Latest / Hey Docs! / Building Trust in a Digital Age: Tips for Orthodontists with Gal Borenstein
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Welcome to the Haydocks Podcast with your host Jill Allen.
- 0:09Speaker 1: Today I am joined by Gall Bornstein, founder of the
- 0:12Speaker 1: Bornstein Group and author Don't Believe the Hype. Gall works
- 0:16Speaker 1: with healthcare organizations to help them build their brand and
- 0:19Speaker 1: patient trust in an increasingly digital world where patient perception
- 0:24Speaker 1: often begins long before the first appointment. In today's environment,
- 0:28Speaker 1: a practice's online presence can either reinforce confidence or quietly
- 0:33Speaker 1: undermine it. In this episode, we're talking about what digital
- 0:36Speaker 1: trust really means, how it's evolving, and what orthodonic practices
- 0:40Speaker 1: can do to strengthen it. So let's get started, and
- 0:44Speaker 1: now a word from the sponsors who make this podcast possible.
- 0:50Speaker 1: When a cleaner workflow for orthodonic cases meet Clarity Solutions
- 0:54Speaker 1: from Sulventum formerly three M Healthcare, The Clarity Portal puts
- 0:59Speaker 1: a lot digital bonding and retainers and a single streamline platform,
- 1:05Speaker 1: one workflow, fewer handoffs, and more control for planning through retention.
- 1:10Speaker 2: Simplify your next case.
- 1:12Speaker 1: Reach out to your local Solventum sales rep today or
- 1:15Speaker 1: visit us at go.
- 1:17Speaker 2: Dot Solventum dot com.
- 1:19Speaker 1: Forward slash Clarity again that is go dot so o
- 1:24Speaker 1: l V e N t U N dot com forward
- 1:28Speaker 1: slash clarity to learn more. Hey docs, If your new
- 1:36Speaker 1: patient follow up depends on someone remembering its leaking revenue,
- 1:41Speaker 1: Grayfinch automates new patient follow up. Texts and emails go
- 1:45Speaker 1: out automatically, and your treatment coordinator just checks their tasks
- 1:49Speaker 1: list to see what needs a quick call or a
- 1:52Speaker 1: more personalized message. That is one of the many reasons
- 1:56Speaker 1: I recommend everyone take a look at Grayfinch.
- 1:59Speaker 2: It isn't just a follow up tool.
- 2:01Speaker 1: It's a complete practice management software built to help you
- 2:04Speaker 1: grow and scale, stop leaking revenue, and get five hundred
- 2:08Speaker 1: dollars off your startup fee with the Jill allenspecial at
- 2:12Speaker 1: Grayfinch dot com, forward slash Jill Allen gl I am
- 2:21Speaker 1: so excited to have you on Haydocks. Thanks for being
- 2:24Speaker 1: here today, Thanks for having me so for us to
- 2:27Speaker 1: get started here in Haydocks. One of the things that
- 2:30Speaker 1: I really like to do when I have new guests
- 2:32Speaker 1: on is to have them just share a little bit
- 2:34Speaker 1: about themselves, a little bit about their background, and I
- 2:37Speaker 1: really want to know what led you into what you
- 2:41Speaker 1: are doing now, and especially what we're going to be
- 2:43Speaker 1: talking about today.
- 2:45Speaker 3: Sure, I've founded and ran I'm still running and advertising,
- 2:49Speaker 3: branding and public correlations agency. And every year in the
- 2:54Speaker 3: past thirty years, when you build a brand, you have
- 2:58Speaker 3: to think about what would make get trustworthy as well
- 3:03Speaker 3: as what people think about advertising, which is, you know,
- 3:06Speaker 3: how do you kind of make it stand out and
- 3:09Speaker 3: get differentiated? And along those lines, trust has changed dramatically
- 3:15Speaker 3: in terms of its value and how you monetize it
- 3:18Speaker 3: in your industry and in any kind of sector where
- 3:23Speaker 3: you're trying to really do something that is extraordinary, which
- 3:27Speaker 3: is what advertising and branding is about. Like Jeff Bezos
- 3:31Speaker 3: says that I quote really often about what is branding?
- 3:34Speaker 3: He said, it's what people say about you when you're
- 3:37Speaker 3: not in a room. So if you think about that
- 3:40Speaker 3: as a kind of a form of what doctors and
- 3:44Speaker 3: physicians and orthodontists have to deal with is it's about
- 3:49Speaker 3: what people say about you when you're not in a room.
- 3:51Speaker 3: And what I learned over the past thirty years and
- 3:55Speaker 3: doing it now, the trust has changed, and where changed
- 3:59Speaker 3: dramatically is in the form of social proof and in
- 4:04Speaker 3: the source of where do you decide, where do you
- 4:08Speaker 3: go and how do you keep your patience for that matter,
- 4:12Speaker 3: which could be applied to also the business community in general.
- 4:16Speaker 3: Simply put, before COVID, people had an opportunity to really
- 4:20Speaker 3: meet their counterpart and really kind of have a conversation.
- 4:25Speaker 3: There's a smile when you go into the office, there's
- 4:28Speaker 3: hopefully a smiling reception. They have your documents ready, and
- 4:33Speaker 3: for example, they don't give you like six pages to
- 4:36Speaker 3: fill out. It already in the system. Right for me,
- 4:41Speaker 3: that's all the annoying stuff that makes me kind of
- 4:44Speaker 3: not go back to someone. But what changed dramatically is
- 4:48Speaker 3: that that kind of customer experience that we all kind
- 4:51Speaker 3: of try to live in has changed dramatically when COVID happened.
- 4:57Speaker 3: And suddenly there was a period of time where you
- 5:00Speaker 3: wouldn't go to an orthodontist or a dentist or any
- 5:03Speaker 3: alley profession and when you decided to pick one, it
- 5:08Speaker 3: suddenly was picking a new dentist because some dentists were close.
