Why Dental Practices Fail

Why Dental Practices Fail

Hey, everybody. It’s Chris Pistorius again with The Dental Marketing Tip of the Day. Today, I want to talk about failure. And most of us fail every day at something, right? No matter how little or big the problem may be, we’re probably going to fail at some point during the day. And that’s okay. People fail all the time. And what I’ve been a big believer in over the 13 years of running my dental marketing agency is it’s okay to fail as long as you fail quickly because you can learn from it quickly and move on. If you fail slowly and methodically and you’re too hardheaded or stubborn to overcome that, then you’re going to have some problems and it could lead to disaster.

So what I want to talk about, though, specifically in dentistry when it comes to failure is dental practices that I’ve seen fail over the years and a consistent reasoning of why. It’s funny, I was talking to one of our clients the other day. And we had a great conversation about dental school. And he was kind of like, “I go to school for four years, get my degree.” “I go to school X number of years after that,” he was a specialist, “and not once did they ever actually talk about how to get patients to come into my clinic.” I mean, that makes sense. Educational institutions make great dentists and doctors and lawyers and whatever, but very seldom do they give you the training on how to run and scale a business.

So for me, it’s one of the biggest drawbacks from our educational system is that we need to really start educating people on how to be entrepreneurs. Because a lot of times, we get caught up in the technical side of things and making people very good at what they do, but if they ever want to go run their own business, it’s a good chance they’re going to fail. And that’s why a lot of small businesses fail, honestly. Whether you bake cakes or you’re a lawyer or you work on cars, you’re probably really good at doing that and that’s why you want to start your own business, but you forget the basics of how to run a business, how to do HR, how to do marketing, how to hire people, how to run payroll, things like that. And people overlook that and it can cause big problems.

So I think that a lot of dentists believe it’s kind of like if you build it, they will come type thing. And let me tell you, folks, that saying from that movie, or maybe it came before that movie too, A Field of Dreams, it’s just not true. Just because you build a dental practice and you put it in a great location does not mean for sure it’s going to be successful. If you build it, they may not come. So I’m just going to clue you in on that now.

The biggest problem that I’ve seen with dental practices, especially startup practices, is that they have this thinking that all these future patients are going to be in there. And the biggest problem that they really have is even getting people to know that they exist. So I think that, and I talk to clients about this sometimes too when we talk about the marketing strategy of their campaigns and waiting for people just to come to you is not a strategy. Hope is not a strategy with pretty much anything. So we try to take most of the hope out of it here.

So these tips are made to be pretty brief and quick. So I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time, but I just want you to think about that. And there’s a lot of ways that you can learn marketing. You can. Anybody can learn it. It’s something that anybody can learn, but you have to ask yourself as a dental owner or management, do you want to take the time to learn it? And it’s not, marketing isn’t one of those things that you just learn and you’re done. It’s one of those things you learn and then you got to keep up on. Because trust me, in doing this for 13 years, it seems like every day something is changing.

This week, Google Ads has changed something and our cost per acquisition for our clients has gone up. And we’re trying to figure out what’s going on in Google Ads, what they changed. That’s just a small example. So it’s not something you can just learn and then forget. I mean, very few practices are running ads in yellow pages anymore. So there’s a lot of things to learn. So you can learn it yourself, you absolutely can. If that’s something you’re interested in, you think that’s the best use of your time, awesome, do it.

Another way is to hire somebody internally. Put a job out for an internal marketing person, have them help out in the community, go to schools, go to festivals, do sponsorships, talk to referring doctors, depending on what you do, and that can be a great way to grow a practice as well. The problem with that can be is that they’re an employee. You’re going to have to pay them a little bit of money, they’re probably looking for some compensation. And you don’t always get the right person every time you hire someone. You’ve probably learned that from hiring other people within your practice. Sometimes they just don’t work out. And it’s just one more burden that you’re going to have internally trying to run a business.

And then the third option, which personally is my favorite because it’s what I do, but you can hire somebody. You can hire somebody like us that has been doing this for 13 years, working with dentists and helping dental practices grow. It’s all that we do. And we stay on top of things. We know the latest trends. We know what works and what doesn’t. And that can be a very good option for a lot of practices.

But no matter which choice you make, make one. Because right now, we’re entering into a time as of today, which is September 22, 2022, where we’ve seen our economy slide a little bit. We may be heading into a recession. It depends on who you believe. There’s a lot of pressure competition-wise from dentists, corporate dentists as well as new dentists coming into areas. So right now is the time to figure this out.

Don’t just not do anything. I get so many calls every week from dental practices that have been in business 20 years, and they say, “I’m just not getting the new patients like I used to.” And the reason is is because they have not been marketing. They’ve been relying on their current patient base to send them referrals. And that’s awesome. But there’s too many choices now, people got too many options. And so now is the time to make sure that you are doing marketing and you’re getting in front of those people.

So I hope this has helped. If you have any questions, please let me know. And if you need some help, either respond to me directly or go to my website, kickstartdental.com. You click on the free strategy session button, and you’ll be talking with me personally. Just set up a time for 15 minutes and we can chat about your practice and what might work and what might not. So anyway, hope this helps. And we’ll talk to you very soon. Thanks.

If you are interested in learning more about how we can help your practice, please be sure to schedule a free strategy session now.

How To Utilize Loom Videos To Make Your Patient Reach Out More Effective

How To Utilize Loom Videos To Make Your Patient Reach Out More Effective

Email Marketing For Dentists

Our CEO, Chris Pistorius was featured on the “The Sales Evangelist” Podcast with Donald Kelly recently. He talks with Donald about how he uses a new(er) video tool called Loom to increase email open rates.

Read The Interview Below

Donald Kelly:

Everybody wants to get in touch with a prospect, but not everyone is willing to do what they need to get in touch with a prospect. On today’s episode, we’re going to talk to you about a strategy that actually works to get in touch with the prospects, no matter who they are, that you’re trying to get in touch with right now, and this is going to really help you. Check it out.

Donald Kelly:

Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of The Sales Evangelist podcast. I’m your host, Donald C. Kelly, the sales evangelist, and I’m so excited for another great episode. I’m so excited to be here with you today. And on this episode, I have a fantastic guest. His name is Chris Pistorius. He is the owner and founder of a company called KickStart Dental Marketing. Now, I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, Donald, this guy, he works with dentists. I’m trying to work with executive. The cool thing about Chris is that not only does he run his own organization and he knows how to sell to a wide variety of people, but he’s also worked with other major corporations that sold to the executives. So the principles that he share has been helpful for him, not only selling to the market he’s focusing on right now, but also, the principles applies no matter what industry you’re in. So he’s going to share his insights with us.

Donald Kelly:

So let’s talk about Loom. So Loom is kind of like that lumpy letter, or this something that’s, it’s going to be a little bit unique here. But where do I start? Because I know I can go and send these videos and I know I’ve tried it. Let’s back up. What are some of the people get wrong when it comes to towards sending videos and outreach method?

Chris Pistorius:

I think they don’t have a process in place. I think the first thing you’ve got to do is just map out your process of what this is going to look like, right? So I use Lucid Chart for that, and it’s like a mind mapping software, and it just lets me be creative and draw what I think this process is going to look like in the beginning. First of all, let’s buy a list, right? Let’s get a list of email addresses or phone numbers, whatever it may be. And then the next step is to-

Donald Kelly:

Where do you get those lists from yourself?

Chris Pistorius:

Yeah, I get it from a few different places. My most recent is DMB, typically works the best for me, but there’s a lot of organizations out there that does it. But the list is pretty crucial, right? But I think the first step into it is map it out. Just don’t wing it and half-ass things. Map it out, have a plan. The plan will change, right? You’ll have to tweak it when you see what’s working and what’s not, but start with that initial planning session.

Donald Kelly:

So what’s a typical process look like? Say I’m reaching out to, go back to your AOL type days, and I’m reaching out to the CMO of a major company. What might a process look like if I have kicks and giggles here?

