Dental Marketing Guy – Bob ‘Maui Bob’
Justin: welcome to the Dental Marketing Guy show, today is a very special episode, I have our guest of honor, Bob Summers, he’s also known as Maui Bob, most people on Dental Town would know him as Maui Bob, and Maui Bob has some incredible value to offer the dental industry, let me tell you; some of this stuff is totally new to me, I think it's going to be totally new to most of our viewers and listeners and lets jump right into it. How are you Maui Bob?
Bob: I’m doing great Justin, aloha man
Justin: Aloha, excellent, joining us from, I assume, Maui?
Bob: right right right.
Justin: the background matches, I like it, very good.
You know what I was wondering was, the title of this show is the seven psychological triggers of getting google and yelp reviewers without being pushy or needy. I think so many dentist have this block where they just feel salesy to come out and say 'well hey, if you've enjoyed your process or whatever, can you please give us some google review', it's really difficult to do that sort of thing, but what you've done is you've turned the 7 psychological triggers of earning reviews, into a science.
Could you tell us a little bit about that please?
Bob: sure, okay so, it really is a science come to think of it. We've sent out on behalf of dentists, come to think of it, probably a million review requests, Justin, and over that time, we’ve learnt so much, what works, what doesn't work, and I’m also big time into psychology, you know, about what are triggers pro and con. So what I want to do is, I want to demonstrate what we've found to be the most effective way to ask for a google review. To get both google and yelp reviews. Now this is interesting because, here's the rule of thumb, if you want google reviews, ask for google reviews, if you want yelp reviews, ask for google reviews. and the reason for this is, I’m going to get into the psychology of this, yelp has a policy, its actually guide lined, it says 'don’t ask people to provide a review on yelp, or we are going to filter it' and you're thinking we'll how do they know that, we'll they know because it’s so easy to write a review on yelp, and when they do, they can see that it’s a new yelper. So here's the thing we know about yelper's, they're avid, they are avid reviewers, and if you ask a yelper to write a review on google, they're going to do one of two things, they're either gonna tell you right away say 'hey, in a yelper, is it okay if write a review there?' and the answer is of course, 'yeah, great', or they're not going to tell you. So once they see the choices you provide, and I encourage you to send a text or an email with choices in it, once they see Yelp there, and there is a huge warning we put next to yelp, and I’d encourage you to do the same thing, it says 'please only leave a review on yelp if you're an active yelper and you already have an account, otherwise yelp is going to filter your review', so if you're not a yelper that is going to terrify you like 'oh no I’m not going there for goodness sake's' but if you are a yelper, you're going to laugh in the face of danger, you’re going to go right to yelp, and write a review. so I want to set this up by saying; we're looking to get google, and yelp reviews, if you want google reviews, ask for a google reviews, if you want a yelp review, ask for a google review, and let the yelper self-identify.
Let’s look at the 7 triggers, and it's a 2 part thing. So I want you to role play with me here Justin, and I’m going to ask you to write a review, now here's the questions, who should we ask and when should we ask. Well you can ask anyone you want, but I want you to think about this, when you ask a patient to write a review, you have one crack at it, so you want to make sure that they are at the peak of their happiness, it’s not the first time that they've come and seen you, and you want to make sure they're happy with the quality of service you're offering.
So, just role-play with me and lets do part one and I’ll show you the first four triggers, are you ready?
Justin: excellent, yes.
Bob: hey Justin, before you go can I ask you a favor please?
Justin: sure
Bob: alright well thank you, later today or tonight or whenever its convenient for you, would you mind taking just a couple of minutes to write a review for us on google, and Justin the reason I’m asking is, when you write a review on google, it helps other people learn about our practice through your experience, would you do that for me please?
Justin: yeah, yeah okay
Bob: well thank you.
This is part one of how to ask for a review, and by the way, did anything I said or did Justin, sound pushy or aggressive or manipulative in anyway, or anything like that?
