Ep. 42: The Voices Behind The Brand

Part 10:00

This is Beyond the Arches, where full-arch dentistry meets real talk. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Beyond the Arches. My name is Erica, and today I'm joined by Dr. Daniel Noorthoek. Hello. Hi. Our social media manager, Carly. Hello. And Odom. What is your title? What do I call you? Just Odom. What is your title? I'm the jack of all titles. What is your title? Odom is sufficient. And Robert, he is our head of marketing. So today we're going to kind of be discussing just marketing, social media, how this plays a huge role into dental, kind of more than I would even imagine, and just asking them a couple fun questions and kind of how you got into it.

Here's the save on Odom. He's so big in the company, he doesn't even really have a title. He truly wears so many hats that I don't know what to call him. I don't either. I don't know. Yeah, you're not alone. That's part of the mystique. Whatever needs to be done gets done. I know. So let's get started with a little bit of an introduction. I want to start off with Carly here and just kind of talk to you about how did you get into this world and did you ever think that you would be in dental for it?

So I definitely never thought I would be in dental at all. I mean, I applied to this job like you do any other job. I really just wanted a creative job. And I mean, it has surprised me. So many ways. I said this before, but it's cool because it's not a product. I mean, it is a product, but it's not. You're not just selling someone something. It's an experience. It's a transformation. So I find that to be a really cool aspect of it. And just the creativity with it. You can do so many different things. And I just love getting to know patients, talking to them, sharing their stories, their transformations. It's all very cool.

Getting to know everybody is kind of a fun, fun little thing. ▶It is. We've met so many different people, so many different personalities, and they have so many different stories, things that I've never even thought about. It's life changing for sure. Yeah, that's a pretty unique position. Yes. Yeah. I'd say even so beyond like the clinical staff, she gets a perspective that not everyone else does. Gets them outside of the office, gets them inside the office, gets them before, after, walks the whole way through.

Some people, they can be a little iffy. I always ask people, even if they sign media consent, I don't automatically assume that they're going to say yes. So I'll ask them. And some people are like, yeah, yeah. But they're kind of like, they don't know what to expect. And then when I get to know them, they're like, oh, wow, like, this is cool. Like, I can't wait to share my story. Yeah. Do you, do you have a lot of people that maybe at the beginning, you're like, I don't know about that, but by the end of it, they're so happy.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I even have so many people because I record pretty much the whole time. And sometimes they're like, do you use all these videos? Like, why are you recording me? Like basically the whole time. And I'm like, you'll see, like, I'll show you the video. And a lot of times they're really impressed. And by the end of the experience, we're like friends, basically. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. Myself, I would be a little like, I don't really know what's going on. When they first were doing media consents and such that weren't back in the day when we first started this, when you were involved up in Jacksonville, we would go, you would set it up and like the, the people that you hired for the videography would give you the releases.

Cause that was all really all the media that was being captured. Right. So you weren't really a part of it. But then when we started getting more into social media and the world was skewing that way, we had to create our own. And when we first started that, I remember people would write, like, it would be like pictures and they'd be like, only this, only when my hair and all the, you know, all these rules. But then at the end, which I'm sure you see, they're like, scratch that off. Like I wonder how many of the scanned in media consents we have that have all these like exceptions that then got scratched off by them. Probably. There's a lot of yes, buts. Yeah. Yeah. But then they changed their mind. Exactly. Yeah. They kind of learn us and they're like, okay, this is fine.

So Odom actually kind of started out with this. Like you just mentioned it over in Jacksonville. That was maybe one of the hats that you wore once upon a time and you gave it over to Carly. Yes. We've trained her up and beyond, you know, what I know, she's a very talented and able to, uh, learn new stuff. You give her a project, she'll get on YouTube or she'll, you know, go to whatever depths of the internet she needs to, to learn how to do that thing. So it's, it's very cool to watch.

Learning new things. It's fun. Yeah. Um, so I was going to ask actually, where do you get some of

Part 24:49

your inspiration from? Is it more of just like in your head? Is it something you use online resources for? It could be anything. I mean, I'm constantly thinking about what can I do? What's different? What haven't, like, what haven't I done already? And it could be something as simple as I see like a circler, like the way, uh, like the text is in a template and I'll take that and I'll just come up with something. It can be so simple, but I just take it and I run with it basically.

Well, since this is a get to know Carly, let's, let's put a, put a pin in that for a second and put the reason behind that where you're just so naturally as a person outside of the walls of work. Very creative person. So when we talk about your hobbies and like what you like to do, because those always, it, any sort of creativity where the person, whether the person's creative with math and they love that gets them excited, whatever creativity you have, you're going to find sort of little things in your hobbies and other interests. That's just how creativity works.

