Transcription of Episode

Jonathan Fashbaugh:

Welcome to marketing chairside by Pro Impressions marketing. If you’ve ever wanted to just take someone who knew everything you needed to know and be able to pick their brain or look under the hood of their practice or whatever analytical metaphor you want to use, this is your opportunity, or at least it’s my opportunity. And so I’m glad you’re here today. I’d like to welcome Dr. Brad Durham to the show.

Dr. Brad Durham:
Hey, Jonathan. Glad to be here. You were describing somebody. I didn’t realize you were describing me. So now you’ve created this big image I’ve got to feel. So I’ll do my best in the next few minutes…

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking about that. I’m like, if I tell people that he’s really smart or something, he’ll be the first one to say, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” I love the humility because that’s important. The willingness to learn and that’s why we are here today. You have over the years done a lot of things that a lot of people would find really intimidating. And so one of the biggest things that I find impressing and that a lot of our clients want to do or are struggling to do is to build a different kind of dental practice than what they’ve been told they have to have, which is insurance driven or fee for service. And you built a practice that was a Medicaid practice and took it to an insurance practice and then a fee for service practice, really focusing on the best dentistry in your market, which was Savannah. What gave you the idea to build that different kind of practice? What was the inception of that idea?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Yeah, that’s a good question. And that’s true. My practice has been in a lot of different forms. What I’ve found myself doing. I actually bought a Medicaid practice in 1982 and I probably practiced for almost 40 years. And so what happened was I just got increasingly more frustrated with people coming in because I was just a dentist or they’d come in and they didn’t really realize that I could offer different things, different services that other dentists could. So I decided that I wanted to create a practice and it was an evolution of practice that people would come to me, to my practice because I was unique and I could offer them products and services that nobody else in the area could. So that happened out of frustration, but was a very intentful evolution to be the best dentist that I can be.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And I mean, but it wasn’t if you build it, they will come. Not to a certain extent. I’m sure there’s referrals, but when did you start advertising your practice and did your competitors just immediately jump in and follow suit or did you enjoy a heyday where you just were the only one doing it?

Dr. Brad Durham:
I think even now we’re doing some advertising that nobody else is doing. They’re not willing to do it. But if you build it, they will come. You have to build it first. And then you have to tell everybody what you have. The word will get out slowly about your practice, but you can speed up that process if you do some level of marketing. And I hate to use the word marketing because most dentists are going to say, “Well, let’s just go out and buy a bunch of ads.” It’s not that it’s building a brand. So you have to decide what your brand is going to be. And then you have to figure out the best way to present and explain that brand in your market. And so for us, that was advertising. In our market, it was video advertising. So we did very high production value. That means we spent a lot of money on it and it looked like we did. Video testimonials that basically told the story of the practice and the story of how we were changing the lives of the patients that we saw every day.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And so not to assume anything, a lot of practices focus on some different things. What were some of the problems that you were presenting in those testimonials and what were the types of patients that you were looking for?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Yeah, well, we evolved into a practice that I basically did one procedure and I did it over and over and over again until I got pretty good at it. And I always joked that my market was perimenopausal females that had some TMJ problems, but they really wanted to look better. And so we came up with this procedure that we branded and we called it the nonsurgical dental facelift. And essentially we would take somebody, we would rebuild their bite, we would rebuild their teeth and we would make them look younger.
We’d make them function better and they would feel better about themselves. So it would change their lives. Now, technically this is a lot of learning that you have to do in order to get this technique down. But I mean, if I can figure it out pretty much anybody can. So that was the procedure that we did. It was very easy to market. It was very easy to explain because well, basically, we’re making people look younger, feel better and we’re giving them better teeth along the way. So that was our procedure that we did.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And so I as time went on, people did come to you for that. But before that was a concept that they knew existed. How did you talk to them to help them understand that they had these other problems that went beyond needing to get a single tooth taken care of or just hygiene and the basic mentality?

Dr. Brad Durham:
That’s a good point. I mean, it took us 35 years to develop this, to get to this point in the practice. That was the far extension of where we got. And that was where I wanted to end up. But I mean, along the way we branded ourselves as the place to go, a dental office that offered a high service, good communications, high quality, high value. And it starts with just simple, good, basic cleanings and basic operative dentistry. You start with that and then you build on it. You can add cosmetics. You can add bites and TMJ. You can add pretty much go in whatever direction you want to go in, but it’s a step by step approach. And the journey of a thousand steps begins with that first step. So it begins with often high quality procedures.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of dentists think about, they have that one procedure available and then they’ve got to market that, but it’s still being this, I’ll do everything. I can do everything. Let’s market everything. But you said we marketed this one procedure pretty much. But you also said that you hate to use the word marketing because it’s really getting your brand out there. What other lessons did you learn about marketing and advertising your practice?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Well, whatever image, what you’re going for is if somebody meets somebody on an elevator and they explain their last dental visit, and it’s a super great visit. That’s what you’re going for. You’re looking for a good reputation in the community. People talking good about you. And the marketing part is just getting them in the door. Once you get them in the door, it’s another whole process that you need to do right. So we designed a new patient process that would not only find out what the patient needed, but it would also address the values of the patient to find out what they actually wanted and what they really felt like would make their lives better. So our new patient process was more than just taking some x-rays and hygiene. I mean, it was a well-orchestrated for lack of a better term sales event. Find out what the patients want. And then we just give it to them.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yeah. Sitting through the seminars that you’ve taught. That was just a mindblower for me, thinking about communicating in terms of value and what do you really want patient? Because what they want is all of the things that makes their life changed forever with the dentistry that you offered. They didn’t want a crown, they didn’t want [crosstalk 00:09:25]. What could have stopped you [crosstalk 00:09:28].