Justin: no, and it didn't appear needy either
Bob: no, needy or pushy right. So here's the thing, it's not needy because I provide a great service and as much as love your review, I don’t need it, I would like to have it but I don’t need it, and the last thing I want to do is come across as pushy. Now I've seen other people say I want you to write the review in the office, you can’t leave until you do this, and by the way, after sending out over a million review requests, we've learned a couple of things, and here they are; Half of your patients are absolutely delighted to write a review, while they are sitting in your office, the other half people like me, I’m not a very good speller, I don’t want you hoovering over me, nor do I even want to be in your office while I write a review. I find that pushy and aggressive and manipulative. So let’s look at these seven triggers, and so far I think I've given you four of them. So here they are: 'Justin may I ask you a favor' - now there’s a term called 'commitment consistence', when you say yes to something small, you're very likely to do something big, not only that, but this is something people don’t really understand, I've got a Blog called 'likability guide' and I’m fascinated by what makes people likable, and what you'll discover, 1 of the 12 laws of likability that I've kind of uncovered here, is this; that we like the people we help - it’s not that we like the people who help us, we like the people we help. So when someone goes out of their way to write a review for you on google or yelp, they actually like you more, they trust you more, by the mere fact that they have taken the effort to do you a favor. So the first trigger is, Commitment consistency - 'may I ask you a favor?' - 'yes'. Alright now we're setting up part 2; the next thing I said, and this is important, 'later today, or tonight or, whenever it's convenient for you', let me stop right there, and Justin did you notice when I said that, you immediately where like 'phew, he’s not going to ask me to write the review while I’m sitting in the chair', did you get that feeling? so okay, 'later today or tonight, or whenever its convenient for you'', now the reason I say 'whenever its convenient for you' is because half of your patients, guess what, it's convenient for them, right now, and that’s when they want to do it, and that’s okay for me. So this trigger number 2; give your patients the opportunity to feel comfortable that they can write the review at their leisure. That is so important, because if you don’t do that, it’s going to sound pushy - 'later today or tonight, or whenever it’s convenient for you'.
Here's the next thing; 'would you mind taking a couple of minutes to write a review for us on google' - now you notice I didn't pause there 'would you mind taking just a couple of minutes to write a review for us on google and the reason I ask is this - when you do, it helps other people learn about our practice, through your experience here, would you do that for me?' now, what I want you to notice is I didn't say 'hey Justin would you write me a 5 star review, would you say something nice on the internet', I don’t have to do that, because the 5 star review system and all these other systems, they will all separate the people that want to give you good review from those that don't. And by the way it's a very honorable reason, the reason I’m asking is, I want you to know that your feedback is so important, I trust you, 'I want other people to learn about my practice trough your experience'. So that's the third of these 7 characteristics. Now let's go on, and I’ll give you the remaining 4.
Now, are you ready?
Justin: yes
Bob: so you've just said 'yeah Bob, I’m happy to write a review', now the next thing I’m going to say, believe it or not, is the most important three words you're going to use in the entire in the entire process, here we go. Justin, before you go. Let me stop right there; before you go, now I want you to notice when I said that, you're like 'okay, something is going to happen before I leave, before I leave the office'. And let’s go through the rest of it. Before you go; I’d like to ask one of the ladies out front if they will send you a text with a link in it to where you can write a review, and Justin I want you to know, I’m really looking forward to reading your comments.
Now, let’s stop and evaluate what we just did. Point number 4 is, before you go, now this is what we've discovered Justin, if that patient walks out of your office, I don’t mean the backroom, I don’t mean the backroom, they literally walk out into the hallway, and you send the review request to them, whether you’re doing it on your own by email or texting or in our case you can do both, if they are out of that office, they are not going to write a review, they won't do it, so you absolutely have to, and I fully don't understand the reason for this, but you've got to send the review request while they are watching you do it.
Now in about 20% of the cases, the dentist are sending it from the backroom and that’s fine, in about 80% of the cases, they walk the patient up front and they say 'Julie, Bob has offered to write a review, would you please send him a review request' Now this is actually the fourth of the seven components; when you walk someone up front, a patient up front and Julie looks up and says, 'Bob thank you so much for offering to write a review for us, it means so the world to us', here's the fourth trigger, now you have at least 2 people that know, you've offered to write a review, I don’t want to let you and Julie down. Julie looks up and says 'Bob, thanks so much for offering to write a review' etcera, but once I say 'Before you go', you now know that I’m going to get this review to you and you're going to discover or quickly identify the fact that, I now know you know, you got the request, there are no excuses; 'I didn't get the request, when did you send it', you're standing right there with me, I don’t expect you to write the review, but I’m going to send it to you and you're going to literally get it before you literally walk out of the office, because emails and text they, before you go here's the next one, 'I’d like to ask one of the ladies up front if they'll send you an email or a text with a link in it to where you can write a review' now, notice I’m telling you exactly what it is that you're wondering, and that is 'Bob, what is it that you want me to do', this is what I want you to do, before you go, I’m going to send email or text with a link in it, to where you can leave a review. Now if you're doing this on your own, you need to get something in their hands with the link so it’s really easy to get where they need to go. Now the five star review system of course, you can send text or email or both, and with google particularly, we have 5 different links, depending on what you're client clicks on, to ensure that they get to your google page as quickly as possible.
