Dental Benefit Club and Partnerships

Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 12:05

Hello people, how are you today? Hope you are well!

I recently switched jobs and started working for a dental clinic here on the Gold Coast.

My role is to sell the benefit plans and close partnerships. I have encountered a lot of difficulty with both. My goal is to close 1000 plans by the end of the year (in the first month I closed 5…)

The plan consists of paying $8.50 a week and being entitled to cleanings, x-rays, emergencies and discounts, the idea is to keep your oral health up to date and not have gigantic treatments to be done, the idea is great and cheap, but most do not really do oral health prevention, they only do the corrective, which ends up being much more expensive.

Usually I can only close plans for people who already have something to do with their teeth, because they get a discount on the treatment that pays off.

Seeing this difficulty, I talked to my boss and we set out to try to close partnerships with other businesses in order to get referrals. have generated effective results.

I would like to know if in our community here we would have people who could suddenly exchange an idea with me and give me some guidance, the company I work for is very good, the owners are very good and help a lot of people, I would really like to deliver a better result and also earning commissions (I just had a baby and my wife doesn't work and doesn't have the right to centrelink)

Details that might be important:

We are a clinic only in Gold Coast, the idea is to expand and open more clinics.
The number of members in the benefit club is what will determine the growth, more members, more clinics.

Thanks in advance for everyone who reads and give some input

Health & Beauty

Comments

  • Muzeeb on 12/04/2022 - 12:08

    How many plans do you need to sell to cover the excess on your car insurance?

    • Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 12:09

      22 mate… Life is hard sometimes, but God is good!

      • Muzeeb on 12/04/2022 - 12:13
        +1

        Cool.

        You will be competing with clients that already have PHI and extras.

        For example HCF provide two free checkups, scale and clean, x-rays, fluoride treatment etc per year. I take advantage of this twice a year as preventative maintenance. The benefit is worth about $700 to each covered member in my family. I would therefore be declining your planned offer.

        • Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 12:37

          Would u mind telling me how much you pay extra to have all of that?

          I did some research comparing the health extras against our plans, the only time were it seems better than us was when you use other extras or you dont have any dental treatments to do ever.

          • Muzeeb on 12/04/2022 - 12:51
            +1

            @Hasty13kia: $1260 per year (I'm not entitled to government rebates which would make it cheaper)

            We get at a minimum $2800 benefit from this plus other stuff like optical, physio etc.

            So as a family we are minimum $1500 better off per year by having extras and hopefully preventing future dental issues in the process.

            On your plans it would cost my family $1700 per year.

            • Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 15:18
              +1

              @Muzeeb: Since I started there they were clear that the idea was not to compete with health insurance.

              For anyone with treatments to do, our plan is really good. I hope people can see that.

              But your plan seems really good, thanks for sharing and helping, really appreciate.

              • Seraphin7 on 12/04/2022 - 20:32
                +2

                @Hasty13kia: The challenge here though, is that you are in all practical (albeit not legal) terms selling insurance.

                You are effectively offering people a service that is cheaper than the "retail" price of the services on offer … although you are also including more in the "annual package" than most people would otherwise consume … therefore their expected cost of your service is higher than their otherwise expected cost … this is where you are hitting hurdles.

                For those that do want the sort of service you are offering, most will acquire it or similar through their PHI. Those that don't have it through PHI are self-insuring (even if they don't consciously know that). The challenge you have then is to find people who want what you are offering, but don't have it via PHI. These are likely to be a pretty small sliver of the population, at least in terms of long term recurring business.

  • slknv on 12/04/2022 - 13:16
    +2

    Your goal is to close 1000 plans, at a price of $442 per year membership. Hope your incentive is sufficient if you're generating $442,000 of income for the clinic.

    • Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 15:15

      For partner or referrals we do pay comission, isn't that the incentive?

      • salmon123 on 12/04/2022 - 15:35

        isn't that the incentive?

        I think @slknv point was, your goal is to generate 442k revenue for the clinic. Is your salary + commission worth it? I'd guess the clinic will pay you ~100k OTE … so around 22% commission … which is comparable to other sales jobs.

        Of course, from the 1000 patients that turn up at the clinic, I'd say the clinic can upsell them on other procedures that aren't covered by the "plan" - fillings/crowns/implants/extractions/whitening … endless possibilities. If you actually end up selling 1000 plans, any reasonable clinic could generate 2-3m of revenue off that.

        • Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 16:11

          No, my comission isn't 22%, I wish it was… But even if, I still have to sell the 1000… Which seems impossible atm.

          • AustriaBargain on 12/04/2022 - 19:39
            +1

            @Hasty13kia: You'd think something more like 30% commission would be more reasonable for this kind of sales.

  • salmon123 on 12/04/2022 - 15:50

    I would like to know if in our community here we would have people who could suddenly exchange an idea with me and give me some guidance

    What are you doing for lead generation? Partners are a good idea … but I guess you've already exhausted that? hence your post. Community out-reach - schools/daycare/clubs/associates might be another avenue to explore.

    You haven't mentioned budgets. How much are you willing to spend to acquire a customer? The dollar figure isn't important (to me) … but if the owners are expecting you to sell memberships without spending any money on advertising/marketing/promotions, you're probably not going to succeed. Anecdotally, I see lots of businesses spending 100-200% of their first year revenue acquiring customers. I don't know whether the businesses ultimately succeed with that model, but it's something to think about.

    • Hasty13kia on 12/04/2022 - 16:20

      So, my role is to be outside, what I can offer is some kind of procedure to partners in exchange to promoting our clinic and Club.

      Usually giving a check up and clean, or 1 club membership, or a whitening is what I can give.

      I don't have a budget, I did tried giving some ideas, but any that would cost money were rejected. I tried putting a temporary isle on shoppings.

      Have in mind that the clinic is growing, and they are having a lot of costs to do that, so budgets are low atm.

      Any social media ad is not up to me, there's someone directly in charge of that.

      It's kind of a bad feeling, I'm not bringing results, it feels I'm not doing what I supposed to, and I already been to a lot of different busines, it's getting to a point where I don't even know where to go and do during the day.

      I want to help the clinic grow, but it seems impossible in my specific role.

      Thanks for answering and helping, appreciate it.

      • Muzeeb on 12/04/2022 - 16:35

        In my personal opinion it's sounds to me like this dental practice is trying too hard to adopt modern marketing strategies.

        All of my dentists in the past decades have been based on family or friend experience. You go there because you are hoping for a similar experience - not be fed bullshit, upsold unnecessary procedures or overcharged etc.

        If the dentist's at the practice provide a good honest service at reasonable prices then they can rely on their reputation to organically grow their business.

        • salmon123 on 12/04/2022 - 16:59

          In my personal opinion it's sounds to me like this dental practice is trying too hard to adopt modern marketing strategies.

          It's the classic pump and dump. Whoever built the clinic(s) is looking for fast customer growth, so they can sell franchises or the clinics. You'll see a bunch of similar clinics advertising on groupon and the like.

      • salmon123 on 12/04/2022 - 17:09

        Any social media ad is not up to me, there's someone directly in charge of that.

        This isn't a bad thing, but is the social media person giving you leads to follow up on or are the leads given to someone else?

        I tried putting a temporary isle on shoppings.

        How did that go? Presumably that cost something. You could try similar at clubs or markets.

        but any that would cost money were rejected

        This is a pretty big red flag. Perhaps someone at the clinic has a big-picture idea of what they'll spend on acquiring customer, but not sharing the vision with you is a bit unfair.

      • turbochris on 13/04/2022 - 08:43

        There is a saying - pushing shit uphill with a pointed stick.

        Sounds like this goal of 1000 signups with zero marketing budget is similar.

        These dental insurance plans are just not great value for most people.

  • AndyC1 on 12/04/2022 - 17:13

    $8.50 * 50 = $425 / year

    How much does the dentist charge for checkup & clean & one xray every 6months (so twice a year)? This would be what 90% of the people would be comparing this and seeing if the PHI excess (assuming they have extras) is more or less than the $425. If it is more then these people will not buy it.

    For people who do not have PHI then they would probably only got to a dentist if they have a tooth ache or for an accident. These people will not buy it.

    So you are competing against the PHI as they are the same clients.

    • AustriaBargain on 12/04/2022 - 19:41

      And what is a checkup, clean, and X-ray worth to a dentist? If the x-ray shows more work needed to be done, then that's more money for the dentist. If teeth are still stained or yellow after a clean, then that's an opportunity for the dentist to push lucrative cosmetic dentistry. The basic service the fee buys is also a foot in the door for even more services not covered by the fee for the dentist.

