rise in fees, which can deter potential clients from opting for your service. In this article, we’ll discuss how senior living communities can remain affordable in upcoming years.
HOW TO KEEP SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITIES AFFORDABLE
The social and political landscape can change quickly as every election has the potential to create widespread repercussions. Health care costs are increasingly part of the political discussion with pundits arguing the merits both of expanding and cutting programs like Medicare. Health care is just one area where political changes could have an impact on the cost of senior living communities. All business owners understand that the only constant is change, and it is important to maintain a flexible perspective, which allows you to adopt advantageous developments as they hit the marketplace.
Businesses that adopt a long-term plan to secure their financial footing and ensure healthy, sustainable growth are always in a better position when unexpected events influence the marketplace. It’s important for senior living communities to have their fingers on the pulse of their geographic locations with a set of pre-conceived strategies to ensure they can offer an appropriate service at a competitive price. Here are some suggestions for keeping expenses low.
TRANSITION TO DIGITAL MARKETING
Marketing makes up a significant expense for any business. Brand recognition is critical to success, and if potential customers don’t know you exist, they aren’t likely to contact you about contracting your services. In the past, businesses had to rely on traditional marketing platforms such as newspapers, television, and radio. The old model of traditional marketing sought the widest exposure possible. However, for this model to be effective requires a very large reach, which can be both costly and inefficient.
Today, the advent of social media has brought about the creation of digital marketing professionals. Digital marketing has a significant advantage over traditional marketing in that it is now possible to target your advertising only to the groups that are most likely to be interested in your product or service. All social media platforms harvest data, and they have the capacity to limit who sees your advertisements. The result is that a business pays for a much smaller advertising reach, but they do so with the assurance that a greater percentage of the people who see the advertisement will be interested in the product.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF FINANCIAL CONSULTING
Expenses are not a problem; the problem comes with surprise expenses that hit you at a moment when cash flow is already strained. With the rigorous demands of offering top quality service at one or several senior living communities, management often has limited time left over for projections. It is a very smart choice to delegate financial projections to an outside agency that can anticipate and help you prevent catastrophic, unexpected costs.
Specialization is becoming the hallmark of the modern business landscape. There is a tremendous value in consulting with a service that handles the finances of hundreds of businesses just like yours. These kind of financial services have seen everything and are able to give you a statistically accurate projection of where and how to reduce future costs. When you know what’s coming, you’re able to provide a more efficient and more affordable service.
SUPERIOR HUMAN RESOURCES
One of the best ways to ensure future sustainability and profitability is to hire the best people. Great employees are the backbone of your business, and retaining quality employees bolsters your reputation and saves you the expense of training new hires. There is tremendous value in implementing a hiring process that eliminates bias and provides the greatest statistical probability of selecting the best candidate.
Consulting with a human resources management team requires a minimal investment of time and pays off in significant long-term dividends. Creating a bedrock foundation provides stability to your business, which keeps costs low and ensures you’ll be able to handle every unforeseen eventuality.
LEVERAGE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
Property is another large and unavoidable expense of all senior living communities. If you are creating a new development, you have a lot of flexibility in where and how you build to maximize your potential for low future costs. With established communities, staying up to date on proper maintenance can result in considerable savings, which you will be able to pass on to customers later. Refinancing loans to take advantage of lower rates, or paying off loans altogether, can also create a lot of future pricing flexibility.
New developments in areas that are outside of busy city centers can also be a very attractive option. Many senior living communities are largely self-contained, and luxurious centers located in areas with lower property values have a number of advantages. The development of a senior living community can be the first step in revitalizing an area resulting in a rise in demand and property value. Often, highly attractive development zones are located only a short bus ride from populated city centers.
SMALLER ROOMS AND SHARED ROOMS
One innovative way to offer a more affordable service is to provide a greater focus on community areas along with smaller personal rooms. Personal space is important for all people, but many facilities are finding they offer so many social activities that most of their residents prefer to spend the majority of their time in areas where socializing and personal engagement are more readily available. Shared rooms are also becoming more popular and can be much more affordable.
It’s possible for existing communities to retrofit their layout and create a more modern setting that takes better economic advantage of their existing floor space. Small rooms and shared rooms allow communities superior options for deploying their personnel and create a cozier atmosphere more conducive to developing fundamental and healthy relationships.
SUPERIOR RESIDENT RISK MANAGEMENT
A fundamental commitment to safety and adherence to rigorous insurance standards can result in massive long-term savings. The earlier your community commits to adopting an aggressive, forward-thinking strategy, the sooner you will be able to reap the benefits. There is always room for superior safety features and employee safety training. Proper risk management prevents tragedy, saves expenses, and keeps your business affordable.
PREPARE NOW TO ELIMINATE FUTURE COSTS
The key to assuring you can offer an affordable service tomorrow is to set the groundwork today. Every senior living community is different, and it often takes a thorough evaluation of the facility, staff, and other resources to create a plan that will place them in a strong economic position. Changes in the political spectrum, insurance, and health care costs are inevitable. The good thing about those changes is that they will affect all of your competitors the same way that they affect you. By maintaining a smart focus on the things you can control, you can ensure your costs remain competitive.
Congratulations for thinking about the future, that is the first step to getting on the path to a sustainable financial position. Please call Innovation Senior Management at 1-800-425-9914 for more advice on what you can do today to keep senior living communities affordable in the future.