Chris Pistorius:

Yeah. So the first thing I would do would be, I always identified my dream 100. And it can be dream 50 or whatever. And everybody probably knows it, but that’s basically a list of 100 prospects that I want to go after. These are the ones that I want to do business with, right? So I don’t have a list of 1,000 or 50,000 records, right? I start with 100, right, because that’s what I can handle pretty easily. So I start there and then I come up with my method of the way I’m going to do things. So at AOL, I did it by revenue potential. And so FedExes would go out to maybe the top 25% on that list. The others, I would use more traditional channels like phone calls. This is really going to age me, but I used to send fax messages.

Donald Kelly:

Come on, bro.

Chris Pistorius:

Yeah, just blind fax messages, if I could get a good number. It’s kind of like the Mark Cuban type, beat cop marketing type stuff. You go in banging down doors and do everything you can to get that initial rapport, that initial meeting, right, and you don’t let anything stop you. It’s not about the 90 people out of 100 that say no. It’s all about the 10 people out of 100 that say yes. And I think too many people get really focused in on no, no, no, nos and they get beat down, and I get it. But you got to focus on the few that’s going to say yes.

Donald Kelly:

So go back to now this idea of Loom. We have the sequence. How many of those emails you’re sending to that one prospect have Loom videos inside of them, or have a video inside of them?

Chris Pistorius:

So we approach it two ways, okay? We have one sequence that will send just a plain text email. And by the way, I would really advise sending plain text emails versus HTML emails. Delivery rate’s better and people respond better, because they don’t see it as a commercial sales pitch. It’s just like a text-based email, right? But anyway. We’ve got two different sequences. One sends an email saying, hey, I put together this video for you about your website for ABC Dental. I’ve got some feedback for you. Do you want me to send it over to you, right? So this is what we send out the most, because then we don’t have to take 20 minutes, put together a video and hope that they respond, right? We send that out and then once they respond to that, then I shoot the video.

Chris Pistorius:

I can get it done in 15 to 20 minutes now. And then I send that to them, and then it’s more of me following up personally. And then the other one is is we actually will pre-do a video. This is top 10 stuff, right, of that dream 100. We’ll do 10 of them for those top guys. And we’ll just go ahead and send it out. And Loom allows you to see when somebody’s watched it, it’ll alert you, and who’s watched it. And so when they watch it, I will follow up with them pretty quickly after that, just to try to engage in a conversation then. So, that’s kind of how we have that set up.

Donald Kelly:

So in the Loom videos, what do you say? How long are your videos tend to be when you’re outreaching, or doing the outreach to a prospect?

Chris Pistorius:

Yeah, they’re pretty quick. It’s got to be pretty much to the point, because you’ll lose people’s interest and you’ve got to write it kind of like a news article. You got to have the bang in the front, so that they stay engaged with it, and then you can slow it down towards the end. But you got to get the most critical part of your message in the front of it. But typically, the initial videos are a couple, three minutes long. And then once they engage and I’ll do a deeper dive, that’s a little bit longer. I can get more into a proposal type video. But again, the whole point of the process is to get them actually in a strategy session. So I don’t want to give them too much, because I want to engage with them personally on a Zoom call so that we can really start to develop a rapport, versus just back and forth emails.

Donald Kelly:

Yeah. 100% on that. I love that. And then when you say short, is it 30 seconds?

Chris Pistorius:

Couple of minutes, I would say, for that initial one, yeah. And I always, with Loom, you can share your screen. If you guys aren’t using Loom out there, I’m sure you are, but if not, check it out. It’s awesome. It used to be free. I don’t know what the plans they have now, but I’m on a paid version, but it’s pretty cheap. But it allows you to share your screen. So for instance, when I do a video, I’ll be kind of small down in the corner, and then the client’s website, for instance, will be my shared screen when I’m recording, so they know it’s a very personalized message, right?

Donald Kelly:

It’s them. Yeah.

Chris Pistorius:

Yeah, absolutely. And now, another tip, pro tip, if you will, is that with Loom, you can embed a GIF image. So basically, what I’ll do is I’ll take a whiteboard, a little mini whiteboard, and I’ll write their name on it or something, for the very beginning of the video, and I’ll hit record and I’ll put that welcome, Tom, from ABC Dental, or whatever it may be. I’ll have that on the whiteboard in front of my camera, and then I’ll be waving on the other side. And so what they see in that embed when they get the email is they’ll actually see their name on a whiteboard with me waving at them, right? So you can’t get much more personalized than that. And it’ll be their website also that they’ll see. So that really helps with open rates and engagement rates.

Donald Kelly:

What am I not asking that I should ask when it comes towards videos?

Chris Pistorius:

I think that a lot of, and I fell into this trap for a while, everything has to be perfect, right? And that’s not the case. I mean, look at my background right now, right? I got lights streaming everywhere and it looks like crap. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It needs to be done. Right? So done is better.

Donald Kelly:

One more time for the people in the back.

Chris Pistorius:

Done is better than perfect, right? Because if you sit around and just try to make your studio perfect and your sound perfect, you’ll never get it done. You’ll just keep tweaking and tweaking and spending money and not sending out one proposal or one email, right? Just do it. Get in front of a laptop with whatever you have, and just start doing it. You can tweak it as you go, but just do it. And most people get caught up in the details and try to perfect everything.

Donald Kelly:

If folks want to get in touch with you to get some more of your advice and tips, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?

Chris Pistorius:

Yeah, even if you’re not a dentist, which I’m sure most people aren’t out there, but go to my website at kickstartdental.com. There’s a free strategy session button there. And it’s made for dentists, but I don’t care what industry you’re in. I don’t care what you’re doing. I’ll give you some free advice. Just click that button. I do all of the strategy sessions. Schedule a time on my calendar, and I’ll help you out as much as I can.

Donald Kelly:

That was Chris Pistorius. And if you want to go ahead and connect with Chris, you can find information about him in the show notes. Take advantage of the strategy session and be able to learn from him, and to see how this can help you as a sales rep or as a small business owner, no matter what you do, the principles he share, it is guaranteed to be able to provide some results for you. I promise you. I promise you, it all comes down to taking chances. I’m doing this, because I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. I want you to find more of your ideal customers. I want you to know what to say when you reach out to them. I want you to close more deals. But most importantly, I want you to go out each and every single day and do big things. Thanks so much for watching.

Be sure to check out more great podcasts from our home page.

KickStart Featured On The “Shock Your Potential” Podcast!

KickStart Featured On The “Shock Your Potential” Podcast!

Every dental practice regardless of its size needs good marketing in order to thrive and remain sustainable. Our CEO, Chris Pistorius was featured to speak about this topic on the Shock Your Potential Podcast.

Read The Interview Below

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to season five of the shock, your potential podcast with your host, best selling author and international speaker, Michael Sherlock. The shock your potential podcast is dedicated to entrepreneurs. Looking to up their game, increase their income and scale their businesses to new Heights shock. Your potential is a professional services company providing affordable services to small businesses, matching entrepreneurs with virtual assistance and offering specialized leadership and sales training to companies around the world. Learn more today@shockyourpotential.com and listen in now to another motivating episode that will help you to shock your potential.

Speaker 2 (00:42):

Thank you for joining us on another episode of shock your potential. I am your host, Michael Sherlock in all month long. We’re talking to some of my favorite people. Why? Because they’re authors and authors who have a message to share about something that will make a difference to you. I guarantee you, my guest today is Chris Astoria and he’s the founder of kickstart dental marketing. Now we’re not only gonna talk about dental because he also specializes in marketing for other professionals, including medical professionals, marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners, just like you. And from his more than 15 years of digital marketing experience, he has worked with countless business owners across multiple facets of marketing consulting coaching. And he is built his digital marketing agency into one of the top Mar marketing agencies in the country as listed on places that are pretty impressive, like up city SEO for growth design rush expertise of agency Vista.

