Unlocking the Power of Patient Referrals: How to Grow Your Dental Practice Through Word-of-Mouth (E. 260)

“Your team is a huge part of building your dental practice…most teams don’t realize how critical their role is.”
~Sara Hansen

How would you feel if you could increase your productivity without spending external marketing dollars?

There is a potential untapped marketing goldmine in your practice.

Your team.

Think about how important your team is. Your patients spend more time with them than they do with you. Your team is out in the community sharing with friends and family how they save lives in their jobs.

Here’s the best part: if your team is referring new patients to your practice, that marketing cost to you is zero.

We love to save you money and make your lives easier! Which is why we are thrilled to have PDA Marketing Consultant Sara Hansen join us today we unpack how you can harness the power of your team as marketing powerhouses, including:

• Creating the ultimate patient experience
• The 1 thing you can do to get started with internal marketing
• Strategies you can implement today

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Announcer: The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast Network.

[00:00:03] Sara Hansen: Once the phone rings, it’s then passed off to the admin team. They need to then start that relationship with the patient and build the trust, build the relationship. What’s interesting is that most team members don’t realize. How critical their role is with internal marketing. It really is about the ultimate patient experience.

[00:00:28] Regan Robertson: Welcome to the Everyday Practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson and my cohost, Dr. Chad Johnson, and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are anything but ordinary, buckle up and listen in. Do you feel like it’s been a really successful year in your dental practice? But honestly, you’re just drained. You’re tired of the staff headaches, rising overhead costs this year has been a challenge And you know, there isn’t even any time to talk with your patients, to build relationships that you know are necessary so they say yes to your care in the first place. If you’re feeling this way, PDA can help. We can help you re energize your mindset and your practice. Go to productivedentist.com right now. Registration is open for the 2025 PDA conference happening March 13th to the 15th in Frisco, Texas. This fully immersive two-and-a-half-day program for dentists and teams can immediately help you tap in to productivity, profitability, and leadership tools. So you can create more time for what matters most in your life, like focusing on great patient care and having the freedom to reclaim your time outside of this practice. If you feel like you’re doing well, but you’d like to do great, come on over to Texas and we are happy to serve you. Go to productivedentist.com today and register for the PDA conference. We’ll see you there. Are you thinking about marketing your practice in any way? Stop before you proceed. You do not get to pass co and collect 200 until you listen to this episode of everyday practices, dental podcasts. Hello, I am your co-host Regan Robertson here with the marketing maven himself, the fantastic Dr. Chad Johnson. Chad, how are you today?

[00:02:20] Dr. Chad Johnson: I’m doing great, but come on, we have Sarah Hansen here today. How cool is that, Regan?

[00:02:26] Regan Robertson: I don’t know. Are you kidding me? My smile couldn’t be any brighter. We have had Sarah on before. Sarah Hansen is a Fractional CMO marketing consultant with Productive Dentist Academy with a lot of dental experience in addition to storytelling, marketing strategy and the like experience. So we are thrilled to have you on this podcast today, and it’s born from a little bit of frustration. Hi, Sarah.

[00:02:52] Sara Hansen: Hi everyone. I’m so happy to be here with both of you. We always have a good time.

[00:02:58] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah and just for the listeners perspective, Sarah is specific to my marketing is my marketing. What’s the word for it? Marketing coach, marketing, overseer, marketing.

[00:03:08] Sara Hansen: I’m your Marketing Fractional CMO. So that means I work with your internal marketing manager, who is Dean. I love Dean. He’s awesome.

[00:03:20] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yes, we have kind of a little sweet spot happening, uh, because of how we do stuff, which most offices. Wouldn’t be interested in doing, and some offices would be interested in doing it, but probably won’t. I actually bit, uh, often gave it a go and that’s probably a unique situation in our office. Having, me having an internal marketing person that you can. You know, uh, share duties, share collaboration of ideas and stuff like that. So that’s not for most listeners. That might be a two or one kind of discussion, but that, that is definitely a fun dynamic that we have.

[00:03:54] Sara Hansen: But Chad, I love that you bring that up a little bit because how many years did I keep saying to you, “Hey, Chad, I’d love to have updated photos.” You know, “Can we do this on social media?” “Hey, Chad. Right,” and your eyes like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,”

[00:04:10] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re all about it.

