68 MARCH 2017 // dentaltownuk.com

Discover seven easy steps to create more opportunities to provide more Teeth Whitening Treatments and increase your turnover and profits

A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with a client who had just taken my Two Day Ethical Sales & Communication Programme. He was sharing some of his success stories, in particular, relating a conversation he had with a new patient.

The patient, in his early 40s, was enquiring about some teeth whitening. He had just been promoted to Sales Director in his company, where he now found himself having to give more presentations and he felt he would look and act more confidently if he had whiter teeth. My client asked the patient why he wasn’t getting

this treatment done with his existing dentist; the patient replied that he didn’t think his dentist delivered this treatment.

Here we have a patient that has had to go to a different Practice, because he thinks that his existing dentist does not provide this treatment. What a shame and of course, a missed opportunity for that Practice.

I am not sure why some Practices don’t offer this type of treatment, because there are so many opportunities in providing it. For a start, it is extremely popular, patients are now seeking out this type of treatment, and it seems everyone wants to have whiter teeth. Another advantage for your Practice is that once patients have whiter teeth, then they might become more enthusiastic about other treatments that you provide. In addition, it should increase the number of referrals from existing patients and of course, if you don’t provide

it, then like the story above, your existing patients will go to another practice and they might even leave you for good.

So how do we increase sales of this extremely popular treatment? Here are seven easy steps to follow that will increase your opportunities to deliver teeth whitening treatments and, by the way, other treatments as well.

Make sure that your patients are aware that you provide this type of treatment. If I was sitting in your reception area, would I know that you provided it? Now I am not saying you should have hundreds of pictures plastered all over your reception area, but a few discreet pictures on the walls and a photo album, showing many before and after pictures of all the treatments that you offer, not just teeth whitening will help immensely.

These photo books can look very professional, if they have been put together by using a company such as snapfish.co.uk, which look extremely classy. Maybe you could have a pop up stand, again showing some excellent before and after pictures and of course you should have the same information on your website.

At every consultation, ask your patient questions about their appearance. For example show your patient a mirror and ask them questions such as ‘Mrs. Patient looking at your teeth, is there anything that you would you like to change or improve about your smile? Or looking at your teeth have you ever considered having them whiter? Now if you are going to ask these questions, you must ensure that you have good rapport with your patient. Instead of using a mirror, many of my clients now use Intraoral cameras to start this conversation. You can of course ascertain this information by asking the patient to complete a questionnaire before their check-up.

Never make any assumptions about who to ask these questions to. I have delivered over 26,000 hours of business training to the dental market and the biggest communication mistake dentists make, is they make assumptions about their patients, this leads to thousands of pounds worth of lost opportunities every year.

I can literally share with you hundreds of stories where Dentists have stopped making assumptions about their patients and new opportunities have been created. My most famous one is the window cleaner who signed up to treatment to the value of

Time Out

Ashley Latter author of ‘Don’t Wait for the Tooth Fairy’ & ‘You are Worth it’ offers some sound advice on how you can create more oppor tuni t ies to deliver more teeth whitening in your practice.

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Time Out

£10,000 for implant treatment, who subsequently paid for his treatment in cash.

If the client states they are interested in the treatment, please do not launch into the standard presentation I often hear, which goes something like,

‘Mrs Patient we have two ways of doing this treatment, you can use the home kit, first we take an impression, then we send it off to a lab’, etc. etc. you can probably finish the rest of this presentation off. Firstly it is too technical, using phrases such as we “take an impression”, “send it off to lab ”,“ bleach”, besides being too technical it goes into too much detail about the

procedure, which most patients are not interested in knowing. So ask more questions about their concern because you are genuinely interested. A great question to ask here would be ‘what would you like your teeth to look like at the end? And what impact would whiter teeth have on your day to day life?” These are great questions to ask as it explores the impact your solution will have in their everyday lives.

Once you have asked at least 6-8 questions and you have conducted your examination, then you can present your solution back to the patient. You do this by telling them the benefits of the treatment and how it will help their everyday lives. You can also show them pictures of previous patients who have had the treatment. Please make sure the pictures that you show are relevant to the patients who you are presenting to. So for example, if you have a male patient in the chair, show examples of other male patients who have had the treatment. The pictures have to be relevant to the patient’s situation.

Once you have explained the benefits and presented your evidence, you can now inform the patients on how you would administer the treatment and of course you can tell them of your fees. When you quote your fees, please let the patient know what’s included, so it builds value into the procedure.

Once you have completed all the steps, then the next logical step is to ask the patient if they

are happy with what you have discussed, you can do this by asking a question that like, “Mrs Patient how does all this sound?” If they give you a positive response to this question, then the next logical step is to move to the commitment stage by taking an impression and booking the next appointment.

There you have it, seven logical, easy steps to follow that should help you deliver more teeth whitening procedures and give the treatment your patients want and of course that you love to do. There are so many opportunities out there in your existing database; you just need to have some good conversations with your patients. If you don’t, then someone else will.

Ashley Latter is internationally renowned for helping Dentists and their teams improve their communication and ethical sales skills, so that Practices can create more opportunities to deliver the Dentistry that they love to do and their patients want.

He is the author of three books on this subject, his most popular one is “Don’t Wait for the Tooth Fairy” (How to communicate effectively and create the perfect patient journey in your Dental Practice). He writes regular email newsletters, read by more than 12,000 Dentists world-wide.

To register for this free of charge and to read other articles similar to this topic, please visit his website www.ashleylatter.com. ■

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