Dental Unscripted | Getting into Ownership and Practice Management Insights

Welcome to Dental Unscripted.

Where Mike Dinsio and Paula Quinn break

down the practice ownership journey,

one episode at a time.

Starting up,

buying and running a successful dental

practice.

Hey, hey guys,

welcome back to another podcast with

Dental Unscripted.

Name's Mike Dinsio, Paula Quinn,

co-star today and always.

Today we got a unique episode in that,

you know, we talk a lot about marketing,

marketing, marketing, marketing.

Over the last five years,

all the podcasts that we've done,

it's all about getting more phone calls,

more patients, more views, more clicks,

more everything, right?

But what we don't talk about is the

one yard miss,

which is if you do get the call,

how is your conversion?

Are you actually taking advantage of the

opportunities coming into the office?

Oftentimes we hold our marketing companies

so responsible for the success of how many

new patients,

but they are not responsible for picking

up the phone, patient experience,

missed calls, all the things,

misquoting people.

saying just the wrong things and i think

that is the x factor of marketing so

today is all about marketing from the

inside and be relying a lot on the

uh the two uh my two colleagues today

um paula who's owned a practice and has

experienced that herself firsthand and

guido with market my market guido welcome

to the program thanks for being on buddy

welcome guido

Tell us a little bit about Market My

Mark before we get going.

I think our audience knows you,

but you've been on the program before.

You're very unforgettable,

but why don't you tell us anyways?

Yeah, I think, you know,

what we're sort of being known for is

that, you know,

we do these pretty amazing demographic

studies we don't charge for,

which we kind of use to decide,

do we want to take you as a

client?

I think where everybody else is like,

yeah,

I'll take your money and go with there.

I like to be pretty honest and transparent

and, you know,

Not everyone's a good fit because we might

have too many people in that market.

We might not just be able to hit

what that dentist goals are.

And I think transparency is key.

I just don't want a client to have

you as a client where you're going to

be unhappy and leave in six months.

So it really comes down to,

can I do what you want?

What does that market look like?

Is it even possible?

Is it even possible to hit the goals

that you want?

And that kind of drives the marketing

strategy and how we devise whether you

should run paid or mailers or it's all

strictly organic or whatever the medium

we're going to use to attract clients for

you is.

I love that.

Thank you.

That's great.

And we've seen you work your magic with

our offices and excited to have you on

the program.

So where do you guys want to take

this?

Paula, like in my mind, like I said,

a lot of the offices just mess this

up.

And there's a lot of statistics that back

that up.

But you've seen it firsthand.

What are you seeing in the office that...

just is not getting the job done.

And it is the X factor from a

marketing perspective.

Um, just customer service,

basic customer service.

Well, first I like, you know,

first when I,

when I start looking at marketing and if

it's working in a practice,

I like to look at it three different

ways.

And I think this is where I find

out,

is it the front office or is it

the dentist or is it the marketing

company?

Um,

So the first thing I, before, you know,

I told you earlier when the last episode,

you know, I even went on a feel,

oh, it's not working, not enough people.

So I think the marketing company has a

responsibility to drive leads to the

office.

That's pretty much their responsibility.

Sometimes those are good leads,

sometimes they're bad leads.

But even when someone challenges me with,

well,

those patients weren't good patients,

I would have to know all the detail

before I would agree with that, right?

We can't just, oh yeah,

they were just shopping.

They were just shopping.

They were just,

they just came for the coupon.

You know,

I had a mailer in my practice and

we won't tell them exactly how much,

but I was in downtown Phoenix

in a bit of a rough area and

i had to market to that demographic and

i had no problems converting i had no

problems with every uber i got in the

next day they were my patient coming in

uh true story guido like i think fifty

percent of my practice were my uber

drivers

And they didn't have insurance,

they're part-time, so no insurance,

no problem was really big in my practice.

So I guess what I'm saying is the

first thing is,

are there people calling your practice?

We have to measure that first and how

they care about you.

The second thing is,

is there treatment to diagnose?

if there's never any treatment we might

have a diagnosing problem it are we being

too conservative everybody's not healthy

and let's say they don't have decay they

probably have perio there's something okay

or let's just get them rescheduled at

least for their six month re-care for the

x-ray and cleaning yes so there's that and

then the second thing is if there is

diagnosing is the patient saying yes

Because this is where is there is there

leads coming?

