competition survey Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

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

September 24, 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

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 businesses are failing in 2019 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.

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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.

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How to position your agency so it stands out from your competitors
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Stop -Before Starting Geriatric Care Management Business – Do a Competition Survey

July 12, 2018

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 that tracks the individual care manager’s in your services area, and find out what their hourly fee is, do they now include homecare, what geriatric care management services does each GCM offer.

Fewer businesses 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 assessment and competition survey ( or secret shopper) in the Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition and discover whether you have enough customers in your area to start your care management business. Don’t Guess and fail.

How Do Adult Children With Their Hair & House on Fire Find an Aging Life or Geriatric Care Manager?

May 6, 2017

Starting an aging life or care management business depends upon customers who will buy your product. These are purchasers like adult children of aging parents who will buy your/ Aging life or geriatric care management services /products directly because their hair and house is on fire from aging parent care.

But your care management business success also depends on the third parties who will refer these sometimes-desperate adult children who have the hair on fire. These would be defined as client representatives or third parties. They include targets who you expect to refer older people and their families to you including concierge physicians, elder-law attorneys, trust officers/wealth managers, senior services information and referral agencies, hospital-based care managers, accountants, and upscale assisted living. What you have to do is collect the numbers. The greater number of elder law attorneys who refer adult children to you, the better the chances of your success at your GCM or aging life business.

If you want to know the number of elder-law attorneys in your community, search online for the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and enter the zip code of the location and border areas where you intend to start your business, and you will find a list of elder-law attorneys.
Other third party referral sources can be harder to find. Wealth managers can take some digging. private duty home care is a referral source but they may already be doing care management as well. So that takes calling them all or looking at their website and seeing if they advertise a care manager in their services.
The market assessment section should also include your own research into the needs of the area. Who else is providing similar or related services in your target market? Why do you think the local target market needs this business? Will older people in the area be able to afford your services?
Finally, calculate the total market opportunity in your geographic area in terms of the expected total market and how much you believe your business can earn from that total possible market.
If you need help calculating all this, take my newest webinar

Find about my new webinar

GPS to a Profitable GCM Business Start Up

scheduled for May 9th 11:00 AM PST- 90 minutes

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

Afraid of Your Competition ??- What You Can Actualy Learn From Them

April 8, 2017

In your non-profit competition survey ,you should also 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 elderlaw 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 calling all of these agencies and talking to the actual geriatric care manager and asking for their credentials. 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 the wealth management , who care for their parents.

All these competition surveys will recommend marketing/positioning alternatives in your this competitive landscape. They will show how to to better brand and co-branding, what price point you can use in your area, is your competition on 24 call, do they charge for mileage and most of all how you can position your GCM agency to be chosen by clients seeking care over your competition.

Find about my new webinar

GPS to a Profitable GCM Business Start Up

scheduled for May 9th 11:00 AM PST- 90 minutes

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

How Do Adult Children With Their Hair & House on Fire Find an Aging Life or Geriatric Care Manager?

Afraid of Your Competition ??- What You Can Actualy Learn From Them

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