It kind of goes between hobbies. So why don't we talk more about like your personal stuff and like your, your backstory of just maybe like the hobby. Yeah. So I definitely have a lot of creative hobbies. I'm not the type of person that just goes home and sits like I have to do something. I'll usually watch something and do some sort of craft. Crafts are my favorite thing. My laundry, like, um, closet is a craft closet. It's not a laundry closet. Um, I love to paint. I love to draw. I love to do Legos. We share that hobby.

Yes, we do. That's where I was kind of getting to talk about Legos. I love Legos. Um, what else? What else do I like to do? I like to make jewelry. I like to color basically any craft scrapbooking, like any craft you can think of. I probably have done. Where does that come from? Is that a mom driven thing or that's a innate to Carly scenario? I think that's kind of how I naturally am, but I also did grow up like that. My mom had a craft closet, so we kind of all did crafts. My sister is very crafty. So I think it's kind of in my blood in a way, but definitely like growing up in that environment.

Was your mom the kind of person that, uh, let's say on a rainy day, rainy Saturday or Sunday, she would kind of pull everything out and pull you into it and say, this is the craft we're going to do, et cetera. We would do a lot of like family crafts together. Yeah. Didn't your mom work on like a television production? Yes. So my mom was the producer for America's Most Wanted for 25 years until, um, it went off the air. Wow. Yeah. That's very cool.

Celebrity. Is that kind of like what, drove you in that direction for like this kind of school you chose, the major you chose in school? I would say like growing up, I saw my mom going to work and like loving what she does and did. And I wanted that for myself. And I think that kind of drove, I didn't want to do exactly what she wanted to do, but I always knew I wanted to do something creative for sure. Something that I enjoyed too. That's right. Yeah.

Did your, I'm going to go back to your childhood crafts. So did you, um, when she would pull out a, a craft or something, was it pretty open-ended such that it was, here's a, here's paint, do whatever you want? Or was it like, here's a, when I was a kid, my mom used to pull out the family fun magazine, which, you know, magazines are all dead, but family fun was like, you collect toilet paper rolls for six months and then you make a collection of sheep out of them or whatever with pipe cleaners or whatever goofy craft it was. Was it more structured like that with like instructions and a project and an end?

Or were there more like open-ended projects? I would say kind of varied. Definitely we were younger. It was more structured. And I think as when we got older, we would kind of just like all sit at the table and do like our separate kind of crafts in a way, but definitely when we were younger, it was like very structured. She kind of taught us everything we know about crafts. Yeah. What's your favorite memory of a craft? Like what was the coolest one you feel like you did? And it could be as simple and dumb as when you were two. And also what was, can you think of anything that was sort of the craziest one?

Craziest one. Sorry, I'm like taking this over. No, you're fine. We all want to know. I love, I love talking about hobbies. Me too. The most, what was the first question? I'm sorry. What, what, is there a craft that you did that was like really memorable that like your favorite one that you ever did or favorite kind of maybe even category? Something that it wasn't necessarily a craft. It was a school project, but I did it on Steve Jobs.

And I, my favorite thing in school was doing projects. Like I don't want to write an essay. I don't want to do math. I want to do a project. Like that is my favorite thing. And I like made it into like the Apple logo and I like cut out like an iPod and like put it on there. Like I just made it like really creative and I did get a hundred percent. So that was, that was a cool one.

That's cool. There's always one that kind of sticks out of the memory. I've got one. What's yours? Well, I don't have any where I want to sit here. Oh, of course we do. Yeah. We're talking about hobbies. Of course we ought to hear it. Let's go. It's super lame. We, my mom had me make, um, crack Christmas ornament. This is pretty traditional, right? But it was a little gingerbread guy made out of, I don't even really know what, but it smelled like, yeah.

I think there's like a recipe that you, there's like a recipe that's basically like a really terrible gingerbread cookie. Yeah. That stays for years and years. Like my mom still has some of those. It was, must've been popular in family magazine, you know, family fun magazine back in the day. That's exactly what it was. Cause they smelled. Yeah. They have nutmeg and stuff in them. We still have it, but it was a little shaped guy and, uh, uh, we get to decorate it however, however I want it. I say, I keep saying we, maybe my sister was there too, but, and I drew him like a skater and the little peace sign on his, got him all and did his leg.

I don't know why I remember this. That's why we're getting into it is there's, there's always something that. Yeah. His, his leg broke off. Yeah. Yeah. Classic skater. It was traumatizing. Classic skater. Yeah, absolutely. Fit the, uh, the, the bill there. But I still remember that. And we still have that ornament. My mom always shows it. Remember this? Yeah. Can't escape it. Can't escape it. Leg broken off. How about you Erica? I know you're not like a huge hobby person.

▶I was scared for you to ask me this question cause I don't think I have any hobbies. Well, that's fine. I don't know. Not everyone has to be like super into hobbies.

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I've been reading recently. I got a Kindle about two years ago, but I only picked it up probably about. One year ago, but I've been reading. That's good. That's a hard one. Do you read, um, when you read, are you reading on your Kindle? Are you like, what I find the hardest about a Kindle is that it's really overwhelming to find the right source. So let's take the book 1984, for example, ubiquitous, pretty much open source, but you can rent it from the library, but you have to know how to use that. You can do the Kindle unlimited, but then some of the books, like maybe even in that series aren't available. Like how do you navigate that?

