The Marketing “Don’ts” that are Killing Your Practice? – Episode 236

The point of marketing is to gain new business. Is that what’s happening for you? 

On this episode of the Dentist Money™ Show, Ryan interviews Minal Sampat, a dental industry marketing guru and the best-selling author of “Why Your Marketing is Killing Your Business.” There are many options for how to market your practice. How do you know what’s the right approach for you?

In this high-energy interview, Minal reveals her formula for how you can actually minimize costs while maximizing the “new client return” on your current marketing program.

Show notes:

Book – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083D6NYXK

Website – https://minalsampat.com/

FB Group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/dentalmarketingwithminalsampatrdh/

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/minalsampatllc/

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Podcast Transcript

Ryan Isaac:
Hey, Dentist Money Show listeners. Got a great show for you today. Kind of an interesting one. We recorded this pre-COVID. I think back in January or February of 2020. We sat down with Minal Sampat, and we talked about the marketing mistakes that might be hurting your practice. Really great interview. Tons of great content here. You’ll notice that we talked nothing about COVID, or the shutdowns, or the economy or anything else going on. That’s because we did it right before this all happened and we saved this one for later. So thanks for tuning in.

Ryan Isaac:
If you have any questions, go to the website, DentistAdvisors.com. Click on the book free consultation link. Let’s have a chat with one of our advisors. Thanks for joining us today on the show. Enjoy the episode of Minal Sampat. All about marketing and growing your practice. Very applicable for the time we’re in now and heading out of the shutdown and COVID and trying to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Thanks for being here, guys. We really appreciate the support. Enjoy the show.

Announcer:
Consultant an advisor or conduct your own due diligence when making financial decisions. General principles discussed during this program do not constitute personal advice. This program is furnished by Dentist Advisors, a registered investment advisor. This is Dentist Money. Now, here’s your host, Ryan Isaac.

Ryan Isaac:
Welcome to the Dentist Money Show, where we help dentists make smart financial decisions. I’m your host, Ryan Isaac, joined today by a good friend of the show and of Dentist Advisors for a long time, Minal Sampat. How you doing? Thanks for joining us.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah, I’m doing fantastic. Thank you for having me.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. Thanks for being here. Okay, so I always joke about how reading someone else’s bio to their face feels awkward. Do you feel that way? Is it just me?

Minal Sampat:
I totally feel awkward-

Ryan Isaac:
I hate it.

Minal Sampat:
… doing that. I actually have my team write my bio for me [crosstalk 00:01:38].

Ryan Isaac:
I know.

Minal Sampat:
Because I’m like, “How do you write about yourself?”

Ryan Isaac:
It feels weird. I always feel really weird reading it back. Okay, here’s the paragraph you gave me to say about you. It always feels kind of weird, but let’s give you a little intro.

Ryan Isaac:
I think a lot of people know who you are. They see you on Facebook, drinking bubbly drinks, and talking to other people, and laughing, and having a good time talking about dental marketing. But let’s just give you… Okay, so I’m going to stop at some of these. I’m not going to read it straight through, because these are interesting. Bestselling author. Let’s stop. Best selling author. What is that about? What did you write and why is it bestselling? Tell me about the bestselling thing.

Minal Sampat:
I just had my first book published last week.

Ryan Isaac:
Congrats. Very cool.

Minal Sampat:
Thank you. The book is called Why Your Marketing Is Killing Your Business: And What To Do About It. So clearly, it’s a little ironic coming from a marketing strategist saying that your marketing is killing your business, but that’s the whole point. It is killing your business. What do you do about it?

Minal Sampat:
We launched the Kindle version last week on Tuesday. I was seriously hoping that maybe I’ll sell 25 copies, right, when we launch it.

Minal Sampat:
Now, I am a strategist. So we clearly planned a lot of the stuff and marketing and all that stuff. But when we launched it, within one hour, we had hundreds upon hundreds being sold to a point where within 24 hours, we were a Amazon number one bestseller and number one new release in US, Canada, Australia-

Ryan Isaac:
What?

Minal Sampat:
… and India. And in categories like business, business consulting, advertising, business ethics. Really awesome categories. Not romance.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Which would be cool. I mean-

Minal Sampat:
Which would be cool. But I mean, you want to be relevant. Yeah, we became a bestseller within 24 hours in multiple countries with multiple topics and categories. Then we launched the paperback on Friday. Within 24 hours, that also became a bestseller in the United States. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Congratulations.

Minal Sampat:
That’s that.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, I mean, we need to do another podcast on how to launch a book, apparently, because that sounds like you did a good job. What’s it called again?

Minal Sampat:
Why Your Marketing Is Killing Your Business.

Ryan Isaac:
All right. Go check it out. All right. Well, I mean, that was the first sentence of your bio. I mean, we’ve got a long way to go here.

