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Dentists, Puns, and Money is a podcast focused on two things: The financial topics relevant to dentists leaving clinical practice and the stories and lessons of dentists who have already done so.
1. The stories of dentists who have transitioned from full-time clinical dentistry.
2. The financial topics that are relevant for dentists making that transition.
If you’re a dentist thinking about your exit from clinical, and you’d like to learn from the experiences of other dentists who have made that transition, be sure to subscribe to your favorite podcast app.
Host Shawn Terrell also dives deep into the many financial components of exiting dentistry, including tax reduction strategies and how to live off your assets.
And, we try to keep it light by mixing in a bad joke… or two.
Please note: Dentists, Puns, and Money was previously known as The Practice Growth Podcast until March 2022.
Dentists, Puns, and Money – Grace Rizza – Identity Dental Marketing
Keywords: dentist, marketing, people, dentistry, dental practice, practice, brand, patients, identity, podcast, doctor, exit, clinical, dental, work, bit, building, branding, hear, important
Welcome to dentists, puns and money. I'm your host Shawn Terrell. My guest on today's show is Grace Rizza. Grace is the founder and CEO of identity dental marketing since founding her company in 2009. Grace has helped guide the growth of more than 1500 dental practices and our conversation. Grace explains why marketing is important and why it's especially critical for a late career dentist who's planning to sell their practice or exit clinical in the next few years. Plus, we dive into some of the best marketing tactics to consider for dentists who's on the back stretch of their clinical career. As a reminder our financial planning firm dentist Exit Planning helps dentists with personal financial planning as they transition from clinical specifically, how to reduce that massive lifetime tax bill and how to replace your clinical and owner income using your other assets. If you're interested in financial guidance on your exit from dentistry, please schedule an initial consultation with us on our website. That website is dentist exit.com And with that introduction, I hope you enjoy my conversation with Grace Riza All right, Grace Riza Welcome to dentists puns in money. I am excited to hear your story and thank you for joining us
today. Thanks for having me here.
Where I always like to start is just with a little background for the audience so they can learn a little bit more about you and sort of how you get to this current point of your career. Could you share a little background about your journey thus far?
Absolutely. I fell backwards into dentistry. I think a lot of people find themselves in dentistry and say how did this happen? It's definitely me. I've no dentist in my family. In fact, when I told my family I was gonna be starting a dental marketing company. I think they thought I was losing my mind and it didn't make any sense. Especially in 2009 when told marketing agencies weren't a thing and a lot of people at that time weren't really excited about marketing and Dentistry was kind of like the it was like a bad word. A lot of people took pride in growing exclusively through word of mouth and that's what I would hear see all the time and dentists for that like a badge of honor that they didn't need marketing because they were so good at dentistry. They didn't need that bad evil thing. So kind of fell into it got a job offer from a couple of doctors and went to work in their practice. And I fell into it and then I fell in love with it and I've been at it ever since. really passionate about building brands, and reputations, building teams and my focus is really on helping dental practice owners attract the right types of patients and the right quantity of patients or healthy cash flow and a healthy predictable growth for their practice.
So if I understand correctly, you started out working for someone on the marketing side for dental practices and then you eventually went off and started your own thing. Identity dental marketing, a little bit more about that transformation and what led to that leap.
So I was the marketing director for two location practice in a competitive market in the Chicagoland area. And then about a year and a half in, just realized I'm really enjoying this I love it. And in the fall of 2009 I started identity dental marketing with goals of growing and having my own city and it was it was a fun, challenging journey.
But let's start really high level with marketing. What are a few of the big or bigger marketing principles just in general that a dental practice owner or the marketing director at a dental practice needs to understand to be successful
at marketing. Okay, first of all, there's no such thing as no marketing exists your brand which is a type of marketing your reputation and that precedes you that exists whether you fully craft it or not. You just let it happen on its own. It's there. So a lot of people start their calls with me like we've never done any marketing and I'm like, Oh yes, yes, you have it exists. So that's the first thing is it exists and are you intentionally shaping that reputation? And so that that that's a common missing piece is people don't realize that
so interesting because as I think about brand, and I think you kind of intimated this, like I think about someone's brand is all these teeny tiny little drops and just like little interactions over long periods of time, that sort of make up the identity of someone right? And you said be intentional about that. What are a couple examples of how a dental practice or a dentist could be a little bit more intentional to the best brand for themselves forward as possible.