Do we convert them to a patient?

Is there opportunity with that patient?

And then is the patient saying yes.

So for me,

there's so much is the marketing team is

to get the leads to call.

The front office is to convert the

patient.

The doctor is to diagnose the treatment.

And then the rest of the team is

how do we get the patient to say

yes and move forward?

So there's a lot of people in play

here.

And we can say that my market sucks

and they're not doing their job.

But really,

what I just heard is they're a third

party.

of the process there's the call right then

there then there's the front office then

there's the doctor so tracking is what i

heard you kind of say there what are

some uh so we got to figure out

who the who we have we can't just

say it's not working yeah who's the

problem where is the problem where is the

it's it's not even who it's where is

there a mishap or a gap in the

system

Right.

With the volume.

Right.

You have to get the phone string,

which is number one.

And then number two,

what are they saying on the phones?

Right.

Because I think there's you brought up

something, too,

which is the diagnosing or whatever, too.

But like there is ways like we use

an analytics tool that we did, too,

that uses AI that attributes value to the

call.

Right.

so if you call paul and you're like

i need a cleaning that's a hygiene call

and then you say i take delta insurance

we tag two important pieces of information

along with the person that answered the

call so now when we meet i can

say or look on the back end of

your software did that person come in and

did they become a client and how much

were they worth right so it's total that

like a lot of dentists only look at

this part of the funnel what you see

which is what's hitting your books right

your revenue at the end of the month

Right.

It starts with how much potential revenue

are you generating?

Right.

We generated a hundred calls and twenty of

them are hygiene.

Five of them are ortho.

Five of them are implants.

Like maybe there's a hundred thousand in

revenue generated, but we only close.

There's a gap,

which is where you guys come in,

because I can give you that data to

go and be like,

is it what we're saying?

Is it the treatment coordinator with how

they're presenting like payment

structures?

There's so many factors, like you said,

but it starts.

But most doctors.

Even if you drive an ortho to my

practice, is there other opportunity?

I mean,

before I put ortho on your face,

I want your teeth clean.

I want your foundation strong.

If you have a crown,

we may look at it.

It just depends on where you are.

But it's also other just because you drive

an ortho patient to my practice doesn't

mean I can't convert them to a full

comprehensive patient as well.

so right there's just there's all yeah i

mean i i know the doctors i'm in

the offices i have the conversations every

day they they don't know any of this

it's all feeling and so that's why i

have this up is tracking is key right

so so um maybe we should talk about

how to even track and figure this out

Well, I mean, Guido just kind of said,

if you're using MarketMyMarket,

they have a component where, I mean,

tracking calls into the office is pretty

easy.

So let's start there.

Guido, how does- Everybody has it.

They all have tools that track calls and

transcribe conversation.

But the problem is the front office never

puts it in the little source slot.

So we don't even know- You can't rely

on human behavior.

I'm going to tell this number one.

People are lazy.

They're always going to put Google or

recommendation or whatever to you.

It's got to start with tracking numbers

that assess where the lead is coming from,

too.

And then there's a second component to it,

too, because, like, someone might say,

hey, Guido, I heard about you from Dr.

Da-da-da-da-da or my friend, whatever,

and that's a referral,

but then they still found you on the

Google business profile.

So I'm going to still give credit for

the referral,

but I'm going to show that the,

you know,

reviews on the profile pushed it down the

pipeline so they call in well.

Generated from.

right so there's it's there's multiple

attributions that we have to look at but

again the transcription on the call says

that that was a referral that was the

like the the main way that they got

to you right so you have to look

at that and you cannot rely on humans

to tell you that there's no way they're

going to get it right and if you

do that you're doing that again what you

just said i feel like i think like

no way right you can't run a multi-million

dollar practice on on how i think things

are coming in

Yeah.

So, you know,

there's a million tools out there that

does this.

Well, yeah,

I usually spend there's a book called Love

and Logic for children.

If you don't have it for your kids,

you should look at it.

And basically,

it's kind of like if you tell them

to turn the bathroom light off five

hundred times,

it doesn't happen for your own peace of

mind.

