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[VIDEO] The Only Price Comparison Your Prospects Should Make

It’s typical for patients to make price comparisons when considering your services.

In fact, the idea of comparing prices (and comparison in general) is hard-wired into us. It’s at the core of any decision-making process, even if many of us don’t realize it.

Unfortunately, the way most people compare prices – your vs. your competitor’s – doesn’t help them make the right decision. But when framed correctly, price comparison can actually work in your favor – to set you apart from your competition and transform your premium priced procedures into no-brainer options for your prospects.

Specifically, there is only one price comparison you should guide your prospects to make. I explain it all in the video…

Questions about how to guide your patients to the *right* comparison? Click here to book your free Strategy Session to deep dive on this very important skillset…

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, what’s up, y’all. It is your boy, Troy. And I want to talk to you some more about pricing. And today I want to talk to you about the only price comparison that should be made when you’re talking to your prospects about your treatments, the only price comparison that should be made.

So commonly you’ll have patients or prospects rather who come in or they call you. And they’re trying to find out the price of your treatments, and they’re making comparisons between what you charge versus what somebody else in town charges for a similar type of a treatment. And we’ve talked about in other videos, how that’s not what you want to do. That’s obviously the wrong comparison.

You’ll also have comparisons where you might talk about the price of your procedure or the investment in your procedure versus the cost of what they’re spending on something like glasses and contacts in the world of LASIK, right? And so it’s like, Hey, look, you could save money based on what you’re spending on glasses and contacts if you go ahead and have the treatment.

But I want to zoom out a little bit because that’s under a bigger umbrella. And the umbrella I’m talking about is the, is the only price comparison that you should make in your treatments. And that price comparison is the investment in your treatment compared to the cost of an action, the investment in your treatment compared to the cost of inaction. And yes, part of that is financial, right? If someone’s spending $500 or $1000 a year on glasses and contacts, then there’s certainly a financial component to having a treatment that gets you out of those glasses of contacts for the next decade or two. Right? But there’s so much more than that. There is a quality of life component.

And in many cases, while you can’t put a price tag on quality of life necessarily, the pain associated with that can be so much more than the pain associated with just spending the money that you’re already used to spending on glasses and contacts. What am I talking about here? Well, you might have a patient who comes in and they say, you know, I just, I really want to be able to swim with my kids this summer, but when I don’t have my contacts in, I can’t see them in the pool. It’s literally unsafe for me to try to actually get in the pool and splash around and have fun with them because I can’t see what is happening. I can’t keep an eye on my kids. Well, what is the actual monetary cost of that? I don’t know what it is. I can’t really put a price tag on it.

But in terms of quality of life, I mean, that is huge, right? Could you imagine going through life and not being able to ever fully engage with your kids during the summer when you go swimming and being able to enjoy that time with them. That is horrible, right? Or maybe somebody wants to be able to play sports and they just can’t do it. Or they love to go bike riding, but they wear their glasses and their sweat always dripping down their glasses. So five minutes after they start for the next hour and a half, they’re just miserable.

These kinds of things – while there’s not a price tag on them necessarily – are huge costs to your patients. And really what that comes down to is being able to figure out and find the pain, and reminding the patients of that pain that they are in of the cost of not taking action now with you, because that cost, when you look at the financials and you look at the quality of life and you look at the emotional impact, all of those things added up, really build into a reason to go ahead and pull the trigger and have that treatment now versus delaying another year or another two years or waiting until something else happens.

Because the reality is anyone you’re talking to, they are frustrated enough that they have reached out to you in some way, they are ready to make some kind of a change, right. But any change, especially one that involves some kind of a treatment or a major thing like that in a decent size investment, any big change like that is going to have friction. And people don’t like to change, even if they know it’s good for them, even if they know they’re going to love the result. So we want to build that case around the cost of inaction. And that is where the comparison really comes into play. That is where even your premium price procedures are a drop in the bucket compared to the cost and the pain and the frustration of continuing on the path that they’re on for the next year, five years, 10 years, whatever that looks like.

And this is a big piece of what we take our clients through when they go through our workshop is helping to identify and figure out what is, not only what, what that framework looks like for, for building the quality of life case, right? That cost of inaction, but also how to pull that out of patients, how to really dig down and find the why – why they are calling, why they are sitting in your consultation room and, and really getting down to the root of that. Because at the root, that is where the pain is. And we are, we’re essentially helping patients solve their problems and fix those pains that have been driving them crazy. You know, in many cases for years, and we have to help and guide them through that.

So if you’re having trouble converting patients, you want to convert more of your prospects into patients, into surgeries. You want to charge higher prices for your premium procedures. You want to charge what you are worth and not what other practices who are doing – discounts and bait and switch and all these other weird pricing tactics. They’re commoditizing the market.

