258: Cut Marketing Waste and Get More Patients in Your Dental Practice

I see like people spending 20k on Google Ads for like a single office and then you have an ad campaign that's super convoluted that no one understands. And you know, there you are just spending money, making Google rich. I like to say, don't make Google rich. Take some of that money, put it into your own things.

Hi, I'm Emmett Scott and just like you, I've had my ups and downs in the dental industry, but times are changing. The DEO has built a map of how to succeed in one of the most challenging industries to navigate. On this show we talk to dental industry leaders, solve problems and get the answers you need to face these challenging times and thrive. Welcome to DEO's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Now let's get started.

Welcome back to another episode of DEO Growth Secrets podcast where we dive into actionable strategies and leadership insight for dental practice owners, leaders and growth focused teams. I'm your host Kendall Hussain and today we have an incredible show for you. We are talking about efficiency first in marketing. Ooh, websites. Real time ROI for our practices. And so I am so excited to have Ali Sufi here who is the founder of and CEO of docsites which is a company built to solve a major pain point for our dental practices. He is providing affordable, high performing websites, digital marketing that actually drive and deliver results. And so under Ali's leadership, docsites has been able to help hundreds of practices cut wasteful spending while building stronger online presence and growth. And so Ali really knows what it takes to grow service based business and help that business grow. And so welcome my friend Ali.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the intro, Kendall. Thank you, deo. It's a pleasure being here.

We're so excited that you're here with us today. And I want to jump right in because Doc Sites is an amazing company that I've personally worked with as well as some of my clients. You are doing absolutely fantastic work and so I'm so excited to have you here and to really share what docsites is all about. And so what I know about Doc Sites is that this is all about efficiency first. And so what does it really mean when it comes to dental practice marketing, especially for our teams that feel like they're already doing enough? What is efficiency first?

So when we say efficiency first, we're not talking about no growth. And you know, you not growing. Of course growing is number one. Everyone's here to grow. But making things more efficient helps you grow by cutting waste, by cutting fluff, by Cutting things that you don't need, or wasteful spending on ads and such. You could take that money, put it into staff development teams, all these other things that will help your growth, where you might be just under the assumption, hey, I have to spend 5k a month on my marketing. And just because everyone else is, you know, I'm spending it and my phone rings sometimes where I'm not sure exactly where the leads are coming from. And that's the typical story.

I love it. So what are the common areas where practices are wasting their marketing budget without even realizing it?

So some places, most places are spending on Google Ads and, you know, high budgets. The ads are just not set up properly. You know, it's an emergency ad, going to the homepage, no emergency offer, nothing mentioned of emergency. The budget is 5K. It's running all over the US and it should only be running around your office. You know, anyone from a kid in the garage could set up Google apps to a company that charges, you know, 50% of the budget. It's the wild west, unfortunately, and I hate to say that, but it is the wild west. With marketing websites and just in general, you have to be careful not getting into a contract. It's okay to get into the contract, but just know what you're getting. Don't sign up for something that sounds good up front. And then, you know, it's six months, seven months, and you're like, what's going on? Your ads, you've never heard of the company talking about them? Basically, when the company doesn't talk much with you and you're setting up ads and marketing, they usually do some generic things that have nothing to do with your services. For example, Kendall's client we work with, she speaks. She's in a standard speaking area. She has an emergency offer. She has two practices. We highlight the emergency because that's an urgent thing. People search for, they find her site, and the ads don't have to be for 5k. You could say spend 2k or less on just my emergency. Let's see if it does well. And then we could spend more or less, depending on those results. And I'll stop for a minute, but I'll give you guys a real life example of some clients that have saved and done better.

I love that we here at DEO are all about making sure we've got that return on investment. And so are you able to help the offices that you're working with really identify which dollars are wasteful for them? Just because I assume that it's going to be different for individual practices. Right, like, of course.