Honestly, it's whatever's trending on Tik TOK. This is going to sound so bad. I read girly romances. I don't read. It wasn't a question of like, how do you get to the classics and be a serious reader? Reading is for however you want to read. I'm asking like, do you, do you just buy, you find that book that's trending on Tik TOK and you just buy that book? Yeah. I just purchased the book itself. I don't have it set up with the library or anything.

I guess I could or should. You should. Well, that's, but that's the hardest. They just haven't streamlined it where it's just easy. Have you looked into it lately? Like, I have, I mean, I have a Kindle and my favorite part about it is having the Kindle and the audio, um, I can't audible connected, but it's getting those to sync up and connect through a full series say is like really difficult for me. Right. Just cause it's a little bit difficult to navigate.

Yeah. There's, I use one called Libby. L-I-B-B-Y. It's, I don't know, it works for me. It's an app that you can load up your Kindle. Yeah. And if you have a library card, you just enter it in your Palm Beach County library number and you can rent all kinds of stuff. Not, not even just books, movies and all kinds of stuff. It's awesome. Is there an app for your phone too then? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. That's where.

And does it open you up to say a library, technically a library in Nebraska, or is it just what's available technically through the Palm? Palm Beach County. I don't know. That's a good question. It's pretty expansive. So, you know, it's not limited to physical copies of the books, so it can have everything. So it might be a, you know, nationwide thing, but it's, I haven't run across anything that it doesn't have yet. I think I read about it one time and they actually, you actually, while you have it, it's actually checked out to you, even though it's an unlimited digital supplier of sorts.

Yeah. You can, you can, there's like a waiting list. You can see like three people are ahead of you to borrow this book. So there, it is limited. Yeah. Because said library only has three copies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have like a certain amount of credits per month that you can use, or I don't know if it's still like that, but maybe you can, you have a maximum that you can borrow and you have to like return one of those before you can get another one. So it's, it's kind of library-ish, but works great.

It's awesome. Definitely a good reason to have a library card. Yeah. That's great. I'll have to try to get one. Yeah. Check it out. Yeah. Before we jump back to Carly, I'm going to say my favorite craft. Yeah, please. So it's really stupid and, but it's memorable to me and I still have them to this day. So when I moved out to, when I moved to Florida, you know, I didn't, I was away from my family and I didn't have a dollar to my name. So decorating like my room, which I had never really been able to do outside of my parents' house was, I didn't have anything. And so I went to like a Michael's or something.

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And I bought three canvases that were maybe like 12 inch canvases, three or four of them. And I bought like some cheap paints and I thought I was really like super creative and onto some sort of modern art thing. And I would take a ruler and I would draw lines like sketch lines and different patterns, different diamonds and different things. And then I would, what I did is I themed them a different color, like, uh, you know, blue and yellow. And then the next one would be green.

And the next one was like an orange and a yellow or orange and a red. And I had those three and it was like three like paintings up on the wall. I had those up until probably, probably when I graduated from para residency. And like I said, I still have them. So it took me an hour to do that. They look so dumb. You know, if you looked at them, you're like, who did this one? You know, it's not like they've done bad. It's just, it's not, you didn't use any skills. You drew lines and you kind of, you know, you drew lines and you kind of, you know, you drew lines Did you ever get comments on them? Like when people gave them?

Oh yeah. You know, in, in school it was, that was, nobody would sit around and do art. So that was a big conversation piece. And moving into dental school, which is a more creative environment, people tend to be more crafty and such. We had a whole line in our entryway. My roommate and I had a whole line of like, we had a fiddle and we had a couple of electric guitars. He had a Les Paul and we had a couple of guitars. And we had a couple of electric guitars. And we had a couple of guitars like hanging from the wall. And, um, so in that room and in that sort of walkway, it was where we put, we actually hung those in the main living room area. So definitely a party. We, we threw a lot of parties, um, in dental school because we had four people that lived, um, at our house in dental or three people that lived, um, at our house that were in our class. And so we kind of like, since we didn't have any money to go out, we were kind of like a big draw and a big magnet.

Which that draw on that magnet ties into why I ended up with a ski boat, which is a whole another story about, we'll have to do, we'll have to talk about why I ended up with a ski boat in dental school. When we talk about like taking calculated risks that are important and good and all of that, because that was a, that was a wild time. That's why, that's why we kind of pulled as the seat for a lot of, a lot of different parties. But yeah, to answer your question, it was, it was popular enough.

But like, I remember it like it was yesterday. I could redo it 50 times better, but that's my contemporary art. Do you ever see those? Yeah. Oh, I thought it was a genius. Oh, I'm going to be the next goofy contemporary art guy. Good. I mean, someone, um, taped a banana to a big thing. I took a little more skill than that for sure. Um, so let's go back. So, um, real quick and then we'll get back into the patient conversation, but Legos, um, and I'll turn it back also to over to Erica. Um, let's talk about Legos for a second.

