It’s 10:04, and her appointment was supposed to start almost 20 minutes ago.

You were hoping she was just running late, but when your counselor tried to give her a call…. Straight to voicemail.

This doesn’t make sense. Her notes say, “Patient sounds pretty excited.” Not sure exactly what that means, but it definitely sounds positive.

On top of that, one of your schedulers called yesterday to confirm. Plus, she has the auto-text confirmation that goes out from your reminder software.

Even with all that effort….

The money spent to generate the lead… The time spent to confirm the appointment…. It happened.

You were NO-SHOWED.

Gosh, I hate no-shows. And I know I’m not alone.

You work so hard to generate leads and get potential patients interested in your services. Many of the folks who call or send in their info actually WILL book an appointment or free consultation.

But then it comes to getting these same folks to show up to their appointments, and there’s always drop-off.

Even if you have a great follow-up plan, even if you speak directly to the person the day before her consult, you still end up with costly no-shows.

We pretend that people forget their appointments.

But how is that possible?

You call patients before their appointments. You send emails.

You even have software for the sole purpose of sending reminder messages.

My point is this: people don’t forget their appointments. So what happens?

Jane Doe skips her appointment because it’s not a priority. Simple as that.

“Something else came up…”

“I was running behind and couldn’t make it…”

“Must have slipped my mind…”

Whatever the excuse, the REAL reason… is lack of priority.

So how can you solve it?

Get ’Em Excited!

We prioritize things we’re excited about:

My son’s first soccer game.

A big client meeting.

Date night Friday with my wife.

I’m excited about these events. Inherently, that makes them priorities.

Excitement grows as Jane nears her appointment with you, but another “energy” is working against you:

It’s the contrasting force of uncertainty.

She’s excited after scheduling, but immediately regret starts to set in. This is a kind of ‘buyer’s remorse’ that’s rooted in ambiguity and uncertainty.

“I don’t know what to expect…”

“What if it’s more expensive than I think it is?”

“Can I trust these people?”

Thoughts and feelings and emotions come pouring in and creating resistance.

Hence the reason we encourage you to get new leads to come in as soon as possible, same day even. Otherwise they’ll talk themselves right out of the consultation.

And that’s what you see happen with no-shows.

You spend all this time making sure they “remember” when that’s not even the problem.

In fact, too many reminders without adding value may actually create more no-shows than it prevents.

“Stop bugging me, I know I have an appointment.”

The trick is to build positive anticipation so people get as excited about their appointments as they are about an upcoming vacation.

Here are 4 strategies for doing exactly that, centered around a concept I call “Lead Incubation.”

Lead Incubation — Priming the Pump for Kept Appointments

Merriam-Webster defines the term “incubation” as “to keep (something) in the proper conditions for development.”

I’ve dubbed this concept “lead incubation” since that’s exactly what you must do with people who schedule appointments with you.

You will end up delivering so much value and creating such excitement and momentum that it will compel your lead to keep the appointment she set in the first place.

Here we go.

Jane Doe visits your site, clicks around, and fills out your contact form to schedule an appointment.

Now: how do you make sure she shows up?

1. Reinforce the Decision to Schedule as Fast as Possible

I mean literally, within SECONDS.

Jane just clicked the “send” button on your contact form. She felt that little burst of dopamine we all get right after an action toward a purchase (test driving a car, looking at new houses, etc). You know the feeling.

But it’s a fleeting feeling of positivity. She quickly starts second-guessing, hoping she made the right decision.

Jane has just taken a huge step into the unknown by scheduling the appointment.

Yes, that probably sounds ridiculous to you because you do these consults every day. But to new patients, it can be a scary deal.

Jane needs someone to say, “Yes, yes! You made a great choice!”

How might you do this?

Thank her — with a video — on the thank-you page of your website.

The thank-you page of your website is where Jane (and anyone else) is sent on your website after she completes your web form. It typically says something generic and weak, “Thanks for your submission. We’ll contact you soon to confirm!”

