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The
Legendary Sales Leadership Letter |
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Mike's Top Picks
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As you read this, you have completed the first month of 2008! A good time to do a quick check to make sure you are on course to blow your goals away this year. Review what worked and where you stand in relation to your plans. Make minor course corrections and hit the ground running in February. This year is leap year, so you have 29 calendar days and 21 week days. On February 1, the 32nd day of the year, there are 334 days remaining. The period from January 1 to Memorial Day is the longest selling season of the year with 87 selling days. You have about 65 days left, so make the most out of each and every one of them.
There are many celebrations and commemorations in February. American Heart Month allows plenty of opportunity to talk about your cardiac programs. Here is a list of dates and events during February:
American Heart Month and National Black History Month 2 - Groundhog Day 2-5 - Brazil, Carnival 3 - Super Bowl XLII, Arizona 4 - Rosa Parks Birth Anniversary 5 - Mardi Gras (United States) 5 - Constitution Day (Mexico) 6 - Ash Wednesday (Protestant, Roman Catholic) 7 - Chinese Lunar New Year (China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam) 7 - Tet Nguyen Dan (Vietnam) 11 - National Foundation Day (Japan) 12 - NAACP Founded 14 - Race Relations Day 17 - League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Founded 18 - President's Day 22 - George Washington's Birthday 24 - Flag Day (Mexico)
Have a fantastically successful February! At the end of the month, you will be finished with 1/6th of the year and you should make sure that you are ahead of all projections to that point in the year. The best way to beat your goals is to get ahead and stay ahead!
Happy Selling! Best,
Mike Ferris |
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What Gets You Excited?
At the highest level, we all get excited by the difference that our industry makes in the world. As it pertains to sales and marketing, we can generally all agree that we are motivated by telling the story to more people, increasing referrals and enabling more to receive the gift of home care and hospice.
After that is where we start to see divergence. While we can probably agree upon the skills necessary to sell the services, each sales person typically gets excited about some more than others. This is to be expected and is simply human nature. As sales leaders it is important to help each individual sales person stay in touch with those things that make them excited. These will be the strengths that will carry them to new heights and through tough times. As long as they don't lose sight of them and stay in touch with them, they will continue to be driven to produce results and less likely to become burnt out.
As a sales person, you must know what gets you excited and make sure that you continue to do it. You must look for those activities that are less to your liking and get them out of the way to be able to focus on what you do best. Brian Tracy has a theory (and basis for a book) that each day you have a most distasteful thing to do. He refers to it as "eating a frog" and suggests that you start the day by eating the frog. This leaves you free of the dread surrounding whatever it was that you needed to do for the rest of the day and by definition, brightens the rest of your day.
Stay in close touch with what makes you excited about life and your job and you will always achieve more and be happier!
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Two seats remain for the February 11 - 13, 2008 Square One Bootcamp. Click here to register. Registration is now open for the March 17 - 19, 2008 Square One Bootcamp. You have two registration options: To lock in a seat with a $500 deposit, click here.
To lock in a seat with your full payment,
click here. Q. Why do you hold the Bootcamps in Chapel Hill? A. Thanks for the question. There are several reasons for the location:
We also provide this phenomenally successful
training program at client sites and then they are able to send new hires
to us in Chapel Hill. This provides home care and hospice
organizations with the ability to provide consistent sales training to all
of their sales team members.
"I have been to dozens of sales and
marketing training seminars and meetings over the last decade, and Mike
Ferris' Square One Boot Camp is by far the best home health sales and
marketing training I have ever been to. Every single session was full of
valuable, practical and immediately usable information. The conference
ended Wednesday afternoon, and our marketers were using the lessons they
learned on Thursday morning. Mike demonstrated a genuine interest in and
commitment to our success by sharing his time and insight, as well as
giving us many great written resources. Along the way, however, he became
more than just a speaker or trainer. I actually feel like he's an advocate
and a friend. I would heartily recommend this training to every marketing
and sales representative that is looking to get substantially better
results, and to every Administrator or CEO that is wondering how they can
get their sales and marketing staff to become consistently more
productive. In fact, I would recommend Mike Ferris' Boot Camp to everyone. Everyone except our competitors, that is."
~ Ron Tester, President and CEO |
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But We Never Had to Sell Before!
Home health and hospice agencies are faced with the need to get serious about selling their services, many for the first time. The first wave was to hire community liaisons. This provided an initial competitive advantage -- just having someone out in the community. As competitors also hired liaisons, the need to have highly trained and effective sales people emerged.
Sales people are expensive and their productivity should be a key success metric. The number of admissions each one generates determines your cost of acquisition per case. The single important element in your sales and marketing program is the productivity of the sales team!
If this represents a paradigm shift, then so be it! Get over it and start focusing on making sure that your home care or hospice has the best sales team in your community. Training, coaching mentoring and support all factor into the success of the team. Recruiting, hiring and retaining the best is also important to continually improving results, year after year.
