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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 to have a great conversation about your patient’s buying decisions. I’d be remiss if I didn’t. First of all, thank ChiroSecure. ChiroSecure brings you these shows things to focus on helping you in practice. My role and background is that I was involved with the practice management group for years. I’ve been a personal and professional business coach. And so I’m really excited when I get this opportunity to talk with you, to talk with practitioners about things that matter to you in practice and a big piece of that, whether we like it or not is the fact that our patients buying decisions about anything in their life impacts, whether they buy the message, whether they buy and engage in our services. So I know that’s a challenge because we hope that by being a great practitioner, that that is going to speak for itself.
That’s actually only over time. And even when someone comes in, that is a direct referral to you, you still have to sell them and show them why, what you’re talking about can impact them. So it’s, it’s a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge. What I want you to know is that way back, even in practice, and it’s been a number of years now, I haven’t been in practice that when I first learned this, I began to realize that practice wasn’t so much about me. It was about them. And that frame allowed me to say, how do they hear me? So one of the things I want you to know is that what happens and the way patients make decisions is actually based on a funnel, a kind of funnel related to their personality, their learning styles. So you notice that the top of this funnel I’m trying to impact, you know, sort of give you an impression about funnel here.
It’s things like, are they an auditory, visual or kinesthetic learner? But what I found that’s a little more difficult to pick up. Likewise, some of the very deep belief patterns or systems at the bottom of the funnel are really different to pick up instantly on a patient. Whereas one of the other shows I did, I talked about one of the systems of personality profiling or understanding that I think is really applicable to us as practitioners. And that’s called the four quadrants. And I like you to understand these quadrants because the patients present showing us their style. So the quadrants, you may have already heard these words, or if you heard one of the previous shows, I did, you know, there’s the driver, the expressive, the amiable, and then the analytical. Now I want you to just for a minute, recognize a lot of you will intuitively know this, you’ll pick up on the clues or cues that the patient’s presenting with.
You can think, even in terms of your staff, if you stop and think about it, each of them has a different style. So I want to go through these for a few minutes. An analytical patient, an analytical person sees the world through data and information, um, statistics, they like more organization. So the way that a patient presents and how they fill out, some of you may still like paperwork versus electronic paperwork actually really gives you a lot of cues because, uh, an analytical, if you ask them things like, have they ever been in a motor vehicle accident or some type of an accident, if you’re having them fill out on paper, they’ll actually take more space. Like in immersion. They’ll not only tell you that they were in an accident, but that, that accident happened when they were driving 45 miles an hour, they were hit on the fright front, right hand corner of the car.
You know, they felt this, they know that their head did this. You know, they’ll describe that to you, electronic paperwork. It may be more difficult. A lot of the paperwork actually has, you know, spot where they can fill out other, instead of just saying yes, in an accident, if that is clicked, it opens up a little box where they can actually fill a little bit out. So what I want you to see is that an analytical, if you’re asking them a question, they’re going to give you more information. They’re going to give you that detail. If you’re asking about any previous medications, they’ll tend to know the meds they were on and often even the dosage, you know? So there’ll be very detailed in some of the information that they share with you, they give to you, or they share with you. They actually prefer to present it in a written format.
They’re not often really open in the way they communicate. Now let’s talk a little bit about the driver. A driver tends to be the style of patient that presents very quickly into the clinic. You know, if they come into the clinic, they walk right up to the front desk, they introduce themselves. They’re very forthright in how they even come into the clinic. It’s interesting with the driver personality, a lot of times, there’s very little filled out on any paperwork. It’s always, here’s exactly what I’m here for and the leave things out. You know, sometimes it takes a driver, you know, a couple of weeks of care to then reinforce, oh yes, actually I was in a car accident or this is what has happened to me in the past. So what I want you to know, if you think about, you’ll notice that I’ve set this slide up with grades or arrows, you know, that kind of try to show that there’s a gradient here.
And the two I’ve spoken about first are the two that are above the midline. And both of those personalities are more bottom line, their bottom line production or results for the driver, their bottom line details or measurements. Like if you ask an analytical patient on a scale of zero to 10 bill, have a very specific answer and reasoning behind that pain scale or their progress scale. They like filling those things out. Now let’s convert to the two on the bottom or below the horizon below that midline. And what I want you to know about those two personalities is again, they’re much more people oriented. So the amiable let’s talk about the amiable. And I say that because the amiable actually represents on average 40% of the population, much more than any of the other styles. The interesting thing is the amiable is often just those very nice people.
