What Are You Selling

When your patients spend time in your reception area do they know what you are selling? Our reception areas are overflowing with magazines of every type. Each of these magazines is filled with advertisement for every imaginable product and service. Those products and services are competing for the expendable dollars that we are hoping patients will invest in their oral health. Most of us think of the dentist down the street as our competition when in reality it is the new car, the trip to Laguna Beach, the dinner at Olive Garden, the sale at Target and the latest movie release. The irony is that we provide our competition free advertising. Have you ever noticed the lack of magazines in a dealership show room? Once you drive onto the lot the entire focus is for you to purchase a car. In fact rarely to I even make into the showroom before I am met by a salesman. While I am not advocating that we adopt the “car salesman attitude”, I do believe there is a lesson to be learned from them. First, we should reduce the wait time in the reception area so that there will be less need for magazines. Secondly, we really ought to pay more attention to the magazines we provide, do they reinforce message of health and well being that we are promoting in the operatory? Thirdly, we need to take advantage of the captive audience that we have in the reception area and as patients are on “hold” by promoting our practice. “On Hold” messages are a great way to entertain the patient and promote the practice at the same time. Flat screen advertising provides a great opportunity to inform patients about new services, staff members, and technology and office events. These messages should be short, understandable and engage the interest of the patient enough to ask for further information. The focus should be promotion first and education second. The real education should take place in the operatory. It is up to use to promote dentistry because the last I checked, neither Ford nor GM does. Check out the links for Hold Time Music (http://www.holdtimemusic.com/) and Brican American LLC (http://www.bricanamerica.com/) for more information about on hold messages and reception area promotions.