Latest / My Dental Playbook / 065 Can a $1 Cleaning Bring More Patient Referrals?
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: I wish I wish more dentists would think this way because they they wouldn't have the problems that they have.
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: So many of us don't understand is our business apply constrained or domain constrained, right?
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: And when you understand that and you can solve the one problem that you have, there's not a whole lot of problems in most dental practices that are very complex.
- 0:21SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode of My Dental Playbook.
- 0:24SPEAKER_01: I'm your co-host, Gary Bird.
- 0:25SPEAKER_01: Along with my friend Dr.
- 0:26SPEAKER_01: Blake Hamblin, we're going to be diving deep into his office and how he's doubled his collections in just under 12 months.
- 0:32SPEAKER_01: We're also going to be talking about his journey to a$10 million practice and what he needs to do to get there.
- 0:38SPEAKER_01: You're going to see behind the curtain, and Dr.
- 0:40SPEAKER_01: Blake is amazing at sharing the hard details that you need to know so you can do the same too.
- 0:46SPEAKER_01: If you want to grow, this is the show for you.
- 0:48SPEAKER_01: Stay tuned.
- 0:50SPEAKER_01: All right, we are live for another episode.
- 0:52SPEAKER_01: And today we are going to be diving deep into Dr.
- 0:56SPEAKER_01: Blake's office on his journey to building a$10 million practice.
- 0:59SPEAKER_01: And it's pretty cool because you're actually, we're just finishing up September, and you're going to have a really, really good month in September, in September.
- 1:08SPEAKER_01: So that's awesome.
- 1:09SPEAKER_01: You're going to have basically, what are we going to be at collection wise, do you think, for September?
- 1:16SPEAKER_00: We're at 460.
- 1:18SPEAKER_01: 460, 470.
- 1:19SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 1:19SPEAKER_01: Sweet.
- 1:20SPEAKER_01: Um, I was going to say 470.
- 1:22SPEAKER_01: So that's like that's a really good month.
- 1:24SPEAKER_01: So this is going to be one of your lower months in September.
- 1:27SPEAKER_01: And so now what we're trying to do is we're trying to figure out okay, how do I get my patient referrals up?
- 1:35SPEAKER_01: The free patients, I like to call them.
- 1:37SPEAKER_01: These are, these are amazing patients.
- 1:38SPEAKER_01: So you've you've had some months where you've had 40, 50 patient referrals.
- 1:43SPEAKER_01: Um, you've also been growing your marketing like crazy.
- 1:46SPEAKER_01: You just had your highest digital new patients last month at 100, we're gonna finish at about 171, 172.
- 1:54SPEAKER_01: We're still a little bit of time left in the month.
- 1:56SPEAKER_01: Um and so 170 new patients from digital, over 200 total new patients.
- 2:02SPEAKER_01: But so how do we get our patient referrals up?
- 2:04SPEAKER_01: And we're kicking around ideas.
- 2:05SPEAKER_01: And I know everybody does the legal thing, right?
- 2:08SPEAKER_01: They're like, hey, let's let's just pay people for patient referrals, and that can get you in some trouble and things like that.
- 2:15SPEAKER_01: I know I I've talked to people, I've actually done podcasts with people who were like, yeah, we do a raffle.
- 2:21SPEAKER_01: We uh, you know, people, if you refer somebody, you're entered to win.
- 2:26SPEAKER_01: And that is a little bit of a gray area.
- 2:28SPEAKER_01: Or it's actually not a gray area, it's actually illegal.
- 2:31SPEAKER_01: Um, but we were talking about in some states you can do that.
- 2:36SPEAKER_01: Oh, can you?
- 2:37SPEAKER_01: Okay.
- 2:37SPEAKER_01: I thought it was illegal in most states.
- 2:39SPEAKER_00: No, I know like I'm almost certain, I'm almost certain in Arizona you can do that.
- 2:43SPEAKER_00: There's there's some states that you can definitely do it, but I know in Texas it's very frowned upon.
- 2:49SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
- 2:50SPEAKER_01: And if California will probably throw you in jail.
- 2:52SPEAKER_01: So uh immediately.
- 2:53SPEAKER_01: So if if it's illegal in Texas.
- 2:55SPEAKER_01: Um, so okay, so then so how are we going to drive up our new patients?
- 3:00SPEAKER_01: That's the question.
- 3:01SPEAKER_01: And so what we did is we went and looked at your highest month, and we were like, okay, do we incentivize the team then?
- 3:07SPEAKER_01: Because that's legal, right?
- 3:08SPEAKER_01: You're allowed to incentivize the team, and that we had some ideas around that, but we we then went to like, well, what do the patients love?
