December 1, 2023 • 44 mins
Welcome to another enlightening episode of The Dental Wealth Nation Show with your host, Tim McNeely! In this inspiring segment, Tim McNeely welcomes the accomplished entrepreneur and expert in creating remarkable customer experiences, Ryan Vet. Together, they delve into the essential practices for "Creating Experiences Worth Sharing."
Throughout this episode, the discussion centers on the significance of paying attention to patient experiences in dental practices. They spotlight the often-overlooked details that can significantly impact a patient's perception of a practice.
From the ambiance and cleanliness of the environment to the small, simple changes that can enhance efficiency and reduce costs, no stone is left unturned in this comprehensive exploration.
Ryan Vet brings his knowledge and experience in marketing, branding, and operations to the forefront, offering valuable insights applicable across various industries, including the dental field. The dynamic conversation also addresses the evolving preferences of different generations regarding healthcare experiences and the role of technology in shaping these experiences.
As the host of Dental Wealth Nation, Tim McNeely effectively guides the dialogue, ensuring listeners gain actionable strategies and a fresh perspective on creating exceptional patient experiences in their dental practices. By focusing on the intricate details, fostering team satisfaction, and recognizing the uniqueness of every individual's story, they pave the way for dental professionals to elevate their practices to unprecedented levels of success.
This episode provides impactful insights for dental professionals and is a valuable resource for entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers seeking to enhance customer experiences in any industry. Join Tim McNeely and Ryan Vet as they uncover the hidden advice and strategies that can transform ordinary experiences into extraordinary ones, leaving a lasting impression on customers and team members.
Tune in to this enriching episode of The Dental Wealth Nation Show to gain a fresh perspective on creating exceptional customer experiences and unlock the secrets to cultivating a prosperous and fulfilling professional journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
As a driven dentist, you see the world differently where some
see scarcity. You see abundance. When others wanna give
up, you keep going. You're building an amazing life
of significance. That means you can't rely Eye on ordinary
advice from ordinary advisers to get to your goals. You want
advice that's going to help maximize your net worth Earth so you can take
(00:26):
even better care of the people you love, the causes you care
about, and make your dent in the universe.
But the fact is This advice remains hidden because
relatively few professionals are well versed in them, and the extremely
affluent don't care to let to know about them. Join
us as we pull back the curtain to reveal the often
(00:47):
hidden advice and strategies used by today's most
successful vigils, and families. Welcome
to Dental Wealth Nation. Here's your host, Tim
McNealy.
Hey. Welcome everyone to another edition of Dental Wealth Nation.
And I don't know about you, but I've had some good experiences in life and
(01:10):
some not so good experiences in life, and and sometimes in your
dental practice, in my business, just in life in general, right, our
experiences don't always, Match up to what we we want to
deliver, and that's why I'm so excited about today is because by the
time we finish today, you're gonna know How to really create a holistic
experience that's gonna help you stand out from all the noise that's out
(01:32):
there. You're gonna have a new way of thinking about every single person who
walks through your door. But more importantly of all, you're gonna feel
inspired to create better experiences, not just for your patients, but
also for your team and everyone else around you. And I couldn't think
of anyone better to help us do that than Ryan Vette. And I could tell
you that Ryan's an entrepreneur. I could tell you that, like myself, he's married
(01:54):
to a dentist. I could Tell you that he's run a $100,000,000 company. That's right.
A 100,000,000. It's a it's a big number for you out there. And I could
also tell you that he's been featured in almost every single Yeah.
Business publication out there. But what I really wanna share with you about
Ryan is he has a passion and a life purpose for inspiring
people to create Positive outcomes by creating experiences
(02:15):
worth sharing. Ryan, welcome to the show. Tim, thank you so
much for having me. Oh, it's an honor and, right,
experiences matter, don't they? They do. Absolutely. Every
single day, we have Countless interactions, and we
rarely talk about the mediocre ones. Right. It's
the good ones that we talk about. And so so So tell me a little
(02:37):
bit about how you really got started in your journey, not just in in entrepreneurship,
but also in in health care and then this focus on really creating
experiences that are worth sharing. Like like
anyone, you know, if you you look at a movie star, they're typecast one time
and and they have that typecast over and over and over again. And I was
head cast early on as the marketing guy, partly because that's what I thought I
(02:58):
wanted to do. And ever since my very first
company, I it was, 14 years old, and I
ran a marketing company. I had 13 team members that worked for me.
We served over 200 some clients in 25 different countries. We we helped raise over
$50,000,000 for nonprofits and NGOs, and,
I was the marketing guy. I helped Create postcards, collateral, website,
(03:21):
whatever you needed, and so did my team. And then as I got into
the venture backed start up world, Yeah. I also was the
marketing guy, and I was doing sales and revenue growth.
And finally, as I got to the point in my,
my career where I I launched a couple of my own companies and and sold
them and and sat in the CEO seat and saw operations and finance and everything.
(03:43):
And What I really realized that I was passionate
about was, yeah, I love marketing and branding. That's that's always gonna be a sweet
spot for me, and I I actually like operations. I like using both
sides of my brain, but what I found is that every single thing
that we do in life, And what we talk about is our experiences, our good
experiences and our bad experiences. We really talk about the,
(04:05):
experiences, those meh kind of in the middle experiences, and That goes for
your team. That goes for your patient pace. That goes for your clients, your customers,
whatever it might be. And so everything from running a lemonade stand as a As
a kid all the way to having the opportunity to run a a company well
into the 9 figures, it was all about what is that
experience that we get to Every single day, it's an opportunity and a privilege
(04:27):
that so many people in marketing and sales and branding overlook when they're
trying to grow up into the right. Wow. Well and
even your marketing background, I mean, essentially, that's kind of the the in
a sense, that that is creating an experience because of the The
material that people interact with, the things that they see, the way words are
presented. Right? That in and of itself is an experience creating
(04:49):
activity, isn't it? Absolutely, Tim. So every single day,
a study recently came out published in Forbes that says, you and I
living in United States. Let's take a guess. Do you know how many advertisements we
see on a given day? Oh, I'm gonna guess it's 1,000.
1,000. Yeah. It's about 10,000 1000 advertisements a day. Think about it. Getting up in
the morning and even getting ready, your your shampoo has, ad
(05:12):
on it. If you got a bar of soap, it's got a bird Stamped on
there, you get your toothpaste and your toothbrush. I mean, everything. Your shirt
has, a logo on it. Your background has, you know, Dental Wealth
Nation podcast on it. 42 times that I can see right now. Can't count that
fast. But you've got all sorts of different things that are just screaming at you.
And so, yes, that's part of branding and marketing, create it creating that first
(05:32):
impression. But what I have found is that getting new
patients in the door, for example, is relatively easy. Now I'm not saying it's easy.
Anyone can just go grab patients off the street, but That's not the challenge. A
lot of people are like, hey. I got 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, a 100
new patients a month. Well, the question is, how many of them came back, And
why didn't they come back? Because wealth is not
(05:53):
about how much money you bring in every single month. That's riches.
Right? But wealth is what do you accumulate and start to build up, and the
same thing is true when you're investing in people is how do you create that
experience that takes them from a stranger to a raving fan or a brand
ambassador. Yeah. Well and that that takes a little
thought and and some some intentionality, doesn't it? It doesn't just happen
(06:14):
by accident. Not at all. You you have to take
a lot of work. And most people, if you think about it, if you go
to a Waffle House today, you know what you're going to get. Right? You you
know your experience at a Waffle House restaurant. And if you haven't been to
1, it's pretty much to the southeast, but they're
throughout the It's a, a diner style, very small.
(06:37):
You sit at a bar, and you're gonna get mediocre food,
mediocre service for a mediocre price, and that's alright. Like, You're you're never gonna
be wowed there. But I I think of familiar
things that we do every single day, like flying. You know, I I have the
opportunity to speak, a ton every year and,
you know, I fly on Delta, pretty much exclusively. In fact,
(06:59):
earlier this year, I had to hop Hop on a different airline to make a
tight, head 2 events in a day in different cities, and the only place direct
was different airline. I felt like a traitor. But the reason that I'm so loyal
to Delta is because of the
experience that they give me. There are only so many ways you can sit in
airplane seat and only so many ways you can eat airplane food. Right?
(07:19):
But the experience, the fact that every once in a while, I have a handwritten
note with my name and something about me on my seat when I come to
sit down Or the fact that one time I almost missed a
connection and they had a Porsche come pick me up from my plane and drive
me through the Atlanta not through the Atlanta airport, but, like, under the Atlanta airport
to my next plane because I couldn't have made it fast enough. Now you think
(07:40):
about that, Delta has 80,000,000 people that fly on their planes every single
year. It only takes about a quarter of a penny from every one of those
tickets to create that transformative experience. But because of those
things, It's not the the metal bag tag that they give me, though, that's nice
as it jingles to the airport and people turn their head. No. It's it's the
how they make me feel. So, yeah, they have good marketing. They might have the
(08:01):
price they might not, but they did something to create transform
an ordinary opportunity and create an extraordinary experience out of it.
Yeah. I mean, I I would be blown away if that happened, and they would
earn my loyalty because I'd be like, they got me. They they understand me, and
they they're They're going out of their way to to create that transformative
experience and create loyalty. That that's amazing.
(08:23):
Exactly. And I think that's where practices
So often miss the mark. There are so many people out there that are doing
great marketing, and I do think you should practice marketing. I think you should invest
in great websites, videos, photos, everything. But sometimes it
stops there. Forbes did another study, and they looked at the
switching cost of America in 2021. This was
(08:45):
published in 2022, so it says slightly old. But they looked at
how much revenue Companies lost because someone left
their company and went through a different before because of bad customer service.
