WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Welcome to Bite Size Dental Marketing, a podcast 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:06.059 where we talk to the most influential and brightest 00:00:06.059 --> 00:00:09.460 minds in the dental industry. Our mission here 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:13.140 is very simple. We're out to create a community 00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:15.820 for dentists, hygienists and dental enthusiasts. 00:00:16.550 --> 00:00:20.210 where you can have access to the minds in dentistry 00:00:20.210 --> 00:00:22.649 that are solving the problems that you are having 00:00:22.649 --> 00:00:25.489 in your practice today. Now, whether that's dental 00:00:25.489 --> 00:00:28.210 marketing or patient reactivation, treatment 00:00:28.210 --> 00:00:30.690 acceptance, buying or selling a practice, or 00:00:30.690 --> 00:00:33.350 even just where the future of dentistry is going 00:00:33.350 --> 00:00:35.530 with all the technological advancements we're 00:00:35.530 --> 00:00:38.710 seeing and the pace at which the industry is 00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:42.390 moving, we want to create a place where you have 00:00:42.390 --> 00:00:46.060 understanding. and have a roadmap on the small 00:00:46.060 --> 00:00:49.159 steps that you can take to make a practice better 00:00:49.159 --> 00:00:52.179 today so that you can feel it in your production 00:00:52.179 --> 00:00:55.399 and the joy of the work you do tomorrow. Enjoy. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:59.119 Welcome to Bite Size Dental Marketing. Today 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:01.859 we have Justin Strong. Justin is the founder 00:01:01.859 --> 00:01:05.599 and CEO at Room 118. Been in the industry a long 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:11.340 time and I love a good origin story. Justin, 00:01:11.379 --> 00:01:13.379 let's have it. How'd you end up starting a company 00:01:13.379 --> 00:01:16.280 and what in the world got you into dental marketing? 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:20.159 The short version is it's an homage to my grandfather. 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:23.379 So my grandfather's named Roy. He was born in 00:01:23.379 --> 00:01:26.219 1911. I'm in Utah. He was born here in Utah. 00:01:27.180 --> 00:01:31.560 And he was born into poverty. When he was six, 00:01:31.719 --> 00:01:34.540 I think seven years old, his father, who was 00:01:34.540 --> 00:01:36.959 a miner, died in the mines and he became the 00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:40.120 man of the house at six years old. Kind of went 00:01:40.120 --> 00:01:42.400 through the Depression and just had a really, 00:01:42.439 --> 00:01:47.099 really impoverished life as a child. And by the 00:01:47.099 --> 00:01:50.019 time he died, he built this sort of small empire 00:01:50.019 --> 00:01:54.799 here in Utah. Nothing grand, but he built two 00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:57.519 hotels, several apartment houses, and a bunch 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:00.599 of other things. All self -taught. He was not 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:02.340 formally trained as an engineer or anything like 00:02:02.340 --> 00:02:03.840 that, but he did a bunch of engineering projects. 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.650 And the centerpiece was a hotel called the Best 00:02:07.650 --> 00:02:10.050 Western Rome Inn in Provo, Utah. It doesn't exist 00:02:10.050 --> 00:02:12.590 anymore. They tore it down to do some other development. 00:02:12.729 --> 00:02:16.669 But as a kid, myself and my cousins worked there. 00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:18.849 That was sort of, you know, kind of a rite of 00:02:18.849 --> 00:02:22.550 passage for a lot of the cousins was to come 00:02:22.550 --> 00:02:24.750 in and work at this hotel, mowing lawns, doing 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:27.210 maintenance stuff and everything else. And in 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:29.210 the hotel, there was a converted room that was 00:02:29.210 --> 00:02:32.419 room 118. It was formerly a guest room, but we 00:02:32.419 --> 00:02:34.400 turned it in or my grandfather had turned it 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:38.120 into a workshop. And basically at the hotel, 00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:40.180 if something was broken or if we needed to fix 00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:42.860 something, we all went to room 118 and that's 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:46.319 where we fixed the problems. So room 118 is literally 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:48.939 an homage to that room at that hotel that my 00:02:48.939 --> 00:02:51.759 grandfather built. That is a great story. When 00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:54.599 you think about branding and its implications 00:02:54.599 --> 00:02:57.919 in marketing and as you've gone through your 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:00.979 own company. What are the high points and where 00:03:00.979 --> 00:03:04.539 do you see practices lose their way a bit? So 00:03:04.539 --> 00:03:07.939 if you're a practice owner, trying to understand 00:03:07.939 --> 00:03:10.900 what quote unquote good marketing is, is kind 00:03:10.900 --> 00:03:13.199 of a first principle challenge. Because if you 00:03:13.199 --> 00:03:15.879 don't know the answer to that, you're kind of 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:18.240 at the mercy of others that know more than you. 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:20.479 And hopefully their intentions are good. And 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:22.159 I think mostly they are. But you don't necessarily 00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:25.800 know how to act on that information. So three 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:29.060 years ago, we decided to come up with. What we 00:03:29.060 --> 00:03:33.060 wanted to be the single authority on dental marketing 00:03:33.060 --> 00:03:36.060 when it came to data. So in 2023, we launched 00:03:36.060 --> 00:03:37.800 the first version of what we called then the 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:39.960 Dental Digital Marketing Index. We've shortened 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:42.199 that to just the Dental Marketing Index today. 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:44.419 And at that time, we looked at a thousand dental 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:46.800 practices that were statistically representative 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:49.139 of the 50 large major metro markets in the U 00:03:49.139 --> 00:03:51.699 .S. And we looked at anything we could observe. 00:03:51.900 --> 00:03:53.840 So we looked at, you know, we went to their websites, 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:56.039 we cataloged what was the content, the structure, 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:58.740 the organization, the type of, you know, did 00:03:58.740 --> 00:04:00.740 they have custom illustrations? Did they have, 00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:02.500 you know, stock photography? Did they have videos? 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.020 All of that stuff. We ran it through a bunch 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.319 of tools to determine, you know, how good is 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:09.080 the website in terms of its performance? Is it 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.560 code heavy? We looked at their social, you know, 00:04:11.560 --> 00:04:13.319 how big is their profile? How many followers 00:04:13.319 --> 00:04:15.830 do they have? How often do they post? We looked 00:04:15.830 --> 00:04:18.029 at their SEO performance. We looked at paid. 00:04:18.129 --> 00:04:19.850 We looked at their referrals, their reputation, 00:04:20.170 --> 00:04:23.230 all of that. And we came up with, at the time, 00:04:23.250 --> 00:04:24.670 we were pretty proud of it. Nobody cared but 00:04:24.670 --> 00:04:27.589 us. But we had this sample of about 4 .4 million 00:04:27.589 --> 00:04:30.649 data points that represented those thousand practices. 