What got you into Legos? When did you get into it? I know your style is a little bit different than mine. I'm more of like a set guy, like I have the Titanic and the rocket ships and stuff. You're more, um, like you did the, you did the flowers. You did the Van Gogh just recently. I like the, the flowers are my favorite. I think I have them all, all the flowers. Really? Yeah. I'm pretty sure. That's a pretty good collection.

Yeah. I've actually, I need to stop building like, Legos because I'm going to move soon and moving Legos is actually a nightmare. ▶So I didn't take a break, but I love the flowers. I got into them like two years ago. My boyfriend just randomly like bought me one of the flower sets and I was like, Oh, this is actually really fun. Did you, had you, you had never really done them before? You just go your boyfriend with figuring out something creative.

And I literally did one of the flower sets in one night. I couldn't stop. I was just like, I need to finish it. Yeah. Yeah. But I really like those. I like the ones that you can hang up, like the Van Gogh one. You can kind of like hang it up. Um, I don't know if I have any other ones. I have like a bird one. Like I like ones that kind of look like decorations that I can like put throughout my house.

Do you buy yours online or do you mostly go to the Boca? I like going, well, I go to the, in Fort Lauderdale. Okay. Have you ever gone to the Boca one? I haven't. Okay. So this is a public service announcement. If you're here on a travel package and you like Legos, the Boca mall, unlike most places, let's say you go in Orlando or you go to some big popular, you know, other Lego store like New York, they're going to be inundated and have a really hard time getting sets. Well, the pop, the, the child population in Boca is not as strong as, you know, other places. And so the Boca Lego store is full of rare, in stock. Good. I mean, you found that one for me. Uh, wasn't it at the Boca store, the Notre Dame, Notre Dame?

It was. Yeah. As an example. So yeah. So it's really cool. But, um, just as an FYI, if you're an adult and you like Legos and you're happy to be visiting Boca, that's where you go. Cause they, they also stock the, the ones that you can't find anywhere else. They're in the storefront. It's like, it's almost like adult skewed where I've never been in a Lego store like that, where it's, you know, like a, you know, like a, you know, like a, you know, like a, you know, like a, you know, adult skewed. It actually is a big letdown. If you go to a Lego store in Orlando, cause it's just filled with just the other little stuff. These are like the big collectible adult style sets. Yeah. I don't have anything to compare it. I've only ever been to the Boca Lego store and the Orlando at Disney Springs or whatever it's called. But it's like massive. Yeah. That one's crazy. But I love our Lego store here in Boca. Absolutely. Sounds cool. I've, I've been to the one in New York. I went to the one in Paris. Okay.

Okay. Uh, I tried to find them and that's like one of my like sightsees, but, uh, I did buy one in Disney Springs because, uh, I had waited for the big set, the millennial Falcon set. Oh yeah. I had been waiting for it to re-release, which is actually, I'm sorry, I'm stealing this. It's how I got back into Legos as an adult was that set. I saw that set, which is massive. And I was like, that is so cool. And it was out of production at the time. So it's $2,500.

Oh, wow. On eBay and stuff. And so I was patient and I waited and waited and waited. And they finally came out with, it was $400. And that's where I bought that set was I had decided that I had waited so long that I was going to reward myself and I was going to go to Orlando and I was going to actually make the like trip rather than just buy it online. So it's more fun to go in person.

I think way more fun, especially if you get a big set, they give you the goofy little dolly that you get to wheel out. Yeah. ▶And you have like this box holder basically that has wheels on it and you can roll it like a suitcase. Wow. It's really heavy.

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Have you seen the new Golden Retriever one? No. Oh, you might have. I feel like I might have. It's so cute. Oh, no. Golden Retriever. We just got the tuxedo cat. Oh, yeah. That one's cute. I haven't seen that one either. Tuxedo cat. It's cute. It's not as cute as the doll. But I mean, I like cats better. Cats are never as good as dogs. Come on. Get serious. Okay, Erica, what else do you have patient-wise? Anyhoo, so I was just going to ask Carly a little bit too, why storytelling matters in dentistry more than advertising? I feel like this is something that we come across a lot in our office because obviously marketing is your position. It's what you do, but again, you bring patients into it.

Yeah. I think storytelling is the most important aspect because we want to appear human and we don't want to appear like we're just selling someone something and that we like care about people. And just sharing other people's stories. I hear all the time people, patients will tell me like, oh yeah, I looked at all of the like patient testimonials and that really helped me like make my decision just hearing from other people. And I'll even agree and I'll say, yeah, like we can tell you everything that we know, but nothing compares to hearing it from another patient.

