Steve “The Hurricane” (00:00):
What’s up, everybody? It’s Steve “The Hurricane” here, and for today’s episode of a Drink with the Hurricane, we are going to talk about why you should sponsor activities at your referral sources, so raise your glass and let’s toast to your success. Cheers.
(00:25):
This is A Drink with The Hurricane, the Talk show discussing all things growing your home care business. This video is sponsored by Home Care Evolution where we help home care agencies adapt to changing circumstances, transform their business so that they can thrive for years to come. Why should you sponsor an activity at your referral sources? The simplest and shortest answer is because that is you working with your referral source when you think about it, at the end of the day, every single marketer I have ever spoken to, every single business owner I have ever spoken to and trained over the last 12 plus years of my life as the owner of Home Care Evolution, Hurricane Marketing Enterprises, they’ve all said to me, Steve, I need a reason to go to the referral source, and ultimately, the reason is to ask for the business. But the reason why people say I need a reason is because you can’t just walk in and say, do you have a referral?
(01:30):
For me? You have to have a purpose for being there. One of the best reasons to come in as the sponsor an activity, when you sponsor an activity, you have to think about the nature of the activities department and specifically the activities director. They are tasked with the responsibility of coming up with 28 to 31 days full of activities for the residents who live in that community or live in that C C R C or that nursing home to do every single day. Now, there are certain things that are done daily, like they have trivia and games, and they do mass on Sundays and all these different programs, but they still have to do a full day’s worth of activities every single day, every single month of the year. This is an overwhelming task, but when you’re in a community or you’re in a referral source that is referring you consistently, this will take away one less activity that they have to plan.
(02:36):
You could sponsor the birthdays of the month and buy a sheet cake from Costco or Sam’s Club and bring it in and happy birthday all October babies or happy birthday all April babies or whatever month it is, and then you cut up the cake, you sing Happy Birthday, and you have a birthday party for all the people having a birthday that month. You could sponsor bingo. You could sponsor somebody coming in and playing music. You could do an ice cream social. There are so many things that you can do, have fun with it. I’ve had clients over the years who are photographers and they’ve come in and they’ve done professional, nice photos for the residents and they would give it to their family. And when you think about the nursing home, just using that one for example, a lot of these folks haven’t had a nice professional picture done in a very, very long time.
(03:24):
Those residents appreciate it, and in that example, you have to film it the one day and then come back a week or two later with all of the proofs to give to all of the residents, so it gives you two opportunities to come back. Now, when you sponsor the activity, you don’t just show up and do the activity. No, you go in early. You do what I call blanketing the account. Now, if you are a client of mine, I want you to reference advanced training lesson two. This is where I specifically teach you how to blanket the account and pick up referrals, but for everyone else, blanketing the account is when you go in and you talk to all of the key contacts in that account and having a purpose for being there, you say, hello. You strike up a conversation, let them know you’re here to sponsor an activity.
(04:14):
Let them know that you’re going to be a part of that activity and invite them to come to it. Do that about a half an hour before you show up. See everybody go down to activities, prepare for your event, do the event afterwards, clean up, schedule a time to come back, and then blanket the account on your way out saying goodbye to everybody before you get in your car and drive away. Chances are, if this is an account that you were already established in, you will probably get a referral that day or within a week of completing that event. This is why we sponsor activities at our accounts because it helps us to give a reason for showing up to ask for the business, and let’s be real. By sponsoring activities, you’re actually earning the business unlike every other person who comes in and just begs for referrals.
(05:09):
So if you need help with this, if you need help getting more referrals, if you need help getting more caregivers, if you need help running and operating your business to scale it to multiple seven, even eight figures, the best thing that you can do is invest in yourself by coming to My Homecare Evolution Bootcamp. We do them twice a year, and there’s always a bootcamp within six months of the time you watch this video. Go to my website, homecare evolution.com, click on the link for bootcamp, find out when the next one is. Register right now because I’m going to give you everything you need to blow away the competition.