Ryan Isaac:
Next sentence. Global speaker, marketing strategist, and dental hygienist. That’s a lot of things. Self-explanatory, I think. We’ll get into the marketing strategies thing a little bit more.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, so your first marketing company, when did you start that, by the way? And there’s something about a Guinness World Record here, which we stop again. That’s where we need to stop. Marketing company, Guinness World Record. What is this?

Minal Sampat:
In 2013, I launched my first company. I have multiple companies, and I launched my first marketing company. I was very young then. I was in my twenties. I had to be taken seriously. I wanted to make a splash. Clearly, as you can see, I like to make a splash. So we were like, “Well, what do we do? I don’t want to throw another happy hour or let’s celebrate a company opening.”

Minal Sampat:
As a hygienist, what I did was I combined my effort as a hygienist, because October is dental hygiene month and October is also breast cancer awareness month. So I combined both of them with my wonderful and brilliant team, and we came up with something called Swish Away Breast Cancer.

Minal Sampat:
What we did was we gathered more than 1,500 people at halftime at a local high school football game. We shared the title, the world record title, with this high school. But pretty much at a football game, we gathered more than 1,500 people. Everybody in pink, the football players in pink, the mayor in pink. We had a TV show.

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Minal Sampat:
Whatever. We actually broke the world record for… Are you ready for this?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
Swishing mouthwash at the same time.

Ryan Isaac:
What? What? Okay. That’s really unique.

Minal Sampat:
Launching it that way got me into national dental press and national press by itself, and put me up there as somebody who knows how to market.

Ryan Isaac:
Man, that’s so cool. Well, I mean, clearly, the book, starting the company. 2020, we’re now in 2020, which is crazy. What is the name of your company right now? We’re going to jump right into… You’re a marketing strategist, you’re an expert. You can talk about all the different ways that you help people and everything. But what’s your company called right now? What are you currently focused on? What do people hire you to do right now?

Minal Sampat:
Sure. The company is called… The name is very easy. It’s Minal Sampat, LLC. And-

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. That’s easy.

Minal Sampat:
That’s easy.

Ryan Isaac:
Dot com. But also dot com, right? MinalSampat.com.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah, MinalSampat.com. There we go.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay.

Minal Sampat:
I’m a marketing strategist. My goal is to kind of look at all the marketing practice is doing and streamline it. Most of the time… My average clients see a 20% reduction in their marketing expenses while increasing their production.

Minal Sampat:
What I do is I’m not one of those people that says, “Get funnels, and get this, and get that.” That’s not me. I kind of come in and say, “Let’s remove this. Let’s do this instead,” or, “Let’s maximize this. Let’s leverage what you already have. This way, we can stay streamlined and actually getting more production out.”

Ryan Isaac:
That’s really cool. All right. Well, let’s jump into some questions. I guess the context here, we were talking about this before. Well, I think it’s fair to mention, your husband’s a physician. As a couple, you’ve gone through the medical school life. Residency life I’m assuming too.

Minal Sampat:
Yes.

Ryan Isaac:
No money, lots of dental student loans. I keep saying dental. Lots of student loans. So you’ve been through this. So the context of all the things we’ll talk about with marketing is what our listeners want to know is, “How does this translate into dollars in my pocket so I can pay off my student loans, invest money for the future, investment on the practice,” that kind of thing.

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s just kick it off with… You were just talking about this though, which is, “How do you implement a marketing program?” Which always feels very overwhelming, because marketing is… There’s so many avenues. I mean, our company was just having a marketing meeting yesterday, and there’s like 12 different strategies you can employ at any given time. There’s probably dozens. So how do you decide what to do while also reducing costs, but being effective at the same time? You were just talking about this. We’ll start there.

Minal Sampat:
Absolutely. There are a lot of marketing options. The confusing part is they all seem to work at one way or the other, right? People will [crosstalk 00:07:54]-

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, for somebody. Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah, so I will get a practice saying, “Mailers are doing amazing for us,” and I’ll get another one saying, “Mailers suck. They don’t get me anything,” right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
It all comes down to saying not what exactly what marketing outlets are there. It comes down to saying, “What do you actually need?”

Minal Sampat:
We go back to the basics of marketing. Marketing 101 is know your audience. If you were to create an audience avatar, right? Here’s an example. Let me illustrate this for you. Let’s say that I’m trying to attract somebody who is 28 to 45 year old mom. All right? She’s living in a five mile radius. She likes to go do yoga. She’s somebody who wants to make sure that her kids have play dates. She’s somebody who enjoys book clubs. She is somebody who likes to work out in the morning. She’s somebody who wants to make sure that she can make appointments with you in the middle of the night, because she doesn’t have time otherwise.

Minal Sampat:
That right there is a marketing plan. Because if that’s somebody like that, who let’s name her. Let’s call her Molly. All right? If we call her Molly-

Ryan Isaac:
Shout out to Molly. Yeah, okay.

