New Patient Group Podcast

Learning to Identify & Navigate your Personal & Professional "Blind Spots" to Transform your Life, Career & Business

• Brian Wright • Season 8 • Episode 123

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Blind spots—those weaknesses and vulnerabilities we can't see—may be the single biggest obstacle standing between us and success in our lives, careers, and businesses. What makes these blind spots so dangerous isn't just their existence, but our stubborn refusal to acknowledge them even when they're staring us directly in the face.

Consider this eye-opening case study: A large orthodontic practice with 11 locations was convinced their marketing team wasn't doing their job because new patient numbers weren't where they wanted them. The marketing company, confident in their performance, commissioned a mystery shopping evaluation of the practice's patient acquisition process. The results were staggering—over $4,150,000 in lost revenue from mishandled opportunities. New patient calls went unanswered during business hours. When calls were answered, staff fumbled basic questions about insurance and pricing. Email inquiries sat for days without responses, and online form submissions were met with generic, unhelpful replies.

The practice's leadership team had convinced themselves their problem was external—they needed more marketing, more phone calls, more leads. But the reality painted a completely different picture: the problem wasn't that people weren't finding them; it was that potential patients were finding them and then being lost through poor systems and untrained staff. This is what psychologists call "tunnel vision"—becoming so fixated on what we believe is the problem that we miss seeing the actual issues right in front of us.

This phenomenon isn't limited to business. In our personal lives, we might blame external circumstances for relationship difficulties while ignoring our own unhelpful behaviors. In our careers, we might attribute lack of advancement to office politics rather than addressing our own skill gaps. The pattern is the same: we look outward for problems when we should be looking inward.

Why is it so difficult to identify our blind spots? Often, it's because acknowledging them requires us to accept uncomfortable truths about ourselves. It's easier to blame marketing, the economy, or competitors than to admit our leadership or systems are flawed. This defensive posture prevents growth and perpetuates the very problems we're trying to solve.

To break through this cycle, we must be willing to seek and accept feedback—especially from experts who can see what we cannot. This requires humility and courage. It means asking tough questions: What am I missing? Where am I vulnerable? What weaknesses are holding back my progress? The most successful people and organizations actively seek out this kind of feedback rather than avoiding or rejecting it.

Remember that success is never about one thing—it's a journey with multiple components working together. Just as a baseball umpire must track the entire path of a pitch rather than fixating on the release point (what umpires call "tunnel vision"), we must see the complete picture of our challenges rather than obsessing over a single aspect. When we expand our perspective to consider the entire journey, solutions become more apparent and more effective.


Speaker 1:

The road to success is always under construction. I want you all out there to always remember it. We're heading down a street, we hit a crack in the road. We jump over one crack, we think we've got it made, we fall into another. All of a sudden, there's a detour. As we're driving down the street, as we're trying to get to the path or destination, the road is always under construction and there's a way to navigate it. There's a way to do it, and today we're going to be talking about something called blind spots that can stand in the way of us navigating this journey successfully, in this pursuit of a transformation of our lives, careers and businesses, which is what this podcast is all about.

Speaker 1:

A great topic around blind spots today, which is really your weaknesses and or your vulnerabilities that are standing in your way, hindering your progress in life, career and business. Going to be a great one. Our upcoming doctor spouse event is really just wow. It's really less than two weeks away here in Scottsdale, Arizona. Going to be seeing so many of you out there. Cannot wait for this mastermind event. It's going to be seeing so many of you out there. Cannot wait for this mastermind event. It's going to be an amazing one, and today's topic is an exercise that we're going to create a roundtable there for, and it's also a great one for all of you out there to listen to your employees, your family, your friends, anybody wanting to get more out of their life, more out of their career and or business.

Speaker 1:

This is going to be a great episode, as so many are these weaknesses and vulnerabilities that we all have. Some of them are staring at us right in the face, but we can't see them. There's a specific way to identify it, and there's also a specific way to not identify it. What I mean by that is is, if you have your blinders on right and you're unwilling to look at yourself in the mirror, whatever problem is you have out there, you're never going to identify these, no matter how obvious they are. Going to be talking about some cool professional baseball umpire stuff today, when I was still in the game, there's something called tunnel vision. In tunnel vision. I'm going to relate back to these blind spots today and how it can get in the way of you seeing things as a journey. Right, If you have a problem, it's never about one thing, even though it may seem like it. Right, and these are part of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, called these blind spots that are standing in the way of our success. We're going to dive deep into it today. It's going to be a great one.

Speaker 1:

Also, guess what? May is around the corner. What does that mean? If you've been paying any attention whatsoever? The rebrand of the New Patient Group podcast and turning into the Brian Wright show is happening in May. Remember, you don't have to do a thing If you're already a subscriber. You don't have to click anything. It's just going to automatically update whatever feed you're listening to. So just be prepared. All right, it's right around the corner and we're excited for it. We have a lot of other cool announcements coming in the future. A lot of great things happen on our side, so looking forward to a great one today. And before we get started, let's fire up the music.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Brian Wright Show audio experience, A podcast dedicated to transforming lives, careers and businesses, and now your host. He's a husband, father of two, an international business and life coach, the founder and CEO of New Patient Group and RightChat, and a consultant and global speaker for some of the finest companies in the world, such as Invisalign and many others. Now here's your host, Brian Wright.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome inside the broadcast booth. Shout out to the attendees. At Iconic Boy oh boy, did we have a good time Party at my house Thursday night. Everybody was behaved, didn't drink too much because you knew it was coming the following morning Role plays and learning all kinds of new, great things. You had to be ready for it, but everyone who sent their employees to Iconic man oh man, the feedback has been great. That was our third one and they keep growing. They keep getting better.

Speaker 1:

We had multiple attendees actually that weren't customers, so that was something that was new for us for these events, and one of the reasons we created them is one for our family members, but also people outside of the new patient group family, and it was fantastic. Got to know people better. You know, I think, as employees come and you know when we go into your businesses out there, regardless of what we talk about, it's not comprehended as well Is when you get your employees out of that environment and into the hospitality that this lodge has. I mean it's a five-star situation there. For the most part, it is an excellent place and with exception and that exception I'm actually going to talk about one of my blind spots today that I can talk to you about. That actually happened during the event and it's something that I have to stay very much on top of because it used to be a lot worse, but it's one of these things that keeps creeping back in every once in a while. I'm going to talk to you about it. And also some holes that that lodge has, some blind spots that they have that they seem to refuse to accept, and I'm going to be talking about that too, as it relates to my blind spot. But overall, an absolute fantastic event. The feedback has been fantastic. I mean, we had people come in. Shout out, dr Nyack out there, you know, sending your team all the way in from Hawaii. Now for all three events. First of all, it means the world to us, but I know your team's getting a lot out of it. Shout out again, like to all the attendees it was absolutely awesome.