I agree with that. And that's a decision. That's an intentional decision. So I was thinking about this. ▶This Monday, I had a patient text me, DM me something. It's like, why don't you guys do more videos with like staff? Cause your staff is amazing. And Lilia and Erica and everybody rocks. And like, if people could see how great you were, which I agree, we are great. Uh, you guys, you guys are great. Um, and we do do some of that. We do do some of that, but it's not, it's not the main focus. It's not because I don't know, in my opinion, people want to hear from, from other patients. They want, I just, it's more authentic to like, we can sit and make videos about how great we are all day, but I feel like we are able to capture our, our patient testimonials at a time and place where they're very authentic. And, you know, a lot of times it's the same week because we have this unique process and it's a unique timeline. So it's all fresh on, you know, something that's not coming back a year later, though. Some do a year later, 90 day checkup or whatever, but.

I feel like we get some really good, authentic testimonials from patient. And I agree. I think that's just the best way to represent what we do. Let, let somebody else tell it. Somebody that's not affiliated that just experienced the thing. Yeah. Cause at the end of the day, it's not about us. It's about them. It's about the patients. Yeah. And the story is very powerful. Yes. If you tell a story about the staff, there's an aspect that's important. You know, there's an aspect of revealing who we are.

And that's part of this bringing you on and doing this podcast is not to, um, hold ourselves out against other offices or compare ourselves to other offices. It's to say, you know, there's a, that we're a group of people that believe in this, and this is the stories that come along with it. You can decide where you want to feel about us anywhere in between. And that includes professionals. You know, if you don't agree with my opinion, quite frankly, I don't care because it's my show and you don't have to watch it. Right. So, but, but the, um, I think that the, the, if you focus on the content, that's just inside the office and you just do the dance videos and whatnot, you're not really telling a story. Yeah. And we talked about the Kindle and we talked about doing crafts at crafts is a story. It's a different kind of story. And that's what you are is you're a storyteller. You're a story creator. You're a, so are we in different ways. And so what's really cool is all of that creativity can come together.

To form this story. When I watch, uh, well, when you watch any movie or the stuff on that, I watch on YouTube is the progression and the story I mentioned all the time. I listened to like a lot of like interrogation videos and such. It's not because I really even have any interest in what the police are doing or how bad people are. It's because there's a whole progress of things that happen. And I want to find out what happened in the end. And I want to find out how that went. And so, and I've been spending a lot of time on that. And I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how important storytelling and the concept of kind of time works with sort of our experience. And that's why we consume stuff. We consume stuff for the outcome in the story. Um, and so additionally to the point, we want to be storytellers. We want to do it through video and we want to do it through the podcast to show, so that it can be a light listen for anybody, no matter where you're at in this journey. Yeah. When we have the patient interviews on here, they're always some of my favorite. It's a blast. They're great. And everybody's story is different. Everybody has their own story that is fascinating and, uh, you know, as deep as you want to dive into it. It's like every single human on the planet has their own story and hardship, hardships they persevered through and crazy things that happened to them. And it's like every single person has this wild, wild story and you don't always get the chance to tell it. You don't always get the chance to hear it. So I always appreciate when, when the people, when the patients come on here and tell their story, it's so cool. To me, that is like the spice of life. And that's the spice of why we do it is the story. Yeah. They, they always come on and they ask Erica or me or anybody that's on the podcast. They always come in and the patient will come in. And the first question they ask is what points do you want me to get across? Or how are we going to do this? Or what are we going to go through?

And I kind of usually just look, we look back at them and just say nothing. It's like Seinfeld. It's a story about nothing. Literally we're going to pull your story out of you. If teeth come along, that's fine. But really we're trying to get to who you are, what brought you here, what's cool and unique. And that's honestly why I show up to work every day. And then shirts by all of y'all show up to work. It's not because we care about teeth. I promise. I don't care.

That you knew the best person in New Jersey or Alaska to do teeth or, you know, it's not that I don't care about you and the situation you went through and that story, but I more care about that everything goes fine and that you have, you become your unique whole person more than the nuance of what tooth broke off when, and you know, your backstory of dentistry. Cause they're all very similar. Yeah. And this is, you know, being here for this, this procedure, this is just a, a midpoint of their story, you know? So I'm always, always fascinated by somebody posted in the group yesterday. How's everybody doing after years? And there's always be five years. I'm six years out, whatever. It always like fascinates me to think about, cause in my experience, I can, I kind of look at my life, like pre this procedure and post this procedure, everything before, this procedure was one kind of style of life. And then everything after there has been totally different. So it was like this pivot point within my life. And I always wonder if that's a case for a lot of other patients, because obviously something like this opens up a ton of doors for you. It gives you the courage to maybe pursue things that you wouldn't have pursued before. So I'm always like, every time we get a review, you know, I want to respond like, all right, you're up the doors open. You, you know, these things, that have been holding you back have been solved and the world is your oyster. Go out there and get it. And I'm always, you know, really interested in the people that do. Yeah. I do a lot of different types of testimonials, but the ones that are like a year out, they always tell me that too. They say my life has changed in every single aspect. Yeah. You hear that a lot. My life has changed, but I really don't think that you can, you know, overstate how much of a life changing thing this is. And it's, it's, it's hard to really understand beforehand until you, until you've been there.

