I've often been asked (and 2x in the past week) what is the future of marketing home based healthcare services in the future. While on a call with a consultant new to this industry last week I delved a bit further into my predictions than I had previously. If you're interested in where the industry could be going, and how to adapt to stay ahead, read on. Healthcare Sales in 2025 For certain, the landscape will look different than it does today. While a large majority of sales in our industry is still done at that 1 to 1 level of sales rep to referral source, that is changing rapidly even today. More and more systems and facilities are entering into preferred partnerships with (usually) large

During yesterday's Home Care Marketing Accelerator webinar (week 7 of 10 for this current class), I asked which students had generated "walk off" referrals. That is, referrals where you make a sales call and walk off with a referral(s) in hand. One of my students said "I sort of got one". Of course, I had to hear more about the "sort of" part. It turns out he'd made a professional and well planned sales call (like we teach everyone to do) with follow up from a previous referral. At the end he asked "Since I'm here, who else can I help you with that will be needing in home care?" (perfect way to close, by the way). The answer was something to the effect of, "I do have this patient but I'm not

10 days from now, the new CMS COPs will go into effect that will affect hospital discharge planning, and the requirement to introduce quality measures when offering home healthcare services to patients. If you haven't seen these changes check out this blog post. While some people have looked at this as a minor blip on their sales radar, it actually is akin to an earthquake striking the industry's foundation. Read the word "requirement" and realize that letting patients know about the quality of the various providers available to them is now mandatory. Imagine how differently patients and families will now make their choice of home healthcare providers? Imagine how referral sources will have

It's here! It's again time to plan out your holiday gifting strategy for key referral sources. I received a message from someone this week that asked about the "best gifts to give" and some guidance. So, it's important to realize that everyone is an individual and has their own preferences, and as such there's probably no "one gift fits all" that will wow every referral source on your list. With that in mind, here are some guidelines. 1. Food is in abundant supply, disappears quickly, and leaves people with a tummy ache. - That's right, your "sure to fire em up" dessert or gift basket is going to be picked over and left in a messy heap in a matter of hours. If you want to leave a lasting imp

Guaranteed hiring assistance, or you don't pay! There, do I have your attention? I feel so strongly about our behavioral candidate screening program that I'm making this unprecedented offer for new clients. If you don't find our behavioral screening/phone interview/hiring consult package of value to you with the first candidate you give us to screen, you don't pay for it....case closed. My mission since I entered the homecare industry in 2001 has been to get better, more professional people in the sales & marketing role. People that can go out and really build your business. Clients that have used our behavioral screening come back again and again with new job openings and have us provide th

During a coaching call last week, a manager relayed to me that one of his team was very talented, but was not getting enough key sales call done each week. As we dug deeper he told me the rep was tentative about putting plans into action. Now, there was no issue developing and agreeing upon the plans, it was simply an issue of execution. The manager told me there was talk during the week about "thinking about starting" the plan....but very little doing. I found myself saying this: "The time for thinking about it is before 8am and after 5pm. Once the clock strikes 8 it's ONLY time for doing". Sales is much like a football game. You practice, draw up the game plan, do your rehab, etc....all be