12 October 2022

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Dr. Chris Phelps: Marketing agencies have failed us

Dentistry expert talks about his new book on marketing, lost opportunities

Mary Guiden

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Dr. Christopher Phelps is an entrepreneur, general dentist and an Amazon best-selling author of the book, “Grow Your Dental Membership Plan.” His new book, “The Complete Book on Dental Marketing,” is available for pre-order through Edra Publishing. 

Phelps is an expert in the science of ethical influence and persuasion and currently practices in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is a cohost on the Dental Slang and Marketing Mindset podcasts. Phelps is the founder and president of Golden Goose Scheduling, The Phelps Institute, Your Marketing CEO & Dental Membership Direct.

He recently sat down with Dentistry33 and discussed his new book, how he’s been successful and why he feels that advertising and marketing agencies have, to this point, failed dentists. This is the first of a three-part interview. The next segment will be published Oct. 17. 

Q: Dr. Phelps – you are a best-selling author, entrepreneur, business owner, dentist, educator and a Cialdini Method Certified Trainer in ethical influence and persuasion. How do you find time to manage all these roles?

A: Luckily for me a few years back, I discovered the science of cloning, and I was able to clone myself, and then make clones of my clones. So, there’s about 18 of me running around. If you’ve seen the movie "Multiplicity," you’ll get that joke. 

I wish I could clone myself, but truthfully, what it comes down to is that I learned early on that I couldn’t do it by myself, and I had to surround myself with good people and hire for strengths that were not in my wheelhouse. I give my staff the autonomy that they need to do what they do best and don’t get in their way. 

Giving up some control but giving it to the right people really freed up my time. It looks like I’m into a lot of things and I multitask a lot, but the reality is they protect my time so when I am involved, I can focus on a single task. 

Q: How big is your team?

Between the dental offices, my companies and The Phelps Institute, we currently have between 40 to 50 employees. 

Q: What advice do you have for dentists who have an entrepreneurial spirit, but who haven’t yet pursued a project they’re passionate about?

A: I would first ask: Why do they think that they haven’t been able to pursue it to this point? 

Usually when I talk with docs in this category or any entrepreneur, it’s one of two reasons. Either they don’t feel like they have the time to pursue these things, or they may have the time but they’re waiting to be confident to pursue these things. 

If the problem is time, that’s an easy solution. You just schedule it. You really must get more proactive in your mindset, proactive about blocking this time on the front end and protecting it so that nothing else gets in the way. Once you’ve got that time and can proactively think about these things, that’s when you can start making progress to really make great strides to pursue the things you want to do. 

On the other side of the coin, if people have time but they’re waiting to be more confident to get going, the bad news is that confidence doesn’t happen on the front end. You must not only book the time, but you have to make the commitment that you’re going to get it done and that you’re going to start. When you do that, there’s going to be some anxiety that kicks in, some fear from this unknown. 

When you’re procrastinating on a problem it’s because your brain doesn’t feel like it has the capabilities to solve it. But the truth of the matter is when you make that commitment, you can use that fear as a powerful motivator to keep pressing forward and find the capabilities. 

Either you get training for yourself and become the person that’s capable or you find others that have those capabilities that you can bring onto the team. Somebody somewhere out there can help you get those capabilities. Ultimately once you finally get those capabilities, you figure it out and you solve the problem, that’s what gives you the confidence to then try the next thing. And around the cycle it goes.   

Q: Let’s talk about your new book from Edra Publishing. What can readers expect to learn in this new book, and what’s the target audience?

A: What they can really expect to learn is the full cycle of the new patient flow: everything we need to figure out to attract an unlimited quantity and quality of new patients, from whatever advertising medium that we choose to use. There’s a broad spectrum of those. 

At the same time, getting enough of these patients – quantity and the right quality, meaning those who continue to come back to the office and pay full fees — is only half of the story. We can get all these lead opportunities in front of us, but if we can’t answer the phone to get them in, if we can’t make an appointment, if they don’t show up for their appointment, if they don’t say ‘yes’ to treatment, if they don’t make appointments for future visits, then all of that — called a lost opportunity side of the marketing coin — is really what kills us. 

My target audience is really a few – number one and foremost, I wrote it for dentists like myself. I sold my two best and most profitable dental offices, and I took over my two worst and least profitable dental offices. I was spending $36,000 a month in marketing expenses to only get 60 new patients for my efforts, 30 in each office. You don’t have to be a math major to know that’s not a good check to write every month. But it was a powerful motivator for me to stop ignoring or procrastinating on the issues at hand and face them. 

I wrote this book for dentists so that they don’t get in the same situation I was in, to really teach them how to be the CEO of their marketing department. While we still have to trust others to do marketing for us, you need to know enough about it to verify what they’re doing and make sure their efforts are working for us or if they’re not working and why. 

I also wrote this book for those on our team that are going to run this ball for us. It doesn’t have to be the doctor. It could be your office manager, or somebody dedicated on the team to your marketing. The book is really to teach them what they need to know as well and show them there’s more to this marketing world than just putting out a direct mail ad or doing an online advertisement. 

We’ve got this huge wide spectrum of other mediums to tap into, things that really break into two categories: things that may cost more money but don’t take a lot of your time, that’s what external marketing is. We write somebody a check and they do it on our behalf. 

Or at the other end of the spectrum, there are the things that don’t cost a lot of money but take more of your time, which may be good for somebody as a startup or a low fixed marketing budget, and everything in between. We can have a robust marketing plan to hit whatever new patient or financial goals the practice has.

The last person I wrote this for is anyone in advertising and marketing agencies. Truthfully, the majority of them have dropped the ball and failed us as a profession. I wrote this to wake them up to the idea of while they’re good at getting us to sign up for their marketing endeavors, they’re not necessarily as trained or educated on how to find our ideal patients like they should be. This book gives them a road map and a template and will hopefully encourage them to step up their game up and to do a better job for their clients and the dentists that they work with.