The High-Value Dentistry Growth Plan

Gary Takacs: 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, the Thriving Dentist Show podcast founder and co-host, of this podcast. And we have a great episode for you today. It’s titled The High Value Dentistry Growth Plan. If you are interested in growing what I like to call high value services, things like dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, complex restorative dentistry, there’s many other forms of high value dentistry. But if you’re interested in growing that component of your practice, you are in the right spot. can’t wait to share this information with you. Before I do that, though, two quick announcements to make. The first announcement is, coming up at the end of May. in fact, it’s May 28th, mark. Your calendar is the next Thriving Dentist Summit Virtual Summit. It’s a virtual summit, so you can attend from the comfort, and convenience of your home or office.

Gary Takacs: this summit, is titled How Dental Practices Can Use AI to Increase Case Acceptance and Production in 2026. Well, AI is on everyone’s mind. and we are going to take a deep dive into a particular aspect of this relative to how to use AI to increase case acceptance and production. I’m gonna have a keynote opening address. we might have another keynote in there as well. And then we’re gonna have different panels and different experts all talking about how to use ai, how to incorporate a AI effectively with respect to increasing your case acceptance and production. if that’s of interest to you, come join us. It’s three hours, starts at, 6:00 PM Eastern Time. So go ahead and do the time translation regarding where your time zone is, but starts at 6:00 PM So it’s six to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. you’ll get three hours of CE credit.

Gary Takacs: and here is the fantastic news. There is no tuition. We are gifting you the tuition for this event. In appreciation for your listenership, for being a listener to the Thriving Dentist Show, come join us. You do have to register, go to thriving dentist.com/events. So you do have to grab a seat. so please be sure to register for that course. Again, the date is, May 28th, six to 9:00 PM Eastern Time, three hours. How dental practices can use AI to increase case Acceptance and Production in 2026. The second announcement, we have a new, top clinical tip, a new guest contributor. this is Dr. Nick Sharma. Nick is a pediatric dentist, and if you see kids in your practice, you’re really gonna appreciate this tip. And, you know, there has been some kind of common knowledge, or common quote, wisdom, floating around that, the right time for a child to visit the dentist. The first time is somewhere between two and three years old. However, Nick is gonna give you a different insight on this. Dr. Sharma is gonna say, why, age one might be the right time, to see, a child in your practice. So, first visit what every dentist should know before it’s too late. I want to give special appreciation to Dr. Sharma for making this great tip. No further ado. Here’s Dr. Nick Sharma. first birthday, first visit. What every dentist should do before it’s too late.

Dr. Nick Sharma: Did you know that nearly one in five children, ages two to five years old have dental caries? For years, parents were told to bring their child into the dentist at age three, but we know now that according to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, that a child should see a dentist by their first birthday. So you probably wonder why bring a 1-year-old to the dentist when they barely have any teeth. This first visit is not about treatment. It’s actually about prevention, education, and risk assessment. If we as providers don’t believe in the value of this first visit, the parents won’t either. That’s why it’s super important to realize that this philosophy has to start within you, your staff, and your practice culture. When you understand the value of this first visit, you can confidently communicate it. But lemme tell you why this first visit is super important.

Dr. Nick Sharma: Even with only a few teeth present, there’s so much we can assess. There’s so much we can discuss, and there’s so much we can educate the parents on. Before I even assess the child’s mouth, I begin by talking to the parents. I know that once the child starts crying, their attention is gone. So I spend the first 10, 15 minutes covering the following, medical and birth history, prematurity, medical conditions, medications, allergies, special healthcare needs. These directly can affect their oral development as well as their oral risk. Then move on to the diets assessment. I talk about bottle use, what’s in the bottle? Night feeding, snacking frequency, juice exposure, breastfeeding patterns. I then gradually move into the hygiene assessment. Who brushes their teeth? How often are they brushed? What toothpaste are you using? Fluoride exposure, and what type of brush are you using? All these will help me determine the child’s caries risk, and this will decide their future treatment plan.

Dr. Nick Sharma: And now it’s time for the actual assessment. However, I have to keep in mind that I may not have enough time to do a full thorough oral evaluation. So I wanna start off by looking at what’s important. I wanna rule out any abscesses and infections. I wanna rule out any dental decay that may be present. I then wanna also look at teeth erupted eruption pattern. I wanna look at missing teeth. I wanna look at early white spot lesions, demineralization, and then I move on to plaque levels, gingival health. Finally, I go on to oral habits, jaw growth and facial development, as well as soft tissue bitings. This will gimme a very baseline evaluation of the child, but will allow me to assess the most important things, and therefore, plan for the child’s future prevention and treatments. Remember that this first visit, the exam is only a small part of it.

Dr. Nick Sharma: There’s not that many teeth in the mouth. Sometimes just four, sometimes just six. What we’re trying to mainly focus on this is to collect information to properly assess the caries risk and overall disease risk in this child, but also to educate the parents on overall prevention and future treatment. The way we educate the parents is through a process known as anticipatory guidance. We wanna educate them on what type of problems their child may face, what types of habits may come throughout the next few years. And then finally, what is a prevention plan that will fit this specific child individualized personalized prevention? In terms of the examination, like I said, it could be quite difficult and could be very limited in time. So the best way to do an examination on a child under the age of three is to use the needed knee position.

