Hey New Patient Group nation, welcome inside the broadcast booth. Brian Wright here and welcome to season four, episode number 10. Exciting month, got OrthoPreneurs coming up. Looking forward to that looking forward to seeing so many of you out there. And today we’re going to be talking about you know, we’re on this experience kick as relates to people that have already bought from you, you know. Think for a moment about what the experience looks like. For people that have said, here’s 5000, 6000, 7000, who cares? Maybe they give you $1? What is the experience like, and where is your mindset on how much you focus on people that have already bought from you?

Obsessing over your customer, that is the theme that we are on right now. And do you obsess over your customer? It’s a legitimate question that you have to ask yourself, when they call your practice, when they walk through the door. And these are people that have bought from you already. Are they so wowed with unexpected experiences that they can’t help but go and talk about you throughout the community? Well, today we’re going to be talking about this is a true story about a practice that recently came aboard with us. It’s just been a couple of weeks before this, this story actually happened where a patient hit the internet, and wrote a one-star review about them. And I want to tell you that story. And I also want to rewire your mind into making sure you’re thinking in a way that prevents that story from actually happening to your practice, because it is. Whether or not people are actually writing the review is a different story. But the reality is, is this one-star review, the things that led up to it are things that are happening in every single practice out there in some form or fashion.

So look forward to diving into that. And again, rewiring your brain into thinking differently about the intricacies, these touchpoints, these consumer touchpoints that are happening every single day carried out by the hourly employee, and what is actually happening when you’re not looking. I think you’re gonna love it, it’s gonna reshape how you’re looking at experience, and also lead to more five-star reviews at the same time. So not only are we going to prevent the negative from happening, we’re actually going to be proactive about that. But it’s also going to lead to better reviews for your practice a better brand for your practice. So looking forward to diving into that today. And before we get started, let’s fire up the music.

Intermission: Now broadcasting to the world. This is the New Patient Group audio experience, where doctors build their dream business so they can enjoy the heck out of their lives. And now your host, he’s the founder and CEO of New Patient Group, managing partner of Wright Chat, and international motivational speaker, Brian Wright.

Brian: Hey everybody, welcome inside the broadcast booth, hope you’re doing well out there. Hopefully, September went well for you. Hopefully, you’re having a great year. As I said in the last podcast, the year is rolling by. When it gets to this time of year, I encourage all of you to really stick with it, it’s easy to slowly but surely check yourself out. Especially if you’ve been having a really bad year or a really good year. I have found that if you’re having a really great year, you’re patting yourself on the back. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But what inevitably happens is you can kind of slow down these last few months and you know, you can still have a great year but otherwise isn’t as good as it otherwise could be. So stick with it.

If you’ve had a bad year. I’ve seen this with people, they’re so frustrated by now. They’re so distracted and so disengaged from the business, because they just don’t know what to do. The last few months of the year become even worse, and it’s just a burden showing up every day. So I encourage all of you, finish this year strong, there are only a couple of months left. Oh, we got OrthoPreneurs coming up. And you know, for a lot of you out there, the daily grind. And this is what you face, whether you’re having success, you’re having failure, you know, whatever it is, you all can relate to the daily grind, right? You’re trying to make the daily grind as minimum as you can, as fun as you can. And obviously, when you’re growing that’s easier to do.

But you all can relate to the fact that you have to have fun, and it’s so hard for adults to do. One of the things I’m going to be talking about a little bit at the OrthoPreneur event, and for those of you, by the way, I’m looking forward to seeing the New Patient Group clients, a lot of you I see a lot so obviously I’m looking forward to seeing you again. There’s also ones that are going to be there that I’ve never met before. Maybe they have a service with us that doesn’t you know, it’s more on the virtual side of things or maybe it’s just our online marketing, as an example. So I’m really looking forward to meeting those people for the first time, and then some of you I’ve met but not we don’t get to see each other often. It’s gonna be awesome. Wright Chat, as well. And I’ve gotten a lot of text messages from podcast listeners out there that are excited and I’m excited too. You know, we go on stage Saturday morning, you know, where it’s going to be brand new content. So all of you it’s going to be brand new content whether you’re a client or not. There’s here’s always a little bit of a risk when you deliver brand new content to large audiences. But I’m very confident that you’re going to get a lot out of this, and it’s really going to motivate you to forever think differently on how to achieve greatness in your life, in your career, and if you’re a business owner, in your business and your practice.

So looking forward to delivering that content onstage Saturday morning, it’s going to be great. New Patient Group clients just to make sure. So in the mastermind chat thread, make sure to check it out. Because Thursday prior to – I believe there’s an OrthoPreneur event, Thursday night, kind of a kickoff thing. Prior to that, we’re going to have a little happy hour get-together, just mingle, build the rapport, you know, build that culture, you know that we have that’s so exceptional here with the relationships we have with you, you have with us. So really looking forward to that. You’re not allowed to have too many drinks, though, because there’s going to be another party that OrthoPreneurs is throwing after. So I want you to be coherent, but we’ll get one or two in there. And it’ll be good stuff. But back to back to what I was talking about just momentarily, just a little bit ago. You know, here’s the thing that we all face with that daily grind and why and why I even brought it up is for those of you going to OrthoPreneurs, you if you’re not you need to do more things like that. Do you have to go to OrthoPreneurs, of course not.

