Today we're talking with Jamie Larson from Burnaby, British Columbia. Jamie’s an audiologist and he works with people who need hearing aids and helps them get the right information to make the right choice.
He's written a book and we talked about how he uses that book as a lead generator. It’s been working great and we brainstormed some ways to make his advertising, his initial offer in Profit Activator 2, more compelling versus convincing, as well as talking about some referral strategies.
We had a great conversation. He's got a great action plan, and you'll get a lot out of hearing us pull together the next steps in this plan.
Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
90MinuteBooks.com
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 065
Dean: Jamie Larsen.
Jamie: Dean Jackson.
Dean: How are you?
Jamie: I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Dean: I'm fantastic. Where are you calling from? You're in Canada?
Jamie: I'm in Canada, yeah. I'm outside of Vancouver in a little suburb called Burnaby.
Dean: Oh nice. There we go. Well, welcome aboard.
Jamie: It's good to be here.
Dean: We've got the whole hour to hatch some evil schemes here. Why don't you set the context. Then we can see what we can do here.
Jamie: All right. Well, I'll tell you what, before this call here, I didn't really know which way I should go with it to get the most value out of it. First time caller, long time listener here. I've heard a lot of your podcasts. I have a hearing clinic hear in Burnaby BC. We help people here, we sell hearing aids and other things for their ears. Over the years I've developed some systems here really based on everything I've learned from I Love Marketing, from your stuff, your podcasts and stuff like that.
Dean: Sure.
Jamie: It's everything that you'd be really familiar with. I basically, I've been doing this a while. I've got a marketing system in place that gets most things done pretty well. It's all direct response. After hearing all these podcasts, I really thought, I should be instead of scaling up and building out more physical clinics, what I'd really like to do is do the what do you call that now? The sale ready algorithm…
Dean: Syndication.
Jamie: And go that way. That's what I'm more interested in, but like I said, I'm not sure if I've got everything dialed in as good as I should have it dialed in, in order to actually do something like that. I don't know if I can get the most value from the call or the most value for the listeners for the call to get conversions better. It's a fickle market. It's interesting or to just get straight to, how would a guy package this system up? If I was looking at how to package it up, really just that, I haven't packaged anything yet. But now I'm looking at it and I say, "What are all the pieces that I have? What do I do right now with my market and how would I actually put that together and present it to other clinic owners.
Dean: The good news is it's the same, the making your business work better is job one. It makes the syndication easier, because ultimately what you need to be able to do is say to somebody, "Let me show how it works." That's really where it comes down to it. How would you describe your before unit right now? What would you say is how it predicatively works? How do you get new business right now?
Jamie: Basically I generate ... What I have control over is lead generation and orchestrating referrals. For lead generation right now, of course I made a 90 minute book. Which was probably the best lead generation tool yet, that I've ever used. I experimented a lot.
Dean: Awesome.
Jamie: It is. It works great. It works on so many levels. It works for referrals. It works to generate leads. I use print advertising for the book. It's really as simple of an ad as the landing page that you guys created with the book. It's pretty simple. We get people to either call a number, which we tracked or we drive them online to the website. Either way they'll opt in. I have that. I also have in the book where I take the book out and put it into offices where I know that my target market is hanging out. Like other doctor's offices and stuff.
Dean: Sure.
Jamie: They'll take the book and in the back of the book I have something added to go online to download a checklist thing of questions to ask your provider. I'm trying to get them online. If they pick up the book, so I can get them online to actually get back in front of them. I use the book. The other thing I use for lead generation, with AdWords I offer people a price quote. One of I think the biggest challenges for my consumers is the industry is not very clear about pricing up front. Its very much the idea of let's get them in the door. Let's get them across the table and then you can give them the prices as if it's a secret thing that they're going to-
Dean: Right exactly.
Jamie: Instead, I do a price quote offer in AdWords. I take them to a landing page. I segment them out between whether they're experienced or not on the landing page. Then I take them to a 16 question, questionnaire to ask them questions and gather information. Surprisingly everybody fills out every question and they give me good information.
Dean: Sure.
Jamie: Then what I do is I have an auto-responder set up for a five day wait. That gives me a chance to engage with them with a very simple question. If they say ... If I ask them what their biggest challenge is. They say, "My biggest challenge is hearing on the telephone." What I'll do is hit them with an email the very next morning, after they've gotten the auto-reply email. I'll hit them with an email in the morning that says, "I'm looking at your thing here. It says that you have the most problem on the telephone. Can you tell me more about that?" Or whatever, that kind of thing. Then I'll give them, because they asked for a quote, I give them a quote right up front based on their answers. I'll say, "Okay, I would put you in this range." I'm really just trying to get the conversation started if I don't get it started after five days, they just go onto a drip campaign. Those are really how I'm generating leads and customers right now aside from referrals, doctor referrals and walk-ins.
