Never Apologize For The Price

Troy Cole (00:00:00):
One thing I didn't hit is we talked a little bit about the word investment and that you're investing in yourself. There are no costs. So I want to make sure you're not using the word cost. The only cost involved in any of this is the cost of staying where you are.

Andrea Watkins (00:00:15):
Love that.

Troy Cole (00:00:15):
The cost of staying where you are versus the investment in moving forward.

Andrea Watkins (00:00:22):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins. And if you're listening to this while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.

Blake Lucas (00:00:36):
And I'm Blake Lucas and this is PracticeLand. This is not your doctor's podcast.

Andrea Watkins (00:00:42):
Welcome back to PracticeLand. This is Andrea Watkins and we are here today with Troy Cole again. We had him. Hello, Troy. Welcome back.

Troy Cole (00:00:50):
Hello. Hi.

Andrea Watkins (00:00:52):
This is his second time being on the show. And last time we had a absolute fire discussion around disc personality profiling and how to use that in the practice when we're talking to patients. We're going to have you back and talk about that again on how to use it when working with our teammates. But today we're going to talk about something that is a big, bad, naughty, dirty word in a lot of practices, which is sales and selling. And yeah, so Troy, you have spent over 20 years helping teams throughout the nation sell basically fee for service surgeries, more in the refractive cataract type industry. But you've really built a conversion system really framed over tool set, skillset, mindset.

(00:01:43):
And in your hundreds of practices that you've been working with nationally, you're consistently helping them increase their conversion rates by 30, 40% just based on all the tools that you help to implement and train. So I am absolutely honored and thrilled to have you back here today. Thank you for coming and joining us back on PracticeLand.

Troy Cole (00:02:02):
Thank you for having me back. I love this topic because it's so popular and controversial. Everyone loves a little controversy. We call it the S word, right? Sales, the S word. And look, y'all have a lot of great. I'm going to bring out my y'alls. I am from Texas. I hope that's cool with the PracticeLand audience.

Andrea Watkins (00:02:23):
Yes, bring it. We have lots.

Troy Cole (00:02:25):
Y'all have a lot of great episodes around pricing and sales and how to address the challenges and objections that come up with that. And so really today I want to speak into something we focus on a lot in our coaching, which is the way we think about money and investing and value. We'll get into some scripting and some different word tracks, but I really want to equip anyone listening to help their teams to understand how to present and connect the value of what we're providing with the investment that somebody's going to make. That's a lot of mindset work, but when we can get our mind right, when our thinking is what we want it to be, the words, the scripting, the attitude, the tone, it all flows very, very naturally. So that's what I want everybody taking away from here. Today is just some aha moments where they can go like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, this makes sense in how I need to be thinking about this when I'm connecting with our patients."

Andrea Watkins (00:03:24):
Absolutely. And because sales does have a negative connotation and it is kind of that dirty S word as you kind of spoke to previously is sometimes we'll say we want to guide our patients and we're educating our patients and that's fine. I often like to say service equals sales because if you're really serving the patient and you're serving the practice, the sales will come. So if you don't like the word sales, just replace it in your brain every time we say it with the word service. But really all it means, and we've talked about this on previous episodes, if you look up the word sales in Webster Dictionary, all it means is exchanging a good or a service for cash money. And that's literally what all of us are doing in cash money. Troy flashes up a $20 bill for those of you that are not watching but just listening.

(00:04:16):
So again, it's just really important to understand that what we're doing, we're providing a service, we're providing an outcome, we're selling a product, if it's skincare or something like that, but what we're doing is we're exchanging that for money. And technically go to the dictionary, that's just what the word sales means. So when we talk about money and it comes up, coordinators, they, I don't sell, money's hard, all the things. Why do you think this just makes so many people uncomfortable?

Troy Cole (00:04:52):
Well, money's kind of a taboo topic in general. I don't think it should be, but it's not just in aesthetics or just in eye surgery, which is the world I come from. You just don't go to a party and start talking about money and how much people are spending and all of this. For whatever reason, it's a little bit, you just don't do that. And I think as it relates to sales in particular, when you say sales, a lot of people think like, oh, sales, like ears, car, pushing, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, get your deal, get it now. Are there sales experiences that are like that? Yeah, sure. There are. We've all had those and it's like, it's not that great. But on the flip side of that, we've all had great sales experiences in our lives. And so this is an exercise we do with practices that we bring on and we take them through our E3 conversion system bootcamp.

(00:05:46):
One of the first exercises we do with them is say, "Hey, I want you to think about a good sales experience that you've had." Maybe it was the lady at the makeup counter that helped you redo all of your makeup, a waiter at a great restaurant, somebody who did sell you a car, but they actually listened to you and helped put you in something that you needed and made it fit your budget. And so we say, "Hey, give us some examples of this." And then I want you to break down why it was great.

(00:06:15):
And no matter where that example comes from, car, makeup, mattresses, those experiences all have a few very central common themes to them. Somebody who listened, who actually cared to understand what I needed, somebody who asked me questions, somebody who wasn't pushy, but at the same time didn't just take every answer I gave at face value. They wanted to learn more and to dig more. Somebody who led me to a decision because I don't know everything there is to know about mattresses, but you do, so explain it to me, walk me through it, help me to understand. And so you start to see these common layers of like, oh, education, leadership, listening, and that's what sales needs to be inside of our practices too. When we do it that way, we can create that great sales experience because every single day that you do that, you have people walking out who say, "Man, I'm so glad that they carried me through this.

(00:07:24):
They led me by the hand. They moved me forward. I was kind of on the fence about it. I made that decision and I'm so glad that Andrea helped me to make that decision because I'm so happy with myself now."

Andrea Watkins (00:07:36):
Right,

Troy Cole (00:07:36):
Exactly. That's what we want to create.

Andrea Watkins (00:07:38):
Yep. And through this experience, I think the thing where we always need to start or the place where we always need to start is with those questions. So if you walk into a mattress shop or any of these other things, I think it's even more important in aesthetic medicine and elective procedures where the very best salespeople, those providing the very best service and support are the ones that are asking the best questions. So tell me, how long have you been thinking about this and why is now a good time to explore your options? What's going on in your life where it's just gotten to the point where you want to take that next step forward? And that not only are you learning about that patient, so this is multifaceted on why we ask these types of questions for this sales experience, which is yes, of course we need to learn about them.

(00:08:27):
Absolutely, 100%. But then also they need to say it out loud, so they have to self-affirm. So we need to learn while they're also self-affirming, yeah, I have been thinking about this for eight years. Why now? My kids are finally in school and I got time to recover and we saved some money. All those things are important for me from a sales aspect so I can use them later to make sure I'm reminding them of their situation. But also it's important for them to reaffirm why we're talking to each other in the first place. And then thirdly, I think through this conversation, that's where you build an environment and a relationship with them where they start to trust you and they start to feel safe because you are investing in them.

