The Gatekeeper Tapes Part 2: The Social Worker, How to Keep Them Happy!

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Breaking through the noise in healthcare marketing requires more than persistence—it demands a fundamental shift in approach. This eye-opening training video reveals the stark contrast between ineffective marketing tactics and strategies that genuinely resonate with skilled nursing facility staff.

Watch as we demonstrate a typical failed interaction: rushing into a social worker's office, using inappropriate terminology (calling patients "clients"), focusing exclusively on services rather than solutions, and completely disregarding the professional's limited time. The cold shoulder that follows is inevitable and all too familiar to many healthcare marketers.

Then witness the transformation that occurs when the same representative returns with a solution-focused approach. By introducing a specialized "discharge package" designed specifically for patients transitioning home from skilled nursing facilities, the conversation shifts dramatically. What makes this approach successful is its laser focus on addressing a genuine problem—patient regression after discharge—rather than simply promoting services.

The training emphasizes critical practical wisdom that's often overlooked. When a social worker expresses interest, schedule your next meeting immediately rather than promising to "call later." Be transparent about reasonable budgets for lunch-and-learns, as healthcare professionals appreciate partners who prioritize patient care over marketing extravagance. Most importantly, position yourself as a valuable resource by acknowledging their expertise while offering specialized insights they might not have considered.

Ready to transform your healthcare marketing approach from getting the cold shoulder to securing meaningful partnerships? This training provides the blueprint for making that shift immediately.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hi Lisa.
I have a Dawn from ABC HomeCare here.
She has some information.
She wanted to see if you hadsome time to talk to you.
They have a discharge packageand they're helping a lot of
other skilled nursing facilitiesin the area and she wanted to
see if you had just a coupleminutes to talk to her.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Good morning, mon chéri.
Yes, I do.
Can you just send her back,though I don't have very much
time, I'm working on some stuff.
But yeah, send her back.
I'd love to hear about it, okay.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Thanks, thanks Will do.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hi there, annette, just let me know you were coming
down to talk with me about adischarge package.
That sounds very interesting.
Hi, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I'm good.
Thank you so much.
Oh, I'm sorry, Let me just mutethis real quick.
Oh, I'm Dawn with ABC Home Careand I just want to tell you
about my discharge package.
So I know you're working withpeople the clients here in your
building and you have familiesall the time, so let me just get
this out for you.

(01:12):
So here's the discharge package.
In this package you'll see thatwe've targeted our services to
help your clients when theyleave here, so when they come
home, we can take care of them.
And so do you work with otherhome care agencies.
Are there any other ones thatcome talk to you?

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, we do.
I think people do come in.
We have a few that we've workedwith that have done really well
, but I haven't had any like adischarge packages.
So yeah, I'd like to look thisover.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, so you know, we do home care and bathing and we
can clean their house.
We don't give them any meds.
We can't cut toenails or do anymedical stuff.
We only do the non-medicalstuff.
You can't send somebody to methat needs like nursing or
something like that.
We don't touch that at all.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Oh, this phone.
I'm sorry, I'm really pressedfor time here.
I'll take this dischargepackage.
I really appreciate you comingin here today.
I have your business card.
I can give you a call if thisis something that interests us.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for stopping by.
Okay, all right, thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Hello, Good morning Sherry.
How's it going up there?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Hey Lisa, I have Dawn from ABC Home Care that just
popped by.
She has some information on adischarge package.
She said she's been helping alot of other skilled nursing
facilities in the area.
Do you have a minute for her tocome back and talk to you?

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, I don't have a lot of time, but yeah, send her
on back.
I have a couple minutes for her.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Okay, all right, thanks, lisa.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Thank you Bye.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Hi there.
Yes, I'm Dawn.
You must be Lisa.
It's great to meet you.
Thank you for taking some timeto talk to me today.
I know you don't have as muchtime so I will be very quick.
I know you know home care, Iknow you understand how it works
and you're discharging peopleall day long.
I have used this dischargepackage.
Here you go With other skillednursing facilities around here

(03:20):
and the social workers, like you, love it because it helps your
patients agree to do home carein the first place.
Their families love it, thepatients love it.
You'll see, there there's aflat rate price.
That also helps with keepingtheir budget in mind.
What we find is that whenpeople come home from a skilled
nursing facility, while they'redoing really great here and

(03:40):
they're ready for discharge,they're physically, mentally,
ready to go home.
When they get home they regressa little bit and the reasons
why are there on the dischargepackage.
I won't get into that, I'llleave that for you for later to
read.
But it's really important thatthey have care and I know that
you know this.
But a lot of the social workersdon't know that they regret
when they get home and theymight need more care than maybe

(04:00):
you think when they get home.
For that reason I don't know ofany other home care agencies
that are doing a dischargepackage.
We have made this package withyour patients, your specific
patients, in mind, and it'sgoing really well.
So I know you don't have timeright now, but I was wondering
if this interests you, if otherpeople are doing it, if you, if
I could come back and maybe do aquick 15 minutes or even just a

