5. The Untold Sales Playbook for Scaling Your Cash-Pay Clinic with Sales Expert, Mario Maldonado

Are you a medical wellness practice looking to boost both new patient acquisition and long-term patient retention? 

In this episode of The Wellness Practice Playbook, we're joined by Mario Maldonado, a seasoned sales expert with years of experience in the medical field. Mario reveals why adopting a robust medical practice sales strategy is crucial for cash-pay clinics, shifting the perspective from "treating patients" to "marketing medical procedures."

Discover the critical difference between a front desk and a dedicated wellness advisor or health consultant, and how a structured sales process can lead to higher conversion rates and lower no-show appointments. Mario shares invaluable insights on everything from establishing rapport and qualifying leads to leveraging CRM technology for efficient lead management. We also discuss the importance of speed-to-lead, team collaboration, and continuously introducing new procedures to keep revenue flowing. Tune in to learn how a specialized sales approach can transform your practice's growth and patient loyalty.

The Wellness Practice Playbook is also available for streaming on our website, YouTube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify.

Transcript

Sales is not just getting new patients. Sales is also important in the retention side of the business. We're competing for people's money. You know, are they going to spend it on a vacation? Are they going to spend it on a weekend? Are they going to spend it on their health? Exactly. Someone who has a men's health clinic. This is a good tip. 

And then nowadays, with AI, it's getting to a totally different level. This, the systems will allow clinics to run large numbers of leads. Welcome everybody to the next episode of the podcast the wellness practice playbook. So today, we're going to talk about sales, specifically. Importance of sales in the medical wellness practice sales is not just getting new patients. Sales also important in the retention side of the business, to keep the patients, introducing to them new services. Today, we have invited Mario Maldonado to our podcast. Mario I worked at a medical practice in the past, sold medical procedures right over the phone. We're talking about 1000s of dollars collected right through the phone on the credit card. Overall, has a better has many years experience in sales. Now, he is working at our agency, helping medical practices, telling them how things need to be done. So here's a lot of knowledge on how to structure sales, so that's what the conversation is going to be about. So Hello, Maria. How was your morning? So let's start first with the situation of one clinic, medical practices thinking, You know what? We don't sell we treat patients, not necessarily. We don't want to look like we are sales people. What To me, it's a big mistake, because I'm always saying the cash pay medical practice is you should look at it as not a medical clinic. Look at it as a marketing company that sells medical procedures, because it's not an insurance base, right?

Exactly. So basically, we're competing for people's money. You know, are they going to spend it on a vacation? Are they going to spend it on a weekend? Are they going to spend it on their health? You know, ideally, ideally, you know, you want to be able to educate them to the point where they would be able to enjoy all those things if they were in optimal health. So, anti aging fascinates me, you know, and I actually didn't know anything about it till I actually joined. Started this in 2017 with this national wellness clinic, where I was speaking to men and women throughout the country and basically educating them. It's more of a consultative approach, educating them as far as what their symptoms were and what the solution was again, like I told you before, I never knew anything about I didn't know anything about hormone replacement therapy. I didn't even know anything about Ed but it does happen to everybody, especially, you know, men and women as they get older, I would say now in their late 30s, 40s, you know, unfortunately, you know, not everybody is as healthy as they'd like to be. Stress has a lot to do with it. You know, the main component, pretty much of someone's health falling apart is stress. So helping someone inside their body functioning optimally is going to help them, you know, enjoy their lives. I was basically given a crash course as far as these, these treatments, you know, the benefits, and all I pretty much did is learn it and, you know, basically repeated a lot of listening. You know, you have to listen in sales, you have to listen to what the person on the other line is saying. And of course, it just cross reference it to, you know what is going to help them, and then just give them that, that information that the doctor gave me. And it's just sort of connecting the dots and following them, making them feel comfortable about, you know, what they're what they're doing and what they're going to be doing to help better their lives.

So it's this is where I see the separation of front desk person and the sales person. Because if you've put front desk person in charge of working leads to pick up the phone and they're going to try just to book an appointment, but when it comes to have a professional. Sales person at the center, the sales person will do consultation, start asking questions, because sales person has now time to invest into a conversation. And from this person is like, oh, shoot, somebody walked in. Let me get consent forms for them. Let me, let me check them in so they have no way to work a lead. When a salesperson is isolated in their own room. They pick up the phone and they got person on the phone, and that's where education begins, questions begins, connecting with the person, engaging, asking questions, answering questions qualify them. So can you walk us through what what is like for a salesperson to work elite in comparison, like, let's say, front desk.

