Full Transcript
Dr James: 0:46
it and let everybody into this webinar so that we can begin. Welcome one and all to Barry Olten and I’s Extravaganza. And how you can be more profitable. That’s a good word, isn’t?
Dr Barry: 1:00
it Extravaganza.
Dr James: 1:01
Yeah, I think that works right. Extravaganza and how we can make it more profitable via a five star patient experience. So welcome one and all. This will be an action packed, information packed webinar, as they always are when I get Dr Barry Olten on the show. So much flipping stuff that we can take and implement into our practice. And here’s the thing whenever it comes to making more money, the reason, you know, we can make more, but the whole point of it is that we have to make it impactful. There has to be a purpose for it, there has to be something we can use it for. And what better purpose than to use it for, than to make back? Well, to make the patient experience better, make our practice better and also earn back our free time, which is the whole entire point, because it’s so, so easy to get stuck in that treadmill, that hamster wheel of just constantly working so that we feel busy. But, like I say, this information tonight is going to be the information that allows you to excel beyond that and really have impactful change upon your life. Barry, for those who don’t know you, it might be nice to do a bit of an intro.
Dr Barry: 1:57
Hello mate. Firstly, thank you very much for having me back. I love chatting to you. Hi people, lovely to see so many of you. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Barry. I am a dentist. I owned my practice for just under 20 years and I have become a coach in dentistry. I’m still a dentist three days a week, so I’m an associate in the practice that I used to own and my wife and I my wife is my TCO my wife and I wanted to. Genuinely our focus of attention was to nurture our patient journey, to make it I wanted to make it the best patient journey in the UK. That was my mission and vision and we were doing okay financially, so it wasn’t about the money and we became master practitioners of NLP. I did a lot of training in influence with Chaldeany and we used that within our business and our patients were blown away and still remain blown away and we did no marketing for 18 years. Our constant stream of new patients comes from our best marketing force, which is our existing patient base. But we ask them in a certain way, we look after them in a certain way and we have a systemised approach to everything that we do and we accidentally made a ton of money, so we made a lot of money serving people at a deeper level. We find out what really makes people tick. We ask a number of specific questions that give us a lot of information, that we’re able to look after our patients and, overwhelmingly, our patients say that they’ve never been, I’ve never been, I’ve never been looked after like this, I’ve never been spoken to like this, and so I decided five years ago, four and a half years ago, to sell my practice so that I could get out in dentistry and share what we developed and teach other people to do better with what they’ve got. Because my understanding and you know this as well, james right is that if we look at, we have a little circle where we know what we know, so I know what I know, we all know what we know. We have a circle outside of that, which is we know what we don’t know. So, for example, I know that I don’t know how to weld, but I am aware that I don’t know how to weld. But then outside of that is the stuff where we don’t know what we don’t know, and that’s the stuff where the real juice lies, where the real progression and the ability to change what we’re doing, quite simply to have a massive impact. And so, really, that’s my mission in dentistry is to help other dentists, whether they’re associates or practice owners, to ultimately achieve more by wowing their patients more. So that’s it really.
Dr James: 5:04
Love that and you know the thing about that knowledge. It’s really flipping useful and most of the time the way you find it is you just stumble across it, okay but don’t stumble across it unless you put yourself out there and if someone has already stumbled across it for you. If you know what I mean by reading things like Chi-Al Dini which is a really amazing book, by the way Pre-Swasion If anybody hasn’t read it, it’s Reddit. It’s all about whenever you’re selling or whenever you’re communicating with other people. It’s all about creating the right settings around you and having the right understanding of human interaction so that you build value for the individual in terms of how much they understand that you will give them. You allow them to see what you can see via being persuasive without without overdoing it, without being that OTT salesman or anything like that, and then what it means for you is that, ultimately, you can make more money which you can reinvest in your practice. You can use to give the patient more time, whatever it is that you choose to do with that, or you can claim back your own time. That’s the liberty of what this stuff does. Plus, as well as that, it blows the flipping patients socks off because of the experience that you’re able to give them. Would you say? That’s right, barry?
Dr Barry: 6:14
100%, 100% I. So I I read the book, if any. By all means go and read the book. Otherwise, I’m very happy to share what I learned and how I took that and implemented it into dentistry, and I’ll just give you one example so you understand. This is that we as human beings are have innately have aspects that we are innately influenced, and the book talks about Polkats and things like that. But, in essence, if I was to give you something of value, we are naturally and inherently put into a place of what we call reciprocity. Is that if I give you something of value, you feel that you need to give back, and so we can use that to their advantage and our advantage. And the example I give is the way that I will use Chaldeany’s principles to get recommendations, referrals and five-star Google reviews. I have something like 120 reviews. Every single one of them is five-star, and the reason for that is I have a systemized approach to achieving that and I believe that my job is to influence my patients, and I’ll tell you for why. I reckon I’m as good a dentist as they can ever get. I reckon the patient experience that they have is better than anything else that they can get, and so I believe that in order for me to look after you as a patient for the next 10 or 15 years, my business needs to be robust. I need to have a steady flow in you patients, I need to be able to be there for them in the future and therefore for me to ethically influence them to want to go and recommend me to their family, their friends, their colleagues, their neighbors. I believe is a win-win-win, because if the patient, if I’m not there, I can’t serve them. If the patient doesn’t come to me, I can’t serve them. And if they don’t recommend their family and friends, I can’t serve them. And because we’ve got our patient journey so beautifully and eloquently produced, I know that everybody gets served. So I’ll tap into Chaldeany’s principles to ask them. So I will knowingly. So it’s, it’s. Most of you will say thanks very much for coming. I appreciate you as a patient. I’m doing that because I genuinely know that A it’s, most importantly, it is true, I am genuinely grateful and, really importantly, it taps into Chaldeany’s principle of reciprocity because I’m giving them a genuine, heartfelt compliment. So, yeah, it’s, it’s. There’s a bunch of stuff that I teach that people subconsciously are aware of, but I like to make them consciously aware so that they can do it on purpose, knowing why it’s working. Like the language patterns that I teach, I want people to know why it is sometimes they get it right and it works and why it is sometimes they do it, but they do it slightly differently and it doesn’t work so that people are less guessing what’s right and what’s wrong and have a much clearer pathway and a systemized approach to recommending treatment or to talking about what you would like the patient to consider doing. And our upsell of one spaced ancestry is by far and away exceeds what it used to before I did any of this.
