Podcasts about business name

Joan Eppehimer of Jamestown, NY shares how she raised thousands of dollars for charity with a cottage food business, and (with the help of her nephew Jason) rebranded her business to boost salesGet full show notes and transcript here: https://forrager.com/podcast/127

Yesss. Ich habe geheiratet

Welcome back to the show, beautiful souls! In this new episode, I had the honor of speaking with the amazing Lauren Joy Rose, an expert in soul contracts and energetic alignment for business success. We dove deep into how soul contracts shape not only our personal lives but also the prosperity of our businesses.  We talked about the power of business energetics and how crucial it is for entrepreneurs to be in energetic alignment with their ventures. Lauren's insights on choosing names and branding elements that resonate with your soul's true intention are absolute gold!  It's all about making those mindful, energetically aligned decisions to create a soul-centered business that not only feels good but thrives. So much valuable guidance for you, my loves, to step fully into your power!     About Lauren:   Lauren Joy Rose is a Soul Contract Practitioner and Divine Healer. Lauren uses her knowledge of the Soul Contract System to help people make sense of the challenges they have faced in life, and to optimize their personal and business names to bring the energies into alignment with their Soul Contract. This led to her affectionately being known as The Naming Lady. In addition to being the founder of Empower Healing, she is also the Co-Host of Let's Talk Vibes: The Soul Contract Podcast.   Website / Social Media Handles: empowerhealing.co; Instagram: @i.am.lauren.rose; YouTube: @thenaminglady; Podcast: theltvpodcast.com     Ps: If you are ready to finally see how you can bring in thousands of dollars per week while just doing a few simple actions (and never feel like you *HAVE* to work an 8 hour day again)? To have clear direction in your day to day activities so you can easily implement strategies for more simplicity in your life and biz? Then 5 weeks to 5 figures course is for you! Check the link below

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Have you ever known you needed to make a change for your business but felt scared about what it would cost you?  Have you ever resisted taking risks or making investments or choices that you knew deep down were good choices but felt scary?  That's the backstory of this episode - why I knew it was time to change my business name and how I went about making the shift after 11 years of operating and creating content on the internet under a different name. The history of my longstanding previous name (Firefly Photography) The turning point for feeling the nudge to change it  Making business personal on purpose Simplifying branding by returning to the basics Llogistics about changing a name and implications for things like SEO    // Links discussed // Group Coaching : leahoconnell.com/group Free downloads: leahoconnell.com/learn Fb group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/photofuel/  

How I purchased vehicles in my business name. Law firm owner looking for bookkeeping and tax strategy? We can help. Free strategy session here -> https://bigbirdaccounting.com/lawfirms

In this conversation, Marshall and Nick discuss various topics including beer tasting, the importance of getting advice from knowledgeable friends, the confusion in the market regarding ceramic coatings, the challenges of selling high-ticket services, the importance of having the right insurance coverage for mobile detailers, and the need to title vehicles in the business name. In this conversation, Nick and Marshall discuss the importance of insurance and protecting oneself in business. They talk about the different types of insurance needed for various situations, such as liability insurance for mobile detailing and property insurance for businesses. They also touch on the challenges of getting paid for services rendered and the importance of having good relationships with lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the difficulties of collecting money owed and the need to protect oneself legally. Takeaways Be cautious when trying new beers and rely on the opinions of trusted friends. Seek advice from knowledgeable friends before making big purchases or decisions. There is a lot of confusion in the market regarding ceramic coatings, and it's important to do thorough research before investing in them. Selling high-ticket services requires a different skill set and may not be suitable for everyone. Mobile detailers should have the appropriate insurance coverage to protect themselves and their business. Titling vehicles in the business name can provide additional protection in case of accidents or lawsuits. Insurance is crucial for protecting oneself in business, whether it's liability insurance for mobile detailing or property insurance for businesses. Having good relationships with lawyers, insurance agents, and accountants is important for navigating the complexities of insurance and legal matters. Getting paid for services rendered can be challenging, and it's important to establish clear payment terms and be prepared to take action if necessary. Collecting money owed can be a difficult and costly process, and it's important to weigh the potential costs and benefits before pursuing legal action. Chapters 00:00 Beer Tasting and Trusted Opinions 03:00 Confusion in the Ceramic Coatings Market 09:43 Challenges of Selling High-Ticket Services 13:39 Importance of Insurance Coverage for Mobile Detailers 21:33 Titling Vehicles in the Business Name for Added Protection 29:09 The Importance of Insurance in Business 32:55 Building Relationships with Professionals 36:45 Challenges of Getting Paid 41:14 The Difficulties of Collecting Money Owed

The Bulletproof Dental Podcast Episode 362 HOSTS: Dr. Peter Boulden and Dr. Craig Spodak GUEST: Darren Shaw DESCRIPTION In this conversation, Peter and Darren discuss the importance of local SEO for dentists and how to optimize their Google Business Profile. They cover topics such as the impact of reviews on local rankings, the significance of keywords in the business name, the value of image and video optimization, and the benefits of using YouTube for video embedding. Darren emphasizes the importance of user engagement signals, such as time on site and pogo sticking, in influencing search rankings. He also discusses the significance of having a well-designed website with compelling copywriting and videos to keep visitors engaged. He highlights the value of optimizing GMB services and using Google Posts as a sales tool. Additionally, Darren recommends using Microsoft Clarity to track user behavior on websites and improve conversion rates. TAKEAWAYS Local SEO is crucial for dentists to improve their rankings in the local pack and attract more customers. Optimizing the Google Business Profile is essential, including selecting the right primary category and soliciting reviews. Image optimization, including adding captions and descriptions, can improve engagement and visibility. Mobile optimization is vital, as Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites and profiles. User engagement signals, such as time on site and pogo sticking, play a crucial role in search rankings. Having a well-designed website with compelling copywriting and videos can help keep visitors engaged. Optimizing GMB services and using Google Posts as a sales tool can have a positive impact on rankings and conversions. Tracking user behavior on websites using tools like Microsoft Clarity can help improve conversion rates. CHAPTERS 00:00 - Introduction and Background 02:29 - The Importance of Local SEO for Dentists 06:43 - Optimizing the Google Business Profile 09:26 - The Significance of Keywords in the Business Name 12:20 - Creating Separate Google Business Profiles for Practitioners 18:10 - The Impact of Image Optimization on Rankings 20:58 - The Benefits of Using YouTube for Video Embedding 25:23 - The Importance of Mobile Optimization 30:13 - Optimizing User Engagement Signals 33:12 - Prioritizing GMB Services and Mirror Image Web Pages 46:58 - Monitoring and Managing Google Business Profiles 51:38 - Tracking User Behavior with Microsoft Clarity REFERENCES Bulletproof Mastermind Darren Shaw  

When I sat down to come up with a name for my business back in 2019, I wanted it to reflect my Christian values and work ethic. Tune in to find out the meaning behind 'Chayil' and how it shapes my copywriting and video marketing work. Sign up for the free 5 Day Video Story-Selling Challenge here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to my weekly emails, "Notes from a Story-Seller's Desk" here. ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get started with done-for-you copywriting or video services here.⁠⁠⁠⁠

Are you excited to build your online coaching business but you're still not sure how to name it? You may have a few names in your mind but you can't decide how to pick the right one. If you just launched your coaching business and would like to choose the best business name, you're in the right place. In this bonus episode, I share the best ways to name your coaching business!   Join my free upcoming Masterclass all about how to consistently get clients: https://bit.ly/3WHttCj   Want my help to grow your business? Book a free strategy session now: https://bit.ly/46qTR6Q   Need to build your brand from scratch? Click here to apply to my new program: https://bit.ly/3Yk2QEX   Mentioned in this episode: What You Should Know Before Starting an LLC: https://youtu.be/xn3eGi566x0 How to Get Funding to Start Your Own Business: https://youtu.be/R8sCXP66VD0   Related Episodes: 199 CEO SERIES: How to Planning Your Business for 2024: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/199-ceo-series-how-to-planning-your-business-for-2024/id1264659520?i=1000643719905 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3w42dxuEjUoVKUkLeQ2WNj?si=5c8bd16beaf94a9a 180 How to Legally Start Your Coaching Business: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/180-how-to-legally-start-your-coaching-business/id1264659520?i=1000626863466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7cdqfJDmHKlyUZwFnALE8s?si=ff36be66b4924cb3   Want to know the system I used to rapidly grow my business and quit my job? Find out more here: https://bit.ly/3WHttCj   Follow me on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/courtneylsanders/ Follow me on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@courtneylsanders Subscribe on my Youtube channel: http://youtube.com/courtneylsanders

BACK on Air is THE podcast for operators who have compliance on their mind and road transport at the heart of their business. This podcast is a recording of our live  fortnightly webinar held every other Friday.  So, if you like what you hear and fancy joining the live event where you can ask questions, and vote on our interactive polls, Just register through this link: https://backhousejones.co.uk/free-webinar/Join us for the last “BACK on air” webinar of this season as we break for the Summer and this time, it's all about protecting your image.This week Jonathon Backhouse, Heather Lunney, Ellie Kenyon and Emma Yates (a reputational management specialist from rradar) discuss:Using other people's logos on your website eg. a trade association.What to do if your business name is being used by someone else or you find out you are using theirs.It's all in the numbers - how a poor accountant can make you look bad and impact your O-Licence and business.Guarding your reputation - Equipping staff to handle difficult situations in-person and on social media. Clandestine entrants - the recent Court of Appeal decision and what it means for operators.The content of this podcast is correct at the time of broadcasting and isn't meant to be specific legal advice.  If you need advice, we recommend that you take proper legal advice for your individual situation.Please leave us a review and of course details of any areas you would like us to cover in Your employees' health and your business future episodes.  We do read them and it helps others find our podcast. Enjoy!Contact: marketing@backhouses.co.ukwww.backhousejones.co.uk

This is an Ask Kris & Donna episode where we are answering designer questions: 1) When and how to invest in fonts versus using free fonts for client work 2) A designer is weighing up the pros and cons of rebranding their design business, and 3) Strategies for handling long-term clients when you feel like you are outgrowing them (especially when it comes to pricing!)    02:16 Designer Dilemma: Paid vs Free Fonts – when to invest? 05:07 Font Licensing and Client Budget 07:19 Benefits of Paid Fonts 11:31 Free Fonts: Pros and Cons 15:46 Client-Specific Font Usage 17:25 Designer Dilemma: Rebranding Your Business 25:09 Designer Dilemma: Handling Long-Term Clients with Low Rates 27:02 Strategies for Raising Prices   Mentioned during the episode:  Episode 34 - Brand Designer Q&A: How to manage fonts for clients https://designandprosper.co/managing-fonts-for-clients/   Episode 61 -Graphic Design Pricing: What to do when clients can't afford you https://designandprosper.co/graphic-design-pricing-what-to-do-when-clients-cant-afford-you/   Have a question you'd like us to answer on an upcoming episode? You can submit it here: https://www.designandprosper.co/podcast   Free resources for designers:

Mina and Steve are back again answering your questions! Listen in as they chat about the scams Steve's nearly fallen for and why you never know what someone else is going through… Want to leave Mina a question and have it answered on the show? Drop her a voice message here! Hit follow and see you next tuesday! MinaAF is created by AdLarge and editaudio. It's hosted by Mina Starsiak-Hawk, edited, mixed and produced by Megan Hayward, and executive produced by Steph Colbourn. Thank you to Simone Osondu, Melissa Haughton and the entire editaudio team. You can get in touch with us and learn more at the link below! editaud.io IG/Twitter: @editaud.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‍Overwhelmed by the thought of buying or selling a practice? With the right help, finding the right listing price, prequalify prospective buyers, negotiations and financing options can all be a breeze! In this episode, I sit down with Greg Auerbach, a true veteran in the world of dental practice transitions, to uncover the ins and outs of buying or selling a dental practice. Drawing on his wealth of experience spanning over two decades, Greg reveals the critical steps to establishing value and expertly guiding both buyers and sellers through this once-in-a-career process. From the initial evaluation to the final handshake, you'll learn how he holds the hands of dentists, ensuring they are confident and well-prepared for each phase of the transition journey.We jump into the heated debate: starting a new practice versus acquiring an existing one. Greg discusses the unique challenges faced by newcomers, from building a patient base from scratch to financial burdens and staff hiring. On the flip side, he dismantles common fears around acquisitions and highlights their surprising advantages—like immediate cash flow and a quicker path to profitability. Our conversation also touches on why some practitioners still opt for startups, influenced by factors like the limited availability of practices for sale and the lure of creating a custom space. Plus, Greg shares strategic tips for increasing a practice's market value and ensuring a harmonious post-transition phase, debunking myths around staff and patient retention.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How to establish the true value of a practice.The comparative advantages and challenges of starting up versus acquiring a practice.Key strategies to manage financial burdens and staff hiring in new practices.The benefits of acquisitions, including faster profitability and immediate cash flow.Common fears and misconceptions about practice acquisitions.Post-transition tips for maintaining harmony and continuity.The importance of gradual changes to ensure a smooth transition.How early engagement can significantly improve market value and streamline the process.Join us as we explore the inner workings of successful practice transitions with, Greg Auerbach!‍‍Guest: Greg AuerbachBusiness Name: Henry ScheinCheck out Greg's Media:Website: http://www.henryscheindpt.com/Email: greg.auerbach@henryschein.com2024 Guide to Dental Practice Valuation: How Much is Your Practice Worth? https://bit.ly/4braykp‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Software/Tools:Dentrix Indeed‍Equipment:iTero‍TV:HGTV‍Organizations:FTCFDA‍Terms/Concepts:EBITDACapitalization of Earnings Methodology ‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍

‍What does it take to successfully market a practice and bring in new patients in today's world? In this compelling episode I'm sitting down with, Karen Galley, the insightful co-owner and president of Patient News and Practice ZEBRA. With over 30 years of specialized experience in dental marketing, Karen takes us on a journey through the foundational elements of successful dental marketing strategies. She sheds light on the unique offerings of Practice ZEBRA, a versatile software product that enhances marketing efforts through comprehensive services like call tracking, scoring, and detailed KPIs for marketing success. Whether you are just starting out or looking to optimize your current marketing, Karen's vast knowledge provides a robust solution tailored precisely for dental practices.Throughout our conversation, Karen digs up the common marketing pitfalls that dental practices often encounter. Karen provides a magnifying glass into these errors, breaking them into three categories: strategic, operational, and executional. From the lack of clear differentiation in a practice's mission, to operational inefficiencies like poor call handling, each mistake is explored with an eye toward solutions and optimization. Karen's advice doesn't just stop at identifying problems though; she offers actionable strategies to improve your marketing approach by emphasizing consistent brand messaging, thorough market research, and effective budget allocation. This episode is an indispensable guide for dental professionals looking to enhance their marketing game.What You'll Learn in This Episode:How to identify and correct strategic, operational, and executional marketing mistakes in your practice.The unique features of Practice ZEBRA and how it can streamline your marketing efforts.The importance of understanding your practice's unique selling proposition.Advice for aligning marketing strategies with your practice's vision and goals.Tips for efficient resource and budget allocation in dental marketing.How to analyze marketing attribution and channel ROI to maximize returns.Insights into refreshing your online presence with modern web design and SEO practices.Let's transform your practice's marketing efforts with, Karen Galley, today!‍‍Sponsors:‍Oryx: an all-in-one cloud-based dental software created by dentists for dentists.Patient engagement, clinical, and practice management software that helps your dental practice grow without compromise. Visit Oryx today for a special TDM offer! (Just click or copy and paste the link here) https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/oryx/‍Guest: Karen GalleyBusiness Name: Patient NewsCheck out Karen's Media:Website: http://patientnews.com‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Software/Tools:Google AdsPractice ZEBRA‍Helpful Resources:Practice Growth Calculator‍Books:Understanding Dental Insurance: A Guide for Dentists and their Teams‍People:Dr. Shahin SafarianDr. Travis Campbell‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.

توی این قسمت، قسمت 127 پادکست فوربو درمورد 5 نکته مهم توی انتخاب اسم میخوام صحبت کنم و بگم که چطوری میتونیم برای کسب و کارمون یه اسم مناسب پیدا کنیم.لینک یوتوب فوربوhttps://youtube.com/@furbodm فوربو در اینستاگرام (@furbodm)پادکست فوربو در توییتر (@FurboPodcast)سایت فوربو در توییتر (@Furbodm) برای خوندن مقالات حوزه‌ی دیجیتال مارکتینگ به سایت فوربو سر بزنیدhttps://furbodm.com/صفحه اختصاصی پادکست فوربو در سایتhttps://furbodm.com/podcast/ بلاگ شخصی من – رضا توکلیRezaTavakoli.comاینستاگرام (@r.t98)توییتر (@RezaTavakoli98) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to five minute magic from Creativity For Sale Podcast. A quick fire episode, sharing tips and tricks from the pages of the book of the same title. Every week I'll be sharing one or two ideas that can give you. And actionable take away for your creative career, your business, or just the food for thought for the weekend ahead. These are taken from the audio book, and you can find the full version below. ~Today I start with an example of Chris Tucker from Tucker and Partners. I can guarantee you that for the rest of the day, you will not forget about Chris Tucker or Tucker and Partners. It's actually an example of one of my real clients that I had to sneak in into the book because he made such an impression and he used to say, you know, every time he used to call me, he would make it with such a verb that, you know, you can only think about Chris Tucker from Tucker and Partners. Anyway, in this episode, we talk about naming. and everything that goes with it. So from, you know, different ways, how you can name your business all the way to, trademarking process and making sure that your name, if it's unique, can also stay yours and not being infringed by anybody else.Creativity For Sale: How to start and grow a life-changing creative career and business by Radim Malinic - Out now. Paperback and Kindlehttps://amzn.to/4biTwFcFree audiobook (with Audible trial)https://geni.us/8r2eSAQSigned Bookshttps://novemberuniverse.co.uk

How can you ensure that you have a brand that stands out amongst your wedding business peers? Is your brand attracting the right kind of wedding couples? How important are colours when it comes to your wedding brand?Today I'm chatting with Emily Foster Creative about all things branding for your wedding business. Emily specialises in creating branding and websites for wedding professionals to help them attract their ideal couples.Whether you are just starting out, considering a rebrand or want reassurance that you are on the right path, this episode is for you.Grab a copy of Emily's free colour guide resourceVisit Emily's websiteFind Emily on InstagramWant to meet other likeminded wedding pro's so that you can share ideas, network and help each other out? Then why not go ahead and join my free Wedding Pro community over on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/groups/weddingprosreadytogrow/Find out more about how I can help you grow your wedding business over on my website or Instagram page:www.beccapountney.comwww.instagram.com/beccapountneyTime Stamps:Feeling Burnt Out (00:00:00) Recognizing signs of burnout and the need to niche down further or rebrand.Introduction and Background (00:00:30) Introducing the podcast and the guest, Emily Foster, a branding and website designer.Personal Background and Career Journey (00:01:19) Emily Foster shares her journey from working in agencies to starting her own branding and website design studio.Importance of Branding (00:04:47) Discussion on the comprehensive nature of branding beyond just logos and colors.Examples of Strong Branding (00:06:01) Examples of strong branding from big corporations like Coca-Cola and Starbucks.Common Branding Mistakes (00:08:39) Identifying common branding mistakes made by wedding professionals and how to avoid them.Importance of Business Name (00:14:09) Discussion on the significance of business names and their impact on branding and SEO.Humorous Anecdote about Business Names (00:18:23) An amusing anecdote about the similarity between wedding business names and strip club names.Assessing Branding Effectiveness (00:19:04) Determining when it's time for a brand refresh based on confidence and other factors.Feeling Insecure in Your Business (00:19:14) Recognizing signs of needing a rebrand, like insecurity in showing off your business and pricing surprises.Attracting the Right Clients (00:20:35) Identifying the need to niche down or rebrand to attract the right clients and avoid burnout.Alleviating the Fear of Change (00:22:17) Addressing the fear of rebranding and the benefits of intentional brand direction and launch strategy.Color Psychology and Branding (00:26:16) Exploring the influence of colors on emotions and actions, and the intentional use of color in branding.Choosing Brand Colors (00:29:25) Discussing the process of selecting...

In episode 150 Steph fields some great questions from our good friend Anonymous (ha!) about naming your biz and choosing a HA based on locality. She also breaks down how to become a travel agent in some handy steps! 1. I am just stepping into starting a travel agency at the very early stages and still working on what it would look like for me. When considering a niche and a business name, I suspect having the niche in the business name can help, but would it cause issues if I wanted to pivot or expand to a different niche at some point in the future and possibly require a business name change and rebranding challenges. Do you have any advice or should I just worry about the future. –Anonymous 2. How important is it to join a local host agency? —Anonymous 3. I know there isn't one set answer for this, but how would you break down the steps on how to become a travel agent? —Anonymous TODAY'S RESOURCES: https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/find-a-travel-niche (Guide to choosing a travel niche) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/tips-for-choosing-travel-agency-names (Tips for choosing travel agency names + examples) https://hostagencyreviews.com/7DS-lite (HAR's 7 Day Setup LITE is a free online course that helps you start your agency. It does not have support and takes you through resources to help you make things happen) https://hostagencyreviews.com/7DS-accelerator (HAR's 7 Day Setup Accelerator course with 70+ easily digestible videos, 48 exclusive resources, monthly live meetups with HAR team and others for support and accountability, priority email support) https://hostagencyreviews.com/hosts (Find a map of host agencies on our host agency list.) https://hostagencyreviews.com/blog/how-to-become-a-travel-agent (All you need to know to become a travel agent) https://hostagencyreviews.com/page/travel-advisor-research-reports/ (Travel agent survey data on employee travel agents and self-employed travel agents.)

Glen answers some FAQs around starting a business in Australia!

Welcome to the Hey Docs! Podcast with your host Jill Allen.    Today, I have Jeff Slater from  Kaleidoscope joining me on the show! With AI becoming such a prevalent topic in everything these days, I thought it was time to have “the chat” about what it is and how you should or should not be using it in your practices. From Google pay-per-click ads to A.I. pitfalls, we have a lot to cover.   Let's get dive in! Summary The conversation explores the impact of AI on Google and local search results, particularly for startups. It discusses the challenges of verification and the increasing scrutiny from Google to eliminate fake businesses. The conversation also highlights the concerns of sharing business information and the need for proper documentation. The role of AI in advertiser verification and its impact on Google Ads and pay-per-click campaigns is examined. The influence of AI on content creation, chatbots, dynamic ads, and geotargeting is discussed. The importance of balancing AI automation with the human touch is emphasized, along with the challenges of finding the right balance. The conversation concludes by highlighting the volatility of AI technology and the need to monitor data and adapt accordingly. https://thekaleidoscope.com/ https://www.facebook.com/KaleidoscopeDigitalMarketing https://www.instagram.com/kaleidoscopedigitalmarketing/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/kaleidoscope-digital-marketing/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgL0vSJArWwhTeqE1jHLzzw Takeaways AI is affecting Google and local search results, particularly for startups, with increased scrutiny and verification challenges.Proper documentation and business name alignment are crucial for successful advertiser verification on Google Ads.AI plays a significant role in dynamic ads, geotargeting, and content creation, but the human touch remains important in orthodontic practices.Finding the right balance between AI automation and personalization is essential for effective marketing strategies.Monitoring data and adapting to the volatility of AI technology is necessary for success in the digital landscape. Vigilance and monitoring of Google profiles are crucial to avoid sudden drops or disappearances.Accurate and consistent information is essential for maintaining a strong online presence.Ignoring notifications from Google can lead to permanent consequences, such as ads being offline.The unpredictability of Google's algorithm requires ongoing attention and adaptation.The future of the industry will involve advancements in AI and technology, but the human element and relationships will remain important.Documentation and verification are necessary to match online information with real-world branding.Proactive marketing and a well-rounded approach are key to success.Kaleidoscope serves as a valuable resource for orthodontic practices.AI technology presents both challenges and benefits, requiring careful proofing and consideration.Being a great parent is a personal goal that Jeff values.Perspective and framing play a significant role in finding what you're looking for.Connect With Our Advertisers Kaleidoscope - Orthodontic Digital Marketing GC Orthodontics - Manufacturing and Supply SalesSmileSuite - Customizable Presentation Software and Post-Consultation Follow-Up Chapters 00:00 AI's Impact on Google and Local Search Results01:13 Verification Challenges for Startups 04:12 AI's Role in Advertiser Verification05:18 Importance of Business Name and Documentation06:39 AI's Impact on Google Ads and Pay-Per-Click09:47 AI's Influence on Content and Chatbots11:14 AI's Role in Dynamic Ads and Geotargeting12:30 Balancing AI Automation and Human Touch14:23 AI's Impact on Marketing Industry16:07 Challenges of Finding the Right Balance17:41 The Volatility of Google Rankings19:01 The Importance of Accurate and Consistent Information20:22 The Need for Vigilance and Monitoring22:14 The Housekeeping Component of Online Presence23:20 The Consequences of Ignoring Notifications25:07 The Unpredictability of Google's Algorithm26:29 The Future of AI and Technology in the Industry27:34 The Importance of Proofing AI-generated Content29:24 The Value of Human Element and Relationships30:17 The Need for Documentation and Verification31:52 The Importance of Proactive Marketing33:24 The Role of Kaleidoscope as a Resource34:08 The Challenges and Benefits of AI Technology35:15 The Significance of Being a Great Parent35:46 The Power of Perspective and Framing Are you ready to start a practice of your own? Do you need a fresh set of eyes or some advice in your existing practice? Reach out to me- www.practiceresults.com.    If you like what we are doing here on Hey Docs! and want to hear more of this awesome content, give us a 5-star Rating on your preferred listening platform and subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode.   New episodes drop every Thursday!   Episode Credits: Hosted by Jill AllenProduced by Jordann KillionAudio Engineering by Johnny Mitchell

‍What is it like to escape as a refugee, build a life from scratch, and eventually knock down the doors of dental success? In an honest, heart-to-heart conversation, Dr. Fern White doesn't hold back, unveiling her unique childhood, the influence of her hardworking parents, and her journey towards becoming a respected dentist in Australia. Her story is a testament to the extraordinary power of resilience, adaptability, and enduring passion.Yet, the road to success isn't typically linear, is it? There are detours of struggle, self-doubt, and immense pressure that often lead to a moment of crisis. Dr. Fern faced these challenges head-on, ultimately reevaluating her definition of success, and embracing a healthier, more balanced approach to life and work. This personal transformation not only improved her own life, but also ignited a passion within her to extend help to her peers. From pulling her siblings' teeth due to financial necessity, to leading a revolution of change within the dental profession, Dr. Fern's journey is nothing short of inspiring.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The inspiring journey of a Vietnamese refugee to a successful dentistHow struggles and setbacks can redefine your outlook towards successThe importance of self-care and a balanced approach to life and workInsights into the development of "Practice Your Passion" for dentistsRelatable advice for aspiring leaders and professionals in the dental industryTake a journey through Dr. Fern White's life, from a courageous refugee to a respected dentist, and how she's changing the face of dentistry and inspiring others!‍‍Guest: Dr. Fern WhiteBusiness Name: Practice Your PassionCheck out Fern's Media:Practice Your Passion: https://www.drfernwhite.com/learn-about-pypWebsite: https://www.drfern.co/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drfernwhite/Email: fern@drfernwhite.com‍Get a head start in your community with the Ground Marketing Course and receive $419 off your purchase with the code "practicelaunchpad"! You can sign up here: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Software/Tools:SlackProducts/Brands:Bulletproof CoffeeSnickersMars BarPeople:Brené BrownTony RobbinsWayne Dyer - "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."Wim HofBrendan BurchardBooks/Publications:Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater ThingsHamletThe Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly DepartingThe High Performance Planner‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍

‍‍How did a small-town practice owner rise up to become a trailblazing figure in advanced dentistry? In this episode, we weave through the fascinating journey of Dr. BJ Moorhead, who started from modest roots to dominate the realm of patient-focused, anxiety-reducing dentistry. Discover how BJ nurtured his solo practice whilst teaching at an IV sedation program for dentists, embracing a forward-thinking dental care approach that centers on the patient's comfort and trust.Find out how Dr. Moorhead triumphs in managing fear-based patients, stressing the significance of open-ended dialogue and giving patients their rightful control over their treatment decisions. We venture into his effective marketing strategies, demystifying his utilization of Google Ads and shedding light on why benefits reign over technical jargon in his promotional handouts. Our discussion concludes with BJ disclosing his three revolutionary tools and a wealth of advice for dentists facing adversity. This episode encapsulates insights and practical tips to nurture a thriving practice in today's modern world.What You'll Learn in This Episode:The importance and implementation of open-ended patient dialogueCrafting marketing strategies that prioritize benefits over technicalitiesDr. BJ's unique path towards success in advanced dentistryInnovative tools and methodologies applied in Dr. Moorhead's practicesEngaging with fear-based patients and strategies to inspire their trustWisdom for overcoming hardships in your dental journeyFeel inspired? Don't miss out on this exciting journey! Tune in, uncover the secrets to growing a successful practice, and learn firsthand why patient comfort is the pinnacle of advanced dentistry.‍‍Guest: Dr. BJ MoorheadBusiness Name: StreamDentCheck out BJ's Media:Website: https://www.streamdent.com/Email: dr.m@streamdent.comPhone: 502-509-1570IV Sedation Training for Dentists: https://www.ivsedationtrainingfordentists.com/coaching‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Software:WeaveDentrixDEXISGoogle VoiceEstablishments/Brands:Spear EducationInvisalignNuCalmTriazolamValiumApplebee'sHenry ScheinPeople/Public Figures:Walter Hailey's Dental Boot KampDr. Ted RaybouldDr. Rodger LevinSocratesGrace rizza - Chicago MarketerDr. Darren GreenwellDr. Jack Turbyfill (Branching Technique)Organizations:ADAKentucky Dental Association‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍‍

Our first auto repair shop was named “Behind the Star.” That may make you want to stop listening right now as we clearly had no idea what we were doing. But if we learn from our mistakes, we have a more comprehensive education than most! Through the years as we've worked with many different clients, we've seen just about every problem a business could have with a name. In this episode, we share some things you'll want to think about when naming an auto repair shop.Thank you to RepairPal for sponsoring The Auto Repair Marketing Podcast. Learn more about RepairPal at https://repairpal.com/shopsShow Notes Naming Your Auto Repair Shop (00:00:10) Discussion about the importance and considerations when naming an auto repair shop.The Story of Naming Their Shop (00:03:14) Personal anecdote about the process of naming their auto repair shop and the challenges they faced.Putting a Particular Service in the Name (00:08:00) Advice on the potential pitfalls of including a specific service in the name of an auto repair shop.Using Street Names in Business Name (00:11:52) Considerations and examples of using street names in the business name, including potential challenges.Using Your Name in the Business (00:13:58) Discussion about the implications of using personal names in the business name and potential future challenges.Confusing Names and Search Engines (00:15:01) Using names that confuse search engines and examples of real-world consequences.Creative Naming and Spelling (00:16:14) The pitfalls of overly creative or misspelled business names and their impact on searchability.Spelling and Pronunciation (00:18:18) The challenges of hard-to-spell or hard-to-pronounce names, with specific examples from Louisiana.Domain Name Considerations (00:20:27) Tips for choosing a domain name, including avoiding confusion and competitor-related issues.Competitor Domain Names (00:24:26) The importance of checking closely related domain names to avoid confusion with competitors.Final Remarks and Contact Information (00:25:30) Summarizing the naming considerations and promoting engagement with the podcast and sponsor.How To Get In TouchGroup - Auto Repair Marketing MastermindWebsite - shopmarketingpros.com Facebook - facebook.com/shopmarketingpros Get the Book - shopmarketingpros.com/bookInstagram - @shopmarketingpros Questions/Ideas - podcast@shopmarketingpros.com

In today's episode, we delve into the crucial process of setting up an LLC for your insurance business. Cohost Joanna Wyckoff shares her first-hand experience of establishing her own agency, Top Flight Insurance, and the essential steps she took to form an LLC. From obtaining name approval to acquiring an EIN number and navigating state agency licenses, Joanna details the process in a quick and easy manner, emphasizing significant cost savings by handling the process herself. We also explore the benefits of having separate LLCs for each agent and the tax advantages it offers. Plus, we discuss retirement savings options for self-employed individuals and the insights into managing multiple LLCs. So, if you're ready to level up your insurance business with the power of an LLC, then stay tuned for all the expert tips and valuable insights coming your way.

Join our upcoming Winter Cohort launching next week!Simply text your Name, Email, and Business Name to 443.906.3603 for an exclusive invitation to our Weekly Home Care & Assisted Living "Done With You" Group Training. Experience the power of small groups (4-7 members) with owners from diverse markets. Each cohort fosters support, accountability, motivation, encouragement, and shares best practices. Enjoy 6 months of comprehensive group and individual training, along with ongoing support and accountability.Don't miss out on this opportunity! Text your Name, Email, and Business Name to 443.906.3603 for your invitation to the Home Care & Assisted Living "Done With You" Cohort (Mastermind Training Program) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/allenchaney/message

In this episode, I share:⭐  Reasons why it is important to think carefully about your business name⭐ 15 Questions to ask yourself while creating your business nameIf you want to create a business name that will align with your business long-term, then this podeo is for you!Don't forget to like this video and subscribe to my podcast ✨The Simple Series: Our journals, workbooks, and planners feature clean, uncluttered layouts that make it effortless to organize your thoughts, tasks, and goals. Say goodbye to overwhelming designs and hello to a clean canvas for your ideas. Available on Amazon.Books by Prithvi Madhukar:(You can search for them on your nearest Amazon marketplace)Zero to Four Figures: Lessons Learned by a Broke CEO (61 stories and lessons about digital entrepreneurship, covering topics like self-love, positive mindset, growth mindset, success mindset, business strategy, marketing etc)Self-Loved: 1000 Journal Prompts for Healing. Growth. Self-Discovery (Prompts that cover topics like inner child healing, trauma healing, anxiety, gratitude, reflections, shadow work, emotion management etc)A bit about me:My name: PritPseudonym: The Marketing NomadI'm the author of Zero to Four Figures & Self-Loved, a marketer, business owner, entrepreneur, podcaster, youtuber, influencer with a zest for life, and a passion to help people in the best way I know how! The topics I cover are usually related to personal transformation and mindset.Say Hi! to me:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/themarketingnomadInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/themarketingnomadServices I offer:1:1 Marketing Strategy Consultation for Businesses - https://www.themarketingnomad.coMy Etsy Shop:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheMarketingNomadCo1. 100 IG Story Templates for Engagement Boost2. 365 Content Ideas and Content Calendar3. Printable Planner4. Online Course Creator and Planner☕ Buy me a coffee if you'd like! ☕https://www.buymeacoffee.com/marketingnomadDISCLAIMER: You are absolutely not required, ever! However, if you liked this episode and you want to say thank you, then this is just me keeping that option open :) I am grateful for anything but please never feel like you have to! :)For all subscribers, please email hello@themarketingnomad.coFor brand partnership requests, business inquiries only, please email support@themarketingnomad.coThe 15 Questions to Ask When Naming Your Business | How to Choose a Business NameSupport the show

Don't miss out on our upcoming live office hours on December 14th, 9:30 a.m. PST/12:30 p.m. EST, where we will delve into the tactics of ground marketing to Trader Joe's. You do NOT need to be a member of our ground marketing course to join, and this session will offer exclusive insights into scripts and strategies, plus a chance to interact directly with me. Click here to register and take your marketing game to the next level! https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0rbNohCiRHO18qnwGUE6Hg#/registration‍Guest: Paul EtchisonBusiness Name: Dental Practice HeroesCheck out Paul's Media:Website: https://dentalpracticeheroes.com/Dental Practice Heroes Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dental-practice-heroes-podcast/id1315253777DPH OmniPractice Total Team Success Program: https://www.dentalpracticeheroes.com/offers/925o3Jgr/checkoutOther DPH Courses: https://dph.mykajabi.com/‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Companies/Software: KajabiTrainualTrader Joe'sUdemy Leadership Course ‍People/Communities: Amy C. Edmondson - Harvard University‍Podcast Episodes:300: DR. PAUL ETCHISON | NELSON RIDGE FAMILY DENTALMMM [INTERNAL MARKETING] SMALL DETAILS THAT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN TEAM COMMUNICATION"WHAT IS 1 THING YOU WISH YOU KNEW BEFORE YOU OPENED YOUR START-UP/ ACQUISITION?"455: DR. PAUL ETCHISON | ACHIEVING PEACE OF MIND: EMBRACING DELEGATION FOR A HARMONIOUS DENTAL TEAM‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍What You'll Learn in This Episode:How to establish truly effective leadership within a dental practice.Strategies for managing your team effectively and efficiently.The importance of creating a psychologically safe and healthy working environment for your team.How to delegate roles and responsibilities that best suit your team members.Implementing effective communication systems to foster seamless workflows.The first steps to transitioning responsibilities to your team for better office management.Dr. Etchison's experience in specializing in only projects he loves and becoming a visionary for his practice.Learn how you can apply these strategies, regardless of the size or nature of your dental practice.Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Paul Etcheson. How's it going, Paul? Paul: Hey, it's going good, man. How you doing? Michael: Doing pretty good, man. You're, uh, this is, you've been on Monday Morning Marketing episodes and then we've also dived deep when you had your practice, right? Yeah, yeah. So, right now, remind me, how long has it been since you've...Been in Paul: practice ownership. So I have been in practice ownership since 2012 and in 2018, we expanded from five to 11 ops and then 2020 in December, that's when I partnered up with a DSO. I'm just wrapping up my third, my three year contract. It's over. And then I'm free, but I mean, the thing is I'm not leaving.I'm not planning on leaving. So that's pretty irrelevant when I think about it. But yeah, that's, that's the whole like short, brief summary of it. Michael: Yeah. Why aren't you Paul: leaving? Cause I like it. when, when I partnered up, I was like, man, I got to get out of here. I got to find something else to do.Maybe I'll be a fireman. I don't know. And through this whole process in the past three years, man, it's, uh, I've really just realized how much I do like being part of the team now. I don't like being there five days a week. I'm there about six days a month and I have a team that runs everything, but I'm just like the visionary.I'm the, I'm out of the noise. I'm out of the day to day. And I do get to do like my. Ortho, I do band and bracket on kids. I still like doing that, but I've had like I had one period where I took like five weeks off and it wasn't supposed to be five weeks. I got COVID right at the end of a three week vacation and I didn't like it and it was like, wow, like I feel really drained.I feel like I need to leave the house. I feel like I need a reason to go somewhere. I mean, I was going to, I was going grocery shopping when we just went grocery shopping just to go somewhere, you know? Yeah. I was like, well, this bread, this bread is probably going to expire in like maybe 10 more days. We should probably have some for those, you know, it was weird, man.It was, uh. I just noticed it. I, I just noticed, man, I don't, I'm not feeling the greatest about this. And when I went back to work after that, I was like, gosh, I really missed all you guys. This is great. I'm so happy to be back. So I, I do want it as part of my life. I don't want to leave it completely. I had to realize that through going through this process, but, um, I'm not ready and I'm never going to go back to like five days a week.I'm just not going to do that. Michael: So then looking back, do you think you could have done that? Just work somehow minimized it on your own to three, two days a week or something still been profitable, but Paul: good question. Yeah. Because you know, a lot of people say like, do you regret selling? Do you, you know, do you wish that you still had your baby and it was still all yours?Because I've sold 85 percent at this point. I will say. Through that process, I've, since I sold, I kind of backed off. I let my leads do a lot more and it was kind of part of it. I was more comfortable letting them do more because I was saying, well, dude, I only own 15 percent now, you know, it shouldn't be, I shouldn't, I don't have as much writing on it.So go ahead, do whatever you guys want. And what I realized is they were great at it it's been running better with them than it runs with me, you know? And I think that's one of the things I've kind of rolled into my coaching now with, with teams is that I had this epiphany that gosh, like your practice can grow and run so much better if you have teams running it.Um, now would I still have sold? Yeah, I'm still happy. I sold, I still got a whole bunch of capital. It's all invested into different assets and a bunch of real estate. And I've, I've reached a point where I can kind of chill and just do whatever I want because I want to do it. And I'm happy for that. So I am glad that I sold, but could I have had this kind of de stressed practice lifestyle?For sure. I think, um, I could have had this de stress, uh, just this, what I have now, and maybe I wouldn't have sold. I don't know. It's hard to say, but I'd have no regrets about doing it.Michael: Is the decisions that like decision fatigue, you're like, Oh my God, too many. I just don't want the weight of all these decisions because technically they're still looking for you at you for Paul: leadership, right? Yeah, yeah, there's, I mean, still to some extent, they're, they're pretty good leaders there and I've established a good team. I would say what bothered me, and this might be a personal thing, I know a lot of dentists go through this, so I know I'm not alone on this, is that I was trying so hard to make this an incredible place to work. And I really wanted to be, in my heart, I really do care about that, I want it to be a great place to work, I want people to love the job and love being there.And I think through seeing patients and trying to manage everything. I was just really overwhelmed with the amount of time and my lack of time to do so. And then when people would come with, come to me and say, Hey, like, you know, we got to do something about it. So I mean, the front desk is going, we really got to redo this front desk.It's just, it's just a mess up there. I would almost internalize that as. You are unappreciative of all the work I do. Like, why don't you appreciate I'm doing my best here and you're telling me it's not good enough. And it was just like constant frustration of giving all of myself to this practice, but at the same time having people still be upset.And I think there was a mindset shift that I had to make that I said, well, you know what, instead of them being completely 100 percent happy with the practice, they just have to be content. And I have 40 plus team members. There is no way they are all going to love it and just be like, this is the best place ever.100 percent of the time, 100 percent of them, it's just not possible. So I think I had unrealistic expectations there. But as I employed my leadership team and they started handling these interpersonal things, it just kind of the weight lifted and I didn't hear about these things anymore. And I have a clinical lead.And she has been my assistant for like, man, almost 12 years now, almost the whole practice lifetime. And she's the one who handles all this stuff now. If somebody's complaining and it got to the point where like, I check in with her, she'd be like, Hey, this happened. Do you want to hear about it?And I'd be like, if you don't want to tell me, I'm cool. She's like, I got it under control. Don't worry about it. And she doesn't really tell me. I mean, not that I'm in the dark, but I, I like how in the dark I am. I mean, she, she let somebody go like three weeks ago and she just shot me a text for like a blessing.Hey, cool. You cool. If I fire this person, I barely know that person go, you know, it was a new assistant and she was there for like maybe five weeks and it just like, it wasn't working out. So she let her go. I don't even have to do that anymore. I don't hire, I don't fire. People, I walk into practice, I see new faces.I say, hello. And I'm just doing like big vision stuff. Like we just dropped Delta. That's like our thing. We're, we're going out of insurance this year. So that's our big thing for this year, it's a good place to be. And, and yes, did I need to sell to a DSO to do it? No, not at all. And that's kind of what I'm teaching to my coaching clients is like, Hey, this is how you do it, because I wish I would have done it before I sold to a DSO.I mean, I owned this practice for nine years before I sold. it could have been a lot different nine years. So overall, Michael: you kind of don't wish that you sold. You wish you kind of, uh, worked on it on your own or what? Paul: No, no, no. I I'm still happy. I sold because I got the capital and I got it. I got a really great deal for my practice, you know, and it's to invest in the company that has bought my idea, bought my practice or partnered up with me.Like I just, I got so much for it. I don't know if I would have waited five years, if I still would've got what I got. I mean, as you know, private equity in dentistry right now is very, very hot. And this might be something like era that we look back in 20 years and be like, man, remember when that happened?Yeah. So I just didn't want, I didn't want to miss it. I'm not saying that it's going away. I don't know, but who knows, man, I, I'm really happy with the amount of God. And it's, it's gotten me to a point where just kind of can do whatever I want now. And I'm doing the things that I want because I want to.But there was also that period of in between like, wow, you can do whatever you want because you want to, what the hell do you want to do? and it kind of took me a little bit to kind of figure that out. Michael: you sign an NDA or anything like that? Or could you give us like a range of how much you Paul: got?Or I don't know if I could give you a range. I could get, yeah, they probably wouldn't want me to talk about it. Okay. Don't Michael: worry. You're like zero to 10 Paul: million. Okay. Yeah. We can go, we go zero to 10 million. I didn't get 10 million. Michael: Okay. Got you. Got you. Got you. But, but it was a good one. That was a good mouth. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, man. So rewind a little bit. you talked about how now your team runs your practice. I mean, I think that's the dream for everybody, right? Like what you're making right now. So what are the first steps to making my team run my practice? I'm listening to this episode. Yeah. Day one. I'd love to get there.Can you give me the first steps to create this system? Paul: For sure. I think the, I mean, the first steps of any practices is we're trying to get it systematized. We're trying to get it organized. So we've got to start with checklist. That's like number one. So got to look at checklists, got to like just basic checklists, like.What do we do when we close? What do we do when we open? What do we do weekly, monthly, annually, like just making sure that everything that needs to get done is getting done. it's a whole process of systematizing your practice. But now, now that I have these leads. And this leadership team, what I realized is that they've created a lot of these systems without me now.So when I first opened the practice, and I first was doing this before I had the leadership team, it was kind of a slow process, even though in retrospect it felt like it was happening fast. Now, like, I'll look at things and I say, how do you, how do you guys do this? Show me. And I'm like, who came up with this?This is fantastic. And they're like, oh, we did. but I would say the first process is seeing who the leaders are on your team. And I have an office manager. I have a hygiene lead. I have my clinical lead, who is also my assistant lead, and then I have a front desk lead. So I have four people on my leadership team.I don't think everybody needs that many people, because I think if you have maybe 10, 12 people, you can pull it off like that. But sometimes smaller offices, I mean, if you've got seven employees, you can't make three leads. You know, it's, that's just like half the team's not lead to have the team as a lead, but it's picking who are, who the people are.And it's being really clear on the expectations of what you want them to do. And hopefully you're picking the right people. These are not people. These are not your best all star performers. Like, um, I don't want to say that my, my clinical is not my best assistant. She's fantastic. But she was not like my primary assistant, you know, she was, but she was the one who really was able to take things and run with it.She was really confident in herself. She was great with talking with people and she was a really good leader. So you got to find those people that want to take on more responsibility and they need to look at it from a way. And I've seen this happen in some of my coaching clients offices is they assign the leads and the people are like, I don't want to be the lead anymore.And they're like, well, why? Like it's just too much extra work and one of the things I realized when we had some issues with the leads you've got to give them scheduled time to work on their duties. Because when we started it, we said, okay, you know, you don't get a cancellation.You're in between patients. You could work on this stuff and you could sit down and talk with the other assistants and you could train them and find out what they need help with. And you could do like performance reviews and all this stuff. And the fact of the matter is, is when it's in between patients, when you get a cancellation, people aren't like, okay, cool.Cancellation. Let me work on this other stuff. They just want to chill sometimes, you know, we were running so much, they just want to like, you know, talk with their team members, talk with people they work with and just get to catch up and stuff. So that causes overwhelm is because we don't have time to do it.So you need to schedule time for these people to do it. And that's why I told every, every single person, like, I don't want to be the lead. I'm like, just try this. You've gotta do this. 'cause I always tell people I need to do it. But then, you know, dentist just don't listen. They don't , they don't like to listen.And I'm like, I'm telling you, you need to schedule time. They're like, no, no. Well, we'll just, we we're pretty slow a lot of time. Okay, cool, whatever. And um, as soon as you schedule 'em like maybe four hours a week to go in an office, shut a door and just work on stuff, they get it done. And they love that day.They all wake up that day and they go, man, this cool, this is the day I'm just in the office. This is awesome. Even, even when you make 'em try to do stuff in between patients. You might as well not have them at all. They're not doing it. They're just not going to do it. So if you want help in your practice from the leadership team, and you want to build a leadership team, you've got to find the right people, you got to pick the right people, and you've got to make sure that they have time, but then you also need to sit in front of your team and designate what is this relationship that you have with them?Because it's going to be hard for them to be almost like a boss to the people they've already worked with. And, and I'm saying like my leads. are kind of a boss to people that we've worked with that used to be their, their equals. Cause we've got a lot of long term team members and that relationship is okay.But I had to designate this like, Hey, they aren't, I am still your boss. You know, they are, they are for communication and they're for like, you know, training and stuff. They're here to help you. They're here to support you. This is what I want the leads to do. This is the person I'm going to go to, but I want to change something versus going to everybody.But I will tell you that the people that come into the practice now that are hired by the lead, that that's their only point of contact, they barely even talk to me. That's their boss and that's a completely different relationship than what they have from the people that they were in the same level with, but the people that they were on the same level with, and now there's the lead, they do respect them.So it's, it's, I think it's because you had to, you have to, as a leader, designate what is the role and what does this mean for everybody? You know, are we taking orders from five people now? What am I doing? You know, so, so pick the people, give them time to do it and designate with the team what exactly this means.And it's something that's just going to evolve over time for you. It's going to like, I didn't have my leads hiring right off the get go. It was just one day I was like, Hey, like these two people aren't getting along. I mean, can you handle it? They're like, yeah, I can handle it. You want, do you want me to help?Nah, I got it. And then it's like, do you ever think you could like call on these people, these resumes and just see if you like them? Yeah, sure. What do you want me to do? Call them. See if you like them. If you like them, get them in for a working interview. And then if you want to hire him, send it to me.And then it got to, Hey, if you want to hire him, here's your budget, figure out what to pay him, you know, and then, and then it was just like, you don't like him, do you feel comfortable firing him? Okay, cool. Off you go. And, um, you slowly give them more and more things, but what's cool about it is at first they're kind of like hesitant.And then when they start seeing that they, they, it's almost like they get confidence in their abilities. And they're like, I can do this. Yeah. I can do anything. I got this. And people just love that role. So when I hear someone say, I don't want to be the lead, it's too much work. I'm like, we're doing it wrong.They should love being the lead. It's an awesome place to be. It's a great place of autonomy, creativity. You get to be a big role in the practice. You get to make big decisions and how things change and everybody should like to do it, but you got to give them time to do it so they don't get overwhelmed.So I think that's, that's the biggest thing. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then you want to, and I like how you said, give them scheduled time to work on their duty. So one is you want to pick the right people, right? And then to schedule the time, this scheduled time is for them to work on their craft or is it scheduled time for specifically what?Like Paul: if it was front office. It's like office time. I mean, so like, for instance, like front office would be, this might be time for this person to give some one on one training. Some more one on one training to somebody that needs it. It might be time to do a performance review. It might be time to sit down and maybe come up with agenda for a team meeting that's coming up.You know, just whatever we're, whatever we're transitioning or whatever new things we're implementing, this is time to work on this. Get a system in writing so that we can present it to the whole team. It's not for, hey, I gotta get caught up on these insurance checks. Man, am I so behind on these insurance checks.Cause I mean, that's another thing that's happened to my front desk lead. Is we were like, why is this front desk like so crazy? Like what is going on? Like, and like, what are you doing in your lead time? It was like, I'm getting caught up. So then we were like, we gotta get, we gotta teach someone else how to do these insurance checks.Cause this, my lead was doing this. So we got that off her plate and it's been great. It gives her time. I said, I don't, I don't care if you're sitting behind somebody and just listening to the front desk. I need this place needs to be managed and you need time to manage it. And that needs needs to be time that you're not working with a patient or doing some other tasks.So it's just their time to be elite. Michael: Gotcha. So you schedule the time for them to be elite. You get specific, but you also specify the leads to everybody, right? Who's the leads and things and what their role is. And then the leads create systems. So would you say like, Hey guys, once a month, I need you to make me a protocol or system on something you're working on Paul: we used to have lead meetings with me and my four leads, we would do it every other week. Now we do it once a month. But we'll have a team meeting that's two hours long, and usually that's like 10 15 minutes of me talking about how things are going, trying to provide some little inspiration, a little gratitude, appreciation for what we've been doing.And then we break into departments. If you want to know what to work on at a practice, ask your team. I mean, they, they know exactly where the pain points are. So they'll break off and all the hygienists will go in one room and all the assistants in another room. It's like, Hey guys, what's going on? What do we need to work on?What's not working? And then that is where you find out where you come up with like a system or protocol. So it is a, it is a whole team collaboration. It is, for instance, say the assistantly talking down to the assistants and saying, Hey, this is something to happen.We go up to the front desk. Sometimes we walk up with a patient and nobody looks up and we don't know where to go. And it's awkward. we don't know, like, is there, is, can we designate, and this is what they came up with. Can we designate a priority of the four chairs at our front desk that this is the person that always gets gone to first?If they're not available, we go to this person, if they're not available, you go to this person. So we came up with that, and then we bought these little tap lights that change from red to green. And they just sit on the little desk next to the person. And if for some reason there's not a patient there, but they're still finishing something up, typing something into a computer, or like doing some correspondence to a patient, they tap the light that's red.So that person's priority is taken, you go to the next person. And that was completely come up by my assistant and, uh, and the team. So it's just like, they're just, you give them the autonomy to just invent and come up with solutions and it's awesome. I mean, you'd be amazed that when, whenever you drop the ball on a patient or whenever something goes wrong at your practice, that's the opportunity to create a system.And if you've got a leadership team to help you do it, you don't have to do it alone. And now you have somebody that's in on the front lines, that's working there. That understands that position a lot more than you. So it's, it just works on so many Michael: levels. Gotcha. Now, why did it go from every other week to a month, your meetings?Paul: So and that's why I tell everybody just about meetings. How often should we meet? I don't know. We were meeting every other week, or every, yeah, twice a month, and it was getting a little stale. We just felt like we didn't have a lot to talk about. So we're like, hey, what do you guys think? Things are running pretty smooth.What do you think about us going down to every, once a month? And that's been fine for now. Um, there was a time where we were doing some front desk training. We were doing phone skills training. And we were doing it, like, where we have two shifts. We have a night shift and a morning shift. So the morning shift would stay late.We'd meet with them, and the night shift would come in early. And we'd meet with them and go through phone calls. And we did that weekly for six, seven weeks. And then you just feel it at a certain point. We're like, okay, I think we've got this. Start flipping through phone calls as a team. And you're saying, I can't find much to critique here.These sound fantastic. You know, okay, we're good. let's just stop. And we stopped the meeting. And then at one point in the future, and when we listen to a phone call, if we start hearing a lot of, um, bad phone calls again, we're going to start meeting again. So you just play it by ear. So you'll just feel, nobody wants to go to meetings that are unproductive and boring.So if your meetings are being unproductive and boring, because there's not a lot to talk about, you might be meeting too much. Michael: Yeah. I like that, man. I like that a lot because a lot of the times we get so like, uh, I guess, It's dogmatic about like, we got to meet every week, like if not then, I mean? And then we get more of a, like, ah, we got to, but if it's a seasonal where it's like, Hey, this is a, it's, it's bad.We should be meeting about this stuff often. Right. So it can like get into, burn into their brain. That's good. So then I guess that kind of leads my next question. Like what if the leads say like every, everything's fine. Everything's good. I can't think of a system. I can't, month two comes around. Yeah. I can't think of a system.Like everything looks good. Are they like looking or Paul: how can we be sure? I would find that hard to believe that everything's ever good. There's always, there's always something. If, if my lead was saying that to me, I would say, when's the last time you did one on ones with your department? You know, that's what I would ask.When was the last time you did some one on one meetings with everybody in your department? Because, uh, do a round of one on ones with your team. You know, if you don't have a leadership team, sit down with everybody this week. You're gonna find stuff. It's never going to be everything's fine. They might say when you ask them. Everything's good. Yeah. Yeah, keep probing Everything is not fine. And I like the question when I asked when I used to do one on ones I used to ask people what is something that frustrates you when you're working here? No, I like it. Everything's great. Everything's great Well, there's got to be something we all get frustrated something.No, I don't care how minor it is What is something that frustrates you? and Everybody can always come up with something and then you can there's always truth to it It's just like when that crazy patient complains, we all want to dismiss it. We say, Oh, they're crazy. We don't care about them, but there is always truth to every complaint.If it comes from a crazy person, or if it's just a minor complaint from somebody on your team, there is some truth there that could be addressed. And that complaint is a gift that we should take and create something with it. So, um, there will never be a point that everything is good. I mean, things are running smooth right now.My practice, we haven't had a whole lot going on. Um, big stuff at least, but there's always stuff going on and there's always things that improve on. I could show you system after system and protocol after protocol. And I think our office is one of the greatest offices in the world. And I really do believe that, but we dropped the ball all the time.We have humans on our team and they make mistakes and they have bad days and sometimes they're tired and sometimes they're in a bad mood. Things happen. We are human. And that's okay. Like, we offer everybody grace. We understand that. But there is never a point where you will ever have a practice that is free of issues, stress, or problems.But you can just reduce them as much as possible and use them to make your practice a better place to be. And if that is the core of your being, that that's what you want for your team, a really nice place to work, it makes it easy to have, and it's a pretty, it's a nice, um, it's a great why. It's a really great why to kind of motivate you to really take this, this avenue and put on this hat for your practice.So. and it's, it's good for everybody. It's good for the patients. You know, when everybody's happy at work, the patients get taken care of really well. It's good for the community. It's, it's good for patients that are happy and tell more friends and family about you because now you're going to help more people.So it's really all coincides with your mission. If your mission is to help as many people as possible, all these things Michael: matter. Yeah, no, yeah. A hundred percent. Now, what would you recommend if like. We're starting out, and it's just me, front, one front office, one assistant. But we want to have this in place because we can see a vision, like, I would love, for whatever Paul's telling me right now, like, to have my team take over, I would love that.How can we start? Paul: So, I mean, with just two people, that'd be, that'd be a pretty small leadership team. Because your leadership team is your normal team, I guess. But I think when, I tell people for small offices, it's time for an office manager. You know, that's, that's the first one to do. And it needs to be an office manager that's not working at the front desk.And they go, what do they do? Well, they're gonna do your payroll. They're gonna do the 4 0 1 K reconciliation. They're gonna do all the credit card reconciliations at the end of the month. They're gonna be working through the ar. Just checking on all these things that you're checking on. 'cause you don't necessarily need a leadership team when you're a smaller office, but I do suggest that you, you don't need to be the only leader at the office.And it's just one of those things that. It's a matter of having somebody and you give them that title, you put them in that role, and you, and you tell them what to do and you get help. You're getting help growing this practice. Now, and I will say my leads were all my leads. Every single one of them was not my first person I hired in that position.They have been with me a long time, but they were not, you know, and if anyone's wondering how we did this, cause we were probably a team of. 16 to 18, when we incorporated this lead structure, we had everyone do ranked ballots. So where you would vote for who you want the lead to be, who your first choice is, your second choice and your third choice.And it was all anonymous. And then I took them home and counted them and everybody voted the way that I would have picked. And I don't know what I would did if they didn't, because I had the ballots at my house and I don't think I could have, I could have did whatever I want with that election.Um, But I didn't have to, I, I, I, I was able to not have to make the decision because they did pick the right people. And so I think your team knows who it is, but that's how we did it. Cause I didn't want anyone to think I was playing favorites. I wanted the team to play their favorites. And thankfully the, the team had the same favorites as me, I guess it's just worked out.Yeah. I Michael: like that. I like that the rank balance. So, okay. So that's how we kind of want to start it off as right. But we want to already start giving like, um, I guess the sense of authority to the people that we, we feel could be leads. Because I feel if we hired a front office and we're like, man, they're great at accounting, they're great at this.And then our assistant's great at that. What should we ask ourselves to be like, but are they a good, or are they not a good Paul: lead? Well, it's, it's, it's hard because like we always want to put the person in the leadership position. That's our best employee, our best front desk employee. Our best assistant, our best hygienist and, um, I mean, I'm not going to pick who's my best is, but I would say they're not always there's a different set of skills that is required for leadership and it's more of the soft skills.It's more of the personality and it's more of, um, if I had to look at my leadership structure now and say, who are the best ones? It is the people that are comfortable getting out of their comfort zone and having a weird conversation, having a difficult conversation. They're not afraid to go to somebody and say, Hey, I got to, I kind of got to talk to you about something, you know, can we go into the office?I got to talk to you about something that's going on and, and, um, yes, people have been telling me this. I want to hear your side of it. What's going on. People that can sort through conflict and you want to like hope that most people have these skills and they don't and that's like with one like I was mentioned like my program that I have that's like part of it like is.Part of my, I have this program coming. I'm just going to spend it. Can I just talk about it now? It's going to run it is like, so I got a seven month program. It's called the omni practice total team success program. And what this is, is what we do. We we've helped the doctor pick their leads and we help them take to that transition and then it's all online contents that is slowly leaked out to fully systematize the practice.So the first month is pick your leads, doctor. And then we bring the whole team into it. Now the team's looking at like, okay, the leadership team is watching leadership videos. How do I manage people? How do I, how do I engage people in conflict? How do I embrace and inspire people with a vision? So that they're getting that leadership and management training that first month.While the other team members, they're starting to kind of work on things like what is a brand? What is a touch point? Why does everything we do matter? And we take it through this, the whole office through this course, and there's scheduled things and assignments in our hope to get this office completely systematized and running with the leadership within seven months.And within that there is coaching. So I'm having monthly calls with the doctor. Every one of my leads is having a monthly call with the person on the, the, the client's leadership team. And it's been awesome, man. It's just been a game changer for these offices that are doing it right now. We've just rolled it out like three months ago.We're only like, we're getting on our third month now, but man, it's cool to see the changes. It's, it's just when you bring in the team, that's when things change. And that's what I noticed because I was doing coaching for about four years. I had a client that said, Hey man, can my hygiene lead just talk to your hygiene lead?I'm like, of course. And then it was like, do you mind if my front desk lead talks to your front desk lead? Yeah. And the office manager talking. And he's just like, I can't believe how helpful these calls are with your team. Cause one of the things that like my team does when they talk to other people, they can't believe how much my team does.And they're like, this is great. Like, yeah, I want to do that. But you do the hiring and the firing, like, wait, what did you build? This is so cool. And it's, it's a lot different coming from somebody who's in that same position versus me telling another doctor, Hey, you should have your leads do this. And then they go to their lead and say, Hey, my Dr.Edgerton says his lead does this. You should do it. Can you do this? That's what you're supposed to be doing. It's just a completely different way of motivation and implementation. That's it. It was like, it was a game changer for that one client. That's why we created this program. But yeah, it's like I was saying is people don't have that leadership skills.They just, they don't have it in doctors. We don't have it a lot of times either. So it's, it's a game changer to give this to your team and, and my team has picked it up for me, but now that they're, my team leads are part of this program, they've watched these videos. They're like, these are great. Thank Man, why didn't we ever talk about this?I'm like, we did, we talk about it all the time. They're like, no, no, not like this. And I'm like, well, okay. Well, I'm glad it, I'm glad it was beneficial. I kind of wish we would have done this earlier with you guys, you know, it's just training, man. It's just like, can we optimize every area of this practice?And make everything the best it can be. And all it takes is a little intentionality and a little bit of time. But that's, that's the, that's the challenge. Is we don't have the time. Or we don't make the time. We don't think it's valuable time. And, and when we shut down our practice and do these things.Officers, doctors say, Well, ah man, we just risked out on 3, 000 of production by shutting down. You know, they, they think of the negative and the opportunity cost. They don't think about what are you gaining. And I assure you, you're gaining way more value when you shut down your practice. And have some dedicated time.Try to get your team to come in on a Saturday when they're supposed to be off. Yeah. Good luck with that. They don't want to do that. They're not going to bring their best self to that meeting. You know, it's gotta be when they're scheduled time. So, yeah, that was right. But that's answering your question.Yeah. That's, uh, I don't even remember what the question Michael: was. No, no, no, it's good to you, Michael. It's, uh, when they're, I guess when they're like, you know, kind of dropping the ball, but it's hard to find, I think, cause you mentioned, uh, you want to find people who can sort through conflict, leads. because sometimes we don't know how it is, if that person would be a good leader, they're just a good employee.Right. At the very beginning. Um, but sometimes I feel it's hard to find people who can sort through conflict because sometimes I feel like I'm thinking, are you someone who wants to sort through the conflict and you were, Hey, tell me why you got fired. Or are you just wanting to know the gossip? Like you just want the drama.You're like, Hey, why did they fire you? What's going on? Right. Like kind of thing. Right. Right. So. I guess, would it take more leadership training? On the owner to, to like know about themselves to be like, okay, uh, how can I make sure I do a good hire? Paul: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what's really worked out in my practice as well is it's like the, the team is going to model the leader and my leads are going to model me as a leader.So And I feel like I've always just kind of set a good example. Naturally, I've been very engaged in leadership training, leadership books, and just things like that stuff online. And Udemy is a great course. That's had got some good stuff on there. There's, there's so many cool things that you could do for like leadership training, but, um, if you don't have it yourself, it's going to be hard to get it in your team.It's gonna be hard to recognize it. And I think like, just to give you like a nugget, like the big one for me is safety is, is, and I'm not talking about physical safety, like, and your team needs to feel safe, like psychologically, they need to feel that they can screw things up. They need to feel that they can come to you and ask you for help.They need to feel that they can come to you and let you know when things aren't working out or things are going wrong or somebody's doing something. And they need to know that when they tell you that you're not going to get defensive and you're not going to make them feel guilty. You're not going to shame them.You're not going to criticize them. You're going to be like, Oh, I thank you for, thank you for sharing that for me. That probably was a little hard to share. And that I think is a huge thing in man. I would say so many people just completely screw that up. We want to be the boss that we were taught on TV and growing up, how the boss is supposed to be.And it's the big fat cat in the, in the chair with his feet up Boston, everywhere on telling people what to do. And that's not how good leadership works. It's about a collaboration. It's about leading with everybody. And it's not about scolding people, and, and that's leadership by intimidation, and that doesn't work.You'll get the bare minimum out of your people if that's the way you lead, if they are scared of you. there's just certain things, like, if, if you have this open line of communication and your team feels safe. They will come to you and let you know what the problems are. And when you have a team member that's like, I'm getting really frustrated with this, nothing is, nothing is changing.I think I'm going to go look for a new, new job. They don't ever get to that point. Because when they're frustrated, they come and let you know about it. And they, they don't have a reason to leave your practice. Now, am I saying I don't have any turnover? I absolutely do. Yeah, I'm just like everybody else.But I, we, we keep good team members. And there's been a number of times where somebody has, I've done this one on one. I said, Hey, tell me what frustrates you. I say, have you ever thought of quitting? Is I just curious. I feel this from you. I feel its vibe. I can feel its energy that like you're not liking being here and people have been like, yeah, I have been.It's weird that you noticed that. Tell me about that. Tell me more about that. And they tell you about it. And one, you now have a certain something that you have to fix something. You need to come up with a solution for, but to this person now feels validated and heard and appreciated. And wow, this person cares about me and my wellbeing.I mean, if you don't want your team members to leave, that's the way you need to lead. If you don't want them to leave. it's a lot and it starts at the top, just like everything. The doctor needs to be the first one to be trained. So everybody needs it. Everybody needs it. I mean, it's not just for work.It's for life. These are life skills. These are not just work stuff. Yeah. Michael: No. Yeah. You know what, Paul? I never thought about that when it came to safety. How, like, you got to be okay with it because I feel like we were always, you know, we Just in general, in school, everywhere, we're always brought up to like, never disappoint, right?Like, never disappoint, you gotta get the good stuff, like, all the time and everything like that. And so when you did, remember you'd like, go home and your report card was like, CCD or whatever, right? Maybe like an F or whatever, and you're like, how can I forge my parents signature, right? Like, you're like, how can I escape this?So you're thinking that. I feel like throughout the whole process, especially when you're an employee and even when you're an owner to your employees, I feel like that you're like, I don't want this point, but I got to look like a leader, but you're really just looking like a boss. You know what I mean?Instead of a leader, like you said, interesting. So that's what it would be called safety. They have to feel safer than that. Paul: It's a, it's an idea from Harvard business, uh, maybe psychologist. I don't know what she's doing. Her name's Amy Edmondson. She's the one who coined that.And she got that from, she did a study on hospitals. And they looked at like really well communicating teams and really poor communicating teams. And they said, which one of these teams is going to have more adverse events at the hospital, meaning Which one's going to give the wrong medication and give the wrong dosage to a patient.They're like, well, it's got to be the poor communicating team. It's definitely going to be that. It ended up being the better communicating team that made more mistakes. And like, whoa, what's that about? That is not what we thought was going to happen. And then they dug into it deeper and it wasn't. It was the bad team that was making more mistakes, but they weren't reporting them.They were hiding them. Because they weren't safe to report. And there was no safety in making a mistake. It was not, let's learn from this. It was, you're in big trouble. So they didn't tell anybody. The Michael: bad communication team, or? Paul: Yeah, so it was the bad communication team that actually made more mistakes.But in the study, they just weren't reporting them. They didn't feel safe to report them. So they came back and they, she came back and did some more studies and more surveys and stuff. And that's what they found out. They're like, oh my gosh. this is all about safety. They don't feel safe admitting to the failures.So it's because of the leadership. It's because of the dynamic created on this team. So that she wrote a whole book about it. It's really interesting. Michael: Yeah. So then how can we like, I guess, mention that to our team at the very beginning, like you got hired on like. Without telling them like, yeah, make a ton of mistakes.It's cool. You know, but like, Hey, it's okay to make. Yeah. How would you say that? Paul: That's something I do with my team. I do. We have, we have onboarding videos that do it now, but I used to sit down with everybody. I said, Hey, this is my, this is what I want you to know about me in this practice. I do understand that everybody is human and we all make mistakes.I want you to 100 percent always be comfortable telling me if you make a mistake, if you need some more training, if there's something you're not understanding, or if you're seeing somebody do something that you think I should know about. I want you to feel comfortable telling me about it and the only way that we can do that is we, we have this mantra here and we call it grace over guilt is that something goes wrong.You drop the ball on a patient. I don't care who did it. I don't care how it happened. Okay, this happened guys. What do you guys think? What can we do so this doesn't happen again? We are not shaming that person because if you shame that person. You're not going to find out about it and you're never going to be able to address it.So we always just say grace over guilt. And that's hard sometimes, especially when, um, somebody is coming after you as a leader telling it's you, Hey, you, this is your fault. You got to go. Yeah, you're right. You know what it is. Even if deep down in your heart, you're like, this is not my fault. You, you gotta, you gotta look at how you respond because psychological safety, it's, it's a lot like, It's like trust in a relationship, you know, you can break that in one dumb mistake.You can break that trust, years of trust that you built and same thing with psychological safety. You could blow up on a team member or get really, really critical and really make them feel bad. And you just broke that whole thing. They are never going to share with you ever again. Because you now have made it unsafe and when the team is unsafe, the only way to stay safe in that kind of environment is just to be quiet.And that's the whole thing with quiet with when people are quiet, we don't know because it's silence. It's an invisible act. We don't see it. And it's one of those things that it's just somebody comes and quits and you're like, wow, I can't believe they quit. They're like my best team member. Why did you quit?And then they say, I don't know. I just might, I just ready for something new or just, I think I need less hours because they're not going to tell you the truth. You've trained them not to because you, the way that you've approached them as a leadership, as a leadership style. So it's, that's the problem is you miss out on all that collaboration, all that good stuff that can come out of your practice, because you're getting upset and mad with people with their decisions.And what I see in most offices, man, people will get mad at their teams for doing things, not the right way. They have never designated what the right way is. They have never made a system or protocol around it, yet they're upset. You know, should I address this with a team member? I can't believe he or she did this.And I always say to them, I say, well, what's the way they're supposed to do it? Well, I think they should do it like this. I'm like, well, do they know that? Yeah, everybody knows that. Well, how do they know that? Have you ever like put in a document? Have you ever trained? Have you ever talked about it? No. Do you think I should do that?Yeah. I do. I think you should do that before you, before you start getting critical of their performance. Why don't you just, why don't you make the rules, make the rules of the game before you're telling somebody they're losing at it. we don't do that. We expect everyone to know what we know and do everything in our way.And that's just our natural human perspective that we think everybody thinks like us and has the same values as us. And I think part of getting older and becoming wiser as you realize that we're all different and that's cool. We can all be different. Michael: Yeah. Uh, sure, man. And our memories. All right. You can tell him like, yeah, I told him to do that three years ago.And you're like, you sure? I think so. Like, you know, I don't even remember, like, how can I remember it kind of thing, you know? Interesting. So real quick, if you can, man, break, I know you did already, but break down to us your program that you have, or this, it's a whole Paul: training course. Yeah. So it's a seven month training course where we've, we've come up away with me and my leads.How can we implement this in somebody's office? And this is for, um, if you have a larger, I'm saying larger office, if you've got a team that's large enough for a few leads, it's a great program for you. If it's something where you've got a really small team, we do have a program that's just, there's no coaching involved.It's still got all the videos. You still get to have all these different, there's eight different tracks for different positions in the office. Um, that would be like doctor associate, the four leads, the office manager. And front desk hygienist and leaving somebody out assistance them. We didn't forget you guys.We like you assistance. there's eight different tracks, but every month. There's a set of videos to watch, there's some worksheets, and there's assignments. And I can just tell you, like, for the first month, it's all about leads, it's leadership for the doctor, let's decide your lead system, let's talk about your goals, let's figure out where you're going long term.Second month, the team comes in, and we're talking about how do we stay on time, how do we implement this scheduling protocol that I like to do, it's called block scheduling, it works great, everybody can follow it, and it makes nice, easy days that are produc

Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Darkhorse Tech, your go-to Dental-driven IT solutions company!‍‍‍Picture this: You're running a dental practice, and your patients' trust and data are your top priority. Enter Darkhorse Tech, the guardians of your patients' information, the solution to your IT headaches, and the force behind your seamless tech integrations.Your practice deserves the best, and Darkhorse Tech delivers.Click this link for an exclusive offer: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkhorse-deal/AND if you're listening before November 27th, 2023, take advantage of their Black Friday deal! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkorse-black-friday-deal/‍Guest: Reuben KampBusiness Name: Darkhorse TechCheck out Reuben's Media:Website: https://www.darkhorsetech.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DarkhorseTechInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/darkhorsetech/Email: admin@darkhorsetech.com‍Other Mentions and Links:‍Companies/Software: Benco Open Dental Microsoft Azure Flex Mango Dentrix Ascend Eaglesoft CareStack Oryx Archy DEXIS Carestream‍Useful Terms: DHCP - service that hands out IP addressesDNS - how devices resolve internet addressesGateway - how you get to the internetHIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act‍People/Communities: Howard Farran (podcaster + blogger)‍Dentistry Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran (podcast)‍Dental Town (blog/website/community)‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:I'm moving to cloud based software. Do I still need IT support?How to spot out IT companies that may be dishonest.How does your IT company help with HIPAA compliance?The basics on IT with firewalls, antivirus, and internet connectivity. Why do we need reliable options for these?Why the D.I.Y. mentality is often not the right call with your IT solutions.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guests. Beloved person. Everybody adores him. Ruben Camp. How's Reuben: it going, man? You know how hard it is to be beloved and an IT guy at the same time. So, I'm doing great. Thanks, Michael. I've been doing this 11 years and just happy to be talking to you today.Michael: No, man. We appreciate it. We appreciate everything you're doing. I know you guys have, um, done a lot for the dental community, also startup community as well. Just practices in general. Um, at the same time, this is not your first episode with us. You've been with us, you've guided us through some processes.And at the same time, we're going to answer some of the most major questions today. But before we do that, if you can kind of give us a gist or a rundown, been doing this for Reuben: 11 years. That's right. Well, this is in Dark Horse. Um, Dark Horse is something that I started. It was, it was just me, you know, back in 2012.And, uh, we we've grown throughout the years. We got about 65 employees, about 1000 clients, uh, that are in the dental space. That's pretty much all we focus on is dental. So, uh, how I got into that is I used to be a Benco technician. So I used to do corporate it for, you know, the bad guys and, uh, you know, they really love selling birds and bibs and all that stuff.But it was kind of an afterthought. So I really wanted to. Um, you know, start a company where service was the, uh, the main forward, not selling consumables. So, Mm-Hmm. Uh, other Interesting. My dad was a dentist. That's how I got into this industry. I think everyone has a really interesting path about how you found dental.I know you do Michael as well. Right? We all kind of get dragged in somehow. Yeah. Um, you know, went to school, uh, at Chapel Hill to, to be a dentist and decided I didn't wanna do that. So, uh, yeah. Benco dark horse. Here we are. So you Michael: left Benco mainly because you were not seeing what you wanted to see, or what was the reason?Reuben: Yeah. So, I mean, there are a sales. Company first, right? So they're, you know, all the meetings and all the messaging and everything like that. It was, it was about how do we sell more product? How do we sell more CBCTs? How do we, you know, get more accounts and sell them consumables? You know, I call it burrs, bibs and everything else.and they had I. T. Because you know what? They didn't want shine or Patterson to be in that office. they almost like they had I. T. As a defensive mechanism, but not as like a core, something that they were putting a lot of resources in to develop. So, you know, I'm very passionate about what I do, uh, customer service and dental.That's kind of like, that's my niche. So, you know, let's say if Benco was 80, 20 sales to service, right? We have three people in sales out of 65 people. So you can see just by the demographics of our, you know, how we're made up. Most of our people are in places to support our clients, not to sell, you know, to shove something down their throat.So that was very important to me just as a service technician that started a company versus You know, we have a lot of competitors out there that have just either, you know, either bought an IT company and they're just trying to squeeze it for profits or, you know, someone who does not understand customer service, but hey, they're really good at a P& L statement.Yeah, yeah. Michael: Did you specialize that in Chapel Hill IT? Reuben: No, I had biochemistry because I was, uh, that's pre dental based. Anything that's in the sciences basically is pre dental. So that's, uh, computers. that's just been kind of my thing for, you know, for as long as I can remember, you know, nine, 10, 12, got into building computers and fixing them and started a company in high school called it's good computer solutions with and we run around and.Anybody that knows Ithaca, it's Cornell. So we fix it in Cornell professors at all hours of the day. And anyway, so it's just kind of been a passion self taught passion Michael: of mine. Yeah. Cause I was going to ask you out of all the. Things you were doing in Benco. Why did you pick to hone in on IT? Reuben: Uh, for that solution?You know, they wanted me to be a dual trained tech, right? They wanted me not only to go into an office install a computer system, sensors mount a CVCT, calibrate it, do all that stuff. But they were like, you know it would be really great if while you're there someone's, you know Cuspidor doesn't work if you could also be crushing on the mechanicals, you know, suction, all that stuff, you know, amalgam separators.And I was, uh, I was just so, I was so talented at the I. T. side of things that I never really got that opportunity to learn on it. And that's fine because that's not really a passion of mine. Um, You know, those, those systems are kind of gross. What goes down the drain when they get clogged up. Uh, so, uh, there's some very talented, we call them core service technicians, right?The core equipment in the office. and we'll leave it up to the professionals, but, Michael: Gotcha. Okay, man. Interesting. So then fast forward, you started Dark Horse Tech and this is where you're at now. Now, I know we're going to kind of talk about, and let's kind of jump into that if we can. A lot of people do have.Open dental, right? and so break it down to me. What are the confusions when it comes to having that and then I. Reuben: T. Absolutely. So kind of how we got here is, you know, dark horse version 1. 0 was we were a small regional upstate New York company. I mean, it's good. New York, small town, 30, 000 people, 30, 000 college students.And, you know, that was the old way of doing things. And then, you know, we got a break and Howard for and hired me. And Howard was in Phoenix, so that was our first, I can't drive to your office, right? And we nailed it. he was running Open Dental, in his office. And that really gave us the confidence, uh, and exposure, right?Went on his podcast, got a, got a forum to, introduce myself to the dental community, which at that time was still. Dental town now about a year after that interview, it's like everyone fled to Facebook groups and then I followed, them over there. so dark horse version 2. 0 is not just, you know, we're five minutes from your office.It's. Hey, we're dental specific. That's our edge. If you're in Hawaii, if you're in Alaska, if you're in rural Nebraska, we'll support you. No problem. You know, we'll make it work. And Dark Horse version 3. 0 has been cloud. Right? So, and that's kind of where we're segwaying in here today. Is open dentals, you know, great company.They're well known for their customer service. That's what I care about. Right? So when you hear me singing companies phrases, that means when you pick up the phone and call them, they treat you well, and they solve your problem. so we've always loved open dental. and so the confusion has come up just recently.So cloud. Open that up. There's two versions. There's the one you just that everyone pretty much has right now, which is you call them up. You buy a license key and you put it on your server. And right. It's a local system. And then there is. Open Dental's internal cloud offering, like literally they hosted at their HQ in Oregon, and that is a separate version.So there are only 2 versions of Open Dental. However, this is where the confusion comes in, like professionals like us, right? We use Microsoft and Azure as their cloud platform. We take the first version, the normal version, the one that works with, you know, Flex and Mango and Medento and Swell, all your third party integrations.We take the one that you've been running on your local server, and we put it in the cloud. So same version, integrations all work. that's still version 1. Version 2 is the one that OpenNL offers, and they have a pricing sheet online that you can look at, but it does not have integrations with third party.Which is tough for me because that's when I hear feedback about OpenDental, the products, right, the support's great, but people really love using all the third party integrations and they love the ability to switch, right? If something's not working for them, uh, there's nine other paperless companies you can go to, right?Um, you know, or like, you know, Flex is a great example, right? Flex is only written for OpenDental. And they do a really good job of what they do, right? Does not exist in any other practice management software. Cannot, cannot replicate it. But let's say the owner general manager flex pissed you off. You can switch software.So you can't do that with any other platform out there. So to break it down really simply. There's the off the shelf open dental, and that's the one that, you know, that we're in large part supporting putting in the cloud, um, creating awesome solutions for single practices, multi site practices and D.S. O. S. And then there's the internal open dental cloud offering. We honestly across our, you know, we have right now 1050 clients. We have zero people on that second version. So Mhm. that is where most of the confusion has come in the space when you try to have a conversation like over Facebook, over text. It's really hard to parse that out, and then when people call Open Dental, it gets even more confusing. Really? Michael: Okay. let me ask you, when it comes to cloud, do you still need IT for that? You still need Reuben: IT. So, HIPAA compliance are just, they're linked together, right? It's just like, alright, you read the, you know, what you need to do to, you know, to protect your patient's health information.Need to have a firewall? That doesn't go away. Uh, you need to have the antivirus software that does not go away. you need to have a backup system that does go away as long as you don't have 3D images, right? Those don't go to the cloud yet. Those stay local, right? this is something that a conversation needs to happen.It's really hard for me to like text somebody back and forth and explain all this. I'm glad this podcast exists because I can now cite it. Like, hey, before you even talk to me, listen to our conversation here. IT is absolutely reduced by going to Open Dental Cloud. Again, the first one, the off the shelf one I'm talking about, it is not erased, right?Michael: Open Dental will help you with Open Dental. Anything else in your practice, printers, security cameras, internal cameras, sensors, CVCTs, PCI compliance, all that is, is traditionally still on the company. Gotcha. Okay. So then what are the frustrations when trying to explain this then I guess, do people still understand it or they're more like.What, Reuben: you know, it's I. T. there's like, I can't give my full explanation because it crosses the border into I. T. jargon and the three letter, you know, acronyms start coming out and everyone's lost. So what we typically do we share our screen, right? We say, Hey, this is exactly how it's going to work on your office.Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, take the example of somebody that is on a server based open dental solution. Right now. We say, hey, you know what? It's the same version. We're going to put it in the cloud. Your staff is going to walk in the morning. They're going to see an open dental icon. They're double click on it and they're not even going to know what's in the cloud.Execution is actually very simple, right? from the customer's point of view, right? There's some expertise that goes into, migrating to the clouds, you know, getting the cloud server where it needs to be security. All that stuff takes technical expertise, but the staff walking in the morning, double clicking on open dental that does not change.So, um, that's why it's been such a successful implementation is because it's like it's still open dental that people know and love. Uh, it's just not on a local server in your office. And, you know, historically, the cloud has been slower, right? But with Microsoft's, you know, recent introduction of a couple of different protocols that are again, here comes the three letter acronyms.RDP is now AVD, which as a virtual desktop, we're seeing now that the cloud is faster than a local server. So it's not only that it's it's 2023. Of course, this should be in the cloud, is actually, just as fast or even faster than a local server. So it's, uh, you know, a really great time to talk about.This is when you're looking to replace your server. It's like, hey, do you want to, you know, do you want to write a check every 5 years? Right? And maintain that hardware. And when you replace it, there's downtime to transfer it, or you go to the cloud. You know, it's a really great time to, to talk to your IT company about, um, options.So you don't have to buy one time, part of our cost. Michael: Gotcha. So then it's easy. I guess, how often should you replace the server then? And then what really does cloud based I guess servers or softwares kind of cover, right? If you were to give us like bullet points of this is what it covers easily. Boom. And then how often should we replace the server?You're like, Nope, I'm still sticking with what I know. Trying to Reuben: servers five to seven years is a pretty safe, um, window of time, right? It is. If your server goes down, that means your patients are waiting. So, that is not worth something cheaping out on, right? It's kind of the brains of the operation.Now, if you go to the cloud now, you don't have to work at hardware anymore, right? And you look at Microsoft's data the industry. This is this is true for voiceover I. P. As it is for any cloud service. They talk about nines, right? They talk about what is your uptime? How many nines are there past the 99 percent point, right?And Microsoft has four nines. So that means you have about a minute and a half downtime a year. I've never seen it go down, but technically I guess it's gone down for a minute and a half on average every year. 99. 9999 percent uptime, which cannot be replicated at all by a local because all these services, you have Amazon, you have Google, you have Microsoft, just to name three.There's competition part, you know, the cost of storage is going down. The cost of servers is going down. It used to be, it didn't make a lot of sense for a single practice to go cloud, uh, only for multi site and now it's just, everyone should go cloud because it's, more cost effective. Hmm. Michael: So that's the key most cost effective then, right?Especially if people are trying to. Gotcha. Okay. So then going with that to you, Ruben, because you've, you've worked with hundreds of practices or you are working with hundreds of practices. Reuben: Hundreds of practices that use Open Dental and more, you know, more practices that use Dentrix and Eaglesoft and CareStack and Oryx and all those software.So, you know, I, I see the entire industry. We're kind of focusing here on Open Dental, but, um, I mean, Open Dental, it's no secret is, My favorite software, I don't know if I've still ever seen a negative comment about open dental. Michael: So then to you, what would be, if you're trying to be super cost.Effective, but efficient to start off, what would it be the best kind of like formula or stack to use for this? Reuben: So it all goes to fit, right? What makes, if we're, we're saying everything is equal, it's an easy answer. Right. but the problem is certain softwares are better suited for dentists. Right.There's, of course, the feature set standpoint, and you can only find this out by talking to these companies and doing demos. Is this going to work for my practice and how I manage and bill and all that stuff? Um, you know, and the other side of this is you want? Do you want something that's all inclusive, right?Let's let's take dentrics ascend. Uh, for example, you pay a higher bill, right? Then you would pay to open down, but you get every single service that you could want. The problem is you have to use all those services, right? There is no alternative. if you're a dentist that wants to use the best software, that's why open dental still exists, right?It may look, it's from like, it's from the 1990s and they haven't updated it, but you know, what makes it so powerful is. honestly, it's like the app store on, on Apple, right? It's a, it's a great phone, but you know, what's great about it? The app store, you can download whatever you want.It's got the best ecosystem out there. So you go into open now and you're like, you know, flex is a really great example. that program alone It's just so incredibly powerful, right? You don't have those options with an all inclusive software, but maybe you're a dentist and you're just like, you know, I don't want to worry about having to sign up for Open Dental and then Flex and then, you know, Practice by Numbers and then Mango Voice.I don't want to have to do all that. Right. Which is, you know, why companies like Archie exists because they'll, they'll say, Hey, we'll give you practice management. We'll give you phones through mango. It's included in your bill. We'll give you patient communication. We'll give you all this stuff. So you kind of have to ask the question of what kind of person are you?Are you justlet me sign up for 1 thing and I'll just use whatever they have. Or do you want to be able to be like. I want to work with the best, patient communication company. I want to work with the best clearinghouse. I want to work with the best, patient portal company, credit card company.That's who I am. That's what a lot of dentists are out there. I mean, Open Dental is still the number one software for startups. Um, when we see people have all the choice in the world, Open Dental is still being... over 50 percent of start up practices are still going open nettle. and that's why, it's more of an ease, uh, question, right? Single pane of glass, it's all here. Freedom of choice is on the other Michael: side. Gotcha. So one is more like all one subscription type. Yeah, like for example, like Oryx, right? If you were to just go with Oryx, all in one, exclusive, you know what I mean?Inclusive everything, Reuben: I'm going to get Oryx, uh, and I'm going to get phones. I'm done. Yeah. Michael: It's easy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But if you want the, like the other side, right? The freedom to choose. Reuben: So we have opened 400 startups. I've talked to most of these people and then, even, even more people, right.Because the ones that didn't go with us. Right. I, and I hear their story. And like, I think the reason Open Dental is appealing. Is because, let's go back to the 2012, you know, I'm leaving Benco, I'm risking, that's, that's a health insurance for our family that's half the income for our family and I'm leaving with nothing and I'm saying, like, you know, I have a dream to create a great it company and I'm, I'm going for it.Right. and that's who the startup people are, plus a million and a half dollars in debt, which I do not have. that's a whole nother layer. So, you know, when you talk to these people, they're like, this is my dream practice. I want it to be freaking awesome, right? And I'm not sure those companies can, can meet that standard, right?They're, they're trying to be the jack of all trades. because when you peel back the layer. You know, let's again, just let's go back to Ascend. That's like 10 different companies, right? They've stitched the software all together to make it all look and feel like a cohesive interface.But the practice management module is different than the image, right? That's a separate software, right? So you're talking about one company who's trying to develop and, you know, and push forward 10 different platforms. It's really hard to do, right? And it's one reason why we're like, Hey, mango, do your thing.Just frickin nail the phones, right? And a lot of I. T. companies do do phones. We just feel like it distracts from our core purpose, which is like. All right, we're going to be awesome at support. We're gonna be awesome at startups, which is basically support as well, you know, and we're gonna be great at the cloud, right?let's just focus on these three things. That is our competitive advantage. When you try to broaden in any segment, I mean, Dennis probably know this from trying to bring in, let's bring in ortho, let's bring in oral surgery in house, and you try to be A plus at all these different things, it's really hard.It's the same thing with software companies. Everything in the startup, it's a conversation. I listen to what people want and, you know, anytime they're just like, this has to work. I want this practice to be the, you know, the best patient experience. It can be it usually inevitably points to, to a single software company.Michael: Yeah. Okay, cool, man. That's awesome. And then, so with that kind of being said, I know cost kind of comes in the mind. That's the question that a lot of people really ask is how can they start cutting down on their I. T. or how can they minimize that I. T. bill or have you seen this? Where people are like, Hey, I just got like new fees on my it bill or something like that.What, what is up with that? Reuben: The new fees thing? Uh, well, I mean, if you add computers, it just depends how your IT is set up, right? there's. Uh, on the back end, I can tell you, as somebody who runs an I. T. company, we get charged per device, right? So it's natural for your I. T. company to then bill you. It's the fairest way to do it.We get charged for ten, you know, antivirus agents. You have nine servers, nine workstations and a server. That's ten. Lines up. So usually when you see I. T. bills go up office ads, a computer office ads, email services. It's, it's stuff like that. I mean, unless you're just working with, you know, shady folks that just move numbers, you don't notice, um, you know, we do price increases, uh, annually because we give our staff raises.Guess where the price increase comes from. what we hear from our clients, we want to work with the same people again and again. That's retention. And that means you got to give people a reason to stay here. Besides like, Hey. You like ribbon, you should stay here, but usually that means promotions and raises and all that good stuff.let's pivot to how do you cut down on IT costs, right? not someone who is, let's say, there's a lot of IT companies out there that prevent their clients from going to the cloud because they so fear, like, oh no, it's not ready yet, it can't do what you want to do. But they're really protecting their butts, right?They're like, oh, my client goes to the cloud. I'm going to lose revenue. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about how to lose IT companies revenue. so think about, any software out there. Dentrix. Uh, Eaglesoft open, right? We have a server uh, we have to back up that server and the office says, you know what?If that server goes down, I don't wanna be downed at all. Alright? So then we need a backup and disaster recovery system. So when we go cloud, let's just make it very, very simple. Let's leave three D out of it. Let's, let's treat it like it's a pediatric office and everything is two d imaging. I'll pick on Oryx for now, right? I know it's a good partner of ours. I know Rania. I love the products. When you go, or let's say you're on Open Dental and DEXIS imaging locally, you go Oryx, what goes away on the IT side? Well, I don't have to manage your server anymore. That is one of the highest costs on there.That goes away. I don't have to back up that server that I'm not managing anymore. So that goes away. So what does that leave? That leaves how much support you want, right? And so that's either you pay as needed or you want unlimited support for your practice. A firewall that is still a HIPAA requirement in antivirus software.I'm just trying to keep it as simple as possible, like there's patch management and all this stuff you have to keep your computers up to date that should, go along with the antivirus and all that stuff. But, some big stuff comes off, but you still have a lot of requirements, and things to protect on the network.Gotcha. Michael: Okay. So the requirements still stay, but now when you say the biggest expense, which is the servers, right? That kind of comes off, how much are we looking to shave off when that happens? Reuben: Yeah, so I mean, I can only talk about myself. Right. And our company. so again, the two biggest costs are support.Let's say you're paying for unlimited support. We call that our gold plan, right? Unlimited phone support and server management. So let's say an office is on a 600 a month plan with us unlimited support, and they go to a cloud based agreement. You could be looking at 150 a month in savings. Okay, Michael: but server management, right?Or the Reuben: server? Server, yeah, the server in the backup system going away, you could go down to 450. Michael: Okay, but everything else, the bare bones requirement. Reuben: Percent savings. Michael: So when it comes to like the, let's just say they did that and they went with the works, they did all that and they're like, Ruben, help me out here, man.Like I need, give me the bare bones that what we can do. How does that look? And, and is that feasible for the long run? And they're like, I want to grow, Reuben: but give me the bare bones. Well, depends on how much your staff calls in, right? If your staff doesn't call in. You should be on a bare bones plan, right?You shouldn't be on just like, Hey, cover me for HIPAA compliance, cybersecurity, make sure I don't get hacked. Let's go. the thing is most of our clients call in, they use the service they pay for. So it's, it's completely up to the client. I think it's a really. Smart decision as, uh, as a business owner, not to put a barrier between your staff needing help and like, Oh, you know, Dr.Clark's going to get a bill. If I pick up the phone, right? Things are broken. Your staff doesn't hesitate. It gets fixed done, right? That's the stuff that, you know, the dentist doesn't see while they're in the treatment room is like, you know, the scanner doesn't work. So your staff is so much less efficient because they had to, you know, create a workaround.Right. Because they know if they call, you know, Dr. Clarkson and get you know, bill in the mail 10 days from now, he's going to be like, Hey, Nancy, what the heck? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. You know, it's uh, you know, And Michael: I feel like that kind of creates like more, uh, you're scared. You won't even tell the doctor, you know what I mean?You're like, oops, I pray, tell her you'll lie about it or something, right? In order to not feel, you're creating some type of weird environment in your office when you do that. Right, Reuben: right. I can't imagine how much stuff. Wouldn't get done if I was the bottleneck at my company, it's like, Oh, no, we can't reach out to that company until Ruben approves it.It's like, Oh, my God, I wouldn't get anything done. Um, but to answer your question, like, if you, let's say it's a, it's a medium or sized or smaller office. You stripped out the unlimited service and you're just like, Hey, I'm going to Oryx and I want no frills, right? Just give me, compliant and protected.You could easily be in the 200 to 300 range. Yeah. Yeah. Michael: But the unlimited, like give me an example, like why, or from your experience, if you can give me like the top three, why does staff call in a lot? Let me Reuben: just pull up our service board right now and just list off what people calling about your PCS compliance scan a PCI compliance scan, it's a test for I. T. Professionals. It's like, you know, what settings do you have on on your firewall? Do you have antivirus software? When were the last? So it's basically a test for I. T. People. That's a really great thing to offload to us because that thing takes like 30 minutes to complete.Right? questionnaire and then you have to schedule the scan. You have to know your internal IP address that spectrum gave you to run. Anyway, uh, that's one example. let's see. Questions about switching a panoramic PC to server PC. So this office, they have a imaging database on their pan PC and they want to.They want to talk to us about what it would take to move that to the server PC to consolidate that, um, create remote access, right? That's something that's included with all of our plans. Great remote access for, my new remote employee, uh, so that they can log into a lab computer, let's see, install remixes on computers that were just installed, uh, by the office.uh, workstation two cannot print, create new windows user on consultation computer. and then, oh, this one's great. Uh, shout out to Becky Scott from Lincoln Children's Dentistry. Help my son get fortnight to work on our office Wi Fi. So, you guys, you guys cover all kinds of help my son get fortnight to work.Yeah, I mean, there's... You cover everything. IT companies, uh, you know, we're, again, we're dental specific. We coach our people to call us on anything. There's, there's really two setups. There is the like IT company that say, Hey, that's a vendor problem. You need to call them directly. And then there's us, right.And, and some other really good companies in the space who have vendor management built in, and that's the expectation that like your staff. Is taking care of patients. They're not like waiting on hold with Carestream or, you know, gen X or Dexus, you know, they're, they gotta take care of patients. Like, yeah, wait on hold while, you know, while we're, you know, working at home or, or at hq.So, but Michael: that, I, I think that's really good to have though, because I feel like, uh, a lot of the times you waste time looking for it, right? When we can just go to you and then you give us the solution. Hey, it's a vendor, Hey, it's this. And so I'm sure you've heard of this a lot, and this is a question when I asked and the Dental Market Society Facebook group, like in other places, they send us this one a lot, uh, when VoIP, right?So they're saying kind of like we're having an issue with our phones and then VoIP says there is no issue or it can be any other vendor, right? That says there is no issue on our end. So then it falls back on you or what, what happens there? Reuben: Yeah. So, you know, in the example of the bad it company that says call your vendor, you're stuck in the middle as the client, that's the worst, you know, you feel helpless, kind of feel a little pissed off and you're like, what, and so our clients never have to feel like that anymore because we're just, we are them.In that scenario, we're hunting down the solution the ticket will not get closed until the issue is resolved. So let's talk about voiceover IP, right? A lot of, you know, a lot of people that is the standard. Now, of course, you should have it. It's really great if you have a hybrid, you want to offer jobs that are hybrid or even full remote, right?Voiceover IP is like the only way to pull that off. So you install your new phone system and you're having call quality issues. the number one most likely culprit is going to be your firewall. Okay, so if the phone company says, Hey, our servers are great. Everything looks really good until it hits your office.And so let's assume they're right. Yeah, you know, let's assume AWS is not having an issue. Firewall is gonna be number one. Internet quality is going to be number two. And number three is going to be the device that controls your network. Sometimes that's the server. Sometimes that's the firewall. But basically, you know, my, when you, when you go to Starbucks and you join the wifi, you're getting an IP address from something, right?You're not just, just magically connecting to the internet. Something is handing you an address. Okay, so those are the three things that again, if you have an I. T. Company, they're going to be able to diagnose that stuff pretty quickly. They're going to be able to run, let's say, in the Internet stability.They're going to be able to run a ping test. Let's say you spectrum. They can see is your Internet like a D. C. Current. Is it just flat? Or is it like, is it just Jerry? And it's all over the place. You know, voice needs a very, consistent connection to work well, not a lot of traffic, but just needs a stable connection.Firewall. Well, if you just leave the firewall stock unconfigured, it's just going to be constantly scanning that phone traffic, and then you're going to call quality issues. So, what we do is after the office let's say they get mango, they plug their, uh, yelling phones in, they show up on the network.we do a couple different things, but just to keep it simple, we whitelist them, right? we tell the firewall. These devices are safe. Don't hammer them. Right? Don't constantly bombard them with internal threat protection stuff. there's a couple other tips and tricks you could do, but it's more kind of for your, your I.T than like a D. I. Y. Stuff. So we won't talk about that. Yeah. And then there's the device that hands out I. P. Addresses. Right? So you could be out of I. P. Addresses, right? You have such a large office. You've maxed out. You plug that phone in. It doesn't even connect to the Internet. you could have I. P.Address conflicts, right? So, uh, you let's say, the phone's working great. You connect your laptop, That router gives, uh, your laptop the same address as the phone. One of those devices is going to win. Okay, uh huh. Right, so there could be an IP address conflict. Um, and I'll just throw out some, some other words if people are taking notes here and they're going to send it to their IT company.DHCP, that's what, that's the service that hands out IP addresses. DNS, that's how devices resolve internet addresses, right? Google. com is actually 8. 8. 8. 8. Okay, right. So when you type in google. com, it's touching a DNS server and it's saying, what is this? And it goes, Oh yeah, that's 8. Of course. Well, here you go.You don't know that's happening, but DHCP, DNS, and lastly, gateway. Gateway is just how you get to the internet. So I know that's, that's a lot of technical jargon, but you know, for the, for those of you who are DIY er, like furiously writing your, your IT company to email right now, just put all those words in there.Michael: Wait, quick question, leaving firewall stock? What does that mean? Like you said, if you just leave your firewall stock. Reuben: Okay. So let's say you get a firewall. Plug it in out of the box. You don't do anything. All right. What you're going, you're going to have phone issues. You're going to have issues with anything that is internal that needs to broadcast external.Okay. So think, think about. Open dental e services thing about, credit card, right? You have a credit card reader that thing needs to authenticate their credit card and come back if you leave it stock. It's going to turn off access to all of these devices that you rely on your practice to work on. Now, it's not going to not work 100 percent of the time.but these are the things that your I. T. commission should be doing. They should be whitelisting these known good devices. Um, so there are no issues and you don't have to worry about this stuff at all. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. Interesting. So this is basically why we hear all the time where they might be like, hey, it's not us.Call your IT company. Reuben: It's not us. It's you. Um, yeah. Uh, It's usually, it's also usually the firewall and, and not to get into a soapbox here. IT is, it's really hard because there's not like a set of standards. So again, anybody, including me, I should say, You know, self taught, just have a lot of experience, can be an IT person, right?So, you know, you come along and someone's like, Oh yeah, I can do all of that for half the price. Right. And it's just like, okay, but what are you getting? And it's like, uh, none of this stuff is HIPAA compliant. It's like, no wonder it's half price because it's not actually protecting your office. You know, you, do want to work honestly with folks that care about their patient's data.Right. Because that's what I care about doing a good job. but I tease one of those tough industries, right? There's not a lot of regulation in terms of, who can, um, be an I. T. person, if you're an I. T. person that's working with a dentist, you have their trust and you breach that trust by selling them something that is not HIPAA compliant.There are no ramifications for you. So it's, somewhat of a wild, like I'm in this, this position where, you know, I've been around long enough and I have the respects, uh, of a lot of people out there and there are other companies like medics dental, that, that do a really good job in this space. And, you know, we like to say we're the good guys, right?We don't cut corners. We do the right thing. We take care of our clients. But then there's the rest of the market and it's, really hard to have, conversations because the dentist is always stuck in the middle, right? They're hearing one thing like from a colleague. Oh, this endodontist who has five offices in Illinois uses this guy and pays him, pays him 40 bucks a month and that's everything you do.I'm like, yeah, okay. You know, it's half of these, like, okay. I want to fight to keep the client. The other half is like, this person has been fed a load of, you know, BS. And I'm not going to be the one that's going to be able to convince them that they were given wrong information by their endodontist friend.So it's like, yeah, it's just, mistake. In that scenario. Michael: No, that's good. Because in that scenario, what would be like the, I guess in your terms, like the BS, like the stuff where you're like, Ruben, I see that all the time, man, where I'm like, Oh, look, your fellow it person here just wants to let you know.And then they give you like a list of everything or whatever. And you're like. What? You know what I mean? it looks like they pretty much are saying like, we can do the same thing, but like, 40 bucks a month Reuben: I'll the name, but I'll give you a real example.So we had, we had a dentist that recently left us, right? Um, and they, they were under a, a one year startup deal. Right. So we give folks lower pricing, on the startup price. they just have to sign a one, just a one year term, uh, initial term. Then it's month to month after that. So it was like month six in this, dentist, uh, was struggling, right?Her practice wasn't growing as fast as she wanted to. So she was making calls to vendors to be like, Hey, what can you do for me? and this is was kind of alluding to the endodontist. This is, that's kind of the story, right? She talked to a colleague who used a guy, um, for his practices and was like, Hey, I'm really struggling, but I'm not going to hold somebody to a contract if I'm affecting their business. Yeah, yeah, that's not why I got into this industry, right? Is to make every single dollar I could from a dentist, and it's like, tell you what, let's make a deal here. Send me what they sent you if they are truly matching what we are providing.Like, just let's, let's part ways, right? Go there, save some money and, you know, let's part as friends. so got an email a week later and they're like, the plan is we're going to take your HIPAA compliant firewall and we're going to replace it with a home router for Best Buy. It's like, okay.And then we're going to take your HIPAA compliant backup system and we're going to install a free Dropbox. I'm like, okay, so I didn't even read the rest of the email. I just stopped there and I was like, all right, so let's let's figure out how to work together. They're not giving you a HIPAA compliant solution.You know, like, if I can help you in any way, take some pressure off your business, let's do it. And that email came back with basically, I was the bad guy for pointing out that they had been given bad advice. So I have two choices in this moment. I can keep continuing to try to work with this person or I can just let them go.And I chose to let them go. I don't want to have to be bad guy. I don't do high pressure sales. I don't do scare tactics. or if you trust another person. More than me if by all means, please go work with them, but you know, peace of mind sleep at night I told the doctor everything that they were not getting you know They were literally compromising their patients health information.can't work with that person, you know Michael: yeah, so they were more upset that you didn't agree with the other IT companies like Janky solutions, you know what I mean? Like, Oh, like, Hey, we're Reuben: just like a perfect they're doing what we're doing for less money, show me, cause I would love to know how to be more efficient.Just, I'm curious, like, how did, how is this possible? And it turns out the solution was, we're just going to pull stuff off a Best Buy that belongs in someone's home. And so you're good.Michael: That, that story really gets into the essence of the complexity of being an IT professional in healthcare.Yeah. Yeah. And we got to go one of these days, we got to do an episode about how important it is to be HIPAA compliant. Cause I know we kind of touched that. Well, we touched that in this episode, but we kind of touched that in previous ones of, it's mega important, you know.Um, in order to do that. So Reuben: it should be like car insurance, right? It should not be opt in, opt out. it's like, yeah, I kind of want to be a little compliant, but then I want to ignore all this stuff, you know, that actually costs a little compliant and like, who's safe. Henry Schein got hacked twice, Aspen Dental.And this is just this year, Aspen Dental had over a thousand practices get hacked. I don't know what it's going to take, and I try not to, you know, worry about all the dentists that didn't take my advice went down a different pathway, but. This is what I talk about. I want to work with people that care about protecting their patient.is a passion of mine. I want you to care about protecting your patient's health information. Yeah, Michael: and I like that about you, man. It's because, like, your transition... Every time I think Dark Horse has been running, you guys have been... Moving the needle closer and closer to quality, right? Over like, we got to get more sales, more people, more things.and every time you guys have ever sponsored, right? You're never like, how many leads are we getting or anything like that? It's more like, Hey man, like let's, let's. Let them know about this. Let's let the people know about that, right? important Reuben: stuff. My marketing strategy can be distilled down into two words.Good vibes. I just want, like, good vibes that kind of, you know, reverberate throughout the anals of the internet, right? Just like, uh, you know, someone has a question on, uh, you know, dental marketer group about imaging software. Whatever. We'll jump in. I'm not gonna solicit you. Here's an answer. Great.If you look me up and you want to reach out, that's awesome. But that has been for 11 years all organic growth. And why? Like, we love partnering with with you. Michael's just like, here's a podcast that is just about let's get as much information. Let's clear up confusion in the industry.I'm not asking you to work with me. Take all this information back to your IT company and protect yourself. And if you love your IT guy, keep working with him. I'm here if you want an option, but like, I really hope you care about compliance before you call. Michael: Yeah. And if you guys want to know how to get Fortnite to start working in your office.Reuben: That's the Michael: firewall. Yeah. I remember, uh,Ashley one time caught you, right? Like about a fridge or something Reuben: like that? so actually once called me when her power went out.Hey, my, uh, you know, my, uh, computers aren't turning on, I was like, can you call your electric company and that goes back to just like we, again, when we train our clients calls for anything, sometimes they do. Yeah. And no, no, no. Yeah. Call NYSEG or, you know, call your local power company.Uh, happy to help out and pick up the phone and all that. But yeah, no. Michael: That's awesome. Ruben, we appreciate your time, but before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Reuben: Oh, yeah. Um, I'm all over the internet. So you'll see me just popping around in and out of Facebook groups. Uh, my direct email is admin at dark horse tech.com and go right on our website and hit contact us. And that will, uh, generate a little, link to schedule a call with us. DM me on Facebook, you can DM me on Instagram. You'll see. Instagram, if you want to follow us at dark horse tech, that's where I post, you know, anytime we're doing a startup. I post all the pictures out there.Right? So if you're interested in working with us, or just interested in like, what are the newest latest startups looking like? we're, we're pretty much doing one or two startups a week, right? So we did about 87 just last year. and so yeah, follow along. that makes me feel good.Cause I'm the one doing all that posting. So please like, like my photos. Michael: Please like my photos. Awesome guys. So that's all going to be in the show notes below. So definitely go check it out. Follow Dark Horse Tech on their social media. And at the same time. Click on the first link in the show notes below to check out the exclusive deal that dark horse tech is giving you go ahead and do that.And Ruben, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Appreciate it, Michael.‍

Today I want to tell you about our sponsor for this episode,  Olsen  Dental  Chairs!‍‍Imagine you're a dentist and you spend your whole day around the chair...   Well, Olsen has over  40 years of experience in making those long hours as comfortable as possible for both the dentist  and the patient! ‍If you're a dental professional looking for high quality, cost effective, dental equipment, check out Olson dental chairs!Click this link and mention this episode for a limited time FREE installation with your purchase!‍‍Guest: Camila RegisBusiness Name: OlsenCheck out Camila's Media:Website: https://olsenna.com/‍‍Other Mentions and Links:Oscar WildeBert Decker - 3 Second Rule‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:How much do first impressions really matter with patients?What are some common barriers that are keeping patients from coming in?Does high quality and modern equipment really make a difference?Some of the psychology behind dental anxiety and first impressions.The benefits of patient comfort and an inviting staff.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guests, Camila Regis. Camila, how's it going? I'm Camila: doing great today, Michael. And what about you? Michael: I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for asking. If you don't mind letting our listeners know where are you located Camila: right now? I'm located at the South of Brazil right now in a city called Bailosa, where is the headquarter of Olsen, uh, USA.Dental equipment. Michael: Nice. So all the way in Brazil, which is only according to PST time, California time, four hours different. So that's pretty awesome. But if you can tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are today? Camila: So, um, I was always in love with different cultures when I was a little kid, um, my biggest dream was to be a dentist. I'm not a dentist nowadays, but I work with that. I work with dental equipments. So since I was always interested on different cultures, I try it and I directed the lead of my, um, career to something I could be able to work with different cultures and different countries.So, I am here today, working, uh, with this project of expanding Olsen that comes from Brazil to all of the world. we are over a hundred countries. And I am the responsible, uh, of the team that is, doing all of that. Michael: Nice. So in charge of like, the growth area. So you don't mind me asking, why did you always want to be a dentist?Camila: I don't know. I think it was, um, when I was a little kid, I had, um, some problems in my teeth. I usually go to, to the dentist and. This guy was so nice to me, and it was such a nice environment, and I can't remember, like... Every week going there and being familiar with everything. So I was kind of amused with that profession.And I was like, Oh, I want to be that. I want to be a dentist. Michael: Okay. So it was also like, the main thing was the pain point kind of thing, right? You were experiencing a problem and you saw how they fixed it really quick. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Interesting. Awesome. So let's dive into this. And for those listening on audio only in the podcast, you can scroll down in the show notes and look out on our YouTube channel.But this is going to be a presentation that Camila has, kind of like a webinar. And what we're going to dive into is marketing your practice through your dental office. And so what do first impressions have to do with that? Because I noticed that's the title here. Camila: So let's start with that. so first impression, uh, is something that we need to consider to everything.Like not only just for a business or dental practice, but for everything, for yourself as a professional. So why not think of that in your business when your business is a as Oscar White said, uh, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So you need to take advantage of knowing that from your consumers.So you need to be on that point where you are going to plan what is going to be the first impression they have from you. And that is like 100 percent true what Oscar Wilde said, initial impressions matters a lot in human psychology and it's exactly how people's perception are shaped.So when we talk about these, uh, it's not just of individuals, but also of business, locations, objects. Why are we not talking about that when we talk about dental office? So my question here for whoever is listening to us or, watching us, have you ever thought about these when you started your dental practice or when renewing it or when buying your equipments or planning the design or even hiring your staff?I I think what we are bringing today is going to be interesting for you to update that idea on your mind. And if you don't, I believe that you need to keep your eye on it. So Bert Ducker, one of the greatest experts in communication, did a research that says the brain takes only two seconds to form 50 percent of the image. About someone or something and the next four minutes to complete the rest of this idea. So, can you imagine having only 2 seconds to show someone what is your dental practice about what you are trying to show them or give them the experience at that point where they just walk in your dental office?Well, uh, this prejudgment will conditionate the interaction that this customer, this patient of yours, will interact with you or your dental office or even your staff, and will definitely define the approach that they will have. for example, when you're just walking in a store and someone from the staff is in a bad mood.That will definitely set the approach you have when you talk with that person. So that is something we need to consider for all the business environment. The power of the idea shaped at the moment that someone set the eyes on a person or on a place or on a Professional is so strong that not even the facts are capable of easily disproving them.So, it's like when someone, when you, you look to someone and you say, Oh, I didn't like that person. And then later on. You start to know them better and then it's hard for you to change that idea that you didn't like something on that person, even though the facts. Are showing you a completely different, um, position than your opinion.So usually, humans tend to conform our prejudgment because of this power that the ideas have, uh, among us. Michael: Gotcha. So right here, when it comes to the, this is the, basically the laws of the first impressions, right? You have two seconds, right. To form 50%. Of the image about someone or something. So if someone's walking into the practice, and they don't even acknowledge them, they don't even look at them or anything, that's more than two seconds.That's it. So you already kinda can feel the, the coldness in there, right? And then, um, the last part is interesting. Uh, how, not even facts are capable of easily disproving them. What would you say, Camila, how does that, how would you have witnessed that, or how do you notice this in a practice? Camila: I have a really good case here.So when we start to open the U. S. market, I visited some dental office in some schools. And when I walked in the first dental office, it wasn't a private dental office, it was a university one. And I was so shocked because I was expecting as the rest of the universe to look like. fantastic and everything perfect, everything in place.I was expecting a great practice, a great dental practice. And what I found out was some equipments that were already, um, really old and broke. And it was more because it's used by students. I get that, but it was the first impression I had. So the first impression I had was I don't think they are looking to these with care.I don't think they are giving the same attention. They are giving to the rest of the campus to these areas. That is exactly where the patient is going to be laying down for some hours, even. Some treatments take some days. They're not, of course, being there for days, but they are going to be back there day to day, and they need to feel home.They need to feel comfort and I was shocked and that made me feel a little bit, uh, Thinking, oh, I think we have a different culture here, but then I saw that it was only that case, it wasn't only that case, but I saw it was a case of a place that wasn't being properly, uh, cared off. And so this is a perfect example, we can compare that to what, to the experience I had when I was a kid in my dentist that I can remember, like, if it was yesterday, it was a nice place, a cozy place.I was always, uh, welcomed and I remember of all the equipments. that sounds crazy. But I remember of the equipment, because I remember of looking at the lights, I remember of looking at the hand pieces. And since, uh, my, my dream by that time was to be a dentist. I usually open the, the drawers and look what was inside.And the dentist showed me a lot of of stuffs and I remember of that being so perfect, so clean, so cared of. So there was a tension in each detail of that service that he was giving me. Michael: Gotcha. So a lot came into that besides the first, uh, two seconds, but it was the first two seconds where you were like, okay, this it's warm, it's cozy.I can feel it. Uh, and then it kind of gave you the rest of the picture of the facts. Right. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Okay. Okay. So these are the laws. These are the crucial role of first impression. Camila: I'm trying here just to, uh, give some thoughts on what is first impressions so we can then, uh, go to how these first impressions, how we can apply, uh, that three laws into the dental office.So when one goes to any place that offers health care or even aesthetic care, what they are really looking for, Michael, is self care. They are looking for someone that can take care of them. So their expectations are going to be always high because no one wants to be cared off in a bad way.So dental office deal with an essential aspect of the human survival and well being. It's a place that. Will require a lot of, uh, excellent conditions and a sense that the person that is there is safe, it's in a good hand, it's in a professional environment. So will you ever look for a place to take care of you that shows you through their image that they don't care even about themselves, that they don't, they don't have a nice waiting room, that they have a staff that is rude, is not, uh, in a, um, in a good mood that doesn't say good morning to you and even if, um, You think that they are going to be comfortable in old equipment that is maybe losing some part of the ufostery.And so it's all about that. It's all about you need to show your patient that you care about your place because that place is going to take care of your patient. So I brought here some, Examples, and I would like, I know the audience is just listening. So I will say some words about the image I'm showing, but I want you to think, what is the feeling you get when you look at a dental office that looks like this?So I'm showing here a dental office. Uh, it is a old dental office. It's, it's not clean and it has all the wires showing here it's a closer look where the example I just gave that the upholstery is ripping off and some part of the equipment are broke and there is dust everywhere and it looks like a mess.And then now, how do you feel when you look and you walk into a dental office like this? That it's clean, it has a brand new equipment, it, the equipment looks like, modern, looks like comfortable, and when you sit at it, you feel the comfort, you feel the ergonomy, how do you feel looking at it, how will you feel looking at the, the dental space, broke equipment or the dental office that has everything clean, everything white and in colors that are sober and that brings the image of a safe environment. Yeah. Michael: You can, you can totally, when I feel like I get, think like I'm probably gonna not get a good job. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's probably, I just need to hurry up and get out of here kind of thing.But the other one, you feel more like you can, you can hang out, you know what I mean? You can be there. It feels more comforting. You know, you're going to get a good job. Yeah. Camila: And so to start talking about, um, the first impressions in a dental office.How does this matter to the dental office? We should start talking about marketing, right? So that's why we are here with Michael. So the big picture is that the first impression is inside the big picture that marketing is. So it's how you see marketing. Marketing goes beyond the advertisement, digital presence.There's much more than just that. Uh, marketing is everything that is going to establish the awareness of your practice image in the market. The mind of your customers. So if you are taking care of your website, if you are taking care of your social medias, why are you not taking care of your dental office?Why are you not taking care of the design of it? Of the equipment that is there, of the staff you are hiring. First impressions are the meaning to establish your brand awareness. And when I say brand here, I definitely mean, brand as what you were building as a dental practice. So when customers are aware of a brand and associate it with positive things like quality, reliability, or value, they are more likely to choose that brand when they need related products or service than another ones.And they are more likely to tell their friends, to tell their family that they choose that brand because of those reasons. Therefore, I believe that building and straightening brand awareness are fundamental goals in marketing and in branding strategies. So the brand awareness, it's the degree of recognition and familiarity that the public has with that specific brand, and that brand is your dental practice, then your dental office, sometimes you have a clinic with much with more than 1 dentist. It's how the public will know your, uh, dental practice, how professional we were, how comfort they feel, how do they like you, do they don't, this is what you need to have in mind when you start to, Settle your goals, your marketing goals in your dental practice, because from the brand awareness is where you are going to start structuring your image.And, there is some trick elements, for a good impression, no 1st, the 2nd or the 3rd. And here talking specifically in the dental office, it's the design of it, the equipment that you have and the staff. So, when you think about those 3 pillars, design, equipment and staff, you need to keep in mind, what are you trying to communicate to your customer and what is the experience you are aiming to offer them?Am I trying to tell them that that is, um, a place that they are going to feel pain, that they are going to be afraid, or do you want to communicate that it's a dental office, that it's, uh, More like a place to play, to be fun, to have fun.so that is one thing that you need to keep in your mind. And when I know that talking about the, pediatric dental is very specific. But even though when you were talking about, um, dental office for adults, your Is exactly what is going to set what is the image you are, trying to show to your consumers.So if you are working in, I said it dental, you must have like a perfect dental office, everything in place, everything looking modern, nice, fancy. Because that's what you are trying to show them, that you are going to bring that image to their health. It's through the design of your dental office, and the equipment you have, and the staff that you are hiring, and how you are training them, that you can create this environment.This environment that we will present, what is your image as a professional or as a dental clinic, dental practice, and it's going to dictate the experience that you were about to offer to that consumer, to that patient that just walked in. Michael: Interesting. So real quick, uh, Camila, let's just say the practices.Hey, my brand is that we care, like we really care, right? Staff would have to show that they, they care. but how, in your opinion, how would design show that and equipment show that, okay. Camila: Talking about design, I think, um, that to show that you will need to have a nice waiting room, for example.it can be a waiting room for, uh, that supports like three people, but there is 100 people inside because you're not caring about them waiting and everyone there and it's not comfortable. For example, you need to think, I don't know where exactly, but if you are in Florida, you need to think about having a, an AC.Because everyone needs to feel comfortable while waiting, you need to have like television to have something to show them while they, they are there. Uh, you need to have a good way for them to go from the waiting room to your dental office. A nice, space for them to move and sit on the chair on the dental chair and feel comfortable there.So when talking about equipment, it's not going to be much different from that. You need to give them comfort. inequipment is not only that you need to have a modern equipment with technology and everything, but you need to show them that needs to be clean.It needs to be shining. always looking like new. So, I believe that is, uh. Two ways of thinking design is not much my, my area. but I believe that, uh, I know that in the U S there is a lot of companies that do the design for dental practice. And when finding someone like that.Bring them those ideas, tell them, I need, I want to show my consumer that my customer, my patient, that they are going to be care here. So that's what I'm trying to, show them through the design of my dental office. And the same when you are buying any new equipment or you are renewing your Michael: equipment.Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. So these are the three things, right, for a good, first good impression, design, equipment, and staff. Camila: Yeah, and when we talk about the equipment, there is one thing that, that we always do. I don't know if everyone knows here, I work in the Olsen, I know I said at the beginning, but we also sell the dental equipment.So the first thing we ask the doctor always is, what is more important for you in the equipment? Because it's that that is what is the best equipment for their practice. and it's funny because you will, uh, see a dentist that they care about colds. So that's what matters for them.want to pay the less possible. And there will be the doctors that say, I care about my patient. I want my patient to be in a comfortable chair. I want them to have the best of the market, or I want to have the best of the market in terms of equipment and technology. So knowing or not knowing, they already have on their mind, what are their, the image that they are trying to show to their patients.Michael: I was going to ask you, when it comes to all that, what have you seen the most popular one? Is it cost or is it more like ergonomics or what would it be? Camila: I think it depends a lot. I mean, in some countries, it's cost for sure. And in others, the comfort of the patient. Nowadays, I've been seeing much more.we have the premium chairs, so they are more comfortable. They have an extra layer of, foam, so it makes more, comfort for the patient. It has also a massage system that helps the anxiety that a lot of people have to go to a dentist. And I think they are starting to care more about the, the patient comfort and their ergonomy than about the cost. Because I can see clearly that they are moving from one, from these equipments to the premium equipments that are more focused on the comfort for for the dentist and also for the patient. Michael: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So these are the key elements Camila: then. Yeah, exactly. And usually when a business is, is setting what they are trying to present through their image, usually you will find, three things, the sophistication. So everyone wants a sophisticated practice, the credibility of their work, because It doesn't matter if you are the best doctor in the market, if you don't have the best dental office, that's not what you are going to, to show to your customer and the appealing of the dental office.of course the patient doesn't know much about the dental equipment. So what do they know? They know that they will notice that if they lay down equipment that makes a real difference, they will notice if they feel comfortable, if they feel like they were at home and how they feel during the treatment that is going to make the difference.I know they won't know that. Oh, this is the most expensive or the market or not, but they will know how they felt at that moment. Thanks. And they will definitely spread that word. So when talking about equipment and what is the points that you were trying to bring when you think about that, to the matter of your brand awareness. You will have competitive advantage because you show your, patient that you care that, uh, you are trying to give him the best experience, trying to reduce the dental anxiety. I was reading some articles for this webinar and 10 percent of the U. S. population has dental anxiety nowadays. So you can imagine how hard it is for that 10 percent of the population to go to the dentist because it's a place that they hate.why not thinking of that when you are thinking of your equipment, you know, Michael: interesting. Camila: Also, uh, the trade points that I brought earlier. Your image, you need to communicate the sophistication. You need to communicate the credibility. You need to communicate how appealing, uh, your business or in the experience, um, design equipment and stuff.They are the responsible for the experience. Your patient is going to have in your dental practice. You need to offer them a good aesthetic look, you need to offer them ergonomy. When I say ergonomy, I mean, they're okay, they're sitting on the chair, they have where to put the, they have places to put their arms on, or they are not in a good position.When you lay down your, chair to start your treatment, do your patient needs to, um, fit themselves in the chair? sometimes the doctor say, Oh, go a little bit, um, higher or move to one side to another side. You need to think of that when you are trying to give the best experience to your, to your patient and also the comfort that you are offering them because let's be honest.It's not comfortable to be with your mouth open for one hour and doing some procedures with that noisy. So you need to have, uh, things to distract them. And being in a comfortable equipment makes a lot of difference when talking about that. That's Michael: true. Interesting. And Camila: they will absolutely appreciate the fact that you have invested on something which helps them be more comfortable, to feel more cozy, to make their dental treatment less stressful.And they are quite likely to talk about it. And therefore they are marketing it for you, you Michael: it's true. And I guess you don't really ever think about that. Like the little movements in the ergonomics of like, well, we have to, you know, move a little bit. And then, you know, like as a patient, you just feel like, okay, I got to stay like this, uh, cause you never really experienced anything different or maybe you just never really experienced it at all.So you're just kind of in that uncomfortable position. And if you're uncomfortable for too long, that heightens the anxiety big time, big time. So it makes a lot of sense. Camila: Yeah, and all the points I mentioned here will help to form an overall impression of your practice. one that will stay with the patient and that they will also pass on to their friends, their family, their community.that's exactly what you were looking for. Um, given the original aim of marketing, which is to build a reputation and image that appeals to your target clients. since clear that your equipment must be an important part of it, um, because your dental practice is reflected in everything that you and your staff do each day and in everything that helps to build your image every day.Michael: Awesome. Wonderful. So then when it comes to this, you know, some people are saying like, what's affordability care. I want a really good chair that brings comfort. What would you recommend from the brands that you guys have? Olsen, if someone's looking for a little bit of blend of both, right.Where it's like I needed to be affordable. But at the same time, I got it. It gets to look amazing. Camila: So we have this unit that is one of the premium units is the logic dental unit. It's affordable and it's really comfortable. It has one of most comfortable chairs from our lines.another thing that this chair has. it's a curiosity that the movement of the chair goes with the movement of the body. So what I was talking earlier, when you lay down your patient to the treatment position. They don't need to fit themselves again into the chair because usually they stay in the same place because the chair will do the same movement and as their body are doing when laying down.So, definitely when thinking about affordable options comfort options to the patient and also to the dentist, I would say, logic dental unit is the best that you can find. Michael: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much Camila. So is there any other thing that follows up on this presentation or? No, there is Camila: not.So Michael: these right here are, what are these right here? These two chairs? Camila: So these two chairs is, uh, on the left side you can find Infinity. It's our premium chair, and on the right side you can find the performance procedure chair. So it's a chair that it's also for, doctors or for dentists for procedures that you need to do when standing up. So, it's a chair that goes really high and it goes all flat. Here in Brazil, um, mainly used for the harmonization that dentists are doing, the aesthetic, um, oral harmonization. So um, yeah, that's one of the, um, the biggest of our, uh, Michael: lines. Nice. Okay. And now I kind of want to ask you some questions that. are directed to someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry.Okay. from everything you've seen from working with dentists, working, walking inside their practice and everything right now, what do you currently love about dentistry?Camila: Right now? What I currently love is that I feel more in a safe environment when walking through a dental practice, then, uh, a doctor practice, I think they are becoming more specialist on the service of having someone there for an hour of giving a good experience, because nowadays we go to the doctor and it takes like 15 minutes, 10 minutes.You don't even have time to think. And when you go to dental office, you are usually going to be taken care of. And it's not something that is going to be in a rush. It's something that they are going to do with attention. They talk to you, they connect themselves to you. So I think that what I most love in dentistry is that this permission that the practice has, In a way that the professional can connect to the patient in a deep way. Michael: Gotcha. Gotcha. Interesting. so that's great.That's great that that's one of the main reasons, right? You can, you can feel a deeper connection with, uh, the practice compared to medical. You said. Okay. Yes. Compared to medical. Oh, interesting. Yeah. You feel more of a connection. And then right now, Camila, what's um, something you dislike or hate about dentistry that you've been noticing?Camila: the hand pieces, I don't know how we get so far in the dentist technology and we still don't have board that don't do any noise because that is freaking scary. So I think that's what I Michael: most hate. Ah, okay. Like the drill noises. Yes. Kind of nice. Okay. Why do you feel like that provides a lot of discomfort for you?Camila: I don't know. if it's something personal. I don't know I, I have something I relate to pain and relate that to pain because that was my experience during the adult life.Yeah, I Michael: don't like that. Yeah. Interesting. Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And now if anybody wanted to reach out to you, contact you or anything like that, where can they find you? Camila: Okay. So they can find me at, Olsen at Olsen America. com. Michael: Awesome. Olsen America. com. And at the same time, guys, you know, Olsen is one of our partners. So everybody here gets an exclusive deal with them. If you go in the show notes below, click the first link in the show notes below, uh, to check out more and Camila, thank you so much for being with us.It's been a pleasure. And we'll hear from you soon. Thank you.‍

