• The exercise helps you adjust key touch points so patients feel your interactions support their personal status journey.

• First identify how they believe status is increased in this moment, either by enabling themselves or enabling others.

• Then identify how they measure status at the end, either affiliation or dominion.

Parents seeking orthodontics usually increase status by enabling their child, so touch points should highlight doing something meaningful for their kids. Cosmetic patients usually increase status by improving themselves, so touch points should speak to personal enhancement and confidence.

Different groups may pursue status differently even within the same category. What matters is naming the mechanism they believe improves their status.

Steps of the exercise:

• Identify the core patient group’s belief system profile.

• Decide whether they try to increase status by enabling self or enabling others.

• Determine whether their final status destination is affiliation or dominion.

• Review the patient journey and its three touch points per phase.

• Modify at least one touch point per phase so it aligns with their method of increasing status.

• Check the entire journey to ensure it signals movement toward the status outcome they value.