Attract New Patients to Your Dental Practice with Online Reviews

Dr. Len Tau drlentau.com len@drlentau.com 215.292.2100

 

The Transcript

Art Wiederman, CPA And hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. I am your host, Art Wiederman. I'm a dental specific CPA. I am a director of the dental division of Eide Bailly, which is a wonderful CPA firm that we've just merged with about, oh, about three weeks ago. We're recording this in mid-August. And I have a real treat for you today. As I've told you, every you know, every week we've done this. We're approaching our one hundredth episode, getting close to that.

And as I mentioned, I have a big surprise for you when we get to that point. The people that I've met in the dental profession in 36 years. Just remarkable, remarkable people. And I have one for you today. Dr. Len Tau is a nationally renowned dentist speaker and his. He's going to talk to you today about your online reputation, reviews, a little bit about sales and how to market your practice and case presentation. And like with all these podcasts, we need you about five hours with Dr. Tau, but we're only going to get about one and we'll get to Dr. Tau here in a moment. Let me give you some information first and a little bit of an update.

We've been date stamping these podcasts with the being about four months into the COVID-19 pandemic. The good news, folks, again, you know, I'm talking to dentists every single day. A lot of the dentists are coming out of this and doing really, really well in the first two or three months that they've been, first couple months that they've been back in practice. I'm hearing a lot of, you know, 100 percent of where I was, 90 percent, 120 percent. I'm hearing a lot of that. So it's good news coming out of the dental, out of the dental offices.

And what we're also seeing in Washington is unfortunately at the moment, a whole lot of nothing. They did not come to any kind of agreement on any kind of a stimulus package. Unfortunately, they are not looking at this at the moment. I've been talking to Megan Mortimer, who's the congressional lobbyist for the American Dental Association, and Megan is telling me that we're probably not going to see a whole lot in the next couple of weeks. But in September, when they come back, we do think that there's going to be some legislation. We hope there's going to be some legislation. Right now, they're fighting over the postal service and we all see that on the news. Not gonna get into any of that today.

But what I will tell you is a couple of things is, number one, if you are contemplating applying for the H.H.S. Grant, the Health and Human Services Relief Fund, which will get you up to two percent of your gross receipts as a dentist, they have extended until August 28th the deadline. They also are coming out with the rules tomorrow for what all the accounting you have to do and you want to watch for those webinars, probably on the ADA website, www.ada.org to see what you're going to have to do from an accounting standpoint and keeping track, filings you'll have to make with the Department of Health and Human Services.

And the other thing is I'm getting a lot of doctors who are saying to me, I don't want to file for forgiveness from my PPP loan. I want to get it done. Wait, wait. Do not file unless you're selling your practice. It's another conversation. Do not file for forgiveness because there is legislation that is very real in Washington that could allow you if your loan is less than 150,000 dollars to file for forgiveness and basically to be able to sign a one-page attestation and then you're done. So why go through all the process? Why take the risk that the banker is going to look at your thing and deny your forgiveness because they have 60 days? Let's just wait. You've got 24 weeks from the date you got your loan for your covered period and then you've got 10 months after that to file. So don't rush. I had another one of my wonderful clients called - I really want to do this. I want to get done. Well, let's just wait a couple weeks. Let's see what Congress does. So those are my quick updates. And when we do get to the point that Congress does something, I will do an episode that will be, again, date stamped and timely because it's my objective to keep you keep you up to date and informed.

So let me just give you a little information or a quick and we'll get to Dr. Tau, because we got a lot to talk about if you want to get a hold of me in my office in Tustin. I'm at six five seven two seven nine three four. I'm sorry. Let me give you a different number. It's 714.505.9000 is our main number. That would be a good way to get a hold of me, get a hold of me if you want to send me an email. I'm at ArtWiederman@gmail.com. Go to our partners website, DecisionsinDentistry.com. Great educational content. If you want a free complimentary 30-minute consultation with a member of the Academy of Dental CPAs mark the box. Go on to our website www.EideBailly.com. That's e-i-d-e-b-a-i-l-l-y.com. All the COVID updates, all the financial updates you're ever going to want. This is a top of the line CPA firm. And if you're looking for a dental specific CPA anywhere in the country, go to our website at the Academy of Dental CPAs www.ADCPA.org.

So let me give you some statistics that come off of Dr. Len Tau's website. Dr. Tau tells us that 97 percent of consumers read online reviews, you know, and 91 percent when they go to choose a local business. And ninety one percent of consumers trust those reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. Positive reviews make a consumer 73 percent more likely to trust a local business. 40 percent of consumers take into account reviews written in the last two weeks, which is double what that was. It was 18 percent a year ago. And 85 percent of potential patients check online reviews. And Dr. Tau says that, quote, reviews are the difference between a thriving practice and a shrinking practice. So you're going to get a lot of really good information from my friend, Dr. Len Tau. Welcome to The Art of Dental Finance and Management.

Dr. Len Tau Thanks for having me. I was pretty impressed with that update. I was listening intently myself.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, we got. I've been living this nightmare, Dr. Tau, for four months now and reading and rereading and overreading. And I went I went I took a boat ride with my wife and I said to her, I said, if I use the letters p any time in this boat ride, please throw me off the boat because I don't want to think about PPP for a couple of hours, but. So anyway, listen, I understand you are a you and I have something in common. We're both big baseball fans. You're a Yankee fan I hear?

Dr. Len Tau I am. Born and raised in New York and now living in Philadelphia.

Art Wiederman, CPA Where were you raised in New York? I didn't ask you that.

Dr. Len TaI was raised in Rockland County, a town called New City. My dad is a dentist. Retired about two, almost three years ago officially, but born and raised in a house that my dad practiced in. And so dentistry is in my blood, as we say, and but left when I went to college and never went back to New York and now settled in Philadelphia. After I met my ex-wife and never left here. So I've been in Philly now just shy of 20 years.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, I can tell you that I was asked to speak 30 years ago for Benko Dental and I was in Harrisburg and in Philadelphia. You gave two talks for them. And I told them the only way I'm coming is if you send me to a ballgame. And I went to the old the old veterans stadium, which is, I believe, no longer standing, right? No, no. They knocked it down. I stood in line four innings. I will never forget this for four innings. It was the best pretzel I ever had.

Dr. Len Tau Yeah, there is cheesecakes and pretzels.

