You've probably heard the old adage "failing to plan is planning to fail". Let's face it. If you're like most businesses in the private duty sector, you've probably seen double-digit revenue growth so far this year. Your company is bigger than ever, and it's growing gradually, and you're busier than ever. You're the CEO whose job description wouldn't fit on a single sheet of paper. You are Superwoman or Superman.

It's time for your 2007 reality check. Ask yourself these questions, and if they don't make you queasy you can stop reading.

Did your profit growth outpace your revenue growth?

The private duty sector is growing rapidly. Did you work harder in 2006 for the same or less profit? Well planned businesses should increase operating profit per dollar of revenue as they grow.

How much did your revenue grow so far this year?

This is a multiple choice question. Here are potential answers.

A) 10% growth or less. You are probably shrinking. The private duty sector is growing rapidly. There is a significant chance that every mediocre competitor grew at this rate, so at best you haven't lost market share, at worst you are shrinking.

B) If you grew 10%-20% over last year, that may feel good. But remember to factor inflation and payroll growth before patting yourself on the back.

C) 20%-30% growth is terrific. Congratulations. Ask yourself if what you did this year to achieve that growth can be sustained next year.

D) 30% or higher growth is awesome! Clearly you did something specific to inject yourself with revenue. Can you replicate that injection for 2007?

Is running your company more fun in 2006 than it was in 2005?

Business should be fun. Work should be personally rewarding. You should feel valuable. When I was a teenager I had a hamster. He had one of those metal exercise wheels. He spent so much time running in that squeaky wheel Dad and I joked about hooking him up to a generator. Had we put him to work, he would've loved his job. In the past year would you have had as much fun as little Wicket? (Yes, I named my hamster after an Ewok.) Or is going to work like stepping on a treadmill to which you can't control the speed?

A Model of Strategic Planning for Private Duty Home Care

There are two things that make a plan strategic.

1. It helps you define your Mission and Vision... what is your purpose for being in the business, and what do you want your business to be in the future?
2. It helps you create competitive advantage... what makes you different from all of the other private duty companies in your marketplace?

Here are seven steps to creating an effective strategic plan for your Private Duty Home Care business:

1. Objectively assess your current reality. What is the state of your business today?
2. Define your Mission and Vision. If you’ve already done that, revisit those statements to make sure they are still relevant.
3. Define your Competitive Advantage. How will you be different from your competitors in the coming year?
4. Develop your Sales & Marketing Strategy. What is your marketing message, and how will you reach out to your customers, prospective customers, and referral sources?
5. Develop your Recruiting and Retention Strategy. What will you do to find and keep caregivers? What will you do to assure continuity of your scheduling coordinators and other key staff members?
6. Develop your Office Operations Strategy. What will you do in the coming year to make your back office operation more effective? How will you improve service to your customers and referral sources?
7. Develop your Strategic Scorecard. What are the key indicators of your success? What are your goals for each indicator? What tool will you use to measure your accomplishments in each area?

If you need assistance in creating and implementing your strategic plan, give us a call at 888-668-9333, or go to our web site for more information on our Private Duty Planning & Coaching Process. Stephen Tweed will spend a day with you and your team guiding you through this strategic thinking process. Then he’ll provide one year of telephone coaching to guide you in implementing your plan.

Set lofty goals. Develop clear action steps to achieve those goals. Use a strategic scorecard to measure your progress along the way. Celebrate your success! Have more FUN in your Private Duty business!

By Kathy Clater

Sobering thought, but isn’t that exactly what you’re doing? Every company depends on the performance of all of its employees. By selecting applicants that are a good job fit and more likely to perform well, the performance of the company increases over time. In addition, people who are a good job fit are likely to enjoy their work and remain on the job longer, which reduces turnover.

The Society for Human Resource Management did a study that looked at the effectiveness of interviewing alone in predicting job performance. The study indicated that in the majority of cases, the interview process added zero credibility to the hiring decision. In the best cases, it only added 10% validity to the process. Other studies show that structured behavioral interviewing increases predictive validity to about 17%.

How can we really learn enough about an applicant in the short amount of time allotted for interviews? You would have to spend weeks with an applicant to obtain the amount of information that a well designed behavioral assessment can provide in the short amount of time that it takes to read the evaluation report.

How much more effective could your interviews be, if you were able to compare objective behavioral information for each applicant to the behavioral traits of successful caregivers? What if the assessment report pre-identified any areas of concern and automatically generated follow up behavioral interview questions? Leading Home Care will soon be offering a new selection process for home care caregivers that will provide you with that information!

