All I know about marketing I learned from dating…okay, that’s not entirely true but there are some very powerful parallels.
For example, what would likely happen if you walked up to an attractive person, interrupted their current conversation, and blurted out, “Hey, I want you to be the mother (or father) of my children. Want to come back to my place?”
If you tried that, you would likely end up with either a slap to the face, a kick to the groin, or even some jail time. (Or possibly all three!)
That would be crazy, right? You don’t go from first contact to talk of having kids on your first contact.
But that’s exactly what most doctors are doing with their patients. They are asking for this massive decision (allow me to put my hands in your mouth and charge you for it) on their first contact with them! And the patient’s stunned, eyes wide, mouth open like“I just barely met you!”
In this episode, we discuss what a natural (and radically more effective) approach is to connect with patients, nurture them along, and establish trust so that they trust and want to do business with you.
Full Transcript
What do you get when you combine simplified practice marketing, proven ROI strategy, and Vans skate shoes? You get Mark Thackeray, of course.
So lace up, grab your green smoothie and get ready because this is dental marketing secrets. And this is Mark.
Hello and welcome my friends to another episode of the Dental Marketing Secrets podcast where this is all about providing actionable tips and tricks that you can apply immediately to grow your practice so that you can serve more patients and leave a greater impact. That is the name of the game, my friends.
My name is Mark Thackeray and as always I am so excited to be here with you wherever you may be listening. However you may be listening. Thank you for spending your time on Dental Marketing Secrets. I promise you it will be well spent.
And this has been a fantastic day for me, actually spent some time with the Make-A-Wish Foundation with one of my clients. We’ve done a number of fundraising, projects with them and just also did a proclamation party for a 15 year old who’s battling leukemia right now. And it’s just been a tremendous day.
I mentioned earlier in one of the podcasts that we have received a Make-A-Wish Trip for our family, for one of my daughters, Ruby, who has cancer and has been through all that. So it’s so fun to be on this other end and help out in giving this party. It’s so, so cool. So cool.
I wanted to start with this episode- It’s funny, I have this title and I just start laughing when I see the title, but it says “all I know about marketing I learned from dating”… and well that’s not entirely true. There are certainly some very powerful parallels between the two. And I wanted to focus on a couple of those for a minute today.
So imagine for a second what would happen if, and this is all purely hypothetical, purely for educational purposes, I have, I have to say this disclaimer from my wife who’s right here. But imagine what would happen if I was an eligible bachelor and I’m single, I’m out on the town, I’m trying to meet someone. Here I am at a coffee shop when suddenly the girl of my dreams walks through the front door, steps into line is literally like three people back from behind me and she is everything that I imagine. And funny enough, this is exactly my wife to a T, but she’s athletic, she’s fit. She’s attractive but more naturally. She’s not overly done up or anything like that. She’s has a very easy welcoming smile and this girl is literally standing a few feet from me. Here is the chance of a lifetime. Right?
I’ve been waiting for this moment. So here I go, I take a deep breath, I steel myself for this moment. I walk up to her and I say…”I want you to be the mother of my children. Want to come to my apartment”?
Imagine what would happen if I were to do that in real life. And that’s just, well, what would happen is probably either a slap in the face, a kick to the groin or possibly even jail time, maybe all three, who knows? But everyone knows and recognizes that that would be a horrible idea. That would be an awful approach to take.
But I’ve laid that scenario out there because that is exactly what most doctors are doing with their patients. They are asking for this major decision – to allow me to basically put my hands in your mouth and charge you for it -on their very first contact with them. And the patient is just like, Whoa, I just barely met you half the time. You know what I’m saying? And listen, this may work with some patients. But it’s not going to work on the vast majority of people, especially when it comes to higher end procedures. There needs to be some type of progression involved. There needs to be some trust buildup.
So you may be asking you this point, what is the right approach? So if you go back to that example of the dating example, what would happen in a normal, dare I say, healthy relationship. Okay. What should I have done in that hypothetical example in the coffee shop? You know, I’d begin probably with something very simple conversation that would be natural in that sort of setting, such as, Oh, Hey, you love this place too. Or… These guys have the best almond croissants or whatever you enjoy at that particular shop.
