Four weeks ago I published an article discussing the common dental office problem that there are some dental practice team members who find it difficult to have conversations with patients that come to their practice.
And there are serious ramifications for those practices that have team members who cannot conduct a conversation between each of their patients and each of themselves.
Patients of the practice will only tolerate being ignored for a certain number of times before they start feeling that they should take their dental business to someone else.
Last week, and the Tuesday before, and the Tuesday before that, I wrote about three of the four great ways that every staff member can quickly and easily become a conversational guru, no matter how shy or quiet or reserved they are, or they think they are.
These four great ways involve being able to converse with any patient at any time on any one of four very straightforward topics.
Today I will conclude with the fourth and final topic that your team members can use to strike up a meaningful conversation of any length with every patient who visits your practice.
Bucket Lists
Everybody has a list of things they would love to do if they could.
Places they would love to visit, if they could.
Events they would like to attend, if they could.
Things they would like to attempt, or try, if they dared to, or if they could.
That list may be long, or it may be short.
It may only be one thing.
But it’s still a list.
A list of aspirations.
Some people are very private about their aspirations. Others are quite open…
But we all have aspirations.
We all have a bucket list.
Where would you go, if you could, anywhere in the world?
“Do you have plans to travel?”
“Where would you go, if you could, anywhere in the world?”
“What places are on your bucket list?”
“Why there?”
“How long have you been wanting to go there?”
“Have you been there before?”
“What was it like?”
“Do you think it has changed?”
“What do you think it will be like?”
Some people want to go back to places they have been to before. These may be places they have holidayed, they may be places where they have lived previously or even places where they spent their childhood…
These places may have certain nostalgic and sentimental values.
And people love to talk about these places, and their reasons for wanting to return there.
You just need to know how to prompt these people to tell you more…
“Tell me about that”
“Sounds wonderful…”
Events they’d like to attend
When I meet Americans and other foreigners, I’m surprised at how many of them want to come to Australia to attend the Australian Open Tennis.
And I do know people who have travelled to the USA to attend The Masters in Augusta. [that’s golf]
I know people who have attended the Open Championship in Scotland and England. [that’s golf too]
And I know others who have travelled to the Chelsea Flower Show.
Attending a musical on Broadway [in New York] or London’s West End is also high on people’s Bucket List.
Or just seeing Paul McCartney in Concert?
Or climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge?
What about sitting in the front row to watch Les Misérables? How would that feel?
Or just being able to fly overseas and knock on the front door of a relative, and say:
“Hi, I was just in the neighbourhood…”
It’s very easy.
It is very easy…
When you use the F.O.R.D. principle for starting a conversation, you can talk to anyone for hours and hours, and simply ask them a series of questions and just sit back and listen to them talk.
And it’s all about the F.O.R.D.
F.O.R.D. is an acronym for:
Family
Occupation
Recreation
Dreams and Desires
These are the four subjects we have covered today, and over the past three weeks.
When you use the F.O.R.D. method, when you equip yourself, or your team members with the knowledge and the skills of using F.O.R.D., what you will find is that whoever you are talking to will happily divulge the answers to all the questions you throw at them about any of those four subjects.
It really is that easy.
And in business, using F.O.R.D. is a game changer.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Recently I engaged a firm to do a few odd jobs around my property.
Firstly I needed a paddock slashed urgently so that a fence could be installed.
I also needed some trees mulched and some firewood split and some minor fencing repairs done.
A young horticulturalist was engaged to do the slashing and then later, to do some of the other work.
But here’s what gets me cranky….
After the initial two visits the attention to detail and the completion of tasks became less and less.
In fact here’s what happened the last time the guy was booked to do a day’s work. Here’s the instruction I gave him:
“When you come on Friday, can you repair some fences (wire and gripples) and also install about 100m of electric on existing fences (I have the unit but you will need the wire and some more hooks/attachments).
And move that mulch from one paddock to the planted Leightons (small job), and then if you have time can you block and split some wood?
Thanks mate
David”
Here’s what I received as he left at 1pm that day…
“Hey mate I’ve moved the mulch and put it into the gardens it just needs to be spread. I’m just heading off now so I’ll put I finished at 5hrs. I will send Steven to do the fence next week for you as it’s spring now and everything is growing so I’ll be doing a lot more of the horticultural/green keeping maintenance until it all dies off again.”
Three weeks later and no one has come to do the fence repairs. The guy sends me a message because I haven’t paid his bill…..
I replied:
“Mate
Still waiting for you to come back and finish the job… you left at 1pm with the job unfinished after I went and got all the clips for the electric fence.
You told me in SMS that you’d have Steve finish it the next week… that was two weeks ago.
Happy to pay when the job is finished.
But it’s not finished.
There’s plenty of work here for you…
Fences. Wood splitting. Mulching.
If you’re going to be running a business you need to back up your words with actions.
Happy to pay you when you finish this job.
BUT, if you’re going to pick and choose and be on social media pitching for jobs while you haven’t finished what you said you’d do, you’ll really make a rod for your back.
