Chiropractic Coaching | 3 Simple Ways to Improve Conversion!

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Vince, and this is episode number 15 of Dr. Vince Presents: 3 Ways to Increase or Improve Your New Patient Conversion. And once again, thank you so much for taking the time to watch this video. If you could, please subscribe so that you'll get notifications of when A new video comes out. I do them every week. And then also, I have a new course called the DC's Mini MBA. And you can find this at leoneconsulting.co. Just sign up there and we've got 3 really good videos on mindset, marketing, and systems. And so, great way to start just improving your skills in those 3 areas and hopefully it will improve your business. Thank you, Dr. Leone. You can find that at leoneconsulting.co. Let's dive right in here. 3 ways to improve your new patient conversion. And just before we get into it, right off the bat, I just want to say, look, as long as we are coming from a place of integrity, that we're here to serve, and we do it— we charge a fair price, we have an excellent product or service, and that we actually get people better, Then there's no problem talking about money, okay? We are exchanging a service for an outcome, and we are that value. We are that bridge between where they're at and where they want to go, okay? And there's nothing wrong with being paid for that. That's what this whole society is built on. So as long as we're, again, coming from those places of good intention, we're here to help, we have a good heart, we like helping people, fair fees and all that type of stuff, No problem making as much money as possible. The more people you help, the more money you make. Let's get into number 1. Number 1 is, keep it simple. I'm not going to call you stupid, but keep it simple, okay? Like, back in school, remember those 4 things they taught us to tell patients in the report of findings? What is wrong? Can I help? How long is it going to take? And how much is it going to cost? Just do that, okay? Just do that. How long is it going to— First of all, what is wrong? I've, you know, I listen to clients' reports of findings, and a lot of times they dive into, this is what we're going to do, and— but it's like, wait a second, you have not explained what in the hell is wrong with the patient, right? They are there. A doctor is a teacher, right? So you need to, based on all your evaluation, whether it's the imaging or the testing or all that type of stuff, you need to explain to the patient exactly what is wrong. Okay, you did this and it caused this and that's why you're having this symptom. Okay, so get real clear on what is wrong. Then, can I help? Mrs. Jones, you are, you're in the right place. I mean, here's the good news, you're in the right place. Okay, this is what I do, this is what I see every day of every week. I've treated thousands of patients with this condition. I've treated hundreds of patients with whatever it is. Make sure that they know that you are the one and the best one that can help them, and obviously it needs to be true. Next, how long is it going to take? Okay, and go into detail, right? We have to make sure that they know, okay, each visit's about 35 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever it is. We're going to start out at X number of days per week over, you know, 8 weeks, whatever it is. Like, just Go into detail of exactly what's going to be involved in terms of their time and effort, right? Because now, I'm a big believer in care plans. When patients go to a doctor, they don't want to be co-conspirators. Well, how long should this take? No. Especially if you're a new doctor, like, you know, design some care plans for a mild condition, a moderate condition, a severe condition. Could be 10 visits, 20 visits and 30 visits, or 20 visits, 40 visits, and 60 visits, or 90 visits. I don't give a damn what it is. The point being is have a plan for the patient, right? You're going— you're treating musculoskeletal conditions, um, and they come in severities, right? Pain level 1 to 3, 4 to 6, 7 to 10. So you should have care plans, in my opinion, that coincide with those. Now, if you're the short-term care doctor, Hey, God bless you. No big deal. I'm just saying, in my opinion, when patients come to see me, they want a result. And based on my experience, I can tell them— based on my experience and my evaluations, I can have a pretty darn good— I've been doing this for 10 years— I have a pretty darn good idea how long it's going to take. That could be 20 visits, it could be 40 visits, it could be 3 therapies, 1 therapy, like whatever it is. I have a care plan for them to get them from where they're at to where they want to go. So I'm going to explain Explain that to them. And so, I would recommend— and so, even if you're doing short-term care, just explain, okay, look, I think this is gonna take 2 weeks. You know, I think you'll probably be good. What I don't like is when doctors say, well, we're gonna see you twice a week for a couple weeks, and we'll just see how you're doing. Well, that sounds like a grab bag, right? And so, that does not inspire confidence in