In today’s video, we are revealing a Q&A session from The San Antonio Boot Camp featuring Steve “The Hurricane” and one of our amazing coaching clients. They discuss how to market when you are new in the industry.
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www.HomeCareMarketing.net/HurricaneBootCamp
Atila
My name is Atila Sanders. I’m from Houston, Texas and I’m basically having the problem of when I do my own marketing, it could be social media, it could be in person, I do lunch and learns, I didn’t call it that, but I could do meetings and everything, and after the 20 or 30 minutes of engaging with either a power partner or a potential client, the first question they ask me is how old I am.
Steve
Interesting
Atila
I’ve been in business for two years, I started my home care agency based off of something similar to your situation, I had a horrible boss and I was taking care of a client that had stage 4 glioblastoma and I stayed and basically, basically, the boss, during the three years, I only seen her five times, she never came to visit, I did everything when it came to doing scheduling appointments, transportation, and he was basically the person that told me that I should open up my own home care agency. But the problem I’m having now is when I go do my marketing, when I go do my assessments, even at the client’s home when I have referrals come in from Memorial Hermann, the first question after everything is they ask me how old I am. And I’m 24 years old, so…
Steve
Yeah, give it up. Just so you know, the average person, the average business owner in the United States of America starts their first business at 40. So you have such a leg up by stating at 22, when you started your first company, that’s fantastic, but, you’re a young lady too, so how do you deal with being the youngest business owner in your area?
Shanele
So, I’ll say this, because I get that, especially if I have my hair in a ponytail, then a lot of people think that I’m the caregiver, which is fine…
Atila
Yeah I’ve had people ask me like, when I come and do my assessments weekly to check on, they think I’m the caregiver. To the point that, I hire my mom as my Chief of Operations, and every time we’re out and we pass out cards, they think she’s Atila and I’m the younger person, right? Like no I’m the owner.
Shanele
For me that is, and this is another thing that I learned doing the coaching is being equipped with, you know, some of the things that I take with me whenever I go to a client, other companies don’t have. You know, like your information, like your license, things like that
Atila
They want to find an insurance company name, it like they don’t believe
Shanele
That’s why you make a copy of it and you take that with you, whenever they ask you for something, I always have an answer. As far as paperwork goes, or they’re wanting to see my credentials, keep copies of that with you, and then some people I tell, like you know what, take me on, let me prove to you that age is nothing but a number. And, you just have to tell them, that how I, I mean, that’s what I do, you know, I just say, “I might be young, I’ve been doing this for a long time, I’m passionate about it”, and just, I mean just talk to them. See if you can convey your compassion, which I can tell that you can. You seem like you’re a very passionate person about it. Just try to convey that passion, just explain to them, you know, that your age has nothing to do with it. And, again, have your papers with you.
Steve
I love it, and that’s a great answer, I’ll add to that too, so this right here is a sales presentation binder, I’m going to go over this next with people, and one of the thing that I talk about in the sale presentation binder, home health, hospice, private duty, doesn’t matter, you always want to carry your credentials as a part of it, when people ask you for it, luck favors the prepared, this helps overcome a lot of that.
Now, when I first started at Care Choice, I was 24 years old as well, so I was a young person to be a Director of Business Development, and I ran into a lot of people like, “You’re the Director of Business Development? But you’re so young”, and then when I became the Vice President, part-owner, I was 28 years old, and I remember I was sitting down, signing up a family, and they were like, “You’re 28 years old!”, and I’m like, “Okay?”, And then they’re like, “But you’re the owner of the company?”, and I’m like, “Yes”, but my son, he’s 30 years old, he doesn’t own a company, and I’m like, “All right”. This is my company, you know, it’s confidence.
And you just keep doing it, you keep moving forward, you’ll run into it, it happens, just run with it. Use it to your advantage, be like, “Yep, that’s great, and I’ve been doing this for two years now, and before that I use to be…”, whatever your role was, caregiver, whatever, “and that’s what made me start”. Just stay with your story, stay with you passion. I’ll talk a little bit about that in the next section, as I go through it, but that’s a very good question.
Boot Camp Testimonial
“There was so much information there, it was actually hard to keep up sometimes. So I took copious notes and just really… I’m excited about going forward, and I’m looking forward to implementing a lot of new things that I learned during this boot camp. Definitely go, definitely. Even if you’ve been in business for a long time, definitely go, because you’re going to get some new ideas and even for yourself, just the whole experience is excellent, but it’s a life-changing experience, just going to these boot camps.”
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