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Hello and welcome to today’s show Growth Without Risk. My name is Dr. Janice Hughes, and I’m excited to be with you today. Um, a key focus of this show, you notice is the word growth and doing it in a way that you don’t feel that you have to be a risk taker. So I think ChiroSecure for really even putting together this show, sponsoring the show and multiple different hosts every week. And it’s really an honor to be able to participate, because I think it’s so important for you as a listener to think about how to grow yourself and how to grow your practice. Now, last month, I had a really wonderful conversation with Dr. Daniel Bai and to the point that I wanted to bring him back again today. So we could talk a lot more about sales. So please join me in welcoming Dr. Daniel Bai. So thanks Dan for coming back.
Hey, Janice. Good to see you again. Uh, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty cool to be asked back. Uh, yeah, we could have gone for two weeks the last time we were on the line. So thanks for having me today,
Commenting about, you know, okay. I get the importance of sales, but how, how and what kind of tools, like I wanted to give the example, because then I’m far more interested in your examples, but I brought with me today a little book that I know, you know, well, um, Jeffrey [inaudible], um, book, it’s basically like a little Bible about selling and you know, there’s another famous book as well. Augment Dino has the greatest salesman in the world. So let’s call it sales person in the world and, and thinking in terms of a couple of those resources, I’m more interested though. Tell me, tell me what you think is important for people because a lot of our listeners, they said last time, great, great content. I understand it. I understand the importance of sales, but I don’t know how to do it. So share with us, how do you help people do that?
Sure. So I’m going to backtrack on your intro about growth without risk. And I think that’s a wonderful distinction because classically people often think that selling is risky, that they’re risking the idea that they’re going to get rejected in the worst way possible. You know, modern sales is, ah, is not risky at all. It’s um, I guess before we get into the nitty gritty and the to-do, and we will cover those by the end of this call. So for those of you who like to get concept great, when we get to strategy, you’re going to just gobble this up. But conceptually modern sales is not risky at all because we’re essentially leading our people to make the right decisions for themselves. There’s nothing about that. You know, if we leave them to make the proper decisions and give them the best opportunities to make the right decisions, oftentimes they do because most of our clients are, or enjoying 90% and higher rates of conversion for people coming through the door, not knowing a single thing about chiropractic or what they do or how this fits into their life for themselves and their family.
They have no idea, right, Janice, but ultimately at the end of it, they’re saying yes to that particular thing. So again, it’s, non-risky, if you know what you’re doing, and if you put, if you approach sales with that antiquated old school of, I got to force my people to thinking this way, I have to help them. I have to force them to make a decision that they normally wouldn’t make on their own huge risk. And since we’re booked dropping Janice, I got my own favorite and this is, uh, Chris lights, the accidental sales person, uh, this, I think it was written for chiropractors. And in this book, they talk, he talks about the psychology of what happens to a person who goes through learning a trade. Okay. It could be chiropractic dentistry, medicine, whatever, and then ultimately thrown into the marketplace and said, and then you’re left to wonder, and you’re forced to contemplate this idea of, oh my God, I have to now sell this thing that I have learned how to do.
And, um, it’s a, it’s a wonderful stepping stone for anyone who’s new into the sales world, but the way he’s formulated in the book is, is just borderline genius. And I think everyone should pick that up. Um, and here’s the thing is that many of us, when it comes to sales, like we don’t even know where to start. So we just started you two great reads. Uh, if you go to Amazon, go to sales books, there’s no shortage of them. Um, and we’re going to start putting up a lot of our favorite reading, our favorite books to read on the topic, if you are indeed a reader. So, um, let’s just start there. Conceptually overview, you know, sales is a thing is something that you could learn. It’s not risky at all, if you know what you’re doing.
Right. Right. You know, and, and I think that you really highlighted this, it’s actually risky not to do sales, you know, not to understand it, like not to think about how do I become a better sales person, you know? And that’s, I think what we need to emphasize, like in 2022, we’re almost there. If you can believe it, like, like everybody wants to grow and you want to grow your business. Well, there is no better way than to just embrace this embrace. What is going on here?
Totally. And by the way, now we’re in the post COVID era, the marketplace is much more sensitive to bad sales, you know, cause their BS meters are so much more sensitive and the threshold is lower. Uh, so you got to really, really know what you’re doing. So, um, okay. So we can talk about conceptualizing sales forever. And I just did a talk at Sherman college. They had me over there for their Lyceum. And one of the things I talked about was the fact that, you know, sales is a topic of study and major business programs worldwide. You talk about Harvard business school, uh, Wharton school of business, Kellogg school of business. I mean, these are big name business schools that are teaching their undergraduates in their first year, the concepts of sales. And sometimes they call it different things. Sometimes they call it, you know, psycho economics or behavioral economics.
