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Interview with Dr. John Nosti

Transcript of Dr. John Nosti on The Dental Marketing Guy Show:

Justin: Welcome to the Dental Marketing Guy Show. I'm Justin, the dental marketing guy, and today I have a really renowned guest. But let me tell you, it's not even as impressive as what he's done but where he's going, you heard it here first on the Dental Marketing Guy Show. This guy is a rising star. I spoke at the townie meeting. Met him there. Got some really good marketing ideas. Can you believe that? The dental marketing guy learned some dental marketing ideas from this guy. Really, really excellent stuff coming from Dr. John Nosti. I can't say enough about what you're doing, John, to help dentists improve their profitability, improve their positioning, improve the ability that they have to focus on what they really want out of dentistry. You know what, we’ll delve into are all kinds ideas but first of all, how are you doing?

Nosti: I'm doing great, Justin, I really appreciate you having me on like a, you know, it's an honor and a pleasure to be here and now just like you said just to share the good word with all the dentist out there and just try to make, you know, the dental community just a better place. A lot more fun.

Justin: We definitely doing that, man. Tell me a little bit about the history of Dr. John Nosti before he was Dr. John Nosti, why you got into dentistry, when you decided that you wanted to be a dentist and kind of how that all evolved into now you doing CE up the yin-yang.  Tell me the story of how it all started.

Nosti: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we all think back to high school and they were like a bad time nd all the stupid projects that we had to do and teachers, you know, made you take on. When I was a sophomore in high school I did a career report and like, you know, you walk through the library and you pick out, you know, different books on different careers and they highlight different areas and give you like, you know, maybe four or five page synopsis of what each career does and I happened to pick one up and it was on an oral surgeon and it seemed to me like it was the coolest thing, you know. Here was this guy like he wasn't really on the osteo, he wasn't talking about taking out wisdom teeth and, you know, at the time of, you know, when I was in high school this year is back in like 19 probably 87, maybe 88 when this happens so even though implants might have been, you know, being placed back then it really wasn't a huge thing like it is now. So the guy wasn't talking about taking out wisdom teeth, he wasn't talking about placing implants, really he was talking about, you know, being treating patients who are involved in car accidents and fixing facial fractures and putting people's lives back together and to me it just sounded really cool that, you know, here you are and like what do we know about the dentist, you know, up until like we're a sophomore. I mean, I didn't get braces so I didn't really know about an orthodontist and I kind of did because my sister was experiencing that but it really didn't really resonate with me, you know, you know about the pediatric dentist but, you know, because I went to one as a kid but to me that was just that was an office full of screaming kids and who really want to be involved in that, you know. So, you know, here you are like, you know, you look at teeth but you’re like you're saving lives. So to me that was just really cool, as a real young guy like, you know, going back to grade school I was always really fascinated in the sciences and in health but, you know, I guess kind of being like a soft hearted guy as much as I love medicine and the thought of, you know, being a doctor doesn't really intrigued me because even though you get to help people, you also have to deal with some losses as well and, you know, to diagnose someone with a debilitating disease or, you know, a former cancer or something like that, that just, that would be horrible for me so, you know, here was this thing on oral surgery and it just – it just hit home and, you know, from there I kind of made a path, like I'm going to be an oral surgeon and I kind of set goals that that's what I wanted to do up until the point I was probably a senior in college and when you do your senior thesis… I went out and I spent time in a dental office really, you know, several months watching and overseeing as to, you know, what this doctor did in his office and I told him I wanted to be an oral surgeon and he was like “Are you out of your mind? Why would you want to do that?” and I said “Well I don't know, it’s just, you know, this idea facial fractures is really, you know, kinda intrigues me”. And, you know, he just basically told me as it is. He was like you “If I were you, I’d become a general dentist. It has the best aspects of anything you want to do in dentistry.  If you want to do a lot of surgery you can use like – you’re not good with people's faces together but he was like “You know you get those calls at two three o'clock in the morning and you got to leave your family and missing that.” And he kind of just sold me on being a general dentist so from there on a general dentistry it was for me.

