If you feel like your dental practice is getting lost in the noise of ads, algorithms, and endless social media scrolls… you’re not alone. In this episode, I’m joined by George Wright III, host of The Daily Mastermind Podcast and founder of the Authority Media Network, to talk about the one thing that can cut through all of that noise: Authority Marketing.
With over 30 years of experience building global brands and helping clients generate over $1 billion in sales, George shares what dentists need to do to stop chasing attention….and start building real, long-term authority.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why most dentists are stuck in the “attention trap” (and how it’s costing you the right patients)
- The #1 branding mistake most practices make (even the successful ones)
- Why AI and social media are making marketing harder—unless you shift your strategy
- George’s 4-Step Authority Formula that turns dentists into the go-to experts in their market
- The difference between promotion and positioning—and why one will grow your practice faster
- How Dr. Mike Bennett used the Authority Formula to stand out, grow faster, and attract ideal patients
George’s 4-Step Ultimate Authority Formula Includes:
- Strategy – Define your brand, niche, and ideal audience
- Content – Create value-driven thought leadership content
- Technology – Leverage automation and tools to scale with less effort
- Distribution – Show up everywhere with purpose (hello omnipresence!)
If you want to attract more of the right patients, build trust faster, and market your practice without the burnout…this episode is your blueprint.
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Connect with George Wright:
- DailyMastermind.com
- AuthorityMediaNetwork.com
- Get the Free 7-Day Authority Course
- @thedailymastermind on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok
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Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music – it helps us reach more dentists who need clear, actionable marketing guidance (and yes, it also makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside).
Thanks for tuning in…and remember, it’s not about doing more… it’s about doing what actually moves the needle.
Transcript
Mark Thackeray (00:00)
Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of the Dental Marketing Secrets Podcast.
Today I have George Wright, the third with me, who joins me on the show today. He is the host of the Daily Mastermind podcast. He’s also the founder and CEO of the Authority Media Network. He has 30 years of building global brands. He’s worked with the likes of Tony Robbins and other well-known individuals. He’s $1 billion in global sales for his clients. That’s a billion with a B, which is amazing. ⁓ His partner group owns Authority magazines. Was it 15 and counting?
George Wright (00:37)
Yeah, 15 and counting and some custom magazines. Yeah.
Mark Thackeray (00:40)
That’s awesome. And a podcast network. And he’s also the creator of the ultimate authority formula, four steps to grow your authority. George, welcome to the show.
George Wright (00:49)
Yeah, it’s great to be here, man. I really appreciate the opportunity. You got some amazing stuff going on, so I’m excited for the conversation.
Mark Thackeray (00:56)
Yeah, me too. Me too. And in fact, we didn’t get connected until just recently. And when we talked about authority, it immediately hit me. You know, that’s something I want to talk about on the show because it has such an amazing, powerful influence. I was actually going over. We didn’t talk about this, but I have it here. I just pulled it off the shelf. I can’t remember where I put it. But so the weapons of influence by Dr. Robert Chaldini, you’re probably familiar with that. But that’s one of the weapons of influence is authority. You know, he talks about the psychology of why people say yes.
and authority is a main, is one of those drivers. And so I’ve wanted to talk to someone about it and you’re the perfect expert for this. So I’m excited to have you.
George Wright (01:36)
Yeah, it’s good. you know, it’s it’s it’s the best timing right now too, because the marketplace is just ridiculously crowded. Nobody knows who’s who. It’s so you know, ⁓ there’s so many AI avatars and individuals that sound like experts, you just don’t know who and so authority is what cuts through it for sure.
Mark Thackeray (01:54)
Yeah, so let’s start there. I think that’s a great place to start. So from your perspective, George, describe the problem that dentists face today. They’re trying to stand out. They’re all clamoring for attention. Yeah, describe that situation and how we can, like you said, cut through that noise.
George Wright (02:12)
Yeah, you know, I kind of was reflecting on this the other day because I really feel like I’ve had a couple of lifetimes now with kids and grandkids. ⁓ 30 years in marketing and I’m like, you know, I’ve seen these waves go where I was telling you before the show, we used to mail millions of pieces of direct mail for live events and, know, and then it got a lot of PR and TV and radio and the world’s become very digital.
But what I’ve noticed, and this is the problem that dentists and dental professionals overall are facing, most professionals, is that the marketplace is so crowded and it’s such a digital world that it’s hard to stand out and get seen. Influencers are eating up all the views. You could have somebody that just started a dental practice yesterday and they’re everywhere. And you’ve been in business for five, 10, 20, 30 years. And so how do you…
create the ability to get seen and become an expert and stand out and it’s it really is authority. think this problem is Dennis want to do what they do. They don’t want to be marketers. They don’t want to be out there doing these things. But unless you are engaged with the marketplace and most of them, they don’t want to be celebrities. They don’t want to write those kind of things. just they ideally and that’s maybe another topic to talk about is ideally they should want to be a celebrity in the sense of
to their target, in their market, in their area. They want to be the most well known because that’s what drives business. But it’s hard to do unless you are in a digital world.