Speaker 1:

It's a topic that is not talked about very much in this industry is, after the contract is signed, right, that non-clinical journey that you take with a patient, the hospitality, the sales, all the stuff that your assistants have to be armed with. That's what we worked on and, baby, it was cool. A lot of great feedback and it really means a lot for everybody that was there. The camaraderie was great, participation was great. Roundtables, exercises, role plays, everything was fantastic. I just couldn't be happier with it. The content is just amazing and I wish everybody got a chance to hear it. They're really missing out by not hearing it. But anyway, let's dive in today to the blind spots. And there is, like I said, at the top there's something called tunnel vision, which I'm going to get to here momentarily. But I want to start off by recently, and I think this is such a perfect example. No matter what business you are out there this is the first time you've ever listened Our niche is in orthodontics, dentistry, other healthcare professions, because they fall into the same situation as a restaurant, as a hotel, which are also our customers a financial firm, a lawyer, et.

Speaker 1:

Etc. Meaning that as people type in for their services, there's five or 10 options within a very short drive of where they work or where they live. So therefore, in order for you to buy, you know if a practice wants you to buy, invisalign from them as an example well, there's a lot of choices, which means they have to be experts in hospitality, in sales, in psychology, in verbiage and presentation, just like a hotel that wants to convince you to buy from them. A hotel that's on the journey to try to get a five-star rating, a restaurant on the way to get a Michelin star rating. These are all the things we teach, regardless of the type profession it is. We just happen to find a niche.

Speaker 1:

Many years ago, when I started this podcast, started the YouTube station, the Invisalign executives started watching it. Word started spreading. Next thing, you know, 13 years later, having a new patient group. We are, you know, our niche is in that space. But no matter what type of business you have this is one of the reasons we're rebranding into the Brian Wright Show is that our niche will always be our niche. We're not even looking to go out, we're not even looking to change that.

Speaker 1:

But the reality is is that if you want to get the most out of your business, you must develop your people in their life and their career. Right, that that should be your obsession. Your obsession shouldn't be over your product or making more money, et cetera. And that's what we do on here, here, and and it's a beautiful thing to hear, you know, I want to give a shout out really fast. Uh, dr schaefer. So you're listening and I I can tell that I'm, so I'm talking to him while I'm talking, everybody out there. So you send one of your assistants and and I can, I can tell you that privately which one you know came, know, came to me and said look, in the beginning I thought you were full of shit, right, and I started following your life advice and your career advice and I see it working. I do my best to follow the advice inside the business, inside the practice. I see it working and now I'm totally on board and when I hear that, it just means the world to me. More about the life and career stuff, because that is becoming more and more. My obsession with what I coach and what I do for a living is making sure people are developed at the highest levels in their lives and in their careers. And usually when that happens I talked about this at Iconic. It doesn't mean always, but usually when that happens, that is one of the ingredients to recession.

Speaker 1:

Proof in your business is teaching employees the life skills that so many very, very successful people out there have. But they don't. They weren't raised with them or chose to ignore it, whatever, whatever the background may be, but they can have success in their life and career. Somebody is there, guiding them, changing their mindset, you know, teaching them what successful people do and the decisions that go into that, and what you need to do to hold yourself accountable, and all the things that we talk on here to help you get the most out of your life and your career. The business takes care of itself when you give employees the skill sets to interact with your customers in a unique way.

Speaker 1:

So few people see value in it and that is why it always has driven me nuts that you know if you could take them five-star Michelin star restaurants, the Michelin star restaurants, five-star hotels, and you could go out and give every hotel and every restaurant their recipe, and 99% of them won't do it. They still think the problem is advertising and we need the phones to ring more and more new patients and more tables filled and all this crap, when they don't and they don't and I told that story specifically to lead into this here and this will get us started with the Blindspot chat today. So we had a marketing company reach out to us and you know, kudos to them, because many times what I see is the obvious out here, like if you're ever going to spend a nickel to try to get your phones to ring more. It is asinine to me that the vast majority of businesses, as in like 99% of businesses out there, won't first make sure their people that are going to be answering those incoming calls can actually convert them right into new customers, new patients, whatever the heck you want to call them right. You just go out and spend money on pay-per-click ads and then wonder why the hell price shoppers are calling you. Well, because the pay-per-click ads attract those people. It's your fault, right, your advertising is driving that.

Speaker 1:

Plenty of podcasts in the future about that topic. But when you get the phone to ring with advertising, you have to have your receptionist trained on sales, psychology, hospitality, etc. You have all out there called multiple businesses and had a crappy phone experience. Well, your business is like that too, right, unless you're committing to training your people by experts in those things. And it blows me away that more marketing companies don't see this Like. Unfortunately, a lot of marketing companies and there's podcasts in the future about this exact topic too. Marketing companies, to a fault, think their job is to get your phones to ring. That is not their job. Their job is to get your phone to ring with the people that fit your business model right. The Ritz-Carlton is not looking for people that want to pay Best Western prices. So if they got a thousand calls from Best Western type consumers, that is a failed advertising campaign, right? Same thing for the Best Western. If the Best Western got a thousand calls for people looking to spend more for experience, that's a failed marketing campaign and that's not how these people look at it.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to do those podcasts. It's something that I'm very, very passionate about, because with us, we don't give a damn how many calls we get you right. We care how many starts that we get you right, and I would rather get you 10 calls and have nine of them start than get you a thousand calls and have three of them start right, and unfortunately, a lot of you don't look at it that way. So this marketing company kudos to them because they're like look, we have a customer, they're a large organization. I think they have 11 orthodontic practices and again, this is so true for any type of business out there. I think about this all the time, how it all relates. It's all the same. You're all in the people first business, no matter what you're selling.

Speaker 1:

And they tried to convince these orthodontists were like, look, it's not working, we're not getting the new patients we want. Like, the marketing's not doing its job, it's your fault. The marketing company kept going look, we're looking at the tata and we are doing our job. And and please, you know, get some mystery calls, you know, to your practice. Or blah, blah, blah. And the doctor's like, yeah, whatever, you know, we don't want to do that work. And and this is so often the case, it's unfortunate, it's just so often the case in this industry, where it's like this and and beyond. Like I said, we help plenty of other businesses too. It's the same thing. It's just in orthodontics you can have these leaky holes and still survive and, in many cases, still make a lot of money.

Speaker 1:

So it's really hard to get you to see these blind spots we're going to be talking about today. So marketing company goes you know what Screw it. We're going to go find a company that can do these mystery packages for us. And I got on the call with a lady and they hired us and they paid calls, a couple of analysis, do a bunch of websites, you know, lead form submissions, some direct emails to them just to see what would happen. And, just like this lady I talked to, I already know. For all of you out there, I already know what's going to happen. Like if you call us and you say mystery call the front desk, I already know what they're going to say. If I ask how much do you charge for Invisalign? Do you do this type of thing and tell me more about it? Do you take my insurance? I could already tell you what they're going to say before they even say it. I mean, we do thousands of mystery calls and they're all the exact same.