Art Wiederman, CPA Oh, my God. That's crazy. So listen, tell us. Tell us about your journey. You're not only are you a nationally known speaker, you also practice every day in your practice in Philadelphia. So tell us about your journey and kind of where you've come from.

Dr. Len Tau So, as I said, I ended up in Philly 20 years ago. Was working in a group practice in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, and then decided to take the plunge 13 years ago, bought my own practice from a dentist who had unfortunately committed suicide.

Art Wiederman, CPA Oh, dear.

Dr. Len Tau Well-known dentist in the Philadelphia area bought his practice a fee for service practice and had to rebrand the practice. So I learned how to market my practice, but went online, did not at all do traditional marketing and found that the online, which was not as what it is now, but the online world, was very good to me. And got the attention of a lot of local dentists who asked me to help them teach, to basically teach them how I did what I did online. And that kind of got my start in the online world. About two years in I basically realized how important reviews were to my success. And that got my start in the review game, as I like to call it. And soon afterwards, I started to realize I needed to help dentists with online reviews. And I helped develop a software called I Social Reviews. So I Social Reviews was a manual method for dentists to get reviews from their patients. And I sold it to about 180 dentists in about a year and a half. And that got the attention of Bird Eye, which is now a much larger company. And I run Bird Eye's dental division because they acquired my company back now it's six years ago. So six years ago, they acquired me. They bought my they bought me. They bought my company, my company, I Social Reviews. And they bought my IP. And for the last six years, I've had the pleasure of basically being called the Bird Eye guy because everybody thinks I own the company, which I don't. I'm not an owner. I'm just the head of the sales team. The head of the sales division of the dental side. Right. In the meantime, I've continued practicing dentistry, so I've now practiced two days a week. But I've been speaking for the past 10 years. I've been teaching dentists the power of online marketing, the power of online reviews. I, usually pre COVID, spoke about 40 plus times a year all around the country. I've spoken at all the national meetings, study clubs all over the country. So I've had my traveling shoes on, as we like to say. I'm a road warrior, so I really enjoyed that. It seems like COVID has trying to kind of change the way I look at things, though, because I haven't traveled at all.

Art Wiederman, CPA I've talked to a lot of I've talked to several national dental lecturers. My lecture schedule got cut short. And they're just saying, you know, this is kind of nice, not going in and out of airports for a while.

Dr. Len Tau Yeah. And I honestly, I mean, look, I love lecturing. I love speaking to dentists. I love being in front of an audience. I love that. But, you know, COVID kind of changed it. And I'm not sure how much I want to go out there. I used to go to, not even to lecture, I used to go to dental trade shows and man the booth. And I'm not sure I want to do that ever again. To be honest with you.

Art Wiederman, CPA I don't know when trade shows are going to look like in the coming future. It's going to be very interesting.

Dr. Len Tau It is. It is going to be very interesting. So that's kind of where I where I go. But I still practice. Like I said, I practice what I preach. My practice has been, as you mentioned, since COVID, PPP back from COVID in March and May I practice is doing great. I've heard about a little slow down in August. I haven't seen that. My practice is very busy in August too. But since March. Since June, my associate left. I did have an associate for three years. She went back to Austin, Texas, and just two weeks ago I hired my new associate. So I should be going back to just two days a week. But for the past five weeks, I've been back to full time dentistry for the first time in very many years.

Art Wiederman, CPA It sounds like you need about nine weeks, nine days a week to do everything that you're doing. Well, let's get into the topic, because I want to give our folks as much information as we do every week as we can. So let's start off with why are reviews so important?

Dr. Len Tau The biggest thing I would say about reviews is they create an enormous amount of trust with potential patients. I get about 30 new patients a month in my practice. And I would tell you about 20 of them come from the online world, whether it's Google or Facebook, or any type of AdWords that we do.

And when I ask the patients why they chose my office, I would say that of those 20 who find us online, two thirds of them are always stating that we found you because of those best, all of those reviews that you have. We read your reviews and we chose you because of what other people said about you. So when they come in that way, they are already have decided that I'm going to be their dentist or as they say, you're going to be my dental care provider. And it's all created because of that trust that those reviews have already set the stage for online. So they create this enormous amount of, like I said, the word trust. It's trust. Trust, trust and more trust. Yeah. So that's the one thing that reviews will definitively do on top of create a trust with Google. So when you have lots of reviews, Google will trust you more. And Google will also rank you higher on search engines when they have this trust in your business.

Art Wiederman, CPA You know, it's funny. It's funny. I hear I have a consultant friend who tells me we talk about. He says, what are the top two search engines? What's number one? Google. What's the number two? Who cares? No, I don't know if that's true or not, but every marketing person I've ever spoken to has said five-star Google reviews are critical. Is that really true?

Dr. Len Tau It is. I mean, look, I don't think you need five stars. I'm at four point eight, and I'm very content and happy. I always say that you don't want only five-star reviews and the data proves it. I have a study that I show or a graph I show that the most trusted review score is somewhere between four point six and four point eight.

There's not a lot of credibility if you have all five stars because it actually shows that people don't believe them, that they're all five stars because there's no perfect business, right? No. If you have some negatives, it proves that the reviews are real. So I think that if you only have five stars, I think you're kind of convoluting the truth out there. So I question that. And I tell people that, you know, if you only have five stars, piss a patient off here and there once in a while because you deserve to get a negative review here and there, there's no perfect business. So I don't think that's the ultimate goal is to get only five stars. And I would urge you to watch if you're only getting five stars. And I think there's a lot of credibility issues. If you only have five stars and I've been teaching that for very, very many years.

Art Wiederman, CPA So do you like. I know that some of the apps out there, the Demand Forces, the Lighthouse 360s, that you can encourage people to write reviews. How do you like to get people to encourage? How do you get your patients and how do you teach the people that you teach to get people to write reviews? People are busy, right?