But the point is, is every few months, you’ve got to get away, take a trip with your team, go outside and have a picnic in the sun and up. And if you’re a practice that has mountains or beautiful scenery, just get away from it. It is so hard and this is what I was getting to I’ll talk about a little bit in the OrthoPreneurs, it’s so hard to get adults to act like kids, man. We get older and we get so insanely boring. Matter of fact, you’re almost looked down upon if you seek adventure. I fly planes out there, and I love doing it. And you know, for a while it was just you know, with my wife’s family, it was just this thing of why do you have to do that, like, just just do a hobby on the ground. Like that’s dangerous. And if you know anything about it, it’s not dangerous, can it be dangerous, of course it can. If you’re an idiot, but you’ve got to, you’ve got to abide by the rules, you’ve got to respect the danger of it. Follow a systematic process. And it’s actually very safe.

But I am a guy that likes to get away from business, and have some adventure, and have some danger. And I encourage all of you out there does it have to be that, no. but I encourage all of you out there to get away from your daily grind. And as you do that the atmosphere and the culture that that occurs inside your practice is really quite amazing. The transformation that takes place. For years with this company. When we first started man, it was five in the morning, I woke up, two in the morning, I went to bed. Building content, building the future, building the vision. For a while, it was just me as you know, I was the only team member. And it got to a point where I woke up one day I was like, You know what, I’m not having any fun here, I’ve got to get away from this to make all the work feel like it’s paying off.

By doing that, and slowly but surely building up more and more of that, the company built, the team members became fabulous, the results the clients were getting were even better. Leading up to the point where now, you know, our retention rate is 98, 99%. We are so close with the clients, and we obsess over their results in their experience so much. But if you have no outlet, the daily grind eventually takes you over, and that experience – and I’m talking, this is all for a reason. The experience that you’re that your current clients get, the people that have bought from you is so far more important than the experience you’re giving the new patient it’s not even funny, but most people’s mindsets the other way around. So if you haven’t listened to the prior podcast, make sure because this is building off of the prior podcast, make sure that you go back and listen to that podcast that talks about the lie that you’re being told about the lifeline of your practice.

That kind of leads into this one. Do you have to watch that one first? No, you can listen to this one first or watch it on YouTube, either one. But the point of that whole story of the daily grind and getting away from it is that anything you can do to refresh the brain and come into work more motivated, the better, because you’re your customers win whenever that happens, because you’re more engaged with your business. You’re not as disconnected like so many business owners are, they’re very disconnected from what’s actually happening in their business. And today’s a perfect example of why that experience for your current customer means so much in this new economy. And it’s also a way to eventually lower and then eliminate any advertising you ever have to do.

If your customers are your Salesforce, you don’t have to do any Pay Per Click. You don’t have to do any ads period. Because you get so many referrals coming from people that have already bought from you. And all of you know out there, the referral is the best patient. The same way with us a referral from one of you is usually the best customer they’re easier to close the sales process is shorter, they’re willing to spend more and it’s the same way with patients inside your practice. So the goal is experience-driven on the existing patient side, the existing customer, client side. And very, very few companies actually think that way. And there’s reasons for that, that we won’t dive into today, we will in a future podcast, but there are there are reasons for that.

Today, we’re going to be talking to like I said, in the front end, we’re going to be talking about a real-life story that happened, one of our practices about a one-star review that happen, and I’m going to be very blunt with all of you, and that most of you are very reactive. Most people in life are very reactive, you know, COVID happen, oh, crap, what do I do? Right? Instead of preparing, and nobody could prepare for COVID, obviously, but the point is, is times are unpredictable, always. So you’ve always got to be ahead of something that’s coming, right.

With Virtual Consult, you know, a lot of people know that that orthodontics and dentistry and other places are, well, it’s that’s heading that way. It’s kind of there in some areas in the country already. But it’s heading in that direction. But what a lot of people will do is they’ll wait until 500 other people do it in their area. And then they’ll go, Oh, I better go do it. Very few say I’m going to do it first. Right. That’s the mentality that we teach, is be a doer. Do it first because the people that do it first, usually win. They’re the name, and they are the brand that you remember. Uber as an example, the Keurig coffee machine, right, is an example Netflix is an example. Like all these people have competitors, but you think of Uber, like I’m gonna Uber it right, you may even be taking another type of rideshare app, but you’re still likely to say I’m going to take an Uber.

That’s the power of being first. And a lot of the things we’re going to talk about here, you’re going to be first because very few people obsess over the people that bought from them. There’s an obsession over I’ve got to get more new patients, I’ve got to close more new patients, I’ve got to charge more. I’ve got to find a way to get my Invisalign bill down. There’s this obsession over these metrics, there’s not an obsession over okay, somebody handed me five grand, how do we wow them even more. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about a little bit today on the existing patient experience. So this practice, you know, they thought they had a good relationship with this lady. Whenever the one-star review was written, they reached out and they called us and they’re basically like, you know, they’re freaking out they say what do I do? What how do we handle this? What should we do?

And first and foremost, what we told them is this is exactly why we’re glad you signed with us, because if these experiences and these skill sets and everything had been installed, and you were obsessing this hard over making sure these things didn’t happen to begin with, this lady never goes and writes the one-star review. And it happens to so many companies out there, where all of a sudden you wake up one day you get notified that you know Betty, make believe name, hit the internet wrote a one-star review about you, and just trashed your business. Next thing you know, you’re freaking out, oh my God, what do I do? I can’t believe this. And all of your energy and effort is now going into what do I do now that had happened. And the point of this is, is all your energy and effort needs to go into what do I do to make sure it never happens? Okay, and it’s just being proactive.