You might be thinking, can’t I just address those behavioral traits that are not a good fit for caregivers with training and development after hire? While technical knowledge can be learned, personality and behavioral traits are formed early in life and pretty much stay the same.

Kentucky, where our office is located, is thoroughbred horse country. What a thrilling sight to watch those magnificent creatures run at a full out gallop. But, what if someone bought a thoroughbred with the intention of entering him into a swimming race? Horses can swim, but they don’t do it very well. The whole time they’re in the water, they’ll be looking for the first chance to get back onto solid ground, so they can again do what they were designed to do, which is run. No one would buy a thoroughbred to swim, or a fish to run, because we can tell by looking at them what they were designed to do.

Not all people are the same. Some people, like me, have their spirits replenished by interacting with others and depleted when working with numbers. Thank heaven for those people who love numbers, but I’m not one of them! The problem with people is that you can’t tell by looking at them what they were designed for. Behavioral assessments can help us look inside of people, so that we can hire caregivers whose spirits are filled up by being caregivers.

We're heading back to Las Vegas in November for the 9th Annual Private Duty National Conference sponsored by Private Duty Insider and Decision Health. If it's anything like last year, you won't want to miss it.

Stephen Tweed, CEO of Leading Home Care, was privileged to speak for the first conference, called Private Duty Boot Camp back in 1997. This program has come a long way since then, as it has grown in size and content.

This year's conference runs from Monday, November 13th through Wednesday, November 15th. Stephen will kick off the last morning of the conference with a program called, "Building Your Private Duty Referrals Dashboard: An Electronic Tool to Gauge Your Success."

In this program, Stephen will be describing in detail our Private Duty Scorecard and the success we have had with our Private Duty Planning and Coaching clients in measuring the success of their businesses. He'll show you step by step how to set up your Private Duty Scorecard, and how to measure the Critical Measures of Success in Private Duty Home Care. We'll also be sharing some new benchmarking data that we're collecting through our collaboration with Outcome Concept Systems.

There are some other wonderful presentations on the schedule that you will want to be there for:

• "Build Your PD Business the Right Way" - with Lucy Andrews
• "HR Pitfalls" - with John Gilliland
• "State Law Roundup" - with Tim Purcey
• "Non-solicitation and Non-compete Clauses" - with Liz Zink-Pearson
• "Magical Customer Care" - with Al Jensen
• "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Home Care Managers" - with Dexter Braff

Don't delay! Make your hotel and plane reservations today for a terrific time in Las Vegas, and come back with some valuable tools and techniques to grow your Private Duty Home Care Business.

Joins us in Indianapolis in November for a day of learning, listening, and laughing as a group of Private Duty Home Care owners and administrators come together to discuss how to grow their businesses and get ready for the future.

Leading Home Care along with Indiana Association for Home & Hospice Care, Illinois Home Care Council, Michigan Home Health Association and National Privated Duty Association are partnering to sponsor the Academy for Private Duty Home Care in Indianapolis on Thursday, November 30, 2006.

As the CEO of a successful Private Duty Home Care company, you're often alone in your decision making. There's no one in your organization who really understands your feelings, frustrations, and concerns.

Based on significant research, the Academy for Private Duty Home Care has been designed as a one day institute expressly for owners, administrators, and CEOs of Private Duty Home Care companies.

This is your opportunity to come together in an intimate, high-impact learning environment to share strategies, ideas, and insights on how to grow your business, multiply the performance of your team members, and increase your income.

Come Join us:

Thursday, November 30, 2007
8:00 - 4:00
Holiday Inn North at the Pyramid
3850 DePaw Ave.
Indianapolis, IN.

For more information, download the brochure, or call IAHHC at 317-575-8751.

Private Duty Today! is published every other Wednesday by Leading Home Care . . . a Tweed Jeffries company. We invite you to pass this newsletter along to your friends and colleagues in Private Duty Home Care by clicking on the link below.

• Publisher - Stephen Tweed, CSP
• Circulation Manager - Diane West
• Editor - Jason Tweed

Permission to Reproduce: Permission is granted to home care companies, home care associations, and home care related publications to reproduce articles from this newsletter as long as appropriate credit is given as follows: "Printed with permission from Private Duty Today! Copyright 2006 Leading Home Care ... To sign up for your FREE Subscription, log on to www.privatedutytoday.com."

You may also sign up for your FREE Subscription to Stephen Tweed's Leading Home Care Report. This bi-weekly electronic newsletter is written for home care company CEOs and senior executives who want to grow their businesses and multiply their performance.

email: jason@leadinghomecare.com

phone: 1-888-668-9333

web: http://www.privatedutytoday.com