Justin: Excellent, excellent, like you said you know general dentists –you can take on a lot of skills. I mean implants, cosmetic –you know I was talking with Jason O’Litsky over at the townie meeting. Man, that guy's got a lot of passion for what he does, man. It's really interesting to talk to guys like you, we had Eric Jones on the show. Dr. Jones, man, that guy, you know, he's got some stuff nailed down. He attributed a lot of what he's learned to guys like you and Jason O’Litsky –, you guys are all associated with clinical mastery, right?

Nosti: Correct

Justin: And that is – Can you kind of explain to the viewers what that's all about?

Nosti: Absolutely, you know the bottom line is there's continued education out there and there's a lot of great groups to go to but, you know, as a young doctor coming up, you know, I went out and I took a ton of CE, you know, and I was just about to say that I was fortunate enough. But I made it a point that if I was going to take a CE course, I was going to get something out of it and I was going to implement it in my office. And sometimes you go out and take a weekend seminar and you blow two or three thousand dollars, you spend time away from your practice and your family and sometimes you get great knowledge and sometimes you don't. And, you know, one of the things that I didn't like in CE is I hated taking time away from my practice and then going to a course and having someone sell me on another course like “Yeah ,you know what? This is all we're gonna give you now, but come to our next course because I'm going to give you a lot more.” And you know it's kind of like a bait switch and I hated that about continued education because that does exist, you know, going out and taking these – all these vertical courses and then even after you take a ton of courses not knowing really how to treat a case – I can't – it's criminal, you know, as to what happens. So, you know, we got together as a group of guys who, and gals, who are really love to help other people and we love to, you know, see ourselves in a younger version of ourselves and, you know, we got together and said “You know what? This is really what's missing in continued education, it's, you know, being able to talk to a group of doctors who take insurance. Who have the questions on one patient say – what's my insurance going to cover, how can I do this and still be profitable, how do I do that, and, you know?” They want to take courses from people who are wet finger dentists, not from retired dentist and – not that there's anything wrong with that but there still is, there still is a different language that we talked to with patients than someone who's retired has to deal with. So now, we put together a group of courses that teach everything from basics of occlusion all the way up to full mouth reconstruction and on implants, dentures, you know, the whole gama –It’s really, It's a restorative platform for you to take your practice to the next level.

Justin: So, okay who – I don't know – you mentioned guys and gal, who, who are all the people at clinical master because I don't think I know all of them. And our listeners probably don't know who’s involved in this. It's a pretty big deal, I think. So who are those names?

Nosti: So, um, that the directors of clinical mastery are myself, Dr. Mike Smith, who practices in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Jason O’Litski, who you mentioned, who practices in Ponte Verde, Florida. And Dr. Lee Anne Brady, who also practices in Phoenix, Arizona. We are basically the fearsome foursome of continuing education, and then from there on we have a group of doctors who, you know, we asked to join us based upon their knowledge of dentistry and also based upon the fact that we know what they're doing in their practice. So, we basically know, not only can they talk the talk but they can walk the walk. So – And that group of doctors are guys like Dr. Chris Catalano who practices in California, you know. Dr. Eric Farmer, Dr. Erik Jones, you mentioned, you know, we have a – just a great, great group of supporting doctors who really helped us out. Dr. Erich Mendelsohn – we seem like we have the doctor E's, got a lot of Eric's who are joining us and our faculty. Chaddy and Chesky, who practices in Green Bay, you know. Just guys who were just, you know, passionate about what they do and are really doing it. Dr. Josh Stelzer can practice that in PA. That's basically our supporting mentors for clinical mastery.

Justin: Excellent, excellent, man. That’s, you know, and something I learned from (inaudible 10:35) that never named drop and apparently Dr. John Nosti, he missed that lesson.

Nosti: Yeah, I didn’t learn that, you know, I got to give props to my, you know, to the my team, you know, it's not just me, you know, who's waving the flag. It’s a great group of docs who I’m fortunate to be partnered up with so I definitely want to give them some props.

Justin: Absolutely and so let me try and pin you guys. I don’t mean to pigeon hole you but you each focus on a certain area, right, and so when I think of Jason O’Litski I think of the photography thing. I know he's a  cosmetic dentist but I think of photography when I think, John Nosti at least lately I've been seeing the word occlusion attached to it so it could you tell me like of a few of the people, a few of the more key influencers, clinical mastery. What’s kind of the brand, what's the focus for each of you guys?

