To subscribe to The Legendary Sales Leadership Letter, click here.
 

The Legendary Sales Leadership Letter 
  August 4, 2009

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal -- a commitment to excellence -- that will enable you to attain the success you seek."
~ Mario Andretti ~
 

In This Issue:
Welcome
Feature Article
Sales Training Corner
Sales Tip
Sales Leadership
Questions and Answers
About Us

Our Top Picks
(Click below image for more information or to order)

Complete AdmitRight™ DVD Set
 

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

Square One Bootcamp

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

Mike's Message

Dear Friend,

Happy Birthday, President Obama!

Health Care Reform: What Does it Mean to You?

I spent the best part of last week in Boston at the NAHC Financial Managers Conference and I can tell you that our industry is keenly focused on how to become better at operating home care and hospice programs. There is no doubt that whatever impact is felt as a result of the pending health care reform legislation, the end result will be that we MUST be better operators. It will not matter what type of agency you work for; EVERYONE must be much better.

What does this mean to you as a Sales Leadership Letter subscriber?

Here are my thoughts:

1) Never has it been more important that we generate a predictable stream of quality admissions.

2) Every sales person will have to generate more admissions to create a reduced cost of acquisition.

3) Referral partner relationships will be key to future success.

4) Sales professionalism will be the rule not the exception.

5) Sales management will continue to be the fastest growing job title and desired skill set.

You may hear those who predict doom and gloom as a result of the possible changes to Medicare home health and hospice payments, but you must be among the leaders for progress and change. Whatever the new system looks like, you are uniquely positioned to help your organization succeed.

What do you need to do? Here are my recommendations:

1) Analyze your sales program and processes. Are you maximizing the return on investment? What are you doing to continue to improve?

2) Increase sales training and management.

3) Be very clear on the strategic plan and desired results from your sales and marketing initiatives.

4) Hold sales team members accountable for producing results. If anyone is unable to carry their weight, cut them loose and find a replacement.

5) Contact your elected officials and let them know that home care and hospice are the solution and not the source of budget cut monies.

The House of Representatives are already out for their August break and the Senate will be leaving on Friday. While they are home in their districts and states is a VERY good time for you to contact them. Check their websites to see if they have Town Hall meetings or other events planned -- attend and participate.

Also, be sure the let the White House know your position on this important issue.

Here are the links to use the national associations' easy ways to contact your Senators and Congressman:

NAHC Legislative Action Network:
http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=nahc

NHPCO Legislative Alert Center
http://capwiz.com/nhpco/home/

It only takes a few minutes and you can make a huge difference! After you send your messages to your Senators and Congressman, then get 10 others to contact theirs. Look for ways to get your patients and their families involved as well. They need to hear from as many different people as possible as often as possible to drive the point home. They measure the number of messages for each issue and it makes a big difference.

Your industry and all of those we serve will appreciate you taking the time to do this.

Hope this helps. These are very exciting times in our industry and you are in the right place at the right time. Be a BIG part of the solution!

Thanks for all that you do and HAPPY SELLING!

Mike Ferris
Director
Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Consulting Division
mferris@simione.com

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Feature Article

Increasing Admissions without Increasing Phone Calls
by Mike Ferris

At a recent workshop I hosted, there was a universal need expressed by the participants to improve how the referral process is managed and the referrals managed. One of the complaints we hear from sales people revolves around the issue that they do not believe that their referral center/clinical team admit enough of their referrals. You will not ever erase this complaint entirely, but they should be confident that the referral center is so good at their job, that they absolutely did everything in their power to get that patient admitted. This relationship will foster strong team work between referral center staff and sales team. That only serves the referral partner better and represents a win-win-win solution. This is rapidly becoming a key area of competitive differentiation and an industry best practice.

It has always seemed almost criminal to screen our patients through the referral (intake) process. As an industry, we have historically done exactly this and, as a result, the numbers of patients admitted has been restricted. Further, particularly with hospice consumer inquiries, people who qualify and would benefit from receiving the gift of home care or hospice go without. They do not know the questions to ask, but rarely do they wake up in the morning and call a hospice because they have nothing better to do. When they call, it is a cry for help and we have an obligation to provide that help.

