Listen & Share
Show Notes
Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society
Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/
[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]
Guest: Katherine Eitel Belt
Business Name: LionSpeak
Check out Katherine's Media:
LionSpeak Communication Training Options
Other Mentions and Links:
The 5AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.
Wizard of Oz
Invisalign
Blue Cross Blue Shield Insurance
Lions Peak Winery
Host: Michael Arias
Website: The Dental Marketer
Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/
Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society
My Key Takeaways:
- Communication is essential to building a strong team and patient relationships.
- Don't forget to invest in team culture! It's not all about how much you're paying employees. They want purpose, support, and acknowledgment as well.
- Always lead with what your practice DOES offer rather than what it DOESN'T. This is especially true when handling those tricky questions involving insurance.
- Don't be afraid of the price question. If a potential patient is asking about price, it means they are looking to buy!
- When on the phone with potential patients, be sure to establish a relationship before asking for details.
- If you aren't the cheapest practice in town, you will have to sell the value of your practice rather than the price point.
Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes!
[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]
p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.
Our Sponsors & Their Exclusive Deals:
Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !
Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!
Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)
Michael: Katherine, how's it.
Katherine: It's going great. So glad to be with you this morning. No,
Michael: thank you for being on. We truly, truly appreciate it. I know we're not far from each other. You're experiencing We just had a ton of rain, huh?
Katherine: We did, but it's made everything, uh, gorgeous and green and the snowcap mountains. And I heard we're gonna have a super bloom because of the rain on the
Michael: flowers. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's gonna be beautiful here in southern California. , but Awesome, Catherine. So can you tell us a little bit about your past, your present?
How'd you get to where you are?
Katherine: Yeah, so I come from dentistry. I started in college as a chairside dental assistant and eventually worked my way up to the front office area in the administration area of a practice and managed a large practice. eventually my career led me into practice management consulting for several decades, and then about 10 years ago.
I narrowed my focus to communication skills, coaching only, and primarily still within dentistry though, we do some corporate work and some work, uh, in, I would call it discretionary healthcare fields, but primarily dentistry. And, we like to describe our company. My company is Lion Speak and the overarching umbrella is communications coaching.
But under that umbrella, . We basically deliver that in three different sectors. So one sector we describe as patient facing or customer facing communications. So we talk and teach a lot on telephone skills and converting new patient phone calls, especially difficult ones. And then also case presentation, financial discussion with patients.
We have a lot of practices transition off of insurance plans and all the communication that's needed for that. Our second lane is described. Team facing communications. So, team culture, leadership. We turn a lot of managers on how to have something we call courageous conversations in a really productive way.
I'm writing a book on that right now, and we're getting ready, to release an on-demand video training series on that in April. . And then our third lane is described as audience facing communication. So we have a train the speaker and a train the trainer program there. and that's for anybody who wants to speak from the stage or even for practice owners that have large practices that may need to address their company or a board or anything like that, uh, on a regular basis.
Then we help them with their presentation skills. So, Where I've come from and, and where we are today.
Michael: Okay, nice. So let's rewind a little bit. You said you started as a chairside dental assistant, Uhhuh, and then you worked your way up to the. , why, why didn't you just stick to, you know what I mean? Like, okay, you know, I'm gonna do more clinical and stuff like that.
Yeah,
Katherine: well, I think, I think I got there a, the way a lot of administrators got there, I was sort of thrown into it. Uh, our, the administrator office manager that we had was in a car accident and actually didn't come back to the practice for over a year. So we were all just sort of pitching in, you know, pinch hitting for our team and it stuck, I guess I was.
Had some talent or was good at it and good on the phone, good with patients. And so I ended up, they ended up hiring another assistant and I ended up staying up front, and eventually moving on to manage a practice. and so I love both. I loved them equally. I loved chairside, with patients. I loved dentistry and providing it, but I also loved, the management of a team and, the systems, you know, management that was required from an administrator's position.
Okay. Wonderful.
Michael: Yeah. And then why did you narrow your focus to just communications?
Katherine: Ah, interesting question. So I think something happens when you hit your fifties . I think you're looking at your, you know, yardstick of your life and one half's looking a little shorter than the other half. Mm-hmm. . and I think, you I looked at my business, it was a very successful prac, uh, dental practice consulting business.
but there was a sliver that I enjoyed more than the rest. it's not that I don't understand how to set goals and track metrics or read a p and l. Uh, obviously I own my own business and, and helped many, but, or that I don't understand insurance coding and things like that. But that was never, it never lit me up.
what did light me up was helping dental professionals step into their potential by communicating at a much higher level. And so it was a bit of a jump off the cliff. I mean, I had people say, you know, I don't think, I don't think dentists or really small businesses are gonna pay for communications coaching only outside.
