Join Lisa Marsolais, Valerie, and myself, Dawn Fiala, on an enlightening journey through the twists and turns of home care sales and digital marketing. We're pulling back the curtain to showcase the ins and outs of fostering successful partnerships and driving growth within the home care industry. Step into our digital home at homecaresalesforum.com, packed with a wealth of resources and a community eager to share their victories and hurdles in navigating this dynamic field.
In this episode, we're zeroing in on high-impact marketing strategies that cut through the noise in healthcare. From crafting memorable in-service presentations at skilled nursing facilities to engaging senior centers, our treasure trove of insights will fine-tune your approach to securing those coveted referrals. We also walk you through the transformative power of 'lunch and learns' with social workers, ensuring they're armed with the knowledge to advocate for home care post-discharge. And for that personal touch? We've got you covered with tips for heart health-focused caregiver advice and creative gift ideas that leave a lasting impression on healthcare workers.
But we're not just about spreading the word; we're fostering sales mastery within your team. Discover the creative promotional strategies that keep your community presence vibrant and learn how to make a genuine connection with new referral sources. Dive into our newly launched sales training program, designed to bolster your team's expertise and accountability. With each story, challenge, and triumph, we pave the way for you to elevate your home care sales and marketing game to unprecedented levels.
Join Lisa Marsolais, Valerie, and myself, Dawn Fiala, on an enlightening journey through the twists and turns of home care sales and digital marketing. We're pulling back the curtain to showcase the ins and outs of fostering successful partnerships and driving growth within the home care industry. Step into our digital home at homecaresalesforum.com, packed with a wealth of resources and a community eager to share their victories and hurdles in navigating this dynamic field.
In this episode, we're zeroing in on high-impact marketing strategies that cut through the noise in healthcare. From crafting memorable in-service presentations at skilled nursing facilities to engaging senior centers, our treasure trove of insights will fine-tune your approach to securing those coveted referrals. We also walk you through the transformative power of 'lunch and learns' with social workers, ensuring they're armed with the knowledge to advocate for home care post-discharge. And for that personal touch? We've got you covered with tips for heart health-focused caregiver advice and creative gift ideas that leave a lasting impression on healthcare workers.
But we're not just about spreading the word; we're fostering sales mastery within your team. Discover the creative promotional strategies that keep your community presence vibrant and learn how to make a genuine connection with new referral sources. Dive into our newly launched sales training program, designed to bolster your team's expertise and accountability. With each story, challenge, and triumph, we pave the way for you to elevate your home care sales and marketing game to unprecedented levels.
There we go, all right. Hi everybody. It's February 16th. Hope everybody had a great kind of day week housekeeping. We just ask you to mute your lines unless you're talking. Share stories, experiences and tips, ask questions, make recommendations, tell us what you want to know. So this is all about you and we want to know what you are missing or want to know if there's anything. We try to cover everything. Go back and cover things again because we realize not everybody's on every meeting, but just so you know, these are all recorded and they're all available in the support sales support forum. You can always go back and see old versions.
Speaker 2:And quick introductions, because we do have new people joining all the time. I'm Don Fiella. I have been in the trenches, I like to say, of home care for almost 20 years. I've done almost everything there is to do in home care. I think my passion is on the sales side, though, and recruiting. I like recruiting too, but that's us, that's sailing really also. So, anyway, we're so happy you're here today and I think, our company, we do the whole digital marketing thing, but we also have a lot of feet on the ground experience, so so happy to be with you today. Thanks for joining, lisa.
Speaker 3:I was muted. Hi, I'm Lisa Marcellet. I too have been in home care for such a long time and, like Don, I do love the marketing side of things. I also really, really geared towards the client care side of things. I mean, I've worn all hats and I just love it, love everything you guys do, love being able to meet with you guys and talk with you about your businesses. Thanks for being here. Great to have you.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's me. I'm Valerie. I am the founder and co-owner of a Pre-Senior Network and my back I'm a registered nurse by trade and I've done all the roles you can imagine in the nursing world, including home care and care management and discharge planning, and I've been on both sides of all of it, so it's been a long time. So my forte is the digital marketing side and that's where our business started. So we're so glad to have Don and Lisa with us to give us all the wisdom that they have learned in the last 15 years, Because I am not wise in that area Not my gig. So I think we bring a good rounded side of experiences and at the end you guys remind me I want to do another little commercial for sales training and talk to folks about that.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 1:Oh, still me, Okay. So I know that this is just another thing I'm asking you to log into, but it's important. So, in order to see all the replays and get the handouts and get the presentations, we no longer use Facebook for that. We had a private group in Facebook. It wasn't I mean, it was used but it wasn't greatly utilized. So we have put a pause on that group and we want you to go to homecaresalesforumcom to take a screenshot of this or a picture of it on your phone.
Speaker 1:You enter your email address. All of the little reminders and the ways we like to irritate you all week. That is your email address. That email address is the one you want to add and then use whatever was emailed to you or use the forgot your password feature and it will help you get in. If you still have problems, hit us up in support and we will help you.
Speaker 1:But that's where you want to go to, not only talk to each other, because there's some talking going on in there and people who are having trouble or having successes are putting their stories in there. So you want to see that I'm going to start sending out. We're going to turn off the notifications every time we tag people and we're going to send out, sort of a couple times a week, a recap of what you might be missing in the forum so that you know, hey, there's something really good in there. I need to log in and look at it. That is that, oh, and that's kind of what it looks like. So at the very top where you see my pink circle, the discussion piece and there's a lot more. I just get this screenshot before we started. The discussion piece is all of the people talking back and forth and the learning piece in the middle there is a learning piece is where you go to see the video. So go to the next screen. Did I put a picture of that? Yeah, so if you go to learning and you click on contain sales mastery circle right there, then you will come to the end.
Speaker 1:Right now, there are two videos in there January 19th or maybe well, there'll be three after today and then February 2nd is in there. And not only are the videos in there. When you click on it, is there another screen after this one. Did I put that? Oh, no, okay, so when you click on that, it'll open up. You can watch the video from January 19th. Now you can see February 2nd and the PowerPoint presentations with all the links to the goodies that Don and Lisa talk about Are all in those PowerPoint presentations but in the discussion area. I also put those presentations there so that you can download them and look at all the links and stuff. So that's my commercial for that.
