Dear Friend,

Report from NAHC Annual Meeting:

The 28th NAHC Annual Meeting concluded last week and it was great to reconnect with many of you, meet new friends and get up-to-date on what is going on in the industry. The general sessions were, as always, a true gift to membership. While much time was devoted this year to the up-to-the-minute status of health care reform (see update below) and its impact on home health and hospice, there were still some very motivational speakers.

Attendance was great and, in general, the outlook was very positive despite potential for rate cuts!

A special thanks to Marcia Reissig, Chair of the Annual Meeting Committee, for a great meeting and very good opening remarks to the meeting. She had the audience participating and managed to set the tone for the meeting and the vision that home care and hospice are the future of medicine.
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After Hours Referral Calls: "Night Magic" or "Nightmare"?
by Polly Rehnwall

Virtually every hospice highlights its "24/7" service in its marketing materials. But too few hospices offer anything better than the 1970's era answering service that we've all grown to hate if we have to contact a doctor after hours. One thing that you can bank on: the doctors hate it even more than we do. No one likes to engage in a game of pager tag!
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10 Principles of Legal Marketing
From Kara Osborne

The question of what is and is not legal in marketing your home care and hospice services is one we hear often. Denise Bonn, Deputy Director for the Center for Health Care Law for NAHC (National Association for Home Care and Hospice) did an excellent job of presenting the principles of legal marketing in her session at the NAHC Annual Meeting last week.

The theme throughout Denise's presentation was very clear; you cannot pay for referrals. Anyone who receives or pays anything of value to influence the referral of federal health care business, including Medicare and Medicaid, can be held accountable for a felony. This is the basis of the Federal Anti-Kickback Law. Click here to read more...

Retain the Best: Part Two
by Mike Ferris

In the September 30th issue of The Legendary Sales Leadership Letter, we discussed monetary incentives for retaining your top sales people. In this issue, we'll continue that discussion with some non-monetary incentives.

Non-monetary incentives should be considered along with monetary ones, but not in place of them. These could include perks such as dinner with a spouse or a weekend getaway. The more creative and unique the perk, the more bang you will get for your buck. Whatever incentive you provide, make it fun! Try to include the family or spouse; without family support the sales person will never be as successful as possible.
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Focus on Solution Selling

In all of our sales training (and at the core of all great sales training) we focus on how to find out what is important to the referral partner and how to position ourselves as having the best solution. We refer to this process as Needs Assessment Selling, but it is also known as Needs Based Selling, Solution Selling, Consultative Selling, Stop Selling and Start Partnering, etc. It is an easy process to describe but many times is elusive to the home care or hospice sales representative. In our advanced sales training, we work through the process in detail to develop the sales campaigns that will deliver the results. In using this approach we teach the sales person how to be good at Needs Assessment Selling by using it to develop the program to sell their specific program or solution.
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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 is this week's question answered:

Question:
How do you overcome hospital gatekeepers?

Answer:
Many of the same principles apply to hospital gatekeepers as do to other types. The biggest difference is when there is a gatekeeper between you and the discharge planners. These are usually a clerical assistant or secretary for a group of discharge planners. They are used to sales people trying to get around them and as a result, you should start by acknowledging their importance and fi nding out how you can make their lives easier. Take the assumptive sales
approach and speak as though you work frequently with the department and you want to know how to best work with them.