Why Your Value Proposition is Critical to the Success of Your Practice

You're listening to the Phil Klein Dental Podcast Thanks for joining us. I'm Dr. Phil Klein. As dental health care providers, our primary goal is to diagnose and treat oral health conditions. But a dental practice is also a business. And like every successful business, it needs a clear and strong value proposition. And the value proposition defines how you deliver your brand promise and how your offering will deliver value to your patients and staff. It differentiates you, positions your offering as unique, and makes it clear why patients should choose you as their dentist. To tell us more about how we can define our value and communicate it to our patients and our team is our guest, Dr. Lori Trost. Dr. Trost is a recognized dental educator, author, and clinical consultant who maintains a comprehensive restorative practice in the greater St. Louis, Missouri area. Before we begin, I would like to thank our sponsor, Microcopy. Microcopy is a leading dental company that continues to create innovative products designed to be efficient, safe, and easy to use. Some of its latest high-quality products include NeoDiamond Z-Class Diamond Burrs, uniquely made for adjusting and cutting zirconia. And also, many of us are familiar with Neoshine Mini single-patient-use sterile polishers that are designed to polish composite, zirconia, and metal. So we thank Microcopy for supporting this podcast. To learn more about their intuitive products that help make dentistry a whole lot simpler, visit microcopydental.com. Dr. Trost, thanks for joining us. Hi there, Dr. Klein. How are you? Nice to be with you. As I mentioned in my introduction, dentistry is a business and all businesses that sell services and products really have to define what their value proposition is, right? Because if they don't have that as a foundation, it's really hard to move forward and keep on track. So to begin this podcast, briefly tell us what a value proposition is and why it's important for a practice to have one. A value proposition is really a very simple statement that's going to summarize what your patients should expect to experience and really why they choose you. It's got so much depth and breadth in it because it's more than a mission statement. It's a buy-in. from the entire team. And I remember years ago when I was crafting a new practice and developing this new practice and building, and you know, you always heard the term, you had to have a mission statement and you had to build your brand through that mission statement. And you would bring people to the table and gather your team and you would magnetize those like kind team members to your team because they all had a buy-in with that mission statement. They were part of that. It created the loyalty. It created your vision. It created your direction of your practice. But now as we move into this new world, and I'm going to call it a new world with technology because everyone has access to see what you do in your practice. They see videos. They read reviews. They hear from other people, other patients. They hear from team members who are your ambassadors. And this now value proposition takes on a greater personality because it's a living, for lack of a term, document every day in your practice. More importantly, with every patient, because it's an opportunity to push out who you are, what you're about, and why you like what you do. And I think it's what really attracts the kind of patience. you want to have come to your practice. It also attracts the kind of team members that you want to join your team. Right. So looking at it from the other side, the flip side, if you did not have a value proposition defined in your practice, what would that look like? What would be the downside for a practice? Just to go to work, they see decay, they see periodontal disease, something they can't do, they send out to a specialist, they do what they learned in dental school. What's the downside of that? The downside is that Really, you're just kind of treading water. You're honestly not, you don't have a direction. And, you know, Simon Sinek best, you know, he said it best, what is your why? And that value proposition is really the emotional connection to your why. Why do you go to work? Why do you like to do what you do? If you don't have that, you really kind of need to find that and land on that because dentistry right now, we're all busy. We're busy in different ways. Some is chaotic busy. Some is a very productive busy. But if you want to have a buy -in with your team and you want to excel, and I constantly have dentists come up to me and like, how do you grow your practice? What do you do? How do you keep happy patients? Why do you get the reviews you do? How do you achieve that? Well, it's so much tethered to this value proposition. And again, it's our directional. It's what we all believe in. And it's what we live daily. It's a very important compass. So a dentist may have a value proposition in his or her own mind. They may know what gets them out of bed in the morning and how they should interact with patients and their philosophy on treating dental cases in conservative ways. And it depends on who the dentist is and what their philosophy is. But that's not good enough, right? Because it can't just... sit and reside in the mind of the dentist. It has to be pervasive through the office and the team members need to get on board with this. And then of course, the patients need to know about it. So my question to you is, and you've had tremendous success, Dr. Trost, in your practice, because I know you moved your practice and like all these patients were like, you know, where did Dr. Trost go? I got to go find her and you can't even handle the load of patients that you're having right now. But how does a practice recognize and define their value proposition? And how does that dentist disseminate that concept to their staff and get it out of their own head and then ensure that their patients know about it? I think it starts with communication. I think the dentist has to sit down and settle themselves in their own mind. They have to come to a point where they realize they can't do this by themselves. That's number one. Number two, no one is a mind reader, even though we'd love to have our team members be a mind reader, right? It's not going to happen. So you've got to create yourself as that leader, establish yourself as a leader. But the input then becomes the value proposition because you're going to build that through everyone else that you build and add onto your team. Everyone has, it's no different than, say, for example, a baseball team or a soccer team. Everyone's got a position and a role and offices are exactly like that. Look at a restaurant. The same kind of thing applies. And the more communication that you can have, the more that you can mix between interactions and follow the patient. I mean, if