Staffing Robot - Healthcare Staffing Technology, Design & Marketing Blog

9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 1]

How do people see your business and identify with your brand?  It’s easy to summarize the feelings of your best customers, just as it is the ones who always complain.  But what about all of your clients, employees, and business partners as a whole?  If you’re not consciously promoting and defining your company’s brand I can guarantee – someone else is.

It’s no secret, people are online and talking, and there’s a good chance they’re talking about your company.  Now more than ever it’s imperative that you understand, promote and monitor your brand. 

I’ve talked to several hospitals and staffing suppliers in the healthcare staffing industry that don’t understand their brand or how to actively promote and manage it.  Further, they have yet to realize the value of all the online resources available for assisting with this effort.

Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to promote, track and define your brand online these days. In this series I’ll cover 9 tips on how to effectively use the Internet and its many resources to manage your brand.

1. Identify your brand
What is a brand?  A brand is more than a logo or a trademark.  It's more than a slogan, sales pitch or mission statement.  A brand is an identification or a representation.  It can even be as intangible as a feeling, understanding or an association.

To identify your brand, start off-line.  The best thing to do is to analyze and understand your business.  Make sure that whatever you're delivering is of the best quality it can be.  Nothing destroys your brand faster than having a reputation of not delivering on the promise of your products or services.  

Next, ask and answer questions such as:

• What is it you deliver and how do you deliver it? 
• What makes your company stand out from your competition? 
• What are your company values and what benefits do you bring to the market?
• Define your target audience.  Be as specific as possible.  For example, “hospitals” is not a target audience.  “Acute care hospitals, with 250-500 beds, that spend more than $2,000,000/year on per diem healthcare staff, in urban areas, of the pacific northwest” is getting closer.
• What message are you trying to send to this audience? What message will resonate with this audience?
• Identify the “voice” with which you want to communicate this message.  Is it professional?  Fun?  Experienced?  Laid back?
• What is the one thing you want people to think of when they interact with your brand?  Quality?  Professionalism?  Great customer service?

Once you identify your brand, ensure that all of your employees have the same understanding of your brand, it's message, how it's communicated and the promise of its value.

2. Create a plan
Creating a Facebook page and signing up for Twitter is not a plan.  These are actions to execute within your plan.  It's imperative that you have a plan and a strategy for promoting your band online.  Create a plan that answers questions such as:

• What are your business goals – both short and long term?  Are you looking to expand into new markets, explore different modalities or do you want to stay focused on improving your current lines of business?  Is your goal to recruit more healthcare professionals into an internal contingent pool or are you trying to earn more business from your existing clients?
• What are your company’s current strengths and weaknesses?  Have you done well at per diem staffing and want to give placing travelers a try?  If you're thinking of building, instead of licensing software are you prepared for the maintenance and on going support of a software venture?
• What do you think your company image is now? How do you want to be perceived?  Is there a difference?  If so, how will you take steps to address this?
• What type of resources do you have to devote to your online marketing efforts?  Are you on a limited budget or do you have a thriving marketing department?  Do you have content prepared to publish or are you starting from scratch?

Answering these questions will help get you started on identifying and preparing to promote your brand online.

Related Posts:

9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 2]
9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 3]
9 tips for promoting and protecting your brand online [pt. 4]

June Events

June 18-19

Contingent Workforce Strategies Co-employment & Risk Forum

Washington, D.C.

How to slice and dice your competition

Is one of your company's competitors weakened by the economic downturn? Are their signs of a problem?

* You hear they didn't get a second round of funding.
* A friend tells you about staff reductions.
* You're not seeing them at trade shows.
* Their marketing engine fizzled.
* Salespeople are calling your firm looking for a new gig.


What do you do?
1. Play the waiting game and watch from afar hoping they spiral downward and out of existence
2. Fuel the fire with an aggressive campaign of your own pointing out the differences between your stable company and this weakened competitor

Is the law of the jungle appropriate or do we take the high road and wait it out?