Just take the light bulb out, you know,

until, you know,

you can work through that.

So, yeah.

It's the consequence meets the action.

It's not driving yourself crazy.

So I probably spend the first quarter with

a client, and even digitally,

there's components out there now where

we're using communication software that

will

auto populate it but there's some work to

make map that and make sure that what

referral sources are in our system are

correct i think i spent a quarter if

not six months just trying to get that

to happen

So,

but if we can get that dialed in

and hopefully that automated,

we now need to pay attention to that

report.

on, if not a weekly basis,

a definitely a monthly basis.

The reason I like weekly is because at

the end of the month,

it's too late to pivot, you know, but,

and marketing sometimes takes too quick.

It does,

but a monthly call is an eternity for

a dentist and a startup.

Think about it.

Everything that can happen in a month is

an absolute eternity.

If you're, like Michael said,

you're stressed, you've only been open,

you have no people coming in,

it's got to be more frequent.

You can pivot and make changes.

And also, too, I mean,

just think about it.

Just think if you referred three people

and you came in the next day to

get something,

I would want to be able to say,

you know, thank you so much for,

you know,

sending your friends and family my way.

You know, even that is huge.

So it's really paying attention to to

those referral sources.

Then it's those reports.

I just it's running where those sources

came from.

So let's say that, you know,

ten of them came from

a mailer we'll just throw that out there

for ease right now what was the

opportunity of the diagnosis with those

ten patients and then of those ten

patients if we diagnosed thirty thousand

right there we paid for it however

how many converted to yes.

And if they didn't,

that's more of an enrollment conversation.

That's an internal, how did,

what was the patient experience like?

I love, I love that.

I love, I love,

I don't track that today.

I don't,

I don't know if you do Guido,

but it's tracking,

it's tracking marketing sources by how

much was diagnosed, right?

we only have that if the doctor gives

us access,

which half the time they're like in their

own little world and you push them for

stuff.

But imagine, imagine, imagine a world.

Yes.

Yes.

And then, and then it's, and then it's,

you know, did, did they say yes?

And that's, that's again,

a handoff patient experience thing.

And then the last component is that

follow-up because not everybody says yes,

same day.

So then you have to have, well,

you bring up an interesting thing too.

So

that's right right or think about how many

people have come in over the past year

and they're like i'll think about it and

you never touch base or send them a

follow-up or something like oh by the way

now cherry has a special where affordable

maybe their finance has changed stuff like

that is is marketing too it's like you're

remarketing to your own like group not

just hey by the way come in for

your you know six month appointment and

get a cleaning or whatever it is

Also,

I think you bring up a really good

thing.

So we always ask what's the lifetime value

of a patient, right?

Not like what that initial thing is,

is because everybody is so focused on new

patients, right?

But like,

if you're always in that churn and burn

mentality,

then that's what you're going to get.

You need new patients,

but do you really need forty new patients

every month?

Or do you need like maybe half that

come in three times a year?

You tell them you need a crown or

an implant.

They're going to do it.

So the lifetime value is a lot higher.

They don't know that or even forget

lifetime.

Go back to just a year.

What does a patient work to you in

a year?

Right?

Because then I have some real metrics to

work off of.

We have all that for our clients.

That's what we love.

We did a podcast with Marie Chatterley,

I don't know, a minute ago.

And I asked her as a practice broker,

I said, hey, Marie,

what should buyers be asking themselves

before buying a practice?

And she goes, well,

I'll tell you what they do ask.

and what they should ask and i'm like

oh interesting and so what all the buyers

are asking is how many new patients and

she says and what they should be asking

is how many of those are on the

schedule yeah yeah like how many active

patients are there and and and what your

reappointment rates are because it's not

even active it's how many of those active

patients are on the schedule yes well

that's the point that's the point so like

if you're not good at reappointing

patients

Guido could send you fifty patients,

but fifty patients go right out the door

and you you need fifty more patients.

Right.

Or what did we talk about on the

last podcast?

We talked about new patient specials.

Like, let me tell you something.

There's nothing like cheapening your

product and being like,

I have a fifty nine dollar special.

Number one,

do I want to really go see a

dentist that charges fifty nine bucks?

I mean, you know, really think about it.

