The Dental Marketer

This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
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For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Have you been feeling scared of the new AI technology and it's potential to take jobs away from professionals? Well, this week I'm diving in with Dr. Kathryn Alderman on the reasons we should embrace this technology! It is not here to take our jobs, it is here to boost productivity and professionalism in your practice. Dr. Alderman goes through multiple applications she has used ChatGPT for in ONE day! Just scratching the surface, Katheryn has used ChatGPT to help her craft job descriptions, ads, contracts, claim denial appeals, training materials, emails, and more. In a world where staffing is increasingly tough, why not have the equivalent of an MBA/PHD graduate on your side for free!

Catch our conversation on ChatGPT here, and learn how Katheryn has been best utilizing this tool!

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You can reach out to Dr. Kathryn Alderman here:

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://progressivedentalmentor.com/

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Other Mentions and Links:

ChatGPT

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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

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Catherine. So talk to us about ai, artificial intelligence and chat, G P T. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help our workflow efficiency or front office tasks within the practice?

Kathryn: Michael, thank you so much for inviting me today.

I always love talking to you, and we have to remember that AI technology is here to maximize and supercharge our ability. So AI technology is not here to take, uh, our jobs away. Or to take, uh, jobs away from our teams. But he, the AI technology is here to simplify our workflow and maximize what we can do during the day.

So in a dental office, traditionally, we all short for help and it's actually really expensive to get a quality candidates and, um, Due to labor shortage, many of the dental offices don't have enough people that, um, uh, can handle the responsibilities. So it's very important to find ways that we can use to help us to run an effective, profitable, successful dental office without an extra expense.

And the shot G P T allows us to do that. That's actually free, fast. And absolutely fabulous. And it's becoming so fast that when I put a prompt in and when I ask for, uh, help with the project, it gives me the answer so fast. My eyes don't move fast enough to follow the answer. That's how fast and powerful the technology is becoming.

You ask me what areas can we help with? I will run through all the areas that I have used it today for just today. In one day I wrote a content for a press release. I wrote a job description for Directable clinical operation. Not only I wrote a job description, but I also wrote, the job ad and a contract.

That would go along with the job. So charge G D P gave me all the information in less than two minutes total time, describing the job, describing the job responsibilities, and that even gave me program, how to implement with job in my group. So that was one of those things. Another thing that I did is work with dental insurances on maximizing.

our reimbursement fees. Jack, g d p helped me to write letters to approach dental insurances and, um, negotiate the fees. That has also helped me to write appeals and to write an appeal for denied crowns, all denied crown viewed up. That's very time consuming. We don't have time, we don't have people to do that.

Not only wrote was, um, samples of, uh, appeals. It gave me multiple different versions so it doesn't sound the same and an amazing part that I couldn't write such a great appeals. I couldn't, it did a fabulous job of writing was appeals and then I said, write me clinical note to premium denials. And, uh, it did give me a clinical note So my dentist give more information to ENT was denials. That was just in one day. Actually there wasn't a first part of my day. The second part of a day I worked with my marketing team and, um, Marketing is becoming very competitive. Marketing is all about content creation. And uh, while we don't want have a content created by charging, just, we can't just copy and paste it mm-hmm.

And make a blog or a post of that, but we can definitely use its help. To create a content that is really interesting and we can also take this content and we can, um, create, uh, social posts. We can create a description for YouTube videos. create videos, video content. So, so when it comes to marketing and most, most of our dental teams don't do marketing.

That's something we hire out. But if the team does some marketing, for example, social posts, or maybe there is a person on the team that does, um, that does do some blog posts, uh, Chad, g p t becomes a great tool in, um, helping with the marketing. Another thing that I have been using a lot is to train my new people and onboard new people.

For example, just in the last two weeks, uh, we have hired four new people, so chat, G P T helped me to create materials. To train new people and actually create a documents to explain what is a gum disease, what is the upscale procedures in the dentistry, or how to submit claims correctly to dental insurance.

So tragedy p creates training materials very quickly in other ways that dental teams can use. That Somebody on a dental team doesn't know the answer. All they don't know, uh, they don't understand the procedure or the consequences of doing it all. They, they can have any question about, you know, scheduling or working with dental insurances.

So a dental code. I use chat G D P a lot to pull up his information quickly. And the information is given to you so quickly. You don't have to Google anymore, you don't have to go through multiple websites or multiple answers that is provided by Google. You can simply use chat. G p P, so, This is just again, the beginning of what we. Doing with the AI technology and it's really, again, the goal destroying power us to allow us to be more effective, to allow us to maximize our ability and to really help us if we have a full team or maybe we don't have enough people on our team or.

If we have people, but maybe we don't have the, all the expertise, chat, g d p can help us with all of the things that I mentioned and more, but I just described what I did on one day today, in one

Michael: day. That's amazing. Yeah. So that's, it's, you utilize it all the time now, basically.

Kathryn: I don't think it is a day or two hours on my day when I don't use it.

And, and it's not just in a dental office. It can be for, it can be for personal life, it can be looking up health. It can be translated for my parents that speak Russian, don't speak English. Uh, for example, my mom may ask me, uh, why do I need to take this medication? Uh, And I will give a prompt to cha g d P.

Then I will say, translated to Russian. It translates beautifully. I don't even speak Russian that well anymore. so, it's, it's literally a miracle. I feel that cha g p t is like a Christmas every day. It's like, It's, it's, it's just, I got this BU employee that is free, fast, efficient, intelligent, and I, it's unbelievable.

It's, I compare to like, um, an MBA student, somebody that has completed MBA and PhD, and uh, and they're just here to support me. They're here to help me. So I definitely, um, think it's a great tool. It's a great tool to help and really it's almost capabilities are unlimited and all this is only the beginning.

Michael: what have you seen where, okay, now this is the biggest jump we've seen with maybe marketing, maybe with the dental team, maybe with what is the biggest, where you see the needle moving?

Kathryn: Well, definitely content writing for now. It's a content writing, and when we say content writing, you really, marketing becomes extremely important. But when we are talking about content writing, again, it's not just write a blogs or to optimize your website. Content writing is more than that.

Content writing is right. Job descriptions, job ads or training materials to describe systems operations for your training material So it's all about content writing at this point. Just using a chat g uh, charge G p T. And soon obviously there will be more, but right now, mostly it is a content writing.

But when we think about content writing, it's not just oh. I need to write a blog or I need to write a post. Let's say you are a dentist. You are busy. You don't have time to write an office manual. You don't have time to write a system, um, and create a blueprint for your office. DP can help you. You can literally log in and you can, you can ask for help.

To write a system or a blueprint for how to scale patients in your office. And again, it's not gonna be perfect and it's not gonna be ideal, but it's give you a lot of, um, a lot of good information that you can take and, um, make it your oven. So content writing is the best and a content writing. It's not just for blogs on your website.

It's again for. creating new training manuals, training new people, you know, creating, uh, creating materials, uh, how to handle a conflict in your office or further how to create appeals. Write an appeals to dental insurances. And, uh, you can even create, you can even use charge G P T on how to have a.

How to respond to an negative Google review or how to write an email, uh, how to write an email to the patient. This is actually becomes really powerful people, most people are not great on writing emails, so I am one of those people as well. I hate writing emails. I hate hate emails, but what I do, I'll write my.

You know, copy of an email and then I will put it right through chat, uh, G P T and I will say rewrite. And it just gives me this beautiful professional copy of an email so our teams can do that as well. So all of us look more professional and, um, better spoken. So, so it's, it is a content writing, but when we talk about content writing, it's involves everything that isn't written form.

In a dental office, and there's so many things that we do need to put, um, that we need to still, um, create a content for. Does that

Michael: make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Especially, it's not just like a blog or an article, right? It's more like, like you said, like give me a list of, of most.

Possible complaints for a claim if I filed this right. Then it gives you like a list and it says, write a specific email or blog, uh, debating that claim, right? Or for if I'm a dentist, then I'll write that down and then continue, uh, so it, I can see it. Yeah, it's definitely, definitely super useful for a lot of things like that.

Kathryn: My best advice for somebody is not to be afraid. My best advice is really to just start using it and not to be intimidated by that because everybody says it's all about prompts and it's all about how you ask, um, uh, question. Yes, it's right, but just. My best advice, start with a basic question. Really explain what you are trying to get and then start asking questions to add to that.

So really, and you will start experiencing the power of it, you will start experiencing the power of, AI technology and you'll, you, you'll understand how to use it, but my best advice. To log in, start using it, and just start being comfortable with that because it is, the future is here. Mm-hmm. The future is here.

The AI technology is gonna become part of our everyday lives and, uh, the faster we comfortable with that. We will be more comfortable to transition in a new world where we use an ai, AI technology in, in our businesses every single day.

Michael: Awesome. Awesome. So besides that, any other final pieces of words or advice that you want to give to our listeners?

Kathryn: Start using it and don't be afraid because I hate technology is here. So just start using it. There is really nothing secretive about it. It's really meant to be used by everybody, not just by marketers. It's like a new Google, but better. Mm-hmm. And uh, and just to start using it and You can think of anything.

You can think of anything through, okay, I need to write a clinical note for skeleton root planning according to new pre grading. And you just put it in and see the magic happen because Chad, g p t will give you a clinical note based on your new grading system that, um, academy of Paleontology has.

That's how advanced it is. So you can think of anything, you can think of start asking Chad g p t, and um, and don't be afraid to experiment with it. Learn it, and you will just, you will feel super charged. Super effective, and you just will, you'll feel like, wow, like this is amazing. I have, uh, I literally have, uh, gained a tool to help me be more effective, execute more throughout the day, and ultimately for my brand, for my office, um, to look more professional.

it's wonderful.

Michael: Awesome, Catherine, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or where can they reach out to you directly?

Kathryn: They can email me at Progressive Dental [email protected] or they can visit [email protected]. And uh, there is a lot of other podcasts and many of your podcasts that we have done before and, uh, there is a lot of great information and all of my contact information.

Michael: Awesome. So Catherine, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing

Kathryn: episode.

My pleasure. Thank you so much, Michael.

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This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
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For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Guest: Timothy DoolinPractice Name: Angel Fire Family DentistryCheck out Tim's Media:‍

Website: http://www.angelfirefamilydentistry.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-tim-doolin?trk=pulse-article_social-details_comment_actor-image&original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Email: [email protected]

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Other Mentions and Links:

Costco

Dr. Hang

Wells Fargo

DDS Match

Excel

Ozone Water

Softdent

Eaglesoft

Invisalign

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

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

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

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My Key Takeaways:

• Location is a big consideration in purchasing a practice! If hobbies such as surfing or skiing are important to you, keep this in mind.
• Demographic research is a big part of who you'll be serving, and honing in on the type of patients you want!
• Always keep an eye on the finances of the practice and bank records. Sometimes cash flow can feel good, but doesn't actually match up!
• If you're entering a practice as a new grad, don't try to change everything right away. You'll need to build trust with team members along the way.
• Your dental assistant is the real marketer of the practice! They handle a lot of patient communication and helping them feel at home.

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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]

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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.This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
‍
For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Tim, how's it going?

Tim: It's going well. How are you doing? I'm doing

Michael: pretty good, man. Thanks for asking. If you can break it down for us, tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where

Tim: you are today? Yeah, so, I grew up in Southern California Newport Beach.

I went to school out in Chicago and I spent 10 years. Out there for first undergrad, masters, then dental school. And the day I graduated, I decided I wanted to own a practice and I had already prepared for the last took me about three years. So the day I graduated, I purchased my practice. I think I graduated May 20, 26th, and June 1st was my first day.

And then the bank required that I did two month transition, and so the other dentist stayed on as an associate for two months, and we went from there. Basically I, I decided, I di I had decided while I was assisting another dentist during my master's program, that I wanted to own a practice. Mm-hmm.

And that I probably wouldn't be the best dentist to work as an associate. just cuz I don't like following the rules, I like doing my own thing. I don't like listening to other people. So I wanted to do it my own way. And so I uh, I talked with him about owning his practice. He was basically my mentor throughout my master's and then through dental school.

I worked for him as an assistant for six years, and uh, I prepared a business plan my second year. I had contacted the bank by my third year and figured out exactly what loan I qualified for and how I would qualify. So there's only one bank that will provide a. To a new grad. Mm-hmm. And they only provide, I think it was 375,000, so not nearly enough to purchase practice.

So I needed to find a dentist that was willing to sell or finance half of it, at least for, I think I needed one year. Mm-hmm. Before I could get the bank to give me the rest. And so I started looking at Dennis in certain demographics. So I figured out what demographics actually. The patients that would spend the most and care the most about their teeth.

And so I, I broke down everything based on demographics and figured out, okay, here's the neighborhoods where I want to be around the nation. Here's everything I fit that. There was some website that I could type it all into and, and, Breakdown demographics into exactly what neighborhoods and zip codes.

So then I uh, figured out with my wife what our lifestyle should look like. And I, my big thing was I needed to be a half hour from skiing or a half hour from surfing. Yeah. Her big thing was she wanted mild weather and, and then we also both wanted to be a little bit more rural and away from a city. But ideally we wanted to be within an hour of a Costco, and that was how we started figuring everything out.

And so I figured out all these different locations. I, I found a, company that would help me find the practice and broker the practice for. And then we ended up getting it down to three practices and one didn't quite fit everything. Mm-hmm. And that was this one. Uh, It wasn't that close to a Costco.

So we are two hours from the nearest Costco or big box store. Really? Anything at all. Uh, Wow. So we are an hour from the nearest town of, I think it's only 30,000, and then it's two hours to the nearest city. And that's Santa Fe. And then it's three hours to Colorado Springs and three hours to Albuquerque.

And so we ended up settling down in Angel Fire. It's a, a ski resort, a golf resort, and that's about it.

Michael: Okay, man. So those were outta the three practices. And so what happened then after that, you decided to purchase it? Yeah. Yeah.

Tim: So we came and visited this practice and the practice itself. Pretty incredible.

Um, My view out every window is mountains and so my patient's view is 360 mountain views. It's just incredible. Or 180, I guess behind them is me. But yeah, we've got these crazy windows that just look out into the mountains and it was really hard to say no. And the practice was doing okay, but I could tell it was underperforming cuz the dentist just, his heart really wasn't.

And so I thought, you know, if I really try here, what would it look like and how could the numbers look? And I found after the first year, I had increased everything about 20 to 30%. And that was my first year outta a dental school. I was able to do that. Fortunately, most patients didn't think I was a new grad.

And I didn't really make it known to anyone. I don't think anyone still knows. So it was, and the way that they introduced me was that I was an experienced dentist who graduated top of his class and was ready to take on taking care of everyone. Then I created a, a really good relationship with uh, some of the local doctors. One doctor in specific who owns a medical clinic down the road. And we started building a, a relationship based on whole body care. And so the practice turned from being a drill and fill practice to now we are comprehensive care of what's going on, how can we help you for the future, and what can I do to make sure.

We're really taking care of you. and not only are you seeing me, but we're making sure that you're seeing a, whatever practitioner you need to be seeing to get the proper care.

Michael: Okay, man. And that's what you're doing right now

Tim: as of today? Yes. Yeah. So that's what I currently do. And because of that, I, I mean, I'm pretty rural, the nearest specialist is two hours, so I do every specialty, uh, as well as whatever dentistry I need to do.

Mm-hmm. And then we, on top of all of that, make sure that we're taking care of. Whole health. So every patient is educated on their diet, they're educated on what might be going on with their breathing, what might be going on underneath the surface, why their blood pressure is out of control what I can do from a oral perspective, or even sometimes nasal perspective, what might be causing everything here to be out of whack.

Mm

Michael: Gotcha man. Okay. So then how long have you been a practice owner?

Tim: This is my fourth year now. Okay.

Michael: Okay. So rewind a little bit real quick. You were, yeah. You grew up in Newport? Yeah. Newport be like, where? Where?

Tim: In Newport. So I, I grew up, actually the smallest house on the beach in all of Newport was my house.

We were, we were one house off the beach. It was a family of five and it was about 750 square feet and we were not allowed inside ever. We could sleep and that was about it cuz it was. I think when we purchased it, it was a one bedroom and my dad turned the garage into a master suite and then um, he turned, there was like a little breakfast nook area into another bedroom kind of thing.

Yeah. So he, when I was 10, I got to move into the breakfast nook area. And I mean, it was a tiny house, but we didn't care at all cuz we were on the beach. Yeah. Or right off the beach. So you grew up surfing or No. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

Michael: Yeah. Cause you're like, we gotta surf or ski, and I was like, okay.

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. So there was many days in high school where it was I would go surfing in the morning and go skiing in the afternoon or vice versa.

Michael: Yeah. Nice dude. Okay, so then you eventually prepared to own your own practice. When did you. When was it where you're like, I don't think I'm gonna be an associate for like in dental school.

Did you figure that out or before dental school? Like when was the

Tim: moment? It was probably first year of dental school. I started looking at the numbers of what an associate makes versus what my loans were gonna look like. I knew that going into dental school, having $600,000 of student debt was pretty standard at this point.

Mm-hmm. My parents unfortunately weren't able to help me much with school, and I knew that it was going to be an investment for my future, and so I decided what is it going to look like to pay those loans off? And I could be an associate and make a certain. Or I could own my practice and if my practice is successful, I'll be able to pay it off way easier.

And, and that's what I figured out cuz first year they kind of go through all the numbers with you. You have all those classes that are talking to you about, here's what your loans are gonna look like, here's what the average dentist makes graduating school. Here's what the average associate makes versus the average owner, and then here's what rural versus not rural makes.

Mm-hmm. And so I broke all that down. I figured out where the dentist. Are that are making the most money. Um, And I figured out what I wanted to do and what I wanted all to look like, and by the end of first year, I knew exactly where I wanted to go with it. Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. So then how did you know what to put in this plan?

What was actually in it? What do you wish you would've put in it now, things like that.

Tim: Yeah, so basically what I started with was a mission statement and a vision statement. So my mission was that I wanted to provide care that was different than the standard dentist. And I, I broke down a few different things.

I didn't really think of a holistic or whole body approach to anything. It was more of I want my patients to be educated and I didn't want to be ever selling anything to a. And that was kind of the whole moral of everything that I had talked about with the banks was my practice will never be about selling.

It'll never be about marketing myself. I will use patients to market, and I will make sure that when I present a treatment plan, a patient is fully educated and they're making the decision that they feel is best for themselves. Now, that in itself is a sales technique. And I had worked in sales throughout school doing different things and whatever it might have been.

But I, I wanted to make sure that I was different in that way. Cause I never wanted to feel like the, the mechanic who, you know, you go in for the oil change and all of a sudden you've got all these issues. I didn't want to be that dentist too. You go in for your cleaning and all of a sudden you've got issues.

Yes. That's how we find your issues is you go in for a cleaning, but it should never feel like you're trying to be sold something. I wanted to always educate and so everything was based around technology. There's so much technology for us to be able to educate a patient with, and if we show everyone.

Everything that's going on in their mouth, there's no reason that we should have to sell them on something. And so that's what it was based on. So that was kind of the mission. And yeah, I broke it down all in too. I think it was. Two sentences, and then the vision statement had a few different points to it on how I was gonna become a top 10% dentist in the state of New Mexico.

How I was going to make sure that I was providing nonprofit work, how I was going to integrate the, all of their care. So make sure that I was communicating with their doctor their chiropractor. P t o t, whatever they might be involved in, so that way we can come up with comprehensive plans. I know there was four points and I can't remember the fourth one, but it started with those two and then I outlined every way that I would possibly do it.

I outlined all the equipment that I would need to do it. I, I showed my certifications and what certifications I would be getting, so like lasers and, and certifications in different types of lasers and how I would introduce those into the practice to make sure that I was providing different level of care.

And then, um, I talked about C B C T and the importance of C B C T. Yes, the cost of C B C T, but how it can benefit a patient. Intraoral scanning, same thing. And then I broke down point by point, the finances of the practice. I broke down how I would treat every patient. I, I mean, it was 40 pages of right.

Every single thing that I could possibly do. And so that was any free time I had second year of dental school. That's what I was doing, was making sure that I had a perfect business plan. Okay,

Michael: ma did, has any of that changed or evolved or grown or anything like that, or

Tim: no? Yeah, so I mean, the biggest thing that's evolved from.

I wouldn't say anything's ever been eliminated. It's more of evolved now with Covid, I did have to change the nonprofit work. I'm not allowed. So we aren't allowed to go to Haiti anymore. And that's where I was doing a lot of my nonprofit work. And so I've been contacting a few different companies now that countries are starting to open up of where I'll go, start working again.

Mm-hmm. But I've always done nonprofit work. And then as part of that I started bringing Medicaid patients into the practice and I've opened up the practice to be, well now I'm probably the largest Medicaid provider in Northern New Mexico. I do over a million dollars in Medicaid every year.

But you know, that's just my way, that I'm in the middle of nowhere. I, I need to be able to take care of these patients and I've seen the work that comes from. The other providers, and it's unfortunate. They don't have the time, they don't have the resources to, to truly take care of these patients.

I don't know if they don't have the education as well, but unfortunately there's a lot of stuff that's missed and the patients come to me with them trying to have things fixed, and so I try to put it all back together. And a lot of the time you can't get paid cuz Medicaid will only pay for something every few years.

And so after a patient's already had it done, you basically have to eat the cost. And so I started a nonprofit where I can eat that cost and count it as a donation. And then another big part that has evolved is the whole body care. Mm-hmm. Where now I am involving breathing into the office and a lot of sleep type medicine.

A lot of facial focus and, and focus on posture and different things that are going on with the, the facial development and, and children. In adults, what might have gone wrong with their facial development? I've taken some classes and now done the, the certification for orthotropics with Dr. Hang and then I've also done the homeo block and all the d n A appliance type stuff to try and correct some of the issues that have been created from our diets and, and gone through like the western price type stuff as well.

And so there's a lot of underlying stuff that I never imagined myself getting into.

Michael: Yeah, no man. That's a lot. Yeah. And we'll dive into that right now, but um, rewind a little bit. And you said you went with a bank. There's only one bank you said that would require

Tim: you get loan. When I was doing it, what bank was that?

Wells. yeah, so Wells Fargo offered 375,000 and it was pretty good rate too. Um, I wanna say it was only like 3.5%, so it was a decent loan, especially for a new grad, but, That was the absolute max that they would cover. And so you had to get everything else financed some other way. Mm-hmm. And so I was able to get the rest of the practice seller financed and then he also threw in the building as a seller financed, and then I got it all refinanced about a year and a half later.

Hmm. Okay.

Michael: Gotcha. And then you said there was a company that helped you find or broker the practice and find the practice, right? Yeah. Like what company was.

Tim: Yeah, so I used d d S match and they were incredible, especially as a a port student. They didn't charge. Buyer anything. And so they were incredible in finding all these different practices.

And I basically listed out everything for the broker of, here's what I'm looking for, here's all of my stuff. And then he would send me the numbers for different practices in the area that were going up for sale. And this one actually wasn't for sale. He was looking for an associate at the. And after talking with me and, and working together for a little bit, he decided, you know what?

Let's sell and, and that's gonna be the best way to go.

Michael: So you were already working there and before thinking about buying it, or you're like,

Tim: Hey on. No, no, no, no. I, I had never even, I, I've been. Twice since buy or before buying it. I visited just the one time during my spring break and one time during Christmas break actually.

So I decided instead of flying home that I would drive home to California from Chicago. And we would stop by New Mexico as a, a halfway point. So me and my wife drove the whole distance and figured, all right, we'll, we'll take a look and, and see how it goes. And she actually was the one that made the final decision on here instead of the, the other location that we were looking at at the very end.

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael: Happy wife. Happy life, man. You're right. Yeah. So then how did you increase everything from 20 to 30% when you acquire?

Tim: Yeah. So big things that he was doing was he was very focused on trying to sell things. And like I said, that was never my focus. And because of that, I think that, I think as soon as you're trying to sell things, people notice.

Mm-hmm. And people feel like you're trying, they're trying to be sold on a product or whatever it might be, as well as he didn't offer patients that he didn't think could afford things. The other options, And. I mean, people pull out straight cash if they really want it. Yes. We've got a lot of ranchers around here who you'd never, you'd never think we have as much cash as they do under their mattress.

And as well as, you know, we work out trades with patients. I have a patient who painted my whole house, painted the whole hot office because he wanted to get implants under his dentures. And so we traded for implants and he painted everything for me. And so I've been able to work out a lot of deals with like that actually I just did a, a huge bridge and crown work case on a patient who just decorated my office with his photos.

And so he's a very well known photographer in the area, and his photos are, Pretty good Penny. And yeah, he, he traded me a few of his photos for some implant or for some crown and bridgework. Oh, nice. And so, yeah, we find ways to do things that. I don't think the other dentist really ever thought would exist up here.

Mm-hmm. Um, Or he never thought that these people would be willing to pay for things. And as soon as you educate them on the importance of it, and you show them what things can really look like and you find unique ways of showing them through all the technology that we have, I mean, it's incredible what people want.

And, and that's really what it is. And he, he wasn't really at that point, I think he was in his mind, on his way out, but he had never really gotten to where this practice is right now. because I don't think he had the right personality for it and he just didn't have the right outlook.

Yeah.

Michael: Oh, interesting. And then how did you create great relationships with the doctors in, in your

Tim: area? Yeah, so, The one, she actually, when I moved to the practice, she initially left the practice because she found out that I was young and she was like, I don't want this fresh dentist working on me. And now we're like best friends.

And, and so I decided that my child was gonna go to that office cuz I didn't know that she had left. Uh, I found this out way later now that we're friends. And so she uh, started seeing my child and my wife. We started talking about the different things uh, that we look at and how I look at dentistry.

And, and that was where the relationship started. And then as I started developing new products and getting into new things in dentistry. Most people don't know about the different sleep appliances and homeo, block, orthotropics, that type of stuff. Then I would go and teach at the office. And so I would go to the office and, and do a lunch and learn, bring lunch for everyone and, and teach them about Orthotropics or the homeo block, show them what it all looks like, show them before and after photos on patients that have been through it.

And we just started creating that relationship. And then we started working together on specific cases and it's gone from there. Now she's introduced me to her network of doctors with different specialists. So I refer often to an E N T. First stuff that I'll find on A C B C T. If I find nasal polyps or deviated septums severe tonsils stuff I'll refer over to him and we've created this awesome relationship between, between the few of us doctors.

Tim Doolin DRAFT: Dude,

Michael: that's awesome, man. So then let's, if I could dive into your business a little bit more. Yeah. What's production and collections looking like for.

Tim: Yeah, so, so with Medicaid, Medicaid's a rough one. Mm-hmm. Um, my production in Medicaid is about 1.8 million, and on that 1.8 million, I collect about 800,000.

after all of that, I also collect an additional 600,000. that's yearly. Yeah. And so yearly we're, last year was a little bit worse. We had an issue with our office manager and she wasn't collecting where we didn't realize she wasn't collecting. And so now when I was looking at the end of year numbers, things were a little bit sadder.

And next year will be severely inflated because we're backdating everything and, and figuring it all out with the insurance companies. Because Medicaid just has a lot of hoops for you to jump through, and you, if you don't do it in the proper order, you don't get paid. And so that's what she had kind of skipped out on.

And so there was a lot that we didn't collect. And so, I think our number, our final numbers were 1.3 last year. Okay. Oh,

Michael: so wait, real quick. Your office manager didn't collect, or was she taken home? Or what was, what was going on?

Tim: So she just wasn't properly submitting things. And then she would write off the patient like it was being collected because she knew exactly the numbers that should have been collected.

But then when I started checking the bank accounts, I could see that the checks weren't matching up. And

Tim Doolin DRAFT: what

Michael: was your initial thought? What were you like, how did this conversation go down?

Tim: Um, It was, well, what the hell's going on? Yeah, I, I wanted to kill her,

Michael: but, so you, you confronted her, or obviously you did, but like, how did this go down?

So, so

Tim: she had actually left. Oh. And so she just ghosted us. One day d just did not show up and that's when I started really digging in deep to, okay, what was going on here? And it had gone on for the last, like two and a half months, and I had just had an infant daughter, so I wasn't paying as close of attention as I had been before in the past.

And, and that's what allowed for it is I just wasn't as present as I normally had been. My, I didn't really care about getting the numbers daily or the graphs and all of that and checking the accounts, and it was a really unfortunate mistake. But I mean, we we're. It seems like we're able to catch up on 90% of it and collect most of it.

It's just there was a lot that was missed. Looking back,

Michael: what were the signs where you're like, oh, man, if somebody were to tell you like, Hey, my office manager's doing this too, you're like, dude, she's gonna ghost you, her, or what would, what are the

Tim: Yeah. Um, She started not being as present. Not wanting to report things to us.

Cuz my o my wife is also part of the office mm-hmm. And, and does most of the HR type work. And so she's the one who will get the reports daily. And I mean, my wife was no sleep for months, so she wasn't. Caring if there wasn't a report sent, and then she would also be the one that would check the numbers.

You know, even just like cash. If we get cash, we will verify the cash with the patient with the transaction and make sure that it all matches up. And we don't do it for everyone, but we make sure that we do it. We do spot checks so that it all, so there is no issues. Mm-hmm. And yeah, she just started not being present with us.

So not sending those things. We had a consultant and she wasn't really reporting any of the stuff to the consultant, which is always sketchy. But you know, we figured, okay, she's got all this stuff going on. Maybe, maybe she's just busy or she doesn't wanna bother us cuz we've got an infant daughter at home.

and really we just didn't care as much as we should have been. You know, it's something that if it was a year earlier, there's no chance it would've gone more than a week with me. Um, Normally I make sure that I have weekly reports, monthly reports and sometimes even daily reports depending on what it is.

so she'll post the, normally my office manager will post daily numbers for a collection, production, new patient scene and total patient scene, and they'll post it into my Excel sheet and it'll all start adding up. And then she has to give me the monthly report at the end of the month. That shows all of the numbers based on my previous numbers and based on, all of that, I have these algorithms that figure.

What should it all have looked like? I basically created it all myself just because I don't like a lot of the systems that I was given by consultants and, the different practice managers or practice management groups that I had talked to. Mm-hmm. And so I created my own Excel sheets and then my own algorithms, and that's how we would always figure it out.

