What’s up everybody? It’s Steve “The Hurricane” here. And for today’s episode of “A Drink with the Hurricane”, we’re going to talk about key contacts at our referral sources, specifically to today, the administrator, or as I like to call the executive director.
It’s 2024, and I’m still talking about the key contacts at a referral source. And what happened is we used to market and develop relationships at referral sources a specific way. Then the pandemic set in and we couldn’t for a couple of years. And then now that we’re truly post pandemic and things have opened up again, all of the accounts have turnover and we haven’t developed business since 2020 before March, and we don’t know who to talk to anymore. And so now it’s like we have to go back to what we used to do to get the relationships developed, to get the referrals that we had before the pandemic. And if you’re brand new, then this is what you gotta do. And so, and I’m sharing this with you because I’ve recently went marketing myself with the client in Arkansas. And everything that I’m sharing with you in this episode and all the other episodes to come on key contacts, it’s still relevant. So it still makes it, you still have to make these relationships. And each of the key contacts that I’m gonna be going over with you are relevant, important, and they’re still concerned about the same things that they were before the pandemic.
So for today, we’re talking about the executive director, the administrator in every account that you are trying to develop a skilled nursing facility, ltac, community Assisted Living, A-C-C-R-C, independent living home health company, hospice. It doesn’t matter what company you are trying to develop, there’s a boss. And that boss is the executive director. That boss is the administrator of the place you’re trying to develop.
The reason why it’s so important that you develop a relationship with the boss is because once you have the the blessing of the boss, then you are allowed to come back there and work within that community again and again, and again, and again and again. Because in order for you to be able to develop relationships that lead to referrals, you have to be able to go there at least eight to 12 times before you’re gonna start to consistently see referrals coming in. So if I did that every single week, that’s eight to 12 weeks. That’s two to three months. I have to come there every single week. If the administrator doesn’t give you thumbs up, you can’t do that. You won’t get past the receptionist. They’ll say to you, we have your information, we have your brochures. What are you doing here? No soliciting. And they’ll ask you to stop coming in. But if you have a relationship with the administrator and the administrator likes you, and the administrator trusts you, and the administrator wants to work with you, then you have the key to the city and you can come in anytime you want with or without an appointment and you’ll be able to develop a referring relationship.
Now, the things that are important to an administrator is to make sure that the business is operating profitable. Every single administrator, unless they are the owner of the company, they have somebody who is the owner of the company, an individual, a private equity firm, corporate office, whatever, who’s their boss. And their boss is looking at the budget and they’re looking at the finances and they are saying, we’re spending too much money. We don’t have enough patients. What are we doing? How can we grow the business so that we’re making more money, money, money, money, money, money.
Those are the pressures that are on the administrator’s shoulders. And yes, they have to provide care, but they have to make sure they have the volume of patients and residents to provide the care, to make the business profitable. In assisted living, for example, what does profitable look like for an assisted living? Profitable for an assisted living is somewhere in the ballpark of around 75 to 80%. Full meaning if they have a hundred apartments to be rented, 75 to 80 of those apartments, that covers all the operating expenses of running the assisted living. They wanna get to a hundred percent, 95% because those 10 to 20 patients, maybe 25 residents over that number is a hundred percent profit to the bottom line. So when I’m speaking to an administrator, I wanna talk about forming a strategic partnership and a strategic partnership that’s mutually beneficial where I wanna do things working with you and your company that are gonna grow my company and your company at the same time, Hmm, interested, what do you have in mind? Let’s collaborate on an event together. Let’s refer each other patients. Let me come in and do things that can help slow down people. Moving out of your assisted living, there’s a term called al appropriate assisted living. Appropriate residents, when they have reached the maximum level of care that an assisted living can offer, and they go beyond their needs, go beyond that, they have to ask that resident to move out. And depending on what state you are in, it could be you have until the end of the month, or it could be you have until the end of the week to move your loved one out. Well, if you bring me in, I can provide X amount of hours of care y days a week. And this is usually determined by the director of nursing and that assisted living, for example. And I could provide the care so that this resident can stay here indefinitely. That helps you to build your census up. These are communicating points that you wanna discuss with the administrator. That’s how you get the administrator to like you.
That’s how you get the administrator to want to work with you. And when you talk about collaborating on an event, get something tentative on the calendar from the first meeting. Why do you get something tentative on the calendar? You get something tentative on the calendar because when you get it on the calendar, you now have a reason to come back, to follow up, to plan your event, and then organize it and pull it off successfully. So the administrator is, I would say, the most important key contact in the referral source. And yes, one last point on the administrator before we end, the administrator can refer you, the administrator can send referrals and the administrator can tell their staff to refer you. So not only is this the person who will allow you to come in the building and develop the account, but they’re also the one who can send you referrals and they manage the people who send you the referrals. Now, if you like this, you want more help. This is great, Steve. That was fantastic. I love it. Got my talking points, but I, I need more help to do that. I want, I want, I wanna really develop these accounts because if I develop these accounts and I can get a dozen of them to refer me five, 10 patients a year, that’s gonna give me a hundred, 200 patients. How do I do that? Go to my website, home care evolution.com and register for the next Home Care Evolution Bootcamp because that’s where I teach you how to do everything and put it all together so you can blow away the competition.
