As we stand on the brink of that most wonderful time of the year, home care agency owners’ heads are filled less with visions of sugar plums and more with how to juggle time off for caregivers, extra holiday support for clients, year-end reporting, holiday gifts, cards, parties…not to mention the influx of new requests just around the corner as families visit with senior loved ones and determine the need for help. And all of this is in addition to the day-to-day operations of the business.

Yet, in spite of the busyness, there’s one especially crucial step necessary at this time of year: strategically planning for the year to come. It’s essential for agencies who want to grow and stay ahead of the curve in this overcrowded marketplace to begin gathering information and analyzing results from the current year to determine what kind of growth opportunities to tackle in the New Year.

When it comes to maximizing home care agency growth, there’s no better home care growth-hacker than Shelle Womble, who stresses the need for agencies to:

• Review where referrals came from in 2018 – and equally as important, where they did NOT come from. This information will help you plan where to spend (and not spend) your sales and marketing dollars in the coming year.
• Think through why past referral sources have stopped referring, and what needs to occur to bring them back into the fold. Have you seen a drop in referrals from your community hospital? Perhaps your home care sales team needs to refocus their efforts there by offering resources that can benefit doctors, discharge planners, and others.
• Analyze employee turnover rates and put a plan in place to ensure good employees feel rewarded and appreciated. Conducting exit interviews can help agencies get a better sense of why caregivers leave and what they can do to make their agency more enticing for quality caregivers in the future.
• Determine a means to engage current employees in an ambassador role, building a recruitment plan to help track good talent.
• Set growth goals for the New Year – both for growing clients and caregivers. Looking back over your 2018 metrics, what areas stand out as potentials for growth? Develop a strategic plan to grow those areas in 2019.

Although it may seem impossible to add these extra helpings of effort to your already overloaded plate, corecubed can help!

Schedule an on-site growth support visit with Shelle Womble to help you analyze your business and put together recommendations to ensure 2019 is your best year yet. Typical visits are two to three days long, allowing her to review inquiry management, home care sales and marketing processes, as well as operational structure and personnel to make sure agencies are poised to take on growth.

Contact us today online or by calling 800.370.6580 to request a consultation with Shelle or with any of our other home care sales and marketing experts.