Troy Cole (00:09:11):
Yeah. And everything you just walked through builds towards the value of the procedure, which is very different from person to person. What is the value that I am getting? And that's why we focus so much on the why and the why now. It's so easy for us to think that we're selling the surgery. Rather, a better way to say that would be that people are buying the surgery. I'm buying the surgery, I'm buying the units of Botox, I'm buying vision correction, but they're not. They're buying the result. They're buying the thing. And if we're not asking the questions that you just outlined, we don't know what that destination is that they're trying to get to. Everything that we do is a path. It's the journey to get there. It's the road, right? I love the Wizard of Oz example, the yellow brick road. You've got four people going down the same road, the path, the patient journey.

Andrea Watkins (00:10:06):
Yeah. I love this. I'm already hooked and you're talking about the Wizard of Oz. Okay, go on with it.

Troy Cole (00:10:10):
Okay, nice, nice. So they're all getting to the Emerald City. They're all getting to the surgery center. They're all going down the path, filling out the paperwork, doing the consult, but why are they going? They have four very different reasons for going, right? Get a heart, get a brain, get courage, get home. So people have different reasons, but that's why they walked it. It wasn't because the path was awesome. It was because they had to go down that to get the result that they want. Our patients have results that they want. They've got things that they want to do.

Andrea Watkins (00:10:42):
This is money.

Troy Cole (00:10:42):
I know. We're going to be spitting some fire today, ladies and gentlemen.

Andrea Watkins (00:10:47):
When we're done, everyone meet us in Las Vegas at the Sphere for the Wizard of Oz. I think we're just going to expense it. Everybody, let's go. And it's just going to really bring this whole analogy home. I freaking love this. It's great.

Troy Cole (00:10:58):
100%. 100%. So the journey to the result, what is the result that our patients want? And so often, 99% of the time, this is some emotionally driven result that they want that on paper might look completely irrational. Let me give you an example from my world, from the eye world. We have procedures that we do for patients who have bad reading vision as they age. Our eyes get old, our lenses and our eyes don't flex well, and then we start wearing reading glasses. This may sound familiar to some of you listening, depending on what stage of life that you're in, but we'll have people who come in and they say, "I'm really interested in getting my reading vision fixed." And we do some discovery and we ask these questions. And come to find out, somebody will want to get out of $2 reading glasses by spending $15,000 on a surgery so that they can read bedtime stories to their grandkids without them ripping glasses off their face.

(00:11:58):
Now on paper, it's like, "Is that a smart investment? Do I understand that?" Well, no, not really. I don't even really get that. You have a lot of coordinators who maybe are younger. They're not even at that stage of their vision development. It's like that sounds, okay, whatever. But at the end of the day, important. If that's the value to them, who am I to judge that? Who am I to judge that? I'm not. I'm just going to get you there. Cool. We can make it happen. Let's go.

Andrea Watkins (00:12:27):
Yep. So when you're going through this process with the patients and you're finding out if they're there to get a heart or what all the different things are that we're going down the yellow brick road, what do you think are the main differences between just leading a patient through a decision making process and pushing them? Because that's a thing that at least in aesthetics for sure and with all the gals that I coach, that's the hardest thing to really overcome is that no one wants to seem pushy ever, which I'm the same way. I never ever want to come off as pushy. So in your mind and with your training, explain what's the difference?

Troy Cole (00:13:04):
Yeah. So pushy is more of like, "Hey, have you made a decision yet? Are you ready to go?" You can feel pushiness, right? It feels icky. It feels gross. And really that's more of an order taker type of a mentality. At the end of the day, man, we're not working the drive through at Mickey D saying, "Hey, take your order. What would you like?" At the end of the day, we're being leaders. And so low value is pushiness. High value is leadership. Leadership is momentum. It's understanding that there is a flow, there's a feeling. We know that you're trying to get to the Emerald City. We also know we're going to encounter some poppy fields and some monkeys and some trees throwing apples at us as we're going down there. And I'm going to have to get you around that, and that's totally fine. You know what?

(00:13:52):
You've never been on this journey before, but I do it every single day and I know how to get us there and I'm going to be with you every step of the way. That's what leadership is.

Andrea Watkins (00:14:01):
Yeah. I agree wholeheartedly. And I tell all of my girls that I work with, your job is really to be a leader. You're leading. If you can't instill confidence that you know what you're doing, why would they choose you over the 15 other competitors that are right down the road from you? So being that leader, being confident, still having empathy, of course, but I think number one is you build that confidence by being a leader and you can do that without being pushy by helping the patient through that. So through this, obviously there just has to -

Troy Cole (00:14:36):
Let me hit on that a little bit too, if you don't mind. Let me talk a little bit more about leadership and what leadership looks like. And the analogy that I like to use is that our practice is like a freight train and we're going to better vision town if you're in vision correction. If you're in aesthetics, same thing, right? We're going to aesthetics town. That's what we're doing. And I would love for you to get on here with us and go on this journey with us. We're going either way. We take patients every day and they absolutely love it. But at the end of the day, it's our process, it's our track, it's our train. We know how to get you there and I'm inviting you along on that journey. Some people aren't going to go. That's totally okay. And I want to remind everyone listening right now, the patient journey, it's a two-way street.

(00:15:29):
It's very much like dating. It's not just, will you come and have a procedure with us? Will you come and do treatments? Can anybody -

Andrea Watkins (00:15:37):
Give you this discount because we just really want you to book and blah, blah. Yeah.

Troy Cole (00:15:41):
That's right. It's not that. You choose your patients, perhaps even more selectively than your patients choose you. At the end of the day, if you had everybody in your town who could use your services and your treatments, reach out to you, tomorrow your phone system would break. You literally can't help all the people who need your help. So who's in higher demand? Is it patients or is it your practice? Well, it's your practice. So that puts us in a very powerful leadership position to say, "Hey, look, I'm also making sure that you're a good fit for us

(00:16:18):
And not every single patient is." And as I say that, you can probably think back to a patient that you've served where you said, "Man, that money, that patient was not worth it. Not worth it. I should have blanked them off. I should have redlined those guys and moved on to somebody else who understood the value, who wanted what we had to offer." So just keep in mind, man, it's a two-way street and we're getting patients on board with us. I'm not rebuilding that railroad track to accommodate somebody else. I know what it takes to get there and I'm going to take care of you as we go, but we're going, so let's go.

Andrea Watkins (00:16:55):
Well, and I truly believe that what you're saying starts with just the beliefs of the coordinators and the beliefs of the team members. And again, that's a mindset shift that we get to choose who we serve just as much as those who we serve get to choose us, and it's not a desperation thing. And so when we talk about the belief system and the training, what do you think coordinators most commonly believe that's getting in the way before they open their mouths? Because this is a core, in your gut, what do you believe when you show up to work every day? What do you think gets in the way for most people?

Troy Cole (00:17:34):
Yeah. So we see several that come up very often. This idea that expensive is a fact, that if somebody says this is expensive or this is too much, that they are now stating some universal fact as if the sun rises in the east. And that's not true. Expensive is an opinion and it's opinion formed around their understanding of the value they're receiving. They just don't understand the value yet. So expensive is an opinion that can be addressed, that can be changed, that can be led through. Another one, another common misconception that we tend to believe, if somebody pushes back on price or even just comments on price that they can't afford it or they're not going to spend the money on it, that's not true.

