The Dental Amigos host Dr. Desiree Yazdan, a leading cosmetic dentist and dental practice owner in Newport Beach, California. Rob and Paul chat with Dr. Yazdan about her authentic (and highly effective) use of social media to promote her practice, ”selfie-ready” teeth, the importance of mentorship, the stresses and challenges she has faced owning her practice and much more.

Spoiler alert, you may never get inflight wi-fi again…

Full Transcript:

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Rob: Hello, I’m Rob Montgomery and welcome to another episode of the Dental Amigos where were joined as always by the Head Nacho himself, Dr. Paul Goodman.

Paul: Hey Rob, fun to be here.

Rob: Hey Paul. It’s good to see you. We’ve got two consecutive episodes with guests. That’s always cool.

Paul: Today, we have the privilege of having Dr. Desiree Yazdan on the show with us. Desiree is a dental practice owner and leading cosmetic dentist in Newport beach, California. She’s passionate about the dental health and the aesthetic appeal of her patients. She is a very progressive a marketer, especially when it comes to instagram. We confirmed right before the show that she has 103,000 instagram followers. So we’re going to talk to Desiree today about how she does that and her strategy with marketing generally and specifically. Now without further ado, here is Dr. Desiree Yazdan.

Desiree: Hi there. How are you guys? I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Rob: We are excited to have you and we always start off with some tough questions. So if we were out in California, where would we go for nachos and what topping would we get?

Desiree: Okay, so actually Javier’s has some really good nachos, it is a really nice Mexican restaurant. They have one in Irvine and one a Newport. They’ve got some really good Nachos. And then a surprising place that has really good nachos is the Ritz Carlton and Laguna Niguel. Surprisingly they have delicious Nachos. I like shredded chicken on top with some Jalapeno, some cheese of course, and maybe some olives.

Paul: Well, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you and all the things you do. I think it’s cool. We did a poll on Dental Nachos to see what people like to hear and you do a lot of cosmetic dentistry and can tell Rob soon what selfie ready teeth means. But tell me a little bit about your journey with learning cosmetic dentistry. I know patients have high demands, which can be both good and challenging, but where you learned after dental school to do some of these veneer cases and smile makeovers.

Desiree:   Okay. So first of all, patients do have really high demands, I think especially where I practice and Southern California. They have a very, very high expectation of exactly what they want. So, it’s my job tell them what they can expect to get, cause sometimes their expectations are off. I learned mostly from having a really good mentor. I knew I wanted to do a lot of cosmetic work when I was in dental school. So I tried to find a bunch of people that I thought did a good job and found a few people that I looked up to as mentors. I would just go in their office and shadow them even after I had graduated, even when I was working. I would stay there all day and I would ask tons of questions.

Desiree: Why did you do it this way? Why did you prep it like this? Why did you use the cement? What about this? What if this happens? And then, um, after some time I started doing some CE courses and I found that the CE courses I did, I didn’t really learn too much, but what it did is have me have more questions that I would then go back to them and be like, okay, what if this happens? What if that happens? So much of it was really just being in it, watching, learning from other people and then doing it myself. When I was an associate, I was at a few practices that we’re doing a lot of cosmetic work. I was surrounded by it and I was always doing it. And the thing about me is I was never shy to ask a question.

Desiree: Like, I always know, even now I have my own business. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I think I’m really good at what I do. But there are times when things come and I’m not shy to call someone who’s more seasoned than me and say, hey, this happened, what do I do? So I think that’s kind of a key thing that younger dentists should always know is that you don’t know everything. There’s just no way. There’s always someone that has more experience than you. It’s okay to learn from someone else.

Paul: That’s an awesome story about mentorship. And also just want to point out, we recently did an episode on a residency after dental school and I had an opportunity to spend more than one year inside of a hospital as a dental resident, but I met all the medical residents. And one of the things I think it’s hard to – I try to share with rob the challenges of a dentisting. When you’re in a hospital based setting and I had chance to for just a couple of years, I saw the doctors interacted and they would just be in the cafeteria a lot of times and say, oh, is this normal in your patient? Maybe it’s a blood pressure, maybe it’s this.