Well, when I got this call, and we got this call from this practice, our response was, and it always is the people, is, first of all, calm down, relax, we’re gonna figure this out. Like, let’s just breathe. And one of the things we directed them to do was go and ask this patient why it happened? Like why did you do this? The time that I was on the phone with this practice, what I told them was this is what’s going to happen. Alright, what this lady is going to say is, is that it wasn’t just one incident that led to the one-star review, right? It’s a story. There’s multiple touchpoints that led up to a point where this lady was basically like, look, I have to go do this.

So they went and contacted the patient contacted us back. And this is the story that the patient told. And these things that I’m about to say, are happening to all of you out there. It doesn’t mean that people are going and hitting the internet with it, but they are going and telling other people or in my opinion, almost worse, they’re not telling anything about you that’s good, right? Because that’s how the brand builds, that’s how – your Salesforce is your community. You know, your patient, your customer, your client becomes your Salesforce.

So this patient says to them, Well, let me tell you my story, right. I enjoyed you all on the new patient experience. You were nice. It looked like clearly, you had your you know what together. You actually charged a little bit more than the other couple places I was shopping but because I felt better, you know, I bought from you. And that, for all of you out there, is the emotional buy-in that we teach right? You make people feel good, you make them feel a special way. If you’re wondering how you raise your prices and not tank as a practice, that’s it. Like you and your team get trained on very advanced skill sets from sales and psychology, and hospitality, and customer service, and presentation and blah, blah, blah, I could go on and on, and you’re trained on those things, you install them into your experiences, and you make people feel a way that your competition literally isn’t capable of.

Then what inevitably happens is you generate more referrals from it, you can charge a higher price, you don’t have to see as many people, and that is what we do with New Patient Group right? From the time they shop, to the time you present money and beyond. It’s all these touchpoints you ever have with people before they buy and after they buy. And, and the reality is she said, that’s why I bought from you. You made me feel good. But then everything changed, right? I would call the practice and nobody would answer. All right, I would call the practice there’ll be nobody to answer, I would leave a voicemail. And either nobody would call me back, or it took significant time for somebody to return my call. I would call the practice, and make-believe named Johnny, when I answer the phone and say hold and put the ut the phone on hold. I would call the practice or if I was there for my appointment, you never had appointments that were convenient for me.

And she’s telling the story. Whenever I showed up for my appointment, you never saw me on time. You know, one time you were you’re 10 minutes late, one time you were 20 minutes late. And all of these things, none of those – and just coming back, shout out to Mike Wilson, Orthodontist in North Carolina, just in Durham, Raleigh area. Just got back from there, hospitality was great, man. It was a pleasure meeting all of you to kick off our private coaching private client relationship, we’re gonna have a lot of success together, we went to the Angus Barn the night before that hospitality was great. The food was excellent. So everything was really good.

One of the things, the reason why I’m bringing that up, and that shout out, is one of the things we talked about in the kickoff meeting was experience. And a very common mistake made by hourly employees and even a lot of you as doctors out there, even reps I’ve heard, a very common misconception is, uh, we’re already nice. We don’t need this. And that was one of the conversations that was brought up by one of Mike’s employees is, is we’re nice. Like, we get compliments from our, from our clients, from our patients. And that is not what this is about, right? If you’re rude, you need to be gone, right? You can’t train rude, right? You can’t train rude to be nice. If you’re a person that’s rude. You as a business owner out there should spend zero time training that person, you got to find somebody else. All right, you’ve got to find somebody that comes with the kindness, the jubilance, the personality, the smiling, you’ve got to hire happy people, right? And then your culture has got to keep them happy. You can’t hire people that are just rude by nature. So that’s not what this is about.

And it’s such a mistake – for practices that don’t seek advice and coaching on experience. The number one reason they don’t is because they already feel they’re nice. And that’s not what this is, right? This goes way beyond it. So all of these things lead up to this lady saying, Look, I finally had to hit Google and just write a one-star review about you, I’m sorry, but the community needs to know I don’t want other people to, I guess be duped into buying, and then the next thing you know, you know, this is the experience they get. It’s just something that I felt needed to happen.

So she basically told them a story of exactly what we told the practice was going to happen. Very few people, and there’s obviously exceptions, and then if the situation’s really bad, that’s not what I’m talking about. But one-star reviews when you get them almost always come from a series of events. They don’t come from, you know, one of your employees cussed out the customer. Well, if that’s the case, you’re right, they’re going to hit the internet and write a one-star review. But it’s not like that. Because most instances most situations like I call and I leave, I leave a voicemail, right? That’s not going to get me to then go write a one-star review about your practice, it’s not going to get anybody to go do that. But if it happens three or four times, and then I don’t get a call back. And then basically the story, this lady, this patient gave this practice, that is what leads up to it.

There’s a whole host of things that go into this, that you’ve got to be aware of as a business owner and realize these things are happening. These touch points are happening at your business all day, every day, carried out by hourly employees. Just like the new patient experience, all these touch points are critical, leading up to whether or not they give you the money or they give you an excuse why they didn’t give you the money, right or didn’t give you the money. It’s the same thing once they go into treatment. You’ve got to ask yourself for a minute, what do people who bought from you, what does that look like? Right?

If you’re a GP out there, and you’re trying to grow your business and orthodontist out there you’re trying to grow your business if you’re a plastic surgeon or restaurant owner Like we have quite a few entrepreneurs that listen to this podcast that are outside of healthcare. If your mindset is how do I grow? Ask yourself the question of what comes to your mind. And for almost everybody, it’s more clients, more new patients, more customers, more tables at the restaurant. Very few people say to themselves, I want to make my existing client experience better. How do we make it better today than it was yesterday? How do we make it better next year than it was this year? It is not something that runs through most people’s minds, which is exactly what leads to these one-star reviews about your business.

