Parthiv Shah: 2 alright welcome. Thank you very much for coming here, and I will be introducing
Parthiv Shah: where we are, who we are and why we are here today.
Parthiv Shah: So
Parthiv Shah: my name is Parth. Shah and I started my business. elonches.com in 2,006,
Parthiv Shah: and I have been helping dentists grow their dental practices since
Parthiv Shah: 2012. I believe this is the 1st time I got hired by a dentist.
Parthiv Shah: and in 2023 I took the lifetime of my work and built a new brand called Dental Growth Machine.
Parthiv Shah: and it's been a privilege to be working with friends like Dr. Goldberg, Dr. Phelps, Dr. Tom Moran, Dr. Charles Martin, and many more to who took me under their wings. I learned how to do marketing, how to work for dentists.
Parthiv Shah: and I've been on a mission to grow my business by helping dentists grow.
Parthiv Shah: Something shifted. In December 2024,
Parthiv Shah: I was actually on a flight to Washington, DC. And sitting next to me.
Parthiv Shah: is this gorgeous, beautiful woman? And that she was? She's
Parthiv Shah: eventually she told me. I asked how old she was. She was 89,
Parthiv Shah: and she was I I was working on my dental growth machine web page. And she kept looking at what I'm doing. And then
Parthiv Shah: she asked me as I put the laptop away, and we're waiting for the plane to land, she said. Are you a dentist?
Parthiv Shah: I'm like no dentists are my clients. I help them sell implants for shift. If
Parthiv Shah: do you help them sell full arch? I'm like, are you a dentist?
Parthiv Shah: She said, No, but I have full arch.
Parthiv Shah: I'm like, Oh, my God! You look absolutely gorgeous! You look
Parthiv Shah: beautiful, you have great smile, and like a baby she smiled. I asked her, Who is your dentist?
Parthiv Shah: And she named her dentist.
Parthiv Shah: That was the moment where I realized why I am here.
Parthiv Shah: It was one of my client dentist. I was sitting next to a patient
Parthiv Shah: was a direct result of me working for that particular dentist.
Parthiv Shah: and if she's telling me about herself, her ability to bite into an apple. Chew on steak and
Parthiv Shah: And smile with confidence she my dad's face
Parthiv Shah: came in front of me. My dad is also 89,
Parthiv Shah: but he does not have bone, so he cannot get implant. I mean, I can afford implants. I can. I have best doctors on earth who would take my dad for free. But
Parthiv Shah: he doesn't have both cool.
Parthiv Shah: I decided there and there I'm going to go on a mission to have 10,000 dentists
Parthiv Shah: sell more implants and sell more
Parthiv Shah: for large cases. And that's how my free
Parthiv Shah: dental Growth Study Club was born.
Parthiv Shah: 4 times a year I bring in 3 to 4. Speaker. For 4 h.
Parthiv Shah: We teach, not preach, we teach, not pitch.
Parthiv Shah: and we show you what you can do to grow your dental practice with or without my help.
Parthiv Shah: We give you free recordings, we give you resources. The faculty agreed to take your calls if you need. And then Dr. Me Dr. Chris, Dr. Ranisa and I started a dental growth mastermind.
Parthiv Shah: which is something we will talk about later on.
Parthiv Shah: so I'm grateful to be here. Now that you are here, you are part of my
Parthiv Shah: pre-dental growth study Club. You will get books.
Parthiv Shah: Fedex, to you 4 to 6 times a year, and we will. I keep playing.
Parthiv Shah: I wish there are more patients who die with their teeth in their mouth, not in a cup. So with that
Parthiv Shah: I'm going to let Dr. Goldberg introduce himself and Dr. Phelps. I will mute myself and listen in
Michael Goldberg: Thank you. Thank you. Partiv.
Michael Goldberg: We're trained as dentists to diagnose treatment plan and then perform what we think is necessary.
Michael Goldberg: But there's something actually even deeper than that, because really, really smart dentists
Michael Goldberg: also try to figure out why
Michael Goldberg: the patient got to where they are.
Michael Goldberg: And it's that curiosity that is not as common as you would think it would be
Michael Goldberg: along your career journey. You will come across people.
Michael Goldberg: and when you come across someone that has that curiosity.
Michael Goldberg: Don't let them go latch on.
Michael Goldberg: That's how I became friendly with partiv, because partiv has that curiosity.
Michael Goldberg: That's how I became friendly with Dr. Phelps. Dr. Phelps has that curiosity.
Michael Goldberg: That's how I became friendly with Dr. Anissa. She has that curiosity.
Michael Goldberg: So I have a whole list of things that Dr. Phelps has done.
Michael Goldberg: Aside from his curiosity, he has something that most
Michael Goldberg: even curious people don't have, and that is the ability to build something to help others fix it so. Whether or not it's the Phelps Institute whether or not it's golden goose scheduling whether or not it's the dental membership direct. Or now, as the us, CEO of the Cialdini Institute. He's built
Michael Goldberg: multiple ways to help dentists.
Michael Goldberg: So with that.
Michael Goldberg: it is my honor to introduce Dr. Chris Phelps, and thank you for everything you do, Chris.
Chris Phelps: Awesome. Thank you, Michael. And guys Dr. Goldberg, hopefully, you'll get to hear from him later. He is an excellent resource for you guys, as he said, also a very curious person. But the wisdom he's attained over these years is invaluable. So grab onto him and and don't let go as well, my friend, so thank you for that introduction. Let me get my screen going here.
Chris Phelps: Alright.
Chris Phelps: Okay.
Chris Phelps: Can you guys see my screen? Okay.
Chris Phelps: good. All right. So maybe some of you have noticed a trend out there with your new patient counts right? Because it seemed like after Covid and the shutdown, and we were finally able to open our doors back up, and we were all kind of waiting there with bated breath, like, what's gonna happen? Are the patients ever gonna return, and for, like a solid 2 to almost 3 year period, our chairs were full, our chairs were slammed with people, and it it seemed like you like, you know. No shows were a thing of the past. Everybody showed it was like
Chris Phelps: this amazing time. But here we are now, almost 5 years later, and what I'm hearing from colleagues out there across the Us. And those doctors that I work with directly
Chris Phelps: is that the pendulum is swinging back the other direction.