Minal Sampat:
Shout out to Molly. If I’m going to attract Molly, that means that I need to be where Molly is, which is play dates. I need to make sure that I’m marketing at yoga studios, because that’s what Molly does. I need to make sure that I have online scheduling on my website, because Molly likes to make appointments in the middle of the night. I need to make sure that I have awesome reviews that all Molly’s friends are talking about me, and I am the brand or the practice to go to, so Molly comes to me.

Minal Sampat:
That’s your marketing for Molly. For Molly, you are not going to do paper ads. You’re not going to go ahead and create a lengthy voicemail system that she has to stay on hold for, because she’s going to hang up. She’s not going to want to do that.

Minal Sampat:
Now, if we were to switch and let’s say we go to Tom, all right? Tom is somebody who is 55 to 75 years old. He’s looking for implants. He’s somebody who wants to actually talk to you on the phone and understand what he’s paying for. He wants patience. He wants to understand that… He doesn’t care about all the hoopla with the online scheduling.

Minal Sampat:
Well, then you need to hire somebody who’s going to be available to talk to Tom, who has the patience to talk to Tom. Maybe you do need some flyers and maybe you do need some print marketing so Tom can fully understand what he’s getting. Because he’s not into the quick and effective, he’s into the, “I want patience and I want to understand what I’m getting into.”

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I want to talk to a human about this now.

Minal Sampat:
So you need to know who you’re trying to attract to. Is it Tom or is it Molly? If you are trying to attract… And this is the number one response I get from all dental practices when I say, “Who are you trying to attract to your practice?” Everybody. I treat everybody. So I [crosstalk 00:10:17].

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, the whole community.

Minal Sampat:
Well, that’s not your marketing plan then. That just means that you’re doing all the marketing, hoping somebody, Molly or Tom, will look at it and come into your practice.

Minal Sampat:
Instead, switch your mindset. Focus only on Tom or Molly. And then you can create multiple avatars, and we call them new patient avatars. Then you can start creating a market plan around them. But this way, you will know that this is going to work.

Minal Sampat:
Currently, right now in the US, we have four active generations. We have everybody from the boomers to Gen Z active. Each of those generations behave differently, they shop differently, and they have different behaviors when it comes to selecting your overall competition. So another thing that I tell my clients is in marketing field, everybody that you talk to is going to tell you, “What is your USP?” Your unique selling factor, right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
What makes you different? Let’s talk about what makes you different. I’m completely against that. Don’t do that. In fact, what you should do is find the common ground.

Minal Sampat:
If I know that Molly likes yoga in the morning, I’m going to figure out ways that I can share about yoga with Molly, because that’s my conversation. That’s my connection to Molly. If Molly likes yoga and I’m here talking about skiing, and she has no business or she has no interest in skiing, why am I wasting my dollars advertising at a ski resort when I should be advertising at the yoga place?

Minal Sampat:
First, you need to know your avatar. Who are you trying to attract? And name them. I mean, I do this exercise all the time. There’s an entire chapter in my book about this exercise. I do this in my workshops and everywhere. You won’t see… I mean, we have had dentists who have had tears of joy when they realize how much money they’re going to save once they knew who their ideal audience was. And their production is going up and up and up, and they are removing all that extra expense. They’re hoping to target Tom, and Tom was not their target audience. It’s Molly.

Ryan Isaac:
As you’ve listened to our podcasts, maybe there’s a question about your finances you’ve wanted to ask. It’s easy to get an answer. All you do is just pick up that phone, give us a call at 833-DDS-PLAN to set up a consultation. Or if you don’t want to call us, you can just go to the website at dennisadvisors.com, click the book free consultation button, and set it up. It’s free. Do it today.

Ryan Isaac:
Where does someone begin then? You named just a few resources, but where does someone start? They’re listening to this. They’re like, “I’ve never done that before. I’ve been in practice for 15 years. I want to start finding my Mollys and my Toms.” Where do you begin?

Minal Sampat:
I mean, creating an avatar is not a new marketing topic. This is not something that I take credit for. It’s just a very well-known thing that all marketers do. So you can easily go online and Google it. If you want to, I mean, again, I’m not trying to be salesy here, but it’s in my book, one of my workshops, whatever you want. But just go online on Google and be like, “Client avatar.”

Minal Sampat:
I recently also shared about this in Forbes. My strategies were in Forbes. So if you just go to my website as well, go to my press page, there’s a bunch of free stuff-

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Minal Sampat:
… there to utilize. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, so number one, know your audience, which is probably so commonly skipped over, but got to work at that.

Minal Sampat:
So very important.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. Number two then is like, “Is that…” Now are we at the point where now it’s time to choose a channel, or are we still a few steps away from that?

Minal Sampat:
Yes. Yes. See? Look at that. It’s all making sense now, isn’t it?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, I’m learning. Yeah, yeah.

Minal Sampat:
You’re making the next steps. Absolutely.

Ryan Isaac:
If I can learn this stuff, anyone can learn this stuff. Trust me.

Minal Sampat:
We have Molly. We found common ground with Molly, and we know where Molly is going to be. Then we figure out the marketing channels that we need to spend money on to attract Molly.