a patient. And we are trying to inspire confidence from the moment they walk in the door. That helps with your conversion. Right? So, that's how long is it going to take. Then how much is it going to cost? And just be upfront with them. And don't hand this off to your CA, okay? Don't say, okay, well now Susie, who gets paid $15 an hour, is going to take over the responsibility for the financial aspect of my practice. No. You have the response, you have the rapport with the patient, okay? Don't be afraid to talk finances. You're here to serve, right? You're here to serve with integrity, a fair price, great service. There's no reason you should be concerned about talking finances. Now, if you're not comfortable, that's okay, but you have to start, okay? You have to start somewhere. And now, surgeons don't have to do this, you know, but we're not surgeons, okay? There's a skepticism here, so we need to build trust with these patients. So don't turn over the finances to the CA. Just sit knee-to-knee with them, and we'll go over this in a little more detail in a second, but— Just go over the finances with them and talk it through. Next. Oh, one last thing. Sorry, I have my notes over there. In terms of finances, let's offer 3 options, right? You know, what I like to do is, okay, you can pay it all up front and save X amount, 10%. You can break it up into 2 payments, half today, half in 30 days, still save 5%. Or, look, if none of those work, then we can spread it out over 12 months. There's no savings with it, but— and this isn't me doing this, we have an outside healthcare company, and they will just debit your account for, you know, whatever it is, okay, $150 a month or $200, whatever. They get the care, fits within their budget, but just give them 3 clear options. Again, we want them to be clear about everything. Now, if you're doing bigger care plans, You know, we have, you know, we treat neuropathy and decompression. It's a bigger care plan. And so what we'll do is we just refer them out to credit unions. We used to use CareCredit, and, you know, they have crazy fees. It's like 14%, and they're not very nice to patients. And for whatever reason, they don't like chiropractors. I don't know why. But point being is now we just refer them out to their credit union or a credit union. Yeah. They can open up an account, and they have low fees. And they usually can get an answer within a day or 2 days, you know? So feel comfortable doing that. Don't worry that, oh, they're gonna walk out the door, they're never gonna come back. Trust your process, that you've developed enough rapport and built up enough value in yourself and the service that they, you know, will move forward with care if they can get approved. And overall, keep this short. Like, your report of findings doesn't need to be any more than 10 minutes, 12 minutes, maybe 15 minutes. Sometimes my dad will, you know, we look over, that door's still closed. An hour and a half later, it's like, what is going on in there? Meeting of the minds, who knows? But the point being is keep it short. People have lives, right? It doesn't take that long to explain everything. It really doesn't. So keep it succinct, okay? Patients will respect that when you respect their time. And then don't talk down on MDs or any other healthcare physician, but sometimes, you know, Like with neuropathy patients, it's like, God, why didn't my medical doctor tell me that my statin drugs cause neuropathy? Or tell me that you offered this type of service? Just say, you know what, I don't know. I don't know, but it doesn't really matter. I mean, that's not really his expertise. My expertise is not cavities, so I'm not studying— I can't tell you when you have a cavity. So, you know what I'm saying? It's like, just shift it. Don't put any blame on them. Say, no, you know, it's not— it's, it's, to be honest with you, it's not really their specialty, so they, they're not, you know, researching it a lot. Um, or you can not even say that. You say, no, I don't know, but it doesn't really matter. You're here now. I am an expert. This is what I do. So, um, because when you talk down on MDs, it makes you look bad. It makes you look bad. It makes you look petty, and that's not good. Um, number 2, let's move on. People will not by what they don't understand. So as you go through those 4 categories, what's wrong, can I help, how long is it going to take, how much is it going to cost, you have to ask questions and make sure that the patient is understanding what you're doing. So, for instance, say we're talking about a herniated disc, and we're going to treat the disc. Mrs. Jones, did that make sense how we talked about, you know, the disc is made up of water, about 85% water, and it's kind of like a tire, the air pressure? No. Is similar to the water pressure in the disc. Did that make sense to you? 