And the last thing I said, and Justin we learned this, this was bought to our attention by a guy that runs used cars in south west Florida, and he called me he was so excited, he said 'Bob, you won’t believe this, the number of people that are writing reviews has skyrocketed', and I said 'Tom, what are you doing differently', he said 'the only thing I’m doing differently after I said them to write a review is this'. And this is the seventh trigger, 'I’m really looking forward to reading your comments', and he said 'boy the moment I say that to them, there's like a little trigger that goes off in their head', and the trigger sounds like this, 'uh oh, their looking for it, I don’t want to let them down, I’m going to go ahead and write that review'. So that’s the way to ask for a review, and how to send it, and those are the seven triggers without being pushy and without being needy, and by the way, lastly; if you're asking people to write reviews, and you feel as though like you're coming across as needy, then you probably are. And if you feel like you're coming across as pushy, you probably are, you’re not doing it right, stop and re-evaluate what you're doing.
So there you have it.
Justin: wow that’s, you know I couldn't agree more with the self-assessment, when you feel pushy, when you feel needy, I couldn't agree more. If we could record the dentist who feel needy and pushy, and see how they're saying it. I'm sure they would agree with you, that the reason they feel that way is because it’s real.
Bob: and by the way, just an interesting note, I can't tell you how many dentist have a high level of trepidation before they ask their first patient and when they follow this guide line, a lot of them really study this, when they ask their first patient to write a review the response is lie this 'oh my gosh I’d love to write a review I love you guys I love coming here' and all of a sudden the dentist and the hygienist, who by the way, when they're the ones asking for the review, in lo of the assistant or the front office staff, they get 3 times the response, because we as patients, we want to reward the person that's actually providing the service, and the most amazing thing is, after they've done that, they're like 'this was a very pleasant experience, I want ask the next person, I want them to tell me how great I am' and you get in this self-fulfilling prophesy of asking, people love you, you want to ask again. But until you ask the first time, and you ask without being pushy and without being needy, and you realise your patients doing you a favor and they want to do you a favor, you'll never experience what this feeling is like, it’s pretty neat.
Justin: that’s great because you’re talking about momentum, you know; success breeds success. And that’s what a lot of the dentist who are in our audience understand, is that, once you get past that first hurdle, you can just keep going, momentum.
Bob: yeah. And along those lines, I want to mention, you know, once we sign these people up to this system, or they purchase our system, we evaluate them, we don't sell it to just anybody, if you don’t have a good score on the internet we don't let you use the service, we don't want to be marketing a practice that doesn't do a good job, but we also make sure you're happy and feel comfortable sending a review request. And the most difficult thing I add is even though we do these 50 minutes of training and really help people overcome the fear of asking, the people that ask right after the training, they do great. We have people that get you know, 20-25-30 google reviews in a couple of weeks because they start and they get caught up, others they never start, they never asked the first patient. And that’s so unfortunate because they have this amazing tool in their hands, and they don’t use it. So it's a matter of, look, if you're going to do it - do it, if you're not going to do it - don't do it, but don't pussy-foot around it, either do it and know it's going to be awesome, or let it go and spend your time and energy somewhere else. And I mean that, because you don't want to be feeling bad about yourself because you can't get the courage to ask. It's just unfortunate.
Justin: yeah, for sure, for sure. You know, my background is in SEO, I do dental SEO, and that pretty much what I specialize in, and by pretty much I mean absolutely, and you know, I find that there are SEO's made up of about 200 or so different factors, maybe more, and one of those factors is reviews. Have you been able to notice any kind of difference in the SEO of different dentist as they take on your program?
Bob: absolutely, I mean, oh my gosh absolutely. I’m going to say something, I know you know this, of those 200 factors, about 4 of them have to do with reviews, and those 4 factors, and where talking about impacting ranking here Justin, as you know, the 4 factors that impacting your ranking so you can get into that 3-pack, are going to be the number of reviews you have, you want more than your competitors, Your score, so if you have a 5.0 and they have a 4.8, you want to have a higher score, the third one is velocity, which means, are you getting reviews at a consistent rate, you're not just surging and stopping, and are you getting reviews on sites other than google. Google pays very close attention to that, are you getting reviews on yellow pages and Yelp which are the two biggies. And we have for example one of clients is a dentist in Orlando, there's 700 dentists' in Orlando, she's nowhere near the city center, but if you do a search for 'Dentist, Orlando', she floats to the very top, 125 google reviews, something or other, all about beautiful smiles, the last time I talked to her she said 'Bob, we get 10 calls a day, because we're up high in the search engines, and 5 of those people turn into customers' now Justin, I just gave a cursory view of the reviews and ranking, but you know a lot more about this then I do, what are some of the factors you've seen with respect to SEO and reviews, that move people up in that local search list?
