Woman 1: Okay.

[silence]

Helia: How are you? I’m happy you made it.

Patient: Thank you.

Helia: Very nice to meet you.

Patient: Same here.

Helia: I hope we can make this journey worth… [pause]

Woman 1: Hello? Okay.

[silence]

Bart Knellinger: What’s her name?

Woman 1: Helia.

Bart: Huh?

Woman 1: Helia.

Bart: Helia. Alright. And the doctor’s name is?

Woman 1: Dr. Nala.

Bart: What?

Woman 1: Nala.

Bart: No. Nuh-uh. No, that was not the doctor name on the email. It was Sarlee V.

Woman 1: Dr. Nala.

Bart: Huh?

Woman 1: Dr. Nala. Helia.

Bart: Oh. I was looking at that. Like, this name. Okay, Helia Brown. Got it.

Woman 2: We really have to learn equally.

Bart: Dr. Nala.

[pause]

Woman 2: [inaudible]

Bart: Mm-hmm.

Woman 1: Yeah, the spark. Here’s an iPhone.

Woman 2: [inaudible]

Bart: Mm-hmm.

Woman 1: Yes.

Woman 2: [inaudible] with that. That should change you [inaudible].

Woman 1: Yeah, if you’re on a Zoom call, this is somebody else. Right [inaudible].

Woman 2: Yeah.

Bart: [humming]

Man 1: Hi. You start on there.

Bart: [inaudible] don’t play.

[pause]

Bart: So I’m immediately looking at Samuel’s eyes every time.

[laughter]

Woman 3: Are we done?

Bart: Uh… What’s up, guys?

Jaime Breslin: Hi.

Bart: Hello, hello.

Dottie Wind: Hi.

Bart: Did you guys have a good 4th of July?

Woman 4: Yes.

Jaime: Yes. You have a good 4th of July?

Bart: What’s up, folks? Good. [laughter] Got off a lot of fireworks. We had a good time. Just kind of give this back in here, let everyone sign on. [throat clearing]

Woman 3: I’ve been here with Bart.

Bart: Who’s given everyone a second to sign on? Or you guys don’t know how we have a big 4th of July party at my house and, like, the whole company comes and a bunch of people. And, um, I think, I think we had let my dog confer like eight times last night or the night before with fireworks. We had this huge fireworks show. It was crazy. My neighbors, I was like, “They’re gonna kill me for this. They’re gonna kill me.” But they didn’t, they actually just all came over and, uh, and had fun. And I live next door to a retirement community. So, none of them were under the age of, like, 83 and they partied harder than anybody. And they were getting down, just that one lady dancing. I mean, she was getting down.

Woman 4: [inaudible] Yeah?

Bart: Yeah. [laughter] Nobody parties like the senior citizens in a retirement center. Nobody. They do not care. They’re getting it.

Woman 4: You wanna do the marketing, Doctor?

Bart: Okay.

Woman 1: Or you wanna appear wearing your [inaudible] coat?

Woman 5: No, no. I’m okay with this one.

Woman 1: Oh.

Bart: So, Courtney, what’s going on?

Courtney Smith: Not much. How are you?

Bart: Good. I’m good. Everybody been busy. What’s up Dottie?

Dottie: Hello.

Bart: Hello. All right. We’re gonna jump into this, okay? Um, oops. We’re gonna jump right into this, I’ve actually got a, uh, a little bit different of a consultation, it’s kind of a little bit different one than we’ve gone through before because this lady didn’t actually show up for an All-on-4 consultation. She showed up because she was told she has severe perio and her teeth are shifting. And, um, you know, she’s there more for aesthetic reasons, but she wasn’t there specifically for an All-on-4, although, you know, it turned into that.

Um… But I think it’d be kinda interesting to go through this one with you guys today. Because you can see how the, the sales process in the scripting. It’s, It’s really specific, right, at first like, of somebody coming in and getting a, an All-On-4 lid in[?]. It’s not an All-On-4 lid, um, and they’re coming in because of some pain point.

Remember where they are in the buying[?] cycle? This particular patient, she’s in the symptomatic phase. She hasn’t even started doing research yet on solutions, and she certainly hasn’t started shopping. So, this person is, is basically completely unaware that implants is the option for her. She doesn’t know, right? She’s just they’re looking for, um, some way to treat the periodontal disease or to really, you know, get her smile back, you know?

She’s like, “Two years ago, I had the best smile and I can’t smile, my teeth have shifted,” and this, that, and the other. Um, but there’s some times where, yeah, that’s gonna happen and you have to kind of ad-adapt with the script.

So I know most of the time you guys are advertising you’ll get them coming in [coughing] directly, asking about implants, um, but, you know, everyone’s [inaudible], you get them coming in that are just dealing with, uh, with specific symptoms. So this is going to be, uh, to be a little bit different. Um, before I get going, so does anyone have any type of, uh, any consultations since the last call that you’ve done that was, uh, that was interesting or you heard something you never heard before or anything like that? Do you wanna share in the group? Anyone get any tough one’s? Or someone you are surprised that you closed that you thought that you had them or something? And you guys wanna share.

Elizabeth: Its Elizabeth here from Dr. Cathay’s Dental Park.

Bart: Hey, what’s up?

Elizabeth: And [chuckles] we had to get our cameras together but, yeah, I had this, uh, we’ve been meaning to ask you guys, so I did do a couple consults, um, and they did not end up closing. I had one gentlemen, he only came in knowing about the process, like Dr. [inaudible] said, he was asking about, like, you know, titanium-based implants and all this. Um, you know, and he’s like in his ’70s and we got him signed up. We got him, we did the, like, we did the whole photo, you know, thing. ‘Cause we have our lab tech who’s gonna comes in and does the digital scan to the mouth.

We did the photo, we did the impressions, we did everything. And we’ve signed him up on the proceed and, I guess, I mean, we didn’t have our portfolio to get us, that coulda been our [inaudible]. That’s what we were thinking about it. Um, but we just left, he was [inaudible] homed with the finance people were. That’s what he left home with and, uh, like by the week, I was calling him, you know, then he said, “Oh, it’s too much money,” and, from since then, we have not, like, been able to get him back in the door.

Bart: Hm. So you started the process before you had him paid?

Elizabeth: No, he did pay because he’s applying for the posting of his finance, so basically, that’s, you know, signed and paid for so its 40,000.

Bart: Yeah.

Elizabeth: He signed it, he, he’s agreed to it, he paid for it. We did, then that’s why took the impressions, we did the photo, we did everything. And then we scheduled his surgery and then, a week later, he just texted, we had the weave system, he just texted, “Oh, I’m not going back there,” and from since then, I’ve been calling him and we have not been able to hear from him.

Bart: God, yeah, so you just got buyer’s remorse.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Bart: Okay, so what’s the primary reason someone is gonna get buyer’s remorse?

Elizabeth: I mean, they go home, they talk to somebody. They talk to their family and they’re like, “What is it?” You know, “40,000? You gonna pay 80,000, you know, t-t-the fee.” That’s what they are left with without seeing, like, the final end result.