But yeah, for the two and a half months after my daughter's birth, Kinda let it all go. Yeah.

Michael: Hey, why didn't you like, what the real quick rewind. You said you hired a consultant, right? Yeah. What, who

Tim: was it? So, oh man. Who was the group? We didn't get along with them. I'll, I'll leave it at that. Um, We didn't do very well with them because this all happened under their nose, you know, we, oh, really?

We hired them because we were going through a big transition, not with having a baby. Not only with having a baby, but also with the fact that um, we had these two sisters that were working with, That were pretty much in charge of the office before they made all the decisions. They, they helped with everything.

And as I started changing more and more of the office from the old culture, they started not being okay with a lot of it. And I told them, well, you know what? Let's just plan a civil way out and go from there. And so that's what we did. I hired a consultant. They were supposed to help us with the transition, hire this other.

And they had told us, you know, we'll work with you for this period of time. So they were still working with us. It was towards the end of the time that they were working with us. And so those girls had left. Now it's been two and a half years. Mm-hmm. And so it was like 18 months into, this happened at the beginning of last year, and so 18 months into everything.

this lady was starting to not listen to anyone and they didn't say anything. They didn't stop anything. They just kind of went their way. I think may mostly because we weren't communicating as much with them because of the baby. And us being kind of distracted, but yeah, it didn't go very well.

Why,

Michael: why did you go with.

Tim: Um, I went with them cuz they had a good presentation to start. Okay. You know, they had good reviews from a lot of other dentists. And the biggest thing was I was, I was considering taking on a, on an associate cuz I see way too many patients. today I only had a half day and I saw 40 patients.

Wow. And it, it's, it's a lot. Yeah. And so I have debated taking on an associate. I just don't really have enough chairs and so I'd have to build out to do that. There's this girl that's interned with us the last three summers, who's gonna be in dental school next year. And I've talked to her about potentially being an associate because it's also hard to convince someone to move to the middle of nowhere where we're at.

They have to enjoy the lifestyle up here and yeah, it's an awesome lifestyle, but you also have to be okay not seeing people very often. Yeah. Costco. And, and so yeah, it just wasn't right for us, but they were, they were highly recommended by everyone. Okay. So

Michael: then what was the systems you created right now where you're like, this is it, this is my own algorithm that you can kind of share with us where if we're not happy, You know what I mean? Oh my God. This is the system. Is this the only thing that exists out there? I guess so kind of thing, you know, in

Tim: terms of my numbers? Yeah. The numbers that I use in my dashboard. Yeah. So, um, I, I created a few different numbers that will basically take into account how many days are worked. How many patients are seen and the, the collection itself, because so often you'll see that the algorithms from the companies will just be based on, okay, here's the collections for this day and it doesn't really take anything else into account.

And then they'll break down collections per day's worked, but that's about. And so I'll u I'll make a number that's based on patient scene, that's based on day's worked. Um, It's based on the collections and then it's also based on the new patients, oh, and then hygiene. And so I take all of those things into account on my Excel sheet, and I have a algorithm that I created that includes all of those numbers to create a true collection.

And I don't even remember what I call it. I think I call it adjusted collections. Mm-hmm. And so my adjusted collections, my ADU adjusted production, I should see trend lines from that. And then my trend lines are all based on the last three months and the average of the last three months and where they should go.

And so I should know, you know, based on how many days I worked, here's where the numbers should be at, or here's where they should be for the next three months. And then that's also where I'll create goals for my team. And then we reward substantially if the goals are reached. And so we create games based on that.

And it's all based on my adjusted numbers. So what things should be not based on. Not based on straight numbers, but based on criteria that go into those numbers. Um, Because a lot of the times that just isn't taken into account and up here, you know, like today I had a half day because we have, we've gotten so much snow since 10:00 AM this morning that all my patients sh canceled.

Yeah. that's a normal thing. So, you know, if I wasn't talking to you, I probably would've gone skiing instead today.

Michael: Got you, man. What do you, how do you reward. What rewards do you give them? Straight cash. Okay. Nice. Steve. And is it like, what's the cash looking like here?

Tim: So like last month they got a reward.

The hygienist I think got 550 each. The assistants got two 50 each and the front desk were like 300. It was somewhere like that. What is

Michael: the goals for the front?

Tim: so everyone's goal is still the same. Everything is based on collections. And then I will I'll give them more of a reward or less of a reward based on their specific categories.

So the front desk is going to be appointments kept appointments canceled. No shows. No shows is a big one in New Mexico. I don't know how it has been in the rest of the world, but. We joke about it being the land of manana. It is, people do not show up to things here. And so it, that was a severe problem when I got here.

It was very normal to see in one day, six to seven people just not show up to their appointment at all for no reason. outside of, yeah, I just didn't feel like coming. And so that's a big part of the front desk. Then like my assistants is I'll tell them it's treatment plan acceptance, because they're a big part of making sure that everything is accepted.

They're a big part of making sure that the culture of the office is awesome. And so it's also how many new patients, because they are. They're basically my marketing team. The assistants are the marketing team and making sure that someone from the second they walk in the door to the second they leave.

They feel like they're part of our family, they feel awesome, and it should feel like a different experience. You know, the assistant's getting 'em a warm towel at the end of their appointment to make everything feel a little bit more like a spa, getting them. We have like ozone water that we'll use in different procedures and we make the ozone in the office so the assistant can talk to them.

Yeah, here's what ozone water is and why it helps. And so the assistants are part of that education. And part of that marketing because when someone hears all this stuff, they're, they get excited about it and they go tell their friends like, Hey, guess what I experienced at the dentist? Mm-hmm. This was really different.

and that's what we get all the time. I would say that's at least half of our new patients are because of an assistant said something and, and then we hear. Nice.

Michael: Okay man. So then like that's how you can kind of, do you ever get an assistant where, or have you ever gotten one where they're like, that's not my job.

I'm here to just assist you, kind of thing. Or maybe their conduct or attitude kind of showed that and you're like,

Tim: yeah, they don't work for me anymore.

Michael: How do you, how do you um, my guests give them, Or have you ever had to talk to one and be like, this is how it is here, kind of thing, right? Yeah. This is the office culture.

And then they did work and then it happened.

Tim: Yeah, Yeah, so actually one of my best assistants right now she started as a very quiet girl. She didn't wanna talk to the patients. She was really good at assisting. And so that was what kept me trying to work with. She didn't really want to have communication with the patient.

She was afraid of talking and being wrong about something and, and so I had to coach her a lot on, Hey, this is exciting. It's cool to teach someone this stuff. And, and when you start educating them on all the, the benefits, The different things that we provide and start teaching them what really can be awesome about taking care of teeth.

They get excited about it. And so she started just talking about things as if, you know, she knew everything there was to talk about. Yeah. And now she's become friends with a lot of the patients. Uh, A lot of the patients will stop her on the street throughout town because yes, we are a small town here, but she doesn't actually even live here.

She commutes uh, 45 minutes from the town over, and that town is 30,000. So, I see her in the plaza and she's hanging out with patients now and it's really cool to see. And then my other assistant, it was no issue because she was already that type of person. And when we hired her, we knew right away that she was gonna be perfect for it.

She had always kind of been in customer service jobs. But never had a career type job. It was always like, okay, I'm gonna work in retail here, or front desk there. And she just hopped around and she's been with us now two years and she's doing incredible, dude.

Michael: That's nice, man. That's really, really good.

So then let's talk about that severe problem no shows. Yeah, because I always think like, man, if you can figure a way to eliminate that, you'd be like a bajillionaire. So how did you, how did you start

Tim: minimizing. I mean, the biggest one was we started charging for it. Really? Yeah. So it's a hundred dollars no show fee.

And do you actually

Michael: charge, or are you kind of like, we're gonna waive it this one time? I understand. We have only

Tim: charged it, I think since, so we started implementing it about six months ago. I think we've only charged it three times. But what we did is we added it into the. To tooth places, so mm-hmm.

In the new patient the phone call, that script, it's in there now. And so when the, our front desk talks to a new patient, she brings it up. It's also in there for a patient who hasn't been with us for a while, and then we put it on a um, there's a contract that they sign when they come into the office.

Fortunately, we also changed our software. And so it became an excuse to have them refill out all their paperwork. And in the paperwork it set, there's one whole sheet that talks about our no-show and our late fee. And if you are, if you no-show on us, it's a hundred dollars fee. If you are late, we have the right to give your appointment to someone else.

and so we just started changing the culture. We were blessed with a, a front desk lady who's just incredible at mm-hmm. Being very straightforward with people. She has no problem talking about the NoHo fee with every patient. She'll take credit cards from a new patient. So if a new patient is setting up their appointment, she'll take a credit card from them and say, yeah, well we're gonna charge you if you don't show up to this appointment.

So you need to be here. Yeah. And it, it absolutely has changed things. I mean, we've had people during snowstorms say, no, I have to come because I have a hundred dollars fee if I don't show up. And they've got no car that can make it. And they're calling us frantically trying to figure out how they can get there.

Yeah. And so it's really been a, a, the easiest way to try and make sure it works, but we haven't really had to charge it. The only times where I've charged people is there's the occasional patient and it's usually a a state insurance person who says, no, my, my insurance will pay for that. Yeah, no, your insurance is not gonna pay for that. And you're gonna learn that you need to be more responsible. What do they get upset? Yeah, they absolutely do, but I'm also the only provider in the area for Medicaid, so. Oh, that's true. They can either not take care of it or they can pay that fee.

I mean, that's a lot of the time what it is, but. We fortunately, really haven't had to charge it. Yeah. So

Michael: Interesting. Okay, man. You said you changed software system

Tim: to Yeah, so we changed from um, what was the old one? He was using a really old system and I kept it around again. I had the, the old team that I inherited, and so I wanted to change things really slow when I bought the office.

Mm-hmm. And so I kept the old system. I can't even remember what was Soft Dent. That's what it was. Mm. And it was the old version of Soft Dent and it was the downloaded version, so it wasn't ever truly updated, like their new version is, and they have like their cloud version that they use. And we changed to Eaglesoft now.

Michael: Okay, cool man. Cool. Eaglesoft. So then let's fast forward now. Now what you're doing, you have a bigger vision, right? You wanna do. Do you want, what do you wanna do, Tim? Do you wanna just like be there, be this pr or what

Tim: is your vision here? Yeah, so, my next goal is to build a new clinic. So I would like to build a clinic that is different from every other clinic that I have ever been to.

And it's going to be an integrative care center where you go to and we provide, Whole health care in a way that is very technology savvy. So you go in and we use every piece of technology we can to basically give you a tour of your body and the dentist and the doctor don't even need to be there for the tour, but we're gonna give you a tour based on blood work, based on different scans.

Cuz I mean they've got all sorts of body scans they can do now that are super easy, super fast. I mean my scale now tells me. What percentage of my fat is located in water weight versus, you know, actual fat versus bone density. Mm-hmm. And it, all, it is, is a scale, you know, and that's a, a minimal one.

And they've got all these crazy things that they can do now. And so the doctor that I'm working with at, we were, we want to build a clinic that integrates all of that technology along with blood draw and the dental scans that we can do between a C B C T and a 3D scan and go through a PA with a patient, every single thing that we can in their body and where the form and function is going wrong, and we can relate.

Okay. Your face isn't developed in this way. You've got a posture and balance going like this. Your bite is also in balance because your posture is misaligned now you aren't breathing right, and, and we talk about it all and then correlate how we can change function at home and what they're doing at home to make it all better and, and basically make a new specialty out of it.

So then

Michael: this is planning to

Tim: launch. We haven't decided. So we're actually uh, me and her are working with, some people out of the country and we are, there's some other places out of the country that are doing similar things. Now the people that we're working with are all billionaires and that's who we're providing this care to.

And we want to make it a, a standard office experience because where this care is being provided in other places, it's at beautiful resorts that, you know, we get invited to and we build this care facility as a, just a makeshift facility that looks awesome and works really well, just with a couple pieces of equip.

Because most of the stuff can travel and then her expertise can travel very easily and my expertise can travel very easily as well. So they just bring us in a couple pieces of equipment and we can set up a, he a healthcare facility and provide what we can just through educating people. And then we would like to though bring that to the us.

We would like to make it a, a standard way that people can get healthcare. So

Michael: you're doing this already in, you're doing

Tim: it like you're going out there. And so My problem is I haven't been able to get licensed in the other country yet. Uhhuh, I have to take their board exam in September. And so I am hopefully gonna be taking all that and, and then providing all the care over there.

What's the other country, but Maldives.

Michael: Oh, oh yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Billionaire. Yeah. Okay, man. It's nice though. It's nice. Yeah. So you're going to do that

Tim: here? So the, yeah, that's, that would be my goal is to bring. Bring that type of care here where we can teach people how to take care of themselves in a better way, without medications, without, and, and that's, that's really the issue.

And what we have to figure out and what we haven't yet figured out is how do you bill all of this? Because it's difficult to bill knowledge and it's difficult to bill education through insurance. Mm-hmm. And so, That's where we are currently at a roadblock and, and trying to figure out, you know, how can we code this and, and what can we do for it?

And maybe we end up coding it as family practice and, and standard care like that. I'm not entirely sure yet, but yeah, we've already picked out a few different locations that we have considered. And hopefully, we'll, we'll get something started pretty soon in terms of, getting at least the dental and medical portion built.

But I want a chiropractor involved. I want to have uh, PT and OT involved in as well, and, and really get as many doctors on board as I can.

Michael: Man, that's gonna be exciting, man. That's gonna be really, really exciting.

Tim: I hope it, it turns into something. It's just, we don't really know what it's all gonna look like yet.

Let me

Michael: know when you open up the investors round. I have like my savings, which is five bucks. I'll, I'll put it in your van, I'll throw you, but no, that's gonna be exciting. Throughout this process, Tim, I guess from the moment that you decided to do your business plan for your practice till today, what's been some of your biggest struggles or, or pitfalls or fails?

Tim: Biggest struggles and pitfalls. I mean, really a, a big portion of its time. Building the business plan takes a long time. Getting financing was a ton of hoops. Banks do not trust a, a new grad, that is not a thing anymore. That used to be a thing. a lot of dentists who were graduating 20 years ago, That was normal to build a practice and not become an associate right away.

That is no longer the case. Banks don't want to give you money, even though dental loans are proven to be one of the least risk loans that you can, that a bank can give out. Mm-hmm. But. They still don't. And so I talked to bank, after bank, after bank, trying to convince them based on my business plan, based on everything that I had, and even though I had put in all the work that I did, they still did not wanna give me the money.

that was really the hardest part. And then it was finding, finding the right team, because you know, you have to find an attorney, you have to find an account. And I was a student, I didn't have any money. Mm-hmm. And so a lot of these people had to work for me off of the, the fact that I was going to have that loan come through on whatever date and then I was going to pay them.

And so I had to work extremely hard to find people that would work for me, despite me not having money on hand. And basically they worked for the day, the contract was signed, here is what we get paid. And so I was very fortunate and I worked incredibly hard to find that team. And it was a lot of making connections, going to dental conventions, finding, finding the right people at the conventions.

And then one person would introduce me to another person would introduce me to another person, and, and we'd kind of go from there. And that was really the, the biggest advantage was in having that mentor that I had. He was able to introduce me to people that trusted him, and then because they already had trust in him, then they would trust me.

And then once we had a conversation and I would explain, here's everything that I can do, they would jump on board. But yeah, it was incredibly difficult building that team. And then when I bought the practice, Really the hardest thing was convincing a team of people who had been in the business for, I don't think there was anyone who had not been in dentistry for less than 10 years.

Mm-hmm. And I had to convince them to trust me who was, had graduated three days ago. And so I had to go from absolutely nothing to, okay, now these hygienists have to trust my treatment plan. that's where I did, I had to follow the old dentist and figure out exactly what he would do.

Uh, And so I actually. Had him send me 20 cases before I went over there of the x-rays and then the the treatment plan that he came up with from the x-rays, so that way I could figure out how he planned and what it all looked like. And then I figured out that it was also based on insurance, how he would plan.

And so I basically copied his treatment planning strategies for the first six months. Mm-hmm. And I try not to change anything at all. The only thing that I added in be were things that he never did. So he never did uh, Invisalign. And, uh, he did very, very few implants. And I went to a school where I was very fortunate to graduate with, I mean, I think I graduated finishing about 15 implants.

And I had done over 40 root canals, and so I, I was able to jump right in and, and do that stuff and, but I, again, I had to make sure the other team trusted me and there was, there was one point where I did a filling and I made the mistake of putting s d F under it, and these girls didn't know what s d.

Looked like. they knew what it looked like if it didn't have a filling over it. And so the filling had kind of grayed out and they took a picture and started sending it to each other and saying, what is this guy doing? Now it was on a kid and it was, it was a no drill. No shot filling.

Like I figured, okay, this is gonna be great. They're gonna love that. I didn't use shots and drills on a kid. Mm-hmm. And the kid loved it. But no, they were not sold. And, and that was really difficult to kind of move away from some of his techniques. Mm-hmm.

Michael: No, but that's smart man. That's smart to not like go in there and change everything immediately.

Cause then everybody's gonna be like, well, who's this guy? Right. Kind of thing.

Tim: Yeah. You're, I didn't have the credentials to do that, you know. If I had done that after working for 10 years, it's one thing, but after three days of after graduation, yeah. Um, It was a little difficult to try and change things.

Michael: Nice. Yeah. Okay. Good, good, good. And then one of the last questions I wanna ask you is marketing advertising. Yeah. What's been your best r o ROI and then one of your worst things where you're like, I'm never gonna do that again.

Tim: Yeah. So, up until like six months ago, I had never done an ounce of. I use patient-based marketing only.

Mm-hmm. My patients tell other patients and that's how I market. I have patients that drive over three hours to come see me, and I would say that's relatively normal. Mm-hmm. Um, it probably happens every other day. I'd say. I have a patient that drives over two hours, It's because they hear about me from someone else, and the distance just kind of keeps going.

I don't know what the true trick is, but you know, again, I just, I try to educate people. I try to make sure that they're always comfortable in the chair and. And make sure that I'm, I'm just honest and friendly with them. People should feel like they are part of my family and I'm treating them the same way that I would treat my family.

Mm-hmm. And because of that, I have been ex incredibly lucky to not have to do really any marketing at all. I mean, I guess if you look at my taxes, I do marketing through. Supporting the high school. Yeah. Or, the golf course. I'll, I'll support like the random fundraiser and they'll put a sign out. But I don't know if I actually get any patience from it.

There's nothing better than a person telling their friend that, Hey, this is a really good guy, and, and this is a really good office. I, I love the work they did for me and I really trust them for that. And then in the last six months I have started marketing um, on LinkedIn for more of my own personal.

Not so much for my practice, but trying to get my own name out there in, in different ways and because I'm gonna be starting something new. I want to get out something so that way when this new thing is coming up, people can look me up and, and know that there's a lot more information on my philosophies, what I do and, and why I do it.

Michael: Nice man. Awesome. Tim, thank you so much for being with us, man. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where

Tim: they can. Yeah. So I'm on LinkedIn as uh, Dr. Tim Dolan. And then my practice is Angel Fire Family Dentistry. We are in Angel Fire, New Mexico. You can email me at angel fire dental gmail.com or feel free to call the office.

And we go from there.

Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below. And Tim, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Yeah, thank.

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We are starting off this month's MMM episodes covering ChatGPT, and the ways you can utilize it in your practice! In the fast-paced world of technology, it can be tempting to rush into picking up new tools and trends, but taking the time to slow down and fully understand how to effectively use these tools is where we are headed in this episode. Dental practices can benefit immensely from using ChatGPT to manage insurance claim denials, write up detailed business or marketing plans, and even draft scripts for videos. The most important part of this process is to have fun with it! The world of AI is still largely uncharted territory, so jumping in and experimenting with "how would ChatGPT respond to this?" is an effective mindset to have.

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If you've been dipping your toes into the AI world, or haven't used it at all, give this episode a listen and learn with Michael Bonanno and myself!

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You can reach out to Michael Bonanno here:

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://dentalvss.com/

Phone: 602-388-0954

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Other Mentions and Links:

ChatGPT

Airbnb

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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

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael A: Hey Michael. So talk to us about ai, artificial intelligence and chat, G P T. How can we utilize this or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help our workflow efficiency or front office task that we have within our

Michael B: practice? question. Thanks Michael.

So I would say the first thing is just to start. Doing it right, pull it up, Google Search chat, g p t, and uh, you pull it up and there's, it's actually, there's some free versions and you just start typing things in from different perspectives. So, that would be the first step, right? And, uh, from there, to give you an example, I'll, I'll oftentimes, if I'm looking to.

Create copy or, or um, you know, manage something like a denial or predetermination. I will go in and say, just for fun. I'm like, well, Write this for me my mind is always blown when I get the re the response back in like 30 seconds. What sometimes practices are paying highly paid people to manage is now being done in a matter of seconds and more complete, thorough and, fun while, you know, while we're at it.

Michael A: Nice. Okay, so then gimme some examples on what you utilize it for. What have you seen it work best for right now and what are your like we should have probably used it for that.

Michael B: Sure. Well, I keep trying to get it to do everything for me, but it keeps reminding me that it's like a, I can't remember what it says.

It says like, it says it gives me some error, like they can't come up with that for me. Mm-hmm. But, I'm using it for, I'm playing around with it with, uh, like website copy. Right. Or marketing content copy, or, I just did, um, I said, you know, there was an office that wanted to do a predetermination on number 13 with buildup crown and indirect pulp cap.

So I thought, let me see what chat G p T is gonna come up with for this. And I'm not kidding you, Michael. It came up with the most incredibly complete, it was like previous history of a patient, is this, that and the other. And, um, current experiences. I mean, it was just so on point. That there's no possible way the insurance company could deny it, right?

It just, all of the information for why somebody would need those procedures is right in there. So now the dentist just puts their name on it, we send it off, right? so we're having fun with that. Also, managing denials. Um, it's always fun to see, you know, sometimes what chat g p t is gonna say about how we manage a denial.

And you can also write from the perspective of a dentist or perspective of a consultant or perspective of someone, which is really cool. Um, I'm also using it for my website, so actually chat. durable is another ai, right? Mm-hmm. And they are building, um, websites. You put in a few things and before you know it, you have a full on website that will just blow your mind with what it comes up with.

As a matter of fact, asked Chad d p t, I said, who is Michael Bono or something? Michael Bono in the dental industry or something like that. Man, I took what it said. It made me sound so good and I forgot, dude. I was like, Yeah, I have been on lots of, you know, I've been in, in the newspapers and I've been on the, on television, you know, stations and things like that when Covid came out, right?

Mm-hmm. And I just forgot about all of that, and it pulled from somewhere, all of that together and made me look like the bright shining star that I am. So I was pretty excited about

Michael A: that. Nice. Okay. I never thought about that when it comes to perspectives on how to use it from a dentist, from a consultant, How do you see that beneficial when it comes to like, I mean obviously not a dentist or practice owner, but do we, what prompts would you recommend we use for like consultant or, or

Michael B: marketing?

Yeah, it's a great question. I haven't dove in too much into prompts. I have a bunch of things saved on my phone right now where, I'm gonna make this up like a hundred or plus, probably thousands, probably you know, better than I do. How many different prompts and different. programs exist right now to support this artificial intelligence, the workability of it.

And I know there's images and, um, y you know, you can, you can design and do code and all kinds of things. I was sharing with, um, one of my buddies, I said, let's, let's spend a weekend at an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere and just start going down the list of all of those. Programs and seeing what they can do and how we could have an impact what we're doing.

And um, I mean it's even now posting, pictures and stuff on Facebook and, and Instagram and all kinds of things for us. so it's, it's pretty amazing. I, I need more, a little bit more time cuz I do want to geek out on it, to be honest with you. I, I'm still just playing around with it and, and I'm still in discovery like, Well, what is it gonna say about that?

you know, that root canal that was needed or that implant and or why we took that x-ray. And now as we get more into medical billing, commercial medical billing for dentists, it's actually, even more fun. So. interesting. But a consultant, I would put everything in there, dude.

I mean, like, you know, ask, I, I treat it like, it's like a. I'll just be like, let me just see what it's gonna say about this. What, what is, what's it gonna write about that? I've got friends people that are in, college using it to write college papers and the professors are not picking up on that.

It's, you know, computerized and, I mean, obviously they're going through and cleaning it up and making it of their language and type of thing. But for the most part, I'm really like, Floored by the way that it presents, information and how quickly. Yeah.

Michael A: Yeah. It's, it's amazing. What kind of marketing have you seen practice owners utilize it

Michael B: for?

Yeah. Uh, I, website content. You can also say, I'm Michael, you know, I own a virtual support company. For dentists, what are some reasons why a dentist would hire me and it will spit out a whole bunch of things or reasons, or write me an article about the, uh, the value of not missing phone calls.

In a dental practice or I'm a consultant for dentists, um, help me write a business plan for this. I mean, it will literally, as a matter of fact, I was talking to somebody recently who, they're a consultant and they are putting together a program and you can literally ask the AI to build you out a six week program on this, that, and the other, and it will give you an entire timeline with deliverables.

For how to achieve the outcome. Mm-hmm. It's pretty cool.

Michael A: Yeah. Yeah. So we can do that with like marketing, right? Like kind of say like, create me a six month marketing plan that exactly. $5,000 budget or that's it, right? And blah, blah, blah. This is my, and then continue to add to it as soon as it Right. Kind of a, yeah.

Like. Be like, okay, now talk about Instagram. Right. Or talk about this. Right. Or I'm in New Hampshire, what about that Right. Kind of thing.

Michael B: Yeah. I, I, I don't know where it's happening, where the data's coming from, but it's, it's pretty complete comprehensive. And, um, you know, I, I actually played with it. Uh, we were talking with a friend of ours who's an attorney the other day, and we were, we were talking about contract law in San Diego.

Where we live, California and we said, you know, have you heard of chat G p T? He said, no, what is that? And he wants to focus on writing, right? All he wants to do is write contracts. and so we said, well, here, let's do this. So we pulled it up. We said, you know, I'm an attorney in California. Oh, it was a contract for a parking space.

Mm-hmm. And He was like floored by it. He said it did miss a couple of things, but I said, well, that's why the human being still exists. See, the human being exists to manage the integrity of the system, right? Chat, e p t is still a system, so you know, there's going to still be a, a human element required.

at some point, maybe not. but yeah, he was floored by it as well. So I just invite anybody, who's doing anything to get on there and start asking from different perspectives. If you're a consultant, you're a dentist, you know, you want to, you're a hygienist, you want to educate a patient on sleep apnea, you know, um, or.

You know, versus waiting for script. You can write, it'll write you scripts. I said, write me a sales script for cold calls of, uh, virtual support for dentists or something, and it comes up with the whole thing. Interesting.

Michael A: Okay. That's good. Yeah. What would you recommend, for example, let's just say a dentist is listening right now, practice owner, and then they're like, all right, we're gonna sign up.

We're gonna get it, or we're gonna, I want my front office to mess with it a little bit more. what kind of prompts should they be putting into it?

Michael B: Yeah, I would say it depends on what kind of outcomes they want to get, right? If they're having issues with billing, then there's gonna be specifics to, uh, that if they want to look at marketing, well then they should, you know, do some searching around, um, and find out which of the platforms are going to provide the outcomes they need for.

for their marketing. and with all that, there are, I'm not related to any specific, ones. my exploration has been mostly with chat, just chat, g p t, general, question and answer fund. I know that it's doing all those things. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael A: Awesome. How do you utilize it for your, your business?

Michael B: for my business? You know, I haven't actually, really elevated the use of it in my business. I'm still in the, I'm kind of an analysis paralysis guy. So for example, like it takes me more time to think about something than, and then it takes like my spouse before I'm done thinking it's already done.

Right. Um, with my spouse. So, I'm still in the analysis stage of like, is this really working? Does this really work? Well, what if I put this in and what if I do that? so I'll circle back with you on that as I integrate more of it into my business. I haven't integrated much actually into my business.

Maybe my marketing company's using it. Cuz as I think, as I think about some of the text and stuff that I'm getting back, I'm like, this could be, you know, artificial intelligence. Because some of it I'm kind of like, It says something like, uh, virtual administrators can help update patient records.

And I'm like, yeah, nobody's saying that. You know, you know. Yeah, yeah. But I get it, you know? Yeah, that's great. And I, I just wouldn't say that. Mm-hmm. So, um, yeah, we'll do a follow up with, uh, me as I, as I integrate more, into the business.

Michael A: Nice. So you definitely think. For sure, for sure. Practice owners should be utilizing this or at least messing around with it right now

Michael B: for sure.

Oh yeah, because there's, I mean, you know, practice owners are very, very smart, right? Most of them, that we work with are independent dentists, so they're practice owners and they're very smart people, much smarter than me. And so as they look at, you know, as they toy around with it, they will find so many different ways that it can be beneficial.

I wish I had more time. That's why I said let's lock ourselves in a Airbnb for the weekend and really dive into, because. You know, it's kind, it's that philosophy of slowing down to speed up. Mm-hmm. We know that it's powerful. We know that it's available and so, any time that we don't slow down to understand how to maximize it is, um, To our detriment long, you know, long term.

Mm-hmm. It's like compound interest, right. You gotta get it in there. As soon as you get it in there, it builds and grows. Right. But yeah, you have to spend the time now and get it in. So I, I just submit lock, you know, doing something where we look at what are the outcomes in the practice where it's taking human. you know, human resources, if you will, and how can we leverage the value of artificial intelligence, like chat G P T to either speed things up, automate things, get out in front of things so that we're not having to think from nothing. The different co you know, marketing. Mm-hmm. Messages, I'm getting messages or stories For me, I'm a, I'm very high creative, so every word matters.

So it can take me sometimes months to do something where with chat G P T, for example, they spit something out. I've got something that gives me something to latch onto where now I'm building from it as opposed to from scratch, which for me works really well because of how much time I sometimes spend.

Just thinking about how am I gonna start

Michael A: this? Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Awesome Michael, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find 'em on the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group or where can they reach out to you directly?

Michael B: Sure, they can. Uh, my cell phone, (602) 388-0954 or email me at m b like Michael Bono mb dental vss.com.

Michael A: Awesome. So that's gonna be in the show notes below, guys. And Michael, thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing

Michael B: episode. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Enjoy, uh, enjoy the rest of a great day.

