How Not to Do Lunch with Your Referral Sources

I recently saw a classified advertisement for a medical staff position in a physician's office. Aside from the typical requirements, education background and experience, the advertisement also stated: "Lunch provided daily." Where does this free food come from? Medical sales professionals. If you are like most HME providers, you are sick of doing lunches. After 21 years of doing them, let me tell you, I am, too. It seems that HME sales have evolved with those of the pharmaceutical companies; the consensus is that the only way to get to see the referral source is to do lunch, right? But maybe not for most, and certainly not for every referral source.

There are some proven techniques to avoid (and sometimes completely eliminate) the lunch factor in getting to see the referral source. Avoiding lunches completely would be the best solution, but let's be realistic. Sometimes it is good to do lunch with the referral source. So if you have to do lunch, what steps should you take? How do you prepare, what do you say during the lunch and what should your expectations be at its conclusion?

(Just to be clear, for our purposes "lunch" is synonymous with any time food is provided as a way to see the referral source.)

Let's explore the following: why the referral source wants your lunch, the reasons you typically do lunch (the fallback position), the script you can use to avoid and/or eliminate lunch completely, a formula to help you decide which referral source gets lunch, the different types of lunches you do (not the choice between Chinese or Subway), how to direct the lunch before you get there to deliver outcomes for both the referral source and your business, and how to follow up and keep the momentum in your corner.

Is Lunch Really That Bad?

Absolutely not. A lunch in a qualified office where the sales professional is prepared can be very valuable with an existing referral source. The key word here is "qualified." Providing lunch gives you the potential to build upon the existing relationship. Clearly, if you can qualify that the potential for a referral source is significant — before you make the appointment — then providing an in-service where food is present is totally fine. However, if you are already receiving significant business from a particular referral source and the main reason for this business is that you provide lunch, consider what this says about the referral source and what this says about your sales ability.