Dr. Nick Sharma: This is going to give you the most effective evaluation, but also provide you the most control. What you do is you have the parents and the dentist sit knee to knee. The child will be facing the parents and will lay back with their head in my lap, parents will hold their hands and stabilize their legs using their elbows. And then finally, I get a bird’s eye view of the mouth. I will rapidly examine the most important things, such as abscesses, infections, decay, initial lesions, black levels, teeth present, teeth missing. I also use this exam as a teaching moment. Not only do I do my full evaluation first, I then go on to brushing their child’s teeth using a toothbrush as well as some toothpaste if the child allows. And during this time, I’m really showing them the type of brush movements that they have to be doing in order to properly practice dental hygiene for this child.

Dr. Nick Sharma: I also go over the amount of toothpaste they should be using, the types of toothbrush, how to get them to spit, and then finally, finish off with a fluoride barnish shoes if possible. I then go on to set expectations. I tell them what will happen at the future visits, how frequent these future visits will be. Will we have to increase frequency if there are incipient lesions or higher caries risks for these kids? Now, because I see children under three years of age needing full mouth rehabilitation under general anesthesia, I really want to emphasize on this topic of evaluating kids early on. This should not be happening. We shouldn’t be seeing kids this early, under general anesthesia with this much amount of decay. And trust me, by you doing what we just talked about, you can catch disease early. You can prevent disease, you can also build trust with parents. You can establish lifelong habits, and you can create lifelong patients. So whether you’re a pediatric dentist or a general dentist, believe in that first visit. ’cause prevention doesn’t start at three, it starts at one.

Gary Takacs: Well, welcome back to the Thriving Dentist Show Podcast. Hey, I hope you enjoyed that tip from Dr. Nick Sharma. we’re gonna bring him back. We’re gonna see if we can bring him back for future tips, wonderful, knowledge, that if you see kids in your practice, I think you can benefit from, the information that Dr. Sharma shares. So we’ll see if we can get ’em to come back. in any case, hope you found that information useful. so let’s dive into, today’s topic. the high value Dentistry growth plan. If you are a regular listener to the Thrive Dentist Show, you know that, I think a great practice model for a general dentist is to have a foundation of everyday general dentistry. I think of the foundation as being two parts, everyday general dentistry combined with a really strong hygiene department.

Gary Takacs: And then in addition to that, you add your own mix of high value services, things that you enjoy doing. maybe they’re things like, Invisalign, maybe placing, restoring implants, maybe cosmetic dentistry, maybe diagnosing and treating obstructive sleep apnea, treating patients with, T-M-J-T-M-D issues, whatever those are that you enjoy doing, call those high value services. So we’re talking about how do you grow the high value services component of your practice? Naren, you know, many dentists today would like to grow now, high value services of the practice. but they feel stuck. they, if they look around and have their eyes open, sometimes they see, you know, other dentists trying discounts or special offers. and yet discounting special offers rarely work. Today, I wanna talk about a smarter growth plan that builds trust and confidence instead of discount pricing. How’s that sound to you, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Sounds wonderful. Gary.

Gary Takacs: I like to think of discount pricing, Naren, as the race to the bottom. Yes. And by the way, that’s a race you do. You know, normally we wanna win a race, you know, if I’m competing in a marathon, I wanna win it. Right? But this is a race. You don’t wanna win the race to the bottom.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: , everyone loses. So, I’m gonna, I’m gonna fire a question right from the beginning, Darren. Darren, why does discounting often reduce case acceptance instead of helping it?

Naren Arulrajah: Gary, that’s a wonderful question. Right? see, we know, you have, I’ve learned this from you. We know the necessary dentistry, like my teeth is hurting and I need something done. But most of dentistry is not quote unquote necessary in that sense, right? I’m not in pain. So anytime somebody’s not in pain, meaning it’s kind of like having a gun to your head, right? Because nobody likes pain. They have a choice. Now, if you are gonna make a choice, would you trust someone? The only reason you want to do that is because they give you a discount. Or would you trust someone who you believe is qualified? Would you trust someone who you believe has 10 years of experience or 15 years of experience, has similar cases of other people like you who have been helped? It’s kind of like, you know, I mean, we all know this, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Anytime we see an ad for something, our first question is, what’s the catch? Because if this guy’s spending money, you know, thousands or millions or hundreds of thousands trying to get me, there has to be a catch. He has to make a profit. You know? In other words, he has to at least pay for this expensive ad, right? Same way, I think discount sends that message that, you know, they’re not good. They’re not worthy. That’s why they’re discounting. I mean, remember, you are not a restaurant that opened two months ago who has no credentials. I mean, imagine if you’re a Michelin star restaurant, it’s a different story. But if you’re just a regular restaurant and you open, and the only way you can attract people is by saying, all my food is half off. You are not that you are a qualified doctor who have a degree. So minute you offer a discount, it kind of backfires subconsciously in the eyes of the customer. It, and I have done this for 19 years. I’ve worked with practices, and I have never seen people who succeed by offering discounts. It sounds, you know, like a good idea because they’re desperate or they had a bad month. But in the long term, the damage it does is humongous.

