We just finished up our Spring Advanced Training on Patient Experience and Psychology of Building Cases. We cover it all, from dealing with money and objections to securing the highest case acceptance possible from willing, interested, ready-to-give-you-money patients.
It’s one of my favorite weekends and special experiences because everyone (doctors and team members alike), walk away realizing that they really do have the control and the power to help more patients say “Yes” (and therefore get healthy).
No one wins when patients say “No!” Especially the patient. And it is very easy for us to blame, make excuses or pass off the responsibility but it just isn’t that simple. Besides, real champions don’t want others to blame, they don’t want excuses, they don’t want to pass the buck and they don’t avoid the responsibility – they want to own it!
And there should be nothing more exciting and no area of dentistry within your practice that you work on more than this (getting yeses, building cases, effectively connecting with patients and influencing them to want treatment).
There is no ‘selling’ in the way that most think about selling. Not when you do it this way, when you follow the structure, steps and process that we covered in the training. And that’s refreshing, reassuring and comforting for everyone because no one wants to think of success in dentistry as coercing people out of their money or having to pressure patients into treatment.
And you don’t. You absolutely do not have to do that. What you do have to do is: educate more, listen more, ask more questions, be a guide, become a visionary for the patient. You do have to tell the truth and you have to get the patients excited about the benefits of being healthy (whatever that means to your practice, it’s mission and your clinical philosophy).
If you go back through the last three weeks, each Huddle explained, step by step, how to prepare yourself and your entire team to be able to take your practice to the next level by setting up and structuring your patient flow, your team work and the systems in your practice to serve this one objective – the most important objective – getting more yeses.
There is nothing else.
No patients. No dentistry. No money.
Nothing to do until this one thing is done.
Therefore, every single thing, exposure, engagement, insight, sound, smell, touch, experience, person, communication, interaction of any sort should be aligned for this one outcome and facilitating it to happen.
It is very easy to ‘diagnose’ problems in a practice. They are circumstances that are putting you at a disadvantage with this objective; including gaps in your systems, your experiences or your communications.
They are very obvious when you look closely and through the eyes of your patients… seeing, observing and experiencing everything in the way they do. Their perception ultimately is your reality when it comes to growing value-based, life-changing dentistry.
If you were your patient and the goal was to get the finishing line of health by saying yes every step, ask yourself seriously: are you setting up a gauntlet of obstacles for them to overcome or are you clearing the way by keeping it enjoyable, rewarding, fulfilling, fun while making it irresistible and easy to say yes?
Brainstorm on this with a little self-reflection from your team this week. Next week, I have a big surprise and I’ll bring you my personal checklist of ways we often work against ourselves when it comes to case acceptance, building cases, getting patients to pay and ultimately say yes to treatment.
Have fun with this. It should be insightful and instructive. As your brainstorming, make some decisions about adjustments, new commitments and guidelines that will help you help your patients get to the outcomes they deserve.
