Patrick Chavoustie emphasizes the importance of strategic marketing, quality customer service, and innovative tactics like LSAs, while also noting the role of mindset and internal marketing in driving a successful dental practice.
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About Patrick Chavoustie
Patrick is the CEO of BSN Enterprises, LLC and Omni Premier Marketing. His extensive background in Medical and Dental Marketing and Business Development, alongside his leadership style, positioned him for this role. Omni Premier Marketing has expanded from working with exclusively plastic surgeons to working with multiple medical practices and developing the premier dental website design and marketing solutions under his direction. He also hosts The Dental Brief podcast.
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:02
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management, and training. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Star Dental Academy. And with me is Patrick Chavasti, and he’s the president, owner, super marketer at OmniPremiere Marketing. Love this guy. We all love Patrick. And our topic is about summer marketing trends 2024. Welcome, Patrick.
00:29
Hey, it’s so good to be here. I’m a little worried about being live. It’s so easy to get canceled. I can’t edit me out, so I’ll try to be on my best behavior. Oh, right, you have to be in your best behavior because I can’t edit at all for you. But it’s fun with your creativity and your compassion. You have it all. So if anybody has any questions or comments, let us know in the chat and we’ll go. So Patrick, I mean, there’s being an awesome marketer, yes.
00:58
We always want to know our trends that are going on and they’re changing all the time. That’s why we were talking in the green room that you were saying even to summer trends because it will change in the fall. So what do you see happening in terms of trends this summer 2024? Yep. I think as far as dental practices in general are concerned, numbers are actually dropping down. We’re seeing more new potential clients call us than we ever have in 14 years right now. There’s more demand for.
01:27
for new clients for us. And I think they’re slowing down and so they’re panicking. So they’re looking around to see what they can do as far as marketing is concerned. I think that’s a major trend. I’m not sure that this is affecting every practice. Of course, this is why we love working with All-Star. If you’re dialed in on the phones, if you’re really making sure that you’re picking up all the calls, you’re definitely not hurting like a lot of practices are, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s trending down a little bit. Consumers have less cash.
01:55
than they did this time last year and certainly the time before. I think that’s a trend. You guys seen that with your with your clients at All-Star? In terms of less cash and money? No, just a little down downturn on new patients. Less calls. We see it’s more seasonal, like depends. I think there’s with our coaches, they always have this term suck a timber like timber is really bad in terms of patience. But
02:24
I don’t, you know, it’s interesting who we attract. So far I haven’t, I get a few, but I’m seeing, well again, as we talked about before, it’s so important that the call conversion and so on, I’m actually seeing a problem, we talked about this too as well, is sometimes they’re too busy and you can’t get an appointment. And I know, and this is so remarkable as a marketer that you talk about, you’re like, marketing is important.
02:53
But you also want to get to a point where your systems and your eternal referrals are getting you so busy that you still need a market, but you’re not reliant. So to answer it, a lot of our clients, they don’t come in saying, ah, I need marketing to just to fix my deficits. It’s to enhance what I’m doing because I know it’s good business sense with respect to that. So that’s just what I’m going. But that’s just my answer.
03:19
then you ask every coach that’s a part of All-Star what they say, they may have a separate, a different opinion. So, just as my feedback for that. We’ve talked about this before in your program. We talked about it all the time. Marketing is everything that your practice does. True. And it’s literally everything that is, that you do in your practice, whether it’s intentional or not, that somebody’s gonna see or hear about, right? So it’s the cleanliness of your practice. It’s how you answer the phone. If you’re gonna answer the phone, that’s marketing. Advertising is how you get what you do in front of people. People that are not. That’s a good point.
03:48
Right. I remember back in my MBA studies, marketing and advertising are different things. Marketing has to do with markets and how you position yourself in markets is a much broader tactic. We sometimes say marketing and advertising marketing is more strategic. Advertising is the actual tactic to choose to get eyeballs, if you will. I talk about Chick-fil-A a lot.