Dean: Yeah. Well, this is great. It's nice to hear you describing a system. Here you've been listening for years. You've implemented and you're describing a system that sounds like something I would suggest or describe for you.
Jamie: Imagine that. Imagine that.
Dean: And it's working, so that's good. What would be some of the numbers that we can attach to it here. You run, let's take one thing at a time. You run this print ad. How much does the print ad cost you?
Jamie: Total with the newspaper that I'll do. There's another little cheap, but endearing little monthly rag that comes out in the neighborhood. I will run the same ad, that'll cost me about $700 basically for two weeks. I will out of that get ... It fluctuates, but on the high end, average I'd say 21 people will come from that. That's basically $33 per lead. Out of that, I'll get maybe three people will book an appointment. Out of those three people that book an appointment, one person typically will buy.
Dean: How much are ... What's the average sale kind of thing?
Jamie: The average sale is about $5,500.
Dean: What you've got right there then is you've got a machine that turns $700 into $5,500 every two weeks basically?
Jamie: Yeah.
Dean: Now what happens with ... Is that how quickly it happens? Somebody you placed the ad. Is it $700 twice a month, so $1,400 a month or is it $700 for the whole month and you run it twice.
Jamie: You know what? No. I misspoke there. Including both it would be $1,400 a month. So $1,400 a month, 21 people out of that. Then one out of three people buys on that. There's still a profit definitely.
Dean: Of course there's a profit. Is the 21 people a month or the time you run the ad?
Jamie: Yeah, it would be 21 people in the month.
Dean: Perfect. Great. Now when you look at that then, your cost initially is the $1,400 and you get the 21 people, three appointments, one buyer. Does that all ... What's the timeline on that? You run the ad from a-
Jamie: That's a great question because the timeline is what makes it all really tricky because ... We really have to keep track of this stuff over the long term. Because I will have people, of course not off the book, because I haven't had the book for two years. I'll have people come as far as two years out.
Dean: Of course.
Jamie: Typically, of those one and three people, would average within three months they'll buy.
Dean: Within three months. Okay. That's good. That's kind of the cycle of how long it takes for them to come in kind of thing. That's your short version. It's really interesting because like you said, one of the things we look at is the long term view of this. If you're generating 21 a month. How many people, how many leads do you have right now that are sitting there in Profit Activator three? We break these down to your Profit Activator two is book author that gets people to raise their hand. They ask for the book and then they show up as a lead. Now we're into Profit Activator three, where you're educating and motivating them. How many people do you have in that category right now?
Jamie: In that category we have about 70 people on that list.
Dean: You haven't been doing this that long then, the book?
Jamie: No. No. The book hasn't been going that long.
Dean: Got you. Great. When you look at other leads that you've had, other ways of generating leads for people who want to or need ... Here again. It's how many from other sources do you have right now? Of people?
Jamie: Of people from all other sources?
Dean: Yeah.
Jamie: Just sitting as leads? I have 180 people on my email list and 70 people from the books.
Dean: Great. There we go. In that group now, how do you communicate with those people?
Jamie: Well, and this is where I really ... I think I can make some gains here. With the book people. Now it's interesting because with online it's really easy from a one sided approach, it's easy for me because they're on auto-responder, I can send them links and images. It's very easy to communicate. With off-line, of course it's more costly to get in touch with them. From the time that they opt-in for the book from print, the first thing we do is send them a book. Just send them a book with a little post-it note that says, "Thanks a lot for getting a copy of my book."
Here you go. Here's the checklist, because we already have their information. "Here's the checklist that we promised you." Then we will ... I think it's after four days, we will send them a nice little stationary handwritten note that says, "Hey, we run these little workshops every Tuesday from 10 to 2. So you're welcome to come out and check out some of the stuff." Then again about four days later we'll send them another book that's got more information about hearing loss. It's a little more of a corporate book.
Dean: Sure.
Jamie: With that we'll also send a letter that says, "Hey, have you had a hearing test? You can read about it more in this book if you haven't had one, you're welcome to come in. We'll give you a test for free and a consultation." Then a week after that, we'll send them a gift certificate for $300. It's a printed gift certificate in a nice envelope. It says, "Hey, you can use this. If you can't use it, you can feel free to pass it on to a friend." After that, that's where I'm stuck after that with the print because I feel like I've worn that part out. What I'd like to do is send them some information, but also have the soft offers of the super signature kind of thing in there. I feel at that point I almost need to be a little bit more I don't want to say aggressive, but let's say aggressive. To make harder offers. Now, I don't really ... My clinic being a boutique clinic is I really don't like putting out offers where we say, "Hey, we have a big sale this week. Come in and save."
