Tel-E Sales Tip of the Week
February 20, 2009

Greetings,

I've written and spoken millions of words to readers
and my audiences over the past 26 years. Perhaps
none as personal, or potentially important to some
people as today's.

This won't be about sales, specifically, but it will
involve using much of what we do in sales, and it
applies to anyone, in sales or not.

My mother, Rita Sobczak, 84, passed away
unexpectedly Monday. Her health took an amazingly
rapid decline over the past eight weeks. She went
from a person who acted, looked, and felt like
someone in their low 60's to almost unable to
care for herself. Up until two months ago she
still volunteered regularly at a retirement community,
and worked part-time in my office. For years she
has inserted and mailed the monthly newsletter
many of you have received. I have a photo of
her at my Telesales Blog
http://www.telesalesblog.com

As the only child of my only remaining parent,
when her health took a sudden dip, I of course
became involved in her health care dealings. Or,
I should say, the lack and mismanagement of.

I fortunately never had the necessity in the past
to immerse myself in ongoing, fairly complex
medical situations. When I did over the past few
months, I was shocked, saddened, and angered
by what was happening. I formerly looked at
healthcare kind of like something else I knew little
about and am slightly intimidated by: taking a car
to a mechanic. I just assumed that you went in
with a problem, and they fixed it. I was wrong.

As I became more involved, I saw a gross lack
of communication between doctors, and also,
almost unbelievably, amongst staff in the same
office and on the same hospital floor. I saw
mistakes that could and should be prevented.
We experienced at times, cold, insensitive staff;
I've seen better service from the teenager clerk
at the convenience store.

Overall, I saw a system that, although is a business,
is certainly not run like one. I guess perhaps you
don't need to when you can charge what you want,
run people through like cattle, and not have
accountability. Thinking about it, I can't even really
call it a "system," since that would require entities
all working together.

And, arguably, we experienced negligence. In
fact, a close friend and ex-CEO of a major health
organization told me I might have grounds for
potential legal action, as did an attorney that
specializes in such things. However, I decided
not to pursue that, since money is not what I'm
after, any proceedings would be drawn out and
exhausting, and it certainly would not bring my
mother back.

Instead, I decided to use my unique forum to
communicate with you, my over 56,000 subscribers,
and hopefully hundreds of thousands of others. What
I have to say might just prevent for you some of the
things we went through. Some of you may already
be aware of what I'm going to say, but for others, well,
you might be as surprised as I was.

Here goes:

-First, I can't stress this enough: TAKE CONTROL
OF YOUR OWN HEALTHCARE. Or, do it for those
you have responsibility for, especially the elderly.
Do not believe that when you enter the "system"
you will be placed on a conveyor belt with no worries
on your part, reactively coming out all fixed on the
other end. Oh, you'll be on the conveyor belt alright--
often a broken and inefficient one.

-Be sure to do your "pre-call planning" before every
visit or call. Question everyone. Demand clear
answers. As I've discussed with sales situations,
do not accept "fuzzy phrases" such as "we'll go
from there," "we'll take a look at that at some point,"
"there might be some other things we'll probably
need to look at," and other obtuse language. Do
not be afraid to say, "What does that mean, exactly?"
There are dumb questions in sales. There are NO
dumb questions when a life is involved. Be a
pain-in-the-ass. I was at times, because that's
what was required to get action.

-When multiple doctors, clinics, and testing
facilities are involved, ask WHO is responsible
for communicating the information to each other,
WHEN it will be communicated, and WHAT will
happen to it. This is one area that especially
astounded me with the lack of communication
between entities. Upon release from a hospital
stay, one doctor ordered an outpatient procedure
be done within a couple of days. Well, those
instructions never left the paper it was written on
until I uncovered it almost a week later. Overall,
I was shocked that there was not a "point person"
to take control and coordinate things. I mean, for
gosh sakes, most businesses have account
managers who are responsible for every detail of
a particular customer. Why does healthcare not
have this for patients? Or, should that be the primary-
care physician's job? Just wondering.

-Just like in sales, always demand to know the
"next step." After a procedure, visit, test, or
whatever, ask WHAT will happen next, and
WHEN. If it seems like too long in the future,
ask WHY. You must convey a sense of urgency
since they always won't. My mother could have
attested to that--if she had the chance. I finally
received a call back from a doctor's office after
I had called twice asking about the lab results
from a procedure performed one WEEK earlier.
The call came minutes after the paramedics
pronounced her dead. And something was
found in those results. A bit late.

-If you do not like the answers or treatment
received, get another opinion. Find another
doctor. You are the customer.

According to Janet Lynn Mitchell, author of
"How to Manage Your Health Care, "Medical
mistakes kill between 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized
Americans each year. Thousands more are injured
causing permanent disabilities, many not even
knowing their doctors are at fault." Scary stuff.

Finally, this is not meant to be an indictment of
every health care professional and organization.
After all, we are dealing with humans performing
jobs. I have to think most of them got into their
profession because they care about helping people.

I've always said that nursing (along with teaching) is
one of my most admired and respected professions
in the world. And there were some wonderful, brilliant,
caring, on-top-of-it people we ran into along the way,
and my thanks go out to those individuals.

But what I now know, and will be an advocate for
is that your healthcare, or that of someone close to
you, is not something that anyone else will care
about as much as you. To maximize your chance
for success, treat it like you would any other area
of life in regards to getting the result you want: do
not rely on others to do it for you. Take responsibility,
and take action.

Best wishes,

Art