SHAHID IMRAN, OFFERING OUR SENIORS A RESIDENCE SUPPORTED BY STRATEGICALLY INTEGRATED UNCONVENTIONAL DESIGNS
Build Senior Living is a privately owned company thatfocuses exclusively on the development of senior living housing. Our projects are result-driven because we strategically integrate state-of-the-art design while maintaining the cultural awareness relevant to the communities in which we build.Our professional team has years of delivering exceptional returns and we have a proven track record and extensive expertise in land acquisition, ground-up development, and transforming and reinvigorating each community to meet the needs and demands of our seniors.
Because of Build Senior Living’s value enhancement and asset repositioning mechanisms, it has been able to hit its performance metrics ahead of target. Build Senior Living began in 2012 under the supervision of co-founder/CEO Imran and co-founder/Vice President Sanford Martin, with the sole intent of providing superior care to our seniors and enriching the lives of the residents, and serving them with respect, dignity, integrity, and most of all compassion.
Imran shares, “I wanted Build Senior Living to understand the unmet needs of our potential residents and reassure them of any uncertainties they may encounter during this process. We take pride in offering our residents a lifestyle that caters to their wants as well as providing their care needs whether it’s for Assisted Living or Memory Care. Because of our unique operational approach, we have been able to set ourselves apart from other communities, this mainly revolves around our staffing. We pride ourselves on hiring individuals that possess traits that lend themselves to the nurturing and caring environment, we strive toward achieving.”
The company started at a time when Imran saw no such product in the market that targeted and highlighted delivering care or amenities in a manner he wanted for his own parents. The team at Build Senior Living has set itsbenchmark high. They navigate through the changing climates of the communities to deliver significant returns, not only to their investors and partners but to our seniors as well. Their key officers operate with the understanding of leveraging their individual and distinctive characteristics while maintaining the principles of the operating policy, practices, and procedures.
These leaders embody the meaning of Premier Senior care by immediately responding to the changing needs of their residents and maintaining an open and communicative relationship with residents, families, and staff. This allows Build Senior Living to achieve the highest standards of performance while striving to continuously achieve excellence in standards of care and satisfaction.
Imran is a successful businessman that started his entrepreneurship with unbridled ambition and hope, strategic risk, a pinch of luck, and alifetime of mama’s prayers. His humble beginning was the fuel that charged this small-village manwith the resilience and perseverance to succeed. He started two businesses from scratch and watched them grow into millions inannual sales. As the owner of a medical equipment company, he was diligently working within the senior living environment. Imranunderstood that there was a definite need for assisted living because of the growing senior population. However, he was also recognizing the current conditions of these communities were subpar. Backed by his cultural roots of respecting elders and supported by hisvision to develop luxury assisted living communities that are affordable, Imransold his multimillion-dollar medical equipment business and began his journey in forming Build Senior Living.
Years of experience in the health care industry have shown Imran that it is more important than ever to ensure our seniors have a comfortable living environment to call home. The senior population has worked so hard throughout their life, and they deserve a place in which they can thrive. He wanted to give back to those people who have given so much to us and build high-quality independent senior living communities that excelled in aesthetics, accessibility, and community.
Imran’s motto is “it’s their turn to be spoiled.” Almost a decade later, Imran has done just that. Spoiling the senior population by building over27 successful communities worth over $640,000,000.
In a conversation with the CEO Review Magazine, Imran throws light on his journey. He talks at length about his struggles, experiences, challenges, industry, goals, and more. Read below the excerpts from the interview with the CEO to know more about Build Senior Living.
Have you always been entrepreneurial, and what led you to take that first step and set up your own business?
I started my career very early on in life. Although I didn’t know much, I knew that I was the eldest childof 5 living on a farm with my parents.I come from a region of the world where the standard cultural practice is to provide utmost respect and care for your elders. This absolute devotion to my elders and being the eldest led me to realizeit would be my responsibility to care for my parents. Instinctively, I knew why I would be doing this, but I just had to figure out how this was going to happen.
I graduated from college with a degree innaturalscience. My journey led me to Texas where I hopped around trying to find my niche. It was when I returned to Michigan that my career started to take shape. I became part owner of a home health company. I learned what I needed to learn and saved enough money to sell my portion and became my boss. As the owner of a medical supply company, I had the opportunity to make acquaintances and understand the rising demand for quality care in the health care industry. It was during a routine stop at an assisted living that it occurred to me what I wanted to do. The assisted living facility was nice, but I couldn’t help but think about my parents. I wanted to see better services and amenities being offered to our seniors, after all, these are the individuals that made us the people we are today.
What are your success habits?
Aside from having a passion for what I do, I always do my research when I am going to start a project. It is to understand the elements of your project than just jumping into a project because the price was right. I have a conviction for the investment project I am pursuing. I’m wary of everything when it comes to business, meaning, I don’t do anything personally because when I am investing in a project or when others are investing in a project with me, it is my right and everyone else’s to complete the due diligence. Even after the research that I receive, I do my own due diligence. The information from others can be verified and is considered, however, it is not my sole reason to commit to a project. This practice has made me a more patient individual and it is for the better. There is no reason to do a project half-heartedly because then it is meaningless. My conviction for what I do has led to successful endeavors and I am not afraid to believe in what I know.
What have been some make-or-break moments in your career?