Speaker 1:

The leaky holes exist in everybody's business out there, yet you choose not to see it. And if you do see it, you still complain about the investment it's going to take to fix it, when you're losing way more than the investment is to fix it. And and I have a podcast and I haven't done it before, I haven't done it and it's coming in every month. I'm like I might do it this month. I'm like, no, it just doesn't make sense yet. No, it doesn't make sense yet. And it's the only time that you don't get to complain about your problems and I look forward to it, because this industry is the epitome of what that podcast is going to complain about them, but you won't invest to fix them. So you go all over the AO and all these events complaining about all these problems price shoppers, employee headaches, you know, conversion, turnover, can't find anybody good to work for me. List goes on and on and on and we have the solutions to all of them, but you won't invest to fix it. You would rather complain to your buddies than actually spend the money to fix it. It drives me nuts. And you don't get to complain about your problems unless you pay the money to experts that are good to fix them. All right, and that's what that podcast is going to dive into.

Speaker 1:

We get into the numbers from this group practice and I'm going to take you from the end backwards. Meaning, after we added up all the lost opportunities, it was around $4,150,000 of lost revenue on how they missed new patient phone calls during regular business hours. When they're fully staffed, which is the founding principle of my other company, rightchat. When they're fully staffed, which is the founding principle of my other company, rightchat, right, no one leaves a voicemail anymore, right? That's why we answer, log into your software, speak as your employee and schedule them, because if you don't, those patients are gone. They're going down the street to buy Invisalign or whatever the heck it is. This is the same if you're a hair cutter out there, a plumber, a lawyer if you don't answer your damn phones, they're not going to call back. Right, all the advertising you've done has gone down the toilet. So they missed a countless amounts of calls. They also mishandled countless amounts of calls from do you take my insurance? How much do you charge for All the scenarios? So there was a ton of mishandled calls that consumers are not going to schedule with your practice if handled that way anymore. The days are gone. People are calling five or more practices according to multiple reputable sources. Right, they're going in more than three practices now according to multiple reputable sources.

Speaker 1:

You've got to do things different. This practice wasn't doing anything different, right? The email submissions that we would send out. We would not get a reply. And when we would get a reply, the stuff that we put in the email wasn't even acknowledged. It was just ignored. Someone just hit the reply button and typed in the same response to every single one.

Speaker 1:

The online inquiries here's a free tip for all of you If you get an online inquiry. This does not matter what business you are. If you are somebody that is trying to get you. It's trying to get people to buy your product over somebody else's whether it be the same product, but they can buy it anywhere, right? Or a different product that's, but similar. You have got to respond to your online inquiries, ideally in under five minutes, but for sure in under 10. All right, there is overwhelming data. This is something else my company, rightchat, does for people is respond to these online inquiries because we know, based on the data, if you respond in under 10 minutes, you have a very high likelihood of conversion. If every minute that it goes over 10, your conversion starts to drop significantly. And the reason is is you aren't the only place they're submitting. Right, it is the experience after they submit, just like everything else, the experience on the phones when they come in, all the stuff we teach. If somebody submits an online inquiry, it is the experience that you now deliver, versus the other three, four or five places.

Speaker 1:

They submitted an online inquiry so people weren't responding. It would take them two days a day, three days, sometimes no response at all. It was a total mess and everybody this added, like I said, over $4 million of lost revenue when we were done adding up the statistics to a place that thinks their problem is marketing. And this is so many of your problems out there is that you think marketing is going to solve your problems, and it's not many cases. It adds to your problems, right? If you're crap inside your doors and you keep getting more and more people calling you and coming inside your doors to see how crappy you are, then that is a blind spot that is absolutely crushing your progress. And I love telling this story because, again, it's a blind spot that this particular practice refuses to see, because I had a conversation with a doctor.

Speaker 1:

I used to get a postcard from this dentist every single month for 10 years. All right Now, for those of you out there that want to do postcard campaigns to this doctor's credit, that's how you do them. Doctor's credit, that's how you do them. You pick an area that has your ideal customer, patient, whatever you want to call them, and you hit them consistently every month, forever. That's how you're successful with a postcard campaign. The reason is not to get too off topic, but the reason is is that you have to hit people when the timing is right, and if you just do it for three months or six months just to test the waters, you're not doing it right. So, to this doctor's credit, he was doing it right. But I have found over the course of my career whether it be working with restaurants, lawyers, doctors, anybody that own their business the people that typically put the most into advertising see the least value in inside their door stuff. So I know that the more advertising you're doing, the more leaky holes you have, just from experience and just paying attention to the stats.

Speaker 1:

So I started mystery calling this practice and got no answer. Got no answer. This is again during regular business hours nine o'clock in the morning, two in the afternoon, when they're fully staffed. I started calling them and would not get an answer. Finally, because I do what I do, that's the only reason why I kept calling right, if it was an actual patient, I'd have been gone long ago. Finally I did get an answer and the lady goes hold, please, boom. Right, but you never put a new patient on hold under any circumstances ever. So you've got to stay on the phone long enough to identify new or existing. If it's new, you stay on the phone, doesn't matter what's going on in front of you, right? So she puts me on hold.

Speaker 1:

Then a bunch of minutes go by, I'm on hold, somebody else picks up the phone and they're like hello. I'm like, uh, yeah, I'm hi. All right, well, can I help you? Uh well, yeah, I'm calling to make a new patient appointment, right, total disaster, total disaster. So now, because of what I do for a living, I got to go inside and see how bad it is. Now, right, so I make the appointment. I, I same old stuff, right, boring text message, like the pre-arrival strategies all suck. I go in. Right, I'm standing in front of a lady for a good two minutes.

Speaker 1:

I'll never forget this story because it's so. It's so, exemplifies everything that goes on. And now all of you in our niches space, there is blind spots all over the place that you all either refuse to see, can't see, want to deny, because it makes you feel like you know you're a weak leader, whatever it is. Uh, all over the place. So I'm standing in front of this lady, I finally say something to her and she gives me the one finger. Right, she's not even on the phone, she's just into something busy work up there, right? So basically tells me to shove it and shut up and the rest of the process sucked too right.

Speaker 1:

This is somebody that's dumping money into advertising, wondering why they can't get enough new customers, new patients. There's leaky holes all over the place. And this orthodontic practice, this group ortho practice that I'm talking about same way, leaky holes all over the place, over $4 million, right, and that doesn't even include what's going on inside their doors, with lack of digital workflow, right, like how people are being greeted, not doing a virtual consult, like the list goes to presenting money inaccurately. The list just goes on and on and on and on. And why more of you out there can't see it? It just drives me nuts. I mean, it's one of the things that motivates me to wake up every day and change as many of your mindsets out there, because a lot of you do see it and you call for, like the other day we get called by.

