growpracticegrow's podcast

[av_one_half first min_height='' vertical_alignment='' space='' custom_margin='' margin='0px' padding='0px' border='' border_color='' radius='0px' background_color='' src='' background_position='top left' background_repeat='no-repeat' animation='' mobile_display=''] [av_textblock size='' font_color='' color=''] Trends in Dental Practice Marketing w/ Guest Rob Hays of Patterson Dental [/av_textblock] [av_textblock size='' font_color='' color=''] [/av_textblock] [/av_one_half] [av_one_half min_height='' vertical_alignment='' space='' custom_margin='' margin='0px' padding='0px' border='' border_color='' radius='0px' background_color='' src='' background_position='top left' background_repeat='no-repeat' animation='' mobile_display=''] [av_textblock size='' font_color='' color=''] Transcript Hey what's Up Everybody Sean Hamel here at Grow Practice Grow. Today we have a legend in the dental industry around Kansas City, Hawaii, California. Mr. Rob Hays from Patterson Dental is here. Rob sells dental equipment to dentists all over the place and he is very good at his job. He knows the industry inside and out so it is a pleasure to have him here at the GPG studio. Rob today we're talking dental marketing. So go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit and tell the listeners and the viewers all about Rob Hays. Rob Hays – Yeah, sounds Good. Thanks for having me Sean. I appreciate it. He is dramatically over selling me. I have been around a bit. I am in my 12th year with Patterson Dental started of here in Kansas City and then did a volunteer to St Louis California Hawaiian and then back again. So it's good to be home in Kansas City and really excited to be with you guys. Sean – Appreciated Brother. So when you were out and about selling stuffs to dentists, local dentists, you are selling stuff to dentists and retailers, you are selling stuff to dentists so much promising. So what are you running into when you are out in the field and you talk to these guys on their integral and you talk to these dentists about marketing the dental practices what are they running into? [/av_textblock] [/av_one_half][av_one_full first min_height='' vertical_alignment='' space='' custom_margin='' margin='0px' padding='0px' border='' border_color='' radius='0px' background_color='' src='' background_position='top left' background_repeat='no-repeat' animation='' mobile_display=''] [av_textblock size='' font_color='' color=''] Rob Hays – Yeah, it's you know. I think about everything in the dental practice as it relates to the patient experience so when we talk about marketing practice it's evaluating what is it about that practice that really differentiates it in the market place, is it service offering, is it technology that they have available in the practice so something as an example Cad Cam in a street digital dentistry. The ability to offer single visit restorations in house is certainly a differentiating product. you know other areas, sleep, sleep medicines and sleep dentistry; you know those are, those are growing areas that I think can a practice could really leverage to set itself apart in the market place and capture the attention of patients and then deliver a higher level of service that not only attracts those patients but retains them. Sean - Good stuff and do you see, do you see certain aspects of marketing in dental practice that doctors are really struggling with versus places where they are actually having success and doing well and getting new patients in the door? Rob Hays – Yeah, I think you know it's a challenge for a couple different reasons. I mean, we have to remember that the, the CEO of the, of the dental practice in most cases is also the individual that's pack in the back treating patients so it takes some intentionationality to think about and work on the business, first is working in the business, so that's I think one of the challenges is that's just enough hours in a day to put the thought and energy and to developing a strategic marketing plan you know in addition to all the other dental practices human resources hiring, firing. You know, there are just a lot of balls in the air what aren't in the fire that they have to manage so that's one of the specific challenges that I see is just making the time and energy to focus on it. So you know increasingly re-seeing practices, hiring more sophisticated office managers that have got some time and energy to dedicate to these things. But the fact to the matter is that world of marketing is changing rapidly and dramatically. I mean you know 10 years ago to have a conversation with someone around, Google Adwords strategy and campaign it was I mean they will look at you as if you have  a third eye ball on your forehead Sean – Definitely Yeah Rob Hays- You know so there's those things but you know the good news is that there are a lot of really great tools available revenue alms when it comes to mind that you know automated customizable really direct and patient communications tool that you know I have a number of coins to take advantage on so and then and then certainly looking to resources like GPG to really you know outsource some leverage folks that know the marketing space exceptionally well and drive new patients in the door so those are some of the challenges that I see. Sean – yeah Mikey and I have talked many times in the past about how a dentist today is very different from a dentist 10 years ago where a dentist today really has to be an entrepreneur like you have to understand your patient acquisition cost, you have to understand expenses, you have to understand