Mike’s Message:

Exciting Times!


I love the New Year, and the enthusiasm from clients related to sales and referral management training.  I love the prospect of the first Simione Square One Bootcamp of the year – they are always very energizing and it looks like a record turnout for February 27.  If you are thinking about sending a Rep or two to the April boot camp, I would register them now, as we are filling up fast.

In 2012, Client agencies are wanting ways to do two things: 1) increase revenues without increasing costs and 2) be able to sell at the C Suite level.

If you want to achieve either of these goals and don’t have us scheduled to help, contact me today and we will discuss how we can help you make this year a banner year! 

As you’ll notice in the Q and A section, this week I answered a question I get frequently, and is extremely important in these times where efficiency and effectiveness is the key to growth: if your sales reps are not producing or are not growing in their job, it’s time to either provide them with the training and support they need - or start over with new reps!  Gone are the days of having low performing sales people - with Sales and Marketing being the key to cutting costs while still increasing revenues, you can’t let a single performer be mediocre.  Here is a sample testimonial about the change in performance that Simione Square One Boot Camp brings about:

“It is amazing the results thus far. People have just handed us referrals! Thank you for invigorating our sales calls!” - Mark Kuhner

As always, if you have more than 3 sales reps, it becomes more cost effective for us to bring our nationally acclaimed sales training (http://www.simionetestimonials.com) to your site.  This training has an incredibly high return on investment, and will pay for itself many times over.  By coming on site, we will establish with you upfront how we will measure the success of our training or consulting and help you understand and increase your return on investment.

Check out our new online courses to see if we can help support you to get maximum production from your hospital liaisons (http://www.simione.com/store/).  That program also pays for itself in a hurry, as do our other online courses that include sales management, goal setting / accountability and handling objections.  We will continue to roll out new courses as the year progresses, so dont hesitate to contact us with questions about any of them. 

Our job is to help leverage your time and resources.  As a result, we keep adding to the Square One Bootcamp training in order to increase the value and return on investment. For instance, it now includes online study courses taught by our best trainers in order to have the time spent with our trainers in Chapel Hill focused on the adult learning activities that will better integrate these lessons: group activities and video role plays. 

Exciting times, indeed!  Please take a minute and send me a quick email with what has you excited, or concerned.  Simione Healthcare Consultants stands ready to partner with you to help improve your efficiency and increase your revenues.  I know that my entire team loves doing what they do because it helps you better tell your story in the community - which results in more people getting the gift of home care and hospice.

Happy Selling!
Best,
Mike

New Year and New Day

It’s a new year and a new day for home care and hospice.  Your successes in building relationships and driving referrals today and throughout this year will dictate success in the years ahead.  It is clear that relationships built upon value add and trust will drive decisions related to post-acute bundling, ACOs, etc.  It is also the case that we need to serve as many patients as possible in today’s environment to capture and retain earnings.  So, the sales management role and the sales professionalism of your team is more important than ever.

What have you done to prepare?  You need new sales campaigns designed to deliver targeted results.  You need to develop new smart questions.  The smart questions should include probing and closing questions designed to drive increased results.  It is time to review and revise all of your sales strategies and tactics to seize the day, to seize the opportunities that will drive success in 2012 and beyond.

Today is a good day to review your referral management program.  Are all of the processes designed to make your referral management team adept at capturing and converting the most referrals?  The way that your referral center is designed, from the flow of information to its staffing will drive increased business.  2012 should be the year of referral management excellence – you can’t afford for it not to be!
Over the course of 2012 we will be continuing to introduce training programs that will support your sales and referral management efforts.  Expect to see more eLearning opportunities to support you and your teams.  We will be providing customized training at client sites and also providing customized online training specific to individual clients.  We will be assessing and evaluating sales and referral management programs and processes to make recommendations to ensure that our clients maximize their ROI.  Let me know how we can help support you and your team to exceed all of your goals and projections.

Here’s to a very successful New Year and to Happy Selling!

Best,
Mike

Use Testimonials

What others say about you carries a LOT more weight than what you say about yourself.  When developing your materials and sales campaigns for the coming year, look for ways to use testimonials to support your benefit statements.

When you use testimonials, make sure that you follow these simple rules:

-Get permission to use the testimonial
-Get permission to use their full name and company. The difference between a specifically identified individual or company is much more forceful than one that has a generic or de-identified name attached to it
-Use their words so that it sounds like them, that being said sometimes you have to help them edit their thoughts
-Use testimonials that underscore your value proposition and speak to your audiences needs and objections

Find people who are similar to the ones you are seeking with your marketing. Here’s a link to a page of testimonials about the Simione Square One Bootcamp, where you will notice that our clients have no problem saying what they think about the value of the program, both in written and video format.

This will be our last Legendary Sales Leadership Letter for 2012 - watch for the next issue to arrive the first Tuesday of January 2012.

Very safe and happy holidays to you and yours, may you achieve all of your goals in 2012.

Happy Selling!

Best,
Mike

An Efficient Plan For 2012 and Beyond Starts With Knowing All the Benchmarks

Building on the theme of the last newsletter, as you plan for 2012, do you have all the data you need to create an efficient and effective plan? As they say, if you don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you’re going? This is never more true than when creating budgets and plans for the upcoming year. As Rob Simione will discuss in this week’s guest column, the Simione Financial Monitor has helped many agencies, large and small, get all the data they needed to see their current benchmarks, the benchmarks in their region, and where they need to focus in order to improve their bottom line.

Are you using medicare cost reports as the backbone for your planning? This is a good start, but has a number of limitations to it that can’t compete with real time data that shows the big and little picture of what’s going on in every division of your agency and your region. Ever wanted to know what other agencies in your region, or other agencies of your exact size and business model are doing across the country? Ever wanted to know how the top 10% of agencies function on every level? Knowing this data really helps nail down the specifics of where each dollar in your agency needs to be spent to increase your referrals and admissions. 

