Tell your story — well

I recently attended an event in Melbourne called the Mind Body Spirit Exhibition.

It's an exhibition full of things ranging from conventional health practitioners (there was a dentist there) to alternative health practitioners (e.g. pranic healing, reiki and homeopathy) to religions (e.g scientology) and the downright unusual (fortune tellers).

The common factor was that everyone had a story to tell — why their product/service is great and you should use it. The problem was that, without exception, people took too long to explain what they were on about.

Instead of giving me a concise statement of what they do and the benefits I often found myself listening for 4 or 5 minutes or more of "waffle". All the people loved to give me technical details behind their product that, quite frankly, I could care less about.

That made me think of dentistry and how we explain stuff to patients.

When you tell someone about a root filling do you give them heaps of technical information? Or, do you make it simple for them to understand?How long do you need to explain to someone what a crown is? For me is 4 seconds and I use just 15 words.

By all means give technical information if a patient asks for it but don't just presume that they are fascinated by your service. Keep your explanations as concise as possible.