The Dental Marketer

‍

‍

In this episode of Monday Morning Marketing, we're diving into the power of reputation management with our guest, Steven Jensen, from Dental Intelligence. Steven breaks down the intricacies of building trust and shares practical ways to ensure an excellent customer journey. In an increasingly digitalized world, offering a streamlined and efficient patient experience can make all the difference. Join us as we discuss the significance of trust throughout every point of interaction and learn key strategies to optimize your operations for increased patient satisfaction and positive online reviews.

The insights waiting for you in this episode may transform your approach to reputation management, so tune into the episode now!

‍

What you'll learn in this episode:

• The importance of trust in the customer journey, earned incrementally but lost in large amounts.
• A shared analogy that encapsulates this concept: "Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets."
• Various tips for managing patient reviews and maximizing positive customer experiences.
• An understanding of the vital distinction between patient expectations and reality, and how exceeding these expectations can result in glowing reviews.
• The impact of efficient systems and practices within a business.
• The power of trusted feedback and how it can help reveal changes that need to be made.
• The value and importance of automating your recall system.

‍

You can reach out to Steven Jensen here:

Website: https://www.dentalintel.com/

Email: [email protected]

‍

Mentions and Links:

Software:

• Open Dental
• Dentrix
• Eaglesoft

Communities:

• BeReal

Products:

• iPad

‍

If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

‍

Michael: Hey, Steven. So talk to us about reputation management. How can we utilize this or what advice or suggestions or methods can you give us that will actually help us attract new patients through reputation management?

Steven: Yeah, I think that's it. That's such a good question. I want to start by setting the stage with a concept or a principle that I believe in wholeheartedly.

So the phrase goes like this. My, my, I grew up with my dad always telling me this. He said, Stephen, trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets. I'm going to say that again. Trust is earned in drops. And lost in buckets. So as we consider, you know, our reputation management and getting people to put reviews online, like you have to step back and realize that before that review ever happens, there were drops and drops and drops and drops of moments, right?

That that person has had with our business and our team members that led up to the point where they were like, okay, cool. you have invested enough in our relationship bucket, I guess, so to speak, where we're actually going to give that review. So I thought. Kind of something I thought would be worthwhile talking through today where what are some tactical ways or some tactical things you can do to make some of those moments consistently in the business, right?

Like, how can we make it so there are repeatable good drops that are happening that we're investing in that bucket? Avoid those moments where we're losing, you know, losing trust. And then also kind of at the very end, like how can we, how can we ask for those reviews, obviously. So here's the first thing that came to my mind. So a couple of weeks ago, I went to go see a doctor. So not dentistry. I went to like just my medical doctor and I haven't been in like seven years.

I'm in my mid thirties. And my wife's been on me like, hey, like you need to get a checkup. And I'm like, I know, like I go to the dentist, but I don't go to the doctor. So I go, and it's been a long time, like the last time I went to the doctor, I remember sitting in the lobby, and I would fill out the paper forms, and then I would wait, and it seems like it was always like 15 20 minutes, so like, I blocked out almost 2 hours of my day, of work day, to go and see the doctor.

Because I thought that's how long it would take, like it always took forever. So, like, I was so surprised because when I walked in, they're like, hey, like, Steve, welcome. And, um, they're like, hey, to get you checked in, we're just going to send you a text message, and you're going to fill out your forms, and then we'll have you go back and see the doctor.

So I was like, okay, cool, this is going to be like 20 minutes. And, uh, before I actually see someone. So I start working on the forms, just on my phone. So they sent me a text, I open it up, and I'm filling out the forms, you know, uh, medical history and stuff like that. And then within three minutes, all of a sudden someone comes and says, Hey, we're ready to have you come back.

We're going to get vitals. And I was like, holy smokes. Like this is, this has changed since the last time that I was here. And, uh, so I walked back to the back and I've been to this doctor a bunch. Like he's been my family doctor for like 20 years. And it's always been a long wait. So then I walked back to the back and I'm, I'm filling out the forms, finishing them while I get my vitals.

And then the second they're in the vitals, like they're like, great. The doctor ready to see you, Dr. Sharp. So they walked me back to Dr. Sharp and we jumped right in and he's got, you know, everything right there on his iPad and he's looking at everything that I just submitted. And he's like, cool. So it looks like, you know, these are the things we want to talk about today.

In general, you're healthy exercising this much. This is what your diet's like. And like, he was so dialed in and that process was so smooth that for me, I was like, I'm ready to like give this guy, cause I'm thinking about this all the time. I'm ready to give this guy a good review. Like this is perfect.

This is like such an ideal experience. Right? So I want everyone to think through what I just explained and like the drops that just happened. Right? Like I had these expectations. blocked out all this time, but they were able to get me through this experience really quickly and efficiently. But not in like a rushed way, but in a way that was like, man, they have their crap together.

And they were just putting all these deposits into this bucket to the point where I was wowed multiple times throughout the visit with just how well that went. Right? So as you're listening and you're thinking yourself, okay, like, do I have myself dialed in like that? Do we have? Things in place so that forms aren't a hold up in my business.

Like we're not filling out paperclips anymore and they're sitting there. Do we have communication with the team set up to the point where like, Hey, once something's finished, like once forms are done or like we're almost done, we're ready to rock and roll. Are we getting communication back to the doctor so that the second we're ready with any like pre appointment stuff the doctor's getting in there pretty quickly and it just seems like we have things dialed in like everyone knows where every patient is and everyone knows where it's supposed to be at the right time.

So that for sure that's like one of my suggestions is make sure you have those moments all dialed in down to just the small little things like what are they doing on their phone, when they're filling out the forms, what happens when the forms are complete, and then what happens once you get back to the back office.

Cool. I'm talking really fast, Michael. Any like questions

Michael: there? No, that's great. That's great. I like the, uh, the idea of, or the need to have your systems already built, right? Obviously. Yes. But then dialed in. Cause I feel like we built them and then we don't really review them or, you know what I mean?

They start providing some like holes in, but you don't go back and recheck them. You just start adding more things to the system, which will eventually fall apart. So make sure the systems

Steven: are dialed in. Yes. And I think a great way to do that. You know, sometimes the doctor wishes they could like secret shop, you know, and be a patient in their own practice, but have a family member or friend come in and just ask them before, like, Hey, will you just pay attention?

Like, what's it like to fill out the forms? And what's it, how long does it take to get back to the actual operatory where we talk with you and, and, and what's that whole experience like? And just ask a few people to give you feedback in the next couple of weeks. And I'm telling you, you'll uncover all sorts of little opportunities, right?

Oh, cool. Like we'll make a little tweak there. And that will help really improve this experience once again, because the goal here is we want to, we're going to earn trust in, in drops and we can lose trust in buckets. So let's make sure we've dialed things in there. Okay, cool. The second thing I'll give is when it comes to the actual way that we Remind patients.

So one of those things, one of these things happens in dentistry where a lot of folks fall through the crack. So, you know, I, I work for dental intelligence and we're always looking at numbers. So one cool stat that I always like to share is that, that, uh, only 49 percent of patients in the U. S. are scheduled to go back to see their dentist. So that means that like in general, everyone's got half of their patients just out there in the law land, not scheduled to come back. So two things there, one, that's a cool note from a marketing perspective. That means that you can steal away patients from another business because they're not scheduled there.

So they're not like really tethered or to write for your own business. It's like, Hey, I want to make sure I get those people. tethered to my business. And that next appointment, traditionally hygiene, is how we're going to really tether them to the business. So one of the cool things that, that you can do is you really should think through, like, how can I automate my recall system?

Right? So I think traditionally right now, still practices are printing off of a list from Open Dental or Dentrix or Eaglesoft of everyone that's due in the next like three, four weeks. But there are systems out there now where you can set it up to say, Hey, Every time it just automatically triggers every time I have a patient who's due for hygiene in the next, I don't know, say four weeks, let's shoot them a message with a link and a invitation to go ahead and schedule online for our business in our business.

And then let's hit them with up to and you can set this up like three messages or four messages or five messages. Everyone's system is a little different, but you can hit them with a series of messages and you can say run that. for the next like four weeks or six weeks. And then once it's done, if that automation has failed.

So, so patient gets a text message and says, Hey, like we miss you at Michael's dental or Steve's dental. And, uh, we'd love for you to come and schedule, come back, you know, click here to find an appointment time that's convenient for you. And if that automation fails, then go ahead and create like an automated task for a team member to follow up with that patient So there's a cool thing that you can do called the voicemail drop where you can record your own voicemail and then you can send it out to patients. And it sounds like you tried to call them, but you actually didn't.

And it just places a voicemail and the doctors decided to record a voicemail of themselves saying, Hey, you know, this is Dr. Steve. I noticed that you haven't been in to see our hygiene team for a long time. We miss you. We'd love to have you come back. you know, no need to call me back at this phone number.

Okay. But, you know, go ahead. My team will shoot a link here soon with a link to schedule or something like that, right? So they would send this personal touch and the patient would get a voicemail in their phone with this personal touch from the doctor. It's like, holy cow, like Dr. Michael misses me. Dr.

Steve misses me and like wants me to come back and those little things like that. have such a big impact on the drops that we're putting into our relationship buckets with the patient. Once again, we're trying to work up to this experience. We're going to ask for reviews and then everyone already knows is I'm sure someone's already said this in the series, but the first thing that everyone sees when a patient Google's dentist near me is they look at the stars.

Like that's the very first thing that they see. And if the stars aren't five, then they look at those first several reviews, right? Like what's good and what's bad. So those are going to impact in such a dramatic way people getting scheduled. So the reason why that even came to mind. So my mom calls me this last week. Uh, do you use B Real? Have you ever heard of that, Michael? B Real? Yeah, the social media app.

Michael: No, I've heard of it, but I

Steven: haven't like, uh, I'm not going to get into like an all pitch, but it's like, uh, it's like the anti Instagram where there's no filters.

It just gives you once a day, like it alerts you like, Hey, you got to take a picture now. And you take a picture and take a picture with your front camera, back camera. And so it's like very like raw life. And, uh, you can't look at the past. You can't scroll the past. It's just today. So me and a bunch of my family are on it.

So my mom calls me the other day because I took a picture at work and it had the front entrance of dental intelligence has our mission, which says it's our mission to make it more fulfilling to be a dental, practice team member and easier to be a patient. So my mom calls me and she's like, Hey, I saw your picture about how your software is trying to make it easier to be a patient and she's like, it totally does.

And she's like, so the dental practice I go to uses dental intelligence engagement, and she got like five reminders to go and schedule because she was fast due for hygiene. And she just didn't schedule, didn't schedule, didn't schedule. So the automation failed, but then a few weeks later, so this is like the day after that she called me.

A few weeks later, she's like, Hey, my tooth is hurting. And then immediately what came to her mind was, Oh yeah. Like the dentist has been texting me a million times. So she just went back in her text messages and found that thread, clicked on the link and got scheduled. Right. So that automation, even though like it failed, it did get to the point where like, In her mind, she had been hit so many times, she's like thinking about that dental practice and, uh, got them in.

That might be a tip for, you know, patients that don't convert on the phone for the new patient appointment. You might want to send them reminders to schedule two. Yeah, that's good. And then let me, and then, uh, to wrap up, so Really, you know, the conversation that I wanted to have today was more around, you know, how can we use technology to simplify some of those engagements with the patient and also to make sure that there's consistently a good experience because one of the one of the troubles that you have as you manage a team member is people are inconsistent.

Like, we wish that we were consistent, but we're not super consistent, right? Like, we've got bad days where we walk into that practice and we're like, I Don't want to be here and I don't love work and I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel. Like we all have those moments, right? Where like life's just kind of on a low and we have moments where we're on a high and we're like, man, like life's amazing.

And we look out at, you know, lakes and valleys and oceans and we're like, this place is beautiful. and, and we can't really control that as a practice owner, but what we can control are some of the systems that we put around our team and around our patients. And so for me, the thought was, Hey, let's add a little segment in this.

in this conversation about how we can use our systems to make sure that we're putting in consistent drops, it's scalable, it grows with our team, or it can create consistency with the team. And the three things that I thought were, let's put automation around like that forms an intake system and management while the patient's in the practice.

Let's consider how we can use Recall reminders and automate some of that stuff so that the patient is aware that we're, like, thinking about them and care about them. And then let's use a tool like a voicemail dropper, a recorded voicemail that we send to patients. You could even do something like that in an email, technically, too.

If you want to, like, hack this and be like, I'm just going to record something that says, Hey, this is Dr. Steve, I miss you. Well, then now you come back and you can send an email. that just catches them off guard, right? Something that they don't expect, that's where, like, you really can wow patients. And send out stuff like that to them.

And you can also do that with, like, post op instructions. You could use a voicemail drop, right? Like, Hey, this is Dr. Steve. No need to call me back. I just wanted to make sure that if you're experiencing any excessive pain or any of those symptoms I listed out on the post op instructions that, uh, you give me a call.

But if everything's good, like, just keep following the instructions my team gave to you. you know, thanks again for coming in today, something like that. And that will just really put in that extra, extra touch that patients are really looking for these days, right? Like there is for sure, great tools and automation, but they also want to feel like they're an actual human being.

And it's not just like some bot that they're engaging with the business.

Michael: Gotcha. So use that like the text messaging. Things like that with the links for automation to make sure, Hey, it can be quick, it's accessible for them, like your mom. But at the same time, but that personal touch in with the voicemail drops and well, even

Steven: the language you use in your appointment reminders, confirmations, like have fun with those, maybe I shouldn't say this, but I would just use like the standard thing that every company ships out.

Like there's a ton of companies that do that. Right. So switch it up give it a personal touch to your business and your practice that. Speaks more to the voice that you're trying to have with patients like those types of things people notice and maybe they won't notice necessarily like, Oh, wow, like, I really like the way he said that, but small little changes that feel personal start to add up in people's minds.

And it makes a difference as you do those.

Michael: Yeah, I like that, man. I like that a lot. Awesome, Stephen. I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly? They

Steven: can just reach out to my email sjensen at dentalintel. com. And I'm always happy to chat with people. Or if you want to like strategize, feel free to reach out to me. Love every chance I get to talk with docs. Awesome.

Michael: So guys, that's all going to be in the show notes below. So definitely go check that out. Reach out to Steve. Steve, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode.

For sure.

Steven: Thanks, Michael.

‍

Don't miss out on our upcoming live office hours on December 14th, 9:30 a.m. PST/12:30 p.m. EST, where we will delve into the tactics of ground marketing to Trader Joe's. You do NOT need to be a member of our ground marketing course to join, and this session will offer exclusive insights into scripts and strategies, plus a chance to interact directly with me. Click here to register and take your marketing game to the next level! https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0rbNohCiRHO18qnwGUE6Hg#/registration

‍

Guest: Paul EtchisonBusiness Name: Dental Practice HeroesCheck out Paul's Media:

Website: https://dentalpracticeheroes.com/

Dental Practice Heroes Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dental-practice-heroes-podcast/id1315253777

DPH OmniPractice Total Team Success Program: https://www.dentalpracticeheroes.com/offers/925o3Jgr/checkout

Other DPH Courses: https://dph.mykajabi.com/

‍Other Mentions and Links:

‍

Companies/Software: 

• Kajabi
• Trainual
• Trader Joe's
• Udemy Leadership Course

‍

People/Communities: 

• Amy C. Edmondson - Harvard University

‍

Podcast Episodes:

• 300: DR. PAUL ETCHISON | NELSON RIDGE FAMILY DENTAL
• MMM [INTERNAL MARKETING] SMALL DETAILS THAT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN TEAM COMMUNICATION
• "WHAT IS 1 THING YOU WISH YOU KNEW BEFORE YOU OPENED YOUR START-UP/ ACQUISITION?"
• 455: DR. PAUL ETCHISON | ACHIEVING PEACE OF MIND: EMBRACING DELEGATION FOR A HARMONIOUS DENTAL TEAM

‍

Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

‍

‍

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• How to establish truly effective leadership within a dental practice.
• Strategies for managing your team effectively and efficiently.
• The importance of creating a psychologically safe and healthy working environment for your team.
• How to delegate roles and responsibilities that best suit your team members.
• Implementing effective communication systems to foster seamless workflows.
• The first steps to transitioning responsibilities to your team for better office management.
• Dr. Etchison’s experience in specializing in only projects he loves and becoming a visionary for his practice.
• Learn how you can apply these strategies, regardless of the size or nature of your dental practice.

Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes!

[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

‍

p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

‍

‍

Are you looking to hit the ground running with powerful ground marketing strategies? Our ground marketing course offers a range of actionable steps utilizing local restaurants, gyms, corporate locations, and small businesses in your area! With step-by-step scripts, foolproof plans, and real-time video demonstrations, you'll master the art of effectively engaging with your local community to attract new patients effortlessly.

Click this link to join the community! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍

‍

In this week's episode, we're back with the direct mail genius, Aaron Boone, to unveil even more secrets from our upcoming course on targeted and effective direct mail marketing. With another sneak peek into the heart of the course, Aaron is giving you valuable insights on targeting strategies, neighborhood selection, and leveraging patient data for precision in your direct mail campaigns. Join us as Aaron delves into the intricacies of overcoming geographical barriers, sequencing mailings for maximum impact, and the strategic benefits of zoning in on specific areas. Plus, we explore the world of specialized mailings, understanding their potential and navigating the limitations of purchasing specialized lists.

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting, this episode promises to be a treasure trove of actionable strategies to elevate your direct mail game!

‍

You can reach out to Aaron Boone here:

Website: https://mvpmailhouse.com/

Email: [email protected]

Free Direct Mail Analysis and Heat Map: https://mvpmailhouse.com/demo/

‍

Mentions and Links:

Useful Terms:

• EDDM - Every Door Direct Mail

‍

If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

‍

Aaron: Okay, guys, here we go. So I take direct mail and I break it up into a few different segments and what we're going to do on this course is we're going to talk through on this first course here, about how to target, where to target, which homes do you mail to? And in subsequent courses, we will go into the actual design itself, what offers work best, what messaging colors, Size of card, all those kind of things, and then eventually into the tracking and matchback audit, so you have 100 percent ROI in your direct mail.

But let's start with the first one. Where, what audience, who responds to direct mail, all of those good things. So, I'm sharing here on my screen some of our proprietary software. Yes, this is a behind the scene look, so you can kind of see some of the software that we've built. To be able to better target homes for our offices now as a quick frame of reference here as i've worked with offices all across the country One of my favorite things to look at is actual patient data now follow me on this There's grand openings that obviously don't have any patients So you don't know where people are going to come from But one of the easiest ways to get your arms around a practice right off the bat to know where to mail Is by looking at your existing patients?

Where do they mail? So I've built software, what I call a heat map, to be able to better target your hottest neighborhoods. Where I've found, over a hundred million plus cards I've mailed, where I've found my best results, I know it sounds really simple, but it's targeting the neighbors in the neighborhoods of your existing patients.

Where do they live? Being able to target their neighbors. Now, let's talk about this a little bit. So you see here on my screen, this is just a little demo account here. Uh, you look outside here and I kinda put some radius rings just to give you an idea. Now most people have heard, oh, you want to target your patients within three to five miles.

Now, there is some truth to that, actually a lot of truth, but here's the problem. When people do direct mail or even digital marketing, What they do is they draw a big circle around their office, just like you see here on my screen, and they mail to all those homes. The problem is, especially when you get into more densely populated areas, uh, suburban areas, there's a lot of homes, and it's going to cost you a lot of money to hit all those.

And the other problem is, many of them won't respond. There's certain areas that will not respond to your marketing. So, let me show you what I mean. When, when a typical office comes in and says, hey, I want to do direct mail, here's where they start with. Let's look how many homes are around. Well, here in my data, or in my software that I built, if you were to look at 10 miles around this practice, there's actually 276, 000 homes.

There's no way you're going to be able to afford that many cards. So some people say, Oh, well, what if I shrink it down to just five miles? Okay, well, uh, even shrinking it down, you're still dealing with maybe a hundred thousand homes or 50, 000 homes. But the problem is they don't come in a perfect circle.

Patients do not come in a perfect circle. So why do you market in a perfect circle? What I'm getting at is if you really look at where the, this office's patients are coming from. You're going to find some significant geographical barriers as you start looking at rivers, lakes, interstates. All of these things will impact how patients come to your practice.

It's really interesting. So I've done literally thousands of these heat maps. And what I mean is I have an office jump into their existing practice management software and you run a quick new patient report. Just addresses. And instead of guessing where to mail, so for example, when an office typically comes to me, they'll say, hey, alright, I, I want to mail to these, uh, this, these homes.

This is 30, 000 homes. So a typical direct mail order would be three mailings of 10, 000 cards. Okay? So that's what this gray area represents. Looks pretty normal, right? It's kind of about a two and a half to three mile radius. The problem is, when I run their heat map, look where their patients are coming from.

So this particular office, had been mailing for years with very little to no results. Why? Because of these significant geographical barriers. So instead, I use this patient data and I'd create an area more like that, where patients are coming from. Don't fight geographical barriers, okay? Rule number one, you'll always be fighting them and you'll be really frustrated of why patients won't come to you from this perfect circle.

Okay, so for new practices, now you kind of have to use, uh, leverage of knowing, but here's a couple rules of thumb. Be conscientious of geographical barriers like rivers, lakes, interstates. Also, people tend to migrate towards cities. You can kind of see how all these patients come out here, but very few are willing to leave a city to come out to an office. so once we kind of look at the area here, I then break these up into digestible zones. So I recommend to have two or three zones of where you're mailing. So in this case, I took those 30, 000 homes and I broke them up into three groupings, or zones, or drops, however you want to call them. So mailing one would hit these 10, 000 homes in green, mailing two the next month in red, and the next month in blue.

Okay, so you have these different zones. Now, what kind results would you expect? Well, this is really interesting. I'm going to show you a screenshot of how I typically break it down and why I suggest mailing in this sequence. So, let me pull over here from my other screen here real quick. Kind of a quick little picture so you can kind of see what I mean.

But when I do these heat maps, proximity to practice is a huge criteria. Do not make the mistake that a lot of people make. They'll say, Oh, well I have a patient that drives 10 miles, 20 miles with direct mail. You do not want to chase onesies and twosies out here. You want to stick to your closest best homes.

Now, you can filter out neighborhoods based on income. if you don't accept state care, you can remove those lower income neighborhoods. but in general, uh, I like to remove, if you're not state care, I like to remove the lowest 10 to 20 percent of income levels. Boom. Take them out of the map and then we add the next best neighborhoods.

But results typically come like this. So here's an example of a heat map. So, think of it like rings, okay, a donut. So this first ring is going to be your number one ring. This is where you're always going to get your most patients at the highest rate. It's what I call your core area, let's say that represents about 10, 000 homes.

So people say, well, why don't you just mail to those areas? That's your best area. Now, it is an approach for certain offices. The problem is, If you're looking this at for a long term solution, if you just keep mailing to that first zone one right here in the middle in this ring, what's going to happen is you're going to get diminishing returns and over saturation.

So you want to be able to work it around. This next ring is your second best responding area. And then this outer ring is kind of hopeful, more risk, I guess I should say. Because you're getting further away from your practice. And now you've opened yourself up to more competition, greater distance to travel, and all those things matter for patient flow.

Okay? So, understand this. The reason why I like mailing in this sequence, with one, two, three, or just like this example here, is if you hit mailing one to all of these red homes, well, almost a third of them are in your A plus area, the other third is in your B, and C. So you're going to get a good combination of results from your best, second best, and third best.

Then month two, let's say, you go to your green, same thing. You're going to have some core area, a little bit of the necks, and then some stretch area. And same for the blue. So you can kind of get an idea of why I like that home. Now, if you're looking for a temporary, just quick fix, and you don't plan on doing this very long, maybe just one, two, three months, for sure, I would recommend hitting just a bullseye of those closest best homes. and then you could be done if you're looking for a long term solution. Sequencing is really important and it's something that I can kind of talk through. It's different for every office, but it's something to be conscientious from. The reason why I like three zones is it gives you a nice seasonal message.

So, for example, you could mail January, February, March, New Year's message to all of them. renewed benefits, tax returns, that kind of stuff. Then, well, you're going to get used to getting more new patients, and you're going to want to keep getting them, right? So, instead of not mailing, you come back to Zone 1, and you mail there, and now you're in April, May, June, July, August, September.

So, even if you mail every month of the year, you are only going to hit the same home once every quarter, and you have a new design and a new message when you hit them. So, It absolutely can continue without getting any diminishing returns. In fact, I have offices that have mailed literally every single month for years, and the results get better, if anything, rather than drop off.