We get it — when it comes to your practice's IT, it can all get a little confusing. That's where Darkhorse comes in. With a laser focus on serving dental practices of all shapes and sizes, they are here to roll up their sleeves and tackle your IT needs, no matter how complex. Our listeners get their first 30 days FREE, so start your journey with Darkhorse today: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/darkhorse-deal/‍‍Guest: Brady FrankBusiness Name: Freedom Dental PartnersCheck out Brady's Media:Website: https://freedomdentalpartners.com/Email: brady@freedomdentalpartners.comDr. Frank's Book DDSO Strategies: https://www.ddsostrategiesbook.com/ddso-bookDr. Frank's Free Real Estate Valuation: https://freedomdentalpartners.com/re‍Other Mentions and Links:Marquette UniversityRick WorkmanHeartland DentalPacific Dental ServicesAspen DentalREIT - Real Estate Investment TrustRick KushnerComfort DentalT. Harv EkerEscrowRE/MAXBlockbusterFixer Upper - Chip and Joanna GainesBRRRR (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat)Bank of AmericaCostco‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Why is it best to partner with other dentists and entrepreneurs?What makes a practice ready to sell at a profit?What is the current landscape of real estate and how does this affect the dental industry?How to maximize your ROI when purchasing a practice space.How to get into the cost to benefit mindset and spot a good deal.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: This is the dental marketer the podcast where we teach you how to effectively market and grow your dental practice My name is michael arias and my mission is to help you the practice owner attract new patients immediately And effectively market and grow your business so you can become the go to dental practice in your community Now, what is one of the best ways to grow wealth in the dental industry?Well, The answer, my friends, may surprise you. And we've got just the expert to break it all down for us. We're sitting down with Dr. Brady Frank, a third generation dentist who has not only carved out a successful career in dentistry, but has also ventured into the world of entrepreneurship. Invention and thought leadership.Now, Brady's journey is one filled with hard earned wisdom and expertise in various facets of the dental industry. So in this episode, we'll be exploring some key points that could revolutionize your understanding of wealth growth in the dental field. So grab a notepad because you won't want to miss this.First up, what we're going to be talking about is why it's often best to partner with other dentists and entrepreneurs, and Brady will shed light. On the advantages of opportunities that come with collaboration. Next we'll explore what makes a dental practice ready to sell at a profit. Now this is vital information for anyone looking to maximize their returns in the industry.And then we'll delve into the current landscape of real estate and how it affects the dental industry. Real estate is a crucial component of any dental practice and understanding the market dynamics. Is key. And then we're also going to learn how to maximize your return on investment when purchasing a practice space and Brady will share strategies to make your investment work smarter, not harder.And then finally, we'll discuss the cost to benefit mindset and how to spot a good deal in the dental industry. This financial perspective is essential for anyone aiming to achieve financial success. And Brady's extensive knowledge and experience in the dental industry, entrepreneurship, and real estate make him the perfect guide Through these topics.mean, He's not only a successful practitioner, but also a mentor and author, and he has co founded Freedom Dental Partners, a platform that brings his expertise to others. So if you're looking to grow your wealth, this episode is tailor made for you. And one critical question I wanted to ask you.What could your practice achieve if every technological aspect worked flawlessly? I mean, Have you ever thought about what your dental practice could achieve if tech headaches were a thing of the past? Well, sTick around for after the interview because I have something just for you. But for now, let's dive in with Dr.Brady Frank. Brady. How's it going? Brady: Doing great. Michael. So excited to be on your podcast now, Michael: man. We're excited to have you. If you can, give us a little bit of a rundown of your past, your present. How'd you get to where you are today?Brady: great question. I, uh, back in 1999, which means I'm an old guy, right? I, uh, I had a wrist injury in dental school. Um, they told me I wouldn't be able to practice dentistry. So I checked out a bunch of books at the Marquette Dental School Library, realized I'd probably have to own practices, but not practice in them to make a living and put two practices under contract as a senior in dental school, bought the building, Buildings and practices ended up owning seven practices in the first five years had 28 different associates and, um, made pretty much every mistake back in the early two thousands and really just got deeper and deeper into group practice than DSOs real estate ended up.having a bunch of patents in dental implants manufactured around the world and, uh, really had a big focus on implants through there and where I am today is really just helping dentist groups expand and kind of get to the next level in dentistry. Wow, man. Michael: So you did a lot. So then real quick, when it came to owning the practices and at the same time working with many associates and team members and everything like that, what were some of the If you can recall major mistakes that you felt like if only we did small pivots, it could have, could have made a huge Brady: difference.Yeah, so early on, um, I'd say the first decade of me owning group practices and other practices in real estate, I'll get my mistakes on the practice side and on the real estate side. On the practice side, I didn't create alignment. Or shared ownership or partnership or whatever we want to call it with the doctors in the practice.I just had them as associates or employees. And so that was probably my biggest mistake early. I ended up selling those practices to the doctors, But I could have created much larger groups with shared interests, with shared equity. And I just didn't understand that back then. Uh, my biggest mistake in real estate was.Probably just not buying enough real estate. I buy tons of real estate. Now I'm, I got 62 properties going to closing. the founder of Heartland, uh, Rick Workman, he's made billions of dollars on his DSO, but more billions on real estate and 80 percent less time with 80 percent less effort, Pacific dental services, they won't sell to private equity right now.Because they're doing so well in real estate. Aspen, another big BSO, they develop almost all of their own buildings, and then they sell them to REITs, and that's how they capitalize their growth. Rick Kushner, of Comfort Dental, was at a meeting at Marquette Dental School, my alma mater, and my friend organized it, and he said, he said, Rick, why, you've got, you know, 400 partners, all these locations, why are you still doing this?He said there's a secret, it's about real estate. So I didn't really leverage real estate to the full extent my first decade, but this last decade I've, made more money in real estate than group practices and I've done a, been very well with group practices. So that's where most of my teaching is and that's where I share on how to really crank it out with real estate and not make the mistakes that I did my first decade in Michael: it.Gotcha. Okay. So then real estate is primarily what you're teaching right now. Brady: So I would say my primary teaching is how dentists can expand like I did using real estate profits. To fund their expansion. Don't go to banks, don't get in debt. Go. Don't go to private equity. Mm-Hmm Use real estate profits to fund your expansion.So I mainly teach that, but what I also do is take doctors who have done very well and I clump them together. in dentist owned DSOs. In fact, I wrote a book about it, The DSO Strategy, Dentist Owned DSO Strategies. And I might just kind of look back a graph. I'll pull the page out, make it easier. This is kind of groups getting together.Forming one entity and getting a much higher multiple of sale. So I basically helped docs early, early, our team, I should say, uh, helps docs early phase growth, use real estate to fund their expansion. And then once they've gotten to a certain size. 368 12 locations, how to merge with other successful dentists and get a much higher valuation and then make a bunch of money and do it all over again, basically, and own a bunch of real estate through the process.So that's kind of my main thing is teaching on DSOs, MSOs, and then how that works with real estate and how it fits in with expansion. The reason 80 percent of my teaching is there is because real estate is actually really a simple investment. and so just a lot of my teaching is on the other stuff.And then the real estate kind of becomes the bedrock or the foundation of all the other components. Michael: can you give us like right now, like a step by step system or process on how to use real estate profits? Brady: Yeah. So going back to my mistakes early on, I would buy a building, a dental building. I would hold it for anywhere from three to 10 years and then I would sell it.During that time period that I held it, I had cash flow. And when I sold it, I got a big chunk of money. And someone said something, Canadian entrepreneur who did really well. His name's T Harv Ecker. And he said this in one of his seminars. Um, I've never made as much money operating a business. As I have selling a business and he said, same with real estate.And at that time I realized the longer I held on to a piece of real estate the more time I had into it. The more I had to manage that property, yes, I got monthly cash flow. But at the end of the day, you have to, as a dentist, you're at the top tax bracket, you've got to pay full taxes on that money.So the timeframe with which I held properties that I bought, went from three to 10 years down to like two or three years. Because of capital gains, you have to hold it over here. But then it got down to like a year and now in many cases, it's down to three hours, like literally I'll put a property under contract, I'll find a buyer.I'll get it filled and I won't even close on it. I'll close it, but I'll own it for three hours that the buyer comes in, might put 20 million into the escrow company, pay off the seller with 5 million of it, have 20 million of profit. and one of my mistakes was I did real estate alone without partnerships early on when you do big projects, you need partners, other people to go into the building with their businesses, and then we share the profits.so I would say that I used to do things. Solo, like I can do this. I'm entrepreneur. I can employ the dentist, right? I'll be the guy and I used to have kind of I didn't think so, but other people thought that I thought I was always right like 20 years ago But maybe looking back I did feel like I was right and I had to follow my face a few times to realize Oh, man, there's so many people smarter than I am.Let me be mentored by some of these billionaires who've done really well And since that time, I've done a lot more partnerships, a lot more collaborative work, and you know, I try to always believe, hey, if this is the amount of knowledge out there, hey, Brady, you're right here. So don't think of yourself as someone with all the answers.Realize that you're going to learn from each person that, that is an expert in that subject matter. And so, with real estate. I've focused less on buy and hold, more on flipping it, just like the big, the biggest, most successful DSOs and healthcare groups do. And then I have not, I've decided to do it in partnership with others, uh, rather than just trying to do it myself.So much more leverage with other people's time, other people's money, other people's Business growth. so that's where I am today is mainly doing collaborative work, partnering with a lot of different doctors, hundreds of them. and really, I'm adding value to others, helping them not go through the mistakes.I have and both real estate and growing groups too. Michael: Got, okay. So then if we wanted to right now use real estate profits, what are the first steps? Let's just say right now, okay. You know what? I do wanna do this. I do want to do that flip that you mentioned, or you know what I mean? I'm looking to acquire another practice, but I don't know if I should just expand it and keep it, or.What are the steps for Brady: this? Yeah. Um, there's kind of two categories of real estate. One category you already own it and you're figuring out what, what's, what's the best thing I can do with this asset, buy and hold it, sell it and get it, get a bunch of liquidity, pay off a bunch of my debt and then also real estate that you don't own yet.I'll go over both of those, really quickly. the first one with real estate that you do own, you would be like me, 10 years ago, buying it, holding it, getting some cash flow, paying on your debts. Right. And then having this big payday someday, whenever you sell it, I realized that entrepreneurs, which I think most of the people listening to this are are going to do a lot better.reducing their debt, getting a bunch of cash in their bank and doing more stuff than playing the 10 year game with that, real estate. So if you own a piece of real estate, I encourage you. And if you want, I can, um, even give a link to a software that shows you how much the value of your current property is.Yeah. I would encourage you to, to, look at what would life look like if I sold some or all of my real estate, what would I do with that cash? What would life look like with less debt and could I expand my practice or practices, um, in my main business? So, so that's number one. Number two is for those that also are like, Hey, I own real estate.I like it. I'd love to see what that looks like. If I had a liquidity event there, paid off debt, you know, use that to buy more locations. But I'd also like to know, all right, Brady, what does it look like? Buying real estate for the sole purpose of having a massive game, right? And so here's the strategy with that and we can come back into that later and I saw you nod your head I can I can do a qr code I'll hold it up in front of the screen or we can put it in the in the chat and you'll you can plug your Building information.It'll spit out of value. It's pretty awesome software. so the other component is, Hey, I don't own real estate. how do you make the most in real estate? So most dentists think that if I build a dental building and sell it, Hey, I built it starting to make a profit right now because of inflation, it costs on average 420 bucks a foot to build a dental building with the land and everything.420 bucks a foot. The buildings that I buy, I never pay over a hundred dollars a foot. Never. It's 30 bucks to 80 bucks a foot. and they call that, that's way below replacement cost. Meaning, if you were to build that today, it cost you 400 percent more. So here is why we're able to do that.The office and retail markets of real estate Started going down because there were more vacancies because e commerce Amazon went out there and no one, you know what I mean? People weren't buying designer jeans. So that affected then COVID hit and a lot of businesses went virtual. Another big hit to the commercial real estate markets.And now we've got AI that is supposed to replace 62 percent of task related jobs within three to five years, which means more of a hit to real estate. interest rates are higher now. So whenever interest rates go up, real estate market goes down. The only shining light in real estate right now is the healthcare real estate market.Anything backed with a dental lease or a healthcare lease. that real estate is skyrocketing. Office and retail is going way down. And that arbitrage is where we're playing. So we buy a building that's vacant, without any tenants. Dirt cheap. You move your business into there, just like Aspen does, or Heartland, or one of the others.Once you move your business into there, the building is now occupied. Okay. And, um, the software that I'll share, it actually picks out all these vacant buildings that you can choose from around America. Is that crazy? Yeah, that is cool. Yeah. So, so basically you could, and it matches it up. It's the AI component isn't complete yet, but the AI component watching match your, what you plug in to the buildings that are available.through 20 different databases of buildings, right? So it picks all these on loop net with a remax, all these, and it finds all those buildings, even the ones that are off market at auctions. Okay. So then you're, so then you make an offer on that building and an ideal world, it would already have a build out that is actually fits a dental practice.Like I did a, I bought a med spa for five 75, put a 15 operatory in there. Sold the building for 2. 4 million, like a year or two later. And that practice was a DeNovo, a startup. It did 503, 000 the first month. Cause I used partner dentists. And one month later I bought a strip mall, vacant strip mall and had a blockbuster in there that was gone.If you remember blockbuster. Yeah. Yeah. Blockbuster gone. Right. it had a blimpy sobs gone and some drive through coffee thing. And it was near a hospital. It had an oral surgeon near it, an endodontist. I bought it for 330 grand 10, 000 square feet. The seller was a physician because there was a hospital nearby.He said, I'll sell it to you. But only if you give me 10 percent down, cause I want the cashflow on the 330 grand. So I put 33 grand into it and then the rest was seller financing. And I sold that about two years later for just a little over 2. 4 million. Right. That was a thousand percent return and the tenants paid for their build outs in there.Right. so those buildings, those vacant buildings, that massive arbitrage of profit, that is what you can use to expand your business. So in that group that I owned in Southern Oregon grew from zero to eight million in less than four years. The group ended up having an eight figure exit with the DSO. And I grew that based on profits from real estate. Not only did I pay cash for everything. equipment, any build out stuff, but I actually had millions of dollars left over just on that arbitrage, buying real estate really low and selling it at market value, which happens to be really high compared to what you buy it for.So the key is, is this, Michael, Buying buildings dirt cheap that are perfect for dental practices or other health care and then occupying them with a practice, your new practice, a de novo, or moving an acquisition into there, like a merger from a three op guy into there. And then once you are occupying that building.The lease rate is what dictates the value. And then there's a whole world of buyers out there who buy real estate based on cashflow. Very easy to sell these for market value, but here's the deal. Nobody wants a vacant building. So owner users like us, Dennis are in a powerful position to occupy the building that we buy.And then basically flip that building, realize the profits. And, and, and the main point is the less and less time that you own the building from 10 years, all the way down to three hours, the greater your returns on an hourly rate, right? Meaning that profit explodes when you sell it.If you wait 10 years to sell it, you amortize your profit when you sell it all the way back over 10 years, incrementally per hour, your profit on that property is very low. Whereas if you buy a property and sell it a year later, right? Incrementally every hour you've owned that property is monetized based on the sale price.so that is in general kind of what I've done with real estate and we're in a great time right now. So much vacant dirt cheap real estate and so much opportunity. dentistry is exploding. Great opportunity for groups to expand and use real estate as their tool. Okay. Michael: Interesting. So how, I guess through all that, how easy is it to occupy one of these vacant buildings?Brady: So in some buildings, are very, set up for dental. Like that med spa that I bought and put 15 ops in it. Yeah, they had massage rooms. I just dropped dental chairs in each room. Very, very inexpensive. They had a waiting room already. It was gorgeous facility. very low, low, low costs for build out.The, um, strip mall that I had bought at that time, which kind of started this process for me of DeNovo's and real estate. Um, was a big open space and blockbuster and that took an actual build out inside. So that cost 400, 500 grand now, uh, bought the building for three 30 sold it for 2. 4 million, right? So even after 400, 000 in a buildout, that's still close to 2 million in profit, still worth it.But basically the buildings that you choose that are better suited to fit dental, the less you'll spend on TIs and the more retained profits you'll have, which can go into your retirement account. Which can pay off student debt, which can go into buying more practices, right? And recycle that. so, yeah, there is a kind of an art to that and the software really, uh, kind of, uh.Dovetails into what existing buildups look like you can kind of see what those look like and all that good stuff Michael: gotcha, and so you bought the You started this process without getting a loan from the bank or anything like that to be like, hey I'm going to expand I want to do this you you did it from your own Brady: or yes so so what happened is that was this was in 2010, which is 13, 14 years ago that I started this de novo and real estate component.But before then I already sold a couple of groups, owned other real estate, sold it. So I was doing well. So I just self funded. I didn't use debt. I just bought these properties and then occupied them and added other tenants to them, the strip mall. I had a chiropractor and a blood lab. got it 100 percent occupied and sold it to a 1031 buyer.Um, so for those that are like, Hey, have to take on debt and do that. So we have a big family office network. So doctors don't have to come up with money on the front end. They can be a tenant partner. In these projects, right? our team at Freedom, uh, Dental Partners, we've got a team that just teaches how to do the stuff.in fact, several of the projects of the 62 buildings going to closing right now are, are just that. One guy is a guy named Kevin up in Chicago. I actually partnered on this building to buy it. we bought it for two million and we're selling it for five million, right? Just a little bit of time later It's got 20 000 square feet.It's got a total of 40 dental laboratories in it Yeah, it's got perio and oral surgery and He's putting a big implant practice there and we're kind of teaming up on that. so not like you have to pay dirt cheap for them. I mean, you can pay two million for a building and still make three million dollars on it.So, so we do a lot of those, those as well. Michael: Okay. And then how, right now, if someone wants to sell, what should they do? What's like your recommendation if they're like, okay, I'm looking to sell. They know the common most way to sell. Right. Yep. Yeah. What are your recommendations? Brady: Yeah. So first of all, I would kind of assess your building.what is the, the value look like? And, I don't know if a lot of folks watch yours via video or it's audio, but do you mind if I share my screen and I can kind of... Yeah, Michael: Yeah. And if anybody right now, if you're listening, uh, definitely go in the show notes below and watch the video version of, especially of this portion Brady: right now.Yeah. And I'll just kind of go with this. There it is. So I just spoke, I don't know if anyone gets dental economics. I'm sure you get that magazine. And, uh, I've written a bunch of articles in there and they invited me to speak again in, in Las Vegas and this QR code, Freedom Dental Partners forward slash RE. So if you can't see it, it's just freedom dental partners. com forward slash RE. basically you just plug in, uh, the data on your building and we've got a whole team that basically figures out what the value is based on a few important factors.And those factors are your lease rate or what your lease rate could be. Um, the ability to have a corporate guarantee on the building, and then we work with several multi billion dollar REITs that then basically are buying a lot of the properties we put together, and we know the value of that. So we can, we'll email you back the value, um, it doesn't cost you anything obviously for that, but it's another example of how dentists can partner together to get higher value, because the average value a dentist can receive from selling their building as part of a group of other dental buildings is about 35 percent higher.So if a building is worth 500 grand on its own with these other factors, you're making whatever that is. So So that's that I'll unshare right now, but happy for anyone to use that resource and we had a bunch of people use that at the dental economics event and get back their values on their buildings and how that all works and with an explanation.But anyway, yeah, so that's that's Michael for those that already own their building that want to, you know, have some profit event from the real estate they own. But the biggest, I will say, the biggest profits are in taking these buildings, finding, you know, the ones that are easily, moved into a dental practice component, and then being able to turn those buildings, have a profit, and operate your dental practice there, and effectively expand without any debt and actually making money while you're expanding.Michael: Yeah. Okay. Okay. And I know, um, I guess, how do you know if a building is perfect? Because I think if you want something bad enough, you kind of can convince yourself like, this is perfect. But if Brady were to walk in there, you can tell us like, man, Michael, this is not perfect at all. This is, this is not a good building.So how can Brady: we tell? Yeah, yeah. So, so I look at it from, um, kind of an investment. Objective. If someone's going to do, let's say it's your second practice or your third or your 10th, you almost have to look up, look at it as a cost to benefit ratio. So I really don't look at any buildings or recommend any dentist look at a building unless they can make at least a half million dollars.if you can buy it and some of your costs are going to be X and you can still make a half million dollars. That's a great deal because now what you're doing is you're kind of getting your dental practice expansion going along for the ride But you're also being a real estate investor And and I think we all know that the majority of the world's wealth was gained or is held In real estate and and what we're doing here really is taking a undervalued asset class office and retail In our market today and just converting it to Basically healthcare, which dental fits in that mix, which is the most highly valued real estate right now.it's no different than I think Chip and Joanne Gaines that buy a house, fix it up and sell it for more. It's just a lot easier and more lucrative in this market right now because we can buy vacant buildings for such a low price. And sell them for such a high price. Michael: So this is kind of like, I've heard of this method.It's like the BRRR method, kind of like that BRRR method where you buy, right? Like rehab, refinance. Yeah, Brady: it totally is. So Michael, we should delve into that a little bit because I'm sure people don't know the acronym. Buy rehab, rent, refinance. So that's what it is. Now, here's the big cool part about it. Okay, we buy these vacant buildings, right? Rehab, well, you're gonna put your business in there or you might go with a bunch of other businesses and do it in partnership Which is some of my favorite way of doing it more profits than that offer.Okay, rent Your practice is gonna be renting it, right? Refi. Now there used to be a trend where, hey, I'll pull that money out and I'll just stack up my debt and keep getting more and more debt. and so I used to do that and I realized that the more debt that I had, The less I felt like I could go out there and pursue entrepreneurial stuff because I had a lot of debt.You know what I mean? Yeah. so the only difference is buy rehab rent and it's yourself as part of the tenant mix your, your own tenant. And then instead of refinancing, just selling, making a bunch of money, not having debt. And now you can focus on being productive, being an entrepreneur, and not kind of stacking up your debt as you go, even though refinancing is still a option in many cases.Michael: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay. So yeah, it's buy, rehab, rent, refinance, and then repeat. Brady: Yeah. Yeah. and with these, this model. Absolutely. So, so the key is you need to know how to do a startup profitably. And with Freedom Dental Partners, we are launching a course very soon on how I just in Novos and grew from zero to 8 million.One was an acquisition, but three De Novos, zero to 8 million, no PPOs, believe it or not. Wow. How to, yeah. How for to market for that, how to add partners. How to get them off the ground, you know, most people say, Oh, you'll, you'll be profitable in two years. My first month on the second location did 503, 000 with 210 grand of profit, the first month, and that was that med spa.so I'm putting a program together that folks can follow a free program just to go over how that worked. then we got a done with you component where we can have our, four recruiters where you can recruit. a junior partner, who's gonna be there, how does the marketing tie in, you know, is there an implant bent to the practice, all that good stuff, but yeah, it, it, really.The de novo or startup fits in with the real estate strategy, unless you're going to merge an older docs practice into there. Um, but I found any money that you would have spent on that acquisition. If you just spend that on marketing and you know how many patients per dollar you're spending coming in is, and especially with your techniques, Michael, to have a team that's going to Costco and going to these bricks and mortar places around town doing lunch and It's an incredible way to build grassroots around that.And once you hit, once you at least break even on that, you know, if you follow the plan really well, you, you know, profit the first month, but let's say it takes you six months to break even. Great. Now you've got an incredible asset, you made money on the front end, and now you're going and doing another one of these things and you're literally growing without SBA loans. of America, right? Without needing to be backed by private equity. And when you do sell your group, now it's just all cash to you, right? You don't have to pay off debt and then have a profit. you're growing without debt. And, and I found you grow faster and you take more risks with your growth when you got money in the bank and you don't have debt.Then it's like, Oh, I can do this. Let's try this. Hey, it's no big deal if I try that. And, and those that have the freedom to try new things, And to get kind of aggressive in business, they're the ones that usually win because they're actually trying new things. hitting a single, a double, a homerun.Oh shoot, maybe they didn't do very well on this one, but it didn't affect them. So yeah. So anyway. Michael: No. Yeah. That's interesting. And then I think that's the tricky part there Brady. It's like, cause it sounds, I mean, to me at least it sounds easy, like, okay, let's be profitable. And then we can sell, right? But I feel like a lot of, um, especially like, you know, startups and acquisitions, they kind of get stuck in there where it's like, dude, it's been one year and I haven't even broken even yet.Like, you know what I mean? Kind of thing. Brady: Yeah. So here's kind of one of the secrets with this model. I marketed 30 grand a month, three months before I opened that location where we did 503, 000 the first month. most dentists put in their budget, like instead of 3 percent for marketing, I'll do 6 percent and it just never works.So you kind of have to do a marketing blitz to do it. I had 340 or so new patients that first month it was hundreds. And we did consults before opening it and treatment scheduled. So, so the key is you have to be able to do a massive marketing budget. And most people don't want to do that using debt, they're just backpedaling them, right? It's like, oh crap, I'm putting all this money into marketing. I don't know if the marketing is going to work. So with that, I had already done a real estate project before that made a bunch of money. And then I'm like, Oh, I've got several million in the bank.I don't mind dumping 30 grand in the marketing, right? From a variety of sources, radio, TV, postcards. You know, Google AdWords, Facebook ads, funnels, all that, even a local newspaper. And I went on radio and talked and did a little, I was on a radio talk show, they gave me the radio ads. So you kind of have to do anything and everything, and that creates this massive momentum where you get all this press coming in, right?And then the statistic ends up working out, which is, 80 percent of new patients that come into a practice, 80 percent of new patients, the internal referrals come from those that have been in the practice 12 months or less. So when you do external marketing, you're automatically building your internal referrals and people don't understand.They think, Oh, this 62 year old doc that's been in town for 30 years. He's getting all the referrals, right? Cause he's been there forever. Nope. He's getting four to six new patients a month. It's the new docs who are marketing heavy that are getting the internal referrals. Cause they're, they're bringing in fresh patients, right?And so you have to understand that external marketing begets what we all want, the internal referrals. And with a great campaign like what you do, Boots on the Ground, Lunch and Learns, that's huge because you're with folks, they're talking about it, you're in local businesses. So, so that is the key to market really heavily and, and do that.But, but when you do that, you know, you can, you can literally. take care of your financial future with just the real estate profits and grow a group Debt free. Michael: Gotcha, man. Okay, that's interesting. Good. That's good to know like kind of getting that momentum started right there. one of the final questions I wanted to ask is Right throughout everything you're kind of seeing and this is just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical Side of dentistry, right?What do you dislike or hate about dentistry right now? Brady: I would say there's this kind of chasm between, private equity backed DSOs and then the rest of independent dentists and dentists getting together and, um, being funded. outside private equity. So private equity back DSOs. That simply means that some corporate body and institutional investor owns the majority of that entity, which means when it recaps what it sells, the majority of those profits Go to the private equity company or the institutional investor.Very little goes to the actual dentist doing the real work on the ground. On the other side of this equation are yes, individual dentists, but also dentist groups that are funded by their own debts, by their own sources of funding, like the real estate that we talked about. And it's kind of a battle right now.what I hate is that More dentists aren't doing enough research to understand that these big private equity backed groups are not investing in real estate. In 2016, they wrote something in a private equity journal that said don't invest in real estate, but the founders of those groups have formed exclusive arrangements.And they get to invest in all the real estate. They're making a killing billions of dollars. And all of these groups that kind of watch the big groups, they're saying, oh, we'll just lease. We won't own the real estate because they don't own it, but the founder is owning the real estate. So what I don't love is that there's not a ton of information being given out.over here with the huge groups that are private equity back. And there's a lot of dentists that aren't taking the time to research how that really works. And I think that's my goal is to, yes, certainly show a couple decades of failures and successes, but to also show, cause I've, I've looked deeply inside the innards of all these DSOs.I've helped a lot of them and consulted a lot of them and worked with the main attorney group who set them up. so I think what I don't love is that chasm between the two. And I think the individual dentists, the business folks that are working with dentists, those groups that are watching the big DSOs and emulating them and just leasing space, not realizing there's a huge real estate play there.and those that don't realize, Hey, we can clump together like at Freedom Dental Partners and have a big group with a big liquidity event and benefit our futures. you know, financially, just like the big boys do. I think it's that chasm that I hate the most. And that's I think what I'm here to do is educate, show how they're doing it and then interpret how that works and make it easy so that Dennis can flourish just like those big groups.And then I think what's gonna happen is if here's the big groups and here's Dennis and smaller It's going to equalize out because now we're using all the secret tools, techniques and protocols that they are. We leveled the playing field and we actually maybe even have an edge on our side, especially with kind of some of the real estate stuff we've talked about today.Michael: All right, man. Awesome. And then any final pieces of advice that you'd like to give to our listener? Brady: Um, I would say if you're young and you're just starting out your career and you did an acquisition or a startup, you're a business person involved with a small group, look at ways of collaborating more like, uh, you know, Freedom Dental Partners, we've got hundreds of dentists around the country who are building small groups together and getting involved, Google Freedom Dental Partners, see some of the deals we've done, some of the DSOs we've bought, we've bought a number of DSOs, and uh, just get involved and look for folks that are really, uh, kind of on the, on the forefront of doing this stuff, look for folks that are partnering with others, that are sharing, and uh, I would say just, look very closely at those that are banding together because those are the groups that are forging, ahead and really competing with each other.With the big boys. unfortunately it's not the one or two or three location groups that are kind of competing as the big boys. It's, it's those one, two or three location groups or 10 location groups that are banding together, creating a formidable force to elevate through partnerships that are, that are really making a difference out there today.Okay, man, Michael: that's good. So then if anyone had any questions or concerns, where can they find you? Brady: Yeah, just go to brady at freedom dental partners. com brady at freedom dental partners. com and I can I can get to where you need to go Michael: Awesome. So guys that's going to be in the show notes below. So definitely check it out And at the same time brady, thank you so much for being with us.It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from Brady: you soon Awesome, michael. Have a great one Michael: Thank you so much for tuning into that podcast. And Brady, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. We really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wealth of knowledge. And at the same time, if you want to ask Brady any questions, go in the show notes below or the description below, and you can click on his links and reach out to him there.Definitely check out his website and see what he has to offer you as well. Along with any of the freebies that he mentioned in the episode, you can download them in the show notes below as well. So go ahead and do that now. Have you ever thought about what your dental practice could achieve if tech headaches were a thing of the past?That's where a fantastic IT company comes in. Now think about your day at your clinic strip away any worries about server crashes or data breaches. Man, if you can do that, that'd be amazing. With Dark Horse Tech, that's your new reality. They deliver IT solutions that align perfectly with the rhythm of a busy dental practice, so your attention never strays from patient care.Now, I wanted you to ask yourself that critical question. 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But remember the limited time offer is. First 30 days are completely free. So grab this opportunity and see what seamless it service feels like with dark horse tech. It's not just about managing it. It's about mastering your practices potential. So going to show notes below, click the first link in the show notes below to check out more, and that's going to do it for this episode.Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll talk to you in the next episode.‍

I'm excited to announce that the Pediatric Dental Marketing Course is officially open for enrollment!This comprehensive course, developed by Minal Sampat and myself, is tailored specifically for pediatric practice owners and their teams. It is designed to turn your pain points into stepping stones for success, and to help you become the trusted dental home for countless children in your community. Head over to our site to enroll now! https://pediatricdentalmarketingcourse.com/‍‍Guest: David MaloleyBusiness Name: Relentless DentistCheck out David's Media:Website: https://relentlessdentist.com/David's Podcast: https://relentlessdentist.com/podcasts/Reveal the Hidden Potential In Your Practice! https://app.tryinterface.io/s/64c79b5f-a27b-41b8-b3a0-ea9dfe3eeedf‍‍Other Mentions and Links:Voices of DentistryDavid's Past Episode: 198HGTVBuc-ee'sIn-N-Out BurgerKois CenterPeter DruckerDeion SandersMinal SampatCanva‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:What are the key aspects to a high performance and self-driven team?The drawbacks to a top-down, authoritarian, leadership style and effective alternatives.How to build your patient experience around referrals, so patients can't help but refer their friends and family.The difference between self-managing team members, and those that need more guidance, and how to manage both.How to escape the tyranny of "urgent" tasks and ease your mind.How to manage a team that isn't fully on board with the plan.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: This is the Dental Marketer, the podcast where we teach you how to effectively market and grow your dental practice. And my name is Michael Adias, and my mission is to help you, the practice owner, attract new patients immediately, and effectively market and grow your business, so you can become the go to dental practice in your community.Now, today we're tackling a challenge. That you faced at one point or another, and that's how to build a thriving team culture when not everyone seems to be on board and joining us is a seasoned expert, second time guest, Dr. David Maloli. David was on episode 198, The Relentless Dentist, and in that episode, I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes below.Or you can go on the website and just search up episode 198. And in that episode, he talks about why having clarity is everything when starting a practice. The tough times you will face when you own a practice that you absolutely cannot avoid. And how to become a better leader for your team. And so that's what we discussed in that episode on 198.But in this episode, we dive miles deeper into a couple things. Specifically, a lot of those things that we talked about, but much, much deeper. For example, We discuss breaking down top notch teams. So have you ever wondered what it takes for a regular group of people, and what do you have to do to turn them into a supercharged team? Well, That's what we dive deep into in this episode. Into what pushes teams to the top. And lights that motivational fire under them. Then we also discussed the flip side of traditional leadership. And so we're going to chat about why the old school bossing around leadership might not be cutting it.We're diving into ways to lead that boost and inspire and not just boss around. Then we also talk about making your patient experience share worthy.So Dave's got the lowdown on crafting a patient experience that's so awesome, folks can't help but tell their friends about it. So get ready to learn how to make your patients your biggest fans. And then we're also talking about balancing self managing and guided team members. some teams they're a mix, right?Some people love their freedom, while others need a road map. And we're gonna chat about handling both kinds of team members, and letting everyone shine in their own way. And then, we'll discuss ditching the everything's urgent mindset. And Dave's got tips. to help you shake off that constant to do list pressure uh, that we all kind of feel like we have. So let's figure out how to take back your time and what really matters in this episode.That's what we're going to discover with Dr. Dave Maloli. But before that, I want to ask you, Have you ever scrolled through Instagram and noticed, the people you're following the pediatric dentist or pediatric practice, and they have thousands of followers, and you notice people are engaging with their content?They're creating content you love, that other people love, and you just know that they're attracting new patients every single day through Instagram. And you've thought to yourself, how incredible would that be if I had an Instagram account just like them? How fun would that be? Well Stick around after the interview to learn exactly how to do this, but for now, let's listen in to Dr.Dave Melloli. David, how's it going? Michael, David: I'm awesome. How about yourself? Michael: Doing pretty good, bud. Doing pretty good. It's been a minute. I think the last time we physically spoke was at Voices of Dentistry pre David: pandemic. Right. Yeah. I was going to say it's probably a different world that we're both walking in currently, relative to the last time we Michael: spoke.But since last time, and even in the episode, which I'll put in the show notes below, so, the listener can, you know what I mean, follow up and listen to it. But at the same time, you've always been really keen on leadership. You've always talked about it. Right now, currently, are you, are you working in a practice clinically or no?I'm David: not. I sold my practice literally right before the pandemic would have taken it from me. So I saw my last patient in March of 2020. Michael: Oh, nice. Okay. So then right now, what are you currently doing? David: I exclusively coach. Single location, dental practice owners. Um, I've done that one on a one on one basis for about five years.And I really focus on performance, which is to me, the people side of things, not only what's going on internally for the doctor, but how does that radiate as a force for good towards the teams? And I'm also building a platform called Dentist Ascend, and that's to really give that demographic, single location dental practice owners, every competitive edge, giving them, I've really analyzed the market once because I was in it for a long period of time.It's easy to see what are all the things that they need and what are all the things that would be nice, but create friction and getting them to progress from current state to desired state. Michael: Gotcha. So is it more monetary? Like, Hey, look, I'm trying to break even Dave. And I need to get me there. Right? Like I'm struggling.It's been two, three years. Right. Or is it more like, Hey, the team sucks. I hate coming to work. Money's good. I just, Mondays, when Mondays come around, I get sick, right? Which one is it kind of more? David: it's both. Um, I created a methodology called the dentist of sun methodology to make sure that, cause my background before I was in dentistry, I was really in performance working with elite athletes and my career kind of.Went full circle when I realized that I was kind of born to be a coach, that's what was allowing my practice to prosper was me coaching up my teams that led to, you know, one on one coaching engagements, but I think it's dangerous to separate one from the other because, you know, I call the top tier and enjoy cashflow, like how profitable are we, what are the business mechanics that are leading to that, but if you drill down.A layer below that, I call that enthused clients. So what sort of clinical care and patient experience are they getting? And then that's going to lend to. Enjoy cashflow, right? If we go a deeper layer than that, who's creating the experiences, the doctor and the team, I call it enhanced culture.And then the driver of all of that in my, with my clientele where they have one location and they're really masters of their craft, but they have to parallel their craft with. Leadership and business acumen. I call that elevate confidence. What's going on for that doctor? Or not going on for that doctor in some cases.To, that's inhibiting them from being at their best at work. Michael: Gotcha, okay. That make sense? Yeah, so this is a process, a system you've created, David: right? It is, it's an integration between business consulting and performance coaching. That, I've been around the block enough and I've I've been in the pit of despair as a practice owner myself for long periods of time, it helped me see what was genuinely high leverage for the doctor and also like what are the things that we're chasing and they're expensive, but they're not necessarily high yield.Michael: Okay, so you mentioned pit of despairs. What are some? Of the major pit of despairs that you remember where you were like, geez, my gosh, how am I going to get out of this? That maybe nowadays you see that coming back up or that's happening a lot with uh, some of the colleagues. Yeah, David: I think One of the phrases I go back to often is that we don't have business problems We have personal problems that manifest in our business and that really humanizes the process But for me in the first few years of my startup practice My wife was medevaced to have my son, that was a big trauma to me because I didn't know if either of them were going to come home, quite frankly, a few years after that, my wife had a stroke in my office again, medevaced to Denver to save her life.And the straw that broke the camel's back was about six months after that were half my team quit all in one week. it was more of a mutiny, kind of orchestrated by a toxic office Michael: manager. was that during the part where your wife had the David: stroke or no? It was like six months after, yeah.When, right when I was at my lowest and a shell of a man, and I really needed my team, it fractured. And... It was difficult financially, it was difficult emotionally. I remember having so much anxiety that I'd be bent over in the shower dry heaving before work some days. And so I had to crack the code because I knew that game wasn't sustainable at all.Michael: that, man, that is. So then what were some of the things that you started doing? Because honestly, Dave, if I was in, I'm just trying to think, trying to put myself in your shoes. I would kind of just say like, I'm just going to give it all up right now. Right. That's like priorities. My family team doesn't want to be here.Fine. I'm selling right. Like I don't, I don't care. I'll, I don't know, be an Amazon driver or something. But Yeah. Yeah. For you, what were the steps if you could pinpoint and kind of like break it down to us in a system, the first one to three steps that helped you to get out of there? David: Well, most of my work now is around flow.Like how do we find this optimal state of productivity where we feel good? Things kind of happen that feels magic, but we're putting effort into it. Just has all of our focus and attention. And now I can look back at those times and realize what wasn't working, where were the burnout triggers in my life?And also, where was I almost stumbling across flow triggers? And so the first one is purpose. I moved to this mountain town for a reason. And I had a little boy and I literally remember looking at him and his crib. He was sleeping one night and I was, I could feel my insides like quivering from all the anxiety.And I said to him, Bennett, I don't know how I'm going to figure this out, but I'm going to find a way. So in the flow continuum, you kind of need curiosity, passion, and purpose stacked really high when you get in those difficult situations. know that now. I didn't know that then, but I happen to have a little boy right in front of me that I didn't want to say, Hey, listen, it was a crash and burn.And we decided to move to Denver and gave up on the dream. So purpose was the big one. Um, the second one was. Accountability. I mean, when I look back at that moment of team unity, I don't know that I would want to work for me either. I wasn't, I was short. I didn't have much in the tank. I didn't sleep very well at night.and I'm sure they felt that and I'm sure when they left they felt somewhat guilty, but they were trying to preserve themselves. So I had to realize that everything that happened in these four walls was my responsibility, whether I liked it or not, whether I was prepared for it or not. And then the third one would be understanding what team building really means.I, my background was more from, I grew up on a farm and then I worked in high performance athletics for a long period of time. And those environments are very authoritarian. And I kind of thought, Hey, my name's on the door. It's my license we're working under. I signed the paychecks. So I point in that direction and you go in that direction, right?Well, not, not so much. It sounds good in theory, but. This isn't the military and my team always had other options and it created a lot of pain just because I didn't really know how to articulate, Hey, let's make this a meaningful, meaningful workplace for you. What gets you excited to come to work in the morning?What has you for feeling fulfilled at the end of the day and then chasing there, going back to curiosity, passion, and purpose, what are the things that you're interested in? What, how can we further educate and develop you? So. It was this top down management where we started into, we moved into a very horizontal management structure where everyone owned their zone.Now I know that it's self managing teams, but that's really what allowed me to not only survive. In a weird economic climate in a resort town that has nasty seasonal trends and end up being really proud of the product, meaning that patient experience, the reputation, but also all the outputs, all the things that happen when you run a smart business.Michael: Yeah, I like, I like that part at the end right now. So the product that you're trying to put out is the patient experience. David: Yeah, I, I believe. Again, I don't know that I could have articulated this as clearly then, but now I've got some separation and I coach clients on this. The idea that we were building into our patient experience was referral centricity.What if. The purpose of an appointment wasn't to get case acceptance. What if it wasn't to get them to reappoint? What if it was something higher and bigger, which would be give them an exceeding expectations experience where they couldn't help, but tell the next person they saw on the pickup line at school or when they went back to work.And when you build your. around a referral, you know, that people aren't just going to give it out, you have to earn it. And so that was the product you know, extends into reputation and ability. but that's what I always challenged my team is. We've got dozens of people on the schedule today, but that one in front of you right now, what can you do to make them feel like they're the only patient on our schedule today?Michael: I like that, man. That's super different. So how did you do that? How did you create that experience? So the end goal was always a David: referral.Well, if you don't mind, let's go into another flow trigger, a big flow trigger. We talked about purpose was a big one. Talk about curiosity. We talk about passion, but a massive one is autonomy. And when I started making my team, the CEO of whatever they were doing, it might be the schedule, it might be the finances.It might be the hygiene op. It might be one of my ops. That's when that really flourished. And I just. Decentralized operations, basically, although it was a small facility, I decentralized operations and task them to surprise and delight the patients on the schedule. And one patient might want to get in and out.So the surprise and delight was efficiency, but the other person might want, you know, if they're, if they have more time on their hands, they might want the additional touches like, Oh, I watch. HGTV when I came in last time and they remembered it and that program was up when I walked in the room. And it doesn't take much really to surprise and delight somebody because most customer experiences are pretty mediocre, right?Yeah. But it's all these little unexpected touches. It's nothing's going to blow you away. It's just that, wow, I got a birthday card from Dr. Maloli. Wow. We got a handwritten thank you after I was there one visit. Those little things compound like crazy. Michael: Interesting. So it's more of the, um, David: the details. Yeah.The details that seem trivial at first, that's a really good way to put it. If you didn't do it, nobody would miss it. And the fact that you are doing it, it doesn't take you five or 10 minutes. It takes you a moment, but just that little bit more eye contact, a little bit more conversation, remembering where they went to vacation last summer, because he put it in the notes, all those little things.And a small town or in a big town where people, they want, they feel ignored and they want to feel like they're valued. If you just put a few little deposits on that emotional bank account each time, it really adds up and it's that emotional connection. Now, more than ever, that people are really longing for.Michael: Yeah, I remember, I think that was in, and for anybody, for, for you, you're listening, I'm going to put it in the show notes below to Dave's, uh, newsletter, because I think today you sent something like about the three points to, to ponder and, and one of them was to rethink. Touch points, It was where can you inject and genuine care into the um, I guess this part of it, right?is this something that you recommend like everybody on the team should ask themselves this? David: Everybody on the team, every appointment, every day. Every day. It's a moving target, you're trying to customize it, you're trying to make it unique and personalized and unexpected, and there's different strokes for different folks, and somebody might love all your reminders and somebody might hate all your reminders, so you have to customize the experience, and I think, you know, there's a lot of people that are scared about this corporate takeover or what you want to talk about, um, I don't think it's real, I think Yes.It's a, just a different model. And if you want to win at your own model, you get excellent at your craft, which is dentistry, and you package that in a incredible experience. And you can run circles around anybody because it's so rare. I mean, I live in a high end area and I can go to an expensive restaurant and the steak might be good, but then the service is mediocre or I might go into retail and the same thing.So if you can surround yourself with a handful of engaged, creative people, they don't have to be trained in dentistry. In fact, sometimes I think it's a liability for them to have spent a long time in dentistry because then you have to take them through this unlearning process. That experience goes beyond the golden rule of, let me give you the dental experience I would want.It's upgraded into, let me understand the experience that you want and make sure that I give you that, and then nudge it up just one more rung and say, wow. Like. You'll never believe what happened at Malovi's office today. Michael: I like that. Well, have you ever experienced a day where, I mean, somebody's expressing this.They're wanting it. They're like, yeah, okay, guys, we're all gonna, what, where are the touch points we can add? And then there's like that one team member that just all the time, right? They're there, they get excited, then they bring it down and they get excited and then bring it down. what do we do with that?David: it's a big question. I mean, there's 80 percent of the workforce that are disengaged right now. some people are just risk averse and any change feels like a threat to their day. And so they need a little bit more coaching and nurturing and reminders. Most leaders get sick of saying the same thing over and over, but it's important that.We find the things that are precious and valuable to us, and we never stop talking about it because people will drift. Right. So there's that well intentioned person. And then there's the other person who might be like, Hmm, sounds good, but it's also a lot of work. Let's just see if we can let this blow over.And then you have that other insidious person. That's like, no way I ain't doing that. And then they start to kind of toxify and contaminate the others. So I really believe the future of leadership is. Understanding how to coach and develop your people, not just in dentistry, but in the workplace, because if you don't invest in them, they're always going to be looking for their next best.And so you have to, almost like what we just talked about with the patient experience, you have to customize the employee experience as well. Because some people are already self managing. If you start over managing them, you're going to run them off. Other people are used to being dependent on somebody else for making all the decisions.And if you don't nurture them to be decisive and confident and develop their skills and mindset, then you're going to run the top team member off too, right? So it's... Understanding how to build teams and grow people it used to be a, would be nice to have that skill, but now it's mission critical.Cause you're just going to have churn if you don't figure it out. So, that's a bit of a tangent of what we were just talking about, but to anchor that or bring that back home full cycle, I think understanding. How to get the best out of your people and making sure that your people understand, they really have three jobs, right?first job is to be good at their job, whatever that is, scheduler again, financial arrangements, dental assisting. The second job is to be a great teammate because if you're really productive and a toxic team member, then it's a no go. You're going to make the other people worse at their job. Like we were just talking about.And the third part is to grow. And it's the interesting thing about leadership is it's good for all people to grow. It feels fulfilling when we're expanding our capacities and capabilities. But that said, even though it's good for us, that most people will dig their heels in a little bit. So you have to build that into the culture of what are you going to focus on in the next 90 days?How are you going to get better? How can I support that? How can I be. How can I provide you the tools and training to get there? because if you get in any signs of status quo in this radically changing world, then it'll start to pass you by. And to me, that's the most dangerous thing of all is thinking what got us here will get us there.The big word that's getting kicked around in corporate circles is radically adaptable. And then there's like the laws of physics involved, right? An object in motion tends to stay in motion. The object at rest tends to stay at rest. And if you let your people rest on their heels and aren't telling them, like, part of your job is to get better at your job, then bad things happen.The consequences are too great for me. Michael: Yeah. So then. In, in this time where you're, if you can recall, like when you're busy, right, you're dealing with an employee, you're dealing with the patient, you're dealing with your own CE, right? Your own family, all this stuff. How can we tell what are the like marks of, Oh, they've been status quo for a minute now.Like they've been just, I don't know if they're, they're going down or up. You know what I mean? Like they just kind of passed by the radar because you're so boggled down with everything else. David: I think what we're, if we go to the root cause here, I think we really have to focus on what are our priorities and I'll share with you my personal experience, um, kind of an extension of what we were talking about earlier.That was about. Almost 10 years ago, where I had the family incident and the team mutiny and had to rebuild and then found out that it was a team member that was staying that created all the mayhem. in that churn, I noticed as I was rehiring for those positions that I wasn't getting as many applications as I used to.And. It wasn't that we had a bad reputation. It was just when people left, they weren't leaving my practice to go to another practice. They were leaving town because of cost of living. So a lot of the supply and demand issues that are, people are experiencing now. I felt that a long time ago and. What I had to do was prioritize making, even over patient care, which is hard for me to say, but it was true.I realized that if I didn't have a great team, I wasn't going to have that great patient experience. So I had to take that workplace environment and move it to the top of the list. What do I have to do to ensure that this is one of the best workplaces in town, not in dentistry, but again, facing competitors and banking and retail and hospitality.And so we have to move that to the front. And if we've moved that to the front. To sustain this team and allow this team to grow and flourish. Then we make the time for immediate feedback each and every day. We build some of that feedback into the huddle system, so that they don't have a chance to drift.And if they start to drift, that's when you start coaching them harder. And it's not to be mean, it's actually an act of kindness for the rest of the team to not let somebody pull down on the bar, like lower the standard when everyone else is raising the standard. So it's really our duty as employees, but you have a point, like there's 10, 000 things that we.Can be doing, we just have to make sure we know what one, two, and three are. And then we never lose sight of those priorities because not doing it again means this cascade of turnover and drama and gossip and being on the reactive side of that I've experienced it. And I wouldn't recommend it. I would recommend staying on the proactive side and really build a team, really a team building machine that has a communication cadence daily.Weekly, monthly, quarterly, uh, to make sure that people are always in momentum. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Now, a lot of the times, Dave, how do you think we should handle this? Like when we're, we want to like, we're new, right? Maybe we've been open for a year or something. And we're looking to grow, but, you know, employees are scarce, right?Or, or just help is not as, uh, available as it used to. And you feel like you've created this beautiful workplace, but it's kind of like, they're like, oh, this is how much you can pay. Now I can get paid more at Bucky's, right? Or, oh, this is how much you're going to get paid. They're paying me more in and out or something.Right. and you're just thinking it's only monetary. Like there's no way I can pay you that much. That's it's just, I don't have it. What do we do in that David: scenario? It's funny. You say Bucky's cause I was just in Tennessee and they had this big sign out front, like 35 an hour for this 150, 000 for a night manager.And I was like, wow, this is competitive. Yeah. It's a big deal. again, something that I experienced in my local market where the cost of living is really high and I had to do a frame shift, meaning I couldn't see a team member as an expense ever. Cause I'd look at my payroll costs and I'd look at my overhead percentages and the payroll costs as a part of those overhead percentages.And I think, well, I'm way out of standard norms. But my alternative was also not having an employee and we have three columns full of hygiene and no hygienist. That's also a huge financial liability, not to mention a liability for your reputation and all these things you built up. So we have to look at them not to dehumanize people.I love people and I literally believe that all humans have unlimited potential. Some of them want to step into that and some of them don't clearly, but. if I got the feel during the interview process, that somebody was looking for something different, they were looking for a true culture.They were looking for more than just trading their time for my dollars. Then usually I was willing to invest in them and sometimes they came in really rough, meaning they didn't know a molar from a premolar They were rough around the edges, but they just didn't have any skills. And so we always started with customer service and said, the dental stuff will come from the reps.Right. And. So if I have to pay somebody 30 an hour or 35 an hour, my immediate question is, how do I make this person worth 90 an hour to the organization, either three times their wage or four times their wage and. It's like that ever seen those Peter Thiel questions, like he'll say, what if I had to accomplish my five year goals in six months, or it's something that's like so mind breaking.You're like, I, at first you're like, I can't, there's impossible, but if you sit with that for a while, you start to understand, like. Okay. If team overhead is say 33 percent and the rest of the overhead is 33%. So we're now at two thirds basically, right? And I'm getting 33%, which isn't an ideal dental practice.But when you're starting out, it's not uncommon for these numbers to skew like that. You start to realize an hour of the team's time is equivalent to an hour of my time. And so if I can save an hour a day by delegation, if they can prevent work and worry, if I can optimize this practice by only doing the things that.Require a dental license and then the high level CEU activities, you can hire all day. You just have to make sure that they're creating boundaries for you so that you're protected from decisions that you don't need to make. And then you, again, upskill them and train them up and up and up because the biggest risk in most of these situations is not having that person.Gotcha. So. You don't want to hire a knee jerk and get a, you always want to hire for culture fit and values alignment easier said than done, but you at least want to be screening for that, but the market will tell you what you need to pay for an employee and some sort of notion like this isn't sustainable is sometimes too quick of a reaction because what's not sustainable is.Bringing temps all the time and paying them 80 bucks an hour. What's not sustainable is your stress because you're onboarding a new person every two weeks. So there's a lot that goes into that, but I hope I've unpacked it enough that you have to like almost look at it like a fixer upper, like, okay, I'm getting this home for 260, 000.What do I have to do to make it worth 400, 000? That's easy to. To dehumanize it and put it in, into real estate forms. But if you're a good leader and a team builder, you can help that person see parts of themselves, the potential that no one's ever unpacked. So now you're serving yourself, you're serving the team member, you're serving the patient and you're serving the team.So that's the, we talk about a rare and valuable skill in this economy. It's that like being a builder of people and a unifier of teams. It almost solves for every other problem you have, your cashflow problems, your patient retention problems, your, I can't sleep tonight cause I'm too anxious problems.Like if you focus on that team dynamic, a lot of the other things take care of itself. It's especially in a, economy and a society now where people aren't as loyal, where they're more likely to skip work because there's. Eight inches of powder on the mountain, or they have something better to do. You really want to create a system and a machine, meaning this culture that attracts top talent, and then also helps them understand that you can go looking for greener pastures, but you're unlikely to find it.Michael: Interesting. I want to kind of rewind a little bit. You, you mentioned something with a team member. You said you don't want to overmanage them. How do you know when you are overmanaging someone? David: That's a really good question, Michael. I think you have to make sure technical term is psychological safety.That means no matter how long that you've spent at this practice, you No matter how much experience you have, no matter how loud you are or quiet, you are that all voices are need to be heard around here. So part of that, from a practice owner, you need to know, you need to ask them, like, what brings out the best in you.And sometimes you have to take them back to, like, who was a boss that you felt like didn't know how to bring out the best in you? And what were they doing? And then don't do that, right? Because the awareness sometimes isn't there, so you have to unpack it slowly. But you also have to make sure that there's an open dialogue, that if they feel like you're taking away some of that autonomy unnecessarily, that they let you know that, hey, Doc, it really makes me feel XYZ when you do this.And so it really has to be a dialogue and that psychological safety and. The open dialogue, the radical candor can only happen in an environment of high trust and high care. So the first job is to really give a damn about your people. And the second job is to make sure that they know that you have their best interests at heart.Now, where that gets complicated is where you have the radically independent person who's incompetent, who really needs guidance and coaching and management, right? So you have to be able to flex in and out, engage your Conviction based on somebody's level of competency, and there's graceful ways of doing that, right?It can be, uh, what's the marketing term? It can be a welcome guest or an annoying pest. Sometimes it's just a matter of your approach when you're managing those people. But it's not a one size fit all approach. And what happens sometimes is you have top performers that drift because they've got something going on at home with a spouse or a sick parent.So you always have to be on your toes as a leader because there is no checklist or prescription for this. It's you being hyper aware and knowing that your number one job first job is to, is to role model away. So who are you when you come to work? Are you representing the brand? And then you have to teach them how to think, giving them frameworks in which this is how we operate.This is how we take care of patients all from the surprise and delight thing to simple rules like No one sits in reception longer than five minutes or something like that with rare exception, and then you have to challenge them. And so that goes back full circle to what we were talking about earlier, about making sure that you're there for that graceful nudge to make sure that they're staying in momentum.And when you do this right, it starts to look like a flywheel at first. It takes a lot of effort going back to your young dentist. It's like, I'll never figure this out. I've been there, but over time. You start understanding how the mechanism really works, and it takes less and less management from you.You can't be hands off. Because all organizations will drift if there isn't somebody to tend to the belief system, the vision, the mission, but over time, it should get easier and people should be really good about getting work and worry off your plate. So you can focus on that coist training or the ortho training or all that stuff that really is going to pay the bills, but you're too busy doing 20 an hour stuff, cleaning up messes, putting out fires.Living in the tyranny of the urgent, all those sorts of things, that's, we have to evacuate the doctor from that so that they recover that freedom and realize, okay, now my career is what I thought it would be in the early stages. Gotcha. Michael: Awesome, David. I appreciate it. ask mainly that question because I feel like that's a lot of the times we... Maybe we do that and maybe we're giving too much autonomy to someone who doesn't need it. Right. It's like, Oh, you're not doing anything kind of thing. Right. But just looking busy. And then there's sometimes where it's like, cause of that, maybe we've been scarred.We do that with people who don't need it. Right. We're like, okay, wait, no, trust me. You're going to be, and we kind of push that on them. Like you need this type of guidance and all this stuff. Although they need guidance, everybody. Right. But it's more like. You're micromanaging now, right? And then that can be, heavy.You're just like, ah, you don't really believe me. You don't trust me or, I don't David: know, I can go further than that. Another component that really needs to be plugged in here that we should talk about is peer to peer coaching. You have to make sure that your environment is feedback rich and it's not just top down.It's not just the senior people down. It really is this environment where everyone's trying to get better. And they all are human and humble enough to know that there's blind spots. I remember one day... I have a pretty small space, less than 1200 square feet. And so the sterilization was right across from op two and we did the whole Disney thing.This is front stage. This is backstage. These are things that we only talk about backstage, but there was some personal stuff being talked about in hygiene and the hygienist with her patient, the chair heard it. And I didn't have to address it because she addressed it. She let it be known that, hey, it was really awkward for me being around that patient and hearing about that your Saturday night or whatever.And, and, uh, and sterilization. And she said, that's not how we do things around here. And so ultimately you need to set the standard, but it needs to be pleased by more than just you. In fact, with my clients now, I'm building out unity councils, which is an internal leadership team to make sure that, Hey, there's a keeper of the culture.Even when the doctor is heads down looking for another canal and an upper first molar for a root canal, there's keepers of the culture all the time, and it's not this environment where. when the cats away, the mice will play that's most environment. So you have to build in these fail safes and it all goes back to building trust and rapport one on one on one on one and making sure that you never take that for granted.Yeah, Michael: man. I think I'd feel like. If I wasn't in the office and I saw, dude, like maybe like a camera, I heard like one of my employees or somebody say, like, that's not how we do things around here, but oh my gosh, like, this is amazing, you know? David: Her name was Sam. I called her my sheriff. Yeah, that's good. There were certain standards, like we had our mission, our vision, our values, and then certain non negotiables.And if somebody crossed that line, I was rarely the person that had to move them and remind them. Um, usually the nudge was done by Sam or somebody else. Michael: Yeah. And so now today, how can someone introduce that peer to peer coaching, uh, within their team? Let's just say like somebody, one of our listeners are listening right now and they're like, I love this.I'm going to do it in our team meeting tomorrow. I'm going to say peer to peer coaching. Is that how it just kind of works or? David: No, no, it's a process, because this stuff is so valuable, it takes some time and this is where I kind of advocate playing favorites as a leader. Like you have to know the people who are committed organically to the practice.And the more of those people you get on board, the easier it is, but it's not going to be a all in type environment. It's just not how change typically works. I did a bunch of training and executive coaching. And if you go into a big organization, like say I bought your big company and I'm coming in as the new CEO or the turnaround guy or whatever it is, I.Immediately make the assumption that there are going to be a third of the team that's on board a third of the team. That's off board. They're going to be resistant. They're going to hate whatever ideas I come up with, even if it's good for them. And then there's the neutral third that could tip in either dimension.So I want to know always who are my loyalists who believe in what we're doing here? And I bring them in real close. I make sure I understand their ideas. I make sure that they're my feedback mechanism because I can't see or hear everything that happens in the practice. Not that they're informants, but they're the keepers of the flame, so to speak.If you get that rock solid, those people in the middle third will usually get on board because they they're not negative. They just aren't real leaders yet. And so what you're doing is understanding that. Leadership isn't about creating followers. It's about creating other leaders. And then that bottom third, they have an option to get on board or get out of the way.And sometimes you have to be that clear in the language where you start coaching them. And if coaching them isn't working, then you start telling them if they still don't maintain the standard, then you have to collide with them and say, Hey, listen, like, you know, either through your, verbal warning or written warning process.Like if you can't play at this level, you can't play this game. And so it's a tricky process, but you have to start infusing that into your culture. My, my team called it, uh, welcoming feedback. It was one of the core tenants of our operation and I didn't come up with it. They came up with it. So they wanted an environment where they felt like they could give me feedback.They could feel comfortable with me giving them feedback in real time on the fly. But. Hygienists would say, Hey, listen to the assistants. It would work better with the flow. If you did this or scheduling might give feedback because ultimately we're innovating all the time, right? Peter Drucker said that a business, because the purpose of a business is to create a customer, there are only two real functions, which are marketing and innovation.All the rest are just costs. So if you have that peer to peer coaching going on all the time, you're finding these little friction points, you're finding these little frustrations, and you're turning those into innovations. So that's the magic of what happens when you start doing peer to peer coaching, where everybody is a coach and also a, you know, a coachee. Um, but it's, I'm not, I'm not going to lie to you and say it's simple. We have to build it from the ground up. And that starts with. One on one conversations, make sure the standard is clear. Some of that standard is an obvious standard, like things that you can see, things that you can measure, but a lot of it is an emotional standard.Like what are the core values here? What is the behavioral standard emotionally here? And one of the things that my team came up with was, was out loud laughter. And when we put it on the board, I was like, okay, I'll concede. Like, that sounds good. And then I'd sit in the hallway and I could hear laughter from four operators and I'm like, Wow.Like that's creating trust. That's creating experience. That's creating value. So sometimes I don't think we really get the best ideas for our organization because we think we have all the ideas, but when you allow some of that, um, self managing team and stop trying to create followers and start to create leaders, Amazing stuff that you can't expect really starts to happen.Yeah. Michael: Nice, Dave. Awesome, man. I appreciate your time. Any final pieces of advice that you want to give to our listener? David: Yeah. if I were going to give an advice to listener, assuming that you're in a situation that's probably a little uncomfortable because most doctors are, one, know that it's normal.Because dentistry is hard. Being an entrepreneur is hard. Some of you are parents, that's hard. And you're never, ever, ever going to negotiate the standard. You want to be excellent at all of them. So you're probably feeling guilty that you don't exercise enough, or you don't sleep enough, or you don't socialize enough, or you don't spend enough time doing this or that.So my words of advice would be get rid of the guilt and shame. Um, and just get better because when I look around the landscape, dentistry is really a golden ticket. Meaning like if you can do a good job at dentistry, you can get a great associateship. If you can be a good entrepreneur and a great leader, you can create any lifestyle that you want.And that's, you know, to make what a dentist make, you might have to be a high level exec working 80 or 90 hours a week, flying all over the place. So don't lose sight of that golden ticket that you have. And also make sure that. Whatever path you're following isn't somebody else's vision and version of success.Because I see a lot of dentists want to be the next, this doc or that doc. And ultimately, you know what your path is. So don't be afraid to be an N of one and customize it completely to what you want. You can do whatever procedures you want. You can see whatever kind of patients you want. You can take. In network, out of network.Some of these things you can see it early, but you can build into it as you build up your reputation and skills. But the paralleling craft to your clinical craft will always be leadership. Because if you can lead yourself, you can lead a team. And if you can lead a team, you can lead your patients to better healthcare.So, that would be my parting shot for you. Michael: Awesome. So, if anyone has any further questions or concerns or wants to reach out to Dave, Dave, where can they find you? David: Well, I release a weekly podcast, it's called the Relentless Dentist. It's been around for about a decade now. Hard to say that. So there's lots of episodes and content free of charge there.If you want to get to know me better, I just created a dentist to send quiz. It's a video quiz. That's designed to help you reveal the hidden potential in your dental practice. I can give you a link to that or they can find it on my website and my social media on Instagram. Um, so I'm not as Deon Sanders would say, I'm not hard to find.Michael: Yeah, I know that's awesome. So that's all going to be in the show notes below. So definitely go check them out. And Dave, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. David: Michael, thanks so much. You're a great host. Michael: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode and thank you Dave for being a part of the podcast. Again, really insightful, wonderful advice that you always bring to the audience, you the listener. So we really, really appreciate. If you want to ask him any questions or concerns, you can definitely do so by joining our free Facebook group, The Dental Marketer Society.And there you can talk with any of the guests that you've heard in the past or myself and, uh, interact with more of our listeners. Or if you want, you can go in the show notes below, look for Dave's name and click on the links and just reach out to him directly ask him any questions or concerns there. But we appreciate you tuning in and Dave, thank you so much again for being part of the podcast. Now, are you dreaming about having that wonderful, engaging Instagram, or it's Facebook or it's your TikTok presence, right? For your pediatric practice? Seriously, let's turn that into a reality.And one of the first steps you want to do is you want to start with understanding your patient's families. It's a game changer for your Instagram engagement. And in the Pediatric Dental Marketing course, which is a course created by Manal Sampat and myself, both of us, we teach you exactly how to create and grow with a purpose.your Instagram. Among many other things, that's one of the things we teach you. But lately we have received a lot of marketing questions on Instagram for pediatric practices. So I wanted to show you exactly what we cover. Now, when it comes to what's inside the Pediatric Dental Marketing course specifically for Instagram, we talk about Literally from the beginning to the end, how to get your bio getting started, your Instagram stories, the ideas you need to start implementing the insights that you need to look for on Instagram, the QR code and the saved content, how the algorithm works, what posts you need to do.And guys. She has you covered, Manal has you covered on how to schedule the post, what to post, 365 days out of the year. thinking is out of that, right? Like we got you covered. The type of hashtags, the reach you need to be looking for when it comes to hashtags, finding local influencer parents, and so forth.Then we dive into how to make the reels. And she dives into the training, finding trending audio all the time, scheduling your reels, download the Instagram reels checklist on the course all the ideas that we have for you. And so much more. Let me go even deeper and talk about team activity, how to get your team on board, the videos you need to start creating and so forth.The scheduling, how to create the content on Canva, which is a free platform, how to create custom templates, videos, flyers, worksheets, presentation templates, things like that for your Instagram. And also we cover the ads as well and how to specifically do the ads so that they can reach their maximum potential and obviously attract new patients.This is just a little sliver of what's covered. When it comes to Instagram in the pediatric dental marketing course, you'll dive into 30 plus units covering modern marketing basics, digital basics, digital marketing, social media marketing. And of course. I helped create the course. We also talk about ground marketing strategies, ensuring you're not just attracting, but deeply connecting with your community.I talk about how to get into daycare public schools, private schools, pediatric medical locations, chamber of commerce, businesses, learning centers, Uh, kumon Learning Center, small businesses, martial arts, Color Me Mine, indoor playgrounds, fitness facility.I cover an enormous amount of things on how to get into the community and other businesses when it comes to the pediatric dental marketing course. So you can check that out, but get your hands on these evergreen tactics, learn the art of engaging content creation, and even explore the magic of effective Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram marketing.Discover how enjoyable and rewarding marketing can be. And watch your pediatric dental practice flourish both online and in your community. So click the first link in the show notes below and see what this course has done and is doing for other pediatric practice owners. And at the same time, click the link If you just want to be nosy and see everything that's included inside of this course, which we continue to add to it, right? Every single month. And we have our monthly office hours where you, me and Manal sit together. Once a month, and we talk strategy and we talk how we can improve your practice. If you want to see all that, just click on the first link in the show notes below and you're able to look into the pediatric dental marketing course a little bit more.And if it's a good fit for you, we would love to see you in there. So click on the first link in the show notes below to check it out more for pediatric practices only. Awesome. So thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I really appreciate you and I'll talk to you in the next episode.‍