Chris Phelps: No shows are at an all time high. Their new patient counts are at an all time low. So why is your new patient flow looking like this when for most of you out there, I bet you'd prefer it to look like that, right? So I'm gonna dig in a little bit today on some things you can do to turn this thing back around.
Chris Phelps: Well, the 1st thing you got to do is work on your own mindset, and what I found when most people think about dental marketing, they have a hunter's mindset, not a fisherman's mindset. Okay? So a hunting mindset, what does that mean? Well, typically, that's what I call like an ambushing strategy or a single shot strategy.
Chris Phelps: So many mornings. I remember growing up here in North Carolina, and my Dad was a big hunter and a fisherman, so he would be wake me up at the crack of dawn, and I'd be sitting in a dare stand at, you know. 4 Am. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, freezing my tail off.
Chris Phelps: sitting there for hours on end, hoping that a deer was going to come by okay, and hoping that I was a good enough shot to hit that thing which I was not, by the way. And of course, if you miss, you think the deer is going to hang around for another shot? No, I think it's gone right.
Chris Phelps: So, looking back on those experiences, what I realized was a hunting mindset, especially when it comes to marketing. Mean putting all your eggs in one basket. When I hear Doc say, what's that? One thing that I can do that can get me a hundred more new patients.
Chris Phelps: That's that hunting mindset. Give me the one thing I can shoot to make my problems disappear. Well, the problem with this mindset is, it's usually a huge investment, okay of your time and money. And because there's so many areas that you can drop the ball or bungle. That opportunity is usually, for most of you has led to a little return on investment, which is why time and time again I hear from doctors, hey? I've done marketing. It doesn't work or doesn't work for me.
Chris Phelps: Well, usually there's some reasons behind that which we're going to cover today. Right? So it's this huge investment of money and time. But typically for most of you, it's been little return on investment. Okay? So the bad news is, there is no one thing you can do
Chris Phelps: to get 100 new patients next month consistently. Okay. The good news is, if you change your mindset to a fisherman, somebody who understands that you really need to tackle this thing by fishing with multiple fishing poles. Okay.
Chris Phelps: well, the good news here is I can find you and help you find 4 or 5 sources that will consistently bring you 25 to 30 new patients a month each.
Chris Phelps: with at least a 3 to one return on investment or higher.
Chris Phelps: That will help you get to your number, whether that's 100 new patients, whether it's 50 new patients, whether that's 200 new patients, whatever that number means to you. Okay, so the best way to tackle this thing is not for looking for that one thing. But seeing that we need to look in multiple areas, multiple different types of mediums, we need to fish in ponds to fish in, if you will, in external marketing, internal marketing, network, marketing and grassroots marketing.
Chris Phelps: At the same time you got to ask yourself when it comes to this new patient flow, what are you looking for? Are you looking for quantity.
Chris Phelps: or are you looking for quality?
Chris Phelps: Okay? Because if you're looking for quantity, all right, there's ways to do that. But what happens typically when you got quantity, and your marketing is driving these larger numbers from single sources. They're not the best quality. So usually get price shoppers, for instance, and we'll talk about that with monetary offers. So price shoppers are those that are focused and fixated on getting the best possible price, the cheapest possible price.
Chris Phelps: Well, if they're coming in thinking they're getting the cheapest price on your exam cleaning and X-rays.
Chris Phelps: do you don't think that's going to translate to your treatment recommendations, and they're going to try to nickel and dime you for everything.
Chris Phelps: Maybe that's somebody you want in your chair. Maybe it's not.
Chris Phelps: This is somebody, if they're after the cheapest price, is probably not going to be around in 6 to 8 months, because they're off looking for the next best thing, so to speak, the next best offer.
Chris Phelps: Okay, so there you're constantly having to churn and burn them right, and to replace them just to keep up. They tend to overload your phone systems because there's so many calling which usually means to more missed calls and a whole lot of unanswered new patient phone calls and poor staff conversions.
Chris Phelps: My focus in marketing was always on quality.
Chris Phelps: Now for those of you that don't know me. I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. I started out in 2,003 when I graduated dental school, joined my wife's dentist, who'd been her dentist since she was 14, and became a partner within 6 months of that practice, and really invested over the next 7 years
Chris Phelps: in marketing everything I could think of right. There was nothing I didn't try, because I knew we were a fee for Service office that we needed opportunities to grow.
Chris Phelps: and the benefit was we did grow. We did succeed, going from, you know, doubling the revenue of that practice the year I joined it to 10 times in that revenue over the next 7 years, and expanding to 4 different fee for service locations, 2. That we built from scratch, and of course, 2 that I had transitioned after purchase, so to speak.
Chris Phelps: Well, I realize, in looking back in this marketing that there's really 2 sides of the marketing coin that you really have to understand as the CEO of the marketing department, because that's in essence what we are. Yes, we're going to use people like part thief and ellaunchers and others to do these marketings for us. But we still have to have a decent understanding of what's going on in this game.
Chris Phelps: What are the 2 sides of the coin?
Chris Phelps: Well, 1st is generating leads and opportunities, as you can imagine. Can I get the quantity and quality of new patients that I need to reach my goals? And are these leads consistently giving me at least a 3 to one return in the 1st 6 months, because if I'm getting a return for my investment.
Chris Phelps: then it's not an expense. It's like the staples easy button. I can keep hitting this button every month, and I can count on X number of patients from this source, who are providing at least 3 times what I'm paying to get them
Chris Phelps: right. Why wouldn't you keep hitting that button every month? Okay? Well, when you make marketing a science instead of a mystery. You can do that. At the same time you got to understand. The other side of the coin is, what are you doing with those leads what I call the lost opportunity side. Are you answering those phone calls?
Chris Phelps: Right? The average office in the United States? Does not answer a 3rd of their new patient phone calls. And these are coming from marketing based sources or even referral based sources as well. Those of you that are spending over $2,000 a month in marketing that missed call rate goes up to 50, some percent. Okay.
Chris Phelps: so are you even answering those calls?