Now, you could be perfect, and are you’re going to get hit with them occasionally? Well, yeah, it happens, right? But the goal is to be proactive to minimize it, let’s say over the course of the history of your business, you’ve had you know, you have 10, right? Well, if you’re proactive, you’re going to have one, right. And I will make the argument that if you have 500 reviews, having one or two bad ones, all that does is legitimize all the good ones. Perfect example, New Patient Group, I think we have 50 5- or 60 5-star reviews, and they’re passionate reviews, right? We’re all very proud of those reviews. Well, we also have a couple that are one-star. Now what happened was that was a husband and wife that hit the internet about us. This is many years ago, only a couple of years into our existence. And they just went off the handle with their review. And all that does is legitimize because they were absolute crazy people, right? And you’ve all dealt with them as a patient, right? All industries are the same. Everybody has their crazy clients.

And inside your mind, you’re kind of like, oh, well, God, I wish I we never should have started that patient. This patient is a nutjob. And the reality is, is oftentimes you’re right. And it’s the same way in our world. And these people were absolute crazy people. But if you read all of the reviews about us online, the five-star reviews, which is all of them but two, are extremely passionate. And then you go and you look at these people, all it does is make those people sound crazy. And it also makes the other ones more trustworthy. Because it shows we’re not doing fake reviews. You know, if you’re a practice out there, and you have 500 reviews, and they’re all five-star, it’s not realistic for consumers to not think you would at least have one bad one.

So this is a little off-topic, but one of the things I did say to this practice as well is, Don’t freak out over the one-star review, freak out that you don’t have more five-star reviews. Because if you have 500 5-star and one one-star, it makes the other ones look better. Okay, it makes the other ones look better. That being said, you still got to be proactive to minimize as much as you can, these one-star reviews. And that’s where we’re going to be talking about and diving in a little bit more today, is just some thoughts on how you can improve these areas. We’re not going to go into in detail because that’s for our New Patient Group clients. But I do want to give you a little bit of some tidbits on just some ideas, and some and just some, some thought process, if you will, on how you can look at this differently.

You have to ask yourself the question I mentioned a few minutes ago, you have to ask yourself, what does our world look like the people that bought from us? Alright, and that world for most of you out there is scary. You know, if I have if I pay, and I walk into your practice for my first appointment in my appointments at three o’clock, as an example, do you have somebody standing there waiting in front of your desk, to bring me back at three o’clock? And for 99.9% of you out there, and this goes for every business on the planet, for the most part, the answer is no. Well, you know what you’re doing is you’re giving a middle finger to the time, the importance, and the respect of your customers’ time.

Now. People for the most part are reasonable, they understand things come up, right? So if you come out there at 3:03 or 3:05, are they going? No, of course they’re not going to go hit the internet, they’re not going to be disappointed. They’re not going to think anything of it. But the point is, if you come out there at 3:05 or 3:10, well, that’s not going to hit the internet with a negative review. What it also does not do is offer them anything unexpected, meaning they are less likely, if not likely at all, to go tell people about it. Think about this. You have an appointment with your lawyer. You’ve got an appointment with whatever your dentist. You’ve got an appointment with whatever, how many times when you walk in, are they ready to go and bring you back immediately? The answer for the most part unless you’re one of the few out there that got lucky, is never. So when you walk into a healthcare environment or any environment, and somebody actually meets and greets you on time, if not early, and takes you back right away, it is an unexpected event. And offering the expected in this new economy is a good way to put you out of business. You have to be unexpected with all these touchpoints. What happens when people call your practice, right? Are you answering the phone, and are you not putting people on hold? What happens if they do have to leave a voicemail, is it returned promptly?

Alright, all these touchpoints, and there’s tons of them, like these are just a few examples based on the story that that this person gave and why they hit the internet with a one-star review. The scary piece is, and this is going to be another podcast in itself. The scary piece is what happens if she didn’t write that review, but she told 20 people. See, this is the other piece about how you only know what you know. And that’s how loss opportunities really crush businesses. Because if this mom, this lady went out, and she was at the soccer game, and she let’s say she had two kids, and the soccer games going on. And she’s sitting there with the other parents and they’re having a conversation. And one of them brings up, you know, anybody know, an orthodontist, my teeth, my kid needs their teeth straightened. Right?

Obviously, you want that response to be, “Absolutely, we got Dr. So-and-so that’s where we went unbelievable. You know, we bought from them. They’re amazing. But you know, what’s really, really crazy is that now that we’ve bought from them, it’s been even better. Like it’s been amazing.” You want that but that’s not going to happen if your existing patient experience isn’t something powerful. You know, what she may say Is she may tell and this is where that the worst complaint you could ever have comes in, is the one you don’t know about. You know, if she hits the internet with it, you can at least use that as a learning tool to get better if she doesn’t hit the internet with it, but tells 30 people in your community, people at the soccer games, people at her office, whatever it may be. Now you’re building this brand, that you don’t even know about, this negative brand awareness that you don’t even know about.

What inevitably happens one day you wake up and you’re like, where are the new patients? Why are we having to dump this much money in advertising, like what’s going on? And it’s a slow burn, it doesn’t just happen overnight. But as more and more parents hear this, and the more and more you grow, the more and more people will hear things. So if you are not wowing people, this is what inevitably happens, either the one-star review happens, or people they also tell the community, or they don’t write the one-star review but they tell 30 people in the community. Alright, and you could argue, which is worse, but at least you have visibility over the one-star review. At least that is a teaching moment on how to get better.