In this session, you'll hear arguments for both sides. You'll hear from marketing and sales professionals who say, "kick em while they're down" and others who say fate will take its course - no extra help required. What's your perspective? What are the ethical boundaries? When does pouncing the weak make you look bad? How can you ratchet up the attack without hurting your credibility? We'll debate how aggressive marketing and sales people can be in today's climate of relatively stronger/weaker competitors. Do salespeople encourage customers to ask for financial statements? What should companies do (if strong or weak) to defend and/or add to their market positions.


Moderator
Brian McCarthy, Adjunct Professor, Portland State University School of Business Administration + Oregon Executive MBA Program

Speaker Panel
Bill Piwonka, Sr. Director Marketing, EthicsPoint
Bill Booth, Business Development Manager, Babcock and Jenkins
Kevin Cancilla, Director, Corporate & International Marketing, Tripwire
Jason Lander, Founder, Vice President of Product & Business Development, Shiftwise

MSF5.19.09SliceDiceYourCompetition

Seems it’s all about Allied in California.

This month, signonsandiego.com posted an article about how the economy has temporarily eased the nursing shortage in California.  The article talks about how the days of sign-on bonuses and higher wages for nurses have given way to days of new grads having trouble getting interviews.

According to the article hospitals have stopped hiring due to postponed staff retirements, a dramatic increase in the number of uninsured patients and declines in elective surgeries. 

AMN concurred that demand for their travel nurses fell significantly in late 2008 and early 2009 at hospitals.

However, Health Leaders posted an article this month suggesting just the opposite was true…for allied healthcare professionals.  According to this article 60% of all allied professions are experiencing a shortage in California. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 69,000 more clinical lab scientist and 68,000 more medical lab technicians will be needed by 2012.

Meanwhile, education programs in the state are not keeping pace with this demand, suggesting a more significant shortage is coming. Many hospitals are discussing the signs of shortage and citing their reliance on staffing suppliers to meet their needs.  Some of them are even taking on new grads.

It's interesting to see how the economy is affecting different parts of the country and how the need for certain professions vacillates.  If you're an allied healthcare professional or a supplier of such - sounds like it's a good time to look West.

Vendor Management Services (VMS) – What’s in a Name? [pt. 4]

Internal Resource Pool Management

Some people might ask why I’m including this as a VMS model for healthcare vendor management.  The reason is simple. Even though it might not actually be a VMS model, in healthcare staffing, it absolutely competes with all of them.   Ignoring it is a mistake. 

When hospitals consider their options on VMS strategies one option that is always on the table is implementing an internal pool of flexible, contingent staff that will reduce, if not eliminate, the need for supplier staff.

As a staffing supplier should you be afraid of this model?  It depends. 
Are there still opportunities for you here?  Absolutely.

Summary of Model:
The Internal Resource Pool (IRP) management model is where the hospital effectively staffs their open positions with internal staff.  This is most commonly done by one or a combination of the following:

• Having internal staff pick up more shifts.
• Creating an internal pool of staff to fill extra shifts.
• Specifically recruiting and hiring staff to be part of a contingent pool of staff.
• Creating a separate entity that is effectively an in-house agency for filling your extra shifts.

When a hospital has an extra shift to fill it’s rarely, if ever, that they contact staffing suppliers first to fill this need.  Most likely it’s getting broadcast to their internal staff first.  This is nothing new.  However, hospitals have dramatically increased their efforts in this area over the last couple of years. 

Often times, hospitals don’t have the internal expertise or the time to effectively manage or create these pools.  This is where companies that can provide such a service come in.  Companies delivering IRP management do so with effective recruitment, hiring and management plans and processes, and implement software applications to manage the newly implemented process.

Services Offered:

• Recruitment and hiring assistance
• On-boarding and orientation management
• Creation of policy and staffing plans
• Internal staffing management
• Compliance oversight
• Self-scheduling software application management tool

Strengths:

• Significant reduction of spend on outside labor.
• Internal staff retention and morale booster as internal staff gain more control over their work environment, pay, benefits and schedule.
• Improved management and tracking of internal staffing.
• Automated process for managing internal staff.