Dr James: 9:44
Very, very, very cool Guys. I should mention as well that this is an open mic night, so what that means is that you can ask questions whenever you feel pleased. Please pop them in the chat and Barry and I will get back to you the first moment we get. Barry, that’s some interesting stuff that you said just then about the theory, so to speak. Is there any way that we can make that really tangible and actionable for dentists? What are the things that you see consistently that dentists could be doing better? That if you literally implement these hard and fast things that you’re just about to talk about in a minute, you could go to work tomorrow and begin to communicate better and therefore ask for higher investments from the patients?
Dr Barry: 10:22
There is tons of it. There’s tons of it. I put together some slides to kind of explain. So you know that I’m coaching dentists right, and I go around, I talk to dentists an awful lot and what I find is that there’s a lot of commonality in what they would like to achieve and there’s a lot of commonality in why it is they’re not achieving what it is they’d like to achieve. So I think that as we go through literally it’s just a handful I say a handful 25 slides as I go through and explain this whole thing, I think we’ll be able to answer questions in each of those sections. That would give people some nuggets that tonight they can walk away with and literally implement tomorrow, because it’s not reinventing the wheel, it’s taking something that is working and I’ll give you an example of how it’s working. So I don’t own the practice. They’ve changed some of the overall systems that I’m not in charge of, but as an associate I am still in charge of my interactions and my conversations with patients. Right To let you know that our crown fees are £800. So anybody listening can kind of gauge how that sits with you and what you charge and as an associate, my average gross. I work three days a week. I don’t do any implants. I do an element of short-term author. November was my highest gross £71,500 in November and my average monthly gross is £58,000. Now, I don’t say that to impress anybody. I say that to impress upon you that I’m not special. What we do have is a special patient journey that I’m going to share lots of elements with you that result in that gross revenue. It’s not that I’m doing any fancy dentistry, I’m a general dentist. I’m doing really good quality general dentistry. But my patients don’t judge me on the tertiary fishes in a lower left six. They judge me on the fact that they have no idea I’ve given them an injection. They focus on the fact that I out and out my first UFC. I call that. It’s not a fight with Conor McGregor, by the way. A UFC is an upfront contract and I am very upfront with them and transparent and that is. You know, I might meet somebody for the first time and say, gallia, my job today is I’m going to knock your socks off. I’m going to ensure that today I make this the best dental experience you’ve ever had. And Gallia kind of goes yeah, right, whatever in her head and I say so here’s the deal I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that I knock your socks off, and when I do and that language is very specific, right, it’s not if I do, it’s a presupposition. We presuppose it’s going to happen when I do Gallia I’m going to ask you to do two things for me. The first is I’m going to ask you to walk outside and sing my name from the rooftop saying this is the best experience I’ve ever had. And secondly, I’m going to ask you to recommend your family and friends and leave me a five-star Google review. Is that okay? Now we’ve done nothing right. Nothing’s happened yet, and I’ve bared my soul, bared my opportunity of the fact that my job is to knock your socks off Because, just like a coach, I tell my potential clients that my success is based on your success. If I can’t help you to do what it is that we want you to do, then you ain’t going to recommend me, you’re not going to be edifying me and I’m not going to get more clients. It’s the same with patients, and I’m very upfront with them. My job is to knock your socks off. Now I know that I can knock their socks off. I have an injection technique, where my patients have no clue. They’ve had an injection and that’s the point. So I’ll do my injection technique which, by the way, my five-year-old could do and then I go so how was your injection? And they go. What injection? I go see. I told you so this is within the first 10 minutes of anything. And they go oh my God. I say right. So I told you my job is to knock your socks off and I just did. I’m going to continue to do that and remember, at the end of this, what you also said and you agreed to is that you would recommend me. Now let’s go back to Chaldeany’s principles for a second. One of Chaldeany’s principles is commitment. We, when we assume in beings, make a commitment to something we do not like to break, commitment. And then, when you pair that with another principle of Chaldeany called consistency, I, within that one appointment, I will be playful, I will knock their socks off and I’ll tell them at least three times, I gain their commitment three times. And they are consistent in the fact they’re going to recommend and, low and behold, they recommend. So I get a constant stream of pre-qualified, often nervous patients where my patients have gone. Holy crap, you need to go there. I didn’t know, I didn’t feel a thing. It was unbelievable. Now that’s got nothing to do with the quality of the dentistry. I like to think that my dentistry is at least seven out of 10. I like to think it’s nine out of 10. But what that is is my patient experience is for their comparison. So another Chaldeany principle is where we compare things right, and so everything they have in their past that they compare to I’m 10 out of 10. Because they come with preconceived ideas. They come with these limited beliefs like dentists are bastards. Dentist hurts not. In my practice everything we do is completely comfortable, and so Chaldeany’s principles come in and out and it’s playful and this is, this is the fun. I see dentistry as a game and the game is to do great quality dentistry. But the game is to win people over, find out what really makes them tick and serve that. Does that make sense? So what I mean by that I know I talk a lot. What I mean by that is nobody wants white teeth, nobody wants straight teeth. People come in and go I want white teeth and in my head I go no, you don’t. I don’t actually say that. I want to find out. For what purpose do you want white teeth? And there’s always a layer beneath that is an emotional need which is either to achieve something Often it’s a relationship or it’s, you know, building a new relationship or it’s feeling confident in presenting, or it’s their, their, their client faith facing, or it’s to avoid a negative, so it’s avoid somebody going oh, I don’t like your teeth. Or one of the guys I had was my three year old keeps saying Daddy, why are your teeth yellow? He wanted love and acceptance from his three year old child. Now when I find that out, my my game I’m. Firstly, I get goosebumps when I find it out because now I know I’m serving connection with his three year old kid, I’m not serving white teeth, and so I friggin love my job, I love being a clinical dentist and I love then teaching other dentists how to fall back in love with dentistry, because we are unique in our profession, in our ability to help people and serve them at a much deeper level than we were ever taught at university.
