Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (00:54)

If you have a service-based business, you gotta learn these two new skills. The first one is marketing, which is just being visible. So when the time is right for those people, they know exactly where to go. You stay top of mind. And the second is knowing how to sell your services. This is just offering your service and it comes with a price tag. So today I'll walk you through some misconceptions to overcome in order to grow your business to the capacity you truly want it to be.

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (01:24)

This episode on why smart doctors can't sell their care and how to overcome that feeling, that sleaziness about it, is going to help you grow your practice no matter what stage you're in. Whether you're thinking about starting your own direct care practice or you've got one and you want to make more money. I just got back from a really refreshing retreat. It's a me time retreat. It was called the creepy book club retreat, which is open to the public.

You can check them out at thecreepybookclub.com. This is not a sponsored podcast. You know how I feel about sponsorships at this point. But I wanted to share with you that I was really jazzed about being around other book lovers. My genre has always been in self-development. So you'll see on my Instagram some of the books that I recommend all business doctors read. But I also really like memoirs, autobiographies, and things around business growth.

So I knew I needed to stretch myself. couldn't just stick with one genre for the rest of my life. So this was something that has been on my mind and there is something very special about being in a totally different environment. This one was in Scottsdale, Arizona. Next year they're gonna be in San Diego and I'm thinking about penciling that in as well. But this experience was so rejuvenating for me. It was so peaceful to be able to go by myself and meet other people, meet with friends.

And it really helped me invigorate my business problems, which oftentimes is what kind of content do I need to create for you who's listening? Because you're taking time out of your day to consume all that you can about direct care and succeed in it. And so I'm always thinking about what you need to hear. And I believe you need to understand about sales a lot more than what we were ever taught. It dawned on me that a lot of doctors in general hesitate to opt out of insurance or leave their crappy job.

or not make the money that they want to, even though these are the smartest, most compassionate people, most deserving group of people that I know, and I realize it's because everyone is stuck with the idea that they either should not sell or they just feel super awkward selling. Many of us know that it's essential to be able to educate and to put an appropriate price tag on our services, but somehow we find ourselves stuck in trying to logic our way out of this situation.

And so it's problematic to me that a lot of you aren't making the money that you so deserve. So today I've got three problematic thoughts that you must overcome in order for you to get to the other side of being in the best service for your patients, but also for your business. They have to go hand in hand because without a healthy profit margin, you cannot expand your reach. If you don't make enough money, you cannot stay in business.

If you don't have a business, you can't serve anybody and therefore there's going to be a lot of people who will be missing out on getting better if you don't exist. So let's get into the three common misconceptions that always comes up when I speak to doctors who have a funny feeling about selling their stuff, even though they know that they should and could be doing better. So here's the first misconception. A lot of us feel that selling is immoral, that something is wrong about selling.

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (04:38)

And I want to ask you, are you committing a moral crime when you offer a person who came to you with a problem for which you have the solution for that took you at least a quarter of a million dollars to know how to work it up and then to have the privilege to prescribe a plant, to have that medical degree, to have all of the licensure that you've earned? I want to state this plainly that your growth is proportional to the level of honesty you can get with yourself.

and the thoughts that you're choosing to believe as truth. If you believe that selling is immoral, we have to break that down. It's not that selling is immoral, it's that we were never taught how to sell, or in our training system, we were taught that it's unprofessional to talk about money. So it's a conditioning that we can out learn or decondition from. I don't know the right term for that. But to believe that selling is immoral for a service-based business,

It's kind of like saying every service-based business out there should not be selling as well. Why is it just exclusive to doctors? It's not. We all had to take out a loan to get the education. We all have bills to pay in order to sustain the business. So once you realize that it's not a true belief, then we can start dismantling it and then we can start moving away from an old idea that doesn't serve us. So selling is just selling. You're just telling people what you offer and you're putting a price tag. It's like everything you've ever bought.

It's like anything people have ever used their money for, whether they're paying for medical services or they're paying for types of groceries or places to eat or the cars that they buy or the purses they're choosing, right? These all have a price point. And so really nobody is entitled to our stuff for free unless you want to give it for free, but you shouldn't feel guilted into doing stuff for free if it's not going to help you in the long run, right? A business that doesn't make profits does not exist, excluding

Nonprofits, but they funnel money in a different way. But nonetheless, we need money. Money is just money. We just need the thing. It's a tool. Selling is not immoral. It's a mechanism to get what you want. That's it. So getting over that hump of attaching morality with selling is going to help you long term. The second misconception that doctors come to me with and I myself have as well or have had is that they don't want to feel pushy. They made the offer. They told the patients

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (07:06)

Insurance doesn't cover it. Here's what I'm going to charge. Here's the price tag, right? And then they stop at that point where the patient says, but insurance doesn't pay for it, right? So there's a little bit of resistance there in that conversation. And doctors feel some way about it. And I know it's because we have dealt with disgusting, pushy people many times and even other doctors who are doing it the wrong way. So what are they doing that makes us feel sleazy about it?

