Campfire Stories
If you love camping, there is nothing like a campfire, or maybe you are more like me and enjoy a fire pit in your backyard and your own bed and indoor plumbing! Either way, stories shared around a campfire, a fire pit and even at bedtime (for those with small children) are an amazing way to grab attention from a child, friends, and neighbors or maybe even your spouse as you share a compelling story that captures their attention and even their imagination.
Stories help people understand, experience and even imagine themselves in similar circumstances. Stories bring confidence, self-esteem and excitement especially if they are about them (like the stories I tell my children about their crazy antics when they were younger!)
If I want to keep my teenagers engaged at dinner, nothing beats telling them about the time my older daughter tried to poison her younger brother, or the time my son had fallen down, hit is head and came home 1 hour later with dried blood all over his face (of course he had no clue!) Another hot topic is my husband telling them stories about his teenage years, which thankfully they have not imitated!
As an orthodontist, I have seen the power of story when I share in a new patient exam how one of our patients started treatment never smiling and with no eye contact or energy. The story goes on to share how the patient’s entire personality and smile transformed over the next 6-12 months. By the time they had their treatment completed, they would not stop smiling and strutted into their retainer appointment like they owned the place. Simply awesome!
Not only can you share these incredible transformation stories with other patients to help motivate them and get the parents excited about treatment, you can share these stories with your team too. Have them get really good at telling stories to their circle of influence in their communities.
Build a culture in your practice that is excited about what great work they are doing. Get your team to tell those stories to friends, neighbors and other people in their circle of influence.
You could even have a “story of the day” in your morning meetings and have different team members be responsible for sharing those stories.
Think of the buzz these stories can create about your practice and provide the needed “fuel” to power those continued referrals into your office.