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Private Duty Today
Welcome to Private Duty Today,
the bi-weekly electronic newsletter for Private Duty Home Care Leaders
from Leading Home Care ...a Tweed Jeffries company. In this issue, we
bring you ideas, information, and insights to help you grow your Private
Duty Home Care business.
Private Duty Today is a permission-based
newsletter. It is only sent to our recent customers and those individuals
who have requested it, or who have given permission for their address to
be included on our list of subscribers.
I'm Jason Tweed, Director of Business Development for
Leading Home Care, and Editor of Private
Duty Today.
Private Duty Today is published every
other Wednesday, and currently goes to over 6000 subscribers.
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There are several
things you can do to promote your business and your only cost is
time. While I do recognize that time is valuable, perhaps your
most valuable commodity, there are periods in your business when you
would rather spend time than money.
Here are five ideas to help you promote your Private Duty Business, and
your primary expense is your time.
· Write an article
· Give a speech
· Create a media event
· Donate your time and resources
· Offer an interview
Write an Article
-- You are an expert on aging. Your staff probably spends more
time with the aging population in their home than any other
industry. You have a unique perspective.
Writing an article from this unique perspective would be interesting
and valuable to a wide number of audiences. If there is a
publication in your community that caters to families of older
residents, offer to write an article. It doesn't have to be
complicated. "10 tips for..." - fill in the blank.
If you can't identify an aging periodical, offer an article to your
local newspaper. This is particularly effective in larger metropolitan
communities, where newspaper advertising can be cost prohibitive.
If your article gets published, rewrite it and offer it to other
publications.
Give a Speech
-- Your expertise again is valuable to a variety of audiences.
Attempt to find audiences where potential customers or referral sources
will be in attendance.
Create an informational and/or entertaining program for this
audience. Offer to present the program in front of several
audiences. There are many community groups that need speakers.
Make sure your contact information is available to the entire
audience. Some of the audience members will approach you to shake
your hand, and you can give them a business card, or better yet,
collect theirs. If you can create a handout or distribute a
brochure to the entire audience make sure to do so. There are
potential customers and referral sources in the audience that won't
greet you at the program, but will need your services later.
Create a Media
Event -- Local television, radio, and newsprint are
always on the lookout for an interesting story. You can create
these human interest stories in a variety of ways.
Create an event that focuses on seniors, add a fun twist, then contact
local media and invite them to join the fun. Alternatively, you
can help promote an event for another group, and act as the media
contact.
Make sure to find a way to work your company name into the story.
Donate Your Time
and Resources -- Create a support group. Offer an
item to a charity auction. Staff the Alzheimer's awareness booth
at the mall health fair.
While it's better to give than receive, when donating your time focus
on doing it publicly. Put yourself in front of potential
customers whenever possible.
Also, identify prominent not-for-profit organizations in your community
that serve the aging population and their families. Try to create
cooperative events or strategic alliances where you will trade your
time and your resources for some public recognition. Let the
Parkinson's Foundation use your copy machine in exchange for placing
your brochure in their health fair booth.
Offer an
Interview -- So maybe you're not a writer. Maybe
you're terrified of public speaking. Maybe you don't have tons of
PR savvy, or endless hours to donate. In this case, allow others
to do what they do best.
Offer your insights and expertise to people already covering stories or
doing special events in your area for your target markets.
If you see an interesting article in your newspaper about aging, call
the reporter and offer them an interview for a follow-up story from a
different perspective. Call local talk radio and give your
insights on the air. You can often get some media exposure simply
by being available.
You won't always get public recognition, but you will become a source
of information. Sources are invaluable to the media, and
eventually they will figure out a way to reciprocate if you ask.
None of these strategies are designed to replace your marketing, sales,
and regular PR campaigns; they can be a supplement.
Two keys for success:
· Make sure to be in front of the right audience
· Make sure it's a win-win situation with all of
the parties
involved
Keep promoting your business in your community and you will rapidly create
brand recognition, goodwill, and hopefully more caregivers and clients.
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Gain Competitive Advantage
through Product Differentiation
Stephen Tweed literally wrote the book on strategic
planning years ago, and in it he identified Seven Sources of Competitive Advantage.
Product Differentiation is one of those sources. If you sell cars
you need to demonstrate that your model is different, and better, than
your competitors. It has more cargo space, more towing capacity,
better fuel mileage, or a better safety rating.
There are two elements of a product differentiation. First, you
must demonstrate that your product is definitively different.
Second, different must be better.
Private duty home care is sometimes difficult to differentiate.
At its core, the service you provide is very similar to every other
company in your community.
That is about to
change!
You may have heard that many companies are now using our Private Duty Caregiver
Pre-employment Assessments to select better
caregivers. When creating this selection system, we were focused
on increasing caregiver retention and decreasing risk to your clients
and your company by helping you avoid poor hiring decisions.
However, one benefit may prove to be even more valuable, clear product
differentiation.
Our clients are reporting that when they tell potential customers and
referral sources that they use this system it creates greater peace of
mind and clearly separates their private duty company from their
competitors.
All of your competitors do background checks. All of them say
they have the "highest quality" caregivers. Experienced
referral sources and customers who shop around quickly realize that the
products offered are similar. They fall back to first impressions,
or worse yet, price comparison.
If you could tell every person who is "kicking the tires" how
your company is definitively better, chances are you would win much
more business. Tell them how you require every caregiver to take
an online pre-employment assessment developed by psychologists and
human resources experts and benchmarked using 3000 caregivers.
Tell them how it helps prevent you from hiring people with questionable
integrity, lacking dependability or predispositions to hostility, even
before you conduct a background check.
To your high-end
private pay clients, the ones that generate the most profits, this
sense of security is priceless.
Oh, and by the way,
you'll increase caregiver retention and decrease risk as well.
Call Diane West today at 1-866-209-5101 and ask her about a free demo
of the system.
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Private Duty Insider Update
Stephen
Tweed's Private Duty Insider is going to press this week for a third
issue since my dad agreed to become editor-in-chief.
The staff at Decision Health, as well as our team at Leading Home Care,
are working diligently to improve the publication as well as our
readers' experience.
If you're a current subscriber, I'm sure you've noticed the
change. If you are not a subscriber, or have let your
subscription lapse, I strongly encourage you to check it out.
Private Duty Insider is a monthly print publication specifically
designed for "above the median CEOs" of non-medical home care
companies. It's written for the top professionals in our
industry, and its focus is on taking your business to the next level.
And by the way,
there's an excellent article by yours truly in the July issue!
We set up a subscription page on our Private Duty Today website while
the staff at Decision Health redesigns the new Private Duty Insider
website.
At $347 this CEO newsletter will pay for itself the very first time you
put a new strategy to work in your business. If you order today
you can still get the July issue. Subscribe today!
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