So again, remember the person that's calling in or the person that's reached out to you, for you to call them, they have they have questions, they have concerns, they they want to they want to correct something. So typically, you already know what it's about because they've filled out information and that that they've provided, and basically it's just a matter of listening to them. For instance, a lot of the times when we're doing you know someone that's interested in hormone replacement therapy, you know they've done their due diligence, as far as the information they could gather on the internet, maybe the website, maybe multiple websites. They reached out to you because your marketing, our marketing, was the best. Now it's my job to get that person educated enough to make an appointment with the doctor. So the first thing that I'm looking to do is, I'm looking to establish rapport with the person on the other line, basically establish some rapport, puts us person to person. You know, it's not a salesperson, you know. It's more of just like, you know, I'm a man. You're a man, you know. Let's talk about, you know, what's going on, the benefit that I had when I was working, and I believe the majority of of us, when it pertains to sexual dysfunction, talking to men, is the fact that I'm, I'm also in my 50s, you know, so they actually will understand what you're saying to them comes from experience or something that we also are also concerned about. You know, it's, it's about establishing that rapport, giving, giving them all the information that they need, and then, of course, cross referencing what the doctors giving given you to give them an idea as to what's going to help them, what it's going to take to get them to be happy. As far as you know, either having enough energy to play with your children, have enough energy and have enough drive to be with your your spouse when when you know when that time comes,

right? So that's also reminds me of something we're recommending to our clients, when you hire somebody for front desk, it's someone who is nice, who is care, caring. But when you hire for sales, is some of the relatable I did an age group of what your ideal patients are, because if I am, for example, I'm 50, and I'm calling to call into medical practice, it's fine. I'll talk to 28 year old girl who's gonna book me consultation. But if I'm engaging with someone I'm talking about my issues, like my hormone decline, my erectile dysfunction situation, definitely talking to a girl will be a problem. Talking to a guy, if it's a 20 year old guy there, he can't relate to me. But if it's a guy that I'm talking to, he's 4045, and like close to my age, we can talk about similar things. Exactly, someone who has a men's health clinic, this is a good tip. Hire a salesperson, like I call the salesperson, but the fancy name we always give them as wellness advisors, Men's Health Specialist, exactly.

Wellness advisor, health, health consultant. I mean, you could come up with a fancy name, whatever you know, whatever you know, the doctor likes, pretty much, or the person the sales guy likes, but at the end of the day, you know, you basically a sales guy is someone that has all the information about what he's selling. He's passionate about it. He believes in it. He's probably done all those treatments, like, for instance, shock wave therapy. He's tried the little blue pill, you know. And then, of course, pointing out the benefits of both

also would be probably important to give your team treatments, especially if they can benefit from it, so they can speak from experience

exactly. I mean, typically you if you want to talk to somebody about the journey as to you know what's going on, what to expect, and what the outcome is going to be, if you've done it yourself, it's a lot easier. Easier to get that point across and to let them know that you know this actually is going to change your life.

So what was your day like when you was a wellness advisor?

So pretty much it's it felt, I mean, again, the office, you know, it's a medical office, which I believe I would say a third of it was actually just the medical part, you know, with the different consultant, different room, treatment rooms, our office in the back, which was more of the marketing and sales, was two thirds of the office, you know. So we, you know, then that's what basically allowed us, or gave us, gave us the advantage to be able to bill a million dollars a month. You know, again, typically you'd go in we we would have our first meeting in the morning. Typically, like nine o'clock. Office opens at 10. Nine o'clock, we are gathered together as far as a sales team. And then, of course, that that is pretty much to set the day, or maybe even to do some role playing as to what some guys are encountering, and other people and other guys to share, you know, what they what they've done, or what they've heard to be able to, you know, help them close that, that, that, that new patient. So it would start off with a 30 minute meeting in the morning. You know, we're done by 939 45 after after coffee. We're sitting down at our desks and the forge. The phones start ringing at ringing at 10. Of course, we're also getting email leads from the system. So in between the calls, we're always contacting, you know, communicating with warm leads. They're warm leads, the people that that have already been educated as far as what we offer, what the treatment is going to be. Now it's a matter of just letting them know exactly what to expect.

So I can see that those first 30 minutes in the morning for especially if you have a sales team, more than one person, it is critical. That's a time when sales people do role play, give feedback to each other, what they've heard, how they overcame it and why it worked, share experiences, just motivating each other. Hey, let's, let's, let's go on. It's a new day, because from my from my experience, and for me, observing sales team, it is a brutal, brutal job. You every day you talk to people. You're chasing them, get rejections. So if you emotionally connect into that, it beats you up.

Oh yeah. Sales is tough because it's a lot of no's for a few yeses, you know. So you really have to have that thick skin, and you actually have to be able to, I would say my my biggest advantage is I believe I'm a very good qualifier, so I'm not gonna waste my time with the guys that I'm hearing that you know, possibly aren't really qualified, and I'll spend more time with the guys that are qualified, and those are the guys that are gonna come in and they're gonna buy multiple treatments.

Let's talk about the qualification process, because this is the problem I'm seeing with medical practices like they saying, Oh, we have a lot of no shows. But my question was, Okay, how did you book that appointment? Did you just like, run on SMS and booked it cold? Did you have a conversation? Let's talk about that part.