Andrea Watkins (00:18:20):
That's a really great point.

Troy Cole (00:18:22):
It's not true. At the end of the day, they still just don't understand everything that they're getting or what we have to offer or they haven't connected that investment with the value that they're trying to achieve.

(00:18:35):
The one that we've talked about, I don't want to seem pushy. And so that's okay in and of itself. I don't want to seem pushy. Good. But what that results in is now I'm not going to be a leader. Now I'm going to step back. Now I'm going to leave it up to you. Now I'm going to make sure that I'm going to make you make the decision even though you've never done this before because I don't want to come across in a certain way. And that's literally advocating our responsibility as a leader and as somebody who knows all this stuff to somebody who really has no idea how to make these decisions. It's very irresponsible when you really look at it.

Andrea Watkins (00:19:10):
Yeah. Well, also I would like to add, and I just experienced this with a client of mine in Beverly Hills yesterday. So she had a patient come in for a consultation and prior to coming in, of course, they're already prepared with ballpark pricing and know what is the strategy for payment and timeframe. We go through the gamut before anyone even shows up. Guy shows up, comes up with a treatment plan, decided he wanted to do something additional. And so we put together or she puts together an invoice and he is just like, "Oh, that's a lot. I don't want to pay that much." And previously before me working with them, she would've tried to kind of bargain with him and find a middle ground and what is kind of where you want to pay? And there's one instance where it's kind of like we can give a little bit of a fee reduction if patients are willing to do something very specific that we want them to do, which is fill a hole that I have in my schedule or do something that I say.

(00:20:11):
That's the only exception. But other than that, pushback on prices, the price is the price is the price. So he wanted and she said, "Listen, I actually have this date in September that it's only date that we have open in September. If you want to take this, I could do a little bit of a something for you." So she does that and he's like, "Oh, I'll think about it." He's like, "Oh, I really still don't want to pay that much." He's like, "Too bad. This is the price." He just wanted to see what he could do and barter and negotiate. And it wasn't that he couldn't afford it and it wasn't that he didn't see the value, he just didn't want to pay that much. And what
happened, she stood her ground and he said, "Okay, here's my card, here's the deposit, whatever." So just because someone does push back also, to your point, doesn't mean they can't afford it or they don't want to do it. Sometimes people just want to see what they can get, how cheap of a bargain that they can get. But then what happens when you just kind of succumb to that is then the value actually does diminish.

Troy Cole (00:21:09):
So that example you just gave, you could say, well, does this young lady, was she being pushy when she did that?

Andrea Watkins (00:21:16):
Absolutely not.

Troy Cole (00:21:16):
Was she being pushy when she stood her ground? Okay. So what was she being?

Andrea Watkins (00:21:22):
I mean, she was just being confident in her stance and she was being a leader of the practice and for the patient stating, this is the value and here's why, and here's all the things and you're going to feel great and this is the result you were looking for and here's how we're going to be able to help you get it. If you need it, we do have some flexible payment plan options if the cost really is a barrier. So that she's being a problem solver, but not just bending over and saying, "Oh, well, you don't want to pay. Okay, let's give you a discount because that's not going to actually help your practice and it's not really going to help the patient in the long run because they're not going to see the value and give it the respect that it deserves."

Troy Cole (00:22:10):
That's right. And that comes from speaking of beliefs, going back to the beliefs piece, that comes from a place of having strong belief in your practice and in your procedures. And so there are three beliefs that we want every single person in the practice to be a 10 out of 10 on for themselves. Can I walk you through those?

Andrea Watkins (00:22:30):
Please do. And I can't wait to hear them.

Troy Cole (00:22:32):
All right. So belief number one is that everyone reaching out to you wants what you have. They want to solve their problem and they believe on some level that you can probably help them do that. And this is very important when we're thinking about being pushy, especially with following up with people, following up with leads. Oh, they didn't answer their phone. Maybe they're not interested. I don't want to bug them.

Andrea Watkins (00:22:56):
I hear that too much.

Troy Cole (00:22:57):
We've all ignored three calls today from numbers that we don't know. Or you get that text message and it's like, I need to deal with that later, but I'm picking up my kids from school. Oh, I need to think about this a little bit more before I respond. And then you forget because life is busy. There's a dozen reasons why somebody may not answer your call or text you back right away, none of which have anything to do with how much they want the thing.

Andrea Watkins (00:23:24):
Yep.

Troy Cole (00:23:24):
Now, I don't know how y'all do it in aesthetics, but on the I side, I don't have a single client. There's not a single practice I've ever talked to that hands somebody a phone book and says, start with the A's and start cold calling people at dinnertime and ask them if they want to get their eyes fixed.

Andrea Watkins (00:23:40):
I always use the example, and I've said it on this podcast so many times, none of the gals that I coach, none of the practices that I work with, one single one of us is going to the produce section down at your local Smith's Kroger store and going up and saying, "That outfit would look so good on you if you just had a new set of boobs." Or looking over across the cucumbers and saying, "You really need a nose job. Give me your phone number so I can call you 17 times." We don't do that. Nobody does that. We're not cold calling people. We're only responding to people that have shown interest. So yes, 100% in aesthetics. No, we don't randomly go around telling people that they need plastic surgery. That would just be awful and you would have a very special place in hell if that was what your job was.

(00:24:30):
So no, we don't do that.

Troy Cole (00:24:32):
Okay, good. And let's just keep that in mind. Anyone you're calling, anyone who's come through your website, anyone that you're texting, anybody who came through Facebook, sent you a DM on Instagram, whatever it is, they have reached out to you and they have said, "I have a problem and I think you might be able to solve it." We got to go in with that belief. They need what we have. They want the solutions we offer. Belief number two, that the procedures you offer genuinely change people's lives. So if I believe that you want it, but I don't believe in what we're doing, then that's going to be a problem. So we've got to get that level of belief up and I will give you some tactical ways to do that. And then belief number three, that your practice is the right practice to deliver those procedures and those solutions.

Andrea Watkins (00:25:17):
Yep.

Troy Cole (00:25:18):
So you might think this person wants it and this procedure's awesome. Are we the best in town? Are we the best in the country? We need to build that belief among our teams. And I'm happy

Andrea Watkins (00:25:29):
And if they do not believe it, invite them to find a different place to work. Truly, that is core value. Core value of everybody that comes within the doors of your practice every single day is that if you do not believe in your providers and that they are going to give the most exceptional experience and outcome, you need to find a new job. Get out. If you think that your doc is a joke or you think that your injectors overfill people and they look like garbage, go find somebody else to work with because if you're not confident in what you're selling and the experience and outcome that you're providing patients, the patients feel that and they're going to be out. That's

Troy Cole (00:26:12):
That's right. That's right. We build belief in our patients based on everything we do in our process and our marketing and everything, but your most important marketing audience is not your patients, it's your team.

Andrea Watkins (00:26:24):
I love it.

