The Secret to Converting Over 85% of Full Arch Dental Implant Cases

Hey, dental associates and new practice owners. Welcome to the Associates on Fire podcast. Powered by Practice cfo. This is the podcast that teaches you what you never learned in dental school, the financial side of dentistry. We cover topics from planning for ownership, buying a practice, to student loans, taxes, and all things financial for the hungry to learn Dental Associate. So let's light it up.

Welcome back everyone to the Associates on Fire podcast. My name is Drew Phillips and I'll be the host of today's episode. For those who haven't had a chance to check out our Associates on Fire program yet, I'm a CPA and CFO advisor, a practice CFO and one of the instructors in our Associates on Fire program. Be sure to check us out@www.associatesonfire.com. okay guys, I can barely hold in the excitement as we have two all star guests here to talk about a topic that drives real sustainable profitability. I'm talking about case acceptance, but not in the traditional boring way that you've heard it before. Our guests specialize in high value cases like full arch dentistry. Converting cases of this magnitude can be challenging and even deflating over time. Which is why we have brought Dr. Howard Pfeffer and his daughter Stacy Pfeffer on the show to discuss their proven system. We met with Dr. Howard Pfeffer a few years ago as he was transitioning out of his very successful practice. And through that time we also got to know his right hand partner in the office, his daughter Stacey. I won't tell their whole story, but Stacey played a huge role in developing the program we will discuss today and a program that she and Dr. Pfeffer have now turned into a consulting and seminar series called Archology. You can learn more about archology at www.arch-ology.com. that's a R C H--O L O G Y.com okay, so without further ado, let's jump in and hear from Dr. Howard Pfeffer and Stacy Pfeffer. Welcome guys.

Hi there.

Thank you.

Stacy, let's start with you. I'm curious to learn how you found your way in the dental space and more importantly, how you found your way into your dad's practice. I can't imagine this is something that you guys were discussing at the dinner table growing up.

So yeah, so I basically stumbled into the dental industry. I had, I have my degree in in communication and business and I've been in sales ever since I graduated college. But I definitely found my niche once.

I started stumbled into the dental industry.

I actually was working for my Dad's implant center. And I ended up having a baby and you know, didn't really, wasn't really doing anything meaningful in the office. And it's a funny story because I came back and he said, I have a proposition for you. Instead of just working in the front, I'll have you. They basically had the typical system where they were doing full arch cases and they'd have the office manager present the cases, converting at about 20%. He said, for every case you can close from these quote unquote, no sales that leave the office, I'll pay you a commission.

And it was history from there.

So I started doing that and it literally our numbers just doubled.

So once my dad sold the practice, Dr. Valadez actually bought the practice. And my dad was focused, Dr. Pfeffer was focused more on removable. So we were doing implant supported overdentures with Dr. Valadez. We started doing all on four hybrid zirconia bridges. And again, I was still doing the back end sales, so I wasn't presenting the cases. Once my dad had his comfort zone where he had his office manager presenting the cases and didn't really want to rock that boat. Once Dr. Valadez came in and bought the practice, he said, we're not doing this. You're presenting the cases. I started presenting the full arch cases. I was immediately converting it 85 to 90% and our numbers again doubled to where now we're doing over 600,000amonth.

Wow, that's phenomenal.

It's awesome.

And so she mentioned that you, Dr. Pfeffer, were basically more focused on removables. Can you give us a little bit more background on, on your practice and sort of how you helped guide Stacy or how you guys came together to create this new archology vision?

Sure. I was, yeah, I had a, what you would call a successful crown and bridge practice. We were doing a lot of implant, crown and bridge work and. But I had, I always had my eye on the, on the problem of dentures. You know, I watch people struggle so much with a lower denture. And so it was interesting because in 2006, here, right here in San Diego, a person I knew who owned Zest Labs, his name was Max Zest, he actually invented the locator and.

That was revolutionary. For the first time, I had a way of connecting dentures to implants. Before that, it was a nightmare with hater bars, things that just didn't work okay. The locator was amazing. And I saw the value. I just saw the value. And I started and that's where I shifted. We started going towards implant supported dentures and started marketing it and it worked out really well. It really took off, like Stacy said when she came aboard, because I was having a fair amount of no sales, you know, thing cases that we couldn't close. And I noticed that she was, she was going back, connecting with those people, and we were getting tremendous results. So much so that. So now as I was getting old, I was getting ready to sell my practice. I was almost 70 at the time. And I remember when I was sitting with Dr. Valdez and his group who were, you know, evaluating the sale, they basically told him they were worried that Stacy might not stay if I sold the practice. And they basically made it clear to Dr. Valdez that she needs to be part of this, she needs to stay in the office. Absolutely. And I remember they actually called her the secret sauce because they evaluated the whole practice and they said, this is. These numbers are predominantly because of Stacy. And like Stacy said, they were very concerned that when I left that Dr. Valdez wasn't going to be able to maintain my numbers. Okay. And just like she said, the switch. Now, at the time, the hybrids were just taking root. I wasn't interested in getting involved in all the new technology. I was basically ready to move on. And, and between the, the, the hybrid.

