The Silver Tsunami Investment Opportunity: Senior Living Trends & Aging Economy Insights with Jerry Vinci

Speaker A: But what they don't realize is that maybe one of it may be one of the largest economic shifts of our lifetime. We're in the middle of it. Just like we saw with the rise of SaaS, fintech and even AI, there's a massive wave forming around age demographics and more investors are completely unprepared. And part of what we do on the Compassionate Capitalist show is you as the investors. We want to bring in experts in an industry that know the trends, that can help you understand so that you can look at companies that are technology, solving the problems, technology wise, service wise, just whatever might be impacted by these trends so you can predict and uh, think about it in what you want to learn, what you want to seek for strong investments. Because smart investors don't chase trends. They recognize patterns early and position ahead of demand. Because behind the silver tsunami is not just a healthcare challenge. It's a massive opportunity for innovation, smarter business models, m and investors who know where to look. So today I've invited someone who is in the trenches of this shift every single day. Jerry Vinci is a senior living marketing strategist and the founder and CEO of CCR Growth, a demand generation agency helping senior living communities increase occupancy and profitability through modern day human centered Systems. With over 20 years experience across sales, marketing operations and as the host of the number one senior living marketing podcast from leads to leases. So today we're going to unpack what's really happening inside the senior living industry, where the biggest gaps and opportunities are and what investors should be paying attention to right now before this wave fully, hell, fully hits. All right, Jerry, welcome to the show. Welcome to the compassionate Capitalist show.

Speaker B: Hey Karen, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're very welcome.

Speaker B: So I really got a taste for how people enter the market and then what happens once they're there, you know, in terms of the residents themselves as well as the families who are affected. So as a marketing agency, I think one of, one of the biggest challenges that I always sought after was doing more meaningful, purposeful work. And I had a hard time finding it with just working with businesses and, you know, just generalized marketing. So we've, we kind of fell into the senior living industry. We ended up with a, uh, community as one of our clients. We just fell in love with it.

Speaker A: So for the people that are listening, what are they underestimating about what's coming?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges. I mean, if we look at the industry overall, it's it's one of the most complex industries out there.

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Speaker A: Welcome to the Compassionate Capitalist show. Of course, I'm Karen Rans and I'm delighted you are listening today. If this is your first time and you like what you hear, please take a moment to give a thumbs up or a five star. If you are a returner and haven't yet commented or rated, please take a moment to. You cannot fathom how important this is for other business podcast listeners to be introduced to the Compassionate Capitalist show by the platforms themselves. This show is available on all major platforms and has its own website now, the compassionatecapitalistshow.com that makes it very easy to search on topics and find specific episodes. Lastly, because so many of you have been asking when the Compassionless Academy will be online, it is available now at the compassionalist Academy and that of course is Beginner stage investor all the way through advance. We're very excited because people have been really, um, waiting for me to get the new version of that out. And it's out all right. And the links in the notes. So what are we going to talk about today? Well, most people think about aging as a personal or health care issue, but what they don't realize is that maybe one of it, uh, may be one of the largest economic shifts of our lifetime. We're in the middle of it. Just like we saw with the rise of sas, fintech and even AI. There's a massive wave forming around age demographics and more investors are completely unprepared. And part of what we do on the Capacity Capitalist show is you as the investors. We want to bring in experts in an industry that know the trends that can help you understand so that you can look at companies that are technology, solving the problems, technology wise, service wise, just whatever might be impacted by these trends so you can predict, uh, and think about it in what you want to learn, what you want to seek for strong investments because smart investors don't chase trends. They recognize patterns early and position ahead of demand. There's a phrase we like to use that's called skating to the puck in the angel and VC space. And that just means you see where it's going and you skate to where that puck, uh, is going to be so you can score. I love sports references. Right. Do that in on the fan. And that's why today's conversation matters. Because behind the Silver Tsunami is not just a healthcare challenge. It's a massive opportunity for innovation, smarter business models and investors who know where to look. So today I've invited someone who is in the trenches of this shift every single day. Jerry Vinci is a senior living marketing strategist and the founder and CEO of CCR Growth, a demand generation agency helping senior living communities increase occupancy and profitability through modern technology. Human centered Systems. With over 20 years experience across sales, marketing operations, and as the host of the number one senior living marketing podcast. From Leads to Leases. And if you're watching, you can see his logo behind him. He, he, uh, is very trendy and he's, he's not, he actually, I don't think he's in South Miami beach, but he's got, for those that aren't watching, he's got a fluorescent sign behind him that says from Leads to Leases. That's his podcast. So Jerry brings a rare combination of data driven insight and real world perspective. And what I appreciate most about Jerry's approach is this. He understands that this isn't just a numbers game. It's about people making one of the most emotional and important transitions of their lives. So today we're going to unpack what's really happening inside the senior living industry, where the biggest gaps and opportunities are and what investors should be paying attention to right now before this wave fully, fully hits. All right, Jerry, welcome to the show. Welcome to the Compassionate Capitalist show.

