Profit Killers in Your Practice You’re Probably Ignoring

Intro: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, your podcast co-host. Um, we have a great episode for you today. Today’s episode is titled Profit Killers in Your Practice That You Are Probably Ignoring. I’m gonna go through four very specific profit killers. Uh, hope I’ve created and piqued your interest in that topic. Uh, you’re gonna get lots of useful information you can apply immediately in your practice from this podcast episode.

Hey, before we get to that episode, two quick announcements to make. Coming up not too long after this episode is published is our 2025 RIDA Annual Summit—Reducing Insurance Dependence Academy Annual Summit. It’s a virtual summit. We do it every fall. It’s coming up Friday, October 24th. It is going to be from noon Eastern Time to 5:30 PM Eastern Time. Do the time translation for whatever time zone you are in, but that’s noon Eastern to 5:30 PM Eastern Time.

And this is an entire summit with keynote lectures and panels, various panels. Everybody that’s going to be participating in the 2025 Reducing Insurance Dependence Annual Summit will have something to do with helping you successfully resign from PPO plans. We have some awesome panelists. We’re gonna have some great conversations. We’re gonna have people that, one way or another, can support you in successfully resigning from PPO plans.

Here’s the great news: you’ll get five hours of CE if you attend start to finish. You’ll get five hours of CE, and there is no tuition. We’re gifting your tuition in appreciation for your listenership. So come join us. You do have to register. Go to www.rid.academy  , and you’ll notice a quick popup when you go to the homepage. And the popup is where you register for the 2025 RIDA Annual Summit. Be sure to go there and we’ll look forward to seeing you there. This will be perhaps the most important business CE you take this year.

Alright, the second announcement I have is I have my co-host, Naren Arulrajah, presenting a Thriving Dentist marketing tip. In this Thriving Dentist marketing tip, Naren’s gonna talk about why Google SEO—organic SEO—costs a fraction of Google paid ads and social media ads.

No further ado, here’s Naren with our Thriving Dentist marketing tip.

Naren Arulrajah: In today’s marketing tip, I’m gonna be talking about why Google SEO costs a fraction of Google Ads, and even a smaller portion of social media ads. So, SEO typically costs one-fifth of Google Ads and one-tenth of social media ads. Why is that? I’m Naren, I’m the founder of Ekwa Marketing and the co-host of the Thriving Dentist Podcast.

The reason for that is people don’t trust ads, right? So when I click on an ad, uh, when I type in a search term on Google, that’s called a pay-per-click ad—PPC ad—I don’t trust that ad. Why? Because I know it’s an ad. It said it was an ad. It was a sponsored link. So when I’m clicking, I’m clicking with doubt.

So, typically, the average person coming from Google SEO trusts you because they didn’t click on an ad, versus the average person coming from a Google Ad doesn’t trust you because they clicked on an ad.

So even the time that they spend on the website, there’s a significant difference. Typically, the average person through a Google Ad would spend 15 seconds. The average person through SEO will spend 90 seconds. So what this means is one person coming from SEO is equal to six people coming from ads. Why? Because many of them don’t trust—the ones coming from ads—many, many of them don’t trust you. They are finding a reason to leave your website quickly. So you need a lot more people.

Now, the other challenge with Google Ads is you’re paying per click. So if each click is costing you $5 and you need six clicks to make up one SEO person, you need six times $5—$30. So even though you are only paying $5 a click, really it’s costing you $30 to get the equivalent of one SEO click.

Now, why are social media ads the most costly? Why are they even 10 times more costly? At least with Google, they typed in "implants," so even though it’s an ad, they’re seeing an ad for implants. With social media ads, that’s not what happens, right? They’re not typing in "implants," so they might be looking for implants, and you’re showing an ad for veneers. So, like, that ad doesn’t connect with them. So they’re, like, actually mad at you for showing them the wrong ad.

Because of this lack of intent—in other words, they want one thing and you are showing an ad for something else—more than likely, they’re not gonna click on it because it’s a numbers game, right? So if you say only one out of a hundred people who are looking for a new dentist wants implants, or one out of ten, now all the other 90 people are not gonna like the ad that you’re gonna run for them.

So you have to be careful in terms of knowing that social media is the most costly for that one reason—because you don’t know what they want—as opposed to with Google Ads, at least you know what they want.

So I would use social media ads also as an option, but as my third option. SEO comes first. Once I have maxed out SEO, then I’ll do Google Ads. And then finally, once I have maxed out Google Ads, I might do social media ads.

