I’m sure I seem every bit a 21st century Renaissance man, the kind who lifts a little finger in the air while sipping an expensive wine, reads thick books with very small print, patronizes the opera and eschews all modern distractions and shallow pleasures. But on the other hand, I love NFL games and all that goes with them.
It’s not the bone-crushing hits I enjoy so much, or the strategic complexities of play design, or a sense of pure tribal loyalty to my team. It’s the stories, plain and simple.
Every profession, including long-term care, needs stories to capture the popular imagination and fuel its success, with vivid characters to root for or against, and the NFL offers them aplenty. Heroes and scoundrels. Underdogs and busts. Triumph and tragedy, in virtually every game, every week.
The popularity and profitability of the sport is mind-boggling, and storylines are what drives it. Along with the gambling, of course.
Can anybody beat the Chiefs? Will Tyreek Hill’s next outrageous arrest be for speeding on the field? Are Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes really fighting? Does Aaron Rodgers believe gravity is a deep-state hoax? The stories are endless, and endlessly compelling.
For organizations, industries and even political campaigns, failure or success often hinges on the power and resonance of the story they’re telling and selling. And maybe that’s where we sometimes get it wrong in our long-term care sales and marketing. With so many decisions and practices now driven by algorithms and data analytics, it’s no wonder advertising efforts sometimes feel the same — lifeless and formulaic, built more on math than heart.
I know it’s challenging to make an impact in this age of fragmented markets, minuscule attention spans and a niche media landscape. Marketing theory and practice have become incredibly complex, basically requiring a degree in astrophysics just to figure out the ever-changing technology, algorithms and analytical tools. But I’m convinced things don’t really have to be nearly so complicated.
Because nothing much has changed about people since primitive story-seekers huddled around a fire transfixed by the heroic exploits of Beowulf. At least a thousand years later, humans still just want to be moved, to laugh and cry, to feel something genuine. So when in doubt, long-term care marketers might do well to look up from their eye-popping dashboards and incomprehensible charts, find a resonant story, and just start telling it with heart and gusto.
For example, earlier this week, I attended the Oregon Health Care Association’s annual convention and witnessed a long-term care CNA get a well-deserved Caregiver of the Year award. When her name was called, she danced her way to and across the stage as a crowded ballroom erupted in ecstatic applause. It was a beautiful moment — pure in its simplicity and infectious joy.
Clearly, she was the perfect poster-person for the commitment and love facility staff bring to the care they provide. Her attitude encapsulated everything a facility administrator or owner could ever want prospective customers to believe about the services being delivered and the kinds of folks delivering them.
It’s a diabolical theory, but I can’t help but think that showcasing her prodigious passion and commitment over 21 years in this profession would be infinitely more powerful than a facility’s glossy pictures of spacious rooms, more impactful than lists of the finest amenities, more memorable than the usual recitations of outcome data and low readmission rates. Hers is just a great story, practically begging to be told to an eager audience that’s ready and willing to be moved by it.
When I talked to her afterwards, she was still hyperventilating and emotional from all the unexpected recognition. “Oh my gosh, this means a lot, more than money,” she said. “It’s like an Oscar award, once in a lifetime.”
“For me, working is not like a job, it’s a life,” she continued. “I’m looking forward every day to doing better for my residents, to giving them smiles. It comes naturally. It comes from my heart.” Here, she paused to choke back the rising emotion, and the purity of her sincerity and passion nearly got my tears flowing, too.
So here’s my theory.
No matter how long her facility’s fine marketing team sat in a conference room brainstorming, I’m not sure they’d ever be able to script and create a sales campaign that’s nearly as powerful and effective as those words straight from her soul. So why not embrace her story and start telling it, and others like it, in every available medium? Skip the data-blinded campaign that feels like it was created by robots in a lab. Just tell the story.
Admittedly, by nature and skill set, I’m just a simple story guy, not a marketing savant with a head for the numbers. So it’s possible I’m naively dismissive of the modern science of marketing and, like any aspiring Luddite, merely long for simpler days.
But in a stressful, confusing and frequently overwhelming world, I’m convinced folks crave good old-fashioned stories like hers, with real people and real stakes, not manicured, formulated and market-tested beyond believability and impact.
That’s the reason they watch pro football, and that’s why they’ll be drawn to our profession too. But only if we tell stories straight from the heart, not just the dashboard.
Things I Think is written by Gary Tetz, a two-time national Silver Medalist and three-time regional Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Association of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) awards program, as well as an Award of Excellence honoree in the APEX Awards. He’s been amusing, inspiring, informing and sometimes befuddling long-term care readers since the end of a previous century. He is a writer and video producer for Consonus Healthcare in Portland, OR.
The opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News guest submissions are the author’s and are not necessarily those of McKnight’s Long-Term Care News or its editors.
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