- 3:16SPEAKER_01: And the new patients love the$49 cleaning.
- 3:19SPEAKER_01: And we're like, well, what can we get the team to ask to the all the new patients you're already getting and existing patients you're already getting?
- 3:27SPEAKER_01: And what can we give them to encourage the team to ask?
- 3:32SPEAKER_01: And what can they give to the patients to give to the referration and keep it all legal?
- 3:37SPEAKER_01: By the way, if you're feeling overwhelmed from all the content that Dr.
- 3:41SPEAKER_01: Blake and I put out, don't feel bad.
- 3:43SPEAKER_01: It's overwhelming.
- 3:44SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's hard to know where to start.
- 3:45SPEAKER_01: What we did is we took a 47-page growth playbook for you, all the top resources from all the shows, and we broke them down in order so that way you can go through them one by one and you can actually make an action plan for your practice to grow.
- 3:59SPEAKER_01: So we included it right down below.
- 4:01SPEAKER_01: You can give us it's all we need is your email.
- 4:03SPEAKER_01: We'll email it to you.
- 4:04SPEAKER_01: And there's no strings attached, doesn't cost anything, absolutely free.
- 4:08SPEAKER_01: And you'll get an email with the 47 steps, and that will help you compartmentalize all the different information that we've been giving you and give you step by step.
- 4:17SPEAKER_01: And what can they give to the patients to give to the referration and keep it all legal?
- 4:23SPEAKER_01: All right, you ready to trigger everybody listening?
- 4:28SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is your this is actually your idea.
- 4:30SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it doesn't bother me at all, but I want you to get the glory.
- 4:36SPEAKER_01: But but this absolutely triggers people is ruining dentistry.
- 4:40SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is gonna ruin dentistry for everybody.
- 4:44SPEAKER_01: Um and and totally just send us back to the stone ages.
- 4:49SPEAKER_01: So so all these patients already come in, they already love you.
- 4:53SPEAKER_01: If we can get them to tell their friends and family, those will be like your best new patients ever.
- 4:58SPEAKER_01: And so what your team's gonna do, you're gonna set a bonus for your team, and you're gonna tell them, hey, if we hit this many patient referrals, you guys are all gonna get X amount of dollars.
- 5:06SPEAKER_01: You haven't you're nailing that down, and something that will encourage them.
- 5:09SPEAKER_00: It's probably gonna be around 80.
- 5:11SPEAKER_00: Our our highest month, our highest uh referral month was around 50.
- 5:16SPEAKER_00: I think we've hovered around 32, 43, like 40 feels like a good number to base off of.
- 5:23SPEAKER_00: And if we can double it in a month, then they all get a bonus.
- 5:26SPEAKER_01: Okay, they all get a bonus, and it's gonna be substantial.
- 5:28SPEAKER_01: Like you, you're still working on that, but it's not gonna be like you all get$12 and a happy mail.
- 5:32SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a substantial bonus one time, so that's fine, because now we're teaching them how to climb the ladder, right?
- 5:39SPEAKER_01: This isn't an ongoing thing.
- 5:41SPEAKER_01: And then from there, the scripting, here's the scripting that everybody you're gonna want, everybody, is you are going the uh to have your team ask, hey, how was your visit today, Mr.
- 5:51SPEAKER_01: Patient?
- 5:52SPEAKER_01: Or it was great.
- 5:53SPEAKER_01: You guys are awesome, great.
- 5:55SPEAKER_01: Well, we love patients like you.
- 5:57SPEAKER_01: So between now and the end of the year, I want to give this to you.
- 6:01SPEAKER_01: Dr.
- 6:01SPEAKER_01: Blake's doing this, it's one dollar cleanings for for your family and friends.
- 6:06SPEAKER_01: Anybody who hasn't been here before, you can give it out as you please.
- 6:09SPEAKER_01: And I already know some of the patients, some of the moms and stuff are gonna be like, oh, can I get like three or four of these?
- 6:16SPEAKER_01: And it's the scripting's gonna be we're not supposed to like just give them out like candy like this, but I'm gonna do it for you this one time.
- 6:23SPEAKER_01: Um, give them what they need.
- 6:25SPEAKER_01: And then we should, I bet you, you'll get to 80 patient referrals really, really fast.
- 6:32SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the thing that most people, everybody's gonna freak out, and it's like one dollar cleanings, they're not gonna value it.
- 6:38SPEAKER_01: The thing about patient referrals are they kick the butt of all other new patients.
- 6:44SPEAKER_01: Basically, every two to three marketing patients is worth about one patient referral, right?
