Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest Michael Burt - Mastering Lead Generation and Sales Systems in Dental Practice: Insights into Personal Branding, Purpose-Driven Goals, and the Power of Effective Follow-Up
Are you constantly facing the challenge of generating leads and tracking them effectively in your dental practice? Hold on to your seat because this episode is jam-packed with strategies you can't afford to miss. Coach Michael Burt, a leading expert in sales systems, walks us through creating captivating showcase events, webinars, and the art of using a sales system to keep tabs on leads. He also emphasizes the crucial role of personal branding for dentists, and the concept of self-awareness in defining your financial goals. Buckle up, as we take a deep look into the concept of maturing and evolving with age.
Shifting focus, we tackle head-on the intriguing interplay between money, purpose, and self-awareness in business. Let's face it; setting clear goals is vital to propel you towards success, but how about having a purpose? And where does money fit in all these? Coach Burt beautifully weaves these complex elements together, highlighting how money can serve as a tool to accomplish goals. We get down to the nitty-gritty of understanding cash flow and revenue. Plus, we unveil the harsh realities of hard work, success, and the pursuit of joy and happiness in your work.
In our final segment, we delve into the significance of sales team training and the power of follow-up in dental practices. Coach Burt guides us on how to train your sales team in the six steps of the sale. But that's not all. Learn the secret sauce to following up appropriately and converting leads effectively. We also help you identify and seal any gaps in your current sales process to maximize the leads you generate. As we wrap things up, Coach Burt lets us in on his valuable resources and the incredible value of self-investment and self-development. So, don't wait another minute, tune in, and reap these insights and more!
It's, you know what we can do to maximize the potential of a dentist in our conversation and we're talking about the sales funnel and I want to take a little deeper dive into the sales funnel. At the top of the funnel, we're talking about how to build value and how to manage the leads. You want to touch on that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Well, the way we generate leads is, you know, we generate about 3,000 leads every 90 days and it's because I came from an athletic world. Everything was, you know, statistical probability and the number of people we need to go through to drive people in. So we do showcase events, which allows us to showcase our talents to people. We do webinars, we do virtual events, we do strategic partnerships. You know we do marketing and advertising, but a lot of it is still me generating leads through some type of, you know, showcase, whether it be speaking engagements, whether it be webinars, whether it be, you know, me showing people what I can actually do to help them. And then that comes into our sales team. We track all of that and go high level and then our sales team goes through, we divide those leads up and our sales team goes through those leads to recognize who is serious and who's not serious.
Speaker 2:We have a very specific sales system where we put people into categories everything from the hit list to the farm club, to the red zone, to the top 25, to net promoters and then we work those leads to their conclusion until we help them make a decision. And you know, something you said earlier got me thinking about the dentist is the word close means to bring two things together. It means to bring something to an end, and I believe that I cannot deliver on my service or help people really transform their lives unless they make a decision to move forward. You know, and, and I think certain things open the mind and certain things change the life. So, in my world, I think the speaking engagement opens the mind, the coaching program changes the life.
Speaker 1:That's. You know. The challenge is the. In essence, what you're saying is you are the brand right and you being in front, your face, your name, being in front of people is what drives the leads. Well, try explaining that to a doctor. To say that you are the brand, your name and your credentials and your skills is how you're going to brand yourself to bring in the leads. The, that organic concept for them is really non existent in most doctors. The way they drive is either through internal referrals the main driver for them is marketing dollars. Maybe they're in a small community, but being in San Diego, you know we play the big game right, we're in the big leagues. We're not in some rural city, you know, with 100 miles of no dentist around. So branding is a very important integral part of this, this value building process. How can, how can a dentist overcome and fully understand, or can they?
