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Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Dawn Fiala, Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie VanBooven RN BSN provide insight into home care marketing strategies. They cover in-person, in-field sales and online marketing every other week. These podcast episodes are part of the Home Care Marketing Mastermind, sponsored by Approved Senior Network®. Find more information at https://ASNHomeCareMarketing.com
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Mastering Home Care Marketing: Building Trust, Creative Holiday Strategies, and Strengthening Referral Relationships
Unlock the secrets of growing your private pay home care business with insights from industry experts Dawn Fiala, Annette Ziegler, and Lisa Marsolais of the Approved Senior Network's Mastery Circle. We dive into actionable strategies for building trust and fostering relationships with referral sources, emphasizing the importance of understanding the offerings of potential partners and mastering industry knowledge. Discover how effective communication and consistent outreach can transform your home care marketing efforts and propel your business forward.
Our conversation explores creative ways to stand out in a competitive field, particularly during the winter season and holidays. From structured support to reduce hospital readmissions to inventive holiday marketing, find out how you can support caregivers and ensure wellness among seniors. Whether it's sparkling cider giveaways or themed Valentine's Day gifts, we share innovative ideas to engage healthcare partners and enhance your marketing strategies.
Celebrate the art of relationship-building as we discuss the value of educating patients and social workers, highlighting the complementary roles of home health and non-medical home care services. With special events like Lunch and Learns, and engaging marketing ideas for Social Worker Month, we provide you with the tools to maintain a competitive edge. Listen in for a delightful wrap-up with our March leave-behind giveaway winner announcement and learn how these strategies can redefine your approach to home care marketing.
Continuum Mastery Circle Intro
Visit our website at https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
Get Your 11 Free Home Care Marketing Guides: https://bit.ly/homecarerev
Hi everyone, welcome. If you're new, I'm seeing some faces, new people that I've talked to. I'm super happy that you're here, glad that you were able to make it. We're hoping this first one is one of many good ones. So I'm Dawn Fiella. I've been with Approved Senior Network close to three years now. I just can't even believe it went by so it feels like I don't know. A week ago I started. Time just flies by when you're having fun. So I was also in home care for a very long time. I worked for franchise. I've worked for an independent home care agency. My strength has always been growing the private pay side of the business. We got into the 3.5 million range within under four years in private pay. A lot of what we talk about here in Mastery Circle is some of those things. We have a training which I'll talk to you about a little bit, also teaching others how to do those same things. So I'll pass it over to Annette Welcome again everyone.
Speaker 2:Okay, hi everybody. My name is Annette Ziegler and I will be with ASN for a year in April. It's going by the week and I love it. I know I too have been in home care for, you know, 20-plus years. I worked as a marketer for a home care agency here in upstate New York for about seven and a half years, helped them grow from one million up to four million. What I do at ASN is I teach the sales training classes. So I know some of you see a lot of my class members here. I'm glad you're here. So welcome everybody. And we're glad you're here on a Wednesday. We're getting a good crowd.
Speaker 1:And so Valerie Van Boeven is co-owner and founder of Approved Senior Network. She is a registered nurse. She does all of our content stuff. She's been doing this since 2008. She's a whiz. Sometimes I wonder if she's AI and not a real person. I met her in person now, so I know she exists, kind of like Santa Claus. She's just so brilliant and so good at all of it.
Speaker 1:Is she real? Is she just an AI, something that I'm so? No, she's real. She's amazing. She does all of our online webinar, like all of this stuff. She's really, really talented at that, and we do all the feet on the ground stuff. So again, welcome everybody. Lisa is going to talk to you about how to watch the meetings that you missed. Yep, yep.
Speaker 3:So go ahead, lisa. All right, here we go. So to log into the forum, you all should be able to do this now, but homecaresalesforumcom is where you go. Your username is going to be your email address that you signed up with and your password is whatever was emailed to you at that same time. If you forgot, it's okay, there is a choice where you can hit forgot your password, and this is what it'll look like here on the right Oops, that's okay, this is what it'll look like, kind of, when you get in there. But go ahead. Next slide is totally fine, there we go. So where that beautiful green arrow is, it's actually should be pointing more towards the learning, I feel like. But right, but you can also go to discussion and go to learning. You can see who's who also is a member. But that's where you want to go. I would click on that learning and then you get to next slide. Boom, this is what it looks like. So you'll see these squares here Twenty twenty four, continuum, it'll actually be twenty twenty five after today.
Speaker 3:We'll see the twenty twenty five. You'll click on that and that's how you get into all of our past classes. There's links in here. Everything you need is within here, like January 24, for example. You just click there and you'll see all of those replays. And then, up at the top January 2025, you will see today's recording links, all that jazz within there and the mobile version. So hopefully you guys are able to get this mobile version going. It's the collab app with a K, how to use it and what it's for. So it'll be everything we just saw, except it'll be, you know, mobile. So if you have an iPhone, here is your link there, and next slide is your you know team Android here, and then that's me, and then here we go. So where the arrow is here, this is what it'll look like You'll just go to join group, see where that arrow is, join group, and then, once you get in, you will be able to see.
Speaker 3:If you look at the very bottom, here you see home discussion, learning, all those different pages. So you'll be able to go to see any of those other pages that you want to navigate to and, boom, here's some cool stuff that we pulled from the discussions in the forum. So you'll see, here you'll see lots of industry folks asking questions, sharing their leave behind ideas and other we even share about our classes more leave behinds. We just want to hear from you guys here. So if you have questions, comments, anything like that, any you want to show people what you're doing, so they can do it too Helping, helping everybody along, you can do that here, and I already have something in the chat that says can you show the app one more time? So I, if, can you reverse like maybe two slides. Did you want to know? There you go. Collab app is here and here are the links and they'll be in today's replay. You can see these links too, but here's if you're in iPhone and next slide is if you're Android. I hope this helps you.
Speaker 1:And everybody here today will get a PDF of the slide presentation and these are hyperlinked so you can go straight from the slides that you receive to these.