Are you looking to hit the ground running with powerful ground marketing strategies? Our ground marketing course offers a range of actionable steps utilizing local restaurants, gyms, corporate locations, and small businesses in your area! With step-by-step scripts, foolproof plans, and real-time video demonstrations, you'll master the art of effectively engaging with your local community to attract new patients effortlessly. Click this link to join the community! https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/the-ground-marketing-course-open-enrollment/‍‍Guest: Michael SonickBusiness Name: Michael SonickCheck out Michael's Media:Website: https://www.michaelsonick.com/Michael's Book - Treating People Not Patients: https://a.co/d/gsHKkx3Email: mike@sonickdmd.comPhone: 203-209-7029Free Course Preview: https://www.michaelsonick.com/freepreview‍‍Other Mentions and Links:Dennis tarnowChristian CoachmanPeter DiamandisBroadway TheaterMonopolyUnreasonable Hospitality - Will GuidaraDanny Meyer Shake ShackEleven Madison ParkGramercy TavernUnion Square CafeZagat ModelAdam GrantThe Wizard of OzBlink - Malcolm GladwellHarvard UniversityInvisalignDavid GarberFrank Spear‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:How can you really wow patients, going above and beyond their expectations?What are the keys to hiring, including personality, effective roles, and must-haves?What is the first, and most important step to bringing on effective team members?The 5 core values of Dr. Sonick's practice, and how he implements them.Human to human interaction is irreplaceable when it comes to connecting with patients.The secret sauce Dr. Sonick takes from the restaurant industry to apply to his practice.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael Arias: all right, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Michael Sonic. Michael, how's it going? Michael Sonick: It's going great. Thank you for having me on the show, Michael. Michael Arias: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I appreciate you coming on. If you don't mind me asking right now, tell us a little bit about your past, your present.How did you get to where you are today? Michael Sonick: Well, I'm a perinatalist. I've been private practice since 1985 and I graduated dental school in 1979. So I'm probably than most of your audience. And I've had a true passion for, you know, working with my hands and also customer service. And so over the course of my 35, 40 years of building a practice, One of the things that resonated with me was really developing great connections with my patients.And my background was in the, not only the furniture business and woodworking, I was a lifeguard, but I also played cocktail piano. I did a lot of work in the restaurant business. So I waited on tables. I was a bartender. I was a busboy. Um, I even was a chef in the kitchen. So in college, every, every summer I would have a job, you know, when I wasn't lifeguarding, I moved over to hospitality. And that was a lot of fun. I met a lot of people and I realized the importance of connecting with, you know, my customers who are people in the restaurant. So for years, I always thought about the importance of really serving, people and we do that as dentists and also serving people in the restaurant business.So there were a lot of parallels between the restaurant business and my office. So when I first opened up my practice, I opened up in 1985 and for whatever reason I was sort of entrepreneurial. I didn't know it at the time, but I just decided I just wanted to work for myself. And, you know, today we have a lot of different choices.You can work for somebody else. You can work for a large corporation. You can open up your own practice. I still think there's a real strong need for people to be in their own practices and to connect with other human beings. But you're going to connect with other human beings, even if you're in a large corporation, or if you're working for somebody.That is critical. So in dental school. I did okay, you know, I liked it, but when I became a periodontist, you know, I was a general dentist for a few years, and then I went to my residency program, became a periodontist, and then I really just really enjoyed it, and I'd pull all nighters, and even though there weren't any grades, and it was a pass fail, I just really, really got into it, and I spent a lot of time the first 15 20 years of my, my, my career.Building my craft. And I think that's essential. You have to be really good at what you do. Most patients don't really know if you graduated first or last, or if you did a good crown prep or a bad ground prep, or you're good at dentures or extracting teeth, but what do they know? They know that you didn't hurt them.They know what your fees are and they know what the experience was like. Unless it's a front tooth, they're really not going to understand, the quality of your work. So. I still think it's real important to do great quality work, because it puts you in a niche, a top. So that's what I did. My first part of my career, I just studied, and I went to a lot of courses, and I spent a lot of time teaching, and I've been teaching for 40 years clinically.But I also realize it's real important to be able to connect with the people that you serve. And you have to do it by building a strong team. And that's by hiring the right people. And that's a whole different, you know, that's a whole different thing. How do you hire, how do you get the right people?How do you develop a culture? So there's a number of things that I believe you have to do to be a really successful dentist. One, you have to be great at your craft. Two, you have to have a nice looking office. It has to be clean. It has to be neat. You have to be clean and neat. And three, I can't say it's most importantly, but it's really important.And it's something that's not taught in dental schools. You have to have the ability to be able to give great superior customer service. Now, when I say customer service, it's not the stuff that's expected. It's the stuff that's not expected. It's the unexpected. It's going above and beyond. And, you know, Mike, I'm sure you remember those four or five great meals you had in restaurants or somewhere it could have been in someone's house.And you, if I asked you what was a great meal, you probably could think like, well, it's this meal. And what happened during that meal was the food was good, but there's also something very special that meal. Maybe it was the type of wine they opened. Maybe it was the way they. Gave you special attention.Maybe you didn't tell them that it was, you know, your friend's birthday. And then they came over with it and they did an over the top, you know, thing for them. Those are the things that, that we really remember. And I try to do that for my patients on every visit. We called it in our office, giving them the wow experience.Michael Arias: I really like how you pointed out these four things. You got to be great at your craft, nice looking office, ability to give great customer service. And I remember not that long ago, I read this book called Unreasonable Hospitality.And it provides... By William Godera. Michael Sonick: Yes, uh huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a classic. Michael Arias: Love that book. And I like how he said, service is black and white, but hospitality is color. Right. And so it is what you said, like you got to go above and beyond. So how do we do that in a practice? Because I know you're kind of a master at this.You wrote a book called Treating People, Not Patients. And so you dive deeper into this topic on just hospitality or what is that about? Michael Sonick: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, Will Guderia's mentor was Danny Meyer. I don't know if you know who that is. Danny Meyer. People know Danny Meyer because of Shake Shack, but Will Guderia, his restaurant, 11 Madison Park, was top restaurant in the world one year, voted.it's one of the best restaurants in Manhattan. Well, that was Danny restaurant, and Will Guderia bought that restaurant from him. Danny Meyer started Gramercy Tavern. And he started a union square cafe and he hunted 11 Madison park. He has about 50 restaurants in Manhattan, but he got put on the map financially because he started Shake Shack.And that's a, that's a whole nother story. that's what made him very wealthy, but he, he brought what we call hospitality to the restaurants. And we'll get there ran with that because, you know, he was a mentee of Danny Meyer and took it to the top. And in his book, he talks about the things that they do.They actually have somebody on staff there that's just there. I think it calls the director of customer experiences. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great experiences there, buddy. He gives them those, those unique experiences. And in his book, he talks about. these like four people there. I think they were from Iowa and it was their last meal in Manhattan.And they're about to go back to Iowa. And he goes, what restaurants were you here? And I talked about it and, you know, a bunch of food. He used to talk about the same thing. And he probably a foodie if he read that book he says, well, what was your best experience? They go, we had a lot of good ones.He goes, anything you missed? He goes, yes. We never had a New York city hot dog. And so we'll get the era who's, you know, owns the restaurant. He goes outside in his suit in the middle of the day and he gets a couple of hot dogs in the street. brings to the kitchen and he asked them to cut them up.He says to serve and they play them with mustard and relish and, you know, some sauerkraut. And it comes out, of course, the chef didn't want to do that, you know, being a, chef in a, in a top restaurant, but he wanted to do it to give them that experience. Now, whatever kind of food they had, I think they had duck that night.It didn't really matter. They're going to be talking about the hot dog and the hot dog has nothing about food. So how do you do that? And in my book, I have 10 different chapters. I also have a series of videos that you can purchase that are specifically there to train the staff and there are different techniques you need.You need to be able be nice. It's basically four words, be nice to people. And when you have somebody in your chair. Or in your office, or in your waiting room, you know, are you nice to them? And how does your practice look to them? So the model of my practice is actually based on the restaurants, but it's called the Zagat model.Now, Zagat was a restaurant review book that was published by Tim and Nina Zagat out of Yale. It's no longer on the market. It was bought by Google, but they rated restaurants based upon three things, food, service, and decor. So I'm going to make an assumption that every dentist out there knows what they need to do to do good dentistry.So we don't serve food, we serve dentistry. But we still have to have good decor, and we still have to have good service in our practice. So how do you do the decor? Well, there's a whole series of checklists that we have, and we have a checklist for everything that we do in our practice. We have a checklist for the human being in our practice.Is your hair combed? Are you clean? Is your uniform pressed? Do you have a nice smile? Are your fingernails clean? you wear nice shoes? We have something in our office called the white sneakers. So in our practice, everybody wears white sneakers, and they're clean, and I buy them for everybody. And if they're not clean, they go out and buy a new pair, and they're had permission to do that.So when people join our practice, we tell them what our team is about, what our culture is about. And as one of one of the most important things in the dental practice is to be neat and clean because people are afraid of a couple of things in the office. They're afraid of pain. They're afraid of how much it's going to cost.afraid of the unknown, but they're also afraid of diseases and germs and cleanliness over the top clean office. You're going to stand out. Very few offices are like that. So we do a check and we go through it. We go through everything in the office and I do sort of, I'm sort of very picky when it comes to cleanliness and having everything run very smoothly.So I'll do little things like I'll unscrew a light bulb. I'll see how long it's going to take for somebody to realize that the light bulb is unscrewed. And I say, hey, how come nobody saw that light go? We used to have telephones with the cords that used to be raveled. I used to, if I saw a raveled phone cord, I said unravel it.And then when I unravel it, I'd unplug the phone and take the cord out. So people would answer the phone and there'd be nothing there because the cord would be unraveled. They go, Oh, Dr. Sonic was there doing that again. Sometimes I'll leave a piece of trash on the front lawn. I go, didn't anybody see that?and I do sort of games like, you know, with that, with, with the people want to practice. I say, bring it up, bring it up, bring it up. So I think to do that, you have to just make a decision early on. Are you going to be an excellent practitioner? Are you going to be someone who really wants to give great service to your patient?Do you realize that's important? Because I'm telling you it is. It makes such a difference with your patients if you are present for them. And I have a lot of different strategies for that. Cleanliness is one. Another one is giving everybody. On every visit, a phone call after their first visit there, whether it's surgery or not surgery from the team.And the next day, I will call a patient. So, a patient gets two phone calls from our office. Not many people get that from their dentists or their doctors. Another thing that I do that's really important and that I've recommended to every dentist, but nobody does it, is the patient letter. every first visit, Michael, if you came to see me as a new patient, let's say you had, you come in and you look like you have nice teeth, you have no disease or anything.Michael, it's a pleasure seeing you today. Today we did a diagnosis on you and a comprehensive examination. The good news is you have no periodontal disease, you have no decay. You don't grind your teeth. You don't need a bite guard. Okay. And, um, I'm very happy to say that if you get your teeth cleaned every four to six months and just brush and floss, you'll probably not need any dentistry for the rest of your life.Pleasure having you here. If you have any questions, feel free to call me on my cell phone, 203 209 7029, or email me at my private email, mikeatsonicdmd. com. Who gets that from their dentist or their doctor? Now, if you had a severe problem, you'd get a more detailed letter. And then I would say to you, go home, read this, discuss it with your, you know, loved one, or your friend, or maybe you know somebody else who's a dentist.Read it, and if you're not sure about whether you want to go through a treatment, come on back with your, you know, husband, your wife, your mother, whatever, your son, daughter, and let's have a consultation, we'll talk again, and share that letter. So what I do is a very specific strategies as I give information and I make it very easy for patients to communicate with me now.A lot of doctors. Now, I work with a lot of positions. It's really hard to communicate with positions. They want to communicate with faxes. They do not give you your personal email. You never get their cell phone. So if I'm going to meet somebody new, Michael, if you were a new person I'm working with, doctor Michael, what's your cell phone, what's your personal email.I get that all the time. And I have a database and I have a huge database so that I can call you directly when I want to communicate, as opposed to, I haven't heard back from him. I haven't heard back. So I'm very proactive about getting things done. I think my skill is I'm well known as a good surgeon, someone who does a lot of implants, et cetera, but my real skill is good communication.being very clear and direct with my patients. No ambiguity. You know, I don't know if you know about Adam Grant. I'm sure you've read his work as well, a psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania. He says what people find more and more challenging is not getting negative information or positive.It's that one in between. It's the ambiguity. When someone is ambiguous, It's confusing. And you've probably been with people, I mean, a lot of people do this. they don't do it advertently, but they may do it, you know, because it's just their habit. They use confusion to control you because they don't want to make a decision.So they'll start to say, you know, well, I could do this, this way. And you're talking with a patient, it's like, are you going to go through treatment or you're not going to go through treatment? What's the deal? So I find out, I go, you know, seem a little confused. I go, what is it? Is it the money? Are you fear of going through it?Have you had bad experiences? Do you not think you're worth it? Do you want to give the money to your children? Or do you have to pay for something else? Or do you just not trust me because you don't think I'm competent at what I'm doing? Here's what I can do. And I give patients all the information that I can.And I have, I can give it to him many ways. I can talk to him like I'm talking to you. I can write down the pictures. I can open up my website. This is another topic we can talk about. We should have over 1200 pages of content on my website. So they can go there. I've written six books, four of them picture books that are self published in the office.So this is a gum graph before, this is after. And we can all do this. We can just take a picture and do that. So I show them my work so they can say, this is my stuff. So you can look at it. Very few doctors will show you that. I don't know what that's like. Oh, you don't know what a bone wrap looks like?Here, here's a PowerPoint presentation. This is a flap reflector. This is the bone. This is the graft. This is what it looks like six months later. I will show them. I'll take away the mystery. I always say to patients, it's sort of like you're in the Wizard of Oz, and I'm the wizard, very omniscient, have all these powers, I'm behind a curtain.Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take back the curtain, I'm going to bring you into my world. I'm going to take you backstage. And I love going backstage in operations, but I'm going to take you to my backstage. And I'm going to show you what I actually do. And a lot of doctors are afraid to show the patients what they do.And then it becomes ambiguous because they don't trust you. And what's the most important thing you want to bring to a dentist or doctor or anybody that has a responsibility? You want to be able to trust them because you want to be able to feel love. cared for, nurtured. It's almost a spiritual experience when you're having that kind of a relationship.It's not an I it relationship where like you're an object and I'm just giving you a coin like I'm going to a toll. It's a really intimate relationship. and I try to break down those barriers. Now, I look, I've been practicing a long time. I couldn't do this when I was 30. I had developed confidence I was very arrogant as a young dentist, because you know, I was good.I was good. You know, I was good. I was good in my residency program. I had no experience, but I thought I was good. I thought I was smart. I thought it was cool. it was all basically a front because I was insecure. I realized I didn't know anything. I've been practicing one year. How do I talk to a patient with confidence?It's very hard to do that. what do you do as a young person? If you don't know how to, if you don't do that, you tell the patient what you can do. You tell the patients what you do know. You tell the patients what your experiences is. And you give them that great experience, you know, in that area. there are a lot of little hints that I can give you to do that.You know, from the simplest ones, to writing a letter, to cleanliness, to calling the patients, to developing a team. Now, developing a team is a very difficult thing to do. Most dentists say, Oh, I love the dentistry. I just hate my staff. Well, that's a problem. Okay, you want to be able to love your staff and you want your staff to support you.I get a lot of compliments on my staff. Most, actually, most people leave the dental practice not because of the quality of the dentist, but because of their relationship with the staff. before I even meet a patient, you know this 'cause, because this is what you do for a living before a doctor, before a patient even meets me.They probably have 15 to 20 different touchstones with our practice before the referral. The phone call, the website, the location, the outside of the building, the parking lot, what is the door squeak or not when you walk in, when it confirmed properly, did they say, or do you say hello? Hey, Michael, welcome or say, what's your name?they know it's at 11 o'clock. We've got one patient coming in. Might as well greet them by their name. How are you doing? The nurse meets them, they go in there. By the time I walk into that room, I got to really be bad to blow it, because they've already been sold. They've been sold because they've been treated well up until that point.And it's like, all of a sudden I walk in, it's like I'm a movie star walking into that room. Because they say, oh, a doctor's here. Yeah, but they've been treated well up until that point. And they often say, you know, well, Danielle or Amelia treat us really well. Whatever they say to do, we'll do, because our team is really what supports us and lifts us up.Michael Arias: Gotcha. And I feel Can you give us a little bit more insight on like how we can build the perfect team? I feel like there's a lot of people who feel like they get B players and they turn into C They get A players and then the B players are bringing them down kind of thing Michael Sonick: it really started, it starts with the, with the leader of your organization when dentistry, how do we become dentists?Well, you got to get good grades in school. It has nothing to do with clinical skills or building a team or being nice to people, right? it means you're good at multiple choice tests. I always say to some of my friends, you know, that are really smart.But they're not successful. I said, you know, the problem is you're too smart. you always the expression, the, uh, the A students work for the C students, you know, so it's a different skill set to build a team and it's, I have a whole chapter on hiring and how do you build a team?And we build it. First of all, you got to know what you want. And I think before you build a team, you got to figure out who you are and that sort of starts with developing a mission statement or a statement of purpose or whatever you want to call it. It starts like, well, what is it? What does your practice want to look like?does your practice want to look like someone who's just making money that just does high quality dentistry? Or does it want to look like someone who really. helps other people. So we developed our mission statement decades ago, and it's really, we've dumbed it down now. It's not really dumbed down, it's simplified.And it's really to improve the quality of patients lives. So when I hire people, I want people to be able to be similar to my mission. I want them to be able to help people. Now, I can't really train people to be nice. You know, I hire nice people. So that's, that's what I would hire you. You seem like a nice guy.No, you're, you're smiling. You're good. You connect with people. So you'd be great. You know, I would probably hire you based upon this, this podcast right now. you can really get, you know, Malcolm Gladwell, I'm sure you know, he talks about a blink, you know, it's like immediately you sort of know. So we develop our core values and I think every practice should look at their mission and their core values.And that's, that's a lot of self work and our core values are involved being servant hearted. So I want people to be servant hearted. I want them to be able to treat Patients. Well, I want them to have very high integrity. I want to be health oriented, and I want them to be teammates. I want them to be educational.So those are our five core values. So the most important ones, okay, are having integrity. That's, that's a, that's a non negotiable in our office. You know, if you don't have integrity, if you lie, if you steal, et cetera, that doesn't work. Um, and you have to be serving hearted. You have to want to serve the people.So everybody in my practice, I have 25 people in my practice. Everybody is there to serve. Okay, that's what we're there and also they should be good teammates. So we want to get along when you have 24, 25 people in the office, small office. It's not always easy, but we always talk about it. We talk about that and we're very transparent.No ambiguity, like I talked about earlier. So we're transparent and that there's a problem. we're going to bring it up and we can say, Hey, what's the problem here? Not make it personal, but talk about what the problem is. So once I find who I want, then we craft an ad and we, we interview people, but before we interview them, we get their resume, and you can tell a lot from resume, We get them to fill out a, um, employment application, you know, some basic information, but what's really important is we do something called a culture index. And not a lot of people know about this, but I do this on almost everybody in my life. What a culture index is, is, is a way that we can, I can look at somebody's personality and I look at them for seven different characteristics.Are they autonomous? Are they going to work on their own? Are they going to follow orders? Are they very social? Or are they very, are they not social? Are they very detail oriented? Something very important for dental assistant or they're not detail oriented. Do they have a sense of urgency or if they're really laid back and they'll just move at a slower pace.So those are the four major ones, but then it's like, how logical are they? I want people who are logical. Do they, are they creative? And do they have higher or lower energy? So I look at that and I'll tell you something. If I look, there's seven dots and I can look at these seven dots and I look at probably, probably look at 15 resumes and culture and disease a week.I can look at them and within about literally seven or eight seconds, I know what that person's like. Okay. I can, I don't know their integrity. I don't know if they're smart, but I know what kind of worker they're going to be. If they have the wrong culture index, they're not getting hired. And every time I don't follow the culture index, I hire the wrong person.Okay. I always try to fire it. So the culture index, the resume and the, um, appointment application. If I like the culture index and their resume, which is about one out of every 25, then they get a FaceTime interview with one of my office managers. If they like them after the FaceTime interview, they bring them in and then we do the blink and I look at them and within about three or four seconds, I know if they're a pretty good fit or not, if they know nothing about my practice, you know, if they haven't read the website, they're probably not very good.They're not curious, and they're probably not the right fit. If they don't stand up and look me in the eye and shake my hand with a firm handshake. They're not going to get hired. If they come in, they are looking terrible, disheveled, unwashed hair. If they're 15 minutes late, okay. If their fingernails are dirty and their shoes are all scuffed up, they're gone.So, I mean, it's just very quickly and it saves us a lot of time. We very rarely hire the wrong person anymore. It took me a long time to do this. And when I like, if I like them doing that blink, then the rest of my team interviews them. If they like that, they go home. Then if we like them at that point in time, we make them back for a working interview where they spend a full day with my team.And that's not for me. My team that makes the final decision. Are they a good teammate or not? We know very, very quickly. If I ever feel badly, sometimes people look great on paper and they, you know, and the other people like them, but they give me a knot in my stomach. They don't get hired. And I think, you know, that you either like it or it's a very, it's a chemical thing that happens.And once you're pretty perceptive and you become perceptive to this, and you can train yourself to become more perceptive, you start to see, because there's nothing worse than hiring the wrong person, and now they're there for four or five months. Now you got to let them go. It's stressful. their life. I'm doing somebody a favor if I don't hire them. you know, I don't want to have to hire somebody to fire them and we very rarely fire anybody. the reason people leave is because, um, usually, you know, the husband gets transferred or wife gets transferred, something like that, or, or they go back to school.We have a lot of people go back to school and, you know, better themselves. You know, I have like three or four people who went to medical school or dental school. So the hiring process is something I find very fascinating because I get to put the team together and I'm not hiring me. I'm hiring a teammates and it's like somebody doesn't work out one area.We have other jobs in the office where I can move them around to like, one of my best. One of my assistants is really social, but she's terrible with details. I mean, you know, I asked her to hand me the blue thing. She hands me the red thing. I know that about her. She's been with me for 11 years, always forgetting stuff.But she's the nicest person, and she always takes care of people who are nervous, and she'll do whatever it takes to really connect with people. She's the best connector, but she's the less detailed. So that's what we use her for, connecting with people, making people feel good. She's great, you know, and we love her.She's just a great, great human being. And I have other people that are really detailed, and really, and really persnickety. They're going to get everything right. great. Those are the people who do all my ordering and make sure everything is there. You know, so I'm not going to give my ordering to the person that's really nice, but not detail oriented and vice versa. I'm not going to put that person, uh, who's very detail oriented, not always that nice, you know, with a, with a disgruntled patient, something like that. very fascinating. How do you put the team, the teams together, stress when I have a good team. Michael Arias: you built like a, a system here to do that. You know what I mean?Especially tailored to you, or I think you can kind of like create this, uh, system and put it in literally any practice, but then they can kind of tailor to their mission statement and stuff like that. Right. and it's very strict in the sense of like, or not strict, I guess, but it's more like, Hey, this is the requirements because every, everything has to have a requirement.Right. In order to, to function well, even if you have, if you play Monopoly, right, you can't just, if I were to play Monopoly with you and I decided to do my own rules, you're going to be like, this is not fun no more. Right. I don't like doing this, but if I were to go by the rules, we can all enjoy it. And it's fun.And, uh, Michael Sonick: nobody in my life is perfect and I'm certainly not perfect. So we're all different. We all know, like my partner, I have two partners and my, partner, Ray Ma, he has a very different personality than I do, but I don't expect him to have my personality he's not a visionary.He's very good surgeon. And he's very detailed and he likes to look at numbers now. I'm good with numbers, but I don't like numbers. I don't like to look at him. I don't like to look at the pros and cons. I give it to somebody else. I make money, but I don't, do the spreadsheets. I don't even know how to use a spreadsheet.I mean, that's, that's not what my, where my brain is. So, like, we said, you know, can you teach me numbers? Yeah, I can teach you numbers. You know, if you make money. And then you have this much, this much debt, you subtract your debt from the money. What's left over is the number that you got. That's your, that's your net worth.I just really simplify it, but he's great at that. And we work out very well because we do different things. So I try to get everybody into their own lane in the practice. So my lane is very clear. You know, I'm the visionary and a marketing person and I do surgery and I try to keep the call and I try to keep to culture.Running well. So when I'm not there, because right now I only work two days a week, I work Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So the rest of my time is either teaching or, um, you know, writing which I love to do too. So I, well, I'm there Tuesday, Wednesday.So I come in Tuesday morning. I'll be frank with you. It's not the same as when I leave on Wednesday night and, you know, boxes may be out. This is here. I go, what's going on? And I just come through and they know it, they know what's coming on. I go. That's right. Dad's back in the house. Okay, get in line, man.I know it. I know it. But I buy him lunch too. And I'm real nice to him during the day, but they know exactly what I want, when I want it. last night we had a, uh, we had a meeting with a group of dentists. We do a lot of education in the office. We have a study club and last night, The other dentists were going, man, they really treat you well.they're putting a cup of coffee down for me. They're cleaning up my area. I go, yeah, they are. They are treating me well. It's not because I beat them. It's because they have certain roles to do. So do I, if I have to entertain 30 dentists, do I need to go down and make a cup of coffee at that time?Isn't my time better spent up there running that room and doing the education, doing everything else. And I make sure that they're all. They're all rewarded for that. they don't know this yet, but we do a bonus system. this month, each of my staff is getting a 2, 000 bonus because based upon what we do, I don't push them to make money because they're not, they're not on this bonus system.Like the more we do, because I don't want to do that. But you know, when we, when their office does better and we're above a certain percentage, you know, they, they get the share in It's always like a gift that they never expect, but nobody would do that.So nobody's on like a percentage there or anything like that. There are hourly employees, including my hygienist, and some people like to bonus them for doing more, but they don't have to do any selling for me. They just go in there and work. then when they work hard, you know, sometimes they get, they get rewarded.So we haven't told him that. I just found that out last night, my partner, because he doesn't. Michael Arias: That's fantastic. And it's good to do that, you know what I mean? To see the team achieve it and everything like that. Michael Sonick: Yeah, and we buy them lunch. We do a lot of nice things for the staff. We go to a Danny Meyers restaurant every year.we rent out the back room. This year we rented out the back room at Gramercy Tavern, which is an unbelievable room. And a lot of my team members have never been to New York City. They've never been to a Broadway play. You know, we'll We spend nine o'clock in the morning until probably midnight every summer, you know, taking the team to New York with four or five events, staying in great restaurants and having a really, really nice time.And so they talk about it to the patients, and then they bring back the same culture from Danny Meyer's restaurant to our office. And they know that we're running Meyer's restaurant. On the cover of my book, my blurb is Mike's deeper calling is to use hospitality gifts to make people feel better as lessons applied in a customer facing business.And it's Danny Myers. he gave me a blog top of the book, which was a big deal. I mean, that meant a lot to me. He, for me, is my role model for hospitality. And Will Guderian. Of course, I mean, you know, he's, he's phenomenal what he does, you know, we call it a wild experience.You know, he tries to do that for everybody in his, in his place. And that's how he became number one restaurant in the world. If you read his book, you know, he, the first time he was, he was invited to Europe. I think it was London. And, uh, they were going to give him an award for being one of the top 50 restaurants.He goes, yeah, great. One of the top 50, but they didn't know where he was. He was number 50. Okay, so one of the top 50, but I'm 50, it bothered him and that was the night he went back to his hotel room with his, um, partner, the chef, and he wrote down on a piece of paper because we're going to be number one, you know, within the next five years.And I think it took two years later. And then he wrote down unreasonable hospitality and that's what he wanted to do. Every time a patient comes in, I want to give them something that they're going to think about. It could be, like, if you want the best restaurants in my area, I have a list. If you want a place to walk, I have a list.If you want the top neurologist, I have that number. You want to go to hospital special surgery, you need knee replacement surgery, I have a list of doctors down there. I have a periodontist in L. A., I know who to send you to out in L. A. So, we make sure that our patients always are well taken care of, and I connect with other people that are similar.And so you end up building a network of like minded people, you know, so if you want to be great, you want to run a really successful practice, look at other successful people and ask them, how can you help me? Call me. I don't do consulting, you know, I just do teaching and, you know, lectures, that's what I don't have a consulting business.But if you have a question, send me an email, mikeatsonicdmd. com. I'm happy to give you some advice. I have it in a direct you to the right place. Oh, you're you're, you're in Idaho. I know somebody out there. That's pretty good that you can look at. You're in Columbus, Ohio. I know a great guy there that you can talk to, find other people to mentor you because great people love to mentor others.I mean, that's what you do. You like to help people. I mean, that's sort of what the core value of your business is making the people that you work with more successful. And that's a, it's a pretty cool way of living that every day I get to go to work and be the gift to my patients, which basically, you know, they always say giving is better than receiving.It is. It is. I mean, it definitely, it definitely is. it's, it's just a great, and you get paid for doing it too. I mean, we, we have a great job. We get to help people get paid for it, do clinical things, meet all these great people. I mean, you know, and improve the quality of people's lives. Yeah, I could be better than that.Michael Arias: Yeah, a thousand percent. So then where can we, cause I know right now we kind of just talked parts of the book, right? Where can we go get this book? Michael Sonick: Well, you can buy it on Amazon, so it's, uh, it's called Treating People, Not Patients. You can go to my website, which is my name, michaelsonic. com, and, uh, on my website, you can see courses that we teach.you can download videos, uh, there's a video series that, that is, uh, I think very powerful. It's three and a half hours videos that you, that are in segments, 15 minute segments. So once a week, you sit down with your team. And you look at the segment comes with a workbook, a course workbook, you can have your whole team right through the course workbook.And there's a series of questions and you get to evaluate your office. You know, there's a bunch of series in there. Like, how do patients want to be cared for? Are you good at telling a story? You know, do you do comprehensive examination? We haven't talked about that, but that being comprehensive is really important.most doctors, most dentists do not do a comprehensive examination. They look for procedures to do Most dentists are pothole fillers and they don't treat people comprehensively because they think they got to fill their book and they got to make money. Bottom line is you treat people comprehensively.Even if they don't need any treatment, they're going to refer you to other people that want the same thing. And going to be waiting around the corner to get into your office, you know, I mean, I booked until January and I don't do any. I mean, I don't do any real marketing.My marketing is all internal. I just started to do some external marketing because I have two partners, my younger one to build their practice and I was just playing around with it, and I take no insurance, so I've never taken insurance. And, uh, 4 to 7 percent of the population, dentists don't take insurance.My partner who joined me 10 years ago, wanted to take insurance to get busy. I go, no, wait, just treat people. And it took him a couple of years. He got busy. It's slower to build a practice if you don't take insurance, but you can do it, but you can't do it by being mediocre. You've got to be exceptional, not as a dentist, but as a human being to your patients, and if you want to do that, you can do that.That's a lot more fun. and my, my youngest partner, you know, she's been with me two years. She thinks no insurance either. So I'm booked. Uh, I'm booked until January. My mid range partner who's middle age, she's 40. He's booked until I don't know, he's booked like six weeks. And, uh, my youngest person, she's out on pregnancy leave now, but she's got a full schedule.not the waiting list, but she's on me when I have 2 years, but in 2 more years, you're not going to get into her schedule either. So, yeah, you know, I always say to my partner. the way, I'm an American I practice in my hometown, 200 yards from where I went to high school.Ray Ma is from, China. communist border of North Korea. Uh, Soo Jin Yoo is from, Korea, Seoul. So, I mean, you know, and I have five, six people from Europe here. I have a very international practice and it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter where you're from. The same principles apply.I, I said to my partner, he goes, well, you know, I can't really do what you do. Cause I'm not from Fairfield. I said, I can open up a practice in downtown Beijing and be busier than you. I said, as an American, he goes, what are you talking about? I said, because I'm going to treat people well. And the joke was, cause he's Chinese, all the Chinese patients came in and wanted to see me.Not him, I didn't realize at the time that it was like a, status to see an American dentist, as opposed to a Chinese dentist. It's like everybody in Korea wants to go to Harvard, Yeah. Yeah. Michael Arias: Gotcha. Interesting. My, my Korean Michael Sonick: partner did go to Harvard. So, Michael Arias: yeah, yeah, no, that's interesting.you're doing a lot, man. The seminars, study clubs and the book, right. And then your practice that you're running. It's a lot. So if you could, uh, one of the final pieces of advice that you can give our listeners right now, that would kind of help them move the needle towards where they want to go.Michael Sonick: first of all, I'd take two days. Go to a hotel room by yourself, or somewhere by yourself, and start to write. And write what your practice would look like, if you could do whatever you wanted. If you could take a magic wand and wave it in front of you, what would you like that to look like?And then, I mean, spend some time doing it. Do you want to be a restorative dentist? Do you want to do a lot of Invisalign? Do you want to do a multi specialty practice? Do you want to be, you know, you want to own a group of practices? Because there's so many different options. You know, if you feel like you're entrepreneurial, you want to buy practices, you don't really want to work, but you want them, and create them.And then find mentors and role models that have done that. And hang out with them. I remember when I was in my Early thirties, I said to a friend of mine, I said, in 25 years, this is what I want to do. I want to teach all over the world. I want to be well known nationally and internationally, and I want to be an educator, and I want to write articles, and I want to be well known like these people.And the people at the time were David Garber, who a lot of people know, and Frank Spear. And I said, I, that's where I that's a lofty way to be. I said, and I said, that's what I want. And so what I did was I started to meet those people. And all the well known people in our field. I know, you know, I wouldn't say they're friends of mine, but I have all their cell numbers and I talk to them all the time the sharing that goes on is really, really magical.So create a network of people. One of the things that a lot of people do today, especially your younger audience, is they do things on their own with social media and they learn from Instagram and they see other people and they text, that is a way to do it. I'm not saying it's wrong. But it's not a way to really connect with people.You don't build your practice by texting. You don't build it with social media only. it's a way to get people in front of you, but you really build it with human connectivity. All the work you do for your clients is useless if they come into a dirty office where the dentist doesn't care to them, doesn't spend the time looking in their eye, talking to them, and asking if they have any questions, and handing the business card with their cell phone number or personal email.You don't have to do that. By the way, my cell phone does not go off when a patient is calling me. They very rarely call me, but when they do, if I'm there for them to re cement a crown on it, like as I did last Sunday morning, before the patient flew off to Portugal for two weeks, because their front tooth fell out, you know, his dentist didn't, I'm a periodontist, his general dentist didn't pick up the phone, I did, and I re cemented it in with permanent cement, so he'll be okay in Portugal, and I gave him the name of a dentist I know in Lisbon, say call him if you have a problem.Giving it, not only cementing it, but give him a contact and then giving him my cell phone saying, if you're listening, the tooth falls out, call me. That's a wow experience. That's a hospitality that's over the top. And what did it cost me? I live a mile from my office. It cost me 25 minutes and a little bit of cement, and that is great marketing.Because that patient's going to be telling that story. And I said to him, I said, he goes, well, what do I leave for this? I go, nothing. He goes, nothing? What am I going to charge you? Can I make enough money for that one visit to get the marketing value? Then, not only was I there, I didn't charge him. I said, nothing.I said, you know why? I said, because you're going to be telling this story to people for the next 10 years about how nobody would call you back, but I came, your periodontist came in and re cement your tooth and gave you a cell phone number and a dentist and Lisbon. I told him exactly what I was doing for him.He happened to be a retired guy who was, who used to be in marketing himself. So I told him, and that's kind of transparency was pretty fun, you know? Yeah. Because you could say that I wasn't saying, well, oh, don't worry about, no, hey here, I'm doing it because I'm manipulating you to promote my practice and come back here.By the way, he's gonna need an implant there, so he's gonna be back in, you know, in, in and a few weeks, and I'll take care of him at that point in time. But that really gives great value to him and I, and I, by the way, I sent him a follow up letter to say, call me when you get back. Let's take a look and come up with a treatment plan.Okay? Not only did I see him, Did, did the service, gave 'em a contact number, gave 'em my cell phone. I sent them a letter. Okay, that's over the top and it's fun doing so. What do I do? Be nice to people. Be really nice to people. Connect with them. don't rush off. Be there. And the biggest way you can build your practice is when something goes wrong.Fix it. don't dismiss yourself in a part. That's a lot of younger people. I don't want this complication. Be there. If you can't fix it, find someone who can and develop relationships with those people. It's all about human connectivity and those will transform your relationships, you with everybody.Yeah. This is not about dentistry. This is just about, you know, connecting with people. Michael Arias: No, that's wonderful. Wonderful. So with that in mind, if anybody wanted to reach out to you. Call you or anything like that. Where can they reach out to you? Michael Sonick: Well, they can email me at Mike and Mike at sonic dmd. com. They can text me on my phone.Two Oh three, two Oh nine, seven Oh two nine. They can go to any of my websites, my name, michaelsonic. com. You can read my book, which I think you'll find very helpful, a lot of dentists have read it. I've had over 170 reviews from dentists from Dennis Tarnow to Christian Coachman to leaders in industry like Peter Diamandis and others.It's been really well received. Um, my goal is to get this book into every dental school so that we change the culture of how we treat people, you know, both dental and medical schools. and I'm, I'm talking to physicians as well about this. So it's my passion. I'm not hard to find. So nice, nice, Michael Arias: awesome.So guys, that's going to be in the show notes below. So definitely reach out to Michael and Michael, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Michael Sonick: Okay. Thank you, Michael. Thank you for having me.‍

Today I want to tell you about our sponsor for this episode,  Olsen  Dental  Chairs!‍‍Imagine you're a dentist and you spend your whole day around the chair...   Well, Olsen has over  40 years of experience in making those long hours as comfortable as possible for both the dentist  and the patient! ‍If you're a dental professional looking for high quality, cost effective, dental equipment, check out Olson dental chairs!Click this link and mention this episode for a limited time FREE installation with your purchase!‍‍Guest: Minal SampatBusiness Name: Minal SampatCheck out Minal's Media:Website: https://minalsampat.com/CE On The Beach 2024: https://ceonthebeach.com/ (Discount code for $150 off registration: TDM150)Minal's Book: Why Your Marketing Is Killing Your BusinessInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/minalsampatllc/‍Other Mentions and Links:SmileConCapCutCanvaAruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris Casino‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:What are the steps to empower team members to take action and be excited about marketing?How to create incentives and fun goals for team members.How can I scale my incentives based on growing team size?YOU have to be excited and engaged if you want your team to feel the same.How to choose the right team member to spearhead a marketing team.Tips on a successful social media marketing campaign. How to get started AND stick with it.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guests, Manal Sampat. What's up, Manal? Minal: I'm doing great. How are you? Michael: Not as good. You travel a ton. Where have you just, You came from SmileCon, right? Recently? Yeah. Minal: Yep. I spoke at SmileCon in Florida before Florida, I was in Aruba before Aruba, I was in Pennsylvania before Pennsylvania.I was in Virginia. I don't even know. It's, it's been, it's been, uh, it's been a lot of travel, which is amazing because I, I love to travel and I get, I love to speak. So it works out. Michael: Yeah, that's good. So then I know in SmileCon, you, you did quite a bit of, uh, workshops. If you don't mind me asking, like, what's your favorite topic to discuss?When it comes to marketing, Minal: can you, I mean, it's like asking you to choose between your children.I don't know what would be my favorite topic. I mean, I love everything. I love internal marketing. I love social media. I guess my best feeling is to provide the tools for people to implement. you know, for my thing, no matter what I'm teaching or how I'm doing the workshop, I want to implement, like, for example, like, I just spoke at SmileCon and some other meetings, and like, I have, you know, doctors messaging me saying, hey, I just implemented this, or I just did this, and oh my god, I can't wait, or I'm now obsessed with doing reels, I love it, right?And that's what I want, like, end of the day. No matter what topic I'm hearing about or how deep dive you go into marketing, any kind of marketing, it's getting somebody super excited and having them take action because that's what makes it work is the action. So if they can do that, it's amazing. Michael: Yeah. And I feel like a lot of the times the doctor, the practice owner may come excited or even the office manager, but the rest of the team really isn't all that excited or they're not ready for it.Or maybe they excited one day or two days and then they died down. Right. So. Talk to us if you can give us like a step by step process or system on how can we get our team excited and continue to be excited about marketing? Minal: Oh, it's, I think that a lot of it comes down to making sure that your team is one, they understand your goals.And to the house, they get incentivized. There's something in return coming up because you have to realize the team members are busy. They're already busy doing their actual job. So if you want them to now work on your marketing so that you could grow your practice, there should be some sort of give and take, right?Creating simple systems like, Hey, guys, our goal for this month is. So we are at 80 right now. If we get 100 new patients and everybody gets this, or you create incentive based on who's scheduling the patients, right? Or you can say, hey, our goal this month is to get 30 new reviews. So, let's go ahead and create a goal and create an incentivization.Now, for some team members, it works well, if they're individually incentivized for others, it works where it works. Well, if they are creating a, a, Big team kind of, you know, if you reach together with 30 reviews, we're all going to go and get many and patty. So I like we're all going to go for a happy hour or something like that.But you want to create a goal. I have a lot of practices and I get practices at my own events. Um, you know, from anywhere between 3 to 18 team members, they literally fly them to the destination events that I throw and they bring their team members and usually they make that happen as hey, let's let's reach this goal.And if we reach this goal, then we can all go to Aruba. We can all go to Turks and Caicos. We can all go here. and so now the whole team is excited and moving towards this goal because they want to do that. The first thing is you need to create some sort of excitement, incentive around it, just because not everybody's organically going to share your practice.And if any of the listeners here have my book, chapter five of my book, where I say teamwork. literally goes through the exact systems of creating and getting your team excited about marketing. So it's, it's, and it goes through the steps of how do you start with it. It goes through the steps of, you know, what you need to do as well.So it's super, once you start implementing it, it becomes easier. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So then you mentioned incentives to provide of all the incentives you've seen your clients, practices, people you've spoken with what has been the best, like Oh, yes, this is really going to keep the fire lit under Minal: the team.It's very hard because I work with practices who are one providers to practices that are 60, 70 locations. So their incentive package and how they work their system is very different. If you are a smaller practice. Then, yeah, clearly you have you could do individually in civilization or a group one. If you are a multi location, then you have a lot more team members, right?So it's not easy for you to fly 50 team members to some kind of a location. Maybe you fly your management team or your. Marketing team or your clinical team. So it depends on it. You know, your practice culture, you know, your team members, you know, is it going to work well as a group celebration for reaching your goals or individual incentives or perhaps both or maybe taking them out for, you know, some sort of a destination kind of event or whatever it is retreat or however you want to call it.It really. comes down to your specific. I have practices who do as simple as 5 for every new patient that we scheduled or all the way to, hey, we are going to fly to whatever, and take everybody with us. So it just really, it just really depends. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then what if they are trying, like, I've seen this before where they're like, yeah, they're excited.They're, they're trying to reach the goals, but month one, they didn't month two, they didn't now they're getting demotivated month three month. And then they just kind of like, we just doctor, we can't reach it. We need. More money for ads, or I don't know, something, Minal: do you not? Yeah, so it's, it's different, right?So what I used to do was, Michael, I used to be the marketing ambassador for a dental practice. because of that, I did this every month. And the way that I kept the team super excited was every single month, I held a 90 minute meeting. Now, this wasn't like a meeting of like, here's a memo. This is what we are doing, right?Like, no, this will be a fun meeting. So I used to come up, I came up with this game, like a Jeopardy, like a Jeopardy game, but what I would do is, um, we'll, you know, shut down in the lunchtime. Get everybody gets lunch. You know, the lunches at the practice and they know this is a team meeting and I would create the jeopardy game and then in the jeopardy game, I would have all the questions, right?It will be clinical questions from desk questions, but also marketing questions and then all of the questions will have points. 5 point question. 10 point question. 20 point question bonus. And I would divide the team into different departments. So depending on how big your team is or how big your practices are, you could divide them into teams and you create a competition.And what people have to do is, because they know these questions are coming, this is where you add everything, something new you implemented. Perhaps you are doing a whitening promotion this month, or perhaps you change your FA, right, your financial agreement this month, or perhaps you change your script, for something with clinical, or something with the front desk.Whatever it is, you come up with all the questions, and you put your team members in smaller teams. And now you create a competition where you run this meeting as a fun team activity, and you would be shocked how much they all got excited every single month with everything we were doing, including marketing.And we will have a winning team and the winning team will get like some kind of a prize or a gift card or whatever it is, whoever it's in the winning team, and they would literally study. So they would go on like if they know the team meeting is scheduled for next week, like the week before I would start getting questions, they would be on the website.Checking out what promotions we are running, or they would be on like the social media checking it out, or they will, the clinical team will be asking the front desk team. Hey, what did you guys change this month? And you know, vice versa. And they all got super excited for this game because they knew it was happening.There was a winning team. There was all this fun questions. And it was a great way to learn because instead of creating. a memo, again, nothing against memo, but that could be boring. But now you would have some sort of a question. Hey, we just changed our appointment time for new patients this month.And then people were like, what is our new appointment time? And then, you know, the team, I would get buzzers from Amazon. They're like 20 bucks you get. So it's like buzzer. Everybody's trying to buzz and everybody's trying to, you know, get super excited about it. And it's amazing. It's super fun. And now everybody's talking about, oh, the new appointment time that we have for the new patient and the entire team is present there.So everybody knows about it. Everybody's making a note. And I did this every single month. And then during that same meeting, I would share the goals. I would share whatever, You know, where we are trying to be, whether it's marketing, because again, I was a marketing ambassador. So I did the whole marketing part.What do we, what results do we want? How are we working as a team? Where are we really lacking? What do we need to do to accomplish that? And it worked great. if you want to keep your team excited, you have to be excited. And you have to show that excitement to them, right? Like I would even go in and at the, at the lunch, at the lunch room, I would, I would have a graph or even in the dry erase board.I will tell them where we are every single day with our new patient numbers. So every single day they came down and be like, okay, we are at X. Well, this is our goal. So I'm like, are those people calling? Are we converting them? What do we need to do? And tell me what I need to do at my end. Sometimes they will come to me and say, Hey, next week schedule is falling apart.Can you go ahead and push out some social media ads? You got it. I'm going to push out some social media ads. Let's go ahead and do this. So there was this full on communication. Every day that I just kind of posted information, so they all knew where we were. But on a monthly basis to show them how excited we were, the doctors were, and I was, and the management, the team members were now excited too.Because if it's not in front of you, you're going to forget about it. It has to be in front of you. You have to get excited about it. Michael: Gotcha. So, one key thing that I feel like you're talking about too is, you kind of give the accountability to one person. In this scenario, it was you, right? So, who do you recommend, if it's a smaller practice?You know what I mean? Who can we give this accountability to and then almost kind of like train them to do this? Minal: It's easy. I mean finding the person who we want to be accountable one day how to be somebody that is organized So they could take on this task and they could stay organized with it. But the second is the personality They need to have like a fun energetic personality where they can actually help with marketing and with you know, capturing Content for social media or like working with the team and getting them excited because they are excited.Right? So you do need the personality. So organization personality. And then the third part is you want somebody who is also okay with tech. You don't want somebody who absolutely hates technology or is not even themselves on social media. You know, that doesn't help you because they don't understand how it all works.So those are the three things and you want to give them extra time. So you may be thinking of somebody already on your team that you have. and you can easily give them two hours extra a week is what you would need to get started with. And then you could add more and more and more, but you could get somebody on your team, or you could put out an ad and get a part time person who can come in.Or maybe you have a niece, a nephew, a daughter, a son, a friend, somebody, you know, uh, who's totally into this kind of stuff. And they can come in and kind of help out to for for few hours a week. So you can easily do that. The reason I said that you want somebody in charge of it is because, as you and I both know, when it's everyone's job is nobody's job.Yeah. So, somebody needs to take on the ownership of this and get excited and get the doctors and share with the doctors so the doctors are also excited. And this is true for the doctors. You need to be excited. You need to be excited because I sometimes get a lot of team members who are super excited and they will call me and be like, the doctor just won't take photos and videos.Doctor, this is your business. This is your practice. If you don't take photos and videos, why should your team care about your marketing? Right. Why should they even put anything in? Because you don't put anything in. So that's just some real side talk And if you are uncomfortable with photos and videos, perhaps select a brand ambassador, like a practice ambassador for your practice who can interview you or show it.But at the end of the day, it's your business and you're as a leader. How you act and what you do is what the team sees. You are the leader of the practice. You are the owner of the practice. So if they don't see you doing this or hustling or getting excited about it or sharing about it, then they are not going to do it either.Michael: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So then capturing the content for social media, that's super important to have in house, you would say? Oh Minal: yeah, 100 percent because everything happens inside your practice. Michael: Okay, so then they... According to you, like, or your advice, what's the best right now, like today, to be like this is the best type of content you need to capture for social media?Minal: Reels. less than 30 second videos. Videos of what? Oh, so much. This could be anything from a practice culture, to patient appointments, to testimonials, to a tour of your practice, to the team having fun, the morning huddle, you know, the doctor sharing a tip. It's just, it has to be a, Less than 30 second video and the 1st frame of the video, like you could even do a video and photo, photo, photo, photo.You know, you could create 1 video with videos and photos, but the beginning has to be some kind of motion. So the beginning slide of that 30 second video has to be a video and all the listeners here, if you were to go onto my Instagram page, uh, you'll see that I have a couple of reels on there. You'll see that one of those reels is like me in a boat, and you'll see, if you click on it, you'll see that I start with a video of me sitting on the boat, like smiling kind of thing.But then there's like a photo, photo, photo, photo, video, photo, photo, right? But so what it does is, You have, in general, your audience spends three seconds. before deciding if they want to watch your content. Our attention span is three seconds. And because it's three seconds, you have to capture them right away.And if there's movement, they usually are like, what's happening here? Cause we are nosy people. So we're like, hold up, what's going on in this video, right? So you want to always start the first frame with a video, and then you could have fun with a reel where you could combine videos and photos together, things like that.But the first thing is always a video. Okay. Michael: So video first, And everything else later on, how often should we be doing this? Because some people are like, I'm going to do it three times a week or Minal: I mean, you want to share at least four times a week, but you don't have to share a video four times a week.That's, you know, you don't necessarily need to do that. You just need to share consistently four times a week, real photos and videos. And this is why it's so important that your content collection happens inside the practice because you and I both know that. If you see that photo of that stock family wearing their blue shirts and their blue dresses one more time on social media.You know, everybody knows which one I'm talking about. That's not, it just doesn't work. Stock doesn't work. Um, the whole point, like the first word in social media is social. You have to be social. The first word in Facebook is face. You have to show your face, right? The first word in Instagram is Insta. It has to be something that captures their, their attention right away.So these platforms are not even lying to you. They're telling you it's in their names, what they want. So it's not really that hard to figure out what kind of content the hard part is. A consistency staying consistent and actually sharing. and many times I would have practices reach out.They're like, our social media is not working. And I'm like, let's take a look. And they probably shared something three weeks ago and they haven't shared anything since then. So what happens is the algorithm is like, well, you're not showing me any love, so I'm not going to show you any love, right? It's all about how much time you're spending there.It's all about how much time people are engaging with your post, what's going on. So again, if you don't show the platform any love, why should the platform show you any love? So the things are just there. So the trick is to stay consistent. So you want real photos and videos and you want to post every other day.So that comes out to be three to four times a week. And that's totally fine. Photos just start simple photos and videos. If you look at your patient, uh, your appointments, and let's say that you're open for five days a week, and let's say I'm going to be super like conservative, right? And let's say that you only see five patients a day, and you're open for five days a week.That's 25 patients you're seeing a weekly basis. Can you capture four photos? From 25. Yeah, you can. You could capture a photo with a patient with a doctor, the doctor coming in the morning, the team doing the morning team huddle, You could share photos of you guys, you know, going out to lunch together.You could share a testimonial from a patient. So you could share it. Photos and videos and always, just a side note, always get a written consent from your patients, for anything that requires marketing. Yeah. Michael: I know when it comes to pediatrics, it's kind of easy to, you know what I mean? Like, share those photos and talk about it and it's like, it's a cute kid, right?Like, here you go. When it comes to adults, do you ever feel, Manal, like sometimes you're looking at a practices page and you see like, them with the patient, them with the patient, them with the patient, and you kind of grow numb to it. You're just like, oh, another one. Can there be something, a better idea of them with the Minal: patient?Yeah, that's, to be completely honest with you, Michael, my favorite patients for social media are boomers. I have so many clients, practices who are killing it, killing it on social media by showcasing boomers. You know why? Because boomers love you. They are the ones who come on time to their appointments.They bring you cookies. they bring your cards. They know everything that's happening in the practice. They are super supportive. They respect you. They listen to your treatment. So I love to showcase boomers, but you want to do different fun things. So you want, like I mentioned, you want to have a combination between your practice culture.And your patients. So you want to show off your team huddles. You want to show photos of the doctor to the patient. You want to do a high five a great day, or you want to go ahead and create a testimonial, quick testimonial video with your patient as well. So there is so much content that you could do.And again, if you go to Instagram. on Minaal's stamp at LLC. I share all of this. Like I share, give you like nine dental reel ideas. You have them. I actually tell you what to post. Uh, hook ideas. Hook is what goes on the reel. It's a subject line that captures somebody's attention. I share it with you.I have an entire post on how to get your team excited about marketing. So all of those specific tips. You can easily grab, information is always there. It's the overload. And this is why I don't want to give out too much on the, on the podcast. Cause this is what happens when I usually do that.They get overwhelmed and they're like, Oh my God, there's no way I can do this. You can do this. All I want you to do, if you're talking about social, is start with four posts a week. That's it. That's your job. Your job is to start with four posts a week. I don't even care if the same posts are all patient photos of the doctors.It's fine. Just first get consistent with it. Just make sure you're implementing it. Then go crazy with all the trends and what's happening. But the first thing is to get started. It's like working out. You can't just run a marathon right away, right? You have to go slow. You have to practice every day. You have to get your speed up.You have to get your stamina up. You have to work out every day. This is similar to that. So it's harder for you to jump directly into the big stuff. Uh, you know, if I'm here talking about like, go ahead and find this and go ahead and do this and, you know, push it this way where you're creating a different kind of reaction and you're changing how it looks, you're going to.Say, Oh, that's too much. And that's the thing. Just start. Now, if you are somebody who has already started, good for you. Amazing for you. You're doing awesome. This is when you start leveling up and this is when you do start utilizing all those trends and topics and start, creating cross marketing and start collaborating with other people on Instagram and Facebook.Collaboration means whatever you post also goes on their page. You start creating internal contests with your patients. So there's a lot more you could do, but just get started. Thanks. Michael: So just get started four days, out of the week. Yeah. And then how can we just get started with getting the team motivated?Cause they feel like you told us a lot of like amazing stuff, but like, let's just say for example, the doctor's listening, he's like, okay, I have the perfect person in my team. She's going to be able to do this. I call her marketing manager, marketing Minal: director, whatever, marketing manager and marketing ambassador, content, social media manager, the name is just a name.Michael: Yeah. And then I give her what specific duties that she needs to do. Minal: Capture four photos or videos a week and schedule them on social media and then go and engage with them. Okay, and then you only need two hours a week to do that, so you don't need to do more than that. Their job should just be, Hey, look at our schedule.Look at the patients coming in. Let's highlight the patients that are more likely to take photos and videos with us because they love us. They're amazing. They're awesome. Let's capture a review from this patient. Let's go ahead and take a photo with this patient. Right? Let's go ahead. We have a team meeting coming up.Let's make sure we take a photo of the team meeting. So on a Monday morning, they should just look at the whole schedule and be able to tell what photos they're capturing. And then what I do is you always want to take photos and videos and create into a library. So let's say you did a team meeting and you took 20 photos.Don't share 20 photos only share 5. Save the 15 for future, right? So, because you will have those times where you have a lull or it's not, it's crazy busy and you don't have time. But if you have a library of photos, you can always take those photos out and just share them. So, you know, take a lot of photos, keep the library open, but their job should literally be take four photos and videos.Start with our patient base and what our team's doing. And let's just share that. And once we do that. This is when we can start adding more and creating it But yes keep it if you are brand new starting at this and you're talking to a team member also don't overwhelm them Keep it very simple for Michael: them as well Gotcha.Okay. This has been fantastic. So besides that I know You got something coming up pretty big which is I mean, you got a lot of things pretty big coming up, but... Minal: Uh, no, you're kind. Uh, yeah, I have CEO on the Beach in Aruba coming up. So, I'm super excited. So, CEO on the Beach is a destination conference, pretty much.Um, you know, I've done it, uh, I called CEO on the Beach because I grew up in St. Thomas, and... Beach is my thing. Island life is my thing. So, done the event in St. Thomas, have done the event in Turks and Caicos in 2023. And in 2024, it's going to be in Aruba! And it's super fun. It's all different topics. There is marketing, there is practice management, scheduling systems, there is clinical topics.I have amazing speakers coming. There's panel discussion. And like I said, everybody, you know, depending on who they are, your team members are welcome to join us. So, it's a fun event. How many days is it? So it's one full day is three days, but it's different audiences, right? So one full day is for coaches, consultants, speakers and companies in the industry.And then there are two half days for dentists and teams. And I say half days because you're in Aruba. you know, so we start at 8 a. m. We end at 1 p. m. Because I know none of you are going to stay inside in a room in a conference room in Aruba. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. And then, um, I'm kind of the event see on the beach.My, it's known for like epic beach parties, like in Turks and Caicos, we run the number one beach in the world for like a dinner and sunset and dancing and all the fun stuff in Aruba, the beach party is on a private island with flamingos. Michael: That's pretty cool. Yeah. Minal: You know, I kind of want to provide experience.Like, if you're coming to Aruba, that's awesome. And you write it off as a workation because it's a work trip, so you're writing that off. You're also kind of, you know, doing that. But at the same time, I always want to do the beach parties are my way of doing something that you won't otherwise do, right? So this, going to this private island and Being there checking it out, seeing actual flamingos, uh, you know, on the islands, interacting with them and stuff.So the beach parties are epic. They are pretty fun and people come with family and friends. Like, they really make it into a workation because the hotel gives a group room rate for over a week. So most The people come with family and friends and it becomes into a big, uh, big like networking event, but lots of fun and learning at the same time.Michael: That's nice. What's the hotel that, or is it already kept Minal: out or now? Yeah. Yeah. Everything is, I mean, we are, we are 50 percent full. This is not till July 2024. It's already 50 percent full. so it is in Aruba Marriott and Stellaris. So that's the, that's the hotel and the dates are July 25th to 27th. Michael: Okay.So there's going to be a link to that in the show notes below. And at the same time, if you type in TDM 150, you get a pretty awesome discount. So type that in there, TDM 150, and then that's also going to be in the show notes below as well. But any final pieces of advice, Manal, that you want to give to our audience?Minal: Um, no, like I said, if you're just getting started, keep it simple. Your job should just be to stay consistent. Just, it's just like working out. If you want to get better, you know, if you want to get in a better shape, you just have to show up every day and you just have to work out, right? You can't work out once a week and then don't work out three weeks and then go back to it.So keep it super simple. If you are somebody who has already started it and you are like, yes, I'm ready to. Level up. This is when you start using the trending sound. This is when you start getting more creative. You can use platforms like Canva and CapCut for like your videos and stuff as well.So you could start getting a lot more stuff. And if you're already on it, you're probably much following some of those trends as well. And then, as I said. Be excited about it. Like share those numbers every day or on a monthly basis, create fun meetings for the team so that they're excited about it and they get to see you and they get to see how amazing this is going to be.And they are into it as well. So remember, you are the leader. How you show up for this is how your team's going to show up for this. that's a big part of this. And the practice that I was a marketing ambassador was 25, 000 patients and like 40 team members. So I had a lot of writing on, you know, I have to create all 40 team members to get excited.So it could be done. You can totally do this. Baby steps, just baby steps. Michael: Baby steps. Awesome. So guys, thank you so much for tuning in. It's been a pleasure, but at the same time, and I'll thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. It's been a pleasure too. And at the same time, if you guys want to go in the show notes below.Click on any of our links to reach out to her and then check out CE on the beach in Aruba and type in TDM 150 just to go check out that awesome discount. Okay, it's awesome. Thank you so much for tuning in and we'll talk to you in the next episode Thank you‍