Nosti: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it is kind of funny even though we all, you know, treat patients in our practice, you know, Jason is just someone, he excels at photography and he excels at, you know, digital smile design and, you know, he is accredited by the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, one of the youngest dentist, if not the youngest dentist ever to achieve that honor, so, you know, he's just, I mean you said it, he's passionate about marketing and photography and that drives his cosmetic practice and that's really Jason's niche. You know, he's used that in his practice, I'll speak from Mike and me, Mike Smith, you know, I think that we built a strong cosmetic practice but based upon function. So for years I said that I was a functionally driven cosmetic dentist where I kind of tat where there's no reason to market even though I do market, you don't have to market when you're doing functionally driven smile designs. there's patients who come to every dental office and you know those patients, those are models that are sitting on your desk that you're like “What the heck do I do with this person?” and as someone who's destroyed their teeth due to either attrition, due to erosion, you know, they might have gerd, sleep apnea, whatever it is and you're talking about to these people about how do they, you know, basically saved their teeth and get back to where they were years ago and we just use cosmetic dentistry to drive that look to satisfy the functional aspects. So Mike and I deal a lot with, you know, reconstruction type dentistry and temperamental joint disorders as does Dr. Lee Ann Brady. so we kind of, the three of us kind of have that mix of TMD, function, occlusion, basic where, you know, Jason will say that his primary focus is strictly on cosmetics and even though he does reconstructions and even though he knows a lot about occlusion, you know, he'll tell you that, you know, the primary reason patients are coming to see him is for cosmetics.

Justin: That's excellent. Okay, okay that's really cool and, you know, like you said you all have general knowledge of dentistry, obviously, but to kind of help the viewers define each of you, I really appreciate you doing that. So as far as clinical mastery, so how often, when’s the next seminar? How often do you guys do this? And what are the topics? I know I've seen you on Dental Town, there, I don't know if it's ads or just people raving about you, about understanding occlusion. When is the next, what are some upcoming seminars and how often do they happen?

Nosti: Absolutely, so we run the occlusion one course about five or six times a year, every year it's getting more and more due to the demand. We just had one in Boston that was actually sold out, it was phenomenal, great group of docs that we posted pictures on Facebook, you know, shout out to all the docks who were there, so much fun. The next time we're doing is in September for occlusion one and that's going to be in Nashville Tennessee. so we try to have some pretty school, pretty cool spots around the country that people want to go to or they're close to, you know, their location is close to it so we do like the occlusion one between five and seven times a year. Our next level beyond that is our occlusion two course and occlusion one is mastering functional Dentistry, which kind of talked about before about being a functionally driven cosmetic dentist. That’s where doctors really kinda learn how they can start doing that in their practice. occlusion two is mastering complex cases and the next time we're doing that is an August and that's in Seattle, it's gonna be a tremendous amount of fun and then our occlusion three course, and we offer once a year, and  each year that course is offered at the end of the year and it's in Las Vegas. So that's in November our occlusion two course, we offer twice, three times a year.  Occlusion three is one time a year. and then aside from that we have some other courses where, you know, I think it's really cool that doctors can kind of take the stress out of their lives and really go not only learn but like see a lot of really cool things happen. So, you know, for me take our occlusion one course, you know, you learn about, you know, everything from how to take a CR by, how to do a face bow, how to, what do you do with the mounted study models, how do you analyze them to come up with treatment plans and then we talk about materials and segmentation and porcelain. We talked about how to do a veneer case, how to temporize a veneer case, how to cement it and how to exclusionary finish it. So at the end of that course start to finish you know really how to start doing any complete exam on someone, how to start doing a complete set of Records, what to do with those records as far as Jim plan, and if you're going to do veneers we teach you how to execute that. But maybe you're someone who just doesn't want to see in lecture, you want to actually see it live. so from there you can see Dr. Jason O’Litsky do a in the op course where in one weekend you get to see him prep and temporize one patient and then see veneers on another patient, all in one weekend. so like really after that, after those two courses you can go home and hit it out of the park and start just annihilating veneer cases in your practice then form or occlusion two course where's mastering complex cases, you know, there we do teach you how to open vertical dimension and how to start the prep and see process on a full mouth reconstruction on how we start that process and we go into splints and a little bit more about TMD, you know, a little bit more complex of collaborations. so it just takes it takes it to the next level and then, you know, maybe after that, we even go over a treatment planning section and talk to you about how to talk to your patients about treatment planning and case acceptance. Well from there you might say to yourself again that's really cool you, know, John Mike and Lee just told me how to do a full mouth reconstruction but I want to see it live and then you can come watch me over the course of two weekends. I treat the same patient where I lecture one day and then you see me perform a mouth reconstruction and then we come back three weeks later and then I lecture again and then you see me sit a full mouth reconstruction. so you see that whole process happen and I can tell you that we've been doing that for five or six years and what you will see is that, like you know, in lecture we teach you “Hey this is ideal and this is how everything should work.” and then when you come see me and you see real life and you see, you know, what happens when a patient doesn't get numb? How do you handle that? What happens when a patient has a hard time keeping their mouths open and you're planning on prepping 20 units, how do you handle that? You know, how do you handle the bite sequencing? You know, it's like a lot of things-- how do you manage your patient through such a long procedure? So, you know, you basically get to see all the fun live stuff happen, you know, that basically happens to you back in your practice.