This is such an important topic from an urgency standpoint. Because all of you have to have the urgency to make these things better. Indecision, and I want you guys to remember this. Indecision is the enemy of progress. All right, when you’re indecisive, it is keeping you from progress. Be a doer, and implement things as fast as you possibly can. Be willing to screw up, be the first to screw up because you’re also going to be the first to fix it and get it working on all cylinders. Indecision is the enemy of progress. And so many of you out there, you’re indecisive on your next move, you know, do I do this? Do I do that? Do I do this? Do I do that? And the thought process is you’re just all over the place. And it ends up keeping you from doing anything, because you don’t know which move to make, right, which is why you need to be coachable. That’s where a coach comes in. Because the coach can say, Look, this is what you need to do first, and you’re only going to focus on this until it’s better.

This is something that should always be in the forefront of your mind on why training – one, why culture is so important, because you can pay to get people to train your people. But they’re never going to do it unless your culture supports them doing it when you’re not looking. The other piece is, you’ve got to have the right people that are coachable that are willing to do it when you’re not looking. And the other one is, is all of you committing to understanding in order to fix these touchpoints, people have to be trained. They have to be trained on how they speak. They’ve got to be trained on how they act. They’ve got to be trained on what to say when, they’ve got to be trained on very advanced things. But the simple things that people make hard, like answering the phones when they ring and don’t put people on hold. That stuff comes back.

When people buy from you. Right and this is you know, we implement this ortho coach model in our orthodontic practices, and those of you who have listened to the podcast, you’ve heard me mention this before. It’s so powerful because it creates this personal connection that’s otherwise very difficult to create when people buy from you as an orthodontic practice. But that personal connection is oftentimes what’s lost throughout a patient’s journey, because they just become a number. Your goal always should be to make sure that people that buy from you feel like they’re your only customer. They do not want to see 15 other people sitting in the waiting room when they walk in. And this is another way of getting innovative. Like this is why companies like Dental Monitoring, as an example, are so critical to the future success that you have as a company in this new economy, right?

Take, for example, this lady that wrote the one-star review, she probably still writes it because there’s so many other touchpoints that are going on. But the chances of her writing it are reduced if she can be seen virtually for a lot of these appointments. Why? Because then she wouldn’t be complaining that she couldn’t get an appointment at the time she wanted. Right. The other one is, that she probably would be able to get the appointment in the office the time she wanted, because all the other patients are on dental monitoring, too. So it opens up the schedule to so many different times you can see people, that you otherwise would have to say, Sorry, we don’t have anything at that time. You know, we’re sorry, we can’t get you in for six more weeks, when you’re supposed to see me tomorrow. Like there’s so many different things, but that means that you have to be an innovator, you’ve got to be a doer. You can’t wait until the orthodontic profession, you know, overwhelmingly adopts this virtual stuff and then go okay, I’m in. It’s too late at that time. You have to be proactive about this stuff.

So you’ve got to ask yourself when who’s in charge. So if I call your practice, and this is the other thing that happens, it happened to this practice. It’s like you have a voicemail and you have it for a reason. If a patient calls and leaves one, okay, that’s not an unexpected experience. Like I had to leave a voicemail. Well, I didn’t call to leave you a voicemail, I call to talk to a live human being, they should have answered in two rings or under, should have been amazing to me. That comes with training, it comes with a thought process, it comes with a vision. But if they do leave a voicemail, and no matter how much you strive, it’s like us – like we strive to be as perfect as we can be, and wow our clients every second of every day, but we screw up. And that’s okay. The point is, is we care enough to fix it. And it’s the same thing with you all, you’re gonna make mistakes, your people are gonna leave voicemails, but you’ve got to care enough to then figure out how people have to leave you fewer voicemails.

But who’s in charge? That’s what I’m getting at here is on your voicemail, who is responsible for calling those back within a certain time frame? Who is held responsible for that job description? Because if it’s just you know, Joe leaves a voicemail, and everybody’s involved in calling it back, people have this mentality? Well, Betty, you’ll call them back, you know, or Susie will call them back. Instead of going, I’m going to take it upon myself to call this person back right away. Because that’s, that’s our obligation to wow, these people, they shouldn’t have had to leave a voicemail to begin with. So I’m going to put my duties aside for a second, my admin responsibilities, and I’m going to get on customer service.

And that, by the way, and this is a podcast in itself, is one of the reasons why people don’t jump on things like that is that – look at your job descriptions at your practice. This is something I’m so passionate about, because it’s obvious, but it’s very not obvious at the same time. Like you have to think beyond right? You’ve got to rewire the mindset. The reason a lot of these things happen, is none of your job descriptions in your office are customer service sales-based. If you look at the description, they may not even mention those skill sets with your job positions and descriptions at your office. So you got to think about that for a minute. What you’re doing is you have a job description, and oh, by the way, be excellent at all these skillsets revolving around people who buy from us, refer to us, etc.

The reality is, is those should be your job description. And oh, by the way, you’re going to be you’re going to be assisting me in the mouth. And oh, by the way, you’re going to be a treatment coordinator here. Oh, by the way, you’re going to answer phones here. But that is a secondary thing to the job description of you’re an experience person. It’s your job to be an expert at experience, at customer service, sales, hospitality. This is your job. And I tell people that with the New Patient Group all the time I tell our clients we talk to our employees, contractors about it is that, you know, for our web designers, you’re not a web designer, you’re a client experience person, what you’re going to be held accountable to is offering unexpected experiences to the client. Now, what you also do with us as a secondary thing is you design websites.