Mark Thackeray (03:44)
Yeah, no, absolutely right. Absolutely right. There’s a lot of a lot of doctors that I work with that just they struggle with that that very thing where they don’t want to push push themselves out there. They feel like that’s too self-serving. They don’t want to. Yeah, they don’t want to be that that person that they see on social media everywhere because they don’t like that personality. But and I agree with you. I think the thing is and I you know, we talked about Jay Abraham before the before the show.
As for this, we hit record, but he would say that it’s you have a moral obligation to do that, that it’s that you are the expert. And so as with respect to your patient, you know what’s best for that. So you have a moral obligation to share with them those things that they need to know so that they can make a good decision for their health. You know, and if you don’t do that, then that’s that really is kind of on you, you know, and that’s can be a hard pill to swallow. But I think once you see it in that light, it makes it a little easier that you’re there to you’re there to educate.
and help them make that decision. You’re not necessarily there to say, hey, you have to do this or, you know, I’m the only person out there, but you know, I mean, it’s there to just help them and serve them.
George Wright (04:53)
Yeah, the reason we’ve really hyper focused into this idea of authority is because, you know, consumers are becoming more and more educated. In fact, they had a crazy study that came out that said ⁓ individuals are going to like chat GBT to be able to get diagnosis. And it’s actually more accurate than a lot of doctors and or Google because it can collaborate all this information. So people know that. Right. So you have to realize that
People want to be more educated, but they also want to, they will do business with people they like, trust and know. They have to know you like you and trust you. And that’s this whole concept of authority. you have to engage with your audience, but ironically, you don’t have to be polished. You don’t have to be a celebrity. You don’t have to have like the perfect words. People just want to know you care, right? And you’re real and you’re the person they can talk to and that’s…
That’s why this is so important to engage digitally, right?
Mark Thackeray (05:55)
Yeah, yeah, so you mentioned AI. Let’s talk to me about that. You know, how does that factor into this as everyone is starting to play around with that? Does it make it easier? Does it make it more complex? What does that look like?
George Wright (06:09)
Well, I think it’s a couple things that always come to mind for me. The first is that you’ve got to at least know what’s going on. And so if you don’t educate yourself as to what’s going on, it’s not that you have to know how to use it. You have to know that all your consumers are using it. All your clients and patients are using it. So if you don’t understand it, so for example, we talk about this later, but even with search, a lot of people are not just going to Google. They’re going to chat GPT. They’re going to different search tools. So you have to understand it. And then second,
You have to realize it’s a resource. It really will make your life easier and you don’t any longer have to be an expert to be able to utilize it. But the other thing is it automates a lot of things. So when you really accept the fact that AI is influencing the people you’re trying to talk to, that it’s a great resource for you and it can automate your life, it really could take your business to the next level if you just, you know, either get to understand it a little more or
connect with you know, individuals like you know, you guys do a lot with that. So it’s obviously if you’ve got some experts that can help you to automate your process that helps as well. And that’s why I look at AI as a tool rather than an obstacle, which is why a lot of people see it. They’re like, I can never compete all these guys out there with AI, you know.
Mark Thackeray (07:25)
Right. Yeah. I think it’s good way to look at it. Is there any, you know, as I look at the dental industry, are there, is there any inherent challenges with that industry in terms of, you know, becoming an authority figure? You know, is that, cause I mean, sometimes we’ll get into the discussion of, you know, social, a lot of them will ask about social media content and, and they put stuff out and literally there’s hardly any response. It’s just crickets because.
They just do, they focus on dental and not people aren’t clamoring for more dental information generally. So I get that. But yeah, when it comes to building or becoming an authority in this, in this industry, is that, there any inherent challenges?
George Wright (08:09)
Well, I think one of the challenges is that people are not using it. They don’t have the right perspective on it In other words, I’m a pretty we talked about this earlier. I’m a very strategic person like a Jay Abraham like a Dan Kennedy like yourself ⁓ So I don’t like to do anything unless there’s you know, real, know objective and ROI on it And so a lot of people are out there like I’m just gonna go get press releases and get content like that It doesn’t do you any good. It’s like putting social media out. Nobody even remembers what you did last week So I always like to have an objective. So it really boils back to
What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get more clients? Are you trying to just get that branding and reputation? Authority becomes something that is a real asset if you do it right. So depending on what your intention is, I always start with strategy. That’s kind of why our formula for authority is start with strategy. Don’t just go build authority. What are you trying to accomplish? So if you want more leads, if you want more clients, if you want to support your current clients with more information,
You got to start with what are you trying to accomplish and then you could really build a blueprint around it.