I mean, to me,

you're like just telling me you're like

me.

Right.

But not only that,

who are you going to attract for that?

Someone that's like literally going to

come in once and never kind of come

back to you.

So what was the point?

I don't believe that.

I think there are communities in certain

areas that are afraid and of cost and

afraid of the dentist.

And if you can get them in the

door and earn their trust and they can

understand why,

what the consequences of just avoiding us

altogether is,

you can turn patients that come in on

those lower dollars.

I've seen it.

I've seen it.

I've witnessed it.

So I get, though, the masses.

You're absolutely right.

But I do think there are specific areas

in each community, city,

whatever state that can benefit off of

those areas where and kind of more

underserved.

To that point, Paula, to that point,

like my my question is,

is customer service or next level service

or white glove service

How would you I mean,

there's a hundred ways to define it,

but like,

how would you describe the good and better

than good customer service experience from

a marketing lead?

Right.

Because

I just think that we go into offices

all day long and I would frankly call

it a below average rating.

When we do our office observations and I'm

sitting at the front desk and you're

usually in the back,

just the interaction that I'm watching is

embarrassing.

I'm sure it's the same in the back

for you.

So how would you describe what a good

experience should be for offices to get

the most out of these new patients?

Well,

I know it's almost impossible in today's

world, but not too long ago,

I used to teach this where if you

have a designated new patient specialist,

I mean, that would be amazing.

And if that new patient specialist could

be

in a private area,

that would be even more amazing.

I used to joke and I would say,

listen,

when you're on a call with a patient,

especially a new patient,

stick a red flag right in front of

you so that everyone knows,

do not talk to this person because it's

inevitable in a practice.

You're like sitting here trying to focus

and someone's like,

And you're like, wait, you know,

you're like, and then you're, you know,

you pause in your conversation or you lose

your flow or you're not listening to the

last six things that new patient just said

to you,

which could have been the most important

things they say.

So if there is a way to identify

when you're on a call, honestly,

with any patient,

people should be courteous,

but when it's a new patient, especially.

They don't know you.

They don't have that rapport with you.

They could have just gotten you off the

Internet so that wasn't even referred by.

But I think undivided attention.

Do not put them on hold.

Do not start talking to somebody else.

Thank them, first of all,

for choosing your practice and.

listen to why they're calling first before

you go straight to, can I, I mean,

when I walk into a medical office or

like insurance card and I'm like,

oh my God, hello.

Hey, how are you?

The weather's beautiful.

Like there is no rapport.

So I think honestly, I mean,

people know this,

but it's really undivided attention.

Being appreciative that they've chosen

your office and then that getting what's

most important to them off the phone call

first.

And then you'll get a chance to go

into your intern spiel and your time of

day spiel and all of that stuff.

You know, so I think it's it's experience.

It's feeling heard.

it's feeling cared about it's feeling that

listen to all those things is what you

have to start the conversation i i love

we should get little flags that say new

patient call and and they and and and

because because it could just be right on

your head because they're not going to see

it if it's on your desk i love

that like a beanie hat yeah cone hat

you know new patient call

Don't bother me because you're right.

Intentionality is everything in this

world.

And then you see your front office all

day long.

She just has it on.

So no one bothers her.

You're like, wait,

that's a ten new patient call we've had

today.

This is awesome.

Okay.

So we're talking about picking up the

phone and being intentional.

Guido,

do you have any statistics on missed

calls?

Because I have some.

Yeah.

That's the most aggravating statistic.

Yeah.

It's not even just missed calls.

So we see a couple trends that go

on.

So number one,

if a call is under two minutes,

the probability of converting is pretty

much zero.

which means like you're being very

transactional.

Do you take my insurance?

Yes or no?

You're not saying anything about, like,

let me tell you about the practice,

the doctor.

Let me tell you how dental insurance

works.

It's nothing.

It's just like, hello,

do you take my insurance?

Click, they're gone, right?

Well, I've heard that.

When we were in the office not too

long ago,

they called and just said that exact same

thing.

And she said no and hung up.

And I was like, what?

That's tough.

Right in front of me, Guido.

Right in front of me.

Well, because I think a lot of like,

you know, they think the job is,

is to answer a question and that's what

they want to do.