So when you think about your brand, just think it's your reputation is what people think of when they think of you immediately. I started just kind of going into a little story. I thought my brand was going to be custom designs. I was like everything's so cookie cutter or why is everything a tooth can I can break be the person to bring intentional branding to dentistry and it doesn't really exist here yet. So this is an exciting challenge. Then about three or four years in, clients will call and say, Well, the reason my buddy told me to call you is because you're honest. I kept hearing that over and over again. You're just really honest. You'll just tell me how it is. I trust you and overwhelmingly throughout the years the reason why people would hire us and stay loyal to us and refer to us because I wasn't really I often joke that I'm like the worst salesperson in dentistry. So I'm like, no, no, no, don't do that. Yeah, you're not ready for that marketing to focus here right now and you need to get a healthy cash flow before you build it this way. And so I just embraced it. At a certain point. I was like okay, identity, yes, we're helping people build their identity. I'm not going to change my name. Our core, core brand is really just tell people the truth about what it takes and what to expect in the space. Same thing for dentists want them to feel free to say why do patients choose me? Why why are they coming to me? Why are they referring their friends and family to me? And sometimes what they think it is and what they want it to be isn't exactly what it truly is. So we're very good at asking the right questions.
What is it a lot of times that people get is but it's not or however you want to answer that kinda what you just said they're
different. Everywhere. Every person I talked to has a different thing. Someone might think it's that they offer comprehensive dentistry that they do everything under the sun. They've never really communicated that they don't have any educational marketing. They don't have any video ads on social communicating the convenience are the One Stop Shop Vantage. So they end up having a whole bunch of patients who are actually not there because of that and maybe don't even know that they are so full service. And really what people say about them, it could be wildly different than than what they think.
How would you define successful marketing for a dental practice? Like what are the key indicators that a practice is really dialed in and doing marketing well.
So funny because seeing some of the worst marketing ever perform some of the best marketing and it's I think people look at look at the marketing like it's totally to blame or to credit for the success of a practice. And it's so not true. I mean, it's one piece of the puzzle. So like instances where I see really bad marketing, performing really well meet the owner and you're like, oh my gosh, I love him. And he's so friendly and his team loves him. And his patients love Him and His word of mouth is is bananas. But he's got this awful website and how are we going to elevate his brand and match who he is who he truly is. So, the marketing just it goes beyond your digital assets and your website and your reach. It's all encompassing everything you do. So it's unfortunate because I try to tell people you know, you have to find joy in your business. You have to Zewde joy and confidence. All the marketing in the world isn't going to keep your team on board. It's not going to keep them answering the phones. With confidence, not going to keep your patients accepting treatment. And so the marketing can only get you so far. And then you have to also true to that message that you put out.
So interesting because as I asked that question, I'm asking for quantifiable things almost and as I hear you answer it. I hear you sort of explaining these qualitative things that are a little bit harder to articulate, right like as I think about my personal dentist, reason I like going to him and we have a shared history. We were friends before he was a dentist that's part of it. You know, they have a friendly staff when you walk in it's the parking lot is clean. The front office is clean when he sits down. He has a caring nature just all those little things that make up and why I like going to him and why I've never thought about going to a different dentist and I hear you right your job is to try to capture that and articulate that for other people so they can discover that as well. But that's kind of hard to do.
It's like a knack. It's like a God given gift. For me personally, I love branding. It's funny because as you're explaining your dentist, I've had a lot of great dentists and I moved about a year ago so I've been under this hole let's find a new doctor thing. And I have liked both the doctors that I've liked. I've gotten to three it's funny because what you love and a dentist might not be the perfect fit for me, like what I need, because I've got all sorts of dental problems might be different than what you need. So the mark it's more important and if you're listening like literally write this down for your marketers or for your team. It's more important that you are true to who you are your marketing then that you try to fit what you think the demand is. Don't try to fit yourself into a wall in our markets are blue collar who make XYZ amount of dollars and they're looking for affordability and this and that whatever in dentistry looking for trust, they're looking for connection. They're looking for someone who's fit with them and jive with them. And so when you're marketing, you're not looking to be everything to everyone. You're looking to connect with this personality, the psychographics of your target audience which many people just go right to demographics, and then they go right to tactics and strategies. And they skip over the the most important piece is who are we? Who do we work best with?
