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VIDEO - DUwHF #791 - Michael Arias
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AUDIO - DUwHF #791 - Michael Arias
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Michael absolutely loves educating anyone who is interested in learning how to market their dental practice and every single day he is working, marketing, and learning.
He is constantly building different strategies, unique campaigns, creating new patient flow pipelines, networking, creating amazing content, coaching, and attracting new patients through Ground Marketing every single day, and he LOVES IT!
He mainly always uses the tactics in “guerrilla marketing” or Ground Marketing and now he coaches, trains, and teaches employees and team members on how to do the exact same so that their dental practice can be the community’s primary dental practice and also, so that new patients continue to come in.
www.thedentalmarketer.site
Michael Arias: Alright guys, it's time to talk with our featured guest Dr. Howard Farran. Dr. Farran, how are you doing today?
Howard Farran: I'm doing very good, how are you doing? I can't tell if I'm talking to Michael Arias or the dental marketer, or the karate kid Ralf Macchio.
My god, you look just like that that guy.
Michael Arias: Both! Yeah I get that a sometimes.
Howard Farran: Are you going to put your hands out the side and then fake with your left and drop kick me with your right?
Michael Arias: Man, if my balance was that good I would always do that all the time to introduce myself, but that's not the case.
But, yeah man, why don't you tell the Dental Marketing tribe a little bit about your past, present and future. And how you got to where you are today.
Howard Farran: Man, that's a long story. Basically in a nutshell I was born and raised in Woodstock, Kansas. I had five sisters, my little baby brother wasn't born until I was a senior in high school. My dad was very poor and he delivered bread and then when I was 10 years old he brought a franchise Sonic drive-in, and he eventually buy one a year for nine years, but after we had his first one I think he went from making like $11,000 a year to $60,000 a year. And I was 10 years old thinking wow! A job really does change everything.
And then after he had two or three we moved out into the suburbs, and then after he had five or six we moved to the nicest place in the world in Woodstock, Kansas. Hidden Lakes Estates. And my next door neighbor was a dentist, Kenny Anderson, who still practices. And I'd go to work with my love of my life, my idol my dad, and I loved him. But we'd make hamburgers and cheeseburgers.
And then I'd go to work with Kenny Anderson and he'd take x-rays looking through teeth, and doing root canals and he had his own lab man, and it was just love at first sight.
And when I was in the sixth grade I wrote my dental school letter asking him how I could become a dentist and Diane Beard sent me a letter back saying that I should go to high school and take science classes.
So I've been wanting to be a dentist since, I think that was 12 years old. So it's just amazing.
So then I was a dentist. And I loved dentistry as much as anyone I knew. And I just thought the dental journals were just boring. I mean like the big professional ones from the ADA they'd have all these studies on cancer and rat, mices, bones.
Michael Arias: Yeah yeah.
Howard Farran: So by 1994 I thought, you know what? I can't get through one of these magazines, I'm going to start my own.
So I called the Fran Report, and I would write a 30 page black and white newsletter to the dentist, and then in '98 ... so I started that in '94 ... so in '98 I finally realized, the internet, we could all talk to each other so there was no longer Fran-to-you. Now it was interactive so I dropped the Fran and changed it to Dental Town and made the first interactive website and message board in dentistry which was six years before Facebook.
And my tagline was that with Dentaltown.com no dentist would have to practice solo again! And it exploded. I mean we signed up a thousand people a month, every month, even all the way up to last month. We've never signed up less than a thousand dentists per a month.
And it's just so cool that it's still just to its dream with dentaltown.com no dentist will ever have to practice solo again. And it continues to grow. A lot of people, when Facebook came out, they said "Oh, that'll kill Dentaltown."
Dentaltown just keeps growing and growing and growing. I think most people have 27, 28 apps on their phone so it's not like you only do Instagram, you only do Snapchat ...
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: But Dentaltown, I call it an inch wide. It's just dentistry but it's a mile deep. It just drills down to how you can do a root canal, a filling, a crown, advertising, marketing, HR ... so I just ...
Michael Arias: Everything on there.
Howard Farran: I just love it.
Michael Arias: Yeah, there's everything on there.
Howard Farran: So what was your journey like? How did you end up in dentistry? You started out as a nutritionist? How did you go from ... what was in your journey that made you want to go from being a nutritionist, was that for studying for your UFC Camp training fight when you were trying out for Karate Kid Part 2?
Michael Arias: Karate Kid, yeah, yeah that was it.
Howard Farran: And then how did you go from nutrition to dentistry?
Michael Arias: So I became a nutritionist because all my life I was a little kid. I'm 5"8. So I was a little bit overweight, I was 258 pounds at my max, I believe.
Howard Farran: Seriously?! 5"8 and 258?
Michael Arias: 258, yeah. That was my max. Okay look, Howard, like in the sense, I was 258 and then I remember coming back from the doctor and I said forget about it, forget this, I don't care anymore. Let me just eat whatever.
And then like three months later I ate whatever. So I don't even know how heavy I really got. But I know it was around ... my heaviest was 258.
And then after that I keep hearing all these myths, like for example no carbs after six, or hey only eat certain types of food, only go paleo. So it got so confusing and I kept crashing on these diets. So I decided to go to school for myself and learn about it. And I did.
And so, so I dropped down all the way to, I think like 130 in like a year. And then after that, just started trying to get back up my body composition. And then I became a nutritionist and ...
Howard Farran: What do you weigh now?
Michael Arias: Right now? I'm at like 158-155
Howard Farran: Wow, talk about that because you're talking to a fat boy who's been on every damn diet. And I always blame it on my genes because it runs in the whole family, I got ... there's some very very big people in my family, me included.
What do you think it was? How would you summarize what you learned in college on nutrition to go from 258 to 130?
Michael Arias: I mean there's so much. For example, when people say ... there's just so many myths to bust! There's so many. I don't know which one to pick.
So for example, when people say try to eat no carbs, right?
The body, you need carbs, first of all, right. So for example say you've been eating normal then you step on the scale and then you say you weigh like, let's just for the sake of numbers, 200 pounds. And then you said, you know what forget this, I'm going to cut out carbs. You cut out carbs, right. Keep in mind one gram of carbs holds three grams of water. So you can out 10 grams of carbs, or let's just say you cut out a whole lot. You step on the scale, you see that you lost weight immediately.
So then you're going to lose weight immediately. So then you're going to think of wait this cutting out carb thing works. Then you're going to keep cutting out, keep cutting out, keep cutting out, until your body says "Hey look Michael, I can't do any more in order to survive because I need it for brain function, muscle, glycogen, I need it for a lot of things. So I need to survive because the body obviously needs to survive."
And so it's not going to cut out anymore. And then that's when you hit that plateau where you're like, oh you know what let me just have this one time burgers or nachos and all these things. Which is not bad. And then you eat it. Then you're going to gain all that water weight back. So really in reality, all you're really just doing is fluctuating water and in your mind you're like dang I just lost like 25 to 30 pounds but no. You really just lost a lot of water that you've been retaining because of the carbs.
