Motor sales executives
Source clients via a dedicated support team who deal with friends and family of patients. The support team also use a spotter network that will help them find clients for the sales executives.
Client relationship managers
The Homecare Foundation will employ 10 client relationship managers after December 2017. Most of our current employees will take up these positions. The team is for now busy with network support. (Getting the businesses ready before we launch media, scheduled for December 2017)
The 10 client relationship managers will consist of all racial classifications, and more importantly, we need Afrikaans and English personnel. We will also employ Xhosa, Zulu and other African Language managers.
These people will work with sensitive information and we will work with families of patients where we provide vital services. We cannot allow that an Afrikaans speaking family be contacted by for example a Xhosa speaking person, even if the person wants to speak English to the family. To understand this statement, we recommend that you read about our important services on this link: Important services provided to caretakers
The Homecare Foundation will primarily work with families and friends that are medium to high LSM income people.
Our media campaigns are all focussed in that income bracket. We will use different media support strategies to help the Client relationship managers find business for financial advisors. The client relationship managers will actually source information for motor sales executives, estate agents and financial advisors.
It is important to understand that the Homecare Foundation will only ask commission when the client relationship managers were involved in arranging vehicle transactions.
The Homecare support team will be backed with the following media structures:
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Enjoy Life phone app
The Enjoy Life phone app will support the team when app users have not read about a specific sales executive in our media support plan for sales executives. There is a function where app users can contact the support team and ask that the team arrange a quotation for them. You will later read that the sales executives are advertised with photos as “Ambassadors”. The contact details are published and we foresee that most people will contact the sales executives directly.
The Enjoy Life app will also be advertised on radio. The Enjoy life app is has already been explained in detail under the first focus point.
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Social media campaigns
There are lots of discussions between family members and friends in social media when a person became ill. The Foundation will be active in Social media and this will help the team source business. Read more….
Media is only one part of their support plan. The best strategy is for the team to manage a spotter network which will ensure quality leads.
Largest spotter network to help a small team
The client relationship managers will work 5 days per week and their only job is to grow the spotter network and source clients. It is possible to eventually work with 10 000 spotters per month, which will make this the largest network that help a small sales team.
The Foundation will succeed, purely because we source leads to support a great cause. If we sourced leads for any other reason than to help bedridden patients, it might have been difficult to help sales executives.
It is usually difficult for sales executives to manage even a small spotter network for themselves. The question is “Why will a person recommend or go out of his/her way to help find leads for a sales executive?”
One answer might be that the person has become friends with the sales executive… The other might be that the sales executive offered a referral commission agreement, which in most cases does not work effectively. The reality is that a person (spotter) is only effective for a short period (2 to 3 months). The reason for this is that the spotter only has a limited number of friends and family who he/she can influence to support the sales executive.
A successful lead is actually a “recommendation”. A person needs to recommend the sales executive to a third party if there is any chance to success. There must be a “trust relationship” between the spotter and the client the spotter refers to the sales executive. Without such a relationship, the lead can be viewed as cold canvasing.
Here the motive of the person sourcing leads should be taken into consideration. If a spotter source leads for money (referral commission) it will almost always end up in a disaster. The spotter will often try to sell the sales executive to people with whom he himself do not have a relationship. There is therefore no “trust relationship” and the sales executive will find it difficult to do business.
What it comes down to is that the “spotter” with the referral contract will soon (within months) worked through his friend network and will eventually stop to source leads.
The best chance for a sales executive is to rely on leads from people that became personal friends. But it is difficult to become personal friends with all your clients.
The Homecare board understand how recommendations work and we know for how long period a spotter will be effective. There are also other aspects that we take into consideration in our strategy to become the sales executive’s best support structure to help him/her build a lucrative business.
How the Homecare team will manage the spotter network
We will rather commit to a sales executive that the Homecare team will forward a small number of clients, but it will be effective information. It will not help anybody (not the patients, the Homecare team, the sales executives or the clients) if we forward information that waste an sales executive’s valuable time!
