Home Care U - What The First Three Visits With A New Referral Source Should Look Like (Debbie Miller Pt. 2)

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Debbie Miller has written a book, figuratively and probably literally, on how home care agencies should go about building referral partnerships. In this episode, she'll break down what the first three visits should look like (in minute detail) to maximize likelihood of success. Enjoying the show? Send me a text and let me know!Learn more about Careswitch at: careswitch.comConnect with the host on LinkedIn: Miriam Allred This episode was produced by parkerkane.co

Hey, welcome to Home Care U, a podcast made by the team at Care Switch. Nobody went to school to learn how to run a home care agency, so we're bringing the education to you. Join our live audience by going to careswitch.com slash homecareu or listen on your own time wherever you get your podcasts. Home Care U is hosted by myself, Miriam Allred, and Connor Koons of CareSwitch. Enjoy the session. Okay, welcome to Home Care U. Let's go ahead and get started.

I am super excited for this week. Last week was a fantastic deep dive into sales and marketing, and this week we're going to go even more deeply and into the nitty-gritty details about sales processes, referral marketing, specifically what the first three visits with a new referral partner should look like. So regardless of if you're joining us live on Zoom or on the Facebook live stream in our Home Care U Facebook group, or if you're listening to the podcast afterward, I hope this is valuable for you. If you are listening live, remember to drop your questions either in the Zoom chat or on Facebook. And we'll get to them either as we go or at the end, depending on the question and how it fits into the content as we go.

Just a couple things here before we get started. So first off, to overview what we'll talk about. First, we'll talk about kind of the basics of sales in a home care setting, what that should look like, what some of the do's and don'ts are. Then we'll talk about specifically what should the first three visits look like? What should you say in those? How should you approach them? How should you consider the strategy of them depending on who the partner is and what they might be looking for? And then we'll also talk about specifically how to get past the gatekeepers. So you can talk to the decision makers who are really the people who will make or break

your relationship with that particular organization. We have a rock star guest returning for this week, one of the most knowledgeable people on sales and marketing in the home care space. I'll let you introduce yourself and your companies. Go for it. Thank you, Connor. I like the fact that you're calling me a rock star. My name is Debbie Miller, and first and foremost, I am a home care provider. I have been in this industry for 15 years, started from scratch, work within a franchise system, but started with 10 caregivers and we now have over 400 caregivers.

But I come from a pharmaceutical marketing background and worked in big pharma for 15 years. And that gave me the great skill set that helped me create the marketing system that I still use today, as well as provide to other home care providers across the country, which is 52 weeks marketing. And we've created a great system that helps home care providers stay on track with who to target, who to really focus on, and a whole system to have something fresh and new to talk about every week. So I'll get into some of the principles that we apply as we go on here, but I'm really happy to be with you, Connor. Awesome. Thanks for joining and thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

So before we jump in here, just if you've joined us live, drop in the chat here where you're based and how long you've been in business. It's always great to see who's on with us and where you're based and what your challenges are. So we're excited to get to know you a little bit today too. And yeah, just a reminder, we run these as interviews so that we can make them as relevant to you as possible. So drop in your questions if you think that there's something we aren't addressing or if we need to look at it in a different context that's helpful for your situation. We want to do that. So looking forward to that. All that being said, let's talk home care sales and marketing. Okay, well, we'll start from the beginning, which is some of the key principles

that I think are really important when we're calling on our referral sources. And that is just around something as basic as dressing professionally. If you don't have a really broad wardrobe of business attire, then I suggest always just wearing a branded shirt, get your logo on a shirt and with some slacks and that should do it. You want to be really as approachable and friendly as you can be from the minute you walk in the door of that center. Typically, you're going to be meeting with some sort of a receptionist or gatekeeper. And so when they see you walk in that door with a friendly face, that could be the difference between getting past them and not. So that's really important, being likable.

Some of the key principles, you want to be prepared as possible. Have your elevator pitch ready to go. And what do I mean by that? That's your quick 30-second overview of who you are and what you do and why you're there. So that's critical that you've got that well articulated and practiced before you head out. You want to have an objective for every call that you make that day. If you are specifically going to see someone and you're aware of their role and those kinds of things. Set your call objective, what you want to accomplish during that meeting. Be prepared with your brochures and your business

cards. And if you can schedule an appointment to see the person, that's always more effective. It shows that you're considerate of their time. It also shows that you're there for a business reason. So no matter whether you get that time, a scheduled appointment, or you're doing a drop in, you always want to watch body language. And if you notice that they're looking at their watch, and you know, you definitely want to be aware of that. If they're feeling rushed, you don't want to just keep talking. So address that, ask how much time you have, or do you just have a moment? May I come back and then schedule another time? So just be very, very cognizant of that person's, the time that they have available. Bring something of value to discuss. So when you set your objective, what can you bring to