So switching from your cell phone provider from Verizon to T Mobile
because of a bad or whatever it might be. So they looked across the entire
country, and they found that $1,600,000,000,000
(09:08):
was lost in revenue because of switching costs. Now, obviously, that went to another
company. But the moral of the story is it wasn't about having the best
product. It wasn't about having the best marketing. It was about someone had a
upsetting experience that was not handled properly, and
that person moved to a different organization. I think the same is
true. You can have the best marketing. You can have all the great things going
(09:30):
on in your practice. And if You don't create that experience
not only for your patients, but for your team and your partners and your vendors
as well. If you're not creating that experience, why would anyone
want to come back? Yeah. So true. Now, you know, when it comes to kinda
creating those innovative strategies, are you suggesting we need to go out and buy a
Porsche and pick up our patients? Is that like the the trick
(09:52):
that we're missing, or are there some simple things we can do to really create
those experiences also? Yeah. I think there is a a lot of
different ways you can approach creating positive
experiences, and for everybody, it's different. The first thing
I I like to think about is, I
I've owned I'll give you an example. I've owned 2 cleaning companies.
(10:14):
The first one was a mistake. The second1 was just a big mistake.
Anyway, I learned 1 was commercial, 1 was residential. Learned a lot during
both. And One of the things that we would always do, and this is not
to be crass at all, but to be honest, we would take people
in On their 1st day of training with us in how to clean,
and we make them clean the bathroom, right, that the the hardest part of the
(10:36):
job. And after they were done, We would tell them that
they did it wrong because here's what inevitably would happen 99% of the time. The
person comes in, and if you think about this, visualize yourself cleaning a toilet.
Even if you have cleaners do it, you know how to clean a toilet, generally
speaking. You get the brush, you lean over the bowl, you spray the the toilet
bowl cleaner, and and you scrub leaning over the bowl. Now think about how
(10:58):
you use the toilet. Again, not trying to be crass, but
your perspective's different. You're probably about a foot to 2 feet lower, and
you're faced the opposite direction because you're sitting down and you
see things differently. The light's gonna hit things differently. You're gonna
see dust on the toilet paper roll holder that you weren't gonna see before. You're
gonna see something in the corner that cleaning it toilet you're never going to see.
(11:19):
And so the easy tip for practices to do, and this is a fun teammate
activity, is go together as a team
And start your patient journey from the very beginning in your
car. So pull in. Is your practice clearly marked? You've been
going there every day of every year for the past 10 years of working at
the rectus. Is it clearly marked they find it easily? Because people are already stressed
(11:41):
most times going to the dentist. The number of patients that say they love going
to the dentist is far less than the people who, you know, the other
group. So is it clearly marked? Once you pull in, are your parking spots
easy? Are they well marked? They're long enough, wide enough, whatever? Then
you walk in. Is there trash? Are your shrubs dead? And then opening that door.
Do you have, like, one of those air conditioners in the summer that, like, suctions
(12:03):
your door shut, and so that door's so heavy and they're pulling on the door.
And and start walking through and take note of everything the patient
sees. Because then all of a sudden, they're they're sitting down in in that
chair. They open up the highlights magazine, and the first mace has
already been done. So they turn the page, and the next crossword's been done, and
they turn the page again and someone spit out their gum because they didn't wanna
see the dentist the did they want the dentist to see their chewing gum? What's
(12:25):
that experience? And walk all the way through the entire
practice, not as you, but as the patient. Lay back
in your chair. How many stains are on your ceiling? And and it
sounds simple, but the list that practices will come back with and teams
will come back with have dozens, if not more, Things that
are simple changes. We're not talking about going and repainting your whole office, which
(12:48):
you probably should do if you need to, but simple things like, oh, well,
this chair, if you sit in it, is too close to the door. And every
single time someone walks in, the the door hits it. We're gonna move the chair,
or this chair can't see the TV. What whatever it might be. Simple things.
But often, it's a lot less money than you think. Just like
the Delta example of Porsche's, a quarter of a penny per
(13:10):
ticket on average To to do that, it doesn't cost them hardly anything in
the grand scheme of things, but that story has been told to tens of thousands
of people around the world because of my experience. Yeah.
Right. And I love that that, literally, that perspective shift
of, right, instead of looking at it from the owner or the Staff, right, placing
yourself in the the place of the patient. And what is the
(13:33):
patient seeing? What are what's going on from their perspective?
Because that's truly eye opening, And it's a completely different experience
because you're seeing it with a different set of eyes. Absolutely.
I think the other component that I I try to teach people
Is the your 5 senses. Your 5 senses play an
incredible role in your perception, especially in a physical
(13:55):
space. And so walking into a dental practice, what are they seeing? What are they
hearing? What are they tasting? Probably the puppy face. What are they touching,
and seeing Smelling, that was the last one.
And and you think about it, these are not things that we often think about.
It's kind of like we're we're scent blind when we walk into our own practice
like when you walk into your own house every day because you're so familiar you're
(14:17):
smelling it. But those are big triggers to a lot of patients
that, again, are something easy to change. Like, I've seen A practice that gives
you a custom scent. You can preselect your custom scent before you go to the
practice. And all they have, it's so simple. Cost them
Maybe $200 a year. Okay? And all it is is
they have a little 2 by 2, cotton swab, And they
(14:40):
have a row of essential oils, like 5 different scents. You put
the oil on your cotton swab. They have a a safety pin. Pin it to
your shirt. So what do you Now walking around your own personal lavender, your own
personal eucalyptus cost them nothing, but the patient got to preselect.
Just like if you're flying, You know, 1st class, they email you a couple days
before. What meal would you like to have ready on, when you're up in the
(15:02):
air? Same thing. It it just gives them that experience.
Doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I've seen a lot of practices starting
to put Sonos and Ipads in in in each individual
room. And so the patient can sit down and pick pick their own playlist and
says, whatever. Who knows what's going on to the speakers in the practice? But now
you've got your own custom music or headphones. So, Again, these
(15:23):
things don't have to cost a lot of money. They're not a lot of investment,
but you've just taken an experience of running someone through a practice as
fast as possible so you have efficient schedule To
actually transforming their experience and saying, hey. That was sort of
a pleasurable experience. Yeah. Well, right, and those little
things really do make a difference. I was out on the Central Coast last week
(15:44):
with a friend picking up a wine shipment and visiting a couple wineries.
And, you know, we, you know, we we know the people there, and we're chatting
with them. And, you know, one point, we kinda made the joke. We're like, what
notes do you have on us? And we started, like, going through the notes because,
right, that's how they create those experiences. It's just jotting
simple things down about you. And in this case, we, you know, we kinda
(16:05):
hack the system a little. We were having a little fun. We put some weird
notes in there. So the next person who gets it is gonna ask us, like,
what wine pairs really well with spaghetti and meatballs. Right? So Nice. We're having
some fun with it too. But, right, just little simple things like keeping
notes on your and what's important to them, it doesn't take
a whole lot of effort to do that, and it really creates an amazing
(16:27):
transformative experience because so many people aren't doing it.
Right. They just overlook it. And they come back, and they wonder why
they get so many new patients every month and none of them
Book recare. Yeah. Well Well well and this is not just gonna have an
impact on the patients who are coming in, but it's gonna have an impact on
How they talk about your practice and how they talk about you too, isn't it?
(16:49):
Absolutely. I mean, experience is one of those things you want to share.
When you get a good Gift at Christmas or a birthday,
you can't wait but to share it. You think about your your elementary school days.
Like, it was always the the Day 1st day of the New Year, what'd you
get? And and it was just overflowing. When you get a new car,
you tell people. When you buy a new house, you tell people. Why? Because it's
(17:11):
an experience. You're proud of it. And the same thing is true. If you go
have a terrible meal, at a a restaurant and it
just did not meet your expectations, You're gonna post about it. You're gonna tell
people. But if a Porsche comes and picks you up and drives you to your
next plane, you're gonna tell people about it. And so, again, most of us live
in that mediocre middle. You definitely don't wanna we don't even have to talk about
(17:32):
the bad part. Right? Because I know all your listeners are far more sophisticated than
that, but we do need to talk about raising mediocre, that ordinary into the
extraordinary. Yeah. So true. And, you know, Ryan, we've been talking
about really that that patient experience and and things that you can do
To really build that brand loyalty, turn those patients into
to raving fans, but what are some things that the doctor can be doing
(17:55):
to To really create a better experience for their staff and the people
they work with every single day. Are there some things that can be done there
also? I think that's the biggest key.
I after exiting one of my my startups, I ended up
picking up a couple wine bars and coffee shops as a hobby. And what
I've learned, and I don't directly manage them, but I've got much
(18:16):
more much more qualified people to do that than I do. But when I
talk to the leaders of each of these locations, I can
see our our customer experience meter, which is obviously very important as
you can imagine to me at all these locations, ebb and flow based
on team satisfaction. And the team satisfaction
is a leading indicator of what the guests that walk through our
(18:39):
door are going to experience. Because when our team's not happy
with their manager or the schedule or they work too many hours or whatever it
might be, we find that That overall
or will ordinarily trickle into the guest's experience. So a couple
things that practice owners or doctors can do that are really simple.
First of all, make sure your your team loves coming to work. Just make it
(19:02):
a a a fun environment. And, no, you don't have to get the hoverboards and
right around the office and have the cool vending machines. That that's probably a liability
that your insurance is not going to cover. But why does your
team feel valued as a person when they walk through the door, or are
they just doing it to, you know, punch the clock, collect a
paycheck, and go home and, you know, rinse and repeat? Granted, most of your team
(19:23):
members probably are working for the paycheck. They're not financially they don't have
financial freedom, but you can make that enjoyable for them. I I
think of, this video that we just filmed,
for for one of my companies that I own, and we filmed at one of
my coffee shops. And it has, every single person it has a guy
it starts with the guy getting out of an Uber, and it has a little
(19:45):
text message bubble pop up. And he's looking at his phone that says, congratulations.
You just, closed on your 1st house or, you know, the keys are
gonna be there. I'm totally botching this. My creative team would be Totally
canceling this right now. But but, basically, it's like, hey. You got a house. And
he looks over to the side, and he sees this person, a street musician playing.
And you kind of walk in, and all of a sudden, this pencil rolls
(20:08):
off the table in front of him. And there's a girl there, and she smiles
saying thanks for giving me the pencil back. But then it spins around. You see
her computer screen. It's like, hey. You just flunked your class. You can't graduate in
2 weeks. And basically goes through story after story of, hey. This
person bounced their account. They're just trying to buy a cup of
coffee. This person just celebrated their engagement here because they
met here on their 1st date, you know, 3 years ago. And every single
(20:31):
person has a profound story that walks through our door. That's
the point of the video. And I I think That that
is important in the practice. You know, the old adage was leave your baggage at
the door, come to work, and be professional. That's not realistic.