Speaker 2 (01:38):

Now he doesn’t just do all this. He also shares his expertise by giving marketing seminars across the country, and he hosts his own weekly marketing podcast, which I can’t wait to talk about. But before starting his marketing agency in 2009, Chris worked, this is where he’s got his chops from and just lean into this. He worked for online marketing giants, like AOL time, Warner decks, and MapQuest, and he holds several online marketing certifications. He’s trained also by Google on how businesses can get the most out of their marketing efforts. And he’s also the author of the book we’re gonna talk about today, the ultimate guide to internet marketing for dentists. And I can’t wait to talk. I have a real big history in, uh, in medical sales. I love it. I can’t wait to talk about this. So Chris is joining us today from beautiful Denver, Colorado. Thank you for being with us.

Speaker 3 (02:30):

Hey Michael. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:32):

Yeah. I love, I, I love talking to people about marketing because I’m so terrible at it, but I guess I’m not terrible because I’ve got a podcast. We use it in certain ways, but I, I, it’s just fascinating to me how digital marketing is changing and growing and what we learn and how algorithms change and adapt is. We learn how to do things better. It’s fascinating. So I hit some of the highlights of your bio, but tell us a little bit more about you, you, your business and how it helps people to shock their marketing potential.

Speaker 3 (03:04):

Yeah. Well, you said a lot there for sure. I appreciate that. Um, when you say names like America online and map quest, that really dates me. I think so. <laugh> um, but yeah, that’s, you know, I definitely learned a lot there. I learned a lot about, you know, what to do, and I learned a lot about what not to do as well, because if you think about both America online and map quest, um, in their day, they were like the Google of, you know, of mapping and, uh, as well as search engines. And when you don’t innovate and you don’t stay ahead of competition, you can see what happens. And you’d be hard pressed to find people that even young people nowadays even know what America online was. Right. And as well as map quest, you know, you know,

Speaker 2 (03:52):

I, I have to admit when I, when I wanna know where something is, I actually pull open a, a, you know, browser page and type in map, map quest.com. And then I go from

Speaker 3 (04:02):

There. Nice.

Speaker 2 (04:03):

I’m as old as you are.

Speaker 3 (04:05):

<laugh> but you’re the one that still uses it. I get it.

Speaker 2 (04:08):

I’m the one <laugh>

Speaker 3 (04:09):

No, but back in the day, man, we were on fire with that stuff. And, uh, it was pretty cool. And, you know, just a little bit of lack of innovation leadership and taking on a little bit more than you can chew is, is the lesson learned there, but yeah, that’s, that’s where I started. And, you know, I started in, you know, just, uh, back then, it was all about, you know, banner ads is basically all we had to sell to marketing or to, to companies. And so, you know, we knew everybody, you know, it was like the internet gold rush, right, where everybody knew that the internet was gonna be this next big thing, but they didn’t really know how to effectively use it marketing wise. And so companies like America online were just coming out with products and hoping that it worked and selling a bunch of it because we’re America online.

Speaker 3 (04:52):

And, you know, so there was a lot of hair on fire stuff back there. Well, now marketing internet marketing is stabilized, but the problem with internet marketing now is that there’s so many choices, right? So, and, and what I’m talking about is specifically for local marketing and so creating such a complex marketing environment now with online, you know, business owners, not just dentist, everything that I talk about today, isn’t gonna be just about dentists. It’s really about local marketing in general, but, um, it’s caused complexity and it’s caused business owners not to have time to figure all this stuff out. And they kind of, you know, the, the go to method is just put your head in the sand and, you know, hope for the best. And that’s why I started this company, you know, is for, to try to untangle the web a little bit for local businesses and help them understand that, you know, there’s a way through this and there’s a way to really promote your local business using online marketing.

Speaker 3 (05:45):

So yeah, I started way back with those companies and learned a lot about what to do, what not to do. And then, um, I’ve created a company I’ve owned now for 13 years, um, that helps Dennis specifically, you know, untangle the web and, you know, figure out the best way to promote their practices. But yeah, live in Denver, a little suburb Southeast of Denver. I’ve got, uh, a wife, uh, two kids, one just went to college, date myself a little more. <laugh>, uh, three golden retrievers and a, uh, little Chihuahua mixed dog. So that’s, that’s all about me. <laugh>

Speaker 2 (06:16):

I love it. So what got you interested specifically in dental practices?

Speaker 3 (06:22):

I get to ask this a lot and I wish I had some cool story, like a one company and a bar fighter or something, but no, it’s when, when I first started and I left AOL, you know, I started the agency and at the time my kids were really little and, um, you know, I had a pretty good job that I just left to start this. So I started at zero. And so at first we took on anybody that would pay us, basically like, yes, we’ll be your dental expert for auto body, or for a lawyer. We had, uh, what else do we had a mechanic? We had, you know, all these different types of local businesses and it was cool cuz you know, we were helping them. But what we found out after about a year was that it’s hard when you take on a new industry that you really know nothing about to effectively market for them.

Speaker 3 (07:05):

Right. We had to learn the lingo. We had to learn who their customers were, how to market to those customers. And sometimes it just took too long and we were kind of felt like we were doing a disservice to some of our clients. So we’re like, you know what, let’s niche down. Let’s just be an expert in one particular niche and go from there and you know, no cool story. We just kind of looked at the clients we had and we had at the time, I think five dentists and they were doing great, getting good results. They paid their bills, which is always good. They’re pretty easy to work with. And we were like, let’s do this. Let’s just try dentistry. And that was, I guess, about 11, 12 years ago, maybe mm-hmm <affirmative> and here we are today.

Speaker 2 (07:43):

I think it’s really smart because it, it tell, it does tell a story. It does tell a story of, you know, especially I’m the followers. The majority of my followers on the podcast are entrepreneurs. And I remember even when I left corporate America the last time, cuz I’m kind of a serial entrepreneur <laugh> and I wanted to do speaking and training and I knew I wanted to do it on leadership in sales and everybody kept saying, pick a lane, pick a lane, just one lane. I’m like, I don’t wanna pick a lane. I wanna pick all the lanes. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Um, and that, and that can work, uh, depending on what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. But every time you get more specialized, if you find the right niche that will pay you, pay you on time, pay you what you’re looking for and that you can learn, um, even better. It’s really powerful. And I’m, you know, right now I didn’t intend to go down, uh, a niche, uh, in the chemical industry. But because of some, uh, other things that I’ve done now, I’m like getting more niched in that area. I don’t wanna stay just in there cause I love leadership and sales as a whole. But you know, as you find this and you find that you have successes with dental practices, um, to replicate that for others in other areas, it can be really, really powerful for your business, but incredibly powerful for your clients.

Speaker 3 (08:57):

Yeah. I mean, it was a decision process for us because we were like, wait a minute, why, why would we narrow down our focus and only be able to sell to, you know, this many people when we can sell to everybody. Right. And it took a little convincing and, and we kind of stutter stepped into it, but yeah, it’s great. It, it it’s really helped us and quite frankly, our clients like it, cause they like that we’re only focused in their niche. Right? Yeah. And so when we do podcasts, it’s all around them and it’s, you know, so it, it seemed to help our business at least.

Speaker 2 (09:26):

Well, and I know that we’ll first be releasing the audio version, but a few months from now we’ll release the video. And for, if anybody who’s listening to just the audio, you need to go and look at kickstart, uh, dental marketing and look at their logo because Chris, your logo is fantastic. <laugh> just checking it out behind you. It is such, yeah. I, I, I just love it. It’s like a Mo being shot off like a rocket in space. I’m assuming is what it is. That is fantastic.

Speaker 3 (09:54):

Yeah. It’s uh, yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. It’s hard to get too creative with a tooth, but that’s as good as we can do. I think <laugh>,

Speaker 2 (10:03):

I love it. It’s absolutely fantastic. So, um, you know, when thinking about, um, cuz you work with, I’m assuming dental practice is not just locally, but all over the country, but teaching them how to operate more locally. What are some of the things that you’ve learned about digital marketing to try and for businesses that really need to, uh, I, I don’t know if I, what word I want to use, but really wanna capitalize on their local marketplace.

