As an agency owner, I used to feel like all I looked at was the numbers. I watched with triumph when they were up, and I panicked when they were down. I felt like I was on a never-ending roller coaster of referrals and revenue.
Once I found what worked for me, I made a commitment to making sure I would use what works every week. Today, I share with you one of my favorite ways to win more referrals every week.
Starts with a Weekly Win Call!
Every week I pull my teams together for a chance to review progress toward hitting our monthly census and admit/hours goals as well as give them what they so long for to win more referrals. Accountability! Yes, I did say accountability!
You see accountability breeds response-ability. We all want sales representatives to be responsible for their results, so let’s set them up to WIN each week. Invite each sales representative, Clinical Leaders from each service line (if you have more than one), the CEO, Intake and anyone else that you need to help motivate the agency to be in a growth conscious mode. Have the call every week on the same day and at the same time for ease and consistency.
WIN Calls give you the opportunity to help your sales reps be prepared for next week. Each win call we start by reviewing numbers. We look at admissions/hours MTD and how close in percentage are we to hitting or exceeding the goal for the month per location or per sales representative. After we review the numbers we move into covering the following 4 W’s:
Why Where What When
These four simple questions can transform your regular sales meeting from a jumbled mess into a solid track to success. The best part? It’s extremely easy. Check it out:
Why are you going out into the field to sell this week?
What do you believe about the services your company can provide? How does the sales representative transform their mindset into wearing a superhero costume? Have each representative connect to their “why” each and every week. If they can’t articulate how they are going to get themselves in the right mindset then the clinical manager can help by sharing a recent patient success story.
Your sales representatives will hear no over and over again when out in the field asking for the business. They need to control their mindset, so they never feel like an interruption but understand on a very deep level that when they go out and ask for referrals, they are asking to help get someone identified that needs our services delivered into their homes! They are changing lives, and we must help get them in that mind space every week!
Where are you going this week?
What are the new accounts that you will go to qualify? Melanie and I ask each one of the sales representatives that we work with to qualify every week at least 10% of the time. Where also has us focusing in on if there are any new people at accounts that you must meet? New social workers, or discharge planners, or new building administrators. If they don’t know, like and trust you they aren’t going to refer, so you must stay on top of getting to know the new people. I ask each sales associate if they are “3 Deep” in relationships with each account. If not, they know that is their goal and they will share with me where they are going to get 3 deep with an account.
What are you going to say to trigger a hospice referral?
What are you going to say to trigger a home health referral or private duty? What is the purpose of your sales calls this week. I don’t want any sales representative aimlessly running out to “visit” an account without a purpose. We love to give them a specific patient type, or trigger question to use each month to help their accounts quickly form an image of an exact patient that they should refer on the spot! Strategy, revel, qualify, or maintenance sales call. Role Play with your sales representatives to help them form what they are going to say to each account type they are going to visit. I almost laugh at loud when I hear an owner tell me, “Well my team isn’t good with role-play so I don’t force it.” Well folks, if they can’t roleplay it with you, how in the world do you think they are doing when they are out selling?
If a rep can’t role play they may need to get in a different line of work.
and of course… When?
Are you performing sales calls to the accounts the right day and time? Can you find out if an account is better served if you visit on days of discharge rounds? If you’re a private duty organization and you want to work with a hospice agency, are you conducting sales calls during the schedule Interdisciplinary Team meetings, that happen at least every 15 days? Make sure that you are keenly aware of when an account is best served by the rep to get the most benefit. If you want referrals from physician offices, you need to make sure that you are visiting on days that the doctors are in the office!
After a few weeks of running this “4 W’s to Win” sales call, your team will develop incredible pre-call planning behaviors that lead the top-performing reps to sales success. This win call should last less than an hour and should always start and end on time. Sales Representatives love structure and this give enough structure and it is holding them accountable to how they are working each of their accounts. It makes them stop and review their account list, to really own where they are in the sales process.
This is accountability without the manager or owner assuming all the workload. Hope this helps! If you need help with formulating your trigger questions, we got you. Check out our Roadmap to Referrals and gain 52 reasons a year to visit your accounts with a purpose.
Our roadmap has been known to 5x the referrals you currently are getting from an account. Learn more at www.homecaresales.com.
