Eavesdropping on Prospects

One of my favorite roles in working with family caregivers is just listening as they offer each other advice. I’ve spent so much of my professional life in the advice-giving role that’s its fascinating for me to sit back and listen as one family caregiver offers advice to others.

It’s particularly interesting to me when a family caregiver starts talking about when to get help from an agency or when to seek facility placement. After over 20 years working hard to get the attention of family caregivers from the provider perspective, it feels a little like “insider information” when families voluntarily share what drives them to seek care.

Lately, I’ve had the chance to eavesdrop like this a lot, as I not only facilitate a very large, vocal family support group for my community hospital, but I am also on the development team of a brand new national support project for family caregivers called Caregiver Village. It’s exciting and rewarding to be involved in working with families in this way.

At the same time, in my role as President and CEO of aQuire Training Solutions, I though perhaps it might be helpful if I passed along some of my recent observations so that you better understand what your prospective customers are looking for.

• It’s about the health of the caregiver. “Caregiving will kill you if you don’t get help.” It’s tough for you to say these words directly, but caregivers say it to each other all the time. Share the statistics that caregivers face the risk of dying sooner than the person in their care. Caregivers also face a higher risk of stroke, depression and other chronic conditions – unless they get help.

• Guilt doesn’t need to be a barrier. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all feel guilty. Trust me, you’ll get over it.” The key message you can give is that guilt is normal and natural – but that once you see how much your own life improves, not to mention the life of your loved one, you’ll find that the guilt isn’t nearly as tough as you anticipate it to be.
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• It’s better on the team. “I want to learn about caregiving, too.” It’s not enough for family caregivers to call in the expert (you) and leave you to do your work. Most family caregivers want relief from the tasks, but they want to feel like they’re a vital part of the team. They want to learn about caregiving (and respond much more positively than I anticipated to our online family caregiving courses)

• You’re not alone. “I thought I was an awful person, but I knew I needed to do something. Now, I’m really, really happy I made this choice.” Families using your service will likely say these words or something similar. Introduce prospects to existing families, or pay special attention so you can share their stories. While you can’t likely give a first person testimonial, you can certainly say, “I was talking with one of our clients’ daughters just last week. She told me how hard the decision was, but how happy she is now that she’s made it.”

• We’ll listen to your concerns. The biggest complaint I hear about facility or agency care from families is that the managers don’t listen. Managers, typically on the very local level, brush off their concerns, don’t have the time to talk with them or treat them as “outsiders” who no longer have any input into their loved ones’ care. Second biggest complaint? It’s not the food – it’s the turnover. Anything you do to stabilize your caregiving team will win you big points among family members. Many see the direct caregivers as extensions of their own family, especially now that they’re caring for a very special loved one. Losing those caregivers to a continual churn will cost you BIG points among your family members…and they talk. Boy, do they talk.

• Who should I trust? It’s impossible for family members to determine who to trust based on a tour or a conversation with a marketing/sales rep. They’re going to ask around – count on it. Your current clients’ family members are either very important contributors to your marketing efforts, or they’re dragging you down. They’re very likely NOT neutral.

Keeping your ears to the ground and really understand your prospect will help you score big wins, especially in a tight, competitive market. Hope this helps!

Take care,

Sharon

Focusing on Families

Many years ago I was an avid follower of Dr. James Dobson’s radio show titled “Focus on the Family.” I was raising my three daughters and Dr. Dobson’s broadcasts about building self-esteem while teaching responsibility and morality was welcome information.

As happens in life, time changes our perspectives and our priorities. Dr. Dobson’s show became more focused on political issues, and now is run by someone else entirely; my daughters grew up and no longer needed the same kind of mothering.

But today, when I look at what is happening in elder care in our country, I think back to those days and realize that we need a little more “focus on the family” in elder care.

Families are becoming increasingly educated about their options for care. Many of them need your services, but don’t want to be “pushed out” of their role as caregivers in the process. They want – and NEED – to feel like they’re still very much a part of the caregiving team.

At the same time, whether you manage a residential care setting or an in-home care delivery service, your marketing efforts MUST speak to the family. They have to feel confident that you’ll provide the care you say you will, and you’ll do it in a way that respects them. Regardless of what you ultimately deliver to the client, in all likelihood, the FAMILY must be sold on your services before you ever get to the client.

I have the privilege of facilitating an Alzheimer’s family support group for our local community hospital. Frequently, members come to the group to share decisions they’ve made to find facility placement for their loved one, or to find care services to come to the home. As a life-long provider and former facility owner/operator, I listen with great interest as group members try to convince others in the group to seek care, or when someone shares their feelings about the care their family member is receiving.

I hear stories about outstanding care – and an immediate interest in the group of learning where this is happening.

I hear stories about no longer being considered a caregiver, or at least being now “second string” in the caregiving department.

Overall, what I hear is that families are desperately in need of validation. They need to hear the words, “you’re important to this team.” They need to be listened to and valued by the care provider. When this happens, they become strong, vocal and repeat advocates, telling many others about the care they’ve received.

Clearly, what’s needed is a pervasive value that comes through all levels of an organization, and that recognizes the family as a key component to the whole unit of care.

A few good tools don’t hurt, either. We can help with one new tool – take a look at it here: aQuire Family Learning Center (username: demo - password: spring2011).  It’s a tool that can help you put action behind your words, by offering families free online training, courtesy of your organization. If you’re a facility care provider, add the “Transitions to Care” course so that families can better understand the transition process, and how to stay an active part of the team of care.

In elder care today, focusing on the family is not just good for risk management and marketing, it’s absolutely essential for long term growth and survival.

Outreach opportunity for you!

Are you looking for a way to connect with family caregivers in your community? Join Caregiver Village, a website that will be an entirely new sort of gathering place for family caregivers. Our team at aQuire has been busy working with the developers out of NYC, preparing an exciting support place for caregivers. Visit the site, register with your facebook login, and join as an Ambassador, qualifying you for a free year of membership. As the site grows, you’ll have a front row seat to connect with families who are looking for tips, suggestions and services to help them in their caregiving role.

If you’d like even more involvement, consider these options:

1) Host a virtual book club discussion group. Caregiver Village has opening for Hosts for groups organized around topics of interest like Parkinson’s Care, Autism Care and more. If you’re passionate about a topic and would like to facilitate a virtual discussion, contact Sharon.

2) Consider a special offer for Caregiver Village members. Can you offer free in-home assessments? Two hours of respite care at home? A day of respite in a facility? Remember, this is an outreach opportunity to a potential million plus family caregivers, so get creative! Send your ideas to Sharon.