So with us, every every lead that came in, every warm lead that came in, we actually spoke to them on the phone. Because the fact that we're closing them on the phone, we're actually collecting the full amount of the procedure over the phone. You know, the great thing about credit cards is that you know you're protected. You Give someone your credit card, you know, in a sense, the bank, the bank, is going to back you up. So a lot of the times, you know, people always, I'm not going to give you a credit card over the phone. I'm like, why would you give me a credit card on the phone? You buy everything with credit cards. You know, worst case scenario, if you don't like the service that you were provided, will probably refund it for you, or you were protected by your bank. So that's the that's how you overcome. People are pretty much just giving you a reason not to, not to, not to get started. So you're really looking and listening for, you know, those things that you know are going to be help, helping you get their credit card. And at the end of the day, it's just asking for the credit card, you know. So for instance, say, for Ed shockwave therapy, we were, we were charging $3,000 for six pack, which is basically six sessions. You know, at no point in time, after spending 1015, 20 minutes with that lead, that potential patient, they were very. Happy to give you that credit card because you've educated them, you gave them the journey, and you also spoke to them about the outcome. And of course, on our website, we have testimonials. You know, testimonials are strong. Those are something that's going to help a sales guy. A lot of things can help a sales guy, but a testimonial is gold.

Yeah, there's also a question comes up, how long do you stay with them on a phone?

Correct? Well, that's where I'm, that's where I was. I was referring to qualifying them. So typically, you go through, you know, your your report, your rapport, which probably is going to take at the beginning maybe a few minutes, and at that same at that time, you have to pretty much see if you establish rapport or if you don't establish rapport. You know, if you establish rapport, that call could probably be 1520 minutes. If you don't establish rapport, it could be as it could be as short as five minutes. Again. There are also different types of characters that you're talking to. You know what I'm what I'm saying, what I'm referring to is there's different types of people on the other end of the phone, you know, you don't know what they're doing. On the other end of the phone, they could be an executive VP of something, you know, the guy knows, and he knows what to ask, and he's going to make a quick decision if he believes you know that the treatment and the information you give them is going to work. Then, of course, you have other people that are like, you know, they they sort of like, need to get all the information from you. Then they need to go on the internet and find more information. You know, there's different personalities as far as, as far as you know, who buys and when they buy. So that's something I would encourage any sales guy to look into as far as how to deal with those different people

and in terms of working leads, there is a systems. There are times when we take client that still uses emails and Google Sheets. Let's talk about the technologist part and how important that is in the sales process.

Oh, it's amazing. I mean, first of all, like, for instance, something that you had mentioned in initially, I think a practice that really wants to succeed and really wants to grow, they definitely need a dedicated lead manager, someone that's going to only work the leads they what they're going to need because of the volume, they're going to need some technology to be able to help them, you know, through a sales process. So that technology, if they have that technology, like what we have, MD, practice flow is easy. It's you have automations, you know, it's as far as working leads, you could actually probably work over 150 leads, you know, because it's say, for instance, if you weren't using any technologies, you could probably work 1015, 20 at the most. So it's all about numbers. And when you're using a software that's going to help you with your process, it just makes, makes me more money as a sales guy, makes the center more money because we're bringing in more patients. Everybody's happy,

yeah. And in terms of software technologies, there is all kinds of systems out there. And just to let the listeners know, as a cash pay medical practice, you'll have two systems. There are, there are very, very few thriving clinics that I see have one that does everything, keeps records for for patients, and also does lead management. Those systems are like Salesforce, for example. They are massive, massive systems. I want to, I won't expect a new clinic have something like that, because just to maintain that software, it's going to take 10s of 1000s of dollars, you know. I mean, we've seen $100,000 a year to maintain a system like that. But now, with all the technologies being such a so streamlined assistant, you will have two systems. Most that's what most clinics do. They have one system, the HR, EMR, that's specifically for patients management and for the sales force. They have for the sales team. They have a CRM and CRM. So there's different kinds of systems. We have our own practice flow, and what it does is it collects leads from all the markets and channels. Doesn't matter why they come in, how they come in. It could be a message from the website, it could be a phone call from Google Maps. It could be a lead that filled up the form on landing page somewhere. It could be a lead that send a message through Instagram. They all come into the system become a contact. That contact will have associated source, where they came from, and possibly a procedure of interest. And if there is any additional information was collected, it all populates in the profile of that contact. So imagine how easy it is for salesperson to open the profile. File, and now they know where they came from, which pages on the website they visited, how many times they actually contact The Center in the past. Read any notes from previous engagements, any information they provided, like somebody, for example, came to the website selected, hey, I want hormone therapy, and wrote in comments, hey, I'm struggling with XYZ. Now the conversation, the conversation gets structured around what information was provided. And of course, that allows the salesperson to manage hundreds of leads, because after initial touch, you set up a task to follow up at a different time, and the system will remind you, hey, it's time to follow up with the prospect be and you go to notes, and you know exactly what the conversation was. So technology allows to go to be more effective, and man, nowadays with AI, it's getting to a totally different level. This, the systems will allow clinics to run large numbers of leads, and this is different conversation specifically. Now, once you go to meta advertising, those leads are not the best quality, and instead of wasting time of your sales people, you'll get AI who that AI that can actually do that. Let's talk about speed, or the power of speed to lead. Because, personally, I tell medical practice, you have 90 seconds. And personally, I'm really impressed when I submit information somewhere and I get respond almost with it like within next 10 seconds, I get a phone call. So let's talk about speed to lead. What did you encounter to be the most effective

