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What can we learn from a hot beach in Mexico?

This summer, we had our family vacation in Cabo San Lucas. The boys LOVED it!

Of course, what is there not to love about a family vacation?

However, when I asked them what their favorite part they both replied the beach! My boys love the beach and swimming, so it was not surprising they said that but what followed?

 

“Mom, I love how we can be on the beach, and all the people come, and we can buy stuff.”

 

The boys love to buy “things” on the beach from the vendors, henna tattoos, wooden carvings of turtles, sunglasses, t-shirts lots of wares for sale. And A LOT of the same thing. Which got me thinking about differentiation.

 

How the beach vendors differentiated themselves fell into three categories:

    • By Price
    • By “customer service.”
    • By relationship and humor

 

Price: The 1st one is obvious by price. We are all consumers, and we know how to ask for a price and compare and get the best price. On the surface, all the t-shirts look the same, so you may simply look for the best price.

 

 

Which happens a lot in private pay in-home care – potential clients “shop” on price because that is all they know how to do. As the in-home care provider, you must elevate the conversation and share with the caller the differences on “why you” (we have a great exercise on this in the High-Performance Sales Academy). Even t-shirts can be different. We have all purchased a $5 t-shirt from the beach, and one wash later, it fits a barbie doll.

 

Was it even worth $5? – most likely not! A higher quality t-shirt might have cost more, but we could use it more. Similarly to in-home care – not all home cares are created equal.

DON’T let it be just about price!

 

Customer Service: While the product was the “same,” the customer service was different per salesperson on the beach.

 

Example: A child’s toy – a top – it was wooden and simple, but the guy we ultimately bought the top from offered to “customize” it by writing the boy’s names with a wood burner and the date, so we will never forget where we got them from.

 

 

This was a great example of taking something that is a commodity and “upgrading” it with customer service!

 

Many referral sources see Home Health, Hospice, and In-Home Care as a “commodity” all the “same,” but often, you can upgrade your position by “out customer servicing” the competition.

We see this at the intake position, making it “easy” for the referral source to refer. Or at the rep position speaking with the family, welcoming them onto service, and sharing “what to expect” as they transition home. The rep can make the whole process smoother and a better experience for the referral source and the patient.

 

Relationship and humor: By the 5th day on the beach, we had pretty much seen all the wares, and the salespeople had come to recognize the boys. One of the funniest lines of the week was a salesman walking by with a case of bracelets who said to us, “Hi Ladies, you haven’t bought any of my stuff you don’t need yet. Almost free for you today!”

 

It made us laugh, and my friend Melissa called him back. He was different, used humor to make a connection, and it worked! She bought a bracelet!

This is also why we say in the RoadMap to Referrals program to incorporate some fun! Yes, you are a professional, and this is serious business. But we could all use a little fun, and it deepens your relationships with your referral sources!

There are always “lessons” around us every day!

 

Be a student! Home Care Sales and Marketing can be challenging! But it doesn’t have to be. We are here for you! We got your back!

If you are interested in discovering how to leave the overwhelm and uncertainty behind, email Mike@homecaresales.com and he can tour you around the programs that can help you grow!

Together we GROW!

Click here to book a free discovery call with Mike! 

Keep serving Seniors

Together We Grow!
Melanie

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Insights: We don’t take all the insurances. How can we compete?

Click play to begin the video:

 

Video Transcript:

This week on coaching calls for office hours and their sales management program a rep asked me “what am I supposed to do, because my agency doesn’t take all the insurances that the referral source would like?”

hmm…

Well, I would wish that the agencies that we work with all of them take all the insurances in the entire world.

Many of you can’t get on formulary many of you can’t get on panels.

We appreciate some panels are shut down, so there’s going to be areas where you just can’t get on that insurance.

Now I’m sure your leadership is trying their hardest to get on those panels and continue to try.

Here’s what a mentor told me once and I told this particular rep just this week.

You’ve got to sell what’s in the bag What did he mean by that, he said to me Mel you got to sell what’s in the bag, yes, you wish that you had X Y & Z you wish that you had this feature or this level of customer service or this insurance.

