Does your health care business have an entrepreneurial culture?

Nordstrom's Inverted Pyramid

In our last post, we asked: what creates the difference between companies that excel at customer service and those that do not?

Is it the people you hire? Does it depend on where you do business? Is it tied to what you offer? Is it the customer service training you provide your staff?

Surely, all of these elements have an influence, but we believe that the main distinction between customer service “stars” and customer service “dogs” is their organisational culture.

The Inverted Pyramid you see above represents Nordstrom’s philosophy and their structure. You’ll notice that they place their customers at the top. This is followed by those who directly serve their customers—their salespeople and those who support them.

After that comes the levels of department managers, buyers, merchandise managers, store managers, regional managers, their executive team and their board of directors then support this group.

The Nordstrom company website says:

The Inverted Pyramid helps remind us that we need to value those closest to our customers. We work hard to make decisions in the best interest of our customers and those serving them.

Robert Spector, author of The Nordstrom Way: The inside story of America’s No. 1 Customer Service Company, refers to it as “setting employees free”:

“People will work hard,” said Jim Nordstrom “when they are given the freedom to do the job the way they think it should be done, when they treat customers the way they want to be treated. When you take away their incentive and start giving them rules, boom, you’ve killed their creativity.”

Of course, not everyone can succeed in this kind of culture. And, the culture needs systems on which to function appropriately.

Nordstrom focuses on hiring “nice people“, and teaches them what they need to know to succeed. Often, the less experience they have in the retail industry working for competitors, the better they tend to perform.

LiveseySolar, does exactly the same thing through our strength based recruiting system. We go a bit further than “nice” mind you; we select the top 3/32 strengths we’re looking for a in a team member, and find people who share those strengths.

Managers starts at the top of the pyramid (as salespeople or account managers) to learn what it takes to take care of the customer. This also sends a signal that management values the role of the people who face the customer every day.

This strategy poses an interesting question: If any new hire doesn’t succeed in front of customers, how can you promote them to manage those who are expected to succeed in front of customers?

You may agree that the inverse pyramid model is a good model for health care. But it’s important to understand the implications:

• Are you prepared to empower your front-line employees (not just doctors, but technicians, advisers, administrators, assistants and receptionists) to make decisions that affect the customer?
• Do you trust them enough to know the difference between a good decision and a poor one?
• Are you prepared to live with the decisions they make?

If you said “no” to any of the above questions, then you may want to revisit your hiring and assessment practices.

How is it that you don’t trust your employees enough to empower them? Was it a hiring mistake? Do your employees trust you, or have you eroded their trust? Have your standards gone slack as you drag along dead weight?

Most health care business owners today want their employees to work as hard and as smart as they do. Yes? That’s an entrepreneurial culture, and most of us would agree that a culture like that is what is required to best serve the customer.

This is Nordstrom’s only rule: “Use good judgment in all situations.” That’s it!

How many private healthcare practices, clinics and hospitals enjoy an entrepreneurial culture? We can probably count them on one hand.

If you have one, tell us and we’ll talk and write about you because you are truly remarkable. Before you do, consider that an entrepreneurial culture cannot exist without:

• a sense of ownership in the “lowest” person on the totem pole
• decentralised authority to do what’s right and in the right way
• a close link between performance and recognition / reward
• an honest recognition of where one “is” in comparison to where one “ought to be”
• a genuine focus on goal setting
• valuing that together we can acheive more than by ourselves

If the “lowest” staff member on the totem pole can honestly say:

• “My employer’s name may be on my paycheck, but I am paid by my customer.”
• “I have the lattitude to make my own decisions when it comes to customer care.”
• “I know I will never be criticised for taking care of the customer, I will only be criticised if I don’t take care of the customer.”
• “I am not perfect, but I know what I’m good at and I know what I can do better.”
• “Setting and acheiving goals is fun – when I achieve them I pat myself on the back, and when I don’t I try harder next time.”
• “If I one day choose to go into business for myself, I will know what it takes to be successful.”

then you may have entrepreneurial culture.

Want to find out if you have an entrepreneurial culture? We challenge you to ask your receptionist to rate their agreement on a scale of 1 to 10 to the statements above.