BORING. And a total waste of valuable page.

Here’s the thing — your thank-you page is one of the most under-utilized pages on your website. It’s treated as a throw-away page, when it can actually be put to good use. So let’s do that.

Take this perfect opportunity to deliver an “attaboy” in an engaging, personalized way — through video.

I’m talking about a video of you, speaking into the camera, covering these bullets:

• Gratefulness — Thank you for choosing us.
• Excitement — We’re happy to meet you, and we’re excited to help you enjoy your life without the hassles of glasses and contacts / enjoy life with a better smile / whatever the benefit is that you are selling.
• Next Steps — One of my team members will reach out to you to confirm your appointment time and answer any preliminary questions you may have.
• Patient Advocate — You have your own patient advocate who will be available to you should you need anything!
• Thanks again — Thanks again for choosing , and we’ll see you soon!

There’s no ‘right way’ to do a thank-you video, as long as you’re hitting these points. The goal is to make it genuine, to make a personal connection with the lead.

Here’s an example I made for you. I shot it on my iPhone6+, which is great for shooting in HD and perfect for this.

I’m no pro on camera. So if you’re concerned about how slick and professional you’ll look, get that worry out of your head.

The goal here is to come across and genuine and sincere above anything else.

Bonus Tips

• Can’t do a video? Write your “thank you” message in text and add an image of your signature to it, almost like an opening letter.
• If you can combine the thank-you page message with an automated email that Jane receives, that increases the power of this messaging.
• Add more context to help the lead understand exactly what to expect: You can mention on the thank-you page letter to “Check your email now, because we just sent over the forms for your consultation. Don’t worry, it’s only 2 forms that take less than 10 minutes to fill out, AND you can do it all online for your convenience. Be sure to check your spam filter for the email, and please add us to your ‘safe senders’ list so we don’t end up in that pesky spam filter ever again!”

2. Make a Human Connection as Quickly as Possible

Yes, you have reminder software. Yes, you have automated emails. You probably even have a way to text Jane from your system.

But none of that takes the place of an authentic, voice-to-voice human connection.

The reason you see more no-shows than you did 10 years ago is due in part to the rise in leads coming from the web vs. inbound phone calls.

While convenient, the web is impersonal and lacks the level of commitment that you get with in-person or even phone interactions.

How do you overcome that?

Call Jane as quickly as you can. I mean within minutes.

Don’t get her? Leave a message and try again this afternoon and again tomorrow.

Once you connect with Jane on the phone, build rapport, and get her excited, you reduce the risk of no-show.

If you are skipping this step — if you are only emailing your web leads and never calling them — you are flushing money down the toilet. PICK UP THE PHONE AND USE IT.

3. Be as ‘Everywhere’ as Possible

Think about a time you were shopping for a new car.

Ever get your sights set on a certain model car, and then it seems like you start to see that particular model all over the road?

And you could swear this particular car used to be a rare sighting to you, but you now see them everywhere you go.

This is due to a couple of psychological processes: selective attention and cognitive bias.

(I’m not traversing the “psychology of selling” rabbit holes in this article — we’ll save those for another essay, or perhaps a book).

Long story short — the major car manufacturers aren’t waging a conspiracy against you. There’s not actually a campaign to showcase new 6-Series BMWs all around you on your daily commute. It just feels that way.

But what if we were able to create the type of perception around Jane’s decision to book an appointment with you?

It may sound wild, but follow me on this.

Let’s say Jane books her consultation, and all of a sudden, she starts to see more articles and stories about LASIK that make her feel good about her decision.

How great would that be? It would be awesome, if only it was possible.

With retargeting, it can be done.

(Don’t know what retargeting is? Here’s a quick definition on wikipedia.)

HOW can you do this?

It starts by adding a retargeting pixel to your thank-you page.

That way, anyone who gets there will start to see the retargeting ads in their Facebook feeds and on banner ads around the internet.

You may be wondering, “What type of messaging should I use on my retargeting banners?”