In discussing this with the national expert and my colleague, Polly Rehnwall, she shared that, "My experience is that, in most cases, we see a 15 to 17 % increase in admissions as a result of just managing the process better. No additional incoming calls, just better trained staff handling them and the resultant process." The process she shared with me is outlined below:

There are three basic components:

1) Record every call and track its disposition. This is key and you must not take the attitude of, "Oh, we do that." This is what we hear over and over again, "We have a referral log and every referral is logged." Baloney. We rarely see a system where every single call is logged and tracked. Most commonly, we see referral center staff trying to "qualify" the call as a referral or not. When they have not recorded a mystery call that was made to their department, the response is always that it was not a "real" referral. Stop, check your systems and tighten them up. The standard must be that EVERY call is tracked. Period.

2) Train referral center staff to understand empathetic needs assessment selling. The manner in which your staff handles each call will also dictate the outcome of your calls. They must be very good at asking open-ended probing questions and then really listening.

Since every call is now deemed to be important, no longer do they need to be listening for why they don't qualify. That opens them up to be empathetic listeners. It is the difference between listening to understand what is going on for the person on the phone and not listening to formulate a response. It is ALL about them, not you. Once you have no preconceived notions and are open to understanding, the true magic begins.

The other training for the referral center staff is a combination of customer service and finding out how we may best meet other current or future needs.

3) Follow up with every referral that is not immediately admitted. Since we are tracking every call, we have the obligation to follow it through to ultimate resolution. I am not suggesting that every call will result in an admission, but most will eventually. At the very least you are providing support and help to people in a difficult and trying time of their lives. You should have a tracking system in place and, after getting permission to do so, each call gets a planned follow-up program.

This article was focused on what to do after the phone rings and assumes that you have already taken steps to make it very easy to give the referral. That would include making it easy to reach the right person to make a referral and that there are not too many hoops to jump through. The number one most important element in making a decision on which home health or hospice to call, is EASY! This is especially true for hospice referrals where speed of response and ease of referral process is many times the top differentiator. If you are losing those battles, shame on you if you have a better hospice solution but are losing patient referrals because someone else is easier!

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Sales Training Corner

Seats Filling Up Quickly for September Square One Boot Camp

Don't miss out! Make plans now to join us in Chapel Hill this September for the next Square One Boot Camp! Send us your liaisons and we will send you back highly trained home care and hospice sales professionals.

SEPTEMBER 14 - 16, 2009
Courtyard Marriott Chapel Hill ($129 per night)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
(800) 321-2211 for reservations

CLICK HERE for details (including the agenda) and to lock in a seat!

"I am new to home health and was very nervous about coming to this training. I have to say now, three days later, that this was some of the best training I have ever been to. I learned so much, learned an amazing amount from the role plays and cannot believe how wonderful and nice the trainers were. Thank you!"
~ Stephanie Wenz, Midwest Home Health

To view a brief video of what makes the Square One Boot Camp experience so special, CLICK HERE!

Join Us in Dallas this November for AdmitRight™ Boot Camp

AdmitRight™ Boot Camp is designed for those who are charged with the management of sales, referral center and admission team for hospice. If you are in one of those positions, you need to attend this Boot Camp! You will come away with a ton of ideas on how to improve your processes to increase referrals, improve referral center and admission team processes. All of which will add up to increased ALOS, census and fulfillment of mission in community. More people will receive needed hospice services.

AdmitRight™ is specific to hospice and will provide you the tools and direction on how to train your teams to deliver the results!

NOVEMBER 10 - 11, 2009
Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Marriott ($159 per night)
Irving, Texas
(800) 228-9290 for reservations

CLICK HERE for details (including the agenda) about the Hospice Referrals and Admissions Boot Camp.

REGISTRATION OPTIONS:

Both Days, One Person, Tuition Only:  CLICK HERE

Both Days, 2+ People, Same Organization:  CLICK HERE

Both Days, One Person, Tuition + DVD:  CLICK HERE

ATTENDANCE IS LIMITED -- THIS PROGRAM WILL SELL OUT!

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%!

"I really enjoyed Square One Boot Camp and all of the lessons this year. I have shared the skills I have learned with my colleagues as well. A great program that I would highly recommend to anyone in the Home Care or Hospice business."
~ Barbie Sheldon – Delaware 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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Sales Tip

Getting Past the Gatekeepers

Preparation and cunning are two important requirements in successfully getting to speak with your intended customer. Get rid of the small talk and the typical sales person approach and be more creative and prepared. With a new prospective account relationship, your goal is to find out who calls in (transmits) the referrals for home care or hospice. Know as much about the prospect as possible. If you select your targets carefully and have pre-qualified them as being one of your top prospects, you must make the approach strategically.