Dean: No. I don't want you to do a sale. I'd rather see you stay away from a sale as the motivation kind of thing, as to being there at the right times. People are reluctant probably to, especially if it's their first time hearing aid. I would imagine right? Because of going from not having it to needing it. What do you think are the big concerns that people have about ... What would cause the delay in getting a hearing aid?
Jamie: The number one delay whether someone is 60 years old or literally 85 or 90 years old. They're concerned that the hearing aids are going to make them look old.
Dean: Yeah, right.
Jamie: Even if they're 90, they're concerned that they hearing aids make them look old.
Dean: Do you have stealth hearing aids that-
Jamie: Oh yeah.
Dean: Okay. There you just gave an excellent content idea.
Jamie: That's number one, number two would be usually is the cost, and number three is probably up with the cost for importance would be, "Are they actually going to work for me?" Because if you ... hearing aids do work for people, there's no doubt about it. It improves lives in a huge way. But there's also a lot of people who get hearing aids and they don't meet their expectations, which may have been set unrealistically to begin with. A lot of that kind of talk happens. "My friend had hearing aids, he never wears them. They stay in the drawer. He wasted all that money." That conversation happens a lot.
Dean: Now do you have the opportunity for people to test drive a hearing aid or do they have to be? I don't know what's behind it.
Jamie: Yeah.
Dean: Is it like glasses where you have a prescription or a specific setting for it that ... It's not like off the shelf kind of thing or is it? Could I come in and try it and get a sense that, "Wow, this really does make a difference."
Jamie: You can do that, absolutely. They can be programmed infinitely basically. You can come in, give it a try. Then a week later come in and make a tweak if you had to and then try it out. We've done that and I've run ads in the past that have said just that. Mailers that say, "Come and do a free test drive of this new technology." No commitments and all that kind of stuff. The craziest thing for me, I know my competition runs a lot of that still. For me, what I found that brings in a different kind of clientele.
It doesn't tend to bring the clientele who's looking to solve the problem. It's more the people who are curious. The biggest flop was the last one, of course. I had 10 different people come in over the course of a month to try hearing aids. All 10 of them didn't adhere to the structure and the process we had laid out. They didn't really wear them. All of them brought them back and were just non ... They just didn't want to really engage. I chalked it up to them being not really serious, not really at the point where they're ready to solve the problem just more curious. We do offer it still.
Dean: There's a difference between offering it as the reason somebody's coming in versus offering it for the people who have responded for your book. When you offer it to people, you understand what I mean. There's a difference that as a tool, it's certainly is a good trigger, that it could be a step forward, a moving step. I think that could be an interesting thing. You could do a lot of dialogue style emails with the people?
Jamie: Yeah, I do a lot of dialogue. I really come from there from the point of view as an advocate for them. Just like the book. Things that they need to know and what they should be aware of and what they should expect and all of this. I have about three months of an auto-responder built out in terms of built out messages. I do communicate with blasts too or broadcasts, so I'm just not leaving them in the dust. With the email I feel like almost like the print where I've exhausted everything. I'm thinking for somebody who is looking at hearing aids, they're probably not interested in receiving something all the time about hearing aids.
It seems that they want to get information, get it done and be done with it kind of thing. I feel like I'm supporting them to death by sending them more information, "Hey, did you know that you can get hearing aids in different colors?" I can see people getting excited about that. What I've thought of doing is sending them other stuff that's just related to the market. I started sending some more emails for strength training because I know these people are probably in their 60s. I'll send them other stuff about health and tie it back into, "Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you." At the same time I don't want to veer off the path that we're the hearing aid people.
Dean: I get it. How often do you get new models in or advances or new products? Or is it pretty standard?
Jamie: We'll get new ... The manufacturers will push. They do a great job of marketing to us. They will push out new products about on average about every eight months we'll have something new from one of the manufacturers that we could surprise people with.
Dean: Part of what, when you start thinking about it is sending personal emails to people, just invitations. Do you ever ... Do you send Nine Word Email to people? Have you tried?
Jamie: Yeah, I've sent many, many Nine Word Emails to an old list and to new lists. Yeah, I have done that. I try to always be as personal ... Again back to the Dean Jackson way, I send them as if I'm talking right to them.
Dean: To one person, right?
Jamie: One person, yeah.