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This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
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For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Guest: Mary PhamPractice Name: Lollipop DentalCheck out Mary's Media:‍

Website: https://lollipopdental.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lollipop-pediatric-dentistry

Lollipop Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lollipopdental/?hl=en

Sweet Smiles Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetsmilesortho/?hl=en

Women Dentist Entrepreneur (WDE) Facebook Page: https://m.facebook.com/groups/379332796353702/

Email: [email protected]

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Other Mentions and Links:

Hooters

Kaplan Test Prep

DAT - Dental Admission Test

Dentistry of USC

Dr. Gardner Beale

University of Chicago

Lake Forest Lollipop Dental

In-N-Out Burger

Bill Gates

Yelp

DEO Mastermind Group

Denti-Cal

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

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

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

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My Key Takeaways:

• Your goals and vision may shift over time! Take this into account when making decisions.
• Your first 2 practices may get by without systematization, but this is essential when jumping to 3+ practices!
• You do not have to be a boutique fee for service practice to be profitable.
• When talking to patients, never come across as judgmental or condescending. Always talk to them like you would your bestie.
• If the teammate you let go is surprised, you may need to improve your performance checkup process.
• One person can manage five to seven people effectively. Much more than that and you need to hire!

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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]

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Mary, how's it going?

Mary: Everything is going great, Michael. Thank you for having

Michael: me. No, thank you for being on. If you don't mind me asking, I know you told me before we started recording, but where are you located?

Mary: We are in Orange County, California.

Our offices are in Orange County and Los Angeles County. Actually, we're we're expanding a little bit.

Michael: Really? Why Los Angeles?

Mary: It's still within driving distance to Orange County. So currently with our offices, we still like to be really present in them, at least visit them once a month or so, and mm-hmm.

Now we just wanna drive, make it like a 30, 45 minute drive and, um, and we have patients that live in LA County that want us there. So we decided to serve our patients.

Michael: What, how many practices do you

Mary: could have? So we have seven currently. And, um, I think we're gonna just keep going. We're having fun doing it.

So,

Michael: uh, you make it sound like so, so funny, like, you know, let's just keep going and build. And so before we dive into that, tell us a little bit about your past, present. How'd you get to where you are today?

Mary: Initially, I actually didn't think I was gonna be a dentist. Mm-hmm. I, I wanted to be an ob gyn.

My parents were like the typical Asian tiger parents and wanted everyone to be a doctor. So I applied to med school. I was a med school reject, and um, I moved to Houston, Texas against my parents' wishes and became a Hooters girl. So I loved, so I worked there and then I met a dentist actually at the end of my shift.

And she came in, she had some chicken wings and we were just chatting and she was like, you should really consider dental school. And then I was like, nah, I don't wanna be a dentist. I don't wanna be in people's mouth all day. But then she, she was like, all you have to do is take the d a t, see how you do and it'll just open more doors for you, so you should try it out.

Mm-hmm. So I took the, I decided to focus, I took this KAPLAN course and I took the d a t and I did acceptable enough to get into U S C dental school, and I guess that paved the way for me and dentistry. And so, um, went to dental school not knowing much about dentistry at. And, um, I did pretty well in dental school, to where one of my mentors, Dr.

Gardner Beal, um, he encouraged me to pursue pediatric dentistry because he saw during my pediatric rotation that he's like, oh, Mary, you're really, really good with kids. You should consider pe. And I was like, nah, I'm ready to start working. Make some money. So, you know, start my career. And he is like, well, let's just, you know, pr be a part of the pediatric selective and just, you know, you'll have fun.

You, um, you really seem like you like it. And he encouraged me to apply to pediatrics. And then I got into pediatrics at the University of Illinois and Chicago and I finished my residency. me and my husband got married. He's an orthodontist and he decided to, Settle in Orange County, and that's how we ended up here.

and of course, because he's an orthodontist, he's like, I want my pediatric dentist wife to refer me all the patients, so I never have to do any marketing ever again. So, within the year I just opened a startup. and it was just like, luck, you know, we, we thought we were gonna open in this city. It didn't work out.

At the time, you're very discouraged because you're looking at all of these locations that you think you wanna work in. However, everything doesn't align the way that you, thought that it would. And so, um, we ended up finding our first location in placenta. The contractor was, you know, who we're still there today and he owns the building and he's like, you know what, Mary?

Like this is the last suite in this building. I'll pay for everything. I'll pay for to build it out. I'll pay for whatever you need. So you just put the equipment in and it's yours. And so I. And I didn't have much of a startup cost there except for the equipment and a little bit of upgrades and it costs.

But besides that, I was really fortunate in that I found them. And so, um, from there, we, I would say within the first three years we became busy, you know, um, our model is, Give everyone a reason to smile. And what we mean by that is everyone, no matter what type of insurance you have, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, we think that every child deserves quality, specialty, dental care, if the parents choose that, so, You know, we're not picky with being like a fee for service or a PPL only.

We cater to everyone with the best technology and with specialty care. And so that has just been our business model. And when we realized that we're able to become profitable while seeing all different types of payers, It really became something that we loved. You know, like I didn't wanna just serve fee for service patients.

You know, like, how could I develop this business model that can be profitable, but, and also doing what I love, so, That was really fulfilling. and then we started growing really fast to where we decided to open in different locations where our patients were asking us. So we just opened our Lake Forest location a couple of months ago, and I would say 80% of the patients that come through are, were our patients that visited another location.

Moved to South Orange County to where they're like, oh my gosh, we're so glad you're here. And I'm like, you spoke, we listened. You said you guys need an open one in South Orange County. So here we are. so that's kind of where we are today. and it's still a really fun ride. You know, I think when people start to scale by the second or third location, they.

Start to get stressed out. Like what worked at one location doesn't always work with two, and what works at two doesn't always work with three. But once you get to three or four and you've systemized a lot of things, it really helps with scaling. And so, um, and so yeah, it's a, it's a fun time for us and, and it also scaling allows your team to have growth opportunities.

You know, like if you're in a single location, then you might just be a dental assistant, maybe like a lead. But then where is it? Where else can you go right from there if you stay there? So, My goal has changed from opening one practice to how many more lives can I change? Not only patients, but my team.

How can I continue allowing them to grow as we grow because they have been with me for so long. Right? And you just wanna see people succeed. So it's fun. I love it.

Michael: Nice. That's a a lot. Uh, you going? That was a little, it's fantastic. It's fantastic. Real quick, where in Houston were.

Mary: I was, I lived in Pasadena, but the Hooters that I worked at was off the, off of Kirby.

Michael: Okay. Okay. Nice. Yeah. Pasadena over there is different than Pasadena in here, right? Yes. It's very different. Yeah. That's nice. Okay, so then it's interesting you said no twice, right? You're like not a dental school and then NAD to pediatrics, but you went that way, right? Why? Why do you think that?

Mary: I think part of it was one, it would make my parents proud that even though I wasn't a doctor, I was some sort of professional.

so that was one. And then two, I think that I wanted to push myself into a better opportunity, right? Like I, I actually used to do nails. My parents owned several nail shops growing up, and one thing my mom always told me was, no matter what the skill. You can always learn more, and that'll just make you a better person, you know?

Mm-hmm. So like I still have my manicuring license, even though I don't use it, I still renew it every year. Yeah. And it's like, it's fun, right? It's like you, it's a skill that you've acquired, that you've learned, and you're licensed to do it, and it's only good for you to learn to do a lot of different things.

So, Dentistry. I don't practice behind the chair as much. Maybe once or twice a month when I'm filling in for my doctors who are on vacation. But, um, but I did it for 12 years, you know, and I really loved it. I feel like I became very good at not only clinical dentistry, but catering to patients needs. And now I have my second calling, which is developing people.

Mm-hmm. And continuing to build my company. Uh, you know, affect as many lives as I can in a positive way. Yeah.

Michael: No, that's, that's fantastic. Now, I know you kind of said like, now you accept anybody, right? Like, or not now, but like you've always accepted any kind of patient. Does that mean like Medi-Cal, any type of insurance?

That doesn't matter.

Mary: Exactly. So we are in network with almost every payer. The only ones that we are out of network with are the HMOs that require certain criteria that we think are unreasonable. Like for example, there's certain HMOs that say you have to try at the general dentist three times with failed appointments before we will pay for you to see a specialist, which I think is wrong because the general.

Knows if the patient is able to tolerate treatment at a general dentist or if they need specialty care, why make them go three times before you'll refer them? Because by the time they get to us after the third time, they're so scared, you know? So those are the only insurance plans that we don't take are the ones that I just ag I don't agree with.

They're pro protocol or their, their philosophy.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then you also mentioned that the, then the first three years, Of your startup, you became busy. Mm-hmm. So break it down to us. What were you doing? What didn't work? What worked?

Mary: So initially I thought I wanted to be this boutique fee for service practice.

Mm-hmm. I think that's the, picture that people paint, right? Mm-hmm. And so whenever I was a resident, we saw every payer type, mainly Medicaid. As a resident, and then when I went into private practice, I thought that I wanted to be this boutique p p O practice, but then I realized I wasn't fulfilled, I didn't see as many cavities or much extensive treatment.

It was a slower pace. Um, which is okay, but I like being busy. You know, I worked at a nail shop for 15 years, right? So, I mean, you're seeing, you have a lot more interaction with people and so it, it, it's just a different type of practice. It's not right or wrong, but I think it's just like different dental practices in general, right?

Some people like to sit and talk with their patients for a really long time, and some people thrive in a fast-paced environment where I like saying hi to five different people and. With kids in particular, they're very impatient. And when the kids are impatient, the parents are more impatient. Mm-hmm. So I like the fast paced type of environment.

when I first started practicing, I worked out in Riverside County where it was like a hundred percent Medicaid. And so when I left that practice to open my own, a lot of the patients would come and see me at Lollipop, where our practice was in placenta and, um, At that time I didn't take Denal because I was like, well, you know, I don't know if I wanna open that door, but I'll still see them for free.

So the social worker would bring them and I would still see them. And, um, I just wouldn't bill or wouldn't charge or anything like that. So then the social worker was like, Dr. Fam, like, we can help you. Why don't you just sign up so then you'll get paid for seeing. These patients that, that are driving an hour to two hours to come see you.

And I'm like, all right, we can do that. So I called Medi-Cal and they said, you can, you can choose to see whichever patients you want, whether it's just kids under five special needs kids or whoever you can, you don't have to take every single person, right? You can just selectively decide like which patients you wanna see.

And then I was like, yeah, I just wanna only see my patients. I don't wanna take any new patients, just the patients that I've followed for many. And so, um, so then we. Got slammed with patients cuz I couldn't say no to anyone. Mm-hmm. I mean, I had this, this thing where I'm only gonna see my patients and then hey, but I have a friend and then I, I'm telling everyone to come here and we love it here.

And I was like, yes, yes. We'll see them, don't worry. Like, we'll take care of everybody. We can save the world. And so, um, so that's kind of how we got busy was because we were like, you know what, we're not gonna say no to any children that need specialty care. And we know we're the best, We're not gonna close our doors to anyone at all.

You know, if we can help them, we will. Mm-hmm. And that's how we got from like, kind of like a boutique P p O type practice to where we are today.

Michael: Gotcha. You're right, a hundred percent. So many times we're like, I wanna be a boutique then I only wanna have like work one to two clinical days. Right. Maybe good, good days.

And then from that point on, have an associate be fee for service. Where does that come from? Why did you have that?

Mary: You know, I can't, I can't put my finger on like one particular thing, but I just think people always Put Medicaid in like a negative connotation. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, it's like low reimbursement people cancel, the socioeconomic status and it's gonna run the fee for service patients out.

You know? And then, so actually what I said was, you know what, like we're gonna be the in and out of pediatric dentistry no matter what your socioeconomic status is, whether. Bill Gates, if you like Inn out, you'll be there. Or whether you're a homeless person, you can still eat Inn Out or someone will buy you Inn out, right?

And so, but there's no selectivity of who goes there. It's more of like, okay, if you like a good fresh burger, like it's affordable to everyone. So mm-hmm. That's, that's where I felt like, I don't know. I think just my heart is with children and I feel like I didn't go into pediatric dentistry to just. A fee for service type population.

I went into pediatric dentistry to, to help the kids with the best level of care that need it the most. And if we could find a way to make it into a profitable business, then why? Why won't, why wouldn't you do that, right? Mm-hmm.

Michael: Mary, when did that change then, for you, when you were like, okay, I, I did my startup, I wanted to be boutique, and then you.

All right, now we're gonna be in and out. Like it felt like there was some part in your, in this moment, maybe it was before, I don't know. You honed in, you hyper-focused on exactly what you wanted to be do and things like that. when did that happen? The

Mary: moment that I can think of is when I had a family actually that had like two or three adopted children that were under Medicaid, and then they had a couple biological children that were like ppo.

And so, um, parents told me that they would always have to take the Dental Cal or the Medi-Cal kids somewhere else because there wasn't like a quality dental office that took everybody that was a specialist. And so at that time I was like, well, I don't want you to have to split up or like, feel like you're not getting that quality care.

And, and that's the comments that we get is like, Oh, I've, I've never seen a Medicaid office look like this or provide this level of care. So I think there's a stigma with like Medicaid offices. Mm-hmm. Is that they're a rundown, or the technology's not there, or you're not getting the quality of care that you would get.

But I think that we've changed that. You know, we're like, you know, no matter who you are, you're still gonna get the same level of quality. No matter if you're a Dcal patient or you're a cash patient, you're gonna get the same level of quality. There's no difference in. Service or procedure or products or materials that you get recommended, um, because of your payer status.

And so I think knowing that you can serve everyone, um, and like I said, that one family was that one moment where I was like, oh man, I didn't realize that, you know, you had to kind of split up your family just because there wasn't one place that you could go that you were comfortable with.

Michael: Mm-hmm. That's true.

And I'm sure it means a lot for the child too, you know what I mean? And when looking back, maybe not in that moment, but like looking back, they're gonna, you know what I mean? Think about it and say, oh, we always had to go to like another practice that like real, they heard us, they did all this. Right. And my brother and sister, they went to the nice one, right?

And things like that. And I wanted to go, but looking back, they'll, they'll realize that. But So then when it came to the Medi-Cal, do you feel like sometimes people, or Dentca, do you think sometimes people. Like, you know what Mary? Like, I, I wanna accept it. I do accept it in Medicare, but I just, I either have to see a ton of patience in order to make something and pay my team, and then I don't even have time to get, you know what I mean?

What's the latest technology? Let's do an admin day. Let's figure things out. Let's make our mission, you know what I mean? Or is it the. Kind of the other way where it's like, Hey look, I don't wanna do that because I'm not gonna have the time for and the money to do what I wanna do with my practice.

Mary: Right.

I think everyone's goals are different. Right. like we talked about before, some doctors just like to sit and chat with their patients and for quite some time. I'm the type that delegates very well. So what I mean by that is, is my assistants are trained to do a lot of the anticipatory guidance in nutritional counseling.

The oral hygiene instructions. Um, they spend 95% of the time with the patient. And so I'm just going in to diagnose, verify, and make treatment recommendations. So I allow my team to. Really develop that bond with the patient and be the main educator because they can tell them exactly the same thing that I tell them and it doesn't make a difference if it comes from me or from the assistant.

And I feel like doing it that way empowers them too. Um, because I've hired some assistants who have worked for 10, 15 years, but they've never passed an instrument to the. Because they said that the doctor likes everything on their tray. Kind of like in dental school, we are the only, like, we are our own assistant, so you're used to working a certain way.

And so I've had assistants that only hold the suction for doctor, and they've done that for 10 years. But when it comes to pre-op, post-op instructions, You know, getting everything ready, you know, informing the patient of all of these things. They've never done that because the doctor does all of that.

So, you know, I think for us, we, the quality of the care that you're providing, but also the patient experience is very important. And so do I feel like the patient experience with my dental assistant doing a lot of the talking, communicating education, Am I still able to provide that with the same level of care as if I were to do it myself?

And I do. You know, and I think that we, we have, we call like a Lollipop Dental Training Academy, where we actually go through training for every single person. And like their first week they're, it's customer service training. So they're learning how to talk, what type of energy they're gonna bring, and then they're learning all the verbiage when they come.

Michael: Break that down to me. How does the Lollipop Dental Academy work? So the first week is customer service, and then every day you like, welcome, come on to the team. And how does it.

Mary: Yeah, so after they do onboarding, the first week is, like I said, customer service training. It could be anything from learning all the education.

There's a lot of role playing, so I'll just use a baby exam as an example. Like if you have a child and you bring the baby in for the first visit, there's a series of questions and recommendations. That are asked such as, does your child have any habits? What type of water are you drinking? And then depending on what the parent says, we make a recommendation on that.

So we do a lot of role playing. So that way every assistant is trained on not only the guidelines, but also what to recommend and even how to respond if a patient says I wouldn't say the wrong thing, but let's just say if it's a, it's a bad habit. how to say that in a way that's not judgmental, you know?

So like, Kind of like when you go to the dentist, right? And they say, are you flossing? And they just say, yeah, but they're not really flossing like they're supposed to, but they know that if they say no, there's gonna be a lecture. Mm-hmm. So there's never a lecture, there's never any judgment zone. Um, the way that we teach our team is, you know, treat them as if they're your bestie, bringing you their baby and you just wanna help them, right?

So. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah, customer service training, week two, we go into, I think certifications, um, expectations on quality. Hmm. So a lot of, you know, not every dental assistant, um, Corona Polish is the same, you know, some of them don't do it as thoroughly. So we do have like clinical excellence, expectations and it's graded, so then they'll get graded on the quality of each thing.

And then I think each week they just progress in clinical skill. And then there are expectations of customer service each week as well. Meaning, did you get a Yelp review? Like week two? You should have two. Week three, you should have three Week four, you should have four that week. So they have those expectations.

Two.

Michael: Wow. Has it ever happened where it's like, Hey, it's week four. I I, I didn't get a Yelp four. You know what I mean? Like, are they just asking or how are they getting these?

Mary: Yeah, they're just asking, you know, like there's ways that we ask and um, And their lead or their trainer will help them, because sometimes people are shy.

But, but then you have to get them into that habit of, okay, this is the expectation that you have is you have to get four, but if you got one week one, then you know how to do it. Now you just gotta keep doing it. Um, so yeah, they ask.

Michael: Gotcha. Uh, you mentioned that you have a way to ask how.

Mary: I don't wanna tell you all my secrets, but,

Michael: but we get it.

You got, you got you, got you. Okay. No worries. Okay. That's interesting though. So then how long is that? When is the training process done?

Mary: Normally it's week seven or week eight. All of the basics have been taught. then it's just repetition, right? Like if you're practicing, uh, space maintainers, then you.

Have a certain level, um, before you get that signed off. And then once you, once clinically, you, the trainer feels like you are competent. It's like a competency in dental school. Like you keep doing it until you pass. Mm-hmm. And then once they. Are competent and our leadership team feels like they're ready for the next step.

And then they're, you know, we kind of see where each team member is and what, how they think they can contribute past just clinical skill. And everyone's different. You know, some people wanna train, some people wanna lead the team. Some people like KPIs and metrics. You know, um, everyone's a little bit different.

Michael: Nice. So then has anybody. Not like, maybe like week four you're just like, all right. You know, taking, taking you out, you know what I mean? Kind of thing. Oh

Mary: yeah. I mean, there's a certain level of expectation. You know, some people interview very well, but then are really shy mm-hmm. On the floor. Um, and if they don't kind of break out of their shell and meet the expectation, then we do have those conversations.

Mm. Like maybe you're not meant to work with kids, you know, even though you think you are because of x, Y. Mm-hmm.

Michael: Does that normally go good, those conversations?

Mary: Um, I always say we never let someone go as a surprise, you know, so we do, um, you know, verbal conversations, um, written warnings, uh, everything. So we, we set expectations, um, to make sure that they understand what the benchmarks are and, you know, and I.

If they meet our core values. And, and I think that's the main thing. If you meet our core values, but it takes you a little bit longer to get where we want you to be, but we can see that there's progression, then that's more important. And, and maybe not, this role's not for you. Maybe we need to make a lateral move and put you in another department because you're struggling with this.

Mm-hmm. You know? So, um, so I think. You know, we, we follow traction with like our, our, um, meeting cadence and systems and we do what they call the people analyzer, where if we don't have clarity on whether or not we should keep someone, we just put it across our core values and see if, okay, are you kind, are you dedicated?

Do you have a growth mindset? Do you show leadership quality? Um, are you, you know, team player? And then if they do seem like they have all of our core values, then we say, okay, maybe they're just struggling with this. Maybe they'll do better in billing, or maybe they'll do better in this role, um, because we do feel like they fit our culture, but they're just a slower learner.

Or maybe they're not that detailed in this, but they're super customer service oriented. So maybe we can put them in a people operations role or so.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. That's interesting. And so when that happens, let's just say for example, you're, they don't meet one or two core values, but you're kind of dry on that role.

You know what I mean? Like where you're, or has that ever happen? I know that's happening a lot to a lot of us out here right now where we're struggling looking for team members. Right. Um, but it comes to you where you're like, okay, we need this. They're not the best fit, but we can do for now, does, do you do that or.

Mary: So if someone's a straight no. So we do it like a plus, plus minus, and then a minus. Mm-hmm. So if they're like, let's just, I'll just use proactive, right? So if they're like kind of proactive sometimes, but then sometimes they're not, they'll get a plus minus, and that means we can work on it. But if they're our, one of our core values is dedication, and they're like, no, because they're late every single day and they call out.

Then we say, okay, this needs to change right away. And if they're late for the next, 30 to 90 days I think is what they do if they're late one time in the next 90 days. And that could be grounds for immediate termination. So we, we really do stick to the core values when it comes to. If you're not dedicated, you're not dedicated because you call out or you come in late every day.

That's disrespectful to everybody that comes on time, and it's showing that we as a company tolerate that and it goes against who we are. So we have let very good skilled people go. Due to not fitting our core values. And it, and it always ends up being that the team appreciates that. Mm-hmm. They're like, oh, they were late every day.

Like, why should I come on time every day if they're allowing that? So we do, um, we do do the people analyzer and like I said, it does give you clarity on whether or not someone fits who we.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. That's interesting. Now, you also mentioned that once you open the first practice second, right, you systematized.

Mm-hmm. I know a lot of the times we think when we open a practice, number one, we're like, got it. I know the blueprint. I can do the same thing for the second one. Is that true?

Mary: No. You always have to pivot and change. Because they're, you know, like, I'll use one perfect example. When you have one location, everyone, you can probably verify all your own insurance, right?

You don't really need help, you're not that busy. Mm-hmm. Or you've come up with the way that works. But then as you well in that one location, if as you grow, it's gonna put a lot of stress on your team. what we do is we say, okay guys, what is it we could automate and what is it that that's causing you a lot of stress right now that we can help?

And from there we come up with a solution to help with that. But I think as you're growing more locations, um, it's not gonna be the same, you know, like you have more team members, you need more managers, um, you centralize a lot of your services. You know, because you don't need a biller for each office.

Now you can have a bill. For four offices, you know, for me it's kind of fun building out different parts of our organization. Um, but you know, there's so many things that change that I couldn't even put my finger on one thing. But I think the main thing is, people, you know, like the larger that your organization.

You know, you're and I, and this example I love to use is like, when it's just you and five people, your influence is really strong. You see them every day. You work with them every day. It's like a wifi signal, right? Like you're there and they like, you're really in tune. But as you grow, your wifi signal gets weaker and weaker.

So then you need people. In place that's gonna keep that signal strong. And so they say one person can effectively manage up to five to seven people. And I do believe that like once you get to like 10, 12, 13 people, then you're not as effective in leading those people. But, but yeah, there's, there's so many things that change.

It's hard to just say one thing, but I think just keeping up with what your needs are and knowing that you need leadership in place to make sure that. Each of the team members still feel loved and cared for and, and engaged. And it doesn't necessarily have to be you, the doctor, it could just be whoever it is that their manager mm-hmm.

Um, is.

Michael: Yeah, I like that. It's, it's true. The wifi, you know what I mean? Didn't they say it's like, um, you can test it out with like a pizza party or something like that, like get a pizza and then however much, you know what I mean? If you're like, I need to order two pizzas, and that means you have too many people on your team or so.

Yeah. In the room. Yeah, something like that. But, uh, that's awesome. I really appreciate that, um, analogy and at the same time, I know it's kind of, um, difficult for a lot of people to try to systematize right. When it comes to this. So how did you come up with it? Did you seek help? I know you said you read traction, things like that, but like how did you nail.

Mary: So I think the one thing that really helped me the most was joining a mastermind of people who were very like-minded or better than me, right? Or like better meaning, um, have grown their organization a lot larger. And we're still sane. Mm-hmm. They didn't feel like, crazy yet. So, um, so yeah, surrounding yourself with the people that have that same mindset and that are, that have achieved more than you is so inspiring.

You know, you know how they say you never wanna be the smartest person in the, cuz then you're in the wrong room. Right. So I love to surround myself with really growth, like growth mindset. Uh, people who really challenge me, um, to be better. And so, and, and I joined, um, The D E o I think maybe like few years ago.

It's a mastermind group for dental organizations that are starting off. Um, and then I've joined other groups as well. Uh, and I think everyone's tea is different, right? They just mm-hmm. Some people, um, like different groups. But I would say anything that challenges you, that makes you grow is something that, that is priceless,

Michael: Yeah, I like that. Okay. And then right now with your practices e even if you could recall with like year one or your first practice, what were you doing for marketing and advertising and what'd you stick with throughout this whole time? Um, so

Mary: as far as marketing, we, um, we did a lot of just grassroots, you know, so we would go out in the community, set up tables, um, we would visit pediatricians.

I mean, we would. To events where our patient avatar would be. Mm-hmm. Which is anywhere with children. Right. Or moms. And, and we still do that. I mean, we do a lot of preschool presentations. We do a lot of health fairs where moms are. and then, you know, as far as like, spend on online marketing, we don't really do any of that.

Most of it is just, I think, um, You know, asking for reviews and more grassroots. And we do a lot of, um, like internal promotions for our current patients. Um, but you know, to be honest, we don't spend a lot on actual, like marketing. Mm-hmm.

Michael: No, I think that's, that's brilliant. Like the ground marketing, the grassroots marketing.

when you went to these events, Well, two questions. How did you get inside of like the, the preschools and things like that? Like what would you say? But the second thing is like, did you have an incentive that you would offer them for them to sign up or,

Mary: or. No, we just called and asked. I mean, I think there's a power in asking, you know, like I said, asking for reviews, asking for like, Hey, can we come to your school and do a preschool presentation?

We'd give them little goodies like, like, you know, postcards and toothbrush and some branded stuff. Um, but you know, most of it was just being bold. Putting yourself out there. You know, like when we go to now, we have tools, two full-time marketing people, which we didn't have before. Marketing department when I first opened was me, but which I still go sometimes, but they have more, they, they have a lot more energy than I do now.

Mm-hmm. But, um, but yeah, so as we've grown, you know, we have one, um, social media person who goes, gets content and posts everything, and, and then we have one person who does just pr. Um, community events and like website. So, as we've grown, we just wanted someone just strictly focused on social media, engaging with the families, doing contests, um, and yeah, it's been good.

Michael: It's been good. Cool, cool. So then you don't, like when it comes to the health fairs, right, you don't really give out any, I guess, incentives or anything like that for people to.

Mary: Oh yeah. So we do put them in a drawing. I think. Like if you book an appointment on the spot at the event, um, I think your name goes into a drawing for like a basket full of like dental stuff.

I think like a toothbrush and all of that. But um, and I think we have like one of those wheels mm-hmm. That you spin that gives away. So we do like little fun things like that, but, um, but we don't have, I don't think like a coupon or, or anything. Yeah. It's just more, um, our biggest goal is to book the appointment.

Mm-hmm. So then when we have our marketing team out there, you know, their key performance indicator is how many appointments did you book? Mm-hmm. You know, and that's how we know

Michael: how they do. And they normally show up or is it like a no show or like what's the percentage? Um,

Mary: I think they come, I mean, I don't know exactly the metrics, but I mean, I don't think that there has been an issue with the no-shows.

I mean, our cancellation rate is pretty low cuz we do like a pretty good job of making sure we have a confirmed schedule. Of course people get sick, you know, and kids get sick in, in that just happens. But, um, but this is part of like your systems, right? And processes, like how firm is your confirmation? schedule D being done, right.

And then if a few days before you have all these holes in the schedule, how are you gonna fill it, you know? Mm-hmm. So we have people in place that really make sure that we have, a productive schedule, like different avenues. Gotcha. Okay.

Michael: Interesting. So then if you could, from the moment, let's talk about from the moment you decided to open your startup Right.

Till today. Right. What's been some of your biggest struggles or pitfalls?

Mary: I wouldn't really call them struggles cause I look at every, like, I feel like I am super growth mindset where I really don't stay down wi on something that bothers me because, I think being an entrepreneur, you know, things are gonna happen. Maybe the first time, like, so I'll use this as an example.

The first time I had to let someone go, I couldn't sleep the night before at all. Mm-hmm. Like I was nervous, I was like crying. I wrote this long letter about how much I love this person and how I'm just so heartbroken. And then I remember when I let her go, I said, oh, you know, I'm so sorry. I have to let you go.

And she was just like, okay. And she walked out the door. And I was, I was heartbroken that she wasn't as emotional as I was. I spent way too much time over this breakup. Then she did. Right. So going back to that and thinking of like where I am today, I've realized that in order to be successful, you have to just.

That things are not always gonna go as planned, and that it's gonna be like a rollercoaster. No matter you're in business for five years or 25 years, there's always gonna be things that happen that are not going to be the way that you anticipated, but it's, that shouldn't predict. where you go, right?

Like, that should just be a part of the journey. Say, okay, this is, there's gonna be something that happens. Like everything is smooth sailing right now, but I know in the next three months it could be completely different. How am I as a leader of my organization gonna respond to any of these, obstacles that come along the way?

And so I never dwell on anything, like if somebody leaves or if something happens, I always say, well, nobody died. Right. Knock on wood. Yeah. Okay. How are we gonna fix this moving forward so that we don't make the same mistake again? What, like how do we drop the ball on this patient that they're not happy with us?

