You’re Not Annoying, You’re Giving Them a Reason

Alli (00:00):
And tell them right away because all those little differences make a difference.

 

Andrea (00:05):
All of the differences added to make differences. We only literally sipped a sip of our champagne, but here we are. 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 (00:30):
And I'm Blake Lucas, and this is PracticeLand. This is not your doctor's podcast.

 

Andrea (00:36):
Welcome back to PracticeLand. I'm Andrea, and we have Alli here with us again today. And we're going to talk about something that is sitting with every single practice. Every single one of us that's in the practice that's listening here, we all have access to this right now. And I'm going to tell you straight up, probably less than 10% of practices are actually utilizing it. So what we're going to talk about today is the inquiry that went quiet. We're going to talk about the consultation that maybe didn't convert, they didn't move forward. And the patient who came in once, they had a great experience. And then for whatever reason, they just either stopped coming back, they never returned a call. So these people, they're not gone.

 

(01:21):
They didn't say no. They just haven't really had a reason to say yes yet. So we're going to talk about timing. We're going to talk about what to do with those people. And first, before we get started, we do want to just make mention and say cheers to PracticeLand, not your doctor's podcast. Allie and I are here together today, which is super, super exciting. So I think it turned 10:00 AM and we said, let's break out the mimosas. I think like many of us listening, we do maybe an eye dropper of orange juice and that's about it. So we're going to have some fun today, but really talk about something I'm super passionate about because I do this with clients all the time and I have literally booked over a million dollars worth of surgeries, procedures, treatments just through using this very similar strategy. So first of all, let's talk about cold and old leads. So just what are they? What's that mean?

 

Alli (02:14):
Yeah, so difference between the two, a cold lead would be someone who's never really expressed interest or never formally inquired versus old leads are somebody who has expressed interest, has inquired at some point either they've come in for their consultation and we lost track of them afterward or they haven't come in for a consultation, they just inquired and we followed up and haven't heard from them. So difference is just if they've actually inquired and expressed interest in a procedure versus not.

 

Andrea (02:42):
Okay. And in most cases, in plastic surgery practices, in med spas, aesthetic medicine, we're not going for cold leads. We're not going up to people saying, "Hey, you could really use blah. Give me your phone number. Let me call you five times," or anything like that. So in almost all cases, what we're really going to be talking about today is just old leads, and they're going to be people that have showed interest. We have them on a distribution list or we have them in our system because they've reached out previously. And so whether they've went cold or whatever the case may be after reaching out, what do we do with them?

 

Alli (03:23):
And I think too, just another little marker on that, the difference is kind of cold leads would be in the marketing bucket, whereas old leads would be more so in the PCC bucket to chase because we've made contact.

 

Andrea (03:35):
Yep, most definitely. So first, let's talk about why do you think a lot of practices don't reach out to these people? Because I know for a fact they don't. So why do you think that is?

 

Alli (03:46):
I think that once you've followed up once or twice with someone, if you're not getting a response from them, I think it could be discouraging in the PCC seat, especially when other people are calling you and expressing interest in surgery. It's like, why might as well move forward with these other people because this person's not really giving me the attention that this would require? But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not interested. I mean, we've talked ad nauseam and Andrea will say herself, and we're both busy professionals and I know I'm guilty of submitting an inquiry for something and then they're chasing me down and I'm ignoring all their phone calls and texts and emails for some reason. I'm just busy. And then once they reach out to me again and I actually pick up the call, I'm like, oh my God, thank you for being so persistent.

 

(04:32):
I needed this. And you've kind of expressed that you've done the same. But I think in general, it's just more of the PCC feeling like I don't want to annoy them, I don't want to burden them, and I don't want to harass them.

 

Andrea (04:45):
Yep. I think you hit the nail on the head with that, which is I think there's a fear there and there's a hesitation that I don't want to be annoying. But I think before we get into this, again, another side tangent that we can't talk about enough is until they tell you no, it doesn't mean no. A lack of response is not a no.

 

Alli (05:06):
Yes.

 

Andrea (05:08):
It just means either they're busy, their priorities have shifted, something else has come up. I mean, if you think about in most practices, who is our main demographic? Throughout your career, who's your primary demographic of the people that you're seeing?

