How to Optimize Your Ads with Simplicity AI

Hey there, and welcome back. I'm Dr. Vince Leone, executive producer and co-host of the Practice Builders Podcast. With my partner in crime, Dr. Kyle Pankinen, we deliver proven strategies to help you grow fast, specialize with confidence, and build profitable staff-run practices. Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode now.

Okay.

Hello and welcome everybody to this special interview with Dr. Bao Thai from Simplicity AI. Hey, Dr. Bao, how are you?

Good, brother. How you doing?

I'm doing great. I'm doing great. I just want to thank you for coming on and just having this interview so that we can share this with all of our members and they can learn, you know, more about, you know, well, you and your company, but more importantly, you know, how you're solving this issue of lead management for doctors to maximize the value of their marketing.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. I mean, I appreciate you having me on and really looking to help improve, you know, our colleagues' lives.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, just tell us a little bit about yourself. I know that you had a— um, you were big into the neuropathy space in, um, in Texas, and then, um, and then obviously tell us about Simplicity and how that came about.

Yeah, yeah. So I've been, uh, graduated Parker '02, um, quite a while now. The last 15 years I've had 2 neuropathy clinics, one in Houston and Dallas, uh, 7-figure clinics, uh, all cash-based. And, um, you know, when I started It was great. I mean, neuropathy was amazing. We were helping a lot of people, and really there weren't a lot of docs in that space. And, you know, we grew and grew and got to the point where I had 27 employees at the time. My overhead was, I think, $110,000 a month. You know, it was— it was— That could be a little stressful. A little stressful. Yeah. Yeah. We were doing everything from TV ads, Facebook ads, Google, you know, getting doctor referrals. I mean, I had, you know, 5 call people at one time, um, phone, phone people, you know, all these salespeople, case managers, you name it. So, but it was literally the worst time of my life, Vince. It was the worst time.

Yeah.

And we were making crazy amount of money, but I had so much stress from dealing with the staff that it literally just drove me bonkers. And I would come home at night and, you know, pop open a bottle of wine because I've been so strung up all day dealing with, you know, the ups and downs. Like, okay, you close the patient, you help them, great. And then, you know, one of your team members is arguing with another, and then patients are feeling that pressure. And then, you know, things just continue to snowball from there. So I said there had to be a better way.

Hmm.

And this is where we created Simplicity AI, where I was looking at how do you take technology to take over the redundant things that we do in the office that now I don't have to stress about those things anymore.

Yeah.

And it was AI, you know, AI. We went in and dove head in first and figured out how do we get AI to answer every single lead. So we did a lot of TV leads, you know, a lot of TV shows, and we would get anywhere from 50 to 70, 100 calls almost at once to book appointments. Well, you know, we hired a call center. It failed. They, they just couldn't answer the questions people had. You know, do you take insurance? They would fumble. They couldn't handle all the calls at once. It was just a hot mess. And we went through all that and I was like, you know what? Technology has to be the answer. And so then created Simplicity AI. You know, I sold my practices, but even today the owners are still doing TV and it's answering every single call. It's booking them, answering all their questions. It's doing all of that now. And it's really changed the way I see practice. And what we do now is we help make practice fun again for doctors. By helping reduce the stress and creating systems and consistency.

I mean, that sounds pretty good. Uh, I love that. In fact, we just did a training today on how do you, um, uh, deal with an employee who just exited the business and, and then rehire and onboard, because it's a— you're right, I mean, that can be a massive headache. So tell me about simplicity, um, and And what exactly you do and how it helps doctors.

Yeah, so what we do, the easiest way to explain it is that if you're running any kind of advertisement, you have to capture those people the minute they raise their hand. And so what we do is we create very trained, specific AI assistants now that will talk to them, that will qualify them, answer their questions, get requested appointments. Basically, we don't want the staff, the team, to have to worry about leads. Until it's truly a qualified hot lead. And when it's a truly qualified hot lead, that's where now your team needs to step in to create that human connection. Because at that point, they're not having to chase 1,000 calls. Their mind is fresh. It's free. You know, they're focused on just one thing, just less volume but more quality. And so what we do is we create these AI systems and workflows to now Get them booked, help facilitate that process, and help patients get into the office, help doctors get more appointments.

