Episode 461: Words to Get Results

Episode 461: Words to Get Results

We’re rounding out the year by sharing phrases that’ll get your patients saying YES! The Dental A-Team has put a ton of time into figuring out what works best when speaking with our patients, what gets your practice results better and faster. The idea is to think about the outcome you want and then listen to the verbiage you’re using. Kiera gives advice on some phrases you could use … as well as words you definitely shouldn’t.

Want to know more? Download our form of words to use and not to use.

Episode resources:

Reach out to Kiera

Listen to episode 311, How to Stop Cancellations

Listen to episode 250, Magic Phrases and Pre-Payments

Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast

Become Dental A-Team Platinum!

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0:00:05.8 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, schedule filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner and I have a team of travelling consultants, so we have travelled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I could help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast.

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0:00:51.4 KD: Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. A happy day to you guys, I hope you're doing amazing out there. I hope wherever you are, you just give yourself and somebody else a little extra love and high five. You guys in the A Team, we believe in being the best of the best of the best. And that means personally, professionally, within our teams, within our families, within our communities. So guys, just say to look at yourself, check to see where could you be a little bit more A team in your life. Something I do pretty constantly in my life and something that I'm going to encourage all of you to do. Also guys, if you love our podcast, if you're a raving fan, please do us a huge favor, go on your phone, scroll down to where those reviews are at and rate and review us. It helps a ton. I read all of those reviews, sometimes I do shout out to you guys, and I just value your feedback. I value you sharing us with your friends, because that's how we are able to get this podcast to grow. It has grown tremendously over the last two years, kudos to all of you faithful listeners. So please do us a favor, share this with a friend, download, leave a review, that's the best way you can help give back, because guys, without you, we're not able to do our mission, which is positively impacting the world of dentistry in the biggest way possible.

0:02:00.1 KD: So that's why we started this podcast, that is why I wake up super, super early to podcasts for you guys. I podcast on the road, I love connecting with you, I love hearing your stories, and I love giving you guys free advice, so please do us a favor and share it with your friends. And send this to somebody who we can help them in their practice, or they just need to be motivated personally and professionally. Alright guys, so with this, I wanted to dive into a really fun topic of magic phrases. You guys know I love to be a word ninja, I love to think of different ways to do this. And we have a couple of really cool magic phrases today, it'll probably be a quick podcast for you. But some of the magic phrases that we have found that work really, really well for clients, some of them that help you guys just get results. So these aren't actual magic phrases, guys, this is called Kiera, Tiffany, Britney, Dana, our whole consulting team of things that we found that actually just work well, things that we found that we word ninja because at the end of the day, there are no failures, only results, according to Tony Robbins, and it's one of my absolute favorite quotes.

0:03:04.8 KD: I'll say that again. There are no failures, just results. So when I look at these magic phrases, I think of, "Okay, what result am I trying to get? What result do I want to get?" And then from there, I go from, "Okay, did I get that result? Or did I not? And how could I actually change it? How could I make it a little better? How could I make this something that could get me a result faster?" And that's actually where these magic phrases come up. So guys, just think of it, we're constantly evolving and innovating. I've been in practices, some of the magic phrases I have now, I didn't even use when I was in a practice. Instead, I have used them only through consulting. So we have this really awesome sheet, if you guys want access to it you can get the free download on our podcast page. Be sure to pop over to thedentalateam.com, click on our podcast tab, this episode, we have the downloadable form right there for you. Also, just a quick note, guys, people ask me all the time, "Hey, Kiera, do you have a podcast on this?" You better believe I probably have a podcast on any topic out there, and if I don't, pop it in our suggestion box. I would love suggestions from you guys. On our podcast tab on our website, there's a place for you to drop suggestions or you can always email us, [email protected].

0:04:22.4 KD: I love pen pals, guys, I write back to you. It's really fun to hear from you, or another thing you can do is at the bottom of the page on your phone, or if you're on your computer, it's just right on to the right-hand side. But if you're on your phone, scroll to the bottom, there is actually a spot in there where you can search our podcast page. So if you wanna know about case acceptance, type in case acceptance, and there's probably 50 podcasts in there. I know this 'cause I just did it for an office. If you wanna know about hygiene, type in hygiene, it's all listed there for you. If you wanna know about reactivation, it's in there. If you wanna know about associates, it's in there. If you wanna find out if we have anything on practice mergers, it's in there. If you wanna know about anybody that we have for practice financing, type that in, and if you can't find it, be sure to email us, [email protected], but I wanted to give you guys a resource, so this one is on the magic phrases.

