Every hour spent on consultations is time that could be spent on treating patients and generating profit. Imagine doing 33 consultations in one evening with an outcome of 27 appointments.
Many practices would spend about 50 office hours to close this many leads, so optimizing the closing ratio should be a big priority for motivated business owners. So, how do you get there without letting integrity and valuable patient-practitioner relationships slide?
Enter the sales event
A sales event is not your average open house or VIP night. You won’t just “feel” like it is affecting your business positively. If planned correctly, a sales event will close an average of 75% of consultations, which can mean a six-figure outcome in one single evening.
The reason? Open House events are often visited by curious, but unqualified clients, who are likely there for the prizes, and not really too serious about scheduling a procedure. VIP events are usually big investments, and while the patients will indeed feel pampered and very important, they are not necessarily interested in scheduling procedures either. Which means the ROI could be little to none. In contrast, a sales event has a specific goal, a specific product, and a very specific guest list.
The purpose of a sales event is to take advantage of an in-office group consultation setting to allow each patient to meet the physician, to have an assessment and see pictures of their potential results, to have a quick private consultation to address their individual concerns, and to leave a deposit securing an event-only procedure price when they schedule their appointment a day or two later.
The perfect guest list
To do all this and reach your sales goal, you will need to carefully qualify everyone who expresses interest in attending the event ahead of time, so you know they are not wasting your time and vice versa.
The key to creating the perfect guest list is to be honest and take a consultative approach early on. Educate, be service-minded and by no means pushy. Let the patient know the real price of the product, as well as the event-only price. Be honest. Nothing destroys a sale like a prospect being ambushed with an out-of-budget price during the event.
Try to think like the patient: What is in it for them? This way you will end up with a guest list full of people who are seriously considering the service or product you offer, which is part of the secret to the high conversion ratio of sales events.
Preparation and planning
Another crucial part is preparation and planning. Four events per year can easily be integrated into a company’s annual marketing plan.
A proven successful sales event is an eight-week process of carefully planning out logistics, marketing, advertising and building your guest list with promising RSVPs.
To make this a positive experience, you will need to make sure your staff is on board. They will be doing most of the work, often in addition to their daily tasks, and it is important to clearly communicate the strategy and goal to them, and take the time to delegate tasks and assign clear deadlines. This will make the process easier to implement in their work schedule.
Offering rewards to achieve your goal may further incentivize team efforts and make sure the team loves this idea as much as the business owner.
In summary, whether to promote an existing service or launch a new product, a carefully planned sales event will give your staff unprecedented opportunity to close leads at an unheard-of scale, using a minimum of valuable consultation time, freeing up time for actual treatment of patients.
Want to grow your practice’s revenue by 30% or more?
Be sure to grab your team a copy of 1 Hour Sales Event Plan, Kelly’s #1 New Release book on Amazon.