Troy Cole (00:26:25):
Your team is the most important marketing audience. And so while I agree, if you're not on board with everything we're doing and you don't believe we're the bees knees, this may not be the place for you, but also make sure that you're putting your best foot forward to build that belief in your team.

Andrea Watkins (00:26:41):
Yep.

Troy Cole (00:26:42):
So some very practical ways to do this. Everybody here gets five star reviews. Does your team see those? Do they know that those are coming in? Do you have a little standup meeting every Monday morning where you prep for the week and you can pull out two or three five star reviews from last week and read those to the team? Read them the review that says, "I was so scared, but y'all made me feel so good." Read the review where somebody says, "Man, my friends just couldn't believe how beautiful yet how natural I looked." Remind them of what we are doing in the transformation that's happening every single day. 100%. There may be cases where, and we do this a lot on the ophthalmology side, I want my team periodically watching procedures. Oh, for sure. Something like LASIK, for example, where somebody lays down on the surgical suite and they have their eyes treated and it's a very quick procedure.

(00:27:39):
And you'll have a guy with a beard who looks like an ex-pro wrestler sit up from the table and look at the clock and start to tear up. And then his wife outside will start to tear up because he's tearing up. And when you see that and you're like, "Oh, this is what we're doing.

(00:27:56):
Yes, it's this. This isn't just a job. This isn't just a thing you do every day." Every job can feel like that, right? But having these moments where you're bringing it back up and you're saying like, "Wow, this is the result. This is awesome." So even believing in the procedures, reading the reviews, watching the procedures themselves, talking to patients at post-ops, we'll have patients who will bake a batch of cookies because they can read their recipe book again after they got their eyes fixed and send that to the practice with a handwritten thank you note. Does everybody know the cookies are in the break room? And by the way, I want to send out this picture of Mrs. Johnson's thank you note on my Teams group message and give everybody some kudos like, "Hey, great job guys. This is why we do this." These are little things that are happening in your practice all the time that the reviews, you just need to take them and activate them as marketing pieces to your team.

Andrea Watkins (00:28:53):
Yep. And do that to your point, whether it's in your weekly standup or your morning huddle, whatever review came in yesterday or we used to have monthly meetings and I would put them up so that everybody could see and I'd say, "Rebecca, I know that you had a special experience in post-op with this patient. Would you share with the team what the patient said?" All right, so let's talk about the money part because this is usually when, as we described, everything kind of falls apart. What's actually really happening in that moment when we get that kind of feedback from the patient?

Troy Cole (00:29:29):
The patient has not understood the value of what we're providing and connected it with how they understand value. And so we talked about some of this in the disc episode. The way different personality types make decisions and the way they identify value is very different from person to person. And so we have to keep in mind that we're dealing with an individual in front of us with a certain personality style blend, which means they have certain priorities and the ways that they make those decisions.

(00:30:00):
Number one is we just got to understand that. I want to be so proactive in everything that we do that we're eliminating the objections that come down the line later on anyway. I want to get in front of the spouse objection by understanding, are they married? What does your spouse think about this? Before that, they ever even have a chance to say that. For sure. Same thing goes with the money piece. I would say even before we get to, hey, here's the amount. How are we presenting? How are we building up to that, if you will? So one very tactical way that we can do this, every single person here, if you think about the procedures and the treatments you do, there's a package component to it, meaning it's not just this surgery. There's pre-ops, there's post-ops, there's probably a post-op care kit. There may be some additional skincare or other treatment involved in the actual surgery piece.

(00:30:53):
There may be a twenty four seven hotline where you can always call a doctor and get them on the phone. You have all these different things. And so rather than saying you're paying X dollars for a facelift, you want to take that everything involved there, break it all apart and then go through everything they get. Here's how we do this. And that does a couple of things. Number one, it builds value in everything that they're getting to ensure that they get that result that they want. We're doing this and this and this and this and this and this and this, and you have access to this and this and this and this and you have this guarantee and if something happens and we're going to. We're breaking all of that apart, building a ton of value around, hey, we thought of everything. And then that signals to them that this isn't Spirit Airlines. This isn't the place that's going to give me the cheap flight, but then charge me for a bag, charge me for a carry-on, charge me for a water, charge me for coming up to the counter and asking a question. And then all of a sudden I'm actually paying more than if I'd have just flown American in the first place.

Andrea Watkins (00:31:56):
Yes, 100%.

Troy Cole (00:31:57):
And so breaking that apart and explaining that package, that's number one. Number two, we are trying to make it as apples and oranges as possible if somebody wants to compare us to somebody else down the street.

Andrea Watkins (00:32:10):
Here's exactly what I was just going to say. So go on with your bad self. Love this. Yes.

Troy Cole (00:32:15):
Yeah. So facelift here, facelift there, facelift at the third place. Well, they're all three facelifts. What does it really matter? We see this all the time on the LASIK side. Everyone here has heard of LASIK. Well, you do LASIK and they do LASIK and they do LASIK. So I'm going to go with a place that's $1,000 cheaper. Well, I've got to build some kind of value in that. And that might be technology, surgeon experience, pre-op, post-op, guarantees, lifetime, whatever. But if I can break all that down and say, "Hey, look, it's not just LASIK versus LASIK. It's not just facelift versus facelift. This is our so-and-so package and you're getting all of this."

Andrea Watkins (00:32:52):
Yep. The differentiators.

Troy Cole (00:32:52):
I don't know what they do down there, but I know what we do here having done 15,000 of these surgeries and helping our patients get the best results possible, and it's this.

Andrea Watkins (00:33:03):
Yeah. I actually think it's very helpful to know what they do down there because then what you can actually do is you don't have to diminish someone else, but what you can do is when you know you have a differentiator, for example, back in the day, this is before a lot of surgeons were doing liposuction 360 and they definitely weren't doing it with tummy tucks. My surgeon did tummy tucks and every single tummy tuck he did, everybody had Lipo 360. And there was a reason for that. We want beautiful angles, 360 degrees all the way around your body, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that was a huge differentiator for us. And we didn't tell the patients, oh yeah, none of those other doctors that you're getting prices from and that you're having this call with. Yeah, they don't do this. What we were doing is saying something very unique about Dr. so and so.

(00:33:50):
He does 360 lipo with every single tummy tuck. So I know you already said you were calling around and you were trying to get information. Just make sure that when you are comparing that you understand the differentiators between us and the other people that you're doing your research because as someone who has also had lots of procedures done, if someone doesn't tell me, Hey, listen for this, ask for that. I don't know what I don't know. So when you're in a role of leading a patient, again, if you believe in your heart that they are best served coming to your practice, you need to know why. And those are the differentiators that you really need to point out so that you are, to your point, Troy, building the value around the price tag that's associated with that investment.

Troy Cole (00:34:35):
Yes. I love the way that you put that because we don't want to badmouth anyone else.

Andrea Watkins (00:34:40)
No, never.

Troy Cole (34:40)
That just sounds icky. It's low value. It's not great.

Andrea Watkins (00:34:43):
That's desperate and gross and we're not doing it.

