The New Patient Goldmine Most Practice Owners Ignore with Michael Arias

One strategy. An almost infinite ceiling. And most of your competitors aren't willing to do it.

In this episode, founder of The Dental Marketer Michael Arias breaks down the no-cost strategy he calls ground marketing. You'll learn what it actually takes to get results, from the exact scripts to use with local businesses to how to identify the person on your team built to run it.

Topics discussed:

• The REAL framework that makes ground marketing actually work
• What most people get wrong about ground marketing
• The apartment complex playbook
• What to say when you walk into a new business
• How to work events and fill your signup sheet
• The locations most owners overlook
• Traits the person in charge needs to have
• The mindset shift that helps you overcome rejection

Connect with Michael Arias:
https://thedentalmarketer.org/

Listen to The Dental Marketer podcast:
https://thedentalmarketer.site/podcast

This episode was produced by Podcast Boutique https://www.podcastboutique.com

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Transcript

Why Marketing Is Not Working

Paul Etchison 0:02

Do you ever feel like you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing to get the new patients? But it just doesn't change anything. It's not moving the needle the way that you thought it would. You spent the time, you got the website dialed in, you're running the ads, you cleaned up your reviews, you're making sure you're asking for more, but you're still sitting there and thinking, I don't have enough new patients. What else is there? Because at some point it starts to just feel like you're throwing more money at the same strategies, hoping something clicks, but nothing is working. And the most frustrating part is there are people all around your office that are looking for a new dentist, living there, working there, shopping there, and they don't even know who you are. So today in this interview, we're gonna talk about how you can think differently about getting new patients. I'm talking about going further than just spending more money on ads. I'm talking about engaging in your community and doing it in a way that is easy for your team. We're gonna be talking about how you can become the person in your community that everybody knows, trusts, and remembers. Because sometimes the answer, it's not another external ad campaign. Sometimes you got to get out of the office and start building real relationships with the people that are right around you. You are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we teach you how to build a practice that's more profitable, more efficient, and gives you more control over your time. Now, I'm your host, Dr. Paul Etchison. I'm a dentist, I'm a coach, a two-time author, and the owner of a multi-doctor practice in the south suburbs of Chicago. And today I'm joined by the dental marketer, Michael Arias, who's built a name for himself in dentistry around something that he termed ground marketing. And he is exactly the person I refer my dental clients to when they've tried all the other things and they still need more new patients. So he is the resource on this. And I assure you, if you do what he tells you to do, you are going to reap the rewards. And man, can you ever gain some momentum from it. All right, let's dive in. Hey, Mike, so glad to have you back on the podcast. I always enjoy having you on, and I always enjoy listening to your podcast as well. Now, you have built this reputation in the dental community around ground marketing, which is a term that you have coined yourself. You invented the term ground marketing. So before we dive into how to ground market, I think we should start with like, what is ground marketing? Like, if someone's never heard that term, what are we even talking about here?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, thank you for having me on, by the way, Paul. I really, really appreciate it. Absolutely coming on. Yeah, ground marketing is honestly, if you ever heard of guerrilla marketing, here's the thing. A lot of the times we think it's like, okay, we're gonna go introduce ourselves, say hi to a ton of businesses around us, drop off things, and then, you know, you hope that they come back and call you. And it's sometimes they're great interactions. Sometimes they're like, oh my gosh, I need a dentist. Yeah, I'll give you a call. And you walk back in the office and you're like, man, that felt great. This is incredible. That's not ground marketing, right? That's just you dropping stuff off and hoping for the best. But ground marketing is very more sophisticated and strategical in the sense of like, hey, you need results. You need names and numbers when you come back, cheeks in seats. That's the result, right? So it's more of a sophisticated way of going to these locations and coming back with results. That's what I would say ground marketing is. I know Google tells you that I've said it many times in the past, like really, really better ways and definitions. But to me, that's in my mind, I've always thought of it that way. Where if, for example, I'll give you an example. Like, if I'm walking into, I don't know, what like what's the nearest business near you right now?