accompany that call to help stress the point that you're trying to make? And we'll talk more about that in detail. But that definitely you want to focus on the person that you're calling on, their needs, their patient and the patient's family's needs, not your needs. Okay, so you're there to bring value and to help them. Another key principle is you never want to speak negatively about your needs. Okay. So you're there to bring value and to help them. Another key principle is you never want to speak negatively about your competition. Just be there, talk positively

about your business. And that's going to go a lot further than if you come in there and start beating up your competition. Yeah. So a question with that, because I think that's something that it makes sense, but it's also easy to forget or, or maybe just to overlook. So if let's say that they ask something about your competition, or for some reason it is necessary to mention them, how should you talk about your competition? What should you say? Well, you could say, I'm not sure how they handle that, but let me tell you how we approach that. Let me tell you how we approach our assessments. When you send me a referral, we meet with the family and then you just go about your business. So you obviously don't want to say anything too positive about your competition. You don't want to say anything too negative. It's just

about your situation. If you find out that your referral source, especially in your first couple of calls, you may find out that they have great relationship with another company. Well, you can say something like, well, and I'm sure they do a great job. Let me tell you where I might fit in. Is there ever an occasion where they're not able to staff? Or maybe if you've got a particular niche where it's a patient population that you do a really great job with, for example, dementia. Well, may I tell you where you might consider, or may I talk about a place where you might consider using us with this particular patient population, somebody with dementia, and then explain why that makes sense, why you are positioning yourself as

that expert with that particular group of patients. So there's always a place for you. You just have to, it may take a few visits, it might take more conversations. That makes sense. Thanks for that. And that's a good reminder of how important it is to understand, I mean, first of all, what your competitive advantage is. And second, you know, how you fit into the competitive landscape. You're not going to be the best at everything, but you'll succeed if you understand what the slice of the market that you are best suited for is. So thanks for that. Exactly. And that's something you can speak to in your elevator pitch as well, where you want to choose things that you're talking about specifically in reference to

your business that no one else can say. If you haven't got anything that only you can say, work on developing that. Whatever that is, it might be a dementia specialty or Parkinson's or working with families, having great family meetings where you get everybody on the same page. Something that only you can say, if you've done this for a while, you've gone to networking meetings and everybody stands up and says, yes, I work for a non-medical home care company. And everybody falls asleep. It's got to be something different. So a couple of questions with that really quick. First off, I mean, I'm sure that this has changed over time in your agency as it's grown and as your focuses have shifted. But when you were kind of at, like, let's say just a much smaller stage and first starting to try and get these relationships, what was your talking point?

How was it that you were explaining how your agency was different than the others? Well, one of the key things we developed a niche really, really early on on and a specialty around dementia care. And that was something that we started talking about right out of the gate. I, I myself, because I spent two years pounding the pavement, building my business, I got to know as much as I could about dementia and became an educator. So I would actually offer education to facilities for their staff training. And it actually took on a whole life of its own. And so we quickly became the dementia experts and then started to build on that. So then we talked about other chronic conditions and building our specialty in that. So every anytime that we would get up,

we would definitely talk about those specific niches. Other things that we did, we did, we were the first in our area to do meet and greet. So anytime a new client started, we had a supervisor there to make sure that was a smooth transition. Much more commonplace now, but we were the first in our area to do it. So that was something that we really focused on. Family meetings, that was something that we focused on. That makes sense. And it sounds like you kind of built your strategy around being the first to do some things that are now commonly recognized as really good ideas to do. If you were starting today, how would you kind of go about deciding what you would do to stand out? I think if you go to networking meetings, go to a couple of networking meetings and see how people are promoting themselves. Pick up some brochures of your competition and do that. When you start to call on people, and we'll talk about strategies for that first, second, and third call, you'll be

picking their brain about, well, who do you have relationships with? Who do you, who are you referring to now? And then why, why? So you'll be able to hear exactly how they're positioning themselves in the marketplace and then try to find some, you know, some special little niche that you can hang your hat on. Okay. Makes sense. Well, let's go on. Okay. Well, I think the first things first and whether you are just starting out or we work with people that have been in the business for several years and don't necessarily have a target list, a list of who it is that they should be calling on with, you know, what centers they should be calling on, and who within those centers they need to be targeting. And so I think that's the very first place to start is developing that list

of key influence centers. And then who within those centers are the people that are engaging with patients and their families who have needs that you have solutions for. So developing that list, and if you're just starting out, or if you don't have that list, you need to take the time now to work on it. And it's kind of a tedious process. But I suggest to people, get your senior resource guide, get Google, skilled nursing facilities, Google, and then just start calling them and finding out who these people are. Actually, Connor, I would refer to the Q&A that I created

