Chris (00:02.574)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the No BS Dental Growth podcast. I am your host, Chris Pistorius. I want to ask you something today. Let’s say your front desk could close cosmetic cases before the patient ever walked through the door. Sounds pretty cool, right? Well, today’s guest has built an entire system around that exact idea. We’re very close to it. And the results practices are seeing are really hard to ignore. Dr. Brian Harris is a cosmetic dentist based in Phoenix.
Also the founder of Smile Virtual. Smile Virtual, if you haven’t heard of them, they’re pretty much the leading virtual cosmetic consult platform in dentistry, in my opinion. And he’s also the founder of the Elite Academy, where he does train practices on cosmetic growth, things like case acceptance, patient experience, all the things that kind of matter. But here’s what I think is cool, and what makes this conversation a little bit different than anything we’ve done on the show is that
Dr. Harris isn’t just teaching from the sideline. I think there’s something to be said about that. He’s really built and implemented these systems inside his own practice first. So he knows exactly what works, what breaks, and exactly where most practices leave money on the table. I think he’s one of the most sought after speakers in the industry. We’re absolutely excited to have him on. Dr. Harris, welcome to the show.
Brian (01:24.283)
Chris, it’s an honor to be here, man. Thank you for having me. yeah, I’m excited to chat for a few minutes about some of these things that have made such a massive impact in my own practice.
Chris (01:36.29)
Yeah, let’s hear it, man. I’m gonna get right to a kind of the no BS part of this show. But what is a virtual consult actually solving inside of dental practice?
Brian (01:45.785)
Yeah, so let’s talk first what a virtual consult is not. It is not a live video consult. It’s not you trying to have a face to face video consult with a patient. This is the simplest form. Patients can upload a small photo, tell you what they’re wanting to change. That’s all they have to do. And then when you have time, you sit down, you record a video, send it back to them, letting them know what their options are, what things cost. Next steps.
You know, they’re talking about No BS podcast. Like this is like, it’s like the No BS console. It’s like, here’s your options. Here’s what it costs. Would love to work with you if you feel it’s a good bit.
Chris (02:19.948)
Yeah.
Chris (02:26.296)
That’s awesome. That’s really cool. How do you think it changes the patient decision-making process? What have you seen?
Brian (02:34.095)
Well, I think it allows people to come into the in-person console 100 % prepared with knowing what their options are. I think we underestimate how uncomfortable that is for people when they want something, but they really have no idea what it costs or what their options are. So it makes it so much easier for the dentist to be able to talk options without feeling like they’re having to sell anything.
Chris (02:41.101)
Yeah.
Chris (03:00.824)
Yeah, I like that. So it’s a little bit less of a timeshare presentation. It feels like sometimes if you get in kind of the monotony of it. What about production increase? I know everybody’s, it’s gonna be watching this, it’s gonna be thinking that in the back of their mind. What are practices seeing that implement this?
Brian (03:08.197)
Yes.
Brian (03:18.587)
So 87 to 92 % case acceptance on high dollar cases, elective dentistry is the average where traditionally before I started using these types of consoles, I was about 30 to 50%. In my practice, national average is I think 30 to 40 % based on the ADA studies.
Chris (03:42.446)
That’s incredible. How many of these are you doing? Like what percentage of your overall patients are actually taking advantage of the virtual part?
Brian (03:51.782)
Well, I’m at the point now where I will not see a patient unless they’ve gone through the video console first. So all of my patients go through that first. But I would say, you know, to a general practice, just getting started with the platform, you know, you may get five, six, eight of these consoles in a month. And of those, let’s say eight, you know, it’s not like all of them are coming in for in-person consoles. You may only get, you know, three or four that come in for the in-person.
but it still gave you the ability to impact eight people and let them know who you are and what you do. And you only had to spend five, 10 minutes at the most with each of them. So it’s a massive impact, but really leveraging your time. And then the time you do spend with people is just super efficient because they trust you already.
Chris (04:44.984)
Yeah, you’ve already got a couple of those boxes checked before they even get in the place. Is this primarily for the higher-end cosmetic practices or can just regular GPs benefit from this as well?
Brian (04:57.947)
Any elective procedure where there’s confusion around the procedure, anything from just general like Invisalign where the confusion is some offices are charging $3,000, some are charging $7,000 or all on four cases, implants, cosmetic dentistry, anything where there’s an elective procedure being done and confusion around what their options are, it works great for that. It still works for
broken back tooth in pain, but it just it doesn’t work as well just because it’s not really meant for that.
Chris (05:37.976)
Yeah, how long have you been doing it yourself?
Brian (05:40.22)
So 2016 is when I came up with the first, the initial product. And so yeah, I mean, we’re coming up on 10 years now of doing this. It’s been, I mean, probably the last couple of years, things have really started to explode just because people are so much more comfortable having consults via video now.
