It was many years ago, when I was being coached by Chris Barrow, that he shouted at me in the middle of a restaurant (after everything had gone quiet), “You think sales is an STD”.
I've told that story around the country this year, perhaps 10 times to different audiences as I travelled with the consultation masterclass.
The fascinating thing is that I did think sales was an STD, and I still think the whole connotation of the word sales has a tinge to it which is dirty or unethical or frankly dishonest.
Sales in itself has been butchered and hijacked by people who had no business getting involved with it, and it has affected our interactions with people for the worse in many different situations.
Just to be clear, I am absolutely 100% on the page that everyone in our business works in healthcare.
The trick to understanding how to work in healthcare is to say the word ‘Healthcare’ slowly. Health - delivered with care.
It sells itself, healthcare, because the people who need to access it want people who will care for them, and the people who do that the best are the people who win and get the most. They’re able to charge the highest number to provide the best treatment overall, to reinvest in the teams, to provide better care.
The essence of providing good healthcare is actually entirely based around Adam Scott economics.
Adam Scott was a Scottish economist who effectively described capitalism in its first form.
He believed that capitalism was the way forward, because if you had 10 bakers in a town, it would be the person who baked the best bread and looked after their customers the best who would win, and therefore the market would find its level.
Over time we've found many, many, many ways to hack this concept, but in truth, it's still the same.
If you ever wanted to help understand how sales works in a world where you don't have to get the sale of the old lady for double glazing, or for the second-hand car, then read To Sell Is Human by Dan Pink. There's a link to it here.
It describes the concept of self-selling and non-self-selling, and it turns out that in our lives, we're selling most of the time.
I'm always trying to convince my wife that I'm the next version of Brad Pitt in my 50s.
I'm always trying to convince my kids they should help out at home.
I'm always trying to convince people to give me a job or let me speak or allow me to treat them, or whatever it is.
And so, it turns out that the very final thing that I need to do in my transition from thinking that sales is an STD to understanding that sales is an essential part of life, and it's fine for me to talk about it, and just because other people have made it bad doesn't mean that I can't make it good, is as follows:
I'm in the process of renaming and redesigning the Consultation Masterclass.
It’s been one of the most popular courses we've ever done, but it's a sales course.
I dressed it up in the consultation cloak because I didn't want to call it sales, but going forward and into next year, I'm going into sales in a big way.
I am one of the most expensive implant dentists in the country (at least my practice at level one is).
Our conversion rate for consultations is 80%.
How can that possibly work when you imagine that, in order to provide treatment, you have to be cheaper?
I'm gonna show people how we do this.
It might work for you, or it might not, but it works for us, and there must be something to be learned from that.
The old Consultation Masterclass (now to be renamed something to do with sales that I haven't quite got to yet) is likely to be one of the most popular courses that we have ever done.
Watch this space.
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