I just completed a session for HCAOA annual virtual conference.
“LOVE Home Care – HATE Sales Management”
The theme – Rediscover the Magic of Home Care!
That is a great theme and an extension of that theme “Rediscover the magic of your sales rep.”
Many owners that we have worked with have shared with us (maybe you have thought this too)
Sales reps are SOOO hard to manage. I don’t know-how
I don’t want to manage my sales rep – I don’t even like sales!
I don’t like it SO much – I don’t even have a sales rep anymore.
Cheryl wrote this week about the value of a sales rep for your agency.
If you were not persuaded by her encouragement to have salespeople, let us go with the facts.
According to the Home Care Pulse Benchmarking study – I shared this in my presentation.
It is a fact!
When you have more salespeople, it will produce more results (read revenue!).
But you just can’t have a sales rep and like magic, have them produce! You have to have the strategies in place to hold them accountable, and that is where we come in – Home Care Sales has been empowering reps and holding them accountable for the last 20 years, and we have had to learn the hard way!
Lessons learned so that we can share with you the easy way!
In today’s blog, I will break it down for you in 3 easy steps so that you can eliminate the drama, focus on high-value client referrals, which will allow you to IMPACT MORE LIVES while INCREASING YOUR INCOME!
ONE: Alignment Agreement – We used to call this an expectation document
Five action items or less that you and your Rep agree upon agree
Examples include: Documentation, calendaring/ planning, expenses
This one document has saved me so much heartache. Recently one of our mastermind members used this document they have access to it in our resources vault. They went through the interview process- and with the offer letter to the Rep gave them a copy of the expectations.
The potential rep turned down the position because she felt like she could not commit to the number of sales calls. While this agency owner was sad, he put all this time and effort into the potential candidate. I told him – he dodged a bullet!
If she would not commit to meeting expectations on the front end, he would have been chasing and hounding her to complete the activity level and met with 100 excuses on why she could not achieve them.
TWO: Planning
The MOST HATED word in sales. Planning.
I don’t know of any rep or manager who LOVES to plan. They like to “do,” but you know you would head off to CA from AL without your GPS. You sure don’t need to jump in your car or on your phone without:
- Targeting High-Value Client Types
- Your Sales Message of the Week
- Your Home Care Sales Trigger Questions ™ that are going to reach into the current caseload and get you the EXACT referral you want NOW!
We do this through the Roadmap of Referrals program where we give the reps the sales message of the week and the Home Care Sales Trigger Question all DONE FOR YOU (click here to see it in action with Mike)
THREE: ScoreCard and Coaching AKA – Holding reps accountable
What are the metrics that you want to see?
- Hours
- Revenue
- Referrals
- Home Assessments
- Admissions
- Number calls completed
This Scorecard is filled out by the Rep each week, and the Scorecard is delivered to the manager or owner.
This accountability focuses on the “right activities that are going to drive the right results.”
This Scorecard is available in our Achieve program (want to learn more? Click here and have Mike show you)
Coaching is key to connecting with our reps. Its where you deepen the bond, create a “safe space” to problem solve, and offer suggestions.
We use the acronym of GROW:
Goal
Reflection
Opportunity
Win
Accountability – Empowerment = Blame
Empowerment – Accountability = Low Performance
Accountability + Empowerment = High Performance!
With structure comes FREEDOM!
You can do it! You can be the sales leader!
We can help
Keep Serving Seniors!
Melanie
PS Thanks, HCAOA! If you are not part of HCAOA – click here http://www.hcaoa.org/ to learn about this great organization!
