What a Down Economy Really Said About your Practice in 2023

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At New Patient Group, we are more than just orthodontic practice consultants. We are a transformational coaching and marketing company bringing outside of healthcare expertise to orthodontic practices wanting to thrive in the new economy. We come from outside your orthodontic practice “bubble” with real expertise in all the non-clinical skill sets you and your team must have to succeed in today’s commoditized orthodontic industry. We are described by others as having an “underground cult following” with a client retention rate of over 98% and the biggest orthodontist names as clients while spending virtually nothing on advertising. 

We are founded by Brian Wright, a world-renowned expert in business growth, sales, customer service, and consumer psychology. He is also a trusted speaker for the finest companies in the world, including Invisalign, Henry Schein, Dental Monitoring, OrthoFi, and others. He has been described as a combination of the team from Shark Tank and Marcus Lemonis from The Profit. 

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Schedule a Free Consultation today and let us learn more about you, your orthodontic practice, and how we can customize something specific to your wants/needs.

Today's Podcast Description:

What if the secret to successful business management lay hidden in the process of stew-making? Well, we've unlocked that secret in our Season 6 finale podcast episode. We reflect on the wisdom gained from our recent NISO event in Montreal, where we stirred the pot with our listeners, developing ideas and solutions for business growth. Echoing the spirit of self-reflection, our adventures in Montreal, including a memorable night out at a Montreal Canadians hockey game, have played a pivotal role in our journey to becoming better entrepreneurs.

Bouncing back from a stumble in stew-making, we navigate through common business missteps and underline the significance of interpreting numbers accurately for future progress. Our recent family transition from Houston to Colorado Springs has not only amplified health issues but has also drawn attention to the necessity of identifying weaknesses and areas of growth in business, particularly during prosperous times. We underscore the dire need to stay focussed and observant even when the business landscape appears to be thriving. 

The final wrap-up of Season 6 shifts focus to the role of detail in business, especially in a dwindling economy. We discuss strategies to face the worst and emerge at our finest, ponder over the financial implications of paper-click, and deliberate on the five biggest challenges our listeners faced this year. Before closing Season 6, we extend a challenge to our listeners to contemplate their five most significant struggles and devise ways to improve. Stay tuned, as we offer a complimentary business consultation and stress on the necessity of leaving reviews and ratings for our podcast.

A podcast dedicated to orthodontists that own their own practice as well as any other business owner or employee looking to advance their career and life forward! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, new patient group in right chat nation. Welcome inside the broadcast booth, brian Wright here, and welcome in to the final episode of season six, episode 11 of season six, episode 93 overall, the new patient group podcast. Hope you're doing great out there. We are just getting back from a great event, the NISO event in Montreal. I got to speak there for about an hour and a half on Saturday. Great audience. You were so engaged. Had you do some some I think were some pretty neat exercises that you all engaged in very well and, I think, did really good. I was really proud of a lot of you. It was so great to meet so many of the podcast listeners that were there. Look, when the podcast listeners come up to our booth before I go on stage. I got to tell you it is amazing and, however, you know you guys say it's great to meet me and and I got to tell you it's so much better for me to get to meet you and just hear about how we have changed your life and how we have helped. It's what we love to do, you know, just on a mission to help as many people out there as possible. You know it is a very big honor to sit back here and get to help as many of you as possible and you know I'm meeting more and more people that are just out of school found out recently that we have a bunch of residents that listen to us. Look, our voice is the future. It's inarguable what the future practice looks like. We're teaching it to you. You are a people business first. A lot of people like to say it, but we actually make sure that you are, and it was just so cool getting to meet you.

Speaker 1: 1:28

The NISO event. You know I haven't been to Montreal in a long time. I used to get to go to Vancouver and Toronto quite frequently, but it's been a long time since I've been to Montreal and it is very much a feeling like you're in France. The menus at restaurants, the websites when you're searching for things, the hotel lingo, it's in, it's in French and you've kind of kind of pushed yourself to learn some of the basics there to be able to get by and and function when you're there. But it's a great city. The restaurants are fantastic. Got to see Eric Field, chief Operational Officer of New Patient Group. Then Stephanie Solomon flew in as well and she plays a huge part in New Patient Group and my other company, right Chat. We got to hang out at the booth, go see some or go eat at some amazing restaurants, and it was really cool seeing everybody today.

Speaker 1: 2:14

What we're going to be doing to wrap up season six here and kind of wind down as the year ends up, kind of coming to an end here, there's a couple of things. One I'm going to kind of do a review of the season, want to make sure that a couple of the exercises that I put in place over this season that you actually did them. Another one, though, we're going to be talking about today, though, is what a down economy really told you about your practice in 2024. Have a a family story that's going on right now that I'm going to relate to this and just teach you a few things, and, hopefully, when you look back at this year, you look back after this podcast and you look back at it in a in a different light than you otherwise might. Obviously, the economy is hammered, but it's out of our control. It's out of our control, and and I think today's going to paint good images for you it's going to be a great way to wrap up season six. All right, before we get started. Let's fire up the music.

Speaker 2: 3:13

The chaos of owning your own business is real, but it doesn't have to be that way In this economy. There's a better way to grow your practice and make more money while working spending hand, stressing less, and the recipe to make it happen is right here. Welcome to season six of the new patient group audio experience, a podcast dedicated to forward thinking doctors that want less headaches and more personal and financial freedom. And now your host. He's the founder and CEO of new patient group, co-founder of right chat and a trusted speaker for Invisalign orthophy dental monitoring and others, brian Wright.

Speaker 1: 4:00

Hey everybody, welcome in. If you're watching over on our YouTube station. Hey there, Thanks for your support watching over there and hope everyone's coming off a good October. Hopefully your year's been good. Like I said, this is the last episode of season six and we'll get back to the drawing board and map out season seven and all that good stuff, but hopefully it's been a good year for you.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Today's going to be a little bit of a self reflection day. I'm going to do a little bit of a review, like I said at the top, go over some of the exercises that actually date back to November of last year, and we did the last episode of last year. I'm going to dive into that one. There's some important exercises that I gave everybody a couple of times this season as well that I'm going to talk about as well, and inevitably, what we're going to be talking about is a little bit of self reflection. Like I said, I got invited, so I really appreciate. So had a podcast listener come up and to the booth and we talked for quite some time and she ended up inviting me to the Montreal Canadians game. Now, if you're a sport person, hockey is by no means my favorite sport, but I think it's the best in person sport that there is. It is an absolute blast to go to hockey games, and Montreal is a real honor because Montreal is kind of like the New York Yankees, you know, and baseball kind of thing, you know. Hockey is a huge deal in Montreal, so I'm sure that place was rocking and I really appreciate the invite.

