Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

How to perform dentistry faster, easier, higher in quality and lower in cost. Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dentistry-uncensored-with-howard-farran/id916907356

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Howard Farran:

It's just a huge honor for me today to be podcast interviewing Rachel Mele. How are you doing today, Rachel?

Rachel Mele:

I'm wonderful, Howard. How are you?

Howard Farran:

Good. I've been a big of yours for a long time. Rachel Mele is a dental executive, speaker and author. Rachel started her career in dentistry as a practice management consultant traveling to dental practices across the world. She has helped thousands of dentists get and keep patients by improving their online marketing and social media presence. Rachel holds a degree from the University of Hartford, is Distinguished Toastmaster, a member of the National Speakers Association and sits on the board for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven. Rachel has lectured for more than a decade at dental conferences across the globe including the American Dental Association, California Dental Association and for many dental companies including Align Technology, Dentsply Sirona, Straumann. Today, Rachel runs the healthcare division for Venneli ...

Rachel Mele:

Vennli, V-E-N-N-L-I. Vennli, yeah.

Howard Farran:

A voice of the customer platform. Rachel has helped strategically grow Henry Schein, SunStar, Convergent Dental, Heraeus Kulzer and many others. The reason I tried to get her on this show ... First of all, you were assessing me for a decade, right?

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, 10 years.

Howard Farran:

Was I your worst client or just your average client?

Rachel Mele:

You're awesome, actually, you had great ideas. We love it when clients have great ideas, that makes us even motivated to do even better.

Howard Farran:

Nice. The reason I got on this show is because you came out with this book 365 Days of Social Posts for Dentistry, it's a guide for dental practices to create funny, informative, educational and, most importantly, engaging social media posts. The book was created because Rachel has a mission to inspire the healthcare community to educate one another by innovating solutions that make it easier to stay engage and connected, innovations that improve personal health, happiness and fulfillment globally. This book just does that by giving dentists or the only oral physician of the mouth and all dental professionals resources to generate ideas. By educating everyday through social media and other forms of communication and collaboration, patients around the world can improve their health and happiness. 100% of the proceeds from 365 Days of Social Posts for Dentistry are being donated to oralcancercause.org. Send me that link, Ryan. OCC provides financial support to improve the quality of life for oral cancer patients.

She's got some amazing testimonials from my buddies. Ed Zuckerberg whose son just gave an amazing commencement speech at Harvard says, "No dental office marketer should be without this valuable tool." Rita Zamora, "An essential for your social media toolbox. Excellent launch pad ideas you can personalize for your practice. Keep this book handy and you’ll never be at a loss for words." Then my dental mom Linda Miles, "Every dental practice should have a copy of 365 Days of Social Posts for Dentistry. It’s the perfect gift for study clubs and dental companies to give as thank you gifts to referring practices to dental companies’ customer bases." I remember the first time Linda heard me lecture. At the end, she just stand back there like my mom. She was literally old enough to be my mom.

Rachel Mele:

She's my dental mom too.

Howard Farran:

She's like, "We need to talk." Now my podcast is called Dentistry Uncensored so it looks like some things never change. You know, Linda Miles is huge in the oral cancer too.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, she's trying to help.

Howard Farran:

[crosstalk 00:03:32]. What's that?

Rachel Mele:

It's her legacy to help in that area.

Howard Farran:

It's really different. I mean, I graduated 30 years ago and 30 years ago, everybody said that all the world cancer is from smoking and drinking. Now, it looks like a hell of a lot of cancer in the mouth is HPV, same with uterine cancer, ovarian ... It makes sense because it never made sense when I was in pathology because they said, "All this smoking and drinking, all this something," I thought, "Okay, well if I had a room and I just filled it with mice and just pumped it full of smoking and drinking and all that, you think they'd all die. That's not what's happening, this room full of mice is dividing every 20 minutes. You come back a year later and there's 10 million mice." I remember saying to my pathology teacher, I said, "It sounds like all these toxins are high-grade fertilizer. It sounds like everybody should be smoking and drinking because it just makes cells divide."

Rachel Mele:

On that note ... No, I'm just kidding.

Howard Farran:

It makes sense that's something has hijacked the nucleus in a very specific way and it's not some random dirty toxin, it looks like something like a virus got in there.

Rachel Mele:

It could be hereditary or it could be a viral thing or who knows, yeah. There are so many patients that are dealing with this. Somebody told me that the average dentist could save 11 lives in the course of their career by making sure they do a two-minute screening, as simple as that.

Howard Farran:

Imagine if all the medical insurance companies said they would stop doing Pap smears for women, they'd stop paying for it, oh my god, the women would go crazy, the CEO would lose his job. Yet the same insurance companies won't pay for an oral exam, it's like ...

Rachel Mele:

Well, it's not that long that Pap smears have been covered by insurance either so I think it's just a matter of the right people going and lobbying for the things to change and then it will be accepted by everyone.

Howard Farran:

Why did you write 365 Days of Social Post?

Rachel Mele:

Thanks for asking that question. I have to ask you a quick question, I hope you don't take offense to this. I was having a barbecue yesterday and my friend said, "What are you doing tomorrow? What are you up to tomorrow?" I said, "Actually, I'm talking to Howard Farran." These are my non-dental friends and they said, "Well, who's Howard Farran?" I said, "The best way I could describe him is I'd say, 'Howard Farran is like the Howard Stern of dentistry.'"

Howard Farran:

I want that quote. Don't even ask her permission, just write it down, Ryan. Well, what was Howard Stern's book called [crosstalk 00:06:16] Private Parts, did you see that movie?

Rachel Mele:

Of course, who didn't see that movie, that was good.

Howard Farran:

What I love about Howard Stern and where he was an inspiration to me, just be true to yourself. I would go out there and I would give my lecture and I always did standup comedy too. I mean, I've done every comedy club in Arizona several times. I go in a comedy club and the owners of the comedy bar say, "Man, you're awesome. You don't say the F word, you don't say GD, no profanity, no sex, you're just clean." Because the biggest comedian [crosstalk 00:06:48].

Rachel Mele:

They were talking about you?

Howard Farran:

Yeah, because I don't. Then you take that same cleanest act at any comedy place in Arizona and you take that to a dental convention, now you're the craziest, edgiest ... You said fart, you said damn, he said fart six times and he said the word bitch, it's like, "Bitch, that's PG-13, are you out of your mind?"

Rachel Mele:

Listen, I got three kids, they're eight, six and four so we hear and smell fart everyday.

Howard Farran:

I know. It was human discontent. I notice the same thing in dentistry like you go talk to the dentist at the back of a church and they're standing next to their wife, and it's just totally one level conversation. Then you go drinking with him on a fishing boat catching red bass in the Gulf of Mexico, it's a whole another environment.

