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2021 Sales Plan Development Guide

As the calendar year draws to a rapid end, many of us are eager to have 2020 be in the rearview mirror. This is the time of the year that sales teams start to plan for the upcoming year. 

If you are like most sales executives, you are focused on using the precious few selling days between now and year-end.

Unfortunately, you are also being tasked with creating your 2021 business development plans. Hopefully, this guide will help you create it with a little more ease.

The most important thing to know before anything else gets done is to know what you will be responsible for next year. What is your mandate? What are you responsible for accomplishing? Are your bonuses structured for 2021?  What will make your boss pat you on the back and proclaim you are a rock star? 

First things first, nail down what your VP, CEO, CFO,  or COO (…or whatever the title of the individual you report to) that you understand what they expect from you!

  • What growth goals have been set for the company?
  • What part of the growth goals are you and your team responsible for?
  • What services will be emphasized?
  • What markets will be targeted?
  • What major sales initiatives will be started in 2021?

Ideally, there is a well-structured plan or system in place for setting and hitting the company’s goals. A strong plan provides you with the direction that you need to build action steps to hit 2021 goals. Once you have the goals set, you need to think about the overall framework for planning.

Start building your Strategy!

Strategy: Strategy is all about HOW. It is HOW you are going to achieve those goals that are largely dictated by your leadership. They could include things like:

  • Key Accounts to target
  • Growth percentages
  • Growing Gross Margins by seeking certain client/patient types that have higher reimbursement
  • Improving public image by doing more community events
  • New product/program launch

Structure: Structure follows strategy. Structure describes the pieces related to how your sales resources will be organized, distributed, layered, and compensated.

  • Territory management and expansion
  • Inside sales development
  • Sales Budget
  • New and expansion business (hunters/Farmers)

Sales:  This is where you want your most valuable resources (your clinical team) to benefit from the new business coming in the door. This is the time of year to have your sales reps have a virtual meeting with the caregivers providing services in their market space and discuss details such as:  Which doctors do they want more patients from? What is the best facility for them to work with? 

When you support growth where the clinical teams what to do business it is a win-win for everyone.

You can also suggest that the sales executives take the clinicians out to meet the accounts!  This can be remarkably successful.

  • Training needs for 2021:  consider new product training
  • Resources for 2021 such as promo items, marketing materials
  • Compensation and Quota setting for 2021
  • Reward and Recognition for 2021

People:  Your organization will succeed or fail based on the strength of your people. You need to plan on recruiting and retaining amazing clinical talent. In order to hit growth projections, you need additional clinical team members in order to grow!

  • Recruitment Process Improvement Program
  • Retention Program and Committee
  • Allocation for budgeted funds to include additional recruiting
  • Orientation programs that produce highly qualified staff
  • Ongoing personal development, training, and coaching

Process:  Process is at the heart of getting things done. A good process removes friction! Process is not a bad word. Having a solid process makes getting to your goals easier. (and honestly… who doesn’t want that?)

As you begin to think about next year, start looking around your organization and ask:

  • Are the current processes making things easier or more difficult? 
  • Could we make changes that would save us time? 
  • What needs an upgrade? 
  • Is the current process going to help you achieve your goals or create another problem that needs to be fixed? 

BONUS: Could you onboard 40 new employees a week?  Owners: If you can’t answer that with a resounding yes, then you need to fix your onboarding system.

Time to Build Your Roadmap To Hitting Your Goals

Step One:  Start by listing each category, Strategy, Structure, People, and Process. Under each category list the appropriate measures that apply in your organization.

Step Two: Scan down the list of measures and identify what components are currently out of alignment with your 2021 goals.  You need to allocate more of your time to get them in alignment or you will set yourself up for failure.

Step Three: Now it is time to assess each of the problem areas based on some key metrics.

  • Complexity: Challenges are associated with timing, resources, scarcity, or cultural barrier from within the organization’s leadership. Use a ranking system 1 – 10 (where 1 is an easy fix, and 10 will require specific efforts and buy-in from all levels of the organization)
  • Impact:  This refers to the positive effect this initiative would have on attaining your goals if time and energy were invested. Here you are trying to assess how much benefit you would gain by focusing on this process issue. Again use 1-10 scale where 1 means focusing here would barely move the needle and 10 means it would significantly impact your year.

