HME is not about rental; it is about service. If you know this, you will succeed. Relationship building is only part of the game. Staff members must be trained not just in equipment and services but also in disease states. Will Rogers said, “It ain’t so much what we don’t know that gets us into trouble…as what we do know that ain’t so.”

And so it is with HME owners and managers. When you pose questions about respiratory marketing, you get many responses but few really know the true requirements to effectively market respiratory services. Furthermore, they do not truly understand their local market and how to maneuver products to increase profit.

The problem is simple and is due to monetary restraints. We tend to hire lay people and/or clinical staff who have no idea about marketing in this industry. We complicate the issue because we do not spend the time and resources training these individuals to succeed. In the businesses that I have been involved with, I have seen individuals that had no experience in marketing, but had wonderful personalities and could be molded into marketing representatives that returned great profit. This was true of clinical staff as well.

The Key to Success
Training is the key to success. Just think what would happen if we hired a delivery technician one day, gave him the keys to a van, and sent him on his way to deliver oxygen equipment. For many HME dealers, this is precisely how they handle their marketing representatives and then they complain about the lack of success. The problem is not the person but rather the program.

HME dealers who want to be successful must commit financial resources to training their marketing representatives. Training is expensive, but it is an investment in the long-term success of their business.

Each business should establish a marketing trainer; this may be a successful representative with years of experience or it could be the owner, but the marketing representatives must have that person to provide the training and be the ongoing resource for the marketing team. I also suggest that each business establish a training manual for each business segment. The training manual will provide information about the products and services that your business offers and information about disease states that will enable your marketing representatives to understand why physicians order the equipment they do. This allows the marketing representatives to talk intelligently about the patients who need this service.

The marketing manuals should also contain medical articles and studies that validate the equipment and services you provide. After the marketing representatives complete training on each business segment, they should be tested to be sure they have comprehended the material. This testing should be performed periodically and incorporate changes in products and services.

Every representative should be involved in numbers and growth and should have specific goals established for each business segment based on new business. True marketing representatives thrive on goals and their progression toward those goals, so be sure to share the numbers with your representatives at least twice a month.

Clinicians for Marketing?
The last element, and probably the most important, is incorporating clinicians into the marketing plan. But how should you use them? Most clinicians make poor marketing representatives.

When asked, most managers see clinical staff members as necessary but with no true monetary benefit from the service that they provide. I can say from experience that clinicians can be powerful marketing forces when used the right way.

Clinical marketing is important to the success of your respiratory business and must be incorporated. You may ask how can I get my therapist to go out and market? Sneak him into it and develop a team approach with a marketing representative.

Clinicians that I have worked with in programs I have developed do not even consider their marketing role as marketing. Realize that clinicians will not make cold calls, but they will approach physicians multiple times a day about patient concerns.

Harold Davis, RRT

It is actually simple. The trained marketing representative details the physician and potential referral on the service that they can expect from the clinical program. The clinician follows the written clinical program or protocol and delivers the results to the physician after the follow-up. Remember, therapists will not make sales calls, but they will talk to physicians about their patients.

When a therapist follows up with a physician regarding the findings, the therapist is unknowingly supporting the promises made by the marketing representative and validating your program. Marketing representatives and therapists work as a team and support each other.

The HME dealer must establish clinical programs and protocols that are marketable. Just like marketing representatives, clinicians must have a clinical manual, receive training, and have that training verified through testing and competency review.

The Market Demands
The next thing that must be established is what your market demands. Different markets demand different things. For example, in the sleep market, you find great variation in market demands. Some areas require intense follow-up with compliance download, and others require a couple of telephone follow-ups. You must determine what your market demands.

The simple answer is to do your research. Ask referrals what their expectation is for follow-up and what they require of your company. Never be afraid to ask referrals what your competition does well. This can be an enlightening question, and most people like to talk about the good that others do. Remember, you must know what your competition is doing if you want to exceed them in the service arena.

You must also study your competition and know what they are marketing this week and how they are getting their business. It is important you know the level of service they are providing and what they are saying about you. After you have determined what your market demands, you can determine what products you are going to bring to market.

With the addition of each new product, establish a program that is going to detail the level of service you are going to provide for the product. Keep your eyes on the industry and always look for those new products that can provide a niche. Many times DME providers, especially independents, will wait until after a product is released to see what their competition is going to do. Instead of being a follower, be a leader within your market.

If you find a product that has potential in your market, be the first to jump. The first one that is able to get in front of the referral with a product is usually the one that is remembered. It is always good to ask manufacturers for the opportunity to have a product first in your area. Although this does not happen a lot, it can happen and give you a huge marketing edge over your competition. Always take time to look back for products that have been around for a while but never in your market, or look for products that used to be hot but are not anymore. Sometimes there is still potential with these products.

Lastly, a respiratory marketing program is great and good, but how are you going to know if it is successful? The dealer must track results in several different areas, and it is important that the tracking mechanism be simple. Keep it to one line or incorporate it into your computer system. Usually, the customer service representative is re-sponsible for tracking the daily referrals that are called in.

The marketing representative should be responsible for developing a profile for each referral. The referral profile should contain demographic information as well as referral birthday, hobbies, and children. The marketing representative should also be responsible for tracking the details of each call. The marketing activity log should contain information about the presentation that was made to the referral and any comments the referral voiced. The record should also establish a plan for the next call.

Planning for the next call always begins at the conclusion of the call. At the end of the month, the marketing representative should aggregate the data and correlate the referrals that were called in to the calls that were made. This allows the marketing team to quickly identify upward or downward trends in referrals and adjust the marketing plan as needed.

Harold Davis, RRT, is the respiratory specialist for Nationwide Respiratory, a division of the Van G. Miller Group, Waterloo, Iowa. He consults with small companies to help in program development through his own business, Davis and Associates. Davis can be reached via e-mail: cte96797@centurytel.net.