Dental Practice Marketing from New Patient Group!
Hey New Patient Group nation, welcome inside the broadcast booth. Brian Wright here, and welcome to season four, episode number one. Excited to kick off a new season, following what is a very interesting year that we all just faced. And for many of you, it turned out to be a great year for many of you not so much. My heart is with no matter where you are in your business journey, your personal life that what people went through last year, obviously, my heart, thoughts and prayers are with all of you out there. I appreciate all the avid listeners, you know, we’ve been at it now for three full seasons going into our fourth. And you know, I started this podcast, because we wanted to get the voice out there as much as possible to think about growing your business differently.
Therefore today, I wanted to start off with an episode called ready, shoot aim. And this is something that has a lot to do with the failure of a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of businesses in competitive industries. Even if you’re not in a competitive industry, from an entrepreneur standpoint, this can still significantly help you. But if you are in one, it ultimately is your key to success. All right, somebody hands you a vehicle. If you want that vehicle to drive, you got to have some keys to put in the ignition, or you’ve got to have a fob in your pocket where you can press the push-button ignition. That’s what this is going to be about today. And I think it’s really going to propel you into a fantastic 2021 and beyond. Look, we don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. All you can do is control what you can control. And this is going to talk about a lot of that. It’s a big failure with entrepreneurs. This area that we’re going to talk about today on ready, shoot, aim is something that I’ve been teaching for a long time and I see how well it works. It’s a challenge to get people to do it though. And today we’re going to talk about what it is what it can do for your business in 2021 and moving on in the future. And before we get started, let’s fire up the music.
Intermission: Welcome to the New Patient Group podcast where doctors, office managers, and other healthcare professionals learn how to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace by mastering the business, consumer, and marketing aspects of the practice. If you want to make more money, dominate the competition, while working spending, and stressing less, this podcast is for you. Now your host he is the leading authority in the new era of practice growth, founder and CEO of New Patient Group, Managing Partner of Wright Chat, speaker and consultant for Align Technology the makers of Invisalign, author for the Bentson Copple resource, international motivational speaker, business and life coach Brian Wright.
Brian: Hey everybody, welcome inside the broadcast booth. Hope you had a great Christmas, hope the holiday season with family and friends was a ton of fun, and safe for you. And it’s back to real life, it’s back to our business worlds, it seems like everyone takes a little bit of a mental break and December, which is great. That’s what you should do. Especially if you’re avid entrepreneurs out there, you got to take a break at some time, we’re back to real life, back to the good old stuff, talking business. And looking forward to a great season four. Some updates for you. We have a really cool website that’s going to launch here in the near future with New Patient Group. And I want you all to check it out. It’s really neat. The designers who are the same designers that we use for our clients and stuff like that, they’re absolutely amazing at what they do with graphic artistry, and just the things they can do. And this website. I’m so proud of it. It basically took us a year a little bit over. And there’s just so many cool things to it, a lot of learning tools on there.
We also launched our new site, NPG University. That is our on-demand training platform. That also helps you automate your own employee training. And that new website is live a lot of cool stuff, a lot of new courses that we shot over the holidays, to really enhance the ones who own our NPG University platform out there. A lot of great stuff going on. It’s a bright future. Very fortunate to have a great team, great clients. Shout out to all of you out there. It’s just going great and it’s fantastic. And I owe it to a lot of angels out there a lot of great people. Cool year we’ve got some things in the book. I’m going to be speaking at the Schulman Group national event over in Florida. And I think that’s around April or March. We’ve got the keynote speaker, I’m the keynote speaker at the AOA Scientific – excuse me, the OAO Scientific is the Orthodontic Association of Ontario and the keynote speaker up there. Boy, you say those letters quick and then your mind is, you know the AAO here in the United States. You can throw those letters off pretty fast. So it’s the OAO Scientific up there. It was supposed to happen last year, COVID kind of threw a loop. So all these are still pending. Depending on the COVID situation this year. What happens you know, blah, blah, blah, what we’re all going through and dealing with.
I joke with my wife I drive nuts because I love my number one thing, you know, overall that I love to do is just help people. But out of all the ways I do it speaking on stages is my most favorite, I love working privately with our clients and the relationships and you know, some of those have become my best friends. And the relationship piece of it is my favorite. But just from how I teach it and am able to inspire people, on stage is definitely the best, or my most favorite. And obviously, with COVID, that got all taken away in 2020. So really hoping to be able to get these events back in, I’m tired, I’m tired of doing events where I have a sport coat on and boxer shorts. I guess that’s the beauty of doing webinars is you don’t have to fully get dressed. So that’s the downside of being on stage. But I’m really, I’m really ready to get back out there. And just get people inspired in mass audiences, I can’t wait.