Paul: And they were on site together as doctors and with dentists, you know, we’re in our own offices and you know, who do you ask, is this normal to, you know, especially with cosmetic cases, which are challenging because it might look good to you, not to the patient. Might look good to the patient, not to you. And I commend you for seeking out mentors like. That’s just a such a cool way to learn.

Rob: So, and you did, you own your practice and you acquired it in 2014 and I’m sure everything has just gone entirely smooth as could be since then. There’s never a bad day or any, any problems. everything’s perfect, right?

Desiree:   A piece of cake. I mean, I’m jumping on this podcast with you guys, and literally there’s so many problems that if I just pick up my phone right now, there’s probably 40 text messages. But you know, it’s all, it’s all part of it. So I graduated in 2012 and I always knew I wanted my own practice, but some wise people being my parents told me, no, you don’t want your own practice right now. Just learn from everyone you can. And I really took that to heart. My dad is a really smart businessman and he has nothing to do with dentistry, but he would always tell me, you need to learn from everyone. People that are, you know, smarter than use, less smart than you. People who know more than you know, less than you.

Desiree:  People that are better, slower, whatever, learn from everyone. And I kinda didn’t really understand what that meant until I put myself in that position. And I said, okay, so you learn what to do, what not to do. So I was an associate at a bunch of different offices and then it was time to move on and I became partners with somebody in the practice that have now, and about a year and half after our partnership, she decided she didn’t want to practice dentistry anymore and she stopped practicing dentistry while I was out of the country but never told me about it. Big surprise. I was on an airplane. I finally got Wifi and she never told me and I got an email that she had sent to all the patients that she’s no longer practicing dentistry and that email was forwarded to me by somebody else. And I was so shocked. And I was like, what do I even do? I’m like, I’m on an airplane literally on the other side of the world. Like I don’t even have access to like talk to people. And so yeah, it was, it was like the worst case scenario.

Desiree:  I can remember it like it was yesterday because I thought, Oh, you know how they say, Oh, you have wifi on the plane? So I was like, oh, I finally got it to work, 11 hour flight and for like three hours I’d been trying to get Wifi. And finally I got it. And the first thing I do is check my email. I’m like, oh, this is interesting. And I click on it and I was like, what? I remember my husband was in the restroom and he comes back and he goes, “oh my God, what happened?” And he’s like, what happened? My face was was probably pale. I probably looked like I was going to faint. Like I think I was sobbing. I don’t even remember. But I was like, so hysterical. I’m surprised that they didn’t like emergency land, the plane for me to get me off.

Desiree:  And then, um, I remember the first thing I did once I actually landed is I called all the employees. They said, I don’t really know what’s going on, but just hold the fort down. You guys will all have a job. No problem. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of you. Just work really hard while you’re there. I’ll be back. It was rough. Most of the patients left the practice, because they were angry. They had all kinds of issues that they were unhappy about and they left. So I was left with a practice with employees that are very highly paid and deserve to be highly paid and rent to pay. It’s not the ideal situation. So I was left with some difficult decisions of what I’m supposed to do. Luckily I’ve figured it out and I’m really thankful, it’s come a pretty long way since then.

Rob:  That’s a cool story. And it’s cool that you’ve obviously gotten through that. So one of Paul’s a Nacho poll questions. What are the main stressors or where some of the stressors of being a practice owner aside from that little incident? Yeah, daily stressor.

Paul: Like what I like to do, Desiree and I mean, you know, Rob has offered to come to the office and put on scrubs, but he can be part of the team because I have an amazing team. The dental team members and dentists work actually so physically close to each other all day long, you know, which is a tough thing. But what are some of the sort of chronic challenges that you face as a practice owner today?