Mark Thackeray (09:13)
Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that’s always smart. You got to start with the end in mind, as Stephen Covey would say, and reverse engineer that process, essentially. Would you, so before we kind of get into those kind of those steps, you know, I’d love to talk about that, but ⁓ is there anything else that you feel like people should be aware of? Or maybe what we do is maybe take a step back and just describe what that looks like, you know, when you have achieved that authority status, just so that we can kind of paint the picture a little bit.
and what that means for a dental professional nowadays.
George Wright (09:45)
Yeah, I think it is important to kind of step back and recognize what authority for a dental professional actually means because Everybody thinks of marketing and growing your business in terms of growing your business Yeah, there’s actually two or three other real huge benefits of authority and one is that you attract opportunities meaning right, you know a lot of debt now We don’t necessarily have to go down this rabbit hole, but a lot of dental professionals. I know they’re trading their
their time for dollars. So they’re trying to find ways to grow their practice or grow their revenue, but they don’t have time to become well known or ⁓ create programs or speak or consult or even, for example, partnerships in your local area or whatever it is. So when you become an authority, all of a sudden people are like, I know who that is. I’m going to contact them. So you attract opportunities. But the other thing is you start to separate yourself from the competition. People know that you are the person
that is much more well known and trusted and respected. You’re not just one of the 10 or 15 or 20 in the phone book, so to speak. So there’s a lot of benefits for authority, but I think the main point I’m trying to make is that it becomes an asset. Your authority and your brand is an asset that you can grow. And Dan Kennedy said this, if you’re not specifically, strategically, and intentionally building your authority,
you’re neglecting a major asset of your business. So you’re trading time for dollars and over and over and over and constantly trying to get new leads. But if you’re building a brand, your business starts to take on some momentum that you no longer have to just every month, try to go get out new clients, keep clients and collect clients. Right. So that brand and that asset is such a huge value to professionals, especially because they’re trading their time. And if you ever want leverage,
You need something like authority to be able to create more leverage in your business, your practice, your ultimate goal. So when you tie your goals to what this thing can do for you, the lead generation, the growth and the revenue that just comes along for the ride. And by the way, I’ve worked with several professionals, which we can get into later. But what happens is the lifetime value of your dental practice becomes higher because now clients want to go to for everything, ⁓ products. ⁓
e-commerce stuff, ⁓ you know, more cleanings, more information, more things. So the value of your clients actually increases and you don’t find yourself chasing clients as much.
Mark Thackeray (12:18)
Yeah, yeah. And that’s one of the ways to grow a business. You know, I mean, it’s just increase the value from each individual patient. And so, yeah, that’s when I love what you said to George. mean, it’s not that a lot of these guys really want to go out and become an influencer or want to do consulting work or anything like that. It just it gives them the opportunity to do that if they choose. Additionally, beyond that, it just as an authority figure, your case acceptance, your conversion rate is going to go way up.
I mean, as people see that and they trust you because they want to go to someone who’s an expert, quite frankly, they don’t want to be worried about going to someone who they’re not sure is, you know, might be shaky in terms of their clinical skills or whatever. They just they want to know that they’re in their good hands. And so that’s going to be a lot easier. It’s going to allow them to, you know, as I see it, too, if they want to stay in the practice, it’s just going to be allow allow them to be more selective of who they treat, you know, what type of procedures they do.
George Wright (13:13)
Yeah, and it’s interesting because I started my podcast about six years ago and I just did it because I love it for similar reasons that you did. But what I found is this authority got built and all of a sudden when I have conversations with people, so if a professional has a client come in and they have this framework of knowing that you’re liked and trusted and respected and you have information, the conversions go up because they’re not questioning if you’re the best dental professional.
They see you and they know you and they did a it’s called the Mare effect, right? So they did studies in real estate where, you know, everyone knows their local real estate commercial guy because billboards and everything everywhere. So same with politicians, why they put signs up everywhere. So when someone goes into that voting booth or they go to the, you know, pick a real estate agent by default, subconsciously, they choose the one that they’ve seen and heard the most. And the other thing that’s interesting is this digital world. It used to be
that you just had to get the social posts and ads and things out there and build up momentum or create targeting. And now what’s happening is with these algorithms and the fact that people are out there, ⁓ it’s amazing the type of referrals and virality and things that happen for you if you’re just consistently out there building your authority.
Mark Thackeray (14:30)
Yeah,
the referrals is a man that’s one that yeah, you can never gets old, you know.
George Wright (14:37)
Nobody’s
gonna refer unless they know who you are, but nowadays, ⁓ know, they may not even be with you, but they know who you are and they refer you. So that’s the big key.
