The Concept of Influence at Work with Dr. Chris Phelps

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. Uh, very excited to, uh, have, uh, a long time friend, Dr. Chris Phelps, uh, joining me today on The Thriving Dentist Show. Chris and I were talking in our prerecording preparation, uh, for this podcast episode that we think we’ve known each other, I dunno, 20 plus years, something like that. Uh, but very excited to have him on the show. We’re gonna do this as an interview format. Those of you that are regular listeners to The Thriving Dentist Show, uh, know that I like to mix up the formats just to keep it interesting for our listeners. And this is just gonna be an interview conversation, uh, between Chris and I, and we’re gonna talk particularly about the Cialdini Institute. Some of you will have heard about that, and we’ll talk about Chris’s role, uh, in the Cialdini Institute. Some of you will have heard about it, and I bet I have just piqued your interest if you already know about Cialdini. Um, but if you don’t, you’re in for a treat. Uh, so buckle up. This is gonna be an amazing interview. Well, first of all, Chris, welcome. I’m so happy you’re here.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Thank you, Gary. Uh, honored to be here.

Gary Takacs: Well, I know that, uh, many of our listeners know, uh, you as Dr. Chris Phelps, but for those that do not, would you be kind enough to share a little bit of your background?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, happy to. You know, I guess the easiest way to describe me that someone else did, one of my mentors said that, uh, I’m an entrepreneur that happens to be a pretty good dentist.

Dr. Chris Phelps: I did not realize that when I was getting outta dental school or going through that torture. Uh, you know, I thought I was just gonna open up a practice. I went in with my wife’s dentist, who’d been her dentist since she was 14, uh, back in 2003 when I graduated dental school. And yeah, I mean, stumbled upon, uh, what I thought was a very unique opportunity as he had a true fee-for-service practice when nobody else in Charlotte, North Carolina, at that time, at least, nobody in our area that I knew of actually did. Everybody was in-network. And so I saw something in one of our principles of persuasion we talk about—scarcity. Uh, he was the scarce resource. He had something unique that nobody else had. And, uh, an opportunity, uh, for me to come in with him, although he was kind of reluctant, uh, to do so.

Dr. Chris Phelps: I was like literally screening my family and friends in his office to take him to the North Carolina Dental Board licensing exam, and, uh, you know, three months from graduating. And I’m like, hinting around at, "Hey, Tom. Yeah, still looking for a good opportunity. Nobody snatched me up yet." And it’s like, crickets. And then finally I’m like, "So what do you think about me coming in with you?" And I’ll never forget it. He said, "Well, you’re welcome." Uh, you know, truthfully, he said, "I’ve had associates in the past. None of ’em ever seemed to work out, but you’re welcome to come try."

Gary Takacs: So, not the best, uh, red carpet. The red carpet wasn’t exactly rolled out for you.

Dr. Chris Phelps: It was not. Like, literally it was a crack in the door, and I had to run right through it.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Well, you had the wisdom to, uh, to burst through that door.

Dr. Chris Phelps: That’s probably my eternal optimism. ‘Cause of course, what I heard was, "So you’re saying there’s a chance."

Gary Takacs: I mean, uh, you know how I feel about PPO plans and you know how I feel about fee-for-service. Yeah. And if any of our listeners aren’t aware of that, I have a bit of a positive reputation of helping dentists successfully resign from PPO plans. So, uh, did you realize what you were getting into that, that fresh in your career, three years? Uh, do you realize how much of a unicorn opportunity that was? I mean, you knew it was unique there, but, um, it was a very unique opportunity then, as it is still now. Sadly.

Dr. Chris Phelps: It is. Yeah. No, I mean, I knew it was important. I knew it was—nobody else had it. But yeah, I didn’t really understand the scope or how powerful it was gonna be for us, because literally, I come in, literally plug in. And part of why, uh, Dr. Grimes, who was my partner then, um, didn’t have a success with his associates was he didn’t really have a new patient flow to support them. Right? That he really couldn’t build a practice within his practice. So he thought he could step back and be the scarce resource, right? And his patients would just go to the new guy or girl. Right? And what do they do when you become scarce? People want you more, and they do more to get to you. So they just went for him. Right? They didn’t go to them.

Gary Takacs: Scarcity—we’re gonna talk about scarcity a little bit later, but, uh hmm. Scarcity in action.

Dr. Chris Phelps: So literally, uh, luckily for him though, I had all these marketing ideas and all these things and grassroots stuff I wanted to do to try to get myself opportunities. And I was able to find a great, a pretty healthy new patient flow for myself that year. Uh, we doubled the practice, uh, with the same overhead, um, and then used the funds from that to do our first satellite startup, cold start office. And I was able to use the profits from the first practice to pay for the marketing to then support the second one. Then that was successful. And then we were able to use the profits from that one to pay for the third one, and then to do that to the fourth one. Right? So…

Gary Takacs: Well, if one practice is better, one practice is good, two’s better, three’s even better. And then let’s go for four.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Why not, right? Right. Right. You can do 40 of these, uh, except you can’t. So, you know, everybody has enough energy or a certain amount of energy to multitask and balance a lot of plates, so to speak. And I’ve got a pretty good skill of balancing plates and filling up my cup. But ultimately, everybody’s cup runneth over. Right? You all hit a wall at some point. And that was my…

Gary Takacs: We can have anything we want. We just can’t have everything we want. Um, this reminds me—our listeners will recognize the name Dr. Mark Costes. I’m sure you know Mark.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yep.

