Welcome to By Size Dental Marketing. Today I
have Fred Joyal. If you don't know who Fred is,
you're not paying attention in dental, that's
for sure. 1 -800 -DENTIST, to the power of boldness,
to everything is marketing. I mean, like, gosh,
Fred, you've done everything. What would you
say is the, when you think about through your
career, through dental over the last, you know,
decades, what, where we've been and where we're
going? Well, I've certainly seen the whole trajectory
of marketing evolve and change and transform.
Because when I came into the market, dentists
were using yellow pages. That's how far back
I go. And we pioneered the use of television,
particularly on a national level, because it
was never practical for dentists to use it because
the broadcast would cast broadly. and it would
it would go way beyond the radius that a dentist
would draw from um and also i brought i came
up in the ad world so i wasn't i didn't come
in through dentistry i came in through the the
creation of advertising and the the buying and
placement of advertising and then i had to create
every other aspect of the business because 800
dentist was We were at a live call center, which
we had to create everything that made that work
as well. And so the one thing I learned, and
this is almost a through line from then to now,
is that people want to talk about the dentist
they go to before they talk to the practice.
So they want to talk with people about it if
they can. They want to now, the resources that
they have online are significant and incredibly
varied and diverse in terms of what they're like.
Facebook presents a very different image of the
practice than the website does and other types
of promotion, Google Ads, for example. So all
of those things, they're really designed to give
patients more resources because they didn't have
them. I mean, we had more information on the
dentist than they could get anywhere. We were
like Google and Yelp combined before there was
Google and Yelp. So now it's... It's very hard
to wrap your hands around and it's moving faster
than ever. Advertising has always been the fastest
moving form of communication, but now it's blazing
along that people who do it for a living are
having trouble keeping up. Yeah. Now, when you
look at the core problem a dentist faces in acquiring
new patients where, you're right, they... The
prospective patient wants to know about the practice.
They want to get a feel of the dentist. Do you
feel that consumer behavior has changed or do
you feel the tooling has allowed it to evolve?
Because I still want to connect with my dentist,
right? Is it just the tooling has changed or
do I actually have a need to have more information
about the dentist because consumer demand has
changed? Consumer behavior in terms of how they
approach businesses has changed radically because
of the availability of information. So they have
social media as a resource. They have several
channels of social media as a resource to learn
about whatever they're going to spend money on,
whatever service that they're going to use, whatever
product they're going to buy. They have reviews
by hundreds of people. No, we didn't have that
before. You know, you ask the guy in the cubicle
next to you or the woman at the PTA or something
like that. That's what people did. Now you can
go to YouTube and go as deep as you want on dentistry,
various procedures, and many, many, many practices.
So people do it. They'll check YouTube videos.
They'll check. Instagram, and then they'll go
to the website and then maybe they'll go to Yelp
or they'll go to Google and read reviews or they'll
go to Yelp and read reviews. So this is what
they do for everything. So now they do it for
dentists. And so that's the biggest challenge.
Yeah, is maintaining the brand and the consistency
across those channels. Yeah. How have you seen
dentistry evolve? over the decade and specifically
dentist views to marketing. And I'll give you
a quick antidote. In 2014, when our agency was
first forming, we used to hear all the time,
I've never done marketing. I've never done marketing.
I, you know, only bad dentist do marketing. I
have never heard that in the past five years,
six years, right? How have you seen it evolve?
It's become much more competitive, primarily.
Because there are large chain practices that
are advertising heavily. I mean, Aspen Dental,
for example, I think their television budget
is $90 million a year. And that's just one of
the ways that they promote themselves. Now, that's
more than I spent in 800 Dentists. We were spending
around $25 or $30 million a year in broadcast.