Avenue and Stacy closing them, they didn't maintain my number. They doubled them, just like she said. It was awesome.

Pretty phenomenal. Yes. And Stacy, I mean, it all started with a little carrot that your dad sort of dangled, which was, hey, I've got all these, I've got 20%, I'm closing. That's 80% of people walking out here without accepting treatment. And I'm going to give you a piece of this. And that motivated you to develop this system. Now, when you weren't presenting the treatment, I'm sure you were watching in the office manager or the treatment coordinator at the time, present treatment probably picked up on things, some cues that they were probably missing. Why don't we start with, for our listeners, you know, end to end in terms of how you've developed the system, starting with the initial phone call all the way through to hopefully an 85 to 90% case acceptance rate.

Right, Drew? So it's so important it all starts. You know, these people are in a completely different situation.

These aren't your normal patients that are just calling that need a filling or a root canal.

These people's mouths are falling apart. They've been procrastinating now for years. And so when they eventually pick up.

The phone to make that first call.

It is difficult for them. So I can't tell you how important the lead call is. That is huge.

You have to have the phones ringing, right? You have to. You have to invest in the marketing, that's for sure.

Once you, Once they pick up the.

Phone, how you handle that call could literally, obviously make or break you.

So we start with the lead call.

We train on the lead call. We train on the dialogue. We train on, you know, how to basically treat the patient when they call, how to create urgency, get them in right away. Then we actually talk about the clinical presentation. Because actually, from more and more doctors that I've been talking to, I see what a lot of clinicians are doing when they're presenting these cases.

And I, you know, what I see.

Is either overselling these cases. You know, these are 40 to $50,000.

Cases, sometimes 60,000 if.

If you're talking to an oral surgeon, or underselling. So it's finding that middle ground. How much time should they be spending with a patient? We go over the entire clinical presentation. Are they presenting removable options? Is the pricing rate from talking to a lot of these clinicians, their price points are just.

From what I can.

See, are not on point. Either charging too much for removable or too little for removable or too much for hybrids or Coney Bridges. So we go over the price point all the way through the sales presentation, from how you should greet the client to building rapport, to one thing we talk about that is huge, is basically figuring out. We call it a usp. It's a unique selling proposition. Why should I choose you? These patients, a lot of these patients, they go to 10 offices. What makes you so special?

$60,000 decision.

Right, right, right. So they definitely do their due diligence. They do their homework. So what makes you the reason, you know, if I'm a patient, I should choose you how to present the case. Knowledge is power. You have to. You know, most, most, most of these clinicians, they have like an office manager or a dental assistant presenting these cases. How much do you know about these cases? I sat in on cases with Dr. Valadez. I went to courses with him. I read books.

I learned. So I. I've never had a patient.

Ask me when I'm presenting a case, oh, go ask Dr. Valadez if I could do this. They come directly to me, so I have that credibility. Right. We talk about, you know, overcoming objections, which basically needs to be done throughout the presentation.

Once you ask for the Money. The last thing you want to do is start overcoming objections. Once you ask for the money, you.

Shouldn'T be getting objections. Right. You need to cover all that. So throughout the presentation, that is a huge thing.

Scheduling, financing, you have to know about.

You have to have multiple options. You have to.

You have to. So we help them with all the different financing companies that I. You have to know rates, you have to know programs, you have to find out budgets, you have to know about home equity loans, you have to know all this stuff. You have to be the expert. And then closing and scheduling, I think that's one of the key things.

Also with the financing, collecting up front. I think Dr. Valadez right now, year to date, his accounts receivable is like negative half a million. So it's. Why. Because we collect everything up front.

My.

I think percentage of collect of case acceptance payment up front is like 80%.

So in the accounting world, we call that deferred revenue. We put it on the liability balance. On the side of the balance sheet.

Yeah.

All right. So.