We have a lot of great stuff going on with Align Technology, makers of Invisalign, obviously, we’re gonna be doing plenty of events, as we always do there. And a lot of other great events as well. We’ll be doing stuff with OrthoFii, and just helping a lot of people. It’s what we do what we love to do, what we’re passionate about it. And so glad to have all the podcast listeners back for a season four. For those of you who are avid listeners, you know, this is more of a radio program, I don’t do very many guests. So we shot this last year, at the beginning of December, season two is going to be – excuse me, episode two of this season, I’m going to put out a little bit later this month, and I had Chris Bentson on.
So it’s the third time he’s been on the podcast, and it’s a great one, you know, it kind of a State of the Union where we’re at now, what we’re looking at in the future. And he does just a fantastic job with data and looking at the practice differently. And a lot of his philosophies coincide with ours and a good friend of mine. And we do a lot of stuff together fellow speaker with me with Invisalign. So that’s going to be a great episode. So that’ll be season, excuse me, episode two, season four that will be coming on a little bit later this month. So a lot of great things going on, exciting stuff. And looking forward to a fantastic 2021.
Look, today we’re gonna be talking about again, going back to control what you can control, right, you can control being innovative with your business, you can control certain things. And that’s what you really inevitably have to be a master at from a CEO, entrepreneur, business owner standpoint is focusing on what you can control. There’s really three areas that those things fall into. And that’s the three pillars of business success that I founded, that are utilized by a lot of businesses all over the world, because you can control your leadership and culture, you can control how you run the business aspects, that first pillar that everything falls back on, you can control how you train your employees, how you hold your employees accountable to following that training, how repetitive you are with the training, you can control that.
The content you shoot with your digital marketing presence, the way your website looks, the story that you’re telling from how you run the business, how you train your people to how you do your online marketing, those are things that you can control. And inevitably, why when they’re combined, and it’s why all of you from the New Patient Group perspective do so well during good and bad times, is that you’re controlling what you can control at a high level. One of those things as it relates to and it’s really what inevitably makes everything in your business work is implementation. And we all know I tell people, you say Are you a consultant? What are you? And a lot of times I laugh I say I don’t know what the heck we are right? Because we’re not, we’re lumped into the consultant category. But we’re not, right?
We are that group of people, executive-level talent that partners on with your business, your practice, to make sure things are done, we’re a shoulder to cry on when things are difficult, right? We increase your new patients in your brand, we help you convert them once they’re inside your doors, we teach you how to run the business just like the most famous entrepreneurs do. And we tie all that together into creating a story of excellence that gets people to inevitably purchase from you over other places they could spend their money.
It’s not a consultant approach where yes, we do have courses you can buy and you know, things like that, and more of a do it and lift your weights on your own. But our inevitable goal is to be that division of your business that is always there to make sure things are getting done being implemented, and you’re always 2, 3, 4, 5 years ahead of where your competition will be. And part of that inevitably, what it does is it gets people to implement things. You know, when you’re trying to lose weight. If it was easy, everybody would be in shape. It’s hard. It’s hard for most not all but it’s hard for most people to go to the gym 15, 20 minutes a day. It’s even if you have a gym at your house, it’s hard for people to do that. It’s hard to remain consistent with it. So 15 or 20 minutes a day doesn’t mean doing that for a week. It means doing it you know 5, 6, 7 days a week for your entire life. That is not an easy thing for humans. We are not created like that to be consistent, hold ourselves accountable, be repetitive. Oftentimes, we need people to kick us in the you know where to do that.
And one of the common traits of billionaires, billionaires with a B, one of the most common traits is they have coaches. So they are constantly looking at themselves in the mirror. So there’s always something that I jokingly say, you know, if a billionaire can have a coach saying, Look, you need to improve, you need to constantly innovate, you need to correct this stuff. The question is, is why doesn’t everybody on the planet have one? Right? And obviously, you have to find one that meets your personality, that that’s going to fit well with you, you’re going to gel well, you’re going to create a nice relationship with, you can’t just hire anybody, you know.
