Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Boost Your Industry Icon Status with Dr. Catrise Austin

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Boost Your Industry Icon Status with Dr. Catrise Austin · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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Hi.
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This is Melinda Emerson, the small biz lady host of the small Bizchett podcast.
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I want to serve you.
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This pandemic has been so hard on America's small businesses and on just America in
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general.
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If you're ready to start your dream business, boy, do I have a great offer for you?
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I am giving away 1000 copies of my best selling book, become your own boss in 12 months.
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Over a hundred thousand people have this book It has been printed in multiple languages
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around the world, and I wanted to find a way to serve America small businesses in this
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pandemic.
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And so I am giving away a 1000 copies of my book.
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All you have to do to get your copy is head over to begin my biz dotcom slash free offer
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to, you know, sign up for your copy.
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All you have to do is pay shipping, and we will mail one out to you.
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I am so excited about this.
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I wanna serve you, grab your copy today.
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Ending small business failure.
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Welcome to the small biz chat podcast with a number one small business expert, Melinda
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Emerson.
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Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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you need succeed and live the life you dream of.
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Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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Melinda Everson.
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Hi.
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I'm Melina Emerson's small biz lady.
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America's number one small business expert, and I would like to welcome you to the small biz
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chat pack cast.
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Today's show is all about developing tighter cash flow management in 2021.
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We're also gonna be talking about the art of selling a business.
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And have you ever wanted to become a celebrity doctor?
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Well, if you do, I've got the lady you wanna talk to here with us tonight.
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It's really all about If you're looking for new ways to conserve cash and your business, we've
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got some great insights.
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If you've been thinking about Whether or not now is the time for you to sell your business
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to talk about it.
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And if you are a physician interested in creating a niche practice, and becoming a media
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expert.
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I have lined up some amazing experts today who are gonna discuss how to make 2021 a great year
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in your business.
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The small business chat podcast really is a peer to peer interview show that gives small
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business owners a way to get invaluable business insights.
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The mission of small business chat is to end small business failure.
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Our goal with small business chat is to give small business owners an opportunity to hear
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sage advice from multiple angles to take your small business to the next level.
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Today's guest, Doctor Katrice Austin.
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She is a trailblazing expert in the field of dentistry, known as the queen of smile.
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She is an award winning cosmetic dentist, the stars.
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Her clients are celebrities like Cardi B, Wendy Williams, Anthony Anderson, and common to name
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a few She's also a number one bestselling author of her book.
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How'd you become a celebrity doctor?
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Here it is.
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She broke it all down for you.
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And she teaches other doctors her medical marketing secrets, and she's currently based in
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Brooklyn, New York.
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Katree's welcome to Smallish chat.
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Thank you so much for having me, Melinda.
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Alright.
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So tell us about your practice.
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Like like, how did you become a a cosmetic generous to the stars.
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How how help us understand.
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When I finished dental school in 1990 I came to the big city of New York to do my 1 year of
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training in the hospital, my residency, but in that year of 1996, man, you know, I've been in
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school all my life and I discovered there's a world out here.
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Like, there was dance clubs, comedy clubs, hip hop was at prime.
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And I hit the streets of New York and had a blast.
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So, you know, there were hot spots on Sunday night was the comedy club where you see a young
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Mike Epps or a young Casey Morgan.
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And I started going to this comedy club every Sunday, every Tuesday, Pete Diddy would have
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his restaurant called Justin's that turned into a dance club at night.
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And so all of these places would have celebrities just roaming around.
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And as I started to hang out in the streets of New York, I said, wow.
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I'm making friends with celebrities I'm just gonna become the dentist to the stars.
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This is even before I even had a physical location, I put it on a business card, I hit
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the streets of New York and I was like a gorilla marketing, the street team, and
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everybody that I saw, I would hand them this card.
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I'm like, Somebody's gonna bite.
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Somebody needs a dentist.
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I know it.
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So Wednesday is a Tuesday.
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I'm at P.
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Diddy's restaurant, and I see this legendary icon in music by the name of Isaac Hayes.
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And this is, you know, this is Shaff.
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This is, you know, the man.
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And it took me about an hour.
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He was sitting down having dinner, and I decided I'm gonna go for it.
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I may not ever see this man again in my life.
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So he's sitting down having dinner with 5 of his radio colleagues.
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He was on the radio at the time, and I decided to just go over and introduce myself.
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So I go over and I'm like, hi, Mister Isaac Hayes.
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I'm Doctor Catrice Austin.
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I'm 28 at the time.
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I am a cosmetic dentist and, hey, if you need a dentist, I would love to be your dentist.
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And he took my card, and he was like, young lady, I ain't never seen the dentist that look
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like you.
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Why don't you just sit down and have dinner with me?
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And I sat down, had dinner with him, and the rest is history.
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I literally became a part of his family and entourage So when he went to the Grammys, I
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went to the Grammys.
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When he went to film festivals, I was there right there, and that kinda opened up the doors
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of being exposed even more with this icon to the world of entertainment.