you sit there and really track what happens through an office between that first phone call or maybe that website introduction all the way to when they come into the appointment, how they're greeted. I know I talk, this is about the patient experience, but. It really is about the value proposition because you've got a short window of time to make a great impact. And in today's world, when you call someone by their name, it's a very important thing because many people don't ever hear their names anymore. And that's a simple thing to do. And manners are incredible. Thank you. And please, those are big things, too. That sounds crazy. But these are all really important communication tools that have to come out of the dentist. brain and thought process put down on paper and then you start to build this out with your office and then you know sit down and have you know whether you do weekly meetings monthly meetings You repeat it in your morning huddle. It's ironic. Only about 35% of offices meet in the morning before they start the day. And it's a real simple thing. You could really start to see how this could develop. But the more that you can communicate and transfer the information, transfer the experiences of what other patients are sharing with each of the team members, because. You might have the hygienist checking out a patient, and she might have said, you know what, that assistant did the best x-rays I've ever had in my life. They need to know that. So it's internal, but it's external too. So everyone has a component. Everyone has a role. Everyone should be contributing to what the value proposition is. And the communication is the first start, but the second is I really believe is education. And that's when you talk about how you start to implement this. You've got to be first a good communicator, but then secondarily, the communication aspect is massive because dentistry is such an emotional, emotional profession. So in your office, based on your success that you've had in your career, can you give us an example of what you did to get your value proposition documented? You mentioned put it on paper. We don't even use paper anymore, but it's an expression. But how do you get it documented and how long a document is it? How much is there? I think the value proposition, I think a couple simple sentences can really capture the essence of what you're trying to relay. I think you need to sit down with your teammates and just describe your office. Describe words, adjectives that really fulfill and really give the best picture. to your team members and to your practice so you can share that with patients. It sounds crazy, but it's not that hard. In 15 minutes, you could brainstorm and literally come up probably with 10 great keywords that then you start to build out and then kind of group them down to maybe three and take that three then and start to craft some sentences that have a powerful but yet intentional. reach and an emotional component to reach your patients. When you hire someone, Dr. Trost, do you present them with your value proposition during that hiring process or does that come later? That comes a little bit later. We talk about first our mission statement, how we're committed to our patients. And then from there, if I know that there's a buy-in there that they can see our importance on that, the value proposition comes because there's checkpoints for us. They need to understand. that education is part of this communication, their excellence in how they relate to the patient and how they have that patient experience and that relationship and how they build all that and bundle all that together. It's kind of like, I'm going to go back to the baseball analogy, but it's one thing to catch a ball, but it's another thing to throw it back. So this is a 360 kind of experience. new hire, and actually I'm getting a new assistant, which I'm really excited about, but it's going to be fun. When our interview process was with her, she clearly understood what the mission statement was about. We talked about that in depth. And one of the questions I asked her too was, what's one of your proudest moments? What have you done that you're so proud of in dentistry? Share that. And that's a question that I think each of us should share and should live out through that value proposition weekly, if not daily, because That's why you're doing your why. That's why you're there in the profession and in the practice and treating patients. Right. So the mission statement is different than the value proposition, but they're related. They're very tied together. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So you've been practicing quite a while now and you have a lot of experience in clinical dentistry, running a practice. Give us an example of a value proposition that would apply to a dental practice just for the sake of discussion. So literally, I'm going to go back to the three key words that I talked about because I want to be very clear. The value proposition is not something necessarily that we share with patients. It's something that we live by. So when you talk about that evolving and functional living, breathing kind of way of life culture, that's what it is. And everyone understands those components, those three components. Communication, education, and relationship for us are what are key. And we want to be able to strike each of those components, each and every patient. Probably one of the best examples I have, and I had two new patients in yesterday. Both are coming to me. They haven't been to the dentist in five years. They're both fearful to open their mouths. They're both fearful to share and show what they have. But honestly, when you can get past the emotion, you can start to connect with them. And I tell them I want them to be educated. I'm very straightforward. I want to be able to share with them ideas. I want to tell them, first off, I'm here to help you. And I don't care. One of the things we talk about all the time with emergency patients, even this is a great takeaway. Again, through the value proposition, the first question we ask every emergency patient when they sit down, how can we help you? And then we'd be quiet. That sounds so very simple and basic, but you learn to listen and you learn to weave that in through that conversation where you need to go and take it down the road. Next, you're going to start to think about. education. How do I get those patients' education piqued? How do I get them curious? How do I get them to feel better about themselves when maybe they walked in and they didn't even want to open their mouths? You know, one patient yesterday, she said to me, she goes, I feel so good that I'm here. I know I made the right decision. That's because I educated her. That's because we gave her a plan. That's another thing. You know, the education then, so many offices don't take the next step and really create a comprehensive treatment plan. And I share it with