So keep this in mind, right? Because yes, ads are wonderful. If you want something quick, the best way to do it is through ads. Of course, it’s gonna cost you a lot more, and there’s gonna be a chance of more no-shows, because people who click on ads—even when they book—they don’t take you seriously because they know they clicked on an ad.

So it’s kind of like the Groupon days, you know, uh, there’s a lot of no-shows. So make sure that you have a practice that doesn’t get frustrated with no-shows when you run ads, so you’re setting expectations correctly and so forth.

Now, if you want anyone to comprehensively review your marketing—your SEO, your Google Ads, and social media ads—book a marketing strategy meeting. It’s ekwa.com/td  for Thriving Dentist. We will give you a full analysis on how you are doing versus your competition, and give you a roadmap and a plan so you can dominate your marketing.

Hope you found this tip useful.

Naren Arulrajah: Welcome back to the Thriving Dentist Coaching In Action Segment. This is Naren, your co-host. Hope you enjoyed that tip. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at ekwa.com/msm —about SEO, or Google Ads, or social media ads. It’s a great way for you to learn about, you know, how you’re doing with marketing, and if you need to, you know, upgrade it.

Gary, I’m also excited about our Annual Summit, which is happening on the 24th of October. So you’re gonna learn a ton. Go to RID.Academy, and don’t forget to sign up.

The topic for today is Profit Killers in Your Practice You Are Probably Ignoring. It’s a great topic because, I mean, the older we get—I’m gonna turn 50 this year—and, you know, Gary has helped practices for 45 years, we realize the difference between the successful people and those who are not: the successful people do the most important things, work on the most important problems, not necessarily on the entire to-do list. They know what’s important and what’s not.

So, today’s episode is gonna be, you know, gems—if I could use that term—of four specific profit killers that keep making the most damage to your practice. We have seen it time and again. Gary and I work together and with our mutual clients, and these same issues keep popping up again and again. So we want to share that wisdom.

So, Gary, take it away.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. You know, Naren, to take off on your comments, I think a fair statement to make for any of our listeners is owning a practice can often feel overwhelming. There are so many different things that need attention, you know, from the owner dentist. And, um, there’s—you know, if you are a listener and you have felt or are feeling a sense of overwhelm, I would politely suggest that you have a lot of company in that regard.

But this episode is meant to provide some focus. Because one of the reasons why you could feel overwhelmed is there’s just so many things, so many moving pieces. It’s like, how in the world can I tend to all of it?

So what we want to do is focus on some things where you’re gonna get a great return—four very specific things that you’re going to get a great return in terms of improving practice profitability or practice EBITDA, if you measure that. And these four things represent very focused areas.

Gary Takacs: So instead of scattering buckshot—where we’re trying to address everything—we’re gonna get very laser-focused in this episode and focus on very specific things that I think it’s safe to say you may be ignoring. And after this episode, you won’t.

So let me start with number one, a profit killer. Number one: the high cost of mishandled phone calls. High cost of mishandled phone calls. Alright, I’m gonna introduce each one and then talk about it before I go to the next one.

So, high cost of mishandled phone calls. First of all, if you’re not measuring your call conversion percentage, you have no idea what’s actually happening in your phone calls. And by mishandling phone calls, I’m talking about calls from potential new patients. Obviously, we want to have impeccable phone handling for our existing patients—answering questions that existing patients have—but I’m talking very specifically about when a potential new patient calls your practice. How is that phone call handled? And, you know, what is the goal that we’re looking for? The goal, of course, that we’re looking for is a new patient appointment. Would you agree, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, Gary.

Gary Takacs: Absolutely. That’s why they’re calling—they want to get in.

Naren Arulrajah: I know it’s kind of, um, sad. I mean, you and I have mutual clients and we look at, listen to these calls together. A lot of practices, before they get to your coaching and training—I don’t want to say all of them—only book one out of three or less of the new patient calls coming in. And that seems to be the industry average, according to ADA.

Gary Takacs: I actually saw a revision of that, Naren, that says the industry average is now 28%. So—28%, right?—of potential new patients that call end up making an appointment. And let me benchmark this for you. Let me tell you what we use for our clients and what I would suggest you use for benchmarking.

The goal is not 100%. And the reason it’s not 100% is that it’s not realistic. For example, the patient may say, “Hey, do you accept Medicaid?” And if you’re not a Medicaid provider, the answer is no. So that one’s not gonna convert.