time frame. Again, you know, when someone's looking for a solution, and they go on on the internet and they Google, whatever the the procedure is that they're looking for, you know, and they actually decide to call a number they want to speak to someone so ideally, ideally, it's not so much just how quickly you call them back. It's also how quickly you pick up the phone. You know, you don't let the phone ring more than three times. You pick it up on the first second call. It gives an impression to them that, you know, we're here to help you. You know, if you answer the phone on the sixth or seventh. Now they're anxious. So it's all about that. It's all about, you know, prepare, preparing the rapport, and the whole meeting with with the prospective patient. You know, you're establishing all that. So I definitely think you have to pick up the if the ball, if the call, calls are coming in, you have to pick up within the first three rings. Okay, if, for some reason, you're on the phone, someone else called in, they left a voice message. As soon as you get off the phone, you see a voice message. I wouldn't even listen to the voice message. I just dial, dial the phone and get and get to them and actually start, start, start there. With the technology nowadays, I could actually read because it was transcribed while I'm calling, calling the prospect, the new prospect of patient. So it is, it is important. I mean, remember, a lead is money. If you don't jump on that lead. You're you're potentially throwing money away.

Yeah, that's what we also see. Leads come in lead command, and they're going to call the lead in three hours and three hours. So much has changed in for that, for that person who submitted information, they already, they possibly already picking up the kids from the school, so they're not going to pick up the phone, or they doing or just something else, or they just went through a stressful situation and even forgot what they were submitted three hours ago, correct? Or they waited for 30 minutes and they called in as a center, and that center picked up the phone,

and that's why it's so important for the it, for it to be a wellness consultant on top of this, because if you just have someone at the front desk that's wearing multiple hats, and you give them this hat, you know, they're not really focused on what they need to do to get that person to come in, or, you know, to become a patient, because they're, like you said before, they're worried about, you know, someone walking through the door smiling. They're worried about, you know, giving them forms, give them coffee. So let that front desk handle their what they're meant to do, hire a sales guy, hire a wellness advisor that, in a sense, is going to make sure that your center makes money, and, you know, maximizes the doctor's time. The more, the more the doctor is busy, the more money that the center is making. Yep, so what I'm getting to is every. Everybody has a specialty, just like in medicine, that the sales guy do the leads, let the front desk do the admin work, let the doctor do the doctoring. Yeah,

of that where there's a front desk in the front that working leads and green people, and the doctor is one who's seeing prospects and seeing patients that is, that's really difficult to scale.

Yeah, and then this is something that I've seen at a medical practice where, you know, they had that front desk person that wanted to do everything, you know, pick up the phone right away. Okay, you know what? When do you want to get scheduled? This is what I have opening, but that person still has questions in their mind. This person's not worried about that. She's just worried about booking. So if she doesn't book em, click, what has to happen is the call comes into the front desk, they immediately have to transfer it to the sales guy, not sort of start here and then pass them, don't later, because you're going to lose that lead. You're going to lose that potential patient. That's why it's gotta be a sales department, a sales person, wellness advisor, health coach, whatever you want to call it. But someone, someone that's educated, wants to talk to educated people and people that are going to listen to them and give them their time. Time is money.

Yeah. So, yeah. So this is I'm gonna, right now, outline a workflow that most thriving centers use. The phone call comes in or the lead comes in. If it's a phone call comes in and front desk picks it up. Like you said, the front desk also will not be talking about new. New was a new prospect is going to forward it to a salesperson, right? So if it's a web submission comes in, it goes directly to a sales person, bypasses, bypassing front desk. Now some centers have sales people with their own dedicated phone lines. So if the marketing company know done it properly, the new phone call will go right to a salesperson, and if it's more than one, they'll be rotating system. So that's how lead goes, first from the new to a person talking at the clinic, then the salesperson, explain, answer all the questions explain the procedure qualifies the person, and either a will collect the money for the procedure and book an appointment, or B, after the person qualified, it will collect money to reserve a spot in a consultation, and that money, Of course, will be then going towards the procedure. Then a person, the prospect, come to the center, the front desk will greet the person and have them sit down with a wellness advisor, which is a sales person that booked them originally, and they will go into conversation. This is now the first ever, first face to face meeting they have at the center. So now they have a conversation and walk us through what happens next. So

at that point in time, basically, now you've already established rapport on the phone. You already got them to come in. They're already spending time because they're very interested in what you offered. Now here you you talk to them about the different packages, you know, if they didn't prepay, and, in a sense, come in already to do the treatment, they're going to come in and they'll, they're going to get a little bit further information as to what they're going to be looking for, as far as helping them, you know, get get to their goal. Some people won't book over the phone. They won't pay over the phone. So if they don't want to pay, invite them to come in. And then you can do that right in the center. While they're at the center, they're seeing a beautiful office, they're seeing the medical staff, they're seeing everybody doing their job. And then it's up to you to go in and basically close and close a deal if you need, if you need a minute or two, minute of a doctor, to walk in and just sort of, you know, greet that that's gold as well, that right away they're they're going to be anxious to get started. Here's something that I encountered also in in centers that I've seen when the call comes in to the front desk and they don't transfer it to the dedicated lead manager, and they decide, You know what, I have time. I'm not busy. I'm going to talk to them. Well, they book an appointment with them. Okay, what happens? No Show rate is high. If they speak to someone that's a wellness advisor, they established rapport. They educated everything, answer all their questions.