We are people. We are 1 person, and the stuff around
us, you know, really impacts us. And so as a
(20:53):
leader in a practice, How can you make sure you care
for and love your team in a HR appropriate way? Love your
team, love your team well so that they can
They have an experience that's positive, and that's automatically going to overflow into the way
that they treat and love your patients. Yeah. No. I love that. Right?
Really focusing on the fact that everyone has a unique story. There's
(21:16):
a there's an Internet site called the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and
they They kinda make up words for for things that that exist that we're
not quite sure how to describe them, and and one of the words they came
up with is sonder. And sonder is this idea where, you know,
you're for for just a moment, you get lost in someone else's
story, and you realize this person sitting across the table from you or
(21:38):
Walking across the street, whatever they're going through in that moment is
just as profound, is just as involved as everything you've been going through. And
yet You have that little moment of connection of realizing, yeah, they're
they've got a complex story just as complex as mine. And that that
sonder idea, right, that those Profound stories of realizing everyone
has them. But to do that, you've gotta actually see the other person across from
(22:00):
you. That's good. That's very good. Yeah.
So, yeah, definitely incorporate a little bit of that sonder, and and I love
that that focus of of, You know, looking at the the team members.
But, you know, I know sometimes as a doctor, you know, you may be thinking,
man, this this is hard. Like, I don't even know how to start creating an
experience for my team because they they are just there for the paycheck. Like,
(22:23):
like, how do you even start creating that kind of environment? What
are some simple things that a doctor can do to really let their staff
know that they care about them and they're trying to create that that better
experience for them? I think there's a couple things. 1,
obviously, management styles differ, and so you can't,
kind of prescribe the exact same formula for
(22:45):
everyone, but one of the better books that transcends most management
styles is 1 Minute Manager. They have the new 1 Minute Manager too
By Ken Blanchard. And what it does is it talks about, public
praise and it talks about private correction. That's a
huge way because in the hustle and bustle and this is not just dentistry.
This is everything. In the hustle and bustle of your day, You walk out of
(23:07):
the operatory. You throw up your loops. You're frustrated because something wasn't set
up right, and you quickly scold them, but you scold the the assistant in front
of everybody. And then you go back to work, and now everyone's a little
upset. Is there a time and place for correction? Absolutely. Patient safety is important.
Team member safety is important. But there's a way to do it. But then when
something goes really well and the room's set up perfectly, how many people praise that?
(23:30):
I don't. I'm not good at that. That's one area where I, As a leader
and a manager, I I fail regularly. When things go the way they're supposed
to, I I say, well, that's why I'm paying you. The but the correct response
often should be, you know, every once in a while, just thank them. Like, you
know what? Today was a perfect day. Everything went exactly how it was supposed to.
Thank you. So that's one way, just saying thanks. The the other way
(23:52):
that takes a little bit of effort, but not much, because we
all have electronic patient records, is to find
milestones. One of the most profound
things that you can do in really anybody's,
any type of marketing or, leadership is find the
milestones that really make an impact. So for example, Gonna use
(24:14):
Delta again. By the way, they don't pay me. I pay them about $25,000 a
year to talk about them. It's my honor. So,
So these milestones, I you get a 1,000,000 miler
milestone. You get a special baggage tag. They send
you Either a gift card or this custom backpack, all all this stuff. It's
a milestone of what you've accomplished. You can do the same thing with your
(24:36):
team. Go to your, you know, patient met your
not EMRE. Your patient record and download how
many hygiene exams your hygienist has done. Once they've reached
a1000 at the morning huddle, say, and today I'd reckon
like to recognize hygienist a because they've completed their
1 thousandth clean or patient 2 today will be the 1,000 clean
(24:58):
that this hygienist has done at our practice. Wow. That's so much
better than a birthday, so much better than, hey. You've worked here another
year. It's like, no. You've accomplished this in your time at our
practice. If you have, you know, any sort of digital phone system, which I
think every practice should have, but it's a side conversation, you
can you can pull records. Like, did you know that this
(25:20):
year, out of a 1000 phone calls, our front
office team has booked 50% of them. That's 500 patients booked from phone
calls. And guess what? They did that in under 3000 minutes this year.
Congratulate. You know, whatever those milestones are, every single role has that, and it's
profound. So so, really, Ray, it's not even doing
anything all that Different other than just kinda opening your eyes
(25:43):
and looking around for opportunities to praise people, looking for things to
celebrate That aren't the obvious birthdays and holidays. It kinda
reminds me a little bit about a a book that a guy named John Roland
wrote called Giftology, Where, you know, oftentimes, the wrong time to
give a gift is on the expected times. Like, everyone expects the holiday
cards. Everyone expects the birthday gifts. So do them at times when
(26:05):
people don't expect it, and then they're actually gonna receive it
and and it creates a different experience.
Exactly. I mean, you you even sent me a book unexpectedly,
and it wasn't for a birthday or anything like that. And I had it Sitting
on my desk and now it's on my bookshelf for a while, and it was
a constant reminder of you. And it was it meant a lot. It was a
(26:25):
surprise. Right? That surprise and delight campaign is what we use a lot in in
the software world, that term. Mhmm. Yeah. Now, you know, we've been talking
about that that kind of Experience piece. We've touched on marketing a
little. How do you tie these 2 things together? How do you balance,
you know, marketing with creating an experience? Are there ways to Tie those
2 together? I think consistency is the big thing. Who who are
(26:47):
you as a practice? A lot of marketing companies, and this is not
specific to dental, but I'll use a dental analogy. A lot of marketing
companies are all about in dental would be drill and fill. Right? Get
them through the door. Get them in the chair. Make money.
Well, that's fine, but why do you do what you do?
At the End of the day, why does every single person come to your
(27:10):
practice versus the practice down the road? Why does someone come to
Starbucks or not go to Starbucks? And I I think one of the
things that you do is you have to figure out who you are in your
messaging. Maybe you're the fun practice. Right? And so you do silly things. You've
got, I don't know. Can of worms heading up the chair and a whoopee cushion
when they sit down. Not recommending that. But maybe just to to,
(27:31):
over exaggerate the idea, Be consistent when when someone first hears
about your practice all the way through the time that they walk out your
door, and that should be a consistent thread And realize
that marketing is not enough anymore. People expect something
different. And guess what? If you just give them that meh experience,
You might have them come for 1 more appointment, maybe not,
(27:54):
but then they're gonna go for someone else to see if they can get something
better. And most patients, here's the crazy thing, they don't even know what they're looking
for. It just wasn't special. It was just another dentist appointment. So if
you're just another dentist, I'll go to another dentist down the road that's more convenient
or has an appointment open when I need it. Now obviously, if you create a
bad experience, they're gone for sure. And there's there's ways to salvage some of
those too. But I I think just be consistent from the time they hear about
(28:17):
your practice All the way through the end. Yeah. So so really
moving, like you said, from that that mediocre middle to something
extraordinary. Because the bad people, they're right. Or the bad
experiences, you're gonna push people off mediocre. They're at a high risk
of of going somewhere else because they just don't know any better.
Exactly. And I think, actually, bad experiences are some of the best ways to
(28:38):
transform, transform Someone's
perception, good or bad. You know, I I think of a recent
example where, we had one of my companies, we had royally
overcharged someone And, royally, but it was
a a recurring payment and so it was not
caught for a very long time. So this got larger and larger and larger every
(28:59):
month. Long story short, we handle the problem,
and I also personally reached out to the person that we had
wronged and said, hey. I'm they weren't angry. They they were very
gracious, but I said, hey. I just wanna let you know from my perceptive as
leadership, that was not okay that that happened. Here's the check and balance we put
into place so it won't happen again. Here's the corrective action that we took. And
(29:21):
then what I did was a month later, I
when this recurring charge would have hit again, I followed up. I said, hey. This
is the week the recurring charge is supposed to hit. We've put these processes in
place. Please let me know if you get charged so that I can immediately correct
it, and we can revisit it. But I'm pretty confident that my team has it
taken And they were wowed. Was I trying to
wow them? No. I viewed them as a person that we had wronged.
(29:44):
Right? We had done something and charged them a a lot of
money over a very long period of time that should never been charged,
and we never caught it. And so I was just simply trying to make it
right. And to I mean, the email I got back, I I shared
with the team not to brag, but to say this is why we care about
people. It's not just another patient. It's not just another dollar. This is someone's hard
(30:04):
earned money that we had been taking wrongfully, so we had to make it right.
And now not only did we make it right, But I I'm pretty sure this
person is a raving fan or at least moving towards that direction. Yeah.
Well and I think you break on a a really important point there, Ryan.
And, You know, people don't always expect perfection. Right? That they
know we're all you know, we all got issues in our businesses, in our
(30:26):
life, And there's an appreciation when you do take
ownership of something, and you say, hey. This shouldn't have happened. We caught
it. We're on it. We're gonna fix it and make it right way. Oftentimes,
just acknowledging the problem for someone is a massive
opportunity to create that experience because, You know, we're
all trying to get better, and I think people appreciate that when you do take
(30:48):
that time and effort to own it and say, hey. We're gonna make this right
for you. Absolutely. And I have every all my coffee
shops that I have and wine bars, I have every 5 star review come to
me, and then I share that with the whole team. I say, hey. Guess what?
And it comes to me instantly. Congratulations. It's probably one of the only
times the whole team hears from me, just because of, you know, I I've
(31:09):
got great team leaders that that run those, businesses.
But then when there's a a one star review, and we had one this morning
actually, At the day we're recording this, I I quickly read through it, made sure
it was legitimate, sent it to, the manager only,
And said, hey. Here it is. Let me know how you can be helpful in
solving this problem. It it was, I understand exactly
(31:31):
what went wrong, and so we could troubleshoot it. And that manager instantly
knew to follow-up. I didn't have to say how to follow-up because he knows,
how to create an experience, and and we're taking care of it. Right? Perfect? Definitely
not. We're gonna make mistakes, but it's it's, again, even in some of
those moments where where a lot of people would cower,
You have an opportunity to transform that that negative experience into
(31:53):
something extraordinary worth sharing in a positive way. Well and I
love what you just shared about that 2 is, right, you're you're practicing what
you preach. You're taking those good reviews, publicly praising
everyone, and the negative ones, You're sharing just with the appropriate
people. So, right, you're putting it into practice. That's amazing.