Let me know what day you’re coming back”
I think that’s only fair.
I’m happy to pay in full once the original tasks are completed.
But I don’t believe someone racking off at lunchtime with a full day’s list of tasks as incomplete deserves to be rewarded for their doggy behaviour.
How do people even think this is reasonable business practice?
The guy should never have said he would do the work if he never intended to complete what he said he would.
The trouble is, choosing hired help is like biting into an apple. Sometimes you don’t know the apple is bad until you’ve committed and taken that first bite.
And it’s not just tradesmen…
Years ago I decided to have laser eye surgery. I visited a local ophthalmic surgeon who convinced me that PRK surgery was a better alternative than Lasik.
I took his advice and committed to having the first eye done by him using PRK.
The 28 days post-operative were the most painful four weeks of my life. My eye felt as though it had been stabbed with a dagger, and I could not tolerate any direct sunlight for the first 14 days.
I decided to investigate Lasik as an option for my other eye.
The postoperative period was uneventful and the day after surgery I was able to drive an hour each way in glorious summer sunshine for the surgeon to review the outcome.
Obviously I felt deceived and misled by the first ophthalmic surgeon.
And disappointed.
Sometimes people will bend the truth to get any work they can…
Sometimes people will bend the truth to get any work they can, when it’s really not in the best interests of the customer.
Endodontics is a great example.
Endodontists will tell you that most of their work is fixing things that have gone wrong when general dentists get in over their heads…
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Three weeks ago I published an article discussing how some dental practice team members always struggle having conversations with the patients that come to their practice.
And there are serious consequences for dental practices that have team members who cannot master the art of conversation between each of their patients and each of themselves.
Because patients will only tolerate being ignored for a certain number of times before they start feeling that maybe they should take their dental business somewhere else.
Last week, and the week before, I wrote about two of the four great ways that every staff member can quickly and easily become a conversational guru, no matter how shy or quiet or reserved they are.
These four great ways involve being able to converse with any patient at any time on any one of four very straightforward topics.
Today I will continue with the third topic that your team members can use to strike up meaningful conversations of any length with every patient who visits your dental practice.
Recreation
By “recreation”, I guess. I really mean to say:
EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES.
Sports. Hobbies. And pastimes.
Here’s a good icebreaker:
“What have you got planned for the weekend?”
“Got any plans for the long weekend?”
“How was your weekend?”
“What did you get up to on the weekend?”
“How was your vacation?”
“What did you get up to?”
“How was that?”
And then we can go a couple of layers deeper:
When they tell you about an activity they did, or have plans to do, you can always say:
“That sounds interesting…”
“Have you been doing that long?”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Is it easy to do?”
“How did you get started in that?”
These comments or questions are very relatable to most sports played, to most hobbies, and to most pastimes.
But sometimes we need to be alert, because patients can have some pastimes that relate to OFF TOPIC topics that we may not be aware of.
For example, women who engage in the pastime of dragon boat racing do so because the actions involved in being a member of the rowing crew of a dragon boat are very beneficial to women recovering from breast cancer surgery.
Sometimes when people have to travel….
Sometimes when patients travel, they are actually travelling to participate in an event or attend a show or a conference related to a particular sport, or hobby or pastime.
A trip to a big city may be to attend a horse race, or a trade show, or a sporting event or a sporting gathering.
I remember my first appointment with a new hairdresser, many years ago:
It was the Thursday before a long weekend [that’s a three-day weekend for my American friends, where the Monday is a Public Holiday]
The new hairdresser, a man maybe six or seven years younger than me, asked me what my plans were for the weekend:
I told him I was going to Queensland to visit a friend.
The hairdresser asked where my friend lived, and I told him my friend had recently moved up to live on the Sunshine Coast there.
The hairdresser asked:
“Going to be playing golf?”
I replied:
“Yes I will be.”
The hairdresser responded immediately:
“I play golf.”
And an instant friendship and long term relationship was immediately formed in that conversation.
Isn’t that interesting?
Some people have the most interesting hobbies and pastimes.
Some people love watching movies, both at home as well as at the cinema.
Some people have a favourite band they like to go and see live, and may even follow that band around their country to see them multiple times on a tour.
Some people are collectors. And I mean serious collectors.
I had a patient who was a serious collector of meccano. The weight of the meccano pieces threatened to bring down the second story of his two-story home!
Other people collect stamps. Or T-shirts. Or china. Or memorabilia.
Some people are competitive sport players. Golf. Tennis. Lawn bowls. Ten-pin bowling.
Others love attending sports. As spectators. Like Cricket, Football. Baseball. Golf. Weightlifting.
Some people run. Others walk. Daily. Or every day.
One of my patients engaged in weekly pole dancing [not professionally].
Others like dancing. Ballroom dancing.
Some people play musical instruments.
Other people like listening to classical music.
Or collecting records, and LPs and albums.
Some people like doing puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Crosswords. Sudoku.
Others like playing video games.
Some people like reading books. Others collect books. Or comics.