Dr James: 18:08
Well, it’s the power of words, isn’t it? And you know what? There’s a question that I always use in that instance, I always said to the patient this is a very it’s very simple, it’s very effective, and what I say is I say why now, or I slip that in at some point, are you with me? And that is such a beautiful question because, one, it’s open-ended and, two, it basically just gives that patient permission to say specifically what is that emotive driver or what is the deeper reasoning behind them being there to come for the thing that they’ve asked you for or you’ve prescribed? Because patients think about it right. A patient doesn’t come to you because they want a one millimeter thick sheet, you know, a little wrapper of porcelain that sits around their tooth right IE a crown. They don’t want that. They don’t wake up wanting that. They want the feeling, they want the aesthetic, they want the change and the impact in their life. So it’s our duty to go there and understand what exactly that they want in that respect, that emotive reason, so that they can see how what we’re offering will give them that result, because otherwise they don’t always make the connection In our head. We suppose we presume they make the connection, but we have to spell it out for them. Are you with me? And then what that means is that in turn drives value, which therefore, in turn, makes them more likely to come on the journey with us, which will allow us to serve them and give them what they want, right.
Dr Barry: 19:34
I love the essence of what you’re saying. My approach is subtly different and I’ll tell you why. The phrase why now is very useful. The issue with why now is that they will give you a surface level answer. So why now? And they go well, because I’m going to a wedding and, in natural fact, when we ask it, the way that I created and by the way I mean I’ve faffed around finding the right way for like probably about eight years I’ve been using it. Now my main question which is unbelievably good, that sounds really tossy of me saying that, but it really is is finding the way of asking the question that really allows the patient to actually tell us what it is. So why now If you’re not doing why now? Why now is a brilliant question. Generally speaking, they will come up with a situation, or they’ll come up with an event, or they’ll come up with oh, I’m just fed up of, you know, food trapping. It’s a little bit harder then to take it down. A layer of the onion to the emotional thing Is the real key question why now is a great opener, and then the real key is to use the phrase for what purpose. So if I said to you why now and you went. Well, I’m going to a wedding, and so what would this give you? Well, you know, I’d feel a bit more confident, and then you go. Okay. So confidence for what purpose? And by taking it and, by the way, god damn it, I’m in rapport. Right, you’re not asking this from behind the patient. You’ve got to learn how to genuinely build rapport. You have to be in rapport. When you’re in rapport, you can ask anything. When you’re not in rapport, you can ask nothing. And so when you ask a question like this and you’re not in rapport, you’re going to get seen as salesy, you’re going to get seen as being rude, pushy. When you’re in rapport, you’re seen as caring, loving, understanding, empathetic, it’s all of these things. So I love your question and there’s another layer underneath that really begins to open up the true essence of what it is. And when I know that I am so damn motivated to serve that patient because I’ve now found out what it really is, and it really is love and connection, or it really is acceptance and being good enough. It’s not. I just want to have a photograph in the wedding. Does that make sense?
Dr James: 22:17
Totally it does you know what Language is so important? What about if we start to look beyond that at the other things that we can do in order to enhance the dental practice that we work in in terms of efficiency? Can we?
Dr Barry: 22:29
talk about that? I don’t know. I’ll show you my slides.
Dr James: 22:31
Yeah, let’s do that wonderful. All right, be able to share your screen.
Dr Barry: 22:37
Yeah, let’s share my screen. Mate. Gaila, I hope you’re okay that I picked on your name. It’s a lovely name.
Dr James: 22:44
It is a lovely name. What can?
Dr Barry: 22:46
you see man. I can see how it’s fine, can you see my ugly face?
Dr James: 22:51
We’re in. We’re in the presentation. We’re good.
Dr Barry: 22:54
Eh, okay, so I give I mean, I give a ton of presentations. I did the practice plan tour last year and I present a lot, and there’s three outcomes to explain for the next half an hour, right? The first is I want people to know what the three things are that are currently preventing you from earning more money in less time. Because if I said to every dentist would you like to earn more money in less time, I don’t think I’d ever have anybody go. No, thanks, most people go. Okay, and I’ll explain a bit about that. Secondly, it’s partly what we’ve already discussed, right. Find out what your patients really want, not what you think they want. And I want my client whenever I work with a client, I want my clients to do it exactly the way that we have taught it and nail it for a few months before you do anything about changing it, because most people change things because of their own discomfort or their own limiting beliefs. And when we get our clients to do exactly as we say and they’ve done it for three months they then never bloody change it because they are comfortable with it and it works, because we took 15 years developing it. So it’s about finding out what your patients really want. And then the third thing really is to talk about elements of how to knock your patients socks off, and that’s my UFC, isn’t it? I’m gonna knock your socks off. I hope everybody understands what that means. Could come across a bit seedy. So, james, when I’ve been chatting to dentists lately and I say, is what’s the one thing that you could do in the next 12 months that would push the needle on your business and then push the needle in your life? There’s a number of different answers they come up with, but they all start the sentence with the word more. I want more. Some of them say that they want more money. Some say that they want more time, more time for themselves, more time with their loved ones, with their families, more time to work on the business not in the business when they’re a principal, and others say that they wanna do more enjoyable dentistry or cool dentistry or once based dentistry. I have an array of different people that I work with. I’ve got older clients that are getting bored of dentistry because they’ve been really successful. Their patients absolutely bloody love them and they spend 80% of their working day doing review. They call them checkups. I don’t call them checkups, but they’re doing checkups. And I tell you what, if I do more than an hour and a half of checkups, I don’t call them that dental health reviews. If I do more than an hour and a half a day, I kind of really wanna slit my wrists. I hate it, I hate it. So it’s about getting the right balance and so that’s how we help. And the question we ask is that if somebody wants more money or they want more time or they want to do more enjoyable dentistry, why have they not got that? And the majority of the reasons fit into the same categories. Most dentists not all of you, but most dentists feel awkward or uncomfortable about the perception of selling. Most dentists don’t want to be perceived as salesy. When it comes to time, most dentists are doing too much low value, low production dentistry, single tooth dentistry, examinations, one tooth at a time, and that’s very often because their diary is fully booked, it’s rammed, they’re booked maybe six months in advance. I had a client the other day say what happens when we’ve zoned our diary. We’ve done this, we’ve done that and we can only book six weeks in advance, and my response was because you ain’t zoned your diary properly. So we’ll talk about that tonight as well, and most dentists complain that their work-life balance is the wrong way around, because for me it should be life-work balance, Enjoyable dentistry. They wanna do more. Why are they not doing it? The majority of people are firefighting. They come to their daily list and they go right what it is and people are squeezed in. It’s problem appointments, it’s reviews, it’s adjustments and it’s broken teeth and it’s single tooth dentistry right, which is what this is. Most people are examining, and when I ask my clients how do you open your exam process? Is it like this, hi, how are you Any problems? The majority go well, yeah, that’s what I do, and so it’s okay. There’s a different way of doing it and most people have no time to do their funky dentistry, like a client that we’re now gonna readdress their diary. The first spot for funky dentistry enjoyable dentistry is in six weeks time, whereas for me, like I said, I grossed 71 grand February, I grossed 59 and a half, and if you today saw me, I was clinical today. If you needed molarendro in a crown, I could see you. I booked somebody in from today for next Wednesday. So my diary always has, because of the way that we run it, my diary always has the opportunity to see somebody at the latest two weeks time. So when I have a patient that comes in that wants something that is of high production, I can see you. You’re not waiting, does that make sense?