[00:04:13] Sara Hansen: And yes and then the next month would go by and I’m like, “Hey, did you forget about me? Right but what I love about working with Dean and I think when doctors get to a point where their practices are bigger to bring in a person or to have a person on your team who. Overseas, some social media content who can get the photos internally. They’re there every single day. So there’s such an asset to you where I, you know, can help support that is working with Dean and saying, “Hey, let’s tie what’s happening internally to everything that we’re doing externally, Chad, with all of your campaigns, we’ll keep the messaging congruent. I work with Dean help, you know, do things for him,” and it’s been the best thing you did as far as marketing goes. Right?

[00:04:55] Dr. Chad Johnson: Absolutely. Yes. Um, it’s definitely upped our game. So here’s what I thought was interesting. I was talking with a group about internal marketing and in dentistry, we talk about internal marketing as though it’s to our patients, but what I learned when I typed in internal marketing on a bigger sense, so I was just kind of curious with your background in marketing altogether in a general sense, when companies talk about internal marketing, as opposed to dentistry, it seems as though they’re talking about internal marketing, including your workforce.Yeah, yeah, that’s a unique thing because in dentistry, we’ve got this niche of discussion of internal marketing, meaning that we take care of, you know, getting the people within our group. So I’m just curious, like, um, is there a way that dentists could employ it? Like getting the team to be brand ambassadors, as opposed to just your internal base of patients. That’s an area that I don’t think is explored all that much within dentistry because we hyperfixate on getting the patients to be your brand ambassadors and we could have like a brand ambassador index. So, um, so what, what’s your thoughts regarding that part that’s untapped within internal marketing?

[00:06:04] Sara Hansen: Yeah. Chad, I love that you bring this up because it really isn’t discussed in the industry at all but what I love about it is when it comes to internal marketing, the overall view or what is internal marketing is creating the ultimate customer experience, patient experience, but what goes into creating that, that’s where more tactics come in. Right but what we know is that in order to create an ultimate patient experience requires the team to be aligned with what each other do to make sure the patient experience flows perfectly. The communication sticks, you know, that there’s no, no one drops the ball. Right, but what we also know about team members is that they really are an extension of who you are, what the practice represents. So I do think that they are a critical piece into being as you called it brand ambassadors because patients have such a good relationship with them. You know, a lot of times the patient spends more time with the team than they actually do with the doctor.

[00:07:03] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah.

[00:07:03] Sara Hansen: Yeah. So if a team member is out in the community and sees the patient. You know, or even they take their child to soccer and they happen to talk to the next mom next door. Right, and, “Oh yeah, you know, we can help with that. We do that every day. We’re experts.” They really are again, that critical piece of just like we asked for internal referrals, your team can help build the practice just as much and I always say when I travel for PDA to client’s offices or to a speaking engagement, whenever I’m traveling and I’m representing PDA, even if I’m on a flight, and there are times I don’t want to speak to someone, right? But I always make sure that I am professional because that’s our core value and then I’m always representing PDA appropriately because that is an extension of what I’m doing and I would challenge the team to do the same, you know, they can have conversations with people in the community and that’s a great way to build relationships, but also to build the Wordy and the trust that patients are looking for.

[00:08:01] Dr. Chad Johnson: Amen. There it is. I mean, that’s just an interesting thought that I think a lot of dentists don’t think about because we hyper fixate internal marketing to mean getting patients to refer. And it’s like, you know, the people who love you the most actually should be your employees, right? Regan your thoughts on that.

[00:08:18] Regan Robertson: Well, I think you’ve taken it in a really great direction because frustration that I mentioned at the beginning is, uh, when we think of marketing, you’re right. We think of new patient acquisition through oftentimes external means. So what our website is doing, what our direct mail is doing or digital advertising. And it’s very frustrating to me because I appreciate spending money in a productive manner. I like to look at, you know, what happens from that output and unfortunately, if that handoff isn’t clear, that money is not only wasted, but it can impact the reputation, which Chad goes to what you were saying. If you’ve got brand ambassadors that elevates your brand, if the team is not aware of how we’re expecting to show up out in the world, that can impact the reputation as well. So Sarah, how do you define the difference between external and internal marketing and why is it so important to start with internal first?