- 5:13Speaker 3: So where did you go in that environment And the
- 5:16Speaker 3: answer was people went online. And that's kind of where
- 5:21Speaker 3: I saw the change in multiple industries where digital trust
- 5:26Speaker 3: has become more important than what you actually do in
- 5:30Speaker 3: the office. Once you put somebody in the chair. It's
- 5:33Speaker 3: not the same anymore. And I see multiple companies in
- 5:38Speaker 3: multiple industries where they really have not organized themselves to
- 5:43Speaker 3: that new digital world that is driven now also by AI,
- 5:49Speaker 3: by competitors that are doing things that are shady. And
- 5:54Speaker 3: if you think about reviews, if you think about fake reviews,
- 5:58Speaker 3: if you think about what do you show on your
- 6:00Speaker 3: upside and what's the new customer experience that you need
- 6:03Speaker 3: to design or redesign, that's really how you monitorze trust today.
- 6:08Speaker 3: And those who don't are going to go out of
- 6:10Speaker 3: business or get acquired by somebody smarter than actually does
- 6:15Speaker 3: that for a living.
- 6:16Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 6:17Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think you're so right on track with this,
- 6:19Speaker 1: and definitely as I helped practices navigate their way through
- 6:24Speaker 1: COVID and even the last six years of just the
- 6:28Speaker 1: change that we've seen in how patients interact in and
- 6:31Speaker 1: with our practices I've been doing in our industry over
- 6:34Speaker 1: thirty years now.
- 6:36Speaker 2: And it is crazy.
- 6:37Speaker 1: I mean I can remember the day where we were
- 6:40Speaker 1: interacting with our patients through that first line of trust.
- 6:43Speaker 1: Was how big was our ad in the Yellow Pages
- 6:46Speaker 1: or were we able to get out and have a
- 6:49Speaker 1: mailer that got into their mailbox, or a dentist that
- 6:53Speaker 1: referred a patient over to our orthodonic practice and that
- 6:56Speaker 1: solid handoff of professional to professional. Now, as you and
- 7:01Speaker 1: I both know when practices are looking at that social
- 7:05Speaker 1: proofing and what does that mean to me in my practice?
- 7:08Speaker 1: We've got all of these different avenues from our Google
- 7:12Speaker 1: business page and the review platform that comes along with that,
- 7:16Speaker 1: to our websites and how well they're built and nowadays
- 7:21Speaker 1: the new hot, shiny new penny is you know, is
- 7:23Speaker 1: it AI optimized and all of these different things that
- 7:27Speaker 1: I think for doctors it's hard to keep up with,
- 7:31Speaker 1: but for consumers, this is their first impression and they
- 7:36Speaker 1: are putting a lot of and I love what you
- 7:38Speaker 1: said trust in our digital footprint, in our digital presence,
- 7:44Speaker 1: And so I'm wondering if you can I know, you
- 7:47Speaker 1: kind of gave us a high level on that intro,
- 7:49Speaker 1: which was great, but if you can talk to us
- 7:51Speaker 1: a little bit about what you see as the importance
- 7:55Speaker 1: of really what does digital trust mean for practice and
- 8:00Speaker 1: what should they be paying attention to when they're looking
- 8:04Speaker 1: at I mean, I know none of us know the future.
- 8:06Speaker 1: We don't none of us have this crystal ball but
- 8:08Speaker 1: the impact that it's going to play even in the
- 8:11Speaker 1: next five years on shoring that up and I love
- 8:15Speaker 1: what you said, or you're going to get left behind
- 8:17Speaker 1: is really I think what it's going to come down to.
- 8:19Speaker 3: Yeah, just as a kind of ear moment is I
- 8:23Speaker 3: always talk to people about how marketing and dentistry actually
- 8:28Speaker 3: relate to each other. And the metaphor you used was,
- 8:32Speaker 3: I don't care if you're happy or sad. You have
- 8:35Speaker 3: to go to the dentist or to Dunas twice a year, right,
- 8:38Speaker 3: which is the model of in marketing, which is if
- 8:41Speaker 3: your business is down, you need marketing. If you are growing,
- 8:46Speaker 3: you need marketing. But putting that aside, what people need
- 8:50Speaker 3: to kind of reimagine and reimagine what the customer experiences
- 8:55Speaker 3: and now call it the prospect experience. With your existing patients,
- 9:00Speaker 3: you probably develop what you call a human centric relationship
- 9:05Speaker 3: where you know something about them and you were able
- 9:09Speaker 3: to kind of create some rapport and it's really don't
- 9:12Speaker 3: screw it up more than it is making it better
- 9:16Speaker 3: with existing patients. It's very different when you go out
- 9:22Speaker 3: to the wild West, if you will, which is Google
- 9:26Speaker 3: and now every AI engine where all the SEO is
- 9:31Speaker 3: being integrated, and it really started with the fact that
- 9:35Speaker 3: people are looking at Google reviews and other review sites
- 9:39Speaker 3: to get a sense whether this is a real choice,
- 9:43Speaker 3: whether it's a trusted choice, whether other people make choices
- 9:48Speaker 3: that are against what it says. And typically there's a
- 9:51Speaker 3: disgruntled person that puts something on Yelp where some people
- 9:55Speaker 3: believe it and some people say, well, there's always a
- 9:58Speaker 3: clown or a crazy person in the craft.
- 10:01Speaker 4: Right, there's always one.
