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What to do in a short week

Happy Thanksgiving!

Welcome to a short week!

Soothe Crack

It is often we find ourselves in this position. We have a three day work week coming up, and we have to prioritize our marketing efforts.

I have felt the “crunch” of a short week. You have too much to do and not enough time. Perhaps you have had that feeling also where there is just so much to check off your to-do list that you feel overwhelmed.

The answer to overwhelm is prioritization.

In setting up our teams for success, we follow this simple cadence that has delivered results.

It will work for you too.

  1. Monday: Prewritten “open for the Holiday Blasts” emailed out for the holiday. (make sure you have staff and are “open” for referrals)
  2. Tuesday AM: Follow up on the Focus 50 accounts from your High Performance Sales Academy Step One.
  3. Tuesday PM: Step 3 of the High-Performance Sales Process – “WIN” The referral generator – follow up and report out on any referral from Friday- Tuesday. Make sure to use this as a patient vignette in your follow-up “Ask”.
  4. Wednesday: Sales Message of the week to generate conversations for high-value patients or clients.
    *52 Week RoadMap of Referrals members November 21st week on your calendar: Holidazzle – Help them to prepare and get ahead of any challenges that may keep them from truly enjoying the holiday.
  5. Friday (if working): Clean up anything outstanding. Follow up on any referrals from the week. Finish your week strong! Make one extra call today!

A short week is your opportunity to compress time and maximize your productivity in 3 days!~

Happy Thanksgiving! Here at Home Care Sales, we are thankful for you and the many ways you help seniors and the fragile around you!

Take Action! And Serve More Seniors!

Melanie

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Marketing and Sales Lessons from my 7-year-old twins on Halloween

Halloween was just a week ago.

I know it seems like FOREVER ago, but only a week.

My twins are 7, and they are really into Halloween.

Don was DJ Marshmallow (I know he is a pretty big deal. You will have to google it later)

Dylan was Harry Potter.

We live in a quiet neighborhood on the golf course with about 25 houses. Most owners are seniors, and 5 of us families who have kids. We didn’t know if anyone would be “doing” treat or treat this year, but we thought, well, let’s try it and see!

About 75% of the houses didn’t have their lights on – the universal signal that “we don’t have candy for you,” so it was a little dark, and because I am not winning Mother of the Year, I forgot a flashlight.

Dylan said to me:

“Mom, I love Halloween but being out here in the dark – I am scared. You are not scared of the dark, and I want to walk with you.”

I told him “Dylan – I am here with Don and you, and it’s OK – I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. So just walk beside me instead of running ahead with your brother.”

Sales Lesson #1: You are always braver when you know someone has “done this before” and was “OK.” Follow the plan. We lay out our marketers’ plans months in advance. We have been down this road and we know it produces referrals! It will for you too! Confidence!

We finally came to some houses with tables outside with bowls of candy, and the neighbors were sitting in rocking chairs on the porch. The boys were so excited. Earlier in the day, we talked about manners and to say “Thank you” when they gave you candy. Don stepped up right away – took one piece of candy and said, “Thank you!” and went off skipping.

Dylan was timider. “He said, Mom- they are so far away – do I have to say Thank you?” I said – Yes, just like we practiced but LOUDLY so they can hear! To which he did, “THANK YOU!” And the neighbors yelled back – “Your Welcome.”

Sales Lesson Number #2: When you practice what you will say – It is EASY, and you can make modifications on the fly when you know the structure! Weekly Sales Messages are KEY- knowing what you are going to say BEFORE you walk in the door or pick up the phone – is key to your success!

Once we got home, of course, the big Halloween Candy Trade began.

2 Laffy Taffys for 1 snicker – 2 Twix for 2 boxes of Milk duds the trades went on and on.

Which brings us to Sales lesson #3: Know your Ideal Patient Type. We all have our “sweet spot.” The patients and clients we LOVE to work with AND are good for the agency. OWN it!