Dean: Part of that dialogue message, if we take it ... What's the title of your book. Let's take it from the beginning?
Jamie: The book is called the Savvy Hearing Aid Buyer. Then the sub-title is What You Need to Know About Price and Value to Get Your Best Hearing Possible Without Overspending on Bells and Whistles You Might Not Need.
Dean: Great. It's a very interesting thing because it's like a consumer awareness guide that you're using to let people know. What I would be interested in testing is up front, testing a price guide or a price report on the beginning. Saying we did an example of this with ... We did lots of things, with financial advisors on annuities. Offering the June ... When we did it, it would be the October 2017 report on UK annuity yields. This could be the same thing, it could be the October 2017 report on hearing aid prices. That or a price survey.
Give people an example of what the options are. Because a lot of times people, just like you said, the thing that frames the conversation sometimes is the price. That often people are reluctant to give somebody a price because they feel like that's the thing they can hold back kind of thing. Then once they're all primed and emotionally committed, then they'll tell them the price. It's like people, you have to drag people into it. The corollary to that or the funny thing is that, 100% of the people that bought a hearing aid from you got a price.
Jamie: That's a good point.
Dean: That's the one thing. Not everybody who inquired about a hearing aid gets to the point where they get a price and buy from you. People who didn't get a price didn't buy a hearing aid. There's an interesting thing where if somebody is ... How big is the market do you think in Burnaby? How big is the market for hearing aids? How many people are there that would need a hearing aid on an annual basis? What do you know about the scope of the market?
Jamie: I'd say very accurately ... I'm sure I could do it based just on age and statistics. In my surrounding area. I should know that, but I don't. I don't know that, but what I do know is, it's a growing market and the competitors are very aggressive. I get my clients who come in and say they don't have ... Almost on a daily basis these massive, glossy, folder, brochure, maps kind of thing that come into their mailbox. The market is growing. In a sense, the market is growing, but I don't know how much of the market is available before they get scooped up by this. That just sounds like competition is here, but I don't know accurately a number for that. I can't say.
Dean: Because it's interesting, that I wonder if there are any industry statistics or whatever available just to get a sense of what that market is and what percentage of people over a certain age ... How old typically are your clients or does it go all across the board?
Jamie: It's across the board. I would say easily 80% of them are around the 70 years old mark.
Dean: Okay. Once they get to that level kind of thing. There's a good chance …
Jamie: Exactly.
Dean: I wonder when as people are around they probably get some sticker shock. That they think that they might not have a sense. I had no idea that a hearing aid was $5,500. I'm not in the market for it, but that's more than I would have expected that it is. Do you find that people get surprised by that?
Jamie: At that age, no. Not too many people get surprised. As far as the actual buyers. These are people who I think ... They're having a lot of conversations with their friends. It is a growing ... It's becoming a more accepted thing, so people can talk about it more. Most people aren't really that surprised, people who would be our clients anyway.
Dean: I wonder about the opportunity to maybe put that together. How many different options are there for people? How many different types of hearing aids or what goes into the price? Is it like you can get the Hyundai of hearing aids and the Rolls Royce of hearing aids? Is there a range of different things? What goes into the value or the money?
Jamie: Yeah, that's exactly it. You can basically hearing aids are all amplifiers. What people really pay for with the technology is, let's call it the hearing aid with the smarter brain or better engine, where it's able to help people more in challenging situations, let's say background noise. A lot of my clients will say, "When I'm talking to somebody across the table I have no trouble hearing them. If I have somebody who's walking away from me or not facing me or if it's a group situation." That's when they have trouble. That's really what they pay more for with hearing aids. People who get the Hyundai hearing aids it'll help them in most situations, but the people who get the Rolls Royce, they tend to be far happier clients.
They're just able to participate more easily in group conversation. There's a difference. As far as styles, there's a handful of different sizes and styles. For the most part it boils down to the performance of the hearing aid. As far as the pricing also, because the pricing is not just the product, it's also the service that goes into finding it. It's a lot like glasses where you go in and get glasses and they put those slides in front of you and you pick the best one and walk out with your prescription. Hearing aids are both objective and highly subjective in terms of the benefit someone gets based on how they're set up. How they're chosen to begin with and how they're set up and programmed. Imagine a sound board at a mixing studio.
Dean: Got you. Then I guess the size to go into the other things like the…
Jamie: Yeah, but those don't really, really have much to do with the price anymore because everything ... It's not really a big deal now to have them small because the entire industry has pushed everything to be really small.
Dean: Invisible basically?
Jamie: Yeah.
Dean: Got you. That kind of thing, what would be the price spread between the Hyundai and the Rolls Royce? What are we talking?