Yep. And don't do it perfectly, by the way, but but we do do our
(32:14):
best. Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, what about
generational differences? Right? Is this something younger generations care
more about? Do older generations really Appreciate the
experience. Do you see much difference in terms of the
the generations and how we should approach The marketing and and
patient care and creating those experiences oh, man.
(32:36):
Are you ready for part 2 of this this episode here?
You you you have a can of worms. Part 2. Yeah. So, obviously,
I I I've written the book Cracking the Millennial Code and working on the second
one, from zeta alpha, looking at generational dynamics.
It's not a dental book, but it it applies, of course. So
So really passionate about it, and I would say experiences now more than
(32:59):
ever are important. And I and I, if you go
Google Go to Forbes and Google orange square and then put my
name. So the word orange square and then my name in Forbes. It'll come up
with an article I wrote on the Fyre Festival. For those of you who don't
know the Fyre Festival, I'll summarize it real quick. I'm gonna ruin the documentary for
you. But long story short, it targets a bunch of millennials, this
(33:20):
Huge concert on island in the Bahamas. You get to swing with swim with the
pigs, fly in a private jet, hang out on a yacht, be with supermodels, meet
all the bands. People are paying tens of 1,000 of dollars to go here.
Turns out, for the most part, it's a con, and it became a
disaster, super unsanitary. People got stuck on this island. There was no
concerts. No lodging. Just A complete train wreck.
(33:40):
So, for some reason, people like watching other people's train wreck, so there are some
good documentaries on that. I say all of that,
because that was so effective today and probably would not have been
effective 15 or 20 years ago because of the millennial generation. So we're we're
looking at those really born, in the eighties and
early nineties, so the 1st part of the millennial generation. And
(34:03):
what they want more than anything is experiences.
They thrive on experiences, and and the primary reason
we can told you you're gonna open a can of worms. I'll keep it short.
But the primary reason is they're growing up years, that's what their parents want
to give them. So their parents were Gen Xers for the most part, and their
parents were latchkey kids, meaning they would come home Their
(34:25):
so the grandparents of the millennials, the parents of the Gen Xers, they
weren't present because they were working too hard. And so When that
next generation, the gen xers, had the millennials as their kids, they're like, we're gonna
do everything different. We're gonna turn turn around and do things different, and we're
gonna be these helicopter parents, and we're gonna make sure they have every experience when
they go on this vacation, and they have this food and dining experience, and they
(34:46):
go to this immersion school, and they have 22 sports that they play, even
sports we haven't created yet, and they do all this. So millennials
thrive on that experience, and they also have short attention spans.
So if if they don't get what they want or don't get what they think
that they deserve, then they're going to be gone and go to the next
practice. So those little things that make them feel like the special Snowflakes that they
(35:08):
are. Sorry. I'm an equal opportunity offender when it comes to generations. I am a
millennial. But when when they don't feel get that special treatment that they
believe that they deserve, they're going to walk, and so that's your major
patient base right now. Looking at that group, they're they're in their
thirties and forties. They they're having kids. They're Choosing which
pediatric dentist to bring their kids to. Perfect example. You know?
(35:30):
We we've got 22 boys and, you know, which Which one of my,
wife's friends does she take them to and all of that. So,
it's it It does go into some generational dynamics, but I would
say at the end of the day, every single person likes feeling special,
and and feeling appreciated. Very, very true. So so as you
kinda look out, do you see some future trends emerging just in the the
(35:54):
field of patient care and And health care marketing, what
do you see it coming out? Right? And my crystal ball is usually wrong,
but, you got some predictions or or things that you see for For
kinda where we're heading. Yeah. I think, a custom
tailored experience is going to be important or a very convenient experience.
And I wouldn't say they're necessarily substitutes for one another, but some people just wanna
(36:16):
get in and out quick and don't care about the frills. And so if you
can see me tonight and, you know, you take my insurance or
The pricing's super transparent, and I can pay cat, whatever it is. Like, a lot
of people are going to be we're talking about the younger 3 generations,
right now, they're going to be okay with that, or feeling very
special in a more experiential type practice. I think those are kind of the 2
(36:38):
extremes. The other trend, I think we're gonna see with younger generations,
and then they're not, totally in your patient base yet. You got Gen z a
little bit in, your patient base now,
that that are going without a parent. I'm saying that they are your patients,
but They're they're choosing their own, practices to
to be patients of. You're going to see more and more from these younger
(37:01):
generations a desire for truth. You saw this with the baby
boomers, and you're gonna see it again now. And what I mean with that
is they lived in a world and still do where media is throwing stuff at
them, And they're getting so many different opinions, and guess where they're going to go
to verify anything you tell them? They're going to the Internet. Right, wrong, or indifferent.
And so if you don't tell them exactly what they can find on the Internet,
(37:21):
they're probably not going to trust So I think there's been some really, really
interesting advancements, especially with AI in in
dentistry That, you've got, like, a pearl or one of
these, these softwares that can
read, An X-ray and then call out in a way a patient,
you know, a nontrained eye can see. Hey. This is what we're talking about,
(37:44):
and this is what's going to happen. In some of these storytelling methods,
and being more truth and factual as well as, you know, growing distrust of
insurance among the generational divides, and they they're like, I'll just be uninsured
because the gig economy again, it's a can of worms here. I'm trying to trying
to keep it tight for you. Yeah. But I think you're gonna see some some
more of that transparency and truth, become a demand of of,
(38:07):
Gen z, and then, It's a little early to tell what Gen Alpha is gonna
totally be like when they grow up. But So so when you when you talk
about kind of the the the seeking the truth, Right? Right.
It's just kinda whatever is on the Internet. Does that mean addressing some of the
things they may find even if they're not true and and being prepared to say,
hey. What you're gonna find out there. You're gonna see this, this, this, but,
(38:29):
really, here's what's gonna happen. Is that what you're talking about? I
Not exactly. I don't I don't think a lot of this generation will listen,
to you creating the argument for them. Right? They like to be free
thinkers. And, again, all these are generalizations. To anyone listening, I
usually give that disclaimer before I start talking about generations.
(38:49):
I I think That you can provide the truth for them in something
concrete like, you know, a a piece of
software that can very clearly define that this is not my Objective opinion, but this
is an objective answer. Same thing with pricing
transparency, I think, is going to be good. You
know, the the whole I think your insurance is gonna cover this, but I'm not
(39:11):
sure. Like, insurance verification is huge before the patient sits down,
especially for these younger generations. Other older, more
mature generations are just disenfranchised with insurance as I think many are,
but they're used to it coming back maybe a little bit different or having to
pay out of pocket. These younger generations are like, nope. You told me I I
only had to pay a dollar today. Now you're asking for 4. That's not gonna
(39:31):
happen. And so I think it's just this accuracy, transparency, and
truth, that these the newest generations that are
becoming adults are are more in demand of than maybe some of the the former
generations before them. Okay. So so they really want that information up
front, and they wanna know what they've been told is what they're gonna get, and
there's really no room for For any errors on that side of things
(39:53):
then. Yes. They want perfection. Yeah. Well, it's
not too high of a Easy. Easy. Easy. Yeah. Yep.
Great. Well so, you know, if you're a if you're a doctor, you know, really
trying to to work on this and build those those patient
experiences, You know, we've talked about so many things here. Like,
what's the one thing you would start with? Right? What do you do? How do
(40:15):
you right? What do you go back to the office tomorrow and do?
Yeah. I think, first of all, you've gotta get your team involved. Can't do it
alone. You know, just gonna be another initiative the doctor came up
with because the doctor listened to a podcast. So get your team involved, and I
think the fun team activity is see who can find the most
things walking through the shoe the eyes of a patient Yeah. Sitting in the patient
(40:37):
chair, seeing does it creak when you sit down? Does it feel unstable?
Like, I never sit in the same chair in any of my wine bars or
coffee shops when I go. I always move around. Why? Some of those tables are
wobbly or or some and those need to be fixed. Now we do it is
someone's job to go check those every day, by the way. But
Same thing at at the practice and have a competition who can find the most
things that are easy to change today. You can have the dream list. Right? Right.
(41:01):
You can have the the full wall of TV and the interactive
whatever. Yeah. You can do that. But what are the things that you can do
today? Make it fun. Gamify it. People love love playing games
and give give the person who came up with the most things a winner
a prize rather. So I think, That's the thing that you can
take home and get everyone involved and have them think differently about
(41:22):
how they're caring for their patients. It's not just about, you know, leaning someone back
and Scratching at teeth for 45 minutes or an hour, you're
actually impacting that person's life, that person's oral health, and
they have something going on in their life. You have something going on in your
life. How can you make sure You create that experience for Sherry. Yeah. I know.
And I think that is a a brilliant exercise for everyone to do. It's
(41:43):
so simple. It's fun, And I love that idea of just gamifying
it. Right? Involving your team in improving that patient
experience. So powerful. So Any closing thoughts before we
sign off? How can people get in touch with you, and and how do you
help doctors do this? Yeah. I'm probably too easy to find online.
So just Google Ryan Vet. I'm the only one. There are not a whole lot
(42:06):
of vets. Veterinarians, yes. Vets with the last name, no. So
ryanvet.com. I'm on all the major social
media platforms, as well, so
you can check me out there. Check out some of the businesses that I'm into.
One of my businesses actually does have a a public customer experience training
course, that's that's coming out early, or late this year
(42:28):
rather. So, that's accessible online, and and that can be used
for team training is what it was designed to do. And and it helps you
think differently about specific interactions along along the way,
but, you know, I I love having conversations with people, and I I've had
the opportunity to do this from cleaning companies to coffee shops, lemonade
stands to, you know, large software companies with hundreds of team members
(42:50):
and tens of thousands of customers. So, I I have a
a fun perspective on a lot of different businesses and how to create
those positive experiences. Wow. Well, hey. Thank you for sharing so
generously. Thank you for making this a great experience today, And I know
our listeners will will definitely benefit it from it, and they can go back
and they can put that team exercise in place right away. And if they do
(43:12):
that, you're gonna discover things. If you go back, you do that one thing, it's
gonna start leading to a whole bunch of other things, and and it's gonna really
help you improve patient care So that you can take even better care of the
people walking through your door and your staff. So, Ryan, thank you again for sharing
so generously with us. Thanks, Tim. Alright. Until next time.
