In a cut throat industry like the NDIS where margins are minimal, delivering value and unlocking excellence in your business is the key to losing a participant or having one for life that becomes a raving fan. So when margins are so tight how does one deliver value? Well, there are countless ways that you can bring value to your participants but the easiest and by far the cheapest most cost effective way is through providing excellence in all that you do. There is a phrase that was first uttered by the great philospher Aristotle “The whole is greater then the sum of its parts.” So what does that mean exactly? Your entire organisation must be fully behind your goals and vision for business or it will fail fast because everybody is running off in a thousand different directions all with their own agendas. Therefore to unlock excellence in your business you need to have everyone, from the cleaner to the CEO all onboard on the same page with the same vision.
How do you execute this I hear you ask? One way is time. Give of your time to invest in your carers and they in turn will care for your participants and live your values through excellence in all that they do because they believe in the vision and feel a sense of duty to the business and a sense of ownership in the vision. If you give of your time to your participants they then become raving fans who will bring you the participants you want to work with through word of mouth. Time is our most precious comodity in todays society and the more you are prepared to give it away the more it will be valued.
Giving of information is another way you and those in your business can deliver value to participants and other providers. Providing relevant and timely information to participants helps build know, like and trust. By providing participants with timely and relevent information it positions you as the expert in your field. which brings me to the next point in how to bring value to participants, expertise. Maybe you specialise in an area that a particular participant needs that another service providers doesnt. The fastest way to the bottom is to try to be all things to all men. Find what it is that your organisation stands for, what are your values, and stick to them. Work out what are your strengths in terms of service provision and focus on those. Let someone else deal with areas you are not strong in. Being all things to all men means that if you stand for nothing you will fall for everything and you will not be able to provide the quality service that participants are looking for, as a result eventually they will go else where and with over 20,000 providers in Australia, participants are not short on choice. What are you doing different to other providers to stand out and demonstrate excellence in your area of expertise? To help figure your strengths and the strengths of your team I recommend doing the Cliftons Strengths Finder which you can purchase at https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx
Connections are vital to the survival of any NDIS business. Providers need to realise they can not be all things to all men and instead of turning participants away providers need to have a network of other providers that they can refer participants to so that particiants needs are met and you can concerntrate on your wheelhouse. This is often referred to as referral partners. Having a good network of referal partners creates a win/win for everyone, but to do this effectively providers need to have a deep understanding of their core values and the value that you currently provide to participants. This is really marketing 101 because unless you know the value you provide and for who, you are really just throwing mud at a wall and hoping it sticks. To be successful you need to be tactful and implement marketing tactics that produce results otherwise you are wasting an already very tight budget with little margins in the NDIS pricing model. For ideas on referral partners contact Michael Griffith michaelgriffiths.com.au
Inspire participants and other providers by being a good listener. I know we have all heard it said ” you have 2 ears and 1 mouth, use them in that proportion” but we so often forget about this because we become so passionate about our little baby that we have invested so much time and energy into. You need to make your offer worthy of participants wanting to take the time and energy to know about it. Same goes for joint venture partners who, if they are a good fit, will also often invest alot of not only time and energy but money as well into promoting your business.
If you can nail this then that increases the loyalty of your participants who will bring in other participants and it costs alot more to aquire a new participant than it does to keep existing participants. You can increase loyalty with participants and staff by running regular teaching and training session, which may I add, is not only your legal obligation as a provider under the NDIS regulation, but it is just good business sense. Another way to add value to participants and providers is to showcase your expertise. By demonstrating your expertise at tradeshows, seminars or networking events, even inhouse with one on one demos, you build know, like and trust because people get to see first hand that you walk the talk.
For any of these tactics I have talked about in this blog to be effective then you must first know your participant and know what your point of difference is. What is it that you do differently to any other provider and why should a participant use you over another provider. The only way to demonstrate what you do differently is to be interested not interesting. So many times I see providers trying all sorts of smoke and mirror tactics to engage participants, making their business look so great from the outside but once inside they are just like any other provider providing the same service to same people in the same way they always have. It was Einstein who said “the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”. You need to learn to innovate to stay relevant to your target audience. By using smoke and mirror tactics you often only succeed in tarnishing your brand perception which does not create a positive experience. Number one rule in sales and marketing is to provide quality over price. People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. If your participants do not have a positive experience why would they refer you to others.
In summary play to your strengths, educate your participants and staff on all aspects of your business, then you are well on your way to creating a very successful and profitable NDIS business through unlocking excellence through delivering value. Also keep in mind that value is something that is percieved. In other words value is in the eye of the beholder, meaning value means different things to different people and you must be focused on the value of participants not your value.
If you are looking for cost effective ways to provide value and unlock excellence in your NDIS business then go to www.hasslefreemarketing.com.au for a range of marketing tactics for every budget and marketing outcome.