Step Four:  This is the toughest part of the planning. Since we all know there is never enough time or money to do everything we want, it’s time to prioritize all of your potential initiatives. Start at the top of your list and assign each potential initiative a letter grade of A, B, or C.  An “A” means this initiative is critical to your success and you will unlikely reach your goal if this is not addressed.  “B” means important but not essential, and “C” refers to something that, in all likelihood will have to wait for another year.

Be careful here – the usual tendency is to rate most or every this as an “A”

Unfortunately, for this to work, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. You may need to go back over the list a couple of times, but you should aim for an even distribution of As, Bs, and Cs.

I made you a quick spreadsheet that you can download and make your own.

Download 2021 Business Development Guide Here!

Step Five: Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing how and what, questioning, tenaciously follow through, and ensuring accountability. It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organization’s capabilities, linking strategy to operations, and the people who are going to implement the strategy. 

During this final step, you’ll be synchronizing those people and their various disciplines and aligning rewards to outcomes. It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company’s capabilities to meet the challenges of an ambitious strategy.

In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it!

Be successful in 2021! 

Have a plan and execute on it! To make this easier for you we would love for you to consider joining our new Caring Agency Mastermind!  (CAM FAM, for short) Not only do we cover business growth planning, but we include information on all 5 pillars of success.

To learn more, go to www.homecaresales.com/cam.  We have only a few spots remaining to get you started for the 2021 year!

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Employee Retention Suggestions

I love my clients. Helping home care agencies, home health, and hospice organizations service more patients is the most rewarding work I have ever done! 

Home Care Sales has done such a great job at helping organizations grow that we create a new problem. Not enough staff.

Not enough staff can be caused by 2 different problems.

  1. Recruiting Process not producing candidates.
  2. Losing current employees

Last week, I wrote my blog about the recruiting process. (<- Click to see the blog)

Today’s blog post is about retention. I just got done working on a brand-new recruiting and retention program for Home Care Sales Mastermind clients, and I spent hours reading and practicing strategies at my own organization.

Fact: Replacing a minimum-wage-earning employee costs the average business about $3500 every time it happens. 

On average, a retail business replaces 59% of its workforce each year. Many home health, private duty, and hospice organizations have a 59% workforce turnover in aides each year. Companies can’t afford this level of employee turnover.

Retention really comes down to 5 key responsibilities of management plus one shot at making a great first impression for a total of 6 responsibilities. When a company handles these 6 responsibilities well, employees stay with the company longer. 

Management needs to provide employees with:

    1. Thorough orientation to the job at the start and continued opportunities to learn.
    2. Consistent communication every day.
    3. Respectful discipline and fair treatment when they make any mistakes.
    4. Sincere recognition when they do something exceptional
    5. An annual performance evaluation that offers a clear path to future professional growth.
    6. And my final recommendation is a First day that makes a great impression.

Today I want to share with you just a few strategies that can help you retain the staff that you just spent tons of money and time onboarding. I am going to just share a few that I absolutely love and that I’ve been able to implement.

1. WOW them on their first day! 

Announce them to the entire company with a Welcome To The Family Poster. We use a chalkboard, and when a new employee enters our agency, they see a welcome message and their name on the chalkboard. We also like to continue to WOW them with lunch on their first day with their manager whenever possible.

We also send to each new employee (at about day 21) a goodie box of snacks. Just when they think we forgot about them we sneak in this surprise, and folks just love it.

We send it to their homes where their family gets to see how much we appreciate them. Employees love to tell their friends and family about their first day, and how great they felt. This is a wonderful (and proven) recruiting tool!

2.  Provide them with a mentor! 

Many agencies I’ve worked with (and even my own) use an amazing preceptorship program. We team up each new employee with a buddy. This buddy is an outstanding employee who has proven themselves and is respected by all. We pay them a small preceptorship bonus, and they are trained on how they will preceptor new employees. 

I will share with you that all the new employees love having someone on the inside. The preceptor reaches out daily for the first week and just offers to answer any questions and be a great resource. 

We love that the preceptor is a peer and can give the new member policy and procedure guidance. We also like the preceptor to take the new employee to lunch the first week. When we interviewed new employees to ask them how to rate our orientation system, we score extremely high in satisfaction. We attribute this incredible success to using the preceptorship program.

