This week, we've got a really great episode. I spent some time with Mike Russell, who has a business that turns dentists' waiting lounges into an opportunity in the during unit where, on average, people are waiting for about 8 minutes.
Mike's team have a really great system that play videos that rather than overtly-selling are educational. We talk in Profit Activator 3 about educating and motivating, and this is one opportunity to guide customers to the next step.
Now, it's a relatively new adventure for him and one of the things we talked about is how do you get the word out about something that's new. One of the ideas, building on last weeks episode, is to create a pilot program and document the results so it's easy for the dentist to see the impact of using these videos in their waiting lounges.
I'm pretty excited about this episode. I think you'll enjoy it. Here we go.
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 007
Dean: Hi, this is Dean Jackson. Welcome to the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast. If you hear some background noise, I'm actually in the Qantas Lounge at Los Angeles Airport, and I'm on my way to Sydney for a Breakthrough Blueprint in Australia. Its my fourth time over to Australia and I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of the people that I love to hang out with in Sydney, and this week we've got a really great episode. I spent some time with Mike Russell, who has a business that turns dentists waiting lounges into an opportunity in the During Unit while on average people are waiting in the waiting room for about eight minutes, apparently.
They've created this really great system, where you can play videos that are not overtly selling videos, but educational videos. We talked in Profit Activator 3 about educating and motivating, and that's kind of what these videos they way Mike explains them do. Its a relatively new adventure for him and one of the things that we talked about is how do you get the word out, about something that's new? We talked about the idea of doing pilot programs and of documenting results, so that its easy for the dentist to see the impact of using these videos in their waiting lounges. I'm pretty excited about this episode, I think you'll enjoy it and here we go.
Mike: Hello Dean, I should call you doctor I guess, Dr Jackson.
Dean: Dr Jackson, that's funny.
Mike: You're the doctor. Can you hear me okay? I'm audio video, I want to make sure you can pick my headphones up.
Dean: Perfect, I hear you perfectly. Welcome aboard.
Mike: Yeah, thanks so much. I was delighted and truly honored to be honest with you, that you'd take the time. I think what you do is fabulous and this is certainly an opportunity for you to help, and you're just a very kind and generous person doing that. I don't know what you get out of this other than, but I think you're the kind of person who gets enough out of helping other people. At least that's my take on you.
Dean: This has been the great thing about this, and we're recording this now. This is exactly what it is, this is the podcast. The whole idea here is about just hatching evil schemes with you, and I think the more that we see and I've recorded several of these now. The more we see just the different ways that people are applying the profit activators and before, during and after unit thinking really opens peoples eyes. I'm excited to be doing this, its energizing.
Mike: Good, again thank you for that and thank you for allowing me to come on and just pick the brains of the guru here.
Dean: Tell me what you do and what is working, and maybe what kind of evil schemes we can hatch today.
Mike: Perfect. A quick bio is I've been doing production or video production just in dentistry alone. This makes me feel old, I'm only forty six or so I'd like to think but a bit older, for about twenty years now. I actually started in television out of college and was a TV anchor, in a really small town. Was doing freelancing and was just for whatever reason, someone hired me to do dentistry training. CE continued education so I did that. Did that for about several years and then just really got hooked into dentistry, so its very niche in that sense. About ten years ago my wife and I started a company called HDIQ Dental, and it does the online training because the company that I was freelancing was making about $8,000,000 to $10,000,000 a year on just twelve videos that they were selling. Of course they did a lot more than that, they would sell it but took it all online.
HDIQ Dental has been around, so nine or ten years and it's been good to us. It's been profitable, it's been all those sorts of things. To bring it full circle we started getting questions from a lot of dentists and friends who said, "We want to have a video that plays in our waiting room. We want to be able to talk to our patients." I just started doing the research and quickly it went from, it was going to be one or two videos to developing a full blown. Basically its about the size of Apple TV but its a media server, and doctors plug it in. Its built by the same simplicity of Apple. Plug it in and they're able to go to our, members can sign on and add videos that we produce.
I want to talk a minute about the videos in one second, what makes them different. I think you'll like it, its definitely more cheese. They belong to a playlist, so if they do veneers or they do sedation or they do sleep apnea, whatever and again this market's specific for dentists. The more profitable procedures and the ones that frankly, a lot of the folks patients just don't know. They don't know that they do braces or something like that, and again the market just being, the idea that the average wait comes eight minutes in waiting rooms. These doctors are just missing the opportunity to it, and frankly I thought it'd be a lot easier selling market than education because education is our stuff on HDIQ, is You've got to get someone who sees the need in it.
Dean: I've done a lot of work with a company in Canada that does continuing education for dental hygienists. They do the training and the biggest trigger we found is that they got audited for their continuing education, they've got to have twenty five hours a year of continuing education and keep their portfolio up to date. We did a whole little campaign around when the audit notices go out, and that really was a tremendous thing.
