Psychological Triggers That Win Sales and Influence Customers/Clients for Your Surrogacy or Egg Donation Business: Trigger 3 "Liking"

We all want to be LIKED, don't we? Which is why we put so much time and effort into our website and blogs. Needless to say these tools are sometimes the first impression our would-be clients encounter. We want the design to be comforting and supportive, we need the wording to say that they are welcomed and wanted. We want the photos to pluck a heart string or two. We want the overall design to say "we won't take advantage of you, we want to help you, we are experienced in this kind of thing"!

Blogging is another way to "talk" to potential clients. Sharing the hopes and dreams of other clients, listing services that you provide, telling people why you are better than all the rest, highlighting staff accomplishments and posting pictures of newborn babies with happy parents. The design of the blog itself needs to have that same sort of feeling...like coming home: comfortable and safe, where questions can be answered and comments can be posted freely, and your words hopefully shared on social media and "liked"!

Be sure to check out Triggers 1, Reciprocity, and Trigger 2, Commitment and Consistency! 

How Surrogacy and Egg Donation Agency Owners Fail: 8 Tips to Avoid Isolating Yourself

What does this ‘isolating yourself’ possibly mean? We have the Internet and phone(s) what else is there? Believe me I get this reaction all the time when I‘m consulting would-be surrogacy and egg donation agency owners. It’s understandable that the Internet, which reaches almost every corner of our world, seems to be more than enough to run a business especially coupled with our cell phone! Not so my friends. In the world of surrogacy and donation being a one man alone show will not work. Soon you will find yourself lost in the ever shifting field of infertility, uneducated and uninformed. (Behind the times!) 

I am not saying that you can’t run an agency by yourself. That is being done at this very moment by several reputable agencies a crossed the USA. What I am saying is that you need to connect with other agency owners, physicians, clinical staff, reproductive attorneys and mental health professionals. Being an island all unto yourself will not work in the long run. 

I know that getting out of your home office is may cost you money and time. Visit clinics? Talk with attorneys? Attend a conference? Why do you need to do that when you can use the phone and internet? The answer is because people tend to trust those whom they meet in person and I don’t mean just once but over and over. It’s human nature. Plus the things you pick up about others when you meet THEM in person is invaluable!

Here are 8 tips to get you out of the isolation rut:

1) Making a few clinic/office visits a couple of times a year in your area will really help your business grow. (You don’t need to bring lunch…brochures and cards are just fine…cookies are good too!)

2) Attending a conference, seminar or workshop at least twice a year and networking while there (My suggestions: START ART, SEEDS and ASRM)

3) Meet with your clients, donors and surrogates in person whenever possible

4) Meet with hospital staff whenever there is a birth local to you

5) Bring brochures and business cards with you to your own personal appointments

6) Practice your ‘elevator speech’ for the next time someone asks you “What do YOU do?” Get use to talking about YOU!

7) Join a business group like the Rotary Club or Ladies Who Launch, (I belong to STARS: Seattle Tacoma Area Reproductive Society, which is local to me) and attend meetings frequently (Even though some of these clubs are not within the infertility field you can network with other business owners and pick up some general marketing tips and make unexpected connections)

8) Join online listservs, Linked IN and Facebook groups and then attend the face to face get together 

You will find that once people see you out and about and connect with your charming personality your network and contacts will continue to grow. Someone who can’t help their client out might just send them to you. Others may want to work with you on a project or invite you to join a board. The more involved you become the more exposure you will get. Trust me…it’s all good! 

Tips for Egg Donor Agencies: Fill in All the Blanks by Guest Blogger Gail Sexton Anderson, Ed. M.

In a perfect world each egg donor would complete every answer on her egg donor profile. I know this is a nuisance for the agencies who post the profiles to their sites when there are blanks but it is a huge frustration for the intended parents who might have been interested in cycling with an egg donor if she had completed her profile. I know from working with egg donors that sometimes egg donors may not always be cognizant of the fact that information on their application is their opportunity to be known as an individual and can make the difference as to being chosen or not. Sometimes egg donors may forget that this is not a cold and distant decision but a life changing decision for the intended parents.

The intended parents have already had to grieve the loss of a child that is genetically related to the intended mother. At this point the Intended parents are hoping to find someone that feel could fit into their family. Filling in all of the blanks helps to give life to a flat profile and enable the intended parents to have a window into who the donor is so they can say “I like her, she seems like someone who I can relate to.”

These applications are the only way most intended parents can get any sense of what an egg donor candidate is like. If all an intended parent has to go on is a few clipped answers they can be left feeling no connection and no sense of why they would want to choose that particular egg donor’s genes to fill such a monumental role within their family. I have had many intended parents tell me they like the donor profiles were the donors have really put some thought into their answers.

As an agency it’s important to take the time to review every application before it is posted on your site to make sure the donor has taken the time to put a bit of her personality into her profile. It may take you more time on the front end but it will save you oodles of time and money on the matching end. You may not even be aware of how often a donor has been passed over for lack of information.

Gail Sexton Anderson has dedicated her career to helping intended parents from all walks of life to build families. She founded Donor Concierge as a compassionate approach to helping intended parents sort through the gauntlet of egg donor and surrogacy options. Gail has developed working relationships with many excellent egg donor and surrogacy programs, reproductive endocrinologists, fertility attorneys, and mental health professionals specializing in third party fertility counseling she has known and trusted for years.