Rachel Mele:

Well, not that I want to get political but look at the president of the United States, conversation changes depending on where he is. Locker room is a totally different conversation than when he's on the floor.

Howard Farran:

Yeah. What I love about Howard Stern is he knew that people who listen to radio all day long were mostly construction workers and truckers driving around and he knew they were laughing but everybody who own a station would listen to one person complain and then they'd fire him, and he wouldn't change. He just pack up with his wife, go to the next town and he kept getting fired and fired and fired and fired till finally some boys in New York said, "You know, he's got a lot of people that don't care for him but he's got a hell of a lot more people who think he's funny." I like being the Howard Stern of dentistry. I mean, I called it Dentistry Uncensored because I don't want to talk about anything that everyone agrees on, I only talk about the stuff that makes you think, I want to take your mind out for a run or, in your case, a bike. What does that called?

Rachel Mele:

The Peloton.

Howard Farran:

The Peloton. [crosstalk 00:08:43] I'm glad you're on a Peloton because I've had too many friends get run over and killed biking on the street, this is ...

Rachel Mele:

I still run though on the street so that does make me nervous and I run on a busy street so you just never know when you get out there.

Howard Farran:

Well, the last time Ryan went running, he had to do a full body dive into the yard. It was ... What? An 80-year-old lady? An 80-year-old lady who barely could see above the dash cross clear over into the incoming traffic and hit the curb where Ryan was running and he dove for the grass. I'm out here in Phoenix, all these retirees, it's literally politically impossible to talk about, okay, maybe we shouldn't give driver's licenses to people once they hit 85 or 90.

Rachel Mele:

Or make them take a test every year as opposed to what is it right now, I mean, you literally could have a license forever and never have to be tested again, it's insane. I mean, I'm saying that now but when I'm 80 and when you're 80, you're going to be saying, "Let me keep driving," so it's hard.

Howard Farran:

Well, I'll be on a driverless Uber car by then. [crosstalk 00:09:38], why did you write 365 Days of Social Posts? What was going on in your journey that make you stop and write that?

Rachel Mele:

It's been going on for over a decade. I've been collecting ideas over the course of my dental profession and I've been putting them in this little folder that I called 365. I would occasionally share them with colleagues, with you as we did your social media and we get them posted online, the best of the best. You're great at it. I mean, you post great posts everyday that make me laugh and a lot of those ended up in the book as you'll see. Then I have had on my bucket list for a long time to write a book, it's up there at the top of my list along with watching my girls give birth to babies which they're far away from doing but that's at the top of my bucket list. One day, I said, "It's time to get this done." I hired a research assistant and that was really what got it going is somebody everyday who I was working with to make it happen. Here we are, it's launching on June 12th, 365 Days of Social Posts for Dentistry.

Howard Farran:

You want us to push it out June 12th or do you want us to push it on now?

Rachel Mele:

You can push it out now. Yeah, let them know now. We already have many orders on pre-order because anybody who buys it in advance of June 12th will get a signed copy.

Howard Farran:

Nice. Did you talk to Tom Giacobbi about writing an article about it in Dentaltown?

Rachel Mele:

I didn't but, actually, that started it all in Dentaltown. Probably eight years ago, I wrote an article that was 52 weeks of social posts for dentistry. It was the first time I had published any of those thoughts in any publication so I give a lot of credit for this book to starting my ideas in Dentaltown. Yeah, I definitely will reach out to Tom and say, "Hey, now, it's time to do another version of that."

Howard Farran:

Well, I've known you for a decade but for people who don't know you, talk about your journey. How did you get into dentistry back in the day?

Rachel Mele:

Well, I grew up in dentistry. My mom ran a lab out of our home when I was a child. She went on to become a prominent practice management consultant in the orthodontic industry. Her name is Lynne Fales. She's now retired but she's the one that ultimately introduce me to the dental profession. Never thought I was going to get into the dental profession, I got a music degree and, Howard, I thought that I was going to be a professional concert goer, that was my dream job. What I quickly learned is that it's a lot better to actually make the money to be able to go pay to go see concerts instead of trying to sneak into them so we switched off of that.

My mom brought me down to a conference in Florida 15 years ago and she introduced me to some folks and as they say in the dental profession, I'm sure you've heard before, once you get in to the profession, you never leave. Now, that's easy for you because you're a dentist but most executives within dental don't leave, as you probably know. She introduced me to it. I went to this dental conference and I had a doctor come up to me, Howard, and they said ... At the time, I was selling a software that my mom had created for inventory control and this doctor said, "This is exactly what my practice needs but I have no one to implement it, who's going to implement it?" I said, "Well, gee, I can come into your office and implement it." That led me to consulting and dental practices across the world and helping them to negotiate with vendors and set up their inventory, organize themselves, get barcodes put in place, teach their team how to make sure that they always had the right inventory.

Trying to make the long story short here but the second doctor that I consulted for was the owner of an online communications company, Sesame Communications, who I work for for 10 years. He poached me for two years, trying to get me to come work for him. I kept saying no because I didn't want to move to Seattle and eventually he said, "Well, how about you work out of your home in Connecticut," and so that was 10 years. Then I ended up at Vennli, the company I work with now because Gary Gigot who is the benefactor of the Gigot Entrepreneurial Center at Notre Dame and was the original angel investor at Sesame, he started this company Vennli and he said, "We needed a dental division," and I said, "What's Vennli?" I did a little research and did some consulting for them and realized there's a great opportunity within the dental industry for that business. Today, I have my speaking business and I have the book and then I also work full-time for Vennli. That's how I got into the profession and here's where I am today.

Howard Farran:

Well, Notre Dame is a very sacred thing for me. I mean, I went to Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school, I went to [crosstalk 00:14:37]. My mom's brother, he actually went to a Notre Dame game. On the way back to the hotel, he was so drunk, he sat down on a park bench and passed out and froze to death in the middle of the night.

Rachel Mele:

Literally, Howard?

Howard Farran:

I mean, literally, figuratively. He froze. How cool is to go down, coming home drunk from a Notre Dame game and freezing to death.

Rachel Mele:

Did they win?

Howard Farran:

Well, that's what I asked my mom 100 times, that was my only question, I said, "Well, did they win?" She goes, "I don't know." I said, "Well, who did they play? Tell me more to this story."

Rachel Mele:

Wow. I'm going to tell that story at our next conference call, for sure.

Howard Farran:

It's kind of one of those overlook things, you don't realize that when people go out and get crazy that they can pass on the way and do that. Remember AC/DC, the night before their biggest album went out, the guy got drunk and then puked and then aspirate his puke and died and never even got to see ... He played pubs for 10 years and right before he was the rock star, he choked to death on his own deal.

Rachel Mele:

Public service announcement here, right?

