All materials that you distribute to the community at large must be consistent. They must have the same quality, look and feel that your other collateral materials have. It is very expensive to produce high quality marketing materials. The use of one inconsistent or poorly copied item can destroy the value of this investment.
Here are some important rules to ensure consistency:
~ Letters should always be printed on agency letterhead.
~ Use the agency’s logo in the proper colors and the USP or tagline on everything that you do.
~ Make sure every facsimile you send out has a clean, clear, and well designed cover sheet on it. Personalize the facsimile with the intended recipient’s name and a note from you.
~ Look at customizing the facsimile cover sheet with a seasonal message, an educational item, or an advertising/sales message.
~ Use your business cards for everything that you do.
~ Answer your phone with excitement and always identify yourself to the caller.
The other aspect of consistency is being in front of your accounts on a consistent and visible basis. Once again, out of sight is out of mind—so stay in sight and keep the same image and message in front of your accounts. If you are not in your top accounts at least once a week, you will lose business to competitors. If they are one of your top accounts, then they are your competition’s top targets.
Excerpted from The Field Guide to Selling Home Care Services with Legendary Results by Michael Ferris
]]>Hand out framed certificates of appreciation for your awardees that they can hang in their offices or take home with them. Take lots of photos and create a collage that is mounted on foam board and can be hung in the office. That way each year there will be a new group of great photos that can hang in your office. This will create a longer lasting effect and will generate better attendance at each successive year’s celebration.
Ask your Board of Directors to attend and hand out the awards; this makes it that much more valuable to the employees. It also will allow your Board Members to get to know some of the staff and their families.
Invite your best referral sources and their families to join the celebration. Take the time to acknowledge those who do attend. This effort will help to build stronger relationships between agency staff and referral sources in attendance. Those who cannot attend will be impressed by the thoughtfulness of your agency, both for inviting them and for recognizing your staff.
In addition, make sure that you write about Staff Appreciation Day in the agency newsletter and include photos with the copy.
This is a win—win—win way to make your employees happier, your referral sources love you more and make recruiting easier.
Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies that Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget! by Michael Ferris
]]>Thank them for choosing you. Just once, wouldn’t it be nice if someone in healthcare thanked you for choosing them? How often have you personally been referred to a specialist or other provider and been thanked for choosing them? Never!
So here’s your chance to stand apart from the rest of the hospice (and healthcare) industry. At the end of the visit, thank the patient and family (and referral source!) for choosing your hospice. (Note: Regardless of who made the referral, in the end it’s the patient or family that selects you.)
“It’s our privilege.” After you’ve thanked them, tell them, “It will be a privilege to care for your (dad/mom/loved one).” Hospice nurses think they say it all the time, but we rarely hear it on admission. It’s not that they don’t purposely say it, it’s just that they forget.
Practice makes perfect. If you want to make sure it happens, incorporate those closing phrases in your admissions “cheat sheet” and staff performance reviews!
Excerpted from LEGENDARY RESULTS: Managing Referrals & Increasing Admissions Vol. 2: The Admissions Process by Michael Ferris and Polly Rehnwall.
]]>Excerpted from LEGENDARY RESULTS: Managing Referrals & Increasing Admissions Vol 1: Referral Management by Michael Ferris and Polly Rehnwall
]]>Time to plan a Holiday Helpers campaign! Start the process by defining the services you will offer. The promotion must include a Holiday Helpers services information sheet that lists all of the special services that can be provided during the holiday season. These are privately paid services that can range from housecleaning, decorating, shopping, package wrapping, meal preparation, holiday card addressing, travel companionship and companionship while family is away. Then distribute these flyers to your existing clients and patients, senior centers, referral sources and elsewhere. Offer gift certificates to adult caregivers in a special direct mailing.
Monthly Reminders:
Register now for the NAHC Annual Meeting and make travel reservations early for the best airline ticket prices. Consider bringing the entire sales team—there are often several sessions about sales and marketing. During the off hours, strategy meetings can be scheduled to discuss plans for the upcoming year. One tremendous benefit of exposing the sales team to a national meeting is that they will see that they are part of a dynamic industry filled with professionals.
September is Cancer Awareness Month including Ovarian, Pediatric and Childhood Cancer Month. Partner up with your local oncology specialists and the local American Cancer Society to heighten awareness of prevention and diagnosis for the general public and the elderly.
Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies that Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget! by Michael Ferris
Ask Them! This is something that you should do often and using different methods. You should send them referral source satisfaction surveys, have the sales representative ask and senior management should call and visit.
Ask “What do we do better than any of the other agencies?” or “What are the two things you like best about our agency’s services?”
Once you know why they love you, then you can use this to develop your message.
Do any of the following sound familiar? Do you see some definite trends?
~ We have a multilingual staff.
~ We accept most referrals and do not “cherry pick” the easier and most profitable referrals.