So what you need to do is kind of like, honestly, just change your lifestyle. What's your lifestyle looking like right now, Howard? In the sense like what's from morning to when you snore. What are you eating?
Howard Farran: God, just keep educating I don't want to come out of the closet and scare people. But it's tough. Over the 30 years of being a dentist I cannot tell you how many patients were so upset because they lost their great job, especially in 2008.
And I'll never forget one of my patients of 20 years, loved to death, lost his job and he said to feed my family the only job I could find was sheep rocking and construction. And he went from like 250, just this fat amorphous blob, and the next time I saw him for a cleaning he looked like he was The Rock.
And he was saying yeah, I make half as much money and I have the body I never thought I would have.
I've seen a lot of examples where people go from a desk job like dentistry where you sit on a chair all day, to a manual labor job and it's a game-changer.
Michael Arias: Yeah, and the thing is. Everybody has their own formula so you can't follow the exact same diet that everybody else has.
You've got to figure out your BMR. Your basal metabolic rate. That means if you were just to sit or lay down for 24 hours our bodies burn a certain amount of calories, right? You've got to figure out how many calories carbs, protein, fiber and fat you're burning or you're utilizing while you're in your BMR stage.
Howard Farran: So how does a guy figure out his BMR stage?
Michael Arias: Well, it depends. Well it doesn't depend, there's really only one formula. So pretty much what you've got to do is you can either go on google if you want and just put in BMR calculator, and then just put in your height, weight, age. And then it figures it out for you. Depending on your activity, then it's going to ask how active you are. Are you sedentary, like desk job, are you active like medium active like a nurse maybe, or are you like a construction worker or are you a football player. Like that's your job you have to be a football player. It'll give you very specifics on that. And then you just put how active you are and it can calculate the formula.
And then from that point on that's where you figure out, okay, do I want to lose or gain? And if you want to lose you got to go according to how active you are. So say you're hardly active, sedentary, you don't even go to the gym, maybe like once a month. Then you say, okay, that times 1.2 or 1.33 because that's the formula we use to times our macronutrients, your protein, carbs and fats. And then boom! It's going to tell you your calorie count. Your daily calorie needs.
And then from that point on it depends on your situation. Do you want to eat more fats, more carbs, you have to have a certain amount of protein regardless, according to your body weight, right. And then you have your protein, and you just divide maybe .30 divided by ... your fats. So .30 divided by the whole calorie count. And then whatever's left you just divide that by four because in one gram of protein and carbs there's four calories and in one gram of fat there's nine calories. One gram of alcohol is seven calories. So keep that in mind, alcohol does nothing for us.
Howard Farran: So go through those again. One gram of what? Has what?
Michael Arias: Okay, so one gram of protein and carbs is four calories. One gram of fat is nine calories. That's a lot more. And one gram of alcohol is seven calories. But remember alcohol does nothing for us. Our body doesn't utilize it for anything. So that's the hard ... for example when we're drinking alcohol our body automatically thinks it's a poison. So it's going to stop the digestion of everything else, it's going to stop the digestion of the burger you've just had, everything else, and it's going to say whoa! Hold on body. I need to get rid of this first. Because I don't know what it is. It's a foreign thing. It's going to try and get rid of the alcohol. That's why we start urinating a lot when we drink too much alcohol, because your body's trying to get rid of it.
And meantime all the fats, protein and carbs of all the other foods you've been eating that day has been put on hold. And if it's been put on hold for too long then it's just fat. So that's why if we drink too much alcohol ...
Howard Farran: My boys wrestled from age five ... starting at five ... all four boys we year-round wrestled for a decade. We're just over the top wrestlers. And I thought it was very interesting that when they were in high school how somebody would tell me their friends, before they're wrestling would never drink alcohol so they smoked pot instead.
And how many athletes have you heard getting busted for pot, like the guy that one the most gold medals ever in swimming.
Michael Arias: Phelps, right
Howard Farran: Phelps. Ruined half his advertising because he ... but they never talk about the issues they just out someone and throw them under the bus.
I've never talked to Phelps, obviously, but I bet you a lot of his reasoning was that well I want to have a good time I'm not going to drink this toxic poison, I'm going to do this weed instead.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: Yeah. So alcohol ... I also saw, I love Vice News, I think it's the best news out there, you know all TV news is just politics, politics, politics, but Vice News is old fashioned, sends a journalist to cover a story.
But it's amazing, the difference between me and you is that when I was your age, I mean I'm 54, back in the day food was 30% of disposable income. And then it got mass produced and then it got down to 10% so that's like a hooray! Food costs what from 30% to 10% so everybody's all glad.
But in the mean time that fast mass produced feed, they were talking about obesity where all these fast food joints were going, you know that now Mexico has more obesity, more higher percentage of obesity ...
Michael Arias: Damn.
Howard Farran: Than the United States. And Qatar. These nations like Kuwait that have like a McDonalds and a KFC and Burger King on every corner. And they're going in and just loving it and obesity, diabetes, metabolic ... I mean it's just a ...
So food got cheaper, so now we're living with the consequence of what happens when food is mass produced and now costs two thirds less. You know, when I was little only rich people went to restaurants and flew on airplanes. The poor man who had three kids didn't take his family to the restaurant.
Michael Arias: Couldn't. He couldn't.
Howard Farran: And now the poorest yard guy pushing a weed eater in Phoenix can take his family to Burger King or Carl's Jr. or Wendy's and get a smorgasbord of food, where back in the day he would have to be in the top 10 or 20% income to do something like that.
Michael Arias: Yeah, and you're right. Here's the thing, in reality there's only in like the whole world like four to five companies that control all the food in the whole world. In reality.
I mean there's those farmers markets as well, right. The people who are trying to fight the people. The farmers markets, those smaller farms. But they're suffering.
I have a couple of friends who own farms here in California and you would think their income is $100-200,000, no. In reality it's maybe $20-30,000.
And people are trying to buy them out. But if they buy them out they become, in their terms they feel like they become slaves. They have to start doing things to their animals.
Howard Farran: Yeah, I love that chart on the 10 companies. Nestle, PepsiCo., Coca-Cola, Unilever, Danone, General Mills, Kelloggs, Mars, Associate British Food and Mondelez. Basically controls, basically for all part of purposes the entire food industry.
Michael Arias: Yeah, and they do these things. Like Tyson, for example, the laundry detergent Tight and ... I forgot the other one. Little bear. Clad? No, I forgot.
But for example they always fight like which one's better which one's better. They're both from the same company.
Just like the NFL. Every single team is from the same company but we're spending money on marketing techniques. This advertising is waste. Consume more. Same thing with the food, it's just about money.
