More Steps to Successfully Selling Home Care Services

Posted by Mike Ferris on Friday, January 18, 2008 and posted in Home Health Care Sales

We continue this week with three more steps to successfully selling Home Care services:

3) Know your customer and know what the customer wants and prefers, then make it happen.  Partner with your referral sources to solve their problems and challenges for them.  Ask your referral sources the questions that you want to know to best serve their needs.  Learn to ask open-ended questions and then listen carefully.  It may take several attempts to get an answer, so keep asking the question until you do.  Once you have gotten that answer then shift to the next thing you want to know from this particular customer.  Ask questions like “If there was one thing that you could fix about home care, what would it be?”

4) Ask for the order!  Selling is the catalyst, the spark of any business – home care included.  There are all types of successful businesses and they all have one thing in common:  somebody is doing a great job of selling their services.  Without sales (referrals), there are no patients or clients to care for.  So it is important that the entire agency understand this simple concept.  All of their livelihoods depend on the success of the sales effort.  As Harvey Mackay says “Nothing happens in a business until someone sells something.” And in home care it is always important to know who to ask for the order.

5) Everyone’s in marketing!  Deputize every one of the agency’s staff to be a sales person.  Make your agency a selling organization.  Create educational programs that teach every member of the home care agency that they are in marketing and sales.  Share the business goals and progress with all staff by making it visible.  Have celebrations to mark the attainment of goals that include all staff.  When formulating bonuses include all employees.  Provide them with the tools needed to market the agency’s services and the results of the agency’s marketing program will be magnified.

Be sure to check back next week for additional steps in our series!

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10 Steps to Successfully Selling Home Care Services

Posted by Mike Ferris on Friday, January 04, 2008 and posted in Home Health Care

It is important to understand the difference between marketing and selling home care services. Marketing is the process of creating market awareness for an agency in the markets that they serve. Selling is the act of converting prospective customers into referring customers and the act of continuing to develop the relationship with the customer such that they utilize the agency’s services on an ongoing basis. This distinction is important when developing sales and marketing programs in home care so that results meet the agency’s goals. The balance between getting your name out in the community and getting the referrals is the key to a successful program.

Following is the first of Ten Steps to Selling Home Care Successfully. Be sure to check the blog each week for additional tips.

1) Develop strong relationships with your referral sources and then manage, nurture and protect these relationships. They should be based on service and providing the referral source what they desire from a home care agency. They should include knowing them well enough to know their birthday, favorite sports teams, hobbies, interests, family or other information to be able to add those personal touches that cement relationships. Remember that the strongest relationships are built on trust and confidence, so always under promise and over deliver. A strong relationship is built over years and can be destroyed in only moments. Protect these relationships as they are truly the most precious assets of each home care agency.

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