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Today we're going to introduce a game changer in the dental practice management software world...‍‍This is an innovative, all-in-one, cloud-based practice management software, and it offers an array of powerful features that are custom built for dentists by dentists ready to revolutionize the way you work. ‍If you are a start-up and decide to sign up with Oryx, they will NOT charge you a single dime, until you reached 200 active patients!⁠⁠They are partnering up with all startup practice owners and making sure you succeed, fast!⁠⁠ Click this link to schedule a FREE personalized demo and to see more on their exclusive deal!⁠‍‍Guest: Brad BillingsBusiness Name: Full ScheduleCheck out Brad's Media:Website: https://dentalbilling.com/full-schedule/Email: brad@mountainwest.healthcare‍‍Other Mentions and Links:Pacific Dental ServicesQSI AnalyticsDOSAbundant Dental CareDentrixDental IntelOpen DentaleAssistWeaveForbesAndrés Irlando Forbes top 40 under 40Fortune 500MicrosoftMicrosoft Leadership TrainingsPracticeWorksEaglesoftSQL databaseKois CenterCurve DentalDentrix AscendDentrix Enterprise‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Some of the core steps to an effective front office onboarding system are clinical and insurance fundamentals, understanding practice software, phone skills, and financial arrangements.Empowering your employees does not mean handing them a script. Give them some autonomy to make their own decisions under a certain dollar threshold.How should you handle mistakes by team members?Help team members be individually successful and they will make your practice successful.The top 4 metrics that contribute to high profitability are 1. continuing care growth, 2. open hours, 3. number of indirect restorations, and 4. percentage of firm financial arrangements.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Brad Billings. Brad, how's it going? Good. Brad: Thanks for asking. Michael: Awesome, man. We appreciate you coming on. If you can you kind of break it down to us? Tell us a little bit about your past, your present. How'd you get to where you are Brad: today? Oh, that's a, that's an interesting one.So actually worked at Verizon Wireless for a number of years. 15 years and made it to lower level executive status great leadership development program and I had a ton of really good leaders. think what was interesting there and probably what I'd translate into dental is, they just had every metric you could think of all the data that you'd ever want for any.Situation out of every store, every phone, everything, they just had all the data and we use that to, you know, gauge and monitor performance. I was in the sales channel, that's kind of where I started and I'll be brief on that 1. and then I moved to, uh, Pacific dental services and that was my foray into dentistry.And it's probably good that I went to a company like Pacific dental. Specifically because I didn't know anything about dentistry and they had a really good training program, which is obviously something that you need. If you're going to, if you're going to try to enter into a leadership role, within the dental industry, you have to know what you're talking about.So, pretty extensive training in a very successful region. and that kind of was my entrance into the dental world. And then the other thing about Pacific Dental is they also had an exorbitant amount of data. They worked out of a system called QSI. There might be a few people on the station that, that know of QSI.It's really archaic. It was written in DOS and, still running in DOS. You had to do. Manual um, command entries to get it to do anything. And, and then they had an overlay. I forget what the overlay was called for the doctors to enter their clinical notes charting and things like that. But the reason that they had such a hard time transitioning to anything modern, was because of the amount of data that they were getting out of that. And that really was the foundation, That I think helped kind of springboard me into success outside and into, small DSO and, and starting up a private practice.It was kind of that foundation and understanding that, metrics drive decisions. And, and if you're just making guesses about what you should do within the business, you're oftentimes going to, guess incorrectly without those metrics and data. Gotcha. Michael: And so right now, what are you doing? Brad: guess there's more background in all of that. I left for an opportunity to run a small DSO. In Utah, or to help run, I should say. So I got hired as the VP at Abundant Dental Care, a phenomenal DSO. I still have a great relationship with them. I entered in to that relationship.They had about, I think they had four practices, so very small. they were doing about, probably about 500, 000 a month. So a decent amount of money. They were like many small organizations that I saw. They were running they had a really good foundation. So they had like a really good team, really good processes, really good.Atmosphere. And this is kind of why I chose to go with them is because their foundation was so solid, really good clinical work. They had some of the best dentists out there with a really good clinical leader, which is stuff that I don't know. So I didn't want to try to tackle. solving clinical gaps along with solving operational gaps.So that's why I kind of decided to go with them. And then they, this is going to be the most boring podcast you ever.Anyway uh, they were operating off like, you know, sugar house dental care at gmail. com and they had, you know, four practices and they're just sharing documents across gmail platforms and, you know, they were careful not to share HIPAA information across those things, but that made communication super challenging.So, I initially came on, you know, as operations to help with the, case acceptance, closure and, you know, operational performance. And there were just so many gaps everywhere else that did do that. And then I also started to, work on automated reporting is where I started.They were doing these spreadsheets every night. It would take, you know, 45 minutes to an hour of. Office Manager's time. They tracked a lot. They tracked everything. How do they track everything? They, it just does a spreadsheet. And they would pull manual Dentrix reports. So they would, and I don't know if you've ever dealt with Dentrix at all, but say create this report, and then you can walk away.Like you can, Yeah. Go to the bathroom and, eat dinner and then come back and it might be done. And you do that, but you have to do, you know, four or five different ones, and then you take all the data manually off of those. And manually enter them in this spreadsheet. They had four different spreadsheets, which was also really weird, four different spreadsheets.And then they had another operator that would grab, from those four different spreadsheets that were filled out by office managers and manually enter them into this master spreadsheet that the owner would look at in the morning and decide what our day was like the previous day and try to take action, depending on that.Right. far as execution is concerned, like. They did a pretty good job with what they were doing. Like they always filled that out. They always, you know what I mean? There's a lot of people that try to do processes like that and can't execute on it because it takes a whole lot of accountability and follow up to make sure that those numbers are right.So they were doing a good job. But was manual and it took four hours at least each night, plus the hour that it took that other operator put it all together. So you're talking about five hours a day, you know, how many working hours a week. So it was an incredible amount of hours.And then it was, it was often wrong because, human error. So I just, I got a wild hair and I went to the owner. I said, look I, want to make this automated. This is ridiculous. We're doing it this way. and he was like no, I'm not going to give you any resources. You can't do that. I don't believe that you can do that.You don't have the skill set. I was like, sure. Yeah, I, okay. So I just went and did it on my own. Like at night I, I called a buddy of mine that I went to college with. And, at the time he was working for a data company, just basically doing what I was asking us to figure out. Right. And all the time I'm like researching all this stuff too.Cause I there's dental Intel out there and there's, there's a few others, but I researched probably three or four and I found out that bad data in, bad data out. And to get access to that back, that backend of Dentrix was, very expensive. And I don't remember the exact dollar amount, but I already didn't have any funding approval to do what I was trying to do.And so I'm trying to stand up on, this manual SQL backend. So what I did initially was I took this spreadsheet, put it into one, protected spreadsheet, and then had an auto pull from the spreadsheet into this database. so all I really did initially was remove That last hour of the combination from that other operator.And you know, but I worked and I was like, Oh, this is, this can be powerful, but I'm not going to, I don't have the means. We didn't have the means that this is company we weren't profitable enough to go pay the amount of money needed to get under the back end of denture. Yeah. I started to research open dental was the first one that, cause everybody researches up though they start there cause free, right.You have access to everything. You have access to all the tables. It's not an API. all the back end. So we just did like a demo account in this back end to Open Dental. And but I don't, I'm no longer employed by them. I, I ended up growing this big enough to contract with them and move on. Michael: So what is it exactly? Like, if you don't mind me asking the you're doing right now, Brad: I own two practices with a partner, a doctor, that's a partner in Utah. The laws don't make you you don't have to be a clinician to own. It's one of like three states in the US but we're set up as A D S O. So, I can own a portion of A D S O that owns practices. So we are set up legally for me to own in other states as well.But we, right now we just have two practices. And then, I also own a company called Full Schedule, which is, I'm in strategic partnership with eAssist. I'm not a partner of eAssist, so I have to make that very clear. We're a separate company, but I am in a strategic partnership with eAssist, the dental billing company, and we essentially Some of their clients I own a company that has employees that call and fill their schedule essentially.So instead of doing that automated faceless, nameless, kind of process with like the weaves of the world and whoever else we have, we put a face and a name to it, set targets to it and help them get treatment and hygiene scheduled and then, you know, we charge per office for Michael: that. So is it more like, that part, full schedule, is it more like front office services in the sense of like, Hey, I only have one front office right now, I need someone to answer phones and, take care of stuff whenever that person's doing other things. Brad: not yet. It is on the road map to have an answering service. so right now we just are filling schedule. So it's basically like, we're 2 years in our recare list is miles long, but for whatever reason, we're never full.And our treatment is still out there and it's not getting closed. So employ only, Currently, I would say stateside, so that we have, experience that we have hygienists that have been doing this for years and years, scheduling appointments, know what clinically they need to be doing all of these.So we have about 30 offices right now that we. Essentially, we just find out what they want to do, what they want scheduled how they want it scheduled, which operatories they want it scheduled in, what their treatment times are that they want scheduled. And then we follow those standard operating procedures for that office.And we fill the needs of that office, eventually, you know, fill the schedule. if we don't reach our commitments to the office, we reduce our price per each schedule not fulfilled to our commitment. Okay, Michael: man. That sounds legit. cause that is a humongous need, right?as far as when it comes to front office and answering services and things like that. So. That'd be really good. real quick, Brad, if we can rewind a little bit. You mentioned that you worked for Verizon and that they had a great leadership program. What to you, because it made it great, and what takeaways from that program would you recommend someone in a dental practice, your dental practice owner, utilize?Brad: That's a good question. think anytime you have a program at all no matter how good the curriculum is or anything else, it's dependent on the people that are in it. I was lucky. I, I had some of the, in my opinion, and granted, it's my humble opinion. I had some of the best leaders, even in Verizon.I had a. The president of my region that I was in, Oh, Andres Irlando, he was Forbes top 40 under 40, just a amazing guy. He's running another tech company now. then I had a couple of other really, some of the smartest men that I've ever met.I think that Fortune 5 companies draw those kinds of. And then I had another guy named DJ Leckwold and another guy named Shane Schwab. And these guys were just very focused on, you know, personal growth and leadership, what that actually looks like and how to communicate with your teams around performance.Cadence and meetings large workload organization, which was very challenging for me. and that's what I would probably say Verizon had is, and what these leaders did is Verizon has a ton of resources. They have classes going on around the country all the time. Either run even by teams of Microsoft employees to teach you how to use Microsoft more effectively.They have time management trainings. They have, communication trainings you know, trainings based on books like crucial conversations, and, they have all of these trainings going on. And what these leaders allowed their team to do, and a lot of leaders wouldn't because it would affect budgets.They don't understand the, uh, return on investment that you're receiving, but they would allow us to fly around the country all over. I remember flying to, you know, Massachusetts from Arizona so that I could take a time management class for Microsoft and they're not cheap, but, I still use large majority of those practices today, or I wouldn't be able to do what I do.and then on top of that, you know, obviously they modeled what a leader should, what a leader should do, what a leader should look like. So that's probably what I would say. I got, I got out of her eyes on this really good leader. Michael: Gotcha. But how are you implementing that into the practice or how would you, if you were to tell me like, this is what you got to do, Mike, for your practice?Brad: Around leadership specifically? Yeah. I think there's a Appropriate priority level leadership and leadership development. if you're an individual practice owner, we've purchased practices where there's this harsh separation between front hygiene and clinical, right? And your practice will never be successful if you're not running like you have a true leader to follow and that leader is engaged and helping the entire team be successful, and not just, the team being engaged to, make the practice successful, but also they need to feel like you're helping them be successful, whether that's in, you know, their goals and where they're headed, or.In their skill sets in the practice, but you have to be engaged and know what your employees want and what they're trying to do every single day and help them get their goals. And if you do that they'll give it back to you and help you be successful and be happy working for you. And that's, I think a lot of what leadership really is, especially on an individual practice level.From there, I mean, if you're going to go larger than that, then it, it comes to Having a an actual training process from soup to nuts. So from beginning to end, when you bring people on, you can't just assume they know exactly what you're going to talk about. And if you don't have defined training process, there's no way everybody's going to have that same training experience and everybody's going to deliver a different product to every patient that comes in and, and that creates uncontrollables that then create a lower performance.And, so yeah, that, that's kind of the difference between private and as you grow, I think private is you could really just be a leader by. Being engaged with your team and helping them be successful in who they are. And then outside of that you've really got to start formalizing and structuring a training program, leadership training and development.Michael: Do you have one of those for your, both of your practices, Brad: I've only left Abundant. think I've been outside of Abundant for three months. We just bought our second practice. In August. So, do I have one? No. And, have I felt the pain of not having one?Yes. Did I build one at Abundant? I did. We had a very robust training program with videos and tests and the onboarding processes. And I led that initiative and, and built that whole platform. And I also built a like a knowledge based platform so that, Yeah, after the training, they could go back and reference it.So, I desperately need one here. I just, as I'm sure many of your listeners know when you buy that second practice, You're first standing it up, making sure everybody's reducing turnover and, you know, keeping production as high as you can through that transition. Michael: Yeah.And we'll dive into that right now. But when it comes to the robust training, if you can, Brad, could you make us one right now? Meaning like this is what from beginning. The steps you should be in initializing, you know what I mean? Like the, I guess more like the title headline and then the headings and that's it, you know what I mean?Kind of thing. Like, how should it look? Brad: mean, that's a pretty tough question because it you want to. Michael: Could you give us like front office? Brad: Yeah. So like front desk. Yeah. Sure. And also this depends on your structure too, because different people have front desk, do different things. But, it starts with, dental knowledge. You have to have a foundation in dental knowledge and normally.When front desk, when you're hiring front desk because of the wages that they're in they really don't have foundational knowledge and I'm talking like, Keith numbers and surfaces and procedures and really just the basics because people are going to be talking to them about that stuff and they can't be just caught.Blindly in the headlights there. And from there, it would probably be to like foundational again, very basic knowledge of insurances and those sorts of things. So really just foundational knowledge between clinical and insurances. If you're taking insurances, I should say, they should know all the insurances that you take. They should know all the um, leased networks that you take and how to check to see if they're in that leased network, so that they can answer those questions appropriately. And then, the 3rd foundational piece for their job should be a complete understanding of the system they're using.So the PRM, that probably the first 3 foundational things, and then I would move very quickly to and I'm talking probably before they even have face to face interactions. They need to have those 3 things locked in and tested, or you're going to be every interaction that they have.You're going to be deteriorating the integrity of your of the perception of your business, right? And then even before again, still before the 1st face to face interaction, you should set some very clear expectations on. Communication to patients, how to answer the phone, empower them to solve problems without passing the buck all the way till the end, even if they're going to make mistakes doing it.And that takes some training too. We made a lot of videos at Abundant specifically how to answer questions when people say, I can't believe I'm on a 300 bill, let me say. You know, you very quickly say I'm, sorry that you're unaware of this bill. How can I help today? And then if they say, any anger at all, then it's okay, no problem.We'll take care of that for you. If it's under 500 bucks, it doesn't matter. We'll take care of it for you because the value of a patient is way more valuable than 500 that they didn't know about that you're trying to wrangle out of their hands. So. Anyway, so those, that's probably the foundational training for them and then it gets into more I'd say more detailed actually, you know, doing, insurance coordination and entering that into the systems and you're getting more into the details of making sure patients are set up for success while they're there, how to check copays and how to collect money at the front, things like that. Michael: So that's good, man. This is a good like process. And you mentioned something.A lot of great stuff, but one thing you mentioned is, you empower the team to handle problems on their own. It's super huge. So how do you do that? Like how do we, do we just provide them like with scripts of like, what if scenarios or? Brad: that's not empowerment enough you can't script everything.It's literally Hey, I want you to take care of the patients any way you can. Anything that you think is right probably is treat them how you'd want to be treated. If you go outside of the bounds, then we'll have a discussion, but you won't be in trouble. And then it's really you know, you got to hire well.you give them that, let them go. You can't micromanage true patient care. You really can't. And because every patient is going to be a bit, different and so you've got to have, the right front desk person with the right kind of empathy and communication skills to be able to make a lot of those decisions on their own.And yeah, I mean, there's absolutely times where like, Hey, you probably shouldn't have given that. 500 credit because they actually did owe that, but at the end of the day, if they did a very good job and that patient stayed, it's worth more than 500 bucks. So, again, it's, I guess, continual coaching.So that would be empowerment to me is you say, yeah go do it. You said very loose boundaries. Like if it goes over 500 bucks from grab us. But anything else you have full autonomy, just let us know when you're done and we'll talk about it. Yeah. Michael: Interesting. Okay. So like having almost like full confidence in them to, yeah, you made a mistake.And then almost to the point where it's like, well, let's just talk about the mistake. That way they're like, okay, it's cool to make mistakes. I mean, not huge ones, but I'll learn from them. You know what I mean? Brad: I mean, there's been big ones, man, but I still think it's more valuable for someone to have that empowerment and make One big mistake, but have corrected 20 mistakes that the patient was feeling. maybe we got 1 big mistake where they went out of bounds, you know, and they shouldn't have done that. You're still saving those other 20 patients their empowerment. And then you do that correction.And, and that is the attitude you take, like. We love mistakes you learn from it. That's great. I love that you did that. like that man. It's really good that's what empowerment is to me. Michael: Okay, and have you ever gotten like pushback from so you mentioned something about a PRM, right?So have you ever gotten people like hey, man We've been using Open Dental or practice works or Eagle software ever I know like the back of my hand like don't be switching it what happens Brad: And yes, I mean, every practice that I've been a part of acquiring and switched off of all the mainstream archaic PRMs that are out there, clinicians, especially they, they all have just challenges with that change and change is hard, doesn't matter what it is, change is hard.So I get it. And let me tell you the things that we can do after we make this change and why you're going to like this better. I mean, I think we mentioned it, but I use Oryx and all the practices that I've managed and that I own. I think that's the thing, as long as you are open about the challenges that are coming.And then understanding about the challenges that those people are going to be facing through the change. And then also you can express and make sense logically as to why the change is needed. Then most of the time you can get through those transitions relatively easy. We started really early with Oryx, and.It's a thousand times more robust than when we really, when we very first started. those first, you know, few months while I was learning and trying to teach it, I had to be the brand advocate and then I had to, get, one by one by one, these other to say, no, this is the PRM that we want to use and here's why.And, and with that one by one by one, they just kind of starts to spread. And now I mean, I still go back and ask like, Hey, if you had a chance, there's still hiccups in every PRM, but also in works. And occasionally we get a hiccup and they submit to their help team. And, And you say, Hey, would you switch?Like, even after this, would you switch? And every answer resoundingly, every time they'd never go back, there's no way to go back to a server based. Archaic DRM like that, there just isn't. Michael: Why did you decide to go with Oryx? Brad: So I was kind of getting into that before I stop, but it was that whole automated reporting thing.It started with Open Dental, and we spent a lot of money training on Open Dental on a single office. We switched one office over to Open Dental. It was on an, it was on an acquisition that we, so it was a new acquisition that we were doing at Abundant, and decided rather than, you know, Just paying for a year of, because Dentrix charges you a year up front, figured that practice, you have to re sign a contract.Rather than doing that, we were just like, let's just try Open Dental, see what happens. Super painful transition. They had good support. Open Dental was, good support, but just a painful transition. The conversion was rough. everything was pretty rough training. Everything was pretty rough.Posting was rough. Everything was rough. It was just new to me. And it was, and I'm the one training, so I'm trying to learn it and train it. And they had good support and all of that. And then we, we actually stood up automated reporting. So we pulled their backend just straight out of their database.Dumped it into a SQL database, and started running automated reports. And then I showed the owner and he was like, I want more of this. I want all of this. I want everything you can do with this. And so he was just fully body and like, when are we switching to open dental? So I started doing test conversions and all the other practices we had.And at that point, I think we had seven. So I started doing these tests conversions and open dental. I've got a lot of experience in conversions now, and I wouldn't have done it the same way that I was doing it in that first office. But anyway, I had probably 4 test conversions done. I was about to pull the trigger and I had a buddy call me from.Texas from PDS, a doctor buddy of mine. he had just got back from Coyce Institute. And he's like, just talk to me about his great experience with Coyce and comprehensive dentistry. And you know, his plan to make his practice just pop and dude, it was so exciting and he's a very engaging guy, just exciting guy to talk to.So I'm like, that's rad, man. What else, What else did you learn? Tell me everything. And he's like, Hey man, there's this software that he talked about at the end. It looked amazing. Have you ever heard of it? Oh man, I've been, I've been researching and I, I researched everything like curve, open dental, Eaglesoft, Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, Dentrix Enterprise.you name it, I probably have done a test conversion during that time period for it. And I was still going with open dental after all of that. I was like, nah, man, I haven't heard of it, but. Man, I just don't see how anything this is. This has got to be the one I've looked at every other one.He's like, dude, just check it out. I called him up and yeah, I was blown away. Like, it's simple. It's intuitive. And this again was, this was four years ago. So it was much less robust than it is now. I don't know how to explain that any other way, but it did not have all the features that it has now.And so anyway I, it was really frustrating, but I remember calling the owner and I was like, Hey, look I, I hate more than anybody that I'm making this phone call right now. Like I've put months into this, I've put nights, evenings, weekends, just to even stand up our one office and open dental, but we got to do more.And he was like, no. And I was like, all right, well you, and we, Abundant was a comprehensive dental model. Which kind of, it very closely aligned, like Oryx and our model very closely aligned. was like, look, I understand. Like I said, I hate this too, but you just get on the phone. I'll get Ronnie on the phone, Ronnie and and our owner got on the phone and kind of talked through, they actually knew each other, which was small world.Yeah. But, yeah, it was very he eventually got, so he saw it and he was like, well, I could work. So we, you know, we decided to make the switch for all of them. So we switched all seven of our practices over to work. Michael: Nice man, that's good. And right now are you going to transition to Oryx 2 with your two practices or already?I do Brad: it. I do it on day one. Yeah, I don't take over a practice with that. Yeah, I've got so many systems built through this now that It just has to be done. Like rather than trying to figure out how to remote in to a server with RDPs and then manually track things I, I already have prewritten programs that pull from works as APIs.And so I, I've switched an office over day one and get API access and we're off to the races. So, man, Michael: all right, good stuff, man. So, cool. Oryx is the winner for you then. That's what you like. Oh, by Brad: far. Yeah. Yeah. and I would just, for anybody that's out there looking like, I am an Oryx fanboy, so I'll get that out of the way.But, at the very least, like, Just stay away from server based platforms. It creates complication and expense. You just don't need, just don't need it. You have to pay an it team any break that you have, like, I have an it degree and it takes me hours to figure out. These complicated setups.So, no, it's just not yeah, I would say stay away from those. Go online. Orcs is a great Michael: base. Yeah. Gotcha, man. Awesome. Awesome. So then I know you've been talking a lot about data and metrics and I feel like that's, that's your thing, right? So it is. Yeah. If you were telling me right now, I'm telling you like, Hey man, I can't, yeah.I'm struggling. struggling in the sense of like, Sometimes new patients are good. You know what I mean? looks like I'm growing, but my bottom line is also growing and all these things. What data or metrics would you say? Hey, these are the top metrics you need to hyper focus on.Brad: Yeah. All right. So this is what and this is A correlation I learned through my extensive training, top 3 most correlated metrics to practice profitability. There's actually more. We talked about 5 or 6. I'll give you top 3 and then we can. expand a little more, but top three, number one is is actually continuing care growth year over year.and it's super interesting because it tells you so many things, but care growth year over year is always the first place I focus. And the easiest way. To start that increase because you can't obviously that's you're waiting a year to see if so it's a very lag metric.It's, you look at it after the fact. So you've got to do something up front and track a metric to make sure that you are even approaching that attainable year over year growth. quickest 1 for that is just reappointment rate. them while they're in the practice? And if you're not anywhere between 85 and 95 percent, then you're actually deteriorating your practice growth year over year.And every practice that I've ever gone to is like, oh, we're killing that. We always reappoint our, then you go look at, they're always at 60 to 65 percent. I'm telling you, everybody right now on the things on your podcast is going to be saying, no dude, we're. We're at 80 percent easy if they had a number that actually pulled the data, I guarantee between 65 and 70, 60 to 70.It's always Michael: there. That causes it Brad: to decrease. And there's statistics and I don't want to butcher them, but there's essentially there's a certain. recare patients that return and a certain percentage of new patients that return. And so if you're below 30 new patients a month, which majority of practices are, I mean, both of these practices that we just got are well above that, but a lot of practices are at that 30 to 50 new patient range.If you're at 30 new patients are below and you're below I think it's 75 percent reappointment rate assuming they're going to come back, then you're going to have an actual deterioration of patients. unless you have obviously some sort of strategy to then reactivate them, but then you're doing double work on the backend rather than just doing it on the front end while they're in the practice.All of a sudden, now you're employing my company full schedule to reappoint your patients for you, which then is another added expense, right? Um, Rather than just doing that job up front and tracking performance of that job, making sure your people are doing it. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. So continuing care growth and then reappointment.Brad: Well, yeah, so really continuing care growth year over year, all that other stuff was just about continuing care growth, but that's where I would focus. Initially the 2nd most correlated is Dr. Days, Dr. Hours, call it whatever you'd like. It's a very easy one to think about, but I mean, the less days that you're open, the less money you'll make.and this is to profitability. I'm not talking revenue. So. There's a lot of practices that have this super concern of like, we don't have enough patients, so I'm not going to open another day. But the statistics show that you open another day, you're going to be more profitable. Even if you think you're not ready yet.If you open another day, you're going to be more profitable. And it's just, you know, open it up on, Google and you advertise for it and you put marketing out for it. You may be down for a couple of months, but for the year, you will be more profitable just to open the day and be there and your people will figure out how to fill it.That's number 2. Number 3 is, number of indirects, and this is a challenging one because you can't obviously set a quota on your doctors doing number of indirects, but it is just a very highly correlated metric. Doctors that do more indirects make more money. Michael: So more indirects. Brad: Yeah, indirect Michael: restorations.Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. The first one, reappointment rates. Man, that's pretty huge. So like when you come, when it goes to that, The system that you utilize that Brad utilizes for making sure reappointment rates happen is Hey, right when they're in the practice, we got to get them on the books for the next appointment Now what would happen and I'm sure you've experienced this many times, but like, you know how people complain like the no shows, right? What do you do for that? Brad: so there's going to be no shows. A good no show rate is actually 15%, which is still a ton. And that's a good no show rate, right? Traditionally, I'd say most practices are probably in between 20 and 25%. Which is a huge slide. And yes, you need to work your very best to capitalize on bringing those patients back in.doesn't really in my metric calculation, it doesn't go into reappointment rate. Because reappointment rate is if you came if you did a dollar of production, we counted as a completed appointment, and then we check for the next appointment schedule.So, we don't count that into reappointment rate. But yeah, we have strategies around and we actually do you know, heavy confirmation, and then. And so if they don't show, we usually know why and then if they're not there within 5 minutes, we call them and text them. And then if they're not there all day, we, you know, we reach out to again, try to reschedule appointment.But I think most practices do that. That's kind of like the easy low hanging fruit. you're not doing that as a practice, you've missed. That to me doesn't even have anything to do with metrics other than understanding your no show rate which brings me to my fourth metric, which is a percentage of firm financial arrangements, which is different than what I was taught historically, but in my data.Now, it has changed and from financial arrangements, this means collect in full for any appointments you put on the schedule with the exception of obviously like hygiene exams and be patient. You can't collect before they're there. But if you're going to put a root canal and a crown on your schedule, have it paid in full before you put it on there. Michael: Okay. Is there a specific script you kind of like mentioned when you're like, Hey, you got to pay us in full. Brad: You know, surprisingly, it's not super challenging. You just say we do collect in full for our procedures. Before we put you on the schedule and then you basically just say, how did you want to pay for that today?And then if they ask questions you just say well our doctor's time is valuable so we really have to make sure that the people are going to show up that say they're going to be here and usually when people pay that means they're going to be here and people really understand it They're not turned off by it at all. Like if they're really planning on being there They're going to pay for it. Anyway, the only thing that we do is If a patient's like, you know, I don't get paid till Friday can you collect for me on Friday? Then we'll say, yeah, and Norix has a great tool.You just send a text link. So you put a little reminder and, in a calendar, and then you send them a text link on that day and they pay over that. And if they don't, then you have to pull them off the schedule because. you can assume Michael: that they're not going to be there if they haven't paid. Yeah, that's true.So then these are like the four main metrics we want to keep looking at. What are, in your experience, what are the numbers or the data that you notice or you see like in the forums or on Facebook or something where practice owners are talking about it, they're looking at it, but in your mind, Brad's mind is like, man, that ain't even that important.Brad: Interestingly enough, new patient count, it is important. get me wrong. You have to have a new patient count to grow your business. But there's so many clinicians that come out of school that are, they don't even care. You're continuing care patient depth. They just care. Like if they're coming on as an associate in your practice, they want to know how many new patients. a crazy skewed metrics. 70 percent of practices established over two years. Their revenue comes from continuing care patients. 70 percent of the revenue. So 30 percent of your revenue only comes from your patients after two years. So if you're in your first two years, yeah, hit the marketing hard.Make sure you're doing your reappointment rate. But after that second year, you should be focusing very heavily on your exams what's going on there. Michael: then, Right now, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is what can a dentist do today, practice owner, to improve their marketing or their business? Brad: marketing honestly. Michael: Or their business, or their business in general. I'll Brad: give you, I'll give you my basic marketing rundown and we're, averaging about.Anywhere from 60 to 80 new patients a month at both of our practices, and it's super basic, and there's plenty of practice out there that can do much more than this, like Abundant was, really approaching 100 new patients a month, but they spent, you know, a ton of time on marketing. This is like me in my spare time while I'm also not managing operations.And helping, you know, look for new practices, but this is, it's super basic. You need, Google ads and you need a really high Google score. and that's it. If you have Google ads a low Google score, you're just torturing yourself. So make sure you have a ton of reviews. Make sure as many of them are as five stars.Don't do anything shady. Give them the experience that they want. And if you have those two things in place, patients just find you and they come. At least that's in my experience. And then we also have strategies that we're on, certain streets with 20, 000 cars passing with high visibility.Like obviously those things matter. But outside of that, that and sandwich boards and the new patient special, we don't do much. Michael: With your Google ads budget, what's the budget look like for there? Brad: 35 an office, we try to stay below 1. 5 percent of revenue. And really right now, we're at like, 0.8 percent of revenue because. We just don't need to keep spending it. So 3500 a month is what we. What we were doing and then we just never really upped it and we don't really have to Michael: you're doing pretty good like 60, new patients and everything like that. So that's really good, man.Awesome, Brad Thank you so much for your time, man I truly appreciate it But before we say goodbye if anybody wanted to reach out to you for questions or anything like that, where can they find you? Brad: man, I got I got a ton of email addresses. Let's do a Brad at MountainWest. Healthcare. Alright, Michael: Brad at MountainWest. Healthcare, you said? Alright, so that's going to be in the show notes below for anybody who wants to to Brad. And Brad, thank you so much for being with us, man. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me on. Brad: talk soon. Bye.‍

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Today I want to tell you about our sponsor for this episode,  Olsen  Dental  Chairs!‍‍Imagine you're a dentist and you spend your whole day around the chair...   Well, Olsen has over  40 years of experience in making those long hours as comfortable as possible for both the dentist  and the patient! ‍If you're a dental professional looking for high quality, cost effective, dental equipment, check out Olson dental chairs!Click this link and mention this episode for a limited time FREE installation with your purchase!‍‍Guest: Damien BonnerBusiness Name: CAD-RayCheck out Damien's Media:Website: www.cad-ray.com Cloud-based Dentist CAD Software: https://www.clinux.pro/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cadraydentalDamien's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mayorofkp/Email: damien@cad-ray.com‍Other Mentions and Links:PattersonCERECAlign TechnologyMedit Scanner3Shape TRIOSSpear EducationZoomTeamViewer‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Be careful with tech companies that sell products without healthy support. At CAD-Ray, they walk through it with you step by step, even offering assistance in the clinical realm.Patients want to see your cool new tech. Be sure to proudly display it in the office and give patients a chance to share on their social platforms!If you make the patient part of the process with your technology, they will love to share with their friends.Change is good, but too much change at once in your office can be tough on your team.If the team isn't 100% on board with the tech changes, the switch will go poorly. Be sure to show them the value of your new tech!‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guest, Damien Bonner. Damien, how's it going? Damien: Good. Good. How are you? Michael: Doing pretty good, man. If you don't mind me asking, where are you Damien: located right now? well Actually right this second, I'm in New York, I'm a longtime native of New York, but moved to Florida market about 18 months ago, just up here visiting some family this week.Michael: Oh, okay. Moved to Florida just for funsies or like it was. Damien: I don't know if I want to get into all that too much politics, too much taxes, too much things in New York that uh, after 43 years of living here, I've had enough and uh, took the family and moved to what we thought was gonna be greener pastures.And, so far has been everything we thought it would be especially with the, uh, no state income tax on my, uh, salary. So very important for us. Nice, Michael: man. Awesome. So then, Damien, talk to us a little bit about your area of expertise. What Damien: specifically do you do? so I'm a believer in in your why and what your why is, Not so much what I do, it's why I do what I do. So my goal is to help every dentist become digital so that they can offer a higher level of, Thank you. Patient care and patient satisfaction for their patients. So what does that mean that I actually do? I sell digital technology in the dental space.I've been doing so since 2008. What Michael: type of digital technology do Damien: you sell? In 2008, I started with Patterson Dental as a CEREC specialist, so in office manufacturing, CAD CAM systems digital technology back in the day. Sarah was one of the only players, if not the only player in the marketplace.When I first started today that's obviously grown to many other technologies that offer digital scanning. Intraorally 3D comb beam technology practice management software, CAD software in office manufacturing. And now the big thing is that 3D printing. I went from being a specific CEREC specialist to now selling all the products I just mentioned.Yeah. Michael: Man, that's really good. So then how'd you get into this? Damien: by accident I was in the mortgage industry back in the early 2000. So if you've ever seen the movie the big uh, now I can't remember the name was the movie was but It was a movie about the mortgage industry and subprime lending.I was right in the middle of that noticed things pretty early on that I was making way too much money for doing way too little work and something wasn't right. lo and behold, the market crashed and. I went from a decent salary and commission to making 25, 000 a year.And I didn't want to go back to that part of my life where it was very based on the market, I wanted to do something that I felt was going to change people's lives for the better. And I think everybody needs. Dentistry in their lives. They should. And I had a friend who worked for a line technology and said, Hey, there's this product called Eric and uh, there's an opening.I think you should apply for it. So sort of how I got into it and no idea what I was doing and how I got into it, but haven't looked back one day. Man, Michael: so rewind a little bit. Talk to me about how you felt when you were at that oh man stuff is racking up as far as like bills and stuff like that.Damien: Yeah It's very demoralizing Hard on relationships Having to borrow money from my then girlfriend now wife to make ends meet but she stuck with me through everything realizing that you're at the highs, there's absolute highs and then there's the absolute lows. And I was definitely in a low and while starting in dentistry at 25, 000 a year and slowly building my gradual climb to a normal lifestyle.Was a slow and steady pace, but again, I haven't looked back since my mentor once told me that, you can be up here and down here and up down here and never have a steady aspect of life, but you can maintain the course and just gradually increase what you do. and that's where um, you know, I'm at today and that's how I try to live life is, not go for the gusto and, take life gradually and build upon that every day. I Michael: like that, man. That's really, really good. Really smart. So then the selling part of the digital technology. Do you feel like now there's less selling to do and more people are reaching out and like, hey, we need this, but there's more options?Or do you feel like now we still got to like teach show them like you need technology? Damien: Well, There's a lot of different technologies out there, and they're all great. There's, probably 30 different inter role scanners which needs to be the hot topic for most offices.Getting into digital technology is where they start that aspect. If you look at a practice in general, digital starts with the practice management. So you have your practice management. Which is full digital, at least, hopefully, at least, 95 percent or so have digital and they're not paper files anymore.And then it goes digital x ray, It's no more film turning that corner. From there, intral scanning seems to be the next logical step where panoramic x ray, 3D comb beam, something of that nature. And then comes in office manufacturing. So, We used to call it when I was at Patterson Dental, the digital waterfall of where you have your, 90 percent market share of doctors who are doing practice management digitally, then you have the next level, which was falling over from there.It would be your, digital x ray. And now that market is complete. So now we're back up here. And now we're still at that intro scanner market, which is probably in my estimation, 45 to 50 percent penetration into marketplace. So there's still a lot of dentists who don't have digital technology in their office in some format.We're starting to see that it's going to start shooting a lot higher, a lot more people adding the technology to their practice quicker but adding the right technology is the important aspect. And that's sort of where I come in. Again, when I worked for Patterson, I was selling 1 product.We were selling CEREC. And it was pretty much the only product available at the time, and it was 120, for a full system set up. Not something a lot of people wanted to partake in or invest in as time has gone on. There's been, internal scanners and some people. Who don't want to do in office manufacturing, so they send the files off to a laboratory digitally.The market was dictating that people didn't want to pay extra fees or high prices for these items. And so we at Cadre discovered Medit early on. Medit is an internal scanner that has no fees involved with price point when we first started selling was at 18, 000. So a price point that was unmatched in the industry for the most part without additional fees. that sort of broke down that barrier for a lot of people to start looking seriously at digital technology. and today we're the number one dealer of Medit in the world. We also have Trios. We have Shining 3D. I mean, it's not just, all our eggs in a basket of Medit, but the idea was that We could overcome the obstacle the barrier of many offices, which is cost with the product, as long as the product works and more importantly, we were able to support the product people would adopt to it pretty quickly.And so that it had grown to a point where they have a new system out. The I 700 came out a couple of years ago at an even better price point and even easier to use. And I think that sort of put the industry on notice to re look at their pricing and their fee structures. So a lot of the companies like 3Shape Trios uh, lowered their price, what cost you 41, only a year and a half ago, now cost you 21, 900 with no additional fees.If it has done anything for the industry, it's break down that barrier and also force other companies to look inward and redesign what they're doing. And so I know it's around about answer there, but to answer your question, there's still a lot of selling to do to doctors to make sure they make the right choice.I think they all know they need digital technology in their office at this point. I think, that they're all going to adopt to it, but making sure they adopt to the right one is where our job comes in. Michael: that's interesting. So then, if we rewind a little bit, you said Meta broke down big barriers, right?Big barriers and people were able to adopt it better. To you, what would be the biggest barrier then? Would it be the price point? Damien: Price is always the biggest barrier. again, I can bring it back to my CEREC days at 120, 000. Price is always going to play a factor in any decision anybody makes, whether it's buying a car, buying a house buying anything.Now I choke at spending 3 more for For avocado Chipotle. So price is an important factor for most people, but once you break that price barrier down, I feel it becomes about a mental state of, can I do this? Is it easy to use? And then it comes to, will I be supported? So not just for the sale, but after the sale and beyond the sale.And that's where we at Cadre sort of take over. To give you a little background on Cadre, if I can for a second. we're a distribution company now, since 2018. Again, Medit was our first product. But prior to that Cadre was started by our CEO and clinical advisor, Dr.Armin from Los Angeles. he's a one of the founders of sericdoctors. com. Which is now part of spear education. When he sold his aspect of that sericdoctors. com, he still wanted to maintain educating doctors and bring in technology to these doctors to... Show them what helps him in his practice and educate others, spread his love for technology his geekiness for the digital technology aspect.But one thing he always maintained was Cadre. Cadre was a digital implant planning company. So back when comb beams were 200, 000 and more he had the idea to start these scan centers where. Doctors would be in a metropolis area, like Chicago or la and they can send their patients in to get scanned.He would then take the file, planning the implant and send a surgical stent so that they can do digital implant planning without having to invest in a cone beam. Technology. Obviously, prices on cone beam have come down now. You can get into a cone beam for as low as $40,000. and do the planning yourself.So the scan aspect went away, but the digital planning was still a big part of the business, but education was always his biggest thing and trying to find a product that made sense to expand and educate doctors on was something that he was continuing to look for.So my former colleagues. Rich and John both worked with me at Patterson as CEREC specialists joined forces with Armin and created Cadre Distribution with the idea that we know what it takes to support a doctor. Again, education from Armin on the clinical side of, CEREC dentistry has always been his background.Rich, John, myself, a CEREC specialist for Patterson Dental for over 12 years. we know what it takes to support a doctor to make them successful. and we sort of felt that was where other companies fail. Anybody can sell the product, but supporting the product is the most important aspect. So when we started this venture, it was about the customer first, not about us, not about the product. In many ways, I feel like we're a education and support company first and a sales company second. And doctors noticed that. And we are very, very organic. Company in that we do no outbound marketing at all.Everything we've grown to become has been through social media and through referrals from doctors and you don't get referrals unless you do something really good. and our support with medit has allowed us to grow to where we are today to bring in other products and support our doctors.After so if you were to Google Cadre we have hundreds of five star reviews.Some people talk about the products we sell, but every single person talks about the service, support, and education they receive from us. And that's our calling card. So support is by far the most important aspect of what we do on a daily basis. Nice. Okay. Michael: So then some of the biggest barriers we talked about was like money.But then at the same time, I guess a great point is the support that's how referrals happen. Right. Like you said, Oh my God, they're fantastic. Not so much like, Oh yeah, they're cheap, but they suck. Right It's more like the referrals, their support is really, really great. So then you mentioned something about, Okay. you guys know what it takes to make a doctor successful. what does it take to support a doctor to be successful? Damien: Knowledge, obviously, right? So from a technical standpoint, be able to make sure their technology is working.So if they have an issue, they have one phone over to call. More importantly, they get a live human every single time. There's no numbers to press. Hey, enter your phone number. Let me put you on hold when you call our number. You're going to get a live human anytime between the hours of 8 a. m. and 8 p.m. East Coast time Monday through Friday. From there, that's the technical aspect. More importantly is the clinical aspect. we were virtual before virtual was cool during coven. So we started basically very slow as a virtual company where the beginning we were. Two sales reps and a CEO that was educating people.And we were able to reach anywhere in the country through zoom, like we're doing right now. So the idea of selling technology over zoom, instead of a knee to knee aspect or a clinical demo in an office was something sort of new at the time obviously it's changed now where it's a very um, status quo for most companies, it was, new at the time.so being able to utilize the tools like zoom and team viewer to support the doctors was very important. So one zoom to educate them and train them and then to the team viewer aspect. So we have all sat chair side digitally. In a dental office even our support team. Now, as we've grown, we've brought them in.They have all been dental assistants who have sat chair side. So we speak the lingo. We know the procedures. So at any time the doctor is doing, let's say the 1st implant scan and they need help. not just going to offer them technical help. We're going to log in with them and sit virtually chair side with them and support them to that case.Hey, this is where you need to go next. Okay. You need a better scan of that area. And make them feel comfortable in doing those cases. And we can do that anywhere in the world, at any time, between the hours of 8 and 8, of course. but that's the important factors. Yes, companies can offer technical support, but where they fall, sometimes it's in that clinical aspect.And that's where we take over. Gotcha. Michael: So it kind of leads to my next question. What can a practice owner, a dentist, do today in your opinion, to improve their marketing or their business? Damien: I've always been a believer that if you build it, they will come digital technology in general has been ingrained in me and I've been great at my doctors and I've seen practices grow by adding digital technology.not for just from an overhead perspective. Hey, we're going to cut costs here, or we're going to be able to mail in office and cut down our procedures. But. Referral word of mouth from digital technology, the patient base, I believe, is getting younger and smarter. They know technology, they want to see technology for me growing up I'm 46, my 1st dentist, it was a rotary instrument dentist with you know, big octopus looking thing coming at me.Those things are ingrained in my memory and my kids. Today they go to the dentist with no issues because they like to see the technology and they're not afraid of what's going to happen to them. I fully believe that adding digital technology, no matter how little or how big is definitely helpful to help build that patient base and garner more attention to your practice.Gotcha. Michael: Have you seen any of all the practices you work with, any of the practices where they market the technology in like a unique or smart way or, Damien: or what do you think? well, I mean, social media obviously is a big thing and, you know, especially with tick tock videos and instagram. There's a lot of great information out there now. But back when I first started, there wasn't social media aspect and everyone's doing social media now for the most part.But, displaying your technology, being proud of the technology, bringing patients through 1 thing that I've learned. Walking into thousands of dental offices is that not every single dental office is the same. There's offices that have wood paneling on the walls. They're very old. Nothing wrong with them.Not, knocking the dentistry that's done in those offices, but are they pleasing to the eye? No. And then I've seen offices that are absolutely gorgeous and have no patients. where's the difference there? Where does it lie? And totally always believe it lies in the doctor and the bedside manner of that doctor.And their staff more importantly but I'll ask meeting a new friend or whatever. Ask who their dentist is. And they tell me and I go, oh, okay why do you choose them? I know the office and I've seen the office and I've seen the dentistry that comes out of the office sometimes.And I'm like, all right, I probably wouldn't send my friends and family there, but I'm interested to know why you go there. And, they say it's I've been going there for years, or I just doctors so nice and doesn't oversell me on things. And, it's important to them, but they've also never stepped into another dental office.I'm sure if they walked into a beautiful boutique dental office, they might change their mind of who they see just based on looks. Doesn't necessarily mean they're pumping out great dentistry. But displaying the technology getting people to know that technology exists through marketing digital social media, not so much paid ads.again, personally speaking from my point of view, I think, Facebook ads and social media ads are a waste of money. I think there's a lot of clickbait and a lot of farmers out there that just take your money and people that you want to see really aren't seeing it you think they are.but just through organic social posts and shares I always love the viral videos but, to go back to your original question.Yeah, just marketing technology putting it on display. If you have 3D printer, it's really cool technology. Why not put it where patients can see it and see what's happening or a milling unit in the office, putting it somewhere on display behind a glass case. Patients can see their tooth being made they'll take their phone out.They'll go right up to it. They'll take a video, put it on their social media. And then share it to their friends and family. It's a really cool experience when you see that happen. it happens time and time again when you actually make the patient part of the process. They're always going to pull their phone out and video it.Michael: Yeah, I like that, make the patient part of their process. It's really interesting. now these next questions are just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry, Working in their mouth every single day. What would you, Damien, like to see more from a Damien: dentist?not to be afraid of adding technology come to courses and learn. I think we fell out of the realm during covid of people attending trade shows and courses and starting to come back a little bit at the trade shows doing lately, seeing more people out there, but definitely not where it was.7 years ago I think that doctors, there's only so much you can learn online and that you need to get out there and learn things in person especially with the C courses, they take the required courses. They take some ancillary courses that you may want to take, but I think anything that you get hands on with.We'll change how they feel about certain things. So if you're curious about digital technologies, definitely take a hands on type course. So you can involve yourself in the dentistry that you want to do. Or thinking about doing not just learning online because it's a big difference when you get to see it, feel it, touch it.Then when you are just, reading something online or reading a Facebook post as many people do. Michael: Yeah. You mentioned afraid, like have you noticed that like a lot of people are afraid to add technology their practice? So why? Damien: Again, it's, it comes down to their mindset. the barrier of prices, I don't think any longer there because it makes more sense to invest in technology than it is to continue to do the analog processes just from a financial aspect.That makes sense. I think from a team perspective is where most people have a hiccup. Whether they don't want to make changes on their team or the team is resistant to change. What I found time and time again is if your team is not on board, you're going to fail with the technology. So having the proper mindset going in with your team is of utmost importance in my opinion.Michael: Okay. And then right now, what do you dislike or Damien: hate about dentistry? There's nothing I really dislike about dentistry. In general, from my perspective, from a patient perspective I hate dental insurance. I see so many people letting dental insurance dictate their all care not doing certain procedures because the dental insurance is not paying for it's not health insurance and while it's nice to have a little discount with your insurance. I would never let that dictate my oral care. If I need something done, I want to get it done, but many patients don't understand that. And, I think it's an education aspect of the patient to let them understand what insurance actually is in the dental world and what it covers and what it doesn't cover.But I see it time and time again where, patients go to get their teeth pulled versus getting an implant because that's what the insurance is paying for. And they don't realize how important their teeth are. So I think education for the patient is the most important aspect of that. Michael: Yeah.No, a hundred percent. Yeah. I agree. And then what needs to change? In your opinion, for people to be more open to dentistry. Damien: I think it's starting to change now just because the population is getting younger and more aware. There's a lot more research going on with overall body health leading from the oral cavity. And, you know, there's a lot of airway issues going on and breathing issues that lead to high blood pressure and other health factors. and they're starting to. Realize that and put a positive spin on dentistry. I think there's a lot of negativity towards dentistry, especially from the patient population when it comes to cost. but I think as the patient population gets younger, starting to realize how important things are that go on inside the mouth and we're starting to see a change there, at least in my opinion.Michael: No, yeah, I agree. I agree 100%. We're starting to see that pivot. Right now, any final pieces of advice or suggestions you'd like to give to our listeners, specifically like startups, people who are practice owners. Damien: So for us, especially with startups and, younger dentists we believe, or I believe especially that we need to meet the doctor where they are today.It's nice to sell about the future. But I don't want to oversell a doctor on an idea or a promise that I can't manufacture for them. What I mean by that is if you're starting practice and you want to add technology, you may think you need a milling unit. You may think you need a printer and a scanner, All at once start with one. technology is still going to be there when you're ready to buy the rest of it. But especially from the team perspective. Change is always good in my opinion, but too much change at once could have a negative impact on a practice. And so if you're getting into digital technology, start with the scanner, start with a comb beam and then go from there.Once you master those things and realize the investment on those products, then you can add the other products. we're all sales reps at the end of the day at Cadre. But it's not about us. It's about the doctor at the end of the day and what's right for them. So don't overbuy buy what you feel comfortable with and get into that mindset of you can always add things on later on.Nice. I like Michael: that. Damien, I appreciate your time. And if anyone has further questions or they want to reach out to you, where can they find Damien: you? You can go to cadray. com. You can reach me personally at Damien, D A M I E N at cad ray. com. And I'm sure you can find me in any social media group involving, dental. I'll be, uh, commenting typically in any digital technology group. So if you haven't heard of me stay out of the group. So you'll, get annoyed by me. Michael: No, they haven't. Now they have, man. Now they have heard of you. So awesome, Damian. We appreciate your time, man. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you Damien: soon.Sounds great. Thank you so much for the time.‍

Welcome back to Girls That Startup, a weekly series where we spill the tea on how to create a seven-figure side hustle - because no one saves their way to wealth. You're joined by Sim, a seven-figure business owner, and Maia, an entrepreneur in the making. This week, Sim and Maia stress the importance of choosing a simple yet memorable name for your business, aligned with your target audience's emotions. They also highlight the significance of checking for trademark issues and securing social media handles. Plus, they remind listeners that it's okay to rebrand or change a business name if needed, as customer loyalty is built on the quality of your product or service, not just the name. For more Girls That Invest: Sign up for the weekly Stock Market Tea newsletter Instagram TikTok Twitter Facebook 'Til next week, team!

