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The
Legendary Sales Leadership Letter |
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Mike's Top Picks
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Hats off to Florida, AHHIF and Gene Tischer!
Associated Home Health Industries of Florida (AHHIF) and its venerable executive director, Gene Tischer, worked diligently to craft and guide a piece of legislation through the Florida legislature that should provide a strong precedent for cleaning up some of the bad actors in our industry.
For many years, one of the most difficult questions that I have received when speaking at national or state home care and hospice conferences has been, "how do we compete with an agency that is fraudulently paying for referrals?" The question is difficult because it has always made me very sad that these activities were prevalent in some areas of the country. The answer is easy; it is just never what the person wants to hear. We can't compete because we must always stay way above the fray and make sure that our sales and marketing strategies are always legal and ethical. The other frustration was reading about the inability of the Federal regulators to eliminate these activities. Now, with Florida leading the way, states will be able to regulate and dispense justice.
The bill incorporates specific, detailed anti-fraud provisions in the state's three home care licensure statues. This is the first time in the nation that a state has incorporated these detailed anti-fraud measures in a health care licensure law. This will enable the state surveyors and licensure division to take action against bad actors and specifies fraudulent behavior that has long created frustrations for ethical providers in the state.
Click here for the entire final bill -- and scroll down and click on the word "Enrolled" right under the phrase "Bill Text."
I have known Gene for about 10 or 11 years
and he is certainly one of my favorite people in home health.
Thanks, Gene, for all that you do! |
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Partnering
The most successful home care and hospice agencies are those that are able to form a partnership with their referral sources. This is true universally across the country in agencies large and small. These partnerships are formed by the agency's sales team isolating the specific needs of the referral source and then creating a service program that will consistently meet those needs. When a partnership relationship is attained, then the referral source just naturally sends their home care and hospice referrals to the agency.
Partnering is by far the most effective method of building and maintaining a successful home care or hospice program. For the physician, a partnership may involve a specialized set of protocols and processes that are designed to deliver exactly what they want. In a facility, such as a skilled nursing facility, the partnership may be based on the sales person receiving the referral and then proceeding to meet with the patient and their family, obtaining all of the referral information. They can then manage the coordination between the facility and the agency.
If there is one universal tenet, it is that if the home care or hospice agency can make the referral source's life easier, then they will receive their referrals.
To best accomplish this level of partnership, training for the sales team should be based on how to ask about needs. The sales people need to learn to ask questions designed to discover what is important to the referral source. They want to ultimately find out what it will take to become their preferred home care or hospice provider. They want to know which needs the agency can fulfill. Once they know the answer to that question, it is then simply a matter of positioning the agency as the logical choice to deliver on their needs. Since most agencies do not train their sales people in the art of needs assessment, the competitive advantage can be huge.
Needs assessment is not an easy art to master. It is much like being a great detective -- it sounds easier than it is. Good detectives ask questions that they plan like a chess match. They try to think a couple of moves ahead of the conversation when choosing their questions. They mix open- and closed-ended questions to get the information about the needs. How the questioning occurs positions the sales person as a genuinely interested consultative sales person. By repeating back the information to test for understanding and agreement, they build a road that takes them where they want to go.
There are two basic types of questions: open-ended and closed-ended. Open-ended questions typically start with who, what, when, where, how and why. You will typically use open questions to explore particular situations and to identify needs. They are especially advantageous because they are open to a large range of responses, providing us an insight into what's on their mind. Open probes can also be used to clarify your understanding of what your customer has said. Closed ones start with words like do, are, is, which or have. They limit the possible responses to a simple one-word answer like yes, or no, a number, or to a few options. Although closed probes limit possible responses, they have several uses and can be extremely useful in the hands of a sales person. Use them to keep the person on track, to steer the conversation back to the business at hand.
In needs based sales, the most dangerous thing to do is make assumptions or jump to unfounded conclusions. This is why confirming the need in this process is so important. If you do not know that the information you are basing your strategy upon is accurate, then it is only a matter of time before the proposition blows up in your face. Also, remember that perception is reality to the referral source. In the process of confirming the information, the referral source is made to feel important. They feel like the sales person is listening and actively engaged in finding a customized solution. If you don't ask, then you will never know for sure.