- 6:50SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I will tell you all of this has been born out of necessity, and so I think everybody will hear this and be like, where did you come up with this idea?
- 6:57SPEAKER_00: Why are you doing this?
- 6:59SPEAKER_00: And um I think we, I mean, do you mind if I share what we tried in September?
- 7:05SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, try it.
- 7:06SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good.
- 7:07SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 7:08SPEAKER_00: So, so we I told Gary at the beginning at middle of August, I said, Hey, we're gonna go gangbusters in September.
- 7:15SPEAKER_00: I said, let's double the budget.
- 7:17SPEAKER_00: And we tried it and we broke everything.
- 7:19SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it fell apart.
- 7:21SPEAKER_00: And so we were like, we quickly identified it, we moved back and we fixed it all.
- 7:26SPEAKER_00: But I I we got on the call today and I said, Gary, like if there's two things I'm focused on right now, it's hiring, so getting good talent, and it's getting lead gen and rev gen.
- 7:37SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we get more more people through the door and how do we produce more money on them?
- 7:42SPEAKER_01: We're trying to get to 300.
- 7:43SPEAKER_01: Like we're trying to push up to 300.
- 7:45SPEAKER_01: So, how do we get to 300 new patients?
- 7:47SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, spending more money right now isn't the the answer.
- 7:51SPEAKER_00: We just tried that, and that didn't work.
- 7:53SPEAKER_00: So, what do we do instead?
- 7:54SPEAKER_00: And so we got to kicking this around, and I and I love the idea because it's it's incentivizing the team to do something that really we kind of all expect our team to do that, but we all know none of them do it.
- 8:07SPEAKER_00: And it's the old motto of like what you focus on gets gets improved.
- 8:12SPEAKER_00: And if I'm being honest with you, that's not something we've been focused on.
- 8:15SPEAKER_00: We've been focused on a lot of other things than patient referrals.
- 8:19SPEAKER_00: And the idea of getting people in through the door to where we can utilize that reciprocity that you know Chris Phelps and Chaldini talks about of like when when they can come in and we can say, Hey, here's a one dollar cleaning, and hey, I'm not supposed to give you this many, but here's two more to give more of your friends, and then you and then you say, Oh, and by the way, you're gonna get a request later on tonight.
- 8:44SPEAKER_00: Would you mind leaving us a Google review?
- 8:45SPEAKER_01: That would mean oh, they're gonna be like, This place is the best.
- 8:48SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, we can get we can double down on so many things from this, and I'm excited to see what happens.
- 8:54SPEAKER_00: It may not work, but that's what I love about marketing.
- 8:56SPEAKER_00: Like I've learned that with working with it.
- 8:59SPEAKER_01: It's basically free, it's basically free, right?
- 9:01SPEAKER_01: Like it doesn't the other thing is is that a lot of people I've seen online, people are like, oh, if you do this, then it always equals bad.
- 9:08SPEAKER_01: And it's like, show me it's never tied to data.
- 9:10SPEAKER_01: So I want to give you some numbers, Doctor, but like I haven't shared these with you yet.
- 9:13SPEAKER_01: Your patient referrals on their first visit reappoint at 81% and they spend close to$600 on the first visit.
- 9:24SPEAKER_01: Your digital new patients reappoint on average at 71% and spend just over$300.
- 9:33SPEAKER_01: So these patient referrals are gonna come in and buy more double the double the value.
- 9:37SPEAKER_01: And all you're doing is you're just not getting the$49.
- 9:40SPEAKER_01: So you're paying$49 for double the value that higher trust, right?
- 9:44SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
- 9:46SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
- 9:47SPEAKER_00: It's just moving the I wish I wish more dentists would think this way because they they wouldn't have the problems that they have.
- 9:55SPEAKER_00: And so many of like so many of us don't understand is our business supply constrained or demand constrained, right?
- 10:03SPEAKER_00: And when you understand that and you can solve the one problem that you have, there's not a whole lot of problems uh in most dental practices that are very complex.
- 10:13SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of them you can solve with a system and a protocol and stuff like that.
- 10:17SPEAKER_00: When as you grow, your your problems change and you start having to deal with people, and that that is very different.
- 10:26SPEAKER_00: But when you're when you're a zero dollar practice to a three million dollar practice, you can solve a lot of these problems by just focusing on the one or two problems that your whole business operates on.
- 10:39SPEAKER_00: Do we have enough people walking through the doors?
- 10:41SPEAKER_00: No, how do we solve it?
- 10:42SPEAKER_00: Let's try this, let's try this.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and not enough dentists are willing to take the temporary risk, try it for two weeks, see what happens.