- 10:04Speaker 3: At least one at least one. But what I found,
- 10:08Speaker 3: especially in the past two years as I was researching
- 10:10Speaker 3: for my vote, Don't Believe to Hide, was that businesses
- 10:15Speaker 3: don't pay attention to the fact that we have a
- 10:18Speaker 3: narrative on the inside, which is kind of what we're
- 10:21Speaker 3: good at, what we're offering, and then we created differentiation,
- 10:25Speaker 3: but we don't own the narrative anymore. Chances are that
- 10:30Speaker 3: the decision heder to go to your office or not
- 10:34Speaker 3: is going to be dependent on what they saw as
- 10:38Speaker 3: social proof points about your business. And think about it
- 10:44Speaker 3: starting by reading reviews and then going through the process
- 10:49Speaker 3: of going to the website, and just from personal experience
- 10:54Speaker 3: having some offices where you're trying to schedule an appointment,
- 10:58Speaker 3: and then in the kind of monetization of trust in
- 11:02Speaker 3: the mind of the proprietors, you get the opposite, which
- 11:06Speaker 3: is in stead of an appointment, and then you get
- 11:09Speaker 3: six confirmations in six different ways phone calls, emails, text
- 11:15Speaker 3: two hours before and other text, which I'm sure is
- 11:19Speaker 3: a business practice to make sure that you're kind of
- 11:22Speaker 3: setting up your professional time accordingly. But if you basically
- 11:28Speaker 3: get a person to be annoyed, you're not going to
- 11:31Speaker 3: get them at the door. And even if you set
- 11:34Speaker 3: up the appointment, you're already coming in an attitude that
- 11:38Speaker 3: is human centric, because we all have emotions. Another example
- 11:43Speaker 3: is visiting a website of somebody who has a picture
- 11:47Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty seven and expecting a gen z to
- 11:52Speaker 3: look at it and say, well, that might be I
- 11:54Speaker 3: dentist that I want to visit. These are all kind
- 11:57Speaker 3: of visual cues. But what happens is now we're in
- 12:01Speaker 3: a world where all these decisions are being made without
- 12:05Speaker 3: us controlling the narratives. The narrative is being controlled by
- 12:09Speaker 3: social media. And in that world, I can tell you
- 12:13Speaker 3: that there's so much fraud that you need to pay
- 12:15Speaker 3: attention to and do social listening. If you're a professional
- 12:20Speaker 3: and you're trying to kind of grow your practice. For example,
- 12:25Speaker 3: people are being told physicians and doctors and partitioners are
- 12:31Speaker 3: being told that it's great to have a lot of
- 12:33Speaker 3: reviews on Google. But when you create reviews by giving
- 12:37Speaker 3: them a card, for example, and scan the q rcub
- 12:41Speaker 3: and suddenly a practice that should be a family practice
- 12:45Speaker 3: that thees maybe hundreds of people, has fifteen hundred stars
- 12:50Speaker 3: and all five stars and achieves the opposite. You look
- 12:54Speaker 3: at it and you say, I'm not sure that the
- 12:57Speaker 3: Google reviews even real. That takes away from the authenticity
- 13:02Speaker 3: that you're trying to create with your audience. So the
- 13:06Speaker 3: answer to I need to get as many Google reviews
- 13:09Speaker 3: as I can in order to grow my practice, that's
- 13:12Speaker 3: not the answer. The answer is we're looking for quality,
- 13:16Speaker 3: not quantity.
- 13:18Speaker 4: Yes.
- 13:18Speaker 3: And then conversely, when you see bad reviews about your practice,
- 13:24Speaker 3: you need to be on top of the game and
- 13:26Speaker 3: make sure that you have a way to really communicate
- 13:30Speaker 3: with your audience and do respond and say today was
- 13:35Speaker 3: a bad day or whatever the situation was, we're understaffed,
- 13:40Speaker 3: and we apologize for it. Be authentic and respond to
- 13:45Speaker 3: reviews that are true. Obviously. The next part of it
- 13:50Speaker 3: is it's a wild West out there, and in the
- 13:53Speaker 3: wild West, you would think that everybody follows ethics, but
- 13:58Speaker 3: some don't because they want to go the practice a
- 14:00Speaker 3: lot faster. So if you just go on Google reviews
- 14:05Speaker 3: and you see something kind of odd or a period
- 14:08Speaker 3: where all your reviews are negative one after the other,
- 14:13Speaker 3: don't be surprised if it's a company that was hired
- 14:16Speaker 3: as social media review generation to basically bash your practice
- 14:21Speaker 3: so that the competition gets a leg up, if you will,
- 14:25Speaker 3: in that prioritization of who's first and who second. I
- 14:28Speaker 3: know you're shaking your head, and I'm sure all of
- 14:31Speaker 3: us are shaking our hands internally, but this is a
- 14:34Speaker 3: real thing. And now a lot of these companies are
- 14:38Speaker 3: actually offshore in the Philippines in India, and they're given
- 14:43Speaker 3: quotas of how well and how many of those reviews
- 14:47Speaker 3: got accepted on trust pilot on other sides, like kiel
- 14:52Speaker 3: and you would think that social media has a way
- 14:54Speaker 3: to regulate it, and it doesn't number one, the original regulation,
- 14:58Speaker 3: just the way Facebook doesn't have a regul relation for
- 15:00Speaker 3: free speech. And you see some really uh, you know,
- 15:04Speaker 3: bad things that shouldn't be seen, whether you're kids or
- 15:08Speaker 3: your family or for that matter, just radicalize you to
- 15:11Speaker 3: a point where it makes no sense. And what we
- 15:15Speaker 3: see is that competition exists, and you kind of sometimes
- 15:21Speaker 3: story ahead and say, you know, what can I do?
- 15:23Speaker 3: There's a lot of negative reviews. The answer to that
- 15:26Speaker 3: is to come up with original ways of telling your
- 15:29Speaker 3: story and your narrative, and then make sure that there
- 15:32Speaker 3: is continuity of what you'res telling about yourself on Google
- 15:37Speaker 3: and search engines that are not connected to AI enabled
- 15:42Speaker 3: questions and answers, which is really the model. Think about
- 15:45Speaker 3: Google's I always call Google my librarian, you know, I'll
- 15:49Speaker 3: ask a question and it brings a book to me,
- 15:52Speaker 3: and sometimes the layer's book is number one, which is great.
- 15:56Speaker 3: But now Google has an AI agent and it based
- 16:00Speaker 3: on questions and answers. How long do I wait when
- 16:04Speaker 3: I go to this dentist, for example, you have an
- 16:07Speaker 3: opportunity to build a script and to build a narrative
- 16:11Speaker 3: whereby the information really is focused on how you want
- 16:15Speaker 3: to tell your story. Going back to authenticity, what is
- 16:19Speaker 3: our purpose in our practice? Very often people copy somebody
- 16:25Speaker 3: else's practice points and use the same exact values, whether
- 16:30Speaker 3: it's innovation, you know, thinking about the next generation of
- 16:34Speaker 3: technology that we use. And there's nothing wrong with that fundamentally,
- 16:38Speaker 3: because that's how you make a living. You provide premium
- 16:42Speaker 3: services and that costs more to provide it and then
- 16:46Speaker 3: for patients to have it. But if you're not able
- 16:48Speaker 3: to have an origin story, something that really kind of
- 16:52Speaker 3: focuses on where you come from as a person and
- 16:56Speaker 3: kind of integrate that into a story, chances are that
- 16:59Speaker 3: you're be looking at the perception of being a franchise.
