By Stephen Tweed
What do you do to stay fit? Physically, mentally, and socially fit?
I play tennis. I love tennis. I play four to five times a week, I watch tennis on TV, and Elizabeth and I have been to all four Grand Slams – The US Open, The Australian Open, The French Open, and Wimbledon.
This week I was reading my copy of Tennis magazine, and an article caught my attention. Data Entry. The sub title was, “How Novak Djokovic’s strategy guru is bringing the sports analytics revolution to tennis.”
Can Craig O’Shannessy Change How We Play the Game?
The essence of the article is that Craig O’Shannessy, a tennis player and coach from the tiny town of Albury, Australia, has captured the data of tennis and is using data analysis to help his coaching clients exploit the weaknesses of their competitors. It describes how O’Shannessy used data and strategy to help Djokovic beat world top three player Rafa Nadal in three quick sets at the Australian open. He was able to show Djokovic which shots Rafa likes to hit, and what shots he doesn’t like. By understanding the patterns of his opponent, Novak was able to maximize his strengths and overcome the weaknesses of Rafa.
We are also seeing the results of detailed data analysis in other sports such as baseball and basketball. Perhaps you saw the movie, MoneyBall, with Brad Pitt as Oakland Athletics General Manager Billie Bean, who used “sabermetrics” to win the American League West title in 2002 and go on to win the World Series in 2004.
Using Metrics to Play MoneyBall in Home Care
You’ve heard me say it over and over and over gain. “What gets measured gets managed, what gets rewarded gets repeated.”
As I was reading the Tennis magazine article, I flashed back to conversations we have been having in our Home Care CEO Mastermind Groups. These top tier home care leaders regularly talk about the metrics they use to measure performance, and how data analysis helps them make better strategic decisions.
For example, one piece of data coming out of the 2019 Home Care Benchmarking Study shows that caregiver turnover took a huge leap in 2018 up to 81.6% from 66.7% in 2017. Painful but true … if you had 100 caregivers in 2018, 82 of them quit or were fired. One piece of data that came out of the analysis by Home Care Pulse is that 81% of turnover happens in the first 90 days.
Using this piece of data, the members of our Top 5% Home Care Mastermind Group spent time working on solving the problem of “Ninety Day Retention”. By sharing data and ideas for solving the problem, we came to realize that there are three big factors in 90 day caregiver retention:
- Hiring the right applicants in the first place
- Keeping new caregivers working the hours they want and need during that first 90 days
- Staying in touch with new caregivers to help them feel valued, appreciated, and included.
By applying this knowledge and coming up with innovative ways to accomplish these three things, mastermind members were able to show dramatic improvement in 90 day retention.
How much could you grow your business if you had enough caregivers to meet the needs of your clients? How many more available caregivers would you have if you could dramatically improve 90 day retention?
Get More Clients without Spending Money on More Marketing
While most home care companies spend much time, effort, and money on their marketing efforts, these same companies often do a terrible job of answering the phone and converting callers to clients. According to the 2019 Home Care Benchmarking Study, only 36.9% of client inquiries coming into the median sized home care agency were converted to a client. The data show that 44.7% of inquiries were converted to an in-home assessment, and then 82.6% of assessments were converted to an admission. What if you were able to convert more of those incoming calls to an in-home assessment?
The data show that if you can get into the client’s home and sit on the sofa with the prospect and the primary family caregiver, you can convert that visit to an admission 83% of the time.
The median sized agency had 244 inquiries in 2018. Converting 36.9% would yield 90 clients. What if you did a better job of answering the phone and scheduling that in-home assessment, and what if you raised your conversion ratio by ten points to 46.9%? That would give you 114 clients. Take 24 additional clients times the average dollar value of a client of $11,477 and that’s another $275,448 in revenue without spending another dime on sales and marketing.
Learn to Track Your Data, and Apply your Data to Grow Your Business and Make More Money
To learn more about the key metrics for measuring performance in home care, we highly recommend that you participate in the 2020 Home Care Benchmarking Study from Home Care Pulse. The data are being collected right now. If you participate in the study and submit your company’s data, you’ll get a steep discount on the price of the annual report.
To learn more about how to use these key metrics to grow your business and make more money, you might want to join a Home Care CEO Mastermind Group. These groups are open to independent home care companies who generate between $1.5 million and $40 million in annual revenue. We currently have space in our Strategic Growth Mastermind Group, our Top 10% Mastermind Group, and our Top 7% Mastermind Group.
Inquire today!