Speaker 3 (10:29):

I think the first two things that you have to do, no matter what kind of business you are is number one, identify your new customer avatar and put it on paper. So that means who is it? Who’s your ideal customer, right? I mean, you’ll take any customer typically, but ideally who is it that you wanna walk in the door? Is it a 25 to 35 year old female with two and a half kids and a golden retriever. Okay. Let’s put it on paper and that’s who we wanna market to, or is it a 45 to 65 year old that you know, is retired. Right. And it’s okay to have more than one avatar. Right. But you’ve gotta have those. You’ve gotta have ’em on paper and you’ve gotta make sure the rest of your team knows that as well. Secondly, I would definitely, it’s an old term, I think from Dan Kennedy, he talks about us P which is unique selling proposition.

Speaker 3 (11:14):

What makes you different from your competition? Right? Um, in dentistry it’s a little harder, right? Because dentist is a dentist, isn’t it? Well, no, we’ve gotta find out what’s different about them, right? Like we have a, we signed on a client the other day that does, uh, at home appointments sometimes. Right. Oh wow. Well that’s a huge, unique identifier. Right? So whether you’re an auto mechanic or a lawyer, whatever, it may be, come up with what you do a little bit differently. What is it makes you different? And then when you have those two things, that’s when you can really get into, okay, what mediums or what advertising platforms are gonna work best for me, based on who I’m trying to attract and what makes me different from the rest of my competition.

Speaker 2 (11:55):

Yeah. And I think about, you know, as you’re talking about that, I was thinking about the first time I realized, um, a, a dental practice in my hometown was, um, advertising sedation, um, dentistry. Right. And I was like, why would you wanna be sedated to go to the dentist? And, and I was having this conversation with my oldest brother and he said, I have to make them give me gas when I’m, you know, that was back in the days of gas instead, whatever. Yeah. I think you can still get it laughing gas or whatever. He goes, because I get so nervous that it’s gonna hurt that. I need to have that sedation. And I went, holy, I never even would’ve thought of it, but it’s brilliant. And that practice did really, really well because they had a unique niche and a, and a unique avatar. Right. Which was that person who no matter what age they were, were terrified of the dentist, but knew that they needed to go.

Speaker 3 (12:46):

Yep, absolutely. It’s stuff like that for sure.

Speaker 2 (12:49):

Mm-hmm <affirmative> well, and things like too, it just because you do, um, crowns or, or, um, implants doesn’t mean that there’s only, you know, one kind of person who needs that, but you have to also know who’s, who’s the person that’s not just the 80 year old, that’s getting that done. That’s, you know, the person like me who had an abscess tooth in my forties and you know, needed to find the specialty place with that. So it’s, it’s, uh, it is important for any business to narrow down their avatar, but in dental, I can see how that’s really, uh, productive.

Speaker 3 (13:19):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (13:20):

I love it. Well, we’re gonna take a quick break. We’re gonna hear from our sponsor for the month, Chris, and we will be right back.

Speaker 4 (13:27):

Do you want to be a go-to expert? That news reporters, anchors and media producers turn to, are you a media professional looking for credible, reliable and timely guests? If you answered yes. To either of those questions then shock your media. Potential is for you. This one of a kind platform connects vetted experts with news professionals around the globe. As a part of our launch celebration, you can participate for free in our shock, your media potential virtual conference running March 28th through April 1st together with my co-host Eddie Luisi known as stage manager to the stars and also stage manager for good morning America, we have interviewed 25 media personalities and professional to ask them the questions you need to know the answers to like, how can I make myself more newsworthy? How do I best pitch a story? How do I get invited back again? And again, and much more. Some of our guests are household name with exceptional on camera careers. Others are award-winning directors, producers, camera operators, audio engineers, celebrity hair, and makeup professionals. And so much more to learn more about our platform and our conference today

Speaker 2 (14:50):

Go to shock your media potential.com. And we are back with Chris. Pastorious from kickstart dental marketing. Now I also know you’ve written a book and we, uh, highlighted it a little into the intro. And I want you to talk about your book, but I also would love to know what made you want to write the book because I’m always very motivated and interested and excited about what makes people actually sit down and put pen to paper or typing on the computer and bring things out in book form. What, what inspired you? What, what made you finally say, okay, it’s time to write a book and then tell us about it.

Speaker 3 (15:30):

Well, quite frankly, selfishly, I felt that if I wrote a book about this, that it would help make me a market expert about it. And you gotta think about, you know, we’ve already niche down, right? We’re already trying to be, um, experts in dental field for marketing. I, I felt that if I had a book that I could say, look, I wrote the book on Dell marketing that can help. Right. And you know, marketing’s a lot about trust and it’s a lot about getting people to know you like you and trust you. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think when you have a book and you have a specific niche that, you know, you are more trustworthy, cuz you’re all in, you’re dedicated to their niche. And so that’s really the reason I did it, but what’s funny is once I got into it, um, I was like, wow, I think that, you know, this is something that can, and what the book is all about is like, look, if you’re not ready to hire a marketing agency, right.

Speaker 3 (16:23):

Cause sometimes we’re not cheap, you know? Right. You’re not quite there yet. And there’s a lot of businesses out there, there in that situation, this book will get you on the path to help increase your revenues. If you just do the things in the book, you know, if you have the time, you’ve gotta dedicate time to it. But if you have the time, you can, there’s some things that you can do very low cost that will help you, um, in this case, um, you know, market your practice. And so that’s what the book’s all about. But once I got to writing it, I was like, wow, this is, you know, I think this is going to help. A lot of people that, you know, are maybe struggling and you know, just need a little push in the right direction because as you well know, Michael, I mean most small businesses fail even dental practices in the United States.

Speaker 3 (17:07):

And the number one reason why that is, is because they’re typically good at something, right. They’re good at baking cake or they’re good at, you know, they’re a good auto mechanic, but they don’t know how to run a business. And they certainly don’t know how to market a business. So even though you’re a great technician at something doesn’t mean you’re gonna have a successful business if you don’t know the other things. And so where I think this book will help fill the gap is that it’ll help people, that aren’t worried to spend money in marketing, but they need to promote their business. It’ll help them kind of fill that gap. So that was my motivation behind it kind of selfish in the beginning. But then I got to writing in, I was like, wow, this is really gonna help people. So, um, that’s, that’s really my motivation behind it.

Speaker 2 (17:47):

And it’s, uh, I find that with a lot of people, especially that our experts in an area as they write the book, I don’t know if this was the case for you. It also helps them to even understand their business a little bit better. So, you know, while you’re making other people’s businesses better by giving them access to the book, did you have any aha moments in the writing process where you’re like, oh, well that’s a different way to say that. Or that’s a more, uh, streamlined way to explain that to clients, to get them, uh, you know, interested in what they can do

Speaker 3 (18:18):

Without doubt, without a doubt because, um, I’m, I oversimplify things sometimes and I’m like, oh, I’ll write a book, no big deal. I’ll do it over a weekend. No, that’s not. Um, so just anybody that’s thinking of doing that, it’s, it’s harder than it seems, especially when you’re not so smart like me, but it, when you write a book, you have to do a lot of research is what I found. And so you look, you look, what other people do you get inspiration from things. And in that process, I learned a ton, right? <laugh> I thought I knew a lot about marketing and a lot about how to talk to people and you know, just tips and tricks. And once I really started researching, I was like, wow, I didn’t even think of that approach. Or I didn’t really think of a way to, you know, tackle that problem this way. Right? So in the whole experience of writing the book, absolutely the research phase of it was a lot of, uh, I’ve learned a lot of new things.