How do we put that into our system so that way we make sure that we. got that eye or crossed that T and so we problem solve quickly and then move on. You know, we don't really dwell on anything becau um, anything that happened in the past, because the more time you spend doing that, the more you kind of just bring yourself down and you're not able to focus on your future.

And then there's so many people that rely on you to be in that right mindset, you know, like, yeah.

Michael: I like that. Okay. Problem solve quickly, right? Yes. And that's, I think, uh, I know for me sometimes, um, same thing like where you're like, oh my God, you dwell and dwell and then you're, you know what I mean? But you grew out of it, you know, so that's great.

Oh, yeah. Fast. Yeah. No, that's fantastic. When it comes to you feeling personally burnt out How do you cope with that

Mary: de. there's this one exercise that I do at least quarterly. I try to do it monthly, but it's really simple and it helps keep me in a right mindset. But basically I write down everything I do from morning until night, like generally speaking.

So like pack my kids lunch, check my email, check my slack. Uh, check in with people and my leadership team. And then I, I go through this whole list and I'm like, what is it that I don't like to do on this list? Like, what is it that I could delegate? So then, you know, for example, I wrote, right now what's on my list is interviewing doctors because I love, I loved doing it, but now I get so many resumes, it's like very time consuming.

But I know that, I mean, it's not something that I don't like to do, don't get me wrong, but It's not my favorite thing. It's kind of like a, you know. Yeah. Okay. And so then I put on here the name of the person who I'm gonna delegate that to, and then I start making sure that I have another doctor on my team sit with me on the interview, start training for that position, so then I could take that off my plate.

So, I do get asked that a a lot like, oh, Mary, how do you do all of this? You know, like, you're a mom, you open practices, you do a mastermind group. So as a hobby, I do a mastermind group too at night, a couple a week, just to help other women who are having a hard time with, um, practice ownership.

Right. But then I, it's because I delegate a lot, you know? Mm-hmm. Like I have a few personal assistants. I have a lot of leadership team that helps run the operations of the business to where I really don't have to be here. you know, I could go for a few weeks and everything be fine, and it'll probably be even better than what I'm here because I have a lot to say and I take a lot of their time.

But when I'm here is when the business is, you know, you know that people are happy and they're doing what, doing their job, what they're supposed to do, and your business is doing well. So it allows me to focus on the things that I really like to do because if you don't like doing something, you, you're taking away from things.

Things that you could be doing that ultimately are probably, more beneficial to not only like your company, but to your family, right? Because you're doing things that really, that you really enjoy. And so that's how I do it. I delegate very well and I have a weekly focus and the focus is always who I need to hire that week to help me with something that I need to delegate off my.

Michael: So are you always hiring?

Mary: Um, right now it's a nanny Uhhuh. No. Cause it could change, right? Not the nanny and I, I actually just filled the other position. Another assistant, like personal assistant? Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. Wow. Okay. So then it's interesting you say that you have a mastermind, right? You have an organization, multiple practices, right?

Teams, all that stuff you have to deal with. what was the other thing you said? So

Mary: I, oh, I'm a mom. You know,

Michael: you're a mom. I'm my husband. Ok. You, you, your husband's another, he's listening to this. He is like, yeah, yeah. No, but, uh, so you do it a lot. I mean, do you ever, I guess, and I know you do, I mean a lot of us do, but have that like dad guilt or mom guilt kind of thing, and then, or do you not?

Mary: I think I used to. But I think that every per parent, right, whether they're mom or dad, has a different level of time and attention with their children that works for them. You know? So I have friends that spend, that are stay-at-home moms, and they spend their entire day with their children. And they love it.

And then I have some that spend all the days with their kids and they're screaming at them all day and they're like, it's so stressful. I don't know why I'm doing this. I need to go back to work. And so for me, my kids come home from after school care or sports or whatever it is, at 5:00 PM and so 5 36 sometimes, and I only have like two or three hours with them a day.

But during that two or three hours, it's like quality time. Hmm. You know, so, My take on that is, is the time that you spend with your kids, that's quality time, that's good for them and good for you. means that you have that nice balance, you know? But if you say, oh, well this person is spending like from 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM and you know, on social media, they're going to all the games and they're, Doing all this stuff, you compare yourself to other people, then you're never gonna feel like you're enough.

I mean, there's always gonna be someone who's, more, has more practices, who's, more attractive or who is better than you, right? Or like that you feel like, um, you wanna be like, but if you compare yourself to other people, you're always gonna feel like you are not doing enough. So I just try to say, Hey, you know, Everybody has their level of work that works for them.

And for the normal person, probably how much I work is gonna be way too much, you know? But for me, I love it and I think it keeps, like, I've always worked like I do since I was a little girl. And I, and I love what I do, so I don't feel like it's work. I really enjoy it. But when it comes to being a mom, if I were to spend morning to night with my kids, I really think that I would go crazy.

You know I do. Yeah. Yeah. Like when my husband's not home and I'm with them for the weekend by myself, I'm like, this is not fair. You're working and I'm at home with

Michael: these, these kids. No, I get you.

Mary: Yeah. So I think it's just different. You can't compare.

Michael: No. Yeah. Okay. I, I love that. I love that. I feel like sometimes we get boggled down into, like what you said, that comparison mode where you're looking on social media, you start comparing and you're like, huh, I should, but then in reality, you're like, if I do it more than three hours, It's not gonna be quality time with 'em, you know?

It's just gonna be, they're gonna be like, what

Mary: are you doing? Get down.

Michael: You're just watching them watch YouTube the whole time, and you're like, all right, yeah, just watch YouTube right now, you know, kind of thing. Awesome, Mary, I appreciate that. If anybody had any questions or concerns or anything like that, where can they reach out to you?

Mary: Um, you can find me [email protected] or dr mary fam.com, Dr. Mary fam. That's, that's where I met you, Michael, or my email, dr mary lollipop dental.com. Happy to help

Michael: awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely reach out to Mary and Mary.

Thank you for being with us. It was a pleasure, and we'll hear from you soon. Of course.

Mary: All right, thank you.

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Minal Sampat and I have a weekly newsletter called Weekly Hacks. It's for pediatric dentists and pediatric practice owners only, and we share one effective growth hack every week to achieve big wins. no fluff, no spam, just your weekly dose of what you need to grow. Subscribe here to get this week's hack in your inbox! https://mailchi.mp/9d2a4644fd31/the-pediatric-dental-marketing-newsletter

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On this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, I'm putting the focus on how to excel at a your ground marketing events as a pediatric dentist! I'm running through several tips, including spacing out your freebie materials, greeting everyone who walks by, adding fun to your booth with balloons, and providing an easy signup sheet or iPad for signups. The most important thing to remember when setting up a booth at a local event is that YOU are the most important aspect of your booth. The fact that you are present at the event, showing your face, and representing your brand is everything. I even dive into some strategies around how to market to other booths, break out of your shell, and so much more.

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To hear about these tips in action and learn how to conquer your next ground marketing event, listen in to this week's episode!

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Mentions and Links:

Ground Marketing Events Script

The Pediatric Dental Marketing Course Enrollment

Minal Sampat

LA Fitness

Target

Walmart

Dr. Cassandre Joseph - Odyssey Dental of Summerfield

iPad

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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

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey, what's up guys? So as pediatric dental, uh, practices, I know a lot of the times you guys are out in event. Doing presentations, lunch and learns, maybe talking to the kids, at the health fairs, right? You're just at, at an events. Um, and if you're in, in the pediatric dental marketing course, then you're in the ground marketing section and you're getting a lot of yeses to set up your booth at events, right?

Or the businesses and which is fantastic. So in this episode, I wanna talk to you about how to perform your best at in-person ground marketing event. Okay, getting your foot in the door is just the first step, right? Once you got in there, you, they said, yeah, you know, you can come on in, come on by.

Maybe you went to an apartment complex. In the apartment complex. By the way, if you don't know this, a lot of apartment complexes do events for their residents. at the same time, they do like specific children's things for the residents there. It's really, really great for the parents, uh, who are residents there.

And then they, bring their kid, the parents coming on and. You got the yes. Now you need to know how to perform your best at an in-person ground marketing event so that you can capture more leads and convert more people into loyal patients. So that's what we're gonna be talking about in this episode.

Now, performing your best at in-person ground marketing events is the key to gaining your prospect's trust. If you don't make an excellent first impression, chances are probably not gonna want to do business with you. They probably just want that free stuff that you're having at the booth, right? In order to put your best foot forward at an in-person ground marketing event, you need to know how to strategically set up your booth, how to act, and what to say, how to speak.

Now I'm gonna break these steps down for you, okay? Starting with setting up your booth strategically now. A big mistake that I see most people make is setting up their booth with all their freebies and goodies in a grab bag. people can just walk right up to their booth, say, Hey, how come you gonna take one of these by and leave with no trace?

Right? What happened to that bag? That's not what I want you to do. In that situation, your potential. Just grabbed a goodie bag and left without leaving any way for you to contact them. So when it comes to setting up your booth strategically, the name of the game is not convenience. Instead, you want people to stop by your booth.

Shop around, spend more time at your booth. You can do this by simply deconstructing your hygiene kit or whatever it is you're giving away in your giddy. And place each item that you would like to give away side by side. So, uh, you can say, here's a baggie, here's some toothbrushes, here's some floss, here's some toothpaste, maybe some stickers, flyers, um, maybe a balloon if they want a balloon, right?

Boom. Like that. Now, once they do that, once you have the booth just like that, They're gonna be shopping around a little bit, right? This will give you maximum time to talk to them about your offers, services, and your practices. Hey, the business and I, it's the apartment complex. The apartment complex, or the residents or whoever, right?

If you're at a daycare, the daycare and I decided to partner up this month and we're giving you, boom. An incentive, right? It can be, Hey, we're giving you a free first exam. We're giving your child a free whatever, right? Or we're, you're not doing anything for free, right? You can just say, Hey, we're doing a new patient exam This.

Or free office tour, however you wanna do it, right? Whatever incentive you wanna offer, that's what you want to mention. Now, remember, once they show up, you're like, hi, grab whatever you want, it's free. Just grab a little baggy, put one of each and that's it. Then they're like, oh, okay. Right? They grab their baggy and they start putting their toothbrush loss.

They might ask you, oh, what kind of toothpaste is blah, blah, right? Or create conversation with you. You'll create conversation with them. That's your time to speak. Build rapport, be super friendly, but build rapport and at the same time, that's when you can offer your incentive. Seeing all of your freebies laid out in this way also peaks the person's curiosity with so much in front of them.

They're gonna want to take some time to take in that situation. Once they're stopped at your booth, you can let them know that everything they see is free. Tell them. If they like to, they can grab a bag and shop around for whatever they like. Right? As they're shopping around, that's what you'll want to converse with them and let them know about your offers and promotions.

The only thing you wanna put in the baggie from the start is your business card. So make sure each baggie has a business card in there. Right. Or maybe a flyer or something right in there. and that's basically it. Yeah. Tell them that, you know, they like, you can grab whatever you wanna have in there Like I said, have the business card from the start and allow them to shop around just in case they don't pick up a business card at the very and or something like that.

If you don't want them to grab five toothbrushes at once, cuz this can happen. You need to set the boundary straight from the get-go. Tell them, feel free to grab a bag and grab one of each item. It's as simple as that. Now here's like an asterisk quick. You will get someone who says, oh, can I get one from my other child?

They don't. They're not here. They're sick or whatever, up to you. But if it's just one other person, I'm like, yeah, sure, go ahead. Of course, of course. Yeah. You can grab another thing, especially if they signed up. Of course you can grab whatever you want. Now they're like, oh, can I also grab another one for my four other children or whatever?

No, you're not Target, you're not Walmart, right? You can say, Ooh, you. We need to have enough for everyone. But if you'd like, when you come to visit us, we're more than happy to give them their toothbrush that they need. And then they're gonna be cool with that. Right? They're not gonna be like, what?

Oh my gosh, no. I don't care about anybody else. Just gimme my stuff. No, they're gonna be cool with that. So that's what you wanna do, right? Maximum just give out two. to a family if, especially if the two kids are there. But if they're not just two. And then that's. So that's how you wanna strategically set up your booth, right?

Nothing fancy. You don't have to have like a spin the wheel. Do all these things that you've been seeing a lot of people on social media. No, because the more important person is gonna be you, right? The person at the booth. Um, it doesn't matter what you have going on, if you're just there behind the booth, just like, and it's, none of that's gonna matter.

So basically you wanna have a table, maybe a tablecloth, so it won't look tacky. Uh, tablecloth can have your, your branding on it, right? Um, your logo and. Have a deconstructed hygiene kit and then your information, and then have a pen and paper, a signup sheet. or if you want, you can have an iPad where they can actually physically put their appointment time in the practice management software, whichever one of those two you want to do, and then sign people up, right?

But that's how you want strategically your thing, to have nothing in baggies where they can grab it and go, everything's laid out. Now that you know how to set up your booth strategically, it's time to know how to act, speak, and perform at an in-person ground marketing events so that you can capture more leads and grow your practice.

So first and foremost, it's crucial that you greet and say hi to everyone who passes by your booth. Everyone, guys, even if they aren't stopping, say hi to everyone. This will create as much opportunity for you and your. It's also a great opportunity for you to lower your, what I call shy shield. Now, no matter how extroverted or introverted you are performing at these events can feel a little unnatural to you in the beginning, but getting in the habit of greeting everyone who walks by your booth will help you slowly lower your shy shield, getting you more in the groove of communication and networking confide.

Once you say hi, like, Hey, how's it going? And your prospect stops by your booth, you can proceed to tell them that they can grab one of each item for free. Then if you're ground marketing outta business, you can even tell them that your dental practice and be sure to say the name of your practice, right?

As partnered up with the business, this daycare, to give their customers an incentive, right? Or to give you parents an incentive. Of course, you need to make sure that the incentive you're offering is enticing enough for your prospects. So if you're ground marketing at a daycare, you could offer them something specific, right?

Uh, for them. Make sure it's, very, very enticive uh, the incentive. what you can do is simply just make a poll on Instagram and your Facebook, right? And say like, what would you guys prefer, this or that, right? And then continue with. Offering that right? Or it can be a new patient exam. After sharing the incentive, the prospect will either show interest or say no thank you.

If they show interest, You'll want them to leave their contact information on your sign of sheet, but if they say No, don't worry. It happens, but feel free to tell them. No worries. Do you have any friends or family who could benefit from this if they say, Ask them for their family members or friend's name.

It's not unnatural guys. I know. You're like, I'm gonna ask them for their friend. Nope. Nope. It's not natural. This works so much when they're like, oh no, I already got a dentist. Thank you so much. Do you have any friends or families that would like to benefit from this new patient exam? You know what? Yeah.

My neighbor does. Uh, kid was playing with them the other day and he like busted his tooth, man. And, um, I know they were looking for a dentist. I, I'll give them your information, right. Or I'll take some of your information and give it to them. It's just like that, right? Um, so make sure you ask that question.

If they say no, if they're like, no, I'm, I'm okay. Right? If they happen to say no to both, if they're like no to the. I don't want any of the, the incentive you're offering and no, I don't have anybody that can benefit from Go in the show notes below and we have a script to help you navigate through that conversation.

All you need to do is enter your email address in that little thing and that the email address is just for us to know who to send it to, to be honest with you. So we have a script in case you get on those. I got your back. Don't worry about it. But that's basically how you're gonna perform. And I say perform at an.

Because sometimes, like I said, we're just not feeling it that day, but when you get to that event, you better turn it on. You have to turn it on for those three, four hour after that. Man, you cannot say a word to anybody and I don't care. But when you're at that event, pre-game it, drink some coffee, drink, whatever.

If you're at the booth, have that energy. Turn it. Hi, how's it going? It's free if you want any of it. Hi, how's it going? It's free. Even if you are at a gym, let's just say LA Fitness or a gym, and these gyms, believe it or not, uh, you get a lot of patients there because there's daycares in there, right? So parents are dropping off their kid near the daycare section.

You can set up near the daycare section and then just, Hey, how's it going? It's free. Do you want any B, when you come, when you're done with your workout, feel free to grab whatever you want, right? And blah, blah, blah. And even if they're wearing their headphones while they're walking in, still say, hi, how you doing with everyone?

Right? I can't tell you how many times it's happened to me long, long time ago when I first started. I mean, there'd be some good days where I'm like, Hey, how's it going? Hey, how's it going? And then there'd be some days where they'd be walking by and I'm like, uh, you know, I'll say hi to the next person.

You know, I'll say, and if I start off that way, it's not gonna end good. So immediately, even if I'm still setting up that. I'll be like, Hey, how's it going? Yeah, it's free. Well, I'm gonna put some stuff out right now. It's free. If you want any of it, um, feel free to grab whatever you want. They'll wait.

They'll wait and see what you got going on. But you wanna have that tone of voice, that personality. You wanna turn it on every single time you are at these events, we're doing a presentation or setting up a booth, right? even so, if you have two people there. One person's behind the booth, they gotta be doing the same thing.

And you can be out in the front saying, Hey, how's it going? Hey, you can be going to other, vendors doors and, and businesses who have booths and talking to them. And with your signup you'd be like, Hey, how's it going guys? Can I have some of your information? Oh my God, this is so cool. Can we put some of your information in our dental practice?

You know, where the pediatric practice right down the street from you guys and you know, actually if you guys have any children that need patients, we're actually offering this. But we can give you, cuz you're part of a, a community and the business, a specific incentive. Just put your name and number down and then what?

And boom. You know what I mean? There's one person attacking the vendors. There's another person at the booth saying, Hey, hi to everyone. You're doing fantastic at this health. So that's what you gotta do. You gotta turn it on for that time when it comes to setting up, and performing at these booths. Now, when it comes to performing your best at these in-person ground marketing events, a lot of it comes down to common sense, tone of voice and a smile.

Remember, be present and engage with those who are around. Be present, guys, don't be on your phone. Um, a lot of the people in the pediatric dental marketing course, when they're going to ground marketing events, I tell them, Hey guys, if you can, if it's possible, stand up as much as you can. Sitting down is great, but it's gonna promote, like, to me at least, I'm, I'm a lazy guy, so like, sometimes I'm like, I gotta stand up for, I gotta stand up, you know?

But if I'm already up, man, I'm active. I'm going, I'm going. Right? So I tell people the same. Just stand up. Don't be on your phone. If you're gonna be on your phone. It's for like a Facebook Live, Instagram live, taking pictures of the event, people doing things right, stuff that can help your social media.

But um, other than that, don't be, you know, on the phone talk and texting, you're gonna see other people like that. The best thing you can have at that booth is you okay the. Thing, person, whatever you can have at that booth is you remember that? Nobody's you. So you're bringing that personality, that brand to that event.

Thank you. Thank you for being here and making this event even more special. That's what the event's saying to you, right? So being the in-person, ground marketer at these events means you need to entice and invite these prospects, be personable, approachable, and friendly. Even if you get a.

Everyone who walks by is an opportunity, whether they sign up for your incentive or not. So at the end of the day, they're leaving with your freebie and your business card inside of the freebie. You never know when they'll give you a call in the future, but the main thing you want is you want them to sign up.

You are gonna get their name and information down, and you will give them a call later on that day or the next day, early the next day. So that's basically it, guys. That's how you're gonna set up your booth and that's how you're gonna. At these events and much more, much, much more information along with exactly what to have and specific type of, um, things to have at the booth is found in the pediatric dental marketing course.

One quick tip I wanna give you guys, when you're thinking about what to add, like I said, you can have a deconstructed hygiene kit right on your booth. But one thing, this is from Dr. Cassandra Joseph from Odyssey, Dental, balloon. Balloons are fantastic. I can't tell you this has happened sometimes to me too.

I see people with balloons and I'm like, uh, just see a sea of balloons of your balloons with your logo on it. And kids, do they not love balloons? They love balloons. So they're gonna see other kids with balloons and they're gonna be like, I want that balloon. Where? Where can't we go get the balloon?

Oh, mom, I found where the balloons are at. They're right there. Let's go. Right? Have balloons. So if you can just have a deconstructed hygiene kit and some balloon. Trust me, it's gonna be fa you're gonna own that event. You're gonna own that event. So guys, that's gonna do it for this episode. Thank you so much for tuning in.

At the same time, if you want much more information, we're gonna be opening up enrollment to the Pediatric Dental Marketing course pretty soon here. So make sure you go join the wait list or join the email list, be a part of it, and make sure you, you know, you, you're a part of the Pediatric Dental Marketing course because at the same time you get monthly.

Mastermind sessions, office hours. So basically what you're listening to right now, but in real time, and I'm engaging with you, Manal, Sam, pat is engaging with you. We're answering questions, concerns, and all these things, and we also invite other guests and professionals on there as well. So that along with so much more information, go check it out.

I'm gonna put a link to it in the show notes below. So thank you guys so much for tuning in and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

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Dr. Chrystle Cu is giving all our listeners 50 FREE Cocofloss Minis! Head on over to our link to claim your 50 free Cocofloss Minis on your first order! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/50free-cocoflossminis/

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Guest: Chrystle CuBusiness Name: CocoflossCheck out Chrystle's Media:‍

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

Website: https://cocofloss.com/

Website for Dentists: https://cocoflosspro.com/

Email: [email protected]

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Other Mentions and Links:

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Young Dental Group

Invisalign

Match.com

ADA

Yelp

Yellow Pages

CVS

iTero

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

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

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

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My Key Takeaways:

• Look past just the dentistry you're providing and think about the real values of the patients. Are they searching for more confidence, convenience, or preventing future problems?
• Having a fancy office will only go so far. Developing patient relationships is the real key!
• Adding vibrant colors and a colorful feel to your practice is a great way to stand out from the cold sterile environment.
• As a business owner, it is imperative to delegate tasks. Don't be afraid to give responsibility to team members in your absence.
• Make sure to find your true long term goals and work towards them on a day to day basis. It's easy to get off track and lose sight of these!

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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]

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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.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Crystal, how's it going? Great, how are you? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind me asking, tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are today?

Chrystle: Sure. So I am, well first I'm a dentist.

Mm-hmm. And I have been a dentist for 15 years and I kind of fell into this industry. Most likely because my mom is a dentist, she's a general dentist as well. Mm-hmm. And I've, I mean, I'm not sure which part of today or or the future you wanna talk about, but. I, uh, had a dental practice in San Mateo.

I kind of built a scratch practice out of my mom's practice, so she kind of helped incubate me out of her one free chair that she had, and I built a practice out of that. And through working as a dentist and doing a lot of my own hygiene for the first few years in practice, I grew super frustrated with.

The state of oral hygiene as it was, and the lack of compliance or motivation um, for my patients. And so then I created coco floss with my sister in 2015. And it's since been very well received among dental professionals and in the dental community and consumers alike. So my goal as a dentist and as an entrepreneur is to help people achieve teeth for life, via small habits um, that they can incorporate easily.

And something, something small, takes a couple minutes out of your day, and it's something delightful. It'll help make you healthier and help you achieve teeth for

Michael: life. Gosh. So why um, well, we're gonna get into the why the cocoa. Bit right now or like part of it, but rewind a little bit. You were, you just decided to do dentistry because more like you saw your mom and you're like, I like that life, or, or why?

Chrystle: You know, It was actually pretty roundabout. That's why I'm always a little hesitant when I share that, you know, it's not, so, it wasn't so simple. Like if A then B it wasn't that. Mm-hmm. My mom's a dentist, so I wanna be a dentist. It wasn't at all like that growing up. I I did spend a lot of time in her practice.

You know, she would pick me up from school and sit me in her office and I would do my homework there. I would fill in for the front desk whenever the front desk was out sick, or if she had jury duty or was on vacation. I was the front desk and I would, Schedule appointments with pencil and paper and would do the patient ledgers and um, the claims.

But those were fun times as a, as a, young adult. And I, uh, also growing up I was a competitive pianist, so my mom being a dentist, many of her friends were dentists and they would say, you know, crystal, you know, with your fast fingers, you should consider dentistry because, those hand skills might come in handy for you in the future.

And so all these like little seeds were planted for me very early on in. And it really wasn't until college I was a chemistry major. I knew I had an inclination towards the health sciences because I have a lot of healthcare professionals in my family. And then I, just tried to explore various things.

I really tried hard not to, funnel straight into dentistry and I explored various things, but I, I met a group of other women who were determined they wanted to be dentists and they were part of a very small pre-dental society at our college, Wellesley. And together we volunteered at elementary schools in the local um, in suburban Boston.

And we taught young children how to brush their teeth and how to care for their teeth. And I had so much fun in this experience that, that that volunteer, those volunteering days alone were what really made me decide that, okay, I wanna be a dentist. So it was the education part of it that really um, got me the education and prevention.

So that, yeah, so it was a little roundabout, but definitely helped that, you know, I was exposed to dentistry very early on throughout my childhood.

Michael: Yeah. But it didn't become like what you wanted to do until you, until you volunteered.

Chrystle: Exactly. Yeah. So it was the volunteering, the community stuff that really got me why.

I care a lot about health personally. I just, just love, how, you know, just a little bit of education and education can be free and how that can really help impact a person's life um, you know, in a small way. But that can add up into, let's say, extra years of your life, for example.

And so I just, I just had so much fun, you know, that instant reward feeling of being able to teach children how to take care of their teeth and understand about oral health. It felt so good to do that and I, I, I continue to live off of that. I thrive on that feeling so. I continued on in dental school.

I was president of our community service organization, and I coordinated everybody's community service while I was there. And so through that I also got to pick and choose the, the coolest community service events. And so, you know, I, I thrived off of that and just really love the outreach work.

I love being able to just get in, help people immediately and just, being able to like, fix someone up in like 20 minutes and then them like, give you a big hug and like tears in their eyes and telling you that you've changed their life, that's the kind of stuff that really gets me going.

So, and as a dentist, I um, do some, like outreach work. I like to travel to the Philippines and I work out of a pediatric clinic in a very rural town um, in behold in the Philippines. So all of this just, it just keeps fueling my fire and makes me continue to be really passionate about oral health and about prevention.

Nice.

Michael: So it's more like the. The feeling of the empathy with the people. Right. Kind of like, oh, like, you know, you feel like you can do something right, and then you're doing it basically. Yeah,

Chrystle: yeah, definitely. And I would say that, you know, as a dentist, my favorite among, among the things I love about dentistry, one of my favorite parts about it is just building these relationships with people and trying to understand them and, understand what, what are their, what drives 'em, what motivates them.

And then I try to help them align. Their goals with better oral health. And it sounds kinda like a little abstract, but I usually can make it, uh, can connect the dots for them because they think they have very like, simple goals with regards to oral health. But when I ask a patient, well, you know, cuz they might say like, oh I just want white teeth or mm-hmm.

I don't wanna have to spend so much on my fillings every year cuz that's what I have to do every year. And then I'll kind of, you. I'll make them take a step back and we'll ask them like, how about teeth for Life? Would that be a good goal for you? If they're always like a little surprised, they're like, whoa, teeth for life.

I never thought about that. Cause like maybe you should, you could have a little control over it with the right with the right habit building and the right intentions early on. We, we, there are things we can't control in life and there are things that we can control and so why not, implement some small changes to your day-to-day that would help you achieve something that shouldn't be so abstract teeth for life. Mm-hmm.

Michael: And so these are like, when you're talking to a patient about that, are those like your new patient exams? Yeah. Okay. How long are those normally

Chrystle: for you? Um, Usually at least an hour, but of course in the beginning my assistants are doing like with a requisite ECRI rays and we usually do an IRO scan and photography.

Mm-hmm. But time with me is usually at least 30 minutes and sometimes it can go longer. but yes, it usually happens, like the, the most impactful conversations tend to happen in the first patient exam because that's the opportunity that you get to really like, dig in and ask about all their prior dental experiences and what brought them to your chair, your practice to begin with.

So that also is my favorite dental appointment, the first new patient exam.

Michael: Yeah, I like that. So in your practice, or I'm, I'm assuming you still have that Salmon Mateo practice, right? Or no?

Chrystle: Uh, so yes, very recently in July I sold my practice to, uh, a wonderful doctor who I I admire and I'm excited about seeing her grow and take the practice to the next level.

Wow. Okay. I'm

Michael: gonna ask you about that right now, but real quick, when it comes to the new patient exam, when you were doing it, a lot of the times I think we think like, the more we can run through, the more efficiency, the more numbers right, better collections and production, things like, In your mind, it doesn't really sound like you're worried about that.

You're kind of more worried about what?

Chrystle: I'm building a connection with the patient and I'm really like establishing, building rapport and I'm trying to understand them. So I am doing my like, clinical assessment and diagnosis in my head. They don't really need to hear that. They don't care. But I'm trying to understand what makes them tick, maybe my patient is. 29 years old and he's striking out on match.com that probably doesn't even exist anymore. I'm dating myself, Ben, like, and he's just, how can he build some confidence in his, in his personal, in, in his whole being, right? And mm-hmm. You know, obviously as dentists we can help with that.

So again, just trying to understand what makes people tick, right? What is it that's driving this person? Is it because they're trying to. And, and it, it doesn't necessarily be related to oral health. Like are they trying to achieve something in terms of like their personal fitness goals? are they trying to get a promotion at work?

Whatever it is. Like, I wanna know what is the, what does this person care about most and how can I align my recommendations with what

Michael: they want? Yeah. So then what questions do you ask for that? Like, it's a complete new person, you're like, Hey, what's up? Or how do you go? Doing that. Is it in the form beforehand and you just look at it or?

Chrystle: So I have, I mean, we've been a little lazy and we never made our own health history form. We just used the one from the ada. Mm-hmm. I like to read between the lines there. Um, and you know, the ADA form, it just has like really basic info, but it includes occupation, which is really telling also like who they're um, in case of emergency person would be, or like their spouse or partner.

And then of course there's the dental history and then the medical history. And then I just, ask questions, beyond what was on the health history form, and I ask them to tell me more, and then I'm not asking yes or no questions. I'm actually saying like, well, tell me about this.

I see here that you've circled that you have tooth sensitivity. Tell me about that. Mm-hmm. So it's not so much like, do you have tooth sensitivity? Yes or no. It's not a binary response. It's tell me about your tooth sensitivity. And then they're gonna tell you a story about like, well, every time I I make ice cream, they're gonna say like, I love to make ice cream.

