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Dr James:
Hey, welcome one and all to myself and Dr Barry’s impromptu live stream titles.
Dr Barry:
What else are you going to do?
Dr James:
I’m, I’m. I sprung it on Barry as soon as he jumped on Zoom, but then Barry, barry’s a good sport, barry’s game is a badger, and these live streams are fun, after all, and what it means is people can throw questions at us which stir the conversation. So we say but anyway, what the hell is game as a badger, game as a badger? That’s my, that’s my expression when I say something’s like really up for it and they’re a really good sport, I’ll wear that for it.
Dr Barry:
I’m not sure about badger, but let’s go.
Dr James:
Badger is a compliment, barry, that that’s a compliment, in my book at least, anyway.
Dr Barry:
I don’t know where I got that from.
Dr James:
Anyway, anyway, moving on. So Dr. Dr Barry is a returning face on Dennis who invests. Of course, lots of people have seen Dr Barry Alton on Facebook, on Facebook and social media etc. So it’s a real pleasure to have Barry back on the platform. Barry, how have you been since we last spoke?
Dr Barry:
Amazing mate, really. Yeah, really good, enjoying life. Probably properly moved into the house. I’m honing my morning routine. My morning routine is ridiculous. No, it’s bloody great. I’m loving it. So, yeah, really good really good, good stuff, good stuff.
Dr James:
Well, you seem in high spirits today and whatever you had in that morning routine has definitely worked to tame it, because you’re buzzing, as am I, which is a good thing. Barry, we’re here to talk about your. Obviously, your expertise is on dental practice, squat practice and how to create an immense amount of value for the patients that come through the door and then, of course, as by complete accident, off the back of doing that. What it means is profits, and every rise rise as well. Should that be one’s objective? Should that be one’s goal? But you know what. You know what it’s always worth talking about, because for a lot of people, that’s really on their mind these days, especially with things getting squeezed right.
Dr Barry:
Yeah, it’s interesting with my. You probably find the same thing, right? Is that with my coaching programs, my coaching for associates and my coaching for principals and their teams, when somebody’s been through the program, the response that I get is that oh my God, this was just so much more than I expected. It’s life changing, you know. It’s about relationships, it’s about understanding myself more, but that doesn’t sell right. The way that I guess that I attract people on to my programs or to have conversations with me is that when I teach you and share with you the things that we implemented, you will earn more money. And so I wish that I could explain things in a better way, that it isn’t just about the money, because, in actual fact, I don’t really want it to be about the money. My whole program is really about being patient centric. It’s about serving your patient at a much deeper level, finding out really what makes them tick, and then accidentally earning more money. So we set about Chloe and I set about wanting to have the best patient journey on the planet, and we did, with her help in designing our patient journey. We absolutely knocked our socks off. We absolutely knocked our socks off. I was working three and a half days a week, me and a hygienist. Our turnover was just over a million quid and we quadrupled our turnover. But it was by accident, not really by design. What was by design is the honing of the patient journey and the elements that we put into it. And one of the reasons I said to you I want to share and have a conversation about marginal gains is that when you explain to people what you do, some of the some people kind of go, well, I said there’s no way I could do that. I mean, if I said to you, mate, I want you to in the next 12 months, I want you to increase your business by 50%, Most people would go, yeah, right. But if I said to you, right, I want you to increase your business by one percent a week, mentally kind of thing, oh OK, that’s manageable, isn’t it Right? And so it’s about breaking things down into manageable chunks. So I’ve got some story. Have you read Atomic Habits, James Clear yeah, you know what.
Dr James:
It’s actually one book that has eluded me, but subconsciously I feel like I’m putting it off a little bit because I’ve heard so many people talk about it. I feel like I’ve read it by osmosis, which is probably not the case. I’m sure there’s lots of valuable things in there. I should really make time to read it. But can I just ask one question on the one percent thing? So is what you’re saying that 50% over six months is exactly the same as one percent per week? That mathematically those are the same things? Well, 50% over 12 months 12 months Was that it Is the same as one percent weekly.
Dr Barry:
You do one percent a week, it’s 52% right? No way.
Dr James:
No, I just wanted to just make that super clear because I thought that that was what you were getting. That math is incredible.
