Let's talk about the "S" Word in Dental Implant Practices

Hello, everybody. This is Jacob Hillin with Denyl and Plant Machine. What we do is help people find, educate and treat more dental implant patients. We have today with us Greg Essendmacher and Greg is one of the leading experts in fix full art dentistry. He's helping transform single office practitioners into successful implant practices who frequently transform into large group practices. So he uses tailored solutions and cross functional collaboration to maximize their potential. Greg's expertise includes optimizing patient acquisition costs, refining team responsibilities, coaching for lead calls, and improving treatment planning. His insights on actionable steps enhance the practice's ability to deliver full arch cases, increasing their valuation, and ultimately improving their EBITDA. So as founder of GNA, consulting Greg is focused for nearly a decade on fixed full art market. Following successful launch of the NeoDent brand in the US market and implementing best practices from some of the most successful full arch clinics in the country. So happy you're here. I've been excited to talk to you. I really wanted to talk about the S word, the sales word today. As far as being a consultant, obviously there's so many different directions you can go. You meet an office, they want to become a full arch, you know, in plant office, really focus on that. Where do you find is is your kind of unique kind of genius as far as helping him? Is it in the marketing on the process or on the sales side? Where do you feel like you make the biggest impact for these offices? Yeah, so there's really two lanes, right? So those those that are already doing full arch and that's where most of my business has been historically for the last couple of years. And I'll talk about the other side, those that want to implement full arch into their practice here in just a little bit of you give me time. But really those that are already doing full arch and really focusing on profitability, cash flow, and you know, EBITDA that you mentioned. And a lot of it really is helping them as more of a business partner to look at all the pieces of the system and what I call the patient walk flow. So it's every touch point of that patient doing external marketing with whatever group, you know, like dental implant machine or whatever group they're doing it with from the point first touch point of that patient, right? From the lead call ringing, helping them to really make that connection with the patient, right? So the patient experience answering the phone, connecting with them with empathy, making an emotional connection all the way through to the time they walk into your practice. Do you look like a full arch practice? Do they even know you do a full arch by what they see, you know, all the way through the experience with those of the dental assistance, taking the records, talking to the doctor, doing the consultation, do you have the right tools in place? Helping them and guiding them to the point of saying yes, if it happens to be a full arch candidate, some aren't, right? Some are, you know, really just need some work that can help them because they have teeth they can save, right? Just because you're a hammer doesn't mean everything's a nail and you have the ability to do it and really what that whole process is. So it's coaching and training of the team, which I do some of that, yes, especially on lead calls and whatnot, that's where a lot of my skill set is. But I 1099, I bring in other consultants, you know, terrific coordinators and whatnot that are very highly skilled in closing of those big cases. And so I play more general contractor business partner with these practices and help them to take a holistic approach of their business and practice and say, you know, where do you need to get better for whether they want to do a capital event or just have that franchise location to expand out, or if they have multiple locations, they want to expand into other locations. So it's not a one-size-fits-all of, you know, here's the system, shove it down their throat. It's more of, you know, how can I help you in a more holistic way? What do you need help with? And I've got some resources I can bring in to be able to make that happen for you. I see. So it sounds like you really focus on the patient's journey and where they insert themselves in that process and how things like sales and marketing play into that. So what is the first step of the patient journey? I know we all have our own idea of what the patient journey is, but in the way you approach things, where does that patient journey begin? Yeah, it's really in the branding, right? So and people think of branding as, you know, your website or, you know, even the advertisement, right? So what does the ad say, you know, how are you reaching them? And the ads can be anywhere, you know, you're familiar with this that dental implant machine, right? It can be, you know, an ad on paper, click on Google ads, or it can be on any of the socials, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and name it, right? Television radio. It's that piece of branding. But it's also the branding of, you know, the voice, the sound, the call back time, or answering the phone in the practice. You know, that's really the first touch point of the patient and do those two match, right? Does it even match? And then it continues on, right? With the branding within the office. I know you said the first touch point, but is there consistency throughout, you know, once they get into the practice and, you know, my friend, Sharon Washington, you know, just posted something and she, you talk about a killer closer, right? You know, I'd love to have her on my team. Sharon, if you're listening, come on my team, I'm kidding, you know, we, we, we kid about that all the time. But, you know, she was quoting like a study that was done that 55% of messaging is nonverbal. So even when they walk into the practice, it's, you know, how are the folks that they first encounter holding themselves? How are they greeted with all that nonverbal communication? Let alone how they're being treated when they get taken into the back, right? If you have this super challenging oral health history and now you're being brought into the back, right? You move past that front desk area into the clinical area, you know, the fear, the anxiety and everything they're experiencing, right? The branding of, you know, how are the clinical individuals, the dental assistants, the doctors, you know, do they walk by and just kind of side eye it because they're really busy or don't even look at you? Or are they pleasant? Are they calm? What does that feel in that experience? And so the branding all the way through, you know, your question was about the first touch point, but it's really that consistency all the way through that makes such a huge difference for those patients, especially with the big cases in full-arch, that guides them into the ability to say yes, because they're watching and sensing all along the way, for sure. So giving them continuity from that first experience to the phone call to the office, just giving them the continuity of their messaging throughout the entire process. