If you’re like most home care agencies, you have a website with an “About Us” section or page that you hope influences potential customers by telling your story. But have you ever stopped and wondered what information you should actually have on that page?
What is it that visitors to your home care agency’s website are looking for? There’s probably a list that includes things like:
- Services your agency provides
- Billing and payment details
- Basic information about what to expect for someone’s who’s never needed a home care provider before
- Whether the agency accepts Medicaid, Veterans Administration, or Long term care insurance.
Those are all excellent and necessary pieces of information that should be included on your site.
However, your competition is going to have the same basic information and the same type of heartwarming photos on their website that your agency does. So the question becomes, how do you set your agency apart?
Not only that, but in a world of caregiver shortages, how do you get more caregivers to want to work with your agency rather than the one down the street? The answer is: by telling your story.
The Need for Telling Your Story
When I attended the HCAOA conference in the fall, one of the keynote speakers talked about the importance of telling your story.
Her name was Kindra Hall, and her book is simply titled, Stories That Stick. Before I dive too deep into this blog, I want to encourage you to grab a copy and read it for yourself.
Now, let’s go back to that “About Us” page on your website. If you’re like 95% of the other companies out there that have a site with such a page, it’s very likely that it features a short history of your company.
It might include some key dates and the owner’s name with a photo or two and possibly a bullet point list.
FYI – that is not a story. That information is not compelling, and I will not stop to read it. At most, I might casually skim it, but I won’t retain much because it’s not providing meaningful information.
Your home care agency has a story. Stories have characters. Characters have emotions. We relate to characters in well-written books because they have been crafted in such a way that we connect with them.
We cheer them on as they overcome challenges. We get angry when the villain seems to be winning. At the end of the book, we want there to be something that elicits strong emotions from within us that connects our humanity to the fictional characters about whom we’re reading.
Don’t believe me? Did you watch the Superbowl this past Sunday? Which of those ads stuck with you, made you laugh, or maybe even made you a little teary?
Now ask yourself, “Why?”
You’ve probably just landed on the answer: because that ad told a story.
Rosemark’s Story
Have you ever wondered how Rosemark came into existence? Well, let me tell you our story.
Two of our original owners, Bill and Tom, were serial entrepreneurs in the 1980s and 90s. They worked on many different projects over the years, including one that resulted in building a resource management system for a major regional hospital.
Around that same time, Bill and Tom’s close friend, Lynn, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Lynn was a warm, very life-affirming, welcoming sort of person. She loved middle eastern dancing. Even though she was Jewish, she absolutely loved Arabic music. She really enjoyed belly dancing to Moroccan music in particular.
During her dance performances, Lynn would use her Hebrew name, Shoshana, as her stage name. Shoshana means “rose” in English.
Towards the end of her life, family and friends were called in to assist Lynn with various needs. It was during Lynn’s battle with MS that Bill and Tom were first introduced to the home care community.
As Lynn’s health began to decline, Bill and Tom decided to honor her by changing the company’s name to Shoshana Technologies so her legacy would live on. Unfortunately, Lynn lost her battle to Muscular Sclerosis in 1990.
After her passing, Bill and Tom decided they wanted to dedicate their energy and resources toward creating a tool that would bring value to the world. They took their personal knowledge of home care, looked at how technology was evolving, and became one of the first companies to create an internet-based software system for home care.
As part of this transformation, Shoshana Technologies remained the parent company, but the owners decided to name their new home care software something a little easier to remember that still kept the integrity of the brand and Lynn’s legacy intact. Thus, Rosemark was born.
If you ask Tom how the Rosemark System was created, he will candidly tell you he never dreamed he’d build a home care software system. He was a carpenter-turned-techy whose goal in life was to take care of and provide for his family, to act with integrity, and to accept the gifts and opportunities that came his way.
When I asked him about it, he told me this:
“The truth is, I did not set out to build this thing. We kind of fell into it the same way we fell into taking care of the people around us. Lynn had all that heartache and difficulty, so we stepped in to do as much as we could in whatever ways we could, and that exposed us to home care because none of us even knew it was a thing before that.
Through our work, even if we aren’t directly helping someone get out of bed and get dressed, we are helping that happen by providing the tools people need to be able to manage it.”
Tom started out with Shoshana Technologies building robots and entertainment software. He had no idea that the forks in the road would lead him to where he is today. But when he talks about it, he’s very proud that the software he’s putting out into the world is making it a better place.
Make Your Agency Stand Out by Telling Your Story
Now you know our story. Did it sound like a history lesson or were you invested in it? It’s a true story, not fiction. It shows that our software came into being out of necessity but also due to a real-life person who needed home care.
What story does your agency tell? While some agency owners absolutely got into this business because they knew it was a growing industry, many of them fell into it because they were influenced by the care first.
Whether it was a friend or relative who needed home care services, a parent who wanted to stay home rather than go to a rehabilitation center, or some other reason, your agency was started for a reason.
Tell people what that reason is. Tell them why you were called to care. Tell them in a powerful and compelling way.
Connect with Caregivers
The truth is, we as human beings are more open to listening to a story than we are to a sales pitch. We also want people to tell us the truth, and we tend to be pulled towards people who have the same values and find the same things important that we do.
When a potential caregiver reads your story, you want them to say, “That’s the company I want to work for because it resonates with me.”
You want them to have several takeaways from your story including:
- Your agency actually cares about people, not just the bottom line
- What it means to a business for the betterment of the community
- They’ll make the connection that your agency isn’t in business to make the most profit at the expense of your clients or your staff
That’s a company they’ll want to work for. More than that, it’s an agency they will be proud to work for, and they will more likely work harder because you’ve created that connection by telling your story.
We hope the story of Rosemark piques your interest. If you want to learn more about our home care software, we’d love to chat with you. Simply fill out the form below or give us a call to see if we’re a good fit for your agency. We welcome the chance to tell you more about what makes us different from all the other caregiver management software systems on the market. After more than 30 years in the technology space, we truly believe that software should be simple, secure, reliable, and customizable. You’ll find that and more with Rosemark.