for you all. That's a really good reference that talks about the key influence centers to target and then the positions within those influence centers. And then you have to have a system, a system that is going to help you and support you to see these people, keep track of those meetings and see them on a regular basis. So the philosophy that we use with 52 weeks is reach, frequency, consistency. So reaching the right people, seeing them often enough. I think it's weekly for most of your referrers. And then consistency through the system. So I think it's really important to have a CRM that's keeping you on track and a routing system, especially if you're in a rural area. If you're marketing to rural areas, you want to be as efficient as you can with your time so you're not zigzagging across your territory. Divide up your territory Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,

and focus on those key areas on those days. And then what are those influence centers and referrers within those days that you need to hit on a weekly basis? And that's that systematized approach that's really important. So a question with that, and this might be something that we hit as we talk more deeply about like the individual visits, but I think one thing that people think when they hear to visit referral sources weekly is like, what do I talk about each time to keep things fresh and not just feel like I'm wasting their time

trying to beg for referrals and don't really have anything new or valuable to add? Maybe, you know, what do you do in those visits? Yes, that is the hardest thing about achieving a frequency. And that's what the 52 week system is all about. We actually provide a tool and messaging, give you actual verbatim, along with an educational tool that you can take in so that you do have some fresh material. Short of that, if you don't have anything like that, pick a patient profile, whether it's within your own patient or client group of somebody that you've been able to help, that was struggling, that you were able to really turn

things around for. And so every time you come in, you can really focus on a patient with a problem. That's a really good place to start. And if you can, if you have some demonstration of how you really change that person's life or that family's life, they're going to remember that. Pictures are very memorable. Stories are a very, very good way to help market yourself. And that kind of leads me to the wholesaling message. So let me just review a couple of things. So what you want to do is, first of all, I always like to help folks understand and consider themselves or see

themselves not as salespeople, but as care managers, as educators. So you're there to educate your referral source about your services. These are services that are going to help their patients and families with problems that they have, whether it's I can't be at home alone anymore, daughter's missing work. I mean, there are endless, endless situations that you have solutions for. Just pull out one of those ideas and that could be your topic for discussion. The other thing is reinforcing what you do can help your referrer so for example if it's a discharge planner they don't have time to have a family meeting and to go to the home

and do an assessment of the home those are things that we take care of so we reinforce that how what you do what you bring to the table is going to lighten their load they're going to appreciate you and that's how you really transition a relationship to a partnership where they, they pass the baton to you feeling that level of confidence that you're going to take care of that problem. So again, it's understanding your audience. When you understand the position that the person is in that you're calling on, whether it's a discharge planner, a social worker, a director of social work, they have a bit of a different perspective there. They maybe are on the line for reducing hospitalizations. And so the detailed work in discharge planning is extremely important to ensure that those re-hospitalizations don't happen. That's a

higher level conversation that you'd be having with a director. And again, I think I go into a lot more detail on that Q&A that you have on careswitch.com that will go into a lot more detail on the messaging for each of those referral types and people in those different positions. Yeah. And I just sent that out on the chat for our Zoom attendees. I'll put that into Facebook and then we'll also include that in the show notes on the podcast. Just for those listening, she made two really, really detailed guides on how to identify who to talk to at different partners in your area. And then also, you know, what their concerns might be based on their position and what talking points are typically effective with them.

So super useful stuff, all free to access. We sent it out and we'll make sure it's accessible to anyone listening to this. Great. So visit number one, whether you're just starting out or whether you are a very well-established business like mine, there's always a first call, whether it's somebody who's just transitioned to a new role within this influence center that you're calling on. There's a ton of turnover that's happened, especially in the last two years because of the pandemic. So

even my marketer has been with me 12 years. She's having a lot of first visits again because there are people in these new roles. So and I'm going to actually share with you a real life situation that just happened with me in a meeting that I had. So share that in just a second. But the first thing, the first visit obviously is to get to know this person and introduce yourself. You want to learn definitely more about them. You want to share your information with them so that you can get referrals going as fast as possible.

So this is the rapport building call. You're starting to just be able to get to know that person and definitely likability is going to be a big factor here. Think about it as a fact-finding mission, especially for those that are just starting out and you're building your influence centers and starting to get to know your referral sources. Get to ascertain, if you can, what their perspective is on home care. How often are you referring to home care? What are obstacles that keep you from referring to home care? What is your workload like? What is your, what are your pain points? That's a big one. What are you struggling with? Because that information that you're going to gather is going to help you in the coming visits, especially in visit number two, because you're going to be able to show,

hey, I was listening. And I'll give you an example of that. So definitely talking about, you know, what their challenges are, then you would give a very quick introduction to who you are, your background, your experience with seniors, your passion. And, you know, try to be as authentic as you can. Don't make up a story that isn't true. It's going to be very hard to be authentic. So, you know, something drove you to this business. So whatever that is, share that. That's going to help them really get to know you and build that

trust you would you would in this call review your basic services and drop your business cards and brochures and things like that but what you're doing is you're wanting to qualify them as a true referral source and then whatever you do once you've finished, you will, you know, record that in your CRM or some sort of record keeping process that you have so that you remember what you talked about. And then they give some thought right then as to what your plan is for your next visit. So for example, if you gathered and some of the questions that you might ask is, what are some of the challenges that you're facing when you're discharging patients? And they might say, well, cost is always an issue. All right, you want to register that.

