Hospice Marketing

I've been spending more of my mental energy on the subject of marketing lately than I would like. This GruntDoc post of a cartoon that shows what happens when Dilbert's doctor meets a typical drug rep sums up my dilemma well.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of my situation, but did want to reflect on this side of the hospice business since it has largely been ignored on this blog. I would like to be a hospice nurse, chaplain, social worker, admission coordinator, or volunteer coordinator, but you couldn't pay me enough money in the world to be a hospice marketer. Think about what that job entails, and tell me you want the job.

First, a hospice marketer has to be a marketer. I get mad when I'm in the waiting room of a doctors office and a drug rep comes through. I have all the respect in the world for doctors and their staff because there has not been a wave of attacks on drug reps. As a guy, it was drilled into my head that no means no. Somehow drug reps never got that lesson. "Yes, I know the doctor is back there working hard to heal people, but I must see him because (pick one) I'll get fired if he doesn't sign this paper, the samples I have will bring peace to the mideast, he loves to look at my cleavage, he promised last week that if I'd leave him alone he'd let me bug him again this week, I know he loves coffee so I brought him his 4,826th coffee mug of the year, . . . Doctors should start a group blog to tell the world all the funny stuff marketers have said at their office. Hospice marketers must do the exact same things that the drug reps do but with a smaller budget.

Second, they have to market hospice. Please stop for a minute and try to think of what you would say during the thirty seconds you get in front of a doctor. You have fought the good battle and gotten past the receptionist (who is paid a bonus for every marketer she can make leave without talking to the doctor) now you get to see the doctor. He walks out of an exam room, tells the nurse what to do for the patient he just saw, starts walking toward the next exam room and indicates without speaking that you have from now until he reaches the door to say your piece. You have 30 seconds to get him to tell you the name of a dying patient that you can take care of; what would you say? "Hey doc, any of the people who have come to you for healing ready to be shown that you are not in fact God?" or "I hear rumor that you've got a patient at the hospital who's in bad shape. How about telling she and her three children that she's going to die so that I can meet my quota and get my quarterly bonus." Seriously, what can you say that the hospice rep who talked to the doctor yesterday (and had better cleavage than you) didn't say? Hospice is not something that should be sold in this way.

Unfortunately, my money driven competition doesn't see it this way, and to stay alive I'm going to have to enter their game. Now, how do you hire a marketer when you really don't like marketers? That's my issue today. I've interviewed a marketer who has experience and, more importantly, contacts that my company could really use. She is qualified and wants the job. Yesterday, I cold called a friend who I have not talked to in a long time. She has the personality of a marketer but the heart of a saint. I'm taking her to lunch today to convince her that she should leave her current office management job and be my marketer. I have no doubt that the candidate who thinks she has the job would bring in more patients than my friend, but I know my friend will not ruin my reputation or her own while doing her job. Hospice isn't something that should be sold like a used-car, and I refuse to forget that.