Summer is here! School is out! Time for family fun!
Post your summer plans or stories here and let other home care and hospice professionals share in your experiences.
Have fun!
Here’s my daughter Becca’s friend Buddy:
The next step is to pick one or more blog postings and comment on it / them!
Simply click on the link below the post and add your thoughts, comments, experiences or ideas.
Here is my frustration, I have not been able to get you (or your home care or hospice colleagues to join in and post to the blog postings) to participate. We see the statistics of how many people view the blog postings, so we know that people are using the blog. What makes it really frustrating is that we seem to attract a ton of spam postings (subjects not appropriate for a G rated blog!). These have to be deleted before they reach you.
Help me out! Post your comments today!
Thank you for reading the blog!
To encourage you to post a comment (I know if you do it once, you will add more in the future), I will send you a link to order my best selling book - The Field Guide to Selling Home Care Services with Legendary Results or The Field Guide to Selling Hospice Services with Legendary Results and receive a second copy at no cost! You can select either book and receive two copies or select to receive one of each. You will receive an email with this special offer link in it after you post your comments.
Thanks, Mike
The theme for the month of June needs to be to maximize referrals before the summer begins in earnest. It is too easy to blame dips in referrals on seasonality - don’t let it happen. Be proactive and maintain promotional efforts all summer long to keep your numbers up.
Monthly Reminders:
Lot’s of weddings and even more anniversaries to celebrate. Keep a list of all of your referral sources anniversaries so that you can send them a card or take them a small gift. Make sure to keep your ear to the ground so that you know when their children plan to marry.
Excerprted from 101 Home Care Promotional Strategies That Deliver Legendary Results Without Busting Your Budget.
One of the most important ways to benefit from the Medicaid waiver patient population is to make sure to capture the Medicare home health or hospice business at your agency. I have seen too many times where the two divisions are operated separately and are not using one another when their patients need other services. The relationship must be one of team work and the desire to work together. This team building takes time and commitment from management to make it happen.
Internal referrals are lost many times because it is easier to let them go elsewhere. Make sure you have analyzed your systems and processes to make sure that it is very easy to make an internal referral. If it is not, you will lose referrals that should be captured internally. For many, attention to this area will result in a big return on investment. Keep in mind that you must earn the business from these customers, just like any others. Treat them as customers and you will see predictable results show up.
Finally, the ability to market and sell your agency as a full service, one stop shop should also generate more business. Make sure that the referral source knows that they can use your agency for any type of home care including Medicaid. This can be a significant competitive advantage in many markets. Ask for all of their business. Studies have shown that the retention rate and loyalty of customers goes up with each additional service line referred to.
Everyone remembers the fiasco with “new” Coke. Coca-Cola, normally a very smart marketing organization, forgot who their customers were. In their haste to compete with the Pepsi generation, they had not taken the time to consider whether or not their core group of customers would drink this new version. When changes are made to a successful product or service, if you lose the established customers you have lost ground. In hindsight I would guess that Coca-Cola would have been better off creating “Old Coke” - a version that would cause their established customers to get nostalgic, warm and fuzzy. In home care marketing we must learn from the mistakes of others, both inside and outside the industry.
First, know your customer
How often do you see a letter or an advertisement that totally misses the mark. One that leaves you scratching your head and saying something like, “What were they thinking?” If you know each of the different type of customer you serve (and don’t forget why they chose to do business with you) you will keep from making these mistakes. This would include knowing both the recipients of care and the referral sources. The better you know your customers, the better you will connect with them. So unless you have too many customers - stop and take the time to get to know each of them. Then review every service offering and every piece of communication to make sure that they are going to be acceptable to your existing customers.
First Impressions
How many opportunities do you have to make a first impression? When you have a bad first impression more times than not you will find another company for the specific product or service. Even when one forgives the bad first impression, the customer proceeds with a cautious attitude and will bolt with the first sign of trouble. Home care agencies must never forget this important element. The first impression may be formed by the way in which callers are greeted and welcomed upon their first call the to the agency. Or, it may be formed by the first person to visit the client or patients home or the referral sources office. You will never know where or when you will form these first impression - so invest in making sure that every impression your agency makes is great.
Image
Big companies spend millions of dollars cultivating and creating an image. If they are on the mark, they will have a very positive return on those dollars invested. Many companies trade off of images that were created many years ago. The secret is continually cultivating and promoting their products in a consistent manner to preserve the image. If management makes a fatal mistake and doesn’t recover fast enough, they will many times start on a downward spiral that may destroy the company. What is your image in the community? Once you have defined it clearly then you must make sure that everything that you and the agency do is consistent with building this image.