Speaker B: Hey, Karen, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're very welcome. Okay, so, you know, here's what I want to talk, uh, into. Like, you know, talk about how you came to know this marketplace because we're going to get into the problem that you're solving and that kind of a thing. And maybe it was a personal experience. I don't really recall right now from our prior, prior conversation. But you, you know, I have gone through this with, I have friends that in the space. Obviously, at my age, you know, um, my friends are dealing with this issue of what options do people have. This whole, they really want to age in place because they don't they don't. There's not always a great perception of what assisted living is. We have this rise of the 55 plus communities that intended to be sort of, I guess, a bridge on that. But, you know, tell the guests, the, uh, people listening, tell them how you came to understand this place and why and why you're doing what you're doing.

Speaker B: Sure, yeah. Thanks for allowing me to share my story. You know, I've been in the marketing space for a long time. My parents owned and operated a printing business my entire life. So I've seen that side of the market for a long time. And I watched all four of my grandparents go through some level of care, whether it was like assisted living or memory care, nursing home for dementia, things of that nature. So I really got a taste for how people enter the market and then what happens once they're there, you know, in terms of the residents themselves as well as the families who are affected. So as a marketing agency, I think one of. One of the biggest challenges that I always sought after was doing more meaningful, purposeful work. And I had a hard time finding it with just working with businesses and, you know, just generalized marketing. So we've. We kind of fell into the senior living industry. We ended up with a, uh, community as one of our clients. We just fell in love with it. We're like, this is so awesome. We're not just, you know, helping them drive revenue. We're helping families find a place for their loved one. We're helping those residents, you know, choose their new place to call home. And most of the time, it's the last place they call home. So it's a pretty heavy responsibility. And just to be a part of that ecosystem, you feel it, you know, And I think everyone who's in this space genuinely loves it and typically stays, you know, they don't leave very often, so it is kind of a calling. And even on the marketing side, I found that, uh, to be true as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, so. So, Jerry, you live in this every day, and we. I, uh, it's in the title I talked about at the very beginning, the Silver Tsunami. So for the people that are listening, what are they underestimating about what's coming?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges. I mean, if we look at the industry overall, it's. It's one of the most complex industries out there. And I think it's because it's been misrepresent, presented on a lot of fronts. You know, uh, investors often look at it as like a real estate decision. Right? But it's actually, it's actually like 10 businesses in one. It's, it's one of the most complex operational businesses. You've got multifamily housing, healthcare, hospitality, dining services, entertainment, transportation, you know, social services. I mean, you, you name it, you know, it's, it's part of it. And, and it's all being done, you know, for aging adults who are moving towards or through, you know, that final transition. So there's a lot of factors at play. You know, the simplest way I can frame it is that, you know, demand for senior housing is growing faster than the system can handle it. And what that means is, like, families, they're looking for, for quality and they're looking for a dignified place for their loved ones. The operators are trying to, they're just trying to stay well staffed and provide good care while still staying financially solvent. The workforce is another challenge that's completely stretched across the industry and healthcare in general. And then you've got kind of, you know, capital and investors looking at it saying, you know, there's opportunities in all these spaces. How do we decide? Where do we invest our money? You know, so I think that, like, the question that people should be asking is whether we can build these communities to be, that can actually scale. Right, while improving care, uh, while keeping it financially accessible to the people who need it most. So it's a really complex question in terms of the, the silver Tsunami. We hear this a lot. And when you hear tsunami, you think like, there's just going to be this massive wave. It's going to come quick and fast, and then it's going to be over.

Speaker A: It seems like they've been for a long time tsunami that's coming and we're, I think we're actually in the, in it, right? It's, uh, it's like a questing of a wave or something. I don't know.