It's that these people who push a sale hasn't earned your trust. So they're pushing a sale that you didn't ask for and it's draining to push them away or to avoid them or to not make eye contact or to not answer their calls or like to have a feeling about the situation because they hadn't earned your trust or they did a bait and switch with you. You thought that they were providing some good value. You thought that they were being helpful. And then suddenly they're like, we've got this expensive program, whatever, you know.

and you were maybe a little unprepared for that. And it's like, well, you just broke that trust because you asked for the marriage without the sequence of dating, right? So some people who are in sales who haven't earned trust makes it feel pushy because you either didn't ask for it or they are sincerely after the close. They really just want to earn the money, but they haven't earned the trust. But the thing is with doctors, with your patients, they came to you.

intentionally for a solution. They want the quickest way out of their current problem and you have that expertise. So when they come to you, they are looking for your leadership and your guidance. They don't want to pay for a bunch of maybes or a bunch of solutions that they can find on Google or on a Facebook post or even with chat GBT. They want you, an expert with the experience, to know what the next best thing is for them, which means you have to own what you know.

and you have to earn their trust by listening and parroting, meaning repeating back to them what they've said to you so that you understand and so that they can perceive that you understand them because you're using their words. And then you can ask permission to offer them something that they have to pay for. Most of the time, people know they have to pay something for excellent care, but don't shove it down their throat if they're unprepared. And this is a skill that also means that you have to be a good observer

And listener, you have to look at their body posturing. You have to see if one foot is halfway out the door, then don't try to make that sound, trying to close that sale. You do have to learn to read the room. Have empathy, but also get curious as to what's the real concern that's lurking underneath as to why they're not saying yes at this moment. For example, you may encounter a patient in which you provided an offer to, and they say, okay, that sounds good, but I need to talk to my spouse.

What does that mean? Underneath that is a little escape of, don't wanna talk about this anymore, or it's information that they're seeking that they don't know how to ask or articulate yet. They don't understand the value of the plan, right? And this leads me to the third misconception. If the patient already said no, doctors oftentimes just stop at that because they don't want more rejection, right? That rejection is painful to us, to our ego.

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (10:26)

and we don't want to have more pain and therefore we avoid digging deeper. But the thing is, when somebody comes to you for help, you really have to position them in the center of this conversation rather than yourself as somebody who has to make a sale, who has to feel good if they make the sale or attach yourself to the sale. And that means detaching the outcome. It means separating your ego and your value in whether or not you close the sale.

To get through this, you really have to reframe the situation of the sales conversation and be in service of the patient who's asking you for help. You have to take their first no as a clue that there is something that needs clarification. So underneath, I gotta talk to my spouse is a hesitation, an objection of some kind that you don't really know what it really is because you haven't asked. So you gotta ask.

And that means you have to have the emotional intelligence to give them a safe space to express what they're truly scared of without a judgment, without forcing a transaction, without making it about yourself that you're not worthy of taking care of this person. It's not that at all. It's about, are you the right person for the job, for this person? Can you guide them when things are uneasy? Do you have the emotional intelligence or bandwidth to make them feel safe and heard?

We want to give them options that are ethically aligned, that makes sense, and that gives them the outcome they truly want. That also means you have to sit and be uncomfortable with them. So the first few rounds when you make these sales pitches, you're telling them what you do and what it costs. Yes, it's going to be uncomfortable. So sit with that. And for them, they're digesting the investment that they have to make to reorient their financial priorities and decide

Are they worth it? Do they feel worthy of the care that you're providing? And they will be uncomfortable with that too. So now we've got a relationship building. Two uncomfortable people, right? In the first early stages of learning about one another, is this a good fit or not for the practice? And the patient's thinking, are you the doctor who can actually help me through this? You have to give them the space and not push for more if they're not ready. But you do have to get curious as to what's really underneath their first objection.