Paul Etchison 3:41

Guys, I'm gonna say grocery store. That's just what's Meyer. I love Meyer. I'll go there all the time.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Is that a grocery store?

unknown 3:48

Okay.

Paul Etchison 3:48

I'm laughing at the things like that. I can't wait to tell my wife that like he asked me like the closest thing by me and I said Meyer, because she's like, My area you always at Meyer. I'm like, I just like to go to Meyer. I don't know. It's like a Walmart. Yeah.

What Ground Marketing Really Means

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah. Okay. So for example, right? You walk into you walk into Meyer. And a lot of the times we think like, okay, you know, I want to set up a booth outside of their business, all these things. But many times we forget about like the employees and things like that there, right? So a lot of the times you can just walk in, ask to speak to the supervisor, and then just say, Hey, you know what? Is the supervisor here or your manager here? And like, yeah, is there a problem or anything? No, I just wanted to see if I can talk to them. I'm with the dental's office right down the street, or I'm with the practice. I own the practice right down the street. I just wanted to ask them something real quick. They come, they ask you, like, hey man, I just appreciate everything you guys do for us. You guys are always available. We love Myers. Like, I love Myers. I come here all the time. This is the store to have. Yeah. And then you even mention some of the employees' names. I love how they do. I just wanted to thank them. Is there any way I can come by and like bring some stuff just to thank you guys? Um, and then you can mention some of the things, right? Travel size kits, free whitening, whatever, right? And they're like, yeah, man, definitely. You can definitely set that up in the lunchroom or break room. Cool. You come back within like five minutes, bring the stuff, and then you start signing up people, right? Like you can even bring a sign-up sheet or anything like that. But you see how that whole interaction wasn't just like, hi, I'm the dentist down the street. Yeah, here's some stuff. So there's something in we teach our students, because we teach ground marketing. So there's something we teach our students called the real framework, R-E-A-L. So R is like relevance, E is embedded presence, A is asymmetrical value, and L is you want to leverage the moments that you have. So, for example, relevance. You want to be known for something to someone nearby. You don't need everyone in your city to know you. You just needed the right groups to feel like you're for them. So, for example, a lot of people sometimes they just want to be a great dentist for everyone, but that's weak. Instead, you got to be the dentist for moms with young kids, or the dentist teachers trust, or the dentist for CrossFit members. And what that looks like in real life is instead of going to 20 random businesses, you got to go deep into like three gyms, two daycares, one school. And you learn their problems, their schedule, you learn their people. Now, when they think dentists, they start thinking of you. And if you try to matter to everyone, you become memorable to no one. You've heard of that before, I'm sure. So you really got to dive deep. And a lot of the times what we tell our students is like, hey, pick one month and you're gonna just master, gain mastery over one strategy. So apartments is month one, right? That means you're just gonna visit all the apartment complexes, you're gonna be a part of their events, be a part of their new move-in packets, you're gonna talk to all their like front office operations managers and things like that. Get cool with them, get them to come into your practice within like the seven days. There's scripts and all that stuff for that, right? And then boom, month two, schools, right? And then month three could be grocery stores, month four. But you see how it's not like, hey, for this week, we're just gonna visit that whole shopping strip, and then there's restaurants. Yeah. Because then you're just all over the place all the time. And you're just when you do that, you become forgettable. You just become an interruption. You're not becoming, hey, the dentist. So, anyways, in a nutshell, all that means ground marketing.

Paul Etchison 7:13

Well, it's it's interesting because like I work with a lot of clients, and you know, we we tighten up their website, we tighten up like let's get the reviews going, let's make a nice, let's put some get rid of the stock photos on the website and put some real photos, some real video, stuff like that. Maybe some people need a practice renovation before they start featuring it on the website. And then you start running some pay-per-click and maybe you do some mailers. But other than that, it's like some people are sitting there at the practice like doing all that. And I can't get enough new patients. What else is there? And I always tell them you got to put some boots on the ground. You know, like think about like, and there is, it's almost like, what is the limit? I mean, what is the limit to how much you can do this? There is no limit.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah. It's a ground marketing, right? What you mean or marketing in general?