From there, assuming things went well and she didn’t call the cops, then we might set up a time to meet for lunch and after that maybe an official date and then it might progress to a kiss or eventually spending, you know, more and more time together developing a healthy relationship and finally would culminate in a proposal of marriage. Right?
So I want you to think about all those steps in between that very first contact at the coffee shop to that end result, which is marriage. Okay. And look at that natural progression that takes place then. And that happens in almost every relationship right now with your practice. Your patients are following at a very similar progression when it comes to selecting the right practice for them.
I like to think of it more of as an educational spectrum where on the one side you have those that are just barely uncovering or discovering the need for your services. They’re just barely recognizing that they have that need. And then on the other side, there are those that already know they have the need and they’ve done all their research and they’re pulling out their credit card. They are ready to buy now. And most people fall, you know, most of the patients will fall somewhere in between those two points.
And think about your past experience with this. Let’s say that you’re in a market for a new boat, okay? You really want a boat and you don’t happen to much about your boats yourself. But you’ve decided that a boat is what your family wants or maybe what you want. And gosh, darn, I’m going to get a boat. Okay? So you go to a dealer, you know, you walk up and you start talking to him. You look at some of the different boats. You don’t just go up there and see the first boat and say, I’m going to buy this one now.
No, you’re going to take some time. You’re going to start to do your research on the different models, see what’s out there, you know which ones are suited for what you’re, what you really want to do. Maybe you want to, maybe you want to do a lot of wakesurfing or maybe you want, maybe you’re a pure water skier at heart or maybe you just want to take it up the channel down a big Lake and go cruising for a couple hours. Maybe you just want to, you go fishing or whatever that you want to do, you’re going to cater your decision based on what you wanna do.
But you’re also going to take into account, you know, which ones have the best reviews, which ones have a guarantee maybe or which ones provide ongoing servicing. And from there you might then decide to go to a few different dealers and start talking to their sales teams. And maybe you contact people that you know, have a boat and start asking them questions or for advice. And you’re going to continue along this process until have you found, or until that you feel that you’ve have enough information to make an educated decision, at which point you’re going to be ready to pull out your credit card and actually finalize the sale. Okay?
And that is the general process that happens with most purchases. And for high ticket purchases, that cycle may be a little bit longer, but it does generally follow that same pattern.
Now your primary job when it comes to marketing is to meet your patients at their level. So in other words, wherever they fall on that educational spectrum, that’s where you want to meet them. And then your goal is to assist them to nudge them along that path. You’re going to educate them along the way so that they again, feel empowered to make the best decision possible.
And by doing this, you then position yourself as the go-to expert, as the industry authority who cares about helping patients enough to provide value upfront, before they even received anything from you guys. That’s is very powerful and in addition to that, by uncovering where people are in that process and leading them to that next step, you are connecting with them as a trusted guide, someone who really does want to help them through that process. And that is such a vastly different approach than most people are taking.
And you know what the cool thing is too, there’s two things that really stand out to me about this. This type of approach is one, even if you take that patient and lead them through this entire educational process and they end up selecting someone else, a different provider, they still view you as a trusted adviser and oftentimes will send you referrals. I’ve seen that from previous businesses that people will still have that great taste in their mouth after what you’ve done for them and the value that you’ve provided and they will refer to you even if they didn’t necessarily go with you in the first place. It’s really, really pretty powerful.
But number two is that patient is now more educated because of what you have done. And they know now what to look for and will most likely end up choosing a more qualified dentist, which is great because it weeds out all the crummy ones who just do shoddy work, you know? And we don’t want patients to fall for those providers who take shortcuts and then leave the patient frustrated. They leave them angry. And oftentimes those patients become distrustful of all providers. And that’s just bad for everyone.
So, but taking this approach, taking this adviser role/approach and using more educational based marketing, it helps put your services in context now that people can, they know how to evaluate what you’re doing because when you don’t understand the process so you don’t know, understand, you know, a root canal, you don’t understand how braces work, then you’re just going to default to price. Because we know price, you know, I mean, people get money, we use it every single day. We use it on a daily basis so they default to what they know. But when you take the time to educate them on what they need to know, you know, what goes into a procedure, how can they make the best decisions possible, then they now can see that in the proper context, and can now say that, Hey, it would help to have the experience that would have the type of quality. All those things will factor into it. It’s not just based on price alone, but in order to do that, you must understand what that process looks like for most patients.
