Can your referral sources finish the sentence?
- Best for
- Agencies who sound exactly like the three competitors down the road
- Output
- Language your whole team can say the same way
- Scope
- Positioning and message — not a logo refresh
- What it costs
- Free discovery, then a fixed fee in writing before you decide
"We send to them because…"
If the honest ending is a person's name, you do not have a position. You have a relationship — and relationships change jobs, retire, and get recruited by the agency across town.
Compassionate. Quality. Family-centered.
Every hospice in your market says all three. They are true, and they are worth nothing as differentiation, because the agency you are losing referrals to says them too — usually in the same typeface.
A position is the thing that stays true when you are not in the room. It has to be specific enough that someone else can repeat it, and real enough that your team can deliver it on a bad Tuesday.
What positioning work actually involves
- What you genuinely do differently — found by looking at your operation, not by workshop brainstorming
- What your market already believes about you, including the parts you will not enjoy hearing
- Where you are being confused with a competitor, and what to change so you stop being
- Language your whole team uses the same way, from the liaison to the person answering the phone
- The story that holds when the mission you started with meets the market you are actually in
The mission you were sure was different
Most owners I meet did start with something genuinely different. It is still in there. What usually happened is that it never got translated into words anyone outside the building could repeat, so it stayed a feeling instead of becoming a reason.
That is the work. Not inventing a brand — recovering the one you already earned and making it sayable.
A position you cannot deliver is worse than none. If the operation cannot back the claim, we fix the claim or we fix the operation, and I will tell you which.
How it runs
Four steps, in this order.
- 01
Ask around
I ask your referral sources to finish the sentence about you. That answer is your brand.
- 02
Find the true thing
Not a slogan. The thing you actually do differently, said plainly.
- 03
Make it sayable
If your newest liaison cannot repeat it in the hallway, it is not done.
- 04
Put it everywhere
One message across the field, the site, and the front door.
Where you probably are
If one of these is true, this is the right page.
- Your differentiator is "compassionate care" and so is everyone else’s.
- Two of your reps describe you two different ways.
- A referral source cannot tell you apart from the chain across town.
- You rebranded and the phone did not notice.
- Your website says something your team has never said out loud.
- You are competing on being nice, which is not a position.
Where this stops
- Logo and visual identity design. I will tell you when you need it and can point you to someone good.
- A rebrand for its own sake. Most agencies need a clearer position, not a new name.
What you walk away with
A written positioning statement your whole team can use the same way, with the language, the proof behind it, and the places it has to show up.
Every engagement. Yours to keep.
Also under Hospice Growth
Free discovery. Then a number.
Ask three referral sources why they send to you, then send me what they said. Discovery costs nothing.
If there is work worth doing you get a written scope and a fixed fee before you decide — not a range, and not an hourly rate that grows.
Book a conversationYou are not in this alone. I see you. I am in this with ya.
Founder & CEO