GCM Start -Up Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

-How Do the Benefits You Offer Get Third Parties To Refer to a Care Manager? ?

January 26, 2019

Why would third parties like trust officers, elder law attorneys, conservators or guardians refer a care manager to their aging client and family? If you have an Aging Life or GCM business you need to know. The Journal of Aging Life Care in its March 2017 issue gives care managers some critical clues to solve this question.

Why do you need to know this? First, you need to create a practice that meets the needs of your clients and major referral sources. Many clients- usually adult children, call you to start services on their own. But a good majority of clients will call you because their attorney, bank trust officers, CPA referred them. These third parties need to know what benefits you offer them and their clients if they are to make referrals to your agency. On the feeding chain of referrals, they are one of your most important sources to feed income into your business. You have to deliver what they need to make money.

The Florida Chapter of Aging Life invested in a 7-year research project to get some of these answers, published in the Aging Life Journal. in March 2017. This is the first research study on Aging Life Care that pinpoints what third parties who refer clients want and value in a care manager. It is groundbreaking.

Reading this tells the care manager, not only what benefits to include in their services but in their marketing material, and sales pitch or elevator pitch to the third party. The study tells you what 3rd parties are looking for in a senior advocate for their in a very clear table. They found the number one reason third-party clients use care managers is they assess and monitor their clients and update the third parties on a regular basis. This is a key benefit you can use when you market to third parties, like wealth managers, elder law attorneys, or guardians. Get a copy of this important Journal if you belong to ALCA or join, as this type of information is one of the many many benefits of the Aging Life Care Association by joining.

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Sell Benefits not Features to Third Parties to Grow Your Care Management Bottom Line

When: MARCH 6, 2019
2PM-3PM PST
Learn

What problems are you solving for 3rd parties so they will refer to you.

What is a benefit vs a features and how to find benefits for each 3rd party you market to?

What specific problems you solve for wealth managers, elderlaw attorneys, and concierge physicians

What specific problems to solve for upscale Assisted Living, accountants, financial planners, MD’s

Step by Step how to set up meetings with 3rd parties to make the

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Stop -Before Starting Geriatric Care Management Business – Do a Competition Survey

January 25, 2019

If you are thinking of starting private geriatric care management, a competition survey is critical to decide if you can make a profit in this business.

You are surveying who your competition is in the geographic area you want to serve. You are discovering if you can achieve market share in the area you choose to serve.

You want to create a survey in excel that tracks the individual care manager’s in your services area, and find out what their hourly fee is, do they include homecare, what geriatric care management services does each GCM offer, do they answer in two rings, how is their customer service, are they on call 24 hrs a day, are their care managers certified.

Use a staff member or outside person to be a secret shopper and make the calls, as you are doing market research. You must find someone who feels comfortable impersonating someone else. You need to give that person a customer story- they are a daughter looking for services in your area and calling around and a description of the fake mother and her problems

The Trump administration has been criticized lately by suggesting to laid-off coastguards in his g0vernment shutdown, who should be patrolling our ports, as need extra income for food rent and mortgages, try being a secret or mystery shopper.

This will also tell you if the local market is too saturated for your new business to compete with the other care management agencies. It will test whether you can make a profit- can you make money, pay your bills, actually go to the next step while doing good?

Fewer business are failing in 2018 for many reasons. One is the tendency of would-be entrepreneurs to evaluate business opportunities more carefully before taking the plunge, by doing a competition survey. Potential company founders are more selective than they used to be. This means fewer marginal companies – businesses whose products are not needed or whose markets are already being served by other businesses – are being formed. As a result, the average American company is stronger and more likely to survive than it once was. This means doing a competition survey to find out if your product care management is really needed in your market and are too many geriatric care management competitors, in your area for you to successfully compete as a new business.

Learn how to do your market sizing and competition survey and discover whether you have enough customers in your area to start your care management business. Don’t Guess and fail.

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel Geriatric care 1 to get more care management information to help your business

Get a Big Bang For Your Fee PR Budget with a Care Management Speaker’s Bureau

January 20, 2019

To succeed on Geriatric Care Management or ALCA you need to do 4 things

Provide an excellent gold standard service
Understand the inquiry and sales process
Use Good PR
Use the web smartly

Public relations is a key marketing strategy for Geriatric care managers. What is it? Just what is says- building relationships between you and your GCM customers? It is also FREE stories about you and your agency for your agency, saving you lots of money.

Why PR? Because it is free, believable, gives you credibility and stature, helps build your business, gives you authority, read by a lot of people /customers and remembered.

There is paid marketing -the web, newspapers, sponsorships etc. But if you do free PR you should put a Speakers Bureau in your Marketing /PR Toolbox.

One of best PR tools you can use from your toolbox is a speaker’s bureau.

What is a Speakers Bureau in geriatric care management or Aging Life Business? Why have one? There are two marketing groups you have to attract- third parties like Elder law attorneys who can refer clients to you. The other is adult children and this group is hard to pinpoint. A speakers bureau gives the perfect PR tool to reach them.

