It may sound a little new-agey, but when it comes down to it, we’re all trying to be more Zen in both our personal and business lives. In a basic sense, Zen means achieving perfect alignment. When things are in alignment in your life, everything, from work to relationships, seems to flow and function better. For business owners and operators, alignment creates a drastically more productive and profitable environment.
In home care, the groups most vested in growing an agency are marketing, sales, and operations. Operations staff are part of the home care sales team, since they interact with customers as receptionists, intake coordinators, billing representatives, etc. However, these groups are often disconnected from one another, and it’s vital to bring them into alignment for the agency to prosper. According to an Aberdeen Research Group study, companies with “poor sales and marketing alignment” typically see a 4% decline in revenue. Alternatively, companies where teams are aligned achieve a 20% annual growth rate. With those stakes, the time is now to think about how you can bring more Zen to your home care business.
Alignment starts with understanding and appreciating the roles and responsibilities each team has for communicating and delivering your agency’s value and differentiation to customers and referrers. Each team should complement, not compete, with one another, while neither dominating nor diminishing the importance of the other. But just how can you bring disjointed teams into alignment?
- Compliment their complements. In the game of growing the brand, marketing, sales, and operations are always on the same team, and they have strengths that complement one another. For example, marketing provides the strategy, messaging, and materials salespeople need to be more effective when talking to potential clients and referral sources. Salespeople provide crucial outreach and community connection. Operations staff deliver on the value and differentiation that marketing and sales promise to potential and current clients and referral sources. The more an agency delivers on what it promises, the more positive reviews will come in, the more sales will increase, and the more you can tout your agency’s reputation in your marketing. Win-win-win!
- Coordinate. Marketers are frequently generating new offers and content, so it’s important to keep the sales and operations teams up to date with these promotions so they know what recent offer their leads are receiving and how they can use content to communicate with leads.
- Include your sales and operations team on marketing meetings.
- Share content – blogs, promotions, events, etc. – with sales and operations team members.
- Make sure sales and operations are tuned in to your social media accounts so they know what topics you’re covering regularly.
- Listen. When was the last time someone from your marketing team listened in on a sales or intake call, or reviewed a client complaint? If the answer is never, you may be missing a golden opportunity to understand more about what your potential clients and referral sources want, need, and are looking for when it comes to home care services, and understanding that these wants and needs can help marketers create better content.
- Look at the cold hard facts. It may not necessarily be Zen, but numbers don’t lie! According to MarketingProfs, aligning sales and marketing leads to 38% higher sales win rates, and companies with well-aligned sales and marketing teams enjoy 36% higher customer retention rates.
Tension or general disconnection between your marketing, sales and operations teams affects everyone at your company, and in a competitive industry like home care, you can’t afford the discord. The home care marketing, sales, and operations experts at corecubed understand the vital roles that each team plays, and we can help bring a little Zen and alignment back into your world. Our award-winning home care marketing team can help you create content and marketing materials that get results, and our brand new Online Home Care Sales Training tools are designed to boost sales and operational skills and knowledge for everyone in your agency. Contact us today to learn more.