But you don’t.

You have this series of products and services.

And while you can bring it up to leadership and say I wish we had Humana I wish we had Blue Cross Blue Shield.

You can’t dwell on it, because it’s only going to bring you down and you gotta sell what you have. You’re going to position what you’re able to take.

I appreciate it might be a little bit harder. that’s where dogged and persistence pays off.

You know what we find in our sales management program and the high performance sales academy is that most referrals, if referral source is going to refer to you with our system they tend to refer to you in that

five to eight visit range, meaning you’ve seen that referral source five to eight times face to face in person, and this rep has not achieved that yet, and she was really down on herself.

And I said to her listen you haven’t even been there, four times in person face to face.

So while you’re saying you wish, you took all these insurances that may be part of the challenge I appreciate that.

You also haven’t put in the work yet, not fully, she’s showing up every day and she’s doing what we asked her to do in the system.

But at four times you know, yes, maybe once in a while you’ll get a referral early in the process, they don’t even know if you’re going to stick around yet they’ve had so many reps come and go, and come and go.

Stick in there.

Be doggedly persistent.

It may be about the insurances and your leadership’s working on it.

But it may just be about you, showing up and sharing the message that you have what you’ve got in your bag, to sell in order to care for more seniors.

So hang in there, tell your team persistence wins. It’s the key to the success. You got this and we can help.

If you’re looking for a system where you get referrals and that five to eight visit range, please jump on a call with Mike.

He does discovery calls with you, and you can make an appointment email him Mike@homecaresales.com and get on his calendar, see what we’ve got maybe we can help you too, I hope you have a great day, keep serving seniors and I’ll see you on the next series.

 

We have had several agencies joining the Sales Coaching & Management in the last month and we are loving seeing reps evolving into superstars. If you are ready to have us take over your sales management, simply reach out to Mike via email, or with the link below you can set up a meeting.

Mike@homecaresales.com

or

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

Thank you for all that you do to serve seniors!

Home Care Sales

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How much risk are you willing to take with your money?

Recently an owner was considering us to onboard, coach, and manage his rep.

He told us:

“I am terrible at hiring and managing my marketer. I have had 3 and 1 turned out to be not making a sales call, just sitting home and collecting a check.

The other was double dipping, working with another agency, and getting two paychecks.

The last one drove his car to the hospital and then walked to the gym, where he worked out for 2 hrs every day. I learned about it because one of my nurses worked out at the same gym and asked why he got to work out on company time.

I am OVER marketers. I am done with them, but I know I need them to increase my census, so I am calling you! You do it! I am not willing to risk my money ANYMORE!”

Gladly!

↑ How we feel when someone asks if we want to coach and manage their reps. ↑

 

We will gladly help you orient and onboard your marketers.

In addition, we will coach and train them weekly and hold them accountable.
We will become part of your leadership team!

We hear this story over and over from owners. Their marketers have failed them. But it’s not their fault they need a framework to orient and onboard a marketer.

Most owners were not taught sales management in school or in their professional careers. Our sales coaching program’s structure sets expectations, so everyone is on the same page, compresses time, and gets the rep to production quicker.

Managing marketers is a little like herding cats. And we LOVE herding cats!

Marketers must be independent and a self starter but often lack structure, planning, and time management skills, so they focus on “activity,” not “productivity.”

The HCS coaching and management program gives them the framework to have confidence in the planning to infuse their personality into the relationship development process.

Our framework consists of:

 

  • Orientation to Home Health, Hospice, or In-home care
    • Payment systems
    • Target Accounts
    • Eligibility criteria

 

  • Onboarding – the first 90 days to launch a rep to success
    • Weekly training and knowledge activities
    • Top 10 reasons to choose you
    • CRM included – documentation of best practices – how to set it and automate your sales success
    • How to answer “What do you do?” in a way everyone can understand and know when to reach out to you with a referral

 

  • Training and coaching – weekly checkpoints for training and coaching help the rep break through barriers and keep on target.
    • 52 wks of sales messages that get you high-value referrals RoadMap to Referrals in cluded
    • Live one on one coaching with a veteran marketer and manager
    • Small groups of peer coaching and community – other marketers in different states sharing “what’s working now.”