The referral source may not tell you what you need to know on the first round of questions. Determine before you go in to see them the next time what your goal is and the questions that you will use. Preparation and practice are key ingredients to success in this area. Try different angles until you hit upon the one that gets that next piece of information. Confirm and go on to the next. Over the course of your visits you are building a relationship and their trust. You may be able to come back with a question you asked early on but did not receive an answer to when you have their trust.
Another key element is to recognize that there are potentially a number of people within a referral source that all have different (and sometimes divergent) needs. This multiples the need for practiced questioning. The series of open- and closed-ended questions must be designed to unearth all of their true interests. They may say that they select a home care provider by evaluating outcomes and quality of care, but that may have nothing to do with their actual reason. Until the sales person can learn what motivates the agency selection, they cannot perform a needs analysis that will allow them to form a long-term partnership. Relationships are only as strong as their basis; therefore, the strongest home care referral relationships are based on needs fulfillment.
The process takes time to develop into strong referral relationships. The pace should not be too rushed. The sales person cannot afford to be impatient as they will not build the proper rapport. They may get sloppy and miss important information. Since the goal is to build long-term relationships it is necessary to have a long-term perspective.
Monitoring, managing and protecting the relationships are accomplished by constantly keeping your antennae up to pick up on any changes or new needs. Just because you have ascertained their needs at one point in time does not mean that they will not change with time.
Exceptional customer service plays a big role in this success; service and more service, as we said, make their lives easier and you will own their allegiance. There are many ways to gauge how your agency is performing in the customer service area. Do regular secret shopping of the agency to know how the service is being executed. Call at especially heavy times to see if the service holds up under pressure.
The depth of the relationship is directly related to the sales person's ability to continually probe for needs and confirm that the agency is delivering. Add Legendary Customer Service to the mix and you strengthen it further. Finally, if the sales person knows the details about the referral source -- including personal information such as hobbies, medical school, birthday, etc. -- then they are positioned to have a strong and long relationship. The relationship should be cultivated at every touch point; ultimately it is only as strong as the weakest link.
Partnering is the number one and most unassailable competitive advantage. Encourage your sales team to be good detectives that build their relationships on the basis of meeting the needs of the referral sources.
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The next Square One Bootcamp will be held August 25 - 27 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Reserve your seat now as we expect spaces to fill up quickly! 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. 52 Week eSales Training Course Our groundbreaking and highly-acclaimed 52 Week eSales Training Course is available for one to one hundred students. It provides a weekly lesson (takes about 30 minutes to complete) that will keep your sales team members' skills sharp. Students have said that the course supported them in becoming better at their profession, increased their referrals and forced them to review the basics. On average, our 52 Week eLearning participants have increased their referrals by over 31%! "With the help of the 52 Week eSales Training Course, I have been able to increase our accounts by approximately 20% and have increased referrals and admits by an even greater percent. Thank you, and my company also thanks you!" -- Barbara Edmisten, Highland Hospice
Special offer for Sales Leadership Letter
subscribers: Enroll up to 10 students for one low price of $599
(does not include audio CDs)!
Click here to take advantage of this offer. |
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Look for Synergy!
If you work for a home care that does not have a hospice, contact hospices that don't have home care (or vice versa) to develop synergistic programs to help provide the complete continuum of services to the patients you serve. Home care agencies frequently have patients who become hospice appropriate. Hospices frequently have patients who rally and "graduate" from hospice services. Both have referrals and inquiries that are more appropriate for the other.
This would apply in other combinations with health care companies in your service area. Look for those win-win-win situations in yours. You, the other company and the patient all win!
Caution: You should not enter into any agreement that "trades" a patient referral for another or the promise of one in the future. This would, in my mind, create an illegal inducement situation. You should consult your legal counsel to make sure that any relationships you develop are above board and consistent with your agency's philosophies and practices. Anytime we offer anything of value in exchange for a Medicare patient referral, you are crossing the line.
(Disclaimer: Neither Michael Ferris nor Home Care and Hospice Marketing Solutions are attorneys or dispense legal opinions. Seek legal counsel on all issues.)