If you don’t want to compete with that anymore, and you want to set yourself apart, shoot me a message, comment below this, shoot me an email, whatever it is, man, get in touch with me. Let’s start talking and let’s figure out what it looks like to set your practice apart to be the premium provider in the market, because you’re the one who understands your patient’s pains. And you’re the one who understands what it’s going to take to get them from where they are now -their frustrated dystopia – to the amazing results that you know, you can provide and the amazing life that you can give to your patients.

The only price comparison you should be making is the investment in your treatment compared to the incredibly high and painful cost of inaction on your patient’s part. Talk to you soon. I hope you have an amazing day and we will see you on the next video.

[VIDEO] Patient Pushback on Your Pricing? Create the Apples vs. Oranges Frame

“Geez, you guys are expensive!”

If you have patients pushing back on your pricing, there’s a good chance it’s because they’re drawing the wrong comparison.

In this short video, I explain how the Apples & Oranges Framework can set your practice apart, which lets you more easily charge premium prices for your procedures.

If you want to know how to do this for your practice, book a strategy session and let’s talk it out.

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TRANSCRIPT:

What is up guys? It’s your boy, Troy, I want to talk to you real quick today about pricing and the pricing of your treatments. So one of the things that a lot of practices run into is that you have frustrated not being able to charge premium prices for their treatments. Maybe you’re in a market where you have other other providers who are doing massive discounting, or they’re doing some bait and switch, start at $199 type of pricing. And you’ve got all this noise out in the marketplace, and it’s really just polluting the message that your prospects are receiving, and it’s commoditizing your industry. And it keeps you from being able to charge the premium prices that you want to charge for your treatments, that, you know, you are worth for your treatments because of the amazing results that you get for your patients.

So I want to talk to you today about why that’s happening and really what you can do to create a scenario where you are able to charge the prices that you want and that you know, that you deserve. So you’ve heard the term comparing apples and oranges, right? And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. If somebody tries to compare two items that really aren’t comparable, someone will say, well, you know what? You’re just trying to compare apples and oranges, right? And, and so that’s the actual scenario that, that you want to create in your marketplace with your prospects. And the problem is that your prospects are out there. They need your services and they see what you do, and they see what your competitors out there are doing. And they’re saying, well, you know what? This is, this is like an apples to apples, kind of a comparison, right?

I mean, you’re doing LASIK, they’re doing LASIK, or you’re offering a cosmetic treatment, they’re doing a cosmetic treatment, whatever it is. And they say, well, look, I mean, they’re kind of the same thing, right? So I’m just going to compare these two things and I’m going to compare the prices and we’re going to see who’s got the best, really the best deal for me. And so what’d you want to do is you want to create a, a positioning for your practice where it’s no longer apples to apples, right. It’s apples to oranges. Or as I like to say, sometimes it’s, it’s a new car versus a new TV. Would you ever compare the price of a new car to the price of a new TV? Well, no, you wouldn’t because those things are not comparable items, right? They serve two different purposes. They provide different results.

They aren’t even in the same category. Right. So it would make no sense to compare the price of a new car, to the price of a new TV. Alright. And so would you want to do, is you want to compete, you want to set yourself up so that you are not being compared to other practices. And the way to do that is very simple, really is through a process called the Unique Patient Process. Alright, your unique patient process or UPP, you’ve heard of a USP before. This is your unique patient process. And this is the specific process that you take your patients through, that is designed to get them the results that they want. Once you have your unique patient process in place and you have that defined and you have that spelled out, that is the core of the differentiation between you and what other practices as in town are also doing alright, as part of our workshop that we take our clients through, we actually go through and help them develop this unique patient process.

We redefine it, we name it, we put teeth to it. And then we take it and we help you integrate it through your phone team and through your internal counselor team. So that this is what you’re walking patients through when they come in for when they call and when they come in for that, their consultation to book them into surgery. So if this is interesting to you, if you are tired of feeling like you have to compete on price or feeling like you can’t charge well, your worth, and you’re tired of struggling to try to figure it out yourself, and you want to, to make a change, you want to go ahead and take your practice to the next level. Shoot me a message or comment below this video. And let’s jump on the horn and see what we can do.

See what it’s going to take to get your practice, to help you realize the vision and the goals that you have for your practice and the position of your practice in the marketplace. Alright, shoot me a message. Comment below. Let’s get this thing figured out, because if you’re the best in your market, if you provide the amazing treatments for your patients, then you’re the one that all your prospects should become entail. And the reason they’re not is not because of your care. It’s not because you’re not great. It’s because they’re making wrong comparison and we need to help them fix that. Hope you have a great day and I will talk to you soon.

”If I want to compete, I have to offer mass discounts.”

Tyrone “Muggsy” Bogues is the shortest man to ever play in the NBA. Dude was a mere 5 foot 3 inches tall.

At that height, the idea of playing basketball even in high school – much less in the pros – is a pipe dream.

Yet he did it. For 14 seasons. In fact, he’s the Charlotte Hornets’ career leader in minutes played, assists and steals.