Speaker 1:

It was actually a referral from one of our longtime customers. We had a great talk and he wanted phone training. He identified the phones were a disaster. The phones were a disaster. You know. We gave them the investment it would take to fix the phones and train repetitively and hold them accountable and all that stuff, and the guy's like, oh God, I can't pay this. Meanwhile he lost more than that yesterday. Right, then what we're going to charge in a month he lost more than that yesterday. He just can't put his finger on it. And these are the blind spots that happen to all of you out there. Right, this orthodontic practice was a large group, so it's adding up to more than if you're a single practice or two locations. But yours certainly add up to millions upon millions of dollars over the course of time too, but you can't put your finger on it. I think for many of all of you out there, the vast majority of your biggest blind spot is the fact that you can't put your finger on the areas that are really kicking your ass, and that is such a poor, just like this group.

Speaker 1:

Right, I use leadership team and air quotes for two reasons. When I'm about to say One, all of you know that I believe everybody in your organization has the ability to be a leader, janitor, all the way to the top, everybody in between. So all of you know how I feel about that. So I say leadership team in air quotes because it's the ones for them, like the executives and things like that, right? The other one is that these people, things like that, right? The other one is is that these people are not leaders. Right, it took the marketing company to be innovative enough and have the leadership skills and the innovation and the mindset enough to be able to go. This business needs help and we want to prove it to them. Plus, it was selfish because they didn't. You know they're. They're being called out and say they're not doing their job. So they wanted to prove that they're doing their job, which they are, and it's just unfortunate because these air quotes leadership team weren't even innovative enough to go.

Speaker 1:

You know what? Let's just check. Let's see if we have our email structure down, our online inquiries, response time and the verbiage and everything down. Let's make sure our receptionists are highly trained to offer a unique experience to the caller compared to what other receptionists are going to offer. Let's make sure our phones are being answered so we're not running a. They're obviously running it and usually when so like with RightChat, with the data, the higher missed call volume we answer for a practice, the more analog braces they do and the less they outsource.

Speaker 1:

And this is, you know, I could do and I have them in the future, but I could do one podcast that lasts 48 hours on this topic. Right, it's like doctor complains that the Invisalign lab bill is too expensive, focuses and this is going to be here soon when I start talking about tunnel vision. We relate this back and do some exercises here before we close out today. I'll talk about this more, but you're so focused on oh my God, my lab bill, my lab bill, my lab bill, right, that you can't focus. Like I said, is the road to construction is always under, or the road to success is always under construction. Excuse me, is that you become so focused on one little issue that you forget that it's always a multitude of things? That's the problem. It's never being caused by one thing, and this could be for anything.

Speaker 1:

I mean, as this podcast comes out when you're listening to, the beginning of April, this week I'm going to be speaking for OrthoPhi in Denver and it's the same thing. It's like, oh no, orthophi is too expensive, or RightChat's too expensive, or New Patient Group's too expensive, or my Invisalign bill's too expensive, or dental monitoring's too expensive. It's this mentality of you sit there and say those things are too expensive, even though those are investments, not costs, and you sit there and say those things are too expensive because you can see the numbers on paper. Meanwhile, right, you're not doing Invisalign, you choose to do analog braces, thinking it's cheaper. Meanwhile it's causing you to miss five or 10 new patient calls a month, right, and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year via leaky holes just in your front desk.

Speaker 1:

Forget inside your doors, like I've talked about, just at your front desk, just like this group practices, I know, based on the missed call data, what treatment modality you're choosing to use inside your office. The data is that overwhelming and even though most people still you could put the data in front of most people and they still have this finite mindset of they get their data out and they say, well, here's my data, here's what's coming in, here's what's going out and therefore I'm going to make my decisions on it. And this is how you destroy your customer experience, because you nickel and dime every single ounce of profit out of your business. Meanwhile, you screw your customers and your employee experience along the way, and this is just drives me nuts. This is the blind spot that so many of you have and turns out this practice. As a matter of fact, after talking to these marketing people high analog braces, right, don't outsource, right. They've got a huge team and the funny thing is is that the practices that have the biggest teams have the most missed new patient calls during regular business hours, when fully staffed, and most people again they hear that, well, I'm not missing calls, that's somebody else. Every single one of you out there has called at least five places in your life interested in their service, that didn't answer the phone and you went somewhere else and bought from somebody else. Meanwhile you still can't go. Damn, that's happening to me too, like it's this disconnect and this blind spot that is hindering your progress. Right, it is a major weakness from a mindset standpoint. Just absolutely drives me nuts.

Speaker 1:

When we were at the Iconic this past weekend, I got sat down at lunchtime by the management team at the lodge and Eric, our COO of New Patient Group, notified me that they wanted to talk to me during during lunch when all the while the attendees were eating, they wanted to have a conversation about some things that had happened earlier in the day before the event started like oh boy, right, because I probably got angrier than I should have. But I want all of you to know that I have a passion for all of you to get an experience from us, whether it be we come in and coach you or we're doing digital marketing, or both of you come to one of our events. I take great pride in knowing that you're going to get the finest experience along the way. And you know this is the third iconic event that we've had at this lodge and well, sure enough, the very first iconic event, we were in a room that had a lot of audio issues. It was staticky, really couldn't use the microphones, it was not a good experience from a listening standpoint for the audience, and that bothers me because I teach experience for a living. You know, if you summed everything I do in one day in a short little sentence, we increase people's sales through experience. It's experience through sales, and that goes to employee experience as well as your prospective customer experience as well as after they sign with you experience.

Speaker 1:

So the audio was a problem. So Iconic 2, for our treatment coordin. So the audio was a problem. So Iconic 2 for our treatment coordinators the audio was fine. We were in a different room. Well, now we're back in the same room as we were in the very first Iconic, which was a full team, but they have a divider wall because it wasn't a full team. It was a dedicated employee, so there wasn't as many people there. So we find out they know they have an audio issue in that room and we do a sound check the day before and everything sounded fine.

Speaker 1:

We showed up for the event that kicked off on Friday and the audio was not fine. It was staticky, the lapels weren't working, couldn't get the handheld mic to work they go well, let's try another one. And the other one was working in the other half of the room. Right, they put the divider up so it wasn't working in our rooms working. Another one. That one didn't sound good either. That didn't work. And we're getting closer and closer to the event starting and there's nobody there to help. Like the IT person that seems to know what he's doing wasn't there.

Speaker 1:

The lady that was there was extremely short and extremely rude. Like I started off, I was fine, we were having conversations, and I would get responses like well, sir, this isn't the only event going on. Like I can't just stay in here, cause I had asked her like are you going to be here? Like how do you know when he's here. Can you communicate the problem, cause I'm going to be up on stage talking like and she got shorter and shorter, more rude and more rude to finally to the point where I left and went to the front desk and I was irate, and that is my blind spot is I can be so passionate towards something that you know sometimes the way I react, right, I can, and I teach all of you like I could have controlled my reaction better than I did. Right, that is one of my blind spots, and you know. Then I rethink the situation. I'm like, all right, I should have done this instead of this. Like I still could have got the point across without doing what I did.