When the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, I saw many businesses close either temporarily or permanently. Theworld was facing an existential threat. Amidst all the chaos surrounding me, I was still the owner of Build Senior Living, and it was still my responsibility to see that our seniors’ quality of life was not compromised. I continued to forge ahead with my vision, I set plans in motion to scope out new demographic areas to explore and build, and I moved forward with construction. I continued to gain investor support because, despite the pandemic, our parents still needed a place to live. I knew then as much as I know now, that senior housing is no longer want, it is a need. I never slowed down, and I never backed down despite the warnings of others. There were times when it was challenging, but I knew I had people depending on me and what we were creating, and I couldn’t let them down.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I continue to confront challenges with every new project we take on. These new situations can become major challenges because the territory is unknown. It’s not that the process is unknown, but each location comes with its own set of terms that we must adopt. This alone is the challenge; adopting the language, the timelines, the parameters, and the politics, it’s all new and the biggest hurdle is muddling through it to complete the project in a timely manner. Recently, the Pandemic hosted another set of hurdles regarding the local city, county, and State governmental approval timelines due to a lack of staffing in the respective offices. Every project site has its own obstacle course of necessary bureaucratic approvals in place before we can break ground. However, over the years, experience has permitted us to strategically work with the local governments and municipalities to establish a new standard for our seniors. It has become a learning process and I learned that I had to make the distinction if failures were produced by shortcomings beyond my control, or if they were mistakes that I could fix with time and effort.
Which one thing do you wish you’d done differently/ what style did you adopt?
I would like to say that I wouldn’t change a thing, however, as I think about this question, I realize there are things that I have done differently to be who I am today. Like many entrepreneurs, although taking risks is important, it’s the perseverance and resilience in the face of adversity that matters. I learned to be comfortable with being uncomfortable while you wait for adversity to pass. I have learned that as I encountered obstacles along my path, being flexible and patient became of utmost value to me. Things don’t happen overnight, and even if you make mistakes along the way, patience helps you get through.
How has the industry changed over the years?
Today’s healthcare industry is more complex and has gone through significant changes over the past several years. One of the paramount changes we are currently experiencing is the continued rise in the life expectancy of our senior population. We know that by 2050 people aged 65 and up will be nearly double the current number today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That means a population increase from 49.2 million to 88 million. Plus, by 2056 the 65 and up an age group is expected to be larger than the population under the age of 18.
As the aging demographics continue to shift, approaching retirement and transitioning into a supervised living arrangement is inevitable. Meeting the needs to serve this population is imperative as we are realizing that our seniors of today are expecting a higher quality of life than the seniors of yesterday. This leads to the trend in senior living housing development and investment. The strong demographics of baby boomers nearing the largest wave in US history along with the overwhelming need for demand of assisted/senior living and higher return on investment (ROI) make a perfect recipe for investors to ride this wave of investing opportunity. I do not see this trend slowing down anytime soon as senior living housing is highly recession-proof, and revenues do not decline like the other industries even during a downturn. It has been my experience, that investors relish in how this industry has changed for the better!
What are the most important decisions you make as a leader of your organization?
There are several important decisions I make as the leader of Build Senior Living. Everything revolves around making our Assisted Living facilities the best of the best for our residents. It means my decisions fall into three categories. My first decision isto have a clear vision of what I want the organization to accomplish. This is essential to the health of the company because it enables me to strategize how to get to where I want to go. Strategy is the second category, and it allows me the means of delivering a product most efficiently and economically possible. The last important decision is in getting the right people on the train and having the confidence and trust of the people I have on my team. You must have the right people in place to do the job, so you don’t have to do it all yourself. Being a leader, I don’t need to be involved in every decision being made because I know I have the vision, the strategy, and the right people capable of doing so.
How do you encourage creative thinking within your organization?
I encourage everyone to think outside the box! I tell them to think about what they would do if they could change something. I encourage anyone and everyone to offer suggestions and ideas or improvements. It is how we grow as a company.
What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
Learn to be a problem-solver; Learn from mistakes, don’t obsess over them; If you make a mistake once if you learn from it; Work alongside your team; listen, and most of all; learn to balance work life and personal life
Which is most important to your organization—mission, core values, or vision?
You need all three components to make your vessel navigate effectively. Vision is most important to our organization because vision allows me to inspire and motivate others with the objectives we need to set in motion. It establishes the horizon and indicates the direction in which we want Build Senior Living to move. Vision allows people to invest in the future of Build Senior Living with the understanding of what our role will be in this industry.
How do you or other leaders in your organization communicate the core values?
We practice what we preach! We simplify our company’s goals, objectives, and mission statement and infuse them into our daily activities. We discuss them regularly with our teams and we make it our responsibility to excel morally and ethically. We also use the core values as a decision-making framework every time and on every level.
What has helped you get to where you are [influential/effective/in the forefront] and what advice would you have for others who want to set off in a similar direction?
My biggest influence and the person who has been most effective in seeing my growth has been my mother. She worked incredibly hard for the family and never complained. She just did what she needed to do to ensure her family was comfortable. She instilled in me a defining sense of hard work. She is a woman who has shown me confidence, unwavering calmness, patience, and intense grace. This has helped to get me where I am today. I advise others to look to the people who exercise humility and restraint and try and adopt those behaviors to their own.
What is the best advice you can give to our readers?
My advice to others is to always look ahead and keep going. Don’t stop if you believe it’s what you want to do. Don’t look at what is happening now, look at what will happen in the future and focus your movements of today, to be the foundation of your success of tomorrow. You have the same 24 hours in your day as everyone else has in theirs, so make every minute of your time count.