Another one is a patient that calls about a service that is not provided. You know, maybe a mother calls and says, “Hey, my son is 18 years old, and I’d like to have his wisdom teeth extracted. Do you guys do third molar extraction? Do you guys do wisdom teeth extraction?” And if that’s not something you do, the answer is no. You might refer them to your surgeon for that, but that’s not something you do. That will be a non-converted call, right?

So the goal is not 100%. But let me tell you what the goal is—70% or above. And certainly, it can be above 70%, but I would call 70% and above an A on the report card, you know, using a grade scale that we’re familiar with. 70% or above is an A. 60 to 70 is a B. 50 to 60 is a C. And anything less than 50 is failing.

Well, Naren, according to the recent research from the ADA, where the average is 28%, where do they fall?

Naren Arulrajah: Failing. They’re failing, yes.

Gary Takacs: And by the way, that may be you—yes—but if you don’t know, then you’re not gonna give it any focus. If you don’t know… well, let me give you a clinical example.

Imagine that you went out and took a course on restorative dentistry, and you started embracing what you learned in that course. But you didn’t know that your restorations were failing. You didn’t know they were failing. And maybe they were failing because of faulty material or material flaws—not necessarily your clinical skills. Wouldn’t you like to know they were failing so that you could make the corrections, so that’s not a problem that just goes on and continues?

Well, same thing here. Wouldn’t you like to know how your team is doing in terms of handling those phone calls so that you can correct that?

I have a great example—a case study. A new client of ours in our Thriving Dentist Coaching program—when we started, his conversion rate… So here’s the entire backstory: He said, “I’m just getting started with Ekwa, and I have a strong confidence that my organic search engine optimization is going to be radically improved, and we’re gonna get the numbers we want from organic search engine optimization. But my goal today is 35 new patients a month, and I’m only getting 12.”

He said, “Should I budget some money for some Google Pay-Per-Click so that we can get some immediate results from Pay-Per-Click?” This is kind of a takeoff on your tip, Naren. “Should I spend some money on Google Pay-Per-Click?”

And I said, “Well, it depends. What’s the problem? Is the problem you’re not getting enough phone calls, or is the problem you’re getting phone calls and not converting them?”

And of course, he answered the way virtually every dentist would answer it: “I don’t know.”

I said, “Well, I can find out. Since you’re an Ekwa client, we’ll share the information with me.” And I found out that he was getting 50 new patient calls a month, and he was converting 25% of them.

So let’s park on that for a minute. Where is 25% on our grade scale?

Naren Arulrajah: It’s an F—failing.

Gary Takacs: It’s failing, yeah. I said, “Well, the issue isn’t that you’re not getting enough calls. You’re getting 50 calls a month, but you’re only converting 25%. Let’s make sure we’re solving the right problem. Because if you start spending money on Pay-Per-Click and your conversion stays at 25%, you’re gonna be lighting $100 bills on fire—$1,000 checks on fire. You’re lighting them on fire.”

And then he has a good sense of humor. I asked him, I said, “How much training have you done with your team on phone calls?” And he said, “Altogether?” I said, “Yeah, just ballpark it for me.” “Altogether… let’s see… none.”

And we laughed. And I said, “Well, let’s do some.” And so we did one round of call training, where I listened to a bunch of calls and I picked six to review with his team members. And we went from 25% to 62% in the first round. Pretty good result—more than doubled the performance—but it was still… you know, 62 is a B minus on the report card.

So I said, “Let’s stay after it. Let’s do it again next month.” We did it again. It went from 62 to 69%.

Now I got stubborn and said, “Man, we’re 1% away from an A. I could be the generous professor and give you an A, but let’s earn it.” So I said, “Let’s do another round.” And we got into 75%.

He’s been 75% ever since. Same 50 calls a month. And now at 75%, he’s getting 38 new patients a month instead of the 12 that he was getting before.

Didn’t have to spend a nickel on Pay-Per-Click. And those have been sustained results.

So that gives you an example of the high cost of mishandled phone calls.

Alright, let’s go to number two: weak or non-existent follow-up with patients. Weak or non-existent follow-up.

And the specific follow-up that I’m talking about, Naren, is following up on asymptomatic dentistry or on what I would call high-value dentistry. In other words, we presented something that is asymptomatic—it doesn’t hurt. We don’t really need follow-up with symptomatic dentistry, Naren. They’ll… 

Naren Arulrajah: Be like, “Please get me in—tomorrow, today!”

Gary Takacs: Now, if it hurts, they’re very motivated. Yes. But for asymptomatic dentistry, we need to follow up with them because they might be thinking, “Well, it doesn’t hurt. I don’t need to do anything about it,” right?