Weaknesses:

• It is no small task to implement a successful internal pool of flexible staff that includes recruiting plans, policy and employment changes, and new processes.
• There is still a shortage of healthcare professionals.  Therefore, implementing a successful internal resource pool can be challenging, especially in areas of the country that are more adversely impacted by the shortage.
• Often times implementing an internal resource pool can create a false sense that outside staff are no longer needed.  This can cause hospitals to spend a lot of money on overtime and risk burn out with their internal staff.  The result being the opposite of what they initially set out to accomplish.  There can still be several good reasons to effectively use temporary healthcare staff.

Opportunities:

• Companies providing such services deliver exactly what hospitals are looking for and can create a close, long term relationship with the hospital.
• Creating an efficient and effective staffing process of internal staff that delivers a reduction or elimination of spending on outside labor can dramatically improve the hospitals bottom line. 
• Healthcare professionals are looking for more control over their schedule and better compensation.  Companies implementing IRP management practices can also improve in the recruiting and retention efforts of the hospital, as well as improve the morale of their internal staff.
• IRP Management companies have the ability to effectively create and implement a process of working with healthcare staffing suppliers.  It’s rarely the case that using outside labor will become completely unnecessary and implementing a process for how to manage and use it effectively is wise.
• Effective staffing is a key core competency of many staffing suppliers.  IRP management companies can learn a lot from working and partnering with such companies for implementing a successful IRP.  In addition, there are many opportunities for staffing suppliers to offer these same services directly.

Threats:

Many companies providing IRP management focus too much on the internal staff process and ignore the management process of outside labor.  Focusing too much on eliminating outside labor can cause:

• Internal healthcare staff to suffer from burnout due to overwork.
• Hospitals end up spending more (or just as much) on overtime and incentive payments as they were on outside labor.
• Assuming suppliers will be eliminated without implementing an effective strategy for managing and working with them can create large issues when you do run into a situation where their assistance is needed.  Ignoring this part of your staffing process will still leave a part of your process without a management solution.

Conclusion:
Internal Resource Pool management models have increased in popularity over the last few years.  They are an effective way for hospitals to manage their contingent openings.  Companies from software providers to staffing suppliers can be of huge assistance to hospitals in helping them set up and manage their internal pools of staff.  A hospital can choose from several ways to create and implement an internal pool of staff.  However, having an automated self-scheduling application to manage, track and communicate with this pool is the most effective solution.

Even though there are several benefits to this model, there is still a shortage of healthcare professionals in the country.  Therefore, simply wanting to create an IRP doesn’t mean it will be 100% effective in meeting all of your needs.  It also behooves you to ensure you aren’t spending more on overtime and incentive pay or overworking your staff in a pursuit to eliminate outside labor.

Provider List:
ShiftWise
FlexChoiceRN
Concerro
B4 Health
eShift
ShiftBoard

If I missed your company name on this list email me and I’ll add it.

Related Posts:

Vendor Management Services (VMS) – What’s in a Name? [pt. 3]

Vendor Management Services (VMS) – What’s in a Name? [pt. 2]
Vendor Management Services (VMS) – What’s in a Name? [pt. 1]

The Dos & Don’ts of selling healthcare staffing. The Don'ts [pt. 5].

The Dont's...

9. Don't disrespect their time
Basically - keep it short and to the point. Everyone is busy.  Everyone.  Don't assume that people are happy to meet with you and spend their time so freely.  Do whatever you can to get your point across without taking up too much time.

You know those big multi-page, text heavy "leave behinds" you spent so much time creating?  Those end up in the trash.  No one reads that stuff.  Stop thinking proposal and start thinking elevator pitch.  In the era of Twitter we should all consider the value of 140 character communication. 

Think of it this way - the easier and more straight forward your pitch is the easier it is for your client to understand and respond to. The best way to do this is to be as direct as possible.  What is it you can do for them?  How does it meet their goals?  Why are you the most qualified to deliver this?  One to two sentences for each of these areas and you are done.  The quicker the proposal the quicker the response.

10.  Don’t give up too early.
As I was just saying - people are busy.  You never know if you have the full attention of the person you are talking to.  Therefore,  the "no" you just heard might just really be a "not right now."  You certainly don't want to be the pestering sales person that won't go away.  However, you need to find the right balance and consider carefully when to contact them again.  I've seen a lot of success come from closing clients that said no several times.