Speaker 2:I want to add to for the forum and we are getting some good questions and some good successes. We had somebody say I went out to all the sniffs this week I didn't get in. I called, I emailed, I didn't get in, and so we responded to that Well, what can, what can she do? We had somebody else ask about hospice. Is it worth it to go in and see them? So there's a lot, you know, a few questions. That's what the forum is for. So I just want to make sure everybody's aware of that, and I think reading other people's questions and the answers that they're getting will help help everybody too. So please use it. We're excited about it. Okay, today we're going to talk about in services, where to schedule them so you don't waste your time and money, how to get them booked, when you should bring a meal versus a snack, possible topics and what to bring with you to your in service. We're also going to show you some February, march and April lead binds. So if you have any questions, you can. There's a chat feature. Lisa already said happy Friday in there, so you can type in a question. If you want to do that, you can unmute your line and ask the question whatever works for you. Some people don't want to talk with everybody here like, feel better chatting. Whatever works for you. Please take advantage of this. We want this to be kind of a back and forth thing. We want everyone to get what they need to out of this. Okay, so where to schedule? You can schedule in service just about anywhere. I like the skilled nursing facilities. You know growing the private pay side of the business. The last company I worked with most of that business came from SNF skilled nursing facilities. If you want some more information about this, last week we dug deep into SNF so I encourage you to go watch that video.
Speaker 2:Assisted living is a great place memory care, independent living, doctor offices in senior living areas. I know people will say orthopedic surgeons because they deal with seniors. They do, but they also deal with other people. I doctors offices will schedule in services with you all day long. They want that free lunch and I want. I one time stood there and looked at their calendar to schedule in service. They were six months out. They had free lunch is scheduled every single day for six months and they just wanted me to add to that.
Speaker 2:Don't do it unless it's in a senior living area. There are places where I live here sun lakes, sun city it's like five, six square miles of just seniors. They're independently living in homes. That, and there's probably 20 doctors offices in that that radius as well, that's where you're going to do. A doctor's office, seniors or in service is one of those doctors offices. They are only with seniors all day long. That would be less of a waste of time then than trying to maybe go to an orthopedic surgeon or another place. That deals with all populations, all age groups an adult daycare center, senior centers, home health, hospice, medical equipment companies, fiduciary medical transport, physical therapy offices, renal care, dialysis all of these are great places to do in services. Do we have a question or we just chatting in there?
Speaker 3:No, can you hear me sorry? Oh yeah, Tammy was letting us know that she has an in service at genteva hospice this week coming up. Oh, that's great, Very nice.
Speaker 2:So you're doing this at their? Do they have a hospice place? Patients are or are you doing this at their office when they get together and do like their morning meeting?
Speaker 4:It'll be at their office, where they do like their morning meeting. The doctors, social worker will be there, a few nurses, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2:I love that. Oh good, Good. Well, good luck with that. You'll have to let us know how. I'm very free. That's awesome yeah.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Okay, will it pay off? So these are some of the things to kind of think about before you book and in service. Are they really able to refer or use your services? I mean, really think about that and that's why I quit going to doctors offices that are in senior living areas, because you know if 25% of their patients are seniors, you know it may not pay off. They may not be referring. What is the likelihood they will refer or use your services? This is something to think about too. Sometimes. You know, for a while I was kind of doing in services with placement companies and it's not a bad thing, but they first are going to try and place that person right. I mean, that's the likelihood. Their job is to place them in some, you know, assisted living or somewhere that there are seniors, though that will be like I'm doing that, I'm not getting placed. And then then of course, the placement company will come to you as a home care company and refer them, but the likelihood is less. They're going to try and play some first. So just think about the likelihood of whether or not they're going to refer. Are you able to provide a service they see as valuable to them or their patients, tenants, residents. Will the return on investment be good if you are sure?
Speaker 2:If you aren't sure, start with the smaller place less people to feed or present in the morning or afternoon. So we talk about do you bring lunch? Do you bring a snack? What do you bring? If you are calling it a lunch and learn obviously it's lunch. If it's in the middle of the day, around lunchtime, you probably need to bring a meal. If you don't have the funds to do that or you're not sure it's going to pay off, offer to go in the morning after the go in the afternoon. Morning is coffee and donuts. It's cheaper than lunch typically, unless you're getting individual coffees for people. When I do the morning, I go get those big buckets of coffee at Starbucks. I don't know what they call them. They come in cardboard with a bunch of cups and creamer. They give you everything.
Speaker 2:I do that and I get some donuts if it's morning, if it's afternoon, they're going to get probably bottled water and cookies or brownies or a fruit flat or something like that, so you don't have to break the bank, right? I mean, if they're saying they only do lunch and learns, then you may not have an option, but that's a great way to test the waters somewhere where you're not just sure. And some places don't do a lunch. Some, like the hospices that I ever did an in service, like Tammy's doing, always wanted me to come in the morning to their morning meeting and so I didn't really have an option of lunch. I brought coffee and donuts and that's fine. So it'll be different based on where you're going and that always think do they just want to free lunch, snacks, coffee, the doctors offices? A lot of them, I found, at least. So would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:Did you run into this problem with the doctors offices? Can you hear me, lisa? You're muted. I don't think she can hear me. Can all of you hear me? Still, she's frozen. There she goes, maybe. There she goes.
Speaker 1:Lisa, can you hear us? Can you hear us, lisa? Hi?
Speaker 2:guys.
Speaker 1:You were frozen, I think.
Speaker 3:Do you?
Speaker 2:agree that some of the doctor's offices just want free food. Did you run into that at all? Yes, okay.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 3:I'm already on that.
Speaker 2:No, that's not so wrong.
Speaker 3:I do agree, but if you can get in there and sometimes they'll just say, hey, leave your whole pile of brochures, and you know they'll leave them out for people to see.
