e-Patient Dave

Power to the Patient!

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Prices must have integrity

Yesterday in A turning point for patient voices I said that the market for patient voices is maturing, leading to a need for two new initiatives:

I said today I’d present the pricing policy, but first I need to establish a foundation:

Prices must have integrity

I’m no student of formal pricing theory, but I do know this: Some list prices are real, and some are cheesy – fake prices that nobody actually pays:

  • Some list prices are inflated so the real price can be advertised as “40% off!!”
  • Some list prices are a starting point for negotiation (e.g. car sales)
  • etc.

Why do some marketers play these games? Because consumers tend to like thinking they got a discount. That’s fine with me, but it’s not my approach. I prefer to deliver value and charge accordingly. Prices must have integrity, and discounts must be based on rules that you actually enforce.

Why it matters

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Speaker Academy #4: Cognitive dissonance

Aesop's Fox and Grapes from WikipediaNext in the series Speaker Academy, which started here.

After a day off for Trevor Torres’s Q&A on selling, we resume with the third of Randi Oster’s takeaways from our phone conversation.

Randi’s an experienced business person with speaking experience, so her #3 observation is not necessarily what a newbie would prioritize. But it’s an important point, as you’ll see. I’ve heavily edited Randi’s notes. Randi, thank you for your work; your words per se aren’t here, but this lesson exists because of your work:

Competent patients can cause cognitive dissonance. The speaker must deal with it.

“Cognitive dissonance” is a geeky psychological term; all you really need to know is this:

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Speaker Academy #3: Q&A on selling (Trevor Torres)

Trevor Torres
“Diabetes Evangelist” Trevor Torres

Lessons one and two were about understanding the world into which you want to speak, using text written by Randi Oster. We’ll continue with her tips #3-5 tomorrow but today I’ll step off that theme to answer some questions posed in a comment on Lesson 1 by Trevor Torres, a 17 year old hotshot “Diabetes Evangelist” who’s just started doing speeches. (See his first speech video* on his site.)

Here’s Trevor’s comment, with my answers embedded:
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The main thing I’m interested in right now is getting more speaking gigs! To that end, some questions:

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Speaker Academy, part 1: Marketing yourself

Randi Oster
Randi Oster

If you haven’t, be sure to read yesterday’s post introducing this series.

My previous post introduced a new series of mentoring posts to coach patients who are good speakers try to make a business out of it. Believe me, it’s not easy; effective speaking skills are only step one. This series will be about how I’ve built a business. It’s not the only way to do it; I’m just sharing what I’ve learned.

Last week I had such a mentoring call with Randi Redmond Oster, a self-described “writer, engineer and mother who is a passionate advocate for patient management reform.” She’d already been out there giving talks for free at public libraries, with strong positive feedback. Only recently did she realize she might get paid for it. She sought out experienced advice, and here we are: We talked on the phone with the agreement that she’d write it up for posting here (and on her site).

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New series: “Speaker Academy” – becoming a patient speaker

The world is changing, in good good ways. As we start the second half of 2013 it’s a perfect time for something new: coaching patients on becoming speaker/advocates.

Times have changed. When I started giving speeches four years ago I literally couldn’t get anyone to pay a cent to hear the voice of a patient. Now that’s changed – medicine understands that there’s genuine value in seeing things from the patient’s point of view, and gollllly, some of us can even give a pretty good speech, even if we don’t work in the industry!  So as I said last winter, I’m finally making a living at it: it took three years, but I finally reached break-even.

That creates both a problem and an opportunity:

  • The problem is that I’m now too expensive for a lot of events. (I’ve demonstrated my value, and I get full professional speaker fees.) (This is good; it means I get to sleep, not bounce checks anymore, etc.)
  • The opportunity is that this creates an updraft, so to speak – a market for additional speakers, earlier in their trajectory, who can give a compelling speech that’s focused not just on their story, but on delivering value to the audience.

And that has led several patients to ask how I got started, so they can try too.

I’m happy to explain how I market myself. And taking a tip from Ted Eytan, I’ll mentor people via this blog, so others can benefit from the advice, and so we can discuss, to help future travelers too.

My next post will be the first in this new series. Let’s have fun!
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The first few posts in the series:

The series continues, as time allows, in the category Speaker Academy.

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Seven days to go; 81% there! Please back Regina’s film project!

Please click this image, watch the two minute video, and donate what you can.  This is THE famous Regina Holliday, who has been called “the Rosa Parks of healthcare.”  You’ll see why.  A humble but immensely strong woman who has become the leader of a movement made almost literally with her bare hands.

This modest $10,000 fundraising project (very little for a film) is one week away from completion, and has less than $2,000 to go.  As I said on Facebook when it was $2500, let’s find two $1,000 donors and dozens of $20 ones!

Click it and read. Get your name in the credits, if you’ve got the scratch!  (If you have one of these jackets, you must donate; even if you don’t and you just love supporting a great new future, pitch in!  I did.)

Screen capture - click to donate

Incentives include a shirt, a copy of the DVD, and all the way on up to Regina coming to your company or club and doing a speech or even a lecture!

And she might even paint for you.