Defining Trust in the Art of the Consult

Episode #409 with Dr. Christopher Ramsey

Trust is hard-wired in our DNA. Otherwise, who would ever go to a dentist? Letting a stranger crawl into your mouth would be out of the question! But even while trust is innate, it still must be earned. And to help you effectively gain your patients’ trust, Kirk Behrendt brings in Dr. Christopher Ramsey to explain the four categories of trust so you can understand, define, and apply it to your consult. For secrets to an enthusiastic yes, listen to Episode 409 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Clearly define what reputation and trust means for your practice.

Your patients’ first impressions of your practice are critical.

Apply benevolence, integrity, competence, and predictability.

Genuine trust needs to be earned and will take time.

Strive to understand the people coming into your practice.

Quotes:

“Humans are pretty predictable if you take the time to understand them.” (5:48—5:50)

“One of the best quotes from a book called Mindset is, I cannot see a better ability than taking the time to understand other people. Because if you don't, you will always default to the one thing that you know, which is yourself. And if you have a life where you think, ‘Well, they don't act like me. They don't talk like me. They don't walk like me. They don't do what I would do, so something must be wrong with them,’ that's not good.” (5:50—6:12)

“I would find myself asking the question, ‘What makes your practice unique? Why are people even coming to you?’ You may have bought a practice that's been there for 30 years. Maybe you started from scratch. You're working with your dad. You're working with your mom. Okay, it’s all different. But what's going on? And everyone would say, ‘Well, we have a really good reputation.’ And that would come up all the time, ‘We have a really good reputation.’ ‘Excellent. Great answer. If you don't mind, define reputation for me.’ And then, people would stumble and be like, ‘Well . . .’ And people said, ‘I know it in my head. I just can't get the words out.’ So, I said, ‘Imagine you're that same person now at work. If you can't define it to yourself, how are you defining it to the people around you that you're asking to carry this business?’” (11:33—12:25)

“[Bergland says in The Neuroscience of Trust], we all have a propensity to trust. It’s how we’re wired as humans. It’s in our DNA to want to trust. That's how we’ve evolved as humans. And so, the thing you need to understand about trust is it is innate within us to want to trust. It’s been the key to our survival. So, right off the bat, as humans, we are wired that way to want to trust. I meet somebody and I go, ‘Yes, I'll trust them.’ Because think about if that wasn't wired. No one would go to a dentist for the first time! You have to walk through their door, meet a stranger, and let them crawl inside your mouth, which is in and of itself an intimate experience. That's a lot of trust for a stranger.” (16:16—16:55)

“What we found was, after going through all the literature, there were 23 references of trust in psychology, 23 for management and communication, and then another 19 spread across sociology, economics, and political science. What was really cool was, when it was all said and done, they broke [trust] into four basic categories: benevolence, integrity, competence, and predictability.” (22:02—22:25)

“Predictability, by definition, is important for dentistry because predictability is a person’s actions that are consistent enough to be forecasted in a given situation. Well, what does that mean in dentistry? That means people can look at stuff online and go, ‘Wow, look at all the smiles they’ve created. I see that they’ve done this before. There are some predictable results in what...