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I know that's, you know, a big messaging that your team, because I've spoken with members of your team and a lot of the coaching that's done by, you know, your coaches, coaching by your coaches, right, that are done by your team members because you have that ability too. And that's on the side, you know, I was talking about the side of those practices that they're doing a bunch of full-arch already, right, that I integrate with a big piece of my business. You know, and another side of the business is those that want to add full arch, you know, as a new vertical or as a top line production, you know, just as you would add clear liners or tooth whitening or whatever the case may be to a general practice, you know, that does the bulk of their business outside. And one of those pieces is if you're going to do that, you know, there's an 11 step process that I've worked with others on to be able to create this. And there's a lot of opportunity to look at it. One of those pieces, if you don't have the ability to internalize all those pieces right away, there's resources like dental and plant machine or others, right, to answer the phones to be able to vet those calls in a way to because it's super competitive. Full arch, especially if you're doing external marketing is super competitive out there, right, call times, answering calls, so that your patient acquisition cost, which isn't cheap, I mean, two to three thousand dollars for a patient acquisition cost. And it doesn't mean that, you know, you say, okay, here's three thousand dollars. I want a full-arch patient. It doesn't work that way, right? It's a lot of averages. Your team knows. And so it's really important to understand that you can outsource some of it until you're ready to bring it internal until the economies of scale make sense. And I think that's a big piece of it of what to outsource if you're going to add it into your practice in that other column, which is something that I've been working with a number of practices on as well when they want to introduce it and how to grow and scale. That's what we did so much at Neodan as well to be able to help build and grow practices because they all didn't start out doing 20 arches a month, right? They started with like one every six weeks. And then how do you build and grow and scale that? Because that's got to be done in a systematic way as well. I see. I see you interest you mentioned a couple items I wanted to touch on. But before I did, I wanted to bring up the S word, the sales word. I just find it's it's such a controversial word in dentistry. We know we need to help patients envision and make the right decision for their own health. And at the same time, we can't be pushy and there's ethics involved with it. From the work that you've done, do you find that doctors are reticent to use sales in their practice or to use that word? I mean, you know, the interesting thing about sales is that we do it every day all day throughout our entire life, right? You know, if you go into a restaurant and you want a better seat by the window because your parents are visiting in town or, you know, you're on a date, you want to press your date, you're trying to sell your opportunity with the host or hostess that's up front to get the table by the window rather than sitting by the bathroom. You're selling or even to in that same scenario, you're going out on dates. If you're married, you were selling yourself the whole time as the right prospect for your potential spouse. I mean, we're selling ourselves every day all day if we're trying to get things in. And so sales is not a bad word, right? Now, there are like the extremes, right? Where people have been oversold to or they haven't built value in what it is that you're offering to them. And so sales gets a bad taste in their mouth. But there's opportunity. And so in the scenario, you bring forward so clinicians, for example, some of them aren't very good at that sales side, which means building the value in because they might be really good at the clinical, but not so good at building the value and patient facing. And that's okay. Then structuring in the practice of how to be more heavily focused on the treatment coordinator side of the walk flow process of a patient, right? The patient engagement. And I have practices that I work with that have all different kinds of systems of, you know, how is it set up? Some have an individual that does the prerecords when the patient comes in, then the clinician, and then it's a financial coordinator does does that piece. Some actually have from the lead call all the way through its one person. And the doctor has very little engagement and all different, you know, kind of combinations in between. So it just depends on what is the skill set? How do you maximize the skill set that's existing that's most comfortable? And then that really is guiding the patient on their journey because sales is confidence, right? But sales happen all the time. And if you're really doing it a responsible way with the patient, that's for their best outcome. Because it's not just this is the only thing we can do for you. I mean, there's always good better best, right? Options, especially in dental. I mean, sometimes there's an only way if they're in extreme pain, right? To get them out of pain is an urgent need. But there's different levels of ways to be able to resolve in most scenarios. And that's what's most important. But to the sales piece and aspect, there's many different ways to mask shortcomings or, you know, areas of opportunity, I like to say, you know, within practices. So I think it's important to just address it, head on and not shy away from the fact that ultimately it is, right? It is sales that's happening. But it's more of guiding the patient on their journey to what's a better outcome for them and what matches their their needs and what matches their desire for an outcome within your practices. I see. I love that word that you use to guide. And I like to think of ourselves as guides along that patient journey along that walk flow that you said, I like that word to head walk flow. And in that process, there's that first call you talked about, I'm to contact. And from your experience, how long should we wait after receiving a message from a patient to call that patient back? What's the what's the ideal return call for a patient? How quickly should we respond? I mean, we should really be measuring it in seconds, maybe in minutes, certainly not in hours, because that inspiration and my experience and these are best practices that coming from working with dozens and dozens, hundreds of locations that they've experienced. But when I say dozens and dozens, these would be phone banks call centers. I like to call them lead calls reps that I work with. It's really in best practices. It's not Greg says this. So it's the word from God to Greg to you. You know, it's really best practices. And the