Mastering the Art of First Impressions with Keynote Speaker Sylvie di Giusto

Unlock the secrets of making a stellar first impression with keynote speaker Sylvie's science-backed strategies tailored for chiropractic care. This episode is a treasure trove of insights, where Sylvie illuminates how snap judgments can shape a patient's perspective from the second they enter your clinic. We cover the emotional currents flowing through chiropractic offices and dissect the patient-practitioner dynamic, emphasizing the crucial role of unconscious biases and the profound effect they have on healthcare outcomes.

Step into the world of patient care excellence as we explore the potent ABCDE framework, offering a blueprint to perfect every facet of patient interaction for a lasting positive impact. Glean wisdom on optimizing the visual and emotional cues that greet your patients, mastering the art of reception, and honing your active listening skills to transform the standard visit into an exceptional experience. This conversation is an invitation to refine the subtleties that forge strong patient connections, fostering trust and loyalty from the moment of arrival.

As we round off this enlightening discussion, the focus turns to the pulse of your practice – team communication and leadership. Learn how to navigate the choppy waters of negative patient experiences with grace and tact, and how confronting team behavior can uplift your entire practice's atmosphere. My enthusiasm is palpable as I anticipate sharing more at the Logan University keynote and Fair Advantage Conference, promising a deep dive into the principles laid out in "The Fair Advantage" to arm your practice with the tools it needs to thrive.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the activate your practice podcast. I'm Dr Four. Data always wins, always. Hello everybody, I'm Dr Arlen Four, the founder and chairman of Activator Methods International. Welcome to our podcast called Activate your Practice. Now, today, we have a special guest, and it's not often that you can get somebody that is a keynote speaker around the world on a podcast because of her schedule. And I met Sylvie. I think it was about six, seven years ago at another convention and she had a bad little bag. So I said, sylvie, I'm going to give you an adjustment. And she says, thank you very much. That's how I met Sylvie was fixing her low back and so, sylvie, welcome to the activate your practice podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Thank you very much for having me. Now let me share it a little bit from my perspective. I had the honor to speak at a conference for chiropractors and there was all this commotion about this celebrity attending the conference and everybody was talking about the Activator Method and the inventor and I had no idea, to be honest, until you laid hands on my back and I for a moment I thought this can't be real. Right, this is I'm just thinking that I'm feeling better, but obviously, since the master himself laid hands on my back, I instantly felt pain free and relieved and honored to meet you.

Speaker 1: 1:52

Well, thank you very much, and the reason that I asked Sylvie to be on the program today is because she's written several books. The last one is your fair advantage. That's brand new and just out on the press. But she also talked a lot about what your first impression is, and that it's actually. You have about seven seconds to make a first impression, and so I asked her come on the podcast and tell us how can this apply to the patient experience in chiropractic care.

Speaker 2: 2:28

Well, first of all, I want you to know we are all judgmental human beings and that has nothing to do with the fact if we are good human beings, bad human beings, if we want to do it, if we don't want to do it. But there is science behind that proves that we all make initial judgments, opinions about each other. It's automated brain performance. Now, some studies say it takes seven seconds, others say it takes 13 seconds. Supposedly, online, it only takes milliseconds. To be honest, the number itself doesn't matter as much. I just chose the one with seven seconds for my work. And what matters more is the fact that it happens automatically.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Your patients enter your practice and instantly form an opinion. Form the opinion that you are the best doctor taking care of them. Form the opinion that you are trustworthy, reliable, successful or not. Now, obviously, you can change that first initial opinion. However, unfortunately, afterwards, very powerful sources are working against you unconscious bias, because people want to be right. They're looking for proof. So once they formed the initial opinion about you, they ignore anything, subconsciously, that goes against their first initial opinion, and so you have to work way harder in order to change that first impression that you just made on them.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Are there particular challenges in the chiropractic field when it comes to managing first impressions?

