Handling Financial Conversations

Foreign.

It's Michael King, and I am here with my good friend Troy Cole. How are we all doing today, Troy?

Fantastic, sir. Thank you very much.

All right, today we have a topic that I know a lot of practices are going to want to know more about, and that is how to handle the financial conversation, which is happening every single day in their practice. And I think that this is a huge area that, if they focus on, can pay positive returns into their clinic and whatnot. As far as just how to be able to handle the conversation on the phone, how to handle it in clinic, and how, frankly, not to get scared of having this conversation. What are your thoughts initially before we kick into the content?

Price is only an issue in the absence of value. Okay. I want to say that. Did you set the table here? Price is only an issue in the absence of value. So the way that we communicate value and the way that we talk about price, quite frankly, is what really sets that tone and the context of price in the patient's mindset. Okay. Left to their own devices, a lot of people would say, well, price is the biggest thing. That's why it's the most common question people ask. People also don't know what other questions to ask, and so that's why they ask it. But that's why people start there, and they get fixated there. They think, well, this is at least something I know about, and I can start to categorize people based on price. But I'm telling you, price is an issue in the absence of value. So we will be talking about creating value in the way that we present and communicate about our practice in order to make price not a priority to your prospective patients.

And it's also, you know, just something just to kick into right away. Just because somebody asks how much something costs on a telephone doesn't necessarily mean that you need to respond with exactly what the price is in the moment. That's just like, I don't know what else to ask. To your point, Troy, and how much does it cost? Great. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions first? Going back to what we talked about, which is rapport building, asking questions, you know, you want to understand where somebody's at. Like, and in one of the prior videos we mentioned, like, the car dealership, if you will, you know, you don't pick up the phone, call a dealership, and they tell you the price within 30 seconds.

Right?

Like, it's like you want to be able to build value and actually find out where that human being is at. However, one of the key points I know we both believe in is transparency, right? And being organic and being real and giving people answers to the questions that they have in the appropriate time is important. Any initial thoughts from the mindset of transparency you want to touch on?

We're not scared of our prices. You're not scared of your price. Some of your team may feel scared of your price. We are not afraid of our prices. We're actually proud of what we charge because what we charge allows us to do what we do without cutting any corners. So in terms of transparency, starting with your team, not scared of it.

You know, and the other thing is just again, getting into the mindset of, of understanding that what are we doing, we're helping that human being to change their life. And the think of the value of being able to affect, positively affect someone's experience in life. You know, you can spend $15,000 on a vacation to wherever it may be, but if you're able to invest 5,000 or 15 grand or whatever the number is in yourself, that affects every waking moment that you have in your life. And think about that. That, to me, can make a huge difference. And we'll talk about financing and how to be able to position that. But, like, it doesn't even necessarily need to be about, here's the end amount that you're going to pay. You could also break it down into, you know, here's the amount that it cost you per day or monthly payments or the affordability we've got. And I know that that's, you know, kind of more about the, the, the tactical side, but, like, being comfortable with and being proud of what you charge, I think is a really key mindset that practices need to have. Any thoughts?

I like the reducing anxiety piece, though, man. Let's talk about reducing anxiety. Because money, money price or whatever can be like an elephant in the room. You're not supposed to talk about, you're not supposed to talk about money in mixed company or how much you make or how much things cost, like it's in general in society considered a somewhat taboo subject, which is, it's kind of silly, right? But that's just, that's just naturally how it is. But when we are transparent about what our pricing is and we'll talk about what that, you know, what that looks like. But when we communicate clearly about costs and what people are going to be spending and how it fits into their budget, that alleviates a lot of that anxiety that can be inside of them. I mean, ultimately, it's less about how much Is this and more about how can I afford this and fit this into my budget is really the mindset approach that we want to have. When somebody's comfortable with the way that they can fit it in their budget, we're able to reduce the anxiety on the patient's part and really focus on what's most important, like picking the right surgery, picking the right surgeon and making sure that you're comfortable and empowered and understand everything that's going to happen. That's where they need to be focused. The way we look at money is it's just another logistical issue we have to cover. We got to figure out when you're going to schedule. Like that's a logistics thing. When's this going to fit into your schedule? And then we got to figure out the money part. How does it fit into your budget? We figure those things out, make it happen for you. It's going to be great, right? That's how big of a deal it should be.