Speaker 2:If they have a desire. I think if they understand the importance of being a person of interest. See, see most big companies. A lot of people say, well, I don't want to brand myself, I want the company to be branded Like I have businesses that are not branded around me. The greatness factory I'm building in downtown Nashville is a $7 million project. It's not branded around me. It's a cool place to work, it's a cool place to learn, it's a cool place to grow. It's got theater, podcast studios. I mean we could scale those around the country without them branded on me. Successful, that we do for kids is not branded around me.
Speaker 2:But most organizations of interest start with people of interest and Amazon, jobs and Apple, musk and Tesla, and so you know it's it's it's like the founder or the creators are the people who have the genius to build these and they become known and the more known they become, the more opportunity they get, just like doing podcasts. You know part of what I do to become known in the world is podcast speaking engagements. No-transcript. It doesn't mean that I enjoy doing all of those things. I mean there's certain things I enjoy, there's certain things I don't enjoy. You know we get about 20 podcast requests a week.
Speaker 2:I do probably less than 20% of the podcast, but I understand the importance of this, is a way for people to get to know you and it's really a showcase. So for the dentist, it first starts with I have a desire to grow. I almost think the same thing about chiropractors that I've worked with. There's some chiropractors that are entrepreneurially minded and they're like man, I want to grow and have hundreds of these places around the country. I've coached some of those people and some are like no man, this is what I do and I have no desire to do that. So it really starts with a desire. It then moves to a humility who can help me, and then it kind of moves to getting in the arena with someone who can show you how to become a person of interest.
Speaker 1:Can I take a step back here? Because one word that really stands out for me and Gary V talks about this a lot too is self-awareness. How much money is enough? I mean, we talk about self-awareness and you talk about your $7 million facility and $60,000 of rent. When is enough enough? I mean one of the things that doctors are. We're interesting people as general dentists in California. If you're making over $250,000, you're doing pretty well, and if somebody is making $280,000, they're not happy Because they feel like they should be making $500,000. Because Dr X, y, z across the street and three blocks down are driving nicer cars and living in bigger homes. So then you put yourself in that judgment position and you evaluate well, gosh, maybe I'm when. That awareness is so key because that brings you so much peace and comfort, when you're comfortable with who you are. And I think as you age you kind of grow into it. I'm 55. So you grow into that comfort of not giving a damn what anybody thinks. But how much is enough?
Speaker 2:Well, I think this is all relative to the size of your purpose. See, you got to remember. I was a high school basketball coach. I made $60,000 a year. I worked 80 hours a week. I loved every second of it. I didn't even think about money. I mean at all never. I never talked about monetization, I never asked for more money, I really never even thought about it, as crazy as it is.
Speaker 2:And then I started this business and the first thing I recognized was in year one. I remember my accountant coming to me and she said you lost I don't know what it was $50,000, $35,000, $75,000. And I'm like there's no way I lost money. I mean, I went out and worked my butt off and she's like well, you don't understand revenue, you don't understand cash flow, you don't understand how much money you spent, you don't understand any of these things. So the money to me, is a tool to use for the purpose.
Speaker 2:So I had a vision in 2016 to build greatness factories, and there's a lot of reasons I want to do that. One is to it's the next evolution for me to take coaching to another level, to build these cool commercial real estate places. And what I figured out when I built. The first one is just how expensive it is to build something that big. It's only 8,000 square foot, but the build out's $3 million because it's so cool and it's so unique and it's got all these features. So I look at money like that, like hey, we need more money to fulfill this purpose.
Speaker 2:I don't look at it. I do have a jet, but I look at that as I have three kids, three young kids. I've been on the road this year I think about 105 dates where I've been in hotel rooms away from my kids and the jet really was a utility to get me somewhere and give me home so I could see my kids in the morning, because my wife's like man, when are you going to stay our kids? I know I have to go on the road to do this. I get that I need to go around the country, just like an artist does, but I don't look at it like I didn't get the jet for Instagram.