And we were by far the loudest voice back then
promoting dentistry. We generated way more business
for our non -clients than we did for our clients
just because we made people think, oh, I should
get back to my dentist. And dentists would tell
me, it's like my patients come in more often
because of your ads. Thank you. I'm like, you're
buying dinner then, you know, so at least. But
the. Dentists now have to promote themselves
effectively much more than they ever did before
because it's too easy for somebody else to capture
the eyeballs by spending money on Google AdWords,
by being very consistent in their posting on
all of the social media, by generating. hundreds
of reviews on Google and on Yelp. If you're not
doing that, you're hoping that the past returns,
which it's not going to. You've written Everything
is Marketing. It's in fifth edition. You've had
1 -800 -DENTIS, which is obviously more lead
generation marketing in the dental field. You've
also talked about and written books on becoming
remarkable on Super Bowl. What is it today that
you feel dentists are lacking to really evolve
into that ideal practice, you know, creating
that dental practice that everyone talks about
that you mentioned in becoming remarkable? If
they just realize that, you know, the whole premise
of everything is marketing is that. Everything
that the patient experiences in the practice,
every touch point, every smell, every sound,
every communication increases or decreases case
acceptance. Absolutely nothing is neutral. So
if you just understood that and made that your
plan of action, you would be fine. You would
create uniqueness in your practice, but you have
to be bold enough. To do certain things. It's
one of the reasons why I wrote my book, Super
Bold, because it's a life skill that you can
learn. You can build boldness like a muscle.
And if you learn how to do that, then in dentistry,
you could present cases better. You could learn
to, you know, present bigger and bigger cases.
Most dentists don't present. cases that make
them uncomfortable based on the dollar amount.
And then there's other dentists who can present
the $70 ,000 case without batting an eye. But
you have to be able to ask patients to recommend
you. You have to be able to ask them to write
a review for you. If you send somebody an email
and hope they're going to write a review, that's
like a 50 to 1 odds that that's going to happen.
You say, how do you feel about your smile? Well,
you know, people are always complimenting me
on my smile. I love hearing that. Would you be
willing to write a quick review? We're going
to text you a link. It goes right to my Google
page and you can do a quick review. That would
help me attract more patients like you because
that's what we like to do. We like to treat people
like you. And this helps us find them. So if
you could do that, that would be awesome. So
you have to be bold enough to do that. If you
don't do that, the guy across the street will.
The woman down, you know, one floor above or
one floor below is going to be really comfortable
doing it because she's Gen Z. Yeah. Now, is it,
what prevents someone from? Doing that, I mean,
we all, how do you work that muscle out, right?
How do you go from, yes, I know that, Fred, but.
Just like you would build a muscle. When you
go to the gym and you say, I'm going to get in
shape, you don't start trying to bench 350 pounds.
You go with a weight that you can do, but it
makes you uncomfortable. And you aim for failure.
The most important rep in any exercise. is the
one you can't do. Because that means you pushed
yourself to failure. That's how you get stronger
faster. It's the same thing with boldness. You
do something that makes you uncomfortable, but
not so uncomfortable that you retreat back into
your shell forever. And the stakes are low. When
you're exercising in the gym, it doesn't, when
you fail at rep 14 in curls, There's no repercussions
for the failure. It's the same thing with building
your boldness exercises. You talk to a stranger.
If they don't say hi back, it doesn't make any
difference. But what you've done is realized
you were not actually harmed. You were uncomfortable.
And what happens is you get more and more comfortable
the more you do these simple little exercises.
Smile at a stranger. Talk to a stranger. Chat
with people. in an elevator, wave to people,
compliment complete strangers or express appreciation
effusively for a whole day. You do stuff like
that and all of a sudden you just have expanded
your boldness. And what you're doing is building
new neural pathways. where you realize you're
not harmed. Because what happens is we learn
to be afraid of rejection and things like that
that make us hesitate. And we hesitate and we
miss opportunities. And sometimes we miss really
big opportunities. And that's the rude cause
of it is some underconfidence that's been built
in us that makes us hesitate. So when you're
building your boldest muscle, You don't hesitate
because there's no risk. And then all of a sudden,
you can take on a little more risk. You can say,
you know, I really admire that actress. I'm going
to go over and tell her. And you do it without
being a drooling fan. You just say, you know,
Sarah Jessica Parker, you know, excuse me, I
don't want to interrupt your day, but I just
want to tell you how much I appreciate your work.
