Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Should You Use Features vs Benefits of Care Management?

July 5, 2023

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN WHAT GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT DOES?

What are the features vs benefits of care management? Actually, what are features vs benefits? Think about your last few marketing campaigns. Look over some of the emails you sent to prospective customers or the social media updates you made promoting your brand-new product or service. Read over some of the blog posts you published.

How much of your promotional content is focused on how your product benefits the caller? How much of your sales pitch described what your products do???

TWO MARKETING APPROACHES

FEATURES

When it comes to marketing, there are two primary approaches you can take with features vs benefits. The first focuses on what your product or service is or does – including all the shiny bells and whistles you’ve worked so hard to develop. The other focuses on how your product or service will improve users’ lives. Features tell the customer “what” and benefits tell the customer “why”

Care Manager selling benefits vs features to elder

Which of these approaches do you think is more effective for the adult children or seniors you market to?

Take a look at the list of features below, taken directly from current advertising and marketing materials.

American Lifetime Self-setting clock for seniors with dementia It is the only one of its kind to include 5 multi-function alarms, with the option to set reminders to take medications throughout the day.

 

Jitterbug Senior Smart Phone 2  with Large 5.5″ screen, easy to see, and  5 Urgent Response button

 umbrella that opens and closes with a button 

Each is a feature-a factual statement about the product or service being promoted. But features aren’t what entice customers, ( adult children you market to), to buy your product. That’s where benefits come in. A benefit answers the question “What’s in it for me? or what will help my parent or me the caregiver”. This means the feature provides the customer/client with something of value to them. As a result, this is where most businesses go wrong.

Benefits

The feature of a self-setting clock is that it automatically resets itself & reminds the person with dementia to take their meds. The clock’s self-setting feature stops the dementia client from resetting it then forgetting needed medications & times. The benefit is the dementia patient will take meds on time, will be healthier and the caregiver less stressed.

The feature is the Jitterbug phone is that seniors with diminishing eyesight and memory have a hard time reading text on phones or recalling phone numbers. As a result, medical emergencies, are very dangerous. The important feature of jitterbugs is a large easy-to-see response button that gets them one person who will help the senior even if they forgot the number. This is just like the operator they used to get on the phone. The benefit of Jitterbug  is it makes the older person much safer and the family members confident they can reach for help if they need it

The benefit of an umbrella that opens with one button is -you stay dryer in the rain as seniors often have arthritis that can make it difficult to push open an umbrella quickly, to keep dry in the rain.

The best way to understand the true benefit of your product or service or to answer the “What’s in it for me?”  A customer’s perception of each feature’s results is what attracts him or her to a particular product or service.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF GERIATRIC CARE MANAGEMENT?

What are the features vs benefits of care management? What if you are selling geriatric care

management to a long-distance son and explain the feature of care management is an assessment? As a result, he has no idea what that is, not being a social worker or an RN. He is just a desperate long-distance son. He wants to know, what’s in it for him. What’s his benefit?

You could say you have a  product called  “Safe at Home” that will make sure his Mom is getting all the support and care she needs and  ( 1st benefit) he will not get midnight panic calls or have to scramble to make emergency flights to solve a crisis, like a hospitalization. Plus you will make sure any problems are solved (2nd  benefit) before they turn into a crisis that he has to solve from far away, always keeping him informed  (3rd benefit)so he can go back to just being a son. This feature vs benefit sales pitch take a huge weight off his shoulder- answering his ” what’s in it for me”

LEARN MORE ABOUT MARKETING GCM FEATURES AND BENEFITS

SIGN UP FOR MY FREE WEBINAR  

SELL BENEFITS NOT FEATURES & GROW YOUR$ BOTTOM LINE

When: July 20 2023
2 PM-3:30 PM PST
Learn
 

A feature is a fact    A benefit tells your customer the advantages of those facts   

Take Advantage of  One Time Low Offers on Products

You will learn

The difference between selling features vs benefits

You will learn how to sell the benefits of your services to each 3rd party you  serve

How Benefits make your sale to wealth managers, elder law attorneys, and concierge physicians to get referrals for new clients

The Benefits that make your sale to upscale Assisted Living, accountants, financial planners, Hospice

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

Even if you cannot attend you will get the recording of the webinar the next day if you sign up 

SIGN UP 

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Well Heeled Seniors Who Bought Payless Shoes Are Concierge Clients Too

April 12, 2023

Do You Need Concierge Clients?