Howard Farran:

Yeah. I want to say, you said so many profound things, I just want to make note. You said that no one leaves dentistry. You know, you hear so many dentists always whining about their job, they're making $175,000 a year. The average household income where everybody in the house combine makes 50 so they're making three and a half total household income. It's like I always say to myself, "Well, you know, buddy, why don't you quit dentistry and go open up a restaurant, a dry cleaner, a lawn service," because when you go ...

Rachel Mele:

My dad, a pool business.

Howard Farran:

Yeah. When you go to those dental conventions, anybody who quits the job, you just see him at the booth across the next year, nobody leaves dentistry because the average profit margin in the S&P 500 is 5%, dentists, an idiot could have 20%. I mean, you look at the profit margins in dentistry, you got to be Intel or Google or Apple to have those kind of margins. What I also love about ... You saw a demand so you create a supply and said, "I'll go in there and implement and start a company." So many of the young dentists are saying, "Well, [inaudible 00:16:49] or sleep apnea." It's like, "Well, dude, what are your existing patients? What do they need?"

Rachel Mele:

Right, what are they asking for, sure.

Howard Farran:

Don't talk to somebody across the country, you're in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, what do your patients need right there? That is so cool.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, and what interests you. Don't do something that's not of interest to you, I mean, it's got to be natural.

Howard Farran:

I've said so many times in this show that everybody listening is a millennial, they're all under 30 and all that but I'm getting so many emails at howard@dentaltown.com saying, "Dude, I'm 59," "Dude, I'm 64," "Dude, I'm older than you." Before you get into social media, I want to throw you into the bus with what the old guys think. The old guys say, "Rachel, Facebook is full of shit. I do direct mail. Every time I do a direct mail piece, I get 15 new patients," bada boom, bada boom, "I think social media and Snapchat and Instagram, that's what kids are playing on the playground in recess." What would you say to the old guy who loves his direct mail?

Rachel Mele:

I'd probably say, "Diversify your portfolio financially." If you're putting all your eggs in one basket, probably financially you're not doing as well as the guys who are doing some diversification, that's the old rule. I would definitely say, "Actually, that's the same thing within the social media world or the marketing world is, yeah, don't stop doing your snail mail. If that's working, you're getting 15 patients from it, I'll be damned, keep going, keep getting those new patients from those postcards but why not get 15 more from social media, we know it works."

I'm a mom of three, I already mentioned that, right? It used to be that you go to the soccer field to find out who's the dentist I should go see, those conversations don't happen on the soccer field anymore, they happen on social media where I cannot just get the perspective of one mom but I can get the perspective of all the moms. I would tell all of those dentists who maybe are skeptical about it that they're wrong. They probably were nervous about doing postcards back in the day, back when they weren't allowed to do any advertising so for them it seems dirty. You're doing postcards now and that works so try something different, that's why we diversify our portfolio because it drives more dollars in our pocket and more patients in our door.

Howard Farran:

If you had one tip for dental practices to improve their social media, what would it be? I mean, you've been an expert in this for over a decade with some of the biggest companies in it. What you see on a daily basis for the last decade, if you can give one tip, what would it be?

Rachel Mele:

Here's what I see happen a lot. You already talked about the fact that I lecture a lot on social media. I get people that come to my lectures probably the same thing happens at your lecture, they leave Howard and they're like, "This is the best thing since slice bread, I'm going to change my practice." Then the days go by and the weeks go by and they might be motivated for that very short period of time but it fizzles out. I would say, you need a plan, you got to put a plan in place, you got to have somebody in the practice that is dedicated to social media. Now, I don't mean dedicated in the sense that they don't do anything else in the practice but that's their job.

Then I would say, if I have one tip for social media, it will be the world engagement. You have got to get your patients engaged. You got this checklist and you say, "Okay, I've got a Facebook page now, check, it's done. I've got the Instagram page now, check, it's done." It doesn't work like that, you got to make sure that you're engaging with your patients.

One tip that I would have that would help to just start things is to get everyone in your office to like and comment on your post and all your friends and your family to like and comment on your post because what happens is patients don't want to engage unless they already see engagement happening.

I like to use the analogy, Howard, of, I'm sure you've seen this, a nightclub. You're at a nightclub or you drive by a nightclub and there's a long line out the door of a nightclub. Why did they do that? Not because there's a million people inside and those people are waiting for someone to come out so they can go in, they do it because it's all about marketing. You go, "Oh my gosh, this looks like a great nightclub, I want to get in to that nightclub." You might be the only person in there but you still want to get in because there's a line. When you start to see there's people having a conversation, there's comments and there's likes, there's other people that are engaged with your social media, more people will want to get in to it. If you got to create that engagement by getting your friends and your dental colleagues and your staff to like and comment on your post, do it. That'll be my big tip.

Howard Farran:

You know my dream is of a nightclub?

Rachel Mele:

I have a dream too of a nightclub.

Howard Farran:

I want to create a nightclub where the inside looks like the outside and the outside looks like the inside.

Rachel Mele:

Hello, that's Vegas.

Howard Farran:

That's Night at the Roxbury, remember that movie? Night at the Roxbury, Will Ferrell, God, that was a funny movie. Of the 365 days in your book, which one is your favorite?

Rachel Mele:

Those 365, I like them all but I would say, if I had to pick one ... That's a tough one. We're talking about movies, there's some really good movies with dental clips in them like Jennifer Aniston and so ...

Howard Farran:

Mad Boss.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, exactly. While there's a little risque in there, patients dig that kind of stuff and so rather than try to create your own post, go and look at the stuff that's already out there that you can grab. I'm not saying don't create your own post, do that too but that's probably one of my favorites.

Howard Farran:

People love edgy stuff one-on-one, they just don't want to laugh at edgy stuff in front of their mom and their pastor and their minister or at the American Dental Association meeting while they're wearing a suit and tie. Every dentist that wears a suit and tie to the dental convention, it's the only time of the year they wear their suit and tie. The rest of the time, they're wearing an Alabama T-shirt and a pair of shorts and thongs drinking a beer, smoking a cigar while they're grilling brats. It's just all context with people.

You know what? When I was first out of school for 10 years, it used to really upset me that the American Dental Association wasn't on doing television advertising. I talk for years like, "How come there isn't an ad during the Super Bowl for $1 million," blah blah blah. You know what? I think all of dentistry miss the television era.

Now, the American Dental Association and so many people are doing so much social media marketing, I think patients today around the world have been educated more about dentistry by legions of individual dentists more than ever. Also, you'll notice that some of the newspaper companies are smart like Huffington Post will not run articles that nobody likes or comments or shares and they have their short list of things, "Well, if we write an article on this, it'll get more engagement." Dentistry makes their top list, they're always pumping out dental stories, HPV, oral cancer, brushing, flossing. Even the newspapers know that the world's two million dentists are so engaging with social media that if any of their headline is about dentistry, out of two million dentists, I mean, hundreds of thousands are going to repost it and share it. I think social media has been a godsent for dentistry.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah. I absolutely love it when there's some edgy conversation like ... One of the ones I was just looking at in the book is storing wisdom teeth for stem cell research. When there's articles like that that are in the Huffington Post or whatever, I mean, that's the kind of stuff that dentists should be sharing with their patients. Unless they feel it's controversial and even then if it's controversial, it's still shared and say, "Hey, this is something that's coming out. It's new, it's interesting and we want to share it with you because if you're not going to get it from us, you're going to get it from somebody else."