Paul Etchison 7:56

No, no, no. The ground marketing. I mean, the thing is, is like I would love to know, like in the practices that you've seen this work, because you're teaching practices all over and you've been doing this for years, teaching practices how to do this. Is this typically in an office where it's it's a shared duty? Is it a one person thing? Is this one person's almost full-time job to do this? How does this work practically in a dental office?

The REAL Framework For Local Trust

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, that's a good question. So it just depends, right? Startup practices, it's gonna be mainly the practice owner, right, at the beginning, doing it with their like one to two team members so they can gain experience, get recognition in the community. But eventually, it's really, really like advisable to start delegating that to someone in your practice, right? And here's the thing it's cool if everybody goes. That's nice. On a lot of events, a lot of people are gonna have to go, like three plus people, right? And when you do events, it's always gonna be strategic, right? Everybody has a specific role when you go to events, and we'll talk about that right now. But like mainly you have to delegate one person to be the ground marketer, accountability, right? This is your job. That means like you set the schedule. We can all see the schedule. We're going to these events. You got to pick up the signup sheets at the businesses where you dropped off signup sheets so people can sign up, visit your practice. You're gonna go replenish the new move-in packets, you're gonna go do this lunch, all that stuff. One ground marketer. Now it doesn't mean they're always doing it. They could delegate it to someone else who has availability, but that one ground marketer has to be someone who kind of treats your business like their business, bubbly, outgoing go-getters. And if they're not sometimes like that, bubbly outgoing a go-getter, they gotta be that for at least three hours. And that's it. Then they can be introverted or whatever they want to be for that moment. But if they're like, I need two cups of coffee and a monster in order to get there, take that two cups of coffee and a monster in order to get there, and then after that, then they're like, okay, cool. You don't have to talk to me for the rest of the day as long as you go perform, right? And that's what it really is. Like you go out there, especially at events, you have to perform. And so what I mean by that is let's just say you have like a regular event, right? Like a small, 100 less. You could just have one person and another person at the booth. But if you have a big one, like teachers' health fair, health benefits, customer appreciation day at LA Fitness or something like that, right? Those might require three or more. And each person has a specific role, right? There's one person just right there at the booth signing up people, talking, waving to everybody. There's another person kind of out in the front getting people in, right? Then there's the other person that nobody really thinks about, third person. They are getting all the vendors. So all the other vendors there, man, they don't go to your practice. So go get cool with them. They have businesses, they have employees too. Get cool with them. So then eventually you're able to get in there within the week of their business, right? So the next day you're like, hey, remember I saw you at the event? How's it coming along? Yeah, I wanted to drop off the signup sheet. We wanted to do the specific thing just for the employees here. So everybody has a specific role. Nobody's just standing around on their phone or just sitting down and waiting for people to come up and spin a wheel. Ground marketing, your ground marketing should be so dialed in that when you're at a booth, you don't really need spin the wheel and prizes and all this stuff. You just need those three people, or with that one to two people, depending on the size, that are performing, that are doing their best, bringing these people in. And so, yeah.