Gary Takacs: I really enjoy Mark. Mark is a wonderful thinker and a wonderful friend. And I remember I called him. This is when he owned 14 practices. And I said, "Mark, I’d love to have you on the podcast and talk about, you know, the joys of multiple practice ownership." And the sound on the other end of the phone went silent. It just went like this—nothing. And he said, "How about if we talk about why not to have 14 practices?" And I said, "Well, we can do that one too." And how about we… I said, "How about we put ’em in a blender?" And we decided to name that episode The Joys and Challenges of Multiple Practice Ownership. And Mark told a very candid story about how, uh, you know, he was always of the mindset that bigger was better—until it wasn’t. And then he pivoted and, uh, he chose to go a different direction. But I appreciate Mark’s transparency. You know, sounds like you might have had a similar, uh, confrontation with reality there yourself.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Definitely. It was a similar epiphany. And literally, I guess my biggest mistake was that I was running all the operations, doing all the decisions for the four offices, and running the marketing for them all—while doing clinical dentistry five days a week. Right? And so I thought my passion, since I was in seventh grade and made this commitment to be a dentist, was to treat my patients and do clinical dentistry. But yet, as one of my mentors shared with me, my actions kept pulling me away from the chair. And I was at this crossroads—this push-pull—where the friction was too much and I had to do something different. So much like Mark, I realized I can’t keep doing the chair full-time or I can’t keep doing these other things. So this is where I decided to subtract and multiply. So I sold two of my best offices, took over the two worst ones, thinking crazily that when it’s just me again and leading the ship, that I can make them do more with two than what I had with four.

Gary Takacs: Had you acquired that Superman cape yet, or was that still, uh, in the process?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Still sewing it as we speak.

Gary Takacs: Any…

Dr. Chris Phelps: Any day now, it’ll be ready. Um, so yeah, that was an interesting turning point as well. And there’s something magical that happens when you take over your worst practices. Uh, and one of them is costing you $70,000 a month in expenses, and you’re collecting $35,000 a month in that office.

Gary Takacs: Hmm. You don’t need to be a math major to figure out that’s not a good—that’s not, uh, a good situation.

Dr. Chris Phelps: No. That’s not a fun check to write every month that doesn’t come back. Right? Yeah. So—but I tell you what it is—is it’s a good swift kick in the ass, and it’s a powerful motivator that you stop ignoring and procrastinating on your challenges, and you figure it out.

Gary Takacs: Well, nothing like, um, brutal reality for you to figure it out. Um, carry the story forward to share your involvement with the Cialdini Institute.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah.

Dr. Chris Phelps: So that was, you know, like most things—when the student is ready, the master will appear. And, uh, a friend of mine had invited me to a business conference, um, and I was excited ’cause I was interested in learning more about actually running this thing as a business instead of being reactive all the time—being more proactive. And, uh, Dr. Robert Cialdini was the keynote speaker at that conference.

Gary Takacs: Hmm. What a treat.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. I had heard him talking about his, uh, persuasion for the first time. Didn’t know about this classic book that, you know, Warren Buffett says is his number one book on communication. And, uh, Charlie Munger credits Cialdini for his entire sales career based on that book.

Gary Takacs: There’s a couple of good, uh, testimonials right there.

Dr. Chris Phelps: A couple of good—must be something to it. I should probably read it, was what I thought. Yeah. And just fell in love with what he said on stage, ’cause one of the principles of persuasion—he hit upon these things that unite people in groups, in troops, in communities, in societies. Like literally, civilization would not exist without these things. And it really spoke to me about the root cause of my own behavior problems with my patients, with my associate doctors, with my team members. So I realized this guy was the authority. So I had to—like a dog with a bone—I had to seek him out. Right?

So I did. I got to train under him for over a year. I got certified by him in persuasion. Went back and used what I learned—all the thousands of research studies that I had studied—and used them in my practice, like my laboratory, to experiment and see, "Hey, it kind of worked in this study, maybe it works for me over here in this scenario." Yeah. And you come to find out, because this stuff was based in science, it did. Right? And it worked big time. So flash forward three years later—literally, I’ve got more free time than ever, more profit than ever, and the two practices were doing more in revenue than when I had four.

Gary Takacs: Wow. Well, my own involvement—we were talking a little bit in our pre-recording. Um, I’ve known Dr. Cialdini for many, many, many years. Actually, a neighbor of mine here in Scottsdale. But, uh, he was a professor at ASU for many, many years. Uh, he’s written a number of books, but the two signature books that I think—he’s an author that chooses the one-word title. So, uh, his first book was titled Influence, and his second book, the follow-up book—um, or excuse me, his first book was titled Influence, and the second book was titled Pre-Suasion. And I’m not mispronouncing it. Um, if you’re listening and you think, “Didn’t Gary mean to say Persuasion?” No, it’s called Pre-Suasion, which actually is a made-up word—but a made-up word that makes a whole lot of sense.