00:04:31.089 --> 00:04:32.990 So that gave us a chance to kind of crack open 00:04:32.990 --> 00:04:36.430 that black box and just say, objectively, for 00:04:36.430 --> 00:04:38.670 some practices or for most practices, this is 00:04:38.670 --> 00:04:42.209 what marketing means. It's about 350. web visits 00:04:42.209 --> 00:04:44.550 a month from search. It's a domain authority 00:04:44.550 --> 00:04:47.790 of seven to eight. It's probably somewhere between 00:04:47.790 --> 00:04:51.730 150 and 200 followers, things like that. And 00:04:51.730 --> 00:04:54.509 today, the most recent version, we've gotten 00:04:54.509 --> 00:04:58.490 a bit more sophisticated in the size of the sample 00:04:58.490 --> 00:05:01.449 and the way that we're sampling. And we're marrying 00:05:01.449 --> 00:05:03.250 that with something that we're calling the super 00:05:03.250 --> 00:05:07.290 practice blueprint. And all that is, is a fancy 00:05:07.290 --> 00:05:08.829 way of saying we've built some models that can 00:05:08.829 --> 00:05:11.939 look at all of that data at scale. And then look 00:05:11.939 --> 00:05:15.000 at an individual practice and just say, okay, 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:18.079 you have a practice in Des Moines, Iowa. Des 00:05:18.079 --> 00:05:20.399 Moines, Iowa has this population. It has these 00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:25.699 demographics. It has these growth characteristics, 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:28.339 so on and so forth. That maps to a certain demand 00:05:28.339 --> 00:05:30.000 model in terms of you're going to have lots of 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:31.399 ortho or you're going to have lots of implants 00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:33.000 or you're going to have a lot of GP or whatever 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:36.250 it is. And we can help you understand where your 00:05:36.250 --> 00:05:38.670 practice sits today objectively. We can score 00:05:38.670 --> 00:05:40.730 you on all these things and say, your practice 00:05:40.730 --> 00:05:43.129 is doing great, or your practice needs some help, 00:05:43.170 --> 00:05:45.310 or you're like right in the middle. And then 00:05:45.310 --> 00:05:48.069 objectively say, if you want to increase your 00:05:48.069 --> 00:05:51.129 performance by 5%, let's say you want to add 00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:54.170 another patient a month on average, or you want 00:05:54.170 --> 00:05:57.870 to add 50 patients a month on average. We can 00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:00.209 help you understand, is that possible in your 00:06:00.209 --> 00:06:03.029 local market? And then objectively, based on 00:06:03.029 --> 00:06:05.920 the data, What would you have to do for that 00:06:05.920 --> 00:06:08.800 to be true? So that's sort of a quick high level 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:11.899 of the index itself. And we thought that that 00:06:11.899 --> 00:06:14.579 was a need in the industry because it doesn't 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:16.980 really exist, at least not in an accessible way 00:06:16.980 --> 00:06:20.720 for practice owners and DSOs. I have two questions 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:22.720 to answer them in any way you want. Number one, 00:06:22.740 --> 00:06:26.139 how did you approach the correlation and causation 00:06:26.139 --> 00:06:28.519 problem that begins with that much data? So, 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:31.120 you know, you need... Uh, successful practices 00:06:31.120 --> 00:06:33.680 need two to 300 visits from paid media. I think 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:37.540 he said, you know, is that, is the 200 to 300 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:39.800 visits drive the success of the practice or was 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:42.100 a successful practice of sort of capturing those 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:44.540 anyway, right? Yeah. And the second question 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:47.500 is, how are you tying it to like a P &L performance 00:06:47.500 --> 00:06:50.680 or were you morally looking at marketing analytics, 00:06:50.899 --> 00:06:53.589 if you will? I'll start with the second because 00:06:53.589 --> 00:06:56.329 it's both easier and more difficult to explain, 00:06:56.389 --> 00:06:59.750 so I'll try to get it out of the way. We've pulled 00:06:59.750 --> 00:07:02.370 data from the ADA, from some of the individual 00:07:02.370 --> 00:07:06.389 specialty organizations, and then from dental 00:07:06.389 --> 00:07:09.569 economics and a few others to build pricing models 00:07:09.569 --> 00:07:12.050 across the country. So we have a state -by -state 00:07:12.050 --> 00:07:14.949 pricing model that basically says, on average, 00:07:15.009 --> 00:07:17.379 there are these number of procedures for for 00:07:17.379 --> 00:07:19.560 example, diagnostic and preventative care. There's 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:21.360 going to be this many in the state of Maryland 00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:23.720 on average. There's going to be this many that 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:26.300 are restorative, this many that are prosto and 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:28.959 so on and so forth. And then we can look at the 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:31.620 survey data that says, well, in that state, they 00:07:31.620 --> 00:07:34.300 tend to price high, low or in the middle. And 00:07:34.300 --> 00:07:36.079 then we also look at the price elasticity in 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:38.519 that state to say the 50th percentile versus 00:07:38.519 --> 00:07:41.180 the 90th percentile pricing has a big range or 00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:43.689 a little range. All of that goes into a model 00:07:43.689 --> 00:07:46.449 so we can say, well, the average cost of a procedure 00:07:46.449 --> 00:07:49.389 of a certain type in the state is going to be 00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:51.889 X number of dollars. And then the demographics 00:07:51.889 --> 00:07:54.069 are going to have an impact on that. Is it an 00:07:54.069 --> 00:07:57.050 affluent market? Is it an affordability -focused 00:07:57.050 --> 00:07:58.930 market? Is there lots of public insurance? Is 00:07:58.930 --> 00:08:00.269 there a lot of private insurance memberships? 00:08:00.269 --> 00:08:03.480 All of that stuff. So we can look at that and 00:08:03.480 --> 00:08:05.279 give us a baseline to say, well, this is what 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:07.639 we should be getting transactionally from a win. 00:08:07.879 --> 00:08:11.339 We can look at information on if it's a GP. We 00:08:11.339 --> 00:08:14.079 can look at the average life cycle of that patient 00:08:14.079 --> 00:08:16.620 and that win to say, okay, they're going to make 00:08:16.620 --> 00:08:18.160 this much on the procedure. They're going to 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.860 have a 65 % adoption rate for them to enter their 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:22.720 active patient pool. And then they'll continue 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:24.899 to make money for some number of time. If it's 00:08:24.899 --> 00:08:27.720 a specialist, probably going to be more incidental 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:29.579 in terms of that. But that gives us our baseline 00:08:29.579 --> 00:08:32.000 to say, well, this is what the result was. So 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:34.120 we can use that in your baseline ROI calculation. 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:37.200 When it comes to modeling the top of the funnel, 00:08:37.259 --> 00:08:38.860 I think you're spot on. It's one of the biggest 00:08:38.860 --> 00:08:41.860 challenges is, okay, let's say in a given market, 00:08:41.940 --> 00:08:45.240 there is 10 searches, just to keep the math simple. 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:47.620 Let's say there's going to be 10 searches on 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:51.200 the term dentist near me. And let's say, and 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:53.279 this is something that we see pretty consistently 00:08:53.279 --> 00:08:56.779 in this super practice model, one practice is 00:08:56.779 --> 00:08:59.340 going to swallow up six of those 10 searches 00:08:59.340 --> 00:09:02.250 on average. Another practice is going to swallow 00:09:02.250 --> 00:09:04.629 up two. Another practice is going to swallow 00:09:04.629 --> 00:09:08.190 up one. And the remaining small portion of that 00:09:08.190 --> 00:09:09.929 is going to be parsed out among the next six 00:09:09.929 --> 00:09:12.389 practices and so on and so forth. Well, how do 00:09:12.389 --> 00:09:15.149 you know that those six searches that went to 00:09:15.149 --> 00:09:16.789 that super practice, how do you know that they 00:09:16.789 --> 00:09:19.070 did anything with it, right? How do you actually 00:09:19.070 --> 00:09:21.009 understand that? That's your question on correlation. 00:09:22.110 --> 00:09:24.330 We have to have an inference model because we 00:09:24.330 --> 00:09:26.809 don't have, we can't crack inside each practice 00:09:26.809 --> 00:09:29.230 and say, show us exactly what happened. And in 00:09:29.230 --> 00:09:31.360 fact, Even if we had access to it, they probably 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:33.399 couldn't tell us exactly what happened because 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:36.340 they can have trouble doing attribution. Our 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:38.220 model basically does high -level correlation 00:09:38.220 --> 00:09:41.720 on a top -of -funnel activity. We have an assumption 00:09:41.720 --> 00:09:44.299 on conversions that basically says, okay, once 00:09:44.299 --> 00:09:47.360 this engagement has occurred, if I clicked on 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:51.259 an ad, if I clicked on a search result, if I 00:09:51.259 --> 00:09:54.379 clicked on paid placement on social, whatever 00:09:54.379 --> 00:09:57.470 the source of engagement is, We then profile 00:09:57.470 --> 00:09:59.370 those websites and say, okay, here's what we 00:09:59.370 --> 00:10:01.669 do know about a website that has this kind of 00:10:01.669 --> 00:10:03.990 content that performs in this way. The conversion 00:10:03.990 --> 00:10:07.710 rates should be in this range. And so we do jump 00:10:07.710 --> 00:10:09.789 and make an assumption on this amount of engagement 00:10:09.789 --> 00:10:12.429 results in this amount of conversion, which should 00:10:12.429 --> 00:10:14.769 then introduce the number of unqualified leads 00:10:14.769 --> 00:10:17.490 that hit the practice. When you look at the six 00:10:17.490 --> 00:10:23.379 points from the index, Which ones do you find 00:10:23.379 --> 00:10:26.059 that dentists tend to do well in and which ones 00:10:26.059 --> 00:10:30.539 are underrepresented? So really good question. 