After 50,000+ screenings I discovered something even the best ‘closers’ don’t know is missing from their ROF…
It’s there but you can’t see it.
Whether you suck at the ROF process in general, are a master closer of treatment plans or are sufficiently good at it to have become a coach, consultant or trainer, it is the thing you’ve been missing.
Listen to the audio version of this article here:
It’s a problem that is particularly difficult to admit if you’ve been successful selling.
Yet it’s what ends all arguments on how many days your report of findings should be and why people who take more days to do it statistically tend to do better than those who do shorters ones, a 4-day approach better than 1 or 2.
And, conversely, it brings to light why so practitioners who only do a short, one-day report often succeed better than those who trudge through a 4-day.
What is it?
It’s the key ingredient everyone (including me) has missed in the selling of Chiropractic or any type of wellness care.
And, considering the ROF is actually the sales portion of our profession, it is a complete irony. Because the answer to “What is it?” is SALES!
Why?
The answer is a realization I had after taking some sales advice I didn’t think I needed in the first place, but begrudgingly took.
Why did Chiropractors continue to bankroll my corporate and public talks on their behalf and keep asking me back, again and again?
When people ask me about my track record or stats, I usually cite the only thing I’ve ever used to monitor my productivity…
It came down to one question: Was I getting asked back?
The answer was a resounding “yes”, augmented by the fact that I was getting paid, handsomely, to do the job.
Naturally (if eventually) my curiosity aroused enough to ask why. And I had to ask a lot of questions over quite a period of time to get the full answer.
As a first case-in-point, one of my leading Chiropractor clients was the first to tip me off (unsuspectedly and unexpectedly) on just why this might be.
There was an annual corporate event he never failed to have me attend on his behalf to bird-dog qualified patient prospects, and it was the largest, most well-attended event of its kind. So much so, he sent along another person, someone I knew to be a fast talker and could schedule far more appointments per hour than I.
Not that I was threatened, on the contrary, I was concerned that quantity would be mistaken for quality, an error I wouldn’t know I was making until the client set me straight.
In explaining to him that morning that this other colleague he was sending was going to “book circles around me” (in terms of scheduled Day 1 appointments), he interrupted me, mid-sentence, to tell me the following:
He said “Let me stop you right there and tell you something about Mary” with a look of disappointment on his face. He went on to explain, “Mary will book me seventeen appointments and I’ll get seventeen no-shows.”
“You may have fewer appointments scheduled than she gets”, he continued, “but your people, somehow always show and I get a ton of SOLID new patients out of it!”
I probably did my best numbers ever that day, having received that validation, but it wasn’t the kudos that drove me. It was finally starting to understand what I had been developing and doing successfully all this time and what was missing from any sales process, especially Chiropractors’ treatment plan sales at the Report of Findings.
It turns out that “Sales” is a much longer game than a 5-minute screening and a one-hour exam, consult and ROF. Something has to happen with people, not before they will buy, but before they ever find out about your product or what you do!
A change must be made in people and someone has to do it before a sale is made.
I got so skilled at selling, I did what anyone would do: I took a Sales course!…
Wait… What???
Yeah. So, then this happened…
Primarily it turned out it wasn’t just that I was getting more new-patient appointments and arrivals, but that the people couldn’t wait to get their ROF and doctor’s recommendations! And so I was absolutely CRUSHING it in what I was doing.
Pretty straightforward.
Then, in 2020, just when I had this all figured out and was really rolling, the six-figure corporate lecturing facet of my passion got “shut down” as my audience was sent away from the conference room and into their individual living and dining rooms.
I found myself with a ton of time on my hands and a need to rebuild.
So, in 2021, nearly 30 years into my career prospecting and bird-dogging for Chiropractors, I hesitantly, if begrudgingly, was somehow convinced by a colleague of mine to take a course on Sales.
I know. Don’t ask me how…
Me. The guy who had confidence. The one who was coaching doctors and their staff on how to do it. The man who was commanding six figures on lecturing alone.
The one who didn’t have to track how many successful referrals I made and only paid attention to the fact that I was getting asked back repeatedly and was paid handsomely.
Yeah. That guy.
