00:00:04:08 – 00:00:55:16
Jay Shorr
Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. I’m your host, Jay Shorr. I’m the CEO and founder of Shorr Solutions, a national and award-winning consulting firm, assisting aesthetic and surgical practices with their operational, administrative and financial success. I have an amazing team of practice management experts and clients across the U.S. and as an industry expert with firsthand experience owning a multi-million-dollar cosmetic dermatology and plastic surgery practice. Listen in as I lend you my expertise and best tips to successfully manage and grow your aesthetic practice. I will also be bringing in guests along the way, so get ready to be equipped to operate your aesthetic practice strategically and profitably. Welcome to Shorr Solutions: The Podcast.
00:00:55:18 – 00:01:21:14
Jay Shorr
Hello and welcome to another episode of Shorr Solutions: The Podcast. And I’m your host, Jay Shorr. And today I have a special guest. Cristian Devoz, and Cristian is a client success manager and operator manager here at Shorr Solutions. And please allow me to welcome my own team guest Cristian Devoz.
00:01:21:16 – 00:01:29:08
Cristian Devoz
Thank you. Jay. I’m really happy to be once more in the podcast with you. So I’m excited about today’s conversation.
00:01:29:10 – 00:03:32:08
Jay Shorr
Cristian, you and I are going to be speaking about how to coach your team and improve their phone sales skills. Now look, coaching is about everything. Whether it’s in athletics, whether it’s about parenthood, whether it’s about being a team leader. You know, in other podcasts, you may have heard the difference between a boss and a leader. And I say, I don’t want to be a boss. I want to be the leader. I’m the team leader of my team. Even if they’re junior associates, junior partners with me, I always just want to be the team leader along with my colleagues, and we have to coach them in how to improve their sales skills, because everybody’s going to say, oh, I know how to sell. Believe me, I know how to sell. But you know, the real results. The proof is in the pudding. And really, when we go, we look at KPIs, key performance index measures, and we look at the results. You know, we talk about the conversion cascade that we produced. And the conversion cascade is pretty simple right. It’s about how much marketing dollars do we spend, whether it’s on radio or TV or PPC pay per click organic marketing, our website, newspaper. Don’t laugh. Yellow pages. We don’t do those anymore. But seriously, all the money that we spend, it’s supposed to drive a lead. And then what do we do with that lead? If we don’t do it in time? We’re going to speak about this in a little bit, you know, because we’ve got to get them in for the consult and from the consult. We’ve got to convert that to a treatment. All right. And we still haven’t made any money yet. And from the treatment to the revenue and the retreatment and upselling and how to bring our patients back for more. So let’s talk about real quickly, what steps should we as practice owners take before coaching a team member? All right. Let’s talk Cristian about reviewing a practice goal.
00:03:32:10 – 00:04:09:01
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. So before you can even start coaching your team, you need to know what you’re going to coach them on. And what’s the focus of that coaching. So if you don’t have specific, clear and concise practice goals when you go into that coaching session, where are you going to direct that conversation? So before you even get with your patient care coordinator or before you go with your phone people, your phone staff, you need to make sure that you have proper goals that you also assess the performance for each of these staff members because they have strengths and weaknesses. And you have
00:04:09:01 – 00:04:11:01
Jay Shorr
And opportunities.
00:04:11:03 – 00:04:57:11
Cristian Devoz
That’s right. Opportunities. And these areas of opportunities, you got to work with them on improving those for sure. But you also don’t want to just talk about what they’re doing wrong all the time. So you need to make sure that you assess their performance, understand who they are, what they’re good at, and then set those goals. Set those expectations of what you will be looking at when you coach them. Let them know, look, this is our practice goals. This is what we want to achieve. And what I want you to do is to have this high quality patient experience for each and every lead that comes to practice. If that’s your goal, of course. But at the end of the day, what you want to make sure is that you have the foundation in place before you start having any type of coaching program with your staff.
00:04:57:13 – 00:05:27:05
Jay Shorr
Great. So let’s talk about that for a second. Because you mentioned a little bit. And I’m going to combine two things. Number one is setting an objective. And number two is preparing the resources. All right. Because if you don’t give somebody the resource and be able to sell. In other words, we don’t have a proper phone. We don’t have phone scripts. We don’t have, a quote sheets. All right then everybody is squandering. So let’s talk about setting an objective and then preparing the resource.