We will be satisfied if the team forward 2 clients per month, and all 2 clients were converted into business. It will be devastating if the team forward 15 leads and 80% of these people did not buy vehicles. You cannot buy back time that were wasted on providing quotations.
Our management team focus on the following points to provide effective lead support:
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We need to choose the correct “spotters” (People that will recommend the sales executives for the right reasons).
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We need to break down all the barriers that limits a spotter’s ability to provide leads.
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We need to implement communication structures that will entice people to keep on looking for leads.
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We need to manage spotters for short time periods. We know that a person can only influence a small group of friends for a short period.
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We need to distribute leads in such a manner that sales executives will have a better closing ratio on quotations.
We will now explain the 5 focus points in detail so that sales executives can understand why it took the Homecare Foundation 4 years to prepare for this project, and why we manage the entire process so that we will only start with our full-time lead sourcing support structure by December 2017. During Phase 1, we will forward leads but not the way it can be done. We will become the sales executive’s best career building partner if we manage our support spotter network well.
1) Obtaining spotters who will help for the correct reason
Our entire strategy is to involve people who are willing to help find leads, without them receiving any financial contributions for such information. We will notify our spotter network that the sales executives provide much more services than just selling vehicles to clients we refer. The sales executives are part of our cornerstone on whom we build our fundraising drive. They are together with the financial advisors and estate agents, our “Ambassadors”. They will be informed that the Foundation earns commission on vehicle transactions and these fees help us to fund the infrastructure needed to support patients and we pay out funds to patients to help them with their personal costs.
Remember that the Foundation will support bedridden patients with all kinds of diseases. (Alzheimer, Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis and numerous serious diseases) Our objective is to share the funds raised amongst all the patients. There are people for whom money (commission on referrals) is not gratification. They thrive when they help others in need. Just think how they will get involved if they know their actions help the most vulnerable people.
Our focus is to build up a spotter network that will in three years consist of approximately 10 000 people. The network will constantly change due to the limited time periods that a spotter will be effective. It is a mammoth task but it is possible when we manage the process according to our business plan.
We manage 3 network building strategies:
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Involve family and friends of bedridden patients to become spotters
The Homecare team will within 3 years support approximately 6 000 bedridden patients. It is sad, but the reality is that a large percentage of these people will only receive support for short periods (4 to 6 months). Remember that we will fund bedridden patients who are under frail care. It is people who will soon pass on and we help family members who are under financial constraints.
At this point, it is important to understand that the Foundation will predominately deal with middle and upper class income people. We will only support a small percentage of lower income people.
People are often caught in difficult financial positions by diseases such as cancer and motor neuron diseases. It often happens that one brother or sister needs to resign from work to provide frail care support for a short period (4 to 6 months) or in some cases with motor neuron, it may be between 2 years and 8 years. There are people who cannot receive Government’s support, because their income brackets are above Government’s policies.
Government also support long-term social grants and the caretakers the Foundation needs to support will often need support for a short period.
We know about numerous families who become under financial constrains because they couldn’t sell their properties in time, or they thought that the caretaking process would have been for a shorter period. We explain on the Important Service page that well-educated people become in financial need, even it is only for a short period.
Our management team understand that we need to focus on medium to high LSM income people if we want to ensure success for the Foundation. The Foundation can only earn income for patients if we deal with people who can afford to buy vehicles, properties and also insurance.
Our focus is to the benefit of the sales executives. We will not arrange quotations for people who cannot afford vehicles.
We foresee that the Foundation will monthly replace approximately 500 patients who will receive financial support. (people passed on and new applications has been approved)
The Foundation will work with all the applicants’ brothers and sisters. There is a separate team that will work on average with 2 000 people where we talk to them about the Foundation’s support towards the patients, and we talk about the importance of looking at income protection and disability cover.
We expect that 400 new patients will be people who’s family members are middle to high income earners. These family members (between 800 and 1200 people) will be asked to download the “Enjoy Life app” and we will work closely with them to look at income protection and disability cover.
We will also ask them to become spotters for a short period, to help find leads that can earn income so that the Foundation can support patients (theirs included).
