Is Your Lobby Selling For You?

I'm often perplexed at the amount of clutter that takes up space in many of the healthcare offices I step foot in. The worst thing is, the clutter is often expired magazines and trash tv that doesn't promote or excite anyone to be in your office or influence them to want to use more of your services!

Why do we do this as entrepreneurs in healthcare?

You'll never go into a Ford dealership and find magazines and signage for Chevrolet or Toyota right? So why does your office lobby have magazines advertising Home & Garden and Men's Health?

Your lobby is a place where your patients spend a lot of time. They sit and if they aren't endless scrolling on their phones they're looking around your lobby. What do you think they are noticing? Have you ever sat in your own lobby and looked around - put yourself in your patients shoes to see what they see? Or better yet ask yourself, what should they see and what are you advocating for them to see?

Here's a list of things you should consider:

1. if you have a tv in your lobby, consider putting together a slide show that shows various offerings, testimonials, fun facts about your specific niche, information about your services and products your sell - turn off the CNN
   • put that on a flash drive and plug it in to your tv
2. get rid of the magazines and start putting your own materials on the tables that advocate for your services and products 
3. If you have products that come with free samples, those samples should be accessible to patients while in the lobby
4. put a display case showing your ancillary products so patients can be familiar with them before you even mention them
5. take down the pretty art and city scapes and put up pictures of your staff, little league teams you have sponsored, awards you have won, posters of products or services you offer
6. lastly, put a nice leather bound binder on the coffee tables with laminated pages holding written patient testimonials - if you aren't already capturing written testimonials, that's a blog for another time

Your lobby or patient waiting area should be an area that advocates for people to do more business with you. It's not cheesy sales tactics. It's what every other company under the planet does to get you interested in their products. That's why when you google something, it shows up on your Facebook feed the next time you're scrolling. 

If you're not reminding people that you have services and products that can help them, "decrease their pain" or "have better skin" or "correct their crooked teeth," you're leaving a lot of money on the table for your business. 

Isn't it time you started maximizing your revenue per patient rather than increasing the number of patients you have to see in order to make more money? Increasing quantity usually means less quality.