But the point to all of that conversation, me talking about it is it all goes back to one thing, and its implementation. Do you go to an event? Do you implement it? Do you have a lunch and learn with whatever Invisalign rep comes in, and they do a lunch and learn and they teach you some good things. When they leave, do you implement it? Do you practice it? Do you roleplay? If you hire a consultant, do you implement it? The list goes, if you’re doing digital marketing with whatever digital marketing company you use, do you shoot the content? Do you actually implement these things, and that list is relatively endless. And that leads me to this theory, and this thing we teach, called Ready, Aim, Shoot, excuse me, Ready, Shoot, Aim. And the reason why I just messed that up, is because I’m thinking of our chief operation officer Eric Field, you know, there is a good, there is a good thing when you’re running a business, having different personalities amongst that business, okay. And Eric, our COO, he is great at what he does, from a coaching a practice standpoint, but also from a chief operational officer standpoint, and there are things he does well, that pull me back because I am very much the Ready, Shoot, Aim person, he is more of the Ready, Aim, Shoot person. All right.
Now, neither one is wrong. Alright. And I’m going to talk to you about what I mean by this as it relates to the business here in just a second, it’s leading me into this. So it’s good to have multiple personalities amongst yourselves inside the business inside the office. But it helps even more if the person at the top from a CEO standpoint is the Ready, Shoot Aim person. And what this means is that, in business, and I’m going to put this in a clinical term first, from a clinician standpoint, I realize that all of you are trained on perfection, that’s what you want, right? That’s what you strive for.
Now, nothing is ever perfect, that’s relatively impossible, but you’re striving for it to be perfect, you want every single thing aligned and working in harmony inside the mouth, right. Or if you’re another type of doctor listening out there, plastic surgeon, whatever it might be, you want things aligned, to work in harmony with the overall body for beauty and confidence, etc. And that’s what you’re trained to do, and that’s what your mindset is, and that’s beautiful, you should be so proud of that how you change lives, I’m your biggest fan, etcetera, etc, etc. But that philosophy does not work in business. It does not mean that you can’t try to be perfect, and that’s what you should be trying to do. But in order to get things implemented, it won’t be perfect.
One of the best lessons you’ll ever going to learn is what we’re talking about today. One of the best lessons you’re ever going to learn is to simply get it done. If you have an idea in your mind, you come back from an event as an example. You hire a consultant, whatever it might be, you’ve got this list of items that you want to do, right? I want you to take this philosophy in 2021. And I want to make it your overall number one goal this year, is to just do it. All right, you go to an event and they say look, you should be scanning every new patient with the iTero machine, right it’s what we coach on, it’s what other people do – but the idea sits on the shelf with most people, right? Or they get this, Oh my God, that’s overwhelming. How are we going to do it on every new patient, we only have one iTero right now it takes Betty 15 minutes. And you get all these reasons inside your head that inevitably lead to you not doing it. Right.
What I want you to do, first of all, is have the mindset of yes, you can do it, right. It’s absolutely doable, we’re gonna figure it out, right, that’s one. So because without that mindset, it’s not going to happen. Two, you’ve got to have the mindset of, Look, this may be a total cluster you-know-what, when we first start it, okay. May be a total disaster, it may make our appointments go from 45 minutes to an hour or our appointments go to an hour and 20 minutes. It may run us way behind. All of these problems are actual solutions to growing your business, all right. They’re actually unique opportunities, but what most people do when they start getting all these, oh my gods inside their head, it’s going to delay this, this is going to happen, that’s going to happen, they get all these reasons inside their head on why not to do it. And that is going to keep you from doing it.
I want you to overcome that this year. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have those thoughts, it’s human to have those thoughts, and they’re, they’re legitimate. You know, if you have one iTero, you don’t have enough employees. There’s always reasons not to do it. But I want you to still be the entrepreneur that says, Look, that idea makes sense to me. Again, I’m just using the iTero and scanning every new patient as an example, right? And using the outcome, because this is something – and I see this, is that you have to not only scan the person, you have to use the outcome simulator in your exam process, all right. It’s not just scanning people, it’s then actually using it as a sales tool, to get them to say not only yes to you, but increase your chances that they say yes to you now and hand you their money, all right.
This philosophy, though, goes for everything else. You fly to an event, and it’s about marketing. It’s about staff training, or team training. It’s about training you as a business owner, it’s about the iTero. It’s about doing this differently. When placing a crown, it’s about this doing differently, when you’re moving teeth. Whatever it might be, you can apply all of this to no matter what you’re going to learn, right? No matter what you learn clinically or non. There’s always barriers that can creep in your mind on how in the world am I ever going to get this done, okay.