Dr Barry:
But this does. This comes from Dave Brailsford and you know his whole attitude that Dave Brailsford he didn’t. He didn’t write this bit about him. It came from James Clear and Atomic Habits and he talks about James, dave Brailsford and the effect that he had on the British cycling squad and it’s kind of the buzz story and that’s what I’m touring the UK at the moment for practice plan and sharing this story because it really hits home about the fact that small, small, inconsequential things that you do actually build up and add up. So if you don’t know the story, let me share it with you. I’ll be brief. Right, for 100 years the British cycling squad was basically utterly diabolically shit. I mean, they they didn’t win. They won one gold medal since 1908. And over 100 years we won one gold medal and what’s the biggest cycling competition in the world Tour de France In 110 years we didn’t win a single one. So the British cycling kind of people hired Dave Brailsford and he had this whole attitude of the aggregation of marginal gains, the bringing together of little, tiny improvements. So what he did is he broke down how do you ride a bicycle? And he broke it down into every single point and then what he wanted to do was just to improve each one of those points a tiny little bit. So they did things like he hired a surgeon to come and teach everybody in the squad how to wash their hands properly to reduce colds and flu and infections and stuff. They got the cyclists to wear heated shorts and then did biometric tests. They got specific massage gels for each individual cyclist. They made sure that each cyclist had their own and best pillow and mattress. They painted the insides of the transportation vans white so that they could spot dust. I mean, they just did tiny little things which this one thing on its own makes no difference, right, but when you’re tweaking every little system, it builds up into something huge. And so picture this 100 years, absolute, diabolical 110 years never won a Tour de France. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the GB squad won 60% of the gold medals in cycling. And four years later, in 2012, london, we absolutely smashed the world to pieces. It was all about the velodrome and in a 10 year period we won 168 world championships and we won 66 gold medals In 2012,. Sir Bradley of Wiggins won the Tour de France In 2013. Is make, chris Froome won it. And then Chris Froome won it again, again and again. Chris Froome won it four out of five years. So we went from utter diabolical mediocrity. We were so bad at the manufacturing of bikes. There was one big manufacturer would not sell bikes to the British squad because they didn’t want to be embarrassed. And people go please sell to the Brits. So we went from utter diabolical situation to absolutely smash in the world and Brailsford did that over a five year period and it brings on this whole idea of marginal gains. So what I did is I took that idea and that thought and I decided to break down the patient journey.
Dr James:
And just before you go any further on that, can I just interject with one quick thing? Guys, this is a live and interactive Q&A, but Ari is about to go on to deliver some phenomenal value in just a minute. Just so we know how many people that there are in the room, can you go ahead and type live in the comments box. What that means is we can see you, we can talk to you, we can get a really good idea of how many people are here. Remember, feel free to pop any question in the chat box at any moment and whenever we have a suitable interval, whenever we have a suitable opportunity, what we will do is we will go ahead and we’ll read that question out so that we can get you an amazing answer, because obviously, barry has got some really cool experience on the subject of making practices profitable and running dental practice. So really good opportunity to veil off. If you’re watching this on replay, go ahead and type replay in the chat box as well. So we’ve got an idea of how many people are watching on the replay too. Really, really, really useful information so we can tailor this content even more going forward. So just to summarize, if you’re live in the house, live in the chat box and also pop your questions in there, should you feel that there’s something that you’d like help with. And then, as well as that, if you’re on a replay, feel free to type in replay. Barry stage is yours, my friend.