And for high-value dentistry—things like Invisalign, implants, complex restorative dentistry, cosmetic dentistry—those are the things that would be useful to follow up on. Because often, a component of case acceptance is timing. The patient’s timing, not your timing.

Maybe you have a female patient that’s in her forties that would love to have a beautiful smile, but right now, she’s got two kids in college, and those college tuition bills are impacting the family budget, right?

But we may want to follow up and answer any questions they have. So, I love to help set up follow-up with patients. We typically do that by text message, and we reach out. It’s soft. It’s very soft. It might be:

“Naren, this is Carol from [practice name]. I was calling to follow up on some treatment the doctor recommended. I understand the doctor recommended fillings for that area on your upper left.”

Now I want to give a benefit statement. A benefit statement, Naren. “These fillings aren’t going to get better on their own. They only get worse over time. And what we can now treat with filling replacement might end up being something more complicated later. I just wanted to follow up with you and, number one, see if I can answer any questions; or number two, see if we can get that scheduled for you. Feel welcome to reach out to me here—I’d be happy to answer any questions or get that scheduled for you.”

Notice the softness in this. It’s soft.

Naren Arulrajah: Soft, and it’s all about them, right? I love the fact that it’s about them. It’s not about, “Oh, I, I, I…” You know, like it’s not about me—it’s about the patient.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, yeah. And so, the sequence that I recommend is that we do one follow-up after we see the patient as a new patient. The other thing you want to do in the follow-up is make sure we have them scheduled for their next hygiene appointment.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Make sure we have them scheduled. That could be the fallback. The goal would be to get them scheduled for those fillings on the upper left. But the fallback would be: “Let’s get your next hygiene appointment scheduled. That way, doctor can keep an eye on things, and we can kind of give you a status report.”

So think of it—maybe two goals. One goal would be to schedule the treatment, but the other goal would be to make sure they’re scheduled for the next hygiene appointment.

If they are scheduled for the next hygiene appointment, then I would suggest the next follow-up would be to somehow flag that patient so that when we see them next time, we’re alerted to those fillings on the upper left, so we could follow up with them at the next hygiene appointment.

And that’s a complete follow-up program—to do it that way. And you know, I know it’s working, Naren, when patients—even if they’re not ready to schedule for that treatment—right? But they thank us. “Thank you for reaching out to me.” You know, “Thank you.”

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly. And I remember a phrase you kind of shared with me from one of your mentors to explain why this is a huge profit leak. I think you used the phrase “paper millionaires.” You might have $3 million worth of unscheduled treatments in your books, but because you don’t have this follow-up process, you never realize that $3 million.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. I recently ran one for a very strong solo dentist practice, and we were absolutely floored when we saw the total of unscheduled treatment that was presented but not completed—it was over $5 million.

Now, it was over an extended period of time, and that didn’t necessarily indicate the case presentation was flawed—although we can always get better at presenting dentistry. It had more to do with no follow-up. It was just one and done. You know, one and done.

I mean, think about that. To use another realm—let’s say you’re working on fitness and you read one article about fitness and never do anything else. How’s your fitness level gonna be?

Naren Arulrajah: Pretty much the same.

Gary Takacs: Same. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: It’s not gonna change. So, you know, we gotta follow up, and we gotta keep it gentle, keep it patient-centric and caring and compassionate, and just, you know, letting them know, “We’d like to help you with this before it becomes something more complicated.”

Alright, let me go to profit killer number three: lack of internal marketing.

Naren, I’m astounded at how effective some internal marketing can be to help patients understand what kind of care is available in your office. You know, think about it—all the cool things we can do in dentistry. How do patients know what your menu of services are?

Now, it might be on your website. You might have some things listed on your website. But my experience is, the website is useful for new patients—when new patients go to your website—but rarely do existing patients spend much time on your website.

So we need more than just a website. We need a potent website that has lots of before-and-after photos, patient testimonials. We have video content about some of the things that you do—that could be done by you, doctor, or your team members. We need all that on your website, yes. But we also need some internal marketing.

What I like most of all with internal marketing would be beautiful, professional after-photos hung in the clinical area of your office. The clinical area. These are after-photos. These are beautiful, large-scale—typically two-foot by three-foot, even larger—canvas-wrapped. You can do a canvas wrap so that you don’t have to worry about having all the frames match. And literally, they—you put a nail on the wall and hang them up. They look great.