And that’s where this whole theory of speed of implementation, alright, so the Ready, Shoot, Aim, that theory, that business philosophy, that principle, is the speed of implementation. You guys have heard me talk about it on the podcast in years past and various seasons in different ways. But I’ve never dedicated an episode fully to the speed of implementation. It’s extremely powerful, because you can sit back, we’ll go back to the iTero example. You can sit back after learning that idea. And you can go look, that makes sense. Because I don’t think I’ve ever come across anybody that says it doesn’t make sense, right? To be able to see a digital rendering of what you’re going to look like when your smiles complete a rough draft of that, no one is going to sit there and go, Yeah, not a good idea. I can’t see how that can help me close more cases. Everybody’s on the same page with, Yeah, it’s definitely going to help me close more cases. That’s not the teaching that you need, right. That’s the idea.
The teaching you need is okay, now you learned it, how you going to go do it, right. And there are people, and this is how people are wired, especially clinicians, because it goes back to you wanting everything to be perfect, is that you have to let go of the chains. And you have to realize that the crap may hit the fan for a while by you implementing this right, you have to be okay with that in 2021 and moving forward. It can make things worse in the beginning, it may make employees complain about it for a little bit. And that’s where you coming in being a leader, and getting everybody on board, and letting everybody know, look, we may go backwards for a while, this may create more problems, than it’s inevitably going to help us initially. And you’ve got to let everybody know that it’s your vision, what your vision is. And then you’ve got to stick with your quote-unquote, guns. Right? Because the second Betty, Nancy, and Suzy come and complain, this is making us run behind blah, blah, blah, what a lot of business owners do is go okay, all right, we don’t need to do it anymore. We’ll figure it out later. And bam, that is the problem, your speed of implementation goes away, and you try to be too perfect.
Now, when the problems arise, that’s where it comes into having a blocked weekly meeting that we talked about with our operational success meeting. And a lot of famous consultants teach this and I’ve taught this for years, to business owners is that you have to have time to work – there’s gonna be a podcast dedicated to this, this season. But you have to give yourself time to work on your business rather than in it. And in this case, working on your business allows you that block time every week to take the problems that speed of implementation are going to create and fix them. Maybe you need to be faster at scanning with the iTero machine and or more accurate, okay. Well, now you have time every week to practice that stuff, practice it on each other. Maybe you need to be better at A, B, and C. Well, now you have time to actually do it.
Because inevitably what happens if you think about this, you’ve got two different philosophies. And if you look at the famous entrepreneurs and a lot of the famous companies, their philosophy has always been we’re going to be first to implement, we’re not going to be last we’re not going to be second we’re going to get it in there first because that’s how you become an innovator. Now you don’t know what’s going to happen and it doesn’t mean it’s always going to work. Maybe you’re the first to implement an idea and the idea tanks, and it doesn’t work out for you. Okay, well that’s gonna happen sometimes. That’s what humans are, that’s what happens to us when we have an idea we think is great, that doesn’t always necessarily come out that way. So there are going to be times where you fall flat in your face. And that’s okay. That’s not a negative, that’s actually a positive. If you look at it as a negative you need, and I suggest you switching your business innovation mindset, it’s okay, if you fall flat on your face, that’s fine. It’s how you learn.
But the reality is, is the ones that do that, here’s why they win. Let’s say you have a business A and a business B, that goes to an event. And we’ll keep using the iTero scanning as an example. And for those of you out there that are New Patient Group clients, you’re already doing this stuff already. But it’s good for you to get this reinforced because and that that’s the purpose of our relationship together is the consistent relationship, that consistent accountability, the reinforcement of the message, you do go to someone else’s facility, we’re there to help you implement their ideas. That’s the point, right? So this message still very much pertains to you. But for a lot of you out there that don’t scan every new patient with the iTero machine, you need to start alright. And don’t have the, “Oh gosh, we have 30 new patients a month, how are we going to do all, we only do one now.” Okay, do five out of 30, go from zero to five and get that done in the next you know, two months, okay. And then after that go from five to 10 over the next two months. So in four months, you’re doing 10 out of 30. And it’s going to help you with more same-day starts. But it’s also going to create some other issues in the office. And that’s where you need to have time blocked to fix the issues. What most people do, like I said is all these issues are coming up and blah, blah, blah, let’s quit, what the great business owners do is go okay, here are the issues, let’s talk about them. Let’s put policies and systems and training in place to fix the issues. And that’s how you do it.
