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At work and at tennis: the messenger matters

I’m sitting here watching my son’s tennis drills session and something weird just happened.

For WEEKS now, I’ve been telling him to go low to high with his forehand. Literally, I’ve said it 50 times if I’ve said it once. And what happens? He has a flat forehand, and every other ball slams into the net. It’s like I’m speaking a foreign language or something.

Then, not 10 minutes ago, his tennis coach has the discussion with him — “Let’s talk about going low to high with your forehand.”

And you know what happened within 15 minutes? My son has adjusted his swing and BOOM! Eight perfect, deep forehands in a row. Beautiful arcs sailing over the net. Picture-perfect technique.

I’m sitting here like… 🤔

But that’s when it hit me: there’s something almost magical about hearing advice from an “outside expert.” It’s not that they necessarily know more (though often they do), but their words carry a different weight than hearing the same thing from an “internal source.”

It’s like when your spouse tells you something a hundred times, but then a random stranger mentions it once and suddenly you’re all, “Wow, what a brilliant insight!”

This psychological quirk is just part of human nature. We’re wired to sometimes tune out the familiar voices and perk up when we hear the same message from a fresh source, an outside authority.

I see this all the time with LASIK and cataract surgery teams. The office manager / admin can repeatedly tell staff how to communicate with patients about premium options, but it doesn’t sink in. Then an outside coach (yours truly) comes in – sometimes with similar advice – and suddenly everyone’s nodding and implementing.

To drive home an important point – it’s not just WHO is communicating (though that obviously matters), but also HOW they are communicating it. Not only does the tennis coach have the authority and expertise, but he can explain the concept better and in different ways.

Something I’ve learned from investing multiple six-figures in high-end coaching for myself, as well as $$$ spent on private sports coaching for my children – good coaches have a hundred ways to communicate the same concept.

Thoughts, analogies, how a move should feel, when to pay attention to what’s happening BEFORE a misstep (or after it), etc.

It’s because we have different styles of learning, and depending on what mental blocks we’ve built up inside us (which we often don’t even know about), we need to hear / see / feel in multiple ways for a concept to “click.”

So if your instruction is falling on deaf ears, it may be time to try saying it / presenting it / engaging in a different way.

This is precisely why so many surgical practices are finding such tremendous results with our E3 Conversion System Bootcamp. Over 12 weeks, we install both the mindset and mechanics your team needs to convert more prospective patients into high-ticket surgeries, without being the least bit salesy.

And we have all the analogies, mindset approaches, tactical maneuvers and “get out of your own way” techniques your folks need be confident in their “forehand” and compete on behalf of their patients.

When your team hears and experiences these conversion principles from our coaches, something often clicks differently for them.

If you’re ready to have your team hit those conversion “forehands” deep and with confidence, let’s chat about how the bootcamp might serve your practice.

Just don’t tell them I compared LASIK sales to tennis,

– Troy “Still waiting for my son to listen to ME” Cole

PS – I’m speaking at ASCRS twice next weekend, and both talks will include coaching approaches on what I discussed today.

My talk Friday AM with Michael King – “From Awkward to Impactful: Making the Financial Conversation a Key to Patient Success” – digs deep into the mental blocks teams have on the topic of money (and how to overcome them). Hit me back if you want more details on this masterclass, you definitely don’t want to miss it.

Your communication cheat code (from Major League Baseball)

There’s a ton of hype in Major League Baseball right now about the Torpedo bat. Here’s one of 100 articles about it – essentially it’s a bat with less wood at the barrel end, and more in the middle, so it looks similar to a “torpedo.”

Apparently several Yankees used it in a game and hit a bunch of home runs. Now all the commentators and pundits are asking if this is the next big thing in baseball, will all the teams start using it, is it even legal, OH MY GOSH THE INSANITY!

There’s one problem with this whole storyline – it’s not “new” at all.

In a fascinating interview on my local sports radio station – the afternoon drive hosts spoke to the founder of Warstic Bat Company and asked him about the Torpedo bat.

The wild thing is, he explained how this style of bat actually is NOT some revolution in hitting tech. The bat design has been around for decades. A few players have used it over that time, but it’s just not a good bat for most hitting styles.

The hosts were stunned. Everyone thought this was some new breakthrough in technology. He told them, “Dude, I could go make you a torpedo bat right now, we have the template for it along with the 100 other bat styles we make. It’s nothing special.”

Lots of lessons we could learn from this. Today I want you to consider how this parallels with what your patients experience.

People who don’t have the information (prospective patients) may think something is new, novel, revolutionary or even unproven. Vs. the folks who DO have the information know better (you / patients you educate).

SO 1. be aware of this asymmetry and 2. use it to your advantage.

1. Be aware.

You have patients who don’t know we can fix astigmatism with refractive surgery, even though we’ve been doing it for decades.

You have patients who don’t know there’s more than just LASIK. You have patients who are oblivious to the fact there are specific procedures to fix their reading vision.

Know this.

2. Use to your advantage.

Do you think Major League Baseball is upset that the entire general public and most of the media are misinformed about the history of the Torpedo bat? Heck no. They’re getting eyes and attention on the sport.