▶It's also hard to play the role of, cause we want it. We're excited for it to be the pivot point. We want it to be how you see things. There was a before time that was the reason why you sought out care is you got to, we'll say a low point of some sort, and then you sought out care and it flips you to an, a different, into a different gear. We want that to be the case, but I don't, it's, it can be different.

I'm sure you feel this when you're capturing content. It can be difficult to kind of dance around it. Cause you don't want to say something to the effect of like, so how did winning the lottery feel? You know, how did we change your whole life? It can be hard. Cause you can't just jump out and say that. And then also you want to minimize, like, it's exciting to hear you say that's a pivot point. And I'm, and I know that, and I'm, I appreciate it, but I also hope that that pivot point was like the, a blip on your radar.

In terms of the experience, we want that to feel like you had it done, but it really wasn't a big deal. It isn't in the moment you're picking your teeth out all of that, but we want it to be the memory of it to be not this huge ordeal where like a pain point. Right. It can be hard to kind of

Part 631:37

balance that. Right. When you're telling the story. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. What else you got Erica? I got you. You guys were having such a good time. Good conversation going on here. So I was also just going to say our job isn't to make dentistry look pretty. It's to make it look honest. Do you ever feel like that's kind of a challenge within your creativity or is it helpful since you not only are you in social media, but obviously you're highlighting done in one and that's kind of a separate thing than highlighting the patient. Basically my gist that I'm going for is our job isn't to make dentistry look pretty. It's to make it look honest. How do you find that that kind of plays a role into being the social media manager and kind of creating content with in these patients? Because these patients are being honest, but they're also giving you pretty videos to put out. Right. Pretty photos to put out. But it's more so the story behind that, I guess, too, which is a little bit of what you guys were talking about before.

Yeah. I mean, when I do patient testimonials, I'll ask them like a lot of questions, a lot of broad questions. And I really just try and focus like on their lives and what they have to say and on the transformations. Mainly, I would say like being honest in social media isn't I wouldn't say it's tough because our target market kind of wants us to be honest in a way. There's certain things maybe I won't share. ▶But I've tried to be like very honest and very true to the patient and I get to know the patient.

So I try and post like what they would want and what they kind of relate. Do you find when you're. You know, interviewing when you're doing this testimonial. Do do you feel like they're wanting you to lead them in a certain direction where there's some kind of like hesitance to say the wrong thing? Sometimes. Yeah. Like some patients when they talk about money or just even before they sometimes they're a little bit hesitant and they don't know if they should share that. And I tell them share everything, share anything. And even some patients that want to do the testimonial, but might be like a little bit nervous. I'm like, hey, this can be five minutes. This can be 30 minutes. It's completely up to you and how you answer the questions. But I think most people, they enjoy it because my questions are very like open ended. And I'm always telling them no pressure. You know, if you want to stop at any point, we can. But all of them, a lot of them are like very, very happy to do it. They want to do it. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You can see some sometimes from like you can tell what the beginning of the testimony was. And then by the end of it, they've like gotten comfortable.

Yes. Yeah. More. Yeah. Because it can be kind of like when I give them the mic and I turn the light on, I think a lot of them are like, oh, like this is kind of like TV. And I I try to talk to them and kind of calm them down for the people that are a little bit nervous. But I think once they see it's just it's just a conversation. Exactly. Yeah. That's what I tell them. We're just talking. You're just sharing your experience. And a lot of them want to because they want to help other people like that is what they go into it saying like, this is what I thought. And this is why you shouldn't be afraid. And the question I always ask is, like, what do you have any suggestions for like future patients? And they always just say, do it. That's I get that every single time. Do it. Yeah. And we get a lot of wish I'd have done this. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Get that a lot. Transparency is a really interesting topic that could go really to every category and area of our business. I've actually never until just this moment, never really connected the transparency and honesty, difficulty, you may have with social media, not only from the trying to sell it to your question, not only from, you know, that you're employed by a company that wants to do as well as we can, but also in a subtle way, what you just kind of hinted at the transparency of getting a patient to feel comfortable with being transparent for for us. We try very hard as a group of employees and as a company to.

We. Like transparency is in our ethos and our DNA, so it's natural and normal and to probably to draw that out that people are probably coming in with like, oh, I'm sure they don't want me to tell you that. Right. So drawing that out of them, even in the environment that stays transparent, it's like foreign for us to think of. I never really considered it that way either. Yeah. Yeah. You know, transparency has gotten us in trouble before. It has gotten us, you know, extra like, not the opposite of trouble. You know, it's gotten us huge benefits. It's been that that's like probably. Probably number one, almost core beliefs, because it it purveys through into pricing and purveys into like how we operate with a patient, how we mechanically operate with each other. So, you know, as it transparency is, is the key. And I literally never thought obviously I'd be able to put together the pieces of.