Dr James: 28:35
Totally.
Dr Barry: 28:37
So the answers for these how do we do this? Well, let’s go back a bit right, feeling awkward or uncomfortable. What we really want is effortless treatment, acceptance. We wanna process in a conversation and a way of explaining things that is comfortable for both you and the patient. That is an effortless way of explaining things in the best interest of the patient, where the patient feels really comfortable about making their best choice. In terms of time, what I share with my clients is to increase their productivity, is to teach them ways of being able to do more in the same time or more in very little extra time. And the example I would give is that Doris, age 68, walks in with a fractured lower left six. She’s got an old MOD amalgam in it and you can see that there’s the secondary care as the secondary care is. She has an old scruffy DO in the five but looks decay free and she’s got a fairly large MOD lingually extended amalgam in the seven. And I think everybody would agree that in the majority of the places on the UK that’s quite a common occurrence for somebody to walk in with that. Now Old Barry would look at Doris’ tooth and go, oh, I can fix that and I would use a language pattern that would prevent her, stupidly, from choosing an indirect restoration such as a crown. And I present it in a way I had a limiting belief at the time oh, nobody’s gonna pay me 500 quid for a crown, nobody wants private dentistry, they only want NHS, they only want cheap. And this is 20 years ago, right. And so I present it to Doris and go look, doris, I could crown that tooth, which is the best, but I could fill it and it’s cheaper. And Doris would go okay, barry, let’s fill it. That was the old way of doing it. Now, the way that we treatment plan which I’ll explain further down this presentation is that we color code things. Six is disease, therefore it’s color coded red. Five and seven they’re not disease, they’re old, they’re naked. They got open margins and I will have the opportunity to explain to Doris that she could choose, if she wanted to, to replace the five and the seven at the same time, and I would talk about all of the advantages of that and she’d have two treatment plans, one red for the crown and one orange for the five and the seven. And what we find is 68% of our patients, through their own choice, choose to do the five and the seven at the same time as the six. If I had time I could share the figures with you that that effectively doubles the alley rate. I don’t work on alley rates, but most people do. It doubles the alley rate of that hour, of that time, and it eight to 10. X is the profit because the fixed costs remain the same. The variable cost is just another indirect restoration. So maximizing productivity massively increases profitability and I believe that by having a proper conversation with Doris about what’s available, it’s her choice, not mine. What’s interesting is 32% of the people that say I’ll just do the six. I’m like I don’t care what they choose, I care that they had the choice. And 32% of my patients know what’s around the corner, know what might be coming, and so it just ends up being a really effortless conversation and it’s a win-win when it comes to doing more cool dentistry. It’s helping those conversations with patients to begin to have the option and the choice of doing once. I would class orange as a once based choice and red as the needs based choice. Does that make sense? So in order to stay fit and healthy, you’ve got to do something with the six. Whilst you’re there, we could talk about doing the five and the seven, but it’s having the right language skills and the right way of influencing. So how do we do all of that? Because we can increase our income, be more productive and work less if we choose to and we can do more of the dentistry that really juices it up and we enjoy doing. And how do we do that? It’s by generating a six star patient journey. Can I give you an average patient journey and you can tell me if you agree with this, mate.
Dr James: 33:08
Yeah, let’s do that. Good place to start.
Dr Barry: 33:11
Now I could go into a whole technical stuff, but let’s just run through. I believe that a typical patient journey is you’ve got to get a patient right. New patient, attract them. I’ve said first call, but I would say that that is first point of contact Could be an email. It could be somebody walking in off the street, right, and it could be the patient picking up the phone. Next is once you’ve had a really lovely phone call, oftentimes with front of house. Now in my practice, when I owned it, we separated front of house and telephony. I wanted and this is something I would advise, if it is possible for you to have front of house being purely concierge checking in, taking payment, checking out, making teas, coffees, looking after, just giving lots of love and attention and telephony help happens elsewhere. I would wholeheartedly recommend that you do that. It works a treat. After you’ve had that conversation, the first point of contact is the initial consult. Now we teach this in two ways. We teach this as if you are dentist, nurse, surgery. So one dentist, one nurse, one surgery, no TCO. We also, in our mastermind level, we teach and we train the TCOs to do this. So I am very fortunate as I have a treatment coordinator. But our treatment coordination process is very different from almost anything else. You’ve seen, Initial consultation leads to the examination. For most dentists that’s the same appointment done at the same time, and then the presentation. So we go initial consult, initial examination, then we do treatment planning, treatment presentation. For most people that happens in one appointment, which I’m wholeheartedly against, and we can discuss why. But for me, as a sole dentist, I separate initial consultation and exam from the presentation. I want the presentation to happen a week or maybe two weeks later, out of the clinical environment, ideally not always possible, depending on your clinical situation and your practice but I want the presentation to be not when the clinical exam has occurred. So we’ve done our initial consult, examination, our presentation, and then of course, we come along when we do the treatment that they’ve accepted, Following the end of the treatment plans. We then do slot them into a follow-up of maintenance and then, ultimately, then we’re going to talk to them about referrals, Because in my practice, and maybe in some of yours, step eight is the only thing I use to lead to step number one. So my attraction of new patients is purely step eight. I don’t do any marketing, we don’t do any social media. Our current situation is word of mouth. Now, I’m not a fancy dentist. I do smile designs, I do full mouth, I do full mouth reconstruction, but I’m not marketing for that Because I have, I generate enough dentistry and income and fun and enjoyment from my existing patient base and the people that they know. If I really wanted to build my smile line clearer liners, then I would consider marketing that, but I’m not in that position where I need to or want to do that. So that to me is a typical patient journey. Would you agree, James? That’s good to me.