- 17:04Speaker 3: A franchise is one of the best trends in terms
- 17:07Speaker 3: of business in the practice industry, but at the same time,
- 17:11Speaker 3: in a world where you have so many franchises and
- 17:15Speaker 3: so many dentist operations that have twenty locations. Your instinct,
- 17:21Speaker 3: if you're a person that is really reviewing a new relationship,
- 17:26Speaker 3: think about it as dating. Well, you swipe left or
- 17:30Speaker 3: you spike right. Okay, whatever you see in that snapshot,
- 17:35Speaker 3: that's the two seconds that it takes to spipe left
- 17:38Speaker 3: the stripe raight. So you have to romance your new patients.
- 17:43Speaker 3: You have to get to a point where there is
- 17:45Speaker 3: a date and after the date, you either had a
- 17:49Speaker 3: bad experience or a good experience, and think about it
- 17:51Speaker 3: as the first dinner that you go out. And if
- 17:55Speaker 3: you don't really kind of think about it that way,
- 17:57Speaker 3: and you think about we need to kind of fill
- 18:00Speaker 3: cavities today or whatever we need to do, that's not
- 18:04Speaker 3: going away. And that's the kind of what you call
- 18:07Speaker 3: the healing part of the brand. But now the brand
- 18:11Speaker 3: has to operate outside your office and all these digital
- 18:15Speaker 3: signs that I talked about and many others, especially with
- 18:19Speaker 3: AI coming on board, this is how you differentiate yourself.
- 18:23Speaker 3: This is how you make sure that you're listening constantly
- 18:28Speaker 3: and providing social proof in multiple ways to your audience.
- 18:33Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
- 18:35Speaker 1: And now a word from the sponsors who make this
- 18:38Speaker 1: podcast possible. Are you thinking about opening an orthodonic practice.
- 18:45Speaker 1: I know it's a big decision, but saving twenty five
- 18:48Speaker 1: percent on the ADEC equipment you need to get started,
- 18:52Speaker 1: that's an easy one because Adeck has a special program
- 18:56Speaker 1: called smart Start designed to help you launch.
- 18:59Speaker 2: Your first practice.
- 19:00Speaker 1: You get up to twenty five percent off your Adeck
- 19:03Speaker 1: orthodonic equipment and furniture. You also get complimentary services to
- 19:08Speaker 1: help you run and grow your business and My favorite
- 19:11Speaker 1: part access to the smart Start pricing for two whole
- 19:15Speaker 1: years after you open your doors. That gives you flexibility
- 19:19Speaker 1: to add more chairs as your cash flow grows.
- 19:23Speaker 2: It's pretty smart.
- 19:24Speaker 1: As an orthodonist, you care about getting all the little
- 19:27Speaker 1: details right, and Adck really got it right with this program.
- 19:31Speaker 1: So starting off with the big savings on Adeck equipment
- 19:35Speaker 1: sounds good to you. The AdEx Smart Start is definitely
- 19:39Speaker 1: worth a closer look. Just follow the link in the
- 19:42Speaker 1: show notes to learn more. Those are really good reminders
- 19:50Speaker 1: in regard to just what we need to be thinking about.
- 19:53Speaker 1: And again, you know, when we're thinking about what does
- 19:55Speaker 1: the future hold and how is our marketing going to change? Gosh,
- 19:59Speaker 1: I feel like just always there's something new we have
- 20:02Speaker 1: to think about. You know, first it was get the reviews,
- 20:05Speaker 1: and then it was okay, now we've got to remember
- 20:07Speaker 1: to respond to the reviews, and now we've got to
- 20:10Speaker 1: make sure that they're authentic and all of that is true,
- 20:14Speaker 1: and people can take things to extremes like you said, yes,
- 20:17Speaker 1: of course. I mean I even as a consumer if
- 20:20Speaker 1: I look at you know, if I'm looking to go
- 20:22Speaker 1: somewhere and I'm like, that's really odd. They don't have
- 20:24Speaker 1: a single even four star review, or all of these
- 20:29Speaker 1: reviews seem to have come in within a certain small
- 20:32Speaker 1: segment of time or whatnot. It does, it does make you,
- 20:35Speaker 1: as a consumer go hm, I don't know, there's just
- 20:39Speaker 1: like a tick on the I don't know where my
- 20:41Speaker 1: trust is at with this doctor or as you said, docs,
- 20:45Speaker 1: I just want you to hear this. It is so
- 20:46Speaker 1: important that we remember that our websites are not one
- 20:50Speaker 1: and done. We have got to stay up on does
- 20:54Speaker 1: our websites and our pictures and the verbiage that we're
- 20:58Speaker 1: using meet the times that we're at right now?
- 21:00Speaker 2: And I don't know.
- 21:02Speaker 1: What you think all, but you know I'm usually telling
- 21:04Speaker 1: my doctor you need to be evaluating your website at
- 21:06Speaker 1: least every three years and saying, okay, do I have
- 21:09Speaker 1: updated pictures? Is my content AI optimized? You know, because
- 21:14Speaker 1: the way we wrote websites ten years ago is not
- 21:16Speaker 1: the way we write websites now, and so we have
- 21:19Speaker 1: to be constantly vigilant as far as what it means
- 21:24Speaker 1: for us. And I always joke my listeners know this.