Speaker 2:But yeah, most of the time, and I think, when you go to a doctor's office and you're going to do the in-service, if you're going somewhere where they have like a waiting room. I don't think I added this and I should have added it to the slide that we're going to go to here in a minute. So I'm going to bring them a brochure holder with your brochures to put in the lobby. Many of them will do that for you In the senior living area. That's just beautiful. So that's something to think about. Did somebody have a question? I thought I heard someone talking.
Speaker 4:I do so when scheduling an in-service service, like a senior citizen or senior center. Who do you schedule the in-service with? Is it just like the receptionist? So it depends.
Speaker 2:What kind of. If it's a doctor's office, you would ask the person right there at the front desk. You know I'm wanting to come in and bring in some lunch and do an in-service for the doc's nurses, whatever. You know who do I talk to? Because every some of them have a medical assistant that does that. Some of them the nurse at the office does it, and so, and some it's right there at reception. So it depends. We're going to talk about skilled nursing facilities today and who to ask for, where to how to book an in-service at a skilled nursing facility. But I would say every place is a little bit different, but you can always ask at the front. You know who would I talk to about this and that generally they'll get you to the right person.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:All right Steps to take to get an in-service schedule. So get in front of the right person that's what we just talked about and we'll get into the skilled nursing facilities. Usually, the person at the front knows what you're wanting to do and understands Know your audience. What do they need to hear from you in order to refer or use your services? Even that person at the front desk may need to hear something from you. I can tell you we're going ahead a little bit, but skilled nursing facilities, doctor's offices I think all of them the boss person doesn't want their people sitting around eating and wasting time. They want them to learn something. They want for you to be bringing some kind of benefit to them besides just your services. Some of them are thrilled about the services and to know about the service. I mean, I've been out there and they didn't even know home care existed. This was years ago, and they were just happy to hear that a service like this existed at all. Now, though, I think we have to go a step further and kind of be educating them about something, and we're going to get into that, but you do need to know what is going to get that person in the front to go. Oh, this is somebody we need to listen to. This is somebody we need to pay attention to. They're going to teach us something, so that sometimes will get you into.
Speaker 2:Explain your differentiator. And that's just. Why are you different than all the other home care companies out there? Remember this front person in the SNF or wherever they are? There are other home care companies coming in and wanting to do the same thing you're trying to do. Why should they let you in over somebody else? You have to be doing something different with your home care company. And just you know we have great caregivers. Isn't enough. We really care about our clients. That isn't enough. You have to figure out a way to differentiate your company from someone else. It might be that you have backup caregivers when somebody calls out. It might be that you have, I don't know. You have that backup plan when there's a call off. You are promoting your caregivers. You have a really high retention rate of your caregivers because you take really good care of them. A lot of them want to see what you're doing for the senior. You have a discharge package. That's a big one. We talked about that last week.
Speaker 2:There's lots of ways to differentiate your company as far as getting in front of them for the in service lunch and learn, it's you're going to educate them about something, and that is going to. Sometimes I think they feel like you know, gosh, we have three and services this month. Our boss is going to be upset that we're just sitting around meeting and talking and visiting. You know, sometimes that's the pressure of their feeling. If they're learning something, that takes that away. So keep that in mind. So offer to educate them. Call it a lunch and learn. The benefit of a lunch and learn is they are more likely to let you come if they are learning something and you get more of their time. A concern is it can be more expensive because you're buying lunch for everybody Doesn't mean, though, you have to. You know five star restaurant kind of food either.
Speaker 3:So we're going to get into it Going back to the know. Your audience too is if you can do some recon beforehand and kind of find out, even in a brief conversation. Find out what exactly other home care agencies aren't doing for them that they really need. Find out where that void is. I think that that's one of the best ways to come up with any package. That's a good point.
Speaker 4:Do we still have the 20 questions to go over in the end service? Actually, we're going to cover that today.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's a link in the slides, so we're going to. We have two topics to cover for in services, so they get a choice and you guys get a choice.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:We are. Look at that, you look at your timing. Okay, educate their team, use one or both of these topics, and you're going to give them a choice and they may say, can you do both? And then you get to be no longer so there's nothing wrong with that. So we're going to get. We're going to dig into two topics that they can choose from. One is questions to ask a home care agency before you hire them, and the other is what happens after discharge. So this is the questions to ask the home care agency before you hire them. You guys have the link to that. It'll be in the slides.
Speaker 2:The idea of this is to put, of course, your logo and to go through these questions, and again I'm going to show you real quickly when you go to this link it is not going to let you edit it.
Speaker 2:This is an original document that everyone's going to start from. You go to file, make a copy, call it whatever you want, hit, make a copy and now you can edit. You can do whatever you want to that document, because it's yours. This one you won't be able to edit. Okay, you are going to list the questions here that make your company look really good. Maybe these aren't the questions for your company Does the agency conduct the following checks on all caregivers.
Speaker 2:Maybe you do do drug testing? Fine, keep that one. Do you do sex offender registry? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. If your answer is no, just take that question out. This document is to make you look good. It's to make you stand out over your competitors. You put the name of your home care company here. The idea is the referral sources and family members of the client will call another company and maybe another company and they're going to put the names of those companies up here. Then they're going to ask all of these questions. The idea is you're going to have lots of great things that you're doing and your competitors are not going to add up. This allows the social worker and the family members to compare apples to apples.
Speaker 2:We're getting into workman's compensation. They don't know to ask about that. A lot of them don't understand what that is. What's the difference between a 1099 model and a W2? Why does that even matter? We're trying to teach them things they don't know about home care, the deep questions that everybody should be asking. You guys might think of some really good ones that aren't on here. That's the idea of this.
Speaker 2:At the end service, you're going to go through this with them. You're going to hand it out to everybody and you're going to go through every question. They're going to say workman's comp. I didn't think about that. When somebody gets hurt in the client's home, it's the client's responsibility. Yeah, if there's no workman's comp, absolutely You're going to start getting them thinking about gosh. I hope all the home care companies where I have workman's comp I bet they do Right, they must they will start asking these questions of your competitors Do you have a backup plan if there's a call-off?