These kids had no problem saying I want “snickers” you need to own it too. “We specialize in Parkinsons! Which Parkinsons patient is struggling with ADLs?”

With all that is going on in the world, it was great for one night to have some semblance of “normal.”

 

It was good for the kids and our senior neighbors who stayed socially distanced but got to see and interact with the kids plus all those cool costumes!

Wishing you a Bountiful November! I hope you had some fun during Halloween!

Keep serving seniors!

Melanie

P.S. If you are looking for a “plan” we got it! Click here to find a time on Mike’s calendar that works for you and he can show you the system!

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3 Secrets for Double-Digit Growth Year Over Year 2019 vs. 2020

We just buttoned up Quarterly Business Reviews and Plans with one of our Mastermind clients.

EVERY Marketer grew their office double digits year over year for quarter 3 2019 vs. quarter 3 2020! The Marketers for this agency have a strong finish to the end of 2020.

I couldn’t be more proud of them and their willingness to pivot HARD and achieve results better than 2019 (2019 was a solid year, too!). This agency has not let COVID and the lack of access nor the lack of staff (due to quarantine) slow them down!

I asked each Marketer the same question during our zoom meeting:

“What do you attribute your success to during the 3rd Quarter?”

Here are the 3 Secrets that I heard:

1. Delivering Value EVEN when working from home!

How do you deliver Value when you are remote? There were many questions early in COVID – Could they do it? Would their referral sources accept them being “remote”? They said I am not a copywriter. They needed a lot of support to be confident in reaching out via phone, email, text, video. Following the structure of the Inside Sales Process and RoadMap of Referrals gave them the tools to each week go out and deliver value in the form of education and high-value patient targeting. Using the Home Care Sales Trigger Questions on the Quick Reference cards to reach in and get the ideal referral on caseload NOW!

2. Showing up: Consistency in reaching out – even when it feels like “no one is listening.”

One of the reps said, “It feels like sometimes I am talking to the wall” Voicemail that delivers a sales message of the week is fantastic but not getting a return call or feedback is hard. What is great is when you do connect, the referral source says – “Oh, I loved that email about Mrs. Jones and her Parkinson’s that sounded just like my mom.” It’s WAY BETTER when that is coupled with a referral!

3. Drill it: Education and Motivation every day!

Another rep shared her story of the funk she found herself in a couple of weeks ago. She was tired; a few of her friends had actually died from COVID. She was concerned for her mother, who is elderly. She said:

“I had to take a hard look at how I would pick myself up and get motivated again and the way I decided to do that is to INVEST in MYSELF! I decided every morning I was going to get up and log onto HomeCareSalesPro.com and do a Lesson. When I do a lesson, I FEEL CONFIDENT! And CONFIDENCE SELLS! SO TRUE!”

What does this success in the numbers look like for this agency?

 

 

Over $110,000+ in profit increase in Q3 2020 vs Q3 2019

Which owner would like that profit over the last 90 days!

Which marketer would like that bonus check?

We ALL would!

 

You want momentum like this too! YOU CAN!

Join us for an exclusive FREE webinar:

The Blueprint – The Top 3 COVID Driven priorities for sales leaders to Gain Referrals

Set yourself up for SUCCESS! FINISH 2020 STRONG!

Register today! Click here!

See you there!

Melanie

P.S. This is your chance to help more people. Get your blueprint and set yourself up for success! Click here and sign up NOW!

P.S.S. You want to be part of the Mastermind and connect with other high-quality owners like this agency’s owners? Click here and lets have a discussion!

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How to work in these crazy times – dealing with overwhelm

I was recently speaking with the owner of an agency who said to me:

“I am exhausted. Look at my calendar. There is no time for me. I am slamming and jamming through the day from one meeting to the next. I don’t have time to think strategically. I am struggling. What’s worse is I see my staff struggling with the same issues.

They are tired of being on zoom for 6-7 hrs a day in meetings. They tell me our clinical and caregiving staff is getting “burned out,” and I am afraid they might be running into the ground. I am worried.

