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‘Tis the Season to Extend Your Outreach
Who hires you to be their advocate? Now – don’t worry – I’m not about to launch into paragraph upon paragraph about target audiences and motivation. No – I’m gonna make this one real easy. In this case, the answer is that it’s rarely one person who decides to hire you. No matter who your usual target audiences are – seniors, the elderly, adult children, parents…. the answer today is that families and loved ones come together to consider hiring an advocate for a loved one when they recognize that loved one is having challenges related to their health and medical care. Spouse discusses the idea with sick spouse. Adult son discusses the idea with sister to hire an advocate for parent. Brother considers hiring an advocate for brother – or sister for sister or another combination of siblings. Friend recommends an advocate to very sick friend. But here’s the important part: They only have this discussion if they know advocates exist to help out to begin with! So that’s the focus here – to let families know you are available. Now – at what time of year do families tend to spend more time together than any other time? Of course – the end-of-the-year holidays. Thanksgiving, Hannukkah (or, in 2013, Thanksgivakkah), Christmas, New Years…. This year, daughter will realize that elderly mom just can’t cook one more Thanksgiving dinner. Older mother will realize that daughter who lives across the country just can’t fly home each time Dad has another “episode.” Sister will discuss with sister-in-law her brother’s heart condition and their fear that he may have another heart attack. One of our marketing best practices is that “timing is everything.” So how can you leverage the knowledge that so many families will spend time together over the next six weeks to put yourself and your capabilities to help them in front of as many families as possible? A simple, inexpensive, proactive marketing task: Make a list of things you can do in general that families will take interest in (counsel on advance directives, oversee safety by sitting by a…