You chose to Start A Business
You need clinical skills to start and run an aging life or geriatric care management agency but you must have business skills as well- It IS A Business.
Geriatric care managers need to understand revenue- how they make money to be financially to make a profit. Revenue does come from billing – but poor billing is very unprofitable billing. Money-losing billing is anything less than 85% of your client’s time. When you bill less than 85% you actually start losing money. Revenue is the high tide of money and is calculated by the number of clients you serve, new clients per month, number of clients canceling service. % of the time billed (the goal is 85%) and what you charge for travel time.
Competition Survey Mandatory To Start A Business
You need to know how to do a competition survey to measure whether you have too much competition and what your competitors offer so you can offer more and be chosen. You should also identify and survey other direct GCM competitors like the non-profit 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.
Do You Understand Branding?
You need to know branding. Aging life or geriatric care manager must use different branding and a marketing approach that messages hyper-attention to seamless care to attract these top 10% concierge clients who can afford your services long term.
Do You Have a Marketing Strategy?
Marketing your existing or new Aging Life or GCM business is vital to growth, but where you spend your marketing dollars? What marketing tactics make the most sense for you? Where will you reach your concierge client base best?
This is where your marketing strategy comes into play. Before the business can start generating large revenue, a concierge marketing strategy and sales techniques must be in place.
Your marketing message must be communicated to the concierge customer. You need to how to write a business plan, use social media to attract customers, how to do 1-1 marketing to third parties-.
Check out my Online GCM Business Class which includes 10 modules on starting your GCM Business including one module on Organizational Design with the job descriptions for every role in a GCM agency and recruitment tools to get the best candidate.
Skills you will learn in My GCM Business Class
- GCM organizational design skills to create your business flow chart and job descriptions, and outline how power flows down your staff to deliver gold standard care to clients
- GCM marketing survey skills to pinpoint your area’s upper 10% clients and 3rd-party referrals to market, to make your business profitable
- GCM competitive analysis skills to set the fee per hour your market will bear for your services and to gather information from each, to position your services vs your competition’s so clients will choose you
- GCM timeline skills to identify and list (in a manageable, doable order), major tasks to complete before you open your business
- GCM business planning skills to write a 13-part business plan to create a blueprint of measurable goals for your business’s financial success
- GCM marketing skills to create a marketing plan to develop lead sources, conduct lead generation, launch social media, and conduct content marketing to gain new customers
- GCM sales skills to position your agency to sell your menu of services
through benefits to 3rd parties and clients through cold calling, 1-1 sales meetings, and inquiries, by knowing how to close the sale and sign the contract - GCM ALCA billing skills to develop a billing system that allows you to bill 85% of your time, control your cash flow, invoice promptly to make a profit
- GCM financial forecasting skills to develop a 3-year financial forecast Excel spreadsheet to track your basic profit and expenses and to track the number of clients and billable hours needed to break even make a profit, pay back loans, hire new staff, and take a salary yourself
- The Business class set for a start-up GCM Budget and now offers a subscription payment plan for a start-up budget
Friends
and memories as you create the family tree that you would miss when they are gone.
Hanukkah. Geriatric Care Manager Julie Menack in her chapter “Long Distance Care Providers” in my book 
