Patients Don’t Buy Dentistry. They Buy Trust (E.294)

What This Episode Reveals

Dr. Michael Sonick joins hosts Dr. Chad Johnson, Dr. Maggie Augustyn, and Regan Robertson to expose the real reason most treatment plans stall.
Patients feel like a case, not a person.

This episode is a masterclass in human-centered dentistry:
Why emotional presence matters more than explanation.
How trust begins in the first 90 seconds.
What it takes to build a practice people never want to leave.

Whether you’re struggling with case acceptance, flat patient loyalty, or team disconnect, this conversation gives you the clarity to fix it—without scripts, pressure, or selling.

What You’ll Learn

✔ What patients actually remember about their visit.
✔ How to structure the first 90 seconds to build trust.
✔ The “wow” factor that drives case acceptance.
✔ What emotional hospitality looks like in practice.
✔ Why offering the “do nothing” option builds more trust.
✔ How to train your team to listen, without slowing production.

If This Sounds Familiar

You’re doing high-quality work, but something still feels transactional.
You’ve trained your team, upgraded your tech, but patients hesitate.
You’re delivering care, but struggling to connect.

This episode shows you how to shift that—fast.

Make Trust Part of Your System

Start with presence.
Train your team to listen.
Design every interaction with intention.
Learn more

Case Study

From Burnout to Breakthrough
From Barely Making Payroll to Shattering Big Goals

Dr. Maggie Augustyn almost walked away
Instead, she rebuilt her practice around clarity, connection, and culture and hit her biggest goals to date
Read the full story

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Dr. Chad Johnson: Welcome to Everyday Practices Dental Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Chad Johnson, along with my other co-host. Uh, Regan Robertson and my other other host, uh, Dr. Maggie Augustyn. So today we have a special guest. Dr. Michael Sonick is a board certified periodontist and implant surgeon based out of Fairfield, Connecticut, who trained me in dental implants 20 years ago. He has over 35 years experience. He’s not only renowned for his patient-centered interdisciplinary approach to treatment, but also for the way that he shares that philosophy with the world. I found him recently on YouTube and was watching some of his, uh, stuff on Facebook, and it inspired me to have him on the podcast through his YouTube channel and growing social media presence. Dr. Sonic offers a rare look inside what it means to build a practice on empathy, aesthetics, and education, whether it’s guiding a full arch transformation or sharing insights on treating the person, not just the teeth. His message is clear. Dentistry is about connection. So let’s welcome to the show with Dr. Michael Sonick. Mike, how you doing?

[00:01:10] Dr. Michael Sonick: Good. It is good. Thank you, Chad. Good to see you again.

[00:01:13] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yes,

[00:01:13] Dr. Michael Sonick: Look the same as you did 20 years ago,

[00:01:16] Dr. Chad Johnson: Just with a few more grays and you look amazing.

[00:01:18] Dr. Michael Sonick: Well, thank you.

[00:01:19] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah,

[00:01:20] Dr. Michael Sonick: I feel good. I’m doing what I love to do.

[00:01:22] Dr. Chad Johnson: So what keeps you young? I mean like what’s keeping you healthy? I.

[00:01:26] Dr. Michael Sonick: Um, physically, mentally, spiritually, it’s, it’s, it is the whole package, you know, and it is the way I treat my patients. It’s really connecting with human beings and just sort of being there for them. So I do a lot of things to stay healthy, you know, diet. Well, there are four things. There are four pillars, uh, is diet, exercise, sleep, and mindfulness, and of course then you could add on a few other things to that. One is having a passion for doing what you love, and I’m lucky as you are. We all are to do what we love to do and connecting with other people. It’s all about human connectivity. So my message about practicing dentistry by human connection, that that’s really important no matter who you listen to about longevity or health. You know, you look at the blue zones and the people who live in those parts of the world, which I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but it seems to be true. You know, when you’re living in a community, and I actually live in my community, I practiced 200 yards from my high school. So I get to see the people I went to high school with. So I’m instilled in my, my, my, my, my natural habitat and I’ve gotten too far, and it’s sort, it’s sort of really, really nice. So I think all those things are really, really important. We’re, and

[00:02:30] Dr. Chad Johnson: Share with our audience and, and our co-host here. Tell us about your office. Was it, wasn’t it something like 400 years old, the building and you had it redone and stuff like that? Tell me about it.

[00:02:38] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah, but I, I was in a small, small office and I actually, when you came and trained with us mm-hmm. It was relatively new. Well, the office was, but the building is the building’s 150 years old. Uh, it was a doctor’s office at one point, and when I bought it, I bought it from an older periodontist. He was in his early eighties. It was all chopped up and uh, I got it in an old building in historical Dexter of Fairfield. Uh, if you, from the outside, it looks like a beautiful home and you walk inside, it’s a very modern facility. As you know, we have a teaching center on the second floor, got seven operatories. It’s, you know, we got a laboratory there, we now have added a photo studio and a videographer up there. So we have a whole, whole bunch of things going. We use it, 

[00:03:17] Dr. Chad Johnson: I remember it being super clean. You guys were, you know, obsessive as, as I try and be about, uh, cleanliness and, and you know, sterility and keeping things, not that though, that’s gonna excite anyone, but I just, you know, being obsessive compulsive kind of type, I was, uh, super impressed with how you kept offices clean in spite of the fact. I’ve gone to a few offices where that’s not the case. You know, they have, they have great education, but it’s like, oh man, they’re kind of lacking and actually keeping stuff clean. So, yeah.