It's brought a lot of joy to me. And then you
don't try to get a selfie. You don't try to get
an autograph. And what happens is she smiles
and thanks you. And you get to take that with
you. And you said, wow, I handled that really
well. And then maybe it's, oh, this patient is
so happy with their smile, they're crying. Now's
my opportunity to say. Would you mind me just,
I'm just going to grab my phone. Could you just
talk about the impact your smile has had on your
life? And if you don't like it, we won't use
it, but it would really help us to show people
the difference we can make and how happy you
are. You could help a lot of other people be
willing to do this and make this change in their
life. Once you get good of saying stuff like
that, And seeing how it works, you just get comfortable
doing it. And your brain says, these are new
neural pathways. I can just do this now. And
the old hesitation pathways atrophy. That's the
way neuroplasticity works. So you're just working
the way your nervous system works and building
your boldness muscle. And it will impact every
aspect of your life, but it will certainly impact.
your practice. Did I say impract? Maybe I didn't
mean to use and make that word up. Impact your
practice, I think is what I would say, rather
than the contraction. I think reviews are one
of the most important things we see a practice
can reliably generate. I mean, they're the original
user -generated content. They have implications
from across all the channels of marketing. Is
that a good place for a dentist to start? It
is because it's the best place to start to build
that muscle because it's a pretty easy ask. People
write reviews for stuff all the time or they
don't. If they say, I don't really write reviews,
you say, that's fine. And you let it go and you
let it bounce off you. You don't take it personally
that they're not going to write a review for
you. But most of the time, If you ask once a
day, if you just say, all I can tolerate is doing
this once a day, you're going to build your boldness
muscle by doing it once a day, especially if
you do it early on in your day. Because if you
have a success the first time, you're going to
take another swing at it. You get two a week,
you have a hundred by the end of the year. What
you have is a super abundance of reviews and
you're doing it. On an ongoing basis, because
two things matter in reviews, the star rating
and the recency. So when you do that on a consistent
daily basis and gather one, two, three a week,
now you're satisfying both. And so that's step
one of really capturing the power of patient
testimonials. The supercharger. is to ask them
to do a testimonial video. That to me is the
dream of marketing because there is nothing more
versatile and nothing more believable than a
video testimonial because it is a patient willing
to take the time to record themselves and talk
about your practice. Nothing is more believable
than that. And you don't need any production
value. The higher the production value, the less
credible. It means it's edited and rehearsed
and scripted and all of that stuff. If it's on
a dang phone, if it's just like somebody just
saying it, that's totally believable to someone
because it hasn't been produced. It's got authenticity
that you can't get any other way. And now you
can use it everywhere. You can put it in your
Google profile. You can put it in your Yelp profile.
You can put it on your website. You should have
a whole page of patient testimonials on your
website that people can watch and find themselves
because that's what they're looking for. I want
to hear what the old guy says. I want to hear
what the young woman says, you know, and they
seek that out. YouTube channel. You can use it
in case presentation and say, you know, I know
this sounds like a lot doing this implant case,
but listen to what this patient said about when
she finally decided to do this and the difference
it made in her life. Or if they don't accept
the case, you send an email with a link to that
video. I could go on and on about the versatility
of a patient testimonial. It's better than any
commercial I could ever write and produce and
put on the air. You know, because if you put
it on the air, people don't believe it. If I
run it as a commercial, they would go like, yeah,
that's an actor. I know it says they're a real
person, but I don't believe it. Or they were
paid a lot of money for it. Yeah, they got paid
to say it, yeah. Yeah, no, I think that the demonstration
of excellence is incredibly important. You know,
you're talking earlier on the show about people
want to radiate out. what they're getting into.
And nothing is more powerful than a patient testimonial
that feels real. Yeah, I agree. Now, we talked
about reviews, we talked about patient testimonials
and demonstration of excellence. What are the
other factors of remarkable practice? I mean,
I know you speak in a focusing on the why and
help me understand, you know, somewhere I saw
the phrase, the best marketing strategy is to
care. Kind of unpack that for me. Yeah. So let's
break down caring in two ways, because the two
driving principles of your success, and this
is true of most businesses, but it's really true
of a dental practice, is your trustworthiness
and their understanding of the value of the care
that you offer. the quality and value of care
that you offer in the practice. Both of those
things are incredibly subjective. There's nothing
quantifiable scientifically about your trustworthiness.
We develop trust in somebody by all of these
very subtle cues, some of them incredibly irrational.
