Articles

Lawsuit Lesson from Dad (for you)

Fun Fact: My Dad looks like he’s in a biker gang.

Tattoos all over his arms, free flowing hair and Duck Commander-esque beard. I’m not sure he owns a shirt that has sleeves on it.

But perhaps an even MORE fun fact – he’s a recently retired general and vascular surgeon who was Head of Trauma Services for the hospital system in my home town.

An enigma wrapped in an anomaly for sure. Sound like a bad ass? He is.

And I have plenty of stories from my surgeon-dad upbringing that were highly formative for me.

I remember a convo when I was in high school. At one point in time, I had the half-baked idea to be a lawyer, and we were discussing medicine and law. He told me, “Son, in America, anyone can sue anybody for anything. Sometimes that’s helpful, and sometimes it’s a problem. But don’t ever forget it.”

And I haven’t forgotten. Which has served me well in my 20-year career working in marketing and sales coaching for elective surgeons.

Which leads me to my topic today – legal stuff (gross).

Remember in the medical marketing space – marketing technology is always a few years ahead of rules / laws. Which means there’s always this “Marketing Wild West” that must be carefully navigated to keep your practice out of the kind of trouble my Dad warned me about.

In some areas, lawyers are now starting to go after practices for the “cookies” (tracking tools) on their websites. That’s no bueno because there’s a 98% chance you’re using cookies on your site, whether you know it or not.

You actually want to use cookies to be able to track and optimize your marketing campaigns. But you also wanna steer clear of litigious leeches in search of garbage cases against your practice.

Good news is, solutions are available to track what you need to track, but in a compliant way.

And while “cookie tech” is not my area of expertise, I asked one of my friends to give me the low-down on all this.

Loryn Lyle, founder of SILVR Digital Marketing, has been digging into this with her crackerjack team for many months. And they have a solution that she agreed to tell me all about (I’ve heard the Cliff’s Notes from her, and it sounds great).

And since I’m always looking out for YOU, I thought it would be helpful (and entertaining) to let you eavesdrop on our convo.

So here’s the deal:

This Wednesday 2/19 at 1p Central, I have a Zoom call scheduled with Loryn to get into all this. I have a list of questions re: what the cookie issues are, where they are seeing these lawsuits pop up, what research they’ve done to find a solution, what they’re recommending to clients and what steps practices need to take to keep themselves clear of the law.

Basically everything you’d want to know if you have your gas pedal down for digital marketing, but you don’t want to constantly be looking over your shoulder.

So if you want to join the call and listen in, you can. Simply tap the link below to register, which will add you to the invite for our convo.

GRAB A SPOT HERE

Always looking out for you,

– Troy “Tat-less Son” Cole

PS – This is not your standard, fancy, produced webinar. It’s literally a call between she and I so I can get all the info I need, and I decided “let’s broadcast it.” We have it set up through Zoom somehow, and I don’t know how many people our account can accommodate at one time. So if you want to join, RSVP now and get on early.

PPS – Feel free to forward this to someone in your practice who needs to be on this. Or even a colleague as long as they’re cool.

PPPS – If you have questions, I’m fine with you sending those in via chat during the call and I’ll ask them if we have time.

The “Luka Effect” and its impact on your surgery numbers

For anyone who doesn’t follow the NBA, we’ve had quite the stir up here in Dallas.

The Dallas Mavericks best player – and one of the best in the NBA – was a dude named Luka Doncic. And news broke Saturday night that we traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers.

This was as surprising as it was frustrating. In fact, I went down to Dallas for my daughter’s gymnastics meet on Sunday, and there were protesters in front of the arena where the Mavs play. It’s a big deal.

But I’m not here to gripe about losing Luka (but if you feel the need to reply and rub it in, feel free).

In the aftermath of this, plenty of hot takes have come out about why it happened. Amidst all the rumors, I saw an interesting infographic on something I call the Luka Effect.

In the two images below, you’ll see the number of shots the Mavericks have made during games the last 3 seasons.

Both graphics exclude Luka’s shots, but the first graphic shows shots made while he was on the court, and the second graphic shows shots made while he was NOT playing.

Notice the big difference in how much higher shot percentage the Mavs were taking in the lane (the middle part of the floor, around the rim) when Luka was on the floor vs off. A significant increase.