0:05:13.3 KD: So my first magic phrase that I always love, shout out to Tiffany, one of our best consultants. I just adore her. She's been with me since day one, and Tiff came up with this. She used it in her practice, and when I heard it, I thought, "Dang, girl, that is magic sauce right there." So what it is, is when we're calling for reactivation on our accounts or for our patients for, let's say, recare, or unscheduled treatment plans, the best phrase... And I'll give you two of them. So many of us call, this was me in a practice, I would call and say, "Hey, this is Kiera calling from Amazing Smiles Dental. I was calling regarding your cleaning, it's been a little while. We wanted to get you scheduled, so give me a quick call back." Left my phone number, off we went. Well, let's just think about this. Okay, let's go into real life world. When you guys are out of the store shopping or when you're in the middle of kids or homework or making dinner, and you get a message, 'cause guess what, we can all read it now on our phones, and it says, "Calling for your dental cleaning," you're like, "Yep, I'll call that back later."

0:06:14.9 KD: Okay, that's what happened. I would make all these phone calls and I wouldn't get anybody to call me back. So Ms. Tiffany, we were at an event and she said, "Guys, here's a great phrase. What you say is, 'Hi, this is Tiffany calling from Amazing Smiles Dental. I was calling regarding your account. Give me a quick call back.'" Genius, mic drop, Tiffany Trader, you brilliant little soul out there. Brilliant, because at the end of the day, everything on that is, guess what, their account. Everything on there is what we need them... That is part of it. I was like, "This is the most brilliant thing." You follow it up with a text message, the exact same message, "This is Tiffany calling from Amazing Smiles. I was calling regarding your account. Give me a quick call back." Now when you're making dinner, shopping at the store and you see my account, I'm like, "Oh man, I don't know what they're calling for, I need to give them a call back." I will promise you your phones will be ringing way faster, so be sure to reach out to your patients. Another phrase along that same vein is, "Hi, this is Kiera calling from Amazing Smiles Dental. Dr. Smith and I were chatting about your account, and he wanted me to reach out and give you a call. Please give me a quick call back when you have a second, and I'll talk to you soon."

0:07:28.3 KD: So you can actually tie in the doctor's name to these appointment calls, and you will get massive results that way, so I don't care which way you choose to go, but try it out. Guys, do the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. You better believe I was shaking when I left that first voicemail. And then I saw that it worked because what was my outcome? What's my result? I don't wanna make 100 phone calls to check off a box, I wanna make 100 phone calls to fill my schedule and to help my patients. That's why I'm doing this. So think about your outcome and then listen to your verbiage, and is it actually getting you that verbiage? I was at an office this week, and the front desk gal was saying, "Hey, would you like to get scheduled for that?" We might think we're super sweet by saying, "Would you like to get scheduled for that?" My phrase is, "Let's get you scheduled for that." Again, I changed one little part of that phrase and I get a majorly different result. Let's get you scheduled. Let's get you on the schedule. Let's pop you in the schedule.

0:08:24.3 KD: When somebody says, "Hey, Kiera, I've gotta check my schedule." And I say, "No problem. I would honestly hate to forget about you, so let's just pop you on the schedule and if it doesn't work when you get to work, not a problem, you can call me. We'll move it for you. Let's get you scheduled. I've got Monday or Tuesday, which works best?" As you guys look back on 2021, how was it? Was it your best year? Was it a year you could have done a little better. And as you're looking forward to 2022, what type of a practice and a person do you wanna be? Well, guys, now is the time to take massive action and to have the life and the practice you've always wanted. Dental A Team Platinum is where it's at, guys. We focus on system development. That's right, top to bottom. Team development, growing leaders, growing you as a person, making sure you're balanced, that we have happier teams, and we also ensure that your practice is profitable, teaching you how to be business savvy. So if you're looking to enhance your practice, take it to the next level, you yourself wanna grow, now is the time. Dental A Team Platinum, we fly to your practice, most of our offices see a 10-30% increase in revenue, reduction of stress, happier teams, better patient experiences.