3.  Employee Newsletters! 

Newsletters can take a lot of work and they never make everyone happy… but when you ask employees what is important, they love communication. When we do our annual interview with our staff, we ask them what is one thing that we do that you love about working at our company. The answer that receives over 80% or higher scoring, is our employee newsletter.  It is basic. 

Our newsletter includes the following:

    • New Employee’s names, titles, and a few sentences about them.
    • Employee Anniversary’s, Birthdays, and special employee news (births, graduations, and celebrations)
    • Monthly Health Observance information
    • Crossword Puzzle about key terms related to the holiday, Unique Selling Point, or monthly health observance
    • News about new things going on at the agency.
    • Opportunities to join the company!

4.  Annual Agency Report: 

We call our annual report, the State of the Organization. We have an annual meeting, usually a holiday party, that we take about 15 min to deliver the highlights of the company in-person. We also mail this annual report to each employee’s home.  We cover quite a bit in this report. 

Here are just a few of the highlights:

    • Patients Serviced and report on year-over-year growth
    • Insurance contracts accepted
    • Employee Survey results
    • Performance Improvement Project
    • Complaints and Resolutions
    • Annual Goals and progress towards hitting them
    • Survey results
    • New Contracts, technology, learning opportunities
    • Any changes coming for the upcoming year

Employees love being in the know!  When they can share information about the company they feel like an insider!  They feel like they are part of the company and that makes them feel a sense of belonging to the organization.

Final Thoughts…

I hope all of you are doing a great job of retaining your staff. I really do.

Just remember: other organizations will be trying to get your best employees to join their team. You need to act now to keep them!  

Small things, such as a monthly thank you email or a moment of recognition can make your staff hang up on a recruiter trying to win them over. Whenever the unemployment rate is below 6% headhunters are quite active.

Beat them at their game by keeping your staff loyal to you!

 

If you would like to read more about my agency and its culture, you can download my first book: The Five Steps To Sales Success to Grow your Private Duty, Home Health, and Hospice Organization at www.homecaresales.com/book.

If you prefer a printed copy you can find it from the link below.

Buy Book Here!

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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Sales problem or Recruiting Problem?

For years, Home Care Sales has been helping organizations around the country to grow their agencies. We love what we do!

We are well-known as the consultants that teach you to sell using medical diagnosis (which has been pivotal in millions of dollars in revenue for our clients).

While our clients have experienced great success, many say that our products help them grow but then a new problem is created… Staffing!

We need more caregivers, nurses, or therapist is what we hear from our clients.

 

Today’s blog is about your recruiting process and a few tips that will help you make sure your recruiting process is working.

First, do you have a process? Does each person tasked with hiring follow the same process? Does the process work? Do you have any KPI’s that you are tracking to prove that your recruitment process is working or to identify when it is broken? Is one manager better at hiring than another business manager?

Here are a few of the recruitment metrics that I would suggest that you measure:

 

  • How long does it take to hire employees?
  • Is your potential candidate the right fit for the job?
  • How much money are you spending on the entire hiring process?
  • How efficient are you in the hiring process?
  • How many candidates are applying for your job postings?
  • Which places are the candidates looking for your job postings?
  • How well does your new employee perform at the job?
  • Does the job description that you provided with the listing accurately represent the actual job details?

Many of the organizations are operating without a formal recruiting process. Below are some of the points that I suggest your organization adopt to improve your recruiting key performance measures.

Just changing a few things will improve your recruitment efforts.Melanie and I are working on a new Caring Agency Mastermind, we call it our CAM FAM, and we have created an incredible recruitment and retention program that we are including to our CAM FAM members.

This mastermind group will have “hot seat” problem-solving calls for owners/executives twice a month. The hot seat calls are designed to help you solve any issues and hold you accountable for hitting your short term and long-term goals.

CAM FAM was created to help you get upgraded quicker, easier, and more enjoyable.

 

We will also have one wonderful in-person gathering every year to connect with other members, learn some new information, and gather with others who speak your language. 

If you want to learn more, about any of our mastermind groups all you have to do is go to www.homecaresales.com/mastermind to fill in an application. We cannot wait to have you join us on this exciting new journey!

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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Five Sales Exercises to help you improve your sales messages

One of the most frustrating things that I have seen repeatedly from Sales Representatives is that they continue to call on accounts that have never referred. According to Ziglar, that is the definition of insanity! 