Bart: Exactly, right? So, so they make an emotional purchase without a logical justification. That’s when you get buyer’s remorse. That’s why people typically get buyer’s remorse with, like, impulse purchases, right?

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Bart: Where you just see something, you get excited, and you buy it, right? Without thinking it through. And then, you go back, you’re like, “God, that was a dumb thing to buy. Why did I buy that? I shouldn’t have buy it,” right? Or, “That’s too much money,” or it’s this or it’s that, or whatever.

So if somebody is just lacking the, the logical justification, that’s something when you guys are closing and, and when you’re framing All-on-4 with, with the patients, you, you might have ’em totally bought in, at that moment, right? But as soon as they leave your office, their enthusiasm, their emotion’s gonna start to fall off, right?

Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.

Bart: Every single hour they’re away from you is going to fall off, and they’re gonna think more and more about the money. So it’s really important that they have done some quick math with you, right?

Like, number 1, it makes no financial sense to wait, right? So they fully understand that doing nothing is the most expensive thing, right?

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Bart: Number 2, they fully understand that they’re getting a great deal here, and by doing it all at once, they’re saving a lot of money, right? So they’re getting a good deal. So even though it’s $40,000, it’s actually more like 55,000, right? They’re only paying 40. So they have to understand they’re getting a, they’re getting a really, really good deal, right?

And then they also have to understand that they’re getting everything they want with absolutely no sacrifice. So instead of piecemealing it together, although it maybe cheaper, um, you know, in the future, you’re just gonna end up probably spending even more money, you know, when the teeth fail or this happens there, that happens, you’re gonna end up here anyways. We’re just gonna get you there early, give you a better deal, get it all done, and, you know, it’s gonna look like brand new.

What they have to, they have to do the math and know that it was a smart financial decision, right? If they know it was a smart financial decision, then you usually get a lot less in terms of buyer’s remorse. If they hadn’t really connected those dots, sometimes they get excited. Especially when they don’t have the money, they get excited, they want it credit–

Elizabeth: Yes.

Bart: –sign the paper work, pay ’em, it’s done, right?

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Bart: Um, and it, it all happened so fast. That’s typically–

Elizabeth: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bart: That’s typically what it is, right? We buy with emotion and when we justify with logic, it is the justification that makes us feel okay–

Woman 6: Bryce, we do have to pay more.

Bart: –in regards to whatever it’s [inaudible].

Woman 6: Can you peel the rest of the wall there and put it in piles in front of us? We did more than half.

Bart: [chuckles] Does that make sense?

Elizabeth: Yeah. It, it definitely does, yeah. ‘Cause I thought with that, he wasn’t all bought in. He didn’t really… He just heard what he could get but then wasn’t thinking about, I guess, the payments and how it’s gonna be split up and, you know, having to pay double for that, you know. He initially thought was 40, and ended up being 80, that’s what he really went home with.

Bart: The, the way that I think about it is I kind of imagine, “Okay, whoever it is I’m, that I’m speaking to, they’re gonna go home and their spouse is gonna go, ‘$40,000? Are you high?'”

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Bart: And I have to admit, I have to basically give them the story to tell their spouse to make the spouse go, “Oh. Okay, well that makes sense.” You know what I mean?

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Bart: Like they need to have that down hat. Like, “Well, yeah, it’s 40 but not really. It’s actually 55, and my options are I can wait and just let this persist, right? And I’m just gonna lose more teeth and I’m gonna lose more bone until the point where I can’t get dental implants. Or I can spend $20,000 to try to save these teeth, rebuild the bone and do all sorts of grafting, with absolutely no guarantee that there, that it’s actually gonna even make it another 2 years, or I could just go through, do it now, take advantage of the 15,000 discount and I’m done forever. And they look amazing and these are screwed down. And I still have enough bone to do it. I don’t want it to get to the point where I don’t have enough bone to even do that. So what would you have done?” Like if they haven’t done that, if, if it’s not clear in their head… Then…

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Bart: It’s definitely, clearly not gonna find a buyer’s remorse. It’s just when they don’t have that justification, if that makes sense.

Elizabeth: Yeah, it definitely does.

Bart: Cool. Really good question.

Um, I’m gonna get right into this, unless anybody else has… Any of you guys ha-, el-, anybody else has anything real quick before I go on with the call? No? Okay, cool. Remember, if you guys have a question while I’m going trough this, if you want me to stop, um, just type in a message into the chat, okay? One second. Okay.

Okay. Now this, this is Aliyah, um, from Dr. Nala’s office. And like I said, this person is coming in, not specifically for an implant consult, okay? She’s coming in because she was told she has advanced perio. And her words are she didn’t feel like the doctor wanted to treat it, right? And that’s why she’s at a different practice. So if you have a patient sitting in front of you and they say, “I have severe periodontal disease, the doctor did not act like they want to treat it,” what, what do you think the situation is? With the, why would a doctor… And no doctor’s gonna say that for… But if that’s how they came across, what do you think is the state of her periodontal disease?

Oh, yeah, you’re all muted. Alright, whatever, I’ll make it a rhetorical question. Okay.

So I’m guessing that her periodontal disease is extremely advanced, and that’s why the doctor wasn’t really excited about, um, about osseous surgery, scaling and root planting, or doing anything like that because there’s already a tremendous amount of bone loss, right? And there was just a misunderstanding between her and the doctor. Happens all the time. But you’re not gonna have… No doctors is gonna be like, “Yeah… I don’t… Yeah, perio, severe, Class 3, mobility, I don’t care.” Like, no one’s gonna do that. So, um, I think that, right off the bat, with her saying that, I feel like it’s gonna be pretty advanced.

Okay. Um, so I’m gonna go ahead and start playing this and I’ll stop it through out. If you guys have questions, type them into the chat.

Patient: [laughing] Well, I’m not playing. I’m not playing. I’ve been looking at several dentists but we’ll see.

Helia: Okay. So you’ve seen other people and they recommended that you–

Patient: Well, I had my dentist that I’m not happy with.

Helia: Oh, okay.

Patient: And so, um, I haven’t really made the actual appointment but I’m–

Helia: Okay.

Patient: –looking at other dentists. I’m looking at somebody who can help me.

Helia: Okay, what was it that you weren’t happy about?

Patient: With the other dentist?

Helia: Mm-hmm.

Patient: Um, she was the– I, I thought I had periodontal disease.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: Or she thought I have periodontal, she said I did. And, um, she acted like she didn’t want to treat it so…

Helia: M-hmm.

Patient: It’s like I had gone on as far as I could go with her.

Helia: Okay. She didn’t recommend to go some place else or…?

Patient: No.

Helia: Nothing?

Patient: No.

Helia: She just said you have perio disease and that’s it?

Patient: Yeah.

Helia: Oh.

Patient: Yeah. She had, um, well, I was going to another dentist and I let my daughter go to her.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: And then she begged me. She was like, “I can do your dental work.” Okay. And then when the periodontal disease started to surface, um, she just acted like she wasn’t really concerned.

Helia: Mm-hmm.

Patient: So I had to let it go.

Helia: Okay. Uh, well, hopefully we won’t be like that. [laughing] Um, so you mentioned that it’s hard for you to smile?