Mark Thackeray (14:47)
Yeah, yeah. From a patient standpoint, from a referral partner standpoint, like you said, being someone in the community that they trust, that they know, then they’re just going to send people your way. And that is such a huge asset that a lot of people, frankly, and that’s another topic we should discuss at some point, is just referrals in general, because people are, they don’t hardly do anything for that. They do that kind of hope and pray mentality and don’t have a proactive strategy really to go out and get those. So I think authority.
Yeah, really ties into that nicely.
George Wright (15:18)
Well, you make a really good point too, Mark, because, listen, you’re looking for referrals, it’s a hard lift if you don’t have a relationship or you’ve done something well. But if you’re putting out some good content and it’s a good piece of information, that share, that information someone’s going to go, this was great information on like sleep dental, or this was something about the benefits of your health and eating around dental. I shared that article. Well, they share it with their Facebook.
friends and there’s like a thousand of them. Yeah. you can get referrals through content even more easily than you can from, I went and had a good experience. Let me tell you about three of my friends. Yeah. So you’re just missing out on that huge leverage of being able to get virality of shareability, which is referrals.
Mark Thackeray (16:07)
Yeah, and that’s that’s when you you mentioned the word leverage and that is a great example of leverage in action where you can instead of going one to one, you’re broadcasting one to many and you’re really taking advantage of. Yeah, you’re leveraging your time really, really well at that point.
George Wright (16:22)
Yeah, and when you add authority what happens is people look you up, go, that’s a really cool message from that person and then they see you are the person in the area. Like, because they see other types of references around you, like, this dentist, this orthodontist, this whoever, they know what they’re doing. There’s so many people talking about them and that’s the key, right?
Mark Thackeray (16:40)
Yeah, yeah. So question I have is a lot of dentists, know, they, they, think they focus more on attention, you know, instead of authority. So explain the differences between the two. Cause I know there’s some crossover, of course, like you’re, there’s some, but yeah, well, how would you, how would you describe the difference between the two?
George Wright (17:02)
Well, the big difference is attention is short term and authority is long term. So it’s the difference between like Kim Kardashian and Brene Brown, right? Tony Robbins has authority, but there’s a lot of thought leaders that are short term. So attention, social media, ads, things like that, they’ll get you attention, but it’s not long term. You got to go do it again. In addition to that, the conversion on the attention from an authority is much higher.
You know, attention would be like doing your social media posts, going to networking event, whatever it is. And authority would be, you’ve been featured in publications. You have things out there that sit out there. And the other thing about authority is the organic SEO long-term effect is much higher. So when you are featured in something or you are in a article magazine publication, or you have someone building your brand,
What happens is that will pay off for you over and over and over because it continually sits out there. like authority, talk about authority is like blog articles and featured magazines and guesting on podcasts and things like that. Those things continue to get views over time. And those are more authoritative than just attention.
Mark Thackeray (18:20)
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. that’s a great way to look at it too is the duration of whatever it is you’re doing. So if it is very short-lived, yeah, then that’s just more attention focused. But if it is, the life, some lifespan after that, like you said, a lot of these become assets that you can reuse again and again and again, could be a podcast, could be an article, whatever the case may be. And that has a long shelf life.
George Wright (18:47)
Well, and it’s important for you to know, because you kind of mentioned this earlier, but authority being so important because you’ve got to constantly remind yourself. as a marketer, you’re a marketer, I’m a marketer. We think through the lens of what are our people, our target audience thinking. You got to remind yourself they’re out there. They have the ability to search everyone and get more information than you have time to give them. And so if you are not realizing that they’re very educated.
Authority isn’t just about having more information. It’s about people seeing you and liking you and things like that. So sometimes it’s as simple as you being out there. You don’t have to be an expert on content. They can search the content. Like you don’t have to be the most, you know, dialed in expert on orthodontics or whatever it is, right? Whatever the topic is that you really specialize in. ⁓ You just have to be there because it’s the mirror effect. It’s the fact that they see you like you and trust you that they will make the decision to be with you. And that’s what authority brings.
Mark Thackeray (19:45)
That’s such a great point to George, because I know going back to what we talked about earlier, a lot of people feel like, well, I’m good, but I’m not the expert. Like I’m not the end all be all of all these things. You know, I don’t know the ins and outs of every little thing that goes on behind the scenes. But I, you know, I’m good. You know, I’m solid. Yeah. So that’s that’s really reassuring because I think we all have that at some point, you the imposter syndrome where we feel maybe we’re not the total expert because something doesn’t always go right. But.
I think yeah, think you’re right. Just if we could put ourselves out there and that mirror effect is real, you know, I mean where we can build that relationship. How do you have
George Wright (20:24)
Well, and Mark, your point, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but to your point, everyone knows that the most well-known brands in the world right now are not the experts. It’s reality TV. It’s raw and real. It’s authentic. It’s just that people know who you are. Authority is about knowing you, liking you and trust you. I didn’t say that you’re the absolute expert in the content, right? That is not, but…
But you’re right, the biggest thing holding them back generally is their mindset, what they think everyone else is thinking, how they look, and all those things are gonna keep you from building your business.