Chris Phelps: Are you making them an appointment right? The average conversion rates in the Us. For a Ppo office is like 37 to 44%.
Chris Phelps: The average conversion rate for a fee for service office is 24 to 34%.
Chris Phelps: Not good. So are we making these folks an appointment? And are we influencing them to show. Well, the average no show rate across the Us is 17 to 24%. So it's a pretty staggering gap. So we got to look at this marketing thing as this coin. Okay? But really, it's just a small piece of an overarching larger puzzle.
Chris Phelps: And this is a puzzle that a couple years back. My Covid project, if you will. I sat down and tried to put this this knowledge and experience and things I had to live through in my own practices
Chris Phelps: into a sequence right? And to document this down into a textbook which I call the complete book on dental marketing. And so today, we're going to cover that 1st aspect of it.
Chris Phelps: the attraction phase. What can you use to attract an unlimited quantity and quality of new patients? Well, to do that. You have to understand what I call the 7 pillars of marketing. Now, Flashback, I had 4 offices I brought on other partners along the way a success in everybody's mindsets, my own included at that time. But then, when my second son was born, and my wife kind of needed me to be home more to be with her during those early weeks.
Chris Phelps: I realized that because I was still doing clinical dentistry 5 days a week.
Chris Phelps: and running all the operations for the 4 practices, making all the business decisions, if you will.
Chris Phelps: and you know, managing the teams and whatnot on top of doing the marketing for them. Well, I realized that I was had trapped myself in my own offices. Okay, my own business meaning if I wasn't around, business didn't happen. So I realized I needed to change my mindset from growing for growth sake
Chris Phelps: to something different.
Chris Phelps: to maximizing the capacity of something smaller. So I decided to, as one of my mentors says, Buy back my time, and I subtracted to multiplied. I simplified my life, so I sold my 2 best offices to 2 of my partners, and me and my original partner, my wife's dentist. Since she was 14 we took over the 2 worst performing practices, least profitable ones
Chris Phelps: for me. That was a strategic move, because I felt like I could do more with the 2 than when I had the 4 combined. When I actually had time to stop being reactive about every decision I made and get into being proactive about every decision that I made
Chris Phelps: when I actually had time to work on this marketing problem and realize what's working, what's not working and why.
Chris Phelps: So what's crazy was when I sold the 2 best offices, and I took over the 2 worst ones. I found myself spending 36,000 per month on those 2 offices in dental marketing.
Chris Phelps: and I know that's crazy because most people don't spend 36,000 a year in marketing. But I'm doing that per month. And my result, I was getting 60 total patients
Chris Phelps: total. So we're talking about 30 at one office and 30 at another office. Okay?
Chris Phelps: Well, usually. And diving into this problem right? Because now I can't ignore it anymore. And understanding what these really 7 pillars were, and tackling these things and making new strategies, I got a better result. I was able to decrease my marketing by over 74% spending less than $10,000 in total. Now
Chris Phelps: the new patient count for each office, we were able to attract over 300 fee for service patients every month, 130 at one office each month, and 170 at another office each month.
Chris Phelps: Why can we sustain those high numbers. Well, because, especially in the second office, it was a brand new cold start office. I had 7 brand new chairs sitting there that needed to be full. Okay? So I needed quantity and quality of those new patients.
Chris Phelps: Well, what do you guys think happens when you pump your practice with an unlimited quantity and quality of new patients. Right? Well, you only got one way to go right. So we grew significantly. Each practice over a million a year for the next 3 straight years. Now, what's crazy about this is, when did we do this? When did this growth happen?
Chris Phelps: 2,009, 2,010 and 2,011.
Chris Phelps: So after the housing crisis, right, this big economic uncertainty, much like what we're experiencing now with inflation and everything else. So what I'm trying to show you here is that these principles, if you will, these these pillars of marketing
Chris Phelps: are time tested okay and and true. So regardless of what's going on in your world, in the environment around you, like, globally or locally. Okay, the better you understand these things and leverage each of them the better. Your results are going to be regardless of the economy around you. Okay.
Chris Phelps: so, but of these 7, you know, there's 3 main ones. Right that let's talk about what drives quantity of new patients at your practice. Well, it starts with understanding. Who is your target market? Who do you want more of? Okay? Who do you want more of in that chair? Do you just need somebody with a pulse? Right? Or do you need somebody more specific in that chair? Maybe somebody who needs dental implants, if you will, some more niche style marketing
Chris Phelps: once you know who your target market is, then you got to ask yourself, well, what messages can I put in front of them? What's the headline of the story, so to speak, that's going to stop them from scanning or half paying attention out there, because that's what people are doing. They're not putting a lot of full attention to anything these days. They're scanning everything. They're half listening.
Chris Phelps: looking for little things that might grab their focus and attention to go. Hey, what's that? Oh, maybe I need to learn more.
Chris Phelps: And once you grab their focus and attention. Then they're gonna read what you have to offer, so to speak, and dig into more detail. But if we don't have the right message to even grab their focus and attention. We've already lost them. They didn't hear it. They didn't see it, and they moved on to the next thing, because nobody has time anymore. Right?
Chris Phelps: So grabbing the right message to grab that focus and attention is key. Once we know who we're trying to reach, what message to put in front of them to grab that focus. Now we can start looking at what's the medium we're going to use? Meaning, where do we physically put this thing to grab their attention.
Chris Phelps: And if you find that for whatever reason you're not getting the quantity of the marketing that you want, okay.
Chris Phelps: there's usually a reason for that number one is, you're probably making the mistake that most dentists and marketing people make, by the way, is is that they don't take the time to really define their market and their message.
Chris Phelps: They just start with a medium. That's when Docs, when they say, Hey, I want that one thing that's going to get me 100 implant patients a month. And I'm like, Okay, well, who's your target market that wants us implants? What are you going to say to them to track them.
Chris Phelps: and what I often hear is they don't know the answers to that questions right? So automatically, that's setting the stage for an error, because you could have and understand who your target market is for me and implants. It was somebody 55, and older, active, independent living retirees. That was my target market for dental implants. Right? So you may have the right market. You may have the right message to attract them, but maybe you're using the wrong medium.