And those would be after-photos. Those would be patients maybe that had treatment that I would call high-value treatment in your practice. Maybe implants. Maybe complex restorative dentistry. Maybe cosmetic dentistry. Maybe Invisalign.

And then one of the things we could say when a new patient comes into the practice—as we’re escorting the patient back into the office to the treatment area—we could say:

“You’ll notice all the photos we have back here in the office. Our doctors love doing every type of dentistry. They’re really kind of passionate about teeth and helping people have great oral health. But there’s certain things we really love to do, like helping patients that are maybe missing a tooth—or even all their teeth—with dental implants. Adult orthodontics—you’ve probably heard about it—Invisalign. Cosmetic dentistry, where we can take a patient and provide the smile of their dreams.”

“All of the patients you see back here are patients that we’ve helped have a beautiful, healthy smile.”

So that’s internal marketing. That’s internal marketing.

The other thing we can do with internal marketing has more to do with not visuals, but how we talk to patients. And when you’re doing high-value dentistry, doctors, I would suggest that one of the things you do is have a post-treatment consultation. A post-treatment consultation.

And you can tell them, “I want to have one more appointment. We’re gonna polish everything up. We’re gonna just check everything and make sure we’re at the finish line.” You don’t really need to polish it—they’re already polished—but we make an excuse to do that. You know, how do your teeth feel after they’re polished? They always feel really good.

So we bring the patient back. We do that. We sit them up in the chair, and then we talk to them. We say:

“Linda, I want to take a minute and compliment you. I wish all of our patients were as interested in their health as you are. You just chose the best dentistry has to offer. Remember where we started?”

And you could pull up a digital before photo.

“And look at where we are now. Linda, I am so happy we could help you with this. You know, Linda, if you know someone that would appreciate having the kind of dentistry done that you’ve experienced here, please know we’d always welcome them as a new patient in the practice. Any friend of yours is a friend of ours.”

So it’s an opportunity to make a request for a referral. And that’s internal marketing.

So there are some things we can do.

Gary Takacs: Finally, number four profit killer is: not tracking key practice metrics. I’m gonna give you four to start tracking.

Number one is your call conversion percentage—back to tip number one. What percent of new patient callers end up making an appointment?

Number two is forecasting practice production—forecasting. Here’s how I want you to do that: on the first day of the month, the first day of the month, I want you to look at what is scheduled for production that month. And I want you to look at that every month, because over time, you’ll develop a flow and you’ll develop a cadence in your practice. I want you to start looking at that. I’ve taught our clients to do this—it has been very, very useful.

One of our clients, for example, recently said, “Here’s what I’ve discovered in looking at my forecasted practice production: if we’re at 80% or above—above 80% of goal—on the first day of the month, the likelihood that we’re gonna get there is very, very good.”

Now, that doesn’t mean we can fall asleep—we still have to pay attention to it. But he said, “If I’m below 80%, that means that we have to do some things to make it happen. We have to reactivate past-due hygiene patients, follow up on unscheduled treatment plans, we have to look at adding same-day dentistry as a way of making it.”

And he said, “We’ve had months where we’ve started at 60%—not very good. Our goal is to start at 80. And we’ve made a goal because of doing something proactively instead of waiting till the end of the month and hoping we get there.”

So, forecast your practice production.

Number three: treatment acceptance percentage. Let me give you three different ranges of treatment acceptance.

For necessary dentistry—it’s 100%. When patients are in pain, our goal is 100%.

For asymptomatic general dentistry—our goal is 70% or above for treatment acceptance. That’s immediately.

And then for ideal treatment—our goal is somewhere between 30% and 40% immediately when we present it. They immediately accept that.

So there’s three different benchmarks you can use to track treatment acceptance.

And finally, number four—I could pretty much safely say that I don’t think very many of our listeners are doing this, unless they happen to be a client of ours at Thriving Dentist—missed phone calls during business hours.

What’s your percentage of missed phone calls during business hours? So now your phone’s ringing during business hours and it’s going to voicemail. You need to know what that is. And when it’s above 5%… Naren, would you agree with 5% on missed phone calls during business hours as the goal?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, Gary, I think that’s a great goal. That’s a tough goal to meet.

Gary Takacs: That is definitely an A+ even.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, I might even be happy with 10%, but 5% is likely.

Gary Takacs: Or let’s say 5% to 10%.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: But if you’re at 40% missed calls—let’s solve that one.

Well, let me recap the four profit killers that you are probably ignoring:

Number one: high cost of mishandled phone calls.

Number two: weak or non-existent follow-up.

