Consult conversion: How to get consults to sell themselves on your care

Although we all want new patients signing up for care, it can be frustrating when you invest so much time and money into your marketing efforts to bring in consults, and then in the end, they don’t sign up for care. To add insult to injury, you may even be charging fees much lower than you’re comfortable with.

However, imagine how your clinic and your quality of life would improve if you were able to get your consults to happily sign-up for treatment, charge higher justified fees for your care, and you never have to worry about your competition.

Here are some of my closing concepts to help you effortlessly have your consults agree to your care, without ever having to “sell.” We can use psychology to have our consults sell themselves to our care.

Saying “yes”
Although you have probably heard that the more your consults say “yes” during your consultation and report of findings, the higher the probability that they’ll say “yes” and agree to your care (and if you’re like most, you probably don’t know why that is). It’s because much like compound interest at banks, the effects of your “yeses” build upon one another and therefore, the more your consults say “yes,” the higher the probability they’ll say “yes” to your care. However, poor quality “yesses” can act as detractors or subtractors from the compound effect of the high quality yeses.

Here’s an example of a poor quality yes:

Doctor: “Mr. Consult, if I can remove your back pain so you can get back to work, you’d want that right?”

Consult: “Yes.” (“Who wouldn’t?”)

Doctor: “And if I can get rid of the weakness in your leg so that you can play with your son, that’d be a good thing, right?”

Consult: “Yes.” (“Isn’t that obvious?”)

This line of questioning is condescending and obviously “salesy,” putting you in a negative light. Plus, the “yes” the consult uses is not so much in reference to the benefits of your treatments, but rather about being out of pain so they can go back to work, or play with their son.

In contrast, here’s an example of a high quality “yes” obtained from a skeptical consult who doubts your treatments will work for them:

Consult: “Doc, I really don’t think your treatments are going to be able to help me.”

Doctor: “Mr. Consult, I understand, but the fact that you’re in my office today for your consultation means that there’s a part of you that thinks my treatments will work. Isn’t that right?”

Consult: “Yes.”

See the difference in the two approaches? The high quality “yes” is related to the fact that your treatments can give them the results they’re hoping for. I could get into the all of the psychological triggers within this sentence, but I’ll just say that your consult wouldn’t be in your office if they thought that your treatments wouldn’t work – there’s still a small part in their mind that thinks it will. It’s just a matter of turning that small part in their mind that says your treatments will work into their dominant thought so they’ll change their beliefs in your
favour.

Gaining certainty
After getting your high quality “yeses,” you want your consults to not just sign up for care, but to see the value you provide with your treatments. Certainty is what gets them to start care and pay the price. It’s about having your consults believe that your treatments will provide them with the highest probability of success.

There are several ways to have your clients gain certainty: from offering qualification treatment, to image evidence, to testimonials and so on. Speaking to testimonials as an example, the best sales person for your clinic is a patient singing your praises.

This is part of what I call “staging.”  That’s to say, getting your consults “pre-closed” before they meet you for their consultation. If done correctly, all that you have to do is simply qualify them for care and they’ll jump at the opportunity to start.

Here are four essential questions get your patients to answer:

1. What condition/symptoms did you have before starting care at our office?
2. What other treatments have you tried in the past?
3. How are you feeling now?
4. What would you tell a skeptical person or someone considering our care?

Your consults will be able to identify with these four vital questions – you’re not “selling” to them at all. Instead, they’re actively buying into what you’re offering.

That’s the power of harnessing your consults’ psychological triggers.

Dr. Richard Avery is known as The Chiropractic Niche Coach and creator of the acclaimed “Mastering The Chiro Close” online course. He is the coach that doctors turn to when they want to quickly grow their clinic by both standing out from the crowd of other chiropractors and dramatically increase their conversion ratios without having to “sell” or “sell-out.” Connect with him at coachme@chiropracticnichecoach.com or 1-888-558-5054.

This article originally appeared in the February 2019 edition of Canadian Chiropractor