Dr. Len Tau Yes. So, you know, I think all of those programs and I talk about these programs in my seminars that I give all these programs are great programs. I think they're, you know, important parts of your practice. I put them in the category of communication software. So Lighthouse Demand for Solution Reach Revenue Well. Legwork. They all fall into that platform. I personally use a product called Modento for mine. Modento is a terrific program. If you haven't checked it out, do yourself a favor. Check out Modento. It's a fabulous product. I think it's one of the best products out there. The problem with those softwares is that the reviews that they generate don't generally go to Google. They generally go to Demand Forces website or Revenue Wells Patient Connects 365. Or Lighthouse's go to the Rate a Business site. They don't go to Google, you know, and I don't want to make this podcast about Bird Eye but what Bird Eye does and some of the other reputation companies, what they do is, or we do, is that we take the reviews and we get them directly on Google or Facebook, which has a lot greater effect than getting them on these third party, you know, sites that are not Google. So that's the biggest advantage you're going to find from one of our platforms versus these communication softwares. And we don't replace those communication softwares. We work in tandem with them. So you need both of those platforms. You don't need one, or the other, you need both.

Art Wiederman, CPA I mean, at the end of the day, Dr. Tau, isn't it all about getting your message out most efficiently to the most number of people, which is going to be the platforms that the majority of people look at? Right. Which is Google and Facebook, correct?

Dr. Len Tau Yeah. Exactly.

Art Wiederman, CPA  So talk about you talk about Google and their maps. How do they all work.

Dr. Len Tau  So when someone does any type of search that has a location specific search, so let's say dentist in Philadelphia or you know, dentist in Los Angeles, anything has a location that's going to pull up a map on Google. Okay. As long as you're using Google as your search engine and you mentioned, you know, about search engines, that I was gonna make a comment and you. But it's Google. Yes, it's Google. But, you know, some people use Bing. When I'm in my seminars, they ask who uses Bing? And one or two people raise your hand. You know it. Bing stands for No B.I.N.G? Because it's not Google.

Art Wiederman, CPA  I got to remember that. That's funny. Yeah.  That's like, you know, one of the top two search engines. No. What is Google number two is who cares. Right. Right.

Dr. Len Tau Exactly. That said, very similar there. So. So but there's a map that pulls up and there's usually they're used to going back. And I showed this in my seminars. They used to be a A through G used to be seven places on the maps. And as long as you were one of those seven you would show on the maps. Well now it's three, it's one, two and three. And there's sometimes an ad that you pay for so that maybe four maximum on that map of Google and we call this local SEO a local search engine optimization, local SEO. So if you're not found on that map of Google, you're basically invisible to someone searching for you, because the only way they can find you is they have to hit more places. And studies show that click spot number one gets about 25 percent of the clicks. Spot number two gets about 12 percent of the clicks. Spot number three gets about six percent of the clicks. Anything else is less than two percent of the clicks. So if you're not on that map of Google, you're invisible, in my opinion.

Art Wiederman, CPA And I will tell you, it's amazing when my clients come into my office with virtually everyone when I go, so how's your marketing? Oh, we're doing great. Let's look you up. Let's look up Tustin, dentists or Laguna Beach dentists. And I look them up and I go, oh, by the way, I found you on page four. Oh, I did. I didn't know that. My guy told me that I'm like, you know, number one and I go, well, no, you're about number 100 on there. And if you're on page four, you might as well be on the Internet, right?

Dr. Len Tau Correct. And there's a big misconception that I talk about this as well, that, you know, in order to actually look yourself up, people are either on their phone or their computer. And I get all the time and I talk to dentists every single day all over the country, and they say, well, when I look myself up, I'm number one.

I'm like, you're not and they go yes I am. Well, well, tell me how you're doing it. And they go, what do you mean? I go, what are you searching on? Well, I'm looking on my computer. I go, where are you looking? And they go, well, in my office. I'm like, well, that's the problem. What do you mean? I go, well, here's what you need to do. You want to go on, and people listening can do the same thing because I'm sure they're wondering what I'm talking about. So if you're listening to us, go on to your computer, go to either Chrome or Safari and on Chrome, go into an incognito search or on Safari, go into a private browsing mode and do that same exact search - dentist in Tustin or dentist and whatever your town is. OK. And then do that same search. And I guarantee in most cases you're not number one. OK. Because Google remembers your search preferences is always going to show you number one on that search. OK. So now they can reach out to me and I'll give my contact information at the end. I'm happy to run them. I have a product that I pay for called Local Falcon, OK? And dentists aren't going to pay for this because they're not in the business I'm in. But I can actually tell someone right now. OK. If they if I'm speaking to them, how they look on the local search, on the maps for any such key term, they want to look on to this product. And it's a cool product because some people think they ranked very high and it shows how bad their local SEO is being done by the company they're paying. So it's either good or bad for some of these companies, but it allows me to give them some really good advice or, you know, how they can change the web company.

A lot of cases based on this product that I'm using because a lot of companies, a lot of dentists think they're doing great. But in your case that you just described it, they're not so.

Art Wiederman, CPA And I've heard that it takes a while. So you can actually if you're on page four, page eight or not there at all, you can get to page one. But it doesn't happen overnight. Right?

Dr. Len Tau Right. Does not happen overnight. It does take a long time for someone to get to page one unless you're, you know, less you're one of only a few dentists in your town. And when I ask somebody if I'm not familiar with the town, by the way, how many dentists are in your area? Is it more than three? And people laugh. And I'm like, well, I don't know your town. So, yes, if you're if you're in a very, or more competitive area, it it's going to take some time to get there. And there's a lot of factors that go into ranking on the map section of Google. One of them is reviews. That's definitely one. One way is you need a lot of reviews. So if you don't have a lot of reviews, the chances of you ranking on the maps is slim to none. But there's a lot of other factors as well.

Art Wiederman, CPA Right. So we talked a little earlier about not that you mentioned that not having five star review, that having one hundred percent, five star reviews may not actually be good. And dentists worry all about that one negative review. What do you think about, talk to our audience about negative reviews and how you view them?