Because what happens is you start to get, repetition. And you always hear the importance of repetition in marketing. Okay? Now, um, I also need to sell results. I want it to work. So the better sequencing you can put in place, the better results you're going to get. Sometimes if you just hit the same area, you'll get a big spike in the beginning, But then results start to drip off because you're getting over saturation or diminishing returns I recommend to always change the message as you come to the home.

So it's always current So this is kind of a funny card they did specifically around the holidays or in during the winter But then in spring you want a spring card back to school card So keep your designs and i'll talk about that in the next segment. But in short This is what is basically like a carrier route method.

So if you're doing EDDM, I personally don't like EDDM, although it saves a couple pennies in postage, you're limited in what you can do. So for example, with the postage I use, I can hit these green homes, and I can actually take out your patients. So your patients don't get the mail, but all of their neighbors do.

Hopefully that makes sense. It's really important, especially if you're running an aggressive offer. You don't want your existing patients to get this if you're running an aggressive offer. Well, the postage that I use, I can take those out. So, anyway, you, EDDM people out there, you're do it yourselfers, hopefully this can help you.

Um, I also like to track each mailing individually with its own tracking phone number. So I know exactly how well, how well January does here compared to February compared to March. So anyway, that is kind of an initial approach. Now, there's a lot of things behind these scenes that we can dive into and you should also.

You don't have to just blank it. If you want a more specialized mailing to specific neighborhoods, well, there is, you know, my software makes it really easy. I can dive right in here. I have these built right into actual postage routes. so for example, if I have your, uh, your heat map here, I can literally tell this office exactly where their highest market share is.

They have 79 households, 119 patients in that little zone right there. 106, 000 in production. So, I've built some really cool tools that help you actually dive into this. where I can literally mail to just your highest producing neighborhood, okay? I can also target just new mover areas. So there's a lot of variables you can do nowadays with direct mail.

So, gone are the days, the old days, where you used to have to mail to the entire zip code or entire city. You can literally get pretty granule diving right into these hottest neighborhoods. Now, one thing here before I wrap up this segment. Oftentimes, like a pediatric practice or an orthodontic office will ask me, Hey Aaron, can I buy a list and only mail to homes with a 2 to 8 year old, let's say.

Oh, and by the way, I want to make sure that home has an average income of 80, 000 or more. Sounds good, you guys have heard that, right? Oh, let's only mail to homes with kids. Sounds great for pediatric practice. Here's the problem, and I've tracked tons of these mailings. Yes, there are such lists. The problem is they're never that accurate.

Follow me on this. When was the last time someone knocked on your door and said, Hey, Dr. Smith, do you have a four year old living here? And by the way, how much money do you make? Right? It doesn't happen. Okay, now there are lists out there. There's actually a creepy amount of data out there about all of us and about our homes and our neighborhoods.

But when I buy that list, one, it costs more money than mailing to a neighborhood as a whole. Two, increased postage. Because now instead of mailing to these colors like you see, Imagine if you were just mailing to those drops. Let's say these pin drops are, just homes on that list. They have a, a four-year-old or five-year-old or whatever.

So the problem is these lists just aren't that accurate and you get a lot of return mail too. anyway, hopefully that helps. So there's a specialized list mailing where you only mail to, let's say, 5, 000 homes with a certain criteria.

Like I said, you're typically going to expand about 12 to 15 cents more. The problem is when I track it, meaning listening to every recording, tracking the results, I rarely get better results. I found it better because it's less postage, closer to target a neighborhood as a whole. rather than, uh, individual homes.

Okay? But a lot of that depends on where this is. Now, occasionally I will recommend a specialized mailing. Let's say I get this patient list that you're seeing right here and there's no rhyme or reason of where patients are coming from. They're kind of scattered all over. I typically see that for specialty practices.

If that's the case, then yes, I would recommend exploring a specialty list. Finding a list of only homes that have a 60 year old person or older if you're targeting a certain demographic or only homes with these children that we talked about. Most cases, nine times out of 10 when you do a heat map, it is going to be very telling of where you should target.

I've done these heat maps for, practices all across the country for, from DSOs to small, uh, groups. And you're going to find it really interesting where they're coming from. So, anyway, I hope that helps kind of put together a plan. Happy to answer, expand a little more on different questions. Multi zones is the way to go because you can rotate areas and you can consistently get new patients every month.

Rather than just a band aid fix. Keep it growing and keep those patients coming in. Be selective. You can target certain routes, carrier routes, or neighborhoods, however you want to look at it. But target the best ones. Remember the geographical barriers of entry as a recap. Okay, thanks. I hope this was helpful, and I look forward to talking to you on the next segment.

Thank you.

‍

Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Darkhorse Tech, your go-to Dental-driven IT solutions company!
‍‍‍
Picture this: You're running a dental practice, and your patients' trust and data are your top priority. Enter Darkhorse Tech, the guardians of your patients' information, the solution to your IT headaches, and the force behind your seamless tech integrations.

Your practice deserves the best, and Darkhorse Tech delivers.

Click this link for an exclusive offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkhorse-deal/AND if you're listening before November 27th, 2023, take advantage of their Black Friday deal! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkorse-black-friday-deal/

‍

Guest: Reuben KampBusiness Name: Darkhorse TechCheck out Reuben's Media:

Website: https://www.darkhorsetech.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DarkhorseTech

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/darkhorsetech/

Email: [email protected]

‍

Other Mentions and Links:

‍

Companies/Software: 

• Benco
• Open Dental
• Microsoft Azure
• Flex
• Mango
• Dentrix Ascend
• Eaglesoft
• CareStack
• Oryx
• Archy
• DEXIS
• Carestream

‍

Useful Terms: 

• DHCP - service that hands out IP addresses
• DNS - how devices resolve internet addresses
• Gateway - how you get to the internet
• HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

‍

People/Communities: 

• Howard Farran (podcaster + blogger)‍
• Dentistry Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran (podcast)‍
• Dental Town (blog/website/community)

‍

Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

‍

‍

My Key Takeaways:

• I'm moving to cloud based software. Do I still need IT support?
• How to spot out IT companies that may be dishonest.
• How does your IT company help with HIPAA compliance?
• The basics on IT with firewalls, antivirus, and internet connectivity. Why do we need reliable options for these?
• Why the D.I.Y. mentality is often not the right call with your IT solutions.

‍
Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

‍

p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guests. Beloved person. Everybody adores him. Ruben Camp. How's

Reuben: it going, man? You know how hard it is to be beloved and an IT guy at the same time. So, I'm doing great. Thanks, Michael. I've been doing this 11 years and just happy to be talking to you today.

Michael: No, man. We appreciate it. We appreciate everything you're doing. I know you guys have, um, done a lot for the dental community, also startup community as well. Just practices in general. Um, at the same time, this is not your first episode with us. You've been with us, you've guided us through some processes.

And at the same time, we're going to answer some of the most major questions today. But before we do that, if you can kind of give us a gist or a rundown, been doing this for

Reuben: 11 years. That's right. Well, this is in Dark Horse. Um, Dark Horse is something that I started. It was, it was just me, you know, back in 2012.

And, uh, we we've grown throughout the years. We got about 65 employees, about 1000 clients, uh, that are in the dental space. That's pretty much all we focus on is dental. So, uh, how I got into that is I used to be a Benco technician. So I used to do corporate it for, you know, the bad guys and, uh, you know, they really love selling birds and bibs and all that stuff.

But it was kind of an afterthought. So I really wanted to. Um, you know, start a company where service was the, uh, the main forward, not selling consumables. So, Mm-Hmm. Uh, other Interesting. My dad was a dentist. That's how I got into this industry. I think everyone has a really interesting path about how you found dental.

I know you do Michael as well. Right? We all kind of get dragged in somehow. Yeah. Um, you know, went to school, uh, at Chapel Hill to, to be a dentist and decided I didn't wanna do that. So, uh, yeah. Benco dark horse. Here we are. So you

Michael: left Benco mainly because you were not seeing what you wanted to see, or what was the reason?

Reuben: Yeah. So, I mean, there are a sales. Company first, right? So they're, you know, all the meetings and all the messaging and everything like that. It was, it was about how do we sell more product? How do we sell more CBCTs? How do we, you know, get more accounts and sell them consumables? You know, I call it burrs, bibs and everything else.

and they had I. T. Because you know what? They didn't want shine or Patterson to be in that office. they almost like they had I. T. As a defensive mechanism, but not as like a core, something that they were putting a lot of resources in to develop. So, you know, I'm very passionate about what I do, uh, customer service and dental.

That's kind of like, that's my niche. So, you know, let's say if Benco was 80, 20 sales to service, right? We have three people in sales out of 65 people. So you can see just by the demographics of our, you know, how we're made up. Most of our people are in places to support our clients, not to sell, you know, to shove something down their throat.

So that was very important to me just as a service technician that started a company versus You know, we have a lot of competitors out there that have just either, you know, either bought an IT company and they're just trying to squeeze it for profits or, you know, someone who does not understand customer service, but hey, they're really good at a P& L statement.

Yeah, yeah.

Michael: Did you specialize that in Chapel Hill IT?

Reuben: No, I had biochemistry because I was, uh, that's pre dental based. Anything that's in the sciences basically is pre dental. So that's, uh, computers. that's just been kind of my thing for, you know, for as long as I can remember, you know, nine, 10, 12, got into building computers and fixing them and started a company in high school called it's good computer solutions with and we run around and.

Anybody that knows Ithaca, it's Cornell. So we fix it in Cornell professors at all hours of the day. And anyway, so it's just kind of been a passion self taught passion

Michael: of mine. Yeah. Cause I was going to ask you out of all the. Things you were doing in Benco. Why did you pick to hone in on IT?

Reuben: Uh, for that solution?

You know, they wanted me to be a dual trained tech, right? They wanted me not only to go into an office install a computer system, sensors mount a CVCT, calibrate it, do all that stuff. But they were like, you know it would be really great if while you're there someone's, you know Cuspidor doesn't work if you could also be crushing on the mechanicals, you know, suction, all that stuff, you know, amalgam separators.

And I was, uh, I was just so, I was so talented at the I. T. side of things that I never really got that opportunity to learn on it. And that's fine because that's not really a passion of mine. Um, You know, those, those systems are kind of gross. What goes down the drain when they get clogged up. Uh, so, uh, there's some very talented, we call them core service technicians, right?

The core equipment in the office. and we'll leave it up to the professionals, but,

Michael: Gotcha. Okay, man. Interesting. So then fast forward, you started Dark Horse Tech and this is where you're at now. Now, I know we're going to kind of talk about, and let's kind of jump into that if we can. A lot of people do have.

Open dental, right? and so break it down to me. What are the confusions when it comes to having that and then I.

Reuben: T. Absolutely. So kind of how we got here is, you know, dark horse version 1. 0 was we were a small regional upstate New York company. I mean, it's good. New York, small town, 30, 000 people, 30, 000 college students.

And, you know, that was the old way of doing things. And then, you know, we got a break and Howard for and hired me. And Howard was in Phoenix, so that was our first, I can't drive to your office, right? And we nailed it. he was running Open Dental, in his office. And that really gave us the confidence, uh, and exposure, right?

Went on his podcast, got a, got a forum to, introduce myself to the dental community, which at that time was still. Dental town now about a year after that interview, it's like everyone fled to Facebook groups and then I followed, them over there. so dark horse version 2. 0 is not just, you know, we're five minutes from your office.

It's. Hey, we're dental specific. That's our edge. If you're in Hawaii, if you're in Alaska, if you're in rural Nebraska, we'll support you. No problem. You know, we'll make it work. And Dark Horse version 3. 0 has been cloud. Right? So, and that's kind of where we're segwaying in here today. Is open dentals, you know, great company.

They're well known for their customer service. That's what I care about. Right? So when you hear me singing companies phrases, that means when you pick up the phone and call them, they treat you well, and they solve your problem. so we've always loved open dental. and so the confusion has come up just recently.

So cloud. Open that up. There's two versions. There's the one you just that everyone pretty much has right now, which is you call them up. You buy a license key and you put it on your server. And right. It's a local system. And then there is. Open Dental's internal cloud offering, like literally they hosted at their HQ in Oregon, and that is a separate version.

So there are only 2 versions of Open Dental. However, this is where the confusion comes in, like professionals like us, right? We use Microsoft and Azure as their cloud platform. We take the first version, the normal version, the one that works with, you know, Flex and Mango and Medento and Swell, all your third party integrations.

We take the one that you've been running on your local server, and we put it in the cloud. So same version, integrations all work. that's still version 1. Version 2 is the one that OpenNL offers, and they have a pricing sheet online that you can look at, but it does not have integrations with third party.

Which is tough for me because that's when I hear feedback about OpenDental, the products, right, the support's great, but people really love using all the third party integrations and they love the ability to switch, right? If something's not working for them, uh, there's nine other paperless companies you can go to, right?

Um, you know, or like, you know, Flex is a great example, right? Flex is only written for OpenDental. And they do a really good job of what they do, right? Does not exist in any other practice management software. Cannot, cannot replicate it. But let's say the owner general manager flex pissed you off. You can switch software.

So you can't do that with any other platform out there. So to break it down really simply. There's the off the shelf open dental, and that's the one that, you know, that we're in large part supporting putting in the cloud, um, creating awesome solutions for single practices, multi site practices and D.

S. O. S. And then there's the internal open dental cloud offering. We honestly across our, you know, we have right now 1050 clients. We have zero people on that second version. So Mhm. that is where most of the confusion has come in the space when you try to have a conversation like over Facebook, over text. It's really hard to parse that out, and then when people call Open Dental, it gets even more confusing. Really?

Michael: Okay. let me ask you, when it comes to cloud, do you still need IT for that? You still need

Reuben: IT. So, HIPAA compliance are just, they're linked together, right? It's just like, alright, you read the, you know, what you need to do to, you know, to protect your patient's health information.

Need to have a firewall? That doesn't go away. Uh, you need to have the antivirus software that does not go away. you need to have a backup system that does go away as long as you don't have 3D images, right? Those don't go to the cloud yet. Those stay local, right? this is something that a conversation needs to happen.

It's really hard for me to like text somebody back and forth and explain all this. I'm glad this podcast exists because I can now cite it. Like, hey, before you even talk to me, listen to our conversation here. IT is absolutely reduced by going to Open Dental Cloud. Again, the first one, the off the shelf one I'm talking about, it is not erased, right?

Michael: Open Dental will help you with Open Dental. Anything else in your practice, printers, security cameras, internal cameras, sensors, CVCTs, PCI compliance, all that is, is traditionally still on the company. Gotcha. Okay. So then what are the frustrations when trying to explain this then I guess, do people still understand it or they're more like.

What,

Reuben: you know, it's I. T. there's like, I can't give my full explanation because it crosses the border into I. T. jargon and the three letter, you know, acronyms start coming out and everyone's lost. So what we typically do we share our screen, right? We say, Hey, this is exactly how it's going to work on your office.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, take the example of somebody that is on a server based open dental solution. Right now. We say, hey, you know what? It's the same version. We're going to put it in the cloud. Your staff is going to walk in the morning. They're going to see an open dental icon. They're double click on it and they're not even going to know what's in the cloud.

Execution is actually very simple, right? from the customer's point of view, right? There's some expertise that goes into, migrating to the clouds, you know, getting the cloud server where it needs to be security. All that stuff takes technical expertise, but the staff walking in the morning, double clicking on open dental that does not change.

So, um, that's why it's been such a successful implementation is because it's like it's still open dental that people know and love. Uh, it's just not on a local server in your office. And, you know, historically, the cloud has been slower, right? But with Microsoft's, you know, recent introduction of a couple of different protocols that are again, here comes the three letter acronyms.

RDP is now AVD, which as a virtual desktop, we're seeing now that the cloud is faster than a local server. So it's not only that it's it's 2023. Of course, this should be in the cloud, is actually, just as fast or even faster than a local server. So it's, uh, you know, a really great time to talk about.

This is when you're looking to replace your server. It's like, hey, do you want to, you know, do you want to write a check every 5 years? Right? And maintain that hardware. And when you replace it, there's downtime to transfer it, or you go to the cloud. You know, it's a really great time to, to talk to your IT company about, um, options.

So you don't have to buy one time, part of our cost.

Michael: Gotcha. So then it's easy. I guess, how often should you replace the server then? And then what really does cloud based I guess servers or softwares kind of cover, right? If you were to give us like bullet points of this is what it covers easily. Boom. And then how often should we replace the server?

You're like, Nope, I'm still sticking with what I know. Trying to

Reuben: servers five to seven years is a pretty safe, um, window of time, right? It is. If your server goes down, that means your patients are waiting. So, that is not worth something cheaping out on, right? It's kind of the brains of the operation.

Now, if you go to the cloud now, you don't have to work at hardware anymore, right? And you look at Microsoft's data the industry. This is this is true for voiceover I. P. As it is for any cloud service. They talk about nines, right? They talk about what is your uptime? How many nines are there past the 99 percent point, right?

And Microsoft has four nines. So that means you have about a minute and a half downtime a year. I've never seen it go down, but technically I guess it's gone down for a minute and a half on average every year. 99. 9999 percent uptime, which cannot be replicated at all by a local because all these services, you have Amazon, you have Google, you have Microsoft, just to name three.

There's competition part, you know, the cost of storage is going down. The cost of servers is going down. It used to be, it didn't make a lot of sense for a single practice to go cloud, uh, only for multi site and now it's just, everyone should go cloud because it's, more cost effective. Hmm.

Michael: So that's the key most cost effective then, right?

Especially if people are trying to. Gotcha. Okay. So then going with that to you, Ruben, because you've, you've worked with hundreds of practices or you are working with hundreds of practices.

Reuben: Hundreds of practices that use Open Dental and more, you know, more practices that use Dentrix and Eaglesoft and CareStack and Oryx and all those software.

So, you know, I, I see the entire industry. We're kind of focusing here on Open Dental, but, um, I mean, Open Dental, it's no secret is, My favorite software, I don't know if I've still ever seen a negative comment about open dental.

Michael: So then to you, what would be, if you're trying to be super cost.

Effective, but efficient to start off, what would it be the best kind of like formula or stack to use for this?

Reuben: So it all goes to fit, right? What makes, if we're, we're saying everything is equal, it's an easy answer. Right. but the problem is certain softwares are better suited for dentists. Right.

There's, of course, the feature set standpoint, and you can only find this out by talking to these companies and doing demos. Is this going to work for my practice and how I manage and bill and all that stuff? Um, you know, and the other side of this is you want? Do you want something that's all inclusive, right?

Let's let's take dentrics ascend. Uh, for example, you pay a higher bill, right? Then you would pay to open down, but you get every single service that you could want. The problem is you have to use all those services, right? There is no alternative. if you're a dentist that wants to use the best software, that's why open dental still exists, right?

It may look, it's from like, it's from the 1990s and they haven't updated it, but you know, what makes it so powerful is. honestly, it's like the app store on, on Apple, right? It's a, it's a great phone, but you know, what's great about it? The app store, you can download whatever you want.

It's got the best ecosystem out there. So you go into open now and you're like, you know, flex is a really great example. that program alone It's just so incredibly powerful, right? You don't have those options with an all inclusive software, but maybe you're a dentist and you're just like, you know, I don't want to worry about having to sign up for Open Dental and then Flex and then, you know, Practice by Numbers and then Mango Voice.

I don't want to have to do all that. Right. Which is, you know, why companies like Archie exists because they'll, they'll say, Hey, we'll give you practice management. We'll give you phones through mango. It's included in your bill. We'll give you patient communication. We'll give you all this stuff. So you kind of have to ask the question of what kind of person are you?

Are you justlet me sign up for 1 thing and I'll just use whatever they have. Or do you want to be able to be like. I want to work with the best, patient communication company. I want to work with the best clearinghouse. I want to work with the best, patient portal company, credit card company.

That's who I am. That's what a lot of dentists are out there. I mean, Open Dental is still the number one software for startups. Um, when we see people have all the choice in the world, Open Dental is still being... over 50 percent of start up practices are still going open nettle. and that's why, it's more of an ease, uh, question, right? Single pane of glass, it's all here. Freedom of choice is on the other

Michael: side. Gotcha. So one is more like all one subscription type. Yeah, like for example, like Oryx, right? If you were to just go with Oryx, all in one, exclusive, you know what I mean?

Inclusive everything,

Reuben: I'm going to get Oryx, uh, and I'm going to get phones. I'm done. Yeah.

Michael: It's easy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But if you want the, like the other side, right? The freedom to choose.

Reuben: So we have opened 400 startups. I've talked to most of these people and then, even, even more people, right.

Because the ones that didn't go with us. Right. I, and I hear their story. And like, I think the reason Open Dental is appealing. Is because, let's go back to the 2012, you know, I'm leaving Benco, I'm risking, that's, that's a health insurance for our family that's half the income for our family and I'm leaving with nothing and I'm saying, like, you know, I have a dream to create a great it company and I'm, I'm going for it.

Right. and that's who the startup people are, plus a million and a half dollars in debt, which I do not have. that's a whole nother layer. So, you know, when you talk to these people, they're like, this is my dream practice. I want it to be freaking awesome, right? And I'm not sure those companies can, can meet that standard, right?

They're, they're trying to be the jack of all trades. because when you peel back the layer. You know, let's again, just let's go back to Ascend. That's like 10 different companies, right? They've stitched the software all together to make it all look and feel like a cohesive interface.

But the practice management module is different than the image, right? That's a separate software, right? So you're talking about one company who's trying to develop and, you know, and push forward 10 different platforms. It's really hard to do, right? And it's one reason why we're like, Hey, mango, do your thing.

Just frickin nail the phones, right? And a lot of I. T. companies do do phones. We just feel like it distracts from our core purpose, which is like. All right, we're going to be awesome at support. We're gonna be awesome at startups, which is basically support as well, you know, and we're gonna be great at the cloud, right?

let's just focus on these three things. That is our competitive advantage. When you try to broaden in any segment, I mean, Dennis probably know this from trying to bring in, let's bring in ortho, let's bring in oral surgery in house, and you try to be A plus at all these different things, it's really hard.

It's the same thing with software companies. Everything in the startup, it's a conversation. I listen to what people want and, you know, anytime they're just like, this has to work. I want this practice to be the, you know, the best patient experience. It can be it usually inevitably points to, to a single software company.

Michael: Yeah. Okay, cool, man. That's awesome. And then, so with that kind of being said, I know cost kind of comes in the mind. That's the question that a lot of people really ask is how can they start cutting down on their I. T. or how can they minimize that I. T. bill or have you seen this? Where people are like, Hey, I just got like new fees on my it bill or something like that.

What, what is up with that?

Reuben: The new fees thing? Uh, well, I mean, if you add computers, it just depends how your IT is set up, right? there's. Uh, on the back end, I can tell you, as somebody who runs an I. T. company, we get charged per device, right? So it's natural for your I. T. company to then bill you. It's the fairest way to do it.

We get charged for ten, you know, antivirus agents. You have nine servers, nine workstations and a server. That's ten. Lines up. So usually when you see I. T. bills go up office ads, a computer office ads, email services. It's, it's stuff like that. I mean, unless you're just working with, you know, shady folks that just move numbers, you don't notice, um, you know, we do price increases, uh, annually because we give our staff raises.

Guess where the price increase comes from. what we hear from our clients, we want to work with the same people again and again. That's retention. And that means you got to give people a reason to stay here. Besides like, Hey. You like ribbon, you should stay here, but usually that means promotions and raises and all that good stuff.

let's pivot to how do you cut down on IT costs, right? not someone who is, let's say, there's a lot of IT companies out there that prevent their clients from going to the cloud because they so fear, like, oh no, it's not ready yet, it can't do what you want to do. But they're really protecting their butts, right?

They're like, oh, my client goes to the cloud. I'm going to lose revenue. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how to lose IT companies revenue. so think about, any software out there. Dentrix. Uh, Eaglesoft open, right? We have a server uh, we have to back up that server and the office says, you know what?

If that server goes down, I don't wanna be downed at all. Alright? So then we need a backup and disaster recovery system. So when we go cloud, let's just make it very, very simple. Let's leave three D out of it. Let's, let's treat it like it's a pediatric office and everything is two d imaging.

I'll pick on Oryx for now, right? I know it's a good partner of ours. I know Rania. I love the products. When you go, or let's say you're on Open Dental and DEXIS imaging locally, you go Oryx, what goes away on the IT side? Well, I don't have to manage your server anymore. That is one of the highest costs on there.

That goes away. I don't have to back up that server that I'm not managing anymore. So that goes away. So what does that leave? That leaves how much support you want, right? And so that's either you pay as needed or you want unlimited support for your practice. A firewall that is still a HIPAA requirement in antivirus software.

I'm just trying to keep it as simple as possible, like there's patch management and all this stuff you have to keep your computers up to date that should, go along with the antivirus and all that stuff. But, some big stuff comes off, but you still have a lot of requirements, and things to protect on the network.

Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. So the requirements still stay, but now when you say the biggest expense, which is the servers, right? That kind of comes off, how much are we looking to shave off when that happens?

Reuben: Yeah, so I mean, I can only talk about myself. Right. And our company. so again, the two biggest costs are support.

Let's say you're paying for unlimited support. We call that our gold plan, right? Unlimited phone support and server management. So let's say an office is on a 600 a month plan with us unlimited support, and they go to a cloud based agreement. You could be looking at 150 a month in savings. Okay,

Michael: but server management, right?

Or the

Reuben: server? Server, yeah, the server in the backup system going away, you could go down to 450.

Michael: Okay, but everything else, the bare bones requirement.

Reuben: Percent savings.

Michael: So when it comes to like the, let's just say they did that and they went with the works, they did all that and they're like, Ruben, help me out here, man.

Like I need, give me the bare bones that what we can do. How does that look? And, and is that feasible for the long run? And they're like, I want to grow,

Reuben: but give me the bare bones. Well, depends on how much your staff calls in, right? If your staff doesn't call in. You should be on a bare bones plan, right?

You shouldn't be on just like, Hey, cover me for HIPAA compliance, cybersecurity, make sure I don't get hacked. Let's go. the thing is most of our clients call in, they use the service they pay for. So it's, it's completely up to the client. I think it's a really. Smart decision as, uh, as a business owner, not to put a barrier between your staff needing help and like, Oh, you know, Dr.

Clark's going to get a bill. If I pick up the phone, right? Things are broken. Your staff doesn't hesitate. It gets fixed done, right? That's the stuff that, you know, the dentist doesn't see while they're in the treatment room is like, you know, the scanner doesn't work. So your staff is so much less efficient because they had to, you know, create a workaround.

Right. Because they know if they call, you know, Dr. Clarkson and get you know, bill in the mail 10 days from now, he's going to be like, Hey, Nancy, what the heck? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. You know, it's uh, you know, And

Michael: I feel like that kind of creates like more, uh, you're scared. You won't even tell the doctor, you know what I mean?

You're like, oops, I pray, tell her you'll lie about it or something, right? In order to not feel, you're creating some type of weird environment in your office when you do that. Right,

Reuben: right. I can't imagine how much stuff. Wouldn't get done if I was the bottleneck at my company, it's like, Oh, no, we can't reach out to that company until Ruben approves it.

It's like, Oh, my God, I wouldn't get anything done. Um, but to answer your question, like, if you, let's say it's a, it's a medium or sized or smaller office. You stripped out the unlimited service and you're just like, Hey, I'm going to Oryx and I want no frills, right? Just give me, compliant and protected.

You could easily be in the 200 to 300 range. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: But the unlimited, like give me an example, like why, or from your experience, if you can give me like the top three, why does staff call in a lot? Let me

Reuben: just pull up our service board right now and just list off what people calling about your PCS compliance scan a

PCI compliance scan, it's a test for I. T. Professionals. It's like, you know, what settings do you have on on your firewall? Do you have antivirus software? When were the last? So it's basically a test for I. T. People. That's a really great thing to offload to us because that thing takes like 30 minutes to complete.

Right? questionnaire and then you have to schedule the scan. You have to know your internal IP address that spectrum gave you to run. Anyway, uh, that's one example. let's see. Questions about switching a panoramic PC to server PC. So this office, they have a imaging database on their pan PC and they want to.

They want to talk to us about what it would take to move that to the server PC to consolidate that, um, create remote access, right? That's something that's included with all of our plans. Great remote access for, my new remote employee, uh, so that they can log into a lab computer, let's see, install remixes on computers that were just installed, uh, by the office.

uh, workstation two cannot print, create new windows user on consultation computer. and then, oh, this one's great. Uh, shout out to Becky Scott from Lincoln Children's Dentistry. Help my son get fortnight to work on our office Wi Fi. So, you

guys, you guys cover all kinds of help my son get fortnight to work.Yeah, I mean, there's... You cover everything. IT companies, uh, you know, we're, again, we're dental specific. We coach our people to call us on anything. There's, there's really two setups. There is the like IT company that say, Hey, that's a vendor problem. You need to call them directly. And then there's us, right.

And, and some other really good companies in the space who have vendor management built in, and that's the expectation that like your staff. Is taking care of patients. They're not like waiting on hold with Carestream or, you know, gen X or Dexus, you know, they're, they gotta take care of patients. Like, yeah, wait on hold while, you know, while we're, you know, working at home or, or at hq.

So, but

Michael: that, I, I think that's really good to have though, because I feel like, uh, a lot of the times you waste time looking for it, right? When we can just go to you and then you give us the solution. Hey, it's a vendor, Hey, it's this. And so I'm sure you've heard of this a lot, and this is a question when I asked and the Dental Market Society Facebook group, like in other places, they send us this one a lot, uh, when VoIP, right?

So they're saying kind of like we're having an issue with our phones and then VoIP says there is no issue or it can be any other vendor, right? That says there is no issue on our end. So then it falls back on you or what, what happens there?

Reuben: Yeah. So, you know, in the example of the bad it company that says call your vendor, you're stuck in the middle as the client, that's the worst, you know, you feel helpless, kind of feel a little pissed off and you're like, what, and so our clients never have to feel like that anymore because we're just, we are them.

In that scenario, we're hunting down the solution the ticket will not get closed until the issue is resolved. So let's talk about voiceover IP, right? A lot of, you know, a lot of people that is the standard. Now, of course, you should have it. It's really great if you have a hybrid, you want to offer jobs that are hybrid or even full remote, right?

Voiceover IP is like the only way to pull that off. So you install your new phone system and you're having call quality issues. the number one most likely culprit is going to be your firewall. Okay, so if the phone company says, Hey, our servers are great. Everything looks really good until it hits your office.

And so let's assume they're right. Yeah, you know, let's assume AWS is not having an issue. Firewall is gonna be number one. Internet quality is going to be number two. And number three is going to be the device that controls your network. Sometimes that's the server. Sometimes that's the firewall. But basically, you know, my, when you, when you go to Starbucks and you join the wifi, you're getting an IP address from something, right?

You're not just, just magically connecting to the internet. Something is handing you an address. Okay, so those are the three things that again, if you have an I. T. Company, they're going to be able to diagnose that stuff pretty quickly. They're going to be able to run, let's say, in the Internet stability.

They're going to be able to run a ping test. Let's say you spectrum. They can see is your Internet like a D. C. Current. Is it just flat? Or is it like, is it just Jerry? And it's all over the place. You know, voice needs a very, consistent connection to work well, not a lot of traffic, but just needs a stable connection.

Firewall. Well, if you just leave the firewall stock unconfigured, it's just going to be constantly scanning that phone traffic, and then you're going to call quality issues. So, what we do is after the office let's say they get mango, they plug their, uh, yelling phones in, they show up on the network.

we do a couple different things, but just to keep it simple, we whitelist them, right? we tell the firewall. These devices are safe. Don't hammer them. Right? Don't constantly bombard them with internal threat protection stuff. there's a couple other tips and tricks you could do, but it's more kind of for your, your I.

T than like a D. I. Y. Stuff. So we won't talk about that. Yeah. And then there's the device that hands out I. P. Addresses. Right? So you could be out of I. P. Addresses, right? You have such a large office. You've maxed out. You plug that phone in. It doesn't even connect to the Internet. you could have I. P.

Address conflicts, right? So, uh, you let's say, the phone's working great. You connect your laptop, That router gives, uh, your laptop the same address as the phone. One of those devices is going to win. Okay, uh huh. Right, so there could be an IP address conflict. Um, and I'll just throw out some, some other words if people are taking notes here and they're going to send it to their IT company.

DHCP, that's what, that's the service that hands out IP addresses. DNS, that's how devices resolve internet addresses, right? Google. com is actually 8. 8. 8. 8. Okay, right. So when you type in google. com, it's touching a DNS server and it's saying, what is this? And it goes, Oh yeah, that's 8. Of course. Well, here you go.

You don't know that's happening, but DHCP, DNS, and lastly, gateway. Gateway is just how you get to the internet. So I know that's, that's a lot of technical jargon, but you know, for the, for those of you who are DIY er, like furiously writing your, your IT company to email right now, just put all those words in there.

Michael: Wait, quick question, leaving firewall stock? What does that mean? Like you said, if you just leave your firewall stock.

Reuben: Okay. So let's say you get a firewall. Plug it in out of the box. You don't do anything. All right. What you're going, you're going to have phone issues. You're going to have issues with anything that is internal that needs to broadcast external.

Okay. So think, think about. Open dental e services thing about, credit card, right? You have a credit card reader that thing needs to authenticate their credit card and come back if you leave it stock. It's going to turn off access to all of these devices that you rely on your practice to work on. Now, it's not going to not work 100 percent of the time.

but these are the things that your I. T. commission should be doing. They should be whitelisting these known good devices. Um, so there are no issues and you don't have to worry about this stuff at all. Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. Interesting. So this is basically why we hear all the time where they might be like, hey, it's not us.

Call your IT company.

Reuben: It's not us. It's you. Um, yeah. Uh, It's usually, it's also usually the firewall and, and not to get into a soapbox here. IT is, it's really hard because there's not like a set of standards. So again, anybody, including me, I should say, You know, self taught, just have a lot of experience, can be an IT person, right?

So, you know, you come along and someone's like, Oh yeah, I can do all of that for half the price. Right. And it's just like, okay, but what are you getting? And it's like, uh, none of this stuff is HIPAA compliant. It's like, no wonder it's half price because it's not actually protecting your office. You know, you, do want to work honestly with folks that care about their patient's data.

Right. Because that's what I care about doing a good job. but I tease one of those tough industries, right? There's not a lot of regulation in terms of, who can, um, be an I. T. person, if you're an I. T. person that's working with a dentist, you have their trust and you breach that trust by selling them something that is not HIPAA compliant.

There are no ramifications for you. So it's, somewhat of a wild, like I'm in this, this position where, you know, I've been around long enough and I have the respects, uh, of a lot of people out there and there are other companies like medics dental, that, that do a really good job in this space. And, you know, we like to say we're the good guys, right?

We don't cut corners. We do the right thing. We take care of our clients. But then there's the rest of the market and it's, really hard to have, conversations because the dentist is always stuck in the middle, right? They're hearing one thing like from a colleague. Oh, this endodontist who has five offices in Illinois uses this guy and pays him, pays him 40 bucks a month and that's everything you do.

I'm like, yeah, okay. You know, it's half of these, like, okay. I want to fight to keep the client. The other half is like, this person has been fed a load of, you know, BS. And I'm not going to be the one that's going to be able to convince them that they were given wrong information by their endodontist friend.

So it's like, yeah, it's just, mistake. In that scenario.

Michael: No, that's good. Because in that scenario, what would be like the, I guess in your terms, like the BS, like the stuff where you're like, Ruben, I see that all the time, man, where I'm like, Oh, look, your fellow it person here just wants to let you know.

And then they give you like a list of everything or whatever. And you're like. What? You know what I mean? it looks like they pretty much are saying like, we can do the same thing, but like, 40 bucks a month

Reuben: I'll the name, but I'll give you a real example.

So we had, we had a dentist that recently left us, right? Um, and they, they were under a, a one year startup deal. Right. So we give folks lower pricing, on the startup price. they just have to sign a one, just a one year term, uh, initial term. Then it's month to month after that. So it was like month six in this, dentist, uh, was struggling, right?

Her practice wasn't growing as fast as she wanted to. So she was making calls to vendors to be like, Hey, what can you do for me? and this is was kind of alluding to the endodontist. This is, that's kind of the story, right? She talked to a colleague who used a guy, um, for his practices and was like, Hey, I'm really struggling, but I'm not going to hold somebody to a contract if I'm affecting their business. Yeah, yeah, that's not why I got into this industry, right? Is to make every single dollar I could from a dentist, and it's like, tell you what, let's make a deal here. Send me what they sent you if they are truly matching what we are providing.

Like, just let's, let's part ways, right? Go there, save some money and, you know, let's part as friends. so got an email a week later and they're like, the plan is we're going to take your HIPAA compliant firewall and we're going to replace it with a home router for Best Buy. It's like, okay.

And then we're going to take your HIPAA compliant backup system and we're going to install a free Dropbox. I'm like, okay, so I didn't even read the rest of the email. I just stopped there and I was like, all right, so let's let's figure out how to work together. They're not giving you a HIPAA compliant solution.

You know, like, if I can help you in any way, take some pressure off your business, let's do it. And that email came back with basically, I was the bad guy for pointing out that they had been given bad advice. So I have two choices in this moment. I can keep continuing to try to work with this person or I can just let them go.

And I chose to let them go. I don't want to have to be bad guy. I don't do high pressure sales. I don't do scare tactics. or if you trust another person. More than me if by all means, please go work with them, but you know, peace of mind sleep at night I told the doctor everything that they were not getting you know They were literally compromising their patients health information.

can't work with that person, you know

Michael: yeah, so they were more upset that you didn't agree with the other IT companies like Janky solutions, you know what I mean? Like, Oh, like, Hey, we're

Reuben: just like a perfect they're doing what we're doing for less money, show me, cause I would love to know how to be more efficient.

Just, I'm curious, like, how did, how is this possible? And it turns out the solution was, we're just going to pull stuff off a Best Buy that belongs in someone's home. And so you're good.

Michael: That, that story really gets into the essence of the complexity of being an IT professional in healthcare.Yeah. Yeah. And we got to go one of these days, we got to do an episode about how important it is to be HIPAA compliant. Cause I know we kind of touched that. Well, we touched that in this episode, but we kind of touched that in previous ones of, it's mega important, you know.

Um, in order to do that. So

Reuben: it should be like car insurance, right? It should not be opt in, opt out. it's like, yeah, I kind of want to be a little compliant, but then I want to ignore all this stuff, you know, that actually costs a little compliant and like, who's safe. Henry Schein got hacked twice, Aspen Dental.

And this is just this year, Aspen Dental had over a thousand practices get hacked. I don't know what it's going to take, and I try not to, you know, worry about all the dentists that didn't take my advice went down a different pathway, but. This is what I talk about. I want to work with people that care about protecting their patient.

is a passion of mine. I want you to care about protecting your patient's health information. Yeah,

Michael: and I like that about you, man. It's because, like, your transition... Every time I think Dark Horse has been running, you guys have been... Moving the needle closer and closer to quality, right? Over like, we got to get more sales, more people, more things.

and every time you guys have ever sponsored, right? You're never like, how many leads are we getting or anything like that? It's more like, Hey man, like let's, let's. Let them know about this. Let's let the people know about that, right? important

Reuben: stuff. My marketing strategy can be distilled down into two words.

Good vibes. I just want, like, good vibes that kind of, you know, reverberate throughout the anals of the internet, right? Just like, uh, you know, someone has a question on, uh, you know, dental marketer group about imaging software. Whatever. We'll jump in. I'm not gonna solicit you. Here's an answer. Great.

If you look me up and you want to reach out, that's awesome. But that has been for 11 years all organic growth. And why? Like, we love partnering with with you. Michael's just like, here's a podcast that is just about let's get as much information. Let's clear up confusion in the industry.

I'm not asking you to work with me. Take all this information back to your IT company and protect yourself. And if you love your IT guy, keep working with him. I'm here if you want an option, but like, I really hope you care about compliance before you call.

Michael: Yeah. And if you guys want to know how to get Fortnite to start working in your office.

Reuben: That's the

Michael: firewall. Yeah. I remember, uh,Ashley one time caught you, right? Like about a fridge or something

Reuben: like that? so actually once called me when her power went out.

Hey, my, uh, you know, my, uh, computers aren't turning on, I was like, can you call your electric company and that goes back to just like we, again, when we train our clients calls for anything, sometimes they do. Yeah. And no, no, no. Yeah. Call NYSEG or, you know, call your local power company.

Uh, happy to help out and pick up the phone and all that. But yeah, no.

Michael: That's awesome. Ruben, we appreciate your time, but before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Reuben: Oh, yeah. Um, I'm all over the internet. So you'll see me just popping around in and out of Facebook groups. Uh, my direct email is admin at dark horse tech.

com and go right on our website and hit contact us. And that will, uh, generate a little, link to schedule a call with us. DM me on Facebook, you can DM me on Instagram. You'll see. Instagram, if you want to follow us at dark horse tech, that's where I post, you know, anytime we're doing a startup. I post all the pictures out there.

Right? So if you're interested in working with us, or just interested in like, what are the newest latest startups looking like? we're, we're pretty much doing one or two startups a week, right? So we did about 87 just last year. and so yeah, follow along. that makes me feel good.

Cause I'm the one doing all that posting. So please like, like my photos.

Michael: Please like my photos. Awesome guys. So that's all going to be in the show notes below. So definitely go check it out. Follow Dark Horse Tech on their social media. And at the same time. Click on the first link in the show notes below to check out the exclusive deal that dark horse tech is giving you go ahead and do that.

And Ruben, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Appreciate it, Michael.

‍

Are you looking to hit the ground running with powerful ground marketing strategies? Our ground marketing course offers a range of actionable steps utilizing local restaurants, gyms, corporate locations, and small businesses in your area! With step-by-step scripts, foolproof plans, and real-time video demonstrations, you'll master the art of effectively engaging with your local community to attract new patients effortlessly.

Click this link to join the community! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍

‍

In this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, we're thrilled to welcome back Aaron Boone, the marketing maestro from MVP Mailhouse. Today, Aaron is pulling back the curtain on an upcoming course segment, offering an exclusive sneak peek into the world of direct mail tips and strategies. Join us as we delve into the art of showcasing your brand effectively through postcards, exploring the secrets to attracting precisely the patients you desire. Aaron shares insights on selecting the best images, crafting compelling offers, and optimizing headers for maximum impact in your location. Wondering which postcard style delivers the best bang for your buck? Aaron breaks it down. Plus, he sheds light on the importance of tracking the average new patient value over the first year and reveals ingenious ways to create urgency without a firm expiration date on your offers.

Listen today for a glimpse into our upcoming course and lesson on elevating your outreach game!

‍

You can reach out to Aaron Boone here:

Website: https://mvpmailhouse.com/

Email: [email protected]

Free Direct Mail Analysis and Heat Map: https://mvpmailhouse.com/demo/

‍

If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

‍

Aaron: Hello. Hello. Thanks for joining me for another course. So, all right, this one is pretty excited and it's a common question that comes up a lot. Once again, my name is Aaron Boone with MVP Mailhouse. And today, for this particular segment, we are going to talk about designs. What works, what doesn't, what even down to the size of card.

Let's talk through a number of things. These are common questions that a lot of people have. And then, um, kind of the elephant in the room, I think, when it comes to direct mail. A lot of people think, like, they have to give away the farm, so to speak, in offers. So, we're going to talk about offers, what works, what doesn't, and uh, let's go from there.

So, here on our website, I'm just going to go in, just so you guys have some visuals, you don't have to just stare at me, you can look at a few different designs. There's a few elements of every design that we want to focus on. So, granted, what I put here on the website are definitely more of our generic stuff.

And then from here, we customize each one of our designs. I think that is the first thing, right there. Is, you need to be able to, hopefully you guys have already worked your brand. Like, what is your message? Are you a low priced leader? Which is okay if you are, Or are you a high end boutique place doing Botox and other things?

I think it's really important to identify, your strengths are. So my number one suggestion for your direct mail piece, when you design it, is play to your strengths. I know it sounds really simple, but play to your strengths and your design. and as I kind of talk through that, I'm going to say there's different ways to illustrate that.

So I've done, I've tracked all different types of mailings. You know, millions of mailings across the country. From trifold, bigger brochures where you really get into some big case type dentistry. to small little handout cards that are mailed. to large oversized postcards. Here's what I recommend. I have found over, over my time, now it can vary by area for sure in my case, but I feel the best bang for your buck is a 6 inch by 11 inch postcard.

That's what I recommend. Why? Well, a couple reasons. When you get the mail, here's a standard envelope that you would typically get, right? In the mailbox, there's bills, there's other things. Well, the nice thing about this size is it's just a little bit longer. So it stands out in the mailbox. It doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

That's the downside of a smaller card. that could get lost behind the bills and get thrown away. Totally invisible. So if you go with a bigger oversized postcard five and a half by eight and a half is also a really common, you can do it a little cheaper because you can print more of them in a, in a typical print run.

Um, but even if you do a trifle, just make sure it's a little bigger than the standard envelope. So that's why I like anything five inches and beyond and width and in length. I typically recommend that it's either a little shorter than a standard envelope, or preferred, even longer. So I hope that makes sense, so it kind of stands out.

Okay? Alright, so, once you have decided on the size, now it's what is the message. Okay? Now you see a very vanilla card here, but there's actually some important elements that we're seeing on this right off the bat. Okay? Of elements that I try to look for and that I want to incorporate. So this is a good, I guess, template to start with.

Not to mail, but to start with and improve. So number one, I always like a clear, bold headline, um, message right at the top. Some sort of, um, header right to the point that gets the customer, the potential patient, right into the mindset, okay, this is for dentistry.

Okay, I think that's important. The next is a really great image. Alright, too often you might do a card with, bad imagery. I prefer actual, office photos, so if you have some cool pictures of the docs, or of the team, that's what I recommend to put on the card. Now, if you don't have those, remember what I say, play to your strengths.

So, if you don't have a good looking office, well, don't put it on the card, right? the staff isn't maybe as photogenic, well maybe don't use that angle. So play to your strengths, whatever it is, as far as the imagery goes. But big, solid images. Let me pull over another here onto the screen here where you don't have to just stare at me.

But kind of an example here is a big, solid headline up here. You know, right to the caring for our community smiles. Whatever your, your tagline is. Okay, always include, highlight, and then the image that we talked about. A logo, phone number, and then also, I like to have something specific for the time.

Notice on this one, New Year, New Smile, Benefits Renewed, End of Year Benefits, Use it or Lose it. Notice it's not the feature of the card, it's an FYI. The feature of the card is you, your branding, your name, your logo. Okay? Other elements to look for, I typically like to have offers, we'll talk about those in a minute.

On the back, this is a pretty standard type design, where you have offers, you have services. Always big bold phone numbers,  address,

Aaron: and I like to have a map on the back also. Picture of the doc or practice, if applicable, um, and, reviews. And reviews are really important too. So, the next thing is, here's a question that I get a lot about, um, cards.

You know, let's say you want more implant cases. Okay? Sounds great. Implants are, are great. They're valuable. But, here's the problem. If you only target implants, what about the home that gets a card and needs three crowns? You don't want to lose that. So, I like to incorporate multiple angles.

Don't be too specific just for that big case. Now, there are such things for sure. I've done implant specific mailings. Um, no doubt about it. But in general, I like to keep it a little broader. So I'm capturing more, people that might need crowns, might need Invisalign, might need implants, a little bit of everything because you never know what's going to resonate, what's going to jump.

Um, if you're doing a grand opening, always make sure you really highlight the grand opening on the card. I think it works really well. Here's an example here. Grand opening, this is for an orthodontic practice, that was new. Have some personality to it. Kind of like I'm into this is, this is one of our offices that just always kind of does silly designs or thoughts and it works really well for them.

So, anyway the next step is, is let's get into some of these offers. Why do you always see some of these offers and what do they mean? Well, let's talk about it. It's different by specialty, but in general, my rule of thumb, I'm just trying to find you a, a quick example Okay, so for this one, you guys have seen the 49, 59, 99, 149, whatever it is.

Sometimes you'll include just the exam and x rays, and sometimes you'll include the cleaning. Now there's a couple things you can learn from this. So this is designed to target cash patients. Alright? My rule of thumb is this. I like multiple offers. And those that are wondering about offers, offers work.

Okay? I've tracked 100 million cards, 100%, they work. And it doesn't mean, and this is a misconception in marketing, that offers are a bad thing. Okay? We all like deals, right? put yourself in the consumer. They need a dentist. They could go to this office, or this office. You all accept their insurance.

What stands out? Well, sometimes it's just a little perk to push them over the edge. They like your card, it resonates, the picture, maybe the staff picture resonate with them, but you're also giving them free whitening after paid exam x ray cleaning. So, I recommend to have an offer for cash patients, an offer for insurance patients, um, and a big case offer.

In general. So what does that mean? An Invisalign offer or an implant offer? Free implant consultation. Okay? Because the value of that is so high, it's worth you taking a chance. And maybe having a little bit of a loss later on some time. The other thing is this and I think this is lost a lot of times. is your average new patient worth over the first year? Think about that. The average new patient value, I typically see around 1, 000. So 750 to 1, 250 over the first year. They come in, 6 month visit, 12 month visit, around 1, 000. Now what if they need 3 crowns here, but this person never comes back? You know, you have kind of this lot of patients that are coming in.