Chris (06:04.674)
Yeah, I think COVID changed a lot of the way that businesses meet in general, but I think in healthcare even more. probably some pretty good timing in there for you and the service. So what mistakes, let’s say somebody signs up, what are some of the mistakes you see sometimes when people are using this?
Brian (06:23.707)
That’s a great question. And I actually don’t get asked that often, but it’s probably one of the best questions asked because the biggest mistake is when doctors show up and try to make it a dental consult via video, meaning, you know, it’s not diagnosis, it’s not treatment planning. It’s not your time to go into all of the logic. You know, it really is more of a, hey, I’m Dr. Harris. Absolutely. I know I can help you. And I’ve helped a lot of people just like you.
Let me give you an idea of some of the options that could work great for you. Let me share what that’s going to cost. then, if you feel like you’re a good fit for, if you feel like I’m a good fit for what you’re looking for, then I’d love to meet with you. So it’s very much more of a super down to earth, very direct, very open conversation. And just the act of you telling them exactly what they want to know builds massive trust.
Chris (07:19.97)
Yeah, for sure. Can you talk me through, because in marketing, which is what I do, sometimes there’s things that we have to implement. There’s software we have to install. And sometimes I just see like, I see like Dennis eyes like glaze over like, man, I got to do something again with the computer and integrate stuff. And what’s the implementation of this look like into a practice? What do you have to do?
Brian (07:41.786)
Yeah, it’s actually really easy. We’ve taken a lot of work away from the dentist. As long as you have a laptop, the camera works. Just the camera of your laptop works great. Once you get access to the platform, it comes preloaded with a bunch of before and after photos. You can also upload your own cases in there. And then there’s a whole curriculum built into the backend of the platform.
where I’ll walk you through exactly, not just how to record the most effective virtual consoles, what to say, when to say it, how to say it, what not to say, but also all the front end stuff of how to build the social presence, how to post on social media, how to grow a following, how to drive more consoles. Basically everything you need to know to be successful in implementation.
Chris (08:36.942)
What about acceptance? Do you talk to them about that? Like what you can do more to get better case acceptance from these virtual consoles? Okay.
Brian (08:45.359)
Yeah, we do. One example is, you know, I believe stories convert. So instead of making it all just about, you know, their treatment, it’s like, hey, let me tell you about Jessica who had a very similar situation that you did. Here’s what we did for her. Let me tell you about so-and-so because then, you know, just that whole law of the herd, you know, people do what they perceive other people are doing because, you know, if
Chris (08:50.477)
Yeah.
Chris (08:59.768)
Yes.
Brian (09:13.783)
if it’s good for Jessica and she deserves it, you I deserve it too. And so just simple things like that of, you know, storytelling goes a really, really long way.
Chris (09:24.066)
Yeah, for sure. Another question we’re going to get, I’m going to tackle it right now, is how long before a practice sees a positive ROI on doing something like this?
Brian (09:34.82)
It varies. I would say it’s directly related to the effort that they put in. The fastest that I’ve seen, I mean, within a couple of days, know, if doctors already have some of a social presence, they have a team that gets bought in. I mean, within the first week, you’ll have your first consults coming through. But if you’re not putting in the effort, you know, then, you know, it’s going to take longer. I tell people, don’t think of it as
purely like a lead gen platform where you sign up and you’re gonna get all these consoles. It’s a tool to convert the lead to treatment. And so that’s where partnering with a company like what you do is so crucial for the dentist success. They’ve got to have somebody they trust that can help drive the leads and then they can convert them with the platform.
Chris (10:30.648)
Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Let’s say they don’t have a marketing agency, they don’t have a marketing partner. Who on the team typically owns this? The integration, the setup? Is it usually the doc themselves or is it somebody else?
Brian (10:45.211)
It depends. The doctor can do it. Usually I see it’s like a treatment coordinator that runs point on it. And the front office, believe it or not, has a lot of pull and how successful it becomes. Because, you know, if you have a good front office team that understands what you’re really doing here, they get calls all day long of patients, price shopping, you know, all sorts of things where they just say, you know what, our doctors now offer free video consults.
Chris (10:50.894)
Yeah.
Brian (11:14.511)
You don’t even have to come in. you want to just, here I’ll text you the link now. When you get a chance, upload that photo, tell them what you’re looking for. They’re amazing. They’ll take the time after work today. They’ll record a video and send it to you. And then when you’re ready, you can come in. I think treatment coordinator and front desk have the most potential. hygiene, though, if you go in and diagnose, even if it’s not a smile, but let’s say it’s two or three crowns out of hygiene instead of trying to
quickly just give them a quote right there, send them a video later that night.