Chris Phelps: Okay? Maybe instead of using part thief and elaunchers, you decided to go with Tiktok. And so you're putting your messages about dental implants on Tiktok when the odds are pretty good, that while your target market is is not there, you know. Maybe their grandkids are there. Your message is not going to be received because they're not even there to get it.
Chris Phelps: So that's important. Are you putting it in the right place?
Chris Phelps: Or maybe you've got the right place, meaning your target market, is there? Maybe you're in a magazine, so to speak, in their community neighborhood. But your message isn't right. Right. So if they again, if they're half looking, half scanning at everything, if that message doesn't grab their focus and attention, they just turn the page and they're gone to the next thing.
Chris Phelps: So errors and quantity usually mean you've got the wrong medium, or you've got the wrong message, or both, if you will. Okay, so let's make sure we get this right. What is the sequence in these pillars we need to focus on? Who's that market? What messages are we going to put in front of them. Then what mediums can we use to try to track them? What ponds can we fish in if you will, and as many ponds as your budget of time and money will allow to fish in the better.
Chris Phelps: Once we define that, now we can go into what's the content going to look like what kind of offer or call to action, as they say in marketing? Are we going to use to grab a better quality, new patient. How can we add some of these principles of persuasion? Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote a powerful book called Influence The Psychology of Persuasion. That's what Dr. Goldberg and I teach at the Cialdini Institute, right?
Chris Phelps: So what principles of persuasion can we use to add to our marketing to make it more receptive and make it more attractive to those folks to pick up the phone and call. And last, but not least, how do we track this stuff? So we know we're getting a return on investment, and we're not guessing, so to speak.
Chris Phelps: So let's dive into these in a little detail. So how do you know who your target market is well, one of the ways you can do is to see who's already come in to your practice. So run a demographic report in your practice management software. I know that's 1 of the 1st things Partif does when he works with clients. Is he digs in there to see who's already been here? What have they purchased? What have they spent? Who are the top? 20 people that spent the most money in your practice?
Chris Phelps: Because if you want a target market. Wouldn't you like to have more of those folks who spent the most money in your practice?
Chris Phelps: Well, who are they? What do they look like? Right. What about the people who referred the most to your practice?
Chris Phelps: What about those that said yes to dental implants, for instance, last year? Who are they? What do they look like?
Chris Phelps: So in essence, we can leverage technology and services like what part thief offers to identify who this target market is, because ultimately, there's some kind of commonality or pattern to them.
Chris Phelps: Another thing you can do is when this person, once you've identified them, is sitting in your chair.
Chris Phelps: That's the best time to interview them to find out. Where are they getting their information these days?
Chris Phelps: Hey, Mr. Jones? I'm just curious, you know. We did a couple of implants on you. You know, when you go to find information. How are you doing that? Do you get information in the mail like, if a doctor sends you a postcard, so to speak. Is that something you're going to respond to? What about in a magazine? Do you look online? What are you looking for when you're doing searches, are you in some kind of community like next door, or whatever where you're talking to other people about what recommendations for your area.
Chris Phelps: How do you find your information? Right? So one of my target markets in my chair, even though I may be busy, my world kind of stops, and I'm going to take the time to interview them and ask them a thousand questions about this stuff, because once I know where they're looking and where their focus is, where they're the mediums they're using, so to speak, to get information.
Chris Phelps: Now, that gives me some insight on where I should be putting my message. Okay?
Chris Phelps: And that message, as I said, is the headline of your story. Okay, it's the headline of your story, the thing that stops them from scanning and going. Oh, wait, wait a minute. What's this? Oh, let me read more about this
Chris Phelps: now you've got a chance. Okay, but your message, in addition to being a headline is something that should differentiate you that makes you stand out
Chris Phelps: because whether you realize it or not, the average consumer today is getting 15 to 20
Chris Phelps: dental marketing pieces every month from some medium online in person. What have you? Okay?
Chris Phelps: And guess what? They all look exactly the same. They all say the exact same things. So it's not really differentiating. It's making an apple seem like an apple.
Chris Phelps: I want you to be an orange. Okay? Because when you're an orange, then it's not about the price of what their insurance covers. People want an orange, they can get an apple anywhere, so to speak. So how do we figure out what your unique messages are? Well, you start with the end in mind. Right? And you reverse engineer the message from there. So first, st we're going to start with, what's the service that you're trying to promote or the procedure? Okay, so let's say it's sedation dentistry, so to speak.
Chris Phelps: Now, I know I want to promote sedation. Okay, well, now, think to yourself, what problem does the patient have
Chris Phelps: that sedation dentistry solves?
Chris Phelps: Well, we know that the problem people have with sedation is fear. Right?
Chris Phelps: They're scared. Okay? Well, now, okay. Now you know what the the problem is is the fear.
Chris Phelps: how does sedation solve the problem
Chris Phelps: and how your product or service solves their problem or pain point?
Chris Phelps: That's your headline. That's the message that you got to put as one of the 1st things they see to grab their focus and attention.
Chris Phelps: Well, how does it solve their problem? Right with this fear? Well, we know with sedation dentistry. The side effect of that is amnesia. They don't remember the visit, and I can't tell you how many people that are terrified of the dentist love the fact that they can get a whole mouthful of stuff done in one visit.
Chris Phelps: and not even remember being there.
Chris Phelps: So you could use headlines like dentistry. That's a breeze.
Chris Phelps: Relax your way through your dental visit, or one of my favorites forget you were ever here.
Chris Phelps: Now, somebody that's afraid of the dentist is. Gonna go, wait! What? Forget? I was over there.
Chris Phelps: Now you got my attention. Let me learn more. Okay, so start with the end in mind. Right. Maybe you're trying to promote your hours, that you're open before work hours or after work hours or on weekends. Well, the problem people have that this is the solution, for it is they can't take off work or take their kids out of school to come see you. That's why they're attracted to those times. So what's your headline? Never, Miss Worker School, to get your dental work done again, or never miss work or school to see the dentist. Okay.
Chris Phelps: so there's so many examples you can use for these things.