Ever wanted to see how each new regulatory change has affected your agency, and others in the nation? This will become increasingly important as more changes come down the pipeline, and the Simione Financial Monitor can be the guiding light.

Built with a cutting edge Business Intelligence Engine, the Simione Financial Monitor will be one of the key tools used by agencies who want to grow their business in 2012 - and with a forecasting and budgeting tool soon to be released, planning at the end of every year will soon be a breeze.

For more information on the Simione Financial Monitor, email , or attend the FREE webinar on the Simione Financial Monitor (information in his guest column below).

As always, thank you for all that you do, and I hope you had a fantastic thanksgiving!

Happy Selling,
Mike

Know where you stand and plan intelligently for the future

With the holidays coming up, it means one thing - 2011 is coming to a close faster than we anticipated. Hopefully you are meeting or exceeding the goals you set out for yourself and your agency earlier this year.

After talking to several people recently who use it, I am really excited about the tremendous value the Simione Financial Manager is bringing to our clients.  For years, as many of you know, one of my missions is to establish valuable benchmarks to determine where the best practices lie in home care and hospice sales and marketing budgets.  In this issue and the next Rob Simione, who heads up the Simione Financial Monitor, will provide some updates and value adds for the agencies who use the Simione Financial Manager.  Knowing your numbers and how they stack up against your competition, your region, and nationally is just one small morsel for what the SFM does, but most importantly it is a system that compares apples to apples (which was something that was sorely lacking in our industry).

Planning for 2012 and beyond, you need to know how you compare to the benchmarks, what your market share is currently, and determine your best opportunities for strategic, and continued growth.

Happy selling,
Mike

How Fast is Your Year Passing?

Hard to believe that we have reached the last two months of the calendar year!  The World Series has passed (congrats to the Cardinals) and finally, college basketball season is starting.  As many of you know, in Chapel Hill (where I live) there are two seasons – basketball season and waiting for basketball season!

And what a year, so far.  Mother Nature has not been kind with severe droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and now an early heavy snow.  What’s next?  The only thing that we know for sure is that home care and hospice will weather whatever is thrust upon us and serve the needs of the frailest citizens without fail and without fanfare.  We have always been the unsung heroes, angels in the lives of so many, without getting any credit.  Thanks to all of you for weathering 2011 to date and for all that you do.  The sales professionals reading this need to reinforce their resolve to reach more referral partners and have them see home care and hospice as a solution for more of their patients.

Where are you related to your goals for the year?  What will you do to kick it into high gear for the last 60 days?  We are seeing a large increase in demand for our on-site and online training as people want to make sure they are well positioned for 2012 and beyond.  Some are using unspent budget dollars before year end and others are finding the funds to invest in their sales teams.  Please let us know how we can help – if you’ve been meaning to take action, and haven’t, now is the time. If you have any questions about any of our services, or our online courses, email .

Simione Healthcare Consultants provides all of the solutions to any of your needs, many times I find that when talking to readers they think that all we do is sales, marketing and referral management consulting and training.  What they came to find was that the whole Simione team consists of the top experts in all areas of home care and hospice – from clinical operations, to financial operations, compliance, IT, due diligence, and everything in between. Let us know what is keeping you up at night – we can fix it!

Best to you all and Happy Selling,
Mike

Sales Management:  the Key to Successful Sales Training

I have had the honor and pleasure of training thousands of home care and hospice sales professionals and know one thing for sure; the best success stories are from those that have good sales management following training.  Sales people come into training with great intentions and they leave pumped up and armed with many new skills.  The key to success is that they apply them immediately and see for themselves just how much easier their job gets and just how much more successful they can be.  One of my team and I had the pleasure of working with a great team in New Mexico last week and I am very confident they will do well because they have strong sales management that will hold them accountable and mentor them to great success.

Given the importance of strong sales management, today I am happy to announce that our newest online training course is now available for order – this time specifically to help Sales Managers find, interview, hire, and keep the top sales reps in the industry. This Simione University course is the first in a series we call “Legendary Sales Management”, and this course is called “How to Recruit, Interview, Hire, and Retain Top Sales Reps”. With our Simione Online University, we can deliver top notch training direct to your computer via interactive videos, slides, assignments, and support materials to download that will help guide your use of the new skills you learn. Order your copy today by clicking here and receive the special introductory price of $199 for our subscribers.  Price goes up on November 1st, so don’t delay.

Thanks for all that you do, we love to hear of your successes.

Happy Selling!

Best,
Mike

BTW, we just had a cancellation for the October 24-26th Square One Boot Camp - so if you’ve been on the fence about sending your Rep, there is now a seat available for the last training session of the year. Click here for more information or to register.

See Us At NAHC!

We are putting this special issue of our newsletter out early because we’re all going to be a NAHC next week. Please come see us in our booth (#706), where we will be on hand to discuss specific solutions that will help boost your referrals and admissions. We are also having an iPad drawing, and are participating in the NAHC scavenger hunt. As well, I wanted to invite our newsletter readers to a special VIP party we’re throwing at the MGM grand in Studio 54 on tuesday, october 4th, from 6:30-10pm. Our newsletter readers are our biggest VIPs, so please come down and join us for some fun. More information on all of that can be found here

We will also be on hand to talk about and show you our brand new Simione University online learning center, and taking special pre-orders for upcoming classes, including for Intake Coordinators, Sales Reps, and Sales Managers. Anyone who pre-registers for the courses will get them TWO WEEKS before the general public will, so you’ll get a big head start against your competition.

We treasure and value all of our readers - what you do changes people’s lives, and without you many would go without the help they need. So even if it’s just to say hello, please come down and see us - we would love to see you. When you stop by, you may also notice our brand new logo and tagline - let us know what you think.