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And he became my first celebrity client and that was just the name that I needed.
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And then my mom said, you know, you have your first celebrity client.
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You need a publicist.
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And at the time, it was un heard of to have, publicist as a dentist.
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And not only did she tell me to call the publicist, she told me to call Eddie Murphy's
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Publicist, Terry Williams, So I cold call her and say, hi, same spiel.
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Hi, Terry.
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I'm Doctor Catrice Austin.
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I have a I'm a cosmetic dentist, and I wanna be the dentist to the ours.
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She says, wow, you're young, you're black, you're female, you're in New York City.
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This is a great story, but I charge my clients about $50,000 a month or more.
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I work with Big Corporations.
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I don't think you can afford me, but you can afford maybe my friend Renee Foster.
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She's a publicist.
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So I called called Terry William I mean, sorry, Renee Foster.
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And she says, you know what?
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I don't have a dentist.
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Why don't I do your publicity for free?
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And and I you do you'd just be my dentist and do my cleanings and maintain my teeth.
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And I'm like, Bet.
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So that was all just the break that I need.
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So from there, I got into all the major publications, some television shows, and it
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just took off from there.
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Awesome.
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That is great, great, great, great story.
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So, you know, that's what happened to you, but how would you advise someone, like, who they're
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a doctor and they wanna become a brand?
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What would you suggest that they do now?
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Well, I think it's even, you know, when I was younger, I had to actually physically go out
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and search for my my target audience.
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Now I tell the young health care professionals that it's so easy.
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You have you have social media.
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You don't even have to leave your house.
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You can slide in some DMs and picture your shot.
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You can it's so easy.
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And now with Clubhouse, you can literally everybody's on this app you can literally be in
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the room and talk to, Grant Card owner, anyone, you know, anyone that you need as a resource.
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So I think today is is easy as long as you just know who your target audience it is and you put
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yourself in a position where you are the authority in your field no matter what type of
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doctor or health care provider that you are.
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So those are the things that I talk about in my book.
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How does really set yourself apart from your competition and be the go to person in your
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field as a doctor.
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People and businesses everywhere use plastic to pay for virtually anything using their credit
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card, even where cards aren't accepted.
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It's so fast and easy.
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We'll explain how it works in less than 60 seconds.
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Ready?
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First, you tell us who you wanna pay How much you wanna pay and enter your payment
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information.
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Next, plastic charges your credit or debit card.
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Finally, we send your recipient a check, ACH, or wire transfer and you rack up points from
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your credit card reward program.
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Don't forget plastic also offers global payments, the ability to pay in cash from your
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bank account, and more.
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Take 2 minutes and make a payment with plastic today atplastic.com.
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Plastic.
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It's the smarter way to pay.
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So if someone is a doctor and they wanna sort of, like, become a personal brand or they wanna
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build a personal brand, Do they need sort of like a moniker like you have, like queen of
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smiles or, like, I'm the small biz lady.
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Like, do they need something like that?
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Important to have, you know, a sickness, something signature about you, something that
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sets you apart.
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So, yes, I thought about I'm the the queen of Smiles.
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Like, I am the best in at what I do.
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There's nobody that is above what I do.
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So, yes, the queen of Smiles was a great, title and hashtag as well.
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So when I'm doing my social media, people now can know that as my signature identification
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marker.
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And just, a, it's all about target mark market and just finding your voice and having a
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distinct selling point, you know, what's make what's gonna make you different?
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I mean, with dentistry.
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Okay.
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Everybody does fillings.
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Everybody does cleanings.
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Everybody does whitening.
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So for me, I knew that celebrities love beautiful pearly white teeth.
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And right when I got into my own practice porcelain veneers, you know, this is the thing
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that all the celebrities get.
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That was starting to really be a a a very popular procedure.
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So I did everything that I needed to do to the courses because they actually don't teach a lot
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of cosmetic dentistry in school is something that you have to kind of learn on your own.
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So joining the organization about for cosmetic dentistry taking the necessary courses and
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really becoming a master to set myself apart from my competition.
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And now people know me for veneers.
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That's all I do now.
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I don't do anything else, but teeth whitening and veneers.
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Awesome.
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Awesome.
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Hey.
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I know in your book, you talk about how every doctor needs a signature story.
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Why do you think that?
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Well, it's a way of connecting, you know, every time that I'm a lot of times when I'm speaking
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on my social media or I'm speaking in public, it's a way to connect with your target
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audience.
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So for instance, my signature story and how I got into cosmetic dentistry is when I was
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growing up, I hated my teeth.
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I have a little tiny gap right now still, but when I was growing up, I had multiple spaces.
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My teeth flared out and every day in the school yard, I get called names, bugs, Bunny, railroad
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tracks, whatever crazy names the kids can think of, and they hurt my feelings.
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It hurt my feelings to the point where I just didn't feel comfortable being around people.
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I had no confidence, and it wasn't until high school that I Really had my breaking point.
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I wanted to be one of the cool kids.