Speaker 2: 4:13

Oh yeah, absolutely. First of all, you know very well that you work in what I call a very emotionally charged environment. Patients who come to you emotionally charged because they are in pain. They are emotionally charged because they instantly want a solution. Right, they don't see the long-term process you might take them on. They want to go to a chiropractor and leave it painless, or they might be a caregiver and bring somebody to you that they trust into your hands. So they already come in with a very emotionally charged mindset.

Speaker 2: 4:56

And then, secondly, it's not just about you. Usually you are not the one who welcomes your patients. Very often you have somebody at the reception welcoming them, checking them in, and even a step prior to that, maybe they came to you because they found you on the internet and they were frustrated with your reservation system on your website or something right. So there are a lot of emotions involved that, unfortunately, emotions create more emotions. It's a very thin ice that you walk on, where rational decisions are not as often as we wish they would happen, and so we often think that the humans think based on data, facts and figures. But in reality, yes, that information, those numbers that you give them, they matter, but when they come in emotionally charged, their subconscious mind ticks over their emotions and they might not react and think and act very rational or logically.

Speaker 1: 6:04

You know you mentioned something there about the first appearance and we have a referral system that I've been working on only for 15 years, but we wanted to have the same standardization of care everywhere you go. Well, what we found out and everybody always says I don't say something unless I have data to back it up, and we do. But if you have a picture of you and your staff or your clinic, you will get twice the referrals that you will get if you don't have it, and we call that a real way of getting to the patient before they ever get to the office.

Speaker 2: 6:47

Well, you are in the paper business right, and especially nowadays, such a technology driven world where artificial intelligence or augmented reality and all other fancy tools get so in the forefront, what people actually value way more is that human touch, the human connection that I can instantly make when I not go on your website and all you give me is a logo which looks very corporate and cold, but when I actually going to see the human beings that I will interact with and the doctor who will touch my body and will take care of me, which is a very personal, again, emotionally charged situation you bring patients into.

Speaker 1: 7:34

Can you share examples of how improving first impressions can positively impact patient experiences?

Speaker 2: 7:42

Well, let's just imagine. Let's go into a hospital. Right, you go into a hospital because you either want to visit a friend who is a patient there or you have an appointment. Some occasion brings you into the hospital and you walk through the hospital doors and the receptionist is not looking at you, is in their keyboard typing where's the room, where's the number, who do I have to call? Doesn't give you the attention that you would expect at this moment. Once they finally tell you where you have to go, you go to the elevator. Out of a sudden you notice how long you have to wait for the elevator. Right, and you walk into the elevator and then you get up and then, out of a sudden, you realize there is some weird kind of smell. And then you go into the patient's room and you find that little piece of paper or dirt on the floor that the cleaning team didn't clean up.

Speaker 2: 8:41

What happens here is those are all unconscious biases working against that hospital, meaning, once you had that first bed interaction, your brain is just looking for proof. So, confirmation bias make sure that you find confirmation for your initial opinion. Then anchoring bias kicks in. You cannot just let go of that initial thought. Negativity bias kicks in because humans have a tendency to always see the things that are wrong before they see the things that are actually right.

Speaker 2: 9:18

Bandwagon effect could kick in because you already heard that this hospital is not good, so if others say it, it must be true, right? So this is now your opportunity to turn the table. If your first impression at the reception is outstanding already, then you train your team to welcome your patients with the care and with the excitement and enthusiasm and professionalism they expect. They already walk positively, with a positive mindset, to the same elevator and will not even notice that it takes long. They will not even notice the smell. They might not see the dirt on the floor. So you can use unconscious biases to your advantage if at the very beginning, you set a specific tone for the patient's experience.

Speaker 1: 10:17

What are some of the things that parapractics can implement to create a welcoming environment for the patients the moment they walk in?