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Use the Enjoy Life app to find spotters
The app will be used by middle to high income persons. People that can support restaurants and that have income to pay for hobby and sport interests.
This is to the benefit of sales executives and other sales teams who are our “Ambassadors”.
We will use social media and other networks (fast food, restaurant etc.) to invite up to 500 000 people to become app users. We honestly believe that the Enjoy Life app will eventually be used by more than 2 million people per month. You already read about our action plan to provide free marketing support to the entire restaurant, fast food and tourism industries. The fast food industry on its own, deal with millions of South Africans.
For discussion purposes, we explain our target of 500 000 app users. We know that most likely 95,5% of the app users will use their apps to help fund patients via the coffee campaign structure. They will not get involved to help sales teams.
We believe that at least 0,5% of the app users (2 500 persons) will systematically become active spotters. There are a lot of people who are compassionate by nature. If you consider how many religious people live in our country. How many people work in careers where they help people for example nurses etc… All these people will download the Enjoy Life app to receive exceptional deals. The app will secure additional spotters. Our intention is not to just approach users of the app and ask for support. We use the app to monitor how many people do forward leads out of their own. When a person (user) forwarded the third lead, we will contact that user and ask them to become an active spotter.
The Foundation will eventually work with, and reward + 2 500 app users with additional coffee vouchers etc. We will have a strong relationship with these people. They will not be limited to help source vehicle leads alone. The estate agents, motor sales executives and financial advisors in partnership will all increase business. The Foundation will use a large spotters network (middle to high LSM Income people) to source leads that will secure donation income for patients.
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Work with networks of sales teams to build a larger spotter network
The Homecare support team will build up personal relationships with the financial advisors, estate agents and motor sales executives for whom they source leads.
Each estate agent, motor sales executive and financial advisor do have their own smaller support networks (family and friends)
To help the estate agent better, the Homecare client relationship manager will contact his/her family and friends individually and explain to them just how important the estate agent is to help the Foundation in its drive to support bedridden patients.
The personal contact will help the estate agent. Family and friends will realize that the agent is doing more to help people in the community and do not only work to enrich him/herself.
We predict to support 1 000 estate agents and 300 financial advisors before December 2017. The Foundation will work with about 3 000 immediate contacts of these sales people and they will help us with all kind of leads, to help their own family members.
It will benefit the sales executives when we work through the other industry partners’ contact lists. We will pick up motor leads.
2) Breaking down lead barriers
Breaking down lead barriers will benefit all the sales teams we work with. The fact that a person can help source information that will help bedridden patients and that these information is not limited to a small geographical area, or only one need, will eventually create such momentum that our sales executive partners will receive much more leads.
We need to explain how people “spotters” think and why they support in general for short periods.
When a person (spotter) wants to recommend a sales executive to a friend or family member, they want to be sure that the person referred will receive exceptional service. In their minds, they think that it is important for the sales executive to be able to meet with the family member/friend in person.
This limits the spotter’s support base. He/she cannot or do not think to refer the brother living in Cape town when the spotter and the sales executive are both Pretoria based.
The Homecare team will break all the barriers when we work with spotters. The first thing is that the spotter will know that the Homecare team work with dedicated sales teams (including sales executives) nationally. We can assist the brother in Cape town by arranging that a sales executive from Cape town contact the brother.
The fact that we source leads for three industries also break down barriers. A person does not often hear about an insurance need. They might hear about a vehicle need first and they become active spotters due to our well-planned communication structure.
3) Communication and feedback
We implement communication systems. It is important for the Foundation to notify any person who forwarded a vehicle lead about the results of such a lead. We will notify the person if the sales executive were able to sell to a client or not. Most importantly, we will send a mail to the person who referred and thank him/her when the Foundation received a donation from the sales executive after a successful transaction.
The following explain:
A person might hear about a vehicle lead before an insurance lead. The spotter will notify the Foundation about such a lead.
As mentioned, the Foundation will focus on communication. The dedicated call centre agent will first mail the spotter to thank him/her for forwarding the information. We will update the spotter on information such as if the motor sales executive could contact the potential client, and if the client agreed to a quotation.