(04:25):
lunch and learn whatever worksfor you, to tell you a little
bit more about how our companyis different and exactly how the
discharge package works, and alittle bit more about what we
see when people get home.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, definitely.
That all hits some really greatpoints.
I don't have anyone that comesin with all this type of
information, so this isrefreshing.
I was almost dreading youcoming in to sit in my office.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I know how it is.
They want to just tell you allthe things about their agency
and not A solution.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, this is a great solution.
I would.
This does interest me so muchand I'd like to actually share
it with the team you mentioned,like a lunch and learn or
something like that.
What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (05:03):
So a lunch and learn.
It's usually just about 20minutes or so and I can bring in
some food.
I'm not I can't bring in caviar, obviously, but I can bring in
something for your group.
You don't eat caviar, butanything like.
We're not doing steak andpotatoes, it's going to be
sandwiches, something like that.
That's fine.
So I was thinking maybe May 4th, a Wednesday, at like the noon

(05:23):
time, if you guys do want to eatwhile we meet, maybe 20 minutes
, how many people do you thinkwould be there May?

Speaker 3 (05:28):
4th, I think I would just say if you could just maybe
pencil in 10, 10 people, isthat too many?
Is that okay with you?
No, that should be fine.
Okay.
And you said what day?

Speaker 1 (05:40):
May 4th?
Yeah, just May 4th.
It's a Wednesday around noon orwhatever time you guys eat
between your meetings.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
You know what.
Let's go ahead and schedule it.
Okay, I'm going to give you mybusiness card so you can send me
a reminder email, and what I'lldo is I'm going to go ahead and
put on my calendar right now,but send me something just to
give.
Do you have an agenda you canmaybe send me?

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I'll give you an exact count before then, because
this sounds really interestingokay, all right, and when you
send me the count, any dietaryrestrictions or anything like
that, and I'll send you likethree places that I can bring
food.
You guys decide which one you'dprefer.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Okay, that sounds great.
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay, all right.
Yeah, I really appreciate allthis information.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Thank you, have a great rest of your day.
I'll get that email sent out toyou later today.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Wonderful.
Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Bye-bye, bye-bye.
Hi.
Thank you for joining us forour video series on the right
way and the wrong way to domarketing out there in the field
with your referral sources thevideo that you watched.
I was in a field nursingfacility with a social worker
the first time, or the wrongtime.
I went in all flustered,carrying a bunch of things.
I told her all the things thatshe already knows about home

(06:51):
care.
I didn't tell her anythingdifferent about myself.
I called the people in herbuilding and the people that I
care for, clients, which is abig no-no.
They are patients.
She gave me the cold shoulder.
Why do you think I got the coldshoulder?
Because it was horrible.
I didn't care about her time.
I didn't preface myconversation with I know how
busy you are.
I'm only going to be here for ashort time.

(07:12):
I didn't even get a chance toschedule anything further.
She brushed me off.
She was done with me and thatwas it.
I got the cold shoulder.
If you don't want to get thecold shoulder, come in with
something that's different aboutyour company.
What are you doing that'sdifferent?
That's going to benefit herpatients and benefit her as a
social worker.
The discharge package is agreat way to do that.

(07:40):
You saw that I gained herinterest.
My meeting, or my time with herwas much longer than I
anticipated it was going to bebecause she was interested.
What I was bringing to herbenefited her patients.
It benefited her as a socialworker and she wanted to know
more.
She wanted to spend more timewith me and wanted to schedule.
I also scheduled right there onthe spot.
When they say, yeah, let'sschedule something, don't leave.
Schedule it.
There's a good chance you'renot going to see this person's
face for another month.

(08:00):
Actually, that probably isexactly what's going to happen.
They're not going to give youmore than a little bit of time
each month face to face.
So if they're open to a meeting, schedule it there while you're
there on the spot.
Don't say I'll call you for atime, I'll email you for a time,
because they're busy, they'renot going to have the time to do
that.
Even with the best intentions,they're not going to have time

(08:21):
to do that.
So go ahead.
If they're open for scheduling,get it scheduled.
Some skilled nursing facilitiesthere might be 10 people that
are going to come eat lunch andsome.
There might only be two.
I was very clear about how it'snot going to be steak and
potatoes and caviar.
We don't have that in thebudget.
She likes that.
We don't have that in thebudget.
She doesn't want to be making ahome care company rich.
That's not the point of all ofthis.

(08:42):
We care about seniors.
We want them to come home withhelp.
If I'm bringing her caviar andsteak and potatoes, she knows
there's a lot of profit going on.
So there's a lot of profitgoing on that.
So it's okay to say I have abudget or a joke about it.
I don't can't bring you steakand potatoes, but I'll give you
three restaurants that we canchoose from and they're going to
be subway or it's going to befast food and it's healthy maybe

(09:02):
, but it's still not going tokill the budget.
Most, I would say most, of theskilled nursing facilities.
There might be five people,there could be 10.
It depends on the social worker.
If she wants the PT to knowabout you and OT and director of
nursing and all of those peopleto know about you, it's
probably worth it to do lunchfor 10 people.
Most of them will offer up thesocial worker people and case

(09:26):
manager maybe Either way.
It's not like going to adoctor's office where you're
feeding the entire staff for noreason just because they're
hungry.
There are some doctor's officeswhere you'll get an ROI for
that, but for the most part it'sgoing to be a smaller group of
people.
So I hope you're enjoying thisvideo series.
If you have any questions, we'dlove to hear them.