Speaker 1: 5:18

A couple reps from a company that were close to invited me to go to the game as well and I didn't go. And it's not because I didn't want to, it's because after I, after I go on stage and I'm winding down afterwards, I am one of the most self critical people that you will ever meet in your life. I sometimes hide that, but I beat myself up like you cannot believe with that. You know you could have done better. You could have reordered your keynotes this way or you could have done that. You could have done this and I do it inevitably to push myself to always get better for all of you out there. In addition, I push myself because I don't ever want to get stale. You know I had another podcast listener come up and I really appreciate the comment that I'm about to make that she said to me, because it's never really crossed my mind.

Speaker 1: 6:06

I kind of take this show for granted, meaning that you know it's a contemporary radio show. I had a couple of podcast listeners in Montreal say they absolutely love what it's become. You know there's not guests, or very rarely. You know a lot of podcasts have to have guests because they can't hop behind a microphone once a month and do a real show Like they're going to run out of ideas fast. We're almost at episode 100 and we've got multiple more seasons mapped out. So running out of ideas is not something that is going to happen, because I'm constantly, constantly reading, constantly pushing myself to get better.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Well, a comment was made about how impressive it was that we're able to get back here behind the mic and deliver this content in a contemporary radio show style. And I am a words of affirmation person. I like to be told like I don't really care about gifts and money and stuff like that. It doesn't motivate me to get better, it doesn't inspire me to get better. But words of affirmation does. You know, just hearing, hey, we think you're the best at what you do and you've changed my life and you know, keep it up. Those kind of things that's what inspires me to do more.

Speaker 1: 7:13

So anyway, from a self reflection standpoint that we're going to dive into heavily today, I went back after I spoke and ended up just walking the streets of downtown Montreal myself and ended up at a place called Vargas. It's a sushi and steak restaurant. That was fantastic. If you go to Montreal, I would put that high on your list as well. As so, the night before, stephanie and Eric and I went to a place called Fioria Cafe and it's a Portuguese seafood place, and you know, we spent a few hours there having a good time, and the menu is great, the service was great, the food was wonderful, it was spot on. So that'd be another one. But anyway, I just sat at the bar, I was talking to the bar tender, I was kind of taking notes, just kind of reviewing the event, reviewing what I did on stage on Saturday and, you know, picking it apart, kind of putting it back together, ideas for future things, and today's going to be that. Today's going to be a self reflection exercise that I'm going to give as we dive deeper into the podcast today that I think all of you will appreciate. New patient group customers and mastermind members. That is going to be what our mastermind meeting is going to be about is the exercise that I'm going to give you today.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Some good news, too, on the ortho five front. So ortho five is national event in February next year. I'm going to be on main stage and it'll be the last position on Saturday, I believe before Dr Jamie Reynolds goes and wraps it up. So it's a great, a great place. You know I was right before COVID happened many years ago. I was their keynote and that was obviously a great honor. And last couple years, you know, we've done some more smaller workshops with Dr Jamie Reynolds, oliver and I and Dr Jamie's TC. We all spoke together.

Speaker 1: 9:04

But it's going to be good to be back on main stage. You'll be doing a topic called unlocking your inner badass and how to, how to become the best version of you in order to thrive for the practice tomorrow. That's right around what the topic's going to be. I got that approved. So ortho five thanks for approving the potty word, but I thought, you know, I looked at all kinds of titles and blah, blah, blah and I couldn't think of anything better that really stood out and really popped in that one and it's going to be brand new content. It's going to be a lot of content that I have not done before. So we're going to come up with something brand new for main stage that year. So it'd be great to see everybody in February. New patient group iconic MPG iconic We've got that all booked out and you know it's going to be for our customers. Only this year. Can't wait for, is never going to. There's never been an event like what we're going to put on in January does not exist. It's not going to have the bells and whistles and and all the things a lot of the bigger events has, but it's going to have move your needle and it's going to be really cool to see a lot of the new patient group family members that are coming in from all over the country, all the way from Hawaii In fact. It's going to be really great to see all of you.

Speaker 1: 10:16

A quick thing that was brought up by one of the podcast listeners in Montreal. She is an avid fan of cooking and we got into a little bit of a cooking discussion and she tried to execute a stew that I have talked about in podcasts years ago and I've also just mentioned it, I think, in YouTube videos that she watched and blah, blah blah. And a few episodes ago actually this was quite a few episodes earlier in this season I talked about, you know, me bringing up cooking tips and things like that in the podcast and I did it in that episode, but I just haven't since. It just kind of slipped my mind. But I thought today, before we get started, this would be a good one, because it is a big mistake when people are making stews, especially stews that are slow cookers. You have to simmer them for quite a while, could be an all day stew or even a three or four hour type one.

Speaker 1: 11:05

There is a we'll call it an amateur, an amateur mistake that a lot of you make out there, and I thought it'd be good to just bring this up, because if you try to duplicate some of this this Guinness beef stew that I've made, or I make a cranberry chicken stew or even any stew this will apply is that when you put the lid, so you've got all your ingredients they're rolling and now it's simmer time and you've got to simmer it. For whoever long you're going to do, whenever you put the lid on, you've got to make sure that that lid is at least one third to one half open and the stew can breathe. And here's why, when you close the lid and this is the mistake that podcast listener made. She said the stew was watery and it was just liquidy and it just didn't have a good flavor and when you put that lid on top, what you're doing is thinking about well, think about all the steam that is coming up off of off of that stew because of the simmer and the heat below the pot, and that steam is rising up and it's hitting the top of that lid. That's obviously creating a condensation and then it's dripping and what's then created is water and those that water driplets is now coming from the top of the lid and it's now dripping into your soup, into your stew, and it's going to liquefy it and not in a good way, and it's going to kill the flavor, the texture and, obviously, stew. You want that nice and thick stew. You've got to create the roux. And for those of you who don't know how to create a roux and this is how you make a stew and a professional stew is that when you're sauteing your vegetables, you've got to dump some flour in it and you want to get it really dry and lumpy and then after that, that's when you go in with whatever your base is Guinness beer, which is the one I made just the other day and I've made it before, the one I'm talking about now or stock, or whatever it may be. If you create that roux first, you're going to get a far thicker and far superior tasting stew. But you can't forget to undo that lid. The lid cannot be closed. It's got to be a third open or more and let that steam escape, and then you're not going to get the water that's dripping back into the stew. Okay, so that is something. If all of you just go and execute that, you can instantly make a better soup, a better stew, whatever you're trying to do so there.