Howard Farran: So the reason this is so important to dentistry though is there is a huge threat on this in dentistry that. This post on how to get in great shape. There's one of those threads, how to get in great shape. I think it has 25-30,000 posts on it.
But a lot of this stuff has to do with the fact that when the dentist gets obese, when the dentist gets diabetic, when he loses energy, it's hard to go in there and be ... I mean we do all hands on surgery so we have to have some athletic component. We're not sedentary.
So what would you say to a dentist who was fat, short, bald, had four boys and two grandchildren. I mean I'm just asking for a friend. I'm just asking for a friend.
Michael Arias: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Howard Farran: But what would you say to that guy. What would be your five minute version of how you get back in shape by eating right?
Michael Arias: I really wouldn't say much. I would ask him to tell me exactly from like morning to night what you eat, and then from morning to when you go to sleep how you are active throughout the day. Then from that point on we can get an understanding of like, hey ... well it's easy to tell you from like what you're eating, obviously, and how you're feeling. Why your body's becoming like this and how your diabetes is ... because once you become insulin resistant that's even harder, man.
Insulin resistant takes up so much more of your energy and time, but it just makes it even harder for you to lose weight because it's like your body is literally fighting against ... your insulin receptors aren't going to be taking in the insulin that you're supposed to be taking so your glycogen or your carbs are just stored as more fat.
So you really need to pay attention to the glycemic index. Now I don't know if your doctor's told you about the glycemic index or not, but it's pretty much foods that are low in the glycemic scale that are not as fast acting carbohydrates. So they're more slower, complex in the glycemic index.
And yeah, I would tell you to consume that a little more. You would have to really be ... once you get diabetes, I don't think people realize once you get diabetes or some type of obesity-related situation, that's when you really have to take care of what you're eating.
It's not like alright, let me just start cutting out, I guess, fats or carbs. Let me just not go to Wendy's every single lunch hour. Or whatever. You really, really need to start paying attention to your diet. That's where it's very important to start. Because your body's telling you hey, I already got diabetes ...
Howard Farran: So what do you think of another thing that does on in every dentist office where they have a coffee pot going all day. I mean there's dentists that are still drinking coffee at three o'clock in the afternoon.
Michael Arias: Yeah, yeah. Then you become caffeine ... like your neurones become resistant to the caffeine so you can ... you know how there's people who can drink coffee and go to sleep? You become like that.
I mean coffee is better than drinking energy drinks and things like that. But too much of it, too much of anything can obviously be bad, right. Even too much water, for example, you can get water poisoning if you drink too much of that.
So, you're just depending more on your caffeine source. So for example calories is energy, right. Fats is energy. Proteins is energy. Carbs is energy. Carbs is your main source of energy that your body goes for.
If you're using too much caffeine, coffee. And your body is going to depend on that source of energy, a lot now because you're using it all of the time. It's not really going to attack its energy that it needs, for example like the carbs, the fats, the protein. You don't ever really want it to attack the protein in your muscle though. That means you're not eating enough.
So really you want it to attack the carbs, and once that runs out it's going to start attacking the fats. Which is good, it's what you kind of want if you're overweight.
So yeah, that's it pretty much. Like a good cup of coffee, eight ounce maybe. Or a macchiato or whatever. Like a quick espresso would be good to keep up. But try to depend on your own energy sources or else you're going to feel lethargic the whole day all the time. And you don't really want to do that.
Howard Farran: So how on your journey did you go from this to dental marketing? How did that come about?
Michael Arias: I completely forgot about the dental ...
Well pretty much, okay so I was working at a company as a nutritionist here in Newport Beach and I had a buddy who was a dental consultant. And he was telling me ... because in the company I worked with I helped it start up here in California, and then from that point on that took a lot of marketing. And once it was open then I became a nutritionist. And then after that ... well I became a nutritionist for the company. I was always a nutritionist before that.
And anyway I had a friend who was a dental consultant and then he kind of let me know hey look, I need to find patients as quickly as possible for this one client. But I don't know how to do that. So I just said why don't you do some ground marketing. It's as simple as that.
And he said he's tried it before but it hasn't worked with employees. So I said let me see what I can do.
So the next day it took me literally nine hours to get just one new patient. And that one new patient is still a patient of that office. And the next day it took me twelve hours to get another patient.
And then I thought now I understand why employees can't handle this. It's too much. And it's too much for my too. We need to create some type of system, we need to do something about it.
So pretty much I just started, from that point on, experimenting with ground marketing, which is guerrilla marketing, and then I just started creating pipelines and systems. For example say there's a local dentist here and there's a Wal-Mart beside him and there's another store beside him. There's a warehouse then there's a coca-cola factory. What I would do is I would go into those places, do lunch and learn ... just set up a pipelines, I would do events, set up booths, consistently right. Every week or so. And just build pipelines so that new patients can start just going in and going in and going in. Employees.
And then I'll say like everybody in the Coca-cola factory, all your employees. We have a specific membership program just for you and your family. Just for you. They already build a rapport with me, so they're perfect. And you know, 20 new patients. 30 new patients will start coming in. Slowly but surely.
And that's how I got into that. And then I started studying about digital marketing, SEO, I've always been into SEO and things like that. But I mean mainly what I do is the ground marketing. Guerrilla marketing.
Howard Farran: So talk about your other marketing. Google says guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy concept designed for businesses to promote their product and services in an unconventional way with little budget to spend. This involves high energy and imagination focusing on grasping the attention of the public on more personal and memorable levels.
Dentists, when they get into advertising they just want to write a check. The yellow page guide can buy the sign the deal. A drunk mail guy comes by, he sign the deal.
They can't do marketing without having to leave their dental operatory.
Talk about guerrilla marketing, which is so much more powerful, and what does guerrilla marketing mean to you? Where do you see it being used in dentistry?
Michael Arias: Well, guerrilla marketing has always been kind of used before digital marketing. That's how we would always operate as far as when we wanted more customers in the door.
And to be honest let's face it people are not online 24/7. They go to work, they go shopping, they go to school and do other activities in their community. So I just thought why not be there.
No one ever goes online and says alright I'm going to be on the internet what should I look up today. Let me look at a dental website.
No one ever says that. They just look at stuff. If they're ever in pain or they need a dentist, that's when they look up best dentist in Phoenix or whatever. That's where that stuff comes in.
But guerrilla marketing. You're kind of out there already with the community. You can participate in events, host them yourself, you can talk to kids and parents at school, you can be present at an employee health fair or do lunch [inaudible 00:23:46].
And that's a great time to set up a table and offer them free toothbrushes or just get to know more about them and their family, super easy way to build rapport because you're actually doing people-to-people, you know what I mean like person-to-person contact. You're actually talking to people, with the community. And you're not invisible. It's not just a picture on a website.
So I kind of thought of it like person-to-person contact creates trust. People do people they know, like and trust. Getting out into the community speeds up that process. So they get to see you and your employee as friendly, honest people and not only as online or digital ad.