But the average, if you think of that, the average person's worth about 1, 000. So and that's just in the first year. So if it costs you 50, 100 discount to get them in that first time, and then they like you and they keep coming back again and again and again, plus they refer their friends and family, that 50 that you gave up front is long forgotten.

That free whitening tray is long forgotten in two years from now when that has turned into 20, 000 from that patient, from their family, and a couple co workers they referred to you. So don't be scared of offers. Now, I will say this. If you're not great at case acceptance, or you're not good at retention, my rule of thumb is this.

The more confident you are in those, the more confident you are in retention, the more aggressive you should be in your offer. Follow me. If you can get them in the door, you know they're going to stick and they're going to stay, be more aggressive on the front end. If not, then there needs to be more skin in the game.

Maybe instead of a, you know, 99 exam x rays, maybe it's 249. Maybe it's 149. but cash offers are typically ones that have dollar amounts around them. Insurance offers are typically the number one insurance offer in the country. It's nothing new. You guys have all heard it, but it's actually free whitening, right?

Because it's something extra that after they come in and pay for their exam and x ray, then you're going to give them a free whitening trade or a, you know, I prefer like, um, rather than using chair time, getting even like some take home tray, take home kits. That's a really easy alternative, to that.

This particular example here is free new patient exam and x ray. Now notice it doesn't pay for cleaning, but it gets people in the door, gets you looking in their mouth, helps you build that rapport, and then you turn them into great long term patients. Okay? Just because someone is calling about a deal does not mean they're just a price shopper.

They genuinely need a dentist. When was the last time you just called a tire shop just to haggle pricing, but you didn't need tires, right? You don't do that. So you're not going to call and haggle with the dental office If you don't actually need dentistry, so I think that's a misconception is people are calling because they actually need a dentist it's the staff's job to get it away from the price and more about the value And the need and the health and we'll talk about that in a later segment when we talk about front desk training So, all right in general though, so for the design offers work.

Don't be scared to use them Remember seasonality in your messaging. As you do this like I said new year end of year that type of stuff Grand opening really feature that grand opening be bold imagery. Remember demographics. Keep that in mind, okay, of who you're targeting. Are you targeting the Hispanic population?

Are you targeting, other demographics or income levels or things? Be conscientious of that. If you use stock photography, imagery you should work, or use, should reflect your patient base. because that's who you're targeting. And for some offices, I might, it might vary. As I mail to zone one, up to the north of the practice, maybe it's more Hispanic, maybe it's black more to the south, it's Asian or white on another area.

You can rotate that imagery in your designs. So, it resonates a little more. But I love big staff photos. I like, um, strong messaging for the time of the year when it is. It'll help people move quicker. One last comment here before we wrap up this one. Expirations. So that's another question people ask me. there's two parts of this. One is should you put at the bottom of your offer? Free whitening expires three, three, 2022, you know, six weeks out or a month out. My recommendation is no. Now you want to create urgency, so what I recommend is typically put something like expires in four weeks, expires in six weeks, okay?

That will create some urgency, but it doesn't have a deadline date because what happens as I track these calls, people get the card, they put it on their fridge. Cause they're not ready to call now. They pull it down in a couple months and if they see a hard date, the shelf life's less. You're less likely to call if it has a firm expiration date.

Oh, it's already expired. But if it says in four weeks or six weeks, they start the way, huh? I wonder if that's still valid so we literally hear on recordings all the time. Hey, I have this postcard I've had on my fridge for a few months Are you guys still accepting new patients and are you honoring your free whitening offer and guess what you should teach your front desk?

Oh, yes. Absolutely. We are with who do I have the pleasure of speaking with thanks for calling and turning that into an appointment It is worth that front end that twenty thirty dollar whitening kit To have this patient who's going to bring you possibly thousands of dollars tens of thousands of dollars with their network of family and friends If you can earn their business, okay, so on the designs be bold be bright.

I like bright fresh colors I like if you're gonna use stock photography use fun pictures Okay that stand out of their mail of bills and other things that you get in your mailbox What's

Aaron: gonna resonate because we are all in this space in the dental space, you know, sometimes we'll say well do people look at their direct mail, well, the answer is yes. That's why people keep mailing because they're making money. If you're in an area where you're getting direct mail from competitors, well, guess what? They're not doing it because they're losing money. It must be working for them or they wouldn't keep doing it, right?

So it means you're in a responsive area. I will say there are certain parts of the country that respond better than others for sure. If I have a little more risk, I would say it's more in inner city areas, high rise apartment complexes, those kind of areas. But if your practice is outside of major, major beltway, um, into suburban single family areas, rural areas, all of those do really well.

Certain States will respond better than other States. But regardless, even if the dentist across the street is doing direct mail to don't be scared. Just come up with your own message and find what is resonating in your area because not even if there's, you can't eliminate competition, right? There's competition all over, but you need to stand out when they see your car, okay?

And it happens all the time. Create a design that resonates and stands out and represents you. Play to your strengths, don't be scared of offers, and always use a tracking number on it. And I'll talk about that in our next segment of how to better track your mail. But anyway, hopefully that was helpful in some of uh, these things.

Now remember, certain states have certain guidelines. If you put offers on, for example, in some states, like Florida, you need to put the code to the procedure, and also, the value. Some states you're required to put the value. So if you put free whitening, regular price. 99. Normally, 3. 27, whatever it is.

So those are the only other restrictions you really need to think about. Anyway, hope this was helpful and I hope you're creating great designs out there and test them, try different things and see what works best. And when you find that sweet spot, continue to push that. All right. Thanks so much. we'll talk to you soon.

Bye.

‍

Today I want to tell you about our sponsor for this episode,  Olsen  Dental  Chairs!

‍

‍
Imagine you're a dentist and you spend your whole day around the chair...   Well, Olsen has over  40 years of experience in making those long hours as comfortable as possible for both the dentist  and the patient!

‍If you're a dental professional looking for high quality, cost effective, dental equipment, check out Olson dental chairs!

Click this link and mention this episode for a limited time FREE installation with your purchase!

‍

‍

Guest: Camila RegisBusiness Name: OlsenCheck out Camila's Media:

Website: https://olsenna.com/

‍

‍

Other Mentions and Links:

Oscar Wilde

Bert Decker - 3 Second Rule

‍

‍

Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

‍

‍

My Key Takeaways:

• How much do first impressions really matter with patients?
• What are some common barriers that are keeping patients from coming in?
• Does high quality and modern equipment really make a difference?
• Some of the psychology behind dental anxiety and first impressions.
• The benefits of patient comfort and an inviting staff.

‍
Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

‍

p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guests, Camila Regis. Camila, how's it going? I'm

Camila: doing great today, Michael. And what about

you?

Michael: I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind letting our listeners know where are you located

Camila: right now? I'm located at the South of Brazil right now in a city called Bailosa, where is the headquarter of Olsen, uh, USA.

Dental equipment.

Michael: Nice. So all the way in Brazil, which is only according to PST time, California time, four hours different. So that's pretty awesome. But if you can tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are today?

Camila: So, um, I was always in love with different cultures when I was a little kid, um, my biggest dream was to be a dentist. I'm not a dentist nowadays, but I work with that. I work with dental equipments. So since I was always interested on different cultures, I try it and I directed the lead of my, um, career to something I could be able to work with different cultures and different countries.

So, I am here today, working, uh, with this project of expanding Olsen that comes from Brazil to all of the world. we are over a hundred countries. And I am the responsible, uh, of the team that is, doing all of that.

Michael: Nice. So in charge of like, the growth area. So you don't mind me asking, why did you always want to be a dentist?

Camila: I don't know. I think it was, um, when I was a little kid, I had, um, some problems in my teeth. I usually go to, to the dentist and. This guy was so nice to me, and it was such a nice environment, and I can't remember, like... Every week going there and being familiar with everything. So I was kind of amused with that profession.

And I was like, Oh, I want to be that. I want to be a dentist.

Michael: Okay. So it was also like, the main thing was the pain point kind of thing, right? You were experiencing a problem and you saw how they fixed it really quick. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Interesting. Awesome. So let's dive into this. And for those listening on audio only in the podcast, you can scroll down in the show notes and look out on our YouTube channel.

But this is going to be a presentation that Camila has, kind of like a webinar. And what we're going to dive into is marketing your practice through your dental office. And so what do first impressions have to do with that? Because I noticed that's the title here.

Camila: So let's start with that. so first impression, uh, is something that we need to consider to everything.

Like not only just for a business or dental practice, but for everything, for yourself as a professional. So why not think of that in your business when your business is a as Oscar White said, uh, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So you need to take advantage of knowing that from your consumers.

So you need to be on that point where you are going to plan what is going to be the first impression they have from you. And that is like 100 percent true what Oscar Wilde said, initial impressions matters a lot in human psychology and it's exactly how people's perception are shaped.

So when we talk about these, uh, it's not just of individuals, but also of business, locations, objects. Why are we not talking about that when we talk about dental office? So my question here for whoever is listening to us or, watching us, have you ever thought about these when you started your dental practice or when renewing it or when buying your equipments or planning the design or even hiring your staff?

I I think what we are bringing today is going to be interesting for you to update that idea on your mind. And if you don't, I believe that you need to keep your eye on it. So Bert Ducker, one of the greatest experts in communication, did a research that says the brain takes only two seconds to form 50 percent of the image. About someone or something and the next four minutes to complete the rest of this idea. So, can you imagine having only 2 seconds to show someone what is your dental practice about what you are trying to show them or give them the experience at that point where they just walk in your dental office?

Well, uh, this prejudgment will conditionate the interaction that this customer, this patient of yours, will interact with you or your dental office or even your staff, and will definitely define the approach that they will have. for example, when you're just walking in a store and someone from the staff is in a bad mood.

That will definitely set the approach you have when you talk with that person. So that is something we need to consider for all the business environment. The power of the idea shaped at the moment that someone set the eyes on a person or on a place or on a Professional is so strong that not even the facts are capable of easily disproving them.

So, it's like when someone, when you, you look to someone and you say, Oh, I didn't like that person. And then later on. You start to know them better and then it's hard for you to change that idea that you didn't like something on that person, even though the facts. Are showing you a completely different, um, position than your opinion.

So usually, humans tend to conform our prejudgment because of this power that the ideas have, uh, among us.

Michael: Gotcha. So right here, when it comes to the, this is the, basically the laws of the first impressions, right? You have two seconds, right. To form 50%. Of the image about someone or something. So if someone's walking into the practice, and they don't even acknowledge them, they don't even look at them or anything, that's more than two seconds.

That's it. So you already kinda can feel the, the coldness in there, right? And then, um, the last part is interesting. Uh, how, not even facts are capable of easily disproving them. What would you say, Camila, how does that, how would you have witnessed that, or how do you notice this in a practice?

Camila: I have a really good case here.

So when we start to open the U. S. market, I visited some dental office in some schools. And when I walked in the first dental office, it wasn't a private dental office, it was a university one. And I was so shocked because I was expecting as the rest of the universe to look like. fantastic and everything perfect, everything in place.

I was expecting a great practice, a great dental practice. And what I found out was some equipments that were already, um, really old and broke. And it was more because it's used by students. I get that, but it was the first impression I had. So the first impression I had was I don't think they are looking to these with care.

I don't think they are giving the same attention. They are giving to the rest of the campus to these areas. That is exactly where the patient is going to be laying down for some hours, even. Some treatments take some days. They're not, of course, being there for days, but they are going to be back there day to day, and they need to feel home.

They need to feel comfort and I was shocked and that made me feel a little bit, uh, Thinking, oh, I think we have a different culture here, but then I saw that it was only that case, it wasn't only that case, but I saw it was a case of a place that wasn't being properly, uh, cared off. And so this is a perfect example, we can compare that to what, to the experience I had when I was a kid in my dentist that I can remember, like, if it was yesterday, it was a nice place, a cozy place.

I was always, uh, welcomed and I remember of all the equipments. that sounds crazy. But I remember of the equipment, because I remember of looking at the lights, I remember of looking at the hand pieces. And since, uh, my, my dream by that time was to be a dentist. I usually open the, the drawers and look what was inside.

And the dentist showed me a lot of of stuffs and I remember of that being so perfect, so clean, so cared of. So there was a tension in each detail of that service that he was giving me.

Michael: Gotcha. So a lot came into that besides the first, uh, two seconds, but it was the first two seconds where you were like, okay, this it's warm, it's cozy.

I can feel it. Uh, and then it kind of gave you the rest of the picture of the facts. Right. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Okay. Okay. So these are the laws. These are the crucial role of first impression.

Camila: I'm trying here just to, uh, give some thoughts on what is first impressions so we can then, uh, go to how these first impressions, how we can apply, uh, that three laws into the dental office.

So when one goes to any place that offers health care or even aesthetic care, what they are really looking for, Michael, is self care. They are looking for someone that can take care of them. So their expectations are going to be always high because no one wants to be cared off in a bad way.

So dental office deal with an essential aspect of the human survival and well being. It's a place that. Will require a lot of, uh, excellent conditions and a sense that the person that is there is safe, it's in a good hand, it's in a professional environment. So will you ever look for a place to take care of you that shows you through their image that they don't care even about themselves, that they don't, they don't have a nice waiting room, that they have a staff that is rude, is not, uh, in a, um, in a good mood that doesn't say good morning to you and even if, um, You think that they are going to be comfortable in old equipment that is maybe losing some part of the ufostery.

And so it's all about that. It's all about you need to show your patient that you care about your place because that place is going to take care of your patient. So I brought here some, Examples, and I would like, I know the audience is just listening. So I will say some words about the image I'm showing, but I want you to think, what is the feeling you get when you look at a dental office that looks like this?

So I'm showing here a dental office. Uh, it is a old dental office. It's, it's not clean and it has all the wires showing here it's a closer look where the example I just gave that the upholstery is ripping off and some part of the equipment are broke and there is dust everywhere and it looks like a mess.

And then now, how do you feel when you look and you walk into a dental office like this? That it's clean, it has a brand new equipment, it, the equipment looks like, modern, looks like comfortable, and when you sit at it, you feel the comfort, you feel the ergonomy, how do you feel looking at it, how will you feel looking at the, the dental space, broke equipment or the dental office that has everything clean, everything white and in colors that are sober and that brings the image of a safe environment. Yeah.

Michael: You can, you can totally, when I feel like I get, think like I'm probably gonna not get a good job. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's probably, I just need to hurry up and get out of here kind of thing.

But the other one, you feel more like you can, you can hang out, you know what I mean? You can be there. It feels more comforting. You know, you're going to get a good job. Yeah.

Camila: And so to start talking about, um, the first impressions in a dental office.

How does this matter to the dental office? We should start talking about marketing, right? So that's why we are here with Michael. So the big picture is that the first impression is inside the big picture that marketing is. So it's how you see marketing. Marketing goes beyond the advertisement, digital presence.

There's much more than just that. Uh, marketing is everything that is going to establish the awareness of your practice image in the market. The mind of your customers. So if you are taking care of your website, if you are taking care of your social medias, why are you not taking care of your dental office?

Why are you not taking care of the design of it? Of the equipment that is there, of the staff you are hiring. First impressions are the meaning to establish your brand awareness. And when I say brand here, I definitely mean, brand as what you were building as a dental practice. So when customers are aware of a brand and associate it with positive things like quality, reliability, or value, they are more likely to choose that brand when they need related products or service than another ones.

And they are more likely to tell their friends, to tell their family that they choose that brand because of those reasons. Therefore, I believe that building and straightening brand awareness are fundamental goals in marketing and in branding strategies. So the brand awareness, it's the degree of recognition and familiarity that the public has with that specific brand, and that brand is your dental practice, then your dental office, sometimes you have a clinic with much with more than 1 dentist. It's how the public will know your, uh, dental practice, how professional we were, how comfort they feel, how do they like you, do they don't, this is what you need to have in mind when you start to, Settle your goals, your marketing goals in your dental practice, because from the brand awareness is where you are going to start structuring your image.

And, there is some trick elements, for a good impression, no 1st, the 2nd or the 3rd. And here talking specifically in the dental office, it's the design of it, the equipment that you have and the staff. So, when you think about those 3 pillars, design, equipment and staff, you need to keep in mind, what are you trying to communicate to your customer and what is the experience you are aiming to offer them?

Am I trying to tell them that that is, um, a place that they are going to feel pain, that they are going to be afraid, or do you want to communicate that it's a dental office, that it's, uh, More like a place to play, to be fun, to have fun.

so that is one thing that you need to keep in your mind. And when I know that talking about the, pediatric dental is very specific. But even though when you were talking about, um, dental office for adults, your Is exactly what is going to set what is the image you are, trying to show to your consumers.

So if you are working in, I said it dental, you must have like a perfect dental office, everything in place, everything looking modern, nice, fancy. Because that's what you are trying to show them, that you are going to bring that image to their health. It's through the design of your dental office, and the equipment you have, and the staff that you are hiring, and how you are training them, that you can create this environment.

This environment that we will present, what is your image as a professional or as a dental clinic, dental practice, and it's going to dictate the experience that you were about to offer to that consumer, to that patient that just walked in.

Michael: Interesting. So real quick, uh, Camila, let's just say the practices.

Hey, my brand is that we care, like we really care, right? Staff would have to show that they, they care. but how, in your opinion, how would design show that and equipment show that, okay.

Camila: Talking about design, I think, um, that to show that you will need to have a nice waiting room, for example.

it can be a waiting room for, uh, that supports like three people, but there is 100 people inside because you're not caring about them waiting and everyone there and it's not comfortable. For example, you need to think, I don't know where exactly, but if you are in Florida, you need to think about having a, an AC.

Because everyone needs to feel comfortable while waiting, you need to have like television to have something to show them while they, they are there. Uh, you need to have a good way for them to go from the waiting room to your dental office. A nice, space for them to move and sit on the chair on the dental chair and feel comfortable there.

So when talking about equipment, it's not going to be much different from that. You need to give them comfort. inequipment is not only that you need to have a modern equipment with technology and everything, but you need to show them that needs to be clean.

It needs to be shining. always looking like new. So, I believe that is, uh. Two ways of thinking design is not much my, my area. but I believe that, uh, I know that in the U S there is a lot of companies that do the design for dental practice. And when finding someone like that.

Bring them those ideas, tell them, I need, I want to show my consumer that my customer, my patient, that they are going to be care here. So that's what I'm trying to, show them through the design of my dental office. And the same when you are buying any new equipment or you are renewing your

Michael: equipment.

Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. So these are the three things, right, for a good, first good impression, design, equipment, and staff.

Camila: Yeah, and when we talk about the equipment, there is one thing that, that we always do. I don't know if everyone knows here, I work in the Olsen, I know I said at the beginning, but we also sell the dental equipment.

So the first thing we ask the doctor always is, what is more important for you in the equipment? Because it's that that is what is the best equipment for their practice. and it's funny because you will, uh, see a dentist that they care about colds. So that's what matters for them.

want to pay the less possible. And there will be the doctors that say, I care about my patient. I want my patient to be in a comfortable chair. I want them to have the best of the market, or I want to have the best of the market in terms of equipment and technology. So knowing or not knowing, they already have on their mind, what are their, the image that they are trying to show to their patients.

Michael: I was going to ask you, when it comes to all that, what have you seen the most popular one? Is it cost or is it more like ergonomics or what would it be?

Camila: I think it depends a lot. I mean, in some countries, it's cost for sure. And in others, the comfort of the patient. Nowadays, I've been seeing much more.

we have the premium chairs, so they are more comfortable. They have an extra layer of, foam, so it makes more, comfort for the patient. It has also a massage system that helps the anxiety that a lot of people have to go to a dentist. And I think they are starting to care more about the, the patient comfort and their ergonomy than about the cost. Because I can see clearly that they are moving from one, from these equipments to the premium equipments that are more focused on the comfort for for the dentist and also for the patient.

Michael: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So these are the key elements

Camila: then. Yeah, exactly. And usually when a business is, is setting what they are trying to present through their image, usually you will find, three things, the sophistication. So everyone wants a sophisticated practice, the credibility of their work, because It doesn't matter if you are the best doctor in the market, if you don't have the best dental office, that's not what you are going to, to show to your customer and the appealing of the dental office.

of course the patient doesn't know much about the dental equipment. So what do they know? They know that they will notice that if they lay down equipment that makes a real difference, they will notice if they feel comfortable, if they feel like they were at home and how they feel during the treatment that is going to make the difference.

I know they won't know that. Oh, this is the most expensive or the market or not, but they will know how they felt at that moment. Thanks. And they will definitely spread that word. So when talking about equipment and what is the points that you were trying to bring when you think about that, to the matter of your brand awareness. You will have competitive advantage because you show your, patient that you care that, uh, you are trying to give him the best experience, trying to reduce the dental anxiety. I was reading some articles for this webinar and 10 percent of the U. S. population has dental anxiety nowadays. So you can imagine how hard it is for that 10 percent of the population to go to the dentist because it's a place that they hate.

why not thinking of that when you are thinking of your equipment, you know,

Michael: interesting.

Camila: Also, uh, the trade points that I brought earlier. Your image, you need to communicate the sophistication. You need to communicate the credibility. You need to communicate how appealing, uh, your business or in the experience, um, design equipment and stuff.

They are the responsible for the experience. Your patient is going to have in your dental practice. You need to offer them a good aesthetic look, you need to offer them ergonomy. When I say ergonomy, I mean, they're okay, they're sitting on the chair, they have where to put the, they have places to put their arms on, or they are not in a good position.

When you lay down your, chair to start your treatment, do your patient needs to, um, fit themselves in the chair? sometimes the doctor say, Oh, go a little bit, um, higher or move to one side to another side. You need to think of that when you are trying to give the best experience to your, to your patient and also the comfort that you are offering them because let's be honest.

It's not comfortable to be with your mouth open for one hour and doing some procedures with that noisy. So you need to have, uh, things to distract them. And being in a comfortable equipment makes a lot of difference when talking about that. That's

Michael: true. Interesting. And

Camila: they will absolutely appreciate the fact that you have invested on something which helps them be more comfortable, to feel more cozy, to make their dental treatment less stressful.

And they are quite likely to talk about it. And therefore they are marketing it for you, you

Michael: it's true. And I guess you don't really ever think about that. Like the little movements in the ergonomics of like, well, we have to, you know, move a little bit. And then, you know, like as a patient, you just feel like, okay, I got to stay like this, uh, cause you never really experienced anything different or maybe you just never really experienced it at all.

So you're just kind of in that uncomfortable position. And if you're uncomfortable for too long, that heightens the anxiety big time, big time. So it makes a lot of sense.

Camila: Yeah, and all the points I mentioned here will help to form an overall impression of your practice. one that will stay with the patient and that they will also pass on to their friends, their family, their community.

that's exactly what you were looking for. Um, given the original aim of marketing, which is to build a reputation and image that appeals to your target clients. since clear that your equipment must be an important part of it, um, because your dental practice is reflected in everything that you and your staff do each day and in everything that helps to build your image every day.

Michael: Awesome. Wonderful. So then when it comes to this, you know, some people are saying like, what's affordability care. I want a really good chair that brings comfort. What would you recommend from the brands that you guys have? Olsen, if someone's looking for a little bit of blend of both, right.

Where it's like I needed to be affordable. But at the same time, I got it. It gets to look amazing.

Camila: So we have this unit that is one of the premium units is the logic dental unit. It's affordable and it's really comfortable. It has one of most comfortable chairs from our lines.

another thing that this chair has. it's a curiosity that the movement of the chair goes with the movement of the body. So what I was talking earlier, when you lay down your patient to the treatment position. They don't need to fit themselves again into the chair because usually they stay in the same place because the chair will do the same movement and as their body are doing when laying down.

So, definitely when thinking about affordable options comfort options to the patient and also to the dentist, I would say, logic dental unit is the best that you can find.

Michael: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much Camila. So is there any other thing that follows up on this presentation or? No, there is

Camila: not.

So

Michael: these right here are, what are these right here? These two chairs?

Camila: So these two chairs is, uh, on the left side you can find Infinity. It's our premium chair, and on the right side you can find the performance procedure chair. So it's a chair that it's also for, doctors or for dentists for procedures that you need to do when standing up. So, it's a chair that goes really high and it goes all flat. Here in Brazil, um, mainly used for the harmonization that dentists are doing, the aesthetic, um, oral harmonization. So um, yeah, that's one of the, um, the biggest of our, uh,

Michael: lines. Nice. Okay. And now I kind of want to ask you some questions that. are directed to someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry.

Okay. from everything you've seen from working with dentists, working, walking inside their practice and everything right now, what do you currently love about dentistry?

Camila: Right now? What I currently love is that I feel more in a safe environment when walking through a dental practice, then, uh, a doctor practice, I think they are becoming more specialist on the service of having someone there for an hour of giving a good experience, because nowadays we go to the doctor and it takes like 15 minutes, 10 minutes.