And every time I try my ice cream, it's sensitive or whatever, where I remember I have a patient who. He does struggle with erosion, for example. But he really, really loves making beer, and that's just something that's so important to him. So for him, the decisions and the decisions we make are around like, well, how can we accommodate your passion for beer?

I'm not gonna tell you to stop drinking beer because that's part of something that, that's something you really care about, but how can we. Build a plan for you that would help you achieve teeth for life while keeping in, your love for making beer.

Michael: Yeah. No, no, no. I a hundred percent. I like that.

How you try to connect it, you know? mm-hmm. Especially like occupational, like, oh, mm-hmm. Why are you doing that? And then they're like, oh, I would love to be doing this instead, and be like, also, you love doing that. Right? And you get right. You dig deeper. Yeah. No, no, no. It's good. It's the conversation and the report that you're building, right?

Like the relationship. I think that's what we kind of have to look into it. But let's fast forward a little bit. You had a practice. Yes. So talk to me about that.

Chrystle: Sure. So first, my mom had a practice that she built from scratch. She had a two operatory practice an immigrant to the United States. So she didn't really have like a network.

Um, English wasn't even her first language, but she built a small practice and in for the entirety of her career, she used one. Out the tube. So that's like, nobody does that anymore. First of all, nobody builds two operatory practices unless maybe like very, very, yeah. Specialized. But two operatory general practice and for the entirety of your career.

The second chair was basically just, it was used as like a place to hang, a let apron or a place to put the patient's purse. We didn't use that chair at. I wanna say like after maybe 15 or so years, my mom switched the chairs so that at least she got a new chair on her side and the other chair, the older chair.

And then when I graduated from dental school in 2008, she didn't have any patience for me. Again, a one chair practice, it's not like a growing thing. And she, she didn't have any patients to give me. So I went and associated with another doctor. In San Francisco and I worked with him, I wanna say like three to four days a week to.

And it really was unglamorous. It wasn't, it wasn't anything that, you know, you would dream of. Mm-hmm. It's just, it was a very simple practice. But that doctor, he built an, amazing loyal patient base and had to give him credit. Like he built, these relationships and these patients were so, you know, they, they would never switch dentists even though, the patients were seeing me all the time.

Instead of him. They were very loyal to him. And so, I, I learned from there that it's not about having a fancy office at all, it's about the relationship that you build with the patient and of course, doing good dentistry. So a couple years after working with him and not feeling like I was the best fit there, because quite frankly, I wasn't him.

He's like this tall guy and he has like a presence and I'm like this little, little Asian 23 year. How old was I then? I was probably 26. And patients would look at me and think I was the assistant. So eventually I started to feel like, all right, I'm getting discouraged here.

Time to go build my own patient base. So I, I thankfully had my mom's empty, dusty chair to work out of really old equipment. It was all built in 1986, but I made it into my own, my own practice and I. Quickly, rose to the top of, you know, Yelp search results for having really strong Yelp.

And again, a surprise because I was a pretty new graduate and it, again, it had nothing to do with like my facilities. Mm-hmm. By no means state of New York, but it was, I, I, I do believe that it was my you know, how much time I spent with my patients and I had time because, I didn't have any patients to start with, so why not?

Spend extra time with the patient. And so I quickly, yeah, just built a practice out of that, just outta one chair. And then soon after that, I, encouraged my mom to take some days off so I could use her chair as well. And in 2018 I had to, well we outgrew our practice a long time prior to this, but in 2018, I, I bought another practice for their space cuz they had four operatories that I could change into five.

And so I built a five operatory practice and we, I moved everyone over there, my mom, myself, and our whole, whole team. And in 2022, I sold my practice to my associate.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So I. It came up right, like pretty quick, really

Chrystle: quick. And I, I, I think we would've, we should have moved out of our two operatory space a long time ago.

It's just in our town, San Mateo, there are a lot of limitations around, like zoning restrictions, about how you can build a dental practice. For example, downtown San Mateo, you're not allowed to be on the ground level. They want you. Walk down the street and see like coffee shops and restaurants and like retail spaces, but no medical practices or dental practices that allowed you to be upstairs.

And if you build a new place upstairs, need to have an 88 compliant elevator. These buildings are like a hundred years old. Nobody has room for an 88 compliant elevator. And so it was just hard. Like I looked for a new practice space for years and I kept striking out. and that, and actually this, this problem I had with like physical space and lack of chair time.

I would say was a really key ingredient in my ability to create coco floss because as a dentist, I really should have just been busy doing dentistry. Mm-hmm. And at my growing practice, I should have been doing, I should have been so busy doing the dentistry, but because I didn't have enough chair time I made myself busy making floss.

Michael: Wow. Okay. So then, Were people calling and like, Hey Dr. Ku, I wanna, I wanna schedule an appointment. You're like, six months from now, or something like

Chrystle: that, or, exactly. It was absurd. Mm-hmm. And I had patients like, tell me, I'll never forget I had this one patient um, for his first new patient exam. He told me he had been waiting for months and after his comprehensive exam, at which time, I don't typically do the first prophylaxis or periodontal maintenance.

I just, I do the comprehensive exam and I schedule them for whatever follow-up care they need. Mm-hmm. Basically demanded that I do his cleaning and I was, I was so upset. I was like, but then I also, I mean, I can't help but feel badly. He did wait months to have his appointment with me. And I, I don't know, I I, I dismissed him shortly after that.

I was like, this is obviously not a good fit. I don't feel comfortable. Like the way he, yeah, he basically yelled at me saying I had to do his cleaning, and I, I was really upset about it. I admittedly, I, I believe I was crying as I did his cleaning.

Michael: And so that wasn't, did he see you? Did he see you? Cry when you were, or No, I was in

Chrystle: my 12 o'clock position, so I, I doubt it, but I was really upset about it.

Yeah. And so I, I just missed him. But, it's unfortunate that a new patient like that I, I brought him to that point, right. That I've made him wait so long that he was that upset. A new patient exam. Like I know that some practices will preschedule block out time for new patients just to make sure there's always time for a new patient.

And I think that's a wise. Thing to do if you get really busy. But for me, it wasn't possible. and I also got to the point where for treatment for some people, you know, if they needed a lot of treatment, I would say, uh, can we do this treatment at your six month week care? Which is a long time to wait for treatment.

When I had five operatories, if somebody needed treatment, it's like, let's go do it in the other room right now. Mm-hmm. You know, I would make it happen right now. Whereas, for these, for my, in my two operatory. Somebody needed something, we would have to wait a long time for it. So it just became ridiculous.

And um, but that also made me, kind of obsess over prevention because if I was gonna tell a patient, mm, we're gonna have to do your crown in six months, so what I want you to do in between, in the meantime, and I really need you to floss every day, and this is how I want you to do it. And this is why it's important.

Yeah. And so that's, that's kind of how I became self obsessed with.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. That's it. So then remind a little bit, you said you had a strong Yelp review, right? That helped you gain the traction. How'd you, if you don't mind me asking, like how'd you build that up? Did you just ask people or.

Chrystle: Yeah, actually I think I did ask people in the beginning and it was a little awkward.

Of course it's a little awkward to ask that question, but I started with just, you know, my patients when I first started, again, it started from no patients. So I started with just my friends, and my family, so like my cousin or whatever, and. And then I would have them write a Yelp review for me. And I didn't tell them what to write.

I wouldn't say like, oh, make sure you gimme five stars or anything like that. It's like, please, can you gimme an honest review on Yelp? Mm-hmm. and then I think at the time it just, there weren't as many like, places to look for reviews at the time. This was like in 2010 or so. So, Yeah, like the, the Yelp reviews just kept piling on and, uh, the phone would bring off the hook.

So I was scheduling anywhere from 30 to 50 new patients per month in my one year

Michael: off from Yelp,

Chrystle: basically. Yeah. Because otherwise I, I mean, the other, only other place to find me would be like, I don't know, maybe in the Yellow Pages, but who, who, who uses that anymore.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's interesting.

Let me ask you, how did it feel for you to be like, We're moving, we're moving to a bigger place like kind of thing.

Chrystle: it was hard. Um, But it actually like, it, it kind of happened. So how I mentioned that it was really hard to find his place. For years, I looked for a new place, but it wasn't until our landlord actually told us that we had to move and we didn't have a choice in the matter.

They. Evicted the entire building because they wanted to, redo the whole building and rent it out to a single tenant and it wasn't gonna meet any of us existing tenants. That was what really did it for me. They were like pulling the rug out from beneath us. And so they gave us less than one year notice about that.

And so I had to find a new practice. And again, I kept striking out. I kept looking and, and struggling with. So I, I, there actually was a point where I thought I might just have to sell our charts and, and maybe I wouldn't, I was like, maybe it's not gonna work out, or, um, you know, maybe we'd have to rent chairs out of a friend's practice, but what would that look like?

Cuz we have our own team and our own philosophy and it just might be kinda awkward and that would only be an interim solution. So that was definitely hard, but thankfully, you know, my mom and I, we, we, it all made, it all worked out. My mom I mentioned that she's an immigrant, so she's from the Philippines.

She went to dental school in the Philippines and grew up there and she just ran into. A friend from the Philippines mm-hmm. Who happened to have a practice in our town and happened to, it happened to be bigger. Mm-hmm. And when my mom mentioned to her our situation doctor was like, Hmm, well maybe I should slow down and maybe if Crystal can wait for me, I.

Maybe I'll just sell my practice to her. So, it was kind of an ins like, it was just a very lucky moment because I don't, I don't know that she necessarily had an exit plan for herself at the time. She was just enjoying dentistry and Wasn't necessarily of the age to retire, but you know, the idea of having someone like me take over her practice sounded kind of good to her.

So, and it just, my mom just happened to float the, I floated to her, so it worked out,

Michael: so, yeah. Nice. Okay. So then, is it just your mom or do you My

Chrystle: mom. Oh, as my, as works. Who works in our practice or

Michael: no, I'm sorry. Like in your family, like, oh,

Chrystle: um, at the,

Michael: as the dentist. As a dentist, but I mean like as far as like, cause you talk about your mom, I don't know if you have a dad or

Chrystle: Yeah, yeah.

I have a dad too. And a sister who's like

Michael: Coco. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, is he a dentist to the dad or your dad or no?

Chrystle: Uh, no, but he's more of an entrepreneur, so I like to say that my sister and I are basically mashups of my parents, you know, one being an entrepreneur, the other being a dentist, and, and that's kind of like what we're made out of.

Michael: Yeah. That's awesome. So then you started Cocoa Floss.

Chrystle: Uh, 2015 is when we launched our product. Though I had been tinkering with floss ideas for years prior for lack of anything better to do with my time. I, I had two hygienists working out of the two chairs, and I would just like twiddle my thumbs, like, what can I do myself?

Michael: What can I do by myself? Okay. No. And so at any moment, crystal, did you think like, I'm tired of doing, Or like, I'm tired of being a business owner. Like where was the moment where you were like, I don't wanna do this as much as I thought I did? Uh, dentistry. You mean dentistry or owning the business? Like as far as a practice.

Hmm. Oh,

Chrystle: that's really hard. So it only finally came to the like, clear decision that I needed to sell the practice or like, it was 20, it was last year, like in the fir in the spring of last year. And it was, it was so hard. And I still kind of like, yeah, I think I, I know I made the right decision cuz the doctor in there is wonderful.

But uh, it was because my sister had a health scare and she, she's floss and she was like, crystal, I, I can't do this if I have to go through all this health stuff. So, What do you wanna do about it? You gotta let something go. Are we gonna let coco floss go? Or are you gonna let the dental practice go?

And so, yeah, that's what happened. I was also pregnant last year. I was pregnant the entire year, last year. So had a, the entire year I was pregnant the entire year. I had a baby on the way. And busy with, already juggling both businesses and then my sister telling me that. She might need to take a step back from work and I would have to take over.

So I was like, I, I can't do them all. Well, I would love to do them all, but if I wanna do them all, well that's not possible. And then the, the baby on the way was not something that you could defer or put off like the baby's coming. So, yeah, I made the decision to solve a practice and it was a very swift thing.

Um, It wasn't even enough time for us to, tell the patients like I, I. Started to tell the patients now, because finally we've gotten around to sitting down and drafting a letter to explain it all to them. Um, but we did it with, you know, minimal upset to the practice, a very smooth transition. So I, I would say that I think patients don't even know, like they didn't know of the change because the team didn't change.

Nothing changed about the practice.

Michael: Gotcha. Why did the, I guess, cocoa floss weigh heavier, you know what I mean? Like, In this thing, right? Or in the pendulum. Right. Why did you guys decide to go, or you decide to go with cocoa floss instead of just your practice? Yeah,

Chrystle: so I think um, it kind of, I realized that, well, like any business owner, c e o dentist practice owner, you have to try to delegate as much as you can and anything that you can hire someone to do in your plays, if they, if that's possible, then you should and you should focus on doing the things that only you can.

So for example, like as a dentist, like if your a assistant can take great impressions or scan. Absolutely. The assistant should be doing it. The dentist should not be doing it right. It's all about managing that time well. And then what I learned through my first maternity leave in 2020 which coincided with Covid I was able to step away from the practice because I was on maternity leave and it was covid and the patients were doing okay without me.

I mean, certainly they asked about me, they wondered where I was, but they were all supportive of the fact that I, had a, had a baby. And it was, it was fine. And the associates that I hired they loved her, so they didn't need me. And so I just felt like I was able to delegate. And I mean, of course every doctor, uh, is different and every relationship is different.

So of course, like, I can't say that these, their relationships replace my relationship that I have with my patient. But I, I do think that, um, at Coco Floss, I'm. Uniquely positioned to help lead that business because, it was my idea to begin with, and I'm the one who cares so much about oral health and prevention.

So it wasn't right for me to just, to, if I had to abandon one I couldn't abandon Coco floss.

Michael: Hmm. Because, yeah, cuz of how unique the position is. It's, it's, you, you guys, you know what I mean? Like a lot of you is in it to where it's like you can't delegate.

Chrystle: Yes, exactly. Whereas for the My Dental practice and when I first started, my practice name was just my name Crystal Coo, d d s.

But um, some years, you know, maybe around 2014 or so, I rebranded the practice to Young Dental Group because my hygiene team was taking up both of my chairs. And so, um, I wanted to make sure that the name of the practice encompassed all of the providers of the practice. So it wasn't just about me anymore, it was about the whole experience for the patient and all the providers that contributed to the patient's care.

young Dental Group. With that practice being less about me and more about the whole experience I could take myself out and it would still be Young Dental Group, Coco Floss. My sister and I, we lead the bus, we lead the company. And if you take me out of it, it doesn't really make sense cuz my sister, she wasn't a flosser.

she doesn't care as much about oral health as I do. So yeah, I, I don't, I don't know. Basically I, I needed to be at Coco.

Michael: Yeah, it has, uh, your perspective on it. You know what I mean? Like your whole I side of it, so you kind of need to be in it, you know what I mean? So then when did Coco floss to you become like, oh, snap, this is guys, this is a business.

Like we're, we're making stuff happen here. Like, this is good mu or you know what I mean? Like when did it become a business?

Chrystle: I mean, we've been growing very steadily every year. I remember, I think early on we started out of my apartment and then out my apartment moved to my parents' home.

There were days when I would go home during my lunch break to help help my sister like pack boxes. And I think, uh, one of these days when I, one of the moments or times when I felt like, oh man, this is really business. When I go home for my one hour lunch break and see that we have like 300 packages to, to build, it's like, oh, now we're gonna do this all in one hour.

That was one of 'em. And other times, I think, you know, going to dental meetings we started very simply at dental meetings with just like a symbol. Booth, like a table with a tablecloth. And now we're, we've got like a double booth at larger meetings, like at C D A, we'll have like a double booth.

That's, and it's, it's always jam-packed. We need to have like at least six people manning the booth at any given time. And there's always people standing in line and that feels kind of crazy. It feels like, I don't know if you, I'm sure you've been to cda, but it feels like a wild bazaar. And so that, that feels, makes me feel like we have a business.

What's also really exciting is next, in two weeks we're launching at C V S, so this feels really grown up now.

Michael: Wait, you guys are gonna be in c v s. Wow, man. That's ok.

Chrystle: Hey, we're like, this is, this is real.

Michael: Yeah. I've always been curious, crystal, how does that work? Like do you just like, dear CV s, or what do you do?

Chrystle: Well, I would imagine that that's how you could do it though. For all of our wholesale partnerships to date, including c v s, they've all been um, obtained via, like inbound requests from the buyers at these companies. So we've been carried at anthropology for many years, and it's because the, the buyer asked to have us there.

And c v s likewise, the buyer. Is a personal fan of Coco Floss and she really, really, really wanted our product in their oral care aisle. So that's how it happened,

Michael: man. Where was the moments where you were super like, like where you're like, yeah, this is it. This is part of, I guess, being an entrepreneur where it's insanely stressful.

Chrystle: Oh, I feel that all the time. Um, My sister and I were always like schlepping things around. the number of like boxes we've had to carry and random things we've had to do. I, it just, it's kind of funny. Um, But I've kind of brought my family along on the ride for it. So, yeah, it is. I feel it every day and it's, it's really fun.

Michael: Yeah. Is it a different type of stress than moaning a practice? Or like, is it the same, do you feel like it's the same, like, guys, this is the same thing, I have to manage employees and manage employees over here, or No, it's completely different.

Chrystle: It feels a little different. So in the practice, it feels, I love how the practice feels so tight-knit.

I mean, you see these people more than you see your own family. and it's the same people. Your team is there with you every day at Coco Floss. We're all remote, so we don't get to like physically be with each other, like can't really hug each other, for example. And so when we do see each other, it, it's really exciting, but it's all like, I'm on my computer all day.

It's a very different type of work. And also the size of the business and the size of the team. Uh, coco Philosophy have about 30 employees now. The dental practice, it's always been around like 10 end to 12, so a larger team of Coco floss. the nice thing is that for both I, I still have as a dentist, they're both in pursuit of the same goal as just helping people achieve two for

Michael: life.

Mm-hmm. So then break it down for us, especially for the ones who are like coco floss, right? Or I've heard of it like coco floss. What is that? What is coco floss?

Chrystle: It's a woven dental floss and it's infused with coconut oil and it comes in a bunch of fun fragrances. We always have it in, uh, coconut, strawberry, orange, and mint.

And throughout the year we have seasonal limited edition fragrances. Like here we have watermelon and we have, uh, chocolate here. And, uh, I think there might be, well you don't see it in this picture, but we have like passion for it or pineapple. So just trying to make flossing delightful and fun.

Trying to turn a chore into a treat and make flossing into something that you look forward to and that you wanna do.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And so you guys, I know in some pediatric practices that we work with, like cocoa flosses in there, is there like a specific different price for practices compared to like, somebody from cvs?

Chrystle: Yeah, so we do have a dental sales program where we are selling direct to dentists. They get to order this size, this small size. It's like an eight yard, and it's like about a two week supply. And usually dentists are putting that into their hygiene goody bags. And we also have the 33 yard size, which is what people can buy to anthropology or at cvs and.

Practices are buying that at about half price and then they resell it to their patient for retail price. And then also we have like a large school that's like a professional size that, clinicians are using chairside and they use it in their procedures for all the perio procedures and also even restorative procedures.

Michael: Okay, so it's available for them? Yeah, it's available for them, yeah. Nice. Okay. So I guess. How can this, cuz I remember when I was working in a couple practices, like water picks was like coming up and it was like, this is it. Right? Is that something where you're like, okay, this is our, not competition, but like, how does that work?

Chrystle: Well, I mean, I, I think water picks are great. I don't have anything against water pick at all, but I don't believe that they're of true replacement for flossing. I think it's a great adjunct. unfortunately, I've had some patients, say that they were water picking exclusively and not flossing, and I've seen recurrent caries around usually like multi-unit restorations like bridges or even interproximal caries.

And so, I don't know. I, I just don't know that the water pick can always get underneath rest restorations or in between teeth in the same way that floss can physically deprive those areas. Mm-hmm. So I, it's not yeah. Not a replacement, but water pick's a great adjunct.

Michael: Yeah, because we were water picking.

Me and my wife are like a really, I still do it, but she's the one who. I'm gonna floss too because I'm, you know what I mean? And so I was like, okay. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't know, double clean, I guess, but I didn't know that until you just told me right now. So,

Chrystle: yeah, I mean that, of course curious doesn't afflict every patient, but I, I've seen it enough times where I can't tell a patient I can't do it.

Like, consciously, like, you know, I like to tell a patient they, oh yeah, you can just water pick. I, I won't, I can't feel good about it because I've seen the carries that people get still with using water.

Michael: Gotcha. What have you seen with people using cocoa floss with their marketing, like dental practices?

How have they used it in a, like a unique way or a different way that, you know, maybe like brings better brand awareness or even attracts new patients, things like that.

Chrystle: Yeah, so I've seen a lot of practices use Coco Foss as, one, as a way to draw patients to the practice. For example, I've seen patients, uh, practices, offer, let's say like a Yelp check-in reward, check in on Yelp and get a Coco Foss.

So, gonna incentivizes people to check in on Yelp and, and usually these people who check in on Yelp eventually write a review, which as we mentioned is, can be really impactful for growing a business or growing a. I also see practices using cocoa floss. To display in the, the front desk. The, the display that we have, it's like a jar and it's the colors of Coco Foster candy.

Like, so, de that feeling of delight that you have like walking into a candy shop or like walking into a florist where there's like this explosion of color. Like, why don't have that in the dental office? Because dental offices are typically thought of as like sterile, cold and fear-inducing places.

So when a patient walks into a practice and they. Oh, well that's kind of a nice surprise. Like it's an uplifting type of color to see. It kind of, it helps ease anxiety and helps kind of make the patient a little happier. So the PA um, practices will have the Coco FLS in the front desk area and they'll be, selling it.

And then in the. back um, in the chair side, when a patient is floss with cocoa floss, it feels so different. And usually patients just like, what is that? Mm-hmm. Because unlike a slippery floss, like a, like the Teflon types of floss and that are so slippery and thin and then they actually kind of can hurt sometimes when you floss.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Your gums and they make your gums lead. Coco fo is, it's thicker and it feels much more substantial and it's scarier. So, your hygienist, your dentist will floss with it. And it's like, whoa, what is that? Because your teeth feels so clean instantly, and it also smells good because plaque smells disgusting.

And then, you have this like waft of like sweet strawberries and the patient's like, oh, that's really nice. Yeah. that it makes a difference. And then again, with the hygiene bags, if a patient, uh, sent home with a coco brush and a coco floss it really tells the patient like, wow.

This practice really cares about using the best quality materials. they're giving me this amazing product. So, it speaks volumes about the values of the practice and then it, it becomes like a, a another reason for the patients to talk about it with their friends and family and refer more patients to the.

Michael: Hmm. Do you guys help the practice, I guess like the back office or anything, like when they order coco floss, do you guys help 'em with that? Like maybe the rep or anything?

Chrystle: Yeah. Yeah. We do have a little sales team and um, we obviously like really wanna help, help practices become successful with coco floss, so.

Mm-hmm. We are doing everything we can to handhold as much as we need to um, handhold practices through making it successful in our.

Michael: Man. It's cool how, uh, crystal, like throughout this conversation you can still see like the, when you were younger and you're like the volunteering kind of thing where you're just like, I just wanna help people out, kind of thing.

Right. That's it Still today, like you're just like, I just wanna help people out. Like I wanna hold their hand in. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you one of the last questions. Throughout this process, I guess, from the moment you decided to own a practice mm-hmm. To. What's been some of your biggest struggles or fails or pitfalls?

Chrystle: Well, for the longest time, I mean certainly time management is something that I had, I've had to get really good at, but I've. Also struggled with the feeling of guilt because when I was working at the dental practice, I'd feel guilty about coco floss or if I'm working at Coco floss, I feel guilty about the dental practice.

Or for either of them, if I'm working more than, more than I should be, than I'm guilty about not spending time with my family. So that's something that I. Struggle with I'm getting better about it, and it's super helpful that I have a very supportive family. And we just do everything together.

Like, for example, I mentioned like schlepping boxes everywhere. Like my kids at this point have, come with me to dental meetings and they're, they're with me on these rides where we have like the whole minivan filled with boxes. So that's, but yeah, guilt has been something that I've, I've struggled with, but I, I think that this is all just a part of who I am and I'm always working on.

Michael: Yeah. How are you work? Like I know like right now you let go of the practice, but I, you know, a lot of people do, I guess, talk about, especially parents like mom guilt, right? I guess how are you working on that? Like what advice can you give us for that

Chrystle: advice? So I just, focus on, one of my personal.

For myself and what are the things that I care about and my passions and, and I just make sure that all of the things that I'm doing in my day-to-day align towards that goal. the good thing is that despite letting go of my practice, I do feel like my, you know, my professional goal in life is to help people achieve teeth for life.

And so I, I believe that I'm continuing to do that, so I don't have to feel so guilty about letting the practice go, cuz it doesn't ha again, as I mentioned, it doesn't have to be me going in and, and treating. Patients, like I have other doctors who could do that. And here I'm, leading this brand growth and hopefully hopefully inspiring even more people to um, take better care of their teeth.

So just focusing on the goals, like what are your, and then that's really hard and it's something that you probably, I think people should at least revisit at least annually. And just think about like, what is it that you're passionate about and what are the goal, your goals, and then how can you align all of your daily actions and how you spend your time towards those goals.

Michael: Mm-hmm. Have you ever caught yourself? It's changing constantly. Like maybe not constantly, but like pivoting and you're like, oh my gosh. And then you feel like what you've done in the past, you're like, I guess that was, some of it was pointless. You know what I mean? Kind of thing. Or cuz my goal pivoted.

Has that ever

Chrystle: happened to you or? Um, I try not to have too many regrets, but I, I'll say I have a lot of fomo. A lot of fomo. I mean, I actually really love clinical dentistry. I had so much fun being able to transform health and transform, you know, my patients. In terms of like confidence. I love Invisalign, for example.

I became totally obsessed with Invisalign, and I miss that. I miss that time with my patients and being able to like, really make an impact in their lives. So there's my FOMO and I, I don't know what I'm gonna do with it yet. The, the practice sale was very recent.

I don't know yet. I'm gonna own another practice in the future if I'll, you know when I'm gonna, Start working again in clinical dentistry. my baby is very young, and so it doesn't make sense at this time. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I, I don't know. We'll see.

Michael: Awesome. Crystal, thank you so much for being with us.

It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Chrystle: Of course. So I'd love it if you would follow us on Instagram. Our handle is get coco floss. Our website for all of your patients is coco floss.com. And for dental professionals you can find [email protected].

And if you'd ever wanna reach out to us you can just email [email protected].

Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely check it out. And Crystal, thank you for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Likewise.

Chrystle: Thank you.

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Minal Sampat and I have a weekly newsletter called Weekly Hacks. It's for pediatric dentists and pediatric practice owners only, and we share one effective growth hack every week to achieve big wins. no fluff, no spam, just your weekly dose of what you need to grow. Subscribe here to get this week's hack in your inbox! https://mailchi.mp/9d2a4644fd31/the-pediatric-dental-marketing-newsletter

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Hey docs! In this week's Monday Morning Marketing episode, Minal and I go over 5 key tips to social media for your pediatric dental practice:

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1. Post at least 4 times per week
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2. Get specific with targeted ads
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3. Drive engagement and comment on your posts
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4. Link back to specific posts in an email blast
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5. Use AI to workshop your captions

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Following these 5 tips will take the headache out of "what should I post?" or "My ads aren't reaching the right audience!" Above all, being consistent, utilizing technology, and getting involved in your social community will help build your audience and bring those pediatric patients in the door.

Listen in as Minal and I break down these key tips even more in this week's episode!

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You can reach out to Minal Sampat here:

Website: https://minalsampat.com/

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

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

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Other Mentions and Links:

The Pediatric Dental Marketing Course Enrollment

Chat GPT

"You Will Read This First" Post

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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

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Minal. So talk to us about social media marketing specifically for pediatric dentists. How can we utilize this, or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help us attract new patients with social

Minal: media?

Social media is incredible. But I think what happens with social media is most of the time we don't know what to do with it. Like everybody keeps telling you, be on social media. Be on social media, but what do you actually do on it? Right now? This is like a six hour workshop on social media. but what I wanna do is I wanna give you guys five specific tips on how you are going to leverage social media as a pediatric dental practice.

Mm-hmm. Here's the first. If you are going to be on a social media platform, whether it is Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or whichever one you decide to do, even LinkedIn. LinkedIn is huge. Nobody talks about LinkedIn, but I'll get into it, is you want to post at least four times a week. Mm-hmm. So everybody who's listening four times a week, three of those post should have actual photos or videos.

Of the practice, not stock stuff, not any of that. And the fourth one is free for all. It could be a review post, it could be a educational post, it could be a carousel, post, whatever you want. But out of those three, You know, you want to focus on showing your practice culture. Right. And because we are a pediatric dental practice, I mean, come on, let's face it, we have the cutest patients.

We have a lot of fun in the practice. If you're seeing, and I'm going to be very, um, minimalistic in this, even if you're just seeing 10 patients a day mm-hmm. Which we all know, we are seeing way more. And you're open five days a week. That's, you are seeing 50 patients a week. I'm saying take three photos or videos.

You can totally, totally do this, right? So the first thing is you need consistency. The reason you need to have four times a week minimum, and that's what I recommend anyways, like I don't think you need to go crazy with every day or stuff like that, but four times a week is because the platforms need to know that you spend time on it.

Why would the algorithms show your content and your page to people if you log in once every two weeks to post? So, It doesn't help you. So if you decide to be on it, the first thing I want you to think about is consistency. Consistent thing with content that shows off your practice culture, not stock photos.

So if you're working with a third party company where they're just posting your blog post or your reviews there, it's, you know, you're getting no engagement, it's not helping you. and if it's not helping you, don't do it. Stop paying. Instead, take those photos and videos and start posting it. That's tip number one.

Tip number two, when it comes to social media, you also need to leverage ads, especially on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, on Facebook and Instagram, specifically on Facebook, when you click on the Boost ad and you go to demographics, you can target parents with specific age group of kids. Let me repeat that.