Speaker 3:These here straight from the slides that you receive to these, these here. So that should. That was helpful, so awesome, Glad to help. Okay, so, and there's the home care marketing. What is it? Home care marketing, newscom slash store. So we thought it would be make it a lot easier to give you like a one-stop shop Did it, Cause it's a store, but one-stop shop to be able to find all the little tchotchkes and the giveaways that go with your leave-behinds. So you know, here's October, November, December, but right now you're going to see January, February, March when you actually log in. This is just the old slide because it's January, we're starting over. So if you click on those, you'll be able to see what we have put together for you to go with those leave-behinds when you go out and do your weekly marketing.
Speaker 1:And if this isn't making sense for you yet, because you're new, you're going to understand this piece later on. That goes into leave-behinds. Yeah, all right, thank you. So before we get started, we do have a giveaway. So for all of you that are here today, you have to be here to win. One attendee is going to receive a set of customized March leave-behinds. We're going to customize them for you, so they're going to have your logo, your colors, your contact information, you have to be eligible to attend, or you have to attend to be eligible, and the other thing is you have to promise to take pictures. So whoever won January should be out and about with the leave behinds and taking lots of pictures and sending them to us so we can share them with everyone. So if you would like to be in the drawing for the free giveaway, do we want them to chat? What do we want them to do? Lisa, put it in the chat. Just put the word yes, yep, agree to please take pictures and send them to us. So go ahead and do that and you can continue to put yes throughout the presentation. Lisa, I don't know how she does it. Maybe she keeps track of everybody and she'll do the drawing and you'll hear fairly soon if you want or not. And I think Michelle Vollmer won February and so she got her leave behinds and then she changed out her logo a little bit. So I redid them with a new logo. They're beautiful. So hopefully she got her leave behinds and then she changed out her logo a little bit, so I redid them with a new logo. They're beautiful. So hopefully she got that. I don't know if she's here today, but I did send her an email with all the new stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, so today we're going to cover this is our agenda. This is a big one Overcoming common challenges with referral sources. If you're a marketer, if you're an owner, if anyone who's out there dealing with referral sources. On the day to day there's some challenges. We're not going to sit here and pretend like it's all happy and wonderful, because it's not always happy and wonderful. So we're going to talk about the most common challenges and what can be done to kind of overcome those Building trust, differentiating your agency, lack of follow through, inconsistent outreach, misaligned expectations, educational barriers, time constraints, competition and lack of metrics and tracking. So we're going to go in to each one of these and talk about each one of them in a little bit. If you guys have any questions at all, please put them in the chat, and Lisa and Annette are kind of watching the chat so that they can ask the questions live. If you have anything you want to add to what I'm already saying. Sometimes people are like oh, I did it that way, but then I did this and it was even better, so that we love your feedback and your information. All right, building trust.
Speaker 1:So in our training class that Annette is teaching, we teach you the five impressions to get a referral. We I, lisa, annette and I are all from different parts of the country. I'm in Arizona, annette's in New York and Lisa's in California. We've all been doing the exact same thing in our different parts of the country and we've all been equally successful. It works everywhere, and so this training program that we have is teaching you all of that, and so there are five impressions to get that referral.
Speaker 1:The first impression is building trust, and so we're just going to talk about that a little bit today. We go much more into it in our training class, but building trust is the first impression. Why? Because it's home care. I mean, I don't know of another more trusting industry, like the caregivers have to trust you, the clients have to trust you, the referral sources have to trust you. It's all about trust and building relationships. That's the foundation.
Speaker 1:The first step is knowing your industry. You really need they need to see you as an expert in home care. That's part of the trust. And if you don't know your industry and a lot of that can be like just terms like respite Do you know what what respite is? Do you know what it means is? Is your marketer going to go out and someone's going to say do you do respite care? And they're going to.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know what that is and and that could happen. Or custodial care or private duty they use a lot of words out there. That terminology is important and that's part of knowing your industry. You should know what Medicaid is and what VA is versus veteran and LTC is long-term care, like there's just lots of acronyms and different abbreviations and things in this industry and terminology that you need to know if you're going to be out there. We, of course, teach all of this, but it's going to be important if you are training a marketer and they're going out that they know all of these things important if you are training a marketer and they're going out that they know all of these things, also know what you're offering. So you're providing the home care piece. You need to understand how does that relate to everything else? If somebody has home health, do they still need home care?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:But if you're a marketer or you don't know that, then when someone says, oh, I already referred home care, or my mom already has home health, or I already referred home health, home care, or my mom already has home health, or I already preferred home health, you might not know. You know that you could still be a part of the equation. So again, that's some of the industry stuff. It's some of the what you're offering and how it benefits the clients, how it benefits the social workers and how it can add to home health, it can add to hospice. You need to know where you fit in, also in the offerings that are available to seniors. Know what your company does and what your company doesn't do. Of course you don't want to lead with well we don't do this, we don't do that.
Speaker 1:You don't want to start that way. You can't sell, you're not going to get referrals if that's what you're doing. But you do need to know what you don't do and it would be nice for you to know that on the spot. Getting in front of a social worker assisted living, anybody at all can take a while because they're busy. They're really really busy and so if they ask you a question and you're not sure the answer, it's okay to say I don't know, I'll get back to you and I'll let you know. But getting in front of them again, it could be a month or two. So it's best to know what you do and what you don't do.
Speaker 1:I used to have social workers say okay, I have somebody discharging, I'd love to give her to her, to you. She is a cat and the caregiver is going to be responsible with cat box. Is that a problem? Is it a problem? For us it wasn't a problem, unless they were a Medicaid client. Medicaid would not allow. Our caregivers did not. It wasn't included in the service. Some of our private pay caregivers were happy to change a cat box. They were fine with it. So it's those kinds of things. Can you clip fingernails? Can you use, can you shave somebody? This gentleman's going to need shaving. We can do an electric shaver, we can't do a regular shaver. So it's those kinds of things. Knowing that, so that you're able to answer those questions on the spot, know who you're talking to, what does their company do, what is their role and what do they do? Who is their customer? Are you dealing with the same? I mean it can really help you to build a relationship, to kind of talk about the adult child and how that works, because you're both working with the adult child in many cases. So, understanding what their company does are they assisted living? Are they skilled nursing facilities? Do they have a short term side and a long term side, or are they straight rehab? The more you know about them, that's going to establish trust, but it's also going to help you in getting referrals from them as well.