You don't even have time to think. And when you go to dental office, you are usually going to be taken care of. And it's not something that is going to be in a rush. It's something that they are going to do with attention. They talk to you, they connect themselves to you. So I think that what I most love in dentistry is that this permission that the practice has, In a way that the professional can connect to the patient in a deep way.

Michael: Gotcha. Gotcha. Interesting. so that's great.

That's great that that's one of the main reasons, right? You can, you can feel a deeper connection with, uh, the practice compared to medical. You said. Okay. Yes. Compared to medical. Oh, interesting. Yeah. You feel more of a connection. And then right now, Camila, what's um, something you dislike or hate about dentistry that you've been noticing?

Camila: the hand pieces, I don't know how we get so far in the dentist technology and we still don't have board that don't do any noise because that is freaking scary. So I think that's what I

Michael: most hate. Ah, okay. Like the drill noises. Yes. Kind of nice. Okay. Why do you feel like that provides a lot of discomfort for you?

Camila: I don't know. if it's something personal. I don't know I, I have something I relate to pain and relate that to pain because that was my experience during the adult life.

Yeah, I

Michael: don't like that. Yeah. Interesting. Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And now if anybody wanted to reach out to you, contact you or anything like that, where can they find you?

Camila: Okay. So they can find me at, Olsen at Olsen America. com.

Michael: Awesome. Olsen America. com. And at the same time, guys, you know, Olsen is one of our partners. So everybody here gets an exclusive deal with them. If you go in the show notes below, click the first link in the show notes below, uh, to check out more and Camila, thank you so much for being with us.

It's been a pleasure. And we'll hear from you soon. Thank you.

‍

For a membership software that is built for growth and keeping the profit in the practice's hands, learn more about Dr. Chris Phelps' excellent Dental Membership Direct plans at: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/dental-membership-direct/‍

‍

In this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, we welcome back a familiar face, Dr. Chris Phelps, the visionary founder of Dental Membership Direct. Join us as we delve into the intricacies of Membership Plans and explore innovative strategies to enhance their performance, particularly through the powerful tool of local live events. Dr. Phelps guides us through understanding the mindset of potential patients grappling with the "I don't have insurance, so I can't go to the dentist" dilemma. Discover how to open doors to hosting impactful live events that effectively promote your membership plan, and learn the art of attracting more members through engaging educational experiences. From crafting compelling brochures for your live events to striking the right balance between promotional and educational content, this episode is the perfect guide to maximizing the potential of your membership plan!

Dive in this week for actionable tips that will spread the awareness of your membership plan!

‍

You can reach out to Dr. Chris Phelps here:

Website: https://www.dentalmembershipdirect.com

Email: [email protected]

‍

Other Mentions and Links:

AT&T

Napa Valley Wine

‍

If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

‍

Michael: Hey Chris, so talk to us about membership plans. Tell me one or a couple methods or suggestions that will help us with maneuvering and growing and guiding us with membership plans.

Chris: Well, the first thing to recognize is who is this really for, right? And for me, I kind of developed my membership plan years ago, uh, uh, when I noticed, like, when my parents retired from working for AT& T for 44 years, my dad worked there, and 34 years my mom worked there.

And the first thing they lost was their dental insurance policy, They got to keep their medical, but dental went out the door. And so, for the first time, they found themselves without insurance, and of course, didn't quite know what to do. Much like many of their colleagues, uh, that they worked with.

Now, of course, lucky for them, they had the best dental insurance policy ever. You know, me, who is now out of school. But outside of that, it definitely got me thinking. I was like, huh, how many others are in that situation? And when I got an opportunity to do a educational seminar on site at this active independent living and retirement community, I realized that my parents weren't alone. fact, uh, most of the folks over the age of 65 today are in that boat, And through whatever reason, I've decided that they, they, uh, had lost their dental insurance policy that they had. Forever that their employer supplemented. And so it kind of was interesting, you know, talking to these folks. I noticed, you know, I asked a simple question.

I'd like a room of 60 people and I said, ask them. I was like, well, how many of you have been to the dentist for any reason in last year? I don't really care for what, but you've been to the office and, uh, only 60 raise their hand. I was like, oof, that ain't good. Well, how many of you have dental insurance?

And of course, the 10 who'd been to the dentist raised their hand. Uh huh. Now it's clicking in my head. I'm like, all right, how many of you would have gone, had you had insurance? And the other 50 raised their hand, and I was like, There it is, right? So instantly, our, my target market just told me this barrier keeping them from coming to see any dentist, right?

Much less me. So I knew I needed some kind of solution for that problem because our culture, it's so ingrained in us that you have to have insurance to go to see any doctor, So when we don't have it, we feel like we can't go. Plus, when you retire, you know, your mindset shifts to a scarcity mindset, where you got all this money, you know, a certain amount of money saved up, and now that's it, that's what you got to live off of forever, right, as long as you live.

it's ticking away, ticking away, ticking away. So the scarcity of that loss every month, and they feel like they got to hold on to it. So they, when they price out dental insurance, and it's going to cost anywhere from 600 to 700 a year for a policy, Suddenly, they're like, yeah, that's not gonna work for me.

I can't afford that, is what they think in their mind. So, in essence, they think, well, I can't afford it. Well, that means I can't go unless it hurts or I'm in pain. So, huge barrier keeping folks from coming in. And of course, to me, what I discovered was, hey, there's 3, 500 homes in this community of people 55.

there might be some opportunity here. So I go back the next month and I talk about my membership plan. And, you you know, for those without insurance, this is what I created for you guys. And flash forward a few years later, I had about 3, 000 patients on the membership plan between two of my offices. So it was a powerful tool to, you know, the membership plan itself to attract a patient who wasn't going to see any dentist for any reason, but motivate them to not only come in and do their preventative care for hygiene.

but also when treatment was discovered because they were a planned member and they saved, guess what? They scheduled the treatment.

Michael: Now, what do you specifically talk about to entice them to like kind of bring them in? Because I guess we can just mention like, oh, y'all don't have insurance and then then what?

You know what I mean? Kind of like what, where do you go with that?

Chris: So in essence, my, I, I needed some kind of two things. I needed something to talk about more than just the membership plan. And you can't really have sales or solicitations there. So it had to be educational. So I had to slip it in under the educational moniker.

Um, at the same time, I knew nobody wants to come here about dentistry, right? Especially those of that age to back then when they were kids, uh, anesthesia was optional, meaning you had to pay for it. Right. And most of their parents, because they didn't get anesthesia because it wasn't invented, uh, didn't pay for it for their kids.

So they had some pretty nasty experiences. So coming to here, I taught dentistry was probably in their top five worst fears. So I knew I needed something to get over those kinds of barriers. So I decided to do number one, educational seminar. And number two, I, my hook was, uh, I brought my Napa Valley wine that I've spent way too much on at a recent trip.

It was sitting in my house and I was like it'd be nice if I could turn this personal expense into a business expense. So my hook was, you know, you can't get to Napa Valley because I thought they're retired, maybe they don't travel as much. So I'm going to bring Napa Valley to you. Join me for an educational seminar, the top five dental issues affecting the aging population, and enjoy some of Napa's finest wines on me.

Was kind of the what I, how I promoted it and that's what I did. So the first third of the talk was literally that here's who we are. Here's why we're different. Do you have insurance? Great. We can work with that. If you don't have insurance though. Hey, I got this for you, right? This membership plan. So the first third of the talk was just about differentiating ourselves from others and then slipping into the membership plan as promotion during that section.

And the back half, the last two thirds, if you will, were all education. So I went in, you know, to sugar and acids and how it's in everything we eat and drink and how it affects, uh, not only our teeth, but our whole body. Uh, and then the last third of the event was focused on, I'm kind of rotate the last third, depending on what month it was.

One time a month, I talk about implants, Another month, I do tooth whitening. Uh, another month I would do, uh, veneers or cosmetics, like a smile makeover. Right. So just kind of rotating it just enough because I realized I kept getting repeat, uh, people coming back to the event and I felt bad that they were hearing the same presentation like five or six times.

So, uh, but in essence, that's kind of the structure of the format that I follow up. So I had plenty to talk about that didn't sound sales or promotional. You get your promotional stuff out of the way up front. And then if you educate them 78 percent of the time, they leave thinking they were educated, not sold.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So interesting. So you kind of have a whole template outline, right? How you want to talk about it, but you entice them with the. Wine?

Chris: Yeah. And of course, you know, the wine that I brought was not cheap.

Michael: Yeah. No, that's good.

And then the marketing material you create or you have for this, especially when you talk about the membership plan, is it different for seniors than like the general population that you give to your practice? Or, or it's the same?

Chris: Yeah. Like most things, you know, the brochure of anything you're trying to promote to somebody.

The avatar that anybody featured in a picture in the promotional stuff, like on my membership plan brochure, they need to look like that community, right? They need to look like the people that aged, So, you know, I had some in my practice that were more for families, so it was had like a younger couple and smaller kids on the cover, uh, but yeah, for the senior crowd, it's just, you know, a senior man and a senior woman together, right?

Um, to showcase, uh, hey, these are the people just like you that respond and are interested in this thing. So I definitely want to make sure the people and pictures posted in any materials look like those people in that community. And then, you know, going to this, doing this, you know, kind of ground marketing once a month is all it took.

So it took about an hour of my time and, you know, bring a couple of team members. And I did it consistently once a month and would literally net anywhere from 30 to 60 fever service patients as a result, you know, almost all of them bought the membership plan. And I think the average spend was like something like, 1, per patient on top of the membership plan that they purchased.

so you can see what the numbers I was drawing, it was a great ROI for the wine I'd already purchased. Definitely.

Michael: Yeah. And then, so how do you, Chris, initiate this? So people listening right now, they're like, huh, this is perfect. This is beautiful. I want to do this. Do we just call or walk in or what's the script

Chris: here?

That's the challenge, right? So obviously most of these communities have some kind of community organizer. So your goal is to find out who that is, because that's the best person for you to talk to. and usually they're, uh, pretty apt and that's their job on site is to book. Uh, events, right? So some of them will be more skeptical.

So they may say, well, we want you to come do a, uh, to our health fair. They'll do that annual, an annual health fair. And that's kind of your foot or strategy. So they, they like you and, you know, you've got good stuff to give out to folks and, you know, obviously don't piss anybody off. Uh, you can kind of get in through the health fair as a backdoor.

Another way I found is that, you know, when you become an advertiser of that community and support that community in some way, that's another way that you can get in through the back door. Meaning, so I'm looking, if they have like a neighborhood newsletter or magazine, then I want to find out what kind of advertising opportunities they have in that and definitely get a nice, have a presence there.

Um, and typically those, uh, vehicles, the newsletter and the magazine are run by the folks that live in those communities. you're basically supporting somebody who's, uh, who's doing that for the community by paying the advertising. So in reciprocity, right? Most of them want to give back. So usually I'll ask, Hey.

Can you help me do an on site event, right? Put a good word in for me with the community manager and, yeah, let's make this happen kind of thing. Uh, if they're doing any kind of big charitable events, that's the other thing I'd look for. some kind of fundraising campaign for breast cancer or some kind of walk or something like that.

Then of course you want to be there and be the biggest sponsor, right? So if you're the first to give and support their community, then they're going to be looking ways to reciprocate and help find a way to support you. Gotcha.

Michael: Gotcha. Where can we... Make mistakes here that maybe you've like really early on you're like, oh don't do this guys

Chris: Yeah, so, you know, timing of the week is important.

Uh, day of the week, time of the day, you know, um, one, I remember one community I went to, uh, I scheduled it right as the, um, they had like an on site, uh, place to eat and it was this huge cafe kind of thing and I'd scheduled it right when the, uh, cafe opened. So it was basically dinner time. So they literally rang the dinner bell.

And all the people in the community that weren't at my talk were literally walking past us as like, a herd of cattle, so to speak, going to go feed. And I remember watching the crowd and everybody was looking at, everybody going to eat and looking at me and looking at the crowd and looking at me and looking at the crowd.

Like the scarcity of not being with them, the FOMO of missing out on dinner time was like, was killing them. And I was them. The mindset shifted kind of thing. So Before dinner, So you're talking like 4. 30, right? Cause they, they eat early. you want to hit them before dinner if possible. or if you're going to hit them after dinner, you might want to, you could switch to one, to doing more like an ice cream social, so kind of do a certain thing because not, of course, not everybody drinks and you may want to attract a different crowd.

Um, so an ice cream social has also worked out really well because. They like their ice cream.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. Interesting, man. I like that. Now when it comes to The company that you're co owning, Dental Membership Direct, right? Why, I guess in the sense of, I know we hear a lot of the times we should make our own plan and then they say like, Oh yeah, go with this one.

Cause it's like super, all the features and everything. Dental Membership Direct is more, what would you say?

Chris: to put it in one word, it's simple. All right. Most of the softwares I've seen out there, third party vendors that help you organize and track this and bill your patients, uh, it's nice bells and whistles.

To look at on their dashboards enough to distract you from the fact that you're overpaying And for data and that doesn't really do anything for you and your team's not going to use so Our client said look we want something simple right because that's what we need in our offices. We need We can't spend 20 30 minutes onboarding a patient sifting through all this data to find out how we onboard somebody in charge of their credit card.

We need to be able to get them on board and buy our plan within 30 seconds to a minute while the patient's at the front desk. Because that's usually where all this is. So based on the our client's team and the doctor's feedback That's what we tried to do, was make it simple. Um, simple to use, simple to understand, and simple to pay for.

Michael: Gotcha, awesome, awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below if anybody wants to check that out. And Chris, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, where can they reach out to you directly?

Chris: Yeah, probably the best email is Chris at drphelpshelps. com

Michael: Awesome, so that's going to be in the show notes below.

And Chris, thank you so much for being with me on this Monday Morning Marketing episode. Awesome, thanks Michael.

‍

We get it — when it comes to your practice’s IT, it can all get a little confusing. That’s where Darkhorse comes in. With a laser focus on serving dental practices of all shapes and sizes, they are here to roll up their sleeves and tackle your IT needs, no matter how complex. Our listeners get their first 30 days FREE, so start your journey with Darkhorse today: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkhorse-deal/

‍

‍

Guest: Brady FrankBusiness Name: Freedom Dental PartnersCheck out Brady's Media:

Website: https://freedomdentalpartners.com/

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Frank's Book DDSO Strategies: https://www.ddsostrategiesbook.com/ddso-book

Dr. Frank's Free Real Estate Valuation: https://freedomdentalpartners.com/re

‍

Other Mentions and Links:

Marquette University

Rick Workman

Heartland Dental

Pacific Dental Services

Aspen Dental

REIT - Real Estate Investment Trust

Rick Kushner

Comfort Dental

T. Harv Eker

Escrow

RE/MAX

Blockbuster

Fixer Upper - Chip and Joanna Gaines

BRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat)

Bank of America

Costco

‍

Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

‍

‍

My Key Takeaways:

• Why is it best to partner with other dentists and entrepreneurs?
• What makes a practice ready to sell at a profit?
• What is the current landscape of real estate and how does this affect the dental industry?
• How to maximize your ROI when purchasing a practice space.
• How to get into the cost to benefit mindset and spot a good deal.

‍
Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

‍

p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: This is the dental marketer the podcast where we teach you how to effectively market and grow your dental practice My name is michael arias and my mission is to help you the practice owner attract new patients immediately And effectively market and grow your business so you can become the go to dental practice in your community Now, what is one of the best ways to grow wealth in the dental industry?

Well, The answer, my friends, may surprise you. And we've got just the expert to break it all down for us. We're sitting down with Dr. Brady Frank, a third generation dentist who has not only carved out a successful career in dentistry, but has also ventured into the world of entrepreneurship. Invention and thought leadership.

Now, Brady's journey is one filled with hard earned wisdom and expertise in various facets of the dental industry. So in this episode, we'll be exploring some key points that could revolutionize your understanding of wealth growth in the dental field. So grab a notepad because you won't want to miss this.

First up, what we're going to be talking about is why it's often best to partner with other dentists and entrepreneurs, and Brady will shed light. On the advantages of opportunities that come with collaboration. Next we'll explore what makes a dental practice ready to sell at a profit. Now this is vital information for anyone looking to maximize their returns in the industry.

And then we'll delve into the current landscape of real estate and how it affects the dental industry. Real estate is a crucial component of any dental practice and understanding the market dynamics. Is key. And then we're also going to learn how to maximize your return on investment when purchasing a practice space and Brady will share strategies to make your investment work smarter, not harder.

And then finally, we'll discuss the cost to benefit mindset and how to spot a good deal in the dental industry. This financial perspective is essential for anyone aiming to achieve financial success. And Brady's extensive knowledge and experience in the dental industry, entrepreneurship, and real estate make him the perfect guide Through these topics.

mean, He's not only a successful practitioner, but also a mentor and author, and he has co founded Freedom Dental Partners, a platform that brings his expertise to others. So if you're looking to grow your wealth, this episode is tailor made for you. And one critical question I wanted to ask you.

What could your practice achieve if every technological aspect worked flawlessly? I mean, Have you ever thought about what your dental practice could achieve if tech headaches were a thing of the past? Well, sTick around for after the interview because I have something just for you. But for now, let's dive in with Dr.

Brady Frank. Brady. How's it going?

Brady: Doing great. Michael. So excited to be on your podcast now,

Michael: man. We're excited to have you. If you can, give us a little bit of a rundown of your past, your present. How'd you get to where you are today?

Brady: great question. I, uh, back in 1999, which means I'm an old guy, right? I, uh, I had a wrist injury in dental school. Um, they told me I wouldn't be able to practice dentistry. So I checked out a bunch of books at the Marquette Dental School Library, realized I'd probably have to own practices, but not practice in them to make a living and put two practices under contract as a senior in dental school, bought the building, Buildings and practices ended up owning seven practices in the first five years had 28 different associates and, um, made pretty much every mistake back in the early two thousands and really just got deeper and deeper into group practice than DSOs real estate ended up.

having a bunch of patents in dental implants manufactured around the world and, uh, really had a big focus on implants through there and where I am today is really just helping dentist groups expand and kind of get to the next level in dentistry. Wow, man.

Michael: So you did a lot. So then real quick, when it came to owning the practices and at the same time working with many associates and team members and everything like that, what were some of the If you can recall major mistakes that you felt like if only we did small pivots, it could have, could have made a huge

Brady: difference.

Yeah, so early on, um, I'd say the first decade of me owning group practices and other practices in real estate, I'll get my mistakes on the practice side and on the real estate side. On the practice side, I didn't create alignment. Or shared ownership or partnership or whatever we want to call it with the doctors in the practice.

I just had them as associates or employees. And so that was probably my biggest mistake early. I ended up selling those practices to the doctors, But I could have created much larger groups with shared interests, with shared equity. And I just didn't understand that back then. Uh, my biggest mistake in real estate was.

Probably just not buying enough real estate. I buy tons of real estate. Now I'm, I got 62 properties going to closing. the founder of Heartland, uh, Rick Workman, he's made billions of dollars on his DSO, but more billions on real estate and 80 percent less time with 80 percent less effort, Pacific dental services, they won't sell to private equity right now.

Because they're doing so well in real estate. Aspen, another big BSO, they develop almost all of their own buildings, and then they sell them to REITs, and that's how they capitalize their growth. Rick Kushner, of Comfort Dental, was at a meeting at Marquette Dental School, my alma mater, and my friend organized it, and he said, he said, Rick, why, you've got, you know, 400 partners, all these locations, why are you still doing this?

He said there's a secret, it's about real estate. So I didn't really leverage real estate to the full extent my first decade, but this last decade I've, made more money in real estate than group practices and I've done a, been very well with group practices. So that's where most of my teaching is and that's where I share on how to really crank it out with real estate and not make the mistakes that I did my first decade in

Michael: it.

Gotcha. Okay. So then real estate is primarily what you're teaching right now.

Brady: So I would say my primary teaching is how dentists can expand like I did using real estate profits. To fund their expansion. Don't go to banks, don't get in debt. Go. Don't go to private equity. Mm-Hmm Use real estate profits to fund your expansion.

So I mainly teach that, but what I also do is take doctors who have done very well and I clump them together. in dentist owned DSOs. In fact, I wrote a book about it, The DSO Strategy, Dentist Owned DSO Strategies. And I might just kind of look back a graph. I'll pull the page out, make it easier. This is kind of groups getting together.

Forming one entity and getting a much higher multiple of sale. So I basically helped docs early, early, our team, I should say, uh, helps docs early phase growth, use real estate to fund their expansion. And then once they've gotten to a certain size. 368 12 locations, how to merge with other successful dentists and get a much higher valuation and then make a bunch of money and do it all over again, basically, and own a bunch of real estate through the process.

So that's kind of my main thing is teaching on DSOs, MSOs, and then how that works with real estate and how it fits in with expansion. The reason 80 percent of my teaching is there is because real estate is actually really a simple investment. and so just a lot of my teaching is on the other stuff.

And then the real estate kind of becomes the bedrock or the foundation of all the other components.

Michael: can you give us like right now, like a step by step system or process on how to use real estate profits?

Brady: Yeah. So going back to my mistakes early on, I would buy a building, a dental building. I would hold it for anywhere from three to 10 years and then I would sell it.

During that time period that I held it, I had cash flow. And when I sold it, I got a big chunk of money. And someone said something, Canadian entrepreneur who did really well. His name's T Harv Ecker. And he said this in one of his seminars. Um, I've never made as much money operating a business. As I have selling a business and he said, same with real estate.

And at that time I realized the longer I held on to a piece of real estate the more time I had into it. The more I had to manage that property, yes, I got monthly cash flow. But at the end of the day, you have to, as a dentist, you're at the top tax bracket, you've got to pay full taxes on that money.

So the timeframe with which I held properties that I bought, went from three to 10 years down to like two or three years. Because of capital gains, you have to hold it over here. But then it got down to like a year and now in many cases, it's down to three hours, like literally I'll put a property under contract, I'll find a buyer.

I'll get it filled and I won't even close on it. I'll close it, but I'll own it for three hours that the buyer comes in, might put 20 million into the escrow company, pay off the seller with 5 million of it, have 20 million of profit. and one of my mistakes was I did real estate alone without partnerships early on when you do big projects, you need partners, other people to go into the building with their businesses, and then we share the profits.

so I would say that I used to do things. Solo, like I can do this. I'm entrepreneur. I can employ the dentist, right? I'll be the guy and I used to have kind of I didn't think so, but other people thought that I thought I was always right like 20 years ago But maybe looking back I did feel like I was right and I had to follow my face a few times to realize Oh, man, there's so many people smarter than I am.

Let me be mentored by some of these billionaires who've done really well And since that time, I've done a lot more partnerships, a lot more collaborative work, and you know, I try to always believe, hey, if this is the amount of knowledge out there, hey, Brady, you're right here. So don't think of yourself as someone with all the answers.

Realize that you're going to learn from each person that, that is an expert in that subject matter. And so, with real estate. I've focused less on buy and hold, more on flipping it, just like the big, the biggest, most successful DSOs and healthcare groups do. And then I have not, I've decided to do it in partnership with others, uh, rather than just trying to do it myself.

So much more leverage with other people's time, other people's money, other people's Business growth. so that's where I am today is mainly doing collaborative work, partnering with a lot of different doctors, hundreds of them. and really, I'm adding value to others, helping them not go through the mistakes.

I have and both real estate and growing groups too.

Michael: Got, okay. So then if we wanted to right now use real estate profits, what are the first steps? Let's just say right now, okay. You know what? I do wanna do this. I do want to do that flip that you mentioned, or you know what I mean? I'm looking to acquire another practice, but I don't know if I should just expand it and keep it, or.

What are the steps for

Brady: this? Yeah. Um, there's kind of two categories of real estate. One category you already own it and you're figuring out what, what's, what's the best thing I can do with this asset, buy and hold it, sell it and get it, get a bunch of liquidity, pay off a bunch of my debt and then also real estate that you don't own yet.

I'll go over both of those, really quickly. the first one with real estate that you do own, you would be like me, 10 years ago, buying it, holding it, getting some cash flow, paying on your debts. Right. And then having this big payday someday, whenever you sell it, I realized that entrepreneurs, which I think most of the people listening to this are are going to do a lot better.

reducing their debt, getting a bunch of cash in their bank and doing more stuff than playing the 10 year game with that, real estate. So if you own a piece of real estate, I encourage you. And if you want, I can, um, even give a link to a software that shows you how much the value of your current property is.

Yeah. I would encourage you to, to, look at what would life look like if I sold some or all of my real estate, what would I do with that cash? What would life look like with less debt and could I expand my practice or practices, um, in my main business? So, so that's number one. Number two is for those that also are like, Hey, I own real estate.