Why? Partly because Luka can drain 3-pointers from 10 feet behind the arc with ease. So other teams have to play defense on him more aggressively. This opens up opportunities for other players to get near the rim and take shots.

“Troy, can you explain it in plain English?”

Besides all the buckets Luka makes, simply having someone of his skillset on the floor improves production for the rest of the team as well.

How does the Luka Effect tie into your practice?

We have an analogy we teach our coaching clients called the Patient Journey Relay. (Yes, I’m shifting from basketball to track, stick with me).

In a relay, 4 runners each run a leg of a race, passing a baton to one another in an attempt to be the fastest relay team.

One feature of a relay is the baton hand-off does NOT occur at a stand-still. Rather the person running with the baton cues the next runner, who takes off and the baton exchange happens at sprint-speed.

This preserves the momentum generated and increases a team’s chance of winning.

Your patient journey is like a relay. Not in the sense of a sprint (you aren’t trying to go as fast as possible), but you are creating and preserving momentum as you go. When each person does their job properly – phones / front desk, techs, docs, surgery schedulers – they’re each setting the next person up for success.

And on the flip side, if someone is just going through the motions, it negatively affects the rest of the team and the patient as well.

Luka being on the floor benefits the Mavs directly and indirectly by creating more opportunities for other players. Your team needs to do the same as they lead patients through the journey in your office.

Which is why in our bootcamp we coach not only schedulers, but every patient-facing department you have. Because everyone needs to know their role and how it affects everyone else on the court or in the relay.

So as you observe your team today, keep this in mind. What area(s) is your “weakest link” in the relay? What do you need to do to get them up to speed and create the Luka Effect for your patients?

If you don’t know the answer to those questions, hit reply and let’s have a brief chat to get you some clarity.

Who knows what the overall anti-Luka Effect (him leaving) will be on the Mavs. But most of us are hoping for the best…

– Troy “Mavs Fan For Life” Cole

PS – While Luka is heading west to LA, I’m heading east to speak on Marketing Systems at the “Telling It Like It Is” meeting in Orlando next week. If you or someone from your practice will be there, let me know so we can meet up 💪🏼

Restaurateur Schools Me on Profits / Culture

Hard to believe we’re already getting into baseball and softball season!

We were at softball tryouts last week for my 6-year-old (admittedly ridiculous), and I saw a buddy who owns a number of local restaurants.

We were catching up, discussing upcoming plans, new spots they are opening, etc. And the convo turned to sales, marketing and customer service. Surprise, surprise.

I love learning from business owners in other industries. And I find the restaurant game particularly fascinating because it’s so dang hard to be successful over the long-term.

So I’m sharing a few nuggets of their success today. And also how you can apply these concepts to your practice.

1. Flip tables + Quality Service = Profit

We were talking about making money as a restaurant. And obviously there are a lot of pieces to that, but one of the big ones is how many times you can flip a table in a night. (i.e. how many different parties can you serve at one table?). The more groups of people you get through your restaurant, the more product you can sell and the more money you make.

Apparently a lot of restaurants can’t get this right, and only flip a table 1-2x during the night. I asked him why, and he said it’s a mix of not having proper processes in place, and not having efficiencies build into the menu.

He said for example, every item on their menu – from the time the order comes to the time it hits the table – is a max of 12 minutes. (Obviously a key to flipping tables is being timely.)

In addition to making more $$, this brings higher customer satisfaction and the ability to serve more people.

How do you apply it? Find your bottlenecks and fix them. Why do you have 30-60 minute wait times? Why are consults taking 1.5 – 2 hours? Solve it, get more people through, raise patient satisfaction and make more money.

2. Invest in the best.

Along the lines of creating efficiencies so you can flip tables quickly, the topic of hardware came up.

We were talking about this cauliflower dish they have, which basically tastes like awesome mashed potatoes. And apparently a big part of that is the type of oven they cook in.

I can’t remember what he called it, but it’s like a $75k oven. Sounds like a lot to me. But the quality + speed + dependability + results it provides make it well worth the price tag.

Going back to point #1, part of setting yourself up for great service, a solid product AND efficiency is investing in the proper equipment.

For them, it’s the fancy oven, adequate burners and kitchen set up. For you, it could be anything from a CRM to SMS automation, a new diagnostic tool that saves you time, even an upgraded laser suite. You get the picture.