00:05:27:07 – 00:05:42:12
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. And and I’m glad you mentioned the resource portion of that, because you definitely want to have a proper phone system, because how are you going to coach your team if you don’t know how they are performing in the calls? You need to be able to listen to their calls. And in order to do that, you need to have a phone system.
00:05:42:14 – 00:06:45:11
Jay Shorr
Naturally, we have to adopt a collaborative mindset. And what do I mean by that? We have to agree because you mentioned something that’s very important. And that is don’t tell people what they’re doing wrong. All right. I consider that opportunity. We have a collaborative mindset and this is the goal that we want to reach. So we need that mindset prior to joining Shorr Solutions, Cristian, you were a supervisor at a call center. So naturally it’s selling. It may not be selling a product, but you were problem solving whether it was in the health care industry, whether it was in the billing, and they would call you – that’s selling, you had to solve a problem. Let’s talk about that. Your team that you supervised. What did you find that were some of the opportunities that were being missed?
00:06:45:13 – 00:08:36:18
Cristian Devoz
Yeah it’s a great question. Well many times. And this is something that I still see even with our clients when we work with them. But back when I was working as a supervisor, I used to see a lot that people will sometimes forget the customer experience portion of the call. Like, they might know the script. They might know what they’re supposed to say, but maybe the way that they’re saying it is not the best way. Maybe the tone of voice is not appropriate, is not friendly. They sound like you are an interruption to their day. Sounds like they are just flat tone and you know they are not having a good time when you’re when you call them right. And I always coach people on when you answer the phone call, the first thing you need to do is smile. Do that a smile check. Have a mirror if you want behind your computer so you can always look at yourself and make sure you’re smiling, because that’s going to help you sound more friendly is going to help you even sound better. And something that I also notice that people forget is having the information from the patient at the beginning of the call. Like they will answer the phone call and they will say Shorr Solutions, how can I help you? You didn’t give me your name. You didn’t ask for my name. So now I’m going to say, hey, I’m calling because I need this, you know, procedure that I’m thinking about. If it is a practice, let’s say that is a practice. And I wanted to find out more about how much you guys charge, etc. and then I’ll say, oh yeah, we charge this much for that procedure. And this is, you know, the answer to your question. And then the patient is like, okay. And I have noticed that no where in that conversation up to that point you have even asked a patient’s name, you haven’t even tried to gather their information phone number in case the call disconnects. So that’s another issue I notice back when I was working at the call center, people will sometimes forget important steps like that.
00:08:36:20 – 00:08:45:18
Jay Shorr
So, what I noticed is you made that comment with an open ended question. How can I help you? How should you answer the phone?
00:08:45:20 – 00:09:10:13
Cristian Devoz
Well, I would probably say thank you for calling Shorr Solutions, this is Cristian, and I can help you. You want to make sure that you’re giving that statement because it’s going to make them feel that you are the right person that is going to help them, you know, solve that problem or get them to that procedure that they’re looking to work or just basically give them at the answer to what they need. Give the solution. You can help them. That’s why you’re telling them.
00:09:10:15 – 00:09:13:12
Jay Shorr
So you’re going to give them a Shorr Solution?
00:09:13:14 – 00:09:15:15
Cristian Devoz
Yes, I’m gonna give a Shorr Solutions.
00:09:15:18 – 00:09:26:21
Jay Shorr
There we go, pretty nifty Don’t you think? All right. You think that was coincidental? That we came up with that name for our company, right?
00:09:26:23 – 00:09:28:20
Cristian Devoz
Right. It’s just a coincidence.
00:09:28:22 – 00:09:35:08
Jay Shorr
Right. So, Cristian, how do you set up the right systems to record and review your team calls?
00:09:35:10 – 00:10:55:19
Cristian Devoz
Well, first of all, you need to make sure that you have a phone system, right? So whether that’s Weave, which is one of the many phone systems out there and or any of the others, and basically what you need to make sure is that it has the ability to record the calls. And ideally, it should also have the ability to let you know analytics, like how many calls are being answered, how much time is passing before the before the the staff member will answer that call because sometimes the phone rings one, two, three, 4 or 5 times. And patients might get impatient at that point and they might hang up. So, you know, how quickly are you answering the phone? You gotta make sure that you have that also in there, in that phone system that allows you to know, is my staff answering right away? Are people waiting on hold for too long? That’s another one. And and a little comment about the whole time. Sometimes you’re on hold and you don’t hear. Maybe you hear a little bit of music. Sometimes you don’t hear anything. And that could be a missed opportunity even in the hold times, which shouldn’t be that long. You should have some kind of messaging talking about your practice during that time. So make a little note on that. But yeah, things like this, you need to make sure that your phone system is able to do to track analytics, to allow you to listen to your calls. And that way you can have a good picture of what the team is doing before you get into that coaching session with them.