So when a customer sees you participating, connecting with them and things like that they're begin to think of you as the authority dentist or the go-to person when they need dental services.
I never tried to be super sell-sy, or anything like that when it comes to somebody. They kind of just come to you. And you'd honestly be surprised. I would recommend that for everybody, Howard, if everybody were just to get a booth and sit outside their practice or sit up at a place or ride aid or wherever they let you set up at. Just set up and you'll see how many people are looking for you just as much as you're looking for them.
They'll pass by and ah I was just looking for a dentist! Hey I actually have this pain right here. Or hey do you take my insurance? And then they'll give you your insurance card and things like that.
It's surprising. But we have this mentality. Oh no we're running out of new patients we need to compete with the other person but like that's not our competition, our competition is like Mercedes, Tesla, all these other products that people are choosing to spend their money on instead of their smile.
So you'll be surprised, like I said, how many people now are looking for a dentist out there. So I just recommend that. If anybody doesn't even want to go with the dental market or anything like that. Just do a booth and you'll see ... just that people are real and they can trust you with their oral health and all these things.
So for me, that's what I like. And also you get better contact information. Right then and there. You can always ask them what's your name, email, address, when do you want ... can you come in Tuesday? They'll let you know, and things like that.
Howard Farran: My God, I mastered guerrilla marketing in 1987 before it was even a term. We launched Dentaltown in 1998 and Facebook didn't come out until 2004, but you know what my original guerrilla marketing was? You talk about low cost, high energy ... I went on weekends, on Saturday and Sunday, I went door to door. I knocked on every single front door. It took me half a year to knock on every door and I brought a backpack and it had gloves, had mirror, and had an appointment book, and toothbrushes with my name and phone numbers on it. And kids come to the door and I'd give them toothbrushes. And I would say about probably two out of three doors tried to get rid of me or thought I was weird or whatever. Just thought that's weird a dentist coming to my door.
Every third door "Oh my God really? You're the dentist up by Safeway?"
And come out there ... I can't tell you how many men in their underwear walked down their patios showing me their broken molar, and here I am putting on gloves and a mirror and shining a flashlight, then I pull out my appointment book and I say well you need to come in. And then they said well what works best for you? Well I got an opening 24 hours a day seven days a week until the end of time, does any of that work?
And then other guerrilla marketing they did, I always say we're not with Tukee but you've got to explain that.
I'm in Phoenix. But Phoenix is a weird city where it has a park that's a hundred blocks wide at the very bottom on the south side. And 90% of Phoenix is all north of that South Mount park. South of the South Mount is this little biddy strip and it looks like the shape of a pizza and it's Phoenix but everybody there calls themselves Ahwatukee.
And if you say to them do you live in Phoenix? They'll say no I live in Ahwatukee. Just kind of like if you go to LA and you meet someone and say do you live in LA? And they go no I live in Hollywood. Well Hollywood's LA.
But they're tribal, social animal tribalism they identify with Hollywood, they don't identify with LA. And some people in LA will say, well if you ask them where they live, they will say well I live in Cali. It's like they identify more with California than they do with LA. [crosstalk 00:28:06]
But anyway. Ahwatukee has an Easter Parade the Saturday before Easter. And so we always make a float and the whole office has today's dental shirts on and all these people on the side are yelling our names and this and that, and we're throwing out toothbrushes with our name and number.
And then at the end of that parade is a carnival and they have all these booths in the parking lot, and it's only $10 to rent a booth so we just put a table there then someone goes down to the Arizona office of dental health, the government agency, and we just say there's a dental ... there's going to be a fair in Phoenix do you have any free brochures? They could load up with three suburbans with stuff.
I mean, the staff's glad they go of my god we've got so much crap we'd love to get rid of this. And I basically just carry stuff out to my suburban in boxes and it's brochures on sealants, and community water fluoridation and whatever the heck, oral cancer and mouth cancer.
And then other little things like the farmer's market.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: They'll send a booth ... so in Ahwatukee they'll send a farmer's market and it's only on Sunday and it's basically from six to noon. And ... you put your dental assistant there, your hygienist there, every person comes by how you doing where you at?
But they see you out there and you're pressing the flesh and they get to meet a human and every February is dental health month so we break up the two high schools, the four middle schools, and the twelve elementary schools. You can always get into the third graders. And you go in there and you talk to them about dental care.
And I think guerrilla marketing is massive and the closer you get to guerrilla marketing ... I think it's very impressive when I go to a dentist website and there's an uploaded YouTube video of the dentist.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: They go to your website and it's like yeah okay you're the best dentist and it's a still photo with you and your wife and your dog and your cat and whatever. But I think it's really damn cool when you click the YouTube video and there's the man, there's the dentist talking and they get to feel chemistry, and that's the dentist.
Michael Arias: Yeah you said it. I don't understand, well I guess I do, but I mean because of time, but I feel like more people should be doing that type of ground marketing, guerrilla marketing, right. Especially now in an age where everything's online.
If you're out there and you're talking to people, you're going to get new patients. It's never happened where our team has never gotten new patients. Or any employees that I've coached have never gotten new patients. People sign up. People want to go. People move to a new community all the time, so I mean ground marketing is there. It's a cheaper way. A lot cheaper way.
Howard Farran: Especially the big cities, that's changed so much. When I was little and I go visit my grandparents, they were in Parsons, Kansas. Pretty much everyone that lived in Parsons, Kansas was third, fourth, fifth generation. They were born there and died there.
And now cities like Phoenix and LA, Phoenix has a 10% churn flip a year. 10% of this city leaves, a year. That's why you should do more root canals and implants because there's a good chance that when you screw it up and it fails by that time they've already moved to LA and you don't need to worry about all your failures.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: That was a joke. Back in the day people would live their whole life in all their patients, all their dental patients, they were just in that town. But ever since they started the interstate system, that was the infrastructure that started this whole change so now the country turned into just a one town and ...
Michael Arias: Really?
Howard Farran: Before the interstate system 90% of Americans were born, raised, reared and died and never went 90 miles away from home. That was the 90/90 rule. 90% of Americans never went 90 miles away from home.
Then they built these interstates, where people can walk out the interstate and say oh my god I'm in Wichita Kansas, I can drive all the way to Disneyland! On this big old highway!
Michael Arias: Yeah, you're right.
Howard Farran: And we did that. My dad, he put my five sisters and me in the back, it was a station wagon, we put all of the seats down so we made it flat, and we played monopoly me and my five sisters, while mum and dad sat in the front seat with a case of old Milwaukee between them, and they were drinking beer and throwing them out the windows as the family drove all the way to LA with no seatbelts on and it was a different time back then.
Michael Arias: What was your favorite thing to order on Sonic?
Howard Farran: I would say it was the Frito Chili Pie where they crushed up them fritos and they put a spoon of chili on top and onions.