Chris (11:49.88)
Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, when people take the time to do something like this, I think it, you know, they’re invested in it a little bit more. So it’s not like they’re just gonna, you I would say that it has to help with no shows too, right? Yeah, that’s a great idea. All right, so let’s talk about the marketing side of this stuff. For practices that are doing marketing now, how does this change the way a practice does market itself?
Brian (12:03.483)
you, sir.
Brian (12:15.943)
So within marketing, always have, you know, there’s the message, there’s the hook that’s going to kind of grab people’s attention. And then there’s the, you know, that call to action of what the patients to do next. And most of the time, that call to action is call the office or click on a link to schedule. So when your marketing team or partner understands, you know, this is a really a great way to just increase the size of that marketing funnel.
where it’s just like, you can call or you can just upload your small photo right here and then you don’t have to do anything else. So helping the marketing team understand that, you know, that that widget or that that little tool where they can upload their photo, put it on the website, on Facebook, on Instagram, LinkedIn, anywhere where you could potentially collect people that are interested, put it there. And then it just becomes, you know, the funnel where you gather all these leads.
Chris (13:13.614)
Yeah, yeah, very cool. Have you seen any difference between like competitive metro areas versus more rural areas? Does it work better in one or the other?
Brian (13:23.579)
Yeah, think that obviously most of the bigger metro areas just by population alone, it’s going to there’s going to be more people to pull from where I have seen it work well in the rural areas. We have a doctor in Texas that did a billboard with a QR code up there to scan. And also, I don’t know how safe that is. As I said that out loud, I’m like, actually, that’s not really safe, but.
Chris (13:30.52)
Yeah.
Brian (13:52.816)
but also just driving them to the website. And the message was, I think it was something along the lines of like, if you want answers and if you want a price, you don’t have to come in, just upload your photos here and we’ll get back to you for free. And that, as long as you’re speaking to what the patients want, I think you’re winning. If what they want is they just want to know what’s it cost, what are my options, can I trust you? And I think if you just give them that, it’s hard to lose.
Chris (14:21.016)
Yeah. How accurate would you say that these virtual consultations are from what you can see versus does that change dramatically after they come in and you do a bigger examination, you will, more thorough?
Brian (14:36.955)
They’re pretty accurate. I would say most of the time you can tell in the photo if they’ve got relatively healthy tissue, you can tell if they have perio and they need perio first. What I found is that people are pretty understanding. If you see somebody where you see inflammation, you see perio, then you just tell them in the video, all of this is going to depend on how strong that foundation is. So when you come in, we’ll look at the gums, we’ll look at the bone health.
Chris (14:39.106)
Okay.
Brian (15:06.555)
And there’s a chance that it costs a little bit more if we have to do a more in-depth cleaning. But there also have been times where somebody comes in and there was a surprise that we didn’t see. And I think just how you handle that makes a difference. We had one one time where we recommended 10 veneers, but because the position of one of the teeth, it had to be 11 to really get it to work. And so then we just throw in the additional veneer.
you know, at no cost. try to be understanding of that and have some skin in the game too.
Chris (15:43.95)
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. All right, let’s talk about the industry in this. How approximately how many practices do you know that are using kind of your system, I guess?
Brian (15:53.692)
I think our system alone, there’s over 500 now using Small Virtual. There’s other platforms out there. Some of them have started and have kind of gone away. I think what I’ve realized is that to do this and to implement it, and I think it’s good that the doctors that are listening know this beforehand.
You have to have a mindset of being willing to give a little bit of time in exchange for something potentially great. You’re giving your time, your most valuable asset, and you’re giving an hour to record five or six consults, knowing that some of those may not move forward with treatment. But as long as you look at it from a place of, hey, it’s the best way for me to spread the word about who I am and what I do.
And then hopefully when they are ready, they’ll come and see me. Then I think it’s a win.
Chris (16:55.778)
Yeah. You know, we’re in this AI emerging world. I do a lot of podcasts on it. Do you think we’re headed toward, maybe we’re there now, that we’re virtual consults like this and technology used like this is kind of becoming the expectation now versus, you know, just kind of a nice to have?
Brian (17:13.723)
Yeah, I think it’s going to be more widely accepted. We’ve had the ability to implement some AI features, AI clones within Small Virtual that can actually do a lot of the talking for you. I’ve held off because I think the most powerful part of the console, believe it or not, is how real it is when you can just be with the patient and not even just for the patient. They see it, they feel it.
Chris (17:37.56)
Yes.
Brian (17:43.11)
but also for you as a doctor, when you can look at someone’s photo and get to a place mentally where like, know what? I’m gonna give them my time and I’m gonna help them understand what’s possible and serve them. There’s something about a connection that like a real life connection that happens there that you can’t replicate that.
