#90: How to Attract More Affluent Patients?

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

How can we attract more affluent patients who don’t question you “how much is it?” right in the one of the first sentences when they start talking?

Hi there, It’s Huyen here and welcome to OMD TV & Podcast show, the place to be to grow and scale your practice.

In this episode, I’m going to talk about how to attract affluent patients, and about the 3 main strategies how to charge twice as much as your competitors & make the price question go away.

This would allow you to either double your revenues with the same amount of patients or work less for the same amount of revenues.

For example, let’s say your competitors charge $5K for an eyelid surgery so you charge $10K.

The math is easy….your competitors need to attract and serve 200 patients for a $1M practice while you need only 100 patients.

I talked about the Dream 100 patient list concept in a series of podcast number #67 How to Drive Unlimited Traffic To Your Clinic and podcast number #78 7 Step Patient Generation Blueprint which I leave the links in the show note below so you can check them out.

What would that mean to you in terms of time, money and energy focusing on the needs of only 100 patients versus the 200 “generic” patients that everyone else is attempting to attract?

Focusing on the 100 affluent patients versus the 200 “anybody’s” makes very good business sense so let’s look at how you make it happen.

Here are a few important facts that you need to know in order to attract affluent patients to your practice:

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOUR SKILLS AT THIS LEVEL

This will be counterintuitive but important to grasp:

It’s NOT about being 2x better at an eyelid surgery to charge 2x more.

Board-certified trained plastic surgeons do a nice blepharoplasty. That’s true or you wouldn’t be board-certified.

And this isn’t about supporting your higher price simply by creating better value propositions.

That works well for the “mass market” but not for the upscale, affluent market.

Because this assumes everybody is a value buyer and that’s not the case when you go up the food chain.

The masses buy for all sorts of other reasons, but affluent patients DON’T buy for value.

The further up the ladder they are – the less “needs-driven” they are.

So, it’s all about what they WANT to do – not what they NEED to do.

They think differently than the average patient.

They are not buying by need and function, so they are not buying by price and value.

It’s more about the intangibles and what this procedure means to them that is driving their decision.

THE AFFLUENT PATIENT’S FRAME OF MIND

Affluent patients pay more because doing so makes them feel more like the person they either wish they were or envision themselves to be.

At this level, you are hardly talking about the surgery.

It’s the intangibles of the surgery that attracts the affluent patients to you.

The affluent patients are looking for superior service providers….even if it’s based on perception.

They believe they deserve the best, so they want the best.

This group will pay to buy certainty.

By the way, trust is the single most important issue because the affluent patient wants to feel like they are getting the best.

HOW TO MAKE PRICE DISAPPEAR FROM THE EQUATION

So, knowing that, what are the things that make price disappear from the equation and YOU the only choice for affluent patients?

The answer is YOU.  It’s more about you than your product.

You stand out from the crowd by doing what others won’t do or can’t do.

Here are 3 other strategies that help make the price go away:

STRATEGY #1 PEER RECOMMENDATIONS

The affluent are reached more through peer referral than any other avenue. This group of patients value trust more than anything else so they turn to others they trust.

Knowing that you’ll want to identify who those patients are in your own practice. Give them an excellent result and an exceptional patient experience.

Now make them part of your VIP Club where you have private events they can invite their friends to.

To make it special, add a charity component to it and invite the media.

It’s the exclusivity that gives the affluent patients the feeling of status they want and expect.

STRATEGY # 2 YOU NEED TO BE THE EXPERT

Although you are well versed in all sorts of surgical procedures, the affluent patients want to go to the BEST.

They want the surgeon who specializes in blepharoplasty procedures, has done 10x more blepharoplasty procedures than the average surgeon and who has tons of social proof of hundreds of other happy blepharoplasty patients.

It would also be helpful if you are considered, “The Eye Guy” because you have been interviewed by the media and you even train other surgeons on your innovative blepharoplasty techniques.

 STRATEGY #3 USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO CONNECT WITH AFFLUENT PATIENTS

Social media has made it possible for you to develop your own fan club quickly and easily. Regularly post before and after photos of your blepharoplasty patients and tell their stories.

Shoot short Instagram video stories answering blepharoplasty FAQs. Respond to anyone who comments on your posts and find out if they are social media influencers who also have a healthy following they can introduce you to.

The point is after enough communication, familiarity, reinforcement and social proof, the affluent patients now have sufficient trust in you to choose you as their go-to surgeon.

Conclusion

Attracting the affluent patient takes a different way of thinking.

If you believe you are worth double what your competitors charge, set your practice up to cater to the affluent patients that are attracted to your higher prices and better patient experience because, they too, believe they are worth it.

Ok, that’s it for this week and I hope you got a lot of value from this.

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Thanks so much and hope to talk to you in our discovery call soon.