Mark Thackeray (21:02)
Yeah, well, I’m so glad you mentioned that. That is a great point to remember. So in the end, the other question I was going to ask is, do you feel the need to be? Because I think some people think, well, I’ve got to be out there. I’ve got to be controversial. I’ve got to take a stance. And I know, you know, there’s differing thoughts about schools of thought on this. But what is your take on that? Do you feel like you have to if you’re coming out and you’re trying to build authority, do you have to take a stance and stand for something out there or?
Yeah, talk to me about it.
George Wright (21:33)
Well, think I think look that’s I’m not going to go on and say that doesn’t help at times. Yeah, I think it’s not the most important thing because I think the most important thing is always and I’m strategic, right? Right. Your strength. If you don’t like being on camera, do an audio podcast. If you don’t like being, you know, riffing on the fly, then write articles and read it to a camera. Yeah. You know, play to your strength because
I’m telling you right now, look, you can go in, I could go in right now to chat GPT and outline an article on dental myself and sound like an expert, but so can everyone. But 90 % of the people aren’t doing it. So the key is just doing something. That’s why, yeah, that’s why you like you with your clients. I’m sure you agree. We talked about you. You make it easy on them because you’re like, Hey, just, just get with me and let me handle all the, the, the detailed part. But they just got to play to their strength. And if you play to your strength and what I mean by that is
what you’re the most comfortable with, it will evolve. And you will find your niche. You will find the topic you like, you’re passionate about, you are excellent at. That unique talent is like, so in my personal development company, I talk about that as well. It’s like, your unique talent, and everyone has one, is the stuff that you’re excellent at and passionate about. All dentists lined up,
All of them have specific things they’re really, really passionate and better at and like doing, and that’ll be the area that they can really hone in on. But all the other content, and also, you don’t have to be the person doing the content if you’re out there doing a podcast or things like this. You could be interviewing other people and they could have the content. That’s why podcasters may not be the expert, but they’re everywhere because they’re interviewing people. ⁓ That’s why a lot of dentists do that. We’ve done that with a couple of specialty dentists.
Mark Thackeray (23:22)
Yeah, that’s great. That’s so great. OK, well, I want to get into your four step authority formula because I think this is something that, you know, as we’re making this discussion, we’re having this discussion around authority and really kind of positioning to now, how do we get, how do we start to do this? And then I’d love to if we, you know, after that, let’s talk about some case studies. You know, I know we talked about Dr. Bennett and
his, you know, his sleep, the sleep doctor and stuff like that. So let’s get into that, but let’s, let’s first focus on, okay, now how do I actually go about and do this?
George Wright (23:58)
Yeah, you know, I was about a year ago, I kind of sat back and I was like, all right, we’ve been building these brands like Tony Robbins and Robbie Kiyosaki and Trump and, you know, Harvecker and all these individual brands and personal brands. I thought there’s actually a little bit of a pattern here that we follow. And that’s what this four step is. And most people are missing. Most of the steps are just jumping into authority and doing content. And so it really starts with in my mind, it starts with strategy.
So the first step would be strategy. the reason I say this is because strategy is when it comes to authority, you’ve got to control the narrative. In other words, don’t just be out there. Figure out who your market is, your persons you’re going for, your avatar, your client, your customer. Figure out what the message is you want to give them and figure out where you’re going to find them, your market message and media. When you do that and you control the narrative and you know what the objective is,
then and build a little bit of personal brand around it. Then you can go to step two, is authority. And the way I look at authority is I always try to focus on legacy content because the rest can come from it. Nobody remembers what you posted last week on social, but podcasts, blogs, articles, and YouTube are the areas that will continue to get views. Legacy means they’re going to continue. That’s why some YouTube videos have million views, but it’s been out there for 10 years, right?
Once you have the actual narrative and the messaging and your strategy, you go to authority and you build through this legacy content and that stuff can be carved up into all the other stuff as well. But so second step would be build your authority and focus on content that is gonna live and there’s other intricacies like being highlighted rather than just promoting. ⁓ And so authority would be the second step. Third would be technology.
Mark Thackeray (25:52)
Let’s get something about that real quick. So as you’re building this legacy content, is this centered around your unique talent? Is that what you would kind of?