Practice management and I wasn't sure they would either, but uh, turns out 10 years later, here we are and turns out they will. So, I think I have a knack for it. It was definitely, I wanted to spend the rest of my career working on the topics that I most enjoy teaching, and also with clients that I most enjoy working with.
So it was a bit of a narrowing of my focus.
Michael: That's nice. I like that. Yeah, you're like inching down, you know what I mean? And it's good. Yeah. Inching down. Exactly. Right. I like it. So out of the, the three lanes that you mentioned, which do you see people returning and kind of saying like, we need this. I would assume it's team because, you know, teams are changing all the time, but like, where do you see where it's never ending?
All
Katherine: three. all three. Okay. So patient facing, obviously we have new people coming on board. We have, you know, older, personnel that's been with us a long time or been in the industry a long time that sometimes needs a refresher. so we see. ongoing there. We have clients returning year after year, after year.
Mm-hmm. , but certainly for team facing. We do something called, um, what in our leadership coaching we do, something called a calibration retreat. And many of our clients have us back year after year to facilitate that retreat. It's called a calibration retreat because it calibrates it's intention is to calibrate the team with the owner's future vision.
At that moment, how they see the future and what they're trying to create from that vantage point. and also the standards, the cultural standards that they, that are important to them. And so our job is to make sure that the owner's crystal clear about that for themselves first. Mm-hmm. , and then articulates that very clearly to the team.
And that we are able to facilitate a discussion at least once a year about, inviting people, which is a very d. Idea than demanding, inviting people to, cross the threshold into helping us achieve this vision and to align with these cultural standards. So there is no doubt right now given the shortage of employment that we're seeing sort of at a crisis level, we had clients that we've worked in different, maybe different areas that have come back, maybe post Covid.
They were like, well, you know, culture, you know, it's important, but I don't know if I wanna, mm-hmm. And all of a sudden they're calling and going, okay, I get it. I can't, I can't keep people, I mean, they're going down the street for a few dollars more an hour because, , they feel there's, that the cultures are the same.
Yeah. Or one is better than the other. And so I get now that it's more than just what I pay. Yeah. I have to create a work environment where people have clarity, where they have, they feel a part of something bigger and they feel supported. So, helping. Owners and managers and leadership create that environment is what we're all about.
So you can imagine there's just like booming business in that lane. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, as, as practices have scaled with multi-location, lots of doctors, There's a point, sort of kind of a crossover point about five practices in, if their intention is to grow, and scale at about that juncture, we find that they need to create a middle layer of management and often of training, internal training.
And so in our third lane, we're doing a very robust business right now in helping. Managers or, or dental personnel that gets, advanced or promoted into those, uh, training or management positions to learn how to coach their people. They often are really good at their job. It'd be a, someone gets promoted cuz they're a great hygienist or a great administrator, but when we promote them into a leadership position or a management position, even a team lead, they often fail because the skills you need to.
Really great hygienist and team player are a little different than what you need to grow and coach your people. So we're doing a lot of work in that area to help these new managers learn those skills. So it's hard for me to pick a lane cuz we're busy in all of them. Yeah,
Michael: no, that's good though. That's good.
And I like how you mentioned on the other one where it's like you want to feel, you want your team to feel bigger than it. they want, they wanna feel a part of something bigger than, you know what I mean? What it is. I know a couple of hygienists, they're hygienists, Catherine Hygienists and dental assistants who left for like, oh, in and out, has way better structure and organization and I feel like I'm, I'm going somewhere with them, you know, or another, you know, it's so different industry, but they're doing that.
So, I wanna ask you, I wanna dive into two specific ones. Okay. Ones that we, uh, discuss all the time. Here is one of 'em. Let's, let's dive into that. One is telephone skills and converting difficult New patient phone. . Okay. How can we, what are some pointers, instructions that you can give us for this?
Katherine: Well, we're known as the unscripted communications coaching company because I dislike scripts very much. I don't think they work. I get why we invented them, very popular in the seventies and eighties, even into the nineties. Scripting was really popular. . And I remember my boss at one time hiring a consultant, and it was overall a really great experience, but I remember the day he plopped down a three ring binder full of scripts for everything we were supposed to do in the dental practice.
And I remember reading some of those and thinking these were the Hokies things I ever read. Like I couldn't, yeah, I couldn't imagine th saying it that way through my personality and sounding mm-hmm. like normal and so, . I get why scripting came about though, because as a businesswoman, I definitely want to have consistency of service and consistency of brand and messaging in my company.