Justin: Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, when we were talking at the townie meeting, you know, you coached, I think you said you coach like the best JD wrestling team in the country or the state or something like that?

Justin: Yes. so basically when I was in college I was an assistant varsity wrestling coach to Pineland Regional High School and I was the head JD coach and that year Jackson High School was rated the number one wrestling team in the nation and there are New Jersey and my JV team beat their JV team twice in tournaments. Basically out placed them, like, we doubled our points over them so, you know, the head coach yes basically touted saying that my JD coach was the best JD teaming the nation so it's a lot of fun, love wrestling. So much comes from wrestling, doesn't it?

Justin: Yeah, you know, and the reason why I mentioned it so people don't think I’m completely out of my mind is it's actually linear because when you talk about lecture it's kind of like in wrestling, like you can drill the moves, right, but then you start going live and the moves don't work the same. the first one you try doesn't work and then the second one you try doesn't work and then the third one make some maybe it might work but then the fourth works, right, because you do that chain wrestling, right, you link the moves together and that's kind of how it is in marketing, right, and that's kind of how I assume how it is in clinical dentistry where your first thing doesn't work, your second thing doesn't work, your third thing doesn't work and you learn them all in lecture. They were all supposed to work perfectly and now you're discouraged. so for people who want to actually get into, you know, going live, doing a real match so to speak where your place in that implant or you're doing whatever it is in clinical dentistry and it's not going perfectly. So if you would you say that's where kinda live, the getting in there and seeing it happen in the real world where things don't go perfectly. Is that kind of the idea behind what you're doing?

Nosti: Oh you could not explain it better because, you know, that's exactly it. I mean, you know, kind of what you learn in lectures practice, it's an ideal situation, you know, and we're going to put our, we're going to use our ideal cases from our practice, you know, where a patient can open wide and they photograph really well so we can show you, the participants, the example of what happens. but then we all know, we get back in the real world and you're like “What is going on here?” you know, and just like you said in wrestling practice, you know, first of all you working out with a partner that you've probably wrestled with for a couple years or not and, you know, you know their moves, you know, they know your moves and then you get on the mat with an opponent and it's totally different, you know, that's like prepping a full mouth reconstruction. most of these patients, at least the ones in my practice, their people, I might have done a filling or two on them before I'm prepping them but a lot of patients are new patients who come in and, you know, they've had single tooth dentistry, piecemeal dentistry down and the first time I'm doing anything significant on them is the time that I’m prepping 20 units and, you know, they might be someone who needs to take a bathroom break every five minutes. They meet someone who needs to close their mouth every 30 seconds, you know. There’s just a lot of things that go along with it that it's basically, its practice first game time and you get to see it unfold game time.