If they rate a high level of agreement to these statements, you can bet they probably feel on top of an inverted pyramid. If they don’t agree, then they probably feel like they are at the bottom of the pyramid, which is indeed where they are, just slightly above your customers…

What separates customer service stars from the dogs?

For many years, new employees were given a copy of the Nordstrom's Employee Handbook – a single 5-by-8-inch (130 × 200 mm) gray card containing 75 words

I was re-reading The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America’s Number One Customer Service Company. For those of you who are not familiar with Nordstrom, they are an upscale department store chain in the United States.

As I was reading, I noticed something that really exemplifies something that I’ve been trying to teach during our health care sales and customer service training courses about what makes the difference between customer service stars and customer service dogs. On page 27, there is a story that has helped to build the mystique that is Nordstrom‘s approach to customer service:

“A customer…fell in love with a pair of burgundy, pleated Donna Karan slacks that had just gone on sale at the Nordstrom store in downtown Seattle. But the store was out of her size and the sales associate was unable to to track down a pair at the five other Nordstrom stores in the Seattle area. Aware that the same slacks were available across the street at a competitor, the associate secured some petty cash from her department manger, marched across the street to the Frederick and Nelson department store, where she bought the slacks (at full price), returned to Nordstrom, and then sold them to the customer for the marked-down Nordstrom price.”

To put the story in context, the author Robert Spector goes on to write: “Obviously, Nordstrom didn’t make any money on the sale, but it was an investment in promoting the loyalty of an appreciative customer, who, would more than likely, favor Nordstrom for her next purchase.”

Contrast that story with Laura Livesey‘s experience with Principles, a London-based clothing store that prides themselves as “making sense of fashion”:

“I spent about 45 minutes shopping online on Principle’s website and ordered five items totaling about £150. First, I received an email saying that the items were being delivered. Then, after the delivery date had come and gone, I received another email stating that the items had been returned. I first emailed them and told them that I wanted the items. 24 hours later there was no response, so I phoned them. I spoke to the customer service representative on the phone, who instead of trying to help me solve my problem started telling me that it was my fault that they were unable to deliver the items.

When I said that I wasn’t concerned about the late delivery and only wanted to receive the items, they told me that they couldn’t help me and I would have to go back to the website and reorder them. I knew that most of these items were sale items, so I couldn’t just reorder the now unavailable items from the website. The rep told me check on the website anyway, and if the items were not available, then to phone them back. They would give me the phone numbers of the stores so I could call them to see if the items were available. When I said that I didn’t have the time to chase down the individual items all over London myself, they told me that they couldn’t help me and told me to have a nice day. All of this without even apologising.”

Consider the fact that the latter story happened when most retail stores in the UK were struggling with significantly slower sales due to the economic downturn…

Now, here’s the question: What accounts for the difference in approach?

Here’s a hint: the reason isn’t down to country-specific differences; it isn’t due to individual differences in customer service reps; it isn’t even due to the quality of the management in these two very different approaches to customer service. I doubt that it is even due to the amount of customer service training that these two staff members received.

What separates customer service stars from the dogs? What do you think is the answer? Comment below to give us your opinions.

Healthcare sales and acting skills

Make 'em an offer they can't refuse

Acting skills may at first appear to be unrelated to customer service. However, I believe that there is a significant overlap between the discipline of sales and the skills required of professional actors.

Acting skills include: Timing (i.e. the ability to move and speak in a precise manner at the right moment for a particular impact), Rhythm (the ability to understand and utilise the rhythmic expression of a particular script), Pace (the ability to regulate speed of delivery and speed of action), Focus (the ability to hold attention of an audience, and to direct attention of the audience to specific persons or areas of stage) and many skills that I may explore in future blogposts.

Recently, researchers from Washington University and from the Group Health Cooperative joined forces to train doctors in how to show emotions that are necessary when working with patients. Their teaching was based on the methods used by professional acting schools. They noted the special importance of relating to patients through emotions, in a time of increased dependence on technology.

Consider one of the giants of customer service: Disney. Disney believes that acting is so central to customer service that they call their staff “cast members” and instruct them in “on-stage” and “off-stage” behaviours.