04:12
Not just because they have good sandwiches, but because they run an amazing business for what they do, right? It’s a six or seven dollar meal. Who knows with inflation. It might be 25 bucks. I don’t know It’s not as cheap as it was but it’s relatively inexpensive It’s it’s the same price point as their competitors, you know that they’re serving different types of food However, you know, they market the heck out of themselves and they don’t do it through advertisements advertising. Yes, they have some They sponsor a bowl game. You don’t see
04:41
Chick-fil-a commercials like you do McDonald’s commercials. And if you ask most people what they know about Chick-fil-a, what they like about Chick-fil-a or what stands out, my pleasure. Right. Every service, right. The service, how fast I get people through the lines. That’s a minor miracle. How clean the uniforms are, how clean the restaurant is interior, exterior. That’s all marketing. Advertising is that commercial that you see once in a while that Chick-fil-a probably has the smallest advertising budget of any.
05:09
fast food chain, I would imagine. Well, that’s a really good point to kind of spend a little bit of time on. And again, strategic versus tactical. So as you know, and you help us and by the way, full disclosure, I’m the you help us a lot with our own marketing at All-Star. And one of our divisions is hiring and you’re helping there with us there as well, too. And we talk about this idea between recruitment or hiring. Hiring is a tactic. Recruitment is the bigger picture of bringing people to your cause.
05:37
Right. And the same thing comes to marketing. Strategic is mark marketing tactic is advertising. So advertising would be SEO would be pay per click, would be social media tactics where you also spend a lot of time to in our discussions, storyboarding. We could do a whole session on storyboarding. You you still help facilitate us through that is in terms of step back for a second. Now we’re going into marketing. Who are you? How do you position yourself in your?
06:06
in your market, who are you looking to be? There’s a line that if you try to get everyone, you get no one. You have to know who you are. That’s marketing. Who are you? How do you fit within the markets? Are you a… We work with a lot of ad and network doctors or doctors who want to go off insurance. That’s a whole different level of customer service you have to provide versus just pushing them out.
06:34
Right. And so on. And I’m not saying one is bad or not. We have a lot of clients that do take insurance, but overall the theme between what we do when we do what you do as well, Patrick, is customer service, right? We’re gonna do it in a way that’s service-based. So I think that’s an important kind of way of looking at it. You know, way back in the day, going back, I think I was like 19 or 20 years old, I went in to pay a bill somewhere.
07:00
And this was before, you know, you could pay everything online and be in 19 years old. I probably didn’t really pay my bills on time all the time. And I went in to pay this bill. That’s, I think it was a phone bill. I don’t even know what it was. And there was a huge banner hanging up amongst all of these employees that were working in cubicles and the banner said that maybe if we stop answer, maybe if we don’t answer the phone, they’ll stop calling. So in other words, it was saying like, Hey, listen, do you want these people to stop calling?
07:28
Don’t answer the phone and guess what? We’ll all be out of work, right? It was this message that really made a lot. And I think when it comes right down to it in marketing, and this is why we originally reached out to All-Star in the first place, was to help with some clients. If you’re not answering the phone, they’re gonna stop calling. I don’t care if it is an insurance patient, I don’t care if it’s Medicaid, I don’t care if it’s fee-for-service, it doesn’t matter, you gotta answer those phones. I like to acknowledge Eric Vickery, he’s…
07:54
live with us over on Facebook commenting and we got a bunch of likes and comments. What I do when we go live, I let our entire organization know, hey, come hang out, talk with us. He mentioned the hero’s journey, which is interesting. And I guess that could also speak to the storyboarding. So hero’s journey, what are your, are you familiar with the hero’s journey, Patrick? I am familiar. I don’t have it memorized. I have a, I know Eric teaches this. I have not memorized. Right. So I mean.
08:23
Where are you going with this Eric? I mean if this is that’s really deep so he put it that down I’m trying to wonder what he’s referring to but I guess look we’re all have our heroes journey I’ll discuss it the way I guess I would look at it. We all have this hero’s journey We’re the hero of our own adventure That’s the idea of the hero’s journey and I love but it can go very deep But the idea is and the same thing with the patient experience Everybody’s on their own hero’s journey and you’re on your own hero’s journey or hero heroin whatever
08:53
Um, not the drug, but the female version of hero. Uh, so the point, the, the, the point is, is we want to orchestrate the type of life that we want to have. And that comes first. That’s the storyboarding. That’s the marketing aspect of it. And we’re talking about trends of the summer before you can go into the trends and what to do about our tactics. You always got to go back to marketing, the big picture, who are you, what are you looking to, to attract, whether it’s storyboarding, whether it’s hero’s journey.