It’s a new buzz word right now, an academic business training, but ultimately that’s what they talk about. All right. Um, so just to kick us off on the to-do level stuff, you guys are listening to this. This is stuff that doc’s paid thousands of dollars to learn, and we’re just giving it to you here. Uh, because I am such a big fan of ChiroSecure. They are my malpractice carrier, uh, you know, Stu Hoffman and the team do a great job. Um, and they support what we support. So thank you for having me on and hosting and sponsoring the show. So, all right. So here’s the deal. Number one, when we are starting off with a new patient, that’s sitting in front of us, number one thing is getting out of this, this Headspace of, oh, they must understand chiropractic. They must understand what I do.
They must never ever think of chiropractic as this very low scope of practice. Just neck pain, back pain, whatever you don’t want them to think. You got to just put that outside the room for a second. Okay. Because most, oftentimes many chiropractors make the mistake of going to going into that room with an agenda on behalf of either what you do or the industry or the profession or what it should be. Or you have a green book tucked under your elbow, whatever it is, everyone comes in there with an agenda. And I’ll tell you right now, if you go in there with an agenda that is not based on what your patient wants, you’ve already lost. This is the cancer that is that perpetuates our industry. That, that ha that makes us suffer less than 50% close rates across the board. And that’s a crying shame.
We can’t, we can’t do that. So number one, you’ve got to leave that agenda outside. Okay. It’s not hard for most chiropractors because we want to help. So the agenda should be what, this is the internal question that we train our docs to go in with. What does this patient want? What does the person in the room want to for me, that’s it. And if we go in with that question, you see everything that is going to hurt. The process stays outside of the room, and now we’re only focused on what they want without judgment. Janice. You see what I’m saying? Like, yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. All right. All right. I’m going to go down a road that I may not come back from. So help me out here. So
I’ll reel him in. I’ll reel him in if he gets too far off.
So, and I laugh because it just, you know, this is what we struggle with, uh, with our clients every single day, they come in and you have a typical person with an acute lower back. Let’s just say, and they come in. And only thing that doc wants to do is connect that acute lower back with a visceral can common. I’m just making an example in their self-talk is okay. This acute lower back is probably contributing to the fact that they clicked off constipation, diarrhea, sexual dysfunction. Now we know philosophically scientifically there is a correlation, a connection to some degree, if not all right. Okay. We know that. But the problem is, is that the patient doesn’t know that. And the doc does everything in his or her power to connect an acute lower back issue with, with, let’s say a visceral concomitant. And they spend all their time and energy trying to connect that all the while being disconnected from that patient’s true. Want, need and desire. They’re out. Those are the people who say, Hey, Dr. Chavez, you know, I just don’t think this is for me or Dr. Janice. I want to go home and talk to my Fisher about it. Oh, Dr. Janice. I just think it’s a little too expensive. Like they’ll come with all the
That’s. Right? Because it feels like it’s so out here. And, and ultimately, like you said, that the myth in our profession is that we have to connect them to that bigness on day one. That’s the real myth. And I’m a philosophy diplomat. I studied under Fred barge. I’m a diplomat and I get it. They don’t care. And I’m not saying they will never not care because eventually those people that you help them with their need and you clearly help them. Now you’ve got them. Now they’re interested in all this other stuff, but yeah, like, so, so what Dan’s trying to say is you guys are all talking way, way, way out here and we get it. But that’s, if I’m a chiropractor coming to you and our patients are chiropractor.
No, they’re not. I mean, Janice, this ducks 30 years in practice still don’t get it. Why are we expecting our patients to get it in the first 10 minutes of meeting us? Okay.
That’s right. What they want to get is can you help my acute low back pain that you were just describing?
That’s it? Let me give you another example. I was in Del Ray beach this winter, and I went into a coffee shop. Okay. It was a mom and pop micro, or what do they call it? Um, you know, it was a coffee shop, uh, not the big box. It wasn’t like, you know, Starbucks or anything like that. So I walk in there and all they want is a simple cappuccino, Janice, all I want, all they want is a simple cappuccino. I smelled the, the roasted beans from down the block. I was like, you know what? I just like to get a cappuccino. I walk into the cappuccino store, this coffee shop, beautifully appointed. Um, they’re the big grocery machines in the back or behind glass and blah, blah, blah. And lo and behold, uh, behind the counter as the barista that day was the owner of this operation, young guy, maybe, you know, maybe mid thirties or whatever.