You know, I want to like just touch on a topic I talked to in a previous video and that has to do with recognizing that people are coming to your website and they're searching online. You know, if you think about the different procedures you've got, on the one side you've got a very, I would say mature procedure as far as what the general public know about in LASIK and whatnot. And on the other side you've got more lens based procedures like refractive lens exchange or CLR where they maybe aren't as solution aware, people don't really know exactly what that procedure does and whatnot. So what I'm saying to you is that if you're thinking about your website and you're thinking about people that are going there and frankly want to know what XYZ procedure costs. Well, I treat people who are wanting LASIK pricing different than people who want refractive lens exchange or I would even dare say ICL pricing. Why do I do that? Because someone. So the approach that we take is, you know, they give us their first name, last name, email, phone number and that starts a conversation. You know, we can debate whether or not you want to put actual pricing on your website. I generally don't like to. I like to use that as a way to have a conversation with people. But we then would let them know in a text or whatnot. But on the confirmation page after they've opted in, we have a nice welcome video. We let them know that the video or the text with their pricing is coming. And I do that for the Lasik side on the refractive lens exchange side. You know what I do, Troy, is I do something a little bit different where instead of just giving them the actual price, because why don't want to be careful of that? Because let's be honest, refractive lens Exchange is a 14, $15,000 plus procedure. So what we do is we instead say, you will get our refractive lens exchange pricing, but we are first going to send you, we're going to send you a video that gives you that right. So in that video, it has what is refractive lens exchange? How having RLE means you'll never get a cataract for the rest of your life. You know, can it treat astigmatism? What options are available, et cetera, as well as how much does it cost? Information about insurance coverage and affordable financing options. Why do I do that? Because people don't really even know what that procedure is. So you can use that video to kind of educate them a little bit and then still give them what they want on the back end. So it's still being transparent. But recognize, just because they ask for pricing, don't necessarily have to give it to them right away, especially for a procedure that they don't know a lot about. So you can maybe educate them with video content as well. And so that's just sort of like a little bit of a wrinkle that I put in is treating people a little bit differently. Same thing with icl. You could potentially still let them know what it costs, but use that video content we talked about. I could interview surgeons. We use webinar content or zoom content that I've interviewed the doctors to be able to add value. So that way they're at least, oh, okay, I now see the value of doing this. And, oh, it costs that. That's the investment for it. It makes a lot more sense to them. So I know there's a lot that was wrapped into that, but I think that's a digital way to be able to handle the conversation. Let's pivot to talk about the phone. So Jane Doe is picking up the phone and, you know, like. Or they're. They're calling the practice. What are some of the things that you recommend that the practice do as far as handling that financial conversation on the telephone or in clinic? Any thoughts?