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:35.379 When we, in its current instance, the way we 00:10:35.379 --> 00:10:38.519 sort of go about defining marketing, we say there's 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:40.940 a top of funnel. That's the first pillar. There's 00:10:40.940 --> 00:10:42.840 a middle of funnel. That's the second pillar. 00:10:43.039 --> 00:10:45.639 And then there's basically a sales portion, a 00:10:45.639 --> 00:10:50.360 sales component. Practice by practice, we rarely 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:53.120 see anybody do well like on everything, right? 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:55.320 There's usually what we'll see is we'll see a 00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:57.279 practice that maybe is really good at social. 00:10:57.539 --> 00:11:00.799 And so they have worked hard to build up a large 00:11:00.799 --> 00:11:03.620 following base on Facebook, Instagram, whatever 00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:06.519 their platforms are that they're using. They're 00:11:06.519 --> 00:11:09.379 posting regularly and the engagement from those 00:11:09.379 --> 00:11:13.919 posts is consistent and well above average. That's 00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:15.879 one example of something we see all the time. 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:18.360 But we rarely see that person also killing it 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:21.039 on like SEO, right? They're not driving necessarily 00:11:21.039 --> 00:11:22.840 a proportional amount of performance when it 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:25.059 comes to something outside of that. But very 00:11:25.059 --> 00:11:26.899 occasionally, and this is usually like a group 00:11:26.899 --> 00:11:28.840 practice where you can tell they've thrown a 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:31.320 lot of resources at it. We will see some folks 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:34.399 that do well across the board on multiple things. 00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:38.639 When I think through the website, the SEO, the 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:42.460 Google reviews, social engagement, paid ads, 00:11:42.940 --> 00:11:47.120 And then, you know, the last one is, which ones 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:50.240 do you see they tend to over -index or spend 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:52.639 too much time on? Maybe because it's sexy. You 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:54.120 mentioned social right out of the gate, right? 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:59.200 Which ones do they, you know, oh, it may not 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:01.200 be interesting or they tend to under -index the 00:12:01.200 --> 00:12:03.259 importance of it, right? I don't think this is 00:12:03.259 --> 00:12:05.419 really to the fault of anybody. I think the absence 00:12:05.419 --> 00:12:07.139 of good information makes it difficult to make 00:12:07.139 --> 00:12:10.240 these decisions. But we see lots of money spent 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:12.240 on websites that we don't think does anything. 00:12:13.670 --> 00:12:16.590 There's a case in point. There's a practice in 00:12:16.590 --> 00:12:20.629 New Jersey that has, I mean, a horrendous looking 00:12:20.629 --> 00:12:23.970 website. It is ugly. It's unpleasant to experience 00:12:23.970 --> 00:12:27.889 this website. And it drives something like 16 00:12:27.889 --> 00:12:32.090 ,000 clicks a month on organic search because 00:12:32.090 --> 00:12:35.500 they have found the way to hack whatever. in 00:12:35.500 --> 00:12:38.259 their local search market with Google, they have 00:12:38.259 --> 00:12:40.559 found the right combination of this is the content, 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:42.620 this is the way it's laid out. The engagement 00:12:42.620 --> 00:12:45.000 on the content is good. Their authority is really, 00:12:45.080 --> 00:12:47.279 really high. All of the stuff behind the scenes 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:49.919 is fantastic. But when you go to that website, 00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:53.039 you're like, this is terrible. Then you go to 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:56.539 a website that, and there's one, when we profiled 00:12:56.539 --> 00:12:58.379 this example in particular, we looked at the 00:12:58.379 --> 00:13:01.429 few that were around it. Beautiful, beautiful, 00:13:01.470 --> 00:13:06.129 full bleed video, custom everything, just, I 00:13:06.129 --> 00:13:08.490 mean, rollover effects and just this lush marketing 00:13:08.490 --> 00:13:11.269 experience on the website. And it was terrible 00:13:11.269 --> 00:13:14.929 in terms of its SEO performance. And so I think 00:13:14.929 --> 00:13:17.230 one of the things we see objectively is you probably 00:13:17.230 --> 00:13:20.149 should spend the big, at least initially, the 00:13:20.149 --> 00:13:21.950 biggest portion of your marketing budget, I would 00:13:21.950 --> 00:13:24.789 argue, on your website for a whole host of reasons. 00:13:25.720 --> 00:13:27.899 But people think that means it looks beautiful 00:13:27.899 --> 00:13:30.460 and it looks in a certain way and all of that, 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:34.000 which matters to a point, but not to the exclusion 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:35.620 of there's certain, you know, it's like having 00:13:35.620 --> 00:13:37.820 a balanced diet. There's a bunch of stuff they 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:39.259 need to have done that maybe they don't think 00:13:39.259 --> 00:13:41.700 about. You mentioned, you know, defining dental 00:13:41.700 --> 00:13:45.059 marketing in the absence of information makes 00:13:45.059 --> 00:13:51.279 it hard. I find that, you know, as... As business 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:54.919 owners, we hear some anecdotal story about how 00:13:54.919 --> 00:13:57.940 someone had success. And I love the one about 00:13:57.940 --> 00:14:01.080 mailers. Like my buddy did mailers 10 years ago 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:05.320 and generated 287 new patients for, and you know, 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:07.279 I'm going to do mailers in my mail. That was 00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:09.860 10 years ago. He was in El Paso, Texas. You're 00:14:09.860 --> 00:14:15.120 not like, how are you having conversations around 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:19.659 this multi -channel attribution world? where 00:14:19.659 --> 00:14:23.759 we really like bite -sized nuggets of, just give 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:25.379 me the thing that, Justin, just give me the thing 00:14:25.379 --> 00:14:27.059 that works, like what should I do? How are you 00:14:27.059 --> 00:14:29.860 having those conversations? I think by, that's 00:14:29.860 --> 00:14:32.220 where the data is helpful because it's one of 00:14:32.220 --> 00:14:34.159 the challenges, and this is part of why we wanted 00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:36.559 to produce this index to begin with. One of the 00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:39.019 challenges, you know, if I'm in that conversation 00:14:39.019 --> 00:14:40.679 and I walk in cold and somebody says, well, I 00:14:40.679 --> 00:14:42.480 heard somebody do this, Justin, why shouldn't 00:14:42.480 --> 00:14:45.259 I do it? I had a client do this three weeks ago. 00:14:46.940 --> 00:14:48.919 And I just said, I don't doubt that that person 00:14:48.919 --> 00:14:52.159 had that success. But that does not necessarily 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:55.080 mean you will have that success on its own. When 00:14:55.080 --> 00:14:59.220 we look at the data at scale, I'm going to pull 00:14:59.220 --> 00:15:01.679 out mailers because there's not great statistically 00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:05.200 representative examples. I love the story because 00:15:05.200 --> 00:15:09.080 when you're dealing with a mailing company, the 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:12.419 only answer is more mailers. Right. It's saturation. 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.580 Of course. Why not? Why not? It didn't work the 00:15:15.580 --> 00:15:16.799 first time. They're like, no, you need to spend 00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:19.799 more money. Which, by the way, always the best 00:15:19.799 --> 00:15:21.240 answer, didn't work, but we need to spend more 00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:24.539 money. That's right. That's right. I think one 00:15:24.539 --> 00:15:26.299 of the things, going back to this notion of a 00:15:26.299 --> 00:15:30.580 super practice thing, if we plot all those thousand 00:15:30.580 --> 00:15:33.120 practices on any dimension, And I'm going to 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:35.539 go back to SEO as an example, because it's one 00:15:35.539 --> 00:15:38.360 that most people hear a lot and I think has efficacy. 00:15:38.960 --> 00:15:40.779 If we look at all thousand practices, we plot 00:15:40.779 --> 00:15:43.120 them on a chart, their monthly search traffic. 