68 MARCH 2017 // dentaltownuk.com Discover seven easy steps to create more opportunities to provide more Teeth Whitening Treatments and increase your turnover and profits A few weeks ago, I was having dinner with a client who had just taken my Two Day Ethical Sales & Communication Programme. He was sharing some of his success stories, in particular, relating a conversation he had with a new patient. e patient, in his early 40s, was enquiring about some teeth whitening. He had just been promoted to Sales Director in his company, where he now found himself having to give more presentations and he felt he would look and act more confidently if he had whiter teeth. My client asked the patient why he wasn’t getting this treatment done with his existing dentist; the patient replied that he didn’t think his dentist delivered this treatment. Here we have a patient that has had to go to a different Practice, because he thinks that his existing dentist does not provide this treatment. What a shame and of course, a missed opportunity for that Practice. I am not sure why some Practices don’t offer this type of treatment, because there are so many opportunities in providing it. For a start, it is extremely popular, patients are now seeking out this type of treatment, and it seems everyone wants to have whiter teeth. Another advantage for your Practice is that once patients have whiter teeth, then they might become more enthusiastic about other treatments that you provide. In addition, it should increase the number of referrals from existing patients and of course, if you don’t provide it, then like the story above, your existing patients will go to another practice and they might even leave you for good. So how do we increase sales of this extremely popular treatment? Here are seven easy steps to follow that will increase your opportunities to deliver teeth whitening treatments and, by the way, other treatments as well. Make sure that your patients are aware that you provide this type of treatment. If I was sitting in your reception area, would I know that you provided it? Now I am not saying you should have hundreds of pictures plastered all over your reception area, but a few discreet pictures on the walls and a photo album, showing many before and after pictures of all the treatments that you offer, not just teeth whitening will help immensely. ese photo books can look very professional, if they have been put together by using a company such as snapfish.co.uk, which look extremely classy. Maybe you could have a pop up stand, again showing some excellent before and after pictures and of course you should have the same information on your website. At every consultation, ask your patient questions about their appearance. For example show your patient a mirror and ask them questions such as ‘Mrs. Patient looking at your teeth, is there anything that you would you like to change or improve about your smile? Or looking at your teeth have you ever considered having them whiter? Now if you are going to ask these questions, you must ensure that you have good rapport with your patient. Instead of using a mirror, many of my clients now use Intraoral cameras to start this conversation. You can of course ascertain this information by asking the patient to complete a questionnaire before their check-up. Never make any assumptions about who to ask these questions to. I have delivered over 26,000 hours of business training to the dental market and the biggest communication mistake dentists make, is they make assumptions about their patients, this leads to thousands of pounds worth of lost opportunities every year. I can literally share with you hundreds of stories where Dentists have stopped making assumptions about their patients and new opportunities have been created. My most famous one is the window cleaner who signed up to treatment to the value of Time Out Ashley Latter author of ‘Don’t Wait for the Tooth Fairy’ & ‘You are Worth it’ offers some sound advice on how you can create more opportunities to deliver more teeth whitening in your practice.