Dr James: 37:09
Very comprehensive as anyone. I don’t think anybody’s thought about it in this detail, but it makes sense.
Dr Barry: 37:15
Well, my recommendation then is that we look at each of these points and we look at how we can improve the patient experience at every single one of these points and then systemize it so that it becomes ingrained into everybody in the practice. So, for example, how do you answer the phone? Most people will have a system for that. Most people will insist that, no matter who you are, you answer the phone in the same way, and that’s great. What we then do is we want to encourage correct language skills on the phone calls and therefore we have a very loose script. I don’t like scripts, but I like direction, and so we’ll have direction. When somebody asks a specific question, they have a fairly good answer of how they’re going to respond to that. So when somebody phones up our practice and says, do you do NHS? When we’ve done cold calling to other practices that we’re working with, they’ve gone no, we don’t do NHS, we’re only private. And you go OK, thanks, click. End of conversation. Well, that’s not what we want to do. We want to add some value. And we want to add some value and we’ll change what we’re saying to be more inquisitive and more caring, because maybe they’re not looking for NHS, maybe they just don’t know, and that’s their opening gambit and maybe actually what they want is somebody that’s going to show them some love, care and attention and help them with whatever it really is, because they don’t want NHS dentistry, they want something sorting right. So each of these steps we then would look at of how we’re going to refine our language skills and refine it and I think just for tonight I’m going to very briefly, so I don’t know how long we’ve got I’m going to just talk initially about these five steps. Have I got time for this?
Dr James: 39:11
Yeah, of course. Yeah sounds good.
Dr Barry: 39:13
OK. So initial consultation we have this absolutely honed and we ask certain questions in a certain way. The first thing is we will always build rapport. Let’s assume the majority of you are doing your own initial consult, so I’ll talk dentist to dentist. I will do the short term pleasantries, because I am building rapport by being more like my person, the person I’m talking to, people, like people who are like them, and so the nature of building rapport is to be more like the other person. You’re not taking the Michael, you’re not. You know, somebody’s got Tourette’s. You’re not starting to tick. My mate’s got Tourette’s and I would never build rapport by taking the P out of him. But I will be more animated when he’s around because I want him to feel comfortable. And so it’s key that you’re not just a polar opposite. If I have a patient comes in who my team would describe as always very grumpy, monosalabic, says one word I’m not going to be Tigger, like I am with most of the time, and bounce in, because that’s completely breaking rapport. So the first thing is I’m going to build rapport and I’m consciously aware of it, and I’m making an effort to build rapport. I believe that my effort to build rapport with you. My patient is probably more than anybody else does in your life, because I am consciously making an effort for you to feel most comfortable and I’m consciously making an effort in order for you to feel comfortable so that I can look after you and find out how best to look after you. So I truly believe I’m serving. Then we’ll ask specific questions. The one question that makes the biggest difference is in NLP, we have this thing called a timeline. We all see time as spatial. So if I asked everybody that’s in the room right now to think of time around them and think about pointing to your future, everybody points for your future now, gaila, thank you very much. So for me I’m pointing directly in front of me. For Gaila she’s pointing slightly up. Is that correct, gaila? Right, timelines can be similar but can be very different. Everybody now points to your past. For me, personally, it’s directly behind me. I’ve had some people where their future is up and their past is down. So when you draw a line between your future and your past, we call out your timeline. Imagine that you’re sat in a chair and you’re sat in the time of now on your timeline. And now, metaphorically, imagine that you’re turning around and you’re looking down your timeline to the past. Picture it being a railway and the sleepers are segments of time all the way back to when you were born and, if you are a believer of other things, even all the way back before that and further back in generations. Each of those sleepers represent a period of time where you may have memories you may have good or bad. You’ll have references to that. So what I want my patients to do is I want them to turn forward and look down the tracks and future pace them into the future. I am a little bit interested in what the patient wants right now, today, but I’m much more interested in what’s important to them. 20 years down the line, age appropriate, right? Because if they’re 65, I’ll say 10 years. Because I got caught out of that. So I designed the question, I had a play with it, it was working amazingly, said to a chap so how do you, in terms of your dental health, your dental appearance and your dental function, what’s important to you about those three things? And let’s say 20 years, and he went I’ll be dead, barry, I’m 70. So I say, oh shit, that backfired. So now I’m careful, right? If they’re 60, 65, I’ll say 10 years, and I’ll ask the question because I want them to think about where they want to be in 10 or 20 years in terms of their dental health, their dental appearance and their dental function. They then transport themselves metaphorically into themselves in 20 years and they come up with a beautiful treatment plan. I don’t even have to design it. They’ll say to me well, I don’t want to lose my teeth. I’m like okay, don’t want to lose your teeth. Yeah, well, I don’t want them to be broken, I don’t want them to be ugly, I don’t want them to be yellow, I want them to be nice and straight and I want them to function. Well, I want to be able to eat a steak and I want, I want, I want. Now it tells me two things. It gives me their motivation. They’re either towards or away from, but what it really does is it starts to give me a conversational point. So when they say, well, I want them to be straight and white, and I say straight and white, tell me what do you mean by that? Well, I’d like them to look really natural, natural white, and the ones to be straight. I don’t want them to be crooked, okay. So tell me how they are today. Are they straight and white today? And they go? Well, not quite. Hello, you’ve just found out whether current status, what the desired status 10 or 20 years and they’ve already begun to tell me that what they want is a treatment plan in order to achieve that. Whether they do that now or in the future is irrelevant, but my job is to serve that and go okay, so let’s, let’s just uncover that a little bit more. Do you see how this works? It’s just, it becomes effortless. That’s what I said beginning of the slides an effortless way of explaining things so that your patients make their best choices. So then, in the initial consultation, I’m going to have an upfront contract where I’m going to explain, even though I might be in the same room and it might be in two minutes. I’m going to explain what I’m looking for and I want them to listen out, particularly for the BPEs, and I’m going to explain the number of things that I’m going to be doing. Then, in my examination, we operate a very slick co-pilot system, so it’s run by my nurse. That ensures several things. Number one is I don’t miss anything because my ADHD makes me go shiny object and I see para function because I lecture on para function for S4S and I do splint therapy and I teach all of that. I get often a little bit sidetracked because I’m like, oh, I’ve seen something, and I’m sure everybody else is the same. So it’s nurse led. The biggest effect is that my patients here over the top of them what it is we’re doing. And when I first introduced this, my patients were like oh Barry, you’ve never done that before. What have you been doing for the last 15 years? And so my explanation was I’ve always done it, I just never told you my bad. So we teach how to do a co-pilot examination. The nurse is far more involved when it comes to the presentation. We use a treatment plan of three, a traffic light system, present what must be done in terms of disease and, at the same time, present what could be done if they choose to. And lo and behold, you’ll find that patients say you know what I have been thinking about, that I’d really like to do that. And you’ll be like oh my God, most of us don’t present because we fear that we are effectively firefighters. We’re either fixing a fire or we’re looking for the smolder. We’re not actually looking for the potential that might occur and explaining that to the patient so that they can make an informed choice. And when we do and we come from a position of love and service our patients see it as being looked after, as being cared for at a much deeper level than they ever have before. Does this make sense, mate? I’m talking a lot. Is that all right?