Troy Cole (00:34:44):
What you're talking about is setting the buying criteria. And it's actually something I learned from my father-in-law about 15 years ago. He was a VP at Lockheed Martin and they sold jets to other allied countries. He literally had countries that he worked with and he was the guy that did that. And he taught us these countries would go to them and go to Boeing and go to whoever and they say, "We're trying to buy some jets or we're trying to buy whatever." And his first move was to figure out A, what they were looking for, but even more importantly, to tell them what they needed to be looking for. Exactly. You're going to want this kind of system. You're going to want this kind of fuel. You're going to want to make sure they refuel in these certain ways so that when they went out and shopped them against other places, it's like, "Well, they don't have that refueling system.

(00:35:36):
Well, they don't have that navigation system. I guess we're going to go with these guys who check all the boxes." And so that's exactly what you're talking about, which is like, "Hey, a lot of people still use LASIK lasers that are 20 years old. I know that sounds crazy. I would never use a cell phone that was 20 years old, but that's what a lot of places do. And so you're going to want to make sure you ask what platform are you on? How long have you had it? How often does it calibrate?" And then you're educating them along the way to say, "Here's what we calibrate ours. Here's how ours work. Here's something that we include that a lot of places don't." And now all of a sudden you're the one setting the buying criteria versus the patient trying to price and what else do I do? They don't know how to make that checklist, but you do.

Andrea Watkins (00:36:21):
Yep. And in your postoperative care, are you doing perioperative lymphatic massage? Are you doing lasers? Are you doing microneedling? Are you doing scar treatment? Are you doing hyperbaric chamber? Are you doing light therapy? There's a million different things that practices across the nation do differently. This is where you build the value in by saying, oh, and we also do this. All of our facelift patients, they also get $1,500 worth of medical grade skincare because why have a facelift if you're not going to take care of your skin afterwards? And so we want to get you started off with the right thing. If you're not telling the patients about that when you're also delivering the investment of what it's going to cost, they don't understand. They don't know what they don't know.

Troy Cole (00:36:59):
That's right.

Andrea Watkins (00:37:00):
And we have so many tools to overcome. Yes, money is real and budgets are real. I had to wait 16 years to be able to afford the first procedure that I ever had after losing over a hundred pounds. It was because it was a money thing. And we also have phenomenal payment plan options like PatientFi where we can get our patients approved for funding so that we can help them figure out how can we help get a different payment plan option so we can put this into your monthly budget. So it doesn't become as big of an objection when you have the tools like PatientFi that you can help implement to say, yeah, we're going to overcome this hurdle that you have, but as long as you're building that value and they see that it's worth it.

Troy Cole (00:37:44):
You right money is real.

Andrea Watkins (00:37:46):
We'v got tools to be able-

Troy Cole (00:37:46):
And something that we see come up a lot is that you've got somebody maybe in your position 16 years, 10 years before you were at that 16 mark where you're just like, man, this is a lot of money. I don't have this kind of money. You've got people in your practice asking folks for 30, 40, $50,000 who've never in their life imagined ever spending anywhere close to that amount of money on themselves. And so that's another thing that can really keep us from being confident in our price, being confident in like, yeah, it's going to be worth every penny. So a couple of exercises that we have our teams do to help overcome that. Exercise number one, and you can do these with your team.

Andrea Watkins (00:38:27):
Let's do them.

Troy Cole (00:38:27):
Put them down, do a little meeting.

Andrea Watkins (00:38:29):
Everybody write this down Right now.

Andrea Watkins (00:38:31):
So that we can do this. So what are these exercises? Because we all need them.

Troy Cole (00:38:34):
Two little exercises and they're fun and people will start laughing and making fun of each other, which is always great. Number one, what's something that you spend money on where you look for the more expensive or the higher priced thing? Because we all have that. For us, it's organic groceries, for example. For other people, it might be makeup. Yeah, I'm actually looking for makeup that's higher priced. I'm looking for higher priced shoes. It could be any number of things, but we all have that. And I know people in my life who drive a 20-year-old pickup truck, but they'll buy a new gun because they want or the best ammo or whatever.

Andrea Watkins (00:39:21):
You are from Texas, huh? Trucks and guns. Right, y'all. Giddy up.

Troy Cole (00:39:25):
But everybody has something in their life where they go out and they say, "Man, I'm actually looking and shopping in part based on the higher price thing. I don't want the cheap thing." So that's number one. And then number two, take this a step further and say, "Hey, what's something that you spend money on that other people think is downright silly?" What's something for you?

Andrea Watkins (00:39:50):
I'm super frugal, so I'm going to need a minute to think about this.

Troy Cole (00:39:54):
Think about it.

Andrea Watkins (00:39:54):
What is it for you?

Troy Cole (00:39:57):
For me, supplements, like protein. I could buy the cheap protein, but I buy the fancy proteins. Why are you spending all this money on protein powders and supplements and organic food?What is the deal? I've had buddies that are like, "Why are you buying organic?" It seems healthier, seems better for you. And so we make that decision in our house. Other people think it's silly. I know folks who spend a ton of money on fancy kicks, their sneaker heads and they collect shoes. And it's like, dude, you bought a $400 pair of shoes. What are you doing?

Andrea Watkins (00:40:34):
Daily items. Okay. So duh, this is like, what am I even thinking why I did not just say this immediately? Daily spending, I don't really spend frivolously on daily stuff. But when it comes to big ticket items, like two and a half weeks ago, I just had a facelift with Dr. Ahn in Boston. So that was a major, huge investment. Most people would be like, "What the fuck are you spending that kind of money? Why are you traveling across the country? Why are you doing this for something that isn't necessary, et cetera?" So I mean, I'm that person for our listeners who you're talking to me every single day because I'm a person who I don't go out and get coffee. I don't spend a lot on clothes and other random things like that, but yeah.

Troy Cole (00:41:23):
Well, look, how often do you buy a new baseball bat for your son?

Andrea Watkins (00:41:27):
Oh, true. God dang it. You got me there.

Troy Cole (00:41:29):
And I'm sure he's like, "Hey, yeah, let's go find the cheapest one, mom."

Andrea Watkins (00:41:32):
No. As a matter of fact he's not, Troy. Thanks for just throwing salt in that wound.

Troy Cole (00:41:37):
I'm in the same boat, right? Travel sports, it's another one. Why are you spending all this money on lessons and travel sports for your kids? Well, on some level, it's a priority for us and for our family, and that's the way that I choose to spend my money. And the point of all this is that we all find things that we find value in and we want to spend more money for those things. And even though some of those things may be silly or ridiculous to other people, they don't even understand them. They're important to us and that's what we do. So do you really need to understand the importance of a procedure, the why? Do you have to agree with somebody's why in order to help them accomplish whatever that why is? No, you don't.

Andrea Watkins (00:42:18):
You don't have to agree with it, but you definitely need to understand it so that you can understand and help them reiterate based on what their thoughts and feelings and desires and hopes and dreams and goals are. Understanding, but you don't have to agree with it. Sometimes you'll have a patient come in and maybe she has a certain type of career and there's a certain type of look or something she's going for and that's not what you would choose for yourself. Doesn't matter. And what matters is you want to understand why she's choosing that for herself and then help her see the value in it of how that resonates with the patient.

