What Do You Guarantee?
What do you guarantee?
What’s that you say…you don’t have a guarantee? Wrong move. 99% of all small businesses (remember you are a small business) already have a guarantee-but they just don’t know it, nor do they publicize it. You are not going to guarantee results. Not only is that impossible, but it’s also against most state laws. But you can guarantee satisfaction, or a procedure.
These are called “soft guarantees”. What do I mean? Soft guarantees make promises based on generalities and not specifics. For instance, “We guarantee to be kind to you.” This is a soft guarantee because it’s very general and not specific.
Examples of soft guarntees:
- Guarantee that you have the friendliest staff
- That you have quick service (in and out in 15-minutes)
- Gurantee patients will be treated with respect.
- Guarnartee anything that will set you aprt from the competition, and increase your value in the patient’s mind.
Look at your competitors. Go through the yellow pages or the newspaper and search for other business’ guarantees. Look outside your specific marketplace for other ideas. What patterns do you see? Did you find many guarantees? Develop a guaranrtee that stretches you to the limits and test it. This can be one of your most powerful marketing tools.
If you decide to offer a guarantee, then you better let the world know about it! Start small and track your results. How much did business increase over the previous totals you had before the guarantee? Be sure to test at least two combinations of your guarantee to discover which one works best. Put it in your advertisements, in your workshops, lecture topics, telemarketing, on your telephone message, USP, networking events and on your business cards.
This strategy works in virtually every industry, yet doctors and health professionals rarely use it. That’s great news for you! More market share.
I know you might be getting a little nervous about this area of marketing, but that’s okay. Just keep an open mind. It’s natural to be afraid of making a guarantee because you might be afraid of patients taking advantage of your offer.
I’m here to tell you, “don’t’ be afraid.” There are ways to offer guarantees that do not center on the actual treatment you provide, and only a small number of clients will take advantage. Humans are generally non-confrontational and don’t want to make a big issue of things. The pros far outweigh the cons.
In any transaction, one individual must take all of the risk. In healthcare, the patient takes most of the risks. Some risks include:
- Making the wrong decision
- Losing money
- Not receiving what they paid for
- Not being satisfied and then not being able to recoup their investment of time and money.
As you might imagine, these keep many patients from contacting you. Even if people are desperate for help, they don’t always take action to get help. Why? HOPE.
When people have tried everything they can imagine to get well, but nothing has worked they begin to lose hope. Notice I did not say lost hope. They still have in the back of their minds the hope for that one miracle treatment or miracle doctor to help them get well. Sometimes they won’t act to see you because they are fearful if yor treatment does not work, their last hope is gone. FEAR of the unknown keeps them from taking action. You need to use this emotional tie-in to help them take the necessary action. Look at it from the patient’s perspective, not yours.
While all of your competitors are out there scared to death to offer a guarantee, you now know better and will stand out from the crowd. Your patients wil naturally have more confidence in you. If you are confident enough in yourself to offer a guarantee, then you must be good. By offering a guarantee you will be lowering the patient’s natural resistance to contacting you. It’s that extra something to set you apart from the crowd.
Make the strongest promise you can comfortably live up to, and feature it prominently in all your marketing materials and don’t woryy about the myth that you’ll lose your shirt or your reputation. It just doesn’t happen.
Dr. Perry Nickelston
866-595-7749
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