Think about other referral partners in similar situations or fields of medicine. What are their attributes? What is most important to them? How do you earn their business? You must know that the key benefits are in working with you and your agency. If you are approaching an Internal Medicine practice and want to discuss how you can benefit them, your approach might sound something like this: "I specialize in helping Internal Medicine practices manage their CHF and COPD patients, reducing the number of phone calls to your office and keeping them out of the hospital. Who calls in the CHF patient referrals to home care? (or hospice?)"

Once you get in front of the referral person, you will want to gain their attention with a similar statement and then engage them with probing questions to find out specifically about their needs.

But, you are thinking, "Wait a minute, Mike, it is not that easy!" My answer to you is that it is just this easy to explain; the difficulty comes in executing these strategies in the real world you live and work in! It may take more than one statement of benefits or approaches to get past the gatekeeper. Remember that if they are especially good at keeping pesky sales people out of the office, then once you become the provider of choice, you want to help them be good at that job!

Some keys to dealing successfully with gatekeepers include:

~ Treating them with respect and as you would want to be treated. Never talk down to them or act dismissively towards them. You will want to gain their respect as not being just one more pushy sales person.

~ Find out what their needs are. If you can determine their motivation, you can gain access more easily to your potential referrer. Ask them questions about their job and what they do.

~ Remember that there is no right or wrong. Stay focused on your singular goal of having the opportunity to engage the person who transmits the referrals for your services. On your first call, you should leave with at least the knowledge of who they are.

~ On subsequent calls use the assumptive approach, "I am here to see Mary Smith (the referral person). Is she available?"

~ Do not get distracted from the task at hand. If the gatekeeper has not yet decided to let you speak with the referral person, don't confuse them by starting to ask to see the doctor or nurse, etc.

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Sales Leadership

Admit Nurse Orientation
Go on Marketing Visits!
by Polly Rehnwall

Most hospices with over 60 patients a day are now moving to an admissions nurse model in their core service area. Why? Faster response, less disruption for the team nurse's visit schedule, improved conversion rate of referral to admission, improved admission productivity, etc.

Down time dilemmas. But there can still be some down time until admissions volume increases and admission visits become more predictable. Don't make the mistake of using the admissions nurse to do routine fill-in visits for care team staff! They'll inevitably be in the middle of a visit when the admission request comes in. And now your ability to respond quickly is compromised.

Marketing role. Use the admissions nurse to do marketing visits instead! These are the drop-in variety and work best in care facilities such as assisted living and nursing homes, in which having a nurse "on the spot" to answer any clinical criteria questions can be helpful. Tip: Don't give them doctor's offices to visit. That's the kind of "in the trenches" work that is best suited to a professional sales rep.

Part of orientation. Even if your new admissions nurse needs to "hit the ground running," have them spend a day with one of your marketing reps as part of their orientation. The reason? They need to experience first hand the needs and concerns of referral sources, particularly around the key issues of access and responsiveness.

Not just once. And don't make this just a one-time event. At least once a quarter, your admissions team members should be spending some field time with a marketing rep. For example, it can help remind admissions teams of the difficulties that physicians have in getting patients to accept a hospice visit or how challenging it is to deal with after hours requests for admission when they aren't on-call.

For care team members too. Isn't it amazing how a critical part of any marketer's training is to spend at least 2 - 3 days with the care team members in the field visiting patients, yet the same isn't true for the new nurse (or social worker or chaplain) having to spend time in the field with a marketing rep! In fact, it's part of what creates a culture of elitism among the care teams and leads to their perception that marketing is something this is a for nonclinical (read: nonprofessional) staff. It's the old "we're above that" culture that is totally inappropriate in today's competitive world.

Reps and admissions. For many agencies, the marketing rep is frequently used as the backup for registration visits when things get busy. So their exposure to the admission process may already be fairly significant. But if they aren't typically involved in admissions, make sure they go out with the admissions nurse at least quarterly so they stay in tune with the needs of patients and families.

But don't over do it! If you've specifically hired someone as a marketing rep and you end up using them primarily for registration visits, then they aren't a rep anymore! This is an all-too-common flaw of agencies that recognize the need for a consistent presence in the referral community, but think that responding to the admission comes first.