Acting, like most skills, does not come easily to everyone. Actor’s training often asks participants to “replicate real life emotional conditions under which the character operates, in an effort to create a life-like, realistic performance. This is contrasted with a more abstracted, less involved style of acting in which the actor himself or herself remains an outside observer of the character he or she is portraying.”

Importantly, acting is NOT pretending, rather, it’s reaching inside oneself to emote an appropriate expression for the situation at hand.

During our Healthcare Consultation Skills and Teamwork Course, we sometimes engage participants in a fantastically popular “rapport exercise” in which I ask one person to come to the front and vividly and internally recall a highly-charged emotional event that transpired in their life. Then I ask another person to mirror and match the first person as accurately as possible.

After a few minutes of guided instructions, the first person is often in a state of high emotion (i.e. sometimes, self-induced tears), and the second person is often close or beyond the first person in their emotional expression. (Note: I have learned since to not ask people to re-imagine a negative emotional event, just a highly-charged one. Most people can think of a negative one entirely on their own).

This exercise demonstrates that there in a submerged actor in all of us, just waiting to be unleashed and applied towards positive results.

Shutting down the big fat healthcare sales excuse factory!

In our healthcare sales training and coaching work with our clients‘ staff all over the UK, I hear a plethora of excuses from people as to why they aren’t selling or practicing what they’ve been taught (and what they know works!).

If your healthcare sales people are not converting enough calls in to appointments, or not converting enough appointments in to patients, or not converting enough patients into referrals – you need to ask your them: WHY?

When I do, I can often see the excuses coming, especially when I expect someone to “own” their mediocre results.

Excuse makers. These are the gonna-doers and the half-a-minders. You know the ones. The ones that are gonna do this or have half a mind to do that? Unfortunately, these half-a-minders and gonna-doers invariably end up to being the never-doers.

I’m sure the following quote from Zig Ziglar Audio CD: Goals, will remind you of someone….

Ever see the individual who says: “I’d really want to get involved in this project… but it’s really almost time for the kids to get out of school, wait till the kids get out of school, because I’m having to take them to so many parties now, and when school gets out then I’ll really get busy…” And, when school gets out they say: “Well, you know I didn’t really realise it but now I have to take them somewhere it seems, like all the time, and I have to do it more now than I did when they were in school. Wait till the kids get back in school and then I’ll really get busy…” Then the kids get back in school and they say: “Well, for the first time in 23 years dear old central high has finally got a winning football season, and you’ve got to support the kids, you know. Wait till after football season, and then I’ll really get involved.” Then football season ends and they say, “Well, you know, here it is Thanksgiving, and Christmas and New Years, and people just don’t want to be bothered at this time of the year, wait till after the holidays, and then we can all get a fresh start.” And then after the holidays they say, “Well, you know, it’s the weather… have you ever seen weather like this around London or Birmingham, or Leeds or Newcastle, or wherever? You know, you just don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next, let’s just wait until the weather settles down… Now wait a minute, wait a minute, I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking I’ve lost interest. But just a minute, let me tell you the way I am see, now here’s the way I do things: I get everything all lined up in the proper order, and get all of my ducks in a row, I get all my plans made, and then, when I do get started, Man! I really get after it! I mean, I just find that works better for me. Now some of these other people, they might be ahead of me right now, but this is what works best for me. Wait till after the weather settles down, and then I’ll really get after it.” Then, the weather settles down, and they say: “Well, here it is, Easter time, and you know, Easter time is family time, and we all know, family is most important. Wait till I’ve had some family time…” And then they have some family time, and they say “Well, at long long last we’ve got some decent weather, and I haven’t hit a golf ball in… I don’t know when? And you know, you can’t work all the time! A fellow has to have some time off, wait till I hit a few golf balls, and then I’ll really get at it.” Then they hit a few golf balls and you know what they say? “Well, it’s time for the kids to get back out of school…”

It’s enough sometimes to make you feel like you’re taking part in a perverse game of whack-a-mole, as you bat these lame excuses down with your anti-cop-out mallet.

We hear them so often in fact, that I’ve started to amass a small collection of the most common excuses we hear. We call it our “50 excuses for not selling”. We now hand this list as part of every training workshop manual before training begins, so that we all know where we stand. If we’re getting excuses during the session, we’ll take the 5 minutes we need to go over this list and shut down the excuse factory.

