The document provides guidance on developing a business strategy to compete effectively in the market. It discusses analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). It emphasizes focusing on customer needs, networking, asking for referrals, and differentiating your business by delivering valuable services. Overcoming threats involves turning challenges into opportunities, anticipating changes, and defining core capabilities to position the business competitively.

1. Defining Your Business Strategy in a Competitive Market How to outdo your competition

2. Why Develop A Strategic Plan Offers a framework methodology to develop and organize your ideas, your decisions, your time, your focus and your goals. Allows you to have a more detailed plan of execution. Acts as benchmark /performance monitor

3. SWOT What are my strengths Define my weaknesses What are my opportunities What are my threats

4. Strengths What are they? Do you have the ability to communicate clearly– Communication skills. Do you have the ability to negotiate? Can you put the customer at ease –People skills. Organized- Structured and Time management skills Analytical- Theoretical knowledge Poised and controlled no matter what your obstacle may be. Experienced How are they useful? How can this be used in building and refining the relationships with your clients? How does developing this strength allow you to relay beneficial, cost saving, value and information to your customers? How does this set you apart from your aggressive rather than assertive competitors? How can this strength be used as an asset to help run your business?

5. Using your skills to offer value to your current clients Skills that are used in your day to day life can also be valuable to your business approach. Get feedback from your client on how your doctor is performing. Make sure you are covering all your bases with the client. Ex: You might have a general surgeon, radiologist etc position that you fill on a regular basis could there be a need for another more specialized position at the same facility. What about a need or pending need at an affiliated facility. We want to be a full service resource to the client. Are there areas that you could improve on in your relationship with your client- Ask them. Implement those improvements. Do your follow up with your clients to let them know how valuable their business is to you? What methods could you implement to go above and beyond your regular day to day interaction? Maybe send them a personalized survey of what they liked or disliked about the service you offered. Send thank you card hand written. Check in on them even if they may not need your services for a while.

6. Using Skills to Obtain New Business For non existing clients- send marketing information with a personalized touch. They are bombarded with BCVs and Marketing material. How do you differentiate yourself. If they are using other companies for locums, find out if they are actually satisfied. Or are they merely sticking it out with a competitor simply because they don’t want to go thru the process of getting a new more qualified doctor. -- Offer them the ease of credentialing. – Offer them ways to make the process effortless on their part. Do your research on what type of doctors they are currently using and do your best to find them someone of higher quality.

7. TLC Approach What is TLC– Not the Tender Love and Care. Not the R&B Hip Hop Group. Its Thinking Like The Customer What are your customer’s concerns : Is it the continuity of patient care? Is it running an efficient and cost effective department. How can we contribute? How could our services positively influence their department, gaining the director or chief some good feedback from their upper level counterparts? --If you were on the other end of your phone conversation, what would be going thru your head? Is this client type A or type B personality and how can I change the tone of this conversation to reflect their style.

8. Use Strengths to Overcome your weakness Experience– What offsets this is gathering knowledge around you from those who do have the experience. Use your networking/people skills to learn from things others have already experienced. Technology knowledge- Utilize time management skills to arrange slots in your schedule to take a class on excel, powerpoint, outlook etc (this is one of my goals)  Negative attitude- Use your confidence, persistence and assertiveness to counter any negative feelings about the challenges or obstacles you could be facing.

9. Positive Attitude We hear this all the time. You must have a positive attitude to succeed and its so true! With a positive attitude you will mark all your work with excellence b/c you want to be the best. With a positive attitude, you will make note that the minor disappointments such as losing a bid, having a doctor canceled, delayed credentialing are all only temporary setbacks that you will overcome. With a positive attitude you will work with your peers to come up with a game plan of success. You will strategize on ways to beat pricing, find better doctors and work together more efficiently.

10. TEAM Marketers and Recruiters should approach their territory like a business and you are business partners. With this approach, this decreases the complaints about one another and increases solutions. Ask each other for feedback on what you’ve done that is working. What you can do to work better. There is always areas of improvement– Keep improving your relationship. Consistently communicate and closely follow up on major clients together. Do conference calls with your recruiters when making big decisions. Don’t leave every decision up to one person.

11. Opportunities Set Goals and Plan Accordingly : When the economy turns sour don't put yourself in a position of scrambling for business. Take a look at your target market to reevaluate how you've done business in the past and determine how your customers' needs have changed as a result of the economic climate. Once you have an understanding of these fundamentals, you can set realistic business goals and charge forward until they have been met. Invest in Training: In a down market, you will be competing against the best and the brightest. It's imperative to have cutting edge knowledge and experience to take the lead in the sales force. Play it smart and invest in ongoing training even though it may seem counterintuitive to be spending money during a bad economy. You'll find the return to be well worth the investment. Don't hesitate to inform your clients of any up to date information you may have learned. They will be impressed that you are taking the initiative. Networking Strategies: Networking can be a powerful tool for developing new business relationships. However, not every gathering has the potential for making quality contacts. Selectivity may be in your best interest when it comes to attending networking events. This will ensure that you have a target audience filled with potential customers. Remember that your ultimate goal for the event is to make contacts. Successful salespeople are assertive and are able to introduce themselves without being forceful. By the end of the event you should have a list of contacts. Whatever you do, don't make the ultimate mistake of forgetting to follow-up.

12. Opportunities Continued Don't Wait for Your Clients to Call You: Existing clients are your best resource. Customers are all too often lost because their salesperson never took the time to follow-up after the initial sale. Staying in close contact with them builds trust and long-term relationships. It's important to keep the client up-to- date on new products and marketing materials. However, it's also vital that you keep yourself current on the ever-changing needs of your clients. The doors to new sales and cross-selling opportunities will open by just listening. Ask for Referrals: A referral is commonly thought of as the highest form of compliment you can give a sales professional. However, customers rarely provide a referral without being asked. Most often, it's up to you to take the initiative to ask for additional contacts. All too frequently, sales professionals are afraid to ask, don't feel they have a good rapport with the client, or simply forget. The proper timing of asking for a referral can depend on the situation. Most often, it is appropriate to wait until you build a relationship with the client, although, it might be acceptable to ask if you know the client is excited about a recent purchase. Don't be discouraged if a referral doesn't have a need for your product or service. It is possible they will in the future or know someone who does.

13. Overcoming Threats Our main goal with threats is turning those challenges into opportunities. Position oneself to overcome the competition. Deliver the type of valuable service that our competition can’t beat. Anticipate change– In our industry it is easy to rely on that huge account that is our big money maker. We have to anticipate what might happen to that account and react before that change takes place Define your core capabilities: EX- Provide well trained physician services, dedicated recruitment efforts, in house credentialing process , knowledgeable individuals who are educated on the overall process and the industry, cost effective solutions to staffing issues.

14. Ask for the Business And Deliver