Like I wouldn't want you to call and talk to Kelly and have a completely different experience and get completely different information than you might if you talked to Stacy, right? Mm-hmm. . I do. I do. I do think that the idea of scripting was to give us consistency for branding, for messaging, for all of that, and so I get.
and I do think it's important, but I'm the kind of gal that says, why do I have to choose between consistency of message in my business and authenticity and connectivity with my patients. and my customers. Mm-hmm. . And so likewise, I don't want you to call and talk to Kelly and get a robotic. , like she's a robot.
And then it's the same exact experience when you talk to Stacy. Mm-hmm. . So I want, I want their personalities to come through. I want you as a customer to think, I, I spoke to a human being who heard me and had a, developed a relationship with me and was present in this moment, not reading from a memorized script.
So I'm the kind of girl who says, I don't wanna choose, I want both. And I think you can have both. And you do. With frameworks. Frameworks similar to scripting in that we require everyone to agree to that framework and we hold them accountable. We test them, we teach them, we train them, and we hold them accountable through ongoing coaching to that framework.
But within the framework, they get to be who they are as long as they hit the points of the framework. We say if they're funny, we want 'em to be. . If they're kind and sweet and gracious, that's how they're wired, then let's be a big version of that. We teasingly say if they're direct, they just need to be careful.
yes. But, but they get to be who they are and, I like that. I think patients respond well to that. It's how we train everyone, that we train on communication. If we're training a speaker on the stage to be a better speaker, we don't want them to sound like Catherine. , we want them to sound like the best version of them, their personality to come shining big through that stage performance.
But we do want them to get the points across to the audience that they've agreed to speak on. You know, so they're, again, there's a framework, but within their framework we get to be who we are. So that's first. tips on telephone skills. So our framework is a simple four step Process for.
almost every single new patient phone call that you could imagine. And there's really a top five. There's the patient that calls and asks the price of something, which is challenging. There's the patient that calls and asks for a checkup or a cleaning, you know, they're not really, they have no real urgent need.
they just wanna stay current. Right? And so they call asking, usually the question is a checkup or a cleaning. The third one is, they have an emergency, they have some level of urgency of a toothache, or they have a broken tooth or something doesn't feel quite right. Or they have, you know, they want something whitened before their wedding.
There's some sense of urgency. Mm-hmm. and some more immediate need. there is also a couple of other questions that come up. They're, they're not actually. A need, but they're the first question that gets asked. One of those is, are you on my plan? Now, that's not actually why they're calling. It's usually something else.
It always is something else, but it's the first question that they ask, and it's what administrators are faced with. Answering, and that's easy to answer if you are a provider on the plan. It's a little more challenging if you're not, and lots and lots of practices struggle with that question. So those are the kinds of questions that we coach on.
and so my t my quick tips, I mean, of course we, we take a lot longer than this interview to, to train people to be experts at this, but high level tips would be this. the first thing you have to accomplish is get in relationship with this caller. So what tends to happen is they'll say, hi, I was calling, I've got a a bit of a toothache, and I was wondering if the doctor could see me today.
and what we hear we do, we do thousands of mystery shopper calls a year for our clients. And I'd love to talk about how we do that a little differently, in a, in a bit. But we, but we, we listen to a ton of calls every year and more often than you might think. It's, it's actually very frequent and very, uh, often that we hear someone will answer that question with a another question of, what insurance do you?
So here they've said, I've got a tooth that's bothering me. I'd like to know if I could be seen today. And they say, okay, well do you have insurance? What insurance do you have? So what happens with that response? It's not coming from a mean person. It's coming from a person who's got three lines on hold and two people are checking out and they got a lot going on.
Mm-hmm. . And they're trying to be efficient, but what, how it sounds to a patient is all you care about is getting paid. and so what we first teach. Before you ever answer any question, say, well, I'm really glad you called. I mean, again, in your own words, but I'm really glad you called us. Welcome to our practice.
My name is Catherine, and what was your name, right? Let's get on a first name basis. . So the first thing I think is how can I get their name? How can I welcome them? And then I will usually, if they don't offer, I was referred by this person, or I found you on the internet, or however. So if they say, I was, my neighbor said I should call you.
I say, oh, well who's your neighbor? that's so awesome of her to refer you. And how long have you guys. Next to each other. You know, just I, if, if someone says, you know, I just moved to the area and my someone at work said I should call you. I say, well, where'd you move from? How long have you been here?