And it starts with understanding your target market, which is exactly why we spent so much time on that last week. So if you haven’t listened to that, go back and listen to that episode. It’s a great primmer for this episode here.
And one of the easiest ways to get started with this is to ask yourself, what questions do I get asked over and over again by patients? That is a tremendous way to uncover where a lot of your patients are on the educational process, on that buying spectrum. Okay? So I remember the first time I did this, I had a photography company and you know, I was advertising just like everyone else was. I was basically copying what my competitors were doing. I was changing some of the offers, you know, trying to make it a little bit better, a steeper discounts, bigger bonuses, you know, all those different things.
But I was doing so much manual marketing- I mean I was putting different ads out, but I was trying to do all those things, you know, business cards. I was doing networking and all these different events and trying to make connections and it was frustrating. Honestly, it’s this hamster wheel that you’re spinning on and you don’t seem to get anywhere.
But then I came across this concept from Jay Abraham who has since become one of my mentors (he doesn’t know that, but he definitely is a mentor for me) where he takes this approach of being a trusted advisor. If you switch that role and you become someone you know, it’s like how would you treat a patient if it was your mom? How do you treat your patient if it was someone that you deeply cared about and were concerned about, you would walk them through every step possible. And if, and if you know, using your product or using your service, getting treatment in this case, was the best decision for them, you would do all in your power to help them see why it was in their best interest.
So that was a huge turning point for me back when I had this photography business. And so I changed what I was doing. So I started to then look at what they needed to know in order to make those, those that best make a good decision when it came to choosing wedding photography, because I was doing a ton of weddings at that time. And so I did all the research, I was asking questions of all my clients and, and yeah, there was a definite pattern between all of them. You know, there’s a lot of things that they didn’t know that they didn’t know.
I’d have people people that they reached out to me initially and ended up going with someone else and then they came back and they were so disappointed with their photography and it killed me, you know? I mean, I was just sitting there like, “I’m sorry”, you know, I, I didn’t know how to articulate that. But I realized that it was my obligation then because I know that I provided a tremendous service. I did a great job. You know, I was very good at what I did, but it was my obligation then to them to help them understand and not to let them walk off and go to someone else and then have a horrible experience for the rest of their life that they have to live with. That’s on me, honestly, that was on me.
And so that really was a turning point for me. I started to provide all that information to them up front. There was no strings attached, allowed me to build a relationship with them. And what was so cool is that it changed their perception of me, you know? Okay. Instead of this approach that I was, “Hey, hire me!” I mean, that’s basically what I was doing before. And that’s what most businesses tend to do is they just put out these offers like, “No, pick me. I’m the best.” You know? It changed that, flipped paradigm so that it was now all on them, you know, it was all about the clients or it’s all about the patients and what they’re going in through what they’re going through at the moment, what are they’re concerned about and it removed all the pressure.
Honestly, it was so relieving to me to do that. And, one of the things that I noticed afterwards was that it allowed me to market myself so differently. You know, I was markedly differently than anyone else out there because I was now able to, instead of just offering up a discount or a some type of promotion, I was offering a resource, you know, a free resource at that. You know, I put all these questions, all their, all their concerns, all their things that they didn’t know but should know all these tips and tricks and recommendations into a free guide essentially. I gave it out to them and, and it was so neat because it was something so radically different in the industry that people just gobbled it up.
And another thing that was cool is that then I started going to other vendors in the industry. So I went to venues and caterers and planners and all the people that also had the same market that I was going after that, that weren’t in competition with me and they too also wanted them to have a great experience and have good photography because they had all seen what happens when they don’t, you know, when they make a mistake in that arena and how it costs them and all their regrets that pile up because of that. And so they were handing those out for me and all of a sudden I gained access to all these new potential clients that I didn’t really have to do much for. So very powerful way to market yourself, to market your practice.