But you have to cater to that. The lighting in
your office, the temperature of your office,
the smile that somebody can hear over the phone,
all of these things start to build trust. And
your projection of your confidence in the work
that you do and your team's confidence in the
work that you do builds trust and also builds
value. People say, oh, I'm at a good dentist
because the thing is people, you know, we live
in a world where you can test drive all sorts
of stuff and you can send all sorts of stuff
back that you don't like. I mean, 30 % of the
stuff sold on Amazon is sent back. Think about
that. Think of what a business, that's a successful
business model. That seems insane, but that's
what happens. Well, you're not going to test
drive five dental practices. You're not going
to, and you got nothing to send back if it doesn't
go right. There's no effective return policy.
So there's a great deal of apprehension with
people that you can repair by doing things that
make them feel comfortable and cared for. And
one of the keys to making them feel cared for.
is if they never get a sense that you're doing
this because you want more money. And if they
say, wow, that sounds incredibly expensive, it
means you haven't built the value or the treatment
yet. You're trying to get to the finish line
to see if they can afford it. This is what you
ought to do. This is it. You need this. They
don't need anything. Okay. They're, they're most
likely not going to die. I mean, we know that
poor oral health might kill you, but it's not
killing the average neglector. Um, and so you
need to, to one, and I'm, this is a long soliloquy
I realize I'm doing, but you need to find out
what's valuable to them. Is it doing, is it appearance?
What functionality? What is it? Are they just
trying to get out of pain? Are they just trying
to be comfortable or are they divorced and they
want to look better? So you can only build value
based on what's valuable to them because otherwise
they're not listening. So if you plow ahead saying
everybody loves veneers because it makes them
feel better, they're more confident and all of
this and they like, and you've got a guy in the
chair. who's married 25 years, he's a construction
worker. His wife's never going to leave him.
He's never going to leave her. He's completely
content. And he could care that his teeth are
yellow and crooked. He just doesn't want a root
canal. He wants to chew. He wants to keep his
own teeth as gnarly as they are. And so that's
where you start. You say, look, I can preserve
your teeth. Let me tell you all the ways that
I can keep your teeth strong and healthy. You're
never going to need dentures as long as you live.
If you, if you follow this and you let me take
care of you this way. Okay. And now, now you
start to get them and, and, you know, clinical
skills are important, but they can't assess your
clinical skills. They have, they're not, they
have nothing to compare it to. There's somebody
right now, as, as the old joke goes with somewhere
is the worst dentist in America and his schedule
is full because. those patients are willing to
go find somebody else. That reminds me of a funny
story. My dad needed heart surgery one time,
Fred. And I remember talking to him, you know,
as he was in pre -op, he was getting ready to
go. And he said, you know, my surgeon is so good.
I was like, that's cool. How'd you find him?
He was like, oh, you know. And he didn't really
answer the question. He said, you know, his bedside
manner is so good. He just really takes the time
to talk to me. And I laughed. I was like, how
about like the work? Yeah. What's that got to
do with his hand skills? Yeah. I literally was
like kind of giggling at my dad who was more
of a factual, you know, guy. But my dad was,
he was about to have heart surgery and he's literally
telling me about how warm. and patient the surgeon
is at the bedside. And that goes to show that
my dad believed the skills of the surgeon were
top notch because of bedside manner. Yeah. Your
dad believed he cared. And that's all you're
trying to get across is that one, dentistry is
a great investment. Okay. So this is the mindset
your whole team needs to have. is that if somebody
needs comprehensive dentistry, there's almost
no better way to spend the money. There's almost
nothing that will give the ROI, the long -term
return on that spend, 20, 30, $40 ,000 to get
comprehensive dentistry that will affect every
day, every meal, every conversation for the rest
of your life. How do you spend that money better
than that, if that's what you need? So that's
a fact. And ask your team if they all believe
that. Do you believe it? Oh, well, I don't know.
Really? So you don't believe that what you offer
is one of the best investments people can make.
So guess what you radiate? I'm not the best way
to spend your money, but I want it. When actually
the whole team just needs to be reminded, hey.
If somebody needs care, we're going to tell them
they need it. That's our professional responsibility.
That's why they came here. They may not be able
to afford it. They may not be able to afford
it yet. But we're going to let them know that
we're going to tell them because we care about
them. And I'll use this story, always impacted
me. A dentist I've known, incredibly successful.