Desiree:  For me is really making sure everything gets done because you know, you tell people, this is your job, this is what you’re supposed to do every day. This is how you do it. I have like a handbook that anybody can pick up and go through it and see what they’re supposed to do. But then those things don’t get done. And it’s really hard. I mean, you know how it is, you’re working all day on patients. It’s not like you’re sitting in your office just managing people all day, and you’re physically working so you don’t have time to check up on people. Then, all of a sudden, something will happen and you’ll start looking into something and be like, wait, why are you not doing this? Or why did you decide you’re changing the way to do this? So I think just managing staff consistently and then always trying to make better systems and put better systems in place so that those things don’t fall through the cracks. I think those are some of the biggest stressors.

Paul:  I mean, I feel the same way. I really enjoy the team that we have and I like all the people on it and maybe just, and I have such a background in playing a, a team team. I think, uh, playing team sports just got me used to being like, okay, not everything we did was right. Or people would tell me what to do and we all couldn’t make individual decisions.

Paul: So sometimes my team will come in and I will say, all right, I really would like you to do a, b, and c and they will come in and do x, y, z. And they’ll work hard. And they’re just like, I had my own agenda. I heard what you had to say. The challenging point is they’re good people. They’re working hard, but it’s kind of like a sports team. But if we all do our own thing, the team is not going to win. And I think dental teams can be like that and it’s hard to share with Rob and the listeners who aren’t owners. It’s like you have to be on the same page with the same signals being called or else things just go very annoying.

Desiree: That is exactly what it is. I agree with you. I get he “let’s do a, b, and c today and then x, y and z comes through the door. They are working hard. Those x, y and z factors need to get done. It’s just that I wanted you to do a, b, and c first and I have a reason for it. You know? Between Christmas and New Year’s is the only time my entire office is actually really closed. So we just came back from that. And I remember I had so many things for my office manager do and I started giving her a task after task after task, so it may make sure you do this and this and this and this. And finally, like by 12:00 PM she looked at me, she goes, okay, what’s the priority here? Because I can’t do it all. And I was like, okay, so that’s fine. I understand. But that’s good. I think that kind of communication is good. It’s just hard when it’s like you have set expectations and then those things don’t get done and other things.

Rob:  It’s a fine line too. You know? And we deal with this in my practice too, but like we had Lisa Morgan’s on the show, Paul and you know, she talked about empowering people to be able to do things. You want to be able to do that. Truly if your organization is going to advance and grow, you need to empower people. But you know, by the same token, you’ve had these guidelines and directives that are in place for a reason. It’s a challenge to figure out what’s okay to deviate because if everybody wants to, if you have to tell everybody what to do all the time and just to do it that way, you’re making yourself the opposite of indispensable.

Paul:  They know it. Dan is a, is an excellent video guy, always wanting to make a dental video. I mean, most of my dreams was writing for like SNL. I would love to write those skits and I would, uh, do one for the dental video and it’d be like, you know, it’d be staged you would have a fire in the corner and your team are, and be like, I think we should stock the impression trays and I, but what about that fire? Like we’ll get that later. Yeah. It just to drive home the point. And it’s not easy. This is what they don’t teach you in dental school. And we’ve drilled into this a lot, you know, how to share those priorities, how to do it without seeming like you’re a micromanager, but also being a good leader.

Paul:  It’s like these are your walk these fine lines and die. I think it’s great for you to share that because, there’s a lot of associates out there. Dental students listen to us dental residents, you know, who think, you know, when I own a practice, everything’s just going to be great. And that’s why I appreciate you sharing because it doesn’t mean that it’s not great. It’s just me. You have a whole different set of stress each day. Rob and I lecture on this a lot. I mean, it’s, you know, I know you have your Pomeranian there as your four legged, furry child. I mean, it’s like being a practice parent.