We will update the spotter on if the quotation were accepted. (We will not disclose personal information such as how much the vehicle was quoted for, just that the sales executive could forward a quotation)
We will update the spotter if the client bought his/her vehicle and we will notify the spotter when the Foundation received the donation income from the motor dealer. We will thank the spotter for the information that helped secure funding for patients. We will update the spotter on where these funds will be utilized.
The Homecare Foundation developed a reporting system and an instruction system of where funds needs to be distributed. The motor sales executive might request that the Foundation distribute the commission amongst Cancer patients in Durbanville area.
It is however the donator’s right to request if his/her donation must be utilized to help a specific group, or patients in a specific area.
The Homecare call centre agent will for example e-mail the spotter that the Foundation received R1 500 from Barloworld Toyota Tygervalley and that Christi Roux (motor sales executive) requested that the funds must be shared amongst Cancer patients in Durbanville area. Thank you for helping the 6 patients in our database. Herewith a link to our distribution report.
It is this detailed communication that will result in enormous success for the sales teams we support. People will become more active in sourcing new information if they see that the team is working on the information and that results are communicated.
4) Manage spotters for short periods
Our best policy would be to manage communication effectively, and not to bother a person for too long period.
We know that spotters are effective for up to two months, before their circle of influence has been exhausted.
We will use 10 Client relationship managers who are each tasked to source 100 new spotters per month. They will use the 3 focus points to find new spotters as explained under point 1.
This will result in a growth of 1 000 new spotters per month. We will eventually work with 10 000 spotters. The reality is that 2 000 (the last two month’s recruits) will be highly effective, because we approach with their help their circle of friends.
We will manage the communication in blocks.
Block A is communication to the 2 000-active people.
Block B will be communication to spotters that are on the database for up to 4 months. This is people that we will contact once a month via e-mail, just to keep communication open. Communication will be where we send a monthly report on our fundraising stats.
Block C would be to all the registered spotters in our database. Communication will be every three months to update them on our progress and how many patients were helped.
People might in six months’ time meet new friends or colleagues at work and they can perhaps still support the Homecare team.
5) Distribute leads on a well-planned structure
A lot of energy will go into finding a lead… It is therefore important to ensure that the lead is turned into commission earnings for the patients.
Here we manage a process where our client relationship managers will pass on a lead to a motor sales exec, estate agent or financial advisor based on the age gabs between clients and sales person, and we also consider language preferences.
We will know the estimated age of the client we want to refer. We also know language preference.
For estate agents, we will select an agent working in the specific area of interest, and we will choose the agent with the same language preference and thereafter the agent closest to the client’s age category.
For motor sales execs, we will select the nearest sales exec that sell the vehicle brand the client is interested in, and we will choose the sales exec with the same language preference and thereafter the sales exec closest to the client’s age category.
For financial advisors, we will select the nearest financial advisor to the client’s work address, or the nearest financial advisor to the client’s home address, depending on when the client preferred to be seen. We will also choose the financial advisor with the same language preference and thereafter the financial advisor closest to the client’s age category.
The reason for all these planning is to ensure success. Selling is about winning Trust. It is just easier for a client to instinctively trust a person with whom the client can relate to.
This structure will also benefit the sales teams in the long run. It is better to have a client base with whom you can become friends for future referrals.
Conclusion
You will now have a better idea of why we only implement our FULL lead sourcing strategy after the network has been completed. We want to engage the public without any lead barriers.
There is one thing that the Foundation can commit to sales teams… This project to help the Foundation is a "once in a lifetime" opportunity offered to a small number of sales people. There will most likely never be a project where so much planning and energy goes into providing business leads to help sales people.
The Foundation do this for a noble reason… We do this to help people in serious need. Fortunately for sales people, the Foundation needs to provide quality leads if we want to earn donation income for patients.
You will within a few months be backed with a dedicated team, whose sole purpose is to help find clients that you will be recommended to. Our support strategy will ensure a higher closing ratio on quotations. You will be able to focus on what is important, to provide exceptional service to vehicle buyers and to donate funds to people in need.