Speaker 1: 13:26

If this is your first episode that you've ever listened to the New Patient Group podcast no, we're not a cooking show, but I do like to talk cooking and give some tips as part of this contemporary radio show today. Before we dive in to kind of the self-reflection, if you will, and what a down economy is really saying about your practice and your business, I want to first go back and review some things first to see if you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, yep, I did it. Check that off the list, proud of myself, or nope? You know what? I started it never finished it, and I want to start with the exercise. I'm only going to do a couple, but I want to start with the exercise we did this month last year to end season five, and that's the one I talked about your accountant sabotaging your success.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Look, if you have not listened to that podcast, the premise of the whole thing is that you've got to revisit how you view numbers If you want to become the practice of the future, which is really the practice of today. The future is already here, in my opinion, because the future practice, if you do it today, you're going to destroy everybody. We have the recipe. It's what we teach. I'm not going to hide behind it. The reality of the situation is is I want it less chaotic for the business owner, less chaotic for the team, and one of the ways you do that is outsource your admin duties. All right, if it's not clinical, get it the hell out of your office. There's other companies that are going to do it better. They're going to alleviate you from the stress of hiring, headaches and retraining and all of that stuff. But most importantly, by doing that you become a people business because inevitably, what's keeping you from being a people business is braces and admin responsibilities.

Speaker 1: 15:01

There's a podcast next season or season beyond, so, as you go, higher share to share with the liners and again, we're not going to hide behind it. We are a company that wants to work with practices that are either already high share to share with the liners and inspire to continue that, or ones that want to be so. You may be all braces today, but as long as you want to be a high share to share with the liners, we're a great company for you. If you are fine with being analog based, heavy braces, our model does not work because braces comes with chaos. It comes with all kinds. It comes with a packed waiting room. It does not allow you to be a people business. The admin responsibilities in addition to that, all it does the new patient call or just the phones up front admin responsibility that keeps you from focusing on your customer in front of you. There's multiple other examples. We don't hide behind it anymore. We are the company that has the recipe If you want to go from chaotic and whether you're chaotic and busy and growing, or chaotic and busy and not growing regardless of that, if you want to go into a smooth running business that you can enjoy doing what you love to do inside your practice and inevitably place yourself on growth autopilot and become recession proof, which is what we teach on here.

Speaker 1: 16:17

And recession proof does not mean that you're never going to have a down year. Recession proof means is that in a down year, if you happen to be down, you're down a little without advertising dollars being spent. In an up year, you're up way more than whatever industry you're in without advertising dollars being spent, because you've turned your patient base into your fans and they are now your sales force and if that's your model, you can survive anything that's thrown at you, anytime it's thrown at you. If your model is low prices and high advertising dollars and high quantity, et cetera, et cetera, you are going to get your ass handed to you whenever the economic conditions are not favorable or whenever you've got a COVID situation hit or whatever the situation is. It's just not sustainable in the practice of tomorrow being a people business. It's just not. So I get into that because whenever you go back to listen to the November episode last year if you haven't already and I suggest podcast listeners, new patient group customers. I want you to listen to these things on a repetitive basis, to where they're always in the forefront of your mind.

Speaker 1: 17:29

But if you go back there, the premise is separating your costs from your investments. Whenever you take $5,000 and you invested in Amazon stock, nobody looks at that as a cost. You're investing in a company that's reputable that is probably going to outproduce the market over the course of time. Of course it's going to have its down years Everybody does but over the course of time, you can trust the leadership group of that company to produce a return on your investment. Well, the reality is that accountants never look at your numbers that way, and most of you don't either. You're never like I said, you're never going to put $5,000 into Google or Apple and look at that as a cost. But all of you, whatever reason, you get inside your business and you change your mindset as it relates to that. So your numbers are not created equal, such as an investment in one of your Rockstar employees. That's an investment. You are going to get a return back from your Rockstar employees. Now, the average hourly employee. That is a cost. You are not getting a return and, if anything, even though they're helping you keep your doors open today. If anything, they are costing you money, both short and long term. Same thing with your practice management software right, that's going to be a cost that is not going to grow your business. It's not going to produce a return on your time, et cetera, either.

Speaker 1: 18:49

But a company like an orthophy, a dental monitoring, a higher share to share with Invisalign, new patient group, my other company, rightchat those are all companies that are going to grow you while allowing you to need less people. It's going to allow you to have less stress because there's less admin responsibilities. It's going to give you return on your time as well as a return on investment from a money standpoint. Therefore, those things can't be intertwined, such as braces. Braces is a cost, right. Braces is going to always, as you grow, it's going to cost you more of your time. There's going to be hiring headaches, your waiting room is going to be packed. So nobody's telling you that braces. You can't grow without braces. That's not the message in that podcast. What it is telling you is everything that comes with it loss of your time. The more you grow, the more you have to work.

Speaker 1: 19:44

The point is is that you have to separate those and I want to make sure that all of you have done that exercise where you, on paper, you have your four quadrants and you finish that exercise before the end of the year. You have your upper left, which is fixed cost. You have your lower left, which is variable cost. You have your upper right, which is variable excuse me fixed investments, and you have your lower right, which is variable investments. Get that all on paper and the vast majority of you out there, the majority of everything you put, is on the cost aisle and that is one of the reasons why your life is nutso, why you're chaotic all the time, why you may or may not grow, why you're not efficient, is because you've got to take as many things that are showing up on the cost aisle and you've got to replace them with things that show up on the investment aisle. That is what that exercise is all about and I want you all to finish it before the end of this year.

Speaker 1: 20:40

Exercise number two I believe this was in January and I talked about the three ways to automate your employee training and inevitably, what that one was was going through and videoing your trainings. Right, how to clean the sterilization room. Let's create an eight video course to where, the next time we hire a newbie, they can sit in front of a video, they can train themselves and then in our next weekly meeting we can ask them to role play it and give them feedback. But it ends the need to repeat yourself. So I asked you in that to write down all the things that you would need to train people on, from your clinical team to your admin team. Write down everything, right, map it out then into a course, and the shorter videos the better. Like you're better off having five two minute videos than one 10 minute videos, an example. So break them down and then go shoot the videos. I want to know if you have done that this year or at least made legitimate progress, right? So many of you start that but you don't finish it and then you kind of half ask the videos on top of that to where, whenever you do hire somebody new, the videos really don't do anything for them. So I want you to go back and I want you to execute that as well. There's been some other things I've talked about this year that we're not going to dive into and have enough time today, but today's going to be the third exercise and I'm going to give it to you after I dive in. We're going to dive into the topic for today now about what 2024 in a down economy is really saying about your practice.