Speaker 1:

I went to the front desk. I'm like you guys have got to get this lady the hell out of here. No-transcript, I kind of, you know, took it, you know where. I didn't want to fight it, but the whole time I'm also. I'm also thinking to myself this is why you suck, like your employees, the way they're talking to people, like you're not prepared, like the audio issues, et cetera. You didn't even act like you care, like if the lady would have just simply said sir, I'm so sorry for this, I'm going to go hunt down, find the right person. You guys have paid a lot of money. You deserve a great experience. We're going to get this taken care of. That'd have been fine, right, but I got several rude comments, one after another, and I'm talking like five or 10 of them, one after another, till finally I blew up at the situation because I was mad the attendees weren't going to get a great experience. So we ended up going the whole event with no microphones, right, so we're speaking with no lapels, et cetera.

Speaker 1:

It worked out, but there's a blind spot in two ways how I reacted I shouldn't have reacted that way, right, and there's no excuses for it Shouldn't react in that way. But also a blind spot for a lodge that is supposed to be five star, right, and if you go in their steakhouse, the ambience of it and everything is five star, but the way, the way the service is carried out is not, the way the food is carried out, it's not. And then how these events are carried out is not, and that is a blind spot. That, as I, you know, I did kind of articulate it in the nicest of ways to the management team and they totally blew it off, right. They took absolutely zero responsibility for what went on inside that room, and that's going to remain a blind spot for that organization because, no matter what data, no matter what proof you put in front of them, they choose to ignore it.

Speaker 1:

And so many of you out there, the way you react to some of these situations when I or somebody else calls you out for these obvious glaring holes staring you right in the face, is that you choose to ignore it. And rejecting feedback, especially from experts, is a major blind spot for a lot of you out there in your lives, careers and business. A lot of you don't even look for feedback, right, which is terrible in itself, but rejecting feedback whether you ask for it and then reject it, or somebody like this, this marketing company hiring us and us giving the organization the feedback, right, I haven't yet seen what the response is going to be. Right, I want to give them a couple weeks, but most likely for places is they're going to reject the feedback, because I've seen this so many times is that the businesses that need the help the most won't seek it. This is why, like, our customers are filled with the biggest names in the industry, right, as well as other people that you don't know their name, but they're just as forward thinking, right. They just may not be on stage or whatever, right? Because they all think the way I'm talking on here.

Speaker 1:

Experience crushes it. It's the best marketing you will ever do, whatsoever From an employee experience standpoint perspective customer, existing customer if your focus is there, you will kill everybody, crush everybody. Every business on the planet that's famous does it that way. Yet, no matter what you do, 99% of people think oh, we just need the phones to ring more, even though they are, and your people aren't answering it. They're not handling it right. Online inquiries aren't being responded to. Your digital workflow sucks. You're not presenting money properly. Pending treatment. There's leaky holes, obs, there's leaky holes. There's leaky holes after the signed contract, right, I could go on and on and on.

Speaker 1:

For businesses of all industries, of all kinds, and the majority of them will not accept the feedback, and rejecting feedback again, especially from experts, is a huge blind spot for so many of you out there in life, career and business. You have somebody that really wants to help and can give you good guidance on choices to make in your life, whether it be money or just decisions that come up in all of our lives. And there's so many people out there that are like, ah, screw it, not listening up in all of our lives. And there's so many people out there that are like, ah, screw it, not listening right, that need it, that need it tremendously. Meanwhile, the people that are successful are out seeking coaching left and right. It just doesn't, it just doesn't make sense, but it just gives you such an opportunity to dominate because 99% of people in any industry and any aspect of any aspect of life, career and business, just can't see it. They just can't see it. And that is a perfect example, even with the $4 million plus loss opportunity, even though this event, this lodge that we hosted Iconic on we gave them the feedback totally ignored it, right, and those are things that they will always have those leaky holes. I see it in their restaurant, the lodge, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1:

And you know, whenever you get passionate about something and you're a person like me, you do really have to watch the response, because in my mind I'm sitting here going. How can you talk to people like this, how can you run your business like this? But the people at the top, they're absent, they have no idea those things are going on. So, again, you can't spit out data that says well, at two o'clock, judy talking to Brian right, make believe name Judy talking to Brian said this, this and that and that hurt our brand awareness later, costing us sales Like none of you can spit that kind of information out. But yet if you're not working on being a better leader and you're not working on uniquely training your team and all the things that we talk about on here, those holes exist everywhere in your business. You just don't know it.

Speaker 1:

Blind spot, blind spot, blind spot, blind spot. And and a lot of times these blind spots will come out when, when times are at their worst. You know if you're a somebody from a leadership standpoint, you know that that panics right. I said many times when, when the economy economy is still not great, but I think we're heading in the right direction, thank God, but it has been down for quite some time. I said many times the worst thing you can do in a down economy is spend money on advertising. You can't force people that don't have money to do Google searches. You can't force people that don't have money to pick up the phone and call you. You can't force that. What you can do is invest that money internally to make sure your conversion is as high as it possibly can be during the down economy. Make sure that you get as many referrals by teaching your team how to ask when to ask. What's that process right, as can be Like those things you can control, and if you're focusing on things that you can't control, that is a huge blind spot for a lot of you out there as well.

Speaker 1:

It's rejecting the feedback, focusing on the wrong things. Right, double down, doubling down on the wrong things to try to prove a point. So many of you do that out there too. I've seen it time and time again where you know you believe something isn't going to work and you go out and do it anyway just to prove it's not going to work. Right. I see it with remote monitoring, I see it with clear aligners. I see it in people's lives, their careers. I see it with remote monitoring. I see it with clear aligners. I see it in people's lives, their careers. I see it all the time and there's just these blind spots that exist and they usually creep up and they usually come out when times are at its worst. It's just like your leadership flaws are always gonna come out when the business is doing crappy instead of really well, like anybody can lead when things are going great, right, it's when times are tough and the business is suffering from a revenue standpoint or whatever it may be. Right, that's when great leaders shine and so many of you out there, you don't shine when you're needed the most and it's unfortunate and that's what you know.

Speaker 1:

With my, with my blind spot, what I should have done is just taken a deep breath, you know, said, hey, look just what I teach, right, use empathy, right. Like she may have been having a bad day, gotten a fight with her boyfriend, having financial problems. What I should have done is taken a deep breath and I say you know what, let me just inside my head, that is, let me go get stephanie. Explain this situation to stephanie. Let stephanie handle it. Our director of client experiences, let her handle it. Or david martin was there, who runs social media for us and all of our customers. Uh, you know, go to eric, my, my coo with new patient group and say, hey, here's what's going on. You guys go handle this, because it's not something as a ceo I should be handling anyway. Sometimes when I do, this is what happens.

Speaker 1:

But you know we all have them and you know another one of mine out there is sometimes that I take out my frustrations on the people that love me the most, like my wife God bless her. I mean this is podcasts I have in the future. I actually have some planned guests on about this in the future. But you know, many years ago or many seasons ago, I did one of my favorite podcasts we've ever done and we still get tremendous feedback with people who are like, hey, this really helped my relationship, helped my business.