Speaker B: But yeah, it's, I mean, it. We're at the very beginning stages of it right now. I mean, the, the oldest boomers turn 80 this year. Every, every baby boomer will be 65 by the year 2030. So we're, we're not necessarily, you know, through it or in the middle of it. We're actually in the beginning of it because by 2034, for the first time in this country, there's going to be more adults over the age of 65 than there will be children ever in the history of this country. Um, but it, but I think the 65 number is kind of misleading too, because most people nowadays, they don't move into some type of senior care space until they're actually in their 80s. Even 85 is, is typically the number. So when you look at like this silver tsunami, you can say yes, BY, you know, 2044, the population of 65 and above is going to be, is going to increase by like 35%, but the population of 85 plus is going to increase by 111%. And all of those are going to have way higher acuity, you know, a higher level of need than people who are in their 60s. So you just imagine what that's going to do to the healthcare system.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's unpack that a little bit. The, um, so when you, so earlier when you were talking about the complexity of a facility, of a living facility, I never really thought about the fact that they have all of these sort of like mini businesses within a business. So, you know, as I was like running through my head. So you couldn't even compare it to a resort because resorts don't have the health care issues that they have. You can't compare it to, uh, a hospice facility or, you know, any kind of, of, you know, recovery that some of the aging folks, because they're not, they are long term. They don't have the entertainment, transportation issue. You know what I mean? Hospital, you know what I mean? Like, so there's really no other business that I can think of that is like an assisted living facility. And so, you know, I think that's where you could get into, where, you know, there's the opportunity. So, like, if you would, from an investor perspective, where's the biggest mismatch right now between demand and supply? So I know, you know, we got this growing thing and I guess there's people building it. And when we had talked previously, you talked about sort of the shortage, but I even think within a facility itself, so even whether existing or, you know, in queue to, uh, come on board, there's these critical break points in the efficiency and the profitability of an assisted facility. So where might there be, you know, inefficiencies, you know, even beyond just a shortage of actual facilities for people?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, you know, there's two parts to it too. There's multiple levels of care that all carry their own set of challenges. You know, everything from adult daycare to independent living to assisted living to memory care, and then all the way up to skilled nursing. And the higher you go, there's More compliance, there's more regulations, there's a higher level of need versus like adult daycare or independent living where a lot of times it's kind of the person's choice or the family's choice. So there's different levels and challenges within those. And then even, even if we just look at like assisted living or an independent living community, for example, there's kind of three different scenarios that you typically see. So first you see like there's the independent operator, someone who might own like one or two communities. They understand the local market. And that's the biggest thing about senior living too. It's, it might seem like a giant national endeavor, but it's all done at the local level. Even, even a large operator like a Sunrise or Brookdale that's got like 900 communities and trades on the, on the stock exchange, they're still focused on every single impact in their, in their area, you know, so typically like if it's an independent operator, uh, they're very close to the customer. Local reputation drives that. So there's, there's obviously challenges with that. Large chains, you know, there's a lot of large chains that right now are trying to expand because they know that there's, there's a housing shortage and they also want to get in and let's be real, get as many seniors in their buildings as possible now while the, while the wave is happening so they can reap the rewards. Then the third group is the roll ups. You've got people who are, who are acquiring these existing operators, the smaller players in the market. And that's happening a lot. And so there's obviously challenges in all of those. I think like the independent guy can be fast and agile. The big operator is like slow. It's going to move like the Titanic. You know, it's really hard to steer out of the way of the iceberg. But they're great at creating consistency across all their communities. And then you've got roll ups where they may not know what's, what's driving occupancy, or they may not know why the community's not profitable or, you know, what's going on with the staff or the culture or all those things. So they may not realize what they're actually investing in. So those are kind of all. You've got different levels of care and then you've got different types of investing happening at the same time.

Speaker A: Yeah. So is there, because where there's, you know, within each business there's the, the pain in an industry or a sector is Usually where the opportunity is hiding. And you know, so as you're. Well let's talk about specifically about your business. And then as you, because I know you, one of the things you identify as marketing, right? As a being, you know, creating the awareness and um, and the, for the independence. You're solving problems in that space. But so as you get to know these folks and you're saying, do you hear an area where I know there's a shortage in nursing, there's not really. There might be some function that AI that's specific to some things that they could do that regulate, that might replace, you know, where there's, you know, there's different things that I guess that could be part of solving some of those pains. Just give me an idea of when it comes to, at an operating level what some of the pains are within uh, uh, a facility.

Speaker B: Yeah, ah, I mean workfor workforce for sure would be a giant one. You've got dining, uh, room staff for example, that's got a turn turnover about 70% within 12 months will, will turn over care, uh, staff, long term care workers. On average they've got it within 12 months. It's around 50% that stay and 50% who leave. So there's constant turnover, constant recruiting. That's happened, having to happen. And then also at the executive level you're seeing some of the same things. Some executive directors might be leaving for a couple extra dollars an hour somewhere else or the culture might not be a good fit, things like that. So those are, operationally those are probably some of the biggest challenges is around staffing. Another one that I see a lot of is retention. Retention is huge in this space because you look at like independent living for example, where you know, they're usually young, vibrant older adults who make the choice to move because they want to simplify their lives or they want all the amenities in one place, you know, like a cruise ship on land. Essentially. That's what independent living is. Yeah, yeah. Um, I think that the retention there is really important because an independent living resident on average can stay anywhere from 10 to 15 years in your community. So you just imagine if you're charging say you know, 5,000amonth, multiply that by 10 or 15 years. That one acquisition created a lot of revenue for, for your organization. So you know, retention's a big one. Reputation's another huge one. What we do specifically, it's not necessarily marketing anymore. More it's what we call demand generation and that's one of our focuses. But demand generation, it's like marketing but it's more about building trust. So demand generation is my definition of it is creating conditions where your customers are already informed and already interested in what you do because you've built credibility trust and uh, credibility trust. Why can't I think of the third one and visibility up front? So that's what we're helping our customers do. But on a, in a larger sense we're also looking at sales and operations. So we're, we're helping them build a growth engine that can help them. It helps align marketing, sales and operations and will help them increase or maintain their revenue and occupancy over a, you know, over a period of time. So it's measurable. It's one of the biggest challenges with senior living is the occupancy going up and down or them not being able to. If somebody leaves or passes away or multiple people that happens to, they have a really hard time filling those beds quickly. And that's, that's why it's important to have systems in place.

Speaker A: Yeah. So let's, uh, let's talk about that because that, uh, what you said, I think you said credibility, trust, awareness. What was the other one? It was

Speaker B: visibility or awareness? Visibility.

