Don’t forget to CLOSE

In my previous two articles, I have written about how to sell and market your Membership Plans.

In this final article, about selling your plan, I want to share my thoughts on the importance of having a positive mind set and the subject of closing.

Firstly, on mind set. Henry Ford once said ‘Whether you think you can, or think you can’t you’re right’

I love this quote; it is one of my favourite inspirational quotes. He is right. When you are presenting the Plan to your patients if you feel they will say no at the end of your presentation, you will come across with less enthusiasm than you should, and the likelihood is you will get a no. I remember many years ago once buying some CDS in a record store in Manchester, this was obviously before they closed down and when I went to pay for my goods at the till, the person said to me’ I don’t suppose you want to join our Membership scheme’ or something like this. I said no, because that was exactly what he was expecting. It was the worst pitch of all time.

So, you must communicate the benefits of the Plan with 100% enthusiasm, every time, even if the last 5 patients all said no to you. You need to communicate as if the patient is going to say YES and make no assumptions. If you do, it will give the patient more self confidence and you are more likely to get more yeses.

The other subject that needs addressing is closing. I have now delivered Business/Sales Training for 30 years now, the second biggest mistake I see dentists, team members make is whenever they are presenting a Treatment Plan/Membership Plan to the patient is telling them to go away and think about it. If you have taken a course with me in the past, you are probably smiling as you are reading this. Let’s go back to the subject of the Membership Plan. Here are my thoughts. Once you have talked about the benefits of the plan, do a Test Close, this is a simple statement such as ‘

How does this Plan sound to you?

How do you feel about it?

If you get a positive response to this statement, then just close. Please don’t say to the patient go home and think about it. This is not a life and death decision, your plans probably work out on average 60-70p a day, it is less than a newspaper or a bar of chocolate and in return your patient are going to receive truly world class dental treatment. You are doing them a disc-service by not closing the Membership Plan.

I hope this article has been useful and a good reminder of the skills and mind set that you need to have in order to get more patients on your plan. With all the limitations of the NHS now, there has never been a better time to recruit members to your Practice and the opportunity to develop lifelong relationships with new patients and their families. Remember if you recruit a new patient and they stay for 10 years, they are going to be worth at least £3,000 to you.