Now, they present to the clinic where often they’re not going to walk right in. They may come in the front door as a new client, look around, you know, want to see the surroundings. They respond incredibly well to an office tour. They like and feel more confident knowing the space, knowing the people in this space now, and amiable is often someone that you need to pull things out of a little more, not talk at. They will respond more. If you’re sitting eye to eye, knee, to knee, not standing over trying to ask them for more information and details. You know, they’re not going to tend to know the data or information like off the top of their head, the way an analytical deaths, they may come in with a piece of paper that actually lists out any medication they’re on, you know, so that they want to share that.
But they know that they’re not going to be able to have that write up their recall. Now, the expressives again, another very people oriented personality there obviously always think about more outgoing, expressive in their communication. You know, they’ll want to talk about things versus put them on paper. So it’s interesting. They’re often the kinds of patients that if you’re not careful, once they’re in the clinic or a regular patient that you get caught or almost trapped in a room with them now, the way I’ve shown the gradient, the scale is because depending on, and I’ll show you later, like a way that you can even test this yourself or do it with your staff, you would never give a patient, a personality test, but picking up on clues because there’s a grade. So if I talk about that midline again, so the two above, they are more bottom line production oriented.
They’re actually, as you go up closer to the top, they’re more closed about really expressing anything about themselves or thinking that they need to have a relationship or a conversation with you. Whereas now, as you go all the way down that scale into the bottom, which are more people oriented, the further and further down, you know, on the scale, people are much more open and really want to share. And in fact, those are the people that it’s really important. You learn how to channel that because those kinds of things can get you off on all these tangents and miss that a patient’s buying decisions still have to connect with them. So we’ll talk about a couple of tools or ways to do that. Now, the other scale along the horizon goes all the way from indirect. So when they’re more over on that side of the scale, they are not going to talk about or share things.
It’s almost like you’re going to have to pull things out of them. Now, as you move all the way across the scale, that’s where people are much more direct. They’re willing to say things. We know some patients that will say anything or ourselves. We can think about our personality. Some people, even if something’s really tough, they’re still willing to talk about it. So there’s definitely these scales or these grades within these different profiles. Now, like I said, there is an assessment tool where you, yourself, as a chiropractor, would benefit from knowing your own score or with your team. You can think in terms of that, but the reason you would do that and take the testing is so you understand yourself and your style, but how you then modulate or I’m going to call it almost manage what you’re saying so that the other people so that the patients better understand you.
So this slide, actually, this is through ChiroSecure. If you want access to this quiz, to this testing, it’s a self-assessment then by all means, please just text this word, you know, test to the number here on your screen. We want to provide you with this information, and I’m really happy to have the conversations with you about it. But what I, I want to spend the next few minutes talking about is how we pick up these clues with our existing patients and then why it’s important and how we language things to them. So a person’s buying decision is, is based on these learning styles. Now there’s some really great groups and programs that teach different sales techniques. And like I said, whether we like it or not in healthcare, and particularly in the current healthcare environment, it’s really important that we clearly language who we are, what we do and allow the right ways to help a patient, make a purchasing a buying decision about the kind of care that you offer.
I know how powerful it is. I know how important it is. We have to help them understand that. So thinking in terms of seeing some of these clues, your staff and team can be very involved. How does show someone even show up to the clinic? Do they March right in, do they stick their hand out to shake your hand? Those things are showing that again, they are much more open and very quickly want to engage. Some of those people that are really open will be drivers. Some of them will be expressive. How you start to pick that next part up is how they fill out their paperwork. If you’ve seen that in advance, if you do electronic and you already have an advance that really helps give you some clues already, but often even like how someone asks questions about the clinic, the expressives will tend to want to engage your team more.
