Clear Idea #3

26 www.acasociety.com | info@acasociety.com But first, are you a homeowner? As someone who’s owned homes for many years, I’ve never been keen on spending money on home maintenance. In fact, I hate it. What do you really get for it? Nothing! You basically pay money for the tradie to essentially return the house to the way it was. On the other hand, paying money for an upgrade/extension to your home is so much better. You get something that’s new, that you can gaze upon and thoroughly enjoy. The fact is many patients look at dentistry like this. Old school dentistry is, for many patients, a bit like home maintenance – a ‘grudge buy’. They felt they didn’t really get anything from it other just doing what they have to do. On the other hand, clear aligners are like a house extension – something that’s beautiful, new and fun to live with. How to attract external patients Wouldn’t it be great if your practice were getting more and more calls from potential new patients every week asking you about clear aligner cases? And what if they never mentioned that they were shopping around with other dentists in your area? While we may never get to that point, we can get much closer by doing the following. In what is one of the most respected and often quoted books on marketing, Professor Robert Cialdini in his book ‘Influence’ men- tions six key ways to influence people. Note: this is about influence; not manipulating, cajoling or extorting, just influencing. The better we can ethically influence our clients, the more they’re likely to take our advice about what’s best for them and their goals. Building your influence In Influence , the first strategy I want to highlight is authority. In the book, the empirical studies show that the more authority someone perceives you have, the more likely they are to follow your advice and instructions. And the more effectively you can build your authority, the more likely you are to receive calls from prospective clients only wanting to deal with you. One of the best ways to build authority is to educate. Your options for education include running webinars, doing face to face information sessions, writing articles, or shooting videos. Of the four options, my strongest preference is video. The beauty of video is that once you’ve recorded it, it can be used again and again. You can create a You Tube channel and post videos there. You can post the same video on social media; and you can put it on your website. You can even play your educational videos in the reception area, which has the double benefit of boosting your authority with potential and actual clients. Two for the price of one! Show me proof Another of the 6 principles in Cialdini’s book is called social proof. This one reflects the fact that when people don’t know what to do, they check to see what the ‘herd’ is doing. The more evidence you can show that ‘everyone’ is doing something, the more likely people are to follow suit. One of the best social proof tools is before and after photos. These are perfectly AHPRA compliant but if you’re worried about promoting unrealistic outcomes, you can add a comment like ‘Individual results vary – ask us today about how this could work for you,’ to protect yourself. If you’re not already doing so, start diligently collecting before and after photos of your clear aligner cases. Such photos can be used to promote your services to actual and potential clients. A powerful way to use these with existing clients is to display the before and after photos in your reception area. Either have a poster made up or a pull-up banner. Include the text “actual cases performed by Dr [name] at this practice”. This has a dual benefit. It provides social proof that ‘everyone’ is getting this done. Secondly, it builds your authority as the go- to dentist to do this kind of work. Lose the retractors! A few words of warning about before and after photos: Do not ever shows retractor shots to anyone outside the dental industry! Never! Virtually every non-dentist I’ve ever shown such shots to hates them, because it’s a sight of a person that no one usually gets to see. Much better than retractor shots are (i) a smiling face shot, and (ii) a smile close up – more like normal life for non-dentists. Conclusion Clear aligners are just about the bee’s knees in dentistry. Follow the tips above and you might just find yourself doingmore andmore of them. Otherwise, you can always stick to old school dental ‘maintenance’ and we know how most non-dentists feel about that. How to do more clear aligners with new and existing patients By Angus Pryor Clear aligners are arguably one of the most exciting things to happen to dentistry in recent times. In this article, we’re going to look at how to do more clear aligner cases, both from existing patients and by attracting new patients to the practice for that purpose. Award-winning Practice Growth Specialist, Angus Pryor, is an author, marketer and international speaker. In 2020, Angus’ marketing agency, Local Search for Dentists TM , was recognised with the highly coveted marketing award from the Australian Dental Industry Association. Angus is an Amazon number one bestselling author from his book ‘The Dental Practice Profit System – 5 steps to higher patients and higher profits’. He has written extensively in a range of industry publications. For more information, visit www.anguspryor.com Angus Pryor