When, and How, to Present Contracts
Most of you think of closing new business as the act of signing a contract, and that’s understandable. The real estate business even refers to the transfer of property as taking place “at closing”. However, ‘closing’ really isn’t signing paperwork. Making the decision to move forward with a purchase, and then formally committing the agreement to paper, are not the same thing – and they should not be intermingled.
I mention this here because, on occasion, I work with a practice that uses its formal contractual agreement as the document of choice for presenting fees. This is a bad idea for several reasons.
First, the decision to move forward with the presented terms of treatment, and then agreeing to those terms contractually, are two different steps that take place at two different times in the decision process. One is part of the overall presentation; the other is later, and is nothing more than a post-decision formality once verbal agreement is reached. Placing a contract in front of someone who hasn’t yet decided to move forward is a premature step that will often be perceived as ‘pushy’. In fact, asking a visitor to sign anything before they have verbally said yes to treatment is not going to elicit a positive reaction.
Second, most contracts are unnecessarily wordy; one practice that I worked with this past year had a multi-page document before my involvement that the TCs were having to flip through to simply review payment terms. You aren’t making it easy for the patient to say “yes” if they have to read through a lot of verbiage; even worse, a document punctuated with heretofores, hereunders and other lawyerly foolishness.
Third, a contract has no place whatsoever in a sales presentation, which is exactly what the initial consultation becomes following the doctor’s assessment of the patient’s needs. Presentations should be interesting, simple, and most importantly, they should maintain the visitor’s interest level at all times. I have yet to see a formal contract that meets that standard; most do just the opposite.
The solution: there are two documents. One is your Fee Presentation Sheet, a single-page document the structure of which is outlined on page 92-93 of my book Yes to Treatment. This is a presentation tool that your TC uses to present fees; once terms are agreed upon, the payment terms that the patient has selected are then provided by the TC to your financial manager, who uses this information to put together the second, formal document, which is the contract. Simple.
Those of you who have worked with me will recall that I provide a simple, one-page Letter of Agreement that we both sign after we have reviewed everything – process, fees, terms, etc. – and have a verbal agreement to move forward. Simple. I have yet to have a single client issue with this approach; if you are managing your presentation process as outlined, you should experience exactly the same thing with your patients.