- 10:50SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just do it for a month, yeah.
- 10:52SPEAKER_01: And then and then and you can always undo it.
- 10:53SPEAKER_01: And the other thing is that I think by the reason that a lot of dentists have the preconceived notion that you can't do this or you can't do that because it it won't work, which is not true because there's a bunch of people doing it and it works.
- 11:04SPEAKER_01: I always think of Valow, right?
- 11:06SPEAKER_01: He's doing like the opposite of what everybody else says, and for sure.
- 11:09SPEAKER_01: He's able to grow practices really quick.
- 11:11SPEAKER_01: You're doing you've had a$700,000 a month as a GP practice running a$49 cleaning.
- 11:16SPEAKER_01: Well, they're cheap patients.
- 11:17SPEAKER_01: Someone's buying treatment, like some almost to a million dollars like of treatment in a month.
- 11:23SPEAKER_01: So it is working, but the problem is we have these preconceived notions because of the way that we did things in the past.
- 11:31SPEAKER_01: So, like I see people online and I did X, Y, I did an$89 exam and X ray, and it didn't work.
- 11:38SPEAKER_01: Everybody, they weren't the right kind of patients.
- 11:40SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, first of all, it's an exam and x-ray.
- 11:42SPEAKER_01: So you're getting emergencies.
- 11:44SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna script that totally different.
- 11:47SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you did a cleaning and did does your team know how to handle those?
- 11:51SPEAKER_01: Uh did they handle the insurance objection correctly?
- 11:55SPEAKER_01: Did they, did you, do you know how to present treatment to these people?
- 11:58SPEAKER_01: Like it's different than if you're just a lot of these uh practices, they were uh all insurance driven.
- 12:04SPEAKER_01: And if you're insurance driven, it's just like, hey, you got this treatment, it's covered by your insurance, and everybody says yes, and there's no friction.
- 12:10SPEAKER_01: But then all of a sudden now you're like, oh, three, four thousand dollars.
- 12:13SPEAKER_01: There's friction there.
- 12:16SPEAKER_01: And it's like, well, it doesn't work.
- 12:17SPEAKER_01: They didn't want the treatment, they're cheap.
- 12:19SPEAKER_01: And I'll I'll look at numbers, I'll look at somebody's numbers, and I'm like, whoa, 40 patients came in and nobody wanted treatment, and they all came in to a cleaning or they all came in for an emergency, and none of them wanted treatment.
- 12:34SPEAKER_01: That tells me it's something that you're process.
- 12:37SPEAKER_01: It's a process, it's something that you're saying, you're scaring them away.
- 12:40SPEAKER_01: And so we build these preconceived notions, but it's because we don't understand basic processes.
- 12:47SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 12:47SPEAKER_00: And creating a sample size big enough.
- 12:49SPEAKER_00: I I did a coaching call last week, and I talked to the individual, and he was like, Yeah, I tried that$49 thing, and we had nine patients come in and it just didn't work very well.
- 13:00SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Hold on, say that again.
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: You had nine patients and then you aborted aborted mission, like that's not a big enough sample size.
- 13:08SPEAKER_00: Let's let's try a little bit more.
- 13:10SPEAKER_00: I was like, nine patients for us, like just don't even show up.
- 13:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like that's that's not a big enough.
- 13:18SPEAKER_01: That's the first hour of the first day, right?
- 13:20SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 13:20SPEAKER_00: And so I think creating a big enough sample size to say, hey, this actually works or it doesn't work is another thing that we're just impatient.
- 13:27SPEAKER_00: We're too impatient.
- 13:28SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, for so like for your guys' office, the way you guys are set up, emergency patients don't work well for you guys.
- 13:34SPEAKER_01: We've tried every we were like, let's start because you were like, How can I expand this?
- 13:38SPEAKER_01: Let's do nights, let's do mornings, let's do uh weekends.
- 13:42SPEAKER_01: And we're like, well, let's first let's test it while we're open so we don't have to you know create a whole nother business first.
- 13:48SPEAKER_01: And it just they didn't, it doesn't work like for your office, the way you guys are set up, the way everybody's trained, the emergency patients just don't flow through the office.
- 13:57SPEAKER_01: Hygiene for you guys, you're able to build rapport, you're able to build trust, the patient feels good, and it it works really well for you guys.
- 14:05SPEAKER_01: So just those kind of little nuances um are huge.
- 14:10SPEAKER_01: And I a lot of people don't they're just like, Well, I don't have room in hygiene, so I can't do that.
- 14:15SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and a lot of that can be solved.