How do you like it so far? I mean, there's a thousand questions you could ask. That's the no scripting part. Mm-hmm. , ask whatever feels natural to you and to the conversation, but don't skip the principle of walking through the door and getting in relationship with that person. So one way to get in relationship is to walk through any open door They.
Now that's gonna be really annoying to a patient that's in pain. So if a patient that is in pain and they express that, or even any high urgency, . We don't wanna say, well gosh, how long have you worked there? You know, and it's annoying. So what we wanna connect with is empathy. We wanna say, before we ever answer their question, we wanna say, well, I'm, I'm really sorry to hear that you've been in some discomfort.
I'd love to learn a little bit more about that and how we can get you seen quickly and get you feeling better soon. So I just want you to know, I, I get it and I'm, and I'm really sorry to hear that, you know, just some empathy that says, I heard you and I actually care about it. it's less than 30 seconds.
It's not a long time, but do not skip this step. So that would be my first tip. Second tip is get in control of the phone call. And I'll tell you, Michael, if your listeners took only one thing away from this, Discussion about telephone skills. Mm-hmm. and even maybe communications in general. If they took this next point away, they'd have the keys to the kingdom if they would remember that.
Whoever, in any conversation, Like in this interview, in any conversation, the person that's asking the questions is actually controlling the direction of the conversation. So in our exchange today, you're asking the majority of the questions. You're steering what we're gonna talk about. You're steering the direction of our conversation, which is as it should be, it's your podcast.
But when people call a dental, it's usually the patient that's holding that baton of control because they say, are you on my plan? How much do you charge for a crown? can I get my teeth cleaned? You know, can I be seen today? so they've got the control and instead of thinking, my job is to answer all their question.
An administrator would be better served to say, my job is to gently reach through that phone, connect with them personally, gently grab that baton of control and bring it back over here where I can steer and control the conversation. That's the biggest mistake most people make in our mystery calls is they don't get control of the call early.
And how you do it is you answer their question with another question. So I might say, if they said, you know, how much do you charge? whitening. I might say. Well, I'm so glad you called. We do whitening. A lot of whitening, really good at it. So welcome to our practice. Uh, my name's Catherine and what was your name, right?
I connect with them somehow. Then one, once I felt like I've connected, then I say, so I'm happy to answer your question about the whitening. I just wanna make sure I give you the right information, and schedule the right appointment. So, would you mind if I ask you a few more questions or a couple of.
now who's got the baton of control, they feel like they're gonna get their question answered. So they're not resistant in any way. But I have not answered their question. I've actually just reached through the phone and brought the control over to me. Mm-hmm. , and now I get to steer this with a line of questioning that will help me determine, really the only two things that an administrator ever needs to determine on a new patient call.
One is, which of the two appointments we have to offer is best a comp. or a limited exam, which of those is the best for this patient? And it is often different than what they asked for. Lots of people asked for a cleaning, but what they really want is to have a tooth checked. Lots of people asked to have a tooth checked, and what they would be more than willing to do is have all their teeth checked.
So, I mean, that's not always the case, but it often is the case. So when someone says, I was wondering if I could schedule a cleaning, I think in my mind, well, we'll see. We'll see. Depends on how you answer my questions. Mm-hmm. , I'm not just gonna schedule you for a new patient exam and cleaning until I've taken you through a line of questioning and my, all my questioning is about urgency.
That's, it's all about urgency because the only thing that drives them, or should drive them to a limited exam that I'm gonna shove into the middle of a full schedule should be urgency. And if it isn't urgent, then I'm gonna try to direct them and steer them to a comprehensive exam. that's the one thing I have to determine.
The second thing I have to determine with my line of questioning is, what else do they care about? What are other hot buttons? is it the discomfort? do they also have some money concerns or financial concerns? Do they have, maybe they're concerned about getting some, you know, disappointment but missing too much work.
maybe they have an upcoming event. They want the work to be done before, so I'm trying to find out what else do they care about so that when I step into to my step number three in the framework, I can give back to them. The right appointment and why it's perfect for them. Options on times and dates, and then I'm also gonna promote the practice.
back through the filter of what they said they cared about. So if I discerned that they cared about money, then I'm going to maybe mention, I'm so glad you found us because you mentioned that you were a little bit concerned about the cost of this treatment and, we have lots of patients that have expressed that concern and we are really exceptionally good at helping patients with a variety of.
Financial options to afford the care that they need and want. So once you come in, we'll find out exactly what you need, and then the two of us will sit down and we'll look at a variety of options. And we almost always are able to help patients find something, that helps them afford the care that they want comfortably.