Mike: I remember that. You know what's funny about, and not to get on HDIQ though its still going, but it's just really spring boarded into this other, the waiting room videos which has had a really good reception by folks. People to go HDIQ, we don't do the typical videos where its a guy talking, standing. Its all chair side, its over the shoulder so its high production value which is what I love doing. We find people that come to our site, even though we offer the CE and all that stuff, I'd say 80% to 90% of them just don't even take the test because they would just assume instead of spending $4,000 to see a guy and spend $137 bucks a month and watch however many guys they want.
Dean: The idea is that this is a during unit optimizer for the dentist, in that they've already. These are people who are walking in the door. Part of that during unit experience for the dentist involves once people get there and check in, they're in the waiting room for on average eight minutes. As you say, and these videos that you've produced are something that play on a loop for that period of time, so people are being exposed to other opportunities. Things they might not even know that the dentist offers.
Mike: Right, very good. You did a lot better than I do. One other thing I just want to mention, or two other things real quick on the videos. Again, this is really where it’s right up your alley, this isn't something like hey, did you know we do veneers and here's why you need to do it. These are testimonials of people, that I've gone around the country and I shot real people and its telling a story. Its not saying you need to get veneers, its a conversation starter where they're going to go back and maybe they're going to talk to the doctor. "I didn't know you offered that, tell me more about that." Again, I follow your philosophy is this isn't to close the sale. This is trying to get them to open the conversation.
Dean: Educate and motivate, right. That's it.
Mike: The other one thing I'll mention on that which makes it unique, is the proprietary stuff that we've built. Its really cool and not to get on the technical stuff, but it automatically puts their logo on every video. On Monday they may have people coming in for veneers or whatever, they can go that day and assign. "I want this video to play here and there," so its completely customizable. The logos are on all of the videos, their logo automatically burned in there. Looks people don't know, it feels very custom to them.
The other part, you may want to dig down a little deeper on this, but we do a meet the team video which is very popular. The two most popular sites on any dental website is meet the team with the doctor, about us and usually sometimes an office tour. They send us just still shots and we voice it with our professional people. Just say this is Mary. She enjoys skydiving and ask her about what books she's reading. That's been a really popular, very custom feel and again they can run that twice, two times, once, whatever.
Dean: Right, so better than just running CNN on a loop, or the Kardashians or something.
Mike: Exactly.
Dean: How does it work? How does it work in terms of results, have you been doing it long enough to have a track record yet?
Mike: Yes and no. The short answer is no. We're self launching it and we've done, that's one of my questions. I got a list here of some questions for you, but when I go out ad speak or talk to other doctors be it a doctors office, and I don't mean speaking in a sense of like you do. Maybe I'm there shooting a video and they're doing a conference. If I get up and speak, we've had two of these events. Two events where I've just gone and maybe there's twenty docs per deal.
It is not uncommon, one event we got eighteen the other one we got sixteen. Just on concept alone, so just telling them about it has been very good and then it brings us full circle again, to today. We're going to start really the full push, the full marketing. We've already had a larger company look at wanting to invest and partners and stuff like that, so I think we're on to something here Dean. I just don't want to mess it up.
Dean: Got it. Part of it is how many offices are these running live in right now?
Mike: Less than fifty.
Dean: That's enough. What's the longest that it's been going?
Mike: Four weeks or so, three or four weeks. Its new, its literally hot off the press as they say.
Dean: Okay, so just in the first thirty days. What sort of the anecdotal reports from the field so far?
Mike: Here's the good and the bad. The good is great, and in fact we've even had a guy do a video testimonial for us and just sent it to us on his iPhone. The bad is and its not bad, this just goes to humanity is we try to make it as simple. They literally have to plug it in and enter a serial number and people will go, "Where are the videos?" You haven't turned it on yet and so we have to go through that, and I get blue in the face. We purposely load, that's one of the questions, a couple of videos on there for them so they have something when they plug in. Its the don't have to charge the battery philosophy, but I'm wondering if we should just put a video on there that says, "Hey, congratulations! Welcome, don't forget to log in."
Dean: Part of it is you might want to put, and its a great thing. One of the things that you might want to do is on the actual package, what does it come I? A box or is it shrink wrapped?
Mike: Its in a box. We haven't gone the full blown but I really do want to as closely copy that Apple experience, because once it goes in they never have to touch it. Its one and done.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Here's the thing, is that what you've got is an opportunity to put a sticker on the package, that says wait. Before you open this package, call and listen to this free recorded message or listen to this recorded message here, and you could do just what you're saying. Imagine that you were standing there right beside them and you could say, "Okay, congratulations! You're one step away now. Here's all you're going to do, is you're going to plug it in. Its very easy, just follow the simple directions. The step by step right there and what you need to do to activate it, is you need to log on to here and you need to do this, or take this step or click here or whatever it is." That would be a good thing to help with the compliance.