Gary Takacs: Nick Nein, imagine, yeah. Imagine, you know, our listener was a Michelin star chef. Yeah. A highest accolade that you can get in the culinary, profession. Right? Can you imagine opening a restaurant and advertising your blue paint blight special, your blue. Exactly. You know, or imagine near in that, you were, opening a really high-end hotel. Yes. You got some investor money, and there was, some research that said in your market, there was room for another high-end hotel, right? May, maybe there’s a Ritz Carlton, you know, there, and maybe there’s another high end hotel that’s highly recognized, and they said there’s room for another one. And so, you open one. And can you imagine, having a grand opening special, $89 a night special

Naren Arulrajah: ,

Gary Takacs: How would that go? I mean, anybody’s gonna look at that and say, oh, no. There’s something wrong here. Something

Naren Arulrajah: Wrong here. That’s not right. Exactly.

Gary Takacs: I mean, there’s, there’s gotta be a reason why it’s $89.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: And a lot of those, you know, the ads that you see, you know, dental implants from 9 99, you know, right. From $999, and there’s that little tiny fine print that says from, you know, which I, it’s, it’s a gimmick. Yes. And, but I think it actually, backfires

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely in healthcare. It totally backfires. I mean, if you are like, you know, I don’t know, you are, you know, nurse injector, you know, or somebody else, and you’d learn how to do Botox, maybe. Okay, fine. You don’t have any qualifications. You’re not a dermatologist, you’re not a plastic surgeon, but you are a qualified DDS or DMD. There’s no way you should be doing this. Actually. It makes you, puts you in the bucket of, I know you have told these stories about, you know, Mexico, right? Come here for $99 implant, so whatever, it’s

Gary Takacs: $50 crowns, hundred crowns today. You can still get those. But I imagine Darren, because I think this is a healthcare comparison, we talked about restaurants, you talked about hotels. Yes. But can you imagine a cardiovascular surgeon having a billboard that says, discount heart surgery, discount surgery, I’ll

Naren Arulrajah: Run heart surgery, I’ll like run .

Gary Takacs: I’m running as far away. By the way, none of us have ever seen that billboard. Yes. Because it is, it’s never going to work. It’s

Naren Arulrajah: Not gonna

Gary Takacs: Work. It is never going to work. so, you know, marketing should build confidence, not encourage shopping. Yes. You know, not encourage shopping. And, you know, I think shopping I is something that is appropriate for commodities.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: You know, if I wanna buy a new, you know, 80 inch plasma flat screen monitor. Yeah. Let’s, let’s check out features and, ,

Naren Arulrajah: And every year there’s a deal during Christmas time, Amazon, and all these guys sell you like, you know, half off this one model that they have they want to get rid of. Yeah. And, absolutely. But you are not that.

Gary Takacs: But I like to think that our listeners aren’t delivering a commodity, though.

Naren Arulrajah: agreed. I mean, that is the whole reason why I think PPO is a bad idea for good dentists. I mean, if you are, like, you have no other option and you know, you just graduated and you know, you don’t really care about quality, maybe I would say, okay, but you really care about quality. And if you really wanna brand yourself, I do think anything that’s discounted, even PPO, if you think about it’s discounted, right? You know, here’s the fee. Doesn’t matter. You have 25 years of experience, you get paid the same as somebody else with two months of experience.

Gary Takacs: Well, that’s my biggest beef with the PP with insurance plans, is Yeah, they make dentistry a commodity. Yes. They make it. Because it doesn’t matter if you are two weeks outta dental school or you have 25 years of experience, you’re getting that same PPO fee.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: and that is, that absolutely shakes me to the core, because dentistry is not a commodity. There’s so many different variables involved.

Naren Arulrajah: And to be honest, even a plumber, right? Two days out of plumbing, whatever school versus, you know, the plumber use, who has 20 years of experience, are they gonna charge the same amount? No way. Yeah. You know, because you know, the guy with 20 years, he will pinpoint what the problem is in two minutes because he knows exactly what’s going on.

Gary Takacs: So we establish that, successful marketing, should build confidence, a as opposed to, you know, shopping, which is random. So lemme go onto the second question. What signals make patients trust a practice before they ever call? In other words, what happens? What do we have to have happen before they ever pick up the phone and call the office to make an appointment? What signals do we need to make happen?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a great question, Gary. I think, you know, the number one currency in healthcare is trust. Especially if you study, you have studied the best and the most successful dentist for four, six years. I have been doing that with my clients for the last 19 years. And the number one commodity, or the number one, key to success is trust. And every single one who is successful, and you know, who has a legacy and who everybody, you know, whoever wants to go to, has built that trust. So the question is, how do you build that trust? And I think there are several components. The highest level showcase your work. You know, let’s say you are a, you know, you are like Dr. Holbrooke, you know, who has done 10,000 smiles and you know, you are like, God, or even if someone who has been trained by Dr. Holbrooke, and you have five, 10 cases, I’m using Dr. Holbrooke as an example. But, you know, let’s say you are an awesome clinician in whatever field you are. You wanna showcase that. But having cases, you know, some simple pictures, like this is the before, this is the after, you know, especially the full face picture where you see the transformation, right? I know a lot of dentists show the closeups. For some reason, my experience is the average patient doesn’t appreciate the closeup because still it’s bloody and it’s messy. And, you know, versus

Gary Takacs: It scare actually scares them.