So, you know, I've been doing this like over 15 years. And as a DEO sponsor and, you know, vendor, we're here to give anyone that wants an assessment, no strings attached. We've done them for, you know, some of your clients. It's just literally, let's go over what you're doing. We're not trying to get your budget out of you. We're not trying to figure out how much you're spending. So we could charge you the same amount. Our prices are all, all on our website. Super Transferring all month to month, but without that. Just talk to us, get some feedback. Let's look at your ads. So many clients share their screens with me and they show me their ads or some report or something. And I see like people spending 20k on Google Ads for like a single office. And the ad just like. And I hate to say this, but if you're doing your own ads, Google calls you from, you know, somewhere in the Middle east every week and says, do this, do that. The main goal is moving up your budget. And then you have a ad campaign that's super convoluted, that no one understands. And, you know, there you are just spending money, making Google rich. I like to say, don't make Google rich. Take some of that money, put it into your own things or start smaller experiment. Don't just throw your eggs in the ad or SEO or online basket. Throw it everywhere. See what works for your office. We have offices that do best with a flyer in a Vietnamese market next door to him because he can't afford 8k a month in Las Vegas to compete with the DSO. So get creative. It doesn't mean you can't compete. If you can't, you know, don't have the DSO budget. It means you could get creative and talk to people like us. Talk to Kendall, the DEO team, get some advice and see what others are doing. That could work. There's many clients working with us that don't spend, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on marketing. And they're doing very well.

I think that's the hardest part. And you nailed it. That there is so many options and shiny things that keep flashing in, in our right. It's like, work with this, invest in this. We can do this from big, big companies to smaller individual offices or companies that, you know, are just starting up. And so it's, it can be a lot. It can be overwhelming. And so working with a company like Docsites, that can really Take a moment to analyze what you're already doing and then construct it to figure out what is going to be the best levers to pull to get that return on. Investment is a huge part of the partnership. And I know personally from, you know, looking at numbers that there's a lot of practices that are spending big money on their websites and their marketing and it doesn't drive the measurable results that we're looking for. And so from your experience, Ali, where does this waste typically come from? Where's the biggest place that people are wasting their money?

Waste could start from the website setup fee. Let's say you could spend, let's say 3,4k with us for a great website or you can spend 50k with a company that says we're providing you the Ferrari of websites. The guy with the toothache that needs a great doctor, you know, he doesn't care how fancy your website is. Or don't make your website for yourself or for vanity purposes or for your glamour shots that you love to see. Yes, brand, show yourself. But don't make your website about what you want to see. Make it about what the patient wants to see. The patient always wants to see your reviews. Who you are, your office, you know, like a first impression. Just like when they walk into your office, if your floors are dirty, they're going to get a bad impression. If your website stocky and old, they're going to get a bad impression. So it depends if you're looking for a high end cosmetic off, you know, client or patient, you can't market the same as the guy that's in, you know, near downtown Chicago just looking for a bunch of emergency patients for his associate. So everyone's a little different. You have to talk to the company and that's where a lot of waste goes in. Someone spends 30k on a website because you know, the guy next door had a fancy website and he wants to, he got sold on the vanity and you know, that's okay in some professions. But in dental, the foundation is show yourself, show your practice, show your reviews, show your team, show your offers if you have any. Why would someone come to you? Why would I go to you for invisalign versus the guy under or above you on Google. It's not the first guy you know on top of Google wins anymore. It's who has the most reviews, it's who has the before afters, who has the happy patience to show. And these are all the things we try to capture without you spending tens of thousands of dollars. And it's easily done.

Oh, that was such great advice. You said, make your website for your patients and what they want to see, not making your website what you want to see. And I can't tell you how many times I've seen that. You know, we see this website and I'm like, kind of missing this. Like, this is. You look really pretty, but, you know, where. Where's the photos of the team? Where's the photos of you guys having fun doing this great dentistry? And I just thought that that was such amazing advice because as a business owner, I've definitely been stuck in that mindset. It's like, oh, I like this, I like that, I like this, I like that. And that that comes across as a lot of what I want to see and what I'm trying to show. Which, of course, yes, is very important because it's our brand, it's our marketing, it's what we're putting out there to the world. But we do really have to look at it from the consumer's standpoint, not necessarily our standpoint.