You can go to boost post, you can select your area, you can select age groups, so for your parents that you know, you usually see, which is going to be anywhere between 25 to 45. Right? So, and I would recommend that you choose females like women, because women usually are the decision makers for healthcare.

And also they're the ones who usually shop on social media. So I would do women, put down your town, put down a radius around it, depending where you're located, how far your patients come to see you, and then put down the age group and then go to demographics and go to parents. And you'll be shocked because you could target parents with specific age group of kids, like zero to three, three to six, six to nine, nine to 12.

Parents of adult kids. Oh yeah. So now when you're boosting that post to some, to a audience, that post is directly going in front of your potential new patients, not just random people. These are parents. Mm-hmm. How does Facebook know how old their kids are? Well, you could ask Facebook, but they know how old their kids are because guess what?

We share everything online. So because of that, They track everything we share and they know exactly what's happening in our lives. I mean, Facebook also knows recently moved if once you go in there, it's mind-blowing how much information they know. So that's the first thing. So first thing you're going to go ahead and make sure that you post the second thing.

You're going to utilize ads and you're going to do targeted ads to parents, cuz that's our audience. The third. engagement truly matters when it comes to social media. So how many likes and comments you have matters. If you have a post on Facebook, let's say comments are the currency on Facebook and Instagram.

Even on LinkedIn, anywhere you have comments is better. So if people are commenting on your post, you should hundred percent comment back because what this does is that it keeps that algorithm alive and keeps your post trending. But here's a strategy. Don't comment on all of them at once or don't like on them, all of them at once.

So don't go like, like, comment, like, comment, like, comment, like comment at one time because once you're done liking and commenting back on all the comments, you're done. So what I do is I follow a strategy. So my strategy would be if I get comments on a post, which is always my goal to get comments or likes or saves or whatever, I would go ahead and comment back, but not like the.

Or I would only go ahead and comment back on half the post at one time and then wait a couple of days and then comment to the rest of them later. Why am I doing that? Cuz I want the algorithm to be trending. I wanted to keep showing that post, right? So if I know that if the post is getting comments, the algorithm's gonna be like, oh, this is great.

It's getting comments. Let's, let's push this up again. Even though this was posted last week, let's push it up. And another cool thing is what happens, Michael, every time somebody likes or comments back, don't you get an alert? Yeah. So what I want to do is I want to send you an alert again, right? So let's say that I am on Instagram and I have a previous post where I got comments, so I commented back on it, but I didn't love all the comments.

So right. As soon as I have my next post that popped up, I'll go back to my previous post and I will hit the like on all the comments that God had because now. It's alerting everybody who commented on my previous post saying, Hey, men just liked your comment. Men just liked your comment, just liked your comment.

And then you're gonna go to my page and you're going to see my new post, ah, strategy. I mean, I'm a marketing strategist. I live it. I walk it, I breathe it. but, um, yeah. So you want to. Some engagement on there and be careful about how do you do the engagement.

That's a third step. Now, the fourth step is going to be a little bit more harder, but follow me along with the fourth step. So this was something, uh, that I myself learned at a conference, and I think it's a brilliant idea and I've tried it multiple times, is, you know how every time you have something that you celebrate, right?

So, like a doctor's birthday and when you have a doctor's birthday, you get all these comments and likes, like that's the post that usually gets a lot of comments and likes and engagement. So this is, again, this is a specific strategy. So follow along with me guys. What I want you to do is go ahead and post it on social media like you would always.

But then I want you to open that post and then grab the u r URL of that actual post. So not the u R URL of your page, but you, when you open that post, whether it's Facebook or Instagram, you get the actual U R L of that specific post. Okay? So go ahead and copy that url. Then you are going to go into your email newsletter system or text system that you have going out to your patients.

You're going to take that. You're going to add that same photo that you added on social media, and you're going to send out an email and you're going to send to all your patients, Hey, it's Dr. Ab and C's Happy birthday today. Uh, help us, wish him a very happy birthday by clicking the photo below or the link below.

So all you have to do is on that photo in your email copy or the text, you add the link to the same exact post. So now when they click on that post and they go on to that specific post on your social media platforms, You are taking your current patients from email to your social media and they're going to comment on the social media post.

Hmm. You see what I mean? Yeah. Because you linked that same post to the URL of that actual post. So I know there's a lot of posts and talking going on here, but this strategy works because the number one question I get is how do I get my current patients to be on social media with us? Mm-hmm. Give them a.

This is a great way for you to bring them. So anything that you know is going to get a lot of comment and engagement and your patients wanna be involved in, which is clearly wishing doctors happy birthday, use this strategy. Post it on social media. Copy the UR of the exact post. Go ahead and have the same photo send out via email and text, and then add the link of the exact post on there so now people can click on it and go there to.

So I know it. It was kind of a boozy, right?

Michael: how do we find the

Minal: url? Click on. Just click on the photo. Oh, I never open it up. Yeah. When you click on any photo, you get the actual url. Even on Instagram, when you click on a post it'll and you go on share, it'll give you the actual URL of that, that exact post.

Michael: Okay. I never knew that. I'm gonna go on to your post Real. And then the U r O would be found. Where? On where, where are you on

Minal: Facebook or I.

Michael: Instagram. Instagram.

Minal: So Instagram, you wanna go on your phone? You wanna go onto your phone? Oh. Oh. And then you could do it. Cause Instagram is a phone app. Oh, no, no, no.

You

Michael: can also do it on, on desktop.

Minal: Well, there you go. Then you've got it on desktop too. So they must have a data. Look at, my

Michael: gosh, look at this. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I'm looking at your New Year's start list of tools to make life easy. Right.

Minal: So when you click on it, do you see how it, yeah. You see how it gives you the exact.

Yeah, so now I would take the same photo, right? Put it into my email copy and with the exact URL and send it out to my audience and say, Hey guys, do you want to go ahead and, uh, get all these tools or tips? Go ahead and click on this link and it'll take you to my Instagram where you can see it. Yeah.

So you do the same thing. I know it kind of works very well.

Michael: That's, that's really good. By the way, depending on when this goes, is gonna go out, if you guys can go follow Manal Sampa, LLC on Instagram, there was a post you did. You said you'll read this first, you'll read this second. You, you, I did it exactly how you told me.

I would read it and I was like, yay, man. Like, how you predict it, you know what I mean? it's a pretty cool post. So I'll put a link to, I'll put a link to that post in the show notes below, but Awesome. So these are the four steps we can do.

Minal: And then the fifth one. And the fifth one is going to be even better.

You guys are ready? Yeah. Okay. So, you know how you always want to make a post, but you never know what to say. Mm-hmm. Every day, like, yeah, like every time it's like, man, I have this really cute photo, but I don't know what to say about the photos. I, I, I, I didn't post it. Chad, g p t. Chat, G p t. So if you need captions, right, this is what you do for captions, guys.

You go into chat, G P T and you said, Hey, gimme a caption for a pediatric dental practice. Or you can put on your practice's name, right? Gimme a caption for a, B, c, pediatric dentistry, uh, about a photo where a kid is high-fiving the doctor. And it'll give you a caption and you can be specific. Gimme an Instagram caption, gimme me a Facebook caption.

Don't use hashtags or add hashtags, or I'll add emojis and it'll give you the caption so you don't have to worry about it. In fact, I'm training all my team members right now and like all the practices I'm working with, so they all get a social media calendar on what to post, right? Like what ideas, what strategy, what to post, and then they can now just go into chat G P T and come up with their captions.

Michael: That's really good, man. That's really, and by the way, for those of you who are in the pediatric dental marketing course mm-hmm. we are putting in more modules on chat, G P T. Mm-hmm. This one case, you guys wanna know more about that and how to utilize it to better your marketing.

You can find that in the pediatric dental marketing course. But then this is the five things we can. Right when it comes to this, where do you manal see the roadblock where people drop the ball,

Minal: it becomes too overwhelming. what to post, when to post, how to post, who's going to do it?

do we have fun content? And then the, the last part, When you don't see immediate success with it, you, you want to give up cuz it takes work, right? So you, you put all this work in and then you're like, oh my God, I'm putting all this work in, but I'm not getting immediate satisfaction. Well, you are not. It takes time like everything else. Social media takes time.

You have to build an audience, you have to engage with them. You have to show them who you are to show them the practice, culture, your services. Remember, uh, there was a theory many years ago that said that somebody has to come across your. Marketing message seven times. Mm-hmm. Um, before they make a choice.

Now that has gone out the window. Now we have like 27 times, 37 times. Cuz ev we are constantly being distracted by other messages. And because we are constantly being distracted, that just means you to keep going. What your focus should be is, am I getting engagement and are people saving my content, engaging with my content.

And many times when I go into my own content, I'm like, oh my God. Only, you know, 40 people liked it, but I go into my saves and 175 people save. And that's what I want, right? So look at the goal. What is your goal? And then work towards it. Everything else can be taught. I mean, we. Pediatric Dental marketing course together, Michael, that you and I kind of go through and we do hands-on, you know, stuff and I have like hands-on training and I show how to do things and how to create calendars and systems and strategies and all that fun stuff inside it.

So information is out there and you know, we are here to help you along with it. You just have to make sure that, one, you stay consistent with it. And two, you also have some fun with it. You know, don't let it get to you. Like then get, don't get into. Of, oh my God. Look at the likes and the comments. I don't have enough.

No, there is. You're competing with yourself. Mm-hmm. You are good. You're okay. So once you have those two things, consistency and being able to have fun with social media, you're going to find results.

Michael: Gotcha. Awesome. So if anyone has any further questions or concerns you can definitely find on Dental Marketer Society, Facebook Group, or where can they reach out to you?

Minal: Absolutely. So my website is minal san.com, which is M I N A l S A M P A t.com. And since we clearly talked about social media, come hang on Instagram with me. You know, I'm Minal san on Instagram, Minal Sam on Facebook. Send me a friend request, I have a digital creator page there and I share a lot of tips.

And then Michael and I, uh, we have just started this awesome, awesome thing where we are doing, uh, is it weekly, Michael? Yeah, yeah. We are doing, uh, weekly. Pediatric dental specific tips. So you know how we just talked about all of this. If you want nine pediatric dental Real Ideas, it's coming to you next week.

By the way. Just f y I letting you know, it's coming to you starting April. We are going to have this, we have opened up this awesome newsletter Michael and I both, we have had a lot of pediatric dentists reach out to us saying, can you guys share ideas with us? Why? So we opened this newsletter, Michael, you're gonna put that in the show notes here.

Mm-hmm.

Michael: Yeah, I'm gonna, and to be open and honest with you guys, a lot of people have asked us that. And me and my, I were like, okay, let's, should we start a Facebook group? Should we start another podcast? So we said easiest way for us and easiest way for you is just to be living in your inbox, right? that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna send you. Every single week. And that's the best way you can talk to us too, is just hit reply back on those newsletters. And then you can talk to us that way as well if you have any further questions or concerns. But like we mentioned before, the pediatric dental marketing course, that's where you can mastermind with us monthly.

That's where you can get them latest, advice and also strategies on all, everything you're listening to here, especially with also, ground marketing. And it continues to grow, so it's like a, it's a course, but it's like an ever-growing course.

Minal: It's a course's, an ever-growing course, because unfortunately or fortunately, social media marketing keeps changing and we have to keep changing.

Like, for example, Michael just added an entire thing on Chad g p t inside the course because of how powerful it is. And as things change, as life becomes different and as the world we live in keeps to elevate itself, we are here with you and Michael. And I always love to say that the course is not done for you, but it's done with.

And we love that cuz every month we also kind of come on in and do exactly this. Like you ask specific questions and we mastermind and we share and strategies and um, you know, so we kind of keep it, keep it real, you know, we are pretty transparent people so we kind of keep it real and we share ideas.

But yeah, so how we can reach and get some more ideas. We can join the newsletters, check us out, Michael and I on Instagram too, or Facebook and we.

Michael: Yeah, we got you. So awesome guys. Thank you so much Al. Thank you for being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode.

Minal: Thank you for having me.

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This Episode is Sponsored by: Dandy | The Fully Digital, US-based Dental Lab
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For a completely FREE 3Shape Trios 3 scanner & $250 in lab credit click here: https://www.meetdandy.com/affiliate/tdm !

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Guest: Stephanie NivinskusBusiness Name: SizzleForce MarketingCheck out Stephanie's Media:‍

Website: https://SizzleForce.com

Schedule an Appointment: https://www.SizzleForce.com/schedule

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanienivinskus

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Other Mentions and Links:

Starbucks

Quicksilver

National Football League

Cox Communications

Forbes

Entrepreneur Magazine

Absolutely Unforgettable: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating a Heart-Centered Brand and Standing out in a Noisy World

CPAP Machine - Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Machine

Nierman Practice Management

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

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

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

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My Key Takeaways:

• Your offline interactions AND online followup with patients should both make them feel heard and appreciated.
• It's great to have a sterile office, but having a sterile vibe isn't always inviting. Try adding a sense of warmth to your practice feel!
• Always think from the perspective of the expert, rather than the salesperson when educating patients.
• People are not excited about giving up their email or phone number! Provide a valuable incentive for offering their information.
• You cannot optimize something that isn't well documented.

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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]

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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.

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Thank you for supporting the podcast by checking out our sponsors!

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Stephanie, how's it going? Going

Stephanie: great. Thanks for having me,

Michael: Michael. No, thank you for being on. If you don't mind me asking, where are you located?

Stephanie: I am in San Diego, California.

Michael: Oh, man.

Stephanie: Did you guys get any snow? No, but we got a lot of hail and we had hail ball fights, hail ball in my front yard.

Cause we were so excited. Like literally we packed together. Hail. Yeah. And maybe hail balls, . And my kids and the neighbor kids, we had hail ball fights. It was amazing.

Michael: Is that, does that hurt more or,

Stephanie: well, I don't, I wouldn't say we had enough to do damage. We just had enough to have a lot of fun. .

Michael: Gotcha, gotcha.

I like that hill ball fight. Yeah. Interesting. All right. So Stephanie, can you tell us a little bit about your past, your present? How'd you get to where you

Stephanie: are? . Yeah. So I have been in marketing going on three decades, which is crazy. Mm-hmm. . I started, my career in 1995 and, started working, free.com, and working in the newspaper industry and, and then.com became a thing, and then wireless became a thing and my career path kept unfolding in different versions of market.

For for those different types of media. And then in 2009, I went out on my own and I started my company Sizzle Force Marketing, and now I run a fractional C M O service, which basically means a part-time chief marketing officer and a full implementation team for all of your day-to-day marketing needs.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. What are some things that you. because you said you did pre.com, right? Yeah. Can you, and I'm

Stephanie: still alive, .

Michael: And I'm still alive. So what are some things where you're like, sting haven't changed since the pre.com, till today?

Stephanie: You know what? The way the human mind works has not changed. , right? Mm-hmm.

humans still wanna be cared about. They still wanna feel like they're understood. They still wanna feel like they have hope for a solution for whatever pains ail them. You know, all of those things, humans at their core haven't changed just the way that we communicate with them has, right? Mm-hmm.

meaning the tools that we use to communicate with them, but at, at our essence, we all still want the same. ,

Michael: which is co what? Communication or

Stephanie: Yeah, just empathy. Mm-hmm. , right? We wanna feel heard, we wanna feel understood, we wanna feel valued, we wanna feel like we matter, like we're appreciated. All of those things.

And, and those are things that are super relevant in a dental practice, right? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . If, if I go to the dentist and, you know, it's a, it's a kind of a rougher on the edges, experie. Right. And I don't feel appreciated. Like, here, let me give you an example. Yesterday. Mm-hmm. . Yesterday I had a phone, a telehealth appointment with my doctor.

Okay? Now, mind you, I pay out the nose for my insurance, right? Just every month. It's painful. It hurts my, it hurts my heart, right? Well, last week I had something going on, and so I requested an appointment. I had to wait six. to get a telephone appointment, not even a face-to-face appointment, okay? Mm-hmm.

six days rolls around. That's yesterday. I finally get the call from the doctor and I ask her my question and she gives me an answer. Then I said, oh, can I ask you another question about something else? And she goes, I don't have time. I only have 10 minutes for this call. And I'm like, I had to wait six days for a 10 minute slot with my doctor.

that was a rough around the edges experience. Okay. Mm-hmm. , and very disappointing. And I did not feel appreciated at all as a customer, despite the fact that I give them like 2,500 bucks a month for my insurance. Mm-hmm. , right? Like, oh my gosh. Well, thank you. How much do you make an hour if ? Yeah. You know?

Right. And I think any, whether, whether you're a a doctor, like for, you know, a general practitioner kind of doctor, or you're a doctor of dentistry, right? Or you're literally any other type of professional people want to feel cared about, heard and appreciated. Mm-hmm. . And yesterday that doctor was a big fat fail.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. No d So then, , are you gonna continue with that doctor,

Stephanie: or Well, well, the problem is, well, yeah, but that's a whole other issue. with the healthcare system. .

Michael: Gotcha. No, that, but it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you're right. We do want, so today you said that doesn't change, right? Humans still want to be cared about.

They want to have that empathy. How can we utilize that today with the technology that we have to, I guess, grow our patient's? Yeah,

Stephanie: numbers. . Yeah. I, I think I think that what we have to remember is while technology is incredible, automations are, you know, really powerful behind everything. It still goes back to h to H, right?

Human to human. Mm-hmm. , right? We need to utilize these tools to communicate compassion and empathy. So, you know, how can we do that? Lots of, there's lots of different ways. everything from. Well, let me give you an example of my dentist. I think he's a marketing master. Okay? So how many dentists have I been to over the years where I literally felt like a number and it was like, oh my gosh, just get me in, clean my teeth and get me out.

I don't wanna be here. I don't like you, I don't like what you're doing in my mouth, and I would like to leave now. Okay? Mm-hmm. , pretty much every dentist I've ever had until, until I met this guy. All right. , he actually makes going to the dentist fun. And I, I'm not even kidding you, my kids, my husband, myself, we're all like, we like almost get excited to go to the dentist now, which is the weirdest thing for us, right?

Mm-hmm. , the way that he does that in the office is he creates a really just kind of happy, uplifting experience, okay? When you walk into his office, first of all, , his decor is bright and colorful. He, he doesn't have these muted colored old chairs from 1983. You know, he's got bright and colorful paintings on the wall.

And he actually, the name of the company is Scripps Rock Dental, and he has like this life size statue of. and he has a choke box and he's like really into music. That's his thing, right? So you go in, he's playing super cool music, like music that you, you wanna bop to. Yeah. Okay. Right. And yeah, he just makes that experience fun.

The second thing that he does is his front office staff is more like a front office concierge. . Okay. I feel like when I go into that dentist, a, they know my name even though they have a bajillion patients. Right. It, it's not that they necessarily remember my name, but they've looked three minutes before I walk in the door at who's coming in and then they say, hi, Stephanie.

Good to see you again. . You know? Yeah. They just make me feel seen. Then. , you know, it's everything from, oh, please have a seat. Would you like some water while you're waiting? Dentist will be with you in just a couple of minutes. I feel very cared for. I get escorted back to my chair.

When I go back into the office and you know, they ask me, are you comfortable? You know, would you like to watch something on tv? Would you like the headphones? Would you like to wear these special glasses? . Right? It's, it literally, I feel like they're, they are a concierge. Okay. So it, it starts kind of with the offline experience, right?

But then if you want to turn around and figure out, well, how can you leverage technology to make people feel cared about and seen and whatnot? It's more of what happens after the appointment, okay? Mm-hmm. , it's the message that comes. The evening after you've had your appointment, the email or the text that you get from the dentist saying, Hey Stephanie, how are you feeling tonight?

I just wanted to make sure you're not in any pain, wanted to make sure that you know, your teeth feel good, or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. , shoot me back a quick text to let me know you're doing well, right? All of a sudden, I feel so cared about. I'm like, oh my gosh. How many people did he see? and he's just asking how I'm doing.

Maybe it's a couple days after if it was a more substantial procedure that I had done and it wasn't just a cleaning or whatever, right? Mm-hmm. , maybe you get a root canal and it's a few days later and it's like, Oh, hey Stephanie. If you're feeling any sensitivity in your teeth tonight, I recommend just having some soup for dinner.

Don't try and chew anything that's gonna hurt your teeth, blah, blah, blah. This can be delivered through text. It can be delivered through emails. It can be delivered in a ton of different automated ways where you're leveraging the technology. But you are practicing human to human. . Yeah,

Michael: I like that. I like that.

You're right. You're caring, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Awesome, awesome. That's really, really interesting. I love seeing your input and your point of view, you know what I mean, when it comes to someone who's not so totally involved in the clinical side of dentistry. Not at

Stephanie: all. Yeah, no, I, I speak as a, I speak on behalf of the people,

Michael: I, so let, let me ask you then just two, two questions, and then after that we'll go into, The, the workshop. Right? But I wanted to ask you right now, what do you hate about dentistry or dislike?

Stephanie: What do I dislike about dentistry? Well, I dislike the experiences I had until I met the Marketing Master of Dentistry, right?

Mm-hmm. that I go to now, I disliked the very clinical. Feel of the dental experience, you know, walking into this sterile, not in a way. Obviously the dentist needs to be a sterile environment, but I I'm saying a sterile environment in terms of there's no warmth to it, there's no care, there's no there's no empathy really.

And that's how most dental experiences that I. have been, right? Mm-hmm. . So, yeah, I, I never like that, you know, I mean, just, I don't know. I don't, I don't think people put, maybe they, they put so much effort into, becoming really good at the work that they do, that they forget about the customer experience.

Mm-hmm. . And it's a huge reason. Why there's such, you know, churn in the dental industry, right? While, you know, if, if, if it's just a transaction, if I just come there to get my cleaning every six months and I don't feel cared about, well, why on earth would I ever remain loyal to you? I have lots of choices.

Every other day I get, you know, Big postcard in the mail with some new dentist offering me a cleaning, come in and you can only pay $29. Well, if I don't feel like I've had an experience with you that's worthy of returning to, why would I not just shop on price, right? Mm-hmm. , I would, I, I mean that's, see that's the thing is like if you don't differentiate your practice, people will make decisions based on price alone because you're just like everybody else.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. And then what do you love about dentistry? ? What do

Stephanie: I love about dentistry? On behalf of the people, I will say I love the fact that, when I have been in pain, you get me out of.

Michael: Got you. Wait, actually y yeah, that's true. But you're, your dentist. Your dentist. What do you love about the, what they do? I know you told, you told me that they make you feel warm empathy. Right, right. Anything else on that? There's

Stephanie: a very neighborly feel to the dentist that I go to now, and let me tell you this, we have dental insurance.

He's not covered in our. We pay for dental insurance that we don't even use. We pay out of pocket for him, and he is not cheap. And we do it because the experience is that good. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, there's a very neighborly feel To his place, you know, I mean, we all live in our own neighborhoods, right?

Mm-hmm. and you know, I know he sponsors the little league group and the little soccer players. And you know, here I am, I'm a soccer mom, and so I'm like, oh, I like that. He is like supporting the kids, you know, . Yeah. Yeah. , he does things around Halloween, like, bring in all your candy that you collected and I'll trade it for prizes.

You know, so he gets kids not eating so much candy and, but they get cool prizes instead, you know. Hmm. Okay. You know,

Michael: just things like that. Yeah. Someone who's involved in the community neighborly, right? Like you said. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. So, , Stephanie, what can a dentist do today to improve their marketing and business?

Stephanie: So I am a huge believer in something that is called the customer value journey. Mm-hmm. , and I think there are about 0.001% of dentists who even know what that is. So let me explain it. Yeah. It is a seven step journey. identifies every step a customer takes from the moment they learn you exist to the moment they become a raving fan.

Like whoever thought I'd be sitting here talking about my dentist because he's that cool. I, if you had sold me, I would be doing that today. If you had said that to me five years ago, I would've been like, you're, what are you on, you know, . Well, I would never do that. Okay, well, okay. I do it because he has his journey figured out.

Okay, so there you want me to talk to you about the seven steps? Yeah, let's dive into that. Okay. So, the first step is awareness and engagement, right? So you need to figure out, you need to document this stuff. How are you going to. The marketplace, meaning your target market in wherever location you are, how are you going to make them aware that you exist?

And then what are you going to do to foster engagement with them? Okay. The second step is what are you gonna do to get them on your list and get permission from them to email them or text them or whatnot? And this is. only after they come in and they're a patient of yours? Mm-hmm. . Okay. What can you do before that?

Step three is the convert phase. It's. , what is the offer that you are going to make to them to create a, a, a first level transaction? That's where a lot of people will do that. You know, $29 cleaning offer. Mm-hmm. , that's a good conversion offer because it's a, a very low priced entry point to expose somebody to your brand and your experience, and then you move them up from there, right?

Mm-hmm. into being a profitable patient. . The fourth step is the excite phase, right? What are you going to do to create a memorable experience like my dentist has, right? Mm-hmm. and, and transform the experience from a nice to have to a must have, right? Transforming somebody like me who will pay out of pocket more than I ever thought I would pay to go to the dentist.

because I like to be there, . Yeah. And he fixes my teeth. Right. All right. Step five is the ascend stage. And this is where you're really maximizing every opportunity you have to make a profit, right? So what does it look like? You know, maybe somebody starts by, they come in and, and they get that one time cleaning, right?

But, , what does the rest of the journey look like? Okay, well, they're gonna actually need a cleaning twice a year. So maybe the next thing that you sell to them is some sort of membership. Mm-hmm. , right? Where they can come in and if they're a member, they get their appointments prescheduled, then they get some sort of little discount on it.

Okay. What's the next level? Well, maybe it's the membership with A teeth whitening, right? Or the membership with the teeth whitening and something else, right? And then it goes up and up from there, right? You wanna think about what you can sell them in increasingly profitable segments. Okay? So at the very top of this, you wanna think about like, what is my very, very best patient?

the patients I make the most money off of. What are they buying, right? And so you create offers at all these different levels so that it, it's upsells and cross cells are pre-planned as opposed to haphazardly thrown out when you remember, okay? Mm-hmm. . The next stage is called the advocate stage.

And it's what are you gonna do to get social proof? We all know we live in a social proof world. We all know that people are gonna check out reviews and whatnot. Mm-hmm. , you can let the marketplace control that or you can control that. It's very dangerous to let the marketplace control that because if they have anything that makes them unhappy or maybe their experience with you that day was perfectly fine.

but they got in a fight with their husband after their appointment. So now they're just in a bad mood. Mm-hmm. . And they're gonna go on some review site and leave a skating review just cuz they're in a bad mood. Right? So you have to figure out what are you gonna do to make sure that you're controlling positive social proof, getting out there.

And then finally the last stage is what are you gonna do to incentivize your patients to become your raving? And to send you a bunch of referrals. Okay, so there's seven steps, awareness and engagement. Subscribe, convert, excite, ascend, advocate, and promote. And each of these steps needs to be very carefully flushed out into a document because you cannot optimize something that you have not document.

Michael: I like that. Okay. If we can rewind on some of these Yeah. Yep. And dive a little bit deeper. so for example, and I'm sure you might hear this sometimes, like number four, right? The excite phase, like you wanna create a memorable experience. Mm-hmm. how. , I guess. Was the doctor you have now different from other ones?

What was the experience where you in the chair or in the moment you were this is, this is, he's doing number four.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, it didn't just start in the chair, that's the thing. Mm-hmm. started long before I got in the chair. It started from the moment I made the appointment and how pleasant they were, and you know, Conversational and friendly and neighborly, right to the moment.

I walked into the to the dental office and I was greeted by name. I was escorted back to the chair. You know, it's, it's like the four seasons of dentistry, right? Mm-hmm. I think this is like, it's funny. To the moment, you know, I'm in the chair and they're, you know, offering me the special classes and they're offering me headphones and they're offering me to watch a show and, you know, whatever.

Frequently checking on me, are you comfortable? Does anything hurt? Blah, blah, blah. To the moment I was done. Stephanie, how can we make this easy for you? Would you just like us to bill your account, or would you like to go ahead and take care of your payment today? , to after the appointment, the aftercare emails.

Right. The memorable experience does not start in the chair. Mm-hmm. starts long before you get in the chair, and it continues to long after you're out of the chair. Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. So from contact 0.1, right? Like Yeah. Or even before that, even the, I guess number one, awareness and engagement. , what could a dentist do for number one to create great awareness and engagement?

Is that just like, okay, let's just send out Facebook ads mailers or,

Stephanie: yeah. I mean, those are both things that can happen, right? Mm-hmm. , and there's a lot of different ways. You've got organic marketing and then you've got paid marketing, right? So, organic meaning, you know, , you can grow a lot of awareness if you have, if you're young, in your practice especially, you can grow tremendous awareness by being on TikTok.

Mm-hmm. , right? Being super active on TikTok, that doesn't cost you anything. It costs you time, it costs you creativity, right? Mm-hmm. . But it doesn't literally cost you any money to create, tos, and it can totally grow awareness for. . You could do Facebook ads, you could, you know, you could do ads on any of the social platforms.

You could do direct mail, you could do oh goodness. So there's so many different things. You could partner up with an orthodontist. . Right. And, you know, assuming that your offices are somewhat close together, you know mm-hmm. , maybe the orthodontist has been in, in practice a little bit longer than you, and you create some sort of referral campaign with them, right?

where they will send out an email blast to everybody on their list saying, Hey, we wanna introduce you to our new neighbor. , you know, Dr. So-and-so, we're really excited to be in the same plaza with them. Be, you know, because they have these skills, right? Mm-hmm. and they endorse for you. Okay. So yeah, there's, there's so many different ways to do that, but there's a few ideas.

Okay.

Michael: Yeah. So those are the, like the, the platforms and the marketing mediums we can use. And then when it comes to option two or number two in this I guess like value, like this workshop basically, right? This whole. Yeah, get them on your list and get permission to email and text them. How do we do that?

How do we, I mean, I guess in the sense of like, do we offer an incentive in these ads and then that's how they click in? Is that

Stephanie: what you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah. So, you wanna think about, People are not usually super excited about giving away their personal information. Mm-hmm. . So you have to give them an incentive to do it, right?

No, nobody woke up this morning and said, I wanna get on all the email and text lists so I can be bombarded with offers all day. Mm-hmm. . Right? So you need to think about, well, what valuable contents can you give in exchange for getting that information and permission to follow up with? So this is where it could be something, it, it could be a discount on something.