00:10:55:21 – 00:10:59:18
Jay Shorr
So how do you evaluate team members performance?
00:10:59:20 – 00:11:56:22
Cristian Devoz
Well, then again, you got to establish KPIs. You gotta establish what is it that you’re going to be analyzing. What is the performance that you you want them to have. So for example, one of the key indicators of performance that I want to have is I want to make sure that they have a good tone of voice. I want to make sure that they properly open the call so that they see the name of the practice. They say their name, do they gather the data from the patient, and then, of course, do the answer to the patient’s questions. This would be another method that I would put in there. How how knowledgeable are they answering the patient’s questions without giving medical advice? Of course. And then of course, I also want to know are they booking the console? How good are they at converting. So that will be another performance indicator that I want to look at. What is the conversion ratio from that lead calling to actually booking the appointment. And and then of course is that list showing up to appointment. So that’s another compression ratio that we also got to look at.
00:11:57:00 – 00:12:04:17
Jay Shorr
When do we start credentialing the provider of the procedure that the patient is calling in for?
00:12:04:19 – 00:13:05:02
Cristian Devoz
As soon as possible I mean after you gather the patient’s data and you answer the question, you also want to take the opportunity to start talking about the provider and why they can help them with that specific question. Sometimes if it is a very medical question, you can even say, you know, that’s a great question to ask the doctor who is very knowledgeable, very experienced, he has all these years of experience, all these awards. He’s board certified, double board certified. That’s a chance for you to basically talk very well about your provider. Give the patient excited saying, you know, you’re going to love doctor Shorr. You know he’s great with the patients. He can get really, really good results for the patients we have. Amazing. Before and after you can take a look at the website I can send you. If you give me your email, I can also send you, you know, some testimonials from many of our patients. And that could be a good opportunity for you to gather their email, which is also part of that process. Right? You got you got to get that information from the patient. So you get to do it as soon as possible. I guess that’s the easy answer.
00:13:05:07 – 00:14:53:12
Jay Shorr
Well, thank you, Cristian, for elevating me to a higher level than I really am. I do want to formally make a disclosure that I am not a physician. I know a lot of people when we’re giving examples that were referred to me as well, Doctor Shorr, where I am at a conference and I’m doing a lecture, and people come up to me and say, Doctor Shorr. So I really do need to, as I always do at every conference, every lecture, make a formal disclosure. I am not a doctor. All right. So with that moving on, I also want to share something that you had said. Cristian, you talk about credentialing the doctor, but it’s not only the doctor, it’s a physician associate, a PA, a, we can call them aesthetic physician associates. I know today the term mid-level provider is no longer in vogue, but it’s a nurse practitioner. It could be a physician assistant, physician associate, even an esthetician. All right, because they provide wonderful services like, some in certain states, they’re allowed to provide procedures. So we also want to credential them. All right. Because many times doctors don’t perform the procedures. They may just be the surgeons. I don’t mean just but they’re performing the surgical procedures and they’re allowing their, additional associates to provide other types of procedures. Right. So how do we track people’s improvement? First of all, we can set a benchmark, right? And we then have to check in with the people. And then we use performance reviews and review practice outcomes. So if you can speak with tracking their improvement that would be a good place to go.
