Episode 77: Are You Talking About Me? -- How to Make Feedback Your Friend

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“We need to understand that feedback is part of our growth” Dr. Lara says on this solo episode of The Catalyst. Feedback–including and perhaps especially negative feedback–is vital not only to providing the best value to your community, but in allowing to shape your company and its services. It’s a metric which helps to ensure you’re fulfilling your set mission and goals and even lets you know what services are worth letting go of to save time and money. Dr. Lara shares three impactful questions that you can model to glean impactful insights from your community. The subtle nuances of each question are enough to encourage more fruitful answers. She’ll also share her secret to timing the release of a survey so that the recipient is more likely to answer rather than ignore because they feel pressured or nagged.

She also shares feedback she has received from members of her Catalyst Studio Mentorship program where she helps other clinicians optimize their own practices. She explains in detail what each comment means to her, what questions it prompts her to ask about her business practices and how it impacts her decisions going forward. Listen as she shares her insights about how to address her members’ feelings of overwhelm, lack of user friendliness and geographically-specific issues. Clients tend to be reticent about sharing less-than-glowing reviews, and she’ll share how to make them feel safe enough to be truthful.

While no one can take in every last bit of input from clients, using it constructively is one of the best ways to optimize your business. Hear Dr. Lara share the best way to make use of trends and her two go-to survey platforms.

About The Catalyst Host, Dr. Lara Salyer:

I worked as a family physician for 15 years until burnout changed the trajectory of my career. I realized I wanted to start a holistic functional medicine practice in my rural hometown and made it happen. In addition to practicing functional medicine, I now mentor practitioners who are looking to change their paths in healthcare by using what I refer to as the “Catalyst Roadmap”. I share each step of this framework with listeners so that they may apply it to their careers, relationships, personal goals, and projects.

In This Episode I'm Talking About:

Importance of feedback, especially negative feedback, for growth and shaping your company.
Three key questions designed to encourage insightful responses from your community, along with tips for timing your surveys to maximize participation.
Strategies for making clients feel safe enough to share honest feedback and the significance of using client input constructively

Quotes:

“This is also a disclaimer not to take into account every single piece of feedback, because you have to filter it through your mission, your values and the trajectory of what you’re trying to do in your business.” (5:23 | Dr. Lara)
“For my patients, I include extra details like, ‘I grow more from the difficult feedback, from the hard feedback. So please know that I welcome that feedback if not more than the glowing feedback.’” (8:02 | Dr. Lara)
“People are still holding their cards to their chest, because that is what feedback does. People want to glow, and they’re a little bit more reticent to tell you something disappointing.” (15:49 | Dr. Lara)
“Maybe that shows that I need to be more obvious about stating that and more encouraging of my Catalyst mentees to explore…what worked for my community won’t work in LA or New York or Canada.” (16:25 | Dr. Lara)
“I love this feedback. This helps me create better systems…So that’s how I grow from feedback.” (21:50 | Dr. Lara)