Speaker A: Visibility. That's the thing that, that is really applicable. Applicable for every business. Right. You know what I mean? Every business has to have that. I, I deal with it in my business, right. And what I'm selling, you know, you, everybody, you deal with it in your own business. Even working, you know, to attract the assisted, uh, living facility. So within the assisted living industry, is there an advantage or disadvantage of independence over chains? Are, uh, chains more, do they perceive to be more trustworthy or are they the ones. Because, you know, you say everything's kind of local. They're, they be. They are not as personal or, you know, how do, how does that, how does the marketplace perceive independence versus chains? And is it um, is it really just case by case? Because just like a franchise of a, ah, fast food restaurant, right. You could go to one in this city and it's really bad and you're like, I'm never going again. And then you go to another one. It's great. Right? And so, you know, talk about that from an industry perspective as well.

Speaker B: Uh, that's what makes this industry interesting in my opinion as well, because you don't really have brand affinity like you have in other spaces. You know, like I mentioned Brookdale and Sunrise and those are some of the largest providers in the nation. They've got hundreds and hundreds of communities. But if you asked Somebody for who their favorite senior living brand is. No one would be able to tell you. You know, 99% of people never even look at senior living until there's a crisis.

Speaker A: So there's familiar with the brand. You just, I was like, sunrise. I was like, wait, I do know that one. I've seen those signs.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, yeah, exactly. And that's, that's kind of what it is. It's like, you know, a lot of these brands will do a lot of advertising to just, just stay top of mind. So when those conversations do come up, they are a name that somebody remembers. But most people when they search, they search for, you know, senior living near me, assisted living near me, assisted living in XYZ City, you know, that type of search. So they're not really searching for a specific brand. I, I think, you know, there's advantages to both. So I think the, I think the independent operator, like the locally owned again, they're going to be, they're going to be really close to the community. They're going to, they probably have an easier time building a referral network because they're, they're in the hospitals, they're in the churches, they're in all the places where they know that the, the seniors actively hang out in their town. And around 90% of residents typically in an assisted living and independent living community move from within a five mile radius of the community. So typically they're already local to that community. So it's really important to build up that local awareness. I think the biggest challenge they face is that they are relying usually on personnel. So if like one of their key people leaves like an executive director or something, the whole operation can either wobble or it can crumble because I've seen one executive director leaving everyone else leave with them, which is crazy when that happens. But it happens. And then as soon as that happens, the residents start leaving too because they're not sure they can trust the new staff, you know, and the families get a little, they get a little wobbly too and they decide to walk out. So, so that can happen with, with a larger chain. Again, it's, it's going to move slower and more methodical. But I think you've got like, they've got clear advantages, they've got economies of scale. So you know, purchasing power, like when it comes to say like running ads on the search engines, if you, if you're a part of a larger organization, you might have a, ah, 5, 10, $15,000 budget per community to run advertising, whereas a small operator might have a 2 to $3,000 budget. So just visibility alone, it's, it's challenging.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I get that. Okay, so we had you talked earlier about um, roll ups and I wanted to follow up on that so. Because we're, you know, one of the things I hear from private equity is that this is a space that they're looking at because they recognize the opportunity, the growth opportunity, the, you know, of, of a market that's growing, that's going to need this kind of service, you know, and they'll buy underperforming facilities. You know, from what you've seen, what separates the roll ups that succeed versus the ones that fail and kind of like can, uh, they treat it like a classic turnaround where they're just looking at an opportunity and they're like, oh, we can do better. Or is there really some industry expertise that is required? Because you know, not all consolidations create value sometimes, sometimes just hides inefficiency at a scale.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny you say that because the one thing that I, I tell my team all the time when we talk about these portfolios is, you know, scale amplifies whatever is already true about your operating model. So yeah, I think, I think what roll ups have to do is just be really careful there. Of course there's adjacent industries that I think people can like glean knowledge from and experience to be able to make a, uh, decision and as to what would be a viable solid investment versus what might not be. You know, I just think like in general sometimes, especially if it's a, uh, if it's an operator who already owns communities, they might try to acquire too fast. We've, we've had portfolios that we manage where, you know, in one year or two months they might try to acquire five or ten new communities. And when they acquire these communities, they're not replacing the entire staff. Typically they're keeping their, their key players on board. Board. But obviously with a corporate umbrella over top, there's going to be things that change, there's going to be cultural differences, there's going to be, you know, who's, who's doing what, you know, who am I reporting to now? All of those types of things that create a lot of challenges within the organization. And I just think because it's such a complex business, they might be able to understand a few of those aspects of running this type. You know, maybe they understand the healthcare side, but they don't understand hospitality and how important the programming is. You know, because people don't buy based on like, they don't care if a room has this or their food program has this. Sometimes maybe it's about the experience. Maybe they want to make sure that they have these five activities that they absolutely love, and that's what's most important to them. So really just understanding what the local culture is asking for and making sure that your. Whatever you do when you acquire that is going to enhance that, I would say.

Speaker A: So you're involved when you get into. I mean, I've assume in your business that you're helping the operators figure out how to be better at Legion and creating this awareness and all that kind of stuff. So you're. You're there involved, you do consulting with them on things that they can do that would make them more attractive as well. If they have gaps, they have a, uh, coach that for a regular business might have like. Well, you mentioned turnover. Right. On things that that might happen, like that. So what are you seeing that has surprised you that investors might not expect about how these facilities operate? What is actually working when modernizing these businesses? You know, what and where are, uh, how are people stuck in outdated models where they haven't thought outside the box that they can solve that in a different way?