00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:45.440 And it gets different when you talk about unbranded 00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:46.700 versus branded and some of the other things. 00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:48.879 But if we just kind of keep it simple, we'll 00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:51.539 see a curve, not unexpectedly. On the left -hand 00:15:51.539 --> 00:15:55.379 side at the one percentile cohort is the lowest 00:15:55.379 --> 00:15:57.179 performance. And if we just then rank them in 00:15:57.179 --> 00:15:59.460 terms of performance, we see a nice curve develop. 00:16:01.149 --> 00:16:02.990 The nature of that curve is sort of like the 00:16:02.990 --> 00:16:06.049 Pareto principle, a little bit on steroids. And 00:16:06.049 --> 00:16:08.529 that curve is really flat until you get to about 00:16:08.529 --> 00:16:11.789 60 to 70 percent, depending on the metric. And 00:16:11.789 --> 00:16:14.490 then after 70 percent, it starts to climb. And 00:16:14.490 --> 00:16:16.590 by 80 percent, it's getting near vertical. And 00:16:16.590 --> 00:16:20.070 at 90 percent, it just goes off the chart. And 00:16:20.070 --> 00:16:22.110 so what's happening is that, you know, you talk 00:16:22.110 --> 00:16:24.450 about that one person that had that great experience 00:16:24.450 --> 00:16:27.070 on mailers. They're that person on the end of 00:16:27.070 --> 00:16:29.870 the chart that's going off into space. What we 00:16:29.870 --> 00:16:32.870 then have to ask ourselves is, well, in your 00:16:32.870 --> 00:16:36.929 market, is that even possible? And is it statistically 00:16:36.929 --> 00:16:40.490 replicatable? Can we see the constituent components 00:16:40.490 --> 00:16:43.230 that went into a program that tend to result 00:16:43.230 --> 00:16:45.909 in that kind of performance? In some cases, we 00:16:45.909 --> 00:16:47.610 had very loose correlations, and so we don't 00:16:47.610 --> 00:16:49.549 make those recommendations. But in the case of 00:16:49.549 --> 00:16:52.679 something like SEO... It's really clear, like 00:16:52.679 --> 00:16:54.720 there's super high correlation between what we 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.399 call cumulative backlink authority, just the 00:16:57.399 --> 00:16:59.659 sum total authority score of all the backlinks, 00:16:59.700 --> 00:17:03.100 excluding toxicity and other things. The type 00:17:03.100 --> 00:17:05.440 of content they have, the relationship of total 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:07.380 number of pages on the website to pages that 00:17:07.380 --> 00:17:09.799 rank on SEO. We look at those metrics and we 00:17:09.799 --> 00:17:11.960 can see a very strong correlation to the amount 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:15.359 of traffic they're going to drive. But to your 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:18.099 point about mailers as well. What about the local 00:17:18.099 --> 00:17:20.200 market? Is there enough search even occurring 00:17:20.200 --> 00:17:22.960 that if you capture 60 % or 70%, is it going 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:25.220 to drive whatever it was, the example you have 00:17:25.220 --> 00:17:28.440 280 new patients or something like that? Our 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:31.180 approach is to scientifically look at that local 00:17:31.180 --> 00:17:33.220 market and tell you, well, this is how much should 00:17:33.220 --> 00:17:36.299 be coming every month in your local market. This 00:17:36.299 --> 00:17:38.599 much should be coming from search. dive into 00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:40.380 search. This is how much from organic, this is 00:17:40.380 --> 00:17:41.880 how much from paid search, this is how much from 00:17:41.880 --> 00:17:44.000 local search results going to maps and so on 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:46.440 and so forth. Same thing for paid display, same 00:17:46.440 --> 00:17:49.599 thing for social, so on and so forth. And unfortunately, 00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:53.759 I love the focus of the podcast where it's like, 00:17:53.799 --> 00:17:55.980 well, let's keep this bite -sized. It's really 00:17:55.980 --> 00:17:57.700 difficult. It's sort of like telling somebody, 00:17:57.779 --> 00:17:59.140 just do this one thing and you'll have perfect 00:17:59.140 --> 00:18:02.440 oral care. It's not quite that simple. There 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:05.779 are nuances to doing it well, but I think reducing 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:08.750 the complexity Your example of I had this one 00:18:08.750 --> 00:18:10.549 person do this one thing well, that is the right 00:18:10.549 --> 00:18:13.430 way to do it. Don't boil the ocean. That's the 00:18:13.430 --> 00:18:15.769 other thing. Don't try to do all marketing all 00:18:15.769 --> 00:18:19.529 at once at the same time and have reasonable 00:18:19.529 --> 00:18:22.630 expectations. Do a few things well. Work with 00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:24.849 your agency or whoever's working on your marketing 00:18:24.849 --> 00:18:27.369 and do those few things well. Measure them. Get 00:18:27.369 --> 00:18:29.609 the performance up high. And don't take on something 00:18:29.609 --> 00:18:32.049 else until you have one thing sorted out. Would 00:18:32.049 --> 00:18:36.670 you say the base of that is the website? I mean, 00:18:36.690 --> 00:18:39.690 if you don't have a great website, can you have 00:18:39.690 --> 00:18:41.849 great social without a great website? If you 00:18:41.849 --> 00:18:46.789 have amazing reviews, is the website the nucleus 00:18:46.789 --> 00:18:50.049 of this effort, in your opinion? Absolutely. 00:18:50.049 --> 00:18:52.650 I mean, just empirically based on the data. I 00:18:52.650 --> 00:18:55.569 mean, of the entire data set that we have now, 00:18:55.650 --> 00:18:58.009 something like less than 1 % don't have a website. 00:18:58.549 --> 00:19:00.450 There's some that just have social profiles. 00:19:00.630 --> 00:19:02.710 There's some that just have GMB profiles, things 00:19:02.710 --> 00:19:05.450 like that. Those are rare. But again, if we come 00:19:05.450 --> 00:19:07.309 back to this notion of if you think about your 00:19:07.309 --> 00:19:09.470 local market, all of the people that could become 00:19:09.470 --> 00:19:11.730 your patients, let's again, to keep the math 00:19:11.730 --> 00:19:13.309 simple, let's say there's 10 people that could 00:19:13.309 --> 00:19:16.289 become patients. Well, statistically for a GP, 00:19:16.490 --> 00:19:18.130 three of them are going to find you by search. 00:19:18.410 --> 00:19:21.109 One of them will find you by a generalized display 00:19:21.109 --> 00:19:24.289 ad. Three to four are going to find you by referrals. 00:19:24.430 --> 00:19:26.329 And then, you know, one or two are going to find 00:19:26.329 --> 00:19:29.450 you by what I would call legacy, like your mailers 00:19:29.450 --> 00:19:31.710 or your bus reps or whatever people are doing. 00:19:32.559 --> 00:19:36.700 If you don't have a website, almost 80 % of that, 00:19:36.779 --> 00:19:38.920 maybe even more than that, basically disappears. 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:41.839 If you don't give them a destination to go to, 00:19:41.940 --> 00:19:44.819 and you don't more specifically give the things 00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:47.240 that are giving them that information, like Google, 00:19:47.420 --> 00:19:51.000 a destination to go through, you're in a lot 00:19:51.000 --> 00:19:53.720 of trouble. And it's not enough just to have 00:19:53.720 --> 00:19:56.299 the awareness piece. It's also converting them 00:19:56.299 --> 00:19:58.059 once they go to the website. So part of it is 00:19:58.059 --> 00:20:00.930 having a website. that people can go to, a destination, 00:20:01.250 --> 00:20:03.230 and it needs to be built well, it needs to have 00:20:03.230 --> 00:20:04.849 landing pages and other things for you to do 00:20:04.849 --> 00:20:07.569 testing, it needs to have all of that. It needs 00:20:07.569 --> 00:20:10.450 to convert those people. And then the last thing 00:20:10.450 --> 00:20:12.369 is, and this is something that I think is probably 00:20:12.369 --> 00:20:14.109 not going to be top of mind for most practice 00:20:14.109 --> 00:20:17.809 owners, it is your greatest source of analytics. 00:20:18.569 --> 00:20:22.069 It is the nexus of anything else that you're 00:20:22.069 --> 00:20:24.269 doing, if you've structured things well, I would 00:20:24.269 --> 00:20:27.089 say most practices are doing themselves a disservice. 00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:29.339 If they don't have a website that helps them 00:20:29.339 --> 00:20:31.119 understand what works and what doesn't work. 00:20:31.819 --> 00:20:33.619 Can you dig into that a little bit for me? If 00:20:33.619 --> 00:20:36.380 like, how would I, if I'm a practice owner, how 00:20:36.380 --> 00:20:39.000 would I understand the analytics? I mean, you 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:43.019 know, someone's throwing bounce rates and these 00:20:43.019 --> 00:20:46.940 terms at me, right? What is it that I'm looking 00:20:46.940 --> 00:20:50.980 for? The real rough statistical rule of thumb 00:20:50.980 --> 00:20:52.839 we put out there for kind of what you want to 00:20:52.839 --> 00:20:55.279 see on a website or just in marketing in general 00:20:55.279 --> 00:20:59.059 is. Whatever the engagement rate is for the top 00:20:59.059 --> 00:21:01.039 of funnel, so when I say top of funnel, again, 00:21:01.099 --> 00:21:03.099 somebody that does a search, somebody that sees 00:21:03.099 --> 00:21:05.720 something on a social post, whatever, those dynamics 00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:10.359 have a lot of chaos about them. But once they 00:21:10.359 --> 00:21:12.799 hit the engagement level, once they hit the website, 00:21:13.160 --> 00:21:18.819 we kind of want to see a 3 -3 -3 ratio. We want 00:21:18.819 --> 00:21:21.619 to have... Of the people that hit the website, 00:21:21.900 --> 00:21:24.819 we want to have about a 3 % conversion rate across 00:21:24.819 --> 00:21:27.160 the board. And when I say conversion rate, I'm 00:21:27.160 --> 00:21:29.599 saying they have a phone call to your practice, 00:21:29.799 --> 00:21:33.359 they complete a form, or ideally you have a dynamic 00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:35.619 scheduler and they can schedule their own console 00:21:35.619 --> 00:21:39.660 right there. Of those, those we generally consider 00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:42.099 to be unqualified leads from a marketing standpoint. 