Patient: I haven’t really done much smiling lately. I used to have a beautiful smile, not more than two years ago but, um, my…

Helia: What’s happened?

Patient: I had a cavity and my tooth came out on this side. One was taken out on this side and then it just started shifting.

Helia: Shifting. Hmm. Uh, so, Miss Taylor, my job here is to, um, provide the best treatment plan for you.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: In terms of customize it to your, um, needs–

Patient: Oh.

Helia: –and wants.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: Um, so you can tell me whatever has been going on, whatever that’s bothering you…

Patient: Uh-huh.

Helia: …smiling, with the aesthetics, the functions, and where you want to be; what you want to achieve.

Patient: Okay, um, it is the aesthetics. It doesn’t–

Helia: Okay.

Patient: –look, look well.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: To me.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: And, um, what, what else. Um–

Helia: So you’re–

Patient: I feel like–

Helia: Mm-hmm.

Patient: –I, I, that my gums, gums, something’s going on with my gums.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: I feel like they have improved. Um, because I’ve been giving it, um, um, treatment. You know, I’ve been treating myself with a peroxide and, um…

Helia: Okay. [laughing]

Patient: Is that not good?

Helia: It’s not entirely. [laughing]

Patient: Oh. And, um,

Helia: Not as in–

Patient: Listerine.

Helia: Listerine, okay.

Patient: Listerine. And, um, mostly Listerine…

Helia: Okay.

Patient: …with some peroxide. And it’s been feeling better.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: You know.

Helia: Okay. Okay, so when–

Patient: My teeth are now–

Helia: –you say you have gum problems, what do you mean? Like is it bleeding? Is your teeth…?

Patient: My gums do bleed.

Helia: Okay.

Patient: They do bleed.

Helia: What about your teeth? Do they feel more mobile than before?

Patient: Yes.

Helia: Do they feel loose?

Patient: Yes.

Helia: Okay.

Helia. They do.

Helia: Um, can you show me?

Patient: Oh, God. [laughing]

Helia: It’s okay. [laughing]

Patient: That’s a beautiful ring.

Helia: Oh, thank you.

Patient: Are you engaged?

Helia: I’m married.

Patient: You’re married. Oh, my gosh, you better keep him.

Helia: For a few years.

[laughing]

Patient: That’s beautiful.

Helia: Thank you, thank you.

Patient: I normally have mine on, but I didn’t wear it today.

Bart: Bling, bling.

Helia: He likes, uh, he likes its sparkle, so…

Patient: Oh, my gosh. He’s a good one.

Helia: If it was up to me, I would just have a regular band. [laughing]

Patient: You, you can keep her.

Helia: Thank you.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: Oh, I could see what you mean.

Patient: Yeah, these two teeth…

Helia: They are shifting, yeah.

Patient: They’ve shifted. And they were together. Like, I had a beautiful smile, like no more than two years ago. These all just shifted in the last two years.

Helia: Well, that’s periodontal disease, you know?

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: So gum disease means you have bacteria underneath your gum.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Bart: Okay, guys, so working on a straight line here, just listen up to, up to these point. What is it, what is the most important thing, what is the most important concept that we need to get across to, to this patient right now? And what is the most important thing that we’re looking for? Where are you guys, where are we going?

She’s coming in because she doesn’t like the aesthetics. She was told she has gum disease. She’s got mobility, right? So… So what has to happen here? Before we can make any kind of recommendation, what has to happen? We have to determine what.

Woman 5: Her pain point?

Bart: Somebody? That’s term… We have to determine what?

Woman 5: Her pain point?

Bart: Well, we did, right? So her main pain point is the aesthetics. She doesn’t like the way that she looks now, right? Um, and she’s attributing that to the periodontal disease because she was told that by, by another doctor. So that’s kind of her main pain point right here. But what do we have to determine before we can make any type of recommendation? ‘Cause she’s not coming in asking about implants, right?

Woman 4: Okay.

Woman 7: Her budget.

Bart: Her budget? A budget for what, though?

Woman 4: Where she, where she wants to be in the future with what she wants.

Bart: Okay. But you know she wants a beautiful smile, okay? So she wants a beautiful smile, but what is going to drive our treatment plan here?

Jaime: We have to take a CBCT to see if she has enough bone.

Piyuse: She also needs to understand what’s going on–

Bart: Well, what we have to determine…

Piyuse: –right now.

Bart: Yes. Guys, while we have to make that it– What we have to determine is, number 1, clinically, are the teeth savable? Are they? Like, how severe is the periodontal-dontal disease, right? So how much bone loss has she had? Okay? Because there are ways to give people a beautiful smile without implants, right? But the first thing we have to do is decide, “Are the teeth savable or not?” That’s number 1. Okay? If they are savable, how savable? Right? Meaning, are they savable for two years, three years, four years, five years? And how much is that going to cost versus, right, starting over? And where does that cost-benefit analysis fall, right? And before we get to any recommendation about anything, she has to understand the concept of, like, this lady hasn’t put the, has not connected the dots that she might loose all her teeth.

Woman 4: Okay.

Bart: You know what I mean? So the, the very first thing we know, right now, is she’s not asking about implants. Implants aren’t even necessarily on her radar yet, right? She thinks that you can treat the periodontal disease and it’s gonna help her smile, which maybe we can, I don’t know. Right? At this point, we don’t know. So we don’t care.

Here’s what I want everyone to remember. We don’t care if its still implants. We don’t care if it’s perio surgery, we don’t care if it’s crowns or veneers, at this point, that is all totally irrelevant, right? What we care about is saying, “Hey, we’re gonna get you back to a really good state of health with a beautiful smile. That’s what were going to do. Now, in some cases, we get patients that come in here and they have periodontal disease and it’s more moderate perio, and there’s things that we can do, um, to treat the periodontal disease. And there’s things we can do from an aesthetic or a richer point of view to give you a beautiful smile and, and actually prevent you from losing any more teeth, that happens.

“There’s also patients who come in and their teeth, even though they still have teeth, they’d have so much bone loss and teeth are so mobile and the periodontal disease is so extensive that for us to try to save it, it typically would cost more money, much more time, and, and last, and last, a lot, a lot less time than actually just going directly to something like a long term solution like dental implants. And then there’s some people that are, like, right in the middle, and they could go either way. And it’s just kind of a personal decision at that point.”

And we have to make sure that she understands that concept so when the doctor comes in for– ‘Cause the first ten is just tee-ing up the doctor. That said, you gotta put the doctor in a good position here, so I’m gonna tee the doctor up, right? So the doctor comes in and doctor knows, “Hey, I have to make a call on whether I think this teeth are savable. And if I do, I need to somehow manage expectations, right, to make this an easy decision. Like, do I think they’re savable? Not all of ’em. Some of ’em, maybe. How long? I’m not sure.” You know what I mean? Um, whatever, whatever the case is. Or you can just come in and say, “I don’t think their teeth are savable and I think that it would be… It’s gonna end up costing you more time, more money, more energy to try to save this teeth that are hopeless, than to just extract them, place down implants where you still have the bone, and start all over and get a brand new, beautiful smile, fully functional, in a day.”

Piyuse: Hey, Bart.

