When you have clarity over not just ‘what you do’ but the outcomes you are striving for, it gives you great confidence in achieving success.
This is why I write to you every single week; to reinforce YOUR confidence in what YOU do because no one could do it better. No matter which position you fill, your role and responsibilities can’t be lived without.
So, proudly own it and stay focused on not just getting it done, getting through the day, going through the motions, but being successful at creating, driving, achieving the desired results you know yourself to be capable of.
This is why I asked you last week to really assess “what do you do you” and more important “what are you selling.” What outcome do you want to achieve?
I have my little buzzwords but don’t go off what I say, go off of what you know.
As example, I know you know when you talk to someone on the phone and they are just pulling your leg, they aren’t coming in, they are price shopping like nobody’s business.
The goal is the opposite. And while some people will fool you, you know the ones who aren’t serious. Just like you know the ones who are – the A Patients as I like to call them.
The same goes for our Clinical Team. Your goal is to educate and move every patient down their own pathway to health by discovering ways you can help them based on your practice’s philosophy.
You know when a patient is just nodding their head to get you to stop talking and you know when someone is intrigued, interested, and listening to you about their health.
So, the question is… why don’t we make adjustments accordingly when we know it’s going our way or when we know it isn’t?
I’m not trying to be harsh here, though you can handle it. The point is if we are truly present and genuinely caring for the patient then you aren’t going to just let it go when they are noncommittal and you are going to run with it when they are ‘all-in.’
This is really what I was referring to last week, though I said it differently. It all comes back to the same thing: actually listening, being focused and present with your patients (whether on the phone, at the counter, in the chair, it doesn’t matter). It’s the only way to really drive outcomes and results.
And that brings me to the ‘mistake’ that is so often made (even when you overcome and conquer the mistake from last week which was talking too much or being too rushed)… NOT BEING CONFIDENT in your interaction, in your questions, in your responses, in your overall demeanor with your patients.
Receptionist. Treatment Coordinator. Assistant. Hygienist. Doctor. EVERYONE.
I’m talking about you.
What you think is confidence the patient sees as appeasement. Don’t let that be the case.
Confident is being genuine, it is having eye contact, it is expressing empathy, it is caring, it is shoulders back, it is head up, and it is smoothly telling the patient exactly what they should do and why.
It is absolutely being definitive in your verbiage, body language, statements, and ‘suggestions,’ (though I have a hard time even using that word because it is more like prescribed and recommended).
We’ll dive deeper into this next week. What I want to know from you right now is… what can you do to not just seem and appear but BE more confident with your patients?
Please discuss and go to work on these often neglected (but easy to fix) mistakes that are made with patient conversations. This is about your own personal self-awareness and humble desire to constantly improve by taking ownership over the the impact you have on your patients.