Troy Cole (00:42:54):
And her choosing that for $50,000 is like you choosing the new Jordans for 400 or the new purse or the new whatever. Same thing. And the connection I want you to make, that I want your team to make is like, "Oh, I already do this. I do this in my life. I do this for myself." Just because you may be quoting a price that has a couple of extra zeros at the end, the actual process, the though process, the desire, the value is the same approach. It's the exact same thing.

Andrea Watkins (00:43:27):
I love that. I think that's very, very helpful and hopefully everyone will take that back to their teams and share that exercise as well. So say it again just to recap because we then of course went on a tangent with it, but the two questions that we are asking ourselves and our team - Number one,

Troy Cole (00:43:41):
What's something you spend money on where you actually look for the higher priced item?

Andrea Watkins (00:43:46):
Got it.

Troy Cole (00:43:48):
And then number two, what's something you spend money on that other people think is downright silly?

Andrea Watkins (00:43:54):
Love it. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about a really great example of when someone does push back a little bit or object or say, "Oh, the price is just too high," or something like that. Walk us through what the actual language sounds like when we're responding to that appropriately.

Troy Cole (00:44:21):
Yeah. And this will adjust depending a little bit on how people are saying their objections. I mean, if somebody's just like, "Man, okay, this is ridiculous. I had no idea it was going to be that much." Well, we probably should have vetted them out a little bit earlier, right? Yeah. But if somebody's just throwing out the general, "Man, that's a lot of money. Wow, that's expensive," that's more. Yeah. Number one is just don't react to that. I'll acknowledge it, but I'm not going to apologize.

Andrea Watkins (00:44:51):
That's the key. Do not ever apologize.

Troy Cole (00:44:54):
We never apologize for our price, ever. Never, ever, ever. We're proud of our price. We're proud of what we charge because at the end of the day, what we charge versus the result that patients get, it's the best money they'll ever spend on themselves. But I will acknowledge it. Hey, I hear you. It's definitely an investment. So I'm going to rework. They might say expensive. They might say too much. They might say cost. I'm going to reword that as investment. It's definitely an investment. I appreciate you being direct about that. Then I'm probably going to stop. I want them feeding me. One of the biggest mistakes that we can make is hearing what sounds like an objection and then start word vomiting because that becomes justification.

Andrea Watkins (00:45:40):
Exactly.

Troy Cole (00:45:40):
Well, we do this. Well, I apologize. Well, we could. And it's like, no, dude, let them. Like you said it earlier, some people are pushing back just to see what they can get. Some people are genuinely like, "I really want this, but there's no way I can afford $40,000. What the heck is this?" Those are two different conversations, but you need to know where they're coming from first. And so acknowledge it, "Hey, I hear you. Definitely an investment. I appreciate you being straight about that." And then pause and see what happens. They might say, "Well, I mean, can we do it cheaper?" Now, here's the beauty of the word cheap. I don't care how frugal anybody is here, Andrea. Nobody wants cheap. You don't want a cheap toaster, much less a cheap surgery. And so we selectively use the word cheap. We're getting pretty tactical here. Is that cool?

Andrea Watkins (00:46:42):
Yeah, do it.

Troy Cole (00:46:43):
So investment is the word that we use for what you are buying from us. Yes. Cheap is the word that I use to trigger you in order to think about how am I really making this decision? Are you looking for the cheapest? Are you looking for the most expensive? Are you looking for the best? What are you looking for? This is how you can start to uncover some of these money challenges that our patients experience.

Andrea Watkins (00:47:09):
Say that again. Say that question again.

Troy Cole (00:47:13):
I like to say, are you looking for the cheapest? Are you looking for the most expensive? What is important to you in this decision? Let me help you navigate it.

Andrea Watkins (00:47:20):
I love that. I love that. Yes.

Troy Cole (00:47:21):
Because it's important to remember, we think like, oh, people are looking for the cheap thing or the lowest priced thing. There's plenty of people in your market who would literally shop and say, I'm going to this place because they're the most expensive, so they have to be the best. That is a way people make buying decisions. So keep that in mind. And most people will say, well, I'm not looking for the cheapest.

Andrea Watkins (00:47:42):
Yeah, nobody's going to admit to saying that. No, no one's going to say that.

Troy Cole (00:47:45):
I'm not looking for cheap, but I mean, this is a lot of money and I don't have that kind of money or I just wasn't expecting to pay this much. Totally get it. At the end of the day, a lot of people aren't just sitting on an extra 40K and that's totally fine. We see those patients all the time. What a lot of people do is, that's the line you put in your pocket. What a lot of people do is we have a lot of people who, and then you say whatever the thing is, take advantage of one of our payment options because they're super easy, really fit into your monthly budget. We can make all that happen for you. But when you say what a lot of people do, what most people do, it opens it up to say, here's a safe path to get there.

Andrea Watkins (00:48:30):
Normalize it.

Troy Cole (00:48:31):
You're normalizing. Normalize the whole thing. And then you introduce those payment options. I know some folks here like to just go straight in with the payment options right up front, and I think that's fine. I'm not dying on that hill. But usually if someone's like, "Man, that's a lot of money," then maybe they need the payment options. Other people, they're just like, "Cool. Stroke a check. Awesome. We didn't even have to talk about the payment options." So that's why I like that angle a little bit better from a sequencing standpoint, if that makes sense.

Andrea Watkins (00:49:03):
A lot of people in this industry, something that tends to work really well is you build the value, everything, you're differentiating, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You drop a range, this is the investment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then instead of just dropping a bomb and waiting to see what happens, they just immediately right after saying, "For this, all the things I just build value about and blah, blah, blah, blah, the range for most patients is usually 19,000 to 22,500. Is this something that you've been saving for? Would you like some information about our flexible monthly payment options?" Just to kind of put a little toe in the water to see, instead of waiting just for a reaction for them to either be like, "Oh yeah, no big deal," or their head blows off of their shoulders, then you're just kind of tickling to figure out where their mind is with it.

(00:49:52):
I like that. And then if they're like, "Well, I saved some, but maybe not that much," no problem whatsoever. So a lot of our patients, they just get pre-qualified before they even come in for their consultation. It takes two minutes. It doesn't negatively impact your credit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we walk them through, "I can send you the link. We can do it right now if you want some help or I'll check in tomorrow to see if you've been able to get your pre-approval." Once you do that, then we can actually look and see what the different programs are that you've been approved for, and we can look at those different monthly options and figure out which one's going to best fit in your budget to make this palatable for you.

Troy Cole (00:50:28):
Nice.

Andrea Watkins (00:50:29):
But what is really important from our seat as patient care coordinators and the people that are leading the patients through this journey is having the confidence and looking at yourself, having also another belief that you're a problem solver. This could be a problem, it could not be a problem, but whether the anesthesia is a problem, and we talked about this previously, or the scarring or the recovery or the financial aspect, whatever that problem or hurdle is for them, you just have to confidently pull the tool off your shelf and say, "Eh, I got you. Are you looking for the cheapest? Are you looking for the most expensive? Where are you at? What's going to help you make your decision? I've got some tools that I can take out of my toolbox to help you with this."