Speaker 2:This could be all kinds of other programs. Maybe you specialize in Alzheimer's and you have an Alzheimer's training program that other companies aren't doing. Dig deep and think about it. This will help you also come up with your differentiator. This is one idea of a topic. The social workers get them extra copies because we want them handing this out to all of the patient's family members, why they can call and compare apples to apples. Guess what? Your logo, phone number, all your stuff is on here. This is a great, great tool. Anybody have any questions on this or how to present it?
Speaker 3:No questions. A lot of people don't know what they don't know yet. That's important. A lot of agencies won't even mention half of these things in their first pitch, their first presentation to the person on the other end of the phone. This makes you look really, really good.
Speaker 2:It's really a great tool. I have used it for years. They'll call me and say I'm out of those questions handouts, can you bring me more? Absolutely. They're giving them out in my logo and phone number on there. It makes you look like I've got nothing to hide. I am doing everything right. We are the best home care company. I'm sure you can hand this out to everybody. That's one topic option. The next one is what happens after discharge. We talked about this a little bit last week and we have a handout for you guys to attach two bags a little one that's written to the social worker, this one is more written to the family members. We want them to be prepared for discharge. I think when I was talking about this last week I was like I have a one pager here.
Speaker 2:it is this is a one pager for them to give to their patients. It is also a great handout for you to give to them and educate them about what happens after discharge. The first few days at home are the hardest. The bathroom is further away, the furniture is lower. Difficulty is moving through the carpet with the walker or wheelchair Doing more on your own. Overall confusion. Seniors are very, very confused. I just went with this with my mother in law this summer. She's with it. This woman is with it. She's on fire. She was confused.
Speaker 2:I mean really confused. When she got she went from the hospital to skilled nursing and then went home. She was so confused they're disoriented. I was shocked. There are med adjustments.
Speaker 4:Maybe now they are on heart meds.
Speaker 2:Maybe now they're on diabetes meds. Maybe something has changed. They need someone watching them while they're in their new meds, a new condition adjustment. They have diabetes now and they're having to eat differently and check their blood sugars and all the things. So this handout you're going to give them during the in-service- but you're going to talk about.
Speaker 2:What have you seen when you're in the home after discharge? They don't go home with these people. They have no idea. You don't want to insult them like they don't know anything, but they don't. They have no idea what goes on when you get home. I've been in the homes. I've seen the aftermath of the fall is still there when I walk in. They were drinking a cup of coffee and they fell and there's coffee everywhere and the glass is shattered on the floor. This is what they come home to. We have to paint this picture. They have to.
Speaker 2:We want for these social workers to understand that really no one should go home without home care. I mean, if they have family members and stuff, great, but odds are a lot of them don't. Or their spouse is just as old as they are and frail too and can't take care of a whole mother person. So this is the other, the other option. Some of them may get so excited about both of these that they want you to do both during your lunch alert, and that's fine. If they give you the time to do it, go for it. Any questions on this one?
Speaker 3:Just people want to know where to get these forms and I know that we do send them out in the replay. They can link to these.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I have them here. So when you get the, when you get the slides, this is the Google link. There is only a Google link, not a candle link, because there's really no graphic stuff really going on here and again you have to make a copy right before you can edit. And this one is here. You have the Google link. Again, you're going to have to file, make a copy. Here is the candle link. It is a template. You go into, edit the template and you'll see that none of the text is here, right, and the logo is not here, because I want people if they don't want to do the canva, I want them to be able to do that in Google. So we don't put it on the canva, because then it would show up and they would be able to move it around. You can certainly add your text while you're in canva. You don't have to do it in Google. If you go this far, if you want to change the colors of this box see the color here you go over here, pick whatever color you want. There you go. You just do this to undo it, any of the colors that you want to change. It's that simple. If I you know I'm in a box here. If I want to change the white whoop, you just go in. If I want to change the blue, you just go in. It's really not too difficult. So you do have the links for both of them here in the slides when you get the slides. Any other questions? Lisa, we're good that, that was it, okay. Perfect.
Speaker 2:In-service lunch and learn this conversation. So now we're going to talk about how you, how do you do this? This conversation needs to take place with the social worker at the skilled nursing facility. This I'm talking about skilled nursing facilities because in my opinion, this is where the big jobs are hiding. These people need help when they get home and if the social worker doesn't understand that, you're going to help them to understand that they should all be going home with somebody. So sometimes, in-service, you tell. With an in-service, you tell them about your services. That's what they're expecting. With a lunch and learn, you're educating them about home care or a senior related topic. Either one of those things can get you in the door.
Speaker 2:I have found that when you say lunch and learn, you have a better chance of getting in because you're educating them. So that's something to think about. Educating their team about something will give you a better shot at getting in front of them. Their bosses are usually very happy about their team learning something. So here's the, here's the conversation, the ask I would love to have the opportunity to hold a lunch and learn for your team.
Speaker 2:I will bring some lunch and talk for about 15 to 20 minutes. Now you don't want to assume that they're going to give you this much time. So it might be. I usually talk for about 15 or 20 minutes. Does that work Right? Do that? Don't just? This is what I'm going to do. Make sure you're just very you know. If that's okay with you, this is what I usually do. I have two educational topics that you can choose from and you're going to tell them what they are, and then I gave you just a brief summary of what you can say about each one, with the questions to ask a home care agency before referring to them or hiring to them.
Speaker 2:You're going to learn all about the things you or a family should ask a home care agency. I've found that many people don't know what they should be asking or they just don't know what they don't know. You'll also be given a tool for yourself and your patients that will allow them to compare apples to apples when they call home care agencies. In the what happens after discharge, lunch and learn, you're going to learn all about what we see in the home after discharge. The information shared during this lunch and learn really surprises people. You'll be given a handout you can share with your patients that helps them understand what to expect after discharge. So in both of these situations, you're also helping them to help their patients and the family members. And then you say which lunch and learn sounds best for your team.