Lastly, for those of you who are on the fence, this October 24th is the last Square One Boot Camp of the year, and we only have 5 seats left. If you’re thinking about coming, now is the time to sign up. 

Have a great weekend, and see you all in Vegas!

Most Important Skills

We train many home care and hospice sales professionals, both at the client site and at our Simione Square One Bootcamp.  What we know is that if we can send the sales professionals out into their territories asking really good, smart questions and prepared to handle their most commonly heard objections, they will be highly successful and productive.

Here is what is important:  Make sure your sales team are asking smart open ended questions to get the referral partner to tell them what is important to them.  They should ask about challenges, frustrations and problems and let the referral partner talk.  Then follow up with appropriate closing questions that relate back to the problem identified and be well prepared to answer any objections they raise. 

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  Too bad it isn’t that easy for sales professionals to learn and internalize.  Many times tenured, successful reps have the hardest time with changing their approach – when they do, watch out because they have the relationships to tap immediately into.  Newer reps seem to have the easiest time with these simple concepts, but they lack the referral relationships and industry knowledge.  My training team and I go back and forth on which group is more fun to train. 

If you will make sure your team is prepared with smart questions to ask and ready to handle the objections – you will look really good!

We’re launching a new learning module at our Simione University Online this week on How to Handle ANY Objection. If you would like to have your Reps learn these concepts before your competition does, you can sign them up here:

Preview Pricing:
5 Student Pack - $399
10 Student Pack - $649

Happy Selling

Best,
Mike

Back to School
“>1 Student for Handling Objections
With August behind us, and September ahead, school is getting back into full swing. My youngest son just started middle school (and he’s excited about getting a locker, let me tell you), my daughter is starting her senior year of high school (and excited about getting to leave campus for lunch), and my son Ted is the new Dean for our Simione University Online.  It’s hard to believe, but just one week ago we were in the middle of Square One Boot Camp, and Simione University Online did a preview launch of it’s first course for Hospital Liaisons. If you’re still interested in getting this course for the preview pricing, click here for 1 student, here for a 5 student pack, and here for a 10 pack. In just one week, we’ve had a number of students finishing the course and telling us it was full of valuable and actionable information.

We had a great group at Simione Square One last week - they were lively, excited, engaged, and definitely what I like to call “point fiends”. There was healthy competition in the group exercises and roleplays, let me tell you. I got an email from one of the students who is a sales manager who came with others from his company who said “It is amazing the results thus far, people have just handed us referrals! Thank you for invigorating our sales calls!”. I love hearing about all of our students successes, and that was by far the quickest turnaround from attending boot camp to getting an email update talking about how much success was already being achieved. For more information about Boot Camp, email .

So, with summer having wound down, what are you doing to prepare for fall and winter? As we all know, we’re going to soon get into the seasons that exacerbate the symptoms for many of our highest referring diagnoses - COPD and CHF. Are you preparing a marketing campaign or specialty program to capitalize on the season and help those patients?

I hope everyone and their families had a great summer, and thank you for all that you do.

Happy Selling,
Mike

Hospital Nurse Liaisons:  Key to Smooth Transitions Home

There are countless agencies across the nation who employ hardworking nurses to assist the transition of patient from hospital to home with hospice or home health services.  Over the years, these nurses have played a key role in making sure that their agency was able to provide the value add to the lives of the patients and families, while also being of enormous value to the referral partner.  Never has this role been more important than it is today - for all parties.  The only change is that agencies cannot afford to have these essential players be less than highly efficient.

One of the challenges has been to provide training and support to the nurse liaison to help them produce more with less.  Our team have gone on site, all across the country, and provided coaching and training programs but, until today, there has been a gap in the resources available to home health and hospices.  This week we are rolling out our newest online training program, specifically for nurse liaisons, that is designed to train and support the specific needs of the nurse liaison.  This program includes all the bells and whistles of the top industries in the country - interactive video lectures, assignments, quizzes, and support materials to download and use in the field. This program ensures that every nurse liaison serving hospitals and other facilities will operate at the highest possible effectiveness.

If you want to make an investment that will pay for itself many times over, sign all of your nurse liaisons up for this online training course today. For information on how to sign up, or if you’re interested in a custom online course for your agency, email

Thanks to all of the nurse liaisons and the great difference you make in your communities - we are honored to provide you additional support and coaching to make your lives easier, and your role even greater.

Are You Too Busy?

Sometimes we all get bogged down with the enormous job of providing quality home care and hospice within the bounds of all of the regulations and requirements.  At the 30,000 foot level, it is easy to know that we must drive more admissions to maintain our mission.  But sometimes it is difficult to maintain that focus when you are deep in the forest! 

Most of you have heard me say this before, so bear with me.  My entire team and I are driven by one simple goal – supporting, enabling and empowering our clients to provide more families the gift of home care and hospice.  We would not spend as much time as we do on the road to help sell “widgets”!  Thank you for all that you do, your success is what drives us.  Lean on us to support you in your ongoing mission to provide care with a growing census of patients.

Over forty percent of our readership is senior management and it seems that there are two common discussion points I’ve encountered in recent calls and emails. 

1 - When requesting proposals for our services most have made a comment like, “we’ve been meaning to do this for some time, but other things kept popping up!”
2 - The other common element is that, when discussed, the referral management part of the organization is impeding the flow of referrals to admission.  That is many times the best place to start since it only makes sense that if we are investing in sales and driving more referrals, we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot by not being able to service the referral partners and get their patients admitted. If you’d like a mystery call to assess your current intake practices, contact .

So whether you have one sales professional to train or one hundred, or if your conversion rate is 90% or 60%, let us know how we can help - it is after all why we do what we do.

Happy Selling!

Best
Mike

Is Your Sales Team Disheveled?