Paul Etchison 11:29

Are they sitting at the table? I'm just curious, are they like running out to how are they fishing and reeling these people in?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Oh man, it's like the easiest thing ever. Like, don't ever overthink it. You just gotta literally just make eye contact with people, even if they're wearing headphones or anything, and just say, hey, grab whatever you want, it's free. That's it. And it's literally a broken part hygiene kit, right? So your hygiene kit, you can take it apart, have the bag right here, toothbrush, paste, whitening paste if you want to, like the Colgate one, the 3D white one, because sometimes we Oral B gives us that one, floss, mouthwash, and then like flyers and then other stuff about like pamphlets about Invisalign or whatever. And then just once they come, you're like, yeah, grab whatever you want. Just grab your little baggie, put one of each if you want. The cool thing is if you see them like, oh, I want the whitening toothpaste, or I want the regular Colgate one or whatever Oral B. If they pick the whitening and be like, hey, you know what? We're actually doing free whitening for everybody here today. You just put your name and number down and I can give you a call whenever you want. Boom, people start signing up on the spot, right? No pressure at all. Like, I don't want you to overthink it. That's it. You just watch them walk by and be like, grab whatever you want, it's free. And then they're gonna be like, oh, really? What is this? It's free. You're like, it's a toothbrush, it's paste. Like they know what it is, but they're just trying to make conversation. But the name of the game of that whole thing, the last thing you want is to have these kits and things that are ready to grab and go. The name of the game is not convenience here. It's you want them to linger, shop around so you can talk to them, right? That's the whole purpose of you setting up at that booth to create a deeper conversation, deeper connection with each person that walks by so that when they sign up, they feel more of that like, oh, I I put my name down. I gotta show up, kind of a thing, right? And so that's it, man. Don't overthink it. Don't be like, you can win something, just spin this wheel and referral and all that stuff. No, you could have that stuff too, but just give them stuff for free.

Paul Etchison 13:19

I'm just curious about leaving the signup sheets. Is that still relevant with like online scheduling and stuff? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Believe it or not, yeah. Like there is something about, and you know this too, writing things down, like on physical paper. I don't know what it is, but we still do it. We still leave signup sheets. I can tell them as many times until my face turned blue, like, hey guys, yeah, just go online and click it. They forget as soon as I leave, right? It's not until like the seventh or eighth time I can come back. Now, here's the thing. I mainly leave the signup sheet. One of the reasons why is like, yeah, I want to see names and numbers and I can call them, but I mainly leave it because I want to have a reason to show up again. I want to have a reason for them to see my face again. So I show up. It's like a second date. And then I'm like, hey, and then they'll tell you, like, oh, we lost the sheet, or you know what, no one signed up yet. Or they might say, like, we have like four or five people who signed up, but the whole team hasn't shown up this week. Cool. Just be like, yeah, I'll pick it up and then I can come back and drop off another one. Or don't worry, I'll bring you back another one. Now you have a third reason to show up. Always remember, like, the more you can show up, familiarity will beat anything else, right? The more familiar you become to them, the better. Because now you're starting to be like, whenever they do need a dentist, the one who comes to visit us all the time, Dr. Edchison. Like, of course they're gonna go see him, right? Instead of like, oh, who do I show, who should I go to and all these things. So that's mainly the reasons why I like to just leave things because I'm like, I want to continue to show up over and over and over again.

Paul Etchison 14:48

Can you think about a practice that you worked with that was maybe possibly struggling and this just like completely turned it around where they really leaned into this type of marketing?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

If you listen to the dental marketer podcast, if you just or go on the website, thedental marketer.org, and then you just type in ground marketing or click the ground marketing button, you see a ton of practices that have been doing this and do it, and it really does like turn it around, right? More so in the sense when they're starting up and also when they want to create deeper connections in the community. Um, so it works. I mean, it's it's always worked. People to people connection. We've seen it, man. We've seen it work, especially when we were all indoors during the pandemic, right?

Paul Etchison 16:15

Yeah.

Who Owns Ground Marketing In Office

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Like, how badly did we want to, as soon as things were lifted, even before that, people were like, I need people-to-people connection, right? If that was the case, then we would always have webinars, we would never have in-person events, we would never have concerts, we would never, you know what I mean? That would have never came back, but it's back. So people always want that like connection. But just translate that to ground marketing, right? Just don't think dropping off goodies, leave and never be seen again. This is where the E part of the real framework comes in, embedded presence. You want to have a presence, not interruption. So you want to think like they expect me, they know me, they're I'm part of their routine. And so what that looks like is you become the office that helps or partners with their events. You become the practice who brings them coffees monthly, right? Or they're the ones that tag you on social media, or you tag them on social media, or the the employees who mention you casually. You're not a visitor anymore, but you're part of their environment. That's what you want to be. You want to be part of their environment, like their ecosystem. Every business has little ecosystem. You just have to know like which businesses are worth going into that and being a part of the ecosystem. Because some are not, right?