Conclusion
Again, what you don't do can be just as important as what you do.  Embrace your role as a sales person and understand the value you can bring your clients.  Up level your game and stand out from the crowd by knowing your clients needs and only selling them the proper solutions.  Remember - don't play the losing games of competing on price or berating your competition.  Don't oversell or use hard sales tactics.  Communicate effectively with your clients by communicating their way.  Keep it short, don't give up too soon, remember the little things and most importantly - don't be a jerk.

Related posts:

Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 4]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 3]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 2]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 1]

The Dos & Don’ts of selling healthcare staffing. The Don'ts [pt. 4].

The Don'ts...

7. Don’t be a jerk.
Seriously.  I know that might sound funny but I've seen it so often that I feel it's important to state.  If I've learned one thing about this industry it's that it is very small and the people you interact with (be they clients, partners or competitors) move around a lot.  Your reputation of being a jerk can spread quickly and have very adverse affects in your sales efforts.  You never know when the person you are meeting with will potentially be your next client, employer, employee or competitor. 

Example.  I'll never forget presenting to a group of staffing suppliers about how our new relationship with a hospital was going to affect them.  During the presentation the VP of Sales for one of the companies was completely inappropriate and unprofessional with her behavior and comments.  It was so bad that the hospital decided to cancel their contract with the supplier.  However, the really shocking part is that one year later this same person was looking for a career change and called me to see if we were hiring.  Coincidentally, we were not.

8. Don’t forget the little things.
Follow through is perhaps the most important thing in regard to return customers and referrals. How many times have you been too busy to return phone calls or to say thank you?  I think a lot of people in sales get so focused on bringing in their next customer that they forget the little things that keep customers happy and offering to be a referral.  

I think a couple of good rules to follow are:

• Don't forget to say thank you as often as you can - especially when you close the deal but also as often as possible throughout your relationship.
• Return all of your phone calls within 24 hours.
• Check in on your clients at least once a month.  If you have hundreds of clients be sure to at least do it quarterly.

Related Posts:

Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 3]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 2]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 1]

The Dos & Don’ts of selling healthcare staffing. The Don'ts [pt. 3].

The Don'ts...

5. Don’t hard sell – educate
Remember the really good teachers you had in school?  The ones that actually inspired you to learn more - to want to learn more?  To me, a sales person should be in the same position.  Who should know more about the product or service your selling than you?  If you don't know it inside and out you will definitely be at a disadvantage. 

Educate your client on the value of your services and how it benefits them and they will become champions of your service.  Get their interest and then get them interested in more. 

There are several ways in which you can create buzz and get people's attention without a hard sell approach. 

• Promote the various benefits of your product/service through marketing materials, blogs, influential customers, and websites. 
• Speak at conferences or put on workshops or user groups. 
• Give as many interviews as you can and write articles if you have the opportunity.  

These efforts are a much better approach than a direct hard sell.

6. Don’t communicate "your way"
I'll admit it.  I'm guilty of breaking this rule all the time and I have to constantly remind myself to avoid this trap.  What I'm talking about is the need to communicate in the way (email, phone, face to face, fax?) your client prefers - not the way you prefer.

I'm a huge fan of email.  Email forces people to be concise, I can answer it late at night or in a meeting and I have a searchable record of the communication. From there, I actually prefer text messages, then phone calls, then meetings.  Because of this, I find that I often respond to people in this same manner.  I have even noticed voice mails that have sat for days while I fired off responses to emails in 10 minutes.  However well this might work for getting my attention - I've found it can also be a detriment if I assume everyone else wants to communicate the same way I do. 

I've actually been in situations where I emailed someone for days and after being frustrated with no response I finally picked up the phone and called them.  What happened?  They answered on the 2nd ring.  I have to constantly remind myself that a lot of people prefer the phone and face to face meetings.  Summary - the communication medium you choose will only be successful if it meets the preference of the recipient. 

Related posts:

Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 2]
Selling heatlhcare staffing - the don'ts [p. 1]

The Dos & Don’ts of selling healthcare staffing. The Don'ts [pt. 2].