3. They are inefficient in their staffing.

You didn’t misread that. And I thought this was interesting. We discussed their hiring process and how they train their people. And he mentioned he keeps 1 extra manager on for each of his locations. Like if a restaurant needs 5 managers to run at peak efficiency, he will go with 6.

Why? Keeps everyone from being spread so thin they get stressed. And if someone leaves, goes on vacation or gets sick, they still have enough to function well. To paraphrase his words – “Sure it’s an extra $70k/year per location that we’re spending, but everyone is happier and everything works better. Small price to pay…”

Does that mean you need to carry a bunch of extra employees? Not necessarily, but you should think about your practice the same way a college football coach thinks about his team.

YEAH you might have a good team now, but are you always recruiting? Looking for new talent? Looking for more ways to leverage your current talent? Preparing for your next step – a new location, expanding your current office, offering a new service, etc.?

4. Success leaves clues. Follow them.

I told him I thought they had one of the best happy hours in town.

“You like that? Yeah it’s a carbon copy of what <REDACTED> restaurant has always done for their happy hour, works really well. We started our careers there, and learned a lot about what to do (and what not to do) in our restaurants.”

For you? Stop trying to figure everything out. Stop reinventing the wheel. Learn from other successful practices. Hire us to come in and teach you how to sell more surgeries while giving a great customer experience.

No need to spend time, money and frustration stumbling through problems when they’ve already been solved.

I’ll be going in-depth on all these (and more) during this week’s “Jam Session” coaching call in our private coaching community. So if you’re a member, fwd this to your team to jump on the meet-up tomorrow with us!

And if this was helpful and / or interesting to you (or not), hit reply and let me know. Your feedback is appreciated.

Enjoy your week,

Troy “Happiest Hour” Cole

Cowboy Gives a Lesson on Value (Reiners vs. Ropers)

Fun fact: Our house is 20 minutes from Taylor Sheridan’s ranch. If you don’t know, that’s the dude who created Yellowstone, Lioness and several other rad shows.

Between watching Yellowstone and going out to his ranch (where he hosts cutting horse competitions), I’ve been amazed at the physical abilities of some of these horses.

I’ve got a buddy who’s big into horses, and I was asking him the other day about the different “specialties.”

He got to explaining the general difference between the folks who do “Reining” and those who do “Roping.”

Now the Ropers are just what they sound like – you ride a horse to rope a calf or steer.

Reiners are different. If you’ve watched Yellowstone, you’ve seen the scenes where someone is “sliding” a horse, or they’re doing really fast spins on the horse. This is called Reining. And best I can tell, it’s basically a show-off competition. (And looks quite impressive)

What’s interesting is the different personalities that each specialty attracts.

(Obviously there are exceptions to what I’m about to say, so don’t take offense if you’re in the horse game and fall into one of these camps. This is based on my Cowboy friend – who is a roper btw – extensive experience in the industry)

The Ropers and Reiners are apparently quite different, according to my buddy. And while I can’t some of the stories I was told, one difference that’s helpful to YOU is understanding the way they perceive value.

He was telling me how folks who specialize in horse care – farriers, dentists, vets, etc – tend to have different experiences between Ropers and Reiners.

For example, a Roper will call you once a year when their horse finally has a big issue going on, then they’ll gripe about the price to get it fixed. Almost like playing defense, and being reactive.

The Reiners on the other hand, don’t gripe about price. They have one priority – take care of my horse. “Im happy to pay a pro to make sure my horse is always good to go.” That’s the mentality. Playing offense, proactive.

One is cost-focused. The other is value-focused.

One is concerned with what they have to put into the investment (cost). The other is focused on what they get out of the investment (value).

One is focused only on the here and now. The other is focused on long-term benefits.

So on that note, 2 points to ponder for you today:

1. What type of patients are you trying to court?

Reiners (value-focused, recognize quality) or Ropers (cost-focused, see you as a commodity).

I assume you want more Reiners. Cool – next step is to figure out what are you doing (and what you NEED to do) to showcase value + premium patient experience and ATTRACT that kind of patient.

2. What kinda cowboy are YOU?

Do you operate in life as a Reiner or Roper?

Are you making value-driven decisions? Are you investing in yourself, your team? Are you playing offense?

OR do you have more of a scarcity outlook? Cost-focused? Reactive? Playing defense?