Speaker 1:Always ask questions. I would always ask them. So how many beds are in your SNF? 120. Oh, are they all insurance? Are they Medicaid? Get an idea, if they say I have 120 beds and 100 of them are Medicaid, you're probably not going to get many private pay clients out of that SNF because it's almost all Medicaid, all Medicaid.
Speaker 1:So asking questions and really listening. There are always clues in their answers, always. If you just ask the question and just sit back and listen to their answers, it will help you. Sometimes there's a pain point for them and that'll come out in their answer and maybe it's a pain point that you can help them with. So it's really good to really pay close attention If you can connect emotionally with some of their answers. You know I had. I would sometimes say do you ever have a tough patient, like a patient that's difficult to work on? Of course they do, and they'll tell you about it. I'll say you know, I've had some tough ones too, and some of my toughest ones were my favorite right and so that that puts you on a different level with them. So try to connect emotionally with them if you can too. And then, lisa, do you guys have anything to add? Jump in if you do.
Speaker 2:No, I just agree with everything you say. I mean, you really have to kind of know what you're talking about. There's going to be times where maybe you don't have the answer. So you know, I know some of you maybe aren't as experienced in the field You're going to learn a lot as you're out there but you know, try and know as much information about what your agency does. I worked for my agency, you know, a while and there were still sometimes I had to call our scheduler and say do we do this? Do you know? And you know. So just you know, knowing what you offer. But definitely I agree with everything you say, dawn.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and the difficult people always ended up being my favorite as well, mine too.
Speaker 1:What is wrong with us?
Speaker 3:It's because we want to win them over.
Speaker 1:We want them to love us and trust us. It's a challenge. We like it.
Speaker 3:We need them to love us and trust us and also knowing the industry. I mean an example. I was talking the other day because my mother just got out of a sniff and I was saying sniff and my kids kept laughing. They thought I was. They didn't know what I was talking about.
Speaker 1:They thought I was joking. So the terminology sniff is skilled nursing facility. If you're not aware that one calls it a sniff, yeah, the first time I heard it.
Speaker 3:I you know you kind of go what are you talking about Exactly, so that that all is very important.
Speaker 1:Definitely, I agree. I think the difficult ones. I like them too because they get in their own way and I feel bad for them, Like if you would just get out of your own way, we could, we could do this Right. So that's part of part of why I love them too. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Great, we're going to move on to the next one Again, if you guys.
Speaker 1:Have any questions at all? I'll go ahead and throw it in the chat. Have any questions at all? I'll go ahead and throw it in the chat. Differentiating your agency. So I don't know how many of you have gone out, I've gone out and I've had them say to me I'm working with 10 home care agencies, I don't need another.
Speaker 1:I don't need another one to refer to, I've got the top 10. I've been working with them for a long time. I'm done, I'm tapped out. The only way you can overcome that objection is to be different. You have to be different. What is different? Because in their mind, home care agencies are all the same. They're all the same. You're providing the same service. Everybody does personal care, everybody does respite, everybody does all the things. How are you different? And it needs to be a difference that's going to stand out.
Speaker 1:It can't be well, my caregivers really care, or my scheduling team stays until eight o'clock at night if we're not staffed through the next day. They kind of all do that and so, and in the mind of the social worker, that's not meaty enough for them to go. Oh, wow, that's interesting. So you have to have something that's very different. It could be an expertise. Maybe you have a geriatric care manager on your team. Maybe you have a nurse on your team. Maybe the kind of training. Maybe you specialize in Alzheimer's. Maybe you have quick caregiver training guides. That's what we teach as a great differentiator in our sales training class that's been a great one. To break through the gatekeeper and into the social worker's office they love that one. So you have to stand out, guys, if you want to get past that gatekeeper. You want to get a lunch and learn scheduled. You want to be able to talk to the person that you need to talk to and really get their attention. Because I've talked to people and they're kind of glossed over. I'll just stand here for five minutes while she talks so that I'm not being rude. You can tell that they're not connecting. There's got to be something different, shocking, something that they go. Oh, I haven't heard that before. It could be your backup plan in case a caregiver calls out. Maybe you have lead caregivers on staff. There's hundreds of ways to differentiate your company and if you haven't done that yet, figure it out and lead with that. Put it in your elevator speech, put it on your website. It should be in your newsletter, social media, it should be everywhere. How are you different? Because when they're on your website, they're also looking at other websites. Right, they did a Google search. Hopefully you showed up one to 10. If you didn't call us, we will help you with that, but hopefully you showed up one to 10 in their search. There's nine more companies they're looking at. If you all look the same and you don't have a benefit statement up on your homepage the very front there of how you're different and how you stand out that could be a problem.
Speaker 1:Deliver exceptional service Now, of course, you want to do this to the client and the adult, children and all of that, but here I'm talking more about delivering exceptional service to your referral source. Be there for them. Help them make their jobs easier. Do what you say you're going to do. Do it when you say you're going to do it. Provide exceptional service to them when they see that you're doing that. That translates into the company must be fantastic. The services must be fantastic. Provide tools and resources to make their job easier. We have lots of tools the questions to ask a home care agency before you hire them. I have another tool that I'm going to share with you today. We've got tools that you can give to them that helps them with their patients, helps them with their residents and makes their job a little bit easier. So this is an important piece. If you don't have this part figured out, stop what you're doing and figure it out because it's a really important piece.
Speaker 1:So we have interviewed social workers across the country and this shocked me. I'm still. I still can't feel like they've all got to be wrong, but they're not. I know that they're not. Their biggest complaint about working with home care agencies is that the sales rep, the marketer, community liaison doesn't get back to them, and I just I can't imagine. I was so on and just ready for that referral. I was just sitting there waiting for it. I couldn't believe that this was the case. So it's going to be really important. This, if you're, if you are the social worker and this is this made me put myself in their shoes. I'm a social worker. I have someone that just admitted she's discharging in two weeks. I got to get that figured out.