So interesting. Yeah, what I hear you saying is dentists needs to figure out who they really are and who they really enjoy most working with what types of people what personality types, your job to help pull that out of them and then mark it in a way that's going to attract those types of people. Patients are going to be happiest with a dentist like that and the dentist is going to be a lot happier working with patients that sort of Jive best with that and I mean, I think you can see it any type of business were really easy to try to win business or get patients that often leads to failure or just unhappiness if they're not the right type of patients or it's not the right type of dentists
for a patient. Absolutely and and you end up with this churn. You don't want like you put yourself out into the world and you're true to who you are. Maybe you embrace some video marketing, some educational marketing, in addition to just having that footprint and that presence when someone's looking for you. When you embrace these things that are maybe a little outside of your comfort zone. You're going to connect, you're gonna naturally be a connection for some people, they're gonna see you or they're gonna see what you stand for. And they're gonna go Yeah, I really, you know, I agree with that. I like that. It's what I call the long game marketing. Most people don't play the long game most people only are interested in the cost per click cost to conversion, metric driven, data driven marketing and data driven marketing is important. I want in 2022 2023 doesn't have data driven marketing. But beyond that, where's the creative? How are you standing out the right people that's often lost.
Shifting gears a little bit longtime listeners of this podcast and it's a it's a very distinguished few people that have been here since the beginning. But just as a backdrop, this podcast started out sort of like as this dental variety show and anything related to dentistry or anyone related to dentistry, sort of good enough to be an episode or good enough to be a guest. And as we move into 2023, getting a little bit more focused on the podcast being people or topics that most relate to a dentist that's near or in the process of exiting their practice or their career clinically. So, backdrop you and I talked before we ever actually scheduled to record because I wasn't sure that a marketing topic or a podcast episode that was about marketing, be a great topic for dentists that was sort of in the late stage or near the finish line of their career. And you assured me that marketing is still very important, very critical for dentists that sort of on the back stretch of their career. Could you share a little bit more about that with that long lineup into kind of where we've been and how you can help a dentist think about marketing and if they're in the late stages of things?
Absolutely. Well, if your target market is someone that might want to buy your practice, you're gonna want to put yourself into their shoes, what are they going to want out of a practice, they're gonna want a healthy practice, they're gonna want a healthy new patient flow. They're gonna want a practice that they can step into potentially, and have an easy or seamless transition. If you haven't looked at your marketing, you haven't looked at your branding is your name, calm, the brand isn't been updated in many years, that's going to be I think, a little bit harder to sell. It'd be a little bit harder of a transition and you're going to leave a little bit of money on the table. When it comes time to to find a buyer or an associate who intends to buy in or buy the practice. So really, whether it's year out three years, five years, it's it is something to consider when you're nearing your final stages of clinical dentistry. So
sort of those timelines that you threw out there what are because we talked before about how marketing and identity building is not like a snap your fingers overnight thing that you can do. There are some things that a dentist can think about at different stages, shorter and longer from their eventual exit.
Slowly they should think about value of the practice building the goodwill, how many reviews they have on Google, it's very blatant obvious number and it it does contribute to the value of the practice all these things. Stay with the practice after you're out. Everything if you were to buy a practice, what would you want to see? You would want it to be something that you know you could call your own. So
know the answer to this well I guess I don't know the answer to a lot of these questions, but it just occurred to me is it a dental practice has been more about the identity of the actual dentist practicing and it's sort of Dr. Johnson or Dr. Smith, dental LLC. It would occur to me that if an exit is within the next five or 10 years, you would want to make practice more branded towards the entity or the practice in general and maybe a little bit less branded towards the actual individual doctor with his or her name.
Yeah, and that's true. And in fact, a lot of people when they do start that rebranding process as they get ready to sell, they panic and it's funny because it's not not really hard to do that. So you can put your name on the logo and your patients will still know that you're there. Feel like if they're if they're rebranding a little bit too soon that they're going to tip people off. In reality, it's better that you the sooner you rebrand better and the easier it is for someone to come in and take over. You're
explaining as I'm thinking about buying a house, that's where my mind goes. And it's kind of the difference as I hear you explaining it between buying a fixer upper or buying a house that real estate market is called Moving ready or you sort of like move everything in, like as a seller of a house. If you're going to sell your house. I think it can be hard to maybe wrap your mind around the idea that you have to dump a bunch of money to it before you sell it. But that's going to make it a lot more attractive to a buyer versus buyer looking at you explain it you know like a buyer. Think about how a buyer is going to look at your practice. Know how much work needs to be done to get it work and eventually be. I don't know is that an analogy that you use a lot or that's something?