Paul:  They should bring in people like us to dental schools just even for an afternoon and just this should, they shouldn’t say lecture, they shouldn’t say put anything together. They should sit in and just say what happened to you yesterday? And then if you shared your day, it would at least get shared with them. Some of the things you have to think about because you know, rob has turned into a lot of things about being mindful and, and, and make sure we take care of yourself and all the decisions you need to make. And I think that’s what the, the take home message would be outside the humor is. Owners have to make so many decisions each day that have nothing to do with teeth.

Desiree:  Exactly. Yeah. That’s something I think I wasn’t even really prepared for, even as a partner. I wasn’t that prepared for it until, you know, everything became mine. Then it’s like you have a vision and you need to get to that vision, but you feel like you’re held back by so many other things and you really need the people that you work with to be the architects to build you and get you to that next level. You can’t do it yourself. But that’s the thing. Everybody has to be on the same page. It’s not all roses and butterflies. It’s really hard. But if you love it, it’s okay. But it’s, it is a lot of work. Actually one of my friends the other day, she doesn’t love her position. She’s not a dentist, she’s a pharmacist and she doesn’t love her position currently. And she was trying to tell me how she wants to open an office in Newport Beach and it’s going to be so key, you and this and that. And she was like so happy about the idea and she, the whole thing is, her whole thing is she wants to reduce her stress load. I said, Oh, if you’re thinking about opening your own office in Newport Beach, you are going to have way more stress than you have now. Right now you clock in, you clock out, you’re done. When you have your own business, it’s like as soon as you wake up, even sometimes in your sleep, you’re planning things. I’ll wake up and be like, why was I thinking about that in my sleep? Sometimes when you’re asleep, you’re planning things, you wake up and you make a task list of everything that you need to get done that day. Then you come home and you’re like, oh shoot, let me catch up on all these other things I need to do. I feel like the actual dental part, like the dental work part is such a small portion of what I actually do.

Paul: It’s funny you said that, and we’ll move on in a second, but my dad was in a great mentor to me and just great friend. When I was going to dental school and having challenges, he’s like dentistry will one day be the easy part. And I mean sometimes I run into my operatory cause they know they can’t bother me if I’m seeing a patient I’m onstage because you know, you know and it’s, it’s interesting how it becomes like that because it’s like your safe zone and when go out of there you see someone, and they say I have something to tell you. Is it a good thing? No, it’s not a good thing. For me it’s like a luxury when I get just get to do the professional work.

Desiree:  Days where all I’m doing is treating patients – those were the great days. I’d have a 30 minute gap here or there, or like an hour gap or something. Those are the days I realize like, oh, this isn’t being done the way it needs to be. Or, you know what? This is broken. Why wasn’t it brought to my attention type of thing.

Rob:  Now we’re talking about stressors. I have to have to ask this question because this is really kind of been a recurring theme for us now too. What do you do to manage stress? Like do you exercise? Is there something special? Do you meditate? Like what, what kind of keeps you going without totally burning yourself out.

Desiree:  Two years ago I hit like my maximum stress point where I was like, I can’t live like this anymore because all I was doing was working. I was stressed out beyond belief. I was trying to figure out how I’m going to continue getting patients in my office. So I hit like my maximum, I was just like, this is not what life should be about. Like life should be enjoyable. So it started for me with mindset. I took on the idea that things will never be perfect. When something is really, really good, something else will be really, really bad. And that’s just the way it is. So it’s like a balancing game and I shouldn’t try to strive for everything in my life to always just be completely perfect because it won’t.

Desiree:  So once I realized that, then the other things helped. Yes, I do exercise. I try to exercise like five days a week. I try to do fun activities and I really try to make plans for one time during the week and then on weekends to make sure that I’m going to do something that’s fun with friends or family with my husband, whatever that is. Sometimes we’ll have a really stressful day and the thought of like going to the gym stresses me out. I’ll just come home and walk my dog. I’ve tried to listen to myself more of like what will make me happy and then do that. Not trying to cram everything in. Like, I could walk my dog but I really need to respond to these 30 emails, and those 30 emails and sat in my inbox for the past two weeks. They can sit there for another day, you know? So I listen to myself and what I need. So those are how I manage my stress.