reason I say that is again, many of these patients that are calling, you know, have gone a long time and built up the courage to call or, you know, especially in the last six, eight, 12 months, you know, build, drop bread crumbs all along the way, you know, but they're snooping around their patients and prospects because they're not patients yet are very savvy and they're they're much more diligent in who they're going to reach out to. So they're moving on to next. And sometimes it's the first to call that gets the opportunity to have a conversation and make the connection, which potentially would bring them in for a consult to learn more about your practice. And if it's a fit for them to move forward in their patient journey for their brand new smile. And so when you look at those pieces, it really is, if you can't answer it right when they call, it should be within five minutes, you know, three to five minutes, you know, if not seconds, right? You know, ideal is seconds or answer it when it first rings. And it never ceases to amaze me when I engage with a new client. I always start with the lead calls, because that is the first point of contact. And it's really where the biggest holes in the funnel are and where the most leakage is. And then as a marketing company, I'm sure you know this, right? Well, it's the market, you know, the marketing's not working. The leads are bad. And it's like, well, let's let's look at what we're working with and try to maximize what we're working with, because when you can generate, say, one new patient, right? One new start for a full arch, if it's just a single arch, right? It's a full mouth rehab, you know, 40, 50,000 just depends on where you're at. But even if it's a single arch, you know, 20, 25,000 dollars in a month, you know, when you annualize that out, two, 300,000 dollars into your practice, 400,000 into your practice, without adding anything additional, topside cost, marketing, you know, lights still stay on. All your fixed costs are the same. No more labor. None of that additional, maybe just the components, right? Yeah. That's significant when you look at the PNL statement, you know, your profitability at the end of the year. And it doesn't sound like a lot because it's not a lot. It's really just changing very small things that you can show up, right? The small hinges swing big doors and it only takes a few extra arches here in your case, as you said, you know, one a month and can really be a big revenue driver. And we've seen that too, and there's been studies this show that if you wait even five minutes, the likelihood of making a connection starts to decrease and drop off, knowing that the callback time really optimizes your opportunity to connect with the patient. And also knowing that a lot of these offices don't have a full-time call or appointments that are a scheduler, how do you help, what systems do you help an office put in place so they can actually call back in seconds or minutes, although they don't have maybe a full-time, dedicated person for that. Is there any tips you can give our doctors for that? Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a couple of pieces and you're talking about, again, this other column like adding into, you know, if they don't have somebody full-time and once they reach a certain capacity, it makes sense, right, to add in that piece. And I'll answer that, but one thing I'll add as well is it's not saying, oh, well, I have Chris or I have John or I have Jodi up front that answers the calls when the phone rings, having it come into the same line as the regular, you know, new patient line or insurance verification or existing patient line, that's a bad recipe, right, because this is the phone ring for potential 20, 30, $50,000 case, it should be handled differently. And I certainly recommend in the beginning to outsource that, right, so whether it's a marketing company that you're working with that handles it, that has, you know, a phone bank for lack of a better term, right, new sources, or there's other companies that actually do that type of work, right? I don't want to lock people and say, you have to use the marketing company because some people are little liars, oh, I don't want to put all my exo in basket. But if you think about it, if it is the marketing company you're working with, they know the messaging. And that's critically important, right, the communication piece. I work with practices and I can't tell you how many times that one of the very first things I do, I do an in-office assessment day before I even like get really deeply involved with practices. And I'll simply ask the question of everybody who's involved in the patient walkable and say, so tell me what's being marketed. What's out there for like, you know, how much is it advertised? What's in the advertisement out there? You know, I know you guys advertise on different platforms because it can be different on different platforms. You know, what radio says, if you call in, you can get $1,500 off an arch for X amount of time period. Or on here it says this, you know, with this landing page and on here it says this in it. And not everybody knows what it says, right? Now, I also teach and I coach that know your role in your primary purpose, right? So if you're dedicated lead call, you know, rap, like don't want you selling that unless they want you selling that and like getting like detailed information because someone, you know, only really qualified leads that come in, you know, because they're schedule super tight. And others are like, no, bring them in, you know, we'll work with them once they're in on what's best for them. So it depends on that as well, right? There's no cookie cutter, right? It's very specific to practices. But that communication piece, which is critically important. So if it is the marketing company you're working with that's handling those lead calls, right? Because that's what they do. They're dedicated to do that. They know all of that messaging, which is critically important. Because if you're not listening to the patient and responding back to what they're saying, right? The paraphrasing piece, which is all about empathy, they want to be heard, right? You're making that initial connection. That's critically important. If they're going to, you know, think about investing in your practice, at least like blessing the door, right? Because no short rates can be high. And that starts to get into a whole other thing, right? Because you don't want to block a time in your schedule. And you have, you know, 40, 50% no short rate. I mean, that gets to be insane. And that's another thing that I work with practices on too. It's like, okay, if your no short rates out of control, what's the messaging that's happening? What's not happening on those calls to schedule the appointments and book those appointments and the pull through? And I mean, so that's a rabbit hole we could go down that's something else. But I mean, it speaks to answering the phone, knowing what's on those advertised, where are you advertising? What does it say? Making the initial connection, having the