Exactly. What would make you choose a doctor over, you know, another doctor? When you're new in town looking for, you know, a dentist, for example, what would make you call someone or fill out their appointment form? Maybe it's because they speak Spanish and your family Spanish. Maybe it's because, you know, you like their team members. Maybe it's because their office represents your town. Maybe it's because they have so many happy testimonials. A lot of different things make people take different actions. And if you highlight the main things, like, I've looked at analytics for, you know, 20 years, and the main pages are always after the homepage. People check out the doctor's page. So some doctors don't even want to put their photo there, which is a mistake. Like, put yourself out there, you're the brand. Show yourself, show your associates. It's okay if they change often. It's okay if your turnover is there. Just change it. Change it on the website. Every time something changes, you get a new cone beam, you get an itero. Whatever's happening, update it on your website yourself, your team, whoever wants to do it. And like I said, you could save a lot of money by just showing people what they want to see and getting to the foundational basics with hat, like you said, those shiny rocks. And, you know, we get. We all do it like AI and all this hot trends are coming and we get like, oh, this guy says, I have an AI tool that's going to get you on Page one at Google. But, you know, he has no clients to show, so we have to just look back at the foundation. Is this site properly set up? Is it optimized? Just the basics, like the basics of customer service. If you do good service, you're going to get good, happy patients, good reviews. You know, there's no magic pill. Even in all these years, I've looked for the shortcut. There's no shortcut. It's always consistency, hard work, great service. And, you know, there's no shortcuts, no

magic wands, my friend. Right.

I've been looking for it. It's not good.

So funny. A lot of the sites and campaigns, just like you said, those big, you know, shiny rocks, all they have, they say that they have all the bells and whistles, they look really cool, but they don't actually drive the business. And so what does cutting the fluff look like in a website marketing strategy?

Cutting the fluff. And you know, I'm not saying all companies do this. Just look at what you're signing up for. But sometimes the fluff is too many reports. Justification meetings where every month you're just arguing with the company, hey, I'm not ranking. Hey, you gotta wait. Hey, I'm not ranking. Hey, you gotta wait. You know, things like that, you know, my phone's not ringing. If it's becoming a battle of justification and you know, from the beginning, that's often a red flag. So sometimes you want to avoid. You want to try to smell those things out in the sales call, in the, you know, first couple of meetings with the company. Make sure it's not like they're charging you 2k a month because they're giving you a report and a phone call and you know, they're just charging you for random things that add up to 2k. The basics aren't there. They're not doing optimized blogs for your services in your area. They never asked you what treatments and services are you good at that you want to promote. It's just, just blind, you know, marketing that they do for thousands of other clients, that's one red flag. And those often cost a lot of. Let's say I've seen doctors pay for SEO, not even Google Ads. There's some waste in SEO as well. So look at your contracts. Look at how much are you paying? And I always ask doctors, like, they say, hey, Ali, I'm paying like seventeen hundred dollars a month for SEO. And I say, what are you getting for that? And they could never answer. It's hard for Them to know there's no blog or anything that's tangible to look at. Some companies play the game of, oh, we're doing SEO in the background. It's just if it sounds too good to be true, if it sounds like fluff, if it's, you know, I think DEO members are savvy. They're, you know, growth mindsets. They know what to look for, they know what kind of. They've learned the mistakes of shiny rocks and whatnot. So now it's the time to look at the basics. If the basics are not there, don't worry about all the other, you know, speed report and these technical things that you get try to get sold on your site does not show you have over 200 reviews. You've worked so hard on Google to get Your reviews to 200 and not one place on your site or any of your marketing does it say you have reviews. These are just basic things. People are paying, you know, thousands a month for a marketing company, but that marketing company never highlighted their reviews, never had a new patient offer, never discussed, what are you good at? You know, I've seen implant practices pay for Invisalign ads. I've seen general dentists that's never done implants doing implant ads when they've never even. They're just wasting money. So small things to look at that could save you a lot of money over time.

