I think you’re in a car I am I got

caught uh unfortunately at an

appointment that took longer than I

thought well that’s the thing with zoom

you can do Zoom anywhere so hi everyone

we’re live and as always on no prep

needed I have no clue who Chris is I

don’t even know how Chris did you find

me I don’t even know how Chris found me

but all I could say is let’s meet Chris

who’s in his car because all I know is a

meeting went longer so who are you Chris

histor yes yeah well my name is Chris

Pastorius I am the CEO of Kickstart

Dental marketing we are a local

marketing agency that focuses on uh

Dentistry but um I’ve got a most of my

like marketing tips and knowledge really

apply for any type of small business um

so that’s what I do I’ve been in the

business for about 20 years I’ve owned

this Agency for 15 I live in Denver

Colorado with my wife and two kids and

way too many dogs so that’s uh that’s a

about that’s about it for me I love it

so I don’t you know I for um for a few

years I was a podcast producer for a

really fantastic uh podcast with uh

called Financial flossing with Ross

Brandon amazing and I got to enjoy

listening to all you know producing his

podcast I don’t recall that we ever had

you as a guest but you may want to reach

out to Ross I I you know yeah the name

sounds familiar I’ll have to check it

out yeah he’s awesome so tell me about

more about what you do so you and what

made you like I want to hear at what

point did you realize okay this is a

niche and was it at a dentist was it at

a dentist appointment while you’re

getting your teeth clean no it was I

started my agency 15 years ago and at

the be in the beginning we took on

really anybody that would be will is

willing to pay us right so we had a you

know an auto mechanic a dentist we had a

lawyer window cleaner you know you name

it and we started kind of figuring this

out that you know it’s we need to be an

expert in one industry because we

believe that clients would respect that

more um our marketing would be more

concise because we could Target on one

Niche versus everybody and quite frankly

it gets better results for the clients

because if I take on an auto mechanic

for instance I’m not an auto mechanic

expert so I have to learn that industry

right and it takes time and by the time

you know I learn it I’m wasting some of

my client money because I’m trying to

figure it out myself right right so we

decided to Niche down the reason we did

it is because at the time we had I don’t

know probably five Dental practices and

we were doing really well with them they

were pretty easy to work with and they

paid their bills so we’re like let’s

give it a try and you know that was 15

years ago and we haven’t really looked

back since so how do you Market yourself

are you attending any of the dentist

conventions I do some of that um we

haven’t had a ton of success with

conventions it’s actually something

we’re looking back into now um but you

know it’s things like this like these

podcasts that I do because it helps

build Authority I believe in the market

people can get a chance to you know hear

about the company but they hear about me

and um how we um use our strategies to

help Dental practices and you know been

doing it a long time so hopefully they

realize that we know what we’re doing so

I think Authority building really helps

um in local marketing I love that the

other thing I’m thinking so you do uh

the digit right do you offer promotional

products for the dentist to help them

why not add that in you know it’s it’s

one of those things that that’s a very

competitive market you know you’re

competing at that point against things

like Vista Print or a lot of companies

like me will partner with Vista Print to

actually fulfill their stuff um the

margins aren’t great um and again

there’s so much going on in digital

marketing to stay on top of um and to

keep us busy we just haven’t really

expanded out of it okay so that’s the

answer because I grew up in the

promotional products industry and the VP

like what you just mentioned yeah you’re

not obviously that’s not gonna be

successful for you you’d really have to

but you really could do it too because

from what I know in the in all of these

Niche markets is that they want someone

that actually understands what they need

and then the tie in between an actual

logo merchandise and the digital

marketing is just a beautiful marriage

between the two um and if and if I just

got to say this if your competitors are

actually using the company that you

mentioned

called um if they’re if they’re using

that then they’re not they’re not they

don’t know how to buy they’re not the

buyer so at that point they’re not

really worth their weight and gold so

and it’s not I mean it’s not that

difficult to to learn the industry but

just a thought if you were to bring on a

separate person maybe that understood

the market I think it would be an

automatic on because there’s nothing

like going to a dentist and getting I

remember growing up they would have the

um the little treasure chest with all

the little teeth stress balls and all

the things that people would love and