Feel free to print and post this handy list of excuses in your staff room or wherever your sales people congregate.

If you hear your staff (or indeed, yourself) thinking or saying these excuses, open-mind surgery may be needed!

50 excuses for not selling:

1. I tried that before and it didn’t work…
2. My product is different…
3. I’m not a born sales person…
4. The economy is down…
5. That’s not my job…
6. I’m too busy to do that…
7. It’s too radical a change…
8. I don’t have the time…
9. I want to maintain my originality / creativity…
10. We’ve spent so much time learning to do it the old way…
11. I don’t want to sound too pushy…
12. Our clinic is too small for it…
13. This isn’t practical for non-sales people…
14. The other staff will never buy it…
15. The surgeons will scream…
16. We’ve never done it before…
17. Our marketing isn’t doing a very good job…
18. My leads are unqualified…
19. I prefer to let people make up their own mind…
20. There’s been bad news in the press lately…
21. That’s not my problem…
22. Why change it, it’s working okay…
23. I don’t like the idea of it…
24. You’re right, but…
25. You’re two years ahead of your time…
26. I’m not ready for that…
27. We don’t have the money / equipment / room, or staff…
28. It isn’t in the budget…
29. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…
30. Good thought, but impractical…
31. Let’s think about it and come back to it later…
32. Let’s give it more thought…
33. We’ll be the laughing stock…
34. Let’s put it in writing…
35. Not that again…
36. We’d lose money in the long run…
37. Every patient is different so I couldn’t use a process…
38. We did all right without it…
39. Joanne is a good seller and she doesn’t want to do it…
40. It’s never been tried before…
41. That won’t work in a medical environment…
42. Let’s shelve it for the time being…
43. Has anyone ever tried it?
44. The patients won’t like it…
45. I’m just not a natural salesperson…
46. It won’t work in our clinic…
47. What you are really saying is…
48. We’ve always done it this way…
49. When you say it, it sounds fine, but I couldn’t say that…
50. That sounds too American / cheesy / salesey for our us Brits…

We’ve said it before and it bears repeating: We can only take the glory for being great, if we take the responsibility when we are not.

How come it’s sometimes someone or something else’s fault when we’re not succeeding, yet we’re so quick to accept accolades when we are successful? We can’t have it both ways. We must take responsibility for the bad so we can revel in the glory of a job well done.

Need someone to come in and shut down your big fat excuse factory? Contact us to see how we can help

Raising standards for your clinic sales people

Moving the Bell Curve

We’re all familiar with the concept of the bell curve. And whether you buy into it or not, it’s likely that some of your clinical people suck at sales.

It’s not that they’re bad people. They just suck at sales. It’s OK. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Some really want to succeed and just need the right healthcare sales training – usually with training, they perform at the higher levels. And, there are those who have received the right training, but sometimes they’re up and sometimes they’re down. And finally, there are those who, regardless of the training they receive, are simply not willing to bring the effort that is required to bring in the numbers consistently.

Defining a minimum acceptable net conversion rate will provide the added motivation to keep up the sales effort.

As a health business owner, you invest considerable time and money in order to provide your salespeople (counselors, nurses, technicians, etc.) with potential new patients in the form of enquiries. In order to remain profitable, it is essential that each seller perform their role by producing sales.

It is therefore imperative, therefore, that sellers meet or exceed a Minimum Acceptable Net Conversion Rate on a monthly basis. Sales performance should be reviewed on a monthly basis according to a conversion rate report, which includes only sales made in the reporting period and picks up on treatments sold between the date of sales and the date the report is run. I suggest making the minimum conversion rate the current average conversion rate, and observing how sellers perform over 3 months. This is the middle of the red curve.

A seller that fails to maintain the required performance criteria for any month should be reviewed to determine the cause and, on a case-by-case basis, you can determine the appropriate remedial action plan to improve performance to an acceptable level.

Remedial action plans may include retraining, riding with the seller (observing their sales interactions with patients), and continued coaching. A remedial action plan should include specific remedial performance criteria for the coming month or months. The remedial performance criteria should be set on a case-by-case basis. Failure to follow the remedial action plan or attain the remedial performance criteria likely results in termination of employment.