I can't not tell you how many times I've talked to a client about marketing. And we're trying to dig in and really see where in the funnel could things be going wrong. Is it their top line strategy? Perhaps it's in the middle and we're not capturing the leads and answering the phones and they're telling me, oh, we've got these great reports and I say, great, how are we using them? What do they mean? And they have no idea what they're all about or what telling.

I heard a doctor say, you know, my rankings and everything is great, but my appointment book is empty. And like that always stuck with me. That was like 22 years ago someone said that. And it stuck with me because it's true. Who cares about the reports, the rank? Nothing matters if your phone doesn't ring or your appointment forms don't get filled out if your chair is empty. So with that said, the other side of it is not all doctors, but many offices. They don't track well internally. They expect a marketing company to give them the roi, which is very tough to do. If I go to one of our clients and Say, okay, we did ads this month for 1800 bucks a month. This was the landing page, this was the form. Here's the eight people that came to this form. She says, okay, out of these eight people she goes checks with her team. She goes, this Guy John booked 9k worth of veneers and you know, there's my ROI. But her team could tell you every single lead, how many times they were followed up with who called them, what the status is basically chase the guy till the guy says I'm coming in or leave me alone. But the 99% majority and not 99, let's say 90% majority is they call John. Once John's busy, he doesn't pick up. And John goes in the trash, nobody else follows up with him. The next day, John's forgotten the voicemail's never checked. They're too busy with the day to day and they don't follow up or track the leads. So our clients that some of them have a treatment coordinators, other have coaches like you. The ones that, you know, get serious with the, what happens after the lead comes in are the ones that do much better and are more happy with marketing than the ones that say, what's the roi?

Yeah, how long does it take for a marketing campaign to really get legs and start to generate the phones ringing?

Sure. So unfortunately that's dependent on area, you know, status of your domain. So for example, your client that we worked with, she already had a web presence, she already had a domain. She just had an old site that was done abroad with no, you know, US based company to know how dental marketing works. But she wasn't, she was already somewhat established. So when we did her website and redid the SEO, she's ranking well in a couple months. She's showing up because there was already some establishment there with her domain age and presence and whatnot. She had some reviews versus a startup that comes with new domain. No reviews, no nothing. They go in Houston, Texas, super competitive area and you know, for them it's going to take longer to rank. They might have to do ads to begin with while the SEO kicks in. But I always tell all the startups or the newer guys don't just wait on, you know, the ads to start generating, hit the streets, knock on doors, you know, it's not just The ADs and SEO, don't just rely on your SEO and marketing and ad and digital presence. Yes, that's one, that's a fraction of your marketing. What else are you doing? Are you knocking on doors? Are you, do you Have a referral program, do you? How many word of mouth patients do you get? If it's low, then you have to work on those things as well.

Absolutely. I call that boots on the ground marketing. And it's such a huge, huge part of that marketing strategy is exactly like you said, making yourself known, getting out there into the community and really just knocking on doors and saying, hey, I'm the local dentist down the street. Come and visit me. So one of the things I know docsites is known for, and it's one of the things that I really love about the company, is that you guys are totally transparent. You guys have affordable pricing, which can sometimes be a big contrast to these huge agencies that are trying to upsell practices constantly. How does DOC site structure your offering so that practices know exactly what they're getting?