Chris Phelps: As I mentioned earlier, many of you have experienced a lot of cancellations and no shows for your appointments these days, and you've probably seen this steadily start to rise over the last couple of months. Well, if that's the case, here's how you can turn that lemon into and make it lemonade. Well, if you've got open chair time that you can count on every day.
Chris Phelps: Okay, well, believe it or not, one of the problems patients are actually having when they're searching online right now for an emergency is getting into a dentist
Chris Phelps: and what they're being told at most ever dental offices, because they're calling 1st thing in the morning.
Chris Phelps: And the people, the patients, or the team members see a full schedule
Chris Phelps: not taken into account that on any given day 3 or 4, maybe 5 people are gonna cancel or no show. So you're gonna have time open. So what do they tell that person. Sorry
Chris Phelps: we can't get you in today. We can get you in couple of days from now. We get you in next week.
Chris Phelps: Well, if you can count on consistently, have an open chair time on any given day. Why not leverage this message instead, call today. Get in today.
Chris Phelps: Now, I use that message for so many years with great success. Now, I'm not saying that I was gonna treat them today. I didn't guarantee that all I told them is you call me today. I'm gonna get you in today.
Chris Phelps: and if I can I'll treat it, I'll start it and I'll finish it. If not, I'll start it.
Chris Phelps: Worst case, I'll diagnose it. I'll manage it with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. Okay? And then I'll bring them back the next day, or whenever when we have time to address the problem and the issue. Okay, so these are the kind of messages that I'm talking about here, things that will grab people's focus and attention that speaking to their pain point and how you solve that pain point right? And then ultimately, we'll get them interested in reading more.
Chris Phelps: Now we know who we're looking to target. Now we know what some strategic messages are that could bring them our direction. Okay, well, what's next? Now you got to figure out where you're going to go fishing. Okay? And as I said, you want to fish with multiple fishing poles, I want to invest in as many of these areas as possible. Okay, that my budget of time and money will allow.
Chris Phelps: So external marketing right? Which is offline and online style marketing.
Chris Phelps: You know Parthith will talk about what e-launchers does. He's got his fabulous dental implant growth. Machine vehicle
Chris Phelps: is a very powerful tool to generate those kind of full large cases to down to single implants as well as he talked about that patient that he sat on the plane with, you've got radio. You've got TV. You've got Internet, you got billboards, magazines, steakhouse seminars.
Chris Phelps: grassroots, marketing, network marketing, internal marketing, all things that we're going to dive into in more detail in our growth, mastermind in the coming weeks. But there's so many places for you guys to fish in once you know who your target market is and what those messages are. Then it's going to be a lot easier to start picking some of these to start experimenting in.
Chris Phelps: Once you pick the pond you're going to fish in. Now it's time to pick your bait. Meaning, what's the content of this ad gonna look like? Well, ultimately the content is going to break out into 2 key areas, 2 primary areas of focus, if you will number one, is it needs to create emotion in people right? And I love using pictures to create emotion like this guy with the mustache right? And the headline there says, Stop hiding your teeth.
Chris Phelps: Well, that's speaking to embarrassment right? And there's a lot of people with broken, cracked teeth out there that are just, you know, jacked up smiles that are embarrassed. Okay, that's what this is speaking to in kind of an elegant way. But that's who this is going to resonate with. It's going to create emotion. So I want to use things and pictures to help create those emotions. At the same time, I may want to target somebody at a specific stage in the consumer buying cycle.
Chris Phelps: because I may want one type of patient versus another, as you're gonna see.
Chris Phelps: So here's 1 of my favorite contents for attracting implant patients again, just like my headline speaks to the pain point and how we're solving that pain point. I want my pictures and the content of my ad to also continue to speak to that pain point.
Chris Phelps: It's called the scarcity of what they've missed out on okay, or have lost the ability to do well for fur large, implant patients. You know what they don't
Chris Phelps: and are unable to do is eat the foods that they want to eat. Okay. So I've used this before, where I've got a picture of a bowl of soup and a steak.
Chris Phelps: and it simply just says, Are you eating this the soup when you'd rather be eating this the stake?
Chris Phelps: If that's you, we've got options we can help
Chris Phelps: again. I don't need to show them pictures of screws and all the different prosthetic appliances that we do. That's just gonna confuse people and may actually scare them away. I'm just gonna speak to the pain point and let them know we have options. If you want to find out.
Chris Phelps: Then let's go. Okay.
Chris Phelps: So these kind of things will attract somebody who's on this path to losing their teeth, so to speak, right? Or is on this path to losing the ability to enjoy the foods they want to eat, or those that have already lost the ability.
Chris Phelps: same as a picture like this. Are you tired of doing this every morning or every evening, you know, putting your teeth in a glass of water, or waking up to see your teeth in glass of water. Okay, so pictures like these help create emotions. And again grab people's focus and attention.
Chris Phelps: But strategically, I want to make sure I'm grabbing them at the right stage in the consumer buying cycle.
Chris Phelps: Well, there's 3 stages for this. There's the awareness stage. That's somebody who either doesn't know they have a problem, and we're the 1 1st to make them aware of it. So let's say they've got a chronic abscess, right? So they've got infected tooth that's been there forever. But it's chronic. So there's no pain.
Chris Phelps: or they think they may have a problem. So they're aware that there could be an issue. But they're not sure.
Chris Phelps: Okay, so this would be like your typical emergency kind of patient if you will. So somebody in the awareness phase, so to speak. So for single implants and kind of you know more of our bread and butter dentistry. I'm kind of looking for people in this awareness phase, but for like full arch kind of implants and whatnot.
Chris Phelps: I really don't want the awareness phase. I don't want to take somebody who doesn't know they have an issue or a mouthful of issues, or somebody who just who thought they had a little issue. And I'm telling them everything has to go. It's a terminal dentition, right? And then I'm telling them, not only are you losing all your teeth, here's what it's going to cost you to repair that. That's a huge shock
Chris Phelps: for people. That's a big gap from learning you've got this massive issue to. Now let's talk about your solutions when they haven't even wrapped their mind and committed to the idea that they're gonna lose it all. Okay?
Chris Phelps: No, for those folks were more big cases, full art stuff. I want them in the consideration phase or the decision phase
Chris Phelps: the consideration phase just that they know they've had this issue. They've probably known they've had it for some time. They probably already had a consultation somewhere about it.