And I love his work. I’ve done book club with my clients. I’ve done book club in my own dental office with both of those books. I’ve shared it everywhere I can because his science behind all of this is impressive, but his understanding about how it all comes together gives you insights that you’re wondering—or you’re asking yourself—“Man, I wish I would’ve learned this so much sooner.”

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh my gosh. I mean, that’s what’s cool about it—because this stuff is based in science, everybody out there can learn to be more persuasive. And at The Cialdini Institute, what we promote is how to ethically use these things to influence people. Just because you can influence and persuade them doesn’t mean you should.

Gary Takacs: I’m really glad that you added that qualifier because, um, the word influencer today—with the, uh, you know, social media explosion the way it is today—there’s a lot of influence going on that doesn’t necessarily have the ethical connection.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, sadly. What most people hear—let’s use that word persuasion, for instance, ’cause I kinda use influence and persuasion interchangeably—but they are different in that influence is a category, right? That ultimately means something that causes a change in people’s behavior. Now, what are the things that cause change in people’s behavior in this subcategory of influence? Well, persuasion, on one end of the spectrum. Money, bonuses, incentives can move people and change their behavior—so that’s on the spectrum. Religion can change people’s behavior—that’s on the spectrum. But also, at the other end, is coercion, manipulation, force. Right? Your boss telling you to do stuff—they call it hierarchical authority. So there’s a lot of things that fall under this category.

But I think oftentimes persuasion gets lumped in with the negatives of manipulation, coercion, intimidation, and whatnot. And the truth of the matter is, it’s completely not that at all. It has actually nothing to do with those things.

Dr. Chris Phelps: They’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. So what we try to discern for folks is—the difference is simply this: with coercion, manipulation, forcing people to do stuff, telling people to do stuff—the person in that situation doesn’t feel like they have a true choice in the matter, and therefore they don’t feel like they’re in control. Okay? That’s what the problem is. Versus persuasion—that person is completely in control, and they have a choice in the matter. Right? So we can differentiate them that way and know if we’re truly persuading and giving people choices in the matter—not forcing ’em down a path—then we’re on the right step to being on the ethical side of the line.

Gary Takacs: So, I imagine that there are many of our listeners that are really hearing about Dr. Cialdini maybe for the first time. Um, and I would hope that our—this podcast episode—will start to spread Cialdini in a viral way. We have listeners in 188 countries, Chris.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Nice.

Gary Takacs: We were the first dental podcast when I started it in 2011. And today, 14 years later, we’re actually the number one dental podcast with listeners in 188 countries. So hopefully we’ll be spreading the messages delivered by Dr. Cialdini worldwide.

But let’s bring it more narrow. You know, all this stuff can be used in so many different aspects of your life, right? We talk about influence, we talk about persuasion—and we’ll talk more about Pre-Suasion, because I love that whole concept—but let’s bring it into the focus of our profession in dentistry, and how it relates to what our listeners have to deal with every day. Because I think it’s fundamental.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, big time. So, you know, one of our first principles is called reciprocity. And in essence, it states that if you give someone a gift of value—of significance to them—an obligation is created inside of them, that they feel the need to give back in kind. Somebody gives you a present on your birthday, you’re probably gonna give them a present on their birthday. Somebody does…

Gary Takacs: It’s like a core human quality, right?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Well, think about it this way. Like, there’s no positive word in the English language to describe someone who just takes, takes, takes and never gives back. So there’s this social obligation—that’s where it’s coming from—this external social influence. We don’t want others to perceive us as being a taker, a mooch, an ingrate, right? A bloodsucker. So that’s kind of the social influence on us to go, “All right, if somebody’s given me, I should reciprocate. I should give back to them in kind.”

Well, one of the easiest gifts that I found are going on at dental offices every day. Most people think of a gift as like a physical thing—like here’s your gift card, here’s a gift certificate, a present. But it’s the intangible ones you’re giving away to your patients already—they’re the most powerful. And you know you’ve given someone a true gift of meaning to them when they say two magic words to you. They say, genuinely, “Thank you” for what you’ve just done.

“Hey, thank you so much, Gary, for this experience today. Wow, I can’t believe we’re done already. You didn’t hurt me,” whatever it is. But they genuinely thank you.

Gary Takacs: I was nervous coming in…

Dr. Chris Phelps: Coming in…

Gary Takacs: I don’t know why—I had nothing to be nervous about. This went great.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Right? So, if they genuinely thank you or praise you for what you’ve just done for them, stop for a minute and realize that even if it meant nothing to you—even if they’re probably gonna pay you for it in a minute—they’re bringing it up because of the obligation. They still feel like it’s on their to-do list to do something. So that’s a moment that if you had something to ask of them—their next appointment, a review (which is one of my favorites), a referral—that’s the time to do it. Right?

Capitalize on these little reciprocity moments. You’re giving them away—these gifts—already to your patients. Just hear ‘em for what they are. And don’t say the two worst possible words when somebody genuinely thanks you, which are, “Eh, no problem.”

Gary Takacs: You just minimized what was—you took the pin and poked the balloon. Let the air out of it.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Big time.

Gary Takacs: Chris, can I give you an example of reciprocity in action that I’ve taught my clients?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: So, um, I know this will come as a surprise to you, but believe it or not, in some dental offices, uh, some patients aren’t really good about showing up for their appointments. I know—shocking, right?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. Yeah, I get it.