09:21
Whatever that might be, what are you looking to do? So you mentioned a trend. You find that in the summer, as we are, we’re in the summer, I should know this, Florida. It’s summer season round here in South Florida. We just get more rain, so I know it’s summer. So you’re seeing that we’re getting a slowdown. And I’m also, we’ll put this out to Facebook, Eric and some of the other coaches and dental professionals that are listening. Are you seeing the same thing? Because Patrick’s insinuating that
09:50
He’s seeing for some of his clients that summer’s a little slower for new patients, so I’ll put it out there. Let me back up for a little bit. We’re hopefully not seeing it with our clients. What we’re seeing is potential new clients that are calling us. So like our sales team is off the hook, crazy busy right now because we’re getting a lot more dentists that are calling us saying, hey, I’m slow, can you guys help me out with this? Yeah, that’s what I meant. You’re doing well, Ami’s doing great. We talked about that.
10:19
but you’re saying that the dentist, because typically dentists reach out, not because, hey, I’m so busy, Patrick, and I need more clients, they’re calling because I’m slow and I need clients. And I’m knowing you, you would prefer the reverse. You would prefer, hey, I’m doing fine, I wanna work and improve my business, not I’m desperate, because you’re very honest. You’re like, listen, I can get you eyeballs, but you gotta convert them.
10:44
And more patients may not be your solution if you’re not taking care of your team, if you’re not answering the phone well, which is what All-Star we do, phone skills, case acceptance and all those types of supporting materials that are critical. Okay, so you see a trend that dentists are seeing a bit of a slowdown and they’re needing more marketing is what they’re saying. We’re having to fight harder than ever before to keep our own clients busy. There’s no doubt about that. It’s more competitive. It is slowing down a little bit.
11:13
Um, and that’s, like I said, it’s, it’s anecdotal, right? I don’t have any stats from the ADA or anything like that. That’s showing this. I just know our phones are ringing off the hook and Dennis are calling and going, like, I’m slow. I don’t know what to do. Can you guys help me? Um, so it’s pretty telling. I mean, we’ve been, we’ve been a business serving Dennis for 14 years. When we see it like this, we know something’s something’s something’s certainly going.
11:37
Let’s talk about that September a little bit. I hear that a lot. September, you heard that, yeah. Yeah, and you know, there are some dentists that definitely, that go through it. There’s a bunch of dentists that have convinced themselves that it’s a bad month and it’s gonna be. So some of it literally is a mindset. I know that they’ve- Yes, self-fulfilling prophecy, for sure. They’ve heard about it from the time they got out of the dental school and boom, yeah, self-fulfilling prophecy.
12:01
There are ways around that. And I know the coaches at All-Star can coach around this. Maybe they coach on it differently than I would. I’m not a coach by any means, but of course people ask me for advice and I always have to have an opinion, right? You do, you do. Yeah, I do, yeah. And you can work on getting your appointments, your patients to book in September instead of August, right? So so many people wanna come in back to school. That’s part of what causes September. Get your patients to book where you need them to book. Keep your doors open for
12:31
when new patients want to come in, right? If you’re booked to the gills in August, and you can move some of those patients into a September booking instead of an August booking, that’s gonna open your doors up for new patients in August that are being told they can’t get into other places. So it’s a great way to poach. That’s a great point. Yeah, I remember Eric, we were discussing that, I think either both of you were discussing that’s a very interesting point because, A, self-fulfilling prophecy, just because others do it, doesn’t mean you do it. And it’s very interesting what you,
13:01
It’s like when you get a new car or you see that car everywhere else, right? It’s the reticular activating system. So there’s a scientific language behind it, not just woo woo. But what we’re focusing on, we’re attracting and subconsciously or consciously, you know, we’re starting to do that. So you’re saying shift your mindset, don’t accept that. And tactically, of course, September, because you’re already kind of babying September, I’m worried.
13:30
the patients dictate and at All-Star we, we always want the patient to be empowered and feeling empowered, but we find ways of asking questions and guiding them where we would like them to go without them. They’re very happy to do it. So like what I’m hearing you say is let’s smooth it out. Let’s get them to these other areas. What they may not even complain about it. Same thing we were talking about with hygiene. It’s like my hygiene is slammed and I can get anybody in, but you’re gonna be turning
14:00
away patients because of that. And many of your hygiene patients won’t mind going out a little further, looking out. So especially those key months and so on. So there are ways to counteract that. Well done, Patrick. Yes, we agree. All right, so trends outside of it. Maybe it’s a little slow out there. Something that is starting to work, a tactic that we’re starting to see work is years ago, way prior to COVID, maybe five years ago.
