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Fix Your Follow Up (Ep.131)

Fix Your Follow Up

Welcome to “Beauty and the Biz”, where we talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery, and how to fix your follow up.

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 profits.

LEARN MORE ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ykNLEa

Fix Your Follow Up

⬇️. ⬇️. ⬇️.

Fix Your Follow Up

You know How frustrating is it to spend a ton of money, staff time and resources on internet marketing for new cosmetic patient leads only to have those very leads come in as prospective patients and leave as prospective patients….STILL.

You can no longer afford to waste any more time or money on marketing if you are not converting these leads….

It’s too competitive, it’s too crowded and it’s too expensive NOT to do everything within your control to convert these Internet leads into paid procedures.

Here’s a typical consultation scenario…

Hmmm….

You thought you had a great consultation with your prospective patient, Sara.

Sara had a good consultation with you and your staff and she asked lots of questions and you had a good connection…at least you thought you did.

But then you find out from your coordinator Sara ended up saying, “I gotta think about it” and walked out the door.

Now what? Maybe your staff emails or calls them and then they are dropped in the  “dead leads” file.

You move onto the next consultation that you hope converts and the cycle of waste continues…

Why Don’t Patients Book?

Since cosmetic rejuvenation is a very personal as well as emotional decision, there are all sorts of reasons why prospective patients don’t book….

  • Maybe they have other consultations lined up
  • Maybe they don’t have a comfortable way to pay for it
  • Maybe they’re confused about something you said so now they will research it more before deciding to move forward

Or maybe…..

  • They received bad news that morning or
  • They got flack from their family when they told them about meeting with you; 
  • Or a dozen other benign things could have happened that had nothing to do with you.

It could have had everything to do with the patient’s frame of mind at the time that prevented them from moving forward.

The point is people change, their moods change and their circumstances change so you can never assume anything.

What Do You Do When You Can’t Convert Consultations?

Let’s say you did everything right and now you are stuck because you don’t know how or even if you should follow up for fear of looking as if you are chasing the patient. 

Here are 3 strategies to help you follow up professionally and close the procedure:

1 Collapse Time

Time is your enemy in the follow up process. The more time that goes by without the prospective patient hearing from you, the more distant you become.

The hottest they will ever be is when they are face-to-face with you. Once they leave your practice, you are out of sight – out of mind – unless YOU keep the conversation going.

So you want to collapse time by following up quickly, repeatedly and often. That’s how you differentiate yourself from your competitors who follow up weeks later (or never).

I’m always amazed when I learn a practice sends one standard follow up email days after the consult then wait another 30-60 days. The hot lead is very cold by then so no wonder they are never heard from again.

2 Add a Sense of Urgency to Your Follow Up

Since its human nature for prospective patients to put off making a big decision and procrastinate, you want to counter with a sense of urgency to get the patient off the fence.

Give them compelling reasons to stop procrastinating. For example:

  1. Your schedule is filling up quickly due to the demand for Dr. Smith, SO BOOK NOW OR YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT.  This works well because most patients hate to wait.
  2. Or, If they can have surgery on a Wednesday next month, they get a $500 price reduction on the OR fee

Or, If they want it done before [wedding, summer, etc], they need to take into account the recovery time (IE., even though the downtime is less than 7 days, they are still a bit limited in activity like swimming and dancing), so they’ll want to get it done before this certain [date].

  1. Or Your prices are going up so you can grandfather them in at the current price as long as they put their deposit down now.

Fix Your Follow Up

And #3 is Follow Up Protocol

Just like you follow strict protocol for surgery, develop a protocol to follow each and every time to follow-up on revenue-generating consultations that didn’t book….YET.

Otherwise, it’s too easy to NEVER get around to following up because there are a million other things to do.

Protocol takes the emotion out of it and it becomes what you do automatically…no matter how busy you are.

Here is an example of the steps to follow:

Immediately text the patient thanking them for their time

Mail a thank you note that day.

Day 2 – Send email thanking them and include a response to one of their objections.

Day 3 – Call them to see if they are now ready to move forward since you addressed their objection.

Day 5 – Email them social proof including patient reviews, photos, testimonials of other patients just like them who had the procedure they want so they see others have moved forward and are happy and they will be too.

Day 7 – Call with urgency update. For example, they want to look good for an event so they must complete SX by a certain date and you only have 2 slots left.

If none of that is working, continue to text or email them to keep in touch with announcements such as a special event or promotion you are having.

Then add them to your email list to stay in touch indefinitely so they remember you when they are ready to move forward.

You need to customize these to your own practice and use them in your standard protocol so you get comfortable telling the prospective patient WHY they need to make a decision now rather than later.  

The most successful cosmetic practices have systems in place to follow up quickly, strategically and consistently.

They spent a lot of time, money and effort attracting prospective patients so they do all they can to see it through to a YES.

These fix your follow up strategies “pave the way” for your staff to do all they can to confidently convert these valuable consultations.

If your staff needs help setting up their own protocol, check out my website `where they can get the “Fix Your Follow Up” module full of strategies, phone scripts and examples of emails and text to get the patient to a yes.

Of course, it would be great if you subscribed to Beauty and the Biz so you don’t miss any episodes and a review would be much appreciated.

Thanks so listening and we’ll talk again soon.

