Every year, orthodontic practices spend major dollars on marketing campaigns and referral programs to ensure phones will ring enough to grow the clinic's practice financially. While marketing is important, and making the phones ring is certainly important, what's also important is the ability of the orthodontic consultant to be able to convert prospects into paying customers of the practice.
Here are 5 tips to do a better job converting your orthodontic prospects into production clients:
1. Engage the customer.
It's easy for orthodontics practices to view prospects as individuals who are seeking information. But successful selling requires more than sharing information. It requires engagement of the prospect. The more engaged the prospect is in the decision making process, the more successful the practice will be. A simple first step in improving customer engagement is to ensure that prospects are spending as much time verbalizing as the consultant during a consultation. The consultant's job is not only to share information, because getting information is just as important.
2. Create sales momentum.
A consultation is an opportunity to lead your prospect through a series of events that can be looked at as steps on a staircase. Each tiny step - when completed - makes it more likely that the next step will successfully be completed also. By the end of the consultation, so many of these tiny steps should have been climbed by the prospective patient and the consultant together that the chances of the prospect backing out of treatment are minimal. Rather than viewing your consultation as a hour-long random conversation, "stepify" your consultation to create this sales momentum.
3. Nurture two relationships.
In the case of children, ensure that you are nurturing relationships with both the child and the parent (this can actually be three separate relationships if two parents are in attendance at the consultation). A twelve year old child and a forty-two year old parent have different needs during a consultation. Make sure you're providing for those needs in the design of your consultation. One final note: If both parents are in attendance at a consultation, resist the temptation to direct your attention only to the mother; fathers need just as much attention!
4. Add Value
Look for opportunities throughout the prospect's consultation experience to add value. This can be as simple as offering to hang up jackets for your visitors or providing an iPod to a child to listen to while they're waiting for their consultation as the parent fills out intake forms. But look for opportunities at every point in the consultation process to add value. These added value points add up!
5. Ask for the sale.
Consultants need to be consistent with asking the prospect to begin their treatment plan. After investing an hour of the practice's time with a prospect, it's vitally necessary to ask for the sale. But it's not just important to do it, it's important to do it in such a way that makes it easy for the prospect to agree to treatment. Finesse your process so more prospects begin treatment.
If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in B2C, retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.
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