Gary Takacs: So, I believe that—um, Dr. Phil said this nicely when he said, “We train people how to treat us.” And I believe some of that—there are some reasons that no-shows happen that are outside of our control. You know, the car broke down on the way to the office, right? The daycare didn’t show up for the kids. You know, those things are outside of our control. But I believe we can create an environment that’s more likely for patients to show up.

Gary Takacs: So, let me show—can I role-play with you as if I was a team member and you were a new patient?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: And this is the end of your first appointment before you leave. Okay. And hopefully everything’s gone well, you’re smiling, everything’s gone really well. And, um, I say, “You know, first of all, Chris, I want to thank you for choosing our office for your care. Um, we really appreciate that you chose us. We’re gonna work hard to take great care of you. Before you leave today, can I take a minute and share four things that you can expect from us as an active patient in our practice?”

Dr. Chris Phelps: Ooh, yes, please.

Gary Takacs: And notice what I’m doing with my head—now, our listeners can’t hear us ‘cause it’s an audio format. But Chris, what am I doing with my head?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. Shaking his head yes.

Gary Takacs: And what is the patient gonna say?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yes, of course.

Gary Takacs: They’re gonna nod their head right back. So I’m gonna say, “There’s four things. Number one, I know it sounds kind of corny, but we think of our patients as our patient family, which means we’re gonna take care of you just like we would take care of loved ones.

“That leads me to number two: that means we’re going to use the latest advances, the latest technology, the latest materials—because that’s what we would want if we were a patient in the practice.

“Number three: we stand behind our work. If something isn’t right, we redo it until it meets our standards. We actually have a written warranty, but I’ll go over that with you if any treatment is recommended. But please know that we stand behind our work.

“And number four: we hand you a card that has the protocol to reach our doctors after hours. We hand that to you, right? And we say, ‘Chris, as an active patient, you have the ability to reach our doctors at any time. If it’s routine, just call the office and leave a message. But if anything is going on with you dentally, or any of your family members, use this card to reach out to our doctors. One of the doctors will answer that call, and you have that ability to reach out to us at any time.’

‘Now, Chris, now that I’ve shared with you what you can expect from us, may I take a minute and explain what we expect from you?’”

Dr. Chris Phelps: Please do.

Gary Takacs: “Just one thing. We ask that if you make an appointment, you show up.” Now, now, now—we understand that stuff happens. In fact, I saw a bumper sticker the other day on a car that says, “Stuff happens.” Well, the first word wasn’t “stuff,” but it did start with an S, and everyone knows what we’re talking about, right?

We understand stuff happens, and when it does, all we ask is that you kindly give us at least 48 hours if you need to change an appointment. Chris, does that sound fair to you?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Sounds fair.

Gary Takacs: Yep. Notice what I did. I gave you four things that we think are meaningful to people, and I only asked for one thing in advance. It’s a pretty fair exchange, isn’t it?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. You actually had a bunch of principles in that one—in your four things and the ask at the end. So you started with the reciprocity—here is the gift of access to the doctors in case of an emergency, right? You have let them know what you stand for, and you’ve asked a commitment question with consistency at the end with them: “Will you please call us if you can’t make your appointments?” Right?

Gary Takacs: And I gave—I was soft on that because we used the, you know, “saw a bumper sticker the other day, stuff happens.” And we know stuff does happen. And if it does, we just kindly ask to give us 48 hours.

The reason I know it works, Chris, is with the way we do our, you know, our confirming process for our appointments—like, for example, for hygiene, if it’s a loyal patient, the first message goes out seven days in advance, and then three and two. Well, today the messages are going out for people scheduled a week from now, and there will be people that will call our hygiene schedule coordinator and say, “I got the reminder today, and I don’t know what I was thinking, but my crazy cousin’s getting married next week, and I need to reschedule that appointment. And I know I needed to give you at least 48 hours’ notice.”

And now they’re calling, you know, a week in advance. Right? Which—that’s really all we’re trying to do there—is to get the courtesy of a 48-hour notice.

And so we know it works because of the behavior of the patients, that we’ve trained them—they expect to give us, they know to expect that. Now, I’d be fibbing if I said we never had a patient try to change an appointment within 48 hours—it does happen. But it radically reduces it.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh, big time. Yeah. And you tapped into unity there when you said that you’re part of our family now, so you are of us. And you added some authority there with trust when you said, “Hey, and we stand behind all of our work—we’ve got a guarantee and a warranty that we’ll get to coming up.” So pretty masterful to hit that many principles in a very short conversation. But not only are they more likely to return, they’re definitely, as you said, gonna call within 48 hours.

Gary Takacs: You know, we talked a little bit about reciprocity. Hit some of the other qualities of influence—some of the other characteristics of influence.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. So we’ve got liking. You know, Dale Carnegie wrote a book on basically how to leverage liking to the nth degree.

Gary Takacs: It’s still maybe the best book on human nature—How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. And the liking principle is a huge part of the core of that material. But in essence, it’s—we like to do business with people we like. But most people think they have to walk into a crowd of new people and get them to like them, when the secret to liking is: you want to show them you’re the first to like them. Not that you’re trying to get them to like you—you’re the first to like them. And typically, when you show people that you’re the first to like them, they tend to reciprocate and like you back.