Chris Phelps: But you know what they're still looking for options. They're still considering what their next move is.
Chris Phelps: Well, I have options for that, so I want somebody coming in whose mindset is built around finding the best option for them.
Chris Phelps: At the same time the decision phases they know they need this procedure. They're they know which procedure they need specifically all on X whatever. Now, they're just trying to decide who is the best person who is the authority.
Chris Phelps: Who's done the most of these cases? Who's got the most social proof they can show. That's the one I want to go to to do my work right? So they're trying to decide who's the best one for me. Well, we've got a lot of social proof and authority to back up our practice out there in the market space, as I would hope you do as well. So those are people I'm specifically targeting with my content. Okay.
Chris Phelps: up. Next is, we need to work on your offer. Okay? Because you're understanding your market, your message and your medium will help you generate quantity of new patients.
Chris Phelps: What will generate quality. Is this offer? Okay? And we need quality to make sure we're getting a return on that investment. So the offer that we put out there is critical to attracting the right kind of person.
Chris Phelps: In my mind. The person is gonna pay our full fee, or, you know, maybe our full fee minus a dental membership plan, discount or minus whatever their insurance may cover, even though we're out of network providers. Or if you're in network providers, they're paying, you know the full fee there, but ultimately paying that full fee in some way, shape or form, and returning every 6 months from that point. That's what I call the right quality person.
Chris Phelps: So there's 2 types of offers I see out there pretty much what everybody else does and what I do and what everybody else is doing is the monetary offer. The $99 new patient special.
Chris Phelps: which I've seen become the $79, new patient special. And in some markets. I've seen it become the $49 new, patient, special. And in other markets I've seen it become a free exam cleaning and X-rays as a foot in the door strategy, just trying to get people to come in as a result. Okay, well, that's no way to run a business that's a race to the bottom. So if you're going to use a monetary offer
Chris Phelps: instead of using this price shopper tool, because that's who this attracts is a price shopper. Somebody wants the absolute, cheapest possible price. And we talked about how that's not necessarily a good thing for your practice earlier. Instead, whatever price point you think you want to offer
Chris Phelps: double it.
Chris Phelps: Tell them how much this normally costs. Normally $424. Our new patient, special 1, 99.
Chris Phelps: Okay. So in anchoring them to what your fee is. Suddenly the 1 99 doesn't sound so bad. At the same time you're getting double what you would have gotten with this offer, but escalating it to the 1 99 level actually attracts a different mindset patient. It attracts someone who's not there to nickel and dime you and gidget for the absolute, cheapest possible price.
Chris Phelps: and actually bring somebody with a mindset who just wants a little something off for doing what they know they need to do, anyway.
Chris Phelps: That little extra incentive. Well, guess what that's somebody I can work with, and that's somebody that we can work with who loves a dental membership plan. Let's say they don't have insurance. And we're going to increase our case acceptance on these folks as a result. Okay.
Chris Phelps: so you can use monetary style offers but double that monetary offer. Okay, and anchor them to what your price normally is. So it helps create more value for that
Chris Phelps: automatically, it's going to drag in and bring in a different quality person. So there's all kinds of offers we're going to be covering in the mastermind. Authority offers reciprocity offers gifted purchase offers, and my favorite offers built around convenience, or what I like to call scratch these 2 things off your list.
Chris Phelps: Wait. I can go to the dental office and these 15 other dental ads and get my teeth cleaned.
Chris Phelps: or I could go to this one to get my teeth cleaned and my car washed.
Chris Phelps: Huh! That's interesting. Wait. I can go to this one and get my dry cleaning done.
Chris Phelps: I can go to this one and take home dinner for the kids. Hmm!
Chris Phelps: Now you got my attention right? So in this day and age we're at a unique point in time where the masses value time
Chris Phelps: over money
Chris Phelps: in the past. They valued money over time, which means, if they could save money, they put more time into it.
Chris Phelps: Well, now the pendulum has swung, and the masses value time over money, which means, if they can save time.
Chris Phelps: they'll spend more money.
Chris Phelps: So by combining these convenience, style offers 2 things. Scratch 2 things off your list.
Chris Phelps: You're hitting this convenience mindset.
Chris Phelps: Well, that's much more convenient to get my tea cleaned over here and my car washed. I'm going over here
Chris Phelps: now. It's about the convenience and the extra things you're getting, not your price, not what the insurance covers. Okay.
Chris Phelps: so there's so many other types of offers out there you can leverage that will attract a higher quality person.
Chris Phelps: Next up we can add Dr. Robert Cialdini's principles of persuasion.
Chris Phelps: we can add reciprocity, liking, unity, social proof, authority, consistency, and scarcity, and these are universal principles that we can tap into that are cross-cultural, that speak to everyone, no matter where you are in the world, no matter what your culture is, what your religion is. Okay, who your parents were, what your continent you grew up on. Okay.
Chris Phelps: These are the building blocks of why societies even came together and formed and still function today. So the busier, more distracted we get by life and the things on social media and the other things we're put upon, so to speak, or put upon us.
Chris Phelps: The more we lean on these principles to help us decide as our shortcuts, if you will.
Chris Phelps: So I'm going to dive into just a few of these, just to give you an example. So the principle of unity states that oftentimes we unite ourselves under a banner or under a certain category, if you will, we associate with that category. So the liking principle is a little different. The liking principle is similarity. You are like me.
Chris Phelps: Well, with the unity principle. It's not. You are like me. It is you are me. We are the same. Okay, we are the same sports team. Right? Sometimes sports fans unite under that banner of unity culture, your religion, geography, where you grew up, and there's all kinds of banners we unite under.
Chris Phelps: But the idea, and how we need to leverage this is, it's when it comes to partnerships. This is not a you versus me situation with us and the patient. It's a we situation. We want them to know. We're on the same team here. We're on the same side, and if we're on the same side and you are of us here.
Chris Phelps: then there's less conflict. When you ask them to do things like schedule treatment, for instance.