The no show rate is minimal.

So if you if they follow exactly what we're trying to teach them these centers, it's going to be very, very easy for them to scale up. If they don't have this in place, they won't be able to scale up.

Let's talk about this thing. It's called price versus value. Because what I'm seeing a lot happening. Clinics are dropping prices. Competitors drop in prices, and it becomes this effect of a helicopter falling down. They're just beating each other for prices versus explaining the value of treatment at the center.

So basically, the what makes me think when you say all this stuff is the traditional, traditional medicine in this country is all insurance based, right? So due to the fact that everybody can make an appointment, and they show up, the doctor's giving you 510 minutes of their time. And really, you're not really getting the full benefit of of what cash pay services offer. For cash pay services, you know, they're going to be getting an hour. They're going to be talking to the doctor about their medical history, their parents, medical history, the labs, all that, all that information takes time, and if it's an and the expert is going to pretty much give them a roadmap as to what's going to help them get back to where they want to be, a sales a sales guy, a wellness advisor, understands that the front desk person does not. So it's all about just telling a story. The front desk person can't tell the story, the patient advocate,

the Wellness Consultant, he can.

So that's how it's a lot easier to collect higher ticket pricing right over the phone, or sell without discounting. When you're discounting, basically you're just looking at volume. So you might as well go to an insurance based practice,

yeah, because when it comes to hormone therapy, weight loss, in order for for you to share the stories of life transformations of other patients with the prospect correct, you need to have a dedicated time, and that's where salesperson you get involved, because now they on the phone, dedicated just to that person to find out what they're struggling With, then relate to them, the story of another patient that also came in with a similar situation, how their life got improved, and now all of a sudden, is no longer about the price. It's about the outcome of what they're going to

get. What made me a successful wellness consultant, pretty much, was the sales team that I that I started with. It was guys just like myself, maybe a few years younger, a few years older. And in the sense the way we were set up in the office, we were set up in in cubicles, sort of like stock brokers, you know. So we were actually hearing each other talk to different people, you know, and me as a new guy. I'm like, listening to these guys. I'm like, man, these guys are good, you know, hey, I learned a lot from them. One One of them was a, one of them was a RN, but he was, you know, he basically decided to go into into this because he made more money. Another one was a stockbroker back in the day, close to retirement. So those are the type of guys that you need in there, different styles, different styles. And when you can you know pretty much reference or here all the different styles, it's only going to help the new guy, and it's only going to help you know each other, because the new guy might come up with a new style as well.

Yeah, yeah. I remember. I remember the Iran nurse. His style was almost like a consultative medical consultation over the phone, because

he was, he was a registered nurse, so he was able to say that, yeah, I'm a nurse. I can't say that,

yeah. So that was his style. The other guy, stock worker, he his style was different. Yes, not to push, but he has his style, and I learned a lot from him, and I'm going to cover right now that

the strategist too.

There's another guy I remember Kim in very young one didn't have any of that, but instead, he utilized technology. He was the first one starts sending mass SMS campaigns, so he was able to work the volume and pick out of volume. On a hot leads who reduced to have a conversation. So every sales person can have its own style based on the experience in life.

Yeah. Then if you have a sales process which everybody has to have in order, in order to be successful, you just stick to that sales process with whatever style you're doing, you're gonna, you're gonna be able to bring in those new patients.