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I wanted to fit in.
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I wanted to feel sexy.
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This is when you wanna date.
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And my mom knew this.
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So she came up with the money for the braces that changed my life.
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So just wearing braces for a year, really helped me understand the power of a smile.
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So now as a cosmetic dentist, I actually get to pay it forward.
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When I go to work and I transform someone's with veneers, which it doesn't take up, you
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know, I wear braces for a year.
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Veneers is, like, I could give it to you in, like, a week.
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And so you can transform your smile in a week.
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And now I know when I'm speaking to my clients and my potential customers, I know what the end
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result is gonna be, and having that story and sharing that story helps me connect to my
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particular target market.
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So Everyone has a story, and that's the thing that's really gonna draw people to you and
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wanna do business with you.
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Now if you're adopting media interviews What kinds of things can you do?
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Like, do you need to hire a publicist?
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Is that is that how you do it?
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You can it's the easier way to do it yet the most expensive way to do it.
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I've worked with publicists that were $5000 a month, $10,000 a month, So and that's a
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possibility that that that they may get you on TV.
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So in my book, because I've learned it, I've been doing publicity for 24 years now.
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I now teach how you can pitch yourself is really easy because media outlets are looking
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for stories.
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When you are pitching to them, you're making their job really easy.
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They don't have to go out and search.
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So I teach my potential students and my, my coaching students they how to write a pitch,
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how to do a press kit, how to literally just showing up on social media and coming up with
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catchy headlines, and titles and doing videos, you put yourself out there.
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There have been times, like, when I was on the doctor I show last year, they literally found
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me and I thought it was a joke.
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Somehow, they were in my DMs and they were like, we're looking for you.
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We want you to be on the show in 2 days.
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And it was because they just saw what I was doing some of my videos and content that they
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found me.
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So sometimes they will find you but you can also pitch very easily.
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Pitching is a super easy, but having a book is always helpful as well.
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Just they want authorities on their television shows, or they want to know that you are an
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expert in your field, and
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a book will do that.
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Absolutely.
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One of the other things I know is that you gotten some spokesperson opportunities.
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Right?
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You you have that's actually how we met at essence festival all this year.
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You were down there.
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I think working for Colgate or somebody that day.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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So how
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how did those kind of opportunities come about?
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The same thing.
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My I I took it.
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Well, here's the thing.
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A lot of doctors feel uncomfortable with social media, and I was not one those doctors.
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You know, I always embrace going live and doing videos and sharing content, and people are
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watching you literally Colgate sent me a message on Facebook, and I thought it was a
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joke because clearly this is not how Colgate reaches out to, the brand's folks.
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But they did.
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I I literally vetted and did my research and made the call, and it was that opportunity to
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be a brand spokesperson for I think we've had a good run for about 4 years together.
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I've been a spokesperson for I've been in a spokesperson for Cote Colgate Crest, aquafresh,
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pretty much every major brand I have represented.
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And I think setting myself apart and as the expert in the celebrity doctor all led to those
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opportunities that maybe other doctors did not get.
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So I tried to convey to up and coming that if you don't wanna be stuck in the office and
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doing the same thing every day and you wanna expand and get out and see the world, I have
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been as far as Australia and New Zealand speaking on the power of a smile.
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So if you want to expand your brand and get out of the office and have an exciting life as a
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doctor because it could be stressful and boring.
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My life is not I I highly encourage people to think outside the box and come over to the
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celebrity world and brand yourself apart from the rest.
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Alright.
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Now how can people get more information about your book and even your coaching program?
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You can find me at www.vipsmiles.
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If you go to any of my social media outlets, I have a link tree, which has all the
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information.
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You can purchase my book.
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So just click on the link in my bios and my social media or go to vip smiles.com and you'll
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see courses And I would love to if you're a doctor out there, I wanna teach you guys how to
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expand and become a celebrity doctor.
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Alright, Katrice.
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What's your favorite podcast?
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Mine is Julie Solomon's influencer podcast.
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Like it.
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Like it.
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I haven't listened to her, but I know who she is.
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So good stuff.
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Good stuff.
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Contrice, what is your favorite business app?
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Instagram is my jam.
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That is my that is my app, man.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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You've got way, way more followers on Instagram than me, so I gotta learn from you.
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Alright.
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Last question, you guys, favorite business book you've ever read.
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How to make friends and influence people.
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Dale Cardaggy.
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Love it.
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Love it.
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Great book.
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Great book.
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Thank you so much for being my guest on smallbizchattonight.com.
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Alright, everybody.
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I am Melinda Emerson, the small fish lady, and I always appreciate you for coming and joining
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us for the small fish chat podcast.
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If you want more information on how to start or grow your small business, visit my blog and
17:37
succeed as your own boss.com.
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I'm Ellen Anderson, the small business lady, your host.
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Until next time, remember that you never lose in business.
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Either you win or you learn.
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God bless everybody.
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Thank you for listening to the small biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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Subscribe to this cast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.