I like it. I'd love to see what that looks like. If I had a liquidity event there, paid off debt, you know, use that to buy more locations. But I'd also like to know, all right, Brady, what does it look like? Buying real estate for the sole purpose of having a massive game, right? And so here's the strategy with that and we can come back into that later and I saw you nod your head I can I can do a qr code I'll hold it up in front of the screen or we can put it in the in the chat and you'll you can plug your Building information.

It'll spit out of value. It's pretty awesome software. so the other component is, Hey, I don't own real estate. how do you make the most in real estate? So most dentists think that if I build a dental building and sell it, Hey, I built it starting to make a profit right now because of inflation, it costs on average 420 bucks a foot to build a dental building with the land and everything.

420 bucks a foot. The buildings that I buy, I never pay over a hundred dollars a foot. Never. It's 30 bucks to 80 bucks a foot. and they call that, that's way below replacement cost. Meaning, if you were to build that today, it cost you 400 percent more. So here is why we're able to do that.

The office and retail markets of real estate Started going down because there were more vacancies because e commerce Amazon went out there and no one, you know what I mean? People weren't buying designer jeans. So that affected then COVID hit and a lot of businesses went virtual. Another big hit to the commercial real estate markets.

And now we've got AI that is supposed to replace 62 percent of task related jobs within three to five years, which means more of a hit to real estate. interest rates are higher now. So whenever interest rates go up, real estate market goes down. The only shining light in real estate right now is the healthcare real estate market.

Anything backed with a dental lease or a healthcare lease. that real estate is skyrocketing. Office and retail is going way down. And that arbitrage is where we're playing. So we buy a building that's vacant, without any tenants. Dirt cheap. You move your business into there, just like Aspen does, or Heartland, or one of the others.

Once you move your business into there, the building is now occupied. Okay. And, um, the software that I'll share, it actually picks out all these vacant buildings that you can choose from around America. Is that crazy? Yeah, that is cool. Yeah. So, so basically you could, and it matches it up. It's the AI component isn't complete yet, but the AI component watching match your, what you plug in to the buildings that are available.

through 20 different databases of buildings, right? So it picks all these on loop net with a remax, all these, and it finds all those buildings, even the ones that are off market at auctions. Okay. So then you're, so then you make an offer on that building and an ideal world, it would already have a build out that is actually fits a dental practice.

Like I did a, I bought a med spa for five 75, put a 15 operatory in there. Sold the building for 2. 4 million, like a year or two later. And that practice was a DeNovo, a startup. It did 503, 000 the first month. Cause I used partner dentists. And one month later I bought a strip mall, vacant strip mall and had a blockbuster in there that was gone.

If you remember blockbuster. Yeah. Yeah. Blockbuster gone. Right. it had a blimpy sobs gone and some drive through coffee thing. And it was near a hospital. It had an oral surgeon near it, an endodontist. I bought it for 330 grand 10, 000 square feet. The seller was a physician because there was a hospital nearby.

He said, I'll sell it to you. But only if you give me 10 percent down, cause I want the cashflow on the 330 grand. So I put 33 grand into it and then the rest was seller financing. And I sold that about two years later for just a little over 2. 4 million. Right. That was a thousand percent return and the tenants paid for their build outs in there.

Right. so those buildings, those vacant buildings, that massive arbitrage of profit, that is what you can use to expand your business. So in that group that I owned in Southern Oregon grew from zero to eight million in less than four years. The group ended up having an eight figure exit with the DSO. And I grew that based on profits from real estate. Not only did I pay cash for everything. equipment, any build out stuff, but I actually had millions of dollars left over just on that arbitrage, buying real estate really low and selling it at market value, which happens to be really high compared to what you buy it for.

So the key is, is this, Michael, Buying buildings dirt cheap that are perfect for dental practices or other health care and then occupying them with a practice, your new practice, a de novo, or moving an acquisition into there, like a merger from a three op guy into there. And then once you are occupying that building.

The lease rate is what dictates the value. And then there's a whole world of buyers out there who buy real estate based on cashflow. Very easy to sell these for market value, but here's the deal. Nobody wants a vacant building. So owner users like us, Dennis are in a powerful position to occupy the building that we buy.

And then basically flip that building, realize the profits. And, and, and the main point is the less and less time that you own the building from 10 years, all the way down to three hours, the greater your returns on an hourly rate, right? Meaning that profit explodes when you sell it.

If you wait 10 years to sell it, you amortize your profit when you sell it all the way back over 10 years, incrementally per hour, your profit on that property is very low. Whereas if you buy a property and sell it a year later, right? Incrementally every hour you've owned that property is monetized based on the sale price.

so that is in general kind of what I've done with real estate and we're in a great time right now. So much vacant dirt cheap real estate and so much opportunity. dentistry is exploding. Great opportunity for groups to expand and use real estate as their tool. Okay.

Michael: Interesting. So how, I guess through all that, how easy is it to occupy one of these vacant buildings?

Brady: So in some buildings, are very, set up for dental. Like that med spa that I bought and put 15 ops in it. Yeah, they had massage rooms. I just dropped dental chairs in each room. Very, very inexpensive. They had a waiting room already. It was gorgeous facility. very low, low, low costs for build out.

The, um, strip mall that I had bought at that time, which kind of started this process for me of DeNovo's and real estate. Um, was a big open space and blockbuster and that took an actual build out inside. So that cost 400, 500 grand now, uh, bought the building for three 30 sold it for 2. 4 million, right? So even after 400, 000 in a buildout, that's still close to 2 million in profit, still worth it.

But basically the buildings that you choose that are better suited to fit dental, the less you'll spend on TIs and the more retained profits you'll have, which can go into your retirement account. Which can pay off student debt, which can go into buying more practices, right? And recycle that. so, yeah, there is a kind of an art to that and the software really, uh, kind of, uh.

Dovetails into what existing buildups look like you can kind of see what those look like and all that good stuff

Michael: gotcha, and so you bought the You started this process without getting a loan from the bank or anything like that to be like, hey I'm going to expand I want to do this you you did it from your own

Brady: or yes so so what happened is that was this was in 2010, which is 13, 14 years ago that I started this de novo and real estate component.

But before then I already sold a couple of groups, owned other real estate, sold it. So I was doing well. So I just self funded. I didn't use debt. I just bought these properties and then occupied them and added other tenants to them, the strip mall. I had a chiropractor and a blood lab. got it 100 percent occupied and sold it to a 1031 buyer.

Um, so for those that are like, Hey, have to take on debt and do that. So we have a big family office network. So doctors don't have to come up with money on the front end. They can be a tenant partner. In these projects, right? our team at Freedom, uh, Dental Partners, we've got a team that just teaches how to do the stuff.

in fact, several of the projects of the 62 buildings going to closing right now are, are just that. One guy is a guy named Kevin up in Chicago. I actually partnered on this building to buy it. we bought it for two million and we're selling it for five million, right? Just a little bit of time later It's got 20 000 square feet.

It's got a total of 40 dental laboratories in it Yeah, it's got perio and oral surgery and He's putting a big implant practice there and we're kind of teaming up on that. so not like you have to pay dirt cheap for them. I mean, you can pay two million for a building and still make three million dollars on it.

So, so we do a lot of those, those as well.

Michael: Okay. And then how, right now, if someone wants to sell, what should they do? What's like your recommendation if they're like, okay, I'm looking to sell. They know the common most way to sell. Right. Yep. Yeah. What are your recommendations?

Brady: Yeah. So first of all, I would kind of assess your building.

what is the, the value look like? And, I don't know if a lot of folks watch yours via video or it's audio, but do you mind if I share my screen and I can kind of... Yeah,

Michael: Yeah. And if anybody right now, if you're listening, uh, definitely go in the show notes below and watch the video version of, especially of this portion

Brady: right now.

Yeah. And I'll just kind of go with this. There it is. So I just spoke, I don't know if anyone gets dental economics. I'm sure you get that magazine. And, uh, I've written a bunch of articles in there and they invited me to speak again in, in Las Vegas and this QR code, Freedom Dental Partners forward slash RE. So if you can't see it, it's just freedom dental partners. com forward slash RE. basically you just plug in, uh, the data on your building and we've got a whole team that basically figures out what the value is based on a few important factors.

And those factors are your lease rate or what your lease rate could be. Um, the ability to have a corporate guarantee on the building, and then we work with several multi billion dollar REITs that then basically are buying a lot of the properties we put together, and we know the value of that. So we can, we'll email you back the value, um, it doesn't cost you anything obviously for that, but it's another example of how dentists can partner together to get higher value, because the average value a dentist can receive from selling their building as part of a group of other dental buildings is about 35 percent higher.

So if a building is worth 500 grand on its own with these other factors, you're making whatever that is. So So that's that I'll unshare right now, but happy for anyone to use that resource and we had a bunch of people use that at the dental economics event and get back their values on their buildings and how that all works and with an explanation.

But anyway, yeah, so that's that's Michael for those that already own their building that want to, you know, have some profit event from the real estate they own. But the biggest, I will say, the biggest profits are in taking these buildings, finding, you know, the ones that are easily, moved into a dental practice component, and then being able to turn those buildings, have a profit, and operate your dental practice there, and effectively expand without any debt and actually making money while you're expanding.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And I know, um, I guess, how do you know if a building is perfect? Because I think if you want something bad enough, you kind of can convince yourself like, this is perfect. But if Brady were to walk in there, you can tell us like, man, Michael, this is not perfect at all. This is, this is not a good building.

So how can

Brady: we tell? Yeah, yeah. So, so I look at it from, um, kind of an investment. Objective. If someone's going to do, let's say it's your second practice or your third or your 10th, you almost have to look up, look at it as a cost to benefit ratio. So I really don't look at any buildings or recommend any dentist look at a building unless they can make at least a half million dollars.

if you can buy it and some of your costs are going to be X and you can still make a half million dollars. That's a great deal because now what you're doing is you're kind of getting your dental practice expansion going along for the ride But you're also being a real estate investor And and I think we all know that the majority of the world's wealth was gained or is held In real estate and and what we're doing here really is taking a undervalued asset class office and retail In our market today and just converting it to Basically healthcare, which dental fits in that mix, which is the most highly valued real estate right now.

it's no different than I think Chip and Joanne Gaines that buy a house, fix it up and sell it for more. It's just a lot easier and more lucrative in this market right now because we can buy vacant buildings for such a low price. And sell them for such a high price.

Michael: So this is kind of like, I've heard of this method.

It's like the BRRR method, kind of like that BRRR method where you buy, right? Like rehab, refinance. Yeah,

Brady: it totally is. So Michael, we should delve into that a little bit because I'm sure people don't know the acronym. Buy rehab, rent, refinance. So that's what it is. Now, here's the big cool part about it. Okay, we buy these vacant buildings, right? Rehab, well, you're gonna put your business in there or you might go with a bunch of other businesses and do it in partnership Which is some of my favorite way of doing it more profits than that offer.

Okay, rent Your practice is gonna be renting it, right? Refi. Now there used to be a trend where, hey, I'll pull that money out and I'll just stack up my debt and keep getting more and more debt. and so I used to do that and I realized that the more debt that I had, The less I felt like I could go out there and pursue entrepreneurial stuff because I had a lot of debt.

You know what I mean? Yeah. so the only difference is buy rehab rent and it's yourself as part of the tenant mix your, your own tenant. And then instead of refinancing, just selling, making a bunch of money, not having debt. And now you can focus on being productive, being an entrepreneur, and not kind of stacking up your debt as you go, even though refinancing is still a option in many cases.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So yeah, it's buy, rehab, rent, refinance, and then repeat.

Brady: Yeah. Yeah. and with these, this model. Absolutely. So, so the key is you need to know how to do a startup profitably. And with Freedom Dental Partners, we are launching a course very soon on how I just in Novos and grew from zero to 8 million.

One was an acquisition, but three De Novos, zero to 8 million, no PPOs, believe it or not. Wow. How to, yeah. How for to market for that, how to add partners. How to get them off the ground, you know, most people say, Oh, you'll, you'll be profitable in two years. My first month on the second location did 503, 000 with 210 grand of profit, the first month, and that was that med spa.

so I'm putting a program together that folks can follow a free program just to go over how that worked. then we got a done with you component where we can have our, four recruiters where you can recruit. a junior partner, who's gonna be there, how does the marketing tie in, you know, is there an implant bent to the practice, all that good stuff, but yeah, it, it, really.

The de novo or startup fits in with the real estate strategy, unless you're going to merge an older docs practice into there. Um, but I found any money that you would have spent on that acquisition. If you just spend that on marketing and you know how many patients per dollar you're spending coming in is, and especially with your techniques, Michael, to have a team that's going to Costco and going to these bricks and mortar places around town doing lunch and It's an incredible way to build grassroots around that.

And once you hit, once you at least break even on that, you know, if you follow the plan really well, you, you know, profit the first month, but let's say it takes you six months to break even. Great. Now you've got an incredible asset, you made money on the front end, and now you're going and doing another one of these things and you're literally growing without SBA loans. of America, right? Without needing to be backed by private equity. And when you do sell your group, now it's just all cash to you, right? You don't have to pay off debt and then have a profit. you're growing without debt. And, and I found you grow faster and you take more risks with your growth when you got money in the bank and you don't have debt.

Then it's like, Oh, I can do this. Let's try this. Hey, it's no big deal if I try that. And, and those that have the freedom to try new things, And to get kind of aggressive in business, they're the ones that usually win because they're actually trying new things. hitting a single, a double, a homerun.

Oh shoot, maybe they didn't do very well on this one, but it didn't affect them. So yeah. So anyway.

Michael: No. Yeah. That's interesting. And then I think that's the tricky part there Brady. It's like, cause it sounds, I mean, to me at least it sounds easy, like, okay, let's be profitable. And then we can sell, right? But I feel like a lot of, um, especially like, you know, startups and acquisitions, they kind of get stuck in there where it's like, dude, it's been one year and I haven't even broken even yet.

Like, you know what I mean? Kind of thing.

Brady: Yeah. So here's kind of one of the secrets with this model. I marketed 30 grand a month, three months before I opened that location where we did 503, 000 the first month. most dentists put in their budget, like instead of 3 percent for marketing, I'll do 6 percent and it just never works.

So you kind of have to do a marketing blitz to do it. I had 340 or so new patients that first month it was hundreds. And we did consults before opening it and treatment scheduled. So, so the key is you have to be able to do a massive marketing budget. And most people don't want to do that using debt, they're just backpedaling them, right? It's like, oh crap, I'm putting all this money into marketing. I don't know if the marketing is going to work. So with that, I had already done a real estate project before that made a bunch of money. And then I'm like, Oh, I've got several million in the bank.

I don't mind dumping 30 grand in the marketing, right? From a variety of sources, radio, TV, postcards. You know, Google AdWords, Facebook ads, funnels, all that, even a local newspaper. And I went on radio and talked and did a little, I was on a radio talk show, they gave me the radio ads. So you kind of have to do anything and everything, and that creates this massive momentum where you get all this press coming in, right?

And then the statistic ends up working out, which is, 80 percent of new patients that come into a practice, 80 percent of new patients, the internal referrals come from those that have been in the practice 12 months or less. So when you do external marketing, you're automatically building your internal referrals and people don't understand.

They think, Oh, this 62 year old doc that's been in town for 30 years. He's getting all the referrals, right? Cause he's been there forever. Nope. He's getting four to six new patients a month. It's the new docs who are marketing heavy that are getting the internal referrals. Cause they're, they're bringing in fresh patients, right?

And so you have to understand that external marketing begets what we all want, the internal referrals. And with a great campaign like what you do, Boots on the Ground, Lunch and Learns, that's huge because you're with folks, they're talking about it, you're in local businesses. So, so that is the key to market really heavily and, and do that.

But, but when you do that, you know, you can, you can literally. take care of your financial future with just the real estate profits and grow a group Debt free.

Michael: Gotcha, man. Okay, that's interesting. Good. That's good to know like kind of getting that momentum started right there. one of the final questions I wanted to ask is Right throughout everything you're kind of seeing and this is just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical Side of dentistry, right?

What do you dislike or hate about dentistry right now?

Brady: I would say there's this kind of chasm between, private equity backed DSOs and then the rest of independent dentists and dentists getting together and, um, being funded. outside private equity. So private equity back DSOs. That simply means that some corporate body and institutional investor owns the majority of that entity, which means when it recaps what it sells, the majority of those profits Go to the private equity company or the institutional investor.

Very little goes to the actual dentist doing the real work on the ground. On the other side of this equation are yes, individual dentists, but also dentist groups that are funded by their own debts, by their own sources of funding, like the real estate that we talked about. And it's kind of a battle right now.

what I hate is that More dentists aren't doing enough research to understand that these big private equity backed groups are not investing in real estate. In 2016, they wrote something in a private equity journal that said don't invest in real estate, but the founders of those groups have formed exclusive arrangements.

And they get to invest in all the real estate. They're making a killing billions of dollars. And all of these groups that kind of watch the big groups, they're saying, oh, we'll just lease. We won't own the real estate because they don't own it, but the founder is owning the real estate. So what I don't love is that there's not a ton of information being given out.

over here with the huge groups that are private equity back. And there's a lot of dentists that aren't taking the time to research how that really works. And I think that's my goal is to, yes, certainly show a couple decades of failures and successes, but to also show, cause I've, I've looked deeply inside the innards of all these DSOs.

I've helped a lot of them and consulted a lot of them and worked with the main attorney group who set them up. so I think what I don't love is that chasm between the two. And I think the individual dentists, the business folks that are working with dentists, those groups that are watching the big DSOs and emulating them and just leasing space, not realizing there's a huge real estate play there.

and those that don't realize, Hey, we can clump together like at Freedom Dental Partners and have a big group with a big liquidity event and benefit our futures. you know, financially, just like the big boys do. I think it's that chasm that I hate the most. And that's I think what I'm here to do is educate, show how they're doing it and then interpret how that works and make it easy so that Dennis can flourish just like those big groups.

And then I think what's gonna happen is if here's the big groups and here's Dennis and smaller It's going to equalize out because now we're using all the secret tools, techniques and protocols that they are. We leveled the playing field and we actually maybe even have an edge on our side, especially with kind of some of the real estate stuff we've talked about today.

Michael: All right, man. Awesome. And then any final pieces of advice that you'd like to give to our listener?

Brady: Um, I would say if you're young and you're just starting out your career and you did an acquisition or a startup, you're a business person involved with a small group, look at ways of collaborating more like, uh, you know, Freedom Dental Partners, we've got hundreds of dentists around the country who are building small groups together and getting involved, Google Freedom Dental Partners, see some of the deals we've done, some of the DSOs we've bought, we've bought a number of DSOs, and uh, just get involved and look for folks that are really, uh, kind of on the, on the forefront of doing this stuff, look for folks that are partnering with others, that are sharing, and uh, I would say just, look very closely at those that are banding together because those are the groups that are forging, ahead and really competing with each other.

With the big boys. unfortunately it's not the one or two or three location groups that are kind of competing as the big boys. It's, it's those one, two or three location groups or 10 location groups that are banding together, creating a formidable force to elevate through partnerships that are, that are really making a difference out there today.

Okay, man,

Michael: that's good. So then if anyone had any questions or concerns, where can they find you?

Brady: Yeah, just go to brady at freedom dental partners. com brady at freedom dental partners. com and I can I can get to where you need to go

Michael: Awesome. So guys that's going to be in the show notes below. So definitely check it out And at the same time brady, thank you so much for being with us.

It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from

Brady: you soon Awesome, michael. Have a great one

Michael: Thank you so much for tuning into that podcast. And Brady, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. We really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wealth of knowledge. And at the same time, if you want to ask Brady any questions, go in the show notes below or the description below, and you can click on his links and reach out to him there.

Definitely check out his website and see what he has to offer you as well. Along with any of the freebies that he mentioned in the episode, you can download them in the show notes below as well. So go ahead and do that now. Have you ever thought about what your dental practice could achieve if tech headaches were a thing of the past?

That's where a fantastic IT company comes in. Now think about your day at your clinic strip away any worries about server crashes or data breaches. Man, if you can do that, that'd be amazing. With Dark Horse Tech, that's your new reality. They deliver IT solutions that align perfectly with the rhythm of a busy dental practice, so your attention never strays from patient care.

Now, I wanted you to ask yourself that critical question. What could your practice achieve if every technological aspect worked flawlessly, because that's not a hypothetical anymore. It's a real possibility with dark horse tech and to make the decision even easier, dark horse tech is introducing a limited time offer.

That's too good to pass up. If you start with dark horse tech today, your first month is a hundred percent free, that's right. Your initial 30 days of service are free of charge. It's their way of showing you the difference, the right it partner can make. So choose dark horse tech and take the first step towards a future where your dental practice can thrive uninterrupted by it concerns.

It's time to let technology elevate your practice. Not complicated. So go in the show notes below, click the first link in the show notes below to check out the offer. And at the same time, you can see what other practice owners are saying about dark horse tech. And if you like what you see, then you can go with them. But remember the limited time offer is. First 30 days are completely free. So grab this opportunity and see what seamless it service feels like with dark horse tech. It's not just about managing it. It's about mastering your practices potential. So going to show notes below, click the first link in the show notes below to check out more, and that's going to do it for this episode.

Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

‍

‍

‍

In this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, I'm joined by former NFL player turned dental direct mail expert, Aaron Boone! Aaron has over 12 years pioneering new technology and methods for improving direct mail response exclusively in the dental industry. He and his team have mailed and tracked the results of over 100 million mailings for offices all across the country. In this episode, he shares the current state of direct mail in the dental industry and his secrets to minimize risk and maximize results. If you want to grow your practice and are currently doing direct mail, have done it in the past or are even considering doing direct mail in the future, this is a must watch episode filled with GREAT advice and strategy for any office.

Dive into this episode for Aaron's best tips and tricks you may be missing with direct mail!

‍

You can reach out to Aaron Boone here:

Website: https://mvpmailhouse.com/

Email: [email protected]

Free Direct Mail Analysis and Heat Map: https://mvpmailhouse.com/demo/

‍

Other Mentions and Links:

Rolls-Royce

Pimp My Ride

‍

‍

If you want your questions answered on Monday Morning Marketing, ask me on these platforms:

My Newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/

The Dental Marketer Society Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2031814726927041

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

‍

Michael: Hey Aaron. So talk to us about direct mailers. How can we utilize this or what advice, suggestions or methods can you give us that will actually help us attract new patients with this? What is the current state of it?

Aaron: Great. Well, no, thanks for having me on and to address this. So, my name is Aaron Boone.

I'm founder of MVP Mailhouse and this is all I do all day, every day is direct mail for dental practices. So if you're going to ask someone what the current state of direct mail is, uh, good thing asking me, I don't do websites. I don't do digital marketing. I do direct mail for dentists all across the country.

So, you know, it is interesting that you said that. What is the current state? You know, if anyone has ever asked. Hey, how's direct mail do for your office? You're going to get some mixed results, right? Some people are going to say good. Some people are going to say not good. it's actually one of my favorite questions when offices reach out to me.

I ask him, have you ever done direct mail? Yes or no? Yes. Uh, yeah, but I'm not sure how well it did or it didn't work for me. One of my next favorite questions is, what didn't work? What part of it? And for direct mail to work, you kind of need to break it down. That's like me asking, hey, uh, that root canal you did didn't work.

Well, what part of it? There's so many prep phases and finish phases and all that stuff, right? So with direct mail, you know, there's there's a lot of different components of it And I know I don't have great lighting and different things like that But if you can control the variables just like if you're doing a root canal Just like if you're placing a crown you're going to have best results and best long term results so if I were to break them down, I guess to kind of answer that question to control the variables Number one is the design What are you sending out there?

Number two, the areas that you target and when you target them and how you target them, how often, et cetera. There's a science behind all of this. Um, and there's a lot of data that we've tracked over the years, hundreds of millions of cards for dentists, and we've tracked every call. And that's the, the third component is how you're tracking.

Are you putting phone numbers on? Are you actually doing an audit on the back end where you match who came in and really knowing which ones came from the postcard? Okay, and then the fourth phase is making adjustments, refinement, because what works for your office might not work for your friend the next town over or the next state over or across the country.

Okay, so I guess that's how it kind of, and I'm happy to break down and dive into any one of those different variables, if any of them resonate with you. Yeah, yeah,

Michael: because I feel like, um, correct me if I'm wrong, or maybe whenever we want to decide to do direct mailers, we're like, we get excited, we do the design and everything, and then we put in a huge, Amount right pricing wise and then you said you got a pivot right continue to pivot and make adjustments So would you recommend hey test the waters out first and then continue to make pivots or is it more like now?