Speaker 1:

But I did a podcast called Growing your Business While Strengthening your Marriage and it talks about these little acts, these little drips of love, right, these consistent drips. They don't need to be a lot, but they just need to be consistent. You know, every week, and when you focus on that in a relationship it really makes it strong and those things typically they start to go away. Right, all the little drips and acts of love that happen all the time when, when newly married or newly dating, right, those become annoyances a lot of times as and you stop speaking each other's love language and all the stuff. And again, if you're just consistent with it, just like with your business. You just have to be consistent with things, and if you are, it creates a tremendous, tremendous impact, a beautiful impact, if you will. And and it's the same thing with with what I'm with what I'm talking about here is that and I forget this sometimes is that you know the people that love you the most.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we're the rudest too, like we would never say something to a stranger that we would say to sometimes, our best buddy or a friend, a colleague in this case, my wife and she loves me to death. She's my biggest fan and she's seen the ups and downs over the course of the years and she gets frustrated at the things. I get frustrated too. The things like why can't you see this, everybody, the problems that are staring at you? There's easy solutions for them if you would just invest in them. And sometimes you can't see the problems, like I'm talking about. The data doesn't show all the leaky holes, but you know, sometimes I'll take out my frustrations if things aren't going the way I want them to be, or I'm pissed off at something or whatever it is. You know, instead of understanding she's my biggest fan, is just there to help.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, you know, I get frustrated and grumpy and then say something I shouldn't. And you know that that's a blind spot that I have in our relationship. You know that that's a life you know blind spot and you know you know so. It's just like a lot of you out there. If you're frustrated in a relationship, it can affect your career, it can affect your leadership skills and I'm I'm by no means, you know, I'm very thankful for the relationship I had. She's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. So there's not frustrations there, I'm just talking about, you know. If I'm just talking about, if there is for you out there, you've got to really understand how that blind spot, if you can correct it, is going to help you when you show up happier to work as an employee. Or it's going to help you be a better leader, as an entrepreneur, a better visionary and and and things like that.

Speaker 1:

And I think another challenge that that many of us have many of you have I have, even though I teach this for a living a lot of times it's hard to put your finger on it is, again, it's never about one thing, and you know as an umpire in professional baseball. So if you take the ones in the majors which I wasn't in the majors, otherwise I still would be. I was in the minors. What I'm about to describe happens less every every level down. So like it happens less to the major leaguers than it does the AAA umpires, it happens the AAA guys less than it does the AA guys, the single A guys, college on down, and I still. So tunnel vision is what I'm going to dive into now. Teach a quick lesson here we're going to wrap it up. So I still teach NCAA umpire camps. High school as well even had some and even some little league stuff. I don't really have time to do any of them anymore, but I was on. So Clint Fagans his name he was a major league umpire for well was on his training staff. We used to do stuff at baseball USA in Houston and things like that.

Speaker 1:

And tunnel vision when you're working with people behind the plate and teaching them how to be exceptional behind the plate, tunnel vision is a is a big reason that you can go into slump as an umpire. If you've ever seen a situation where it was an obvious strike I'm talking like right down the middle watching a game on TV and the umpire balls it or it was an obvious ball and the umpire right, hands it and strikes it, and you're sitting there going. How in the hell could that possibly happen? Well, the answer is tunnel vision, and it's a real thing, and it even happens to the players as well. But so what it is and what they teach you as an umpire, is that you want to have a relentless focus on the release point of the pitcher right Now.

Speaker 1:

This is sometimes easier said than done. Just like a hitter, right, there are some pitchers where it's hard to pick up the release point and the hitter can't pick up the ball until it's halfway to home plate. Those pitchers are obviously, even if they don't throw as hard, obviously harder to hit than the people that you can pick up the release point from 60 feet, 60 inches away, right when they release it. Those guys are going to be easier to have success against the ones you can't pick up the ball. Well, just like a hitter, as an umpire, it's the same way, right, if you're picking up the ball halfway to the plate, yet, you're going to have less success of getting that pitch called right.

Speaker 1:

So you have a relentless focus on the release point and then you create a journey. You're spotting it with your eyes, right, you're not moving your body, you're not moving your head, you're moving your eyes and you're literally trying to slow it down as much as you can, which is hard at 98 miles per hour with insane movement. I wish everybody understood how fast that comes from 60 feet six inches. It is really really fast. So you're kind of pinpointing, trying to slow down every peak of movement and following that all the way into the catcher's mitt.

Speaker 1:

Well, sometimes what you run into is a situation called tunnel vision, and tunnel vision is you have such a relentless focus on the release point that you keep staring at it even as the ball travels and ends up in the mitt right. So you never see it. And this is real because the higher levels you go, the more the pitches move. So this would hurt you in little league, but it's going to kill you in the majors right, or any pro level for that matter, and sometimes in single and double a. You know where I called right, those are the pitchers that are throwing 99, but have no, I know no idea where it's going. And the majors, like they have control and everything. A lot of times you're getting a lot of high level talent that hasn't harnessed it and you know they'll throw one over the backstop and then one of the guy's head and then paint one at the knees on the on the corner right. Those are the ones you miss because the guy's all over the place.

Speaker 1:

So you're tracking the journey and you're going from release point all the way to catcher's mitt. Well, there's a path to that and I want all of you whether it's your relationship is struggling, whether you're not advancing your career and getting the promotions and making the money that you want to make, whether you be a business owner and sales are down, new patients are down, revenue is down, you're not taking any money home, whatever it may be. I want you to view that as the catcher's mitt right, and I want you to work backwards, meaning that there is a journey on why you are where you are. It is not about one thing and, as we blind spot in on this release point and we remain so focused on what we think is the problem that we can't take our eyes off it, when in reality, it's not the problem, it's all the other things that are involved with it, you have a conversion problem right, like there is a ton of things, like that's the end result of a bunch of stuff that is happening in front of it that is not going right. Right, your marketing, what happens you know after. You know the new patient phone call, what happens after the call and before they arrive, how they're greeted, digital workflow, exam processes, presenting money. They say let me think about it. You're pending treatment.

Speaker 1:

Follow-up with every business out there in any industry. That's a multi-million dollar loss, right? Following up with prospects, organizing it properly, text, email, phone, video, messaging, like that whole process how often do you follow up? How long do you follow up? It's a leaky hole for everybody out there. Many, again, many, can't feel it so they're not looking to fix it. Many can't feel it, so they're not looking to fix it. Obs for orthodontists listening out there You're so focused on the release point, you're so focused on the desire, you're so focused on the problem, you're so focused on your goal that you're completely ignoring the path and the journey into that catcher's mitt, all the things that it must take to achieve it, to achieve being a great umpire behind the plate, being able to break it down step by step, in slow motion, on how you're going to achieve it.