Jamie: Our price spread for a pair of hearing aids, which bundles in all services, basically for the lifetime of the hearing aid. Which would be an average of five to six years, our price range will range from $4,800 a pair up to as high as $8,000 a pair.
Dean: It's a tight band, but almost less than double from the top to the bottom. Is there any ... Is it insurance covered or anything like that or is it all out of pocket?
Jamie: No. Like I say we bundle all of the services for the lifetime of the hearing aid. Our end of the bargain is to keep them functioning at 100%, which means if somebody's hearing changes we change the hearing aids. We measure their hearing. Yearly we send out reminder letters for them to come back into the clinic for periodic cleanings and whatnot. Because they go in your ears, they have to be clean to work properly.
Dean: I mean does health insurance cover that or any ...
Jamie: No. Very, very, very little. It's almost all out of pocket. If somebody has health insurance, they might get $700 every four years for a pair of hearing aids. It's pretty much-
Dean: I got you. That's why the price becomes a concern or a factor. I think I would definitely test that as a lead generator. Just a small test here to see if that generates some more interest, more where it's market data as opposed to objective, subjective data. The Savvy Hearing Aid Buyer is when you're sharing information, what you need to know. That's great and valuable information that people need to be convinced and to show them what to look out for. There may be on the front end a way to get them to raise their hand to get this pricing guide. Then along with it deliver them the book. The book is still holding its place, but we're going to get people to raise their hand using a different approach perhaps.
Jamie: Well you know back in, sorry you go on.
Dean: No. You were going to say back?
Jamie: I was going to say back in the early days of I love Marketing 2011, 2012. I actually did have a price guide. I've done the consumer awareness guide. The best thing I did for leads was the price guide. The reason I changed from ... It did generate leads for sure. I didn't do print ads for the price guide. Actually I did run them, but they didn't really work in this particular magazine. I did do the price guide and I morphed that into this price quote because I found that the price quote, people would always answer these questions and it gave me more to go on to engage them.
Dean: It's interesting that ... There's a different vibe. So much of it is the sense of ... We used this on the real estate side. Find out how much your house is worth, is a different thing than here's the report on Winter Haven Lakefront house prices. There's a different thing, it's market data that is not committing me to anything. I can get that without saying that I'm thinking of selling my house. Getting a price quote, the word quote feels like a bespoke thing. I'm almost asking you to present me with an offer. There's a built in sense of the start of a negotiation.
Jamie: I totally understand what you mean by that. I get it. I never thought of that before.
Dean: As opposed to, "I get to see the market data on this is what hearing aids actually cost." It's why the Blue Book value of a car. Everybody gets excited about what's the Blue Book value, because that is arming me with the data that I need to frame the conversation that I'm going to have. I'm going into this knowing this is what they should be selling for. Now I know that whatever price you quote me, I have a context for it.
Jamie: Wow, that's so cool, because of course if I'm going to look for a car and I have access to Blue Book data, I'm going to get that so I'm armed before I go in to talk to a salesperson to tell me what the data is.
Dean: Right. Give me a quote and the quote is going to be ... It feels like you're committing kind of thing.
Jamie: Totally. I get that.
Dean: That makes a difference just like what's the most compelling thing? Now another thing, because I think that will improve the number of people that respond. You'll also get now the opportunity to send along with it, your book. Now that they've got that, they have a framework to be a Savvy Buyer. That then will lead to whatever your next steps are. The workshop certainly is one. Come on out, we do hearing aids workshop or whatever you call it on Tuesdays or come and take a test drive. Try one out. That kind of thing if you can do the in or take this quiz. You're building up your Super Signature cookies here for people to take that next step.
Jamie: I'm amazed because people will fill out these 16 questions and they'll put in all of the information of their biggest struggle in there. That in itself could be a link in the Super Signature as a next step, not the entry. Not the beginning steps.
Dean: That's true. I know it should be, absolutely. That's exactly right. Everything now is what going to help people move towards the next step. What drives it is the triggers. What are the thoughts that they're having? If you look at the way it works on the real estate side, if somebody gets a report on the Winter Haven Lakefront house prices. That shows them what the lakefront houses are selling for, but the main question that they're going to have is, "Well, how much is my house worth?" That's the kind of thing where if you start thinking about, if somebody's asking for this report, it's because they know that sooner or later or in the short term, they're in the market for a hearing aid. Being armed and equipped with all of the market data, the pricing guide. That's going to be a valuable thing for them. When you make it specific, like when we did the UK annuities guide. That was a report.