- 21:26Speaker 1: I call this the un sexy side of doing business
- 21:29Speaker 1: like as business owners, this is the hard work that
- 21:32Speaker 1: we have to do to keep up with what it
- 21:35Speaker 1: takes to grow our business. On the backside, that doesn't
- 21:39Speaker 1: have anything to do with our employees. It has all
- 21:41Speaker 1: to do with the story that we want to tell
- 21:44Speaker 1: and the relationship that we want to have on that
- 21:47Speaker 1: first date when we've got digital natives that are out
- 21:51Speaker 1: there looking at us and saying, is it worth me
- 21:54Speaker 1: picking up the phone and making a phone call, or
- 21:56Speaker 1: getting on the widget and scheduling an appointment or reaching
- 21:59Speaker 1: out however I'm going to make contact.
- 22:03Speaker 3: In fact, one of the visuals that I want everybody
- 22:06Speaker 3: to think about, whether you're at the age of having
- 22:09Speaker 3: kids or the kids are millennials and they're already in
- 22:13Speaker 3: the workplace. There's a whole generational shift in communications. Think
- 22:19Speaker 3: about anybody in Gen X I am, where there was
- 22:23Speaker 3: no way to really create a relationship without having a
- 22:28Speaker 3: conversation on the phone, at least before you met someone,
- 22:31Speaker 3: or you met somebody and then you created a relationship.
- 22:35Speaker 3: We have a whole new generation, especially as we moved
- 22:39Speaker 3: to the latest gen Z, that never actually made a
- 22:43Speaker 3: phone call, and they don't think that leaving a voicemail
- 22:47Speaker 3: is a thing at all. They actually communicate via text,
- 22:50Speaker 3: and they want everything to be in text, and one
- 22:54Speaker 3: can say, well, that's crazy. You know, how do I
- 22:56Speaker 3: want to practice where I have to respond to texts?
- 23:00Speaker 3: That's really how they believe they get the information in
- 23:04Speaker 3: a way that kind of makes sense. So imagine that
- 23:07Speaker 3: you have a website and my recommendation, which is really
- 23:11Speaker 3: kind of a best practice. Now you mentioned the three year,
- 23:15Speaker 3: I would say it should be a year and a
- 23:17Speaker 3: half just because things are changing that quickly, even if
- 23:21Speaker 3: you don't remodel, if you will or kind of reinvent everything,
- 23:25Speaker 3: you should have short videos on your site and then
- 23:29Speaker 3: put them on your social media as well. But then
- 23:32Speaker 3: also relate to the fact that the new kind of
- 23:35Speaker 3: buyers or the new generation of consumers and patients is
- 23:39Speaker 3: looking at the video that is five to fifteen to
- 23:43Speaker 3: twenty seconds, and you lose the attention spend at that time.
- 23:47Speaker 3: So it's not even the traditional corporate video where you're
- 23:50Speaker 3: kind of introducing your staff. Nobody cares. And I'm not
- 23:55Speaker 3: saying it is to be facetious or to discount the
- 23:59Speaker 3: fact that we're all smart and every generation smart than
- 24:03Speaker 3: the PREVI generation. However, if you're looking to kind of
- 24:08Speaker 3: grow your practice, and you don't recognize that and then
- 24:12Speaker 3: parlay that into the reception area, parlay that to cured
- 24:17Speaker 3: six to eight more forms that you have to fill,
- 24:21Speaker 3: even though you put that information on a forum on
- 24:24Speaker 3: the website and you provided all that stuff, and a
- 24:28Speaker 3: practice can check if you have your insurance in place automatically,
- 24:33Speaker 3: and yes, you may have to sign some financial responsibility
- 24:36Speaker 3: form and standard forms in your practice. But if you
- 24:39Speaker 3: don't reduce that paperwork and your audience is less than thirty,
- 24:45Speaker 3: chances are that you're not only ruining the trust that
- 24:49Speaker 3: maybe was created when you visited your website, it's basically
- 24:53Speaker 3: ruining the whole customer experience, and they have a resentment
- 24:58Speaker 3: while they're literally walking down the whole And then if
- 25:01Speaker 3: people don't smile because they're running around, that reinforces it.
- 25:06Speaker 3: And then the next thing you know, you're sitting at
- 25:08Speaker 3: a chair as a patient and you're basically not sure
- 25:13Speaker 3: what's going to happen next, and you have anxiety if
- 25:17Speaker 3: it has a drill sound, And even then you have
- 25:21Speaker 3: an opportunity to kind of create an experience that is
- 25:24Speaker 3: better than what the other guys are doing. Are you
- 25:28Speaker 3: visiting other practices are you learning what are their most
- 25:32Speaker 3: successful elements. You can ask patients as you just signed up,
- 25:37Speaker 3: where you come from, what was your last dental practice
- 25:40Speaker 3: or the honest that you've seen that can give you
- 25:44Speaker 3: a lot of intelligence that is not confidential. Essentially, they'll
- 25:48Speaker 3: volunteer it. Yeah, and we used to call it market research.
- 25:52Speaker 3: Think about it as keeping kind of a pulse on
- 25:57Speaker 3: what is going on outside. And if patient that just
- 26:01Speaker 3: signed up come to your office has a good experience
- 26:04Speaker 3: and you ask, you know, why did you switch from
- 26:07Speaker 3: the other practice? And one way or the other is
- 26:11Speaker 3: going to come back to the fundamentals of trust, which
- 26:14Speaker 3: is you have to earn it, you have to create
- 26:18Speaker 3: an environment where people are willing to accept it, and
- 26:22Speaker 3: you've got to live every world online, which is called
- 26:27Speaker 3: digital footprint. So the folks are digital natives. I don't
- 26:31Speaker 3: have to explain that as much because you're already using
- 26:34Speaker 3: your smartphone to do everything via text. But for the
- 26:39Speaker 3: rest of us, which are the majority of the population
- 26:42Speaker 3: still that might actually have the most premium services needed.
- 26:47Speaker 3: If you don't ask those questions, you're not going to
- 26:49Speaker 3: get them. And I don't recommend doing it via structured
- 26:53Speaker 3: forms handing a piece of paper to somebody asking you know,
- 26:57Speaker 3: why did you switch? It should be more like a
- 27:00Speaker 3: conversation that maybe your receptions can have that could result
- 27:04Speaker 3: in creating a relationship that doesn't exist.