It might be it's so hard to get all the family members on the same page. Okay, that's interesting. Now you have a great structure to go into your second call with and be able to demonstrate that you really are listening and that you've got solutions for them. So real briefly here, I have a couple of questions about that first visit based on what you've said. So the first one is, you know, let's say that you're at the stage where you're the founder of the agency and you don't really have the means to hire someone to do your marketing for you yet. And maybe you don't feel like you're a natural salesperson or maybe you're not super extroverted

and you don't have a lot of sales experience. You're good at a lot of the other parts of the agency management, but you're not super confident in that one, which I think makes it particularly hard when you're first approaching these referral partners and trying to build rapport. What tips do you have for someone who might be in that position and is pretty far out of their comfort zone when it comes to doing the initial sales? I would practice, practice, practice. Write it down if you have to, to make it, to get to a point where you're really comfortable with it. Practice on your friends, practice on your spouse, practice in front of the mirror. When I, this is actually a funny story. When I first started out in business, I was a pharmaceutical rep.

Before I got into marketing in pharma, I started out as a pharmaceutical rep. And I was so nervous on my first visit. I got off the elevator and it was one of those doctor's offices that it was a square. So the elevator was in the middle and all the doctor's offices were around the edges. And I got off the elevator. I'm about to make my first call. I just got out of training. I know my stuff. And I put my hand on the door. And I had to take another loop around the square. I went around again. And just as I was about to put my hand on the door, the lady inside the door opened it and the receptionist saw me. So I couldn't take

another loop around. So I just put on a smiley face and I did my thing because I was rehearsed. I, but it's nerve wracking. That first one's nerve wracking. But it's, but you're there. That's why it's so important to think of yourself as that resource. They need our services. These people that we're calling on, they need help managing these patients and these families. So when you think about it that way, it takes the pressure off a little bit. One thing I would add to that, that I actually, I don't remember who told me this, but I was talking to someone recently who was kind of in this position and they had been in a sales call and had sort of been visibly flustered or something. And they said something like, oh, sorry, I'm a nurse, not a salesperson at heart. You know, this is new to me. And that not only came across as really human and relatable,

but actually kind of also cemented their position with that person because they were showing that they really weren't there to sell. They are there because they do care and that's what they're good at. And they had just said that went over really, really positively. Yes. So there's space for that kind of authenticity and openness too. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. My other question with that. So right before we move on to the second visit here is, are there red flags in the first visit that you should watch for that like would basically disqualify or where you could say like, this probably isn't worth coming back to this partner? And what would those be? Yeah, some of the red flags are if you're primarily a private pay business and they are servicing very low income, maybe Medicaid type of clientele,

probably not the best use of your time. If you find out that your referrer's sister owns a home care company and they're going to get all your referrer, that's probably a waste of time. There might be a situation, we've got an assisted living facility here who has their own on-site home care provider. So again, they've got that covered. You're just going to be wasting your time making those weekly calls. So those are definitely some red flags. You know, other than that, you know, a very few places that I've over the years where I'll give you an example, I had a skilled nursing facility, who was discharging patients. Gosh, you know, they're like 10, 20 a week. And the social worker was saying, well, I don't recommend home care. How is that possible? That this is a highly affluent area. And this social

worker is saying that she doesn't so I went I went a little higher to the discharge planner and really focused on you know how we could be helping their clientele and they were having an issue with patient satisfaction as soon as I found that I really focused on that and said look this is an important resource that you are, your social workers can be setting them up for success once they get home. And so after several attempts to just really change their perspective on that, I probably did about $800,000 in revenue from that one facility. Wow. Wow. That's a really good example. Yes. So sometimes it's, you know, you got to push a little, there's certain red,

there are pink flags and there are red flags. So, you know, you got to really, sometimes it takes a couple of calls to really qualify that person. Okay. That makes sense. Let's go on to that second visit then. Yeah. So the second visit, so this is, and by the way, I wanted to mention, once you've done that first visit, if at all possible, you can schedule the future visit, actually get it into a calendar that is going to be so much more beneficial. All right. And so if you were able to say, listen, I really appreciated your time and sharing with me some of the

challenges that you're facing. May I schedule another time with you so that I can come back and talk about how I might be able to really help you with some of those challenges and get your get your day timer out really quickly and get it on there. So always try to get that that that second appointment and get it scheduled versus hoping that you're going to run into them. So on this call, what you're going to do is highlight the key points that they made. You're going to reiterate back to them what they told you was important to them. And you're going to demonstrate how your services, how you as a care manager, however you're positioning yourself, will help them alleviate that key obstacle that they mentioned or the problems that their population is facing.