Rob: That’s cool. I mean I have to imagine though that accepting the fact that everything can’t be perfect, it’s probably very difficult for a person like you. You are obviously type A. You’ve gone through school and now practice ownership and very much at the head of the class, obviously. But it’s not an easy thing to just accept that. And, and it’s a very healthy thing.

Desiree: As a dentist, you are so particular about how you do everything and everything has to be like as perfect as you could make it. Like you guys, you know that. And so to accept that, but like I’ve tried to prioritize things. For example my office desk, I will clean it every single day. It will be spotless. I’m not joking you, I will walk in the next morning and it is a complete disaster. There’s stuff piled that on it, like papers, I need to sign cases, I need to look at, whatever you could imagine is on there. And that used to stress me out and now I’m like, oh well just part of it. I have this thing like better done than perfect but that doesn’t travel when it comes to doing the dentistry. Like the dentistry, I’m still very particular. Like it has to be perfect. Like this is just what it is. And The care of the patients is the same way. Every patient should be treated like gold. So we have standards for that. Like, there’s no exceptions, but other things like, you know, I didn’t sign all these papers this day, like I’ll sign them tomorrow morning. My desk is messy at the office or this broke and it wasn’t fixed right away. We can fix it. It was a hard shift to accept that not everything will always be perfect and to just juggle it. But it actually worked. And the more the time passes and the more I try to keep that mindset, the easier it is.

Paul: That’s cool. That’s a great attitude towards it. I wanted to shift gears just a little bit about your Instagram. I have a close friend here in Philadelphia who’s going to be speaking with you and our dentist’s team boost Todd Fleischmann and you guys kind of remind me of shutter. Can’t wait for you to meet him. He does a lot of cosmetic dentistry and uh, has a good Instagram presence too. As you were developing yourself after that, you know, when you were building your practice backup and you utilize Instagram, and I know that was the one of the more popular parts of our poll. Give us a summary or some ways to find some Instagram followers or get instagram followers in a genuine way. And then then you can share with Rob about the selfie ready teeth. Rob has an awesome young daughter who take selfies. I mean, I’ll preface this with one of my mediocre jokes. Like, you know, my office, Desiree, my core patients are all like 60 to 80. There’s like a 90% chance, her name is Millie. Which I love! And if I say, look at your teeth and I hand him a mirror, I’m like, don’t look so close to that mirror, hold it back here. You know, so they don’t see as well. But your patients with the selfie ready teeth are probably taking Instagram snap shots of what you do. So how do you find these followers? Um, and then share, I see the cases you’re sharing on Instagram are awesome. So tell us a little bit about that.

Desiree:  Well thank you. Okay, so I have tons of ways to help get your feed be seen by potential patients authentically. So like one thing that’s really important is first understanding that Instagram is a two way street. It’s a two way conversation. So you can’t expect to just post and then think that people are going to like what you’re posting. Nobody cares what you’re posting. Especially when it comes to dentistry. If you are posting beauty or fashion or like stuff like that, you might get noticed more easily. But when it comes to dentistry, nobody’s really on there looking for teeth. I call Instagram stumble upon marketing because people just stumble upon your account. No one’s really actively looking. If they see you on Google or something, maybe they’ll google you and they’ll find your Instagram and then analyze it.