~ We process the referral quickly and easily.
~ They like the quality of care given to our patients.
~ Our nurses are kind and caring.
~ Our staff is reliable, often going beyond their responsibilities to offer suggestions to the patient’s family or physician.
~ Availability—24/7
~ Reliable—can count on us to do what we say we will do.
~ We are committed to providing professional, ethical, and quality service.
~ We follow-up with our clients on a regular basis to assess service effectiveness and to make revisions that reflect changing needs and wishes
Let us know what your referral sources love about your agency.
]]>This is the best way to leverage your Web site. Make it easy for them to sign-up by putting the sign-up box on the first page in a prominent location. Offer some item of perceived value, such as a free report, that will entice them to sign-up. Make sure that they opt-in to your list and then keep building!
Tip: Put an e-mail address in your advertisements to enable interested people to contact you for information or the free report. This will result in a much higher conversion ratio than just listing your Web address.
Note: If you are part of an integrated health care system or hospital based, make sure it is easy to find your agency’s information on the Web. Too many times I find that these home health agencies and hospices are hidden on some hard to find page on the parent company’s Web site. Get your own domain name and set up your own pages—the results will be startling!
The physician is many times not the person to determine where a particular patient will be referred for home care services. In most cases, the physician is going to “bless” the choice of agency and then someone else will actually make the referrals. For hospitalized patients, the doctor writing the discharge orders will either specify your agency or just discharge to home care and allow the discharge planner or social work to choose the agency. A few pointers in dealing with doctors:
~ No small talk please
~ Do not bombard them with copies of the same orders to sign
~ Service, service service when dealing with doctors
~ Make it easy to do business your agency
~ Always thank the doctors for referrals, especially the non-admits
~ Make your thank you’s personal and special
~ Always be professional
~ Be a good listener
~ Always follow-up quickly
~ Address any problems immediately
~ Build your custom service plan and deliver on it
Excerpted from Field Guide to Selling Hospice Services with Legendary Results by Michael Ferris
]]>Right now there is no shortage of bad news, problems, gossip, etc. to go around. You cannot allow this to get in your way of providing Legendary Service. Whatever is negative and potentially distracting, shrug it off. That’s right; dismiss the bad news or it will eventually consume and overwhelm you.
If the bad news or problems get you down, do something that picks you back up. As a referral center, admission team or sales team professional, you can’t afford to be down and negative when you’re working with your prospects and customers. Do whatever it takes, change your routine, exercise more, read motivational books, whatever it takes!
And stay away from negative people because it’s amazing how contagious negativity can be.
Excerpted from LEGENDARY RESULTS: Managing Referrals & Increasing Admissions Vol 1: Referral Management by Michael Ferris and Polly Rehnwall
]]>There are many opportunities for sales training, including, but not limited to:
~ Home care- or hospice-specific sales workshops and conferences
~ Sales and motivational workshops and conferences that are not industry specific
~ State and national association meetings and conferences (a recent NAHC Annual Meeting had sales and marketing programs during every one of the educational sessions)
~ Teleconferences that are provided by home care- and hospice-related groups
~ On-site training and coaching
~ Books and books on tape or CD
Any sales training opportunities like those listed above will pay big dividends; a relatively small investment today will result in sustained long-term results. Furthermore, the retention rate of your sales team may also increase as productivity increases and salespeople see continued results.
It is increasingly important for home care and hospice agencies to provide support for ongoing education for all of their professional staff. Combine training for professional staff with that for your sales team when appropriate. This support can be an important strategic advantage when recruiting and retaining existing staff. It’s a win-win situation.
Excerpted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies that Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget! by Michael Ferris
* Passion
* People skills
* Knowledge
* Service
The only one that you can truly train is product knowledge! People either have a passion for home health or hospice or they don’t. They are good with and enjoy people, or not. They either get service, or they don’t. Nordstrom’s (famous for customer service) hires people that were raised to say please and thank you. Then they train their sales people everything possible to know about the product they will be selling. The same formula works in home health and hospice.
Hire the right people and then train them to be the most professional home health and hospice sales people. Sales training is a lifelong learning process; the best sales people in all industries seek to improve themselves every day—no matter how many sales awards they have won!
Set Goals and Seek Training
Anyone can set a goal, but training is what makes them possible to achieve. Learning the skills necessary to execute on your plan makes the difference. You can become great at anything, but not without practice. The key then to greatness is practice.
If you think about it, most people never practice. They don’t train and don’t seek coaching. If you invest 30 minutes a day in something, you can become good at it, no matter who you are. If you spend more time than that and really focus your efforts, you can become truly great. Tiger Woods hits thousands of practice shots every week. Piano virtuosos practice for hours every day of the year. How serious are you and your sales team?
Simione Consultants’ fall Square One and AdmitRight Boot Camp sales training dates just announced! Click here for more information and to register!
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