Speaker 1:So what do I do? Do I call five home care agencies and whoever gets back to me first gets it? Or do I call the person that I know I can count on? And if I do that and I leave her a voicemail or a text about it and she doesn't get back to me that day, do I start sending it out to other people or do I wait? Do I wait? And then now it's a week before discharge and I still don't have anybody?
Speaker 1:This is what they're dealing with, and their complaint to us was they would send it out and not hear back from anybody, or they would send it out to their one true blue person and not hear back and then not know what to do. Do I wait till she gets back to me? Is she working on it? And she just forgot to tell me it would just go ghost, it would just be quiet. So communicate constantly.
Speaker 1:If they give you a referral, I'm on it, I can be there, I can sign them up right there in the skilled nursing facility. You know what's the? You want me to come see you before. You want me to come see you after. Set clear expectations on how they are to give you a referral in the first place and how you would like, how they would expect for you to respond to that, what makes it easier for them? And always follow through. Always do what you're going to say when you say you're going to do it. And if you tell them you're going to get back to them by three o'clock tomorrow and it is 2.30 and you've not gotten back to them and you still don't have an answer, call them and say guess what? I don't have an answer but I will tomorrow or I'm working on it. Just don't ghost them. They get ghosted constantly. I've just I'm so surprised to hear this, lisa Annette, anything to add?
Speaker 3:Cause they didn't send it to me. No, I know that's right. I would say just to add to this just make sure you're on a texting basis, if you can get on texting basis.
Speaker 3:I mean, everybody has their phone, everybody's looking at their phone. That's a surefire way that they're going to get to you and you can get back to them almost instantly. I mean, if you're meeting with someone you know I don't like to take attention away from what I'm doing, but you're going to get right back to them. Get on that texting basis Agreed.
Speaker 2:I mean if, and if you can't answer them right away, text them back. I'll call you in an hour. Let them know you're on it, you know, when. I and I know Lisa Dawn and all of us were like this, but I was on it, I, I I knew that if I didn't answer them or I didn't follow through they were going to call somebody else. There was eight other agencies they could call but if you follow through and respond.
Speaker 3:They're going to just keep calling you because, hey, I'm going to call Lisa. She always answers me Right, yeah, but yeah, and they need home care, so you have to, like you said, be that different home care for them, definitely.
Speaker 1:Yep, inconsistent outreach. This is another thing that people struggle with. So if you're full time out in the field marketing, the goal is 40 to 50 stops a week. You're seeing everybody every eight to 10 days and you're doing one face to face a month for all your referral sources. This doesn't you're going to. You need at least one face to face. You cannot expect that every time you go every eight to 10 days, you're going to get a face-to-face. If you expect to get one every eight to 10 days, they will never refer to you. They don't, unless they're referring to you every eight to 10 days. That would be fabulous.
Speaker 1:And some maybe do, but one face-to-face a month, see everybody every eight to 10 days and see 40 to 50 people a week. Develop a schedule that encompasses that. I sorted my schedule by zip code. That worked for me, because if I was over here in this part of my territory and a social worker said, hey, can you come talk to this family and I and then they were way over here I would go way over here. Of course. Drop everything, go talk to the family.
Speaker 1:And now I'm going to mark it over here I'm not going to go all the way back unless it's on my way home. So sorting by zip code was very, very helpful for me. If you don't have a CRM, get a CRM. I can't express how helpful that is. We have a wonderful CRM here at our company. The CRM is going to help you with everything. You can enter all the notes about this, the facility about the person, the referral source. You can enter a task so you don't forget to go back next time. Right, I'm supposed to go back in eight to 10 days. So this is how I train my marketers.
Speaker 1:Before you go into the building, read your notes from last time. You're seeing 40 to 50 people a week. If you can remember what you did with Mary from eight to 10 days ago, good luck. I mean that. Good for you. I cannot. If I'm seeing 40 to 50 stops a week, there is no way I remember what I did with Mary eight days ago. It's just not going to happen. And so I mean I have a theme for the week of what I'm doing with everybody, but did I make it to Mary last week? I don't know, I don't remember. Read your notes before you go in the building and then, before you leave the building, create a note for what happened this time and create a task for eight to 10 days from now, a task that's going to send you a reminder that you have a task and then that becomes your route sheet.
Speaker 1:A CRM can be a game changer, so do that. Make sure your CRM is mobile. Who wants to go home after working all day long and then have to enter everything in the system? Right, we want you can do it on the fly, so make sure it's mobile. Provide value in every interaction. We are giving you guys lead behinds. Here in Mastery Circle. We have some face-to-face kind of lead behinds. We have regular lead behinds. Hopefully you're scheduling lunch and learns what you're dropping off should be of value. Some of it is cutesy and fun and is different and makes you stand out, and you need some of that too. But you also need some that are value. A discharge package is value. What happens after discharge that's value. Seniors and stroke that's value, things like that. So make sure some of it is value. Some can be fun and cutesy. They look forward to that. That changes their day. It's a happy light and a very busy and stressful day, so that's important too. It's a combination.
Speaker 1:Diversify your outreach methods so everybody has a different way that they maybe want to communicate with you and it gets old and stealth. It's always the same way. So do drop-offs, do email, do phone calls, do texting, you know, mix it up. Do some lunch and learns with them. Mix it up and have it be a little bit different and then you'll find maybe their best mode of communicating. I had one of them return an email and said lucky, I saw this, I never look at my email, I wouldn't do that again. I'm like, okay, I'll never email you again. You got it, you just don't know. And then some of them are on their email Like that is the only way they communicate. So if you don't diversify, you're not going to find that out and then evaluate and adjust as you're going.
Speaker 1:Again every eight to 10 days there is a theme of some kind and that's our leave behinds. Did it work? I mean check in with yourself next week. I went around all last week for 10 days and handed out my 24 hour leave behind that I specialize. Did I get anything out of it? Did it work? Was it helpful, like check in with yourself and evaluate what you're doing? Or this last week I tried emailing everybody. Did I get anything out of that? Or I dropped off this, leave behind. Did they seem to like it? So always evaluate and adjust what you're doing, misaligned expectations. So setting clear communication from the start.