My staff IS the agency. No nurses or Aides or Caregivers – NO AGENCY

Day to day, I don’t know my staff situation because of COVID and having staff out on quarantine. COVID tracking is taking up a tremendous amount of time and resources.

We have plenty of referrals – that’s good – the reps are following your inside sales process – that is not a problem.

The problem is I am overwhelmed and tired.

And it feels like everyone else is too.

I need help. I need a plan. Not just a couple of morale boosters but a plan to honor my staff. And help me get out of this “funk” of groundhog day that has been my life for that last 6 mos.”

 

I told this owner – He is not alone.

 

I, too, feel the collective “tiredness” of the whole world.

We are in a sustained trauma.

We can’t see our friends. We have to reserve spots online to go to church.

Our “Social framework” is broken.

For the Owner. He is tired.

I shared with him some productivity hacks to gain some of his time back. So that he can have room to think. Think about the future – winter is just a month away for him.

Everyone will be “back inside,” and that means even less socialization for him and his staff.

We have all heard the estimates on the costs of employee turnover:

  • 6 to 9 months of salary. (That’s well over half what you pay an employee in a year. For an employee making $100,000 a year, the turnover cost could be as high as roughly $75,000. Ouch.)
  • 16% of annual salary for jobs with traditionally high turnover, such as entry-level jobs.
  • 20% of annual salary for jobs requiring mid-level experience
  • 213% (not a typo!) of the annual wage for top-level executive positions, including C.E.O.s *

(Statistics according to https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/employee-retention-the-real-cost-of-losing-an-employee
)

We can all agree employee turnover is expensive.

(Add on top of that all the “COVID-exposure quarantines AKA COVID exposure “vacations” as one owner calls it)

His marketing team is delivering more referrals then he can serve! He is TURNING DOWN REFERRALS! — YIKES!

He needs current staff to stay and “do more” even when they are already tired! (He also is hiring as fast as he can)

Employee centric management will shape pandemic recovery success.

For this owner, we are creating a plan. A step by step Employee Engagement plan for him to help him honor his staff, increase morale, and connect to the human first.

The Framework is C.E.F.T.

C- Compassion. Offering comfort, and empathy to staff during this challenging work/life/kids a homeschooling balance

E- Experience. Your staff needs to “DO” Something! The activity needs to be engaging, and your team will become involved in the reward system. E is also for EASY – Yes, the activity needs to be engaging, but it needs to be EASY too- the staff has enough “work” to do.

F- F.U.N. We ALL NEED MORE FUN!!!

T – Timely. This cannot be a 1 and done. This is an ongoing plan of engagement and honoring of staff. We have all tried gift cards – for them only to become an expectation. This plan has “surprise” and “chance” worked in so that his staff doesn’t “expect” the reward (much like a slot machine – you keep coming back because you don’t know when it will pay out!)

The result of this plan will be that he can give it to his administrators to roll out each month and engage his staff. Engage and delight his team that his agency cares. Cares enough to create the social framework they lost during the pandemic.

This agency will create deeper relationships with its staff, which will allow them to serve more patients and increase their revenue.

We are all in this together.

Giving the owner the Freedom to Grow.

During this time of Overwhelm, we are here to help.

If you want to gain access to this Employee Engagement Plan – we invite you to be part of our Beta roll out in our Mastermind. Click here, fill out the application, and see if it’s a good fit for both of us!

Melanie

P.S. Overwhelm is real. You can move out of it with structure. With structure comes FREEDOM! You got this – We can help!

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50% of Patients who are referred home health – Don’t get services???

Over this past week, you may have seen several industry sources sharing that nearly 50% of all Home Health referrals from the hospital are not started for care.

One of our mastermind members has seen an explosion in referrals from the hospital.

That is GOOD! Revenue is UP!

While the increase in referrals is AWESOME!

Here is the BAD part.

It has created 2 problems.