Speaker 2 (19:07):

So I’ve worked a lot in the medical field for a lot of my career and I’ve worked with a lot of medical, dental practices, cosmetic dentistry, those types of things, where when I was doing consulting work, I was helping them to increase their revenue sources. So find different profit centers within their practices. And to your point that you made, you know, a lot of times when there’s people that are specialists in something, they’re a mechanic, they’re a dentist, whatever that that’s where their specialty is, marketing and sales and those elements don’t NA don’t always come very naturally. So when somebody is thinking ma like, let’s say a dentist is listening to this podcast right now, and they’re thinking, you know, I’ve been thinking about something like this for a while. You know, we put the shingle up and we did all right, we’ve got some good referral sources into us. Um, but it’s really time to, you know, invest in something like this and really try and strengthen our local presence through digital marketing. What kind of questions do they throw at you in the beginning? What kind of, what kind of fears or concerns do they share with you? You know, when they’re like, well, I think maybe, but I’m not really sure what’s that beginning of the relationship, like

Speaker 3 (20:14):

Yeah. You know, it’s funny because we talked to dentists about kind of that same thing and we tell ’em that a lot of times, the reason people, people don’t go to the dentist is because of time, fear and or money. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and it’s kind of the same questions that we get when I practice engages us. They’re yeah. They’re afraid of the time commitment. They’re definitely just afraid in general. Cause it’s something new and then of course there’s the money aspect of it. Right? So we get a lot of questions around those three topic, you know, it’s, we also get a lot of clients from, um, they’re already engaged with another agency and for whatever reason, the relationship just isn’t working out. And so they come to us and when that happens, it’s, they’re already a little bit on point because they feel like they didn’t have a great experience the first time.

Speaker 3 (21:02):

And it’s kind of like, alright, what are you gonna do differently? So, you know, we have to really take our time to make sure that we answer questions like that. But usually it’s the time fear and money thing. And we’re like, all right, what do you do? How do you do it? I get a lot of look. I just wanna be a dentist. Can you just go find new patients for me? Right. Because dental school I’ve found is a really good job of, of creating awesome dentists, but they actually, they don’t go into business much at all in terms of how to run a business or their own dental practice. And it’s almost scary. So they really want that help of, of marketing and, you know, fill me up. I want to go fill teeth and new group canals and all this stuff, but I don’t necessarily know how to, how to bring in the new patients. There’s a lot of questions around that as well.

Speaker 2 (21:46):

Yeah. And that’s, uh, the same with me, medical providers of all clients who lawyers as well, you know that yeah. You know, here’s all the things you need to do to be excellent at your job to serve your clients or your customers or your patients, but not, here’s how you make us build a successful business. And it, you know, with all the physicians that I’ve worked with in, throughout my career, it’s really amazing how many of them, um, have no idea what they’re losing, just because they’re focused so much on their area of expertise and not investing in either the people, the resources or the tools or all three of those that are gonna really build them. And you know, you are saying it’s important when you’re, um, creating your avatar that not only are you writing it down and you’re understanding that, but that your entire team understands that avatar because the way they interact with your patients is good, bad, and ugly for what it does for your business. And if you don’t know how to motivate your team through that, sometimes they, you can have the best marketing and they’re turning people off. Also if they, if they aren’t really sure what, what they’re doing with them, when they walk through the door or when they call to, to say, Hey, I’m interested in, you know, maybe moving over to your practice, that team, all those pieces have to work together.

Speaker 3 (22:58):

Yeah. I tell Dennis all the time and it’s kind of like my shock and awes that you’re not you, the dentist position is not the most important position in the office. <laugh> right. Because it’s the front desk person, because you can spend a hundred thousand dollars a month in marketing. And none of it matters unless you have a really rock solid front desk person, because they’re the ones answering the phones. They’re the ones responding to emails. They’re the ones responding to text messages. So if though, if we don’t have a solid rockstar performance there, you’re not gonna have a practice nobody’s gonna be there. So you’re absolutely right. And in local business, if you’re the auto mechanic whoever’s answering that phone. Yeah. And when you get in those type of services, what we found back in the day was that a lot of phone calls didn’t even get answered because okay. You know, they didn’t have anybody there or, you know, whatever. So those are kind of the basics for sure. But yeah, you’re absolutely right.

Speaker 2 (23:46):

Yeah. Cuz nobody ever walks out of the dentist’s office and says, wow, that was the greatest filling I ever thought and left that dentist,

Speaker 3 (23:52):

Unless they’re still hopped up on the gas. I dunno.

Speaker 2 (23:55):

That’s true. And then they might <laugh> I love it. Well, Chris, we’re gonna have all of your contact information on our show notes, including the links to your book, but just in case somebody wants to look you up right now, before they look at the show notes, what’s the best way for them to find you.

Speaker 3 (24:09):

Yeah, just the website, uh, kickstart dental.com. Um, and I always offer this, even if you’re not a dentist and you have some questions for me, or if you want some help, I can help you. And just go to my website, there’s a, uh, free strategy session button there. Just fill out the form. I do all the strategy sessions myself. Won’t charge you a dime if you just have some questions and be more than happy to help out anybody.

Speaker 2 (24:34):

I love it. Well, before we go, do you have any last words of wisdom or pearls of advice for my listeners and viewers?

Speaker 3 (24:41):

Wow. There’s so much knowledge and advice in this brain of mind right now. <laugh>, you know, I think it’s, I think that people, that view podcasts like yours and people that view podcasts like mine, they always have good intentions of wanting to make their business stronger. Right. Oh yeah. But what I’ve found is that of the people that do that, there’s a pretty small percentage that actually take action on things. Mm-hmm <affirmative> right. There’s a lot of people that want the information, they get excited about it and then don’t really do anything with it, right. For a multitude of reasons. So I think my best advice is take action, do something, you know, find your passion, find something that you’re excited about and go do it. Whether it’s a new marketing idea that I might have given you go implement it’s okay. To fail, just fail fast and learn from it and move on. But take action. I think is probably what I would say.

Speaker 2 (25:35):

I agree. I love that is so true because you’re right. People will listen. Go. That was great. That was awesome. Oh, I’ll get back to that later. And then it’s just

Speaker 3 (25:42):

Lost and I’m guilty of it too. I I’ve done it as well.

Speaker 2 (25:46):

Me too. I’m not gonna admit to that at all. Oh, I just did <laugh> oh, well <laugh> Chris. Thank you so much. You have been a fabulous guest. It’s been so good having you with us today.

Speaker 3 (25:56):

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (25:57):

Thank you for joining us. On another episode of the shock, your potential podcast. Learn more about us today@shockyourpotential.com, including details on Michael’s two best selling books. Tell me more how to ask the right questions and get the most out of your employees and sales mixology. Why the most potent sales and customer experiences follow our recipe for success. And as always, don’t forget to subscribe. Great. And like today.

Be sure to check out more great podcasts from our home page.

 

 

Our CEO Interviewed On The Winners Way Podcast

Our CEO Interviewed On The Winners Way Podcast

Check out our CEO, Chris Pistorius being interviewed by Bola Alabi of the “Winners Way Podcast“. They get into some great details on creative ways to market a local dental practice.

Read The Interview Below

 

Speaker 1:        Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of the winners with podcast. This podcast is where we talk about career. We talk about money. We talk about entrepreneurship. Uh, we will just want you to win and Excel your like, and today we have a guest with us. Uh, Chris bridge tur, uh, is the founder of kickstart dental. He is a marketing expert. He’s on, <inaudible> a podcast host and [00:00:30] is a coach. So he has multiple hearts. So we are gonna be learning from Chris today, as we diving into the, uh, online, uh, marketing space. Hey Chris, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:        Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1:        Awesome. Uh, do you wanna just go ahead and introduce yourself to, to my audience so that they can yeah. Know you better?

Speaker 2:        Yeah. You did a great job already, but yeah, I <laugh>, I’ve [00:01:00] uh, owned, uh, I’ve owned, kickstart dental marketing for about 12 and a half years now. Um, we focus on marketing for dental practices. We, I started it at zero. So from scratch, basically I learned a lot along the way. Unfortunately, I learned a lot about what not to do <laugh> so I like to, uh, I like to pass that knowledge on to anybody that’s willing to listen because, um, I wish I had more of that advice when I had started, but I live in Denver, Colorado. Uh, I have a team of 13 people. Um, [00:01:30] we’re all remote. I’m just working outta my office here. Um, I’m married, I’ve got two kids. I just sent one off to college and my son is 13 years old and keeps me very busy between work and work and him. <laugh>

Speaker 1:        Fantastic. Uh, yeah, I like what you said as more to us. It is good to know what to do. It is also great to know what not to do. Yeah. So we, we are gonna be exploring all those details as we talk about [00:02:00] online digital marketing here. So, uh, why do you think it’s important, uh, to know how to market, uh, product or service? Why is that important?