- 27:08Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, that's great. And I think all the
- 27:11Speaker 1: things you were just talking about are these little things
- 27:15Speaker 1: that we may not even think about. That a road
- 27:17Speaker 1: that trust that patients have. And I love the way
- 27:21Speaker 1: you said it where it's just this little tick of things.
- 27:25Speaker 1: You know, it may not even be completely conscious that
- 27:28Speaker 1: we're making that as a consumer, but just those little
- 27:32Speaker 1: things like oh gosh, I just filled out all this
- 27:34Speaker 1: paperwork and I walked in the door and they're handing
- 27:37Speaker 1: me a bundle, more like why did I just waste
- 27:39Speaker 1: my time filling that out already?
- 27:42Speaker 4: That creates some friction.
- 27:44Speaker 1: I think your examples are really good, and I feel
- 27:46Speaker 1: like for all of us and listeners, as you guys
- 27:49Speaker 1: are listening to this, really be thinking about what are
- 27:53Speaker 1: you doing in your practices that maybe are outdated, maybe
- 27:59Speaker 1: are not keeping up with the trends and the motion
- 28:03Speaker 1: and the momentum that the way patients are now interacting
- 28:08Speaker 1: with us. And I just feel like that's such a
- 28:10Speaker 1: trap that we get into. We've done it this way,
- 28:13Speaker 1: so therefore we will continue to do it this way.
- 28:16Speaker 1: And I see when I'm helping you guys, that I'm
- 28:19Speaker 1: working with you in practices that can be One of
- 28:21Speaker 1: the biggest reasons that we stall out on growth is
- 28:25Speaker 1: because we get stuck in this old way of thinking.
- 28:28Speaker 1: A patient only wants to communicate with me through a phone.
- 28:31Speaker 1: The patient won't really fill out that paperworker. It's too
- 28:34Speaker 1: hard to transfer the digital form into my systems, so
- 28:38Speaker 1: I might as well just have them fill it out
- 28:39Speaker 1: when they get here, or you know whatever.
- 28:41Speaker 4: I've heard them all. I've heard all of the excuses.
- 28:44Speaker 3: I could just add one more thing that I'm talking
- 28:47Speaker 3: about things that I've experienced personally that made me want
- 28:50Speaker 3: to switch and applying kind of the trust framework in
- 28:55Speaker 3: my book, I don't believe the high when trust is
- 28:57Speaker 3: on the line. It really is even a little thing
- 29:00Speaker 3: like getting an estimate for services needed where no one
- 29:05Speaker 3: explains to you why you need it, or they basically
- 29:09Speaker 3: said you need this and that, but they don't necessarily
- 29:14Speaker 3: explain it to you as what does it mean for
- 29:16Speaker 3: the next longevity that you're looking for in terms of
- 29:19Speaker 3: your health and you just see a bunch of numbers.
- 29:24Speaker 3: And as we know that most partitioners are dealing with
- 29:28Speaker 3: insurance companies, so we all understand that there are barriers
- 29:32Speaker 3: to being more friendly than we need to be. But
- 29:36Speaker 3: having something that says estimate and then says this is
- 29:40Speaker 3: your deductible and this is it instead of having a
- 29:44Speaker 3: small conversation that could be had by an assistant not
- 29:49Speaker 3: necessarily the dentist, which portiothodontist. That time is valuable. Every
- 29:53Speaker 3: minute that you're sitting is profit and every minute that
- 29:57Speaker 3: you're doing something else is not. You need to reconsider
- 30:00Speaker 3: that and think about it as what if you try
- 30:05Speaker 3: to have a brand that shines and you are in business,
- 30:10Speaker 3: any business, one of the first things that you have
- 30:12Speaker 3: to do is buy or rent real estate, right and
- 30:17Speaker 3: typically if you go to an accountant, they'll tell you
- 30:19Speaker 3: that real estate, whether it's like a you know, a storefront,
- 30:23Speaker 3: whatever it is that you're leasing, renting, buying, you'll find
- 30:28Speaker 3: that an accountant will tell you, or your taxi turney
- 30:30Speaker 3: will tell you it's about seven percent of your own
- 30:33Speaker 3: role growth. And if you spend seven percent, that's the
- 30:37Speaker 3: right number. But real estate is not just a place
- 30:42Speaker 3: where your practice real estate is your brand.
- 30:46Speaker 4: Yep.
- 30:47Speaker 3: So if you're trying to say we're high end or
- 30:51Speaker 3: more responsive practice and you don't really use the real
- 30:56Speaker 3: estate as advertising, you'll spend more on advertising, and you
- 31:01Speaker 3: spend more on proving that you exist versus differentiating yourself
- 31:06Speaker 3: and taking advantage that you have a most incredible presentation
- 31:12Speaker 3: when people come in an inclusive video, touch screens, anything
- 31:16Speaker 3: that you can do to really kind of maybe overcome
- 31:20Speaker 3: some barriers that you have. No one is perfect, No
- 31:23Speaker 3: one is expected to know everything, especially with the digital footprint.
- 31:28Speaker 3: Hire people that are from this generation and they'll tell
- 31:32Speaker 3: you in a second what you should or you shouldn't
- 31:34Speaker 3: put on Instagram. But on the other hand, don't put
- 31:38Speaker 3: stuff on Instagram that hasn't been vetted, yes, and hasn't
- 31:42Speaker 3: been proven, And don't put personal things that are not
- 31:48Speaker 3: really relatable or ruined the trust that people have with
- 31:51Speaker 3: you and building a relationship.
- 31:54Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's great.
- 31:56Speaker 1: So for my docs out there who want to be
- 31:58Speaker 1: more proactive, what are some I mean, you've been giving
- 32:02Speaker 1: us a lot of really good advice this whole episode,
- 32:05Speaker 1: but what are some practical actions or things that doctors
- 32:10Speaker 1: can do right now maybe too if they're like, eh,
- 32:14Speaker 1: you know, he made a good point. He's identified some
- 32:16Speaker 1: things that you know, maybe I've got some deficiencies in
- 32:19Speaker 1: my trust online presence, whatever that may be.