Speaker 2: 10:24

Well, first, I want you to be aware that the patient experience starts before the moment they walk in. They might have called your office and asked for an appointment. They might have googled chiropractors in their area, they might have been on your website, they might have communicated via you in the email. So you have to go three steps back and identify every single human touch, every interaction they have with you and your team, and where it actually starts. And this is where you set the tone. If they don't have a great interaction with you on the telephone, or if they don't find their way through your very complex or outdated website, they might never walk through that door. But once they walk through that door, I use something that I call the ABCDE framework.

Speaker 2: 11:25

What our brain subconsciously looks for is the A4 appearance. What do I see? We are visual creatures. Our brains don't like to work. That's why we take the shortcuts through our eyes and they just look around. What do they see in your practice? What do they see in terms of human beings? How are those human beings dressed? They're hair, they're makeup, they're shoes, everything that they instantly see. We know that 80% of information in our brain gets transmitted in a visual way. So the visual experience that they have in that room or again prior to that, on your website, for example, or in your emails, is tremendously important and sets the first tone.

Speaker 2: 12:16

But to be very clear, looking good is great, but it's not enough, because then somebody's going to behave. Behave with them, interact with them. How is your team's attitude? How about their emotional intelligence in critically or emotionally charged situations? How about their business etiquette skills? Do they shake hands? Do they look them into their eyes? Do they tell them where to sit down? Do they have charisma? So those micro moments in interactions might just be micro moments for your team, but they might have a macro impact on the patient's experience. Then they're going to say something and very often we say things without even saying something. Our nonverbal communication how do they stand? How do they sit there? Are they engaged with their bodies?

Speaker 2: 13:11

And, even more important than speaking in communication is actually listening. Do they have active listening skills? Because, let's just be honest, most of your patients come in to share their story. They want to throw all the information about their health challenges onto your table. And then how do they speak the words that they use their voice, the language palette, how do they use their communication to your advantage. Then the D, the digital footprint, is the step either before or afterwards. How do you interact with your patients in a digital way? Email confirmations, scheduling appointments, your website? Nowadays you might have virtual patient experiences where you meet with your patients like we meet virtually from screen to screen. What do they see there? How is your setup? So the digital footprint, or the digital presence that you have, has become tremendously important. And then your environment, the people you surround yourself with your team, but also your family, your friends, your network. Do you belong to associations? What is about your community? All the living humans around you play a role in terms of how people perceive you, as a kind of breakdown.

Speaker 1: 14:43

How do you handle this patient that comes in and gets a quote, unquote bad experience from the front desk or just along the way until they get to you they've been unhappy about something. How do you handle, how do you break that cycle?

Speaker 2: 14:57

Well, it depends a little bit on the awareness of the issue, right? Because let's just be honest, some people, some patients, might just come in because they are in a bad mood, they have a bad attitude and you can't do much other than not mirror that back. I always say if something approaches you with a bad attitude, the way I find it, I give them an extra positive one because that distracts them from their path, I interrupt their thought pattern or their attitude by mirroring back the opposite and not the same. But if something really happened and the patient is aware and you become aware of them because they had a negative experience, then you need to do two things. First, you need to address it with the patient itself. I would never look for excuses. I would just state that you are aware of this problem and that you're going to take care of it.

Speaker 2: 16:04

I would be careful with making instant promises, for example, because you haven't heard the other side. Because the second step is you need to talk with your team. Those are sometimes uncomfortable discussions that you might have, difficult conversations, because we always feel that we speak about something personal, like their visual appearance they have been dressed inappropriately or their behavior, or a patient complains because your team member posted something totally unacceptable on social media and we feel like we go into their personal space. But this is not personal space. This is your responsibility as a leader in your practice. To address those issues and make your team members aware that they present themselves has an impact on the patient experience and has an impact on the perception of the entire practice, and then you need to apologize.