Now through that amazing things happen. And I’m going to give you a story. So this is exactly what the one-star review was with this practice, right? None of it had to do with what they offered, right, which is orthodontics. It’s not like she hit the internet and said, I have to write a one-star review because the doctor stinks. My teeth are jacked up, they’re not moving, blah, blah, blah, right? That’s not what it was. The review was about the non-clinical aspects of what’s going on in the practice. What we teach so heavily, and try to rewire the mindset so heavily to people, is that those are the things that the patient can relate to. So those are the things you have to be better at, exceptional at over everybody else in the community, not just in ortho not just – it’s everybody, you got to be better than anywhere they can spend their money in or outside of health care.

So recently, we went live and shout out to Dr. Mark Olson, your website looks amazing. For those of you out there listening to the podcast, go check out it’s olsenortho.com, go check out Dr. Marc Olsen, and the website amazing looks beautiful. Our websites, our online marketing, this is the happiest I’d sent – and Dr. Scopek, hey, man, this is a reference to the text message I’d sent you a couple of days ago – this is the happiest I’ve ever been. Our team is ridiculous. We’ve hired and brought on board new people on the online marketing side, more coaches on the coaching side, everyone is just operating on all cylinders, best it’s ever been. And it just makes me so happy to see that, because the employees are happy, the customers are happy. And it’s just great.

This website, the process, and this was a struggle for us early on as a company. You know, getting the process down from Okay, the client signs to the when the website goes live and all the processes, there’s a lot of things that go on, and you do have to really care in order to fight through the pain to get it mapped out to where it’s very, it’s very streamlined, efficient, etc. And we fought through that pain. I’m very proud of it. That’s what we teach all of you like it just because the system is right, doesn’t mean it’s gonna work right, right away. Like you have to get through it, you have to get through the mistakes, and we did.

And just like this one-star review, right is that the product, the teeth straightening went really well. She even told the practice, yeah, happy with my teeth, right? For us, on the online marketing division that we have, we have three things we do under one roof, business coaching, employee training, and online marketing. So full solutions, right. But no matter how great and I had said this to our team the other day on one of our weekly meetings, is that no matter how great the website inevitably looks. If the process leading up to that stinks, we fall behind, we’re nonresponsive, you know, we don’t communicate well, whatever it is, we don’t follow tasks, we don’t deliver as promised. If the process itself is not fun for the client, then the end product, which in this case for Dr. Marc Olsen was the website, then no matter how great the website is, it’s tainted. Like they may think it looks pretty, but they do not view it the same way as they would if the process leading up to the launch of the website sucked.

And this happens because they buy from you, you’ve got to wow them with an experience leading up to delivering the actual product. Alright, this is the same exact thing. You have to wow them leading up to when the product is delivered and finished. That is your job. You can’t not answer phones, you can’t not return voicemails. You can’t not greet people when they walk through the door. You can’t have them see a different assistant every time they’re there, so they never have a chance to build any kind of rapport with one, which is why we have our ortho coach model.

In your mind as a CEO, as a leader, reps out there helping practices, your mind has got to be in an area that goes beyond just how do we make more purchases? How do we get more people to buy from us? Metrics, how do we make more money, to how do we enhance the experience? How do we make sure that the new patients and the existing patients are wowed at all times? And you have to have oversight into this, you have to know what’s going on when you’re not looking. That’s why weekly meetings are important, that’s why role plays are important. You have to know that these things are happening to you. And they are, all right. Every practice. They’re happening at different levels. Some are really bad, some aren’t as bad, but they’re happening. And you should do everything to strategize to make sure they don’t.

That’s one of the biggest reasons why so many people use Wright Chat because they’re outsourcing their new patient call to my phone agents who handle it. And then that opens up hundreds of minutes a month to now take care of more people that bought from you. Don’t be on the phone as much when someone’s up front. Now you’re more of a concierge, to make sure if a phone call does come in, you know it’s an existing patient. You can answer that, you can spend time with them, when otherwise, you’d have to put them on hold because the other phones ringing and you have to go see if it’s a new patient, and it kills the existing patient experience. And when you get one-star reviews focus on this stuff, a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times, it’s admin-related.

Rarely is the one-star review, this doctor stinks. Right? Most of the time, the reviews – and the good ones too, by the way, most of the time, the five-star reviews are admin-related. They’re so nice, they’re funny, they’re fun. You know, they greeted me when I walked through the door, they paid attention to me, it’s the admin nonclinical side, same way. With the one-star reviews, you know, I call they didn’t answer I left a voicemail, they didn’t call me back, I would show up and they were running behind all the time, I would try to get an appointment on the schedule, and they couldn’t see me for 25 years. It’s all admin, nonclinical related.

It’s the experience that drives the result, just like the Dr. Mark Olson example, in Cynthia, who’s our lead web designer that handled his website design personally herself. If the experience along the way, leading up to the launch of the website was a pain in the butt, they couldn’t get a hold of us, because they just felt like you know, we just viewed him as a number, which we don’t, just like we teach you, we view every single one of you, every single one of you as if you’re our only client, period, end of story. That is how you develop your brand in the community, lower advertising costs. And it’s the same way with you the processes, way beyond your clinical processes, the nonclinical world you live in, has to be streamlined, they have to be beautiful. They’ve got to be unique, innovative, unexpected, unforgettable.