 

Alli (05:25):
I'd say women between the ages of 20 to 70.

 

Andrea (05:29):
Okay. So we're talking about on the younger side, people that are finishing up college, they got that kind of stuff going on and living their lives and traveling and doing all the things. And then you get into typically later 20s, early 30s, you're starting to have children. So think about who these patients are and what they're going through on a daily basis. They've got kids, they've got husbands or partners.

 

Alli (05:50):
They have jobs, they have school, there's so many things.

 

Andrea (05:53):
Literally, they've got aging parents, they have pets that need to get taken to the vet. They have all these things that are going on. And unfortunately, as one of those people who is in that spot in my life also, is that everyone else, I might have a few minutes to myself and say, God, I really want to do X, Y, and Z. I'm feeling bad about this. I would love if X, Y, and Z could help me feel, look better, whatever. And then life happens and I go from top of priority to this totem pole that my priorities just get diminished. What's important to me is serving others and serving my family and serving my husband and serving my aging father that I have to make his IRS payment for him. All of these tiny little things add up. And so when someone feels this is important to me right now, you've got to put yourself in their shoes and see that they don't get to be the most important person. And that whole mindset shift has changed the actual, just that in and of itself, if I could do nothing more for any other PCC that I work with, I've seen it absolutely change the results that every girl that I coach is able to achieve because they start actually looking at this from, oh, I'm not actually bothering them.

 

(07:08):
They are actually busy. They are actually really appreciative when we do finally connect because they don't get to ever talk about themselves. So it's not persistent in a bad way, but just be there. You want to be there when they do have a minute to be able to talk about what's going on with them.

 

Alli (07:28):
I'll also say I've worked with, at this point, thousands of patients and done this, and I'm a very persistent follow-upper. I will call, text, email you several times, whether it's before I've met you or after.

 

Andrea (07:39):
It's not every day, all day. You do it in a strategy across time.

 

Alli (07:45):
But I have never once had somebody reach back and be like, "You are harassing me. You are annoying me." And that speaks volumes because I do, do so much extra. So I've been ghosted several times, but I've never had someone be like, "This is too much. Lose my number." So I think that says something. More often than not though, I do get them being like, "Ah, thank you so much." And they kind of put it off, put it off because they're busy, busy, busy. But they're grateful that somebody actually still cared and took their inquiry seriously.

 

Andrea (08:15):
Well, and if you aren't the one following up, what's going to happen is they're going to start their cycle over again and they may not call you that time. They're going to call the other three practices that come up on their Google search. So if you're the one that's at least has your little touch points. And I personally have had people where they're like, "Just stop or stop or just send a text back. Stop.

 

Alli (08:37):
I'm done. I'll be done.

 

Andrea (08:38):
That's great. And if you use a CRM or a lead management platform and you can see all the communications and then they just say, stop. Okay. It's not a personal dig to you. It just means for whatever reason, again, they inquired. You're not going and chasing people down and telling them they need things. They inquired. And if they've changed their mind, whatever. It's not a big deal. Don't take that personally. So back to the topic at hand. So cold and old leads, we talked about that, why people don't continue following up with others. We kind of got through that. Talk about what's the difference between reactivation of outreach that works and that little bit that makes somebody cringe? For me, I think the main thing that makes people cringe is when it's too much and overboard. And just like, are you ready yet? And be salesy about it.

 

Alli (09:39):
Sassy. I think the sassy part too.

 

Andrea (09:41):
Like, Hey, I thought you wanted to block. No, that will make people cringe and unsubscribe. I was just thinking about you. I know that we haven't connected yet. Is this still a priority for you? If not, no worries. No worries whatsoever. Just let me know.

 

Alli (09:55):
And make it more, make your follow-ups. If I don't have a patient that books same day, the day of the consultation, I'm following up with them. I make it about them, not like, "Hey, did you still want to schedule surgery with Dr. Camp?" I'm more like, "Hey, how'd it go talking with your fiance, I know that he was out of town. How was his hunting trip?" Just touching on the parts of their personal life. If there's anything I can do to help you, support you, let me know. I'm here. And I'll send a text right after the consult too, usually that afternoon that's like, "It's so lovely meeting you today. Mentioned something that we talked about. We would love to serve you as a patient. Just wanted to push my number to the top of your inbox." So make it about them and their life and you are a support person to them less than it is transactional because I think that's what can turn people off too.