Desiree:  One thing to do is keep in mind it’s a two way road. So you want to go out there and start making connections with people. So for example, my practice is behind a popular mall called fashion island. It’s a really nice and small, and there’s a bunch of cafeterias in there. There’s a bunch of stores. There’s just a Starbucks, there’s a bookstore. So I would go into like the Hashtag of like fashion island mall or fashion island and or this, I would click on the location of the Starbucks at fashion island where people are checking in and posting their photos and you find people in your area. For example, if somebody is at Starbucks drinking an ice tea, you could just drop them a comment like, hey, good choice on the ice tea. Did you know that drinking ice tea stains your teeth less than drinking hot tea? Just something useful but not just like, oh cute drink. You know like something like a useful comment or you know, it doesn’t even have to be like dental related. It could be like you just jump on to someone’s account and you’ve actually read their posts. Let’s say they’re out to lunch with their children and they post like, oh first family lunch of 2019, and then you write, oh I love that restaurant. That’s a great restaurant. What did you guys order? Like start a conversation with people in your area and you know, they might respond back to you and guess what? The next time they break a tooth they might think, that dentist responded to me on Instagram. Let me go see who that is. Or when their kid falls and has an accident and you know they don’t know what to do, it’s a Sunday night or a Saturday night.

Desiree:  They might message you and say, Hey, my kid fell. I don’t know what to do. Their tooth is loose. Is that normal? Is that okay? What do I do? So it’s really finding people in your community to start building relationships. My ideal patient would be a mom who is in her like early to mid thirties. And what is that mom doing in Newport Beach? Well, she’s probably wearing Lululemon and she’s probably, you know, at the gym. So I would look at things like hashtags of momlife, Newport Beach like things that moms, young moms would be hashtagging and find them in that way. Does that make sense?

Paul:  I have to admit my team help me bring me into Instagram and I’m glad that I met you through that because I was saying no, I can’t take another social media thing. I know that’ll happen in us will be like, when I’m not doing snap a gram, whatever it is and how I’m done, I’m done at this point. Yeah, yeah. Gary V talked about that technique and then, you know, I just think it’s cool that to me, since I do so much on Facebook and I received so much on Facebook, it can become heated sometimes negative and Instagram so far for me it just feels like a very positive vibe. I’m sure there’s times where people aren’t that way and I think those nice little bits of interaction. It’s like a dosage, I feel that is good for human interaction and instead of having a 157 comments and people arguing over occlusion, there’s something meaningful but also positive about it.

Rob: I mean people have to get mugged with advertisements all the time and you’ll see the other things that pop up in your Facebook feed that are ads. If somebody is doing something that’s genuine and interesting and truly engaging, then it’s like, it is more personal.

Paul: I really like some of the things you write on Instagram. Do you just enjoy writing? Like you have a lot of long posts about whether it’s the owner, you know, what all the things we’ve talked about a, is that something that dentists should do? Let’s say you’re just coaching someone. I know you do coaching on Instagram. I know you’re coming up with courses, which is awesome. Let’s say someone’s like, and Rob works with a lot of startup clients, so let’s say they’re saying, okay, I want to be me and I’m going to do this. How about the content of the post in terms of the words? I’m just curious to hear.

Desiree:  The long form captions or strategic. So if you think about Instagram, if I’m trying to market my business on Instagram, there’s a big barrier between me and that person. There’s a phone, there’s an app, they’re not actually seeing me or talking to me. Like even this is more personal on this like Zoom type of communication then like if I was just chatting with you on it or if it was just over audio. So I want people to get to know me before they actually, that’s the way that they’re going to become a patient is to get to know me, like me and trust me. And then they’ll want to become a patient. So the way to do that is through my captions. If I’m just posting photos and I have like two sentences, that’s probably not going to get someone’s attention. But if I’m talking more and yeah, probably most people will look at my captions and think, oh, here’s another long caption, whatever, and they’ll just scroll past it. But the people that actually read it and commented and like it are the people that do become the patients. And if you think about it, I know you guys mentioned I have like my following on Instagram, but you don’t need a big number of people following you on Instagram for it to be successful for your business. You just need people that are dedicated, that want to be your patient. So if you have 200 followers, but those 200 people want to be your patient, you’re good.