 

Well, Heeled Seniors are a group you should know about Geriatric care managers and home care agencies need inquiries about services from adult children of concierge seniors. But some Concierge seniors will surprise you.  Older adults who can afford long-term geriatric care management and home care include seniors who shop at Grocery Outlet and lived very frugal lives.

Well-Heeled Seniors Who Used to Buy Payless Shoes

You may be surprised that this upper 10% of the population includes teachers and subway workers.

 

Well-heeled seniors, according to the New York Times, include middle-class retirees who buy shoes from Payless but have a defined pension so they can travel in Europe as retirees and afford care at home care and private care management when they decline

Defined Pensions Directly Affect the Quality of Aging Care

They rode the post-war economy, held jobs long term, and through that defined pension (no 401K) face a very healthy financial picture in aging.  They worked for city, county, and state governments are teachers, truck drivers, social workers, or union members in all trades. They had a career at Xerox, IBM, Campbell Soup, and big Fortune 500 companies.

Well-heeled seniors, these middle-class concierge clients, have adult children who call a geriatric care manager when they visit Mom and Dad and find care problems – or their aging parents have a health crisis. But they will really shop around as they have been raised by frugal parents on limited budgets during their childhood even if their parents now have excellent retirement through defined pensions.

They want the best service and seamless points of the compass that an aging life or geriatric care manager can give each client. These retirees lived on small salaries. Teachers who graduated in 1967 made $5000 a year. So they lived a working life of cautious shopping and tight family budgets. Now in retirement, they can sail down the Danube with their generous defined pensions and afford private duty home care and long-term geriatric care management when they need it or their adult kids who visit home or the emergency room and know Mom and Dad need help.

New Webinar-Why Merge Home Care and Care Management

FIND OUT MORE 

Webinar-Why Merge Home Care and Care Management

When-May 18, 2023 -2 PM -3:30 PM PST

If you are a home care agency consider merging with a  care management agency. A care manager is a perfect person to introduce home care to family caregivers. Care Managers sit down with the family and go over the geriatric assessment and care plan they created for the client. Last, this 1-1 care manager meeting introduces a concierge guide through the labyrinth of caregiving, showing exactly what homecare plus care management will do to solve the client’s problems, increase their quality of life and offer relief to the sometimes-desperate family members. Find out more by signing up for this free webinar

Learn

 

How this merger creates more Profit for both Care Management and Home Care

The Advantages of Merging Home Care and Care Management

Competition Survey to make third parties and Adult Children Choose you

Co-Branding the merged agencies.

Technology for both home care and care management

Co-Locating both staff.

Marketing Merged care manager home care.

Critical Success Factors for the Success of the Merger

-SIGN UP NOW 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, ALCA Beneifits, Blog, care manager, case manager, Concierge Senior, elder care manager, ETHICAL DILEMMA, Families, FREE MARKETING WEBINAR, FREE WEBINAR, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Long Distance Care, Long distance caregiver, marketing care management, marketing pitch, marketing to concierge clients, marketing to long distance adult children, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Webinar Tagged With: affording care management, Aging Concierge client, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care manager, aging life or geraitric care manager, black american social workers, black americans, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black RN's, Black start-up geriatric care management, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, Concierge Care management, Concierge Care Manager, Concierge Client Sales, Concierge Geriatric care manager, Concierge Home Care, Concierge Senior, Defined pensions, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, LCSW aging, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, retire with defined pension, retiree defined pension, well heeled seniors

Do You Have a Speakers Bureau To Attract Alult Children ?