So I want to cover, and I think it's going to help a lot, a lot to listeners, the sales process, the actual conversation, for example, the very wrong approach is the phone rings, you pick up the phone and the person has online immediately, hey, how much is your weight loss? And the wrong approach here is, oh, so, yeah, our weight loss is that much cost per month. So that is a killer right there, because here you you allowing a prospect to lead the conversation. So the things I learned in the in the sales process is, first, you have to take control over the conversation. And it's pretty simple, the person who's asking questions is the one who's in control of the conversation. So for example, the phone rings, hey, how much is your weight loss? Yeah, absolutely. Who am I speaking with? All right, so, Daniel, great. Daniel. Daniel, would you mind if I ask you a few questions, just so you understand what your situation is and what you're looking for? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. Hi, Daniel. Hey. How old are you? How much do you wait? Did you ever try weight loss? See now I'm the one who's in control, because I'm the one who's asking questions. So right now, so far, what happened is step number one, take control of the conversation. Here we go. That's step number one. Step number two is build a report, start asking questions, and within those questions, now you can put some qualifiers. So you're asking questions. No, have you done this before? What are you experiencing? What made you call us today? What's happening, and really what you're looking for in all that questions is just one thing, why? What is the why? Why are you calling me today? What happened? Why? Because if I don't close this person now, and I'm going to call this person to follow up in three days, my conversation will begin with the why. Because if there wasn't, if I didn't know the why, and if I just answer his questions on what the procedures price is what? And he didn't close. I didn't schedule this time. We're not going to call him when I call this person back, I'm going to be just the one out of three, four clinics he called, and he won't even remember who I am. But if I do, did spend time on asking questions, build a relationship over the phone, he'll remember me, and especially if I'll start my phone call with a reason. Why, for example, let's say during a conversation I discovered, let's say the person called for rectal dysfunction treatment that his wife is about to leave him. Or let's say he's calling for weight loss because his primary care told him Your weight is too much. Your joints are hurting because of it. You can eventually end up with replacement or, for example, the person calling because they want to find out what the bots price is, because in two weeks, they go in for some kind of wedding, and they want to look good, so my follow up phone call will be with the first, first person. Person is know what you call me in the past, you said your relationship is struggling. Your wife is thinking of living your and we talked about having the treatment for you. Then, when would you like to come in? Let's solve this problem. Now, immediately, I'm not the same guy he called as a clinic he now remembers or the guy who has a problem with the weight my conversation will be, hey, we spoke on Tuesday because your doctor gave you the diagnosis your joints are hurting and you want to lose weight. We have the procedures that can help you. Let's get started on that. Or the person who called because they want to Botox and have the party in two weeks, I'm going to call back and say, John, the time is running. I mean, the boat is going to take 10 days to kick in, and your your event is in two in 12 days. I can squeeze you in tomorrow. Let's book it now. So that was those, the reason for the why all the other questions were supplementary and helpful. But anyway, so that's a step, step number two. Step number three is a super important it's called Building Authority, because after step two this there's still a question in their mind, how much does it cost? So if I'm going to give them that now and they bypass the next step, which is number three. Build authority. It's going to be too much. Also the build authority step is necessary to position your clinic, how you different from any other, anybody else. So this is a step number three designed to say, Okay, John, so when you come in to the center, you going to meet with XYZ. That doctor is amazing. He'd been doing this for 25 years. He'd been credentialed here and there, and we've been helping men women do those procedures for years. So you're building up that person credentials. You're building the clinic reputation. You're building up the next person they're going to meet, because in their mind, they already visualizing, okay, if I'm going to come to the clinical and meet with clinical and meet with Joanna, okay, I'm going to meet with Jason, when I'm going to meet with Dr, dr x so, and only after that I would be allowed to say the price that was. Step number three, establish authority. Step number four, assume the sale. So John, the next step is for you to come to the center. When would you like to come in? I have Tuesday and Thursday available. So all these always give them two options, Tuesday or Thursday, because if you tell them, hey, when would you like to come in? It is an open ended question, and they'll be like when I don't know. But if you tell them Tuesday or Thursday, they'll be like, You know what? How about Wednesday? Oh, sure. I got morning, afternoon. When? When do you want to come? Can I come at lunchtime? Sure, I got you at 12 o'clock. Sometimes, sometimes you would need to qualify them financially. Correct? Howard and I learn, I've learned from sales, sales guys the questions, like, during the questionnaire, you ask them, Hey, by the way, what do you do for a living? How stressful is your life? Because it plays well into hormone therapy, weight loss. It plays very well because stress is part of those symptoms. You know, the person says, Oh, I've been unemployed for like, last six months. Great. Our treatment starts at and you tell them a price, because at this point there's no reason to keep wasting time. Just give them the price. And if he sticks, and if he said, Fine, good, then I You got something, you something you can work with. If you say, no, what? Sure I can't afford. I thought, I thought you guys have insurance or something. Listen. Then the conversation is over at that point. So, yeah, so here we go. It's the first one take control over the conversation. The second one ask questions. This is the qualification part, because you might find out during that no, they have something that is that's not going to work for the for the center right then third one establish authority, and fourth is assume the sale and it's time to proceed.

Yep, exactly. Just

gotta stick. You gotta stick to that. And like you said, it's always asking questions. You know, if someone's calling in because they're looking for a solution for Ed, you know, there's specific questions you can ask them. And actually, the doctor shared with me something called the shim score, you know, so it's five questions, basically gives them a numeric number on the scale of on a scale of one to 25 and it puts them as to how severe the ed is. So right there, that's already

something medical.

You know, the doctor could ask him the same questions I could ask him, says questions he's determining he's giving he's putting himself on the chart from the questions we're asking him. So very, very easy. And then from there, the doctor pretty much says, okay, you know what your score is this. This is what the recommendation is to get back to the top.

Yep, sales is not about pushing. Sales is about helping that person make the next step. Because for them, it's always scary. They all. They stressed out here. I've been experiencing these symptoms for so long, like for example, let's talk about sexual health. It's a massive problem, and for them to trust to a clinic to go solve this problem, take that next step hesitation. So selling is explaining, educating, and remind them that, hey, you need to make next step now. Or it's expensive compared to what, what would be. How expensive would it be to go through divorce? Or, for example, if they go for hormone therapy? What's expensive? Expensive compared to what? How expensive would it be if you have no energy, if your body retains too much fat, if you can't build the muscle, if your mental capacity is not is constantly declining, how expensive is that going to be to the quality of your life? Correct?