Rob:  That is an important point. You don’t have to be everything to everybody, but if you have your crew, that’s it. Let me ask you, so we had actually, we had a Laura Maly and Michael Anderson from Wonderist on the show probably about a month or two ago. And they had some interesting suggestions with this stuff. But like how did you get into this? Do you, do you have a consultant that you work with or is this just a, a passion or a hobby if you were asked to, to like to do this because you’re obviously very good at it.

Desiree:  When the person I had partnered with left the business, I didn’t have any money for marketing. Like I said, I was like, oh, I have to pay for rent. I have to still pay for supplies, I have overhead and I have no patients, so how am I going to get patients? So that’s when I really started using Instagram and Facebook to kind of like connect with people. And it took a really long time. I bet. I decided that I was going to post every single day for one year on Instagram and see if it would work for me. And because I saw other businesses using it, not necessarily in the medical profession, but like in other professions. And I was like, well, why can’t I do it? There’s gotta be a method to the madness. So I posted for one year and I swear it was like that one year mark and I got one patient in and they signed up for a $6,500 treatment plan that day. And I was like, oh my goodness. So it worked. So that was great. And then in that same month I had like four more people come in. And all of a sudden it was like a flood of people and you hope you guys have to understand, I didn’t have a new patient for a year. I started asking them like, Oh, where did you find me? Oh, instagram. And I, I started, once they came in for a few appointments, I said, can I ask you what about those posts? Like made you want to come in? And so I was like, I’m just trying to understand. So I would actually talk to them about it and understand what it was that triggered them to want to come in. And then from there I just, I would do that all the time like I would post and I would analyze and then I would see what’s working and what’s not working. And so I don’t have anyone I consult with. I’ve tried working with a few companies before that would help me, and none of them have ever worked out. So I just do everything myself. I think it’s better to do it that way. The way you’re doing it, Paul is fine. Like if you, you do a lot of it and you have someone helping you, I think that’s okay. But you’re like the mastermind.

Paul:  Yeah. Oh yeah. And also it’s a good point. I am very into words and content and I post so much on Facebook, so I always am sharing what do I want the message to be? Uh, people are better, like come to blows a great hashtags. That’s like technique. And then my wife is a photographer. I see the value now of like some good pictures that you have instead of just, I was, I was treating a little much like Facebook initially and it’s just a different vehicle and I wasn’t having as much there, but I really think it’s fun. You know, the one thing I want to mention to Rob, before we wrap up, I think it’s cool and I see you do this a lot. I mean, I, I did this poll for this thing here because polls would, dentist are good for engagement because they don’t have to write a lot.

Paul:  Just click and the instagram stories have great polls and you can say, does your dental school review AGDs and GPRs with you? And you know, 20 people say yes. Five say no. And uh, you can interact with the people that did it. So I’m really enjoying the Instagram stories, you know, as a component of it too, for sort, of course, daily interactions. So I think I’m a, I like it. I know you’ll be coming to visit us and sharing about all this or what are you looking forward to doing in Philadelphia? Are you bringing your husband? Right.

Desiree:  Nice. I am so looking forward to having a Philly cheese steak.

Paul:  Just Nachos and cheese steaks, and then you can go back to L.A. where people just have green juice and air for lunch. She’s like, would you have for lunch today? Thanks for sharing all this. We’re thrilled to have you come to the, uh, dentist team boost to what we have a great lineup and some other cosmetic dentists like look forward to introducing new you. I can already tell, I like connecting people in person. Dentists getting out and being normal. So we have, uh, you know, luckily I’ve come from all the way across the country won’t be as cold as it is now in Philadelphia when you come. So that’d be good.

Desiree:  Thank you. I’m excited too. I’m really excited.

Rob:  Hey, so Desiree. Yeah, thanks for, thanks for being on the show. Now if people want to, uh, get in touch with you or contact you, how, how’s the best way to do that?

