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Know, like, and trust. Know. Like. Trust.

A-Player salespeople will tell you – If you want to close the deal, your prospect needs to know you, like you and trust you. And that means you have to build rapport with your prospects.

But how do you do it in the short 60-90 minutes it takes to complete your consultation?

These 7 tips are designed to help you build rapport in short order. None of these are particularly time-consuming or energy-draining, yet they all signal to your prospects and patients, “I see you. I hear you. I’m here for you.” Get ready to fast-track rapport with your prospects.

1. Use the patient’s name.

This is the easiest and fastest way to make your interaction with a prospect (or anyone in life, for that matter) to feel more personal.

Don’t do it every sentence so that it feels fake and forced. Simply use a person’s name periodically throughout a call or consultation.

2. Keep it upbeat.

When prospects all or come in for a consultation, they are uncertain. This is a new situation to them. And this means their energy level and excitement will likely be low.

It’s your job to set the tone of upbeat excitement. This is called “setting the frame” of the visit. Show them what to care about. What to be excited about. How to react to the different parts of the appointment.

For example, when they find out they are a candidate, celebrate it. Show them how they should feel, and they will follow your lead.

When you control the frame of the consultation, your prospect will feel more secure and more excited. Not only that, but this creates a feeling of ‘togetherness’ that naturally feels more personalized. You and the prospect are on this adventure together, and you are the guide.

And always remember: you are responsible for the level of energy and excitement, not the prospect. You aren’t always going to be in the most exciting moods. That’s fine – Fake it.

3. Use “Yes, Sir/Ma’am” and “No, Sir/Ma’am.”

Yes, I’m from Texas. And I love some good ol fashioned southern manners. But these phrases go beyond the Emily Post Etiquette Guidebooks.

Saying “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am” signals respect and helps to build the trust, which is exactly what you need if you want to turn a prospect into a patient.

These phrases are endearing to young and old. If you have the random person who says, “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me!” then make an exception for her. Otherwise, let the sirs and ma’ams flow!

4. Tell them what’s going to happen next.

Your process is foreign to 99% of the people walking through your door. Yes, you know how a consultation works – you’ve done 7,000 of them. But your prospect has not.

So from the call to the consult to the treatment or procedure, tell your prospect what is going to happen next in the process – where we’re going, what we’re doing, who they are going to meet next.

For example, “This is the Pentacam, and it’s going to tell us how thick your cornea is. That’s important so we can determine which procedures might be an option for you.”

This will settle their anxiety, and it creates a more personal connection. You aren’t just an employee at a doctor’s office. You are their personal guide through this journey.

5. Find out their “why.”

Yes, your prospects are coming in to have vision correction. But their goals aren’t surgery. No one is coming in because they think it would be cool to have their cornea reshaped. It’s about so much more than the actual procedure itself.

They want to see their kids in the morning, read their phones without an embarrassing size 20 font, finally ride that 100k bike race without sweat dripping off their glasses.

So find out their “why” and talk about it. This is a powerful way to personalize the entire experience – now everything you’re doing is to help them toward that specific goal, and you’re in a partnership, working together.

6. Chart everything so no question has to be asked twice.

You want prospects to feel known and cared for. One of the fastest way to break that feeling? Make a prospect answer the same question 2-3 times. It’s annoying, and it signals a lack of concern on your part.

We’ve all been there – you call the cell phone company with a question about your service. The automated attendant asks you for your account number and half a dozen other things. You finally get on the line with a human, and what is the first thing they ask?

”What is your account number please?”

Incredibly frustrating, and a waste of time to boot.

Make sure from the phone call through each step of the appointment, you are updating the prospect’s notes and don’t have to revisit information he or she has already shared. This isn’t just their name, email and phone number, but their goals, concerns, fears, what they know, what they don’t know, their questions. EVERYTHING. It’s ammunition if and when you need to use it to close the deal.

7. Hand-off in front of the prospect.

We like to hear someone singing our praises to us. “You did such a great job!”

But you know what’s even more powerful? When we hear someone telling another person how amazing we are.

When your team does a patient hand-off in front of the prospect, you are able to talk about their “why” (#4), and discuss important aspects of the prospect’s desires and needs (#5), as well as brag on the prospect using some of the information you have gleaned.

“Dr. Jones, this is John, he listens to the Jimmy in the Morning show and heard Jimmy talking about his procedure with us. John is a ROCKSTAR mountain biker, and he’s super-excited to be able to hit the trails without his frustrating contacts!”

This subtly signals that “Wow, they remember these things I’ve said, and I’m important to them.”

An added bonus here is that you introduce the doctor and build that authority. “John, this is Dr. Jones. He did Jimmy’s procedure along with thousands of other happy patients, including many outdoor enthusiasts like yourself!”