Speaker 2:        Yeah. Yeah. And just let me preface this by. Yeah, I’m in, I’m in dental marketing, but a lot of what I’m talking about really applies to any type of business you have, you know, if you’re a lawyer or an autobody mechanic or whatever, it may be, it really, it does apply. But you know, the thing about marketing is [00:02:30] that, you know, it’s no longer, um, good enough to just be in business, right? There’s a lot of competition in dentistry and you know, any local business, there’s more competition now than there’s ever been. And the internet has made marketing yourself, um, more complicated, meaning back in the day, <laugh>, you know, you guys are, you’re pretty young, but if you remember the yellow pages right back in the day, you could put an ad in the yellow pages, maybe do some direct mail [00:03:00] and you, that would work for you as a local business or a small business. Well, nowadays there’s 50 different places you could market online, right. With the internet and it’s built a lot of complexity. And if you don’t really know what you’re doing and you, you don’t really understand it, you can spend a lot of money doing that and not get the results that you want. And so the reason, and the importance of marketing is because of competition and just the mediums that are available to small and medium sized businesses.

Speaker 1:        Oh, wow. [00:03:30] So when you consider, you spoke about yellow pages, uh, yeah, those ones I have gone now, I, I dunno if anyone still use those. Um, but I know about Facebook. I know about Google. Uh, Instagram is also there for people to market, uh, in your view, uh, Chris, which of this platform would give, uh, people the best return on their bulk, if they want to, you know, focus on online [00:04:00] a, uh, promotions.

Speaker 2:        Yeah, that’s a great question. I get asked it a lot and there’s no easy answer. Unfortunately, it really depends on what you do and who your target market is. So one of the first things that we do when we take on a client is identify who it is that they wanna walk through the door. Who’s their, who’s their ideal client. And then we kind of reverse engineer from there. So if it’s, you know, you want the 25 to 35 year old female with two and a half kids and a golden retriever, then we need to market [00:04:30] where we know that those people, those types of people show up, right? So Facebook can be a great audience for that, but if you want maybe an older audience, that’s 45 to 65, you know, maybe has, uh, you know, medium income, whatever it may be, then that may be more of a Google type play.

Speaker 2:        So there’s no, you know, silver bullet that says, this is what you should do. Um, I know in dentistry specifically, right now, what’s working well for us are TikTok ads, as you know, which sounds crazy. I know, [00:05:00] but what we’re seeing with TikTok advertising is that it’s doing a hockey stick right now in terms of going up and age. So we saw this with Facebook as well, when Facebook first started, it was mostly for kids and teenagers, right. And then gradually, you know, it’s gone up to an age to hold people like me using it. Well, TikTok is doing the same thing, but it’s doing it much, much more quickly. So the audience is getting much older, much quicker. So we are seeing some good results in TikTok. And I think that that strategy could [00:05:30] work for a lot of small businesses out there.

Speaker 1:        Oh, wow. I, I did not know that, uh, people advertise on TikTok. I know, uh, TikTok is seriously, uh, giving Facebook Iran for its money because, uh, maybe people are spending time on TikTok videos. I, I never knew you could, uh, advertise on TikTok. Oh, that that’s good to know. Yeah. So what’s the role of, uh, such engine [00:06:00] optimization, S E O uh, on, you know, online art.

Speaker 2:        Yeah. So SEO is a complicated beast. You know, it’s the art of, you know, getting your website to rank organically on Google, you know, not the paid section. It’s just the organic section, which is if you’re doing a local search or sometimes you see a map show up and then there’s like three or four listings there. And then underneath the map, that’s what we talk about with organic. Um, so there, it [00:06:30] used to be back in the day that you could do five or six things and probably get somebody to rank pretty highly on Google. Um, to today, it’s not that way. It’s much more complex. The Google algorithm is a set of rules that it’s over 200 different rules on what makes a website rank highly organically. Um, and they change those rules all the time. So companies like mine have to constantly be ahead of the curve and understand the algorithm and what it takes to really rank.

Speaker 2:        But what I can tell you is that [00:07:00] there are some basic things that, that you need to know about SEO. And number one is relevance. You know, Google’s looking for relevant websites compared to how somebody searches. So if I do a search for a bankruptcy attorney in Denver, Colorado, it wants to see signals from websites that say, Hey, I’m a bankruptcy attorney in Denver, Colorado. Um, so it’s, it’s a lot about the relevancy of your website and the content on your website. Is it relevant to how people search on Google? [00:07:30] Right. Right. And then secondly, I think the most important thing about SEO is trust. Google has to trust your website before it’s gonna bring it back on the first page of Google. And so you need to send it a lot of trust factors, trust factors are things like content, right? Write a content is king write a lot of good quality content.

Speaker 2:        It can’t be just like junk content that, you know, you, you can barely read. It needs to be quality content where you’re giving really good [00:08:00] advice, tips, tricks, frequently asked questions, things like that. Um, but it also, you also need to build trust in terms of how you link your website. So for instance, one of the big things that we do are, is called backlinking and people in the SEO world are nodding their head right now, but it’s basically a back link is a link from another website to your website. Right. Okay. Now it used to be, it didn’t matter the quality of the site that ranked to your website, Google saw all those back links and that it [00:08:30] was like a popularity contest. But now it’s really more about the quality of those links. You can’t just go get links from other websites and they all mean the same thing. If you can get a back link from like a very authoritative trustworthy website, like for instance, a news source mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, that counts very, very highly in Google’s eyes, cuz they can see these back links. Right. So I mean, we could spend, you know, hours just on this topic, but to me SEO’s all about trust [00:09:00] and content and you know, just being able to, um, show those signals.

Speaker 1:        Oh wow. You know, um, you said SEO is about relevance, content, writing quality content, and you said, uh, trust and right, this is about, you know, sharing useful tips, tricks, advice, uh, for people so that they’ll, once they land on your website, you know, they will stay there, read your content, engage with your content. [00:09:30] And um, you know, with that way you’ll be able to, uh, build trust and, and that’s, uh, really, really important. Thank you very much. Uh, Chris for sharing that, uh, with us. Sure. I know you help, uh, local businesses, um, you know, to get, uh, online, um, recognition or, you know, to, uh, put them online. Now I, I want to ask how can, how do you do that and [00:10:00] how can local businesses leverage social media, you know, to attract more clients?

Speaker 2:        Yeah. I, I think there’s two different versions of social media. Okay. So there’s the type of what I call organic social media, which is really, you know, people already follow your page or you get people to follow your page and you post on your page and the people that the people that follow your page have a pretty good chance of seeing what you posted, [00:10:30] what some people don’t realize is that just cuz you post on your page doesn’t mean that all the people that follow your page are always gonna see what you post because Facebook has, if they’re not paying, if people aren’t paying attention to your content, when you post and they don’t click on anything, then the chances go down that they’ll actually proactively see your contact. So the, the other reason Facebook has done this in other social media organizations is because they, they wanna make revenue.

Speaker 2:        Right. Right. [00:11:00] So it’s, it’s really a big pay to play type model now. Right? So like when you do a post as a business, you can do like on Facebook, you can do a boost, a boost where you give them a little bit of money and then they’ll, they’ll, they’ll make sure that not only your audience sees your message, but you’re anybody like your audience too. Right? So they’ll go out and actually push it out there. So when you post organically, you know, you’re only getting a fraction of your followers who actually see this stuff. So it may be a good idea [00:11:30] to, to do some posts. But, and that, that takes me to the other side of social media, which is the ad advertising part of it where you can build advertising campaigns, you can target specific demographics. Um, you can, you can target income levels where people live all kinds of stuff and then create actual ad campaigns to target those people.

Speaker 2:        Um, when we do social media marketing, we try to do a, a little bit of both. Um, my advice though is that don’t have [00:12:00] an agency like mine do a hundred percent of your organic social media. The reason for that is we can do some of the heavy lifting and we post a lot of good content, but it’s more general type content. It’s not like, you know, Hey, I’m in the office and somebody dressed up funny for Halloween. Let me take a picture and post it on Facebook. We can’t do that because we’re not there. So they, our clients still have an active role in organic social media. Uh, it’s just, we kind of, uh, pass off the torch if you little do in terms of, of posting. [00:12:30] So we help out with it. So in my opinion, those are the two ways to do social media for businesses and two similar, but very different things.