Chris Phelps: But how do we leverage this on the telephone? Well, one of my 1st businesses I started in dentistry is called golden goo scheduling. It's a new patient call center we answer and schedule new patient phone calls and for offices all over the Us. And Canada. We also do existing patients. It's a separate service, because it's a different skill set needed. And we do recall reactivation for offices as well.
Chris Phelps: But I started that golden goo scheduling because I needed problems to help fix my own problems, because, as I mentioned my big issue with spending 36,000 a month was my teams did not answer. 254 marketing based phone calls every month
Chris Phelps: from marketing sources that I paid for.
Chris Phelps: We had a 24% conversion rates on the telephone
Chris Phelps: and a 24%, no share rate. Okay? So I knew that was a problem I had to dig into once I helped solve that problem and got the missed calls to next to nothing.
Chris Phelps: and I got my conversion rates for my team over 80% and our no show rates down to less than 3%.
Chris Phelps: I knew I'd created the solution for that. And I needed a call center to help others do the same.
Chris Phelps: So one of the things I teach the call center. My, all my agents have gone through this persuasion training.
Chris Phelps: But unity is a big one. And so this is this idea of not you, right? But we.
Chris Phelps: So
Chris Phelps: the if all of you want to get more new patients starting tomorrow or actually after this webinar is done. This is the question you need to ask at the end of every new patient phone call so new patient calls. You've made them an appointment. The last thing the agent says is, okay, Miss Jones. We've got you down for this day and time, hey? Before you go. Is there anybody else we can make an appointment for?
Chris Phelps: Because now they've made an appointment. Aren't they a part of your family right now. It's not you versus me. It's we. Is there anyone else we can make an appointment for before you go.
Chris Phelps: just start asking that question, print it out, tape it to the phone if you have to to remind the team to ask it, because they're not in the habit of doing it.
Chris Phelps: But watch what's going to happen.
Chris Phelps: You're gonna shake that person out of their own mindset and make them realize. Oh, yeah, there are other people I could schedule for you're right. You know what. Let me get my husband in here. He's never gonna call. If I don't do it. You know what? Let me get the kids in here. Let me get my parents. Let me get his parents or her parents.
Chris Phelps: Let me get my cousins, whoever lives with them. Right?
Chris Phelps: So one of my agents, a golden goose had a client down in Texas, and the the record for the most new patient phone calls that one person ever scheduled was they scheduled 10 new patient appointments off one marketing based phone call because they asked this question and all 10 of them showed. By the way. Okay.
Chris Phelps: now, I'm not saying you're gonna get 10 every time you do this. But what if you could take every one new patient call opportunity call and get 2 new patients out of it instead of one.
Chris Phelps: Maybe you get 3
Chris Phelps: or some average, so to speak, right automatically. If you're getting more people for every phone call. What does that do to your return on investment?
Chris Phelps: It's got nowhere to go but up. Okay? So we can leverage this idea of of unity. And we okay.
Chris Phelps: before you go, is there anybody else we can make an appointment for?
Chris Phelps: But a big one? Right now, guys, is you gotta leverage social proof.
Chris Phelps: Okay, in times of uncertainty, when people don't know what they should be doing, they look to the evidence what others around them are doing, or have done
Chris Phelps: so. You have to show them evidence that people are coming to your practice.
Chris Phelps: They don't. So that way. If they don't see evidence that people are coming there, and a lot of them. Then they're thinking to themselves, am I the only one? Am I the first? st
Chris Phelps: And nobody likes to step out from the crowd. Okay? So whenever possible, I like to get my patients together and take photos with them. And this is what goes in my advertising content on my websites. I need to show them that we have reviewers.
Chris Phelps: We have testifiers, so make it more the present tense. Instead of reviews or testimonials. Right? So they see that we have active people giving us reviews and doing testimonials. So if you've got video right, you need to put that on your website, group them together so they can see people talking about you
Chris Phelps: in whatever ad you're talking about, group at least 4 testimonials from patients together to add social proof. A single testimonial actually promotes your authority, it actually is. Another is a patient telling another patient that they trust you so that this person should trust you.
Chris Phelps: But when you group 4 more of those together now you're adding the social proof of look how many people trust us! And here's what they've said.
Chris Phelps: and ideally, you want to report how many of these you have in total. So scour the Internet wherever you have a positive review from somebody, and to me. A positive review is 4 or 5 stars. Okay.
Chris Phelps: add them all up, copy them and paste them to your website somewhere.
Chris Phelps: and then just report the number in any of your advertising vehicles that you're using, hey? To read over 700 positive, patient reviews, right?
Chris Phelps: Check out our website.
Chris Phelps: or to read over 700 reviews from Google, Facebook, Yelp, health grades, multiple trusted sources check out our website. Okay.
Chris Phelps: so we can leverage this idea of social proof to show people that this is not our 1st rodeo. We've been treating other patients and patients just like them, and if we show them that evidence we don't have to say anything else. It's going to automatically drive them your direction and influence them to choose you over the other 15 to 20 different dental office pieces. They're looking at each month that don't say any of this stuff, so to speak.
Chris Phelps: Okay. So, adding, persuasion principles is a powerful tool.
Chris Phelps: I know in my own practices. I had a consistent direct mail piece that I put out there for over 10 years, and it on average got me around 2022 new patients a month right now. I've been mailing to the same list for over 10 years, as I mentioned, but
Chris Phelps: what was crazy was? I went back, and I stripped that piece down, and I added as many of the persuasion principles as I could.
Chris Phelps: and I sent it right back out to the same list I've been mailing to for the last 10 years.
Chris Phelps: And what do you think happened to my new patient counts?
Chris Phelps: They doubled. Okay, they absolutely doubled. So it just show that even though I've been tapping this same well for 10 years.
Chris Phelps: there was still a lot of opportunity.
Chris Phelps: unchecked, untapped, so to speak, and those persuasion principles grab somebody's focus and attention that my previous messaging was not doing.
Chris Phelps: and it allowed more and influence more to come. My direction. Okay, but once we've done all these 6 pillars thus far, the last one is, how do you track this stuff? Because if you're not getting a return on investment. Okay? Then, you're just guessing right? So when people say my marketing never works for me. Almost 9 times out of 10, I can tell them, well, how did you track it?