Howard Farran:

What types of social media posts do you think get the most engagement, comments, likes, shares, retweets? By the way, are you mainly a Facebook girl? Or when you say social media, are you also talking about Twitter or Pinterest or Instagram or Google Plus or whatever the hell Snapchat is?

Rachel Mele:

I'll answer that one first. I mean, I'm not just talking about Facebook; however, the majority of the people who make decisions about dental treatment, the moms, right now ... If you watch this podcast again in a year, it might be totally different but today, the best bang for your buck is Facebook. For practice only has limited time or resources and they want to get started and they don't currently have social media engaged, I would say get started with Facebook. Although, with that said, Howard, we know that there's tools that automate a lot of this and you can have it cross over to Twitter and Instagram and whatever different social media platforms that you want to be involved in. No, I'm not advocating for just one, all of my ideas can be used on any social media site except for the ones that maybe are longer than the typical Twitter post but, yeah, I would say ...

Howard Farran:

If social media was 100%, what percent should they post on Facebook, then what percent will be number two, three, four, five or whatever? What would you prioritize Facebook? Will that be 80%? Would it be more or less?

Rachel Mele:

In terms of the prioritization, I'd put 100% of the prioritization on Facebook. Then once they've got more opportunity and there's more room for doing more, then I would add in Instagram, Twitter, I'd go, probably, Pinterest from there, LinkedIn and then we can go down from there. I'm saying all of this but at the same time I'm saying outside of social media, I'd be blogging. Blogging would probably be the second thing that I would do. My book talks about writing blog posts and then having those be the posts that you put on to your Facebook or whatever social media site that you're using.

Howard Farran:

They click it and it goes back to your website.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, it goes back to your website, drive traffic to your website. Of course, blogging is great because it's fresh, relevant content. We know fresh, relevant content drives search engines and now people Google you and they're more likely to find you because you got interesting content, Google likes that. You ask me about social media but I would put blogging at number two if I was going to pull that in to the mix of your diversification.

Howard Farran:

We're really excited on Dentaltown. We got a lot of people who post their blogs on Dentaltown but we created a reshare option for social media. Now when you read an article in Dentaltown magazine or you read someone's blog, the greatest comment you can give is you wrote that for free, thanks. If you found it interesting, the new like is just to reshare. You look on Dentaltown, the reshares are crazy. I was looking at some of the blogs, one blog had 127 shares on just Facebook alone and they were on, what you said, to Twitter, to Pinterest, to LinkedIn, to Google Plus.

All my homies out there listening, we never paid anyone to write an article, we never paid anyone to post a blog so if you ... Some of these dentists, when they write these articles, some of these people will spend a month writing this stuff. If it's a clinical case, some of these cases took years. Some of these dentists couldn't done this procedure in an hour, they'll spend three hours doing a filling, photo documenting it and getting the patient back. If you read it and you learn one damn thing and you thought, "Well, that's cool," well, he only did it because he wanted to share it with you so just reach up and hit the share via Facebook, your Twitter, your LinkedIn because that's the new economy, just sharing.

Rachel Mele:

It's about trying to help them make it go viral. If you thought it was interesting, somebody else is going to think it's interesting, hit the share button, for sure.

Howard Farran:

We're talking about which social media post gets the most comments, I mean, is it about kids, is it about cancer, is it about bleaching, bonding, veneer. Are there any subjects do you think that are more important than others?

Rachel Mele:

I think I helped you with two of your websites, Howard. Off with the social media for a second but the single most important page that you can have on your website is the page about the doctor. Do you remember when we built that page, there's a couple of things that you need to have. One is a great personable photo of you, not in scrubs. If you have children, get them in there. If you got dogs, get them in there. Then also, the biography needs to be written in a way that is not, you know, I went to school here and I have a degree in this and blah blah blah blah blah but why do you love the profession that you're in. If you can get that across, it's going to be much more likely to attract patients.

The same thing applies with social media. It is those posts that are personal engaging. It could be that your team is out for a summer barbecue and you're all hanging out and that's the picture that you post. Of course, pictures and videos should always be in play over just text by itself.

Actually, I have a good example. I was giving a lecture at Yankee. This woman was at my lecture and she had just posted that she was getting CE credits at the Yankee Dental Conference and she was telling her patients about that. She was so proud that she was just on social media. She raises her hand up and says, "You know, Rachel, I got zero likes, I got zero comments, what's the deal?" I stopped the lecture, I said, "You know, this is a great learning opportunity." I had her come up and show me the actual post. Together as a class, we realize, one, she had no photo, that's the key and it wasn't fun. The next day, she comes back to my next lecture and she has reposted a new picture with her standing next to the Crust Toothpaste guy on the floor of the Yankee Convention. She posted that thing, that she was getting CE credits and now she's got likes and comments, it's getting exposure.

It's those kinds of posts that are going to be ... Or the videos from interesting movies that have dental clips in it. The book includes all of those, interesting things that patients are more likely to engage in, keep it fun.

Howard Farran:

You know what's funny is every time I speak at Yankee or Chicago or whatever, they're always whining about how attendance has been shrinking down. Did you see the ADA announcement the other day where they're going to start consolidating some of their meetings? When they have a national meeting, they're going to consolidate it with the state meeting or whatever because attendance is a huge problem.

Rachel Mele:

The manufacturers are not willing to go anymore and they pay for a big part of the cost of ...

Howard Farran:

Because attendance is down, right?

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, because attendance is down, right.

Howard Farran:

Let's just take Yankee, a class example. Boston, the coolest damn city in the world, and when do they have it? January 30th to February 3rd. I mean, if the pilgrims where to land to January 30th, they would have turned around and gone back home.

Rachel Mele:

What is this country?

Howard Farran:

I mean, Boston in April or May or September, October, Chicago midwinter.

Rachel Mele:

The name of it is Chicago Midwinter, what the heck?

Howard Farran:

I mean, Chicago, it's one of the coolest cities in the world.

Rachel Mele:

Here's the thing though, Howard, here's where I might disagree with you. I work with a lot of manufacturers. When we go to Hawaii so you would argue, Hawaii, beautiful, it's a great location. If it's nice out, we do not get anybody on the trade show floor. If it is raining, they come in herds. I would argue that Chicago midwinter in some ways does makes sense because people are less willing and wanting to go shopping and do all the sightseeing stuff, they're coming in for a conference and that works as opposed to [crosstalk 00:33:50].