The mindset around the phone should always be 911 operator. And here's what I mean by that. 911 operator, right? If somebody calls 911 and they say, yeah, my house is burning, we're not going to sit there and let them ask us a bunch of questions. I'm not going to let them lead the conversation. And I'm certainly not going to wrap it up by saying, like, well, next step would be, you know, you could, we could come out and put that fire out if you want, just let us know. Right. Like, I'm going to take control of that. And this goes for every call, including every question, including the pricing call. If somebody calls your office or somebody comes in through the website or whatever it, they're reaching out with a problem. There's not a single lead that your team is going to reach out to that hasn't reached out to you first. And somehow some form or fashion raised their hand and said, hey, I got an issue and I really need some help solving it. Right. Every person that you try to connect with has made that signal to you. And so that's how we need to treat it. Same thing with pricing. If somebody calls and asks about pricing, what do you guys charge for? So. And so it's very important that we take control of that conversation. And again, we, we've used the analogy of the car dealership. I'm not going to call a car dealership and say, what do you charge for a car? Right. That's not a good piece of information to ask. And they can't really answer it until they know what kind of car I'm looking for. Right. You offer 4, 5, 6, 7 different procedures. How do you even know what they qualify for? Even if they've had a Lasik consult somewhere else, doesn't mean that you don't have a procedure that's better for them and their eyes and their future than what somebody that just does Lasik will do. And, and so very, very important to understand that. Okay? And if somebody calls us and they ask us price and he's like, well, Troy, that doesn't sound like transparency to me. Hear me out here, okay? Hear me out, because transparency seems like you asked me the price. I tell you, here's the problem. And we call it the legal sheet problem. Okay, let's say I've got a legal sheet on my desk and I call five practices and I ask every one of them price, and they all give me price. Now I've got my legal pad and I've written down five practice names and five prices beside each. The question is, is that person now more equipped to make a smart, intelligent decision about their healthcare with the information that they have? Yeah, absolutely not. They're not. And in fact, they may make a worse decision if they're deciding based purely on price. And so it is a disservice to your prospective patients to simply give them the price and let them go about their own devices to figure out and decipher how to make this decision. We've got to teach them how to make that decision.

Just because somebody asks price, and I've said this before in our video, just because that's the first question they ask does not mean that's the first question you answer.

Right?

And it's like being able to. If you were out of rapport with somebody. And some of the. Let me back up. If you're out of rapport with somebody, giving them the price allows them to exit that conversation right away. And you're not serving that human being to the highest level if you don't help them to make a decision. And if they don't have all the facts and sort of the important information about what makes your practice unique, and you're just giving them the, well, we charge XYZ for this procedure. You're not serving them. And, you know, the only way that people can actually be able to move their lives forward is if they make a decision. We want to help them to be able to make a decision. Right.

And so which means, which means you have to teach them how to make the decision. You have to teach them how to think. Now, some of you are watching this video and it's like, man, this is kind of heady. Like, can't we just get, like, some scripting around this? I'm telling you, this is monumentally important. I want you to hear this. I want you to rewatch this video three or four times. Share it with your entire team. Because what we're talking about here has ripple effects throughout the entire practice, across every question, every patient. Teach people how to make a decision. And in the context of price, that means overshadowing the pricing conversation. Okay, it does not need to be the elephant in the room, but as you educate folks and you're asking them questions about their problems and you're sharing some of the solutions that you have and what's important when it comes to selecting a surgeon who's going to do a procedure on your most precious sense, that's going to affect every waking moment of your entire life, once they start to learn that and they start to learn how to think about it, pricing all of a sudden does not become the defining factor for where they decide to go. So whether you're charged, you, you, you know, your, your bottom basement prices, which I hope you're not. Or you're one of the higher priced clinics in the, in the market. Okay. Which you should be. Ultimately, your patients are going to save thousands of dollars when they have the procedure relative to spending on contacts and glasses for the next 15, 20, 30 years. Okay. They're going to save money. This is a good investment for them, but we have to educate them on how to make that decision, how to choose where to make that investment. So that price is not the number one factor on the list. It's number 10. Is it? Is it a factor? Yeah, sure. But it's not the most important one. People don't understand that until you teach them.

I love that you use the word investment twice. Almost as much as, like that. You use the word dossier in the previous video. Yeah, but hey, I use plethora, so we're all good.

I.

What's that?

It is an investment, right? A cost is something that takes away from you the cost of doing business, the cost of the repair. You have to give something up in order to get back to where you were. Right? That's a cost. This, this isn't. There's no cost to the surgery. The cost is what you continue to dump month after month, year after year into glasses and contacts. Right? That's the cost, the investment. How you get out of that, how you stop renting your vision and actually buy it and own it, is what we're offering your patients.

