Convert 25-50% More Consultations with the Right Coordinator (Ep.180)

Convert 25-50% More Consultations with the Right Coordinator

Catherine Maley, MBA: Hello and welcome to Beauty and the Biz, where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery and how to convert 25-50% more consultations with the right coordinator. I’m your host, Catherine Maley, author of Your aesthetic practice — What your patients are saying, and consultant to plastic surgeons to get them more patients and more profits.

Now today’s episode is called Convert 25-50% More Consultations with the Right Coordinator. Now a patient coordinator with the right character mindset and skills is truly a game changer for cosmetic practices because they can take your practice revenues from just enough to pay the bills to a windfall every month because they know how to book cosmetic procedures and keep your schedule filled.

Now, this position cannot be taken lightly, especially if you want to convert 25-50% more consultations with the right coordinator. You may. Anyone can step in to do the job of a coordinator, but you would be sorely mistaken. I see that so often that the coordinator leaves and they just put the receptionist in there and that’s just really a disservice to you and the receptionist. So, converting consultations is an art, and it’s a trained skill just like anything else.

It takes the right strategies, knowledge, and then lots of practice to get good. Confidently taking a stranger prospect to a cash paying cosmetic patient. So here are three main attributes that make the biggest difference when you have a great patient coordinator representing you and generating your revenues.

So, here’s the first one, the right mindset and attitude. The right coordinators that convert 25-50% more consultations are here to serve. Not to sell. They have confidence knowing they’re providing a valuable service to your prospective patients who do have a pain point, and you are their best solution. Now these coordinators know that they didn’t pull anybody in off the street.

These people literally called you. They have a pain. You have a solution, and that just makes logical sense. So, they believe in you, the surgeon that they’re representing, and they also believe in cosmetic rejuvenation as a gateway to personal self-fulfillment and happiness. I mean, quite frankly, a cosmetic coordinator who hasn’t had any cosmetic.

I also think that hurts them. You should really be drinking the Kool-Aid and well, if nothing else, maybe they’re young or they don’t have any big issues, so they haven’t had surgery, although it’d be nice if they did, and especially from you. But if they haven’t, if they could at least have the empathy of what.

It’s like to go through this journey of a cosmetic patient just by watching and listening to your current patients, tell them it’s a tough journey for a lot of people. It’s full of uncertainty and doubt and fear. So, they need to have that empathy. To help that patient get through this. Now that means they’ve got to do all they can to help the prospective patient get to a yes, and they persevere in the face of resistance and they will always get a lot of resistance.

We always resist when we have to make big decisions or spend money or have downtime, or there might be pain involved, but they don’t see the resistance as reject. They just see it as an opportunity to offer different perspectives and then clear up the confusion on the patient side. So, the patient actually makes a decision to better themselves rather than continue to procrastinate like they have for the last five years with the, they’ve been thinking about it.

So, here’s number two. The right coordinator that can convert 25-50% more consultations has excellent people skills, so they have the people skills to make a prospective cosmetic patient comfortable. In my book, I asked them over and over, why did you choose this practice versus another practice? The overwhelming answer was, I felt more comfortable with this practice, this staff, this surgeon.

That was a really big one and I felt a connection with them as well. Because that’s how they trust you enough to open up and especially they need to bond with the coordinator because especially women, we need to tell you our story and how we feel about everything. And you need somebody in the practice like your coordinator to be able to get them to open up and then help them make a decision to have their cosmetic procedure.

So, the right coordinator that can convert 25-50% more consultations stays focused on the patient’s needs, fears, objections, and wants, so they can artfully address the issues in the patient’s mind that are stopping them from moving forward. Now they do that by bonding with listening to, and then asking very strategic questions so the patient feels heard, and not just that, so the coordinator can hear what’s going on in the prospective patient’s mind, so they’re going to be able to address it.

But that can only happen when the patient opens up because now, they trust the patient coordinator has their best interests. And then here’s number three. They’ve got to be skilled at converting. Converting prospective patients to paid cosmetic patients is the number one skill needed to be a top patient coordinator.

Now, this is really where the rubber meets the road. This is the difference between an okay coordinator and a converting rockstar that can convert 25-50% more consultations. Now this takes confide. Courage and proven strategies that are practiced and ingrained. And I have to tell you, most coordinators do not have this. I shouldn’t say most. The ones that I’m training definitely don’t have it, and most actually let everybody off the hook.

They don’t want to push; they don’t want to feel me or aggressive. So, what do they do? They, they present the numbers and then they chicken out. They say, okay, then do you have any other question? Alrighty, then will you just think about that and you gimme a call when you’re ready, That is not how a professional handles it, because if you think about it, the patient is looking to your coordinator for guidance and they’re not gonna just hand it to them.

They’ve got to, you’ve got to ask for it in a professional, in a comfortable way. So, the patient says, Now, here’s an example. When the coordinator has presented the options to the prospective patient, they have got to transition to a strategic question rather than a yes, no question that can trigger resistance.

So instead of saying something like so Sarah did you have any other questions? Okay. Or, Sarah, did you want to do this instead? A pro. Ask this, Sarah, did you want to go with the full mommy makeover? Or start with just the tummy talk. Now when the patient picks one of the choices, given them the patient’s moving forward and you now have a book surgery.

Now the inverse of a fantastic coordinator is also important to be able to spot because it can be subtle. So, you want to watch for these clues telling you do not have the right coo. Now, here’s the big one. The wrong coordinator (who can’t convert 25-50% more consultations) takes zero responsibility for their poor results. They blame everyone and everything else.

Everyone else except for themselves. Now, here’s an example. If you are hearing complaints from your coordinator, Where she or he is saying such things like, I’m not getting enough leads. These leads are awful. They’re just price shopping. They don’t have any money. That tells you have a coordinator who is negative, pessimistic, and thinking lack, so you want to address that before it gets any worse.

Free them to work somewhere else, or please have them join the converting club (so your right coordinator that can convert 25-50% more consultations) and let me turn them around and train them into being a converting rockstar. Now, you simply go to convert consultations.com, sign them up, and they’ll get 24 training videos along with quizzes that must be passed before moving on to the next module, because I want them to catch the main thought that I have in that training.

And they’ll also be required to complete metrics each week about their consultations, and then we’ll be doing biweekly coaching calls to go over the details of each consultation to determine what went right. What else could have been done or said to get to a yes. And that’s where I’m listening to their mindset.

They’re telling me why people didn’t book, and I’m telling them back, here’s a different perspective to look at it. Here’s some strategies that make a lot more sense. Please try these and that can. Typically turn them around quite easily. And it’s also the accountability that makes the biggest difference.

And it turns them around from this meek victim like mindset to an abundant mindset, optimistic. And they really do get a lot more results once they think differently, do differently, and then they be different. That’s how we turn them into a converting rockstar.

Everybody that’s going to wrap it up for us today, a Beauty and the Biz and this episode on the how to convert 25-50% more consultations with the right coordinator.

And if you have any questions or feedback for me, you can go ahead and leave them at my website at www.CatherineMaley.com, or you can certainly DM me on Instagram @CatherineMaleyMBA.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode on Beauty and the Biz, please head over to Apple Podcasts and give me a review and subscribe to Beauty and the Biz so you don’t miss any episodes. And of course, please share this with your staff and colleagues.

And we will talk to you again soon. Take care.

-End transcript for the “Convert 25-50% More Consultations with the Right Coordinator.”