Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast Episode 27

Hosts: Dr. Peter Boulden & Dr. Craig Spodak

Guest: Fred Joyal / Founder of 1-800-DENTIST

 Key Takeaways:

• Many dentists still struggle with basic ideas of effectively promoting and marketing their practices.
• Patients judge you by their experience, and 90% of the patient experience is non-clinical.
• Developing clinical skills is important, but success is determined by the office’s culture.
• Building better relationships with your team and patients will make you wildly successful.
• A good patient who you treat well will earn you five new patients.
• The best marketing strategy is to CARE. The new economy is centered around caring and convenience.
• Dentists obsessed with adding value for patients are those who are killing it. It’s not about you.
• Everything the patient experiences (sees, touches, tastes, hears and smells) affects case acceptance.
  • Most of our decisions are not rational, they’re based on feeling.
  • If you don’t trust the doctor it doesn’t matter how much pain you’re in.
• Patients should feel in control of their decisions based on your communication with them.
• If you put people in a better mood they’re more amenable to accepting treatment.
• You can’t always compete on a macro level, so deliver experience on a micro level.
• If the dentist isn’t comfortable communicating benefits to patients find someone who is and have them present treatment options. The dentist only has to be good clinically, have remarkable personable people around who can’t resist upselling dentistry.
  • Assess the personalities around you and find people to complement your weaknesses.
• If your business is making time AND money for you, that’s a business. If you work hard and it makes money because you put in more time that’s a job.
• Create freedom for your team to make you aware of where you can do better.
• Learn how to build rapport with your patients. Keep focused on your mission to help educate the patient and prevent future pain, not on closing a sale.
  • Learn public speaking skills, study neurolinguistics. These skills will catapult you to the next level.
  • The whole environment has to support your mission; whoever is presenting the case needs to listen, watch body language, empathize with their position. BUILD TRUST.
• Express appreciation to your team members. That’s where real motivation comes from.
  • Exercise: for the next week, express appreciation to everyone you encounter, to an absurd level. At the end of the week, gauge how you did. You’ll see the reaction and see how it makes such a huge impact.
• Work hard to make the people you encounter feel better about themselves.

References

• Everything Is Marketing by Fred Joyal
• Becoming Remarkable by Fred Joyal
• Get Fred’s books for $10, including shipping, by using code FREDJOYAL

Tweetables:

Don’t be obsessed with you, be obsessed with your patients and adding value for them. – Dr. Craig Spodak

People want to buy but they don’t want to be sold. – Dr. Craig Spodak

You’re not on an island, surround yourself with people who can fortify your weaknesses. – Dr. Peter Boulden

Nobody is great at everything. If you do everything, you’re probably average at everything. – Fred Joyal

Feeling gratitude without expressing it is like wrapping a present and not delivering it. – Fred Joyal

Trade your expectations for appreciations and your whole world changes in an instant. – Tony Robbins

The business doesn’t serve you, you serve your people. – Dr. Craig Spodak