Something to keep in mind as you continue growing your practice in 2023:
What can you do on the phones to stand apart in the mind of your prospective patients?
Stand apart from competing practices, from the humdrum of daily life, from everything that might distract your target prospect from walking the Patient Journey with you.
If you can simply stand apart on the initial call, you put your competitors at a major disadvantage.
Let’s look at an example… 👇
Quick thought experiment – We call this the 5-Practice Sheet. (This is a dead-simple and super helpful concept, and this is one of several ways we coach our students to use it…)
Imagine you’re a potential patient, and you call 5 practices and ask why they’re awesome.
Most practices will say some version of…
>>> “Our doctors have a ton of experience.”
>>> “We have great technology.”
>>> “We’re totally focused on our patients.”
Etc etc you’ve heard it. And you’ve heard competitors make these claims too (and perhaps laughed to yourself, depending on their actual quality of care).
Now, for you and perhaps even multiple practices in your area, these statements can actually be TRUE.
BUT…. (And this is a major badonkadonk of a BUT….)
Is the prospective patient any closer to making a smart decision about their healthcare having this info from 5 practices? No.
Because on paper… with those answers… all 5 practices sound the same. This info is not enough to make any single practice stand out and shine.
What’s the solution? Our responsibility goes beyond simply answering the questions of our prospective patients.
Why? Because the person asking the questions is the one in charge. And when someone calls your office with a problem, they want someone to take charge and help them.
Back to the 5-Practice Sheet…
Prospective patient calls and inquires at 5 practices. In most cases, all 5 of them are gonna simply answer questions. In most cases, they won’t take the lead, they won’t help the prospect create a plan… heck, they won’t even recognize it as an opportunity to book a surgery.
If you can just NOT make these mistakes, you’re at a huge advantage.
Soooo many practices are leaving tons of $$ on the table in unbooked consults (gotta book the consult if you wanna book the surgery), simply by playing the same dumb game every other practice is playing. When what they need to do is establish their own game and bring prospective patients into it.
“What’s the script for this, Troy?” Scripts are a small part of it, sure. Attitude, tone, energy, insight, conviction, clarity 👈 these all play a bigger role than the script when it comes to your team being successful booking consults. (we zoom in on each of these in our coaching programs)
And no, that doesn’t mean you need a bunch of folks on your scheduling team who have masters degrees in psychology, or people who have been Sales Kings for a decade. In fact, it’s much easier than that.
All you need are people who:
- Are excited and willing to learn.
- Understand the value in being more efficient and effective with their time.
- Realize if they can help the practice win, then they win too.
If you have folks with those qualities, then it’s time to coach em up to lead your prospective patients through the scheduling process.
To put it on a bumper sticker: “It’s not about how we answer questions, but how we respond to questions.”
Two very different approaches. Use the latter, stand apart, and profit.
– Coach Troy