Getting a client is one thing, but what comes next? Hopefully more billable hours, and thats where recommendations come in to play. On this week’s episode of A Drink With The Hurricane, Steve is going to continue his discussion with part 2 of the Art of Closing.
Video Transcript:
Hi folks, Steve The Hurricane here! For today’s episode of A Drink with the Hurricane, we’re going to talk about the art of closing
The art of closing is yet another featured presentation I’m gonna discuss at The Hurricane Marketing Referral Masters Boot Camp. I love when I get to do this at the boot camp! I have the audience create a scenario, I then get two volunteers, one person to be the patient, and one person to be the patient’s family. Then I have them come up and the audience will decide what the patient has, what is this situation, and the scenario that I’m in. Then I sit down and I do full closing presentation and the customer ends up buying the services and everybody in the audience is like, that’s amazing, how do I do it, and then I go through training them on the steps of making a sale.
The reason why we have to have a strong closing process is because many of us are not sales people and when somebody calls and says I want a bath visit or I want somebody to take me to the doctor once a week, well if somebody needs help with that, what else do they need help with? The closing process is designed to take the person with what they want and determine what they actually need.
Now for today, I’m going to talk about, not up-selling, but instead making recommendations. The truth of the matter is, we’re going to get a lot of people who are going to call us, who want that bath visit, who are going to want that one-time trip to a doctor’s office or to go grocery shopping, where they’re going to want a lot less services than they actually need. So when it comes to making a recommendations, this is where you are the expert, and I always like to use the example of a plumber.
My kids destroyed my bathtub at our house. They broke it. I don’t know how you break a bathtub, ask my kids, because they broke it. I have three kids and they broke the bathtub, and when it was raining in my kitchen, guess what The Hurricane did? I called the plumber.
I don’t know a thing about fixing a bathtub or fixing pipes. I don’t know anything about that and that’s why I called a plumber. Just like our clients don’t know anything about home care, that’s why they’re calling us, right? So, I call the plumber, I get on the phone, and I have the plumber come out. I say to plumber, I just want you to patch up the bathtub, and you know what the plumber said to me?
The plumber said, no, this has to be replaced. You have to replace it, you have to do this and that, whatever, all this other stuff. Now, repairing the bathtub was like a $100 – $200 job. Replacing the bathtub, the pipes and everything else, was several thousand dollars and the plumber was willing to walk away and say I’m not fixing this tub because it’s not going to work. So either we replace the tub or you have to go somewhere else, to which I said, fine, let’s replace the tub. Well, the same thing goes here.
If you have a patient who had a massive stroke and they can’t get out of bed anymore and they just want you to come out twice a week to do a bath visit, that is a very dangerous situation. You don’t want to give that person a bath visit, ’cause that person’s probably gonna end up back in the hospital or worse, your caregiver shows up and the client’s dead because something happened to them when someone wasn’t there. With the art of closing, a big part of it is not upselling, but it’s making a recommendation. Now how do you do it?
It’s real simple…
I understand that you may only want someone to come out a couple days a week for your mother, however, in the situation, I’ve been doing this since 2005, so for the last 13 years and I have dealt with hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have had a stroke.
Most people who have a stroke, when they come home from the hospital, for that first couple of weeks, they have 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week care set up to determine what are the hours that Mom actually needs help.
When she sleeping by herself, to make sure that when she’s home she can stay home and not end up back in the hospital. I am going to recommend to start for at least the first two weeks, we have round-the-clock care, and we can downgrade accordingly as we figure out Mom’s routine in the home, that’s my recommendation for the situation, it’s a need-based situation.
This is what she needs. You, as the home care company, are the expert! John, this is the first time your mother’s had a stroke and you’ve never done this before. Trust me!
If they don’t want to do it, be willing to let John go to another agency. Do it right the first time and stay out of the hospital, let your mother stay at home, age in place with dignity and grace, that’s what it’s all about! This is making a recommendation, not upselling.
I’m not selling you something you don’t need, this is how you take care of a stroke patient who’s bed-bound when they first come home and you determine where to go from there.
In conclusion, The Hurricane Referral Masters Boot Camp! Commit to excellence, commit to making 2018 your best year yet, sign up for The Hurricane Referral Master’s Bootcamp right now and I’ll give you everything you need to BLOW AWAY THE COMPETITION!
If you want to listen to A Drink with The Hurricane and other content from HME on the road, check us out on Soundcloud.
