Dear Friend,

New Year, New Decade!

Exciting times for sure! It is time to make plans for making this the decade of home care and hospice. You can make it happen by strategically telling the story in the community. We have been telling the members of Congress that home care and hospice are a solution to the health care puzzle. The best way for that to be seen is to make sure that we are caring for as many patients as possible. We must help the referral partners see home care and hospice in a new light -- they need to see that it will keep their patients out of the hospital and more expensive venues of care. It will improve outcomes and reduce costs. You are uniquely positioned to play an enormous and key role in the process.
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Have You Found Your Tipping Point?
by Mike Ferris

In Malcolm Gladwell's best selling business book, The Tipping Point, he makes the case that change happens dramatically and ideas spread like an epidemic. His idea is simple: for every product or service there is a tipping point at which time the message takes hold and the results are powerful. While it is applied in the book towards other industries, we can use the same concepts in Home Care and Hospice.

In Home Care and Hospice, there is a tipping point that defines the change from being a reacting service provider to a proactive sales organization.
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Your Website: Make It a Call to Action!
by Polly Rehnwall

The good news. Your website is up and running and you're getting more and more hits every day. That's what we're finding as we work with clients to turn their website viewers into hospice users.

The bad news. Your webiste is still passive in terms of getting people to take action. You want them to either contact you via email or phone to schedule a visit, right? Then that needs to be a key feature of every page that consumers are likely to access.
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A FEW SEATS STILL REMAIN FOR
FEBRUARY SQUARE ONE BOOT CAMP!

FEBRUARY 8 - 10, 2010
Courtyard Marriott Chapel Hill ($129 per night)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
(800) 321-2211 for reservations

CLICK HERE TO LOCK IN YOUR SEAT WITH A $500 DEPOSIT (balance due January 8, 2010)

The last few Square One Boot Camps have sold out weeks ahead of the event and from advanced registrations, we expect this one will sell out early, too. DON'T MISS OUT!

We have a strict limit of 18 students per class to ensure the low student to instructor ratio and hands-on training. Send us your liaisons and we will send you back highly trained home care and hospice sales professionals.

Here's what some of our most recent graduates have to say about their Square One experience:

"Square One Boot Camp gave me the tools I need to become successful as a marketing coordinator for my agency, as well as a valuable partner to my referral sources."
~ Ruth Quillen, Advantage Skilled Care, LLC

"Having been in hospice for six months without any formal training, this was an eye opener.  I now feel more comfortable and feel I’m better prepared for all aspects of the hospice referral process."
~ Richard Benton, Premier Hospice, LLC

"I am so blessed to be part of this training.  As a clinician without previous formal sales training, this training provided me with the confidence and new skills to do the job I’m now excited to do!"
~ Pam Gertig, Hospice of Northeastern Illinois

CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS (INCLUDING THE AGENDA) AND TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT!

Goal Setting
by Kara Osborne

As we ring in the new year, it's time to think seriously about our goals for 2010. You've likely already set your budgets for the year, but what will you do next? You know what you need to accomplish as an organization this year, but how will you get there? As a manager, you should set specific goals with each member of your sales team in order to help them to understand how they contribute to the overall mission.

In terms of development and productivity, it's important to establish goals for your salespeople in order to give them direction and purpose. Goals also let your salespeople track their progress, showing them where they stand at each step, and how far they have left to go. Goals also enable to you to achieve your end of the year targets by breaking them down into manageable pieces.
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Am I in the Right Place?

Sometimes I get asked, "how do I know if this is the right career for me?" by sales people who are either new to the industry or struggling to find their way.

This is an excellent question because, if it is not, there are easier places to make a living. There is no more rewarding job in sales, but only if it is right for you.

Here are some tips to discover where you stand in regard to this question:

1) Are you passionate about the difference your agency makes in the world? Passionate about the difference home care and or hospice makes in the community?

2) Make a list of pros and cons of your job. Which was easier to come up with, the pro or the con? Which list is longer?
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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:
I am a Sales Manager, and my salespeople are nurses. This is great, except that they keep getting pulled from sales to help with clinical activities. How do I set goals for them when their time spent actually selling is so unpredictable?

Answer:
In our industry, this is a challenge many agencies face. When nursing staff is short, it's very tempting to "borrow" a qualified salesperson to fill in. While convenient, this is NOT a good solution.
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