  1. Incomplete patient information – i.e., more non admits
  2. Not enough staff and putting HUGE pressure on existing staff to do more– i.e., Recruiting and retention.

Incomplete information: Incomplete patient information has always been a challenge. And when the patient leaves the hospital, it’s hard to “track them down” if the contact information is not correct.

How can your marketers or office staff help?

For our Mastermind Program, we are adding a module on transitions.

Here is a piece from that module:

V. C. E.

Verify:

Verify patient contact information and emergency contact information when the patient is STILL in the hospital.

Call:

Call the patient (if you can’t get in the hospital) AND the emergency contact to welcome them to your agency when the patient is STILL in the hospital or as soon as you get the information.

Educate:

We have created a “What to expect” brochure that is patient-centered and is a perfect resource to have the D/C planner hand out or email to the patient or family that describes the next steps so that the family knows who to call and gives them peace of mind during their transition

 

Recruiting and Retention

This is the “other side” of the sales and marketing coin. When your team does their job – you will have staffing problems. This agency owner and mastermind member always tell his branch administrators – keep hiring and let it be a sales problem! He means by that keep hiring nurses, therapists, and HHAs to the point that his agency has “open visits” and then put the pressure on sales and marketing to get more referrals!

Right now – EVERYONE has VIRUS FATIGUE, and it is compounded by an increase in referrals, and in this team, that means the current nurses, therapists, and HHAs have to do more visits.

This Mastermind agency is killing it with recruiting. They have more applicants in the last 6 mos than we have seen in the previous 7 years of working with them. But the referrals are growing faster than they can onboard.

How can Marketing help? What can you do as an owner?

This Mastermind agency uses its marketing team to deploy several retention and appreciation strategies we collaborated on to increase morale and let them know they are appreciated!

The staff has reported:

“Feeling cared for”

“Like we matter.”

“Thank you for making my day brighter.”

and one intake staffer reported:

“OMG, I can’t believe you noticed how hard I was working. Thank you!”

It goes a long way to help keep your staff committed to your vision and your agency.

Cheryl and I are building a new recruiting and retention module for the mastermind group.

We are pulling together the best practices and tactics we have experienced as consultants in the industry for the last 20+ years so that the mastermind group can have a vault of recruiting and retention strategies that will allow you to plug and play the best practices at your agency. SO easy – just pick out the ones you like and implement them.

We are in beta right now!

If this sounds like something you would like to be a part of – go to www.homecaresales.com/mastermind to fill out an application, and let’s jump on a call to see if it is the right fit for both of us!

Melanie

P.S. Even though we are all socially distancing – Cheryl and I are COMMITTED to having MORE FUN in the mastermind this year too! Wait until you hear the fun community activities we have planned for the group!

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How to manage a Sales Rep in 3 easy steps

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:

  1. Targeting High-Value Client Types
  2. Your Sales Message of the Week
  3. 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

Roadmap of referrals

Achieve

Mastermind

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!

 

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Are you using Population health and social determinants in your sales presentations for your agency?

Population Health and Social determinants of health.

Sounds super sexy right?

I just finished a recorded session for NAHC annual conference that will be aired October 20th – click here to sign up for the virtual conference: http://2020annual.nahc.org/

The session was:

“Private Duty – Positioning as a Key Partner in Effective Population Health Management”

I was a part of it with Cindy Campbell – HMA Healthcare Informatics, BSN, RN, COQS, Director Operational Consulting WellSky Advisory and Outsources Services (formerly Fazzi Associates) and Dr. Lucy Andrews, DNP, MS, RN Founder, and CEO: At Your Service Home Care, Chair CAHSAH.

It was an excellent presentation, and I would like to share some of the “AhHa” moments with you!

Cindy set the stage and slapped us in the face with this slide – it was a sit up and pay attention moment. As an OT, of course, I know about functional limitations, but holy moly – $740 billion per year by 2025! Cindy got us off to a great start!