Bart: Hey.

Piyuse: So I had, I had a patient come in yesterday, who, he was scheduled today with another office to take out the remaining teeth up top. And somebody had told him about our office. And I asked him, I said, “Well, what do you want?” You know, “Are you wanting to save the remaining four teeth up top?” He’s like, “Yes, I want to. And I said, “Okay.” I said, “I do think, you know, you can, we can save them, but if, if you’re looking for a good long term fix, and cheaper, it maybe best just to get rid of those at this point.” And so, when I was kind of pointing things out and telling him, “You know, we can do an implant bridge here in the back over here, you know, but later on, this teeth may need to come out.” Um, he was like, “No, I don’t, I don’t wanna do more surgeries. I only wanna do this one time.” I said, “Okay, well then, we have a fix for that. This would be that fix.”

And, uh, he wanted to get financed before the doctor even came in. So I told him, I said, “Alright, well,” I went over numbers, “this is what it’s gonna be. If this is what you wanna do, we can,” I said, “before we do financing, let’s get the doctor in to take a good look.” And sure enough, the doctor came in, told him it was doable, and they’re doing a, uh, they got accepted through proceed, but they’re gonna try to get a lower interest rate through a personal loan. So that was kinda, it wa-, just eye opening, if you frame the, paint the picture of, you know, what kind of goal you’re wanting. So… That’s it.

Bart: It’s not even… I think you can make it a step further than that. So if you discussed, typically, it’s like, “Do you want to save th-, do you want to save these teeth?” Or, “Do you want dental implants?” Or, “Do you want something that’s fixed, or removable, or whatever?” Sometimes, depending on who you’re talking to and how knowledgeable they are on, on the treatments and, and, and their clinical situation. A lot of times, I just like to keep it on the outcome, right?

And sometimes, if we start getting, if they start getting too specific, especially before they’ve seen a doctor, uh, I’ll say, “Well, look, I mean, there’s more than one way to get things done.” Right?

Piyuse: Okay.

Bart: The most important thing is that you get the outcome that, that you want. The outcome, right? The teeth would look how you want them to look, they feel how you wanted to feel, and they function how you want them to function. That’s the most important thing. Whether or not we accomplish that by saving three or four teeth and build them around them, or extracting them and putting new teeth. Whatever the case is, as long as, if you get the outcome that you want, the outcome’s much more important than the process to get there because the outcome is what we’re going to live with for the next 30, 40 years. That make sense?

Piyuse: Yeah, it does.

Bart: Because, because then based on the diagnostics, then we can just, we can make a recommendation, right? We’re gonna give a recommendation, say, “Listen, we could save this teeth, we think, you know, four or five of these teeth are savable, you’ve got enough bone around them. The rest of them aren’t. Here’s the problem that we’re gonna run into: we’re gonna have to do a bridge, or we’re gonna have to do one or two dental implants up here, and this, this, this, this, blah, blah, blah. You’re gonna have to be absolutely, 100% impeccable with your home care, and even with all of the… And we’re gonna have to split all the teeth together. We’re gonna have to work by [inaudible], all of these things.”

Kayla: Uh, I don’t know. I never… This is… I’ve never [inaudible] or either not [inaudible].

Bart: Oh sorry. Um, but you know, you can set that expectation and I, I kind of sell it as it doesn’t make that much sense, based on the money, in everything you’re gonna have to do, or, right? ‘Cause, ’cause what happens? Sometimes, people, they try everything. They’re really worried about losing all their teeth and it’s a big deal and everything else, but, um, a lot of times they’ll go through three, four, five years, right?

Going trough different surgeries, spending money on restorative, in crowns, in splinting, in all these things, and they end up losing their teeth anyway, five years later, and wind up, wind up right back in this seat, right? Doing extractions and implants. “So you have to make that call. But we’re gonna make some recommendation based on how to get you to the outcome as quickly as possible. But they’re both a possibility, um, but they have pros and cons.” You know?

And that’s all I would say, and then I would let the doctor do the doctor’s job of coming in and making a recommendation. Of course, I would prep the doctor first, right? As they had, they wanna save their teeth. They haven’t totally made, made the connection in saving them. It’s gonna cost them more money, and there’s no way to fully save them anyways ’cause their home care sucks, right? Like if they don’t, if they don’t start to, how they get in the situation the first place, you know what I mean?

So I would prep the doctor, let the doctor come in, and actually make that, make that primary recommendation. But that’s it. So this first hand, she needs to have an epiphany that she can lose all of her teeth. Like, that has to be clear before the doctor gets in there. And we have to make it clear also that, “Hey, no matter what, our job is to get you a beautiful smile that’s functional and something that is low maintenance, right? You look like somebody who likes to get it done one time and do it the right way. That’s what we’re gonna do.”

What we have to figure out, and this is what the doctor is for, right, we have to figure out, “Are the teeth savable or not?” If they are savable, right, then there’s gonna be ways that we can give you a beautiful smile, possibly without extractions or implants if they’re not, then we’ll talk about what we can do by extracting the teeth, placing implants, so you can get your new smile. One or two is gonna happen, it just depends on your bone levels, and bone density, and the, the severity of the periodontal disease. Does that make sense? You know what I’m saying, guys?

So this is gonna be a little bit out of order ’cause they’re not coming in straight, she’s not here straight for dental implants, okay? I’m gonna keep going.

Helia: …feeling.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: There’s no pain, no nothing.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: It’s just, underneath the gums, you can’t clean it even, unless you get a professional cleaning done.

Patient: Okay, I used to get, um…

Helia: What?

Patient: What is that? Scaling.

Helia: Scaling.

Patient: I used to get the scaling done.

Helia: Like a deep scaling?

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: Okay. So that helps it to slow it down, but it doesn’t prevent it.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: Doesn’t, um, stop it.

Patient: Okay. Okay.

Helia: So it eats away the bone slowly overtime…

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: …so that’s why your teeth start to shift–

Patient: Uh-huh.

Helia: –and get loose.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: Um, the only way to treat it, you can slow it down by deep cleaning…

Patient: Uh-huh.

Helia: …and the only way to treat it is to get rid of the source, which was the–

Bart: So, right, in my opinion, I think we are ahead of ourselves here, because we don’t know, we don’t know what stage the periodontal disease is at right now. Does that make sense?

So no reason in talking about how we can treat the perio, whether, whether we can do that with the deep cleaning, or scaling, root planing, or osseous surgery, whatever, or if, if we need to extract the teeth. There’s really not a whole lot of sense in doing it until the doctor says, “Yeah, these teeth are, you know, these teeth are hopeless, or, you know, we’ve, we have severe bone loss, or whatever. Um, so you want to save–, you wanna kind of save that, right?

And we don’t wanna give the patient any information that’s not absolutely critical to the close. And right now, we don’t know what we’re going to be closing on yet. We just don’t know. So we need to figure that out. Uh, we need to figure that out first. So this first thing could be dramatically abbreviated.

Patient: So, how, well, what’s the solution for getting it back to normal?

Helia: So, well, we’ll take a look. I’m gonna get a CT scan, take a look at you teeth condition, and see how, uh, advanced it is…

Patient: Okay.