And that goes beyond your new patients. And more importantly, it goes and leads into the people that have already said, Here is my money. And all of you, you have to worry, everybody this, is that when things are going well in my life, it scares the crap out of me. Right? And the reason I say that, is that life is a bumpy, winding road. There’s always something coming. And you always have to be thinking that way. Does it mean you can’t celebrate the good? Of course not. You should, sometimes I don’t do that enough, I need to be better in that category. Because I’m so worried about what if? I have this recurring nightmare, that happens to me quite a bit on you know, we lose our clients, like they decide to go somewhere else like a recurring nightmare. And call me weird, but that’s how much my mind is on all of you all the time.

You don’t have to be a crazy person, like me. But that is how you have to be thinking, you know, what if the person that we started yesterday is the last patient that ever buys from us? What if the next person that bought from you, you had to get five referrals from you were going to go out of business, you would obsess over that person. And that’s how you have to be for all of your clients. And your goal should be 5, 10, 15 referrals from all of them, and you will get them if you commit to asking them. But also if you commit to constantly adding in unexpected experiences. That’s what it’s all about. And it starts with a mindset of giving a damn about the people that bought from you. And I know all of you do. It’s not like you’re like, “Yeah, we’re gonna sell them and screw them like that.” I know, that’s not what you think.

But that’s how the way a lot of how your business’s act, makes them think. You know, if I walk in for a three o’clock appointment, you come out and get me at 3:20, that just told me through your actions, you don’t give a damn about my time. Whether you do or don’t, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same thing about do you care about the experience people got in your office? Okay, if the answer is probably yes. Well, how many times are you asking people? Mr. Jones? How was your experience with us today? How’d everything go? Like, are your people trained for that? Does your culture support them doing it when you’re back in the mouth? Are they doing it when you’re not looking? Because here’s the thing. If those questions are being asked at every appointment, you know what happens? This one-star review doesn’t happen. Do you know why? Because the response from this lady is, No I’m not. I’m not happy. I’m sick and tired of your – she would have said what she said on the one-star review. Now she would have said it internally to your team.

And this is where the the the worst complaint you could ever have comes in, that you don’t know about is is is the exact line is the ones you don’t know about. Until they hit the internet or until they go and tell 50 people in your community but you never know they did. This again is why the one-star review, at least let you know what’s happening because I guarantee she also told 20 of her friends. You’ve got to be proactive about this. And if you care about the people’s experience that have bought from you, they don’t know it unless you’re asking. And then your team has to be able to know, okay, I asked, they gave me a response, what now? Those are not skillsets hourly employees come to the table with. Now if they’re willing to be coached and want to be coached, and you have a culture to support it, they can be trained on those things. And all of this stuff is unbelievable for what it does. Because not only. you know, if you’re functioning like this, and you’re asking in a proper manner for referrals through first identifying, Did they have a good experience, you’re showcasing that you care, you’re offering unexpected experiences, because guess what do you think people when’s the last time you went to a business, And they said, “Mr. Jones, how was your experience with us today? You know, we work really hard on making sure every customer we have just gets the best experience of any business they’ve ever dealt with. How was yours today?” Okay. Unexpected, especially in the healthcare environment.

Now, you’re going to get that at a five-star resort. And that’s the point. We want to get what you would get there, we want to get that inside your practice. And it’s even more unexpected, because no one’s expecting that from a practice. They’re expecting it from a five-star resort, not from your practice. So when you deliver it, it’s unexpected. It leads to an insane experience. But you’ve got to have people trained on those things, which means you roleplay you practice you hold people accountable, you build a culture of success through accountability.

One of my favorite lines is it’s not rocket science, but it actually is. And the reason is, is there’s only about 1% of companies that do it, and they’re called famous. it’s a recipe right from the famous companies. You’ve got to have everyone’s obsessed new patient phone call. And while it’s one of our biggest sellers, the reality is is your existing patient phone call is just as important. The hospitality, the questions that are asked, how it’s handled, are they in control are they not, the list is endless. Same way with the assistants in the back, the assistants’ job anytime they speak is nonclinical. If they’re in the mouth with tools, that’s clinical, but anytime they open their mouth, that is a nonclinical skill set, its presentation, its sales, its verbiage, etc, etc. All that goes into how you make that person feel after they bought from you, which leads to unexpected or standard or less than that.

Your mind has got to be proactive about all of these touchpoints that people are having once they buy from you. If it is, you will not get these one-star reviews. And you will identify them internally and be able to correct them before this person hits the internet. You’ve got to be proactive in these situations. So many people when they get one-star reviews, they freak out, what do we do? How do we get them down? Oh my gosh, oh, God. And then you tell yourself, it was a crazy patient, ah, this person’s terrible. They didn’t wear their aligners, and then they hit the internet and said we can’t fix teeth, or they never showed for their appointments, and then they hit the internet and said we don’t have any appointments available. Like your story that you tell yourself is it’s their fault. So therefore you don’t actually fix the problems and the problems being, you and the team internally.

Of course, there’s crazy people out there. Sometimes you can’t do anything about it. But you certainly can minimize it. And I would say that if you have the right experience internally, even the crazy people don’t write one-star reviews. So the recipe for this is looking in the mirror, which is the hardest thing to do. You’ve got to look at your processes and your experiences for people that bought from you. Are people going over their treatment? Are they finishing on time? Or early or late? Are you blaming the patient if they finished late, or are you blaming yourself for not educating and having the verbiage skills that sell them on the value of why they should have proper hygiene, they should show up to their appointments.