You may say, “Troy, there are some areas / decisions where I’m all Reiner. And others where I take more of a Roper approach.”

That’s not necessarily all bad, but it could mean you’re missing opportunities. Be aware of that, and make sure you aren’t ropin’ when you should be reinin’.

So there ya go – a couple questions of self-reflection for you today. And as a lil bonus, here’s a link to a helluva reining horse run on YouTube. Really quite fascinating. Enjoy!

– Troy “Let it rein” Cole

PS – If you resonate with what I’m saying here, but you’re not sure where to start… and you’d like someone to take the guesswork out of all this…

you know where to find me. 💪🏻

How to run a promo without a discount

“I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” ella alexandra onlyfans– Don Corleone, The Godfather

Resharing an article from last year because it’s a hot topic right now, and I want this info top-of-mind for you. Refractive numbers are still lagging in a lot of areas, and many practices want to create demand without necessarily doing some big discount.

You may be wondering if that’s even possible. I can tell you it is, and in this essay, I give you 8 examples of ways to sculpt an “offer” that doesn’t rely solely on discounting, if that’s what you’re looking for…

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Anytime I’m talking to a practice for the first time, one of the intake questions I ask is, “What kind of offers do you guys promote for your procedures?”

And I’ll often hear some version of: “Oh, we don’t do any discounts.” or “We generally do X discount.” (which isn’t what I asked, but I understand why they responded that way)

When you start talking about discounts, promos, offers, specials… the water gets murky quickly.

So let’s clear it up today. Because these are not all the same things. 👆

To keep it simple, we’ll talk about Discounts vs. Offers.

What is a discount? No surprise here, it’s exactly what it sounds like. A discount is when you take money off the retail price of your service.

A discount is a “price reduction” to the general public, and a “profit reduction” to you. This is because rarely are you able to cut costs when you discount, so the $$ reduction comes right out of your bottom line.

So that’s a discount, and it’s no surprise some practices don’t want to do them. I’m not a huge fan of discounts on surgery. At the same time, they may be necessary to garner attention in your market depending on competitive activity, etc. And if you have proper pricing structure and margins, go for it.

But a “discount” and an “offer” are not the same. In fact, a discount is a type of offer, but there are many others.

An “offer” is simply a presentation of deliverables in exchange for a set investment level.

When your car dealer says he will give you $X for your trade-in, got you Y% financing, added Z years to your extended warranty and threw in a full tank of gas… he made you an offer. Notice I didn’t say anything about a discount.

Offers can consist of many elements, including:

Special financing rates
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Upgrade to a specific laser
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Upgrade to a specific lens
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Inclusion of drops / post-op products
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Inclusion of pre- and post-op visits
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Lifetime vision warranty / enhancements for life (or for X years)
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Automatically entered to win X prize when you have surgery

Package surgery with desirable products, like complimentary designer sunglasses Now that I’ve given you some examples, you can probably think of more.

“But Troy, we already include some of those in our surgery package.” Great! Break them OUT of the package, and then have your sales team work them back IN as part of the offer. Build the offer in front of the patient.

For example, you would go from “This comes with 2 years of free enhancements”

to “I’m also going to include 2 years of enhancements as part of your surgery package. Normally this would be an additional $X00, but we’re including it at no additional cost to you.”

See the difference? The first one is just listing a line item. The second one is you actually building an offer. And you don’t have to change all your materials to do this, you can simply change your scripting.

On the flip side, another angle is to hype up that each piece IS standard to your surgery packages, and talk about how all-inclusive you are and breakdown EVERYTHING that a patient gets as a standard of their patient care.

Either way, you’re breaking down the offer so patients can see the true value they are receiving. Because no one wants Cheap Surgery, but they do want the best bang for their buck.

And if you DON’T already do some of these in your surgery packages, now is a great time to start.

Why use offers in the first place?

Sets you apart from other practices
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Gives you creative ways to pique your prospective patients’ interest
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You can put time constraints around them, creating urgency
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Gives you new ways and reasons to reach out to non-converted prospects
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ETC ETC ETC TONS OF REASONS

Cool? So if you haven’t been using offers because you don’t discount, I hope this has given you new ways to introduce offers into your practice. And if you’d like to collaborate on creating an offer for your practice, hit reply and get the convo started.

– Troy “Offer on the Table” Cole