You having a difficult time or could run into scenarios as you're getting comfortable with the job of, oh, maybe it doesn't want me to show this or that. Now you feel comfortable. You don't have that. But I've never considered the patient side of getting it out of them. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And it's kind of funny because a lot of patients say very similar reactions, similar experiences, which I feel like we get with our Google reviews, too. Yeah. And so, you know, they ask all the time, do you pay for these? No, we don't. Yeah.

Yeah. And even a lot. I always ask about the surgery, too. And same answer always. It's I was so afraid I thought it was going to be the worst thing in the entire world. And they're always like it was fine. I had no pain or mild discomfort. So that's a that's a big theme that I try and bring, because I know people are scared. That's probably the number one reason why they avoid this, because they're exhausted and they're frustrated and they don't want to go through pain. So I try and tell them, hey, here are a bunch of people that went through it that, didn't feel any pain. Yeah. Legit. You know, I get a lot of people that reach out. These are potential patients that are doing their research, doing their due diligence. And, you know, we talk about sedation a lot. Well, you don't do sedation. I always link them to one of the many posts in our Facebook group where somebody asks, like, hey, I'm nervous to do this without being put all the way under. And there's 50 comments of people that literally went through this saying.

On. Honestly, transparently, honestly, saying what we would want them to say if we had written a script for them. But we don't. Yeah. This is their genuine experience. And they're saying I was in the same boat. Not a big deal. Don't even remember anything. They made sure I was comfortable, et cetera, et cetera. I'm like, look, I can answer your question. But here's a link to where someone else asked that question. And there's 50 other people who have been through it answering that question. So, you know, to your point, transparency, as I will say in this industry, it's everything you have. You have to don't give away all the secrets. I don't know how many other places out there are capable of doing it because it's I don't know if it's just so ingrained that you have to promise the world and you have to hide these aspects of of things. But like, it doesn't work. You just you just have to lay all the cards on the table and tell people what they might expect because everybody's journey is different and it could play out like this. You just just want to be forthcoming. And I think that works better than anything. Yeah, for sure. I agree. People try to avoid things that hurt or uncomfortable. Yeah. And for patients, it may be a tooth or the appearance for a lot of dental offices that I've worked in and where, you know, where I started working, et cetera. It was you want to avoid having a conversation with a patient that might be tough, tough and implants bad or this is your responsibility because I didn't do this in your eight years out or whatever it may be. You can you name it doesn't have to be hybrid related. And so there's a natural tendency to jump away from that conversation and avoid it, which only makes things worse. Right. Which now you're in like parenting, you know, you only make things worse.

You don't tell me. And it's true. And so that's almost like one of the first things that we try to train into a dentist when we bring them on really employees. But like really, the dentist do not have this conversation with them here so that when it's here, if there's an issue, there's no strife. There's nothing you have to avoid because that's the bad part. That's the bad feeling part of having a case that doesn't heal correctly is the conversation that's that you're trying to avoid.

Because as human nature and you can try to change it out of yourself. But even as a dentist, you're human. You're trying to avoid that. Right. And so if you can have the conversation to begin with, it doesn't feel that bad. It feels a little scary at first that you're going to turn away. ▶But if and when that happens, then getting into there makes it so it's a stress free environment. And that's what allows plays into the lifetime warranty. We've got you.

Those conversations, not having any stress tied to them is what allows us to operate together as a group and as a company and interact with our patients in such a positive way. Positive to the point that probably a little bit for you gets a little mundane as well. I enjoy it. Yeah. Nobody wants to have difficult conversations, but however bad you want to avoid that, they just get more difficult the longer you put it off. Great parallel to needing dental work.

Yeah. You have a small problem here. If you don't address it, it's going to turn into a big problem. Yeah. And you just you just have those conversations and you lay out. You don't need to sugarcoat anything. Here's here's what you're looking at. Are some people going to get scared off by hearing the truth? It's going to happen. But it's just the only way to go. It's the only way. Communication is key. Yeah, for sure. When did you realize that traditional advertising wasn't going to cut it anymore? Was there like an actual turning point with Dun & One where you

Part 742:17

decided to start the open forum Facebook group? The Instagram, the TikTok, or did it just kind of come organically? Because I feel like that's the more common thing that you see now. Yeah, I think everything kind of came organically, but I will go on record saying that most of everything we do has come from this guy's vision and the wisdom he's imparted on us, honestly, which is, you know, we're going to do things different. We see what's out there.