Justin: You know, I thought of something as you were saying that about, you know, person has to go to the bathroom every five minutes, has to close your mouth every 30 seconds. those might be extreme examples but I would say a lot of people, just based on my own personal experience as a dental patient, I can say I think the dentists are in to what they're doing so much, almost like an engineer or an artist or something like that. like it really doesn't matter what's going on around an engineer, to draw a parallel, it doesn't matter what's going on around an artist, he's painting that, he's designing this and they don't really care what's going on in the background because their focus. as a dental patient I can tell you there's little things that you can do that kind of show empathy for the patient, which really goes a long, long way because it might not be clinically smart to offer chap stick in the middle of some procedure, it might not be clinically smart to say “Hey would you like to rest your jaw? would you like to move it around?” and I don't know massaging or whatever is available but from the patient experience standpoint, are there other anything like that you've implemented where you find that “you know what this has nothing to do with the occlusion but it's what the patient wants.” and it shows them that I care and now they're going to go because they don't know if you understand occlusion or even what the word even means but they're trusting you and the patient experiences what they take away from that, you know, I don't think the word occlusion has ever been mentioned in a Yelp review ever.

Nosti: No, that's true. For me you hit the nail on the head, it's, you know what and it's funny. that's just, that's not an aspect that I ever thought to even thought about talking about like to someone like yourself who was interviewing me about a course but a hundred percent when you're in that course that's a huge part of what I’m going to talk about is, you know what, just like you said you have a goal in mind, you want to prep these units in x amount of time you, have a time schedule that you want to meet because you have a profit that you want to have done or, you know, you're trying to race the anesthetic. Whatever it is and having that mindset doesn't set the stage for that patient having an awesome experience. Cause I can tell you that it's super uber important,  I had to use that word, is so important for your patient, who's investing those kind of dollars in your practice, to leave saying “Wow that was great” you know “Geez, that really wasn't that bad that was so much easier than what I expect.” you know, and knowing had at least provide that or even knowing how to talk patients through when it is taking longer and, you know what, maybe you do things differently in order to make sure that that patient has and awesome experience and just like you said, you know, there's a lot of times we take breaks. there's a lot of times that you know you offer them bottled water and, you know, have the right bibs and the right towels and, you know, straws and, you know, something that they can eat even during the procedure if you're going to take a really long period of time and, you know, those are all goodie bags that they leave the office with in order to make sure that they feel great. Those are all things that that, you know, that you get to see live. It’s just, you know what it is? you get to see me for a whole day do it unlike a lecture there, you know, just like you said there's so many things that the ins and outs and little things that, you know, not to say that we purposely missing a course. It’s just that you can't cover, you can't cover everything in a seminar, you know, that happens live with the patient, you know, the conversations that just become organic, you know. You can't make that up, you know, you can't force it to happen in a course even though we try to role play, it just doesn't work out the way it does in a seminar. You know, like it doesn't have a live patient treatment course. So, you know, absolutely all those things that in order to make sure that the patient has a great experience is so important.

Justin: And when you say, in the beginning you mentioned not really doing much marketing although you do that as well but really the patients that you treat are walking, talking billboard, right? so when you say you're not really doing a lot of marketing but that you do get, obviously you're busy, is that, are you referencing like word of mouth marketing? Are you referencing referrals?

Nosti: Both, you know, I don't want, I definitely do not want to come off like I don't market because we market, you know, basically what I don't want people to always think is that, you know what, I need to, all seven if you're not doing veneers in your office you don't necessarily need to then, once you learn how to do it. I wouldn't necessarily say drive up your marketing to focus on veneers. I might just say drive up your marketing to focus on getting more patients because you probably have plenty of patients in your practice who you need to market to them and you need to then enroll those patients and that's what I did early on in my career. You know, once you've been through the patients in your practice and you've talked with the people who need it and maybe they are accepted it and have done it or they’re in a waiting period. well now you need to know, now you need to go bring in and replenish new patients and, you know what, you absolutely need to market and, you know, that's even something that, you know, for years, my partner and I, we had a website and, you know, that did well but I can tell you that once we took it the next step and did some external marketing to drive people to the website, you know.  I mean, I just got off the phone with one of my friends telling him how successful our marketing has been, you know, not bragging. I'm just giving props to marketing guys like yourself and what you do for offices. I mean I'm up, you know, almost fifty percent this year compared to last year. I mean, and last year I didn't, it wasn't like I had a down year from the year before and we had a recovery, you know. It’s literally, it's a realized fifty percent increase in the first, you know, at the end of five months for the beginning of the year. So that's tremendous and I have to say that, you know, I owe it to marketing so marketing is key to any dental practice.