[00:09:08] Sara Hansen: Well, external marketing, the goal of external marketing is simply to create awareness and ultimately get the phone to ring. That’s it. That’s where external marketing really stops. Once the phone rings, because I’m a runner, I use the analogy a lot of like a baton relay. Um, once the phone rings, it’s then passed off to the admin team. They need to then start that relationship with the patient and build the trust, build the relationship. What’s interesting is that most team members don’t realize how critical their role is with internal marketing. It really is about the ultimate patient experience. What I often hear from doctors when we have a slow time come up in their schedules is they’ll give me a call, “Sarah, what can we do to attract more new patients? My schedule is slow,” and the first thing I tell them to do is what is happening internally. So I give them the guidance of, “Do you have any patients with outstanding treatment that has not been accepted, you know, we need to have a system in place that we’re reaching out to the patients that we’re knowing why they’re not accepting treatment. Do you have any patients that have continuing care, you know, fallen through the six month or the nine-month or the three months, you know, let’s get them on, on a call. If we’re trying to increase implants into the practice, have you reached out to every single patient that’s previously had an extraction? Do they know that you do implants?” You know, so those are the types of things that. First, um, I tell the doctors, Hey, let’s get your team on board. We’re going to start there first. Regan, I love that you use the term cost of acquisition. That is a term that most doctors don’t realize is that every single time we launch an external campaign, there is a cost attached to that. Which, you know, that’s okay. We have marketing budgets. That’s how we become the authority in the area. You know, that’s all part of the plan. However, there is a cost of acquisition to that. So for example, one of the numbers that even I’ve explained to Chad is, “Hey, you know, if your cost of acquisition for a patient is 200 through that particular campaign, if your phone rings and your team member can’t get the patient in the door, well, you’ve now spent 200 to try and acquire that patient and now you have to spend 200 more dollars to try and make up for that.” So again, you know, while that’s all part of the plan, that’s where that internal piece of call conversion, that is internal marketing. That is where it becomes so critical because if we cannot get the patient in and we know that we’re spending money to get the patient in, then that’s where the doctors are like, “Oh, wait a second, that’s costing me more money than I thought.” So we balance out the cost of acquisition, bringing that down by really upping all those internal systems and there’s a lot of those that we can talk about.

[00:11:57] Regan Robertson: Let’s dive into some of those particular systems, because this came up not that long ago with a doctor’s practice who wanted to invest a significant amount into some external marketing campaigns. They had some new technology coming in the practice. We’re very excited about it and rightfully so and in the, uh, you know, in the discussion process, it came to light that they did not have room for hygiene appointments. So they were, were really eager to start the brand awareness campaign, uh, and the new patient special, but had no place to put them. Not everybody has a Dean. Not everybody has an in-house marketing coordinator. Where can dentists start? What, what types of systems like break it down so that we understand with the staff that perhaps they have in place right now, uh, where those opportunities?

[00:12:44] Sara Hansen: So I would say your very first step would be one, make sure that your admin team has the tools to have good phone skills and to be able to get the patients in. We want to make sure that the team understands how to listen to the patient’s needs and offer solutions for what they’re looking for. What I tell teams all the time is, “Hey, you’re not knocking on doors. You know, they call you because they need something and what the patient is trying to identify every time they’re calling different practices is they’re trying to figure out, is this practice right for me? So you need to find, you need to first listen, what are their needs and then find the solutions and let them know that they call the right place,” and say, “Hey, yes, we’re happy to help you with that.” So that’s the first step. The second step is making sure that our schedules have room for the new patients. So whether you need to find blocked times, you know, one of the doctors that I work with, he said, “Well, my new patient goal is 50 new patients a month,” and I said, “Great, how many new patient slots do you have?” Then he goes,” 24,” and I said, “Well, then you are never going to hit 50 new patients a month because you don’t even have 50 spots to put them>” Right? So again, making sure that your schedule can accommodate the patients that do need your help because nothing is more frustrating for a patient calling who needs support or who needs something and they can’t get in for a month. So we want to,

[00:14:08] Dr. Chad Johnson: So let me push back for a minute from a dentist perspective. What if they had 24 slots and they wanted 50 potentially patients and then they wanted to be selective from that 50. I’m just trying to think like, what if the person said, “I want the 50 calls,” because I suppose the world’s you’re right. If that’s what you want but like you could get 50 potential patients to come in the door, but then they can’t say, “Hey, you know, we have a family of five and you, and you could say, well, we see 18 and older,” or if someone says, Hey, I need 10 dental implants,” and you go, “That’s amazing, but we don’t do dental implants,” or “I want to denture.” “Oh, well, we don’t do dentures,” like to actually get the call and maybe screen it on the phone. You want the, you want to get them in the chair so that way you can talk about stuff, but maybe if the front desk person is on point, is it possible that you could just say, no, we want potentially 50 and then we want to choose our favorite 24 from that 50. I don’t, does that make sense? I’m, I’m, I’m being, but let’s say someone, no, that is our kind of that way. What if we say,

