Retail DME is Growing!
2019 marks my third year attending the VGM Group’s Heartland Conference in Waterloo, Iowa. VGM Group is the nation’s largest member-service organization for post-acute care in HME/DME, complex rehab, home modification and more.
The Heartland Conference brings hundreds of VGM members together in Waterloo, Iowa once a year for education, peer-to-peer networking, an exhibit hall and, of course, fireworks and cookies at every turn! VGM is really into cookies.
Oswald’s focus for our 3rd consecutive Heartland Conference was the ‘Retail’ educational track. As a retail home medical equipment store, we do not bill insurance for our products. We have a 5,000 square foot medical equipment showroom where we’re able to show a wide array of retail friendly home medical equipment products that the consumer can try, buy and leave with same day!
From small aids to daily living to large items like walkers, wheelchairs, mobility scooters, and lift chairs—you can test just about anything on our floor! Our customers don’t have to deal with the headache of waiting for public or paid insurance to approve a purchase for reimbursement. Now to the ‘Retail’ educational track at Heartland.
Oswald’s on the DME Retail Track
What makes this conference so valuable to Oswald’s and other small medical equipment retailers is peer-to-peer networking. Meeting people who are helping customers the same way we are is so important. We’re always learning new ways to serve our community with better service and new products.
What better way to learn than from other people doing what you are from all across the country? We took home so many new ideas! We returned the favor by sharing our success stories with other retailers.
This brings me to my second favorite part of the conference—the educational seminars! These seminars are where DME retailers learn from the most knowledgeable operators in the country. Let me give you a few of my favorite takeaways from this year’s class offerings.
Takeaways from the 2019 VGM Heartland Conference
How to Spell Insurance: CASH
Greg McGough from Medical Xpress, Texas
Greg talked about what makes retail DME so different from the traditional billing model. He really stressed the difference between the two – going from billing to retail is not for the faint of heart! It’s a whole different ball game.
Greg stressed the importance of taking care of your employees, talked about what products to sell in a retail DME showroom, and how to make sure your customers leave the store with everything they need.
Train the Trainer: Techniques for Coaching You Retail Staff
Daniel Stearns from William Bros. Pharmacy
Training is so important in this industry, so I was happy to sit down for a talk that focused on best practices for teaching your staff the ins-and-outs of retail DME.
My favorite takeaway was Daniel’s tip to change the term ‘policy’ to ‘guidelines’ around the office. Policies are made to be broken, guidelines give you the flexibility you’ll need to bend the rules at times to make sure you’re doing right by your customers and staff.
Also, his tips on utilizing YouTube to put together playlists of training videos is something we’ve been talking about for a while at Oswald’s. After hearing success stories from this talk, YouTube video tutorials will be a priority!
Lastly, Daniel talked about teaching team members about finding information, not memorizing it. Whether certain product information is in a training manual or on the cloud, there’s too much information in this industry to expect your team to memorize. The TLDR for this would be; Make sure information is easy to find!
What to Look for in Products When “Caretailing”
RJ Poonawalla from Spring Branch Medical Supply, Texas
Disclaimer: I may be a little biased, as I was a part of this panel discussion! This session ran very informally and became more-or-less an open dialogue on what products to carry, what to look for in vendors, and how to market new cash DME products to your audience.
Sometimes I like the classes that turn into an open discussion the most, as it transforms a presentation into a peer-to-peer networking event. While Greg McGough and I were on the panel, many other attendees ended up participating. A highlight of the unique class styles you’ll find at Heartland.
Bringing in Future Business by Focusing on Building a Positive Brand Today
Christina Throndson from VGM Forbin, Iowa
I’ve seen Christina speak many times over the past few years on all things digital in the DME industry. She offers a wealth of knowledge on getting your company’s name out there online.
This talk focused on making sure your webpage is up to snuff (where is your phone number located? Are your hours and address easy to find? Is it WCAG friendly?) and how active you are on Google My Business. As over 80% of internet searches start on Google, GMB is an extremely important part of any small businesses online success this day in age.
Social Events at the 2019 VGM Heartland Conference
Outside of the classes, social events are always a memorable part of the VGM Heartland experience. Highlights include visiting a company farm outside of Waterloo complete with a hog roast and fireworks on Monday night, dinners split up by educational tracks on Tuesday night (Can you guess what track I attended? Retail!), and the final night party on Wednesday.
There’s something for everyone to enjoy at the VGM Heartland Conference. Most importantly, all the social events offer great opportunities for that peer-to-peer networking I keep talking about.
The most exciting element of VGM Heartland 2019 was seeing the sizes of the retail-focused classes growing. Of the 7 retail classes I attended, the classroom was standing room only half of the time! People are catching on to industry trends and seeing the importance of retail DME’s in our current marketplace.
Looking forward to seeing you next year at VGM Heartland Conference 2020. You’ll be able to find me at anything with ‘retail’ in the name!