Over the last 10 years, I will share with you that I have studied my fair share of data. Sales representatives are taking about 5-8 sales touches before they get their first referral. Today, I wanted to share with you an exercise that I learned to help sales representatives get in touch with their sales messages. 

When sales representatives understand how important the sales message is, they can use it effectively to finally bring in the referrals.

Here is the assignment that I give reps to improve their sales results. 

First: I ask them to list 5 reasons that describe why someone refers a patient to receive care. 

 

The way to do this is to look at the last 5 referrals and go ask the person who referred them for services:  Why did you refer this patient for services? 

Here are the types of comments that I receive back:

  • The patient had multiple hospitalizations
  • The patient had multiple falls
  • The patient has cognitive deficits
  • The Patient is non-compliant
  • The patient cannot get to the doctor’s office
  • The patient has a problem with blood sugar
  • The patient constantly is calling the MD with problems.

The next part of the assignment is to have them create “one marketing message” related to each reason why the patient was referred for their company’s services.

 

  • We can prevent multiple hospitalizations
  • We have a falls prevention program
  • We treat patients with cognitive deficit’s
  • We educate patients on disease management
  • We can help you by doing a telehealth visit search

(Note: Tie into Call-To-Action for your product/services)

Now I have them turn this into a trigger question and a “what is in it for me?” statement to bring in the referrals. 

Quick Example: “Which patient might end up in the hospital this week? I’d love to make sure you don’t have to worry about him or her this week.”

There are many variations of this, but over the years, we have unlocked several that almost always work.

The follow up to this is to build a year of weekly sales messages and provide handouts that support the questions. 

 

This part can be daunting, but you don’t need 52 DIFFERENT topics! You won’t simply talk about heart conditions once a year. You are more likely to talk about it once a quarter, but if you focus on your key diagnosis and reasons for referring, you can build out a strategic plan like the one we provide in the Roadmap of Referrals.

Once you’ve compiled that, We need to talk about gatekeepers (window witches, window wives, dragons at the gate, etc…)

 

You need to figure out how to get through the gatekeepers present at all your account types. We can’t spell out EVERY strategy here, but there is a good chance you can predict the kind of gatekeepers you will meet. Having an effective strategy past these people obstacles will put you on target to build the referring relationship you need. 

Finally, to truly knock it out of the park, you need to roleplay your sales messages.

 

This will let you figure out what you will say when you will meet objections like:

  • We don’t refer
  • You need to have a Lunch and Learn
  • The hospitals handle all our referrals
  • I have a provider that I use for my patients
  • My patients can’t afford your services
  • My patients don’t need your services

Once you have mastered all of this you are finally done.  You have completed your very own 52-week sales plan.

If this is too difficult for you, do not worry, we have done this for you. 

 

Our weekly sales messages can produce up to 5 times the number of referrals you are currently getting from an account. We also provide the handout (PDF) to email, and phone script to use to build the number of referrals you are getting from your current referring accounts.

The real secret sauce happens when once a month the agencies get to join Melanie and I in our virtual coaching room and hear us roleplay:

  • How to use the trigger questions,
  • How to deal with the most common objections that your sales representatives will face
  • How to use trigger questions when asking for specific patient types

Why this works so well is this…. Your sales representatives get to build up their confidence.  And folks, confidence sells.

Want to see what this looks like? 

Go to www.homecaresales.com to learn more or just email Mike@homecaresales.com and you can have your own private demo. This product can help you close the prospecting funnel. This is THE TOOL to stop no value sales calls. 

Don’t just let your sales team wander aimlessly without a Roadmap of Referrals. 

 

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

PS – You can also claim some of Mike’s time directly on his calendar here:

https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales

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Medicare Update for 2021

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Roleplaying with Sales Representatives when faced with the objection, “I have an agency I am referring to”

Today most of our agencies are battling against a great number of competitors!

I have worked with some amazing sales managers who do a great job on teaching and coaching sales associates on how to differentiate their organization from their competition.

Sales managers know how important it is for a sales representative to be able to clearly state why they should get the business and not one of their competitors.

However, there is still a problem that often gets missed. The sales representatives are able to confidently state why you should refer to them, and yet so many get stuck the second the account says to them:

“I have an agency that I give my referrals to”

 

Today, I wanted to gift you with a role-play session that you as a sales manager or owner can practice with your sales representatives when they face this common objection.    