[00:15:09] Sara Hansen: Well, let’s be honest, dentists want what they want, right? Like to do a specific procedure. So Chad, I’m so glad you asked this because let’s say maybe we’re attracting 25 new patients. through external means. Now, again, while external marketing is great, we’re not picking and choosing what’s coming in, right? We’re putting the messaging out and people are aligning with it and taking action. However, how do we grow a new patient number with the patients that we really want is actually another internal system and that is through internal referrals. When we ask the patients that we love, that are great patients that are doing the procedures that we love to do, we tell them to refer their friends and family. Guess what? Now you have 25 new patients that are coming from external and you have 20, 25 new patients coming from internal, but they’re the patients that one are coming to you already with a level of trust because their best friend referred them to you, and now they’re more of the patients that we want to see. So now you have your 50 new patients, the revenues are what they should be, but now it really is attracting what you want and I will tell you when we work with doctors that are further in their career, it is a completely different marketing strategy. It’s no longer about just getting butts in the chair, you know, um, it really is more strategic and yes, we can do a lot of external campaigns that are more focused, but what we find is this is where those internal systems really help level up the practice, um, to attract the patients that they want and what they deserve and, Chad, this also is a little bit for you too when I talk to you about internal, uh, referrals. What’s great about internal referrals is when we don’t really have the cost of acquisition, right? So you’re taking that away but let’s say that your average new patient value is 5, 000. 5, 000. Right. Well, if you’re out, right, exactly, right and what’s great is that, you know, when I say, so here’s how the marketing strategy comes in, um, where Chad, you and I work really close together is if you think, “Sarah, I want to grow my practice by, you know, 100, 000 this year or whatever it is,” then what I do is I backstep into that and say, okay, if we know that we need to increase revenue, we know that Chad, each of your new patients are worth 5, 000. We know that if we can attract. 10 percent of your new patients are coming from internal services. Hey, now I can grow you 100, 000 a year without you having to increase any external marketing spend, no more cost of acquisition and now we have an, a robust internal referral system that I get to help work with your team on. We’re growing the practice and that is the power of internal referrals and an overall marketing strategy that works for what you need,

[00:17:59] Dr. Chad Johnson: Especially for the niche service types of people. It sounds like that would resonate well with, let’s say tongue-tie people where there’s a community, they’ve had five successes, and then they start sending 50 and then those 50 send 500. Now, all of a sudden, all you’re doing is tongue-tie laser service. That’s just one example where, you know, like a niche service would rock versus, “Oh, man, he does occlusal composites.” No kidding. You know, if you give a good shot, that might be a general thing that people are going to comment on, especially if there’s two dentists in town and the other guy is really mean and you are really gentle that that’s not exactly a service. You know, it’s just you’re being service minded.

[00:18:43] Sara Hansen: Yeah and I mean, what we know about patients is they don’t always know what they need. So I know even when my children, you know, have had different things, I didn’t know that they needed their tounsils out until, you know, so I’m not Googling tounsil removal. I’m Googling, “Why won’t my kids sleep at night?” Right? Correct. So, and it’s the same thing with dentistry and so, but how I heard, oh, my daughter probably needs tonsils out. I was talking to another mom at the park and we were comparing stories and she said, “Oh my gosh, you need to go see this guy. Right? He, my daughter had the same things, you know, we saw him and whatever.” So it’s the same thing with dentistry. If you have a patient that has all on fours and you know, whatever. I love that you brought up the tongue-tie. That is all about word of mouth with community because most mothers don’t know that their child has a tongue-tie. They know symptoms, right? So that’s how we grow those very Mitchie, um, or, you know, specific services in marketing is through that type of system.

[00:19:47] Dr. Chad Johnson: Good. Thanks.

[00:19:48] Regan Robertson: As we would say, capturing the low hanging fruit, like looking at internal first to see. I mean, Chad, how did that make you feel? I think if you could increase your productivity by not having to seek external marketing and doing some team training instead, I can only imagine how that would feel for you.