Dr Barry:
Cheers man. So, look, I took that. That was phenomenal, you know, those small little changes collectively made such an incredible difference, and so I wanted to break down a patient journey and look at what we can do. I mentioned to you about my morning routine, right, let me tell you about that for a second Now. In the mornings, I swim, I ice bath, I EMF mat, I ground, I red light therapy, oxygen therapy, honorary bounder, affirmations, gratitude, audio books, swimming, a couple of other things, and when you say that people are like, yeah, screw off, there’s no way I can get up on a Monday morning and do that. But it started five years ago, right, I read the book Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, and I read the book and thought, oh, it’s a bit overwhelming. You know I can’t do an hour, and so I left it, to be honest, procrastinated a while, and two years later so about three years ago my whole thing that I do right now started by just getting up 10 minutes early. One tiny little thing that’s really easy to do that you can implement tomorrow, and then you kind of build on it. So it’s taken three years to build where my morning routine is, and it started with getting up 10 minutes early. That’s what I want to encourage us, we dentists, to do with our patient journey Is that you don’t need to just go knobs, bells, whistles and smash everything out the park. You just start with small incremental changes and you start to tweak things Because, ultimately, if you’re just beginning to use different language skills or different ways of presenting, or you’re asking patients certain questions that start to reveal what truly drives them, you only need to be doing the odd thing and introducing that to then, over the next two, three years, really build it up. Which is why I reckon some of my associates that I work with typically will double their take home Some of them are tripling at the moment actually just by having new conversations and my business owners typically, over three years, will more than double their profits. It doesn’t happen overnight, but they’re not big moves. They’re small, incremental changes that you sprinkle throughout the journey. So in order to do that, first and foremost you’ve got to break it down in your head of what your patient journey is and what the touch points are. And the touch points I believe there’s probably 15 to 20 touch points in a patient journey and it’s an opportunity. Each touch point is an opportunity to knock their socks off, and that’s what I believe we should be doing. I read some stuff recently. If you had a Peter Drucker, I mean, he’s well dead, right, but in 1954, something like that he’d written 39 books and he was considered to be the forefounder of business management. He said there are only two main reasons, two main things in a business, and he defined both of these things marketing and innovation. His definition of marketing is to get people to want to do business with you again and again, and again. And so for me in dentistry, that’s obvious, because that’s what we want, right? We want patients to come to us again and again, and again, and so that’s related to your service. And then innovation is finding new ways to exceed your client’s expectations. It’s consistently improving what you’re doing, and if you don’t, somebody else will come along and do that. And so it’s constantly aiming to market get people to want to do business with you again and again, and again. And the way to do that is to fall in love with your patients, not your dentistry. I tongue in cheek say patients really don’t care about your dentistry, so long as it’s good enough. So I think if you had a benchmark of dentistry from one to 10, and if we class seven out of 10 as being good dentistry, good enough dentistry. Most of us dentists spend time, energy, money, investment in trying to get our dentistry from seven to 10, which is good. But most of us have done that at the cost of the execution of the patient journey, of the UX of the patient, and they care more about how they’re looked after than they really do about the quality of the dentistry, so long as the dentistry is good enough. So I want to encourage dentists to improve their communication skills, to improve their understanding of how other people process information, because we’re all. We’ve got lots of similarities, but we’re all very different. You know, I’m what you might describe as highly visual kinesthetic. What that means is I talk quickly, I think in pictures, I think in movies. Oftentimes my brain works faster than my gobs, so I will miss the odd word out. I’m also very touchy-feely. I like to touch people. Sounds a bit creepy, but I give and receive love by touch. If somebody gives me a hug, I feel special, right? Well, I found out the hard way that not everybody’s like that. So I had my daughter when we were going through the divorce. So my mum had the affair and my eldest daughter, I was like I’d go and give her, put her hands on her and she shrugged me off and go, get off. And I thought at the time that that was the divorce and I thought, my God, this is really affecting her. Then I went off and I ultimately became a masterprach in NLP and learned that Millie has feelings, but she doesn’t process our world through her feelings. So I would say to her Millie, I’m going to take you to Guildford, take you to Wagga Mummers, I’m going to buy you a top at Urban Outfitters. How do you feel about that? And my Millie would go how do I feel about that? Now, in that moment where she’s questioning in my head, I’m like you are a grateful little sugar buddy. I’ve offered to take you to Guildford, take you to Wagga’s, buy you a top, ask how you’re feeling. You’re like I don’t know how I feel. Fast forward three years. When I then understood Millie’s highly visual she doesn’t process the world through her feelings and when I said how do you feel about it, her reaction of I don’t know is trying to translate what that means. She’s trying to figure out what does that mean. So then I learned to speak her language. Millie, we’re going to go to Guildford Wagga Mummers Urban Outfitters Do you like the look of that? She’s like yes, that