Howard Farran:

Germany, they make cars like Mercedes, Volvo, Porsche. America, you know, Chevy, Ford, Chrysler and you probably have your auto mechanic on speed dial. When you go to the Germany dental convention, IDS, all those major booths have beers, bars, hors d'oeuvres, crackers. I mean, you would never have to leave to go to the bar when you're in Germany. I mean, if you actually walk the booth from 8 to 5, you'll be in a wheelbarrow by 4:30. Every time you go in there, "There's a CEO, can I get you a beer?"

Rachel Mele:

They know how to do it, huh?

Howard Farran:

Yeah, they know.

Rachel Mele:

I'm seeing more of that but, no, something needs to change, I agree.

Howard Farran:

I want to get you down on some details. A lot of people don't want to write a blog because they think they got to write the meaning of oral cancer from A to Z. They talk about in social media that people have an attention deficit disorder, they're just flying by, how many words you think a blog should be?

Rachel Mele:

Okay. Blog has two purposes, one is you want to attract people to actually read and get visitors through your website but the second purpose which is less important is that you want to write content that's fresh and relevant and that the search engines might crawl and see. The world wide web are spiders that are crawling the web in searching for content. If you have that kind of content that they can pull up, you're more likely to be found. While you don't want to write your blog for the purpose of Google, you want to make sure that you got fresh, relevant, interesting content. I'm not going to say an exact number but any length is fine. I mean, if you only have a paragraph to say and that's four sentences, that's fine, post it, it's better than nothing. If you only have a sentence to say, probably that's better for social media than a blog. I mean, just write and write about anything. Just whatever comes in your mind, whatever your patients are saying in the practice, whatever questions they're asking about, everybody is asking about and so write about it.

Howard Farran:

I know you're not a programmer but you might ...

Rachel Mele:

My husband is.

Howard Farran:

Your husband is?

Rachel Mele:

Through osmosis, I might have some programming capabilities in me.

Howard Farran:

Okay. I slept with a Holiday Inn Express, you slept with a programmer so we'll see who knows the answer. [crosstalk 00:36:24] question is search engine optimizations and everything. What if Rachel writes a blog about oral cancer 1000 words and I film a video talking about oral cancer the same length of time as it takes to read the blog, would those spiders and web crawlers crawl through my video and optimize that or do you have to have text words before the spider finds it?

Rachel Mele:

You do need to have text words at this point in the video. When you're putting a YouTube video up, for example, they give you the option to put a description and tags and so those words certainly need to be in there. Things are getting more complex everyday that the search engine spiders will be able to read video without you having to say anything, but right now you're always better off putting some content, some text in there as well describing it and ...

Howard Farran:

Did you see a new feature with YouTube where you can print out a transcript of your YouTube?

Rachel Mele:

That's so cool. It's like Dragon.

Howard Farran:

Yeah. That's why I wondered if they were going to start doing that with all the videos doing it themselves in-house. Another question, you got three kids, I got four, that's why I'm 25% more insane than you, we're trying to put three kids through college and all that kind of stuff, why are you donating 100% of your proceeds to Oral Cancer Cause?

Rachel Mele:

I am donating 100% because, like you said earlier, Linda Miles has been my dental mom. I've had a lot of mentors in my life in the dental profession including my actual mother, the one that birth me, but Linda Miles has really inspired me to be the best person that I can be.

I knew when I wrote the book that I wanted to donate it to some dental organization. I didn't know which dental organization I wanted to be, Linda was one of the first people I reached out to when I finished the book and I said, "Linda, I've written this book and I'd love to get your perspective." She immediately went into, "Let me tell you everything I know about the books that I have written and how I've gotten them to be popular or get to the top of the charts," or whatever it was. I had for the last two years, the company I work for, Vennli has been donating a portion of our proceeds to Oral Cancer Cause so I already knew there was that connection but I didn't make the connection with the book until ... You know what? You're amazing. You are so inspirational and your cause is so important. I personally don't know anybody who has had oral cancer except for the folks that I've met through Linda's organization.

Here's the thing, if there are a lot of organizations that are doing ... They're putting the dollars towards research and that is admirable, I completely support that. There aren't a lot of organizations that provide financial support to provide those who are dealing with oral cancer some dignity in their life by giving them financial support to help them send their children to daycare so that they can go get radiation or whatever treatment they need or to help them pay for their mortgage because now they're out of work because of this debilitating disease and they can't afford to pay their mortgage. That's what Oral Cancer Cause and Linda and Robin and Ed Zuckerberg's organization is doing and I couldn't be more proud to support that.

Howard Farran:

I graduated from high school in '80 so I was ...

Rachel Mele:

The year I was born.

Howard Farran:

Is that right, the year you're born? I could be your dental dad so Linda Miles got to be your dental grandma then.

Rachel Mele:

I didn't want to say that [crosstalk 00:40:25].

Howard Farran:

She still looks amazing, she looks the same age as me or younger. The thing is that when gay cancer came out in '78, '79 and then they start talking about there's a virus and this and that, Ronald Reagan, from 1980 to 1988, never even mentioned AIDS one time. I was in Kansas City which has a huge gay population because you can't grow up gay in small towns in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa so they would all flock to Kansas City and the dental school is right downtown. I mean, it seemed like 20% of all the people in the area were gay and nobody was talking about it. We lived through that whole nightmare disaster and now the whole planet understands it and they've undertaken precautions.

Now, it's 30 years later and we're back, there were HPVs. People go in there and they think, "Well, if I'm wearing protection, I'm all good," but then they're trading saliva and you're seeing this massive increase in people getting oral cancer that are in college. You see all these stories on opioid addiction but you hardly see any stories telling all these little boys and girls in college especially if you go to some of those risque colleges like University of Hartford or something where it's insanely risque but they think ...

Rachel Mele:

My brother went to Florida State so I can't beat that.

Howard Farran:

I mean, these little boys and girls are going there and saying, "Well, I'm not going to sleep with him but, yeah, we made out for an hour." Well, you exchanged 10 billion microorganisms, fungi and viruses and you might just killed yourself and nobody is talking about that.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah. This is completely opposite but it is connected, it's the same reason why when you have a baby and you're starting to feed that baby, you don't feed them with the same spoon that you eat from, there's so much bacteria that could be contaminating their mouths.

Howard Farran:

Today is Memorial Day so at 3:00, there'll be the big barbecue. I guarantee you, every little girl there in their 20s has got a newborn baby like Lindsay Liu and baby [inaudible 00:42:50]. The grandparents will kiss her right on the mouth, the grandpa will kiss on the mouth, they'll pass that baby around. That little baby today is going to have to make out with 10 people that have gum disease, partials and dentures because nobody is talking about that that mouth ...

Rachel Mele:

[inaudible 00:43:06]. It's not even what you do while you're at university, it's this little stuff too that it [crosstalk 00:43:14].