information and making sure those patients do show up, which there's different philosophies there too, right? Do you take a deposit? Do you not, right? The more restrictive you are, the more challenging it is to get the patients onto the schedule, but also the likelihood of reduction of no short rate. So, you know, it's, it's a kept 22 of what philosophy you want to implement for sure. I see Greg, you said something that I thought was interesting. And, you know, with a full-arge patient calls, I mean, it's essentially potentially a $40,000 phone call and missing that call to be a big deal or not even perhaps not understanding that that's a really important call. Would that mean that you would, let's say the office wants to do it on their own, would you recommend that it comes through a hotline or a different phone or or some way to register? Have you done that before? Oh, a thousand percent. It should be a different line, right? It should be a different phone number and also that goes back to tracking the source of where it comes from to understand where it's coming from and then routing it somewhere differently, right? That tracking is critically important, right? It's all about tracking and then also the call recording, which is critically important. So, to be able to listen to and audit and coach to that lead call, right? You ask somebody, you know, well, you know, did you remember to use my simple formula as EAZ, right? E is for empathy. Did you show empathy? A is assure them they called the right place. It's and also acknowledged, you know, what they said, answer their questions and ask another question, and then Z is don't put them to sleep. Have a little more energies than they have and then create a sense of urgency. And you can ask them all day, like, so did you do this? And I've been coaching for a long time on these lead calls and amazing how they believe they did, but you can't really coach to unless you can hear what they said and the back and forth and then give them a lift up and say, you know, in the very beginning, you know, a good example, I just listened to one an hour ago. And there were the patient talked about, oh, you know, I filled out one of your surveys online. I know you've left a couple of messages. I've just been super busy. Once they say I've been super busy, every one of your responses, if you have an opportunity, you lace in there. Well, the great thing is we can get you in tomorrow at two o'clock or we have something, you know, Friday at one, which works better for you, you know, that duality. And you say that. And then they talk about, you absolutely talk about the fact, well, great, I'm going to send you the online forms. If you do that, when you have an opportunity to fill that out, we can expedite your visit. And because we have, and you just layer in there consistently, what they talked about in the very beginning, I'm really busy. Great. Well, in our practice, because we have an in-house lab, we can reduce the number of visits to get you your brand new smile, right? Use your USPs, your unique selling proposition. You're always layering in what they've said to be able to give back to them so that they know a, they're listening to me, b, they're meeting me where I'm at and see, wow, sounds like they really care about what I've already told them just in the first few minutes, but you have to have the call recording and be able to coach to that because if not, you don't have an opportunity to lift that up or give that piece of coaching to the person who's taking that lead call. And I was able to share that and it was that aha moment to be able to share with that person. They're like, oh, got it. And so then I'll listen for that, you know, in later calls to see if they're picking up on that. And that's how you're really building a team and that's where value can be brought in as a coach, as a consultant to help them build and grow and watching those practices grow. And I've done that with practices where you watch the team members grow and the job satisfaction increases and it leads into so many other things, right? Of, you know, all the job markets are tight. It's difficult to get good people. Well, great. Well, then how are you rewarding them when they do have that, but besides the job satisfaction they have, besides the fact they feel better about, you know, wow, like I really feel like I'm contributing, right? And it doesn't mean you have to like throw tons of money at them, but where's the reward pieces? And that's what I coach like the dentist and the founders and the owners as well is how do we show them appreciation in the multitude of ways financially and other. So the job satisfaction goes up. So you don't have that crunch of now, how do I replace somebody as well? So there's there's so much to what I do. And I'm throwing it all at you. So yeah, don't think no, let's go back on the transcript and take notes because this is I love the different lines so that when that call comes through, the doctor, everybody knows, you know, we have a VIP, a VIP call come in and then I also love your E.A.Z empathy, acknowledge. There was another one that he used for the A. Yeah, assurance and it yeah, so it's a assurance and in there, there is the acknowledge answer and ask and then Z, don't put them to sleep, right? Create a sense of urgency and elevate with the energy and the voice. Yep. Okay, nice. And then and they're like, oh, it's easy. Right, empathy, acknowledge and no sleep. So the other the other thing that you brought up and I heard a lot of people bring this up, but is compensating your appointment scheduler. And so how important is it to to give them your scheduler a compensation or or some type of bonus and how do you how do you usually go about that? Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to incentivize that, you know, some of my clients will do it like by consoles that actually show up, others will do it based on, you know, converting and closing. So it creates it eliminates the silos. So they're actually involved in the whole process. So all of those that are in the touch point pieces, some will do it on a flat dollar basis, some will do it on a percentage basis. So there's all different ways to compensate. And I work hand in hand and, you know, I'm grateful for the experiences that I've had in dental to be able to look at what does that look like. And that's where the profitability piece comes in. When I talk about profitability and cash flows and working on improving IVIDa, because if you have cases where you offer more than one solution on finals and you're really trying to target a couple of different markets, then the percentage base makes more sense than a flat dollar because it doesn't, you know, maybe not so much on lead calls because it's minimal. But when you're looking at all the different touch points, so that as the practice continues to grow, if that's what you want to grow in your business as a percentage of business, then it really grows as a percentage and it doesn't really affect the margins as much. If you have a flat dollar amount and then you offer a different level of