And he said this simple thing. He said, my patients
don't accept treatment because I've done an incredible
job of selling it. He said, they accept treatment
because they know I love them. And I said, yeah,
if you're projecting that, that's what they're
going to say. Okay, if you think I should do
this, doc. And it's like, if you don't care about
your patients, That's your problem. If you'd
entered this profession for some other reason
rather than to take care of people in an amazing
way, in a profound way, and you don't get excited
about that every day and your team doesn't get
excited about that, you're not going to project
that to people. We can sense when somebody's
in it for the money. or doesn't actually care
about us. You know, going back to surgeons, they
did a study on surgeons who got sued and who
didn't. And you would think, well, the best surgeons
are the ones who never get sued. No, actually,
they get sued way more than the average surgeons
because they don't listen to the patients, just
like your dad was saying. The ones who never
got sued talked an average of five minutes longer
to every patient. That was it. That was the only
differentiator. Because the other guy's going
to, look, I'm an expert at this. I'm the best
surgeon in Los Angeles to do this procedure.
Let's just get going. Yeah, I've done a hundred
of these. It's no big deal. Yeah. It's a huge
deal to me. Just relax. Because when you tell
somebody to relax, that works automatically,
doesn't it? A hundred percent of not the times
with my wife, no. It's never been successful
for me. So yeah, so it's the same thing is you
have to project that you care more about them
than money and you will wait until they're ready
to do it. But you say, you know what, maybe you
can't afford this now. And I understand that.
It's my professional responsibility to tell you
about this because that's why you came to me.
But if it's okay with you, I'm going to remind
you. Next time I see you, I'm not going to nag
you about it. I just want to remind you that
it's not going to get better. Because remember,
people are approximately five times more motivated
by loss than they are by gain. So if you're saying
to somebody, look, the reason I'm telling you
this is just understand teeth and gums don't
heal themselves. Okay. You cut your arm and just
wrap it up. It's going to heal. All this stuff
going on in your mouth can't fix itself. There's
no advantage to waiting except to save the money.
And it's only goes in one direction. I'm telling
you about it now because it's most likely going
to get more expensive. You're going to lose more
tissue in the process. And you could be really
uncomfortable at some point. You could really
get in pain. And then really have to come to
me right away to fix it in a more complicated
way. And you just say, you don't have to start
today. I'm recommending you do, of course, but
that's entirely up to you. But I'm trying to
keep you from letting this progress in the wrong
direction. So you're talking about what they're
losing. That's the motivation. And then you give
them the rational reason. You say, look, I know
this sounds like a lot to invest in your health,
but we have all sorts of financing options because
nobody's got a big saving account for their dental
care. We understand that. We want to help you
to afford it so that I can keep your teeth healthy
and all your teeth in your mouth as long as possible.
All of this dialogue communicates, I just care
about you. The whole team here cares about you.
And that builds the value. That makes you unique.
That builds the value of it. And I talk about
it in both books in Everything is Marketing and
Becoming Remarkable. There's dozens and dozens
of little things that you can do, little details
of delight and surprise. and memorability that
you can do. But it really begins with slowing
down and caring about them as human. You're absolutely
right. Yeah. Let's talk about the magic of video
one more time. If a new patient's coming into
the office and they've scheduled themselves for
next Thursday and they get a text from the dentist
with a video from her saying, Hi, Andrew. I understand
you're coming in on Thursday. I'm really looking
forward to meeting you and taking care of you.
The whole team's excited to see you. If you have
any questions about your dentistry ahead of time,
just respond to this text and we'll get on a
call and we'll talk about it. Otherwise, I look
forward to seeing you on Thursday. That took
me 25 seconds to say. Oh man, I feel so special
as a patient. Yeah. That'd be amazing. Yeah.
Yeah. And you don't have to get them on the phone.
You just bang these out. Cancellations are going
to go down. No -shows are going to go down. No
-shows will disappear if you do that. If you're
complaining about no -shows, but you're yelling
at your receptionist to fix it, you are doing
the definition of insanity. You're trying to
do the same thing harder to get a different result.
Instead of doing something different, you get
five new patients coming in that book that day,
which is an enormous number, by the way. If you
get five new patients a day coming in out of
20 work days a month, that's 100 new patients.