But let’s say you’ve got go back into this example I was diving into you’ve got business A and business B, we go to an event. And we learn all these different things. And one of them is scanning with the iTero machine on every new patient again, just using that one as an example throughout this episode today. Right? We go back to our offices, the whirlwind hits, right, you’ve got your daily stuff, you’re in the mouth, you’ve got your daily complaints from employees, you’ve got objections from patients, you just got the daily whirlwind going on, right? Tell me in your mind, which practice that I described, which one you think is going to win the game at a higher level.All right, you have practice A that gets back, they have all these daily whirlwinds like I was describing, they have no time blocked. They think the idea of scanning with a new patient or scanning with the iTero on every new patient, and using the outcome simulator, they think that’s a good idea. But they don’t have any time blocked to work on it, strategize, discuss it, the doctor never says hey, team, we’re gonna come together, this is my vision for the future. This is what we’re gonna do, get on board. All right, we’re gonna give you the proper training over the course of time, but we’re just gonna jump right in. Right, they don’t do that, right, they don’t have the time block, the doctor doesn’t state the vision. So the employees don’t know what that vision is they’re operating blind. They may try it for a day or two, a cluster happens, they run way behind, and then it all falls flat.
Or that practice using the other now, is that that practice goes they get back and they go, You know what, that’s a really good idea that doctor taught us, or that Brian taught us, or that whoever they listened to at the event taught us. So, but gosh, I just, you know, we need time to plan this out, it’s just not going to work for us, it’s going to create problems. I don’t know, if I have the team members, you know, all these obstacles I was talking about, start creeping in. And they don’t do it. Because what they try to do is they try to plan it and strategize it in order for it to be perfect upon launch. I’ve got news for everybody out there. Nothing’s perfect upon launch, right. That’s the beauty of implementing fast, the speed of implementation is that you can plan it out for three years or a year if you want to. But when you launch it in two or three years, you’re going to screw it up just as bad as you would if you would have just launched it a day after learning it. That’s the ironic part about all of this, is that until you launch, you don’t know what the problems are. You can anticipate them you can think about them, you might know some of them. But inevitably the problems will arise the second you get it implemented. And then you take it and fix it.
So you have practice B, right that went and gathered the same information. And this is why you have this stepladder journey, this whole journey of consumer touchpoints and everything, that all inevitably start and end with how you run the business with how the leadership team runs it, you as a CEO run it, it all goes back to that. Because if you go back both practices learn the same idea. They were coached on the same idea. They both think the idea is really good and the idea can help them. But you have practice A that I painted that example which, unfortunately, is the vast majority of businesses out there. Practices, plumbers, lawyers, engineers, air conditioning companies, the vast majority of people have what happened to practice a and that analogy happened to them, right?
There’s not many practice or business Bs that I’m about to describe, right. Same idea, same event, they come back, they do have blocked time every week to sit together. And they understand that that blocked hour or two every week that is sacred, under no circumstances is it moved, are patients put there, that people can’t show up late to it. Like that’s an hour or two of sacred time, every week that you and the team get to shoot content together, you get to strategize together, etc, etc. So they have that in place, they come back and they say, Look, we know there’s going to be some problems implementing this, right. But clearly, it’s going to help our conversion, and clearly and more important than conversion, it’s going to enhance the patient experience. This is something that we can really edify with the receptionist, we can really get people excited to come in and actually see this, it’s going to allow the TC exam and doctor exam to go to a whole new level. It’s going to work. So you know what, everybody, we’re doing it starting tomorrow. And our goal is to do it on every single new patient. Now, if we miss one or two, that’s okay, that’s going to happen, that’s going to happen initially. But right now we’re doing only a couple out of 30. Team, we’re going to be doing 15 to 20 out of 30 by the end of the first month coming back from this event. That’s what I expect, it’s what we’re going to do. And I know there’s going to be mass problems like the you-know-what’s gonna hit the fan, there’s all kinds of stuff that could happen.
And everybody listening out there, you know, a lot of times the problems you build up in your mind those barriers? A lot of times if you just implement it, sure, did they creep up? Yeah. But they’re not usually as bad is what you think they’re going to be, which is the other ironic thing about just the speed of implementation and getting things done is the reality of the situation is, is that a lot of these barriers are not as bad as you think they’re going to be right? You build them up in your mind a lot more than what they actually are, right. So you’ve got practice, A and B. And B took the philosophy I described. And then there’s some problems that arise, you know, and then they take the time to fix them, they don’t go back, like the CEO and leadership teams are like, these are problems, right, they’re roadblocks, but they’re actually unique opportunities for us to keep growing. What we’re going to do next week, I want you to write these down, come to the meeting prepared. And I want you to bring up the issues that it’s causing, right or the next morning at a nice, solid 15 minute morning meeting that’s structured, you’re fixing some of these problems daily. There’s no right or wrong, it can be both, right. And there’s methodologies that we teach our clients on what you should talk about via the morning meeting versus your operational success meeting weekly.