Mike: Do you find that is more? I read that and that's one of my questions actually. Jumped ahead, is the 800 number or the call recorded message. Do you find those more effectively going to the website or as effective?
Dean: They're opening up the package, they're in front of the TV. They're not at their computer right now. They're ready to plug it in and get it activated, that could be the thing. You want to make sure that are there illustrated instructions, on what to do to actually get it plugged and activated? How crystal clear is it when they open that box, what they need to do?
Mike: I'd like to put Tom Cruise's Crystal Clear but I've discovered that nothing is ever as crystal clear to the creator.
Dean: This is where having an opportunity to look over their shoulder, and just assure them that they're in the right place. It seems like there's two steps, two parts of it. Is hooking up the hardware but then hooking up the software is probably going to be very helpful with video tutorial or video screen sharing. That two parts, if there's a special website right on that sticker. If you're saying call this number then listen to this message, and then you can have the number that they need to enter right on that. Whatever form indicates their serial number or whatever, tell them where that is and then just ease them into going into the website…
Mike: We do have a users video, little screen care capture that I've done as well. It shows but as as far hardware, plugging in an HDMI and plugging in a power and then it does it.
Dean: How long does it take to set up?
Mike: Eight minute if you're slow.
Dean: Right, and so the other option is to have it that it could be even because its like the faster this gets plugged in and up, the faster everybody's winning. Its a critical step that can cause friction at some point. How many of the fifty that are out there right now, would you say are running into that situation? That they haven't.
Mike: I think about a quarter of them have yet to do it, and again that's right into the major question. Getting in touch with the decision maker, in this case the doctor who's behind a receptionist who's not going to do it. We send emails and we run into it all the time. I'm sure you have an answer but what we need is them to just to do this one step, but we can't get in touch with them after the sale. How do you do it?
Dean: I wonder, is there a way when you're making the sale to have the contact person? We know you're not going to be able, you don't want to deal with this but who's the person right here and then have them copy their email?
Mike: We do that, and some of these not all of them, there's no pat answer. Generally speaking, the person at the front desk, once the doctor's bought it, its another task on her already full plate. We've tried to give them gift cards to go eat and whatever it is, to get them to get involved it but it is. Its just unimportant and it was designed at a great cost, to make it stupid simple. That question also goes to the after the implement and I know just in it before, but getting to the actual decision makers at times is definitely a challenge.
Dean: Let's talk about what happens with the ones so far that have activated it. You've got people who are out there with thirty days or so, so not many people have had it out and streaming for a full thirty days.
Mike: No, none. Maybe half of those.
Dean: Okay, so twenty five maybe or so? What's going to make this really go is to start tracking the return on this. To start tracking the results, and so do you have a mechanism or a way of being in contact with people, to track what's actually happening? Have you gotten even anecdotal evidence of we got three people signed up for veneers, or we've got to sign up for the other?
Mike: We had anecdotal evidence from that guy. There's another one out there, another company that does something similar but its an animation of a tooth or implant. He said he had patients already come back and say how much better. They say they hated that I was stressed so, but that isn't to the point of your question.
Dean: Preference doesn't matter, you can't cash preference, if there was sure. I sure like that you're putting in Gilligan's island now. I haven't seen that in ages but that's not going to make any difference.
Mike: I'm trying to come up with a way that will allow us to get access to a pool of patients. A small enough pool to actually survey them and ask them the questions that we need to ask. We've run into compliance and something’s where we've got to do that, or perhaps as simple as sending the doctor some pre made fifty postcards but just have the options and maybe they can see it or they could send it back to us. I'm on the same page with you, I just got to come up with a solution that works. I'm encouraged to hear you think that's, at least I'm headed in the right direction given the evidence based.
Dean: You got to have the evidence, because right now how am I going to gauge and evaluate the decision that you're asking me to make here? How much is it? What's the economics of it for me as a dentist?
Mike: There's two, you could go yearly or you could go monthly. Its 179 a month if you do that and it gets cheaper if you do the year or two, which I say oddly enough but most people who have done it have really signed up for the two years. That's about 3,500 bucks for the two years, and that saves them over a 1,000 bucks.
Dean: Are they paying up front the 3,500 or are they paying 149 a month or whatever?
Mike: They pay up front or they do monthly on the other.
Dean: Its either 179 a month or its $3,500.
Mike: Yes.
Dean: You're saying so far the majority are taking the 3,500?
Mike: That may be a stretch. I would say. My exaggeration may be in the surprise of people willing to do something so unheard of, but unproven. At least a quarter if not a half.
Dean: All right, that's good to know too. Now, what we have to look at is to figure out what do I get for my $3,500 investment, or my 179 a month? How long does it take till it pays off, how long till I get my return on this? They already have a TV in their waiting room or they have to bring their, get their own TV for it. You're not sending them back, just the server?
Mike: Correct.
Dean: What does it cost you to deliver this?