Speaker 1: 22:13

Now, we recently moved to Colorado Springs many of you know that from from Houston and as we moved, my father-in-law who I love to death he's one of the he's one of the sweetest, most down to earth people you will ever meet and you know he's a guy that is happy. You know he's been in Dickinson, texas his whole life, which is about 1015 minutes where we lived in league city in Houston, on this kind of the south side of Houston, about 20, 25 minutes from Galveston, and he's just kind of cool being there and just kind of cool living his life there. And I have so much respect for that because I am the total opposite, right, I am not good with just living in one place my whole life and I want to travel and I want to see the world and I want my family to live in the coolest place ever, because I've worked my butt off for the last decade creating, creating companies that that allow me the freedom to be able to pick up and live in the coolest places in the United States and I think Colorado Springs is right at the top of that list. Well, right after we moved, you know it really, or during the whole moving process, and right after we moved, it really crushed our family. It's not something that that they wanted us they did. They did not want us to go long, long story short, and I understand it. It's family totally get it and he immediately started having health issues and, you know, say prayers for him out there. He's going in. They may, he may have some blockage in his heart. He's been having some some breathing issues and just some chest pains and things like that. And they think they found the problem. Well, I was just, actually just sent, before I did this podcast, actually sent a message to the family saying, you know, obviously this has been a health problem now for a long, long time, maybe even years. The situation with us moving is actually just something that amplified the problem and actually he finally had, you know, some symptoms, which I find actually a good thing, because if he didn't have those symptoms, those are the things that all of a sudden, one day you're walking down the street and you just dropped dead, as in.

Speaker 1: 24:21

So when Kristen and I got married it was about a decade ago now Right before our wedding, my mom's brother, my uncle Bob, died of a heart attack and this is how that went. So he went and played golf with his buddies, like he always does, went to the clubhouse, you know. They played cards, had a cocktail, probably ate some food, comes home, turns on the Detroit Tigers game, sits in his chair. My aunt Sue walks in. He's dead. He had a massive heart attack and died. And you know, on one hand that's kind of like my dream way of going. It's like just wipe me off, so nobody can. You know, nobody sees you deteriorate and then affects their life because they got to take care of you and all that stuff. At the same time you don't get to say goodbye to anybody. It's kind of strange, but I'm happy for my father-in-law because that's not going to happen to him. But if we didn't move, his health issues would have remained hidden and therefore he could have woken up dead one day, kind of like my uncle Bob.

Speaker 1: 25:22

And for so many of you out there with your business, this is exactly what happens, you know, when the economy is going really well or things in your life are going well and you're happy with your conversion and you're happy with your production and you're happy with the numbers that you can see on paper, the numbers that you can't control. But we all feel the pain when we see them, and sometimes we don't feel the pain when we see them, which I'm going to talk about here in just a little bit. We tend, as business owners, to just kind of be good when we're happy with what we see on paper. Now, what's hidden in those numbers? Maybe and this is where you don't feel the pain a lot of times what's hidden in those numbers is hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars of growth that you should have had, but you don't know what you don't know.

Speaker 1: 26:13

So if you're happy, if your practice produced a million this year or two whatever the heck the number is then it's very hard to self-reflect on all the things that went wrong, all the things that you could be better, whether it be a better leader, whether it be training your people more uniquely, whether it be doing your digital marketing in a more unique, innovative fashion or, preferably, all the above. When things are going well, it's very hard for us to look in the mirror and say what can we do better? And what I brought up earlier about me not going to the Montreal Canadiens game, and instead I kind of walked the street to Montreal, sat at the bar by myself and kind of picked things apart. I actually thought Saturday in Montreal was one of the best hour and a half talks I've ever had in my entire life. I actually felt when I left there that I absolutely nailed it. The audience feedback was fantastic blah, blah, blah. But just because I thought it went really well, I'm still looking for holes in areas to get better.

Speaker 1: 27:17

For so many of you out there, when things are going well, at least in your mind, you're not looking for help. You're not looking to self-reflect and get better and look at areas of weakness to improve and areas that you feel very strong in. But building on your strengths is one of the best ways. Matter of fact, building on your strengths is a better way to grow than focusing and fixing your weaknesses Now. Combining the two together, that is where the beauty happens from a business standpoint.

Speaker 1: 27:54

All of a sudden, when you get a down economy with so many of you out there focusing on the numbers that you can't control the production, the collections, the new patients, the Invisalign starts, the list goes on and on and on these things that you can't control. The lag measures, if you will, the weight scale, if you will, whenever an economy happens like we've had in 2024, you end up in this position where, for whatever reason, the down economy if you're a practice out there that you got hammered this year what happens to us a lot is the things that are amplified in a down economy, because all the down economy is doing is amplifying your leaky holes, your weaknesses, the wounds underneath the Band-Aid. Let me repeat that All a down economy is doing for all of you is amplifying the holes that exist whenever the economy is good, you just don't feel them. I'll give you an example. Let's say you faced a lot of culture difficulty because a lot of times, when things go well, I actually have a podcast a couple months ago around you know inevitably what makes an exceptional leader great and it talks about the best trait of professional baseball umpires and pilots.

Speaker 1: 29:14

And for those of you who don't know the podcast, this may be your first one. I'm both. I was an umpire in professional baseball and I fly planes now and that podcast dives into you know it talks about. When everything's going right, anybody can be a good leader, anybody can be calm and smooth. But when the shit hits the fan and you have a huge argument in front of 50,000 people as an umpire or you know you blow an engine on a plane, you know. That's when the true test comes out on your skill sets and how calm you are and how you can make tough decisions in difficult times. And it's very, very similar in a down economy, because a down economy takes things and it makes them chaotic.

Speaker 1: 29:59

And a lot of people and I've heard from a lot of you out there is that you had a lot of culture problems this year, and my response always is those culture problems existed whenever your practice you felt was going well. A down economy simply amplifies the weaknesses in your leadership abilities. It amplifies the weaknesses in your culture. It amplifies the weaknesses in your team camaraderie. It amplifies everything. You may be a practice where the conversion was down this year and you're like man, we just can't close anybody that's walking through the door. Everyone's tight with their money, they're shopping more than ever before and I will tell you that you have those problems too in a good economy. You just don't notice them. Maybe you're converting 15 or 20% higher in a good economy, so you've convinced yourself everything is fine. I will tell you that if your conversion drops in a down economy, all it's telling you is that you have a conversion problem period, regardless of economic conditions. The down economy simply amplifies the leaky holes that you have in your choreograph sales process, your choreograph patient journey, your verbiage and presentation skills, because all of those have to be greater than they've ever been.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Whenever people don't have money to spend, like how you greet people when you walk through the door. There's something that I've started to talk about. When I have this consumer journey slide that pops up on stage and I have this picture of Pinocchio comes up and it talks about how you've been lied to as an industry, and there's a lot of lies, I believe, and I don't think they're intentional lies, I just think it's people that they don't know what they don't know that are out there teaching things, and one of the talking points of that, pinocchio, is the fact that if you have a conversion problem, this industry is told you've got to go get TC training. Or if your conversion is really good, this industry tells you wow, what are you and your TC doing in the exam room and I will sit here and tell you is that if you walk into two practices and one doesn't have a very good TC and one does, and the patient walks in and that consumer walks into the practice with a not good TC and they're greeted right away and wowed with that VIP greeting that has an impact on the conversion of that not good TC, meaning that that person may buy there even when the TC stinks, versus the other good TC. The new patient walks through the door and sits for 15 or 20 minutes. There are so many things along the consumer journey that all of you have to remember that have an equal or greater impact than what happens at the end from a TC exam. Now, is that a TC exam important? Of course it is Not saying it's not. That's part of the journey, but all of these moving parts, they're amplified when people do not have money or they don't have as much money. They are looking at everything.

