Episode 54 - Money in the Banana Stand

The speaker discusses the importance of building lasting relationships with patients in a dental practice. They use an episode of the show Arrested Development as an analogy, where a hidden money stash in a banana stand represents the true value of the practice. The speaker suggests segmenting patient lists and tailoring messages to each group to improve outreach and marketing effectiveness. They emphasize the need to make messages about the patients and their needs, rather than focusing on the practice's needs. The speaker also recommends using multiple communication channels to reach patients. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Practice X-Factor. As usual, we're here to bring you timely information that's relevant to helping grow your membership dental practice. And today we're talking about one of my favorite shows of all time, one of my favorite series rather, which is Arrested Development. And I love the humor in it. I love the parody. And it's just one of those series you can watch and things just continue to build on other moments. And really, I think it's pretty genius the way that they came up with some of that humor. And the reason I say that in context of your practice is there's an episode where they talk about this banana stand. And what happens is the dad's in prison, and he had lined the banana stand with cash. And his kids find out some things about their dad, and they're upset, and so they burn down the banana stand. And he has this saying that he told them from when they were growing up that there's always money in the banana stand. And they assume that meant in the business of the banana stand, but what he was talking about was actually that he had hidden money in the banana stand. So I'm not suggesting you hide cash in your dental practice, but rather think of this as what inside of your practice is actually worth the most. What's the most valuable asset in your practice? Recently, my family was out in Newport, and we went to Balboa Beach. And they have these banana stands where they have banana and dipped ice cream bars, and they're really delicious. If you haven't tried one, I suggest you check it out. But when we were there, that's where I found out that the Blue's Banana Stand in the Arrest Development series was actually shot, part of the series was shot and filmed using one of these banana stands in Balboa Island. And so it got me thinking to how valuable our patients are as the number one asset in our practice. So, you know, you could take away the equipment, you could take away the building, you could take away the procedures that you've learned and the CE, and as long as you have those lasting relationships with your patients and with your team members, you'd be able to rebuild and the practice would survive. You may know someone who's had a practice that has caught on fire or flooded. I have several friends and colleagues that have gone through that. And I can't imagine what it's like, and it can't be fun. But those lasting relationships are really where the true value is in your practice. And this episode got me to think about, it reminded me of how important those relationships are that we build. So there are a couple of ways that I would encourage you to go out this week and further the relationships with your patients. And the area we have been focusing on more lately in our office that's provided to be very fruitful is list segmentation. And if you don't know what list segmentation is, it's a marketing term where you break down the message you're sending out to target lists. For example, your overdue hygiene patients would be list segmentation. And your new patients who still haven't been in the office yet for their first visit would be a list. And your new patients who came in once but haven't come back would be a list. When you break down those lists and then you make a message that's catered to those lists, you'll find that your outreach and your marketing and your phone calls and text messages and emails that you send out or postcards, they'll be much more meaningful and your return on investment will be much higher. One of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make, which I would include most dental practices as a small business, even if you're a $10 million a year dental practice, you're still considered a small business, is they try to imitate what big businesses do. So a big business, if you were to take Target, for example, or Home Depot, they're going to have some kind of email list or some kind of text message list potentially, but it's going to be a very diluted message that goes to everybody. You know, it might say, 10% off anything this week that you buy. And in dentistry, if you send a message out like that, you're probably not going to have people knocking down your door to come and get a root canal or an implant for 10% off because let's be honest, most people don't wake up thinking, I'd love to go to the dentist today if I could just catch a break and get 10% off. Whereas somewhere like Home Depot, they're so big that you're always going in and buying more things. It's not going to work. But if you segment your message instead and you were to reach out to your over-the-recare patients and said, hey, we're going through your chart, we noticed it's been over a year since you've been in. We just want to check in and see how your smile is feeling or how your mouth is feeling. You're just initiating a conversation. If you take the approach of it's been over a year and we want to give you 10% off your re-care, that could work, but it's not going to be as meaningful as if you ask a question to that person that's going to open up a conversation. And it might be they give you some feedback on why they didn't come back or maybe they lost their job or maybe they lost their insurance. And it provides opportunity for you to share your membership plan or share your payment plans or share some ways you can help that patient. And you're being genuine by saying, how is your mouth feeling? I want to check on you. Whereas if you take the approach of, hey, we noticed you haven't been in and we want to get you scheduled for your next cleaning and checkup, that's a message that's all about me and my needs and what I want. I want to fill my schedule. I want to make money. I want to see you. I want to see your teeth. I want to see your teeth. Whereas when you flip that to making it about you and pointing the finger out instead of in, then you are now speaking in their language. Something I've learned in leadership is when something goes wrong, you want to point the finger to yourself and take responsibility. But when you want somebody to act on something or when you're marketing, you always want to make the message pointing towards them. So how does this benefit you? How is this going to help you? What are you thinking? What's going on in your life? How can I be of service to you? And it's a totally different mind shift from how sometimes we're conditioned to do things, which is when we go to market or sell something, we start talking about me and our and we and ours versus and then when something goes wrong, we want to point the finger at somebody else. So when you flip that upside down and you take responsibility for when things don't go right. And then when you're trying to help somebody make progress or get from point A to point B, you point the message outward and say you and yours. And that makes a huge difference in the way that they're spoken to. Also, if you have patients who have called and scheduled but never come in, we call that a new patient. No first visit list. Well, there's money in that banana stand because there are people in that list who called that maybe they're terrified of the dentist or they just got busy or they forgot. Maybe they went somewhere else and they didn't have such a great experience. And so they're open to what you have to share. So what I would encourage you this week is break down some lists, get with your admin team or your office manager, marketing assistant or your hygienist and divide up these lists and then make some conversation starter messages and start sending them out. You can make phone calls, send text messages, write letters, send emails. I would suggest a combination. We call it two-to-one communication, which means if I want to reach somebody, I need to contact them at least two ways. That could be in person and a text. That could be an email followed up by a phone call. That could be a phone call followed up by an email. But you have a much higher chance of success when you give people a couple different ways to reach you. Sometimes you may call them, but they may prefer email because they're working. Or you may text them and they don't check their texts very often and they would prefer maybe a letter. You know, it just depends on age, demographic, your location, where you're at, but by dividing up your list and treating each people as a member of that list, you'll find that your message to them about joining a membership plan and growing your practice will be very different. So thanks for listening to this episode. Love to hear your feedback and look forward to seeing you on the next episode where we'll pick up and continue more on this topic. Have a great week.