Often, the bell curve cuts a familiar line. On the one hand there is your top 1/3rd – the consistent top performers; and on the other hand there is your bottom 1/3rd – the ones that cost you money.

One sales organisation I worked in routinely cleansed out its bottom 1/3rd. This kept the average conversion rate up for the team as a whole and kept the middle 1/3rd on their toes. In this way, the would consistently move their bell curve to the right – or in the image above – from the red to yellow.

But here is the question – are you prepared to make the tough decisions to do what’s right for your business? And while you ponder that question, here’s another: if you don’t do it, who will? I know, it isn’t easy, contact us if you need help.

Online advertising spending overtakes print for the first time according to new study

In a study just released by eMarketer, online advertising is set to eclipse print (offline) advertising for the first time ever.

This study by eMarketing shows that online marketing will exceed offline marketing in 2012

This makes me recall what Warren Buffett said: Price is what you pay; value is what you get. At the risk of annoyingly repeating myself, the return on investment (ROI) of  online marketing for our clients, has far surpassed that of offline for several years now. This is particularly true, if your marketing budget is less than £30,000 a year (and let’s face it – the majority of companies are in this boat!)

Online marketing trumps offline marketing: What you can do

We’ve been advising clients since 1997, and for most of those years, when someone asked us how to generate more leads, the answer, 7 times out of 10, was and still is, to improve your online marketing. While this advice was sometimes treated with suspicion (particularly in the cowboy days of the web back in the early 2000′s), we no longer get the question “should I get on the internet?” Now it’s “what else should I be doing online?”

For starters, if you’re looking to start, or deepen your online marketing programme, why not begin by taking a look at what generates more healthcare enquiries: SEO, PPC, or Social Marketing? Once you get a handle on the various types of online marketing opportunities and the expected return of each one, then you can deepen your online activities.

Find out what people are searching for by intelligently using Google’s keyword trending tools. It is amazing how many companies are doing Paid Search with Google Adwords, yet aren’t using Google’s incredible data to accurately target their ideal customers, or not thinking strategically about how to out-compete their rivals online, by thinking outside the box.

Take a look at your blogging programme. Companies that blog get 55% more web traffic. Because blogging can be time consuming, we consistently recommend this detailed 7-day action plan to create a year’s worth of medical web content that will put you on the right path to ranking higher than your competitors.

How to use Branding Effectively in Social Media

OK, so you know you’ve got to get on social media. Who doesn’t, these days!

Embedding your brand in the social media world is key to grow your business

One of the key marketing considerations in social media is whether your brand logo and ethos are properly embedded into each social media site you use. I’m going to give you a brief overview about how to do this properly, as well as helping you communicate with prospects effectively to increase your credibility. Here at LiveseySolar, we strive to prove the benefits of quick return marketing i.e. Google AdWords, but we also want to demonstrate the importance of brand marketing and good customer service through social networking.

Let’s get started!

Firstly, I would advise creating a Gmail account that you use for all social media sites. This will create a centralized system where all emails relating to social media can ben kept. This email account allows your incoming messages to be dealt with quickly and filed all in one place. Using one account prevents emails from being overlooked, which can result in poor customer service. It also allows you (or anyone on your team) to respond to comments that could impact a brand’s reputation, and answering in the “company name”.

It’s important that every social media site you use including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare looks professional, organized and reflects your company branding and communications in the right way. Lets take Twitter for example: In essence, it puts a personal face on your business and helps you stay on top of trends. It helps you to get regular feedback, track what people are saying and address problems. It also provides a means to connect to people who share your interests and helps you prove to customers that you care enough about the industry and their comments to take an active interest!

So how do I get set up?

Create a new company Twitter profile, link your twitter page to your company website and add the twitter logo to your website and signature.

What should I talk about?

Share relevant links and resources you find, information about your business and industry to show you are an expert in your field. Also, aim to reach out to people who use your services and make a list of your customer base to see if they are on Twitter. Remember: Tweet daily, but don’t talk about your own services too much! You want to seem knowledgeable, not arrogant!

It’s important to realise that each social media site will also attract different users. You’ll need to modify the way you respond to each unique customer group accordingly. Facebook usually attracts ‘friends’ of the company, or people you have build up rapport with. Try to respond to comments using their first name to highlight this relationship. Google + on the other hand is typically a hotbed for tech luminaries, marketers and businesses so I would consider taking a more professional stance.