- 32:22Speaker 4: What are some suggestions you have for us?
- 32:25Speaker 3: The first and easiest thing to do, whether you're from
- 32:29Speaker 3: a business background or not, is to switch the idea
- 32:34Speaker 3: of a marketing plan for your practice to having two
- 32:39Speaker 3: parts inside and outside. The inside is where you scrutinize
- 32:46Speaker 3: your customer experience or your patient experience once they got
- 32:50Speaker 3: engaged with you in the sense that they signed a
- 32:53Speaker 3: form and there's an appointment, and what goes on in
- 32:56Speaker 3: the fifteen minutes or the thirty minutes or the sixty
- 32:59Speaker 3: minutes of waiting in the service that you provided, and
- 33:03Speaker 3: then what is their opinion before you go out the door?
- 33:07Speaker 3: So because they're not going to remember a day later
- 33:10Speaker 3: or two days later unless it was very painful, right,
- 33:13Speaker 3: so think about it is what is the customer experience indoors?
- 33:18Speaker 3: Then think about the same framework and ask what do
- 33:23Speaker 3: people do on the outside, what other practices are doing
- 33:28Speaker 3: now with social proof, with digital footprint, you don't exist
- 33:31Speaker 3: if you don't have the dual footprint number one and
- 33:34Speaker 3: number two. Check what other people are doing well, check
- 33:38Speaker 3: what people are not doing well, and then apply the
- 33:42Speaker 3: latest kind of marketing innovation techniques, such as making sure
- 33:47Speaker 3: that your SEO is connected to Google AI or Perplexity
- 33:52Speaker 3: or any of the other places. Make sure that the
- 33:56Speaker 3: Google reviews are authentic. It said, Okay, if somebody wrote
- 34:01Speaker 3: two line review, it's okay to contact them and say
- 34:04Speaker 3: thank you so much for doing this. Can you talk
- 34:07Speaker 3: about your experience when you're sitting at that chair and
- 34:11Speaker 3: ready for treatment and you're very anxious, for example, it's
- 34:15Speaker 3: okay to have that dialogue with people that volunteered to
- 34:18Speaker 3: do a good But if you think about it as
- 34:21Speaker 3: inside first and then outside, what you're doing is you're
- 34:24Speaker 3: integrating two worlds that unfortunately are very disconnected from each
- 34:29Speaker 3: other and create that impersonal brand that, instead of monetizing
- 34:36Speaker 3: the trust that you're building, is actually creating like a
- 34:41Speaker 3: brick and an erosion. That that's the twenty percent growth
- 34:45Speaker 3: that you needed to have this yere, you can do
- 34:48Speaker 3: the same exact thing that you're doing with little tweaks.
- 34:51Speaker 3: That's another twenty percent growth without spending a lot of
- 34:54Speaker 3: money on it. So I'm not advocating that you need
- 34:59Speaker 3: to basically what you're doing. If you're a practice that
- 35:03Speaker 3: is known and has a good reputation, you have something
- 35:06Speaker 3: to build upon. If you have a bad reputation, start
- 35:10Speaker 3: by looking at why do I have a bad reputation
- 35:13Speaker 3: and assuming that it's not kind of a personnelity issue,
- 35:16Speaker 3: create best practices that other successful practices have, and don't
- 35:22Speaker 3: think that you're stealing something from them. Because in digual world,
- 35:27Speaker 3: you can google any office and see how they organize
- 35:30Speaker 3: their furniture. Yep, you can see what people are saying
- 35:33Speaker 3: about how many forces they have to fill? How do
- 35:35Speaker 3: you get feedback? How many times should you text, in
- 35:39Speaker 3: my case to annoy me confirmations before it becomes really
- 35:43Speaker 3: kind of I don't have time for this, and I
- 35:46Speaker 3: already texted yes, yes, yes, yes, and that's of an
- 35:51Speaker 3: experience killer.
- 35:52Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
- 35:54Speaker 1: Well this has been such great information, and I know
- 35:57Speaker 1: you and I could just continue to talk, but all
- 36:00Speaker 1: things must come to an end, and so I would
- 36:02Speaker 1: love it if somebody wants to learn more about you,
- 36:06Speaker 1: more about the book, they want to connect with you,
- 36:08Speaker 1: what's going to be the best way that they can
- 36:10Speaker 1: do that well.
- 36:12Speaker 3: There are two books that I wrote in the past
- 36:14Speaker 3: two years. The first one is called Don't Believe the
- 36:17Speaker 3: Hype When Trust Is on the Line, which is a
- 36:19Speaker 3: guide to thinking about the thing that you don't see,
- 36:22Speaker 3: like the social media and social proof, and how the
- 36:26Speaker 3: narrative is shifted and you don't control it, so you
- 36:29Speaker 3: need to be aware of it and create an ecosystem
- 36:32Speaker 3: of trust. And you can find the book on Amazon.
- 36:36Speaker 3: And the second book on Amazon that I released very
- 36:39Speaker 3: recently is an actual small business guide for small business
- 36:44Speaker 3: owners that it's called Beating Goliath with AI. AI has
- 36:49Speaker 3: a lot of opportunity for you, as the David of
- 36:53Speaker 3: the world, to beat relife with digital slid shots and
- 36:57Speaker 3: it's more of a practical guide. And you can again
- 37:02Speaker 3: check my name, born sign or the name of the
- 37:04Speaker 3: book and you can get it home and Kindle. You
- 37:07Speaker 3: can get it in whatever format that you decide. If
- 37:10Speaker 3: you wish to connect with me and get some insights,
- 37:14Speaker 3: you can go on LinkedIn and connect with me. And
- 37:18Speaker 3: for the people that are listening to your show, I'll
- 37:21Speaker 3: make the commitment to respond within two hours to the request,
- 37:25Speaker 3: because that is what is needed in any service industry.