Justin: yeah, you know SEO is essentially 2 major factors and that is; authority and relevancy. So if we can basically make you relevant, which has to do with the content on the website and the kind of links that you're getting, and the kind of reviews you're getting, which reviews are content, you know there’s the old maxim -content is king, which I think is really over-simplifying, because I think a lot of dentist think of 'oh if I write, if I blog - that's content' the best kind of content you can have, is content you can have, is content other people have written about how great you are, you never toot your own horn about how great you are, that’s braggadocios, but what you can do is you can have other people brag about how great you are, to almost an absurd degree, you know, like they can put raving, glowing reviews, and as long as they're honest and believable and clear and memorable, they’re going to really strike at the heart of what SEO is, which is, you take it from Google’s perspective, 'who should I put up at the top', it’s not random, it's not arbitrary, they don't rotate in a cycle. The best of the crop rises to the top; you know the cream of the crop rises to the top. So what google is looking for is 'what is the cream of the crop, how can we measure who’s the best', and reviews are a really great way for them to do that. So I agree, it's one of those factors, and it has a lot to do with the click through rate, so if you have 5 stars or even 4.9 or 4.8, you're gonna get a lot better click through rate then the person who has 2.5 stars. They can get ranked at the top, or a person with no reviews, they may be ranked at the top, but that's not probably going to last forever, because the dentist whose doing great work, the dentist whose putting out good content, truly is patient based, that's what Google’s looking for - when I say google I mean all the search engines. As you know.
Bob: Right, well you know like you say, reviews are way more important as a conversion factor as they are as a ranking factor, certainly they help your ranking, but nothing is as powerful for conversion then having a perfect 5.0 star rating. And I’ll tell you in an anomaly I see, I find this amazing - people advertise on yelp, they spend money on yelp, and I’m neither here nor there, I’m actually a yelp fan, I don’t like the way they do business, but if you don’t understand how yelp works, you are missing out on huge opportunities, but this is what I don’t get, people have a 3-3.5 star rating on yelp, they don’t really care about it, but they advertise on yelp, what they're not thinking of is, they're paying yelp to tell the entire world that they have a 3.5 star rating. That's horrible, I wouldn't pay yelp one penny until I had a 5.0 or a 4.9 rating, and yelp isn't going to do that for you, you've got to get those reviews yourself. Now if I had a 4.9 or 5.0 rating on yelp, hey then I would consider advertising and let yelp tell the world about me. I would never do that if I had people that were higher rated then me, how stupid would that be.
Justin: right.
Bob: yeah, anyway.
Justin: that’s huge, and a lot of dentist actually don’t even know that they're on yelp.
Bob: do you mind if I talk about this for a minute, because I find it the biggest misunderstanding that dentists' have on yelp, they're afraid of yelp, for 99% unfounded reasons, and when I’m on Dental Town, I read what other dentists' are saying about how evil yelp is, none of our customers are saying that because they're all benefiting from their awesome yelp reviews, but here's what a lot of dentists' don't get. They will tell me 'Bob, we don’t have any yelper's in our community' let me just assume that’s true okay, lets assure that’s true, but did you know that yahoo shows yelp reviews, Bing shows yelp reviews, did you know that you're on a an apple iPhone and you're using Siri, and you're looking for the best dentist in your community, they show that by your yelp reviews, did you know that? most dentist are like 'I didn't know that', well you only need a handful of great reviews if nobody in your community is a yelper, and you're going to be the highest rated person on iPhone's, yahoo, Bing, and even the person that uses yelp for goodness sake's, so there is nothing to fear with yelp, the only thing to fear with yelp is if you have a bad rating because you've not paid attention to your yelp listing and yelp's strong-arming you into spending money with them. I don't know, yelp is a fabulous marketing avenue, if you understand how to do it. That's it, take control, get good reviews, and let everything else happen on its own because it will.
Justin: yeah and I think there is, and you know, in defense of those dentist who are lamenting about yelp, I think there are some valid concerns about, I mean, yelp can destroy your dental practice, you know. If you have a bad rating, if you're not getting those positive reviews put up, but the bottom line is, that the responsibility falls on you, the dentist, it falls on your shoulders to do something about it.
And as long as that is the attitude, you're not going to have time to sit around and complain about Yelps business model, because you're too worried about your business model. Definitely.
Bob: Absolutely
Justin: You know kind of in that same vein, I was hoping you could give us 2 of the most common dangers or pitfalls that some dentists' fall into when asking for reviews.