Sales is here to stay and will represent one of the most important elements in your future results. The top line revenue growth must be predictable and consistent to allow for management of the agency. Don't forget that you must do well before you can do good! This has never been more true!
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Take the Plastic Wrapper Off!
I have always been amused by the questions that come in sometimes from book purchasers, who when queried haven't even taken the plastic wrap off of the book yet! It makes a good way to look at sales people's level of motivation. The highly motivated sales person is the one who immediately starts reading and using the book and has great questions that are indicative of their desire to take their learning to the next level. The moderately motivated one reads the material as required by the sales manager, usually the night before the deadline. The unmotivated sales person hasn't taken the plastic wrap off and will make excuses about why they were unable to read the assignment.
As sales leaders, you have to recognize which camp your troops fall into. Then evaluate them to see if the moderately motivated can be helped to become highly motivated. The unmotivated should be evaluated to see if they even belong on your sales team!
It is fine to say that all sales people should be motivated, but it is my experience that the level of motivation is all over the board. They need your help to continue to improve themselves and their skills. Give them assignments of reading or listening to books on sales, motivation and time management. Have the entire group read an article or chapter on a specific topic that you will discuss at your next sales meeting.
When helping individual reps with their problems, give them specific assignments to complete with due dates. This will help you to support their learning skills that are challenging them. These types of assignments are a natural extension of your coaching and mentoring of the team.
So let's get the entire team off of their duffs and go sell something!
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In each Legendary Sales Leadership Letter, Mike answers your questions. Send them to us or call (800) 293-5471 and we'll make sure that yours are answered in a future issue. Here are this week's questions answered: Question: For the gatekeeper who won't talk at all, is it beneficial to just call in advance to make an appointment to speak with the person who makes the referrals? If the gatekeeper is also the appointment setter, what would be the best "script" for getting the appointment? Answer: Usually I would say not to try and call ahead, that you are better off doing this in person. That being said, the next step when you are stymied by a gatekeeper is to analyze your other possible approaches. Calling to set the appointment may work perfectly, and since you have already qualified the account and know who you are targeting could be the perfect solution. There is no single answer, but rather you must think strategically and exhaust all approaches. Keep your script short and to the point. It is the same as in person; introduce yourself and state that you are calling to set a time to see (insert the person's name). If there is resistance then you would use the same tactics and ask for their help. Many times, these calls are going to be made in response to the gatekeeper having told you that you have to call to make an appointment. In these cases, tell them that you are calling per their suggestion. Question: For a new rep, what type of increase in referrals should I expect to see from month to month? Answer:
Excellent question! This will be
dependent upon the territory as well as the representative. If it
is a new territory, then the numbers start much lower and will grow
faster on the front end on a percentage increase basis. If it is
an existing territory with a new rep, then you may actually see a slight
decline in the first month or two as you get the accounts used to you. |
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It's hard to find a healthcare company without a website these days. It may be harder, however, to find a company that's entirely pleased with their website. When do you take the jump from being pleased with your website to investing in a redesign? Here are five sure signs that you need to work on your website:
If you found yourself agreeing with at least two of the above statements, it may be time to work a website redesign into your next marketing budget. In the next newsletter, we'll look at how to choose a web developer that will meet your needs.
Donovan Cronkhite is a web developer with
RJ Michaels, Inc., a
leading marketing and communications firm specializing in integrating
new technologies and traditional media. |
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Marketing Outrageously
This is a book that should be in your library and serve as a tool to motivate outrageous marketing. Jon Spoelstra is one of America's top sports marketers and in this book, he offers provocative ideas that will help boost your top and bottom line. There are 17 ground rules such as:
Ground Rule #1: If you aren't willing to take a few risks in marketing, become a bean counter.
Ground Rule #2: When you aim for the top, you make important progress by just the aiming.
Ground Rule #6: If you mimic the market leaders, you'll add to their dominance.
Ground Rule #13: Toss out the old measurements. What is it going to take to dominate?
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and an outrageous marketer himself, says in the foreword, "I highly recommend this book. It will be required reading for every Dallas Maverick employee and a gift to many of my friends." Get a copy for yourself and apply the outrageous techniques to your marketing.
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Home Care and Hospice Marketing Solutions is the leading industry-specific resource for home care professionals. Founded by Michael Ferris, we specialize in Sales, Marketing and Customer Service Coaching, Training, and Consulting for home health and hospice agencies.
We have expertise in Private Pay Home Care, Medicare Home Health, and Hospice including not-for-profit and for profit organizations. Our services enable home care agencies to understand and capitalize on the opportunities in their market.
The strategic and tactical services offered by Home Care and Hospice Marketing Solutions include:
Call (800) 293-5471 or
write us and see how
we can improve your home care and hospice sales skills! |
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Thanks for doing what you do for our industry. You have the most opportunity in your organization to enable the community to have access to home care and hospice services. You make a difference in your community every day. Remember that we must first do well before we can do good. Home care and hospice sales professionals are in a growing and exciting career.
Until
next issue, Good Luck and Happy Selling! |
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