Give it all you got on the first round and then well, that's

Aaron: a good question. so yes I like to take it in stride. I'm a pretty conservative person. I grew up on a goat farm, I'm not just going to go buy a Rolls Royce just because I got some money in my pocket, right?

I'm going to take things conservatively and find what I like, what works. Okay. So, what most print companies do and even in the dental. Face there's marketing companies that are really good at websites really good at digital ads They offer direct mail, but that's not what their bread and butter is.

It's not what they do So I think there's a lot of bad information out in the industry about direct mail So number one don't fall for the pre printing what I mean is instead of printing a hundred thousand cards planning for the whole year take it in stride only print this month See what works be able to make adjustments What happened you wouldn't believe how many people called me when kovat happened and they're like I already printed a whole year's worth of cards I can't change my message.

Well, and that's the other issue with results Is you want to be current with your card right now? We want to use a use it or lose it message. That's what works because it's end of year expiring benefits In January, February, you want to remind people, Hey, new year, new you, new benefits, tax return time, beat the summer rush back to school.

When you get a card in the mail, you want it to be current for now. I call it seasonality and dentistry. so that people are getting the message at the right time for that year or what are their situations? Because right now the top drivers the top people they're going to call are people with benefits that haven't used them this year dental benefits and because cash as you go into december cash is getting a little tighter people are worrying about christmas and all the other things But if you're going to lose your insurance benefits Dude, I got to call these people.

And that's why you see use it or lose it in the industry so much. So right now, definitely seasonality and dentistry is important offers are another interesting angle to drive response, to increase response. So for example, if you have no dental insurance. And all I'm advertising is specials for insurance people.

It's less of a motivator, but if I, cause you think cash. So when you get an offer, when you see these offers for 49, 99, examine x rays, stuff like that, that resonates with cash people because it's an incentive to come in kind of a deal. It doesn't make them a bad patient. it eliminates the barrier of entry to get them to come in.

However, if examine x ray, if I have insurance, I just think that's like kind of free. 99 exam extra means nothing to me But if you give me free whitening or if you give me a free toothbrush That's where those offers drive insurance people versus cash people. Okay Now i'm not saying you have to have a crazy offer You want to sell yourself and what's most important is make your card authentic.

We recommend real pictures Not stock photography, real pictures of you and your team. Another thing I'll say real quick is play to your strengths. Our designers design these cards. We want to find your strengths. If you don't have a good looking office, don't put it on your card. if you look scary, maybe don't put your face on the card, right?

But I don't know how to say that politely, but I'm saying play to your strengths. Right if you're discount if you're low in like as far as pricing lead with that. That's okay If you're a high end boutique lead with that that's gonna resonate With the right people, right? You're not going to get everyone.

You don't need everyone. You just need to Consistently grow your practice so anyway That's what i'd say about the designs and the variables and then The last part of it that I think a lot of people make the mistake of is they don't track it So when you pre print cards You don't know if someone called from your january mailing or july mailing because it's exactly the same Right, you just know when they call so every time we mail when we do a january mailing Versus February to the north versus March to the south.

We use a new phone tracking number on it. So we know exactly, even if someone calls six months from now, you'll know it was from your January mailing, not your current September mail. Does that make sense? So you're able to track individual areas and designs. And by response to see what's working best. And then, like you said, once you find what's working, okay, now you can hit the gas pedal more conservatively smarter, because you know that every time you mail this design to this area or whatever it might be, you're getting back.

Eight times your money, six times your money, whatever it is. And then it's a lot easier too to put your money down right? If you know it's working. Mm-Hmm. , you know, it's like, I don't know, you, you go to the casino yelling, I got a system. No one really has a system at the casino or at the slot machine. But yeah, you're more confident to put some money in because there's always some risk in marketing.

I'm not gonna deny that there's always some risk. Mm-Hmm. . But if that risk is minimal, it makes it a lot easier to be confident and put more money into it.

Michael: Yeah. No, a hundred percent. And so. With pricing on that, does it become more, expensive, I guess, if it's like, Hey, let's do it, month by month or seasonal by seasonal instead of like, Hey, let's just buy for the year.

I get a bulk price and it's cheaper. Yeah.

Aaron: So, know, that's a tricky question and I would say it depends on the office. So I have, I don't recommend pre printing. I do have a few offices that want to, because you really only save a couple pennies. The real expense in direct mail is postage. I don't make a dime off it.

You don't make a dime, but that's who we need to deliver. And postage rates have gone up four times in the last two years. Like they have gone up. So it makes direct mail more, a little more expensive, a couple pennies more. But here's how I recommend to analyze marketing. And if you read marketing books and sales books and things like that to grow your practice.

You need more patients, right? You're going to have attrition no matter what as much as you love your patients and take care of them You're going to lose some they move They their insurance changes. They don't like you whatever happens you lose patients every month Too many offices are not filling in those patients plus some every month and that's probably if someone's watching this They're probably wondering how they can get more right?

How do you grow? So it comes down to investment And the thing I love about offices, dentists especially, that have already worked their practice for a few years is you've worked through a lot of kinks. Now, I work with a lot of startups, but that bread and butter office that has been there 2, 3, 5, 8 years, now you've got things dialed in, those are the ones that should be pushing the gas pedal.

Because, here's the thing, you're better now at case acceptance, you're more experienced. Your your whole team is better when a patient comes in. They're going to like you better They're going to stay longer because you're better So invest in that, you know people are we're willing to put money into a stock market and some random stock of people that you Have no idea if they're even going to do a good job with the company But dentists have a hard time putting money in themselves.

I'm going to bring more patients to me And we as a team are going to take care of these people and they will make us money because then they're going to refer Their friends their family. So the going rate right now for direct mail Uh is I mean a regular stamp is all the way up to what 65 cents. I think right now We're able to do everything design it print it mail it Listen to every call you get grade how well you're still Staff handles the calls give you feedback and an exact ROI when we match the data with your practice management software.

You're going to know dollar for dollar, good or bad, what you get with MVP. And that's what our, our, our offices love. But we do all of that for closer to 50 cents. depending on your quantity per cart, everything, postage, tracking, print, everything. So, can it be expensive? Well, sure. Anything can be expensive.

But what I would suggest you look at is not necessarily the expense, but what you get back. Okay. If you spent a dollar and got back 2, well, that's good. But what if you spent 2 and got back 5 or 6? Is it the expense or is it the gain? Is it the ROI? So and and that's different for every practice So one of my favorite questions is that I always recommend is define success What is your success?

Are you just trying to get the word out there that you're there? Are you trying to get more patients? Are you trying to get more production? So define success and then we can work towards Achieving that so that that office will want to renew again and again and again Because for me and them it's a win win when we continue our partnership, right?

That means they're making money the office and that means we're doing a good job Serving them. So that's kind of our goals is we're very transparent We have a scoreboard a dashboard where you know, exactly we don't hide results. I don't call you up and say hey How's the postcards doing? I call you up and say, Hey doc, great news.

So far, you've already had 17 calls and 14 appointments schedule. Oh, really? I didn't know that. we're providing real info for real results. And I think that's the missing piece that a lot of people don't have in their direct mail, and you can do this on your own. If you do your own direct mail, great.

More power to you, but control the variables. That would be my overall message from this control, the variables, best design, best homes. I'll help you decide which homes and show you that based on where your prank shits are coming from and stuff like that. Track it. And then most important, measure your ROI.

And if it's there and you're defining success and, and making the money that you want to get or achieving the results. And keep doing it. Invest in yourself saying. Invest in your office and it grows. So anyway, sorry. That was a lot of talking.

Michael: No, no, no. That's good. That's good. And I like that.

I like how you say you bring out a good point. Dentists have a hard time investing in themselves. Um, but it is good to kind of get that clarification. You know what I mean? To do it. because I feel like a lot of the times that's what happens. We decide to ask in either a forum, a Facebook group or something.

Does direct mail works and people are like, nah, trash don't right now. And this is where we're like, yeah, great. It works. Wonderful. Right. And so I feel like you either come out of that more confused or more like validated on my

Aaron: own emotion. Yeah. It's so true. And my argument to that is if you ask the same question, Hey, do digital ads work?

You're going to get the same response because for some office it works awesome. And for the next, it doesn't. And that's what's important. I think for each office is understanding what works for you And just because it's direct mail or just because it's a digital or a facebook ad if it's done poorly You lower your chances of success regardless of it.

It's So, I might argue that the new junk mail is not direct mail, but actually digital ads. Think of how many digital ads you get on your screen, how many emails you get daily, and the mailbox, it's still there. And it's something that tangible that each one of these homeowners around your practice is going to get and going to be introduced to you.

So, I think there's a play for all marketing aspects. I think the challenge for Dennis is to find out what works for them and do more of it. And without properly testing there's some really bad advice that you can take out there because just like you said if you go to These forums well that office that just said it sucks Is in downtown Manhattan and is a totally different population than yours in Savannah, Georgia, wherever your practice is right in the suburbs of this area.

So, I think that's the other thing to factor into is don't take blanket statements. I do think that it is important to take advice and I love that. That's what I, one of the things I love about the dental community the support that's there, but sometimes that support and advice. isn't always, warranted or maybe isn't quite apples to apples when they did that root canal, well, it may be a totally different scenario.

You know, I was giving you that example of, well, the root canal didn't work. Well, what part? Well, what if they're doing a totally different tooth or a totally different patient that has different types of gum disease or whatever it might be, I'm not a dentist, but you see what I'm saying? You can't compare apples to apples.

And, um, I think what's important is finding out what works for your practice. And we do a free, uh, complimentary analysis of your area, even I can pretty much grade your area. Kind of like you remember that TV show, break my ride or hit my ride or something. So literally when an office comes to me, I can put their practice in my mapping software and I can predict how well they will do with direct mapping.

And that's pretty powerful. Now there's some cool tools and technology that have evolved over the years. It's not the eighties and nineties direct mail anymore, where you mail to the whole zip code and a whole state, I can literally target your hottest neighborhoods. I can take out your patients so they don't get it, but their neighbors do.

Like, there's some cool things that have happened in direct mail, kind of like you do on, on digital. You can target a certain group or a certain, you know, on, on Facebook, these, these kind of, specific target markets. Do that and direct them out. things are capable are a possibility now that they weren't 10, 20 years ago.

Nice.

Michael: Okay. Awesome. Aaron, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find them on the dental marketer society, Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?

Aaron: Well, I would suggest just going to mvpmailhouse. com go into our website. Um, you can fill out a free contact us form.

Yeah, everything is free. No, we're not high pressure sales guys, anything like that. Like I love it's almost like a free exam and x ray. Okay, let me look into your mouth. Let me look around your practice at the homes and I'll tell you what's going on in there. And if direct mail can be a viable source, I'll also even pin drop out your patients so you can see exactly where they're coming from.

And find these hottest neighborhoods. It's kind of an X ray of your, of your area to see where you're growing. And that's really the secret is finding where people come from now, because their neighbors are typically their best, the best next patients, similar demographics, you know, you do a lot of, grassroots marketing and things like that.

It makes sense, right? You're not going to go knock way on the other side of town. Where no one comes from because you're going to get lower results find your hotbeds And embrace them and continue to grow in those Anyway, yeah, go to our website check it out fill out that contact us form or info at mvp mail house Dot com right in the notes that you heard about us here.

I got a little special for anyone. we'd be happy to kind of give them that free exam and x ray that second opinion Even if you're doing direct mail right now Let me give you a free second opinion of where you should be mailing and what you are doing right now

Michael: Awesome, man.

So that's going to be in the show notes below and thank you for being with me on this monday morning marketing episode

‍

I'm excited to announce that the Pediatric Dental Marketing Course is officially open for enrollment!This comprehensive course, developed by Minal Sampat and myself, is tailored specifically for pediatric practice owners and their teams. It is designed to turn your pain points into stepping stones for success, and to help you become the trusted dental home for countless children in your community. Head over to our site to enroll now! https://pediatricdentalmarketingcourse.com/

‍

‍

Guest: David MaloleyBusiness Name: Relentless DentistCheck out David's Media:

Website: https://relentlessdentist.com/

David's Podcast: https://relentlessdentist.com/podcasts/

Reveal the Hidden Potential In Your Practice! https://app.tryinterface.io/s/64c79b5f-a27b-41b8-b3a0-ea9dfe3eeedf

‍

‍

Other Mentions and Links:

Voices of Dentistry

David's Past Episode: 198

HGTV

Buc-ee's

In-N-Out Burger

Kois Center

Peter Drucker

Deion Sanders

Minal Sampat

Canva

‍

Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society

‍

‍

My Key Takeaways:

• What are the key aspects to a high performance and self-driven team?
• The drawbacks to a top-down, authoritarian, leadership style and effective alternatives.
• How to build your patient experience around referrals, so patients can't help but refer their friends and family.
• The difference between self-managing team members, and those that need more guidance, and how to manage both.
• How to escape the tyranny of "urgent" tasks and ease your mind.
• How to manage a team that isn't fully on board with the plan.

‍
Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]

‍

p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

‍

Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: This is the Dental Marketer, the podcast where we teach you how to effectively market and grow your dental practice. And my name is Michael Adias, and my mission is to help you, the practice owner, attract new patients immediately, and effectively market and grow your business, so you can become the go to dental practice in your community.

Now, today we're tackling a challenge. That you faced at one point or another, and that's how to build a thriving team culture when not everyone seems to be on board and joining us is a seasoned expert, second time guest, Dr. David Maloli. David was on episode 198, The Relentless Dentist, and in that episode, I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes below.

Or you can go on the website and just search up episode 198. And in that episode, he talks about why having clarity is everything when starting a practice. The tough times you will face when you own a practice that you absolutely cannot avoid. And how to become a better leader for your team. And so that's what we discussed in that episode on 198.

But in this episode, we dive miles deeper into a couple things. Specifically, a lot of those things that we talked about, but much, much deeper. For example, We discuss breaking down top notch teams. So have you ever wondered what it takes for a regular group of people, and what do you have to do to turn them into a supercharged team? Well, That's what we dive deep into in this episode. Into what pushes teams to the top. And lights that motivational fire under them. Then we also discussed the flip side of traditional leadership. And so we're going to chat about why the old school bossing around leadership might not be cutting it.

We're diving into ways to lead that boost and inspire and not just boss around. Then we also talk about making your patient experience share worthy.

So Dave's got the lowdown on crafting a patient experience that's so awesome, folks can't help but tell their friends about it. So get ready to learn how to make your patients your biggest fans. And then we're also talking about balancing self managing and guided team members. some teams they're a mix, right?

Some people love their freedom, while others need a road map. And we're gonna chat about handling both kinds of team members, and letting everyone shine in their own way. And then, we'll discuss ditching the everything's urgent mindset. And Dave's got tips. to help you shake off that constant to do list pressure uh, that we all kind of feel like we have. So let's figure out how to take back your time and what really matters in this episode.

That's what we're going to discover with Dr. Dave Maloli. But before that, I want to ask you, Have you ever scrolled through Instagram and noticed, the people you're following the pediatric dentist or pediatric practice, and they have thousands of followers, and you notice people are engaging with their content?

They're creating content you love, that other people love, and you just know that they're attracting new patients every single day through Instagram. And you've thought to yourself, how incredible would that be if I had an Instagram account just like them? How fun would that be? Well Stick around after the interview to learn exactly how to do this, but for now, let's listen in to Dr.

Dave Melloli. David, how's it going? Michael,

David: I'm awesome. How about yourself?

Michael: Doing pretty good, bud. Doing pretty good. It's been a minute. I think the last time we physically spoke was at Voices of Dentistry pre

David: pandemic. Right. Yeah. I was going to say it's probably a different world that we're both walking in currently, relative to the last time we

Michael: spoke.

But since last time, and even in the episode, which I'll put in the show notes below, so, the listener can, you know what I mean, follow up and listen to it. But at the same time, you've always been really keen on leadership. You've always talked about it. Right now, currently, are you, are you working in a practice clinically or no?

I'm

David: not. I sold my practice literally right before the pandemic would have taken it from me. So I saw my last patient in March of 2020.

Michael: Oh, nice. Okay. So then right now, what are you currently doing?

David: I exclusively coach. Single location, dental practice owners. Um, I've done that one on a one on one basis for about five years.

And I really focus on performance, which is to me, the people side of things, not only what's going on internally for the doctor, but how does that radiate as a force for good towards the teams? And I'm also building a platform called Dentist Ascend, and that's to really give that demographic, single location dental practice owners, every competitive edge, giving them, I've really analyzed the market once because I was in it for a long period of time.

It's easy to see what are all the things that they need and what are all the things that would be nice, but create friction and getting them to progress from current state to desired state.

Michael: Gotcha. So is it more monetary? Like, Hey, look, I'm trying to break even Dave. And I need to get me there. Right? Like I'm struggling.

It's been two, three years. Right. Or is it more like, Hey, the team sucks. I hate coming to work. Money's good. I just, Mondays, when Mondays come around, I get sick, right? Which one is it kind of more?

David: it's both. Um, I created a methodology called the dentist of sun methodology to make sure that, cause my background before I was in dentistry, I was really in performance working with elite athletes and my career kind of.

Went full circle when I realized that I was kind of born to be a coach, that's what was allowing my practice to prosper was me coaching up my teams that led to, you know, one on one coaching engagements, but I think it's dangerous to separate one from the other because, you know, I call the top tier and enjoy cashflow, like how profitable are we, what are the business mechanics that are leading to that, but if you drill down.

A layer below that, I call that enthused clients. So what sort of clinical care and patient experience are they getting? And then that's going to lend to. Enjoy cashflow, right? If we go a deeper layer than that, who's creating the experiences, the doctor and the team, I call it enhanced culture.

And then the driver of all of that in my, with my clientele where they have one location and they're really masters of their craft, but they have to parallel their craft with. Leadership and business acumen. I call that elevate confidence. What's going on for that doctor? Or not going on for that doctor in some cases.

To, that's inhibiting them from being at their best at work.

Michael: Gotcha, okay. That make sense? Yeah, so this is a process, a system you've created,

David: right? It is, it's an integration between business consulting and performance coaching. That, I've been around the block enough and I've I've been in the pit of despair as a practice owner myself for long periods of time, it helped me see what was genuinely high leverage for the doctor and also like what are the things that we're chasing and they're expensive, but they're not necessarily high yield.

Michael: Okay, so you mentioned pit of despairs. What are some? Of the major pit of despairs that you remember where you were like, geez, my gosh, how am I going to get out of this? That maybe nowadays you see that coming back up or that's happening a lot with uh, some of the colleagues. Yeah,

David: I think One of the phrases I go back to often is that we don't have business problems We have personal problems that manifest in our business and that really humanizes the process But for me in the first few years of my startup practice My wife was medevaced to have my son, that was a big trauma to me because I didn't know if either of them were going to come home, quite frankly, a few years after that, my wife had a stroke in my office again, medevaced to Denver to save her life.

And the straw that broke the camel's back was about six months after that were half my team quit all in one week. it was more of a mutiny, kind of orchestrated by a toxic office

Michael: manager. was that during the part where your wife had the

David: stroke or no? It was like six months after, yeah.

When, right when I was at my lowest and a shell of a man, and I really needed my team, it fractured. And... It was difficult financially, it was difficult emotionally. I remember having so much anxiety that I'd be bent over in the shower dry heaving before work some days. And so I had to crack the code because I knew that game wasn't sustainable at all.

Michael: that, man, that is. So then what were some of the things that you started doing? Because honestly, Dave, if I was in, I'm just trying to think, trying to put myself in your shoes. I would kind of just say like, I'm just going to give it all up right now. Right. That's like priorities. My family team doesn't want to be here.

Fine. I'm selling right. Like I don't, I don't care. I'll, I don't know, be an Amazon driver or something. But Yeah. Yeah. For you, what were the steps if you could pinpoint and kind of like break it down to us in a system, the first one to three steps that helped you to get out of there?

David: Well, most of my work now is around flow.

Like how do we find this optimal state of productivity where we feel good? Things kind of happen that feels magic, but we're putting effort into it. Just has all of our focus and attention. And now I can look back at those times and realize what wasn't working, where were the burnout triggers in my life?

And also, where was I almost stumbling across flow triggers? And so the first one is purpose. I moved to this mountain town for a reason. And I had a little boy and I literally remember looking at him and his crib. He was sleeping one night and I was, I could feel my insides like quivering from all the anxiety.

And I said to him, Bennett, I don't know how I'm going to figure this out, but I'm going to find a way. So in the flow continuum, you kind of need curiosity, passion, and purpose stacked really high when you get in those difficult situations. know that now. I didn't know that then, but I happen to have a little boy right in front of me that I didn't want to say, Hey, listen, it was a crash and burn.

And we decided to move to Denver and gave up on the dream. So purpose was the big one. Um, the second one was. Accountability. I mean, when I look back at that moment of team unity, I don't know that I would want to work for me either. I wasn't, I was short. I didn't have much in the tank. I didn't sleep very well at night.

and I'm sure they felt that and I'm sure when they left they felt somewhat guilty, but they were trying to preserve themselves. So I had to realize that everything that happened in these four walls was my responsibility, whether I liked it or not, whether I was prepared for it or not. And then the third one would be understanding what team building really means.

I, my background was more from, I grew up on a farm and then I worked in high performance athletics for a long period of time. And those environments are very authoritarian. And I kind of thought, Hey, my name's on the door. It's my license we're working under. I signed the paychecks. So I point in that direction and you go in that direction, right?

Well, not, not so much. It sounds good in theory, but. This isn't the military and my team always had other options and it created a lot of pain just because I didn't really know how to articulate, Hey, let's make this a meaningful, meaningful workplace for you. What gets you excited to come to work in the morning?

What has you for feeling fulfilled at the end of the day and then chasing there, going back to curiosity, passion, and purpose, what are the things that you're interested in? What, how can we further educate and develop you? So. It was this top down management where we started into, we moved into a very horizontal management structure where everyone owned their zone.

Now I know that it's self managing teams, but that's really what allowed me to not only survive. In a weird economic climate in a resort town that has nasty seasonal trends and end up being really proud of the product, meaning that patient experience, the reputation, but also all the outputs, all the things that happen when you run a smart business.

Michael: Yeah, I like, I like that part at the end right now. So the product that you're trying to put out is the patient experience.

David: Yeah, I, I believe. Again, I don't know that I could have articulated this as clearly then, but now I've got some separation and I coach clients on this. The idea that we were building into our patient experience was referral centricity.

What if. The purpose of an appointment wasn't to get case acceptance. What if it wasn't to get them to reappoint? What if it was something higher and bigger, which would be give them an exceeding expectations experience where they couldn't help, but tell the next person they saw on the pickup line at school or when they went back to work.

And when you build your. around a referral, you know, that people aren't just going to give it out, you have to earn it. And so that was the product you know, extends into reputation and ability. but that's what I always challenged my team is. We've got dozens of people on the schedule today, but that one in front of you right now, what can you do to make them feel like they're the only patient on our schedule today?

Michael: I like that, man. That's super different. So how did you do that? How did you create that experience? So the end goal was always a

David: referral.

Well, if you don't mind, let's go into another flow trigger, a big flow trigger. We talked about purpose was a big one. Talk about curiosity. We talk about passion, but a massive one is autonomy. And when I started making my team, the CEO of whatever they were doing, it might be the schedule, it might be the finances.

It might be the hygiene op. It might be one of my ops. That's when that really flourished. And I just. Decentralized operations, basically, although it was a small facility, I decentralized operations and task them to surprise and delight the patients on the schedule. And one patient might want to get in and out.

So the surprise and delight was efficiency, but the other person might want, you know, if they're, if they have more time on their hands, they might want the additional touches like, Oh, I watch. HGTV when I came in last time and they remembered it and that program was up when I walked in the room. And it doesn't take much really to surprise and delight somebody because most customer experiences are pretty mediocre, right?

Yeah. But it's all these little unexpected touches. It's nothing's going to blow you away. It's just that, wow, I got a birthday card from Dr. Maloli. Wow. We got a handwritten thank you after I was there one visit. Those little things compound like crazy.

Michael: Interesting. So it's more of the, um,

David: the details. Yeah.

The details that seem trivial at first, that's a really good way to put it. If you didn't do it, nobody would miss it. And the fact that you are doing it, it doesn't take you five or 10 minutes. It takes you a moment, but just that little bit more eye contact, a little bit more conversation, remembering where they went to vacation last summer, because he put it in the notes, all those little things.

And a small town or in a big town where people, they want, they feel ignored and they want to feel like they're valued. If you just put a few little deposits on that emotional bank account each time, it really adds up and it's that emotional connection. Now, more than ever, that people are really longing for.

Michael: Yeah, I remember, I think that was in, and for anybody, for, for you, you're listening, I'm going to put it in the show notes below to Dave's, uh, newsletter, because I think today you sent something like about the three points to, to ponder and, and one of them was to rethink. Touch points, It was where can you inject and genuine care into the um, I guess this part of it, right?

is this something that you recommend like everybody on the team should ask themselves this?