Dr. Len Tau Yeah. Like I said, I don't worry about negative reviews as much as the typical dentist. I one of the classes I give is called Oh my God, I got a bad review. What do I do? And the reason I named that was because I used to get messages from dentists all the time. They would say, you know, oh my God, I got the first bad review. How do I deal with this? And that's why I named it that class. So, you know, first off, you are going to get a negative review if you're a dentist. It's going to happen at some point in your career. It's just normal. So if you do get one, the first thing I always tell people is relax. Okay, calm down and take a deep breath for 20 minutes. So you're not emotional anymore, because if you are emotional and you respond, you're going to say something or do something you really gonna regret. Okay. In general, I don't recommend and if you speak to any attorney out there who deals with this type of an Internet defamation, they always don't recommend responding right away online. They don't. OK. It leaves a paper trail. It puts out whatever your defense is, OK? And by the way, most people will tell you, most people will tell you that the review is fake. OK, which I laugh at. OK. Very few negative reviews are fake. Now, they may be by a fake name because most people are not going to use their name if it's a negative review with their real name. They'd most people don't do that. They use a fake alias. And that's so maybe describing a real experience, but they're using a fake name. So that's why I don't recommend responding until you kind of figure out what's going on. Try to contact the person, try to contact the person, you know, via phone or via email before you go ahead and respond online. OK. Most people will end up what they most people end up doing is they will violate HIPPA if they respond online as well. Just so you know, responding online and acknowledging that they are a patient in any way, shape or form is a HIPPA violation. You are not allowed to respond online and acknowledge that they are a patient. So a generic response like, you know, sorry, sorry you had this experience office policy states we don't treat patients like that normally. Please contact the office to discuss your concerns. That is a very generic response. That is not a HIPPA violation. But if you acknowledge that they're physically a patient in the office, you've just violated HIPPA no matter what else you say. Be very careful when you respond to these things.

Art Wiederman, CPA Now, I had forgotten to mention you are also a fellow podcaster. You have a podcast called Raving Patients, the Raving Patients podcast. So I would encourage all of you to subscribe to Len's podcast. And you also have a Facebook Live event that you do. Talk about that.

Dr. Len Tau So I have a Facebook group called Raving Patients. Everything's by that brand Raving Patients. That's my brand. So I have a Facebook group called Raving Patients. We do usually a once a week a Facebook Live with somebody in the dental space. Again, it's normally done once a week. And then that episode is normally podcasted later out, later down the road. But it's the podcast now comes out twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays, because I've done so many episodes recently, especially during COVID. We have these episodes we have to catch up on. And then we have a Facebook group. Like I said, that's there's no sales in it and it's all about marketing and growing one's practice. But it does deal a lot with negative reviews and how to respond to reviews. So that's a lot of the things that we talk about there.

Art Wiederman, CPA So we've got more to talk about. And actually, Dr. Tau has got this great new workshop he gives. It's called The Art of the Sale, which we'll get to in a minute. But I do want to, since we're about halfway through, I want to have you give out your contact information, folks. Just go on to his just Google Len Tau and I went on his website. There's a lot of great information on his website, and he's got a lot of really good stuff on reviews and marketing and sales and case presentations. So, Dr. Tau, how would be the best way if someone wanted to get a hold you and find out more about what you do and how you might be able to help them? How would they do that?

Dr. Len Tau So the easiest way is I'll give you my both my cell phone number and my email address. Those are definitely the easiest ways. So my cell phone number is is 215.292.2100. So that's my direct cell phone number. And then my email address is Len@drlentau.com. So it's Len at Dr. Len Tau dot com.

Art Wiederman, CPA And we will be sure to put this in the show notes so it'll be up on the website that you can find it. So let's talk a little more about marketing. What do you do? What's the best things to do today? Post COVID, middle COVID to market to practice. What are your favorite things? Just give us some gems.

Dr. Len Tau Well, first off, I think you definitely have to start to focus on reviews because it creates that trust.

So if you're not, you have to whether you're using, you know, Bird Eye or some other platform, you have to focus on getting reviews because without that, without that, you don't even have the foundation to market your practice. So that's number one. If you don't have reviews, minimum seventy five, it's going to be hard to start marketing your practice. I think doing some type of paid advertising for whether you're doing implants or Invisalign or any of these high volume, high cost procedures to drive patients your practice, I think you're missing the boat. So Facebook Funnels are very popular now to drive these patients. So Google AdWords or Facebook Funnels, they're costly; you have to be willing to invest the money. So marketing your practice is an investment, people. You have to be willing to spend the money, which a lot of dentists don't want to do. But the return on investment should be at least five times what you're spending. And I'm sure Art, you will tell.. if a dentist, hey, I'm going to spend three thousand dollars, but I'm going to get fifteen thousand dollars in ROI, you would tell them to do that every single day of the week without even thinking about it. So the problem is, most dentists don't want to spend the money and they're afraid to spend it. And that's the problem. So you can't be afraid to spend money if you're going to get the ROI you need out of it. OK. So when I do consulting with dentists, I will tell them that if you follow what I tell you, you spend three thousand, you'll get fifteen thousand dollars in ROI. So. So you spend three thousand dollars on a Funnel, you should get about 15 thousand dollars in in production or collections from that Funnel you're going to do. So Google AdWords, Facebook Funnels. One of the newest things out there is Facebook Funnels run by artificial intelligence. And that's a newer feature that I've been seeing out there. And what's nice about these things are you only you pay for the ad work, the ad spend, you always do. But what's nice about it is these companies are so confident they're going to send you qualified leads, that you only pay the company when the patients actually show up in your office. That's how these products are so advanced now with the artificial intelligence that are helping working these leads. So that may be something in the future that these companies are coming out with is a pay per lead mechanism. So I'm really excited about that as well.

Art Wiederman, CPA So if you had a dentist who came to you in a metropolitan area, they're doing a million dollars a year, what would you tell them a reasonable marketing budget would be for their practice? Mature practice?

Dr. Len Tau Six percent. So sixty thousand dollars a year. So five thousand dollars a month.

Art Wiederman, CPA How are you going to spend that money? What are you going to spend part of it on? Like, you know, Google ads, part of it on mailers?  I know it depends on the area and what the doctor's looking for, but what do you ...if I gave you a sixty thousand dollar budget for an average practice and we want to grow it to a million and a half, what are you going to spend that money on?

Dr. Len Tau So assuming that it's in a metropolitan area, I would not do mailers. I would not spend my money on that. I would focus on Internet marketing, our focus on make sure you're getting the reviews. As long as you have the reviews and you have the foundation, they're more than likely I would spend the money on some type of Google AdWords and Facebook Funnels. And assuming they do the procedures, I mean, I'm talking about some type of implants. If they if they've restored the implants or replace the implants, if they're doing Invisalign or some type of clear aligner therapy, assuming that they're doing a high, you know, the procedures are bringing in four or five thousand dollars a pop, then you are OK to do those AdWords or Facebook Funnels.