Naren Arulrajah: It scares them. Exactly.

Gary Takacs: I do like to have closeups in the digital library Yes. Before and after. But in terms of the larger format photos, we want a beautiful head and shoulders after shot. Exactly. And we, one of the things we want the photographer to focus on is the eyes. Yeah. Yeah. I know we’re in the mouth doing dentistry, but I wanna focus on the eyes and the after,

Naren Arulrajah: How happy they’re,

Gary Takacs: Because the eyes show how happy they’re

Naren Arulrajah: About. Yeah. And the first picture, I mean, if you have a before, some people don’t allow a before because, you know, they don’t want show their ugly teeth. But, you know, they’re, they’re squinting and, you know, they’re not too excited to show that smile they had. So I think that’s the highest orbit in terms of the most valuable type of, you know, trust you can build. Of course, Google reviews has become a currency today, and people look at it. So I advise, you know, minimum 10 Google reviews a month. You and I agree on this, and we say this to all of our clients, and they have to be what we call love letter reviews, meaning paragraph reviews. And if you just keep doing that month after month after month, and then you can highlight those, you can grab the relevant reviews, put it on the relevant pages. So if it’s sedation reviews will pop up. If it’s something else, some other kind of reviews will pop up so people feel like they’re at the right place. And it’s not you saying it’s what they trust Google and hundreds and hundreds of their

Gary Takacs: Peers. It’s actually a peer, it’s a peer of the patient saying it. Exactly. I wanna comment about photography before we go on to the next question. one of the things that I’ve noticed in my coaching work is that Mo, most dentists totally understand the value of photos, but they’re not taking ’em in their office or they’re taking ’em inconsistently. It’s time to get religion around photos. Guys, yes, it’s time. And make sure, that you assign a dental assistant to be your photography champion. Photography champion. lemme explain why. I can’t tell you how many times, I’ve asked a client, Hey, can you show me some before and after photos? They say, well, I don’t have any before, but, I have the afters. well, I like the before and after in an album, you know, in a digital album. And those are just closeups, middle of nose, middle of chin, middle of cheeks.

Gary Takacs: I like those in an album because the patient can see that transformation if all they’re seeing is the after they didn’t see where it started. And so you can’t go backwards and get the before photo if you didn’t take it before you did the treatment. So have your assistants take, before photos every single time. So you don’t, when I ask you, do you have the befores? And after, you’re gonna say yes, and just get committed to this, it’ll make a massive difference in your . How many times have you had your clients when you asked for content for the website, and they say, I don’t have any photos.

Naren Arulrajah: They don’t have any photos. You are absolutely right, Gary.

Gary Takacs: I mean, you gotta feel like someone just took a pin and poked the balloon, let the air out of it. You know, . Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, I,

Naren Arulrajah: I was gonna say, one other thing I wanna mention, Gary, when it comes to trust is awards. Like, for example, that’s another thing that psychologically get people to trust you. So for example, we have Doctors’ Choice Awards. You know, if you have the most reviews in your town or your city, or you may have win a, won a local award from a magazine, put it there. I think people trust awards for some reason. The human mind says, if you have won an award, you must stand out. You must be special. But it’s right or wrong. That’s a different story, but that’s what they believe. So, awards, Google reviews, and of course, the before and afters. And I do think videos are powerful too. And it’s hard. Like, not every patient is gonna go in front of camera and say, how wonderful of an experience you had. And getting it all organized would be painful. But I do think if you can do it, that’s like extra credit.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Yeah. For, and, you know, as you’re cultivating actual reviews from your patients, then you can populate videos on your, on your website with your own review. And I know, doctor, I know some of you’re grimacing right now. Oh, I hate to have to do videos. Well get over it. , get in front of an iPhone and record, short sweet. and record. And record it and record it and record it until you’re comfortable standing in front of that iPhone. just do it. and have team members, do those as well. You know, you could have an assistant talk about the different forms of whitening that are available in your office. you could, there’s any number of those types of videos that you could do a welcome video, where you just welcome anyone to your website.

Gary Takacs: Well, welcome. I’m Dr. So-and-so, wanted to take a minute and welcome you to our website, and, let you know that I’m looking forward to seeing you. And take 30 seconds and do a summary of your practice. Say, this is what we’re about. and just do those and tell it’s second nature. You know, you say, well, I’m not comfortable doing that. Naren, you and I don’t have this, memory because neither of us are dentists. But doctor, remember the first crown you did? Was that comfortable? The first crown prep you did? Heck no. That wasn’t comfortable. you were learning as you went. Well, think of this as another learning experience that you have to master. Exactly. All right, Neen, I’m gonna pivot. how can our listeners, educate patients about high value services without overwhelming them? Without overwhelming them?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a great question, Gary. And I think this is where I do think organic marketing is very powerful. Organic meaning I’m looking for something and you are the answer. You are the one I learn about. You are the one I learn from. And obviously, the number one place I would focus on is Google and the CEO. And the reason is, we all know Google is used, you know, 12 billion times a day, and then Google Maps is used 7 billion. So that’s like, you know, 17 billion between the two of them. So it is, it’s almost like a verb, you know, 90, 95% of the market when it comes to people looking for information. So when people go to Google and type whatever they need, let’s say implants, let’s say sedation, they might type in like sedation near me. They might be like, you know, I’m afraid to go to a dentist.