Dr James: 47:20
No, you’re with me, I’m with you. Sorry, no, it’s all good man, it’s all jammed, it’s all gold dust.
Dr Barry: 47:26
Okay, so the next stage is treatment itself. There’s a personal anti-preference in people which is called chunk size. Right, I am what you call global. Don’t bore me with the facts. You know broad strokes, big picture. You know, be brief, be quick, be gone. That’s me. I have patients that need eyes dotting twice, tees crossing twice. They need to go and think about it seven times. They need to ask their daughter, their mother, their next door neighbor, the rabbit, the guinea pig and the dog before they decide to do something. And so, when it comes to treatment, I will ask a patient how much information do you want? Why is some looking after you? Do you want me to tell you what I’m doing, or do you prefer me just to shut up and get on with it? Because for the person that wants to know what’s happening, if they’re kinesthetic, like me, the sensation change from a speed-increasing motor with a beautiful new diamond in that cuts like butter to a God-forsaken slow-speed rose-head burr is like going from a little massage to a pneumatic drill. And those patients, if they’re not forewarned, they are literally, that’s them right, and they’re to white-knock a ride from then on. So I’ll find out just by simple questions of asking how would you like this? How would you like that? That portrays the fact that I care because genuinely I do. It portrays the fact that I am putting them first, because genuinely I am, because I can do that too, regardless. I just want to make sure I do it in a way where they walk out going. That was amazing. And the way to make it amazing is to make it bespoke to them, and there’s literally three or four ways that are so easy that we can make our treatment delivery bespoke to that individual patient. Once you’ve done all of those things and you’ve knocked the bloody socks off, getting recommendations, referrals and reviews is an absolute piece of pie. It does take some follow-up. I have clients where I teach them and they’re like look, I asked everybody and nobody left me anything. And they’re like did you get permission to follow up? Because if they’re not doing it there and then in your opatory or in your practice, they go away and life takes over. So our way, we have a systemized way of going and thank you said you’d recommend them in a further. Of course we’ll bury Great. Look, I know time was so busy on, aren’t we all of us? And I know that you want to support me and help me. I appreciate that you’re super busy. If we don’t hear from you or if we don’t see the review in, let’s say, a week, please can I have your permission for Ellie to give you a call and just remind you? And no one goes? No, they all go. Yeah, of course, of course, which means that when we haven’t got what it is they promised us, we’ll follow them up and increase the likelihood that we’re going to get what it is they promised us. It ain’t 100% because it is swimming through mud, isn’t it? And five-star Google reviews is not a piece of pie, but it takes a system. You ask only the right people. If somebody walked in and said do you do NHS? And Doris is busy on the desk and says no, the company that I work for at the moment, portman they send out an automatic leave as a review. Well, if I was that patient, I’d go one-star, no NHS. So we don’t ask just anybody with specific and it’s like an invitation that may. There’s so much more I could add to each of those layers. I’ll answer any questions Interesting. The pain for injection absolute piece of pie, so easy. Your children aged five to 95? Because nobody likes a flippin injection. Let’s be honest, james questions.
Dr James: 51:36
I’m here. Yes, let’s do it. Did you want to say anything more in the presentation? Or do we want to just freestyle, because I’m cool, we can do either.
Dr Barry: 51:44
I’ve got to say that this whole approach works. Whether you are an associate working in somebody else’s practice, they don’t have to run these systems. This works incredibly well for anybody that does own a practice, especially if we train your team and we train your associates as well. But the bottom line is that when you begin to systemise this, it makes it so much, so much easier for everybody, regardless of whether you’re an associate or whether you’re a principal, and I’ll flag this later that, if you want, I would love to help any of you, and James has said that it’s okay for me to say if you want to have some help on an individual basis so I can get to know you more. I can help you with any of those steps and give you advice on any of those steps, and you’re very welcome to book a call. But right now I think we should open this up to any questions that anybody’s got about what’s been said. If they’d like to know more, what else we can do for each of those steps, any challenges, any questions or anything at all, we will share the injection.
Dr James: 52:59
Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, let’s do just that. Let’s have some fun. Let’s throw the mic out to the floor. We have some questions. Come in here. Some people have been patiently waiting when was that?
Dr Barry: 53:10
Oh Marina, Hello, Great webinar so far, Thank you. My question is how do you respond to comments like oh, that’s expensive.
Dr James: 53:18
This is a great question because this happens all the time. And in essence, it’s building value, but it’s how do we do it right? Something like that Okay.
