Influencing Influencers – Rule 3 – Urgency & Scarcity

As we move on through this blog series on persuasion psychology it will become increasingly important to reiterate a few fundamentals.

Always act in the patient’s best interests. Be honest with them and do not try to coerce or manipulate them.

We can use persuasive psychology to help make and keep them happy and healthy. Nothing else. I have to make that clear, as the scavengers may want to use this powerful information for personal gain and that is not what this is about.

The use of the Scarcity and Urgency Principle is an unscrupulous advertiser’s dream and we do not use tactics like that.

In fact, the Advertising Standards Agency and the GDC have clear guidelines on advertising. You would be wise to become familiar with them and adhere to them. There are particular GDC rules on advertising, and you can really get into proper trouble if you break them.

In researching this blog, I have watched a lot of lectures on this area and I was amazed at what I didn’t know!

You MAY NOT use limited time offers nor any form of time pressure to influence, coerce, or incentivise your patients to take up treatment.

 “I can do your treatment for a 15% discount, but only if you leave a deposit today and book your first appointment. Tomorrow is too late.” This is very shaky ground and is financially motivated rather than acting in the patient’s best interest.

 A pressured sale like this is something you may get in a dodgy car dealership and we cannot behave this way.

So how do we apply this Rule of Scarcity to dentists? Essentially, it’s FOMO – fear of missing out.

Let’s understand the psychology of the rule outside of dental practice life first.

Scarcity works on the idea of ‘FOMO’ and ‘If it’s hard to get, it must be worth something.’

People attach more value to things that are few in quantity or hard to acquire or are a limited edition. Certain Swiss watches have a different coloured bevel and are otherwise identical to all others, but are rare and so worth three times as much.

The scarcity principle can be commonly used in two broad methods:

• Limited-number – Item is in short supply and won’t be available once it runs out.
• Deadline (Limited-time) – Item is only available during that time period.

Think of the ‘must have’ Christmas gift we trawl through the shops for:

• The new iPhone 12. People pay vast sums to get a few spaces ahead in the queue outside the store.
• Daniel Craig’s next Omega Bond 007 watch will pre-sell out…and then sell out again on eBay at twice the price.
• Playstation 5 consoles retail at £500, but they sold out in a heartbeat in December, and to get yours off eBay would then cost you £800.

They all sold out too.

We compete for all resources, but we compete with furious intensity and emotional commitment for scarce resources.

Imagine you saw an advert for a holiday to the Caribbean (I’m biased as, for me, Greece and Barbados are perfect). It’s for a five star hotel, all inclusive, including flights and transfers and there are, say, 50 spaces, but the first five to book get… a 90% discount. The phones would ring off the hook and the clever agent tells you: sadly, you were sixth in the queue, so it’s not 90% discount; but he can, just for you, do it for 50%…if you pay now.

He sells the holidays at the preordained actual price easily and in a heartbeat. A clever salesman playing with your FOMO.

The limited number technique is used on almost all holiday booking sites.

We have just three rooms at this price – 8 people are looking at this offer.

The deadline technique is just the classic: Special Offer Today Only. I’m sure you yourself have at least browsed Amazon’s ‘today’s offers’.

My favourite example is Spotify. Spotify was hugely popular in Europe, and its release in the US was highly publicised. But instead of opening the floodgates to let the public in, they chose to open their free service through invite-only.

Users could either wait for an invite or pay $4.99 or $9.99 for Unlimited or Premium respectively.

It worked because their arrival was so highly anticipated, and they were better than their competitors. People felt they had to wait in order to be the first to try out the best music streaming service around.

For those unwilling to wait, they could always opt for a paid subscription. Most did and the billions flowed.

Now moving to dentistry. Remember we are just people too. All of the psychological vulnerabilities people have all affect us too.

So… there was a party a few years ago…for dentists.

This is the press write-up:

          Called ‘For the chosen few’, only 150 leaders in the dental profession were invited to the inaugural event. The evening was a huge success on social media, both before and afterwards, with many attendees sharing pictures right from the moment they received their wax-sealed invitations. 

Again…I am not criticising, in fact this is a lovely example of FOMO and scarcity and exclusivity (emphasis on the exclusion, as in ‘you have been’!!) used for that group of dentists and as a marketing tool on other dentists.

For you and me, professionalism comes first and we must never use parlour tricks on real patients.

Your advertising needs to be honest, clear and not at all misleading.

What we can do is develop a mindset along these lines, however.

Increasingly today we see dentists begging on Instagram for new patients. That is the opposite of scarcity. That is you begging for attention and for the option to treat strangers. You are Oliver Twist asking for more, you are.

If you are a well-intentioned, superbly skilled dentist who is kind, diligent and polite, and have made huge investments in yourself, then I’m going to try and convince you that appointments with you are the prize!

We still prioritise patients’ wellbeing, health and happiness, but all patients have to qualify for elective treatment with you.