looks fantastic. Now translate that. Once. I learned that I then took that into practice because I can distinctly remember several things. Firstly, I had limiting beliefs about wealth and money and selling or presenting fees, and I felt really awkward about presenting fees, and so I had beliefs like patients want the cheapest, they only want NHS. Nobody would spend 500 pounds on a crown with me. Patients would rather do the cheapest than the best. And so these kind of self-limiting beliefs would be swimming around in my subconscious mind. I would come up consciously. I’d then come along and present something to a patient and I’d do it in a way that put them off the best not intentionally, but invariably I did. And then, knowing now that people process information differently Previously, if I just said look, doris, I’m talking about whether you do a denture or an implant on that lower left six, the implant is going to be just fantastic. It feels just like a tooth. It’s going to function just like a tooth. It’s three and a half thousand pounds. How do you feel about that? Past life, barry Doris would have gone. I would have jumped to the conclusion that she doesn’t want it. We’ll just do the denture love. We’ll just you know, it’s cheaper and they would go. Okay, barry, let’s do that. Well, now I realized that again, I’ve asked them to translate something without realizing it. So now I can work out what a patient, how patients processing information are presented to them in their model of the world. Doris got this implant. Do you like the look of that? Yes, barry, I think that these tiny subtle things right. So this tiny, subtle, inconsequential thing absolutely skyrocketed my relationship with my eldest daughter, and that tiny, subtle change enabled me to get out of my own way and help my patients make better choices. And I would say that 99% of the time when patients are given the opportunity to make their best choices, they tend to choose the better dentistry, which tends to be the higher production and generally affords you a higher profit. And so it’s not about the money, it’s about the service. I don’t care whether the patient says yes or no, but I care that the patient has had the choice and the option. And I now recognize that what I used to do was accidentally put them off, and what I used to do from my own limitations is accidentally took them out of choosing the best because they trusted me and I was inadvertently influencing them with my language skills, influencing them to choose the best. So little tiny changes accumulate and make a big difference. And that really is the message is what you think might just be some inconsequential, dumb ass thing, actually do it, do it and make it consistent and these things accumulate and you become very surprised that three years later, like we did, you’ve quadrupled your turnover. We had no marketing for 18 years. We didn’t do any external marketing, it was all internal. We absolutely knocked our patients socks off.
Dr James:
It’s nuts right, because when we have limited beliefs, we subtly influence people to think along the same lines as us, and usually what that means is they don’t make the best choice for them. They just make the choice that is most aligned with our projected beliefs.
Dr Barry:
Absolutely right.
Dr James:
Which is crazy, and it’s an awareness thing, and we’re all listen, we’re all on that, that path.
Dr Barry:
It’s not just our limiting beliefs, right, we are projecting any of our beliefs because we believe them, and so there will be beliefs that are empowering and that are great for everybody. And then there will be some beliefs in there, like you said, that are limiting us and them, and it’s only when you start to discover them that you’re like holy crap, I can’t believe. I’ve always believed that. Where did I get that from? And, funnily enough, it’s generally not come from us. It was usually from when we grew up or we experienced something or we heard somebody else say something that influences, like money doesn’t grow on trees and money is the root of all evil, these things. We never came up with that. Someone else has said that to us and we picked that up. So, yeah, I really enjoy discovering some of my own limiting beliefs and then challenge you. There, and during our training we have a way of busting through limiting beliefs. It’s a six question process and it’s really easy and it’s quite liberating, but these small steps make a big difference, mate.
Dr James:
Love it. Thanks so much. Okay, so to build on that, can you think of some real, tangible examples or situations where this commonly occurs in the clinic, whether or not this be something that you yourself did or you experienced or witnessed others doing through your role in so far as being their coach, because you must come across these situations regularly through their descriptions or directly witnessing people doing this without them even necessarily realizing.
Dr Barry:
Yeah, Got it. I mean, I could spend a whole week with you going through each touch point, but let’s just pick a few things right. There’s a presupposition in NLP, which is you cannot not communicate, you cannot not communicate, and so I’ll give you the best way that I can describe this is what happened to me. So back in the day, let’s say, I was filling out. Do you remember those crappy NHS brown cards we used to have that we’d fill out too young, too young, sorry. So, we used to have to write on notes and, honestly, a contemperaneous note was ex S&P. I mean, back in the day, that’s all we wrote. That was it. So imagine that I’m sad in my surgery and I’m just right now onto my notes or maybe you’re typing and my nurse will bring the next patient in. I thought that because I was busy doing something, it was entirely appropriate for me to complete what I was doing before I turn around and then start to get on and talk to the patient, and I thought, excuse me, that I wasn’t communicating right. So my example of what when the penny dropped for me is do you know, have you got Costco in Northern Ireland?
Dr James:
Do we have Costco in Northern Ireland? I’ve never seen one, but I have been to Costco before, so I know that I need to buy.