Howard Farran:

First of all, where do they go to buy this book?

Rachel Mele:

Okay. My website right now for pre-order so my website is www.rachelmele.com. I see you're going there right now, Howard, to buy your book, thank you very much. Actually, I put a discount coupon on the website so if people are listening to your podcast and we know they will be, that they can get 20% off the book before it launches which is on June 12th by using the code HF2017. It's HF2017, they'll get 20% off. All books that are purchased before the launch date, June 12th, will be signed by the author.

Howard Farran:

Okay. Yeah. There it is, there's the book, 365 Days of Social Posts. I tried to retweet this but your Twitter is private. Usually what I do is I retweet the last tweet of my guest because everybody listening right now is either driving a car and they can't take notes. I went to your Twitter, I'm really focusing more on Twitter since I saw that you can become the next president of the United States if you have five million followers.

Rachel Mele:

Are you going to do that? 2020, Howard Farran?

Howard Farran:

Donald Trump is a smart man because on Facebook ... I mean, Mark Cuban said it first. He said about all these Facebook ads and all this stuff and built up a million followers. Then he found out that when he makes a post, it doesn't go to all one million followers, he's got to boost the post to push it out to all his followers. He was like, "Are you kidding me? I paid a million dollars to get a million followers and now ..."

Rachel Mele:

They do a good job of getting you to boost though, don't they?

Howard Farran:

Well, that's why Trump is smarter, he's on Twitter. Because on Twitter, if you make a tweet ... I got 20,000 dentists that follow me on Twitter and if I make a tweet, it goes to all 20,000 of them. I got 300,000 fans on Facebook but if I want that post on Facebook to go to all 300,000 on people, I got to give them a couple of hundred bucks.

Donald Trump taught me another thing, I'm not pro-Trump or I don't like talking about religion, politics and that stuff. His Art of the Deal was a mind shocking book for me because I realized back then and it applies to dentistry today that price is never the issue, it's the terms. He said, "Hell, I'll buy your house for a billion dollars if the term is a dollar a month for a billion months is I'll rent your house out for a thousand to make $999 a month, and you're all happy because you got a billion dollars."

Omer Reed taught me that in dentistry when I walked out of school. He said, "You sit there and you nickel and dime them on here's a filling and a crown and I add it all up and you say, 'Okay, it's 7,219,'" blah blah and Omer said, "It's never the price, it's the terms." He said, "What if we just completely fix up everything in your mouth and it only cost you $250 a month for 60 months, would you do it?" They're like, "Yeah, I would do that." Omer didn't even have a treatment plan yet because once he knew how much money you could afford, then he would know was this going to be dentures, is this going to be implants, is this going to be crown and bridge. Just like when you walk on a car lot, the first thing they got to know is are you looking for a Lamborghini, a Porsche, a Mercedes, are you looking for a Chevy, a used car or bike. Price is just huge.

Rachel Mele:

I have to tell you this. The company I work for, Vennli, we've done all these studies trying to understand how dental professionals make decisions. All these manufacturers think that you make decisions based on how much does it cost, right? I'm only going to buy your product because it's the cheapest product or whatever. It always comes in as the least important thing. Everybody thinks it's about price but it's not about price.

Howard Farran:

Let me tell you the thing that supply people don't understand is that the number one overhead in dentistry is the 42% insurance adjustment for the PPO price. I could charge $1,000 for a crown but all the insurance companies is only going to give me 600 so I got to adjust to 40% so 42% is what the industry is adjusting out. Next, it'll be labor, 28%. Then it'll be lab, 10%. By the time you get to supply 6%, I mean, who even cares.

The reason I think the online ordering has never taken off because it's been available forever, I mean, everybody thinks that's all going to go to Amazon is Patterson, Schein, Benco and Burkhart, they've all gone away. Your supply rep, been able to call Valerie and say, "Hey, I'm out of this, what's going on?" Her to drive by and put a box on the counter, no one cares. Your dental assistant to do all the online ordering as if she's not completely snowed under, as if she doesn't got a million things to do and now you wanted her to just sit there and start flipping through online on Amazon and saving 12 cents on gauze like that's really a good use of her time.

We talk about social media. The thing that these manufacturers don't realize is that dentists are very brand loyal. You know why they're brand loyal? Because you got to do root canals, fillings, crowns, dentures, partials but you got to do everything. If you got something working and someone comes in and says, "Hey, I would like to try a new impression drill," get out of here.

Rachel Mele:

It's not broken.

Howard Farran:

I mean, I used to use Impregum from ESPE, it's made in Germany, then 3M. I've been using Impregum for 30 years. You know why I use Impregum for 30 years? Because that's not a problem I have, I had other problems through the years. You're just trying to solve that one area that's a problem, you don't even have the ... I mean, if it ain't broke and you fix it and you're a general dentist, you're an idiot. You change impression materials to save 10 cents and now you have remakes ... I mean, it's the same thing with labs. I look back and I wish the only thing I would have done differently is ... I'm so jealous of the specialist because they only have to learn one thing.

Rachel Mele:

I saw your post about orthodontics, 600,000 a year and ... Yeah. Hey, it's never too late to go back to school, Howard.

Howard Farran:

Well, it's just really hard being a family physician because you have to learn so many things so that's why they are brand loyal. You remember John Miles? He was the CEO of Dentsply for a decade or so. He lived out near you on Chesapeake Bay. You remember him?

Rachel Mele:

I didn't know him, no.

Howard Farran:

I loved having dinner with that guy. He was the CEO of Dentsply for a decade, that guy was so smart. He had the biggest boat on Chesapeake Bay. He had one of those stand up boats with the four engine. Because his wife was from Puerto Rico and that crazy man ... When he was in Miami and she want to go visit her mom, they took his boat across the ocean. I mean, this guy was crazy. He was so smart and he said they don't look at price, they just look at does this work and the only thing they're interested in looking at and learning more about is an area where they have a problem. If they have a problem, they'll open their mind. He said, "Dentists were more brand loyal than any industry that ..." He never say. I noticed there are a lot of dental holidays in your book, explain what a dental holiday is.

Rachel Mele:

Okay, yeah. There's holidays like Hallmark days. By the way, my aunt that I was named after works for one of the first greeting card companies. When they decided, "Hey, we wanted to do more marketing beyond Christmas and some of the traditional holidays that you might get a card for," they started making days up like Grandparents Day. I mean, that was basically created by Hallmark. Today, there are these holidays that are dedicated to dentistry like there's literally a day for dentists, Dentist Day and Love Your Smile Day. Everyday has a day, there's Junk Food Day, there's Embrace Your Geekiness Day or Look Alike Day. The dental holidays are those days that are just about dentistry and what the perfect day to post something about social media because there's a day dedicated to dentists in March, let's make sure that we dedicate that post, that day to how wonderful those dentists are, back to being personable and connecting with those moms.