the marketing budget and how it will affect every works. So when you sit down with the doctor that wants to get new patients and the things that's direct me on phone books like you are breaching this conversation where is the first path that they wanted to go, is that Google or like they wanted to do local search or they wanted to know about doing video like what you seeing you on the fields. Rob Hays – You know like any other discovery process with one of my clients you know whether we are looking at an investment, a piece of equipment or a marketing strategy it really you have to start I think with what is the vision for the practice. What's important to them? You know, is there a specific service that they wanna market, is there a specific type of patient that they wanna interact? You know so there a lot of factors and I think that once we go through that discovery process it informs the strategy then so we can you know it's a little hard to be prescriptive without really understanding the dynamics of a practice but yeah. Sean - and then I know we touched on a little bit but I wanna on a lot in the video so Grow Practice Grow is growing very quickly obviously, but we have dentistry in rare Locations as well dentistry in really heavy metropolitan area so when you are around and you are speaking to these doctor are they utilizing like Cerec or they utilizing things in their practice that make them different to get say you are in a world to get people from a larger metropolitan district or they specifically just wanting to kind of engage the little rare problems out there? They are dealing with like what are you saying as far as those trends go as far as metropolitan ritual dental marketing. Rob Hays – Yeah i mean you know when you look at raw communities there is a change in landscapes there it's harder and harder to find a recent graduate dentist that will go practice in a smaller town so it seems like in any other businesses some of the smaller towns are really just don't have the core services that they wanted and so the practices that are really thriving that I see in the raw communities are really differentiating themselves through some of the technology offerings but you know in terms of attracting new patients that's definitely a start to have something different to offer you know I think about one client in particular it's about two and a half hours outside of a major metropolitan area and they offer, they offer single visit dentistry with Cerec, they offer implants, they have 3D so there are patients that are willing to travel from many hours away to come to them specifically because they know that they can get all their treatment in one spot right so if they need a root canal they can take care of that root canal and they can restore that tooth right there on the spot so saves them on a second trip because you gotta remember somebody is two hours away it's their cheer time plus four hours of travel time you know that's a significant investment in someone's, in someone's day and you know a lot of these farmers in rare communities I mean it's a sun up to sun down job already so it's hard for them to, to get away but I think that, that seems strategy applies whether you are in a world area or in major metropolitan area it's you know again its back to how do I really differentiate my practice. What is my service offering? You know so in terms of the tactical stuff you guys are definitely the experts in that but the Google search I mean you look at your waiting room and every single one of your patient is sitting on their mobile device so you know that's the, that's the portal to the world for the consumer population you know for all of us now live on my phone and I know you did the same so it's how do we, how do we capitalize on that, how do we use tools like Google local search to really drive that patient engagement and get them in the door but then you know something maybe seems that simple but you know watching a website you know everyone probably has a web domain that's tied to your practice but how active is that website, what you doing with it? What is the conversation you are having with your patients by way of that website? So I think that's all are considerations. Sean – Yeah, that's some time read into a docs, studies a lot of docs well not a lot but quite a few of docs think they just need a website and sort of go with one of these cookie kind of mass produce websites for they are paying a ton on their back and just to keep the content everything like that whereas I mean the website for say you know everybody has a website anymore so it's not really differentiated but utilized in the content strategy, the video strategy. I know with Cerec we specialize in marketing Cerec at Grow Practice Grow that not allows solutions out there for Cerec Doctors but there's a lot of doctors that have Cerek but they don't tell people about it and so I know you and I have talked many times about how to effectively sort of use Cerek in your marketing strategy. The docs that you see that are really really having successful Cerec in case acceptance and all that what are they doing differently than setting a traditional dental office. They have a machine but they are not broadcasting to the world what they have. Rob Hays – Yeah I mean I know I think you hit the nail at the head they are talking about it right there. They are having those conversations with the patients while they are in their chair about, about why they have chosen to invest in that technology are able to offer single visit dentistry but they are also talking about it to the world at