Unknown Speaker 0:00
And then your internal referrals is one to 2% of your hygiene. So if you had, let's say 1000 patients in hygiene, we would expect to see 10 to 20 internal referrals every single month.
Kaitlyn Cole 0:12
Hello, and welcome to the dental education podcast with class solutions. This podcast is a community of dental professionals who share their knowledge and experience in order to provide value to you and your dental practice. In this episode, I sit down with John Riley, who is the vice president for dental revolution. And this episode, he provides some strategic marketing insights during this time of COVID-19. Hi, John, how you doing?
Unknown Speaker 0:37
I'm doing great. How are you doing? Caitlin?
Kaitlyn Cole 0:39
Good. For those of you don't know, today, we have a special guest, John Riley, a dental industry expert for the last 18 years. And Vice President of dental revolution. We're excited to have him join this broadcast to help provide strategic marketing insight and these times, and before we get started, John, can you share a bit of background for our listeners?
Unknown Speaker 1:00
Oh, absolutely. I'd be happy to is it first of all, thank you and Phil for having me and being a part of this broadcast. And, and these times right now. It's It's just crazy times and we're all in the same boat together. And, and yeah, a little bit about ourselves. Like you said, I've been in the industry for 18 years and absolutely love it. I get to wake up to help our doctors to really grow their practices. But family of four beautiful wife of 24 years, just this last week, we celebrated our 24 years and two wonderful kids, Brayden 20 and Mikayla 18, who's graduating this year, with no prom and no commencement ceremony. So yes, we're in different times, you can see I'm in the, in my spare bedroom here. So it's usually in the office. But yeah, you can see what you know, we're dealing with but no, I'm very grateful to be a part of this and, and to help in any way I can.
Kaitlyn Cole 1:53
Yeah, I'm loving the shirt, by the way. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. And I'll just have you answer them kind of like a panel style. So I'll start out with the first question. And that one is, why does marketing often get a bad rap with dentists?
Unknown Speaker 2:10
A great question. Oftentimes, it's because a lot of practices and a lot of marketing firms are really focusing on Tactics versus a strategy. And if you call the let's say, a website company, and I won't name any, but if you need come on called a website company. And they only provide websites Well, now, what are they going to sell you when you say I need more new patients, or I need more collections, or I need to get a better patient, they're going to sell you a website. And so that's the first first issue. And then secondly, is there's there, there's no way to track it with with just having a product. So having a single product, you can definitely track that particular component, but not holistically in the practice. It's like going to a dental office and getting a crown at this dental office and then getting veneers at another and and then getting a look for three with an oral oral surgeon that none none of the three were in cahoots with one another. So there's no strategic plan, and there's no treatment plan per se. And so that's where a lot of doctors get misled and why Dentistry has a bad rap, or dental marketing has a bad rap in. The way that we fix it is that we call it the four quadrants of marketing. And really break it down into how to look at it scientifically, versus just throwing something at the wall and hopefully it sticks.
Kaitlyn Cole 3:45
Alright, thanks so much. Yeah, and the second question I have is how can a doctor avoid guessing with their marketing tactics?
Unknown Speaker 3:52
Hmm. Good. That's really the the optimal question, quite frankly, is because anytime a doctor is guessing they're losing revenue. If they're just throwing money in, in the wind, and hopefully it sticks it's, it's definitely not a strategy I would I would recommend are just trying some tactic and, and, you know, mailing something out or, or doing something online with Google. But where we, where we break it down is what we call the four quadrants of marketing. And the four quadrants of marketing are this. So if you haven't pencil and paper, feel free to write this down. If you don't, don't worry about it, we're going to provide a short little kind of deck at the end of it, so that you can take this and be able to apply it to your practice right away. So for marketing quadrants are, are pretty simple is it we have an upper left hand corner of a trial of a rectangle, cut it into four quadrants, the upper left hand corner, new people groups, lower left hand corner, phone conversion, bottom right hand corner retention, and then internal referrals is the upper right. What this does Is it there's three internal quadrants, we score each one of them, okay? We give them the ability to where you can figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are. And then if a doctor says, hey, I want more new patients, I'll say, out of which quadrant. And so out of the new people group quadrant, an average practice should be investing three to 8%, in marketing, phone conversion, they should be converting 70 to 85% of the of the all the calls that are coming in. Right now in America, the average practice only answers 33% of the calls, wow, I'm not making up this number. It's crazy. Retention is 85%. And then internal referral, 85% of excuse me, clarify, 85% of the patients that you've seen in two years, should be in continuing care every six months. So 85% of that two year block should be in your hygiene every six months, for whatever reason, okay. And then your internal referrals is one to 2% of your hygiene. So if you had, let's say, 1000 patients in hygiene, we would expect to see 10 to 20 internal referrals every single month. So our thing is, is really discover what quadrant you need the new patients out of. And once you understand that, then you're applying that to the practice. And you're not just throwing something in the wind. And if you need 10 more new patients, I'll say, Well, let's not focus on external marketing quite yet. Because you might have that in your practice. So no means to do that. Let's focus internally.
Kaitlyn Cole 6:34
That help. Yeah, that was great. That was a lot of good information. So the third question I have for you is how long does it take for marketing to work?