14:28
Google came up with something called local service ads, LSA. You’ll hear it called from time to time in the marketing biz. And what local service ads are, is they’re ads that appear at the very top of Google for specific service oriented type companies. They were really big in HVAC, huge with attorneys, real estates, anything done at the home, roofers, windows, siding, all of that is where they started. The cool thing about these types of ads, if you don’t know this, is if
14:57
You select a local service ad as a consumer and you end up using that business. Google provides you with some type of assurance that you’re not gonna get ripped off. Google is going to actually provide you with some financial coverage if you do. So they actually get the companies that are on there. They make sure that they’re really licensed. They make sure that they’re really bonded, that they’re really insured, that their insurance meets reasonable criteria.
15:22
Someone could come to your house and say they’re insured. And you go, OK, great. They’re insured for $500. That’s not going to cover your credit if they spill a bucket of paint. And make sure that these things happen. The only option, if you as a consumer click on these ads, the only thing you can do is call. And it’s through a Google call tracking number. And look at the reviews. That’s it. So there’s not much else the consumer can do besides that. If you as a consumer call, the call gets recorded.
15:50
happens automatically, Google actually holds a recording. If you’re in a dentist, this is HIPAA compliant, Google guarantees that. Call gets recorded, you can listen back to the phone calls or the business owner can. And if the call didn’t meet the criteria set up with Google, you’re not gonna pay for that. So it’s only a live transfer, which means they would only work when you’re answering the phones, if you’re answering the phones. If you’re not answering the phones, Google’s going to stop showing you these types of, they’re gonna stop displaying your ads.
16:19
And they also have to make sure that they really were looking for you. So if the person called up and said, do you accept my insurance, if you’re running local service ads, do you accept my insurance? And you say no, Google’s still charging you for it. Now, if the person calls up and says, I’m looking for Dr. Patrick’s office, and you’re like, well, this isn’t Dr. Patrick’s office, and they hang up, you’re not paying for that. It’s a very high quality lead. Right now we’re seeing prices between 30 and $60 for each one of those.
16:49
So each one of those transfers. For the lead. You should be able to convert half of those. Meaning they should come into your office. So for somewhere around $100 to $120, you’re getting a new patient. That’s pretty darn good. That’s really good. And at the end of the trends, what I like to do, just to add on to this, is some questions you should ask for a marketing company. And one of them is right there. Are they tracking, helping you track to have that number, the cost of acquisition? You need that.
17:18
And some of the things that you see, I mean, we talk behind the scenes and you’re like, there are a few good marketing companies out there and you don’t purport to be the only one. And we know you’re a good one, but you’re very generous about that. But there are some that aren’t and that you want to make sure. And the same thing, we do the same thing with All-Star. We always say, look, you should always be working with a coach. You need to always be training on customer service skills. We like what we do.
17:48
We think we’re pretty good at it and we have great reviews like you as well. But if you find somebody similar to myself, similar to Patrick, in their industry service base and they follow these criteria, that’s a great thing to do. It’s good for you, it’s good for dentistry when you’re doing service base, when you’re training your team, when you’re marketing the right way ethically, and so on. So just putting that out there, our broader perspective of interdependence. The point is…
18:17
And this is a, we talk about this too Patrick, this is abundance mentality that there’s a lot more patients that need high quality work than there are dentists, high quality dentists do. And the same goes with, from our perspective, from marketing perspective, there’s a lot that need quality out there. There’s plenty of abundance there. So good point, just wanted to kind of notate that, that’s something that I would put on the list as well. So these local service ads are something to look into.
18:46
And that’s the thing too, another, another, if you do what everybody else is doing, you’re gonna get what everybody else is getting. So you always gotta be innovating with marketing and trying new things with respect to that. Love it, Patrick. So these did, they did Google open these up for dentists about two years ago, by the way. Okay. We were like, oh, we’re all over this. We’re gonna be the leader, we’re gonna be the first. And like we ran them and nothing happened. But the beautiful thing was you weren’t having to pay anything, right? Cause you’re only paying if something happens. You’re not paying it.