Whether it's, you know, folks that have CHF that end up keep going back to the hospital. It might be that you've got some issues with people that are having some falls. And that fall, you see this hospital, rehab, home, repeat, hospital, rehab, home, repeat. So there's a lot that we can do in home care to stop that vicious cycle that we often see. So you're going to really focus on that. If you didn't get a chance to really get at that information, then this is where you would go in with a particular patient profile. And this is where I say be intentional, be planful about what your objective is for that call, have that patient and that or that family situation and how you were able to help that if you've got a true story.

If not, then, you know, talk about that patient group that home care could definitely help with if you're really new and you haven't got any clients yet, what you could do. So I wanted to share with you, this is a true example that just happened with me. And here I am in the business for 15 years, and I had a first visit recently. And the situation is that the veterans here in Tennessee, they have increased their reimbursement rate. This was not strategically a piece of business that we really went after because the margin was so small. Were you going to say something, Connor? Oh, no. Go for it. Okay. And so they are now reimbursing at our full rate. So strategically, this is a key initiative for my home care business this year for my team.

And so what I did is had a meeting with the regional manager for the home. It's called Home Connect. And so had had these folks, all these care managers work virtually. So it's hard to actually stop by and see them. They don't have an office. So it took a couple of attempts to get a meeting with her. And when I did, I was able to do a full presentation, but I, during that meeting, I really got at what her pain points were. And what I learned was that they're working with providers who are A, having trouble staffing. B, the veterans were complaining about the skill level of the caregivers that were

providing care for their members. So that was a big problem. And then third was the issue of a couple of particular counties that she mentioned that they were having a hard time getting providers to staff. So what I did is, so anyway, I made a lot, I spoke to a lot of the points that she made in that call, because I had a whole hour with her. So I had this opportunity to really speak to those issues. But then in my second call, I with her. So I had this opportunity to really speak to those issues. But then in my second call, I followed up. So I got this email that I sent. And so what I did is I thanked her for the time. Of course, I'm having to email her because she doesn't have an office. And then I said to her, I highlighted the things that we spoke about. One of them was that your care managers are getting a lot of complaints from the veterans about the skills training.

And I had mentioned in our call that we have a skills training program that all our caregivers go through. It's very extensive. So they love that. So I piggybacked on that. I reinforced that we have, that we're a hiring machine. We, and I said, we hired 70 caregivers last month, which we did. So, so it's getting her in the mind of, wow, I might have to only make one call to this, this agency and they'll be able to staff me.

And then also I talked about this particular region that we were able to support. And so that was call number two, but it was in the way of an email. So however you can reach back out to these people and keep that relationship going. By the way, in that first email, I was asking for a meeting. She had mentioned that they get together as a team. And I said, I'd love an opportunity to share with your team the information about our skills training so that your care managers know what we're actually doing. So I didn't get a reply. So now I'm like, okay, well, now what do I do? This is like my third attempt now. And in this one, I said, look, I know you're really busy. But you did mention that you're providing you're having a hard time supporting your veterans in those two areas that we talked about.

And I said, we have several caregivers ready to go in that area right now, but I'd be willing to make a concerted effort to work with your care managers and apply some specific targeting to our recruiting efforts. I would love to have a meeting where I can bring my recruiter to the table. And I threw out a date. I said, how is Friday, February 24th? And I really like to get my recruiter involved in this discussion. So again, I'm hearing what she's saying. And I'm always pushing this forward, trying to get that next meeting. So we've got a meeting on Friday the 24th. So I just wanted to share with you that example,

like no matter how long you've been in business, these are principles that we need to apply. And it's not always the first time out of the gate. It's maybe several attempts to get things going. That brings up a couple of questions. So talking about the mixture between seeing them in person and sending emails, you know, that kind of brings up the point of there are lots of different ways that you can be communicating with them. And in person, I think, you know, we'll probably all agree is generally the best is preferable.