'Cause when you had that injury, it put so much pressure down on the disc, it actually tore those annular fibrotic rings. I mean, that's what the MRI said. Did that make sense to you? And listen and watch. Watch for facial. You know, like, if they seem like they're not getting it, then you need to create another analogy. Maybe not a tire analogy, right? I don't know. But the point being is patients will never buy or invest in you and your service if they don't understand what's happening, right? So you have to be very clear and then ask questions. Does that make sense? Like, how would you describe that? You know, and make sure that they get it then. So you don't have to ask them whether they feel like you're an expert or not, but when we go over like how long is it gonna take, does that work? I mean— Do you see you having the time to commit to this? Because I understand it's a commitment, but this— look, we're not popping pills. Like, we don't change the chemistry of the body with a pill, which is really honestly just a Band-Aid. But the point being is we're trying to heal your body naturally, and it's going to take some time. And are you able to invest that time? You know, if it's, you know, 3 days a week in the first 4 weeks and it's 35 minutes a visit. Do you see that working in your schedule? And if not, talk through the patient or talk it through with the patient. You know, become their ally in going on this journey, right? That's— you're the coach, okay? Make sure that they're on board because you can't like— it can't be a one-way conversation, guys, where you're just like going, and you get to the end like this, how much it's going to cost? And then they don't sign up and you're like, oh, I wonder why they didn't sign up. You have to be their guide, be their coach, and figure things out along the way. Make sure that they are on board and they understand everything. Like on the time, in terms of the schedule itself. Okay, Mr. Jones, it's 30 visits over the course of 3 months. We start out 3 times a week. I understand that that's a time commitment. Is that going to work for you? Hmm, that may be tough. You know, can you have your husband— like, maybe they have 2 kids, you know, is it a factor with the kids? Yeah. Do you think maybe your husband could get home a little early on, you know, these particular days, or can your sister help? You know, like, you have all this information from the course of the evaluation, the consultation that they've given you, and so you've gotten to know the patient a little bit. Help them, help them figure out how they can do this, right? Right? Because maybe they don't see it and maybe you do. And they say, well, maybe I can. But work with them. Make them understand and help them figure it out, how they're going to do it. And then when you get to money, once you get to money, God, do not give this to your CA. Okay. Now, once you have an agreement, okay, they're going to do option 1, 2, or 3, Once you have that agreement, then you hand off to the CA to do the minutiae, right? The scheduling. Like, you're not going to sit there and figure out their damn schedule with them, you know, but that's when you hand it off. But look, you have developed the rapport with the patient, okay? So if it's 20 visits and insurance covers 10 and there's $2,000 left to be covered, it's like, okay, Mrs. Jones, we have— we've got 3 ways to pay for this, okay? And we try to keep this simple. We understand this is an investment, but it's an investment in your health, okay? And so we take this very seriously, okay? Yeah. We have 3 ways to pay that $2,000. You can pay it all up front and you save 10%. Now, a lot of people do this because they love that savings. They want to save that $200. But if that doesn't work, we have a couple other options. You can break it up into 2 payments. Now, some people like to do this because they want to see, is this going to work for me? And so the first payment is due today, the second payment is due in 30 days. Now some doctors would be like, oh my God, is this going to work for me? Don't do that. Why? Why? Why be afraid of that? Or why put that out of the equation? Like, the patient's thinking that, okay? Especially if you're doing some type of functional medicine or disc or neuropathy, the patient is thinking, is this going to work for me? It's okay. To get that, you know, to get that 800-pound gorilla or the elephant in the room or whatever the hell you want to call it, it's okay to call that out, guys. It's like when you do that, you start to gain the trust of the patient. And we're not trying to manipulate that trust. We're just trying to be an ally for them. Okay? So I don't have any problem doing that whatsoever. So And— or it could just be, hey, it's just a financial thing. Yeah, you know, it'd be much easier for me to do $1,000 today and $1,000 in 30 days. Yeah. You know, so that's an option. Or, Mrs. Jones, look, I understand. I got a budget, you got a budget. If it would be easier to find a smaller monthly amount, we spread that out over 12 months, would that work for you? Like, what would that number look like? And then you just, you know, divide it by 12 and, okay, so it looks like it's going to be about $170 a month. Do Do you think that would work for you? Guys, they're just people. They're just like us. They have bills, they have kids, they have, you know, church on Sunday and they have, you know, talent shows and they got, you know, dinner