00:21:42.730 --> 00:21:44.930 They've expressed interest, but you have not 00:21:44.930 --> 00:21:46.789 yet determined if they are actually a fit for 00:21:46.789 --> 00:21:48.470 your services or the type of patient you want. 00:21:48.630 --> 00:21:50.369 Probably they are, but maybe they're not. If 00:21:50.369 --> 00:21:52.490 you have a high specialty practice like you do 00:21:52.490 --> 00:21:54.170 in implants or something like that, you might 00:21:54.170 --> 00:21:56.390 be very particular about who you want to see. 00:21:57.529 --> 00:22:00.450 Once that happens, we want to see at least a 00:22:00.450 --> 00:22:05.690 one -to -three ratio of folks turning into what 00:22:05.690 --> 00:22:09.160 we consider qualified leads. We sell them what 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:12.680 they need and we want them as a patient. The 00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:15.819 last angle is when you talk about case presentation, 00:22:15.920 --> 00:22:19.039 outside of things like, you know, your run rate 00:22:19.039 --> 00:22:21.599 preventative and diagnostic, but for your more 00:22:21.599 --> 00:22:24.480 high dollar things like implants or prosto or 00:22:24.480 --> 00:22:26.819 perio, we want to see a case acceptance rate 00:22:26.819 --> 00:22:30.700 of about one in three as well. So on the website, 00:22:30.980 --> 00:22:32.779 I would want to, I would, and Google Analytics 00:22:32.779 --> 00:22:35.079 is a bit technical, I think for most folks, but. 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:37.299 However you choose to do this, I would want to 00:22:37.299 --> 00:22:39.380 see of the folks that hit the website and have 00:22:39.380 --> 00:22:41.220 a... However you choose to do this, I would want 00:22:41.220 --> 00:22:43.779 to see of the folks that hit the website, a scheduler, 00:22:43.779 --> 00:22:51.440 and then identify where I have a blockage or 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:53.160 where I have underperformance, and that's where 00:22:53.160 --> 00:22:57.720 I would put my focus. You mentioned online scheduling, 00:22:58.000 --> 00:23:03.589 which... Every dentist I've ever met thinks their 00:23:03.589 --> 00:23:08.329 schedule is some unique flower that only they 00:23:08.329 --> 00:23:12.089 can replicate. I mean, obviously we love online 00:23:12.089 --> 00:23:15.849 scheduling. How do you see it progressing over 00:23:15.849 --> 00:23:20.069 the next few years? And I mean, you said hopefully 00:23:20.069 --> 00:23:21.470 they have online scheduling when you were talking 00:23:21.470 --> 00:23:25.789 earlier. How are you integrating it in and where 00:23:25.789 --> 00:23:28.750 are we going with it today? Because today I believe 00:23:28.750 --> 00:23:32.700 most practices, The online schedulers really 00:23:32.700 --> 00:23:34.519 request an appointment, and then the practice 00:23:34.519 --> 00:23:38.019 has to call back and confirm, and there's a level 00:23:38.019 --> 00:23:42.079 of overhead there that they dislike. I think 00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:45.720 there's just a changing reality, and you can't 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:48.740 stop it. So 29 % of practices in our index have 00:23:48.740 --> 00:23:51.259 a scheduler of some kind, and I would define 00:23:51.259 --> 00:23:53.880 a scheduler as I can pick a time, not I request 00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:56.849 a time. So that number is up from a few years 00:23:56.849 --> 00:23:59.230 ago because I think it was about 17 or 18 percent. 00:23:59.269 --> 00:24:02.250 There is a trend where more practices are having 00:24:02.250 --> 00:24:03.730 online schedules. But you're absolutely right. 00:24:03.769 --> 00:24:05.569 When I've talked to practice owners, I hear the 00:24:05.569 --> 00:24:09.170 same thing. This idea of I want to control my 00:24:09.170 --> 00:24:11.250 schedule, which is a totally I would want to 00:24:11.250 --> 00:24:15.130 do the same thing. The problem is your patient 00:24:15.130 --> 00:24:17.369 base, your prospective patient base isn't going 00:24:17.369 --> 00:24:20.289 to tolerate that. This gets into a much deeper 00:24:20.289 --> 00:24:22.089 conversation about some of the other trends data 00:24:22.089 --> 00:24:24.750 that we've looked at. But in 2023, one of the 00:24:24.750 --> 00:24:26.789 big takeaways of the report was something we 00:24:26.789 --> 00:24:29.690 called the near me wave. And so we looked at 00:24:29.690 --> 00:24:32.930 35 ,000 keyword search terms and indexed them 00:24:32.930 --> 00:24:34.369 to, you know, this is this type of procedure, 00:24:34.490 --> 00:24:36.210 this type of procedure. This is talking affordability. 00:24:36.230 --> 00:24:38.730 This is talking convenience. The one that destroyed 00:24:38.730 --> 00:24:41.630 everything was proximity based search near me. 00:24:41.710 --> 00:24:44.230 Right. So we looked at dentist as a search term 00:24:44.230 --> 00:24:46.369 since 2010. Then we looked at dentist near me. 00:24:46.910 --> 00:24:49.730 In 2010, nobody was searching dentist near me. 00:24:49.789 --> 00:24:52.150 Smartphones had just started to really become 00:24:52.150 --> 00:24:55.490 a thing. And so you have this search term of 00:24:55.490 --> 00:24:58.349 dentist getting like a million and a half hits 00:24:58.349 --> 00:25:00.650 a month across the entire country. And today 00:25:00.650 --> 00:25:02.910 it's like two million hits a month. Had this 00:25:02.910 --> 00:25:05.309 slow, gradual increase. When you look at dentist 00:25:05.309 --> 00:25:08.190 near me, has this increase, and then it's something 00:25:08.190 --> 00:25:11.990 like three million hits a month now. It overtook 00:25:11.990 --> 00:25:14.269 everything. It went from not being how we search 00:25:14.269 --> 00:25:16.609 to the only way we search or the primary way 00:25:16.609 --> 00:25:20.269 that we search. That speaks to a focus on convenience. 00:25:20.410 --> 00:25:23.690 That speaks to, I am prioritizing convenience 00:25:23.690 --> 00:25:26.230 probably over quality of care, to be perfectly 00:25:26.230 --> 00:25:29.009 honest. A scheduler's part of that, right? The 00:25:29.009 --> 00:25:31.150 scheduler's convenience. And if you take that 00:25:31.150 --> 00:25:33.470 convenience away from them, they're just going 00:25:33.470 --> 00:25:36.029 to move on to the next thing. And the last thing 00:25:36.029 --> 00:25:38.009 I would say about that, if we go back and look 00:25:38.009 --> 00:25:43.640 at data from 25 years ago, For a GP, I think 00:25:43.640 --> 00:25:47.599 your average life cycle in time for most GPs 00:25:47.599 --> 00:25:49.859 was 15 or 16 years for a patient, right? You 00:25:49.859 --> 00:25:52.259 got a new patient, they stuck around for a while. 00:25:52.980 --> 00:25:57.339 Today, there's a lot of chaos in the numbers 00:25:57.339 --> 00:25:59.980 on this, but the number we see now is about 72 00:25:59.980 --> 00:26:02.890 months. So that means this is happening more 00:26:02.890 --> 00:26:05.690 often, which means the opportunity to find a 00:26:05.690 --> 00:26:07.549 new dentist is happening more frequently than 00:26:07.549 --> 00:26:09.829 it used to, which means this preference towards 00:26:09.829 --> 00:26:12.670 convenience is actually going to magnify where 00:26:12.670 --> 00:26:16.490 patients go. So if you're a practice that got 00:26:16.490 --> 00:26:20.029 away with, I don't have a scheduler, even today, 00:26:20.089 --> 00:26:21.849 you may be like, oh, it's fine. It's not a big 00:26:21.849 --> 00:26:24.309 deal. But you're shedding patients that you don't 00:26:24.309 --> 00:26:26.730 know. And the guy down the street from you that 00:26:26.730 --> 00:26:29.130 does have a scheduler is taking up more of them 00:26:29.130 --> 00:26:32.650 than you are yourself. It's really critical. 00:26:33.210 --> 00:26:36.210 What are you seeing as the trends of why are 00:26:36.210 --> 00:26:39.650 we changing dentists? Are we moving more? Are 00:26:39.650 --> 00:26:44.130 we just impatient? Are we cycling through different 00:26:44.130 --> 00:26:48.029 insurance plans more quickly? Do we just have 00:26:48.029 --> 00:26:51.769 the comparison game of someone's going to a better 00:26:51.769 --> 00:26:55.009 dentist? What's the story behind the rapid change? 00:26:55.430 --> 00:26:58.650 We call this the Karen effect in the 2023 report. 