We'll see you again here soon on the Dental Wealth Nation show.
(43:35):
You've been listening to Dental Wealth Nation. We hope you've gotten
some useful and practical information from the show. Join us
next time as we pull back the curtain to reveal the often
hidden advice ICE, and strategies used by today's most successful
individuals and families and help maximize your net
worth so you can take even better care of the people you love.
(43:57):
Till next time. Make sure to hit the website at
As a driven dentist, you see the world differently where some
see scarcity. You see abundance. When others wanna give
up, you keep going. You're building an amazing life
of significance. That means you can't rely Eye on ordinary
advice from ordinary advisers to get to your goals. You want
advice that's going to help maximize your net worth Earth so you can take
(00:26):
even better care of the people you love, the causes you care
about, and make your dent in the universe.
But the fact is This advice remains hidden because
relatively few professionals are well versed in them, and the extremely
affluent don't care to let to know about them. Join
us as we pull back the curtain to reveal the often
(00:47):
hidden advice and strategies used by today's most
successful vigils, and families. Welcome
to Dental Wealth Nation. Here's your host, Tim
McNealy.
Hey. Welcome everyone to another edition of Dental Wealth Nation.
And I don't know about you, but I've had some good experiences in life and
(01:10):
some not so good experiences in life, and and sometimes in your
dental practice, in my business, just in life in general, right, our
experiences don't always, Match up to what we we want to
deliver, and that's why I'm so excited about today is because by the
time we finish today, you're gonna know How to really create a holistic
experience that's gonna help you stand out from all the noise that's out
(01:32):
there. You're gonna have a new way of thinking about every single person who
walks through your door. But more importantly of all, you're gonna feel
inspired to create better experiences, not just for your patients, but
also for your team and everyone else around you. And I couldn't think
of anyone better to help us do that than Ryan Vette. And I could tell
you that Ryan's an entrepreneur. I could tell you that, like myself, he's married
(01:54):
to a dentist. I could Tell you that he's run a $100,000,000 company. That's right.
A 100,000,000. It's a it's a big number for you out there. And I could
also tell you that he's been featured in almost every single Yeah.
Business publication out there. But what I really wanna share with you about
Ryan is he has a passion and a life purpose for inspiring
people to create Positive outcomes by creating experiences
(02:15):
worth sharing. Ryan, welcome to the show. Tim, thank you so
much for having me. Oh, it's an honor and, right,
experiences matter, don't they? They do. Absolutely. Every
single day, we have Countless interactions, and we
rarely talk about the mediocre ones. Right. It's
the good ones that we talk about. And so so So tell me a little
(02:37):
bit about how you really got started in your journey, not just in in entrepreneurship,
but also in in health care and then this focus on really creating
experiences that are worth sharing. Like like
anyone, you know, if you you look at a movie star, they're typecast one time
and and they have that typecast over and over and over again. And I was
head cast early on as the marketing guy, partly because that's what I thought I
(02:58):
wanted to do. And ever since my very first
company, I it was, 14 years old, and I
ran a marketing company. I had 13 team members that worked for me.
We served over 200 some clients in 25 different countries. We we helped raise over
$50,000,000 for nonprofits and NGOs, and,
I was the marketing guy. I helped Create postcards, collateral, website,
(03:21):
whatever you needed, and so did my team. And then as I got into
the venture backed start up world, Yeah. I also was the
marketing guy, and I was doing sales and revenue growth.
And finally, as I got to the point in my,
my career where I I launched a couple of my own companies and and sold
them and and sat in the CEO seat and saw operations and finance and everything.
(03:43):
And What I really realized that I was passionate
about was, yeah, I love marketing and branding. That's that's always gonna be a sweet
spot for me, and I I actually like operations. I like using both
sides of my brain, but what I found is that every single thing
that we do in life, And what we talk about is our experiences, our good
experiences and our bad experiences. We really talk about the,
(04:05):
experiences, those meh kind of in the middle experiences, and That goes for
your team. That goes for your patient pace. That goes for your clients, your customers,
whatever it might be. And so everything from running a lemonade stand as a As
a kid all the way to having the opportunity to run a a company well
into the 9 figures, it was all about what is that
experience that we get to Every single day, it's an opportunity and a privilege
(04:27):
that so many people in marketing and sales and branding overlook when they're
trying to grow up into the right. Wow. Well and
even your marketing background, I mean, essentially, that's kind of the the in
a sense, that that is creating an experience because of the The
material that people interact with, the things that they see, the way words are
presented. Right? That in and of itself is an experience creating
(04:49):
activity, isn't it? Absolutely, Tim. So every single day,
a study recently came out published in Forbes that says, you and I
living in United States. Let's take a guess. Do you know how many advertisements we
see on a given day? Oh, I'm gonna guess it's 1,000.
1,000. Yeah. It's about 10,000 1000 advertisements a day. Think about it. Getting up in
the morning and even getting ready, your your shampoo has, ad
(05:12):
on it. If you got a bar of soap, it's got a bird Stamped on
there, you get your toothpaste and your toothbrush. I mean, everything. Your shirt
has, a logo on it. Your background has, you know, Dental Wealth
Nation podcast on it. 42 times that I can see right now. Can't count that
fast. But you've got all sorts of different things that are just screaming at you.
And so, yes, that's part of branding and marketing, create it creating that first
(05:32):
impression. But what I have found is that getting new
patients in the door, for example, is relatively easy. Now I'm not saying it's easy.
Anyone can just go grab patients off the street, but That's not the challenge. A
lot of people are like, hey. I got 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, a 100
new patients a month. Well, the question is, how many of them came back, And
why didn't they come back? Because wealth is not
(05:53):
about how much money you bring in every single month. That's riches.
Right? But wealth is what do you accumulate and start to build up, and the
same thing is true when you're investing in people is how do you create that
experience that takes them from a stranger to a raving fan or a brand
ambassador. Yeah. Well and that that takes a little
thought and and some some intentionality, doesn't it? It doesn't just happen
(06:14):
by accident. Not at all. You you have to take
a lot of work. And most people, if you think about it, if you go
to a Waffle House today, you know what you're going to get. Right? You you
know your experience at a Waffle House restaurant. And if you haven't been to
1, it's pretty much to the southeast, but they're
throughout the It's a, a diner style, very small.
(06:37):
You sit at a bar, and you're gonna get mediocre food,
mediocre service for a mediocre price, and that's alright. Like, You're you're never gonna
be wowed there. But I I think of familiar
things that we do every single day, like flying. You know, I I have the
opportunity to speak, a ton every year and,
you know, I fly on Delta, pretty much exclusively. In fact,
(06:59):
earlier this year, I had to hop Hop on a different airline to make a
tight, head 2 events in a day in different cities, and the only place direct
was different airline. I felt like a traitor. But the reason that I'm so loyal
to Delta is because of the
experience that they give me. There are only so many ways you can sit in
airplane seat and only so many ways you can eat airplane food. Right?
(07:19):
But the experience, the fact that every once in a while, I have a handwritten
note with my name and something about me on my seat when I come to
sit down Or the fact that one time I almost missed a
connection and they had a Porsche come pick me up from my plane and drive
me through the Atlanta not through the Atlanta airport, but, like, under the Atlanta airport
to my next plane because I couldn't have made it fast enough. Now you think
(07:40):
about that, Delta has 80,000,000 people that fly on their planes every single
year. It only takes about a quarter of a penny from every one of those
tickets to create that transformative experience. But because of those
things, It's not the the metal bag tag that they give me, though, that's nice
as it jingles to the airport and people turn their head. No. It's it's the
how they make me feel. So, yeah, they have good marketing. They might have the
(08:01):
price they might not, but they did something to create transform
an ordinary opportunity and create an extraordinary experience out of it.
Yeah. I mean, I I would be blown away if that happened, and they would
earn my loyalty because I'd be like, they got me. They they understand me, and
they they're They're going out of their way to to create that transformative
experience and create loyalty. That that's amazing.
(08:23):
Exactly. And I think that's where practices
So often miss the mark. There are so many people out there that are doing
great marketing, and I do think you should practice marketing. I think you should invest
in great websites, videos, photos, everything. But sometimes it
stops there. Forbes did another study, and they looked at the
switching cost of America in 2021. This was
(08:45):
published in 2022, so it says slightly old. But they looked at
how much revenue Companies lost because someone left
their company and went through a different before because of bad customer service.
So switching from your cell phone provider from Verizon to T Mobile
because of a bad or whatever it might be. So they looked across the entire
country, and they found that $1,600,000,000,000
(09:08):
was lost in revenue because of switching costs. Now, obviously, that went to another
company. But the moral of the story is it wasn't about having the best
product. It wasn't about having the best marketing. It was about someone had a
upsetting experience that was not handled properly, and
that person moved to a different organization. I think the same is
true. You can have the best marketing. You can have all the great things going
(09:30):
on in your practice. And if You don't create that experience
not only for your patients, but for your team and your partners and your vendors
as well. If you're not creating that experience, why would anyone
want to come back? Yeah. So true. Now, you know, when it comes to kinda
creating those innovative strategies, are you suggesting we need to go out and buy a
Porsche and pick up our patients? Is that like the the trick
(09:52):
that we're missing, or are there some simple things we can do to really create
those experiences also? Yeah. I think there is a a lot of
different ways you can approach creating positive
experiences, and for everybody, it's different. The first thing
I I like to think about is, I
I've owned I'll give you an example. I've owned 2 cleaning companies.
(10:14):
The first one was a mistake. The second1 was just a big mistake.