Finally, ensure that all sites are correctly branded and link directly back to your website. Using social media is an additional way to bring the prospect back to your website. Therefore use links in your answers to questions in order to bring the prospect back to your site again and again!

CRM system a great foundation for the marketing of private medical services

Having a good CRM system in place enables practices to build up a credible customer base

The value of marketing has been proven over and over again, in both the business to business and business to consumer worlds.

From the generous advertising budgets of the pharmaceutical giants like Roche and Pfizer to the complex campaigns that technology brands such as SIEMENS Medical roll out globally, it’s invariably the power of efficient communication that generates sales.

However, marketing a small business is very different to promoting a global giant. So, when it comes to marketing a private medical practice, what are some of the first steps you should take?

Knowing your customer, in this case – your patients, is the foundation of marketing strategy and this is exactly what good CRM is all about. From the initial patient file through the consultation, diagnoses, procedures and invoicing, the software allows you to track every point of contact in the relationship. Only when this has been achieved is it wise to implement a marketing communications campaign.

Marketing communications – by SMS, e-mail or post

As software developers, we knew that we had to ensure that one of the key CRM functionalities of ‘PPM’ – Private Practice Manager would have to be controlling the consultant’s marketing communication with clients. The system’s easy to use database allows the practice secretary or marketing team to send patients timely and interesting communications.

Keeping in contact with patients and announcing the practice’s latest services or achievements can translate into increased turnover and profitability. It helps to improve the practice’s reputation and visibility and can also assist with patient care by making sure appointments are kept and communication channels remain open. This can be achieved by e-mail, including secure e-mail, SMS or by mail merge into a printed document. Often practices find that a combination of all three can provide the most dynamic method of patient interaction. Because ‘PPM’ – Private Practice Manager is fully integrated with Word, print mailings are easy to produce and distribute. This leaves more time for secretaries to spend on improving customer service and the overall client experience.

Keeping communications secure and private

Due to the intrinsically delicate nature of medical and healthcare communications, private practitioners need to be able to offer their patients an assurance that their communications can remain confidential. As a result, all information about procedures and patient data is stored securely and only released to relevant practice staff.

Furthermore, thanks to ‘PPM’ – Private Practice Manager’s integration with SSLPost, a low cost secure email product that is simple to set up and use, confidential e-mail communications can be sent with complete peace of mind. The product comes with an easy installation guide that allows the sender to begin encrypting emails within two hours of purchasing the software.

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Healthcare consultations: how to manage them for results

A client's first visit to your clinic is one of the most important appointments you can hold. Make best use of it with the ideal consultation process. (Image courtesy of St. James's Laser Vision)

First, Happy New Year! We hope it’s a year of many great firsts for you and your healthcare business. On the subject of firsts, we’re going to start discussing the subject of first consultations, and how important it is to get them right!

The outcome of a patient’s first consultation at your clinic can have a massive effect on your income and your profit, especially if you give free consultations. Healthcare marketing organisations  (like the London Vision Clinic, St. James Laser Vision, Yorkshire Eye Hospital, Sheffield Vision Centre, Optegra and EuroEyes in Germany) have appreciated this and have commissioned us to do full organisational wide consultation skills and teamwork training for all of their staff.

Generally, the staff involved in this training include:

• patient liaisons, patient counsellors, treatment coordinators and receptionists
• healthcare technicians
• optometrists, hygienists and nurses
• doctors and surgeons

What are the three goals of healthcare consultations?

1. Make your client feel better about you and your clinic when they leave than when they came in
2. Convert the client to another appointment if they are suitable (ideally surgical or treatment related)
3. Know the real objection, whether your client did or did not elect to pursue treatment

Everyone (yes, everyone) that works in a private clinic needs to be in tune with understanding the psychology of a sales process. This is not the same as memorising a script. Instead, one needs to understand the “why” to do something, and adapt your own personality to the sales process.