George Wright (26:00)
your messaging. in the case of like Mike Bennett, you know, he is ⁓ has a dental practice, but he’s also kind of known as a consultant and speaker. And we can talk about these later because he’s very well known in the sleep dental arena, how sleep affects your dental and, all that does is drives his practice, but also all these other opportunities. And so once he has that messaging, he can then go out and
whether it’s articles or blogs or podcast guesting or whatever in building content for authority, that’s the message. Most people are out there just, I was featured in a magazine, I was featured in an article, but what was it? Nobody remembers what your message was. So strategy, then authority, then you’ve got to add that third step of technology and automations, because nobody’s in business to get more busy, right? ⁓ So when you take…
Automations and AI and technology. What we do is we you can you can actually automate the repurposing of that content into your social media. You can put QR codes in it so you can actually have people scan it and contact capture and convert leads. So you don’t want to just have stuff out there. If you post on social, you don’t know who’s looking at it or what you’re looking at it. You might see view counts, but you need a way to kind of engage it and then get it everywhere. And that’s that technology and automation.
So that fourth, you can distribute and market. So strategy, build authority, add technology and automation, and then you can distribute it. And this would be through, you know, ⁓ free traffic, paid traffic, ⁓ networking, talking, referral. There’s just a whole bunch of ways to distribute it out there. ⁓ it’s like we have, for example, I give the example ⁓ nowadays.
We have clients that basically give us one hour a week, other time. We have a very strategic conversation. We turn that into podcasts, blogs, magazine articles, whatever. We take technology and carve it up into clips and snippets and reels and articles and Facebook posts. And then we just push it out everywhere. And some of that turns into great Facebook ads. Some turns into great SEO, but they spend an hour doing what they do, which is about information they love. And the rest goes through, but it’s very logical blueprint.
We’re gonna create core content with strategy, drive it through authority, create automations, and distribute it and market it. And that’s the way you grow your business in a very leverageable sense. That’s why I kind of put that four step formula together.
Mark Thackeray (28:31)
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. OK, that’s awesome. I mean, I’m just going through it thinking, OK, if I were to do this, yeah, you put together a strategy. You’re building authority through legacy content, utilizing technology to then make it easier in automation and then distribution. as I think about this too, especially in comparison to what most people are doing, I think of other dentists, other orthodontists, and what are they doing?
They’re pushing out offers all the time, know, $500 off Invisalign, whatever the case may be. This gives you a chance to truly separate yourself and differentiate from everyone else. Now you’re pushing content that’s helpful, it’s valuable, you know, it’s not seeing as, we’re not really trying to, you know, the ultimate strategy, yes, is to bring them into our sphere of influence is to capture them as a contact, to nurture them, till they feel comfortable to make the decision.
We’re kind of at that point, the go-to, the incumbent, so you speak because we’ve provided that information, but we’re not just out there as the used car salesman holding the sign saying, hey, we’re the cheapest, we’re the lowest price, you know? It just allows you to say, to share a different message. And I think that’s a very important point to remember ⁓ so that we can differentiate ourselves properly, you know? mean, because we all are different. Like you said, we have that unique talent, we have that unique focus.
And if we can do that, it’s going to make things a lot easier on our end.
George Wright (30:02)
Yeah. And just to be clear, I mean, you and I think very similar. Let’s be really clear. ⁓ I’m a marketer. So it’s all about contacting and converting leads period. option A is you spend a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, whatever on Facebook ads. And Monday morning you do it again. And then Monday morning you do it again. And next month you do it again. And you’re trying to keep clients and get clients. Option B is you build authority. You get it out there. Your contact captioning, converting clients along the way. In fact,
while you’re putting out this content, it already tells you which ads might be the best ones to double down on. But then when you stop doing it, stop doing your ads, you continue to build leads and focus. And so one is leverage and one is trade your time for dollars, your money for dollars. And so it’s just a smarter way to go now. And honestly, you’ve got to build some kind of authority. Otherwise, you’re just another offer out there.
Mark Thackeray (30:58)
Right, Yeah. And that’s the thing. I mean, if you’re reduced to just an offer, then it’s so much, then people just, man, they just breeze right past you. They just look at the list, pull it up on Google and be like, okay, next one, next one, next one. But if your offer is unique and it provides value, then man, you stand out like sore thumb.
George Wright (31:19)
Well, plus we know as marketers, I’m sure most professionals have seen this, offers only work for a certain period of time. And so offers are changing, the market is changing. All of sudden people can get things online direct to their home. So a lot of things you might go out with an offer on, people could just do online now and send the test kit in and get things back and whatever it is. But offers always change, but your brand and authority doesn’t. So when you have brand and authority, you can throw out any kind of offers and you still are
building your brand, whereas offers change over time and you constantly have to kind of rethink your ads and the ads degrade over time or whatever it is. And so I think that there’s a long-term life value of it as well.
Mark Thackeray (32:01)
Yeah, it’s a great point. So OK, so let’s do this George. Why don’t you take us through a case study with Doctor Bennett and maybe you could just kind of walk through that four step formula on how what you did for him and just kind of show it. Share some of the results.