Speaker 2:At this point, some of them are going to say can you do both? And you can say, yes, can I have more than 15 or 20 minutes? I can say it in a nice way it may take a little bit longer than 15 or 20 minutes, if that's okay, yes, I can absolutely do both. And then do not leave without scheduling them, because you'll never hear from them again. It's very difficult to get in front of these people. Okay, let's get you on my schedule now does, and then ask them days and times. Which one? Let's get it nailed down. Ask them how many people will be attending, are there any food allergies? And then, of course, I have to stick to a budget. But do you and your team have a favorite place for lunch?
Speaker 2:You want to bring them what they like within a reason. Right, we're not going to go get filet mignons for everybody. I mean, we're not built that way home and none of your competitors are doing that either. I promise you Pharmaceutical reps maybe, but not home care people. So any questions about how to bring this up, if you're at the front desk and you're not, this conversation should be happening with the social worker. If you're at the front desk, you just let them know.
Speaker 2:I have not had an opportunity to talk to the social worker. Hopefully you have that person's name. It would be good to have that name ahead of time. If not just the social worker, you can say that the person in charge of discharges and I would love the opportunity to talk to this person because we are different than other home care companies and that's when your differentiator is going to have to come out. Guys, you've got to figure out what that's going to be, and then, when that front person sees you again you know, maybe you've come in two or three times they're going to start helping you.
Speaker 2:They're going to you know, bring them whatever your handout is. We give you lots of ideas for a handout your heart month handout. Bring one for that front person when you come in, don't? You know? Make them feel important. Learn their name. Call them by name, by name. They get ignored in the facility a lot. They are just up there and nobody gives them any kind of attention. They do not feel important. I can tell you that you make them feel important. It'll go a long way. No their name. I always knew everybody's name when I walked in the door. They were shocked that I would call them by name when I walked in. Any questions about this? Does everybody understand? Sounds good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I like that you lined this up too, asking how many people, which you know you always would ask. But I used to have people sometimes would try to add on after, like after the fact, and you know you only have some enough for so many people. But yeah, so this is really nice to have that lined up.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I mean if it's two or three people they may give you their special order from wherever you're going, and that's fine If it's going to. Sometimes they'll say there's eight to 10 of us. That can be, you know how do you do eight to 10? So I would you know, firehouse Subs has these and I've done and I've done a whole mastermind about Firehouse Subs before. But they have catering, like boxes of sandwiches and desserts and chips and stuff, and you can order it on the fly, run in there, grab it and go and that's a nice. It's a variety of different types of sandwiches that you know and they cut them small so you could even have two half, two quarter pieces or whatever. They're cut small so I always found them to be really, and they come if you want. This is why I think it's fun, as they have a fire hat. Everyone can even ask them for the fire and I would walk in with the fire hat and be like, call us, like you get stuck. It's a Friday afternoon discharge. I'm here, you know, almost like you're an emergency person. Anyway, firehouse Subs is always a great. They would all put the hats on. I'm telling you they thought it was really cool and fun. So do what you want with that. But eight to 10 can be difficult sometimes when they give you a range and Firehouse Subs the sub sandwiches goes a long way.
Speaker 2:Okay, what to bring with you when you go to an in service or lunch and learn your business cards. Everybody should get a business card. Your brochures I like to staple my business card to brochure. Social workers don't like giving out a brochure without a contact person. Paperclips don't work. They don't stay. They get all bunched up together. Always staple my business card to my brochure. Handouts the questions or the discharge handout or whatever they chose to have.
Speaker 2:You talk about Assign in sheet. This is so important. Ask them their name, their email address and their phone number when you give them the sign out sheet, or even later while they're filling it out. Don't leave it there for them to fill out while they're all walking in. Hand it out while you're talking, so that you can talk about this. Let them know. If they give you their cell phone number, you can be on a texting basis and if they're stuck and they have a discharge and something going on, you can text where they don't have to be on the phone. You're happy to be texting. You want their cell phone number. It'll benefit you guys. If you are a text away and all the other home care companies they have to call, they will text you. I promise the sign in sheet is really important. Name, email address, phone number. Email address. If you're sending out newsletters, which everybody should be, the email address is a powerful tool as well. Pans with your logo If you have them. You might want to offer pens either way, just so they can take notes.
Speaker 2:So many times I'm in an in-service and they didn't bring anything with them Literally nothing. Also, always bring bottled water to your in-services. Some of them bring their drink. They don't bring their drink. I always brought in cold bottled water for everybody. Of course you're going to bring the food paper plates, napkins, utensils. My last marketer that I hired. He was a gentleman. He did not last very long. This was part of why he brought Chick-fil-A with nothing no paper plates, no napkins, no utensils. It was a bucket of nuggets.
Speaker 4:I'm ripping the state.
Speaker 2:He grabbed it on his way. That's what he brought. That was it. There was no water.
Speaker 1:Just reach in here and get you a nugget. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Sounds like a core plan. No, he had so much experience and home health, I was so excited, oh my gosh. And so of course, they call me because I knew all of the social workers out and they're like I just want you to know what this guy just did. Okay, anyway, enough of that. Green paper plates, napkins, utensils. Think about. Okay, how is this going to go down? There will be a table and chairs. You don't have to worry about that. Usually they may not have anything else, so bring it all with you.
Speaker 2:Bring a team member with you. I always brought somebody with me, even if they weren't in marketing, they weren't in sales. Lisa reminded me of this Because you need someone to tag team with you. They all come rolling in there, they all have questions. A doctor's office especially. You need a tag team because they're in and out. The doctor might come in for a few minutes, grab food and leave. They don't usually sit with you, and so there needs to be two people to be handling. You know someone's handing stuff out. We're all talking to somebody different, so bring somebody with you if you can. Before and after, there's a lot of chit chat going on, and so it's a good time to tag team. Bring your confidence, be in education mode. They need to see you care first. Don't be in there thinking about referrals, thinking about how much you want their business. You are there to educate them. If they see that comes through and that you really care, the other stuff will follow, I promise. Okay, that's it, I think. Any questions?
Speaker 3:No, I love this.
Speaker 2:Who's going to book a service? Who's going to do this? Who's ready? I mean, Tammy already has one.
Speaker 1:Who's going to bring a puppy to Nugget?
Speaker 2:Nobody's going to just bring in Nugget, please, never, ever, nobody ever. Now you know.