00:14:53:14 – 00:18:01:07
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. So let’s say that and I’ll give you an example of the best way that I can explain this. So you start with setting the goal, setting all the foundations, setting the phone system you have. You give them the resources, you give them the scripts that they’re going to use and you train them right. You get them to know, you know, this is what you’re going to be doing. And every month or every quarter I’m going to be listening to your calls. You let them know that that’s going to be happening. And then as you listen to those calls, then you’re going to provide them the feedback from those monitoring sessions. And in the call center world, that’s something that we call quality assurance. And I’m surprised by the amount or the number of practices that don’t do quality assurance. And the doctor or the nurse practitioner or who, you know, the practice owner doesn’t know what’s going on in those phone calls. And many times we have listened to some of these medspas or some of these aesthetic practices, surgical practices, and the staff is doing things that are doing things that are not very good practices when it comes to managing the phone. They are kind of rude sometimes, even in the tone of voice that they use for patients. And and they don’t even ask for the patient name until the very end if they do at all. Right. So, so yeah, it’s, I’m impressed by by that. But then, of course, you know, once you get into that coaching session, you want to meet with that staff member and say, you know, I listen to your call and you want to start with what I call the sandwich method, right? You want to make sure that you start with positives. Let them know what they’re doing. Well, I really like, you know, your tone of voice. I really like how you answer the patient’s questions. I like that you’re always trying to book the patient, which I really think is awesome, but I noticed that there is an area of opportunity there. You forgot to credential me as a provider, which I believe is very important for the patient to know who I am, because they need to know that they’re going to be in good hands. So maybe there’s an opportunity that you can coach your staff member on. Or maybe at the end of the call, the staff member forgot to kind of recap the information, because another good practice after you have scheduled the appointment, you want to recap to the patient. So your appointment is scheduled for the specific data, the specific time, and you give them all the instructions prior to the appointment so that they know what to expect. You let them know that you’re going to call them to remind them. If you do text reminders, you let them know you can be receiving a text message and you can confirm the appointment. Or if you need to reschedule, please let us know, especially if you have a cancellation policy. You want to make sure you let them know that if they don’t show up, they might be charged. Or you know, depending on what your cancellation policy says, the number of dollars that might be, but you have to give them the option to, you know, one to confirm, two to cancel, three to reschedule. And then you get in those options. And the patient, you know, at that point can do that. But these are practices that you need to have with your staff member. They need to follow all of these things. Follow the script.
00:18:01:13 – 00:19:43:04
Jay Shorr
So that brings me to another point. You know, you mentioned something very, very important. And that is summarize the call. Because I have a favorite expression that I use. What I said is not what you heard, all right? Even though the same identical words were used, you may have interpreted it differently than what I said, even though you heard it because you heard it the way you wanted to hear it. So by summarizing the course of the conversation, yes, Mr. Cristian, yes, Mr. Jay, we’re going to schedule for this procedure on this date, at this location, because many of us have multiple locations, and therefore we’ve had patients show up at another location at a time. All right. And with which provider and what service and the, quote, the fee that we quoted you. The worst thing that can happen is a patient shows up believing they were going to be scheduled with one provider, and they’re scheduled with another. Next. Another worst thing that can happen is they show up and the wrong procedure. They come up for a neurotoxin and they’re scheduled for a filler. Next, you know, the same provider can do it. However, it’s embarrassing because it doesn’t look like the left hand knew what the right hand was doing. And most importantly, no, I was quoted this price. All right. So it’s great to summarize that right from the beginning. You brought up a very good point. So let’s talk about what key performance measures KPIs really should we be looking for when coaching your team.
00:19:43:06 – 00:22:38:10
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. And I mentioned a few already. But another one that I would definitely mentioned would be conversion ratios. At the end of the day the results is what really matters right. They actually book the appointment. And then I will also look at having a structure for the calls. You got to have this structure of this is what the staff member needs to say. Did they say it? How did they say it? When did they say it? And I’ll give you a structure that the audience can use out there. And it’s basically gather, give, get. Meaning you start the call, you open the call very nicely with a smile. You give, you know, thank you for calling practice surgery X my name is Cristian and I can help you. The patient lets you know what they’re looking for and then you say I will be more than happy to help you with that. May I please just gather some information first? May I please have your name and phone number in case of the call disconnects and you gather that the first step, you gather the patient’s information, you gather their email, then you want to give. Right. So now at this point you start answering their questions. You start giving them the credentialing for the doctor. You start even asking them questions so that you can give them a good experience as well, so that they feel like, oh, okay. So they know what they’re doing and it feels like you are really maintaining the flow of the call. Well, you don’t want to happen. It’s for the patient to take over the call. And sometimes if you don’t have a good structure to your phone, script to how your stuff needs to be answering those calls, the patient will end up taking the control of the call. It’s going to be all over the place. It’s going to be crazy. You got to have a good flow in the call. And then, of course, you want to get them on the schedule. So gather information, give them information and then get them on the schedule. And then as I mentioned before, you want to recap the call and then you want to ask at the very end, hey is there anything else you need assistance with? Do you have any other questions? Another time they might say, you know, hey, you know what I wanted to ask as well? You know, my husband is also interested in on this and that you think that they can do that at the practice. Oh, yes. Absolutely. And and you can even end up having more than one person coming in, you know, things like this happen, but you got to provide a really good service. You got to make sure that you’re always asking, is there something else? Do you have any other questions and always using pleasantries? If they give you information, if I ask for your name, you want to say, oh, thank you so much. And then you want to use my name right during the call. So if you ask me, hey, may I have your name? Cristian. Thank you so much, Cristian. I appreciate that, Cristian. By the way, may I have your phone number in case the call disconnects? Yes, absolutely. And by the way, Cristian, I would love to be able to send you some more testimonials and some of the before and afters from from the doctor. Is there a good email that I could send you the information too? Absolutely. This is my email. Thank you so much for that and those blessings in those. Thank you. I appreciate that that also makes the patient feel very nicely, like you’re actually having a really good result experience.