How does your framework compare to ours?

 

 

If you are frustrated with managing your marketer – we are here for you.

We LOVE herding cats!

We speak cat because we are cats!

Click here to book a free discovery call with Mike! 

Keep serving Seniors

Together We Grow!
Melanie

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Insights: Our clinical team had a bad interaction with a doctor and she stopped referring. What should I do?

Click play to begin the video:

 

Video Transcript:

You know man sometimes you’re just going to have one of those days, where our nurse and a physician or one of our caregivers and one of our referral sources

They have a disagreement or an argument.

I will share with you…

An example I had one where a podiatrist called and said that the nurse called his office and told him he ordered the wrong wound care.

And it wasn’t that she called and said “hey this wound care should not be done this way”

It was that she just left that as the message: “you ordered the wrong wound care and we need to change the orders call me back.”

He was so mad that she did that!

I will also tell you that this nurse has a remarkable reputation for healing wounds, so she truly does know wound care.

She does have, above and beyond, several different certifications that she received for wound care treatments.

and she really does know what she’s doing, but she doesn’t know how to approach somebody

when she’s talking to them about them maybe ordering a wound care in an improper order or an improper way.

So when this happens, it’s really important that you step in and you offer, first of all an apology.

Explain why the situation happened.

Apologize sincerely that it happened, and say that you were shocked that it happened.

And then you need to share with them, what are you going to do next, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

Even if you do that, and you apologize at the end and you say you know “what can I do?

Can I make sure that…

How can I meet any expectations, so that you will continue to refer to me?

The Doc may turn around say I’m never going to refer to you again, as long as you have Marina the nurse taking care of my patient.

If that happens, you have to then figure out, am I willing to say that I’ll have somebody else be the provider when he makes a referral.

If you’re not willing to do that, then you may need to say well I’m really sorry to hear that and move on to another physician.

And then you need to counsel your nurse and explain to her how you could have lost a potentially great referral source.

Sometimes you can get the physician to change his mindset like I will share with you another one where

My intake department told the doctor that we needed the doctor to document homebound status on the referral form.

And the physician came back and he said I’m not doing that this patient side homebound.

And then I looked at the referral and in a heartbeat I could see that the patient was hometown.

So I picked up the phone I called the Dock, and I said hey i’d love to pick your brain about a couple things with home health and I wonder if you would do dinner with me.

And me and actually the sales REP that were responsible for that neighborhood went to dinner with the Doc and at dinner I turned around and I said to him hey…

You know I understand you had a little bit of an altercation with intake about Mr. Jones and he didn’t want to document why he was homebound.

And he said to me, yeah, she was asking me to – you know – commit fraud and write that he was homebound and he is not.

And I said – you know – tell me Dr S, what does homebound mean?

and he said homebound means that they’re confined to the bed or that they’re in a wheelchair, and this patient is not homebound.

and very quickly, I was able to discover that his idea of what homebound was was not what homebound is.

So right away, we were able to go back to intake and say hey whenever you need somebody to do something for homebound instead we’re going to email them, this is a little paper that describes what the regulation says.

This is the evidence that they should be given so that they can understand how to document homebound and what homebound is because a lot of docs, they hear the word homebound and they perceive it as something else.

So every single time that you’ve got a problem with an account you’ve got to do an investigation.

You got to find out what was the problem and see if there’s anything that you can fix.

And know when you’ve got to walk away.

know when you’ve got to cut your losses so that you don’t waste time and money and effort and get everybody upset every single time that you’re saying I wish I would have bought another referral from that person.

because sometimes you can’t win them all.

 

There is nothing worse than a bad interaction with your referral source and your staff. However, it doesn’t have to be the end. Managing those relationships takes work. If you are looking for a way to build stronger relationships that can endure a few bad interactions, check out the High Performance Sales Academy! You can learn how to perfect the art of building bulletproof referral-producing relationships.

Thank you for all that you do to serve seniors!

Home Care Sales

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Insights: Can you give me any advice on designing a good compensation plan to help me get a good sales rep?