Speaker 1:And again, this is about mode of communication. This is about expectations of your services, if you have I can't stress this enough either this came out a lot in our interviews with social workers If you have a limited, a minimum number of hours that you have, they want to know that. Right, annette? We heard that over and over again. If you have a minimum, please let them know, because it's frustrating for them to send and then they get on the phone. They're like, oh well, they have a five hour minimum, they couldn't take me, so they just want to be educated. It's not that they don't like a five hour minimum, they just want to be educated. They want to know about it ahead of time so that they are being a good resource to their patients. And any updates that you have to your services maybe you're doing Alzheimer's training now or you're doing something different. They love an update in your services, something that you're doing that's new and different, that can get you a lunch and learn, because they'll let you come in and talk to them if you're doing something different than you were doing three months ago.
Speaker 1:We have any questions, guys? I don't see any. Anyone who just may have come in recently. We are doing a free leave behind for the March. We will customize all of the March leave behinds for you with your name and contact information. All you have to do is type yes in the chat. If you want to be in the drawing and you have to promise to send us pictures, all right, I'm going to keep going. You have to promise to send us pictures. All right, I'm going to keep going.
Speaker 1:Educational barriers. So this is where I was talking about some of the tools that you could have out there. So most I think that most referral sources assisted living, independent living, skilled nursing facilities, hospitals all of them I think they understand the differences between medical and non-medical home care. But you know, who doesn't understand is the patient. Many of them think, well, I have home health, I don't need you guys. We all know that can be further from the truth. Home health is, you know, a couple times a week, maybe an hour and a half to two hours. So this is a great piece that explains the differences between non-medical and medical home care services, when the services are needed, how services start. You can put your contact information down here on the bottom so you'll have a link to this. This is a great.
Speaker 1:This could be an educational piece. You know, at a senior center, at assisted living, at a skilled nursing facility, they already know this. But what's great about this I have them they would do all the time is they would give this to their patients. So the patient would understand, because this is what happens for the social worker. They go in and say I picked a home health agency for you. They're going to be coming in, they're going to be helping you with X, y and Z. I suggest you call the one of these three home care agencies so they can help with XYZ and they're like well, I have home health, why would I need non-medical? I don't want the one I have to pay for. They don't want to pay for it. Home health is free. I'll just do that one. They don't understand that one doesn't like supersede the other. They work together. So this is a great leap behind for the SNFs to give to their patients and you can put your logo and phone number and information on here and they'll start handing it out to their patients to explain to them what the differences are, because they don't really have. I mean, they can explain it, but this really like explains every piece of it, so this is a great leap behind.
Speaker 1:Oops, I did not mean to stop sharing. Oh hit the wrong button, okay, all right. So stop sharing. Oh hit the wrong button, okay, all right. So we're going to go back into the slideshow. No, oh boy, am I still sharing?
Speaker 2:Can you guys?
Speaker 3:still see my screen. Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's changed a little bit because now we can see the top, but that's okay, all right. Limited knowledge of benefits of home care. Sometimes they don't understand the benefits of what it is that home care is providing. They know the services. Sometimes they don't understand the benefits of what it is that home care is providing. They know the services, but they don't know, they don't transfer the benefit of what those services do for seniors and families. So we reduce hospital readmissions, we improve client outcomes, we support family caregivers. So you know that could be another barrier. Another issue with referral sources they don't understand these educational, the educational pieces of it. Annette and Lisa, do you guys have anything to add? I keep forgetting to ask.
Speaker 2:I would just add I mean it's you know people, when they're in the hospital or rehab, being discharged, they hear that they get home care but they don't really realize a lot of times it doesn't start for a few days, they only come a couple of days a week. You mean home health or home health? Sorry, home health, yeah, they don't come, they're only there a couple of days a week. So it's you definitely they have to be educated, the social workers, knowing that you know you could be there the same day, you can pick them up, you could work closely with with home health and you know making sure that you know they're getting their meals, their medicine reminders, getting their prescriptions. So I found that I have to used to have to educate them often because you know a lot of the patients they don't. They don't realize that they're not getting as much help. You know, even though it's covered on their insurance.
Speaker 1:This person's just popping in, that's a really good point that home health doesn't start right away like we do, and I don't know that the social workers always know that, yeah, that's a really good point. And so this person's going home and they're thinking, oh, home health will be there.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe not, though Sometimes I think they have 48 hours to open the case once a month, I mean, it just depends, but it's not right away and they could be home for a few days and that's when they end up falling and going.
Speaker 1:And that's when they need the most help is the first few. That's a really good point in it. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, time constraints their time is very limited. We're really busy in home care, too. They're also really really busy, so they have limited time for meetings, limited time to see you. That's why I say one face-to-face a month, and because of this, they sometimes might make a rushed decision. You know, I've always used these people. They've always been good. I don't want to learn about anybody else. I'm just going to continue to send to her because it works and you know that's not good.
Speaker 1:They're supposed to know all the resources available to seniors, all the home care agencies, and so making sure that the time you take from them is valuable time, valuable to them, valuable to their clients. That's why that differentiator is so important. You're teaching them something that you do that nobody else is doing, and so that's a new, something that they didn't know before. That's going to benefit their patient. So any time you're spending with them, it needs to be valuable. You need to be making their job easier. You need to be making it being more of a resource and helping them help their patients. Lunch and learns are a great way to do this, but you have to be teaching them something, not just about your company. We have a great lunch and learn where you're teaching them about home care, but also about your company. It's beautiful, you can do that, but they should be learning something besides just about your company. At a Lunch and Learn, we have another one about what happens after discharge, and we're teaching them that Because, from our perspective, it's way different than what they know. They don't go home with these seniors. We go home with them. So if you're teaching them something, a lunch and learn can be a great way. Is it going to take some of their time? Yep, but they're learning something in the process, so it's worth it. It makes it worth it to them.
Speaker 1:Competition how do you keep from? You know to stay there and not have the competition kind of take over? You need to have a really strong relationship with a really strong foundation. That's why the five impressions are so important. It builds a strong foundation to your relationship.