So what’s interesting is, like when we talk to patients, our goal should always be to find at least one thing in common with them—even if they’re here for an emergency. Some kind of commonality and connection before we start ripping their lips open. Because automatically, if I’ve taken the time to show you we have this connection, that tells you, “I like you.” And that person’s more likely—because of that connection and the time and effort you took—to like us back. And that person’s now more likely to say yes to a request at the end than if you hadn’t found that connection, so to speak.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. A cool way to do that—a practical way to do that in any dental practice—we teach this to our clients. In our office, it would be a new patient coordinator, but it could be an assistant in other offices. They usually start the new patient appointment with gathering some records, that sort of thing.

And when they’re introduced to the doctor for the first time, the new patient coordinator or assistant would share something about the patient to the doctor that has nothing to do with their teeth. It might be: “Dr. Paul, this is our new patient, George. Dr. Paul, I never thought I’d meet anyone that was as interested in mountain biking as you, but George just might be that guy. You guys are gonna have to swap mountain biking stories.”

What’s happening there—you know, this is Cialdini at play.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh yeah.

Gary Takacs: We find commonality. This happened recently in a client office, and I have to share this—you’ll appreciate this, Chris. So this office started doing that, where they find something. And the assistant or new patient coordinator says, “If I don’t have something to tee up to the doctor about the patient that isn’t about teeth, then I haven’t done my job.”

So anyway, this was in an office, and the doctor told me, he said, “You know, my new patient coordinator—I think sometimes likes to mess with me, in a good way. I think this was one of those days because the new patient—her name was Mabel—she was 69 years old.” And said:

“Mabel, this is Dr. So-and-so. Doctor, this is our new patient, Mabel. Mabel loves to bake. And she likes to bake just about everything, but you know what she really likes to bake? Pies.”

Now the doctor said, “Gary, you know how much I know about pies? You know how much I know about baking altogether? It’s a negative. I don’t know anything.” But he said, “I’m pretty quick at thinking on my feet, so I turned to Mabel and just repeated what Carly said:

‘So Mabel, according to Carly, you like to bake?’

‘Yes, doctor, I really do.’

‘And according to Carly, you really like to bake pies?’

‘Yes, doctor, I really like to bake pies.’

‘Well, Mabel, true confessions—I don’t know anything about baking. I don’t know anything about baking pies. But I do know one thing about pies.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I like to eat ‘em.’

She said, ‘You do? What would be your favorite pie?’

And he said, ‘Well, my favorite would either be apple or blueberry.’

And she said, ‘If you could only pick one?’

‘I only get one?’

‘Yep, just get one. Pick one of them.’

He said, ‘Well, if I could only pick one, it’d be blueberry.’

And she said, ‘Tell you what, doctor—next time I come in…’”

What has she already decided?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh yeah, she’s committed.

Gary Takacs: She’s already a patient. “Next time I come in, I’m going to bring you a freshly baked apple pie, and I’m going to follow up with you to see if it wasn’t the best pie you’ve ever had.” And the doctor said, “Oh my goodness, you would do that for me?” She said, “I would be honored to do that for you.”

How’s that for the start of a relationship with the dentist on a first appointment?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh yeah. That’s amazing. And you know that patient’s coming back—and there’s probably gonna be a pie.

Gary Takacs: A pie.

Dr. Chris Phelps: And that pie won’t make it through the day.

Gary Takacs: Oh no. Well, we’ve often said the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But I definitely know about dental teams—oh yeah—we don’t go hungry.

So let’s bridge us to what Cialdini Institute is doing today with dentists. And let’s talk more about the Institute and your work there.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. Well, the book is a great place to start, right? The book is—uh, we just had a 40th anniversary celebration last year to celebrate the book’s launch. It’s hard to believe it’s been 40 years.

Gary Takacs: This is Influence, correct?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, yeah. I mean, I can’t think of many books that are 40 years old that are even prevalent today—much less more relevant today than they’ve ever been. Right?

Because ultimately, these things trigger us at a subconscious level. So the more distracted we get—the more things on our to-do list, the more things on social media and on our phones that distract our attention—the more we lean on these things to decide when they’re in our environment. Right? So we actually are influenced more by them today than we ever have been, which is kind of crazy.

So what Dr. Cialdini—because he’s 81 this year—his goal with the Cialdini Institute is to make this kind of his legacy project to get the information out there, because still, there are a lot of people that don’t know about this material.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Who don’t know that—hey, why are you making your strategies around the excuses people give you after “no,” when you should be making your strategies around the real things they’re actually using? They just don’t know it because it’s subconscious. But these are the things, right?

Make your strategies around what they’re really using to decide—everything changes, and the excuses disappear.

So ultimately, in the past, he kind of kept us trainers—like myself—scarce on purpose. So he kind of kept the material scarce. Like, you had to hire somebody like me to come spend two days with you and your team to go through this and spend, whatever, $15,000, $20,000, $30,000 sometimes.

Well, now, in an online, on-demand format, it’s training—10 hours of training from him—going deeper than what the book offers and what we used to teach in that two-day program. On how to take a deep dive, if you will. How do you activate these principles? How do you turn these things on like a light switch when they’re present? Or ethically, in that moment, what can you do to amplify their effect?