So I look forward to that com. You know, so it's mm-hmm. , my, my feeling is that it's our. to promote the pr. It's not the patient's job to sell themselves on us. It's our job to sell them on us. And so once in step two, I've discovered what really matters to them and which appointment would be appropriate.
Then in step three, I'm actually giving that to them, but I'm, but I'm stepping into actively promoting this practice through the filter of what I've discerned they care about. So, and then in step four, take care of the details. That's where we get insurance details. That's where we give them directions and that's where we reconfirm the appointment or get whatever, you know, whatever the details are.
But one of the big mistakes, Michael, that administrators make without training, and I'm, I've made all of these mistakes, one of the mistakes we often make is we let the computer screen for a new patient account guide our. And the computer screen for a new patient account wants to know address and phone and email and insurance information.
None of those help us with those two questions. What appointment is appropriate and what else do they care about that I can promote the practice to? So those questions, in my opinion, should be later in the call. Once we schedule an appointment, then all those things matter. But what does it matter what their address is or their email is?
if I haven't even sold them on the practice and we don't have them scheduled for an appointment. So I, I wanna, my questions on step number two are geared toward discovering the level of urgency and what else do they care? What are their hot buttons so that I can manage that well in step three. So those are some tips that I think, if people could really focus on restructuring where they guide and how they guide a patient, they'd do so much better, in those phone calls.
Michael: Wow. Okay. So these are the four major steps for this framework. And you mentioned you do mystery shopper calls, Uhhuh for your clients. How does that work?
Like what were, how do you do. .
Katherine: It's really kind of a scary proposition for most administrators if they're honest. . it's scary for anyone, you know, I'm a speaker and trainer and coach and, I've been invited to do some pretty big keynotes here in the next year or so. Mm-hmm. and, uh, they're bigger audiences than I'm used to addressing normally.
And so I reached out for some additional coaching for that keynote and the first thing my coach said is, I want you, One of your next upcoming speeches, I want you to record it and I want you to watch it and self evaluate your, you know, your performance. And then I will do the same and we'll come together and talk about it.
And it was painful. It was painful to listen to myself, to watch myself. It's very hard. But as a professional, . I wanna continue to grow. I wanna grow my income. I wanna grow my value, I wanna grow my performance. And so to do that, I've gotta have the courage to listen and watch myself. And so I would say to administrators or anyone, in the dental field, if you want to advance your career, if you wanna be paid top dollar, I mean, imagine being able to lay down at your next review, your next performance review, four or five mystery shopper calls that were perfectly score.
and you've got tens across the board. I mean, those are the kinds of talents that, managers and leaders and owners are wanting. to pay for. So I like that. Um, one of the things I'll say about Mystery Shepherd calls is that we have some competition that I think does it very poorly.
And because they have done it very poorly, it has turned a lot of people off to the idea as a whole. And I think we're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think it's just been done poorly. So for example, We don't do any sneak attacks. If we're gonna do mystery sharper calls and we agree to do them and a client hires us, it's with the understanding that we will train first.
We will help people to get better first, and we will show them the scorecard. We will train them against the scorecard so that they have some input, they have can, can ask their questions, get whatever. We're not trying to catch people doing. We're trying to help them get better and so no sneak attacks.
The other thing is we don't use, we use normal people for the calls, asking normal questions. We're not trying again to trick people. We're trying to say, can we get you and help get you significantly better with the normal caller? So asking the normal questions that that patients ask. So, you know, we're not dragging people off the street to do this.
We. , regular moms and dads or even have a couple of retired dentists that make calls for us, but they're asking normal questions and, and I think if we get good with those, then we've, you know, we've, we've scaled the mountain. so those are some of the things. The others, we never play these calls before, anybody without their permission.
Hmm. So sometimes. Somebody says, I want my team to hear this call. I want 'em to hear how much noise they were making in the background while I was trying to handle this call and how that sounds on the phone. So sometimes they say, please do play it, but unless we get their permission, well, first of all, unless we get their written permission, we never even make the calls we want.
Mm-hmm. , the individual's written permission over the next year to do these and to sit down with them and to go over the results and help them get better. with one exception. Of course, whoever hired us to do these, they get to listen to it. But other than that, we wouldn't play it before a department or a team or anyone else, unless we had that person's permission.
Again, we're not interested in embarrassing or catching someone. We wanna build you up and make you say, that was one of the best things I ever did and it, and it helped my career. it's, it's important I think that we treat people the way we would wanna be treated. So if you're interested in advancing your career or you're interested in helping your people advance their careers, and convert more callers on the phone, I think teaching them well and then getting them a coach that can be their support person to, you know, hold them accountable to, to what we've agreed to is, is super, is super important.
