Dr. Allen Nazeri explains how dentists can sell more elective procedures. He argues that staff appearance, office aesthetics, patient privacy, curated waiting-room materials, and pleasant sensory elements like music all influence whether patients say yes to cosmetic and other optional treatments.
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Of my own money, on my own teeth, to go have veneers and all this done. I've done it for my wife, I've done it for other people in my office. Actually, I have two office managers, they sent me their pictures last week and they've been in a ten year period. Both of them have done their smile because it's important. You want to sell more dentistry, you want to sell more whitening? Have everyone in your office just wear a plastic tray. Everybody starts asking you, well, what is that why everybody's wearing it? Well, we like to keep our teeth white. People will start asking and you will start selling more. More of that. Your office manager. If your office managers are having missing teeth, crooked teeth, how can you sell an orthodontic treatment to them? Okay, And I see this often, right? So they're trying to convince the patient to an implant, but they have a big gap themselves. Okay? So as dentists, you need to create that image that everything is good and you're using the best products, like going and buying a Mercedes Benz. But the manager for the dealership is driving, let's say Ford or Toyota. If you believe in your own product, you have to have it, you know.
Office, outdated decor, not inviting, privacy windows, not easy to find. People have to spend time trying to find it.
Not inviting. They have privacy window, you know, like some, some offices they have like a glass, you know, they have to open the glass, talk to the patient. You know, it's not like an open area, like an open counter. This smell like eugenol, it smells like medicine. When they go in, it's unorganized, there are a lot of piles of paper. There's no privacy for discussion. People do the treatment plans at the counter rather than having a nice consultation area. They're loud, they're hectic, kids are screaming in the other room. Takes a long time to answer the telephones, the emails.
There are graphic photos everywhere. They're covered, oh, this root canal. This is the perio. Everywhere there's posters, okay, These are turn offs.
Too much advertising or banners to try to get attention, old magazines. Actually, you should not even have magazines in your practices. What do magazines do?
But what else? They promote other businesses, advertisements. Do you ever go to a dealership, a car dealership, or even you go to your Hilton or Marriott. You see, they are advertising their properties. They're not advertising go to cruise or, you know, magazine, you know, buy this car. Then the patient would say, why should I spend my money here where I can go there, right? See, this is little things that counts. So you have to replace those magazines with maybe historical books, maybe coffee table books that, you know, talks about, let's say, the history of Manila, or talks about maybe history of airplane making, or maybe it could be recipe books for cooking, but not magazines. So what about something like dedicated to dentistry? Absolutely no problem. You can have videos about dentistry, the promotions you do, anything there that promotes you and your services.
Overfilled trash cans, dirty office, no relaxing music.
So one of the things you need to do is you need to make your own list. These are some common observations that I have made in the last three decades, visiting thousands of dental offices. So take two minutes right now and make a list of some of the emotional turnoffs that you can come up with right in front of that slide so you can go back and talk to your staff. It could be a paint coming off of a door. It could be an upholstery of dental chair that's ripped. It could be the dental X ray unit has hit the wall. There were like scratches on the wall. Okay. It could be the apron that you're using is all cracked up for the X ray. Make a few lists so when you go back, you have something to think about the two minutes. Make a list, please. Latte.