Speaker 3:Lindsay is going out. She's going to go in and have school next week.
Speaker 2:Did anybody do the SNFs last week with the discharge and the discharge package Anybody? I know we had somebody that didn't have great luck but we already talked about that in the forum. Anybody else have a story to share About SNFs getting in front of anybody Did? You use your discharge package. That's OK. You guys have time. Keep working on it. All right, Lisa, you're up.
Speaker 3:OK, february, leave behind. Healthy heart tips. I still have my red and this actually has hearts on it, just in case anyone wanted to see I was representing here. But you know we want to go out and make sure that that, anywhere that we are going, they know exactly what you have to offer. So you always want to make sure you you add something within every handout along with your little chauchkees, your pens, your you know anything that you have to give. But I like this because I really wanted them to understand.
Speaker 3:Our caregivers can help your patients stay heart healthy at home by helping with. And then there's a whole bunch of little line items here of, you know, relieved stress, prep, healthy meals. These things are so important and people don't always think that a caregiver is going to do these things, but they're needed, you know, maintain a healthy weight, get exercise and even help check, you know, your BP, cholesterol any of those things that they can definitely help you know, write it down for them on a book or you know things like that. So Just wanted to share this. Here's another cute one with hearts. Caregiving is a work of heart, because it is, and I think that it's important that people know that we are all heart people and that we're doing this because we we love it and our caregivers love, you know, helping helping their patients get home. I'm usually always like referencing a sniff, you know, or discharges, getting getting them home, keeping them home safe. But you can change the wording around and use this for anything. And the next one don't stress we are all hearts, because it's true we are, and you could add any message to this you want.
Speaker 3:I just thought it was really cute and tied into February, heart Month, so you could take this out anywhere with some of the little cute things we have. I think there's a stress ball coming up and some key chains that have hearts, but definitely ties into the month as well, celebrating Black History again, healthy heart contributions in Black History, pacemakers Sorry, my nose is itching and you know one of the first successful open heart surgeries all done by People that you know Black Americans here, and so I wanted to showcase that too. Sorry, here they are. There's some links here to Amazon, links to stress balls, key chains, and I think that all of those would tie into that. You could also get a bag, get some cute, you know, tissue paper and add in whatever you want All of your stuff notebooks, stress balls, anything you want pens, chopsticks, anything.
Speaker 2:And if you're new here, these little I know that we have a couple of new people these little, these guys that she has created you hold punch and you tie a ribbon and tie it to the bag and then put these things inside.
Speaker 3:Ok, oh yeah, and you could even stick them. You could. I mean, they have like stickers that you can get from anywhere like Office Depot or any office supply store. There are different shapes and sizes. You could, you could print your logo on there. You could put any of those, you could actually print onto those and slap them on anything so that you could actually stick that on a bag or, like Dawn said, a little hole punch with some ribbon and make it look really cute. We've had people do baskets. I mean, really go all out with this stuff, so it's really cute. I'd like to see some pictures.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen pictures in a while, I feel like we have, and I would love to see some pictures of what people are doing. That'd be great.
Speaker 3:OK, National Social Worker Month is marked, so it's coming up. So I just wanted to give a couple of different options here that that would be cute, you know, just having a general. You know we love our social workers type of thing and going in and bringing them, bringing them something and showing them some love, but also, you know, being able to on that one on the right hand side, there's this little little text area here. You can change that out and you know, at Sandy Social Worker, Sandy she's the best and I want her to know that I care about her and appreciate her. And if this is directly to her, not just a general, you know message, so you guys can do that in in Canva either which way you want, and social workers are the discharge planners in the skilled nursing facilities and rehabs, so March is a big month for them.
Speaker 2:So, absolutely, I would definitely get out there for Social Worker Month at the skilled nursing facilities with these handouts. They're beautiful, yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're your best friends and you want to be on texting, texting basis with them, for sure. And then there were these little, these little key chains. I thought we're just really cute. They say thank you, and I can't read them so well right now, but I think it's like proud of the work that you do and stuff like that. And they had all different colors. They come with these little cute baggies as well, so you could fill the baggies up with different things. It could be candies, it could be any other things that you have that you usually give out, that have your logo on them and these key chains. And then you just again, like Dawn said, maybe you whole punch this and and add those little strings to the baggie. You know, kind of put that to all together and kind of tie it. It'll be right there with all your information on it. So those are really cute.
Speaker 3:I like those. This is a fun one. Are you in a pinch? You're in luck. We'll get your last minute discharge home safe today. So I just thought this was really cool, because you know they do have people that need to discharge right away and they didn't. They kind of waited till the 11th hour to figure it all out, and so you want the social workers at SNFs and in anywhere that someone's discharging, but to know that you will run for them. And so I thought these are really cute, especially the pinch protection one, because nobody wants to get pinched.
Speaker 4:Here's the pinch you can tie that in with these.
Speaker 3:I just thought maybe adding like that pinch protection with the with just a little green beaded necklace would be cute. But you could also add some rainbow stuff, because, you know, over the rainbow and and all of that same Patty stuff, the four leaf clover here or three leaf clover, and any of that you can take in with your little message here that you will help them. You know, get someone out quickly and safely. Here's another one springing into action for all your home care needs. I really just liked the image so I had to create something with it.
Speaker 3:I think it's great, it was cute. So you know we provide hourly and around the clock care. I think it's important that people understand that too, that you know you're not just a couple of hours here and there, that you can be there constantly, and so I think it's important. These little messages are, you know, just little like series of messages to these social workers, and so every time you go out you're giving them something a little different, a little new, but so they understand that you are available 24, 7 as well.
Speaker 3:March leave behind. You know you can use either one of these. You know, a happy Easter, you can even change it to hoppy Easter, that's what I would do. Or hopping into spring, and I would really look at, like, anywhere that you're going into, look at the language that they're using around the like if you're in an assistive living, for example, and they're doing something for Easter, then use the Easter one, just being sensitive to that language. And if they're, if they're, celebrating spring, then you know I would use this one over here. But you can change the message to anything you'd like and you can go make changes to this. I just thought it was really cute to go out With really cute and you could tie this, this kind of traditional spring grass and some candies, into little bunny boxes. You know, and I think this will. I think those little bunny boxes are cute and they'll kind of stay on the desk for a while.