Set the scene first:

This sales representative has been prospecting a large rehab hospital for about 3 weeks now and has not been able to get any referrals.  Sale call being done over the phone because of COVID-19. 

Sales Representative: Hi (Social Workers Name), how are you?

Social Worker:  Busy, we had at least 10 new patients come in this weekend from the hospital.

Sales Representative: Wow, that is quite a bit of admissions for one weekend.

Social Worker:  Yes

Sales Representative: I won’t take up your time. I wanted to share with you that according to an article I read by the US Pharmacist Organization, 25% of patients that get hospitalized are there because of medication misuse. What do you think about that?

Social Worker:  I believe it! I am sure that half the patients that go home from here make mistakes. Half of them are ordered over 15 medications and they have no clue why they are supposed to even take them.

Sales Representative: I agree with you! I also know that you want to keep those patients out of the hospital just as much as we do!

Social Worker:  Yes, I do!

Sales Representative:  Who is being discharged this week that you believe is a high risk to have a medication error at home?

Social Worker:  Oh, I have 3 that come to mind immediately. I have them on my desk right here.  Mr. A, B, and Mrs. C.  All of them have at least 10 medications to take when they get home, and all 3 of them are widows and live alone.

Sales Representative: Great, let me take them from you right now and set them all up for home health services for you.

Social Worker: I have an agency that I use that I am giving them too.   

 

This is where many sales representatives back down…

Don’t! Push right through!

 

Sales Representative: Well how can I become the agency that you refer to? I believe so deeply in my organization, we are nurse owned and operated, and we currently have a 5 star rating, and we are committed to making sure that no one who needs the care goes without it!

Social Worker:  That is great, but I refer to XYZ.

Get ready for it…

 

Sales Representative:  What will happen if you don’t refer to XYZ and you give me those referrals right now?

Social Worker:  Excellent question. You know what? I am going to try you right now! Here you go.

Sales Representative: Perfect!

Listen up sales managers! You need to have your sales representatives ask the hard questions! Have them give a soft push towards getting the referrals and not run away crying that every account already has an organization they refer to!

You have got to push for what you want without being rude or too pushy. But PUSH! You do this by asking the hard questions so you can get the answers you long for!

 

Need more tips like these? We got them! Go check out www.homecaresales.com and learn more or email Mike@homecaresales to see a demo.

You can also claim some of Mike’s time directly on his calendar here:

https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales

 

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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The Most Important Skill That Sales Representatives Must Possess

This morning I received a call from a client who was building his sales team from 3 reps to 6 reps.

He wanted to put his new reps through our Fast Track Orientation, High Performance Sales Academy, Masters in High Performance Selling, and Inside Sales Process as well as purchase the Community Calls program. 

He started to share with me about his success with his current sales reps using our products.

He then asked me:

“How do I know how to pick the next three sales representatives to join my team?”

 

I explained it all comes down to one core skill that the sales representative must possess. First, before I share that one core skill, there are certain personality traits that are found in phenomenally successful sales representatives. They usually have high energy. As a sales representative, you are going to use a lot of energy every day.

They usually are very personable and friendly. They can walk into a room and get any stranger into some type of conversation with them. They can usually handle topics like the weather or the big game from last week, or even the décor of the room they are standing in without breaking a sweat. They can easily engage others in a conversation.  They also usually have this big smile to go with their big friendly personality.

It is easy to test your potential hire to see if they have this trait.

I have my secretary take the applicants for a tour of my building and stop at each desk to introduce the potential new employee. I then call and speak to a few staff members and ask them. How was his/her interaction with you? If I hear things like, “they were nice” or they report things like, “the candidate saw my dog picture and immediately showed me a picture of their dog.”  Or maybe even something such as, “they saw I had a Penn State flag in my cubby and said they went to Penn State too!”

Other great questions I like that a candidate may ask is, “Why do you like working for the company”? or “How long have you been working here?”  Maybe they then follow up with, “You must love your job to have been here that long,” or,”You must know a lot of information about this industry, I will have to tap into that amazing knowledge.”

This quick tour really becomes as important as the actual interview. 

You want to see if they have the core skill that representatives need to be able to really land amazing accounts. You see, the best sales representatives have the ability to become acutely aware of what is important to the person they are talking to.