0:09:28.4 KD: So if you know you wanna rocket launch yourself into 2022, don't wait, guys, we are only taking on so many Platinum practices because we physically fly to you so emails today, [email protected]. And you better believe we have something special for you end of year offices. So be sure to reach out, [email protected]. Remember you're only one decision away from a completely different life. That's it, guys. Again, thinking about, "How can you change this phrase? How can you change the words you're saying to get different results? When I present a treatment plan, I schedule them first. Then I present the treatment plan to them. I don't say the numbers out loud, I just point to them. That way it's not a big daunting number. Guys, I was closing 50, 60, 70, 80,000-dollar treatment plans. This is how I did it, this is how I see offices do it. These are little magic phrases that are going to change it. Doctors, instead of saying, "Hey, do you wanna get that crown done?" The answer is, "Hey, no, I don't. I do not wanna get that crown done, I do not enjoy coming to the dentist, so no, I do not want to do that. So don't even ask me do I want to."

0:10:32.5 KD: I think about this often. Would I ever go to my husband and say, "Hey, do you wanna divorce me?" No, I would not say that because I don't wanna know the answer to that. Maybe if you do, instead of saying, "Do you want to," you'd be like, "Let's get divorced." Alright, so reality is, I'm not going to say that. I loved my dating life, you guys. I was an avid, avid dating machine out there. And I'll tell you what, I never went to a boyfriend and said, "Hey, do you wanna break up with me?" Unless I was trying to really, really, really get out of the relationship and then I was sneaky about it. I never broke up with people, I was just a ruthless girlfriend that made them want to break up with me, [chuckle] but the bottom line is I just don't want that answer. I don't want them to say yes or no to that. So what I... It's the same thing, I don't want people to say no to me at the dental practice, so I found a way to go around it and say, "Let's get you scheduled for that." It's also me assuming that they want to move forward with treatment.

0:11:30.1 KD: Why would they not? They're at the best dental practice ever. Why would they not? So listen to yourself. Are we saying, "Hey, do you wanna get scheduled for that?" Or another one is, "Hey, let's just get that crown done as soon as possible." Guess what, that's a really good way to... That's a good loophole for patients. Instead say, "Hey, I'd love to get that crown done. Let's see you back in the next week to two weeks. I'd love to get that taken care of for you." Another magic phrase. These aren't magic phrases, it's being a word ninja is really what it is. It's thinking about how am I saying it, and how is this person perceiving it? The word unfortunately, ooh, that just makes people's skin crawl. "Well, unfortunately, I don't have space." Yeah, right, you do. We've all heard unfortunately so long, so instead replace it with, "The good news is." So if a patient's late and they can't be seen by the hygienist, "Hey, welcome, I'm so glad you're here. So we do have your spot filled and it's due to you just being a smidge late. The great news is I'm gonna be able to stick you back in and get some X-rays taken, and your exam and then we'll get you scheduled for your cleaning at another time.

0:12:33.9 KD: I'm not gonna tell them, "Unfortunately," you guys, if you have not heard, go back through the archives of the podcast and listen to me and Louisa in Ireland. This is a lady who told me that I needed to act like an adult when I had a flight that she was re-scheduling for me flying from Ireland home. If you have not heard that podcast, go listen to it. I think it's a crap hand off's podcast. But you'll find out that Louisa frosted me hardcore by telling me I needed to be an adult. Same thing with using the word unfortunately, it's like reprimanding adults. We don't need to do that, let's just tell them the good news. They've got it, guys, and they're also gonna love you a lot more, so being that word ninja. So what I was mentioning earlier about going on our online and downloading is we've got a magic phrase of, "Words create worlds." I really love that phrase. A mentor of mine told me that. She said, "Kiera, words create worlds." So look to see what world are you creating. If I say insurance a lot, I'm going to have a lot of patients who are driven by insurance. If I say cancellation a lot, I'm going to have patients cancelling on me a lot. If I'm asking people, "Do you wanna get scheduled?" I'm probably gonna have a lot of people saying no to me.

