How to Train a New Home Care Salesperson
Erica Horner
Hiring a salesperson for your home care agency is an important first step to growth, but it doesn’t stop there. Even the best salesperson needs effective, ongoing training, a strategic plan, and accountability measures.
Guest blog by Erica Horner, home care sales consultant at corecubed.
Hiring a salesperson for your home care agency is an important first step to growth, but it doesn’t stop there. Even the best salesperson needs effective, ongoing training, a strategic plan, and accountability measures.
The following five steps can help your new salesperson achieve success for your agency:
#1 Cover the basics
When you hire a new salesperson, you’ve determined that he or she will be a good fit for the position, but even the best salesperson needs an overview of the specifics surrounding the particular services he or she will be selling. As the face and representative of your agency, your salesperson needs a thorough understanding of:
This involves more than a simple siloed approach of what you do – it needs to encompass all of the intricacies of your agency and its services, your differentiating factors, and detailed information on what your competitors are doing right – and wrong.
#2 Fill in the gaps
Assess the salesperson’s skills to maximize strengths and provide support where there are weaknesses. If you hire someone with sales experience in another industry, for instance, you’ll want to showcase how home care sales are different. Or the person may have great customer service skills, but no sales training. Supplement where needed with specialized sales training to ensure you’re setting your new salesperson up for success.
#3 Review relationships
Who does your salesperson already have relationships with, and will they translate into business opportunities for your agency? Determine how you can best leverage any existing relationships your agency has as well, providing the trainee with introductions where appropriate.
#4 Utilize virtual resources
As we’ve found ourselves in the position of avoiding face-to-face contact with each other since the pandemic began, it’s more important than ever to make use of virtual and digital marketing resources, phone calls, and other creative ways to stay in touch and top of mind when in-person visits are restricted. Consider deploying a variety of digital marketing tools, such as regular social media posts, email campaigns, and newsletters.
#5 Have a plan
Now it’s time to create and implement a strategic plan for your new salesperson that includes the who, what, where, how and when:
Having everything spelled out in a cohesive and comprehensive plan will help minimize any confusion or miscommunication, and provide your new salesperson with a firm understanding of what is expected.
It’s also important to touch base with the person on a regular, ongoing basis to evaluate the expectations laid out in the plan, revisiting the plan if results are falling short, providing additional training and retraining as needed, and ensuring you’ve equipped the person with everything needed to do the job successfully. At a minimum, you’ll want to hold these reviews monthly, but many agencies have a policy to meet with their salesperson weekly or biweekly.
Partnering with a professional sales coach with specific expertise in the home care industry can help augment and streamline this time-consuming but crucial process. From hiring through onboarding and beyond with ongoing training and perfecting skills, the right home care sales coach can provide everything your salesperson needs to be successful.