The best sales representatives (that I have been out in the field doing ride-alongs with), have the knowledge to stir the referral sources emotions and bring out the accounts frustrations. Superstars will quickly become competent to confront the stated problems in the future. They naturally tap into their core skill.  They can clearly articulate the exact way that they, and only they, can solve their problem and make the referring person look good while doing it.

That’s it!  It’s that simple!  Just uncover the problem, stir the emotions up by restating the problem, and bam, come in with how you are the solution to fix their problem. 

Trust me, this is how I got my nickname “The Solutionist”.  I have followed this fixer mindset long before Olivia Pope, ever took to the big screens in Hollywood for the TV show Scandal.

Let’s see it in action now! I am going to take you through a sales call to one of my favorite Cardiologist’s office who refers to all 3 of my service lines.  Let me set the stage.

I am going into a large physician’s office and I have gotten about 8 referrals over the last 2 months. I have built this relationship from the front desk, the “window witch” all the way to the 3 cardiologists at the practice.  I have learned that once a month the 3 cardiologists meet for a team meeting and I got invited to sit down with them today over lunch.

Start with small talk, about family and fun fall activities going on in the communities. Next, I took control of the meeting flow by just claiming it. I said, “Ok Gentlemen, this is how I would like to spend the next few minutes with you all before I let you go about your incredibly busy day. I have a few questions to ask so I can learn more about your practice and any challenges you may be facing.”

I have their commitment and then I ask these questions:

  • Share with me what issues are top of mind right now with your practice. 
  • Probe deeper, “Tell me more about wanting to increase legitimate ways to bill for more at each MD visit”.
  • Restate what you believe is their problem and stir the emotions.  “I believe from our conversation today, that you are all expressing concerns about adding on additional billing codes because you don’t want to take any risk for billing more by adding additional billing codes to the claim unless you all feel good about providing the additional billing service.  In addition, you want to make sure you can easily pass a billing audit about the additional billing codes added to the claim”.  Did I get that correct?
  • Come in with your solution.  I have heard similar requests from other physician offices, and I have one quick solution that I can provide you with today. You can bill for advance care planning easily and I have books of the necessary resources that you can place in your exam rooms and I can show you how easy it is to add this resource book with just a few questions from you when you enter the exam room about the information in the advance care planning resource book, and you can comfortable add this billing code to every patient visit.  Let me show you the resource book, I have one in my car. In just 5 mins I can show you how to have this done today!

Now, I was prepared. I after all am the co-creator of the Masters in High-Performance Selling System. In our master’s program, we teach reps sales strategy sales calls to help improve Mips scores for physicians as well as teach them how to support the physician to learn new billing strategies such as Advance Care Planning billing.

Because I was prepared, I made sure I used my core skill of uncovering their pain and offering a solution to their problems, I was able to take today’s problem and solve it.

The result? I just put this account in a vault. 

I have made sure that every referral, from all three of these physicians, will be sent to my agency.

You see folks, we don’t just work on creating products that help you get more patients to serve. We share with you, exactly how we are winning referrals!

Home Care Sales was created to serve more people. To make sure that everyone that needs help at home gets the services. When we create products, it is because we use those exact products to serve more patients. That’s why our past clients come back over and over again and purchase our products for every sales rep they ever hire. 

Want to check out our master’s program?  Reach out to Mike@homecaresales.com and arrange a demo!  You too can have an amazing team of “Solutionist” like me!

You can also claim some of Mike’s time directly on his calendar here:

https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales

 

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

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Doctors speak out about why they hate sales representatives

I have spent the last 30 plus years working closely with physicians. 

I will never forget my first real job because I started it on my 16th birthday.

I was hired as the weekend EKG technician at Northeastern Hospital. I had 5 different cardiologists as my bosses.

I learned at a young age what each one expected of me. Because I made sure I got to know them, I was able to not only do my job well, I was able to provide them each with a personalized experience.

I knew what physician wanted Tea when he was reading EKG’s and who wanted coffee. I knew which physicians ate peanut butter crackers, and who preferred danish. I also knew what they wanted for lunch and kept the mini refrigerator in the office filled with vitamin water, seltzer, and diet coke so I didn’t have to run out and get something. I didn’t want to waste precious time away from doing EKG’s or typing up the reports.