00:22:38:12 – 00:22:55:01
Jay Shorr
Wonderful. You know, I don’t know what you’re selling, but I’m buying. Do you, Do you maybe suggest in the very beginning. Until the staff and during their training, till they get it right? Having a checklist.
00:22:55:03 – 00:23:41:08
Cristian Devoz
Yeah, absolutely. And and even a script having a checklist, it could be, you know, gather. What are they going to gather? And then just first name, telephone number, email. What is it that you need from the patient? You also want to ask the patient, how do you hear about us. Because that’s very important for analytics. Because if they say, you know what I, I went to a conference, I saw you speaking, I loved it, or I heard from another doctor, you know, who referred me to you, or maybe a friend of mine had surgery with you. I love her results. I want to go one, too. Or maybe I was on social media. I’m on Instagram or TikTok. You want to know where they heard about you? Because then you know what channels of marketing are working for your practice. So that’s another question you want to ask them for sure.
00:23:41:08 – 00:25:09:20
Jay Shorr
Yes. We’re going to take a quick break and a slight intermission. I’d like to take a moment to tell you about our conversion cascade online course. With this self-guided and powerful course, you and your team will be able to master acquiring and retaining more patients as a step by step sales funnel training. This course is designed to help you and your team attract more patients, convert calls to consults, convert consoles to treatments and procedures, and keep patients coming back for more. Not only will our conversion cascade online courses help to strengthen and develop your team’s phone sales and customer service skills, it will also serve as a valuable onboarding training tool for each and every new team member. Plus, in the course, you’ll receive downloadable marketing checklists, phone scripts, conversion tracking tools, and more. So why not sign up for the course today? It only takes less than 4 hours to complete and you can finish at your own pace and you’ll have lifetime access. And as a special thank you for being our podcast listener, we’re giving you 20% off. Just enter the Discount Code “podcast” to start saving today. Click the link in our show notes to sign up for the Conversion Cascade online course, acquire and retain more patients right now.
00:25:09:23 – 00:26:42:08
Jay Shorr
Let’s talk about how your team should structure calls to keep the flow and convert the leads. The first one, you know, you mentioned a lot of that. Thank you for calling. You know, and then introduce yourself and the practice name. Good afternoon. Thank you for calling Shorr Solutions. My name is Jay and I can help you. With that closed ended comment to allow the receiver, the caller, to actually know they’ve called the right place. And the person that answered the call is going to be able to help them. And you talked about gathering the information and credentialing the provider. That’s the, you know, part of the get and give. All right. And then encourage questions and know the answers. Present solutions clearly and ask open ended questions instead of just giving close ended comments to allow that perspective, patient or an existing patient to feel they’ve called the right place. When you’re summarizing, allow them to ask a lot of questions, but not really monopolize the conversation so that they’re giving you all the information. They’re calling you as the expert. And then lastly, book that consult and ask them if they have any additional questions to follow up, because that’s really one of the most important things. If we don’t get the consult, then that whole call was wasted. All right. Why don’t we talk about the four magical closing questions Cristian. These are my favorites.
