Marketing for the millenium: in search of professionals

Nursing Homes, April, 1999 by George E. Molloy

A Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management Series

As the long-term care industry approaches the millennium, it faces many challenges, not the least of which is reimbursement. Although the Medicaid rate has not been cut or frozen in recent years to the extent it has been in the past, it still remains a source of worry. It provides the lowest payment for the majority of in-house residents. What will happen when and if the economy goes into a tailspin is anybody's guess - but this much is certain: the inadequate Medicaid rate is always subject to political and legislative game-playing.

Meanwhile, the specter of Medicare's PPS casts a shadow over the bottom line of every facility - proprietary or nonprofit. Its full effect will not be known for a year or two. Managed care and HMOs have not turned out to be the bonanzas nursing facilities thought they would be. As a matter of fact, insurance companies, citing rising costs and reduced Medicare and Medicaid payments, have pulled out of many markets altogether, leaving almost 700,000 seniors without coverage. All of these factors play havoc with a facility's revenue stream, not even considering what happens due to vacancies and census problems.

Because "marketing smarter" is becoming ever more critical in this environment, long-time marketing guru George E. Molloy was asked to prepare an exclusive series for Nursing Homes/Long Term Care Management on the realities of effective marketing. Molloy has been active in the industry for over three decades, from managing a 120bed extended care facility in 1966, to a 570-bed facility in the early 1980s. He founded his own marketing consulting company, M & M Associates, in 1983, and has since written three books on long-term care marketing: Marketing Success (1991), Selling Success (1993) and Smart Marketing (1998). His colorful, no-nonsense style of communicating is well known.

In this first installment, Molloy addresses the basic question confronted by any marketing department: Who should do it? The answers aren't what they used to be....

Many individual nursing facilities and chains began this decade with high hopes and lofty dreams of market success. Unfortunately, today those hopes and dreams are gone. Those facilities will not be around when the new decade begins because they went out of business. Why? Because they ran out of revenue. Their marketing was not good enough, strong enough or professional enough.

Marketing success in the next millennium will depend upon two factors: more marketing professionalism and better marketing teamwork. Almost every facility in the country has someone on staff with the responsibility for marketing. Many facilities even have someone on the payroll with the actual title of Marketing Director. Nevertheless, I still believe the industry needs more marketing professionalism.

What is a "professional"? My dictionary defines professional as:

Someone who possesses specialized knowledge about a particular subject or field of endeavor after long and intensive preparation including instruction in skills and methods of doing as well as knowledge in the scientific, historical, and scholarly principles underlying such skills and methods and who is personally committed to continued study in that subject or field.

When you analyze that definition, you find that a professional has five characteristics:

1. Possesses specialized knowledge about a subject or field of work.

2. Has undergone long and intensive preparation.

3. Preparation has included instruction in skills necessary for the work and methods of doing the work.

4. Has knowledge of the scientific, historical and scholarly principles underlying those skills and methods.

5. Is personally committed to continued study in that field.

With that definition in mind, do you think we have enough professionals carrying out the marketing and sales functions in our facilities? I don't.

As we enter the new decade, I believe the industry must take a long, hard look at the qualifications of those performing the marketing function. When an administrator hires someone outside the facility and even outside the industry for a marketing position, that candidate should have bona fide marketing expertise. Industry leaders should remember the words of warning from Kolter and Clark in their book Marketing for Healthcare Organizations: "Hiring someone for a marketing position without qualifications has serious consequences. Simply handing someone the responsibility does not mean the function will be carried out successfully."

There is a two-step process in hiring someone from outside the facility for a marketing position:

One: Hire carefully.

Building a business is like casting a Broadway show. Do it right or you will have a flop. A successful play begins with selecting the right cast; a successful business depends on selecting the right people. With so much at stake, never rush the casting in show business. Never rush the hiring in any business.

Two: Provide direction.

Tell the cast what you are looking for. Tell them their roles so they can play their parts. Don't start hiring people in a vacuum or plunge into the selection process before you know what you want. Then make sure your employees know what you expect from them.