In this hard-core article, Patrick Valtin presents vital principles of selling as it applies to chiropractic. Recognized as an international expert in sales strategies, Patrick Valtin has held hundreds of lectures on the subject of bringing more patients to the practice. Here, he presents how you can help patients view nutritional supplements as a natural and needed complement to chiropractic service – hence sensibly increasing residual income…without pushing!
 

You think your first mission is to handle a body misalignment? Or to take care of your patient’s back ache that has been killing him or her for years? Think again… the patient who arrives at your practice believes one thing: you should be more able to handle his pain than pills and drug prescribers! You might not realize it fully, but your image, from a patient point of view, is high – no matter their attitude or manners toward your service.

Do you know what people instantly respond to? Your willingness to help, your desire to understand! Rest assured: you don’t need to transform your table into a couch… You have the tools and the products to help, besides your hands-on intervention.

For example, do you have nutritional or supplemental products in your practice? What portion of your income do they represent? The average in the profession is 4%. Let’s assume these products are good. Let’s assume you believe in them.  Why don’t you sell more of them? Well, the classical answer is: I don’t like to sell. Or: I don’t like to push. I am a technician, not a salesman…

There are a lot of wrong opinions about this wonderful passion that selling is. If you look at the old definition of the word, you will realize that it had originally ONE meaning: to help. Then about one thousand years B.C. that definition was modified and its new meaning became “to cheat” or to betray.  Check the definition in a good dictionary…

My purpose in this article is to share with you the results of 20 years of observation, work and experience in the field of sales strategy. I had a chance to evaluate and train more than 40,000 sales professionals in 27 countries. The areas of expertise of these people were extending from computer systems to industrial equipment or consumer products… and chiropractic medicine.

Observing and working with these people led me to detect progressively the attitude and behaviors of those who were much more successful than others. I was very interested to find out if one could define a routine “pattern” or “technique” used by top sales people in their approach. What are these top professionals doing that others are not? What tricks or what magic are they using that makes the customer or patient want to buy from them?

My conclusion was that selling had nothing to do with “special techniques” or any magic. The fact also that “one needs to be born a salesperson” in order to succeed proved very wrong in my own observations and evaluations. What follows is just a snapshot of these observations. See how it can apply to you.

Click here to continue: What do you start with?

So your challenge is to find out what can trigger an impulse or a strong, unbearable desire to make the buying decision IN YOUR FAVOUR. Your success in selling your treatment or products depends on your ability to make the customer want to buy from you and not from a [cheaper} competitor.

The first thing he buys has nothing to do with quality or warranty or even price. First he buys TRUST. He buys confidence about your ability and desire to help him resolve a problem, some pain or some discomfort. If he does not trust you and does not feel confident with what you say he will go find what he is looking for at another place. The challenge is thus to demonstrate, early in the call, that you care more for him and for his sake (his health, his body condition, his comfort, etc.) than you care for his money. How do you show that you care? By showing your talent? No…

Continue here: What makes the sale?

You got it: the patient gets confused, skeptical.

Relying on your best argument does not make you any different from the competition. So then what do you use to make the difference? There is one factor which is much more impinging on the patient’s buying process – or call it a major “buying factor”: the certainty of making the right decision – or the anxiety of making the wrong one (usually much stronger!).

Can your arguments help in either increasing his certainty or – better, decreasing his anxiety/fear related to his decision? Absolutely not. So what do you need then?

You need ATTITUDE. Because that is the first thing he buys. He buys your conviction and certainty in your ability and willingness to help him; he buys your dedication to find the right solution for his pain or discomfort or concern; he buy YOU first. See, most salespeople fall in a big trap: they work the customer in a superficial zone: the zone of logic. They do not understand that the major buying factor has nothing to do with logic – where your arguments stand.  Buying is ALWAYS more emotional than logical, especially in the field of health and body condition. So using logical arguments usually do not trigger the desire; they trigger only “thinking” or counter-arguments (have you ever had a patient asking to buy right after you placed your best argument?).

You thus need to “convert” your arguments into emotional triggers by finding out what emotional subject can be related to your special treatment – or a specific supplement. For example: you have a great superfood-based product, known to reduce fat AND environmental toxicity (two good arguments). Your patient is overweighed and suffers from respiratory problems – besides having a chronic low back pain.

How do these body non-optimal conditions AFFECT your patient in life? In other words, why could it be emotionally important for this patient to use such a product? Well, what impact can his weight issue have on his social life? Could you ask him that? Or: How often does he feel tired during the day, unable to focus while choking out of his coughs? These are examples of emotional subjects related to the product.  If you can find out what emotional subjects would your patient react to and if you can demonstrate that your mission is to help him handle or resolve these emotional issues, he will want to buy from you!

Continue here: What is THE most important quality in selling?

All these qualities are definitely needed and vital to succeed. But today there is one quality required, more than any other. Without that one, you will fail to create the desire to buy…

That quality is: curiosity!

Look up the word in a good dictionary: you will find out that the first definition of “curiosity” is INTEREST. Great salespeople are curious, they are interested. They want to know so many things about their customers or patients, about their need of course, but more importantly, about their personal desires, fears, concerns. They want to find out what makes the patient “go in life“. They want to find out all about them. They also want to know all about their past good and/or bad experiences with similar products or services.

In my research and evaluation of all these great salespeople, this is the ONE quality that I found. This is THE difference that I could detect between most salespeople and the great ones!

Great salespeople are curious. They want to know. They do not try to bombard the customer or patient with arguments. They try to find out 1) “who is this person I am treating”, 2) “what are his problems, concerns, and what does he like?”;  3) “what are his desires, concerns or fears, related to the subject of my product/service?“.

As a matter of facts, if you should remember one thing about this article, remember this: the more you know, the more you sell. It is not “the more I talk the more I sell”, as many of us have been educated into believing. Consider this: on average, a salesperson will ask 5 to 8 questions before starting to talk and argue (about his product). An observation of successful salespeople revealed that they would ask up to 5 times as many questions, before presenting and arguing about their product. They are genuinely interested.

So you could put up a list of questions that would help you answer this one: “What do I want to know from this patient?” Once you work with that attitude, you will see a big change in your profession – as well as in your life. You will soon realize that “one is as successful as he can grant importance to others”.

And for your patients, guess who the most important person on this planet is?

Patrick V. Valtin,
Patrick@NewEraSelling.com