Michael Arias: They don't have that no more. They don't have that no more, right? I haven't seen it.
Howard Farran: Yeah I haven't seen it either. That was my favorite.
But you can make that at home. And that's very nutritious. Whenever you start with the bottom core of the dish Fritos, you know you're a nutritionist.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: I mean, how do you go wrong when the base is Fritos? I mean, you know.
Yeah and talking about since, I was telling you when I was little the most fun thing about eating a bag of Fritos was the Frito Bandito eraser you put on the end of your pencil. You remember that?
Michael Arias: Oh yeah, yeah, damn.
Howard Farran: And then they had to pull it because Hispanic people said it was not cool. But I think, you know Cracker Jacks, you'd eat them to get the prize, and a bag of Fritos you would eat that to get the little Frito Bandito that you put on the end of your pencil.
Michael Arias: Course. And it makes me wonder whatever happened to the Taco Bell Chihuahua. Remember?
Howard Farran: Yeah.
Michael Arias: With Taco Bell. I wonder what happened to him too, I wonder if like the Hispanics, we'd said something about ...
Howard Farran: But that's kind of interesting, the Hispanic interesting, there's really no such thing as Hispanics, the difference in the Hispanic people between Phoenix and New Mexico is huge, by the time you get to Texas it's Tex Max.
When I go south of the border and lecture in Mexico, by the time you get to Puerto Vallarta you can't even find anything that you would think is Mexican food in that whole city.
Michael Arias: Really.
Howard Farran: Yeah, you go into any restaurant, nice, rich, poor, hey can I get an enchilada, taco, they just look at you like what?
I mean it's like mostly seafood and all these things like that.
And you're like can I just get two beef tacos and a cheese enchilada. And they're like what?
And my favorite Italian restaurant is actually the Serbian people, they opened up a restaurant called [inaudible 00:34:52] but Serbia's right next to Italy and Serbian food isn't a genre in America so it's kind of just like Italian food a little different. Kind of like Mexican food between Phoenix and New Mexico. So they called it Italian food and everybody says they got the best Italian food. It's not even Italian food, it's Serbian food. But marketing would say that if you're in America, let's not call it Serbian food, that's kind of rare, no one knows what that is but everybody's looking for Italian.
So what if someone said to you, what if someone called you up and said hey, by the way is your last name Arias is that part ...
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: Is that the zodiac, the first month of the year, Arias, is that what that name would come from?
Michael Arias: Oh no, you're thinking of Aries, no it's Arias.
I don't know it's Spain. A-R-I-A-S. I don't know.
Howard Farran: I think it's the Spanish version of the first month of the zodiac.
Michael Arias: Is it, I don't know.
Howard Farran: Anyway, what would you say if some dentist called you up and said you know what dude, look. I pay my rent, equipment, bill, occupying ... I pay all my bills. If I could just get 10 more new patients a month, it would be nothing but net. I just need 10 more a month.
What would you say to that doc?
Michael Arias: Are they, is the doc doing any digital marketing or anything like that? Or no, nothing at all?
Howard Farran: Nothing at all. We're talking about some 50 year old bald, fat, half-senile dentist, he's in Parsons, Kansas.
He doesn't do any marketing. He used to do the yellow pages but it got to be $1000 a month and it got to be that he couldn't remember the last time anybody came in with it ...
Michael Arias: Wow, really?
Howard Farran: He did some direct mail back in the day, but now he wants to do marketing. And he's bombarded with so many messages because there's so many consultants who tell you that marketing is ... it's all about Facebook. It's all Facebook, Facebook, Facebook.
Michael Arias: I've seen that so much. Like hey, let me do your Facebook ads. Let me do your Facebook ads. And there's so many millennials ...
Howard Farran: Do you think Facebook is all that in advertising or do you think there's other more effective ways?
Michael Arias: There's definitely other effective ways but Facebook is pretty important. Anissa, Dr. Anissa Holmes, she kind of taught me some ways as far as how that works. The algorithm. Because it's always changing.
But other than that, I never really ... as far as for too much Facebook ads for one community that can happen because there's other doctors doing it, other doctors doing it, other doctors doing it.
You're never really on Facebook to look for a dentist all of the time, you know what I mean?
But if it was a doctor who said hey I need 10 more patients, I would say like hey man first of all can people see you online or on your Yelp or anything like that. Let's increase those reviews.
Other than that, if you're looking for the most cost-effective way, do ground marketing. Honestly just set up at events or go into your local Wal-Mart or Target or whatever, Ride-Aid or Safeway, these people actually let you go in and talk to the employees, they'll let you set up a booth if you want outside or inside. You've just got to say the right scripts, say the right words and then from that point on it's easy, once a week set up at a vitamin shop once a week. Just sign up new people and then that's it.
Howard Farran: What do you think about some of the old school stuff? Direct mail.
Michael Arias: I think it works for some, and I think it doesn't work for some. I've had clients who say it works, I've had clients that say hey man my ROI is ridiculous. It doesn't work at all. So it really just depends on ...
Howard Farran: Have you found any common threads between them? Because I know some of my friends just want implant patients, they want to update your denture and to All On 4. A lot of those 60, 70, 80 year old people aren't on Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and Instagram and they still walk out to their mailbox every day because it's like a treat, the mailman just came! When you're 70 years old it's like gosh, darn, put your glass of wine down the mailman's here.
But seriously I think that's the most biggest overlooked thing, when people talk about addiction and alcoholism.
I have two patients that work in the big liquor department where they make the gross store or whatever and they say every single morning when they open at eight o'clock, there's two hundred senior citizens waiting to come in ...
Michael Arias: Are you serious?
Howard Farran: Yeah, I see them every day. And every day they buy ... there's basically two types of customers. They either buy the half gallon or the gallon.
So many people, I mean when you're retired you have nothing left to do, a lot of them just think ...
Michael Arias: Drink!
Howard Farran: I wake up in the morning the best thing to do is to make a pitcher of Bloody Mary's or whatever they like to do.
Because a lot of people don't do any of that kind of stuff during the week because they have to get up and go to work, and it was Gandhi who said idle hands is the work of the devil, he said I don't care if all you do is take all the poor people and have them pick up a rock on the west side of town and spend all day dropping it off on the east side of town. Just whatever. Just keep them moving. Idle hands just gets you in trouble. Especially when you have four boys, Ryan.
Michael Arias: Is Ryan just looking? He's just like yeah, yeah.
Howard Farran: He just laughs at me all day. He's actually, after working with this podcast with me for over a year, he's dead inside. He died. He's just going through the motions.
But so many people have their kids and all those activities just to keep them out of trouble.
Michael Arias: Yeah, and that's one thing, for example if you were looking for new patients you could also do daycares and kindercares and things like that.
You can just set up there. Teach the kids, teach the kids quote unquote but really just stay there until the parents show up, and the parents can be all like hey, you've been teaching my kids, what have you been teaching my kids, and then boom. Hey look, we're a family dentist right here.