Well, we don’t need a sales message since Jane already committed to come in. But how about some great patient testimonials talking about their amazing experiences with you?

Sprinkle in some “Why LASIK is so popular” and “LASIK is the best investment of my life” articles and VOILA! You’re leveraging Facebook and the entire internet to positively reinforce Jane’s choice.

This is ninja-level marketing.

4. Play Your Trump Card if at All Possible (hint: YOU)

I almost didn’t include this because most people won’t do it, even though it would work insanely well. But my hope is you’re one of the few exceptions who will give it a try.

The Trump card I’m talking about is you — YOU, Doc — calling Jane yourself the day before her consultation.

Now, maybe you already call patients the evening following their procedures to make sure they are doing well.

This is excellent because it feels special, and it’s delightful and surprising to the patient. If you already do this, I don’t have to tell you — patients love it.

So how impactful might it be to call/text new patients the day prior to their consultations?

It could make a real difference in your no-shows.

Is it more work for you? Meh, about 2 minutes per patient. 120 seconds stands between you and a potential $X,000 procedure.

And let’s be honest — most people screen their calls anyway, so you’ll leave more voicemails than anything else.

Not sure what to say? Here you go: “John, this is Dr. X. I see you’re coming in tomorrow for a consultation with us. Really looking forward to seeing you. on my team should have sent directions to our office, give her a call if you have any questions. See you tomorrow!”

I talked about the importance of a personal connection in point #2. But a personal connection with you — the esteemed expert — that’s next-level impact.

Try it with your scheduled consults for a week and see what happens. I bet you see a drop in no-shows that makes the few minutes a day you spend making these calls well worth it.

Time to get started

Those are the 4 steps of lead incubation to reduce your no-shows.

Nothing here is particularly complicated. But if you need help setting up your thank-you page or the retargeting, give me a shout.

Use these strategies to create excitement around the new patients coming into your practice, and cut down your no-shows as a result.

Don’t wait — get started this week!

In my last article, I shared the many exciting benefits of Facebook’s new broadcasting platform, Facebook Live.

(In case you missed it, you can find that article here. Read that before you read this.)

So if you’re ready to get started with your first Facebook Live broadcast (and why wouldn’t you be? It’s awesome!), I’ve included a step-by-step tutorial along with some tips to make your Facebook Live experience as fruitful as possible.

Before we get into how to do Facebook Live, here are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

(And remember — each time you go live, you’ll end up with a recorded video asset you can use to promote your practice after the fact).

5 Ideas for Using Facebook Live

1. Touring your office — For example, a LASIK surgeon could give a tour of your LASIK suite, explain the lasers, explain the amount of time it takes, etc. (Since you can flip between front-facing and rear-facing cameras on Facebook Live, you can show your face while you talk, then show video of the laser with the click of a button.)
2. Weekly segments (like a TV show) — Do a weekly ‘Lunch n Learn’ or ‘Coffee with the Doctor’ segment, where at the same time each week (1p on Thursday, for instance), you log on and start answering questions.
3. Broadcast from an event — like a local health fair or 5k. Invite people to come to your booth for a free screening, to pick up giveaway items or register to win a raffle.
4. When you launch a new promo — Go on Facebook Live to share a new promotion you are launching, particularly if there’s a community or charity tie-in. You can discuss why you chose a certain charity, what it means to you, and how you plan to support it.
5. To announce the winner of a giveaway — Giving a free treatment or procedure to a soldier for 4th of July? Selecting the winning nominee from your Mother’s Day social media promotion? Announce the winner on Facebook Live, and tease the broadcast for several days prior to make sure people know to tune in!

Alright, so now that you have a few ideas of how to use this platform, let’s talk about how practically to pull this off.

The 5 W’s of Facebook Live

Facebook Live is incredibly easy to use with minimal equipment or expertise. Let’s talk about the 5 W’s of a successful broadcast.

Who? YOU, of course! Facebook Live doesn’t require a professional on-screen persona. You just have to be real, open and honest with your followers.