But this very persistent, if well-intentioned colleague of mine was hell-bent on forming a training center that highlighted Sales as the most vital business technology that was tragically missing from most businesses, even ones who thought they were doing well. And he wanted me on board.
Recognizing that this was an issue I found difficult to get across to others, having found truth in his observation and conviction that (and I quote) “all business failures, unusual solutions and problems can be traced back to an earlier failure to use sales technology”, I gave in and enrolled on the course.
It’s called the “Master Closer Sales Course” delivered at what has now become the International Business Training Center of Tampa Bay, Florida, a center of which I have since become a staunch supporter and outspoken promoter.
Now the course itself is relatively insignificant to the point I’m trying to get across just here, in light of the important realization it gave me. I realized that people, even “great salespeople” are “closing” but not getting a person closed, not the way they ultimately want them to be.
I’ve always been a “natural” at sales and didn’t really know why until now. But it’s because I understand that people have to understand what I understand before we can breach the subject surrounding what I want to sell them, let alone try and pitch them anything.
In other words, they had to achieve a higher level of understanding before any sales could take place, something I already knew but realized we needed to communicate to others.
The course did it beautifully, giving a straightforward technology of systemic enlightenment of people, not on your product, but on your mindset surrounding the area of why the product exists in the first place.
I mean, think about it. You only believe in your product because you know what you know. And, if you didn’t know what you know, you may or may not realize its value. More likely you won’t.
My big ‘AHA!’ moment was realizing that you MUST get people to think like you do before convincing them you or your product are useful in any way…
How long did it take you to come to the conclusions that you came to that led you to think the way you do now, to know what you know and understand what you understand about the body, its mechanics, purposes, form, structure, and function?
Further, was it someone’s preaching at you or arguing with you that convinced you?
How did you come to think the way you do, and how long did it take?
You need to take people through a process and it takes more than 5 minutes. You need to change their perceptions and understanding.
And, if it were that simple, you could read this article and walk away knowing how to do just that.
But, of course, it’s NOT that simple. There are complexities to what people already think, how they feel and their emotions regarding the subject, their beliefs, (well- or un-founded as they may be) that are most important to them, what they’ve been told, read, and have been taught.
How about their interest in their own problem? Many people have little or none, and some don’t even realize yet that it’s a problem!
And you’re going to sell someone in just a few minutes by just talking at them?????
How this old bird-dog learned some new tricks…
The course put my skills and knowledge into proper, logical and sequential perspective. It featured 5 or 6 different lines of questioning which sequentially help you discover all the necessary information about prospects, all while getting them to open up to you and tell you everything.
This not only helps you but helps your prospects have realizations about themselves.
And that always ends up with people who are practically asking you for solutions before you ever bring them up! I’ve always prided myself on this product but now I see the mechanics of it and that ANYONE can do it. And I know even the best of the best salespeople can use this to sharpen up their sales.
In fact, they can expect a drastic increase in their production too, no doubt!
Not only more closes for more money are the reward but, people who are brought into the “right” state of mind (in other words your state of mind) become your patients for the long haul and also are your greatest referral partners and bird dogs.
I call this your “Patient Referral Arny” in a book I wrote by the same title.
What do you get for the ‘closer’ who has everything?
You give them the key that unlocks the understanding of why they fail to make the sale when they don’t and, more importantly, why they do when they do!
And the latter is actually way more vital!
Wouldn’t you rather know why someone succeeds than why they fail?
Me too.
But you also need to know exactly and precisely why you fail those rare times that you do because it keeps you sharp and vigilant for mistakes, cutting them off before they ever happen.
“Sales” is a process that is longer and more involved than even the best salespeople know. But the point is, if you know what you know of the surrounding subject, you can crush your sales by just figuring out how to get a person to think identically to you.
It’s not as easy as it looks but, have at it. Just focusing on this will improve your ROF results.
Improve your prospecting skills and apply them to everyone, especially those who come to you from ads or other resources “already ready to buy”. These are the most dangerous and unreliable of all because they haven’t been put through this process.
But that’s for another article, another day.
This is all that stands between you and more sales than you thought you could manage.
For more information on the subject, get my two audiobooks (with transcripts) entitled “Stop Pitching and Make Way More Sales” and “How to Get 20+ Referrals Per Hour“.