Scarcity is a good one. Yeah, I mean, I don’t want it—until suddenly I can’t have it. And now I want it more because of that. But if I add competition to it—if somebody else wants the thing I’m after too? Ooh, now I…

Gary Takacs: And again, I want to come back to a point you made earlier: genuine scarcity—not artificial.

Gary Takacs: You know, it’s so interesting. I see this today, you know, with online courses—online courses, which we know technically have no seat limitation, right? You know, unlike, say, if I’m giving a course in an auditorium that seats 200 people, we can actually say, “There’s only so many seats left.” Ethically, we can say that.

But I see marketers that aren’t quite of the same ethical commitment, you know, will try to create artificial scarcity. But what Cialdini always does is—the ethical part of it is always tied into it. So there’s a way to create scarcity that’s ethical and is not misleading.

Dr. Chris Phelps: There is. Um, so a good example of that would be when I first started testing scarcity in my own marketing for my offices. I offered a free Sonicare toothbrush as a new patient reward incentive, right? If you come in, then you get this Sonicare electric toothbrush. And at the time, it was an expensive brush—I mean, you buy it at the store for 150 bucks, not like it is today. So I just bulk bought a bunch of them for, whatever, 40 bucks a piece. And I only bought 15. My plan was to just give away 15.

So I advertised, “Hey, offer good for the first 15 people who come in with any paid exam, x-rays, and necessary cleaning.” And so I only had my 15, and we did the contest. And lo and behold, about halfway through the month, we had sold the last one, and gave it away.

And my team let me know that was the last one. So I made a big deal about it with that patient. I was like, “Hey, Mrs. Jones, this is your lucky day! You got the last one. Let’s go buy a lotto ticket, do something fun!” And we celebrated it. I took her to the front desk, and she walked out.

Well, as I was standing there, patient 16 came up to the front desk—who had heard some of my conversation with the previous patient—and he said, “Hey Doc, I heard you talking about that toothbrush.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“That’s why I’m here. Can I get one?”

And I’m like, “Oh man, I’m sorry sir. I literally just gave away the last one.”

Well, unbeknownst to me, my lead assistant was at the front desk. And of course, her job—one of her duties—is ordering and keeping inventory. Okay, well, guess what she noticed a few days prior when she was looking through the closet? What were we down on? Toothbrushes. So she pipes up and goes, “Well Doc, yeah, I saw we were getting low on those brushes, so I put in an order—and we just got ’em. We just got a whole box up in the back.”

And she said that right in front of the patient. I’m like, “Oh crap. What do you do?”

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Do I give it to him? Do I not give it to him? So in that moment, I thought it was gonna be—now that he knows we have ’em—it was gonna be horrible customer service if I didn’t give it to him, right?

But one of the things we talk about with ethics is: Number one, it has to be natural to the situation. It’s gotta be organic. We’re not imparting these things into places they don’t belong. But number two is—it’s gotta be true. Right? Not kind of true, not sort of true, not the half-truth, but the whole truth.

So in essence, I kind of violated this rule. Because, yeah, I mean, he would’ve had a bad experience and told everybody. So I kind of gave it to him to buy his silence—to protect the experience. But I told people through scarcity I’d give away 15, and I gave away 16.

Now, I got lucky. Now let’s roll this back. Let’s say this lady that had gotten number 15 went to the bathroom at my front desk instead of leaving. And after I just made this big deal about her getting the last one, she comes out and what does she see to her left? Me giving another one away.

Gary Takacs: Right?

Dr. Chris Phelps: What does she think about us now, Gary?

Gary Takacs: Ah… “What else can’t I trust?”

Dr. Chris Phelps: “You can’t trust these people as far as you can throw ’em. They’ll tell you anything.” Okay? How many people is she gonna tell that story to?

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Everybody. Right now with social media, it’ll be a negative review on their Facebook page.

So that’s the risk. When we start doing things unethical, we start crossing into this gray area. And if our patients deem our actions as being unethical, that’s a problem. So I knew—especially in marketing—it’s the most abused of the principles in an unethical way. But there is a way to leverage scarcity and limit the quantity of things but still be ethical in doing so.

So I realized, moving forward—I started offering the Sonicare toothbrush. Then I started getting curious and I asked my patients, “Is it really the Sonicare that your focus is on?” Because persuasion is all about focus, right? And if you know what people’s focus is on, you build your strategy around that.

And they said—I said, “Is it the Sonicare brand name? Or is it the category of the thing—an electric toothbrush?” And almost everybody I talked to said, “I just want an electric toothbrush.” They had no idea what a Sonicare was compared to anything else.

Gary Takacs: Yeah, it could be Oral-B, it could be Sonicare, it could be whatever.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Exactly. So now I realize the solution is reciprocity. If I run out of the ones I limit, all I have to do is offer them something else, right?

So when we ran out of the Sonicares, I’d say, “Hey, moving forward, would it be okay if I gave you an Oral-B instead? Would that work?”

Gary Takacs: Maybe we have a Waterpik, right?

Dr. Chris Phelps: As long as it’s something. And now, ethically, how many of those can I give away?

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Dr. Chris Phelps: As many as I want—’cause I didn’t limit it.