Dr Barry:
You know Costco is where you go to buy. You can’t buy two croissants, you’ve got to buy 28. And you go and buy you 28 croissants, a treadmill, a climbing frame and a couple of times for your car. That’s Costco, right. And what you have to have is a membership card. And on your membership card, if you have your ugly face on it and you have a long number and as is the norm, I completely forgot my membership card. So what happens is you go in the exit to the customer service desk and you go I’m terribly sorry, I forgot my card and they write the number down for you. So I walk in. It’s like 1030 on a Thursday. The place is absolutely dead. I walk up to the counter and there’s a young guy at the counter typing on the computer and I stand there smiling as I normally do, and he doesn’t look up. I’m kind of waiting and it goes on a little bit too long and I’m thinking you, cheeky basket, you know, you know I’m here and as his head came up, I’m about to go. Good morning. And his head came up when he turned around and I’m at this point I’m going. Really I’m feeling slightly peed off because I feel ignored, and if I hadn’t wanted 28 croissants on treadmill climbing frame and a few tires, I could well have taken my custom elsewhere. Now he thought that he wasn’t communicating, but in my head he was communicating that whatever he was doing was way more important than me, my custom, the money in my pocket and the relationship between the business and me. And that dawned on me that we do that often in dentistry is that particularly we have a tricky patient and something happens and we could. We can go, you know, a good hour or two without really acknowledging anybody because we’re in our own heads. And so I want people to understand, and so I teach this minor, tiny, tiny point, which is you cannot not communicate. If you’re not addressing somebody and saying little nod or a little, you know, hi, nice to see you, or hello, or greeting people by name, then you are communicating to them that they are not important as whatever is going on in your head. So that’s one tiny thing. So what do you do about that? You make sure that you agree absolutely everybody, all your colleagues. When you get in the morning, just say hi. If you see somebody acknowledge them, you know somebody comes in. Receptionist is on the phone toughest job on the planet, I think receptionist. You know the receptionist is answering one line. She’s trying to answer the other with her left foot. Check somebody in, check somebody out. Nurses tapping their watch, waiting to get payment Reception is a tough job, but if you’re on the phone and somebody comes in and you’re just completing the phone and you don’t even just look up to acknowledge you’re communicating, that they’re not as important as what you’re doing, so it doesn’t take much. Just to you know, make some sign of so that you at least you’re acknowledging people right and that that goes a long way to building your reputation on your brand with the patients. When we go back to what Peter Drucker said marketing and innovation it’s not rocket science to make sure a patient feels important and that they listen to. When you think about customer service, yeah, we did some stats and I presented this the percentage of people that will pay more for a good experience right Out of 100%, 86% of people will pay more for a good experience. And my my link to that is James, have you ever been out for dinner and you left a tip for the waitress or the waiter? So the product was the same. The food was going to be ex-panels, but because the service was good, you chose to pay more. Because of the service, not the food. 86% of us do that. Ok, so we’ve we by far and away. So long as the food is good enough, it’s the service that really counts. Imagine you’re going out. Have you been to any Michelin star restaurants? Have you been out for Michelin star meal?
Dr James:
Very fortunately I have. I’ve been to a one star Michelin restaurant a few times, never above that, but hopefully someday.
Dr Barry:
So imagine then, mate, you’re going to a Michelin star restaurant again and you’ve opted to go for the seven course Taster menu and you’ve booked the wine flight as well. Sommelier comes over and you’re like OK, I’m excited now. The food is sublime, the wine pairing is exquisite, everything tastes just beautiful. But in the background you can hear the head chef Balling out the sous chef, you hear the sommelier arguing with the maitre d’etre and you hear one of the waitresses swearing and bitching about her boyfriend in the background, and it basically ruins your experience. The food could be utterly amazing, but it’s the customer experience that really counts. You’re very unlikely to recommend that place to friends. In fact, you’re very likely to turn people away and tell them not to go, and you’re very unlikely to go back yourself. So your dentistry could be great. You’ve got to ensure that your customer service is absolutely amazing. What percentage of people say that customer experience determines their loyalty to the brand?
Dr James:
Ninety-five.
Dr Barry:
You are absolutely nearly there. It’s ninety-six. Oh, that was pretty good, but think about that for a second right. Ninety-six percent of people say it’s the customer experience that determines that they’re loyal to something. That’s the same with dentistry. If you get your customer journey, your patient journey, beautiful, elegant, mapped out, with them at the epicenter of it, then A they’re happy to pay more for it. B they want to keep coming. C they tell everybody about it. And we accidentally stumbled on this by making our patient journey so home, so beautiful, so eloquent, that we quadrupled our turnover and we got 30 to 40 new patients a month purely by word of mouth, recommendation and our five-star Google reviews, no marketing spend whatsoever. We’re not special, right? So all I’m doing now is trying to explain to people what we did, because all you need to do is rinse and repeat it. Copy what we did, tweak it if you want to. My recommendation is don’t, because we iterated it over years, copy what we did, see what happens and, lo and behold, you’ll get the same result, if not better. So, communication, you said. You know, can we give you some nuggets? Communication? What about the language of? But, which is one of my favorite things to talk about. Do you remember that one?
