|
|
"If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." ~ Thomas Edison |
|
In This Issue:
Our Top Picks
LEGENDARY RESULTS: Managing Referrals & Increasing Admissions (Vol. 1 - Referral Management)
LEGENDARY RESULTS: Managing Referrals & Increasing Admissions (Vol. 2 - The Admissions Process)
Field Guide to Selling Hospice Services
Field Guide to Selling Home Care Services
Sit in on a class for FREE! 52 Week eSales Training Course
17 Proven Methods to Grow Referrals for Legendary Results in Home Care & Hospice (eBook)
Want More? Click Here
|
Dear Friend, Celebrate the season with your accounts, co-workers and family. Rejoice for all of your blessings and the opportunity to make a huge difference in your community. It is a joyous time that is great for building stronger relationships with your referral partners and cementing your position with your "A" accounts. Don't let it get in the way of doing business and getting referrals. Make sure you let your accounts know that you are there to make their lives easier. They have more on their plate in the holidays and you can do more for them. Also, having home health or hospice during the holidays enable the families to be families and not caregivers. For hospice, the families are together and represents a good time to discuss the gift of hospice for their loved ones. Do not get caught up in the blizzard of gifts. If you do any gifts, make them as personal as possible and don't try to compete with all of the others. May you have only blessed holidays. Best, Mike Ferris All The Leaves are Gone and the Sky is Grey Looking out of my office window and contemplating the beauty of the woods --the myriad of bare limbs catching the sunlight -- I think back on the fall days and the colorful leaves falling like a snow storm when the wind blew. It made me think of one early fall day, evidenced by the crisp morning, the bright blue sky and the flock of Tar Heel faithful on Franklin street for a football game. It was one of my few days in town and I needed to go to the post office. Many would say that you should not even go down town on a football game day as there would be nowhere to park. I, however, have always believed in taking the positive approach. When it comes to parking spaces, my family thinks that I have a parking "angel" (based on my ability to find a parking space close to the destination even during Christmas shopping at the mall)! The fact is that many people don't even try and they have their belief validated -- there aren't any parking spaces. Needless to say, there was a spot right in front of the post office and I got to admire the beautiful fall day while whistling on my way to the post office. This made me think about the huge challenge faced by home care and hospice sales professionals, thinking of the worst instead of focusing on the positive outcome. In all realms of sales positive mental attitude is important. Whatever people believe passionately about will generally come to pass. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you wish. If we know that something is not going to work, more often than not it doesn't. This is particularly true in our industry. One consistent theme with home care and hospice sales professionals is that they are quick to point out what they can't do. I get lots of questions in training sessions that start with "what can I do about… it is keeping me from getting referrals." The bottom line is that everything is either real or perceived. If it is real, then use it to your advantage (the proverbial making lemonade when given lemons). Find a way to turn it to your benefit. If it is just a perception, get over it! When it comes to problems, there is one guarantee I can make to you: There are guaranteed to be problems! Home care and hospice have a million moving parts and they are all people. By definition, there will be problems -- so use them to create a stronger relationship. Whatever you do, do not run from them or try to hide from them. There is a common misconception that somehow the referral partners don't understand; that somehow they don't permit us to have difficulties and challenges. One example that comes to mind is the Director of Nursing at a skilled facility. When we have a staffing challenge with their hospice patient, they certainly understand the situation -- so just fix it! You can count on the fact that they deal with staffing issues daily. What we know for certain is that home care and hospice make an enormous difference in the communities they serve. We also know that whatever you believe, with feeling, becomes your reality. Whatever you intensely believe becomes your reality, positive or negative. Since there is a tendency to block out any information coming in to us that is inconsistent with our reality, sometimes the answer is right in front of your face. It is your choice, to have the trees that are bare of leaves be just as beautiful as those in the middle of summer or in the early fall. Announcing the First Square One Boot Camp of 2009! February 9 - 11, 2009 As a Legendary Sales Leadership Letter subscriber, you have the opportunity to sign-up