19:16
It’s like if you drop 10,000 postcards off and nobody calls, you still pay for those postcards for the printing, for the postage, right? In this case, you don’t pay. So anyways, fast forward 18 months, about six months ago, we started running these again, and we’ve been testing them in between, and all of a sudden they started hitting. So now these are absolutely hitting. If you’re first to market with it and you’re answering the phone, you’re gonna get these leads. And…
19:43
When I say answering the phone, it’s not just, hey, this is good business like you and I have been talking about. It’s actually, if you stop answering the phone, Google will stop transferring you these. Now you won’t pay for the lead if they’re not transferring them to you, but they will stop sending them to you. Yes, because Google wants to send these leads to people who they know are going to pick up the phone. Because if you don’t pick up the phone, the user on the other end keeps getting business, busy signals or gets a voicemail. They’re going to stop using local service ads.
20:12
Google is going to miss out on that revenue. They don’t want to miss out on revenue. So they’re going to give these to dentists to actually live answer the phone, with the exception that you can do a live chat too. So Google will actually allow a live chat to happen on these Google local service ads too. So you can chat with a customer instead of take the phone call. It’s still recorded the same way. Very cool. And this is how we get out. Yeah, if you want good high quality leads.
20:40
Uh, and you only want to pay when they actually call get out in front of us budgets you need to set by the way, Google requires, I think a $500 a week spend on these, however, you probably won’t reach it. You can pause them so you can say, okay, I’m going to budget $500 a week. And then after two weeks, pause your ads for two weeks. If your budget’s a thousand per month, wait another two weeks. So great place to be in front of us. It’s a great trend. Okay. I like that trend. Do you have, you have more for me? I have.
21:10
It’s not, it is more of a trend than it has been in the last four or five years. This is going way back. Really start to work on internal marketing. I love internal marketing. Internal marketing, yes. Internal referrals, right? Really firing up your patients to become rating fans. The number one reason that I see dentists not ask their patients for referrals is they don’t think they’re offering a high enough value proposition to their own patients to get it.
21:38
They don’t think they’re doing something that is worth it. That might be a mindset issue. Get with a great coach. Get that mindset issue fixed. We see it a lot in the business world. A lot of entrepreneurs never think they’re really that good that they’re not deserving, and it’s not the case. So get that fixed. If you’re not offering amazing service to your patients right now, consider doing so. If you want better reviews, offer better service, you’ll get them, right? But then start asking your patients for referrals and start rewarding them for those referrals.
22:08
I don’t know what your coaches teach. I’m not a big fan of this. And I’ve seen this so many times, like, oh, send us your friends and family and we’ll send you two movie tickets and a bucket of popcorn. And I was like, I just spent 1800 bucks on a crown. And you’re saying if I send my mom to you, who’s very dear to me, you’re gonna give me 50 bucks. Like that’s what my mom is worth to you. That’s what I’m worth to you, right? I just spent 1800. Don’t do that. Instead, when you get a referral from your patient, send them a nice thank you card.
22:34
with a nice gift card, 10, 15, 20 bucks to Starbucks. Thank them very much for the referral. Let them know that you appreciate it. They will want to send you more referrals. It works like crazy. On my podcast, Alex, we’ve had a guest who’s a dentist, he’s written a bunch of books, really nice guy. And he runs an amazing practice. I think they have six or seven dentists in Mao. Their internal referrals, I think they get 60 or 70 internal referrals per month.
23:04
Wow, 70 internal referrals per month. I mean, it’s amazing, but he’s got a whole plan. They have a whole system They have a marketing plan in place to make this happen I would love to do an episode just on that one by the way, uh, i’m getting heather Appointed out on facebook live great points Of course enjoying the the podcast and eric was saying here no bribery, but we will send thank you gift cards 25 Amazon
23:34
if you like that or say Eric, no bad. But I love it, especially if it’s a nice little hand. Because we do have to be careful with gifts. And I think part of, oh, and hey, Jennifer, we got another coach on here. We love, they like you, Patrick, they’re on here supporting you, commenting, talking. Overall, and Jennifer’s in Alaska, from Alaska. Yeah, so we have to be careful with gifts because there is a legal issue with that with dental. But
24:03
But obviously, yes, Amazon gift card, but also most importantly is the appreciation, the thank you. I mean, you just get, hey, here’s a card in the mail. Thanks for your referral. Like, call me personally. Like, let me know. Like, really, the verbiage has to be there. And so this is a thing too, we’re big on, I know you support this, scripts, not a huge fan. You need verbiage, but really it’s gotta come from the heart. People will see through that. You have to be so trained.