So if you go to docsites.com you could see our website here where I know the restaurant In n Out. I'm not sure if many people have heard of it, but it's a great restaurant that has a few items on the menu. You know, they're not selling everything like McRibs and whatnot. They're just good at what they do and the price is right there. They've stayed consistent to their values, their service. And we're kind of like that. We have three website tiers, all of them, by the way, we give you guys discounts on all DEO members get like a thousand dollars off. So the setup fee comes very low for all DEO members. So if you go check it out, there's three websites here. They're all just for the website management, updates, hosting, SSL. It's just $79. We take care of that. But we have optional marketing packages which are there. There's three SEO packages along with the Google Ads management. The fees are right there. They're all, you know, 300 to 700. They're not thousands. We're not trying to be the agency that's sitting here and you know, every month they have to hire a new strategist to come sit with you and, you know, never learn about your. It's just, here's what we have. Here's what works, here's what. And it's thousands of clients now that are using us. That it's a no fluff proactivity. It keeps you going. It's like somebody, for example, they'll pay a company 1500amonth for SEO. They'll get one blog post. That company will, you know, custom write a long blog that you know People don't usually read, but they never touch the Google business. They don't do some of the basics. So our packages just touches all the basics. Google business, Facebook page, your website, all that activity helps you move up organically. If you're doing ads, we have different landing pages, offers. We have team members here you could talk to. By the way, everything is month to month. There's no contracts. You could, we always say, like, let's try the ads for two, three months, see if it works. Why would you get locked into one year if something's not working? You're not going to like the company. We're going to, you know, not like working with you if no one's happy. So why force somebody into something that they don't like? We, our price is there. Our doors are open. You know, you could come, you could leave. Most people come to us because they've been to these agencies that have promised the world for thousands of dollars. There's good ones out there. You know, we're not like a branding design agency. We're not doing custom sites with, you know, flying in logos. We're just giving what the patient needs. A nice site, represents you properly, is optimized well, gets found on Google. But you have to do your part. You have to get your reviews up, you have to give us personal photos, you have to get your team involved to ask for reviews. You know, nothing works. The marketing company doesn't work alone. If anyone tells you that, that's usually a red flag because like, let's say you have the best ads, you have the best positioning on Google. You're the first ranking that you've been dreaming for, for years, but you have nothing on your site that converts. The guy's gonna go to the next guy on Google. It's just like, unfortunately, I hate to compare it to Amazon products, but we're not clicking the top product on Amazon. We're clicking the one with the most reviews, regardless where it is. So that's how people are treating your Google business profile. If you don't touch it, if you don't get your reviews, if it's not active, you don't win as much as the other guys that are touching it. So basically, for very affordable fees that are all on our website, lots of customer service attached to it, you could call me, you could call my team. We're here nine to five. We're not outsourcing to abroad. I pick up my phone, I could give you guys my cell phone number. We're not like a corporate company hiding behind suits, just working on acquisition. And we're here to give a good service with no contract. Show you that what we do is good. It might not be a good fit for everyone, but it could get everyone moving. Whether you've been spending a lot of money and you want to cut back, because many people that come to us, they're cutting back from the 4, 5, 6k budgets that we're spending. And let me give you one example. I never tell someone to sign up with us right away. For example, we do an assessment. The guy says, I'm working with this company and My budget is 5k for Google Ads, and I'm estimating around 30 patients a month. And I don't know the exact sources of those patients. They say google. But I do have 700 reviews. So I don't know if they're from my reviews or my ads. So I say, okay, tell the company to reduce your ad budget from 5k or 4k to 2k, cut it in half, do it for a month, see if you notice any difference. He does it for a month. No difference in the patient numbers. Same similar results. Okay, now reduce it 75%. So after three months, they realize, like, I was spending 4K on ads, my numbers did not change at all. So now I'm going to put that 4k into hiring someone or whatever, take 1500 of it, throw it into another ad campaign that might actually do well for me. So that's how we work with a lot of people. We check out your stuff, see if we're a good fit, give you the free info whether you use us or not. And you're, you'll just end up saying, hey, these are some nice guys. You know, they didn't try to hard sell me and they gave me great advice and there was no strings attached. It's kind of, you know, it's shocking in some cases because we really don't try to be like salesy and say anything to get it. Fine.

I love that so many practices are relying exclusively on paid ads. Right? That's what you were talking about. And they feel stuck thinking that they need to pay for more and pay for more and pay for more, when in reality, as per your example you just shared, they're actually getting diminishing returns or their returns aren't changing. And so is it realistic for practices to be able to scale without a heavy ad spend, or is there still a role if paid ads are done right?