Anyway, I learned 1 was commercial, 1 was residential. Learned a lot during
both. And One of the things that we would always do, and this is not
to be crass at all, but to be honest, we would take people
in On their 1st day of training with us in how to clean,
and we make them clean the bathroom, right, that the the hardest part of the
(10:36):
job. And after they were done, We would tell them that
they did it wrong because here's what inevitably would happen 99% of the time. The
person comes in, and if you think about this, visualize yourself cleaning a toilet.
Even if you have cleaners do it, you know how to clean a toilet, generally
speaking. You get the brush, you lean over the bowl, you spray the the toilet
bowl cleaner, and and you scrub leaning over the bowl. Now think about how
(10:58):
you use the toilet. Again, not trying to be crass, but
your perspective's different. You're probably about a foot to 2 feet lower, and
you're faced the opposite direction because you're sitting down and you
see things differently. The light's gonna hit things differently. You're gonna
see dust on the toilet paper roll holder that you weren't gonna see before. You're
gonna see something in the corner that cleaning it toilet you're never going to see.
(11:19):
And so the easy tip for practices to do, and this is a fun teammate
activity, is go together as a team
And start your patient journey from the very beginning in your
car. So pull in. Is your practice clearly marked? You've been
going there every day of every year for the past 10 years of working at
the rectus. Is it clearly marked they find it easily? Because people are already stressed
(11:41):
most times going to the dentist. The number of patients that say they love going
to the dentist is far less than the people who, you know, the other
group. So is it clearly marked? Once you pull in, are your parking spots
easy? Are they well marked? They're long enough, wide enough, whatever? Then
you walk in. Is there trash? Are your shrubs dead? And then opening that door.
Do you have, like, one of those air conditioners in the summer that, like, suctions
(12:03):
your door shut, and so that door's so heavy and they're pulling on the door.
And and start walking through and take note of everything the patient
sees. Because then all of a sudden, they're they're sitting down in in that
chair. They open up the highlights magazine, and the first mace has
already been done. So they turn the page, and the next crossword's been done, and
they turn the page again and someone spit out their gum because they didn't wanna
see the dentist the did they want the dentist to see their chewing gum? What's
(12:25):
that experience? And walk all the way through the entire
practice, not as you, but as the patient. Lay back
in your chair. How many stains are on your ceiling? And and it
sounds simple, but the list that practices will come back with and teams
will come back with have dozens, if not more, Things that
are simple changes. We're not talking about going and repainting your whole office, which
(12:48):
you probably should do if you need to, but simple things like, oh, well,
this chair, if you sit in it, is too close to the door. And every
single time someone walks in, the the door hits it. We're gonna move the chair,
or this chair can't see the TV. What whatever it might be. Simple things.
But often, it's a lot less money than you think. Just like
the Delta example of Porsche's, a quarter of a penny per
(13:10):
ticket on average To to do that, it doesn't cost them hardly anything in
the grand scheme of things, but that story has been told to tens of thousands
of people around the world because of my experience. Yeah.
Right. And I love that that, literally, that perspective shift
of, right, instead of looking at it from the owner or the Staff, right, placing
yourself in the the place of the patient. And what is the
(13:33):
patient seeing? What are what's going on from their perspective?
Because that's truly eye opening, And it's a completely different experience
because you're seeing it with a different set of eyes. Absolutely.
I think the other component that I I try to teach people
Is the your 5 senses. Your 5 senses play an
incredible role in your perception, especially in a physical
(13:55):
space. And so walking into a dental practice, what are they seeing? What are they
hearing? What are they tasting? Probably the puppy face. What are they touching,
and seeing Smelling, that was the last one.
And and you think about it, these are not things that we often think about.
It's kind of like we're we're scent blind when we walk into our own practice
like when you walk into your own house every day because you're so familiar you're
(14:17):
smelling it. But those are big triggers to a lot of patients
that, again, are something easy to change. Like, I've seen A practice that gives
you a custom scent. You can preselect your custom scent before you go to the
practice. And all they have, it's so simple. Cost them
Maybe $200 a year. Okay? And all it is is
they have a little 2 by 2, cotton swab, And they
(14:40):
have a row of essential oils, like 5 different scents. You put
the oil on your cotton swab. They have a a safety pin. Pin it to
your shirt. So what do you Now walking around your own personal lavender, your own
personal eucalyptus cost them nothing, but the patient got to preselect.
Just like if you're flying, You know, 1st class, they email you a couple days
before. What meal would you like to have ready on, when you're up in the
(15:02):
air? Same thing. It it just gives them that experience.
Doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I've seen a lot of practices starting
to put Sonos and Ipads in in in each individual
room. And so the patient can sit down and pick pick their own playlist and
says, whatever. Who knows what's going on to the speakers in the practice? But now
you've got your own custom music or headphones. So, Again, these
(15:23):
things don't have to cost a lot of money. They're not a lot of investment,
but you've just taken an experience of running someone through a practice as
fast as possible so you have efficient schedule To
actually transforming their experience and saying, hey. That was sort of
a pleasurable experience. Yeah. Well, right, and those little
things really do make a difference. I was out on the Central Coast last week
(15:44):
with a friend picking up a wine shipment and visiting a couple wineries.
And, you know, we, you know, we we know the people there, and we're chatting
with them. And, you know, one point, we kinda made the joke. We're like, what
notes do you have on us? And we started, like, going through the notes because,
right, that's how they create those experiences. It's just jotting
simple things down about you. And in this case, we, you know, we kinda
(16:05):
hack the system a little. We were having a little fun. We put some weird
notes in there. So the next person who gets it is gonna ask us, like,
what wine pairs really well with spaghetti and meatballs. Right? So Nice. We're having
some fun with it too. But, right, just little simple things like keeping
notes on your and what's important to them, it doesn't take
a whole lot of effort to do that, and it really creates an amazing
(16:27):
transformative experience because so many people aren't doing it.
Right. They just overlook it. And they come back, and they wonder why
they get so many new patients every month and none of them
Book recare. Yeah. Well Well well and this is not just gonna have an
impact on the patients who are coming in, but it's gonna have an impact on
How they talk about your practice and how they talk about you too, isn't it?
(16:49):
Absolutely. I mean, experience is one of those things you want to share.
When you get a good Gift at Christmas or a birthday,
you can't wait but to share it. You think about your your elementary school days.
Like, it was always the the Day 1st day of the New Year, what'd you
get? And and it was just overflowing. When you get a new car,
you tell people. When you buy a new house, you tell people. Why? Because it's
(17:11):
an experience. You're proud of it. And the same thing is true. If you go
have a terrible meal, at a a restaurant and it
just did not meet your expectations, You're gonna post about it. You're gonna tell
people. But if a Porsche comes and picks you up and drives you to your
next plane, you're gonna tell people about it. And so, again, most of us live
in that mediocre middle. You definitely don't wanna we don't even have to talk about
(17:32):
the bad part. Right? Because I know all your listeners are far more sophisticated than
that, but we do need to talk about raising mediocre, that ordinary into the
extraordinary. Yeah. So true. And, you know, Ryan, we've been talking
about really that that patient experience and and things that you can do
To really build that brand loyalty, turn those patients into
to raving fans, but what are some things that the doctor can be doing
(17:55):
to To really create a better experience for their staff and the people
they work with every single day. Are there some things that can be done there
also? I think that's the biggest key.
I after exiting one of my my startups, I ended up
picking up a couple wine bars and coffee shops as a hobby. And what
I've learned, and I don't directly manage them, but I've got much
(18:16):
more much more qualified people to do that than I do. But when I
talk to the leaders of each of these locations, I can
see our our customer experience meter, which is obviously very important as
you can imagine to me at all these locations, ebb and flow based
on team satisfaction. And the team satisfaction
is a leading indicator of what the guests that walk through our
(18:39):
door are going to experience. Because when our team's not happy
with their manager or the schedule or they work too many hours or whatever it
might be, we find that That overall
or will ordinarily trickle into the guest's experience. So a couple
things that practice owners or doctors can do that are really simple.
First of all, make sure your your team loves coming to work. Just make it
(19:02):
a a a fun environment. And, no, you don't have to get the hoverboards and
right around the office and have the cool vending machines. That that's probably a liability
that your insurance is not going to cover. But why does your
team feel valued as a person when they walk through the door, or are
they just doing it to, you know, punch the clock, collect a
paycheck, and go home and, you know, rinse and repeat? Granted, most of your team
(19:23):
members probably are working for the paycheck. They're not financially they don't have
financial freedom, but you can make that enjoyable for them. I I
think of, this video that we just filmed,
for for one of my companies that I own, and we filmed at one of
my coffee shops. And it has, every single person it has a guy
it starts with the guy getting out of an Uber, and it has a little
(19:45):
text message bubble pop up. And he's looking at his phone that says, congratulations.
You just, closed on your 1st house or, you know, the keys are
gonna be there. I'm totally botching this. My creative team would be Totally
canceling this right now. But but, basically, it's like, hey. You got a house. And
he looks over to the side, and he sees this person, a street musician playing.
And you kind of walk in, and all of a sudden, this pencil rolls
(20:08):
off the table in front of him. And there's a girl there, and she smiles
saying thanks for giving me the pencil back. But then it spins around. You see
her computer screen. It's like, hey. You just flunked your class. You can't graduate in
2 weeks. And basically goes through story after story of, hey. This
person bounced their account. They're just trying to buy a cup of
coffee. This person just celebrated their engagement here because they
met here on their 1st date, you know, 3 years ago. And every single
(20:31):
person has a profound story that walks through our door. That's
the point of the video. And I I think That that
is important in the practice. You know, the old adage was leave your baggage at
the door, come to work, and be professional. That's not realistic.
We are people. We are 1 person, and the stuff around
us, you know, really impacts us. And so as a
(20:53):
leader in a practice, How can you make sure you care
for and love your team in a HR appropriate way? Love your
team, love your team well so that they can
They have an experience that's positive, and that's automatically going to overflow into the way
that they treat and love your patients. Yeah. No. I love that. Right?