Mike: The actual physical cost, and I want to ask you a question on that. I'm not avoiding your question but what I do is my time. I'm an editor and so particularly I'd like to be as removed from all this other stuff as possible. Its hard to measure my time into it and put a cost on it. If I put my time into it its going to be significantly higher, but if I put ... The server itself is about $200 and then we need to do the programming on the backend. Again, us doing it ourselves is nothing, getting someone to do is not. Its not rocket science but it is detailed. There's quite a bit of room in there if you will.
Dean: There's not a lot of cost in getting out there and getting it in there, getting them to test it. Part of the thing is that its unless you're setting up a situation to measure what is not going to be so overtly measured, in that you don't know what people were going to do unless they specifically say, "Hey, I was watching your video and I saw that you were talking about this," which may happen but it may just be that they ask about that particular thing.
Mike: Right, or at least something else.
Dean: Without saying specifically that it was this that did it. Part of the challenge with stuff like that is making the invisible visible. We have a product called The World's Most Interesting Postcard, and this is for getting referrals. What we found across the board is that this will, for real estate agents, increase their referrals about by about 50% pr double. What happens when we measure that is looking, I have a metric that we use in the after unit that we call Return on Relationship. This would work same way for dentists, in that we look at how many patients do they have or with a realtor, how many clients do they have and people in their sphere.
We encourage them to get to a hundred and fifty people that know them, like them and trust them. We measure in their after unit how much of their business in the last twelve months came from repeat and referrals. We set that as the benchmark, that's the control, that's the number. That's whatever they did last year yielded this much, and we've articulated as a percentage or return on relationships, so with the realtors. If they've got a hundred and fifty people they had fifteen repeat and referral transactions last year. That's a 10% return on relationship. What we're seeing now is people getting up to the 20% and higher range of return on relationship, but the postcard that we send every month we have a different note that highlights a different type of referral that they might be able to give.
Another type of conversation that they might hear that would trigger a referral. We might talk about first time buyers or moving up, or buying a vacation home or investing in real estate or downsizing or building a home. All those kind of things that could spur people to be on lookout for those kinds of people. What happens is that by doing this, we got a very specific format for it. Just a quick note in case you hear someone talking about blank, and then we often offer. Call me or text me and I'll get you a copy of my book, Six Steps To Home Ownership to give to them, that will help them through the process. Its rarely as overt as somebody calling and saying, "I got your postcard. I was talking to somebody that's a first time buyer, can you send me the book?"
What happens is that is doing the job of presence-ing you in their mind, in a way that is specifically looking for something. When you were describing the different types of treatments or different types of offers that the dentists have, whether its veneers or implants or if its snoring. A lot of people don't know that snoring can be helped with a dental apparatus. Just like you're saying, you're educating people that if they're just coming in for a check up and a cleaning, and everything's fine and they don't even know what the possibilities are. Presence-ing that, I think that what you're going to run into is its not going to be as overt as hey I saw the video.
I'd like to get veneers, but you planted that thought in their head with the veneers and maybe as they're starting to think that through now, months down the road it may come up that this is the conversation that they have. How you measure that is maybe looking at all of the ancillary offers that you have, that's the whole point that you're trying to use as you're planting the seed there. I think that may even open up an opportunity for you, to help them with some maybe specific direct mail to their patients. What would be a typical roster of a dental office that you would typically go, and how many patients would they typically have?
Mike: Boy, you've asked the one question I don't know that I have any answer to that. I can tell you a typical target but what you find in most practices is a room or there used to be a room full of files, but they're not active files and that's the whole point of this, it’s per patient profit. This is because it costs so much money to go get a new patient, $100 $300 and this is people who know I can trust you. They're already inclined to say yes.
Dean: That's what this is going to help and be an influence to the people that are coming into the office. If you say just like you hit it on the head there. Let's say there that there's, I think it'd probably reasonable to say a thousand maybe in a dental office, that wouldn't be out of the question would it?
Mike: No, absolutely not.
Dean: A thousand files, so of those thousand files when you look at, and this is why I always start with a scoreboard. I never go into a relationship or a consulting arrangement without looking at what's the scoreboard here. How are we going to know that this is making a difference? How are we going to measure the return on investment on this? This is the beauty of the profit activator. Before, during, after is that they're universally present. They're happening in that business whether they're consciously directing and applying them, or whether they're ignoring them and it just happens.
It is what it is, but if we overlay on any dentist's business, the after unit metric of return on relationships and we say okay. We've got a thousand patients in your files, in the last twelve months how many of those one people came through the door at least once, and paid money for some treatment? Whether it was just a check up, a cleaning and if you look at it that there's some that you could rank the people out of the thousand. Let's say that five hundred of them came through the door last year, I don't know I'm just making these numbers up. Let's just say that's what it is, its probably not unreasonable to think that half the files in the dentist's office are inactive.