I think the initial lead phone call, I want to kind of dive into that a bit more. I don't want to give away all the secret sauce because I know you guys have a great program in place and I really want listeners to have enough to understand what they don't know and hopefully come and work with you guys. But when you are answering the phone and you're building that rapport you mentioned, not to oversell or undersell. So I guess is it a psychology type of exercise that you're trying to connect with them on a personal level, build rapport, and instead of talking about price or what's sort of the process when you set out to train a person answering the phones, what advice are you giving them?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So it is a lot about the psychology. In fact, when we were first putting together this company, we kind of came up with the title of our, or the name of our company, Archology. The psychology behind selling full arch cases.

So it's. Yeah, it's building the rapport. It's making them feel important. It's spending the time with them. It's a whole dialogue that we go through. It's the importance of booking, you know, literally within the first week. And then a whole confirmation system. We role play with them, get the patient talking. You know, patients love to talk about themselves. So, yeah, we have a whole system that we teach on the Lee call.

So it's less about, you know, what does the patient need? And rather More about what the patient wants and trying to convert that and helping them make their own decision to come in.

Okay, great. And then when you guys move into. And then you mentioned something I thought was really, really interesting. They're going to see 10 different people during this process, and they're vetting everybody. But ultimately, you've built some rapport on the phone. Sure. But when they come in, you're sort of completing that full circle that, that. That presentation that you guys are presenting when they walk through that door. What are things that you guys are doing to help establish and confirm?

Yeah, so we have. We do in the course, we do what's called a walk flow. And it's a really cool exercise that we do. And it's interesting if you hear all, you know, different doctors telling their walk flow. So from when the patient walks into your office all the way through when they leave the office. So we go through things like that.

Do you want to add, please?

Yeah, anytime.

I just want to add that in this. This is unique. I didn't have this. Okay. This is huge. The price point of these cases is so.

Significant that this is not only career changing for a dentist, this could be life changing. And so.

What you have to understand is.

Getting the lead calls. That's not a problem. Okay. Marketing these kind of cases is not a big challenge because these kind of. Because people are in such need of this. This is not exploding by accident.

People want to improve their lives. Okay? So that's not the key. The problem is. And we use. Let me use a metaphor. If I will imagine a garden hose, okay. And you take that garden hose and you put it on the, you know, the sprocket, I think, or whatever it's called. And imagine that the water coming in when you turn the water on, that's the patient flow.

That's what comes to your. The lead calls, let's say. And. And then what happens is that you follow the water through the holes, through the hose. And the amount of water coming out of the nozzle is about 20% of what's going into the holes. And the reason is because there's leaks all through the hose. And what Stacy has done, okay, is she's developed a way to go through.

These leaks and repair them, stop the leak, so that at the end of when the water's coming out of the nozzle, you're getting 80 to hopefully 75 to 80% of the water instead of 20%. So this is how the course basically is designed. When she came to me, because.

I had some experience with seminars back in the 90s. And she came to me and she said, dad, I would. I really. I have this burning desire. I can help these dentists. I can do this. I said, stacy, that's key. This. You know, this is. This might be just. Stacy, you have to be able. If you want to be able to teach something and be successful at it, you have to make sure that it's duplicatable. And she says, I know that I can do it. And we said, okay. We sat down, she put together a program, and we brought in a dentist to test it from Phoenix.

And the results were incredible. She's basically, within one, two, three months, he went from literally, like a 20% conversion to an 80% conversion. I'll let her talk about the numbers. But she proved that she can do this. And so that's why we're so excited, because this is. This topic. These hybrid.

Zirconia.

Implant dentures, I mean.

The cases are just.

They're just enormous.

You used a great metaphor about the leaks and the hose and getting the full water flow that you.

You.

That you actually can. Can we go over some of the leaks that are common that you guys, that you find?

Well, one thing I've noticed, just from, like, my competitors, right, in the San Diego market, because I'm dealing with these patients that are going to other colleagues of ours, and they're coming in and saying, so. And so is offering it for 33,000 for two arches. So these dentists are trying to lower the price to create value. There's a leak right there. You don't have to lower the price, right? These people aren't buying teeth. These people are buying comfort, function, confidence every single day for the rest of their life. I'd say that's worth 40,000, right? So price point, where else are the leaks? And the lead call, right? Who is taking the lead call? Who is trained to take the lead call? How are you taking the lead call? How are you booking appointments? How are you confirming appointments? How are you presenting clinically? How are you presenting the sales presentation? Are you even presenting? Because most of these clinicians, I think, just have, like, a dental assistant or an office manager just throwing down.

A price.

That's it.

That's what we were doing. You know, Dr. Pfeffer was trying to sell, sell, sell, right? And then. And that, too, is, you know, when you're presenting a $50,000 case and the dentist is saying, this is going to be great for you. You know, the patient is looking and saying, well, of course it is. You know, while you're out buying your new Porsche.