If you want to talk more about your specific situation, just leave me a message at:

https://www.CatherineMaley.com

…Or DM me on Instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/CatherineMaleyMBA

📖 Get a Copy of Catherine’s FREE Book

​📲 Schedule a FREE 30-Minute Strategy Call with Catherine: https://bit.ly/FreeCallWithCatherine​​

👁 DON’T MISS THESE INTERVIEWS 👁

​➡️ Robert Singer, MD FACS – Former President of The Aesthetic Society: https://www.catherinemaley.com/podcast/ep-86-robert-singer-md-former-president-of-the-aesthetic-society

​➡️ Grant Stevens, MD FACS – Former ASAPS President: https://www.catherinemaley.com/blog/ep-44-covid-19-update-with-asaps-past-president-dr-grant-stevens

​➡️ E. Gaylon McCollough, MD FACS – Former President of AAFPRS, ABFPRS, AACS: https://www.catherinemaley.com/podcast/ep-88-e-gaylon-mccollough-md-facs-past-president-abfprs-aacs

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Catherine Maley

Catherine Maley

Catherine is a business/marketing consultant to plastic surgeons. She speaks at medical conferences all over the world on practice building, marketing and the business side of plastic surgery. Get a Free Copy of her popular book, Your Aesthetic Practice: What Your Patients Are Saying View Author Profile.

BEAUTY AND THE BIZ

Beauty and the Biz is for Plastic Surgeons who know they don’t know everything and are open to discovering the pearls to grow and scale a sellable asset when they’re ready to exit.

Listen in as Catherine interviews surgeons who talk about the business and marketing side of plastic surgery and listen to Catherine’s pearls from consulting with plastic surgeons since Year 2000.

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TESTIMONIALS

5/5
"Catherine outlined a plan that put key metrics in place, gave us a clear plan to follow throughout the year and trained our staff to increase their conversions by at least 10%. Since engaging with Catherine, I’m happy to report that revenues are up 15% over the last three months - 22% in the last month alone! I highly recommend Catherine’s consulting services to any practice looking for “best practice” additions to their operation."
Robert Sigal, MD
Robert Sigal, MD
"I have finally tapped into the most efficient way to grow my cosmetic practice and that is to “fish in the pond of my own patients”. When patients return to my practice, over 85% will purchase another service, product, or procedure. Not only was it worth over $200,000 in revenues this past year, it also reminds my patients I’m still around so they don’t wander off to my competitors. Catherine’s group has far exceeded our expectations and goals we had set up for them to achieve."
Victor Ferrari, MD
Victor Ferrari, MD
"Our consult conversions were running at 40-50%. Then we attended Catherine’s online training and implemented her strategies. They immediately increased conversion rates to 75-80%."
Anthony Corrado, MD
Anthony Corrado, MD
"I know how to run a profitable practice; however, it was not without major staff issues, inefficiencies and unproductive drama. With Catherine's guidance, I reorganized staff, set up processes for them to carry more of the workload and hold them accountable so I have more time to focus on patient care. The changes we put in place and the staff training to convert more callers and consultations will easily increase my revenues by 15% as well as save us time, money and costly mistakes. "
Evan Sorokin, MD
Evan Sorokin, MD
"Working with Catherine and her team has been very profitable. We’re only half way through the year and I’m up $200K and I’m booked out for the next 2 months even though we typically go into our slow summer months now. Her recent promotion brought in an extra $63,782 with more surgeries scheduled. I never realized how much money was sitting in my patient list but I’m a believer now!"
Robert Langdon, MD
Robert Langdon, MD
"Catherine Maley has one of the best Marketing Minds in the aesthetic industry, bar none. She understands the aesthetic patient and she also understands the challenges and frustrations we face as aesthetic surgeons. You will benefit from Catherine's tools whether you are new in practice or a seasoned professional.Turn to Catherine for guidance - she knows what she's talking about."
Edwin Williams, MD
Edwin Williams, MD
“Catherine’s Cosmetic Patient Marketing Service has been a great addition to our practice-building overall plan. While we still invest in our online presence, we also found immense value in the internal marketing efforts. We especially like that all results are tracked so we know we are getting a great return ... last year it was 1,148% and no staff time was used. That’s a much easier way to grow my cosmetic practice.”
Mark Mason, MD
Mark Mason, MD
"Catherine Maley turned our practice around. We converted more consultations in one week than we did in an entire month. Our practice went from a painful 50% no show rate to a remarkable 85% show rate. Even more impressive was our close ratio - from 35% to 80% and still increasing. We would recommend her to any practice that’s looking to not only increase their profits today, but sustain a healthy flow of income for many years to come. Thanks Catherine!"
Sam Assassa, MD
Sam Assassa, MD
"Catherine found me the best patient care coordinator I could have asked for. She worked out a payment plan that was fair to me and motivating to my coordinator. She also provided training tools to help my coordinator convert better, even though she was already experienced. The results have been phenomenal. So good, in fact, that my income increased 250% and I’m booked out for 3 months. Don’t waste any more time or money doing it yourself. Outsource to someone you trust!"
Andrew Lofman, MD
Andrew Lofman, MD
"Since we’ve been working with Catherine and her team for the past 5 months, we’ve brought in $79K in surgeries and have booked an additional 17 surgical procedures and 20 non-invasive body procedures since then. This does not include the additional new patient referrals and revenues we are seeing from the on-going nurturing of my current patient database."
Verne Weisberg, MD
Verne Weisberg, MD
"I had given my staff the goal to convert at least $35K per week in surgeries AND I gave them the tools to help which was Catherine’s Online Learning Center at More Patients Academy. They watched Catherine’s modules and implemented her strategies and converted $80K! That equaled a 2,550% ROI. Nice!"
Adam Stein, MD
Adam Stein, MD
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