Justin: Yeah. So we're getting new patients and then using those new patients to educate them about what it is that you're good at. you've already earned their trust enough to get them in the chair and then you introduce the fact that “I offer this, I offer this, I offer this” you know, I hear so many dentists tell this story and I don't know how common it is to be perfectly forthcoming but I do know that it happens is the general dentist, he's doing drill film bill and they go, they get some veneers because they saw an ad on the newspaper for veneers and they didn't know that their general dentist did veneers. How important is it to educate your patients about the services that you actually offer?

Nosti: Justin, I can't tell you how many times that happens in my practice. Fortunately, not that people are leaving getting treatment somewhere else, but I can't tell you how many consults I do in a year where people come in and, you know, they say “I'm here to talk with you about x” and I say “Have you talked with your dentist about doing this? And, you know, there are times when people say yes and that dentists that I wasn't a candidate which, you know, I will tell you is a lot of dentists out there telling people they're not candidates for procedures, that they are one hundred percent candidates for. So, you know, definitely we want to go out and educate yourselves as to what we can do for people. that's so important and then the other side of it is people say “You know what, I didn't feel comfortable asking my dentist because the office didn't come off like that was their thing.” So, you know, if you are doing veneers, if you are doing anything-- six month smiles, Envisaging-- whatever it is that you're doing. The greatest explanation I can give with this is given by my buddy Jason O’Litski. Would you ever in your right mind go to a car dealership and you walk into a car dealership and imagine if, on their walls, was pictures of fountains and waterfalls and there's no pictures of cars and then, you know, you pick up a book and you say like “Oh this is a cool book. I really like this car, you know, can I have this car here?” and then the car says like “Well we don't have that car but I can get you a car like that car.” it's like how would you really feel about, you know, that car salesmen? And not to compare dentistry to car salesman but, no, it's just an example that we can all resonate with where, you know what, you do have to have examples of your work in your practice for your patience to see. if you don't have smiles on the wall, you need to have smiles on books and if you don't have any documentation of what you're doing, I don't care how many times you've done it, your patients don't know you're doing it because if you have stock photography on your website that is from every other website designer that your patient start looking around and what's worse is they see those same photographs on other people's websites, don't think because you give them an example of what veneers would look, like that they're going to trust you in order to do it. You really, you got to get trained, you got a document, document, and document and then you have to show what you can do. that's, and if you're not doing it, unfortunately, people are finding guys like myself or female dentist, girls out there, they're finding girls who are putting it out there and who are doing it and, you know, it's a shame, you know, I don't wanna get patients like that.

Justin: Yeah, you know, it's really interesting what you said because when someone is passionate about something they tend to be better at it and when someone is passionate about it, they talk about it, that's what they talked about, you know. I mean, we're talking about dentistry, we're talking about wrestling, you know, you're in it and it can't be faked. I mean it could be faked, I guess, you know, we got politicians and stuff like that in this world but, you know. I mean, the bottom line is when passion is genuine it tends to be sustainable, it tends to become a brand. So, I think, the inference that patients draw is if he's not talking about this, if he doesn't sing about this at the top of mountain tops it's not his thing and sometimes that means how little confidence to ask for the support of your happy patients. I know we're coming to a close on our time because we were both busy up but, you know, I wanted to hope, I was hoping this is coming at you totally unscripted here, you know, I'm hoping to - for our listeners who want to get those before and after photos, this goes for everything, that goes for online reviews, it goes video testimonials, it goes for before and after pictures but they've got to get those legal releases, I don't get into the legal stuff. We just got Jason P. Wood on the show the other day, he could talk, call him about this, about the disclaimers but, you know, the bottom line is I think a lot of doctors tell me like “Justin, I'd love to get Google reviews but I just can't ask. I love to get these before-and-after’s but I just can't ask my patients for this stuff.” what are some of the trip, tricks or tips or, you know, I’m sure it gets easier as you do it. Some advice that you can provide the listeners about, you know, to get that first before and after, to get that first google review. How do you that?

