Takeaways from Ziegler’s 2024 Senior Living Finance + Strategy Conference

Ziegler’s 2024 Senior Living Finance + Strategy Conference has once again reinforced why the Ziegler team provides some of the best educational resources for senior living. Braving the intense heat (110°!) of Palm Desert, California, several hundred senior living professionals gathered for three days of education and fun.

As I’ve done for other conferences over the past several years, here are five key takeaways I gleaned from the conference that I think are important to share with others in senior living.

1. Senior Living Industry Trends: Our Window of Competitive Opportunity Is Closing

For several years now, Dan Hermann and the Ziegler team have been strong advocates for growth of not-for-profit senior living organizations. Over the past couple of years in particular, he has pointed out how high interest rates have kept many of the for-profit developers on the sidelines. However, with interest rates now starting back down, the for-profits will be preparing to restart their growth initiatives.

Dan projected that, when the Fed rate hits 4%, the for-profits will really start moving forward. The Ziegler team estimated that that could happen in about 18 months, with the for-profit side of the field living by the mantra, “Survive in ’25, sticks in ’26,” meaning that we should expect to see significant building of new for-profit senior living in 2026.

The implication of this is that, if our not-for-profit organizations are not already well into growth planning, we better start now. We have a limited window of opportunity before the competitive environment is expected to heat up again. Don’t wait for interest rates to fall further before starting to plan. Sarkis Garabedian of Ziegler said, “The market has already priced in expectations that the Fed will continue to lower rates, so having it go down is not necessarily going to lower our bond rates.” So don’t wait. Go forward now.

2. Must-Have Senior Living Marketing Strategies: Building Strong Teams, Brands and Products

This year’s marketing session was led by Ziegler’s Keith Robertson and featured Eric Mineart of PRS, Fran Palma of Covenant Living and the Open Strategy Group, and Rob Adams of 10Next. It was good to hear them emphasize many of the same things Love & Company has been emphasizing with clients for the past several years: To effectively build and maintain strong census, we need to ensure we have the right product for our customer, a brand that supports a meaningful value proposition for that customer, and the sales skills to help prospects understand how moving to our communities will add value to their lives.

Eric reinforced the importance of investing in our sales teams and senior living sales strategies, saying we need to provide the training and resources they need to be effective. He also encouraged organizations to separate their marketing and sales functions, as they require two distinctly different skill sets, especially in today’s digital marketing environment.

Fran focused on the digital universe, urging communities to ensure that they are in control of their senior living digital marketing ecosystem. He also emphasized something that Love & Company’s sales consultants have been advocating for years: Don’t be too quick to “lost lead” a prospect! Fran said that Covenant Living eliminated lost leads almost completely (except for obvious reasons like death), changing them to a “nurturing” status instead, and letting their digital tools continue to develop the relationship with those prospects.

Rob closed the session from a more global perspective, sharing that the field needs to be aware of the “value bubble” when planning marketing and senior living sales strategies. Things like pricing and floor plans are on the outside of a prospect’s value bubble, meaning that while they are important, they aren’t what really drives a final decision to move to senior living. It’s prospects’ hopes and dreams that are inside the value bubble, and that’s where they are really going to make their decision.

3. Our Best Middle-Market Opportunities May Be With Our Existing Buildings

Ziegler’s Tommy Brewer hosted a session on the middle market in which three providers shared strategies they’ve used to gain entry into the middle market. Interestingly, just one of the three—  president of EveryAge—talked about developing a new community: EveryAge’s new BellaAge brand, the first of which is under development in Hickory, North Carolina.

The other two speakers—Dan Rexroth, president of John Knox Village in Lees Summit, Missouri, and John Thorhauer, president of Glencroft Center for Modern Aging in Glendale, Arizona—talked about repositioning some of their smaller existing Life Plan Community residences as middle-market rentals. Given the number of older communities Love & Company works with, this strategy could get more “legs” as our efforts to meet the needs of the middle market continue.

4. Single-site Communities Can Still Be Successful, But They Must Be Proactive

The annual focus on single-site communities was led by Ziegler’s Amy Castleberry. In it, three communities shared their approaches to growth and maintaining financial stability as an independent community including:

  1. Friendship Village of Dublin, in Dublin, Ohio
  2. Terwilliger Plaza, in Portland, Oregon
  3. Dunwoody Village, in Newtown Square near Philadelphia

Amy summarized the common characteristics of proactive and successful single-site providers as:

  • Ongoing investment in current physical plant, including expansions, repositioning and modernization
  • Strong occupancy through a firm commitment to strong marketing and sales
  • Insight into the supply and demand characteristics of the local market and competitive landscape
  • A clear brand and identity that is well known in the market
  • A degree of risk tolerance
  • Openness to participation in creative partnerships and joint ventures
  • A sophisticated board and leadership team

This aligns well with what we see. Over the years, a high proportion of Love & Company’s clients have been single-site communities. Those that have been most successful are those that proactively worked with us to gain an understanding of their market, educated their boards, developed a strong brand and devoted the resources needed to support a strong and consistent marketing and sales effort. And when we’ve been brought in to help struggling single-site communities, it’s been those that have been willing to listen and implement these practices that have successfully re-emerged as strong communities.

5. Proactive Wellness Is Key to Life Plan Communities’ Future Success

The conference closed with Dan Hermann, John Spooner, co-president of Greystone and John Cochrane, president of HumanGood, all sharing their thoughts on what will enable senior living communities to be successful into the future.

John Spooner emphasized that we need to think of our later years not as our “lifespan” but as our “healthspan.” We need to help people live not only as long as they can, but also as healthy and actively as they can. He described the formula for tomorrow’s Life Plan Community as being “Boomers + their money + long life + larger residences + “better life” + wellness + aging in place.”

John Cochrane added that the keys to a successful longevity program lie in personalized precision healthcare, which involves detailed assessments of our health and current condition, personalized intervention strategies and measurement of precision outcomes to determine whether we are achieving our goals.

For those of you who have regularly followed Love & Company’s blogs and webinars, you’ll see John’s beliefs reinforce what we’ve communicated for years: To be successful into the future, our communities need to be focused on the highest levels of  , enabling people to live their best lives as long as possible. Our communities have all of the elements needed to be mini Blue Zones. We just need to make it happen.

Taken together, the emphases of Ziegler’s 2024 Senior Living Finance + Strategy Conference revolved around continuing to evolve our communities to more of a health and wellness model than a care model, to focus on growth opportunities and to do it now before our window of competitive opportunity closes.

As Spooner said as the conference was closing, “Do the next five years in your organization look like the past five years? If so, you need to change how you’re looking at things.”

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