 

Andrea (10:43):
Working through re-engagement strategies, one thing I've personally seen and booked hundreds of thousands of dollars just on this strategy itself is end of year. So end of year is a good time, depending on what conversations you've had with patients is a good time to let patients know, "Hey, I know you were interested. Life gets super busy. Totally understand. If this is something that's still a priority to you, I would love to start the discussion so that we can figure out how to help you reach your goals. And the best pricing that you're going to be able to get is going to be before the end of the year because after the start of the year, our pricing does tend to go up. So if this is something important to you, I would love to start the conversation." And sending that, have you had any experience doing that?

 

Alli (11:34):
Not really with mass contact, but that is a strategy that I will leverage with those end of the year consults or just at different times of the year because we'll usually do a few price increases a year. So if I have hesitancy on somebody who I've taken through the whole pipeline and they're like, "I've just got to get a few more ducks in the row," I'll just remind them, "Okay, pricing isn't good until you lock it in. We do a few price increases a year and we've only done one so far this year. So I'm just doing my due diligence and letting you know that could come any day now. So just for peace of mind, I'd recommend locking in this pricing. I would hate for it to go up on you because that would suck." So I have a ton of success with that.

 

(12:18):
And they're like, "Oh shoot. Well, yeah, you're right. I don't want it to go up and I'd rather just get this price while I can." And then if things need to change and adjust, they can with their schedule. But at least it's like, okay, yeah, you're right. And they don't take that as salesy or pushy. They take it as helpful. They're like, "Thank you for telling me that because I would've hated that."

 

Andrea (12:38):
One patient in particular, I remember she just wanted to lose about another 15, 20 pounds. And we had gone past the expiry of the quote itself. We reached out, it was November, and we said, "Listen, this is what's going to happen at the beginning of the year. This was just this past fall. At the beginning of the year, the prices are going to go up, but is this still something that you want to do?" And it's a significant, it was a body lift with a breast procedure for a client of mine in Nashville. And the patient immediately wrote back and she's like, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for reaching out. I'm only five pounds away, but I definitely am planning on scheduling. I wanted to do it after the first of the year. Thank you for letting me know. Let's go ahead and just get the deposit.

 

(13:22):
Let's get the procedure scheduled." She scheduled for January or February. And it was, again, a way, some people would consider that an old lead because it had been so many months. We had a consult.

 

Alli (13:35):
Re-activation.

 

Andrea (13:36):
Yeah. The patient didn't move forward, but we knew some things were going on. It's just that was thinking about you, wanted you to know X, Y, and Z. And they're just like, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Take my money. Put me on the schedule. Do all the things." And so having a platform where this is very well organized so you can go straight to these people is really important. What I tend to advise my clients and what we usually do is we make a template to start with, which is, "Hi, name of patient. This is my name as a user from whatever, whatever plastic surgery. It's been a few months since we met through your consultation. I know you were," and then leave a blank. They need to put in that personal information about the patient. And I was thinking about you because I know this was really important.

 

(14:24):
Wanted to let you know X, Y, and Z is happening with pricing. Yada, yada, yada. So it's a template that you just make a little bit personal because you can't write an email from scratch for 37 people. That's going to take you forever. So start with a template, use the template, put in a little bit of personal information, and immediately 50, 60, $70,000 procedures all the time. People are just coming back, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for letting me know."

 

Alli (14:52):
That's huge. I think too, from the PCC seat, that kind of helps with that feeling of like, "Oh my gosh, I'm harassing them." Because you're not just like, "Hey, just checking in." You're coming with actual content to share. And when you have something to actually present to them, it helps with that feeling of just I'm annoying them. So yeah.

 

Andrea (15:11):
You always need to have a reason for the re-engagement. It's never, "Hey, just checking in."

 

Alli (15:19):
Miss you.

 

Andrea (15:20):
Let me know if I can help. I'm not trying to be a dick about it, but because so many of us, we're just nice people and we're not trying to be pushy, but we still have a job to do. So me in the middle of that is like, yes, still be a nice person, but let's be more intentional and let's be very much more service oriented because the service will develop into the scheduled procedures. So that's my reactivation strategy for patients that we have actually met with in person.