The Don'ts...

3. Don’t berate your competition
I'm speaking on this topic next week at an SAO event.  Let me start now by saying - this way lies ruin.  Talking negatively about your competition is a losing game and can make you look petty.  If your competition is all the negative things you claim then surely your client will discover this on their own.  Let them.

The best approach is to stay focused on your products/services and sell the benefits of those to your clients.  However, if you feel you must inform your client of the shortcomings of a competitor here are a few ways to do it without coming across as being unfairly negative. 

• Highlight differentiators.  Emphasize aspects of your product you know are better or different from those of your competitors.  Ask your client to compare the differences.
• Line up your references.  This is when your references really pay off.  Let them make the case for you.  The best position to be in is if you have a client that considered your competition or was actually using them before deciding to work with you.  Have your reference list all the negative aspects of the competitor for you.  This way it won't look like biased feedback coming from you.
• Establish a leadership position.  Collect all of your positive PR, create white papers, or start a blog on topics your clients care about.  Present this information to your client and tell them to ask for the same from your competition.  If your competitor cannot provide the same/similar material you will look more established and trusted to your client.

4. Don’t oversell. 
Did you ever see that episode of Seinfeld where George would leave the room whenever he said something funny in order to perpetuate an image of being funny?  This is pretty much what I'm talking about.  It is crucial to learn to recognize the point where you have won your client's business.  If your client starts asking questions about the solution instead of questions about your company, you are usually in good shape. 

Sadly, I've actually been a part of losing a deal because another sales rep said some things the client took the wrong way - all after we had the deal.  This was a very painful but valuable lesson to learn.  The summary - when you get the sale stop selling.  That simple. 

Related Posts:

Selling heatlhcare staffing - the don'ts [p. 1]

The Dos & Don’ts of selling healthcare staffing. The Don'ts [pt. 1].

Last week I posted daily tips on the dos and don'ts of selling healthcare staffing.  I started with the "dos" but feel it is just as important to also discuss the "don'ts."  So this week I will be posting two tips each day on the don'ts of selling healthcare staffing. 

The Don'ts...

1. Don’t sell something your client doesn't need
Good sales people are match makers, matching customers with products and services that best meet their needs. I've often been in situations where it was obvious the sales rep was being commissioned on a product or service because the rep was consistently pushing to sell the product/service whether or not if it was a good fit for the client. A good sales person will match the right product with the right customer based on the customers need - not their personal commissions.

Not wanting to switch my phone network, last year I bought one of those Sprint "Instinct" phones.  After owning it for a week and playing with an iPhone for 1 hour I knew I had made a mistake.  When I returned it to the Sprint store the sales rep was trying everything to keep me on Sprint even though I clearly told him I wanted to cancel my contract and get an iPhone.  His bantering went on for close to an hour and at one point he was so far lost that he actually started showing me discounted flip phone accessories as a way to entice me to stay with Sprint.  The experience was so irritating I ended up not only dissatisfied with the phone but also with Sprint's as a company.

Matching the right product/service with the right customer also benefits you as a sales person.  Why waste your time when there is just not a fit?  Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of potentially good sales people fail because they spent too much time chasing clients that were not a good fit instead of identifying ones that were. 

2. Don’t compete on price
Every once in a while price considerations will have to be made because of market pressures, potential client volume opportunities, or maybe because your pricing was new and needed adjusting.  However, if your pitch is all about competing on price you are in a losing game. 

If a client gets you into a situation of competing on price this will shift the entire focus of the conversation.  Pretty soon the only differentiation the client sees between you and your competition is the numbers on the paper - you are the $50/hr company and your competition is the $48/hr company.  Your price is your price and it should represent the value of the product or service you are delivering.  Arbitrarily lowering your price (because your competition's is lower) subsequently lowers the perceived value of your product/service.  Keep the conversation focused on your products value and how it will benefit the client and let your competitors devalue their own products.  

Related posts

The dos and dont's of selling healhtcare staffing. The Dos [pt-1]

Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 5]

Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 4]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 3]
Selling healthcare staffing - the don'ts [pt. 2]