In a conversation with a sales manager this morning, he commented that when he first took the position, he felt his sales team was disheveled. It made me think how often I hear similar comments.  We’ve all walked into a business that is disheveled looking and immediately had the impression that they don’t have their act together.  The business may have strong revenues and offer quality products or services, but something is out of whack.  Many clients we work with have the illusion that their sales team is working at high efficiency because admissions are up.  But the truth is that the sales team and its management are not hitting on all cylinders.  The key is to always be checking to make sure that all is in order and the team is operating at maximum efficiency at all times.  Don’t wait until admissions are flat or down to start looking at the sales team. 

One of the key areas is in sales planning and territory management.

From sales management’s perspective, are all of the team members operating at top efficiency and aligned as to goals, methods and results?  Do they wake up every morning knowing exactly what is most important for the day ahead?  Do they know which accounts are their greatest opportunity for growth?  Every sales professional should be managing their time and territory in the same fashion.  They should all be on the same page as to what is most important to the agency and delivering a consistent message and using the same sales skills.

From the sales professional’s perspective, is it their belief that they wake up every morning knowing what they must do that is most important.  Do they feel that they and the rest of the team are all operating in similar fashion with similar goals?  Are they facing the same challenges and having similar results?  If you ask them at any given time, can they give you the top five opportunities for growth and where they are in the plan to reach their potential?  Do they know where they stand month to date with admissions and how that compares with their goal?  When they request support or when you ride along with them, do they know where they need help and why?

So ask yourself, is my sales team disheveled?

Happy selling!

Friends, Coaches, Sales Teams, and “Pure Gold”

As many of our readers know, the Simione Square One Bootcamp has long been the most acclaimed sales training of our industry. And while we cherish all the testimonials we get, from students and sales managers alike, I was recently incredibly humbled by what one of our June Boot Camp students told my son (and Senior Trainer) when he was doing our follow up coaching calls:

“Your training is so different than others I’ve attended. I just feel like I have the support and guidance I need to succeed, and true friends who I know will always be there to help me when I need them”. 

My son and I were both touched by this - over the last 8 years, we’ve built a big community of former students of Square One, many who are the top performers for their companies. Every time we go to national conferences, it’s like a big coming home party, as we love seeing and spending time with our former students.

They are the ones who drive us to keep improving Square One Bootcamp, and it’s because of them that we’ve implemented new online pre and post boot camp training to help our students. Online training that Raymond Tuazon, a June Boot Camper, called “Pure Gold!”.

To Raymond, and Laure, and everyone who has ever come to Boot Camp, thank you for being a part of our family. We are honored, and humbled, and glad to hear of all your successes.

And thank all of YOU for everything that you do.  My entire team and I are driven by one thing; if we can make you better at telling your story and getting patients on service quickly, more people will receive the gift of home care and hospice.

Independence Day – July 4th

Next week will mark the 235th Birthday for the USA!  When the Founding Fathers envisioned what our nation would look like over the years, they may not have foreseen what we look like today!  But, we are who and how we are because of their careful planning and preparation.  The ideals, laws and plans they crafted fit together to produce a world leading free nation over 200 years later.  Happy and Safe Fourth to you all.  Take a moment to reflect on what the holiday means and give your thanks to all that have preserved our ideals over the years.

Can you clearly define what you envision your sales and referral management programs will look like next year?  Let’s hope so!  The planning and processes will dictate your success over the coming years.  Making sure that you have the most efficient and effective sales and referral management programs today will provide the foundation for the future.  The one thing we know for sure is that we will have to generate more admissions with less expense - and our special report on Referral Management Systems has the data to prove it can be done. If you’d like a copy of the report, please email .  Invest in your program now under better reimbursement to prepare for the future.

Thank you for all that you do.  My entire team and I are driven by one thing; if we can make you better at telling your story and getting patients on service quickly, more people will receive the gift of home care and hospice. 

Happy Selling!

Summertime and Bootcamp

Well, it’s finally here!  Summertime is upon us!  The kids are wrapped up for the school year and everyone is preparing for vacations.  The weather is warm and the combination of all of this can either be an opportunity for you or an excuse.  It is your choice to take the changes and make them into an opportunity, or wait until your sales manager asks the question and give them the age old excuse about things slowing down for the summer.

How can you turn things to your favor?  Look for ways that you can make your referral partner’s life easier.  How can you help them by freeing up their time when they are preparing to leave town and most importantly, how can you help make things run smoother while they are gone?  Of course the best time to prepare for the events of summer are in advance, so many of you have already done so, but no matter where you are in the process, seize the opportunity today!

We had a great time at Simione Square One Boot Camp last week (as those who subscribe to our Facebook page and saw all the pictures can attest to) and this class was one of my favorites.  We got to see the sales professionals start off with bang by learning all the concepts ahead of time with our new online learning modules (one student said “The online learning was pure gold!"), and they quickly got a chance to put all of their new skills to use with activities and roleplays right off the bat.  By the end of day one, everyone was exhausted but really pumped up about what they learned and how it all came together.  We do so much the first day, we HAVE to take everyone out for a really nice dinner!. 

It is always nice to see a group of sales professionals from all over the country come into the program with their concerns over who will be in the class, how they will perform in the video role plays, etc. and then watch them come together as a group of professionals and friends.  With the tremendous diversity of backgrounds in each of our classes, the students really learn a lot of one another.  One student last week even told us “This was by far the best investment EVER!”. 

The fall dates for Simione Square One Bootcamp have just been announced - August 29-31 and October 24-26, so be sure to sign up early as there are always a limited number of students in each class. 

As always, if you ever have any questions or are in need of some advice, you can email me at or Ted Ferris at

Introducing iSELL Online Learning For Home Care and Hospice Professionals”

With the rise of eLearning in other top industries as an affordable means of training, Home Care and Hospice agencies around the country have slowly started to climb on the bandwagon. In our industry, we’ve seen it mainly used for billing or regulatory type training, and less so with Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Intake/Referral Management. And frankly, our first few experiences with the various slideshows and presentations have left all of us at Simione wanting more. We wondered: where is the true interactive experience? Where are the proven adult learning techniques?