When discussing tooth whitening you can use words like:

“I can carry out a detailed exam and, assuming all is well and safe and sensible, I can let  you know if you qualify for tooth whitening. I am taking on a few whitening patients at the moment, but not masses.”

This puts the ball in your court. The scarcity principle works through anticipatory regret, and the idea that they may not qualify for treatment with you gives you control on who you treat and who you don’t.

No-one ever died from not having their teeth bleached, so saying NO is perfectly reasonable, and they need to qualify for this care. They have to earn your trust as a professional.

For all your new patients, keep in mind that they have to earn their place under your care.

The caveat is we ALWAYS keep them safe. We screen for diseases, particularly sinister ones, and we urgently escalate care when needed. This blog is about elective care, particularly elective aesthetic care.

To treat someone, you should ensure you actually want to treat them. You must  understand them, screen them and be sure, utterly sure, you can trust them.

All of the governing rules and regulations in dentistry are biased towards your behaviour and police your behaviour, conduct and actions.

But not all people are nice, and not-so-nice people also go to the dentist. Jimmy bloody Saville went to the dentist!

So use the scarcity principle as a mindset foundation for all new patients. Don’t be arrogant, but don’t go cap-in-hand begging for the patient to take up your treatment. You and your expertise is the prize, and if they qualify then you may choose to take them on. If not, then you are both better off parting ways before any hazards appear in your relationship. You are the prize.

Remember, all negotiations have to end in win-win. If they don’t, then it’s either you win and the patient loses, or they win and you lose. So it’s win-win, or elective treatment doesn’t go ahead. They earn your expertise just as much as you earn their patronage.

That mindset will help keep you safe from making bad decisions and taking on unwanted and difficult patients. If you are naturally disposed to take everyone on, then all that means is saying yes to patients you will sorely regret meeting. If you cast your net indiscriminately wide, rarely but inevitably you’re going to pull up a shark and it WILL bite your face off.

Keeping your availability exclusive and selective by your choice immediately means you have NO as an option in your head.

If it’s there in your head you may use it, and the power of no is now well established as a significant life upgrade.

There are infinite amounts of absolutely lovely people looking for your amazing expertise, compassion and care. Choose to let them in instead. Win-win.

As a small extra, I’d like to add a small section here on a subset of persuasive communication.

The scarcity principle does more than increase the value of an item. It plays on the possibility of missing out, and humans do not like missing out or losing!

Think of the toilet-roll sales in lockdown 1! All they had to do was write ‘limited 2 per customer’ on toilet brushes and we would have all fought each other for them too.

This relates to the psychological power of Aversion to Loss.

Sadly, humans are very biased towards experiencing negative emotions more than positive. That’s why positive psychology has gained so much traction and we spend billions of ££ trying to find some version or slice of joy, happiness and satisfaction.

It’s this way because there is only so much ‘happy’ you can actually feel, but there is almost infinite pain and suffering available.

Imagine someone you know and think how much happiness day to day you actually make them experience. It’s a bit. But not that much in all probability and you have to maintain the effort to maintain the effect. Now turn your mind to the Dark side of the FORCE and think about how much pain, suffering and misery you can cause them. The macabre possibilities are almost endless…now stop thinking about that!!!

Losing £50 hurts considerably more than the good feelings you get if you find £50.

One complaint from a patient hurts much more than the lovely thank you cards from twenty patients can compensate for it.

You probably treat 1000 patients, but you think mostly on the difficult ones. The problems and the failures. Humans dislike losses more than they like wins.

So, when talking through options (all the while aiming to help your patient become both healthy and happy) we can aggregate losses or problems and disaggregate gains and benefits.

List the befits slowly and make them many. Make the problems clipped and succinct.

Lots of small wins, but minimised losses…

“The reason I’m suggesting an e.max onlay is because you said you want that tooth to be stronger and to look better. E.max onlays are predictable, safe, good looking, very good looking in-fact, strong, they feel nice, they fit well, they are tooth coloured, they can last a long time, they need very little drilling, the process is usually painless, quick and you get the result you are after in just two appointments. The downsides are a little time and the financial investment.”

(Disaggregated positives and aggregated negatives)

Or vice versa:

“I lean towards you suggesting a root canal because you get to keep your tooth, which helps you eat more naturally, gives you an ongoing sense of completeness and it can last a very long time. If you lose the tooth, you will have a gap, your gum has to do the chewing, it may be visible, people may notice, you may later on change your mind and want an implant, which requires surgery and stitches and drilling into the bone and is expensive and not without risk. Once the tooth is gone it’s gone.”

The latter example disaggregated (spread out) the negatives. As always, your intentions are  to create both happiness and health for your patient, nothing more. But being a better communicator…that’s surely a good thing.

It’s a fine line to walk when you learn to be emotionally intelligent and persuasive. Your core values should be true, honest and then these skills are used to help patients. The rewards that follow for you are great.

Equally, you are a human being, and getting your time and attention is a privilege; and people should respect you, earn your trust. And having this as an element of your professional mindset is a good place to be.