Yeah.
Michael: What about Catherine, the type of, patients that. I a hundred percent agree. Like we, we do need to get control of the, I love that how you said, like, and that's a huge principle. Like what, okay, the one asking the questions is the person, you know what I mean? And then at the same time, you wanna show that empathy.
Like, sure, who doesn't want, who doesn't love that? Who doesn't like you get it? You, you get that? I'm in pain, right? But what about those patient. Because I remember working in the front office and we would get a lot of the times where they're like, well, what does that matter? Like, it's almost like they were really short with me, where it's like, just, do you take it or do you not?
That's all I need. Do you take it or do you not? And I'm, I kinda
Katherine: wanna you insurance on
Michael: insurance when, whether it comes with insurance or whether they're like, do you have an appointment right now, or no? Yes or no? Like, they were very short. So how do we, how do we deal with that? Like I feel like when that happened, everything went out the window that I
Katherine: learned, you know?
Well, it doesn't really, So, you know, if I were, I travel a lot because I speak a lot. Mm-hmm. . so if I, let's say I, I'm waiting for a plane. I bite down on something. Maybe I have a little popcorn or something. I bite down. I think maybe, Ooh, I think I, maybe I chipped that tooth, right? I'm on the Jet Way board in the plane.
I call in office. If I say hi, look, my name's Catherine. I tell Belt, I live in Temecula. I'm actually boarding a plane. I just think I bit down on something. I think I might have chipped part of my tooth. It's not hurting. but I would like to get it checked when I return on Monday. and I can come anytime next week.
I don't have insurance. I'll be paying cash. I just like to get something if I could, early afternoon next week, I can come any. , you pr pretty much have skipped over the four step process because I've given you every, I've given you. , my urgency where I am on the scale of urgency. It's not very urgent.
I've already answered questions about how, how I'll be pain, what I expect when I can come, so you can, it would be silly to try to go back to step one and try to walk down this floor. Mm-hmm. , it's like I've catapulted. So it's really, you have to use your head about the framework. The framework is more for someone calls you have limited or no information.
I wanna know how much you charge for a crown. if you answer that, it's like you're throwing some, you know, it's like you close your eyes and shoot the arrow and hope that you come anywhere near the target. But when someone, someone gives you enough information up front that the target's now clear, just shoot the target.
Right. Yeah. Just, just take 'em there. Now I'll give you one exception and that is the question about insurance. And it's similar to the question about price. I contend nobody is sitting around on their sofas at night scratching their heads, wondering what the price of crowns are these days. That's not why they're calling.
Yeah, they're calling because, and asking this question because there's, it's sort of like the Wizard of Oz. There's something behind the. , right? There's, there's this little thing behind the curtain of this big scary question that's actually really important. And so rather than address the big scary question, I wanna kind of be good enough to peel back that curtain and say, well, what's what's behind there?
Because the truth is, unless you are the cheapest in town, if you are the cheapest in town and somebody is, somebody is, if you are, that question's not. , right? Mm-hmm. , if you're the cheapest crown in town, cheapest Invisalign. Cheapest whitening. Cheapest implant. you can answer that question they're not gonna find it any less.
But if you're not the cheapest in town, then we won't win on answering that question. We will have to win in some other way. We'll have to win on value. And to do that, we've gotta get behind why are they calling, why are they asking this question in the first place? And if we can get behind that, and that's why I say, Honor the question.
Say that I'm, I'm so glad you called us. I'd love to talk to you about that. I wanna make sure I give you the right information. So would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions and then of course, I'm gonna start with why. Why is it that you think you need, first of all, is this for you? And if it is, or whoever it's for.
why do you think you need a crown? are you experiencing some discomfort? If they say yes, I'm gonna explore that, cuz I'm still trying to figure out am I gonna schedule them for a, an immediate exam mm-hmm. , you know, a limited exam or am I gonna get them into a comprehensive situation? I'm trying to decide now on the price question we teach to.
avoid that question upfront and do use these techniques of questioning and then offer them some appointments. And another tip I'll give right here, stop asking, do you perform mornings or afternoons or do you prefer a day of the week? Stop it. The reason is, if you ask Catherine, do you prefer mornings or afternoons?