 

Alli (15:49):
Yeah, I love that.

 

Andrea (15:50):
The other way for reactivation that I've been working on with lots and lots of clients, and it's working incredibly well, especially this summer, to be completely honest, the volume of leads I've seen diminish and definitely the majority of my practices. And because I've been working with practices for so long now, and because I use a lead management platform, we can look at any timeframe and I can say, how many leads did we get last June? How many leads did we get last May? How many leads did we get a month ago compared to this? And some of them are down for the month of May and June. Just their lead volume is down 30%.

 

Alli (16:25):
Oh, wow. That's significant.

 

Andrea (16:27):
It's huge. They're going from 300 leads a month to 200 leads a month. That's a huge gap that you have to fill.

 

Alli (16:34):
That's big.

 

Andrea (16:35):
Yeah. So what we can also do is go into the CRM and say, okay, who reached out to us that never even made it to a consultation call? Or who reached out to us that we had a preliminary consultation call with that never scheduled for consult? So you can look at where were they lost in every stage? And then you can develop very targeted messaging. Let's send them a message that says, "I know it's been a couple months since we spoke on the phone. Really excited to help you with X, Y, Z procedure," whatever it was their procedure was. "My next available consultation date is blah, and we're scheduling surgery this far into the future. Is this something that's still important to you? I would love to have you come in and meet with Dr. So-and-so so we can figure out how we can help you reach X, Y, Z goal."

 

Alli (17:22):
And that's hugely important to have something like LeadLoop where you can categorize the different types of re-engagement because that first strategy that we talked about for those people that have come in for a consult would absolutely not work for these people because they don't give a crap if your pricing is about to go up because they don't have a quote yet. So you do have to be strategic, like you mentioned, in marketing to each different phase of your pipeline.

 

Andrea (17:45):
Yep, 100%. So we're working backwards through the people that are closest to scheduling.

 

Alli (17:51):
Which are hotter leads

 

Andrea (17:52):
Yeah, exactly.

 

Alli (17:52):
So it's warm to cooler.

 

Andrea (17:54):
Start these people that we already met with in person that just didn't take the action. Then go to the people that we talked to on the phone that we just haven't met in person. But then when you back it up even one more step, which is they inquired, but we never even got on a call with them. We never had a consult. We don't know really what their goals are, their timeframe, their struggles, what's going to be a hurdle, how long they've been thinking about this, why now, any of these important things. But they did reach out and we know that it was important. This is somebody where you can use more of a bulk message and you're going to have way more people in this bucket anyway. So then we can put together an email there that what we want to do then is just build value around getting on a phone call, which is, this is what happens on a call. We'd love to learn more about how we can help you.

 

Alli (18:36):
Completely free. Tell people that. All it is to help you.

 

Andrea (18:40):
Yeah. Complimentary phone call with a patient care coordinator that works hand in hand with Dr. So-and-so. They're going to be able to gather your goals and then give you all the information about the doctor, the procedure, the recovery. They'll give you ballpark pricing. And then if and when you're ready, they'll be able to walk you through the consultation process. Yeah.

 

Alli (18:57):
This is another good time to talk about advancements in technology or the evolution of surgical techniques too,

 

Andrea (19:03):
Like differentiators.

 

Alli (19:04):
Breast augs specifically, we had a ton of breast aug leads that were just dead and never heard back from. And then we rolled out Preserve and we rolled out Preserve in conjunction with Alloclae because those two usually go well together. That's the same market of patient. They want something a little bit more natural and really well researched. And so both of those go together very well. So just updating people, this is available. You can now get these implants under local. You can now preserve your muscle for a longer term. There are so many benefits to that and people don't know about it. Same thing with educational.

 

Andrea (19:41):
It's got to be the value add, the education and the differentiation of what you're doing differently than you were before and what you're doing differently than your competitors. And sorry to interrupt, but with the Preserve and the - Elake.

 

Alli (19:56):
Alloclae. Hard word.

 

Andrea (19:56):
Preserve, Alloclae. Exactly. One thing I would never send an email about, and this goes for this type of targeted email campaign as well as any other, when you're just trying to get patients in, is include information about payment plans, include information about PatientFi. Hey, just to see if you go ahead and get your pre-approval to see what your payment plans would even look like. What are you approved for? Because we know as a fact that is the biggest hurdle for patients that are very serious. Yes, there's time frame. Yes, there's spousal support. Yes, there's recovery and scarring and anesthesia, all these things that hold patients up. But the largest one is the financial investment.