And, uh, I go out to the counter and I’m like, you know, uh, like a cappuccino and then the person checking out says, okay, um, so what would you like? You know, how, what size, blah, blah, blah. And then, uh, I guess news got out that the owner was working the barista because you know, he’s talking to everyone. He’s high-fiving is like, oh, so I go over there and he’s like, um, so what is, what does this gentlemen want talking to me? He’s like, oh, he wants a cappuccino. And then I asked a question, well, like, uh, what can I have the can I have half and half instead of milk? Like, I like to have a Burbank. And he’s like, well, you could, and then goes into this whole frigging diatribe of the chemistry between the half and half, how it interacts with the acidity of the, of the espresso bean and how the temperature needs to be. Right in pretty much grabbed me Janice for a good seven minutes and getting coffee seven minutes. Isn’t Aternity, it’s forever. And he tells me why this, you know, I shouldn’t have bravery. I should use skim milk. And I’m like, oh my God, you’re going to blow the sale. You’re going to blow it for me.
Coffee.
It’d be my effing cappuccino and I’m out. But instead he blows it and I seriously, I, I couldn’t cook because I teach this stuff. I couldn’t in good faith, buy a cappuccino from this guy sort of really, really smart guy. I’m sure he knows his stuff about cappuccinos, Janice. I couldn’t buy it by principle. I had to leave.
Yeah. And for chiropractors hearing this and understanding that, like, that’s how our patients feel like in that moment where they’re almost like, why am I here? Like I kept the very beginning. If you don’t understand an anchor that back pain, as much as we know the bigness, but if we don’t in that first piece of the sales process, now you’ve already lost them or you are losing them so much that it’s hard to gain it.
Oh, no doubt about it. And, uh, so we’ll here since we’re myth busting today, Janice, you know, the myth is the typical thinking is, you know, we talk people into buying, okay. Now we listen people into buying. So the number one thing is you’re probably, if you’re having troubles, getting people to say yes to your recommendations and your fees, most likely, it’s not about what you’re saying. It’s all about what you’re not supposed to say. So the typical thing I’m sure I’ve shared her year before is STFU stopped talking right. All about what they want and that’s it. So before we run at a time, when I give some, if it’s okay, some do levels of stuff that didn’t get to your last time. Okay. All along the lines of, uh, STFU and do level, uh, things is number one, asking an open-ended question on why they’re there.
Okay. Old school coaching consulting has always said things like, Hey, when you see your new patients say, and who might go, something like this, oh, um, you know, Sally, thank you for coming to my office. I want to let you know that chiropractic is about finding the underlying reason of why you have the problem. It’s not so much about how you’re feeling. It’s all about how you’re healing. So my purpose today is to figure out if there are any subluxation complexes that are preventing your nervous system from expressing itself at 100% function, that is actually been taught instead of telling them what they want. How about we just ask them an open-ended question. Hey, Sally, what brings you in? And that STFU, and I tell you just doing that one thing, they will let you know that what they really want and in your job at that point is to listen.
And it’s going to be very rudimentary, very elementary. Yeah. And you have to get over that. It’s a fundamental problem they have, and you must engage that head on. Yeah, doc, you know, I have his lower back thing. I just, oh God, it’s just, it usually goes away by now, but it’s only, it’s been like four days and it hasn’t resolved itself. Like it’s like it has all the other times. Great. Got it. Right now. All you’re talking about now is that lower back pain, because understand that people’s understanding of what you provide grows and swells over time. If they feel like their immediate need want, and desire is met Katie and quote me on that one. They will never see the bigness unless they’re immediate want need, or desire is met. An infant. Baby will never learn how to crawl, speak. If they’re not fed.
If they’re not slept, if they’re not nursed, make sense. Math Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Like this is how it works. And this applies to the sales process. So that’s number one, ask an open-ended question, ask them why they’re here. STFU, take it all in. There’s going to be one and maybe two deep want, need or desire that your patients will just give to you. And your job is to take that all the way to completion. All right. So the other thing I want to talk about that’s okay with you. Janice is the finances. This typically messes a lot of docs up on how to present finances and go through all these gymnastics on how to present finances. And, um, now more than ever docs, the marketplace wants efficient, bare bones, fundamental, um, unadulterated. I I’m running out of adjectives here, but they want simple get to the point. How much is it? That’s what they want back in the day. We’ve had to be so circum, loquacious on how we get to the finances and how to justify our fees. And lately, if you go through that very convoluted way on presenting your finances, whether insurance and cash or something in between your teeth, clicking off their BS meter saying that’s way too complicated.