[00:03:47] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah, we’re fastidious. It’s, it’s a big part of my message, uh, because people see. Now I talk about, you know, the three, the triad of, of running a good practice. You have to do good dentistry, right? Mm-hmm, but people don’t really see me ’cause I’m a good dentist. I am a good dentist, but people really don’t know. I mean, they can’t tell. I mean, if I’m going bone back and if there’s bone loss down to the third thread, if the tooth is still there or whatever, um, also you have to have great service, but you also have to have nice day core. So the decor is a big part of how we run our practice. I happen to love nice day core. Everywhere I go, I, I look for it. I’ll walk out of a restaurant if it doesn’t feel good, you know, without even knowing anything about the food, I just leave, and actually, I was in Chicago once with my son and, uh, we were there, this was about 15 years ago, and we didn’t know where to eat, and we walked in, we’re looking for a place, we walked in one restaurant, I opened the door, I got into the vestibule, and I turned around. He goes, “What are you doing?” But my son was like 19 at the time. I go, you don’t get that feel. He goes, “No,O I go the places I can’t, I can’t eat here. He goes, how do you know that? I go, I just know, and people do know that, you know, and I have some stories in my book about that, how people leave certain places because of, you know, what the someone looks like ’cause people look at everything. Now you’re looking, you’re, I mean, you’re a prestigious guy. Your hair’s neat and clean. You always were like that. I mean that, that’s the way he took care of yourself. Not all dentists are, but um, can you be great if you’re a slob? I don’t know. You know, you walk into a doctor’s office, they get speckles of blood on their shoes. Are you gonna, are you gonna let them operate on you? So, yeah, there’s people. It’s, it is amazing. You know, I have a number of stories like that in the book, and I have many stories from my life like that where people just will walk out because of what you, you look like. So in our, in our office, I have, uh, on Mondays, I, I tell everybody that their nails gotta look good at the beginning of the week. You know, I actually, I cut my nails every Monday morning. I’ve been doing that for 40 years. The first thing I do when I get in the office on Monday after our, our staff meeting, we, I cut my nails and go on. Sometimes I forget, I go, “Oh God, they look terrible,” but nobody noticed except for me.

[00:05:46] Dr. Chad Johnson: So can I ask you a question from one guy to another? Let’s talk nails for a second. This will be the first podcast show ever about guy talking about nails. Do you ever take a file and bevel the sharp corner? I.

[00:05:58] Dr. Michael Sonick: No, I, I don’t, I, I, 

[00:06:00] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah. Chad, talk about what kind of file you use.

[00:06:02] Dr. Chad Johnson: So, so I started using my wife’s, uh, you know, file that wears o out over time, and I was like, you know what? I, so I went to the hardware store and I got like a, um, a metal. Uh, file, and so I use a meta file ’cause I was like, I’m, this one’s gonna last the rest of my life, and somehow I’ve told Maggie this, so she’s going to help share my details. But I love Beveling the corner so that way they’re not sharp, you know, like when, when you’re touching it. So like.

[00:06:31] Dr. Michael Sonick: Can’t be sharp. I will cut them. I was on. Did you end up playing? I was on the airplane the other day and a woman next to me started filing her nails, which I, I didn’t care for at this  thing is should do in public, you know.

[00:06: 42] Dr. Chad Johnson: No.

[00:06:43] Dr. Michael Sonick: Right on the airplane.

[00:06:44] Dr. Chad Johnson: No.

[00:06:45] Dr. Michael Sonick: Right.

[00:06:46] Dr. Chad Johnson: I’ll allow it outside if it’s casual. You know, like let’s say you’re in someone’s backyard and there for some reason feel uncomfortable, but not on a plane. Come on. Alright, so now before I let anyone jump into it, because I know Regan is chomping at the bit, but I am just, uh, super excited about having you on and talking with ya. Is, uh, tell me how did you end up deciding to write this book and how’s it been received? Like, tell me about the book. 

[00:07:12] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah, I mean, I’ve been, the, the book, the book sort of wrote itself. I’ve been, I’ve been practicing like the book since I started in practice, and when I, when I work, I started my, I started practicing, well, I’ve had probably 20 jobs before I opened my own pri private practice, and I opened up a, a white box. It was 600 square feet. I had no patients. I was a sixth period, honest in a town of 65,000. So it was already, there was not a need for another periodontist at that time, and so when I opened up my office, I really wanted to make it perfect and so I create, I crafted that way and I worked in the mall to try to make enough money so I can open up my new practice because, um, I, because I didn’t wanna, I, I didn’t wanna practice in another office in my own state. So I worked in two different states. My office is in Connecticut, but I worked in a mall in New York, New York, in the Galleria and White Plains and in Holyoke, in Ingleside, up in Massachusetts. I drove 700 miles a week, you know, worked for six days a week just to generate enough cash flow so I can open up my practice at that time. When I opened it up, I wanted to make it really boutiquey and very nice, and we didn’t take insurance. I never took insurance and my, my growth was slow. My first year in practice, I produced 35,000 and my overhead was about a hundred. So I had $400,000 in debt this 1985. So it wasn’t, everyone thinks like I’m an overnight success, but it took me a long time to get there. I worked really hard and um, so all the principles that I built the practice with, I sort of put into the book, and when I was in the mall working in the mall, I used to. Bring in my own stuff. I, I bring in cassette players. This was before streaming music, and I’d give, I’d have a Walkman and I’d have my patients that I would give them a choice of 20 different cd uh, cassette tapes. I’d have Willie Nelson, I’d have the Beatles. I’d have some jazz, you know, I, I, classical music, Brahms, whatever they like. I would give them music. I’d run in, I’d run in eyeglasses that were dark, so they would be dark in and out. I brought in like a little, little blankets for them, and because the mall was sort of disgusting, I carried my own artwork in and hung it while I was working there, and the all mall was so bad that my, my, my friend who was working there, Jeff Shapiro, was a very busy practice in New York. Jeff Shapiro and I, we went in on a weekend and we got all the dental assistant. We paid them when our boss was outta town and we painted the whole office. So we wanted to make it look nice, and that’s how I sort of started. So during COVID, I’ve been talking about this book, book and I’ve been lecturing for 40 years about, you know, clinical dentistry, but I’ve always wove a little bit of the clinical practice part in, ’cause I think that’s equally, if not more important, is how we connect with humans, and so when COVID came around, I go, uhoh, I got nothing to do. I better, I better even say when the book coming out, and a good friend of mine, Bob Levine, a well-known period from Philadelphia, kept on saying, I’m talking about your book. He goes, “When’s it coming out?” And I hadn’t written yet. So during COVID, I, I wrote it. That took me about a year to write it. I got on, I got online every day. I talked it through. I had people record me and I spent a long time doing it, and then when COVID was over, I renovated my office. We cleaned it all up, we wrote, rewrote all our protocols, and I had the book come out, and then when we hit the ground running, when they opened up the door, and we did a lot of cool things during COVID to make it really customer centric. Matter of fact, I mean, our office was. Oh, you think our office was clean then? We were over the top of COVID. So a lot of people came to our practice, say we’re the only place that they would go post COVID because they didn’t trust anybody else, and you know, for COVID, as you remember, I’d be walking in the woods, you know, in the middle of nowhere and I’d see someone I knew and they’d jump behind a tree to get away from me. It was, oh yeah. You know, and so I learned a lot during, during that period of time, and then it finally came out and so then I had a, now that the book is out, it’s pretty well received, we’ve sold, um. I have over 3000 copies out, which is not bad, uh, for a boutique book. Right. You know, we have the, we have their video series out on YouTube, and I give one keynote a week, um, one one day a week. I’m lecturing on this topic somewhere, you know, like, this is my second podcast this week. I gave a, a two day program last week. So it, it, it is getting traction, and I’m trying to, my moonshot is to change the way healthcare is delivered. Um, and that, and that’s a big moonshot, but I wanna get this book into medical and dental schools and every healthcare, uh, every healthcare facility in the country, and because we were talked a little earlier in the age of AI and human misinformation or disinformation, and what we don’t know what’s true, what’s not true. We always do know what is true in terms of a human connection. That’s something we feel, and people really, really need that. They’re starved for it.