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I think one of the biggest challenges is trying to do too many things at once. Uh, a lot of these challenges, they take time to correct or to improve upon. And I always think, like, an operator, especially a new operator, should just look at, you know, one measurable bottleneck and try to fix that first. And really, from a consulting side, like, that's what we're helping communities do. By looking a lot of people in MySpace, they look at one piece of the puzzle. They either look at marketing, they look at sales, or they look at operations, and they're not looking at all three and how they play together. And that's what makes us different, is that that's literally what we're doing is we're analyzing their entire. From the moment that person touches the community, whether it's a form, fill, a phone call, a chat, to the time that they tour to the time they deposit and the time they move in. And even after they move in, there's got to be things that have happened. So we're analyzing all of those things. We're continuously auditing what it is we're doing, what it is the communities are doing and making sure that, you know, what we're doing is resonating with their prospective audience. I don't think a lot of communities really understand who their target audience is. For example, you look at assisted living, a lot of communities will still market to the. To the senior. They won't market to the adult children. And in like, more than 75% of the cases, it's the adult children making the decision of where their mom or dad is going to move. You know, just making sure we're targeting the right people, uh, and making sure we're not trying to like, bite off more than we can chew. Um, you know, if there's. If there's like an issue with care and things like that. I mean, that we have one community, for example, that had. They acquired this other community that had a horrible rating. It was like, uh, they had like 40% occupancy. So they were, they were pretty empty and they had a bad reputation. So they re. They rebranded and. But it took months and months and months of them being actively involved in the community and then little by little building up their reputation to the point where people actually decided, okay, this looks decent. Let's tour. So it's just really challenging.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, because I see, uh, I was thinking about, um, I'm trying. There's a new. Oh, the Man Inside the TV show. Do you have you.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker A: I think is in it. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And he's like, goes into this, this. I think it's second season. He goes into a senior living home and you, uh, know to. And like. And even. Even on Landman, right, they got the wife, uh, that goes to the senior living and they got a little parties and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, it's almost like they've done, um, in placement commercials or something to elevate the industry that, hey, we're fun. You should come and check us out. And now there's this paradigm of here's the. Where's the margarita bar and where's the, uh, happy hour, you know what I mean? Kind of a perception of it. Because I know when my dad has been passed for a while, but when he was. We were needing to find someplace he did not want to go to an assisted living. Right. He had. Was totally convinced of the old paradigm that, you know, you go there when nobody, like when you want to be. When you're going to be abandoned and it's no fun and it's like dreary and you stay in your room. And when he got there, he got a zest for life. He was like, this is like being on a cruise. I could go downstairs, somebody playing cards. I can, you know, have the, uh, I can eat the food's good. He got a girlfriend, he started inventing things again, all this stuff, until he got where he was a fall risk and they needed this particular facility, didn't have the extended type of care for him that he had to, you know, then come back home. But it was, um, for at least a couple of years of his life, he got like, he was, you know, really thriving, you know, dancing and, you know, all kinds of stuff. So I think that there's, you know, there's, uh, the paradigm shift that you're talking about, the rebranding, that some of these things have to, have to do, have to do. But, you know, maybe it would be helpful, um, if you help the audience, if you want to say anything about that, please do. But also, you know, truly understand from a business model standpoint, because where the difference between a nursing home, assisted living, adult daycare, aging at home, you mentioned all of those at the very beginning. You know, so when you look at the overall industry where, um, where they intersect, perhaps, you know, there's some that continue on. Is there like, there isn't a supply chain? Is there sort of a supply chain that there could be a business that owns, you know, owns the, uh, adult daycare that leads into the assisted living, that leads into nursing home or even all within a facility? I don't even know if something like that exists. But, you know, talk about that from a, ah, dynamics of the industry itself for this, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's a, That's a great question. Uh, just to, just to amplify what you were saying too. I mean, I, I see a lot more programming now, uh, around retirement and just catering towards that age group because we've got such a large percentage of the population that's either in, in that demographic or they're the children of that demographic. So it's becoming a hot issue for a lot of families now. You know, one in. What is it, one in five? No, it's not one in five. It's 65 million Americans are caregivers right now for a loved one. And four out of five.

Speaker A: Really?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's a big number. Have you compared that like that? Is that 65? Well, that. Because they're this. We're the sandwich society. The sandwich. Where they call it a sandwich because

Speaker B: we were sandwich generation. Yeah.

Speaker A: And we're caring for our children. A lot of our children aren't yet out of home or something like that. Yeah. Wow. Okay. 65 million. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So that, so that's, that's a big challenge. Yeah. And that's why like you're seeing more prevalence now for things like adult daycare. Right. Because it's giving some respite to those caregivers. But it's a far more affordable option. If you look at just active, active daycare. I say, I would say adult daycare, day, day services, depending on where you're at. It's called different things. But that's probably like the first step for a lot of families that might know that, you know, mom or dad need a little extra help. But um, maybe they're safe at home still. Maybe they live in a single, you know, single story building and it's, you know, they've made sure to remove any of the obstacles that might prove to be challenging if they've got mobility issues or anything like that. Um, but the cost difference, it's like $100. What does it cost? Around a hundred dollars a day for adult day services versus assisted living, which on average is around 6,000amonth.