Helia: …and see what we can do. But to, what I mean by getting rid of the source is to remove the teeth…

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Helia: …and replace it with, like, implants or something…

Patient: Ah. oh.

Helia: …like that.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: Okay?

Patient: That’s expensive, isn’t it?

Helia: It could get expensive, yes, um… Well, do you have, like, a budget in mind you wanna stay with it?

Bart: Okay, so, so that could be expensive. And I see what Helia is doing right now, right? She’s gonna triage, but the problem is, we haven’t gained, we don’t even know if she’s a candidate for implants right now. And she wasn’t… She’s not shopping for implants, certainly, but she hasn’t even asked about implants at this point, right? So she’s not gonna have a budget. She’s not even sure what to do yet. You know what I mean? She’s not sure about it right now.

So when you ask her, “Hey, what’s your budget?” She’s not gonna have a budget in mind because this is the first time she’s hearing about dental implants, you know what I mean? So we just have to always anchor back on, “Hey, we’re gonna get you a beautiful smile. Whether that’s using something like dental implants or whether it’s using restorative procedures or, or cosmetic or treating the perio, or whatever, that’s what we’re gonna do. Which way we’re gonna go is gonna depend on the severity of your periodontal disease. And once we figure that out, I’ll go through all the different options, you know, and we’re gonna get you something that you’re gonna love. Does that make sense? Cool, let’s figure it out.”

And I would like get it right back to the CT scan, you know what I mean? This would be like a, maybe, a 4-minute consultation, you know? Because a-at this point, the, the patient’s not an obvious candidate, like so many of them are.

Patient: I don’t.

Helia: Like…

Patient: I think I wanna know what my options are…

Helia: Okay.

Patient: …if I can pick.

Helia: Okay. So what is, tell me this then, what is comfortable monthly-wise? If you go to expensive, you wanted to finance it. What is comfortable for you? Like 400, 500 per month? Would it be…

Patient: No.

Helia: …less or more?

Patient: Less.

[laughing]

Helia: So what is less?

Patient: Um, I don’t know how much I could pour. Maybe 200? Less than that.

Helia: 200 a month. Okay, and…

Patient: I have insurance, you know.

Helia: Okay. I think she’s looking into your insurance. We’ll find out.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: Okay. What insurance do you have?

Patient: Blue Cross.

Bart: I’m gonna skip the [inaudible].

Helia: Okay.

Patient: And the CT scan does what?

Helia: So the CT scan is a three-dimensional x-ray.

Patient: Uh-huh.

Helia: We take a look at your bone…

Patient: Okay.

Helia: …and see how much bone you have…

Bart: And hey, Helia, are you on the call? Is Helia on the call? Helia… [pause] Is she there…? If you’re there, I can’t see you.

Helia: Hi!

Bart: Helia, what’s going on?

Helia: Hi, nothing much.

Bart: Cool. Hey, did you ever get back in touch with this patient?

Helia: Yes, she’s still thinking about it, weighing her options.

Bart: Got it. Okay, cool. Hey, you know, what music do you play when on you’re way into the office?

Helia: I, I listen to the news. [laughing]

Bart: Yeah. Not, not anymore, right? I mean, we need some Rick Ross, right? We, we need some boss stuff, okay? Because you got to, like, take control of this because you look so nice and everything, right? But you got to be, uh, I want you to dominate, Helia, dominate these people? Okay?

Helia: Okay.

Bart: Like, just take control ’cause, sometimes, not even knowing it, right? A certain tonality that, that you kind of naturally use in conversation, um, it can come off as like a, a lack of certainty, right? Or like, you’re unsure, but I don’t want– and I don’t want you to come off there. I want you to come off like this [hands clapping]. That, “Hey. Look, first thing I’m gonna do, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom. Oh, it’s pretty [inaudible]? I know, I know. We’ll look. The second we figure out either your teeth can be saved or they can’t be saved, right? If they can’t be saved there’s gonna be different options available. If they can be saved, there’s gonna be options on this side that are gonna be available.

“Once you make that determination, right, then we’ll start going through some options and we’ll talk it through I’m gonna figure out something’s that’s gonna be beautiful for you. Right? But you’re gonna get beautiful teeth, they’re gonna be functional and you’re gonna be happy. That’s what I can tell you.”

Right? And just like take it. Bam! You know what I mean? Take it and then make it easy for them. That way, there’s, every single word that you say, over and above, like what I just said in this scenario… there’s potential for confusion, that’s all. Right? In like this type of a patient, she knows nothing about implants. You know what I mean? Um, she knows very little about perio, right? And you kinda already know in the back of your head why that other doctor might’ve come off as she doesn’t wanna treat it, ’cause the teeth are probably hopeless, right?

So you kinda already know what it is that you’re, that, you-, the news that you’re gonna break to her, you probably already know what that is, right? Which is, there’s not much bone here, we’re better off extracting and blah, blah, blah. So you’re just teeing her up for that. And you wanna look like you’re non-biased. So we don’t wanna look like we’re jumping in, talking on implants, or pushing implants before we made a determination that, clinically and financially, implants make more sense than just treating the perio.

So you wanna come off to her as, like, “Doesn’t matter to me, right? If we can save the teeth we’ll save ’em, right? But if they’re not savable or if it doesn’t make any financial sense to save ’em, then we’ll look at implants. Either way, either way, you’re gonna be in a much better situation when you leave here. That’t what I can tell you, right? Is it expensive? It’s relative, right? But you’re gonna have options, there’s a lot more than one way to do it. We’re gonna figure something out that can work within your budget. The first determination we need to make is can we save the teeth or not? If we can, you’ll have a list of options. If we can’t, then we’ll talk about some implant options. Does that make sense?”

And you say it, like– Make, make it really simple. Simplify it, right? But come in with that tone, like, that mom tone. You know what I’m talking about, you know? I mean, come in with that tone, like, you’re not searching for an answer, you know what I mean?

Like, this lady needs to follow your pace, right? So if you wanna speed it up and get more into CT, then speed it up and get more into the CT, you know? But I want you to kind of be, be conscious of that in the next consultations. Like w-what is your, what is your tone? Especially, like, when you first sit down, saying what, stating your intention, right? That’s just something that kinda practice and you can-, it helps to watch yourself on video, right? Watch yourself and listen. Um…

But you’re doing a really good job going by… trying to go by the script and trying to triage. The triage is just clumsy because she’s not… She wasn’t directly asking about implants, right? She was kinda making an assertation there, or just, it was kind of like a, of-the-cuff comment like, “Oh they’re expensive,” but she’s not there for that treatment. And I, I don’t think she’s connected the dots like, “Oh my god, treating perio doesn’t matter. My teeth are gone.” You know what I mean? That’s gonna be the first thing to happen here with the doctor.

Okay here we go.

Helia: …of your teeth, and all of that.

Patient: Okay.

Helia: We see all your secrets. I’m just kidding. [laugh]

Patient: No, you do. You do.

Helia: [inaudible] once, I can help. I’ll be right back.

Patient: Okay.

[silence]

Bart: Oops. Here we go.

Dr. Nala: That, that is recently?