Naren Arulrajah: What can I do? You know, you’re typing all kinds of keywords if you do it right. And if you, if you really follow all of Google’s guidelines, you’re gonna show up hundreds of times for those kinds of searches. Of course, if you don’t offer a service, let’s say you don’t offer, you know, TMJ, then you shouldn’t have a page for TMJ. You should, you won’t show up. But everything you offer, if your search engine company like spends hundreds and hundreds of hours doing everything Google wants, you will show up, you will show up again and again and again and again.

Gary Takacs: I’m gonna, I’m gonna drill down on this for you. Yeah. with your marketing expertise, do you think it’s important to have landing pages on their high value services in the one website?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary. That’s a great question. I’m glad you asked it. So, for example, let’s take implants as an example. They need to have a main page for dental implants, and that page should target the keyword, let’s say dental implant name, right? And give enough and more information. So anybody in that city or that area will go to that main page. But it’s not enough why people type in all kinds of different combinations. What about zirconia implants? What about, you know, even if you don’t offer it, like when they’re asking that question, it’s good if they, you are the one, you know, they find. What about, you know, costs? What about, you know, different? How long does it take? So all these questions they’re asking, how

Gary Takacs: Long do implants last?

Naren Arulrajah: How long do implants last? I mean, they’re asking these questions and you wanna show up for every question they type in related to implants. It could be like 30 different keywords. So over time, you wanna make it like a small website with that landing page being the anchor. So from that landing page, I can, so

Gary Takacs: It’s within your main website,

Naren Arulrajah: It’s within your main website.

Gary Takacs: Lemme explain why from my perspective, why that’s so important. you know, I think in the fantasy land that we all live in, we think our websites are so interesting that people will land on them and spend 30 minutes, 45 minutes reading all the cool information about your practice. Well, wake up guys. That doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen. if someone finds you through organic search, engine opt meaning, that it’s not an ad, it didn’t pay Google for it. If they find found you, because you’re ranking on page one for dental implants, they will spend 90 seconds on your, on your website. If they have to go to your homepage and then navigate around to find the information, you’re gonna lose ’em. whereas if they land on your landing page, it’s like they have this itch. The itch that they have is implants. And it landed right to the page where it was addressing the implants. Yes. Because they’re only gonna spend 97. This is not my data. This is Google’s data. Now it gets worse. If they found you by ads. In other words, you’re doing a pay-per-click PPC campaign, or you’re doing paid ads, 15 seconds is all you get. Yes. Marin, if they end up going from a paid ad to your homepage, they will never get to your landing page in 15 seconds. They’re gone,

Naren Arulrajah: They’re gone. Bounce,

Gary Takacs: Go to, they

Naren Arulrajah: Were thinking of implants. They click on an ad for an implant, it takes you to the homepage. And they can’t even find implants in five seconds. They’re like, I’m out of here. Like, I don’t even trust you ’cause I clicked on an ad, now you are annoying me. I’m gone.

Gary Takacs: I have to do too much work. You know? Yeah. that famous ad campaign. The easy button. Easy button,

Naren Arulrajah: Easy button. Yeah. That’s what people want. Is

Gary Takacs: It Staples that did that?

Naren Arulrajah: Staples, yeah. The red button easy button. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Well, you want, you want your website to be the easy button for ’em. so if it’s cosmetic dentistry they’re searching for, they wanna land, you want ’em to land on a landing page that addresses cosmetic dentistry. ’cause they’re there, they’re already there. They don’t have to go through the search process themself. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: I think you bring up an excellent point. So if I talk about, you know, cost, or if I talk about how long does it take, I wanna go to a pig that talks about that topic. Yeah. Right. Of course, there should be a picture of you. There should be, you know, information about the cases you have done all of that. But key is give me what I want first. Yeah. Don’t gimme all the other nonsense. And imagine I’m interested in that. And you don’t even take me to the right topic around implants, but not even take me to the implants page. I’m gonna leave. So ads and everything else, this is why they don’t work, you know? Yeah. Just people want what they want. And, so I do think that’s what I would do, Gary. Now it’s not easy. It takes time. And, you know, we tell our clients it takes, you know, a year for them to rank 400 or more keywords and get into the top 5%.

Naren Arulrajah: The top 5% is like, holy grail. Google makes $250 billion from ads. So if you’re in the top 5%, you are getting everyone who’s looking for that free listing. Remember, nobody looks for ads on Google. They’re typing search into Google to look for the free listing. I seeing you. At least you get 95% of that free traffic. So it is the holy grail, it’ll take work. But there’s nothing better than that. Now, there is AI search. Again, Google is dominating that. If you look at the pure numbers, Google is 3, 4, 5 times larger in terms of how often it’s used for AI search. And we also pay attention to, you know, chat GPT. We get our clients to rank for that, you know, perplexity, even Gemini, which is again, a Google product. So I do think,

Gary Takacs: Well, you wanna use whatever the whatever

Naren Arulrajah: whatever. Yeah, exactly. You wanna be everywhere. They have the patients.