Right.

So, yeah, it just becomes kind of a conflict of interest. But when you have a really. Someone that's really passionate about it, that knows, you know, almost as much as the dentist about the case, obviously not clinically, but who can say, you know, this is why you should choose us, and who truly believes it? It's a whole nother ballgame.

And I imagine too, you know, patient goes from being in this pressure situation in front of the doctor to feeling the relief of coming and sitting in front of you and hearing it from, you know, a non clinician, someone that doesn't have that pressure built up there. I'd imagine that does help the sales process.

Can I just add that we encourage the people coming to the seminars to come with the dentist and the. Their associate.

So the dentist and either a sales rep or a treatment coordinator or whoever's presenting their cases, that's who it's designed for.

So, Stacy, not everybody has a U in their office. And, you know, I'm sure that that's probably a hurdle, that when a doctor is thinking about joining this program and, you know, do they need somebody ahead of time that is in your. That is of your caliber, already in that position before they can come to the program, or do you feel that you're able to mold and change the behavior of whoever's in the office?

Yeah, that's a great question. So the one thing we talked about when Dr. Pfeffer was asking me, is this transferable? Can you teach it to someone? And the one thing we kind of wanted to establish right away is.

Am I this passionate about this? Because I grew up in. My father was a dentist and this and that, really having a passion for helping people. So we can definitely help with.

Finding. I've helped Dennis. Finding the right person. But no, you don't need to have a salesperson. If you have someone that you're confident we can definitely train them to do. And we're not trying to get them to the. Of course we're trying to get them to 80 to 90. But most of these offices are converting at 20%. I mean, so one extra case. Okay. One arch extra a week is. One extra arch a week is about. Is over a million dollars in a year in revenue. One arch. So if I can bring them to doing, you know, if they're doing currently one case a month or one to four cases, and I can bring them for. You're talking millions of dollars. Right? So, I mean, do you want to touch on that?

What Drew just asked about having the right person.

Yeah. I just want to point out again that when I said that the marketing isn't the challenge here. The challenge is that as dentists, we're not trained. We don't know how to really sell a $40,000 case. It's not part of our curriculum. And here we are now with the hottest thing in dentistry. Right. And so that's what, that's what correcting the holes are all about, is Stacy knows. Okay? Stacy's got it. And that's why in the last four years, I think she's been averaging 85 to 90% conversions. It's crazy. So.

And for people that, for our listeners out there that want to have a more bottom line translation to what, 80% conversion rate compared to a 20 once you meet your break evens, you know, when you're cash flow neutral, a 20% increase in case acceptance leads to 100% increase in net profit. So she's talking about tripling, quadrupling your net profit when she says going from 20 to 85%.

Well, I kind of want to do almost like a case study because I feel like we're touching these things and I really want to, like, get more into the detail of like, you know, how we're, you know, what a patient's going to come in and say in some of the dialect or the dialogue that you're, that people answering the phones you're going to use to provide that comfort. And, and then how you're, how the, you know, how you're teeing up the doctor to present it in a way that, you know, really drives value as well. Do you have, you know, I know you worked with a guy out in Texas recently, almost like a proof of concept type of deal in Scottsdale. So what were some of the, when, when you had, were you doing phone training? What were things that were happening on the phones that you were correct? What behaviors were you correcting?

No, so when, when they were there. And, and this is gonna, this is a part of the course. We did a full lead call dialogue. So basically we have a dialogue and we script, Right? Right. Yeah, we have a script and we did role playing and we did scenarios and. Yeah, so that's.

How many pages is the script? I mean, how.

One page.

One page?

Yep.

How long does a typical call last or how long would you want it to last?

A typical call, a lead call from start to finish, shouldn't be longer than a minute. Longer than, shouldn't be longer than a minute.

And then we, and Then we're getting straight into scheduling.

Yep. Yep. And it's all about taking control. You have to know how to take control of the lead call. You can't have the patient. It's a big, you know, these are also. Go back to. I learned these things from being in sales for 20 years. Right. So I learned a lot of this stuff from previous companies. And I've been in sales, I've been in sales management, I've been in regional sales management. So I've used different things and, and realized how to, how to really train. And it's not difficult. These are simple concepts. It's just people don't understand what I.

Think when I look at the, you know, our entire client base, the people that we work with and associates on fire, you know, the practice owners, that is, you know, they have, most of the time, patient flow isn't an issue. In fact, it's, it's usually a problem because they're, you know, we're coming in, they've got their schedule and hygiene, for example, booked out six months. And you just mentioned in the beginning that we're getting these cases in within the first, the same week that they call. You know, so how are you going in and reorganizing a schedule to be conducive to these higher dollar cases?

