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Creating urgency is one of the most important things we can do as business owners and salespeople. 

Measure what matters: Establishing cause & effect relationship between Return & Effort/Investment

This is an actual conversation between me and a dentist who is considering hiring me. I am recommending a non-trivial investment in Hubspot for a dentist with multiple locations and about $2.5M in revenue. The doctor has been looking at me for the last several years, has bought and read my books, read at least a dozen blog articles and over 20 recent page views before booking an appointment. After a good initial interview he invites me to come in for a video conference with his leadership team. He requested and now has a copy of my fee estimate and engagement letter. Before signing, he asked me this question:

Before the digital era, people used to love gathering around a photo album with friends and family to relive memories and share the stories behind the pictures. As the saying goes “ a picture speaks a thousand words”.

To bring your website to the top of the search engine’s pages, you need to find the top high-volume keywords. In short, you need to know which word, or combinations of words people are using to search for your business. As a business owner, you are tasked with performing client services, hiring and training staff, and dealing with clients and client issues. Keyword research may be yet one more task you haven’t budgeted time, skill, or dollars for. Luckily, you don’t have to figure it all out on your own, since there are some excellent keyword research tools to help.

How are you/your practice distinct?

If your child has a 102 fever and you run to the drug store, do you ask for acetaminophen  or Tylenol? Tylenol has a 30-year history of building its brand and reputation as a safe, trusted fever and pain medication with a tamper proof seal. That’s why when your child has a fever, you think of Tylenol first. In fact, Tylenol may be the only brand you would trust for your child.

When I worked as a community TV reporter part of my interview training involved sessions with a very experienced crew member named “Mel”.  Mel was a memorable teacher who schooled us on asking open-ended questions that encouraged the interviewees to talk about themselves. Mel told us  “everyone has a story,  it’s your job to tease it out.” It constantly surprised me to find seemingly ordinary people who had the most interesting or unusual stories.

Chances are you’ve  heard the buzz about  Instagram and have decided to set up an account. If you have a business – you’ll want to set up an Instagram business account.  Why? In a word – analytics. Although Instagram calls it “insights”.  Insights are basically an analytics tool that track data on follower demographics and actions.  It also compares content so you can see how your posts are performing.  Additionally, an Instagram business account allows you to post ads and link to your social media business accounts.

Dr. Evelyn (a fictitious character) has been out of dentistry school for over a year.  At first, she tried to do some of the advertising/marketing on her own but  quickly realized she didn’t have knowledge or the skill. She found between managing her practice and trying to keep up with her hobby of running  Ultra-Marathon’s learning the in’s and outs of digital marketing simply  wasn’t feasible.  

But I’m a dentist – not a writer!

Does the thought of writing a story about you or your practice give you the willies? You’re not alone! The good news is, there are a few simple techniques you can follow to get your creative juices flowing. 

One of the most popular methods of building rapport with your audience is called “The Hero’s Journey”.   If you’ve listened to inspirational speakers within the last 10 years, there is an excellent chance their speech is based on this formula.

If you want to attract a deer, would you put a bowl of warm milk on your doorstep?   By doing  specific research, you would easily discover that a block of salt in a treed area would do a much better job of attracting a deer.