Articles

Efficiency lesson from the world’s biggest TikTok personality

You may not know the name Khaby Lame, but you’ve more than likely seen his videos.

With more than 250 million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, it’s virtually impossible to get on social media and NOT scroll across a Khabi video.

If you clicked any of those links and watched one, it more than likely looked familiar to you.

Khaby started making videos during the pandemic, following a simple formula, that I call “The Caveman Approach”

He would find an already trending video of a “Life Hack” that overcomplicated a relatively simple task
He would share his (simplified) take on the process, typically a much easier way to accomplish the same task (“How would a Caveman do it?”)

(Perfect example on this Instagram post)

It’s no surprise that Khaby became a viral sensation when you look at the ingredients he’s using to bake his Uber-viral content.

A few examples:

His videos often don’t have any voiceover to them. Instead, he relies on the visual of the actual video and his own facial expressions to convey the message. This means it can be viewed by anyone in the world without the language barrier.
He’s utilizing already viral content and remixing it (adding his take to the end). So he knows, the clips he utilizing already have legs.
He keeps his content short, not a lot of dead time, and no overly complex edits. Simple, easy to consume, easy to understand.
He’s leveraged basically the same formula over the last four years to grow his massive following. He doubles down on what works, over and over and over.

Obviously if you re-read that list, there’s plenty of gold for you to takeaway and apply to your marketing efforts and sales processes.

The one I want to drill down on today is the nature of his videos themselves – his entire schtick is “Why are you overcomplicating this process when it could be way simpler?”

And I’m starting to see this more and more with the addition of tech tools, AI and automation within practices. Tasks are being overcomplicated with these tools, and we’re losing the efficiency and benefit of the Caveman Approach.

Story time:

I had a call earlier this week with a client on the East Coast, a smaller practice that receives 5-10 leads per day. We were discussing their need to improve their follow-up with non-converted leads, a great problem to address that will increase their surgery volume and revenue when solved.

Someone proposed a rather complex approach that involved multiple platforms, automations and tech integrations. It would have cost around $10,000 (to start) and taken 8 weeks (minimum) to build, test and launch. And then we still wouldn’t know if that actually solved their problem.

My approach is much simpler – have your best salesperson set aside 15 minutes a day (more if necessary) and manually follow-up and knock it out.

Why? A few very good reasons:

More cost-effective
Faster implementation
They can read the notes and customize the follow-up (vs. trying to do a “one-size-fits-all” automation)
They can test different approaches in real-time and determine what works better
They can then share their findings with the team to ensure everyone is operating with the best info available

It’s a simple solution with minimal cost that provides more value to the patient and can be implemented within 30 minutes of us talking about it. It’s simple.

This is just one example of many that I’m seeing with the introduction of all these cool tech tools.

And listen, I’m a tech-y guy. I like all the automation and the growth of AI, and there are many benefits to it. But there are also plenty of missteps that can be taken and cost you big $$ and lots of time, and I want to help you avoid it.

So when you’re looking at solving a problem, make sure you’re not discounting the Caveman Approach. Oftentimes, it’s the most effective.

Troy

Content is NOT King (but this is)

Guy working the counter at my gym made me feel like a total dumbass yesterday. Of course as a marketer and coach for high-profile, high-octane refractive and cataract practices, my first thought was “let me tell my people about this.”

(Because if you can benefit from my minor embarrassment, I’ll make that sacrifice for you…)

By the way, there’s a video version of this lesson on my IG right now if you want to check it out here.

Alright, story time:

I work out at the same gym 4-5 times a week. No frills, lots of weights and good machines, and the price is right.

I wrap up a taxing arm workout yesterday, grab my stuff and hit the road. Or so I thought.

I head to the door, push on it, and it won’t move. So I push again, and then pull. And my first befuddling thought is “Why are we locked in here?”

So the guy behind the desk notices me, and says, “Hey you gotta unlock it.” I look down, and sure enough there is a deadbolt. It’s situated on the left side of the door, so I did the natural move of trying to turn it right.

The guy says “No, you gotta turn it LEFT. Read the sign…”

So now I look and sure enough, there’s an InkJet-printed, ClipArt-style sign on the door instructing me to turn the dead bolt left to escape.

Mind you, I’ve exited this door 150, 200, 300 times? And never had an issue, never dealt with deadbolts, never needed a sign.

In fact I’m generally very good at door exiting. I wouldn’t say I’m perfect, but I’m elite. If there’s a door and I need to get through it, 99.99% chance I’m gonna figure out the path forward in a matter of seconds.

Yet here I am, looking like a doofus. Having put down my keys, water bottle, iPhone and AirPods, and now working the door with one hand and the lock with the other, I finally break free.

Dude says, “Yeah, you got it!”