It would have been easy for Muggsy Bogues to say, “If I want to compete, I have to be tall.” Most players are tall. It’s a standard characteristic for basketball.

And if that was his attitude, he probably wouldn’t have picked up a basketball past 6th grade.

But that wasn’t going to work for Muggsy. He had is own distinct advantages, his own champion mindset, and a bulletproof lens for how he viewed the world.

And thus he made millions as a professional athlete because he did it on his own terms.

A lot of doctors in elective medicine – particularly LASIK – feel like if they want to compete, they have to offer massive discounts.

After all, that’s what a lot of practices do. That’s what the big chains do (or at least how they advertise). Seems to be pretty standard.

So it must be the right path, no?

Well, it’s definitely one way. But it’s not THE way.

Just like Muggsy Bogues, you can forge your own path. Create your own champion mindset. Build value in your unique skillset, credentials and authority. Play by your rules.

You didn’t go to a Lamborghini medical school so you could run a Kia practice.

And just like Muggsy, you can make millions playing your game like the elite professional you are.

Is Your Practice in a Whole Different League?

Ritz-Carlton and Motel-6 are both essentially hotels.

But they are in completely different leagues.

If you need the cheapest place to stay for a night, Motel-6 is your choice.

If you want a second-to-none luxury experience, of course Ritz-Carlton is your pick.

But in both of these scenarios, you aren’t debating “between two hotels.”

They are the same thing-ish… but they are in different leagues. There’s really no comparison.

And you want the same positioning for your practice.

Your practice and the discount chain down the street may offer the same service… basically.

But you want to establish that your practice is in a totally different league.

If you look at your local competition and the hotel scenario, you have one distinct advantage and one clear disadvantage.

Bad news first – you probably don’t have the established brand of Ritz-Carlton (and if you do, raise your prices by 50% and go get wealthy now. What are you waiting for?).

Any goofball on the street could give you the basic differences between Motel 6 and Ritz-Carlton. And that’s actually an advantage to both companies, and a testament to the brands they’ve built.

It’s different in your line of work. Most people think LASIK is LASIK. So that’s a problem.

But now your advantage: Unlike the need to find a cheap, no-frills hotel – and many people have that need from time to time – no one wants to cheap out on medical procedures.

Even most price shoppers – when actually pressed – don’t want the cheapest surgery.

This is your advantage as a premium healthcare brand that doesn’t cut corners.

The challenge is communicating this throughout the patient journey.

By the time someone has gone halfway through your process, it should be crystal clear to them that you are the Ritz-Carlton of eyes. And all those other places… they’re Motel-6 contrasted against you.

When you can position yourself like this, price concerns fade away because there’s literally no comparison. You’re in a league of your own.

And if someone wants the utmost care and treatment for their most precious sense (sight), they only have one choice – you.

But before your patients can believe that… your team has to believe it.

Fix your team’s mindset first. That’s the first domino.

And yes, that’s a challenge. So shoot me a message if you want the roadmap of shortcuts to the premium practice mindset.

Get Creative and Monetize Your Assets (Major League Baseball did)

Pro baseball is back-ish.

If you’ve caught any of the MLB games on TV, you’ve noticed one feature conspicuously missing: The fans.

Like the NBA and other pro sports leagues, Major League Baseball is playing all their games fan-less.

But that minor detail hasn’t kept them from monetizing the seats in their stadiums.

Many MLB teams have sold cardboard cutouts to place in the seats. For $50 – $250 (depending on the team), you can have your photo printed on a life-size piece of cardboard and placed in the stands.

The result? Teams have made hundreds of thousands of $$ selling… cardboard.

Now compared to selling out a stadium for a game, that’s small potatoes. But it’s an extra half milly they wouldn’t have had otherwise. And it serves a dual purpose of deepening the relationship between the team and its fans.

Consider how teams normally monetize seats? They sell tickets to people who sit in them and watch a game.

But they can’t do that right now. So teams got creative, and figured out alternative ways to monetize one of their most valuable assets.

This is a principle you can apply to your practice now and even once all this pandemic insanity is over.

Practices like yours have many assets they can leverage, but they often just don’t. This is a huge mistake that results in thousands of $$ left on the table.

For example, how do you normally monetize your inbound leads? Turn them into patients. But what about those who haven’t booked a consult? Can you offer them something else? Follow-up with them? Re-engage? Book a discovery call with them?

Your non-converted leads are an asset waiting to be activated.

So are your past patients, your community relationships, your social media channels, the business next door to you, your website, your knowledge, your team, your 5-star patient reviews. All assets.

It just takes a little creativity to think, “What assets do I have, and what are some ways I can use them that I haven’t considered before?”

Creative Asset Activation is one of the leverage points we cover in our Top Docs Method Workshop. Message me if you’re ready to scoop up “Found Money” that’s hidden in your practice right now.