Phone Manners and Voice Mail
When you call into a company that you are choosing to do business with and their phone manners or phone system makes you mad, what do you do? You call their competitor.
Think of this situation: Your community education team (marketers) have worked for months to cultivate an important new referral source. They call in the first referral only to be told “Oh, we don’t do that.” Wrong answer! Or, they get put into voice mail or are treated rudely. Who are they going to call with their next referral?
Poor Quality
It always amazes me when I see a large company using really poor quality materials in their marketing. I have seen two major national home care companies (that will go unnamed) use fourteenth generation photocopies in marketing letters sent to physicians! One of the letters was a mail piece to a doctor that had never used this particular agency. Enclosed was a copy (poor) of a document labeled “Rights of the Physician.” It didn’t matter that the piece was a poor choice to use in an introductory, cold letter - the doctor never got past the fact that it looked awful. The other was a letter sent out to a physician after they had sent their first referral. The nicely done cover letter welcomed the doctor. They should have stopped right there, but they didn’t. Enclosed was a (you guessed it) very poor photocopy with a statement signed by the management providing information that the agency is required to send out to new doctors by their own policy. Once again the doctor was not impressed and was actually amused enough to give it to me!
Web sites
Everyone has a Site these days. And consumers are getting very sophisticated in their use of the Internet. If you don’t make it easy to use your Site and very clear what the user needs to do to do business with you, you will loose them. Simple as that. It goes back to knowing your customer and designing your Site with them in mind. If you expect to have Senior citizens use your Web site it might be nice to have large print and easy to follow instructions.
Sales people
If you are like me, you dread it when you need to go to the car dealership to buy a new car (or a used one for that matter). Why? Because of the awful sales people and sales tactics employed. The last time my wife and I were looking for a car, I made the mistake of going to the most convenient dealership. Bad idea. After playing where are car keys so that I can leave with the sales people and the sales manager for over an hour Think of the more successful dealerships of late and you will almost always find that they have changed their sales approach. Rarely will someone rave about a dealership unless they had a good sales experience. Home care sales people have to be accepted as professionals and must represent themselves and your agency well. They will never be successful if they do not. The worst thing that you can have happen with sales people in home care is turnover. If you hire unprofessional sales people you are guaranteeing turnover.
Service and Quality
Have you eaten at a new restaurant and came away really impressed with the food and the service? What happens when you go back and it is not as good? You stop going to that restaurant. Soon the restaurant has gone through all of the new customers and are soon going out of business. This happens too often in home care as well. Once an agency gets too busy they stop providing the same level of service and soon they are not as busy.
CRM
There are nationally known companies that have invested tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. They do so thinking that it will “fix” all of their customer service issues. What they have found out is this: Bad Customer Service + CRM still equals Bad Service. What CRM will do is to support your customer service and sales force. It will help them to know their customers and their likes and dislikes. Glad the other industries paid the huge bucks to do the research for us!
The bottom line is that you must know your customers and then protect your relationship with them. Polish your image, make sure your people are dressed for success and happy marketing!
The cycle that your prospects go through to become customers is:
First - Strangers
Second - Friends
Third - Customers
Fourth - Loyal Customers
And Fifth - Former Customers (not the desired outcome)
What is the difference at each level? The level of permission and trust granted by the customer.
With the high cost of acquiring new referral sources and the even higher cost of loyal customers, the home care marketing professional today must focus on turning as many friends into loyal customers as possible. This must be done while avoiding allowing loyal customers from becoming former customers.
In home care marketing today the secret to success does not lie in a focus on finding as many new customers as possible, it is the focus on how to extract the maximum benefit from each customer. Many of the markets that you are working in are saturated and over-saturated with home care agencies. How the marketer leverages the permission granted by the friend, customer and loyal customer will dictate their success. You cannot build a long-term relationship without their explicit permission. The old adage about being able to lead a horse to water but being able to make them drink is all too true.
What is the difference between the home care sales person that is considered a “pest” because they come in to the referral source’’s office once a week and the one that is expected and welcomed once a week? Permission is the difference.
