What would your perception be of these brands if...
Kleenex tissues fell apart?
Folgers really wasn't the best part of waking up?
Customer service at Chic-fil-A wasn't excellent?
Verizon didn't let you hear me now?
Maytag's repairman was always busy instead of waiting for work?
You weren't in good hands with Allstate?
Each of these are brand promises made by companies generally known for delivering on those promises. While they are part of some incredible marketing statements and brand messaging, it takes more than saying something about yourself as an organization to become known for it.
From a branded design to a business by design
Many businesses and the internal and external teams they encorporate to help promote and grow them could easily get lost in the efforts to design and generate kitchy graphics, adds, and messaging yet still miss the mark when it comes to building a successful, growing home care agency. Having dedicated 20 years to helping 100s of businesses design solid branding, I’ll be the last person to discount the importance of good design in all assests representing a home care agency. However, design should be a reflection of the desired or actual outcomes delivered by your business.
"There is no greater representation of your brand to your prospective clients and employees than the outcomes your agency consistently delivers." - Kevin Hansen
At the end of the day, true measures of success are not found in how great your marketing and sales efforts appear. True brand/business success is found through repeatedly delivering on your Brand Promise, which you konw you are achieving when current and past clients, caregivers, and others in your market are regularly referring your agency. It does your agency little good if your outcomes don’t live up to how well you’ve communicated about your agency or how spectacularly design your logo, website, brochures, etc. are.
As an entreprenuer entering into this incredible industry, you’ll find your success in developing a business by design. You’ll find that getting referrals and closing sales becomes fare more successful when your brand become synonimous with the quality of care individuals expect to receive. For your home care agency, this is achievable when you develop repeatable and scalable operations that your team can follow.
Framework/Script
Every good story – whether a movie or a book – tends to follow some form of structure. Music can be quite similar in following certain patterns or frameworks.
As a home care owner, the operations you put in place literally write the script for the story your brand is going to tell. The better your operations, the better the story your brand will tell.
An operational framework for success provides the direction for your entire team to follow repeatable processes that lead to repeatable successes when it comes to interactions with each other, with clients, with clients’ families, and referral partners in your community. Rather than limit yourself and your team with operations, you empower them with tools and resources that help them better embody the essence of your brand.
The trick is to apply your own adaptations to the framework in such a way you remain successful in delivering results while setting yourself apart from other alternatives to using your agency for care. As you work through a process of analyzing, prioritizing, committing, implementing, and replicating strategies in your agency, you’ll experience both an uptick in internal successes and more referrals from your community.
While you are certainly welcome to join our Home Care Owners Community on Facebook to find and align with other successful home care owners to help improve your approach to scaling your agency and reducing overwhelm, there are masterclasses, events, and opportunities to get even more coaching from Home Care Ops to watch for throughout the year. Each of these provide you opportunities for quick guidance and steps you can take, deeper dives into operational strategies, and (twice per year) an option to join the Action Leader Experience which includes home care owners being coached by our team!