George Wright (32:16)
Yeah, so, you know, Dr. Mike Bennett, ⁓ he’s a guy that has a dental practice, has for a long time. He’s very well known. He’s had some credibility built up over time, maybe more than, you know, a lot of individuals. And he kind of had a little bit of his direction, although we had honed it in over time, ⁓ and that he was in this field of sleep study, right, or sleep dental. And the idea of screening for sleep and how the mouth, because most dentists, you know, really they’re
they’re ⁓ practicing health professionals in the mouth and face area, right? And so, you know, he’s developed this idea that all of that affects your dental, right? And it affects your overall life and ultimately has led him to build a brand that he can then expand out of that. But what we wanted to do is, a lot of dentists really are good at talking about what they want to talk about. They just don’t have strategies and blueprints around it. So we sat down, we did a strategic overview.
We recognize that his target clients were not only because his goal was also speaking and consulting worldwide. He’s asked by a lot of ⁓ medical device companies, things like that. He had to go out to Japan to speak. We wanted to target the message for dental professionals, companies and patients. So once we kind of put that message together, the strategy was he wanted to do startup podcast. so.
Mark Thackeray (33:22)
Yeah.
George Wright (33:40)
That was the simplest one type of thing we could do to be able to go there. So we, you know, we set up a website and built a podcast and built like a 12 week curriculum of the topics that he would talk about. And each of those topics had three or four or five bullets. And, you know, we could talk about those for 30 minutes and end up with a great podcast that turns into a blog, a YouTube, everything else. But then also we went a little further and decided to start
interviewing experts in these topics, which now, ironically, got him in front of their audiences because they share it and they have credibility. And there’s this implied credibility, like, here’s a number one best author on a topic. I’m interviewing you. Here we are together. And so it expanded his reach by doing those interviews. And ⁓ then with that, you go down to the automations because this podcast, one podcast episode,
gets turned into a long form blog automatically. He just does the podcast. It gets turned into a long form blog transcript, which is just a Google magnet, right? In his website, the podcast gets syndicated to 15 places. The YouTube video that goes on YouTube. And then we use that to build an article to put in a magazine press release. But then we turn some technology on and he started a newsletter. And so the newsletter, ⁓ the newsletter he has now is over 14,000.
dental professionals and experts with like a 80 % open rate and a huge click through rate. he doesn’t do anything with it. Like it’s just content that I mean, he does, but you know what I mean? It’s like he could do a message once a week that turns into a podcast, but that info gets put in as the main message ⁓ in the newsletter with a whole bunch of links to other stuff. Now he’s got people back to authority reaching out to him saying, Hey, can I sponsor your newsletter? Right.
And newsletters are 500, $1,000, $2,000 an issue being paid for sponsorships, which then expands his reach and does even more. But the automations are where we’ve been able to really create stuff on his website and with the articles and the newsletter to automate. And then everything gets clipped up into reels and stuff and pushed out into social. And now he can start to promote and distribute. So we’ll get him guesting on other podcasts. We’ll get him doing other things.
He’s been able to build an amazing brand. He’s the go-to guy in this field. ⁓ He’s able to call people up and who doesn’t want to get interviewed on a podcast, right? He can call people up. He’s getting consulting and ⁓ speaking deals. He’s got people asking him about sponsoring his newsletter and he’s got this active living audience and all of it by default drives his local practice.
And so it’s one of those things where, as you know, ⁓ it’s just an amazing asset to be able to build additional value for his practice. So yeah, that’s his niche. Now, did he always know he wanted to do that? I think he grew into that. We’ve done some podcasts where he talks about where he found his voice when it comes to that. And would he say he’s comfortable on microphone and speaking? Probably not. But he just does it and he does it really well.
And nobody looks at a dental professional and expects them to be like a polished, you know, stage speaker. mean, he’s gotten really good, but you know, as you do it over time, you just get better and better. It’s just a matter of doing the reps, right?
Mark Thackeray (37:16)
Yeah, and that’s the key to remember. It’s not that you’re asked to be speaking on a topic that you’re unfamiliar with. Then everyone’s comfortable. It’s something that you know, you talk about all the time with your patients. And so it does a lot easier. Just act like you’re speaking to one of your patients, describe the situation, and describe the benefits. But one thing I wanted to underline that you said, George, was it’s just the opportunities are.
I mean, you don’t even realize all the opportunities that are available. You you might think, yeah, it’s gonna, can grow my patients and number of new patients to my practice. And that is one, and that’s a big one. That’s awesome. But then you have all these additional opportunities, which to be quite honest, you may not want to pursue and that’s okay. But they’re there. That’s the, that yeah, it’s an option. So if you do want to maybe monetize a newsletter where you’re getting sponsorships, because you have that relationship with those readers,
It’s amazing, know, that’s a pretty passive income, you know, compared to sitting in a dental chair, you know, and having to perform a procedure every day. It’s, it’s, again, it’s about these opportunities, about the leverage that exists with these type of authorities.