And it was cool because it allowed me to create a system, this resource that I was providing and it was consistently producing leads, everything became a lot more predictable that way. And it reminded me of what Michael Gerber talks about in E-Myth and if you haven’t read that book, you, you gotta that’s a must. You have to read that book because it talks about setting up your business as if you’re going to franchise it. You’re trying to put in all these processes in place so that it gives you the best chance of success at every opportunity. You don’t just bank on your memory, or bank on how you’re feeling that day that I’m going to get this done. You actually have a process, a detailed list of things that need to be done every single time. You’re in this situation when you meet with prospect or you’re following up after this. That is a powerful thing. Very, very powerful.
Let’s talk about the dental industry. So one of my clients wanted to focus on implants, dental implants, and that was, you know, that’s a big thing in our industry of course. And, and one of the first things I did was ask them, okay, well what questions do patients have when it comes to dental implants? You know, I mean, what are people asking you every time they see you in there when they’re concerned about replacing a missing tooth, and it was interesting because there was a pattern just like I saw in my photography business back in the day. There’s also a pattern here, you know, among a lot of our patients that these guys were working with. And so we compiled a list of about a dozen frequently asked questions and included responses for each one of those. And then we took that information, created a resource for patients and prospective patients that provided all that information on implants and just gave it to them, you know? Nothing, no strings attached. You don’t have to pay for it, anything like that. It’s just providing value upfront as a trusted advisor. And huge results. The response has been overwhelming.
I can’t even tell you because it just puts you, again, it changes that focus off of yourself and your practice and your business and it focuses it squarely on the patient, which is exactly where it needs to be. It’s all about the patient. You guys, you have to get that in your head. It’s all about the patient. You don’t really matter. You know? I mean, we’re all walking through this life with this “what’s in it for me mentality, okay.” And if it doesn’t pertain to us, we’re just going to tune out. You know? And that’s an easy way to gain someone’s attention. It’s just to articulate what’s going on with someone in their life. You know, it says to talk about what their concerns are on a regular basis, what their desires are, what they’re trying to achieve or accomplish.
But, again, one thing I want to stress is that, think about how that shifts the perception of you and your practice. You’re not just seen as chasing a buck. You know, you’re not just seen as a factory as someone who just wants to make money off someone, off a patient. But now you’re an industry leader. You know, you’re the one who’s providing this educational content that can really make or break it for someone. And you’re not expecting anything in return, you’re just dishing it out. You know?
And certainly you want to have a process to follow up with people and nurture them along and make an offer to them to take the next step. And if they don’t, it’s not, it’s no big deal. It’s not a high pressure situation at all. And that’s what’s so powerful about it. And you can do that in so many different ways. It could just be an article or a report. Like I put together a guide. It could be a video series or it could be a live seminar. It could be an MP3, or it could be a podcast like this. You know, this is a great example of that. We’re providing value up front. Anyone can access this. It’s not a subscription subscription or anything like that.
But another example I wanted to share too is another client of mine who has got so many questions about insurance, they accept a lot of different types of insurance and dental benefits are just a big question mark for a lot of patients, right? There’s just not a ton of education out there on what dental benefits are, how they apply. And part of that is because the industry is just shifting all the time. It’s rapidly changing and tweaking and you’re always constantly having to call and, and see what, currently their rate, you know, everything’s going out right now and, and what they’ll reimburse and what they want and, and all that jazz. And it makes it tricky, you know, it just leaves patients befuddled and confused and oftentimes frustrated.
So we, we put together again another resource for them. This is kind of been a combination of like a guide type format as well as some videos and just just content in general to better understand dental benefits. It was awesome. You guys, I mean, the results had been very, very powerful because it has reduced questions by that, by like 90%. I mean,on insurance has gone down dramatically. So they’re not spending all this time explaining and people are more, are well more well-informed so they can utilize a lot of those benefits. A lot of those patients weren’t utilizing those benefits because they didn’t understand them, they weren’t wanting to take action on something they didn’t know how to do or to how to take advantage of.
So another huge effect was that it dramatically improved the relationship and the trust between the patient and the practice, which is so powerful. It’s all about trust. So another huge, huge win there.