service, then you'd have to like change things around or change the dollar amount. So giving percentages is something where everybody then is looking at that end goal and driving toward the same thing, which is trying to, you know, give that gold standard to all the patients if there is an opportunity to do so with those patients. I see. So you offer, you recommend the offices you work with to offer some type of compensation whether a flat bonus or percentage points so that when that call comes through, there's also some incentive on the office to handle it properly. Yeah, and there's that incentive too of, you know, success in the job and then also, you know, as they're succeeding that they're being compensated as such too. It keeps them engaged, right? You know, as they get more successful and it doesn't hurt too, so like they actually pay more attention to the coaching. It's a little self-serving. No, it actually helps the practice, of course. But yeah, everybody likes to be incentivized, right? You know, I mean, that's why they get into roles, into sales roles and, you know, and then it's also that the last piece, too, is showing that there's opportunity to build and grow. A lot of the offices that I work with, you know, like I shared with you, you know, that there's singles and many of them turn into multiple practices or they have other plans. It gives them opportunity to build and grow within the group or within the practice, you know, within the industry and helping them to see opportunities of within the group organization and having those conversations and structuring those conversations of, you know, what is your goal and encouraging that. Rather than, you know, I'm losing someone, it's how do we build and grow with them and help them to grow into roles and supporting that. Which I think is critically important as well and give them the resources to do so. I see. And one thing that's really interesting, Greg, and I love that you're the idea of rewarding them, and that's just the compensation, but just recognizing and whether that's reporting and going through calls. But one thing we see is leadership and how important is it for the doctor to, you know, they have so many things going through their head, they've got to pay rent, they've got to find people, they've got hygiene, they've got insurance, numbers, you know, and so a lot of them might think, hey, let me just, you know, marketing company and they do it or let me just hire a consultant and they can work with my team. How important is it for the doctor to have some skin in the game and and to be involved in that process or is it something that they can just hand to their team? Do you feel that they need to be heavily involved? Yeah, I mean, it's a really good question and when you look at doctor involvement, it's not so much that the doctor has to lead every initiative into the detail, you know, a lot of them will be involved, but them delegating to their team members and it depends on the size and the structure of the group and organization, of course, but it's also, you know, beholden on those those team members, right? If there's a lead group of individuals, you know, to meet and give that information and be able to support and lift up the clinician, to give them the pieces and information to go out and then support, right? So if, you know, a lead call member and it's all based on metrics, right? So if you track it, you can attack it, right? So if you are watching somebody build and grow, you know, I set up weekly, you know, opportunities to look at not just top line revenue productivity, bottom line, but it's also about, you know, what is the growth of the practice in different departments and how are they doing individuals and tracking them? We set the goals of what are you trying to attain and as you're building and growing? Having that at hand and then being able to coach to with the dentist, because I do that often, right? Whether it's the owner founder or even others in the practice in different departments, especially in full arch, you know, being able to share and say, you know, here's something that we've seen. Here's the numbers. Here's the opportunities. Being able to do a, you know, an out of boy or an out of girl or way to go, you know, a shout out, it goes a long way, especially as the organization gets larger, right? Because the dentist, the clinician, the founder becomes more removed unless they're just in, you know, a business role, if you will, especially if they're in a clinical role and they're in surgeries because they become more and more removed from that day to day, especially from like a lead call role as groups expand out like that. So it's really the opportunity for, you know, a consultant to be able to give that information, but for me to actually coach the lead team internally because my role typically is a six month proposal to come in, get them going in the right direction, give them the tools and resources, and then really remove myself from the situation. I try to work myself out of a job so I can go and help other groups unless it morphs into a different type of role with most of my clients. So really just give them the framework, give them the tools and get everybody the same vision and then let them manage it from there. Yeah, or morph into a different role, right? So that's one of the biggest pieces of how I help clients is to help them form and structure and then it can transform into a different type of role, but being able to get them set on the right path to where the first thing is the vision, right? And then helping them to execute internally, which, you know, that there's a lot of pleasure in that. And most of my former clients end up, you know, in some way, shape or form, keeping out as an advisor, or some way that we stay connected, which is very rewarding to watch them build and grow in their organizations. It's a lot of fun to watch. Awesome. And, you know, we were talking about marketing and sales. We're talking about, you know, the patient's experience from before they get in the office. And a lot of the tracking tools that a dentist might have, you know, tracks how their insurance is going through or when their appointment is set. But what kind of tools would you recommend so that they can take more ownership of the entire patient journey to manage that pipeline? Do you have any tools that you recommend to help them track those things and see that progress a little bit before they get into the office or what tools you recommend there? Yeah. You know, there are many that are out there. I'm going to morph your question a little bit because what I would love to see is one tool in full arch that follows it all the way, right? From the very first, which is, you know, the campaign, the marketing campaign through the touch point of the lead call, through the patient, through the person who does the treatment planning, all the way through the through the surgery, and then be able to come back and do the revenue touch point and, you know, consolidate it all and go right back to the marketing campaign and be able to understand the entire and