Bob: well, I’ll tell you exactly what the 2 are. The 2 biggest downsides, why aren't dentist's getting reviews on google and yelp, number one; they're not asking, and along that line they don’t know how to ask, and number two; they're not making it super super super easy for their patients to get to where they need to go to write a review, whether it’s on a phone or desktop or a laptop. You know, a lot of dentist are asking patients to write reviews and that's it. So, they're asking, they're doing part one, but part two, they're expecting patient to just on their own, sit down and it ain't gonna happen. Other people don't ask, they do a fabulous job, what I’m saying is, maybe these people aren't asking, but they're handing out a piece of paper showing people where to go so they're making it a little easier, but if you don't ask someone to write a review, it isn't going to happen.
So those are the two pitfalls, they don't ask and they don't make it easy; it's that simple really.
Justin: yeah, and that's part of what your system helps resolve.
Bob: right, and you know what's interesting about this Justin is, I’m really proud of our system, we have almost a thousand dentists' that use it, we have dentist that are getting 10 google reviews every week, they're just killing' it, we have others who have over 600 google reviews, over a hundred yelp reviews. It's not the system that makes it happen, because we have another dentist right across the street that's using the exactly the same systems, it's set in exactly the same way, and because they're not asking and they're not sending the same why, they're not going to get the same, literally phenomenal results everybody else is, they're not gonna do it.
So, as proud as I am of the system, I can honestly tell you, that 95% of your ability to get a google and yelp review, and a referral by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the 5 star review system or any system you use, it has to do with you. Because here is what I know to be true, if your customers love you, they will jump through hoops to write wonderful reviews for you; if it's mediocre or fair, I don't care how easy you make it for them to write a review, they're not gonna do it.
So, you know the bottom line is, it is 100%, in the dentists' lap and the hygienists lap, really, quite frankly those two, and if they're using a system to make sure that it is sent to the patient, and now where going to put a little responsibility on the assistant or the folks up front. But your ability to get reviews has to do with you; a system is just a tool, if you use it properly you're going to get phenomenal results, like everybody else does, but if you don't get it right, you're going to languish, you're going to be like 'why do I even have this thing?'.
The ball is in your court, it really is.
Justin: I really like that sentiment because of the mood on Dental Town when talking about yelp, I mean I do want to say that yelp has, as any business does, ways that they can improve. So I don’t want any of our listeners who have had a bad experiences with yelp to feel like we're ostracizing them; I see very clearly that there are flaws in the business model. But, I like the sentiment about talking personal responsibility, that’s really what it's about. And I like how you're not selling this system, even though it is very effective, for many many many dentists' who have used it, you know you've got a thread there on Dental Town, it's quite impressive.
Bob: there are a lot of nice people saying a lot of nice things, that's true.
Justin: yeah, and so, I mean we have faith in that system, but I like how you're not trying to take credit for all of it, I think that says a lot about you as a person, that you're not saying 'it's all me, it's all Maui Bob, it's not the dentist, it's not the hygienist, it's all me'
Bob: so you didn't see me 3 years ago when was doing that.
No, and it doesn't take us long to figure out its not us, you know, we just make the best tool we can to make it as easy as possible, but you know as well as I do, if you're not going to do a great job and you're not going to ask and you're not going to make it easy then nothing is going to happen, but if you do a great job, amazing things happen, it’s not just reviews, reviews is just a simple thing, the byproduct of the reviews is more business, and by the way one of the neatest things of all, and I get this from a lot of dentists' that are like 'Bob, we got tons of reviews, it's wonderful but the neatest thing of all is, now when people call us, they call and they say 'I found you on google, are you still taking patients'' they assume you're not because your reputation is so awesome. 'We love to hear that 'are you still taking patients'' maybe we are maybe we're not I don't know, so, anyway. It is the dentist and the hygienist and it's very clear, you don’t have to be doing this very long to realize, it doesn't matter what system you have, the system is just a tool, and so, that’s it.
Justin: so, you worked with some really all-star dentists', a lot of them, are there any dentists' who, they might come across this program, I’m wondering, are there any dentists' that you don't work with?
Bob: Oh yeah of course there are. You know if you have a 3.5 star rating or less on google or yelp, we don't, we're not a reputation enhancement business, so we don't sell our system, and you know that’s our right, which is in our terms of service. We don't want to sell our system to somebody that has a bad reputation, now if you improve your reputation on the internet, however you want to do that, and then you want to invest in our system, then we'll do that. There are very few exceptions to that rule, if you bought a business and it had a bad reputation and you're starting from scratch, then, yeah.