Yep. So that's a great question. So that's, that's another thing we go through is basically, you have to, you have to block off time in the schedule for, for prospective leads. You have to, you can't fill your whole schedule up with hygiene. If you're trying to get full arch leads in. You have to know your leads, you have to know how many you're getting, and you have to block off spots for prospective leads.

So I'd imagine in some offices, it probably is just a matter of like, you know, time Right. Before you can actually, you know, create a schedule conducive to this type of treatment style.

Right. Because if you have a patient that calls and is interested in a full arch case and you book about two weeks, guess what? They're going somewhere else.

Right? Absolutely.

I just want to add that, going back to the Scottsdale office, so the associate that came in with, with the doctor at the dentist, you know, she came in, she was very, very sweet, very nice, but she was not what you would call very confident. She was kind of nervous about this because, you know, she wanted so much to improve. She kind of felt like she was at the base of a huge mountain and she was not sure if she could climb the mountain. And so through the course, through the. You know, as we got through the course and got to the end, the last thing we did on Sunday morning was we gave them a checklist of. These are the things that you could do immediately. This takes no preparation. This is what. This is your Monday morning.

You can put this into commodity, like items.

Right? Exactly. And so. And we wanted to make sure they had that and so that they were ready to go. And they went back and went back on Monday, and then on Friday, Stacy connected with her, and she told him. She told Stacy that in that week alone, they closed more cases than they had the entire month previous. And just. And remember, this was the. I think the end of October, and just.

A week or two ago, she spoke to her again, and she's now closing at the rate of 80%. So this is. This is, you know, what Stacy can do. You don't have to be a superstar. She goes into the basics, and she really. We really. She really prepares there.

So how much, Dr. Pfeffer, are you a part of this process? Are you going to stay on? Because I feel. Because you mentioned a really good point, which was the confidence level of the doctor presenting the treatment before they even get to the Stacy level of the presentation. And, you know, the more that you can increase confidence, the more that you can tee them up for closing in the treatment side. And so you. I don't know if you guys are watching this or listening to this, but Dr. Pfeffer has this calm, cool collectedness to him that, like, just permeates the room. So are you helping, giving them some clinical confidence and teaching them how to present treatment in a way that resonates more with the patient?

Yeah. We have two other people, me and a fellow from. From Phoenix who is part of an implant company, and we put together this program, and Stacy's the star. Okay. She takes center stage. But we come in and we do supporting. We have supporting roles. Okay. And what I kind of do is I go into. For me, it was very important. Like, when we talk about. When we talk about these kind of cases, for me, it was very important to establish a culture where everybody in the office understands the incredible value of what we're giving that patient. Like Stacy said, we're not fixing their teeth. Okay. We're not fixing their mouth.

We're changing lives.

We're changing their life. And that's what this is all about. I can go into it, but literally, you get goosebumps by what happens to a person when you give them back their life. They don't. The bottom half of their face isn't working anymore. This is. Life's. Life is tough enough, you know, it is. It's nice to have your face working.

And I can imagine, you know, an office that's. That was going from doing hygiene and, you know, one tooth dentistry to watching someone's whole life change before their eyes can immediately be a culture impact.

It's, it's really, it's really incredible. So this is. We both. So that's how it's set up and we intend to keep it together like that.

Stacy, do you guys have. When you, you know, he did mention that there's some commodity elements, I think, you know, payment plans and, you know, taking out the, the worry of how we're going to pay for this. And you mentioned earlier that 500,000 negative AR.

What are payment options that you find to be most helpful outside of maybe CareCredit and some of the normal ones?

Yeah. So I mean, there's multiple financing companies that you can use and it's really just knowing, you know, who to use for what cases and what you're doing. Right. So it completely depends on that also too.

Understanding things like an objection versus a question. So a lot of times a patient might say, do I have to pay that up front? Right. And the average person would say, no, we can break it up for you. You can do 20% down and then halfway through the case you can do another 5k and then at the end you can do another. So do I have to pay that up front? Yes, we collect payment up front. Okay, I'll have that for you next week.

So instead of, you know, explaining how payments are going to come in, it's just being more direct.

It was a question, not an objection.

Right.

So understanding the difference between that.

That's a good, very good point. So what can an attendee. So if I'm a doctor listening to this right now and I'm interested in what I'm hearing, what can we expect at one of your seminars?

So basically it starts on. Our next seminar is actually coming up. We have a few spots left. It's actually, it's jaloon.

June.

June 11th.

Yeah, I tried to say June and 11 at the same time.

June 11th through the 13th, it's going.