      • AndyC1 on 12/04/2022 - 20:26

        Time is money, XRAY costs money to run and the film costs money. The assistent costs money. The rent on the place costs money.

        • AustriaBargain on 12/04/2022 - 20:51

          The rent on the place costs money. But having the place helps them earn more money than the rent costs. Having the films costs money, but using them generates more money than they cost. The assistant costs money hourly, but overall having the assistant helps them make more money than the assistant costs. All I'm asking is if offering basic services to these people paying the fees could potentially lead to those people spending even more money at the dentist. Presumably if the checkup indicates that a root canal will be needed, many people would just book that root canal in at that same dentist rather than going to a different dentist to get it performed, that is a reasonable assumption yeah? So it's not just something that costs them money, the owner isn't like "oh jeez, here comes another subscription holder in to rob us of our things that cost money for their free checkup and x-ray". I'm suggesting the owner could be thinking "hooray, here comes another lead for more work, thanks to me opting into this subscription thing I have hundreds of new customers on our books and a good percentage of them are requiring more work done which isn't covered at all by the subscription fee, so they are paying our full fee to get it done". It's like when the dental practice runs Facebook ads, it isn't just something that costs them money and that's it. Why would they do that if it was just something that costs money and not something that can bring in leads for new customers. Yeah Facebook ads is money, but it potentially makes more money than it costs because it brings in new customers, the Facebook ads brings in fee paying work that would otherwise have never heard of the dental practice in the first place.

  • CrowReally on 12/04/2022 - 17:47

    It's a weird product to try to sell (given it's probably not of interest to people with PHI already).

    I'd maybe look at setting up a booth at a shopping centre with some glossy signs ("Dental insurance and free checkups/whitening for $10 week", pictures of before and after teeth) and doing the sorts of pitch/marketing the 'buy your paintball experience' booths do.

    • holdenmg on 12/04/2022 - 18:04

      But, it isn't Dental Insurance… and it would be misleading to say it is.

      • CrowReally on 13/04/2022 - 09:22

        I was speaking loosely - whatever it actually is - "ongoing care treatment service with emergency coverage"

        • holdenmg on 13/04/2022 - 13:05

          OK, no worries.

          But, I think there is a problem here…

          Does everybody (or even lots of people) need ongoing care and treatment services with emergency coverage? Is there a need in the marketplace for this and if so, at what price?

          Maybe if someone needs a periodontist or has braces. Emergency Care is available in the Public system in the Gold Coast (and elsewhere).
          https://www.goldcoast.health.qld.gov.au/our-services/oral-he…

          • CrowReally on 13/04/2022 - 13:10
            +1

            @holdenmg: Probably not, but most of what society offers up for purchase is not an essential that people need. We're talking about selling a product here. We don't need to decide whether it deserves to exist: the brief is to sell this concept.

            There's a reason I suggested the shopping centre paintball pitch ("Buy this voucher that will allow you a discount in the future if you drive outside the city to an event you probably rarely would use").

            • holdenmg on 13/04/2022 - 13:23
              +1

              @CrowReally: Yes, well said.

              Even this Shopping Centre space costs money and someone needs to convert it into actual sign-up's there and then. Otherwise people will walk away and forget it.

              There is also a question of whether this could lead to overservicing by dentists that encourage clients/patients to recoup their outlay.

  • Edeena on 12/04/2022 - 19:41

    I think this plan would be okay if it's $10 a month, but for $34 a month it's pretty poor value. Who in their right mind with PHI would bother with this plan? Most dental clinics offer no gap checkup and clean for people with PHI anyway, why pay for this plan that can only be used at one clinic.

    • Hasty13kia on 13/04/2022 - 14:41

      The target would be who doesn't have PHI, and for $10 a month, I think you could get maybe 1 check and clean without a X-ray in any decent clinic.

  • mlbrooke on 13/04/2022 - 09:13

    I believe that many people are not religious when it comes to dental treatments and especially in the non health insured segment as it is expensive and although they should go every 6 months, they may not make this frequency, for anyone in that "camp" your employers program is already less valuable than nothing.