Relax, have fun, be yourself. Pretend you’re having a Facetime conversation with your children or grandkids.

Want to have someone join you on camera? That’s fine too. A patient or another staff member would be a great ‘co-host’ for your broadcast.

What? In preparation for your first broadcast, let’s get the pieces of equipment you need:

• iPhone (or comparable smart phone device) with Facebook app on it
• Tripod (here’s an affordable one on Amazon that will fit most smart phones)

Aaaaaand that’s it. Doesn’t get much easier than that.

Where? You’ll want to find an area to shoot your Facebook Live broadcast that has minimal noise or distraction.

Your office, an exam lane or even one of your procedure suites (when not in use) would be great options.

When? There’s debate whether during the day or in the evening is more ideal for a medical-oriented broadcast. And like anything else, it can depend on your market.

Our recommendation: Try both. Do a ‘Lunch Break with the Doc’ and see how that goes. Then try an evening broadcast, which you can do from your home office if you like. See what kind of engagement you get with both.

Why? Surely you aren’t still asking that question. Scroll up and read, or go back and read the last article. Now let’s go!

And finally… THE HOW.

Here’s how you activate Facebook Live on your account!

 

 

BOOM! You’re rocking. In fact, here’s an example I made just for you:

So now you know how to use Facebook live and some ideas for how to leverage it. Get out your phone and do your first Facebook live this week.

Questions? Give me a shout, I’m happy to help!

This is the first in a series of posts on the new Facebook Live.

————————————————————————————————

Facebook is always trying to stay on top of the social media mountain and blast away the competition.

They do this in a couple of ways.

1. They buy their strongest competitors. You saw them do this with Instagram, and they tried to do it with Snapchat.
2. They optimize by taking their competitors’ best features and integrating them into Facebook’s platform.

The second point is what we’re talking about today. They have rolled out Facebook Live Video, a tool you can now use to promote your practice on Facebook using live broadcasts.

Facebook Live is very similar to a platform called Periscope, which Twitter owns.

Periscope allows users to broadcast live video from their smartphones to followers who are all over the world.

Periscope blew up when it launched (in a good way). Facebook said, “Hey. That looks cool. We can integrate the live video thing into what we’ve already built with our 1.5 billion users. Let’s do it.”

Now they have this Facebook Live integration. This is a game-changing piece of technology that has massive implications for you as you work to reach new patients online.

Let’s talk about the five things you need to know about Facebook Live as you start to think about how you can best utilize this for your practice.

 

1. You can broadcast directly from your office Facebook account

You don’t have to download complicated software. No need for separate logins. There’s nothing complicated about this. This is a feature that is on your practice Facebook account right now.

There are a few good tutorials online if you want to Google how to use Facebook. I’m putting one together to send you as well.

Just know that the learning curve is small, and it literally takes about 5 minutes to learn. The technology very easy and streamlined.

 

2. Facebook will alert all your followers that you’re live.

This part is huuuuuuuge. (cue a Trump joke)

You may remember that 5-6 years ago when you posted on Facebook, 20, 30, maybe 40 percent of your followers would see it. And now it’s down to maybe 2, 3 percent.

That’s because Facebook wants you to pay for exposure to your audience. (Side note: this isn’t the end of the world, nor is it any different than any other media you’ve ever used to market your practice. So don’t complain about it. It’s business.)

One of the best parts about the Live Video is that Facebook is so hyped on it, they are giving it an extra boost for you.

So when you go live, Facebook is alerting all of your followers with a notification: “Hey, Dr. Jones is live in his office right now.'” It’s giving you that added exposure boost that you don’t get with any other posting formats on Facebook, and it’s happening without extra ad spend.

 

3. You don’t have to be in the office to broadcast.

Now this may seem obvious, but just think about this.

Maybe you’re out at a health fair or the local 5K, and you’re doing some promotion for your practice. You want an effective way to invite people out. Why not use Facebook Live?