Speaker 1:        Oh, thanks. So now let’s say I have a business, uh, maybe a dental priorities or any business for that matter. And I want to, you know, start promoting my business online. And uh, I reached out to you, uh, kickstart, uh, de dental marketing. How do you [00:13:00] start or how do you engage with, uh, your clients and help them to promote their business online? How does that process work?

Speaker 2:        Yeah, the first thing we do is what we call a strategy session. So they, they that’s free of charge. That’s just kind of a get to know you, you get to know me type thing and we find out pretty quickly if we’re gonna be a good fit for them or if they’re gonna be a good fit for us. And you know, it’s sometimes it’s, it’s just not and that’s okay, but it’s better to figure that [00:13:30] out in the beginning than when you’re six months in. Right. So that’s where we start and we ask questions like, all right, you know, what services do you provide? What are your goals? What makes you different? Um, who do you want to come in the door? You know, things like that. And then we talk about budget. Do you have an allocated budget? And then, you know, once we’ve gotten through that process and we’ve done a proposal, then at that point, um, and they’ve signed off on it, they like what they see and they become a client.

Speaker 2:        And the first thing that we do is what we call a launch party. [00:14:00] And essentially what we talk about in that launch party is all right, let’s identify your new patient avatars. So that is who it is that we want to come through the door. Like we talked about earlier, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> and we, we set really clear on paper goals in terms of who we want to come in and it can be more than one avatar, but we at least gotta get that on paper. And then we also get on paper, what their unique selling proposition is. You see, I believe that every business, even if they’re in the same industry is different, right? So a dentist is different [00:14:30] than a dentist, right? There’s gotta be something unique about the business that makes them want to go there versus their competition. So we try to really work on that unique selling proposition and get that on paper as well. And then once we have that, we’ve really got the foundation and we know what to do then strategy wise with the marketing campaign. And so that’s, that’s pretty much the process from when they sign up to, to when the campaign starts.

Speaker 1:        Perfect. So, you know, I’m asking that question so that maybe any of my audience, if they want to reach [00:15:00] out to you, connect with you, uh, they need help because I, myself, I’m struggling with these, uh, uh, digital online marketing. It’s, it’s a beast in my opinion. Yeah. Right. If you don’t know it, I I’ve run several Facebook, uh, ad. Yeah. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. And I know if I know the process is gonna work, I’m struggling because I do not know. So for me, I know it’s always better to [00:15:30] have an expert that’ll, you know, hold my hands or guide me, help me so that I can figure it out. So that, that was why I has that question.

Speaker 2:        Uh, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:        The other thing that I do here is, uh, I try to give education to my audience. You know, if I have any resources or out there, I want them to be able to get their resources and use it to promote their business. And I saw that you have a book, uh, the ultimate [00:16:00] guide to internet marketing, uh, for dentist. Um, where can we get this book? That’s one, then two, can you just give us, uh, maybe the big idea of that book, you know, so that people will know, oh, this book would be useful for me or not.

Speaker 2:        Yeah. Check this out. I’ve got one. There it is.

Speaker 1:        <laugh> awesome. I see that.

Speaker 2:        Yeah. Sorry. That’s blur vision, but yeah. So it’s on amazon.com, [00:16:30] uh, for sure, but I’ll tell you, I mean, if anybody, I don’t care if you’re a dentist or not, this book actually has a lot of stuff in it. That’s, that’s applicable for any type of small business. Um, but if, if anybody wants to reach out to me directly, just go to my website@kickstartdental.com. Um, and you reach out to me, just click the free strategy session button on there. I do all of those myself, no matter what industry you’re in, and I’ll give you free advice, I’ll talk to you, answer [00:17:00] your questions as much as I can about your industry, whatever you’re in. And I’ll also send you, uh, the book for free as well, but it’s also on amazon.com. So, uh, but the, the general idea is just if, if somebody, I mean dentists historically, and I think a lot of small businesses, you know, they go into business because they’re good at something.

Speaker 2:        Right? Right. Well, a specific skill, you know, like a, an autobody guy’s good at repairing dents and working with cars, but they may not be great business people. Right. And they may not know how [00:17:30] to market themselves. And unfortunately, just because you’re good at a skill does not necessarily mean you’re gonna be successful in business. Mm-hmm <affirmative> right. Right. And so this book talks a lot about, you know, how to get your business set up to market it. And so you can get people in the door and get clients in the door. That’s bringing in revenue that which will make a successful business person. So it talks a lot about the tips and tactics around that.

Speaker 1:        Oh, cool. So, in, in your opinion, Chris, what are the, maybe top two mistakes that [00:18:00] you see people make when it comes to maybe online, uh, marketing?

Speaker 2:        I think the first mistake is they do nothing. Oh, right. <laugh> yeah. It’s serious because what happens is it’s, it’s complex, right. Like I said, it’s complicated. I mean, how do you know, do you do Google ads? Do you do Facebook ads? Do you buy a listing on some website, like on Yelp? I mean, what do you do? Right. And it’s overwhelming for business owners and I don’t blame ’em. And so what they, the, the kind of default mode is [00:18:30] I’m just gonna sit this out and keep doing what I do. And the problem with that is that your competition probably isn’t gonna do that and you’re gonna get passed up. Right. And we’re seeing that in the marketplace now of, you know, older generation dentists, who’ve been in business for 25, 30 years. They’re getting passed up by some of the younger competition now, because they’re not staying innovative and they’re not showing up high on Google and they’re not promoting themselves.

Speaker 2:        They’re just kind of relying on that old patient base. So I think that’s one of the big mistakes [00:19:00] that I see. Um, the second mistake that I see probably is, you know, just not realizing that you need to be spending five to 7% of your gross income in marketing, whether it’s digital marketing, whether it’s you go buy a billboard heaven forbid you buy a yellow page ad, whatever it may be. You need to be investing some of your money into marketing, right. If you wanna stay ahead of the curve. Right. And so it kind of correlates with doing nothing, but, you know, a lot of people ask me, [00:19:30] you know, how much should I spend? How much does this cost? And if you do marketing the right way, it’s not a cost. It’s not like the light bill, right? It’s, this should be something that’s making you money, right. Three to $5 for every dollar that you spend. So when I get asked, I don’t wanna spend a lot of money. What, what should I spend at, it’s an automatic red flag, because they’re not thinking of it the right way. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, this should be something that grows their business. It’s not, you know, like an every month bill. So I think those are probably a couple of the biggest things that, that I see that [00:20:00] are mistakes.

Speaker 1:        Good point on what you said that, um, the way people should view advertising is, uh, they return on their investment. Uh, they shouldn’t just see it as a cost. So if I spent $100, for example, how much of that am I getting back? Or what, what would I get, uh, in terms of sales in return, maybe if I’m making 200 or 300, then I know that, Hey, uh, by spending hundred, I’m getting 300, [00:20:30] then I, uh, I’m cash positive. Right. So that’s a good form of investment in my opinion. So that’s good. Um, now I, I know things has changed, especially since, uh, the pandemic. Um, I wanna ask, how has the, you know, COVID 19 changed, uh, your business and maybe your client’s businesses, uh, you know, as a result of this, uh, pandemic has, [00:21:00] what change have you seen?

Speaker 2:        Yeah, I, well, I, I tell you, it was scary because really every dental practice in the us had to shut down for, I think it was at least 30 days and some longer, depending on where they were. So it was a complete shutdown. It was, um, you know, went from good revenue to zero revenue for a lot of our clients. So it was a scary time. But what I’ve seen coming out of that is more of, um, it’s been interesting, I’ve seen more like people trying to get into tele dentistry, so like doing [00:21:30] more virtual visits, which, which is a little harder with dentistry than it is like regular medical stuff. So I’ve, we’ve tested it and we’ve had mixed results to it, but I’ve seen a push for it, right. Like, okay, if this happens again, we kind of wanna be ready for it.