Paul Etchison 17:27

So are you finding that there is a certain type of business that exponentially delivers better than getting into certain other ones or like one that's like is like if you said like, hey, step one, I know you said like month one you're doing this, month two, you're doing this, but like when somebody is proficient at this, this is the gold mine business. This is where you it delivers the goods, or they all kind of just it's all the same.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

No, every location and demographic or place is different, right? I honestly did think for the longest time, apartment complexes were the gold mine. Like that, that is because think about it. You walk into an apartment complex, right? You just ask them. If actually anybody listening, if you have apartment complexes right now, just go into them and ask, hey, do you guys have new move-in packets? That's new move-in packets. They're either going to tell you yes or we should, right? And now if they tell you yes, be like, cool, can we participate in them? Well, you know, we're with the practice right down the street. And then honestly, like nine times out of ten, they'll immediately tell you yes. The only reason they'll tell you no is because they don't have new move-in packets yet. And then that's where you can partner up with them, be like, we can help you create one, right? And then you just bada beam, bada boom, right? You become part of it. But anyways, so you become part of their new move-in packets. And what that means is like you're able to give whatever deal, whatever introduction, whatever you want in their new move-in packets. So sometimes you slip in a flyer that's specifically just for new move-in families, like, welcome to the family, welcome to the community, as a welcome, here's a whatever incentive, right, that you want to give them. Or just an office tour or nothing, right? We want to be your new dental home. You put that in the packet. Cool, they trust you a little bit already, then say, Cool, do you guys by any chance, before you leave, act like you're walking out the door and then just be like, oh, wait, real quick, I wanted to ask you, by any chance, do you guys do events for your residents? You should have kind of already done the research and looked at the website and seen their event calendar, right? And it shows wine Wednesdays, wine and cheese, whatever, right? Like ice cream Sundays, pet days for the family, summer pool days, all these things. And so they're gonna tell you, yeah, we do, you know, and be like, cool. I love to participate in those if by any chance possible and just give out a bunch of freebies to the residents. They've already given you a small yes. This yes looks like an even smaller yes, but technically it's like compounded, right? And so now they're like, Yeah, definitely. I would love to have you um do that. You know, we have our nearest one coming up, and then you know, you guys schedule and stuff like that. And cool, boom. Now you got those two things going on for you. And then finally, the last thing, be like, man, you know what, you've been so helpful. Same thing. Act like you're about to leave and be like, you know what? You've been so helpful. Thank you for everything you do. Is it okay if the doctor and I or if we give you this specific incentive just for you and the employees, just as a thank you for everything you're doing. You guys are incredible. I appreciate this. Thank you. And it can be whatever incentive you want. Right. Let's just say it's free whining. And we wanted to give you this free whining just for the employees here, just for you. Is that okay? You're gonna be like, oh my gosh, yes, thank you so much. We'll definitely put this in the break room, or we'll sign up right now, or we'll do whatever, right? And then now you're getting people immediately, right? So you're getting new patients immediately. They're even gonna tell you sometimes, like, I was looking for a dentist, and you know, I was looking to do this specific procedure, or I needed a second opinion. So now you're getting people immediately. Second, you're part of their events, and then third, you're part of their new move in packets, right?