But the reality is, is practice B, even though they implemented things right away, and they face problems. And that’s the other thing, maybe they don’t scan very well, maybe it’s not accurate, maybe because of how they scan, the outcome simulator doesn’t look great. These are all reasons people just don’t do the scanning. But again, going back to just using that as an example, this is the same thing I see with restaurant owners, they come back and they learn the new hot way of running their system, of how to schedule people, how to sit people, how to train the waiters, whatever it might be. And there’s so many reasons they come up with in their mind on why they shouldn’t do it. Now. It’s just not the right time, we don’t have the right people, blah, blah, blah, there’s always excuses. So it’s the same thing related now with the iTero machine.
You have got to look in the mirror, everybody, in 2021, and you’ve got to tell yourself, I am going to be the best implementer of anybody in my community. Forget healthcare, any business in my community, I am going to implement better than anybody. And I promise you, if you do that, and control what you can control, you can get through any hard time that’s thrown at you. Right? The Virtual Consult. That’s where the industry is moving. Is it going to be there tomorrow? No, but it’s already there, now. It’s just not the majority of appointments. But eventually based on the younger people growing up and having kids and becoming your patient clientele, is that they are going to want the virtual. Now’s the time to do it and you can control it. But there’s all kinds of barriers in my mind. I don’t know how to do it, how to – who cares? Just do it. The consumers not going to get off going oh boy. Well, that doctor had no clue how to run a virtual appointment. They don’t think that way. But you do so therefore you’re putting your thoughts on to them. The consumer doesn’t think what the consumer is going to go is, “That was cool. Didn’t have to leave my house or work or I didn’t have to go pick up my kid from school and take them out of school, doctor was nice, seemed kind. TC seems to know what they’re talking about. Yeah, let’s give them a chance.” That’s what they’re thinking.
So all of this goes back to the virtual appointment. Get it implemented. Who cares if you do it right? You can always perfect it later, you can always look for new ways, but get it implemented and learn from the mistakes or the problems that arise, right? Maybe people aren’t showing up, maybe your no-show rate is high for your virtual. Okay, that’s a problem. But what most CEOs do is, “Ah, the virtual stinks. You get patients that shop, nobody shows up.” instead of going, “Okay, we’ve got the virtual implemented, but people aren’t showing up as I would like, what do we need to do differently to make sure they come in the door,” that’s what you got to do. Right?
Because now you’ve implemented the virtual, a problem arose of having a relatively high no-show rate. So what then you got to do to yourself and to the team is sit down, strategize, discuss the problem, and figure out ways to fix it. That’s how you do it. What most people do is, “Ah, virtual, whatever it works for someone else doesn’t work for us, screw it.” And this whole mindset, I want you to shift it in 2021 going forward. Alright? Implement fast. Take what you’re learning from other clinicians clinically, other people non clinically, and get it into your practice as fast as you possibly can. And it’s okay, if it’s a screwed-up nightmare in the beginning, right?
What you’ll also find by doing it is sometimes the problems like I said, sometimes they’re legit, but sometimes the problems you think, not only are they not as bad as you think they might be, sometimes they don’t come up at all. Sometimes by implementing it fast, it actually fixes three other problems you currently have. And this is such a hard you know, I think on the surface, most people agree with the speed of implementation concepts. Matter of fact, I’ve never come across anybody that goes after, you know, better off perfecting it and implementing it three years from now than doing it now. Right. Most people agree with this, but because humans are wired the way we’re wired, it’s hard sometimes from a CEO-to-CEO standpoint. Or me speaking to the leadership teams out there standpoint, it’s hard for you to overcome how a lot of human beings are just wired. And that practice A or business A versus practice or business B example that I talked about here. Here’s the other thing. Practice B, who implements it right away and sticks to their guns and keeps going through and pushing through the problems. Even though they implemented it quick, and maybe the you-know-what did hit the fan, they are so far ahead of practice A when practice A finally implements it. Because, Oh god, we got to hire two more people, we got to buy another iTero scanner, you got to do all these things.
And sure, if you do all those things, implementing it may be easier, yeah. But practice B is so far ahead of you. By the time you do, they’ve already moved on to 3, 4, 5, 6 other great ideas, and they’re on their way to implementing those. And they’re way far ahead of you can’t catch up. And that’s the old saying, I’m so far behind I think I’m in first. That happens to a lot of people, is they have it in their mind that they do everything so well, and the practice is awesome. You look at the growth numbers is flat, or it’s 8% growth or 10 or five, whatever it might be, you know, and if you’re at 10 plus you are, heck, if you’re at eight-plus, you’re far better than than the orthodontic dental industry. Right. It’s a relatively flatline industry. There’s so much competition now that it’s relatively flatlined from a growth standpoint, except for clear aligners. That’s the only thing the past couple of years that have achieved double-digit growth.