00:26:42:10 – 00:29:49:22
Cristian Devoz
Yeah. And you know, this is something that you can give your staff, as you as you’re coaching them. You know, there are some questions you can ask patients, and we call them magical because they lead to continuing the conversation, potentially to actually converting that leading to a patient right. They tend to be very effective. For example, how long have you been thinking about having this procedure is one of them. And that gets them to talk, right? Hey, you know, I’ve been looking at this rhinoplasty for some time. You know, I just didn’t know who to get it with or if it was safe. And that gives you an opportunity to address their pain points. The concerns. So that’s why it’s a magical question because it gets them talking. And then the other question would be, how does the thought of this procedure make you feel? And that’s a great question because you want to give them an a good friend of mine where they are actually very positive. And they they talk about their emotions and you get them excited about it. And that’s going to be very good to get them to say yes at the end. Right. Rescheduling that appointment. How soon are you looking to have the procedure. That can also give you an idea of, you know, what they are thinking about, and maybe you can also address some of those questions that they might have about how soon they can get it. And then what’s stopping you from booking your procedure today? I love that one because they’re going to be like, okay, I don’t know. Let me think about it. Maybe I need to talk to my wife or, you know, maybe I need, you know, to look at my finances. I don’t know if I can pay for it. It’s like, this is the problem now. You gotta come up with every rebuttle to that problem, right? So the rebuttle is going to be, you know, if money is the issue. We have patient financing, which, you know, allows you to finance your dream procedure up to these many months, 0% interest. And that’s something that we provide for our clients. And then of course, if you have cherry or you have patient five or any of these other patient financing, your staff should know how to sell these ones and how to talk about them, to explain to the patient that there is another option. They can get the procedure, hopefully without having to pay any interest on that. And then they can still get it without having to worry about spending a whole lot of money upfront. And then of course, is the problem is I need to talk to my wife or my husband. Then you want to ask follow up questions to that, because usually people say that when they basically want to find an excuse to get out of there. So so you want to, you know, as follow up questions to get them talking and maybe find the real concern. There is always a deeper concern that what they are telling you, and you want to make sure that you’re probing and asking questions to get there. I heard once that, you know, there is seven whys to get to the deep root cause of a problem. So maybe you have to ask, why is that? Several times before you can actually get the real answer. So following up with those questions and getting the patient to really give you the reason why they are not booking so that you can then rebuttle and turn it around.
00:29:50:00 – 00:29:54:21
Jay Shorr
Let’s move on. How do you give good feedback when you’re coaching your team?
00:29:54:23 – 00:32:18:08
Cristian Devoz
Absolutely. So here’s where we go into the actual coaching. Right. So now you sit down with them. You then go, So I listen to your calls and I would love to listen to some of them with you. And then you can pull up a couple. If they had some calls that were really good, I would listen to those first just so that they, they can see how good they did on those. And if they’re if they’re after you listen to the call, then you want to ask them, hey, tell me about what do you think? Where are your strengths there? How do you do? Oh well, I think I did a good job on this on that. Okay. Wonderful. I agree with you on that one. And what about areas of opportunity? What are some things that you feel like maybe I can work on this. And at that point they will say, well, maybe I forgot, you know, to you know, as a patient if they have any other questions or maybe I could have some more pleasantries across them or thank you, maybe I put the patient on hold and I just said, can you hold for a minute? And then I just left instead of asking the patient, is it okay if I can place you on hold? And then I come back from the hold and I just maybe just, continue talking without even thanking the patient for waiting and they will let you know. This is what I think I can improve on. And at that point, you can say, okay, I agree with you and this and this are some ideas of how you could potentially improve. However, let me know what do you think? How can you maybe improve that? And I will present that before I give them ideas. That’s probably a better way to do that. So I would probably ask them, hey, how do you think you can improve the area of opportunity? And then at that point you listen to them and maybe you can take some of the things that they say and kind of help them set that goal, okay, this is what you’re going to do based on where you feel that you need to do to be able to get to that next level and you coach them in that way. You might also listen to some of the calls that they didn’t do so well on. And you can also do the same exercise. What do you think you did well? What do you think you can improve and always try to make it so that they feel they are part of the process and they are not just being told this is what you did right. This is what you did wrong. It’s more like, what do you think you’re doing right? What do you think you’re doing wrong? And how can you improve and get them to where you want them to get, but let them get there by themselves without you having to pull them there? But you can of guiding them, kind of going, you know, next to them and kind of walking that path together. You have to go to where they are to get them to where you want them to be.