Howard Farran:

I went to UMKC Dental School in Downtown Kansas City, it was across the street from the Hallmark Center. There was UMKC Dental School, across the street was the hospital, the med school and then Hallmark. When you went to a bar, it was about a third, a third, a third. Those Hallmark people, they were so different than us. I'll never forget talking to this girl at a bar. She reached out and scratched her head and her armpit hair was dyed blue and had a bead in it and it was amazing. I said, "What do you do?" He says, "Well, I'm on a timeline, I have to make a card every three months," and I thought, "Wow, what a job." He makes four cards a year. If one of them hits, it just added the ballpark. Oh my god.

Rachel Mele:

My aunt that I was named after, Rachel so my Aunt Rachel. Look, I got pictures of her all over my desk because she is my inspiration. She died when I was seven. Are you doing Ancestry.com at all, Howard? Have you done that?

Howard Farran:

I am.

Rachel Mele:

Okay. My mom is retired and it's her new favorite thing is to do Ancestry.com. She just sent me this article about my aunt that I'd never seen before. Apparently, my aunt helped to create the zip code as we know it today.

Howard Farran:

Wow. You want to know the secret to Ancestry.com?

Rachel Mele:

Yeah.

Howard Farran:

What city is Ancestry.com in?

Rachel Mele:

I don't know.

Howard Farran:

Salt Lake City. Of all the Christian sects, Heaven is just in or out but the Mormons, it's a little more complicated, there are different levels. One of the ways to get more points or whatever is knowing your ancestry, you can birth someone and you can baptize ... Whatever. I don't know all the details to that but the Mormons have been obsessed with ancestry for hundreds of years. Arizona, Phoenix, Mesa is like South Utah so I go down to the temple there. I went in to the temple where they have all these records and I found some little old lady and I asked her if she would do it for me. She said yes but she wanted $4 an hour and I said, "All right." I gave her a Benjamin and then it turned out later, she wanted to get a new upper denture and a new lower partial. Then I told her, "Those are $1,500," basically I got the rest of her life's work.

I mean, it's amazing. It's a science buy-in, you can't run a program to do it because the problem you have in ancestry is that 1880, 80% of the planet can't read or write. All these people walking through Ellis Island, they'd say, "What is your name?," and you'd say, "Mele," you might spell it three different ways than your cousin. In 1880, all these churches started these using the church on the weekdays as a one room schoolhouse. Nobody would give up their boys because the boys were needed for farm duties so they'd only give up the little girls who couldn't do any farm task so all these little six, seven, eight, 10, these little girls. They go in there and they teach them phonetics and then say, "Okay, when I say Smith, how do you spell it?," well, however she spelled it, that's your name.

You have to realize, "Okay, are you related to this Johnston?" "No, it's got a T, you don't have a T." "Oh yeah, but it shows up in the database the first time in your family in this county in Ohio and it shows up three different spellings in the same five-year period so, yeah, you're all cousins." It's really neat. I thought it'll be really neat but it turned out ... I mean, we're all Irish. Two grandparents, four grandparents, eight great great grandparents, I mean, all roads lead back to ...

Rachel Mele:

All Irish, all right.

Howard Farran:

At eight lines, it all led back to the Potato Famine in 1850 when a million Irish washed up on Boston. That's why Boston is the greatest city in America, it's because it's all Irish.

Rachel Mele:

I just took my kids to the Irish Famine Museum out here in Connecticut, dedicated to just that. Next time you're in Connecticut, I'll take you there, you would think ...

Howard Farran:

I did not even know it existed.

Rachel Mele:

It is fascinating. It's right by Quinnipiac University which is very close to where I live, beautiful campus. It's about 800 square feet so it is small but it's quite the history. The art work is unbelievable, the message is unbelievable. If you're here in Connecticut, Howard, you let me know and I'll take you there.

Howard Farran:

You know why they were the most hated immigrants?

Rachel Mele:

Tell me.

Howard Farran:

Because everyone who left Europe before the Irish was leaving the Catholic Church. They were all protesting the Catholic Church, they were Quakers, Episcopalians, Lutherans, they hated living under this Roman Catholic monopoly in Europe and so every city was found by some religious Protestant protesting the Catholic faith. Then here comes a million Catholics building their Catholic churches, the whole reason everyone left and here they come. My great grandmother who died at 101 had the sign that they stole from New York City, it said, "Help wanted, need not apply if Irish." They told them everybody hates you in New York and Boston, you got to go inland. Her father went all the way to Ohio. Then so many Irish made it to Ohio, they pushed farther in to Parsons, Kansas and then that's when they'd start lying and tell everyone they were German.

Rachel Mele:

Just to get work.

Howard Farran:

Yeah, that was the deal. You couldn't get work as an Irish, you had to lie and tell them you're German or British or Scottish or something, you can't tell them you're a lowlife Irishman. Do you think you'll ever write another book? You have three kids. I always say that writing books is like having a kid, I mean, it takes you nine months, it's the same ...

Rachel Mele:

Or 10 years.

Howard Farran:

Or 10 years. You think you'll ever write another one?

Rachel Mele:

I think I will write another one. I think I'm onto something, there's been a lot of popularity I haven't even launch the book. By the way, our launch party is with Centrix Dental, it's going to be at their headquarters on June 12th. If you want to come join our Facebook live at 1:00 Eastern Time on June 12th, we're giving away books and Centrix is giving away a product. I think I'm onto something because we've already got a lot of orders just pre to launch so I think it could apply to the broader healthcare industry. While I say I'll never get out of dentistry and I never will, there might be one foot that helps some of the other industries with their social media because it could slip right over to them just as easily.

Howard Farran:

You work for Vennali, it's Vennali?

Rachel Mele:

Vennli. Think Venn diagram, right? The Venn diagram, that with the li at the end, Vennli.

Howard Farran:

Was it named after the Venn diagram?

Rachel Mele:

Yeah.

Howard Farran:

Unbelievable. I just retweeted their last tweet but ... I don't want to throw an assessment or say why you leave them after a decade. You could work anywhere in dentistry, why did you go to Vennli and what is Vennli? Their Twitter is at V-E-N-N-L-I App, Venn like the Venn diagram, li, app. I just retweeted your last tweet and I do that because they're driving so all they got to do is go to @HowardFarran and then they'll see this VennliApp. What is Vennli? Why did you go there when you could have gone anywhere?

Rachel Mele:

Okay. Well, I will answer the question on why I left Sesame. I had an amazing 10 years with Sesame, I think they're a great company. They were acquired and Gary who is the ... When I was an executive for Sesame, he was the chairman of the board so we got to work together a lot. Gary is now the CEO of Vennli and he said, "Hey, I need a dental division at Vennli," and it was an opportunity to work with not just dentists but dental manufacturers and so to broaden my perspective.

