Welcome,

...to this edition of Stephen Tweed's Leading Home Care Report. This special report is for CEOs and senior executives of America's leading home care companies. This report is published every other Wednesday by Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company for our clients, friends, and advocates who want to grow their home care businesses.

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Nearly all of the hands in the room went up. I was speaking at a state home care conference on the topic, “Grow Your Business, Get Ready for the Future.” We were discussing the seven sources of competitive advantage and I had asked the audience to write down what makes their agency different from their competitors.

As expected, the first person to respond said, “Quality of care.” So I asked my question to the group. And I got the expected response. Nearly every executive in home care believes that their agency gives better quality care than their competitors. Even when the data doesn't support that position.

Several years ago on one of our teleseminars, our friend and colleague Dr. Tray Dunaway made an interesting comment when he said, “I’m not sure that physicians are all that interested . . . as in interested enough to look up the comparison.”

One of our listeners remembered Dr. Dunaway’s comment and wrote to me yesterday.

“Somewhere in the past I thought I understood one of you to say that physicians were not really interested in the home care compare scores published by Medicare. Is this correct or have I misunderstood?

I want to get some additional tools for our marketers, but don't want to give them something that is in- effective. Thank you in advance for you input.

And yes I do want fries with that :-)

Renita A. "

Dr. Dunaway Replied:

Renita,

I'm not sure that they are all that interested, (as in 'interested' enough to look up the comparison)... But that said, if you have high scores that differentiate you from other companies, I think this would be a great thing to share with your marketing efforts.

Do you want to SuperSize that order?

Tray

M. Tray Dunaway, MD, FACS, CSP, CHCO

Certainly, you don’t want to be in the position where you home health compare scores are dramatically worse than your competitors. And you want to be improving your scores because some day Pay for Performance (P4) may actually become a reality in home health care.

But to really create competitive advantage, you need to mix quality of care with one or two other sources of competitive advantage. Perhaps you give exceptional customer service, you’re the easiest home care agency in town to work with, or you have established wonderful person-to-person relationships with your key referral sources. Perhaps you have been able to craft unique specialty programs, or you have ackaged and promoted your home care programs in unique ways.

Developing a clear competitive strategy, and communicating your uniqueness to your key customers will be critical for your future. As more and more companies enter the marketplace, and as more home care agencies develop new sales and marketing strategies, it will be more and more important that your senior leadership team is on the same page regarding your competitive advantage. Then, you need to craft a marketing message that let’s your key referral sources understand clearly what makes you different.

How can you use quality of care to get more referrals that turn into admissions. Here are seven steps to consider:

1. Capture the home health compare data on your agency, your key competitors, and the state and national averages.
2. Prepare a white paper or report that describes in detail what the data shows, and what your agency has done to achieve these results.
3. Examine the other sources of competitive advantage, and create a unique combination.
4. Clearly define your unique selling proposition, with quality of care as one element.
5. Bring together your executive team and your sales & marketing team. Craft a marketing message that is clear, concise, and compelling . . . a marketing message that can be repeated over and over again in every medium you use to reach out to your referral sources.
6. Develop an annual marketing plan that uses two primary marketing strategies, and 3 or 4 secondary marketing strategies to reach out to your customers and prospective customers. Make sure every marketing tool you use sends the same, carefully crafted message.
7. Measure the results of your marketing efforts, using a sales and marketing scorecard. Use individual tracking tools to measure the performance of your sales team as they take your marketing message to your customers and prospective customers.

Let us know how you are doing with your competitive strategy. What’s working for you in growing your business and getting ready for the future? Hit reply and tell me what's working for you as you create competitive advantage in your marketplace.

Answer: 177

That's how many marketing executives and chief executives completed our in-depth survey about the specific techniques used to market their businesses. Leading Home Care conducted a survey of the executives in charge of marketing for home health care and Private Duty Home Care companies from across the U.S. The results of this study even surprised us!

We asked, not only what marketing techniques they use, but we also focused on what marketing techniques were most highly effective. This research identified the current top 10 techniques based both on frequency of use and effectiveness.

The result of this new body of knowledge is The Top 10 Techniques of Highly Effective Home Care Marketers. This 90-page electronic manual can be downloaded to your computer today and immediately impact the way you market your products and services. The manual features In depth discussion of all thirteen techniques, as well as an executive summary of the research study.

If this manual doesn't fundamentally change the way you think about marketing your home care company, call us today for a complete refund. We've been working in this industry for over two decades, and we became smarter. So will you!

Order Your Copy Today!

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Stephen is a past-President of the National Speakers Association, a 3500 member international society of experts who speak professionally. He is also the father of a 37 year-old son who is physically disabled and uses the services of home care on a daily basis.

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