A few weeks back, we began a discussion about Offense and Defense inside your practice. There could not be two more important topics. Offense is pretty obvious and my Huddle outlined it beautifully for you to fully be aware of “point scoring” opportunities with your patients every day.
Defense on the other hand… It’s tough. It’s a grind. A battle that most just don’t play and many actually ignore.
In other words, they are completely reactive to circumstances instead of proactive with opportunities.
I’d like to finish this topic up quickly over the next couple weeks so we are going to break it down into three categories.
Today, we talk about playing defense when it comes to treatment acceptance.
As you will remember, I always say, “With case acceptance, the battle is won before it is ever fought.”
And that is exactly what defense is all about. Think of this analogy: if on defense you let other teams score points then you put incredible pressure on your offense. No matter how many points the offense scores, if someone undoes that by letting the opposition win, then you start all over.
On the other hand, if you get the ball back by stopping the offense, or even better if you score points on defense then you are actually helping the offense do their job and taking pressure off of them.
In dentistry, with patients we are almost completely reactive. We wait for problems to happen, objections to come up, everything is about waiting to see what the patient is going to do or say and then responding.
Bad idea. Because the patient doesn’t know. And typically, unless you have a really good one, their goal is opposite of yours. They want to leave with as much money still in their pockets regardless of the benefits they are leaving behind. You want the opposite… patients to walk out with as much benefit as possible and leave behind the money.
Therefore, when it comes to case acceptance defense is really key.
The short list you already know:
A phone call that sets expectations
An interview with the patient that establishes goals
Taking PROACTIVE smile photographs
Bring up problem areas in advance of the Doctor
Then there are nuances such as making sure your patients have seen testimonials of other patients and talking about patient success stories (especially once you know the possible issues/problems your patient has).
Playing defense is about getting the patient to commit every step of the way – not waiting until the end to just make it about money.
This is why I say that every team member impacts case acceptance. More often than not, it is the patient coming out of the clinical side of the practice who is not yet fully convinced and then we are trying to talk to them about money.
You have to think ahead. Better to tackle the objections – clinically – in the back and make the treatment important to the patient BEFORE we go into discussion about money.
No matter how great you think you are at this – you can always improve. Besides, every patient matters so you don’t know who is going to have questions or not; therefore you have to assume every patient needs to have extra defense to make sure they are pushed over the goal line before they leave clinically.
You can play defense with more photographs, you can have tough conversations, in fact giving a little tough love about the severity of a problem is a good thing. You can always reassure them you are going to help but you never apologize for the treatment they need.
Defense is also about keeping control of the patient if they say yes, no or maybe. Most people revert back to “I’m going to think about it” or some other generic sentence. Your ability to keep the patient in motion and committed to some next step is key. You only have control when they are in the office. Remember that.
Today, assess your defensive moves before, during and after through every part of the experience. Really give each other some ideas or even some constructive criticism on ways to improve. Everyone is responsible for helping set up each stage in the experience. This is about not just creating treatment offensively but protecting your patients and securing case acceptance defensively.
This is so important because you lose more treatment than you get as more patients say no than yes (no matter what you ‘think’ your case acceptance percentages are). If you think you are that great then you are just lacking clarity about how much treatment never makes it out of the treatment room up to the point of closing and scheduling in the first place. Lot of progress lost at each step – that’s a good thing because it means room for improvement.
Be more proactive. Decide what that means for you and do it.
Did you miss this last week…
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A Note To Those Looking In – From The Outside…
If you are not fully and completely plugged into my world: THE Dental Success Today (named for a reason because that is what it takes to win and achieve your goals – TODAY), what are you thinking? Are you seriously going to go wandering around another year trying to blindly hit targets you don’t even have.
Goals are the easy part. Anyone can write down numbers and talk a good game. Few actually have a playbook to make them achievable and probable.
This year, I’m doing something that I’ve never done before. If you are serious about making 2018 your championship year – if you are ready to win the super bowl of your career this year – then allow me to layout your championship game plan so that you, once and for all, are not playing by chance or winning by accident, but rather have deliberately engineered your practice, your team, your patients, your profits and especially yourself to win.
It’s extremely limited, we’ll talk first to see if you qualify, no risk to you, nothing to buy, this is about separating the winners from the losers. Gear up and let’s go, we’ve got a game to play, a year to win…
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