Click play to begin the video:

 

Video Transcript:

The question we get asked probably most often is how do you develop an incentive plan or bonus plan or compensation plan that motivates this staff member the sales REP or marketer.

But also is thoughtful of the Agency and your budget your revenue and your profit.

Well, we have something that we like to call the-cost-justify-the-COMP plan, and what that fancy word means is that you have to take into consideration what your revenue looks like.

What your direct costs indirect costs look like and you’re a real profit.

So that’s why, when people ask me this on forum, or if I’m at a conference speaking on stage will say talk to me about a COMP plan how much or how many patients should my market or deliver to me how much revenue should my marketer bring to the table for our in-home care.

And what I share with them is it depends, and you know I know that’s a crappy answer from the stage you don’t want to hear that or even hear you don’t want to hear that what you want us number… and what I can tell you is it’s a formula.

You got to take into consideration what is your cost per admission per patient or client, you have to take into consideration what the base COMP is for the marketer.

And then, what is your profit per patient or per client and how much of that are you willing to share with them.

That is the formula that you need to look at and once we do that because everyone’s direct expenses are different for someone like me who lives in Fairhope Alabama.

My office space maybe less than someone who lives in La Jolla California. So my cost per admission or per client started care it’s going to be less than someone in La Jolla.

In fact, my base camp for my REP is going to be less here than it is in La Jolla.

So, consequently, you have to look at the formula in order to best identify how many patients you need how many clients, you need, for example…

And that can be expressed in revenue, it could be expressed in ours for our in-home care friends and it’s often expressed in admissions or start of cares.

So Consequently, I would ask you to take a look at that.

Most REPS think in terms of admissions or clients who start care.

That’s where their brain goes. So if you have a number which you ultimately will you’ll have a number that you are willing to give your reward your marketer per patient.

And that is what I’d recommend because they think in terms of per patient, not revenue growth.

You will, as a business owner or as a manager or leader, but the REP themselves (will not).

So turn those numbers turn those revenue numbers into actual patient admissions or client admissions and then just every 90 days do a check.

Make sure that your average patient profit continues to be the same as what it was 90 days ago, because we know all clients or patients are not created equal revenue-wise.

Just do your checks, so that you can make sure that your COMP plan is in alignment.

We do this every day with our sales management folks.

Every quarter we sit down and do a quarterly game plan that’s also when we look at revenue and make sure that our COMP plan is in alignment with our board goals or ownership goals, so that the Agency can then achieve its goals.

So I hope that helps when you think about COMP plans, just think about the formula.

The formula is going to be different, the formula is going to be the same, but the numbers are going to be different for each agency.

So take your revenue, think about profit per patient and put that into a calculation for a base salary usually about 60% is base salary and 40% is that variable COMP that is rewarded based on growth, for example in your agency.

So we look forward to helping you. If you want more information about our sales management program we help sales.

REPS every day achieve and overachieve their budgets just go ahead and email mike@homecaresale.com and he’ll set you up for a discovery call where you can learn more about how we help agencies, just like yours manage their sales REPS and grow their business.

Thanks for joining me today I can’t wait to see you on the next question!

 

Having a solid comp plan for your marketers will ensure that you are getting the results you are looking for out of your team. If you want to stay competitive, a great plan is key to your success.

We just recently covered designing comp plans for marketers in our Inner Circle Mastermind. If you are a home health agency owner who is looking for a major level-up for your agency (and life) you should apply here: homecaresales.com/innercircle

Thank you for all that you do to serve seniors!

Home Care Sales

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Insights: Are any agencies you are working with getting into assisted living facilities?

Click play to begin the video:

Video Transcript:

How do you get into assisted livings during this time?

Well whether it’s COVID or not, one of the
things that we recognize is that assisted livings are really struggling with cognition and their residents.

So one of the things that you can offer, whether you are a Medicare-certified home health or an in-home care provider is to talk about cognitive stimulation and cognitive therapy.

What we learned during the time of COVID in the pandemic is that many of the assisted livings have isolated or did isolate their residents in their apartments.

And we saw that many of those residents had a decline in their cognitive status.