But here's the thing, Howard, what you've got to understand is if you want to be an implant dentist or you want to be a pure cosmetic dentist, things like that ... branding. You've got to understand ... and I know that sounds so cliché and so out there, but you really, really need to figure out, especially in this day and age, your brand.
I think Forbes.com said it where brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise-mark, as opposed to a trademark. So products have lifecycles, brands outlive products, brands can be a uniform quality, credibility and experience. Brands are valuable.
For example, when that motor company in India brought Jaguar and they brought Range Rover from Ford, what did they buy? What did they buy? Did they buy factories, did they buy raw materials, no. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, they helped Ford sell the brands to that company for $2.56 billion. And the brands were worth more than all of the ingredients combined. So branding is essential. Brands build incredible value for companies.
So regardless, we all have a brand whether we like it or not. We can either be the cheapest dentist in town, we could be the dentist no one knows about we can be the dentist between two stores, whatever. That's where you've got to figure out your brand, once you've figured that out your marketing comes in. The more narrow, or the more niche you become the more you're going to see of that influx coming in. Whether it's implants or whatever procedure you're going.
But if you're trying to be everything, and you're trying to market to everyone you're not really going to get any more people. But if you become niche, if you're just trying to hey let's just do cosmetic, let's just be drill and fill that's all we're going to do, or let's just accept this kind of insurance or no insurance or people's schedule or things like that, then you're going to start building your brand.
And it takes time but eventually specific implants are only going to go to you, be referred to you. Specific TMJ patients are only going to go to you, and things like that.
So that's where I think it's more important, hey figure that out. Figure out your brand. And then, from that point on, we can start marketing that out. Because you've got to be different. You've got to differentiate yourself from others.
For example, if you're still not convinced that branding is not important, for example let's think about the dollar. The dollar is a world brand, in an essence it's simply a piece of paper really. But branding has made it so valuable that all of the tools of marketing and branding have been used to create its value.
So on the front you'll find the owner of the brand, the Federal Reserve, there's a testimonial from the President of the United States which is George Washington, there is a simple users guide which says this note is a legal tender of debts public and private and if you're still not convinced, the owner has added the all-important message on the back, where it says 'In God we trust.'
So the dollar is world brand. It confers a uniform value globally. But as I said, it's really just a piece of paper, but branding has made it worth something.
So in the same thing, like I said, you've got to figure out your brand. To me that's what's most important. You have to figure out your brand, that way not only the marketing becomes easier and everything, the SEL the digital marketing, the PPC, all that becomes easier, but people automatically in the community know why you're there, who to go to for, and things like that.
Howard Farran: That was awesome. That was amazing. I've never heard anybody in marketing go over the dollar bill. That was just pure poetry, man. That was ... no seriously, that was world-class.
Because it's brought up a lot of thoughts. I mean, so many Americans do not realize how valuable their dollar is in international currency. When you go to a country like Haiti, the reason the country is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere is because they used to have cruise ships go there but they couldn't keep their crime under control and some of the people were getting mugged and stuff. So the cruise ships stopped going there.
Once they stopped going there they had no currency. They had no international currency. So if Haiti printed a billion dollars then came over here and said we want to buy a billion dollars worth of your stuff, your cars from Ford and Chrysler, well Ford and Chrysler wouldn't take their currency because they could only take that money and buy something from the island of Haiti, which aren't exporting anything.
And the United States, by being the international world currency, it's just a piece of paper, it's [inaudible 00:45:14] currency. And America is the largest counterfeiter in the world.
And I'll tell you something, in 2008, this is in the notes of [inaudible 00:45:23] 2008, when it collapsed, they do feared that the whole banking system was going to collapse, so while Congress is spending the weekend coming up with this $600 billion bail out package and Federal Reserve guy who went to MIT who was a doctor, no one calls him doctor they only call physicians doctor ...
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: His thesis paper was on the Great Depression. He didn't admit for four years that that night they printed $8 trillion because back in the day ...
Michael Arias: Geesh.
Howard Farran: When it was gold and silver you had to have the gold and silver, and that was the limits. And then it went to have paper, where you actually have to have printing presses make and stack all of those paper. Well there's no more even paper anymore. 90% banking is digital, ones and zeros, electronic.
And we now have our first paperless country. Where now the banks in one Scandinavian country, the whole country decided to give up not just coins, weren't debating the penny, they gave up currency. Everyone used the debit card ...
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: And all the businesses, the banks said we no longer take paper and coins. Ans we're just completely digital.
So he printed $8 trillion. They didn't go out and tax $8 trillion. They didn't go out and collect $8 trillion in tax revenue.
Michael Arias: They just made it up.
Howard Farran: They printed it. They created $8 trillion out of thin air.
So when people say that America, we're protecting all these other countries for free and they don't pay their bills, or things like that.
Dude, that military is part of that brand of that ... you're the reserve currency. And nobody's going to switch to the reserve currency for Communist China ...
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: Because there's no checks and balances, there's no legal system.
But as long as you're the reserve currency, and as long as all banking is ones and zeros and is all digital, you have no idea how many billions of dollars you're creating, transferring, moving. I mean it's all smoke and mirrors, it's Fiat currency. It's gone from gold and silver to paper to now just electricity.
And to have that be an American asset is priceless, and it's because of our brand. Especially after World War II.
I just want to say one more thing about marketing, you know it's one thing to brand a Ree's Peanut Butter Cup or a box of Kraft Dinner, or a car or a Ferrari.
But health care's very different because when you come to me and I say you have prostate cancer and you have to have a surgery. Well, what are you supposed to do with that? You're just looking at me like is this the best guy? Do I have to do it?
Imagine a woman, the doctor says yeah you need a double mastectomy. That's serious, serious stuff and she has to trust you. So we sell the invisible.
So when you go out there these people are getting two or three different opinions and they're trying to get trust so they go about it which they think is best, like well I'm going to go to the doctor who goes to my same church, or my mum, her friend she had her mastectomy from Ralph's so I'm going to go there. But how do you make? So it's all on trust.
And in healthcare very few people realize you sell invisible. When you come in to me from marketing and I tell you you have four cavities, and they're 250 a piece, that's a thousand bucks. And you're like, well I just wanted my teeth cleaned, I don't know if I have cavities. Why do I need cavities?
And then you look at the data. Two out of three people diagnosed with a cavity don't get drill fill and bill, they leave.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: The yearly drill fill and bill 30%.
So in healthcare, Mayo clinic builds trust. Cleveland clinic. Scrips, out by you in Santiago. John Hopkins. Sloane, Peter, the Houston clinic. And I think that we sell the invisible and it all comes down to trust and a couple of trust things I've noticed big over the last 30 years.