“Hey, come see us at the ABC 5K, help support XYZ charity…. We’re raffling off some great prizes and a free procedure at our booth right here by the finish line… We’d love to see you guys. Come on by… Dr. Jones is walking up, he just finished his run!”

You get the idea. You can do the live drawing on Facebook video. Talk to the race organizer. A thousand things you can do to create an engaging and interesting broadcast that involves the community and current events and ties your practice into that.

(And remember, when you go live, Facebook is telling all of your followers, which is AWESOME)

 

4. People who are watching your stream can actually send you questions and comments in real time.

I talk often about that one-to-one connection you need to make with people that nudges them to come in for the consultation and become patients.

This is easy to do on the phone or in person, but it’s ridiculously hard to do in the digital world.

How can you make personal connections with Facebook live? Since people who are watching your stream can send you questions in real time, here’s one idea that could be great for you.

Let’s say you have a weekly “Ask the Expert” show where you’re answering questions from individual patients. Or maybe you gather a list of 2-3 commonly asked questions from patients, and you answer those each week.

While you do the broadcast, you can invite people to write in their question:

“Hey, Dr. Jones, I’m wondering if Invisalign is a good option for me. Can you talk about how to make that decision?”

“Hey, can you tell me if LASIK can actually correct my astigmatism?”

You can, in that moment, say:

“Hey, John. Thanks so much for the question. I get asked about Invisalign quite often. Let’s talk about it.”

“Astigmatism and LASIK. I get that question every single day. Let’s go ahead and go over that. It’s a great question. Thank you so much for asking!”

Then you’re doing 2 things.

1. You’re building rapport with that person because you’re addressing them live in the video.
2. You’re creating an answer to that question that can scale, which you can use over and over again for other folks who ask it.

 

5. Once you’re done, the video that you created in the Live Broadcast is actually placed on your Facebook page as a piece of content.

You don’t just hit the stop” button, and then that video goes away and hopefully some people saw it. The recording of your broadcast can actually stay on your Facebook page, and you can promote that and have that as a piece of content that people can watch even after the fact. So when you hear how you should “Create more content!” this is an easy and streamlined way to do it.

Coming Up

Now that you’ve seen how Facebook Live can be a useful tool to promote your practice, let’s talk practically about implementation.

In the coming days, I’ll send out a Facebook live tutorial, a list of ideas you can use for broadcasts for your practice, and some examples of brands that are using Facebook live in fun and creative ways.

Talk soon,

Troy

One challenge that constantly faces your sales team – how best to “frame the presentation” of your offerings.

While there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, it can be useful to present the wheel in new and interesting ways from time to time.

(This is assuming you already have a darn good wheel.)

Think of some piece of information – an adage, a piece of advice, a recommendation – that you’ve heard 100 times… and you ignored it every time. But then someone comes along and presents essentially the same information but with a slightly different angle, and it hits home to you.

This happens because person #101 reframed the information in a way that connected with you.

You may have heard that people buy based on emotion, then justify the purchase with logic. If you can appeal with emotion and support the appeal with enough logical backup, you will close the sale.

And this depends largely on how you frame your presentation, in your marketing and in the consultation.

Here are three frameworks you can use to reframe your offering in the prospect’s mind. These will help guide your patients toward better, more confident decisions.

I’ll use LASIK as the example, but this can be applied to most any procedure.

1. “Not Yet” Framework

Think about every human on the planet as belonging to one of two categories — those who HAVE had a LASIK consult, and those who HAVE NOT had one YET. The ‘YET’ is the operative word that is super important.

Ex. “Summer is right around the corner, and you still haven’t had your LASIK consultation yet?!….”

Taking a not ‘yet’ approach means the situation just hasn’t been quite right for you yet. Well it is now.

It subtly positions whatever you’re selling (in this case, a consultation) as an inevitability. It’s going to happen.

Back this inevitability up with some reasoning around why now is the perfect time — going to the beach without contacts, extra time in the summer to have the procedure, extended summer hours for consults, etc — and you give the prospect reasons to quit stalling and come on in.