Really focusing on the fact that everyone has a unique story. There's
(21:16):
a there's an Internet site called the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and
they They kinda make up words for for things that that exist that we're
not quite sure how to describe them, and and one of the words they came
up with is sonder. And sonder is this idea where, you know,
you're for for just a moment, you get lost in someone else's
story, and you realize this person sitting across the table from you or
(21:38):
Walking across the street, whatever they're going through in that moment is
just as profound, is just as involved as everything you've been going through. And
yet You have that little moment of connection of realizing, yeah, they're
they've got a complex story just as complex as mine. And that that
sonder idea, right, that those Profound stories of realizing everyone
has them. But to do that, you've gotta actually see the other person across from
(22:00):
you. That's good. That's very good. Yeah.
So, yeah, definitely incorporate a little bit of that sonder, and and I love
that that focus of of, You know, looking at the the team members.
But, you know, I know sometimes as a doctor, you know, you may be thinking,
man, this this is hard. Like, I don't even know how to start creating an
experience for my team because they they are just there for the paycheck. Like,
(22:23):
like, how do you even start creating that kind of environment? What
are some simple things that a doctor can do to really let their staff
know that they care about them and they're trying to create that that better
experience for them? I think there's a couple things. 1,
obviously, management styles differ, and so you can't,
kind of prescribe the exact same formula for
(22:45):
everyone, but one of the better books that transcends most management
styles is 1 Minute Manager. They have the new 1 Minute Manager too
By Ken Blanchard. And what it does is it talks about, public
praise and it talks about private correction. That's a
huge way because in the hustle and bustle and this is not just dentistry.
This is everything. In the hustle and bustle of your day, You walk out of
(23:07):
the operatory. You throw up your loops. You're frustrated because something wasn't set
up right, and you quickly scold them, but you scold the the assistant in front
of everybody. And then you go back to work, and now everyone's a little
upset. Is there a time and place for correction? Absolutely. Patient safety is important.
Team member safety is important. But there's a way to do it. But then when
something goes really well and the room's set up perfectly, how many people praise that?
(23:30):
I don't. I'm not good at that. That's one area where I, As a leader
and a manager, I I fail regularly. When things go the way they're supposed
to, I I say, well, that's why I'm paying you. The but the correct response
often should be, you know, every once in a while, just thank them. Like, you
know what? Today was a perfect day. Everything went exactly how it was supposed to.
Thank you. So that's one way, just saying thanks. The the other way
(23:52):
that takes a little bit of effort, but not much, because we
all have electronic patient records, is to find
milestones. One of the most profound
things that you can do in really anybody's,
any type of marketing or, leadership is find the
milestones that really make an impact. So for example, Gonna use
(24:14):
Delta again. By the way, they don't pay me. I pay them about $25,000 a
year to talk about them. It's my honor. So,
So these milestones, I you get a 1,000,000 miler
milestone. You get a special baggage tag. They send
you Either a gift card or this custom backpack, all all this stuff. It's
a milestone of what you've accomplished. You can do the same thing with your
(24:36):
team. Go to your, you know, patient met your
not EMRE. Your patient record and download how
many hygiene exams your hygienist has done. Once they've reached
a1000 at the morning huddle, say, and today I'd reckon
like to recognize hygienist a because they've completed their
1 thousandth clean or patient 2 today will be the 1,000 clean
(24:58):
that this hygienist has done at our practice. Wow. That's so much
better than a birthday, so much better than, hey. You've worked here another
year. It's like, no. You've accomplished this in your time at our
practice. If you have, you know, any sort of digital phone system, which I
think every practice should have, but it's a side conversation, you
can you can pull records. Like, did you know that this
(25:20):
year, out of a 1000 phone calls, our front
office team has booked 50% of them. That's 500 patients booked from phone
calls. And guess what? They did that in under 3000 minutes this year.
Congratulate. You know, whatever those milestones are, every single role has that, and it's
profound. So so, really, Ray, it's not even doing
anything all that Different other than just kinda opening your eyes
(25:43):
and looking around for opportunities to praise people, looking for things to
celebrate That aren't the obvious birthdays and holidays. It kinda
reminds me a little bit about a a book that a guy named John Roland
wrote called Giftology, Where, you know, oftentimes, the wrong time to
give a gift is on the expected times. Like, everyone expects the holiday
cards. Everyone expects the birthday gifts. So do them at times when
(26:05):
people don't expect it, and then they're actually gonna receive it
and and it creates a different experience.
Exactly. I mean, you you even sent me a book unexpectedly,
and it wasn't for a birthday or anything like that. And I had it Sitting
on my desk and now it's on my bookshelf for a while, and it was
a constant reminder of you. And it was it meant a lot. It was a
(26:25):
surprise. Right? That surprise and delight campaign is what we use a lot in in
the software world, that term. Mhmm. Yeah. Now, you know, we've been talking
about that that kind of Experience piece. We've touched on marketing a
little. How do you tie these 2 things together? How do you balance,
you know, marketing with creating an experience? Are there ways to Tie those
2 together? I think consistency is the big thing. Who who are
(26:47):
you as a practice? A lot of marketing companies, and this is not
specific to dental, but I'll use a dental analogy. A lot of marketing
companies are all about in dental would be drill and fill. Right? Get
them through the door. Get them in the chair. Make money.
Well, that's fine, but why do you do what you do?
At the End of the day, why does every single person come to your
(27:10):
practice versus the practice down the road? Why does someone come to
Starbucks or not go to Starbucks? And I I think one of the
things that you do is you have to figure out who you are in your
messaging. Maybe you're the fun practice. Right? And so you do silly things. You've
got, I don't know. Can of worms heading up the chair and a whoopee cushion
when they sit down. Not recommending that. But maybe just to to,
(27:31):
over exaggerate the idea, Be consistent when when someone first hears
about your practice all the way through the time that they walk out your
door, and that should be a consistent thread And realize
that marketing is not enough anymore. People expect something
different. And guess what? If you just give them that meh experience,
You might have them come for 1 more appointment, maybe not,
(27:54):
but then they're gonna go for someone else to see if they can get something
better. And most patients, here's the crazy thing, they don't even know what they're looking
for. It just wasn't special. It was just another dentist appointment. So if
you're just another dentist, I'll go to another dentist down the road that's more convenient
or has an appointment open when I need it. Now obviously, if you create a
bad experience, they're gone for sure. And there's there's ways to salvage some of
those too. But I I think just be consistent from the time they hear about
(28:17):
your practice All the way through the end. Yeah. So so really
moving, like you said, from that that mediocre middle to something
extraordinary. Because the bad people, they're right. Or the bad
experiences, you're gonna push people off mediocre. They're at a high risk
of of going somewhere else because they just don't know any better.
Exactly. And I think, actually, bad experiences are some of the best ways to
(28:38):
transform, transform Someone's
perception, good or bad. You know, I I think of a recent
example where, we had one of my companies, we had royally
overcharged someone And, royally, but it was
a a recurring payment and so it was not
caught for a very long time. So this got larger and larger and larger every
(28:59):
month. Long story short, we handle the problem,
and I also personally reached out to the person that we had
wronged and said, hey. I'm they weren't angry. They they were very
gracious, but I said, hey. I just wanna let you know from my perceptive as
leadership, that was not okay that that happened. Here's the check and balance we put
into place so it won't happen again. Here's the corrective action that we took. And
(29:21):
then what I did was a month later, I
when this recurring charge would have hit again, I followed up. I said, hey. This
is the week the recurring charge is supposed to hit. We've put these processes in
place. Please let me know if you get charged so that I can immediately correct
it, and we can revisit it. But I'm pretty confident that my team has it
taken And they were wowed. Was I trying to
wow them? No. I viewed them as a person that we had wronged.
(29:44):
Right? We had done something and charged them a a lot of
money over a very long period of time that should never been charged,
and we never caught it. And so I was just simply trying to make it
right. And to I mean, the email I got back, I I shared
with the team not to brag, but to say this is why we care about
people. It's not just another patient. It's not just another dollar. This is someone's hard
(30:04):
earned money that we had been taking wrongfully, so we had to make it right.
And now not only did we make it right, But I I'm pretty sure this
person is a raving fan or at least moving towards that direction. Yeah.
Well and I think you break on a a really important point there, Ryan.
And, You know, people don't always expect perfection. Right? That they
know we're all you know, we all got issues in our businesses, in our
(30:26):
life, And there's an appreciation when you do take
ownership of something, and you say, hey. This shouldn't have happened. We caught
it. We're on it. We're gonna fix it and make it right way. Oftentimes,
just acknowledging the problem for someone is a massive
opportunity to create that experience because, You know, we're
all trying to get better, and I think people appreciate that when you do take
(30:48):
that time and effort to own it and say, hey. We're gonna make this right
for you. Absolutely. And I have every all my coffee
shops that I have and wine bars, I have every 5 star review come to
me, and then I share that with the whole team. I say, hey. Guess what?
And it comes to me instantly. Congratulations. It's probably one of the only
times the whole team hears from me, just because of, you know, I I've
(31:09):
got great team leaders that that run those, businesses.
But then when there's a a one star review, and we had one this morning
actually, At the day we're recording this, I I quickly read through it, made sure
it was legitimate, sent it to, the manager only,
And said, hey. Here it is. Let me know how you can be helpful in
solving this problem. It it was, I understand exactly
(31:31):
what went wrong, and so we could troubleshoot it. And that manager instantly
knew to follow-up. I didn't have to say how to follow-up because he knows,
how to create an experience, and and we're taking care of it. Right? Perfect? Definitely
not. We're gonna make mistakes, but it's it's, again, even in some of
those moments where where a lot of people would cower,
You have an opportunity to transform that that negative experience into
(31:53):
something extraordinary worth sharing in a positive way. Well and I
love what you just shared about that 2 is, right, you're you're practicing what
you preach. You're taking those good reviews, publicly praising
everyone, and the negative ones, You're sharing just with the appropriate
people. So, right, you're putting it into practice. That's amazing.
Yep. And don't do it perfectly, by the way, but but we do do our
(32:14):
best. Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, what about
generational differences? Right? Is this something younger generations care
more about? Do older generations really Appreciate the
experience. Do you see much difference in terms of the
the generations and how we should approach The marketing and and
patient care and creating those experiences oh, man.
(32:36):
Are you ready for part 2 of this this episode here?
You you you have a can of worms. Part 2. Yeah. So, obviously,
I I I've written the book Cracking the Millennial Code and working on the second
one, from zeta alpha, looking at generational dynamics.