It's anti aging. Anti Aging is, is amazing. And, you know, it's, you know, people could actually enjoy their retirement. You know, I have some great stories. I mean, we probably need a few hours to talk about all the people that I felt like they actually felt happy that I spoke to them initially. Because, remember, I'm the one that speaks to them initially. Then they come in and they do the treatments, and you can pretty much see how their, they their their progression goes from what I told them initially to when they finish the treatment, and now they're like, Wow. You know funny story I was I was in the Aventura mall at lunch time, walking through the passageways, and I saw one of my patients walking the walking towards me. Now, because of HIPAA, I'm not going to I'm not going to acknowledge he's a patient of mine. I might say hello, but that's pretty much just keep going. So he was actually walking towards me, and he had this big smile on his face, and walking with him was this pretty lady. He actually stopped, said hello to me, hugged me, and he said, This is the guy that helped me out.

It saved the relationship.

He went from right so when I was when, when he started with us, emotionally he could not date because he didn't have confidence. He didn't have he didn't have any confidence whatsoever. So going through the through the process, and through the treatment, treatment, and he got to the point where, you know what, I have my confidence back. And there he is walking towards me with a beautiful lady in his arm. Yeah, that makes me smile. On another story is I had a woman on the phone who was basically crying because she felt her hormones were so out of whack. She was going through menopause, and she's like, you know, I'm very, very bad things. As far as how she was feeling depressed, can't sleep, she even mentioned, you know, like, I don't see how I can keep living this way, which, you know, sort of makes it, makes you worry. I helped her, had that consultation with her, booked her to come in to see the doctor. She went through all the testing a month after she was on the program, on her hormone optimization program, it was a totally different woman, totally different woman. She would make and she would make sure she stopped by my office every time to say thank you, just to say hello, just a smile. Those are the things that make me want to do what I do, as far as working in in healthcare,

yeah, and medical wellness field is amazing. This is why, also I have been I've stuck to it for so long, is because even that we are on the side of the market, and we are indirectly affecting lives of people by helping our clients, get get patients and help those patients in their communities. And the change is amazing. Yeah,

prior to me working for that wellness clinic, National Wellness Clinic, I actually moved from Connecticut to Florida because I worked with a physician recruiting company, so I already, I already had that. I was helping communities get new doctors, so I was helping communities. And this sort of was the same thing, but this was actually something where I could actually see and and adhere the impact I made on these specific people. Yep, I'm

going to switch gears to from sales to retention, because this is a totally next level for medical practices that graduated from that first phase of getting the revenue to the point where they're comfortable the sales is running really, really good. So now the next step is maintaining those patients. Because realistically, patients will not stay forever. It was a clinic they're going to eventually drop off. They may stop taking the treatment. They may switch. And once they stop taking they get bombarded with advertising from other centers. They may go to other center, or some of them will switch to national companies because of the price. So retention is a next element for medical practices to plan for, and that also a dedicated person right the front desk is not the right person for it, and the sales person is absolutely not the right person. I remember watching at the center. We both worked at our sales and retention people switched. Roles, departments, and we saw how they struggled big time. The retention person could not survive in the sales side, and the sales person could not survive in the retention side.

Different personalities, different different jobs.

It's kind of like for us, sales and account management, yeah, totally different personalities. So on the retention side, the person's person's job is to make sure the patients stay. Call the call them periodically, make sure they're feeling good on their program. Because what's going to happen some of them, for example, you call them like, Oh, should I know it? I actually totally let go, and I didn't take my, my, my, my medications for like, a month already. No wonder I feel like that. You know what? Thanks for calling. Reminded me I need to get back on it. Retention. Person call back and next day, did you get on it? Did you get back on it? Let's make sure you have the medication, or they forgot to refill the medication, which is another problem. And then what happened? Then what happens? Revenue for the center keep dropping, and the patient that they just improved life before it's dropped off, not because they want it, is because life happened. So that's where the retention becomes super important to maintain that revenue,

especially, especially, let me interrupt interact, especially in the last five years after COVID. Basically, you know, there's a lot of competition. There's a lot of national competition. Words, everything is telemedicine. So it'd be very easy for you to lose a hormone replacement patient, probably after six months or a year. So I think that, I think I've heard you pretty much establish that that typically an HRT patient is the life of the of the patient is about a year. Well, when, when we were at the medical practice in Aventura, I had patients for years and years and years, and I got referrals from those patients and the retention people who, in a sense, you know, I passed them on after, the three month mark, they kept giving them information on on what else is coming up, new as as far as new medications, as far as new treatments. So it's all about, you know, basically helping that person be their best,

feel their best.