24:33
that you never sound scripted, that the verbage is embedded and you care. It’s just more suggestions because you need some ideas of what to say. But then in a conversation, it comes out appropriately with respect to that. I love it when I think that I’m doing a pretty darn good job with something and have like a tidbit, a program, something that is like awesome, like, hey, send them a card. And I still think you should do that, but then you come in and say, oh, give them a phone call. You kidding me? Yeah, give these people a phone call.
25:02
Of course. Of course. Or do both. Do both. Absolutely. And you can sit, I’m not saying that we don’t have people who remind you, remind doctor what to do. I mean, you, you, you want a system to support it, but then you got to go ahead and do the work. It’s critical. So while you’re saying you have a client that’s doing 70 referrals a month, internal referrals per month, internal. Yep. So what’s, what’s, go ahead. When there, when
25:33
I think this is a little, it was odd, but it works, right? So it seemed weird to me, but it works. So I definitely can’t knock it as they offer them a bottle of wine. They go, right, all a bottle. Oh, wow. Now they’re not spending a lot of money. They’re getting this at Trader. That’s nice. I think they’re getting four point bucks a bottle. Patience really. I’ve seen one that they actually have a connection with a vineyard. They get a custom wine for themselves, for only them. Pretty fancy.
26:01
Right and then you give it to your patients and and I think you have to also know know your demographic where you’re at if wine Is something fancy that wine but looks like wine but in your community that’s popular or based on your you know Something that will resonate with them Thinking about them creating that family situation. So I love it Patrick great Like that they do too is a lot of dental practices give new patients some type of a little welcome back Here’s some floss
26:31
you know, some toothbrushes, maybe a toothbrush or something like that. And I think that’s good. I think what they do is better instead of doing it, then they mail out a package to the customer afterwards. And it is pretty nice. They have a little custom branded Tumblr, you know, like the Yeti style cup that they put in there that has their logo on it. So you’re saying don’t give them on the way out, mail it. Yes. You’re extending your touches with that patient. That’s a great point. That’s a great point.
26:59
So if you give it to them today, they’ve already thought about you today because they’re in your practice. In a week, thank you very well, a nice thank you note, thank you very much for, you know, allowing us to care for you. And then that gift. Now when that patient comes back in, they’re amazed. By the way, another thing that they do that’s really cool is when they have community events going on, they print out tons of t-shirts that they get cheap, really a couple, three, four bucks a t-shirt. And maybe let’s just say, what’s going on in Denver right now? We’re located in Colorado.
27:29
I know you know that, but not everybody does. I can’t think of what’s going on here. I’m leaving this weekend, but I’m going out for a 4th of July weekend. But let’s just say there’s the Boulder Boulder, which is this big run that happens on Labor Day or Memorial Day at Boulder. Get a t-shirt that’s got like a little brand, small little brand that’s like, you know, something about the Boulder Boulder and something, you know, a cute little saying on it. And people are like, yeah, do you want a t-shirt when they come in? Sure, I’ll take a t-shirt.
27:57
They wear the t-shirt or they don’t wear the t-shirt. It doesn’t matter. It’s a nice little gift for all your patients when they come in. That’s going to help turn them into raving fans. If you’re in the Chick-fil-A window and it takes you more than three or four minutes to get through that circle of 1200 cars, they hand you a coupon for a free sandwich the next time you come in. You’re like, oh, great. I don’t mind the four minutes. All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s a nice little gift. It’s like $4 sandwich or whatever their sandwich is called. Maybe they’re 20, but you get the point that I’m making here, right? Just these little tiny things can help you great raving fans.
28:27
Then when you ask them, hey, you know what, do you have any family members or friends that you think would like it here? Right, light bulb, yeah, of course, you know, my wife, my cousin, my sister, my aunt, whatever it is, right? So big, big numbers.