Catherine's gonna say mornings because I would rather come in eight o'clock, get my appointment done, have my day to go back to work, and, and be productive. But if you had a one o'clock in the afternoon open tomorrow that you wanted to fill, and you asked me, do you perform mornings or afternoons? I say eight o'clock, you now, it doesn't even make any sense to offer me the one.
but that's what you really wanna fill. But if you said to Catherine, you know what I, Catherine, I have a, an appointment doc, uh, doctor has some, an opportunity to see you for that either tomorrow at one or, next Thursday at 10. Which of those would work best for your schedule? I might pick the one tomorrow if it was available.
So you've scored big with me. Now what I know is that three outta four people will go where you lead them. if you lead them. In other words, if you give me a choice, three outta four people will pick one of those choices. You score big on three people. If you just don't ask 'em morning or afternoon, just take 'em.
Give them your hardest to fill times and see what happens. One out of four, Michael, mm-hmm. will not go where you lead them. They are assertive enough personalities that unless you can give them an eight o'clock on a Monday, they're not coming there. And so if you offer me one in 10. . Then that assertive person's gonna say, well, actually, the only time I can come is eight o'clock on a Monday morning.
Can you see me? Right? And so what have you lost with that person? You've lost nothing. You'll direct them to your next available early morning, which might be a while, but you've scored big on the other three that wouldn't have picked the one o'clock, but took it because you offer. , do you see?
Mm-hmm. . So free yourself up. Stop that habit of, of doing that, and just offer them, direct them where you want to go, where, where you want them to go. so back to my question of the shopper and the insurance on the shopper, I am going to try to guide them and a lot of them will never ask that question a second time, and they will come in, but some will, some will say, well, I, I'm not ready to schedule cuz you never answer my question about how much it costs.
So I contend administrators need to sit down with their manager or. and they need to ask, they need to say, I'm feeling very skilled to avert that question at least once, maybe twice. But if they push me a second or third time and say, I need the, I need to know how much it is, I need to know from you which way you want me to go, because whether I, whether they quote it or refuse to quote it, they're going to lose some people.
if you quote it and you're not the cheapest, you're gonna lose some. If you refuse to quote it, you're gonna lose some. So I think it's a great trade to an owner or manager for an administrator to say, I'm not gonna answer it on the first go round. I'm gonna use this technique. I'm gonna try to get them in here where we can see them eyeball to eyeball and we can quote the fees.
Then I'm gonna do my very best. And if for those. Circle back around and force me, how do you want me to respond? And really, it's a, it's just a choice. my preference is to, uh, quote range if you're pushed into the corner to quote as wide a range as is reasonable or truthful. But not to do it right away, not to do it on the first go round, you know, to have some skills to try to avoid that question.
We're not trying to avoid the question. We're trying to get them there to see and only quote what is real. We're also trying to get them in so that they have an experience of what our fees afford them. We can't give them that experience of what our fees afford them over the. completely. So if we can get them in, we have a chance of them falling in love with us, falling in love with our office, our doctor, our hygienist, our team, our technology, all of that.
But we, it's harder on the phone. So, so those are some tips for that, for insurance. you know, it's easy if you're on the plan, but if you're not, my suggestion very quickly would be don't tell them what you're not. , tell them what you are. So instead of saying, I'm sorry, we're not a provider on the plan, you're gonna lose a hundred percent of those people, wouldn't you?
Mm-hmm. , you're gonna lose a hundred percent. But if you say, I'm so glad you called. And we work with a lot of patients who have, blue Cross Insurance, we are considered what is known as an unrestricted or, you could say, I've heard people say, uh, non-preferred. I don't, I don't like that term. I think non-preferred sounds like the insurance company doesn't prefer you.
Mm-hmm. . But my favorite term of all is either unrestricted or non-contracted. So if someone says, you know, I was wondering if you accepted my Blue Cross Insurance, then I would say, well, I'm so glad you called. we help a lot of patients with that insurance.
We're considered what's called a non-contracted provider. Here's how your insurance would work in our practice. And we help them understand. So what we're doing is we're saying, here's what we are instead of what we're. Here's what we can do instead of what? What can't be done, here's how you can use it instead of how you can't use it,
So it's the other side of the coin. I'm never asking people to say something untrue or something that is a lie. It's a bait and switch, and I don't believe in it. I don't believe in saying, yeah, you can use your insurance. Come on in. And then revealing once they're there that we actually aren't a provider on their plan.
I think we need to be truthful, but again, . I often will say, you know, I'm curious why you're looking for a provider on the plan. Is there some particular reason that you're wanting to be seen by a dentist? And if I can find that reason, I can sell my practice back to that reason. And often I can get them in even when we're not providers often, but if we do not reach to that phone line and convince them that they shouldn't make a decision till they meet our doctor.