At the same time, there are costs to that. It takes longer longer that kind of thing. You know there's other options. There's Email there's phone calls. There's texting their services like I think one is bomb bomb that you can use to make videos and then Send them in your email or something really quick. Yeah. You know, what is the role of all these different ways to communicate with referral partners and how do you kind of integrate those into the ideal outreach strategy? They're all important and everyone is different. And that's one of the things, great questions to ask when you make those initial calls is how do you like to be

communicated with? I, you know, I'm going to be in the building every week. That's my commitment. Is that a possibility that I could drop by and have a quick chat with you? Do you, does your team, so for example, a home health company, they typically meet to do a case conference every week. If you can find out what day of the week that they meet, because typically what comes out of a case conference is where they are able to identify patients because they review all their patients. They, as a, as a cross-disciplinary team, we'll discuss the patients and what their concerns are, what their needs are. So if I find out that your case conference

is Tuesday at 10 o'clock, may I call you on Tuesday at 11 o'clock to see if there's anybody that I can help you with? And so right away, they see, wow, she's here to help me with solutions. And she's asking me, what is a good time to follow up? And then what is the best way to follow up? Would you like me to come by a phone call, an email, a text?

We have so many opportunities. E-blast, with 52 weeks, we actually help our clients do a weekly e-blast. So it goes out to their referral sources, these folks that they're struggling to get face to face with, with a specific message comes from the marketer with their picture and everything. So it looks very personalized. And it's got the embedded tool for that week. So it's just a different way to reach people these days, especially, you know, in that virtual environment that we all find ourselves. So I would say that it's, you need to,

you need to apply them all depending on the situation. And if you can find out what is preferable for that particular person, that's the best way to go about it. Okay. That makes sense. I really like the idea of seeing what their preference is, first of all, and then second of finding out how often and what day and time the organization meets to talk about cases and discharges and things like that. And then to kind of set yourself up as saying, hey, as soon as that's done, let's talk to see what I can help with based on whatever was discussed in that meeting. I love that idea. So that's a great one. Let's go on to the third visit. Yeah. And I was just going to add, when you're doing this consistently, you build trust, you solidify that relationship. And our goal is to move that relationship to partnership. And as you do this in a consistent manner,

and that trust builds, you will become that trusted partner. We have several organizations where we they see us so much as a partner. We are actually at those rehab meetings prior to discharge with their disciplinary team and my care manager. And we're discussing those patients that are going to be discharging that week. And then we walk away literally with their face sheets and we go to their room and we begin the process. So that's where you can get to

when you're being really intentional and consistent with building those relationships, and continuing to solve those problems for for their patients. So that's what this is all about. It's relationship building, but ultimately, you want to get to the point where they see you as true partner. So and that's basically what you're doing is you build on those those calls visit three is now really getting into that relationship building point, building relationships takes a lot of touch points. I think it's weekly, especially in those high traffic areas where they're doing a lot of discharges like a skilled nursing facility, where they have weekly needs. If you're not there weekly, you're going to miss out on those opportunities. It might be a competition that walks in there.

But if they know, hey, you're going to be there on Tuesdays, they're going to potentially prep the family. Hey, Debbie's there on Tuesday. She'll be able to come by and talk to you about her services, blah, blah, blah. So, so that's, that's where we're getting to is just that building that rapport, solving the problems. And at this point, hopefully you've gotten a referral. And you know, that's, that's a really important part of the call is once you've discussed a patient type, that earned you the right to ask for a referral that matches that patient. So look, this is what I've done with this patient. Do you have anybody

that you're concerned about that will be going home that doesn't have a lot of support? That we could potentially, you know, lock arm in arms with them, make sure that they make that safe transition home. We will come on site and do a safety assessment of the house, which is something that most referrers can't do, and be able to put the plans in place that are going to make that a safe transition for that person. So now you've discussed it. Now, who have you got that kind of meets this criteria and that I, you're asking for an opportunity to show what you can actually do to help that patient. So that's then you're constantly building on that every single call, there should be always a point in where you transition to ask for the referral. It might be

something as simple as, hey, I'm going to be in the building for another 45 minutes. Is there anybody I could stop by and introduce myself to that will be transitioning home or that you're concerned about or that a family has expressed concern about their mom or whatever the situation is that you've just discussed. So, and then the key is following up, following up. If you get that referral, thank them very much, get back to them, let them know what the outcome of that was. If you did the assessment, let them know what the plan is. And so, and then, and then, you know, maybe the fourth call is letting them know even further how that patient is doing.

So the more comfortable you make them feel about the decision that they made to refer to you, the better it's going to be in the more referrals you get in the future. Love that. The importance on especially making sure there's really good follow-up. I think it's easy to put all the focus on trying to get the referrals and you forget that if you want to continue receiving them, they'll be much more likely to give them when they learn to expect that you'll follow up and they can hear exactly how it went and you know what the results

were. So yeah. And if things don't go well, that's even more reason to follow up, be in there and let them hear it from you before they hear it from the family. Don't delay. It's not good if they hear, you know, if a complaint comes from a family and you haven't notified them. So let them know you're on top of it.