To be down in beautiful San Diego at the Sheraton and Mission Valley. So it starts. And just so you know, I know one of the main things for clinicians too is they're so busy. It's not a three day thing. It starts on Friday at about 5.

O' clock and goes to about 8.

And then it's, you know, Saturday from 9 to 6 and then Sunday morning.

You'Ll be out of there by noon.

So 9 to noon on Sunday. But you can literally, as long as you're currently have a marketing budget or even plan on putting together a marketing.

Spending some money in marketing and the phones are ringing, you're going to learn everything, everything from when the phone rings to when the patient walks out. And then also Dr. Pfeffer is going to cover the clinical presentation. We have, we teach about the marketing too, because that's huge. So we have a whole segment on marketing.

I mean everything from start to finish. So we expect results immediately.

Like we expect you to double your.

Conversion, just like our dentist did from Scottsdale month two. And we also gave, we also, we assume the risk. We won't go into price and everything, but we have something special because we know these dentists get inundated with companies that are claiming that they can help them and we understand that.

So we actually, three quarters of the.

Way into the seminar, so like Saturday, like before dinner, we actually offer a full refund in hand if they want to leave and they can take their money back three quarters through the seminar. So there's no risk on the dentist part.

So you're basically promising that what they, what you have to tell them is something they're going to want to hear.

Yes.

Yeah.

And when you guys, you mentioned marketing segment, what are some marketing or do you have marketing companies that you like? Do you have marketing concepts that you want to share that you feel are important?

Yeah, yeah. So we have, we have both, we have marketing companies that we currently work with and we also have concepts. Do you want to touch on that or. That's basically it. We have both. So we have access to companies and concepts. You know, after doing this for 20, 20 years, we've pretty much figured out what works, you know, but it all depends on your budget.

Remember, marketing, marketing is the key to everything, let's face it. But in this particular, assuming you get the marketing out there, remember.

That'S not the big leak here, okay? That's the big leak here. The big leak is when you get the marketing. Be efficient. If you can close 80% of your cases, like I say, that's going to change not only your career, but your life.

That's a big thing I wanted to touch on too. You know, you could be spending a hundred thousand dollars a month in marketing, but if you can't acquire any of these leads, it's just, it's worthless. So that's what we do is we lower the cost per acquisition, right? So it's, you know, and my partner even touches on this during the course is you could have someone spending the same amount of money, right. And you increase your conversion. How am I trying to say this? You know how to say this better, but basically lowering. You probably know how to say this better. Lowering the cost per lead. So if you're spending, you know, $1,000 a month and you're getting 10 leads, you're. You're paying $100 to acquire those lead.

Which then if you're not converting them, then you just paid $100 for nothing.

And remember, if you are converting on them, there's nothing wrong with. You can lower your marketing budget, too.

That's very true. Now, is there like an entry level marketing budget that, you know, that can make this system work? Or do you have a number in mind? Or does that kind of just depend on the company that they decide to go with?

Well, it's crazy because these cases are so. Are so big that if literally they're closing one and we get them to two, you know what I'm saying? I mean, literally, if they're closing one and doing 75,000amonth with, with additional dentistry.

We get them to two.

It's like, that can make your month. I mean, that could bring you. We get them to four, they're doing 200,000amonth, right.

At that point, it's just.

So that's the thing is, like, that's why this is so important.

And I feel like a lot of dentists don't realize that they don't even.

Know how much is flying out the back door.

Right?

But it's like, literally like one case.

Is the difference a week. One case a week, one arch is the difference of a million dollars a year.

It's like, so if someone could teach you how to double your conversion. So it's really kind of cool.

It is very cool. And it's, you know, when you, when we talk about unit numbers that are literally as small as one, right. That translate to that much value, it's important right now.

It's not widgets.

It's not widgets. We're not talking about widgets.

Yeah.

So, guys, you know, I'm a doctor again, listening to this, and I want to say yes and I want to come in, but, you know, I have hesitations, and it's normal to have hesitations. What are some hesitations that you guys have? Objections, not questions. That you guys can help our listeners overcome.

Well, let me say that one thing that I dealt with as a dentist was an incredible amount of material would come across my desk every single day. And it was, it was claims by seminars and courses and, and this was, and, you know, certain didactic courses teaching you how to place, implant or teaching you how to do certain things, that's pretty cut and dry. But when you get into subjective things like, like how to build your practice or how to, you know, how to do what we're talking about, that opens up a whole different thing. And when you, when you're inundated every day, you tend to doubt everything and you just don't want to. And that, that's what, that's what creates the biggest challenge here, and we know that, is that.

