Motivational Monday: Your Message From a Place of Passion

Today I was on a call with a gentleman who wanted to know what I could do to help his salesperson to gain referrals. This salesperson hadn’t be able to hit the number for some time. He actually wasn’t pulling any referrals at all! They have the rep on GPS tracking through a phone app and his company car. They know he’s making the visits.

He was adamant that I help him understand how we can help. I told him:

He had all the pieces there, right? If you know your team is working and that they are targeting qualified accounts, but your not hitting the number…It’s almost always a messaging problem.

We’ve all hit that wall with a salesperson. Even sales reps have hit that wall themselves. My first few months in home health, I found myself using no message and then later using the wrong message. That’s one of the reasons I am so passionate. Back then?I?just wanted to?win.?Your sales team wants to win.

If your team is working but the referrals aren’t coming in, it’s almost always one of the same two problems.

1. Your accounts aren’t qualified.
2. You are not saying the right thing to the right person

The good news is that messaging problems are often easy to fix as far as words are concerned. Here at HCS, we spend most of our days working with the right words. Passion, however, is the challenge. If you tell a referral source that you cannot stand the thought of a patient who needs help going without, but wont go the extra mile or can’t share a personal story of how your service line has impacted you…it’s going to be hard to win over your referral source. What you say doesn’t line up with who you are. Your actions and your words are not in harmony.

Passion is born by coming in contact with the results of your care. A patient gets service at home and avoids the hospital. That same patient receives physical therapy and gets to make it to her grand daughters dance recital.

How about this: Your care over the span of a weekend makes it possible for a discharge planner to sleep better at night because they know their at-risk patient is in good hands. That peace of mind ensures that more patients get better care from that discharge planner.

You get the idea. Your passion is born from an experience that touches your life. I love home health and hospice because of the impact it had on my mothers life before her passing. If you haven’t felt it as a consumer, then go through your staff. Make a point to come in contact with your successes.

I would ask you to reflect on your passion this week. Do you feel connected to the service your provide? Do you feel like what you do matters? If you don’t, you’ll never be as successful as you would if you managed to connect intimately with the care you provide. You’re more than a service. You represent a bonafide life change.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi