VMP 252.5: Is Your Team Making This MASSIVE Marketing Mistake?

Brandon (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Vendor Marketing podcast, where it's all about how to attract, engage and retain clients to your veterinary hospital using digital marketing. My name is Brandon Breshears. Thanks so much for taking the time to listen. Today is episode 200 and 52.5. We're going to talk about a quick tip. This is going to help you to dramatically improve your marketing. Now, this is coming off of listening to a ton of calls from practices. So when it comes to marketing, it is incredibly important that when you're delivering up leads or interested potential clients, that once you get that person that's shown interest, that you're going to have the best chance of converting them. And that's going to, a lot of times depend on the conversation that you have. So in this episode, I'm going to give you some quick tips to review with your customer service people so that you can get better results. And this is going to be easy to do, but something that you're going to need to remind people on a regular basis.

Brandon (00:00:52) - Before we begin, I'd like to mention just a couple things. First, if you haven't done so already, be sure to subscribe in iTunes, Spotify, Google Play wherever you get your podcasts from. Next. I'd also like to mention this episode is being sponsored by two websites by Brad Haven. We have used that equipment and knew that equipment account. For over nine years. These bed equipment has been helping vets buy and sell used equipment. You can save money when you buy used cages, kennels, pumps, X-ray equipment, lasers, ultrasounds, dental equipment, surgery equipment, lab equipment from a backside and HESCO tables, tubs and sinks, vet boxes and vet trucks. What do you have to sell at used vet equipment? We bring the buyer and seller together. Also, are you looking for new veteran equipment with amazing warranties? Check out new vet equipment.com where we show you the price up front. That includes digital X-ray equipment, dental X-ray equipment, ultrasound equipment, led surgery, lighting, surgery, tables, autoclaves.

Brandon (00:01:44) - When you go to new vet equipment, you'll clearly see the price on every item for sale, and you'll be able to check out the warranty so that you can buy without regret. At new vet equipment, we show you the price and we give you a great warranty. All right, so let's jump into today's episode. So with marketing and digital marketing, I feel like there's a lot of times where we will deliver up leads or traffic and it just isn't converting for some reason and we're not getting good results. So we have to look at the entire funnel because if you're showing up for the right searches in the right locations at the right times, right, But somebody calls, for example, that is, you have to convert that lead. So number one, if you're doing any kind of either social advertising, paid advertising, just any kind of ads out there, your team needs to know that when people call this is a potential new client. You also need to prep your team to understand what buying signals are.

Brandon (00:02:43) - So buying signals are questions or comments that people will make that show that they are an interested potential client. I've done used to do telemarketing and phone sales for a long time and was able to do thousands and thousands of calls. So when somebody is expressing interest that they're ready to make a decision, they want to set up an appointment. You need to have that conversion process down and make it easy for people to say, yes, there was. I'll give you a few stories as examples here. So I was listening to a call. Somebody called and said, Hey, I'm new to the area. I was looking for a vet. The person that was on the other phone said, Awesome, this sounds great. Could you hold on for just a second? And literally the lady just said, I'm new to the area looking for a vet. That means she just is looking for some kind of connection that is 100% a buying signal. And the person put them on hold was on hold for at least two minutes in the call went dead.

Brandon (00:03:37) - I don't know if they called back or not, but I know that they missed an opportunity to convert somebody that was new to the area, who didn't have a veterinarian to basically engage in a relationship with the primary care vet. If you think about the potential lifetime value of that client, it is tremendous. And especially with the amount of effort it takes, they get showing up for the right searches in the right locations at the right times of the day. If you're not treating these new clients like they're important, that they're special, you can't expect that they're going to do anything but shop for price if there's no special treatment that they get, especially on first visits. You're not going to have any reason why you should charge a premium. And so many practices do not want to discount. They don't want to be compared when it comes to price. But my question for you is, what are you doing that's going to make them feel like they're getting more than they should just be shopping for price? I hope that that makes sense.

Brandon (00:04:33) - So, number one, make sure that your your team knows about buying signals. When I was back at the last recession, 2008, I had got a job at a bike shop and I would sell really high end bikes and I was really good at it because I loved bikes and I loved sales. And so when I would sell the bikes to people, I remember I would sell typically I lived. It was in just south of Laguna Beach on a coastal town, and there was very, very wealthy people who would come in and they wanted to buy the nicest bikes. And so I would work really hard to find out what they wanted and then just help to connect them with the best bikes. Usually those were extremely expensive. And so once people would say yes, they wanted to get the bike, I would take the bike up to the owner and I would say, Hey, this is so-and-so. He's getting this bike. And then the owner would start talking and the owner would just keep talking and talking and talking.

Brandon (00:05:23) - And it was like he was uncomfortable with selling expensive things because he would eventually end up being like, Hey, have you checked out this bike? And he would down sell them on a less superior option. That was less expensive. And I couldn't believe it when somebody had already said, Yes, I want to buy it. You should just check them out because number one, it was a better bike. Number two, they would have been happier on it. And number three, there's no reason to down sell them. They were excited about this bike and they wanted to sell it. So I say that story to say that a lot of times people have biases that they don't even realize that they're doing. And this happens a lot with customer service people. Either they believe it's too expensive or they believe it's too far. They believe that it's inconvenient. Don't make those judgments for the clients and make sure that they realize that they should not be making judgments for the clients. For example, I was listening to another call.

Brandon (00:06:15) - It was a Sunday they had called in because they were looking for a spot that was open and the person said, Yeah, I just really need to come in today. The dog had eaten something and they wanted to get it checked out. There was plastic missing. They think they ate this toy and they were really nervous about it. They wanted to get it seen today. And so they really wanted to make sure. And so the current spot that they were calling was filled up. But there was another one that they could refer it to, and the person was like, It's okay, it doesn't matter as long as it can be referred today, I'm okay with that. And the person on the phone said, Oh, you should just call the other practices in the area, like 25 minute drive to the other spot. You don't want to have that. And so that was making a judgment call for the client. In reality, what was likely more important to that client was the certainty of their pet being seen.

Brandon (00:07:00) - And so it's really, really important that you don't bring your own biases into these sales conversations because number one, price and price sensitivity is different for every single person. You don't know if they are going to. I mean, there's rich people who are super cheap and there's poor people who value their pets and care of their pets. Right? So don't make that judgment call for people when it comes to price, time, location, give people the option. And then the last thing that I think is really, really important for people to do is to be sure to close and ask closing questions. And that's going to sound weird. Your customer service person, Why should I close? When I say close, I don't mean you have to be like a hardcore sales closer. What I'm saying is you need to at least have a question that you can ask people. That is a closing question. So examples of those kinds of questions you can do assumed closes, which is so what day works best for you for an appointment that is a close that's called an assumed closed.

Brandon (00:07:57) - We're assuming that you want to make an appointment. What day works best for you? The other one is, would you like to set up an appointment? That's a very simple softball question. That is not going to offend people. But don't just let them answer questions. That was one thing that I kept hearing over and over and over again. It was just they pick up the phone. They answer questions. Sometimes it would be about costs or fees or procedures, and then they wouldn't ask any other questions. It would be okay. They're basically waiting for the clients to ask, okay, well, do you have any appointments available? So make sure that you have pre-loaded closing questions and that has to be part of every single call. That way, I mean, if you don't ask, you're not going to get the sale. That's you have to ask you have to close and asking people, would you like to make an appointment is not a difficult closing question. It's not uncomfortable. You don't have to like negotiate with people and make them have buyer's remorse and all kinds of things.

Brandon (00:08:59) - It is very simple, very easy. And I think it's something that you should be training on all the time. Hope that this makes sense because I think if you implement just some of these things and maybe if you like this episode, be sure to send me a note Brandon at Vendor Marketing Podcast and I can do an entire episode about phone sales, about questions, about closing questions. I love sales. It is a fantastic topic and I think it's something that we shouldn't be afraid of in the veterinary industry because you're going to be able to serve your clients better. So I hope that that makes sense. I hope that you can use this info to get better conversion rates on your marketing. Do you have any questions? Comments? Need help with anything? Please don't hesitate to reach out, but I'll see you on the next episode. Have a great day everyone.