Dr James:
Yeah, switching butts to hands where you were appropriate, but still on occasion using but you want to use your butt on purpose, baby?
Dr Barry:
yeah, let me tell you why. So picture my limiting belief, which is no one’s gonna buy a crown off me, no one’s gonna spend 500 grid, they only want the cheapest right. I’m already. I’m with and with Doris. She’s broken her lower left six. 40% of the tooth is missing. I know that a crown is the best option for her. I really think I ought to be doing a crown, but I’m worried she’s gonna think that I’m trying to sell her. So I say look, doris, you’ve broken that tooth and the best thing for it is to crown it. But I could fill it and it’s cheaper. What happens is the butt negates everything that came before it. So, even though I have actually told her that the crown is the best option, I’ve then negated it and directed her to really focus on I could fill it and it’s cheaper. Every single one of my patients went yeah, okay, buddy, let’s fill it. That then fed my idiotic, self limiting belief of nobody wants a crown off me. All they want is the cheapest options. It wasn’t their fault. I was misdirecting them, proving my own limiting belief.
Dr James:
So sorry, I thought you were just about to move on to another point there. What were?
Dr Barry:
you gonna say. I’m gonna say so. When I learned this, what I learned was to flip my butt and to use it on purpose to direct my patient to consider what the better option would be. So, doris, you’ve broken this lower left six. Now I could fill it, which is cheaper. But the very best choice for this because you told me it’s important, you want your teeth in the next 20 years is the best choice is to crown it instantly. All my patients went okay, buddy, yeah, let’s do that. And it completely blew away my limiting belief of people don’t want the best, people don’t want trials, people don’t want to spend money. I was the problem, not them. That makes sense it totally does.
Dr James:
And the thing I was going to interject with just then, when I thought you’d finished for real I should a little bit more to add to that thing. I wanted to add to that was that’s the thing about limiting beliefs. They’re self-fulfilling. Yeah, you reaffirm yourself in so many subtle little ways that you don’t even realize. And even here’s, here’s the thing. I’m a lot better at not doing that than it used to be. We still all do it. But you know, if I’m talking to someone and they say something that they’ve observed in the world and I don’t necessarily agree with it that actually subtly tells me something about what their belief system is, because if they think that, then it might be the world reflecting some of their behavior back on to them that they’re not necessarily aware of, whatever that is so like. Say, for example, somebody says the world’s a bad place and everyone’s out to get me right. I’m like in my head I’m a little bit like red flags a little bit, because what that means is that that person’s probably experienced that and were the people in their life, were they genuinely not so good people or what was their behavior a reflection of how they felt that they’d been treated by that particular person. Are you with me? And it works both ways. You think the world’s a good place is, but probably because you’ve experienced that and people reflect that positive energy back on to you. So it’s very powerful. It’s like you have to almost change your beliefs to observe the. You have to change your beliefs first of all to observe change in the world. Are you with me? 100%. Such a subtle thing in human psychology and it’s it’s it.
Dr Barry:
Little clues like that tell you so much about someone’s beliefs about the world and I’d like to bring in two things on top of that to add, perhaps add some more value so that people can understand what they can do about it. So I do this exercise, and you touched upon it really beautifully. Beliefs are like a pair of glasses that filter the world right, and when you did my training course, you might remember that I got you and everybody else to put on a pair of mindset glasses. Right, and you put your mindset glasses on, which is the world is a dangerous place. In fact. Let’s do this now, man, right, imagine, put your mindset glasses on, dr Martin, thank you very much. Thank you very sexy. The world is a danger right now. Look around the room that you’re in and I want you to tell me what do you notice with. The world is a dangerous place. What do you notice in that room? What are you seeing? What can? So I’m looking around and I can see I’ve got lights on the ceiling that could drop down and break. I’ve got a glass that could fall over. I’ve got wires that I could trip over. There’s electricity here that could electrocute me.
Dr James:
I’m on the first floor of my house and the floor could fall in at any second and you could die right and I’ve got.