00:32:18:10 – 00:34:45:14
Jay Shorr
All right, so let me summarize that, Number one, be specific. Number two, use that sandwich method. Positive opportunity positivity. Again I use I call it the kiss and kick. You call it the sandwich. I would be very nice to, in the beginning share their opportunities, potential faults. I don’t like to use that word. And then I know you’re going to do a much better job going forward. Be timely. Don’t start trying to coach people on something that happened so far ago, a long time ago. Make it timely, right? When the issue happens. And don’t dilly dally. Don’t wander. Focus strictly on the solution. All right? Don’t beat people up. Always stay positive with a smile. I think positivity draws a lot more success. All right. And then celebrate progress. That’s really important. We have to celebrate the progress that we’re all working with. All right. Now, those of you who are listening can’t see this graphic, but those of you who watch it will be able to see how can you and how can you coach your team to prevent defensiveness, this graphic shows a picture of the Kansas City Chiefs, the two time current reigning Super Bowl champions, and here’s a graphic of Travis Kelsey. You know, number 87 having a disagreement with his head coach Andy Reid. Now obviously Andy Reid wasn’t happy with the way the play went. However Travis Kelsey is a receiver. This is even way, way, way before Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, you know, were an issue, were an item. I’m not using that graphic, just showing that two of the best, one of the best coaches ever and Andy Reid and one of the best receivers in Travis Kelce have a disagreement. And how we have to coach the team to prevent the defense of this one was unhappy. And then once again, what we do is we share opportunity. And once you’ve coached your team, what’s next? Is coaching done? No, coaching is never done.
00:34:45:16 – 00:37:39:11
Jay Shorr
And I want to bring this to a more personal level with my personal mentoring student, Cristian Devoz. I met Cristian a couple of years ago when I was lecturing in Cartagena, Colombia for IMCAS and Cristian had a part time job for the weekend, and he was scanning badges in order to get into the conference room, and Cristian scanned my badge. He also walked in and listened to my lecture, but unbeknownst to me, Cristian wanted to be an entrepreneur and I knew nothing about it. I just saw this young gentleman with a scanner scanning badges and I left, and he happened to have seen my wife and spoken to my wife saying, you know, I really enjoyed listening to Mr. Shorr’s presentation and how could I get to be mentored like that? I came back the next day and who did I see? I saw the same young man several years ago. All right, in Cristian scanning the badge again. And he had spoken to my wife and my wife and shared with me that he would love for me to mentor him. Well. I love mentoring young professionals. And Cristian and I happen to have gotten to speaking and at that time, he and I set up a personal coaching session as an older man and a younger gentleman. Me and him. And every week we set upon aside an hour that we would do a video call so that I would be able to coach Cristian personally and professionally outside of Shorr Solutions. And very quickly, what I learned is that here is a young man that is like a sponge wanting to learn, not ever inside aesthetic cosmetic surgery, but yet business. And he shared with me that he wanted to be a consultant someday, just like me. And I saw something. I actually saw myself 40 years prior, maybe even close to 50 at this point. And finally I asked Cristian, would you be willing to be an intern? And I’ll be help because he is a collegiate student at that time with BYU, learning the management and marketing for his degree. And I said, of course, I’d love to help you with financing. I’d like to help you with business. Would you, I said, would you mind being an intern? An unpaid internship with Shorr Solutions, and this way I can teach you. And he said yes. From there, I’m going to turn it over to Cristian so he could explain that journey.