David: Everybody on the team, every appointment, every day. Every day. It's a moving target, you're trying to customize it, you're trying to make it unique and personalized and unexpected, and there's different strokes for different folks, and somebody might love all your reminders and somebody might hate all your reminders, so you have to customize the experience, and I think, you know, there's a lot of people that are scared about this corporate takeover or what you want to talk about, um, I don't think it's real, I think Yes.

It's a, just a different model. And if you want to win at your own model, you get excellent at your craft, which is dentistry, and you package that in a incredible experience. And you can run circles around anybody because it's so rare. I mean, I live in a high end area and I can go to an expensive restaurant and the steak might be good, but then the service is mediocre or I might go into retail and the same thing.

So if you can surround yourself with a handful of engaged, creative people, they don't have to be trained in dentistry. In fact, sometimes I think it's a liability for them to have spent a long time in dentistry because then you have to take them through this unlearning process. That experience goes beyond the golden rule of, let me give you the dental experience I would want.

It's upgraded into, let me understand the experience that you want and make sure that I give you that, and then nudge it up just one more rung and say, wow. Like. You'll never believe what happened at Malovi's office today.

Michael: I like that. Well, have you ever experienced a day where, I mean, somebody's expressing this.

They're wanting it. They're like, yeah, okay, guys, we're all gonna, what, where are the touch points we can add? And then there's like that one team member that just all the time, right? They're there, they get excited, then they bring it down and they get excited and then bring it down. what do we do with that?

David: it's a big question. I mean, there's 80 percent of the workforce that are disengaged right now. some people are just risk averse and any change feels like a threat to their day. And so they need a little bit more coaching and nurturing and reminders. Most leaders get sick of saying the same thing over and over, but it's important that.

We find the things that are precious and valuable to us, and we never stop talking about it because people will drift. Right. So there's that well intentioned person. And then there's the other person who might be like, Hmm, sounds good, but it's also a lot of work. Let's just see if we can let this blow over.

And then you have that other insidious person. That's like, no way I ain't doing that. And then they start to kind of toxify and contaminate the others. So I really believe the future of leadership is. Understanding how to coach and develop your people, not just in dentistry, but in the workplace, because if you don't invest in them, they're always going to be looking for their next best.

And so you have to, almost like what we just talked about with the patient experience, you have to customize the employee experience as well. Because some people are already self managing. If you start over managing them, you're going to run them off. Other people are used to being dependent on somebody else for making all the decisions.

And if you don't nurture them to be decisive and confident and develop their skills and mindset, then you're going to run the top team member off too, right? So it's... Understanding how to build teams and grow people it used to be a, would be nice to have that skill, but now it's mission critical.

Cause you're just going to have churn if you don't figure it out. So, that's a bit of a tangent of what we were just talking about, but to anchor that or bring that back home full cycle, I think understanding. How to get the best out of your people and making sure that your people understand, they really have three jobs, right?

first job is to be good at their job, whatever that is, scheduler again, financial arrangements, dental assisting. The second job is to be a great teammate because if you're really productive and a toxic team member, then it's a no go. You're going to make the other people worse at their job. Like we were just talking about.

And the third part is to grow. And it's the interesting thing about leadership is it's good for all people to grow. It feels fulfilling when we're expanding our capacities and capabilities. But that said, even though it's good for us, that most people will dig their heels in a little bit. So you have to build that into the culture of what are you going to focus on in the next 90 days?

How are you going to get better? How can I support that? How can I be. How can I provide you the tools and training to get there? because if you get in any signs of status quo in this radically changing world, then it'll start to pass you by. And to me, that's the most dangerous thing of all is thinking what got us here will get us there.

The big word that's getting kicked around in corporate circles is radically adaptable. And then there's like the laws of physics involved, right? An object in motion tends to stay in motion. The object at rest tends to stay at rest. And if you let your people rest on their heels and aren't telling them, like, part of your job is to get better at your job, then bad things happen.

The consequences are too great for me.

Michael: Yeah. So then. In, in this time where you're, if you can recall, like when you're busy, right, you're dealing with an employee, you're dealing with the patient, you're dealing with your own CE, right? Your own family, all this stuff. How can we tell what are the like marks of, Oh, they've been status quo for a minute now.

Like they've been just, I don't know if they're, they're going down or up. You know what I mean? Like they just kind of passed by the radar because you're so boggled down with everything else.

David: I think what we're, if we go to the root cause here, I think we really have to focus on what are our priorities and I'll share with you my personal experience, um, kind of an extension of what we were talking about earlier.

That was about. Almost 10 years ago, where I had the family incident and the team mutiny and had to rebuild and then found out that it was a team member that was staying that created all the mayhem. in that churn, I noticed as I was rehiring for those positions that I wasn't getting as many applications as I used to.

And. It wasn't that we had a bad reputation. It was just when people left, they weren't leaving my practice to go to another practice. They were leaving town because of cost of living. So a lot of the supply and demand issues that are, people are experiencing now. I felt that a long time ago and. What I had to do was prioritize making, even over patient care, which is hard for me to say, but it was true.

I realized that if I didn't have a great team, I wasn't going to have that great patient experience. So I had to take that workplace environment and move it to the top of the list. What do I have to do to ensure that this is one of the best workplaces in town, not in dentistry, but again, facing competitors and banking and retail and hospitality.

And so we have to move that to the front. And if we've moved that to the front. To sustain this team and allow this team to grow and flourish. Then we make the time for immediate feedback each and every day. We build some of that feedback into the huddle system, so that they don't have a chance to drift.

And if they start to drift, that's when you start coaching them harder. And it's not to be mean, it's actually an act of kindness for the rest of the team to not let somebody pull down on the bar, like lower the standard when everyone else is raising the standard. So it's really our duty as employees, but you have a point, like there's 10, 000 things that we.

Can be doing, we just have to make sure we know what one, two, and three are. And then we never lose sight of those priorities because not doing it again means this cascade of turnover and drama and gossip and being on the reactive side of that I've experienced it. And I wouldn't recommend it. I would recommend staying on the proactive side and really build a team, really a team building machine that has a communication cadence daily.

Weekly, monthly, quarterly, uh, to make sure that people are always in momentum.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Now, a lot of the times, Dave, how do you think we should handle this? Like when we're, we want to like, we're new, right? Maybe we've been open for a year or something. And we're looking to grow, but, you know, employees are scarce, right?

Or, or just help is not as, uh, available as it used to. And you feel like you've created this beautiful workplace, but it's kind of like, they're like, oh, this is how much you can pay. Now I can get paid more at Bucky's, right? Or, oh, this is how much you're going to get paid. They're paying me more in and out or something.

Right. and you're just thinking it's only monetary. Like there's no way I can pay you that much. That's it's just, I don't have it. What do we do in that

David: scenario? It's funny. You say Bucky's cause I was just in Tennessee and they had this big sign out front, like 35 an hour for this 150, 000 for a night manager.

And I was like, wow, this is competitive. Yeah. It's a big deal. again, something that I experienced in my local market where the cost of living is really high and I had to do a frame shift, meaning I couldn't see a team member as an expense ever. Cause I'd look at my payroll costs and I'd look at my overhead percentages and the payroll costs as a part of those overhead percentages.

And I think, well, I'm way out of standard norms. But my alternative was also not having an employee and we have three columns full of hygiene and no hygienist. That's also a huge financial liability, not to mention a liability for your reputation and all these things you built up. So we have to look at them not to dehumanize people.

I love people and I literally believe that all humans have unlimited potential. Some of them want to step into that and some of them don't clearly, but. if I got the feel during the interview process, that somebody was looking for something different, they were looking for a true culture.

They were looking for more than just trading their time for my dollars. Then usually I was willing to invest in them and sometimes they came in really rough, meaning they didn't know a molar from a premolar They were rough around the edges, but they just didn't have any skills. And so we always started with customer service and said, the dental stuff will come from the reps.

Right. And. So if I have to pay somebody 30 an hour or 35 an hour, my immediate question is, how do I make this person worth 90 an hour to the organization, either three times their wage or four times their wage and. It's like that ever seen those Peter Thiel questions, like he'll say, what if I had to accomplish my five year goals in six months, or it's something that's like so mind breaking.

You're like, I, at first you're like, I can't, there's impossible, but if you sit with that for a while, you start to understand, like. Okay. If team overhead is say 33 percent and the rest of the overhead is 33%. So we're now at two thirds basically, right? And I'm getting 33%, which isn't an ideal dental practice.

But when you're starting out, it's not uncommon for these numbers to skew like that. You start to realize an hour of the team's time is equivalent to an hour of my time. And so if I can save an hour a day by delegation, if they can prevent work and worry, if I can optimize this practice by only doing the things that.

Require a dental license and then the high level CEU activities, you can hire all day. You just have to make sure that they're creating boundaries for you so that you're protected from decisions that you don't need to make. And then you, again, upskill them and train them up and up and up because the biggest risk in most of these situations is not having that person.

Gotcha. So. You don't want to hire a knee jerk and get a, you always want to hire for culture fit and values alignment easier said than done, but you at least want to be screening for that, but the market will tell you what you need to pay for an employee and some sort of notion like this isn't sustainable is sometimes too quick of a reaction because what's not sustainable is.

Bringing temps all the time and paying them 80 bucks an hour. What's not sustainable is your stress because you're onboarding a new person every two weeks. So there's a lot that goes into that, but I hope I've unpacked it enough that you have to like almost look at it like a fixer upper, like, okay, I'm getting this home for 260, 000.

What do I have to do to make it worth 400, 000? That's easy to. To dehumanize it and put it in, into real estate forms. But if you're a good leader and a team builder, you can help that person see parts of themselves, the potential that no one's ever unpacked. So now you're serving yourself, you're serving the team member, you're serving the patient and you're serving the team.

So that's the, we talk about a rare and valuable skill in this economy. It's that like being a builder of people and a unifier of teams. It almost solves for every other problem you have, your cashflow problems, your patient retention problems, your, I can't sleep tonight cause I'm too anxious problems.

Like if you focus on that team dynamic, a lot of the other things take care of itself. It's especially in a, economy and a society now where people aren't as loyal, where they're more likely to skip work because there's. Eight inches of powder on the mountain, or they have something better to do. You really want to create a system and a machine, meaning this culture that attracts top talent, and then also helps them understand that you can go looking for greener pastures, but you're unlikely to find it.

Michael: Interesting. I want to kind of rewind a little bit. You, you mentioned something with a team member. You said you don't want to overmanage them. How do you know when you are overmanaging someone?

David: That's a really good question, Michael. I think you have to make sure technical term is psychological safety.

That means no matter how long that you've spent at this practice, you No matter how much experience you have, no matter how loud you are or quiet, you are that all voices are need to be heard around here. So part of that, from a practice owner, you need to know, you need to ask them, like, what brings out the best in you.

And sometimes you have to take them back to, like, who was a boss that you felt like didn't know how to bring out the best in you? And what were they doing? And then don't do that, right? Because the awareness sometimes isn't there, so you have to unpack it slowly. But you also have to make sure that there's an open dialogue, that if they feel like you're taking away some of that autonomy unnecessarily, that they let you know that, hey, Doc, it really makes me feel XYZ when you do this.

And so it really has to be a dialogue and that psychological safety and. The open dialogue, the radical candor can only happen in an environment of high trust and high care. So the first job is to really give a damn about your people. And the second job is to make sure that they know that you have their best interests at heart.

Now, where that gets complicated is where you have the radically independent person who's incompetent, who really needs guidance and coaching and management, right? So you have to be able to flex in and out, engage your Conviction based on somebody's level of competency, and there's graceful ways of doing that, right?

It can be, uh, what's the marketing term? It can be a welcome guest or an annoying pest. Sometimes it's just a matter of your approach when you're managing those people. But it's not a one size fit all approach. And what happens sometimes is you have top performers that drift because they've got something going on at home with a spouse or a sick parent.

So you always have to be on your toes as a leader because there is no checklist or prescription for this. It's you being hyper aware and knowing that your number one job first job is to, is to role model away. So who are you when you come to work? Are you representing the brand? And then you have to teach them how to think, giving them frameworks in which this is how we operate.

This is how we take care of patients all from the surprise and delight thing to simple rules like No one sits in reception longer than five minutes or something like that with rare exception, and then you have to challenge them. And so that goes back full circle to what we were talking about earlier, about making sure that you're there for that graceful nudge to make sure that they're staying in momentum.

And when you do this right, it starts to look like a flywheel at first. It takes a lot of effort going back to your young dentist. It's like, I'll never figure this out. I've been there, but over time. You start understanding how the mechanism really works, and it takes less and less management from you.

You can't be hands off. Because all organizations will drift if there isn't somebody to tend to the belief system, the vision, the mission, but over time, it should get easier and people should be really good about getting work and worry off your plate. So you can focus on that coist training or the ortho training or all that stuff that really is going to pay the bills, but you're too busy doing 20 an hour stuff, cleaning up messes, putting out fires.

Living in the tyranny of the urgent, all those sorts of things, that's, we have to evacuate the doctor from that so that they recover that freedom and realize, okay, now my career is what I thought it would be in the early stages. Gotcha.

Michael: Awesome, David. I appreciate it. ask mainly that question because I feel like that's a lot of the times we... Maybe we do that and maybe we're giving too much autonomy to someone who doesn't need it. Right. It's like, Oh, you're not doing anything kind of thing. Right. But just looking busy. And then there's sometimes where it's like, cause of that, maybe we've been scarred.

We do that with people who don't need it. Right. We're like, okay, wait, no, trust me. You're going to be, and we kind of push that on them. Like you need this type of guidance and all this stuff. Although they need guidance, everybody. Right. But it's more like. You're micromanaging now, right? And then that can be, heavy.

You're just like, ah, you don't really believe me. You don't trust me or, I don't

David: know, I can go further than that. Another component that really needs to be plugged in here that we should talk about is peer to peer coaching. You have to make sure that your environment is feedback rich and it's not just top down.

It's not just the senior people down. It really is this environment where everyone's trying to get better. And they all are human and humble enough to know that there's blind spots. I remember one day... I have a pretty small space, less than 1200 square feet. And so the sterilization was right across from op two and we did the whole Disney thing.

This is front stage. This is backstage. These are things that we only talk about backstage, but there was some personal stuff being talked about in hygiene and the hygienist with her patient, the chair heard it. And I didn't have to address it because she addressed it. She let it be known that, hey, it was really awkward for me being around that patient and hearing about that your Saturday night or whatever.

And, and, uh, and sterilization. And she said, that's not how we do things around here. And so ultimately you need to set the standard, but it needs to be pleased by more than just you. In fact, with my clients now, I'm building out unity councils, which is an internal leadership team to make sure that, Hey, there's a keeper of the culture.

Even when the doctor is heads down looking for another canal and an upper first molar for a root canal, there's keepers of the culture all the time, and it's not this environment where. when the cats away, the mice will play that's most environment. So you have to build in these fail safes and it all goes back to building trust and rapport one on one on one on one and making sure that you never take that for granted.

Yeah,

Michael: man. I think I'd feel like. If I wasn't in the office and I saw, dude, like maybe like a camera, I heard like one of my employees or somebody say, like, that's not how we do things around here, but oh my gosh, like, this is amazing, you know?

David: Her name was Sam. I called her my sheriff. Yeah, that's good. There were certain standards, like we had our mission, our vision, our values, and then certain non negotiables.

And if somebody crossed that line, I was rarely the person that had to move them and remind them. Um, usually the nudge was done by Sam or somebody else.

Michael: Yeah. And so now today, how can someone introduce that peer to peer coaching, uh, within their team? Let's just say like somebody, one of our listeners are listening right now and they're like, I love this.

I'm going to do it in our team meeting tomorrow. I'm going to say peer to peer coaching. Is that how it just kind of works or?

David: No, no, it's a process, because this stuff is so valuable, it takes some time and this is where I kind of advocate playing favorites as a leader. Like you have to know the people who are committed organically to the practice.

And the more of those people you get on board, the easier it is, but it's not going to be a all in type environment. It's just not how change typically works. I did a bunch of training and executive coaching. And if you go into a big organization, like say I bought your big company and I'm coming in as the new CEO or the turnaround guy or whatever it is, I.

Immediately make the assumption that there are going to be a third of the team that's on board a third of the team. That's off board. They're going to be resistant. They're going to hate whatever ideas I come up with, even if it's good for them. And then there's the neutral third that could tip in either dimension.

So I want to know always who are my loyalists who believe in what we're doing here? And I bring them in real close. I make sure I understand their ideas. I make sure that they're my feedback mechanism because I can't see or hear everything that happens in the practice. Not that they're informants, but they're the keepers of the flame, so to speak.

If you get that rock solid, those people in the middle third will usually get on board because they they're not negative. They just aren't real leaders yet. And so what you're doing is understanding that. Leadership isn't about creating followers. It's about creating other leaders. And then that bottom third, they have an option to get on board or get out of the way.

And sometimes you have to be that clear in the language where you start coaching them. And if coaching them isn't working, then you start telling them if they still don't maintain the standard, then you have to collide with them and say, Hey, listen, like, you know, either through your, verbal warning or written warning process.

Like if you can't play at this level, you can't play this game. And so it's a tricky process, but you have to start infusing that into your culture. My, my team called it, uh, welcoming feedback. It was one of the core tenants of our operation and I didn't come up with it. They came up with it. So they wanted an environment where they felt like they could give me feedback.

They could feel comfortable with me giving them feedback in real time on the fly. But. Hygienists would say, Hey, listen to the assistants. It would work better with the flow. If you did this or scheduling might give feedback because ultimately we're innovating all the time, right? Peter Drucker said that a business, because the purpose of a business is to create a customer, there are only two real functions, which are marketing and innovation.

All the rest are just costs. So if you have that peer to peer coaching going on all the time, you're finding these little friction points, you're finding these little frustrations, and you're turning those into innovations. So that's the magic of what happens when you start doing peer to peer coaching, where everybody is a coach and also a, you know, a coachee. Um, but it's, I'm not, I'm not going to lie to you and say it's simple. We have to build it from the ground up. And that starts with. One on one conversations, make sure the standard is clear. Some of that standard is an obvious standard, like things that you can see, things that you can measure, but a lot of it is an emotional standard.

Like what are the core values here? What is the behavioral standard emotionally here? And one of the things that my team came up with was, was out loud laughter. And when we put it on the board, I was like, okay, I'll concede. Like, that sounds good. And then I'd sit in the hallway and I could hear laughter from four operators and I'm like, Wow.

Like that's creating trust. That's creating experience. That's creating value. So sometimes I don't think we really get the best ideas for our organization because we think we have all the ideas, but when you allow some of that, um, self managing team and stop trying to create followers and start to create leaders, Amazing stuff that you can't expect really starts to happen.

Yeah.

Michael: Nice, Dave. Awesome, man. I appreciate your time. Any final pieces of advice that you want to give to our listener?

David: Yeah. if I were going to give an advice to listener, assuming that you're in a situation that's probably a little uncomfortable because most doctors are, one, know that it's normal.

Because dentistry is hard. Being an entrepreneur is hard. Some of you are parents, that's hard. And you're never, ever, ever going to negotiate the standard. You want to be excellent at all of them. So you're probably feeling guilty that you don't exercise enough, or you don't sleep enough, or you don't socialize enough, or you don't spend enough time doing this or that.

So my words of advice would be get rid of the guilt and shame. Um, and just get better because when I look around the landscape, dentistry is really a golden ticket. Meaning like if you can do a good job at dentistry, you can get a great associateship. If you can be a good entrepreneur and a great leader, you can create any lifestyle that you want.

And that's, you know, to make what a dentist make, you might have to be a high level exec working 80 or 90 hours a week, flying all over the place. So don't lose sight of that golden ticket that you have. And also make sure that. Whatever path you're following isn't somebody else's vision and version of success.

Because I see a lot of dentists want to be the next, this doc or that doc. And ultimately, you know what your path is. So don't be afraid to be an N of one and customize it completely to what you want. You can do whatever procedures you want. You can see whatever kind of patients you want. You can take. In network, out of network.

Some of these things you can see it early, but you can build into it as you build up your reputation and skills. But the paralleling craft to your clinical craft will always be leadership. Because if you can lead yourself, you can lead a team. And if you can lead a team, you can lead your patients to better healthcare.

So, that would be my parting shot for you.

Michael: Awesome. So, if anyone has any further questions or concerns or wants to reach out to Dave, Dave, where can they find you?

David: Well, I release a weekly podcast, it's called the Relentless Dentist. It's been around for about a decade now. Hard to say that. So there's lots of episodes and content free of charge there.

If you want to get to know me better, I just created a dentist to send quiz. It's a video quiz. That's designed to help you reveal the hidden potential in your dental practice. I can give you a link to that or they can find it on my website and my social media on Instagram. Um, so I'm not as Deon Sanders would say, I'm not hard to find.

Michael: Yeah, I know that's awesome. So that's all going to be in the show notes below. So definitely go check them out. And Dave, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon.

David: Michael, thanks so much. You're a great host.

Michael: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode and thank you Dave for being a part of the podcast. Again, really insightful, wonderful advice that you always bring to the audience, you the listener. So we really, really appreciate. If you want to ask him any questions or concerns, you can definitely do so by joining our free Facebook group, The Dental Marketer Society.

And there you can talk with any of the guests that you've heard in the past or myself and, uh, interact with more of our listeners. Or if you want, you can go in the show notes below, look for Dave's name and click on the links and just reach out to him directly ask him any questions or concerns there. But we appreciate you tuning in and Dave, thank you so much again for being part of the podcast. Now, are you dreaming about having that wonderful, engaging Instagram, or it's Facebook or it's your TikTok presence, right? For your pediatric practice? Seriously, let's turn that into a reality.

And one of the first steps you want to do is you want to start with understanding your patient's families. It's a game changer for your Instagram engagement. And in the Pediatric Dental Marketing course, which is a course created by Manal Sampat and myself, both of us, we teach you exactly how to create and grow with a purpose.

your Instagram. Among many other things, that's one of the things we teach you. But lately we have received a lot of marketing questions on Instagram for pediatric practices. So I wanted to show you exactly what we cover. Now, when it comes to what's inside the Pediatric Dental Marketing course specifically for Instagram, we talk about Literally from the beginning to the end, how to get your bio getting started, your Instagram stories, the ideas you need to start implementing the insights that you need to look for on Instagram, the QR code and the saved content, how the algorithm works, what posts you need to do.

And guys. She has you covered, Manal has you covered on how to schedule the post, what to post, 365 days out of the year. thinking is out of that, right? Like we got you covered. The type of hashtags, the reach you need to be looking for when it comes to hashtags, finding local influencer parents, and so forth.

Then we dive into how to make the reels. And she dives into the training, finding trending audio all the time, scheduling your reels, download the Instagram reels checklist on the course all the ideas that we have for you. And so much more. Let me go even deeper and talk about team activity, how to get your team on board, the videos you need to start creating and so forth.

The scheduling, how to create the content on Canva, which is a free platform, how to create custom templates, videos, flyers, worksheets, presentation templates, things like that for your Instagram. And also we cover the ads as well and how to specifically do the ads so that they can reach their maximum potential and obviously attract new patients.

This is just a little sliver of what's covered. When it comes to Instagram in the pediatric dental marketing course, you'll dive into 30 plus units covering modern marketing basics, digital basics, digital marketing, social media marketing. And of course. I helped create the course. We also talk about ground marketing strategies, ensuring you're not just attracting, but deeply connecting with your community.

I talk about how to get into daycare public schools, private schools, pediatric medical locations, chamber of commerce, businesses, learning centers, Uh, kumon Learning Center, small businesses, martial arts, Color Me Mine, indoor playgrounds, fitness facility.

I cover an enormous amount of things on how to get into the community and other businesses when it comes to the pediatric dental marketing course. So you can check that out, but get your hands on these evergreen tactics, learn the art of engaging content creation, and even explore the magic of effective Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram marketing.

Discover how enjoyable and rewarding marketing can be. And watch your pediatric dental practice flourish both online and in your community. So click the first link in the show notes below and see what this course has done and is doing for other pediatric practice owners. And at the same time, click the link If you just want to be nosy and see everything that's included inside of this course, which we continue to add to it, right? Every single month. And we have our monthly office hours where you, me and Manal sit together. Once a month, and we talk strategy and we talk how we can improve your practice. If you want to see all that, just click on the first link in the show notes below and you're able to look into the pediatric dental marketing course a little bit more.

And if it's a good fit for you, we would love to see you in there. So click on the first link in the show notes below to check it out more for pediatric practices only. Awesome. So thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I really appreciate you and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

‍