Speaker 3:So, you can even slap a sticker with your logos on here Front and center, if you can get into their office, just kind of set it there so it's looking right out of. Okay, april World Parkinson's Day is April 11th, and I do think that's that's another real important one. I see a lot of people mentioned you know that they do Parkinson's care on their websites and so this is a really a really good one. Home care can make a significant difference in managing the symptoms and improving quality of life for those living with Parkinson's care. With Parkinson's, sorry, mobility is a huge thing and so we help people, you know, get around safely and you want you want them to know that and that you understand that Also OT month. So I think it would be nice to just go out and you know to your home health folks and your your OT folks and just say you know that you appreciate them. I think the theme this year and they do like a slate blue, so that's kind of why I wanted to try to find the closest thing I could to slate blue. That's their like theme color this year, or maybe always, and their theme was advancing health, well being and quality of life. So I feel like knowing that and going out and talking, talking the talk with them and anyone that you know would make sense for, but that this would be a really nice handout to take. This is a cute one. We want to vitamin C you stay healthy.
Speaker 3:I used to do this way back in the day, before I even knew how to use Canva or anything else, and I would literally go out with my business card and a bag of those cuties or halos and I would go to nurses stations and this is when you could freely walk the hospitals. That's so it's way back in the day, but I would take these out and something like this is perfect. They always loved that and they thought of me every, every like flu season. I swear, they thought of me. So I think this is really good just to take it out, just just as a as a cute little reminder that you do care about them and want them to stay healthy too.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, this one. This is a little bit more of an an expensive thing, but I thought that this would be really good for your OT folks, because they are going all over the place. I mean you have some that even go to schools, churches. I mean they are that, that that next person, that person's kind of like right hand, so to speak, and helping them, you know, be able to do the things that they used to do or, you know, just getting them back in the groove. And so these insulated, reusable lunch bags I just thought were were something that they could use there they're running around a lot. And then these motivational little I think they're they're key chains.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just really liked the, the theme colors and I liked what they say. I felt like that they really touched to what occupational therapy is, and so I really liked this. So it's a little more expensive, an expensive side, but I think overall it's great. They'll use this for a long time and it's just, it was just really cute to put together and April leave behind. So this would go with the vitamin C or any of those things really. But you know, bring out some of those little single hydration things and I think I did something like this in July last year, where you know people hate to drink water and it's just a thing, but we have to, and so maybe, like you, go, go get a pack of water, tie this little thing onto the water, slap your logo on the water, take out some, some halos or some cuties you know to everybody make. Maybe make a little bag of them or something.
Speaker 4:Love it all.
Speaker 3:Maybe like three of them or four of them. Oh, I love this. Wait, but this is great because everywhere you go you've got to be marketing, constantly, marketing even when you're not there, to maintain your presence. So this was like an infiltration tip of you know, continue your presence when you're not there, from the, from the person's room to the common areas.
Speaker 3:Get some promotional, promotional items here, mobility items, you know, the walker side bag, the wheelchair bag and just little things like that. Put your logo on them. You know, you can have for communication personal whiteboard in the room, the magnets, a dry erase board erasers, all that stuff. You could slap your logo on literally all these things. Like I had mentioned, those stickers that come in all sizes you like, wrap it around your pens and everything, and if you were in, you know, just a quick fix for that. But I think all of this helps. You know, just keep you top of mind within a facility or within a community and their family members will see. You see all this, you know, as they walk around with their little. You know they're walking around and you're just advertising all over the place and they see that.
Speaker 2:That's great. All right, that is it for Slade Valerie wanted to talk about training. I think you said you have time, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:So we're so excited. So we have never offered an intense training sales training program before and because I'm not your sales girl, so now that we can offer a very intense and awesome sales training program, we send out emails offering a 12 week program. So what that means is that every week on a Wednesday I believe we've chosen Wednesdays to avoid Mondays and Fridays On Wednesdays we've chosen to have the training class, and it's a very small group of people, so we're talking six, seven people per training class and none of those people are in the same marketing area. You're not in a class with someone you're competing with, in other words. So we have we started talking about this for March started, you know, introducing a training class. So what happened is you come in on Wednesdays, there are assigned that you know learning, discussion assignments, and then when you come back the next Wednesday, you are accountable for the things that John had said. Hey, this is what you need to do this week and before the training even starts, we give you access to the original video style training so that everybody's on the same page and up to speed for when the real, in person you will do this stuff starts in March.
Speaker 1:So we sold out instantly. We were. We had a goal of by mark by February 19,. I said we had to be. You know, if we're going to do this, we have to meet our goal by favor, and we were sold out two weeks ago. So the next training class this is the first, not the first time Dawn has ever trained a salesperson, trust me, she's trained many and Lisa probably has to. But this class, once this one is kind of underway and we see how intense it might be or might not be, I'm not sure Then we also started offering one for May, which seems far away, but I guarantee you it'll be here before we know it's almost March already.
Speaker 2:So people are already signing up for me. We've already got some people in this.
Speaker 1:We're going to end up selling out for may as well. Now the question is Could we introduce one before May? It's possible, but we really want to see how the March one goes. So I'm just being real transparent with all of you. If you want to have Dawn and Lisa to yourself basically it's group, but it's very small group for 12 weeks or if you have a salesperson on your team who could use that kind of assistance or reminder or help or focus, then this is the program you want to get them into or get yourself into.
Speaker 1:If you're doing this on your own, and so May is going to sell out, I have actually stopped the emails that were going out because I know May will sell out.
Speaker 1:But we want you all to know, as you're listening to this and replay or you're watching it live with us here today, that May is definitely in the minute I start those emails back up, it'll be done. So we may introduce another training, and I mean the goal is to have more than one rolling at one at the same time, but we can't overwhelm everybody on our staff either. So, anyway, I want you guys to know that May is open for enrollment if you want. We want you guys to be in there first, if you can get in. And so reach out to us and let Lisa or Dawn know you're interested so they can send you to the form that you need to fill out so that we can get you, we can talk to you and make sure you're a good fit. We don't want you know, we want to make sure everybody who goes is in the training, is a good fit for it and can do it for 12 weeks.