Speaker 2:        Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, so there’s that. Um, but we’ve also seen more, more dentists for whatever reason come out of this, wanting to rely less on insurance. So they don’t necessarily want to take insurances anymore. They want to be fee for service [00:22:00] practices. Right. Um, because they’re able to make more money off of that and they don’t have to process paperwork and things like that. And one of the things they’re doing to offset that is they’re creating their own kind of internal insurance plan. Wow. Where it’s, where it’s like an in-house plan, if you will. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I think those are, that’s probably the biggest changes that I’ve seen, but I can tell you from the medical standpoint, things are getting a little bit back to normal. Right. But it’s still, there’s still a little like cautious optimism, I guess.

Speaker 1:        You know what, [00:22:30] in the beginning of that, uh, pandemic, I remember I had a dentist appointment, uh, maybe about two weeks into the pandemic. I had to cancel it because I just felt like <laugh>, it’s not just necessary to go out there. So I totally understand that, uh, everything shows down, uh, during that, uh, time. So now, uh, regarding local businesses, um, I know there are quite a number of them [00:23:00] out there that want to create that, uh, visibility, uh, online visibility, what tips or tricks, uh, can you share with us, um, so that we can, you know, take this step and get, uh, the business name out there.

Speaker 2:        Yeah. I think there’s a lot of tools that can help with that actually. Um, there’s a company out there called bright local, B R I G HT, L O C AO, uh, dot com. They’ve got a bunch of tools for small businesses that [00:23:30] can kind of type in your website and kind of gives you a report on what you’re doing. Well, what you’re not doing well, what your competition looks like, things like that. And I think that would be an excellent place to start. It’s kind of a basic, you know, kind of do it yourself type guide if you will. Um, we do find that clients start there and then they like, uh, you know what? I don’t wanna learn this crap. I’m just gonna have somebody professional do it for us. But if you’re a small business and you kind of wanna learn more about it and just kind of start getting your toes in the water on what’s [00:24:00] out there, I think that’s a good place to start.

Speaker 1:        Awesome. So bright, local.com. So that’s good. I’m gonna leave that in the show notes. So as we are, uh, coming to the end of this interview, uh, Chris, I wanna ask, um, maybe you can tell my audience how they can connect with you, uh, you know, follow you, maybe whether you have any social media accounts so that it can continue to [00:24:30] learn, uh, from you. I, I know you have a podcast, if you can also give us the name of your podcast, uh, that they can take a listen. Yeah,

Speaker 2:        Yeah. It’s called the dental marketing podcast. Again, don’t let the dental part of it scare you because a lot of what we talk about, you know, is, is practical for any type of business. Um, so that’s out there. Um, the best way to reach out to us, like I said earlier is probably just the website, kickstart dental.com. Um, there’s [00:25:00] a free strategy session button there. Go ahead and click it, schedule a time with me, and I’d be more than happy to give you, uh, some free advice for sure.

Speaker 1:        Awesome. And, uh, that’s it, thank you very much. Uh, Chris, uh, for your time today, uh, it’s been wonderful, you know, learning from you and sharing your experience about online digital marketing and, uh, we appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:        Thank you so much for having me.

 

 

How to Write Google My Business Posts That Drive Results

How to Write Google My Business Posts That Drive Results

Using a Google My Business (GMB) profile is one of the most effective ways to gain exposure for your dental practice and improve your SEO rankings. Google My Business is a free marketing tool for local businesses. It is a great tool to capture the attention of potential patients as they are actively using Google search and maps to find dentists. While most commonly known for giving businesses visibility on Google maps and sharing customer reviews, your Google My Business profile has more to offer.

One of the most useful features: Google My Business Posts.

Google My Business posts allow you to share information about your business, services, goods, events, and offers. Located below your knowledge panel on your GMB profile, these posts offer room for detailed information about your business and reach a broad audience.

Google My Business posts can help you rank for local search results

What is a Google My Business Post?

A Google My Business post is a type of social media update that can be published on your Google My Business profile.

Google My Business posts allow you to connect with your audience when they’re online, including the business hours you’re open, details about your events, special offers, and more.

When optimized, your Google My Business profile shows up in search and maps. Regularly creating quality Google My Business posts helps with your rankings on Google.

Posts can be used to tell patients about:

  • Events 
  • Offers and specials
  • Announcements

Here are a few tips and best practices to help you write an effective Google My Business post that drives results.

5 steps to creating a great Google My Business Post

Pick your post type

Google My Business provides several different post types to use.

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish and the message you want to share, selecting the right type of posts on Google My Business can make your content more effective.

Offer Posts

An offer post is perfect for promoting a limited-time deal at your dental office. You can include a headline, description, and start and end date. These posts are only shown during the time your offer is available.

Update Posts

When you have news about your practice, like new products and services, you can use this type of post. This is a great way to keep patients informed about the latest updates to your dental practice.

Event Posts

Unlike update posts, event posts are for when you have a special event for your office. These posts can include a date range or times of day and will stay live during that range.

Product Posts

When you want to feature physical products for sale, this is the post type to use. You can include details like product name, description, price, and a call to action.

Choosing the right photos and videos

Photos and videos are a great way to make your posts more compelling. When you create a GMB post, always include a photo or video. The posts you create need to attract engagement, and photos, videos, and clear calls to action are the foundations of a great post.

The photo or video you upload with your new Google My Business posts should be authentic to your practice. Any image you use should be visually appealing, engaging, and represent your business well. If possible, avoid having text over your photos, particularly as images get cropped differently for desktop and mobile.

Picking a keyword-driven title

Keep your post title concise and include a keyword you want to target when you write a post. If you’re not sure what keywords your audience would use to find your business, check out Google Keyword Planner.

Any post on Google My Business can potentially influence your SEO ranking factors, so it’s smart to create clear, search engine-friendly titles.

Choosing the right Call to Action (CTA)

Always include a call to action button when posting. The action button you choose will vary depending on the type of post you create. Here are some of the current options:

  • Book
  • Order online
  • Buy
  • Learn more
  • Sign Up
  • Call Now

Using the right action button ensures that potential patients click through to your website. Use a link that relates to your GMB post. The more specific a landing page you can use, the better. For example, you could use the button “Learn more” and send users to a landing page specific to the event when promoting events.

Consider desktop & mobile devices

Your Google My Business Posts will look different on a mobile device than they do on your computer.

While your post can include upwards of 1,500 characters, it’s often recommended to keep them below 500. The entire content of a post is visible on desktop devices; however, the text is truncated on mobile devices. As a result, you want to keep the most important information at the start of your post, so it doesn’t get cut off on the mobile view.

Keep in mind that the hashtags you use on social media won’t be relevant on Google My Business posts. They don’t impact your SEO or search rankings, so it’s best to omit them.

Don’t get rejected

To avoid your GMB posts being rejected, follow Google’s guidelines for GMB Posts. For starters, don’t include your email address or your phone number. Those are all listed in your Google My Business listing. When you create a post, the CTA button will link to your website, so there is no need to include your URL in the post. Steer clear of using all caps, too.

Some words may also be deemed offensive. Use your best judgment, and don’t post anything disparaging about your local competition.

Lastly, don’t use stock photography. Google My Business posts are meant to highlight your local business. Use photos of your team, happy customers, or even an image of yourself! Customers love getting to know the owner of a business, and this is a great tool to do this, especially with video.

Added benefits

Your business profile has a variety of features, including a Q&A section. Google’s machine learning can try to use the content from your posts to answer questions in your GMB Knowledge Panel.

Posts you create on your GMB listing also help potential patients see that you’re an active and engaged company. Alongside positive reviews, when people utilize Google search and maps to find services like yours, your posts on Google My Business will help you stand out from the competition. Having such amazing visibility in both Google Search and Google Maps is a huge win for dental practice owners like you. This free marketing tool is incredible for businesses looking to improve their SEO rankings in search.

Contact our team if you’re not sure how to create a post or what to post about. We have extensive experience optimizing Google My Business accounts and can develop a great strategy for consistent, traffic-driving posts.