Speaker A: Month.

Speaker B: So it's roughly about 50% the cost. And, but again, they're not living there. They're only spending a couple hours there a day. And that might not even be every day. Um, so it's only going to be so, so beneficial. But you know, the different tiers, I would say it would start with like independent living. And within independent living, again, that's the, that's the seniors who are, who are more active, vibrant. Maybe they're, some communities will advertise that they're 55 and above. So sometimes there's people in these communities that are not even 65, they're, they're even younger. But that's not necessarily who their, who their target market is. Within the independent space too, you've got communities that are called CCRCs, which stands for Continuing Care Retirement Community. It's also known as a life plan community. And these are what you're talking about. Yeah, so this is an all inclusive model where somebody, and they typically will only admit people who are in those early stages of, you know, the aging process. They're in their 65 to 75. Typically they're in good health. They're um, not coming with a whole bunch of additional, uh, challenges in terms of mobility or health. And then over time they have the ability to transition to assisted living within that same campus, maybe even memory care and uh, maybe even skilled nursing. And I've seen some of them that are building hospitals now. So they're residents don't have to go anywhere else to see a doctor, which is awesome. That's, that's growing, but, I mean, you can imagine what the financial footprint is to run a community like that, but also to be a resident of one of those communities. Typically, people are selling their home and putting it up as like a down payment to get in. So, I mean, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. My grandma, I could. When you. As you describe that, my grandma, obviously, many, many years ago, it was called Wesley Manor. I have no idea. It was right on St. John's River. People came there in their late 50s with their boats that they could pull up when it go out on their boat. Right. They was like, like all the stuff I talked about in these shows, you know, kind of probably not the happy hours, but they would go on trips and then she eventually got through till she was full hospital care there, ended up going someplace else for memory care. But it was, uh, she was there for several years through that transition.

Speaker B: There's a lot of assisted living and independent living that have those, those happy hours, by the way. And I, I actually was reading an article last week about this memory care community that was lobbying to have to be able to serve alcoholic drinks during, during their meals and things like that. I thought that was interesting since it's so highly regulated. I'm not, not sure where that'll go. But, um, but that is, that is definitely a thing. If we, if we look just at independent living, not the CCRC model, but just somebody going who wants to downsize and simplify their life, things like that, that's probably, like, probably the most compelling growth opportunity, I would say right now for investors. It's, you know, it's number one. It's because it's where the younger, wealthier boomers are going to land first. But, you know, they typically have high occupancy. I think, uh, in 2025, the average occupancy was over 90%. Um, there's limited new supply. So there, again, like, there's, you know, there's gonna be people fighting to get those spots that they can get. Um, and overall, if you, if you watch boomers purchasing decisions, they tend to, uh, lean more towards lifestyle choices. Um, not, you know, not just a place, not just a bed with a pillow and three meals a day. Like, they don't care about that. They want the programming, the amenities, all of those types of things. So independent living has all those. And it's geared towards those assisted living. It's. It's almost like a quality versus quantity game, like assisted living. There's. This is probably the most competitive market just because there's so many assisted livings and they're so, and they vary by state like what they actually offer. And because you're dealing with like higher level levels of care, reputation is, is typically the thing that's going to drive results. So if you've got great reputation, great trust among your residents and families, the likelihood they're going to refer other people to you is pretty high. And, and uh, even here, I mean the occupancy rate I think at the end of 2025 was like 88 or 89%. Um, so it's definitely growing. But the biggest thing is that uh, financially I think it. Assisted living pulled in around 45 billion last year and by 2032 it's supposed to hit over 99 billion. Uh so at Ah, like roughly like a 12% growth uh rate every year. So it's definitely a growing space for sure. Uh, and then last you've got like memory care or skilled nursing. Memory care is just a very finite grouping within skilled nursing that's specifically focused on dementia and Alzheimer's care. Um, it's, and it's unavoidable. So like if somebody, if someone has memory, memory issues, cognitive decline, dementia, like there's no other option for them but to go to one of these communities. So uh, with that population increasing too, I mean that's supposed to double by 2040. You also have a lot of opportunity there. So those are like the, the more unregulated spaces and then the um, skilled nursing is way more uh, regulated. You know they're, that's the space where typically people are tapping into Medicare or Medicaid to, to be able to afford to live there. Um, so they're more, there's more government subsidizing happening and, and because of that the budgets are a lot thinner. It becomes more challenging for growth opportunities, things like that. So most investors usually steer, steer clear of that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Hope that was helpful.