February 17, 2023

Schedule Speaker’s Bureau Now for Post Holiday Barrage of Callsred-phone.jpg

Your greatest influx of clients calling you is right now over the winter season. This is when there is a heightened awareness of the need for care of elders by adult children, as so many elders become ill and are hospitalized during the height of the flu season and the remaining covid variants..

What is a Speakers Bureau ? Why have one?

What is a Speakers’ Bureau

A Speakers’ Bureau is a series of hot topics presented to clubs senior networking groups EAPs or made into webinars that draw potential clients. We have put together a series of hot topics in the form of customized speeches for you to draw in local and long-distance adult children without doing the preparation yourself, like delicious premade meals you pop in the microwave

 

What Clients Does it Attract

The hardest to market to is adult children and a speakers bureau is a perfect means to find adult children. They are ravenous for solutions to their eldercare problems and finding those answers in community forums from experts with actual answers ( not pills, medical equipment, or health plans but actual experts with answers to adult children’s problems – a speakers bureau is the perfect forum for your marketing.)

 

  • What do you to prepare for Speaker’s Bureau

    images_20141216-184443_1.jpg

  • A series of hot topics in parent care problems. For example “when Adult Siblings are not doing their share,” When Should an Elder Move from their Home” ” 10 warning signs your parent may need help”
  • Pre-prepared speeches on a hot topic fully outlined and vetted with user-friendly language
  • You must create an outline plus handouts with your company contacts plus email contact sheet, so the audience walk away with something you handed them and you can add them to your Constant Contact or Mail chimp database
  • Start Your Speech?– a pop quiz on aging for example.

  • Sample -Have you and your aging parents planned for their physical decline?
  • Do you have resistance when you talk to your aging parents about planning for the losses of aging?
  • Are you worried about paying for your parent’s care?
  • What does a speaker’s bureau do for you?

     Promote your agency as an expert in geriatric care management in your area.     
     Showcase your GCM aging knowledge of hot aging topics
     Establish your agency as an authority in our field
     Pinpoint your agency as the expert professionals, community potential clients will tum to when they need care
     Give you free publicity- you can advertise for free by sending out news releases ahead and after- through your social media platform

 most important establishes a future bank of clients among the community, the people you speak to by adding their emails to your social media platform

Get my new Speakers Bureau Package

Marketing care management to family caregivers? Wondering how to use free public relations to locate adult children in your community? Want marketing tools that will grow your business? The new Speakers Bureau Package has it all. Six pre-made presentations with handouts, a 20-minute presentation that covers major pain points and pain relief for adult children and family caregivers that will really engage your audience. The package contains complete directions & power points, and sell sheets to reach local service clubs like the rotary, women’s clubs, EAP, and musical societies drawing from the upper 10% of midlife members always looking for good speakers. Plus, a 30-minute free minute consultation with Cathy Cress MSW, to help set this up.

Join me in my new FREE Webinar

FREE Webinar

LEARN HOW TO MARKET LIKE YOUR BUSINESS DEPENDED ON IT 

January 23 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm PST

The busiest season for care managers is January & February after as adult children have just visited for the holiday and seeing their elderly parents skating on very thin aging ice

Learn care management marketing so you can:

Capture those desperate clients in January after the festive fright-

Develop a strategic marketing that brings more customers,

Understand branding

Develop a positioning strategy so the caller chooses you

Understand lead generation in care management

Get the best marketing software  

Create a 5 Star Marketing Plan for the top 10% of seniors who can afford you.