[00:20:04] Dr. Chad Johnson: Well, it seems more predictable and, and dialed in as opposed to, I always hated throwing money to the marketing gods and hoping that, you know, bless me with patients, but not being able to track it. You know, I didn’t like that.

[00:20:17] Regan Robertson: Yeah, absolutely. So, so let’s stay on that, on that path. I, I know that there are, uh, different states have different rules for how you reach out and ask for referrals. What are some of the ways that dentists can, you know, begin this process and, and looking at how they’re handling referrals right now? What are some ideas?

[00:20:33] Sara Hansen: Yeah, so it’s really simple. Um, every single state, you can have a conversation about internal referrals where each state differentiates itself is, can you give the patient a gift? So a lot of offices will have a referral program where if they refer a friend and family, they will get a $50 Amazon gift card. So it’s a little bit of an incentive and those work great. I also have like California is a state, you know, I know in particular that you can’t really do compensation or it has to be equal to every patient. You can’t just single patients out. So there are some rules that you always want to check within your state, but when you have patients that you have changed their lives and they love you, you know what I’m talking about, Chad, the patients that bring you treats. The patients that rave about you. Those are the patients that will constantly be your solid referral source because they love you. They don’t care if they have an Amazon gift card or not, because they want their friends and family to come to you because you are the guy that they should see you treated them so well.

[00:21:37] Regan Robertson: I can totally think of some patients that Chad has just because I follow Veranda Dentistry social media account that I know absolutely love Chad and the team. So I’m sure you get those, Chad.

[00:21:48] Dr. Chad Johnson: Well, number one, they’re the people that are always commenting below our stuff, even on, even on a dumb, stupid video where I’m just being corny and stuff because they feel like they’re part of my family and part of the brand and stuff like that, you know? So they truly are the brand ambassadors. What’s also interesting is we’ll even showcase them. So if someone brings in some Snickerdoodle cookies or, you know, stuff like that, We’ll post a picture and be like, “Wasn’t it so nice that Janet brought these in?” And you know what that does subconsciously is some people go, “Oh, well, I mean, if they like that, maybe I should do that,” and even when we do the patient at a month stuff, we just, we choose patients that we like and, uh, and we tell them, I, when I hand them a gift card, just saying, you know, this is just a thanks for being awesome. We love awesome patients and we love celebrating awesome patients and out of all, you know, like normal world that grinds against, you know, You know how that, that person annoyed me and when I was, I was like, we just focus on the negative so much. We want to just focus on the positive and you know, in their mind, the next time someone says, you know, I just like focusing on the positive belt, they might say, “You know, my dentist says that too,” or, “You know, like, you know, you’re a positive kind of gal. Have you ever been to Dr. Chad and his team? Cause like they’re awesome,” or this or that. So like, we’re just focusing on the positive and trying to stay in that, uh, you know, mindset and then that seems to. You know, bring some of it back to us as well. So,

[00:23:14] Sara Hansen: Yeah, and really Regan, also the next steps to start internal referrals are just asking, um, Chad, I’m sure you have patients that are saying, are you accepting new patients?Sometimes patients just don’t know. So I always recommend in a morning huddle, look through the schedule, find the patients that would be great ones to ask, and then just simply have a conversation. Um, you know, at the end of the appointment, when they’re already telling you how grateful they are for you. So that’s it. Easy segue to say, “You know what? We would love to have more patients just like you. Um, we would love to see your friends and family. We would welcome them into our practice. We’re happy to take any referrals from you.” You know, it’s just a very simple conversation, but sometimes they don’t know that you’re accepting new patients. So I encourage the team to ask on several patients every day,

[00:24:02] Dr. Chad Johnson: You know, you feel like within the office, it’s not, you know, people love Shonda, people love Melissa, people love my, uh, you know,

[00:24:09] Regan Robertson: How can they not your team is amazing, Chad, right,

[00:24:12] Dr. Chad Johnson: right, right, right. So what’s funny is I’m just like, I’m kind of the, you know, the eye candy to get people in the office. I’m just, Later on, but, but what’s funny is

[00:24:21] Regan Robertson: Are you not though?

[00:24:22] Sara Hansen: Are you the potty potty potty?