Speaker 1: 32:58

There's a funny video so my favorite comedian, brian Regan and he's one of my favorites just because he's clean. My kids can listen to him, but I just have always thought that's true talent if you don't really say any dirty words and you're still hilarious. Well, he has a video about he talks about. You know, has it ever gone to visit a doctor? And they walk in the room and immediately when you see them, you're like no, not going to work for me. And he dives in. He goes, what time was at this doctor's office? And he walked in and all the buttons on his lab coat were off by one. He's like if you can't nail that task, I don't think I want your doctor pause on me, and it's a really funny video that I played.

Speaker 1: 33:43

But the point is is there's a real business lesson behind that around? Consumers are paying attention to every single nonclinical thing that goes on how your parking lot looks, how your front looks, how you're greeted, how, if you do a welcome tour, you waste in my time, or do I actually see value in what you're providing the digital workflow, how you use the ITERO scanner. They are paying attention to every single thing that goes on inside your office and if you are not paying attention to those same attention to detailed, nonclinical things like they are, you will lose them, and you will lose them more often when they don't have as much money to spend. So these things that you are feeling in a down economy that oftentimes you don't feel. When the economy is good, those problems still exist. If you're happy with 70% conversion as an example and a lot of you out there 70% is way higher.

Speaker 1: 34:42

I love meeting these people at boosts where they're like oh yeah, we convert everybody, we just need more new patients. When I hear that, I never get into kind of the sales pitch. If you will at boosts, it's just not the right time. I try to get people to go listen to the content and I actively tell people look, if you listen to the most recent season of our podcast and you don't love it, you shouldn't be a customer. This is that simple. The marriage is not going to go well. If you don't like that, I teach that you need to do more clear aligners. If you don't like that, I teach that you need to outsource your admin responsibilities from front to back. If you don't buy into the fact you only need one employee per $1 million of revenue, if you don't buy into that stuff, we're not going to be a good fit. It's just that simple. I'm okay with that. I would rather you find that out and us find that out with you listening to our content than six months into you spending your hard earned money and investing in us, our customers, our family.

Speaker 1: 35:44

We all have a very solid core, fundamental belief on how the practice should be run. I love you all for that. You believe in me and the vision. You believe in our companies, you believe in how they're run and you stick with it. You're not bouncing from one company to another and to another. We're your leadership team. I think that's freaking awesome.

Speaker 1: 36:10

Back to the point If, all of a sudden and this is going to lead me here pretty soon into the exercise but back to that 70% conversion that I started talking about let's say you're a practice that's happy with that. Let's say the economy is good and you had 70% conversion. What happens a lot and this is human nature is you're like hey, we're converting. Well, things are good, I'm happy with what I made this year. There's nothing wrong with being happy. There's nothing wrong with being content. There's nothing wrong with being happy with that 70% conversion. The problem is is that when the economy goes bad and you drop to a 50% conversion, you're still doing the same things. It's just the economic conditions knocked you down 20%. Then you're like oh my God, we have a conversion problem. We can't convert anybody. You get into this hyper rush mode and this panic mode that you've got to change everything.

Speaker 1: 37:14

My argument to all of you and there's going to be a podcast at some point that says what is the number one sign your business gives you that change is needed. What that podcast someday is going to be talking about is probably the exact opposite of what almost all of you will guess out there. That podcast is inevitably going to be. The number one sign is when things are going great, when things are going great in my life. I'm freaking out because life's tough man Life is a topsy turvy, up and down, sideways, bending all over the place journey that you better be tough and you better be able to handle it. Otherwise you're going to have your you know what handed to you in life and in your career. Employees that listen to this, reps that listen to this. Look, man, when you wake up in the morning, you have to prepare for the worst and if the best happens, that is great. That is life, that is what we all live in. When things are going great, that is when the very few people look for help, like in our industry.

Speaker 1: 38:14

When COVID hit, new patient group had its best year ever. That we got that's when, even though we've been around 11 years now, on around November 10th is our 11th year in business. What happened during COVID is that's really when we started getting our name. That's when people started to know us a little bit more and a little bit more, and then Invisalign started putting us out there more and more and we started getting a name. I remember is that during COVID, almost all of our customers had their best year ever.

Speaker 1: 38:47

A lot of people are from the outside looking in, going how the hell is that even possible? Well, it's possible because they do the things we teach. They're always ahead of the you know what hitting the fan. While you can never quite be ready for it, you certainly can be prepared for it based on the fundamentals of how you run a business. Thank God, the family-owned practices out there. You talk about corporations and blah, blah, blah. I will tell you that you need to be thanking the Lord that corporations don't run things the way that I teach on this podcast and the way we teach with new patient group. If they did, the family-owned practices would be in real trouble, but they don't. They run it the way MBAs think should be run it. They run it in a way that causes them so many millions of dollars of leaky holes coming out everywhere that they can't put their finger on that the family-owned practice. As long as you don't make those mistakes and you don't try to run it like a corporation, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. This is why the family-owned Italian restaurant that understands how to price their food and offer a better experience and a better food experience, a better non-food experience, a better digital presence, et cetera. That's why they'll always be fine. They don't need to worry about the 10 corporations 20 minutes from them. They're always going to be fine.

Speaker 1: 40:02

It's when your small business tries to compete with them by acting like a corporation. That's when you're ass-handed to you. That is a podcast for next season that I can't wait to dive into, because a lot of you actually at NISO, I dove into this exact conversation with somebody is they're trying to outspin corporations with advertising and they're trying to do all these things that the corporations do. I'm like dude, that's why you're losing. He couldn't figure out why he's getting hammered, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, well, you're trying to be a corporation. You can't. You've got to do the exact opposite.