You can imagine somebody is looking at that and saying that and thinking, "There's the annuity that pays the highest amount." They can use that information to make their own conclusion. Somebody looking for what the prices are, that gives them a range, but now you can also then shape into the questions that they probably don't even know that they don't know. It's in all of your communication. When you look at institution, the levels that you have are the things that ... What are the frequently asked questions? What are the things that everybody wants to know? Then you can also have, "What are the questions that people should be asking, but aren't."
Jamie: Yep.
Dean: That's where you get to frame. This is where things like the information that you share in your Savvy Hearing Aid Buyer, that's a advantage for people. It helps them be better equipped to make that decision. Now when you start thinking about ... With the price out of the way. The price is there, they've got a general context for what the prices are. Now it comes down to, "Does it actually work? Is it going to work for me? For my specific problem or what's the best one for me? That's where your scorecard or whatever you call your questionnaires, your assessment is going to help you steer somebody into the right one.
Then the education about it. How does all of this work? You've got your opportunity for the workshop. Then certainly the test drive, that's the thing, when people come in, they can come in and take one for a test drive. Could I if I get your pricing guide, you say, "Come on in for a free test drive." Could I call you up and say, "Hey, could I come by today?" If I just came to you today. Would I be able to test something out and see what's going on or does it take a while? Do you have to order something, or do you have to be prepared in advance or?
Jamie: We would have to assess their hearing in a sound booth. Within coming in, we would have to book them in for basically about an hour to have them come in, get tested, get set up. Get shown how to use it. How to put it in. How to take it out. All of that, easily that can be done.
Dean: That's where I would focus on that more than the mechanism of it. Just going through that and maybe use your word palate. Exercise, to think of the right words to describe that or to name it. A test drive, we've just been saying that. There may be a ... Like what I look at on the real estate side, we did the Pinpoint Price Analysis to know exactly what their house would sell for. We did the room by room review to show exactly what they should do and shouldn't do to get their house ready to sell. Then our silent market, where we've got the ... We already may have a buyer for your house. Think about what those cookies could be. You've already got your assessment. You've got your workshop. Then you've got this one-on-one opportunity to come in. All roads should lead to that anyway. That's how it all starts. Do you ever let people, is there any opportunity for you to give a free test drive or do you guarantee your hearing aid? The way beds are sold now. Try it for 100 nights. If you don't love it, we'll take it back kind of thing.
Jamie: We would have them come in. Excuse me. Do the set ups for the test drives and have them go away for usually about two or three weeks. Because also when people start with hearing aids it takes about a week to get used to the cacophony of sounds and adjust.
Dean: They're not used to hearing everything, right.
Jamie: If we just leave them, "Here you go. Come back in three weeks." I know they're going to likely have a negative experience. Whereas if I can get them back in again. I say take it for a test drive, come back in a week. Let's just see how you're doing. Iron out any wrinkles and that kind of thing. Send you away for another week or two and see how you do.
Dean: Yeah, that might be a great way. It's all about lowering the fear of starting, of committing. Because if they know they're going to be happy with it or not. They're not going to lose anything if they're not happy. Then it makes it easy to get started.
Jamie: Yeah, so I'm scaring them with a price quote by giving them the prescription right out of the gate. Wow. That's so bad.
Dean: But it's interesting. It's okay because there's a difference between giving them a price quote or giving them access to this is what the prices are without it being so personally attached. Because a quote feels like you've made a proposal to me. Now I feel obligated to mull that over or to respond to that. If you show me, "Here's the pricing guide." That doesn't feel like you're personally attached to that, and I'm not personally obligated to it.
Jamie: Yeah and you are getting just what you want.
Dean: Change is the whole dynamic, right?
Jamie: Totally.
Dean: It's so funny because in almost every situation where price is an issue, sharing the price with people is a relaxing thing. It's so funny because we've had different fitness studios. We have a fitness studio here in Winter Haven. The highest converting opt-in on the website was the price guide. Higher than putting up an offer for a book about weight loss, or fat loss, or skinny jeans, or any of these things when you put up the September 2017 price guide. That was the highest opt-in. That got more people to leave their name and their email than anything.
Jamie: Well, really isn't that...
Dean: I think you were going to say the same thing, that's what the objective is. It doesn't matter, I separate. This is one of the things that is like a ninja move is separating the compelling from the convincing. All we're trying to do is turn an invisible prospect into a visible prospect, because you can't get a list of somebody who is starting to lose their hearing.
Jamie: No.
Dean: Those are invisible prospects. Now one thing that you might be able to do. I don't know whether this is an issue, is that somebody else may be more ... Somebody else may recognize that their spouse has a hearing problem, more than they would recognize or admit it themselves.