Speaker A: No, that, that's good. That's good because I, I had went back when I was running my angel investor group. It was uh, there was a guy, there was a company that came through and sometimes it's. This is harder. It was, it was, they were, they were designing a new kind of framework format for. It would ultimately be a franchise of a, of a memory care facility. Right. And you know, design where I guess they would like to walk in a circle so it had like certain areas and an atrium and like all this kind of stuff that they had it like you could tell that it would make money. But traditional angels don't do those kinds of heavy. The infrastructure upfront loaded cost models. Right. It really kind of, it's. I think it's shifted some because the opportunity is so clear than it was. This was 15 years ago, maybe more, you know, that this company came through, they're raising like $20 million. I think they needed 2 million to start. But overall it was this, you know, kind of a things, you know that the, the construction or the building that those are or you know the. That's a, That's a heavy lift. Um, I know that I've seen uh, the uh. Gosh, I'm going to mess up my acronym here. But the EB5 program, I think what it is is where foreign investors can invest in operating business. Our assisted living that we have down here in Peace Street City was funded that way, $10 million. And um, it was creating the job so they get their green cards, you know, for their family when they invest in this business and they're involved in it. But that's, you know, it's, it's that kind of a model. And so those are all the kind of stuff. So what I'd like you to do is if we could, you know, outside of that, outside of the traditional. I'm, uh, going to operate, I'm going to do these things. We talked about the PE funds. Where should investors be paying attention and you know, some of the opportunities that is it, ah, facility. I mean we talked about facilities, a high dollar amount there, but technology, services, workforce. We talked about the shortages of workforce. There's probably some things that could make them more efficient when it comes to technological operations and stuff like that. If the biggest opportunities aren't always owning the assets so they're solving the friction in the asset. What. What does that look like? Like.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, uh, I would say most investors, they're not necessarily. That's not a challenge they're going to be able to solve on their own just because it is complex.

Speaker A: Entrepreneurs that are listening, you know, oh yeah, somebody needs to create an AI solution that does this or something like that. I don't know. You know what I mean? It. Just so you know, I, uh, just. It, it. I think the whole healthcare industry and they're talking about how AI is going to help where we have the biggest shortages. That's sort of at the, you know, some of the basic stuff, monitoring, I guess, or intake things, things that sort of take time, you know, you know, watching the machines, you know, independently. So you don't necessarily have to have as much night staff. There, you know, different things like that. But you're not going to take, the robots and AI are not going to of take the place of a, of a warm hand that's there to help you or moving somebody through the hallways or you know, any of those kind of things. It's gonna, those are, those are uh, there's always going to be a people requirement. I just, you know, thought maybe you might have some insights that, you know, you see a pain point.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, you know, if I was going to do my due diligence as an investor, I would probably look at, you know, maybe like four, four, five or six areas. Maybe like uh, the lead source mix would probably be the first one, you know, from, from the marketing side. You know, what percentage of their, of their inquiries are coming from, you know, their own channels like their Google business profile, their social pages, their website versus third party aggregators. That's, that's a huge problem in this industry is uh, lead source. Because a lot of these communities that don't have proper systems in place, they rely on third party, uh, referrals like from places like A Place for mom or Caring Dot Com. What happens there is these, these agencies, they don't charge anything up front to recommend your community to this prospect. But what happens is while they're recommending your community, they're also recommending like 10, 15, 20 other communities in your area as well. So now this family has to deal with the, they're inundated with phone calls, emails, text messages from 20 different communities versus one or two that might actually be a good fit. And then if this person ends up moving into your community, you have to pay, the community has to pay that agency a full month's rent, sometimes even more than that just to get that resident through the door. So we have some memory care communities for example, that are anywhere from 10 to $15,000 a month, uh, per resident. Right. And, and all of that go out the door. Yeah, it's huge.

Speaker A: That really impacts their bottom line on recouping the cost of that per that person over a period of time.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that's the problem that you solve with helping them create their own funnel for Legion.

Speaker B: And that's the biggest challenge too because the higher, the higher the level of care, the higher the cost, but also the shorter the time that they stay typically is. So you've got, you've got length of stay, which is a factor on top of, you know, what it's, what it's costing to acquire them and then what it's costing to keep them in the community once they're there. So that's kind of, that's like challenge number one from a sales perspective. You know, if, if I were looking at that, I would maybe do secret shopping. I would look at like what are their response times and what are their follow up times and are they completing following up? Because the sales, I'm telling you, sales teams, and I'm sure it's the same in other spaces too, I just don't know them as well. But the sales teams typically will, will just avoid leads, uh, that come from certain sources. They won't equally vet every, every lead from every different source. And the challenge with that is, you know, they get one bad Facebook lead in or one bad lead from some other channel and all of a sudden they're like, well those leads are crap. We're not going to look at those. Just ignore, ignore those when they come in. We're just going to focus on these. And that's why like for example, they'll focus on the place for MOM leads because they know that those people were actively searching. But it just, it's not a, it's not a good qualified lead. So we want to make sure that those response times are quick and follow ups happen. Third would be the reputation of the community. That's probably one of the hardest things to turn around. Do they have reviews? If they do, are they positive, negative? Is their star rating over, say a, uh, 4.5? Is it below that? If so, what happened? You know, what can we do to triage reputation? Next it would be staffing. Staffing is huge. Obviously keeping your staff is important, but also making sure you have enough staff because you've got like you were talking about AI and things like that. You've got some communities thinking we're not, we're just going to replace this person with the uh, with a program. But that's typically not how I've. Most places I've seen. AI is only augmenting what it is they're doing. So instead of the nurse taking 10 hours to write their notes or to hand off their notes to the, to the night shift or something like that, now it's all being recorded in some type of an AI platform or digital platform that allows them to easily just say here, here's the status of everyone, you know, without having to manually write all that stuff up. So they're spending more time in actually patient care, which is, which is a good thing. But staff turnover is a huge one.