[00:11:49] Dr. Michael Sonick: And so our office, you know, we’re in the northeast where people, you know, sometimes aren’t, you don’t think it’s their friendliest, I don’t think Connecticut is the friendliest state, but if you come into our office. You know, it is like people are laughing, they’re having a good  time. It’s, it really, they’re greeted as friends by first name, and we do a lot of things to make that to, to make that happen, and I had a friend of mine who’s a neurolinguistic programming coach, and that’s, that’s sort of the, the way that we all interact by the way we look at each other, we, the way we, we, we speak the tone of our voice, how we, how we move our hands. There’s that human interconnection. We even get on Zoom a little bit. I can see as I’m looking at some of you here, we’re starting to get that feeling. He came to my office one day and spent the day with me, and he says to me, he says, this is before I wrote the book. He goes, “You know, you’re really good at what you do, but you’re unconsciously competent.” Meaning that I’m good at it, but I don’t know why I’m doing it. I was a natural at doing it, but I couldn’t teach anybody else. So when I wrote the book, I said, I. I had a lookout and I had to break down everything I did, just like I do when I teach implants. Like everything is a system. So I have a system for being a good hospitality. You know, someone who runs a really good, you know, hospitable practice and is a, there, there’s a technique for it, and, and the great restaurants and the great  places like the Four Seasons Hotel, when you go in there almost, they’re all pretty much dissimilar. They have, they, they have a certain way of reading you. That’s nice most of the time, you know, it depends. That they have in there. Sometimes it’s a little bit robotic, the way people look at you, you know, and talk to you but you gotta be sort of natural, and that all really comes down to how you hire and who you hire, which is a huge part. So the most important part of my patient experience, of course, is my cake. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:13:30] Regan Robertson: You know, so.

[00:13:31] Dr. Chad Johnson: Go ahead.

[00:13:32] Regan Robertson: What is fascinating, uh, about all of this is it, it, I would call you a venture to call you a unicorn. Um, in dentistry in particular, there are doctors that I have met similar to you, but what you’re describing from my lens is the brand experience, the actual experience from before they ever met you to, you know, ever even know you exist to, uh, to after they walk out the door, and then what follows up for that, and I’m genuinely curious because of course there is natural, intuitive nature to be an active listener and to care about the person before they’re even sitting in your chair. What is, uh, something that you could share, like a story from a time in your life where you had an experience that just blew your mind, because there had to have been some seed that was planted at some point that said, “Wow, this, I want to be able to replicate this feeling, like this vibe for my patients and for my practice.”

[00:14:31] Dr. Michael Sonick: I, I don’t have an experience that shaped my journey. You know, they started, but I was, I, my father had a furniture store. I delivered furniture. I had customer experiences there. I just always had it. I was a lifeguard, so I used to take care of people when they get injured. Uh, I was a waiter, okay, for many years I was a bartender, so I was a cocktail piano player. I mean, I did all those type of things with, with service my whole career but I’ve had plenty of experiences that have been amazing, and once you’re open to those experiences out there and you’re giving back from a place of abundance, they just magically appear. You know, and, um, I mean, I had one, I, I could share one. This is this, this didn’t shape me. I was already shaped at this point. But I always like to stay in nice hotels and I’ll stay at a Ritz or Four Seasons. Oftentimes I don’t have to pay for ’em because they’re being paid for for me but I was once staying at the um. Um, what I thought was the Four Seasons Hotel in Atlanta, and I know Atlanta really well. I went to Emory and I go there every year and I went out for lunch. I came back to the hotel and I went up to the floor and I, I was on the eighth floor and I used my room key as not working, and um, I. You know, I’m a, you know, I’m a, I’m a little upset because I’m in a Four Seasons hotel room key is not working. So I have a little bit of an attitude, but I’m trying not to show it. So I walked to the front desk, I go, you know, uh, my room key’s not working, and the guy picks up the room key and he looks at it. He goes, um, that’s ’cause this is for the Four Seasons Hotel and you’re staying at the Ritz. So, um, I said, “Oh.” So they looked alike, and uh, so he go, I go, where’s that? He goes, it’s like down the road, two miles. They, I’ll walk. He goes, no, well let us take you down there. He goes, we have a hotel car and let us take you down to the, the Four Seasons. So I was staying at the Ritz in downtown Atlanta. I, and they gimme their car to take me to the four seasons where I’m not staying. Now, I didn’t take it because I felt funny doing that um, and I just took an Uber, so I, I could’ve stayed either one of those hotels. So for the last nine years, every time I go to Atlanta, which is about three or four times a year, I always stayed in the Four Seasons. Downtown Ritz Carlton downtown because of that experience. Hmm. I like both hotels, but, but that one, and it’s, it’s amazing. Now who does that? I mean, who does that? I’m giving you a gift and, and even though it’s not in my best interest and you know, I have an expression, I go, do you know why they call it the right thing? ’cause it’s the right thing. So when people come to me for advice, I go, just do what’s right. I don’t care what they’re saying. You know, I see it a lot in, in young couples that get married, they go, “Well, I’d like you, but you know, my spouse says I can’t and I shouldn’t.” I go, but isn’t the right thing to do this? You always have to make a stand for doing it the right thing, and if you’re in the service business, you always wanna do the right thing for the people you serve, and I think it’s a privilege, true privilege to do what we do. I mean, especially people allow, people pay us thousands of dollars to, for them, for us to open their mouths and cut them, okay, and then they say, thank you. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a really, the whole dynamic of the dental experience, the whole customer’s journey is bizarre, and if you can make it seem when they write to you, thank you so much for giving me that experience. Thank you so much. I’ve never had a dental, dental experience. I just treated dentist this week and he, he called me up, he goes, and he’s 75 years old. He goes in all my years, and this is the guy I used to work with. He goes, in all my years I have never had such a painless dental or medical experience. Wow, and the first time I met him and ho and I, he didn’t like me at all. 30 years ago, he couldn’t stand me ’cause he thought I was an arrogant jerk, you know, because, you know, my reputation had preceded me but as you’re my patient, I’m always gonna be very kind for you there but I’ve had so many of those experiences like that they’re al, they’re always pretty cool. I really what you give out there is you usually get back, you know, and a lot of, if you lead by, you know, if you lead by what can you do for me? You’re never gonna be successful. So I have a question, you know, for you all, can you be successful If you are not in an abundance mindset, can you be in the scarcity mindset and still be successful? You know, put yourself first, so, mm-hmm. I dunno,