It could be you could create some little package like you know, I don't, I don't know what your margins are in dentistry on the fancy toothpaste that y'all sell, right? But like, you know, maybe if you have an awesome margin on that. , maybe you can give away little little fancy toothpaste for sensitive teeth.

Right. I think I paid $40 for toothpaste.

Michael: Really? Okay. Cuz I was gonna ask you, like, let me ask you, Stephanie, what would, what would make you, like you or your family be like, here's my email, here's my, here's my number. You know, like what incentive would. ,

Stephanie: Well for me it would have something to do with teeth whitening.

Okay. Yeah. Because that's something that's just on my mind. I'm like, I need to get my teeth whitened, you know? Yeah. So if, if there was something, you know, and I don't even know how the process works, but maybe if there was an opportunity to come in and. Let's say it's a multi-step process, right? And they said, you know what?

Come in. We're gonna do step one of the teeth whitening process for you at no cost. We just wanna offer this to you. Mm-hmm. , I'd be like, yeah. Oh, okay. Here you go. Here's my info. Yeah. Right. I would do that. Now, here's the thing is that sometimes people will be like, well, that's something I sell. I'm not gonna give that away for free.

Are you nuts? and I'm like, well, this is what we call in the old days, a loss leader. Okay? This is where you are giving away something that you could sell. But if it's valuable enough to somebody like me, I will give you something that's really valuable to you, meaning my contact information, okay? Mm-hmm.

So you're asking for something that's really valuable to me. My privacy. . Mm-hmm. , give me something that's valuable to me in return. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And if you're not willing to do that, if, if you're just like, Nope, I just wanna get your info, well, you know, good luck getting any legitimate info.

People might write something down, but it's not gonna be valid. They're not ever gonna look at it. Right.

Michael: Yeah, no, I I I love that. I love how you. , I'll put that out there because it's true. Like we, it's um, it's also the first transaction, right. That you're ever like kind of seeing with them. But I agree.

And when it comes to the phase five here, or step number five, ascend. Mm-hmm. maximize every opportunity you have to make a profit pre-plan plan. So can you break this down to us? Let's just say, cuz this happens in dentistry, right? I'm not gonna lie. Like, sometimes we're like, okay, we gotta, let's see if we can like you.

have them, let's push teeth whitening on them. Right? Or let's, let's push, uh, maybe they need instead of, um, I don't know, a crown where we can get implants or something. Right. Like just upsell. Mm-hmm. , how does this work when it comes to pre-planning? So do we pre-plan this? Like, let's just say this month of March we want to do upsell our teeth.

Widenings, right? um, and they can be trays, like bleach trays. Mm-hmm. , how would. recommend we draw this out.

Stephanie: So you, you could change it every month but you certainly don't have to. Mm-hmm. , I would think about, I, I would think about what your core flagship offer is to begin with, and then what logically makes sense as the next step.

So it's not as much, I think, when. , quote unquote pushing things. Mm-hmm. , you're not really serving your patients, right? Mm-hmm. Instead, think of it like the expert that you are. I am a doctor of dentistry and I know to get optimal dental health or , however you guys say it, , right? This is what really needs to happen, you know, to have a smile.

you see a reflection of in the mirror and you feel good about right, and to, you know, have teeth that last through your lifetime and and whatnot. This is really what needs to happen. So think about it from an expert perspective as opposed to from a sales perspective. and the sales will naturally follow.

Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. .

Michael: Yeah, I get you. So then you mentioned core flagship offers. Should we all have like a specific

Stephanie: offer always, or, yeah. I mean, but everybody does just inherently. Mm-hmm. , it's, it's probably a teeth cleaning, so

Michael: like 50 or like free or like a 50% off teeth cleaning kind of thing.

Or like, new, new patient examined x-rays and teeth cleaning a bundle, like something like that is what you. ,

Stephanie: you could do that. Yeah. The, as you wanna think of the ascension phase as like a ladder with different rungs on it. Okay, so the bottom of the ladder is that core flagship offer, right? It's the, the teeth cleaning everybody needs.

Well, what's the next step up from that? That would be a really good idea for people to also, , right? Maybe it's okay, we'll come in and get a teeth cleaning. But then really for optimal dental health, you should be using this electric toothbrush at home and this special whitening toothpaste. Mm-hmm.

So, so we're gonna have an upsell for that. Okay. Not because you're just trying to get all the money out of me, but because you're serving. . Okay. You're serving me and, and you're telling me things I don't know. I will tell you again, going back to my master market or dentist. Okay. I used a good old fashioned $2 toothbrush for 45 years of my life.

Mm-hmm. . Okay. Never thought twice about it. Then one day I went in and he goes, you know, you brush your teeth too. And I was like, how's that even possible? He goes, I don't know. I think you're taking your aggression out on your teeth . And I'm like, really? You know? And he goes, yeah, well, and it's actually causing this problem because that's why you're having this issue and that issue.

And the other thing that I, which was part of my complaint when I got in the chair, right? Like, okay, I need you to look at this cuz it's really sensitive, it's kind of bothering me, blah, blah, blah. And so in. Act of service to me. He said, yeah, you know that problem you brought up, well, it would be helped if you used this electric toothbrush and this toothpaste.

Now, for all I know, he is blowing smoke at me and he is just selling to me, but he's real good at it. , if that's the case. . I don't think that is the case though, because I got sucked into it. I bought the really expensive special toothbrush, then I bought one for my husband, then I bought one for each of my kids, okay?

Mm-hmm. , whatever, however many hundreds of dollars later, you know, with our fancy toothbrushes. I can tell you, we go into the dentist now and the hygienist will be like, oh, your teeth look fantastic, Stephanie. You know, and I'm. . Well, that's because I have my fancy toothbrush.

Michael: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Okay, so it's about serving, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so that's the part where we have to pre-plan, right? Not so much like, I guess horizontal, where it's like, all right, this month we're gonna do teeth whining. This month we're gonna do toothbrushes. This month we're gonna do fluoride. Right? It's not that. It's more like the ladder, like you mentioned.

Yep. Yeah.

Stephanie: Okay. Yeah, and always, always, always be service minded because if you're just out there, I mean, I, you know, when you asked me earlier, what do you hate about dentists? Okay. I will tell you, I had many, many experiences in the past where I would go to a dentist that was on my plan with my insurance and.

it, it really did, it did not feel like they were really looking out for my best interest. It did feel like they were just selling me on stuff, right? Hmm. Oh, well, you know, you need to do this and you need to do this. And like, I can tell you, the guy that I go to now there has been more than one occasion where he said, well, you know, I see something starting here, but you don't need to address it yet.

Just you. We don't need to, you know, fill this cavity or, or whatever, whatever it is. We just need to keep an eye on it. Okay. That makes me feel like I can trust him. He's not just like, oh, I see something, let's get a root canal started,

Michael: you know? Yeah. Makes sense. Okay. Interesting. And then number seven, incentivize patients to become a raving fans.

Mm-hmm. . Break this down for us if you can, because I know sometimes we can't, we can't say like, here's a hundred bucks if you leave as a review. Right. So how can we incentivize patients to become raving fans?

Stephanie: Yeah. You. it. This is different from getting reviews. This is the, the promotion stage is about getting people basically to spread the word about you more directly to a friend or family member as opposed to the general public leaving a Yelp review, okay?

Mm-hmm. . So, you know, I, there there are lots of different things that you can do e everything from, you know what, if you send us three new patients, , we'll give you a free teeth whitening experience. Okay? Or if you send us a new patient, you know, we'll send you out to dinner at such and such a restaurant, right?

It, it doesn't have to be, you know, you wanna think about, okay, how much, what is the lifetime value of a new patient to me in my. . Okay. The lifetime value is far beyond that initial cleaning cost. Mm-hmm. , right? Let's say it's, you know, well twice a year at whatever, 80 bucks to get a cleaning, well, let's say a hundred cause I can't do math.

Okay? So $200 a year. And that's just for cleanings. That's not for all the other things, right? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . So, you know, I'm sure. . I would think a lifetime value would be at least five figures of a customer. Mm-hmm. . So if you're gonna make $10,000 plus off of one patient in their lifetime, would you be able to spare a $50 gift card to a restaurant?

I think so. That's like stupid math. Yeah. . So we, we need to be thinking more long-term than short-term. And if you provide that memorable experience, people will come back. They will come back, they will want to come back. They will get on podcasts and talk about their great dentist .

Michael: Yeah. That's interesting.

I like that. When it comes to you, Stephanie, what incentive would you. Like you and your family, what are you thinking when you're like that? What if he sent me that right now? Mm-hmm. I'd find I'd make uh, I'd go get three people right now.

Stephanie: Well, for me it would be a spa day, . Ah, okay. Okay. But that might be a little weird coming from the dentist.

So why would that be weird? Why? Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Why would that be weird? That would be weird. I don't know. Maybe cuz he's a dude. I don't know. There's something weird about it to me. It just doesn't sit right. So other things that would incentivize me, you know, just things that I might not otherwise treat myself to, right?

Mm-hmm. , and again, kind of going back to what I said before, that teeth whitening thing. Now that wouldn't always incentivize me, but it's on my mind right now. Mm-hmm. , I'm like, I wanna get my teeth white. And if they said, Hey, you send us three new patients, I would call all my neighbor. I'd be like, Hey Susan, you need to go to the dentist.

Yeah, , and you need to go see him and tell him I sent you. And then she'd be like, why is he so great? Okay. Well, I would tell her why he's so great, because he really is, I wouldn't just do it to get whatever, right? Mm-hmm. , I would do it because I believe it, and then she would go and I would get three people, and then I would walk away and have my teeth whiten for free.

And I would be thrilled to do that. So if any of you guys that are listening would like to whiten my teeth for free, making an offer,

Michael: making an offer, she's in San Diego. . Okay. That's interesting. But what, let me ask you this. Would you prefer more something clinical like that, a teeth whining, or would you prefer something more?

a spa day, but it can say like, Hey, it's coming from the team, or it's coming from all of us, thank you. Or something like that. Or, or something not clinical.

Stephanie: Hmm.

Well, it feels like more of a treat if it's not clinical. Okay. Okay. So it feels it's, it's a little more exciting and fun to me. Mm-hmm. . , you know, just, you know, here you work hard, you should go get a massage on us. That's a treat that not everybody affords into their daily budget. Right? Yeah. But most people really enjoy that.

Just getting a timeout. Mm-hmm. and, you know, we live in this crazy world where we all work too much and, you know, run around like crazy people. Having an excuse to take a time out and somebody else foot the bill is pretty

Michael: nice. Yeah, interesting. That's really, really good insight. Awesome, Stephanie.

So any other piece of advice you like to give our listeners or our doctors listening,

Stephanie: I just wanna go back to fleshing out your journey. Flush this out on paper. Do not keep this information in your head. Flush it out on paper with your staff. Right. And. , watch what happens when you logically walk people through this journey, okay?

If you don't, if you don't ever document this, there are a lot of people who will get lost along the way, and every lost patience is a lost opportunity. It's lost revenue, okay? This is how you don't just get customers in the door, but this is how you keep customers for life. , and that's what you want, right?

Yeah.

Michael: Awesome. So thank you so much for being with us, Stephanie. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Stephanie: Sure. Yeah. Our company is sizzle force.com. Sizzle like Bacon force like me, the force be with you. Sizzle force.com. And if any of you would like to talk about digital marketing um, you can schedule an appointment by going to sizzle force.com/schedule.

Love to talk

Michael: to you. Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely reach out to Stephanie, especially if you wanna pick your brain a little bit more about the, the journey that we've been talking about and also the digital marketing that she does for you guys. So go to Shawn's below for that.

And Stephanie, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you. Thank you.

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Guest: Simon ChardPractice Name: Rothley Lodge Dental PracticeCheck out Simon's Media:‍

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

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Other Mentions and Links:

Pearl

BACD - British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry

AACD - American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry

Pärla

Time Magazine

Interview about appearance on Dragon's Den

Cerec

iTero

Buffer

Later

The Daily Stoic - Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

How to Invest - David Rubenstein

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Unreasonable Hospitality - Will Guidara

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Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer

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

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My Key Takeaways:

• It's not about what you want to post on social media, it's about what your viewers want!
• Getting outside your comfort zone is the only way to grow. Keep this in mind when second guessing that next step!
• Success is never earned through constant succeeding, it is always achieved through failure instead. Failure is an important part of the process!
• If you're enjoying the journey along the way, then embrace your hard work and ambition!
• If your only driving factor is financial, the passion will eventually fade. Be sure to work towards your other fulfilling values and goals.
• There is a season of life where saying YES to all opportunities can help you grow your network. Don't forget about the season of saying NO to opportunities to prioritize your values though.

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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]

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: simon, how's it going? Very well, mate. Thank you for having me. No, man, thank you for being on. We truly appreciate it. If you don't mind me asking, where are you

Simon: located? I live in Sur, so just south of London in the, in the suburbs.

Michael: Okay. Did

Simon: you grow up there or no? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've grown up in this area, so it's, it's a nice place to live. It's. Countryside, but it's about a half an hour commute into the center of London, so it's a nice mix of the, the, the busyness of the city alongside some nice outdoor lifestyle. Nice.

Michael: If you don't mind me also asking, like you, where you're at right now, is that your home or is that your

Simon: practice?

Yeah, it's my home. It's my my dining.

Michael: Guys, man, he's in a mansion. This is it. This is the west wings of his . This, I'm excited to have you on Simon. If you can tell us a little bit about your background. Tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you

Simon: are today? Yeah, sure. I mean, I'll start at the beginning, I guess.

So I'm, I'm from a, a family dentist, both my parents and dentists. My parents bought their clinic together six months before I was born. That's the same practice that my wife Megan and I bought from them back in 2017. So there's a sort of generational lineage of dentists there. I always joked that there was a, a, a mirror and probe in the cutlery draw when we were growing up.

So it's yeah, sort of in the blood. So that was my path. I actually went and did a different degree before going into dentistry. So I did a, a degree in pharmacology, so in drugs first, and then did my training at Kings College London, in dentist. Basically as soon as I foundry, I found my passion.

I found what I feel like I was meant to do. I never looked back. From that point. I was very lucky at Kings to have a, a variety of fantastic professors who sort of pushed you to compete. Even from an undergraduate sort of student level. And that meant that by the time I qualified as a dentist, I already had a pretty solid cv pretty solid sort of background of awards and prizes and experience, which meant that I could sort of hit the ground running when I qualified,

Michael: man.

And then you already had your own practice and then right now I know you got your hands in a lot of things. . I also follow Kyle. He's been on the podcast before Stanley, right? Talking about Pearl and everything. And so I saw you and I was like, they're out here doing a lot of moves, man. Like, so what do you got going on right now?

Simon: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a busy, busy year. So yeah, obviously I run my own practice. It's a. Seven surgery practice with about 30 staff members now. So that's going very well. That's growing, growing rapidly. Primarily driven just through sort of organic social media and organic word of mouth. Not a lot of paid ads currently.

I'm the president of the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, so that's the, the biggest academy of dentist in the uk. Similar obviously to the A A C D in the. . So I'm the youngest ever president of that academy. And I also own a uh, a co-owner. Plastic free next generation oral care brand called Parlor which is in all the major supermarkets and, and stores across the uk.

yeah, is doing very well. And we've got our whole, whole team running that alongside it. And then recently, this last month, I won um, I was, yeah, voted. The dentist who's had the most impact in dentistry in the UK in 22 by Dentistry Magazine. So that was quite a nice award to win as well. Yeah.

Michael: How does that work? do you, I guess, like submit or they just like randomly pick, you're just like, oh, I'm it, you just see your face on the thing or? Well,

Simon: it, it, it wasn't even a, it's the first time they've done it. They've based it off the sort of Time Magazine person of the year award. Mm-hmm. , and.

Uh, Because it didn't exist. There was nothing to apply for. They as a, as a committee of sort of industry experts, came together and, and analyzed all of the high profile individuals in the market. And very fortunately, and they're very grateful to say that they, they chose me, which is, yeah, it's nice yeah.

I mean, running all these things, Cool. And it, and oftentimes it is really cool cause you get to win awards like that. And we've had some amazing experiences with with Parlor. Like we were on the dragons Den, which is Shark Tank in the uk. So we were on national TV with that. So it has, its amazing sort of really peaking exciting moments, but it's also, a lot of stress and spinning the plates can sometimes all go a bit crazy, especially as I've got two young kids as well.

Throw that in the mix and it all gets a little bit saucy sometimes. .

Michael: Ah, man. So you got a family too, real quick. Simon, how

Simon: old are you? I'm 36. Okay,

Michael: man. Yeah, you got a lot of, you know what I mean, like everything going on. And we'll dive into that in a little bit uh, later on in the episode. But if we could rewind a little bit, you did a degree in pharmacology.

Why did you go that route?

Simon: Initially. Strangely enough, I think I, I listened to my peers at school and there was this one kid who said, oh, you don't wanna do what your parents did. That you, that's really lame. For some reason, that stuck in my head. So I just always discounted dentistry as something I wanted to do.

And then actually when I got to my first university to study in pharmacology, coincidentally, my, my roommate was training to be a dentist. And I saw the community that he had and the practicality of being able to use your hands alongside, science, which I've, I've always been sort of fairly good at.

I sort of saw in that first term at university that really dentistry is what I should be doing. Thankfully in the UK you can complete your degree and then miss out the first year of dental school. Cause a lot of it's just sort of basic science. . And so basically I did a fast track into dentistry from there, which, which worked out really well.

And, basically I did a lot of my partying in the first degree and then really got my head down and got to work on my dental degree, which for me worked, worked really well.

Michael: Yeah. Okay, nice. So it's interesting you, did your parents by any chance say like, nah, Simon, like, I don't care what your friend said, like, trust me, we, this is a good setup right here or something?

Or, or were they Yeah. Do what you.

Simon: No, they were children. I mean, they, they, they never wanted to push me or my, my siblings into anything we didn't wanna do. So from that point of view um, they, they sort of let me make my own decision. I also think, to be honest, that I, if I had gone against, at that first degree level, my grades probably wouldn't have been good enough.

I didn't, I wasn't parti. ambitious or academically talented at school? Cause I didn't really have any, any focus or any drive. And actually it was, it was when I'd started at dental school, that was the first time that really sort of felt that I found my groove and and I actually started excelling and yeah, won of these awards and came top clinically in the year.

And so, I, I, I'm not a sort of serial, a serially successful. I wasn't at that stage a seriously successful individual. Whereas now, sort of I'm hyper ambitious and, and driven, which is yeah. Very different than I was as a teenager.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I, I feel like that's um, once you found, right, this is what I wanna do, you went all in right.

And became ambitious. So kind of like right. , you're like, I'm, I'm, I'm finding things that I want to do and I'm going all in. Right. And it's, it's making you, what's the downside of that? If, if you can let us know, like, Hey man, it's great to go all in, but then this could happen

Simon: if there is a downside. Yeah, no, there's definitely a downside.

I mean, I, funnily enough, my wife and I were talking about this on the phone as, as I was driving home from work that I just, I, I can't switch off. So there's always The next idea, the next business opportunity the next product that I'm creating with Parler, the next thing I wanna do to grow the practice.

It's a constant state of progression and flux. And, my view on that is as long as you're enjoying the journey, then keep on driving and be as ambitious and shoot for the stars as as big as you wanna go. If you are grinding out and hating the journey, then sometimes enough is enough and you, you.

You need to be grateful whilst being ambitious. And I think it's finding that balance between gratitude and ambition that's quite difficult for, for of type A driven entrepreneurial individuals. But I think for the, for the younger clinicians listening, I have this type, I, I don't think I made this up.

I think I heard it somewhere, but let's just say for this, for this call, I made it up. Was that I said yes to everything in my twentie. And said no to everything in my thirties. And for me, that worked quite well because when I first qualified, I said yes to every opportunity that was presented to me, whether it be a speaking gig, doing lecturing going to an event where I didn't know anyone.

It was really awkward and I really didn't wanna be there because I wasn't a naturally sociable individual at that stage. Whatever it was I just said, yes, yes, yes, yes. And what that meant was I just created this incredible network. I met so many people many of whom became future mentors or future employers because I worked in, in multiple different practices before coming in full-time to my own clinic.

And so by saying yes to everything, I've got this incredibly broad experience. However, if you let that go of forever, then it becomes unmanageable and, and you. Especially when you have kids. So in my thirties, I've now tailored it right in and I'm very, very selective with what I say yes to. But I can only do that because I've got the I've built it from that solid foundation of a network of guys from industry as well as sort of high profile dentists and, and people sort of who were the movers and shakers of, of our industry, I guess.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So you mentioned about the journey. , you gotta enjoy the journey. Um, Make sure you, you love it. How do you know Simon, when you're just in a road bump in the journey and you're like, oh my God, this is a headache. I hate this. Or how do you know? It's like, I'm not enjoying it anymore at this point.

Simon: Hmm. That's a difficult question. I mean, I, I, I think you've gotta know why you're doing things and. What your ambition really is. If, if you're just doing it for money, for example, then that will fade and you will, it will, you will lose your passion for it. If, if the only passion there is the financial recommendation, then I think it's very easy to get jaded then to lose, to lose that.

It's a personal thing at the end of the day. I mean, some people love dentistry, some people hate dentistry. Every job has its pros and cons. And I think we're very fortunate to actually do something that is genuinely meaningful for our patients and that we get a lot of satisfaction from.

But clearly it has a lot of a lot of negatives as well, because there's still such. Massive issue with mental health within the profession. So I think it's really important that, that people don't just keep on driving because they think they should love it. Maybe taking some time away. So actually create a bit of open head space and then coming back to it and seeing if you actually want to go back or if you wanna move away from it.

Michael: Hmm. I like that. Creating open that space, right? Like have you had to do that where you're like, oh man, I need to take some time, sit here and really think. , am I gonna drop this or am I gonna keep this?

Simon: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously I have, the beauty of dentistry is that you can. Toggle up and toggle down the number of days that you're working quite easily.

So I've done that. Clinically, I only work three days a week clinically. Now, the other two days I'm working on sort of more entrepreneurial endeavors. And so I've found a, a lovely balance. Certainly if I was still working six days a week clinically now, I don't think I would've been enjoying my job half as much as I am doing now.

. And even saying that sometimes it goes too far. I'm, I've got inbound emails coming in all the time, and if I'm in a three hour surgery placing implants, I'll come out and have 30 emails in my inbox. That's quite stressful, . and quite difficult to manage. So, I think it's important to create space the way I manage that.

As I, as I try to travel as much as I can. Do, I try and block out times in my every month where. I'm just gonna be at home. I'm not gonna be doing any social stuff. And I'm just gonna be chilling with my family. And then around every six to eight weeks, I'll make sure that I'm going away somewhere to travel.

Try to do a sort of as much of a digital detox as I can do. I'm obviously fairly active on social media. It's how I've built up a lot of my profile, and that's how I still get a lot of my patience. But social media can be obviously, A dopamine overload and, and very much or consuming if you don't know how to control it.

So switching that off, controlling that so it doesn't control you. I think all those things were super important.

Michael: Hmm. Where was the point in your life where you realized you had to do that? Where you're like, man, this is it. The I need a something, right. Something different.

sometimes it can happen where it. You're, like you said, you're talking with your, your spouse, right? And then the af they're like, man, you're always doing this. You're, you're on social media, you're doing this. And then you realize like, I need that dopamine in the morning. I'm waking up at night.

I'm going to sleep. I need to check it in the restroom. You know, all this stuff. So it's kind of like, when did you realize I'm going down the wrong, wrong path.

Simon: I think, I mean, I, I think I, I dunno if I've really cracked that yet, to be honest. I think I still have that dopamine addiction and I think I just constantly want to be moving forward. And when you have the capability to look at your Shopify account, On your direct to consumer business to see how many sales you've had, look at your emails to see if you've landed that new retailer listing.

Look on your Invisalign like doctor site to plan your cases. Like there's, there's so much now that you can do all the time remotely. I think certainly for the last five years where I've been running the startup, been a, on the board of the b, c, d and running my own practice. . During that whole time, I've really tried to, to control that inbound.

And for example, I've not gone on TikTok intentionally because I just don't want any more, any more things to check and I know, cause I'm, I'm fully, I'm sort of all over the latest things in social media and I can see the monumental power of TikTok. And I'm not saying that other people shouldn't go on it, but I've grown my business on Instagram.

It's been very successful for me. But, I've kind of take, pulled back a bit from where I was in that, like, like five years ago. I been posting every single day grid, post, post, post stories, every, like, just going like really hard on it. Whereas now I think, I feel like I've, I've, I've got to a certain level of achievements so I don't need to continuously prove myself.

And so, I've tried to pull back from it a bit more than I have done previously and really focus on just delivering sort of a few nuggets here and there in essence. Hmm. I like

Michael: that. Where does that come from, where you feel like you need to continuously or what you felt like you've had to prove yourself?

Simon: I don't know, to be honest. I think I've, I think I've been like that since, since dental. . I think uh, I mean I have, like anyone had, a reasonable amount, amount of form in my childhood. My sister had cancer when she was seven, which was a, a major, sort of seminal moment in my childhood. Mm-hmm. , um, and obviously in hers.

Thankfully she survived and, and it's, it's healthy and well and has, has two kids of her own now. But she was in hospital for six months. It was, it was a serious, incident. , for the whole family. And I think for me, age nine at that time, obviously I had in essence lost my parents as they were sort of looking after my sister.

I think that there's probably some, there's probably some, internal sort of desire to be seen if I'm gonna. Heavily myself to the max here. but um, I think the end entrepreneurialism and business is a passion of mine. And so I be as successful as I can do, as I can. And I derive my satisfaction from, from being a man and, and working in our industry.

Really. Yeah,

Michael: man, that's, sorry about your sister man. Like that's really um, light bulb a a light bulb moment. You know what I mean? For, I think myself, for a lot of us, like in essence when the parents' attention goes, you know what I mean? To like a one full kid. I never thought about that Simon until you mentioned it.

Like mm-hmm. You kind of do lose a bit of your, you know what I mean? Like your, the attention you, not a little bit, a lot of, bit of your, the attention from your parents and, and that does stem where you're like, I need to, I need to work harder now for their attention. . And so you feel like that's where it kind of, from that point on and still, and then obviously magnified way more in dental.

Simon: I'm sure, I'm sure it's played a part, but I mean, I think the thing is with success, when you, when you taste a bit of success, you won that success again, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, For example, I won best young dentist in the country in 2015, and that was an amazing award to win. But then I was like, right, that it's like gold medal syndrome, isn't it?

It's just you, you, you get that big peak of dopamine and then you have the reverse crashed the same way, and then you want to go again to get up to that same level. And that's why I say it's so important that you're enjoying the journey, because if you are only striving for that one moment of success, it's so fleeting that actually it's, it's probably not worth it.

Whereas if you're enjoying the journey along the way, as I do with entrepreneurship, I mean building a brand, building a profile, building businesses, that's just play for me. That's fun. And so, I don't look at that as being like, oh God, I've gotta listen to this podcast, or I've gotta come on this podcast with Michael tonight.

It's, I, I, I just look at that as fun because I like to, I like to meet new people. I like to talk about experiences and, and all the the various components that make up running a business in, in 2023. Yeah.

Michael: No, man. Yeah, I appreciate that. When it comes to the moments of success that you were talking, What would you feel so far is not worth it when it comes to striving for, and maybe you see it on social media where people are like, yeah, you gotta do your own startup.

You're gonna love it, and maybe you wanna let them know like, no, not, not everybody's meant for this or not everybody's meant for that kind

Simon: of thing. I mean, I definitely agree that not everyone's meant to be a startup entrepreneur. It's incredibly. , especially building a, I think you call them CPG brands in the us right?

We call 'em Met fm cg, but consumer package goods like Parlor. Mm-hmm. like toothpaste. It's such a competitive market and you're constantly fighting uphill. You're fighting against the biggest brands in the world. You can leave her and part of Pro and Gamble and Colgate. These guys have got some serious money behind them.

And so you constantly feel like you're running up a uphill treadmill. And the girl posts are always changing, especially doing it through a pandemic and, and now going into a recession. So it is, it is a rollercoaster emotion. I think if you don't have a solid support structure around you, then it's not surprising to see so many startup founders have mental health issues.

I couldn't not do it. Like I just have this fire inside me where I, I, I can't not execute on my ideas, and I have a million ideas every single day. And so I had to actually execute on one of them. And I'm really proud with Parla that actually we, we've, we've done it. I mean, we've landed on, we're in over a thousand stores in the uk.

We've got tens of thousands of subscribers online. So even if we fail from now, . I feel like we've achieved what we set out to do. And I've sort of actually made a difference with this idea where, I mean, the reason we created the brand is that 20 billion toothpaste tubes made a single use plastic end up in landfill or the ocean every year.

That every tube of toothpaste you never use still exists somewhere on the planet. That's why we created a brand. So it's a plastic. Solution. And a zero waste solution as well. So I feel like I've made that positive impact as well as creating what is a really cool brand and also disrupting an industry that is in dire need of disruption.

Gotcha. Wow, I

Michael: didn't know that. So Parlo, what, why that name?

Simon: So parlor means Pearl in Swedish. And we felt that the Pearl was the perfect representation of what we were striving to do as a brand. Obviously we're designed by a dentist pearl, white smile and then also the pearl of the ocean.

We created the brand really to protect the ocean from single use plastic. That's my happy place. That's where I derive the most joy is when I'm on the ocean, in the ocean by the ocean. And to see the, the level of devastation of single use. Across the world. I mean, anywhere I travel, I see microplastics all over the beach.

I just don't wanna see that get worse for, for my kids. And so Parla was, was the, my thing that I could do to actually, to actually make a difference in. I mean, it's dentistry small, but toothpaste. Everyone in the world uses toothpaste in these single use plastic tubes. So it is a big way that we can make a difference as dentists.

And so, yeah, hopefully that'll be part of my legacy.

Michael: Yeah, man, that's nice. That's beautiful. And so I kind of wanna rewind a little bit. You talked about your, your practice, right? The, the one you currently have, 30 staff members. Yeah, you have 30 staff , and so there's nine operatories, right? 7, 7, 7. I'm sorry, seven operatories, 30 staff members.