Gary Takacs: There’s, there are versions of chat GTP that we haven’t even heard of yet. Yeah, exactly. When they come out, you wanna be there. exactly. Naren proof, is important. We’re gonna stay on implants. ’cause I think, when we look at high value services, our listener, our listeners are, often, offices that, either place in restore implants, or at least restore implants. So when it comes to dental implants, growing the implant component of the practice, proof is important. What proof matters most to the public when they’re searching for a provider for dental implants.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I think just to kind of summarize what we have been saying so far. So step one is you show up on Google for anything and everything to do with implants organically. Step two is you have this landing pitch that Gary pointed out that has all the relevant information and perhaps even other articles that are targeting other keywords related to implants. And on that page, I think the very first thing I want to see is a welcome video. Hey, I’m Dr. Smith. I’ve been doing dental implants for the last X years. Look at all the cases I have done. You can see all of them on this page. You know, if there are videos, talk about the videos. Go ahead, get it.

Gary Takacs: Can I help with, and you’re welcome to borrow this, guys, if you’re listening, can I help with a, an opening line for that video? Yeah,

Naren Arulrajah: Of course.

Gary Takacs: l let’s say, your name’s Dr. Smith. hey, I’m, I’m Dr. Smith. welcome, to our website and welcome to, the part of our website where we talk about dental implants. I love doing all kinds of dentistry, but I especially love helping, restore patient’s dental health using dental implants. You landed at the right spot. You’ll find more information here about, you know, who’s a candidate for dental implants. you’ll find information about how long they last, how they look, how natural they are, and why dental implants are a great solution, to help restore people’s smiles. I love doing all kinds of dentistry, but I especially love, helping my patients restore their dental health with dental implants. I think with that kinda lead message, you’ve got their attention. In fact, that might be enough just to have them go up to the right hand corner and see your phone number and call.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, exactly. And today it’s showing up on your mobile. They just press the button and the phone rings. Of course, you are an expert in how the phone is answered. We know the average practice only books one out of three new patients. And when it comes to high value, it’s even worse than that because they just don’t know how to potential the doctor how to build trust on the phone. Like, in other words, you know, this is a big decision, right? A $20,000 decision for the patient. So they want someone to say, you call the right office. I know Gary, so

Gary Takacs: Tell, put the words in their mouth. Yeah. you’ve, you’ve found the right office

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: And tell it becomes a self-fulfilling pro prophecy. Yeah. yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: But most people who answer the phone don’t do that. That’s why I think the training you do and the thriving dentist coaching, is very valuable. But just, you know what, if you really want us to audit your dental implants page or any high value page, book a marketing strategy meeting, the link is ekwa.com/msm. And, we would love to help just go there and ekwa.com/msm

Gary Takacs: Now, I’m gonna back, I’m gonna kind of take the focus, I’ll back up a little bit and make it a wider view. how do we market implants, and other high value dentistry? So what are some other ways we can market it, without sounding promotional or price driven? You know, I think when doctors think about marketing, all they can think of is, maybe I should have the nine 90, the $999 special, which we all agreed is the race to the bottom that you don’t wanna participate. Right? So as a marketing coach, how would you advise our listeners to market then?

Naren Arulrajah: That’s a great question, Gary. I think I’ll go back to the fundamentals. Marketing is about helping the right people find you, like you and choose you. So find you know, Hey, I’m interested in implants. I start looking for it on Google. You show up again and again and again and again. And when I go there, like you know, the reviews, the before and afters, the welcome videos, and some of it does. Liking and trusting, especially the welcome video will get them to like you. They kind of feel like they can talk to you because the way you are down to earth, where you use simple language, even just saying hello and welcome makes people like you. I mean, how many websites say hello and welcome, right? Where there’s a human being who looks into the camera and smiles and says hello and welcome, simple things.

Naren Arulrajah: So you have to not be the best in the world. You have to be better than your competitors. If your competitors are not doing it, and you are the only one doing it, you are already winning the race. So, second is getting people to like you. And then last is the reviews and the cases. That’s where they seals the deal. And I think the real ceiling of the deal happens on the phone. You know, I really think when people are calling you, even the website does an amazing job. Your CEO does an amazing job. They’re still not sold. They’re 70% sold, but the person who brings them over the line is the person on the phone. It’s the person who’s answering the phone call. couple of other points I wanna add, Gary, and I would like your feedback on this is, you know, confidence, right? I think confidence is key and confidence and come across, like for example, somebody who’s giving you a deal is showing, I’m not confident. I’m not good enough. You, the only way you’ll come to me is because I’m giving you a deal. Right? And same thing with the tone of VO voice just saying, you call the right office. You know, really ask.