Desiree:  I think instagram is best. I’m very responsive. I try to get to everyone as soon as I can. Sometimes it takes a few days, but I eventually get back to everyone.

Paul:  We appreciate you being on here with us and look forward to seeing you in person in Philadelphia in May. Thanks.

Desiree:  That’s right. I can’t wait. I’ll see you guys soon.

Rob: Can see it. Thanks. That’s bye. That was really cool, Paul. No, I mean I have another level of appreciation for the 103,000 instagram followers. Yeah, I know you see that. Out of necessity. Right. So, you know, as with a lot of times where people, you know, have adversity and that’s, that’s what really separates the real winners here. And obviously Desiree was dealt a really bad hand. They’re a bit careful about game wifi on the plane.

Paul: It’s not a every day someone can surprise Rob with a story. So that’s, you know, with a, with a dental focus attorneys story. So, uh, yeah, I just thought that was, you know, cool, very share and die. You could see that like she did it, you know, getting those patients in and we’ve talked about it. It attracts the patients that you want to see though. That’s like a good reason to do it too. Because you know, whether it’s clients, whether it’s customers in your restaurant, whether it’s dental patients, uh, your day goes better when you attract people that you, you want to do your work with. And I think that’s one of the real values of using instagram.

Rob: Yeah. Or it, but it goes back to, you know, we’ve had other guests on the show. It’s always a very big Jamie Amos, you know? Like what do you want? You know, and, and you get to really build the practice that you want. And sometimes that comes out of the worst of adversity, you know, here it is. You know, she’s just gets stood up by our partner while she’s on vacation, you know, 30,000 feet in the air reading about it on her email and Wifi. And you know, the initial reaction is this is horrible. And she clearly didn’t sulk and barriers, so, yeah. And she figured out a way to do it and now what she has is hers and it’s a lot better. Yeah And you know, it’s truly, you know, the, as you said, it’s like the surfer dental practice, but you know, I also think, you know, with the Instagram, you know, so many people do marketing generally, especially as social media marketing, and they just do it. And if you go through the motions with that stuff and say like, why do I only have 2000 followers? Or why do I only have 500 followers? You, you know, I have an instagram account. Well, there’s a difference between having an instructor instagram account and really doing instagram and deseret obviously pays their dues and spent the time figured it out and, and on a regular basis for a year, every day she posted.

Paul: It also just a really shares who she is, and that’s, it’s a cool way to connect with potential patients. Really the first time in dentistry we’ve been able to do something like this because usually, you know, you know, yellow page ads, emails, SEO, but none of those really can transmit to the patient who you are. And I think as a patient and then anyway, that’s kind of cool way to sort of find people you want to work with on as a consumer. You know, whether I was looking for a doctor or looking for an attorney, I think we’ll see more and more of it. Uh, like when we had Wonderist on and they were talking about this.

Paul: It’s a little better than they got a postcard, right? It’s just a different way to connect with people and I think that, you know, engagement, people do like engagement. They just want it to feel like something that is not totally one sided. You know, her example of, you know, reaching out to someone with the hashtags near you is it is a cool thing.

Rob: And she, diy is at, which we usually, we don’t like. Right. But obviously it does. I actually think cause it’s just so new that someone like her and other people are, there’s some others, like they’re on such the cutting edge of kind of figuring out how this machine works that, you know, she’ll do some courses and other people.

Paul: We always say get good consultants, get good people and the technology. The way it’s being used as just kind of so new to dentists. Let’s say you got a 50 year old dentist and he just got a website and just got Facebook. It’s like, okay, I’m good. Then it’s like not good. You got to instagram. It’s a lot to process these new ways of marketing and it’s moving so quickly. But I think it’s just a something we’ll see more and more of.

Rob: Thanks Paul. It’s always fun and everyone, thanks for listening. If you liked the show, write a good review on iTunes or Google play and tune in next time. Thanks. See you guys next time.

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