Speaker 2:I got it so I could literally fly somewhere and go home Now. So when you ask me how much is enough, it's like how big is the purpose? How big is the goals? How many people do you want to help? And it's going to require a lot of money if you want to help a lot of people. Now, if you don't want to help a lot of people, it's not going to require a lot of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the thing I mean. On social channels and on these dental channels, on social media, there's some doctors that are doing amazing things, they're doing amazing numbers, that are having amazing lifestyles. But if you really look at it, you know there's so many dentists that are watching that and going. I should do that, but they don't want to really do that because you know to your point, their purpose is just not as big as theirs, right, you know, and their, their goals and aspirations just isn't as big. So, be comfortable, being comfortable in your own skin. Right Now we use the word comfort and then, you know, everybody talks about you got to be uncomfortable to get comfortable. You know all that, you know. So I'm using it in a different context here. But but yeah, I mean, if you're doing as a general dentist, we're doing $250,000, $300,000 a year. That's pretty damn good money.
Speaker 2:Be happy with that.
Speaker 1:You just have to learn how to be disciplined and you know it's a little different than if you're doing 600 or 900 or 1.5. But as a general practitioner man you're you're by license in California is 280,000 is an average. You're doing well if you're making that kind of money, if you're in the 90 or 150,000 range and you're a single mom you're working part time. That's pretty good money. So you know, keep maintain the relativity of you, know how you're looking at the outside and and what your purpose is. So I think it's really important, as we talk about all these different angles, that you really have clear self awareness. Clear self awareness of what's going to internally make you happy.
Speaker 2:And again.
Speaker 1:That might be a process in itself. I mean, many times maybe, as a coach, to find you know the individual's purpose. You have to go through that period first to say, well, do you want to work 80 hour weeks, do you want to be on the road, you know, 300 days a year? What is? What is the lifestyle that you want? And so I'm assuming at some level at the beginning you kind of get into those discussions as well.
Speaker 2:That's why I wrote the book from A to B. You know, a to B came after Flip the Switch and in between me signing major publishing deals. I self-published books that I really use for my students. But I use an exercise literally called from A to B. You can see it right there, and A is your current position and B is your desired outcome, and you would be shocked. So that book is really 15 chapters, 16 chapters of just asking hard questions.
Speaker 2:What are you trying to do? What brings you joy and happiness? What is your B goal? Is it that your passive income is greater than your living expenses? See, I'm very clear in my B goals. My business is doing this much revenue. I'm operating on this profit margin.
Speaker 2:We live at our house in Florida, you know, 90 days out of the year. I see my kids this much. Me and my wife spend three nights a month with each other. To she and I, my passive income is greater than my living expenses. I fly private everywhere I go, you know, to avoid the emotional tax. I mean, I'm pretty clear in what I want. Then it's like how do I structure the business to help me get there?
Speaker 2:But one of the B goals is I'm happy man. I'm happy. I enjoy what I do. I go where I feel celebrated, not tolerated. I, you know, I've structured the business in a way to only do three things that I love doing every day. So you would be shocked at how that simple exercise of A to B and I actually do it every single day. You know, one of my coaches was Sullivan, dan Sullivan and strategic coach, and he wrote down what he wanted for 25 years. He said he only missed 12 days. He became an expert at writing down what he wanted and the more he wrote it down right, the more it programs a subconscious mind. There's a lot of things there, but but I literally do the exercise A to B on a consistent basis pretty much every day.
Speaker 1:So let's you know, just define what we've understood here so far in our discussion. Self-awareness is individualized. You have to customize it to your individual self and don't listen to the noise on the outside that could potentially change over time, right? I mean just like you have over the last 20 years and you know where you are today and you might change in five or 10 years, right, we don't know. Um, so that's number one. Number two if you're a dentist and you have a business, you need to build value. Value is your face, is your name.