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer SocietyJoin my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍‍Guest: Yolanda MangrumBusiness Name: Fortune ManagementCheck out Yolanda's Media:Website: https://www.fortunemgmt.com/Email: yolandamangrum@fortunemgmt.comPhone: 707-478-6394‍Other Mentions and Links:CostcoUCSFHire to InspireSuperCampDDS4KidsMother Teresa‍‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Learn what you want to do in life and shape your practice to support that!Aligning core values and designating purposeful work is essential with new hires.We don't want head bobbers with no input in our team. If they are asking questions and engaging, they will be stronger leaders for their role!Responding to angry patients with an apology and offer to help will prove much more fruitful than defensiveness.We want to support our team members in solving the problems they have rather than just solving them for them.Each team member is a leader of their role. Let them have say in the areas that they are the expert!‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Yolanda Mangram. Yolanda, how's it going? Excellent. Excellent. That's wonderful to hear. So if you can tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are Yolanda: today? So, uh, Post dental school. I guess we can start there.I started a dental practice after two years of being out of dental school. Immediately after dental school, I went into being hired as a educator, the a professor at U C S F. And so I was teaching, two days a week. I was associating two days a week by the time that I started my practice and I was opening my practice two days a week.it was a busy, busy time for Michael: sure. Okay. So you opened your practice two days a week and two days a week you were working and two days a week you were educating. So you had one day Yolanda: Yeah. To go to Costco to buy stuff for the practice or to go to whatever. It was an Aaron's day.that's how I got started in the practice. Fast forward, I grew that practice to be basically what I felt was like a teenager. My baby kind of grew up to be a teenager and and I'd already had at that 0.2 babies. And I shaped my practice to be. The way I wanted it for my life.And so I had the great benefit of starting my practice pretty much six months out with a coach. and, you know, the big centering point was, what do you want in life? And let's shape your practice to be that. So at different times, I wanted to be at home to be able to, breastfeed or I wanted to be able to have certain times or days off so that I could pick up the kids.So the practice was kind of shifted and shaped to support that. fast forward, we were in this having kids stage. and I had a maternity leave and basically at that point it made sense that I have an associate. So we ended up having, coverage for the first baby, and then by the second baby she became a partner.so that I could have that life balance. What I didn't plan, 'cause that seemed like a logical thing, being a mom and do that. What I didn't plan was being approached to buy another practice. And I was like, oh no, that's not my plan. My plan is this. when this came about I actually took a different trajectory and did invest in another practice and we came up with a bigger why.And that y became our 10 year mission, in growing this second practice and that y became so big that, it meant that I actually would do something that I would've never, ever thought I would do, which is sell my baby, let my baby that grew up to be a teenager. Go on and exist.In my hometown and have me move one town over and grow a multi-specialty medical and dental practice. So that's where I am today. I have a 10,600 square foot building, 16 op operatory, a med spa, dental spa, and education center. all because of my big why. that I wanted to be able to have a practice, have the passion, in my practice, and also have all this dedicated time to support my family.we had this plan for 10 years. my kids were hitting junior high to do dental missions and to travel the world and to service. and that happened pre covid, thankfully. Because if it had happened a year later my 10 year goal would not have came to a full, existence.So we traveled to probably, I. Five or more countries. and the kids were homeschooled and we did a lot of family values, time in incorporating family values into, experiences through traveling and service. Michael: So you guys still do that right now? Yolanda: they're now in high school.we did it pre covid, and we've done only one mission post covid. we basically weave in. When we do traveling, there's always a way to do some service with it. Even concierge at Nice Hotels can set up a service mission for you. They can look into some local and find ways for you to do a give back, we've done it in Jamaica, Costa Rica.And those have been more just like checking with the local concierge and asking them how can we help? The other things that we did were more with organizations and they were like planned just to go for that. But almost always especially when you're traveling to these beautiful tropical countries, there's plenty of needs in those communities.So, One day excursion being of service is been the way that we've been, bringing our children into a give Michael: back. And they appreciate that. the people appreciate it, but your children will, you know what I mean? Like, it's gonna open up their give back even more.Right. Hospitality, things like that. that's really good. If we can rewind a little bit. You were hired as an educator. but that was Yolanda: immediately after dental school. Yeah I was very active in dental school and I've always been happy sharing and teaching. so about, for about three to four years, I was I don't know what the title was, but some kind of professor, like an assistant associate or somebody about professor at U C S F.I was low on the totem pole, but yes I did some education right after dental school and was teaching things like anesthetic and being on the clinic floor and. And that type of thing. And so all those education things, I was a dental assistant before I went into dental school.I went to lab, tech school before dental school. So that really helped to have a full experience of all the different fields in dentistry before, I opened up my practice 'cause I, I literally know how. It feels to be in each position in the practice, and there are challenges. So that's what's been a key success, I think to me in 2011, I wrote a book knowing that I wanted this mission to be able to travel with my kids. it's called Hire to Inspire. I've. Updated it, but I haven't published the newer version post 10 years after that. But hired to inspire, it was two things that I realized as an employer.One, I only wanted to work with happy people, and two, I only wanted to work in partnership with them. and that meant that I needed to be surrounded by leaders, people that were working on their leadership development. And I never wanna be in a management position. When I hire people in my practice, I sit down and I have a conversation with them about purpose Ikigai is a term in Japanese that's called your reason for being.We start from the very beginning, on our onboarding, which is part of the Hire to Inspire process, which is basically to, from the beginning, make sure that we have matching core values and that we have purposeful work. And so this may be only a point in time for you as far as this leveraging you to your next place.So I always say, you know, as long as this is your happy place. To come to work, then we're in alignment. But I only wanna work with happy people. So if we get to the place where you really, find that your passion is somewhere else, then I'm gonna help you to find your happy place.And that means we'll continue our journey, but in a different way. So you will go off to be, say, a hairdresser. Which ironically yesterday, one of my former employees did. or you'll, we'll stay here and we'll continue to grow together, but ultimately we all have to be continuing to grow and.Be passionate about our work. So Hire to Inspire was a shift in 2011 for me, and I literally took each chapter and I sat down and I read it out loud with my team, many of which are still here with me. many who also have came. And I've supported to go off into other areas. So, So the idea is just to continue to inspire them to look for what their purpose is.so that's our onboarding process is to really get things straight about our core values, who we are. I have a culture handbook that we go over, and we have what's called Operating Principles. Operating principles. Are basically staying, how we do things, why we do things what our why is, is really important.And basically team members. as people, we all want to do, a good job and feel good about our work. But we often don't know how. Or what the best way for that work to show up is. So the more clarity we can have, especially onboarding people, the better. right now we have 50 something people in our practice.Between the two practices. it's always a work. I'm the culture keeper. That's my role is to just keep the culture and it's not always easy. because everybody has different beliefs and things, but. Ultimately having good communication lines and having clarity around your values and, our why is how we, continue to ha live in a happy place and have, that line when you cross over, it's showtime, we're here to serve.Michael: Interesting. So you mentioned you only hire leaders. what's your hiring process look like? How do we even find leaders in that sense, or the ad and everything like that? You know what I mean? Yolanda: Yeah. That's the irony. Everybody can be a leader everybody is a leader to some degree.It's just how well developed are they? most importantly, Do they want to be developed in that way? That's probably number one is everybody in our practice, no matter what your role is, if your role is to clean the toilets, then you are the leader of cleaning the toilets.So we will listen to you when it comes to taking care of that. It doesn't matter what it is. you know, If you are, the Hy Hygienist, you're the leader of the periodontal therapy, and when it comes to you telling us what needs to happen in that department, you're the expert, you're the person who's going off and making a hyperfocus in that area.And so we're gonna, all collaborate on things, but at the same time you're the person steering the ship on that area. As a c e o, as an owner I have to be surrounded by smart people and I want people that are thinking, I want people that are speaking their mind. I don't want people just being head bobbers.Yep yep. Oh, that's not gonna work. Yep. She's gonna fail on that. Nope. I want them to say, I like where you're going, but maybe we need to consider a different direction. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah reasons, or have you considered this? Or, what's gonna happen with that?So I want people asking questions. Is it frustrating sometimes to be like all excited about doing something, but then have someone put all these questions around? Absolutely. So that's where I had to grow my own leadership. You know, I had to grow who I am to not have such an ego about me being all knowing, we do a collaborative process and everything is about leadership development. I personally, Don't want to be in a conversation where I'm managing something, because stressful at that point. If we're collaborating, if we're working towards brainstorming on how to make things better, then it's a very easy light energy um, process.Michael: Uhhuh, okay. So there has to be like a balance of with every person you find. Humility and confidence, basically. Right? Yeah. Because it's like you gotta be confident enough to know you're the leader for this, and you're gonna tell us how to do it. Give us instructions, manuals, things like that. SOPs, and then humble enough to, yeah, you're cleaning the toilets, but you're the leader for that right.Kind of thing. Yolanda: Whatever it is. to some degree. Um, We all have certain innate skills in certain ones and some things that we have to work on. it's progress over perfection, all the time.And then we're appreciating also that, failures lead to learning. there's um, many different keys in our development process in fact one historical thing that's shaped me and continued and those that have children highly recommend super camp. There's the eight keys of excellence.It has been a hundred percent woven into my structure of living my life. And, we actually weave it into our culture handbook. The eight Keys of Excellence with Super camp. And they have some education on bringing children and teaching children personal development skills.Early on I was a team leader, during undergrad, and so I did three or four years of that When I got out, I was really looking for that camp experience where personal development was forefront in having a team surrounding me with those kind of skillsets, communication, personal development, mindset, all of that.And so I looked and I, interviewed many different. Consultants. And I knew that I needed to have you know, this ongoing constant learning, environment. and after, probably more than a hundred different seminars of sitting in practice management, learning learning, learning what I could. I came across something called Fortune Management, and that's another part of my life now because I've been Coaching for now 10 years, but been coached for 25 years with Fortune Management and it's about extraordinary life, extraordinary practice.So that was the key thing when I had the startup. It's like, what do you want in life? Let's shape your practice to meet that. So fortune, has had a huge impact on me and my. thinking, my processing, our team development, super camp, this, personal development skills, started young.Yeah, I think that these things are a real big part of our development. The reality is, we don't get taught how to talk. We don't get taught how to have relationships, how to get through conflicts. There's a lot of conflicts that can happen in dental practices, and we need to learn how to, come out stronger on the other end.A bad review is an opportunity because it's a cry for help. It's a cry to say, Hey this happened to me. It's not easy to lean in on those things but if someone comes to you say in the office and they haven't actually sprayed it across the, Google and Yelp and all that, then they're coming to you with a concern, or you might call it a complaint, but then they're caring enough to share.So humility again, comes into the place of listening to understand. And also understanding that, we're never gonna be perfect. So if that was that one person's experience, what can we learn from that? Our team is encouraged to basically lean into issue processing, and that's a leadership skill too.Because at first a reaction would be go into defense mode. instead of just apologizing first and then, thinking them immediately for bringing the concern to you, it puts you in a different state.Now you're not in a defense state. know, I apologize for the impact that had on you. Certainly wasn't my intent. thank you for bringing this to my attention. I wanna help boom, you just say those things to anybody that is upset with you at any time. Now, what do you, how would you feel about that?Yeah. If I said that to you and you were upset with me how would you Michael: feel? I'd feel calm. I'd be like oh, oh wait. Okay. I feel, you know what? I feel heard validated like, oh, okay. You're, yes, you're listening to me. Yes. Yolanda: So part of fortune's training is to, understand that there are human needs, people have human needs, we don't know what's going on in their life.It's most likely more to do about them than it has to do with you, And to feel validated, that one, they're being seen, they're being heard and that they matter is huge. And then you get to choose from that point. How much of that is really mine and how much of it is theirs?there anything we could change in our systems or in our processes that could shift the dynamic here? 'cause we are practicing, so let's. Figure out how we can have an issue come up, but then make it better the next time, So we learn from it and we see that as an opportunity to grow.Versus when we're in a mode of defending, we're not in a mode of growing. So I highly encourage that in the leaders to be big instead of to be small. when you are, thinking small, you're in that defense mode. But when you're willing to set that aside and lean in and get curious about it and think like, how could that have happened?How could we have done better? Where did this, go to that side what's missing here? Oh, they don't really understand this part And the, key thing is, That you may get to the place where you totally understand that they don't know what they're talking about when they're talking to you, but if you shift right away into telling them something, you have to remember, are you in rapport with them now?What I said in the beginning that set the framework was to start to get rapport with you, Michael. Mm-hmm. I apologize. it's not my intention. I would never want you to feel like that. So now that was the beginning of rapport. And in our processes and fortune, there's the steps of enrollment, there's steps of getting into rapport with people. that we train, our team members to go through because rapport is everything. Rapport with your team members, rapport with your patients, rapport and influencing. You influence people all the time, getting really good at influencing it and really good at influencing yourself, like talking yourself off the ledge to be defensive.is a big deal. So those are some of the skills that we focus on in, in our leadership development. But basically everybody is in leadership development all the time. You never get out of that school. Michael: Gotcha. And you're a hundred percent right Yolanda, like when it comes to defending We've hear this all the time, they're like, it's good to apologize. It's good to say sorry. Right? It's super good to do that. But you try being the first one to do that, right? Yep. Then it becomes, oh my God. Well, If they say sorry, I can say sorry. You know what I mean? But you know, I'm the first one. I don't know. You know what I mean? Because then you start defensive mode. it takes a bigger viewpoint of there's a bigger thing happening here than just like that little, oh my gosh, we're arguing about the bad review or the defensive, or, I'm not paying you for this or that.There's a bigger picture that we gotta look into. Yeah. that's really valuable. Super camp, Yolanda: what is that? Yeah. Super camp is what's called quantum learning. And personal development. Super Camp is held on colleges all across the world. Actually. I even taught in Hong Kong. dental school got in the way, or I'd have been in many other countries, but, it's a really cool 10 day camp.It focuses on the eight keys of excellence one day, each skill is focused on, so eight keys of excellence. Is this, is it like living in the moment? I'm not gonna list all of 'em right now, but communications, speak with good purpose, failures lead to success. All amazing things to get straight in your head as you leap into the world, So basically you go through a 10 day. Personal development, but also there is these quantum learnings where you learn speed reading. different ways to look at math. s a t prep of some sort. Mm-hmm. So, it's a big impact.10 days. And I was able to be a team leader. It is not inexpensive to do that, and I certainly would've not been able to attend from a financial standpoint at that point. But as a team leader I got to absorb a lot of those teachings and I was taught to teach them. So, It was like the best of all worlds.Michael: Nice. Okay. So you were able to absorb as much and you still carry it on until today. Yeah. From what we're talking about, right? Yeah. One of the things I wanted to ask you is, it sounds like from the beginning you've had I guess like a mission or, my children.I wanna be with them. I wanna be with my family and everything like that. How did you keep that mission in front of your eyes this whole time? for example, I'm opening a practice, then you're just, that's my baby. I gotta do that practice. Then another one, oh, then we get mom guilt and stuff like that. How did you keep that mission in front of your Yolanda: eyes? Yeah, it's a daily mindset for sure. And it's what you're saying yes to, means what are you saying no to? you always have to look at your yeses and your nos.And you also have to be really focused on your, why Is it bringing you closer to your why? I certainly, I. Have made more mistakes than, it feels like anyone in making this mission come together. you know, and people think that success is just straight up, but it's like this, you know?Mm-hmm. you just dip and then you come back up and you dip and you come back up. you win, you lose, you win. You lose. it's just a matter of better the next time. And that's where leaning into issue, processing, leaning into, facing the things that didn't work.And it's about getting back on the bike and continuing to pedal. So I know that, with my kids it was definitely always the centering for me, and my why I was working and how we were developing the team members. The good thing is that I happen to be one of those people that really enjoy.Service and support, and I get a lot out of seeing people grow. More than my own successes. it gets me really excited to see someone figure something out and to have been, this little part of it, or maybe just enough to, get them to jump up.So in my lifetime in the beginning, We got a post-its and we got a big board and my husband and I boyfriend at the time, said, okay, what do we wanna accomplish with this practice? fast forward looking 10 years from now, looking 20 years from now, what do we wanna see after all of our years of work?And that's where. being in the future is really valuable because now you get your why, but then you have to come back and we have to be in now. What can we do now? What's the best resources now? Because if we're always just like dreamy, dreamy, dreamy over here, then we're not actually accomplishing things.And the other thing is, that if we're always looking back, What ifs? Should'ves. Could'ves. Wished of, you know, wished, wished, wished. If I'd only known then now we're not doing anything about the now. Things are not moving forward. They're just staying behind. So I think the present, the key, this is it, It's hugely beneficial to stay in the now. each one of those keys, the eight Keys of excellence really keeps me centered. Michael: Yeah, that's a really good point. I feel like if you stay in the, now you stop so much procrastinating 'cause of the future, right? You're like thinking of my why.Oh, I'm gonna get there. And then you eventually, you know what I mean? Or it's gonna get there. If you're in the now, you're like, okay, now I got to do this in that moment kind of thing. I only have Yolanda: now, right? Yeah. Yeah. I only have now Michael: really good. You mentioned, two words that I kind of want to ask you about issue processing.is Yolanda: that? So issue processing, this is where real leadership comes into play because, we look at, say an issue. maybe the phone's getting answered. Mm-hmm. You take an issue and we all, put our emotions aside and we at it and, how could we do that better?And if we are in a process of brainstorming with all these different people, like how can we get this better? How can we get this better? And the focus is around that one issue. Now some solutions start coming up. What I'm not a fan of is having someone hand me their monkey and then I'm supposed to put their monkey on my back.Basically, as a leader, their issues come up, but if they just wanna say, here's my problem, so I don't need people coming to me with their problems, basically, that's their monkeys, and I wanna be able to support people to figure things out. I wanna be able to support them to be making some decisions. In fact, we have a process called decision Tree.So basically my goal is to help them to know which decisions they need to just make and which decisions they need to bring to me. So in a tree, for instance, I'm the roots, you know, in the trunk, but I want my team members to make some branch decisions, or at least the leave leaf decisions.I don't want them bringing me all the leaves, I don't wanna be raking up all those leaves all the time because then that's a whole different level of energy. I want them to feel empowered to make some decisions. So when they're part of issue processing. Then they can understand like, how I'm thinking, what I'm thinking.for instance, a patient's upset and they're complaining about their crown. Maybe you don't give the entire crown away. Don't just say, we're gonna do it for free. Don't worry. I don't want you to be upset. Yeah. Maybe we come up with a better decision. So, As a leader, leading leaders, I'm careful to Squish them in a place when they've made a decision. And then I said that was a bad decision, so I have to develop them in that regard. So I want them to stay open to possibilities in that issue processing. I want them to have some. Initiative I want them to be willing to defend their decision.So why did you decide that? Why did you decide, not from a defense standpoint, but ex explain to me, help me understand. ' cause if I can understand why you did that and what you're thinking was, now I can put you on a different level of thinking because, obviously we can't give away every crown.How could I pay you? what else could have happened Is this, So now you've got that muscle built up and you're building their leadership muscles. So how we talk to them is really, really, important. Build up versus tear down. Michael: Yeah. You're teaching them basically how to make decisions, And I like that because they're not always gonna go to you and being like, what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? And then you're kind of like, man, I'm always having to tell you what to do. But I guess it comes back to us as a leader where we never help them develop that muscle, like you said.Yeah. Teach 'em to fish. Yeah. Yeah. Teaching to fish. I like that. So then if we fast forward a little bit more, you were approached to buy another practice. Yes. And your why changed? So what was your Yolanda: why before. So my why before had much to do with being able to have choice picking up my kids after school, be able to comfortably care for them as a mom, a working mom, Then when I took on the partner, I thought my why was gonna be so that I could be like p t a mom, you know, I could be very active in school and, spend a lot of volunteer hours doing things, but still make enough money and, be able to be at home. And so I was preparing for 50% work, type thing.and then this other big opportunity came up and, my knee jerk was, no, that's not my why. That would mess up that. And so then my husband and I sat down literally on the staircase up there We said, you know, what's the bigger picture here with raising these kids?You know, what do we want? What is our job as a parent? We wanna make sure that they have the values, and their own leadership to lead their own lives, if they're always dependent on us, that would be a problem. Not that I couldn't have done that as my other plan.There became this bigger opportunity because we literally have been in the same home, in the same town growing up in this little area. And we didn't really want them to just have this little microcosm of, of life. We wanted them to be have the humanity to understand the whole world and that the whole world was an opportunity for them.But how do you travel and. Expose them to things like that. in the current position I was in, even with bringing on an associate and now having that as an a partner, I was not necessarily making money unless I was there. So if I clocked out, say for a month, Then, my income stream is going way down.ultimately the idea of, go big or go home, I guess came in the thing is about being small. you either stay small or you go big and in the middle you get pounded on with all kinds of, business growth and changes. And that was something that was really clear.We were reaching the middle ground with that practice that had its own challenges, its own growth challenges. So ultimately, I. The goal of our family and the idea came into play to be able to travel with them. And for two years we did that. we homeschooled them. We traveled basically about every month. six weeks at a time was our biggest one. And then two weeks being gone was our normal time. So we'd come back, we'd go, so we were traveling a lot each place had a different perspective and a different reason for being there.But, what I needed to do for that is my team had to be able to take the reins and keep the practice going with or without me. I had to create this practice that these leaders could run the practice with me, still having my extraordinary life without them. this whole way of developing this leadership was a necessary process in order to accomplish my goal of being able to come and go as I want in my practice and have the extraordinary life or whatever life I want.Michael: that's what your why kind of evolved into. Yes. It's like I just want to do my own thing. Interesting. real quick, which place, 'cause you said each location gave you a different perspective, change your life. Which one to you was like, this one was a whole 360 Really changed my life, my perspective.Yolanda: I would say that one of my favorites was our Asian tour. I really, really love. Asia. And so that would be one of my favorites. And, post COVID, we haven't been able to get, back to Vietnam, but my plans and my involvement with d d s. Four kids.org continues.I still fundraise and do lots of things with DDS for kids. It's the number sign four. And Lon Jones, who's the founder of this, she's like a mother Theresa, x fold better. She's like this most beautiful person. And so having met her and having my kids get to know a person that's beautiful. So giving, who's, hasn't had children of her own, but she says the whole world is her children. And so she cares and loves and goes into all these different places to take care of them and make a difference. So having that impact and having my kids know.That type of person. Knowing you know, when we went to Haiti, That was a little much, that was a lot, much for me. Dr. Laurenti Barnett. He's been doing such amazing things in Haiti for so long, and I'm so grateful that we got that experience to go and do work there.there's so much going on there. Unfortunately, it's also so corrupt. and, got a lot of dangers I think for traveling. But Dr. Barnett and his, decades and decades of giving and service to Haiti and really helping has been beautiful.So, Having my kids, having had the influences of these people that do things like that, Michael: priceless. Yeah. Priceless. Yeah, man, that's beautiful. Okay. So then one of the last questions I wanted to ask you, Yolanda, is you mentioned made many mistakes, right? Yeah. So I guess from the moment you decided okay, I'm going to start my own practice, right? today, what's been some of your biggest struggles or fails or pitfalls? Yolanda: it has a lot to do with this leadership development. wasn't always as strong of a leader, I certainly had to lean in on, messing up certain relationships along the way because I wasn't, Ahead of this pre communication, I had to have things onboarded with team members, and not have it go longer term because I didn't have my vision or my communication about what I was looking to accomplish.So clearly documented, so clearly, able to reference. To where anybody walks into the practice that they can understand a direction. I think that we lost a lot of time and a lot of energy with emotions being misunderstood with different things because we didn't have those clear directions and, mistake or just journey.It was a journey. you journey through and you learn things along the way, and hopefully you don't have to keep making those mistakes over again. But I think the biggest thing is any team members, and there's been hundreds and hundreds of team members that I've had at this point.They've all taught me something. I've learned to be better because maybe I wasn't as good at the time. But how can I get better? How can I get better? Has been, definitely a support for me in this journey. Yeah, Michael: I like that. Thinking about each team member and looking at them and saying, can I learn from you?You know what I mean? Yeah. and it goes back to what you said, it's gonna be like this. Yes. sometimes right now, I know a lot of our listeners may be like, man, I'm trying to reach to that million dollars a year, mark, you're gonna get there, I feel. But then it's going to, there's still gonna be times where you're like, my team, it's worse. I'd rather sacrifice the money and, you know what I mean, Seasons. Two seasons. Yeah. Yolanda: Go through seasons learning's never out, at all.It's constantly about learning constant and never ending improvement all the time. And when you buy in and you get your team to buy into some of these belief systems, you accelerate. That was probably the smartest thing I ever did is from the beginning is, stay with a coach, keep a relationship.Have someone who's on the outside telling you, with all authenticity, then reality, you screwed up. this isn't being your best self. you're thinking small. Be big be the bigger person, apologize, 'cause team members can't do that to you, you're like, okay, you're fired. You know, it's like, it's, there's only so much that they're gonna be able to authentically be your board of directors. that's something to do easily is get a board of directors, get people, be a board of director for someone else, and, get mastermind groups together.and speak authentically to each other. you're not perfect. This could have gone better this way and recognize that when someone's giving you an opinion, there's plenty of 'em. Maybe that one is not exactly the right one too.Just because people have an opinion doesn't mean that you need to embrace that opinion too. think through it, continue to be a critical thinker. Michael: Wonderful. Yeah. Thank you so much, Yolanda, for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you?Yolanda: You can find me Yolanda Mangram at Fortune Management, which is fortune mgmt.com. That's my email. Or you can call me on the phone seven oh seven, 4 7 8 6 3 9 4. I'm always happy to help, in any way. It's really a beautiful journey. And try to be really nice to yourself.Mm-hmm. You work really hard and your intentions are straight so, be nice to yourself. Self-talk and self-love is definitely where my focus is right now. We are type A people most of the time and we're pretty hard on ourselves. So as much as I was talking about being humble and taking on, all the learning moments, remember to also focus back on some self-love and giving yourself a lot of credit.Michael: Wonderful. Thank you so much Yolanda, for being with us guys. That's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely reach out to Yolanda and thank you for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Sounds great.‍‍‍

Today we're going to introduce a game changer in the dental practice management software world...‍‍This is an innovative, all-in-one, cloud-based practice management software, and it offers an array of powerful features that are custom built for dentists by dentists ready to revolutionize the way you work. ‍If you are a start-up and decide to sign up with Oryx, they will NOT charge you a single dime, until you reached 200 active patients!⁠⁠They are partnering up with all startup practice owners and making sure you succeed, fast!⁠⁠ Click this link to schedule a FREE personalized demo and to see more on their exclusive deal!⁠‍‍Guest: Thomas ChoiBusiness Name: Eyes of AICheck out Thomas' Media:‍Website: https://www.eyesofai.com/Linkedin: https://au.linkedin.com/in/thomas-choi-7a8843241Practice Website: https://mylocaldentists.com.au/‍Other Mentions and Links:Leonardo DiCaprioMercedesChatGPTGoogle Ad WordsYellow PagesCSIRO - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganizationCone Beam CTKhoa and Sen - Eyes of AI FoundersPearl AIOverjet AIElon Musk‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:You cannot be a hero for everyone! Be sure to hone in on the type of patient you would like to serve and market to them.If you aren't located in a high foot traffic area you will need to supplement with more marketing.Your team is your most important asset! Treat them well and make sure they have systems to follow.You can have roles that are meant to be more permanent and positions that are more temporary. Some team members might not stick around forever and that is okay!Don't fall into the trap of "I have no weaknesses." Try to reflect of where you don't excel, and hire another professional to help.Always track where your new patients are coming from. Having a Customer Relationship Management(CRM) software will help keep good records here.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Thomas Choi. Thomas, how's it Thomas: going? Not too bad, Michael. Thanks. How are you Michael: doing? Pretty good. Where in Australia are you located? Thomas: We're in Sydney sunny Sydney. On the other side of the world too, you guys, but just to sunny as LA Michael: hopefully.Okay, man, that's nice. That's nice. Awesome. Thank you for, I dunno what time it is over there, but thank you for being up early. Thomas: Oh 9:00 AM So just about I rescheduled some of my patients, pushed them back a little bit, and uh, normal workday for me. Michael: Nice. Awesome man. Awesome. So real quick, could you briefly introduce your dental practice and the demographic you primarily Thomas: serve?Yeah, absolutely. So, um, the group of practices that I, operate and own is called my local dentists. We operate five dental clinics here in Sydney. We are generally Just general clinics. So we your community practice, we are located in small community areas, and so we serve your newborns, your one year old, your two year old, your kids as they go through school.And then we also make dentures for grandparents. Mm-hmm. So yeah, your basic general practice for, for your general dentist. Michael: Nice. Okay. So then what has been your experience with different marketing companies and which strategies have proved to be the most effective for Thomas: you? I own five. And so we've dealt with all a whole range of different marketing options.So that goes, I'm sure your listeners have gone through all these things as well. That goes from your s e o, from your Google AdWords, from your full service branding and marketing companies. For me, I've found there's no silver bullet, so quite early on. In my little startup phase someone gave me some pretty good advice.They said, you cannot be the hero to everybody. So when I speak to younger dentists starting up clinics, I find they get really upset if even one person turns away or one person wasn't happy. They want to, they seem to want to sort of capture the whole entire. Little area there. They want everybody that, that, that doesn't work.The dentist you are looking for for is not the dentist I'm looking for. He's probably not the dentist di Leonardo DiCaprio is looking for. We're all looking for different type of dentists. So I do find in marketing finding that sort of fits your lane and your. What you are trying to do is probably the most helpful thing to do.But I mean, I'm happy to go around, into detail, into each of those different types of marketing, if you'd like. Yeah, no. Including the, Michael: if we get into it, when you first started your practice, your startup, your first one, number one, right? Like what were you leaning heavily on? Where you were like, this is what I'm, I'm, I'm gonna keep doing Thomas: right now.So my, my first one is actually in the same suburb that I grew up in. So I had like strong community ties. My, my local primary school was literally, I, I serve like half of that primary school now. and I went to that primary school, so that's where I started. And I think in terms of marketing I was leaning really heavily on that community engagement.And so, My first place isn't perhaps in such a high traffic area, and so it was a lot more of me making connections with the community and that personal relationship, but also because it's not in such a high. Foot traffic area. We did spend perhaps a high percentage of our income on marketing when we first started.If you go to some of my other clinics, they're in small community shopping centers, but they're quite busy. So these shopping centers aren't like, I think in America, they, you have your malls, which is like your big shopping centers, and then you've got your little small community ones where you'd probably go three times a week to do your local grocery shopping, go to your pharmacy, and whatever.It's so, A lot of my other ones are in those type of shopping centers. And you'll find with those ones, marketing isn't as important. The shopping center does the marketing for you. People walk past. And so in terms of percentage you spend is, is slightly different. And so your marketing strategy does need to change depending on your clinic, where you're located and what you're leaning on.Like you said. So before, when I first started, I was leaning on. Me, myself, my story of, Hey, I grew up here and, and now I'm back in the area I'm giving back to the community. That's what I lay it, relied on. And as I'm going bigger I'm relying more on this. This is our brand and this is what we do.Michael: Gotcha. And so all your five practices are, how Thomas: far apart are they? Yeah, so they're all in Sydney. driving the furthest one. So if you go from my furthest one to the other furthest one you could probably go 30, 40 minutes from one to the other. Mm-hmm.So they're all within about a 30 minute drive of each other within Sydney. Gotcha. Has that Michael: always been the goal, Thomas, or was it more like, I just wanna get this first startup done and that's it, I wanna have my own thing here and then it, it grew Or how did it happen? Thomas: I, it was not, it was unintentional.Completely unintentional. So I start, I had this dream of being like this little dentist in a solo practice, which most dentist are. Um, And I was like, oh, in my little area where I grew up, this is nice. And I started that one and I get it started getting really busy. My second shop, it was, I actually um, was walking my dog and I was walking my dog to my local shopping center to pick up dinner for my, for my family.And I walked my dog there and also just an empty shop. And I went, Hey, this is kind, this kind of work. And then that one worked out and that went really well. And then The third one came along and, and, and someone approached me for that one. And then since then people have just been approaching me actually.So I actually had another shopping center approach me about two weeks ago and I had to turn them down just 'cause we're not in that cycle yet. But I think you find as you do well people open up opportunities for you as long as you're genuine, as long as you try hard and do your best opportunities to come.Yeah. Michael: Okay man. So then goals to have, like are you looking down the future where it's like there's gonna be 10 eventually? Thomas: At the moment I've taken a kind of break on growing my dental businesses as a dentist. So, that's all on cruise control at the moment. We, we are doing a few sort of infrastructure upgrades in my practices and making sure we do have the most UpToDate equipment.I do think that is really important patients, depending on what lane of patients you choose. So even for a small community clinics, no one wants to go to a dental clinic. That's not. Nice. That's not clean, that doesn't look modern and up to date you don't want to go see Spittoons that look like they're from the fifties.But that's that. So I'm actually my, at the moment I'm actually involved in a startup around ai. And so that's where I'm spending a lot of my time around dental AI at the moment. So we'll see how we go in terms of my dental practices, but the AI space is where it's dentistry and the whole world is, is really interesting.Michael: Yeah. Nice. Yeah. We'll, we'll dive into that right now. But you mentioned something right now, you said lane of patience. Mm-hmm. when you started out, you said, I'm gonna get this specific demographic, or were you kind of like, I just want Thomas: anybody right now? No, so I think that that choosing your lane and how I said at the start, you can't get every patient that's come from 10 years of experience and speaking to dentists and, and new dentists and, and coaching them and things.So, When I started out, I was like everyone else. I was upset if a single patient was unhappy with anything. I was like, ah, no. I want everybody, everyone should be loving me. Why? Why don't they like what I'm offering? But you will find, your patient that wants to go to a high-end clinic that wants pure, beautiful, top-notch work.They don't want your cheaper general clinic. Even if it's the same work, some people want to pay extra to seem like they're paying extra even for an extra hot towel or something while they're doing their treatment. Some people like that and some people, they don't want that whole snazzy thing. They, they go in and they, these are waste of my money.I don't want that and I don't want my normal community clinic. That's just sort of day to day, and I think if you try to capture both, you lose both. I think the way to do is choose your lane. I am your general clinic. I am the preventative guy. I'm the cosmetic guy. I'm a high-end clinic. I'm an implant clinic.Whatever it is, choose your lane and focus on those people. And as long as you do that, you'll build your brand on. I am that guy, for example, Mercedes. You think Mercedes, you think, Hey, I'm gonna get a good quality car. It's gonna be luxurious, it's gonna be really nice. You don't see Mercedes now coming up with a $10,000 car, try and get this cheaper market, right?Yeah. And all the other Mercedes buyers will be like, Hey, I don't want Mercedes anymore. You guys are cheap. So I think choosing your lane and sticking to your lane and making sure all your branding and marketing sort of adhere to what you've chosen and, and it's all concise and and in line.I think that's the way to go. Definitely. Michael: Nice. Okay. And how much budget do you typically allocate for your marketing activities? Thomas: So I think once again, this does depend on the clinic, right? Mm-hmm. So, I do find when I speak to a lot of different marketing agencies and just companies in general, being customizable for, for the person is really important.And so My clinic, as I was saying, that's not in such a high traffic traffic area as a percentage of revenue. I might spend a little bit more compared to something that's in the shopping center where I don't need to do any additional marketing. 'cause I have hundreds of people literally walking outside the front of my practice every day.But then that's obviously the counterbalance. But I pay more rent in the shopping center and in low traffic areas, I pay less rent. it does differ. I found when I opened up my very first clinic, especially to know, like no one knows, knows about me, and there's no one walking past. You do spend a lot, you can spend up to like 20% of revenue at this time.Whereas in a shopping center, you might get a massive influx of patients and only spend. 5% of of revenue on, on marketing. 'cause you're not having to do all this additional stuff. You're literally just using your practice shop front as your big marketing tool. So yeah, somewhere between there. And also obviously depends on your phase of your business.So at the moment, like I said, I'm on a little bit of a cruise control, so I am just spending enough to keep my associates happy and booked. But if you were going to grow, you'd probably spend more, you know, 10, 20% if you're going to grow. And if you're just trying to stay stable, I aim for five to 10% usually.Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then how many new patients are you currently getting? Like a month? Across all Thomas: five clinics? Michael: Yeah. Or if you just wanna mention like your first, first one. Thomas: Oh, my first one. I'm, I'm actually not accepting any new patients myself at, at that clinic. I'm, I'm too busy. But my associates are, and so depending on each sort of thing, you'd, you'd still be getting 30, any between 30 to 40 patients.A, a month. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. I think the, sometimes the, the struggle is we, when we're starting out, right, we have that. Certain amount of capital that we have to allocate to marketing. And then we're like, I don't want to spend on something that's not gonna work or spend too much.For example, a marketing agency can approach you and say, Hey, let's, let's make this happen. Let's do this. Thomas: And half of the mistakes, half of the mistakes don't listen to all of them. Michael: Exactly. So can you share with us, like, have you ever faced a situation where the promised results were not achieved with the expected Thomas: timeframe?Absolutely. So when I think of marketing, let's stick with digital marketing first. Mm-hmm. 'cause I think that's where most people spend their time on marketing. So when I think of digital marketing, there's sort of three lanes that I've gone down in the past. I've gone down straight ss, e o work now straight ss, e o work.I think everyone needs to do. Having said that, with chat, G P T, I don't know what Google and Google rankings are gonna be in five to 10 years, but at the moment, s e o is where it's at. So, s e o is really important, I think. SS e o, it costs a lot to do it right? Because what you're doing is you're paying someone to update your website weekly, twice a week with, with new content and making it relevant to those certain areas.But the advantage of that is your underlying digital asset of your website becomes more and more valuable. And so I'll give you an example. If you do ss e o work properly, let's say you choose a suburb Let's say Venice Beach. I don't know LA at all, but I know that's an area of, yeah, so let's say we choose Venice Beach and you go, I wanna do s e o on and as a dental clinic in Venice Beach.Now if you do it properly, it shouldn't just be Dentist Venice Beach and you come higher up on Google searches. It should be anyone in this area types in wisdom tooth pain. You should then have an article on your website with Wisdom Tooth Pain that they can read, and they're like, oh, your website is now my source of dental information.And that creates trust. And so if someone goes dental, crown, root canal, whatever it is, and they're in that area, your ideally, your website should pick up first. And that's ss e o. That takes a lot of time and a lot of money and, and you might not see results for five to six months, but the underlying asset is, is invaluable.Whereas if you go down like the Google AdWord side, you are paying thousands every month. There is no buildup of an underlying asset, but you are getting a click every time you pay. So I think with my strategy, when I first started, there was a lot of AdWords to pump up my initial book with underlying SS e o and then as your s e o builds, you can do less and less AdWords, I find.Okay. I do find though, with full service branding and marketing agencies, we dentists. We can't brand and market and keep track unless you are a particular dentist. Like I maybe one of my whole graduating class of a hundred, maybe two, that would sit there and actually go through all this stuff. Most dentists just wanna be a dentist.Mm-hmm. And so I think if you're a dentist and you start trying to do C r m work, s e o, work yourself, it detracts from your own work. So I do think unless you're really good at it, you should pay someone to do it. And then track it. So if you're using full branded agencies, they should have a C R M network laid out for you which tells you which calls are coming in, where they're coming in from.Was it from a lead from the branding agency? Was it just a natural lead? And AdWords, you can see the clicks and the conversion rates. You should. Definitely track all those things. And ss e o you can obviously track just with your ranking and, and different words you're searching, but my suggestion to normal dentists mm-hmm.As a general rule is get an agency to monitor and track it for you, and you just look at the end results and see if you're happy with them. Michael: Ah, okay. Have there been any ones where you're like, oh my gosh, there's no results. Like, I'm not, I'm not seeing anything. And how do you handle that? Thomas: Yeah, so I had, I'll give you an example about pre pandemic, just before pandemic.I had an agency, I used them for a year and their whole gig was, we will provide you high-end work. So they make landing pages per high-end work that you wanna do. And their, their business model was mainly AdWords. So let's say implants and orthodontics. You, your listeners will know mm-hmm that you get a lot of money from implants and orthodontics and so perhaps is willing to spend a little bit more.So the idea went anyone in Sydney bed search implants, this landing page should be paid for. So you come up the top, you click on that so that you know this lead is coming through that landing page. 'cause this landing page has a separate, input stream. And that landing page is dedicated just for the conversion of your implants or orthodontics.Right? Depending on what that person searched for. And so, if it comes through there, you're getting an implant and that came from that marketing agency. 'cause it that lead came through this particular landing page. by the end of the year.I ended up spending just as much on. AdWords, and that agency as I got in revenue, and so I was doing work. Pretty much for free. 'cause any work I was getting, I was giving back to that agency, and this is why tracking is really important and having mechanisms in place to know where that lead came from.It wasn't a lead from my s e o work that I paid for previously. It was from this particular company and being able to track that. So if I used different branding agencies, I'll have different phone numbers they call through on, so I can track where it's coming from. I'll have different landing pages and websites as well as my receptionist will know.On our C R M systems. Okay, this person came from this lead. And so being able to track it and then getting an R O I is pretty important because you'll find dentists spends thousands on stuff, don't track it, and they don't even realize they're getting nothing out of it. Yeah, Michael: that's true, man. That's true.So tracking it, tracking it is like huge, Thomas: huge, huge. And most dentists don't, this is what I'm saying to you. Most dentists are dentists. They're not business people or necessarily want to sit there and track numbers. And so if you're not gonna do that, Get an external or a software to do it, but if you are gonna do it, then set up properly, un track it.Okay, Michael: nice. And then how equipped is your team in converting calls into actual patients? So. Thomas: Right now pretty poor to be honest. We, we in Australia since COVID had some crazy staff shortage. last year, even earlier this year, there were days where we had to close clinics. Not even, 'cause we didn't have a dentist because I didn't have receptionist and like assistant staff, which is crazy to not open a business 'cause you don't have a receptionist, right?Mm-hmm. But that, that's where we were, a little bit better now. But I think once again, as long as it aligns with your practice. So if you, in terms of training them, I think a C R m, sort of portal or, or system is really good for tracking. Because if you don't, you don't end up with a nice aggregated information you can read.So I've had clinics, I've known clinics where. You know when you sign your new patient form, it says, how did you hear about us? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I was really strong on making sure my receptionist made that person fill that thing out and then actually record it, because then that feeds back on our backend on, Hey, okay, we're getting patients through Google AdWords.We're not getting anything. There's this thing called Yellow Pages in Australia. We're not getting anything from Yellow Pages, let's stop spending money on Yellow Pages, that type of thing. So training is important. You'll find especially if you use branding agencies, they'll train your staff for you on their c r m on and, and how to convert patients.But that comes down to also having good staff and long-term staff. Mm-hmm. My, in my first clinic where, where I'm turning away patients for myself, They, my receptionist knows the patients almost better than I do. And so there is that long-term sort of consistency for patients is also important and also important for training.Otherwise, you'll find new staff come in, you have to train them on the C r M system on how to convert patients on all that thing or those type of things. And you'll find you spend more time on training and more money on training than actually getting conversions of sales. So, Consistent staff, well trained staff.And your receptionist is probably the most important person in your practice. Michael: Yeah. How, how often is like turnover would you say, in the front office for you? Thomas: So I have two sort of categories of, of support staff. So I'm not talking dentists, they're my support staff. I have my support staff that are my people that are gonna be there for years and they're my employees.And then I have a list of sort of casuals, which are like fill in jobs, like only a few shifts a week. And they tend to be more uni students. So the uni students and the sort of casual in and out type of workers, they change over regularly. my long-term staff, they, they stick around long-term years.That I don't think I've had anyone leave for any reason other than like their, like something's happened in their life, they're leaving mm-hmm. The city or moving, moving states or whatever it is because, staff is the most important. Asset of, of, of a company. So even big mining companies, you look at their, their, their bills sheet, their HR staff is their biggest expense.Yeah. And given that even in us, even in a dental practice, staff is our biggest expense, but they're also the most important expense. And also we'll, Change how your companies run from day dot and, and it makes a massive difference. You'll have two receptionists. One receptionist will show you literally 50% more than the other one will, will book in 50% more patients than the other one just 'cause they care. they'll be nice on the phone. They won't try to shoot people off the phone. They'll, they'll try to find solutions for their patients and mm-hmm. I say to my, I say to my, everybody, I have one hiring policy. Be a nice person. That's it. If you're a nice person, I can train you to do other things.If you're not a nice person, it doesn't work out. Everyone can read it. Michael: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. The humility that the person has to have when it comes to those two support staff and then the UNI students do, do you ever think like maybe the UNI students could become part of the support staff or Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah. But for, as a general rule, those casual staff, so the my casual support staff that all. Have one or two shifts a week or have like feeling when someone's sick or something like that. They generally come on with that role because this isn't their primary thing in life. Mm-hmm. They might be a uni student, they might be a mom just wanting part-time work and, but this is not their focus, But at any point yeah, if they're suitable and they want to, there's always opportunities for them to then move on to more of a permanent position in my little organization. Michael: Nice man. Okay, so you talked to us about that. Everything right now is on cruise control because you're working on something with ai.What's that all Thomas: about? Okay, so, I'm the Chief Operating officer of a company called IS ai. And what we do is we've partnered with the Commonwealth Industry Science Research Organization, so C S I R O. Mm-hmm. It's Australia's government. Sort of science agency or research agency. And we've collaborated to come up with the world's first and most granular segmentation on cone BM c t as well as sort of pathology detection on, on all the dental x-rays.So your bite wings, your peri apical, your op Gs, and your lat surfaces. So, going into marketing, 'cause I know this is a marketing podcast. The, the reason I think this is really helpful for marketing is, as I was saying, people wanna go to clinics because they want to know you are up to date. What you are providing is good healthcare.Mm-hmm. And AI will only improve healthcare going forward. That's the whole reason it's going to be implemented. If it wasn't going to improve healthcare, it's just something, a cool fancy toy, no one will use it. So what we do in our company, so other than for the diagnostics, Our flagship is the segmentation of a cone beam ct.So a cone beam CT is a three d X-ray people use for the major dental work. Mm. And we are able to segment that into 130 different anatomical structures. And then using that, you can use that to plan your treatment. So I'm assuming most of your listeners are dentists? Mm-hmm. And so as a dentist, you'll know when you perhaps do an implant or a molar root canal, you'll take a cone beam ct and you'll know that to.You take that c x-ray to plan treatments and if you're taking that x-ray to plan treatments, if you're able to segment that x-ray, you are able to first remove any noise you don't wanna see. You are able to get automatic measurements, and you're able to get a clear three D model of what you're working on rather than working off two D slices, which is what we're doing.And so inevitably, AI and segmentation of cone beams and detection of pathology across all x-rays. Is going to save the dentist time, it's going to improve treatments and lead to better health outcomes, which is what we're aiming to do, and that's what everything is about. The last part about it, and I'm really big on patient education, I think a better educated patient is more on board with treatment and that can only lead to good things.Mm-hmm. It can lead to less stress for the dentist and better treatment health outcomes. And if you have ever seen a cone bean ct, and if you are not a dentist, you'll look at that and go, no idea what I'm looking at. it's gonna go right over my head. I'm just gonna nod as the dentist tries to explain things to me, what we do is we make three D models of that cone bean ct and so you're able to transfer that information to the patient much clearer in a way that makes much more sense to the patient.Not only are you going to get more conversions for your treatment, but you are also going to get more trust from the patient. But ultimately, and this is my biggest thing, you will get better patient health outcomes. You'll make less mistakes, and your treatments will be better, and that's what it's all about.Nice. Michael: Okay, so then how or why did this come out? The AI. You developing this? I guess like, the AI's been there, right? So you're just like, we gotta do something about this scenario because what was happening when this was Thomas: coming out? Okay. So I'll tell you the little inception story of this company.Yeah. It's kind of a pretty cool story. So this company started with two brothers, BA and Zen. Zen. I actually went to dental school with Zen, which is why, how I got involved in this company. Then is a dentist and Qua, who is our c e o, went to his brother Sen as the dentist Sen took his bite wings and he noticed an impacted lower right third molar that was causing caries on the lower right second molar.And the carriers was really extensive and near the pulp Sen said to his brother, Hey mate, you need to take that wisdom tooth out, do a filling, potentially a root canal. Qua turned around and went, mate, you're my brother. I don't believe you. I don't feel any pain. Nothing is wrong. Went away. Then even showed him the x-ray and Qua was like, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about, man.Everything was good. I think about two months later he had some crazy toothache. Had to go in and had to get both those teeth, emergency extraction on both of those teeth. That was the inception story, and this is why this links back to that whole patient education thing. I think in this world now going forward, people are taking more and more control of their own information.I can almost guarantee all of your listeners, I mean most of 'em are dentists, but when they go to a doctor or a dentist, they don't actually get the x-rays themselves. In Australia, I. The X-rays are actually the property of the person that took them. It doesn't actually even belong to the patient, right?Mm-hmm. Because it's our responsibility to keep it for X amount of years and store it and whatnot. We can't lose it 'cause it's patient health records. This is how this company started because we saw a problem there or the, the, the founder saw a problem there if I can't even believe my own brother.And that communication between. The dentist and the patient is that poor on a two d x-ray. On a three d X-ray. People are just nodding their heads. The other thing we've found going through this and all the non dentists in my organization are, are a bit scared of dentists now mm-hmm. Is we've found a lot of dentists are just are skipping things and, and to save time on a cone beam ct, they're ignoring the rest of the cone beam ct.If you take it for an implant down your bottom right, you're not looking at the top left for pathologies, which is to me, shocking. it's uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. So, that with the ai, you'll, you will be able to pick up on everything. And so even though it started as a patient communication inception idea, the use cases of it apply to both the patient, the dentist, the clinic, everyone, everyone will benefit from it.Gotcha. Michael: And so this is available now or not yet? Thomas: our business model is not necessarily to go straight to the end user. to the, to the dentists themselves. We're in discussions with a lot of OEMs and a lot of companies everyone we've spoken to once they've seen our product believes this is going to be the new standard of cone beam ct.Mm-hmm. And, and two d x-rays, but cone beam cts in particular, because you can't have this level of segmentation and then go back to the two D version, it's, it's like, my Jared, who I work with always says to me, he goes, it's like looking at an old U B D map that you're flipping through. And then getting Google Maps and it telling you exactly what to do.Um mm-hmm. You, you can't go back. And so for that, we believe it will be mass adopted and yeah, we're speaking to a lot of companies then to implement it into existing softwares. Gotcha. Michael: So you, the idea is not like to the user, like, Hey guys, it's available for this much, everybody get it? It's, it's more like, how can people get their hands on it then?Thomas: Utilize one of the companies that we'll be partnering with pretty much. Okay. We'll be partnering with companies around the world and all your dental users will have heard of it. I heard of these companies and so if you want to use the product, you'll have to use the company that we partner with.Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Interesting man. Yeah, because we've heard of AI and like diagnosing, right. Pearl Overjet, other companies like that. So they're, they're doing. Pretty cool stuff on that end, but this is a little bit different, right? Thomas: So we do what they do as well. So they do diagnosis of two d x-rays of pathologies, right?And so that is a, a bite wing, a pa, an O P G. Hey, there is this problem here. pretty straightforward. But if you look at three D x-rays, people don't take cone beam cts to find pathology. Sometimes they do, they, they'll take an ogen go, oh, that's a little bit funny. Let's take another x-ray to mm-hmm.To confirm what that is. But as the, the majority of C B C T cases are taken to perform a treatment, to do an implant, to do a root canal, to do a surgical extraction of a third molar. And so the initial inception of the, the segmentations on a cone b. Is to make the use case of that cone beam easier already.So if you are taking it for an implant, We provide you information on that treatment that will make that treatment easier. So we will provide you segmentations for all the surrounding key critical structures, the i n the sinus. We'll provide you measurements, so the crystal bone to the ion. How much bone do you have to play with your lingual and buccal measurements that that's automatic with the click of a button that you can see on a three D model.That is different from we're gonna scan the whole extra and just point out things that might be slightly wrong, which we do anyway. And like I said, the two D is one thing. I'm much more passionate about the three D. if there's a bite wing and I miss it, and I'm not saying that AI doesn't diagnose better if my AI definitely diagnoses better than me, right?Mm-hmm. I do miss things, but if I'm missing on that two d x-ray, it is me making a mistake. It is me not seeing something I should have seen. But on the three D, this is why I'm much more passionate about three D. People don't even look for it on a three d on a cone beam ct, which is shocking. So that's not even a mistake.People aren't even doing it. Mm-hmm. take it to do the implant and they'll review just the implant site and the stuff they need for the implant and ignore the rest of the image. A lot of people, not everyone, mm-hmm. The good dentist look at over all, but, but a lot of people do. And so that's why the pathology detection on three D and scanning through, that's where my passion lies more.But diagnosis on all x-rays is all helpful for ai. Michael: Yeah. Okay. Are you utilizing it right now in your practice? I Thomas: utilizing it right now, no, no, no, no, because it's not into, so I utilize it to demonstrate things, but it's not at, at a commercial level at the moment, so, no. Michael: Oh, okay. Okay. Interesting. So this is, this is coming out pretty Thomas: soon then, huh?Yeah, yeah, yeah. whether it's us or anybody else, this will be the standard tech in the next three to five years. It's inevitable. Like I said I assume it's not only going to be us, but it, Once you've seen it, you can't go back. It is physically impossible. It's just chalk and cheese.It's it's color TV versus black and white tv. Yeah, sound is black and white. TV versus color tv. We sound, that's literally what it is. Michael: No, man. We're excited for that, Thomas. We're excited for that. So from the process of, I guess you doing your startup. Right to now at the point where you're at with this startup, right.Where it's not a, like a building, right. It's not a practice, it's a ai. Mm-hmm. What are some of the biggest struggles you've encountered throughout this time? Thomas: Time? For me personally, it's time. Mm-hmm. So I know no one really caress about my life, but time is actually the biggest thing for me. You've been talking business struggles.It's once again time for me. Not even just time, it's the mental ability to focus on running dental practices and this AI startup, which is why my dental practices have pretty much taken a backseat. I do not know how Elon Musk does it. I do not know how you have the mental capacity to really run multiple companies and be on top of it all.It's really hard. But other than that, obviously the challenges are really different between the two. And I think the common challenge though, as I was saying before, is people. Mm-hmm. I think everything comes down to people. If you have good staff in your dental practice, you don't have to worry. So I've run this enough that I can be on cruise control in my dental practices, and I can trust the staff that I have will run it really well as it's going and approach me if there's an issue that they haven't dealt with and they dunno what to do.And so I'm pretty comfortable with that. And so even with eyes of ai, I, we have such an amazing team that it makes it really easy to work. And so my one tip to anybody doing any sort of entrepreneurial or any business work people is what makes it, you have someone good next to you, the amount of stress you receive will be half of someone that's just not good next to you.Yeah. So yeah, staffing. Staffing and time is, is definitely the biggest thing. And surround yourself with people that. Have the same vision as you. Drive in the same direction as you and really lift each other up and support each other. I always liken it to a rowing boat. Right. It is the job of the person on the rowing boat that's beating that drum to make sure that everybody's rowing in the same direction and rowing to the beat of that drum, right?That is like any organization, the boat will go better if everyone rose in the same direction and rose at the same time. What you don't want to do is get staff around you that don't understand the big picture and don't strive towards that common goal, whether it is. Providing patients is really good healthcare, and that will build up your dental practices or doing the world's best AI that's gonna take over the world.With ai, you need the team to understand what they're doing, what their roles are, and support each other in that team. So people is the most important. Yeah. Michael: Do you ever find yourself Thomas like, man, I need, I need somebody to handle this takeover and do this, and you give them the The problem or the Yeah, the problem, the work.But then you kind of think about it and you're like, maybe a system could have taken care of that instead of this person. Yeah, Thomas: both. You need both. with staff even though they're good staff, you need a system or a framework for them to work in. Mm-hmm. You can't, no matter how good people are, if you just let five people to do their thing.They're not gonna come at the same point. So you've gotta give everyone a system or a framework. And with technology like AI coming through, yeah, people are, people's job descriptions are gonna change. What they had to do is going to change. It's unfortunately inevitable. You know, Back in the day, I'm sure law firms had a hundred people researching things, feature their cases, and now it's a Google search and it's only a hundred people hour job.any new technology you should be skeptical of but would be willing to embrace that goes with ai, that goes with any systems that you have digital, X-rays, p m s systems, whatever it might be. Systems generally make things more efficient and less mistakes are made. Mm-hmm. that's one of the biggest things about ai, right?That as I was saying earlier on a two d X-ray, if I don't pick up on something that's a mistake, It's not, I didn't know it's a mistake. And so systems and AI and things like that, they don't make mistakes as much. systems are good. But even if you don't have a system in place, even if you've got people, you should have a framework for those people to work around.Yeah. Michael: I get you, man. I mean, remember when Chat G P T came out, I was like, what is this stuff? I didn't even care. Now. Can't get Thomas: off. It's the best. Yeah. AI's amazing. I'm kind of scared to see where it's gonna be in five years. I'm legitimately worried and scared. Michael: It's gonna be, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be exciting.I dunno. We'll see. We'll see. But it is interesting. So one of the last questions I wanted ask you Thomas, is we have a lot of young practice owners, listeners, dentists, right. In our also young, in the sense of like year one to year five, maybe they're in their practice ownership process. What Thomas: advice can you give us?I think first starting out, be honest with yourself. I think knowing where your shortfalls are. So, like I was saying, don't pretend to be a marketer if you're not, don't pretend to be someone that is gonna sit there with spreadsheets if you're not. I recently have come to love spreadsheets.Mm-hmm. But in my previous life before this startup, I didn't particularly like spreadsheets and so to. If, you know you need spreadsheets to track things, but you are not a spreadsheet person, and I would say most dentists are not spreadsheet people, then you should be able to recognize that shortfall and pay a professional to do it.I find people don't recognize other people's skillsets enough and aren't willing to pay for that skillset enough. That'd be the first thing. The second thing I would say is choose Elaine. I say this to everybody. You are not everyone's hero. You'll be one type of person, hero. And so choose what type of person that is.If you're starting a practice and drive your business for that target market and nothing else. Ignore everyone else. alcohol companies. They know who their target market is. They don't target kids 'cause they know they're not gonna buy it. They don't get upset when kids don't wanna buy the alcohol.So they target their audience, do the same thing. And the third thing is be genuine and nice. it goes for both patients and your staff. I find so many entrepreneurs are so up themselves that they think they can manipulate people into positioning themselves and doing what they want.Now, that might work with a one-off interaction 'cause they, the person doesn't know you. But if you are gonna work with someone for five years, if you're gonna have a returning patient for five years, that. Ulterior motive of, I am here because of money. I'm here because of what it, it, it doesn't last.Everyone sees right through it. If you want good staff to stick with you, treat them well, put yourself in their shoes. Every once in a while think, Hey, I'm only earning this amount of money. My dentist, my boss is earning this amount of money. He makes me do all this stuff. He doesn't even say thank you.Doesn't gimme a bonus, doesn't gimme anything. If you were that person, you'd be like, Hey, what? This is not fair. Like this is not a, mm-hmm. Even distribution of what's happening here. Be nice to your staff. Be genuine. Be nice to your patients and that, that's probably the biggest one. Be nice and fair to everyone around you.People will come back and people will continue wanting to work with you if you are overly fair and overly nice to people. I think that's the best part. Michael: Awesome. We appreciate that, Thomas. And if anyone has any questions or concerns or they just want to talk to you more, where can Thomas: they find you? Eyes of AI is probably the easiest website, international website.You can either contact the support page of Eyes of AI and ask for me specifically otherwise I'm on LinkedIn, or they can reach out to you and you. I'm more than happy for you to give out my personal email to anyone. I'm happy to speak to everyone. I'm a friendly person. Michael: Always be nice. Yeah.Awesome guys. So that's gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely reach out to Thomas and Thomas. Thank you for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. ‍

This week, we are unlocking the secrets to a thriving online business which begins with a strategic approach to choosing the perfect business name. Join me as I share the power of keywords, the art of the 'mind dump,' and the vital steps to securing your business's identity through domain selection and legal entity establishment. Get ready to lay the foundation for your online journey, fueled by keyword-rich strategies that propel your business to new heights. Listen in as I share: The significance of incorporating niche-relevant keywords in a business name. the "mind dump" technique for brainstorming business name ideas. A brief explanation of choosing a domain name (URL) and domain registration platforms. Importance of separating personal and business finances. My excitement for you about my upcoming course "Crafting a Business 101." Thanks for listening! I'd love to continue this conversation over in the Facebook Group or on Instagram. Talk to you soon! https://creativesonfirepodcast.com/episode104 Links and resources mentioned during this episode: SpeakPipe is here: https://www.speakpipe.com/melanieferguson The Waitlist for Crafting a Business 101 is here: https://creativesonfirepodcast.com/cabwaitlist The Mind Dump Worksheet is here: https://creativesonfirepodcast.com/minddump FREE Legal Guide is here: (aff link) https://creativesonfirepodcast.com/legalguide SUBSCRIBE AND REVIEW I am honored to share a new Blogging Creative on Fire each week on the podcast to bring you inspiration, behind-the-scenes secrets, and quality tips. I hope it is truly helpful for you. One of the best ways you can bless me in return is to subscribe to the show and leave a review. By subscribing, you allow each episode to be downloaded straight to your phone which helps the download numbers and ensures you never miss an episode. You can GO HERE to subscribe and review!