Paul Etchison 20:54

And none of this is probably I mean, this isn't, I would imagine this isn't even like a sponsorship thing. This is almost like they're you're just letting you do it for free.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Always. That's the thing. Like, I'm very against Paul's gonna be like, you're cheap, Michael. I'm very against paying for stuff. A lot of the times, and even in the ground marketing course, we teach you how to like attack the chamber of commerce and benefit from it without being a part of the chamber of commerce. So like I'm very against, and you could do it. I'm not saying it's bad. You could be a part of it and you could sponsor schools and stuff like that, but I mean, you don't need to. And so I used to think, man, apartment complexes are it. That's like the gold mine. But then there's some locations where they don't have many apartment complexes, right? I think senior homes are really great as well. Senior homes, you just want to speak to the activities coordinator, that's it. If you're listening right now and you have senior homes near you, just say, Hey, I'd love to speak to the activities coordinator or director. And lo and behold, they're looking for you just as much as you're looking for them. So they're gonna be like, Yeah, thank you. Come in, talk to our seniors, have a presentation, do it monthly if you want, and boom, you have something there, right? Schools are great too, as well. So there's many locations, Paul, that you can really, I guess not attack, but like go into and dive deeper in, even banks. So I wouldn't really say one specific, but there are really great specific locations, though.

Paul Etchison 22:17

Yeah. When you see this working really well in a practice, is this something that somebody's doing full time? Like it's a daily thing, like every day they're going to a different place. Or is this something you just do in the startup phase and you say, okay, cool, we got momentum and now we're good.

Event Booth Tactics That Get Signups

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Sometimes people do that, right? They got momentum and then they're good and then they just let it ride from that point on. But then a lot of people depends on the goals, right? If they want to let it ride until they sell, cool. But if they want to be deeper in the community, yeah, they have someone eventually full time or Someone in their practice is just the ground marketer and part-time their front office, right? And then part-time their ground marketing. That's how I started. I was full-time ground marketing the whole time. So it does get, it does get really busy.

Paul Etchison 22:59

Yeah. Yeah. So like if anyone's like listening and they're just like, hey, like, I'm interested in this. I love if you share with the listeners like your product and your, your, your course and the community that you've built, because I think it's really cool. Because a lot of people hear this and they say, yeah, I should do that. But then they get stuck, and I'm sure they get stuck on like the particulars. They're like, oh, what do we give out like uh waxed floss or like normal floss or something? I'm just trying to think like a dentist here. But you know, like yeah, like talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah. I mean, so we do have a course, right? Uh it's the ground marketing course. It's like, I don't even know if we should call it a course anymore. This is something we've been thinking about changing up all the time because we just always add to it. We're always adding to it. And a lot of our longtime members, I mean, they're doing incredible where they're adding to it too, right? They're like letting us know specific things that they're utilizing and doing in order to not just attract new patients, right? But at the same time be seen as like the go-to practice in their community. And so, yeah, it's very granular. We teach you like the specific scripts, specific things to say, what to say if someone says no, what to say if someone says something else. And it's not like broad, it's specific, like with restaurants, with martial arts centers, with coffee shops, with realtors, with photographs, right? All these, any business you can think of, like in your location, we've done it. We're in there, right? And the thing is, is a lot of the times I kind of want to like let you know there's no real mistakes you make, kind of like Bob Ross, right? It's just happy accidents. So what I mean by that is I remember there was a lot of times where people would tell you no or tell me no. Like, no, you can't come in, no, you can't do this. And you can stop there and be like, man, it didn't happen. Or you can figure out a way, right? And so we've kind of figured out a lot of ways. And at the same time, sometimes it's just you're talking to the wrong person at the wrong time. Sometimes you're talking to the wrong department, sometimes you're you call the wrong number. Or maybe you did it all right, but that person doesn't know what they don't know and they just don't want to seem stupid over the phone and they're telling you no, right? But it's little things like that where we kind of help you throughout the whole process on top of like how to set up a booth, what to say, how to get people in the in your seat, how to get more referrals from the people that you've gotten and stuff like that. So yeah.

Paul Etchison 25:17

I mean, you've been doing this for so many years. I mean, I remember when we interviewed you, oh, geez, man, four or five years ago. I think we talked about ground marketing. And I think you're talking about, I think Walmart was actually the one you were talking about. I think that did you have trouble getting into Walmart, if I'm remembering correctly?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That was one with the logistics center situation. Yeah.