Both. There's many clients we have that only do SEO. There's many clients we have that don't even do any marketing because their word of mouth is great. Their reviews, their patients are already booked out till February. They can't even take new patients. So every practice is different. But to answer your question, the ones that are too reliant on ads, that means they haven't given their organic any effort. If that ad faucet, if the Google faucet, if the Google AI flags your ads, for example, for whatever reason, your ads die, your leads die, the faucet turns off, your marketing dies, you have no organic presence. So don't just focus on the ads, focus on organic. And by organic, I don't mean you must hire a SEO company. I'm saying get your reviews up. Every word. In every single review. Your. Your client has 300 reviews. If someone mentions Emergency in there and someone searches Emergency in Birmingham, Alabama, there's a likelihood she's going to be found. Found. So the effort that you put into getting your Google reviews up, the effort you put into taking before afters, the effort you put in to ask your happy patients, hey, I just gave you a discount on your teeth whitening. Please do a video for me and say how amazing I've been for the last 10 years. You gotta ask people to get what you want to build your organic presence so you're not dependent on an ad company. Even us. Let's say you want to leave us and go somewhere else. Your reviews, your videos, your testimonials, all that content, that's your organic, that goes with you. No one can take that away from you. And with the future of AI and whatnot, put that stuff on Instagram, put that stuff on. You know, if you're playing with TikTok, whatever you're doing, getting those things that are organic and personal to your practice is what's going to take you less, make you less dependent on Google Ads. Yes. Google Ads are good to do. They work for some. A lot of doctors hate it just because they've had one bad experience. I hear so many doctors saying, no, I don't want to talk about Google Ads. I tried it once and it sucked. You know? Okay, what happened? I spent 3k a month. Nothing happened. Okay. Was there a landing page? No. Was there an offer? No. Was everyone going to the homepage? Yes. Were the apps running in your area only? I don't know. So if these things are not answered right or set up right, then you could feel like you're wasting money on ads. So why not try it again for 2, 3 months? Do it yourself. We'll Support you. We'll set up a complimentary landing page. I'll give you all the advice you need. I'll even look at your screen and tell you how to set up your ads. And we'll do the landing page for you. If you're doing our site, that's how you know we're trying to make you guys see that there's other ways to do things, not just, hey, an agency said spend 5k, so my neighbor's doing it. So I'm going to do it too.

From your expertise, because you've been doing this for a long time. What should practices be focusing on today to really help them improve their visibility and patient acquisition? If they don't want to pay for every single click, they're going to have

to focus on reviews. Google reviews. That's the number one thing you know, now doctors are more open to asking, to putting systems in place, putting your QR code in there, training their team rather than incentivizing the patient because you're really not supposed to, you know, incentivize for reviews. You incentivize the team. Hey team, if we get, you know, this is what I always tell them on the phone call. How many patients leave your door per day? They tell me, you know, 10, 15, 20, whatever, five. I say, okay, if five of those were super happy and your front desk person or whoever's checking them out says, hey, can you share your experience? Send them, you know, give them the QR code. One of those people do it, that's 30 reviews a month. That's over 300 a year. Just make it a goal. Tell your team, hey, if we get 50 five star reviews this month, everyone's going to Nordstrom or whatever you know they like. And it's going to be a team effort. But the doctor has to set the example. The doctor has to not be afraid to ask. The doctor has to plant the seed. The doctor has to show their team like, this is how easy it is. Hey, I'll see you next Tuesday for your follow up appointment. By the way, on your way out, can you please scan this QR code? We'd love you to share your experience. It's that easy. Sending the follow up link and text and software, that's great too. That's a secondary tool. The asking always goes a long way. That all our guys that have 500 to 1,000 reviews, they ask, they have a system. Dr. Plants a seed. Dr. Does the implant. Dr. Calls the same night. How are you feeling? How's your mouth? How's the you know, whatever. So now the guy's going to review you regardless of you even asking when you go. I'm not saying go crazy, above and beyond, but yes, go above and beyond. Show your service. Show how great you are. Show what makes you different. Show the doctor, you know, cares more than people are used to because the consumer has an assumption. Dr. Just comes in, out, does his thing and leaves. Make a connection, you know, your patients know. You take off your mask once in a while, say, hi, how are you doing? You're going to see those reviews coming in. You're going to see testimonials being offered to you. You're going to say, it's going to make you less dependent on marketing companies, on ads, on SEO. It's just that organic presence and the great service will last longer than any technology.

