‘Dr. Webb’s Desk’ Article originally from September 9th’s 2016 FPC Weekly Newsletter, written by Dr. Webb.
Your Prospects Won’t Buy On Logic Alone
I can remember wrapping up one particular presentation that I felt was a “Kick Ass” talk, only to find just 20% took me up on my offer. What the heck?
Of course my initial thought was, “They obviously don’t care about their health. They just wasted my time.”
Sound familiar?
After this event, a diabetes presentation, I decided that diabetics just didn’t give a crap and I was going to stop trying to help them. I spoke to my wife, Mindi, about my decision and here is how she replied.
“Why would you stop educating diabetics? Do you realize just how many you’ve been helping over the last few months? I suggest you consider that before your decision. Besides, where else would they go for help?”
After reviewing my stats, I found that approximately 20% of our recent couple month’s revenue was diabetic programs. Hmmm? I also took inventory on how easy it had been to turn their situation around and how often I heard these members comment on their wonderful progress.
Perhaps I shouldn’t shut this down. But, why are they more difficult to sign up? I chose to face the challenge and quit judging their behavior, but figure out what I was missing in the communication. In other words, I chose to stop blaming them and focus my attention on the speaker…me.
Before the next diabetic presentation, I recognized something in common with this unique crowd. Most of them didn’t have symptoms. They just knew they were tagged with the diagnosis, DIABETIC and pretty much figured that wasn’t a good thing, but something that could be controlled. No real reason to panic as their doctor told them, “As long as you take your meds, we should be able to keep this in control. Oh yea, try to eat better and take some walks.”
Wow! With that mind set, why would they want to sign up to see me, change their habits and pay a hefty sum for it? Guess what? They didn’t.
The next talk I did, I addressed this fact. I let them know that I understood their current understanding of their condition and their lackadaisical attitude toward change. I repeated what they had likely been told and helped to explain why this was poor advice, why the drugs didn’t actually improve their condition, but led to a worsening of the disease and why the absence of symptoms made this one of the most dreaded and deadly diseases that someone could have.
Before I got into the meat and potatoes of this talk, I had them looking at their diabetes totally different. It was all eyes and ears on me and what I had to say next. They looked at me as someone that finally understood them, didn’t judge them and took the time to learn how to communicate to them. They appreciated this and were open to alternatives to living with a condition, that just moments before, thought of as somewhat benign.
To my best recollection, I closed over 50% of the room that night. All along, it wasn’t the audience and how little they cared about their health. All along it was the teacher.