And in answering a question,

it's not really insurance.

So that's not the right thing.

The doctor paid for, right?

Like I just paid for that call and

you just told him no.

Right.

Right.

So that's that's totally the wrong thing,

too.

I think the other thing is that you

need to look at some other things, too,

like how many rings before you pick up,

especially for your fee for service.

Like if you don't pick up on the

third ring,

you better have some air that picks up

and sets an expectation.

Right.

also there's usually patterns between

missed calls with like usually like people

taking lunches or not managing breaks

correctly we've noticed too um and again

you know you may not be open on

a friday but why shouldn't your phones

ring like i could call on a friday

to book on a monday like what the

heck's that about

you know,

or at least have some sort of like,

you know, automatic thing that's like,

we'll get back to you by X because

people don't have attention anymore.

They want to they're going to move right

on, you know,

and especially if you're a new practice

and you don't really have a ton of

reviews to back you or whatever else you

need in that market.

So those are the things, too,

in terms of like missed calls.

I mean, it should be really slim,

like three percent should be missed.

That's like the goal.

I mean,

when I start to see patterns like that,

it makes me very nervous,

like something's going on.

Also,

software contract talk time between you

and the patients,

because if you're the one predominantly

talking, that's not good either.

You're not being a good listener

interacting.

And that you can track with the problem.

Because usually, again,

if you're starting up,

you have one person answering the phone.

Maybe it's you.

You see a lot of spouses filling that

role temporarily too,

which isn't always probably the best.

But I mean,

there's an art to answering phones.

That's the face of the office and the

first person you interact with, right?

The other things we noticed too is like

you should track what that person's

closing ratio is.

So because there is definitely a

correlation between how you answer the

phone and that person coming in and doing

a treatment plan.

Like we see that.

So that's why we ask and we assign

value to calls and see like if all

three of us are on,

is Guido a better closer?

Is Paula the best closer?

Because if she is,

Paula should be answering the majority of

phone calls, not Guido and Michael.

Right.

Right.

Exactly.

I bet you most offices don't know who

those people are.

They don't even know.

They don't even know the phone ring.

yeah no yeah or the stone tree or

like what that looks like like answering

phones is an art you know it's like

everyone invests in a lot of other things

but like you know that is the first

point of contact and your first impression

and whatever it may be too you know

the biggest part of the art is really

just caring like we don't said you can't

yeah you cannot be transactional it's you

know thank you for calling the office

know if you're like i've been so much

paid i need to come in and you're

like oh we can't fit you in for

three weeks like i don't think you had

a very good experience but this happened

like you know um there's so many examples

of this but it's not like there's

different variations of this so again i

think having a playbook and we can do

this too with like frequently asked

questions and how to answer those because

it's not like it's a new insurance

question but to be able to yeah right

Right.

We can role play.

I'm great at this.

Let's write the playbook for that.

Well,

we sort of kind of do and give

it to our consultants,

whoever is there also, because again,

using AI,

we can find frequently asked questions,

where the gaps are,

what insurances are being said,

which ones are like no call, no shows.

So that can kind of drive your training.

I don't want to do that training,

but I can hand it off to you

who will absolutely take that over.

and be able to have a much better

way of doing that and then specifically

you could say like michael is doing x

y and z and here are the calls

and here's the pattern so let's start role

playing how to correct that and have like

a cheat sheet so when someone says this

you say this so the closings get better

but you know it all again comes down

to like who is sort of in charge

of this sector

Well,

I think that's kind of where we're at.

And that kind of puts an end cap

on this episode.

We could literally talk about this for two

hours on scenarios and different things,

missed call statistics,

all kinds of stuff.

But at the end of the day,

it's not just...

the marketing company's responsibility for

your new patient count.

If there's anything I took away from this

episode, it's that.

And the dental office has not only,

they have a lot of power or a

lot of influence to convert patients to

the schedule and sell them treatment.

And that's a huge piece of the ROI

puzzle, a huge piece.

And those that do it better,

make more money and get better patients

better results so um with that being said

guys a really lively episode thank you

both for uh contributing that's a wrap on

our three-part series today uh thank you

guido for um making the time for us

today thank you guys pleasure thanks so

much guys take care bye

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