Speaker 1:

So many of you fall into that trap as a blind spot, a weakness, a vulnerability. It is hindering your progress, that you can see where you want to go but you absolutely cannot see the path to get there. You can see what you think is the problem and you ignore all the things that are going to take to make sure that problem dissipates into something that eventually can become your greatest asset. And again, the same philosophies, what you're trying to achieve in your life better relationship, right. Better relationship in your life. Better relationship, right, better relationship, more friends, better friends.

Speaker 1:

A big blind spot for many of you out there is you hang out with the wrong people and this is, you know, employees You're hanging out with. You know you're dating a scumbag that doesn't treat you right, doesn't help make you better. You're hanging out with people that are bringing you down. They're complainers, right, they blame everything else in life except for themselves Docs, business owners, other business owners we have out there. You're hanging out with people that complain about things, right, the price shoppers, all the industry changes and the corporations, all this stuff. Meanwhile, if you just took care of your blind spots, you could turn those into your greatest strength the down economy. You could be turned into your greatest strengths, price shoppers, more people opening up, more people doing Invisalign on your street All these things could be used to your unique advantage, but you choose to hang out with people that complain about them, bring you down.

Speaker 1:

It's a blind spot, could go on and on and on about this topic and if you get so focused on the problem, you are going to miss the path, the journey, all of these little things that you need to maneuver as that road to success is under construction. Right, you need to go in as society changes, the consumer changes. You need to go around these detours, right, as convenience becomes more important to people. Then you have to implement the new patient consult and you've got to do it really well, which you got to bootcamp, by the way, we can put that description whenever we come out with a registration link, I'll put that in the description below so you can get registered for it. But a really cool virtual consult boot camp coming up to kind of teach you the A to Z process on how to convert at the highest levels. You know all of you got to understand that there's a path that has happened to whatever problem that you have ended up with and, as you think that way. It really will allow you to map out the journey of what needs to happen for all of you to be successful.

Speaker 1:

You do not have to put more money into your marketing. You don't need to do it, guys. You need to identify all the spots. Right. If you need more new patients right? Part of that is making sure that your experiences are unexpected. Right, your team is trained on how to ask for more five-star Google reviews in a way that's going to make it happen. Right? Your referrals If you need more new patients, what's the best kind of customer you can get? It's a referral from another one. Right? Your conversion is going to be higher. You can charge a higher price usually, and your team's got to be trained how to ask for that in a very specific way. Your employees out there, guys. They don't know how to do this stuff.

Speaker 1:

This is a big part of what Iconic was just about. It was asking for five-star. When's the last time you went to a restaurant and a waiter asked you for a video testimonial or a five-star review? It never happens, right? Like to me, it's asinine that restaurant owners can't see that they're losing their ass in that part of their business because their people aren't trained how to ask. Do you know how many five-star reviews you could get a night by training your waiters how to properly ask at the right time? Look for you know specific signals the table is giving right. You would blow your five-star reviews up more than any marketing ever would just by training your waiters. And this is the same thing inside. This is why our NIST same thing inside orthodontics, dentistry, beyond right. But you don't think of these things and those are your blind spots.

Speaker 1:

Professionally, like employees, we had so much of life and career talk at Iconic, but it's the same thing. Right, if you can't pay your bills, right, then there are multiple reasons along the journey from decision making to you know gravity problems. You know problems that most people have, but, depending on the decision you make, the gravity problem can turn your life into crap or make it successful. Right, there are problems you gotta be aware of. That's a podcast for itself, but we talked heavily about those at Iconic because I'm passionate about it. But there's this journey that has put us all where we are and if we put our blinders on to these weaknesses that we have, these vulnerabilities that we can be susceptible to, it creates such a huge problem in our organizations and sometimes a huge problem again. We can't identify, like that group, orthodontic practice, right, it's staring them right in the face and they refuse to see it. And another company innovative enough wanted to prove it to them and we'll see what they say.

Speaker 1:

But we could do a mystery package to all of you that aren't customers, that listen, and I promise you your receptionist is going to blow it. You're either not going to answer the call, right. I bet you that if we mystery called your practice 10 times, you missed three of them, right, and I know that because of the data that we have. Like during regular business hours, and until you see something like that, it's hard to believe it. But this is the blind spots that all of you have, and I'm just using a phone front desk example today.

Speaker 1:

But this and I've referenced it throughout this podcast this is for everything across the board. It could be you're chaotic, but you won't use remote monitoring. Boom blind spot. You could be chaotic and you complain about it and you won't use remote monitoring because you say it's too expensive, like it's ridiculous. Listen to yourself. Like those are a couple of blind spots I just mentioned right there. Or you wait until this drives me nuts and it happens so many. I know it drives the company's nuts and it happens so much out there as well.

Speaker 1:

Is you wait? You'll just say I don't need remote monitoring now. Well, that means this is the perfect time to do it and if you use it right, you're going to get more new patients from it. If you promote it out on social media, have it on your website. If you know how your TC uses our exam processes, digital workflow processes, using remote monitoring as a sales tool to get people to buy from you in the first place, you're going to increase your conversion, and at a higher price. Because, again, people say they value convenience almost more than any other type of experience there is. The data is hardcore and it's not just for you know, amazon, it's across the fricking board, right. So if you're not using it and you know you're chaotic there's a blind spot. If you're not, if you're not using it because you don't think you need it yet, why in the world would you wait Like? This is so much why we're getting a bigger and bigger following of people that are new. Uh, you know our school falling residencies. Our listens are way up, because what we teach is is why the heck wouldn't you do this before.

Speaker 1:

You need to right being reactive. That's a blind spot and so many of us I mean as humans like we get fat, we try to lose weight. Our relationship goes to hell. We try to get to, we seek counseling, we lose money, we try to make money. We're such a reactive animal it's just crazy, which is a blind spot in itself.

Speaker 1:

So many of you out there are running a reactive practice instead of a proactive business. And again, this is the truth for restaurants, hotels, plumbers, lawyers, the list goes on and on. So many entrepreneurs out there, you are running reactive businesses and it's all because, well, it's too expensive. No, you're looking at it all wrong. Almost 90% of consumers say they would choose a business if they offered convenience. Others wouldn't, right. There's other studies that are in the 90s on I would remain with a business if they offered convenience, others would. But yet you're making people come in for OBS appointments Like what the hell is that Right? You don't have the new patient virtual console installed. I mean, what the hell is that Like? There are so many.

Speaker 1:

And this is why you know the success blueprint for the new economy is really what we're calling our program now, because every day there's new consumer, consumer data and we are all over it, and one of the reasons we're changing the name of the podcast we've got other announcements coming is because we're five years ahead of it and because of that we're teaching you on how to be five years ahead of it. I mean think 13 years ago when I founded this company, we were teaching a lot of this stuff you want to talk about out of the box and you're crazy. You know. Back then, think about how crazy we were. People probably thought we were, but as we've, you know, we teach a lot of the same stuff, but obviously it's developed, it's more forward thinking, it's changing, it's evolving, based on the consumer data. Now you can't argue it Like the data says do this, do it and do it really well.