Click Here To Register 

FIND OUT MORE 

 

 

THIS FREE  WEBINAR  FROM 2 PM – 3 PM PST January 23, 2020

 

SIGN UP NOW  

 

 

 

 

Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel  Geriatric Care 1

 

 

Filed Under: Adult children, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, brand, branding, care manager, cash flow, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, marketing care management, Marketing plan, marketing to concierge clients, marketing to long distance adult children, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Speaker's Bureau, Webinar Tagged With: aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care marketing plan, Care Management marketing plan, care manager, case manager, geriatric care marketing, marketing to adult children, nurse advocate, Speaking to Clubs

10 marketing messages for Adult Kids Who Call 911 GCM Before & After Holidays

November 7, 2022

 

10 Marketing messages care managers should share with long-distance adult children before and after the holidays

Geriatric Care Managers are wonder women before and after the holidays for long-distance care providers. Share 10 marketing messages when shocked long-distance family members call you, who just spent the holidays with aging parents and freaked out at the decline.

So be prepared with terrific marketing copy and messaging when they call you.

 

Your copy in an ad or website should include-

“It’s a preventative and prudent idea to have a geriatric care manager in the town where your older relative resides. If there is a crisis, it is cheaper to have a GCM solve it. In an urgent situation, a care manager can go to the hospital or emergency room. This is saner and more cost-effective than you getting on last-minute, expensive flights. You can still go but they can immediately be there to deal with the crisis. They are good insurance.

Even when making marketing visits to 3rd parties like elder law attornies or wealth managers, you can pitch “Before any crisis,  the GCM does an initial assessment and visit your long-distance older relative periodically (once a month, once every two months). This is preventative. That way they are there for you when you need them and have all the information to solve the problem.”

Long distance care providers

10 Marketing messages  for long-distance adult children:

“Think of care managers the way you do one of those “blow-up beds.” You can pump them up when you need them in a crisis—actually avoid that crisis, and you yourself can sleep more soundly and with more peace of mind in your own bed.

Some of the things a geriatric care manager can do for long-distance care providers are:

1. Save money by helping keep your parent out of the hospital and you off emergency long-distance flights.

2. Facilitate a family discussion of needs, resources, and division of labor among friends family

3. Recommend ways to proactively prepare and plan for a parent’s possible healthcare crisis.

4. Work on family cooperation to formulate a realistic parent-care plan.

5. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of all of the potential caregivers

6. Help adult siblings resolve conflicts about care decisions.

7. Help siblings act together in the best interest of the parent

8. Decrease the tension between hometown and long-distance siblings

9. Help the long-distance care provider deal with guilt and frustration that may result from their inability to provide more of the day-to-day care.

10. Locate aging resources in your elder parents’ area quickly and without you having to do it.

Learn more about gaining new long-distance care provider clients –this coming holiday season.

FREE Webinar 

SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

10 Marketing messages

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

WEDNESDAY, November 16th, 2022, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

 Learn how to create!

  • Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
  • Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
  • Pre-Holiday Marketing to help you sign up families who might face a serious decline in aging parents
  • How to sell services to desperate post-holiday callers from Normal dysfunctional & long-distance family
  • How to use tools to contain holiday chaos & arrange care in festive family fright
  • How to move the family to New Year’s stability
  • Position Your Agency ahead of Care Managers who do not have great pre-holiday marketing campaigns and lack the clinical skills how to work with Adult Children and families during the chaotic aging family holiday visit when adult kids find their aging parents need care
  • Featuring

 Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

Management        

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Care Management Products, care management start-up, care manager, case manager, elder care manager, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Holiday Meltdown in Aging Family, inquiry call, Marketing aging life care, marketing care management, marketing to concierge clients, marketing to long distance adult children, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Webinar Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, aging life or geriatric care marketing plan, aging parent crisis, care manager marketing, caregiver burnout, case manager, geraitric care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric care marketing, help with elders, holiday misery, holiday with aging parents, long distance care provider, marketing plan, Marketing to long distance care providerse, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

The Holiday Season is Upon Us & Can Be Caregiver Hell

October 21, 2022

Adult children usually see their elderly parents soon on Christmas, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving- all major holidays.

The Holiday Season is upon us. Thanksgiving, Hannukkah, and Christmas are all coming up when families gather around ritual gatherings. Adult children can notice their aging parents’ struggling with memory, and speech, and preparing those ritual meals. Then midlife siblings may be alarmed by any behaviors that threaten the normal order they always experienced.