Let's say five hundred of them came through the door and if you were to rank them and say this number, this amount of money. Patient number one, the patient who spent the most money with us had implants and full on stuff. Maybe they spent $30,000 with us and then the next person spent 25,000 and all the way down to these two hundred of the five hundred people. Came in for a check up and everything was fine, and they went home and they spent $200 with us or whatever it is. You're looking at that, that they've had some yield from their after unit. Some of those people who paid money this year are going to be new patients who came through the door for the first time, as a result of whatever it was that they were doing or they were referred or they just walked in. How many of the dentists are actually proactively seeking in the before unit in their patients and how it was predictable where they get them?
Mike: It depends on who you ask. There are a number of them trying to but there's been no. Its a joke in dentistry, they say its a lifeblood. New patients are the lifeblood of your practice, but in reality its not. In profit activator I guess number seven, showing them the lifelong relationship in dentistry.
Dean: Yeah, build it. Nurturing a lifetime relationship.
Mike: They give that. They'd go spend $200 or $300 on top of that. The Groupon, the free bleaching or whatever it is and then the patients come in, but its not the kind of patient that is going to have lifelong patient and spend $25,000 $30,000 with you. Not to mention the family and others, so they get on my soapbox and its all I can do not to pull my hair out. They need to realize that building the relationship long term and offering this, even consider this as a drip campaign that's always plugging your. Is going to have returns but not to disqualify in any means your point of work return on relationship. I've got to be able to show them that as well.
Dean: I guarantee you they don't measure it, they don't know what it is. For them to be able to look at it that way is a completely different set of goggles for them. They're looking at it costs me 30,000 a month to keep my office open and we're doing 70,000 a month or whatever, in revenue. That's all they're looking at, not really breaking it down to where that's coming from and they're typically, as long as their income is sustained.
Mike: That is a struggle that I've had with both HDIQ and I heard it an illustration yesterday preparing for this, and I thought it was so perfect. The idea that right now there are tons of radio waves in the air and we can't hear them. If we have a radio we can tune into we can hear that specific one, and its getting these dentists to tune into your specific channel and help them understand. That this is about long term relationships, its about talking to the patients who are eight to ten times more likely to say yes. Its all those things that you teach but how do you get them to see that? How do you take those goggles off, like you said?
Dean: That's it, its awareness. Sometimes awareness builds momentum, where you can get them thinking about that. If you look at the breakdown by if you were at a retail store. You'd look at the skews and what would be the different skews that dentists would have, of where all of the revenue came from. Its like standard, like a routine checkup and a cleaning and fillings, and then you're going on up to specialty things. Can dentists do Invisalign or is that an orthodontics thing?
Mike: Yeah, and its one of the more popular ones.
Dean: That's why its a big hit, isn't it? You don't need to be an orthodontist to do that, so that whitening, Invisalign, the sleep apnea stuff, the veneers, the implants, the full cosmetics, the gum stuff. All of those things, if they look at all of those specialty services, that you're right. I don't think most people know about those kind of things, and to look at how much revenue they generated in the last twelve months from those items would be a valuable thing. If you're in a situation where when you're doing something new the first time, you're doing. I learned this great new term for it, called an N of 1 study. I learned that from Craig Venter, the guy who decoded the human genome.
Mike: What does he know?
Dean: What does he know? Exactly. He was doing it, he was the only one. He had nothing to compare it to and so they call that N of 1 study, where you're over investing. I may suggest to you that you need some allies, you need maybe ten people because you're already out into the field with this. They're buying it without any evidence that it works, so what I'm suggesting is that you are going to have an easier case with it if you can document very specifically what happens with maybe a core group of ten people. Part of that would be getting the baseline metrics, of how much of this extra stuff did you sell in all of the twelve months? Before we put the videos in your waiting room, and then thirty sixty ninety days a full year out measure the volume of that extra business that you were able to do. Just with that.
Mike: That's worth the price of admission. It saves asking the patient, when do they do this? Everything's coded for insurance, did they do this and look at the codes from one month to the next and see how they've gone up.
Dean: You have to, and evidencing that. One of the things that I've really been a big advocate for is the visual charts, like a return on investment chart. On the bottom axis you would have the moths, so it would be month one, two, three, four, five whatever it is, or August, September, October, November. Whatever they started and then we have on the Y axis, the vertical axis have that represent the money. Over time the first thing that they've done is if its $179 a month, that means that its, let me do quick math here.
179 times 12 equals $2,148. On month one you've put a dot at $179 up that axis, and then the next month they will have spent another 179 so the cumulative spend is going up to 358. Then the next month 179 and its 537, so you're slowly on about a 20 degree angle working your way up to $2,100 that they've spent in month twelve. Then what we're looking at in addition to that is now these extra, the volume of business that they're doing month after month, on the ancillary things.
Mike: That would be my question. Measured as maybe videos that they have played, that would be your control.
Dean: Yeah, you could look at it. I would envision, I would look at, let me draw one for us right here. I'll post it up in the show notes here, that we look at it now its August. If we say September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August so there's our twelve months. We've got this line going from September to the end of August and that's $2,148 invested in playing these videos. What I would look at is doing two metrics here, so if you look at September last year we had this amount of business came from.