Troy Cole (00:51:09):
Yep. Man, I love that. You're so good at this.

Andrea Watkins (00:51:12):
Oh my God. It's like it did it one time or twice. Just this morning before we started the pod, what do you think the bad version of this sounds like? So the version where somebody says, "Oh, oof, ugh, wasn't expecting it to be that much. Are you sure? Can you do anything?"

Troy Cole (00:51:31):
Well, let me just tell you why we're so great and why you should definitely pick us, and please don't leave just because of price and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The bad version looks like justifying and over-explaining.

Andrea Watkins (00:51:41):
Like you're trapped in a corner.

Troy Cole (00:51:42):
That's exactly right.

Andrea Watkins (00:51:43):
Yeah.

Troy Cole (00:51:45):
That does not exude confidence. That's bad version number one. Bad version number two is, yeah, I can knock off a thousand dollars for no reason.

Andrea Watkins (00:51:53):
For no reason.

Troy Cole (00:51:54):
For no reason. I have no problem.

Andrea Watkins (00:51:56):
How much do you want to pay? What do you want me to. I hate that.

Troy Cole (00:52:00):
So I tell practices don't discount, but if you have special select appreciation savings, you can do something like that. So the way that we do it is you got a number of cards in your pocket that you can pull out. Sometimes I just need a little something to get people over the edge. And look, this is like human nature. If you go to buy a car, you go buy whatever, you're going to want a little something. That doesn't mean you want it for half price, but it's like, "Can I just get a little something? Can I get some free bread with the steak I'm about to buy?" Y guys get a little something. So how do you have a little something in your pocket? You have programs for different demographics of folks who come in, meaning you have a teacher's appreciation deal, you've got a military appreciation thing, you've got maybe a back to school thing.

(00:52:49):
Envision, you can trade in your glasses and we'll donate those glasses on your behalf and we'll give you a $500 credit for it. So you can have these and you can't combine them, can't combine them with each other or with anything else, but it's like you got this little tool you can pull out if it's, "I just need to get you over the finish line." "Oh, hey, you know what? Actually, did you say that you work at so-and-so school district? We actually have a teacher's appreciation savings thing going on right now, and that'll save you another 500 bucks off your procedure. Let me go ahead and put that on your account. "So the right now is the key with that. Even if you do it year round, your surgeon could at any point come in and kill it. So it's not evergreen and you want to say," Right now, right now we're doing this.

(00:53:34):
Right now we're offering that. "So those are a couple different ways that you can keep savings in your back pocket if you need to get somebody over the finish line, but still maintain the value and not commoditize your procedures.

Andrea Watkins (00:53:46):
Not just," Well, do it today and you get X amount off just because you showed up in your breathing and can fog the mirror.

Troy Cole (00:53:54):
"Yep. Because look, then okay, you did the surgery, you didn't profit another thousand, $2,000 because you gave them the discount, and then they send their friend in and what does their friend say?

Andrea Watkins (00:54:07):
My friend paid this. My, yeah.

Troy Cole (00:54:09):
Friend paid this. Hey dude, go check them out. I mean, they did good work, but they'll negotiate with you."

Andrea Watkins (00:54:14):
Right.

Troy Cole (00:54:14):
That's not the word of mouth that you want out there on the street. No. I'd much rather than be like, "Yeah, they're freaking expensive, but look at me."

Andrea Watkins (00:54:21):
Yeah, exactly.

Troy Cole (00:54:23):
Exactly. 100%. Cool. Good.

Andrea Watkins (00:54:26):
100%. I agree with that wholeheartedly. And if our listeners haven't already heard it, Allie and I actually did a pod specifically about why discounting is ruining your practice's reputation. So just there are very, very minimal instances where providing some sort of courtesy to the fee works, but it can't just be because somebody shows up.

Troy Cole (00:54:50):
There are a lot of ways to do incentives that don't involve discounting. I'm sure on your side, it's like, well, you can make a package of something. You can do the $1,500 of skincare stuff afterwards. These are all. You could rework that to say like, "Oh, I'm getting a $1,500 skincare discount," but that's not what it is. You're building value into a package and then you're presenting that package and then you're able to say, "So actually you're saving 3,000 bucks by going with this package, just with all these bonuses that we're providing to you, but it's framed in a different way that doesn't devalue what you're doing."

Andrea Watkins (00:55:22):
Yep. That's the key is not devaluing, especially similarly in LASIK and cataract surgery. I mean, the human beings that are performing these surgeries, they've spent decades of their lives in school and in training and refining their craft. And the thing that I don't want to be dramatic and say breaks my heart, but it really breaks my heart, which is when you're just trying to sling discounts, you're diminishing the value of every single thing that that surgeon has gone through to refine their craft, to provide the experience and outcomes for the patients that they do. If you're working for a surgeon or you're working for a provider and going back to your earlier point, you really believe that the patient is best served in your practice with your providers, the last thing you're going to want to do is diminish the value of that person and everything they've put into refining their craft and being the very best that they are.

(00:56:23):
So one thing I did want to touch on is we had some conversations and you've helped practices raise their prices. I have experience with this as well without losing their close rate. So share with us what's your strategy for that?

Troy Cole (00:56:38):
There's a few pieces to that. Piece number one is selling it to your team because you'll have folks that are like, "God, we're already expensive and now you want to charge an extra thousand."

Andrea Watkins (00:56:49):
I hear that all the time. Yep.

Troy Cole (00:56:51):
But the thing to remember first and foremost with that is your business model and the way your business is set up is very different from say a retail store or restaurant, for example, Pepe's Taqueria right down the street, best breakfast tacos in Parker County. They were 3.99 for the longest time. I buy them a couple times a week for the kids. Then I go in about a month and a half ago, they moved up to 4.99. I'm like, "God, they're 4.99 now. Do I still buy them? Yeah, but I noticed the price increase because it's something that I do all the time." Your practice is different. It's not like you've got a menu of services that people go on your website and they're on your website every two weeks or they're coming and making a transaction with your business every two weeks, and then all of a sudden you've increased prices by 20% and it's very apparent and they notice.

Andrea Watkins (00:57:45):
My last tummy tuck last quarter, why was it $2,000 less? Yeah, we don't have that.

Troy Cole (00:57:50):
Exactly. It doesn't happen. And so just knowing that, okay, the price that we present is presented in a silo at a very specific point in time with our patients. So this idea that someone's going to object that we increase our prices, for most of the things you do, it's just not going to be an issue because they're just not going to know the price is the price is the price. That's part one of selling it to your team. Part two of selling it to your team is acknowledging whatever those KPIs are that you are now exceeding. And so it's time to make some adjustments so that we are providing the best care possible to our VIP patients who want to come in and see us. So for example, if your surgeon's got a wait list for three and a half months to get in for a consult, we probably need to make some adjustments around that because now we're not providing great care because people are waiting half a year just to get in here and have a surgery.