Speaker 1:

But a lot of you out there won't. From new patient virtual consult to virtual, you know, going virtual with your obs to redefining pending treatment, to redefining the exam process, new patient, call your digital marketing your culture. From from making sure your leaders are always trying or always being trained, that that's another, and I'm probably going to break this off into a series, meaning that, as I see things. I can do a podcast about it, but a huge part of your blind spots out there are just your leadership skills or lack thereof, like this practice not being forward thinking enough to go. You know what, if we're going to do marketing, let's invest in making sure our people are trained to convert it right.

Speaker 1:

Major blind spot and so many of you out there wasting your money with pay-per-click companies, you know, wondering why you're not getting more business or more starts, or maybe you are happy with your starts, and that's a blind spot in itself too, because I know, based on what we do wherever you are out there, if you're happy, we could go and double you and quadruple your happiness. Right, because you still have these leaky holes everywhere. You just may be fortunate enough to overcome it right and still make what you want to make and take home what you want to take home. But from a leadership standpoint, culture standpoint, digital marketing standpoint, how you train your people just the list goes on and on professionally and also, like I said, with with the employees. You know rejecting feedback, not seeking coaching right, not wanting to face your fears and and wondering why. You know your dreams and aspirations. You always you know you may be getting closer to it, but it always seems every time you take three steps forward, you take two steps back, you know, or you take one step forward and two steps back and it's always like right there and you can't get it, because you know you're not facing your fears, you're afraid of rejection, you're afraid of change, you're afraid of guilt and one of the things we talked about at Iconic I see it with hourly employees all the time that sabotage their success because they're afraid to be more successful than their parents. And to some of you out there that may sound crazy, but it is a real thing, especially demographically, ethnicity, things like that. It is a real, real culture thing that exists with a lot of people and they may feel that not only guilty if they do better, they don't feel like they're worthy of it. And these are all reasons why I just love the life and career side of what we're developing this program into, because until the mindset of your team is right, it's really, really difficult to get ideas installed. It's really difficult to advance the business forward if the mindset of your team is not where it needs to be, and a lot of your teams just flat aren't. They have poor mindsets and that's developed from parents and just things in life and decisions they've made, and these are leaky holes. These are blind spots, vulnerabilities, weaknesses. That is hindering your employees' progress, just like you have blind spots that are hindering yours.

Speaker 1:

One of the things that I want all of you to do out there as an exercise is I want you to write down what your struggles are, and what I mean by that is. It could be sales, it could be new patients, it could be new customers, it could be high turnover, whatever it is. I want you to write down three. So I'm talking everybody out there, but I'm also talking to the docs, the business owners, the spouses that are coming to the event, because we're going to create a round table around this. So I want you to write down at least three it could be more, but at least three of your biggest headaches that exist right now. And then I want you to brainstorm all the things that you can think of that would impact that right Meaning one positively right All the different things you could do to impact that positively.

Speaker 1:

But first, before you do that, I want you to write down all the things that you could brainstorm that have caused that right, and I want you to do some self-reflecting, no matter how hard, this is right. And as you self-reflect, what you will find is is that once you write down one or two, you're gonna be able to write down a lot more. You're gonna write down more and more and more and more as you self-reflect these situations. So the beginning of this exercise is write down three of your biggest headaches high turnover, can't find good people to work, conversion sales, revenue, profit, cash flow and I want you to then write down the things, the journey, that have caused that to be a problem. And I want it to all be self-reflected, right.

Speaker 1:

I don't want you to put the economy right. The economy a bad one. That's a gravity problem. It happens to most people, right? And it's the decisions you're making that is going to get your business to grow during a down economy, right, so I don't want you to put a down economy. It has to be about you internally, right, it has to be about you internally. That's where this is going to get really hard, right? All the things that could affect it.

Speaker 1:

Then the next thing, the third one I'm talking about right now all the things that could affect it. If we change those things. How could we then turn that into a positive outcome? Right, in addition to this, I want you to write down three blind spots that you have personally. Okay, I also want you to do this exercise with your team and team members. You're going to write down three blind spots that you have in your career, right? So, let's say, you want to make more money, you're frustrated, you're not making more money. I want you to write down all the things that you could brainstorm that are why you're not making more money. But it has to be about you All. Right, this is a tough one, right? So this is really a a kind of a four or five step exercise, if you will, based on the things that I just said.

Speaker 1:

Right now, I'll describe it down and below in the in the description below. But again, one write down at least three frustrations. You have Sales are down, high turnover, you know culture suffering, whatever it is. One right. You're chaotic, whatever it is. That's one. Two, right, I want you to write down a bunch of stuff, brainstorm all the things, right, that are the causes of that, but they have to relate back to you, right?

Speaker 1:

You cannot say my conversions down because my treatment coordinator sucks, right, my sales are down because my VP of sales sucks. Right. If they suck if you hired them, that's a perfect blind spot. Okay, it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You're the one that hired them. Okay, so there could be a flaw in your hiring process. Is an example? Right, my new patients are down. You can't say your marketing sucks, right, it's got, unless my marketing sucks because I am not producing enough good, organic content to engage people online. That I'll take right could be. My new patients are down because I haven't seen enough value in making sure my team is trained on how to ask for referrals. Right, if I had been doing that my team has been highly trained in that over the course of the last 10 years I would have had a lot more new patients. Right, that's an example of my new patients. Is a frustration. Right, it's because of me not seeing enough value in getting them trained on how to ask. If I would train them how to ask, we could increase our new patients through patient referrals. Right, that's how this exercise is going to work.

Speaker 1:

Right, these are identifying your blind spots and, again, like I also said, I also want you to do this personally. This could be a relationship thing, right, like I admitted, like sometimes I get frustrated at the people that love me most, even though they love me and they're my biggest fan. Right, that is a thing that has caused issues in the past. Right, if I look in the mirror and I really work on making sure I don't react that way, right, things are going to get better. Right, this is a look in the mirror to identify your blind spots, your weaknesses and your vulnerabilities, and this is not going to be easy. This is intentional to try to get you to be uncomfortable, intentional to make you look in the mirror, and it's intentional to help you transform your life, career and business. I hope you loved everything today.

Speaker 1:

Blind spots are real. Everybody, we all have them. It's whether or not we choose to identify them and that's how you're going to identify them through that exercise, when everybody to do that. It's going to create a great round table discussion at this year's mastermind. I'm going to see everybody there in Scottsdale, arizona, here in well, next week, at the end of next week, looking forward to it. I hope everybody does these exercises out there and everybody listen to me, advertising is not your problem, all right. The problem is you and your team that's the problem. If you reshape those, reimagine those, reinvent things that have always been the same, think outside the box, do what we teach on here, you're going to crush it, crush it, crush it. Thanks everybody, and, as always, please give us a thumbs up there on YouTube, make some comments, share this with friends, colleagues, family or anybody looking to transform their life, career and or business. Same with audio experience listeners, write us a five-star review. It'll mean a lot. And until next time, everybody, we'll see you soon. Bye-bye.