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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.
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 8000 subscribers.
Private Duty Today is
a permission-based newsletter.
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At this very moment, they are getting ready for the
future! In Louisville, Kentucky, 37 private duty executives are
participating in the Academy
for Private Duty Home Care, a full-day workshop led by
Stephen Tweed. These executives have taken time out from the busyness
of business to focus on creating their future and tracking their
success.
The next Academy for Private
Duty Home Care will be held January 22 in South Florida. Don't miss
it.
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What do 46 million turkeys
have in common?
They were consumed on Thursday by American seniors and
their families. It makes me wonder how many of those families were
getting together and wondering how they're going to care for the
matriarchs and patriarchs of the gathering next year.
 After enjoying your
turkey and mashed potatoes, and perhaps a nap and a football game,
you're back in the office this week and beginning to think about next
year as well. How are you going to care for those matriarchs and
patriarchs in your community?
When thinking about 2010, I encourage you to focus on the Three Pillars of Private Duty
Home Care; people, promotion and profitability. Ask
yourself these questions?
- In 2010 what am I going to
do to improve recruitment, selection, and retention of caregivers
and other staff?
- In 2010 what am I going to do to
improve sales, marketing, public relations, advertising and
branding?
- In 2010 what am I going to do to
improve my business processes, improve employee productivity,
increase revenues and improve margins?
None
of these questions have easy answers, but in my experience questions
with easy answers usually aren't worth the asking. Here, however are
some of my thoughts.
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With undeniable consistency the most successful private
duty companies are the ones with the best people, both inside the
office and out in the field. Furthermore, quality is a moving target.
The long-term winners are the ones who are constantly looking for ways
to improve their teams and their body of caregivers.
At one point in time, most families were not choosing from
among a group of home care companies. They were simply evaluating an
individual agency and their choice was "to buy or not to
buy". We are seeing an increasing trend however where more
informed consumers are asking tougher questions. Families are
"interviewing" two, three or four home care companies before
making a decision. We expect this trend to continue, and in fact, we encourage
it. The more people shop, the better the home care industry becomes,
and that benefits all of us.
Furthermore, quality people encourage more word-of-mouth
promotion, the most effective and least expensive promotion possible.
A terrific guide for improving recruitment, selection, and
retention was published just two weeks ago on our own website.
Get the Best: Nine Steps to
Hiring Quality Caregivers and Improving your Bottom Line in Private
Duty Home Care
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Some of you are guilty of using a promotion technique that
I call "Killing Zombies with a Shotgun", it's simply spray and pray!
I apologize for the visual imagery, however it's important
to to realize there is much more to promotion. The magic is in the mix.
Look at each element of your promotional mix and identify areas to
improve.
- Should you be increasing
your advertising budget?
- Is your entire staff
trained on the basics of selling your product?
- Do you have an active
press release or public relations campaign?
- Where are the gaps in
your branding?
- Does your website
generate sales?
- Are your printed
materials accurate and up-to-date?
- Are your packages of
service clear, and do they demonstrate benefits and value?
- Finally, are you able to
track your return on investment of each promotional process?
Here's
the authoritative guide for improving your brand awareness and
community networking.
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Improving profitability has two phases, identifying and
implementing best practices. One of the critical roles Leading Home Care plays
is in the identification phase.
In the People Pillar
our research identified "selection" as the weakest area of
practice. The result of that research led us to create the best
technology available for improving caregiver selection, our Caregiver
Preemployment Assessment System.
In the Promotion Pillar
our research indicated that most of you were using community networking
as your primary marketing technique. The biggest opportunity for growth
was direct sales to high income families. And we identified the trend
toward Web Centric Marketing three years prior to heavy utilization in
home care. In all of these areas we were able to develop products,
e-books, and seminars that have guided leaders into the future.
 And
now, we embark on the most in-depth research in our company history,
and its focus... Profitability.
The result will be the most clear and concise set of benchmark data in
private duty home care. I strongly encourage you to participate in the
2009 Private Duty Home Care State of the Industry Survey. By sharing
your own data you're going to be part of the process that will shape
the way private duty the years of tomorrow understand productivity,
return on investment, profit margin and revenue growth.
Visit the 2009
benchmarking survey launch page at www.privatedutytoday.com/survey
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What do two 7 1/2-year-olds
have in common?
Me.
 I want to offer a quick note of Thanksgiving. If it were
not for caregivers, home care executives, and support staff like you, I
wouldn't be able to do the things I do. This 39 1/2-year-old wouldn't
be able to get out of bed, much less earn a living, care for my family,
play with my dog, participate in my community, or write this
newsletter.
For that, on behalf of Ainsley Grace and Jason Andrew, my
wife Kristen, my staff and even Max, my Labrador Retriever, I want to
say thank you for
doing the things that you do.
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