We keep up with our competitors. We see the ads and the misleading stuff. And like we don't want to do that. Let's try a different way. Let's just try to be open and honest and transparent and like see where that gets us. And here we are. And I'll jump in and I'll say that to your question, the move to more user generated content and the move to less polished big film crews was spurred on by... My own avoidance of things that I feel uncomfortable, which is every time I walk into an admin meeting when we want to create a new campaign or something, a lot of it was, well, we don't have content for that. And that's not his fault. It's very, very capital intensive to shoot a big film. And you may not get the content and the footage that you want. We've had lots of misses on big, expensive stuff. And so it was almost like an avoidance of that is, well, if we're having problems with content, why don't we just make a big push to hire somebody that can capture content and we'll never have to worry about content again. So it was my own.

Yeah. Yeah. Very smart. I'm very lazy. Like I'd like things to work very... No, it's very true. All of our efficiencies and our protocol and all of our moves and a lot of dentistry comes with trying to avoid extra work for people and for me and headaches for me. And stress for me. Not that it's about me, but that's how, that's where the drive comes from is we're having a problem with content and I'm sick of hearing it. Let's fix the content problem.

Yeah. And I think it's important because like you said, you would hire these film crews. Sometimes they wouldn't capture what you wanted and I'm there. It's hard. It's hard to set a specific timeframe and say, this is what we want to get. It doesn't really work like that. You need to be in the right place at the right time when that happens. Not, you know, it's hard to, dictate magic into a three-hour window. You kind of just have to be there for when the magic happens. Because it's not a set. These are real people. It's not a script. It's just happening.

Yeah. If you've got a script and you got some actors, a lot easier. If you're just capturing genuine, you know, reactions, human, you know, emotion, you kind of got to be there. And like you said, just always have the camera rolling for when it happens. The, the, also the move is watching the trends of how everything was. There was a Superbowl, a year or two ago where the sort of the one that I noticed captured me the most was all seemingly user generated content and everything that was not everything that was polished, like let's say of a pharma advertisement, my brain just shut off. It was like, Oh, it's polished. It's already like that message is just fake. Right. And noticing that was when I kind of said to myself, well, we have a lot of really happy people. We have a great environment.

Why? Why would we not try to capture this from, for other people to use? Yeah. Yes. I had a story that comes to my mind is I know I was trying to help Odom out like a year or two ago. We were filming something, filming a commercial. We, I had reached out to a whole bunch of patients. They were flying into town, driving into town, trying to coordinate their hygiene appointments, trying to get to this location that we had a shoot with. And it was like 30 minutes away from this office. And I was like, these people don't even live here. They don't even have cars. You know, at some point we were trying to have Daniel bust them over to where they needed to be.

Once they got onto that set, they had to put on these, like, I hear it from this one patient every time he comes in, he had to put on this fake outfit and he didn't like it and he didn't feel natural. What he was saying came from his heart, but he just didn't feel like it was him. Yeah. So he felt like the message that he was putting out wasn't as genuine. So yeah, for that shoot, I had to fight those producers.

I know. ▶We were, we were not on the same page with these producers, but they wanted to write a script for these people. I'm like, dude, reading off a script is not the move. This is going to sound bad. These people are not actors. They're not actors there. And he said that I remember him saying like, well, that's the reason they need a script because they're not actors. So they need to read from this thing. And I'm like, this is going to be really bad. But I fought for that script. If we are forced to have a script, it must be made from the review that they, that they have left. You need to take it.

They need to be in their words. And maybe that can help, um, comfort them a little bit. But in the end it was, you know, it was a great, great idea. That shoot was a disaster that, that the whole concept was to be family and sharing a meal and what, what's better than using teeth for a meal, et cetera. Right. We ended up in a bar. They ended up shooting like my intro and the outro in front of a bar.

So for three months, everybody I saw in the golf course was like, saw your commercial the other day. You want to like, really, what were you selling alcohol or teeth? Right. Just, it was a disaster because they wouldn't listen. It was the nicest lighting and everything, but it was a bar. I'm a dentist. Like, what are you doing? Um, so sometimes capturing that moment's tough and expensive. So why not just kind of bring it to an earthy kind of genuine sort of position?

Totally. I thought you were going to bring up the shoot we were trying to do at Mizner park when we had, you know, four different people coming and we had worked out all the logistics. Oh my God. I don't even remember that because I don't think it worked out. And then the storm. The storm came. It was like a hurricane the same day out of nowhere. We had to cancel everything. ▶All the, like two months worth of work we had put in to try to.

I almost forgot about that because keep in mind, these patients are coming in from out of town to coordinate their cleaning appointment, their annual hygiene appointment with a commercial. And it's like, they'll do it for us as, you know, as a courtesy, as a favor, they're volunteer for it, whatever it is. We're obviously not paying them, but it's just like, it can be, these are the difficulties of using real patients.

Part 848:47

Right. Yeah, it really is. All right. So I've enjoyed this conversation with you. We're getting the heads up on getting kicked out of here, but we appreciate your time and let's do this again. Yes, absolutely. And I know exactly when we're going to have you back when our studio is set up, which should be very soon. So the debut album, let's do it at the debut. Let's do it with you. Love it. Awesome. That was good. Thanks everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.