[00:18:33] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Plenty of people are. 

[00:18:35] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah. Most people are something in a

[00:18:38] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: scarcity mindset, Mick.

[00:18:39] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah. Most people in a scarcity mindset. Yeah.

[00:18:41] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah. I think most people come from a scarcity mindset and they punch. It’s funny, I just left to Marco Polo about this, uh, for our little group, but it comes from a place of egoism.

[00:18:54] Dr. Michael Sonick: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:54] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And we feel so unworthy. That we will fight to the death trying to prove that we are worth something, and so we put on this armor pretending that we are everything, that we are so tremendously arrogant and we will fight to the death trying. Why are you laughing, Chad?

[00:19:16] Dr. Michael Sonick: Because you’re right. Keep going.

[00:19:18] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Try

[00:19:19] Dr. Michael Sonick: We, we agree with you.

[00:19:20] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Trying to fight to the death that we are everything, that we are better than you, right? We are, we will take everything from the people around us. Uh, it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s a power struggle. It’s a dominance thing, it’s an ego thing and all of it comes from the idea of scarcity, where if you just leaned back and surrendered and looked at the beauty of the world, and because I am with you, I talk about human connection. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book Compassion Ons, but, um, if, if you think about human connection and compassion, um, think about what we can give to one another instead of what we are there to take from one another, all of a sudden, a whole new world opens up to you and you no longer have to prove to someone looking at you, you’re worth. We all see what we are to one another, but there, but I would say the majority of people, um, live from a scarcity mindset and they fight to the death trying to prove who they are and take from one another instead of giving, if that makes sense.

[00:20:36] Dr. Chad Johnson: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:38] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it does. So here, here’s, here’s the opportunity. If you’re an abundance mindset, you’re at a distinct advantage because most people aren’t there and there’s an expression that there’s no competition in a niche. So if your niche is to practice integrity and to be an extremely giving practitioner and to always be there for your patient and not nickel and dime ’em say, oh, you know, I always look for experience that we, I always look to give what I call patience. We’ve named a lot of things that we do in our practice. One of ’em is the wow experience. So I always look to give people a wow experience. Every time someone is in my practice, I want them to leave with a wow experience. Uh, today someone says, you know, uh, like on vacationing, as I mentioned, you on Block Island, someone says, “Oh, I’ve been there. You know, I like it there.” I said, oh, I have a list of, I have, I have a list of all the restaurants and places to hike on Block Island, and before I finish the sentence, my dental, uh, nurse is printed out a list of three pages to hand them. As they’re walking out, you know, and that was like you, did you expect to get that at the periodontist office? You know, or I always look for something to, to give, uh, people, I have a list of all the top restaurants in areas. I have 30 books in my office, multiple copies. So someone says, I’m trying to lose some weight. “Oh, have you read this book? This is about diet.” You know, my neck hurts, you know, what about this? And so I’ll always, I have a book on back pain. I have a book on. I have a book. I know almost everything. Yeah. So I’ll always give it, I’ll always give them a book and when I run out of ’em, I order more, more of them. So I always try to really improve, you know, the quality of my patients’ lives. That’s, that’s my, our mission statement. I wanna improve the quality of my patients’ lives.

[00:22:12] Regan Robertson: I have a question for you, because you mentioned that one of the challenges of, of writing this book was really thinking carefully about how you’re able to deliver that wow experience and putting it into to frameworks and tools that others can, can apply for themselves, and it’s kind of like doing the right thing. Uh, you know, when we look at like crafting core values or key characteristics and we say, do the right thing, that can mean different things to different people. So leading them and defining it is important. Could you tell us about your process of getting what was in your head out into this book and like an example that’s in the book of a framework that you developed that you were able to walk through that process of, “Okay, I have to really break it down engineering style and map out what it is that I can, you know, that I do so I can teach others,”?