Do you, let me ask you the positions of all them, you don't have to explain all their single positions or anything like that, but how does that look? 30 staff members,

Simon: Structurally? Oh no, you're asking, I mean, I guess we've got about.

10 to 12 clinicians but obviously part-time. And then around four or five hygienists. About five receptionists, again, part-time. Two practice managers and to treatment coordinators. . obviously those figures probably don down up to 30, but you get a rough idea on, on what the split's like.

Michael: Gotcha. And so you solely run it, or you, and, and your wife is like the COO or how,

Simon: how does that look? My wife's a dentist as well, and but yeah, she is, she's best basically the uh, the COO because, obviously with everything else that I'm running , I'm more of the ideas guy where youth more operationally working alongside our practice management team to make sure everything runs, runs smoothly.

Okay,

Michael: that's good. And so you mentioned you grew it, or actually, lemme ask you, how many new patients are you getting a month if you

Simon: Roughly No. Uh, About 50

Michael: 50. Okay. And so organically you grew this through social media, right? They people are finding you through social.

Simon: Yeah, so I mean, it's a nice it's a nice setup in the practice where obviously my parents have been there for 35 years.

They grew it from a one surgery to a five surgery practice, and then we grew it from a five surgery to a seven surgery practice with a an additional scanning room and, and training center as well. And so it has this nice base of a local reputation, uh, with a large patient. . But then on top of that, obviously I've brought in the specialists, the technology, the cerec, the iro the, the focus on cosmetic and implant dentistry.

So, I, I've brought in all these additional additional offerings, which means that we can service all of those existing patients with additional dentistry. But then on top of that, yes, I mean, . I mean, my following on Instagram is nothing, nothing major. It's only about 27,000. But I've been very successful in certain instances with working with influencers with them still paying for treatment but only re receiving a, a discount in exchange for some activity.

And that's led to a lot of organic growth of patient demand. I think also because I was on Instagram, Ly very early on, just because photography's a passion of mine anyway, I sort of leveraged on, on most of the alpha of Instagram, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. , um, before now, em, it's incredibly saturated.

Now. Everyone's doing Invisalign whitening and bonding on Instagram, certainly in the, in the uk. But it still drives patience and, and still I have patients coming from around the UK around the. Flying in to, to have the dentistry because they like, my specific style of dentistry, which I, which I, I was, I was talking about this um, on another podcast recently, I think about the fact that the thing that I love about social media with dentistry is that actually by the style of dentistry that you do, you attract a certain clientele of patience.

So my style is very much A natural aesthetic. So my patients in general want to have a beautiful white smile, but they don't want anyone to know they've had their teeth done. Whereas there's certain areas of the country and certain dentists who, who carry out more sort of flay dentistry where there's less texture and more flat in size ledges and less translucency, and they, those patients almost want everyone to know they've had their teeth done, if that makes sense.

Mm-hmm. as sort of like, A show. And so, I don't really get any of those, that second group of patients, I, I only get the patients and they, they always say to me, I've come and see you because I like, I like the style of dance. You do. I like how natural it looks, et cetera, et cetera. And so that's just a really nice self-selecting vehicle for my patients wear.

They already know me from a personality point of view. They've, they've seen my profile online and they've, they've seen me talking to the camera, et cetera. But then secondly, actually the clinically we're on the same page as well. that point of view, it's worked quite well for me.

Michael: So then what can you give us as far as like, advice when it comes to, Because you've seen that, right?

Where people are like, man, Simon, I'm trying to grow my Instagram page, and I have like 105 and it's just like, you know, other dentists following me, but I want like my community to follow me, you know? New patients to get new patients from it. What do you recommend we do from like, if you can give us instructions to start from this point and continue to try and grow.

Simon: Well, whether or not Instagram or TikTok is the right place to do that, I would probably say TikTok now, given how much more reach you can achieve, after obviously just saying that I'm not on TikTok, so I mean, that's fairly hypocritical, but that is, that is, that is the truth that TikTok is the place that you should be playing in right now.

I think the key thing with social media in general is you need to be not thinking about what you want. You wanna be thinking about what the viewer wants. And so when you are producing content, Think about who you are producing that content for, and then create contact content that's gonna give them value for the things that they want.

So, . Instead of just putting up a before and after, for example, fine put up a before and after, but then add onto that, right? This is how I did this. These are the steps. This is what's involved. Try and give more behind the scenes, more real stuff. Not, not necessarily reals, even though reals is what you should be doing, but mean more real content as in more behind the.

I think the best way to be successful on social media is to be true to who you are as an individual and just be as honest and real as you can be. Because I think people fall into the trap with Instagram density, where they try to just replicate what they've seen has been successful with other individuals, and then all that happens that everyone just starts looking the same and it just gets very, very dull and boring.

I think the more you can be yourself and unique to you and your own values and your own personality, the the more you'll cut. . So I think by following those two things of thinking about what value you're providing to the consumer and to the viewer, and also just being true to who you are as an individual, that's the way that really should be thinking about the content.

And then you just need to be doing it at scale. I think people are too sort of blase with, with how they how they produce their content. When I was doing it properly, I was having someone in every single. For a whole day to generate that content. And it was, it was a serious operation and we were looking at what was working, what trends were working, what, what was successful, and then putting our own spin on it.

And, and as I say, trying to add value to the consumer with with the way we delivered it. And, and that worked very well for me. And I think if you were to implement that on, and I've seen this with lots of young guys in, in the uk, they've done, they've been incredibly successful with. If you can mass produce and batch produce that content, then it can be really efficient and you don't have to think about doing it every single day.

You can, preload your posts using Buffer or later or something like that, and just have them running and then you, you can just sort of set it and forget it. . I say that, but then you really need to be engaging and communicating with your community if you want to grow it. So you, after it's posted, you probably do need to be on there.

Liking, commenting and communicating.

Michael: Gotcha. Do you still do that right now? Do, are you like having somebody once a month come in or No. Gotcha.

Simon: Okay. You right now, I'm, I'm very lazy now. ,

Michael: you ain't like you're doing a lot, man. You know, that's what I'm thinking. Like, I feel like you're doing so much that you can kind of like take pictures, you know what I mean?

And it's just on your

Simon: own. Share it. Yeah. I mean, I think I, like, as I say, I, it's probably not the right way to be because. I think this is like the classic pathway of like Blockbuster and Kodak where they become very successful and then they die because they haven't adapted with the times. I'm certainly doing that at the moment, but I think at the same time, you've gotta just, you've gotta look at the realities of your own life.

And for me at the moment, the most important thing for me is I've got two young kids and I wanna be spending as many hours of the day in the week as I can do with. . And so something has to give and I have to be respectful of my time and, and not push myself because I know, just because I know I can do something doesn't mean that I should do it.

For example, I know that I would smash on TikTok if I really went through it properly and sort of producing content at scale, but I also know that's gonna take me a day, a day, a month, and I literally don't have a day a month. my diary is I have a pa, a personal assistant, and. It's literally blocked out by the minute.

I mean, there's no, there's no room anywhere . And so that doesn't mean that I, I neglect my, my health or my family or anything like that. It just means I've blocked out my gym session every day. I've blocked out a therapy session. I've blocked out meditation. I blocked out family time where I'm not on my phone.

But if I'm gonna add anything else into. Then something has to come out and at the moment there's nothing really need to come out to add that into.

Michael: Yeah, man. Simon, you've, you're very aware, right? Like of your time, you're very aware of like your very specific, why, how did that come to be?

Simon: Well, I think it comes back to learning where to say.

and being, being respectful of your time and actually knowing what your val, what your life values are. I mean, my, as I say, my, my main focus is that my family is everything. I will never get this time back when my kids are, at this age. And once it's gone, it's gone. And I, I've heard so many successful individuals say that their only regret is that they didn't have enough, they didn't spend enough time with their kids when they were.

So that's my main focus with regards to my personal life. With regards to my professional life. I'm very, very clear now on what my values are with regards to that as well, which is that I only want to be doing stuff that I enjoy and that I feel is meaningful and I only wanna do it with people that I love.

And so that's how I make my decisions on. on how I move forward is that I, I, I don't, I have to be very, very careful with what I say yes to. And if it doesn't help me with one of those things, if I'm not doing it with people that I enjoy spending time with, if I don't enjoy it, or if I it's not allowing me to progress with something that's meaningful in my life, then I'll just say no to that opportunity.

So, for example, if a brand that I'm not particularly keen on, gets in touch with me and asks me to do, An Instagram post and they're gonna pay me a thousand pounds, I'm, I'm not gonna do it because it's gonna take time outta my day. I, I don't, it doesn't, it doesn't fulfill my, my ambitions. Do you know what I mean?

Even though it's easy money in, in many ways.

Michael: that's the thing. Do you think this kind of can apply at any stage in our lives or, you know how, like at the beginning you said, when we're grinding and we're, we're, we're trying to say yes to a lot of things. Do you think it can't apply there?

Because if you say no to, you know what I mean? Like what I don't want to do, then you're, you're not growing kind of thing or,

Simon: or what are your thoughts? I think it's gotta be personal to you. I think you've gotta, you've gotta, I think awareness and self objectivity is the really important thing. And you've gotta, you've gotta know what your diary looks like and then tailor your attitudes to, where you're at in your career.

For sure. You wanna push yourself outside of your comfort zone as much as possible. And I still do that now because I know that that's where the growth, that's where the growth area is. I mean, God, I've learned so much in the last four years on, on through running par on the, talking with retailers and margins and marketing and.

To LTV ratio for my performance ads. I mean, there's just, there's so much stuff that I've learned in the last four years that is way outside of my company zone that I've had to just think on my feet. Like pitching to five dragons on, on Livet, on on live recorded TV for two and a half hours. I mean, that's pretty far outside my comfort zone.

I've learned an incredible amount from it, and it's, it's created an incredible opportunity. So I'm definitely not saying that you shouldn't say yes to as much as possible when you're in your early stages, but I think it's just when you have lots of time pressures and lots of opportunities, you have to learn when to start tapering that in because there's only 24 hours in the day and seven days in the week, and so you can only do so much if that makes.

No,

Michael: that makes a ton of sense. Ton of sense. Okay. So one of the last questions I kind of wanted to ask you. One of 'em right, is throughout this time, your wife is a dentist, right? She's also operations, like the whole, she, I mean, she does all right a lot, right? When it comes to running the practice, family, everything.

Yeah. And you, same thing doing a lot. Visionary when it comes to your personal life. I don't know. Do you guys ever agree like, all right, at this time we're not gonna talk about. work-wise, none of that stuff? Or is it more like, yeah, you know what, let's whatever. If it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

Or is it like, don't ever stop enough kind of thing with each other?

Simon: You might get a different answer here from me and from Megan, but . No, I think, I think one, well, one time that we're very, very careful with is, is the time just before we go to bed. So we always make sure that we're not like dropping like.

Oh, this, this hygienist just handed in a notice, like just before we go to bed or something. Or like, like not cause sleep is so important to us, to us both. And we try and uh, sort of flow down the brain in that pre in that free bedtime. So I like that that section is, is certainly sort of demarcated as, as not being appropriate for dental chats.

But in general, I think that Megs and I are both very honest, open people, and if we're worrying about something, then we will just talk about it. I mean, I very much wear my hat on my sleeve. if there's something wrong with me, then everyone around me unfortunately will know about it. And if I'm happy about something, everyone will know about it.

And so I think we have a very open and honest relationship where we are. We're comfortable talking about whatever. I don't think either of. Get, it is not being necessary to have that conversation to say, these are the times when we talk about this. These are the times when we don't. Because firstly, that's not the reality of owning a a small business.

Things come up normally when you are on holiday, um, and you have to deal with them sometimes. So that is just the reality of running your own business. That's, that's what you sign up for. But also we enjoy it. And it's, it's, it's part of, it's, it's part of the fabric of our relationship. I mean, it's certainly.

The majority of our relationship, but we've been together now for, for 13, 14 years. And it's, it's always been, obviously we, we grad, we, I met her on the first day of university. We graduated together. Dentistry's always been a part of our relationship, and so, uh, and now businesses as well. And it's just, it's nice to learn new things together and to grow together.

So I think I, we look at it very much as a positive.

Michael: Nice. You met her on the first day of Univers. You're like, this is, you're it. You're the one that, that that's how it went. Pretty much. Yeah. , that's, and she was like, yeah, I guess. Yeah, you too. Yeah. . So that's good, man. That, that makes me happy, Simon. And then last question is, throughout this process, let's talk about from the moment I guess you decided to open, not open this practice, but like take over your parents to like today, right?

What's been some. Your biggest struggles, fails, or

Simon: pitfalls?

I mean, the biggest struggle was the pandemic, to be honest with you. Certainly that day when I had to call my team and tell them all we were posing, I mean, that was a, that was a very emotional day. and, uh, yeah, a lot of tears, a lot of anxiety around, when we were gonna open again, we. Terrible information for Mark governing Embodi, very poorly disseminated.

I mean, we found out, we were going back to work on the BBC with, with everyone else, and they said Dentists will be open, or healthcare providers, we open in a week. We're like, is that us? Are we, are we, are we back in action here? , like we had no, no protocols. Like it was just, it was awful. It was a constant battlefield.

But, I'm a very emotional person, so I, I, I feel that the ups and the downs very viscerally, but I am a huge advocate that the hard times are what you need to go through to get to, to get to successful parts of your life. And . Yeah, I think certainly. I mean, whenever something bad happens in any of our businesses, we're always just like, we're just gonna, we'll put it in the book, we'll put it in the book one day when we write a book of our, of our story.

And so I think that's a good way to look at it, is that nobody who's ever run a business, ever run their own business, has ever succeeded their way to success. They've always failed their way, success. And that is just what happens. You've gotta, you've gotta build that resilience and you've gotta just understand.

Your favorite associate's gonna hand in their notice or that patient who, you've tried your best for is gonna complain and, and sue you or whatever. These things are just the reality of life. Life is not fair. Life is not just, but you have to build that resilience and. I sort of push through.

I, I read a lot of stoic philosophy, so I read I dunno if you're familiar with the Daily Stoic book. um, from Ryan Holiday, but I read that every morning uh, as part of my morning routine, first thing. yeah, I love stoic philosophy for looking, for looking at uh, a lens through which to look at the hard times in life because we're all gonna have them, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's

Michael: true. And you gotta build that. Resilience, like you said, when it comes to reading, I guess, is that the one that you're on right now, like as far as, or is that what you do in the morning for like, and then you read other things?

Simon: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I only read the, the idea with that book is that you just read one quote and you sort of let, let that, sink in and, and process it as opposed to sort of rattling through.

So I've been reading that for I think three years every. So I read one quote every morning. It's literally the first thing I do. And even travel with it. It goes everywhere with me. So yeah, so that, that I wouldn't really class as reading. The book I'm reading right now is called How to Invest by, I think his name's Daniel Rubenstein.

Which yeah, it's quite interesting. I'm quite interested in sort of angel investing and that sort of thing as potentially part of. My ongoing career obviously with my sort of deep understanding of building a startup now and looking for ways to sort of diversify my, my portfolio moving forward.

That's quite a, an interesting area for me. So yeah, that's a book that that I'm reading currently. And then the book that I always recommend to everyone, which I just think is so good is uh, the Almanac of Nav. . It's just an amazing book. It's just such a well-rounded view on life. I think everyone should read it.

It's, it's so powerful.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. You're right. That I just read, finished it. Uh, I wanna say December. Really good book. Yeah. Oh,

Simon: really? Yeah. It's, it's Wick. Good. it's the only book that I, apart from Daily Stewart that I've read more than once. Cause I just wanted to get that knowledge again.

Michael: Yeah. When you reread it, like, for example, the, the Daily s. , do you feel like where was this? I didn't see this last year. Do you feel like that? Yeah.

Simon: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you not in concentration mode reading book right out and you'll different. But Steve reminding, like, especially with the daily Stoic, it's so easy to let whatever the current.

Storm is to distract you, but I think it's good to go back to those sort of classic philosophies.

Michael: Yeah, nice man. You need to start a book club and we'll join and, you know, kinda get your suggestions, but Awesome. Simon, I truly appreciate you coming on. If anybody has any questions or concerns or they just wanna reach out to you, how can they

Simon: find you?

Um, So Instagram's probably the best place. My Instagram handles at Dr. Simon Char. And then Yeah, that's probably it. Really just, just send me a D on Instagram and normally on there uh, a little bit too much. Awesome.

Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below, and Simon, thank you for being with us.

It was a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Cheers.

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Minal Sampat and I have a weekly newsletter called Weekly Hacks. It's for pediatric dentists and pediatric practice owners only, and we share one effective growth hack every week to achieve big wins. no fluff, no spam, just your weekly dose of what you need to grow. Subscribe here to get this week's hack in your inbox! https://mailchi.mp/9d2a4644fd31/the-pediatric-dental-marketing-newsletter

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Hey guys! In this week's Monday Morning Marketing for dental practice owners, we provide tips on creating effective videos for your website. Rather than stressing over a perfect script, simply record a casual conversation with a team member or utilize an AI tool like Chat GPT to create a script. It's important to have three key videos on your homepage: a banner video showcasing your practice, a personalized video introducing the dentist, and a testimonial video from a happy patient. Additionally, creating short video series answering commonly searched questions can establish your practice as a trusted authority and attract potential patients to your website.

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To get the scoop on these tips and more, don't miss this episode with Minal!

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You can reach out to Minal Sampat here:

Website: https://minalsampat.com/

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

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

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Other Mentions and Links:

The Pediatric Dental Marketing Course Enrollment

Netflix

Hulu

HBO

Chat GPT

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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

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

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Michael: Hey Min, also talk to us about pediatric dental marketing. How can we utilize this? Or what advice or suggestions can you give us that will help us to attract new patients?

Minal: Well, with pediatric, one of the best things to do is to show off your practice culture. Cuz let's face it, you have the most fun practice culture and you can have fun and you don't have to worry about thinking, is this too childish?

Guess what? It's totally okay for you to be right. So one of the things that you wanna show off, especially in the world we live today, because our parents with young children are usually in the Gen X generation, right? Mm-hmm. And the millennial generation. So we grew up with videos and we grew up with Instagram reels and Facebook and all that stuff.

So we are very in tune to social media, yes. But we are also very in tune. Looking you up and seeing who you are as a practice. Because if I want my child to come to your practice, and I know that I, myself as a parent, am afraid of going to the dentist, yeah, you are a dentist, that's great, but I really want to make sure my child's gonna be okay and have a good time at their dental appointment.

So one of the best ways to do that is through videos. Now, let's say you have videos. I want you to kind of, you know, all of our listeners right now, um, do this in a way that makes sense. So, according to Google, most of the people, so over 60% of the people would rather watch online videos than television, which again makes sense cuz we have our phone on our hand and, you know, when do we watch TV?

Late at night. I'm a millennial. I'm in my thirties, I'm in my mid thirties and I haven't had cable since like 2008, 2009. Like, I don't, like, I just go to Netflix or I just like go to Hulu or HB or whatever. And watch my show, right? So this means that they are watching these videos. So this is the first thing you're going to do if you don't have this already on your homepage of your website, you need to have a minimum of three videos.

The first video is going to be a banner video. So a banner video is going to, something fun. Maybe it's a fun video of you going through the office. Maybe it's a fun video of the team having a good time. Maybe patients high fiv. You want a banner video, something that as soon as they land on their website, they're gonna be like, Ooh, this seems fun, or This is great.

You wanna capture their attention. The second video that you want to have is a video of the doctor, talking about themselves and the practice. Now, I know that some of the doctors, you're always thinking, oh no, I do not wanna do video at all. I don't like it. I don't like to, I don't know what to say on it.

I freeze when I get up there. I get it. I a hundred. Get it. I understand. So this is what you do. You get an I. So you just have a conversation. Get somebody on your team. If you're uncomfortable with video, get somebody on your team and have them ask questions if you want to do this by yourself. I just had this conversation with a five location pediatric dentist yesterday, and he's like, I hate video.

Oh my God, what am I gonna do? So here's a quick tip. Go to Chad g p t, like, I'm not even joking. Go to chat G p t and in the chat g p t put on a prompt and say, give me a script for a pediatric dentist to have on the welcome script for the homepage, and it'll give you the script.

and then you can say, give me prompts on how to act on the video. It'll tell you, get close to the video. Now move out. Hold the little thing with a toothbrush. Do this. It'll actually plan out your entire. So you don't even have to worry about it. Use AI to help you if you need to. I mean, we just did this entire thing yesterday and this dentist who hates video, he is a pediatric dentist.

He has five locations and he got three different scripts from Chad, g p t as we were talking about it. And now he's gonna record the video today cuz he knows what to say. And clearly if you have somebody who can interview in your practice even better, then it's just a natural conversation. You don't have to worry about a script or anything like that.

You just talk about why you, why is it that you do this, and where you went to school and um, you know, what do you love about your day, right? So you could do that. So second video has to be with a dentist. The third video has to be a testimonial video. So somebody else has to say how amazing your practice is, So if you have these three Cs of videos on your homepage, that's where you're going to start. Mm-hmm. Now the other stuff you're going to start doing is, once again, you can go to your Google, uh, you can go to your website company and if they're doing SEO for you, ask them and say, what are the questions that are being searched online from parents?

So you're going to, you know, and you could do this, Google actually gives us information for free. So you can go into the town and see what questions are being asked. So let's say the question's being asked, what happens if a baby tooth comes out? Or, uh, you know, when should I take my kid to a pediatric dentist?

Or, what is, is, you know, is fluoride good or bad for children? Or all of those questions that you usually get. Make many q and a series videos with them, and now have your website company. Take those q and a series videos and add it to your YouTube channel. Create a YouTube channel and then have your website company do YouTube seo.

So this means when somebody asks that question, your video will pop up. And as we all know, we go and ask anything on Google and there are always these YouTubes pop up. Mm-hmm. And we click on the one, and now they're listening to you and watch new. Right Now you take those same videos, you crop them, make them vertical, all that good stuff, and you make them into Instagram reels.

You download those videos and then you make them into TikTok. You see where I'm going with this? Mm-hmm. You can take any one of this stuff and repurpose it in multi different ways. So I hope that this helps you with all the video.

Michael: I like that. So the three videos, we want to have banner, video, video for the doctor, and the frequently asked kind of questions, where do I go for this?

When it comes to like Google, where we find out where the questions are at,

Minal: just ask your SEO

Michael: complain. Okay. Okay. So

Minal: like the website. And if you want, and if you want to, and if you want to go back to Chad g p t, just simply go to chat g p t and say, what are some of the questions that parents are asking about pediatric dental health or about, uh, their kid's teeth?

And see what Chad g p t says. Now, Chad, g p t does not have all the answers clearly. you know, it is something AI is working through, its way through this. So not everything is. Truthful and relevant just yet. So that's why I said if you are working with the s e O company, they can go to the Google search console and they can provide you the queries.

Google calls them queries, um, that they're receiving, um, so that you can base your content with this. How often should we

Michael: be doing these videos, like refreshing them, make it so we make them, and that's it. And then we have the questions, and then we distribute that all out. Now we're. Right. We finished distributing.

Do we repurpose it? Do we do it again? Or what do we, how do we do that? A hundred

Minal: percent. This completely depends on your. Comfort level with videos. Like if you hate doing videos, I'm not going to be like, do videos every week cuz you're gonna hate me then. And you are gonna not love the videos either. And it's gonna show that you don't love doing this videos.

I don't want that to happen. If you love doing videos, then yeah, do them all the time. Do them every week, right? Create new videos realistically for social media because videos are so popular and not like live videos and long videos, videos. Less than 30 seconds are really popular. Instagram reels, seven seconds, right, is where you wanna land with TikTok and Instagram reels.

People usually make a decision if they wanna watch a video within three seconds when they're on social media. So if you have videos on social media, um, they have to be shorter. If you have videos on your website, I wouldn't recommend more than a minute, There's too many dings and pings and notifications coming our way to do that.

So absolutely, uh, you can take care of that. And if you have any questions, you know, reach out to me. I can give you like a list of videos and stuff, but if you go to my Instagram, you will see pediatric dental real ideas, like it's actually in there. so you have all this content and information available.

Michael: Yeah, that's kind of tough making like a seven minute or seven second, you know what I mean? If it's inform. Um,

Minal: not really. If you think about it, it kind of forces you to share the information. I mean, you just, if you're thinking about like a seven second, like TikTok or Instagram video, You just need a hook on the top that says something like what are, what are ceilings?

And then you can just have you pointing at different things and you tell us what seals are or you know, what is baby baby tu decay? You could ask that as a question and you could, you know, kind of point around or do something. So it's actually easy cuz you are not really talking, talking all the time, and it also keeps it easier for you because you can quickly go, what are dental ceilings where they are, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you just keep it simple and easy. It takes a little bit of time and effort. Comfortable with it, and to have fun with it. But once you're on it and once you have the ideas, it becomes a lot easier.

Michael: How often at all do you see like the procrastination for this when it comes to a practice, when they're like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm making the videos, I just gotta set it up and I'm thinking of ideas and it, they're, you kind of feel it, you're like, you're just giving me excuses now, kind of thing. You're not making it happen, so how can we like eliminate that?

Minal: You have to set time for it. Just like everything. You know, if it's everybody's job, it's nobody's job. If it's not on the calendar, it's not going to happen. If it's more like, oh yeah, we have a lunch thing happening tomorrow, so we'll do it. Okay, well, yes. Then put it down in your lunch thing, in the part of your agenda.

We are all together at the lunch meeting. We are going to use 15 minutes to record some videos or do some, you know, fun high fives or do a quick dance or uh, answer a quick question, whatever it is, but it has to be on the calendar. And it can be in a calendar. That's like an afterthought. It can't be like, oh, we had a cancellation, so we'll do it when we have cancellations.

Well, it's an afterthought, so now we are waiting for a cancellation to happen for you to do this instead. It has to be a part of your schedule, of your calendar, and if it's like that, it will make it happen. I always think about it with the gym, right? Like going to the gym or working out. We all know we have to.

We all know we should be doing it, but if it's not on our calendar, and if we don't have that hour booked to work out, something is always going to come along. That's more important. I'm putting this in quotation mark for all the listeners. That's more important than working out. I know. I Trust me. I know.

So,

Michael: yeah. Okay. Gotcha. So put it on the calendar. Who should be in charge of this? If you had. Pick someone. Let's just say Manal. I'm hiring you to beyond my team, who's in charge of this?

Minal: Somebody who wants, first of all, likes videos and also likes technology or uses technology. Um, that's pretty much it. So that could be anybody.

It could be somebody you hire. Maybe you have a niece, a nephew, a friend, son, or daughter who's young. You know, I have practices that have teenagers. Their own teen kids are doing videos for them. I have practices that have hired college kids. I have practices that have team members doing it. What I don't want you to do is get somebody who absolutely hates technology or does not like technology, or is not on Instagram, or is not on Facebook, or not on TikTok, or whatever platform you wanna be on, and then tell them to do.

That it's not going to happen cuz they simply don't know the platform and it's something they organically don't like. That's why they are not active on social media. So I would have a very honest conversation with them and say, Hey, we wanna do these videos, we wanna get our practice culture out there.

who here would love to do that? You will get additional pay for it. Don't make it a part of like, okay, you just do it cuz no, again, it can be an afterthought. You will get additional pay for it. Uh, and you will get time to work on it. So who wants to. And then see, you know, who are those people who wants to do it?

Because if they know the technology then it's easy ideas, content. Again, I'm a social media coach, and this is what I do and it becomes a lot easier. And I have had, you know, sessions when I'm coaching practices where the team members are like super excited and thrilled to do it and like I come in and they're like on it and they're like, oh my God, when we tried this and this is what happened and we did this, and then.

I shouldn't say, but I will say it. Then. I literally spent two hours last week showing a team member how to forward an email Uhhuh. And, uh, that's their social media person. And you can understand the conversation I have with the doctor after I spent two hours teaching somebody how to forward an email and said, we need to change our social media ambassador because I, you know, you can't be paying me money.

To do that. Mm-hmm. Cause that's not gonna

Michael: work. Yeah. Yeah. That's not a good way to, okay. No, I, I get you. I get you. Awesome. Real quick, last question. Well, I wanted to ask you, when it comes to paying that, you said like, I'll give you extra. How much do you recommend.

Minal: Depends on how much you wanna pay them.

Um, there are practices they, and right now team members are hard to come by, so you also want to make sure you're not overflowing their workload already. So depending, I mean, social media managers charge, you can pay them anywhere between $18 an hours to. 30, 35. It depends on how good they're and what they're doing.

So depending on what your bonus structure is, maybe you make it a part of their bonus system. Maybe you make it a part of their, uh, pay system. Cuz again, I don't know how much you're paying them for their actual job. Maybe it's assisting hygiene front desk. so just depending on what they are. But pretty much anywhere it ranges anywhere between $18 an hours and up.

And also depends on where you are in the country because some states have higher prices, uh, higher wages than other.

Michael: Gotcha. Awesome, awesome. Manal, I appreciate your time and if anyone has further questions, you can definitely find her in the Dental Marketer Society Facebook group, or there's two ways we can reach out to Manal and myself for more advice on and more tips.

There's a newsletter, right, that we have that is fan fantastic. It's in the show notes below. We're gonna put a link to it. It's gonna be the first link in the show notes below, and at the same time second. If you really want more, much more in depth and you want to talk with us one-on-one, uh, meaning like monthly, where can they go for them at all?

Minal: pediatric Dental Marketing course.

Michael: Yep. Yep. The Pediatric Dental Marketing Course guys, that's gonna be open for enrollment in May, so that's next. And if you're a part of the newsletter, then you'll, you'll know exactly when it's open and you'll get access first and much, much more information on that.

So, uh, I'm gonna put a link to that in the show notes below, so you can go check that out. But also, min, thank you so much for being with us and, um, where can people reach out to you directly?

Minal: Um, Minal samad.com is my website, which is M i n a l s A M P A T. Find me on Instagram again. Same name, Minal Samad.

Find me on Facebook. Save your name. Um, just Google me. It's, I'm easy to find. But minal samad.com is the website.

Michael: All right. Thank you with being with me on this Monday morning marketing episode. Thank you for having.

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