And I know a lot of you are going, Brian That’s ridiculous. Of course, they should show up to their appointments. And I agree with you. But again, the reality of the situation is you value that stuff a lot more than the patient. So you have to sell somebody on why they should take time out of their day to drive 20 minutes to your office sit down and have the appointment and how that benefits them. Which is called the benefit experience, which is a whole sales training that we have as a company for our clients but it’s also something that you constantly have, and simply put, you’re constantly selling them on how it benefits them.

And a lot of people don’t do that. They take it for granted. Now they got a two o’clock appointment, they’ll show. Well they may not see value in showing. And what most people will do is blame the patient, when it’s actually your fault. All of these touchpoints, just like we talked about with the new patient experience all of these touchpoints, from the time they shop for you, to the time they call you, to the time they show up to your front door, to what happens when they do walk through your front door, to what happens on the digital workflow, to what happens in the TC exam, to what happens in the doctor exam, to what happens when you present money, to them to what happens if they don’t buy from you your follow up process, right? Do you make a phone call, an email, a text? Because guess what, that’s exactly what the other practices are doing down the street. Right?

What can you do that’s unique, innovative, memorable, and unforgettable? On every single one of the touchpoints I just said, right, but that continues on after I buy. Right? Are you sending a nice welcome video to people that bought from you? Like what are you doing after they buy that is unexpected and unique. And it’s not just Okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna order your aligners now, or you’re gonna apply braces, now, whatever it may be. You’ve got to come out the box, you’ve got to come outside of the healthcare zone, and think unexpected experiences. You’re an experience company that happens to sell orthodontics, dentistry, plastic surgery, eye surgery, whatever it may be. But those things are a secondary thing for what you really are in this new economy, and it’s an experience company. The job descriptions your office should be wrapped around experience. You as a business owner, it’s your job to create a good experience for you, your team and the customer. You got to set the right vision.

Every touchpoint, once they buy from you, has got to be innovative, unforgettable, memorable, etc. And I know that’s hard. It’s not easy. It’s not just flip a switch and it’s done, right. But these are the things for those of you out there that think differently. And you fight through the pain of getting them implemented. You fight through the pushback that a lot of our early employees will give and you stick with the vision of what things can become, it is unbelievable the growth that happens while lowering your costs. Because nobody else is doing this stuff. Every practice on the planet has existing patient experience issues. Very few see people on time. Now there’s ones that do, but very few do. Very few answer every call as if my call to you, I’m your only customer, and spend as much time as needed on the phone with me. Very few call voicemails back if when those do happen, right away with just in a couple minutes. With the right verbiage apologizing, having empathy, because it’s not just calling. It’s what verbiage do you use, once you make that phone call, all of that stuff is so important. Greeting people the moment they walk through the door, right? That’s what she’d be doing new patients, but it’s also what you should be doing with existing patients.

And all of this leads to people giving you better reviews, keeping them from giving you bad reviews, and creating a brand so exceptional that your clients are your salesforce. And I know all you can do it, it’s just rethinking your mind. I hope you enjoy today. Hopefully, that has shifted your mindset from not just worried about new patients, you got to be obsessing over your customer. Alright, that is a mindset that I want you to have. And if you’ve been a practice, say they’ve been open for 10, 20 years. Imagine where you would be today. If you had this mindset from day one, right? So it’s never too late. You may be going well I just opened yesterday. Well, I’m all aboard. Let’s do this. You may be also a practice been around, like I said 20 years you like it’s too late. It’s not too late. You can start this now. Alright, you can start this now. Don’t wait, don’t hesitate. Reach out to us. Let us install these experiences inside your practice new patient group clients out there, that’s gonna be a big mindset, it’s gonna be a big shift next year that we’re going to be doing with you, is obsessing over these customer relationships, these people that have bought from you the experiences they’re getting, and I can’t wait for those who haven’t installed this, and I can’t wait to get it installed. Because of the things that it’s going to do for you can’t wait. Reshift that mind everybody to your existing customers just as much as your new patients, and arguably more than your new patients. Because just like the previous podcast, people that buy from you that is your lifeline. Obsess over them, obsess over training your employees to have the skillsets necessary and the vision necessary, and the right mindset to view all of these touchpoints in a very different way than your competition.

All right, looking forward to seeing everybody at the OrthoPreneur event, that one I am actually going to do is an on-demand course. For those of you watching on YouTube, so right behind me, is our on-demand studio. So what I’m going to do is also take the seven steps to achieving prosperity. And I’m going to create it as a course, New Patient Group clients, you’ll get that in your NPG University platform. It will also be for sale for anybody that doesn’t attend OrthoPreneurs and for the event, for everybody that attends it, I’m going to give a QR code on stage. You’ll be able to snap that, it’ll take you to a landing page where you’ll be able to get that for free and keep it as well as a lot of other free courses is just a thank you for going to the event.

And again, everyone rewire that mindset, shift it to that customer service from people that have already bought from you, avoid those one-star reviews and realize that the reviews you’re getting aren’t from one thing, just like the five-star reviews. Like they are not writing five-star reviews about you because of one good thing. They’re writing it because there’s been a series of touchpoints that led them up to feeling obligated to write that review. It’s the same thing with the one-star right, it’s not one thing, it’s a multitude of things that add up to them going and feeling like they should write a one-star review. Shift that mindset.

Thanks to everybody for listening. Thanks for your dedication and loyalty out there. New Patient Group clients, Wright Chat clients, all the podcast listeners love you very much. And we’ll see it OrthoPreneurs and we’ll see you next month for the November podcast. Bye Bye, everybody.

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