Paul Etchison 25:37

So, like, yeah, so like you've you've figured these things out just by trial and error and just with the determination and I mean having somewhat of a thick skin, I imagine.

Signup Sheets And Showing Up Again

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah. I wouldn't even think of it like thick skin, because my wife would say I'm sensitive. But like she was like, Don't be so sensitive. Yeah. But at the same time, um, yeah, it's just you can't take things personal all the time if it's rejection, right? You just kind of have to like, okay, brush it off and then keep going, right? If you stop and literally take it sensitive all the time, then rejection is part of the game. Like it's the name of the game. Like you want to get, I remember one thing that changed my mindset completely was I used to hate doing this. But then I started thinking, like, how many no's can I get today? Let me like just tally it up, how many no's I can get. And then as I started doing that, I created like a little journal of how many no's. And I noticed I didn't get as many no's as I thought. In fact, I got more yeses or more, like wait off until next season or something, right? Instead of a no. Yeah. And so I'm like, man, it's all in my head. Like I'm literally thinking worst case scenario, but I forget to think. Hey, don't forget to overthink today the best case scenario too, right? That's what I'm just trying to do. Like, what's best case scenario? Best case scenario, and just shoot for that all the time.

Best Locations Plus Closing Takeaways

Paul Etchison 26:52

Yeah, that's great advice, man. So if you're a practice owner listening right now and you're saying, man, I were trying everything for new patients. I hope you hear the power in doing this. This is not something I do at my practice, but man, do I want to do it? I want to, you know? And I'll tell you, Mike, that the thing is that we're seeing enough. Like if we were ever not seeing enough, I would jump all in this. But every time I have you on here, I have the same feeling if when I get off the interview with you, I say, dang it, let's go. I got the people. I know who they are. I know the people on my team that are going to do this. I know the people that would like really enjoy doing this. So maybe next time I have you on, I'll have a different story for you. But I hope some of the listeners will go check out what you have to offer. I've seen your product and I know it's good and I know it helps a lot of people. I've heard a lot of good things about it. So thank you so much for coming onto the podcast, your time today. Yeah, no, I appreciate you. Thank you so much, Paul, for having me on. All right. What a great interview. I mean, like, seriously, I hope you really are thinking differently about what's possible in the marketing that you do. Because I mean, when we really zoom out, this is essentially what's going on. You might have gotten to a point in your practice where this really resonates, where you have spent the money, you keep doing things in marketing, and you're like, dude, I'm out of options. What am I going to do? And most of us were trying to solve that problem by staying behind a computer screen when we really should be getting out there in our local markets, talking to people, becoming familiar, becoming the obvious choice for everybody in your community. So here's what I want you to take away from this episode. First of all, ground marketing, it is not just dropping off free stuff and hoping that people call. You've got to be intentional. You've got to be actually building those relationships if you want this type of marketing to work and you want more patients walking through your door. Secondly, consistency, it beats the intensity. One visit, it just doesn't do much. But if you can show up over and over again consistently, people will remember you. You become memorable. And the good news is it doesn't need to be you. It could be that person on your team. And man, we all know we've got that one person on our team that is perfect for it. And lastly, this is one of the few strategies where the ceiling, it is almost infinite. And most dentists, they simply aren't willing to do it. So you can immediately get a competitive edge if you or you someone on your team is willing to do this. You don't need to spend more money. You just need to get out there and be more present in the community. And when you do that, your practice can start to feel a whole lot more stable because you got more new patients coming in, more revenue, more profit. And if that's something that sounds good to you and you want help figuring out how to grow your practice in a way that actually feels predictable and gives you more control, head over to dentalpracticeheroes.com slash strategy and schedule a free strategy call. It's just a conversation. There's no pressure. I will help you get clear on what's working, what's not, and what your next move should be. And if you got value from this episode, I would so appreciate it if you just took 30 seconds to leave a five star review. It helps more dentists find the show and it really makes me happy. So thank you so much for listening. Have a great day at the office, and I will talk to you next time.