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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: How long should I allow my sales person to work a prospect? How many calls should it take to determine if they are a good prospect? How soon should I expect to see referrals from a new prospect? Answer: As a general rule of thumb, I would say that if you have been in the account 10 times and qualified them and probed for needs with no results, I would cross them off the list. 90 days is the timeframe that you should be able to get them to start sending referrals if they are a good prospect. Make the sales person sell you on why they would continue to work with them after this much time and effort with no results. The only way to compress the sales cycle is being in the account on a frequent basis. It does no good to make sales calls every now and again. Have your sales people keep a prioritized list of prospects that is limited to their top prospects. Based on the maturity of their territory and goals, you should limit the number of prospects on the list. There are three ways off of the list: 1) gives a referral and becomes an account; 2) crossed off the list as not worthy; or 3) the referrer moved, retired, died or otherwise became non-viable. The key to success is a consistent approach, and knowing that the new HOT prospect must have a slot on the list to be worked. This will many times force the rep to ask the difficult question, "What will it take for you to refer to us?" As with many things in your job, this is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a yardstick used to know when to move on! Question: What are some good questions for cardiologists to get them thinking about referring to hospice? Answer:
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How are you growing admissions to your hospice? The answer boils down to two alternatives: take share from your competitors or find new sources of referrals. Taking away market share involves developing a perceived advantage over your competitors, then communicating and executing on that difference. You have to give potential referral sources a strong reason to switch their referrals to your organization. Your gain in market share is someone else's loss and the total hospice market remains the same. Like a see-saw, admissions go up and down as referral sources react to everyone's marketing efforts. Finding new sources of patients presents a different set of challenges. How do you know if there are unserved populations and untapped referral sources? Marketing to the unknown without knowing the potential upside can be an unsettling and costly prospect. Knowing which alternative has the potential to get you the most admissions is critical so that you can maximize your marketing resources and get the biggest return. The first step in making this decision is to understand the market your hospice serves. Deciding to look for new patient sources should be based on how your market compares with the highest hospice penetration markets. One measure of penetration is to divide the number of Medicare patients served by the hospice benefit by the total number of Medicare eligibles in a given market or geography. In 2006, the national hospice penetration was 2.15%, but the highest states in penetration were more than 50% larger than this national figure, while the lowest states were more than 50% less. In different terms, if you lived in one of the top five states in hospice utilization, you were 4 times more likely to access the benefit than if you lived in the bottom states. At the local level, the variations are even greater. Another measure of hospice penetration is to calculate the number of deaths on hospice divided by the total deaths in a given geography. Here again, the variation between states is significant with the residents in the highest penetration states being 2.5 times more likely to die on the hospice benefit than those in the lowest penetration states in 2005. Regardless of the penetration metric used, you can know how much opportunity there is to identify new patients. Moreover, you can then quantify the potential upside of pursuing this strategy. In a low penetration situation, there is much more opportunity to find these previously unidentified hospice candidates. What is even better is that your competitors don't know about them, giving you a clear advantage in creating new referrals. With any sales effort, the critical resource is time. How much time you choose to allocate to either alternative of the "growth quandary" will have a direct impact on your ability to increase admissions.
If you would like to know either or both
of these measurements for your particular state and how it compares to
the national average, please contact Healthcare Market Resources, Inc.
at (215) 657-7373 or visit our website at
www.healthmr.com. |
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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 and your community. You make a difference in your community every day. Remember that we must first do well before we can do good -- so work a little extra this week to make some extra calls. I believe that the biggest trend looming on the horizon is the need for home care and hospice sales people to be more effective and efficient. Each sales person must generate more referrals to enable the organization to continue to fulfill its mission.
You are part of a growing and exciting professional career. Home care and hospice sales professionals are in great demand -- and that demand will only increase over the years to come. The demand, however, will be for highly professional, skilled sales people. Invest in your training and skills to continue to advance in your career. Sales managers are also in great demand in our industry. All in all, it is a great time to be in your position.!
Until next issue, Good Luck and Happy Selling!
Best,
Mike Ferris
Managing Principal |
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