I've never used it but I think it's a perfect analogy. I think it's a very good analogy, except it doesn't have to be $30,000 to change business name it can be very simple thing like you may not choose to remodel your whole interior of your practice, but you may just brush and do a fresh clean of coat, fresh coat of paint. So yes, there are things you can do nearing the end there that will just increase the value, make it more enticing to a buyer. How would you
market a practice to build revenue when you have a doctor that's still away from actually selling but they want to cut back on their hours?
So I would look at first thing I would ask the doctor is what dental services do you really enjoy? What procedures are profitable, enjoyable? And then I might consider targeting those services with an ad campaign. Here you know, Invisalign is great. Sleep apnea is a new passion so they don't mind patients that need those treatments. So with less time they can often see a stronger return on investment.
We've only been acquainted for a couple months here but one of the things that I've noticed in your branding and the way you communicate is you use the word ethical bot and your marketing material and your emails, your podcasts that I've listened to. What about ethical is important to you and your brand and how you you work with dentists.
I have been astonished at what I've seen in marketing in terms of unethical practice. I've seen people steal websites from their clients. I've seen extortion like if you don't pay us eight grand we're going to keep your domain seen tracking phone numbers that the doctor doesn't own and if they ever cancel then they reroute their business. elsewhere. So a big part of my like personal mission is to educate doctors and be just very very honest with them about what to expect. So that when they are taking a risk which marketing is a risk, it is a calculated risk, but it is a risk taking that risk that they understand that the risk is the expectations the timeline for return and that they feel confident in that decision making so for me ethical is wasn't my original plan for branding. I wanted to be that custom brand was really my core. Over time. I learned unfortunately in this space. Really hard to come across people that just the truth. So built on that and
it seems to be attractive because some of the examples that you just gave like kind of blew my mind is I was hearing you talk about like people really do that to other people.
But still ad spend do they steal their ad spend?
Oh, just by being a straight shooter, as we've talked before about that sort of my MO and just by being honest and direct with people and just by following the golden rule. It sounds like there's real value and still a place out there as a differentiator for for companies
and brands. I think that every business owner should be looking for God. I think every business owner should be rooted in their core values and in their ethics are not working for the approval of other people. You're always doing what's right and putting that first profitability and a strong team and loyal clients. That is the byproduct of doing what's right. Renee says
we start to sort of wrap up a little bit here. I've tried to hit on the important topics and try to really lay out what it is that you do for dental practices and how you can help there anything that I haven't asked about that you think would be important to add.
I would just say it's never too late. It's never too early. You have intentional marketing and to educate your community. I would let people know that. Just one example. Two little girls when I was pregnant, no doctor, no OB doctor told me that I needed to make sure my oral health was in line and that was taking care of my oral health. Being in the dental profession for 15 years or whatever it is. Now. I know that I'm seven times more likely when pregnant to have preterm labor or miscarriage. really devastating things to a woman. And where's that education going to come from? So when you think about marketing I would I would challenge you to think about it differently. I would challenge you to think about it as an obligation to your community, no matter what stage of business that you're in it upon yourself to be the source of that information for your your community, and you will grow.
The name of the podcast is dentists, ponds. And money. Do you have a full joke? Like to share as we wrap up?
It's really grim is really not my brand, but I'm gonna share it.
We've heard it all over the spectrum on this podcast, so go ahead.
Yeah. Where do you hide a dead body? Do not know where you hide a dead body. It's too Google.
No one ever makes it past page one do that. Yeah. Nice for those listening that are interested and would like to initiate a conversation with you. What's the best way to get in touch or to learn a little bit more about you and your your company?
Thank you identity dental.com
identity dental.com That is Grace Rizza, the founder and CEO of identity dental.com Grace, thank you for sharing your expertise and for being a guest on dentists puns and money. Thank you, Shawn. Thanks for listening and following along. Are you a dentist nearing your retirement from clinical or have you already hung up your handpiece? Would you like to learn more about ways to reduce your taxes and generate income from your assets in retirement? Our affiliated firm dentists Exit Planning might be able to help you with those two things. Schedule an initial consultation with us on our website. Our web address is dentist exit.com There's no obligation for your initial consultation. Again, schedule that initial consultation at dentist exit.com As for our disclosure, Dentist Exit Planning and Terrill advisors is a registered investment advisor. The information presented should not be interpreted or construed as investment, legal tax financial planning or wealth management advice. It does not substitute for personalized investment or financial planning from dentist Exit Planning or Terrill advisors. This podcast conveys the views and opinions of Sean Terrell and his guests and the information herein should not be considered a solicitation to engage in a particular investment or financial planning strategy information presented is for educational purposes only and past performance is not indicative of future results.