- 14:17SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, blocking blocking your schedule for new patients, you know, realizing the value of an operatory.
- 14:24SPEAKER_00: I know we've talked about that before, but there's a lot of small practices that are giving up a lot of of real estate to God love them, hygienists that they their chair can only be worth so much.
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: Like the best hygienist maybe may be only only able to produce thirty thousand dollars a month.
- 14:44SPEAKER_00: Well, if you just had a doctor in that chair and they did a crown and a filling every day, you do like sixty, seventy, eighty thousand out of that chair.
- 14:54SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's why are we wasting chairs on yeah, yeah.
- 14:57SPEAKER_01: And this isn't a knock on hygienist either.
- 14:59SPEAKER_01: I just don't think people understand like there's a reason that a quarterback gets paid more than the kicker.
- 15:04SPEAKER_01: Now, if you have a bad kicker, it will you can lose a lot of games and it can really mess you up.
- 15:09SPEAKER_01: So you need a good kicker.
- 15:11SPEAKER_01: It's not a matter of not having a good kicker, it's just you can't pay your kicker like uh Tom Brady money um or or uh Patrick Mahomes money because you just the there's not that much money to spread around.
- 15:24SPEAKER_01: So you can't, there's only so much you can pay a kicker for for the job that they do.
- 15:28SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't mean they're not important.
- 15:30SPEAKER_01: And that's the hygiene's super important.
- 15:32SPEAKER_01: It's great for retention, it's great for new patient generation.
- 15:36SPEAKER_01: Um, but you can't, it's not infinite, you can't pay infinite money there because the business model falls apart.
- 15:42SPEAKER_01: Um, so I want to get you on the record.
- 15:46SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you about, and I really wanted to do it today, but this was a fun subject.
- 15:51SPEAKER_01: I wanted to talk to you about you buying your charts um and what happened with that.
- 15:55SPEAKER_01: Because I think you absolutely crush that.
- 15:58SPEAKER_01: We did a whole podcast on like the process, but now we have the results after a year of that.
- 16:05SPEAKER_01: So, next episode, we'll we'll do that for everybody.
- 16:08SPEAKER_01: And um, down below, if you haven't checked out our mastermind, there's a link down below for that and our sponsor cherry.
- 16:14SPEAKER_01: They absolutely crush literally if you want to close more treatment, you have to have cherry.
- 16:18SPEAKER_01: So, anything else you want to uh cover, Dr.
- 16:20SPEAKER_01: Bike?
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: I would just say uh a little plug for our mastermind.
- 16:24SPEAKER_00: I had so much fun on our last phone call, and it's just been so cool uh to see the people in that group are just growing.
- 16:32SPEAKER_00: And it's not because of us, it's because of them.
- 16:34SPEAKER_00: They are going and they are doing the hard work.
- 16:37SPEAKER_00: We are just helping them step over landlines that they were gonna they were gonna step on.
- 16:41SPEAKER_00: And uh I I got giddy last our last phone call just hearing these stories of how these these practice owners have totally changed their philosophy.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Literally, one of them was like, I will never hire an associate, and they've got one and they probably are getting ready for another.
- 17:00SPEAKER_00: And just to see the mindset shift change was so so fun.
- 17:04SPEAKER_00: And so um, I don't know of another group that is offering coaching at such a low price, and it may not stay that forever.
- 17:14SPEAKER_00: And so come and get get the value, and if you want to leave, leave.
- 17:18SPEAKER_00: But what I I what I think you'll find is we've got a really cool community that is starting to build, and we're bouncing ideas off each other and we're growing together, and uh it's it's just a lot of fun.
- 17:28SPEAKER_01: It's really cool.
- 17:29SPEAKER_01: It is a lot of fun, and also where our group's at now, it's pretty cool because you were getting off a plane and people were, you know, things were coming and going, and the whole group stepped up and started helping each other and saying, No, no, no, no, we already did that, we already tried that, it didn't work.
- 17:43SPEAKER_01: Try it this way, and I was like, I texted you, I was like, this is really, really cool.
- 17:48SPEAKER_01: Like the group starting to coach each other on things that they've already done that work versus didn't work.
- 17:54SPEAKER_01: So it's it we're in a really cool spot now, and it is getting a lot of fun uh watching people double their practice over three months.
- 18:01SPEAKER_01: That's that's amazing.
- 18:03SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
- 18:04SPEAKER_01: All right, my friend, good episode today.
- 18:06SPEAKER_01: Look forward to next week and talking about the charts.
- 18:08SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
- 18:09SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
- 18:10SPEAKER_01: Peace.