[00:24:25] Dr. Chad Johnson: You better believe it but in the office, the authentic relationships are, are with the people that they’re spending a lot of time with and I don’t mind that I’m just, I just get to be goofy and put on the gorilla suits and stuff like that. A little less reserved to give our office a try and come to find out that, you know, they’ll really love one hygienist, that hygienist will be gone. Cause their kid is sick or something like that. Then all of a sudden they, they have, they switched to a different hygienist. They’re like, “Well, I love being with that one too,” and it’s like, I bet you do. Of course you do, you know, but they were really brand loyal to that one hygienist and then come to find out, “Oh, I love both of those hygienists.” So it’s like, actually, if you use any of our four hygienists, you’d love them cause we don’t have hygienists that you wouldn’t love.

[00:25:05] Regan Robertson: I have a question for both of you, because it’s an assumption on my part. And it’s, and it’s filled with a lot of personal bias. So I want to test this to me and you’ll notice I go into my feelings. It feels like internal marketing is an investment that takes effort. Whereas if I go external, I’m pushing a little bit of an easy button because I’m most likely as a dentist, um, transferring it to a third party and I’m a little less responsible for that. Sarah, I see you nodding. Is that an assumption that, I mean, does that ring true to you?

[00:25:35] Sara Hansen: Yes, it is an investment and it takes everybody in and on the team participating in that and that’s what I teach the teams a lot is, you know, you are a crucial part of this. We have to have the phone conversion. We need to make sure that there is a system in place following up on treatment reactivation. You know, that requires someone taking ownership of it, documenting it so that there’s clear communication throughout the practice of why that patient didn’t accept treatment. You know, there’s a system in place, how to reach out to them continuing care is the same way asking for internal referrals. That’s not necessarily always coming from the doctor. So it is an investment for the team and every person needs to take ownership and accountability to make the internal marketing successful, but it’s also very, very profitable and rewarding because it now is geared towards bringing the patients that you really want. You’re also growing the practice without investing in external marketing and yes, the internal then amplifies the external messaging that you’re doing.

[00:26:48] Regan Robertson: This, this segues really nicely into one of the metrics that you measure patient lifetime value. Yeah. I don’t know how many practices are measuring patient lifetime value. I assume Chad you are since you’re working with Sarah. This is something that you have are keen,

[00:27:02] Dr. Chad Johnson: I personally don’t like when you said that I was like, Oh, that’s a good point. And in a hypothetical sense, but I’m just like, practically, no, I wouldn’t know.

[00:27:10] Sara Hansen: Yeah. No, it’s important that we have metrics around everything that we do. Um, so for example, I have a doctor that said to me, “Hey, I really need to cut back on external marketing budget. Like I, you know, I just need to cut back. I, you know, we’re trying to do different things. I’ve been transitioning in the practice to do different things.” I’m like, “Okay, you know, why is that?” And when we got to the root of what was going on, and because I had the metrics for it, I was able to show him because he’s been practicing for so long that each patient, you know, quote unquote, the lifetime value and we know that that can be, that can change as you have attrition and, you know, as they move and that sort of thing but is, patient lifetime value was so high that by tweaking and by implementing those internal systems, because they had them previously, but then, you know, change of team and stuff, it all happens, right? We become complacent and you kind of start to gear off the road a little bit and a little bit more, and the next thing you know, it never happens. Right but when we got the team realigned, we pulled in the metric because I wanted the team to understand, “Hey, I’m not. Asking you to ask for referrals because I’m trying to be mean and I want you to have all these, you know, strict rules,”

[00:28:28] Regan Robertson: You’re torturing them daily, pulling them out of their introverted shares when they just want to be servant leaders.

[00:28:33] Sara Hansen: Exactly, exactly. You know, I’m like, “Listen, this isn’t about adding more to your plate. I don’t want to do that, but I want you to understand why it’s so important,” and so we shared the metrics with him, you know, and said, “Hey, you all, I know you all get bonuses. You know, what if I told you that by simply doing these a few systems and implementing them and communicating as a team, you all would bonus substantially more than you have ever bonus,” and at that point, the team was like, what? What? I can bone it? And the doc, you know, so the doctor’s like, “Well, yeah, because we’re increasing, you know, our productivity, the revenue, our collections, you know, all these different things,” and yet he’s not spending any more to do it. So it really becomes this All hands on deck to get to a point where it’s an investment. You will never regret it and you will get the goals that you deserve. And then we know how to get you there simply because we track everything. It’s important to know what’s going on. I think there have been times that I’ve even said to Chad, like, “Hey, what do you think’s going on on your end? You know, are you seeing some of those patients.” Chad’s like, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe,”

[00:29:44] Regan Robertson: Check with my team.