Our hypothesis is that home care generates substantial cost savings for complex chronic patients with functional limitations and supports a compelling business case for home care value in population health management.

Lucy went onto discuss the three strategies from The American Healthcare Association.

  1. Screening and information: Providers systematically screen patients for health-related social needs and discuss the impact these challenges may have on their health with them
  2. Navigation: Providers offer navigation services to assist patients in accessing community services
  3. Alignment: Providers partner with community stakeholders to more closely align local services with the needs of local patients

Cindy shared an example of a Heart Failure Program.

  • Provide a combination of ADL/IADL support as needed, include transportation, medication reminders, and RPM with LVN/RN call center support as State license permits and condition warrants.
  • Measure and use data wanted by your hospital or payor partner
    • They want READMISSIONS LOWER for high recidivism, high cost, ‘FREQUENT FLYERS’ for example:
    • YOUR POPULATION OUTCOME = achieved fewer readmissions, e.g., 5% reduction in 30-day rehospitalization in CHF patients
  • Track and manage interventions to prevent rehospitalizations
  • Share your successful decrease in readmit to hospital with specific patient populations.
  • Consider the integration of innovative RPM, virtual visit, and connectivity platforms within your programmatic offerings.

My portion of the course was about business development.

I shared the steps to take to gain more referrals through population health programs.

I also shared case studies of current and past clients:

  • Nurse owned HH and PD in which the hospital referred and paid 4 hrs a day for 30 days for high-risk readmission patients.
  • Nurse owned HH and PD is exploring a hospital to home program and is in step 4 out of 7 in the Home Care Sales Exploration Model.
  • An In-Home Care provider who aggressively pursued the Medicare Advantage opportunity for personal care and transfers

I am so grateful to be in the company of colleagues – Lucy and Cindy – who are at the top of their games sharing their insights!  We get the chance to take a peek at how other agencies are working.

That is the benefit of working in partnership, having a great network, seeing what is working for others, asking great questions, and sharing information/ solutions.

If you are looking for insiders’ advantage – Join our Mastermind

It’s a great way to connect with some of the industry’s leading experts on recruiting, retention, pop health, protecting your brain health, and many other topics we bring to the group to enhance your wealth and your health!

Click here to fill out the application and see if it’s a good fit for both of us!

Impact more lives!

Melanie

P.S.  Do you have educational sales materials that present your agency as the solution for CHF, COPD, or Alz by managing the disease process at home?  We do – jump on a call with Mike (click here for his calendar) to tour you around our sales education pieces for referrals sources – so that you can get the high-value referrals which will allow you to blow out your goals!

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What is your most persistent problem over the past year?

Cheryl and I are conducting market research, and one of the questions we are asking is:

What is your most persistent problem over the past year?

The overwhelming response COVID.

Like any great clinician who is an active listener, we know that COVID is the big overarching problem (like Diabetes is the disease process). How it manifests in your business will impact you in different ways (What are the symptoms? )

The follow-up question:
“Tell me more.”

Gives us more information on how this “disease” process is impacting your agency

We heard 3 categories.

Perhaps you have experienced this too.

Recruiting. The “other side of the sales and marketing coin”

When your marketing is dialed in, you will need more staff. Or when there is a surge in referrals. And that leads to recruiting. Many owners shared that they are struggling with having enough staff, caregivers, and skilled professionals. Recruiting a “bench” of caregivers and skilled per visit staff allows the agency to grow and scale quickly. (It also gives you the ability to “test out” a staff member before hiring them full time)

More referrals. Many owners were struggling with gaining more referrals or the “right” referrals. Referrals that produce a high-value patient or client. One that not only can we serve well but one that is profitable for the agency.

Community. Everyone’s social network is “broken.” As owners, we are taking on the role of pulling our companies and our staff together. Providing them a space to connect and collaborate and have a positive experience during a time of psychological “Corona Fatigue.”

We have all struggled during this pandemic.

We have clients – and your agency may have experienced this too.
Who saw a nosedive in the numbers in March and April?