I'm so sorry that this happened. And just be willing to address that really as quickly as possible. That's a really good tip. All right. So question that I get a lot, we just had this from a couple of our clients, 52 weeks clients, and that was, how do I get past the gatekeeper? And sometimes these gatekeepers are really good keepers of the gate, and they just are very reluctant to let you see who it is that you're trying to see. So knowing who you want to see is important.

Sometimes you have to rely on the gatekeeper to help you understand who those people are that are in those positions. So, for example, a very tough nut to crack typically is in a hospital and where the care managers or the discharge planners, I'll give you an example of a hospital near us here. There's a door, literally she sits in front of the door and behind the door are the care managers. So you can't get in there. And there, she's got several, like 20 cubicles of all the care managers that are behind that door that she bans. And so the thing you want to think about is that don't let it stop you. All right, it can't stop you. There are ways around this. So one way around it is if you don't know who those people are in those positions, she has a responsibility to share that with you. So as nicely as you can at least say, may I please get a list of your discharge planners or your care managers, depending on where you are, whoever it is that you're trying to find. Sometimes they have the business cards of those people on the desk.

Take them all. And then try to, if she's not going to let you in, try to go directly to that person. Call them, email. I would leave one voicemail and then an email. Don't keep leaving the same voicemail. Just keep trying until they pick up the phone. Because they do answer their phone, by the way, because they're interfacing with families. So it's just a matter of you've got to find the right time.

Sometimes early in the morning or at the end of the day tends to be a good time to grab them because they tend to be at their desks working through, you know, calling, making doctor's orders and getting doctor's orders and all those kinds of things. So you can reach them. You just, it's just going to take a several attempts. If you, if she's not willing to give you that information, start with the top person, whoever the director is and explain to that gatekeeper, look, I'd like to speak with the director because I have some really important information that could help her improve patient outcomes. I know that this is a really big topic, hot topic for particularly for hospitals, reducing readmission rates and improving patient outcomes. So you've got some really important resources that will help her team achieve better outcomes. Now it's on her. Now she's going to feel a little bit of task tension,

like, gee, this sounds like this is going to be important for the success of my organization. I better pass on this information to the director. Start with the director, get an appointment with the director, a meeting with the director where you can do this, all the stuff that we just talked about. Where are your pain points? What are your care managers struggling with? And then ask for an opportunity to present to the team. When do you have your team meeting? It might be monthly. May I have 10 minutes of their time where I can share my important information? And so if you see yourself as that resource person, that educator versus the salesperson, you can push it a little bit further.

You're there to educate them about services that can help their patients, families, and their organization. So getting, you know, just really, and there are times where you may have to go to that gatekeeper several times. She knows that you're not going away. She's probably going to give in at some point. On that topic of hospitals, that kind of brings up a question that I hear a lot, which is, you know, they're obviously kind of the golden goose for home care agencies where that can be a huge referral source. At the same time, they're hard to get into. And I hear lots of people say, well, don't even attempt it until you reach, you know, this size or whatever. You know, what's your take on that? Do you think that there is a particular size or maybe,

you know, capability or anything like that, that agencies should wait for? I wouldn't because they take so long to crack. And if you crack one, it can make your whole business, it can make your whole year. So, but this is not something that's going to happen overnight. You are literally going to face the gatekeeper and you're going to have to go through all these things that I just discussed.

It's a rarity that you're going to walk into a hospital and say, yes, come on in, meet my team, and we'll be sending you 10 referrals today. That doesn't happen that way. So I would get started because it is a slow process. One of the things to think about is one way to keep in touch with people is to typically they have mailboxes. And so you may get at least the gatekeeper to say, okay, well, I'll, I'll deliver this to them. I'm not going to let you talk to them. But I'll deliver this to them. And so on a weekly basis, we've got several hospitals where our the gatekeeper goes and puts the flyer flyer in the mailbox. So there. So we're staying top of mind with them every week.

And it never fails. The week one of my marketers in particular, she drops them off at the hospital. She puts a little personalized sticky on each one of the educational tools that we're using for that week. And never fails, we get a call that day because it's just top of mind. They got that

was the, the emails on the top of their mailbox and they did it. There are other care managers where we got their email and we do emails to them. We have one hospital where the director sends the email to all her people. So this is a process. I would absolutely not wait and just do whatever you can to try to get access to those folks. One of the ways that we've been successful with is with CEU programs. So we'll do a dementia training for their staff that gets us face to face with it. And we try to spread it out like we might do a four part series. So it's four times where we're in front of that team, getting to know them, getting them to see, you know, our particular patient in that case, the dementia patient. So when they see dementia patient, they think of us. So there are lots of different strategies, but I would definitely put this on

your, on your call list, but know that it's going to take some time. That makes sense. And that kind of brings me to my next question that I hear a lot and still have this question of, so there's kind of the basic question here, which is like, how long should you spend trying to crack a particular nut in the sense of like, how long do you spend on a referral partner before you throw in the towel? But I think that the answer is, well, it probably depends. So maybe the more relevant question here is how do you decide how long to spend trying to crack a particular nut, especially something big like a hospital? Yeah. If you get the hospital where they'll at least let you put the flyers in the mailbox, that's something.