Well, after months of development, we are proud to announce iSell Online Learning. As my son and Senior Simione Trainer Ted Ferris likes to say “This ain’t your grandma’s webinar”. With every lesson featuring video, chalkboards, slides, interactive quizzes, note taking, and teacher led assignments, this most certainly is not like everyone else’s webinars and online “learning”. 

The June and August Simione Square One Bootcamps have the students taking several online courses in preparation for their time at Bootcamp.  The goal is to continue to increase the group activities and video role plays and lessen the classroom time.  Following Bootcamp, their Sales Manager (or whomever wears that hat in the organization) will receive a module that lets them know how to manage, support, empower and mentor their Bootcampers for best success following Bootcamp.  All in all, we have added tremendous value to the course and held the line on pricing! (for now)

While a very public roll out of online courses for Sales Teams, Hospital Liaisons, Sales Managers, Intake/Referral Coordinators, Agency Directors, New Hire Orientations, and more are coming soon, we’ve quietly been rolling out customized (or private label) courses to various agencies looking to get a head start on their competition. If you are interested in finding out how you can get this affordable training with a high return on investment for your agency, email for questions or to schedule a demo.

Happy Selling!
Mike

Win-Win-Win-Win-Win Situation

As many of you know, I have been on a soapbox to change the way that CHF patients are cared for in our country.  Please make sure that you and your sales professionals are very adept at selling home health and hospice services as THE solution to many of the problems faced by these patients.

A little background, CHF is a progressive disease that is very prevalent in our country.  All adult and geriatric healthcare providers have numerous patients with CHF as a primary diagnosis or a co-morbidity.  These patients are not only numerous but are time consuming and frustrating to care for.  The patients have the expectation of a slow but steady decline in functional status and eventually a drop off and death.  Every time their symptoms are untreated or under-treated and they have an exacerbation severe enough to warrant treatment, they lose functional status and do not return to their normal trajectory.  Too many physicians practice medicine in a manner that, essentially, says that for these CHF and end-stage CHF patients to receive home health or hospice services, they will have to have severe enough exacerbations to end up in the ED or admitted to the hospital (sometimes more than once).

Home health and hospice are the solution to keep these patients out of the hospital and help them live longer and more comfortably.  We represent a Win for all parties:

Win #1 - patients and families - live longer and have a better quality of life.  There are research studies that show that end-stage CHF patients live, on average, 40 days longer on hospice services than the same group of patients no receiving hospice services.

Win #2 - physicians - we take the phone calls off their staff’s plate, the calls in the middle of the night or from the ED and we reinforce the teaching that they attempt to provide the patients. 

Win #3 - hospitals - we can reduce the number of readmissions within the first thirty days following discharge – a statistic of growing importance to them.

Win #4 - the healthcare system - we are the least expensive venue of treatment for these patients and reduce the use of in-patient services.

Win #5 - your referrals grow and you increase your referral partner’s use of your services!

So, make sure your sales professionals are very adept at selling your services as a solution for CHF and end-stage CHF patients.  They should be very good at handling the objection, “We don’t refer to home care, we let the hospital discharge planners handle it.” They should get excited when they hear this as it may represent a goldmine for referrals and for doing the right thing.

We cover this sales strategy in depth at our Square One Bootcamps because it’s the right thing to do and it will build referrals!  We can come to your site to train or you can send your sales professionals to us.

Thanks for all that you do, please take the time to help create a better ‘mousetrap’ when it comes to the care of CHF and end-stage CHF patients in our country.

Happy Selling,
Mike

Maybe we’re not so different

I just had the privilege of moderating a panel at the LTC100 conference and I had an immediate observation. After interacting with the attendees and panelists, and hearing what physicians want from LTC, I realized long term care and home health and hospice have many of the same issues.

From a panel of doctors talking about how LTC can better market itself to physicians, we heard they wanted:

-better communication,
-better outcomes,
-less paperwork,
-make it easy, etc. 

In other words be easy, be good, and bring the “value add” to the doctor if you want to get more of their patient referrals.  When it came to what Hospitals wanted, it was the same thing:

- be easy,
- be quick to accept patient,
- lower the re-hospitalizations, etc. 

Sound familiar?

Now, if you interject the prospect of bundled payments, ACO, etc. then there is a new element - highest quality with lowest cost.  Again, much like what we are hearing in conversations with potential buyers of services.

The need for a more sophisticated sales approach from both of our industries is becoming very clear. Once we have to start talking about price and value, a very professional home health and hospice salesperson who knows how to ask smart questions, handle objections, ask for the referral, and problem solve for their accounts is crucial.

The other similarities are that the LTC community feels they need operate less in a silo, in order to increase their ability to handle higher acuity patients coming out of the hospital sooner and for shorter stays.

If all of these things sound familiar, it’s because physicians we’ve interviewed, interacted with, surveyed, and gathered data from have all said they want the same things. Are you delivering it to them? 

Hope your Q2 is off to a huge start, Happy Selling!

Best,
Mike

Earth Day 2011

We are always talking about how important it is that your message resonate with the referral partners.  One element of your agency’s story that is almost guaranteed to resonate is how you practice ‘Green’ home care or hospice.  This is Earth Week and Earth Day is this Friday, April 22nd.  This year, Earth Day’s theme is themed after A Billion Acts of Green: the people-powered campaign to generate a billion acts of environmental service and advocacy.

Earth Day is becoming one of the most important hallmarks in the world of conservation and recycling. It carries with it powerful connotations of ecological responsibility and taking ownership of our planet; after all, it is the only Earth that we have, and taking steps to lessen the impact that you and your fellow man have on it is nothing short of revolutionary.