Dr Barry: 53:26
So, marina, thank you so much for your question and, firstly, I’ve got to tell you if you’re getting that regularly, it’s because everything building up to that point is not as good as it will be when you start to implement some of these things right. Because if you have built the value as you go along and you’re using the right language, then they don’t say, oh, that’s expensive. That being said, you’re going to get the odd one, and so I have a system of overcoming objections or people having a concern. So if somebody says to me, oh, that’s expensive, I would ask for clarification. The reason I ask for clarification is and I do this with dentists is dentists will say, oh, that’s expensive, and I’ll say, okay, so let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about food. I love food, by the way. Let’s talk about one of those little pots from M&S. It’s a superfood salad. It’s got all the seeds in, it’s got a couple of almonds and a nice dressing and it’s about a fiver and for 99p I could go to the Golden Arches and get myself a cheeseburger. Now, item A your honor costs more than item B, but item A is far better value To me. Something that is expensive, by definition, is low value so we can pay more for something, but it’d be better value and pay less for something and it’d be expensive. I would say that a 99p burger from McDonald’s is expensive because it’s full of not very healthy stuff, and I would say that that super food thing from M&S is really great value because of everything it’s giving. So that’s what I have in my head when I think about dentistry. So when a patient says, ooh, that’s expensive, I’ll say okay, it’s completely normal to have a question or a concern about the level of investment that you’re gonna be making in a tooth or your teeth. Let me ask you when you say it’s expensive, is that that you think that’s a lot of money for you to find or to pay, or is it that you’re not sure that it’s worth that money? By asking that question, I’m helping them differentiate between whether that’s a large amount of money, because I tell you what three and a half grand, that’s a lot of money. But for me to do their short-term author and their retention and do this, that and the other, bloody good value. So if they say, well, yeah, it’s just a lot of money, I’ll say great. So if you had it easily, would you believe that it’s worth it. Yes, I believe it’s worth it. Great, then it’s not expensive. I won’t make them wrong. I won’t say that it’s not expensive. What I wanna clarify is what their concern is. So what you’re telling me is it’s about finding that money now or in the future. Yes, it is great. Let me tell you about the ways that we’re able to look after you. With short-term orthodontics. You can pay as you go, which means you’re spreading this out over the six to nine months that we’re looking after you. Or we have an interest free option where you can pay over 12 months interest free. Or you can actually pay cost about 45 pounds a month where you pay three to five years. Are you aware that we have those options? No, would you be interested in finding out? Yeah, I’d love to. So we’ve dealt with somebody where it’s not value-based and it’s not expensive. It’s just a lot of money. If somebody says I just don’t know if it’s worth it, then I guarantee, marina, that you won’t have asked the 20-year question and you won’t have found out the deep emotional driver, which, by the way, super easy to do. If somebody says to me that’s a lot of money, I’ll say do you know what, bob 859 pounds on the crown is a sizeable investment on OneTooth and not, but, by the way, and because then I am agreeing that it’s a big investment that’s a big investment in OneTooth. And what you told me earlier on, what you told me when I first met you, is that it’s really important to you that in 20 years time you’ve got as many of your own teeth as possible. Now, as you know, I can fill this, but what you said to me is that you really wanna keep them and by crowning this tooth today we increase the likelihood that we’ve still got that in 20 years time. So what I’m going back to is their vision of the future. To build the value, know it with bad loads of integrity, because I damn well know if Doris, with that lower left six, with 40 plus percent of the tooth missing, if I fill it, it’s foobard in a few years and when it fractures again, maybe I can’t even crown it or maybe it’s then an endo and everything else. So how do you handle that? Number one is build your patient journey so you hardly ever get it. Can I help you with that? And when you do get it, have a beautiful response. We call it the agreement frame, if I use the word, but if I say to you who’s the best football team in the world, james.
Dr James: 58:39
Arsenal.
Dr Barry: 58:41
So if I said to you, I know you say it’s Arsenal, but, mate, really I know it’s Liverpool by using the word, but I’ve negated the fact that I’ve gone, I know you think. If I say to you, mate, I know you think it’s Arsenal and I’ve gotta tell you, oh my God, they’re killing it right now and for me, still Liverpool. But I’m gonna say that because that’s where I’m from, we are then not breaking rapport, we’re just having this agreed to disagree situation. So when you have somebody that gives you a hurdle or an objection or a concern, you use the word and it’s completely normal to have that concern and not but Does that make sense?
Dr James: 59:24
It does. It’s very powerful. It’s very, very, very powerful and it takes a lot of practice to get right at the start because the number of times the B word almost creeps out. You’re like blah, blah, blah and at the very beginning. But when you practice it it’s very good. I agree, I agree, let’s go on with the next question.
Dr Barry: 59:39
Captain roll, my youngest daughter became the butt police. We’re rolled in helping us go.
Dr James: 59:47
No, it’s cool. It’s helpful to get someone on your case. Maybe have like a butt jar or something. You know what I mean. Yeah, put points in it. I don’t know, just a suggestion. Okay, cool questions. Right, we’ve got an absolute ton of questions. Let’s pick the best ones we’re like. Okay, I know he’s been patiently waiting Is Gray who sent me a private one, and this is interesting. Actually, we’re interested to hear how you negotiate this, barry. Quick question, says Gray. Quick question about the wants and needs the red number sorry, sorry, the red number treatment plan.
Dr Barry: 1:00:24
Yeah.
Dr James: 1:00:26
Trying this to mix NHS practice. Would you, would you would you suggest that we make sure that the red treatment plans are NHS and then the amber treatment plans are private? Is that how you do it?
Dr Barry: 1:00:39
No, no, absolutely not, Absolutely not. I would do NHS as purely red, because that’s really all you can do, and then I would be doing a red private as well, because let’s assume that Doris is NHS, nhs, the NHS treatment for that lower left six is another amalgam. Correct me if I’m wrong, because I’ve not been NHS for like 17 years. So I’d say, on the NHS, what I’m able to do for you is this, and then I would use my but on purpose. So I would negate that by saying but off the NHS. And I I’m a fan of not going, but privately, because privately has a connotation You’re not in control of their internal representation. So on the NHS, I can do the amalgam, but off the NHS. I have so many different options that are available to you, and so let me explain. We could do a tooth colored filling, which is going to look fantastic. It’s going to look much like a tooth. It doesn’t give the integral strength that you want in order to keep it for the next 10, 15, 20 years. It will make you look good. But in order to strengthen it, the best treatment option is to place a tooth colored crown on there so that it looks good, feels good, functions well. So I would not do red as just NHS, because actually you can do all of it off the NHS or we would call it privately by having great language skills and just explaining, and it’s all about the patient’s choice, right.
Dr James: 1:02:26
That’s cool. So it’s about tactical use of and and but as well. Just not blanket, not using the but word.
Dr Barry: 1:02:33
Oh, you’ve got to use your, but on purpose, mate. So this is where I said this phrase makes me about a hundred grand a year.
Dr James: 1:02:43
Wow.