the kids would get them and we at that

point in time in the promotional

products industry if you if you gave a

gift to an adult for the child it stayed

in the house and and was a great way to

remind so just a thought and of course

yeah it’s maybe I’ll have to connect

with you later and get your thoughts on

the best way to do that yeah I don’t

sell anymore because I lost my mojo um

and I couldn’t find it so now I consult

in the industry but so I love what you

do so now I want to first of all tell

everyone how you heard of me because I

don’t even

know um I have a service that helps

match me up with podcasts and um I think

I found you through that oh a nice

matchup okay because we’re gonna we’re

gonna stay connected all right so then

the learning part of it is really

interesting to me I’m a little bit in

digital marketing I LinkedIn is my

specialty so you so when you say learn

like what what are the platforms that

are best for for marketing for a dentist

I wish it were that easy I guess that’s

why people hire us but you know it

really it’s different on for each market

and it’s different for each client

because each client’s goals are a little

different you know you think maybe a

dentist is a dentist and what works for

one should work for all but that’s

absolutely not the case um because what

works in La isn’t what works in New York

you know it’s just two different

demographics and quite frankly that’s

what separates I believe us from the

market you know there’s a bunch of

agencies out there that you know say

that they’re Dental marketing agencies

but really what they’re doing is they’re

just using the same exact campaign for

every client and they’re hoping for the

best we’re not like that we’re a small

boutique agency we customize each plan

for each client um and we use our 15

years of experience to do that um I can

tell you that you know websites are huge

you got to have a good converting

website um you need to have a strong SEO

presence meaning you’re ranking

organically really well on search

engines like Google um paid ad wise you

know Facebook ads work well if you know

how to do them as well as Google ads um

there’s a new product for Dentistry now

called Google local service ads which

we’ve had some luck with um but honestly

it’s not any one thing you really need

to have a strategy that allows you to

have you know multiple baskets for your

eggs not just multiple eggs but multiple

baskets so that if one thing stops

working you still have new patients

coming in from one of our other

strategies I love that because when you

think about it there’s so many changes

but at the end of the day cookie cutters

you could tell like we’re we know we

could see and recognize a cookie cutter

and but all right so I have a question

for you so now there’s been so many

changes but in the last year or so well

it’s been weird Google has really made

some major changes whereas they are no

longer like a search engine to me

they’re an answer engine so like and at

one point Google made some switches did

that in essence hurt like your SEO

ranking did you did you have any issues

with some of the changes that Google has

been making not really you know over 15

years I mean we’ve gone through so many

algorithm changes with Google that it’s

uh you know it’s we don’t even really

pay attention that much anymore you know

I think if you do the core things right

we do a ton of content in terms of SEO

so we create a ton of blogs press

releases um you know just trying to

build Authority and get content out in

the marketplace and as long as you’re

building quality content that people

want to read and you’re not building

content just to try to rank in search

engines that strategy is Never Gonna

it’s not algorithm proof but it’s never

going to be a bad strategy right now

there’s some other things we do like

backlinking things like that that can be

affected by

algorithms and we may take you know

short hits meaning we might lose a few

rankings here or there but you know our

SEO Engineers are great at figuring out

what the algorithm change is and how to

how to go about getting our clients back

on top so a dentist comes to you and

they’re brand new they just opened just

out of school and they say to you I want

to open up a website and I’m gonna call

it Adrien Barker Dentistry um would you

would you suggest that maybe they look

at an older website that has Authority

as you say or just start fresh because I

know some of the older websites May does

that make a difference they it used to

in fact just recently a few weeks ago a

big announcement came out that Google’s

going to start devaluating or however

they do it um people who buy old domains

and for the purpose of getting them to

rank quickly on

Google a lot of spammers do this um to

build what’s called pbn or private blog

networks um so they basically just say

they buy 10 domains they build you know

spammy sites on them and they link them

all together or they link them to client

sites um that’s against the terms of

service for Google it’s an illegal black

hat tactic if you will um you know it’s

