This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Do Your Research
“What’s the latest advancement?” a hospital executive might ask. “Will Medicare reimburse the cost?” Know the answers. Preparation plays a major role in creating and maintaining High-Return Relationships. Research can mean the difference between short- and long-term success for these all-important connections. Every good healthcare salesperson knows the product or service inside and out, keeps constant tabs on the competition, and anticipates objections. That’s a given. The great salespeople take their research to another level. They carve a competitive edge by incorporating the latest industry news and information into their value propositions (see the sidebar “Pave Your Way by Leveraging the ACA”), and they put in the time up front to evaluate a prospect’s long-term growth potential in a process known as prequalification.
- Prequalification: The process of evaluating a prospect’s long-term growth potential.
You must prequalify a potential High-Return Relationship to ensure that you can satisfy each other’s needs. How?
- Talk to others in your professional network—colleagues, clients, and business associates—who have engaged with the prospect. Ask about their experiences. See if they think the prospect is a good fit for you and for your healthcare products or services.
- Get involved in professional/trade organizations (visit http://selling-healthcare.net/index.php/resources/trade-organizations for a list). In addition to the wealth of industry-specific knowledge such memberships offer, they provide excellent opportunities to rub elbows with prospects and others who know them.
- Do online research. It’s amazing what you can learn when you Google a prospect.
- Ask key qualifying questions over the phone or during your initial drop-in before you set up the first face-to-face meeting.
No big investment of time is required to pave the way in preparing for more productive High-Return Relationships. And the more time you spend out in the field, the faster you’ll identify your ideal partners, the people with whom you need to connect to grow your business.
Pave Your Way by Leveraging the ACA
The rollout of the Affordable Care Act (www.healthcare.gov/law/features/index.html), and the widespread changes it mandates, has made it more important than ever for healthcare sales professionals to stay ahead of the research curve. New information about the ACA’s impact on healthcare stakeholders across the board seems to be released daily, affecting how salespeople industry-wide do business. The healthcare sales and marketing pros who stay on top of the ongoing research—and then leverage that knowledge to strengthen customer relationships—will excel as sales leaders in the evolving world of healthcare.
NOTE
The key is the ability to position products and services as beneficial, in as many specific ways as possible, to the ACA’s three-fold mission: to improve quality of care, expand access to care, and reduce costs.
For hospice sales reps, the mission of the reform law offers strong back-up for their primary value proposition: hospice’s proven track record for improving quality of life, available at no or low cost to all terminally ill patients, while reducing the financial burden on the healthcare system. More specifically, reps can position their company’s hospice services as a way to avoid the ACA’s financial disincentive for avoidable hospital readmissions. For instance, hospice IPU marketers armed with studies that illustrate how hospice helps keep patients out of the ER—and who can effectively communicate this information to the right referral sources, weaving compelling company-specific benefits into their value story—will gain the competitive edge over less law-savvy salespeople. You will find more examples of how healthcare sales professionals are affected by the Affordable Care Act, and tips for leveraging the new legislation, throughout this book.