Dr. Brad Durham:
What stopped me?

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
What could have stopped you from success? I guess we haven’t talked about where are you right now in the world?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Well, I’m retired. I’m sitting on a boat in Maine. We come to Maine every Summer on the boat. In the Spring, we go to Bahamas. But basically, I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do, which was travel around on a boat. And we’re having, we’re having a great time doing that.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Yeah. And you had a heck of a time getting there with an amazing successful practice. Can you think of anything, any decision that you made a fork in the road where if you’d gone the other way you would, you probably be at work right now instead of on a boat?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Yeah. I can definitely think that one of the key things that you have to do is you have to learn the business of dentistry. And what that means is if you want to be the best to provide the best procedures you have to charge for them. And within that fee structure, not only do you have to charge for hiring good help, having a good office, using the best materials, using the best labs, but you also have to have money left over at the end of the month, which is called profit. And part of that profit goes into retirement.
And that’s why we’re here now. So it’s all part of, you have to understand the psychology of dentistry. You have to understand the sales part of dentistry, the marketing part, and the business part. And without the business part, without charging, if Rolls-Royce charged a $5,000 a car, everybody to go like, “What’s wrong with that car?” But they charge what it takes to produce that car. And not that I have a Rolls-Royce, but that’s just an example. So you have to charge what you’re worth, but you have to be worth what you say that you are in your branding.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
And yeah, I mean, I think the branding has to portray that value. And then you have to walk the walk. If you could just give one piece of advice to a young dentist, maybe not fresh out of dental school, but well, they’re buying that Medicaid practice. I talked to one in the Miami area the other day, and I’m like, “Wow, awesome opportunities, got the skillset and the training, the fellowships, et cetera, to offer the dentistry. But he’s got a journey in front of him.” So that dentist what’s one piece, if you could only give one piece of advice, what would it be?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Yeah. Is to not be like all the other dentists. You need to be different. As I watch TV nowadays, or if I walk by dental offices and every time I walked by a dental office, I’m always analyzing it. It seems like dentist are standing in line to be exactly alike each other. And if you’re like everybody else, you’re not going to stand out. And also built into the American DNA is that cheaper is somewhat better.
If you charge less, everybody’s going to come to your door. And that’s always, the default position is let’s charge less. We’ll get more people in here. Well, but if you charge less, you provide less, you provide less, you hurt your brand. And then you get a whole bunch of cheap patients in there, which will never allow you to get better because they’re just not going to pay for the procedures.
So you build your practice one at a time. You build a brand. You charge what it’s worth. You take a lot of continuing education. You need to understand the psychology part, the sales part and there’s many different components to a well-run dental practice. And you just need to learn how to do that. But I mean, it’s easily achievable. You just do it a little bit at a time and you grow your practice in the direction you want to grow it into. And it’s if you are going to sit here and say, “What do I want to be?
What does my practice need to look like when I retire?” And describe that and then say, “Well, where are we at now?” Just come up with a 1, 3, 5, 10-year plan, take the courses, take the education, learn how to do these things. Go to somebody that’s already done it before and just get them to tell you how to do it. It’s not that difficult. You just have to do it. And so what would I say to the young dentist? Figure out who you want to be when you grow up and get on that path.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Right. Do you feel like young dentists now have more opportunity or less opportunity than when you were starting out and making this transformation in your practice?

Dr. Brad Durham:
I think they have equal opportunity that I had when I got into dentistry or possibly even more. And so the reason I say that is because there’s so many Aspen Dentals and economy dentures, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, people out there and they’re doing their marketing and people know about them. And so all you have to do is figure out what that practice looks like and just be different. And if you’re just different, that moves in the right direction. But if you want to be the same as everybody else, that car’s not going to get you there.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Right. Right. I’ve heard that those cheap places can be your best sources of new patients because they’ll screw it up and make the patient miserable. And then you can come in and save the day one. But it’s stinks that they’ve got to get there before that though.