You know, there’ll be looking to see who else is in the clinic, or if you have testimonials up, they’ll be looking at those reading. Those drivers are much more about, you know, again, they’re very open, but what’s in this for me. How will this change things for me? And so you want to, with some of your language and conversations, really make sure you recognize those filters. You know, the expressives these more open people that are expressives, they are the kind of patients that can understand quality of life, vitality, your nervous system, how you live your life is through your nervous system. Everything you taste, touch, smell thinking do is connected to that. Who’s checked your nervous system, and then we want to get quiet. So they kind of have that couple of seconds, 30 seconds of conversation. Now with the drivers, again, we still want to be addressing things like, you know, their x-rays, you know, showing, and if you’re doing anything that’s related to x-ray or tests, where are they and you know, how did they change it?
So if your, like, for example, with your HRV, you know, if you’re using the insight, millennial, you know, scoring and testing, you know, here’s where you are, here’s healthy. What do you see as important here? So having where we pull these things out, we allow them to talk about it, but a driver it’s definitely about that bottom line results. Here’s what we put together for the plan and the results that you’re going to generate. Now, remember the other two styles on the opposite side of this testing are much more, I’ll just call it, you know, they’re, they’re less open, less emotive. They’re definitely the two styles that we need to pull a little bit more out of. Well, their buying decisions again are made up of different things. You know, an amiable is the kind of patient that you can really talk about. An anchor, the things that matter the most to them, you know, if their pain is stopping them from getting down on the floor and playing with their grandchildren, that’s something that really matters to them and talking to them, you notice I change even the modulation of my voice.
I’m a little less direct, less specific. I’m a little softer. I want to talk about the things that matter to them, how the care that I’m promoting, the care that I’m sharing here is going to be in their best interest and how that’s allowing them to begin to again, do all those things that matter to them. Now, the analyticals are again on that same side where they’re definitely not as, you know, open expressive, you know, and they are going to make their buying decisions more internally, but this is the group that they’ll need measurements or metrics linking why the recommended care plan, what kinds of things will we retest and measure and monitor. And you notice a couple of those key words that are more in the vocabulary of an analytical so that you’re already showing them, you know, this is the group that the challenges, oh, well, we’ll just take it week to week.
You know, we think, oh, well then we’re not overwhelming someone with the care plan. And if anything, they just don’t think you have a plan then, you know, so this is the group that really understands. Here’s the proposed care. Here’s what our objectives are. Here’s what we will monitor. So I’m just giving you a few little clues. You notice in some of the language, we can then begin to use this, not only with basically like allowing them to make that right, buying choice, giving them the words, the clues, the way we communicate so that it allows them to feel really comfortable and confident with the choices they’re making. We, the more we help and share this kinds of information with our team, our team can then even really address how they multiple schedule someone. You know, how I like for all styles to still multiple schedule for that whole first phase of the care plan or real clarity on that.
But you’ll notice that you can communicate that into each person’s style. So it allows them to continue to make this buying decision. Now don’t also be under any illusion that you only have to learn to sell that in the very beginning, if anything, I think through the pandemic, through all of these fears related to the way the media ramps up this health issue, it’s all along the way of your care. People are revisiting their choices. You want to continually engage them, allow them to really hear you. So that’s the real clue with this is that a person’s buying decisions are based on them. Now, like I said, there are fabulous groups and tools and ideas about how to better understand the buying process. In fact, I’d love, I’m, I’m hopeful that I can bring an interview on one of my next shows. A couple of those people that share that have really sort of dug into this or, or delve more deeply into this, because they know that someone choosing your is often less about your skillset or less about the sort of results, the way that’s tracking and more about how your sharing that with them.
So again, we’ve just talked about these ways that you can think in terms of the patient and help them make that buying and purchasing decision, which I think is so ultimately important because for me as a chiropractor, I think they all need to be under your care. I get great acupuncturist, you know, so I just want to help you in any way I can. So again, on your screen is where and how you can get that quick personal self-assessment. If you have it, if you have your own score, if there’s anything you want, as far as some input feedback ideas, I’m just happy to, again, help provide you with some great resources or even hop on a phone call and have a conversation with you about it. Now, again, I want to thank ChiroSecure for allowing me to have these conversations to bring to you, you know, this show next week growth without risk will be hosted by Dr. Sherry McAllister. So thank you to everyone. Please know that my intention is to help you to help as many doctors just like ChiroSecure by bringing you all of these house. So thanks again and have a wonderful day.