Where does trust come from? It starts with familiarity and awareness of your agency and its services. When the referral source is comfortable enough, and only then, will you get your first piece of business. What you and the agency do with that first referral will build the structure for building long-term opportunities to earn and build trust. When you think about those companies that have your trust you will find that you have had frequent and satisfactory encounters with them. They have not betrayed your trust and have always fulfilled your expectations.
You build a “trust” account with referral sources. If you build up enough trust, your relationship can overcome a lapse in service or problem. By handling the problem quickly, visibly and to the customer’s satisfaction will actually add to the balance in that “trust” account. But if you do not have the referral sources initial trust, you will be just one more home care agency.
Managing these relationships takes time and effort. It may be necessary to “fire” some referral sources if they are consuming all of your time and endangering your relationships with loyal customers. If you have too many loyal customers, then it may be necessary to split the territory or otherwise enable the more effective management of these relationships.
Having your customer’s permission to conduct an ongoing conversation with them is something to not take lightly. Referral sources that have allowed you to become their primary resource for home care will expect you to not betray their confidence. They should expect, maybe even demand, that you be proactive in making sure that they have all of the information necessary to make good home care choices. You must be their resource for any information that they need about home care services.
Note: Permission in E-mail communications is especially important. You should not send any unsolicited or undesired communications to prospects or referrals sources. Getting permission to have the E-conversation is the only way to really use E-mail to leverage your relationship electronically.
Remember: Permission is Golden.
One of the biggest challenges facing rural home care and hospice providers is having enough referrals. Sound familiar? The principles are the same for selling and marketing home care and hospice in rural America, the stage is just smaller. Smaller markets typically mean less competition, but for less patients. Sales people working exclusively in large urban areas tend to covet smaller markets because they wouldn’t have so many competitors. Those working in rural areas are just the opposite; it’s the case of the proverbial greener grass on the other side of the fence!
Home care and hospice sales people spend a lot of their time in the car in any size market; the primary difference for the rural representative is that they have longer stretches of open road between calls and greater distances between clusters of referral sources. They must turn these into opportunities! Learning by listening to CDs on sales can always help the sales person improve their skills and there is no better time than when on the road. Carry a miniature recorder and make notes of what you think of that you need or want to take action on in the future. Making challenges into advantages (lemons into lemonade) is one hallmark of great home care and hospice sales people.
People in rural America like to do business with local companies. Therefore, the agency must look for marketing opportunities to create a local presence. Billboards may provide an inexpensive way to provide this presence. Participation and support of local causes is another way to accomplish the local connection. The sales representative must be visible in the community and the field staff should make sure that they wear their name badges and uniforms in the community. The key that the referral sources need to understand is that the agency is supporting the local community, the care providers live in the community and the sales person is visibly providing great service.
With the trend being that small community hospitals are closing, there is an even greater need to call on the urban medical centers and hospitals that serve these rural patients. This brings another group of referral sources to cover into the equation; the case managers, social workers and others involved in the discharge process. Skilled nursing facilities are another key referral source that may be located in another town but that have patients going home to your service area. The key selling point needs to be the fact that the agency can serve all of the rural patients within your service area. Coverage area is a big competitive advantage for the rural agency. Prepare service area maps with a list of pharmacies within that area. This provides the referral source with an easy visual aid to determine that your agency does in fact serve their patient’s needs. By including something of added perceived value, the pharmacy list, you are making their lives easier.
Territory management becomes an important skill set for the successful rural sales person. Since, by definition, the territory is large and sparsely populated the routing of sales calls is critical to success and to avoid burnout. The representative should create geographic zones and then first list all of the “A” accounts within the zone. Analyze which is the best day for the biggest accounts and put that zone on the calendar accordingly. Then prepare a route list of other accounts or prospects within the zone. The “A” accounts must be seen at least once a week while the others will be seen every other week or even once a month. The sales person should supplement these visits with phone calls to check in with the best accounts more frequently. The inside sales team can support the outside sales team by making outbound calls to these accounts.
This will mean that the account ratings must be adjusted to reflect the market. It will take a lesser number of referrals to qualify as an “A” account. The sales person will still need to manage a top twenty or twenty-five list of “A” accounts that they are visiting on a weekly basis. The key activity driving referrals will always be the number of face to face (f2f) meetings. An f2f is defined as a substantive conversation with a decision maker about business. Since there is more driving time involved, each f2f has an even greater value than one in an urban sales territory. The larger the account, the greater the value of each f2f encounter.