[00:22:59] Dr. Michael Sonick: I think a simple  one is the initial examination. So 90% of all dentists do their examination in a hygiene room, so this is a big problem for dentists. Patient call up and they say, “I want my teeth cleaned.” They go, well, we need to do an exam first. Not only one is a cleaning. I. So that’s the big blockage, and they think this can cleaning costs X dollars. You even see people promoting the practices, you know, 1 99 exam and cleaning an x-rays, and so they get the patients in and it’s, it’s sort of like a loss leader, but do they actually get to do all that? So to enter our practice, it’s an one hour examination, and during that examination process, we do, we do four things. So if you’re a new patient in my practice, I will tell them, I said, oh, you’re here today for your exam. What we’re gonna do is an examination and then we’re going to do a diagnosis, and I said, the diagnosis that we have for you is gonna be the same no matter if I do it or anybody else, or Chad does it or Regan does it, or Dr. Maggie does it. It’s all gonna be the same diagnosis. You either have periodontal these or you don’t. Is it black and white? I said, and then we’re gonna give you some treatment options and then we’ll talk about treatment. What most doctors do, and you know, and it’s not just dentists, it’s doctors, is they look at their specialty and what they like to do is go, oh, that’s an O on X. Okay, that’s an, that’s a IGN case. So that, that’s like whatever it is. So that’s, that’s a LANAP case. So when they go into what their, their, their procedures are, so most doctors talk about patients as procedures. I talked about dentists as being pothole fillers. We look at something to do if we get an insurance code to go down. I wanna turn that on its head and I wanna look at everybody as a human being, and the way I do that is four parts. We do an exam, we do a diagnosis, treatment plans, and treatment. So I sort of made that up and that is something else that’s, that’s with that so that, that also people don’t really talk about now what I just said to you exam, diagnosis, treatment plans, and treatment we’re, we taught that in school as periodontists as that’s drilled into us. Most periodontists don’t think that way. If they’re like, let’s do some implants, they just want to go to that, you know, I don’t care about the procedures. So I, in my book, what I’ve done is I say, “Get away from the procedures and get into the diagnosis.” Okay? And once you get a diag, you have to do a complete exam to do that. You can’t do that in three minutes in a hygiene room, so you need to spend some time doing that. It requires x-rays, models, and a bunch of other things that you all know about. So I broke it down like that. When I sit with that patient, then I’m gonna tell them, I said, there’s a system to this ’cause patient’s gonna say, I just want this fixed. They go, hold on, lemme get you your diagnosis. Let me get you your treatment option so that you can make the decision. So then I give it to ’em. I said, but before we make a decision, there’s an order in which we do your treatment, and the first thing we do is we have to get you. We take care of pain, and then I said, “Are you in any pain?” They go, no. I go, “Then we don’t have to do that.” So that’s off the table. We don’t have to take care of your pain. The only time I would treat someone on their initial visit is if they’re in pain. I wanna leave you relieve their pain. The second thing I do is treat infection. Caries, periodontal disease, endodonic problems, tumors, whatever. Those things. That’s the second thing, and the infection has to be treated before I do the third thing, which is functional rehabilitation. That’s implants, ortho, crown, and bridge. That’s all the stuff that we think about is dentistry, and then I work with aesthetics, but the aesthetics is done ju which, functional rehabilitation. I just want the front tooth fixed. It can’t if you have an infection ’cause it’s out of order, and the last thing is maintenance. So I give them these, these two things, the protocols, and the sequence of treatment. The sequence of treatment is exam, diagnosis, treatment plans, and treatment. Now, the treatment plans I break down into, I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m gonna tell you what you can do, and then you make a decision, and the first thing I always tell a patient is, you can do nothing, and once you tell a patient they can do nothing, they immediately take ownership because they say, “I don’t wanna do nothing.” Yeah, but most people don’t get that choice. Most people, the doctor comes in and tells them, so I’ve also broken down the three types of doctors. There are, there’s the paternal doctor that tells a patient what to do and that doesn’t work too much anymore. Then is the retail doctor like these your options? This is 499, this is 599. You, this bone grafts 200, this one’s 500. You know this one’s, and and they go, well, I’ll do the cheaper. They don’t know how to make a decision, and then there’s the doctor that’s collaborative, and so I want every doctor to be a collaborative doctor, but that requires education. So I broke down that whole process of the exam, and I will, in the first 90 seconds of meeting a patient, if I can see his resistance, I say, here’s what we’re gonna do today. Today I’m gonna do an exam and diagnosis. I said, I will do treatment only if you’re in pain, but I said, “But I’ll give you treatment options and then you can own the decision making process and I’ll bring you to a level where we, you can understand what we need we’re doing so you can make the best decisions for yourself, and by doing that, I get a 90% case except.” But I’m not giving them the treat. I’m not telling them what to do. I’m giving ’em options. Mm-hmm. I never give more than three options, and first option is to do nothing, and second option was to take out the tooth. The the third option is to keep the tooth, and then we could say, well, if we keep the tooth, we could do endo, we could do post and core this. If we take out the tooth, we could do a bridge, we could do an implant, we do a flipper, or you could use hell of space in your mouth, and if you have a space in your mouth, this will happen and this won’t happen, or you could just leave it out. So I give ’em a very logical sequence, which most doctors don’t do because they don’t spend the time doing it ’cause they don’t have that conversation. So that conversation is very powerful and I break that down in my chapter on how exactly to go ahead, ahead and do that. Something else that I’ve also broken down, because people come in so fearful at that when they walk into our office. It is the most fearful thing that I always say, that I’m like a divorce attorney. I get to see people at their worst before I ask ’em to spend a lot of money, and because, and they’re vulnerable. They’re really scared. Now I have five divorce attorneys as patients. I use that line with them and they, they, they, they, they can relate to it. Yeah, or attorneys are their best patients because they’re so nice ’cause they’re really good at making people feel comfortable. Yeah. They just have great personalities. You know, they’re not litigators. They’re, some have to deal with, you know, family dynamic and when they’re vulnerable like that, what do I want to do? We talked about fear before. You know, you were talking about that too, Dr. Maggie is basically, you were talking about being a scarcity mindset. The scarcity mindset is fearful. Okay, you, when you lose your fear, you’re not in scarcity mindset because you know that you have the power to do whatever you need to do. You can take away everything from me that I could get it back again, because I feel that I have the ability to do that. I think you all feel the same way. So when those patients come in to see me, they’re fearful as hell, and I said to them, I said, you know, I, I congratulate them from walking in the door, and then I immediately say at their initial visit, “I’m glad you’re here. You are in the right place.” That’s a declarative sentence that allows patients to say, okay, I made the right decision being here.

