Notes From The Road

I got to "get out on the road" over the past couple weeks to work in person with some new clients. I can't tell you how exciting it was to be in a real room with real people again!

Here are a couple of things that I learned.

People may welcome you in if they know you, but only once - In one of my sessions I had a rep who was brand new to his agency, but had been in a different area of homecare for the past 5 years. When I asked him "How many of your former referral source offices were you able to walk into?" his answer surprised me...."All of them". With COVID still raging in a number of areas around the country I found it fascinating that one rep could have all doors open to him. His follow up explained it however "They said, 'Good to see you...happy to know where you are now. Please, don't come back until we ask you'". Ah....ok, so you can leverage an existing relationship but probably only for ONE visit. If that's the case...what are you going to use that ONE visit for? Relationship building? Education? Closing for the referral? There are a number of possibilities but make sure that your visit has some impact. KNOW what you want to happen before you even walk in the door.

Zero point Zero sales calls is a real thing - Just over a week ago I polled my Home Care Marketing Accelerator Webinar group (as I do every week) on how many of the 30 or so people attending were able to see at least one referral source in the past week. While I wasn't expecting record numbers, I also wasn't expecting this:

Zero percent?

Obviously it's possible....in fact, it happened. To a number of well trained and successful salespeople.

While I don't expect that this is going to be an ongoing, every-week trend, we must be prepared for the possibility that in some time frames, we won't get to see anyone face to face. That means, having an impactful message and call to action via digital marketing and virtual sales is a must in order to thrive. Make sure that every outreach to your referral sources is compelling, and prompts them to do something with the information you have given them.

I'm happy to learn more lessons "from the road" from you and your team. Just let me know where you are and when you need me and we'll make sure your agency can thrive in this trying times too.

Good Selling!

Michael Giudicissi