00:26:59.069 --> 00:27:03.619 All right. Basically, the barriers to selecting 00:27:03.619 --> 00:27:06.220 a new dentist are falling down. It used to be 00:27:06.220 --> 00:27:08.740 kind of a pain, right? Like 25 years ago, like 00:27:08.740 --> 00:27:10.519 when I opened up the yellow pages. The paperwork 00:27:10.519 --> 00:27:13.259 alone. Yeah. The paperwork alone is enough to 00:27:13.259 --> 00:27:15.839 deter me. And so it's like, okay, I had a bad 00:27:15.839 --> 00:27:17.779 experience, but it's not worth it. I'm not going 00:27:17.779 --> 00:27:19.660 to do it, right? So it just didn't happen as 00:27:19.660 --> 00:27:21.920 much. Today, it's like, I didn't like the wallpaper 00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:24.299 and content of practice. So I'm going to walk 00:27:24.299 --> 00:27:25.980 out and find a new practice. It's going to take 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:29.240 me 30 seconds to get. 25 options that are close 00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:33.099 by. GMB, my business, is going to give me a proxy 00:27:33.099 --> 00:27:35.220 for trust by looking at the value of their scores 00:27:35.220 --> 00:27:39.539 and their reviews. It's just easier. And when 00:27:39.539 --> 00:27:42.519 I talk about the Karen effect, all of the technologies 00:27:42.519 --> 00:27:44.440 that have made things easier for us, I can buy 00:27:44.440 --> 00:27:46.359 something on Amazon, it shows up tomorrow, all 00:27:46.359 --> 00:27:49.519 of that stuff, it's just changed our behavior 00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:53.079 as consumers. We're more demanding, we're less 00:27:53.079 --> 00:27:55.880 tolerant of things we don't like, and those things 00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:58.039 have made it so that we can make that change. 00:27:58.059 --> 00:28:00.299 If for whatever reason, if I just want to make 00:28:00.299 --> 00:28:02.539 a change with my dentist, it's just easier than 00:28:02.539 --> 00:28:07.799 it's ever been. I've always struggled to, as 00:28:07.799 --> 00:28:11.460 just a rank and file consumer, it is so difficult 00:28:11.460 --> 00:28:16.480 to gauge. And I'm interested in your opinion 00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:19.740 on this. I don't know that there is an industry 00:28:19.740 --> 00:28:24.400 where you have these typically introverted business 00:28:24.400 --> 00:28:27.559 owners being dentists. Right. They get into it 00:28:27.559 --> 00:28:31.160 because it's the art and the blending of science 00:28:31.160 --> 00:28:34.319 and the crafting of your hands. And then you're 00:28:34.319 --> 00:28:39.539 a real business owner right first. And 10 or 00:28:39.539 --> 00:28:42.619 15 years ago, I believe that if you were a great 00:28:42.619 --> 00:28:46.799 clinician and an average business owner, you 00:28:46.799 --> 00:28:50.650 ran a good operation. I think today. If you're 00:28:50.650 --> 00:28:53.569 a great clinician and an average business owner, 00:28:53.710 --> 00:28:55.990 you're probably a good employee for a DSO at 00:28:55.990 --> 00:29:02.970 this point. Yes. What has happened? Is it just 00:29:02.970 --> 00:29:05.009 we're just more complex? Is it the world's moving 00:29:05.009 --> 00:29:11.369 faster? Because the stories of there's a dentist 00:29:11.369 --> 00:29:13.470 out there that has a bad website with no reviews 00:29:13.470 --> 00:29:16.609 and they're killing it is getting rarer and rarer. 00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:20.180 And quickly. That rarer and rarer is happening 00:29:20.180 --> 00:29:26.599 faster and faster. So many conversations around 00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:31.519 this. I want my dentist to be a really good clinician, 00:29:31.619 --> 00:29:33.819 first and foremost. We all do. We all do, right? 00:29:33.920 --> 00:29:36.880 Like, I don't want that whoever, he or she, I 00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:38.680 don't want them to be focused on, I'm the best 00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:41.099 business manager on earth. No, I want them to 00:29:41.099 --> 00:29:43.200 give me the best care possible. So I look at 00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:45.519 that and I'm like, I'm really sympathetic to 00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:48.359 this issue. And it used to be, again, going back, 00:29:48.460 --> 00:29:50.980 you know, 25 years and in some cases longer, 00:29:51.099 --> 00:29:53.920 some cases shorter, you hung a shingle out, you 00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:57.099 had services we all needed. Just focus on giving 00:29:57.099 --> 00:29:59.539 good care. And, you know, if you hang that shingle, 00:29:59.539 --> 00:30:03.160 we will come. We will get there. That's just 00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:06.900 not the world today. You brought up this notion 00:30:06.900 --> 00:30:09.160 of consumer behavior, and I think you are spot 00:30:09.160 --> 00:30:13.359 on. That behavior, like if you look at search 00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:16.279 trends, search trends are blowing up. Massive 00:30:16.279 --> 00:30:18.660 search volume. The population's not changing 00:30:18.660 --> 00:30:21.099 that fast. It's behavior that's changing, and 00:30:21.099 --> 00:30:25.730 it's changing radically. Today, I think the challenge 00:30:25.730 --> 00:30:27.769 that a practice owner faces is, well, how do 00:30:27.769 --> 00:30:31.329 I remain focused on being this really good clinician, 00:30:31.390 --> 00:30:34.130 but not ignore the fact that I'm also running 00:30:34.130 --> 00:30:37.829 a business and I can't pretend that there isn't 00:30:37.829 --> 00:30:40.789 value to investing in that business? And I actually 00:30:40.789 --> 00:30:42.529 think, you know, right or wrong, I was on another 00:30:42.529 --> 00:30:44.789 podcast recently and we were talking about this 00:30:44.789 --> 00:30:48.359 issue of. Is it good or bad that DSOs are on 00:30:48.359 --> 00:30:50.440 the rise? You know, they continue to swallow 00:30:50.440 --> 00:30:52.640 up more and more of the local practices. And 00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:54.740 my thought is, I think it's a normal, healthy 00:30:54.740 --> 00:30:56.819 thing. And I think like a lot of things, there'll 00:30:56.819 --> 00:30:59.259 be some balance that's introduced in the market 00:30:59.259 --> 00:31:03.680 at some point. But the DSOs are introducing scale 00:31:03.680 --> 00:31:06.319 and sophistication that your local practices 00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:09.799 can't necessarily compete with. I think the answer 00:31:09.799 --> 00:31:13.000 to that is... There needs to be more tools and 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:15.519 resources that are, and I think this is the biggest 00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:19.579 term, accessible to a practice owner. There's 00:31:19.579 --> 00:31:22.380 really smart marketers out there. But if I don't 00:31:22.380 --> 00:31:24.420 understand them or I don't like them or something, 00:31:24.500 --> 00:31:26.420 you know, that's not going to help me. And I 00:31:26.420 --> 00:31:28.259 don't need somebody that's really smart at marketing. 00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:30.140 I just need somebody to solve this problem so 00:31:30.140 --> 00:31:33.140 I can go back to being a good clinician. So I 00:31:33.140 --> 00:31:35.400 think there is this tenuous relationship between 00:31:35.400 --> 00:31:37.259 DSOs and the local practices that are actually 00:31:37.259 --> 00:31:41.069 going to help both in the end. Yeah, it's not 00:31:41.069 --> 00:31:42.809 a fun place to be when you're having to try to 00:31:42.809 --> 00:31:44.609 feel like you have to pick between being a business 00:31:44.609 --> 00:31:47.890 manager and a really good dentist. No, it's a 00:31:47.890 --> 00:31:50.589 tough place to be. And you need no other data 00:31:50.589 --> 00:31:54.089 point on how effective DSOs are becoming in marketing 00:31:54.089 --> 00:31:58.250 in that when you looked at DSOs seven years ago, 00:31:58.769 --> 00:32:03.710 they were hiring, I'll say their CMOs and their 00:32:03.710 --> 00:32:06.210 leadership in marketing were people from dental, 00:32:06.369 --> 00:32:09.319 which I think is great. That's fine. But now 00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:12.140 they're bringing in Procter & Gamble alums. They're 00:32:12.140 --> 00:32:14.440 bringing in these people from outside the market 00:32:14.440 --> 00:32:17.359 because if you're in consumer packaged goods 00:32:17.359 --> 00:32:20.079 or you're in some other form of industry, you 00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:23.460 understand multi -chain attribution and you're 00:32:23.460 --> 00:32:25.980 bringing a level of sophistication to marketing 00:32:25.980 --> 00:32:31.680 that just didn't exist in dentistry. It's been 00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:34.970 hanging a good website and, you know. I would 00:32:34.970 --> 00:32:37.529 say not only did it not exist, but the economics 00:32:37.529 --> 00:32:39.210 weren't there to support it, right? There's a 00:32:39.210 --> 00:32:41.950 cost to doing that level of marketing. And you 00:32:41.950 --> 00:32:43.690 talk about, you know, somebody like Procter & 00:32:43.690 --> 00:32:45.450 Gamble, somebody that does, you know, massive 00:32:45.450 --> 00:32:48.849 consumer products. They are their own ecosystem 00:32:48.849 --> 00:32:51.470 in their own right, right? Like, you know, they 00:32:51.470 --> 00:32:54.410 have more data on one product line than the whole 00:32:54.410 --> 00:32:56.730 industry of dental has collectively, right? You 00:32:56.730 --> 00:32:59.769 know, and so DSOs, I think, do bring that level 00:32:59.769 --> 00:33:02.390 of resource focus because the economics start 00:33:02.390 --> 00:33:07.019 to make sense. Personally, I don't want to live 00:33:07.019 --> 00:33:10.359 in a world where it's all DSOs. I also don't 00:33:10.359 --> 00:33:11.720 want to live in a world where they don't exist. 