To achieve these goals, the ideal consultation process follows 3 Acts (yes, just like the ideal telephone call). Every Act, and the scenes within, assists in achieving the above 3 goals. The Acts are:

1. Greeting: including a Greeting and a Warm up
2. Opening: including an Intent Statement, a Discovery, an Information Confirmation, a Handover, and finally an Examination
3. Closing: including a Recommendation, a Reverse Handover, Options, and Asking for the money.

The acts and scenes of ideal healthcare consultations

Act 1: The Greeting

Act 1: Scene 1 is the Greeting. The purpose of the Greeting is to create instant rapport, and instill the trust and credibility necessary to get inside the hearts and minds of our customers.

Act 1: Scene 2 is the Warm-up. The goal of the Warm-up is to further reduce the customer’s tension so that we can establish rapport and credibility.

Act 2: The Opening

Act 2: Scene 1 is the intent statement. The purpose of the intent statement is to reduce the prospect’s fears and tensions so that they will open up to us in the discovery scene (next), and supply us with the information we need to help them conclude with a buying decision.

Act 2: Scene 2 is the discovery. The four goals of a discovery are (1) to find out the customer’s buying motives; (2) to uncover objections; (3) to elicit trust; and (4) to figure out through a series of questions, what services we will be offering our prospects that will suit their particular needs.

Act 2: Scene 3 is the information confirmation. The purposes of the information confirmation is:

(1) to evoke more trust, (2) to crystallize the prospect’s thoughts (3) to verify the prospect’s buying motives; and (4) to gain agreement from the prospect that he does indeed have a problem so that we are, in a sense, given permission to solve it.

Act 2: Scene 4 is the handover. During the handover, the patient coordinator hands the patient over to the person conducting the examination – whether that is a healthcare technician or another healthcare professional - transferring the vital information that has been uncovered in the discovery scene.

Act 2: Scene 5 is the examination. During the examination, the healthcare professional needs to share information about the tests they are conducting. It is also important to ensure that the the client answer the four conditions that are required to make a sale (the four conditions are (1) why fix the problem? (2) why use this solution to fix the problem? (3) why choose you to fix the problem? and (4) why fix the problem, NOW?

Act 3: The Closing

Act 3: Scene 1  is the recommendation. The recommendation is a clear description of what options the patient is suitable for, what procedure or treatment is being recommended, the risks and downsides associated with the treatment, and any further clarifications on the plan for treatment.

Act 3: Scene 2 is the reverse handover. In this scene, the healthcare professional hands the patient back to the patient coordinator, providing them with all the necessary information about the recommendation.

Act 3: Scene 3 is providing options. In this scene, the patient coordinator offers the patient options relating to time and money. Presenting a maximum of two options gives the patient the necessary sense of control and choice that they require to make a decision.

It is usually at this point when objections surface, so handling objections is a vital part of this scene. We provide training regarding handling objections throughout the entire consultation, and in how to do so so that there is no pushiness or conflict between the patient coordinator and the patient.

Act 3: Scene 4 is asking for money. This should only happen after all product and situational objections are identified and handled appropriately. This step is usually considered the “closing” stage, however, I believe you should be closing early and throughout the whole first consultation.

Results associated with these kinds of healthcare consultations

In all, I evaluate sales consultations on over 50 distinctions – that’s over 50 elements that add up to an “ideal first consultation”. Like teaching the fundamentals of skiing, I teach these distinctions to my delegates and provide examples of phrases and techniques they can use to enact them. Throughout, I’m providing real life examples, often from the consultations I’ve observed with them, to illustrate how to make these distinctions come alive.

After I teach the distinctions, I coach and evaluate my participants on applying the distinctions in their real-life consultations with patients.

Frequently, consistency makes the difference between the good and the great. Consistency is required both in practice and repetition.

It may take at least 20 first consultations for practitioners to successfully enact all of the distinctions. By then, however, the good habits are forming and the bad habits are beginning to disappear.

As a consequence, the participants achieve the goals of the consultation so that they create more happy customers, more sales, and they are involved in an ongoing learning process to understand why people don’t buy – which is a major clue that eventually reveals why they do.

Finally, we see, time and time again, consultation conversion rates go up which provides a clear return on investment in the training and enables the company to get more from what they do, every single day the process is lived.

Holiday Away Times 2011

Our office is closed between December 19th, 2011 through January 3rd, 2012.