Excellent feedback on yesterday’s email about selling with conviction and building a strong mindset.
“Agree 100%. This is about all we talk about internally.” “Love this!” “Nothing is more important.” “Great points!”
I told you I was going to talk about closing the gaps on patient education today.
But my amazing wife, Susan, mentioned something at our Anniversary dinner last night that I thought we should cover.
(Don’t worry, we’ll get to patient comms in the next few days.)
Susan is one of the best salespeople I’ve ever met.
She’s booked thousands of refractive surgeries with a consistent 85%+ close rate. She was one of Alcon’s top pharma reps for many years.
And now she does sales training and team communication training for our clients, with a big focus on the DISC human behavior model.
Susan knows a thing or two about selling with convictions and a strong mindset. She pointed out something I missed in yesterday’s email.
Her comment was: “You know, you really should dig more into the limiting beliefs about asking for money. That’s one of the biggest hurdles for high ticket salespeople, especially in elective surgery.”
I’ve done several essays and podcasts about the tactics to overcome price objections. You can find those over on TroyCole.com.
But I’ve not dug into the whole limiting beliefs issue specifically. Which is actually a bigger challenge than “not knowing what to say” when someone pushes back on price.
Why does price seem like such an issue for patients?
There are a lot of ways we could talk about this, but I want to address 2 main areas:
Belief and Projection.
Belief – the belief that your treatments are worth the $5k, $10k, $20k you’re charging.
Your team has to understand the value of what you’re offering.
But more than that, they have to believe in the value you provide.
They can’t just know it. They have to believe that your $12,000 surgery is worth every penny to the patient.
People have a tendency to confuse Information and Beliefs. They are two different animals.
We live in a world of limitless information. Anything we could ever wanna find out is a quick Google search away.
For example, most people know how to lose weight. And if not, they can go online and search that information in about 3 seconds.
So why do people struggle to get fit, when they have unrestricted access to the information they need to make a change?
It’s a belief problem. They either believe they can’t do it. Or believe it can’t work. Or don’t believe in the benefit it can provide.
Information is a commodity. When beliefs battle information, belief is going to win.
So it’s not enough for your sales team to have the information. They must believe in the value.
What are some common limiting beliefs around price?
- I don’t want to bother patients who aren’t ready to book now. I’ll let them figure out a plan of action.
- If this is more than they want to pay, then it’s probably too expensive for them.
- The patient clearly understands the value, and they’ll decide themselves when it’s time to move forward.
- I shouldn’t try to lead the patient to a decision that’s best for them. They need to make that decision without my help.
- $X for a surgery is a lot of money.
- If a patient is taken aback by the price, then they probably don’t want to move forward.
- This person doesn’t look like someone who has money to invest in themselves, so I’m going to assume they don’t.
Problem is, many of these are not conscious thoughts. They occur on a subconscious level, building a limiting belief system on autopilot.
Yesterday, we talked about the importance of selling with conviction vs trying to convince someone to buy your surgeries.
Beliefs are the governor for conviction. Just like a governor on your car’s engine, which only allows you to go so fast down the highway.
Your speed is limited by your governor. Conviction is limited by beliefs.
When a patient says, “Wow, that’s a lot money.” How confident are you in that moment?
Do you have the conviction to not falter? To agree and help them understand why it’s worth every penny? To have patience with your patients, and lead them to a new way of thinking?
If you believe in what you offer, then the answer is yes. If not, you’ll continue to struggle.
Thankfully there are practical ways to build and reinforce the right beliefs. And the stronger those beliefs become, the stronger your conviction becomes.
You get to a point where the price objection is no longer a road block, but an opportunity to help patients think differently.
(This also applies directly to practices who are sick of scraping by with discounted surgery and want to raise their prices. But that’s an article for another day.)
I wanted to cover Projection today as well, but this email is long enough already. So we can dig into that tomorrow.
Enjoy your Thursday,
Troy “Convictions” Cole
PS – We’ve opened enrollment for our updated Sales Training Workshop.
One of the most-asked questions we get around sales – “How can we overcome the price objection?”
We’re addressing these core “limiting belief” challenges in this updated training. If you’re interested in empowering your sales team to handle this common and costly issue, get in touch. I’ll get you all the details.