What we didn’t see is a lot of agencies talking about that.

So for the agencies that we worked with, we went on a big campaign about cognitive therapy for medicare certified home health and cognitive
stimulation for in-home care.

And it worked.

It worked like gangbusters!

We know… and, as you guys know I’m an OT
what I wanted to share with you is as an OT,

I can perform cognitive therapy.

Also, speech therapy has a cognitive therapy component to so check with your clinicians first.

Understand who is comfortable performing cognitive therapy with residents and then go to your assisted livings and talk about that.

Talk about what your OT can do for those residents.

Same with your caregivers.

All of your caregivers have been trained in in-home care on how to engage a client and how to stimulate cognition through playing games or reading the newspaper etc…

Get them engaged in some type of cognitive activity.

This is one of your keys to your success because there’s not a lot of agencies talking about it, and we know when you engage those residents their function becomes better both mental and physical.

We know they go hand in hand.

So as a sales REP or marketer for your agency do your homework first.

Look internally.

Make sure you have the skill set internally before you go out and market it, but this could be a great unique competitive differentiator for you.

As you go through that process with your assisted livings and really deepen those relationships it’s going to be a win for you, for them,
and the residents.

Thanks so much for joining us today that’s why we continue to present some of these ideas and the roadmap to referrals if you haven’t heard of our program roadmap to referrals.

Please do jump on mike’s calendar and he will give you a tour of the program and the system so that you can see exactly how it works and how you can present each week a unique differentiator to really position your agency as the agency of choice for your best referral sources.

Thanks so much for joining me, and together we grow.

 

The Pandemic certainly caused agencies to struggle to gain access to seniors in assisted living. Who can blame them for being protective of their residents? However, those residents now need us more than ever!

Are you looking for the words to say to build referral-generating relationships with your assisted living, skilled nurse, or independent facilities? Do you need a partner guiding you through your physician and other relationships? That partnership and those tools are only a few clicks away! By CLICKING HERE you can set up a call with HCS to discover what opportunities you may be missing with your marketing efforts!

Want to talk to a member of our team to find out how we can help? Just email mike@homecaresales.com and he’ll set you up with a brief call.

Thank you for all that you do to serve seniors!

Home Care Sales

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Insights: My Hospital has their own agency and they don’t refer to us. Is there any way for me to get in?

Click play to begin the video:

 

Video Transcript:

Getting into the hospital is really a big deal for many of us.

Because just The fact of the sheer volume of referrals that the hospital can potentially give us.

So there is typically about four different ways that I want to share with you today on how you can break in.

One of them is, that you can build a business plan to basically go after the doctors that are caring for patients that are right around the Community that serve that hospital and typically how you can find that list is if you go directly to the hospital’s website.

They will usually provide a list of doctors, that are providing services to patients.

And so right from there, you can build your target list.

Now if you get them identified referred to you directly from the physician’s office.

And they happen to absolutely love your company, what do you think’s going to happen if they ever need services?

So you end up in the hospital and they say oh it’s time for home health – they’re going to say you know what I have this wonderful company, and I want Cheryl’s home health fast.

The second thing that you could do, besides starting to build it from the outside in, is to add to your admission packet.

A form, where they can already select your agency, meaning something in the admission packet that says if and anytime I need to have home health services or home care services.

or half the services that I would like it to be done by this provider.

This way, if you find out at any time that one of your patients ends up back in the hospital, you can just fax over that form to discharge planning and let them know that the patient has selected you ahead of time to be their provider.

Another thing that you can do is obviously follow up with the discharge planners using the High Performance Sales Academy and putting them on a weekly cadence and use the purpose of the call directly from the roadmap to referrals.

But the good news is, that if you had one of those doctors’ patients on your services and they end up in the hospital, you can also go visit the patient.

and use that as a reason to stop at the front desk and say hey can you page the discharge planner to come up and speak to me

I’d like to talk about getting them sent home and getting them back on our services.

A third thing that you can do if you’re not getting into the hospital is find somebody else that you know that is getting in and buddy up with them.

