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The
Legendary Sales Leadership Letter
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Mike's Top Picks
CLICK HERE
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All of us are always looking for ways to energize, excite and unite your team. The keys to success include making them fun and finding commonalities to build upon. Find excuses for teambuilding fun and meaningful activities. Use them to bring together your team and build and perpetuate your culture. Examples would range from fundraising team efforts (Relay for Life®, United Way, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure®) to purely fun things like college or professional athletics. College basketball certainly can fit the bill, and because of the number of Division I NCAA college basketball programs encompassing both men's and women's teams, the opportunity will come to your city or town one day soon.
March Madness is now behind us and what a great tournament this year -- with schools that captured the imagination of the nation and brought their students, supporters and alumni together behind a basketball team. One of the gifts of living in Chapel Hill is the University of North Carolina and its many cultural and sports events. College towns have a certain life to them that is just great fun! Sadly, UNC lost in the Final Four this year after an incredible season finishing #1 in the final regular season AP poll, but the energy and excitement surrounding the whole process will continue.
Congratulations to all of the teams and especially to Kansas! We will all start building for next March! My prediction for 2009? UNC will cut down the nets at Ford Field in Detroit!
Happy Selling!
Best,
Mike Ferris
Managing Principal |
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Want to Know What Your Customers Want? Ask Them!
To ebook or not to ebook? This is one of the questions of our times!
With the advent of portable book readers (that actually are usable), widespread use of laptop and sub-laptop computers, PDAs, etc., electronic books -- or ebooks -- are growing rapidly in popularity. Andersen Consulting reports projected that ebooks would comprise 10% of all book sales by now. Some people love them; they like the electronic format, that they are easily searchable, offer a personalized viewing experience, are portable, they're Green (it's an environmentally sound principle with no paper used until you print out a copy), are delivered immediately, can be read in the dark, offer hand-free reading while eating lunch, etc.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like to have a book that I can read, make notes in and keep on the shelf for future reference. But what I like isn't important; it's what you like!
We have had numerous requests for our valuable ebook, 17 Proven Methods to Grow Referrals for Legendary Results in Home Care and Hospice -- Complete with Implementation Workbook in a print version. We have been able to accommodate those orders but with an up-charge and freight. Some customers have wanted both the ebook and the printed book!
This is a fabulous resource that, with the Implementation Workbook, includes all the forms and other documents you need to implement these 17 Proven Growth Strategies! Over 240 pages of information that has prompted buyers to say things like, "Mike, this book gave me all the support I needed! I just wish I had it last year!"
We want to know what you, our subscribers, like best -- printed or ebook. Clients who have purchased the 17 Proven Methods ebook and companion workbook tell us how phenomenally pleased they've been with the tremendous amount of information they contain.
If purchased separately, the ebook costs $69 and the companion workbook costs $59. By purchasing them together, however, you get them both for just $98 -- a savings of $30!
To prove it to you, I'm making this one-time incredibly special offer to the subscribers of my Sales Leadership Letter:
Offer 1: We'll send you both versions -- the ebook and electronic companion workbook AND the print version of the book and workbook -- for $98 (no extra charge).
Then, once you've had a chance to experience the same book in both formats, we're going to follow-up with you in about 10 days to see which one works best for you.
Click here to take advantage of this special offer!
Offer 2: Or just tell us you like ebooks the best and we will give you a discounted price of $77 for both the ebook and workbook (a savings of over 20%)!
Click here to take advantage of this special offer!
We'll report back to you in a future issue of the Sales Leadership Letter with the feedback from our purchasers.
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The last Bootcamp before we break for the summer will be May 5 - 7 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There are still a few seats available for this session.
Register today for May Bootcamp 52 Week eSales Training Course Our groundbreaking and highly-acclaimed 52 Week eSales Training Course is available for one to one hundred students. It provides a weekly lesson (takes about 30 minutes to complete) that will keep your sales team members' skills sharp. Students have said that the course supported them in becoming better at their profession, increased their referrals and forced them to review the basics. On average, our 52 Week eLearning participants have increased their referrals by over 31%! "With the help of the 52 Week eSales Training Course, I have been able to increase our accounts by approximately 20% and have increased referrals and admits by an even greater percent. Thank you, and my company also thanks you!" -- Barbara Edmisten, Highland Hospice
Special offer for Sales Leadership Letter
subscribers: Enroll up to 10 students for one low price of $599
(does not include audio CDs)!