00:37:39:13 – 00:41:18:13
Cristian Devoz
Yes, absolutely. And I always love when you tell the story. And from then on, it was just continual coaching and continual training. And, you know, when you have a staff member who wants to grow and you invest in them, there is something that happens, at least inside of me, it was appreciation, and I just feel like I was part of something greater than just a job. I wasn’t doing the internship for credit, even though I did get some credits for college. For me, it was a matter of I want to grow, I want to learn, I want to get to the next level. And if you have a staff member who has that kind of attitude, you’re very lucky because as somebody who’s going to be there and who’s going to be willing to accept when they make mistakes, because I have made many mistakes during that process. And Jay knows that. But I love the way that he has always coached me. He is always firm and and with love. And I think that’s very important when you’re coaching your staff, you got to love the people that you work with. You got to make them feel that you care about them. You’re not there to just tell them, you know you did this wrong and continually, you know, fall on them. You want to make them feel that they are part of a progress, that you’re there to coach them, that you’re there to help them grow, and that the reason why you’re coaching that and give them the feedback is not because there is something wrong. Even though they may have done something wrong, but it’s because you want them to be their best version. You know you want them to keep growing. So for me, it was like you were there at my corner. I have also the other team members that were there with me during that process, helping me and coaching me. And very quickly, I grew to love this industry and I grew to love what we do. And and one day I was like, hey, Jay, I want to get to the next level. I mean, I love marketing, but now I want, you know, maybe help clients. And then you brought me out to a business analyst, which I started helping them with financials. And together we put plans together for clients that were planning to open a practice or who were trying to sell a practice. And we put all these different, you know, exit strategies together and all the financials aspects of that. And then I wanted to be even more involved with clients at that point. And you were like, you know what? You can be in all of my meetings. And I started shadowing you. So that’s another important part about the coaching. You got to show them how to do things sometimes, and the best way to do things with your example. So they did that and I watched and I learned. And before I knew it I started making comments in the meetings. And then I started leading the meetings. And and now I’m working with the clients on a daily basis. And I love what I do, and I love being able to help them with the things that I that I have learned with Shorr Solutions and that I knew before with my experience working at call centers. Since we provide all these different trainings for clients, including phone skills and conversion, lead management, all these things that we help our clients with are things that I have learned, you know, throughout my life, with my previous jobs and now with Jay and through his mentoring and and I honestly want to say once again, if you have somebody who’s willing to learn, even if they are not good at the beginning, they might make mistakes. Be patient with them, coach them and invest in them and believe me, it will bear fruit. And you got to make sure that they are the right person though. And you got to test them sometimes. And if they show you that you know what? I take ownership by mistake. I am not defensive. I want to learn. I want to grow. Then it’s going to make it very easy for you to be very successful in the future. So that’s what I want to say.
00:41:18:15 – 00:43:57:13
Jay Shorr
And we have. I personally have, you know, informally adopted Cristian. His wife and his baby as part of my family. You know, we see each other every day, actually, because we’re in meetings all the time. And when we were in conferences, whether it was in Cartagena, Colombia, or Sao Paulo, Brazil, or any of the others in central South America, you know, we’re always together. And now Cristian has his own base of patients, and most recently he has become a client success manager and now an operations manager. So imagine coming from an internship to a business analyst to a client success and operations manager. And as of January of 2025, Cristian will also be a partner at Shorr Solutions. So it has been a beautiful journey. And you know, the reason I mention this is strictly because I really want it to bring to light and share all of the beautiful ways of training and coaching, because this was what this session was about, how to coach your team to improve their phone skills, but even more importantly, how to coach your team to be a better version of themselves. And for all of you practice owners out there, yes, it is your practice. For those of you who are med spa owners, yes, it is your med spa. The team, your team knows it. Don’t be a boss, be a leader, be a coach. I don’t know one professional athlete at the top of their game, whether it’s Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady or a LeBron James or Shohei Ohtani. You know, you name it Leo Messi. All right. I can go on and on and on and sports, but I don’t know any of them that don’t have a coach. And you don’t have to be the best player to be the best coach. All right? I want to be a family. We call our team La Familia, all right? And that we treat ourselves like a family. So ladies and gentlemen, that concludes episode number 119 how to coach your team to improve telephone and sales skills. I would love to thank my teammate and partner. As of January, Cristian Devoz. Thank you so much and good luck and God bless.
00:43:57:15 – 00:45:30:15
Jay Shorr
So that wraps up today’s episode of Shorr Solutions: The podcast. If we mentioned any website links, you can find them in our show notes to work directly with me and our award-winning team of consultants to increase efficiency, increase revenue and decrease costs in your aesthetic practice, schedule a free consult with us today. We will help you establish and refine your aesthetic practice’s protocols for maximum efficiency and productivity, decrease your expenses and increase your profitability with an expert financial analysis of your business. Attract more patients, convert calls to consults, convert consults to treatments and keep patients coming back for more. With our sales training, coaching and complimentary access to our conversion cascade online course. Recruit, hire and train new team members and manage any staff turnover with our human resource expertise plus more, head over to our show notes and click on the link to schedule a free 30-minute consult with us today. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to spread the word and share this episode with your friends, colleagues and the rest of your team. Remember to also follow us on social media @ShorrSolutions and sign up for our e-newsletter. You’ll learn about our latest tips, blog posts, services, videos, webinars and more. Links to our social media channels, and to sign up for our e-newsletter are in our show notes. So see you next time and remember to leave us a review and subscribe or more valuable content.