Jamie: Absolutely. It's driven ...Typically, from men it's driven more from their wives. Women tend to be more ... They tend to come in, "I have a problem, let's solve it. Done." Men are, "I don't have a problem." But their wife keeps pushing them in. Definitely.
Dean: Have you heard I have my favorite audiologist joke, that the man comes to his audiology friend and says, "I think my wife's got a hearing problem." He said, "Here's what to do. When you come home start at the front door and you call out, if she doesn't respond, then you move a little closer. You call out and you move a little closer. You see how close you have to get until she responds." So he comes in and he goes, "Honey, what's for dinner?" No response. He moves a little closer down the hall, "Honey what's for dinner?" He moves a little closer, he's finally at the door to the kitchen. "Honey, what's for dinner?" He gets right up behind her. He says, "Honey, what's for dinner." She goes, "I told you four times, it's chicken."
Jamie: That's awesome.
Dean: That's funny, he didn't even know he had the problem. I wonder if there might be something there about offering information that would be how to talk to your husband or your wife about ... Who tends to be more stubborn about the hearing situation? Is it men or women or they're equally reluctant?
Jamie: Oh, men are by far, by far, way more stubborn and reluctant.
Dean: Maybe that's the thing, what would be your advice to wives whose husbands are starting to have a hearing problem?
Jamie: The number one thing I would say is to not enable them. Don't repeat yourself. Don't help them out. Let them realize, "Okay, if I don't get the extra help, I'm not going to get by here very well."
Dean: Exactly, because that's just, that's not solving anything. It's interesting, we did ... One of the great headline things that we've done is this model of how to know, which is a great start to anything. We did a mortgage ad that was how to know when it makes sense to refinance your home. Everybody else was screaming, "Now's the time to refinance, rates have never been lower." Whatever was going on. The reason that people weren't refinancing was they just don't know what makes sense. When you say, "How to know." Maybe there's some opportunity to take that, almost something that looks like an article that would be, "How to know when your husband needs a hearing aid or something like that along that line. How to know when is the time for your husband to get a hearing aid or if your husband is having a hearing problem." Or something like that, echoing, joining into the conversation that's already going on in their head.
Jamie: It's definitely a conversation if they're at that point because it's extremely frustrating for a woman.
Dean: Or maybe that whole thing of how to talk to your husband about his hearing or something. That's helping equip them. Making it informational kind of thing.
Jamie: Totally. Totally.
Dean: Content like that, then offering the pricing guide.
Jamie: That's super cool. An article would be just great for that, like an advertorial kind of thing.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Jamie: Okay. Okay. Wow.
Dean: That's just part of it. I just look at ways in Profit Activator to get people to raise their hand. Even if it's not immediately applicable. What you're getting is now somebody who''s in that vortex. You're turning an invisible prospect into a visible prospect.
Jamie: Isn't it funny Dean, how you can have that beaten into your head a thousand times and in my case think I'm doing that, but yet somehow veering off and trying to step ahead too fast.
Dean: Now, you mentioned about orchestrating referrals. Let's talk about that for a second before we wrap up. What's going on in your after unit there? How are you communicating with your existing ears under management we'll call it?
Jamie: A couple of different ways. When somebody ... The nice thing about what I do is it's consultative, so I'm always sitting across the table from somebody in person. When they come in, when they're happy, elated with this new super power they have of hearing, that's when I'll give them a book and say, "If you know anyone else we can help out with this, here's a free copy of our book. They're right here. You can take whatever you want and hand them out. That's one thing we do. I try to always get the conversation hinging with that.
What we also do is once somebody signs on with us, we add them onto a system that's fulfilled manually by my assistant. It's a system where every three months we send them a reminder saying, "Hey, even if everything is working out okay with your hearing aid. Still, if you get a chance give us a call for an appointment to come in so we can make sure everything is great. Then on the bottom of that, I always PS it and say,"You may have heard this before. The next time you hear somebody talking about hearing aids or hearing loss, give me a call and I will send you a copy of my book that you can give to them."
Dean: There you go. Perfect.
Jamie: That's what I do.
Dean: Awesome. I think that's a cool thing. One of the things, something that's interesting because you've got a pretty high ticket item. Good margins and everything on it. How many clients do you have? I like that term ears under management.
Jamie: I like that.
Dean: How many people do you have that are active clients or they're wearing hearing aids that you helped them get?
Jamie: I am going to tell you that exactly in about five seconds. I have 393.
