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Improving Contact, Communication and Closure
By Corporate Health Group [with ME-P modifications]
It doesn’t matter if you’re cold-calling a doctor’s home or office, making a return visit or have a scheduled office appointment – if you call on the doctor prospect without knowing the MD, person or background of the physician’s office, it’s all an attempt at futility (or worse, humiliation). So, don’t create the habit of an unprepared financial advisor or salesperson.
The Opening
A good financial advisor or salesperson has a plan for directing the conversation and positioning the desired outcome. The most important piece of the conversation to script is the opening questions as they can make or break the tone of your entire meeting and, ultimately, impact the outcome.
The Steps
As your call or meeting progresses, consider these steps:
- Focus questions on the doctor, their practice, business or personal needs.
- Use questions to first establish a dialogue to share and learn what is most important to them.
- Value the information they share with you and look for ways to respond that will provide a solution.
- Demonstrate your sincerity in learning about the physician.
- Probe, probe and probe again.
- Work through the layers of information to understand their emotional and task reasons for the purchase.
- Use questions to learn their frame of reference.
- Questioning will reveal their ideas for potential solutions.
- Learn the value and priority of finding a solution and the doctor’s sense of time frame, finances and value-added options.
Summarize the Questions
- This will ensure you capture input correctly and “take their pulse” before moving forward to the next step.
- Develop your solutions.
- Address medical practice, business and personal reasons for buying.
- Make sure your solution is benefit-oriented.
- Don’t “Feature Dump.” Anyone can match your products or service features – it’s you and the benefits that set you apart and cannot be [so] easily replicated.
Assessment
Follow these tips and techniques to help you become a prepared, knowledgeable, and intuitive financial advisor or consultative and successful salesperson.
Conclusion
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Filed under: "Advisors Only", Alerts Sign-Up, Career Development, Experts Invited, Marketing & Advertising | Tagged: cold call openings, cold calls, Corporate Health Group, financial advisors, financial products, physician sales, sales calls, selling to doctors |
The Leading Business Education Network for Doctors, Financial Advisors and Health Industry Consultants 
The Stereotypical Financial Salesperson
Ah! The stereotypical financial advisory salesperson; the “tell and sell” talker who focuses on what product s/he has to sell and talks until s/he finally wears the doctor or other prospect down enough to get the deal done. If only that technique really worked.
But, to those FAs who have hit the streets (or the phones) long enough know the art of knowing when to talk and how to go about getting the information you need – getting the MD sale requires the ability to:
1. Think strategically about your doctor-prospect and their needs;
2. Ask good questions to engage them in a thoughtful dialogue;
3. Listen carefully to their answers; and
4. Tailor subsequent, deeper questions that lead to your benefits-oriented solution.
The [consultative] Salesman
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How about Physician Education Strategies Instead of Sales Techniques?
Dear Salesman,
Good post and comments, but did you know that we doctors love to hear about what new financial products or planning strategies you have; or what your fancy Monte Carlo simulator really does, etc.
Without bragging or preaching, as a financial advisor [FA] you should casually but enthusiastically talk about everything you do. This gives FAs an opportunity to show how knowledgeable and capable they are, too. Remember:
• Even if it’s mundane to you, it will be new and exciting for the doctor-prospect.
• Education builds a personal rapport with the MD and makes the difference between the office visit being a chore and an “experience”. This is a great sales technique.
• Even if all your colleagues and competitors all offer the same thing, you might be the only “educational source” known to the physician.
For example, consider using a word processor, the cloud, CRM services or outsourcing the task, to produce customized, personalized physician informational brochures dispensed during the visit. A similar process can be done through business presentation software like MSFT Power-Point®, podcasts, wikis or websites, etc.
Of course, this takes some work to initially set up, but it almost always produces better results than commercial pamphlets. Such a personalized document can provide a source of conversation for the FA and MD later, and give them a great visual aid, as well.
In short, as a financial advisor, doctor, economist and consultant, I know that far too many FAs ignore MD education at their own peril!
Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA
[Editor-in-Chief]
http://www.BusinessofMedicalPractice.com
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A financial advisor
This is an excellent ME-P.
And, I bought several books last year and will purchase your newest works and editions, too.
Jeff
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Enter the Certified Medical Planner™
Did you know that there is NO certifying board for Financial Advisors working in the lucrative, but challenging, healthcare space?
That’s why the R&D efforts of our governing board of physician-directors, accountants, financial advisors, academics and health economists identified the need for integrated personal financial planning and medical practice management as an effective first step in the survival and wealth building life-cycle for physicians, nurses, healthcare executives, administrators and all medical professionals.
Now – more than ever – desperate doctors of all ages are turning to knowledge able financial advisors and medical management consultants for help. Symbiotically too, generalist advisors are finding that the mutual need for extreme niche synergy is obvious.
But, there was no established curriculum or educational program; no corpus of knowledge or codifying terms-of-art; no academic gravitas or fiduciary accountability; and certainly no identifying professional designation that demonstrated integrated subject matter expertise for the increasingly unique healthcare focused financial advisory niche … Until Now!
Enter the Certified Medical Planner™ charter professional designation
Ann Miller RN MHA
[Executive-Director]
http://www.CertifiedMedicalPlanner.org
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