That's where I would definitely be spending some of the budget. And then once you realize that you're bringing in the patients, you can always increase that budget because again, if something is working, you spend more money on it. You know what you don't want to do in a recession? You want to spend more money, because everybody else is dropping.

Art Wiederman, CPA It amazes me that people don't get that. Oh, my God. In 2008, remember, 2008? I mean, I. All my clients, oh, I can't spend money on marketing. You have to. This is when you got to spend money on marketing.

Dr. Len Tau Right. You gotta spend more money. You make yourself more visible by spending more money. So one hundred percent so. Social media, learning how to do social media, how to put yourself in front of social media. I mean, you're not going to get a huge return on social media, but you gotta use it to get yourself branded from a social media perspective. So take classes. I would not spend money on a company that posts for you. You get negative ROI and that's a waste of money. But getting trained by some of the experts on how to use the people inside your practice, your team on how to post on social media, that has positive ROI. I mean, versus hiring a company to do it for you. That's not good.

Art Wiederman, CPA My big joke Dr. Tau, is the reason, I have ...I talk about my boys, and I'm so proud of them… my podcast every week, they're 26 and 31. And the reason I had children was to teach me about social media. So, you know, that's why we have children.

And what about for the doctors? Because I hear this a lot. You know, again... Couple days ago, it was my 61st birthday on Friday. And I, I am older. I'm not social media savvy. I do have an Instagram page - Arthur Wiederman if you want to follow me. But I'm not big into that. And what about my doctors who are in their 50s, and their 60s and they just go, I don't have time or patience for this. I mean, what would be a good way for them to get into this stuff?

Dr. Len Tau Remember, they now have the time, but someone in their office who's younger, will have the time. And that's why I said you train your team on how to do it. And you pay them 100, 200 bucks a week and let them do it. And they'll love that money and they'll do it for you and you'll reap the benefits of that. That's why I would not pay a company to do it, because it's going to be generic content. People won't engage with it. It's not genuine enough. If you let your team do it and your team focuses on it, incentivize the team, they'll definitely do it. And that's the big advantage nowadays is get the team involved and you will see the sky's the limit if they do that.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, talk about Yelp. I know Yelp is not Google, but how do you deal with Yelp. You hear things about them, good, bad, indifferent. How do you how do you like to deal with Yelp?

Dr. Len Tau So Yelp is... If you ask the average dentist about Yelp, they want to they want to shut it down because they all hate Yelp. I haven't embraced Yelp, but I've learned about Yelp. And I give a class called Help on Yelp. You know, unless you're in a very large city or a state like California, New York City, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, Seattle, you really don't have to worry about Yelp all that much. Like Philadelphia, Yelp doesn't do anything for me, but I've studied it intently, so I know all about it. So here's the deal. Unless you're one of those big cities, forget about it, like I said, because you don't have enough Yelpers, which are active people who are active on Yelp. And that means they have a lot of friends on Yelp. They have a lot of reviews on Yelp and they use the Yelp app a lot. So they don't do those three things a lot. When they leave a review on Yelp, the chance of it sticking is slim to none. And what I mean by that is when someone leaves a review on Yelp, Yelp will take it down and put it in the not recommended section of Yelp, which is basically invisible unless you search that section. So I'd rather you get a Google review, which always stays up. So they're basically going to waste the review on Yelp because it gets taken down. So that's. So that's one thing. So people think that you have to pay Yelp for advertising to get reviews to stick, and that's 100 percent false. You can pay them as much as you want and it has nothing to do with the reviews staying up or not. If someone's not a Yelper the review won't stay whether you're paying them or not. That's a complete waste of money if you're paying them for that reason. So and just like versus if they call you on the phone and you say you're not interested, the reviews are not going to fall out. It falls out because the patient is not deemed a recommended Yelper anymore. So the best way to get a Yelp review and by the way, any third party like Bird Eye or any of the other companies, they cannot put Yelp in those review requests anymore for the last couple of years, because Yelp has basically said we do not want any third party company requesting reviews anymore. We want it to be organic. So the best way and this is a great tip for people who want to focus on Yelp is to create a sign that says, you know, are you a Yelper? Please check in at our office. So when they check in, it says, hi, this is so and so, I went to this office and I checked in on Yelp. So they know they were physically in the office location. What that tells Yelp is they were there at the end of the day, Yelp will send that person a review request of their own to do on Yelp. So if the patient does it, there's more of a chance for that review to stick than that patient going on Yelp on their own.

So that's the best way for these practices to get a Yelp review. And they can incentivize the patients to do that check in. And that's allowed. You cannot incentivize the patient to do a review, but you can incentivize the patient to check in. So that is the very best way for someone to get to take advantage of Yelp.

Art Wiederman, CPA So that's why the younger people who understand all this and you can work with them and help them with that. And it's just so, I remember, I joke when I lecture at the dental schools here in Southern California, USC, UCLA, Loma Linda, Western. I always bring in a whenever I'm walking in, I bring in an old copy that I keep of the Yellow Pages. And I said, OK. So. So, everybody. Now, this is the Yellow Pages. This is... How many of you use the Yellow Pages to find a product or service? And they look at me like I belong in an insane asylum. Like they don't even know what the Yellow Pages are. That's what I used when I was growing up in the 70s because there was no Internet.

So but anyway, let me let me switch gears, because I want you to talk about your other things that you're working on, which is you've created a workshop and I believe it's called the Art of the Sale. And you help dentists basically increase your case. Except let's talk a little bit about that. Maybe some tips. And I know that you have. You've been kind enough to share an offer for our audience on that. So let's get into all of us to talk about your workshop and what you teach.

Dr. Len Tau So I gave a class live at all these meetings, and it was a case acceptance class. And I wanted to transition to doing something a little more virtual. And I like the fact that I was able to do it in smaller groups. So I created this class called a workshop called The Art of the Sale. It's limited to twelve attendees at a time. I've given it about five times already to anywhere from nine to twelve people now. And it's on a number of different things, but it's on treatment presentations, financial presentations. How to discuss finance with the patients, because dentists don't like to do that. I do. I've been very comfortable in the last 12 years in my office. I discuss finances with patients. It's on verbal skills. It's on body language. It's on how to use financial, the third party financing companies. And I actually use seven of them in my office. So I put a workbook together that they can give to the front desk that talks about how to use these financing companies to the practices advantage, which, you know, because, look, we might we have Care Credit, which is I love Care Credit, it's been one of my best friends for a long time. But you have to have great credit to get to get money to Care Credit.