After all, even though it hasn’t happened yet, it’s going to happen sooner or later. Might as well be now.

2. “Herd Mentality” Framework

We generally like to go with the flow; it’s human nature.

This is especially true with ideas that are new or foreign to us. It’s why we look on Yelp for the best dish at a new exotic food restaurant or read fashion blogs to keep up on the latest trends.

It’s survival instinct. We save time, energy and effort when we can default to what other people are doing. The majority is probably making a reasonable, low-risk choice. I’ll do the same.

This is the herd mentality.

Present your offering in terms of ‘what most people do.’ A LASIK consultation is a new concept to your prospects. It’s not something they’ve ever done, meaning they don’t have a good grasp on what it really means or how it fits into their lives.

If you don’t eat Thai food (side note: you should start), then you need some help making a decision on what to get. What’s everyone else choosing? That’s probably a safe bet.

Secondary component of the herd mentality framework — permission. People need permission to take action. Even though we don’t realize it or want to admit it.

So when you say “most people do it this way,” you:

1. Give your prospect a common framework around a foreign idea, which creates comfort and familiarity
2. Give them permission to take action (in this particular way that most people do) and
3. Imply that the person is now part of a tribe, which is an inherent desire in our DNA.

Here are two examples of the herd mentality framework in action.

“Our 3 p.m. consultation slots are popular because you can leave work a little early and have your consultation on the way home. That’s what most people do. I have an opening tomorrow or Thursday, which is the lighter work day for you?”

“Here’s the thing — with our $99/month payment option, you don’t have to worry about a big chunk of cash. Most people prefer to go this route because it fits right into their budget, and often times it’s less than your cell phone or electricity bill.”

3. “Moonwalk” Framework

Chronological order isn’t always the best way to present your information, even though it seems like it makes the most sense.

We think we need to start the conversation by talking about the consultation. Because that’s really step 1 of the LASIK process, and it must be complete before you move down the line.

But what happens when you start at the end and moonwalk back to #1?

The end, is this case, is 12 months after LASIK and the person is living their dream with amazing vision.

So what does it mean to start the conversation at the end?

1. Figure out your prospect’s goals. What do they want to do with their better vision? ASK QUESTIONS.
2. Give examples of patients just like her who wanted to do the exact same thing and love their vision.
3. Discuss the benefits of the procedure that contribute to her ideal outcome.
4. Talk about the consultation and getting the ball rolling toward <GOAL>.

You’re starting with the outcome (the only thing the patient really cares about), then sliding back into the ease of the procedure, then sliding back to the first step — the consult.

For example:
You: <END> So what made you call us today?

Prospect: Well, I’m getting married in a few months and was thinking about getting LASIK before my wedding.

You: <EXAMPLE OF SIMILAR PT> Thats great! My cousin did that last year before she got married and loved it! Enjoyed the honeymoon on the beach without contacts, it was great.

Prospect: Yeah that’s what I was hoping for!

You: <SX BENEFIT> And the recovery time is so quick, you can go ahead and do it now and start enjoying it, and it’s one less thing to worry about as you get close to your big day.

Prospect: Sounds good.

You: So your first step is to come on in for your free consult…

Get Started

If you haven’t tried these frameworks yet, today is the perfect time to start.

Of course you want more of your leads turning into patients. If you can do it by only making a few adjustments in your framework, all the better.

But your first step is to start implementing.

Commit to using these frameworks in conversation with 10 patients this week, that’s what most of my clients do when they get started.

Then assess and adjust as you see fit for your personality and the types of patients you see.

And remember: you don’t have to use just one framework at a time. They often work best when you stack them together.

Want an example of stacking? Just reread this “Get Started” section.

And if you want your phone team to have access to all our framing, scripting and mindset tactics to turn more calls into consults (and why wouldn’t you?), click here to add yourself to the waiting list for our upcoming Phone Sales Bootcamp, designed to turn your phone team into consultation-booking ninjas.