And is it causing any harm? Nah. Hey if torpedo bat is “new to you,” who am I to burst your bubble?

And people are learning about the bat, about different bat styles, more about baseball. So the increased attention and excitement toward Major League Baseball is worth a bit of nebulous misinformation about an obscure bat.

Same goes for you. You don’t have to paint an entire, to-the-letter accurate history of every procedure you offer. It’s not necessary. It’s boring. It wastes time. And it confuses your patients!

But what you SHOULD do – lean into the aspects of your procedures that people are interested in, the various features that align with their buying priorities.

Here’s what I mean – take EVO for example.

For the cautious personality, you need to reinforce trust and longevity – “This technology is proven over the course of 20 years, it’s trusted, over 3 million of them have been done around the world, and our surgeons selected this very procedure based on their years of experience and research.”

For the inspiring trend-chaser, you want to hype up the newness, high profile and excitement – “Yeah, this is the latest and greatest version of the EVO procedure, now all these celebs are doing it, they all love it! Let’s do it!”

Depending on who we’re talking to, we’re simply focusing on the info that’s important to the prospect.

But Troy, those are wayyyyy different approaches. How do I know which one to use?

Exactly. This is where personality styles come in. Learning your and your patients’ personality styles is like a “Cheat Code” (a client’s words, not mine) for effective communication. Because you don’t feel like you have to say everything. You can focus on the important things.

In our DISC for Doctors & Teams program, we teach elective medical practices 1. how to understand your own personality style, 2. how to determine someone else’s personality style, and 3. How to meet them where they are to take them where they need to go.

And while it’s insanely effective, it’s not rocket science. Anyone who saw me and Susan speak at The Outliers Meeting in Nashville learned a lot about being a “DISC Detective” in just our 30-minute presentation.

It’s something you can pick up and start using after just one session.

So if you want the full details on this conversion-boosting superpower… if you want the cheat codes… just hit reply.

– Troy “hitting homers with the right words” Cole

Stop making it so dang complicated

I watched a freakish 5’6″ ten-year-old smash a home run this week.

The same kid who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn just minutes before.

What changed?

His private hitting coach had given him 9 different adjustments to make. NINE! For a hyper kid with the attention span of a goldfish.

No wonder he was swinging like he’d never held a bat before.

So I pulled him aside after his terrible first round.

“Forget ALL that crap. Just do three things: load, step, and turn.”

That’s it.

His next three swings:

>> Swing 1 – hard grounder to third (progress)

>> Swing 2 – line drive to left center (nice)

>> Swing 3 – BOMB over the left field fence (wtf!)

Another one of my players was just as shocked when the same advice worked for him.

“Wait, so I can just do that in the tournament this weekend?!”

How could success be so simple? He genuinely thought baseball was SUPPOSED to be complicated. It’s not.

Neither is growing your practice.

When we start coaching practices, we see the same problem. Your team members are drowning in complexity.

They think they need to:

Memorize 47 different scripts
Have perfect answers to EVERY question
Anticipate every objection
Never make a mistake

It’s paralyzing them. And costing you money.

Your team doesn’t need to know EVERYTHING. They need to know the RIGHT things.

This is why our programs work so well:

Our E3 Conversion System Bootcamp teaches your team how to THINK, not memorize. Simple frameworks they can use on the daily, that actually work.

Our DISC for Doctors & Teams program breaks down every human into just 4 “communication style” categories. Suddenly your team “gets” every patient who walks in.

If someone on your team is struggling, they’re probably making things too complicated.

Simplify. That’s the name of the game.

And it’s a game we’ve mastered at LogiCole Consulting.

Wish me dingers at this weekend’s tournament. I’m wishing you home runs in your practice as we kick off Q2.

Talk soon,

Troy “simplify the heck out of it” Cole

Master the Art of “Active Listening” to Book More Surgeries

“Troy, do you have any good sales scripts for X?”

As a sales and communications coach for high-ticket elective surgery practices, I get this question on a semi-weekly basis. And while it makes sense, this inquiry fails to get at the heart of the issue.

You wanna book more consults and surgeries, right? And you may think the key to accomplishing this goal is having new scripts and better ways of saying things.

Well that’s certainly part of it, and we have those. But before we even get into what we SAY, it starts with what we OBSERVE.

I’m headed to the Outliers meeting in Nashville in 2 weeks (Mar 21-22) to give a Keynote on how our specific method of “Active Listening” has proven to be a cheat code for more booked surgeries.

This is an under-leveraged, often-overlooked tactical approach you can take to supercharge your conversions. It’s also something I’ve never shared publicly before. But we (Susan and I) will be opening the treasure chest and spilling all the gold doubloons on-stage in Nash-Vegas.

Today I wanted to give you 3 High Level concepts so you can start marinating on them prior to the meeting. (If you’re not going, this will still be beneficial to you)

Regardless of your specialty, my hope is these will serve you if you take these principles to heart and activate them in with your team.=

1. People will tell you what they need in order for them to book surgery.

How do you understand someone’s priorities, interests, personality style and what drives their decisions? The only way to know it is by listening.