Oh, I love that. If you don't ask, you won't receive, I think is one key that I took from what you were just sharing with us, and I truly believe in that. And the second point that you made in there was that people actually care why you're doing what you're doing and that human connection. From my experience, the reviews that we see online are not a photo of this exquisite composite filling on their posterior molar tooth with the review saying, you know, my filling is the best filling I've ever had. It's. The team was great. My doctor was amazing. He called me after the procedure to make sure I was doing okay. The office is beautiful. And so I really do believe in sharing the whys behind what you're doing and really just, you know, having that human connection. Dentistry is all built on human connection versus that drill, fill and build type meal that people don't.

Exactly. Yeah. And every, you know, practice is different. So just talk to a few companies, a few experts, a few coaches, get some ideas, and you're going to learn as you go. It's, you know, we were learning as we go. We've spent money on marketing doing, you know, paper print ads and dental publications for thousands of dollars. That didn't lead to not one call, but we had to try it. You know, you have to. It's trial and error. All marketing is.

I love it. So, Ali, you've built DOC sites from the ground up. When you first started, what was your biggest assumption about the dental marketing space and how has that changed in recent years?

So we came from, like, initially a more of a surgical, cosmetic surgery place where, you know, in SoCal there's a lot of plastic surgeons and whatnot. So we started with that more custom type of clientele which then. My partner's best friend was a dentist. He was going to Vegas to build his practice. We're like, he said like, it's a, we call it the white envelope story. He gave us like a thousand bucks in an envelope and said like, do your thing, I'm gonna do my thing. And he built 13 practices over, you know, 10 years. And basically from him we grew into, okay, we got his wife, she's the ortho, the brother in law is a dentist in Newport Beach. And then all of a sudden we see we're getting a bunch of doctors and the doctors don't need that cosmetic surgery. Beverly Hills, you know, look and feel, yes, some of them do and that's okay, but the majority don't. So we saw that, hey, we could templatize something that still looks custom and personal, that's way more affordable. And all the horror stories that dentists have heard of, like I hate long term contracts, you know, I don't like to pay for X amount for what we've kind of alleviated some of those things and we've made something that's boxed and ready to go, that's affordable. The price is on the stickers, on the box and if it's a good fit for your practice, great. And if it's not, let us give you some info to take wherever you want to go.

So the DOC sites has some new cool innovation that's coming out for 2026. You want to tell our listeners about that? I'm so excited.