Maybe you identify what are the five or six ancillaries, so you code them and you say, and this is a usual bar chart here. You're looking at this that last year in that amount of time, do you know what they would do in a typical month of that much? Just make up a number and say $20,000 in ancillary things. Then we look at what happened this year, so it would be after a period of time you may start to see that its increasing. That's what I would be looking for, is evidence that maybe the first month.
Maybe it happens right away and maybe it happens six months from now on their next check up they bring it up, because you've planted that seed of Invisalign. Then every time they look in the mirror they see their crooked teeth and they think, "I wonder if I should get these Invisalign?" Maybe they do some research about Invisalign and you've planted that subconscious as that work, now building the case for the Invisalign process. Then the next check up they bring it up. That'll be how you're thinking it might happen, but you've got to be able to now evidence that. If you have ten charts its like you're doing that clinical trial.
Mike: That's a good acronym.
Dean: You've got to have evidence that you did ten people, and all ten of these people increased their ancillary uptake by 50%. Doing nothing else other than these videos, and the faster you start that study and documenting it, the better its going to be for you. Its going to take you twelve months to get twelve months of data.
Mike: I'm meeting with this dear friend of mine in dentistry tomorrow. He wants to actually do the investment company but he does $1,000,000 in dentistry a month. He wants to do this but he'd a wonderful case study, because he again wants to but I also need to find the smaller practices who aren't that large.
Dean: That's over several offices that he's doing?
Mike: No, that's one office with four dentists. He's a marketing guy who's also a dentist. He's just very much an entrepreneurial type of guy. They idea on that though is going to be, just being in dentistry I also know that I've got to probably pick those ancillary because I don't want to take credit for other things that aren't. The reality is the price point, and no one has said anything about the price. Its if they sell one veneer case at $10,000 they'll just pay for the thing for five years.
Dean: Exactly, you're absolutely right.
Mike: I don't want to make it so outlandish, I want to make sure where its, I don't know how to say that.
Dean: No, I understand. Its got to be believable and its got to be clearly that there's no other explanation for it. When I start, the first year we did The World's Most Interesting Postcard, that's exactly what I was doing. Was having people document and so I know that subject number was a realtor here in Winter Haven and we very carefully chose her top 150 and looked over the last twelve months. She had done thirteen repeat and referral transactions, and her whole strategy for communicating with all of her clients was that every December she would send a magnet calendar for your fridge. Then no other communication throughout the rest of the year. She had a long track record of being in business and got a lot of referral and repeat business.
Thirteen transactions in the year before and then we added The World's Most Interesting Postcard and in the twelve months following she did thirty three repeat and referral transactions. That's documenting something where the only change that was made was sending the postcards. If we look at it that these ten dentists, they did this much volume in these five ancillaries, and in the next twelve months when we highlighted them in these videos they did this much in these. Its where you're getting really indicative evidence, because you can't have with a soft thing like that. Not the same as doing a postcard campaign, where you get responses and you can track specific results.
Mike: I'm going to take ten new doctors and probably just give it to them for a year, and just ask.
Dean: That was where I was going to say, is the next thing what's valuable for you on that is that your cost to do it is very little. It makes sense that as you're doing this, like pharmaceutical companies spend so much money testing and developing and proving their drugs, and then when they get a group now they've got a proven winner that does what it says on the tin, you know?
Mike: Right. It occurred to me when you're talking about the return on relationship, is I'm asking dentists to spend their relationship and not the money basically. Spend, invest in what they already have instead of trying to get new improved whatever.
Dean: Right, and that's. The thing is there's not much they could do with $179 otherwise, to make that kind of impact. Even if people are playing Candy Crush on their phone in the lobby, they're still hearing this. Its going in, its all being recorded so there's a great subliminal kind of element to it, and if something catches their attention that they've even had a thought of wonder about Invisalign or about veneers, or implants or whatever it is. Now they may perk up and listen to it.
Mike: What I tell doctors is nothing is better than having a TV in there. In fact we tell people don't put magazines in there because at that point you're competing for extra money, you're competing against the vacation and your card. If they see it in a magazine or a card, once you put your competition up.
Dean: Right, exactly. What's coming up for you? What were the things that, is that ...
Mike: That's worth the price of admission, absolutely but I can just ask you some random ...
Dean: Of course.
Mike: FAQ's if you will, how's that? Just cut me off, I have to wait for you to cut me off, so if I get overboard just tell me. The problem is just this, I love Frank Kerns stuff and his concepts in trying to implement some of them, but generically speaking and you speak about it in some other places. The web, you've got AdWords, you've got all these Facebook and all sorts of things. If you were to spend time and I get websites through SquareSpace. If you were to spend time on that portion of it, where would you spend it? Is worth doing all that stuff? I think it sounds like your idea of a website is just pretty much a place to go, learn information. How much?