Speaker 2: 17:12

Once you have all the data, facts and figures together, if you will see that there is reason to apologize, apologize to the patient. I wouldn't go this far to make specific promises or try to fix it in some sort of weird way, but apologize, state defects and then say what you are going to change Because the patient is actually asking for is that you are going to change something in that experience. That doesn't have to be a promise to the patient to change something for them. It can be a promise like I will be looking for or in the future to make sure that they are not going to take care of this in a different way. Thank you for your input. And then close it down and move on. Make sure that you don't get into back and forth and back and forth and back and forth discussions with the patients, because, after all, it's your business and it's your responsibility.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Now you're going to be doing the keynote at Logan University in St Louis on April 11th, 12th and 13th. I believe is, and you're doing that. Seven seconds make them count. What are some of the key takeaways that carpenters can expect?

Speaker 2: 18:32

Well, first of all, even if I'm not the host of this podcast, I'm gonna first start with a question back to you. What are we going to celebrate there, when I have the honor to be there?

Speaker 1: 18:43

Well, it's gonna be our big annual symposium and I have the honor of having a building named after me and it's the new four science center and that will be dedicated in September, September 26th and so I'm excited about that. And somebody said why are you excited? And I said well, I usually name buildings after dead people and I'm here to enjoy it, and so that's why and I wanted a positive speaker for our opening and for our keynote, because last year we had over 600 doctors there and this year we're going for a thousand. So we think that it's obviously a good place. And I have a few pet peeves, you know, about doctors when they don't have good hygiene, don't have good clothes. My wife has a saying.

Speaker 1: 19:32

She says you want to dress for the job you want, not the job you have, and there's a lot of wisdom to that, and so that's why I'm asking is there anything special that these doctors can expect from you when you do that keynote?

Speaker 2: 19:48

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Well, first of all, I am so honored to be there and so honored to be invited by you and the Logan University, and so excited to work with doctors again, and what you can expect is a very interactive experience.

Speaker 2: 20:06

So, while I will share a little bit more about what happens in your patient's brains when they subconsciously make an audit about you and the patient's experience that they will have, I will take you through a very interactive and fun exercise where you will actually find out what your patients think about you and how they perceive you based on your appearance, your behavior, your communication, your digital footprint.

Speaker 2: 20:35

So you will not just walk away with theory, but a very personalized experience that you can instantly bring back to your team or, even better, you should bring your team, because what I can do for you is I can take that job over to make them aware of the importance of the patient's experience and the perception of your practice. Very often it is easier for somebody on the outside to plant that seed as for somebody on the inside, and I bet you are all fantastic doctors and leaders anyway. So you might already know about the importance of that and I might just give you some useful insights, but the true power might actually be if you also bring your team, because then I will be there to share this message and imprint the importance into them.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Now I went through your book and it's a long book. It's the fair advantage I have to tell you. It's quite an advantage to go through it, but you will have some of those there at the convention and show them the end we're gonna.

Speaker 2: 21:47

What is 460 won? Yes, yes. Last but not least, at the very end, look what's one of the first names, dr Aln Föhr, here in the acknowledgments. So I would bring some of the front of the book, put that on the camera.

Speaker 1: 22:07

there the Fair Advantage by. Sylvia DeGusto, and we'll have those at our booth. We'll have a booth there, and so we will have some fair advantages there for people that are really interested in building their own self-confidence and finding out what does it take to have a fair advantage? And that's you know. I went through the whole thing. I think I told you, sylvia, that the one word that stood out for me was discipline, and you know, if you don't have discipline, you're going to.

Speaker 1: 22:37

all the other things are going to fall by the wayside, and so we're really excited about this and we can't wait to have you there. We'll give you a tour of the campus so you can see 109 beautiful acres of Logan University and we're going to have a good time.

Speaker 2: 22:52

Thank you very much. I'm looking very forward to you. I will always make space in my calendar for you and yes, I'm busy. I'm on a lot of planes, so just imagine in what shape my back is right now. So I can't wait to be with you in April.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Well, you can count on an adjustment, okay, yes, thank you.