Is that you go into schools and you give them a fun kit, and it might have your toothbrush, your name and number, some sugarless gum, whatever. But then you'd hear parents say well yeah I saw that desert vista. You know, there's a lot of dentists in Ahwatukee but they have to come into our school.
So even though I was just out hustling, they brought into it. It was the third person endorsement.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: The biggest under-utilized activity in America is mergers and acquisitions. They do it in Fortune500 all day long. So old man McGregor three miles down the street, he's selling his practice and right now you're spending $100 per new patient, let's say on google ads. Or Facebook ads or whatever.
And then you go up there and his practice for sale and you divide it by the number of charts that have been in last time in the last 24 months and it's about 80 bucks a chart.
But when you buy old man McGregor's practice, do you know what everybody thinks? He retired. Do you know who he chose to take care of his flock? It was the good old Dr. Good.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: So the patients see it, they don't see it as he was the highest bidder. They don't even know that it works like that, you know what I mean?
And they sit there and they say well I thought it was pretty neat that after old Henry retired after 45 years that he sent all of our records to you.
So it's an implied endorsement. Whenever you can get a third person endorsement, that's why people like to get any plaque they can. The top dentist, or some award, or something, it's really nice to have ... if I walk up to you at a party and say hey I'm Howard Farran I'm all that. Well you think that's a narcicisstic weirdo.
But if I walk up to you, and say see that guy over there that's my dad. He's all that and two bags of chips.
Michael Arias: Fritos.
Howard Farran: Then you'd be all like really, why. Why is that? You always want a third person endorsement, especially when you're selling the invisible.
And when I go to get my oil changed, because the check light came on, I know every single time some kid's going to walk out and say 'well you know you really should drain your transmission fluid and you should get an air filter.'
And I'm just sitting there looking at this kid like, I don't know what it's based on. I mean, I grew up with five sisters playing barbie dolls I've never seen transmission fluid. I don't know where an air filter is. I've never seen a spark plug. But I can dress up Ken doll 30 different ways and have my own Barbie house. And sometimes I was so good I would take a Q-tip with Vaseline and grease Barbie's long boots so that when you slipped them on, they wouldn't split.
So that's why I always take my car to where I brought it, because I just kind of think since I brought my car there maybe you're more honest than somebody I don't know.
So I don't know, I always take my car and all my friends say why do you take it to the Lexus dealership? You can get it half the price anywhere. And what is half the price if you don't even know if you need it? You know, what is half the price if it's not even done right?
But I think doctors need to realize that the main goal of marketing is trust and google, I'm afraid of google stock. Because google, they've got all these different investments but when you look at their 10k every year they still make 90% of all their money off search. Ads on search. And if I go google 'Phoenix dentist' I'm going to get eight million hits, eight million pages of shit which is all noise because you never even go, maybe, to the second page. Let alone the third. You're not going to kick through, you know.
Michael Arias: A hundred, yeah.
Howard Farran: Ryan, google "Phoenix dentist" and just see how many come up.
But, if I was on Facebook ... see I think Facebook can just walk away with it because I'd rather go on Facebook and ... let's say I needed something that's invisible, I don't know, or something that's service-driven. Say I needed a dermatologist. And I search "dermatologist" on my friends. And they say well, you have three friends that liked this dermatologist's page, and you have two friends that liked this dermatologist's page.
And I can see my two friends and be like wow Tim and Todd both go to this dermatologist. And I can immediately just text Tim and say hey do you go to doctor Ferrero?
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: And they'd say yeah, why?
And I would say I just did a search on Facebook and I just needed a dermatologist. I've got a spot, I think I have skin cancer, is he any good?
And they'd be like yeah, I've been going there for 10 years dude, and he knows three other dentists. You know what I mean?
Michael Arias: That's the third person endorsement right there, yeah.
Howard Farran: Yeah, I think ... how many did I come up with?
650,000 dentists come up when I searched dentists on google. So it's just noise, it's so much megadata noise it doesn't even matter.
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: I don't need to ask my friend where to find an iPhone or a coke or a cheeseburger. But if it's invisible, if someone says to me you've got to have prostate surgery, I'd be like who say what? You've got cancer. I just went to a dentist and he said I had 11 cavities. How the shit can I have 11 cavities? I want to get a second opinion. Not by someone who's come up on a google page, I want to get a second opinion by somebody that I can trust.
And if I don't know Michael Arias from a hole in the wall, but my best buddy George-Bob says you're the bomb, then I'm walking in there with trust and I'm no longer thinking is he a shysta? Is he lying?
Michael Arias: Yeah.
Howard Farran: Is he just trying to sell me a new transmission? You know. Like the air conditioner repairman. I swear in Phoenix every time the air conditioner breaks down whoever the shit shows up will tell you you need a brand new air conditioner.
Michael Arias: Really?
Howard Farran: So you just sit there and you wait because I've got this one guy who doesn't work for a chain, he's just some guy, he has one truck, lives out of his home. And he's always booked three weeks in advance when it's 118 degrees out. And I'll sit there and say you know what? I'll suffer for four or five days because I know if I call anybody on television, I know, I know I need a brand new air conditioner then he shows up with some duck tape and WD40 and gives it a shot of Freon and says I'm sorry but I had to give you a shot of Freon and that stuff is really expensive, I mean a gallon of Freon ... google how much a gallon of Freon costs. This is crazy stuff. We should get out of dentistry and get into Freon.
Michael Arias: Get into Freon.
Howard Farran: It's $50 a pound. Now remember, water is $8 a gallon.
It's 50-
Michael Arias: Wow.
Howard Farran: It's $400 a gallon.
Michael Arias: Geez for Freon.
Howard Farran: $400. And this guy will come and say man I'm so sorry, it took a lot of Freon and it's $400 a gallon. But see I don't care because I trust this guy. And if this guy said that's the last time I'm going to do it, you need a new air conditioner, then I would say well just order one now.
But I don't have a problem with buying a new air conditioner. I don't have a problem with changing the air filter in my car. I just don't want to have it done when it's not necessary and I don't trust you and I think you're lying and you're just trying to make money off me by cutting on my teeth or removing my mastectomy, or whatever.
Michael Arias: So then ...
Howard Farran: The unique problem with dentistry is that we sell the invisible and it's all based on trust.
Michael Arias: So then, what do you think about Yelp? Or third party websites like that.
Howard Farran: Okay, you got to remember I'm a Grandpa. I've got four boys, two grandchildren, I've never in my circle of friends I've never seen anybody use Yelp one time in my entire life.
Now you're my children's age, you're ... Greg's 26, Ryan here is 24 ... I hear you guys talking about it all the time and so then I go to Dentaltown. And Dentaltown I want everybody to use the search function because that damn thing cost me $50,000 and whenever I upgrade it it's the google search box. So when you come to Dentaltown all the servers are black, in a rack. And then there's this yellow box that says Google.
And the only way to update it is you've got to buy a new box and it's ... that damn box is $50,000. So every time I upgrade my search I could have brought a damn car.