Dean: The main thing that I'm looking for in a website is just the ability to get somebody to leave their name and email, so I can communicate with them by email. That's far more valuable to me, and in a lot of ways I don't even care if the come back to the website. The most valuable thing is a list of people that you can communicate with. You're talking about for you're approaching dentists, is that what you're saying?
Mike: Yeah, I guess that might fall into the category of more traditional marketing, with the information. If you send out, I don't know what the equivalent of a carpet audit might be in my industry, but to do something like that and then to continue to spin what you know. How to take better videos with your iPhone or things like that, and just get them to submit to the information. how do you go about doing it without selling it? I don't want to just send them a list and say, "Hey HDIQ members, you've been members here's a new product," sort of thing. That doesn't empower them.
Dean: I think that part of either you're in the same situation where you're dealing with a group of professionals that are a specific segment of the market, right? I look at it that I know that I'm dealing with real estate agents, that are visible. They're easy to identify, you've got visible prospects. Dentists, but what you also have to then realize is what are the bankable results that you can deliver for somebody? I look at it in terms, I learned a great term called rudimentary medicine. There's really only five or six core things that go wrong, that are the root cause of all disease.
What I look at is any business, I look at what's the bankable results here? As opposed to the mechanism. Like you're saying how to do easy videos or how to do these kind of things, which are training somebody how to do something but you always have to say so that what? What's the result that we can deliver? If I just look at it, what every dentist in America who has an appetite for new patients, has the capacity to take on new patients. What they really want is just new patients in the chair, ready to get their mouth worked at. That's what the dentist really wants, because that's what they went to school for. They don't want to learn how to shoot videos with their iPhone, so you look at it where your value as a service provider, as a consultant.
As an advisor to them is in your ability to help them reach that end result, in a way that doesn't require any of their time. I look at it with the real estate agents, I know that what they want is they want listings, they want somebody in their car looking to buy a home and they'd love to get people to refer them those people as well. I look at it and say how can I and how can you, in thinking this through, how can you provide a push button way for somebody to just get a patient in the chair. That's what the dentist have an unlimited appetite for.
Mike: That's what waiting room videos, again. We just need to market that, it was designed from the ground up.
Dean: Yeah, it certainly seems like one thing. It seems like one where for sure, one sits up and running that it certainly has the ring of authenticity here. That its certainly feasible, if they're saying 179 a month, I've got this many patients coming through there and if I just get one person to do. They're already doing that math, they're already calculating in their minds. This is less than 2% of my total revenue, its a reasonable investment. There's a reasonable chance that I'll get a return on this, but when you've got documented proof of people getting a twenty X return on this or a ten X return or whatever it is. That's really going to just push it over the top, and it may even get to a point where you can charge more money for it, because its more valuable. When you've got proof that that's the way it works.
Mike: One other question if I have time.
Dean: Yeah, sure.
Mike: This is more generically speaking, I think the other people might have it and maybe not. In the activators you talk about people just don't ask for it. You've got to ask either the referral or whatever. You get that on one side of the scale and on the other side you've got the you don't want to be the educational based marketing. As far as your call to actions or as far as your messaging and any of your things, how do you balance that out? Do you start slow, is it based on your list and progression?
Dean: I think that you think things through, in a way that is going to make it an easy next step. What's the thing that's going to trigger somebody? When you look at the idea of what's going to, how can we make it easy for somebody to take the next step? Often we take an approach that we're waiting for other people to take the initiative.
Mike: Yeah, you're right.
Dean: I often say we confuse being nice with being a leader. We'd say if you got any questions or if there's any way that I can help you, just please feel free to reach out.
Mike: Pass the cookies.
Dean: Pass the cookies, exactly. Its that same thing, so when you look at it. If there's an easy way for somebody, if instead of even and you make tests with this in the videos. Instead of just saying just ask us or whatever, if there's some way that maybe on the stand by the TV, there are maybe five little brochure boxes that have little cards about those specific things. Where people can pick up that card and go to that website, and get a free report about this or watch a video about it.
Mike: That's good.
Dean: You know what I mean? If there's something like, just take the information and maybe that's integrated into the TV. Right in that environment there that there's almost like an info box.
Mike: If you're going to have a conversation, you're going to call a dentist in Winter Haven and say I just want to either show you this, or I want to drop by one for fee and let you try it for thirty days. How does that conversation go, how do you get past Susie at the front desk?
Dean: That's a great question because I've had some experience in that. That there's another company that was doing, they had postcard campaigns to help doctors get cosmetic patients. They were trying to get past the gatekeeper, that's the biggest thing. Its the front desk isn't going to let you talk to the doctor, because they're saying, "Who's calling?" From at new postcards or whatever, so immediately they see you as somebody trying to take money out of the business. This is a pretty profound thought, but every person on every level of any company is 100% authorized to bring money into the business.