Dr Barry:
I’ve got a look out in the garden and there’s tools, garden tools which are dangerous. And the bottom line is, even though you don’t necessarily believe, you have a belief of the world is dangerous place. When you have this going on, all you see is what fits that belief, right? So now take your glasses off, put a different pair on, which is oh, the world is full of beauty and love. The world is full of beauty and love. You’re in the same bloody place. Have a look around. I can see a picture of my family. I’m looking out. I can see the sun in the garden and I can see the cows in the field. I can see a look outside. I can see the swimming pool. I can see my kids in the distance. You know, if this place is full, I’ve got electricity, which means I can speak to you. I’ve got a glass, which means later on, maybe I can have some wine in it. The world is full of beauty and love, right, and so those beliefs that you identified, that people come out with, they are a pair of glasses that people see the world through, and so, firstly, it’s recognizing that we can consciously change, that we can actually notice within ourselves when we have a belief that maybe not serving us. Secondly, we can help influence people to change it when they haven’t realized, and I’ve I’ve got quite an eloquent way of doing it without fighting, and I just want to share this, this last thing, with you, which is another language pattern that fits in with helping people to make their best choices with dentistry, right, when you have a different opinion or a different belief from somebody. Now you said what was it everybody’s out to get me was something somebody might say. Typically we would turn around to that person and go well, I know you think everyone’s out to get you, but they’re really not made. And what we do when we have a difference of opinion is we preface what we’re going to say with the word but I know you think everyone’s out to get you, but they’re really not. So what happens is that we’re acknowledging their point of view, but then we’re taking a big dump on it by saying the word but because we negate it. I understand you feel that way. And then we go I don’t because I’m going to go, but, and then I’m going to give you my opinion. So this is where you replace your but with the and, and it’s called the agreement frame. You’re framing it as an agreement and an understanding prior to giving your opinion. So, for example, I understand that you think that everybody’s against you and let me ask you has there ever been a situation when somebody actually helped you? And then they have to search when you ask a question. So statements, right, are easily rejected, accepted or rejected, and I would say so. A statement is you and I are on a live. Right now. You either go yes or no, or if I say I’m, or if I say a question has to be contemplated before it’s answered. So if I say, james, what exactly are we doing right now? You could come out with like one of five or six or seven different answers to that. So by firstly acknowledging their belief, by not saying but the saying and and then asking a question that challenges the belief, without being confrontational, you start to unpick that belief or they start to unpick that belief. So I appreciate you think that everybody’s against you and let me ask you is there anybody that’s ever really helped you and had your back? And then they go well, yeah, there was this one time, and so therefore, by definition, you’re challenging that belief. That makes sense. So it’s the agreement frame. It’s just a really simple, elegant way of giving your opinion whilst allowing people to still feel heard, understood, listened to and not made wrong.
Dr James:
Very powerful, very subtle changes in language, and that’s what a lot of these things are. That’s what all these are subtle tweaks or enhancements. Barry, I like to keep these lives and podcasts powerful, impactful and punchy. We’re coming up to the magic 40 minute mark, which I always find is the optimum for a podcast. But just before, just before we part ways for the moment, I was just curious, on the topic of powerful, punchy and impactful, if you could list three ways, three of the best ways that a principal could make their practice more profitable, as in three of the most common things that you observe that principles could improve on, and then also take that and apply it to associate. So kind of two questions. There, really three of the most the biggest hot tips that you have in terms of things that principles could improve to make the practice is more profitable, and then exactly the same thing for associates. What would those, what would those three things be for each respective party?