Click here to take advantage of this offer. |
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Make It Memorable
Doctor's Day is coming. Make your list of most important and best opportunity doctors. Figure out how to make it special for them and PERSONAL. Better to do for fewer doctors but have it be well thought out and specific to them. Using information about their medical school or alma mater will always win points.
Make them feel special because they knew that you took the time to get to know them and what is important to them.
And, as always, make sure you have a
purpose and tie in to business for your efforts!
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Blocking and Tackling
It can be challenging to keep your sales team focused on building their account base once they have tasted success. For starters, don't let them forget how they got to their first taste of success. The same hard work, organization, planning and passion that got them there will carry them to the next level.
Success takes time and hard work, the next level takes additional time and more hard work, and rebuilding success takes time and hard work. No matter how successful someone has been or what has or has not worked in the past, if they don't focus on the blocking and tackling -- dedicating the time (months, not hours) and hard work -- they will not see the subsequent rebuilt successful territory.
The key to continued success is being smarter about how and where they spend their most precious asset -- their time. Rating accounts, knowing what is important to them, prioritizing time, and protecting key relationships will enable the salesperson to achieve highest levels of productivity.
Support the top performers with additional training. Our tendency as sales managers is to focus on "fixing" the low performers and we neglect to dedicate the time to the top tier.
A good sales manager has a plan to help
the whole team, all of the time.
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In each Legendary Sales Leadership Letter, Mike answers your questions. Send them to us or call (800) 293-5471 and we'll make sure that yours are answered in a future issue. Question: Should I be sending thank you notes following presentations, lunches, etc? Answer: Yes, definitely I would suggest sending handwritten thank you notes following any significant interactions with prospective or existing accounts. In today's world, handwritten notes are rare and get a great response. People appreciate that you have taken the time to send them a personalized note. Make sure to reference elements of your conversation with them in the note and let them know what to expect from you as follow-up. Use the opportunity to reiterate those points you want to drive home from your meeting. Question: How do we compete with for profit agencies that shower the referral sources with gifts? Answer: I don't think it matters what the "profit" status is of an agency when talking about "showering referral sources with gifts." There are limits dictated by Stark regulations and agency policies/philosophies that should provide the direction about how you handle gifts for your accounts. If the relationships are based on gifts and goodies they are not very strong (only as strong as the last goodie) and you can attack these situations with your differentiating factors. Make sure that your accounts know that your use of gifts is dictated by your agency's dedication to investing resources in the provision of the very best care for the patient. If you have a competitor that is doing anything unethical or illegal, you must always take the high road. If there are referral sources in your territory that can be "bought" with gifts, then you should move on to others. Question: How important do you think it is to spend time during work hours to organize and establish where you are in the sales cycle with each account, and how much time should you spend? Answer:
The short answer is that it is very
important to know where you are with each account but not during prime
selling hours. You must guard against having organization and
account/prospect evaluation activities to rob you of prime sales time.
There are some times during the week that are better times to make calls
and see accounts. During these hours, your focus must be on making
sales calls. The hours during which there are few accounts that
you can call upon are the times you should look at doing your
organization and evaluation. It is important to be organized and
know where you are in the sales cycle with each of your accounts or
prospects, but it is really easy to spend too many of those precious,
peak hours in the office. |
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We have expertise in Private Pay Home Care, Medicare Home Health, and Hospice including not-for-profit and for profit organizations. Our services enable home care agencies to understand and capitalize on the opportunities in their market.
The strategic and tactical services offered by Home Care and Hospice Marketing Solutions include:
Call (800) 293-5471 or
write us and see how
we can improve your home care and hospice sales skills! |
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I look forward to seeing many of you at the NHPCO Management and Leadership Conference in Washington, DC this week. Please make a point to come by the booth and say hello. My book signing is on Thursday (April 10) at 3:00 p.m. in the Marketplace (bookstore). My presentations include a pre-conference workshop on Wednesday afternoon (April 9 from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.) and my concurrent session is on Thursday from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. Home Care and Hospice Marketing Solutions' booth is number 111. Thanks for your interest in growing your referrals and enabling more people to receive the gifts of home care and hospice. Without your efforts, the ability to fulfill this mission is compromised. You truly are the engine pulling the train.
Have Fun and Happy Selling! |
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