0:13:42.6 KD: So look to see how could I change these things up. So we actually have a form called words to use and not to use. So instead of saying, "I can try," we say, "Absolutely," or, "I can definitely help you with that." Instead of, "But," we can say, "And." Instead of, "Sorry, we're out of network. No, we don't take that," we can say, "We absolutely accept your insurance and we'll bill on your behalf. There are other things that we can do if... No, I can't get you in at the time we've requested, let's slide you into the spot that's available, and what I'll do is put you on our ASAP list. If we get a change and I can accommodate," this date that they wanted, "you're going to be the top of the list. This way, we know for sure you'll at least be seen on," the date we're giving them. So so many little magic ways to turn this around, I don't believe it's there. Walt Disney said that they were able to have... "Magic is created by the predictable systems behind the scenes," and I love that.

0:14:36.3 KD: So these magic phrases are created by predictable systems behind the scenes, so it's consistent verbiage, it's looking to see what results we're getting, and then changing it, so I want you guys to try this out. Email us if you want help. This is something that's really fun. We role play, we hear people, because we can't hear oftentimes ourselves. You might think you're saying all these things, I definitely was coaching in office the other day. If you're this office, don't call, we don't want you. [chuckle] I say that with all the love in my heart, and I genuinely mean it. This office was not receptible at all. They would ask me for advice, we'd give them an advice, and it was always, "We do that, we do that, we do that." So I said, "Great, let's test it. How about this? We're gonna have you do x, y, and z, and let's see how you're doing." It turns out it came back that they actually were not doing all those things. So oftentimes I think that that's human nature. We don't wanna be wrong, we don't wanna be called out in front of other people, and that's totally fine.

0:15:31.0 KD: I'd also say that take a little bit of a humility pill. Look to see where could you change, 'cause guess what, people genuinely, 90% of people, there's some mean people out there, but most people only give you advice or tell you things because they actually care about you and they want to help you grow. They can see your blind spots that you can't see. You guys could tell me, I had... Kayelee. Kayelee Taylor told me, she said, "Kiera, on the podcast, you say umm a lot." I had no idea. Now you guys are gonna listen for it. Darn it. I told you. Sorry. Sorry, you're gonna hear it. It's actually intentional. [chuckle] It came from when I was doing treatment planning and I needed to make myself speak slower, so it actually became an intentional thing that I started to put in. But the bottom line is I was so thankful that Kayelee told me because I couldn't see that myself. People tell me often, "Hey, Kiera, you didn't give us clear advice on that." Thank you for telling me. Thank you. So take the humility pill, listen in, try these phrases, try it. Usually it's a one-word difference, and that's why people usually think they're doing it and they don't realize it's that one word that's going to make all the difference.

0:16:33.2 KD: So try it out, guys. There's your magic phrases. As always, if we can help you, if we can train your team, role play with your team, give you guys these magic phrases. If we can come into your practice and you're open and you want somebody to come in and find your blind spots for you, we do it in the most loving way. We're not there to rap the ruler on the desk, we're not there to make you feel incompetent, we're literally there as an advocate for you. So guys, reach out, I'd love to help you. I'd love to have you as part of our family, [email protected]. And there are massive perks for our Dental A Team family. We give them inclusive insiders. We have special private events for them with really, really awesome people that we come across. We have early releases for them before we send it out to the podcast group. We try and do a lot of things, we're putting together some really cool Platinum things. We just sent gifts out to all of them this year. I cannot wait. It was a labor of love. Me, my sister, Shelby, Sissy, Stacia, hand cut all these things for you guys and made cute stickers for them because we could have easily just shipped you a gift, but we wanted to make sure it was a gift with impact.

0:17:39.9 KD: So lots of things like that. Those are just the perks, but the main meat and potatoes is we actually get results with our coaching, and we do it in a way that's successful for you and your practice of what you guys need. We focus on making sure you're profitable, we focus on you as people, growing you as leaders, and developing you in miracle morning and balance, and making sure that you're fulfilled in those areas of your personal life. And we also focus on systems, top to bottom, and team development, top to bottom. So if that resonates with you, guys, don't wait. You're one decision away from a completely different life. Email us, [email protected]. And as always, thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

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0:18:20.0 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

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