Reputation

I write about maintaining one’s reputation at least twice a year. How does your customer see your company? Your reputation within the community is why they come to you for their supplies!

DME/HME is a people driven industry. The customer recognizes how your company performs daily. This makes it imperative that you are very careful not to allow anything to besmirch it. This is very risky business because you can do ninety-nine things wonderfully and get loads of accolades, but if you make one small mistake everyone will remember it!

Last Fall I met an old friend from the Midwest at Medtrade in Atlanta. His company is independently owned in a community dominated by large markets. He has been very successful, and was kind enough to share how he developed the program which he attributes to his success.

He spoke to the local newspaper and offered to write “Good Health” articles for the Sunday edition of the local paper. In a small town, most every one reads the local papers. This is very different from a big city.

The editor thought it was an interesting idea and my friend agreed to send three articles, each about 300–325 words, for the editor to choose from. He titled these as “Basic Good Health”. The response was so good that the editor published the other two the following Sundays. They made a deal with this proprietor to prepare one “Basic Good Health” column every week.

As a result, he has seen his sales and volume grow rapidly. Resources from your preferred vendors will also bring new ideas. Alexandre Dumas summed this up as “Nothing succeeds like success”.