Yeah, that one patient can buying services. So revenue continuous, referring other other people. So now it's a zero marketing patients, correct? And also, when the new procedures been introduced into Medical Center. Guess who's going to call them the retention person. They know exactly who will be benefiting from it. Or during the next phone call conversation, they're going to bring it up. Hey, did you know that we offer now this peptide, for example, and now it is generating a spike in revenue for medical practice. Which brings me to another point with the medical practice, is to have to have a goal for medical team to introduce a new procedure every quarter. Because once a new procedure is introduced, the retention gets to work, and they start calling all the patients, introducing a new service. And that creates a spike on the revenue every quarter, not to mention it creates another residual revenue component, because now those patients buying that service, not to mention that the sales team is now getting involved in marketing team gets involved to promote that new service, and it just generates not only spike in revenue for existing patients and additional revenue from existing patients, but also introducing new revenue from new sales and introduces new lead flow for sales people. This one of the one of the things I was discussing with one of our clients this week who grown to the point where he was he's renting a space from another doctor is now the doctor is retiring, so the client has opportunity to take the entire space. So I told him, yep, take the entire space and whatever you don't need rent it out, right? And now start working on increasing your marketing because you have a larger capacity, bring another sales person in and start thinking about retention, because while you're expanding, you want to retain everything you got correct.

Yeah, it's it's a business at the end of the day, you need to make sure that all. Your ducks are, your ducks are in a row. You dot your eyes, you cross your t's and make sure that you could and that's how we from what I remember, as far as the numbers, when I joined in 2017, I think we were at about 500,000 new and retention, and within two years, when, when, when that shockwave therapy treatment went national, you took it national, it doubled. The

revenue doubled because one of the new treatments became a hit, exactly. So, yeah, the reason, one of the reasons for all those new procedures is because one of them eventually may become a hit correct high demand, and it's just going to propel the clinic to next level.

And we're seeing that right now. I see it across the board in social media, as far as all the peptides and how beneficial they are. I mean, there's new peptides coming out all the time, you know, so you just have to make sure that that first your medical staff gets the training, and then that medical staff trains your sales people and your retention people. And it's a team. It's a team. It's a team that basically is going to grow that business from, you know, from wherever you are, and the double it or triple it?

Yeah, let's talk about the KPIs for someone who do hire a salesperson, put them into that position, what numbers should they be tracking to help improve over time?

Well, again, the most important thing is going to be phone calls. I think as far as what we've discussed so far, it's the personal communication between the lead, the potential patient, and the wellness advisor. It's important to see how many minutes they speak as well as how many people they speak to. Remember, we're doing, this is B to C. This is business to this is business to consumer. So typically you would allow a lot about 10 to 15 minutes per call, and easily in an eight hour day, hour for lunch, hour for coffee breaks, at a six hours, you know, they're, they're, typically should be calling anywhere between 60 to 80 people a day.

So, yeah, so there's going to be a number of leads. Salesperson has. How many of those became quality is how many phone calls the person makes, yeah? What is a closing rate? What is no show rate? Too? Correct? Those are the good numbers will be to track

Yeah, and like, like I mentioned before, the no show rate, if it's someone that is working the leads and is a wellness advisor, in a sense, sometimes they actually almost look at you as a medical person, because you know so much the doctors taught you so

much. The no show rate is minimal,

minimal. If you just have your front desk making appointments while people are calling in, I would say more than half are not going

to show up, yep, because no relationship was established, yeah. So we also talked so we talked about sales team have meetings between each other, yeah, but I remember we also had sales team and marketing team meetings correct, which absolutely key. And even right now, with all the clients we're working with, our team prefers to meet with people who manage leads, because the sales team will provide feedback, a super valuable feedback to the marketing team on how the leads what are they hearing on the phone and talking people on the phone, and that will allow marketing team to improve whatever they do on the front end. Correct? I remember that's was one of the biggest, biggest help for me on the marketing side, was to have a ability to communicate with sales team.

Marketing, yep,

I remember when you used to work to my my desk and say, Hey, Mario, what did you think about this guy? Because you were, you were tracking them, and I'm like, good, bad, ugly, but I gave you feedback, and with that feedback, the next, the next round of leads were much, much better,

yeah, and that's important. That's important. So having a sales person or lead management person to meet with the marketing people to provide feedback, because for business owner, what they hear a lot, oh, we don't have much appointments, but they don't know what it was actually going on with the lead why? Why they didn't book? So that was very good. So they. Is really a few meetings. Is important to have a medical practice, one sales team, if there is more than one person, communicating, motivating each other, providing feedback. Second one is, say also lead management team, meeting with a marketing team or participating in meetings to provide feedback. It's a super valuable feedback. And the third one I think is very important, is for a medical team to communicate to a sales team of life changing experience the patients receive, because now that provides to Sales Team information stories to share during their conversations. Yeah,

something that I remember, that I thought, that I think, is crucial too, since, you know, you always want to be ahead in medicine, you always want to be ahead of the curve. You always want to have the newest and the latest. So remember the medical staff? You know, they were going to a two, three day training. We met with them when they came back. What did you learn? You know, tell us about this new, exciting stuff that that you learned, so we can, so we can promote it, so we can sell it, so we can talk to to people about it. So it's, it's also that, you know, it's also about that,

very good. I think I'm going to close down this conversation. It was very good. And for those who listened, if you have any more questions on how to structure your sales process, your lead management process, reach out. We'll be happy to have a conversation and help you establish a healthy and effective sales and retention process, perfect.

Great talk. Alex.