Speaker 1:You got to get out into the community to build organic leads, and organic traffic takes consistency. It's a slower process, it takes time. It's not going to get the phone ring right away, but you have to stay committed to the cause and that's really important to understand long term in your community of five or six zip codes. You've got to become the expert. Most dentists aren't doing it. You want to be the competitive edge, get in front of people in your community. Um, so that's number two. So now we're in to the lead part of our funnel, if you don't mind, kind of just walking us through this. So now the leads are coming in, whether they're coming in through organically or you're they're coming in through Facebook ads or Google ads. What's next for a dental practice? What? How do they manage these leads? What are they supposed to do? And tell me a little bit about how you get that lead and that butt in the chair.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and this is this is actually where, um, I think a lot of people struggle, and they're I apologize, they're apparently vacuuming outside and all the way.
Speaker 2:Um, this is where people are not trained and not coached. See, I, because of my coaching background, I take everything and break it down, everything from how we initiate a phone call, how we connect with people, how we locate their problem or ambition, how we explain our value, how we invite them to take an action, and then how we qualify their commitment and see with my people, when they're not selling, I can go hey, tell me where you're breaking down in the six steps of the sale, and they'll say, well, I didn't qualify the sale, or I did a poor job of explaining the value, or I didn't locate the ambition. I've literally broken it down like that Okay, then that initiates, if they don't take action there, that initiates a seven touch followup. And that's from a book I wrote called million dollar followup. Um, where, where they keep bringing value to help a person make a decision, okay, and um, you know I even think about Dennis that I've gone to that, made recommendations and then nobody followed up and then you know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I'm like it's such a missing structure here. It's like hey, you're the expert, you know, follow up and bring this to a close. And, and I said and so I just think, I think many times there's a lot of missing structure there, which equates to leaving money on the table. The followup is not good, the, the, the people who are making the calls how fast? I mean, I took over a sales team not long ago and that haven't sold anything in I don't know a long time. This is a real estate sales team. The first thing I noticed is they were generating 250 leads on the weekends and, uh, it was taking between nine and 51 hours to call those leads back. They had never been coached in the six steps of the sale. They had never been coached in how to follow up properly. They had never been coached in conversion or closing. Within within 90 days, we had generated $858,000 of sales with me taking over that sales team. Well, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1:Here's problem number one for Dennis right, the lead comes in, it doesn't go to a sales team. We don't have a sales team, Okay. So we we are not structured, Our business is not structured To have the leads go to a sales team. So the first thing I tell doctors is whatever lead you get has to go to a sales person. Yeah Well, what is a sales person? It's typically an office manager, a second uh, assistant front desk assistant that answers the phone, or a treatment coordinator that you know picks up the phone, that's in scrubs trying to clean the hygiene room.
Speaker 1:There is no dedicated sales person or sales team in a dental business structure. So that's a huge red flag and this is one of the things that's that, conceptually, is in the in the 2023 era of dentistry. You need to have a sales team, yes, you need to have a sales team, and then, to your point, you need to train the sales team. So I think this is this is a really important point. So I think this is a great area of value for you, Michael.
Speaker 1:In our profession is is, if a doctor is sold on the idea that they have to build a value, they have to create organic or inorganic leads. When those leads come in has to go to a sales team and then that's when you can come in and really bring a lot of value to say, all right, well, let's go over the six steps, let's evaluate these leads and let's get the sale. Yes, let's get the close. So Brad Lee, I think, said you know, selling dentistry is kind of like hey Michael, you need a crown, you say yes. Closing dentistry is hey Michael, you need a crown, you say no. And I get you to say yes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Um, so you know, whether you sell dentistry or you close on dentistry, you need somebody trained specifically to handle those leads, and I think that's a huge flaw in our, in our business structure. Yeah, um, so that's you know. Hopefully somebody's listening and say, bang, and this is all on X doctors that we talked about earlier. Right, they have that structure. They hire people that come in these, these corporate entities. They're highly hiring sales teams, they're hiring lead managers to screen and then they're spitting those leads that have been screened into the sales team to funnel it in, and then it's the sales team that sells. You don't sell your out, yeah Well, if our office manager doesn't, we don't even know how many calls we get. We don't know how many leads we get. We don't know how many opportunities we've missed. We don't know where it's all coming from. It's just a shit show. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:It's. That's a huge problematic area in our business and a lot of money gets wasted in inefficient inefficient dollars being wasted there. Yes, it's a big problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because even if you generate the leads and you turn the leads over to, you know, just take the case of this team that I took over, they were generating 250 leads. They were just handing the leads off to what I would call low-pray drive you know, unskilled people which in essence was just wasting the money on the marketing. So in a short period of time, just with a little bit of training and a little bit of initiating the prey drive in this sales team I mean, you know, 858,000 in contracts in 90 days when they'd gone six months without selling anything. Now I may, after 90 days, go.