And it’s like, if you want to implement and do more clear aligners do it guys, I encourage you both clinically go out. You know, if you’re somebody that hardly does any, or a few and you need to be more clinically confident, go take some courses. But then don’t wait three years to do it, do it. That’s how you’re gonna learn from your mistakes. If you have to discount your – if you know me at all, I am not for giving things away cheap, right? That is not what our clients are taught to do. Now it doesn’t mean that you can’t discount things occasionally or work with your down payment for a same-day start. That’s not what it is you have to be smart and innovative with that. So I’m not saying giveaway things for cheap, but I am saying if you’re trying to learn and you want to do some test cases and things like that, lower the price get some people started. Because the more practice you get clinically the more clinically confident you’re going to become, and the better results you’re going to give patients, and then you can up the price and blah blah blah.
And it works the same way with the non-clinical side of things, not from a lowering the price. But the facts are is that you know, if you have these ideas, and you want to be better, you know, you want to make your TC better at the financial presentation. And you want to do this and you want to do that, well, do it. You know, invest in our NPG University platform with all these on-demand trainings, invest in a consultant invest in – whatever it might be, do it. And then watch it, if it’s ours, or listen to it, if it’s somebody else, and implement this stuff as quickly as you possibly can. Have a lunch and learn, call your Invisalign rep say, hey, look, get to my practice. Call your OrthoFi rep to get to my practice, I want to learn more about this, how I can just jump in and do it. Tell your reps that you want them to hold you accountable for doing this stuff, don’t waste their time, there’s nothing worse from a coaching perspective. And I know a lot of the reps who I’m close with a lot of them out, there’s nothing worse than giving your time and attention to a practice and then showing back up and they never implemented it. Or it’s like, “we tried and this happen, we just stopped and blah, blah,” right? It’s annoying. Because we want to help, the reps want to help. I want to help from an entrepreneur to entrepreneur, CEO to CEO standpoint, we want to help we know these things work. But inevitably, it’s on you to make sure they happen.
And if you want the greatest 2021, or the greatest year you’ve had in 2021, ever, and you want to make sure that you’re hitting 10, 15, 20 plus percent growth every year for the history of your career. And it’s doable, even though very few people achieve it. Very few people achieve it. If you want to be those people that accomplishes that, you’ve got to take what I’m talking about today, and you’ve got to go do it. And you say Brian, well, how do I do it? There is no how, that’s the beauty of this. There’s no, “Well, here’s a course on speed of implementation.” Like, yeah, we’re coming up. But we have a lot of new courses that we’ve shot. I mean, our NPG University platform is just becoming, it’s just awesome. Like I’m so pumped with the amount of awesome video-based training content that it has in it, it just gets me so excited, knowing that there’s this online world with all the learning you could ever, you know, as it relates to the practice, but also as it just relates to life, that you can have. I’m so excited about it.
And yes, there’s courses on how to be a better business owner and structure, your weekly meetings, and all this stuff. But there is no course that says, you know, here are the eight steps to speed – No, what it is, is you do it and you set a foundation with your team that you’re not wasting their time. Meaning if there’s five great ideas you learned in an event, the team’s gonna go, Alright, hey, look, our doctor means business like these are five ideas he wants, we need to get this done. Right, and you want a team like that. And that’s up to you from a culture standpoint to create it. Because if you wait forever to implement stuff, your team is never going to think that you’re actually serious about doing anything. And you want a culture killer, bam, there it is, waste your team’s time. Because if you do that, and you hire a consultant, whatever it might be, it could be us, it could be somebody else, it could be both, whatever it is, you’re putting that consultant, that coach, that digital marketing company at a disadvantage from day one, because they’re walking into an environment of a team that goes, Here we go again. Gotta learn all this stuff, we’re supposed to work our butt off, it’s gonna go right down the toilet.
And if you have that environment, you need to switch it this year in 2021, you need to be a master of implementation. You need to go Ready, Shoot, Aim. Alright, Ready, Shoot, Aim. Again, like I was talking about earlier with Eric Field, our chief operational officer. The reality is it is good, it’s nice to have somebody inside your office that does kind of hold you back sometimes. Maybe it could be alright, we got 15 things we’re implementing, you know, let’s hold back, let’s implement five, let’s you know, let’s implement two or three. Let’s get that knocked out and then start with the next two. Right. So that’s what that voice of reason can come in. But I would rather all of you be implementing 15 things at once, this second, than nothing. Or coming up with reasons why you can’t do it, even worse letting your team come up with reasons why you can do it. It’s your business, you went to school, you came out millions of dollars in debt, you’re on the show. You set the culture, you set the vision, you set all these things. It’s the team members’ job to follow it.