Speaker 1: 40:37

For all of you out there, it's such an imperative business lesson to learn that when things are going really well, that's when you need to be frightened the most. When things are going really well, that's when you need to be looking for help the most, because when you wait until you start a downward trend, when you wait until a down economy happens, if you're waiting, then you become in a reactive state and it always takes longer to get out of a reactive state than just being proactive the whole time. The down economy is told all of you about. Your practice in 2024 is where your biggest leaky holes are, and they could be in your leadership. They could be in your culture. It could be in that part of, inevitably, the three pillars. It's leadership and culture. The business mindset, your entrepreneurship All those things make up a pillar. Then you've got how you train your team and how you train them on the skill sets that other people that where consumers are going to be shopping are never going to commit to. Then you've got that other pillar where digital marketing, when people are shopping around, how do you look better, how do you innovate, how do you showcase that you're better? You've really got those three pillars.

Speaker 1: 41:52

When a down economy hits, you could say look, our new patients just tumbled this year. Where a lot of you will immediately go is is that okay? What advertising can we do? Or a lot of you be like, okay, what's wrong with our digital marketing? I've had this conversation with many of the new patient group customers that rank very proud. Our digital marketing side of our business is fantastic. Our customers all rank on the first page. Their websites are. I think our design team does the best job in the industry. Obviously, I'm pious, but I think the websites are just absolutely gorgeous and they're functional. They work.

Speaker 1: 42:27

I have had this conversation many times this year with people that are ranking organically where their new patients are down. The worst thing you can do is go dump a bunch of money in a paper click and try to force money into getting people to call you when people just don't have money. You have to let your organic presence rule when people don't have money. Turning up the paper click dollars is the last thing you want to do. My point that I lead to there is is if new patients let's say your new patients are way down this year, that is actually. This is probably multiple podcasts in itself, but what that is telling you is that your inside the door presence is not creating fans. That's what that tells you. It's not creating a referral stream. It's not getting people that have bought from you, that are excited to go out and help you in the community. It means your, your employees, aren't asking for referrals. They're not having the conversation in a salesmanship way that will drive more referrals. That's what it means. But so many of you, when your new patients are down, you immediately start looking outside your doors when it's not the case. So if your new patients are down, it may be your digital presence. You should look at it. You should look at it. Are you ranking? If you had five orthodontists or dentists or whoever to choose from, what would that website? What does that website look like? What does yours look like compared to other people? What is the language? How does the language speak to the consumer on there?

Speaker 1: 43:56

Mystery, call yourself as your receptionist, converting the calls, because when the economy's down, people shop more than ever before and that's the other thing we get a lot of times. Our receptionist is nice, she's doing fine when the economy's good, but all of a sudden you have a new patient problem and the economy's down and I will tell you you may not want to hear this, but your receptionist is a big problem with that, meaning that when somebody calls and asks a price question or you take my insurance, they don't know how to handle that situation. There's not a consultant in this industry that knows how to teach how to handle that situation. They all teach it the same way and I can guarantee you it's a recipe for failure every time. That's why, if you mystery call 25 practices, you get one. You get a practice say, you know, I had you get a call ago how much you charge for a visible eye. The receptionist goes 6,000. You want to come in, you know. Or which is a recipe for failure, where you get a receptionist to say sorry, we can't tell you that over the phone. You got to come in. That's a recipe for failure. Or you get a receptionist that says well, we range anywhere from 5 to 8,000, depending on your condition and your situation. You want to come in. All recipes for failure, every single one of them. There's anchoring bias in that, there's sticker shock and that the only way you win that battle is if you're the cheapest. All Recipes for failure, but that's how everybody in this industry teaches one of those three ways. All the things and all the pain that you feel in a down economy are there Whenever the economy is good. You just don't feel them. They are being amplified During the down economy.

Speaker 1: 45:28

The exercise that I want you all to do to wrap up this season is I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to write down five things that you feel were your biggest challenge this year and again. There's plenty of you out there, you, you grew like like crazy of several customers that have their best year ever this year, right, and and there's a lot of variables that go into that but even those that are having their best year ever, or just a good year, maybe they're up 5 8%, you know, or maybe they're barely down. Maybe they're down 3 to 5%, which I got to tell you is success, because none of you are spending money on this ridiculous Paper-click stuff. I can't tell you the amount of people I meet it at events and we get into this conversation about who the heck we are and what we do, what we believe, all that stuff and People are dropping three, five, ten Thousand dollars a month into Google Paper-click ads and then wonder why their life is chaotic and they've got price shoppers and they can't close them and blah, blah, blah. And I sit there and I and I say always and I say it to all of you out there Throw your paper-click in the trash. It doesn't mean that it can't get you new patients, it doesn't mean that it can't grow you. But if you take that money and you invest it inside your doors, you will always outproduce anything paper-click can ever do for you.

Speaker 1: 46:52

In addition to that, most of you who do paper-click out there, if you were to cut it off, I ask every single one of you when I meet you in person this question if you were to cut the paper-click off tomorrow, what would happen to your business? And everybody that does paper-click said we'd probably tank. We would definitely have a number problem. Well, that shows you that you have leaky holes everywhere inside your organization Because there's companies and there's practices. You know that our customers that spend nothing on that stuff and are still up five, ten, fifteen, twenty percent this year and having a great Year, or they're not spending money on that stuff and they're only down five or eight percent. The stuff is not necessary.

Speaker 1: 47:36

The exercise that I want you all to do is this Write down five things that were your biggest struggle for the year. It could be staff turnover. It could be something to do around Culture with. Sometimes, staff turnover that's exactly a reflection on your culture. If you're losing good people, you have a culture problem. If you're losing people that don't fit in with your organization, to me you have a good culture. Those people are supposed to be weeded out.

Speaker 1: 48:12

Your conversions down. Your new patient numbers are down. I want you to write five things. Looking in the mirror, that kind of hit you the hardest this year, and I want you to self-reflect on how you can do things better To improve that area of your practice. Right, if your new patients are down, obviously you need more patient referrals. How do you get them engaged? You offer a better experience After they buy, just like you want to do before they buy, in order to get them to buy. Well, guess what? Your next sale is keeping them compliant and your third sale is keeping them engaged Referring to your office. You don't make money off of Joe. You make money off of Joe's brother, his two friends, his two friends and her sister. That's how you make money because that is a free sales Lead generation created by one prat, one, one person, one patient that gets you multiple referrals down the road.

Speaker 1: 49:18

Self-reflect everybody, just like I went and sat at the bar, did some self-reflection on speaking on Saturday, just like I'm doing several times. You know we have a lot of cool courses that are going to be coming over the next year or two on demand. You know we are implementing this existing patient experience and and that is a big self-reflection if you have a patient compliant problem, self-reflect on what you could do better to keep them compliant. All right, big mistake blaming the patient. Right, are they a part of it? Of course they are, but the reality is is if you look at any business, any business has compliant issues with their customers period, orthodontics, etc. You're not the only one. Every business has.