Speaker 2:Hey, we don't have the right people. We need to churn out this team and bring in hungrier people, and that's a form of what I would call venture coaching for me. In that particular case, I asked for 12% of every sale. They're selling a $250,000 product, so it's roughly 30,000 per sale to me. So I have enough incentive to take it serious and really get those people going, because, you know, four sales a month and extra 120,000 to me. So so I look for opportunities like that where I can really bring my skill setting in. They can make a lot more money and I can make a significant amount of money there.
Speaker 1:Sure, so let's let's finish up here. But I want to just talk about. So now let's say what the sale happens, or the close happens. Talk to me a little bit about follow up, and then we'll we'll finish up with a couple of thoughts.
Speaker 2:Well, there's, there's follow up. When I wrote the book million dollar follow up I wrote the book out of frustration. I just watch how people follow up and it just irritated me and I started asking myself are they, are they ignorant or do they not know that they should follow up? So problem one is it's like they they have, they don't have an awareness. There's that word again that they should be following up. They don't really know the percentages of follow up, which is typically seven to 15 touches. Then they don't know how to follow up to bring value.
Speaker 2:The purpose of the follow up is to help a person make a decision, which means to cut away. The decision means to cut away. Decide means to kill off. So to make a decision, I need information, I need coaching, I need direction, I need benefits, I need show me how this is going to move me toward my big goals, build a bridge for me. So I wrote that book and I said look, there's two problems People don't go the distance in the follow up.
Speaker 2:Problem one and problem two is they don't know how to properly follow up and there's follow up before, during and after the sale and the first follow up is when you have an interested person, you've qualified their commitment, they're serious about doing this. That initiates a seven touch follow up to help them make a decision. Then most studies show that 98% of people do not follow up after the transaction is over or whatever. Whatever the service is delivered, and and and that's where all the referrals are, you know if each person should be worth 5.7 referrals. You refer people you think about. You refer people that's at the top of your mind. You refer people that bring significant value to you, and so there needs to be an engagement after the sale that keeps people engaged so that you pick up the referrals after the sale. So there's a lot of money lost in every business before, during and after and follow up.
Speaker 1:You know we hear no a lot of times and then the patient goes in our database or I have to think about her. I want to talk to my husband. Whatever it is, after five, 10 years we end up with a pretty large bankroll in our database that's just sitting there. How do you reactivate, what are a couple of strategies to reactivate your lead list or your, your warm list of people that you've touched at some level in the digital game, that have opted in and to your business in the in the digital world, that have actually walked into your business and you've met? How do you reactivate that?
Speaker 2:I think it has to do with the way I do. It is is by creating various products and services at various price points. So I've had people say to me I saw you two years ago, I've been following you for two years and then you came out with a product that did this, or you came out with a Memorial Day sale or a Labor Day sale or right. I mean, we had a woman just a few weeks ago said I saw you speak. I kind of put it over there, but I followed you. You came out with a Memorial Day sale. I took it for I don't know $9.99, $9.97, and then she turned around and invested $50,000 for me to be her coach within just a very short period of time, and so that's an example of it working like just a frequency, just constantly coming up with new strategies.