I gave him a look. “So we’re doing this EVERY time now?”

“Yep!”

Fantastic.

Why was this so frustrating to me? Because I know with a few tweaks, the situation could have been so different. So let’s talk about the context:

This guy sees me there all the time.
He knows I am accustomed to their old way of opening the door.
He also knows they just updated the door opening procedure to a new way nobody is familiar with yet.
He also knows no patron / customer / client / guest has ever had to turn a deadbolt to leave a public/retail establishment.

Armed with all this valuable information, he could have created a completely different experience – and feeling in me – if he had simply leveraged the CONTEXT of the situation.

A common saying in Marketing is “Content is King.” Blogs, emails like this, videos, etc. And sure those things are important.

But Content does not rise to the level of Kingliness.

So if not content, what rules the Communications Kingdom?

Well… in marketing, in sales, in communications, in your everyday life, the secret is… “CONTEXT is king.”

For example in this situation – Context (which we just discussed) should lead him to think oh, here’s one of our valuable members who hasn’t messed with our weird new door lock yet. Let me show him how…

And he could simply say “Hey bro, we’re actually doing some security updates so we’ve swapped the lock mechanism. Let me show you real quick.” And give me a 10-second tutorial.

Bonus points if he commiserates with me using a line like, “and just remember to turn it left. I keep wanting to turn it right because of the side of the door it’s on, but it’s a lefty turn.”

So if he does this, what is he doing?

Understanding the context of my situation
Creating context for me so I better understand what’s happening

And if this hypothetical exchange happened vs what ACTUALLY happened… it would have been a night-and-day difference in the experience I had.

Yeah, I’d probably still think it was a little silly to unlock the door when I have to leave. But I wouldn’t have felt like an idiot, wasted my time or gotten frustrated.

And this is why context is king. Because today, your team will have 100s of interactions… large and small… on the phone, via SMS and in person…

And the CONTEXT of the situation informs (or SHOULD inform) the approach you take in your communication.

We touched on this in our Jam Session live coaching meetup earlier this week. So if you’re a Green Room member, check that out. (We’ll be doing more of a deep dive on it next week, and also discussing in our Role Play and other live coaching calls.)

Understand context, create context. This is a key element of leadership (and falls under the “Educate Into Awareness” pillar of our E3 Conversion System), and it ties directly into converting more leads to consults and consults to surgery.

For more info on our coaching programs, hit reply and ask away. I’ll have a few questions about your current situation, then once I know the CONTEXT, I can steer you in the right direction.

Go forth and practice leveraging context today, and enjoy your weekend.

T-Cole

PS – Bonus for you – a brief look into the context of the guy behind the counter.

He has his normal duties, and also had seen 200 people fiddle with the lock that day. He was probably tired of talking about it.

At the same time, it’s like… ‘solve your own problem.’ Test a more efficient, more friendly way of informing people on what’s going on. It’ll save you time and make the job more enjoyable AND create a better experience for everyone.

ALSO, tell the boss “Hey this new process is causing a lot of confusion. Here are some ideas can we do to change / educate / fix it?” Plenty more to say on that from my many in-office observations, but we’ll save it for another email…

The Lululemon Copycat Approach (use this in your practice)

I’m an athleisure guy. On days I’m tooling around town or headed to the ballpark, I can be found rocking Legends Luka shorts and their Aviation tee, a Melin hat and a pair of Nike Pegasus running shoes.

But my fondness for fashion-forward fitness started with the OG of athleisure – Lululemon.

Launched in 2000 and now worth over $39 billion, Lululemon invented and popularized high-end yoga pants and has since expanded into a full wardrobe of athletic, smart-casual and even dress clothes for men and women.

Chartr.co had a recent article talking about their post-COVID business surge (sound familiar?) and more recent decline in growth (also sound familiar?!) due to a number of factors.

Not the least of which is the plethora of market-share-stealing athleisure brands that have launched since Lulu opened their doors almost 25 years ago.

As an athleisure connoisseur, I am targeted with ads for all kinds of random athletic wear companies daily in my Instagram feed.

But if you look at the niche activewear companies who have started rising to Lulu levels, you see they followed the same success pattern as their forefathers in the fitness apparel space.

Why? Because Success Leaves Clues.

Take Vuori for example, an Activewear company currently valued at $4 billion. These guys didn’t reinvent the wheel when they went to launch their brand in 2015. They followed the Lulu playbook.

For example, Lululemon started with a Niche – women’s Yoga pants. That was their flagship product, they perfected it, and expanded from there.

Vuori did the same thing. They launched with one product – men’s shorts designed tough enough for a workout, but nice enough to look good running around town. Their fashion-meets-fitness design gained popularity, and now Vuori has 16 different categories of men’s and women’s wear on their website and in retailers.