When there is a nugget that can really help you and change everything, it's, how do you, how do, how do they find that? How do they know that? It's, it's like a needle in a haystack, literally. And so that's the biggest challenge that I think that dentists have is that they.

That'S what we're trying to overcome right here, is trying to show that this has tremendous value. We give you, we have so much confidence in what we're talking about that we give you that option 3/4 into the case to leave with all of your money in hand.

I mean, they're spending, I've got Doctors, clients spending 150, $250,000 a year on continuing education. But if they're not converting anything, then they're not going to get to practice. You don't practice, you lose it.

That's the thing is, like, you can learn how to do cases all day long, but if you can't sell them, you're not going to do it, you're.

Not going to do them.

That's it.

If I was a dentist, and I was, and I was anxious to, you know, to improve my, in this situation, and I saw that, you know, again, everybody's claiming certain things. We're the best, we can do this, we can do that. But if I saw that somebody was offering me a chance to take my money after three quarters of the course and leave with the information that I have, I think that would be enough of a risk reversal for me that I would definitely jump on this.

Yeah, well, I mean, again, you have to know how to do the clinical side of it. Absolutely. But if you never take the time and invest the money in the conversion part of the business, well, I think.

Another interesting part too is because you have, you know, if you think about full arch dentistry, so you have clinicians.

That are going to different courses that offer the didactical training.

Right.

And in those trainings they'll offer like a, a 10 minute segment on how to close courses. So they're trying to tell the dentist how to close the case and this and that. And there's, they offer some different things. Or you have marketing companies that are.

Actually trying to, you know, train companies.

Or dentists how to close these cases. But when you have someone in the.

Field that's doing it.

So I'm doing it right now every single day. I just converted one right before I came here today. And I'm offering to basically teach them exactly what I'm doing. It's like a different stuff story, you know, it's, it's a whole different, it's a different thing. I'm actually in the field closing cases. I'm not just a marketing company. So I feel like it's.

No, that's definitely a difference. That's definitely a difference. I, you know, again, you know, I think that you touched on this earlier, which was you don't have to be you. Even though you've got, you know, all this experience since all the way back to when you were just starting off with your dad's practice. This can, this is trainable. We have scripts for this. This is stuff that is commodity based. Right, Right. We're not telling you you have to be the best clinician in the world. We hope that you're great. We're telling you that your staff can actually move the needle here with simple, simple tools at fixing these leaks, as Dr. Pfeffer put it.

Yeah.

You know, when I was back in practice, way back back in the 80s, and I was, I was, like I said I was trying to build a crown and bridge practice. And in those days, crown and bridge was the, the thing that was the high end dentistry. And I would have these $10,000 cases, $8,000 cases, and it didn't take me long to realize, I realized it on my own, that when I present these cases to patients, that other dentists who were all around because San Diego was saturated, other dentists were not my competition. When I was presenting an 8,000 to $10,000 case. My competition I recognized was the jeweler, the car salesman. You know, in those days we had travel agents. That's what my competition was. And so I had to, so what I did back then was I figured, I figured out a way of I used to call it, actually, in my seminars, I used to call it selling dentistry, knowing your true products. And I realized that I'm not here to fix your teeth. I'm here to provide you, like we talked about before, with comfort and function. And I would talk about what I'm actually selling to you, why you. And when you compared. And what I learned was when you compare the value of what I was offering a person to a diamond ring or a vacation.

I had the huge advantage. And that's what we.

That's part of what were some things, I mean, just in those conversations that helped move the patient's mind to understand that what you're offering is superior to a diamond ring. What were some of those things?

Well, it was the passion. It was the passion of, you know, how do you. What's the value of being comfortable? Again, remember, we're trying, in those days, we're trying to prevent dentures, okay? Because, you know, people. Everybody had. Everybody had their parents or grandparents wearing dentures.

You know, lots of people.

And they saw. They saw they couldn't eat. They saw what was going on. And so, you know, how do you prevent dentures? And remember, when we talk about what is there when you do prevent dentures, You're. I'm back. You're basically. You're. You're basically.

Giving yourself comfort. Like Stacy said before, not for a day or a week, like a vacation. It's morning, noon, and night of every day for the rest of your life.

There's systemic relationships. Right. I mean, your jaw changes if you don't have the right bone structure and teeth in place and hurts your breathing.

There's a lot of things. Yes. And so by showing somebody the true value of what we're talking about, putting it on a balance scale, I was able to, I felt, be very successful with my competition. And it wasn't other dentists.

Right. Stacy, one more thing on financing, I just wanted to circle back here because just popped into my mind, are most of your people that are. That are paying up front, are they paying in cash with their own. From their own bank account? Are they using some sort of financing vehicle?