And I’ll throw in one more example. You know, when I was, uh, well just looking back now at an example per say, but just as I look back on my photography career, you know, when I changed my approach and took the focus off me and onto my prospects, it was just, it was so much easier. Everything. It’s like this burden was lifted. You know, I was trying to do so much manual labor before and I was trying to, you know, like I said, I was just imitating what my competitors were doing. And I’d look in the magazines, I’d look on the websites, you know, I’d go to the shows and all those things. I just constantly looking at, Oh, maybe I should try this or offer this, a bonus, this upsell, this type of, you know, the free thing if they book me now. And when I changed that approach, it really was, it just, it was like you take that pressure release valve and you just go and all the pressure just went away. Oh man. It was such a wonderful feeling.
And then just to see this steady stream of prospects making my way to my website or calling my phone and it was just phenomenal you guys. And what’s so neat is that not only does it help the prospect, but it just makes it easier for them to do business with you. It makes it easier to take that next step. A lot of times when there’s no a clear next step or no clear call to action for them, they don’t do anything. You know, they just sit clear on this side of the spectrum and really don’t do anything. If it’s not clear, if they’re confused, they won’t take that next step. And this gave them an easy way to do that.
And as I mentioned before, there’s things that you could do at the end of your guide to make it easier. You want to continue this relationship. You don’t want to just end there by you providing this information, but you want them, the goal is to get them into your practice because of what you can do because you provide a tremendous service to them.
You understand all the benefits that come from seeing you, you know, and you need to, you need to be totally on board with that and confident about that because some, honestly, quite honestly, there are a ton of doctors who aren’t, you know? And as a result, it shows when they talk to their patients. They just aren’t confident enough because it’s as if they don’t even recognize the dramatic transformation that can come into their lives. I mean, for some people it is a game changer. I can’t even believe it. The stories I hear are just phenomenal. And yet some of these doctors are just, they’re still so timid when it comes to sharing what they can do for them. And that is sad.
You have the moral obligation to do all that you can. If you know that you do a good job and you know that you can provide a tremendous service to your patients, it is your moral obligation to do all that you can to help them see that and help them take that next step, help them eventually get into treatment.
So, I get on my little tangents here, but, going back to my photography business, not only was I able to offer this guide to the couples, to prospects and prospective clients, I started to reach out to other vendors. And that’s what’s cool. That’s one of the things that you can do in your industry as well as it really broadens your reach. Now you’re multiplying the number of prospective patients that you can reach by going to different vendors that you work with. That is a very powerful thing. You’re not just going one one-to-one. You’re going one to many and then you’re multiplying that. So exciting, so exciting.
I don’t see it. I don’t, I never see this happening in this industry, so that’s why I get, so I get so jazzed about this!
Just in summary, there’s a quote that I wanted to share and it says, “typical marketing makes the company look good. Smart marketing makes the patient look good.” I’m gonna read that again because it’s so important. “Typical marketing makes the company look good, but smart marketing makes the patient look good.”
It is absolutely imperative to make the patient the hero of your story. And in order to do that, you must truly understand what their worries are, what their pains and frustrations are, what their hopes are, what their desired outcomes are. You need to do your due diligence to understand that. In short, I’m asking you to fall in love with your patients. Really, I’m asking you to fall in love with your patients.
Most practices, and most businesses for that matter, do just the opposite. They fall in love with their product or service to the detriment of their clients or patients. They are too focused on and too married to their idea, to their product, to their service, and they, they neglect the patient, they neglect the client, and it’s to their demise. You know, it really is a cardinal sin.
So I’m telling you and I’m promising you that if you make that small switch and place the lion’s share of your focus on your patients, it will have enormous effects on your practice and will put you in a position to enjoy geometric growth in your practice.
So that’s it, my friends. Thank you so much for joining us today in Dental Marketing Secrets. I feel so strongly about the importance of what we just talked about and I urge and I implore you, I beg you to take action on it. Do not wait. Procrastination will leave you stuck in the exact same place you were five years ago surrounded by mountains of regret. I speak from experience. Do not wait.
If you have any questions, comments, feedback, I would love to hear from you. Simply email me at markthack@gmail.com. Yes, it is my personal one. It’s I’m old school. It’s easier for me. I’m a simpleton.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review on this podcast. That would be huge. That would be a huge help and share it with your friends, your peers, your team. That would be tremendous. Until next time, my friends!
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