Chris Phelps: Because I know you didn't.
Chris Phelps: You have to track this stuff to know what's working, what's not working, and why? And the people you're working with need to be able to track this stuff so that you know what's working, what's not working? And why
Chris Phelps: is it something out of your control. Is it something in your control? Right?
Chris Phelps: So these are the 5 most important things I tracked when it came to all my marketing efforts.
Chris Phelps: Are we answering the phone. As I said, we didn't answer. 254 new patient phone calls a month. So I need to know why, you know why we weren't answering that many. So what time of day? What day of the week? Excuse me.
Chris Phelps: was there a pattern to it right? And there was.
Chris Phelps: If did you make an appointment or not? Right? So what's our overall office conversions of new patient calls? And what's my individual team members conversions? Because I realized I had 3 people answering the phone.
Chris Phelps: One of them made an appointment 24% of the time.
Chris Phelps: One of them made an appointment. 40% of the time.
Chris Phelps: And one of them made an appointment 88% of the time
Chris Phelps: kind of good information. Right? Here was my problem, which one of those 3, do you think answered, 90% of the phone calls
Chris Phelps: the 80 percentile one?
Chris Phelps: No.
Chris Phelps: the less than 20 percentile one. Right? So we need to know? Is there a problem or not? Okay? And if so, why aren't they making an appointment again? Is there something in their control or out of their control
Chris Phelps: out of their control would be like, they're calling because they need their wisdom teeth out. And you don't take out wisdom teeth.
Chris Phelps: They're calling for an appointment on Saturdays, because that's the only day they're off work. Well, you're not open Saturdays.
Chris Phelps: That's not really somebody. Your team is going to be able to schedule, that is out of your control. Things in your control are the price shopper. You can actually convert that mindset. Once you get them into your office, and they can actually be some of your best paying patients. Okay? But without understanding how to influence them, they could be one of your worst paying patients.
Chris Phelps: So. But that is something in your control to change. We can schedule more price shoppers. The insurance question, the person who says, Do you take my insurance meaning, take or accept my insurance versus. Are you in network with, or do you participate with, my insurance? Those are 2 very different people.
Chris Phelps: and how you handle them. And the language you use for each of those is completely different.
Chris Phelps: The problem is, most of our teams hear them as the same person.
Chris Phelps: and they're pushing 9 out of 10 people away that don't have to go away
Chris Phelps: causing you a lot more lost opportunity in the process.
Chris Phelps: We need to know, not the half-truth, but the whole truth.
Chris Phelps: Which means, where are these people actually coming from? Right? Because the more marketing you do automatically, your website. Traffic is going to go up by default. But is the website really what drove them to us when we start looking at the whole truth? What was the original source that brought them to your practice
Chris Phelps: and tracking it back to that main source. Suddenly the pie starts to look a lot different. So I want to know, where do these people really come from? That original source? And then we're going to track. Well, how much did those folks actually spend? Okay?
Chris Phelps: Because the last thing is, we don't want the estimated Roi or the anticipated Roi. We need the actual Roi. Okay, the actual Roi. So then I can look at, hey? After a certain period of time, 3 months, 6 months, whatever timeframe you choose. How much did I spend on that marketing medium versus?
Chris Phelps: How much did I? Those patients spend in my practice? What do we collect?
Chris Phelps: Because if it's radio and I'm spending $20,000 right? And we've got 21,000 in money people have spent. That's a 1 to one return in essence. But I lost money.
Chris Phelps: Yeah, I paid myself back for the 20 grand I spent, but you lost money because of the chair time, and those folks that didn't move forward treatment when you could have had a better quality patient in that chair who would have moved forward with treatment
Chris Phelps: right versus if I see, like, what what part these doing for me at elaunchers. And next thing. I see that thing's giving me an almost 8 to one return.
Chris Phelps: Well, now, it's like a staples. Easy button. I'm gonna hit. Keep putting hitting that button every month.
Chris Phelps: because I know I can count on X number of patients consistently. And I know I'm getting back way more than what I'm paying for to get them. Okay.
Chris Phelps: But ultimately we track this properly, we can get to the actual return on investment. Okay? So who's your target market? What's your strategic messages. Then what pond are we going to fish in? What are the mediums we're going to use? And the more mediums, the better, based on your budget of time and money. What content, what emotions can we create? What stage are they in the buying cycle?
Chris Phelps: What offers can we put in front of them to attract a better quality person. How can we add more persuasion principles, and influence this?
Chris Phelps: And how do we track this to know we're getting a return on that investment. So this is just a small sampling of what we're going to be covering in our growth, mastermind over the next coming 12 months, diving in deeper to not only these 7 pillars, but these other areas. I call them the silent killers that are crushing our new patient flow and thus costing you growth
Chris Phelps: the telephone, as we said, how you present to people right treatment, acceptance. And the big killer is the attrition. Why are we losing so many people at the back door. Why aren't they coming back? Is there something we can do to stop the bleeding right to plug those holes? So we keep more people.
Chris Phelps: Well, if we keep more of these patients, then that actually costs us less in marketing, in new patients to replace them. Because everyone you lose you need a new patient that comes in to replace their production.
Chris Phelps: So if you're consistently getting 35 to 40 new patients a month, and you did the same in 2024, as you did in 2023, or maybe a little less.
Chris Phelps: Then what I can tell you is your attrition rates out of control. You're losing more than what you're bringing in.
Chris Phelps: So we have to hit the attrition number. Then every new patient above that we can grow. So what can we do to close the back door and stop that attrition versus? What can we do to try to reactivate some of these folks, maybe with a membership plan or whatnot to try to get them back into the door. Okay.
Chris Phelps: the more we efficient we can get in each of those pain points in those areas. Okay, the faster you're going to be able to get the quantity and quality new patients. You need to grow, whether that be implant patients, or any kind of patient that you need for your office or specialty office. So
Parthiv Shah: Dr. Phelps, thank you very much for sharing your insights. I have couple of couple 3. Follow on questions for you, and then, if you can talk a little bit about Mastermind, and then we'll give the stage to Seth Green. Do you have a few minutes