On April 22, 1970, Gaylord Nelson, a United States Senator, founded the first Earth Day in an attempt to bring about a better understanding of the affect we have on our planet, and calling us to take action to make positive environmental changes in our community. The first Earth Day was attended by 20 million Americans nationwide, from college campuses to town halls.  Currently more than 175 nations all around the globe have their own Earth Days.

Celebrate Earth Day Everyday - Remember Every Act and Every Person You Touch with the Message Counts!

Great to see many of you at the NHPCO Management and Leadership Conference and the HomeCareCRM Summit.  Thanks for your kind words related to this publication.

Happy Selling!
Mike

Will You Be Attending NHPCO MLC?

If you will be there, make sure to stop by our booth to say hello!  One of the greatest gifts are those of you who read and value our content.  Your kind words are always appreciated.  Also, Polly Rehnwall, Kara Osborne and I are each speaking on topics related to referral generation and management.  Be sure to attend our sessions!

What are You Doing to Prepare for 2012 and Beyond?

With the release of the proposed rule for ACOs (Accountable Care Organizations) on March 31st, the clock starts to tick.  The initial program will start 1.1.2012 and be for a period of three years.  The program is designed to deliver shared savings to the Medicare program.  It incents providing higher quality at a lower cost for post-acute services.

Every ACO must accept a minimum of 5000 patients, among other requirements.  “Under the proposed rule, an ACO refers to a group of providers and suppliers of services that will work together to coordinate care for the Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries they serve.  The goal is to provide seamless, high quality care for the beneficiaries, instead of fragmented care that has so often been part of fee-for-service health care.  The ACO would be a patient-centered organization where the patient and providers are true partners in care decisions.” (CMS Transmittal March 31, 2011.)

Here is my quick read on this; ACOs will be formed and some of us will be on the inside and others on the outside.  This will make us no different than many other entities (physicians, rehabs, etc.) and will provide us with a true motivation to find our niche and own it.  What I mean by that, is we will have to be very good at selling our services and establishing a true value add to the referral partner.  Outcomes and cost will both be important issues to an ACO and to the referral partner with an appropriate fee-for-service patient not covered by an ACO.

Sales skills will need to really honed to build the relationships that will have many different, more sophisticated levels to them.  The days of muffin marketing are way behind us and your ability as a sales manager or sales professional will be in great demand.

Watch for more from Simione, Simione Solutions (monthly newsletter) and from this publication, the Legendary Sales Leadership Letter.

Enjoy the spring weather and Happy Selling,

Best,
Mike

What Motivates You?

We know that home health and hospice sales professionals who are passionate about the difference that their services make in the community are the ones who enjoy long term success.  Passion combined with a clear vision and mission equals success.  But what is your motivation?  Passion for what your agency does is one part of it, but how do you break it down and harness the power of being in touch with your motivations?

My team and I are motivated by the knowledge that if we help our clients better tell their stories in the community, enable better utilization of home health and hospice service, that more people will have the gift of home health and hospice services.

Each of us must be in touch with what motivates us.  Family, faith, goals and aspirations all come into play.  Make sure that your business goals are consistent with your personal ones.  Know why you do what you do and what success looks like.

For method actors, they have to know what their motivation is before acting out a scene.  They can know the lines and required movements, but unless they are clear on the motivations involved, they come across as plastic, insincere or out of sync.  Sales professionals have the same need, they need to know in every situation what their motivation is.

The example I would like you to take away from this is that you must have a plan for each key account, account and prospect and know what your motivation is and what theirs are.  We teach that you do not make a series of sales calls, but rather embark on a continuous interaction that takes place on multiple occasions.  Knowing what you are going to accomplish on the next interaction will keep you clear on staying consistent with your goals and motivations.  Don’t neglect to keep their motivations involved in every strategic decision.  After all it is about them and not about us.

Knowing not only where you are going but also why will make you much more successful!  With the culmination of March Madness upon us and the Men’s and Women’s Division 1 Basketball Sweet Sixteens set, think about what each team’s motivations are.  At this level of college basketball, coaching comes into play to balance the right strategic decisions with emotional ones, keeping their team knowing why they are playing and with the belief and confidence that they can win the next game.

Keep straight on why you do what you do and you too will be very confident about your ability to have great success.

Enjoy the Spring and Happy Selling!

Best,
Mike

P.S.  Go Tar Heels!

Doing More With Less

The one thing we know is that we (the sales teams) must deliver greater results with less budget.  Our worth to our organizations has never been greater, as is the need to be highly efficient.  The good news is that our industry has become more sophisticated in our sales strategies, sales training, sales management and referral management, and we are capable of delivering dramatic improvements in things like:

- Increased admissions
- Improved payer mix
- Higher ROI on sales and marketing investment

Judging from the successes of just one of our training programs, Square One Boot Camp, if your team can learn the best practices and be given the right tools to succeed, your numbers will skyrocket. The other thing that has become clear over the years is that there must be better sales management and ongoing training and support for the sales teams - most especially in the days following new training.  We have seen the organizations that send their sales people to our Square One Bootcamp and have good sales management follow up and support have even greater results.  We have long included a year’s worth of coaching and follow up training for attendees of the boot camp, but starting with this upcoming March 28th Square One, we are also including follow up training tools for the sales managers in order to maximize results. Right now, it’s more important than ever to know how to do more with less - and thats what our training and coaching is geared towards integrating into your team’s way of getting referrals.

Thanks for all that you do!

Happy Selling!

Best,
Mike

What a Year So Far!

We just finished the first Square One Bootcamp of the year and had a very strong group who really did a nice job on their video role plays.  The March 28th - 30th Square One Boot Camp is open for registration and starting to fill up.

The FFE (face to face encounter) regs are now six weeks old and I continue to hear questions and complaints about them.  It was great to visit a client’s site at the end of last week and hear that, “the FFE is going well and we have been getting a good reception from the doctors.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise since this agency is usually leading the way and out front on changes and innovations.  But it is reassuring that attitude, planning and strong referral partner relationships will make for a good outcome (even if the new regs don’t make sense).