We don't work with people that are not willing to ask their patients to write a review and who are not willing to send a review request while they're with a patient. Now I will tell you, about 90% of our customers use: Demand Force, Light House, YAPI, Revenue well, Smile Reminder, Sesame; one of those, but they've all said 'Bob, we're not getting reviews where they matter, we need to compete where people are looking for a dentist on google and Yelp', and when people use our system properly, I've never seen a tool that's better at getting those reviews there, some people are so ingrained with not asking because all of those services don't require that you ask, and not engaging with the patient to send a request, that their habit of not engaging with the patient is so strong, they cannot overcome the ensue of actually asking and sending. And if they go well 'Bob, I don't know how to actually engage with the patient to send it', I always tell them, 'don't buy our system, it's not going to work for you'. And again, I know, I don't need to tell them this, it's not that it's not our system that's not going to work, I don't care whose system you have, it's not going to work if you're not going to ask and send. Now, are you getting hundreds of thousands of wonderful Demand Force, Light House, Shappy, Smile Reminder, Revenue Well testimonials, of course you are, people are happy to write testimonials, based on an email, but if you actually go in and look, you probably going to find that less than 10% of the people that you send those requests to by email actually respond and none of them are on google or Yelp. People that use our system properly, asking and sending, they get as many as 70-80% of patients responding, and a huge percentage of those people are actually going to google and Yelp and are writing a review.
So, you know, we don't work with people that aren't willing to do what they need to do, and quite frankly, Justin, I don't want to waste their time and their money, I would much rather work with the people that I know is going to have a good outcome, and in a matter of four minutes of interviewing with these folks I can tell if they're a good match immediately. And then it's up to them to look at the systems and ask me all the questions they want and watch our video to see if our system is the best match for them, and most of the time it is.
Justin: so the ideal candidate for five star reviews system would definitely be somebody who’s willing to take personal responsibility to build their own reviews.
Bob: Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know the other thing is, you have dentist that have no reviews, 5 reviews, 50 reviews, 100 reviews, the people that go gaga over our system are the ones that have 100 reviews already. Because they look at our system and they say 'where have you been', and this is so easy to these requests to these people, texts and email, you've got this awesome reminder that doubles the response rate, and we don't have to worry about it. 'Where have you been?', so they jump on our system and they massively accelerate number of reviews they get. People that don't understand the review process, people that aren't really that good with their patients, nah our systems really not a good match, they need to look at a different avenue for generating reviews and referrals, because our system isn't going to be a good match for those guys.
Justin: that’s excellent, I have a client actually, one of the reasons why I took on their case, even though it was kind of a tough set of key words, a big metropolis area for SEO, actually we're knocking it out of the park, we're months of schedule, I’m just bragging, one of the things that attracted me to their practice was that they had only been in business for a short while, but they had something like 70+ reviews, 5 star reviews, I mean, it's just unheard of. You have these guys that have been around for 10 years and they only have like 14, so I thought that was really impressive. So, I mean for those dentists' who are looking for the best service providers, the best specialists', that’s one of the first things that I look at is, if he’s not going to be good with his patients, he not going to be good with me.
Bob: Right and you know I want to throw out something most people never think about. When a patient takes the time to write a review for you, number 1, I always encourage you or someone at your office, and when I get resistance about this it tells me something about that practice. Imagine that I write this really awesome 5 star review for you, now nobody expects to hear back when you write a review on google, nobody expects it, but I want you to just imagine for a second Justin, how I would feel if you called me and you said 'hey Bob, the reason I’m calling is, I just saw your review on google, I can't tell you how much that means to me and everyone here, thank you' do you know what that would do for me, that would tell me that 'wow, I wrote the review for the guy that appreciates it', in my head, psychologically you've gone from here to here, I’m going to tell everybody I know about you. Now, when I recommend this to different dental offices before they buy this systems and just kind of showing them how to do it, 1 in about every 8 or 10 offices, I hear resistance, 'we don't have time to do that, we're not going to do that', and all of a sudden I go 'you know what, this isn't a good system for you, you don’t treat your customers in the manner you need to, you don't understand that this isn't just about getting reviews and SEO, it's about how you do business', and when I hear that, the last thing I say before I get off the phone in our demo with them is I go 'you know, the system is not a good match for you, it's just not a good match, let’s just move on, I hope you learnt some great things about getting reviews, but it’s not a good match', and they're like 'what do you mean, what do you mean' and I don’t need to go in to detail, but I know in my heart, if you're not willing to thank someone for writing a review, you don't need to have access to a system that’s all about interaction. The other thing that people don’t realize is, when someone writes a review, even when you don't respond to them, there’s a whole other level of commitment consistency. 'I publicly said something nice about your practice, because I did that everything from this point forward that I say about you is at a different level'. The mere fact that patients say nice things about you, takes that patient to an entirely different level; they are no longer a fan, they are a raving fan, and even if it did not help you with ranking and all of the other wonderful things that reviews did, just the mere fact it brings your patient from here to here, with how they think about you, that in it of itself, is a fabulous reason to ask people to write reviews for you.