be able to pull any verticals out of any of it to really have a comprehensive. And I've talked with friends in the industry and tech stack. And I'll be talking about it a little bit next month as well on a panel. And it's like, could somebody find that you can pull pieces and it can be patched together and actually know what a cost would be to customize something like that. My friend Rajeev over at BPP. We've been talking BPK. We've been talking about it. But when you're talking about tools, there's a lot of tools that are available. Many companies have them and being able to look at, you know, what is it? I mean, the patient acquisition cost is first and foremost, right? You know, the cost per lead, you know, if you're doing pay per click is important. Google Analytics is helpful, but it's more of what can you do with that information to be able to show what a campaign. And the challenge is it's not instantaneous, right? There's not this instant gratification piece. And unfortunately, you know, we're in an Amazon prime society. If I order something, a lot of times they say I can have it there in three hours. Depends if you live in a major metropolitan area, I do, right? I live in Metro Phoenix, right? So we're on this instant gratification type of society, right? So it's hard to know is it working type of situation? So the metrics that are in place are there. One of the things that I focus on really is the pipeline management. So it's, it's the piece after once they come in. I mean, if you're closing at 25, 30% summit 40, 40% I actually have one of my people that I work with. I mean, she's at like 80%. So pipeline management isn't that critical because she's really good at it. But having tools in place for pipeline management, once it consults completed, right? To reactivate those patients. Now, reactivation of patients in general dentistry has been talked about a ton. But in full arch and really doing it in a comprehensive way, there's a few partners that, you know, I've been working with and talking to that do it really well that we've been working with that I think are great that I'm talking about them another time. That's really the whole pipeline management from front to end. If there's one that could integrate all of it, I'd be super excited looking for it. You know, there are some that are coming up with CRM systems in that vein that I'm excited for what's coming down the pipeline. And I would say look for those because even if you can do chunks of it at time, it's something that's very valuable because for me, it's all about with what you're doing, can you pull more out of it, right? Can you get more out of what you're doing today? Because that's where the value of myself or any other consultant that's going to come in. That's really where they should be making their money, you know, five, 10x of what you're, you know, contributing to them to come in and help you in coach and manage and train on a short term or contract basis to be able to help your practice. I see. So there's a lot of tools you can mash them together. I know that when when we started to give people what we call our command center, so that was where they could see the lead come in, know if they did their first, second, third call, see if they booked an appointment, and then track the revenue back to our marketing. So when we started offering that tool and recommending they put it on just on their desk so they can see basically the flow of potential patients coming in. That was a big game changer for our clients because it wasn't just leads there receiving an email how to figure out what to do because no, no front office has had is a sales manager. So they, you know, they haven't had to deal with that. So just getting that in place for them has been really big for us too. Yeah, and that's CRM. I mean, if you look at any manufacturing company, right, you know, any manufacturing and almost any vertical sales force is dominant, right, in that space in general, and they can give you just about anything you want depends on how much you're willing to pay for it, right? But it seems like in dental and in the patient journey with marketing campaigns. I mean, it's great. I love that you have that. But being able to pluck out, you know, and tag it to different individuals doing the lead calls, individuals doing the treatment plan, tag it to doctors who are participating in the consults. And I mean, it can get really, really knitting gritty and pieces like that. Just because I'm a, I'm a data driven guy, right? It's all about data and statistics. And, and for me, it's where can I be of the most use when I'm doing my training sessions on a weekly basis of how we can really be more efficient in any practice that I work with. So yeah, it's encouraging to hear that. Awesome. Well, I wanted to give you a few rapid fire, little nugget questions. Yeah. Here's one for you. Patient calls, and they just want to know the price. How do you handle the price seeking patient? Yeah. Jacob, you know, I really appreciate you asking about price. The challenge is for us is that every patient is different. And I'm not the doctor. We'd love to bring you in for a complimentary consultation. And that way we can really find out exactly what's going on. You know, what's better for you? We have an opening actually this afternoon at Thursday today at three o'clock or Friday tomorrow morning at 11. Which one works better for you? There you go. There's the price objection script, right? I mean, simple way. If they really start badgering and it goes on and on and on, there's other tools that I have. But that's really the simple one, because it's true, right? I mean, if it's just a simple, well, I know I need an all on X and it's upper lower, because I've already gone through all that. And they're like, I'm not going to come in on last year. You know, it's like, you can really get longer into that answer, but the simple one, which is true, right? We don't know, right? Because truthfully, in their max hill, if they have like three millimeters of bone and they can't get traditional implants, and you've got to go to specialized implants, you know, there's like, oh, more of the terror goids or something. I mean, this is a whole different ball game, right? And if they have nothing on the bottom, you got to do build up. And so, I mean, there's no way, even if they say what they need, and it's like, oh, well, how do you know that? And, you know, so are you on this phosphonates? We have to wait six months and what changes in six months and are you medically compromised? And some of my locations have a registered nurse on set. I mean, there's so many layers to it. So like, with the lead cult folks, I'm like, no, no, we don't go down the price. So yeah, and that's what I coach and train to. And it's pretty effective for the vast majority of calls that they handle. So if they, if they push on a range, can at least give me a range, can you give me, you know, minimum or maximum, do you just still focus on, that's why we want to get you in is so we can give you that price. Yeah. And if it gets to that point, then I traditionally