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer SocietyJoin my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍‍Guest: Dalton HandyBusiness Name: TempMeeCheck out Dalton's Media:‍Website: http://tempmee.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tempmeeapp/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tempmee/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tempmee/Twitter: https://twitter.com/tempmeeapp‍Dalton Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalton-handyEmail: Dalton@TempMee.com ‍Other Mentions and Links:HubSpotMarketoSalesforcePardotSlackGoogle AdsYelpCapterraHannible Barca - "We will either find a way, or make one"Steve JobsCary Gahm, Edward Thomas, and Debra SimmonsUberThe Infinite Game - Simon Sinek‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Making sure potential patients can find you online and optimizing your website is an often overlooked essential first step.Utilizing a CRM like Hubspot can help keep all of your patient communication and followup in one place.Sending out email newsletters to remind the community that your office is up to date and spreading helpful information is a great way to stay in touch. Be sure not to overwhelm your email list though!Try to make your office and website have a unique twist, ensuring an office across the country couldn't directly copy you.Always provide options for contacting your office. Making it hard for patients to call, text, or email will be a big point of friction.If you're running a private practice, think about how you can set yourself apart from DSOs! You may be able to add more of a personal touch than most dental organizations.‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Dalton Handy. Dalton, how's it going? Uh, pretty good. Dalton: Michael, how about you? Michael: I'm doing pretty good, man. Thanks for asking. If you could tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you Dalton: are today? I. Yeah, so I've been in marketing for eight years now.I started my career coming out of the University of Denver in, in a slightly lesser known field of marketing operations. So it's all like the systems and processes that make marketing work, right, to be able to prove value and to get a feel for everything. So I started my career there. Um, I'm now here at Tempe, which is my third startup where I, I really think that I thrive, right?This is where I am able to build, I'm able to really see the impacts of my efforts, um, and I'm more connected with, with our users as well than I have been at a much larger corporation. So this is the second time that I've built a marketing department within, within a startup, and so far it's been going really well.Gotcha. Michael: So, real quick temp me Dalton: is what? Temi is a dental staffing community, so we help offices find placement with assistance as well as hygienists for both temporary, multi-day and permanent placement services as well. Gotcha. Michael: So before the other two startups that you worked at, was it in the industry, dental industry, Dalton: or No.Great question. Not in the slightest. I've spent a lot of time in cybersecurity and then the other startup that I was at was actually a highly verticalized software company. So they specialized in software for, um, portable toilet vendors, roll off dumpsters and septic pumpers. So it was very specific.Really cool company there, and that's where I really discovered my passion for startup marketing and being able to have that a lot bigger connection with, with your customers and have a lot more fun with what you're doing as a marketer too. That's where I really found my passion for it. And so even though it's kind of a funky industry, I'll, always be forever, but grateful.Yeah. Nice Michael: man. So you've been in marketing for a minute now, right? And it's cool that you're working in a company that like, you know, is revolved around our industry, right? The dental industry, of course. But when it comes to, you said you created systems and processes that make marketing work down to us.Okay, cool. What Dalton: is that? Yeah. So one of the key things that you'll note, uh, as particularly as you get into bigger companies, bigger corporations, you're gonna have a lot of different systems. But from a marketing perspective, one that's gonna be crucial is your marketing automation platform, right? So you're gonna do a lot of things outta this platform.One's gonna be sending your emails, you can build landing pages, you keep track of all your contacts and your database in that, and then you can also, you know, implement. Uh, all of your website tracking so you can see who's on your site when, what pages they're engaging with, collect data via forms, and then connect all of those activities together, right?So as soon as somebody fills out a form, cool. Now we're going to direct them over to the right sales representative, but also we're gonna send them. A text, an email, you know, whatever that might be that is in line with their previous action and then make sure that they've got the right communications going their way.So that's really the hub of, uh, any marketing operations person is going to be focused heavily on that system. But then they're also gonna be working with all of the other arms of marketing. So whether you've got, you know, your trade show, people that are sending leads one way, great. You're gonna be working with them to make sure that they can prove R o I.On their adventures. Uh, you're gonna be working with the paid media folks. Obviously, all, all your branding people, your email marketers, you really help tie everything together. So it's a, it's a really cool way to start your career, I think, because you get so much exposure to all of those different types of marketing.Ah, Michael: okay. So then how can we, I guess, funnel that into, Practice, right? Meaning like we got our front office, we have our dentist, our practice, and I know you said that's one of your area of expertise is where you build a marketing department. So could you in this real quick amount of time, like build us a marketing department for the practice?Dalton: Yeah, I think so. You know, even as somebody who hasn't done that specific niche, I think there are quite a few things that you can do right off the bat, right? And there are varying levels of automation platforms that I would start with, right? If you've got the platform and you've got access to the right tools, then you can start to build from there.So that's always kind of my step one. In fact, when I started at temp me, even during the interview process, I made it abundantly clear. Hey guys, when I start, we're gonna buy HubSpot. That's gonna be like the first thing that we're gonna do, and then we'll go from there. so, you know, looking at those, those tiers, right?So on, on the very top, like enterprise end, you've got things like Marketo. You know, Salesforce has Pardot, part O, whatever you wanna call it. and then HubSpot is great. It scales up and down as you want. so that's, that's usually a go-to start, or a starter kind of, um, automation package. So, Getting that system in first, right?Making sure that you've got everything centralized and you're gonna need one person that's dedicated to this, right? Typically, it's not gonna be somebody that is already an office manager that already has, you know, their, their plate is entirely full. But what this person should be able to come in and do is, number one, let's work with an agency.Make sure that your website is well optimized, right? Anybody who's looking for you, is gonna be able to find you, whether that's from an s e o perspective or from a pay-per-click perspective at, you know, at minimum on Google, those are the low hanging fruit. Making sure that the people who are looking are able to find you.Then what you do is you can take all that information, process it through your platform, and make sure that you're following up with people appropriately. Right? Everybody hates it. If you submit a contact form, you know you're interested in the business, you're potentially gonna buy something, spend money, and then you don't hear back.You know, it's a bit of a slap in the face, right? So that's one of the nice things about these platforms is you schedule those. Automatically to, to go out. As soon as somebody submits the form, you know, you're gonna set a reminder for maybe the marketing person, maybe the office manager to put in a call, Hey, let's get you on the schedule.You know, what does, what does that really look like? So that would be kind of my, my beginning of that. In addition to, I. You know, putting together some simple things, a newsletter, some content pieces, just to, just to really show people that your practice is at the forefront of dentistry. Um, that you're really staying up to date, you know, obviously on all your CE and things like that.but that they're not going to somebody who is I. Posting, right? Mm-hmm. I, I don't, that, that's not the practice that I want to go to. I want to go to somebody who is, who's really on top of their game, and I think that you can really highlight all of that through your various marketing efforts. Email is a great one because it's free, right?You can, you can always email. there's a bunch out there. My, my recommended cadence on email too is typically gonna be two to three times a week at absolute max. I would probably, for a practice. Once every two weeks. Something like that would be more of the max that I would go to. Just to stay in touch, stay in front of people, make sure that they're getting useful information, but not overwhelm 'em with any, any information that you've got going on.Michael: Yeah, interesting. So HubSpot and Pardo or Pardot you said, right? if I just got it, I'm listening to this episode. Okay, I got HubSpot now what do I do? Right. Kind of thing. Dalton: Yeah, for sure.Okay. So there's quite a few sections within, I'll use HubSpot, the As the example. That's what we use now. I think it's, it is great for, Many levels of business. So there's gonna be your marketing hub and there's a sales hub For our perspective, you know, obviously a lot more, uh, focused on the marketing hub.So you've got a few different sections. One's gonna be all your contacts, so this is gonna be people that are already in your system, existing patients, things like that. Uh, and then it's also gonna collect the new folks that as they come in, so you'll wanna set up a few normal fields just to track the things that are relevant to you, right?So, Uh, you know, for example, when somebody hits our website and fills out a form, we wanna figure out are you representing a practice? Are you a hygienist? Are you an assistant? You know exactly who are you? So you set up a few custom fields to get that right information so that you can speak to people as they want to be spoken to.Right? That's always gonna be any, uh, goal with any marketing effort. So you set up, you know, your foundations there and you can build some basic workflows, right? So if you've got your website, you put a form on the website. Okay, cool. As soon as that form is filled out, you can create what's called a workflow to say, great, I'm gonna shoot them a text saying exactly this.I'm gonna shoot them an email saying exactly this. You can use some customization tokens as well. So basically what that'll do is if they give you their first and last name, great. Let's use that in the email just to show that you know, we're listening and, and we care. Uh, and then you've got, you know, default values.Then you can also connect that to any other, many other systems that you've got. So, for example, if you use Slack, internally or something like that, you can send an alert to say your office manager to follow up with that person and, and place a call so you can place all their information there.Those would be my, my number one steps, and then you'd start to build out some email templates, probably some landing page templates, things that you can reuse time and time again as you launch different initiatives. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. So it's a lot we can do with that, right? Dalton: Yeah. It's, it's really, we use it certainly as like our, our centralized hub for all things marketing.and then, you know, as you get all of that data coming in, then you can say, okay, cool. How much are we really getting out of our Google ads? Right. And you can start to kind of go deeper and dive into how successful, uh, all of your channels are, are so far. Michael: Hmm. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So it's really good for like tracking as well and everything like that.Dalton: Yeah, most definitely. And particularly, you know, on the email side, it's great. You can take a look at any email, you're gonna see your open rate, bounce rate, click rate, click through rate. You can see what links are being clicked on, what isn't all, all that good stuff, um, just baked right there into the app.Michael: Gotcha man. Awesome. Okay, so then let's talk a little bit more about, business when it comes to dentists. So like, what can a practice owner, a dentist do today to improve their marketing or their business? Dalton: I think number one is always gonna start with the website, right? That's an area where people are always gonna pop to anytime they're considering, you know, joining or coming to your practice, as a patient.So that's, that's always where I wanna start, number one, making sure that it's at least up to date, you know, with the right information, hours, all that good stuff, but also that it has a welcoming atmosphere. I think. one thing that is, Always a little bit tricky is overusing stock imagery, right? Mm-hmm.I think that that can be something that's a little tricky. It's not gonna necessarily give people the feeling of safety and comfortability, uh, as they come in and check out your practice. And then you also wanna make sure I. Every conversion point is optimized, right? So if I'm coming to your website as somebody who's considering, being a patient at your practice, I wanna make sure that once I decide, cool, this looks great, that I can get in touch with you as quickly as possible, I.Whether I wanna pick up the phone now, I'm 30, that's never the answer for me, right? I wanna ha have multiple options. So, uh, you know, whether it's a text line, incorporating chat onto the website or just filling out a form, Hey, this is what I'm looking for, this is when I'd like to come in, that type of thing.And then even if somebody gives me a call back, I'm, you know, that understand about that. but making sure that people can really get ahold of you is something that. Is absolutely essential and is often actually overlooked. Right? We, we put so much time and effort into making a beautiful site that really speaks to the core of who we are, what makes us special, all those things.And then it's easy to forget, oh wait, we're here to generate business From this site. Yeah. Michael: For you personally, right now, let's just say you got on Delton, got on the website, practice looking for somebody, some pops up right on Google. Would you search on Google or how would you look? Go about?Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. That'd be, that'd be my first go-to. I'm gonna look at dental practices around me, right? 'cause I want something that's, you know, close proximity. So we moved two years ago to, to this specific area of Denver that we live in. And so it's exactly what I did was I hopped on Google Maps, actually is is another thing.And that's, its home, it's own whole area of ss e o. Um, but yes, Google and Google Maps are gonna be the primary way that I would try to find a new practice. Michael: Okay, so you went on Google Maps, and then you clicked on the first one or the first couple, right? And then how would you want it to go from that point on?Would you, what is the first things you're looking at? What are the things where you're like, all right, I'm gonna contact now, or I'm gonna save it for later. Lemme look at somebody else. What made you wanna save it for later? And look it for Dalton: somebody else? I'm looking for a little bit of familiarity, right?I wanna hit your site and understand, a practice halfway across the country couldn't have this exact same website, right? So actually one of the things that stuck out to me about the practice that I go to. They had this really cool, uh, initial picture on their homepage of, I think it was everybody that works at the office just decked out in their Bronco gear, right.They'd say, you know, they're, they're all about the Broncos there. Yeah. And, uh, so I was like, okay, cool. I get, I get, you know, a little bit of something about who they are without even having to read anything. And so I think, you know, being able to put, put out who you are, and that's something that we're trying to do.Temp me too is, is highlight some of the things that culturally make us special because there's inherent familiarity and comfortability that lies within that. Um, but I, I think that be personal, show who you are, show what makes you special, those are absolutely something. There are things that anybody can do and can tap into to make people feel comfortable and, and excited about, you know, coming to your practice.Gotcha. So Michael: you got on that website and immediately you booked something or were you like, let me look, let me look at. Other stuff. Dalton: I checked a couple others around just to, you know, do my due diligence. I'm the kind of person who, if I'm going on vacation, I'm gonna make a spreadsheet that has all of the different options and then rank on different variables.Right? That's, that's how I do my decision making. It's never one and done. Um, but that one really stood out to me, right? I, I felt like I understood what they were about and so I circled back after maybe looking at three or four more. Also, obviously checked the reviews, right? That's always a huge thing, uh, making sure that primarily your Google reviews are in good shape.Uh, there are a num number of ways that you can incentivize people to get those reviews, but also responded to is a good thing to look at, right? That's, that's somebody that to me is on top of their business and really caress, right? Negative reviews will happen. There's always gonna be, you know, some.Patient that you can never make happy, right? Mm-hmm. But responding to those reviews in a kind way that shows compassion, understanding, and that you're just caring about your business is, is always a great look. Michael: Yeah. And so the three to four that you were checking out that you're like, nah, they don't fit, but this is like your due diligence, what was the things where you were like, actually, what was the one outta the, the four that you were looking at where you were like, And you know what I mean?Like the bounce rate was super fast where you're just like, nah, I don't want to Dalton: get on this one. Yeah. I think the ones that I would've pointed to like that were ones that looked like something I could have made, you know, in a week. I exclusively stock imagery. There's nothing that points to this office being special.it is really cut and dry. And then certainly anybody that had less than like 4.4, 4.5 stars on Google with the, with their reviews at a good volume, that was always gonna be a huge concern. Michael: Do you check more on Yelp or on Google? Dalton: I check more on Google personally. Yeah. Okay, gotcha.Interesting. Yelp is always interesting, right? There's, uh, different components to basically any rating or review site, whether it's Capterra for software or Yelp for, you know, basically anything. there's always a pay to play component, so I'm naturally a little, little skeptical, right? I think the overall rating is usually gonna be in good shape, but I also understand that the order in which things are presented to me isn't necessarily gonna be, I.In the order of quality, uh mm-hmm. You know, the one through 10 isn't gonna necessarily be reflective of that quality. Michael: Yeah, that's true. That's true. And so then on the, on the website that you went with the Broncos, everybody, right? Like in the ones that you decided to, that's it. How did you contact Dalton: them?Ooh, that's a good question. I'm not sure I remember. Uh, I believe that I filled out their contact us form. Okay. And that's what Michael: you like? Dalton: Yeah, that's, that's what I like. 'cause then I can, you know, drop a line, particularly if I'm, you know, buying software or something like that, I can drop a line to multiple different options.See how they get back to me. To me, that's gonna be indicative of their performance as a business. And then go from there. Right. Maybe some, some offices weren't gonna be, Weren't going to be accepting new patients, anything like that. Of course, if that's the case, you'd expect a notice, you know, on the website that Hey, don't waste your time here, we're full.Um, but then go from there in terms of, you know, responding to any emails that they send me, they expect a phone call, that type of thing. Michael: Gotcha. Because sometimes, like when, I remember when I was working in the practice, like we would get a form filled out and they told us they wanted us. To call you guys.Yeah, and I don't know if that was the best thing. Would you prefer that or would you prefer like a text message or an email? What would you prefer Dalton: as an individual? I would prefer a text. I. As a marketer, my recommendation would be to hit 'em with everything you know, is, is an automated email, an automated text, and then a phone call after a little while.Right. Just to, just to give people the options with the understanding of, Hey, I'm not gonna overwhelm this person over the course of a period, but I'm gonna make sure that as they get their information that they're hearing back from me through whatever channel they might be, uh, most accessible via.Michael: What would be like the time period? So let's just say you hit 'em back with an email first. You don't hear from them and I don't know specific Then do we hit them back like the next day with a text and then if we don't hear them the third day, we hit them with a call? Or is it more like all in a 24 Dalton: hour period?Uh, typically I'd get all of them within a 24 hour period, and then that'll kick off usually a sequence. So, A good example is right now, if you come to the Temp Me website and you fill out the form there, say, say you're a hygienist and, uh, you're interested in that number one within five minutes, actually it's, it's much closer to one minute, which is the target.you'll get a text and you'll get an email just saying like, Hey, here's the link to download the app. And also here is an opportunity to speak with one of our onboarding representatives if you have questions about it. Here's, here's where you go to download or to schedule that. Then we'll, uh, we'll wait a day and then we'll send you, Hey, just checking in.We saw you had the interest, you know, is now a good time to chat? Anything like that. And we'll also have a call or two placed at that point from our onboarding representatives. And so that's sequence, we'll, we'll spread out a couple texts, a couple emails across about a week. There are a lot of studies that show particularly on more of the outbound, right?So it's not somebody coming into your website and filling out a form. But on the outbound side, it takes anywhere from like seven to 12 touches really to get somebody to pick up the phone or to accept that call, right? It, it takes time. It takes. Persistence as well. So I would encourage people to not give up.Right. There's a good reason that somebody filled out that form in the first place. Maybe they found something else, maybe they haven't. But, a flurry of touches almost immediately is great. And then some persistent touches as well. Michael: I like that. Okay, good. And then you mentioned make yourself culturally different, and then you mentioned temp me.So what culturally makes temp me Dalton: special? I. That's, that's my favorite question. are a super values driven culture, and by that I don't mean that we have anything just like plastered on the walls. Granted, we do have our values on the walls, but but the current space that we're in, we actually took over from a bank that had, the slogans put on the walls right there.like an owner, you know, be empowered. You know, these really kind of vague things. ours. We're developed when our company was like five people, and they sat down and said, Hey, what makes us special? And so they came up with this list of five core values. And so those are things that we incorporate into everything that we do.Uh, we hire by them if we ever need to part ways with somebody. We do that, buy the core values, right? So we go through and, and analyze is this person a fit based on our core values? And then we ensure that, all of the actions that we're taking are in alignment with those values. That serves as such a strong, guidepost, north Star, you know, whatever you want to call it.And then our, our founders are extremely invested in those values and making sure that, you know, everybody else is as well. Um, so between that and then setting extremely high goals and, you know, giving a, a direct pathway toward reaching those goals is a great start for building the culture that you, that you want to see.Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So what are Temp me's core values? Dalton: Yeah, so number one is called it's your ship. Uh, what this really means is, Hey, we put a lot of faith in our hiring efforts. You've joined our team. We feel like you are the absolute best person to do exactly what you do. Go run with it. You don't need to ask for, for permission, uh, even when things don't go, uh, as perfectly as you'd think.Learn from it, move on. Right? We want people to be empowered to make their own decisions. Of course, in a practice, you know, sometimes that can, I could see that going a little sideways, but for most of the day-to-day stuff, right? You're trained, you know what to do, go make it happen. Second one. Uh, hard work doesn't have to be serious for me.This is super different than work hard, play hard, right? Mm-hmm. To me, in like a tech setting, work hard, play hard is going to be, you know, you're going to really kind of hate what you do from like eight to six, but then we might throw a killer happy hour where everybody just gets super messed up, right?Like That's what work hard, play hard sounds like to me. Uh, don't get me wrong, we have great happy hours. Uh, that's, that's all fun too. But, For me, this is, Hey, we spend so much of our lives working, we should enjoy what we're doing. Both the output that you have as an individual, as well as the people that you're working with, right?You're spending so much more time with your coworkers than you are, you know, even some of your best friends in a lot of cases. That they should be people that you enjoy. So if you're not enjoying those things, number one is, is that a you thing or do we need some to make some changes at, at a cultural structural level?So that's one of my favorites honestly. number three is, is leave it better. So this one's I. Super practical. Hey, you walk into our kitchen at the office, uh, if you see a paper towel or something out, even if it's not yours, throw it away. Right? There's a, there's a percentage of people that make the world worse than they found it.There's a large percentage of people that leave it about the same, which is cool too, right? You know, you're not, you're not leaving a negative impact or anything. But then there's a small percentage of people that actually leave the world better than they found it. And I like to apply this to conversations, you know, and, and any type of interaction in addition to the actual, like physical cleaning of any space.I hope that your day is two to 5% better 'cause we have this conversation, right? I, I hope that I can bring a little bit of, uh, something interesting, something fun, you know, make your day just a little bit better because we've had this conversation and I think that that's really consistent throughout our organization as well.number four is gonna be find a way or make one. So this comes from kind of the Hannibal Barka quote of, uh, taking the elephants, uh, over the Alps to Sack Rome. I could not say the Latin version. Uh, it's out there. It's, you know, if, if you're really curious, I'm sure you can Google it, but for this is, Hey, we, we don't give up at the first thing.Right? You know, there are a lot of cool things about our platform just from a tech perspective that, you know, took multiple iterations and somebody saying, you know what? I'm not gonna give up on this until I find it. that is able to really help you achieve that next level of success, right? So we wanna make sure that people are diligent, that they're not easily dissuaded, that type of thing.And then the last one is true believer. So, we want people to be on our team that really believe that we can achieve our goals, right? We want to change the way the world works, uh, not just for dentistry, but for for other verticals as well. And. That doesn't happen if you don't believe that it can.Right. So this kind of ties into a lot of like Steve Jobs philosophy in quotes. but yeah, you have to believe to be able to succeed. So those are the five. Michael: Okay, good. That's real. I like that. I like that a lot, especially, um, I like all of 'em, but I like to leave it better than or leave it better. Right.Dalton: Yeah. And actually that one comes from a really cool story. So, um, one of our co-founders, Kerry, he grew up, well, actually both of our co-founders grew up in northern Michigan, but, uh, Kerry spent a lot of time traveling around the country with his mom in like a, an old station wagon. so Carrie and his mom and family would take a lot of these road trips and one time at a gas station.Kerry goes to throw his water bottle away, you know, physically throw it at a few yards or whatever. He misses and tries to get in the car. His mom says, no, Kerry, what are you doing? Go pick it up. And so he's said, fine, mom, you know, whatever. He goes, picks up the water bottle, puts it in there, and he comes back to the car and his mom says, no.Carrie, you're not done yet. There were, you know, a half dozen other pieces of trash right there while you're picking up your water bottle. You could have done that and you could have made the world a better place. Uh, you know, even if so slightly. And that's the kind of people that we are. So that's exactly where this core value comes from, is, is Carrie's mom and being, you know, one of those people that really strives for better and that, you know, leaving no impact isn't good enough.We have to leave a good impact. Michael: Yeah, I like that man, real quick, who's the founders of Tempe? Dalton: Yeah, so Carrie Game and Ed Thomas are the, uh, are the partners that are now running things, but we also were founded by a 30 year hygienist, Debra Simmons, who actually came to them with the idea, right? She's like, Hey, this system isn't working.You know, she, she was a hygienist as well as an office manager, and so she is like, man, I, I see the need for this. You guys, you know, are, are entrepreneurs. You've built businesses before. There's gotta be something here. Right? And so they, they worked it all out from there. Ed took it to Carrie. Carrie thought it was a terrible idea at first, actually.And then, uh, they sat down and I think they, they stayed on the phone for like eight hours that night. Just hashing it out, you know, talking about, well, what if we did it this way? 'cause I think the original idea was I. More of a scheduling app, right? Mm-hmm. Of like, you can have one shared schedule that a bunch of people hop on, that type of thing.And, uh, that, that wasn't gonna necessarily be the way, but now they settled on, you know, our, our current concept and really just have run with it from there. So, Deb isn't as involved in our business currently, but I, I know that she retained her stake and is, uh, still invested in the business, which is, which is really cool.Michael: Gotcha. So currently, what is it right now? Temp me. Yeah, Dalton: so a easy way to think about it is Uber for dental staffing, right? Uh, if you're in office, you go on, you post a shift that you've got coming up. Say, you know, your hygienist is taking a long weekend. She's gonna be out Thursday. It's Monday. Cool. I'm gonna post that, and it's gonna go automatically out to all of the relevant hygienists in your area.So, they'll get notified via their phone. It's all through the app. They get notified, they can either accept it, they can counter offer, which is a pretty cool feature, or they can just leave it be, we don't have any minimums or anything like that that they need to meet to operate through our platform.All the payments handled through the platform and, and everything like that. So it's really a quick, easy way to find the people that you need to keep your practice moving along. Is this Michael: like available everywhere, everywhere right now or is it more, you know what I mean, like rural Texas?Yeah. Dalton: So right now we're doing, uh, good amounts of shifts in 22 states, uh, every week. and then, you know, some rural areas have great coverage. Others not so much, right? It's always gonna be dependent on whether or not there are enough people to build a marketplace there. So if there's. Three offices and 10 hygienists in, you know, 25 mile radius.That's probably realistically not gonna be something that we can have a huge solve for unless, you know, people are really willing to expand their radius within the app and you know, they're driving 50, 75 miles, whatever that might be, to pick up shifts at an office. So we definitely do have much easier success in the metro areas, but it's not exclusive to the metro areas by any means.You guys Michael: vet like everybody or like what is the vetting process? So when it comes to all this, Dalton: Yeah, great question. So every person that's on our platform, every professional that's on our platform has been vetted. So from a hygienist perspective, uh, to sign up, you're gonna need to enter, you know, all your basic information, you're gonna enter your licensure information.So we'll check that, make sure there are no derogatory marks on the record, that everything's up to date, current, all that good stuff. And then we'll also require a picture of the state id. to, you know, make sure that you are, who you say you are. All, all things match up between kind of the three main areas there.Then for the assistance, it's super similar except for, licensure for assistance varies wildly state by state. So we take that on a state by state basis. You know, I think Minnesota and Texas are great examples of, they operate super similarly to hygienists for the most part. If you're gonna have, you know, a license, we can pop on, check it out, all that good stuff.Florida, our home state is super different. It's, there are three routes. You can have six months of on-the-job training, you can graduate from a program or you can pass a certification course. Right? So in those, different ways, we have to evaluate each of them. So you may have to submit some additional documentation, things like that.And then we do ongoing verification as well. So at the end of every shift, that's worked through our platform, both parties. So the office and the professional are gonna rate one, another, one to five and include comments, right? So anybody who is consistently receiving poor remarks, uh, poor scores, you know, hey, they really don't know what they're doing, anything like that.We'll have conversations with that person. Try to really get to the bottom. Is this an unreasonable ask from the office or is this person, you know, not really cut out to, be utilizing our platform? In which case, you know, we do have to restrict their access. Hmm. How often does that Michael: happen, Dalton? Like where you're like, ah, you, I don't know how you even got on this platform.Dalton: It's pretty rare. to the, I don't even know how you got on this platform. Never happens. The, that's, you know, that, that'd be the super extreme end of it. But I think the, Hey, your, your skills aren't quite up to where they need to be is probably less than one to 2% of our platform. So, you know, sometimes things come up, right.We're all humans, they're, life is hard. There's gonna be. All these external things that can impact somebody's ability to do their job, but ultimately we, we have to, you know, prioritize patient care and making sure that patients are well taken care of, regardless of who, who's in the office that day.Mm-hmm. So when it comes down to make those tough decisions, that's, what we signed up for, honestly. Michael: Yeah. Okay. And this is for all like associates, hygienists, assistants, and everything? Or is it just right Dalton: now? We've got hygienists and assistance currently, and then we should actually be rolling out associates in kind of, uh, we'll call 'em beta states here in the next 30 to 60 days, we'll call it.So there are other considerations on the associate side, right? So you've gotta have matching. I. insurance. Right? So that's, that's one whole thing that has to be in place. We're expanding our background checks as well for that side, and then ensuring, you know, that we're, we've got all of the malpractice insurance and everything that's rolled up to the associates before we roll that out.'cause, you know, missing some of those things would be, yeah, really rough. That's, that's not what we're trying to do. So that's the only reason that we haven't rolled those out already. But we're super excited to bring that functionality. We do permanent placement services for all three of those groups already, though.Michael: I was gonna ask you that, like has it ever happened to where it's like, man, I love this person and they love us. Like, can we just keep them or Dalton: all the time. Yeah, all the time. I mean, it's, we're, we exist because there's a staffing shortage, right? Mm-hmm. a lot of the time, uh, that's going to happen.And so we just ask for our buyout fee, which is typically a couple thousand dollars. If you compare it to when I have to go hire somebody from my team, if I work with an external agency or anything like that, I'm gonna pay 20% of their salary. Our fee is significantly less than that. You know, it's, it's, you know, three grand or whatever.it's, it's gonna be a much easier burden, but then it's all free and clear that office, that professional, uh, they're gonna be tied to one another. That's a W two employee moving forward and they're good to Michael: go. Yeah. Nice. So what, what are, if I can ask, what are like the major, maybe top three major cities that are utilizing Tempe right Dalton: now?Tampa is a huge one for us. So that's, you know, we're born and raised in South Florida, so that one makes a ton of sense. Uh, and then there are quite a few others that are spread throughout the country. Atlanta is also very big for us, New York there I. Honestly, quite a few where we're doing really great business.You know, I think people have really latched onto the concept and understood, hey, this is a new way to really get into what we call skill sharing, right? Mm-hmm. So, uh, even though the concept is very similar to gig work, we really shy away from that term because to, to us, that is somebody that is not necessarily specialized in the field that they're working, I could take my car, sign up for Uber, join kind of gig work right now. Uh, if, if that's something that I wanted to do, I could not start practicing hygiene or become an assistant, nor should I, but, uh, you know, we wanna recognize that these people have very specific skill sets that they have worked for.years to develop. And so in, in utilizing our platform, they are truly sharing those skills with the greater marketplace. And we wanna be very cognizant of that. So I think people understand that, um, they're excited to have a little bit more freedom with how they work, uh, ability to gain extra income, things like that.And then of course, offices need their staff to keep going. And as we've seen post covid, they're just. Quite frankly aren't enough dental staff to go around. So this type of skill sharing model I think is a great way to help bridge those gaps. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Nice. I like that. And then how does this kind of compare, or what would you say is like the, ' cause there's others, right?Competitors, yeah. So well, what makes it different, I guess? Dalton: Yeah, great question. I think we can break it up into both sides of the marketplace. Right? So which side are you more curious about? Offices or professionals? Ooh, both. I. Okay, uh, let's start with offices. One cool thing about our platform is offices don't have to pay to sign up and there's no monthly fee.We only pay on the, or we only charge on the temp side when we actually help you get a fill. So we only charge after that connection has been made. That individual has confirmed that they're gonna work at your office, all that good stuff. So, From an office perspective, it's a great additional tool to have in case you ever need any type of staffing.we also process all the payment through our platform, so certainly as opposed to, some competitors, but primarily, you know, more old school ways of like cutting a check or anything like that. You don't have to worry about any of that, which is obviously a huge positive for our professionals as well.They get their money via direct deposit. In the latest at like four days, they also have the option to get express pay. So as soon as the hours are confirmed by both parties, they get paid out. They have to pay a small fee, you know, to tell the banks to hurry up is essentially what that fee is. that's a huge perk there.another perk for our offices is that they can post up to five shifts without having to pay anything. You don't even have to enter your credit card information. So, You can really get a feel for if this is gonna be something that's gonna be beneficial for us as well as, you know, the, the provider quality is extremely high, particularly as compared to, you know, more traditional temp agencies where, you know, most of the, most of our providers do have a current full-time job.There are people that are at the absolute peak of their profession that are just looking to pick up a little bit of extra work around the sides. So with that, you know, you're getting somebody who can come in, who's gonna take great care of your patients, who's gonna be, you know, more than likely a joy to work with around the office and is the epitome of a professional.So those are kind of the, a few of the key areas that we offer for the offices. You know, there's tons of ancillary stuff like it's. Extremely easy to use, right? Mm-hmm. It takes about 45 seconds to post a shift that, that you've got open. as well as we've got some market rate guidance baked into that.So based on your area, we're gonna kind of suggest are you at a hundred percent of the market value rate? Are you under, are you over? That type of thing, which really, you know, is a nice little coaching tool for offices to know what they really should be posting yet. 'cause sometimes it doesn't feel like it should be that high or that low, it's a great way to keep people in line.On the professional side, it's, it's all about freedom, right? Mm-hmm. So we don't mm-hmm. Have any restrictions or anything like that, uh, baked into our platform. Professionals can use us, they can use other apps where whatever's gonna make the most sense for them is highly encouraged by us. Right? There's no minimum.So if you want to work a shift that pops up on your phone, then great. Grab it. That's amazing. We're excited. We'd love to have you. Uh, but if it doesn't make sense for you to not work or to pick up any temp shifts for six months, a year, whatever that might be, then cool. Don't you know that we, we don't feel like we have, uh, any foot to stand on to tell people what to do.And so we, we really want people to be able to make their own way in life, and we really like to break it down into more solid terms around the money that they can make. So, Across the nation. You know, a temporary hygienist full day shift is gonna net you 400 to four 50 bucks. So hey, you pick up one shift a month.Cool. That's a car payment. You know, that's saving up for a vacation. These are really tangible things that we believe and see make a big impact on people's lives, and that's part of the reason why we do what we do is to see that impact and, and to see them be able to live a little bit better life.Just because they work through our platform is, is really cool. Michael: Yeah. Nice man. Okay. Awesome. So really, really great benefits. Features too. But benefits, right when it comes to professionals and also the office. Dalton: Absolutely. And I should add one more thing is we put a huge emphasis on high touch with high tech.So, you know, the platform is high tech. It's easy to use, it's great it operates, you know, as, as it intended, all that good stuff. But we've got a ton of real people that make temp me work. So whether that's. Uh, professional that's coming on. There's a team of onboarders that are just dedicated to making sure that all of their questions are answered, right?We understand that this, you're using us full-time, part-time, whatever, this is still employment, right? This is where your money is coming from. We understand that that's not always gonna be the most comfortable thing to just sign up for an app and start accepting shifts. Right this, there's a lot at stake.It feels like there's a lot at stake, so we wanna make sure that you hear from real people, that you have the opportunity to voice Any questions, concerns, anything like that? I. And then it's also very much true of our customer success team. It's a large team of some of the kindest, most helpful human beings that you've ever encountered in your life, so you can access them.We've got very expanded hours, even though we're on the east coast. Uh, typically, you know, you can, you can reach us from seven to seven is, is typically what we say. And then, you're gonna be able to reach them by text, by email, by phone. There's a bunch of ways to make sure that you get what you need.And I think that that's actually a huge differentiator for us in the marketplace. Michael: So I like that, man. Yeah. it does come down to that like, we want convenience, we wanna reach out to people, we wanna be able to fill out that form. Text, you know what I mean? But when it comes to us wanting to complain or do or find somebody, we're like, I wanna speak to a human.give me, you know what I mean, kind of thing. And so, or when we're having a hard time with something, sometimes we're not all tech savvy, right? Yeah, absolutely. So we do wanna speak to, to a human right instead of like, um, zero now and then talk. So I like that, man. Interesting. Now these next questions are just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry, uh, every day.What would you ton like to see more from a dentist?Dalton: You mean just from a, a business perspective or specifically if I'm visiting the dentist, things like that. Let's do both. Okay. from a business perspective, I think that I'd like to see. More particularly private practice owners, really tapping into that sense of community that, I think a lot of us grew up with. Right. You know, I think about the dentist's office that I went to, growing up. I grew up in a small town, and so I went to the same dentist for basically my entire, you know, childhood life, you know, from three to 18 or or whatever it age it is.You start going to the dentist, I don't even know. Really tapping into that from a marketing perspective, I think is extremely powerful. And I think that that's one of the areas that private practices can win in a market, you know, that we're all aware is, is largely being consolidated by, by DSOs. So that's one thing from a business perspective that I would absolutely love to see.from a, you know, patient perspective, I really don't have any complaints, man. I, I think about, you know, all my, all my experiences. I walk in. Everybody at the front desk is extremely happy, welcoming, friendly. The booking process is smooth. You know, there's so many tools out there. If you go to a trade show these days and just wander the exhibit hall for a little bit, you're gonna just be inundated by all these platforms, tools, whatever, to make your business run more smoothly.And I think. Plenty of offices a

Eric is giving all of our listeners a 30 Day Free Trial! Just type in the coupon code "TDM" at the end of onboarding and you'll receive this exclusive offer!Click this link to get started! https://www.joinordo.com/‍‍Guest: Eric AppelsiesBusiness Name: OrdoCheck out Eric's Media:‍Website: https://www.joinordo.com/Email: eric@joinordo.com‍‍Other Mentions and Links:HPSP ScholarshipBank of AmericaWells FargoInvisalignHenry ScheinDarbyNet 32Open DentalGoogle AdsPositioning - Jack Trout and Al Ries‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Acquiring an already established practice can be tough when it comes to updating systems and processes!When hiring, be sure to utilize your internal team members and their connections.Try to hone in on 1 or 2 marketing tactics rather than all of them at once.Always have great communication and expectations set with your marketing team.Having an identifier on your phone calls for new and existing patients will streamline your patient acquisition.When ground marketing, make sure you attend the events your target demographic will be at!‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Eric Apsey. Eric, how's it going, Eric: man? Doing well. How are you doing? Pretty Michael: good. Pretty good. If you don't mind me asking, Eric: where are you located? I am in Denver, actually, in like the suburbs. Michael: Okay, nice, nice. It's gonna be good weather out there for here for like the rest of the Eric: summer or?Yeah, I think we've heard it's supposed to be, I've read something that was supposed to be hot, but also pretty wet, so it's been a weird, we actually had a pretty, our winters are normally pretty mild. I've been out here like maybe five, six years. This last winter was a rougher winter in terms of snow, and it's been a little bit yeah, it's been a little bit wetter of a spring too than normal, which, you know, like everyone says, you know, you could always use rain, right?I feel like that's what everyone always says, but yeah, I mean, it's normally. Pretty dry here, so it's not a bad thing. So, yeah. Michael: Oh, okay, man. Awesome. So let's jump into it. Let's, I'm gonna ask you a couple questions, all right. Mainly based off of your marketing. So number one, could you briefly introduce your dental practice and the demographic you primarily Eric: serve?Yeah, so I actually, I have two dental practices in Denver. One's in like the kind of south metro area. One's in like the North Metro area, so maybe 30 miles or so apart. Both of them are de Novo offices. The one down south opened in 2017, the one up north in 2019. And the demographics that we primarily serve at the one down south it's a little bit more of an established community.So we see. More adults, empty nesters, not quite as many children. And then up at the north location that's more of a growing and emerging kind of area. Lots of new builds and stuff like that. So we're seeing a lot of younger families there too. So we tend, we tend to see more kids in kind of family age at that location.How Michael: far apart are they normally? Eric: Like those practices? Yeah, about thir, about 30 miles. So, I mean, it takes, depends on traffic, right? But yeah, it can take anywhere, say around 30, 35 minutes apart. Michael: Was that always the goal for you? Like, I want two practices, or was it, I it just started happening.Eric: Yeah, I mean initially, so my, my little backstory, my wife is also a dentist, right? We met in dental school and everything and we always kind of wanted to have at least a couple offices. we love the dentistry part too, but we also like the idea of building our own stuff as well and being able to like create our own vision with our dental practices.So we always knew we kind of wanted multiple ones. And then, I mean, one nice thing is my wife actually was the one that kind of started up. The one down south and was kind of the main driver in there, was the one up north. I was too. So, I mean, kinda the reason we were able to do two is there's just two of us, right?Mm-hmm. So we were able to kind of divide and conquer. So, yeah. Oh, okay. Gotcha, Michael: gotcha. so for you, was that always the goal? Like, I wanna do my own practice? Eric: Yeah. I mean, so my journey was after I graduated dental school 2013. Right. And then I ended up doing like a scholarship with the Navy, like the H P S P scholarship.And was in the Navy for four years until 2017. During that time my wife and I had actually bought kind of an old Practice from, you know, an old dentist that really wasn't doing much and kind of fix and flip that. So we had done an acquisition when I was in the military and then from that experience we had said, you know, there were a lot of, there's a lot of challenges with buying a practice that doesn't have like good systems in place and you're just getting it kind of just cheap.So that kind of made us realize, hey, maybe if when we do this again, cause we weren't gonna stay in California where I was stationed, let's look in doing our own thing and doing it from scratch so we can kind of like, you know, create our own vision. Michael: Gotcha. Shit. What challenges were there that you can just think of right now where it's like, man, I don't know, like for acquisitions, if somebody's like, Hey man, I wanna do an acquisition, the first things you wanna let them know Eric: is what, My only experience is buying a practice. So like it was, I think the practice was doing maybe like $360,000, right? It was an old dentist who needed to retire for, you know, certain medical reasons. And so that's my only experience there. So I don't really have any experience if it was like a, you know, a 2 million practice or a really, you know, well ran practice.But from that, The one pro was, yeah, it was really inexpensive to buy. So like going out and getting a bank loan from B of A or Wells Fargo was pretty easy. Right. But it comes with a lot of challenges. Cause you know, obviously with the practice not being that strong of an office. From a production standpoint, made it challenging, more challenging with staff, right?When you wanna put your processes in place. They'd been there for 30 years, right? So we had a lot of challenges. The dentist wasn't honestly the greatest to transition with. There were challenges there too. So even though sometimes I think if you were doing an acquisition and you were trying to do something like we were, where it's like, Hey, I'll buy a practice that's like a cheap practice that looks like it's a gem, right?A lot of times there's a reason that it's a cheaper practice to buy and it wasn't doing well. So, I mean, there, yeah, there were a lot of challenges. So that, that, like, from that, I would say that's You can go into it and do it. Just don't expect, just because it was cheap that it's gonna be like easy at all.It's gonna have a lot of challenges with it as well. Michael: Yeah, I always hear it's like the team where it's like really hard to bring them on board and stuff like that. Eric: Yeah, definitely. Just because like I said, so the other challenge is we did that when, what my wife and I were like, Late twenties. Right. So, you know, and the, the, the team that was all there were in their fifties.Right. So it was a challenge. It, it is a challenge when you're trying to transition from a dentist who's older, had been there forever, the team has been there forever. And then, you know, the new owners or new doctors come in and they're the age of like, That those team members' children, right. So mm-hmm.It was very challenging to get them on board and get that level of respect. that was probably a big challenger. Right? Yeah, Michael: no, definitely, definitely. I get you. Okay, so then number two, in which category would you place your practice? Was it urban, suburban, rural, D s L, private practice, solo, docker, et cetera?Eric: So let's just start the one down south. So that's in a, it's in a suburb area, right? A pretty well established suburb area. It's private practice, right? Cause my, my wife and I own it. There, we have one associate dentist there right now, and a couple hygienists. It's mainly a general, it's a general practice.All the docs that work there are general dentists, but our associate is great with, you know, kind of being a. The super general dentist, right? Like mm-hmm. Enjoys doing third molar extractions, sedation some root canals adult ortho or aligners. All that kind of stuff.So it does help us that we brought on associates who like to do a lot more than I guess what you would typically say a general dentist would do. And then the other location up north. I'm working there. I have another associate doctor that works there as well. Same thing, private practice. And kind of suburb area, but like a growing suburb area.So like a lot of residential, but not really a lot of commercial spaces there yet. So that, that's been really, I'm, I'm glad we kind of made that decision where we picked that location. It's, it's worked out well. And same thing he likes to do, you know, he had gotten the G P R, so he got extra training, which was great.So when we brought him on, he already was comfortable with, you know, all extractions, third molars, sedation, kind of the same stuff as the associate that we have down south. Gotcha. Okay. Michael: Well, how did you find your Eric: associates? kind of a good story. So, the first associate we had just kind of put an ad out, right?And he had reached out to us that he was graduating from his G P R and was moving out to Denver. So, met him, had a, you know, great interview, brought him on, and then my office up north had been growing a lot and this was probably 2021, beginning of 2022. My practice up north was growing a lot and just to expand services and do some of the things that I didn't do as a dentist, I wanted to bring an associate on too that had a wider scope of what they wanted to do.And so my associate down south. he had a friend from dental school who was finishing who was actually working out here had finished his G P R at the same time as that associate down there. Was working a job and just really wasn't that happy. And so it was kind of like an, like a, I didn't have to do any marketing or I didn't have to go through LinkedIn or reach out to people because we had a good relationship with this associate down south.He pretty much said, Hey, I have a buddy who is looking for a new job. I went to school with him. I already know him. It's good. He's a good guy. And so, you know, we were able to bring him on. So, I think that just showed finding, you know, good associates, building good connections with them. That was great that we were able to find another associate just internally, right?Mm-hmm. Versus having to go out and interview a bunch of people, and that's worked out great too. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. So you kind of, you, do you always leave it open like as in the sense of like you let your associates know, or your team know like, Hey guys, we're always looking for applicants SMAs or no Eric: on for associate?It probably just depends on, it's all in like capacity issues, right? So right now it, both offices we're pretty like stable where we're at and still growing. But I haven't hit that next point to where. I'm having such a hard time getting patients in for months and months and months that I need another producer right now.I think it's, like you said, it's always good to just keep the door open and just say, Hey, we're continuing to grow. We want to grow as we do, we're gonna need more providers. So, if you know people like, always share the word about your experience here. But like actively all the time.No, and that's just based on like I said, we're pretty stable on the providers we have. Gotcha. Michael: Okay. Good man, that's awesome. That's a great way to, uh, you know what I mean, continue to get like associates, especially like, you know what I mean, within your own internal team. Eric: Yeah, yeah. It was great. Cause they all, they already knew each other, right?So when we do meetings and we do things with them and help them grow, it's nice because they already had an existing relationship and so it just, it just creates a really good environment. Michael: Yeah. No, no, no. I, I agree. So then what has been your experience with different marketing companies and which strategies have proved to be the most effective?Eric: Yeah, good question. So experience with different marketing companies. I think probably a lot of the same challenges that a lot of the listeners have here too, you know, I've had as well, it's, marketing. I feel it is such a soft science, right? And it's very easy. To get suckered into companies who we promise you X amount of new patients in this time or your money back, and it's very gim.It can be very, very gimmicky. okay, so going back to the beginning when we had the practice back in California, right? We just kind of did some research, went and saw who had good reviews, marketing agencies picked one who promised kind of the world, That didn't really get delivered after, we noticed after a few months.And so we're like, all right, well that's not really gonna work. And so we had challenges even then when we moved out to, Colorado out here. You know, we had gone through two, three different marketing companies that, first, everything seems great. And then push all these different kind of avenues to grow and do all that.And then when you start trying to track things and figure things out, you're finding that you're maybe not getting the same returns that were promised. So honestly the thing that's really worked for us recently is kind of just going back to the basics a little bit. And so the current marketing company that we use, We're just honing really in and from like a, a digital perspective of just doing Google Ads, making sure we're ranking really well, and that we have really good reviews.We were just finding, with when tracking right on where our new patients were coming from, so many of a majority were coming from, Hey, you guys, you know, rank high and you guys had really good reviews, And that's what everyone was saying. So we listened to what our customers were saying.That's how they were finding us. And so we just kind of doubled down and really focused in on that. And it made it a lot easier because we didn't, now, we don't have, now, I don't have to track direct mailers like I was in the past. I don't have to do as much ground marketing as I was in the past and track all these different things.We were able to just hone in on a couple things, make sure they're done really, really well, and it's worked Michael: nice. Okay. Right now. Could you tell us the name of your marketing company, Eric: the one you're using right now? So I use a guy who is based overseas actually, and it's his name is eSSH.He works with a lot of general practices, works with DSOs as well too. So yeah, that's, that's who I'm using. And that was just from internal referrals from other friends. But yeah, and I haven't really seen a drop off. I mean, at first you're kind of scared sometimes cause you're like, oh, you know, you're outsourcing stuff and you're outsourcing it overseas.But, honestly, the cost has dropped down a bit and I've seen no drop or possibly even a little bit of an increase in the number of new patients I've seen. So, you know, I was hesitant at first, but honestly it no complaints. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. When it came to the marketing companies that promised the world, how long did you stick with them?Eric: Yeah. I mean, you always wanna stick a little bit, right? Mm-hmm. Like, you don't wanna be one of those people that just switches after a month or two. We would give it a good, say, six months to a year. Especially because a lot of them, we're pushing direct mailers, right? And so in the beginning we used direct mailers a lot.Like that is what we did. It's expensive. Mm-hmm. And, the whole proposition on that was, well, you know, you gotta hit the consumer three, four or five times with like, same messaging, all that kind of stuff. You gotta put, deals in for place for them, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, you do get calls for 'em.So a lot of times we would wait with a marketer to at least do that first round of direct mail because we didn't wanna like commit and then back out halfway through. But I mean, usually within a first, the first few months little red flags we would notice were, that they weren't tracking the KPIs for us or any type of roi, right?Mm-hmm. On what we were getting. You know, communication was poor. It was almost like they spent a lot of time trying to get me. And then once they had me as a customer, it was kind of like just, okay, now we'll push 'em off, right? Mm-hmm. And so those were some red flags that I had noticed were just, yeah, it was, it was great in the beginning, but after a couple months you're like, all right, well this guy's not responding anymore.You know? He used to respond every, you know, and within 30 minutes and now it's a few days, and so yeah, those are some of the red flags I kind of noticed. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then how much budget do you typically allocate for your marketing Eric: activities? Yeah, so budgeting, like I said right now, because we're really focused in on just a few things.Our ad spend, it is dependent on where you live too, right? Mm-hmm. And how expensive, AdWords are and stuff. But we're spending anywhere from like, say two to three grand a month in ad spend and then just a management fee. Um, That's pretty small to the marketer that I use. So maybe all in for each office we're spending maybe.Three grand at one, four grand at the other, say. And we're seeing on average, say 60 to 80 new patients probably for each office which, happy with. Michael: Yeah, that's really good. So you're getting around a month, 60 to 80 Eric: new patients? Yeah. Each office. Yeah. Got it. Like for e not total. Each office gets between that.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael: So like in total it would be like 160 kind of thing, Eric: right? Like yeah, probably anywhere from, say like, One 30 to one 50 if you averaged it. Probably around there. Yeah. Okay. Michael: On can you tell your highest months? Yeah, I knew we got that much cuz we were spending, or we were doing this or we were doing that, or, or you can't really tell.I mean, Eric: I'm trying, so I was looking back at that our, our biggest month ever was, we've had a couple times that we've gone over a hundred at the location that's up north. Some of that has been, it, it really wasn't that we spent more in ad spend that month. We just had a lot of openings and we had a lot of open capacity at the office.So kind of the issues that I'm starting to run in now is, you know, I'm getting say 60 to 80 new patients, but, just based on the size of the office. a new patient calls, we always try to get 'em in within the week, but I mean, we're starting to book out more so in my head we, I could probably get more new patients in.I'm just running into a capacity issue. So the reason I was able to see a hundred that one month is we just had a lot of openings in that June for some reason. And so we were able just to fill in tons of new patients there. So the positive. From that on my perspective is if I feel like I pushed it harder and either, extended hours or opened up a new operatory, did something like that and created more space to see more patients, then I could, probably get even more new patients in.So yeah, that's probably why we had that higher number. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So it was more slots open, available in the schedule. Exactly. Exactly. Interesting. Okay. And then how equipped is your team in converting calls into actual Eric: patients? I feel like we're pretty good with it. I've made sure to train my team to always answer the phone.And one thing that we've actually done, which is a I forgot where I had learned it, but it was a good little nugget of information that on our phone system, right? When someone calls in, they, you know, it says, Hey, welcome to our office. If you're a new patient, press one. If you're an existing patient, press two, right?Mm-hmm. So if they press one and they're a new patient, the phone will ring longer. It'll go through, I don't know, four or five rings, right? Whereas if it's an existing patient, but it'll go for a shorter period of time. That way, my whole team knows if the calls ring longer, like it's gone through its third ring or its fourth ring, hey that is 100% someone who's calling to be a new patient.You gotta drop what you're doing. You gotta answer that phone. We cannot let that go to voicemail. Right. We need to answer that. Yeah. So we implemented that system in place and so my whole team knows that. Hey, even if I'm doing something else, if I hear the phone ringing and it's still been ringing for longer than normal, I gotta pick that up cause that's probably a new patient.Right? Cuz like all of us know those new patients cost money, right? We gotta put marketing efforts in to get that. So, my team knows to do that and that's a little trick we did to get them on board to answer that and then, We have a, just a very simple paper intake form that just has some basic questions on it that kind of directs our team on what to ask for whether, just a.New patient appointment for a checkup and cleaning, or if it's a limited exam, right, they need to come in for an emergency. If it's a new patient exam, we make sure we build our schedule out that we can get them in within the week, right? Because you don't want a patient calling and saying, oh, well we can't get you, you know?And we say, Hey, we can't get you in for three weeks. They're gonna find somewhere else. Or they'll make the appointment and then not show up. Right? So we make sure we have capacity in our schedule to be able to see them, within a decent timeframe. And then if it's an emergency, one thing I have told all my team is we gotta get them in same day.You know, we don't need to promise that we're gonna start treatment on 'em, right? But we can at least get 'em in to address their concerns and figure out what's going on. Patients really appreciate that, and that has created a lot of goodwill within our community that patients know they can come in and see us.We've had a couple patients who call in for emergencies because the dentist down the street or wherever they normally go, can't see 'em for three days. We get 'em in the same day and then we convert them over to our practice. So it's been a great way to, gain more patience by doing that. Michael: Gotcha.Okay man. So then they basically fill out that new patient form real quick and then bring them in. Eric: Right. Yeah. We have 'em fill in. So everything else is pretty much digital in the office, right? Mm-hmm. So when they fill out that intake form, then it's my scheduler's job or whoever has, whoever's taking the call to find time within our schedule to get them in.We'll try to get, you know, basic insurance information, all that kind of stuff so we can make the appointment go a little more smoothly when they come in, right from that perspective. and then, yeah, they pretty much just, they, we'd get 'em in. Michael: Gotcha. Awesome, man. And then could you elaborate on any unique.Ground marketing or outta the box strategies that have been successful for your practice. Eric: So when we did, because our practices were startups, right? So I feel like in the beginning we had to try to get creative, cuz you come in with no pa, no new patients, right? So, and you don't have, your website isn't built up, you don't have a ton of good reviews, all that kind of stuff.So a lot of the things I'm doing now is a byproduct of. Time, and being able to build all that. But in the beginning, yeah, some of the ground marketing I did and was, we went to all the apartment complexes that were nearby, you know, gave gift, either gift baskets to the people working there or asked to drop certain, flyers and different things in there new mover baskets that they'll give, right?Mm-hmm. To new tenants coming in. And saw some decent results with that in the beginning. I don't do that anymore because it's not, it's not really needed because we. Built up the new patient flow to where it needs to be. But in the beginning, man, you gotta kind of just grind, right? So, I mean, we did that, you know, I went to the towns we're in, they have like festivals, every summer.And so we took a booth out, wore our swag that we had and just, had 'em. Play like a game to win a prize. Then we try to get their information in, you know, as long as they put in their information, then we try to reach out to them later to try to get them to schedule. One issue we did see with that, and it's probably just dependent on the market you're in and where it is is my office is, don't take Medicaid insurance, but one of the festivals we were at, it was a heavy A lot of people who were there, used Medicaid for their dental benefits.And so that didn't work that well for us because, I mean, we didn't really know what the demographic was gonna be, who was gonna be at that, right? Like, there's no way to know that. But that was one good learning lesson is, the, the audience we were targeting wasn't the audience that was at that, mm-hmm.Ground marketing kind of event. Right? Yeah. But you know, I've thrown around tons of other like, kind of ideas, but it kind of goes back to that first point that I had was. initially I think you gotta do some of that ground marketing, but one I think you really hone in and focus in on, you get good reviews, right?As fast as you can. you get really good marketing company that can just build your rankings and build a really good modern website. That's good, that's easy for patients to use. we use a software that has kind of like a local med right, where the patients can schedule online to make it convenient for them.And we just really focusing on building those few things really well. And it's allowed us to kind of step away from having to do all this ground marketing that we, you know, in my head I'm like, oh, this is gonna be huge. Right. Because a, that takes a lot of time too. Mm-hmm. You know, my time, team members time, right.I gotta pay team members to be there, whereas, I have to pay for the Google ad, but don't have to pay for a team member to be there. So, we've definitely pivoted more to just, like I said, focusing in on those few main things and it's, it's been good. Michael: Yeah. The Pareto principle, right?Like you're focusing in on the this pretty good, pretty good. Exactly. Exactly. Have you ever faced a situation where the promised results were not achieved within the expected Eric: timeframe? Yeah, I mean, yeah, kind of like I alluded to earlier, you know, the one good thing about the marketer that I use now is it's pretty straightforward. Easy to get in touch with. I kind of know I, expectations are good, but yeah, in the past, so like, for example, the previous marketer I used. Before this one was a local marketer in Colorado. He was a de dental specific still, right? Like I still reco, you know, I'd still recommend you pick a dental specific marketer, right?Mm-hmm. he had all these huge ideas on what he was gonna do every week. It was, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, and then nothing would ever come to fruition. So that was kind of frustrating. I also found out, cause I had some friends that were clients of his as well.And they, you know, we'd talk and they'd say, Hey, I'm doing really well with him and, we're doing x, y, and z marketing things. And I was like, well, those never, how come those never got mentioned to me? I'm only 15 miles away from this other office. Why? Why is he telling them and not telling me?So I'd have to go back and say, I just talked to my friend, they said they're doing this and this with you. Just how come we're not having consistency here? Like everything's kind of all over the map and not organized. So, that was kind of frustrating as well, where I felt like I wasn't getting at least the options to know everything.Right. so then direct mailers too, like we used those in the beginning. And those, those did work for a bit, but then kind of tailed off and didn't really give us much of an ROI after that. But those were, those cost a lot of money and, sometimes marketers I think would promise, a certain result from those.And then when we would track it, we're like, well, we got like a third of that. Right? Like, Hey, you're gonna get. I'm just throwing random numbers, like you're gonna get 20 calls on this and we'd see like six. Right. And it would be consistent. So I think a lot of times, A lot of times I think it was just over-promising and underdelivering.Mm-hmm. Right. Or with rankings, previous marketer, I used two before this one. That's helped me boost my rankings, All right. How come rankings aren't where they're at? How come I'm still ranked like 20th and there's 20 dentists in the area, right? Why am I at the bottom? feel like we've got good reviews, we've got a good website, all this stuff.Oh, no, no, we're working on it. It takes time. It takes time. three months later, Hey, I'm still 20th, man, you know? Are we working on, oh, yeah, no, no, we're working. We're good. Next month. I'm at 19, right? See, see, we made some progress. Now we're at 19 and it's like, All right. Well, I mean, I'm paying you every month.Like I'd like to see some, possible, some quicker results. What do we need to do that? I'll do what you deem me to do. Just tell me. And so I think we were running into issues where it was just a lot of that Right. Just, you know, mm. Not being able to deliver. Yeah. Yeah. Michael: That's true. I feel like especially the SEO game, It's like that, where they're like, oh, you gotta optimize your website. You gotta piss optimize. You're like, well, whatcha you doing every month to really optimize this thing? Yeah. Paying a fee all the time, you Eric: know? Yeah. And it's not meant to try to be negative on it. I get, it's a really soft science, and I'm not a marketer, so I don't understand all the workings of it, but I think the issue is, is when.The promise or the expected delivery is we're gonna get you on the first page within X timeframe. What would happen is that timeframe would happen and it wouldn't happen. And so then I think as like Dennis, like us, we say, okay, well I just paid you X amount of money with the goal that we would get here.We're not here. And then it was always like a new excuse of why it didn't happen. So, I'm happy with, who I've got now. We've been able to deliver on the results and it's been good. Michael: Awesome man. So who you got now? The marketing company or the guy who's doing your, your marketing right now.What specific actions have they undertaken for you? Like, I know you said they're doing your digital or Google ads, and then at the same time seo, but specifically like what do they recommend from you? Or what they, would they ask for you? Eric: Yeah. Yeah. So for me, I'll use Slack, like, I don't know if you've ever used that app.Right. Just to communicate. And so we'll communicate on there. in the beginning he came through and he's like, Hey, I need to, like every marketer, I need to reoptimize your website. Right? So, you know, he went through and he told me, Hey get me a video here. This'll help if we put this here, I wanna put a call to action here.Here's the reason why I need some photos of this, this, and this. And so he would just gimme tasks of what I needed. I would send it to him, and then he would do it. Right. And that's, and we communicate mostly through like Slack, which is kind of nice. And then in terms of ads, a lot of it is, when I do meetings with him, it's, Hey, what do you, at your practice, what are you looking for right now?Right. Do you wanna see more emergencies? Okay, let's push Google Ads. Here's some of the recommendations that I have for ads that we do. Look over it. Tell me if you're okay as well with how it's worded, right? Because we wanna make sure things are worded how we want, right? Because to make sure there's not any, like either errors or we're saying something that we can't promise on, right?So I, I like to just do a quick double check just to make sure, or hey, My associate wants to get more into uh, clear aligners, right. You know, like Invisalign kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. And he'd say, okay, let's make a, let's make a landing page and try to put an offer on there.This is what I'm recommending what do you think? And I look my stuff and say, yeah, we're good. So he is like, all right, we're gonna drive traffic to here, and then it's gonna push them through to your site and then they can schedule. Right. So we kind of just are a little more collaborative and we kind of talk about that stuff and then, it's pretty basic.He just tells me what he needs and then he does it right. Which, sometimes, I think we think things have to be complicated for them to actually feel like they're good. And sometimes I think there's a lot of genius in people that can take things that. Are complicated, make 'em very simple and then just make 'em work, right?Yeah. And that's kind of what I've been finding with this marketer. So it's been good. Nice man. Michael: Awesome. Awesome. And then can you share any other strategic changes apart from marketing that you implemented and found to contribute Eric: to your success? So apart from marketing, For us, I think what's helped attribute our to our success in general and being able to grow both the, startup practices I feel like pretty strongly in a, in a relatively short amount of time.It's just having systems and processes in place, right. I kind of had to learn that the hard way. between the two of us, my wife is way more of the systems person, way more of the organized person. Mm-hmm. Hold people accountable. And I tend to just be like the fun one who just comes to hang out.Right. And so there's a lot of cons to being that type of person. Right. Especially when we had our first child a few years ago and she had to step away from the businesses and, then it was all on me to kind of. Take over it. And you know, I knew all the systems, but you know, I wasn't following 'em as much and I didn't track to make sure they were being done.The team kind of noticed I was, not doing my checklist of stuff I had to do in a, and then they stopped. Right? And so it caused the practices to kind of, dip a little bit. And so I kind of had to, Think about all that and kind of have a little heart, heart to it myself and say, Hey man, you got two options.Like we know these systems work. Either need to do it and be the leader of it or don't, and then they'll continue to dip. So once I started following more of our, you know, our systems for how we order our systems for, how we track lab or all that kind of stuff, right? That comes into a practice.Once I started actually. Holding myself and other people accountable to that, then the practices starts to, to get going better again. Right. And doing well again. So I would think the one thing that really contributed and contributes continuously to our success is just having systems in place and making sure that we're following those systems.Michael: Okay, so having systems right now, if you can think about it, what are like one or two systems where you're like, man, we created it. It's a unique system in our practice. We love it Eric: and it's amazing. Yeah, so that's great. I mean, probably for me it's probably all ordering stuff. Right? And then I'll, this kind of goes into, how I ended up creating a software company too that's based on.Like an ordering system. Right. So, little bit of a backstory. So when Covid hit right, it hit all of us as dental offices, right? We were all shut down. It was mandated, you know, some longer, some shorter, but in Colorado we were shut down for six weeks unless it was like a, just a straight up emergency, right?So, say mid-March to beginning of May my wife and I were just home, right? And we brought the office phone back to our office at our house. And we were just answering calls and we kind of said, all right, well, you know, since we kind of have to bootstrap this, the entire staff was furloughed, right?we'll take calls when we're not doing that, what are we gonna do with our time? Like, we had a little kid at home, but like when they're sleeping and stuff, it's like, we're not just gonna sit around and watch tv, right? Like, how can we, how can we actually like take this negative experience and make it positive?So we said, all right, let's look at all of our different processes, What are we doing? Let's look at our systems, let's review everything. So we started to go through all of our different systems and. We had gotten onto ordering and you know, we had a spreadsheet and everything and it was good. It was organized.And at that same time though, I realized that I had to order, right. Usually my assistant ordered, but my order, my assistant's not working for me. So, we were looking and we were trying to find the things that everyone was trying to find. Right. All the PPE you're trying to find. Yeah.Gloves, masks. You know, you've got, I had my Henry Shine tab up and I had my Darby tab up and my net 32, and then some random supplier in like China or something, right? Mm-hmm. And you got all of them up and you're trying to figure out, I need to get this kn N 95 max. No, no, no. It needs to be a level three.No, it needs to at least be this. Right. And then with gloves, but we need, you know, I wear larges. Oh, they only have extra smalls, right? And they're like, crap, okay, what does Darby have? What do they have? And one second, it's in stock. Then you press add to cart and it's now it's unavailable, right?And the prices are skyrocketing and there's all these issues with this. And so we're like, man, this is kind of tough. We're like, I wonder if there's like a better way to, outside of all this covid stuff, just to kind of order in general, right? Mm-hmm. Cause we were seeing all those challenges.So the idea for the software company we created Ordo like O R D O was born and so, They kind of first just started out as an idea to just take all of those vendors that we all use and just have 'em on one platform because, it's so annoying to have to click between 10 different tabs and, compare prices and do all that.So at first, the tool was just built out as a way to link all of the vendors that you have, put 'em on one platform. You search for an item, like if I was searching for Septocaine, right? I press search and then I can see. Septocaine, I can see all the vendors I've linked. I can price compare right then and there in real time.these are all made up numbers, but shine's numbers, it's, it's 45 bucks for Shine, it's, it's 50 bucks for Darby and it's 55 for net 32. Okay, well I'm gonna pick Henry Shine. It's in stock and it's there. So that's where that idea was born to just make it a lot easier for dental offices, assistant office managers, whoever who's ever ordering to be able to just.Place their orders and then it's grown, right? So we went from there and said, all right, well how else do you continue to build out an ordering system? Right? You gotta be able to track your inventory, track your budget, all that stuff too. So we've built out additional features where you know, you can track your budget.In real time so your team knows where they're at. You don't have to have a spreadsheet for that anymore. with inventory we can track all of your orders on one platform from all your different vendors. You can check to see, if it's shipped, you can click on the tracking link to know when it's expected.So pretty much from start to finish, you can order supplies and track all your inventory, which is great. We let users keep their current. Prices if they're part of a buying group, they get to keep the current prices they have with them. So, doesn't create an issue. And then we've even, sorry, I know I get excited about talking about this.No, it's good. It's good. Feel free to stop me if you need me to, but no. One other thing that we did cool that I feel like differentiates us from the other people in the space that are doing something similar is we've actually linked up directly with open dental. Right. You know how their softwares will do that as well.You know, there's a way where you can link your open dental account to Oro and we can first, we can pull all of your budgets automatically. So we'll just take your, you know, monthly report that shows your production or collections, and we can sync it straight into Oro and then it'll update, every month.So your team doesn't have to manually put in all that stuff again. And the other thing that we did that's really cool with Open Dental is we created a feature called FutureCast. And what that does is it allows us to scan your schedule on open dental, either a week out, two weeks out, just you know, certain timeframes into the future.We can compare how many of a certain procedure you have compared to what you normally do, like historically. So like for Example that actually happened. My associate had a ton of extractions scheduled in the following week. He had a full mouth case. He had a thirds case. He had a ton of just single teeth.He had like 30 more extractions than he normally does. That's what we figured out by running future cast. And so what it did is it allowed my assistant to be really proactive and she said, Hey, look, The doc here is doing 30 more extractions. Do I have enough bone graft? Do I have enough sutures?Do I have enough membrane? Do I have enough of the things I need, or my doc needs to be able to do these procedures so it's not Monday and we're scrambling to try to get stuff, you know, next day air sent over. So she was able to be proactive about her ordering. And it solved a huge issue. It was a super smooth week.We kept production. We didn't have to reschedule patients, you know, and everyone got, what they needed to get done and there was no stress then because she just was able to be proactive. But yeah. Cool. Yeah. So, yeah. That's nice man. Pretty Michael: excited about it. Yeah. And this is going live when?Eric: So right now we are just, we just got out of beta. We're doing kind of a soft launch with a few other offices just to kind of work out some final kinks on it. But, our goal is, June 1st, we're gonna start kind of doing a little bit heavier of uh, bringing on some more offices.And then July 1st is when we'd like to be full steam ahead, anyone can join on. And yeah, just go from there. So yeah, we're real, we're really, really excited. A lot of work development takes a long time, but it's definitely been worth it. It's been great. Michael: No man, it's gonna be exciting stuff.Awesome. So we'll talk about that a little bit and especially the exclusive offer you have for our listeners in a bit. But one of the last questions I wanted to ask you is, as a practice owner, what advice would you give to our listeners regarding effective marketing and ROI Eric Applesies DRAFT-cm: tracking? Eric: Yeah, that's a really, really good question.I was kind of contemplating and thinking about that a little bit it kind of goes back to what I've kind of been talking about throughout the podcast, I feel like is. Eventually just once you've got your practice established and you're good, just going back to the basics a little bit on what you're doing with marketing, right?And this is just from like the last year of when we've just kind of gone back to keeping it simple. And I think I tell a new practice owner, Hey, in the beginning you gotta go hard. You gotta ground market, you gotta do whatever you can. You gotta hustle, right? To get those new patients in.Cause you're, you know, if you're a startup, you're starting with nothing. And if you're a transition, I mean maybe not as much cause you maybe already have new patient flow. But I would say it's really just go back to the basics. focus first and on. If you're doing an acquisition, check to see what your reviews are like.If they're not where they need to be, get 'em up. Right? Use a company that does review management, right? There's a ton of 'em out there that'll help make it easy for you, right? Mm-hmm. Build up your reviews. 90 plus percent of your patients it happens every time I tell 'em, or I ask 'em, how'd you hear about us?It's always, you guys had amazing reviews. Right? And they're not just, you know, at our office, we just don't have a five star review with no. Like comment underneath it that the user left, it'll be a five star review and it'll say, I had a great experience. You know, Dr. So-and-so was great. The assistance were great.It's a long response. And potential customers or patients love to see those. So I would say build reviews, build them as fast as you can, and make sure they're quality reviews right. Focus in on that. Focused in on getting a marketing company that, doesn't try to over promise. If they're trying to over promise on stuff and like, Hey, we're gonna make you first in the rankings and all that, it's probably a red flag cuz I don't think they're doing something that's special that another marketing company can't.I have not been convinced yet that there's some special sauce that some market one marketing company has that other ones don't. Right. So, I don't see a lot of difference between them in terms of that. I would say, Get a really good website, make sure it's modern. Something that people wanna see, right?That users don't feel like. Cause if a, if a website feels old or it's not working, then they probably attribute that to your office, right? If it's modern, it looks new, it's clean, it's easy to use, you can schedule online, then you've created a smooth process for them before they've even seen you. So they have the expectations subconsciously in their head that my appointment is gonna be smooth too, right?So make it easy for 'em. And Yeah, and I, I'd say yeah, focusing on, focusing on those Google ads have worked really well for us. They're very hands-off. Once you have 'em running, you don't have to think about 'em. I found more of the marketing that I don't have to think about and just gets done and it gets done effectively.Frees up more time for me and it's less things I have to think about. So that's why I like those as well. But yeah, I would, I would say focusing on those things. Michael: Awesome, man. I appreciate your time. And real quick, where can people find out more about Ordo at the same time? The exclusive deal. All that stuff.Eric: Yeah. Yeah. So our website, it's join ordo.com. Very easy process. Once you go in you can check out the website, kind of see our vendors we have on there kind of see all the features that we have. You can onboard straight from the website, which is great. Onboarding takes safe five to 10 minutes, and then you're good to go.So, very easy as well. And yeah, so the offer that I wanted to, you know, give all the listeners here is just the first month free, That way it gives everyone a chance to use the platform, love it as much as we do. Make sure it's a good fit and everything. And if you just use promo code T D M and you put it in to the end of onboarding, there'll be a spot.Then it'll apply and you'll be good. Michael: Nice guys. So you're gonna get a month for free. Check it out. Taste it, right. Feel it. It's interesting. But future cast is really, really interesting. You know what I mean? Like everything's really great. But that to me, I was like, oh, snap. Eric: Yeah, we're really, and honestly it was through a friend who was like, you know, I was giving, I was just asking some friends about it, and he was like, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this?And I was like, yes, that would be amazing. We should do that. And so, yeah, we built it out. I, I really, I'm really, really excited about that feature. I feel like it's something that hasn't been seen before and it's gonna provide a lot of value to practices, so, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Michael: definitely. Awesome. Eric, thank you so much for your time.If wanted, if anyone wanted to reach out to you, where can they find you? Eric: Yeah my email is Eric e r i c, join ordo.com. So feel free there. And yeah, I'll I'm happy to answer any questions for you. Michael: Awesome. So guys, that's gonna be in the show notes below, along with the exclusive deal and the Ordo website if you guys want to go check it out.And Eric, thank you for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear Eric: from you soon. Sounds great. Thanks for having me.‍‍

Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer SocietyJoin my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/[Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍‍Guest: Mary Ann PruittBusiness Name: Mosaic MediaCheck out Mary Ann's Media:‍Website: https://mosaic.agency/Twitter: https://twitter.com/mediaMAPsLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryann-pruitt/‍‍Other Mentions and Links:MeatEaterNetflixGoogle Pay for ClickBing Pay for ClickHuluAmazon Prime VideoDr. ClarkSuperfans - Pat Flynn‍‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Can you answer 10 questions about your target audience? This will help narrow down your marketing efforts.Don't be the turtle in a recession, do something to stand out from the competition!Outsourcing to a professional in marketing with save you valuable time and money.Having a specific strategy partner will help bring your marketing plan together.Make sure content you put out always speaks to your target audience.Social media platforms are NOT for targeting, they are for branding!‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: it's time to talk with our featured guests, Marianne Pruitt. Marianne, how's it going? Great. How are you Mary Ann: today? Michael: I'm doing pretty good. Before we pushed record, you were giving us a lesson real quick on where you're located. Where are you? Mary Ann: Where you from? Yeah, so I live in Anchorage, Alaska.I'm not originally from there, but I live in Anchorage, Alaska now. We are a media firm that is covers the entire country. It's just, I just have the amazing benefit of being able to live in Alaska. Michael: I know I got really into Alaska when I was watching Meat Eater. I don't know if that Oh yeah.Netflix. Yeah. I mean, they're in Alaska all the time. Real quick, if you can let our audience know. Two quick facts about Alaska where Mary Ann: you're from. Two quick facts. The state of Alaska is almost the same size as the continental us. If you were to take the state of Alaska and put it in the middle of the continental US, it would touch coast to coast.People do not realize that and top to bottom. Oh wow. So Alaska is huge. Another quick fact. We are the more what number one ice cream consumer per capita. So who knew that? And then one more fact, we have more pilots than any other state per capita as well. Oh, wow. The Michael: ice cream wine.Mary Ann: Interesting. The ice cream one. Right. Number one highest consumer of ice cream. So you would think you love our ice cream? I, I think it's the lack of vitamin D in the winter, but maybe not. I don't know. Oh, okay. Maybe this is the theory. I think we just like our ice Michael: cream. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Awesome, Marianne, I appreciate that.If you can tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are today? Mary Ann: I'm an East Coast girl originally. But I actually started in marketing and in media at a very young age. So I was 16, 17 years old. I started on the graphic design side, believe it or not.And this was before everything was digitized, so you had to take an actual picture, scan it in, use it that way. And that's actually how I got into marketing. I worked in a tourism shop for a while designing various gadgets for tourists and various things along those lines. It was a lot of fun, but I fell in love with media at a young age, getting into media and doing media, planning and strategy and all the above, and I was very fortunate to get into it really young.So I worked my way through college. Was able to find the fact that I loved marketing and economics, and that's amazing how that goes with media and especially in today's world cuz we are all data nerds. When you are into economics and when you are into media, you have to understand and love your data in today's world.So, the economic side of me definitely in the statistical data and all those things, I'm definitely a stats nerd. I absolutely fell in love with that so, I started my firm a little over 12 years ago and really focus on media. That's all we do. And we got into programmatic media early and that's where we are now of being able to be one of the leaders in programmatic and being able to offer those services to multiple, multiple different brands and multiple verticals.Michael: Real quick, rewind a little bit. Marketing and economics. Break it down to us. How does that go? Hand Mary Ann: in hand? It, it's so funny cuz you don't actually think that it does Uhhuh. I did my thesis on recessional recovery. On the economic side. Well, guess what? And the, one of the key things of recovering from and being a company that is recovering from a recession, Is actually your marketing plan and the two go hand in hand, and we don't think of them going hand in hand.We think, okay, marketing's over here. Economics is over here. Well, both of them are in the business sector and both of them are in that umbrella. If we actually bring them together, the knowledge that you learn in and I, I call marketing the marketing bridge. So we have all of our different pillars, everything from your name, from your website all the different things of your clients being able to find you and your potential clients being able to find you.That's your marketing bridge. Well, media is one of those pillars and in economics, and if I look at that side of it, statistical data. Is a huge part of economics. That's what you're studying. You're studying statistics, you're studying that, those pieces of, especially in a recession various recoveries, various things that you can do with it and what better to go together.Media is in marketing and the statistical data falls into economics and marketing as well, and that's where you have that bridge. But you have to have that bridge for you on your marketing has to have all those pillars filled and economically. We need to look at no matter what. And a lot of people are accidental business owners.They go into a career off of something totally different. They either want to be like you're listeners, they wanna be a dentist, they want to be a medical practice, but they're never taught actually how to be a business owner. And when you think of it as having that. Bridge with all those pillars. The economic piece is there too, because depending on how the economy is doing globally and locally and nationally that's gonna be how your business is gonna do.So what can you do? What are tactics and strategies that you can do headed into a recessional prospect or something that's gonna take place? Michael: Oh, so what are some things we can do? Because we're like, in that situation coming in, a Mary Ann: lot of people are So, key thing first, own your space. What is your, what is your niche?Where are you, who's, what's your vertical that you're gonna be in? But huge piece of it is also, so know that audience, know your audience and get to know it better. And when you get to know your audience even better to that level where you can list 10 things about who your ideal customer is, and you can have that full line out there to be able to do it, you will be able to strategically build content that will reach them.You will be able to have your ad buys be more strategically done. One thing that I think is really imperative actually, especially in the dental space, in the dental practice and the medical space, is that we don't actually think of media as being a positive necessarily paid media specifically, because, you know, if I'm good enough as a dentist or if I'm good enough as a doctor, I don't necessarily need to have media.Right. But no, in reality in today's world, you have to have that presence out there. So how do you, how do you start building everything that you can to recover recession, even before recession starts to happen? Start building content to your, to your audience. So know that audience. Start building content to the audience and strategically start doing paid advertising with it.I call using the paid portion of it and the paid media side of it as leapfrog. So you're gonna wanna do your ppc. So that you're showing up on searches, you're gonna wanna do some programmatic targeting. So programmatic targeting, cuz a lot of people get confused on what programmatic is. Mm-hmm. But programmatic targeting is it's a bidding process.When I start in a media, you used to do an R F P and say, okay, TV radio station, gimme what your rates are, put the plan together and go from there. Now it just automates it where now I don't have to get a rate card from a website. I go in and I'm bidding on the individual. That I want to see the ad. So I'm bidding on that impression and I'm able to target that impression based by my audience.So the more I know my audience, the more I can bid towards that audience and bid for that impression specifically to them. And the more first party data you have, you can also target in that manner. Do you know who, do you have email list? Do you have things that you can really target with? Do you have addresses that then we can do IP targeting with?There's various things there. So. The one, the very first reaction of recessions are happening and recessions are about to happen. Mm-hmm. Is everybody just retreats back in and is turns into turtles and we're like, we're just gonna hold onto everything. Mm-hmm. And in reality, this is the time that you can play leapfrog and actually go above your competition, stand out a little bit more.You just have to be strategic at it. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So programmatic, you mentioned something called R F P. What Mary Ann: is that? Yeah, an RFP is request for proposal. So that would be, that was, that's the old school way of doing media. There's still ways that we would do it where you you need your television, you need your radio print, outdoor, but a lot of that's starting to move into programmatic, so you can start bidding outdoor programmatically, some TV and some radio.You're bidding programmatically as well, but, some of the old school ways of doing it. If you need those traditional platforms, which I'm a big believer that traditional is not dead. Mm-hmm. We have traditional and digital and you ha you just need to know how to do the two together. Michael: Gotcha. When it comes to traditional marketing, what falls under that Mary Ann: in your eyes?So, tv, radio, print, out of home, those are the ca billboards, various things there. Buses that falls into traditional, except for now, programmatic wise, we're able to do a lot more with that, with digital billboards and digital things that are out there that we can bid to be able to actually programmatically bid that as opposed to having to do it on the traditional front.Michael: So how can we use both? Mary Ann: here's the key thing. You need to use both. Mm-hmm. So again, I'm gonna go back to get to know your audience. Who is your audience? Who is it exactly that you want to reach? And we're gone in the day of thinking of just a demographic. know in a dental practice and various things that you're thinking, I just, everybody is my.Ideal client, right? Because everybody has teeth. Well, okay, but who, when you see your patients come in, who do you know is that sweet spot client? Who is that person? That is the individual that you go, okay, that is who I want to duplicate to have in my chair all the time. Somebody who, who is easier going, maybe has a full family, that you're gonna get multiple cleanings a year out of.What is it that you want to do there? Who is the decision maker in the household? What are the things that are taking place? Identify clearly who you want and then from there you're gonna be able to strategy reaching out into all of these different audiences that you're looking at. But it's not a demographic anymore.Okay, so we're not looking at adults 18 to 50 fours who are reaching No, because I am gonna reach the 18 year old differently than I am the 54 year old. I'm going to more strategically say I would like to target women who are mothers at the age of 35 to 45, have two plus children in the household who maybe are employed as well have, you're giving those persona.Identifications as opposed to just a demographic, a wide net, you're actually narrowing it down into a persona and an individual targeting system that you're looking at. So Michael: can we come up with a plan for, for that, like specifically the example you gave us, like, well, let's just say the patient I want is.The family, right. But I'm gonna target the, the mom or the woman. Right? And from that point on, she's making maybe like, you know, she's the other working or together as a household. They're making 150 k plus they have two children. What now do I do as far as when it comes to traditional and digital? I.Mary Ann: So would I would a couple of things here. So unless you as a practice are investing in the multiple tools to know where she is, I would find a great partner. So there's a difference between a partner and a vendor. A vendor would be somebody that really goes into that is a TV station, that is a radio station.Those are great people. I love 'em. They're great people. Nothing bad there. However, in this type of targeting, You want a partner that is similar to like our, our firm, where you come in and somebody can outline for you and help you. You say, okay, here's my ideal customer, and then. You're looking for a strategic partner at that point that can say, okay, then I can help build out your plan for you, and here's your strategy, here's your plan.This is where we're going, and we're gonna base it off of what budget you wanna spend. Various things there. So there's that difference. Huge difference between the fact of having A vendor and a strategic partner. Strategic strategic partners are night and day. They're gonna be part of your team.That's how you should be seeing them as part of your team. So when you're building this, you're looking at, okay, I wanna build my, plan towards a woman that's 35 to 45 years old. So I'm gonna look in that. She has, she's a family, family of. Four plus, you know, hold household. She works, this is her household income.On the programmatic space. I'm actually going to be able to target based off of her income, based off of family size, based off of which neighborhood she lives in, which neighborhood she doesn't live in, what kind of car she might drive. That might be something I would put in there. Various activities.Is she a gardener? Is she. Does she like to run as a hobby? Very. Is she outdoors? What types of targets would I look at? That I know her hobbies are you don't have to go that deep. You are fine to not, you want to know who she is for which in which you're trying to target. So the family of four, the age range where she's gonna be.So I'm gonna actually build a model about this persona. Mm-hmm. Find out where she is, find out where she's going to be, and then from there I'm gonna figure out the programmatic tactics that are gonna work best for her. I'm gonna make sure that we have our p c, our Google and our Bing taken care of there on that front.So if she's searching for us and she's looking for a new dentist, maybe she's even new to the area. And that's another layer of something that I wanna put in there. And making sure that it, when she's Googling, she's able to find it. And then on the traditional side. So that's all my digital stuff.I'm gonna look programmatically, where is she? Where is it display? Is it video? Is it connected tv? What is she gonna be on? A lot? And I will tell you right now, she will be on streaming. So look at TV in that manner. And then I'm gonna go over here on the traditional side. Where is she gonna be? Now that's gonna depend on the market that I'm in.So it's gonna be varied. And this is why a strategic partner is also important because they will have access to ratings. They will have access to information like in your market in Los Angeles. I'm gonna have access. I have access to all the numbers. I have access to all the information that I need to have.To see who's watching what, who's listening to what, what billboards have the most traffic, what various things, what's the best place for me to place it. So in that sense, depending on the market, TV's probably not going to be your best option unless it's a live event that she's gonna listen to and watch.Okay. But live events mean local news. It means sporting events, various things. If her kids are gonna be, if if there's a live events that kids are playing or things like that, then she might be a part of that. That's where your TV's gonna come in. When it comes to radio, that's probably where you're actually gonna reach her the most.So you wanna make sure you have your digital portion. That, that's where you're reaching her the most. But then you're gonna back it up with your radio to make sure that she's getting high frequency over and over and over again. Cuz believe it or not, local radio is still very highly consumed and people listen to it.People love to, especially women during covid, we saw starting to turn to local radio to find out. what the counts were in their county, what were various things that they needed to know? What were the new regulations? And these are habits that developed over such a quick period of time that kept going, that their habits are still there.So radio's gonna be your best option. And outdoor, those are gonna be the two key things that you're gonna bring in with that. With that digital plan as well, because you wanna make sure that you have high frequency and that they're seeing, they feel like they're seeing you everywhere and they're hearing you everywhere.It's an omnichannel approach, but you don't have to have the budget spread so thin that you're just condensing it into one area and you're making sure that your digital and your traditional are working together. Michael: Hmm. So it feels like, man, they're everywhere, but really it's just targeted. They're going after that specific person now.Real quick, how do you get that information when it comes to like, oh, okay, everybody in, I know all the ratings and stuff like that. Is there a place or you have to subscribe to 'em, Mary Ann: you have to pay for 'em. Um, So that's why having a strategic partner is really important because you're having to subscribe, you're having research tools, various things we use and utilize.This is all we do, right? So just like you would not want me put a filling into your tooth because I'm not a dentist. You don't want me to do that, right? Mm-hmm. So as dental professionals, You guys don't need to do the media. You don't need to think about that side of it or that strategy side of it.Outsourcing it actually probably will not cost you any extra money to have that portion of it. So if you're looking at having strategy, having various things, your return on investment is so high, but also the actual placement. There's various ways that it's actually not gonna be, it's negligible in comparison to you doing it yourself.When you think about you, let's say you're a dentist that's owning, that owns a practice, and your time and your team's time, that is going into your marketing or your media. That's a return on investment where they can be in the office doing other things. They can be doing it. They can be in the office focusing on the patients, making sure that that portion is there.Outsource that part and find a good partner that you can trust and be a part of and work with, because that's where it goes hand in hand. That's where you need to know in today's world, collaborating together is the best way to get the most outta your business plan. Michael: I like that. So then when it comes down to this, let's just say, Startups, right?It's like a super lean budget. And then they're like, Marianne, like, you know, I want to, I wanna do this. My budget is like bare, bare minimum. Yeah. Can we still do that or Mary Ann: no? Absolutely. And you should. So, knowing and starting even with a bare minimum budget, you should be looking at what are my marketing efforts that I'm gonna go into it.You have to see it as an investment because if you are a startup, your brand recognition is zero. Nobody knows who you are. Nobody knows what you're doing. Nobody knows what your specialty is. Nobody has a clue, right? So you have to identify and know, all right, I'm going into this as a startup, I need to make sure that I am building a plan there.Even if it's minimal, you'll wanna make sure that you're investing somewhere. So, that's again where a good strategic partner comes in because they'll be able to help you and say, okay, hey, how do I make sure. That I'm doing what I need to do with this budget. Here's this budget, this is what I have set aside.What can I do with it? But that's where a good strategic partner will be able to say, okay, here's a few options for you. It's not necessarily just cookie cutter. This is the only thing for you. It's making sure that there's a few options. Michael: Okay. I like that. And now, Maybe this has happened to you before, but you know how sometimes you're like, this is my target, this is who I want to get.You get them, but then, you know, other people start hearing Yep. Maybe not in that age range or anything like that, and then they, they come in and you're like, oh, I love this type of patient too. Yep. Different generations, right. Is there a specific type of marketing for that? Yes. Or do we have to change it, or how does that Mary Ann: look?No, no. In fact, you don't wanna change it. So you want to stay steady where you are. And I called that your baseline plan. So that's your baseline targeter and who you're targeting. So you're, you're gonna target this baseline plan, who is your ideal customer? From there, you can have multiple targets and multiple personas that you're looking at.So if you start to see, hey, This audience segment is actually influencing the family as well. And now I'm growing as a firm. Now I'm growing as a practice. I actually have a little bit more money that I can invest in this target as well. So it's a layer. So you're gonna start with your foundation, and especially if you're a startup, start with that foundation and then you're building to get to that point, right?And you're gradually adding things to it. When you're marketing and your media budget start to shrink back. As a practice, no matter how long you've been in, you really need to look at that and assess it and decide why am I wanting to shrink back? Do I think that it's actually because I don't need any more customers, that I don't need any more patients?Well, in reality, you actually, the longer you've been around, the more you actually are going to have to promote to get new customers and to get new patients. You have to keep it going. It's not something that is a set and forget it, and it's not something that you start and pause. You actually need consistent branding and consistent media out there for you especially in today's world and especially with how many competitors you will have in a market.Michael: Mm. Gotcha. Okay. I like that. And then I know like a lot of the times we tend to, you've seen it, right? Traditional has been evolving into like what it is now, digital and things like that. People are on social media and you know, all these other platforms and everything like that. Is there a specific one where you're like, Hey, look, you need a focus.Everybody should be focusing on this media right now, at least, or is there a best one? Worst Mary Ann: one, each one has its strengths, right? So it depends on its goals. You're looking at traditional, I talked about traditional, a little bit of what the strengths are there. TV you're looking at live events.That's where your strength is. If your target audience is men, television still is pretty highly consumed by men. Mostly in the live sports arena, and that's where you're gonna be. Although we see an increase in female numbers too with live sports. So across the board, that's where you're gonna see that.And then in radio it's more informational. So your weather updates, your traffic updates, those types of things that you're gonna see that are key for you to be a part of in radio. Now when it comes to programmatic, right now, you, no matter what, you need to be looking at programmatic, you need to be looking at Google p c being p ppc, very sync.So, paper per click and seo. That's what you need to be looking at. But programmatic is where that is the future of media. That is the future of how we're consuming when I started my career, well over 20 years ago. Programmatic was not an option. Obviously, it wasn't anything that you could really do.You had, your f. Few options. It's pretty much four. That's it. And that's what you were gonna buy in every market. Now you have so many options of what you can do and go after and target. So programmatic is definitely something that you need to be looking at. Social platforms, I'm going to say this as loud as I possibly can.Social platforms are no longer a targeting tool. Social platforms are a branding tool. Overall brand recognition period. Do not try to use it as a targeting tool. There is no longer availability or possibility with cookies, with various things on Facebook that you cannot target the same way you can. We can do lookalike audiences, various things there on social media.Mm-hmm. But that's not a targeting tool like it used to be. Programmatic is now your targeting tool. That's where you want to use. You're targeting and that's where you wanna use your focus, not social media. So each one has its strength, each area has its strength. But if you're not doing something digitally, you definitely need to refocus and do something digitally.Hmm. Michael: Okay. So when people say sometimes, cuz there's a lot of types of like. Influencer marketing on social media, then people I know we, we know a couple dentists who they say like, yeah, you know, my new patients from like Instagram. That's more cuz of like brand awareness Mary Ann: or It is. It absolutely is. So it, there is nothing wrong with that.And there is nothing wrong with influencers. We do a lot in the influencer space. There is nothing wrong with that. You just wanna use it correctly. It is not the same targeting tool that it once was, and that's what you need to think about it. If you have first party data, if you have emails, you have various things there.Algorithms are gonna show how things are targeted to that and what. In that sense where the algorithms are gonna pick it up, but you as a marketer are not gonna be able to use it the same level that you've done before. When and when I'm talking targeting, I'm talking like the multiple layers of targeting of who my ideal customer is.Not just broad, I'm talking very, very in depth. That's where programmatic comes in space now, and that's where that it's starting to take over in that area. Instagram's a great place for you to be and if that is where you're getting most of your customers, great. keep budget in Instagram, keep budget on Facebook.However past that, add programmatic for that additional targeting of that customer and where they're gonna go. Again, it's that omnichannel approach cuz now I'm able to actually target them in even further and to be able to go down that path with programmatic. Michael: Okay, so you said use it correctly. Social.What, what have you seen where you're like, oh my gosh, you're using it super, not even good. You know what I mean? What are the pros and cons Mary Ann: of that? So you wanna make sure, again, you're thinking brand recognition more than you are. Very specific. Targeting and who you're, who you're looking at, but your content still needs to be specific to who you wanna talk to.That's where, so yes, it's overall branding. However, your content needs to be driven to that target audience, no matter what platform you're on, because if they do see it, if they, if it comes across their path, that's where that targeting. Message point comes in. So when it's done poorly is when it's a very broad message.Mm-hmm. As opposed to a very targeted message, meaning your message itself is talking to a specific person. Even if you're using a broad platform or a branding platform when it's done best videos work really well, more than still images. We know that, we know statistically speaking. And 15 seconds or less is what you wanna do.And what you can look at too, if you are doing videos, if you have that kind of content that you're putting out there, absolutely. Look at adding a programmatic pre-roll layer to that, or a connected TV layer to that, because that's where you're gonna target your audience. Audience even further. Michael: Okay?When it comes to tv, especially streaming, how expensive is that? Mary Ann: So now programmatically when it comes to streaming, that's how you're getting streaming tv. for the most part, so you do have your local TV vendors that you can still work with that are various things. I would actually suggest not buying programmatic through them.I would suggest finding a strategic partner to buy it through that has a direct seat on a d s DSP and that you're able to use use that instead. The buying directly through the vendor, your cpm or cost per impression, is usually, typically higher and not necessarily, as quality. It can be, but not necessarily.So when you're buying it on the programmatic side, you have a little bit more controls of what you can do, but you are buying it by the impression. So it actually buying streaming TV can actually be more affordable than you would think. Specifically. If I'm gonna take a step back and not talk just tv, connected TV or O t t, which is over the top television. If I'm looking at pre-roll, that's actually more affordable than people realize or recognize. So those are 15 seconds, 15 second ads that are gonna run before another ad or are gonna insert site an ad. Right. So pre or mid-roll. And those are the ones that you also need to think about. It's not as expensive as you would think.Digital has allowed it to be more affordable that we are able to build budgets based off of what your size is. Based off of what kind of budget you have to actually make it a strategic plan no matter what size the budget is. Michael: Oh, actually, okay. So that would be like Hulu, places like that, right?Cause I don't know if, does Netflix even have commercials or no? I don't know. Mary Ann: Not yet. They'll, they, so you have your Amazon Prime, so you've got your Hulu, you've got your Amazon, but you also then have, if you're a direct seat on A D S P, you have anything that's streaming all the various.There's tons of streaming outlets that are out there. Michael: What, what does D S P stand Mary Ann: for? D S P is demi demand side platform, and that is the bidding capability that takes place. It's literally, software and automation that allows you to bid in the programmatic space. And it's, it's very expensive to be, to don't.As a dental practice, I would not suggest you trying to do it yourself because, and find a partner that is a direct seat and that's a question that you wanna ask. Are you a direct seat? And that way you have that capability of having that team because it's a good couple million dollar investment to be able to do that.But you wanna make sure that you have that that capability because then you have somebody, if they've built their team correctly, they're optimizing, they're doing various things for you on your behalf every day. Michael: Wait, so it's a million dollars for the practice or no. For you, Mary Ann: for the, like, you, so, so to be a direct seat is not, it's not.It is not cheap. It is, it's okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. So find a partner that's a direct seat. Mm-hmm. As opposed to you trying to do it yourself. Yeah. I would assume you'll, you'll take advantage of the fact if you don't, if you don't have a large budget, and even if you do have a large budget, but it's not in the millions and we're talking millions, not just a million, we're talking millions.If it's not in that category, then you need to think about what kind of strategies you wanna have in partnering with. Being able to get that done. Plus you have to have the team on top of it to optimize and to be able to do all the bidding and to be able to do the work. Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Cause I know, yeah, especially if you're starting up or anything like that, it's not gonna be in the millions, right?Like the No. Mary Ann: Correct. And nor should it be. You don't need to be in the millions. Um, So find a partner that is that direct seat for you that is able to, they take their volume. So if you work with us, we take our volume and we, we do. Millions and tens and twenties and you know, we are over a hundred million at times.That's what, kind of work we do in placement. So take the advantage of our millions and be able to place. Mm-hmm. So take advantage of how much we are placing. On behalf get on our backs of being able to negotiate that for you and use our leverage overall of what we're able to do, as opposed to you trying to spend a couple thousand dollars to be able to get the same kind of leverage, you're not going to.Michael: Yeah. But I appreciate that, Marianne. I appreciate that. Like we can tell you, this is who my, this is who I wanna see. Right? And then you can kind of create something and then say, this is the routes we need to go through. Instead of me going like, I want. You know, Google ads and then at the same time, I, I want social media marketing and they're like, okay, it's gonna cost you this much and this mu, you know what I mean?Kind of thing. Yeah. It's a different Mary Ann: approach. It's very stressful actually. So when you are starting a practice, especially a startup, but even if you're mid practice, if you're a few years in and you're looking, okay, we're about to hit a recession, I need to revamp and rebrand, whatever it is I need to do or just retarget of where I need to be.Having a strategic partner that can outline all of it for you is better than you going, Hey, social media person. Hey Google person. Hey and hey, programmatic person. Hey TV person. That's stress on you and your staff, where that can be you providing more services to your patients, your staff, providing more services to your patients.It's more efficient and it's, it's be, it's offering better efficiency for your patients, but it's also a better investment for you to be actually working with a partner to get it done as opposed to distributing it and, Just you trying to keep track of all of it or having your own in-house person. The other piece is having your own in-house marketing person.That can be a benefit. However, at the same time, you wanna make sure that you're, you're still doing your media practices and the media things that you need to do because you're gonna lose your audience. You need to stay consistent in that, your in-house person needs a strategic partner in media.Media is very specialized today, and you still need that in-house partner for your media. Michael: Yeah, I agree. So then what can a dentist do today to improve their marketing? Mary Ann: So first, evaluate it, look and see where it is. If you're a startup. Make sure that it's included in your plans. Make sure that you market the media portion of your marketing plan is there and make sure that there is budget set aside for it.But if you're, if you're a practice that's been a practice for a couple of years, make sure that you reevaluate regularly. So look at it and say, okay, every year, what options do I wanna look at? What do I wanna make sure I increase? What do I make sure? Where has my audience shifted? What are various things that I need to, I do, I have my foundational audience and I need to maybe add some layers on top of it.So reevaluate. Find that partner that can help you evaluate, find that unbiased and treat that partner like they're part of the team. That's the key thing. A lot of times that relationship and where it doesn't go as well is when you're looking at the partner almost like, oh, you're just a check. I have to cut.Mm-hmm. And in reality, don't think of it as just a check. You have to cut it. Think of it as that's what's getting customers and patients through my door. That is a funnel process that's taking place and. You, if you feel, eh, that's just a partner, that's just, that's not a partner, that's just a check. I have to cut, reevaluate that relationship as well.Reevaluate. I want a partner, I want somebody who I feel good about it, but also make sure that you have an open heart to have a partner with it. Not to just say, Ugh, you know, and have that, make sure we're your mi your mindset's in the right place. frankly, Dentists have a huge opportunity in their media and their marketing.Mm-hmm. Huge opportunities because there's a lot of targeting that you can do based off of dental habits based off of various things in the programmatic space that you can look at and say, you know, where are, what are some things that they've done habit wise over the last year, a couple years that we can target.There's blueprinting where you can even target. Competitors locations for ads to be served about you. When somebody walks through a door you can also use blueprinting to track people coming into your door. How do, how are they coming in? How is that happening? So on the digital side, there's so many options and dentists have huge amounts of options in that space.Michael: Okay. I like that. It, it is interesting you say that. I, I always wanted to know, like from the agency side, from you, especially working with practices and things like that. Where do you see the ball being dropped when it comes to like, Hey, you know what I, and then they may, I mean, maybe it could be the agency's ball or maybe it not, you know what I mean?So where do you see the ball being dropped? Mary Ann: So I think the ball is being dropped when in. I can completely understand this because I'm a business owner, right? And I'm running a business myself, and at times as the business owner, which you as the doctor of the practice, if it is your practice, you're the business owner.And sometimes we can be distracted by the business portion of it as opposed to, okay, what is our marketing? Which at the end of the day is what drives our sales and gets people in the door. So when you have that meeting with your partner once a month, once a quarter, whatever it is, that's set up for you.Take advantage of that time. A lot of times where the Dr. Ball is dropped is when the dentists or whoever it is that's marketing just sees it as the marketing meeting for the month where that person is only answering to them of telling them, updating them. No. Take advantage of that partnership time of the, I'm thinking this, I'm thinking this, I'm thinking this.Take advantage. Have notes. Be prepared yourself, not just them. Be prepared for you. Now that being said, On the other side of it, if they're coming to your marketing meetings and they're not prepared, they're not showing reports, they're not showing insights, they're not showing you things of what's been taking place, you need to evaluate that relationship as well.So there, it's both sides of the coin here, but you have to do multiple things, um, to be able to do it. You as the doctor, need to be prepared at that marketing meeting to ask tough questions and to write them down, because in between, from meeting to meeting, you will have thoughts, oh, I need to talk to so-and-so about that.I need to talk to 'em about this. Write them down. Have a marketing list and a media list for your partner and for your team. And then when you're in those meetings and when you're in there, you're prepared, you're ready to go. And you can say, okay, I was thinking this. I was thinking this. I was thinking this.And you'll get that collaboration back and forth. So where I see the ball drop the most is doctors that are checking the list as opposed to wanting a partner that will collaborate with them. Find that marketing strategic partner that's going to collaborate with you and work with you. Take advantage of that.When they are sitting there for that meeting with you, take advantage of the fact that they can collaborate with you. Michael: Okay, I like that. Now these next questions are just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry. What would you Marianne like to see more from a dentist?Ooh. Mary Ann: So I think where I see it go well is where every dentist, I think mm-hmm. Wants it to be, well, I go to Dr. So-and-so and I'm not going anywhere else. That's Dr. So-and-so where you trust them so much that they're not, they are not gonna switch. Mm-hmm. Where they don't wanna see is the sale is hard on them, right?So they don't wanna see, Hey, you're a new dentist that I've never gone to. I'm here, but now all of a sudden I have. Four cavities and I need a crown. I'm very confused. Where six months ago I didn't need any of that. Can you explain why? So you have to approach if there's a need and if there's something that is there.Automatically people kind of question things. We are, we as human beings analyze, we overanalyze, hence actually why media consumption is at an all-time high. Because in Covid we analyzed everything and we wanted to gather information. That's what we do to survive, right? Mm-hmm. But in this case, When you, when I can trust my dentist for anything, I don't care what my dentist is like.I have that kind of a relationship personally with my dentist. Mm-hmm. No matter what he says to do, I will do it. And because he's telling me that, and I've trusted him for years in that, I've had dentists in the past where I'm like, Hmm, I don't trust that. I don't like it. I'm not sure it's there. Right.Whether or not that was real. But in reality, it's how you talk to your patients and it's how you communicate to your parent patients and explain to your patients what services they need that is gonna build that trust. Don't underestimate the the message when you are talking to your patient when they're in the chair.Don't underestimate that when your technicians and your hygiene technicians are talking to them in their chair. Don't underestimate that communication and how important that form of communication actually is. Are you, as the, are your hygienists getting to know your patients well? Are they getting to know the personal side of their life?Are they, they're in the chair for a while? Yes. Your hands are in their mouth, but they're in the chair for a while. There are things you can get to know. The hygienists that AC that usually are the best. Talk about the patient. They don't talk about themselves, they talk about the patient, and then what information is that that can then go to the doctor and then the doctor gets to know the patient.Right? That's where, on that side of it, don't underestimate the client relation side. Think of your patient as a client, not just a patient that is a client that you wanna have returned customers from. Mm-hmm. Ok. And they're the biggest referral. They're the biggest referrals. They will refer you all day long.Michael: Yeah. No, I really appreciate that, that that's, that's true. When it comes to the two that you mentioned, like the practices, what were you noticing with the dentist where it's like, I guess the communication was, was completely different. Mary Ann: So I'll tell you, and my, my dentist now, his name's Dr. Clark, love him.Love to give him a shout out whenever I possibly can. That's my personal dentist, right? Yeah. And he is a phenomenal communicator, but he tells me, Hey, this is what we're seeing. This is what's going on. This is where things need to be. My whole family, we all trust him in that because of how he honestly communicates, to me, he makes me feel like, okay, I understand, and that's what's really important as opposed to where I've had doctors or dentists.It's not just in the dental field, it's all across the board. This is what you need and this is why, and it's not even, this is why it's, this is what you need. And a lot of patients are confused because it's not their profession, it's not what they do. And as dentists and as medical professionals, take a step back and remember, your patients are not dentists, your patients are not in the dental practice, they actually don't understand.Mm-hmm. And nor should they understand they're hiring you for your expertise, for you to explain it to them, for you to tell them why their son has four cavities. It stinks. We've done, we've even done, we've done the fluoride treatments in the past, but this is what's happened. He's six, this is, it's his baby teeth, you know, whatever.Explain all those things to them. They don't know, and you're assuming that they know they don't remember. You are the one that is the expert in the room at that point. Own that expertise. Just like how when somebody comes to me and they're a dentist and they're a dental practice. Own the fact that in media, you don't have to be the expert in that.And that's okay. I should be explaining it to you. My team should be explaining it to you in that, and in that mindset. Yeah. Michael: Okay. Okay. And so the next question is, what do you hate or dislike about dentistry? Ooh. Mary Ann: Well, nobody likes to get any kind of certain treatments done, but mm-hmm. I'll tell you this though.I mean, if you've had, and I've been very blessed with good teeth, knock on wood. and still in my forties only have had one cavity, so I'm, I'm happy with that. So, I mean, I'll, I'll be, I, I take that, I'll, I'll wear the little badge of pride, although I'm not as good as my husband who has never had a cavity.Wow. But whatever. Not fair at all. But anyway, he says it's because of the fluoride and the water in Anchorage. He grew up in Anchorage. But anyway, so that being said, things that you hate, I think it is that bad communication. That's where it's always gone wrong for me with any type of medical practice or any kind of dentist.And this is me personally, If there's not that good communication, that clear communication that makes me feel safe, that makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing for my health that is clearly communicating that that's what I don't like. That's where, and frankly, that's no patient likes that.Michael: Okay. Gotcha. So no, kinda like just bland communication where you feel like, all right, we gotta get in, get out, boom. Kind Mary Ann: of thing. Yeah. You don't wanna feel, you don't want to feel like cattle moving in and out. Mm-hmm. And. There, there are. Now I will say this, there are some dental practices that have worked really well and efficient of getting people in and out, but there's still moments for that personal touch so that you can get people quickly in and out, but them still feel like they're getting that customer service or that attention that they want.They want that attentive acknowledgement of what they're feeling, what they're seeing, what's going on. Michael: Gotcha. Okay. And then, so what do you absolutely love about dentistry? Mary Ann: What do I love about dentistry? Mm-hmm. Actually, the fact that you can build relationships and long-term relationships within dentistry.So another thing I love about dentistry is the things that you can absolutely find out with the health of the body by finding out what's going on in the mouth and people. Don't. They just underestimate and average patients don't understand that there are so many different things that dentists find and save lives every day, and people forget about that.They don't know that they don't recognize it, but if you actually get into people's stories with heart disease or various things, they can tell you, and those are stories for you as dentists to be telling of, he saved my life because he saw this. And he saved my life because he saw this. Mm-hmm. That's a big deal.Those are things, other things that are happening in the body that dentists can actually identify and send them to a great expert outside of that. Michael: Yeah. Awesome. Wonderful. Maryanne, 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?Mary Ann: Absolutely. So you can go to our website, which is mosaic.agency/contact. That comes directly to my, to my email. So mosaic.agency/contact. You can find me on Twitter at Medium apps. Follow me. We put out tips every day. And information every week. You can also, if you email, if you go to mosaic.agency/contact, you will be able to get your email added to our email list.We put out email blasts every week that give information on media and various things that are going on. And then find me on LinkedIn. I love to connect uh, Maryanne Pruit, and you'll find me right there. Mosaic Media. And we, I love to connect. I love to brainstorm. If you have questions in your dental practice of how is your media working, if you want a free assessment, let us know.Michael: Awesome. So guys, as always, that's gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely go check that out. And Marianne, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Mary Ann: Thank you, Michael. I really appreciate it.‍

Today I want to tell you about our sponsor for this episode,  Olsen  Dental  Chairs!‍‍Imagine you're a dentist and you spend your whole day around the chair...   Well, Olsen has over  40 years of experience in making those long hours as comfortable as possible for both the dentist  and the patient! ‍If you're a dental professional looking for high quality, cost effective, dental equipment, check out Olson dental chairs!Click this link and mention this episode for a limited time FREE installation with your purchase!‍‍Guest: Simon CortesBusiness Name: OlsenCheck out Simon's Media:Website: https://olsenna.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083386410139‍Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cevi_dental/‍LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cevi-dental/‍YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cevi_dentalFlorida Dental Convention 6/29-7/1: https://www.floridadental.org/convention-ce/conventionOhio Dental Convention 9/21-9/23: https://www.oda.org/events-ce/annual-session/‍Other Mentions and Links:Bosch MotorsGoogle My BusinessDave RamseyTraction - Gabriel Weinberg‍Host: Michael Arias‍Website: The Dental Marketer Join my newsletter: https://thedentalmarketer.lpages.co/newsletter/‍Join this podcast's Facebook Group: The Dental Marketer Society‍‍My Key Takeaways:Simplicity is key! If your dental equipment has tons of complexity to it's design, there are more things that can go wrong.Potential patients will primarily be looking things up on their phones. Take this into account with a robust Google My Business page!Showing off your office with a 360 virtual tour can be a great way for potential patients to see themselves in the practice.Don't forget to add a personal touch to all your branding! A unique online and in-person presence is more important than ever.If your dental chair costs more than a car, that's too much!‍Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes! [Click here to leave a review on iTunes]‍p.s. Some links are affiliate links, which means that if you choose to make a purchase, I will earn a commission. This commission comes at no additional cost to you. Please understand that we have experience with these products/ company, and I recommend them because they are helpful and useful, not because of the small commissions we make if you decide to buy something. Please do not spend any money unless you feel you need them or that they will help you with your goals.‍Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guests, Simon Cortes. Simon, how's it going? Pretty good. Pretty good. Michael, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty good, man. Thanks for asking. If you can tell us a little bit about your past, present, how did you get to where you are today?Simon: Definitely. Thanks for asking Michael. So I'm an entrepreneur in the medical space. have been in the medical space actually since I was 19. I'm 29 now, and we run a successful business for the last 10 years. We have, uh, enjoyed selling new and refurbished medical equipment to the medical providers and we are now expanding to dental and, and that's why we're here.And so we're super excited to talk about this new brand with you. Michael: Nice dude. Real quick, rewind. How'd you get into this at 19? Simon: So, um, I, I had the blessing that, um, I've enjoyed selling and since I was very young, I've always sold something in school selling, gum, selling, anything you can think of. And so when I got into high school, a little bit older, I actually started selling cars and I, I started, I did really well there. And then I worked for a medical equipment company that did imaging. And from there, I started seeing an opportunity in, in procedure chairs, I bought a chair and did well, bought a second one, did well, bought a third one, did pretty good.Then I, I dropped outta college and said, I'm gonna jump in a truck, drive all the country and sell medical equipment. So it's been awesome. It's, it is been fun. It's been a great journey and, um, we, we've grown a lot. We've had a fantastic years. And it's, it's been fun. Uh, it is the cool thing, you know, when you're not, when you're go to school, when you don't learn these things.there there's a lot of learning curves and so we, we've learned from the good, we've learned from the bad and, and we've built from it. And so thankfully we have a very successful business because of it. Michael: Gotcha, man. And so when did Olson come out to be? Simon: So last year, Olsen came to look for me and we, met in my office. They, they saw what we did. they met me. They, they enjoyed the energy that, that I brought. They enjoyed the experience. They enjoyed my story. And so we started talking about dental.always wanted to get into dental. I never did dental refurbished just because we didn't want to deal with all the hoses, the biosecurity and, and, and deal with all that. And so Olson just, they came in, they showed me an amazing product. Their quality was awesome, their, how simple their equipment was. And so because of that I was like, this is interesting.Because I do refurbishing. I know chairs, motors, PC boards, like it's the back of my hand. I'm a huge nerd when it comes to these things. And so because of that, I've enjoyed, seeing the Olsen products, how they're built, how they're made, and, and really seeing the quality of their equipment. And so because of that, I went to Brazil.I, I met the Olsen team. I met Mr. Olson, and I just fell in love with the product. And because of that, I spent lots of my time, pushing their product, advertising their products, and speaking to dentists, and I've enjoyed it. Michael: Nice, man. That's good. So then Olson came onto your team where you started selling their equipment and everything like that?A year, about a year ago. About a year ago. Simon: Yes sir. Yeah, Michael: Uhhuh. Okay man. Good stuff. So then what have you seen, I guess compared to, uh, cuz that's the thing a lot of, uh, practice owners kind of talk about, right? Is like, is it affordable? Yeah. Check, right? Is it high quality, advanced technology? is it ergonomic?All these things, right? Do patients care? And then we get those people who are like, ma'am, just have a chair, right? Patients ain't gonna, ain't gonna notice a difference or anything like that. So what are your thoughts on all this? Simon: So being in the dental industry for a year now, it's crazy the price of these chairs.Mm-hmm. I'm a firm believer, you shouldn't have to buy a dental chair that costs more than a car. I mean, I've seen some of these chairs that cost more than a 12 year old of Corolla, 2022. I mean, that's insane. And so what I love about Olsen is that, you know, it's a great chair.They use Bosch Motors, which Bosch is a well known manufacturer all over the world. They have a modern design and their pricing is super competitive. And so because of that, it's something I enjoyed. One of the main features I really do enjoy for dentists, I like to fix things, and I've met lots of dentists that like to fix things.I've met a lot of doctors that like to fix things, and when you can fix something, it's easy. The newer chairs, they're making everything high end, right? They're putting too much technology in it, making it difficult, and what I love about Olsen is simple, simple technology. It works well and one of Olsen's models is equipment made the last.And for me that's extremely important because one of the reasons I've been in business, one of the reasons I've been, I've had a successful career in what I do is I've been fixing machines that are 30 years old and we're still fixing them and we're still selling them. If you look at the equipment now, I don't know if you can still have a refurbishing business in the next 10 years.There's just a lot of things that they're doing that makes it more difficult for a normal person to fix a chair. You need a engineer to be able to fix your chair, and that's what I don't like. That's what I don't like about where we're going to the future. But what I love about Olson is they kept it simple.Their equipment has one PC board. their unit is not super complicated to get to the upholstery. It's simple. Just the whole thing is simple. And so because of that, I've really enjoyed showing their product, and displaying it too. I believe at this point, I think we're at over 150 chairs that we've installed.We actually just installed four chairs in Hawaii. My team just came back from that and the doctor was thrilled. So it's been great. It's been fun. I'm actually sitting in one of our chairs right now. I do a lot of my meetings here. Super cool. Because, Has a little massage system in it. So I sit back here, just get a little massage and I, and I love it.And so imagine if I'm enjoying that while I'm in a conference call. Imagine patients enjoy that as well. So, but that's, that's kind of what Olson is. Um, it's a really cool chair. It's something that I really recommend customers, potential customers to come in and see us at the shows, check the shows out.it's it's chair that you want to look at. and so that's one of the ways that we like to say that we're different, How we're different. Overall, it's something cool that you just wanna look at and something cool. And like I said, I've enjoyed it a lot.I've had lots of customers enjoy it. And we're hoping this year, we're gonna explode. And so that's what we're going for. Yeah. Michael: When you're at these shows, man, you have all your units there or like specific ones or? So in, Simon: in our sh last shows, we have had all of our units there. Um, this show we've decided, because this is the next one, one that's coming up, that's actually next week.Mm-hmm. Here in Florida, we're super excited about it because it's, we're doing a smaller show this time just because obviously it's our home base in Florida. We have a showroom in Florida, so we just want people to come look at the chairs and invite them to our showroom so they can see the seven. Eight different models that we have in the showroom.And so we chose a smaller booth this time. Um, but yeah. And the other shows that we've done, and so we'll be in Chicago, we'll be in New York, we're gonna be in Ohio, we're gonna be in Texas, and we, we will have large booths there to display our products so you can come and see them play with them. I've had lots of customers love them.One cool thing that we actually have right now that we did in the last show that was a hit, I mean everybody came to check this out, was our transparent share. You can see how the chair is made. And so what I was telling everybody at the event, I was like, listen, Olson is new to you and we want to show you what our insides are made out of.The reason you don't see any other chair, any other chair transparent is cuz they don't want you to see how complicated their chair is. I want you to see how simple our chair is and so that right there. Thanks to that we sold over 14 cherishes. In the show and that was awesome. so we're hoping we're gonna get the same feedback.We're gonna take the transparent chair to Florida. They're gonna check it out. They're gonna look at it, and I hope they expect the same results, simply because it's very awesome to just see. It's a simple product. You're not overcomplicating it. And for me, that's important. I know for other people that's important because Michael, I don't know if you know, but calling a service technician to come service your chair is very expensive.And if you could save that money, imagine you would want to. Yeah. Michael: How is that man? How is like the customer support and then like the, you know what I mean? Because I feel like that's, things break no matter what, right? So then it's like, Hey, how fast can I get that someone on the line, a human coming here and all that stuff.How does that look like? So this is Simon: the cool thing, and this is one of the reasons Olson's worked with us and the reason we decided to partner up together. Remember, we're in the medical industry as well, so we have technicians that we've partnered up with all over the country because the chairs are simple.I can send one of my medical techs to go out there, check the chair, and he can figure it out. He can get it done, put it together, and do it right. They have the experience. They're certified with the medical equipment. The dental equipment isn't too much. What is our goal? Our goal is for the chairs is not to fail.That's why we give our customers a five-year warranty. That's why the chairs are simple. When you overcomplicate your chairs, then yes, you should expect things to fail. Cuz when you have three, four PC boards, five PC boards in one chair, yeah chances of one breaking is is high. But when you only have one, Chances of them breaking is not as high.And so because of that, we're not really worried, too much about service calls. One of the reasons that have blown people away is if you open up a delivery system on a chair right now, your delivery system has one block that controls all your handpiece. This has been the biggest selling point we've actually had with our Olson chairs is that ours aren't a block. They're actually individual. one hand piece breaks, You can continue using your other handpieces, which means you don't have to close the room that day, stop productivity because your block is clogged. And that's something that people is blowing people away. And so it, it's, it's a, a very neat feature.Doesn't exist in the market and it's something that Olsen has that it's just blowing people away. Had Michael: you, man, that is, that is pretty awesome. So, Price-wise for these chairs compared to like other companies? I mean, like, I know we are thinking of like, maybe like densely, right? Like that's like really, really big.Right? But when it comes to this right here, practice owners, when they get their, they're starting up, they're putting this in, right? They're think thinking about the budget, how much would you say we'd have to budget for these chairs if we're like, Hey, I wanna have three ops, four ops, Simon: So Michael, the cool thing about this is our pricing is awesome.Quality is awesome. We have four level chairs. We have a hygiene chair that starts off at 6,300. Then we have our infinity chair that starts off at 14,500. So there's a range there. The differences in between our chairs is size. It's gonna be your delivery system, it's gonna be your light. So there's cool features that you get to see at the show that you'll be able to say, Hey, I want this light.I want this handpiece here. I want my three-way syringe this way. And then we set it all off for you. And so price wise, it's there. I've met some customers that I've spoken to who've spent $34,000. For just one chair. Mm-hmm. They're using our chairs right now. If you go to a website, um, olson a.com, you actually would be able to see what they've said about our chairs and they've loved it.again, $14,000, $40,000, one chair. Or you could buy four chairs for the price of one tier. And so because of that, that's just a great savings. And so I would say we're definitely in the affordable side, I would like to say, but you're not sacrificing quality. that's the important point.That's the, what everybody's asking is like, Simon, okay, your chairs are a great price. They're all, they look amazing. But are they really that good? And that's why we saw him five year warranty. If something breaks, we overnight it, we get a technician to install it. We're done. Fortunately, because we're new in the market, we haven't had it too many issues.We had one issue so far, that a doctor by accident broke the light. he broke it himself and he admitted that he broke it. He asked us for a light, and I told him, I was like, you know what, doctor? You've been a great customer here. I'll overnight the light to you. And because it was so simple, he installed it himself.Hmm. Yeah. And so instead of spending five, 600 bucks on a light and then paying a technician installed it, we just gave him the light. He installed it and he's loved the product. So I would like to say because of that, overall it's a really good share and the features it has overall, it's something that will allow you to save money.And at the end of the day, it's crazy when I see, when these potential customers that I'm working with, when they send me their budgets, when they send me what they're working with, It is insane. And so as a business owner myself, saving money is key, especially when you're starting out. And so when you have that opportunity to save money but not sacrifice quality, I think that's awesome.Michael: Yeah. That's awesome man. That's really, okay. So talking about that in your, your own mind, right? And putting your shoes as a business owner into the shoes of a practice owner. In your opinion, what can a dentist do today or practice owner do today to improve their marketing or Simon: their business? So, because I've been studying dental offices a lot, I can tell you I've actually looked a lot into this and know what I've seen.A lot of doctors, a lot of dentists, they don't invest in social media as much as they should. they don't invest in their office as much as they should. Right. When, when, I mean, they invest in their office. I don't know if you've ever seen Michael, but you can get a 360 of your whole office doesn't cost that much, and you can actually give someone that virtual tour of your office.We do that with a lot of our projects and it comes out awesome. I mean, it just looks amazing and allows that patient who's looking on their phone to see where should I go to the dentist at? And when you get to see that experience and see why, look how beautiful their equipment is, look how beautiful, how clean their office is.That's something that I would say that a lot of dentists don't take advantage of. I would say also Google my business. It's a lot of spaces I see that no one has pictures of their logo, pictures of their staff, we wanna be personal. You wanna show who you are. Like if you go to our, Google, you'll see we have over 2000 pictures.We have a, our chairs that we do of our warehouse, we wanna be personal. We want when someone calls us to speak to us, that they know who they're speaking to, that they know what's going on, and that they see our, our equipment. And for us, that's important. So I would say in the dental space, I have noticed that, that they're, they're just, when you go on, you're Googling an address, you just see a logo.Couple reviews, hopefully they're good, but you don't really see that they've invested in their online presence. And I think that's important, especially right now when everybody just looks everything up on the phone. And so I would definitely say that. I would definitely say be proud of your office.Be proud of who you are, be proud of that you're in business, and push that and share that. I think that's extremely important. Michael: Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Like be proud of it and then invest in it right kind of thing. And that's, I guess, a way to show that you're proud of it by investing in it, like really putting in that skin in the game.You know what I mean? Kind of thing. Awesome. So now these next questions are just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry right now. What would you like to see more from a dentist? Simon: I personally love my dentist. He's amazing, and he does a really good job on making you feel so comfortable when you get into his office.The atmosphere. So I would say, because I've had the same dentist for about 20 years, I would say that I would try to mirror that experience where when you get to an office, it looks clean, right? Feels clean, smells good. You you'd be surprised how many offices I've been into where it doesn't sound good.Where it doesn't look clean. And so I think that's something very important. And you think that's basic, but when you're so busy with running a, running an office dealing with patients, dealing with employees, you Ms. Small things. And so I would definitely say that would be something that I would like to see more.Um, just because I've visited lots of offices and I can tell you there's, there's a good amount of them that just don't take care of the, the general things. their work is amazing. It's just small little things that someone should be doing, they're not doing. Gotcha. Michael: That's been kind of key.Uh, I noticed that that's like a thread to you though, what doesn't smell good to you in an office where you're like, this smells like, what? Simon: I can tell you I've had an experience I've been in, in New York recently, and, um, you could tell I would like to say maybe when there's too many people in the waiting room, um, right when you overbook patients.You have too many people in there. Every now and everybody smells good. because of that, I would definitely say that's something I, I experienced just recently where you walked in and it was like, wow, maybe I should walk back out. So I, I, I would definitely say that that's one of the things that you, you would want to limit, right?When you can control your patients, when you can control how many people you book, you don't overbook the rooms, right? You don't overbook your, your procedure. You simply, Book it correctly. That way you don't have 15, 20 people a waiting room. Like me personally, my dentist. That never happens.You go in, there's not more than two or three people, and he's a busy guy, but he doesn't overbook. You come in with, he puts you back in the room and you keep going. And so that's something I've enjoyed. And also, that's one of the things I actually love. When you go there and when, at least for me, I'm a very busy guy.My appointment's at three, I get there at three. At 3 0 5, I'm sitting on a chair. And I'm gone. And I love that. And I think that's another thing that I would actually love to see as well. Cause a lot of times you get to an office, like at least for medical, and you're waiting 45 minutes just for them to see you.And so, there's a lot of things in the background that happen that, you know, patients don't know, the patients don't see, there's some things we couldn't, we can't control by not overbooking. Mm-hmm. Michael: So the, the part that makes you feel more comfortable is like, Hey, just don't overbook and then, you know what I mean?A lot of these other problems can kind of go away. Yeah. Whether it's waiting time, descents, things like that. Yeah, no, definitely. Gotcha. Okay, So then what do you love about dentistry? Simon: so on the business side, for me, what I love is, The amount of money it takes to open up to a dentist's office, I love saving people money. You know, that's one of the things I enjoy doing every day, um, in my business. And to be able to say that I can help you save 15, 20, $30,000, 40, 50, $60,000, I think that's awesome. And with Olsen, we have that opportunity. And so because of that, I would really say would love to see and continue seeing the savings that we've been able to provide, cuz when you could save five, $6,000 and invest it somewhere else.That's awesome. You know that's money. You can invest in social media. That's money You can invest in Hiring a better office manager. That's money you can invest and. On vacation, enjoying, you know, quality time with your family. And so those are all, all little things that I think are important. So when you can save that on a chair, compared to buying a 24, 25, $40,000 chair, I would definitely say that's something I'm, I really love doing on the medical side and I expect to love doing it on the dental side.Yeah. Michael: That's nice man. Typically, right. Now, if you don't mind me asking, out of the range of chairs you have, which one would you say is the most popular? Like where, the one in Hawaii, right? We just installed these all these other places. Where to you, which one would you say is more popular?Simon: So right now, our logic, it starts off at 10,500 is the most popular chair. It's, um, chair that a lot of our dentists have enjoyed. That's the chair that we just installed in Hawaii for of. He loved them. He actually, awesome doctor. He actually has an office in Hawaii and he has an office in Chicago, So he bought two of our infinities and then he ordered four of our logics for his Hawaii office.And so I would say that, Our logic is, is really, it's a great chair. it does everything you need, gives you all the, all the upgrades that you want on a chair. Our sprint chair is really good for hygienes, a fantastic hygiene chair. Our quality is a great chair for dentist who's throwing off, who's really price conscious.our logic is an amazing chair for an experienced dentist who wants a workhorse, and our infinity is for our high end dentist who just wants to look amazing, who just wants his chair to look fantastic and wants to have all the bes and whistles. And so the Infinity, we've sold a lot of those, they're beautiful chairs and they all go into high end offices that just look amazing.Michael: Gotcha. I was gonna ask that. I'm looking at your chairs right now. The logic and the. Infinity. Do you normally, let's just say we're creating the infrastructure and the outline of the the practice right now in the construction phase. Can you ever like chime in on that and say like, Hey look, I think it'd be best if you had the infinities for this and that, that, or you guys don't, you're just like, Hey, whatever.It's up to you, doctor. So Simon: fortunately we've actually been part of lots of new builds and we've also done. just replacement chairs and so when we get the be part of the construction experience, it's a lot better for the doctors. Cosmetic look of the office because we get to all the plumbing underneath the chair.When you have to add that junction box, you lose about a foot of real estate. That can be nice and clean. That could be clear, and that's awesome. I mean, I love installing these chairs where we can put. All the plumbing, electricity underneath the chair where it should be, and it just looks amazing. And so when we get to do that, it's enjoyable.And when we get to see the size of the rooms, definitely our infinity is a little bit bigger than our other chairs. And so we can tell the customer, Hey, infinity, you're not gonna get the same experience. When you have a smaller room, so for this room, we'd recommend a quality. And so because of that, yeah, we definitely enjoy being part of that process.Um, and, and it's something awesome that we get to do. You send us the blueprints, we'll send it to our tech. He'll actually put the chair in on you, your blueprints. He can show you where the arms move or the delivery system moves. It's a really cool system. You'll be able to see it all and get that experience.On top of that, we have even, even cooler experience. Let's say you like the Infinity, you can actually put the Infinity in your office. You grab your phone and you can put on an app that we have and literally see through your phone, the whole chair inside your office, and you can walk around the whole chair with your phone and see how it would actually look inside the office.That's something that a lot people have enjoyed. Um, it's something I love doing as well. Yeah, that's nice, man. Michael: I like that a lot. So then there's also the other side of this, right?Where there's really expensive ones and there's really, really non-expensive ones, cheapy ones, right? So what are the hidden costs of cheap dental chairs? So people are like, they only spent this much, man, you can get it here like on Facebook Marketplace. Or there's another D, right? There's hidden costs behind that, I'm sure.But Simon: what are they? So let's say if you buy something on Facebook, you're buying something that you don't know the history of it, right? You're buying something that you don't know who installed it. You also are looking at, does that chair still exist?Can they still buy parts for it? Right? A lot of these chairs, after a certain amount of time, the manufacturer stops making the parts for it. that's one, like, let's say starting off on Facebook, obviously you can also buy chairs from, you know, other countries overseas and you could sit, you know, you're gonna then sacrifice equality, right?Because what they do is they do mass produce and they sell as much as they can. And so obviously there's certain chairs, certain parts that are not gonna be made with the best quality part for us. One cool thing that. Olson has, is we actually build 95% of the chair in Brazil, So, in case anybody doesn't know where Brazil is, which I hope everybody does, Brazil is in South America, that's our neighbor. it's a chair that's being built with without good quality. when you're looking at Facebook, that might be something won't wanna do, because, Again, if you don't know who ins installed it, you don't know who uninstalled it, there might be parts missing.Then you don't come, so you don't have a warranty, right? That's everybody asks the question, asked them, now, where's the servicing coming from? Again, if this is a chair that you just bought, and let's say you bought it for three, $4,000 and then you gotta spend another thousand or $2,000 on it, that's expensive.A motor, a hydraulic, let's say if you have hydraulic chairs, a hydraulic motor is expensive. Hydraulic cylinders are expensive. And so that's one of, of the things again, that Olson does different. Our chairs, none of them are hydraulic. They're all electric driven by Bosch Motors, and so that makes it easier chair to fix.At the end of the day, it's gonna last longer because hydraulics, you have. Hoses there, you have pressure, you have oil. All of those things require maintenance. And so that's one of the things again that you're gonna see the difference in between an Olsen chair and our competition. Nice Michael: man.Okay, so then one last questions I wanna ask you is throughout this process, actually, throughout the time you started, se let's, let's go with that sevi Man till today, right now, just in general, man, Simon, so the audience can get to know you a little bit more. What's been some of your biggest struggles? Simon: So I think when everybody starts off, and I can tell you over the last 10 years, you, you have a goal, you have something you want to do, and that goal changes, right?When you get older, things change. When your business gets older, things change. You have different perspectives. I am a father of two. I have. My son Samuel, was about a year old. And I have my son, Theo, who's four. I can tell you, when they were born, they changed my perspective. Cause all I wanted to do was work, work, work, work before.Now I wanna spend time with them. I wanna do things different. And so I can also say, when you hire people, all I can tell you, I've, I've had over probably 150 people work for me. And I can tell you all have I learned about hiring people. Um, I think that's actually where I've made some of my biggest mistakes is hiring the wrong people or hiring with my heart.I can tell you that before I'd hire anybody, they're walking on the road. They needed a job. Hey, come here and I'll, I'll give you a job. I've learned a lot by that. we've disappointed customers because we haven't hired the right people. And so for right now, right now, I can tell you our culture, our focus, my focus is to have happy customers.I have a saying that I say a lot to all of my customers is, you know, your success is our success. If you're successful, I'm successful, so I have to make sure you're successful so I can make sure that you make another office in a year and you buy 10 shares. Then in two years you do 30.I have customers that started with me 10 years ago, but I love that. Love me. They have 13, 14 offices. I've done all of them. Working with them is amazing. Seeing them grow inspires me and allows me to continue growing. And so that's kinda one things that like we do. And one of the things I can tell you over the years I've learned from, you know, one thing is when you start off, you don't wanna just hire anybody.You know, you spend more time with your employees than what you spend at home normally. And so because of that, you don't wanna have bad employees. And not all bad employees start off as bad employees. So I, I believe that's one of the things that I've, I've struggled with a lot is, Not having the right people by me.With time with different budgets, you're able to find better people. You're able to learn different ways of doing things. And I would say what I've learned just the last year alone, cause I can tell you, last year was crazy for us. We were doing the dental, we were doing the medical cool. We grew like crazy.And what I really learned, Right now we're doing amazing as well, and we have better people and the people have changed everything and, and something I can tell you last year I wasn't focused on, and it's something right now, I'm focused on that the people who work for me, the people who are my team members, they're killing it just like we are, and that they're happy and that they're enjoying what they do.And I think that's really important. And I think when you find people that are not good, um, I'm a huge fan of Dave Ramsey and, um, he said something where if, um, you only want thoroughbreds, right? You only want thoroughbreds. You don't want donkeys working for you. And I can tell you I've had lots of donkeys working for me, and I've definitely learned from that.Oh, nice Michael: man. Great advice. Awesome. Simon, 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? Simon: Definitely. So if you're in Florida or if you might be in Florida next week, We are gonna be from the 29th of June to the 1st of July, we'll be in the Florida Dental Association Convention that's gonna be in the Gaylord Palms and Orlando.And so we'd be super excited to have you there just to come check out our chairs. We also have a showroom here in Orlando, Florida. Uh, we're about 45 minutes from Orlando, but it's easier to say Orlando cuz well, nobody knows where Orange City is, but we're about 45 minutes away from the airport. And so, You can also check us out on olson na.com.You can see us there, you can see us on social media, you can see us, uh, on YouTube. We love the share stuff. Our team's always making something and, and we enjoy the push out videos. And so, we would love for you to come check us out. We just want you to see our products. When someone comes to the show, I tell them, touch our chairs. Feel them. Touch our leather, touch our vinyl, go look at other chairs and come back. And I've had the fortune that a lot of them come back. And so I would definitely say you want to touch our chairs, you want to feel 'em, you wanna see what they're made out of and get to enjoy them.Michael: So what's the next event after the Florida one that you guys will be attending? Simon: Thanks for asking that, Michael. So, September 21st through September 23rd, we'll be in the Ohio Dental Convention.We're super excited. the Ohio Dental Association is gonna be making this event. They're, they are pushing it, they're inviting lots of dentists to come, and we're super excited to be part of it. And so I would love to see you there September 21st, or September 23rd. You'll see more on our website@olsonna.com and we're super excited to see you.And like I said before, I want you to come touch our chairs. Feel them, see the quality, and then go touch the competition and let us know what you think. Michael:  All right, Uhhuh. Awesome. Awesome. So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below, so definitely go check that out and reach out to Simon and his team.And Simon, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Awesome. Simon: Thank you, Michael.‍‍