They're, they're gonna go someplace else. Cuz in their mind, all dental practices are kind of the same. They all went to dental school, they all do a crown. They, you know, it's all the same. So unless we can kind of enlighten them that it isn't the same, then we're playing the wrong game. We're playing the wrong game.
Michael: Yeah. really like that. Uh, especially, and I, I kind of see now that you're talking to me, This involves a lot of consistency, like training, right? Like, it's not just like a here's a thing and then get it, get it together. Because I remember when I think we had like somebody talk to us about print office training on how to handle new patients phone calls.
And I did the same thing, but then when, when that happened, when someone's like, oh, I just need like the plane and, um, and metaphor, right? I, I forgot everything and I, I just went back to my old habits and then I just went like, okay, well, uh, let me just check real quick and then, and I was like, why I, I, I failed.
I gave up. You know? So I feel like that that's a thing that can happen quite often.
Katherine: yeah. We wanna support people with a system that they feel like they can be who they are, but they have some guidance. I know how to handle this question. I mean, there's only a handful of common questions if we're going to get four or five.
In some practices, it's many more than that a day. , are you on my plan questions or how much, you know, if you're, you're, you're really, promoting different ways of marketing practices. So I mean, I feel like we're always marketing. We're, there's never a time, we're not marketing, right. We're, we're always putting forth an image of who we are.
And so you can't not market, but you cannot. Market on purpose. You can market accidentally, and sometimes not the way you meant to. And so you know it, so maybe all you have is a website and you're, maybe you're not, you don't have a social media campaign. You're not doing direct mail, you're not, you don't have a billboard, you whatever.
but regardless, they're gonna find you some way, they're gonna find you through referrals, the, the relationships you've nurtured. That's a marketing activity. So however they come to you, we have to have people on the phone that are skilled at the common questions those people would ask. And I find the more we do external marketing, the more we are doing direct mail, the sort of a cold call, the more we are doing social media outreaches and things like that, the more we're doing those kinds of things, the more we generate shopper questions and.
a lot of administrators because they struggle with the question, they're not very successful with them. And anything you're not very successful with, you're going to avoid and not like, we wanna get 'em way more successful.
So they actually go, oh, goodie a shopper question. A price question. Because a price question says I'm interested, it's actually a really great question. It's basically a screaming neon sign saying, I'm in the market. I'm, I'm interested, but I have a, uh, this little roadblock of price. And often they don't know what else to ask.
often, those price shoppers wouldn't choose the cheapest if they knew it meant. Quality. Nobody stands behind the work. The place is dirty, the service is terrible. the experience is terrible. It's unskilled people, all of that. If they knew it, they'd say, well, I'd rather pay a little more and get a different experience. But it's up to us to make sure that they understand the experience with us. So I think that's the key, is getting your people trained, not just handing them a phone and a pat on the back and saying, good luck. Yeah. And that's how a lot of administrators are trained.
No, I
Michael: agree a hundred percent. Wow. Catherine, thank you so much for being with us. We had, I wanted to ask you more stuff, more questions, but this was so jam packed. We definitely gotta invite you back on again, but, oh, I'd
Katherine: love to be back on so much to talk about. I mean, communication runs the world, right?
It, it just, everything happens through communication. So there's lots to talk about.
Michael: that's true. Yeah. Communication. I really appreciate it though the, a lot of these principles that you, you mentioned here, especially when it comes to new patients and And diving into that, where can our listeners find you if they need to reach out to you?
Katherine: Well, they can reach out, through our website, obviously, which is lion speak, l i o n s p e a k.net. the.com is owned by Lions Peak Winery, so if you want wine, we say go there, . But if you want communications training, come to lion speak.net. And, if you go to, patient service skills, the tab there.
There'll be a dropdown menu and it'll show you, a lot of the programs we have, uh, an audio download. It's kind of a do-it-yourself, telephone training program, so you can buy that audio download. It comes with a workbook, and your people can listen to it and learn how to do all of this much better.
So it's a very affordable, very easy sort of do it yourself. if you, Some ongoing help. We have an annual program that includes that training, but it also includes virtual time with a live trainer, and the Mystery Shepherd calls throughout the year and, you know, more handholding and more, hands on, training for your team.
So, lots of different options. we do some onsite visits, uh, if we wanna combine some topics for teams. And, so you can learn a lot, a lot about us there.
Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely check that out. And Catherine, thank you so much for being with us. It was a pleasure, and we'll hear from you soon.
Thank you.
