Getting the Word Out About Your EAP – Part I

By Shelley Plemons, President/CEO Strategic Sales Solutions

Getting noticed and separating your company from the rest of the pack is a common problem for employee assistance programs. EAPs that succeed have a sharp focus on their customers, and leverage all of the many channels available to attract business. You can create a marketing plan by following some critical steps – several of which I will describe in this article. The other steps will appear in the second part of this article.

* Create a target market analysis. A target market analysis helps you determine which industries and markets for which you are best suited. You’ll want to create an ideal customer profile, which is essentially the minimum requirement your customers must meet in order to benefit from your product. An example profile for your EAP might be health care companies that have a minimum of 3,000 employees and $1 million in revenue.

* Build a distribution list. Once you’ve determined your ideal bustomers, build a databse that includes all the pertinent contact information for your potential clients. Maintain it and update it frequently.

* Develop a marketing campaign. The most effective marketing campaigns plan a year in advance on how to best reach target audiences using several different methods multiple times.

Summary – Marketing isn’t an exact science. What works for one company may not work for another, but planning ahead and tracking your methodology will help you get ahead of the competition. Avoid making marketing decisions based on desperation or emotion by developing a program based on your customers’ needs and a long-term plan.

Shelly Plemons has more than 25 years’ experience in the behavioral health industry. During that time she worked for several success companies such as Charter Medical, MHN and Life Care. She founded Strategic Sales Solutions in 2003, and assists clients with strategy and training. Her website can be found at www.strategicsalessolutions.com   Author’s note: This article will appear in its entirety in the November 2011 issue of Employee Assistance Report. To find out more, go to the “EARN” link at www.impact-publications.com.

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Time Management Secrets!

Note: Whether you are an employee assistance professional, supported employment professional – or anyone else – chances are there aren’t enough hours in the day in today’s fast-paced society!  The following suggestions by a noted time management guru are designed to help:

By Dr. Donald E. Wetmore

 I have spent most of the last twenty years researching, studying, writing and speaking about Time Management and Personal Productivity. One important lesson I learned is that there are some simple, yet powerful Time Management Secrets. Knowing these will go a long way to helping you to better manage your time each and every day and get more done in less time and with less stress.

* Having a lot to do isn’t all bad. Almost everyone I speak with tells me they have more to do than time permits. This says a lot of good things about you. People who seldom have enough to keep them busy and are always looking for things to do may not have earned this level of confidence from others.

* There is never enough time for everything. If you have too much to do, by definition, you will not have enough time for everything. Your life is going to be like a sandy beach. Take one grain of sand and let that represent all that you accomplish in your lifetime.

* While there’s never enough time for everything, there’s always enough time for the important things.

While there is never time for everything, there always seems to be time for the most important things in life. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” But you don’t have to wait until circumstances come upon you forcing you to attend to the most important things in your life. You can do it now. Each day in Daily Planning, identify the most important things you want to get done in your day. Place a high priority of those items and leave undone the less important things.

You won’t get it all done but you will get the most important things done.

The secret’s finally out. To find out more, visit www.balancetime.com.

Impact Offers Posters, Trainings

If you are an employee assistance professional, you know all too well that awareness of your EAP is crucial to utilization. Bearing in mind that, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” Impact can help with full-color posters available in two convenient sizes – and inexpensive prices: $1 each for 8-1/2 x 11 posters, and $1.50 each for 11 x 17 posters. Check out www.impact-publications.com/category/posters

Did you know that Impact offers monthly continuing education trainings for child care providers, foster parents, and caregivers? Many agencies – and individuals working in these occupations – are in need of hours this time of year to fulfill their training requirements for 2011.

Again, Impact can help!  To find out more, check out any of the following links: www.impact-publications.com/category/general_info_ccsn   www.impact-publications.com/category/general_info_fcsn  or  www.impact-publications.com/category/general_info_afcn

Leading Recession-proof Careers

 CLIMBING THE CAREER LADDER (at left) — Whether you are an employee assistance professional assisting laid-off workers who are wondering what to do next – or a supported employment professional helping persons with disabilities in securing employment – it’s good to know which jobs are “hot” and which can be expected to lead to dead-ends.

   The following, courtesy of Tony Shin and onlinegraduateprograms.com   highlights “hot” careers – which likely also double as some of today’s most recession-proof careers.  The link also takes an interesting look at some of the professions that are going (or have already gone) the way of the dinosaur.  

                                      You can view and embed the graphic from here: Recession Proof (infographic)

 

Helping People with Traumatic Brain Injury Communicate

Many individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) have cognitive impairments that affect their ability to communicate in work, social, and family life.

To address this problem faced by persons with TBI, and their families and support teams…, APSE has scheduled a webinar… Positive Communication Experiences for Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): A How-To-Guide…. on Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011 at 12 p.m. Eastern time (11 a.m. Central and 9 a.m. Pacific).

Lyn Turkstra, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Communicative Disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will be the presenter.

Cost is $50 for APSE members and $100 for non-members. Register at www.apse.org.  Questions? Email Jenny Levet at jenny@apse.org  or phone (301) 279-0060.   Watch for announcements on additional APSE webinars on this blog.

 

Calling All 9/11 Stories!

September 11, 2001 is one of those dates that many of us will never forget. I was working at a nonprofit agency in central Wisconsin at the time, and I vividly recall what I “wanted to believe” – that a small Piper or Cessna airplane had slammed into one of the Twin Towers.

Even when I learned it was a jet, and not a small plane, I still could not fathom that the Twin Towers had crumbled.  It took hours for the realization of what happened to sink in. I lost my job as a result of the economic fallout later that year – but that was minor compared to the thousands who lost loved ones on that fateful day.

Where were YOU on September 11, 2001?  What kind of impact did 9/11 have on your life? Or maybe your individual career or your profession?

Jot down a few thoughts in the comment section above, and you may be eligible to receive a free copy of “Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace” by Dennis and Michelle Rina or “Caregiver’s Path for Compassionate Decision Making” by Viki Kind.  (Two winners will be able to decide which title they’d prefer.) These books have now been awarded, but interested individuals may still feel free to post comments about their 9/11 experiences.

Love the One You’re (Working) With

Remember Stephen Stills of C,S,N&Y fame singing, “Love the one you’re with“? A new take on that song might say to “love the one you’re working with.” Put another way, if you think “kicking it “with Chatty Cathy from the office is a waste of time – think again!

A new study from Harvard researcher Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work (Crown Business) says that the employees most UNWILLING to develop workplace friendships are also the LEAST likely to get promoted.  Achor divided employees into quartiles on the basis of their willingess to initiate work relationships, such as inviting co-workers out for drinks, and the results are shocking.  A few of the findings are as follows:

• Just 5% of the bottom quartile were extremely engaged in their work.
• Only 7% had been promoted in the past year.
• Approximately 40% of employees in the other quartiles received promotions.

Moral of the story: socializing with work colleagues appears to be more important to people’s careers than one might think. To find out more, check out http://shawnachor.com