Chris (18:01.134)
Yeah, I’m a big believer that I think healthcare, especially, you know, dentistry is, I’m not sure that AI, you know, let me put it this way. When you go to order a pizza, I don’t know that you care if it’s AI, right? But when we’re talking about healthcare and, your family’s health and, you know, I think you need empathy, sympathy. I think you need that human connection. I just don’t know that AI will ever get to that point. Honestly, I hope it doesn’t. But I think there are a lot of ways that you can leverage AI in a practice. I’m just not sure it’s that, you know.
kind of that last mile, if you will. So I think that’s a great point. Yeah. All right. So what do you think happens to practices that ignore this shift that we’re just talking about, not just AI, but also virtual consults, kind of like, this is where we’ve always done it. You know, why would I change?
Brian (18:32.685)
I agree with you.
Brian (18:49.785)
Yeah, I think there’s a cost. Anytime you’re implementing a new software, a new tool, there’s a cost. And that’s actually, I think it frustrates a lot of dentists because it is like everything nowadays has a three, a four, a $500 monthly fee. And it feels like, like, jeez, is it all necessary? there’s a cost with anything you implement. But I think with something like this, I think the real cost is
is not implementing getting left behind. Practice is still going to be successful. You’ll still keep doing what you’ve been doing, but I think you really miss out on the opportunity to serve more patients and do more of what you love to do. And so I just think that cost is far greater than most monthly costs. Now, that only rings true if you believe it does and if you’re willing to put the time into it. But yeah, I think
Do I think offices will get left behind? Absolutely. I just think that people expect more now and just like with our buying decisions, if we’re not getting the service that we want or if somebody’s making it really difficult for me to do business with them, I’ll just take my business elsewhere.
Chris (20:09.824)
out for sure. Where do you think cosmetic dentistry is heading in the next five years? Anything big coming out other than some of the stuff we talked about?
Brian (20:18.587)
Yeah, I think I actually have a huge webinar tonight talking about designing smiles with 3D printed materials. I think what’s happening there is it’s kind of creating this new mid-tier product within dentistry where it still looks great. It doesn’t last as long, but it’s allowing all these patients that are now aware of all these cosmetic procedures, but just can’t afford 25, 30, $40,000 for treatment.
Chris (20:28.579)
Yeah.
Brian (20:47.995)
for half the costs are able to come in and get something that still looks amazing. I think, you know, it’s already great where it is now. I’ve done about 25 cases like that now. And as each month goes by, materials just get better, printers get better. I think that’s gonna be, you know, in a year from now we’ll look back and it’s gonna be a huge part of the cosmetic space.
Chris (21:10.126)
crazy world we live in for sure. Doc, I’m gonna wrap up here, but let’s say somebody’s watching this, they’re all over it. How do they get a hold of you? How do they get a hold of your service? How can somebody learn more about what you’re doing here?
Brian (21:25.487)
Yeah, I mean, if you have additional questions for me, just at Dr. Brian Harris on Instagram is probably the easiest way. Shoot me a DM. I’ll get back to you. I’ll most likely send a little voice note back or a video back. Otherwise, just smallvirtual.com. You can go on there and get a demo of the product. And if you do that, I’d say mention that you heard me on a podcast and then that’ll prompt my team to
to give you the best possible pricing with the specials that they’re running at that time, whenever you hear this. I’m just a big believer in, know, when people go the extra mile and take 20 minutes to listen to something like this, like those are the type of doctors we wanna work with. So we’ll take care of you. Just mention it when you reach out.
Chris (22:14.272)
Awesome. Well, Dr. Harris, think this is exactly what maybe a lot of dentists on the technological fence needed to hear today. I really appreciate you taking the time and telling us more. I’ll make sure we put all the Instagram website links, all that fun stuff and all of the comments that we promote this on. But thanks so much for pulling back kind of the curtain, if you will, and what’s actually working right now, what’s coming up next. And everybody out there, if today’s episode got you thinking kind about
you know, how you’re attracting and converting especially cosmetic patients. You know, I want you to kind of sit with one question here. How many cases are slipping through your hands simply because maybe the system isn’t there to catch them all or maybe you’re not intriguing enough to some people? Because there’s a lot of people that really are adopting this type of technology and I think that they do expect, you know, something a little different.
You know, in the marketing world, it’s all about being a little different, having a unique story, because I don’t believe a dentist is a dentist. And I think this could be an incredible way to separate yourselves and your local markets. But anyway, all of Dr. Harris’s resources, all this stuff will be linked in the show notes on social media. Please go check out what he’s built. It’ll be well worth your time. And if this episode did add value to your practice, share it with a fellow owner doctor who needs to hear it.
Leave us a review, please too. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Dr. Harris, thanks so much and we’ll see you next time.
Brian (23:42.669)
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
Chris (23:44.526)
Of course. All right.