- 37:30Speaker 3: And maybe just reinforcement of something that you knew already,
- 37:34Speaker 3: maybe something that needs a second opinion or telling what
- 37:39Speaker 3: you're doing wrong from a perspective. And then obviously you
- 37:43Speaker 3: need to work with your marketing gets solved, you need
- 37:45Speaker 3: to work with your expert advisor that typically any product
- 37:49Speaker 3: should have, so LinkedIn is the best way to connect
- 37:52Speaker 3: with me. Go born Sign and then you can also
- 37:56Speaker 3: visit a website at Bornstein Group dot com.
- 37:59Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
- 38:01Speaker 1: And now a word from the sponsors who make this
- 38:03Speaker 1: podcast possible. Haydocs, let's talk about smile Sweet because it's
- 38:10Speaker 1: not just another scheduling system. It's a game changer in
- 38:13Speaker 1: the world of new patient management. And as a proud
- 38:16Speaker 1: smile Sweet partner, I've witnessed the incredible impact it has
- 38:20Speaker 1: on practices of all sizes. Smile Sweet means your new
- 38:24Speaker 1: patient calls and web leads are expertly handled seven days
- 38:27Speaker 1: a week, even during nights and weekends, and they offer
- 38:31Speaker 1: top notch customizable presentation software and seamless post consultation follow up.
- 38:37Speaker 1: It's like having a secret weapon for your practice's success.
- 38:40Speaker 1: Curious dive into the revolution at getsmilesweet dot com and
- 38:45Speaker 1: don't forget to mention Haydocks to unlock some extra goodies.
- 38:49Speaker 1: Elevate your practice with smile sweet, because every smile deserves
- 38:54Speaker 1: a suite of excellence. Well, thank you for this wonderful information.
- 39:00Speaker 1: This is exactly what we need to be hearing and
- 39:02Speaker 1: thinking about in our orthodonic practices. And I know that
- 39:06Speaker 1: a lot of my listeners just got a lot of
- 39:08Speaker 1: good pearls that they're going to be thinking about, so
- 39:10Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll be reaching out to you. So the
- 39:13Speaker 1: one thing that I like to do when we finish
- 39:15Speaker 1: up Haydocks is I always like to do a little
- 39:17Speaker 1: speed round. So are you ready for the speed round challenge? Ye?
- 39:22Speaker 1: All right, here we go. What is one business trend
- 39:26Speaker 1: do you think more people should be paying attention to?
- 39:29Speaker 3: Yeah, making sure that you're not implementing AI in the
- 39:33Speaker 3: wrong places. AI is a great industrial revolution tool that
- 39:38Speaker 3: increases productivity and billing, but it does not replace the
- 39:42Speaker 3: human framework that you need to work at. You have
- 39:45Speaker 3: to treat people as people, and a lot of companies
- 39:50Speaker 3: lost that site or overspend it on the part that
- 39:55Speaker 3: has no heart and doesn't have human judgment.
- 39:58Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, that's a good one. All right, what is
- 40:01Speaker 1: the most unexpected lesson you've learned in your career so far?
- 40:06Speaker 3: The most unexpected was that smart people actually take criticism
- 40:12Speaker 3: and constructive criticism and actually act upon them. And most
- 40:17Speaker 3: people listen to the advice and it goes from one
- 40:19Speaker 3: air comes up from the other side of the head.
- 40:23Speaker 3: And criticism is a good thing if you listen and
- 40:27Speaker 3: learn how to kind of apply it to the business
- 40:31Speaker 3: problem that you're happening, and hug and buy lunch or
- 40:35Speaker 3: dinner to the person who actually tells you what's wrong
- 40:38Speaker 3: with your practice. Yeah, not the other way around.
- 40:41Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 40:42Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't want to talk to you because you
- 40:44Speaker 3: gave me some bad things that result of me feeling bad.
- 40:48Speaker 3: It never works. Yeah. You can get the wisdom from
- 40:52Speaker 3: knowing what you don't know and what you're doing well
- 40:56Speaker 3: and what you're not doing.
- 40:57Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great.
- 40:58Speaker 3: All right.
- 40:59Speaker 2: One final question.
- 41:00Speaker 1: If you could give your younger self one piece of
- 41:03Speaker 1: career advice, what would that be?
- 41:06Speaker 3: And long the line? Know what is just to described
- 41:08Speaker 3: in my previous ansor it is don't surround yourself with
- 41:12Speaker 3: negative people. Negative people always going to ruin your outlook
- 41:18Speaker 3: and your ability to have optimism and when you lose
- 41:20Speaker 3: optimism and belief in yourself, you are not in terms
- 41:25Speaker 3: of business. So, over thirty years of being in business
- 41:29Speaker 3: as a business owner myself and serving CEOs, founders business owners,
- 41:36Speaker 3: the ones that are successful are surrounding themselves with not
- 41:39Speaker 3: yes men or guess women. It's really about having your
- 41:44Speaker 3: culture of communication where you can tell the truth and
- 41:48Speaker 3: be positive. The people that tell you it can't be
- 41:51Speaker 3: done with no kind of knowledge behind it, get rid
- 41:55Speaker 3: of them it because they're going to kill your spirit
- 41:57Speaker 3: and your practice.
- 41:58Speaker 4: Yeah, oh that's great.
- 42:00Speaker 1: Well, it has been such a pleasure having you on
- 42:02Speaker 1: Haydocks today and thank you for all the great information.
- 42:06Speaker 1: This was wonderful and we look forward to speaking with
- 42:08Speaker 1: you again.
- 42:09Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for having me.
- 42:12Speaker 1: Are you ready to start a practice of your own?
- 42:15Speaker 1: Need a new fresh set of eyes or some advice
- 42:17Speaker 1: on your existing practice? If so, reach out to me
- 42:21Speaker 1: Jill Allen at www dot practice results dot com. If
- 42:26Speaker 1: you like what we're doing here on Haydocks and want
- 42:28Speaker 1: to hear more of this awesome content, be sure and
- 42:31Speaker 1: give us a five star rating on your preferred listening
- 42:34Speaker 1: platform and subscribe to our show so you never miss
- 42:38Speaker 1: an episode. Remember new episodes drop every Thursday.
- 42:42Speaker 2: See you next week.