Yeah, I love that. And so instead of having to chase 100 leads, they can basically just do reminder calls for, say, 10.

Yeah.

And then they get maybe whatever, maybe all 10 in, close 5, and it's a win.

Yeah, I mean, it's a win-win for sure. I mean, what you find is, and you probably know this better than most, digital leads are meant for speed.

Mm-hmm.

But humans are not. And that's the core problem on why now I see practices failing is because most calls and most people who opt into forms and/or landing pages or lead forms, it happens when you're closed.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, we'd all love to say, hey, you know, opt in while we're at the office, but it's just not realistic. It doesn't happen.

Can you please just sign up between 9 and 5?

Exactly. You put on your landing page, only contact us between 9 and 5. It just doesn't happen. It's always after work, in the evening, early, early in the morning when the problem is there. That's when they have the issue. So what we do is we button that up now. So we create a very high-end, you know, customized AI assistant that will talk to them. We have a texting process. We have a reminder process. We help build trust by, you know, you guys create videos, we send out the videos, we track all those links. The AI is now the quarterback.

Mm-hmm.

You know, I love that. It's literally the quarterback, and then now it's running the entire show, and everybody else is just a player on the field at this point.

Yeah. So I was gonna kind of ask you, like, what pitfalls are doctors running into? I'm assuming speed to lead is the primary.

Yeah, that's, that's probably the number one thing. It's, it's what— that's probably 2 things. One is speed to lead, and then 2 not tracking it, what they're doing in the office, because their staff is so busy. So it's like the staff will never really tell you how many calls you actually got, how many leads you actually get, how many people they actually contacted. They'll never tell you the answer, the true answer, you know. And, and for you to really grow your practice, you gotta, you gotta know those, those numbers.

Yeah.

Because if you don't, that's the problem. So then now we go from them not knowing to every single person being called, everybody being contacted now. And so that's how the dynamic shifts.

Yeah, I love that. And on top of that, you know, we train our staff as, as best as possible, but they are still human, right? So, um, are they answering the questions properly? Are they in a bad mood that morning? Did they not get their coffee? You know, that's— those are the things I start to think about with, with AI and, and how it can, um, optimize results as much as possible because it's going to have the perfect response ideally, you know, over time as it learns, will continue to have, you know, better and better responses every single time, time after time, right? So that way you can really get the most money out of your, your marketing dollars that are being spent.

Yeah, 100%. You know, when back when I was still practicing, I remember too listening, somebody calls, hey, how much is your neuropathy program? I kid you not, my front desk comes in, oh, it's $10,000. And I just sat there. It was no context, no nothing. Literally, how much was your neuropathy program? $10,000.

Click.

Hang up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So if it's— hold on one second. Okay. Can you hold on one second? Sure. Yeah. Hey guys, hey, I'm on a podcast. I need you to be quiet. Sorry, my my son came in. So that's okay.

Yeah, yeah. No worries.

Yeah, but literally they said ten thousand dollars. It was literally click. There wasn't. Well, tell me more about your problem. How long have you had it for? What have you failed? How's it? How's it? What is it doing to your life? You know, what is it that you can't do anymore? It was none of that. It was literally. Boom.

Yeah.

And I just sat there and I was like, yeah, that's not good.

Yeah, there goes $10K. That's it.

Well, and you know, it's, it's, it's at least give us a chance to help these people because, you know, especially in that space and with everything that we all do, whether decompression, whether neuropathy treatments, these patients are at a point where we know the alternative isn't that great. You know, having back surgery, a fusion, you know, I've seen 3, 4, 5-level fusions. They don't work. You know, it's horrible. And I've seen neuropathy. All they do is just give you meds. They give you gabapentin, Lyrica, Cymbalta, you know, and just tell you to live with it. I mean, it's just— the alternative is horrible. So as chiropractors, our team has to be better to be able to talk to these people, because without them being trained properly, you're not going to be able to help the public and the population like we should be able to.

Yeah, we have to have them come into the office before we can help them. And if we— if they don't have the opportunity, then, you know, who knows what's going to happen to them after that. Um, let's see, how about a case study? Any, uh, kind of recent clients that you've been working with that, you know, you feel like would be cool story to share?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, real cool. So we had an ortho clinic, pretty big one up north. Um, they were doing a tremendous amount of, uh, Facebook ads They were getting over, I think over 100 leads, if not more than that per month.