00:33:11.980 --> 00:33:16.599 I do think that it's a competitive aspect that 00:33:16.599 --> 00:33:18.740 is going to ultimately help everybody in the 00:33:18.740 --> 00:33:21.880 end, but it's going to be a challenge to endure 00:33:21.880 --> 00:33:26.319 it over the next several years. Well, I think 00:33:26.319 --> 00:33:29.950 you go back to the… It's not the strongest that 00:33:29.950 --> 00:33:32.230 survive or the fastest that survive. It's the 00:33:32.230 --> 00:33:35.569 most adaptable to change. And the DSOs have raised 00:33:35.569 --> 00:33:40.369 the bar on the quality of care that you need 00:33:40.369 --> 00:33:42.750 to radiate. Now, I'm not saying you can't have 00:33:42.750 --> 00:33:46.269 quality of care, but I want to get into video 00:33:46.269 --> 00:33:49.289 content as we talk about this, but that's one 00:33:49.289 --> 00:33:52.170 area that I find the dentists don't want to do. 00:33:52.730 --> 00:34:01.039 No one enjoys being on video. But yet, saying, 00:34:01.220 --> 00:34:03.240 telling me the technology you have, telling me 00:34:03.240 --> 00:34:06.880 you have a cone beam is great, but so do I can 00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:08.780 hit seven iron from cone beam to cone beam to 00:34:08.780 --> 00:34:12.300 cone beam. Right. It doesn't differentiate you. 00:34:12.480 --> 00:34:14.860 And what does that even mean to your prospective 00:34:14.860 --> 00:34:19.260 patients anyway, right? Yeah. Yeah. You had a 00:34:19.260 --> 00:34:20.960 quarter million dollars to burn. I don't know 00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:23.840 what it means. Yeah. We've talked about DSOs. 00:34:23.900 --> 00:34:25.440 We've talked about the changing market. We've 00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:28.960 talked about, you know, the... marketing index. 00:34:29.300 --> 00:34:34.739 Where do you see dental marketing evolving? How 00:34:34.739 --> 00:34:37.659 do you see it growing over the next two to three 00:34:37.659 --> 00:34:40.800 years with the consumer demand? I think that 00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:42.800 in the same way that this has happened across 00:34:42.800 --> 00:34:46.820 other industries where you have a very homogenous 00:34:46.820 --> 00:34:51.539 SMB slice like dental. One of the things I like 00:34:51.539 --> 00:34:53.219 about dental, one of the reasons the index is 00:34:53.219 --> 00:34:57.579 even possible is we have 135 ,000 dental practices 00:34:57.579 --> 00:35:00.480 in the U .S., 115 ,000 of them are GPs. They 00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:02.599 have a lot of similarities in terms of their 00:35:02.599 --> 00:35:04.420 needs and so on and so forth. When we look at 00:35:04.420 --> 00:35:06.820 other, this is the same issue has been happening 00:35:06.820 --> 00:35:10.530 to. broader healthcare for 25 years anyway, right? 00:35:10.630 --> 00:35:14.530 A lot of your local doctor's offices have been 00:35:14.530 --> 00:35:17.269 absorbed into much larger organizations. And 00:35:17.269 --> 00:35:19.610 that trend, I mean, with private equity, that 00:35:19.610 --> 00:35:22.269 goes into everything from car dealerships and 00:35:22.269 --> 00:35:24.409 plumbing companies to all kinds of things. So 00:35:24.409 --> 00:35:27.449 this trend that's happening in dental, I think 00:35:27.449 --> 00:35:30.429 it's not a new thing. So we can kind of have 00:35:30.429 --> 00:35:34.969 some learnings from that. I do think... I do 00:35:34.969 --> 00:35:36.869 think the big changes that are going to come 00:35:36.869 --> 00:35:40.110 is just we have to have the ability to manage 00:35:40.110 --> 00:35:43.210 complexity. And to your point, that requires 00:35:43.210 --> 00:35:48.190 adaptability. There's a lot of folks that don't, 00:35:48.190 --> 00:35:50.730 not a lot of folks, I would throw myself into 00:35:50.730 --> 00:35:54.030 this. I don't like change that I didn't instigate. 00:35:54.070 --> 00:35:56.050 I don't like it when the world changes and I 00:35:56.050 --> 00:35:59.519 didn't get my permission to do that. But that 00:35:59.519 --> 00:36:01.699 is just going to happen. It's going to happen 00:36:01.699 --> 00:36:05.519 faster and faster. And if your adaptability is 00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:08.320 a muscle, you need to get comfortable. If you 00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:11.199 want to run a practice, you need to get comfortable 00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:16.239 with that. That's just a fact. Not having that 00:36:16.239 --> 00:36:19.340 focus on adaptability and staying current on 00:36:19.340 --> 00:36:21.860 what's happening is sort of like saying, I want 00:36:21.860 --> 00:36:24.199 to be a dentist, but I really don't like teeth. 00:36:24.809 --> 00:36:27.409 I'm just not going to – no, you have to do – 00:36:27.409 --> 00:36:28.929 that's just something that's part of the deal. 00:36:29.110 --> 00:36:31.389 And I think you hit on it. A lot of folks that 00:36:31.389 --> 00:36:33.849 are really good clinicians that are okay at running 00:36:33.849 --> 00:36:36.050 a practice, they're probably going to continue 00:36:36.050 --> 00:36:38.550 to face this question of, do I sell my practice 00:36:38.550 --> 00:36:42.170 to a larger organization? I think, though, the 00:36:42.170 --> 00:36:45.210 blessing and the curse in all of this is there 00:36:45.210 --> 00:36:49.090 are – when you look at technologies over time, 00:36:49.329 --> 00:36:51.949 complexity comes up. And then the complexity 00:36:51.949 --> 00:36:54.909 comes down. You have these really state -of -the 00:36:54.909 --> 00:36:57.090 -art things that were built for very specific 00:36:57.090 --> 00:37:00.429 things and very high -end uses, and then they 00:37:00.429 --> 00:37:04.510 get consumerized. That's happening with dental 00:37:04.510 --> 00:37:08.650 tools and marketing technologies more broadly. 00:37:08.769 --> 00:37:12.190 The index itself is part of that. We're trying 00:37:12.190 --> 00:37:14.449 to be a part of that conversation about reducing 00:37:14.449 --> 00:37:17.409 complexity and giving tools to folks so they 00:37:17.409 --> 00:37:20.300 can make good decisions. And I do think, though, 00:37:20.340 --> 00:37:22.360 I mean, that your question also leads into like, 00:37:22.460 --> 00:37:24.519 well, what are the other trends in the next five 00:37:24.519 --> 00:37:26.460 to 10 years that really are going to hit practices? 00:37:26.599 --> 00:37:29.179 And, you know, and I don't know if you want to 00:37:29.179 --> 00:37:31.300 go there or not, but there's some big ones I 00:37:31.300 --> 00:37:33.300 think that everybody kind of knows about, but 00:37:33.300 --> 00:37:36.639 they do need some attention. Mobile, like, I 00:37:36.639 --> 00:37:39.619 got to ask you a question. How many of the folks 00:37:39.619 --> 00:37:42.539 that you talk to think that mobile is important 00:37:42.539 --> 00:37:47.769 to their marketing? It would be hard for me to 00:37:47.769 --> 00:37:51.190 give a number. They hear it and repeat it. I 00:37:51.190 --> 00:37:56.070 don't believe they understand what mobile first 00:37:56.070 --> 00:38:00.389 means or mobile. I think they're repeating words 00:38:00.389 --> 00:38:04.570 like saying, I need to advertise on TikTok. I 00:38:04.570 --> 00:38:09.429 think it's a similar, they'll say the words because 00:38:09.429 --> 00:38:11.230 I think they're repeating something, but I don't 00:38:11.230 --> 00:38:13.190 know that they really understand the impact of 00:38:13.190 --> 00:38:19.900 mobile. So it's unlimited. Based on what you've 00:38:19.900 --> 00:38:23.179 seen and what you observed with your own experiences, 00:38:23.460 --> 00:38:27.039 how much traffic to a practice's website is mobile? 00:38:28.559 --> 00:38:34.860 Oh, gosh. Near 100. 87, I'm going to guess. It's 00:38:34.860 --> 00:38:37.139 on the lowest end samples we've seen, it's in 00:38:37.139 --> 00:38:40.860 the mid 80s. And it's like 94, 95 % for most 00:38:40.860 --> 00:38:44.380 practices. And so you talked about video earlier. 00:38:44.639 --> 00:38:47.760 And I was on Costas' podcast a couple of years 00:38:47.760 --> 00:38:49.659 ago on this, and he said something to the effect 00:38:49.659 --> 00:38:51.500 of, well, I thought video was something that 00:38:51.500 --> 00:38:54.940 Google liked. And I'm like, it depends. Optimize 00:38:54.940 --> 00:38:57.019 video that's delivered crisply, quickly, and 00:38:57.019 --> 00:38:58.880 is part of an experience. Yes, that increases 00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:00.880 engagement time. That's time on site. Google 00:39:00.880 --> 00:39:02.519 sees that. They're going to increase your authority 00:39:02.519 --> 00:39:06.539 score. But if I had this big, beautiful panoramic 00:39:06.539 --> 00:39:09.539 video that is now sliced into this tiny thing. 00:39:10.010 --> 00:39:13.070 And 95 % of my traffic is going to get this really 00:39:13.070 --> 00:39:15.630 suboptimal experience. Actually, video is bad. 00:39:16.250 --> 00:39:20.809 And so when we talk about the future in industries 00:39:20.809 --> 00:39:23.130 outside of dental, we've been shouting mobile 00:39:23.130 --> 00:39:26.409 first for 15 years. And even those industries 00:39:26.409 --> 00:39:31.150 struggle to really adhere to that. No question. 00:39:31.269 --> 00:39:34.150 And I think it begins with when a developer starts 00:39:34.150 --> 00:39:37.750 building a site, they're doing it on a 38 -inch 00:39:37.750 --> 00:39:43.989 monitor. Yep. I almost feel like those dev environments 00:39:43.989 --> 00:39:46.550 need to basically take away the ability to build 00:39:46.550 --> 00:39:49.389 on anything but mobile and then create tools 00:39:49.389 --> 00:39:51.289 to make that mobile experience extensible to 00:39:51.289 --> 00:39:54.050 a desktop. It's just, I don't understand why 00:39:54.050 --> 00:39:56.670 that's still an issue. So mobile isn't changing. 