Whatever someone’s pastime, there’s always a backstory, and a long story and an interesting story waiting to be told, if only someone would ask..
And it’s easy to ask:
“That sounds interesting, tell me more…”
Everybody loves the opportunity to talk about themselves, and what they do, and especially, what they love to do.
All you need to be able to do is ask the correct questions….
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
And it also pays to NOT LISTEN to anybody and everybody who has an opinion and thinks that it’s their God given right to tell you that opinion, even though you’ve not asked them for it.
Have you ever noticed that there are some people out there who feel that it is their mission to alter or influence your chosen course or direction purely and simply because THEY DON’T like, or don’t agree with what you are doing?
Sometimes their decision is based upon their belief that they have been put on this Earth for the sole reason of saving you and people like you from making a horrible mistake [in their opinion], despite the fact that they haven’t even contemplated that your decision has been logically and rationally arrived upon.
And other times these people want you to change your decision because, heaven forbid, you may actually succeed and they cannot contemplate how to deal with the future decisions and choices the “successful you” will then have to be making.
A dentist friend of mine used to say regularly:
“Opinions are like backsides. Everybody has one.”
But I’m of the belief that:
“Free advice is worth every cent that you pay for it”
There will always be people who will encourage your decisions and endeavours.
And there will always be others who want to rain on your parade.
This quotation from James Malinchak reappeared upon my desk this morning;
“Don’t worry about other people who wish you ran your business differently – be immune to criticism.”
And it is pure truth.
If you need a genuine second opinion that you are on the correct pathway, then seek out the opinion of someone knowledgeable and professionally qualified to give you a validated and logical assessment.
One of my mentors used to say:
One of my mentors used to say that if he hadn’t upset at least one person per day, each and every day, then he’d personally not had a good day.
And that’s not to say that this mentor was an aggressive or abrasive sort of person…
But he was an agitator whose opinion was valued and whose reputation as a thought leader and as a change merchant preceded him.
In fact this mentor used to say that the easiest way to achieve new business success in any town was to find out what every other business in the town was doing, and just do the opposite.
And of course, behaviour like that would certainly draw the unasked-for opinions of anyone and everyone who wanted to vocalise those unasked-for opinions.
The history of the world is littered with the success stories of disruptors who have thought outside the square and dared to be different… Think Uber. Think Steve Jobs. Think Henry Ford…
In fact, it was Henry Ford who said:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
If you found a great new restaurant would you tell your friends?
If you found a great new restaurant would you tell your friends?
If you watched a great mini-series on Netflix would you keep it to yourself or would you tell a few people that they need to watch it?
If you honestly believe that the product you sell or provide is by far and away going to benefit the person who is thinking of having it, wouldn’t you, or shouldn’t you, do everything in your power to ensure that that person does in fact take you up on your offer?
And if that’s the case, why shouldn’t you do whatever you need to do to ensure that everybody you know is aware of how great your product is?
I often ask dentists if they are interested in having a more profitable and less stressful dental practice…
And I ask them this question because as a dentist, that’s what I was able to create:
A less stressful, more profitable practice.
And not only was I able to achieve this success as a dentist, but also, as a coach, I’ve been able to help dozens of dentists who’ve sought me out to achieve the exact same thing with their practices.
Because, putting it simply, the following statement is true:
“If it has been done, it can be done.”
You just need to know how to do it….
Recently I was contacted on LinkedIn by a dentist who wrote:
“Hi David. You need to stop. There has been a discussion on Facebook amongst [local] dentists that they are being approached by you via email, social media, calling their phones and work. It is becoming unpleasant.”
Well guess what?
I do reach out to dentists about whether they are interested in running a more profitable, less stressful dental practice.
And I do phone a number of dental practices and THERE ARE A LOT of practices out there that are burning dollars just in the way their phones are answered…. sadly, by poorly trained and never trained people who could be doing their job a whole lot better if their boss would just invest in proper training….
And these practices are burning tens of thousands each and every week…
The biggest tragedy in dentistry is the failure of practice owners to realise the true financial benefits of being a dental practice owner.
Dr Omer Reed told me ten years ago that in the USA, 95% of dentists reaching the age of 65 cannot afford to retire because they have failed to save and accumulate enough assets that will produce a retirement income that equals their dental income….
And that’s the tragedy.
And the figures are similar here in Australia.
And I don’t mind it when I reach out to a dentist who tells me:
“No thank you.”
when I email him or phone him to ask if he’d like to have a short chat about what’s going on at his practice …
But what I find offensive is when…
But what I find offensive is when a handful of keyboard warriors who’ve never done their homework decide that they need to become Boudica and save their colleagues who have also never bothered to do any research….
That’s not where the five percent who make it are….
That’s how we end up with the OTHER ninety-five percent…
~
PS. Coincidentally, a signed copy of the soon to be released book “Own Your Freedom” written by Dr David Phelps and Dan Kennedy arrived unexpectedly on my doorstep this week.
Every dentist should read this book.
[Oh, and BTW, I was honoured to have written one of the forewords inside this newly published book]
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