[00:29:20] Dr. Michael Sonick: Good. I’m in the right place. They have no idea. Okay. It’s like I’m, you know, it’s when you say something, you know, I’m a good athlete. Oh, okay. So you must be a good athlete. You know, I’m good at this. Okay. Yeah. Come on. On our team. So when I tell ’em in the right place, they feel good, and then I tell ’em three things. I never tell them about problems. I only tell ’em about the solution. If I mention the problem, I immediately link it with the solution. So I do that, I do that linkage, and I always tell them before I even tell ’em about the problem, I say, there’s three things that I’m gonna, I’m gonna didn’t do for you. I’m gonna improve your function. I’m gonna improve your health, and if necessary, we’ll improve the cosmetics because nobody doesn’t want to be healthy and nobody doesn’t wanna look good and have good function. All that is told within about 90 seconds in some manner, and I linked that all with a story about myself and I started to talk the importance of storytelling because I relate to them as a human being. I don’t talk about ations in class two occlusions and carries, and they don’t know, you know, I don’t say any of that kind of stuff. You know, my, I, I did, did back in the day. They don’t care. They just, they just wanna know that they’re gonna get better. It’s just like when I meet my financial advisor, I don’t know what he’s doing. You know, I met yesterday, I met with my, my, my, uh, my lawyer to, to set up my estate planning and something. I go, whatever. Okay, that’s fine. Let’s do that. You know, I go, he, do you have any questions? I go, yeah, you’ll answer and I’ll walk outta here and I won’t remember damn thing. Is this the right thing? He goes, yeah, it’s the right thing. Okay, because I trust, you know, ’cause it basically comes down to trust. It comes down to trust. That was a long-winded answer to a no,

[00:30:48] Dr. Chad Johnson: Mike, let me say this. I had, I met with my life insurance guy. He really wanted to meet with me. I didn’t, and so we sat down. He was, he was late because he was at the Mexican restaurant next to the Buffalo Wild Wings for a while. He finally then comes and meets with me and he says, uh, he says, “Well before you leave,” ’cause I said, “I gotta get back.” “Well before you leave, I have this book, and he brings out this binder and he says, I want you to look through this. Turn to section one.” He’s got ’em, you know, labeled and look at section one. Now you could, you do a universal this and that, and he starts talking about, you know, there’s a gap between, you know, this, and I’m like sitting there going, he’s talking about stuff that he finds interesting within his industry ’cause he’s using, but I was just like. I, I don’t care, and I don’t, I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I, I actually don’t care. Like, and it reminds me a lot of what you just said. It’s just like we have to, remi remember that when patients are sitting in the chair, if we say, well, your class two furation is just like, they’re thinking, okay, so is that bad or I, I don’t know if I care. Regan, you’ve been lighting up your face. Please tell me what you’re thinking.

[00:31:49] Regan Robertson: Well, what Dr. Sonic you were just describing is, I believe it’s called attribute priming, I think, I think that’s the neurolinguistic phase for it, and it is, it is. Once I learned that particular, uh, it’s not a trick. It’s just, it’s just really a great way to frame a conversation. Uh, you can do it in, in all, I mean, it’s great with. Parenting. It’s great with clients. It’s great with patients. It’s phenomenal because it helps set the stage. So when you say, you know, you were in the right place, it plants that in the patient’s mind and it helps give them that boost of confidence. So I was, it’s called

[00:32:23] Dr. Chad Johnson: Attribute What?

[00:32:24] Regan Robertson: Attribute? Priming.

[00:32:26] Dr. Chad Johnson: Priming, priming.

[00:32:27] Regan Robertson: And I love it. So you’ve set the stage and then I, I guess I’m reflecting, I don’t know that I have a question for you, Dr. Sonick. I’m just thrilled because to see you flip it over into the link, uh, so that you can be relatable with them, you’re transferring that, that kind of hero’s journey onto the patient themselves and showing them, you know, I care about you, and you talked a lot about all of your customer service experience, you know, in, in the past that I think probably helped maybe with this on, on how to create a, a really phenomenal experience. Is this something that you do with your team as well? I’m just really curious.

[00:33:07] Dr. Michael Sonick: Of course it is. You know, we have a, one of my team members, uh, everybody in our office, you know, dental assistant, administrative person, that’s they all, they all have another job. So we have some in our office administration. She’s, she’s chief of customer service, chief of hospitality, so she is there. That hospitality is not just for patients, it’s for the team. So if you come to our office, I mean, every dime I’m in the office. They, they have lunch, I buy them lunch, we do two or three celebrations a week. We had, there’s always, I didn’t know there was an IT day. Okay. There is an it day. So we have cakes, we put things and we post all this kind of stuff. We, we make, we make people feel really special. We give ’em a one year thing and we give ’em a five year thing, and so yeah, I celebrate ’em. I have to rehire my team every day ’cause they’re volunteers.

[00:33:53] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: That’s profound. I have to rehire my team every day.

[00:33:58] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah,

[00:33:59] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: That’s like recommitting in a marriage every day.