Dr. Brad Durham:
Well, you got to pay the price. You may have to borrow some money. You definitely have to take this continuing education. You have to hire the right team. You have to be in the service and you have to set up a dental practice so when the patient walks in the front door, they know that they’re in the right place. And it takes a while to do that. But it’s definitely, definitely well worth it. I would have hated to go to work every day if I didn’t like going to work. And so when I got the practice the way that I wanted it to be, I just went in there and did my thing. Everything worked out. You had to keep it tuned up. But once you get the point B, let’s call it, it’s a great place to live,

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
But it wasn’t easy getting there obviously. You made, had to make some hard calls and deal with some tough situations. Can you tell us about what that’s like and how important that is to the success of your practice?

Dr. Brad Durham:
Yeah. They’re tough calls. I think you and I have talked about this concept called well, now I can’t remember the term. We were just talking about it.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Confrontational tolerance.

Dr. Brad Durham:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Confrontational tolerance. And so a lot of people don’t have the ability to confront issues that they feel like are going to be difficult. So they just dodge them all together. So confrontational tolerance is the ability to recognize when you’re in a situation that you’re going to be uncomfortable and you realize you’re not going to die. You’re not going to bleed. Nobody’s going to cut your arm off. You just might be uncomfortable.
And so you stretch your comfort level to the point of where you pretty much know what you need to do. You just need to do it. So instead of running around being scared that you don’t want to do this stuff because it’s going to be uncomfortable, you just make yourself do it. And once you live in that arena for a little while you stretch your confrontational tolerance to the point where you just simply do it. Here’s an example, you have a dental assistant that comes in late and they’re not prepared.
So your confrontational tolerance meter says, “Oh, well, I’m going to be uncomfortable if I talk to this assistant and tell her what our job really is.” And so you bust through that. You do it anyway. And then you find out that this person comes across and does what they’re supposed to do. And now you don’t have to deal with it anymore. But if run around on pins and needles, scared to tell people what you want, and after all it is your dental practice.
So you have the right to do that. You make your place better and better and better. And eventually you just get to the point to where whatever you want or whatever needs to be done, you just explain it and you don’t worry about it anymore. So that’s the confrontational tolerance continuum, if you will, is you need to learn how to confront your fears and deal with them, and then move on to the next level.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
I know. I’ve personally found that just so helpful in my business over the years. And that’s just one of so many tidbits that you have to share and you’ve helped so many other dental practices take the next step and then the next step in their business. And I just hope that more people are able to take advantage of your time. The time that you’ve spent. You’ve got a lot of these types of recording, messages, step-by-step instructions on the changes that dentists need to make in their practice if they want this niche practice. And it’s all at nichepracticeseminars.com.
So anyone watching this who says, “I want that.” This is what you do. You got to nichepracticeseminars.com, and we’ll have a link in the description for this video so that you can get there easily too. But if you do that, you’re going to be faced with a lot of those uncomfortable choices, those uncomfortable situations, where you’re making those changes and it’s tough, but Brad’s instructions will help you go through that step by step. And when it comes to the branding and marketing piece, obviously, we at Pro Impression marketing would be, would love to talk to you and see if it’s a fit for that. But that’s the next step for everyone involved here. If you don’t change anything, Brad, what can they expect?

Dr. Brad Durham:
That can expect a Groundhog day. It’s the same experience over and over and over again. But you mentioned the videos. Most dentists think that dentistry is about teeth. It’s really not about teeth. It’s about the psychology of dentistry. It’s about improving lives through teeth. But let it’s way more than just teeth. And so in these videos, we’ve built basically, the psychotic or the psychological toolbox, if you will. The steps on which you need to go through to build these key parts to your practice. And we pretty much put 35 or 40 years experience on just a few hours of video. So there’s a lot of information in there. I remember when I recorded it and there was a lot of information. And basically, take the information, learn how to apply it to your practice. And you can use a little bit of it or all of it to whatever extent you feel comfortable doing. And you can be whatever dentist you want to be. There’s this is the tools that’ll get you there,

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
But do the stuff that you’re uncomfortable with too. I mean, it’s just tremendous value, just tremendous value in the series. And so do check that out everyone. Brad, thank you so much for taking time. I can hear the hurricane whistling in the background. So you be safe.

Dr. Brad Durham:
It’s whistling pretty bad, but it’ll clear up tomorrow and it’ll be a normal day. So it’s been good to replay the key components of my career and I’m glad I’m sitting here and we’re glad to pass this information along. People taught it to me and I don’t want to see it die a slow death. Helping other dentist is definitely part of what I like to do now.

Jonathan Fashbaugh:
Well, [inaudible 00:21:50], everyone watching, thanks for joining us on marketing chairside. If you’ll like subscribe, do the little heart thing, whatever is in front of you. We can serve up more to more of that. But thanks again for watching and we’ll see you next time.