00:39:56.769 --> 00:39:58.349 And you talked about making video for TikTok. 00:39:58.710 --> 00:40:02.110 We're doing so much stuff on our phone that... 00:40:02.360 --> 00:40:04.300 The old school approach was I'm going to build 00:40:04.300 --> 00:40:06.059 a website that when somebody decides they want 00:40:06.059 --> 00:40:08.340 to have dental services, they need help. They're 00:40:08.340 --> 00:40:09.860 going to go to that website. I'm going to show 00:40:09.860 --> 00:40:11.500 them what I do. They're going to click on something 00:40:11.500 --> 00:40:12.739 and they're going to call us. They're going to 00:40:12.739 --> 00:40:15.000 schedule whatever. That's not what's happening. 00:40:15.099 --> 00:40:17.320 I'm on my phone. I see something on TikTok or 00:40:17.320 --> 00:40:19.739 I see something on Instagram. I then cruise on 00:40:19.739 --> 00:40:21.920 over to your website for five seconds, like what 00:40:21.920 --> 00:40:23.960 I see, but I'm not in a position to want to do 00:40:23.960 --> 00:40:25.139 something right then and there. So I'm going 00:40:25.139 --> 00:40:26.980 to go back to what I was doing. And then at a 00:40:26.980 --> 00:40:28.539 later date, I'm going to find you with a branded 00:40:28.539 --> 00:40:31.719 search or something like that. Mobile is so important. 00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:34.940 You just have to think about engaging with your 00:40:34.940 --> 00:40:38.739 world as if the only window was that mobile device. 00:40:38.860 --> 00:40:42.059 I think that's first and foremost. I would also 00:40:42.059 --> 00:40:45.840 throw out that there is a change in SEO. We're 00:40:45.840 --> 00:40:48.280 seeing this and our models are being updated 00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:52.619 with this version of the DMI. Search is no longer 00:40:52.619 --> 00:40:54.840 just search. And I think you can speak to this 00:40:54.840 --> 00:40:57.300 probably better than I can. But if somebody does 00:40:57.300 --> 00:40:59.909 a search for dentist near me, What do you see? 00:41:01.289 --> 00:41:05.690 Oh, I mean, Google has rolled out new map packs. 00:41:05.989 --> 00:41:10.309 There's sponsored. There's, you know, frequently 00:41:10.309 --> 00:41:13.829 asked questions. There's also information sort 00:41:13.829 --> 00:41:18.150 of suggestions. Yeah, the organic result is getting 00:41:18.150 --> 00:41:20.849 pushed further down and down the page. Exactly, 00:41:20.929 --> 00:41:24.250 exactly. So, like, I still, our research still 00:41:24.250 --> 00:41:27.239 supports the notion that About 30 -ish percent, 00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:29.800 it'll drop or increase based on population density 00:41:29.800 --> 00:41:32.619 and a few other things. But basically about three 00:41:32.619 --> 00:41:35.179 in 10 of your new patients probably found you 00:41:35.179 --> 00:41:38.699 on search, but the experience on search is not 00:41:38.699 --> 00:41:42.079 what it used to be. And so the idea that I need 00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:44.960 to take this approach of what I did 10 years 00:41:44.960 --> 00:41:47.900 ago, I have content that's engaging. I really 00:41:47.900 --> 00:41:49.920 focus on my authority score for that content. 00:41:50.019 --> 00:41:51.800 I really make sure that it's trusted and all 00:41:51.800 --> 00:41:54.619 of that. nobody's scrolling down to it anymore. 00:41:54.780 --> 00:41:58.500 It's all going to the map. And so most of that 00:41:58.500 --> 00:42:02.820 30 % that's coming from search, if you drill 00:42:02.820 --> 00:42:05.519 into that, a huge piece of that is never leaving 00:42:05.519 --> 00:42:07.579 that map path experience, right? You're just 00:42:07.579 --> 00:42:10.760 seeing these are all the dentists near me. I'm 00:42:10.760 --> 00:42:13.199 going to make a quick decision based on how close 00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:16.539 and the scores that I see. And maybe I won't 00:42:16.539 --> 00:42:19.019 make a final decision. But I'm going to exclude 00:42:19.019 --> 00:42:20.900 a whole bunch of stuff that maybe used to perform 00:42:20.900 --> 00:42:22.500 really well on mobile. So we look at that and 00:42:22.500 --> 00:42:26.119 we say, managing your GMB profile is now just 00:42:26.119 --> 00:42:28.340 as important as managing your website to search 00:42:28.340 --> 00:42:31.599 performance. And if you don't have a really good 00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:34.420 GMB profile, you're doing yourself a disservice. 00:42:34.559 --> 00:42:36.579 If you put money into your website, absolutely 00:42:36.579 --> 00:42:38.719 make sure your GMB profile looks good. You've 00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:40.440 got good reviews. You've got review solicitation. 00:42:41.400 --> 00:42:43.800 The last one is, again, kind of obvious, but 00:42:43.800 --> 00:42:48.139 it's AI. Before I say anything, I want your thoughts 00:42:48.139 --> 00:42:50.380 on what do you think AI is going to do in the 00:42:50.380 --> 00:42:52.539 next five to 10 years to this whole experience? 00:42:53.480 --> 00:42:56.300 My belief is when it comes to raw marketing, 00:42:56.360 --> 00:43:01.039 understanding your consumer is where we need 00:43:01.039 --> 00:43:04.199 the most help. So in the next five years, I will 00:43:04.199 --> 00:43:06.980 say that AI is probably going to make a good 00:43:06.980 --> 00:43:11.260 marketing message more effective. in the channels 00:43:11.260 --> 00:43:13.719 I can reach and, you know, the ability to generate 00:43:13.719 --> 00:43:17.500 content and script out a video or consume a podcast 00:43:17.500 --> 00:43:21.139 more quickly is where I would say it's going 00:43:21.139 --> 00:43:23.960 to be. I think it's going to accelerate people 00:43:23.960 --> 00:43:28.139 that have a good plan or a good understanding 00:43:28.139 --> 00:43:31.460 of their consumer will make better use of it. 00:43:31.519 --> 00:43:33.320 The people that don't will probably just replicate 00:43:33.320 --> 00:43:36.940 a poor message over and over. Probably how I 00:43:36.940 --> 00:43:39.469 would say a dental marketing. Yeah. I think I 00:43:39.469 --> 00:43:41.949 agree with all that. The thing about AI that 00:43:41.949 --> 00:43:44.010 I think is most interesting that will impact 00:43:44.010 --> 00:43:48.050 dental is AI is, and I think this was always 00:43:48.050 --> 00:43:50.429 the point of an LLM, of a large language model, 00:43:50.750 --> 00:43:54.769 AI is going to be specific to you. it's going 00:43:54.769 --> 00:43:57.250 to know you. It's going to know me. It's going 00:43:57.250 --> 00:43:59.510 to know anybody that it's interacting with. It's 00:43:59.510 --> 00:44:01.690 going to know your preferences, your fears. It's 00:44:01.690 --> 00:44:02.969 going to know what food you like. It's going 00:44:02.969 --> 00:44:05.349 to know, do you have sleep apnea? Like it's going 00:44:05.349 --> 00:44:08.530 to know everything about you and it's never going 00:44:08.530 --> 00:44:10.510 to require them for, if they have a question 00:44:10.510 --> 00:44:12.769 on, I want to find a new dentist, I'll never 00:44:12.769 --> 00:44:16.690 have to go to a website. I'll never have to look 00:44:16.690 --> 00:44:20.179 at Google reviews. I'll never. I will trust that 00:44:20.179 --> 00:44:24.219 AI, right or wrong, I will trust that AI in almost 00:44:24.219 --> 00:44:26.460 everything that it's doing because it knows me 00:44:26.460 --> 00:44:28.760 so well and I don't want the inconvenience of 00:44:28.760 --> 00:44:31.639 having... To me, that's the long game here that 00:44:31.639 --> 00:44:34.639 folks need to start to prepare for. In the same 00:44:34.639 --> 00:44:36.860 way that your marketing was meant to ultimately 00:44:36.860 --> 00:44:39.940 speak to consumers going through various channels, 00:44:40.159 --> 00:44:43.559 we need to start thinking about how that marketing 00:44:43.559 --> 00:44:46.800 builds authority and communicates to an AI platform. 00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:52.340 Justin, from the story about Roy to hotels to 00:44:52.340 --> 00:44:57.179 correlation causation, the 80 -20, man, we've 00:44:57.179 --> 00:45:00.579 covered a lot of ground here. Thank you so much 00:45:00.579 --> 00:45:02.400 for being on the show. I would love to have you 00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:05.139 back and dig deeper into some of these topics. 00:45:05.219 --> 00:45:09.880 Thank you so much for your time and for being 00:45:09.880 --> 00:45:13.380 out there trying to make the digital dental world 00:45:13.380 --> 00:45:16.969 a better place. I appreciate you taking the time 00:45:16.969 --> 00:45:19.010 and hearing me talk about some of my passions. 00:45:19.070 --> 00:45:20.429 So thank you, Eric. I appreciate it. It's been 00:45:20.429 --> 00:45:24.909 great. And that was your bite of dental marketing 00:45:24.909 --> 00:45:27.369 for the day. And the most important thing is 00:45:27.369 --> 00:45:31.690 don't listen to the episode and do nothing. We 00:45:31.690 --> 00:45:33.929 record these episodes so that you can take it 00:45:33.929 --> 00:45:36.429 and make a real difference in your dental practice. 00:45:36.630 --> 00:45:40.429 So take the advice we've given you. apply the 00:45:40.429 --> 00:45:43.130 action, do what you need to do and make the difference 00:45:43.130 --> 00:45:45.289 in your business. And if you need some help, 00:45:45.489 --> 00:45:49.170 painfreedentalmarketing .com or listen to a couple 00:45:49.170 --> 00:45:52.409 more of our episodes so that you know what you 00:45:52.409 --> 00:45:55.130 need to do to put the best foot forward and make 00:45:55.130 --> 00:45:56.570 that difference in your practice.