Yes. And this came from a need from our, you know, 10 years in the game and learning from our clients and communicating with doctors all the time is the thing we talked about earlier that miss the lead management, the tracking of the incoming leads, the they're fighting with insurance. The other phone's ringing. I'm not going to get to it or I'm going to get to it. My mood's not good because I just battled this insurance company. So obviously now AI is out there. This AI that we've tested for over a year, we've tested it on multiple clients. What makes it's an AI phone receptionist that helps you answer the phone if you can't pick it up within three rings or after hours so you don't have to deal with voicemail. Voicemail is becoming like, you know, pagers. It's becoming the thing of the past. So now it's the AI answers. It says, hey, you have an emergency grade, it checks your eagle soft dentrix Or Open Dental. And it says you have an appointment here, we could book you here. It's just like, yes, it's not a human. People are getting used to it. It's not like people don't hate it as much as some might assume. It's a great backup to what you have. It's not a replacement, it's a backup. It's a support. And there's also a web chat that does the same thing. You could make appointments. So instead of the person going clicking new patients, viewing your insurances, they just chat. Hey, do you take Delta? Yes. Okay, great. Make me an appointment. Same with the phone. It basically is the support suite of AI tools for managing leads. There's a dashboard that you see all your incoming calls, the AI gets recorded, you get the notes, it logs to your Dentrix or Eaglesoft or Open dental. Again, do a demo, see if there's a need for you, see if you know, because some of the bigger companies are offering it as well. But with us you could like talk to us and say, hey Ali, like here's my feedback, you know, let's tweak it here. You could customize the AI a little bit for your practice. I'm not sure if you can do this with some of the bigger companies. So. And it's always month to month and it's introductory pricing and we're Talking about like 3, 400 bucks a month here. We're not talking about thousands a month. And some people use, you know, overseas or different call centers for overflow, which is great. So weigh out all your options. This one is working well for practices. Doctors are not taking their own emergency random calls in the middle of the night anymore. No one's having to come and check the voicemail the next day, which they don't come in anyway and check the voicemail. So these are things that are going to help you convert the few people that fall through the cracks and you know, three people recovering three patients that fell through the cracks could be a lot of money.

Yeah, that's huge. That's that lead capturing part of the funnel where things sometimes get missed. That's where we see the money leaking out the back door is when the phones aren't being answered, those after hours phone calls. Because exact like you said, if somebody's not answering the phone, they're just gonna go down to that next person on the list that they find on Google and see if they can get into an appointment there. And if they get somebody on the line, then you've lost that opportunity. And so I'm so excited to be partnering with you and really start to roll this out with some of my clients because the work that you've been doing has been absolutely fantastic. And really this has been such a value packed conversation for our listeners. And so before we wrap up, do you have any final thoughts for our listen listeners around efficiency in market making every dollar count?

Yes. Check out what you're paying for, review it with somebody internally. Make sure the leads are attributing to the marketing. Get a second opinion. Just like when you go to the dentist, some go get a second opinion. Not to be sold, just to see what's, what else is said. Maybe you could take those tips and apply to your current situation. Just find out a little more, learn a little more. And if you've been paying, for example, 3,000amonth for your marketing for the last six years and you never look back at it, you're just used to that number in your, you know, credit card or whatever, look at it and stop yourself and say, let me get out of this set it and forget it mindset and try to shake things up a little and see if I could save some money and get better results. There's, there's ways now to get better results and save money.

I love it. This has been so insightful. I truly appreciate you joining us today. Where can our listeners find you and doc sites online?

If they want more information, find us@docsites.com d o c s I t s dot com. There's an easy contact form. Mention DEO. I'll personally do the review with you myself. You get discounts on setup fees if you want to move forward with us. There's no contracts, easy to work with, easy to talk to, no hidden agendas, no hidden fees. Just talk to us. You might like what you know, we might be friends that never work together, but we're a nice company. We want to be friends. We want to show that there's other options out there. And, you know, thank you so much for having us and I appreciate you, Kendall, for trusting us. You know, when we met at deo, you were one of the few that welcomed us with open arms and I appreciate it. And I want to give a shout out to you personally for, you know, giving us a shot.

Oh, I love that. Great, great guys. Great company. How could we not? My friends, that's why we have you here as a, as a great vendor for us at deo. We're so excited for you to be partnering with more of our members. And of course, always recognize recommending for you to check out their website. Give them a call. Ali is a great guy, just like he said. Not only from a business perspective, but, you know, just fun to hang around with and have lunch with and do all those fun things. So to my DEO Growth Secret listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share it with a colleague, and until next time, my friends, keep smiling.

Thank you for listening to deo's Growth Secrets podcast for dental organizations. Continue the conversation on our Facebook Facebook group and meet other dental leaders. Get questions answered and the strategies you need to succeed. Plus, we have some free resources for you right there on the Facebook page. Remember, you're not alone. Let's do this together. Join DEO's Growth Secrets Group on Facebook and until next time, keep smiling.