We created tools and formulas to help owners and marketers skill up and become virtual overnight. So that they could rise and thrive in this environment.

COVID may have stopped referrals for a month, but it was not going to keep them down.

Today I am thrilled to share the clients we work with closely are above pre COVID numbers and keep GROWING!

I am super proud of our teams skilling up, and we have modified programs like Road Map of Referrals to give marketers the scripts and templates to take on this new challenge of remote marketing so that you can impact more patient’s lives AND make more revenue.

It’s doing well while doing good!

If you want to see how we are modifying the Successful Roadmap of referrals to “remote marketing,” jump on a call with Mike, and he can “tour you around” HomeCareSalesPro.com.

Melanie

P.S. If you are an owner who is looking for answers to recruiting, more referrals, and community development? We have the solution for you – go to www.homecaresalesmastermind.com, fill out the application, and let’s have a chat to see if this group of owners is a good fit for you and us.

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What Sally the hurricane taught us about setting expectations in sales and marketing

We live on the gulf coast.

It’s a beautiful place, quiet; I have written about the 200+-year-old live oak tree in the past.

We have lived in south FL too – Fort Lauderdale and Miami. We are no strangers to hurricanes.

But Sally was my boy’s 1st hurricane. I have twin boys who are 7, and while we just had Marco and Laura in the gulf, they didn’t bring us hurricane wind.

Don is particularly concerned with “natural disasters.” He doesn’t like the drills at school, and he says it “freaks me out Mama. I just think about hurricanes for days after the drill”.

Sally was coming in at a category 1 – my husband Chris and I have a pact to not stay for another 4 again, so at a category 1, we were sheltering in place.

We talked to the boys about “being ready.”

We set out

  • Flashlights & Lanterns
  • Generator
  • Gas
  • Non-perishable food
  • Water in the bathtubs to flush the toilets

All the furniture outside was put in the garage or tied down.

We had everything in place to ride out the storm.

We set the expectation with the boys that we were going to lose power. The first 72 hrs are on “us,” and then the line workers and everyone else will come to help.

Don and Dylan were ready.

The rain came first – a lot of rain. Water was being pushed in from the ocean and from the sky. The live oaks root system is pretty shallow, making them vulnerable to being toppled over when the ground is soaked and loose.

The wind started to howl.

Don said it sounded like people screaming on a rollercoaster. It did.

The windows rattled. He was scared but not “too scared, Mama. You told me this would happen”.

The electric went out next – we turned on the flashlights and started up the generator. We don’t have a big generator but enough to plug in the frig, so we don’t lose the meat in the freezer, plug in our phones and, of course, the most important – MAKE COFFEE!

We watched the storm blow our trees, move the furniture that was “tied down,” create new leaks in our roof, but the boys handled it all with calmness. They got buckets and pails to catch the dripping water; Dylan was on “mop duty” to wipe up the water we missed.

Everyone had a job, and we all got through it together!

Once the storm passed, we ventured out into the yard. LOTS of trees down. 100ft pine trees snapped in half, tons of live oaks toppled over. Dylan said, “I have always wondered what the tree’s bottom side looks like now, I know!”

Trees were blocking the ability to leave our neighborhood.

We live in an older community where about 50% of our neighbors are over 65. I got out my phone and started calling our older neighbors to make sure they were ok.

Chris grabbed his chainsaw and started cutting through trees that were blocking our neighborhood roads.

The boys got their toy John Deere tractor with the wagon, and we went behind Chris to help move limbs.

All the neighbors came out to help cut up and move trees off the road in case of an emergency that someone needed to leave, or the first responders had a way into the neighborhood.

We spent the day cutting, carrying, and piling branches and limbs. We stopped when it was starting to get dark. On the walk back to the house, Don said. “Mama hurricanes are bad, but the good part is everyone comes out and helps each other, so that is the good part of a hurricane. But I still don’t like Sally! She is terrible!”

