Boy is it winter here! Anything above zero degrees is considered a heat wave. Getting back to above freezing is a distant memory and when it does happen again, you can bet on your frozen fingers I’ll be wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
The air is so dry here, as soon as I walk on nylon carpeting, I turn into Thor’s hammer electrifying every door knob in the building. Damn FRICTION!
So I joined this new app called Clubhouse. If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest and greatest that is social media apps, This is the newest darling. Right now, as it ramps up it’s by invite only, if you’d like to join, let me know I still have some invitations to give.
The app allows you to sit in rooms on specific topics to your liking, and these rooms will be lead in discussion by visionaries like Elon Musk, dental influencers or even the barista that served your coffee this morning. The topics can be anything, but consider it a long form podcast that is posed more as a discussion which allows the audience to even ask questions and be a part of the conversation. There is a wealth of shared information listening in on these conversations.
The access to people you look up to is impeccable. Think Twitter and the comment section of Youtube mashed into an Apple podcast.
What makes this app so versatile, and in what I believe will be a huge hit, is the lack of friction.
As soon as you open up the app, topics and rooms you like to listen to you are instantly populated to your feed. With one click, you might be introduced to the consultant who will fix every systems issue in your practice or motivator speaking to your thrive drive.
This is anti-friction. A lubricant to get you to slide into a conversation and stick around.
As I was getting shocked by every doorknob in my practice, it may have been the electricity coursing through my body, but the thought hit me like a flash.
Why do we create so much friction for our patients?
Instead of having your patient dial your phone number, provide a text link that automatically dials your office. Create online forms that can auto populate entries, duplicate for family members and children, or can be done at any time. Even better, provide a 24/7 chat bot or service that can answer basic questions through your website and social media sites.
Reduce the time it takes from treatment planning to when the patient is doing treatment with you. Even better, try and make it possible for same day services.
For bigger cases, give several options for financial payment plans that make sense for your practice and your patients. How many people have a lump sum of $10,000 they can drop tomorrow on their teeth? How many more people can you help when you can do the same work for $850 a month over a year.
Take the time to find the friction in the practice, apply a lubricant (in the case of our winters, lotion), watch as the thrive permeates.
Lam