For rural referral sources communication is an important element in determining their satisfaction with the agency. The sales person must be actively involved in making sure that adequate, appropriate and thorough communication with the account occurs. For this to happen in a large territory, there must be strong communication between the agency and the outside sales rep as well. The use of customer relationship management (CRM) practices in rural areas will enable and foster the complete team communication with the account. If a telehealth solution is employed to manage the patient’s care, then that should be part of the sales process.
The sales person must focus on areas that are consistent with those that the clinical department can staff. Taking every appropriate referral is central to a strong rural sales program. By having referrals of patients in same area it makes the clinical department’s job a lot easier. Work closely with the clinical team to know where patients are needed and those areas where staffing is a challenge. Don’t push the bounds of what they can staff without their buy-in. This will come back to the sales person many fold. Once an area becomes well developed, then the agency can consider opening a branch office. The sales representatives can and should also assist with recruiting staff in growing areas.
Management should hire sales people that know everyone in the area and that are perceived as being a “home town” product. There is a real premium on ability sales people that can sell to all types of people as the targets are fewer. In addition to great sales skills they should be committed to delivering a high level of personal service. If the sales person makes the lives easier for the referral sources, they will be most successful. It is an advantage to hire a nurse who can sell in rural territories, but, this should not be the primary consideration. They must still be able to perform as a top notch sales rep with or without a nursing license.
The agency and the sales representative have to have a longer term perspective. The relationships take more time to build into “A” accounts. Most rural doctors have a greater focus on patient care issues, are more hands on and enjoy long term relationships with the patients and their families. To meet their needs the sales person must communicate with the referral source about specific patients and their care. This will add to the ability to establish the agency as the only logical choice for home care referrals.
Interestingly enough, technology may actually be an easier sale to the country doctor than their urban counterpart. As an example, Anodyne therapy was originally developed for use with horses. I have had sales representatives tell me that country doctors were immediately familiar with this type of treatment, whereas most city doctors have to have the technology and theory explained to them. Telehealth is more readily acceptable because the doctors can see a real benefit for their remote patients.
Finally, the ability to employ needs assessment selling is essential in rural sales programs. To over simplify the process, it is the determination of the referral source’s needs and then positioning the agency’s services as the solution. While I would contend that this is the most important training for all home care and hospice sales reps, it is especially necessary for rural sales people.
Guess what? Most, if not all of these principles apply to selling home care and hospice in any size market. Happy Selling and Marketing.
For every home health or hospice care plan a physician is a key member of the team. The more you can engage the physician in the process, the stronger the bond. The agency’s sales people and management should be probing for needs and presenting solutions. When the relationship with the physician progresses to the point of reliance on the agency for all things related to home health and hospice, then they can become a champion for the agency.
It may take years to gain the required level of confidence and reliance. The physician that truly values the services of a particular agency typically has had past experiences that have created tremendous trust in the agency. Usually this means that there have been problems that were resolved to their complete satisfaction. And, as we all know, trust takes years to develop and only moments to destroy. Never take these key relationships for granted, assume nothing and stay in close contact with them and their staff.
There are two ways to expand business with a particular referring physician; increase your share of their home health and hospice referrals or expand their use of home health and hospice in their practice. To garner a greater percentage of their referrals, it is necessary to know the competition and the referral source’s needs / hot buttons. Then position the agency as the logical solution for their known needs. The other way to increase referrals is to bring ideas, technology and information to the physician that will have them use home health or hospice for more types of patients. For hospice that can translate into longer length of stays. Never assume that the physicians know all of the possible uses for your services.
One way to foment the development of strong relationships is to include the physician and their staff in the development of new programs and protocols. Pride of authorship is created when the agency involves a physician in developing these protocols and specialty programs. If the plan of care is created using “their” methodology, they then can take ownership and will be better champions for the programs and your agency.
The other key component of creating and maintaining these key referral relationships is service - make their lives easy and earn their business. Create service protocols that make the interface with the agency feel customized and you create a significant competitive advantage. It must be easy for them to work with your agency, because when push comes to shove, they will take the easiest path to complete a referral. Once you have established the service plan for the referrals source, never assume that there are no changes - keep probing for service needs.
When talking with physicians and their staffs, remember that the patients are THEIR patients not yours. This may seem like a small semantic point, but it can make a big difference in how they hear what you are saying. The patients many times have had the same physician for many years and when they are referred to home health or hospice they still feel that they are their patients.
