When buying commercial real estate, the focus has always been “location, location, location.” It's all about where you're located in relation to your customers.
There is a message in that theory for all of us to consider, but first we need to translate it to the home medical equipment business. In home care sales, we may need to coin a new strategy: It's all about “connections, connections, connections” and how well you are connected with your customers.
For many HME companies, the connections with customers and referral sources are tenuous. You would barely recognize each other in the mall or even standing in line at the local restaurant. Your customers may be familiar with your logo and company name, but you might never have shared eye contact or seen the expressions on each other's faces.
Your connection might be centered upon a fax machine, an automated Internet ordering system or a brief phone call. (I am hesitant even to call that a connection.)
Working in a rapidly changing industry with the continuous introduction of new technology, referral source connections are suffering and often neglected. But I still believe people do business with people, and the preferred way to do business is when there is a connection based on a relationship that is rewarding, honest and respectful.
During these economic times you cannot afford to let those connections deteriorate. You cannot afford to believe you will be remembered by your referral sources when they need something or that they will refer to you simply because you are on their preferred provider list or have won a contract.
Business connections are never permanently sealed with a legal document. They are sealed because of trust, a shared set of values and ethical business behavior respected by all parties. They are sealed because of a connection.
You cannot successfully connect with referral sources or customers if you do not make a special attempt to enhance that connection. You cannot be so bold to believe that because you have had the same physician or referral source ordering from you for the past three years that you “own” their business. You cannot be so blind to believe that even if you do not see your customer in person for months at a time, there is some special glue holding that business relationship together.
What is disconcerting is that so many HME providers are unaware that their referral source connections hold so little strength in the competitive world of home care sales.
Ask yourself these questions:
- When was the last time you met with the director or manager of a social work department that may be your key referral source?
- When was the last time you attended a health fair and actually met face-to-face with a referral source you knew only from phone conversations?
- When was the last time you attended a conference and sat next to a referral source who was wearing a name badge from a facility that sends you lots of business?
- Are you able to describe what each of your referral sources looks like?
- When was the last time you scheduled a meeting with a key referral source just to thank them personally for their business and for the opportunity to work with their patients?
- When was the last time you and your sales/marketing team discussed how your company could improve connections with your customers?
Building a business connection that will withstand the test of time takes constant consideration and ongoing reinforcement. Neglect the connection issue and you could end up where you may have started — looking for new a location.
There is no better time than now to shore up the connections you have with all of your customers. With reimbursement heading down, connections should be moving up the priority list.
Let's all find new ways to stay connected. That might mean actually “doing the lunch” we talk about but never plan. Work on your connections and you will be building your HME business for any rough times ahead.
Read more Sales Notebook columns.
Louis Feuer is president of Dynamic Seminars & Consulting Inc. and the founder and director of the DSC Teleconference Series, a teleconference training program. You can reach him through www.DynamicSeminars.com or at 954/435-8182.