will move them into, you know, have you considered what an investment in your oral health and brand new smile looks like? And then go to go down that path where you really have more of a conversation about have they given some consideration and then start to work that way. For the practices that typically are just bring the patients in, we'll work with them and aren't really restrictive, you know, so if they have like a form fill online or a survey is more commonly, that's right. I'm now I'm getting into lingo, right, you know, form fill. So if there's a survey online and they don't have like, you know, what's your range of your credit score and things that nature, so it's non restrictive, what I call, again, I don't speak marketing too well, but enough, you know, that's non restrictive. And that's where even if there are non restrictive lead call generation, just trying to book consults, that's where I would transition them and say that's where I would start to get a little bit more specific and start to generate more of the, if they're going to be that way on the phone, imagine what that patient's like if you bring them in. And if you lock into a number, now you're locking in a number with the treatment coordinator, you don't know their oral cavity, you don't know what type of, you know, treatment therapy they're going to need. So you're really boxing everybody in and it really can turn into a challenging situation for the practice that they probably don't want to be in in any particular situation. So it's not just to be difficult, right, and not share your number. I mean, it's really not like if you were to know and they had all and it's like, here's my treatment plan of everything that I need. What is that number? That's not going to be like a super secret, right? It's not that. It's just that you don't have all the information and really sharing without all the information. It is just not a good place to be. I see, yeah, I'm focusing on getting them in. We want to give them the price as well. And so that's why I want to have you come in, hit a scan so we can get that information to you. Sometimes they may also be focused on the insurance and may not know that, you know, often it's not covered by insurance. How do you not push that patient away and still get them the right information when they're asking for insurance? Yeah, I mean, the insurance question is a little bit of that depends on the practice itself because some, you know, are still GP practices that accept insurance and do a lot of business with, you know, PPO's in different insurance plans and some are strictly fee for service. So it depends. And I'm not dodging the question. Totally willing to answer that. Even if they are mostly, you know, even if they are a fee for service and don't bill insurance directly, which I do have clients that are like that, they'll have them say, you know, bring in your insurance card and we'll certainly take a look at that. You know, we'll look at competitive rates and we'll be happy to provide all the documentation for you to be able to submit to your insurance for reimbursement. Okay, I see. Very nice. Which is serving, you know, looking at all the documentation and they can bill and submit to their insurance if there's opportunity. And then it lands it in the treatment coordinators hands once the patient's in to be able to talk through because if it's a single implant, maybe the their PPO or whatever will reimburse for partial or all of and above or half 50% of a crown or or or you know, but it's out of network and it's I mean, that's insurance is not my game. So, you know, yeah, we'll see. Well, thank you for answering now. Those are those are tough questions and you know, those are the small hinges sometimes to learn how to be not necessarily smooth with them, but understand that, you know, we're we're being looking side by side with the patient. We're not against them. We want to give them prices. We want to give them information, but we also don't want to push them away or give them an expectation that they're anchored on. Yeah, I mean, it's a part of the A, right? The E-A-Z, the A, you know, Assure them to call the right place, but it's also acknowledge, answer, and ask another question. It's not dodging the question and it's more about, you know, how do you answer the question? Like, do you sound sketchy? Do you sound like you know what you're talking about? Are you actually answering their question for them? And are you answering it truthfully? And then the biggest piece, for me, really is what I call the handoff hand up to the next person in the continuity of care chain within your practice. And that is for the person taking the lead call, put in the notes, whatever you call it in that patient chart, if they book a console, put in the notes that you had that conversation about insurance. So that when they do come in, the person is going to greet them or that's going to be doing the treatment court and the treatment plan, whatever it is knows that that conversation they asked about insurance. So they're not surprised by it and they can even preempt it or bring it up or be ready to talk about it because that's the communication piece that handoff hand up from every step of the patient journey that walk flow of a patient so that there's no disconnection or break. I mean, it's easy to talk about, oh, you have a wedding coming up in December. How great. You know, that's the sales side. And that's where people get salesy and why people are like sales. I don't want to talk about that. But that's really the patient care side so that they don't have to mention 17 times to every different person so that they know everybody's working together that hand off hand up. And I the hand up piece, it reminds me of when I was a kid, I don't know about you, but like you put your hands together like this and you let them put their foot there and you lift them up over the fence. I don't know when I was a kid in the Midwest, that's what we did. That's the hand up. That's the visual I give people because that's what it is. It's not just handing a patient off an information. It's giving them a hand up so that patients like don't have to repeat themselves over and over. And you don't have to be afraid to answer a question. You can bring it forward. And there's nothing like having somebody bring forward a concern that you had in the very beginning. And you're like, oh, they really were listening. Now I'm more open. I can take some of my defenses down a little bit and listen because they do have my best interest in mind. And that's really that patient experience and that connection piece that really starts to make a difference in practices and groups that are looking at some of these higher ticket items that really start to make the difference with patients and success. I'd say and when we have the continuity of communication, now they feel like they have a relationship with the office instead of, okay, I'm doing my numbers again. And I think we've all experienced that whether it's hospital or wherever, where we have to keep saying what happened. Oh, it's my left eye and feels like you said the same thing over and over again. And it doesn't feel like a relationship feels kind of like you're in a in a process, a clunky process. Yeah, you're not just the number to them. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And they want to they want to feel like they're being cared for and they're much more open for sure. Awesome. Well, Greg, is there any questions that I should be asking you that I'm not asking you or is there any questions you want to ask me that you'd like to bring up to the doctors who are watching this? Oh, no, I can talk for hours on full art. You know, for for me, you know, on the one category, if they're doing a bunch of full art and you're looking at profitability and cash flow and Ibada and all that, it's really about what, you know, what is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish? Right? Because it's all about the leaks in the hose. Like, where are they? And when you're in it, it's hard to see it. And for me, it's really about I have the ability to bring the best practices of seeing it in a lot of different places and being able to take it and say, you know, I've seen this here and this, this will probably work. I've seen this work and this is what it looks like, right? So a discovery call is pretty simple. The other side, though, is that adding it to a GP practice that they're looking to and really it's an eyes wide open, right? So the piece that I always talk about on that is eyes wide open. It's not like adding clear liner therapy to your practice. It's not like adding tooth whitening to your practice. It really is comprehensive and being able to and understanding all the steps and it doesn't mean you have to do all the steps, but bringing in expert teams, right? So, you know, what I call the triangle of success, right? So it's the surgical aspect. It's the restorative aspect and it's the components aspect is be the only rookie in that. And even if you're the rookie bringing in an expert to do the surgical at first while you're learning and getting better at other pieces, that's critically important, right? And that includes like the marketing team and those that are coming in. But know what that investment looks like upfront. Know what a patient acquisition cost looks like. Know what all the steps are that are involved. And it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to run out and buy $200,000 in equipment, but know like what the process looks like and bring in somebody who can help you with that. And that doesn't necessarily mean bringing in a consultant like me. It can mean bringing in somebody, you know, that you hire into your practice as a practice manager, as a business manager, as an ops manager, you know, as a regional manager who has experience from other and bringing it in who understands the workflow and process and can help you with that so that you're you're learning from experience and understand the steps to implementation so that you don't get six months or a year into it and then you're disappointed because of the growth rate or how you're going about doing it or the investment was greater than you thought it would be. And the return isn't there as quickly as you were hoping it would be. I mean, if you catch lightning in a bottle, great, but be realistic about those expectations. So I don't know if there was a question in there that I was answering before the question I was asked, but those are just some of the things that, you know, I think of because, you know, client success and doctor's success and, you know, going in eyes wide open is just critically important, especially in fixed full arch, you know, because it is, it's big risk, but big reward and not just financially with reward, but it's also, I mean, the patient reveals that happen, but you can do some life changing procedures with patients is just tremendously rewarding for myself and clinicians and entire offices. And I couldn't be more pleased that it's something that I fell into, but it really have been pursuing after I kind of fell into it, if you will. I see awesome. So these offices who kind of got the idea they want to get into this just to realize, hey, this is, this is a whole, you're adopting a real thing here. You're adopting a child here. This is, this is going to be a new whole structure for your office. There's going to be a lot of moving pieces and just to understand that and to be ready for eyes wide open. Yeah, absolutely. Well stated. That's a good synopsis. Thanks Greg. So how can, how can our doctors, you know, a lot of our doctors are going to come on here, maybe catch a couple nuggets and and want to reach out to you and and see what the next steps are. So how can we get a hold of you and what's that next step look like? Yeah, a lot of different ways to find me. So Greg S and Mocker, you can find me on, you know, Instagram. You can find me. LinkedIn is a good way to connect with me, but also my website. So dental consult, the number four, the letter U dot com. And it says book a consulting session. Honestly, it's just a discovery call, just a chat, just reach out and my cell phone numbers right there too. Text, call me. It's really just a conversation where you at, where you looking to get to, let's just have a conversation about it. And I can just share some of my insights and we can just start there. And then with clients of mine that are interested in moving forward, I do an in office assessment day. That's the best way to move forward where I come to your practice or your flagship location. If you have multiple practices, I get a chance to do a very comprehensive review of, you know, what are the challenges, what are the solutions, and what are the tools and resources needed. So it's really just an entire assessment of exactly where you're at. And then you get all of that, you get the entire report of all that, and then you can make a decision moving forward if it makes sense for you or not. So that's a really good way to know exactly where you're at. If you're on the earlier stages of implementation of fix full arch into your practice or group. I see. So if we have, if we have a doctor who's interested, they can get a discovery, potentially an in office visit from you. Is that just part of your discovery process, or is that a for a fee? Yeah. So the discovery call is free. We'll talk about what it is as far as, you know, fee-based to do the in office, because it's a full day assessment and a full business analysis. Yep. Awesome. Okay. Great. Well, I will post your website below. You also have the Tooth Fluth podcast. How often are you broadcasting? So episodes drop every two weeks. Yeah. And for the in office assessment, mention dental implant machine, and we'll make sure that we just do it at cost for you. Oh, cool. Thank you very much. I appreciate all the nuggets that you've dropped. I know we covered a lot and I'll post the comments and both points in this, but Greg had a great chat with you. Thank you for sharing and not holding back with us. Appreciate it. And we hope to see you soon, man. Sure thing. Thanks, Jacob. I appreciate it. Take care. Okay.