More: Lululemon boasts more than 450 retail stores in the U.S. alone. So when Vuori wanted to get into the Brick and Mortar space, they looked to Lulu.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, of the 50 storefronts Vuori operates, an impressive 80% of them are within 1/2 mile of a Lululemon shop. Almost literally a stone’s throw away.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Success Leaves Clues.

If you look at the most successful elective surgery practices in your niche – the ones who have weathered economic turbulence and continue to thrive – you will find a handful of common “Success Traits” among them.

Now, trying to decipher, reverse engineer and implement these traits on your own is time-consuming and frustrating. Which is why we designed our Green Room Coaching Community to take the guess work out of it. We teach your team how to embody and communicate these “Success Traits,” and ways you can adopt and implement them in harmony with your unique brand.

As a Green Room member, make sure you and your team are jumping into our Coaching Community at least 2x a week, joining our live coaching calls and working through the plethora of persuasion tools, lessons and masterclasses we’ve shared, in order to continue building the Success Traits that are foundational to your premium brand.

And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!

– Troy “Man of (Ath)Leisure” Cole

PS – The Chartr.co newsletter is fantastic if you like data and enjoy learning about recent business trends. Highly recommend!

Don’t Aim It, Just Throw It (In Baseball and Consultations)

As head coach for my 9-year-old son’s travel baseball team, we emphasize a mental approach that has implications beyond baseball:

“Don’t aim it, just throw it.”

While we use this for our young pitchers, it’s useful in many areas of life (including converting more prospects to patients in your practice).

In our area, the 9-year-old baseball season is a big deal. The boys move from coach-pitch in their 8-year-old season – where they hit balls thrown by the coach in a controlled setting – to kid-pitch, where the game gets more complex.

Now they pitch, lead off, steal bases, deal with dropped third strikes, the whole gamut. It’s real baseball, just like the pros play. This change can be really tough and sometimes scary for young players.

One of the hardest parts of this transition is getting a kid to stand on the mound and pitch to a batter (and vice versa). It’s a big step, both physically and mentally.

And when a young pitcher throws a few balls instead of strikes, they tend to get anxious and timid. They start aiming the ball instead of raring back and throwing it naturally.

The result of aiming, of timidly trying to place the ball perfectly where they want it to go – even more balls and fewer strikes.

So we always remind our players, “Don’t aim it. Just throw it. Sling it in there.”

Another application of this concept:

My 11-year-old son was recently prepping for his piano recital. His instructor wanted him to kick off the event with his rendition of “Great Balls of Fire,” a tune he has played many times and knows quite well.

The morning of the recital, he was playing through it, and I could tell nerves were getting to him. He was tense and trying too hard to get it right, and the result was a number of big mistakes.

I approached him at the piano, and I reminded him of something he’s heard me say on the baseball field plenty of times:

“Buddy, you’re aiming it. Just throw it. You know the song. It’s in you. Don’t overthink it, don’t worry about what note to play next. Just let er rip!”

That afternoon at the recital, he did just that. Got up on stage, smiled wide, and (metaphorically) lit the piano on fire. He enjoyed the moment and did what he knew how to do. And the crowd went wild.

This idea of not aiming and just throwing is also important when we talk to prospective patients. If we worry too much about not making mistakes, what to say next, and what might go awry…

We’re focused on the 2 WRONG things:

Ourselves
The negative

When that happens, we get nervous and lose our focus. Instead of being present, being in the moment, focusing on the person in front of us and just Doing the Thing. This makes us less effective communicators and can even lead to self-sabotage.

But when you’re well-equipped in your practice to Throw It (not aim it), the result is a more confident team, more excited patients and more patients on your consult and surgery schedules.

And you really only need 3 components to effectively “Throw it, don’t aim it” with your prospects. You need:

A good “product”
The skills to be effective communicate about that product
Trust in yourself to go out there and do what you know how to do

In our coaching programs, #1 is a prerequisite. If you don’t have a good “product” (well-trained surgeons, good technology, patient-focused culture, good reputation) then it’s darn near impossible to even pass Go and get in the game.

Then we focus on #2 and #3. Making sure everyone has the skills. Knows how to answer phones, book consults, book surgeries.

And #3 is a big one – whether you’re new to the elective medical business, new to the practice or a seasoned veteran, there are certain situations where you tend to “aim the ball” instead of throwing it.

I asked about this on one of our weekly coaching events yesterday morning – “When is it difficult for you to be in the moment?”

Is it on a stressful day of the week? Is it with a certain personality type? When counseling patients on a specific procedure type?

A few of the answers people have shared:

“When I’m doing a consultation for an engineer”
“When patients have overly technical medical questions on the phone”
“When I’m talking to someone about LASIK (I’m good with Advanced Tech cataract surgery, but start “aiming it” when it comes to LASIK)”

And we worked through these one by one and talked about strategies for staying in the moment and throwing – not aiming – in these situations. And everyone left feeling pumped up, equipped and empowered, which is our goal for every live coaching event we do.

