A great management analogy states, “How you start a relationship is generally how it continues”. This is why many companies engage in onboarding and orientation processes together with robust interview processes, all in an effort to set expectations correctly.
The reason that so many doctors are bad at selling correct expectations when it comes to how long their recommendations might be or frequently is the exact same reason they avoid asking keeping questions. They are scared of “tension” or said differently, scared of having a truthful and sometimes, slightly uncomfortable conversation.
When my clients understand that this is an important and necessary part of “selling” my clients often immediately relax in accepting the process a little more.
A close cousin to building a little tension is the process of “anchoring”. Effectively an anchor is leading with a bigger “number” such as the time it may take to heal, before revealing your recommendation looks a lot more palatable. This will be covered in depth later. Contrary to what anyone may make you like to make you think, it is not an “unethical” process if done right. It is often done unethically but the key to this process being, in my opinion, ethical is all centred around TELLING THE TRUTH.
The reason I’m mentioning it here briefly is that it also relies on building an element of tension.
The key for both strategies to work is understanding WHY tension is needed first. Critically the reason tension is essential in this type of sale is because at some point you will release the tension.