Minal Sampat:
Then this is where it gets… After that finding out the channels, right? And you create, obviously, your branding should reflect what Molly likes. Again, don’t try to be different. Find the common ground with Molly or Tom, whichever it is. Find the common ground with Tom or Molly, whoever you’re trying to attract. But after that, this is the most important part. This is the one that’s going to make you money. This is the one that’s going to be the conclusion. This is the one that’s going to be the factor, right? This is very simple to do. Engage. If Molly likes your Facebook post, engage with Molly. Don’t just ignore it. If Tom looks at a review and replies, reply back. If Tom calls the office, call them back within 24 hours. If Molly, she sees the flyer? Make sure that there’s a call to action so that Molly can reach out to you.

Minal Sampat:
Most important thing that people don’t do is engage. They will have all this marketing stuff, but there is no call to action or there is no follow-up, and there is no engagement. So-

Ryan Isaac:
Interesting.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah. Especially when it comes to reviews, right? Practices have so many of the things happening where they are… They have a script for us for reviews, and they’re spending all this money on review softwares, and they have emails and texts going out, saying, “Give me a review, give me a review, give me a review.” They get a review-

Ryan Isaac:
But there’s no like, “Hey, thanks for the review.” I’m another human.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah. There’s not even a high five or a like. That’s where you’re losing your audience. That’s a [crosstalk 00:15:18]. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. It’s so funny, the world we live in, technology is so useful and that technology and computers can do things that humans cannot do. Or they can just do it more efficiently. But there’s still one piece that we as humans still crave from our service providers, and that’s just that human, what, validation or contact. There’s just a human piece here that technology can never replace. Never.

Minal Sampat:
I mean, Ryan, if you think about it, in a world that is so digitally obsessed, the only valuable thing that we can give is time.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s so true. Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
So give your time.

Ryan Isaac:
I love that. That’s cool. I’ll apply it to my children today.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. All right, so you’re already kind of on the subject then. Now we’re in the… There’s so many software programs, and tools you can use, and social media. Let’s just stop there right now. Social media. Explain what you’re doing on social media. I think people see an EQ on your videos. I mean, I see them all the time. But what’s the role here of social media and how do you manage this thing?

Minal Sampat:
Social media is one of those enigma, right? It’s one of those things where people are so fascinated by it. They want to learn more about it. It’s here to stay, clearly. I mean, Facebook was launched, what, in 2004? That was my first year in college. I remember when Facebook was literally a face, a photo of, and we’d be like, “Where are we studying tonight?”

Ryan Isaac:
I thought Myspace… I thought Facebook wasn’t going to last. I was like, “No one will beat Myspace, because Facebook… This sucks. This thing’s not very good.”

Minal Sampat:
Remember MySpace and Xanga? Remember Xanga? It was this whole-

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. Did you ever have a geo site? Did you have your own geo site?

Minal Sampat:
I did have a geo site. I had a geo site.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s what I’m talking about.

Minal Sampat:
And then we had AOL, AIM messaging. Remember that?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
We would put all this cryptic away messages, where we are.

Ryan Isaac:
Yes. I loved being able to code your own Myspace page and have stars fall down and music starts when people-

Minal Sampat:
It was awesome.

Ryan Isaac:
Pretty cool.

Minal Sampat:
It was awesome.

Ryan Isaac:
Right?

Minal Sampat:
Right, and then Facebook comes along and becomes a global phenomenon. Now we have Instagram and TikTok. I mean, LinkedIn was there, but LinkedIn was not a major player.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. It’s like one of those honorary… LinkedIn’s here, guys. I mean, let’s just acknowledge. They’re here. We don’t really know what the… They stay in the corner. They’re just over there.

Ryan Isaac:
We all still have a LinkedIn profile. I have semi-annual LinkedIn maintenance. I log in and I just hit approve on all my things. I’m like, “I’m not reading any of the messages, and I’m logging out now.”

Minal Sampat:
I recently had somebody I was talking to and they were like, “Yeah, I make my annual Twitter tweets in January-

Ryan Isaac:
I love Twitter though. Twitter addict. I can’t stay off Twitter. No one follows me, but I think my tweets are hilarious. They’re profound insight about hamburgers and bank commercials. I think they’re great. I entertain myself. Anyway, what-

Minal Sampat:
Well, I mean, going back to social media, again, there is a secret sauce to social media.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, it seems like it. Right.

Minal Sampat:
Okay? The secret sauce of social media is in that word itself, social. You have to be social.

Ryan Isaac:
Interaction.

Minal Sampat:
No matter what platform you choose, right? You could choose LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Twitter. Whatever it is, you could choose it, but you have to be social. You can’t expect to put a stock photo up and then think that people are going to like it.

Minal Sampat:
The first part is you need to be social. That means you need to share, you need to contact, you need to connect. You need to like, you need to like other people’s stuff. You need to do all that.