Art Wiederman, CPA I hear they accept about 60 to 70 percent of the patients, is what I hear.

Dr. Len Tau Right. So the 30 plus percent of people I can't get money from, I needed to find vendors who would. And I have. So I have people who will lend down to 580 now. Yep. 580 credit score.

So and you know, they pay in any interest from anywhere from nine point nine to twenty seven point nine nine percent.

But if you need dental work that bad and you can't get money from other people, the patients are willing to do that because it fits within a monthly budget. So I discuss with them how to discuss it with the patients, you know, at being comfortable asking patients how much of a monthly budget can you afford. I call it disarming the patient. How to get them off of that dentistry is going to be too expensive. These are all things I spend in a 3 1/2 hour class.

So it's been great. The comments that I've been getting from the people who've taken the class has been phenomenal for me. And it's an affordable class. So, you know, 3 1/2 hour workshop. It's done through Zoom and they get a 45-page workbook that they work through. They get an Excel spreadsheet on that they can put financial information in. The patients can sign through it. They get an Excel kind of tracker to track their case acceptance. They get a lot of like stuff they can use during the workshop as well.

So I'm actually very proud of it. I have I never thought I've enjoyed doing Zoom things because I like in-person classes better. But this workshop, I actually enjoy doing a lot.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, Dr. Tau, I have been an advocate on this podcast and in my entire career. I tell doctors, I say, you know, don't go to the convention to learn about occlusion or how to cut a crown or TMJ or Invisalign, because you know how to do all that. Go to a workshop on how to talk to your patients, because, I mean, see... And again, I love your ideas on this, because you and I are think we're kindred spirits on this, is that, you know, you hung a shingle, you're a dentist. OK, I hung my shingle, I'm a CPA. People presume that I know how to do a tax return. And by the way, again, I've said this before. I'm very good at tax returns, I'm very good at accounting, I'm very good at tax planning. OK, Dr.Tau. I'm sure that you are an exquisitely trained dentist. You went to Tufts. You're very good. You've been doing it for how long?

Dr. Len Tau 20 years.

Art Wiederman, CPA 20 years. So if you don't know what you're doing, you're in big trouble. But I'm sure you're an outstanding dentist in the Philadelphia area. That's not what it's about. What it's about is do people trust you? And that's the whole thing with the with the reviews. So what do you think is the most important thing that a dentist needs to think about?  I do not want to give away all your all your secrets and everything. But the most important thing, if a dentist is not getting case acceptance, where do you see the biggest mistakes?

Dr. Len Tau So the biggest mistakes is, is there they are confusing the patients. They're giving too many options because I've actually been in offices observing this. They're not disarming the patients. What I mean by disarming the patients is they're not taking their time to discuss with patients. They're over talking to the patients. They're not listening to the patients. Look, I've actually taken listening classes, so I teach them during this class how to do what's called active listening because I actually took listening classes on how to listen. Because I was never a good listener. And now I'm a great listener, so my patients actually know I'm listening. So I teach them how to make the patients know they're listening to them. Because if you listen and you actually make the patients know you're listening, the patients will appreciate you so much more. So if the patients know you're listening and they can fit it into their financial budget, they will get a case acceptance up to eighty five percent. So that's what my goal is during the seminar, to teach him how to get to this point. Well, it all goes down to the money. And that's why when they if they use and there's a nice thing about these financing companies is there's no cost, there's no monthly fee unless you use the products. So you can sign them up. You can sign up for them at no risk to you. You use them when you need to use them. So I teach them when they have to use them. And so, you know, if you're using and if you're listening to this and you're thinking, wow, that sounds really good, you know, which companies are you using? If you're only using Care Credit, and like I said, I love Care Credit, but if you're only using Care Credit, I guarantee you, you're losing 20 to 30 percent of the money that you could be getting in your practice simply by not only using simply by using only Care Credit. Guaranteed.

Art Wiederman, CPA Wow. How important is the dental team in sales? Just an overview. I mean, the hygienist, the back office, the front office. Because it's not just the doctor, right?

Dr. Len Tau No, it's not just the doctor. I mean, the team has to support you. And I use my team to support me. But I am the main person that's involved in the sales process. I want them there as a support for me. I mean, the front desk can help process things.

I mean, I teach how I do it. I'm very different when it comes to this. But I've taken it on myself, you know, during my daily day to find time to do this because excuse me, I am the main sales guy in the office. And yes, I am a sales person. People who are listening may say that they're not like that and that's fine. But I am the sales guy in the office, so the team has to be supportive. The hygienist has to be, you know, remember, they can't, quote unquote, diagnose things, even though they're going to say, I think that you need a crown. I think that you need treatment. This is a problem. I mean, a hygienist has to be willing to do that.

And the dental assistant has to be there to take some notes. The front desk has to be there to help process everything. So everybody there needs to be supportive of you. But in my mind, the dentist myself, or my associate, has to be able to there to present treatment properly, not confuse the patients and be there to sell the case. That's what it comes down to. That's why it's called The Art of the Sale.

Art Wiederman, CPA So because like you said, a lot of doctors and a lot of my doctors are wonderful, wonderful men and women. But they're not comfortable in sales because it creates a confrontation. What if we have a treatment coordinator in the office, Dr. Tau, who's just I mean, they've got verbal skills that I couldn't buy. Can you, would you recommend that maybe we train that person to be the salesperson?

Dr. Len Tau Sure. And I've had some office coordinators, treatment coordinators in my class, with a doctor who simply doesn't want to do it. And that's fine. If they don't feel comfortable, I want the treatment coordinator to be the one that's comfortable doing it because it still is the verbal skills. It's still getting the finances down. And if you can't get the patient approved for the money, they can't, they're not gonna say yes. And again, it simply comes down to the fact that by taking this class, you're going to have a multitude of companies available to you that you never even probably heard of before. And they're all dental specific companies that work. It's not like I'm pulling something, you know, from a local bank. I'm not doing that. These are well-known dental companies that just aren't big enough yet because some of them, three of them are brand new or fairly new companies that I just happened to come across in my travels to all these trade shows in the last six months, in the prior six months. And they've worked very well in helping me close cases. So it's more of an education. And a couple of them are actually when the doctors sign up for the the financing companies and they do the first loan, they actually give one hundred dollars back to the dentist. So it's almost if the workshop is basically free, if you think about it. So that's the nice thing about it.