patients constantly. This is like a pie. You might not eat the whole pie at one time, but let's just do slice by slice. And guess what? Over a period of time, you're going to get the care you need and get your mouth restored. And that's a big, big concept. But you part down into a visual that people can understand. You use basic terms. Keep your treatment plan and your comprehensive treatment plans in a simple format. I don't think we need to go crazy with it, but I think we need to be able to. communicate clearly and easily and succinctly. And everyone, again, is on the same page. I don't care if it's the assistant in the room, the hygienist or the front office person. You've got to have everyone using the same terms. I don't care if it's a fractured tooth. I don't care if it's an extraction that needs to be done, an endo, you name it all. We all have to have the same. verbiage that we're using and scripting is critical there for that. Okay. When you get a patient that comes in that looks at themselves as a dental failure, someone who has gone to many dentists in their life, they're not doing well with their teeth. They have gingivitis, they have periodontal disease, they've lost teeth and they don't have a very attractive smile. They look at themselves as like, you know, I've been to so many dentists. I had some hopes with some dentists along the way. It didn't work out. They almost make me feel like, um, unable to take care of my own teeth and they make me feel guilty. It's really difficult to get that patient to change their views of going to the dentist. So you could use your value proposition in that culture throughout every staff member to get that patient to say, no, you're not a dental failure. We're here to work with you and we're going to do this together. That's kind of like a value proposition, right? It totally is. It's a partnership. And I think so many people want that handholding and especially patients, because again, we're very emotionally driven, fear driven often. We hear constantly, I had a bad experience, right? So overcome that with an opportunity to partner with them. And I think once you relay that to them, that's very powerful. Right. So partnering, that is a subset of a larger value proposition for that practice. So let me get to my final question. And that is, there's a lot of practice benefits here. Talk about some of the benefits that can be realized by the office when they start utilizing this effectively, this value proposition concept, and how long does it typically take? to start to see these benefits materialize. So it's interesting. I think it takes probably, honestly, you're going to see a feedback result in about three months, okay? Because I feel that once a team is on board and you, you know, it's one thing to set a goal, another thing to create a system. And a value proposition is much of a system. You know, week one, the first month, week one, you start working more on your scripting on education. How do you make, how do you, how do you describe a fractured tooth? How do you, why do you need a crown? Why do you need a root canal? Why do you need scaling and root cleaning? And get your verbiage very clean and just, again, tighten it up, but show it and share it with compassion. That's all you have to do. I think then you start to practice it. And by month three, you've honed it. And I think you're going to see patients come back. And, you know, it's interesting. We constantly have patients refer back. I remember when you talked to me about that slice in that pie. Think about that. So that visual is still in their brain about that. And I had a couple patients in the last month that I finished. It's been over a year's worth of treatment. And one of them said, remember about that slice in the pie? I said, yes. I'm like, you did it. That's a huge win for them. You talk about restoring their confidence. And those are the kind of patients then that branch out and start to. you know, garner other and share that message with other patients that are like kind that come back to you then and you're building your practice. And so the benefits are huge because now you're feeding your system with like kind people that you want to treat. Your team is on board. They're energized. And, you know, one of the things we're having to fight now is is just I hate to say this. I hear offices that are one either board, which are not many, but they're not busy enough. But secondarily, there's so much chaos that's creating burnout. So I feel if you can keep things in a good energy platform and if you can keep consistency, communicate well, build with education. I joke all the time. I want my patients to be the smartest patients, smartest dental patients. Why? Because they're going to make good choices. What did the guy say that used to sell coats in New York City? An educated consumer is our best customer. Yeah, that was that. He became famous because of that quote. Yeah, that's been very interesting. I think it's really important. I think dentists have to actually, like you said, get into a state of equanimity where they could have more composure and not worry about the volume that they do. Running from operatory to operatory and sitting down and say, hi, Mrs. Jones, okay, open wide, and they hit it right away. They have to reinforce that culture, that value proposition throughout their practice. And they may not be seeing as many patients, but I think their lifestyle and their overall... bottom line will grow beyond having a typical chaotic volume practice. Do you agree? Oh, absolutely. I think your happiness in a quotient, it will just exceed your wireless expectations just because you're committed to something. I think that's healthy in so many ways, emotionally, physically, mentally, psychologically, all of us. It just makes a huge difference. Yeah, and brings so much more career satisfaction, for sure, to the practice. And your employer retention probably goes way up as well. Huge. Yeah. And you are a testament to that success, Dr. Trost, over the years, because you've just done about everything between lecturing and practicing and moving your practice. You went to a smaller practice just because you wanted a boutique practice. And that became too busy. And that boutique concept kind of went down the drain because you're a victim of your own success and maybe your own value proposition. You're a victim of your own value proposition. That's what that is. No, I'm grateful. I've got a great team I work with. And I absolutely have wonderful patients. I couldn't be happier with what I do and where I'm at. It's a great place. Again, Dr. Trolls, thank you so much for your time. I know how busy you are. And good luck with your new home. And thank you so much for spending time with us today. Good. Thank you, Dr. Klein. If you like our podcast and want us to keep it going, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. 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