Gary Takacs: I love that thinking. Randomly pick another principle of influence and let’s talk about that one. Which—what’s another one you like? I like all of them, but give me another one.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Well, the most powerful one for me was consistency. That was my light bulb. It was the root cause behind all the problems in my struggling practices and what drew me to Cialdini. But if you hear that, just think—this is the commitment principle. And at its simplest, it states: when people make a commitment, they do it. They follow through with it. Right? So if you’re not seeing the behavior you want, then you’re probably not getting the commitment to get them there, so to speak.

Gary Takacs: Well, and I used an example of that in my “four things that you can expect from us,” when we ask, “And all we ask is that you kindly give us at least 48 hours if you need to change an appointment. Does that sound fair to you?” And I’m asking for a response back. So I don’t just get a head nod, you know—I’m asking for a response back. And every time they say yes—and there’s a commitment…

Dr. Chris Phelps: Big time. Just in one study at a popular restaurant in Chicago, they decreased their no-shows on reservations from 30% to 10% just by getting that one verbal commitment that you just got. Instead of saying, “Please call us if you can’t make your appointment,” they ended the call with, “Will you please call us if you can’t make your appointment?” And when people said—

Gary Takacs: Very subtle in the behavior—but massively impactful.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Powerful. So, like I said, if you’re not seeing the behavior you want, you’re probably not getting the commitment that you really need to support it.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. I like the principle of liking. That can be applied in many different ways. But one of the reasons I like that is, um—for example, let’s put this into action.

I teach my clients, in their reception room, I like artwork. And usually there’s a photographer in the practice that is a patient in the practice. I think it’s always useful to support our patients.

So recently, a client of ours found a patient in his practice that is really good at nature photography. And he prints his prints on metal. And, Chris, I’m sure you’ve seen photographic prints printed on metal.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yep.

Gary Takacs: And it really creates a three-dimensional element about it that almost looks like you’re looking at the subject in nature.

Gary Takacs: And so he put those up in the reception room—I mean, of his area. This happens to be in the Southwest, so Southwest area photos: Grand Canyon, Sedona, you know, the desert, saguaro cactus, those kinds of things.

But then in the back office, he has really nice after photos of patients—patients who have done things like dental implants, smile design, adult orthodontics like Invisalign. And the patients range in age from 18 to—I think the oldest is 76.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Nice.

Gary Takacs: And men and women. And he deliberately selected patients with a cross-section in terms of heritage. So there are Anglo patients, African American patients, Hispanic patients, Asian patients, Native American patients.

So what the imagery in the back says is that a beautiful, healthy smile is appropriate for everybody. And that’s the image that goes up in the back.

But I think what happens when patients see that is—they can find themselves in those photos. And people like to see similarity. So a Hispanic patient sees a Hispanic patient on the wall—they identify with that. Does that make sense?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh yeah. It’s definitely tapping into the liking principle. It’s like, “Oh look, there’s a person like me that’s gone like me.”

And then you’re adding one of our other principles—social proof—which is: we look at the evidence of what others, and many others, around us are doing or have done to decide. And if they see multiple examples of people like them, now you’re really tapping in and maximizing social proof: “Look how many people on this wall are me.”

Gary Takacs: Not your first rodeo.

The verbal skills—when the assistant is taking the patient on a quick tour—the assistant or new patient coordinator will say:

“Chris, we’re a general dental office, and we love helping our patients with everything related to general dentistry. But our doctors also have advanced training in things like placing and restoring implants, adult orthodontics, cosmetic dentistry. All the photos you see here on the wall are actual patients of ours that we’ve helped have the smile of their dreams.”

And that becomes a verbal prompt. And very often—and you know, I’ve been asked, “Well, what if the patient is a 20-year-old college student?” Well, they have parents. They have grandmothers. They have grandparents. But let’s still show ’em that, because very often that patient has said, “Oh my gosh, my grandmother is struggling with a floppy lower denture.”

“Well, we’d love to see your grandmother. We can help her with that.”

So, kind of a cool way to represent liking and like, in a practical way, in a dental office.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Oh yeah, definitely. And all of that is powerful—the comparison effect you’ve got going on with contrast, the social proof power of multiples of those, the liking connection.

That’s what I love about these things. There are so many indirect things we can do. And of course, the team promoting the doctor’s authority on top of that. There are so many things that can happen to influence the patient—directly or indirectly—before the doctor even steps into the room.

Gary Takacs: Right. And that’s Pre-Suasion. That really is, in a nutshell, what Pre-Suasion is all about. And Pre-Suasion is such a powerful principle. I mean—it is. And when you start to get your arms around it, you can apply it in so many different ways in your life.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: In so many different ways in a dental practice, right? Because very often, you know, the reality is—the public doesn’t really know what modern dentistry can do for them. I’m talking about the lay public. We know—our listeners know—but the public doesn’t necessarily know what we can do. And if we can let them know through Pre-Suasion, that can happen on your website, that can happen in your marketing materials, that can happen in many different ways. Then it won’t be the first time they’ve heard about it.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yes. So, for those that don’t really understand what Pre-Suasion is, I want you to correlate that word with mindset. Pre-Suasion is all about creating a mindset in that person in the moments leading up to when they’re going to get in front of you.