[00:34:02] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah. Commitment’s very big. That’s a, that’s a whole other co conversation. I do that with my patients. I make them commit to me at the first visit. I go, I refuse to treat you unless you commit to keeping your teeth clean for the rest of your life by getting your teeth clean every three to six months, whatever it is. I go, will you gimme that commitment? And they go, I’m not sure I go, then I’m not treating you. So I make that commitment right there. That’s something I started doing about 10 years ago. So we have, we have hygiene practice. I mean, we have three full-time hygienists, five days a week. I mean, and, and most people say, I hate their hygienist. I love my hygienist. They’re a backbone of our practice, and I tell ’em every day, I make sure I talk to my team members every day I walk in, you know, I have a very quiet guy that does all our instruments. I walk in there, I go, I’m on vacation next week, Jason. I go, I guess we won’t have a talk in a week. Now he doesn’t talk to anybody. He’s quiet. He sits in the lab. He loves it. I mean, he just likes doing that, and I just, I just make sure I connect with everybody and someone goes through a different, I had one of my patient, my, my team members was going through a difficult time. She was crying. She goes, she’s telling me what’s wrong. I go, okay. I. Um, you know, I, I, she’s the happiest, most, most joyful person in our office, but she’s having trouble with her children and she comes the next day, how you doing? She goes, “I’m still miserable.” I said, “You know, something, used to be the most joyful person in the office,” I said, “Now you’re the most miserable,” and she looks at me. She starts laughing, and then all of a sudden it broke their tension. You know, another one of my assistants I had had, had been to four funerals in the last months, and I go four. I go, supposed to come in threes, you’re up to four. I go, what do you have? Some sort of, we make light of it and I connect with ’em. I don’t ignore that they’re going through something and so we can really talk about that. Very, very open. With my team. We have a team meeting every day, you know, and, uh, my door is open and, and they have any problem in the office. I tell ’em to come to me. I don’t want ’em fighting, and I go, if you’re fighting when I’m in the office, you come to me. I even have a form for, it’s called the experience transformer. What happened? Why did it occur? What’s your part in it? Number three part in it. Yeah. Four is what are you gonna do? So that will never happen again. So they don’t wanna come to me because they’re gonna have to become, the solution gonna become proactive. So they are not sitting in, and you’ll like this one. Regan. They’re not sitting in the victim’s chair, so, okay. You can use that too. Yeah.

[00:36:20] Regan Robertson: Can you imagine a future if dentistry was looked at as a hospitality business? I think that that is where the future is going. I think that especially with all of the troubles with insurance right now, the state of the world, just ai, all of the pieces together, I, I, I full disclosure listeners, I have not read this book yet, and you know, it is literally in my hands and I cannot wait to devour this book. Uh, it feels to me Dr. Sonick, like this helps paint a new paradigm and what the future of dentistry can be if we look at it as a hospitality business where we are  earning, uh, the right to dentistry, and, um, you’ve got no, 

[00:37:05] Dr. Michael Sonick: The book is endorsed. The book is endorsed Undercover, and this is not gonna impress any of you, most likely, isn’t it? It’s endorsed by Danny Meyer. Okay. It’s also been endorsed by, you know, John Kois and Dennis Tarno and a lot of famous dentists, but nobody knows famous dentists, and you don’t know Danny Meyer? Anyone know Danny Meyer?

[00:37:22] Dr. Chad Johnson: No.

[00:37:23] Dr. Michael Sonick: Okay. Um, Danny Meyer is the most successful restaurateur world I. He started a restaurant called Union Square Cafe. Same year I opened my practice and then he opened up Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan. My favorite restaurant, 11 Madison Port Park, which was the number one restaurant in world for two years.

[00:37:42] Regan Robertson: Oh, you’re kidding. I know who you’re talking about.

[00:37:45] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah, and he’s famous. Now here’s how you’ll know him. Shake Shack. So he, he’s, oh yeah, and, um, you know, he’s now a billionaire because of Shake Shack, not because of his restaurants, and he was successful in his restaurants. Um, you know, maybe dentists successful, but now he’s like real successful. Um, and he’s the guy that everybody goes to. He wrote a book called Setting the Table. One of his mentees is Will Guera, who took over 11 Madison Park. He wrote Unreasonable. So those FE folks are people that. I’ve endorsed the book and that’s where I come from. Bobby Stuckey, who just got the James Beard Award. You know him do I Stuckey Holder. 

[00:38:22] Regan Robertson: I’m a huge Wil Guera fan, so that’s why I’m on the edge of dicey Right. Connection was made. Yeah. I figured it out and went Oh, I know who you’re talking about. Yeah.

[00:38:29] Dr. Michael Sonick: Yeah. I just sent the book to Wil Guera, uh, last week, and, um, the, uh, Bobby Stuckey, who is the saer at, was the SAE at, um, French Laundry, which is one of the top restaurants out in California. He has a restaurant in Nebraska that was just as the number one restaurant in the United States. Got the James Beard Award and I know him very well ’cause my daughter went to Boulder. I used to eat there and he also gave me an endorsement and he talks about, I. You know, we’re just serving a really good plate of food. He goes, what, you know, Dr. Sonic does, and what doctors do is, is they’re doing something that has to be, that may that place an implant in a 22-year-old that’s gonna have to last another 60 years. He goes, that’s something that is, takes have to be taken very seriously. If you can do that with hospi, hospitality, that’s phenomenon, and I, I, I mentioned earlier my, my, uh, this podcast that. The term hospitality that came from Bobby Stuckey. That’s what his, that’s his term ’cause he looks himself and he loves serving food. I mean, here’s a guy that doesn’t have to anymore. He’s got his own jet, but he’s on the floor serving food, putting down glasses, pouring wine, making our sugars coffee, and he does a, he has a whole unique process for giving you a great experience there. It’s amazing what he does.

[00:39:39] Dr. Chad Johnson: So Mike, this gives people an intro to you. Are you, I’m, I’m just curious, are you still doing any lecturing at NYU or do you like guest lecture once or a semester, occasionally. Like what’s that look like for you? Right now

[00:39:52] Dr. Michael Sonick: I lecture at least once a week somewhere. I give probably about 40, 50 lectures a year.

[00:39:56] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yes.

[00:39:57] Dr. Michael Sonick: Um, I lecture at NYU. Um, if you go to my website, which is my name, michaelsonick.com,

[00:40:02] Dr. Chad Johnson: with a K on the N of Sonic, just to make sure people know.