You know what, let's talk. Let's dig into the actual patients in front of us and you're presenting them the investment for the procedure. Any thoughts on let's talk about financing? So there's amazing financing options that are out there. Obviously CareCredit is one of the absolute best that's in our space. And I think that that's something that a lot of practices or a lot of people don't necessarily know how to be able to handle that, that part of that conversation, anything you wanted to touch base on, on, like when somebody is actually in front of them, how to be able to, especially during challenging times, handle that financial conversation. As far as financing, well, again, people.

Need to be able to fit this into their budget, right? Which means CareCredit is one of the best tools that you have in your tool belt to pull that out. Okay, back to the car analogy. Like, not many people are going down and dropping $50,000 on a new car. You're just not whipping out cash and doing it. Some people do. That's totally fine, but it's not common. It's not Standard. Most people don't even pay cash for their new phones. They just go into AT&T. That's how I got. I go in. I broke my phone. I go in, I'm like, I need a new phone. They're like, all right, cool. What do you want? Okay, great. Awesome. Yeah, it's going to be 40 bucks a month. We'll put that on your bill. Well, I don't know how much this phone is.

That's exactly right. You don't know how much you paid for the phone. You know what your monthly amount is?

Yeah, well, I need a phone. It's 37 bucks on my bill. Cool. Yeah, give it to me. Get me out of here. Like, that's what I want and I'm gone. Right. I don't know. Just. Just go straight to the payment. Go straight to the payment. Here's the procedure the surgeon's recommending for you. Right. Hopefully you had a good handoff. Everything's good. They got all their questions answered. We're sitting down to figure this stuff out. Here's the procedure that was recommended for you. The. This procedure starts at X dollars a month in terms of. With our affordable. Our affordable payment plans, we can go ahead and apply for that right now in the office. It'll take two minutes. Or you can do it on your phone or, you know, however you want to present that. Again, going back to, like, the legal aspects of your state. I'm not a lawyer. Michael's not a lawyer. But the point is leading with that and making sure that fits in their budget. All right, cool. We're good to go. You know, if somebody says, like, well, what's the cash price? What if you have a cash discount? Do you do anything? Like, tell them that's fine, but start by fitting it into their budget. Start by trying to fit this into their life. Yep.

Taking control of that conversation and a couple other minor issues. You know, obviously you want to know when a patient's coming in, what sort of insurance coverage they may or may not have. I think that that's. Obviously, that's an obvious one, but I think that, you know, finding out that information, you know, I've actually seen, you know, with what's amazing, like, there's certain companies that actually pay certain percentage towards a procedure, certain unions, for example, that actually will pay for their members to have vision correction. So it's just a. It's a minor tweak, but it's something that you generally want to know because, you know, that can actually really be able to help reduce the investment for the procedure for that patient.

Troy.

Scripting. Let's talk about this. Let's lead right into just anything from the financial conversation, scripting side that.

Just.

Just any tips you have as far as how to be able to handle that on the phone or in the actual clinic.

Well, we've touched on that a couple of different ways. Right. But I mean, scripting in general. Yeah. Have some base scripting that you want to go with now. You don't want scripting that's so rigid that somebody sounds like a robot and they've memorized it and they're reciting it again. That's. That is. That is not connecting with a prospective patient that's in front of you. You gotta be able to lay this out and then read the patient. What are they saying? What's their reaction? What does that look like? Right. Some people are going to say, oh, that's it. That's the monthly payment. Fantastic. Some people are going to say, I don't need financing if I just want to buy it, what is it outright? Right. Tell them that's fine. Take it where it needs to go. But make sure that you have some scripting and that you're practicing that scripting. Okay. This needs to be something that, again, we talked about role playing in another video. Make sure that you're role playing these things and you're getting comfortable having these conversations. You want your staff to be desensitized to these pricing questions. Okay. It's just a logistics issue. This is where a lot of that mindset coaching that we talked about comes in. We do a lot of work around this in our coaching community. People need to be desensitized, which means being comfortable having the conversation, being comfortable with the scripting that they're going to use as a foundation. Right. Not as something they're going to sit there and memorize and spit out, but as a foundation for the conversation. But make sure that they are comfortable and they're desensitized to having the conversation. And it really is just another. Another checkbox that we got to check off.

