This is a guest blog post written by Stephen Tweed, CSP, who is the CEO of Leading Home Care...a Tweed Jeffries company. Stephen is an internationally known health care and business strategist, award winning professional speaker, published author, and consultant to the home care industry.
Several months ago, I was on a sales call with the owner of a successful home care company in the Midwest. I was there to lead the home care team through a strategic planning process. The owner called the day before and said he had to set up an appointment with a very important prospect for the next day and would it be OK if we took a break from our planning so he could keep this appointment.
He asked me if I would accompany him on the sales call.
One of the first questions this rather sophisticated referral source asked was, “What makes your company different from all of the other home care companies in our town?”
The owner was caught off guard for a moment, and then gave him several generic responses. The prospect said, “That’s nice, but what really makes you different? Your competitors say all those same things.”
The owner of the company was totally stumped. He looked at me for help, but we had just begun our planning and I couldn’t help him very much.
When we got back to the office we spent much of the rest of the day really working on the answer to that question. “What really makes you different from the other home care companies in town?”
Competitive Advantage
The reality in homecare is …
- Most homecare services are perceived as the same
- Most homecare companies are perceived as the same
- Most homecare sales reps are perceived as the same
There is no difference between you and your competition unless your customer perceives a difference.
The Seven Sources of Competitive Advantage
Back in 1990 when I wrote my first commercially published book, Strategic Focus: A Gameplan for Developing Competitive Advantage, I talked about the Five Sources of Competitive Advantage. Over the years, I’ve expanded that to Seven Sources of Competitive Advantage.
These seven sources can be applied to any business. They are:
- Product Differentiation
- Service Differentiation
- Narrow Market Focus
- Relationships
- Exceptional Customer Experiences
- Common Values
- Low Price
Applying the Seven Sources of Competitive Advantage to Home Health, Hospice, and Private Duty Home Care
After speaking to hundreds of audiences and leading strategic planning retreats for over 500 different organizations about the concept of competitive advantage, I have been able to refine these concepts specifically for the home care and hospice industry. Here are the seven sources of competitive advantage for home health and hospice.
- Superior Patient Outcomes
- Exceptional Customer Experiences
- Caregiver Quality
- Personal Relationships
- Organizational Relationships
- Relationship Selling
- Brand Awareness
The seven sources are slightly different for private duty home care. As you know, private duty is a very different business from home health care. Many agencies have tried to mix the two and have failed miserably. The most successful home health agencies that have private duty business have separated the two.
Here are the seven sources of competitive advantage for private duty home care.
- Caregiver Quality
- Exceptional Customer Experiences
- Person to Person Relationships
- Organization to Organization Relationships
- Relationship Selling
- Brand Awareness
- Specialized Programs and Services
If you and your leadership team dare to be different, then you will want to explore these concepts in much more detail. You can do that easily by downloading the complete research report “Dare to Be Different: Seven Steps to Creating Competitive Advantage in Home Health Care, Hospice, and Private Duty Home Care.
This powerful report is brought to you at no charge by Delta Health Technologies.