Art Wiederman, CPA And so you were telling me before we went on the air, you know, we're not going to.. like I said, I'm not going to give all your secrets away. But you were telling me that you use some of these, you have these seven... Because most of our doctors, they have Care Credit. They don't have anything else. That's my experience. So you've got... So my front office administrator knows that if I have Mrs. Smith, who's maybe got a... You know, she went through a tough time. She doesn't have a job, whatever. I mean, I may not use Care Credit. I may use Company B, right? So you have all that information?

Dr. Len Tau Yeah. We actually give them a flowchart that says, you know, hey. And I as I told you, I teach them to. I know that if let's say a treatment plan is eight thousand dollars. And I asked the patient, how much can you afford on a monthly basis. Well, I can afford twenty fifty dollars. Well, I know that the most any company is going to give is 24 months, no interest. Well 24 times 250 is six thousand dollars. So I know that there's no way this person is going to be able to afford no interest financing. So that means I have to look to one of my companies for some interest to be applied. OK, well, I know that and I say, how's your credit?  Well, my credit isn't very good. Well, if it's not very good, there's no way Care Credit is going to be an option. I have to look at some of my other lenders. So, again, I am able to know how this works in my brain because I've been doing it for a long time for these companies, for these dentists that don't know. I have a spreadsheet that I've already created or a workbook that I've created so they can look and say, OK. Not Care Credit. We can't use no interest. What are my options? They just go through and apply to one of those companies.

Art Wiederman, CPA But you say that, Dr. this is fascinating to me that doctors could be losing 20 to 30 percent of treatment plan cases because Care Credit and again, Care Credit. I know people at Care Credit. It is a fantastic company. There's no doubt about that. And they are the leader in this space. But not everybody is good for care credit. And we don't want to lose a ten thousand, fifteen thousand hour treatment plan from somebody who really needs this just because they can't get approved on Care Credit. Or they don't have space on their credit card.

Dr. Len Tau I'll give you an example. I had a 24 year old single mom. She came in two weeks ago on a Thursday. One of the worst mouths I've ever seen for someone that young; needed four front teeth taken out and she had a cavity in every single tooth. Her treatment plan was sixteen plus thousand dollars.

OK. I asked her when she came in, I was very frank. How are you going to afford this? She only get insurance. Only two thousand dollars, which I didn't participate with. She said, my mom normally helps me. So I said, you know what? Before we discuss finances, why don't you bring your mom in with you. She called her mom. She said, mom, can we come on Monday. I need this work done. Mom came in on Monday. Mom told me she was referred by another patient of mine. So that trust was already built in when she was referred also.

Mom came in on Monday. I explained to mom. Mom says, look, I need to help my daughter out whatever we can do, let's do. A very frank question, how's your credit? It's not very good. OK. And I said, you know, it's 15,000. And we went over it. It was 15 thousand plus thousand dollars. And, you know, she said, well, let's try to get what we can. And so we applied to one of the less companies because I knew that I would not be able to get it through Care Credit. And one of these lesser known companies gave her twenty one thousand dollars in financing at twenty one point nine nine percent interest, which was paying over five years. So her payment was like two hundred and twenty bucks a month. But she said she can afford no problem.

Art Wiederman, CPA But they got the work done and it helped their total health. And yes, it cost them a little bit. It cost them a lot in interest. And the interest is not deductible. But who cares, you know, at the end of the day, it's about their health and about their self-esteem and about having a better smile and being healthy. I mean, you know. Right?

Dr. Len Tau Correct. Hundred percent so. And then the rest of it was that she decided after she knew how I was treating her daughter, she came in as a patient. She needed a lot of dentistry, but some of it was urgent, only about three thousand dollars. She had an extra six thousand dollars left from that twenty one thousand dollars. She used the three thousand dollars to fix her own mouth, too.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, how fortunate is that huh?

Dr. Len Tau So she ended spending eighteen thousand dollars in a matter of a couple of days, you know, and we just extended the amount of money she needed. So the point is, is that you need to have these companies or else you wouldn't be able to get that money from.

Art Wiederman, CPA I will tell you again, I, I learn stuff every single day. I mean, I don't know everything, folks. I know you look to me to know everything, but I don't. This is this is fascinating. So what I want to do, Dr. Tau, is you were kind enough to share an offer with our audience. Our audience is growing. I mean, through COVID and everything. I'm so blessed and pleased that all the people and the comments we get. Just as a side note, we got a new client in our practice and we talked about they got a PPP loan. I said, oh, that's great. How did you do that. Art, there's no way I'd get this PPP loan without all the guidance that you gave and all your podcasts and webinars. And they got a hundred and two thousand dollars. But like yourself, it's all about helping people during this really difficult time. And I think especially during COIVID, sales and case presentation is the linchpin. I cannot say this enough. And I've said it over and over again. So, Dr. Tau, talk about your Art of the Sale webinar I guess we call it.

Dr. Len Tau I call it workshop.

Art Wiederman, CPA Workshop, I'm sorry. Whatever we call it. Talk a little bit about it. And what kind of an offer do you have for our listeners?

Dr. Len Tau So it's three and a half hours. There's, I think, eight sessions left. But I'm going to extend it to more just because of the number of people who are interested.

But there's eight other sessions that are scheduled, 3 1/2 hours. There's all multi. There's some Fridays. There's Wednesdays. I think there's a Monday and Thursday available too. If you have interest in it, go to the website is: workshop.drlentau.com, I'm sure you can put that in the show notes - workshop.drlentau.com.

And there'll be a whole slew of dates available. You can pick one of them. OK. So that's number one. When you get there, I'm going to give you a code that you can use to get 50 percent off the cost of the workshop. OK. For your listeners. So the code is going to be finance F- I-N -A-N-C E.

So a little tip, because people seem to have problems. Usually when you put a promo code in, it goes at the end when you put the money in; this is at the very beginning, you'll see promo code right at the beginning, it says, what is your promo code? You have to put it at the very beginning, not at the end. So that's a little tip because people have been messaging me left and right. Eventbrite does that at the very beginning. I don't know why, but put in the promo code 'finance' to get 50 percent off. So we'll give you two hundred and twenty five dollars off the workshop. And then basically you're going to get, if you listen to what I say, you're going to basically, I think, get two hundred dollars back from the companies once you book these loans. So the workshop is basically going to cost you twenty five dollars.