Gary Takacs: What’s interesting about this, Naren? Most dentists, if they don’t listen to their phone calls, yes, have no idea how the phone’s being answered. And this, I’m gonna do a case study right here. Of course, I won’t use the doctor’s name because of confidentiality, but this happened last week, last, this is how fresh this is. This is, an office where, implants placing ReSTOR implants are a very important part of their mix of high value services. And the doctors to two doctors in the practice, can do just about anything, that involve dental implants. They can do single tooth implants. they can, do all on X implants. they can do full mouth restorative treatment with implants. it’s a very rare case in this practice because of their massive amount of CE that they would refer either to a periodontist or a surgeon. They can do almost everything. This is something they’re excited about, but they couldn’t understand why I’m, I’m gonna get to marketing here. They couldn’t understand why they aren’t really getting the implant volume that their skillset deserves. You know, this is an office that does this really well. and so I was doing call training, Naren. And, the question from the caller, a potential new patient, said, I’m interested in having dental implants done. Okay, pause right there. That’s exactly the call this office wants. Would you agree?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: Gary, I’m interested in having dental implants. So the, that’s exactly what you would love, to have happen. Does your office do dental implants? and here’s what the team member said. Team. Yeah. . And that was it. That

Naren Arulrajah: Was it. That’s not gonna cut it. It’s definitely not

Gary Takacs: Gonna work. What just happened in the marketing of this? I mean, it just got a wet blanket thrown on it.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I mean, it’s like a 10, $20,000 case. And here we just, well

Gary Takacs: Blew it. This would’ve, this was an all on X case. That’s probably 35,000. Wow. and, but the answer was, yeah, I mean, she couldn’t have been less interested in talking to this person, could not have been less interested by tone of voice. Mm-hmm. And that the office wants to know how come they’re not doing implant? How come they’re not getting more implant patients? and I had to coach her. I mean, that was the right answer. Yeah. But that isn’t the right answer, when it comes to tone. I said, I was critical. I had to coach, yes. And I said, I need more. when the patient asks if you do implants, say something like this. You know, I’m so glad you ask. Our doctors love doing all kinds of dentistry, but they especially love helping patients restore their smile with dental implants. You called the right office. None of that was happening. And so here’s an example of the nuances of marketing. Marketing did its job. Marketing was to get the phone to ring, asked about implants. Marketing did its job,

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: The office failed to answer that question in a meaningful way when the only answer that could come out of her mouth was, yeah. And these doctors had no idea that’s what was going on in their practice. Doctors, if you don’t listen to your phone calls, you may have a perception of what you think is happening, but I’m gonna politely say you don’t know unless you listen to the calls. You don’t know. So, word to the wises there, if you want to grow the high value services, listen to your calls because maybe that’s the movie. Maybe, the phone’s being answered in a very indifferent way. If the way your phone is answered sounds like you’re talking to someone at the DMV then, right? We’ve got a problem, Houston, we have a problem. We have a problem. alright, now I’ll get off. This

Naren Arulrajah: Is very true, Gary.

Gary Takacs: I’ll get off my soapbox on that.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. The way the phone is answered can make a big difference, I think. I can’t tell you how many millions of dollars of revenue you and I see every month being thrown down the toilet. It’s crazy.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Yeah. Often the practice is getting the right number of calls every month. Yeah. But they’re not converting ’em because of the way the phones are answered. And then they’re, saying, it’s my marketing that’s not working. Right. No amount of money can fix that. You know, no amount of money and more ads, more, SEO can fix it if you don’t answer the questions with a, if you don’t answer the questions in such a way that roll the red carpet out to the caller to change your office, and that makes all the difference in the world. That’s, that’s part call training is baked into our coaching. I do those myself. I actually, I do those. Yes. I listen to the calls. I review them with your team members. I coach them, to improve. if that’s something you’re interested in, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm.

Gary Takacs: love to talk to you about how we do by the way, I have been doing that, since May of 2007. so, 19 plus years of experience, doing that. and we know how to, train team members so that they roll the red carpet out to callers. So we wanted two, we want two outcomes of every call. We want the caller to make an appointment and we want them to have a connection with your office on that first call. Yes. A connection. So that they’re thinking when we say you called the right office after they hang up, we want them thinking subconsciously in their mind. I absolutely did call the right office. that person was amazing. She was so helpful. I called the right office. We want that to happen. and that happens through training. ’cause your team members don’t necessarily know how to do that naturally. for sure. There. Last question. I’m a data hound, so are you Yes. which marketing data, tell Dennis that their high value growth plan is actually working?

Naren Arulrajah: Great question, Gary. And I’ll start with the most important, and then I’ll go down the list. Most important data point is how many new patients are you getting from that particular marketing? So let’s say you’re doing a CEO. How many new patients are, calls are you getting? We do call tracking for every marketing we do. So we can pinpoint and say, you got 17 new patient calls, 15 new patient calls. So that’s the first data point. The second data point I would look at is how many of those new patients are booking appointments versus not booking appointments? This is hard, and this is something that 99% of the marketing companies don’t do, and 99% of the coaches don’t do. But this can double your business because if the average is 33%, and most people when we first look at them are average or less, and you just take it up to 70%, that doubles the number of new patients you get. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: We’re looking for 70, we’re looking for, 70% conversion on the calls. Right. and now you have a data point that you can measure to, you know, if you, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Right. that’s a hard fact in business management. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. And so if you don’t know what your, conversion percentage is, you can’t effectively change it.