um so we don’t recommend doing that uh

we recommend creating a you know

especially if you’re a brand new

practice create a fresh you know start

and you know we’ll get it to rank it

might just take a little bit longer

because it’s a brand new domain but it’s

all about building trust with Google and

if you start doing things that could

deer that trust um then you could be in

trouble so we would recommend in that

case not to do that Chris I love that

okay thank you that that’s really

interesting all right here’s another one

I see this a lot hey Chris I see you got

a dentist agency I’m kind of new I’d

like to do everything for you for free

can you tell our you know one or two

listeners why they shouldn’t accept

anyone offering to do a free website or

free marketing free digital

marketing yeah it’s cheaper is more

expensive is my saying um anybody that’s

offering that is just trying to get you

on as a client and they’re just trying

to at some point they’ll take advantage

of it um there’s a bunch of those offers

out there right now and we get so many

new clients from those offers that I

kind of like it because they sign up for

the you know free or you know your first

20 new patients are free and then you

know the fine print kicks in and you

know they’re not new patients they’re

you know existing patients or they’re

coming from insurance or they’re not the

right kind of patient you know um so you

know cheaper is more expensive you get

what you pay for in this industry and

and just so everybody knows you know

we’re not the cheapest out there we are

not we’re a Bowtique agency we’re

smaller we’re known for our high quality

results um but we’re the ones that also

get things done and we get results um

that’s the difference right there is

results versus just

numbers but but let’s go back to this

though because I for and I could be

wrong but I think that if they’re

offering you a free website that what

would scare me about that is that they

have access to everything and all of a

sudden they could hold you hostage I

mean they could show you all along

everything looks great and then you’re

like oh I love it I really want this and

then it’s like oh but now I you know or

they just I mean you could lose

everything so isn’t that another reason

why you should never yeah I mean there’s

companies out there that will you know

include a website into their marketing

program and in fact you know you think

you own it but you don’t um you’re

actually leasing it from them and it’s

part of your monthly fee and so if you

want to leave them they’re like oh too

bad that’s our website and all of our

content so you can’t take it with you so

basically you’ve been paying for a

website all this time and you don’t

actually own it or any of the content so

you have to be careful of that um also

you have to be careful of

um you know just you’re right I mean

they have control of everything so when

you when you do a website you should

make sure if you buy a domain name make

sure it’s in your own account so create

a GoDaddy account or whatever your

account your password and make sure that

you own that domain name that’s the

biggest asset really and then if they’re

building a website ask for a backup file

every once in a while you know maybe

every month give me a backup file to my

website just in case if you quit them or

if they disappear you have that backup

and you can send that to another company

and they’ll should be able to build that

website out very quickly with those

backup files but yes if you get a free

website it’s likely that they own it um

or if you go to cancel and they say hey

it’s ours they might say or you could

just give us $5,000 and then we’ll give

you the backup files so just ask those

questions before you sign up with a

company that’s offering a website

especially for free so this is for

everyone not just anyone and the dentist

like I see it a lot and especially in

women’s group because women are so nice

and they want to help and I’m just

starting my business and I’m like oh my

God no don’t do it first of all why

would you want someone to work for you

for free I’m not sure I understand that

I think that you should be paying people

what their value is you should know

upfront you should have a contract and

you should make sure you’re working with

someone unique like Chris I love that

you said you’re not the uh least

expensive because that’s a good thing

too right like you so how do you stay on

top if it is it going to masterminds is

it reading articles like what is your

way of saying in the no I think it’s all

of that you know my team is built out to

where we have a website expert we have a

SEO expert we have Facebook ads expert

and they all are really responsible for

fine-tuning their craft and that

includes doing continuing education you

know reading blogs on newest trends

being part of a mastermind group um so I

really try to empower them to learn as

much as they can and I support them

financially to do that so if there’s a

course that they want to take or

something like that you know it helps

them build their you know credibility

