Ron Sheetz

As business owner's, we need to connect with people before we can "sell" them. George Foreman, stated, "People don't buy what's in your hand they buy you. Once people buy you they buy what you sell." Establishing a relationship and building rapport is an ongoing activity you can't underestimate.  

You can close more sales face to face, but time, geography and schedules can present a lot of obstacles. Video offers the next best thing to personal interaction. I've told clients, a video can't close the sale, but it can help develop the relationship, which opens the door to closing opportunities.

Welcome video's that greet visitors to your home page, speaks to their "pain" or needs, can immediately capture attention and establish rapport. Video emails can nurture relationships with patients and sending them frequently can mean getting the sale by being the right person in the right place at the right time with the right solution for your patient. (click here and scroll down to for an example of how effective videos are in connecting to your potential patients )

You have to engage your audience on a personal level. I started with how many messages we're bombarded with every day in my last issue. You can't be part of the clutter if you're going to succeed.

Learn how to incorporate and implement videos into your practice by downloading my free guide "Video Testimonial Special Report" at www.new-dental-marketing-ideas.com/testimonials. 

Sally McKenzie

Your website is the Yellow Pages of the 21^st Century, and it's where patients look first to purchase products and services, including dental services. It works for your practice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The website is the entrance to the practice. If the site looks dumpy and outdated, visitors will think the same of your practice. Prospective patients take one look and pass judgment literally in less than the blink of an eye. If it is visually appealing to them, they are likely to take some time to explore and learn more about what your practice has to offer. If it isn't, those prospective patients are on to another site almost immediately.  

Many prospective patients will visit your website prior to calling your office, so your site must not only look professional but also provide a positive "user experience." While it can be tempting to have music, or dialog, or videos, that automatically load, too many bells and whistles tend to annoy visitors. Users prefer to have a choice in whether they want to activate those special features.  

Additionally, professional design is essential to ensure that the site is fully optimized and drives traffic to your site and enables search engines to find it quickly and easily. The look of your website should be consistent with all of your other materials in that the overall appearance is similar in terms of the logo, the fonts, the colors, that represent your established practice brand.

Content should be written in a patient-friendly style, not too technical. Give enough information that prospective patients can scan the site to gather necessary details without having to read several text-heavy paragraphs. Keep the information clear and straightforward. For example, if you have a page on endodontics, it should explain the procedure in easy to understand terms - steer clear of dental jargon. It should cover why a patient would need a root canal, and what is involved. Experts recommend using about one to one-and-a-half pages of content per topic. And always give visitors to your website the option of reading more by clicking on specific terms or tabs to see another page of information.

The site should be easy to navigate. Keep it consistent on every page. If you make prospective patients and other visitors work too hard, they will leave your site and go to your competitor's.  

Don't forget the obvious. Contact information including a phone number and physical location is a must. Make the phone number obvious and on every page and you make it easy for the visitor to pick up the phone and call now.

More About McKenzie Management... 

Katherine Eitel

Imagine yourself standing outside of a box divided into four quadrants which are labeled: Lead, Follow, Change, and Get Out Of The Way. Before you make a decision, start a conversation with a co-worker, or step into a selling situation with a client, you get to decide which of these boxes you'll "lead" from. One box will be the most comfortable for you because it's likely where you've been operating from the longest, most frequently, and in which you have developed the most skill ... but all are viable and powerful leadership choices and positions. Good leaders know they have a choice and there is a perfect time for each option.

Being proactively "at choice" is one of the cornerstones of great leadership. Leaders notice their current position and choose their response instead of simply blindly reacting.

In my continued interview with corporate change agent, Ian McKelvie, we get a glimpse into this leadership model Ian calls The Leadership Choice. He helps us understand that being "at choice" as a leader is more important than actually "making choices." He gives a specific example of one conversation with a client where he used all four boxes, all four choices, at some point in that conversation. We even talk about how leaders stay "at choice" ... even when there is only one option. (Think Nelson Mandella in a prison cell in South Africa.)