And that goes back to if you have a team that knows hey, look, we are going to get this stuff done. It creates a wonderful culture. Because your competition will not have that. Speed of implementation is what’s going to take ideas and make you the first to do them. Make you first figure out the problems that for your practice that come with it, because the problems some of them are same across the board but also some of them unique to you. You know, back to the scanning example that I’m using just as the analogy example throughout all this. Is that sure, if you have five iTero machines and 20 employees, is it easier to go? Alright, we’re gonna scan every single new patient. Yeah, of course it is. But there are still going to be problems that arise from it, as opposed to a practice that has one iTero machine and two employees, right is the manpower less, and there’s not enough machines to move around for existing people and treatment – yeah, the problems are unique to that practice.
So you’ve got to figure out what your problems are. And the quicker you do, the quicker you get to solve them. But it’s not the quicker that you get the quit, which, again, is what so many people do. Alright, you’ve got to take it and run with it. And you have my word, if you take it and run with it, and don’t hold back, don’t quit, because that’s the other thing of the whole speed of implementation, I see it. In this instant gratification world we live in, with a short attention span and blah, blah, blah, is that if you implement, such as scanning with the iTero machine, if you get that put in tomorrow, and you use the outcome simulator in the exam, you may not see it work right away. Now, a lot of you will, but you may not see it work in three months, or one month, or heck, who knows even six months. And again, what most people do is “Eh, doesn’t work, blah,” instead of going look, we’ve got it implemented, it’s created these problems. And one of those problems is we actually don’t see our conversion going up.
Now, if you base that off of feel, it doesn’t count. You have to actually track your data to be able to go, this is where we’re at now versus if we scan. And then you’ve got to have the mentality of look. Maybe it’s us, maybe it’s the verbiage we use after the scan, maybe it’s the doctor exam, maybe it’s how the TC is presenting money. Maybe it’s everything. Maybe it’s the collective whole isn’t creating the story of excellence. Maybe we need to use our weekly meetings to practice this, strategize this, figure it out. And this is why I always say, obsessing over your customers is hard, because it’s constant internal adjustments, constantly looking in the mirror, constant adjustments of fixing things and improving things all the time. And that doesn’t happen, a lot of companies don’t commit to that. It’s hard work. Internal marketing is hard work. It’s no joke. I tell that to people all the time. The reason why our New Patient Group clients do so well, is because they do all the things with their online marketing and all the things with their internal marketing inside their doors that very few companies will ever commit to. And that’s the beauty is that their competition doesn’t commit to this stuff, or they try some six-month deal. That stuff doesn’t work, those days are long gone.
And all of this goes back to speed of implementation. Ready, Shoot, Aim. That’s what it all goes back to. You do it, you’re gonna succeed. Only though if you then are willing to find out what those problems are and fix them, and not quit. Be the practice that comes back this year and forever, and is the first to get it implemented, the first to stick with it, the first the focus on the issues it’s creating, the first fix them, and the first to go to the next level afterwards. You do that, you’re going to have a great year.
Hope you enjoyed today’s podcast. Looking forward to the next episode, like I talked about Chris Bentson will be on with me, it’s going to be a great episode. For Episode Two for season four. Got a lot of great stuff here. My goal for writing these out is going to be to get crazier and crazier as we go. I want to teach you some really off the wall things that I’ve been teaching people for a long time, you know, the whirlwind with me, you know, we used to put out more podcasts, my goal is to do one a month. And then stick with that, you know. The whirlwind of having multiple companies, you know, CEO, family, traveling, you know, consulting with all the partnerships we have, keeping everybody happy, it’s a hard thing, I love it. And that’s what keeps me going because I know how many 1000s of people were able to help amongst it, but inevitably, also keeps us from doing as many podcasts as otherwise would. But that’s my commitment, one a month for season four. And it’s going to teach great stuff hopefully, as you think it always does. And looking forward to a great 2021.
Speed of implementation everybody, get it done, all right. And you’ll remember this podcast for the rest of your life and you’ll say to yourself, look, the thing that changed my life was making sure that I got things done and I did whatever it took to keep it implemented, alright. So you have those speed of implementation, and then you’ve got to keep it implemented, really two different podcasts in itself. But you’ve got to do it, and then keep it implemented right. Here’s your success. Shout out, love all the New Patient Group and Wright Chat clients out there. Love you guys to death. Appreciate your support, all the listeners out there as well and we’ll meet with you again. Until then have a great day thanks so much, bye-bye!
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