What is the value of a good handout?
I was recently onsite for one of my favorite clients. When I went back to the hotel on my nightstand was a handout. I had not seen it before, and I travel A LOT! It was an envelope. A money envelope.
On the front, ‘It was my pleasure to host you.” and it had a space for the housekeeper to write their name. On the back it said, “Thank you.”
Clearly, Marriott stepped up their game on their desire to gain housekeeping tips for their staff. I asked the front desk Manager on Duty about the envelopes.
How did they come about?
She reported that while it was usual and customary for the guest to tip the housekeeper for their rooms, many travelers did not and the housekeeping staff cited this as a concern.
So to prompt guests, they created a money envelope. I asked if they had any comments from the guests. She said a few called down and asked what they were supposed to do with them and when the front desk shared that some guests tipped the housekeeping staff she said the guests reported that they had never thought of that.
Which got me thinking:
How many of our referral sources have also NEVER thought about Home Health, Hospice, and In-Home Care??
– LOTS!
Without prompting, would they ever know about your care?
Of course, I believe historically, the most effective way to share your message is in person. I also think a great handout can support your message with a visual component and sell for you long after you leave.
However, I can report that sales teams that build a remote relationship can also send a PDF of their files. This gives you connection point a little “burst” of professionalism that can help you stand out from other agencies emailing/texting/calling.
An average sales call lasts about 7 mins with the unique selling point sales message being shared in 3 minutes the other 5 mins is rapport building and asking great open-ended questions.
What happens when you leave? In this analogy, do you have a money envelope like Marriott? Of course, not a real money envelope but an effective handout that is going to prompt referral sources to identify patients to refer to you?
Handouts are some of my favorite tools to extend the life of your diagnosis or unique selling point that week.
Handout Tip: Clarity is the key to your handouts
Your handouts need to be easy to read, as most are just glanced over. Use bullets and lots of white space to draw the eye to essential pieces. Here are the four main parts of a handout:
- The Hook in the title to bring your referral source in
- What is the type of patient that would be ideal for this topic or service
- Benefits of the patient receiving your service
- Call to action (CTA)
A great handout can be used all week at every referral source to detail while you are there in person and to sell for you long after you have left.
Handouts combined with your sales message of the week have a compounding effect of driving home your message, educating your referral sources, impacting more lives, and bringing home the money.
A specific home health, hospice, or home care handout each week is a TALL TASK. Many of you do not have Marketing departments or Advertising agencies that produce industry-specific handouts for your weekly sales visits.
Cheryl and I both experienced that too. We wished we had industry-specific handouts for our teams that supported our sales calls and helped us keep top-of-mind even after the sales call was over.
That is one of the reasons we created the Roadmap to Referrals. It is a sales system that not only provides you customized handouts (with your logo and contact information) but also LIVE monthly training to give your reps the words to say that have triggered 1000s of referrals for our personal teams.
Do you want in on a system that has produced referrals for our teams?
…And have the EASY WAY to gain customized handouts without the HUGE cost of a Marketing Communications firm?
Join other agencies like yours who became more successful on the map!
Keep Serving Seniors!
Melanie Stover, OT
Co-Owner of Home Care Sales