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (12:47)

Is it really that they have to talk to their spouse or do I need to provide more information or see their blind spot and show them what those things might be? And oftentimes patients will walk themselves out of a really good solution because they're scared and they don't know how to articulate it or they don't know if this is right for them. And so when you're sitting aside them, you're telling them what to expect. You're not guaranteeing anything, but

You can give them data, can give them evidence-based solutions and you can tell them, this is what it takes to get to the other side of your problem and provide that level of security with them that you will see them through it and not just try to sell a thing and let them go and abandon them, right? You don't do that. But that's the fear that patients have. They don't know if this solution will work. So you provide them with the data and your experiences. They don't know if they want to prioritize that thing right now because maybe it requires

some commitment from their end, right? And you can't force that commitment or it could be something else. And so that's for you to dig into deeper so that you create that relationship, that safety bridge that tells them that you are there for them and you're not there to simply close the sale. And that's how you sell ethically. You sit alongside the patient, you provide them with the information, you be uncomfortable with them. You don't personalize that first objection or rejection

and you be in service for them. And sometimes what I see happen is after you get so many no's, you feel demoralized as the doctor. You feel like you're not being validated, that your service isn't good enough or whatever the feelings come up are and I get it. But the reality is it's not about you. It's about how you conveyed the information and does it make sense for the patient. So giving the patient autonomy to choose is very important to me and it will help build the trust because they may say no today.

And some people are just slower to make a decision. Oftentimes I find patients calling back and saying, now I'm absolutely ready. So I'm not the type to teach doctors to close a sale on the day of the first meeting. It takes a couple of touch points for somebody to really understand if you're a good fit for them. And it also takes you as a doctor, a couple of touch points to see if you want to invite them into your practice. There have been instances where I sold a package to somebody who I thought was a good fit in their first meeting.

And then a few meetings later, I'm realizing that they are cognitively declining and they can't follow up with the plan. And then they eventually have hazardly just decide to not proceed with the plan because they didn't understand it because of things out of our control. Right. And that was a unique situation, but don't make that into it meaning something about you and the skills that you have to offer. It just means it's not a good fit and you can both separate and move on and allow more people who are good fit.

into your practice. So from here, where am I taking you? If I told you that it takes 100 nos in order for you to get to a yes, would that get you more excited with your next no and the next one and the next one? Because each time you get a no, you're obtaining information and you are getting closer to somebody who says yes. And I've said in the past that a direct care practice works and can thrive with fewer patients

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (16:10)

because of this, because we are selling higher ticket service items. We're not selling one-off appointments. And with AI ticking over, we really need to find a way to stand out. And therefore, the best way to do that is through a package, something that doesn't allow you to be comparable to insurance options. So I've given you the three most common misconceptions most doctors will experience, and there are more. So I'm excited to share with you a safe space where we can do this together, where you can learn

how to help your patients foresee their care with you by using the 4C method. Number four, and there are four Cs associated with that method. I thought that was a fun pun. So stick with me here. So this is an ethical sales framework that you can actually cash out without earning another certification or another conference. Now, side note, I do have a little bit of a beef that I'm going to unravel today and it's about...

The certifications that are abundant in the medical world. Certifications where you attend something and you get a nice little paper award that says you completed these education and you know, like that's cool. I love learning. However, I see doctors chasing the certification without doing anything that's super uncomfortable, which is having these money conversations. Okay. I'm not saying you should not get a certificate. I'm saying don't seek that certificate thinking patients will suddenly show up and spend money on you. You have to learn how to sell.

And that's the thing that is deficient in a lot of our educational programs is that they don't really teach you how to sell. They teach you how to do the clinical skill, which is important. We're not doing the real work. The real work is accepting that people will say no and then navigating it. It's not with another certification because doctors love that external validation that says they did a thing. Yes, it's important for your ongoing education. So keep learning. It's essential.

But don't stop at the idea that you need that piece of paper to make more money. To make more money, you need to learn to sell. You need to learn how to talk about money. You need to not be uncomfortable about it. And that takes practice and that takes time. So if you want to learn how to be succinct in your offer and earn people's trust so that the right people say yes without effort, I've got something for you. It is the Direct Care Society. This is a monthly mastermind where we talk about it.

Dr. Tea Nguyen, DPM (18:35)

We have hot seats. We unveil the issues that are going on in your practice together in the safe place that ensures your patients don't leave the office choosing an inferior option. Enrollment is now open. Just follow the link down in the show notes and we get started on these conversations in March. Now, if you're a conference organizer, I implore you to offer a breakout session or this type of masterclass where doctors learn these skills that go along with the offerings you've got.

It'll help you stand out so much more than any other swag can do. And it's really important to recognize that we can no longer separate clinical conversations and money conversations. People choose based on the price, right? They're gonna choose based on how much they trust the doctor providing it. These are things that need to come together, not stay separated. So it's time to evolve the way that we think about medicine and private practice. It starts with understanding the ethical way to sell yourself so that the right people commit to your care.

and get the outcome they've been looking for without wasting any more of their time or money. If you want the support, the doors are open to the circle where you get the right tools and support to massively grow your direct specialty care practice. The link will be down below. Join now and I'll see you there next month. Take care.