When they’re with you—that’s persuasion, right? That’s where you tap into whatever principles are present in that moment. But before the moment, we back it up persuasively to create a mindset.

Because whether you realize it or not, your patients are all coming in the door of your practice with a mindset already established. Okay? And if you don’t do anything to change that mindset and refocus it back on their oral health, the mindset they’re coming in with is going to distract them from what you want to talk about. Or it’s directly competing with what you want to talk about.

And in either example, the door to yes is already shut. And unless it’s a top-of-mind pain situation, the door’s not going to get opened back up in this moment.

So Pre-Suasion opens the door—and keeps it open—for a persuasive effect to actually happen.

So mindsets are key. Like one study in particular—they had people sit for 10 minutes before they thought they were going back to this room where the experiment was being held. And for 10 minutes, some people in the group played as the hero of this video game. Some people played as a neutral avatar, and some people played as the villain of the video game—for 10 minutes. Adults.

Then they went and took them individually into these rooms and said, “All right, the experiment goes like this. There’s a dessert here. All we need you to do is finish the dessert—finish flavoring it. We’ve got a bunch of people coming for experiments later; we gotta feed them.”

And the choice they gave them was—they could finish this dessert with a chocolate powder flavoring (supposed to be the reward scenario) or a chili powder spicy flavoring (supposed to be the punishment scenario).

Well—overwhelmingly—what did the people flavor the dessert with who played as the hero?

Gary Takacs: The chocolate.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Right. Overwhelmingly. And what did the people who played as the villain flavor that thing with?

Gary Takacs: Chili powder, right?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Mindset is all about who you are in the moment you’re about to make a decision. And that mindset can send you down a different path—to make a different decision—if you’re not careful.

So they’re all coming in with one. Right? If you don’t do anything to change that and refocus it back to their oral health, it’s probably not going to work in your favor.

Gary Takacs: You know, as we kind of start to come to the finish line here today, can you talk a little bit about the kinds of offerings that are available from the Cialdini Institute for our listeners?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah. Yeah. So, obviously, you can go to cialdini.com. Uh, you can email me at chris@cialdini.com.  We’ve got a great video series. We’ve got a nice little introductory series that’s like two and a half hours—just to give you and your team a taste of what the material is. Again, each one of those goes a little deeper dive per principle than what the book offers. And it includes something Dr. Cialdini calls a small big—a small thing you can change that can have a huge outcome and benefit on your behalf.

Gary Takacs: We’ll put it in the show notes. We’ll put the cialdini.com URL. But for our listeners that are thinking about how to spell it, would you spell Cialdini for us?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yes— Cialdini.

Gary Takacs: cialdini.com And also—you gotta use your hand…

Dr. Chris Phelps: Cialdini.

Gary Takacs: There we go. And you have to use the right, uh, hand signals. Correct. And since “Chris” can be spelled multiple ways, spell your email address, if you would?

Dr. Chris Phelps: chris@cialdini.com

Gary Takacs: They can reach out to you directly?

Dr. Chris Phelps: Directly. Yep. That’s probably—

Gary Takacs: I wanna just endorse this. There’s no affiliation—I’m doing this out of the massive influence Cialdini has had in my life. His work is unbelievable. The science behind it is staggering. This isn’t just crazy ideas—it’s backed by science. And that came from his massive career at Arizona State University.

And I’m very grateful for all the amazing work he has done. I want to invite our listeners to reach out—either to cialdini.com or chris@cialdini.com —to learn more. It’ll make a difference in your life.

Kind of cool that the formats are available, more accessible today, with virtual learning. And I would encourage anyone to take advantage of it. I hope Dr. Cialdini lives a long life.

Gary Takacs: But he’s here, he’s still driven. His work—you know, I used to say a few years ago, doctors would say, “You know, I’m really looking for a great course to take on occlusion.” And I would say, “Well, that’d be Dr. Pete Dawson.” And I’ve been referring to Dawson Academy since 1989.

And I started saying a few years ago, “You should get there because Dr. Dawson is getting advanced in age. You should go out and take a course.” Sadly, we lost Dr. Dawson in—I believe it was 2019. But my clients that went out and took courses from him before he passed are very grateful for that.

So I hope there are many more years left for Dr. Cialdini. But, man, get a chance to study from the master while you can.

Dr. Chris Phelps: Yeah, no doubt. And remember, he published these principles and is trying to educate us because everybody is trying to influence us—whether we realize it or not. So ultimately, he wanted to educate us to be able to use these as a defense mechanism for ourselves. So these things don’t trigger us subconsciously—we can actually go, “Wait a minute. I see what’s going on in the moment. I can feel the principle or principles—but does this make sense for me?” Right? That’s really what it’s all about.

Gary Takacs: So, yeah. Well, Chris, thank you for taking time out of your busy life to come join us on The Thriving Dentist Show. Thanks for sharing your passion around the Cialdini Institute and the work that you’re doing with them.

And again, I want to invite all of our listeners to take advantage of the massive difference that all this can make in your life. Reach out to cialdini.com or chris@cialdini.com.

On that note, I want to simply thank our listeners for the privilege of your time here at The Thriving Dentist Show. We appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks so much for the privilege of your time, and we look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.