(00:58:42):
And so great job everybody for doing what you do. The result is we've solved old problems and created higher quality problems, and the way that we're going to solve that is by increasing the price. Now, we could solve that by cramming more patients into our schedule, making you guys stay later. We could do all these things. I don't think anyone wants to do that. I think y'all would rather see the same number of patients, maybe even a higher quality patient, make more money. We can do the bonuses and the incentives and everything that we do. Everybody's happy. Now the team's like, "Okay, cool. I get it. I understand why we would do that. I understand this is way better than the alternative that they presented to us, and now the team's in on it." As long as the team's bought in, you're good.

Andrea Watkins (00:59:26):
I agree.

Troy Cole (00:59:28):
Patients aren't going to complain about it.

Andrea Watkins (00:59:30):
Right. I also think it needs to have strategery behind it, not just show up one day because you had a bad day in the OR and you were there late and it was a hard case, and then you walk in the next day as a doctor and say, "You know what? I want to charge 25% more because that's hard. I had to work really hard yesterday, and so we're just going to..."

(00:59:50):
I agree with that.

Troy Cole (00:59:50):
Quite literally, I've dealt with this on numerous occasions because from a team standpoint, it's hard to The team to buy in on that because they don't understand why, and they just think that you're kind of being a drama queen. And if your team isn't bought into it, they don't present with the same amount of confidence and then your conversions will go in the tank because the patients are getting the same experience because the person that's presenting the information doesn't have the same confidence in the process and the provider. And then also one tip that I think is really, really important is that there needs to be a time, there needs to be a date on the calendar that says, "Here's when the prices are going to increase for anybody we've talked to before that, this is what we told them for a matter of however many days." But also you can use that as a strategy to get people to take action that have not yet taken action.

(01:00:45):
So you can call them and say, "Hey, I know that we had a consultation phone call two weeks ago. I did give you the ballpark pricing of 19,000 to 22,500. Just wanted to let you know, I just got word from our leadership that our prices are going to be going up on September 1st. So if you want to get in for consultation before then to get that best pricing, let's make sure that we get you on the schedule so that we can get the best pricing if this is still something you're considering." So strategy, super important, not just on a whim, "Hey, it's Tuesday and yesterday's case sucked, so we're increasing prices."

Troy Cole (01:01:17):
100%.

Andrea Watkins (01:01:18):
That blows and it's not good for your team.

Troy Cole (01:01:21):
No, no, no, it's not. I would say over communicating to your team on everything that's happening should just be a default for you. We're introducing a new procedure, we're launching a new location, we've got this new provider coming in, so-and-so's coming in to demo a new product, whatever. It's one of the easiest things to avoid, but one of the biggest frustrations I see among teams I coach is we feel like we're out of the loop. We feel like we're finding out stuff after the fact and it signals to them y'all aren't important to keep you in the loop.

(01:01:53):
We're more focused on us versus taking care of you guys. So to your point there, over communicate as much as you can to your team about what's coming down the pipe so they feel like they're a part of it. Doesn't mean you have to make them part of the decision. You know what I mean? I'm not doing a poll every time we make a practice decision, but I am going to let you know, hey, next month just to keep you guys posted, we're going to be doing this. We're rolling out a new EMR in Q4. I want everyone to just start wrapping their head around that. But ultimately it's going to save you a bunch of time and energy once we get through that. Just let them know.

Andrea Watkins (01:02:22):
Yep. I love it. What do you think is, if we had to pull one thing out that a coordinator can do on their very next call when it comes to the price, when it comes to the money part of the presentation of the treatment plan, the quote, how we can help patients to take action, what do you want people to take away from this?

Troy Cole (01:02:44):
Here, remember this. So let's say you're on the phone if people are asking about price. Remember this, the only reason they're asking about price is because they don't know what else to ask and it's your job to educate them. If they push back on price in the office, it's not because they don't want to pay it or because they're cheap or because they think you're expensive or whatever, it's because they don't understand the value. In either case, whether it's on the phone or in the office, it is a leadership situation. And whether you step up and lead or you fall back and give them the driver's seat and try to supplicate and over-explain and justify, that's what's going to determine the success of moving forward with that patient. So if we go back to the very beginning, you say, I don't care if you call it sales or education or whatever.

(01:03:33):
If you want to call it leadership, that's going to be the most effective thing for you. When in doubt, am I leading this person right now? Am I leading this interaction? Am I leading this conversation? And if you're not, you better get back in that freaking driver's seat and become a leader.

Andrea Watkins (01:03:51):
Mic drop.

Troy Cole (01:03:53):
Maybe.

Andrea Watkins (01:03:53):
Be a leader.

Troy Cole (01:03:54):
We'll see what the comments say on the episode, but I thought that was pretty good. One more tactic and one more tactic for you. On that note, if you get to a point where you say, "I don't know if I'm leading, I think maybe I am," who's the person asking the questions? Because the person asking the questions is the person leading the conversation. Now that doesn't mean that you don't answer questions when they're asked, but you address the concern beneath the question and then you ask one of your own questions. You retake control. You get back into the driver's seat. The person asking the questions is the person in charge.

Andrea Watkins (01:04:29):
The very best salespeople ask the very best questions. Love it. 100%. Anything else before I just kind of put a little wrap bow on this? Anything else you want to cover?

Troy Cole (01:04:42):
One thing I didn't hit is we talked a little bit about the word investment and that you're investing in yourself. There are no costs. So I want to make sure you're not using the word cost. The only cost involved in any of this is the cost of staying where you are. The cost of staying where you are versus the investment in moving forward. So you can use the word, the cost of doing nothing is the highest cost you're ever going to experience in the practice.

Andrea Watkins (01:05:10):
I love that.

Troy Cole (01:05:11):
Yeah.

Andrea Watkins (01:05:12):
The only cost that you're incurring is the cost of not moving forward.

Troy Cole (01:05:16):
That's right.

Andrea Watkins (01:05:17):
Absolutely love it. Well, thank you, Troy. T. Cole in the house again for joining us. You're just a plethora of knowledge and a joy to have around, so I can't wait till our next time, but will you just let all of our listeners here know where can they find you?

Troy Cole (01:05:34):
Yeah, head over to my website, troycole.com. A lot of good stuff there, blog post, podcast, everything. Instagram, TCOLETX and LinkedIn, Troy Cole, just look for the handsome bald guy. I don't really know what my handle is there, but those are my three main spots. So come check me out.

Andrea Watkins (01:05:53):
Fantastic. Website, Instagram, and also LinkedIn. So wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Everybody, we'll see you back here in a couple Tuesdays, next Tuesday, something like that. Obviously we have always got the very best guests. I'm very excited about some of the people we have coming up this fall, so stay tuned and we are just here to help and be of service. So thanks everybody. We'll see you next Tuesday.

Blake Lucas (01:06:18):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our "She did what?" segment, we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise, no cheap swag here.

Andrea Watkins (01:06:30):
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