George Wright (38:28)
Yeah, it’s about leverage and options, right? So Dr. Bennett didn’t go into this thinking, I want to be a global speaker and consultant and have a massive newsletter, all these things. But he’s just doing what he loves, which is dental practice. And and he believes in the health and well-being of his clients. And that’s what he talks about. And in return, he’s built this global newsletter. Yeah, getting asked to speak. He’s got people coming to him and.
you know, whether he decides to do that or not is up to him. Whereas most dental professionals right now, whether they decide to practice and have clients is not up to them. They have to do it. So you just want options. And I think you would be surprised. And he didn’t go into it. That’s the point I want to make knowing he wanted to ultimately, I mean, now he’s got potentially a book he could write, which he wouldn’t even have to write. He’s got all the content already, but you go, you don’t go into it for that reason. You go into it for the purpose of what you’re excellent and passionate about.
the reason you got started in dental in the first place and maybe the things you like the most about it. And it also, I will note, helps you to do things you love on a day to day versus just, and if by default it grows your business and gives you opportunities, then it makes it really really win-win.
Mark Thackeray (39:40)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s a great point. George, are there any? Does this work for would you say this would work for every dentist or should they? Are there people that this just probably won’t?
George Wright (39:52)
work
for? I think, I think it works for anyone. think it but it but it’s only going to work for ones that have the intention. And the idea here is not to dabble, right? You’re either going to do it or you’re not if you’re going to do it, do it right with a blueprint. Otherwise, you could I know people that have guested on dozens of podcasts and never got anything out of it. They’ve they’ve done lots of social media over time and gotten nothing out of it. What I guess what I would say is, if you’re going to do something, ⁓ do it right.
and do it specific with intent or don’t do it. But anyone that does go into any, I mean, isn’t that anything in life, right? If you decide to do something, do it. I love that quote, how you do anything is how you do everything. If you’re gonna just dabble and you’re gonna do some social media, you’re just putting more hours on your day. I mean, there’s no use doing that. You may feel like you have to, but if you’re gonna do anything, do it right and have a strategy. And if you do with a strategy, that’s the thing about strategies. You don’t have to be good at it. You don’t have to know what you’re doing.
if you do the right thing at the right time with the right strategy, ones that are proven is going to work. It’s going to work. But if you just dabble around with it, it’s not going to.
Mark Thackeray (41:00)
That’s good. Good to know. Good to know. Anything else that people should be aware of before they start down this road. they liked what we’ve talked about today and they’re committed to doing, to building more authority, anything else that you feel like they should be aware of before they get started.
George Wright (41:16)
No, think it’s just 90 % of it in my mind always goes back to the internal game, right? So they’ve got to remind themselves and maybe it’s good for you and I to say it, but it’s never too late to start doing what you want to do. It’s not too late for you to start today. You might have been in business 30 years. You know, it doesn’t matter. You can start today if you make the decision and don’t overthink it. You you’ve got to just decide and what do you want?
Yeah, don’t do things just to do it feel pressured into it, know Do things with intention and know what you want to do, but it’s never too late to start. You just got to start
Mark Thackeray (41:55)
Awesome, awesome. Well, George, any final thoughts? Anything that we didn’t touch on that you feel like would be important to share?
George Wright (42:04)
No, I just think, you know, you’re the expert at this. You map strategy for dental professionals all the time and you you do an amazing job at it, which is why I wanted to, you know, wanted to join you for a little bit. ⁓ So I think it just, it’s one of those things where, wherever value I can bring, whatever, you know, whatever I can do, I’d love to help. But I know guys and gals are out there, they’re trying to figure out where to navigate and they’re overcomplicating everything. So just simplify it.
you know, connect with somebody like yourself or whatever that will really help you to just cut through the noise. Because sometimes you can’t see the forest through the trees if you’re in your practice, right?
Mark Thackeray (42:40)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, tell us too, you mentioned that we have a free seven day course. What’s that all about?
George Wright (42:47)
Yeah, we actually, ⁓ because this is all content we just like to put out. It’s just really the framework of what we do. you know, my company, Evolution Group, obviously owns several different, you know, we have an apparel and a nutrition and some other things, a personal branding company, but Authority Media Network, which is our network of podcasts and magazines, ⁓ it has a new seven day course. And so that seven day course, if you go to authoritymedianetwork.com,
you can opt in with your email and basically get, ⁓ we’ll take you right through the four step formula, what you can do and how you can do it. And hopefully it’s content that’ll help you. ⁓ I think you’re going to find more and more people just want to have a little bit of roadmap. And that’s why we did it. decided I just wanted to have something that I could just get it out to everybody, do it over the course of seven days and help them. And I could give you a link we could put in the show notes as well or whatever works best for your group.