But if I go in there and type in Yelp, there is nothing but bad noise ... I mean if I go in there and say Facebook ad I don't hear a bunch of screaming and fussing and crazy. If I say google ad word I mean it's all good. If I say postcards it's all good. But if I say Yelp. I've never read anything good about yelp on Dentaltown and these guys are all doctors with eight to twelve years of college.
So it seems like they're only good at really one thing, and that is pissing off all my homies on Dentaltown.
Michael Arias: That's the thing.
Howard Farran: Do you agree with that or disagree with that?
Michael Arias: I agree ... well, here's the thing. I agree to a sense because Yelp first started off as that trust. Like hey, your friends are reviewing people on here look what people are saying about this dentist. And to be honest with you so many people or business owners are obsessed with the reviews right? Like they're entice it, they'll ... they're just obsessed with it.
And the hard thing is you can go to school for five, twelve, twenty years, right. But if you have a page on there that has nothing but bad reviews, and then your google shows bad reviews on google, and then let's just say Facebook shows bad reviews. You're not going to get all of the right people that you want, or anything. No matter how many years you went to school, maybe because of one employee.
But I do agree that Yelp, though, it's kind of made all of us become experts at stuff we really don't know. So for example like we can say oh the dentist tried to upcharge me, he tried to say I had seven cavities, although the guy really never flosses or he only brushes his teeth maybe once a day or whatever. But then I went to another dentist and he told me I only had three. This guy is just a shysta, he's trying to take me for my money.
But in reality you really do have those cavities, but now you look like a bad guy. Now you look bad.
And here's the thing, Yelp is being sued constantly. Every single day. They're always being sued and they have to go to court because of the reviews that are trying to be taken down.
So I do believe that Yelp in a sense, to me at least, I do believe if you start paying for their, maybe, ads or something, they'll start ... because I don't know if you noticed, but they'll even hide the good recommendations. They'll hide those and sometimes just leave the bad ones. And it's like, man these person is a real person. It even shows that they had 21 friends, they've left other reviews on other people's sites, but for some reason Yelp hides it.
Because I have asked them, I've asked them why. They just tell me it's according to their algorithm, right. So I do believe if you leave a review on google, or Facebook, it's a lot better than Yelp. Because Yelp is a third party website you can't control it.
Howard Farran: Well you know what would mean a lot to me is the video reviews. Because, not to throw my family under the bridge but take Thanksgiving dinner.
I've got aunts and uncles and cousins and if you can actually see them when they were talking, you would just by seeing them know that they're bat shit crazy. I am absolutely the only normal one in the entire Farran family.
So if I was reading a review that says all this, but it was my crazy aunt with crazy eyes talking ... then I could dismiss that.
But seeing something in text takes so much out of it. But if I saw a really compelling human. If I saw you with your shit together, sitting in the dental chair standing next to me saying I just want you to know I had this issue, and I came here and thanks, kudos to Dr. Farran for working me in and fixing it up and it didn't hurt and it all turned out great, and thank you so much.
And I could see that it was coming from you as opposed to the uni bomber living in some shack out in the middle of nowhere with a beard three feet long and hasn't had ... you know what I mean?
Michael Arias: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Howard Farran: I just think it's more compelling. I think dentists, regarding Facebook ads, they should do all of the free stuff. They should do Facebook Live reviews with their patients leaving.
I mean whenever you see a patient verclamped [inaudible 01:02:11], man have you dentist assistant pull out her iPhone and snap the Facebook account for your office and do a live interview.
Scrolling down seeing memes from dental offices, to me it would be very different if I saw a patient.
This is Shirley she came in here and what do you think Shirley?
Oh my god I love it, blah blah blah.
And then one last thing, because I can't believe we're having so much fun we went way over time. We're an hour 12.
One last thing is, you know one last mistake I see millennials do a lot? They think well who's going to get cosmetic dentistry. Oh the rocking young hot pretty girl on her way to Prom Queen or she wants to grow up and be a model. That chick doesn't have a nickel.
You know who buys all the cosmetic dentistry? Little old ladies. 65, 75, 85, when you tell a 75 year old lady and her tooth breaks off and say you know what, everything in your mouth it's all done back in the day. This is breaking. So I'll tell you what. If we did the upper 10 teeth I swear to God it'll take 10 years off your face. You wouldn't look a day over 65.
And she'd be like oh my God! You want to say. It'll be so pretty they wouldn't even notice that liver spot on your head and the fact that you're bald.
But those people paid off their house, their kids are gone ... only 10% of Americans by anything over $1000 in cash, especially when it comes to house and cars. And they've all got one thing in common. They're all over 65.
And that's the ones that you decide to give the discount to. Shouldn't the discount go to the young newlyweds who have three kids and are holding down three jobs?
No, you give it to the senior citizen discount who paid off the house, paid off the car, brought her last three cars in cash, but I swear to God the people who are making the most bank in full mouth rehabs where they'd be replacing a denture All in Four or the upper ten veneers, they're all targeting the cosmetics to the little old lady who wants to go back to her 50 year high school reunion and make everyone jealous. That's the ones hiring the nutritionist. I mean, these women plan two years in advance to go back to go some of these reunions.
"I'm going to go back to Iowa and I'm going to be the sexiest woman from the class of 1912."
And she'll give you all the money to do it.
Michael Arias: 1912. Nah you right.
Howard Farran: And I'm a big fan of your podcast, on Dentaltown, thank you so much. I wish you'd update, I mean how many shows do you have?
Michael Arias: Right now I think I'm at 67. But I know on Dentaltown I need to catch up on uploading.
Howard Farran: Yeah because I called you, you didn't call me. You have so many fans on Dentaltown.
So many of my friends that I actually drink with. But by the way that drinking thing. If you ever find out a sugar-free diet beet I'm Irish so you need to send me that. And for my buddies they're going to need a sugar-free diet vodka.
Michael Arias: Yeah man, and nutrition questions or anything like that, always ask me if you want it. I'm always ...
Howard Farran: Okay we'll FaceTime you live from the bar asking you what ...
But no, that's what I love about dentists. They're always smart. They know what they're doing wrong, like when we go to the bar you'll hear dentists say well if I was smart I would just eat the chili. You know, I would just eat the chili and get a glass of ice tea. But I'm going to have a shot of fireball, a beer and get the nacho chips.
And seriously Ryan, don't say Timber Todd's name while we're talking about ...
But anyway, thanks for all you do at Dentaltown, thanks so much for uploading your podcasts, I think it's awesome what you do and I'm sorry I'm too old to have seen a unicorn, a loch ness monster or a Yelp user.
Michael Arias: Or a Yelp user. Nah, it's okay. We probably won't see Yelp users for a while anyways, who knows.
Howard Farran: Alright buddy, have a rocking hot day.
Michael Arias: Alright man, you too. Be safe. Bye.