If you’re creating enough space in the conversation, asking the right questions, and listening, people will tell you exactly what they need (and by extension, what you need to know) in order for them to buy.

You don’t have to guess. You don’t have to cover all your bases. You don’t have to blast a shotgun into the ether and hope you hit something.

Active Listening done properly gives you the sniper shot right through the heart of the roadblocks standing between your patient and an amazing surgical outcome with you.

If you know what to listen for, you can set your patient up for success (your success is a byproduct of this).

Your patients don’t need MORE info, they need the RIGHT info in the RIGHT sequence.

How do you know what the right info is? By listening.

2. We not only listen with our ears, but also our eyes.

Obviously we think about listening as something we do with our ears. But when we observe, we’re essentially “listening” with our eyes.

Their body posture, their facial expressions, their attire, their accessories.

Not only will they TELL you what they need to hear in order to buy, they’ll SHOW you whether they resonate with the storyline you’re laying out for them.

Patients will show you what their interests are. They’ll show you what stories they need to hear.

What logo is on their shirt? What does their hat say? What sticker is on their water bottle?

Something I’ve started saying more often:

“If someone’s wearing it on their body, they’re probably into it.”

Sports team logos, brand names, etc. Observe, ask about it, and listen to the valuable clues they are giving you.

3. When in doubt, listen vs. talk

This is super-tactical. When in doubt, fight your need to word-vomit.

It’s so easy to feel like we need to throw more and more information into the situation.

Instead, listen. Ask questions. Get more information for yourself.

“The person asking the questions is the one leading the convo.”

By asking and listening, it keeps you in the driver’s seat, and it often leads to the patient working things out on their own.

At the very least, it gives you more insight into their thought process, so you can meet them where they are and ask more questions and lead them where they want to go.

Remember, when a patient tells YOU something, they also tell it to themselves. Which is uber-influential.

The most powerful stories are the ones we tell ourselves.

OK, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you want a full outline of tactics, how to incorporate this with Personality Profiling to put Active Listening on Steroids, and how to deploy “Active Listening” among your entire team, get your Outliers ticket now if there are any left and let’s party (and LEARN) in Nashville.

Lmk if you’re going.

Enjoy your weekend,

PS – Outliers is not my conference, and I don’t get anything whether you choose to go or not. But I do believe it’s the best meeting you can attend if you want to grow your cash-pay procedures, you’re into new technology, and most importantly:

You understand the massive benefit of being “in the room” with like-minded surgeons, admins, marketers and practice owners who are all on their own versions of the same monumental practice growth mission.

I’ve had a few folks reach out and ask me if I thought they should attend. And in full transparency, it’s NOT a conference for everyone. (Hence the name)

So if you’re like “Man, I kinda think I wanna do this but I’m not sure.” Hit me back and ask. Happy to help you figure it out.

In case you missed our “Internet Cookies” call…

Happy Friday and welcome to the almost-weekend.

In case you couldn’t make the call on Wednesday where I “interviewed” Loryn Lyle (SILVR Agency Founder) on how to safely use “Internet Cookies” on your website…

I am sending you the recording.

I figure for this topic, it’s in everyone’s best interest – yours, ours, the industry’s – if you have this information and know how to keep your site safe from prying ambulance chaser eyes that may wish you monetary harm.

So here’s the link to the replay – https://vimeo.com/1058751139/49d327d06c?share=copy

Go watch that if you like to geek out on all these details. A number of audience members asked solid questions as well, and we address all of those.

To summarize Loryn’s recommendation: she talked about the need for each practice’s legal counsel to review their Terms of Service and Privacy Policies in light of new privacy laws, as well as the need to have a Cookie Consent tool properly set up for your website.

While all of this sounds boring, cumbersome and expensive, here’s the cool part:

Come to find out, SILVR has actually developed templates in conjunction with a privacy lawyer for the state of California (which has some of the strictest privacy laws in the country).

She agreed to offer this as an a la carte service for any practice that needs it. SILVR will provide the templates (your counsel can review them and approve them for your use, which is way more affordable than having lawyers draft something from scratch).

And SILVR will set up their robust yet elegant Cookie Consent solution for your website (the one they use is way more cost-effective than most solutions, and only moderately annoying).

So if you don’t want to jack with all this stuff and just want it handled right the first time, reach out to her directly on it – loryn@silvrsocial.com.

And if you like these calls where I pick an expert’s brain on your behalf, reply let me know. I may do more of these in the coming months. They’re fun and a good way for everyone to learn.

Enjoy your weekend,

Troy Cookie-Cole

PS – We’ll be OFF cookies and back ON to our regularly scheduled gold nuggies next week. As I’ve been putting the finishing touches on our keynote presentation for Outliers next month, I have a couple important strategies around how to “Listen you way to the sale” I want to share with you.

PPS – A number of folks replied to let me know they were already going to Outliers or bought tickets based upon my suggestion. If you have NOT yet, here’s the link – https://reg.eventnook.com/event/u75988