You’ve heard me say that before you can effectively recommend and enroll any treatment, product or service to your patients you must, in your heart, believe that it is valuable. You must find out ‘why’ it is a high value product or service and how it’s going to make a difference for your patients.
I could TELL you why but it wouldn’t be the same. Every sales rep will tell you the benefits of their product but it isn’t until you find out for yourself that it will really take off in your practice. You must find you own ‘Why’ for recommending. I just did an entire CE webinar on this for Philips Sonicare.
If your office manager goes to a CE course and learns how much revenue can be generated from adult fluoride, he or she may come back and try to convince you to sell more fluoride. But if you haven’t discovered for yourself the reason why-beyond the dollars-the service won’t stick. You’ll do great for a while but then when resistance builds; it’s not surprising that it will fizzle out.
When I conduct workshops and training, I use exercises that enable the attendees to discover for themselves why they MUST identify early perio and recommend treatment, for example. This way, when they meet resistance, they are armed with a strong conviction that keeps them going. And it comes from within.
Finding your ‘why’ is different for each of us but in the dental field there are some tried and true ways to prove to yourself that a product or service is worthy. Here are a few:
Clinical research
Results seen by your colleagues
Results seen with your own patients
Articles and educational programs delivered by experts with a body of experience in the area
Whatever it takes, there’s one key thing to remember, if you want your hygiene team to recommend a new service or product, have them do the research, bring back their findings and select the best options. And if you’re working with a consultant or coach, ask them to incorporate teaching and coaching techniques that allow this type of discovery. You’ll see results you won’t believe.
Stay Inspired,
Rachel