Number three: lack of internal marketing to help people understand what the full range of services is in your practice.

And number four: not tracking four key metrics—call conversion percentage, forecasting your practice production for the month and then proactively doing things ahead of time about it, treatment acceptance percentage, and missed phone calls.

Let’s hit pause here on the Coaching In Action segment, Naren, and go to the Thriving Dentist Q&A segment.

Naren Arulrajah: Welcome back to the Thriving Dentist Q&A segment. Gary, I got so much value—I think this is one of those episodes where even if they do one of these ideas, it could make hundreds of thousands of dollars in difference in the practice within a 12-month period. So you shared four ideas—this is amazing.

So please take notes. If you have any questions, go to thrivingdentist.com and reach back to us with those questions. And I would even recommend, if you think you need someone like Gary to help you, book a coaching strategy meeting. Go to thrivingdentist.com/csm for a coaching strategy meeting. And Gary can see if you’re a good fit, and if he feels he can help you.

He’s very selective, though, in this part of his life. So if he feels like you’re coachable and he can help you, he would definitely do everything he can to help you. So that’s my recommendation.

Gary, I have four questions for you. Let me jump right into them.

First one is: How do I follow up on unscheduled treatment without pestering patients?

The key word is “pestering patients.”

Gary Takacs: Yeah, you know, we certainly don’t want to be like those telemarketers that feel like they’re hounding us all the time.

But I would recommend—as I mentioned in follow-up, on tip number two in the Coaching and Action segment—I would do this primarily by text message. Maybe the only exception to that is if there’s a particular patient that you know appreciates phone calls. And they’re likely to be an older patient, and maybe even a super senior.

You know, we find that a lot of seniors are very good with text messaging, but when they get to a certain age, phone calls tend to work better with them.

So, follow up by text message or phone call and ask:

“I wanted to see if you had any questions. Could I answer any questions about that?”

Or:

“I wanted to see if I could get that scheduled for you.”

And then we follow up once. While we have them in the text thread, we also make sure we have their next hygiene appointment scheduled. Because a lot of times patients—most of the time—they’ll make their next hygiene appointment. But there are some patients that don’t, for whatever reason.

Usually it has to do with calendar reasons. Maybe they’re due again in January, and they say, “Well, we’re thinking about taking a trip in January, and we just don’t have the dates yet, so I better not schedule that.”

So make sure they have the next hygiene appointment, because that can be a good fallback goal for the follow-up. And then the hygiene appointment represents a great opportunity to follow up with them. So make sure we flag that patient’s record and we bring it up in the morning huddle on the day we see them for their hygiene appointment.

So that’s good follow-up—without pestering. I think that’s a great question.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Let me go to question number two. That is, I heard you talk about the value of recording phone calls and using them in team member training. I have strong team members on the phone. Would you still recommend using call recording and training?

Gary, do you mind if I give you my 2 cents? Because we have mutual clients. Yeah. So one of the advantages of, um, recording calls is you can also figure out your conversion rate. So we use people and technology to say, okay, you got, let’s say, 30 new patient calls. What percentage of them actually booked and did not book? Without recording the call, you won’t know what the conversion rate is. And the biggest mistakes people make is ask the team member, hey, how are we doing on conversions? Of course, everyone is gonna do, "I’m crushing it," because in their mind, anyone who did not book is, quote unquote, the wrong patient anyways. So…

Gary Takacs: Yeah, what they say, they’ll say — and I’ve had these conversations many, many, many times — "Oh, we book everyone that’s possible to book. The ones we don’t book, we don’t want them as patients anyway." But wait a minute — if they’re a human being with a heartbeat, they’re a potential new patient.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: But they make the judgment based on… and so sometimes it’s very innocent. Yes. Maybe the caller is asking a question, "How much is a crown?" Right? And immediately, the team member judges — oh, this is just a shopper. We don’t want them. Right. Everybody’s a shopper.

Naren Arulrajah: I’m a shopper. Like, if I go to the car dealership, I wanna know how much something’s gonna cost, you know, before I, you know, ask anything else. It’s because I don’t know anything else to ask, Gary. Like, it’s like, I don’t wanna look stupid. I have to speak. So I’ll just ask the question I know to ask.

Gary Takacs: But to answer that question very specifically — if you do not have call conversion data, it’s just math. It’s just math, right? And math is science. Math is not subjective.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: One plus one isn’t sometimes three. No. It’s science.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: And I know our listeners will appreciate this, because their careers are rooted in science.