All of this is in an effort to do what we call “Selling On Brand.” Everyone needs a sales process. But you want that process to align with your practice brand. And that’s what we help practices do through our E3 Conversion System, and it’s insanely effective.

In closing, I challenge you to ask this question of your team and discuss their feedback – When is it difficult for you to be in the moment?

Remember, whether on the baseball field, at a recital, on the phone or in a consult, the key to success is often not in aiming for perfection but in throwing yourself into the moment.

So remind yourself and your team – next time you find yourself overthinking or hesitating, take a deep breath, remember that you got this, and just throw it.

– Coach Troy

A hitter’s approach to score more consults

In a minute, I’ll share an effective “mindset shift” to help any underperforming consult schedulers to up their conversions. But first…

My oldest son (Cannon) hit his first grand slam last weekend. #prouddad moment for sure.

As you know if you follow baseball, a Grand Slam happens when the bases are loaded and the batter hits a home run, scoring 4 runs with 1 swing of the bat.

In this particular instance, Cannon came to the plate with 1 out, bases loaded (obviously) and the opposing team had just put in a new pitcher. He nuked this kid’s first pitch over the left-centerfield fence.

What does this have to do with booking more consults? Once I tell you what Cannon’s “job” was, it’ll all make sense.

Depending on the situation, score, outs and other factors in a baseball game, a hitter has different jobs. And you’ll hear us as coaches say, “Do a job here!” to the batter.

A few examples:

The lead-off batter (the one who hits first in the lineup), has a job of getting on base. Get a base hit, get walked, get hit by a pitch. But get on base so we can move you around to score.

There’s also a play called a hit-and-run. This is where the base runner steals, and the batter’s job is to hit a grounder ideally behind the runner into a gap, so we can advance more bases and get more runners around the bases.

Aaaaaaand when there’s a runner on third with less than 2 outs (like Cannon’s situation) – your job at the plate is to smoke a ball to the outfield. Because even if it’s a fly ball that’s caught for an out, the runner on third can “tag up” and go score. And now you have another run on the board.

So to be an effective hitter, you must know “your job” in any given scenario. And the same goes with every role in your practice.

Challenges arise when you have folks on your team who don’t know their job.

Baseball is more complicated than booking consults. Because in the latter, you really only have one job. And what we often see is that consult schedulers underperform first and foremost because they don’t know what that job is.

So what is the ONE job we have to do in consult scheduling? It’s to lead the prospect make the right decision for them.

Every time, regardless of the situation.

And in 99% of the cases, that “right decision” is to come in for a consultation.

But we sometimes get confused about the job. To be clear, the job is NOT:

To answer every random question a prospect asks
To continue inviting questions and stay on the phone forever, getting into the weeds
To “not be pushy” and wait for the prospect to ask to schedule a consult
To tell the prospect “When you want to book a consultation, just give us a call” and leave the call without actually asking for the business

None of these are THE job the prospect needs you to do.

And it’s not uncommon for us to ask a new client to self-assess a call in which they answered 10 out of 10 questions correctly… but the prospect got off the phone without even a mention of the consultation.

“How was that call?”
“It was great.”
“What makes it great?”
“I was able to answer all their questions.”

Yes, you did. But the prospect is gone and we didn’t actually help them move forward. The prospect loses, which means we lose.

Your ONE job in consult scheduling is simple, but doesn’t mean it’s easy. Which is why we focus a lot on the psychology of this, the mental approach, scripting, objections, all kinds of scenarios in our coaching programs.

But an easy assessment you can do is to listen to a few call recordings, or secret shop your practice, and get a sense of whether or not your consult schedulers know what the job actually is.

If they don’t, now you know what you need to work on, and you can start to right the ship.

And while the spring/summer baseball season is coming to a close in a few weeks, we’re actually just heating up for our Summer Camp Experience in our Green Room coaching community for refractive and cataract scheduling teams. We have new trainings, fun challenges, prizes and more coming down the pipe for June, July and Aug.

So if you want to book more consults and more surgeries, get your team’s communication skills dialed in, or you just need an injection of energy and positivity for your folks, this is perfect timing for you.

We have 1more spot open for June, so reply to this email or shoot me a text message for more details.

Talk soon,

Troy “Do a Job” Cole

PS – The Zeiss webinar we hosted Tuesday was a BANGER. Sorry if you couldn’t make it. I don’t think they’re sharing a recording (I’ll let you know if they do). But here’s a copy to the study we covered, in case you haven’t seen it yet. Download it here

PPS – If you want to see the Grand Slam, check out the video here.