Speaker 1: 50:00

That Did a podcast earlier this this year. It talked about I think it was the most ironic thing about your patient non-compliance. Compliance complaints and that's what it dives into is most of you are non-compliant, you know, as it relates to companies that you deal with. So if you're non-compliant, what are you complaining about your patients that are non-compliant for? But the point is is, non-compliance can be fixed. If your assistants know how to coach, if your assistants know how to sell, if your assistants know hospitality, if your assistants know consumer psychology, if your assistants know how to have a tough conversation with mrs Jones about her special kid, that can't do any wrong. You know, joey, those are all learned, trained skill sets that, again, if you invest inside your doors, whether the economy is good or bad, you will always outperform the competition.

Speaker 1: 50:46

You know, one of the things too that happens quite often in a down economy and so many of you are subject to this out there is that. You know this isn't the podcast for it, but I'm gonna make a quick point to it because the point is so powerful. No, your vision is your vision. You can't go to an event and Change the whole way on how you run your practice if it doesn't fit your vision. You've got to find your vision and then you've got to go out and find the companies and the tools and the speakers etc. That fit into your vision. So many of you guys don't do that in a down economy. You will change your vision in two seconds. Right, because we're all kind of instant gratification. You're like, all of a sudden, this thing isn't working. Well, it's not that it's not working. You have economic conditions that are affecting it, of course, but it's again it's because the execution of it Isn't good enough and that is hidden and it's masked, and the leaky holes are masked and the wrongs are masked when the economy is good.

Speaker 1: 51:53

And inevitably, back to what the a down economy is really saying about your practice in 2024 Is it says the exact same thing it would say in a good economy? All it's saying in 2024 is the headaches that you feel, and it's going to be different for everybody out there. Some of you listening, like I said, the headaches are can't keep staff members. Some of you is is I can't convert. Some of you is I can't get new patients through the door. Some of you it's all the above. Some of you is is I don't have enough cash flow to pay my aligner bill. Some of you is is I can't collect enough to make the payroll, I can't collect enough to pay myself. Whatever it is, and, like I said, it could be all the above. But for all of you out there it's different. But what it's saying about your practice in a down economy is simply that these problems that exist are amplified when economic conditions are bad. They are masked a lot of times. They are hidden many times when the economy is good.

Speaker 1: 52:57

Back to what I was talking about earlier, covid when the economy is down, we always do better as a company than when the economy is going great, because a lot of you out there have convinced yourselves that, oh, everything's great. Like I said, conversion I'm making, you know, $450,000 a year. I'm, I'm, I'm a genius, I've got this all figured out and and you are sitting there ignoring the problems Because it takes a down economy to get the numbers down to a point where you no longer like them and everything becomes amplified. A lot of you Decided to spend more money on advertising this year, which is one of the worst mistakes you can make in a down economy. That is something that gets amplified, is something that gets amplified in a down economy. You've got to dump more money into getting the phone to ring. I want you to do this exercise, everybody. If you had a good year, congratulations. If you had a down year, look.

Speaker 1: 54:05

Another part of Kind of painting this image today Is is this so, when your whole World is focused on, on lag measures, numbers that you can't control, production collections, new patients, things like that. When your whole world is focused on the weight scale, it becomes very difficult to appreciate all the hard work that you're putting in around things that you can control. And look, some years it just doesn't work out and there's nothing you can do about that. I give you a perfect example. Let's say this year One of your goals was was to lose weight. Let's say you wanted to lose 15 pounds this year. If you're constantly focused on the weight scale and at this point in the year you've lost eight, you may be going I'm failing, not, I'm not reaching my goal.

Speaker 1: 55:00

I would argue that if you've lost eight pounds but you look over on where you should be paying attention to and you have gotten in the gym as much as you wanted to, you've done as much cardio work as you've wanted to do, you've eaten healthier and those things are going according to plan, you've had a successful year Because you can't control the weight scale. This is the same thing for all of you out there. So many of you are so focused on the weight scale that if, let's say, you're down five or eight percent this year but you didn't spend money on advertising, you focused on training your team on the hospitality and the salesmanship skill sets that any people business needs, and your people are better than they were at the beginning of the year. Your social media presence, your website, everything looks the part. It's better, it's ranking. I would say that you had a good year.

Speaker 1: 55:57

Sometimes you can't control whether or not somebody says yes to you or not at a high dollar. Sometimes you can't control if somebody hits the internet after seeing an Invisalign commercial, does their search and decides not to call anybody because they realize they have 500 dollars in their savings account, no investments, and they just can't afford it. You can't control these things, but what happens a lot of times too, and what the down economy is saying about your practice. And that goes back to what kind of vision, what kind of leader are you? Are you focusing on things and jamming things down people's throats, as in your employees, that they can't control? Or are you standing strong to your vision on being a people business first and training your team in a way that nobody else will and focusing on shooting great social media content? That's engaging and being a great leader and showing empathy, because, believe me, when a down economy happens, it's tough on all of us as business owners. But I can tell you who it's more tough on and that's the employee who doesn't make nearly amount as money, as most of you out there. So jam and numbers and collections and all this crap down their throat. It doesn't motivate them and they can't control it. It's like yelling at a baseball player when his batting average is down. He can't control it. It's like you have to coach him on the fundamentals that will inevitably lead to the organic result of the batting average going up and some years.

Speaker 1: 57:23

And baseball players. I played my whole life and then I was an umpire and professional baseball for a while. For those of you who don't know, and I will tell you that there are some years that you just suck, you can't figure it out. Like it's very weird. As an umpire it's the same thing. They call it tunnel vision, where all of a sudden you're not tracking pitches right, you're still looking at the pitchers hand instead of following it in with your eyes. And you go through these weeks where you're traveling city to city and you just can't see and you're kind of going what the hell is going on, like I'm one of the best on the planet and I can't call worth a damn. Right now it's the same way with players. Like you go in slumps and you have seasons where you hit a lot of balls hard right at people and the average just doesn't pan out and you're like what the hell? The down economy amplifies all of your weaknesses that exist even when the economy is good everybody and when the economy is good.