Nosti: I love it. So, you know what, I'll just tell you what I did when I was younger. So when I took my first veneer course with David Horbrook back in 2002. you know when I came out jazzed up from that, I had already done some veneers but I'll be honest with you, it wasn't at the level that then I knew what I could do. So, you know, first and foremost the people you go to first are the people who trust you the most and are probably asking you to do it for them. So you go to friends, family members, you know, anyone in your inner circle who wants a great smile and needs a great smile. you know what, do it for your lab bill and you know what, in return, you're gonna tell that person that you're doing it for cost for is that what I want in return is you're going to see your face everywhere, you can see it on my website, you're going to see it and publications blah, blah, blah, you know, and have them sign the release form. you know, start there and, you know what, make sure you do the AAC required photographs which are like 16 photographs because when you have those 16 shots, that becomes 16 before and after’s and literally you can kind of sit there and point out a couple different before and after’s and kind of change them around. It could be the same case and a patient it won't even know. So you can at least show them four or five “Look at this, look at great this looks” and it's like one patient, you know, and that's what I did at first and then it builds from there. So you have those people. then when you have someone who comes in and let's say there are an ideal candidate and you almost want to do their veneers more so than they wanted to do it because mainly maybe they have a financial issue and they say “How can I get a discount?” in the beginning you say “You know what a\the discount I can offer you is? you're gonna sign my photo release form.” so a lot of times you can cover your costs even make some money, might you be making your UCR fee maybe not but you know what, in return that patient, the discount you're giving them will pay back dividends on the photographs that you're going to take on them and then how you're going to use them in your marketing and then from there I'll be honest with you. Nowadays there's people who come in and, I mean, if I throw a number out there, if I do 50 smiles a year, maybe 10 people want to be in my smile book anymore. When I was younger I think almost everybody for some reason wanted to. Nowadays it's really gone downhill but still I have maybe 10 people who want to do it and, you know what, that's not even a conversation that I have. I start by taking all the photographs, I do the documentation, some people will start out right away and they're going to say to you “Am I going to be in your smile book?” and I'm gonna give you a title of a book that I think you should read it will change your life it's called Change your Questions, Change your Life by Marilee Adams. So when a patient says to me “Am I gonna be in your smile book?” I don’t say yes or no, I say “Do you want to be in my smile book?” and, you know what, some people will say “Heck no. I don't want any of my photographs anywhere out there.”  I was like “No problem, these photographs are just for documentation and for me to communicate with our lab. You won't see these anywhere.” and when people say “Yeah, you know what, I might.” then that's someone who, at the end of treatment, will show their before and after’s, then they might say “Go ahead and use them.” and if someone says, even better yet, they say “Oh yeah, you know what, I wouldn't mind being a star. I would like to be in your photo album.” then at the front desk when they come in for their post op photos, you know, my front office or my office manager, you know, before they go out the door they'd be like “Hey listen here's a release form. if you would like we would love to use your photographs and there's like basically line items on that release form that basically says I can use your photos and everything or if you want you can cross out the things that you do and don't want me to use.” so there's some patients who say “I don't want to see my face on any of his marketing materials to other people but I'll let Dr. Nosti use my photographs in his lectures and in publications for other dentists.” So, and, they can sit there and kind of my cross off what they do you want and what they don't want. Have your office manager do it, have a girl, and I say girls and guys, but have a team member who talks the best to people, who resonates the best with your patients. Have that person present that form to your people.

Justin: Excellent. Well that's, man. A lot of value here, a lot of value. Excellent, you know, we got to run. I know both of us, your phone's ringing off the hook.

Nosti: Sorry.

Justin: It's all good, it's all good. I'm surprised we were able to last this long, John Nosti with clinical mastery. If you guys have any questions reach out to him in the comments below, YouTube, Dental Town, Dental Marketing Guy blog, wherever you see this on social media. Feel free to reach out, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot more where this came from and I thanks once again John for appearing on the show.

Nosti: Thanks for having me, you know, anybody wants to follow up, hit me up on Dental Town and I can even send you a copy of that release form that I use for my patients.

Justin: Excellent, excellent. That’s great, okay cool. So you got that release form from John, hit him up.

I'm sure it's only a million dollars.

Nosti: No, free.

Justin: All right well, thanks guys, thanks for watching the Dental Marketing Guy Show.

Click here to learn more about the best dental SEO company.

Justin

About the Author - Justin Morgan

Justin Morgan is the CEO and founder of what most of us affectionately refer to as the “DMG.” From all circles within the dental industry who address dental marketing as a topic, Justin Morgan is the dental marketing guy that everyone keeps talking about.
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