Dr Barry:
Okay, they are actually almost identical because, at the end of the day we are, we’re in the business of looking after people, not teeth. As I’ve shared with you before, nobody wants white teeth right, nobody wants straight teeth. What they want is what they think. Having white or straight teeth will either gain them in terms of a positive emotion or connection, or love or attraction or confidence, or they want what having white, straight teeth will avoid them, which is generally rejection, embarrassment, fear, whatever. And so we’re in the people game. We just happen to be doing teeth. So the first thing I would say is learn how to eloquently eloquently communicate with patients to find out what truly drives them and what’s important to them when you ask certain questions. I’ve designed, designed this question, which just I’ll tell you right. So I did practice plan in Belfast and I met this lovely husband and wife team owner practice and he’s actually become a client and bloody excited to work for him, work with him. He’s already incredibly successful and I really want to help him to hone and basically go from a million to three million. He asked this question in the first week and he went very. It netted me an extra £20,000 worth of dentistry that I would not have got if I hadn’t asked the question. So it’s learning what to ask, how to ask it, and it’s about helping the patient make their best choice. So that’s my first point. Secondly, creating a beautifully honed patient journey. So for me, we have this eloquent system where the patient is taken through and just treated beautifully all the way through, asking the right questions, doing a high value consultation, where I use a co-pilot system so the patient hears everything that’s going on, knowing that we have personality preferences, so we present everything in their model of the world. For example, people need to hear things like three or four times before they really get it or understand it, or want it, or want to buy it or want to work with me. They need to hear me a number of times. So we will sprinkle in information as many touch points as possible. So, for example let me give you the basic example upfront contracts. We want to tell people what we’re going to do before we’re going to do it. So when you booking a new patient consult, my receptionist is going to tell you. Well, when you come and meet Barry, what he’s going to do, is this, this, this, this, this, this and this, and all of that is just another language pattern is just 85 pounds, then that information is on the website and then that information is relayed at the first point of contact with the TCO when you go upstairs. Barry is going to do a BPE, and a BPE is where we’re looking to see whether the gums are healthy. 7 out of 10 of adults in the western world have gum disease. We want you to be the one in the three, not in the seven. The great news is, if you’re in the seven, we’ve got ways of looking after you and getting you to be healthy. So he’s going to divide your mouth into six. He’s going to use a little gentle ruler and just gently see if there’s a gap between the tooth and the gum and score from 0 to 4. Nor is perfection. You don’t need any treatment. What we’re going to do is put you into our hygiene maintenance program where you come to see the hygienist to keep you healthy for the next twice a year. If you get a score of one or two, that means you’ve got this thing called gingivitis. It’s inflammation of the gums and what we then do is look after you, provide you with this thing called gingivitis therapy so we can get you healthy, get you into the green zone and get you into hygiene maintenance. If you score a three or a four, that indicates that we need to do further investigation. There’s deeper pockets and we need to create an ordinal survey map so that you and we know where those deeper pockets are so we can clean them and that’s where you’re going to have periodontal therapy. Now. For us in my business, I would say that most dentists charge like an alley rate for hygiene therapy, and for me in our business we didn’t. We charged a fee per item, so we charged more. We charge a hygiene therapy more for gingivitis therapy, more for periodontal therapy. But then the patient comes up to see me and I’m going right. I know it’s been explained. So all I need you to do is listen out for the scores. The patients heard about their gum health three times before I’m even finding out what their gum health is. Then they hear a score that already bought into it. We don’t have to sell anything to a patient. The patient wants to purchase the product or the service that is going to keep them healthy, and so learn to punctuate all of the areas that the patient is with you in that journey with the right information that allows them to make their best choice, so that we’re not having to convince people, we’re just sharing the information and they go. Yeah, I want that, let’s do that. So number one is learn communication skills. Number two is have a beautiful patient journey. Number three is zone your diary. We have nine zones in my diary and why my rock time is there to generate is to work on anything that will generate a production of over a thousand pounds, which means I as an associate in my old practice, three days a week. I gross between four and six grand a day. I’m a sixty grand a month grosser. I don’t do implants. I do very little short term, although I just really good quality general dentistry, but we just have a beautiful systemized approach. All three of those fit the associate and the team because everybody’s involved with it. So it’s the same whether you’re an associate or a business owner. That’s it, man boom.
Dr James:
Thank you so much for that, barry. Thank you for your wisdom, as always on dentistry. Invest by anybody wants to reach out to. You will find out more about what you do. How is that?
Dr Barry:
the confidence dentist dot com and they can book a free call. There’s a QR code. You book a court. If you’re an associate, you can book a call on. One of my team will have a chat with you about our program. It’s a three month program with live coaching calls and it’s freaking fantastic. Most are associates double their income through service, not through just putting prices up right, and then, as a principal, you get to talk directly to me and it’s not for me to sell you anything, just to see if I can help. And if and how I can help, we can then have a conversation. That’s it. Thanks, man. Love, love dr martin what was that?
Dr James:
sorry? Thank you for the love that’s enough time anytime, anytime. You know what. You know what the power of positive mindset. I wasn’t even sure that was what you said, but you know what. That’s what I heard, barry. That’s what I heard and I needed to hear that’s, that’s what I heard and I vibe with it. So thanks so much, barry. Always good to have you on dentistry. Invest will have you back sometime soon. I’ll see you. See you later, bye. Bye, love it, man, check you out, bye.