While admissions are important, so is referral development. So if you have enough volume that you're chewing up over 30% of a rep's time doing registration visits, then it's time to hire a program rep. Remember that program reps should be visiting every caller, regardless of need. So keep them busy!

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Questions & Answers

In each Legendary Sales Leadership Letter, we answer your questions. Send them to us or call (800) 653-4043 and we'll make sure that yours are answered in a future issue.

Here are this week's questions answered:

Question:

Should we promote our best sales person to sales manager?

Answer:

Simple answer, NO! That being said, I guess I would say that in an ideal world, you would only want to promote a sales manager from your sales organization and in many industries this would work fine.

But we are in a different industry when it comes to sales and sales management.

In your example, at best you lose your best sales person and will see a dip in referrals from their territory during transition. That is the best case scenario. If they don't succeed as sales manager, you will lose them entirely. From my experience, your odds are stacked immensely against you if you promote your best sales person.

Let's say that you go ahead and promote them. Even if they are your best, they in all likelihood do not have the sales knowledge or ability to really shine as a sales manager. I will bet that they probably know little about sales management. Your goal is to bring your team up to a new standard, or you wouldn't be hiring a sales manager (or replacing one). They have been part of that system and shined.

Finally, my guess is that even though they are your best sales person today, you want to set a whole new standard of productivity. You should expect that a qualified sales manager will be able to take your top performers to all new levels of production (unimaginable levels in your current environment), empower your middle performers to become stars and help the bottom tier discover whether this is the right career for them.

Hope this helps!

Question:

Our sales team has really grown and the sales manager wants help. How many sales reps should a sales manager be able to manage?

Answer:

There are a couple of things I will say to preface my answer: 1) the organization must not burden the sales manager with too many administrative functions or meetings and 2) the sales manager cannot also be asked to manage a sales territory or group of accounts.

A good sales manager is always going to be very good at time and activity management, because that is one of the big impacts they can have on their sales team: teaching them these skills. They are very good at managing relationships and people. They are able to adapt their style to fit the specific sales person. The sales manager should be highly motivated and a great leader.

Given all of the preceding, my belief is that one sales manager is able to manage twelve to fifteen sales people and deliver results. More than that number and there is no way the sales manager can manage the team and coach the team. This is where the sales coach position comes into play. Your follow-up question undoubtedly then would be, "How many sales reps can a sales coach coach?" (this is starting to sound a little like the tongue twister involving a woodchuck...) We have seen that the best coaches (with no management responsibilities) can coach up to 20 - 25 sales people.

Much like the challenges of case management and staffing models for your licensed professionals, you should be hiring the next coach before it becomes painfully clear that you have exceeded their capacity.

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About Us

Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Consulting Division

Supercharge Your Referrals, Revenues and Profits!

Headed by two industry powerhouses -- Michael Ferris and Polly Rehnwall -- Our Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Consulting Division is designed to give you the easiest experience possible by providing the most comprehensive solutions to supercharge your referrals, revenues and profits!

If it only took one phone call to deal with all your marketing and sales needs, would you make it?

In an environment of growing competition and shrinking margins, you have to increase volume and improve market share in order to be successful. That means having a skilled sales team, quality marketing strategies and a customer service model that improves your conversion of referrals to admissions.

With every type of solution we provide, you won't just beat the competition -- you'll establish your competitive advantage for years to come!

Our Proven Process:

- Evaluate and assess talent, model and process
- Design customized solutions
- Assist with implementation
- Coach your staff
- Train your sales people
- Support your organization's continued success

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:

- On-site Sales, Marketing, or Customer Service Consulting and Training
- Referral and Admission Management Consulting and Training
- Square One Sales Boot Camp
- Marketing Program Development
- Interview Sales Candidate Video Training / Corporate Videos
- Collateral Materials, Sales Letters, and Advertising Consulting
- Mystery Shopping / Market Analysis

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.

We have an ability no other company can offer -- the only one-stop shop to handle all your marketing and sales needs.

Simione Consultants, LLC was the first organization of its kind dedicated entirely to home care -- a commitment we continue to maintain today. For more than 40 years, we have demonstrated we understand and are responsive to the changing and diverse business needs of home care and hospice organizations.

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.

Copyright 2009 | Simione Consultants, LLC | All rights reserved.

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