Unknown Speaker 6:43
That's the golden question, is it marketing is wrapped around the buying cycle of the average consumer. So when we look at any industry, whether it's cars, three years, when it's homes five years, around dentistry, it's six months. So what I mean by that, is it a person buys dentistry around their profiles, like around their personal hygiene needs, that's when they say for the most part that they need to hire a dentist. So when marketing how, when marketing works in dentistry, it has to do with wonder, are they thinking about a dentist, well, I need a cleaning, I haven't been in a long time, or I have a toothache, I need to I need to do that. So we have to wrap around, when we when our focus is really focusing on the growth of the practices built in hygiene. So when we look at practice, it's wrapped around that six month prophy cycle. The reason why they're going to buy dentistry is trust and urgency. So when we're talking about how long does it take? It's multiple profie cycles, but we always tell doctors, hey, listen, no matter who new hire, do not hire someone and do it and try it for two or three months. Why? Because it does. It's not how dentistry and marketing works within the dental industry. It's because of that profi cycle. So that make sense. Absolutely. Okay, I'll expand on that. Just one other thing is that until the value of the patient is it, how long does it take is is also when we look at ROI, a lot of doctors will look at their six month investment, their six month investment and then look at their six month ROI. And I oftentimes will say okay, what does an average patient do in the first six months like after the first visit? What do they do? A cleaning and exam? Well, how much is that worth? Two to two to $400, let's say. And depending on the practice, well, that person is generally not going to follow through with treatment until that six month mark. So at that six month mark, they they just up until that point, have two to $400 invested. So the investment of marketing and the return could be right across the board equal in that first six months, kind of like an IRA, first six months of investing first year of investing, they can be pretty even. But after 2345 years, you say, hey, where that extra $100,000 Come in my IRA, same thing goes in marketing, is it we have this bell curve, because of the profi cycle? In dentistry analogy, Yeah, isn't that good. And we would never look at our IRA account at six months ago, I put in $30,000. And it's 29,000. It's not working. So I'm going to pull it because they've been educated on how marketing works. And it's very important to know what the longevity this is, this is a long term race, no matter who you hire, should be tracked. And it should you should have metrics that you know that if you're moving in that right direction. And then lastly, really quick on this one, this is a good one is that just thought of this is that the three building blocks of marketing, zero to six months, you're increasing new patient flow seven to 12 months. So that's just one building block increasing new patient flow numbers. Second, 12 months or second six months Excuse me. You're you're looking to build the next building block, which is increasing case acceptance. So in this in the seven to 12 month mark after they've been in your practice once, and now they're returning for that second visit, now they're accepting treatment. And then there's also a third building block in that seven to 12 month cycle, which is really key is focusing on internal referrals. So as those patients come in, in the first six months, you attract them, you're increasing your new patient numbers. We haven't done collections or internal referrals yet, that happens at that six or seven to 12 month mark. That's when that all that kind of magic starts to happen, what I get excited for, because it's our, but what our because our doctors what, what they're looking for, and what we're also looking for for them.
Kaitlyn Cole 10:41
Awesome. Thank you. And the final last but not least question I have is, how do we know how to budget? Or how much should we budget for marketing?
Unknown Speaker 10:49
Good question. And this is not I'm not trying to be coy here is it really just depends. It depends on the practice depends on the urgency. So we buy on trust and urgency is, as consumers as dentists do. We do everybody does. And so what is the urgency of the dentists? Are they looking to add a an associate? Are they doing a startup? are they wanting to get out of BPOS? Because we have a whole structure that get doctors out of the BPOS. And especially in these times right now. And maybe in a future date, we'll talk about membership clubs, because those are absolutely critical right now. But what do we budget, the average doctor we recommend is between a bandwidth of three to 8% of your end collection target. So let's say if you're an $800,000 practice, and you want to be a million, well, let's focus in if it's realistic to get to that million, because of what we look at the four quadrants is we'll define what that budget looks like. But it's a where you want to go. So if it's a, if it's a million and a half wanting to go to 1.7 1.8, well, then we'll we'll figure out a budget according to what is going to take to what you have, what opportunity is in your practice now. And what would be left to to attract to get into your practice. Because you can't just mine the data because the remind the the opportunity and the practice, go, let's say the doctor had fixed all those three internal quadrants, phone conversion, retention, and internal referrals. Let's say all those quadrants are fixed. Well, now what we have to look at is okay, if those are all dialed in, now you need to invest more in your external marketing. So we no matter who you hire, they should focus on all of those areas, because you shouldn't just be buying something, you're going to be spending too much money if you're just buying something in marketing. And then one last thing to keep in mind is that it's it's a strategic plan very much like how you treatment plan or how the doctor treatment plans, the doctor or treatment plans in a process because it's not just a matter of doing cleanings and getting veneers. It's a process of taking care of those five millimeter pockets and doing a buck, you're taking care of a buccal pit and or doing a posterior quadrant or what have you. It's all of a system and timed to do so accordingly to get them healthy. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay, yeah. Awesome.
Kaitlyn Cole 13:14
So, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Okay, well, I just wanted to say thank you so so much, again, for taking the time and sharing of your experience with us. Just once more, again, for all of you listening and watching. We have John Riley 18 years of experience. And Vice President, Vice President of dental revolution. Thank you so much. That was amazing.
Unknown Speaker 13:37
Absolutely. I'm happy to help. And if there's any way I can help in the future, just let me know.
Kaitlyn Cole 13:41
Absolutely. And then for the people that are listening to the podcast, or if you're watching this on YouTube right now, you can find John Riley's information in the description below. Or I will be putting that in the show notes if you're listening via podcast, so I'll have them reach out and connect with you if that's all right.
Unknown Speaker 13:57
No, absolutely. Yeah. Happy to help.
Kaitlyn Cole 13:59
Awesome. All right. Thank you so much again. All right. Thanks, Caitlin. Yep,