for the first Square One Boot Camp of 2009. Seating is limited and will be reserved on a first come first served basis. Class size is limited, by design. Each student receives a high level of hands-on training with our super trainers. Video role play and live practice that is specific to their territory and company is at the heart of this program and each student is on video a minimum of FOUR times! There is a limit of 24 total students and no one agency may send more than three students. To reserve your seat at the first Square One Boot Camp of 2009, you may either pay in full or pay a $500 deposit to hold your seat (balance is due January 9, 2009). Here are the links to put a hold on YOUR seats -- and a huge boost to your referrals! To lock in a seat with a $500 deposit, click here. To lock in a seat with your full payment, click here. To view a brief video of what makes the Square One Bootcamp experience so special, click here! 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!" 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. Sales Tip Absolutely the greatest opportunity to grow referrals for home care or hospice lies in the ability to expand the community's use of the agency's services. In our industry there are two basic ways to grow your referrals: First, to compete for patient referrals that have already been identified as needing home care or hospice services and second, by expanding the community's use of the services. In most markets, the latter represents the greatest opportunity. Yet, in most organizations, the focus is almost entirely on competing for the patients for whom the decision to refer to home care or hospice has already been made. And talking of competition, if you are helping a referral partner see new ways to use your services, at that moment, you have no competition for those referrals! A great example is the physician practice (Internal Medicine or Family Practice) that tells you that they don't make referrals to home care (or hospice), "we let the hospital discharge planners handle those referrals." What a gold mine! Assuming this is the case, think of how many patients that are not receiving services that would keep them from going into the hospital in the first place. If this practice waits until a CHF patient requires hospitalization to receive home care or hospice, they will not be enjoying all of the benefits that you can bring to them. So for the least amount of competition and the greatest opportunity to impact the lives of all involved, seize that opportunity and turn it into a high volume referral partner. As an industry, we are always looking for ways to engage our entire organization in the quest to get more referrals. Since the expansion of the use of services speaks right to the heart of our mission, it is absolutely the best way to enlist the entire organization in selling your agency to the community. In hospice, these approaches will both increase the percentage of patients who have the gift of hospice and have them referred earlier in the process. Use these strategies to deliver growth opportunities that will continue to deliver results for many years. One of the things that we know is that it takes really well honed sales skills to convert the potential referral partner who is only using a fraction of what we have to offer to one that is making broad use of our services. The sales people must be very adept at asking very good probing questions to get the referral partner to tell them of the problems created by these patients who are not receiving home care or hospice services. The other thing that is required is the ability to focus on these strategies over an extended period of time with each account. This is where good account information, strategically planned sales calls and well designed follow up pay huge dividends. Program Rep Training So you've taken the step of using the split visit model in which program reps meet first with the patient and family to discuss their needs and offer hospice solutions. They also conduct the registration part of admission by completing the consents and other non-assessment papers. Use them for every referral: Many hospices think that they'll use the reps just for the "not sure yet" visits, but send the nurses when it's a definite admission. Why send two staff when the nurse will have to go anyway? Admissions nurses should be used just for the clinical assessment. Having them do the initial discussion and the sign-on papers is not a good use of this valuable resource. Responding faster: A key reason for using this model is to respond faster by scheduling visits sooner. Delays are inevitable if a nurse is doing both parts of the visit. Managing visit length: Bad habits can develop if reps only have 2 visits/day. Why not just chat longer with the family? Then this becomes a bad habit to break as referrals grow.
Marketing in down time: If they don't have enough visits in a day, tell them to introduce themselves at nursing homes and physician offices. While registration visits will be their priority, they can use less busy times for referral development activities.