Art Wiederman, CPA Twenty five dollar workshop.

Dr. Len Tau Yeah. After all is said and done once you use the companies.

Art Wiederman, CPA So a couple of beers to get unbelievable information that's fantastic.

Dr. Len Tau That's why we do it this way.

Art Wiederman, CPA Last thing I want to talk to you about is talk about your company that you're affiliated with - Bird Eye. What do they do and how does it work?

Dr. Len Tau So Bird Eye is a reputation marketing company. We help dentists get, among other things, get reviews online for, from their patients. We send a text message to the patients after the appointments asking for feedback about the experience. When the patients click through, it takes them directly to Google and or Facebook, depending on the phone they have. So on the Android phone, it's only Google because we know they have a Google account through the Android. So that's only Google. They have a choice of. On the iPhone, we give them the choice of Google and or Facebook just because it's an iPhone. They don't always have a Google account, but we make it very easy for the patient to then to do the review directly on Google and or Facebook. So it's a very makes the process easy for the patient. And one thing you'll notice is if it is need the patients do nothing. So we've simplified the process down to a couple clicks. And the review is written again directly on the site. So there's no third party platform they have to go through. In addition, we just released a new product offering that helps dentists get referrals from their patients. So it's a text message that goes out that basically says, you know, thank you for the trust you've shown in our practice. Would you mind referring us to your friends, family or colleagues? When they click the link, it allows them to send a text message, an email, a Facebook message or a message, or a Facebook post recommending the practice to anybody they want to. And then they can refer it. And then the person will then click through and try to. And they want to they can make an appointment and practice. So it's another neat little way to help grow the practice. So we do reviews. We do referrals. We have a web chat product. So it's in a lot of ways that we can help grow practices as well. So if anybody has interests on that, they can reach out to me as well. And I can show them a demo of how we how we operate.

Art Wiederman, CPA And again, folks, you can go on to Dr... And again, I will say this every single time I have somebody as skilled and talented as Dr. Tau. I get nothing for having him on or promoting what he does. What he does is going to help you grow your top line in your practice. That's why he's on this podcast, period. I get nothing. I don't want anything. I want to help all of you out there to be wildly successful. One more time. Give out your contact information.

Dr. Len Tau My ... so the best way is len@drlentau.com, it's len@drlentau.com.  My cell phone number is 215.292.2100. And then they can look me up on Facebook. My name is Leonard Tau. They can join my Facebook group. It's Raving Patients. Very easy to find.

Again, I'm all over the place, so they just have to look me up. I'm sure they can get a hold of me any way they want. I'm probably one of the easiest people to get a hold of. Put it that way.

Art Wiederman, CPA Well, Dr. Tau, I want to thank you for your time and your expertise and the great information. I mean, again, I learned something. I didn't know that there were... I knew there were two or three finance companies. I didn't know that there were seven of them. But that's great information. I'd encourage all of you to look into Dr. Tau's webinars and his program that he's talking about the Art of the Sale. It sounds fantastic. And it's you know, you can go out and get CE that cost of thousands and thousands of dollars. And if you do this right, this will cost you twenty five bucks, it sounds like. Let me also give you some information, folks. And Dr. Tau, hang on with me for a second till we sign off, please. If you want to get a hold of me in my office in Tustin. 714.505.9000. And my direct line, which I had a brain fart in the beginning of the show, I got to remember it. It's 657.279.3243.  I couldn't remember it. That's why I gave out the other number. That's what happens when you now are 61 instead of 60 years old. Go to our partner Decisions in Dentistry now, which is www.decisionsindentistry.com, great clinical content, great continuing education courses. Go on to our website, which is www.EideBailly.com.

And by the way, I want you to mark down September 16th on your calendars, everybody. We're going to have our folks from Eide Bailly talk about the research and development tax credit. I am going to put, hopefully into many of your pockets, thousands and thousands of dollars. I'm not promising, but the research and development income tax credit is a credit that dentists are going to be eligible for, in many cases, dentists that to do complex care. They do things in research and innovation specialists, people who use CAD Cam. So I'm going to start talking about this now. If you're interested, we have a questionnaire that we can send you.

Just send me an email at ArtWiederman@gmail.com and tell me you want the research and development questionnaire. And we'll get it out to you. But on the 16th, we're going to have my friends from Eide Bailly, Joe Stoddard, Heidi Lanin and I believe are both going to come out. And we're going to talk about this tax credit, which is going to put money in your pocket. Not all of you, but some of you. It definitely will. And I want you to learn about it.

And if you're looking for a dental specific CPA anywhere in United States of America, we got you covered www.ADCPA.org. 24 of the best dental CPA firms in the country that represent, now close to 10,000 dentists. When we merged with Eide Bailly, we added another four to five hundred dentists. So we're getting close to 10,000 in the ADCPA. I can say that with confidence now. And this is best of breed, folks.

So, Dr. Tau, thank you so much for being on my podcast. And I'm a raving fan of yours. And I I've kept that, you know, raving patient. I'm not because I live in Southern California. But I was a Yankee fan. I was actually at the last Yankee game at the old Yankee Stadium in 1975 when. Let me see if I remember Bobby Richardson caught the last pop out from Al Kay Line. And I remember this very large lady knocked two police officers over, jumped over the rail, sat on second base and said it's mine and she took it home. So I grew up taking the D train to 162nd and Lennox. So you and I are... I grew up in Brooklyn, kindred spirits and big baseball fans. As I've told you, my son was a college baseball player and I just am a big, big baseball fan. So anyway, Dr. Tau, thank you so much for coming on.

Dr. Len Tau I appreciate it. Thank you for having me as well. And I look forward to working with you in other ways as well.

Art Wiederman, CPA Absolutely. And folks. That is it for this edition of The Art of Dental Finance and Management with Art Wiederman, CPA. God bless all of you. And remember that my motto for all of you during this very, very challenging and difficult time. Five words. Do not forget it. Failure is not an option. Take care of yourselves. Take care of your patients, take care of your family, your loved ones. Stay safe and healthy and we'll see you next time. Bye Bye.