 

Alli (20:37):
Yeah. And I think along that line too, if you change your payment terms, when I joined the practice, the payment terms were a little different and they didn't really have longer term options with no interest. And I was like, I think this would be a game changer. So we upped all of the no interest payment terms and notifying people of that, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I wish I would've known that." So we did start mass notifying people, but there were a lot of reactivation patients who had come in for a consult and they were doing PatientFi, but they couldn't pay it off in six months. And so I'm like, "Hey, we extended that." And they're like, "Oh my gosh, I can do this in a year now. I can totally make this happen.

 

Andrea (21:13):
I can't make a $2,500 a month payment, but I can make an $800 a month payment or a $400 a month payment or whatever.

 

Alli (21:20):
So anytime you have an update in the PCC seat, just think about who would this affect? Who would give a crap that we just did this? And how do we tell them? And tell them right away because all those little differences make a difference.

 

Andrea (21:34):
All of the different things added to make differences. We only literally sipped a sip of our champagne, but here we are. And that goes to the point of for those people that did not even have a phone call, no matter what reactivation strategy we're using or which bucket of people we're reactivating, making sure that they understand what are the tools that can help them so that they can't take next steps. I'm going to let you go. What would you say if you could, one thing people should know about reactivating patients that are in their pipeline?

 

Alli (22:13):
Awareness of where they're at in the pipeline. I think just as in summary, everything that we've talked about is just know what's going on, know where your patients are at, know what they're waiting for so that as you communicate with them, it's tailored to them. It is not just general, "Some are special. We need a filled in spot. The price is about to increase. I know that was a concern for you. Let's lock you in here before it goes up any higher." Or, "Hey, I know you couldn't afford this in six months, but now you can do it in 12 months." Just know where they're at and know what information would be pertinent for them in their decision-making process.

 

Andrea (22:48):
Yep. And all of that comes from the workflow and the process you're taking with your patients through every communication that you have with them. It's really great questions that you've got to be asking and taking really great notes because you're managing hundreds of patients every single month. You cannot keep everyone straight and no one should expect you to keep everyone straight. But that's why we have technology. That's why we have notes that need to be taken. And if it is a financial thing and the terms change, if it is a timing thing, whatever is different, those are reasons. We need to have a reason for reactivation, I think is my biggest takeaway. I've got this great new tool. I've got this great new information. We have this great new technology, whatever the case is. Make it be appealing. You need to make them feel compelled to behave differently than they did in the past.

 

Alli (23:40):
Yeah. So challenge for the next 30 days. Don't reach out to anyone, just be like, "Hey, how are you? Miss you." Text them a reason and have them some sort of incentive. And it doesn't have to be an incentive that's a discount, but -

 

Andrea (23:54):
No, not a financial incentive.

 

Alli (23:55):
Here's a change that we made, and I thought that it would be important for you. And I think once you get into the flow of that, your brain starts to change. And now every time there is an adjustment in a process or a procedure, you automatically are like, "Who can I tell this to?"

 

Andrea (24:09):
Yeah, 100%. Well, hopefully this has been helpful. That's always what our goal is here. And if you have other ways that you're reactivating and reengaging with your patients, share them with us. Go to practicelandpodcast.com. Write into us, let us know because we would love to share that with other people. Don't worry, we all live in a world of abundance. You don't have to worry about being gatekeepers for all of this stuff. Our whole goal here is what are we learning from our own experience and through the experiences of other practices so that we can share it with our listeners? Because there's so much opportunity out there to serve patients. There's so much opportunity to help build our practices, to build our businesses, to earn great income for ourselves as well. So we're just here to help with that, and hope that you join us next Tuesday for more fun tips on how to tame the chaos and get shit done.

 

Alli (24:59):
Yay. Thank you.

 

Andrea (24:59):
Bye guys.

 

Blake (25:02):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tail 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 (25:14):
Are you one of us? Subscribe for new episode notifications and more at practicelandpodcast.com. New episodes drop weekly on YouTube and everywhere you can listen to podcasts.