Because the doctors all liked my work, I was promoted to weekend supervisor at the age of 17, even though the other EKG technicians had many more years of experience and they had 20 plus years of life experience as well.

None of my co-workers seemed to care that I got the promotion before them. They all said that I had outworked them and that I had earned the right to the job. The doctors all felt that they were the happiest when working the weekends because they loved the way I ran the department. 

In fact, on all the days that I was off from high school, they had me come to work during the weekdays too.

Now, that was 35 years ago. I have made many physician friends over those years and when it came time for me to reach out and ask them why they hate sales representatives they were incredibly open to sharing with me their insights.

One common statement was repeated to me over and over again:  

“I hate sales reps that waste my time”  

 

I dug deeper and I asked them to explain to me what exactly was the sales rep doing or saying that made the physicians feel like it was a waste of their time. 

These are the statements that I heard:

  • Reps that just say I stopped by to say hi and talk about the game
  • Reps that just ask the doctor do you have any referrals for me
  • Reps that do not speak to me at all and just flirt with my staff to try to win referrals
  • Reps that just leave a business card or flyer

My next question was:

What does your favorite sales representative do that you like?

Here is what they said over and over again.

  • I love a sales representative that makes my job easier
  • I like salespeople that educate me on how they can help specific patient types
  • I enjoy working with sales representatives that bring me information that I can share with my patients (These reps help my practice look good).
  • I like sales associates that provide me with feedback about patients that I have referred
  • I like salespeople who ask me questions about my patients

The next thing I did was pull out a month’s worth of sales calls following our 52-week sales plan – The Roadmap of Referrals. I showed the physicians what I was providing to the sales representatives and asked them for feedback. 

Here is what the physicians had to say:

  • I had no clue that you could help patients with setting up and using their new glucometer (this was on the flyer for the week we cover diabetes care)
  • I would love to have educational information in my exam rooms for patients to read while they are waiting for me to see them.  (I showed him the Lung Cancer monthly observance form)
  • The trigger questions really help me identify patients that I just saw that day and at the time of the visit I was so busy thinking about what test a patient needed or what lab work I needed to order, that I sometimes forget that I could also include an introduction for private duty services.
  • I love that my entire staff would be brought a small treat and me an update about the patients I referred (fun week activity)

I was so proud of this product. The physicians felt that they didn’t really know what home health, hospice, or private-duty does to help patients.

The doctors felt that they would be able to refer more patients if they could learn more about what a patient experiences at home and the benefits the patient would receive that they would have many more patients to refer.

I know that it works because I used this product to save my agency!

I know that sales representatives want to be liked, and the way to win over the physicians is to bring them value. 

 

Get them talking about what is happening in their practice, and you will be the sales representative to win their referrals. If you need help, do not worry. We have done the work for you and have gotten our product physician-approved.

The 52-Week Road Map to Referrals includes group role play so you know exactly what to say to make high-value sales calls! 

Evolve into the sales representative that the doctors what to see!  To learn more you can click here:  

https://homecaresales.com/52-week-roadmap-to-referrals/#home-health-home-care or watch this video:

 

Would you like to see this in a demo? Reach out to mike@homecaresales.com or set up a time directly on his calendar here:

https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales

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Organizations without Sales Teams are at GREAT Risk of losing Market Share

I can still remember…

…back in 2009 when my organization had suffered 3 consecutive years of financial losses due to my competition winning referrals by building relationships with my referral sources. 

Many agencies today believe that they do not need to have a person who acts as a community liaison, salesperson, or account executive and my job is to make you see why you absolutely need to have a salesperson. 

I know right now you have so many things to worry about: 

  • Recruiting
  • Retention
  • Access to accounts
  • (and to top the list) Covid19 issues continue to impact all of us

That is why I am bringing this to your attention. I don’t want you to be so consumed with the daily frustrations of running your business that you add losing market share to the top of your list.

First, let us look at the number one reason that someone uses an agency today.

Many of our clients use an agency because they were highly recommended by someone. Who do you think are making these provider recommendations?

Sure, many of these recommendations come from a family member or friend but most often these recommendations are coming from a hospital discharge planner, physician, or a social worker at a rehab center. 

When the referral comes from the hospital discharge planner, physician, or social worker they are giving the referrals to organizations that they have a working relationship. These relationships typically get built from the agency’s sales executive.