    Instead of offering an option to use a service, I would suggest instead:

    The program should include reminders and auto booking appointments every 6 months (or whatever frequency) with whitening or some other add-on included once per year included, so each customer gets XYZ service per year valued at an RRP price that is above what the subscription costs them (clinic gets to use the money before treatment so it is good for them too). This way the service benefit is known and definate.

    As far as marketing is concerned take to social media platforms and think smart about how to advertise for the clinic, work with their marketing person to do this but do it yourself if you have to.

    To extend your job function ask if it is ok for you to also be out selling your clinic as a better place for people to get their dental care managed, using incentives will help here too, it is probably just as lucrative for your in get a new client for the clinic as it is to sell a package (unless they do not expect people to use the packaged service and they pocket the revenue… this is also likely). Try and book appointments at these meetings so you can show real results.

  • ColtNoir on 13/04/2022 - 10:48
    +1

    $8.5/ week is insane for just dental.

    For $7.35 I can get HCF Mid-extras.
    This entitles me to 2 free cleans and checkups at participating providers, and all the additional extras cover.

    Who is your target market? With government incentives/requirements to have private health at 30, often those people would grab extras for only a little more a month.

    It sounds like the clinic has tried to do something, which in their world doesn’t seem like a lot, but they haven’t done the analysis on who would actually buy this product.

    • Hasty13kia on 13/04/2022 - 14:38

      I got the idea, but the plan does offer more than just 2 check up and cleans.

      • ColtNoir on 14/04/2022 - 21:17

        So does the HCF plan. A filling cost me $20 gap fee, last time I had one.

        What you’re forgetting is the mountain of other services that PHI extras gives you eg glasses, physio, orthotics etc.

        I feel for you, but I’d be having a backup with plan for your job.

  • holdenmg on 13/04/2022 - 13:09

    How does this compare to:

    https://www.dentacare.com.au/ @ $69pa or $117 for 2 years? (Single)
    or
    https://www.smile.com.au/join/1 @ $79pa or $135 for 2 years? (Single).

    • Hasty13kia on 13/04/2022 - 14:31

      From what I understood, they're both discount programs, you don't get any services included on their membership. You pay a membership to have access to a discount club.

  • Ramrunner on 13/04/2022 - 14:28

    Yeah the maths don't add up.

    That's $442 per year. There's much cheaper options as seen in the comments.

    Hell, a 6 monthly checkup for my daughter was $74 gap payment. If you look after your teeth, general cleaning etc. is only $150 per year.

    TRUE if you don't look after your teeth or get them knocked out in a basketball game or whatever I get it but yeah I don't like the match for the usage case you explained.

    • Hasty13kia on 13/04/2022 - 14:36

      But you also pay the extras every month right? So, it's not only $150/year, right?

      The club has the 2 check up and clean, normal and OPG X-rays, discounts in any treatment plus any dental emergency covered.

      • Ramrunner on 13/04/2022 - 14:39

        Sure, but if I was to join your club, I would not throw away my Defence health insurance. I wouldn't swap one for the other.

        So I'd be paying both. Still does not make sense?

        Maybe for someone who has no health insurance? Sure.

        • Hasty13kia on 13/04/2022 - 14:43

          Whoever already has the extras wouldn't be our target.

          • ColtNoir on 14/04/2022 - 21:19

            @Hasty13kia: Who doesn’t have extras, that would see the value in this? Not many, if any. Add inflation and cost of living pressures and it’s done for.

            Edit: also forgot to add, you can get opg x-rays under Medicare. I’ve gotten them in advance and then taken them to the dentist.

  • leiiv on 14/04/2022 - 02:04

    Is the clinic transparent with pricing? Eg ala fixeddental.com.au or dentalstandard.com.au.
    How big is the discount? Please give some examples for fillings, root canal, and crown with dollar pricing before and after discount.
    If pricing is not transparent and you can't even give examples, how would a potential "customer" be able to see and judge the real benefits of the membership?
    I always believe that if the product is good and has best value for money, it does not really need salesmen or sophisticated marketing for it to be really popular.

    • Hasty13kia on 14/04/2022 - 11:23

      We do have on our website all of our prices, so anyone can compare easily. They can check everything, and because I'm promoting the clinic, I've been using the tatic of telling people to go do their quote before they sign the club, and them ask about the club price.

      One of the benefits of signing with me is that I can book an evaluation(or avaliation?) for free, so the person gets 30 minutes plus Xray for free.

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