Dean: That's the thing where, you're right. They don't need to continue to hear about hearing aids because they already have hearing aids. That's where something like the world's most interesting post card that I do is the perfect kind of vehicle because it's interesting stuff on one side of the card. Then on the other side you can bring up the kinds of conversations that they're likely to be in. We look at all referrals happen as a result of conversation. They have to notice that the conversation is about hearing or something peripherally related to that. They have to think about you. Then they have to let you know, introduce you to the person that they've had that conversation with. If every month you are bringing up a different situation. If it's something like what would be the high probability conversations that those people would be having.
It might be that the wives are talking about the husband or that they're hearing somebody talking about not being able to hear on the phone or not being able to hear in restaurants when there's loud noises going on or not being able to hear the TV or to hear ... I don't know are there any other things, like tinnitus or do people have ringing in their ears or all of the different things that could trigger those conversations. Just raise the likelihood that when they hear a conversation, they notice it and they immediately think of you, because you're saying just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about, insert high probability conversation here. That's the kind of thing where, with that kind of margin. Right now if you did the math in your after unit of the 393 people or whatever it was. How many referrals did you get in the last 12 months?
Jamie: In about 12 months we've had 12 referrals.
Dean: 12, whatever that percentage is, is 3% referral, 3%. That is how, that's right now what you're managing this for is a 3% return on relationship in your after unit. Do you think that it's likely that those 390 plus people have had more than 12 conversations that were about hearing in some way over the last 12 months?
Jamie: I think that's pretty realistic.
Dean: I think so too. That's the kind of thing where if you got to that point where people are ... They're noticing it more. I think It would be one of those things that would be a no brainer for you.
Jamie: Yeah. I was doing that on the bottom of my appointment reminder letters kind of thing. A post card would be more interesting.
Dean: Yeah, I think that there's a thing where there's probably at least double that, that you could do as a result of it.
Jamie: Referrals are by far the best kind of people coming into my office. Very cool. To be honest, I've been getting the world's most interesting post card. I've sat down a couple times with it to try to hash that out. I don't know where I came up with some block about not really knowing what to put on my picture side of that. That's a small problem. We're going to start running that out. It's so easy. It's so easy.
Dean: That's exactly right.
Jamie: Wow, well sir.
Dean: It's all very exciting. What's your action plan here. What did you hear from today?
Jamie: Well, the first thing we're going to do is take down that price quote as a lead generator. We're going to put together a guide, which gives them market data. Then we're going to get the auto-responder to follow that context, give them the book and whatnot. Change out or add I should say the test drive and the questionnaire, which led them to the quote as a cookie. That's probably the first thing we'll implement, or I'll implement today. The world's most amazing post card, a big yellow sheet is going to be coming out and edited and sent out to our clients who we want referrals from. That's going to happen monthly. I believe, I think that's pretty much it. That's a lot.
Dean: That's pretty substantial. That's good, yeah.
Jamie: Those are some little tweaks, but who was it who said ... Bill Glaser said, "Little hinges." Or was it Dan Kennedy? "Swing big doors."
Dean: That's exactly what it is. Little hinges swing big doors. That's exactly right. Jamie, I had fun. This was a great conversation. It went fast too.
Jamie: Yeah, it did. It always goes fast. It goes fast when you're listening to your podcast too. It's always awesome. I really appreciate your time. This is cool, I'm excited to get this going.
Dean: Thanks Jamie.
Jamie: Have a good weekend, Dean.
Dean: Talk to you soon. Thanks. You too.
Jamie: Bye-bye.
Dean: There we have it. It's always nice to talk to people who have context for what we talk about. Jamie, you could tell just in listening to the way that he describes things, and the things that he's already implemented that he's been listening to and following along with I love Marketing and More Cheese, Less Whiskers, so we were able to advance the conversation on the foundation that he's already laid, by listening in to and implementing the things that he already knows. Hope that was helpful for you. If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can go to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com, you can download a copy of the More Cheese, Less Whiskers book.
What would be very helpful for you is if you went to ProfitActivatorScore.com and tried our Profit Activator Scorecard. That will show you exactly where the opportunities are in your business for implementing the eight Profit Activators. We go through each of the eight and see where the strengths and opportunities are for your business. You can do that at ProfitActivatorScore.com.
Now in this episode you also heard Jamie talk about his book. We were able to help him write that book at 90MinuteBooks.com. If you've got a book that you would like to write as a lead generator there's nothing more powerful than a book for getting invisible prospects to raise their hand. So 90MinuteBooks.com, you can download a copy of the 90 Minute Book. Then if you're ready we can help you do everything to get that book out into the world. That's it for this week. Have a great week. We'll talk to you next time.