Corporate & workplace wellness providers

Business Success Checklist
For Corporate & Workplace
Wellness Providers

1) Employers want wellness programs.

• Employers want lower health costs and more effective alternatives to
  traditional, costly health insurance.



• Many options exist: executive services, wellness programs for all employees, weight loss programs, ergonomic and occupational wellness programs focused on injury prevention, and more.
  
  
• Liability issues often concern employers. As a result, they often expect oversight by licensed healthcare professionals of workplace programs.

2) Business customers have special requirements.

• While businesses ultimately want healthy employees, emotional appeals that strike a chord with consumers are less effective in selling to businesses.
  
  
• Businesses must justify decisions to owners and investors in terms of bottom line impact and measurable employee benefit.
  
  
• Your salesforce must have the right data at its fingertips. And your business must provide periodic data underscoring the positive impact of your services.
  

3) Your competition may be national, regional or local.

• Look beyond the businesses in your own community to understand potential competition.
  
  
• Depending on the services your business provides, you may be competing with national and regional companies that focus exclusively on providing workplace wellness services to businesses.
  
  
• Don't be afraid to look closely at your competitors. Understand their services and how they sell them. If you lose to them, understand why. While price may be a factor, first look closely at the focus, content, and professionalism of the sales efforts by your business.

4) Understand the "pain points" of employers.

• Rehashing the sales and marketing approaches that worked with consumers will simply not work when selling to businesses.
  
  
• Focus on the "pain points" that your potential business customers are feeling. Most business customers focus on bottom-line benefits as well as employee health benefits. Make sure your sales presentation responds to those needs.
  
  
• If customers do offer traditional insurance, they want to know that you can work effectively with the carrier. And if they have employees in more than one location, they prefer providers who can also serve multiple locations.

5) Make sure your back office is ready.

• Expanding your services to employers often means an increase in customer capacity and business complexity.
  
  
• Your business may need to provide services for many more individuals than in the past. New regulatory considerations (HIPAA, for example) and other complexities may apply.
  
  
• Match business growth with your actual capacity to serve new customers. Overly rapid growth can compromise service quality and consistency, alienating existing customers. As you grow, monitor cost and effectiveness of key processes like customer service and customer billing.