[00:40:06] Dr. Michael Sonick: You’ll see all, all the programs that I do. I, I lecture for MBE Institute, the Implant Institute. Uh, I do private courses. I just did a two day course in soft tissue with Shanker ear, well known prosthodontist in Jersey this weekend. Um, I lecture at various meetings. The Academy of Boston Integration, the American Academy Implant Dentistry, American Periodontology, and I do a lot of, um, you know, webinars. I work for Glidewell, all the, all the companies. You will pull me in and, and do some things, and, um, for this lecture here, you know, I come in and, you know, I I, I do, I do a lot of study clubs, you know, so I probably lecture once a week somewhere, you know, I go all, I go all over the country. Yeah, and the world actually. I’ll be in Brazil this year, Taiwan, later this year. You know, I’ve done, I used to do a lot more before COVID, you know, not so, not so much, and I’ll probably create a series of programs. Uh, I have a series of programs online too, that you can just, you can buy the videos that for 499, and you can get, uh, f you know, 10 lectures with a whole workbook on how to, on how to introduce this into your practice. So if you wanna introduce this into your practice. Um, buy the book, read the book. At the end of every chapter, there are three pages of questions to ask yourself about the concepts. A little reflection yourself, an analysis, like, what kind of order do I have? Do I give a wow experience? Do I do showtime? Am I talking about myself? Am I into myself? You know, what about insurance? You know, all the, all How do you hire? I have a whole thing on hiring fire. I have a pheno. I haven’t, I have had zero turnover with 25 employees in over a year, which is, which I’m very proud of. That’s like a great statistic, um, because that’s hard, because you have to rehire every day. Yeah, and um, I also have, um, as I mentioned, YouTube, every, every Wednesday I put out a new YouTube video there on at my, on the YouTube channel, which is Michael Sonick, and that, that links to an Instagram. You can find me there. So I do, 

[00:41:55] Dr. Chad Johnson: I’m really liking those. Thanks for doing those.

[00:41:57] Dr. Michael Sonick: Thanks, and then I also do the courses and I can [00:42:00] come in and do do in-house training and things like that. So I have a whole bunch of things I do. Very cool.

[00:42:05] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Why do you care so much about people? Where does that come from in you?

[00:42:09] Dr. Michael Sonick: I don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:42:11] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: That’s not a fair answer. Come on.

[00:42:13] Dr. Michael Sonick: What do I know? It? Because, because it’s the only way that you become spiritual and get out of yourself, because if you’re just thinking about yourself, it’s a miserable life. Okay? So if, if I’m, if I’m in a bad mood, I’ll give you the four part things that I do if something bothers me, okay? And by the way, something bothers me five or six times a day, okay? Every day. There’s always something and something, something can be very small, right? It’s like, oh, that person just doesn’t get it. I’ve spent so much time, they don’t get it, or, I missed that bus or whatever, or I’m five pounds too heavy. I shouldn’t have eaten that donut, but what, whatever it is, my daughter doesn’t appreciate me. Something every day is gonna bother me, and so what do I do? I just acknowledge it immediately and um, then I sort get into a place where like, okay, let’s remove this, you know, some sort of spiritual spot, talk to somebody about it. I go, they’re gonna turn to me. Usually My wife is great for this. I’m very happily married. My wife will just turn to me, you know, my wife Chad, my wife will just turn to me and says, “You’re being a baby.” I go, “Yeah, you’re right,” and then I immediately, and this is the true gift, I find somebody else to help. So by helping others, I get completely outta myself. So the true gift, ’cause every day I walk into my office and I have, I’ve been doing this ritual for 40 years. I walk into my office and I say to myself, it’s Showtime. Let me be the gift today. It’s a little ritual that I perform. I open a door and I make believe I’m walking onto a Broadway stage at Disney, and it’s the show? Yes, and it’s the show. Uh, I the back door’s unlocked, and that’s, and when I open up that door, there’s, my team is sitting at for a morning meeting and we start with the morning meeting and I think about that, and at the end of that morning meeting, we always say, “Showtime, let’s go,” and whole team. We, we do a dad joke. We read a stupid joke, and then we have a spiritual, we have, we have like 15 books, spiritual books, dad jokes, stupid things. We read a stupid joke, which is really dumb, like, I’ll tell you one. Uh, what is, um, Beethoven’s favorite fruit? Nah, nah, nah. So it, okay, so that sounds, you know, they’re really dumb. So that was our joke this week, and then we go, we go, we, we go out there. So by getting out of myself, it’s very selfish by helping others. It’s the selfish thing, most selfish thing I could do because I feel better and it always works, and when I have, I have a friend that’s going through a divorce right now, and he hates his ex-wife. He hates his ex-wife. I go, it’s killing you. I go, she did this, she did this, she did this. I go, “Okay, so. Well let it go, man. Pray for her. Help her. It’s gonna, it is gonna come back.” He won’t get that for a few years. He will eventually, but I know he’ll get there. But once he gets to that spot, and she’s done some very painful things for her and she’s wrong but he suffered ’cause she’s wrong. Yeah. You don’t have to, things are gonna, people are gonna do things that are suffering. You look at the news, it’s, you know, it’s, it is just all negative and, and it is negative because we are attracted to negativity. Yeah, and the reason we’re attracted to negativity is because it’s, it’s a survival instinct. You know, we have to look for danger. Sure. You know, and so all day long, boom, boom, boom. So positivity wins. That’s, that’s why. So I guess I do have a reason why I do it, Maggie. Yeah.

[00:45:17] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: You do.

[00:45:18] Dr. Chad Johnson: Well, Dr. Michael Sonic out of Connecticut. I love you and I really appreciate you. I was honored that you said yes to come on today, and it’s been way too long, but, you know, distance just requires it, I guess. Uh, but I think about you often. I want you to know that, and I’m saying it publicly so everyone knows that. Uh, I’m just trying to throw you some love that I regularly think of you and I’m just, uh, uh, so thrilled to have you on today. We’re glad to have you on and, and talking about not only your book, but how you’ve, uh, helped mentor a whole generation, particularly, um, uh, upping your area and with periodontology, with Implantology and around  the world as much as you travel.

[00:46:01] Dr. Chad Johnson: So thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:46:03] Dr. Michael Sonick: It’s been a pleasure and true honor. Yeah. I remember you as a young boy, right out of, I think it was one of your first courses outta dental school. 

[00:46:10] Dr. Chad Johnson: It was. It was ridiculous. Yeah. So, yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Well, everyone, thanks for being great listeners on Everyday Practices Dental Podcast today with Reagan, Dr. Maggie, Dr. Michael, and myself.

[00:46:25] Regan Robertson: Thanks everyone. Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify. Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more Awesome. Drop us an email at podcast@productivedentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts. See you next week.