That's progress. And especially as soon as you get one or two referrals, they definitely want to be your target. You want them to be your target. That skilled nursing facility that I was telling you about, that took about three or four months. And you figure weekly calls to get to that point. But it was a huge revenue generator for me. So what if I had given up? You know, I wouldn't have had that opportunity.

So it's, you kind of, I mean, it's so, it's tricky. It's very subjective. Like if you're feeling that you're getting some feedback, if the gatekeeper's warming up to you, if you, it might be two months before you can get that particular meeting with that discharge, the director. So of course you're going to continue to call on them because that's going to make an impression on her. Well, this, this gal hasn't given up. She's putting something in my mailbox every week, even though I'm not going to be able to meet her for two months. By the time I meet her for two months,

she's going to feel like she knows me a little bit. And certainly she understands that I'm committed to this and I'm not going away. And that's a big thing because they see a lot of turnover and they lose faith in folks. They look to somebody to help them out. And the next thing you know, that marketer's gone and nowhere to be found. So if you show that consistency, it really, truly builds trust.

And that's where that relationship starts to really get formed. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. In our last five minutes here, I have kind of a few rapid fire questions. So I guess first off, I kind of wanted to make sure we have a good overview of what should you do each visit. So sounds like to me, from what I heard, the first visit, basically you are on a fact

finding mission. Second visit, you are there to kind of reply to the facts you found and say, here's how we can help you. I guess for the third visit, I'm still maybe not super clear how to explain that one in a nutshell. What should the recap of the third visit be? The recap would be building on what you've already discussed. If you haven't had a referral, your objective for your third call is a referral. So, I mean, your objective for every call is a referral, but present another case, present another patient profile that you can discuss and then ask for help if you haven't received that referral. Hopefully, it's going to

be about following up on the referral that you received. But just think about it as you're just building on every single call. That's why a CRM is really helpful. You can document what you discussed because you might think at the time, oh, I'll remember what we discussed. But when you're making seven, eight calls a day, you are not going to remember. So, and also set in your mind and put as a task in your CRM, what your objective is going to be the next time, and then just keep nudging the ball forward. It might be that you just get a pop by, they saw you, top of mind. That's why I think having the collateral pieces, having something every week is so important because you're not going to see them every week. It's just not going to work out that way. You might within one building, you may be targeting 10 people.

Obviously you always want to be targeting the discharge planners, but you may not always see them. But if you've got something to leave on her chair and she knows you were there, again, you're building on that trust and it's top of mind. And right at that minute, she may have walked back to her desk with a patient with a problem and you're right there to answer that problem and she'll give you a call. We literally have one of our 52 weeks clients, exactly this situation happened. We were on a virtual call, Dylan and I were just following up with him doing some coaching. And he said it was so exciting. Social worker at the skilled nursing facility, she wasn't there. He left that week's tool on the chair. By the time he got back

to the office, the call had been made from that referral source and they had a 24 seven. Wow. All because just stay in top of mind. That's great. I think that's a great note to end on here. There's a couple more questions in the chat and that I have, but I think maybe we'll have to schedule a follow-up sometime or something like that. But this has been really, really good. Thanks to everyone who's attended. Thanks for bringing your knowledge and your expertise and experience here today, Debbie. You're welcome. I guess just a couple of things before we close out. So first off, we'll put links to the resources that were mentioned and also to 52 Weeks Marketing's website in our show

notes and in the emails that we send out to share this. So watch for those. Don't forget to check out CareSwitch, especially if you're looking for a scheduling software that is easy for your staff and caregivers to adopt. It's designed to be learned in minutes rather than days like most systems. You can use most of it for free for as long as you want. Scheduling, team chat, care plans, documentation, all that stuff. And then you pay if you choose to upgrade

to things like having us do your payroll for you and things like that. So check it out at careswitch.com. And just a general reminder that Home Care U broadcasts are every week, always at 3 p.m. Eastern. We do it as a Facebook Live in the Home Care U Facebook group. And also over Zoom, you can register for that at homecareu.com. That's you as a university. And thanks again to everyone who's attended and been a part of this. Have a good rest of your day.

Bye-bye. That's a wrap. This episode was made by the team at CareSwitch, the first free home care agency management software. If you're tired of running your agency on an outdated software that looks and works like Windows 98, and you want to save a little money for your bottom line, check us out at CareSwitch.com. Thanks for listening. See you next time.