Excerpted from SEAK’s stream on-demand course, “How to Market and Grow Your IME Practice”
Instructor 1: They’ll call up, “I think I have this or I think I have this kind of case.” “Well, you know, I got a half an hour or 15 minutes, well, tell me about it,” you know. And, oh, you can bill me for the time, and whatever. Well, a lot of time I won’t send them a bill, because I know I’m gonna get some really good cases from them and some other things that are good. So while I think you shouldn’t give away stuff, just arbitrarily give it away, be very careful about that. When you’re doing business with the same people over and over, if they want a supplementary report some time, a little clarification, I could charge them a couple hundred bucks. I don’t charge them. But sometimes they call up and say, “Where’s the invoice?” Oh, that was a freebie today, and they’re very happy about that.
Instructor 2: Yeah. And I totally agree with that, I would go a step further, is don’t nickel and dime people. God, people hate that. They hate that with a passion. I had a doctor that had a bill of $37,000, for his work he did in a case. It was $37,074.95. Of course, I had to ask him about the $74.95. He goes, “Oh, that was an ink cartridge I bought at Staples, because I had to print up a lot of stuff.” I said, “Well, let me let me get my head around this. You’re billing this client $37,000 for your work, and you’re also gonna charge him $74.95 for an ink cartridge? Is that what you’re telling me?” He goes, “Yeah, because I had to print them,” and he was very adamant, “I had to print up a lot of paper.” Don’t you think you can include that as part of the $37,000 and throw that in there?
Instructor 1: Charge them 38 instead, they won’t know the difference.
Instructor 2: Yeah. He’d be better off charging him 38,000 because when the bill comes and it’s itemized, and it says, “ink cartridge,” what do you think happens? People go ballistic. They go, “We don’t pay for ink cartridges, what?” So instead of, now we’re getting to the level of satisfaction, and this is very, very important in marketing, to have a good result at the end of the case. So what happens in this case, he has a big case, he does a good job, he could get a lot more business, he has a great contact, and the whole thing gets all screwed up because he sent a stupid bill for an ink cartridge. Okay.
So now, who is this doctor now to the client? He’s the ink cartridge doctor. He’s not the orthopedist. He’s not the guy that did the work. He’s not the guy that helped him win the case. He’s the idiot that sent him a bill for an ink cartridge. And, you know, people, I mean, they bill for, let’s see, they bill for their legitimate expenses and then they mark it up 25%. Okay, what’s that about? Okay. They have to travel and they start flying first class and running up huge bills. People don’t want that. Okay.