Do some joint sales calls and typically could be something like a DME company an IV infusion company if that’s a service that you don’t do, a hospice provider, if you don’t do hospice or home health provider in-home care provider, it could be a

oxygen supplier, a wound care company, somebody that you know, a sales REP that is also calling on that team.

That they already know, like and trust, if you can buddy up with them there’s a lot of power in that referral process from a Coworker or colleague.

The last way, I want to talk to you about is going directly to the home health agency’s intake department that is working directly with the hospital.

And typically I would just go in, and I would do basically qualifying sales call on intake and say hey share with me – is there a payer that you don’t accept?

Do you have difficulty getting any discipline staff in any of the areas that you service?

Maybe potentially they have an insurance that they’re not really trying to accept and you could accept it?

So building a relationship, remember, the hospital has more patients that they need to get on services than they could ever potentially care for

So good luck! Go get it done!

 

Dealing with a hospital-based agency can be a challenge, but often the best opportunities are found in the roads less traveled. Don’t give up!

Need help getting your sales team into the hospital? Check out the bonus training in the High Performance Sales Academy showing you just how to do that by CLICKING HERE!

Want to talk to a member of our team to find out how we can help? Just email mike@homecaresales.com and he’ll set you up with a brief call.

Thank you for all that you do to serve seniors!

Home Care Sales

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Mastermind Groups Create Great Leaders

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

We just started our Inner Circle Mastermind group for home health agencies, and I already see great things happening with this amazing group of owners. 

Some have heard how others are recruiting new clinicians and are adopting new strategies and getting results.  Others have added amazing retention protocols to keep their top staff. 

In our next meeting, we are focusing on key performance indicators.  

 

I have been asked what our inner circle mastermind group is all about.  Here are 5 things you should know about mastermind groups.

 

1. Coaching and mentorship are important for business success. When you have a community of like-minded individuals who can support and encourage you, it can make all the difference.  

2. Mastermind groups are a great way to get coaching and mentorship. These groups are made up of people who are interested in helping each other achieve their goals.  This group is facilitated by two women who have over 50 combined years of experience in coaching and mentorship.

3. Mastermind groups provide a safe place for people to share their ideas and get feedback. This type of community can help you learn new things, grow your business, and achieve your goals. In addition, this group can save you money by preventing you from making costly mistakes.

4. Mastermind groups offer a variety of benefits, including networking opportunities, advice from experts, and support from others who are facing similar challenges. We all speak the language of the Conditions of Participation, and that makes us extremely effective in dealing with hot-topic issues.

5. If you’re looking for a way to take your business to the next level, consider joining our inner circle mastermind group. This group is our 3rd Mastermind group, and every year our program has drastically improved.  We are learning things that would take us 3 years to do, in just weeks.  

 

We are just over half full and looking for a few more members. If you would like to be considered for the group, please go to https://homecaresales.com/innercircle/ and complete the mastermind application form. We will reach out to set up your interview ASAP. 

See you on the inside of the Inner circle mastermind!  

 

Keep Helping, Keep Serving,

Cheryl Pelekis, RN “The Solutionist”

 

 

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It’s Time To Upgrade your Recruiting and Retention to Upgrade your Results With Hiring

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

The post-acute care world has been struggling with a lack of caregivers for years. This problem is only getting worse, as the population ages and more people require care.

Nurses and therapists are in high demand, but there are not enough qualified applicants to fill all the open positions.

 

This leads to communication problems and recruiting and retention issues. There are new ideas out there to try and streamline the process, but they will not be successful without enough staff.

We need to find a way to attract more people to this field so that we can improve the quality of care for everyone involved.

Building a company that everyone wants to work for starts with creating a culture of fun, wow, and satisfaction. This can be accomplished through things like offering advancement opportunities, mentorship, engaging orientation programs, and more.

Making sure employees are satisfied with their job is also key, as it will lead to increased retention rates and less turnover. Make sure you include an employee survey quarterly to make sure your team has what they need to get the job done.

Recruiting can be a long and arduous process, but it doesn’t have to be. By streamlining the process and using compelling ads, you can speed things up and make sure you’re hiring the best possible candidates. Be sure to script your interview questions and use quick reference checks and criminal background checks to make the process as smooth as possible.