Minal Sampat:
The second thing is you need to understand how the platforms work. Here’s an example. Did you know that… You know when you’re on Facebook, right? There is hearts and there’s likes and all that stuff. Hearts matter more than likes, because you love something. You don’t just like it.

Ryan Isaac:
You mean they matter to people more. Or from an-

Minal Sampat:
They matter-

Ryan Isaac:
… algorithm standpoint?

Minal Sampat:
From an algorithm standpoint.

Ryan Isaac:
They do?

Minal Sampat:
Yes, they do, sir.

Ryan Isaac:
Oh my God. I mean, I don’t know. That’s crazy.

Minal Sampat:
And then on top of that, you know what kind of takes over the hearts?

Ryan Isaac:
What?

Minal Sampat:
Comments.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, that makes sense.

Minal Sampat:
That makes sense. Think about it. When you go on your timeline and you are like, “Why am I still seeing this anniversary post? Their anniversary was last week. I wish [crosstalk 00:19:22].

Ryan Isaac:
Because people are commenting on it.

Minal Sampat:
Go away, right? No, but people are commenting on it and the algorithm’s saying, “This is so cool. This post is getting so much engagement. So we are going to keep commenting on it and we’re going to keep pushing it on people’s timelines.”

Ryan Isaac:
So crazy.

Minal Sampat:
So comments matter more than that. So if you get a comment, you comment back. If you go ahead and get a post, you love it. You don’t like it. You love it. So you understand the algorithm, and then you need to understand what kind of content works on what platform.

Minal Sampat:
Facebook clearly is something that started with photos. Its photos work really well, but what really works well on Facebook are live videos. That’s why I have my show as a live show on Facebook, because when I’m live, I’m interacting with you. I’m engaging-

Ryan Isaac:
Which is called what? A little plug for the show.

Minal Sampat:
Marketing and Mocktails with Minal.

Ryan Isaac:
Marketing and Mocktails with Minal.

Minal Sampat:
Yes, Marketing and Mocktails with Minal. It’s a live show-

Ryan Isaac:
But video works better.

Minal Sampat:
Video works better, but specifically live video works the best. Yeah, because in a live video, you can do direct interaction. So people will be coming in, they’ll be commenting, you’re giving them a high five, you’re calling out their names, you’re live interacting. It’s like you are there with them, but you’re [crosstalk 00:20:26]-

Ryan Isaac:
Let’s stop. Okay, so let’s just stop there and go normal practice owner, solo practice, solo doc, and she’s going, “Okay, I buy this. What do I do with a Facebook Live video as a dentist? How do I do that? What do I do?”

Minal Sampat:
You actually create a content calendar. The way you’re going to do that is first of all, you need to figure out what kind of topics you’re going to talk about on live video. You want to start with the topic that’s getting you the most amount of conversation outside of being online.

Minal Sampat:
When you’re inside your practice, I guarantee you that you are getting some questions that patients ask you all the time. All the time. Well, write those questions down and create a live video. Announce when you’re going to go live. Because if you don’t announce when you’re going to go live, people are not going to know when to come watch you. That’s important for you to do that. So you announce when you’re going to go live.

Minal Sampat:
Here’s a pro tip. If you want to go a step ahead, create an event out of it on your Facebook page. Because when you create an event, you can invite people to your live show, and you can tell them you’re going to be live and you’re going to be here.

Minal Sampat:
I do that all the time, where I create an event and then I invite people to join me on my live show. The reason I do that is clearly one, I want to let people know, but because Facebook, the way it works is that if you have an event coming up, if you subscribe to that event or you said interested or whatever, Facebook will alert you and tell you you have an event coming up.

Ryan Isaac:
Constantly, yeah.

Minal Sampat:
Constantly. So now I am leveraging the algorithm that’s Facebook. I know-

Ryan Isaac:
Because the built-in reminders. Yeah, I said here in Phoenix, I’m interested in seeing like Def Leppard this summer, and it just keeps popping up on my timeline.

Minal Sampat:
It just keeps popping up on your timeline.

Ryan Isaac:
Like, “Remember? You want to see Def Leppard. You’re able to relive your ’80s childhood.” I’m like, “Yeah, I do. That’s what I want to do.” That’s interesting. Okay. So the dentist-

Minal Sampat:
So you leverage it.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, okay.

Minal Sampat:
That’s how you leverage it, right? You announce that you created an event. Then you come up and you write down in the event what it is that you’re actually going to answer. Now, because these are the top questions, you say it. I received this as my top questions as a dental professional. I would love to go ahead and answer them for you. This is what we are going to be discussing. Hope to see you live. Right?

Minal Sampat:
You go live and you do your Q&A. Number one question. This is what I get, this is what I think it is. You’re authentic. You’re yourself. You kind of go ahead and you answer all those questions.

Minal Sampat:
The first time you do a live video, it’s going to suck. There is-

Ryan Isaac:
And you’re going to see the little counters. There’ll be like two people. You’re like, “Mom, get off. Come on. I mean-

Minal Sampat:
But that’s okay.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s okay, right?