for the future and it helps us you know

with our clients so um you know I think

any one person trying to stay on top of

SEO websites everything else um it’s

hard to do and you know I don’t even

want to try that so um that’s also part

of the point where I say you know it’s

we’ve got plenty to do with our Core

Business of digital marketing um because

things in this industry change

you know almost minute by minute it

seems like yeah that’s interesting I I

would be curious to know the average

business how much money do they waste

when they’re doing Facebook ads on their

own I’m gonna say I bet you I just did

my taxes so it was it was a couple

hundred dollars of my thinking I’m so

cool oh look at me I’m gonna pick my

audience I’m gonna do this and that down

inside I know I’m just just I’m just

wasting my money I’m throwing it away

and you know maybe I’m getting a little

excitement because I see some more views

or whatever but it’s so money tell

explain why it’s so important actually

not to do it yourself to hire someone

and how and I also want you I’m GNA do a

lot here but I like the difference truly

the difference between a boost and an ad

yeah so you know I talked to dentist

about this a lot I’m like it’s not like

I’m going to go you know on YouTube and

figure out how to fix my own cavity and

think I know how to do it right that’s

why you go to school all those years and

that’s why you figure it out it’s the

same way with both Facebook ads and

especially Google ads um you could do it

yeah you can go in and click buttons and

you know hope you get it right but

you’re not going to get it right and

what happens you spend a lot of money

and you don’t really get any results out

of it um it is its own craft it’s its

own art and just like Dentistry you’ve

got to go to school for it you’ve got to

understand it you’ve got to have the

experience or you’re going to wind up

wasting a lot of money there are so many

different options on like for instance

with Facebook ads the biggest waste I

see is people use the Facebook audience

um uh their partner audience so that

means that ads can be shown on all their

Partners networks too and on the surface

that sounds like well yeah why wouldn’t

I want to do that right well it’s a

complete waste of money for local

businesses because they put them on

these spam sites or not spam sites but

just low-level sites and people just

click on them or Bots click on them and

it runs up your tab and you get nothing

out of it but there’s so many instances

like that in both Google ads and

Facebook ads that if you don’t know what

you’re doing you’re not going to get

results out of it it’s just too complex

and then the other side of it is you

guys I mean you too maybe but you have a

marketing background dentists typically

don’t you don’t know how to write ads

right that’s its own like art right and

there’s so much value in being able to

write a good ad um you can do a lot of

things wrong or a lot of things right

but if your ad copy isn’t great it’s not

going to matter um so I mean I think

it’s the art of of AD writing as well oh

that’s interesting too yeah you’re right

you’re right I just I hate the thought

of wasting the money but thinking that

I’m doing something great all right

we’re gonna throw in the the elephant in

the room the AI and so when you’re

writing your articles are you using AI

are you putting it through like what is

the step or you just getting maybe topic

ideas then writing it yeah we don’t uh

we don’t put a topic into Ai and then

just C copy and paste into a website

that’s a bad bad thing to do um there’s

just inaccuracies Google can detect

straight AI um while they’ve kind of

taken the high road with AI in terms of

you know we just want to make sure it’s

valuable content for our readers you

know they’ve got their own AI as well um

we’ve done the testing and when you just

copy and paste AI directly into a

website page that typically does not

rank as well so we use it as a topic

ideas um we topic ideas and if it writes

anything for us there’s a human that

edits it and rewrites a lot of it anyway

it does save us time um because we you

know there’s only so many topics you can

think of in dentistry it does a good job

of helping us understand what people

want to read about but it is not a

writer in itself now could it be someday

maybe but uh right now it’s uh it’s not

there got it and so this is really for

dentists don’t think you’re going to do

it yourself or you’re going to have your

daughter that just graduated from

college and she says I can come in and

do it for you and it may successful the

thing is you know is that you’ve got to

know how to use AI too right I mean you

the pro it’s all about the prompts you

know if you put in a kind of a quick you

know just not high low-level prompt it’s

going to spit out pretty low-level

content so it’s about understanding AI

how it works how the back end of it

works and how to prompt it you know

correctly I love that Chris you’re

you’re really filled with a lot of

information before we let you go and

give us all your information tell me

your thoughts on Tik