Next week I will get to see many friends (including many readers) at the Power Referrals Conference in Las Vegas.  Kara Osborne and I are presenting a full day, twin track pre-conference program on Wednesday, I will be presenting the keynote on Thursday morning and Kara, Darcey and I will be in the Simione booth during the three days.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Finally, it came to my attention that Valentine’s Day is also National Organ Donation Day, so be sure to sign up as a donor if you haven’t already done so.  There are thousands and thousands of patients waiting for organ donations in our country today.

Happy Selling!

Welcome to 2011

You should have the year off to a big start.  As long-time readers know, I am a big advocate of getting ahead and staying ahead during the year.  Know your numbers and know how your will exceed your goals this month, this quarter and year!  You are the only one who has control of that process.

The FFE (face to face encounter) rule is now in effect - it is not enforced during the first quarter, but organizations should be implementing now.  The challenge we have seen nationally is how to operationalize these new requirements.  Software vendors are scrambling to update their software to allow tracking and billing edits for FFE requirements.  As the sales team, we must be out front talking with the referral partners to let them know that we are here to make it easy for them to comply.  Talk in terms of the benefits to the referral partners and make sure that this does not restrict referral to home care and hospice.

I am looking forward to seeing some of you at the next Square One Bootcamp (February 8 - 10 in Chapel Hill) (http://www.hchms.com/product-detail/24/Training/square-one-boot-camp) and others of you at the Power Referrals Conference in Las Vegas, February 23 - 25.  Make plans to attend either or both now, while there are still seats available.

Have fun and continue to let us know of your successes, questions and challenges.

Happy Selling and Best Wishes,
Mike

Face to Face: The Next Three Months

Happy new year, everybody! I hope the holidays went well for all of you and your families. Well, all of us got a nice gift from NHPCO regulatory this holiday season, as they are going to wait until the second quarter to start enforcing the new Face to Face regulation. We all need to use these next 3 months wisely, effectively, and strategically.

As many of our facebook readers know, we’ve added new sessions to our acclaimed Square One Boot Camp in February and March in order to fulfill a request made by some of our best clients. If you’re interested in learning more, please email .

Now, we’ve gotten a number of emails asking about what the new regulations mean and where to get more information. So, to that end, here is a collection of websites that has everything you need to know about what Face to Face is, and how it will be regulated:

http://www.CMS.gov

CMS Home Health Information Center:
http://www.cms.gov/center/hha.asp

CMS Hospice Information Center:
http://www.cms.gov/center/hospice.asp

MLN Matters is a news letter from the CMS’s Medicare Learning Network, here is the link for the one related to FFE for home health:
http://www.cms.gov/MLNMattersArticles/downloads/SE1038.pdf

http://questions.cms.hhs.gov/app/answers/list

enter “home health face-to-face”, for example, to get the latest FAQs related to the FFE for home health

National Association for Home Care & Hospice
http://www.nahc.org/regulatory/home.html — scroll down to the FFE sections.

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization has posted a list of FAQs at
http://www.nhpco.org/files/public/regulatory/FAQs_Face-to-Face_v2.pdf

Check with your local state home care and or hospice association for information, for example:

The Home Care Association for New Jersey is offering a number of FFE tools including a FFE
documentation guide for physicians at http://www.homecarenj.org/public/HealthCareEncounterTools.html

Face to Face Encounters

With the January 1 deadline rapidly approaching for agencies to implement the face to face visit requirements, I wanted to point out that the face to face encounter (FFE)rules make for a great reason to get face to face (F2F) with your referral partners.
As you know, I believe that the most important metric to track for activity is face to face sales calls.  They drive business and is the sales professional’s focus.  You should always be looking for value added reasons to have those face to face encounters with the referral partners.
We are getting lots of questions about how to “educate” the referring physicians on the new rules.  What we know is that we can’t “teach” a doctor anything.  They don’t like to be taught but they love to learn.

Some things you need to know to formulate your strategy to maximize the benefit of the new FFE rules:

1) How is your agency going to handle implementation of the processes to comply with the new rules?  You need to know this so you can explain what will happen to the doctor’s offices.  Make sure that we make
2) How the new rules benefit the physician - what’s in it for them.
3) How to present the information that the doctor needs to know in as concise form as possible and worded from their view point.  They don’t care what the impact is on you or your agency.
4) How you (and your agency) are going to talk about the FFE requirements from the positive perspective - you CANNOT have this be a “one more thing that Medicare is doing to us” conversation.
5) How to overcome the objection, “The doctor is just too busy to talk with you about this.”

This can be a major opportunity to enter in to F2F conversations with your referral partners.  Be out front on this and don’t wait until it is a problem for your doctors, hospitals, etc.  And, make sure you are the one who carries the message before the competition puts their spin on it.

December can be a superb month to grow the business and set the groundwork for a strong January - don’t fall into the holiday trap.  You know the one that says that your time should be spent delivery presents and attending holiday functions….

Best and Happy Selling,
Mike

Some Changes are Afoot...

Many of you have come up to me at conferences or emailed me to say how much you enjoy the newsletter. I am very grateful for your feedback, and thank you for your compliments. Because of your input, I got together with our team to discuss how we could improve and integrate more best practices and practical actionable items into the fold. I am proud to announce (as did last week on our facebook, twitter, and linkedin) that we are including two new sections to the newsletter written by one of our trainers, Ted Ferris:

1. Intake/Referral Center Actionable Item of the Week - this will be things you can immediately put into play in your call centers to maximize the effectiveness of your coordinator’s limited time on the phone with referral sources and families. They will all be things that we know to be the most proven ways to increase referrals, brand awareness, and good word of mouth in the community.