When The Holiday Season is upon us ,the discussion will turn to aging parents. Thanksgiving usually involves alcohol. With a normal family, discussing this when alcohol is involved may or may not be a good idea. In an aging long-distance family, this would be the time to set up a family meeting via teleconference or Skype when everyone is sober. You could just ask everyone if would gather ideas and you can discuss it at that time.

With elderly parent’s decline- everyone’s independence is threatened and anger and frustration can be rampant.

If adult siblings did make a  visit to elderly parents before Thanksgiving, it could have been bitter or sweet or it was just plain scary. This is why it is best to set up a post-thanksgiving meeting with all the siblings to discuss care, not when people are drinking more than they should on Thanksgiving.

 

 Adult children may decide they must intercede or offer direct help, even if it is rejected. Then family members who do not live nearby become long-distance care providers, joining 7 million others in the US.

Offer to Facilitate a Telephonic Family Meeting After Thanksgiving

The frightening part often happens when you haven’t seen an aging Mom or Dad for a while. If midlife siblings live long distance, making an occasional visit can set off alarms, especially if they find aging Mom or Dad has gone downhill. If they call you, offer to facilitate the call using your family meeting facilitation skills, to create an agenda with the family, and keep everyone on the topic of parental care in the here and now, rather than fracturing into an argument about the past or old family wounds. With a care manager as a facilitator, they will find your value.

Get Ready for the Holiday Rush
    • SIGN UP FOR MY HOLIDAY WEBINAR –

      The Holiday Season is upon us

      Get Ready for the Holiday Rush

      WEDNESDAY, November 16th, 2022, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

       Learn how to create!

      • Pre-Holiday Social media campaigns to reach worried caregivers
      • Pre- Holiday-Materials about the warning signs that a parent needs help
      • Pre-Holiday Marketing to help you sign up families who might face a serious decline in aging parents
      • How to sell services to desperate  post-holiday callers from Normal dysfunctional & long-distance family
      • How to use tools to contain holiday chaos & arrange care in festive family fright
      • How to move the family to New Year’s stability
      • Position Your Agency ahead of Care Managers who do not have great pre-holiday marketing campaigns and lack the clinical skills how to work with Adult Children and families during the chaotic aging family holiday visit when adult kids find their aging parents need care
      • Featuring

       Cathy Cress MSW author of the Handbook of Geriatric Care

      Management        

      The Holiday Season is upon us.

       Find out more about how an Aging Life or Geriatric Care Manager can help.

  • Subscribe to my YouTube channel, Geriatric Care Management, at www.youtube.com/channel/UCaoHdozwS0RvKD23YPpuHIw

  • Visit my website at cathycress.com/

  • Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/cathyjocress

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Alcohol Abuse, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, Christmas webinar, Dysfunctional Aging Familu, elder care manager, Families, Filial Crisis, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Grandchild gifts for grandma, Hanukkah Webinar, Long Distance Care, Long Distance Care Holidays, Marketing aging life care, Marketing during Holidays, marketing pitch, Marketing Strategy, marketing to long distance adult children, Nearly Normal Aging Family, New Years, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Thanksgiving with Dysfuntional Family, Webinar ALCA GCM, Webinar care managers, Webinar COVID Safety Tagged With: aging family, Aging Life, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care, aging life care manager, alcohol on the holidays, Black, black aging family, black american geriatric care managers, black american social workers, Black Entrepreneurs, Black geriatric care managers, Black Nurse Entrepreneurs, Black RN's, Black travel nurses, care manager, case manager, crisis with aging parents, drinking on labor day, geriatric care manager, holidays with aging parents, Holidays with midlife siblings, Nearly Normal family inquiry holidays, nurse care manager, Thanksgiving Webinar, Thanksgiving with aging parents, Thanksgiving with dysfunctional family, Thanksgiving with midlife siblings

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