| February 2003 |
Marketing EAPs: Strategy, Planning, and Sales Randy Brooks, Jorgensen/Brooks Group Judith Braun, Mines and Associates Bob Mines, Mines and Associates “So, you run an EAP or you’re forming an EAP. What kind of EAP are you going to have? Are you going to be an assess-and-refer EAP? Are you going to be an assess-and-refer-and-brief-treatment EAP? Are you going to provide consultation services? If so, what kinds of consultations? Are you going to provide training and, if so, what kinds of training? Are you going to provide case management, or network development? What do you want from your business? Do you measure your success in terms of the number of lives you cover, the number of contracts you have, or the amount of money you make? How do you determine, in developing your strategy, what it is you need? What’s the primary mission of your EAP? What it is that you’re doing and selling? What makes your EAP better than, or just different from, another EAP? You have to be able to identify what makes you special and what it is you want to do a little differently than everyone else. If you don’t know, get together with other smart, creative people in your organization and figure it out. Write down the services you want to provide, what’s unique about your product, and who and where your customers are--unions, trade associations, small companies, big companies, defense contractors, and so on. Turn down business that you can’t handle. If you’re not ready for a client because they’re too diversified or in too many places, don’t do it. Wait until you’re ready. There’s an inherent assumption among EAPs that we have to be bigger and better and offer more services, and I’m not sure that’s absolutely necessary. How many of you went to James Carbone’s talk this morning [EAP Gatekeeper for Medical Offset]? He is probably one of the best thinkers on the topic of “What is innovation?” His company does baby wellness checks, medical/behavioral health care offset stuff, EAP work, managed care, managed medical care, and so on. How many of those come within the scope of your current business strategy? Some of those don’t quite hit my radar screen, either. But I think that from the point of view of challenging assumptions about what kind of business you’re in, it’s essential to start looking beyond the conventional wisdom. For example, how many of you set up physician pre-employment physicals for your companies? There’s an EAP in California that does that. That’s definitely outside the box from EAPs in 1972. In terms of taking an innovative approach, the issue of meeting customer needs is all a bunch of horse manure in lots of ways. Because if you don’t know what their needs are, how are you going to meet them? Sometimes we think we ought to be able to sell something new to our customers because they don’t know what their needs are. So I think we have a real struggle in terms of determining what a customer’s real needs are. We all have seen the commoditization of our pricing, and that requires a different kind of innovation. If you’re going to compete when your services are commoditized, how are you going to do that more efficiently? Every industry goes to the commoditization level. If you don’t believe me, just check across other types of services and products. They all get there. So if you’re going to compete in the commodity world, how are you going to do that? That’s why we talk about innovation--there are bigger profit margins for services that aren’t commoditized. How many folks in here do OD work? Are your margins bigger than your EAP margins? Huge bigger--they’re significantly larger. That’s why we get into these kinds of strategy issues.” DISCUSSION (Member Exchange Forum) |
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© 2003 Exhange On-Line is a publication of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, Inc. (EAPA). Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is expressly prohibited. Publication of bylined articles does not constitute endorsement of personal views of authors. Appearance of paid advertisements does not constitute endorsement by EAPA. |
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