The Speaker’s Bureau is a series of ” Hot Topics” present ted at women’s clubs, services clubs like the Rotary, family councils of facilities, etc. to draw potential clients like adult children or older clients

You create 4 Hot Topics, like “Mom Loved you Best-“ Working with Siblings over older Parent Care., “The Dutiful Daughter- How women can take care of themselves while being a caregiver.” ” Parent-Sweetheart Scams – How to understand undue influence and protect your aging parent from being scammed”

Everything is done ahead for the speaker- methods to make the calls, the speech, the handouts, the timeframe. This is a really effective marketing tool that your ALCA or GCM agency use to draw a future bank of customers.

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Market Like Your Business Depended on it!
When: January 23, 2019
2PM-3PM PST
Learn

How to develop lead generation and tactics through third parties

How to position your agency so it stands out from your competitors
How to develop or rewrite a strategic marketing plan in 2019 that brings more customers
How to use branding to build positive gut feelings about your agency
How to set up leads generation with both a speakers bureau to do co-presentations & join the rubber chicken circuit to reach adult children and targeted audiences:
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How Do Concierge Aging Clients Transform a Geriatric Care Manager’s Bottom Line?

January 18, 2019

Adding concierge customer’s services to your geriatric care management

agency transforms your agency into a profitable service.

Why- a geriatric care manager is a powerful health care concierge, just like the

new concierge medical services.

This is a powerful new selling point to potential GCM clients who are in the

top 10% income brackets.

These clients who can afford long-term care geriatric care management and

private duty home care.

Why offering concierge services a great idea? A geriatric care manager is a

highly skilled professional who acts as a personal assistant to the aging

family.

You offer highly personalized aging parent care.

Concierge clients can reach you at almost any time

You build a deep relationship with the client and family.

As a GPS through elder care, the GCM helps them step by step through one of

the hardest journeys of their life.

A geriatric care manager’s highly personalized service meets all the needs of

the aging family and the client.

GCM’s are like a concierge at a 5-star hotel there to serve the family by

solving their caregiving problems and making elder care more seamless.

But here is a deal breaker, most care managers did not know they must have. You need a marketing and sales background to do an intake and get the client in your services.

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Market Like Your Business Depended on it!
When: January 23, 2019
2PM-3PM PST
Learn

How to develop lead generation and tactics through third parties

How to position your agency so it stands out from your competitors
How to develop or rewrite a strategic marketing plan in 2019 that brings more customers
How to use branding to build positive gut feelings about your agency
How to set up leads generation with both a speakers bureau to do co-presentations & join the rubber chicken circuit to reach adult children and targeted audiences:
•
• Sign -Up –

Afraid of Your Competition ??-You Can Learn How to Position Your Business From Them

January 14, 2019

Your competitors can show you how to position your business so you stand out from the competition. Positioning is how you make clients in your area choose you over others in the area you serve. Your ALCA or Care management competition survey, ( which should so yearly by getting a mystery shopper). The Trump administration says there are lots of people out there be a mystery shopper since he shut the government down. These mystery shopper calls ( the coast guard or your staff) let you identify and survey other direct GCM competitors like the area agency on aging which may have a GCM arm or for-profits like accountants or elder law attorneys who include geriatric care management in their service mix.

Identify substitute providers like hospitals, often through their home health services. These can also be part of your competition to take market share from you. Private duty home care agencies offer geriatric care management to their web site. But you have to discover whether they have a certified aging life geriatric care manager as part of their staff. Tracking this down takes having a secret shopper calling all of these agencies and talking to the actual geriatric care manager and asking for their credentials, prices, services, and many more variables.

Professional Patient advocates in your area should also be tracked as possible competitors.

Non-profits often spin off for profit geriatric care management arms to help with the more needy clients they serve. Many religious denominations have geriatric care as a choice so you can learn how they are leveraging their brand. Area Agencies on Aging offer private geriatric care management and can do a good job of leveraging their respect and brand in the community.

Trust departments or wealth management services can have care management to assist with their elderly clients or the adult children in wealth management, who care for their parents.

All these competition surveys will show you marketing/positioning alternatives in your this competitive landscape. They will show how to better brand and shape your branding message- so you are the top choice of customers.

Find out how you can position your own GCM/ALCA agency, over your competition and be chosen by clients seeking care for loved ones.

Join me in my new FREE Webinar
Learn to Market Like Your Business Depended on it!
When: January 23, 2019
2PM-3PM PST
Learn

How to position your agency so it stands out from your competitors
How to develop or rewrite a strategic marketing plan in 2019 that brings more customers
How to use branding to build positive gut feelings about your agency
How to develop lead generation and tactics through third parties
How to set up leads generation with both a speakers bureau to do co-presentations & join the rubber chicken circuit to reach adult children and targeted audiences:
•
• Sign -Up –

Get a Big Bang For Your Fee PR Budget with a Care Management Speaker’s Bureau

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