Justin: I’m sure you have tons of great testimonials, get references, lots of dentists' who you've help grow their practice, could you share with us just one case study that comes to mind as far as a real success?
Bob: yeah, now I’ll tell you this too. Most of our dentists don’t want to be telling other dentists' about what they're doing, it's just because they don't want their competitors doing the same thing, but I’m happy to tell you about it. In the last 2 weeks we've had 2 dentists' email me, and this is very typical; 'Bob, I’ve gone from 6-28 google reviews in less than 2 weeks' When I called that dentist I said 'how are you doing it?' he said 'we're following you're training program word for word, we're asking, we're sending right away, we're just doing exactly what you said'. I had one last week that said 'Bob we've gotten 18 reviews in like 7 days', I ask them I said 'What are you doing differently from the training?' ‘We’re just doing exactly what you said'. I also want you to know we've got dentists' that have had the system for a month, they've got no reviews, nothing, they're not asking, they're not sending. There's tons of, here is an example, this is not a dental example, it's called total access urgent care, they are a, and they don’t mind me talking about them, they are and urgent care facility in St Louis, they have 6 or 7 facilities, they are constantly bringing on new facilities, and they tell me every time I talk to them, 'this is the single best thing that we have ever done to generate new business, we cannot believe how it's enhancing our reputation and how many people are saying 'we heard about you through google'', they have 600+ google reviews for one of their places, over 100 5 star Yelp reviews, their other offices which are newer have 300 google reviews, 200 google reviews, they're using the system properly. Dr Tejumade St Mathew-Daniels in Orlando, she was using Demand Force, called me and said 'Bob, look we have thousands of Demand Force views, it's doing nothing can you help us', she took on the program, used it exactly as needed to, she's up to I don't know, 125 5 star google reviews and as I mentioned, theirs over 700 dentist in Orlando, she's nowhere near the city center, which as you know Justin, is huge and very important factor, one of the most important, but google has seen that they are so relevant and one of those factors is the reviews, that they have expanded the map of Orlando to include her, and then if click on more, we have another dentist whose in like the fifth or sixth position with 50 or 60 5 star reviews, she's even further from downtown Orlando, but because of their reviews google has seen both of these guys so valuable. Now, 'All about beautiful smiles', when I talk to Dr St Mathew-Daniels, she said she’s getting something like 10 calls a day based on her google ranking and 5 of those are converted to customers every day. I don’t even know how that is possible. Now this isn't at the top of Ry la Missouri for goodness sakes, it's Orlando, Florida, so when you dominate you're community, good things happen, so every week I can tell you a new success story. I just found out the highest rated orthodontist and the highest rated pediatric dentist in the state of Illinois uses or system, and I’m sure that’s true in most of the states, I just haven't had a chance to look, and the thing is, we don’t want people breaking the rules, you know, it's against the law and it's against all the terms of service, to reward someone for writing a review, and the thing is, how would you feel about me if I said 'hey, I’ll give you $20 Justin, if you write a review for me', are you kidding me? That’s horrible, and it's against the law, but you don’t need to do that when you provide great service and you ask in a proper way, you can massively outperform people getting reviews then people who are paying people to write reviews.
Anyway man, I could go on and on about this all day, but, every week there’s somebody new that surges to the top, they're doing some amazing things, and the other thing about sitting in my chair for example, we send out as many review requests in a week, as most dental practices while send out in their entire existence, so we can see trends so quickly that they will never see, and when we see that, we always try and share that with our customers. You know, do this, do that, try this, try that, and they get just great, great results. Anyway thank you.
Justin: thanks excellent you know it kind of goes in, kind of the theme of this show is that, we should all try to test what works and what doesn't work, that today it's SEO, but tomorrow maybe it's something else, or maybe the way that SEO is being done needs to be changed, and I really appreciate that, and that’s why you're a guest on this show, you get that, you understand, as our viewers do, it's really about doing what works and that isn't always the same for every dental practice, and I do also appreciate the other side that is, 'hey, here is a proven model, when you ask this way, these are seven psychological triggers that we've broken down into basically a science and if you do it the right way, if you're the right dentist, to take on this take, then you're going to do it, you're going to do it really well'. Yeah, I really appreciate that so adaptation in a word, and it sounds like because of your data, you're able to do that really well. Well I think this has been really really a successful interview for our viewers, and I just want to plug them in to what you're doing, all the data that you have, your wealth of experience, the adaptations that you've made, your constant continual dedication to improving your business and yourself, I think that’s going to rub off on the dentist that are watching the show. Man, let’s talk about where they can find you, where they can tie into your success, so that they can grow their practice.