[inaudible]

Dr. Nala: You’ve been to your dentist recently?

Patient: It was less than two years ago.

Dr. Nala: Okay.

Patient: She, she told me…

Dr. Nala: Okay.

Patient: …and she didn’t act like she wanted to treat it, or get me well or…

Dr. Nala: Yeah.

Patient: …so I, you know, I said I was gonna find another dentist.

Dr. Nala: So for two years, uh, anything happened? Or what, what was the situation?

Patient: Um… in two years, my teeth started to shake.

Bart: [inaudible] sure you know all these information, right? I have to, you don’t wanna be repetitive here, ‘kay? So she kinda gave Helia the background on what has happened, right? “Doctor said this, doctor, I didn’t feel like they wanted to treat it. My teeth started to get loose, I started developing gaps, I started shifting, and I hate, you know, my smile.”

That’s basically, in a nutshell, what’s happened last two years. So, you want the, you know, the Dr. Nala already knows that, so he can come in and just make a very, very quick, to the point, recap up until this point. And then he can kinda connect with, connect with the patient. “I can understand when that happens. We’ve had a lot of patients that come in here with the same exact things, right? And that’s the- that’s the thing about perio, you know? When you have it, you’d… so many people have it and they just never know until it’s very, very far down the line because you’re not necessarily in pain and you don’t develop aesthetic defects immediately. The defects happen very gradually over long period of time, you know? And then all of a sudden it just sneaks up on you and you look at a picture and it’s like, ‘Oh, my god, how did my teeth look like that?’, you know?”

And you wanna take that second and you connect with the patient and then get straight into it, right? We wanna make sure there’s a good, there’s a good hand off with that form from the treatment coordinator to the doctor, so that the doc-, when the doctor comes in, it’s not repetitive.

And Helia, are you in the room here, with the doctor?

Patient: I usually am in the room, but I just, uh… consult. We had another consult waiting, so I had to take care of the other one, um… so Dr. Nala was by himself by this one.

Bart: Okay. Well… That’s a tough one, you what I mean? ‘Cause you don’t know what they’re talking about, right? And then you gotta come in after this and close and you missed it, so you’re missing like, you know you’re missing a third, at least, of all the dialogue. It is really tough to close. So if you guys have– I mean, sometimes, they just gotta wait, right? Number 1, and you gotta get, you have to get… make the close that’s in front of you, and sometimes you can have somebody that’s, that’s running back up, you know?

If you guys are like double booking consults and you got that day where like, uh, everybody shows up? Um… And you can have somebody that’s running back up to complete the first ten, then you get in there at the second ten, but, um… it’s just, it’s so difficult for you to close when you didn’t hear what was discussed, especially in this situation.

‘Cause this isn’t like, uh, uh, slam dunk. I know that we’re pitching All-on-4. It’s not a slam dunk like she’s had two or three opinions, and she’s just shopping price. It’s not a question of what she’s a candidate for, you know? It’s just a question of, you know, closing or negotiating. This is kinda different where this is gonna be a real critical part. So just make a judgement call there and it’s a good thing to just talk about with the team and have a meeting, “Hey, what do we do? What’s our contingency, you know, for if we’re running behind, who’s gonna…? Basically, who’s, who’s your backup, right? If you’re in a console. Okay, here we go.

Patient: Is that me?

Dr. Nala: Yeah, that’s you.

Patient: Oh, my gosh. [giggles]

Dr. Nala: Yeah. So… What it is, if you see, this is not just a regular x-ray. This is a CBC – CT scan, which is a 3D dimension…

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: Which is we cant see all the bone and we can see how much infection you’re having. Which just seems like you have a lot of infections eating the bone away.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: And this is because of the gum disease that you have, we call periodontal disease.

Patient: Right.

Dr. Nala: You see the bone level is up here, and this bone should be down here, so you lost all these bone and that’s why the teeth become shaky. They start shifting, and then they start getting loose, and they start coming out.

Patient: Yeah.

Dr. Nala: So… other than that, this is a disease that has bacteria on it. That’s mean this bacteria doesn’t stay on the mouth…

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: …it go to your bloodstream and can go to your brain or heart and can cause an extreme, severe health issues.

Patient: Really?

Dr. Nala: This bacteria is associated with the brain infections, associated with lung infections, and heart attacks.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: So… this, this is uh… untreated like this been for two years, this is not a good thing at all. I mean…

Patient: Not a good thing?

Dr. Nala: No.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: Because… God forbid, any of these complications could happen to you at anytime. I’m part of the Innova Fairfax Hospital, I see it all the time, patient in Dublin ICU because of dental infection that’s not treated.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: So… what I’m trying to say, this is not just dental problem, it does affect your overall health, and can put you into a serious health problem.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: Not because, this infection is not only on the mouth, it does spread through the bloodstream and go to other parts of the–

Patient: They might go, really? Do you think?

Dr. Nala: Eh…

Bart: [inaudible] All true. Kind of remember to present options to extract all the teeth, you know what I mean, right? ‘Cause in her, I can just hear by what she’s saying, she’s still thinking how am I, how are we going to treat the perio? How are we going to treat the perio? She has not connected the dots. Helia touched on it, but she just hasn’t connected the dots, that by extracting the teeth, the perio goes away. You know what I mean?

She’s just has not made that connection, that all of these issues go away when we extract the teeth, right? So again, we have to make it as simple as possible, for them to understand why we’re gonna make the recommendation we’re gonna make. And we have to remember to anchor everything on aesthetics since that’s her, that, that’s what she wants. She wants a beautiful smile here.

Dr. Nala: To say, worse disinfection now in the blood, but I can tell you the proximity, to so, this is your teeth,

Bart: Kind of irrelevant. I’m gonna hop on.

Dr. Nala: So all infection and this is your sinus.

Patient: Where? Where are you?

Dr. Nala: This is your sinus on the upper left side. Very thoroughly cleaning that infection and then place four implants on the top, four in the bottom, and then, by the end of the day, we’ll have the bridges ready, we’ll attach into the implant, and you leave here with a new smile in your mouth. Yep.

Patient: So if you’re only gonna place four teeth…

Bart: So what have we, what have we learned from, in this pair? What have, what have… This, the big mess right here, is that we haven’t linked any… This recommendation here, we haven’t linked it to how beautiful the teeth are at all, to the aesthetic advantages, right? So the first thing is, “Hey, based on everything I’m seeing, in your bone levels, this very, the, the periodontal disease, I don’t think it’s even think it’s worth trying to treat the periodontal disease, because I don’t think that the teeth are savable anymore. The good news is you still have enough bone to place dental implants, right? More good news is once we extract all the teeth, the infection goes away. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. And even more good news is, now [inaudible] up brand new, anything you probably even had.” Does that make sense what I’m talking about?

Then you gotta go get the models, you got a let her see it, right? She doesn’t know anything about this stuff, she knows nothing. You gotta get the models, you have to get the [inaudible] and give it to her, and put it in her hand to see it. Have it before and after so she knows exactly she’s going to look like and she gets excited about it.