Now, I know that some of you are as smug as I was, and you are saying to yourselves right now that won’t happen to me. My agency is the best. I am sure your organization does provide great services, but folks it happens to great agencies. You see, I had relationships with many wonderful physicians because I was a nurse working at the hospital before I started my agencies.  Those physicians drove referrals into the doors at my agency for a long time.

Until, one day, this sales associate from a competitive agency went to the doctor’s office and got a relationship with the referral girl at the doctor’s office. Bye-bye went my referrals. Same thing with the social worker at the buildings and the discharge planners at the hospitals.

In addition, patients choose certain providers because of involvement in the community or they get referred by their senior center staff (pre-COVID), dialysis centers, or an elder attorney.

  • How did these great referral sources decide to recommend their agency of choice?
  • Was it their star rating? 
  • Was it how long the company was is business? 

Probably not.

It was most likely related to a relationship that was developed by the agency’s sales associate.

 

You must nurture your relationships to keep them. If you are not working on maintaining these relationships weekly, someone else will be.

Now, I know many of you have no time to provide a new sales associate with a proper orientation, sales training, and continuously motivate and monitor their results. No worries!

Home Care Sales can help.

I wish that I had a company like Home Care Sales when I was in trouble back in 2009. In fact, the pain of almost losing my business is exactly why we bring you the products to make sure that you can grow your organization. We are on a mission to make sure that everyone who needs help at home gets referred for services. That is why we make the products, keep the cost down, and ensure that they are delivering results for our clients.

Please, if you need help growing, go email Mike@Homecaresales.com right now. He will help you select the exact product that you need to achieve growth and prevent account leakage.

To set up a demo go here: https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales and secure a time to talk to him.

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Are you still winning referrals, or have you drifted off the road to success?

2020 has been a whirlwind of a year!

We have worked with many agencies owners who have followed our inside sales process and they have continued to not only succeed in hitting admission goals but exceed them by hitting the highest record of referrals ever.

Just the other day, Mike from our sales department ask me to jump on a call with one of our customers to see if I could help her with making a selection on which product we offer would make the biggest impact on her organization. I gladly got on a call with her.

I spoke with the owner, I will call her Mary. Mary shared with me that her patients billing hours are down. Mary reported that at the beginning of Covid Mary’s Home Care was able to hit their new patients serviced monthly goals, but they failed to reach their total hours serviced each month. She shared that it was related to several things but the top 2 reasons I want to share with you here.

One: Mary reported that even though more and more people where being referred for services that there was a challenge with recruitment and retention of skilled workers.

…there was a challenge with recruitment and retention of skilled workers.

Two: Mary shared that many seniors who were immunocompromised slashed their hours of care. Those patients still wanted to have aide services for food shopping and pharmacy runs but they were afraid to let the caregivers in the house.

I was able to quickly help Mary with the second objection she faced by offering tips to help get caregivers in the patient’s doors. I shared with Mary soon Home Care Sales would also be able to help with the number one problem reported to Melanie and myself when we recently conducted marker research calls with our clients. That number one problem is Recruiting and retention.

Melanie and I are currently studying industry experts and working with mentors to provide our members with an incredible program to help with recruiting and retention. We are building a network of experts to support you on this journey and can not wait to release our new program.

Our Millionaire Mastermind members will get access before we release this program to the community. Home Care Sales has spent hours over the course of the last few weeks conducting market research calls with past clients. You may have been one of the owners that we spoke with and let me say thank you right now to you for all that you have done to help with bringing the programs that you want and need into existence.

Remember, if you are an agency owner or executive, and you would like to mastermind with other agency owners you can click on this link, Mastermind Application, and Melanie and I will invite you to a call with us to see if you are a good fit. We are currently recruiting for a new group of owners. We are only accepting 20 members at this time. We are sorry if you submit too late and we have to turn you down.

Our past members have experienced incredible results. Several have opened new business lines, expanded territories, and exceeded revenue goals. See what current members have said about being in our Millionaire Mastermind Group!

 

Cheryl

Remember:

Friends, 2021 is less than 4 months away.  You have a chance now to increase your revenue to offset 2021 revenue reductions.  Go check out how www.homecaresales.com can help you!

Want to make it quick and easy to learn more? Reach out to Mike at Mike@homecaresales.com to set up a demo (or go here: https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales and secure a time to talk to him)

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