Getting them used to it: Referral staff and admissions nurses all need to think about this process differently. Using a program rep for every visit is the best way to do it. "Clustering" Questions for Maximum Efficiency Every nurse will tell you that a major roadblock to reducing admission visit time is answering all those questions that families ask. Many of these involve details that are really more appropriate for the care team to discuss, such as how the family will juggle caregiving roles, where supplies should be kept, which room the patient's bed should be in, etc. While all of these are important questions, they are not critical to the assessment process and should be reserved for the care team. But a major problem is that nurses feel they have to answer all their questions because "that's quality service and that's what we provide, right?" Yes, we provide quality service, but no, that doesn't mean trying to solve caregiving details that will undoubtedly be discussed again with the visiting nurse. Here's a way to help your nurses reduce visit time and provide quality service: Create a form that lists the things that families typically think about and provide space under each topic for them to jot down any ideas or questions they may have. This is a much more helpful tool at this point than the 30-page patient care guide that they have to go through to prompt their thinking! Here's a good way to respond to families: "That's a good question, and one that will be important to discuss with the care team. I'd like you to jot down all your questions on this form. Then before I leave, I'll check it and cover anything needing immediate attention." Examples of some list categories include: This is a time management technique called "clustering" and it refers to grouping issues (such as multiple questions/responses) and dealing with them all at once as opposed to randomly reacting to every query. Effective time management is all about control, and admissions staff must learn that controlling a situation by clustering activities is not only good for them, but for the family as well. Questions & Answers Question: What should our budgets be for each of our liaisons? They have to buy lunches, giveaways and other marketing supplies. Some spend a lot and others not a lot. How much is the right amount? Answer: This is a very broad question insofar as every agency and sales person is different. That being said, this is a very important issue. Here are some suggestions: Your budget policy must first reflect your organization's philosophical approach to giveaways and other marketing expenses. The budget for each sales representative should be consistent with their territory, accounts, and tenure. Newer representatives tend to use more budget dollars as they are out getting to know the accounts in their territory. New territories tend to require more budget than mature ones. From a financial perspective you must monitor spending and measure the return on investment. Tracking of expenses is very important for determining the return on investment as well as for tracking the amount spent on each physician or referral partner for compliance purposes. If your sales person EVER says something like, "I can’t make my sales calls because I don't have anything to take them," you have a much bigger problem. This statement means they are not a trained sales professional, and that they are making low impact, ineffective sales calls. Don't let the giveaways become the reason for the call or its focus. I would control what they use and how they use it. You indicated that they each buy different things to take to their accounts. This is another indicator that they are doing "muffin marketing" and not making professional sales calls. Plan everything to support your key messages and campaigns for the month or quarter. Provide the items to be used and specify how to use them in order to insure consistency and best results. You mentioned lunches, and when we spoke you indicated that they were the largest single expense item. Here are what I believe to be the key considerations:
Hope this helps! About Us Our Proven Process:
Delivering optimal results begins with an evaluation of your sales, marketing and customer service program in order to design solutions custom tailored to your agency and your area. Our experts know home health and hospice, bringing years of marketing and sales experience and best practices to you. Customized Solutions: Have one or a few specific needs? We can guide you through creation and implementation quicker and with more success than anyone else. Below is just a small sample of our capabilities:
With just one phone call, you can tap into all the resources and knowledge of
the home care industry's touchstone consulting powerhouse -- Simione
Consultants. Value Driven, Success Outcomes
More than 800 home care organizations have trusted the team of experts at
Simione Consultants, LLC to get them through the challenges of yesterday and
today, and to gain the leading edge for tomorrow. We provide expert assistance
to hospital-based and hospital-affiliated agencies, visiting nurse associations,
hospices, small proprietary agencies, and large national chains. The size,
capabilities and commitment of our uniquely qualified consulting staff offer
unparalleled industry insights and innovative yet practical solutions. Our track
record of engagements with successful client outcomes is unmatched. |
|
This newsletter and all content and information contained herein are the property of Simione Consultants, LLC and may not be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the publisher. 176 East Main Street, Unit 8 | Westborough, MA 01581 | (800) 653-4043 | (508) 366-7409 | Join our mailing list to receive new products, helpful hints, speaking dates, and more! |
|