Naren Arulrajah: Right? Absolutely. And I was gonna say, the next thing I would look at is if you’re an SEO shop, like I said, it’s your does take time and very few people can crush it. But if you are, if you have that kind of a partner with you, then focus on how many keywords are you ranking for? Minimum hundred keywords of phrases on page one. you know, how many people are seeing you online who are seen 30,000, 40,000 times online? We see clients who are ranking for 300.

Gary Takacs: I mean, that’s a, that’s a vanity statistic there. It’s like clicks. That’s

Naren Arulrajah: True. That’s true.

Gary Takacs: I say the vanity is garbage. Yes. you know, new patient, so many people are seduced by, oh, I got 30 likes on this post. and it is, it was 30 of nothing. Nothing.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: But I think we have to be careful about being seduced by the vanity stats. True. The real stat is how many people called,

Naren Arulrajah: How many patients call how many I’m booking. That’s it.

Gary Takacs: I really don’t care how many people, I mean, I do care, but, how many people visited the website this month?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I think that is becoming less and less relevant, just like you mentioned, because I can call you directly from Google itself. Google Maps itself, Google AI itself, so I don’t even need to go to your website. So Google has become just this answer engine just connects people with, you know, whoever needs with you who can provide,

Gary Takacs: Measure the stuff that actually matters. Yeah. so measure your call conversion, measure your case acceptance percentage. Yes. and by the way, you know, we’ll cover it in another episode, but there’s absolutely things you can do, in terms of your skillset in presenting the dentistry Yes. In such a way that has patients, interested in, you’ve heard me talk about it, in other episodes. But I’ll leave you a simple, takeaway when you’re talking about treatment. If you, if you must speak, ask questions. Yes. Ask questions. Yes. you know, so what might be a question re related to implants? you know, think about that. Let’s say it’s a floppy lower denture. how do you feel about the current dentistry you have in your mouth? And what if they have a floppy, lower denture, what are they gonna say?

Naren Arulrajah: You know, what they want, you know, they’re not happy.

Gary Takacs: I’m not happy. That’s why I’m calling you. Yeah. and you know, again, if follow Dr. Reed Orma Reed’s suggestion, if you must speak, ask questions. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: And look, I think

Gary Takacs: Follow that up with a question. Mm-hmm . What would you like the outcome to be, in terms of those teeth? What would you like the outcome to be? And let them talk. And, you know, implants kind of fall into two, one of two simple broad categories. one is, function. And they might say, I want to eat anything i like with confidence. Yes. Yes. And the other is form. Form is how it looks. If someone’s missing a tooth in the aesthetic zone, they, their big thing is I can’t stand the way I look with this missing tooth here because it projects an image of me that I’m not happy with. Yeah. So what is it form or fi find out what’s more important to you. Figure out how to ask that question in a way the patient understands. And so I’m not gonna say what’s more important to you form or function? How do you think the public’s gonna answer that question?

Naren Arulrajah: I

Gary Takacs: Don’t know. I don’t know. What’s more important to you? How your teeth look or how they work?

Naren Arulrajah: Hmm.

Gary Takacs: And that Polaroid, you’ll get, you’ll get how it works has to do with their eating, how it, how it looks, has to do with their form. What’s more important to you? How, what if we could get both?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. Somebody, some people might say, I want both.

Gary Takacs: So they say, I’m, I’m, people

Naren Arulrajah: Might say, I only want this. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Well, what if we can get ’em to work really well and also look great? How would you feel about that? So if you must think, ask questions,

Naren Arulrajah: I think you hit it right on the head. Like, if you talk about relationships and, you know, having a successful practice, like in the office work or the phone, anything that’s happening within your, within your four walls, it’s questions, right? Because the more curious you are, I think a lot of people think they have to sell. You don’t have to sell, just get the patients to realize what they want. That’s your number one job. And whether it’s the person answering the phone or whether it’s, you know, the doctor or the hygienist talking to the patient about something they see. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Well, as we come to the finish line today, this has been a fun episode. I hope we’ve, given you some great ideas about how to grow the high value, component of your practice. So the high value dentistry growth plan, I’ll summarize it very briefly. don’t play the discount game. the discount game, is a race to the bottom. instead build value, build value, build value, and do everything you can. So, you present the image, to your marketplace that you are the place to go to receive this type of dentistry. And we’ve given you lots of ideas on how to do that. if you’re interested in enhancing your marketing, getting more phone calls, I would encourage you to schedule, a marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa, and Naren, the URL for that,

Naren Arulrajah: It’s ekwa.com/td.

Gary Takacs: Yep. And if you’re in interested in getting more information about, things like call training, developing your practice to full potential, maybe, successfully resigning from PPO plans so we’re not handing so much money to, the bad guys at Delta, that feel welcome to schedule a coaching strategy with me thrivingdentist.com/csm. Look forward to seeing you on that meeting. On that note, Darren and I thank you for the privilege of your time, and we look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.