james, Author at The McAnally Selling System

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So far james has created 3065 blog entries.

What Ethical Selling in Dentistry Really Means

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What does ethical selling actually mean in a dental practice? It means getting patients to do good things for themselves. That is the whole of it. You are competing in the marketplace against every other good and service that wants their money, and most of those things do nothing good for them. So when I help a patient make an emotional and intellectual decision to get treatment done, I am steering them toward something that genuinely improves their life. There is nothing slick about it. The work is in getting them engaged enough to decide, then giving them a real choice [...]

What Ethical Selling in Dentistry Really Meansjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How to Make a Hygiene Patient Treatment Offer

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I offer bigger treatment to my hygiene patients without being pushy? Give them a choice, nothing more. For your hygiene patients the move is simple. Offer them a complete dental physical with a possible fee range, and let them decide whether they want to go on. That is it. You are not closing anyone in the chair, you are handing them an option they never knew existed. Most of them are sitting in your system in various states of repair, ready for a real diagnostic workup, but nobody ever gave them the door to walk through. If you want [...]

How to Make a Hygiene Patient Treatment Offerjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How First Purchase Amount Affects Patient Spending

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does the first fee a patient pays affect how much they will spend later? Yes, and the retail world has the data to prove it. The size of someone's first purchase sets the ceiling for what they will spend after. Make that first purchase tiny and the next ones stay small. Make the first purchase substantial and the additional spending climbs to match it. That is exactly why I do not want your diagnostic exam priced like an afterthought. A 150 dollar exam anchors the patient to small numbers, and then you are fighting that anchor the whole way through the [...]

How First Purchase Amount Affects Patient Spendingjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What Diagnostic Exam Fee to Charge for Big Cases

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How much should I charge for a diagnostic exam on a large dental implant case? Charge enough that it filters out the tire kickers. For complex cases I want that fee somewhere between 300 and 700 dollars, not the 150 to 200 most offices default to. Here is why. A cheap exam tells the patient this is no big deal, and it pulls in unserious people who will sit in your chair, eat your time, and never decide anything. A fee with some weight to it does the opposite. It signals seriousness on both sides, and it qualifies the patient before [...]

What Diagnostic Exam Fee to Charge for Big Casesjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Your Patients Forget the Treatment Options You Offer

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why do longtime patients forget what dentistry I can offer them? Because forgetting is normal. We all do it, and frankly it keeps us sane. Your hygiene patients, your old prospects, the people you presented to two years ago, they have all let the details slip. They might remember it costs a lot, but they will not remember specifics, and they have no idea dentistry has changed since you last talked. New options, new materials, new approaches, none of it landed because you stopped telling them. So stop assuming they carry the knowledge you carry. They do not. That gap is [...]

Why Your Patients Forget the Treatment Options You Offerjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Dental Patient Triage by Complexity, Pain, Cost

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

What does triage by complexity, pain, and cost mean for new patients? With an emergency or regular new patient you are really doing two kinds of triage at once. Problem triage, the clinical one you already do, and sales triage, which decides what pathway that patient follows in the practice. You sort on three things: complexity, pain, and cost. Pain sets the first move, because if they hurt you fix that first. Complexity tells you whether this is a single-tooth problem or something that deserves a complete evaluation. And cost is what actually splits the road. Below a fee level you [...]

Dental Patient Triage by Complexity, Pain, Costjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why Patient Liking Drives Case Acceptance

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Does it really matter if a patient likes me before they say yes? It matters more than most dentists want to admit. The research on liking is clear, going back to studies from 2004 and earlier: we say yes to people we know, like, and see as similar to ourselves. That includes decisions to spend money. If you are similar to me in some way, I like you, and I make decisions around that. Patients are no different. They want to be treated by someone they trust, the same way they pick a physician or anyone who provides a personal service. [...]

Why Patient Liking Drives Case Acceptancejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Asking Patients About Previous Dental Experiences

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Why should I ask about a patient's bad experiences at other dental offices? Because they came to you for a reason, and that reason is gold. I ask, any recent dental experiences that did not go the way you would have liked? Patients pursuing major treatment have usually shopped around. If they had loved the last place, they would still be there. So they will tell you exactly what turned them off, the rushed feeling, the surprise bill, the dismissive doctor, whatever it was. That is a map of the mistakes you must not repeat. Listen, write it down, and then [...]

Asking Patients About Previous Dental Experiencesjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How to Make an Exciting Dental Exam Worth a Fee

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I make a dental exam exciting enough to charge a real fee for it? First admit the problem. Most exams are boring, and if yours looks exactly like every other exam the patient has sat through, you have given them no reason to pay more or to choose you. That is the trap. The way out is to put some real substance behind it. Move to risk-based treatment planning, where you are openly evaluating function, decay and caries, perio across hard and soft tissue, and esthetic risk. You are reading a snapshot of this mouth and telling the patient [...]

How to Make an Exciting Dental Exam Worth a Feejames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Use the Patient Smile Photo to Open Esthetic Cases

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

How do I talk to a patient about what their smile used to look like? Pull out an old photo. I like to ask about a wedding photo, the first marriage one, because people genuinely smile more in that picture than in any later one. That single prompt opens up the whole conversation about anterior esthetics without me forcing it. Sometimes they want back what they had. Sometimes they want something they never had at all. Either way it surfaces fast. Once that desire is on the table, you have real tools to work with, like running a digital smile preview [...]

Use the Patient Smile Photo to Open Esthetic Casesjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

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