If you're opening that relationship there, if you're opening this thing where you're truly going to put this into somebodies office and you're looking even for the test studies where you'll set it up for free for them for a period of time, to see what's happening. Now you're in a situation where you're going to be bringing money into the office instead of taking money out of the office. I had them talk about, reposition themselves as a dental referral service. Where its they're going to send out the postcards and pay for it, and then deliver people to the doctor for a referral fee or for a fee for performance.
The approach was that, Does Dr Johnson do cosmetic surgery or cosmetic dentistry? Yes he does. Is he accepting new patients? Yes he is. Perfect, we're a dental referral service. We're looking to refer a patient. We're talking with Dr Jackson and Dr Turret and we've love to talk with Dr Johnson. Now the receptionist is seeing this as she's going to get to introduce this, and maybe get the reflected glory of it. She's going to put your note on the top of the pile and make sure that you get, did you talk to these people about this? Now she's an advocate because she sees it as she's going to get that employee of the month parking spot.
Mike: For bringing that, and that's genius. Where are we a year from the ready ones? We've got some studies. I'm talking to Dr Turret, I’m talking to Dr Smith about, now its a little bit harder. We're not offering to do it for free. What's the follow up?
Dean: Now you've got proven evidence that you've got $179 a month that turns into 28,000 or 58,000, or a 128,000. Whatever it is you don't even know yet, you don't know what it is. You may be completely undervaluing it.
Mike: What do you say to that receptionist? We're talking to so and so about doing this, what's that next sentence? That's the key question. What's that next sentence after? I hear what you're saying and you're becoming an advocate for the practice.
Dean: Here's what we're doing, and especially for your ten here you've got a way . you probably already now them, you've got enough equity built with ten dentists that you could get in, so you're not even going to have to go cold to those dentists. When you do, its like if you've go evidence that putting this in these ten offices is a twenty X ROI. You know that that's what's going to happen, that now you could go into a situation where you say we come in, we put it in for free. Now your offer becomes better because you've got much more confidence in it.
Even in the last episode that we did of More Cheese Less Whiskers, the concept that I talked about on there was that clarifying question. What would you do if you only got paid if your client gets the result? Most of the time when you're just starting out and you don't know, of course its difficult because now you're trying to just convince people without evidence to do something. Its so much easier to convince with beyond a reasonable doubt that this works, and its now you feel much more confident that you can make a better offer. We'll put it in, we'll do it for ninety days and see what happens.
Mike: Yeah. That's probably my own psyche talking, why I don't like that part of the business because when we say we've got twenty X return my bs slide goes up a little bit. I know that's probably ...
Dean: Unless you know, yeah but if you do like I know with my real estate stuff. I know I have evidence that we've got, because we track it just like this. Like I'm sharing with you.
Mike: That is the takeaway it sounds like for this, for me and probably for others. Or to get the evidence based medicine, evidence based products.
Dean: They're already buying it without any evidence because it sounds like it makes sense, but now when you really show what it can do that's going to be a great thing. You may be able to double your price.
Mike: I'm sure they'll love hearing that.
Dean: No, I'm saying the ones who were the early adopters they get the benefit of it, but when you've got this thing when you know its like they're buying money at a discount. What's the difference between 179 and 379 if it is going to get them a… The ten X on their 379, where's the reasonable number? What's the number that if you went into a dentist and said look, I'm going to get you a five X return on that, guaranteed?
Mike: Everybody would take that and you'd be foolish not to.
Dean: Of course they would, so if you know that you can get a ten X or more, which isn't very much. $2,100 if we're talking about some of these things that one cosmetic case,, like you said. Could be 10,000 if its veneers, could be 40,000 if its for crowns.
Mike: Yeah, its an easy and I know where you're going with that too. Is then you can go in and almost, well you can. You can say I'll guarantee a five X and fully expect a twenty X or whatever it is. Its evidence.
Dean: That's the whole thing, that's exactly right.
Mike: I'll make you a deal. I will check back with you with some numbers on that, and I don't know whether its six months or a year. Whatever it is but I will, this week and then the next week find me some ten guys that I'm going to put this in. Women or men, offices and just start collecting the data. I think that's significant. Important.
Dean: I've enjoyed sharing with you. That's been fun.
Mike: It was fun, and again, I appreciate all your patience in doing that. I hope other people who listen to this can certainly take something from it, because I know I. We did your was it the nine word email? A while back ago, along time ago and its amazing how well that worked. In fact I've tried to indoctrinate that into my customers, with HDIQ. Ii don't know what that would be, are you still looking patients? I don't know. Its hard to come up with that question I think sometimes, but it clearly works.
Dean: Awesome. There we have it. Another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers. If you want to keep the conversation going you can download the More Cheese Less Whiskers book at morecheeselesswhiskers.com If you'd like to get a book out into the world in the simplest, easiest, fastest way possible go to 90minutebook.com and download a copy of the 90 Minute Book. We can help you get your book out into the world. That's it for this time, talk to you next time.