Hi,

An effective care manager trains him/herself to be one step ahead of today – thinking about tomorrow and beyond, because put quite simply, there is a serious and realistic risk of your business dying fast if you don’t!

It involves ‘assessing’, ‘visualising’, ‘planning’, ‘projecting’, ‘doing’, ‘re-evaluating’ – all simple words easily summed up by a short phrase ‘taking planned action’.

It involves sometimes pretending to be one of your clients, and seeing your business through their eyes instead of your own – how ‘attractive’ is your current business to them, and how might they like to see it improve? What can you do to make a difference that will also attract potential new clients? If you have difficulty doing this, why don’t you just ask them – frequently! Your clients are your best source of evaluation, so you really should listen to them – after all, they are currently living the result of your management!

But to most of us, being an effective care manager doesn’t always come naturally! I wonder how many of you can identify with the following condition:

I recently received an email from a concerned relative of mine and it began like this:

“Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. – Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests itself:

I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I head towards the garage, I notice post on the porch table that I picked up from the postman earlier.

I decide to go through it before I wash the car.

I put my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the recycling box under the table, and notice that the recycling box is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the recycling first.

But then I think, since I’m going to be near the postbox when I take out the recycling paper anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my cheque book off the table and notice that there is only one cheque left.

My extra cheques are in the desk in my study, so I go into the house to my desk where
I find the cup of coffee I’d been drinking.

I’m going to look for my cheques but first I need to push the coffee aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over.

The coffee is getting cold, and I decide to make another cup.

As I head toward the kitchen with the cold coffee, a vase of flowers on the worktop catches my eye – the flowers need water.

I put the coffee on the worktop and discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.

I put the glasses back down on the worktop, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote control. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realise that tonight when we go to watch TV, I’ll be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I put the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn’t washed

The bills aren’t paid

There is a cold cup of coffee sitting on the kitchen work-surface

The flowers don’t have enough water,

There is still only 1 cheque in my cheque book,

I can’t find the remote,

I can’t find my glasses,

And I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all bloody day and I’m really tired!

I realise this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my e-mail…..”


Don’t laugh – if this isn’t you yet, your day is coming!!

OK, I did laugh and of course it was just one of those joke emails, but I laughed because I can identify with plenty of days like that, and I’m not that old yet (really!), and I’ll end up going to bed thinking – “what the hell did I achieve today?”

Or more importantly:

“What did I do to grow my business today?”

Sadly, too many of us have regular days like this because we are far too busy looking after regular or scheduled activities – or to use more current phrasing – “working too much in our business and not enough time allocated to working on our business.  We are too ‘busy’ just getting through the day and guess what – tomorrow and the next day will be the same! Be honest – what have you done extra today that will likely make a difference to your business in 3 months time?

So today’s care manager tips are:

Don’t get stuck in ‘regular daily tasks’ – plan some new productive ones based on others’ ideas, as well as your own. Keep ideas fresh and interesting – the welfare and genuine happiness of your clients is also your best business advertisement.

Best regards,

Simon

Classic Homes Marketing 2010