Speaker 2:I just put the link in the chat to go to the. There's an enrollment form just to fill out and then we will call you and talk to you about it. Yes, Nina, there is an additional charge. Priscilla is asking is there a Facebook group page for continuum sales mastery circle? No, we are using the forum now, so there's a forum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you go back to that slide where it shows the login information? Yes, I can send this to you again, but this is what everybody should be logging into. We removed ourselves from Facebook because, first of all, we weren't getting much engagement there anyway. So our goal right here. So you should be able to go to homecaresalesforumcom, enter your email address and whatever password was emailed to you or, if you don't know, just use the forgot password feature. There are. What do you? What do we have in there? 50, some odd members in there.
Speaker 1:I think we're at 60 now. Okay, so we're at 60 members in there right now. So definitely get in there. There's a lot of good discussion going on and I do have a video in there which I will repost on how you can make it a link on your phone, on the homepage of your phone, so that you don't have to log in every time, so you don't have to figure out how to get in there. You just click on it, just like an app. You just click on the and it takes you right to the forum. So it's on your phone all the time. I do have that video available for you, so I will send that out. But yeah, we would. Yeah, sales training is is there is a fee for it and it separate from what we're just talking about right now. But sales training, there is a fee for it because it is one on one attention with these two lovely ladies, and you might throw me in there once in a while, but not very often.
Speaker 2:And then Lindsay says she signed up for me and she is. We're so excited about that she just barely missed March. So I'm hoping, lindsay, that we get into the March class and we go. We can do another one before me, and if that happens, you'll be the first person we preach out to.
Speaker 2:Lorraine is asking how often should we follow up with senior centers. What should these follow-ups look like? So it depends on the senior center. Most of them have a social worker that I have found and that would be the person I would them and activities. So for activities, they don't want you typically to do a commercial about your company in front of all the seniors. They'll let you come talk the questions to ask. A home care agency is a perfect tool to talk to the seniors directly at a senior center. The social worker at the senior center has been in many of their homes and would be the one to refer to you. I have found, though and Lisa, you can, you can speak to this too, because, I don't know, might just be my experience that a lot of the people that the social workers go visit that are in the senior centers in their homes are on Medicaid, so it wasn't a great source for private pay of business. For me it was more Medicaid. Lisa, what have you found with senior centers? Just to give another perspective.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that that's about right and I did at first, you know, waste some time and not to say it like that but I figured out the hard way that I wasn't going to get. You know what I was aiming to get.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not a bad place to go and I like to do fun things with them so that I can put it on social media and put it in my newsletters and it's great. It's a great give back to go see the senior centers and bring them goodies and do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And once in a while you might get really the private pay of business I got out of there was more. You know, can you drive me to the senior center? You know I need to ride there and back. You know, not all the senior centers have transportation to their facility, so it wasn't a great place for private pay for me. But who's to say? If you go to a really nice, snazzy, high income area and there's a senior center, it could be totally different. So that's something to think about. Just got to get in there and dig and find out what it's all about.
Speaker 4:Oh, when you yeah, when you reach out to new referral sources such as like maybe a senior center, a senior center, or like maybe like an elderly lawyer, or community liaison, like if you've never had any interaction with them before, how do you go about introducing yourself?
Speaker 2:So I think it depends on again where you're going, if, if you're able to get in front of the person you want to talk to, you're just going to try and introduce yourself and tell them what you do and everything right from the get go. Some places you have to make an appointment. You have to call ahead, like the lawyer. You know that would be somebody you would have to call ahead. You can pop in, but there's a. You know they probably don't like the pop in the way that the sniff would like the pop in. They they're going to want you to schedule appointments. You really have to kind of think about where you're going. Most places with a pop in. But I would say if I do share a lawyer, geriatric care manager, those kinds of places maybe not. But the other places and a lot of times I'll call ahead and get the name of a social worker so at least when I'm walking in I can say is Susie available?
Speaker 2:you know, but I've also went in there and just winked it, because sometimes you find yourself in an area you weren't expecting to be in for the day because that's home care, right. You just kind of kind of flying by the city or pants a lot, and I'll see a sniff and I'll be like you know, I haven't been in there yet. I'm going to go check that one out. I might be in my partner's territory. That's happened a lot. I always covered the east side of the east side and sometimes I found myself in the north side of the east side and so I feel like I haven't been in there yet and so I would say I haven't actually been in here before. Is there any chance of social workers available? What is her name, you know, and it's okay to do that. I mean it's okay, you know. I'm just I've never had a chance to come in and talk to her. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, and so the ones that, like you, may need an appointment, you would just call and introduce yourself, like tell them what you do and would you ask so they can meet with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I would probably.
Speaker 2:I try to come up with an example of another time and maybe you're making it up because you've never worked with, maybe, an elder care attorney, but you know giving them an example of how you can help. So maybe you have and in that case they would be called a client. You know the lawyers call their people. Maybe you have a client who needs some additional assistance at home with meals or with transportation or with personal care. Has that ever happened before? And if you're talking to the receptionist you can say do you know? Because a lot of times the receptionist is the one that gets that call. It's not always the attorney, right? I've had places where I never even met the attorney. The receptionist was sending me people because there's the ones that hear all the stories.
Speaker 2:you know my mom. You know she's calling me all night again. I'm exhausted. She really needs someone in her house at night. What can I do? And the receptionist loves to be a resource. So I find that giving them examples of how you can help their clients, patients, residents, kind of penetrates better than this is what I do. So try to put it in their words and what they're dealing with on a day to day. Okay, all right, everyone, thank you. Thanks for coming today. I hope you found it valuable. We're trying to get a little deeper with this stuff and give you the actual words and how to present and what to say, and sometimes we just have to be more detailed. Maybe I don't know. I just we're just trying to help as much as we can. Hope it's been good for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Have a good weekend, everybody. Happy Friday, bye, bye.