So that's a thriving practice. But five of those
videos would take five minutes. You don't have
five minutes to build your practice? Then you
need to get off Instagram, buddy. You need to
get off TikTok and take five of those minutes
and record something. And just have somebody
on your team go, it's time, doctor. I have this.
Here's who they are. Here's when they're coming
in. Go. And she records them and sends them out.
And there's a phone. There's a special phone
in the practice to do it. So it's not the doctor's
phone, obviously. You got to remind people of
the simple mechanical details of this. But yeah,
it's a practice phone. One of the things that
I love is just calling patients after they've
had any form of anesthesia and asking how they're
doing. It costs you such a little episode of
time for so much return. And we, in a world to
where... We can click a button and fire off a
thousand text messages to our patients and do
all this video recording of you saying, hey,
Fred, I'm so excited to see you tomorrow morning.
You know, this is what we're going to do when
you first get here. If you have any questions,
text me. That would be a game changer in and
of itself. Yeah. Oh, yeah. In building the trust
of a client or a prospective patient. Advertising
can only do so much. Marketing, you know, the
marketing promotion, because marketing is everything
you do, but promotional stuff and advertising,
it only gets them interested enough to contact
you. What makes them say, oh, I'm going to this
practice. I'm going to show up. I'm going to
stop looking. I'm not listening to anybody else.
Imagine if you did that with. somebody who referred
you to this person. She used to say, you know,
I know Angela referred you to us, and I just
want you to know that we love Angela, so we can't
wait to meet you. It's a preemptive strike against
any reluctance or hesitation or even, and their
anxiety is dropping about seeing you, which means
their cognitive. skills are going up and their
appreciation of your dentistry is going up which
is what you want i resonate most fred with what
you're talking about just genuine care and the
willingness to do these little things that you
can talk yourself out of sending a video because
you don't look good or my hair is not right or
whatever the case may be but really that's just
an excuse yeah here's here's a here's an interesting
observation the average person Looks average.
Okay. Has an average appearance. Get over it.
Okay. You know, we can't all be strikingly handsome
until AI can fix everything that we send out,
which is coming, by the way. Sure. But we don't
want them to be so shocked when they actually
show up in the office. They go like, where's
she? Where's that doctor? We can't be catfishing.
Yeah. So it's these. Things that communicate
subconsciously and overtly that we offer unique
care. Because otherwise, dentistry is, as you
and I know in the advertising world, what we
call a parody product. It's like, they're all
the same. There's 50 kinds of toilet paper. The
difference in them is nominal. You need to create
your uniqueness, not by the handpiece that you
buy, but by... The treatment that you offer and
the treating of the patient, which goes beyond
the clinical treatment, how do you treat people
beyond clinically? That's what matters 90%. That's
a Fred statistic, but I'm very often very, very
close, very close. No, I believe it. It aligns
with people don't buy what you do. They buy why
you do it. If you care about them and you show
genuine care, that's incredibly important because
you nailed it. The truth of the matter is even
a bad dentist is going to do okay work. Now,
it's not going to be great, but like, you know,
and even the great dentist has some bad clinical
cases. So it really turns out how we feel about
the experience. And, you know, I can overcome
a lot of challenges. I have met several patients
who are really happy with a bad set of veneers.
You know, it's like, those are like three millimeters
longer than they should be, you know, and five
shades whiter than they should be. It's like
you've got headlights on all the time, but they
couldn't be happier. Couldn't be happier, no.
Yeah. Yes. Fred, thank you so much for your time.
thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and we'll
link out to your books and, and, you know, uh,
uh, all your website and everything, but thank
you so much for your time. This has been amazing.
No, it's been my pleasure. Obviously I'm, I'm
still very passionate about this. No, I'm glad
we need a, we need a champion out there and the,
uh, asking people to be super bold. I, I comparisons,
the enemy of joy. And as we, You would think
with all the information on the internet, we
would know that we need to be bold and take chances
and do things that people aren't willing to do.
But we sure work to keep ourselves small sometimes
as business owners. And it's unfortunately to
our detriment. Yeah. Nobody stops us more than
we do. That's right. That's it. Fred, thank you
so much for your time. My pleasure.