2. You Might Be Shooting Yourself in the Foot If… A Survival Guide to Home Care and Hospice - In the vein of Jeff Foxworthy’s famous “You Might Be a Redneck If…”, this will be a humorous list of aspects about our industry that we see all over the country, followed by ways to fix them.

Please let us know what you think about the new additions, as we welcome your questions and suggestions about the newsletter. As always, I am available for advice or to answer any questions about challenges your agency might be facing – just email me at .

Have a great day and happy selling!

Glorious Fall Weather

October is one of my favorite months of the year, it marks the beginning of the fall season, with all of its glory.  Crisp cool mornings, warm low humidity days, football, baseball playoffs, hockey and basketball seasons starting - what more could one ask for?  It is also the first month of the last calendar quarter of the year - time to finish the year with a kick and set yourself up for success in 2011.

The changing leaves are a great metaphor for many things in life, in this case to me they represent our opportunity to succeed despite the many changes in healthcare.  We can bring out the beauty of the fall foliage with the expanded usage of home care and hospice in our nation, we can bring hope to the barren branches of winter and lead the way into a bright new spring.  You represent the solution to the many needs in our healthcare system and it is your job as home care and hospice sales professionals to empower the medical community to use our services to their fullest.

As we complete this year, I know that many home care and hospices are gearing up for the many changes ahead.  The one constant that I hear is that they are looking at making sure that their sales people are effective, efficient and delivering a strong ROI (return on investment).  Our bookings for on-site sales training Bootcamps have never been greater than they are now.  The other area of focus is the referral management piece.  Making sure that the manner in which the referrals are handled, once the phone rings, generate maximum ROI.

Obviously, there will never be a more important time for both home care and hospice executives to know that their referral generation and management processes and people are fined tuned and hitting on all cylinders.  Let me know if you would like us to assess your referral generation and management processes and give you recommendations on high ROI refinements. 

Enjoy the fall weather before it turns cold, but don’t delay making plans and refinements to secure your future in 2011 and beyond!

Best and Happy Selling,
Mike

Fall is Finally Here!

By next week all of the schools will be back in full swing.  Since I have the honor of working with sales professionals across the nation, I know that some school districts have been back in school since early August and others are on the more traditional schedule of starting after Labor Day.  Another good example of how different each of your markets is.  When children are in school effects your business just like many other under currents that impact people’s outlook and schedules.  This is why my team’s job is so much fun, we get to teach proven sales skills and then help each sales professional adapt them to their market.  Adaptation is all about making these skills work in their market, the underlying skills however remain unchanged.

I had a conversation with a gentleman charged with business growth at a major metropolitan hospice program recently and we debated how his market was just different.  And while a major metro market is different in some aspects, the way that a skilled nursing facility operates and how they work with hospice(s) is the same in New York or Des Moines.  He just didn’t get it, or perhaps he just didn’t get it.  When I suggested that he needed to change some things, he resisted and pointed fingers at everyone else in the organization as why his numbers were in a long decline.  Our final disagreement centered around the fact that there is only one metric, at the end of the day, that is important to measure the director of business development’s success - growth in census.  Since his had been in a steady three year decline, there existed a problem.  Fortunately management saw the reason behind this and change is underway.  If he survives, he may even get credit for doing a good job!

Your Q4 plan should be in place, formalized and with timelines and metrics established for execution.  The last four months of the year are when you really need to kick things into the next gear.  If you have had a record year so far, as many of you have, then it is time to make it an even bigger success!  If you are on target or under, this is your last chance to bring your numbers up.  What you do today will impact the rest of the year.  What you do in the last four months of 2010 will determine how great your 2011 will look.  Building a strong book of ‘A’ accounts is dependent upon what you do on a daily basis.  View your sales calls as one long series of conversations within a bigger relationship plan.  Keep everything moving forward and keep building your best accounts.  Expansion of how they use your services is the best way to protect that most valuable relationship.

Have a great and safe Labor Day weekend and here is to a Fantastic Finish to 2010.  Email me with your continued successes!

Happy Selling!

It’s Back to School Time Again - Is Your Agency Ready?

While you or loved ones may be going to stores to get pencils, lunchboxes, notebooks, crayons, or dorm furniture, autumn and all that it brings is just around the corner. Is your agency preparing for the fall?

From ortho surgeons coming back from summer vacation with a heavy caseload to tackle to the growing menace of cold and flu season on the horizon, studies have shown that the next two seasons have the highest increases in slips, falls, elective procedures, respiratory problems, and more. Whether you’re a home care or hospice agency, you need to be gearing up to face these upcoming opportunities. Here are a some tips:

DO create a cold and flu specialty program for your CHF and COPD patients and referral sources. These could be a big new source of referrals every fall/winter season, especially when you approach referral sources that send you patients - but not their CHF or COPD patients (yet!).

DONT Over Screen The Consumer Calls: Especially in fall and winter, there is a tendency to dismiss cold/flu consumer calls as not medically eligible for our services, and thus never send someone out or log the call in as a “real” referral. While a consumer may be complaining about how dad is having a tough time with his flu, the unspoken underlying prospect could be an exacerbation of CHF or COPD. The same over screening could be said of other calls, such as slips and falls. Be careful, ask questions, and make sure there isn’t anything more there, before hanging up the phone.

DO Visit the ‘C’ account referral sources that haven’t been sending you any referrals lately. Despite what you may hear or what they may say, sometimes you never know the real reason you aren’t getting referrals from a particular account - especially after the summer season. When things pick up in the fall and winter (and they will), make sure you are a real presence - be there to catch those referrals when they happen. Don’t think that a drying up of referrals means anything until you’ve gone into the account, qualified them, probed for needs, and asked the right questions. 

DON’T assume your Reps can automatically handle everything that will be thrown at them these upcoming seasons. Make sure they get trained on how to efficiently and productively increase their referral numbers higher and higher while effectively managing all of their accounts. Numbers that plateau or drop in the fall/winter is a big problem, so use training like