large right there they are using in their marketing strategies it's on their website as a service offering they have. You know I mean we don't see a whole lot of practices, I don't anyway, personally that leverage mass media like radio and TV. Certainly the practices that I see using as a strategy are absolutely talking about single visit dentistry. Sean – So basically my reason for asking that was getting around to we talk a lot here especially on GPG, you know on the blog, in the GPG studio we talk about intentionality with marketing dollars and you are seeing docs that are actually not spending 16-20 thousand for website but are actually using those dollars to tell everybody about Cerec, what Cerec is? And they have it. They are seeing the other way typically each time they actually put forth the effort to market Cerec specifically. Rob Hays – Yeah, I mean I think it's look everybody is time start is tiring whether you are a farmer or a CEO or a u know soccer mom that's a full time taking care of u know a house full of kiddos I mean that's those are all big responsibilities in very different ways but the common threat is there is not enough time for any of them right so, so that is absolutely in your marketing messaging something that say you apart and so I didn't mean to make this advertisement for Cerec necessarily. I don't need it but I love it, you know but anyways say. Hmm, yeah you know, I mean look at it, it's a technology that's 30 years old. It's changed a lot in last 3 decades. Umm, you know we just had a zero rolled, the big conference done in Florida back in July and you know we had, we had it was greater attended than your average 88 conference right so digital dentistry is on the minds of dentists of you know dental professionals and it its reached a point now where you know it's about 15% market share in the US. We expect and have a fair degree of confidence that it's gone a double in a next 5 years so you know it's took us 30 years to get a 15 thousand users. It's gone take another 5 to double that number to 30 thousand, right so it's absolutely impactful so it's absolutely growing conversation. Rather threshold right now where it's still unique enough that you can use a tech to communicate to patients and attract because you can offer same day dentistry. So when you like being on camera and enjoyed here. Yes I do, I do. Alright, I always wanted to go to Hollywood. We talked dental marketing all day everyday here. Ting ting!! That's all we do. So one thing we talked about serious is organic content versus the mass produce stuff that docs get from all these paid services whether getting the same wonderful post that thousands of other dentistry getting and it really adversely effects the SCO and most dental practitioner and how does that work and how the Google algorithm works and so when the docs comes to you and they want constant strategy  and they want to know how do I start blogging other than referring them to grow practice grow. What do you , what do you kind of send the doctor to kinda get off, to get off on you know starting to become a blogging dentist and engaging them face to face. Rob Hays – I think that's a key part of it is having a strategy, asking a question is the first step I think certainly engaging you know your services but I think engaging the right services because there are folks who would like it the same content across all of their thousands clients across the US and just as in have the impact. I think about it a lot in the context of being authentic. Right. I mean that's communicated all of their marketing and any communication you have is just you know being uniquely you and the practices that I see that do a really good job leveraging social media tools that blog actively, they have things to talk about, right they are engaged and involved in the community, they participate in local charity events, but they, but they put a lot of thought into it and they have a strategy and they counter to execute on that stuff so you know certainly leveraging tools like what you guys offer I think is, is one avenue but even then the more juice that they can give you to plug into that content to create the posts the better. I mean it's and again it all back to differentiating you differentiating the practice and building relationship with your patients which is something that quite frankly general practitioners forever have cornered the market on the really really great ones all just passionately care about their patients and wanna serve their communities so. Sean – it really suits their dentistry too and it's I mean with everything anywhere you go everyone wants the new technology and the ease and the speed and everything but you're getting back to like an old dime service condition to where you know people want you to know their names, their kid's name and they wanna see the same doctor, they wanna talk to you, they want you to answer you know few call, they wanna speak to the doc, so it's like an old service standard mixed with dental technology, those are the doctors that will really nailed at and they get per staff find it that really becomes super profitable and then utilizing the tools as far as you know Google SCO that's all blanket stuff that you really get anywhere. There are people that are you know better at and some are worst but the basics of the strategy are the same and that's finding your voice through content, photo, video all that good stuff really comes in the play and technology like that and other things you know Galileo saw that good stuff that's out there in the dark using just to make the patient's