Speaker 1:Are you going to get a referral, a one and done? Sure, that can happen all the time. You can go and see one. They send you one, but are you going to get another one? Maybe, maybe not. If you have a strong relationship, you will.
Speaker 1:And when I say strong relationship, what I mean is if it's maybe it's a skilled nursing facility and we're doing overnight bedside sitting and your social work, or your caregiver fell asleep in the middle of the overnight, awake, and will the social worker come tell you about this? Or is she just going to quit referring and you have no idea what happened? A strong relationship. They're going to pull you in. They're going to call you, text you something and say, hey, your caregiver fell asleep last night. I just thought you'd want to know. And you can bounce back from that. And they're going to continue to refer and you're going to make it better. That's the kind of relationship you need to get ongoing referrals, a one and done.
Speaker 1:If you were a one and done and I trusted you that overnight and your caregiver fell asleep, I'm just going to quit referring and not talk about it, because I'm not comfortable. I don't have a good relationship with you. Differentiating yourself is going to help make you stand out from the competition. Be reliable to them, be a partner to them. They are the social worker expert. They are the assisted living expert, the director of nursing expert. You are the home care expert. Be a partner. We have this one senior and all these branches are going to take care of this person. You're part of the branch, not just the resource. You're actually a partner and to be a partner, you've got a really strong foundational relationship. They can count on you. You get back to them, they're able to call you directly on your cell phone or text you and always be showcasing your expertise. Another thing that gets in the way with referral sources lack of tracking and metrics on your part you can have missed opportunities because you're not tracking, you're not keeping you know.
Speaker 1:am I seeing everybody every 40 to 50 days? Did I miss anybody? Do I keep missing the same person over and over again and I just keep forgetting inconsistent follow ups. If you're not going regularly to the same places, you know you have to have that consistent follow-up. They need to see you and they may say to you you know, you don't need to come by so much. I love you, you're the best. You know all of those things. They don't know that you need to come by often for them to refer you. They really don't know and you can't explain that to them. So try not to go the same day, same time every week to the same place. They will put that together. Gee, she comes by every week right after my meeting with so-and-so. Don't do that, because then they will start saying you don't need to come so often.
Speaker 1:You're going to have difficulty measuring your return on investment in all of your efforts if you're not tracking an inability to address the gaps in your visits and your stops. You won't have data and you could have lost your competitive edge. So tracking and metrics is a really big piece to this. Lisa, you're up. Does anybody have any questions?
Speaker 3:before we get into leave-behinds I don't have any in the chat, but the floor is yours, folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Does anyone have anything to share?
Speaker 3:add ask wrap us a question okay all right, cool, all right, here we go I can't believe we're already here.
Speaker 1:here are the leave behind, and um lisa will share where the marketing store is, so that it makes sense for those of you that are new.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so January, leave behind. So I know that we are kind of right. What are we? Front and center, january? We're in the, we're in the midst, right, but we still, we still have time to take some of these out. I would use these.
Speaker 3:You can't get to everybody each day, totally get it, but it's 2025 and we want everyone to know that. You know, we understand, like this says here, let us help bring in the new year with less readmissions. Have a sparkling 2025. And there was even some stats here. You know, studies show and I'm going to squint my eyes, sorry Studies show that hospital readmissions can be reduced by up to 25 to 50% when patients receive structured home care support following discharge. That is huge. I think that's just a real good tie-in to readmissions and just not bringing these frequent flyers back into the SNF that they came from, and this will really help create a really good partnership and a strong relationship.
Speaker 3:Like Dawn was talking about earlier, there are links. So, for anyone who's new, there are links at the bottom of each of these slides, and one is to Canva and one is to a Google Doc which has you can go in and change out the logo and the contact info there. If you go into Canva, you can change anything you want. But if you go into Google, the Google Doc, you can just just change. So it's pretty, pretty quick, easy. Change your logo and your contact information OK, and here are some cool things that we can add to this. So it's pretty quick, easy change your logo and your contact information okay, and here are some cool things that we can add to this. So you're going out. We got these cute little sparkling ciders. Throw a couple of ribbons on there, or take a whole case out to a lunch and learn. For example, what we've done is we kind of do the legwork for you so that you know about what you're gonna be spending for this. And we have a store. If you look to the little left bottom corner here, if you clicked on marketing store, it will take you to our marketing store, which is here, and just scroll down a little bit and here you go. So all of these things you, you and we haven't showed the ladder on the bottom here, but you click here and it'll take you to where you can buy these for pretty inexpensive. Did you guys know that you can buy like bulk from Dollar Tree? I did not know that. I mean it comes right to your door. You don't have to go and shuffle through. You know, not, not each each Dollar Tree is not equal. So if you're getting this, you know online it's really, really helpful. But we, we don't like. Dollar Tree says it, it doesn't. You don't have to buy it here. Just wanted to give you like a easy one stop shop, so to speak. So, on each of the slides, a little marketing store is there. You can also save the URL Perfect.
Speaker 3:So January again, we're all thinking about resolutions, right? So let's make this year the best year yet and use this card to get your 2025 goals set. So just take this out, a little reminder that you know everyone's going to have goals, and take this out with what was it again? Next slide we want to help reduce readmissions. Again, people are thinking about that in January a lot because there's new budgets and all that stuff. But these little resolution cards are super cute. We used to actually do these among our caregivers or some of our admin team and then look at them mid-year to see what we've actually accomplished. That's not what you have to do here, but just a really cute idea to bring in the new year and I found these little cute heart paperclips. I don't know, I just liked them, I thought they would look cute, so maybe you can clip them together with that. Yeah, but everything is here and in the marketing store as well.
Speaker 3:All right, another January. Leave behind for those of you that are freezing cold in the snow. The weather outside is frightful. Partnering with us for care is so delightful. You know, call or text, valerie, there's lots to snow about. Delightful patient care team, our patient care team. Get it Snow. You can take these out with.