Naren Arulrajah: Science. Exactly. It’s not…

Gary Takacs: Phone call conversion is science. Mm-hmm. And if you don’t know what that is with data, you don’t know what’s happening on the call. And I’m not saying that you have… I don’t distrust you when you say, "I’ve got great team members." I believe that. I absolutely believe that. But if you don’t know your conversion percentage, you’re flying blind. You’re driving an exotic sports car — which is your practice — blindfolded. And that doesn’t make any sense.

So what I’m really encouraged by is, when we go through the call training — and I do that myself with your team — I create a safe environment for them. Very safe. We talk about the calls. We play the call. We talk about it — what could be improved — and we create an environment for improvement. And they embrace it. They absolutely embrace it. And it’s that process that allows us to go from, you know, 25% to 75%, in the example that I used with you in the opening. It’s that process that allows us to do that.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. I agree. I think I would definitely, if this is a problem, find out what your conversion rate is and fix it. And I, of course, am biased. I’m gonna recommend Gary and his method because I’ve seen it work time and again, but definitely get it fixed.

Gary Takacs: You know, and I’ve been doing that since 2007. This isn’t a new process. But now, doing that 18 years — and with, you know, my own practice, but also with client practices — that process has made all the difference in the world in terms of buttoning everything down from a marketing perspective, converting everything that’s possible to convert, and really reaching the goal of number of new patients for every practice.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Thank you, Gary.

Third question. The majority of my new patients are PPO patients who only want treatment covered by insurance. What can I do to change this?

Gary Takacs: You know, Naren, we titled this podcast episode Profit Killers in Your Practice That You’re Probably Ignoring, and we covered four specific things. There actually is one super profit killer — and it wasn’t in those four things that I mentioned. It’s participating with PPO plans. Talk about a profit killer, right?

You know, the average discount today — and the discount, the adjustment, that’s the technical term for it — the difference between your UCR fee and your contracted fee, the average adjustment today is between 45% and 50%. Well, you are literally just tying a lead weight around your profit when you’re participating in a PPO plan. You can’t pedal fast enough. You cannot pedal fast enough to make up for that.

So actually, the number one profit killer in your practice — for those of you that are PPO providers — is continuing to participate with PPO plans. But I empathize with this doctor’s question because, very often, you know, the truth is, you can get a good patient from — I’ll pick the 5,000-pound gorilla — Delta Dental.

Naren, can a practice get a good patient from Delta?

Naren Arulrajah: A hundred percent, Gary. Absolutely.

Gary Takacs: We can. You bet.

Naren Arulrajah: I mean, all people are good. It’s just that the way they’re being trained to think — right? — and the way they come in trains them differently. So, somebody coming in through a PPO plan, their question is, “Is it covered?” Because, “I have this insurance plan. If it’s not covered, maybe my dentist is trying to sell me something I don’t need.” That’s the way they think.

Gary Takacs: Right. Well, and you know, when we look at that — the baggage that they arrive with — it’s not a hundred percent the case, but very often, right, they’re only interested in having things done that are covered by their insurance.

Naren, what was the — it’s kind of disappeared, you know, from our vernacular — but remember a few years ago, businesses could do these deals and offer customers deals. What was that app called? You know, back in the day?

Naren Arulrajah: Business deals?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, it was, you know, deals, like…

Naren Arulrajah: Groupon, you mean? Groupon?

Gary Takacs: Groupon!

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. Yeah. Groupon. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Exactly. Where’s Groupon today?

Naren Arulrajah: Uh, because it brings you the bottom feeders. And eventually, businesses said, “I don’t want bottom feeders.”

Gary Takacs: Imagine that you have a restaurant that has more seating capacity than you’ve been able to meet through your current efforts, right? And you say, “Hey, let me do Groupon. Let’s do a two-for-one,” you know, where two people can dine for the price of one. Right?

Guess what the restaurants found out when they did that?

Naren Arulrajah: They don’t come back.

Gary Takacs: They bounce. They came in for two-for-one and then bounced.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: They didn’t come back.

Naren Arulrajah: And even dental practices tried Groupon. I remember those. And like, none of them said — like, 80% of them never show up. So you are wasting all this time doing literally free work. And then…

Gary Takacs: Delta is a version of Groupon.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: You know, it’s not technical.

Naren Arulrajah: I think you couldn’t have said it better, Gary. It is a version of Groupon.

Gary Takacs: It’s a Groupon. Yeah. Now, can we change that thinking? Perhaps. But it’s an uphill battle. How about attracting people that are interested in what you have to begin with, you know, instead of trying to lure them on price?

