|
Home health care, and to a lesser degree, private duty
home care have been faced with a stigma that advertising is bad.
This stigma stemmed from Medicare rules that are several decades old
that prohibited the reimbursement for advertising and marketing. Because
of this, home health care companies hired community liaisons or
community education coordinators, but essentially these were
salespeople.
Even today many of your salespeople are heavily focused on community
networking. That's good. You know the old saying, "If
it ain't broke..."
But turning handshakes into sales is critical when networking in the
community. Additionally, communities change and adapt,
particularly in times of uncertain economic conditions and changes of
the guard in Washington and at the state legislative level.
For the newbies and pros alike, tweaking your ability to communicate
with your community is important. Constant improvement is
required, and tracking success is essential.
Here are a few ideas to improve your community networking:
Business Cards
-- In the entire history of business, business cards have never sold
anything! Have you ever wandered down the street, saw a business
card lying on the sidewalk, picked it up and been absolutely committed
to buying? Of course not. Business cards are a convenient
necessity to transmit contact information from one person to
another. Sales happen individual to individual. Business
cards are just a friendly memory trigger. You can improve these
memory triggers by swapping another marketing piece or adding something
to your business card. Try handing out a postcard instead.
Attach your business card as a token of appreciation. Do
something unique with this 2 x 3 card and you will improve this memory
trigger.
Website One-Sheets
-- We live in the information age. Information is currency.
Information is value. Information demonstrates importance.
Create informational one-sheets in PDF format. Have them easily
accessible from your website. Send them as e-mail attachments.
Print them and hand them out to people you meet. Next time you're
investing $3000 or more in brochure printing, ask yourself how many
pages of high-quality information that marketing money could produce,
and how you could distribute that information.
Renewable Ad
Specialties -- My wife is a social worker in the mental
health field. Needless to say our kitchen "junk drawer"
has about 400 pens with various drug company logos. Pretty
impressive considering she can't even write a prescription. Pens,
mugs, key chains and the like are overused ad specialty items.
Worse yet, these handy giveaways are used by every other salesperson on
the planet. Not only don't they say much about your company, they
don't even represent your industry. Improve your giveaways and
thank you's by providing something people can use or consume, or
creating a unique impression of you or your company. For
several great ideas on ad specialties check out Marketing to Die For ... Without
Killing Your Budget.
Swim with Big
Fish -- Years ago one of my home health care clients
was frustrated because every major hospital in their 1,000,000+ person
city had their own home health agency. Their primary strategy was
pounding on doors and reminding these hospitals and doctors about
anti-trust laws. Meanwhile, they were losing market share to the
hospital-based companies. We tried a new strategy. We urged
the company to become the #1 second-best. They knew that 80% of
hospital referrals were being bounced back to the hospital-based
agency. They simply asked to be the first choice among second
choices. Ultimately, they started receiving the bulk of the
remaining 20% from each of the five hospitals. They knew that the
hospitals wouldn't refer to their competitors, and ironically being
unaligned with any of them made them a great alternative. Often
it's better to be the biggest fish of a smaller pond. Find groups
and organizations with the capability to produce referrals and make
sure you're the best option. In today's economy specialists
almost always win over generalists.
Be a Teacher or
a Student -- Community networking requires lots of
meetings. Lots of shaking hands. Lots of cups of mediocre
coffee. The best opportunities are not always the ones where you
meet them as people. The best opportunities almost always include
what I like to call "transfer of value." This takes
place most frequently when one individual is teaching another.
When you can participate in a group where your knowledge or experience
adds value as a teacher, you will earn credibility. Other times
you participate in a group as a student, and you will earn
respect. These are invaluable commodities to community networking
salespeople. Credibility, respect, and information combine to
create value.
Be a Giver
-- "Jason, I tried joining the Chamber of Commerce, but I didn't
get any business after three months. It's useless."
I've heard this a thousand times. I always ask them, "Did
you give any of them any business?". There are places where
community networking salespeople flutter all around trying to sell each
other. My experience is that some of these groups truly are
useless, but others have tremendous value over time. Groups of
business owners and entrepreneurs are incredibly important, but they're
constantly pummeled by the flutter of salespeople. Some of the
best business relationships she will ever make are the ones where you
give and give and give with no expectation of reciprocation.
Sometimes these business relationships result directly in customers,
other times in referrals. Sometimes you don't even know how a
relationship has generated an opportunity. I have found, however,
the universal truth that ultimately givers receive more than they give.
Track Everything
-- The unfortunate truth of network marketing is that everything
works... and nothing works. When building a reputation and
relationship with a community, we know the "Magic is in the
Mix". The only way to find the right mix is to track everything.
The easiest way of tracking everything is to ask a simple question,
"How did you hear about us?" Then listen, and record
the answers. Over time you'll discover what ingredients of your
mix are the most valuable.
Communities evolve. Marketplaces change. Economies
shift. Your network marketing team is made up of individual
liaisons that keep you in touch with this community, and more
importantly, keep that community in touch with your company.
Every member of your sales team must develop continually in
this dynamic environment.
|