Speaker 3:Next slide is some cool winter feel, winter themed things. Some really cute pens with snowflakes and some snowflake sticky notes and hand warmers, which I desperately need. I don't I think Carla's still on here Her and I were talking about that. My hands are always freezing and so I really need to order some of these, but I think this is just a great way to again go in and speak with your social worker that you get a chance to talk to and you know you're. You're lightening up the mood and brightening their day with something cool that they can use. Something useful.
Speaker 3:January we're also always thinking about. You know meals and you know healthy eating, so eat well, feel well and let that you're letting them know a little piece of what you do, because they know what home care is, but you got to constantly be reminding of all the service lines that you provide, right? And so this one says our caregivers are trained in all types of dietary needs, understanding the importance of creating nutritious, healthy meal plans, and so that's important. Lots of times when I was out, you know, doing an assessment, families would they were like wow, you guys can do a meal plan, you can cook. I'm so tired of my mom having these, you know, microwave meals. Yes, we can, and we can kind of prep and make extra for maybe day three and day four, and you know we can do these things. So they need to know that it's very, it's an important part of what we do, for sure.
Speaker 1:How about a can of soup and a half a sandwich? That's like the standard. Yeah, that is the standard. My mom a half a can of soup and a half a sandwich every day.
Speaker 2:And that's all she eats all day. Yeah, no, this is great.
Speaker 1:Advanced breakfast is the bomb for sure.
Speaker 3:Yep, and you know, just to tie into the healthy theme, you know, here's the honey sticks and cuties and you can go to any store and grab those, but we also do have a couple of different things on the marketing store as well and just maybe tie a little. You know, string around these with the leave behind. And you know, just here's some honey. You know it's cute, it's cute and people love that. This is not a leave behind whatsoever, it's a reminder for you guys. So mark your calendars. National Think a Caregiver Day is Friday, february 21st. There's a couple of different little cute ideas. If you wanted to do like an open office, have your caregivers come in and get a little treat, a bite to eat and a couple of snacks to take with them. Or you know, a couple of little giveaways here to take with them. Make a day out of it. I don't know, we used to do something like that have the office open all day and then folks that were on calls or on shift, we would just kind of route them. You know, send a lead caregiver, go, take them their package and, boom, they're good to go. But just an idea for you guys. Groundhog Day I just was having fun here. So for this on the left hand, don't let, don't let last minute discharges cast a shadow on your day. Our caregivers are prepared to get your patients home safe and grounded within just a few hours. So hopefully they're texting you and saying, hey, I need a caregiver for this person. They've got to get home. And then I did another version for you on the right, just for anyone else. But don't let it fall Cast a shadow on your day. Take these out. Use the leave behinds to send a message to your referral partners that you will be there with, just you know, snap. And next, oh okay, february. Another February healthy heart tips. Our caregivers can help seniors stay heart healthy at home by helping too, and there's just so many different ways. But care that we provide can help in all of these ways Relieving stress by taking some off of them, right Off of their plate. Prepping healthy meals, which we talked about already. Getting regular physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight. Helping, you know, with checking the BP and cholesterol checks or taking them to or, at least you know, marking that stuff down. So all of these things we can help with. We want people to know that. And another February. So this one's kind of funny, but it's something that no one would even think of. Probably National Sauna Week is February 20th to the 26th, nobody cares, but it's cute and funny, so you know, and it's nice and bright, so feeling like life just turned up the heat, don't sweat it. We've got trained caregivers standing by to take the heat off family and provide excellent care at home for all situations. I mean, that says a ton there. So I really think that this is a great icebreaker. Take this out and it really speaks volumes about you're prepared, you're ready to go, you are home care and then just to go with all of those.
Speaker 3:There's a couple of different ideas here. This first one it's a chapstick holder, a puffy pom-pom ball, a wristband key chain set. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff here. I love the chapstick holder because I had never heard of one until I found it online. I don't know if I've been under a rock or what, but I had no idea. And it's the coolest because I can't go anywhere without chapstick. And then, of course, we have our stress balls. I think those are always a favorite and they just make all the different kinds now. So these are heart ones and they're all different colors, love those. And then shower steamers I thought that kind of goes with the sauna theme, but these are also quite relaxing. They smell good and you can give those with anything. Just put them in a little bag with your logo on it, tie a ribbon around these things and you're good to go. And again all in the marketing store.
Speaker 3:Another February leave behind for Valentine's Day. This one is great because this is going to get people to come out. This is going to get the social worker to come out and talk to you. You're giving a and you're giving a deadline. So text me by February 10th. Enter to win a Valentine's Day self-care gift basket. Take this to all of them and then, really, you know, I don't know how you guys want to win Maybe take some names and throw them in a hat, but anyone who has texted you, you're going to pick their name and you're going to take them. You know a self-care basket. It doesn't have to be expensive. You know it could have. You know lots of different things you can look at. Those shower steamers, for example, could be in the basket. Maybe some Martinelli's I think you could pick stuff from all of the tchotchkes in the store. I think you could find some good ideas there.
Speaker 1:And now you're on a texting basis too. We're trying to get the cell phone number guys.
Speaker 3:Great way to do that. It's the best way, yeah. And then for February, leave behind. You know you can have them. You know, text you how many candies are in this jar. Super simple, because there's only like what 10 that could fit in this little piece of paper. It's just a little valentine, but you can fill it. In the back there's like a little baggie, and you can just fill it and seal it. And, you know, use your gloves, but you can fill it with Skittles or whatever. You know how many candies are in the jar and then text me that That'd be a great way to tie something in too. And then you leave this behind. They'll remember you for sure. All right, march Okay, we're already in March, you guys, and it's the month of all months, national Social Worker Month, a big one, yes.
Speaker 3:So prepare now because you've got to be out there and you've got to try to get to every single social worker possible. But their theme this year is compassion plus action, and so this is actually their theme logo for this year. They change it every single year, so we just want to let them know that we appreciate all they do, and you can talk a little bit more to them on what you do when you talk with them. But I think having them this is a good excuse to get them to come out and just say thank you, and you know, for trusting us to get your patients home safely, but also for what they do. And I found these Annette actually found these stickers and she's used these before and I absolutely love, love, love them.