Speaker 1: 58:22

You should work just as hard on all of these controllable things that happen in your organizations, just like you start doing when you panic when you see numbers dropping. You know again, the numbers are dropping because of all the other intangibles and all the other things that go on inside your practice. There are the uncontrollables how people are greeted, hospitality skillsets, salesmanship skillsets, verbiage, presentation, the understanding of consumer psychology, which is simply knowing what to say, when to say and how to say it. That's all that is. Without the full understanding of the psychology of the brain, you can't know what to say, when to say, how to say. It's not possible. And if you're not that great at those things, when the economy is rolling, you can get by and you may have decent conversion in a decent year. But if you are great at those things, whenever the economy is great, you skyrocket 15, 30, 35% without advertising. But whenever the economy is not so great and you stick with the vision of always improving on those things, you can still have your best year ever, or you can still have a solid year, or you could maybe be down 5% or 10%. But again, have a good time whenever you're at the office and have fun and not have to spend money on advertising. We're going to wrap it up with this exercise.

Speaker 1: 59:53

Everybody, just like what I said those five things. I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to say what were the five biggest struggles this year and I want you to start brainstorming. I want you to walk through the streets of Montreal and sit at the bar at Vargas and I want you to self-reflect. And obviously I'm not being literal, but you get the point. This is what great entrepreneurs do Is they're constantly reinventing themselves in order to be better for their employees, in order to be better for their customers. And when you look at those five things, I want you to really self-reflect with yourselves on what needs to change to make them better, to make them better.

Speaker 1: 1:00:39

And again, it doesn't necessarily have to be about growth. Growth is an organic result of controlling what you can control and being the best at those things and always looking to improve. Growth comes from that. Efficiency comes from that. Stressing less comes from that. Working smarter, not harder, comes from that. All of those beautiful things all of us, as business owners and employees, for the most part, want to achieve Growth all comes from the uncontrollable things.

Speaker 1: 1:01:21

Excuse me, all come from the controllable things that you must focus on in your organization when times are great and the economy is booming, and the times that are not so great, when the economy is tanking, people say, brian, you know, what should I do when the economy is down? How should I run my practice? Like, what could I do during these, these chaotic times? And what I say to that always is that we're always in chaotic times. It's just every once in a while there's an event, a COVID-9-11. And sometimes the events bigger or sometimes they're smaller, but every once in a while we're just reminded of how unpredictable times are. Time is always unpredictable but, like I said, sometimes there's these events that happen, small, sometimes big, that just remind us how unpredictable everything is. You don't know what the economy is going to do next year, in three years. You don't know if you're going to have a. You know, like my father-in-law, all of a sudden find out you have. You know, some, some hard issues. You don't know these things, which is why you've got a kick button, the things you can control, and that is how you create a recession-proof business.

Speaker 1: 1:02:39

And, like I've said throughout this podcast and you've heard me throughout the years on this podcast, on this show is that when the economy is down, all it does is amplify all of your weaknesses that you oftentimes are not feeling when the economy is good. So, as you realize this, the best thing you can understand is what I tell people is that you should run your practice and run your business the exact same way in a down economy is you do in a good one. Stick to your vision. Create a digital marketing presence organically, without paid ads. That just destroys everybody. Create a team that, when people call and then they walk through your door. Create a team that is so uniquely trained on hospitality, customer service and those two are very different things. By the way. Sales, all the things I've been talking about on here today we always talk about Constantly improving yourself as a leader, constantly innovating with your business mindset, being a not better entrepreneur, better motivator of your employees, creating a culture that's dominant.

Speaker 1: 1:03:50

That's what you should always be focused on. Are those three key areas Leadership and culture, team training, digital marketing. If you thrive in all three of those, you're going to be called a very specific term that not many companies ever achieve. It's called famous. The famous companies thrive in those three key areas. It's just that simple. Most other businesses suck in all three. Very few have even one operating on full cylinders. And that's the key during a down economy just like it is during a good Creating a recession-proof business that minimizes the downs and maximizes the ups. Run your business the same way in a down as you do in a good.

Speaker 1: 1:04:37

Don't waiver, don't change your vision stick to your vision, find companies and tools and speakers and messages out there that teaches you how to execute that at the highest possible levels. Knock this execution or, excuse me, knock this exercise out. Everybody Five things. And if you want to put down more, you're more than welcome to, but you have to put down at least five things that you struggled with this year where you believe could be improved. And then I want you to self-reflect inside your doors on what can make those things better, on what can make those things better. All right, I hope everybody enjoyed season six. We got a lot of really good feedback this season. I loved it. I thought it was a great season. But, like I said, I'm going to be self-reflecting throughout November and what you've heard in December is I very much sit back, kind of look at everything and I'm excited about it. I'm excited about season seven, I'm excited about the future, a lot of good topics coming and I think today was just a good chat you know, an overall business chat to just kind of end the season and give you an exercise to work on throughout November and December to get you ready for the first episode in January.

Speaker 1: 1:05:54

All right, appreciate everyone's support out there Again. Hey, there if you're watching on YouTube. Thanks to all the podcast listeners and followers, customers, family members, all of that out there. It's been a great season six and we'll talk to you again in season seven. Have a great Thanksgiving, a great upcoming Christmas and happy New Year. I will talk to you in 2024. See everybody, Bye-bye.

Speaker 1: 1:06:16

Hey, this is Brian Wright. Thank you so much for listening, and please visit newpatientgroupcom backslash free courses to get our latest on-demand video trainings for free. These are shot in 4K, exceptional quality, and we really want you to test out our content. So just go to newpatientgroupcom backslash free courses, sign up and you'll learn some really amazing things. We would also like to answer your new patient phone calls with my company, wrightchat. We can be the primary and answer all of them, or we can be your saving grace or the ones you miss. We will answer them as we're sitting at your front desk.

Speaker 1: 1:06:49

Your own employee remotely log into your software and schedule that new patient, and they never even know a third party answered. It's a revolutionizing the answering service industry and, honestly, made call services and answering services completely obsolete, because nobody will leave a message in this new economy. So if you use a call center or an answering service. Switch to WrightChat as a game changer. We'll do it for two months free. We have our own in-house IT team that will hook everything up for you your software, your phones, your phone number. You don't have to change anything. The onboarding is simple. We make sure that process is streamlined, and when you hear my agents answer that new patient call, you're never going to want your own team to do it and it'll be a great training. When you listen to us, we'll be a great training to get your own people trained as well.

Speaker 1: 1:07:36

Okay, so look forward to helping you out. I ask that you please write a five star review about the new patient group podcast on Apple or wherever you're listening to the podcast, and also write a five star review about new patient group and WrightChat online. That would really help us out. If you're watching on YouTube, give a thumbs up to the video, subscribe to our channel, put some comments in there how much you like it, and I would personally like to offer you your own free business and practice consultation with me so we can chat about your business and I can personally prescribe something that is really going to help you thrive in this new economy of competition, commoditization and consumerism. Once again, thanks for your support. We'll see everybody soon. Bye-bye.