Rapport-Building isn’t so hard, is it?

Now you have a few new tricks up your sleeve, simple ways to convey your concern, build a relationship and guide the prospect toward booking a procedure.

All you have to do now is use them. Share these with your team. Review them at your next team meeting. Deploy and reap the rewards.

As much as you would love to book 100% of the prospects who come to your office for a consultation, common roadblocks keep this from happening.

One of the most frequent objections – “This all sounds great, but I need to talk to my spouse.”

Let’s assume Sally came in for her consult, and she dropped this line on you.

You’ve already tried your normal closing scripts:

▪ “What do you think your spouse will say?”
▪ “Would you like me to step out so you can make that call right now?”
▪ “Of course, I would do the same thing. What if we go ahead and schedule your surgery for the time we discussed, and if you talk to your spouse and need to change it, we can certainly make that happen.”

Yes, you’ve gone through your Closing Script Toolbox, but it’s not happening today. Sally is leaving your office without scheduling.

So now what?

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Before I get into the solution, let’s take a second to look at how humans make purchases in general.

People buy based on emotion, then justify their decisions with logic.

We all do this all the time. Yes, even you and me. We sell ourselves on why we “need” things, and we use logical reasoning to do it.

Example:

I “need” that new truck.

My old one is no longer in warranty, it’s probably going to need some work soon anyway. (never mind that it hasn’t had any issues yet.)

The newer model actually gets even better gas mileage than my current model, which would certainly save some money (never mind that my current vehicle is paid for vs. the exorbitant loan payment I’m about to assume)….

and isn’t that better for the environment? (never mind that we’re still talking about a gas-guzzling pickup truck here).

Plus this newer model has much more leg room in the back, which will be a great experience for other adults who ride with me. (never mind that aside from my annual dove hunting trip to Abilene, TX, the only people riding in the back seat of my truck are relegated to 5-point toddler seats with sippy cup holders).

And so I, being the altruistic, environmentally conscious, investment-minded, courteous man that I am, buy a new truck…. basically for the good of mankind.

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Yes, this anecdote is hyperbolic, but not by much.

We sell ourselves on our own decisions. And not only that, we also have to sell our decisions (especially high-ticket, elective decisions) to those close to us.

In this case, Sally needs buy-in from her husband, Joe.

But unlike Sally, Joe didn’t have the benefit of seeing your beautiful office, going through the consultation process, meeting with the doctor, and getting excited about the results that you can provide. All Joe sees is the price tag, and that’s a problem for you.

Fighting this uphill battle, how can you help Sally successfully sell her decision to her husband?

Give her ammo.

You probably give your prospects some kind of paperwork, a brochure, maybe some literature on the treatment or procedure they are considering. Your takeaway packet.

Shift your thinking – Your takeaway packet is now Sally’s Logical Decision Sales Kit. This is the ammo that your prospect can use to sell those around her.

Sally should be able to easily share this literature, with the goal of Joe saying, “Hmm, yeah, this seems like a really good idea.”

What specifically goes into Sally’s Logical Decision Kit? Here are some ideas, using LASIK as the example procedure:

• Cost comparison chart – Vision correction can often result in costs savings over the long-run, vs continued dependence on glasses or contacts. Include a chart that clearly breaks down estimated cost savings.
• Research articles on safety – Contacts continue to be proven risky based on studies from multiple groups, including the CDC. Print these articles and place them in the patient folder.
• Surgical Experience – Include a printed sheet of the surgeon’s bio and CV, including a list of published articles. The boring stuff that most people gloss over? It goes here.
• Technology – People aren’t coming in the door because you have the best laser, despite what they tell you. BUT people will use your technology as a justification for choosing you. So include information about the specific technology/laser you will use to correct their vision, and why it’s the superior choice.

You can probably think of half a dozen more logical appeals you can place in your packet. Just make sure Sally knows what it is and why it’s important.

The key is to give Sally so much useful information to share, husband Joe can’t help but get on board.

Arm Sally and all your prospects with their Logical Decision Sales Kits when they leave your office, so they can effectively sell their spouse, their friends and even themselves on why you are the Obvious Choice.

The “How Much Is It?” question is such a pain. But it comes up more than any other question from prospective patients.

This is why I spend an inordinate amount of time working with my clients on new ways to address this question.

Here’s a fresh way to handle this popular inquiry, and it’s kind of… ninja. The big idea is to make your treatment seem like the deal of the century, even if you’re the highest priced provider in town.

Does this mean you should never do special offers for your market? No, I’m not saying that. There is a time and place for properly constructed offers.

But you don’t want to have a constant discount running 24/7 to the entire market. It commoditizes you.