tock tick tock yeah well if it doesn’t

go away I think it’s great but you know

everybody’s trying to get a Bann here in

the United States I don’t think that

will happen um I think Tik Tok is great

and and the reason we do have clients

using it and the reason why it’s great

is because people think that right now

it’s just teenagers using it it’s not

the case um we’re starting to see a

hockey stick effect in terms of the age

of what people are using Tik Tok

um we saw this with Facebook as well if

you remember back in the day when

Facebook started it was mostly young

people using it and that hockey stick

did occur but it took longer it was more

of a curve I guess um we’re seeing more

of a Sharp stick effect um with Tik Tok

so I think it’s definitely worthwhile

for local businesses where they struggle

with Tik Tok though is really creating

the content for it because it is a video

platform and people a lot of local

business owners just don’t have the time

they don’t have the money to do like

full production which you don’t need to

do for Tik Tok or they’re just camera

shy and they don’t know what to say or

what to do um so we help with that you

know we can’t really shoot all the

content for our clients but we can tell

them what works and what doesn’t um and

with Tik Tok and Facebook especially

it’s not about selling don’t try to sell

people all the time you know introduce

yourself just talk about topics people

are interested with build some Authority

and then every once in a while mix in an

offer of what your business does

absolutely I made a breakfast this

morning from Tic Tac so it’s kind of

cool I but actually I’d say about a year

ago Tic Tac was kind of gross like if

you went into live there were a lot of

people that were doing weird things for

views and it was just yeah turned me off

I noticed lately that that’s all

disappeared so I guess they’re cutting

back on that um yeah I do want to share

so I’m very excited about this one so I

am a part of the creator with h a new

new program called chatter and chatter

came out by three guys who enjoyed

listening to they’ve been controversial

and and very TR um very transparent and

they created uh Nelson aega Jonathan

Bing work together with a team to create

chatter it’s going to be very very cool

it’s going to be it’s almost like a

social audio with video with the ability

to stream we haven’t gotten in yet so

we’re all excited waiting for Nelson to

open up a channel so that we can

actually see it so he’s getting 3,000

people to kind of be the the Creator and

see see what this looks like so that

next time when I go to do instead of

streamyard I’ll be using chatter and

then that that is it’s very very cool

whole new have you used social audio

before have you been on clubhouse no I

haven’t used any of that stuff no

Clubhouse had a lot of problems and a

very interesting history how they

changed so if you want to read an

interesting story about how Clubhouse

came out strong made a change and then

everyone left spaces then was able to

take over and these guys understood and

love like there’s a love they really

love this social audio app and so

they’re going full in on developing it

and very excited so I’ll send you more

information about that or you could go

to chatter IO iOS or you can even do

chatter on uh spaces to learn more and

here I am selling for them but it’s and

I’ve enjoyed their show it’s funny

because social Audio Apps almost remind

me of like when you’re on a cruise ship

and you have all these like different

you know different events that you could

go to it’s kind of like that like you go

look and you’re like oh I want to learn

this or I want to be in this room you

can be on stage you can talk you don’t

have to talk it’s fabulous all right how

do people reach you yeah I think

probably uh the best way is my website

Kickstart dental.com um and if there’s a

business owner out there that’s not in

you know Dentistry no worries I’ll help

you out I’ll give you some free advice

there’s a button on my website to uh

schedule a free strategy session so just

feel free to do that I I love that it’s

so funny to me because some clients are

like pulling teeth so I feel like

sometimes I’m a dentist if it takes you

that long to get back to me I do feel

like I have to pull teeth to get this

yeah you’re right yeah it’s exactly

right Chris thank you for your time

today I really appreciate it let’s stay

in touch and let’s make sure we’re

connected on LinkedIn what happens now

just so you know I’ll say this live is

that this goes live I leave it and then

in a couple weeks when I I release one

episode maybe I’ll do two a week and uh

I’ll produce it and then it’ll go on to

the syndicated the different platforms

so then I’ll tag you I really really

appreciate your time energy you look

great I love your hat love your

sweatshirt too by the way just have to

say that I’m in Florida so we wouldn’t

be wearing a heavy

S 80 degrees today all right everyone

have a great day thank you for joining

us for no prep needed Chris you and I

will stay in touch thank you by

bye thanks Chris that was great sure

thing thank you