Uh-huh.

Team couldn't keep up with the leads. We came into their office, implemented the system, and again, they didn't have to spend any more money on ads.

Yeah.

Okay. They had to spend no more money on ads. We just built a way more systematic follow-up process and got to the leads right away that, that last month they captured an extra $80,000.

Wild. That's wild.

And, and that's it. And it's just because they were depending on their staff to try to call people back. Well, the problem is the staff, they don't work until after— they don't work after 5.

Yeah.

And a lot of their volume was coming in then, and they were still playing— they were chasing people. And, you know, in their market, there's a lot of other neuropathy doctors. And so what, what happened was when the person didn't get a call, it now was like roulette, you know? It's like the next day, who gets to that person the fastest at the right time when they're free versus the person saying, hey, I need help, I need help, I need help. Let's get to them right away.

I love it. Um, so what is the onboarding process if a doctor's like, gosh, I don't know if my team follows up with the leads very promptly and I may need to look into this? What does that onboarding process, uh, look like? Uh, when coming on with Simplicity?

Yeah, so we take a deep dive. I mean, like everybody else, you know, it's like, like every, every single patient isn't a fit. And what we want to do is we want to really see, can we provide value for you? Do you really have a problem? Because I'll share with this, a lot of docs, the problem isn't the lead follow-up. Sometimes it's the ads, you know, you got to really figure out. Sometimes it's personnel. So what we try to do is just give you an honest assessment of what we can do, and if we think we can help, then we implement a process in there. You know, it takes 21 to 30 days to build out an AI assistant just because we're not a cookie-cutter process. I mean, I think nowadays you see on TikTok all these kids saying, oh, it takes me 2 minutes to build an AI assistant. Well, no, it doesn't. To build a true one and a real one, the one that works, that talks and connects everything, it takes, it takes a couple of weeks to get done overall.

Yeah. That— I mean, the 2-minute thing didn't sound like reality to me either, um, though I'm sure it gets more clicks. Um, so 21, 30 days, and then they're onboarded. And then, um, so the way I understand it, essentially your system is going to kind of take care about 90%. It's going to obviously reach out to the leads, text, call. Does it actually talk? Is it voice as well?

Yeah, yeah, it's voice. It's voice first, text second.

Okay, so tell me, just walk through that, like, just really quick. So a lead comes in, what exactly happens?

Yeah, so a lead comes in, uh, and then the first thing we do is we send out a primer text, and the text identifies them. So now every single AI assistant has a, uh, a name. So we'll call her Grace today, right? So let's say somebody opts in, a text message goes out first and says, hey, uh, this is Dr. Vince, My virtual assistant Grace is going to call you a bit because we saw that you were interested in spinal decompression. She's going to help you answer any questions that you have. So please pick up her call as she calls here. Okay, so something to that effect. Then within 45 seconds, the phone will ring and it'll have your caller ID. So we have a proprietary process where we actually register the clinic's name to get the caller ID on there.

Mm-hmm.

So that way people actually pick up the phone. So now they pick up the phone.

That's super important.

Yeah, it's huge.

Because now it's not just some random number. Hey there, it's Dr. Vince. And if you're getting value from this episode, please make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you know another doc who's ready to grow their practice, share this with them. It might be exactly what they need right now. Thank you in advance. And now Back to the show.

Exactly. Or if you don't, if you don't do that, it'll say scam or spam.

Yeah.

So then your pickup rate doesn't go up at all.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. So then the AI will introduce itself. We always say, you know, if you do AI, always say virtual assistant. We have the highest acceptance rate with that. People are good with that. And then from then it'll go through its natural progression. So depending on the funnel that you're running, we basically now Design it to optimize the funnel that you're doing in your office. So sometimes we'll get the appointment first, sometimes we'll ask questions first. So typically with neuropathy patients, we'll ask questions first, like, tell us about the problem. What have you failed? You know, are you still working? You know, questions that help kind of disqualify because of the, the nature of the, you know, the fee schedule there.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but then other things, we might book the appointment first and then ask a couple follow-up, uh, follow-up questions then. So it just depends on the niche.