Dr Barry: 1:02:43
I believe that I used to say to Doris my own limited belief was people won’t pay for private dentistry, people won’t what pay me 500 quid for a crown. So I’d say almost, almost quietly, doris, we could, we could crown this truth, which is the best. But I could fill it and that’s a lot cheaper, and and they go OK. And so that fed my limitability. See, nobody wants to do private, nobody wants to pay me 500 quid for a crown. I was a self fulfilling prophecy. Then I learned this language pattern and I learned the, the, the impact of it, which will ultimately comes from a hypnotherapist. I became a master hypnotherapist and I started to learn the language patterns of this guy called Milton Erickson. And what I learned was I was getting in the way of my patients, choosing the best. All I needed to do was to flip my. But, doris, I could crown this, which is the cheapest option. But what you told me is it’s really important that you want to keep this tooth for the next 20 years at least, and so the best option for this is to crown it. And my patients went OK, barry. And I was like, oh my God, how many people have I miss served? I genuinely was doing my level best, but I was doing my best based on my own insecurities. I could have but anyway.
Dr James: 1:04:00
so we’ve all been there.
Dr Barry: 1:04:02
It’s how we all start, you know this this is the first point of the first side of the triangle is people not wanting to be salesy or come across as pushy, and so by having the right conversation and being in rapport and having the right mindset of service, it becomes effortless mate.
Dr James: 1:04:18
Yeah, it’s true. It’s true. It starts with limiting beliefs. Right, and here’s the thing about limiting beliefs we don’t even flip and realize that they’re half the time until someone points it out to us, which is why the stuff is so powerful. Mindset is huge. Mindset is absolutely huge. Guys, we’ve probably got time for one more question, so let’s pick a goodie. There was one that I saw just a minute ago.
Dr Barry: 1:04:39
There’s loads of goodies, listen, you can, they can all. They can all book a call and I can give them. I can give them as much as I can.
Dr James: 1:04:47
Yeah, totally Totally. The link is in the chat to book a call with Barry. Here’s the question I was looking for. Oh, no, it’s not. No, it’s not. Okay, I’m just going to have to pick one because I can’t find it. Here we go. Curram’s asked a great question. Do you do NHS as a closed question? How do you respond to closed questions in an open way? Oh, would that be your script for that particular question? Did that make sense, do you?
Dr Barry: 1:05:13
do you do? Nhs is a closed question.
Dr James: 1:05:16
Do you do I miss read it. That’s all me.
Dr Barry: 1:05:19
That’s a statement, right? Yeah, how do you respond to a closed question in an open way? What would your script for that particular question be? Please Ring, ring, hi, do you do NHS? Oh, hi, you’re speaking to Barry. May I take your name? Yeah, my name’s Doris. Okay, cool, so you’re looking for NHS? Yes, can I ask you what in particular? Why is it you’re particularly looking for NHS dentistry?
Dr James: 1:05:46
Okay, I see what you did, that. You just flipped the script. You know.
Dr Barry: 1:05:51
I want to find out why do you do NHS? Most people don’t know. End of conversation. So what I want to do is ask a question, because actually I want to know why the hell are you looking for NHS? Because, seriously, why do you want NHS? Generally, what they’re going is I want to keep the costs down, don’t they generally? And so well, did you realize that we have a? We have a payment plan that costs a little as 16 pounds a month, which means that all your private exams and hygiene and x-rays are all taken care of, so that we can make sure that you don’t need treatment, and when you do need treatment, we give you 10%, 10% gratuity because you’re part of our family. There’s so many ways that you can handle that to steer people down the right lane. Now there might be somebody that absolutely let’s say that they are income support and but you’re going to find that out and still treat them with care, love and respect and say I completely understand. And here’s the thing right. I think there might be somebody down the road that might be able to offer something. Please know that if ever your circumstances change and you ever want to be seen by somebody who will look after you and take care of you and your family. Give us a call. Our door is always open, cool, well, who else? Whoever else has ever spoken to them like that?
Dr James: 1:07:13
Well, there you go. You’re already head and shoulders above everyone else. I feel that as well, in the patient’s mind, NHS equals functional and it’ll work. You know what I mean. Functional and adequate, Are you with me? Whereas private is like something a little bit fancy and a little bit out there, Like if you’re a little bit, maybe if you’re like stuffy or a little bit. You know, you think you’ve got ideas about yourself. You’ll go for it. You know that’s what it is in their head, sometimes the connotation, but we as dentists know there’s actually a little bit more to it than that. So it’s just really exploring where that comes from. And this is the thing lots of time with words. About 99% of miscommunication comes from the fact that people have different definitions for the same words. Okay, and they haven’t actually established what they are, and that’s a really good example of one. So you’re actually delving into their definition of what they really want, just then, right.
Dr Barry: 1:08:05
Plus, nobody wants white teeth mate.
Dr James: 1:08:08
Plus, as well as that, you’re taking charge of the conversation, which I like too, because you’re saying absolutely, you’re acknowledging what they’ve had to say. May I take your name? Which means you’re actually grabbing the conversation with the scruff of the neck a little bit, which is also a sales technique, boom.
Dr Barry: 1:08:23
I don’t do this. It’s not my first rodeo.
Dr James: 1:08:27
Boom, good stuff. Barry, we’re going to wrap up very shortly. Would you be able to share that QR code one more time? People who want to?
Dr Barry: 1:08:34
Yeah, I would love to. There’s also. Let me just also type in here. I’ve spelt my own name right. I think I probably have, and then it’s dentistry who invest. That’s the link, and then I will share my screen and I’m happy to chat away and share and help. Look at the end of the day, we’re in the best profession on the planet and I want to help dentists fall back in love with dentistry and I want to help millions of people have healthy, confident smiles and the only way I can do that is to help other dental professionals be able to supply that to their patients. So book a book, a call. We can have a chat. I’ll help you on that call and I’ve got programs coming up and if, if we’re a fit, we’ll interview each other and if we’re a fit, maybe you can join. But the very least, I’ll help you on that call and we’ll have a good chat and we’ll get to know each other.
Dr James: 1:09:36
Very cool.
Dr Barry: 1:09:38
Lots of love, mate. Thanks for chatting this through. I could talk to you every week. I’ve got so much in my head.
Dr James: 1:09:44
Top stuff. Well, maybe we can make that into a regular thing, who knows yeah.
Dr Barry: 1:09:47
I’ll be awesome.
Dr James: 1:09:49
I always flip and learn from yourself. Barry, it’s always fun to have you on Congrats everybody coming along tonight, this Monday, and we will wrap up just there, being really, really, really good to see you once more, barry thank you, buddy. Back on the channel soon. See you later, my friend, bye, bye.
Dr Barry: 1:10:04
Lots of love. Thanks everybody.
Dr James: 1:10:06
In a bit Bye.