Bob: Well thank you so, the other thing I want to note is, we don’t have any long term commitments, we work on karma, and what I mean by that is if you don’t use the system properly, and you're not getting the results that everybody else does, just call us and go 'Bob, look I don’t want to pay for this system anymore', that’s it we stop, we don't do that, and by the way that causes us to make sure we're doing everything we can to help you do what you need to do.
So, if this interview catches you're fancy, I encourage you to go to 'FiveStarReviewSystem.com', there’s a video that says how it works, you can watch how it works, if you like what you see there, I encourage you to call us, we're in Hawaii, so it's generally going to be earlier here then it is where you are, but the good news is, we're here till 10 o'clock at night, so that's all good. And then let’s have a conversation, let’s figure out if it's a good thing, because I don't want you thinking it is, when maybe it's not, and I don't want me thinking it is when maybe it's not either. If you like that, then we'll set the system up for you in demo mode, it's full working demo mode, you can see it work with the text and emails and coupons and flyers, and at that point, if you want to invest in it, then do so. We have 2 different price points, the least expensive is our premium service it's $99.00 a month, there’s a $99.00 set-up fee, and Justin, as I was mentioning, anyone of your listeners that tells us they heard about the system through you, just mention Justin's name, and Justin I think we sent you a four digit code, did we not?
Justin: that’s right yeah, 6354, is our code, if you are a listener of the Dental Marketing Guy show, and you heard about this system,6354; that’s the number that you can enter as a promo code, and what do we get for that?
Bob: So, when you do, instead of paying the $99.00 setup, startup training fee, and by the way the training is a 50 minute full on on-boarding program with you and you staff, instead of paying $99.00 for that, we take $50.00 off, so it's only a $49.00 setup fee, so that’s the thing to do. And, that’s what I’d encourage you to do, You know the thing is, do you need to do this, well I would encourage you to do a search for your business, not a search for business, a search for dentists in your community. There's all kinds of different things that show up, reviews help you in local search, Justin, you help people with local search, you also help people organically move up, you help them with google ad words in assuming as well, correct?
Justin: yes
Bob: so you help people with all of these different things, look and see where you are. If you're not showing up when someone does a search for a dentist in your community, then I promise you, that either Justin, or myself can help you. I can help you with the reviews; Justin can help you with everything else. If you see your competition has a better reputation, more reviews, or higher in the search engines, I promise you, you need our help, and getting reviews, is the low hanging fruit, it is the least expensive, most effective way to help yourself move up and get new business. But yeah, give us a call, You'll find us on FiveStarReviewSystem.Com, put in that code and Madge can help you get started, maybe you can see the new record breaker, you can get more than 45 google reviews in a month, that would be awesome.
Justin: Excellent, that code once again is: 6354, and wow, Maui Bob, I thank you very much, it's been a huge honor, I think we really got some beneficial information, and hopefully our listeners understand how reviews work, how it ties in to SEO, how it ties into the conversion rate, case acceptance rate, everything is tied in to reviews in one way or another. I'll tell you, we can get you ranked, but if you don't have those reviews, it can be tough to make them pick up the phone and call. Let’s get those reviews going, once again that code is: 6354, for $50 off to start off that first month.
Maui Bob, let me tell you, let’s let you take it away here.
Bob: well, I’ll just wrap it up and say thanks a million I really appreciate, Justin, you taking the time to let me do this, and for all of you that are listening, I honest to goodness, I wish you the best, know that when you ask a patient to write a review for you, they want to do it for you, they really do, and then just do what you can to make it as easy as possible for them to write a review, it is rewarding, believe me, it is just as rewarding for them to write a review for you, as it is for you to see the review, and the last thing I would say is when you get a review, and you will, don't let it slide, please, thank your patient for writing a review and I tell you it will mean more to them, then you could ever imagine. Justin thanks a million.
Justin: Thank you Maui Bob, you've been listening to the Dental Marketing Guy Show, DentalMarketingGuy.com, I’m Justin Morgan, the Dental Marketing Guy. Till next time, thanks Bob.
Bob: Thanks Justin.
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