At Sesame, I've been doing business development and had a lot of relationships with different dental manufacturers and I felt like I could bring something to them and helping them understand how the Howard Farrans of the world make decisions to buy a product, how do dentists make decisions and how can you market your products better as you're launching a new product. Like Centrix, for example, we help them to launch a new product and double their projections by really understanding how dentists make decisions. When you put a message in front of Howard that resonates with him, he's much more likely to take action. If you tell him something that's not of interest, well, of course, he's not going to pay attention.

Vennli does surveys to help manufacturers understand how customers make decisions, and it helps with product launches and growing new products and also mergers and acquisitions. A lot of times when you're trying to combine two companies, what's the future going to look like? We help them through voice of the customer, this reliable voice of the customer mechanism, understand how dental professionals make decisions. I just run their dental division so it's also an opportunity to run an entire division. Vennli itself works for companies like BMW, LinkedIn and Dunkin' Donuts but the dental piece is just my baby so an [crosstalk 01:01:37]. We don't work for Invisalign. No, we don't. We haven't done work for Invisalign so if Joe Hogan is listening right now and needs some voice of the customer, we're here for you.

Howard Farran:

Do general dentists use Vennli?

Rachel Mele:

We don't actually go direct to dental professionals, no. All the work we do are for dental manufacturers. That's not to say that we won't eventually help dental professionals but today the majority of our work is ... With that said, we do quite a bit of work for DSOs where they've got large populations of patients, that they're trying to understand how to get more patients in but we haven't done any work for a solo dental practitioner as of yet.

Howard Farran:

Can I use some advice on how to help the DSOs?

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, sure.

Howard Farran:

Dentistry is 5% of the healthcare budget, the physicians are the other 95. There's a huge larger pool of examples to steal from just like I've stole every business idea I've had from the S&P 500, I've never had an original idea in my life and so dentists should steal from healthcare. When I tell you that you have two cavities and you need a root canal, you don't know if that's true or not and it's so stressful.

In healthcare like Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, the Scripps Clinic, their whole branding is trust. We're trust, you come here, you can trust us. I'm going to go all the way to Mayo Clinic, I'm going to go all the way to the Cleveland Clinic, I'm going to go to Sloan Kettering in New York, I'm going to the Houston Center. Then dentistry is like, "Oh, cleaning, exam and x-rays for 49.99. Bring in the coupon and get $4 off," just price, price, price, price.

Then they go in there to these clinics on price, price, price, price and some dentist who usually looks like she's about 18 years old and couldn't get a job as a bartender says, "Well, you have six cavities." It's the same feeling when you go get your oil change and the guy comes out and says, "Well, we did the 19.99 oil change but we think you need a new air filter, you need to flush your transmission fluid," and you just sit there like, "I don't know if that's true." I'm in Phoenix and if my air conditioner goes out, I'm a dead man. As soon as I ran out of water, I'm dead. Every time an air conditioner guy comes, it's like, "Well, you know, you need a new air conditioner." That's why I wait seven days for my guy because my guy is a friend of a friend of a friend, I know his sister. Everybody uses him because I don't care if I need a new air conditioner, I just don't want to take it to the new cleaners.

The DSOs need to start branding like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland, they need to be on trust. They just need to go to trust.

Rachel Mele:

That's a really good point. I mean, you must have relationships with those guys, have you told them that?

Howard Farran:

Absolutely. Everybody needs to know it because it's the same thing in dentistry. I mean, the dentists, they think they're all that in a bag of chips but they have to tell three people they need a cavity before one gets fixed and then they spend all their time learning about how to do the best cavity in the world, it's like, "Dude, you don't even remove the decay two out of three times." How come when Rachel brings in her three babies, only one of them will get treatment, the other two walk out the door when I can go find another dentist office in your same zip code where two out of three could get the fillings? We know one out of three will never get anything done but how come some dentists can only get one out of three the way they present the treatment, the way they project trust, the way they don't have staff turnover, the way they look at the facility.

I mean, a high tech dental office isn't a ... They don't know the difference between a CBCT and a pano, not one patient in the world knows that a pano is 2D and a CBCT is 3D. They look at high tech, did you use enteral camera, does the office look professional, does it look like a place I would let someone do surgery on me because dentistry is all surgery.

Rachel Mele:

I would argue in addition to getting that message across in the practice, they can get that message across via social media everyday and so when a patient comes in, they have more trust, they're more likely to do those procedures because you've been educating them all along. I'm not just saying you're educating them, that's all you're doing on social media but 365 days, you got lots of days to entertain them and throw in the occasional here's what you need to know about social or about dentistry so that when you do come in, it's a no brainer, we're telling you what's needed in terms of your treatment because we care about you not because we're trying to take you to the bank.

Howard Farran:

Oh my god, we've gone way over but just final question, we're seven minutes over. I can talk to you for 40 days and 40 nights. How do dentists make decisions? How do they purchase? What have you learned so far?

Rachel Mele:

Wow. Well, certainly, I already mentioned that price is always at the bottom where most of our dental clients think it's at the top. I will say, Howard, I feel like I'm one of the most unique people, and I say this humbly, in dentistry because I've seen so many research studies on how dental professionals make decisions when choosing between different dental manufacturers. Unfortunately, a lot of that information is confidential and I can't share it but a couple of my studies are public.

This one, I think, definitely relates to you. There's one study that we did and I can send it over to you where we're trying to understand how dental professionals make decisions. In this particular scenario, the thing that came back as most important was I need new patients. If you can help me get new patients, then I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. This particular company was trying to add value to the products that they were offering. Interestingly enough, this product was not about new patients and so they did some changes to it to show how they could help a practice get new patients and that made all the difference in the world. You say you won't change products but if some product could help you to bring in a whole slew of new patients, you would consider it, would you not?

Howard Farran:

Well, they're driving right now. Tell them there's 50 categories in Dentaltown, post it on Dentaltown and say, "I was doing a podcast with Howard," [inaudible 01:08:17], nobody will think you're selling or spamming or anything. Would you want to put it under marketing? One of the categories is marketing, another one is our dental products.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, probably dental products.

Howard Farran:

Or would you want to put it under manufacture feedback?

Rachel Mele:

Yeah, manufacture feedback, that's perfect.

Howard Farran:

[crosstalk 01:08:37] ... You're driving to work right now and she'll post it under manufacturing, say, "Howard told me to do it." Hey, congratulations on your book.

Rachel Mele:

Thank you, Howard.

Howard Farran:

Thanks for being my social media mentor for over a decade. I know everybody on the team, Lorie Xelowski, the president of our company, everyone loves Rachel. Thanks for all you do for dentistry. I hope to see you next year at the Yankee when they move the date to May or October.

Rachel Mele:

Yeah. Thanks for all you do for dentistry, Howard. It's really been a pleasure. Enjoy your Memorial Day.