Minal Sampat:
But that’s okay, because the more… Remember the first time you filled a cavity? I’m sure it wasn’t best. But now you’re a pro at it. It’s the same thing with doing anything with marketing. So if you do the first live video and it sucks, it’s okay, you still did it. And then you stay continuously. You do it on a schedule. You figure it out. You’re going to start seeing all these comments, interactions coming in.

Minal Sampat:
When I did my first live show, crickets. Crickets. Now I do a live show, I get a hundred plus comments from people coming in and they-

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Minal Sampat:
… interact. You want-

Ryan Isaac:
That makes the show better too then, right? Because then you have live feedback and-

Minal Sampat:
You have live feedback. And then-

Ryan Isaac:
… you can respond to them.

Minal Sampat:
Here’s how you maximize it. When you do a live show on your Facebook page, your business page, you can now go ahead and boost that to people. You go ahead and boost that as a post to your current fans. This is a little complicated, but I’m going to give you a strategy right here. You’re going to go ahead and boost that to your current fans for $5 a day for four days. Because what you’re doing is who did not watch it are now going to watch it, they’re probably going to comment. They already love you because they are your fans. They’re going to say something. They’re going to give you a high five, whatever. Right?

Minal Sampat:
Then you go to the backend, which is called the Ads Manager on Facebook. Then you create a target audience. This is your avatar audience. These are Mollys living in your five mile radius, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You create your target audience. And then you select the same post. You don’t create a post in the creative, you select that video post, and now you go ahead and target them.

Minal Sampat:
So now when Molly sees this coming up in her timeline, she’s going to see all these comments, she’s going to see all these loves and these hearts, and she’s going to stop and watch it. Now, if you were to do an ad by itself that had no engagement, people are just going to scroll up, because remember you… Do you stop at something that doesn’t have any engagement?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, perfect example. That’s how I do Twitter, basically. I’m like, “That’s kind of funny,” and I’m like, “That’s been retweeted 10,000 times. That’s really funny. Yeah, that’s funnier than I thought, so I’ll read it again.” That’s really true. Plus, you already have the content.

Ryan Isaac:
Now I’m wondering, maybe you personally, or other people when they have the video content, is that easily repurposed to blog posts? I mean, you just take that content and go, “Okay, I already have my outline. Here’s 500 words, blog post on the dental practice blog and…”

Minal Sampat:
You do blog. You do newsletters. You do Instagram TV. You do LinkedIn videos. You do Twitter. You can take one piece of live video and you could redistribute it at least 10 times, 10 different ways. Again, it’s in the book. It’s in the book, guys.

Ryan Isaac:
Guys, buy the book. Skip the podcast. Buy the book. All right?

Minal Sampat:
Just buy the book.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s that easy.

Minal Sampat:
It’s in the book. It’s in the book.

Ryan Isaac:
I guess I’m curious. Is anyone doing this well? I mean, are dentists implementing this? Or is this like a-

Minal Sampat:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Ryan Isaac:
… minority of people. Okay.

Minal Sampat:
No, no, no. Dentists are implementing it. In fact, my clients on average see an increase by 200% in their engagement once we start doing this. So there are a lot of practices doing this.

Ryan Isaac:
That makes sense to me. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense to me.

Minal Sampat:
And they’re doubling their new patient numbers by [crosstalk 00:25:44].

Ryan Isaac:
Content is everything.

Minal Sampat:
Content is everything. Yeah, and-

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, and it doesn’t have to be that hard, right?

Minal Sampat:
No.

Ryan Isaac:
I mean, you can be yourself, your personality, you don’t have to be someone else. You don’t have to be like the character you’ve seen on social media like, “I’ve got to be like that person.” I mean, you can be authentic to yourself.

Minal Sampat:
Right. Here’s the thing, a lot of times I know that… Because I do this a lot, a lot of times, I’m sure some of our listeners and viewers are thinking, “Well, but I’m an introvert. I’m a dentist. This is not for me.” Well, guess what? You don’t have to do it. You can just find another person in your practice who’s an extrovert, who is clinical, or you can hire a brand ambassador. I’m a spokesperson for a few of my clients, because they don’t want to do it and they want me to do it. So if there is a roadblock, there is a solution to that. You can easily do that.

Minal Sampat:
I would suggest that you find somebody inside your practice who can do that, because they know your culture, they know your patients, they know who you are. And then you could do something like what you and I are doing, Ryan, where she can or he can interview you. They can be like, “Hey, here’s our Q&A time with Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith, what do you think about blah, blah, blah?” And they kind of carry on the show.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, they can make it work.

Minal Sampat:
They can make it work. So there’s always a way to make it work. But you, as a practice owner, at some point, has to show up, because you are the leader, you are the face of the practice.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah. People want to see, they want to hear.