So, I think that explains it really well. But you know, what can you do? I’m going to turn it to you. So what are some things they could do, Naren? Rattle off two things.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, today, 95% of patients start their research — especially the ones who want to use their own money to pay for some healthcare, whether it’s a smile or, you know, they heard about gum disease and the connection between gum disease and heart attacks, and they have a history of heart attacks — they want a doctor who really knows how to treat advanced periodontal disease. They go to Google and start researching.

So when they start researching, you need to show up. So, in other words, instead of attracting the Groupon patients — which is what PPO drives to you — you can now attract patients who are looking for these high-value services, these health-centric services, by ranking for those keywords.

And trivia — 5% of you will get 95% of the free traffic.

And to get into that 5% who gets 95% of the free Google traffic — free Google Organic SEO traffic — you need to rank for a hundred or more keywords. So that’s the way I would lean. Step one: do an audit. Are you ranking for a hundred or more keywords when it comes to Google Organic SEO?

Book a marketing strategy meeting — ekwa.com/msm.  We’ll tell you. We’ll literally look at you and your competition and we’ll tell you: are you in that 5%? If not, what do you need to do to get to that 5%?

And I think once you know that, you can start attacking this profit killer. Which is, instead of getting patients who only want dentistry covered by insurance — in other words, the Groupon PPO patients — you can start attracting patients who want these other things, like a beautiful smile or to get rid of their crooked teeth, and they’re willing to pay for it.

And how do you attract those people? By helping them find you in the first place.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Yeah. I love that question, though, because I love the thinking — that this doctor wants to move away from attracting people from Delta and find other ways. That’s the answer.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Lemme go to question number four, Gary. What can I do to help patients understand the full range of services we provide?

Gary Takacs: Well, we talked about it a little bit in the coaching action statement. One would be to have some beautiful after photos. Um, and then the verbal skills that we go with that are, you know, our doctor — let’s say it’s a solo doctor — our doctor loves helping patients with all kinds of dental treatment, and our doctor has a full range of treatment skills. But the photos you see here are patients we’ve helped with things like dental implants, things like Invisalign, things like complex restorative dentistry. And, uh, you know, if you have a full range of those patients — maybe as young as 18 years old, as old as in their seventies — you have different nationalities represented. You’re literally representing an image of a beautiful, healthy smile is appropriate for anybody at any age.

The other thing you can do is a quick office tour.

You know, Naren, that is part of our new patient experience. One of the things we teach is to do a very quick three-minute tour. And the three-minute tour allows you to talk about some things in your practice without selling. So, for example, imagine this, Naren — the office has, as we move in one of the hallways, it’s got some glass shelves that have some products on there. So imagine we say something like, "These are some products that we make available to our patients, by the way." So, I recommend that — we don’t necessarily profit from those products. So we say, "We’re able to purchase these products at a wholesale price, and we pass along that price to you. You’ll see some products here." And one of the products you’ll notice here is some whitening products. And our goal is to help our patients have the whitest, brightest smile in — you know, insert your state — in Arizona, in California.

So now they know we do whitening. So we can walk by a CBCT machine and say, "This is an advanced X-ray technology that we have available that we use when we’re helping patients that are interested in dental implants." So now they know dental implants are on the radar screen. So we can subtly incorporate that into the tour so they know what’s available.

What the mistake most dentists make is they have a list of services available on their website, and they assume it’s one and done — and that’s it. No. It’s not one and done. So we have to find subtle ways of letting ’em know it’s available without selling. Just — it’s more of an FYI. You know, "This is available in our practice."

Well now, this has been a fun episode: profit killers in your practice that you are probably ignoring. I would encourage our listeners to put these things into action, and you’ll see some awesome results. If you haven’t done so already, schedule a marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa.

Naren, what URL would you like them to use for that?

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. It’s ekwa.com/msm . That’s the link for the marketing strategy meeting, and we would love to be of service.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. And if you’re interested in really developing your practice to full potential, I would encourage you to go to thrivingdentist.com/csm.  It stands for Coaching Strategy Meeting. Maybe I’ve piqued your interest in reducing your insurance dependence. That’s something we are passionate about. Maybe you’d like some help implementing these profit killers and avoiding those in your practice. In any case, set up a Zoom meeting with me. I’d love the chance to meet you and talk about how to make your practice perform optimally. Love the opportunity to work with you.

On that note, let me simply say thank you for the privilege of your time. Naren and I look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.