And it allows them to be highly and actively empathetic, recognizing where that human being is at, their life, and being able to meet them on that front. You know, I think that that's such a. If you're able to, you know, to not be thinking about your own, sort of like, I'm uncomfortable having this conversation, but you're actually able to be present to the other human being and really understand where they're at and meet them in their Life, that amount of empathy and rapport pays huge dividends because again, to what Troy said earlier is that people, when they experience the value that, you know, you don't remember the cost.

Right.

You don't remember what you're paying, if you will. And I think that the more that you can be in rapport and the more that you can be empathetic to that person makes a huge difference. Any comments?

One more piece on this. Get creative and teach your patients how to be creative. Going back to teaching them how to make the decision. People are not inherently creative in scenario, first of all, in general, but certainly not in scenarios that are new to them, that are foreign to them. People don't know that you can combine three different forms of payment plans, for example, Right. Like, they don't know that you can put a thousand bucks on your credit card, you can use that FSA money you have, and then you can finance the rest. And it's like, oh, I could do that. Yeah, we have people that do that all the time. Totally. We can make that happen for you. It'd be easy, Right. They just don't. They don't know they want the thing and they want to accomplish it. But sometimes you're the one that's got to get creative and say, like, let's. If you want this, let's figure out a way that we can make this happen and really lay out that plan.

Yeah, I don't know why I'm feeling this urge to do more Arnold impersonations, but we probably should before we close this out. Right?

I want to close. Don't be scared of your pricing. Alrighty.

We are kind of nearing the end, Troy, of this video and hopefully people have gotten nuggets galore on how to be able to handle, you know, the various different conversations that are handling having that they are having in their clinic. And more importantly, being able to leverage a lot of the hidden assets that they have right at their fingertips. Like, I think the most important thing to kind of circle back onto what we said in the introduction, which is that you really want to be able to implement what we are saying. And there's. This is a lot of strategy, but now it comes down to. To you and how you were able to implement that. And if you would like to have a conversation again, no pitch, really, just two guys wanting to serve you to the highest level CareCredit spot. An hour of our time for the two of us to sit down with you in your practice and kind of find out where things are at and what's the approach that you need to customize for your specific situation on how to be able to kind of, you know, go to that next level, that proverbial next level in your practice. Troy, anything else? I want to give you the last word, my friend.

Yeah, I mean, even with pricing, right? I mean, we only have so much that we can get into here, but there are different permutations of that. How much is it? Wow, that's expensive. I wasn't expecting to pay that much for this procedure. I thought I was going to go for another procedure. Like, there's different areas where pricing comes into play, and that's what we help our clients navigate. And like I said, we do it. We do a ton of coaching around this as well. So if you've got specific questions about pricing or anything else that we've mentioned across this series of videos, jump on a call with Michael and I. You'll get informed, you'll get some great takeaways, and I promise you'll be entertained. Okay?

It's going to be a lot of.

Fun, and we'd love to meet you. Okay. So let's do that. Appreciate your time. As you've watched these again, I've said it. You've heard me say it. But share these with other. Other members of your team. The mindset stuff that we talked about here, all those different pieces of, you know, making sure that we're desensitized against price. Price is only an issue in the absence of value. All those little nuggets, man, are so, so valuable once your team adopts those and makes them their own. So make sure that you're sharing this with your team or take notes out of this and use it in your team huddles, okay? We want you to take this content, and we want you to implement it, okay? And if you run into bumps, if you run into issues or you have other questions, reach out to us. We are here for you every single step of the way. All right? We'd love to talk to you.

Thanks so much for your attention, everyone. Looking forward to chatting with you soon. Bye. Gu.

Sam.