life easier and it goes back to what you said at the beginning; it's all about the patient's experience. I am just curious with your successful practices that you worked with, how are they really like knocking the patient's experience out of the park? Like waht are they doing differently that other doctors that say are watching this video could take to their team meeting on Monday morning and start to implement? That's a great question and that's honestly you know while I think when a lot of practices think about their dental dealer, right there's Patterson Vanberg, one of my competitors, you know what role that person plays in the practice, they often just think about ordering a box of cornrows which is precious but honestly these are the conversation when I am having with my clients standing down is How do we engineer intentionally an amazing patient experience? So it starts with you know the phone ringing, how is that, how is that being answered, you need somebody at the front desk all years. A phrase from one of our mutual friends, Drew Hendricks from HCP, you need somebody at the front desk who manufactures sunshine. That person has to make everyone that walks to that door and everyone they talk to on the other hand of the phone feel like that's the most important conversation she's gonna have that day. You need the right person front center engaging those patients. So that's step one, is putting a lot of thought into that. You know, I don't ever necessarily like to go so far as rigged scripting but let's think about a messaging a little bit like how do we want patients to feel and if we agree that we want them to feel warm and fuzzy, what are the things that we absolutely have to be saying every time we talk to them and what are somethings we should never say. So that's the first step. You know there are some general things like, what does the waiting room feels like? You know is it messy? Are there Time life magazine sitting around from 1987? Does it need fresh color paint? What's your furniture look and feels like? There is a practice that I walked in to long ago that its very very clean and tidy that it looks exactly the same way it looked when the building was built in 1975. So kudos to them for keeping it clean. But you know, you look at successful retail brain "Starbuck" does a complete scrap of their storage every seven year if not more frequently, they come in with the construction crew, shuts the place down for a week and the place looks totally different the next time you walks in. That's every seven year so when was the last time you gave a face lift to your dental practice? Not necessarily the independent need to spend a whole bunch of money on it but just put a fight into it. Let's think about how does my office is as compared to walking in my local Starbucks? So those are a couple of examples. Again engineering the patient experience, how do they flow through the practice? Do you welcome them when they get there for their appointment with a bottle of water or a cup of coffee? When it's time to come and get them from the waiting room, the person that's picking them up wears a smile and then in terms of the treatment, what are you doing that is different or exceptional in terms of treatment and technology that really makes them saying "wow". I can't tell you how many times I have been in a practice assisting chair side with the doctors who just incorporated in Cerec as an example. The patient obviously hadn't had experienced it before. They are amazed that one need not have that goopy & fresh material in their mouth. That's spectacular what you mean you have a fancy little camera that you wave around in my grill and that's how you know what to do next with making me a new tooth and know by the way then it go to the mailing unit and they pull out their cellphone and they record their new tooth being created and they post it up on facebook for all their friends to see right so that's engineering and intentional patience experience right. You know so those are just a few examples to come to mind of practices that are really really engaging, that are being intentional about the process and reaping the rewards from them. Sean – Absolutely, getting dentist to understand that you are not a dentist, you are a dentist, but not, you are an entrepreneur and with dentistry you have to market yourself as a specially service provider that's a retail location and that's the hardest thing that I relate in helping the doctors is really helping them in finding the voice and competing with Starbucks because you are sincere in the exact same advertising campaign as Starbucks location so. Well I wanna thank Rob very much. Thanks for stopping by man. It's always a good time talking to you. Rob Hays you can find, don't you ever facebook or dental blog or something like that, nowadays, I'm sure you have something like that affect you doing nowadays. Rob Hays – I am on the inter webs too, although I need to perhaps be a bit more active. You can find me on twitter @robertdavidhays. I have got RobertDavidHays.com that I am committed to spend a little time on but yeah absolutely hit me up, ask me any questions, I am always, I am always at your service and Sean's been a pleasure, had a lot of fun at the studios. Sean – Thank you Sir and thank you guys for watching as always and be sure to stop by our social media at GrowPracticeGrow.com use hashtag #askGPG and we'll be talking about your dental marketing questions everyday right here on the GPG ting ting. Thanks for stopping by Rob. Appreciate you Brother. Have a good day. Peace. [/av_textblock] [/av_one_full]