[00:29:45] Sara Hansen: Yeah, right and so then we pull the actual data and I’m like, “Chad, we, you know, did this and this and this and we attracted this.” He’s like, “Oh man, okay.” Right but you don’t necessarily know unless we’re tracking it and tracking it and putting metrics to all those things. That is so critical because now it’s measurable and the team understands that.

[00:30:03] Regan Robertson: And that’s what we need. I have another assumption. One, one last question for you. My assumption is that if you have a strong internal marketing game, that both your internal marketing and external marketing will see an increase in the average patient value for people coming in. Tell me about that and what you see with average patient value for the internal resources coming in and then the external and do you see that increase?

[00:30:32] Sara Hansen: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is about trending up and Chad is one of those. He is the perfect example of that as we become very focused on what we were doing for him externally and the messaging that’s attached to that but then we were implementing the systems internally. So bringing in Dean, making sure that the social media messaging and what’s going out is congruent with all the external pieces, you know, making sure he’s got Joanne, um, as well. She is phenomenal at phone coaching and making sure that the call conversion rate is where it should be. Because if we’re driving new patients, then they better be getting in. Right. You know, all of those things. So yes, all of a sudden those patient values continue to rise because one the patients that he really wants that are higher production because we’re increasing internal referral sources to the messaging’s consistent and it’s not only externally what we’re putting out, but now they’re also seeing Chad in the gorilla suit or seeing Chad and his team doing fun stuff. They know more about who he is. It’s that authentic messaging and then, um, you know, now it’s like all those things are coming together to have this beautiful, cohesive, robust internal and external marketing strategy. So everything trends up

[00:31:48] Regan Robertson:  That is absolutely fantastic. I think you’ve given listeners a lot of beef and a lot of things to consider and look at their practices. Chad, do you have one last question?

[00:32:00] Dr. Chad Johnson: The only thing I was going to say was, you know, then when you’ve Ace this or mastered it better, uh, dialed it in, then you can start to consider, are there PPO plans that we could drop because we’re getting the patients that we want rather than being at the mercy of the insurance company, sending us the patients that we want and we’ll just leave it at that.

[00:32:22] Sara Hansen: Yeah. I mean, Chad, you bring up a really good point is we are taking through, I want to say four or five doctors right now that I work with that are transitioning off of all PPOs. Um, they’ve grown their practices. We have the authentic marketing. Yeah. You know, they’ve taken the steps and the next step now is, “Hey, I really just want to work with the patients that align with my core values,” and so we’re taking them through that. And that in itself, I mean, we could do a whole nother podcast on the preparation that it takes, but that is internally your greatest asset to prepare for a transition like that is you have to have the internal pieces ready to go and solid foundation and what we find when we do that and we go into it with a good strategy is that the, the attrition is far less than what it would be, you know, just being like, all right, I’m doing it. I’m getting off, you know, so

[00:33:15] Dr. Chad Johnson: Without that in place, you’re a read in the wind. I mean, you’re just being blown.

[00:33:18] Sara Hansen: Yeah. So the biggest thing that I tell doctor is, is I say, I know when we think about marketing, it really is. We think tactics, we think external, we think websites and Google and, you know, direct mailer and yes, those are all really, really important, but your main focus should always be internal. I’m always referring back when I meet with my clients and Chad, you know, this about the internal systems, because that is the foundation and then we build everything else off of that. When your foundation is solid, you have the systems in place, your teams on board, then the sky’s the limit for how well you can grow and be seen and really be successful.

[00:33:56] Dr. Chad Johnson: That’s right.

[00:33:57] Regan Robertson: Yeah, Sarah, thank you so much for your time today. I know you are a busy woman with a lot of hats and, uh, thank you for sharing this value. I think it’s very important for everyone to hear.

[00:34:08] Sara Hansen: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I love being here and you know, I could talk marketing all day.

[00:34:14] Dr. Chad Johnson: Well, Sarah, again, yeah. To reiterate what Regan said, thanks for coming on. I’m sure you’ve actually got another phone call to do. So you get going. Thank you very much. Have a great rest of the weekend.

[00:34:23] Sara Hansen: You’re welcome. You too. Thanks you guys. Bye.

[00:34:26] Regan Robertson: Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. Chad and I are here every week. Thanks to our community of listeners, just like you, and we’d love your help. 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.