 

Employee retention is critical for a successful home care business.

 

A recent study by the National Institute of Health found that individuals who received home health services recovered faster and were less likely to require re-hospitalization than those who received care in a nursing home or other institutional setting. The same study also found that caregivers are a key factor in providing quality home health services.

Given the importance of retaining good caregivers, businesses should consider offering retention bonuses, assigning buddies, conducting daily check-ins, and providing engaging orientations. Employee surveys can also be used to help identify factors that contribute to employee satisfaction and retention. Outcome-based evaluations can help identify whether programs and policies are having the desired effect on employee engagement and retention.

 

In conclusion…

 

If you want to create a culture that makes your company the place everyone wants to work, you must start by setting the example yourself. Be passionate about your work and be dedicated to creating a positive work environment.

Encourage your employees to be creative and take risks and reward them for their hard work. Most importantly, make sure that everyone in the company feels like they belong and that their voice is heard. I love the book, Fish! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Stephen C. Lundin and others.

 

You can also buy our recruiting and retention training at https://homecaresales.com/recruiting-and-retention/

 

Keep Helping, Keep Serving,

Cheryl Pelekis, RN “The Solutionist”

 

 

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Home health is a growing industry, but here is why you still need a salesperson to succeed

Cheryl Peltekis, RN “The Solutionist”

Even with the current staffing issues that many agencies are facing, home health care is a booming industry. In fact, it is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States. Despite this, many home health care agencies still struggle to make a profit. One of the main reasons for this is a lack of salespeople.

Salespeople are essential to the success of any business, and home health care is no exception. A good salesperson can help an agency attract new patients and develop relationships that are instrumental in reaching key revenue goals.

They provide the “connection” with your referral sources that your busy staff (especially now) simply doesn’t have the time to maintain or develop.

Another vital function of a great salesperson is their ability to communicate your staffing status. Yes, it is not fun when you have to turn away a patient, but what makes that even worse is when you finally have hours to fill and you don’t have a patient to occupy that time slot.

That can lead to a disappointed staff, a drop in revenue, and more.

 

Open and honest connection with your referral sources can make sure you are filling as many billable hours as you can, while ensuring that your physicians, facilities, and hospitals (who are very likely experiencing a similar shortage of staff) can plan accordingly and learn to rely on your agency to serve that key role of caring for their patients.

So what is vital to a health agency? A good salesperson.

 

There are many ways to do this, including recruiting them from other industries, asking your staff (especially ones that you find very reliable) if they know someone, or connecting with a recruiter that specializes in finding salespeople for the home health care industry. There are a few superstars hiring folks that a quick search on Linkedin can help you locate. (trust me…they want to hear from you!)

Salespeople are often the lifeblood of a company. They are the people who help a company capture new patients and referral sources and ultimately the decider of agency success.

So what are the qualities that make a salesperson great?

 

They need to be able to:

    • Build relationships with referral sources
    • Understand those referral sources’ needs
    • Get in a relationship where they can “identify” the underserved patient types for their referral sources
    • Provide outstanding customer service and follow up on admissions

 

If you don’t have a salesperson, (or perhaps you do), it seems like you could do what they do if you only had time. That may be true but there are two things you should consider:

 

    1. You actually DON’T have enough time.

    2. If they are a fantastic sales rep, then you probably CAN’T do what they do.



When it comes to home health, having a skilled salesperson on your side can make all the difference.
In order to be successful in this industry, you need to be able to represent your agency. This is especially true if your agency is in a market where there are many other competitors. If you don’t have someone who is out representing your services and your competitors do, how long do you think your agency and your established relationships will hold out?

With home health, a salesperson is essential for success.

Do you have a salesperson? Are they performing where you want them to? There is a good chance we have a tool you can access right away that can get them on the path to the number and type of patients you are looking for.

Simply email Mike@homecaresales.com or go here to set up a call: https://calendly.com/mike-home-care-sales

 

Keep Helping, Keep Serving,

Cheryl Pelekis, RN “The Solutionist”

 

 

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