28:42
Man, Facebook is lighting up. I’m listening. And people like, as you’re talking about this tactic, this tactic right now is getting a lot of feedback there on Facebook. They’re loving it, the cool ideas. Oh gosh, you’re just a, I can keep going. I know we both have a hard stop in a few minutes here, but, and we can do more trends. We’ll do fall trends as it comes along, but there’s no end to your ideas of how to market. I think it’s important that we’re,
29:10
We’re surrounding, this is this mastermind effect, surrounding yourself with people that, number one, agree with your philosophy of service and so on. That’s why I say at All-Star, it’s a movement. It’s not even, so the team, same thing there at Omni, the team, they have ownership in what we’re looking to do. They’re part of the mission. And I say with the dentist too, it’s not a client relationship. We’re all together.
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working together on this movement of making dentistry, continue to support dentistry. And every great, wonderful dentist supports the other and so on. So it’s that compound effect. And it’s also that accountability that we’re committed to training, committed to learning, having these discussions. Just here on the podcast, I mean, every day, we got a great new podcast we’re releasing on different areas. Here we have marketing, customer service, hiring. We’re going live.
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Lots of wonderful stuff here that’s going on. Now let me kind of end here with this, Patrick. Give me a couple, a handful of tips if I’m looking for a marketing company. So I have to say full heartedly, Omni is a great marketing company. We’ve sent you people and they’re very happy. And I know you’re the first one to say, look, we appreciate that they’re.
30:34
There are a few out there like you that you are friends with, sometimes you share and all that. So what makes it special about someone like you, Omni and others, a select few that are doing it right and those doing it wrong? What are some areas, because you always say with the client, you want them to decide, it’s not just because you referred, you want them, what are some areas they should be asking when choosing a marketing company? Yeah. So this is really, this is…
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really a hot topic with me right now because we’ve had this happen three times in the last 10 days where somebody’s looking to work with us. They’re working with another company right now that is handling all of these items for them. I look at the agreement, right? So they’re locked into this contract. So by the way, don’t lock yourself into a contract. They’re locked into a contract and they don’t really know what’s happening. If you look at the language, I know you went to law school, the language has to like…
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actually say what the deliverable is and it doesn’t. It’s very vague language that really doesn’t mean a word for you. Whatever that is, right? They’re doing Google paid ads, but the client doesn’t actually know how much is being spent on ads. It doesn’t say, it doesn’t say we’re going to spend this much on your behalf or this much. It doesn’t say at all. Just we’re going to run Google ads. You’re going to pay us $10,000 a month. Some of it’s going to go to us. Some of it’s going to go to Google. We’ll let you know. We won’t let you know.
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You need to know, look at what is being spent on your behalf. If you’re running Google Ads, your company on a daily basis should be able to tell you, no, don’t ask them on a daily basis. There’s no reason to do that. But on anything that you can give them the phone and call them and say, what have I spent on Google Ads? They should be able to within 30 seconds, look that up and go, you know, Dr. So-and-so, you’ve spent $832 so far this month. So what I hear from you is step one, don’t get into long-term contracts.
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We don’t do contracts where month to month at All-Star, we don’t have to because, and the same thing with you over at Omni, is it’s month to month. And I know for you, you often lose money in the first several months, but you just go by your same thing with us. But we know that we win in the long run. And then the second point is what are your deliverables and that the agreement and the understanding is clear and set up in your best interest, right?
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You see these contracts that are written to protect the other party. And then you have to be worried about something. Why are they doing that? So being clear with the deliverables. OK. I strongly believe that nobody should ask somebody to sign a contract that they don’t believe has significant mutual interest for both of them. If there’s no I like this quote from here from Heather. When Facebook lights up, I have to acknowledge the audience here. I get nervous. You do a good.
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If you do a good job for the client, they will stay without needing a contract. Thank you, Heather on Facebook. Yeah. A hundred percent. I agree with that. And I think a contract just locks in the, it locks you in to the benefit of only the vendor, not the other way around. It just doesn’t. It just, it’s just, I don’t like it. And so most companies in our space, some really good companies that I know in our space require a contract and they do it because they can get away with it.
33:53
Right. They do. They want to make some look more valuable to maybe an investor if they’re ever going to sell their company or what have you. But that would be something that I would say don’t do. Understand exactly what’s being spent on your behalf to third party companies like Google advertisers. And don’t sign a long term contract. Don’t sign a long term contract. Yeah. And I see that also in the consulting coaching space. And it breaks my heart. I feel bad. You know, I.