Speaker A: Yeah, that probably adds to, they could work in a place and not have that drudgery might help them want to stay.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's probably why they got into the industry to begin with. Um, because they, they could make equal pay doing far less stressful work if they wanted to go work in a doctor's office or something like that. Regulates regulatory history is a pretty big one too, in this space because most, I would say all assisted living communities there, you can go online and you can search and find any complaints or any, uh, you know, any complaint patterns that have happened across that community just to make sure that, you know, they don't have some underlying issues that might not be resolved. And then, you know, the last thing, which I see a lot is when operators will own multiple communities or investors own multiple communities, their operating cadence is not fast enough. They'll, they'll look at spreadsheets or graphs or numbers on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis and not a weekly basis. And the challenge with that is if you, if you look at your, your numbers today and you say, oh, occupancy is at 90% and then a month from now occupancy is at 75%, how long do you think it's going to take to close that gap? It's not going to happen overnight. So you're already months behind in that process if you're not keeping tabs on what's going on in the community.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for sharing that bit about, like some of those, those highlights because really the dashboard, I didn't, you know, sort of like that sort of business efficiency. Right. Business decision making kinds of stuff. Right. So, so anything that you didn't get to talk about that you wanted to talk about here as we, you know, wrap up?

Speaker B: I think one of the biggest, Yeah, I mean, just one of the biggest opportunities I think is from a property development standpoint because we're so far behind when it comes to development. I think there needs to be some people coming into this space who are not in senior living, but who understand how to quickly maybe not just roll out new communities, but maybe rehash refurbishing existing communities. We're, we're so far behind in the housing that we need. You know, if we just look at last year, for example, there was around 20,000 units that were in construction in 2020. And that's, that doesn't mean they started in 2025. That just means they were in process. In Q1 of 2025, there was only about 1500 units that, that had been slated to be built now if we look at how many, how many units we actually need between now and 2045, we need to be building 100 to 125, 000 units every single year to keep up with demand. So we are so far behind, like

Speaker A: a room that person can stay in.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: 800 last year, is that what you said?

Speaker B: 1500 in Q1. That was it. Yeah, last year. Last year. I'm not sure what the number is for this year yet, but no one, I mean with, with construction costs and supply chain issues and everything else, it's getting harder and harder for, for communities to even be built in a, in a cost affordable way for people.

Speaker A: So container standpoint, you know, how people have been making containers into buildings and apartments and things like that, there's an abundance of, well, or what had been at one point in time, an abundance of shipping containers that could potentially do that. But like going back to your 63 million number, you know what I mean? 1500 and a quarter. There's 63 million people trying to figure out what they're going to do with their parents.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've got over 10,000 people every day turning 65. So I mean that's, you know, four. There's like 400,000 people over the age of 85 every single year being added to the census between now and 2045. You know, figure 20% of them are probably going to be looking at senior housing of some kind. It's, it's a daunting number to, to look at. So I'm hoping that we have some investors who want to really seriously look at development, uh, and construction in this space, whatever that looks like.

Speaker A: Yeah, good. Me too.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: All right. So, uh, okay, well, I hope everybody, uh, hearing today. Oh, I didn't give you an opportunity. I'm sorry I didn't say that near the beginning. Jerry, tell everybody your website and we'll have it in.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's. Sure. It's CCR growth.

Speaker A: So just, uh, and the CCR stands for.

Speaker B: It was kind of. We're paying homage to our first client. Our first client was a ccrc, the Continuing Care Retirement Community. So we wanted to have that in our name so people recognize us as part of the industry. That was the big, the big focus there. So.

Speaker A: So this is just ccr. Okay. All right. Okay.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: So, you know, to the folks listening, thank you for tuning in today. You know, this is exactly why I say, you know, if you heard this opportunity, Jerry flagged multiple areas that can be a part of this industry. And every time you're looking for a new growing segment, there's so many different pieces and parts that whether they're little, you know, million dollar solutions or 100 million dollar solutions that you can find in this that you don't need to get a second job to make build wealth. You need to understand where the world is changing and invest in the businesses that are solving that problem. Investing in entrepreneurs isn't just about returns or investing in these initiatives like this. It's about funding the future we're all going to live in. And that is so, so true right now because we're pretty much all going to live. Unless we don't live long enough to get to a point of having some kind of assisted living or continuing care or something like that. Having, heaven forbid you and I both will have these kind of needs in the future and there'll be great places for us to go and uh, all that stuff. So you know, if you didn't realize, you're listening, didn't realize this was investable trend now, you know. And that's why I created the education I offer. If you don't know how to invest in things like this and look for these opportunities, continue listening to the Compassionate Capitalist show and go check out the Compassionless Academy with that, onwards and upwards. Have a great day.