Right now, the whole thing is about disease, systemic effects, how it affects the rest of your body, right? And now we’re going to how we’re going to treat it but we have not made a connection back to what that patient wants.The clinical outcome that they want in everything, guys, has to be linked to that clinical outcome to get an emotional reaction from the patient. You guys with me on that? Does that make any sense?

So, if I have a patient come in and say, “Hey, this is what I want, I want a beautiful smile,” then everything I’m doing a recommendation is based on what’s gonna give that, that patient the best aesthetics. I’m gonna make the rest of this stuff just seem like an added benefit. ‘Cause that’s not even on her radar. If anything, I could just kind of derail the whole thing for her, right?

I could confuse her. I could make her scared. I could make her nervous. Now she’s thinking, “Oh my god, has it already spread? Is it in my bloodstream?” She’s asking all those questions, you know what I mean? Which is okay, if you want to cause a little bit more urgency, that’s a really good way to do it.

But you have to kinda pull it back and go, “Yes, a hundred percent, it’s in your bloodstream.” Right? “Has it had an effect? I don’t know, it’s hard to say. Hasn’t had any catastrophic yet, that’s for sure. But the good news is, once we extract all the teeth, the disease is gonna go away, and you won’t ever have to worry about treating them.” That has to be said, okay?

I’m gonna keep going real quick so that we don’t run out of time.

Dr. Nala: There’s four implants. These are the implants.

Patient: Ah… Okay.

Dr. Nala: And the four implants will hold the full teeth.

Patient: So I need the full mouth done?

Dr. Nala: That’s right.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Bart: You see how she just said, “Oh, so I need the full mouth done?”? That’s how murky it is for her, right, in terms of what we’re talking about. She still has not made the connection that we’re talking about–removing all of her teeth and giving her all brand new teeth. She has not made that connection yet, right?

So for somebody, when we’re kinda going so far down the line and they still haven’t got the, got the core understanding of what’s going on, it’s gonna be really tough, on Helia, for you to close that. After this conversation, it’s gonna be really, really difficult to close it in one, um… in one consultation.

Generally, it’s gonna take, um… quite a bit of follow up.

Patient: Both top and bottom?

Dr. Nala: For the top and the bottom. Yeah.

Patient: Okay. And how much does that cost?

Dr. Nala: She will go over the cost with you, that’s not a problem. ‘Cause she will go over the cost, she will, uh…

Bart: But again if she’s like, “Okay so, I need the whole mouth, right? Top and bottom?” Just say, “Listen, from what we’re seeing on the X-rays, right?” And sometimes you gotta go back, you know what I mean? ‘Cause if, if you’re the, if you’re doc, and this is why you guys gotta be in the room, ’cause you gotta help, right? You gotta help here, if you feel like the doctor and the patient are not on the same page, or the doctor’s missing something here, right? You have to circle back and explain it differently with way fewer words, you know what I mean?

So you go back and say “Listen, based on everything we’ve seen with the CT scan, what I’m seeing is your bone level’s already so low, right, that if you said, ‘Doctor, I don’t care what you have to do I want you to do everything you can do to save these teeth with me, using every resource available to me.’ If I did everything and you had, did, did everything you could do. Your own care was impeccable, everything was impeccable, and money were no object, I still don’t see a way for me to save these teeth and set an expectation outside of five years.

“Even doing everything possible, right? So knowing that what I don’t want to have happen is for you to come in and spend 5-, 10-, 15-, 20,000 dollars in it, trying to save a ship, right, that’s going down. Titanic’s going down, no one can do anything about it. It’s the same thing here. So, I, let’s talk through good money after bad. That’s what I’m saying. And if you say, ‘Hey, I’ll live with with a five-year expectation, I don’t care about the money,’ then I’ll do it. I will do it. That’s a hundred percent your call, right? But I would listen to…” No, I wouldn’t say that.

I would say, “But if you’re open to me getting you a beautiful smile, by using a different avenue. That’s what I’m talking about here, right? Because the beauty lies in the simplicity. I can do, it’s like, I can accomplish three core objectives [snap] in one day, right? I can cure and completely eliminate the periodontal disease by extracting the teeth, right, that’s number 1. Number 2, we can design your smile. Aesthetics are big deal for you? We can design it however you want it to look. I wanna do it all digitally. I can show you how your smile’s gonna look before we do anything and we can work on that together. And number 3, when we’re talking about using implants, we can do something that’s going to be stable, and it’s going to be secure, and it’s gonna be screwed down to restore all of your function.

“So it’s gonna give you kind of the best of all the worlds aesthetically, and it’s going to eliminate all of the problems that you’re dealing with currently, which is the gum disease and the risk associated with your health, the loose teeth, the aesthetic defects, um… and the general, the general look and feel of your smile. So all of those things are fixed and this is done in about a day.” Does that make sense?

“Let’s go through some options cuz I know that this is new to you. Let me go through a couple different scenarios and show you what I’m talking about. To show you couple of before and afters, and I’m gonna show you, give you an idea what this bridge looks like.”

Does that make sense guys? How long did it take me to say that? Forty-five seconds and a minute? You know what I mean? But if you feel this is why you have to be in the room, right? If you feel like, “Hey, the doctor’s not… They’re not together. This patient doesn’t understand, they’re not on the same page.” Then you have to bring it back, you know what I mean?

You gotta bring it back to what’s, to what’s, what is going to get the patient’s attention. And if they don’t understand, you got to restate it in the in the most simplistic way possible. So that they go, “Oh, yeah, I get it, okay. Got it, got it, got it.” And we don’t want them to be… Sometimes, you guys know, patients can get… If they are, don’t come in for All-on-4, and you end up treating them, planning an All-on-4 and they weren’t expecting it, how freaked out do some people get about hearing that you’re going to take out all of their teeth?

That’s kind of an emotional thing, right? On its own.That’s gonna create emotion. That’s gonna create a situation when their anxiety’s gonna go up, okay? And that’s… We’re being crystal clear on why. If they don’t know why, you know, then it’s, it’s just compounded.

Dr. Nala: Give you some payment options, payment plans so… so you can do like a monthly plan and she will find a way to make it affordable for you.

Patient: Okay. Okay. Okay. [laughs]

Dr. Nala: Okay? I’m sorry that no one take the time in explaining how severe is this because this is not good.

Patient: No, it’s not.

Dr. Nala: You see, uh, all these bone damage you’re having, all these infection. This is the nerve right there, with all this infection right just on, on top the nerve. That’s that.

Patient: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Nala: Very [inaudible]

Patient: Okay.

Bart: Okay, so. Uh, and that’s coming to play here, ;cause that is again, this is, this is the most important part of the whole thing. So at what point in time, if you guys were this patient, what point in time, during the first to the second ten, at what point in time would you get excited? [silence]

Kayla: None

Bart: At what point in time would you be looking forward–

Kayla: Nothing about that is exciting.

Bart: Right.

Kayla: Okay.

Bart: In every single one?

Kayla: Horrible.