Work to develop strong, personal relationships for best long-term results. Help them be great champions for your organizations. Good Luck and Happy Selling!
Trader Joe’s is a phenomenon that is sweeping the east coast, Trader Joe’s is a very well priced and merchandised in a fun atmosphere, You can eat better quality at lower prices on a regular basis. West coasters know and love TJs already!
I was in one the other day (they opened the first one in North Carolina on Monday) and saw some great gift items for the sales people to take out to accounts, They have a three level tower of boxes with different types of goodies made with cranberries. They are reasonably priced and would make great ‘B’ account gifts.
Check out Trader Joe’s for unique items that will fit the budget and tickle your customers!
(Note: Those of you who know me, know that I am a huge Trader Joes junkie!)
The Spellings of Chanukah
There seems to be some confusion surrounding the actual spelling of Chanukah. Part of the reason for this confusion may be due to the fact there is no exact English translation of the Hebrew word for Chanukah. Here are a number of the different spellings one might encounter.
* Chanuka
* Chanukah
* Chanukkah
* Channukah
* Hanukah
* Hannukah
* Hanukkah
* Hanuka
* Hanukka
* Hanaka
* Haneka
* Hanika
* Khanukkah
While in the United States it is most common to use the spelling “CHANUKAH,” rest assured that they are all the same celebration.
Be Thankful for your sales team.
Without them there would not be enough referrals to achieve your goals and fulfill the mission of the organization.
Home health and hospice sales people are some of the best people in the world. I have the honor to work with them on a daily basis.
They come in all shapes, sizes and skill sets. Each one deserves your appreciation and support.
The best way to support them is to provide them with the training and ongoing support they deserve. Be sure to check out our books, elearning courses and bootcamps.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Best,
Mike
Now that the holidays are upon us, you must look for opportunities to make them work for you. Here are a few tips for selling home care and hospice in the holiday season:
1) Focus on relationship building
2) Not a good time for initiating sales campaigns to new accounts or about new services and programs
3) Great time to sell service - customer service can and should be played up in the holiday season
4) Use the opportunity to get face time with the physicians
5) You can stil probe for needs in the course of holiday conversations
6) And most importantly - you should still have a goal for each sales call you make!
Happy Thanksgiving! Watch for some recipes for your left over turkey on the blog in the next few days!
When you discover that magic ingredient, the one that makes a person ‘squeal’ with delight, use it to your best advantage. The other day I witnessed a gatekeeper who was clearly moved by the fact that the sales person had brought pumpkin flavored cream cheese in with the bagels. She had not had any in a long time but it evoked memories that transformed her. Needless to say, the rep know has a friend for life and one who will help ‘butter up’ the decision makers in the facility.This is an example of a chance happening that provides an important insight that can be recorded in the sales person’s customer relationship management system. She now has a trump card she can play when needed. By the way, the pumpkin cream cheese was totally by accident. Who could have known that it would have this kind of reaction! Keep your antennae up and look and listen for those little things that mean so much to a referral source.
The Socratic approach is that of asking questions and allowing the other person to define their beliefs and preferences. This the approach that ALL home care and hospice sales people should adopt. Ask questions that will allow your referral source to tell you what they want and need. If you are not getting the level of information you want, then continue to dig with additional follow up questions. Make it into a quest - the quest for the nugget of information that will enable you to develop an unassailable relationship based on the referral source’s needs. You will own the accounts if you follow the lead of Socrates!
Everywhere I look there are more blogs every day. So, you say, why are you adding to the list? (Blog is short for Weblog)
My goal is to provide you, the Home Care and Hospice Sales Professional, with an easy to use personal tool that will aid you in being the best at your chosen profession. A resource that can provide a starting point for information you need to do your job.
Blogs are great because they can easily be updated at any time for any reason, reflecting news of the day, industry news, sales ideas, new information, seasonal or other news, in short, anything that I want to communicate to you. It is also a great way for you to ask the questions that are on your mind of myself, our experts and your fellow sales professionals.
So watch for more great information coming your way on this Blog each and every week.
Happy Selling!
Best,
Mike
At your service is a team of experts with extensive industry experience. Simione™ Healthcare Consultants focuses on solving the following core home care and hospice challenges: Organizational, Financial, Sales & Marketing, Technology, and Mergers & Acquisitions. Over 1,000 organizations like yours have used the practical insight and tools from our hands-on consultants to reduce costs, mitigate risk and improve efficiencies.
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