Minal Sampat:
People want to see you and they want to hear you.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. I mean, this is a lot of moving pieces. It does seem complicated. I know why it feels overwhelming to people. How do you manage this? Is it smart to hire people in the practice to manage social media? Do you outsource it? Should someone put it on their own plate? I mean, how should someone go about this?

Minal Sampat:
Absolutely hire somebody inside your practice and then train them. Yeah, that’s how I started. That’s what I do is I train team members to manage this all and take care of this.

Minal Sampat:
Because here’s the thing, right? If you hire somebody who’s externally, who’s outside of your practice, again, they don’t know you. They don’t know your culture. They’re going to go onto your website or they’re going to go onto Google and find a stock image of an implant and then write about the implant. I know some of you’re thinking, “Yes, that’s exactly what we do.” I’m sure you do that, but that doesn’t convert. Remember, social media is about being social. So you need somebody inside your practice who can manage this.

Minal Sampat:
Here’s the thing, with your social media manager inside your practice, they don’t need to spend more than two hours a week. All you need maximum is two hours a week for them to manage all of your social media. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, whatever it is. Because there’s a system and there are things that you can do. There’s so much you can do with it. But inside your practice is the key for you to really grow in social media.

Ryan Isaac:
Hey Matt, what do you like to drink or snack on when we do our webinars every month?

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m usually hitting a Red Bull. But it’s hard, because it’s an evening webinar.

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, these evening webinars are taking place 6:30 PM Mountain Standard Time.

Matt Mulcock:
Mountain Time.

Ryan Isaac:
Once a month.

Matt Mulcock:
Where do you find it?

Ryan Isaac:
Well, if you’d like to find the webinar or you’d like to register for it, you go to DentistAdvisors.com/webinar, or just go to the website and click on webinars under the education tab.

Matt Mulcock:
It’s a good time.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a great time. What kind of things do we cover in our webinar, Matt?

Matt Mulcock:
Each month we’re going to hit an element, right? So it’s going to be some component of your financial life. We’re going to dive a little bit deeper than we would, like on the Dentist Money Show, right? We get to draw pictures. There’s live polls. You can ask questions. Yeah.

Ryan Isaac:
It’s a great time.

Matt Mulcock:
Yeah, it’s a good time.

Ryan Isaac:
Well, we’d love to see you in attendance at one of our fantastic webinars. Just go to DentistAdvisors.com. Sign up today for the next one. Thank you very much.

Ryan Isaac:
You have the personal experience of building multiple businesses and building branding and content. You’ve been through the awkward first videos and probably first awkward blog posts. You have paid off student loans. How have you seen or what advice would you give to take all this marketing advice and how have you seen it funnel down into a more improved personal bottom line? Like more cash flow, or more money to invest in your future or the practice, or paying off student loans. How have you seen that funnel down from this top level we’re talking about all the way down to the bottom?

Minal Sampat:
Well, I mean, the whole point of marketing is to gain new business. So if you’re doing marketing correctly while knowing how much budget it is, or while knowing how much you’re spending and who it is that you’re spending on, that’s going to help you be in control of that expense that you have. And obviously, all the remainder, all the balance that is left off could be now put towards your practice, or your student loans, or your 401(k) or whatever it is that you are focusing on right now.

Minal Sampat:
For me, it really did take off when I started doing more of this and I started showing up.

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Minal Sampat:
When I started showing up and when I started doing this thing… Like I said, my husband is a physician and I have a couple of degrees myself, and-

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah, you paid off student loans. You’ve been through all the schooling. He has-

Minal Sampat:
I’ve been through all of that. Again, I used to also work in a dental practice. So this is-

Ryan Isaac:
Hygienist. That was in the paragraph. I said that. Hygienist. Yeah, okay.

Minal Sampat:
Yes, yes. Yeah, hygienist. But not even just a hygienist, I was their internal marketing director for a dental practice as well. So I have been through this horrifying process of having every single marketing company call you, all the cold calls coming in. They’re like, “Your website sucks. Did you know that your website sucks? You need a brand new website right away.”

Ryan Isaac:
You’re like, “Oh my gosh.”

Minal Sampat:
They’ll call you and be like, “We are local people and we’ll put you up right over there. We’ll put you up right over there.” And it’s like, “Well, how do you figure this out? How do you decide for this? How do you…” And you become so overwhelmed and so confused. You’re like, “Maybe I’ll just throw more money,” right? To make money, I have to spend money. That’s the famous quote, right?

Ryan Isaac:
Yeah.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah. But there’s a difference between spending and wasting money. I don’t want you to waste the money. I want you to spend the money. I want you to calculate ROI. This is what you guys are so fantastic at, understanding money, money mindset.

Minal Sampat:
Once you have that and then create… This is going to my personal side now, going from the business to my personal side. Create very specific goals that you have. There are some people who tell you, “Pay back your student loans right away.” Others will tell you, “Invest in your practice.” Others will tell you, “Do 401(k).” Others will tell you, “Get a mortgage. No, pay off your house.” All of those are right answers. It just depends on what your goal is.