Very astute, my little 7-year-old. Yes – everyone does help each other.

Lessons learned from Sally:

  • Set expectations – if your agency needs time to evaluate COVID patients – tell your referral sources why and how long.
  • Be Prepared – If you lack staffing in a specific area, make sure you know and be prepared with your communication message.
  • Help each other – Sales and Marketing is a “team sport” you and your ops team together are stronger and can move “trees off the road together!”

We are all Stronger Together!

Make it a great week!

Melanie

PS. If you want to “be together with us,” The RoadMap to Referrals is a great way to be “Stronger Together” Click here to jump on Mikes’s calendar to see a demo of how we help each other!

 

*Image from NBC News. All Rights Reserved.

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Sharing my nearly thirty-thousand-dollar lesson, so you don’t have to learn the hard way too

I am a student at heart.

My Mom was an elementary school teacher for 32 years with two master’s degrees. I am sure this is why I value education. I, too, have two masters degrees and continue to try and expand my knowledge.

Every year I engage in training, coaching, and masterminds all to upgrade my skills. My husband pokes fun and says I should be “improved” by now! My goal in each of these programs is to find the “one” tactic, tool, or a person who will help me move the needle in my business and support my clients better to give them an advantage in their agency.

Cheryl and I have been completing market research to prepare for our fall offerings to craft a program that is “just the right fit,  right now.” We have been interviewing owners of agencies, and it has been so fun to connect and, of course, enlightening (more on that another day).

One of the discussion questions was how they evaluate if a “program” was for them or their team. Because at one point or another, we have all taken programs that disappointed us.

I want to share with you a $28,500 program that disappointed me and how I make decisions on which programs to take after that experience.

In 2017, I wanted to create an online program that would serve Home Care Sales, Home Health Marketera, and Hospice Liaisons. I wanted to create this fantastic experience for the sales reps, which would make them thrilled to complete the next section. This would become the industry standard for new hires and experienced representatives to needed a refresher or teams who wanted to be on the same page.

I was introduced to an online course developer who had a course that was very successful. She promised a lot, but her program was rigid. She didn’t have any flexibility in her program or consulting. She was not personable, and she didn’t relate well to me or my business. She was great on video, where she could script everything but not in person. She was not able to generalize her business and make it applicable to my business.

At the time, I was SUPER frustrated.

Maybe you have been in this position – your expectations were one thing, but the outcome was another. I spent 12 mos in her program. It was rough. So rough and so many people did not get the result they wanted, she offered another 12 months for free! I know she tried. It just didn’t work.

At the time, I was mad and sad that I spent all that time AND money AND precious hrs away from my family.

But I can say now I am grateful for that experience. It made me appreciate our clients more – the trust they put in us when they allow us to “be on their team” through training and consulting.

When we develop our programs, we are very cognizant of the expectation and the tremendous drive to deliver value.

From the experience with her, we have created a framework for working with clients that I would like to share with you so that you can use it to evaluate your next training program.

S E O (not the web stuff, but that is how you can remember it!)

Success:  How will you know if this program is successful?

Experience:  Are the instructors actively engaged in your business line (working “inside” a HH, Hospice, or In-Home Care)

One:  What is the one thing you want to “learn”?

I bet you want to know about the online program that we created. It’s a High-Performance Sales Academy. In 2017, we offered it as the first industry-specific online sales process program.

It gives you the exact steps to take to move an account through the sales process to deliver you the 1st referral and support your referral sources throughout your relationship with them.

Giving you a repeatable process, so you NEVER miss a referral opportunity again!  We continue to evolve the program to reflect the current landscape.

We have upgraded the High-Performance Sales Academy experience and all our programs on our learning system HomeCareSalesPro™ to drive performance and course completion!

Want to discover how you can win Achievement Badges and Ranks?

Click here to jump on Mike’s calendar for a demo on how your sales reps will want to learn more – perform more!   

Impact more lives!

Do well while doing good!

Go, do great things!

Melanie

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