to cook and lunches to make. They're just people, okay? Work with them. Help them. Help them. If you're there to serve and you want to make it work however it works best for the patient, you'll never worry about conversion. You'll never worry about new patients. You'll— and you'll always have patients that love you. Okay? Come from a place of caring. Now, number 3, future pace. And this is really coming from a place of caring. If you believe in your service so strongly And you know what's gonna happen with this patient if they do not take care now. Now, this is— some docs will call this a scare tactic. I call BS on that. This is using our experience and saying, hey, Mrs. Jones, look, I've been doing this for 10 years. I've seen— I've treated thousands of patients. I want you to know that this particular condition, like most conditions with the body, frankly, is it's degenerative in nature. It's most likely going to get worse. So if you're at a 7 out of 10 today and you're not able to do this, that, and the other, what's— what is it going to look like in 10 years or 5 years if you decide not to do this? I understand it's not inexpensive, but, you know, the fee is the fee. You know, the cost is the cost. We don't— we're not on the high side, we're not on the low side. We're just— we're a fair— we charge a fair fee for all our stuff we do. I also educate myself on a regular basis so that I bring the best information, techniques, and technology to get patients better. So the number's the number, but, you know, so if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. I get that. Do you want to do this? Like, that's— gosh, guys, that's a key question. Is this important to you, Mrs. Jones? Like, is it really? Is your health— Super important to you? Because if it's not, that, that's okay. That's okay. Then we can probably just stop now. If it's not important to you to move forward, then, you know, there's no use really discussing anything more. I really want to work with patients that are like, their health is super important to, to them because health is super important to me, and I'm trying to get those people better. If it's not important to you, that's okay. Please let me know that though. Right. So future pacing is not a scare tactic. It's getting really honest with the patient and telling them there could be a bad outcome from this, from doing nothing. And if they're okay with that, then you're okay with that. And then you just cut it short and you're done. Now, so that's the 3 things. 3 things. So keep it simple. People won't buy what they don't understand. And then future pacing. Now, I've got a little bonus one for you here. And this is a little woo-woo. Release the attachment to the yes. Okay. If you're coming from a place of caring, of really, you know, you believe in your product and service, if you want to help people get better, then nothing else matters, okay? You just need to release the attachment to the yes. It doesn't matter if your practice is in the dumps Or what? Like, you know, or if you— oh my God, I don't know what's going to happen if this patient doesn't sign up. Release all that crap. Leave it at the door. When you're sitting down with that patient, the only thing that matters is them and that you're going to deliver your protocol and your approach and why you're the best person to get them from where they're at now to where they want to be. Leave all that other crap and you just deliver that and release your attachment to that To the yes, and watch what it feels like to be able to, I'm not gonna even worry about that. All I wanna do is serve, and if it's right for them, and I can work through things with them, then they'll move forward. Okay, so that's it for this episode, guys. Hey, make sure you track all your stats too, right? So figure out last year, what was my new patient conversion? You know, if I had 10 people come in, how many people moved forward with care? And so then, continue to track forward so that you can make sure to continue to hone. Dude, we are professionals, right? Just like a professional athlete, like a professional football player, they train all week, and then they, or they practice all week, play on Sunday. Well, we're practicing 24/7, and then we play on our evaluations and report of findings, okay? So we gotta continue to hone our skills so we get better and better and better until we can become a master. So, this was episode 15, I think. 3 ways to improve your new patient conversion. Okay guys, if you haven't signed up yet or subscribed, please go ahead, subscribe, and you'll get notifications when the next video comes out. I usually do— I do these every week. And then also, if you haven't signed up for the DC's Mini MBA course, I highly, highly recommend you go do that. It's at leoneconsulting.co, and then what you'll— it's a 3-video lesson. We go into mindset, marketing, and systems. Okay, and I go in depth, about 30 to 40 minutes per video. It's great information, it's free, so have fun with that. Okay, I'm Dr. Vince. Thank you so much again for your time. I hope this was valuable for you, and I'll see you on the next episode. Take care. Bye.