It's not a dental book, but it it applies, of course. So
So really passionate about it, and I would say experiences now more than
(32:59):
ever are important. And I and I, if you go
Google Go to Forbes and Google orange square and then put my
name. So the word orange square and then my name in Forbes. It'll come up
with an article I wrote on the Fyre Festival. For those of you who don't
know the Fyre Festival, I'll summarize it real quick. I'm gonna ruin the documentary for
you. But long story short, it targets a bunch of millennials, this
(33:20):
Huge concert on island in the Bahamas. You get to swing with swim with the
pigs, fly in a private jet, hang out on a yacht, be with supermodels, meet
all the bands. People are paying tens of 1,000 of dollars to go here.
Turns out, for the most part, it's a con, and it became a
disaster, super unsanitary. People got stuck on this island. There was no
concerts. No lodging. Just A complete train wreck.
(33:40):
So, for some reason, people like watching other people's train wreck, so there are some
good documentaries on that. I say all of that,
because that was so effective today and probably would not have been
effective 15 or 20 years ago because of the millennial generation. So we're we're
looking at those really born, in the eighties and
early nineties, so the 1st part of the millennial generation. And
(34:03):
what they want more than anything is experiences.
They thrive on experiences, and and the primary reason
we can told you you're gonna open a can of worms. I'll keep it short.
But the primary reason is they're growing up years, that's what their parents want
to give them. So their parents were Gen Xers for the most part, and their
parents were latchkey kids, meaning they would come home Their
(34:25):
so the grandparents of the millennials, the parents of the Gen Xers, they
weren't present because they were working too hard. And so When that
next generation, the gen xers, had the millennials as their kids, they're like, we're gonna
do everything different. We're gonna turn turn around and do things different, and we're
gonna be these helicopter parents, and we're gonna make sure they have every experience when
they go on this vacation, and they have this food and dining experience, and they
(34:46):
go to this immersion school, and they have 22 sports that they play, even
sports we haven't created yet, and they do all this. So millennials
thrive on that experience, and they also have short attention spans.
So if if they don't get what they want or don't get what they think
that they deserve, then they're going to be gone and go to the next
practice. So those little things that make them feel like the special Snowflakes that they
(35:08):
are. Sorry. I'm an equal opportunity offender when it comes to generations. I am a
millennial. But when when they don't feel get that special treatment that they
believe that they deserve, they're going to walk, and so that's your major
patient base right now. Looking at that group, they're they're in their
thirties and forties. They they're having kids. They're Choosing which
pediatric dentist to bring their kids to. Perfect example. You know?
(35:30):
We we've got 22 boys and, you know, which Which one of my,
wife's friends does she take them to and all of that. So,
it's it It does go into some generational dynamics, but I would
say at the end of the day, every single person likes feeling special,
and and feeling appreciated. Very, very true. So so as you
kinda look out, do you see some future trends emerging just in the the
(35:54):
field of patient care and And health care marketing, what
do you see it coming out? Right? And my crystal ball is usually wrong,
but, you got some predictions or or things that you see for For
kinda where we're heading. Yeah. I think, a custom
tailored experience is going to be important or a very convenient experience.
And I wouldn't say they're necessarily substitutes for one another, but some people just wanna
(36:16):
get in and out quick and don't care about the frills. And so if you
can see me tonight and, you know, you take my insurance or
The pricing's super transparent, and I can pay cat, whatever it is. Like, a lot
of people are going to be we're talking about the younger 3 generations,
right now, they're going to be okay with that, or feeling very
special in a more experiential type practice. I think those are kind of the 2
(36:38):
extremes. The other trend, I think we're gonna see with younger generations,
and then they're not, totally in your patient base yet. You got Gen z a
little bit in, your patient base now,
that that are going without a parent. I'm saying that they are your patients,
but They're they're choosing their own, practices to
to be patients of. You're going to see more and more from these younger
(37:01):
generations a desire for truth. You saw this with the baby
boomers, and you're gonna see it again now. And what I mean with that
is they lived in a world and still do where media is throwing stuff at
them, And they're getting so many different opinions, and guess where they're going to go
to verify anything you tell them? They're going to the Internet. Right, wrong, or indifferent.
And so if you don't tell them exactly what they can find on the Internet,
(37:21):
they're probably not going to trust So I think there's been some really, really
interesting advancements, especially with AI in in
dentistry That, you've got, like, a pearl or one of
these, these softwares that can
read, An X-ray and then call out in a way a patient,
you know, a nontrained eye can see. Hey. This is what we're talking about,
(37:44):
and this is what's going to happen. In some of these storytelling methods,
and being more truth and factual as well as, you know, growing distrust of
insurance among the generational divides, and they they're like, I'll just be uninsured
because the gig economy again, it's a can of worms here. I'm trying to trying
to keep it tight for you. Yeah. But I think you're gonna see some some
more of that transparency and truth, become a demand of of,
(38:07):
Gen z, and then, It's a little early to tell what Gen Alpha is gonna
totally be like when they grow up. But So so when you when you talk
about kind of the the the seeking the truth, Right? Right.
It's just kinda whatever is on the Internet. Does that mean addressing some of the
things they may find even if they're not true and and being prepared to say,
hey. What you're gonna find out there. You're gonna see this, this, this, but,
(38:29):
really, here's what's gonna happen. Is that what you're talking about? I
Not exactly. I don't I don't think a lot of this generation will listen,
to you creating the argument for them. Right? They like to be free
thinkers. And, again, all these are generalizations. To anyone listening, I
usually give that disclaimer before I start talking about generations.
(38:49):
I I think That you can provide the truth for them in something
concrete like, you know, a a piece of
software that can very clearly define that this is not my Objective opinion, but this
is an objective answer. Same thing with pricing
transparency, I think, is going to be good. You
know, the the whole I think your insurance is gonna cover this, but I'm not
(39:11):
sure. Like, insurance verification is huge before the patient sits down,
especially for these younger generations. Other older, more
mature generations are just disenfranchised with insurance as I think many are,
but they're used to it coming back maybe a little bit different or having to
pay out of pocket. These younger generations are like, nope. You told me I I
only had to pay a dollar today. Now you're asking for 4. That's not gonna
(39:31):
happen. And so I think it's just this accuracy, transparency, and
truth, that these the newest generations that are
becoming adults are are more in demand of than maybe some of the the former
generations before them. Okay. So so they really want that information up
front, and they wanna know what they've been told is what they're gonna get, and
there's really no room for For any errors on that side of things
(39:53):
then. Yes. They want perfection. Yeah. Well, it's
not too high of a Easy. Easy. Easy. Yeah. Yep.
Great. Well so, you know, if you're a if you're a doctor, you know, really
trying to to work on this and build those those patient
experiences, You know, we've talked about so many things here. Like,
what's the one thing you would start with? Right? What do you do? How do
(40:15):
you right? What do you go back to the office tomorrow and do?
Yeah. I think, first of all, you've gotta get your team involved. Can't do it
alone. You know, just gonna be another initiative the doctor came up
with because the doctor listened to a podcast. So get your team involved, and I
think the fun team activity is see who can find the most
things walking through the shoe the eyes of a patient Yeah. Sitting in the patient
(40:37):
chair, seeing does it creak when you sit down? Does it feel unstable?
Like, I never sit in the same chair in any of my wine bars or
coffee shops when I go. I always move around. Why? Some of those tables are
wobbly or or some and those need to be fixed. Now we do it is
someone's job to go check those every day, by the way. But
Same thing at at the practice and have a competition who can find the most
things that are easy to change today. You can have the dream list. Right? Right.
(41:01):
You can have the the full wall of TV and the interactive
whatever. Yeah. You can do that. But what are the things that you can do
today? Make it fun. Gamify it. People love love playing games
and give give the person who came up with the most things a winner
a prize rather. So I think, That's the thing that you can
take home and get everyone involved and have them think differently about
(41:22):
how they're caring for their patients. It's not just about, you know, leaning someone back
and Scratching at teeth for 45 minutes or an hour, you're
actually impacting that person's life, that person's oral health, and
they have something going on in their life. You have something going on in your
life. How can you make sure You create that experience for Sherry. Yeah. I know.
And I think that is a a brilliant exercise for everyone to do. It's
(41:43):
so simple. It's fun, And I love that idea of just gamifying
it. Right? Involving your team in improving that patient
experience. So powerful. So Any closing thoughts before we
sign off? How can people get in touch with you, and and how do you
help doctors do this? Yeah. I'm probably too easy to find online.
So just Google Ryan Vet. I'm the only one. There are not a whole lot
(42:06):
of vets. Veterinarians, yes. Vets with the last name, no. So
ryanvet.com. I'm on all the major social
media platforms, as well, so
you can check me out there. Check out some of the businesses that I'm into.
One of my businesses actually does have a a public customer experience training
course, that's that's coming out early, or late this year
(42:28):
rather. So, that's accessible online, and and that can be used
for team training is what it was designed to do. And and it helps you
think differently about specific interactions along along the way,
but, you know, I I love having conversations with people, and I I've had
the opportunity to do this from cleaning companies to coffee shops, lemonade
stands to, you know, large software companies with hundreds of team members
(42:50):
and tens of thousands of customers. So, I I have a
a fun perspective on a lot of different businesses and how to create
those positive experiences. Wow. Well, hey. Thank you for sharing so
generously. Thank you for making this a great experience today, And I know
our listeners will will definitely benefit it from it, and they can go back
and they can put that team exercise in place right away. And if they do
(43:12):
that, you're gonna discover things. If you go back, you do that one thing, it's
gonna start leading to a whole bunch of other things, and and it's gonna really
help you improve patient care So that you can take even better care of the
people walking through your door and your staff. So, Ryan, thank you again for sharing
so generously with us. Thanks, Tim. Alright. Until next time.
We'll see you again here soon on the Dental Wealth Nation show.
(43:35):
You've been listening to Dental Wealth Nation. We hope you've gotten
some useful and practical information from the show. Join us
next time as we pull back the curtain to reveal the often
hidden advice ICE, and strategies used by today's most successful
individuals and families and help maximize your net
worth so you can take even better care of the people you love.
(43:57):
Till next time. Make sure to hit the website at
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