Bart: It’s all bad news, right? It’s, it’s all bad news and it wasn’t, it, it’s, it wasn’t expected, right? So again what she wants, she wants a beautiful smile. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna qualify everything that I say and everything that I do, as far as a recommendation, everything’s gonna be based like getting her that. “And yes, we’re gonna eliminate your problems but this is also gonna give a beautiful smile, let me show you what it looks like,” and I’m gonna try to get her to forget, there has to come a point in time where we’ve created enough pain and urgency, right, to where you guys know that that part in the script where it’s like, “Okay, look, I’m straight on all that now let’s talk about something different. Let’s talk about something fun, let’s talk about how you’re going to look, right, in the future.” You know what I mean?

And at some point in time during the consultation I’ve got to, I have to change the urgency here and get the patient excited about the clinical outcome that the dental implants are going to provide. Not the dental implants, she’s not excited about the dental implants. She wasn’t even expecting it. She’s not excited about extractions. She wasn’t excited about periodontal treatment, right? She’s only going to be excited about the clinical outcome that is gained from the treatment, not the treatment itself.

And this is not somebody that’s ready to negotiate, this is somebody that has to be sold, you know what I mean? So this patient doesn’t know what they want, she doesn’t even fully understand her, her current state, where she is clinically. She doesn’t, she’s just very confused right now, okay?

So it’s a really really good call to record ’cause it’s not straight down the middle and there’s all sorts of opportunities for confusion for this particular, uh… patient. And for miscommunication between the treatment coordinator and the doctor, tons of it, you know. Because you’re usually dealing with people that are coming in specifically about, um.. dental implants, you know. So like for Helia, she’s gonna be, she’s in trouble, right, in the third ten.

To get this done, there’s a lot of work. Could it be done? Sure it could be, you know? Um… but not in ten minutes, I can guarantee you that. Nobody could do it in ten minutes from here. Maybe twenty or thirty, you know? But we really, this lady has to be crystal clear on why we can’t treat the perio, or why it’s not smart to treat the perio, or why it’s not necessary. And how trying to treat the perio and trying to save the teeth is actually gonna be more expensive. She needs to be super clear on that and then she needs to get start, to get excited about a full zirconia bridge or [inaudible] whatever it is that you guys are going to be uh… recom, uh… make the recommendation on.

Does that make sense? [pause] Helia, you have any questions on, on, on any of that?

Helia: No, I understand everything you mentioned that it was a little off as well. Um… but I totally agree that we have to be on the same page and create the fun, um, time for her. And give her the bad news but then look at the bright side as well. Um, I am going to follow up with her again, um, so I’m gonna remind her of her beautiful smile, maybe, this time, instead of focusing on her infections.

Bart: Yeah, a hundred percent. ‘Cause the, the infection’s gonna be solved, you know what I mean? The second we extract the teeth, that’s over.

Helia: Yeah.

Bart: It’s over. So, like, yeah it’s a big deal but we don’t have to worry about treating that because giving you a new smile is gonna do that also. So we’re gonna kill two birds with one stone here, you know what I mean?

Helia: Yeah.

Bart: That, that’s how you make it a no-brainer, like why would you wanna treat the perio and then you still have the aesthetic defects, right? Even if we could save them, if they’re ugly, are you gonna be happy? Right? She’s not, this is just gonna cost her more money. So this is an easy way. Infection’s gonna be taken care of and your teeth are gonna look absolutely beautiful, you know? So a way to maybe get her back on the phone, you know, with, with a text. Say, “Hey, I spoke with the doctor again, I think we found a really interesting way to give you a beautiful smile. We’ve been thinking about it a lot. Got a second to chat?”. Just send her that text.

That’s it, don’t say anything else just something quick and easy to re-engage her, you know what I mean? And guys that’s a tip, when you’re following up with people, you can’t follow up like, “Hey, following up on your chief complaint, blah blah blah blah.” No, it’s gotta be something with some type of mystery to it, right. Some type of interest like, “Hey, I was thinking about your situation, I actually spoke to the doctor, and we put our heads together, I think the doctor came up with something that you’re really gonna love. You got a couple minutes to chat?” It’s gonna work a billion times better than leaving like a standard message, right?

You gotta pique their interest. When you’re following up, you don’t want then to know exactly why you’re following up. That gives them a reason to find out and then take the call. Does that make sense? So you guys remember that, remember that on your follow up, whether you’re leaving a message or you’re sending in a text or an email, don’t tell them exactly what it is. Just tell ’em, “We’ve found something interesting, we found something that I think is gonna be absolutely perfect for you. Do you have second to chat today?” That’s it. Like the shorter the better. And you will be surprised, it works like crazy. Veronica can tell you that.

Remember that when I had you do that? I, I we do the same thing to your doctors, when they won’t get it on the phone. Should they care? “I just talked to Bart about your campaign and found something interesting, got a second?” They all call back, so um… keep that in mind.

Guys, any questions about this, uh… this consultation or any uh… any comments or anything specific you want me to go through before I let you all go? And Helia, you did a good job, you did a good job on the presentation, you did a good job following the script. It was just really, it wasn’t a right down the middle thing, you know what I mean? ‘Cause she wasn’t there for implants necessarily. So you have to go to the long route there, right?

And you almost have to kinda like, not talk about any of the implant thing until it’s confirmed that the teeth are not savable, because if we start pushing that and then it turns out that the teeth are savable it seems like we’re kinda biased and we’re trying to sell implants here. And we, we don’t want that, we don’t want it to come off that way, we want it to come off like, “Hey, we’re here to get you what you want, which is a beautiful smile. If we can do that with restorative, we’ll do it, we can do it with the cosmetic, we’ll do it, we can do it with implants, we’ll do it. It doesn’t matter. First thing is figure out clinically what’s gonna work the best.’ Does that make sense ladies? Okay.

Helia: Thank you so much.

Bart: Everybody– What’s that?

Helia: Thank you so much, we’ll see you next time.

Bart: Okay. See you, Helia.

Woman 6: Yeah, you’re close. [laugh]

Bart: Alright, so you guys just keep, keep that in mind, and then uh… and then also you know when you’re doing these consultations, watch your video and listen to your tone, listen to your tone and your delivery. And if you ever get that tone where it’s like, “Um, well, I think, you know, hopefully you’ll have a better experience here,” something like that, you know. Then be mindful of it, you know what I mean, and try to correct it on the next one. Um… because you wanna be viewed as a figure of authority, in order to pace and lead you have to speak with authority, you have to speak with certainty and uh… and you cut right to the chase, right.

Don’t talk about anything that’s not relevant to the close. And if you don’t know what the close is then the only conversation that takes place is the fact that we need to find out clinically what you’re [inaudible]. And you go straight to the T, to the CT. I mean, like, [inaudible] I would be back there with this- this particular patient.

Cool? Alright, y’all. Hey, you guys are really quiet today, I’m going to make you talk next time. So look, uh… it was a pleasure. Any questions? You guys uh… get with this on it and hopefully, we’ll see at the Power Day. We have Power Day, what, next week?

Woman 1: This week, this Friday.

Bart: This Friday. We got Power Day this Friday. Um… and then honestly we got it for Friday every month. So if you haven’t signed up make sure you get signed up so you can come down to work, okay? Alright, guys take it easy, close somebody. We’re here if you need us.

Helia: Thank you.

Bart: Bye-bye.

[END]