And are they able to— is the agent able to schedule?

Yeah, it is. It is. So it'll be able to schedule inside. So most, most of the docs are familiar with GoHighLevel.

Sure.

A very popular CRM. So our AI assistants are able to schedule right inside GoHighLevel. Okay. Okay.

Got it. I love that. Cool. And then I'm assuming then the front desk will then kind of, you know, if it's a football analogy, the AI takes it from, you know, the 20-yard line to the 10-yard line and the front desk person takes it into the end zone from there. Is that kind of the thing? So they're gonna do a reminder call the night before, just make sure that, hey, you know where we're at, we're across from McDonald's on 5th Street, blah, blah, blah. We'll see you at 3, something like that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's probably more or less— they're right on the 1-yard line at this point. Oh, that's even better. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's right, it's right at the 1-yard line. So for most of our clients, we're at the 1-yard line that all they have to do is really just make that connection with them. And again, it could be very simple. Like one of the clinics we work with, they say, hey, we're located in the Starbucks shopping center, it's really busy all the time, but there's a couple parking spots dedicated for us, so just look for that sign right there, you know.

Mm-hmm.

So they're sending out messages like that to confirm the appointment. So it's not really a confirmation, but giving them the, you know, that message there. So it just creates more of a, a connection there. And then we'll have the AI send out videos for some of our docs as well too, like a what to expect, you know, meet the doctor. So we kind of, depending on how they're set up, some docs we do everything. Once an appointment books, connect it with the team member, send out the nurture videos, send out whatever needs to be sent out. So again, we do, do a lot of different things.

Yeah, um, I love it. So if doctors are interested in learning more, um, where, where can they go to, to, uh, to, to learn more about the pro— program process, all that good stuff?

Yeah, if they can, if they want to, they can go to simplicityai.life. It's just simplicityai.life. Or I'll give them my, my cell number. They can ask me questions. I mean, I kind of know how it is being a busy doctor. So if they want to reach me, they can reach me at 469- So it's my cell number.

Well, that, that's very nice of you to hand that out. Um, let me say it one more time just so— yeah, in case doctors forget.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's 469-360-1304. So, you know, with, with as many doctors we work with, one of the things that I still enjoy is working with doctors because again, we have a bond, we have a relationship, and, and I always— I know how it is working with you know, other companies. And for me, I always want to be there for the docs because I understand how our practice is. So everybody has my cell number. They know if they need something, if they can't go through the normal channels, they can always reach me, and I'll always take care of everything for them. So—

I love it. I love it. Um, all right, Dr. Powell. Well, hey, I want to thank you for your time today. I mean, this is amazing. I'm, you know, really interested in learning more about this. And, uh, you know, for all the docs out there, um, if you don't feel like your leads are being managed properly, I highly encourage you to reach out to Dr. Bao and, and learn more about this. Check out Simplicity, um, and, uh, you know, help squeeze out more revenue and profit from the marketing dollars that you're already spending. That's, that's the good news, right? We don't need to spend more, we just need to optimize what we're already doing.

Yeah, that's it, brother. I mean, nowadays practice is hard enough. It doesn't have to be hard anymore. Get systems in, streamline your processes, and even hiring becomes easier now because you're not hiring, you know, somebody to do a high-level job. You're hiring somebody to do very specific tasks, and that's where things change dramatically now.

I love it.

I love it.

Great thoughts there. Okay, Dr. Bao, thank you again, and, um, look forward to seeing you in Vegas here, uh, in just a week and a half or so.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, again, I really appreciate you having me on. It's been, you know, super fun. Like I said, happy to share more knowledge and, you know, share more to help our profession.

I love it. I love it. Okay, my friend, have a great rest of your day, and we will be, uh, hopefully speaking with you soon.

Sounds great. Thanks, Vince.

All right, bye-bye. Hey, it's Dr. Vince again, and hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you're ready to grow your practice fast with high-value decompression patients then the Decompression Accelerator could be a phenomenal option for you. This is our 90-day sprint to help you scale with proven systems, staff-driven protocols, and full marketing support, and it's all guaranteed. Spots are limited. Head to www.decompressionaccelerator.com to learn more.