Speaker 3:You can add these to like your. What is it? Your water bottle, just your your phone case. I mean love, love them. You can add these to like your. What is it? Your water bottle? Just your, your phone case. I mean anything. But I also found these. Oh sorry, I also found these little mesh letter. They're like a meshy plastic letter size zipper pouches and I just I don't know what it was about them. I just thought that social workers could really use these. I could use them, so, and they, you can stick the stickers on there or you can stick the little sticky notes on that, you know whatever it is. But I just thought these would be really good ideas, something a little different. I feel like every year we do key chains and I wanted to change it up a little bit, so I thought that this would be really nice for to take out to our social workers. Prices are there. I mean you get a pretty good amount for each. Maybe buy it a couple times and you're good to go.
Speaker 2:Annette, do you want to share your experience? I just want to add, you know so we we did elder fair or fairs at the hospitals and rehabs. You know we would. I had a table with the social work stickers and everybody was caught. I was like the most popular person. They were like do you have the stickers? And and then you know I'd have, you know, referral partners, you know calling me. Where'd you get those stickers? They just love them. They, like you know, they put them on their, their Stanley cup, their, their, you know, laptop, so they're. They were really excited about them. So when I, you know, I told my son Don do these stickers.
Speaker 2:people love them, so that's a great, it's a great.
Speaker 1:I can see them really like putting it, putting them all over the place, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're cute little sayings, very cute sayings.
Speaker 3:They are, and they're waterproof too, so they could technically go like on a bumper. Bumper, I feel like on the car too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for those of you that maybe are new to home care, social workers work in skilled nursing facilities typically, and they're in charge of discharges, and so social worker month is big. It only happens once a year, and so it's March and you want to be able to see every single one of those social workers. So so start gearing up and thinking about. That's why we wanted to get March done now, so that you could start thinking about that Didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 3:Go ahead now so that you could start thinking about that. Didn't mean to interrupt, go ahead. No, yeah, you're totally good. Also, march is craft month, national Craft Month, which I didn't know, but I think that it's just. I was like wow, cool, because I had been hearing that a lot of different, even even some independents, but some assisted livings were having trouble getting like art supplies and stuff like that, and so I even sniffs, and so I thought that it'd be a great way to maybe even get into some of those and, I don't know, do some cool crafts with them, get in with the activities director, but anyways, that's a little side note but creating partnerships that work for your patients, care plans designed with your patients' unique needs in mind.
Speaker 3:So, with the little tchotchke we're going to say here's a little creativity, courtesy of maybe put your logo there and then call our text. I just thought these are so darn cute. I have a ginormous one that I've done of Darth Vader, which is awesome, but these are little, small, just kind of cool. I just love these and you just put them in a little baggie and take them out and it's just a little bit of creativity from you to them, and they can you know, they can re-gift them or they can use them, but it's something totally different and unique, and I don't think that most people are bringing them anything like this or thinking of craft month, really. So I think it's a great, a great way to to show them how you're a little different and you're thinking outside the box a bit.
Speaker 1:Love that.
Speaker 3:And then another one here. So, whether an early bird or a night owl, know who's got your patients covered 24 hours a day. We do that too. And then you know, we want to let them know because it is international festival of owls week. I want to say, yeah, I can't read it, sorry. Our caregivers are trained for all different situations, all different times of day and all through the night to keep patients safe at home. It's who we are. So I just again. We want to reiterate that, yes, we're 24 seven. We can have someone just go at night, we can have someone just in the day. It doesn't have to be. You know what they think home care is, but we can really tailor this to their needs. So just another reminder for them. And then a couple of little cuties here owl sticky notes, owl bags, and these little guys glow in the dark. They're super adorbs. We can just throw maybe one or two in the bag even, but I just thought they were really cute.
Speaker 1:Oh, 40 for $11. That's pretty good. Or 12 bucks, that's pretty good, good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought so too. Yeah, they're super adorable and I didn't know this. But Annette collects owls oh she does. I didn't know that either. When I started doing this, she was like you know, I collect owls right yeah, but yeah, so all of these is there. I think that's there's one more. I think this is a great one. This went, this went over really well last year. Guys, I think that's it. There's one more. I think they're done. How could I forget our pinch protection?
Speaker 1:This is a great one. This went over really well last year, guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I had to bring it on back because I just loved it and everyone else seemed to too. But pinch protection. So it's St Patrick's Day and we just want them to know hey, are you in a pinch? You're in luck, we can help you with last minute discharges. And then pinch protection. You can actually wrap around a little necklace, which you'll see here. Boom, and no one's getting pinched that day if you have this on. There's a couple more things too. But you can get the beaded necklaces. You can get some rainbow coins or chocolate and you can add them to these little cute shamrock boxes. They're so cute. You can also get the little like. I call them cauldrons. I don't know what else to call them. I feel like cauldron is so Halloweeny. But you can get those too. They're really cute and just fill them with candies or something. But I really like the necklaces. They're super inexpensive and you know, you add that pinch protection onto there. You've got it made.
Speaker 1:And they will wear them. They will wear them all day long, for sure. Where do you go to order these again? So, vanessa, at the bottom of each one of these there's this marketing store. So you're going to get the slides, the slides will be emailed to you and all of these links are hyperlinked. So you're just going to click on marketing store on the slide and then, when you're in the store this is for March you have to click right on the actual picture and it will take you to where we found them. Doesn't mean we don't get anything for this. We're just trying to make life easy. We've had feedback through the years. It'd be nice if everything in one place. So this will take you, the store will take you, and then you can save the URL for next time. If you want to Any other questions, I think that's it, guys.
Speaker 1:That's the last one. We're so happy you were able to join us. Today. We're going to be choosing the winner Again. If you want to win the March leave-behinds that are customized for you and you promise to take pictures of yourself handing everything out, or at least a picture of what you came up with to add to the leave behind type, yes, in the chat we'll give you. We've got some more people either. Let's see one more time, one more time here, at least. So we will be drawing a name. We've got a couple more people entering. Wonderful, all right. Well, that's it for today, guys. Uh, wednesday worked out pretty well, I think. Super happy to see you here. Um, happy new year and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Okay, guys, bye.
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