Here’s the answer to Question #2

The other day I answered the first of two great questions I got shortly after my previous message about my "Freedom Promotion". This second question speaks to a few important issues I want to point out to you...some direct and some indirect! Here's the question:

Hi Chris,
What happens to the patients that were already scheduled for treatment and received the card? If they call, Do you honor the discount for them as well?
Thanks,
Dr. Ronald J Sherstoff

[This type of question is what I call a "What If" question. I'm going to comment about that type of question in a minute, toward the bottom.]

Wouldn't ya know it...the first 2 people that called about my 4th of July "Freedom Promotion" were patients that were already scheduled for treatment. And to be scheduled in my office, financial arrangements are already signed, with a deposit made to secure the appointment time (another topic, another day).

They asked a reasonable question: can they save more than they were saving by prepaying already? Well, probably not. In the text of the greeting card it says that this offer can not be combined with other offers. VERY important! In some cases the savings listed would be a bit more than the 8% they were saving, in which case we allowed the higher savings. But they couldn't have both.

Now, you may be thinking it's dumb to give away more than you've already agreed to. If you think only in the near term, you're right. But if you think LONG term, that chunk of change will come back to you many times over in the form of a stronger relationship, more referrals, etc.

Another caveat is that we stated on the card that "full payment is required to receive savings". In other words, patients couldn't use the savings as a "credit" to lower their balance...UNLESS they were paying it off in full!

The limitations of the offer were clear, but we did not overwhelm the offer with rules that diminish its impact. That would not be good! How many times have you seen or heard a great offer in an ad, only to be followed by about a page worth of legal gobble-de-gook? Dumb.

OK...here's the BIG, indirect point I want to make about what I call "What If" questions. First, anyone has every right to ask questions like this... and they should so they can think through the possibilities of what COULD happen. Sounds like Dr. Sherstoff is ready to act, and he wants clarification on a particular circumstance. Very smart.

Here's what you must watch out for with "What If" questions. You can't let them BOG YOU DOWN! It's so easy to get caught up in the "What If's" that you never make any progress. Of course that did NOT happen here, but it reminded me of this principle called "analysis paralysis".

In the past I would stew over every conceivable scenario that I'd delay getting going, or sometimes not get started at all. That was until I realized that the "What If's" will ALWAYS be there, and it's impossible to think of them all.

So my rule now is: if I feel confident that anything I do in my practice will work for 85-90% of my patients, then I do it NOW. I don't worry any more about "that one patient" that may do this or that. It's very liberating, and I get a whole lot more done nowadays.

Do we run into "that one patient" occasionally? Of course we do. But the benefits we got from moving forward always far exceeded any headaches we may have suffered from the "What If's"!

All my best,
Chris

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