Yeah, so I would say it's probably like 60, 40, maybe like 70, 30. Like 70%. Will finance.

Finance with the financing company?

Yep. No, no, with. With a company that I. So, yeah, so I get them financed.

Gotcha, gotcha.

So, yeah, so I. And then I would say there's a lot of people that have cash. Like, seriously, I had a Lady bring me 40, $43,000 cash. Like bills, Right.

Okay.

We couldn't even like deposit it. Like, I'm like, did you have that under your bed or, you know. But yeah, so I'd say like, I'd say like 70 will finance. Some people do a home equity line of credit, but there's ways to do it. That's what I teach in my course. You always want to get the money up front.

Right.

You know, this, this another thing about these full arch cases. It's so much, it brings in so much cash flow. So because you get everything up front, so it's important to know how to do that. Then there's also another thing I teach is there's fees associated with financing. Right. So we teach everything. We teach about how to compensate this person. So if you get the right person in place to do this, you're going to be.

And this person takes your office from.

A million a year to 4 million a year. You got to pay them. Right, Right. So it's about finding the right person.

We teach compensation, we teach different levels of compensation.

My partner go into that as well.

But it's about then teaching the salesperson or the treatment coordinator which loans to do based on the merchant fees.

Right.

So if you do a two year no interest loan, the dentist is paying, you know, 12%, 14%. So you got to be careful, you know, you have to know what loans to do. So that's all. We go over all that in the course as well.

Are you pulling credit scores too? Like, do you like, do this thing, the credit demographics of that particular patient change the solutions that you're offering.

So that's another thing. So you have to know, some are soft checks, some do hard checks. So I know all the, I work with like five different companies and now I know, you know, I know who to try with first. Depending on what case, depending on what size you have to. That's all the stuff we.

Is that patient communication piece too, or are you just sort of absent the patient, you're sort of navigating that?

I do, Yeah. I navigate it while they're there. I, I do it with them while they're there.

Gotcha. But yeah, so you have that information handy when you're in that sort of room with them, isolated, having the secondary piece of that conversation?

Yeah, Yep. I'm getting all that information.

You have a solution for them before they even sit down?

Yep, yep.

Well, is there anything else that you guys want to, you know, talk about or add today that we maybe we haven't gone over or haven't gone over as Much detail as you think that our listeners need.

Yeah. One last thing for me as we were talking.

One of the big challenges today is that people seem to accept the fact that they're going to spend their money on these luxury things. You know, nobody has a problem spending $40,000 on a car that starts depreciating, breaks down, and in five or six years, it's basically, you know, not worth very much.

And people have this mindset that their money, like Stacy said a lady had $43,000 or something in cash. We have this mindset that this money's supposed to go to things that we like to spend it on. That's what people think money is for. And it's almost like reeducating them to understand that. Wait a minute. Your bottom half of your face isn't working anymore. You can't eat, you can't smile, can't go to your daughter's wedding. I mean, you're embarrassed. This is every day of your life. This is a rough way to live, okay? And sitting in a new car isn't going to make it better. So what we have here is incredibly valuable. That $40,000, this is a bargain.

And that's what Stacy teaches in the course how to change the patient's mindset so that they're sitting there and even if they go to 10 offices, they look you in the face and it's like, well, when can I start? And that's what they do. If you hear Stacy talking to the patients, there's never. Let me tell you something. Stacy had me listening to some of the tapes because when we were putting this together, I was interested in hearing how she talked to the patients. I never heard a patient at the end of her consultation say, okay, I'll think about it. No, it's always, well, when do we start? It's really. It's really impressive.

Well, I tell you what, I kind of want to get behind the scenes myself and just watch that real time. Sounds exciting.

Well, I'm really excited to have you guys both on the show today. I'm going to, like I said, do some eavesdropping on one of these seminars, and I'm going to come back armed even more for our next time together. And I just want to reiterate, June 11th through the 13th, there is still spots open for arch ology. And I think the very first seminar, it's.

Well, it's the second. We did the first one.

Yeah, the second seminar, there's still a few spots open at the San Diego Sheraton in Mission Valley. Please be free. Feel to. Feel free to reach out to Stacy or Howard and they will be.

So you can reach me directly at 619-961-5334. Again, 619-961-533 4.

Stacy, do you have an email address.

That they can reach you on? Yeah, and they can reach me at Stacy. So s t a c yewdaysmile.com. so that's s dash t a c yewday daysmile. Com.

All right, guys, well, that wraps up another episode of the Associates on Fire podcast. Until next time.