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• What I’ve Learned

• Business Idea

Until orthodontics becomes a life-or-death healthcare procedure, it’s a voluntary purchase.

In business, voluntary purchase is Latin for “We need to sell sh#* to stay alive!”

The ultimate irony is when an orthodontist tells a sales rep they’re not ‘sales-people.’

Consider the 7 verbs of selling you’ll see on any given day:

1. A lab tech posting to social media to attract new patients

2. The front desk persuading someone to show up to an exam

3. A treatment coordinator asking for a signature

4. The same treatment coordinator following up to the peeps who declined step 3.

5. A chairside assistant up-charging a new retainer package

6. An ortho bringing lunch to a GP for more referrals

7. A partner negotiating his building & practice sale to an associate.

That’s a 7:1 ratio to a sales rep selling his one thing to a doctor.

Yet, sales reps carry the title… and get the hours of training.

If you can get an orthodontic practice to accept it’s a sales machine and start rotating the lens for a team, you can let them in on the cardinal foundation to help them sell more:

"The customer isn’t buying what the practice “thinks” it sells.”

A practice isn’t selling an appliance, a treatment, or an experience.

It’s deeper than that.

This week comes a lesson a 32-year tenured orthodontist gave me over drinks at a recent event:

“You wanna know what we really sell? It took me years to figure it out …everything started to fall into place once I did.

I’ll share it with you in one word:

…Hope.”

“An orthodontic practice sells hope and transformation, not treatments and appliances. Tilt your marketing lens through this filter, and you’ll tap into how to sell your services better.”

-Landy Chase, Orthodontic Consultant