This Case Manager SCREAMED at me…
This week on a coaching call for sales management, a rep from one of our clients (a Home Health and Hospice agency) reported:
“This Case Manager, which I have known a long time, SCREAMED at me that she was SICK AND TIRED of us not accepting her patients and was DONE calling us!
What should I do? We don’t have enough staff. I want to take all the patients, but we don’t have enough staff to take them. We have staff on our hospice side but not on our Home Health side, and our referral sources are MAD!
And when I say MAD- not like your normal – “huffy mad” – more like SCREAMING MAD – the kind when they yell at you – you feel it in your bones.”
This experience is becoming more common. I am hearing from reps and owners; this is their experience.
Anger – Compassion fatigue – Apathy.
From a logical place, we can recognize our referral sources are tired, angry they are in a situation again with numbers rising, not enough beds, overflow in the halls. They thought they saw the light at the end of the tunnel, but no. The pressure is mounting.
And unfortunately, it is spilling over onto our marketers, intake staff, and clinical staff.
And that, in turn, is impacting our marketer’s psychology.
Sales and Marketing, more than any other profession, is reliant on mindset. Have you ever seen a marketer pull big admission numbers when they are down? No. Me neither.
So how to survive when your referral sources are at the end of their rope:
Recognize that they and you are in an unusual situation with limited resources.
Identify and accept the things you do not have control over.
Be fully aware that you are performing a crucial role and doing the best you can with the resources available.
How to build resilience for yourself in Home Care, Home Health, and Hospice Marketing:
Increase your sense of control by controlling your account activity and follow the formula in the High-Performance Sales Process.
Plan your educational message of the week to increase your sense of control through your schedule and weekly planned sales messages in multiple formats – email – VM- and in-person.
Clarity in your numbers and expectations.
How to build a bridge to your referral sources
Connect to the human first. Ask them, “How can I support you?” They may laugh, cry or yell, and that’s OK – meet them wherever they are in their process.
Just talking about it and giving them space to share their frustrations is often enough.
The most profound relationships are built in the “trenches” during highly emotional events. And this is a “highly emotional event.”
Just know that you will get through this. We have been here before.
We know the steps to take care of our referral sources and ourselves.
If you would like help in caring for and supporting your team or your referral sources, we can help.
Connect with [email protected] to discover how.
Together we support one another.
Melanie
PS: Want to jump ahead and set up a time to talk to Mike? Just go here and choose a time on his calendar. It’s that easy!
