Home Health & Hospice Week

Don't miss these surefire markets hiding right under your nose.

Would you like to grow your business significantly in the coming year and keep referrals rolling in? If so, you aren't alone, and your competitors may already be one step ahead - here's how to catch up. Many home care providers call on consultant Alison Cherney with Brentwood, TN-based Cherney & Associates for help when their sales programs aren't producing the results they expected. The most common culprit, according to Cherney: lack of training for sales representatives. "People don't want to spend the money on training," but they are taking money out of their own pockets by failing to train up an effective sales force, Cherney tells Eli. Home care organizations including home health agencies, home medical equipment and respiratory companies, orthotics and prosthetics suppliers, infusion providers and private duty agencies often hire clinical folks with no sales background or sales people with no clinical knowledge as sales reps, then "throw them in" and expect them to fill in their deficits on their own, she relates. That leads to ineffective sales reps who can snag a few customers from the usual referral stream, "but who aren't as successful at converting new business," she warns.

What to do: Like clinical new hires, sales new hires need mentoring and coaching to become successful players on your company's team, Cherney advises. They should learn these three important aspects of your business if you expect them to represent you well to your potential referral sources and customers: your industry, including lingo and acronyms, and how it works; the clinical aspects of your business; and selling skills. And they need to know where to find new business, perhaps by looking in some surprising places. In her new training course, "Homecare Power Selling: The Key To Unlocking Your Sales Potential," Cherney suggests tapping these markets to grow existing business and cultivate new business: 1. Physician offices. Physicians "are among the most important customers to homecare businesses" because they write the orders for home nursing, HME, infusion and most other home care products and services, Cherney notes in the manual. "Many homecare companies have built their businesses on a very limited number of high-referring physicians." But physicians are busier than ever these days, and home care reps may have a hard time bending their ear. To get in good and cement or generate new referrals, you can tap other physician practice staff who may be decision-makers or at least decision-influencers in the home care referral process. In larger practices, the business manager or other senior executive may be involved in choosing to whom referrals go, Cherney points out. Make sure to target your sales message to their [...]