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I have a heart because look and and I know full disclosure both of us are our fees are very reasonable I have some consultants that go to me and say Alex. You’re cheap. Your company’s cheap. I don’t like it’s not cheap You get lots of value. I just have a heart we have to be very careful you know the same thing Patrick that the more you charge the more you have to show an ROI and You’re creating a lot of pressure on both companies. So
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We at All-Star like to say, let’s start little by little, see that we’re getting lots of value to build on it. But then that’s enough. Like how much coaching do you need? And why do you have to lock in? Because if you’re having to spend 50 or $100,000 a year, it’s hard to make a multiple. It’s important people are more motivated by shorter short-term wins and you can build on it as well. And it’s consistency over intensity. Success, you can get great success spending a little less.
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but you commit to it over long term, your own commitment, not forced to be committed. You’re doing it over, that’s the hardest part, is sticking with it. And that’s what we’re all about. You stick with it, you do it well, for a long term you’re gonna be successful. Same thing with marketing. You know, I’ve asked your advice about direct mail. I send a few and then I give up. You say, Alex, you’re gonna have to send seven before you do it. It’s that consistency. And I would throw that out there, just being successful with marketing or training, you need to be consistent. You don’t have to spend a ton.
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but it’s more important that you’re consistent in spending. So I hear it, don’t do very expensive long-term contracts unless you know what you’re getting into, you’ve done it before. It’s different if you’re an enormous organization wielding a lot of money and you know what you’re getting into and you have to do a huge contract because there’s so much firepower. But if you’re a smaller practice, find a nice home and stick with it. So I agree, Patrick.
36:20
Yup. All right. So those are our—those are our—some of our—and I’m sure there’s more, but those are some of the top ones. Because look, my uncle, I’m writing—I write a book about him called My Uncle the Magician. I know you read the first chapter. You liked it. And he’s asking, uh, yes, Shelly, consistency over intensity. I just said that. So that was from Facebook, uh, a point. But yes, she’s—she’s saying yes. She agrees with—with that statement from Atomic Habits. And uh—
36:50
So in the book, my uncle the magician, my uncle is, and I got myself off on a different subject, but that is all about sticking. Oh, we had somebody, as I’m going through it, we have a question. Let me just ask that out there. I was getting up, but it’s going to be a good book is, oh, Heather is in this process of looking for publishers and it’s just being consistent in that process. You know, the whole book with, or the Rocky Balboa’s book or movie.
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Uh, uh, Salon. Yeah. And he kept, he kept going after it. All right. So Eric has a question. Um, I got pulled off topic here. Hey Patrick, would you advise a client to avoid a marketing company that’s saying, pay them 30,000 upfront for the first six months and then 3,500 a month after that. Um, why are they charging so much front? And is this a good or bad idea? So $30,000 upfront. Upfront. Yeah, that’s insane.
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So Eric is one of the most respected people in the industry that I, one of the people in this industry, I respect more than anyone. Fantastic. Hey, excuse me here. Hello. 30,000. We actually got rid of our problems. We eat them. We know it’s a cost. It actually, it, we lose, I’m not going to say the number. It’s a significant amount of money. The first six months that we work with a client, but our average clients with us for five years.
38:12
That’s our business model, but there’s nothing. I mean, their margins, I’ll tell you right now, if they’re producing top quality work for that upfront fee, their margins are about 70%. That’s crazy, no business. That’s insane. Yeah, and to give a shout out to Eric, president of coaching at All-Star, I mean, the reason, big reason why our coaching company has been so successful is he really embedded
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a system of affordable coaching, there’s no contracts. I mean, these numbers are huge. I don’t understand how a smaller practice could afford the type of consulting that’s out there sometimes, or even that type of marketing. How do they afford, it’s a lot. And I’ve seen it happen, I know you told me too, you see it and it really, it’s disturbing, you feel bad for them because they’re stuck and they usually can’t get out of that. So just, it’s just, I mean, this is common sense, and as many of you may know,
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about, oh, as I’m talking here, we lost Patrick here on the call. So he lost his internet here. So that’s a good way to end here. We’ll end right there. Thank you for joining us. And remember to like, subscribe, and follow here at Dental All Stars and All Star Dental Academy. And until next time, everybody, go out there and be an All Star.
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We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at Allstardentalacademy.com