You provide awesome value, you should command a higher price. And today, you’ll learn a simple script you can use to do just that.

This is mainly written for those in the vision correction space, but you can probably take a nugget away, even if you’re in another vertical.

Before we get into the tactic…

The Reason We Don’t Like to Talk About Price

The challenge with sharing price is that we don’t want our procedures to sound expensive.

And that’s a valid concern. Because LASIK (and related vision surgeries) DO sound expensive, in the normal context.

Let’s say I wear daily contact lenses, and I spend $50/month on those. If I compare that amount to the $2500 per eye on LASIK you’re gonna charge me, the LASIK is a much higher $$.

Higher $$ = more expensive, right?

Nope. Not in this scenario anyway.

In Reality, LASIK is a Lifetime Investment.

In my example above, I’m comparing monthly costs of contacts vs. lifetime cost of LASIK. That’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, even though people make it all the time.

It’s the standard context for the price question. And it sets you up to lose.

Want to change perception? Create a new context.

Here’s how:

For a true apples-to-apples comparison, we need to talk about the lifetime investment in glasses and contacts.

Now, there are so many different ways to calculate this amount. It could be anywhere from $200/year to $1200/year, depending on a number of factors.

I’m not worried about how much Patient X (the person sitting in front of you) personally spends on glasses and contacts each month/year. They probably can’t tell you anyway, and if they say a number, 9 times out of 10 they’ll underestimate. Why?

Because Humans Are Biased Against Looking Stupid.

If you set up a scenario in which you’re asking a guy to tell you he’s doing something dumb (like overspending on his eye care), that dude will try to save face. Justify his spending on contacts. Underestimate costs. Get defensive.

So skip that whole part of the convo. Don’t make him look stupid. Instead, enlighten the guy.

How? Just use an average.

Let’s say the average contact lens wearer starts wearing contacts as a teenager, age 15.

And let’s say that carries an expense of $500/year. That includes back up pairs from time to time, prescription sunglasses, solutions, etc. All that works out to about $500 a year.

So if you look at $500/year from age 15 to 40 (when presbyopia starts), you could conservatively estimate the lifetime costs of glasses and contacts as $12,500.

And Now You Have Your High Price Anchor

Again, really conservative. Actual annual cost is probably more, and most folks are going to wear those contacts to 45-50 at least. So play with this number if you want.

But once you have that ‘average number’ you’re comfortable with – let’s say it’s $12,500 spent on glasses and contacts over the course of their lifetime – you frame it as a question.

“Did you know the average contact lens wearer spends more than $12,500 on contacts and contacts stuff in their lifetime? Soooo much money for something you can’t stand, right?”

Then you draw a comparison to LASIK, which is just $2500 per eye. LASIK is the affordable option, even if your particular LASIK offering is higher priced than your competitors.

Price Anchoring: The critical secret to success with this script

One crucial structural requirement I want to reiterate here.

I mentioned that we would use price anchoring to make your treatment seem like the deal of the century, even if you’re the highest priced provider in town.

Price anchoring plays on a cognitive bias – our tendency to give more weight to the first piece of information that we are given.

You see this all the time in infomercials – You get the main widget, an extra widget bowl, a second set of fancy widget utensils, and the travel size widget, a $299 value, for only $39.95.

You’re anchoring value to this big amount of money you’ve built up. Or in our case, you’re anchoring on a big expense – contacts and contact lens accessories.

To effectively use price anchoring here, you’re going to share the high contacts/glasses figure FIRST. Before you talk about the price of LASIK.

You are price anchoring the prospect to a crazy high expense that they are already experiencing, and you’re making LASIK the super-affordable alternative option.

Congratulations, you’ve created the new context.

Here’s how it works in Practice:

PROSPECT: How much is LASIK?

COUNSELOR: Well, do you wear glasses or contacts?

This question creates curiosity for the prospect and tees them up for your answer…

PROSPECT: Usually contacts.

COUNSELOR: Did you know the average contact lens wearer spends about $12,500 on contact lenses, supplies and backup glasses over the course of their lifetime? Pretty wild, right? LASIK, on the other hand, is less than half that amount, at only about $2500 per eye.

And then you could follow with another engaging question like…

COUNSELOR: So are you looking to get LASIK primarily for the cost savings or the convenience?

Then keep the convo going past price and onto more qualitative issues…

That’s all there is to it.

This word track can be used on the phone, in person or even in web chat. Why not have your team give it a spin?

Try it 20 times to see how people respond. Report back – troy at troy cole dot com.

And if you’re having trouble connecting with folks to actually have the conversation in the first place, check out my Follow-Up Mastery Manual, the scripts and tools you need to connect with more prospects and turn them into patients.

Find Out More About Follow-Up Mastery