Ryan Isaac:
On you. Yeah, exactly.

Minal Sampat:
Yeah, exactly. For my husband and I, we had a goal that within two years of him actually starting to practice, we’re going to pay back his loans. We achieved that in 18 months-

Ryan Isaac:
So cool.

Minal Sampat:
… but it wasn’t like we woke up one day and we’re like, “Yes.” No, there was a plan. There was a strategy. How much money are we putting where? What are we spending our money on? We live a minimalistic lifestyle.

Minal Sampat:
Do you. Do you comfortably, but know that there is a difference between wasting and spending money and what’s going to get you to your goal faster. For us, I always that like, “This amount of money is going into our student loans.” There is no [crosstalk 00:32:44].

Ryan Isaac:
No argument. Yeah. We will eat less food if we have to.

Minal Sampat:
No argument. Yeah, we will not go out to that brand new restaurant or brewery. We will not buy a Tesla. My car is a 2008 Corolla. I still drive it. [crosstalk 00:32:58].

Ryan Isaac:
Hey.

Minal Sampat:
And I’m proud of it. I don’t care. It works fantastic. So you make your choices. It’s great.

Ryan Isaac:
That’s awesome. I think that’s a great tie in. The first thing you said on here on marketing was be organized, analyze your data, know where you want to go, know yourself, know your audience. And the same thing with personal finances. I mean, it starts with organization. It starts with seeing the whole picture, and then zooming in based on what you want out of it and where you’re headed. I think that’s cool.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay, two questions that are kind of random, but I like to ask everyone these questions. You’re totally on the spot now. You have no idea these are coming. Okay?

Minal Sampat:
Okay.

Ryan Isaac:
If these are awful, we’ll just edit it later. But they’re going to be great. Number one would be tell us a habit that you have in your life. Could be a daily habit or just something, a habit in your life that you feel has been really helpful or productive. A good habit in your life that’s been helpful or productive. You can do these in any order. Number two is give us a book recommendation, a book you’ve loved. It doesn’t have to be the most recent one. Any of those two. Go ahead.

Minal Sampat:
Well, the number one thing, a habit that I do is I have to practice what I preach. So if you ever message me, like a post, email me, you will always get a reply. 100%.

Ryan Isaac:
Engagement. Minal will engage. Okay.

Minal Sampat:
I will engage, and people know this. Go into my social media. If there is a comment on my Facebook post, even if there is a like, you get a comment back.

Ryan Isaac:
You’ve responded.

Minal Sampat:
I respond. It’s me responding. It’s not a team member. It’s not a-

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Minal Sampat:
It’s me responding. That’s something that I do on a daily basis.

Ryan Isaac:
Awesome.

Minal Sampat:
I think that’s important.

Minal Sampat:
The book I read. I love a lot of different kinds of books. One of the business books that I’ve always loved is E-Myth and E-Myth Revisited, because those are both brilliant books. I read them before I started my company-

Ryan Isaac:
Cool.

Minal Sampat:
… to understand how to create a structure. So those business books, absolutely I love that. And then I am an avid reader. I read a book a week. I like mystery books. I like Sherlock Holmes books. But this is my total nerd. This is my total geek side coming out now. So if you guys judge me, it’s okay. I’m a Harry Potter nerd.

Ryan Isaac:
Are we talking like multiple times through the series, dress up, go to Harry Potter World?

Minal Sampat:
Dude, I mean-

Ryan Isaac:
How many wands do you have?

Minal Sampat:
I have wands. I’ve been to the Harry Power World. I have all the books. I have all the movies digitally on their own on DVDs. I have seen the actors in person. I have their autographs. Total nerd moment.

Ryan Isaac:
Hey Minal, thank you for being here and sharing all these tips with us, and your insight, and your personal experience. How about end this with where can people find you, any other resources you want to point people to that could be helpful? Your book again, your website, whatever. Just where can people find you and reach out to you?

Minal Sampat:
Sure. I mean, MinalSampat.com, which is M-I-N-A-L-S-A-M-P-A-T.com. There’s a bunch of awesome stuff on there. Please become my Facebook friend. That’s how you really stay in touch with me is by being on Facebook with me, because you do become my friend. So go on to Facebook, do Minal Sampat. I have a photo of me in a gray dress, and send me a friend request.

Ryan Isaac:
Okay. Minal Sampat, thank you for joining us. Thanks everyone for listening. Appreciate it. Hope you enjoyed this show. Go find Minal online and get some engagement. Thanks, Minal.

Minal Sampat:
Thank you.

Ryan Isaac:
All right. Big thanks to Minal for joining me today on the show. That was really cool to hear all of her practical experience and things she’s done with social media, especially in the marketing side of dental practice. So hopefully, that was helpful and you guys can take away a few of those things to go and take back to your practices and your lives. I hope you see some improvement out of that. So thanks again for tuning in. We really appreciate the support and for you always listening to the show. We’ll catch you next time.

Practice Management