Doesn’t feel right about the way this person is presenting how much things are. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. I’m not going to do this. That’s what we’re risking. Yep. Think about buying a car, but you guys understand that this concept, right? I mean, Janice, right? Like if you’re going to buy something, don’t you want to know as a consumer, get to the point, tell me how much it is and let’s get on with it. That’s what they want.
Well, even using that example of cars gone are the old days where like, well, but maybe I could sell it for this. Maybe it could be that like, like everything now is like, based on, I don’t know, what do they call it? The blue book or whatever. Like, like you can Google search that, you know? So, so I go in to buying a car now in a very different way than it was 20 years ago. Well, likewise, you’re describing like, like get to the point, like let’s not make it so convoluted that all of a sudden people were losing them just because of the money conversation.
Totally. And people lose it there all the time. You’ve done everything. Right. And then number one, doctors freak out because we’re talking about finances. Let’s engage that one. Yes. You internally freak out when it comes to presenting finances, mainly because you don’t have a set system to present the finances that works more often than not. Okay. So I’m going to give it to you here. This is how you present finances. All right. This is the actual way that we teach our clients to do that, do this, that paid thousands of dollars to, to learn from us. And this is how we teach it. Hey, Janice, the total cost of care for you is X. This is how much it would be. If you paid every single time that you came, I have a couple of options. The first option is Y if that doesn’t work, the other option is Z between those two options, Janice, which one of those work best for you?
That’s it? Yeah. I know for some of you, I can read their minds right now. That’s too simple. Yeah, I know. But that’s just how it goes. Yeah. Simplify your presentations of finances. Give your people just two options to pick from. You may think you’re doing them a disservice because you’re not giving them options. No, you’re giving them a disservice by giving them too many options, give them two options, have them pick because they will be empowered to know that they’ve made a decision instead of pick a decision that you want for them. And then you move on, that’s it?
Yeah. And, and, and for everybody listing, like you can see that what Dr. Dan is giving are like really concrete, actionable steps. Like we want to make sure we provide you, obviously all these resources, great books. Um, Dan, I’m going to ask you to close and kind of share, like, why would someone even now spend a weekend with you guys and the program that you do? You know, I can, even before we have you close, say, how would you not do that? Like, like Dr. Daniel Baez describing that in every business management business program business course, they talk about the sales process. And unfortunately in a professional school, like chiropractic, we don’t and recognize that even your experience in student clinic in main clinic, like you’re not going through those things. So for my perspective, that, that’s why, you know, but Dan, I know our time again is, is already coming to a close, but you’ve shared a lot of tools, a lot of books, a lot of resources. What can you leave people with?
Ah, yes. So thanks for that Genesis. And, um, uh, number one, uh, except that sales is a thing like, so it’s something that you have to learn how to do. Okay. And like any great art, science, and philosophy, which sales is cause we’re dealing with and working with people, it can be very complex. And so, uh, my story began when I first graduated school. And I mean, I, I must have seen over a hundred something new patients over the course of like three or four months. And, uh, I, I literally, I, I remember, uh, only a handful of those hundred or so new patients actually started with me now, the rejection was relentless. And, um, it almost got me out of the profession until I realized that I had a sales problem. And that started my journey over the next, you know, over decade to figure out like, what is it that in?
Why do people say yes to things that either or even bad for them, which chiropractic is not. So you need to engage that. Now, if you want to save yourself some time, you know, we’ve already done all the work for you. And a lot of our clients just liked the fact that they could get this information on their own. They could beta test it in their offices, but we’ve just set it up. So the, Hey, do this, do this, do this, do this. It’s an incredibly easy template to follow. That is not personality dependent. And that’s another thing is that I don’t care if you’re an introvert, an extrovert, you have teeth missing, your eyes are asymmetrical. Like this works for everyone because you’re following the rules that dictate how and how someone connects to something that could, that they want need and desire and how to do that as quick as possible. So, yeah, Janice. Yeah, we do that in a weekend. Great. Awesome. But that’s just a start because that gives you everything you need to continue developing, um, you know, your, I guess your salesmanship, uh, over the course of your career, which is again, probably the most important thing for the modern business.
Absolutely. So, you know, for all of you listening, like please know, we think this is like so pivotal and so important. That’s why we’ve done a couple of shows based on this, you know, embrace sales, understand that this is really key in your healthcare business. I call it a business. You know, you’re a chiropractor, an acupuncturist listening, whatever your healthcare specialty, but it is a business. So thank you so much to Dr. Daniel Bai and Close for Chiro, please, by all means, check the links, check them out. I also want to say, thank you for listening. We’ve gone a little longer today. Um, next week’s show will be, um, Mike Miscoe again, please stay tuned for that. Thank you all for listening and have a wonderful day.