Speaker 2:I do a lot of webinars free webinars, low-ticketed webinars we actually did about 2.5 million in revenue in 2022 and virtual events, and that was a totally new strategy. It came out of COVID. I started doing virtual events because I couldn't speak in person. It actually turned out to be very lucrative. We hired a company out of Houston that ran the events, did all the promotions, wrote all the emails. I showed up to do the coaching and then we offered them to go deeper in a coaching program and it generated 2.5 million more dollars for our business and really a new line of business. But it also generated thousands of leads and people came in at $47, $97, $197, and then they took in some cases $15,000 to $75,000 coaching packages on the back end of that.
Speaker 1:So, basically, get creative with your services, offer some promotions and try to reignite the inactivity on the patients that have walked into your business. For example, free bleaching, free cleaning or a discounted service of if you offer smile makeovers, give a discount off of your total package, so to speak. Yeah, those are great suggestions. On doctors that are sitting on a database of 5,000 patients and are wondering, hey, how can I get them excited about coming back to my practice? The other thing that I recommend is touching them on a regular basis 18 month cycles. You wanna send them quarterly newsletter newsletters or monthly newsletters and go on video so they can see you in those newsletters and you can have some interaction with them directly that way as well.
Speaker 1:A lot of times that creates a conversation when they come back into your office and say, hey, I saw you on the newsletter talking about periodontal disease or talking about whatever service and I didn't really realize that it was like that, or at least it instigates conversation. And then you have to have the communication skills, which I think is a huge component in what we do is having communication skills all the way, from top to bottom, in anything you do in dentistry, to continue that conversation and keep the patient intrigued and interested. Michael, I appreciate being one of the four or five podcasts you do on a weekly basis. So thank you, sir, for giving us your time. I think there's tremendous value in something in this hour that we've talked how can people get ahold of you and what are ways that they can reach out to your services they go to coachbirdcom, which shows a lot of things.
Speaker 2:we do the boot camps, I do the coaching programs I do, obviously, I'm heavily promoting the Greatness Factory in Nashville, which is a really state-of-the-art place. You can work, learn, grow, connect. I say it's where inspiration meets execution and there's gonna be all kinds of cool programs there masterminds, high end masterminds, concepts of exchange where people can be in groups, where they can really exchange a lot of business, and so that's thegreatnessfactorycom and both those places. You can reach out to me if there's something you wanna do with me.
Speaker 1:And then how do they get ahold of you on Instagram?
Speaker 2:Just at Michael Burt and it is spelled a little bit different M-I-C-H-E-A-L is how my mother spelled my name and so search coach Michael Burt, make sure it's the right one and direct message me on Instagram. I try to get back to all my messages or one of my team members will get back to that, but I try to personally get back to a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Well, that's how you got back to me and that's how this all came about, so I really appreciate it, michael, for doing this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to.
Speaker 1:England. We will definitely stay connected and I think there's a lot of value in what you provide. I talk a lot about self-investing in yourself, and self-development is part of that investing process, and it all really starts with you, and I think you take a deep dive into finding people's purpose, and I think that's where the main value is in anything that we do. So, michael, thank you so much for your time today.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thanks for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Great, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, I tell you what doctors that was a great hour Listening to coach Michael Burt talk about what you need to do in your practice. Now it's just a matter of you taking the right steps, creating the habits, creating the discipline, creating the awareness and the clarity you need in order to achieve your goals and find your purpose. I appreciate your time today. We had a double header today, jorge Contreras. We talked about the Airbnb's and arbitrage and real estate investing, and then we finished it off today with coach Michael Burt. I'm Dr Shaheen Safarian at Shaheen's Corner, got a great November coming up. I should say great October coming up, with a couple of special guests. So stay tuned, stay connected. Follow me at Dr DR Shaheen Safarian on Instagram, and I'm on the other channels as well Facebook and LinkedIn as well. For now, thank you so much, until next time.