VIDEO - DUwHF #950 - Ali Jhaver
AUDIO DUwHF #950 - Ali Jhaver
Howard: It's just a huge honor for me to be podcast interviewing Ali Jhaver all the way from Houston, Texas. I asked him to be on the show. He didn't ask me. He is the founder and CEO of Adit, which is an up-and-coming digital marketing company in Houston that has a program called the Patient Booking Guarantee. I had to hear all about this. With this program, they guarantee booking you a certain number of new patients every month. And if they don't get that amount, their services are free. Ali, the founder of the company, will be explaining what a Patient Booking Guarantee.
My daddy told me the only thing he can guarantee me is death and taxes. But you're telling me that you can guarantee patient booking. Does that come before or after death and taxes?
Ali: I think it comes after simply because taxes are [inaudible 00:00:51].
Howard: A lot of people lie. When it comes to tax, they always repeat stuff that's never true like they always say, "What comes up must come down." I'm pretty sure someone landed on the moon thirteen times if you go past the escape velocity.
They always say the largest expense every American has is their house. The second largest is their car. But the largest expense every American has is their taxes. They pay more taxes than their mortgage. Their house is actually the second largest expense they ever have.
Tell me. How did you get into dentistry? Then when you got into dentistry, how did you get into Patient Booking Guarantee? Just tell us all about it.
Ali: I actually don't come from a dentist background at all. In fact, our background is more so in digital marketing. We put together a development team about seven years ago to build an application that failed. As a result, we had a good development team put together. I had a background in economics. I studied a lot about marketing. Push come to shove, we started doing a lot of marketing about seven years ago.
Since then, we realized we were always hitting certain amount of numbers for a dentist. As you know, dentists get the best loan in the country. If you're a dentist, you can get a loan rate of 4%. Essentially, banks know that a dentist is going to be successful. The idea of dentistry is a concept where everybody has to go to a dentist at some point in time.
Based on that concept and the amount of people we have, dentists are going to be successful. So just like the loan officers investing in a dentist knowing that they're going to be successful, us at Adit, we do the same thing. We essentially come in and say, "Hey, we're not going to make any money until you break even." So, we figured that break even point on patient's book and we cover it. Essentially, our skin is in the game with the dentist until they start seeing results.
Howard: It's amazing. The thing that I love the most about your website, your website is adit. A-D-I-T.co. That's surprising it wasn't dot-com. Tell us where the name Adit comes from A-D-I-T, and why did you go with dot-co instead of dot-com.
Ali: We're in the process of acquiring that dot-com. It is a four-letter domain. So they're giving us a pretty hard time. The reason we came out with the name Adit is because it's advertising, AD, and IT for technology.
A couple of things that makes us different is we don't just do digital marketing. We're always trying to find an edge in the markets. So we're constantly developing applications and doing a few things like that. We built this app called Pozative, which is kind of like a review generation app, something that kind of replaces BirdEye and Podium. We built a lot of applications as well. That's why it's Adit because we do both advertising and IT.
Howard: The first thing I like about it and I want to tell my homies out there listening is that first thing I noticed on your deal is you have no contracts. And I do not like contracts. At least, I don't know. Once a month, some dentist has been sending me a non-disclosure agreement going all the way back from when I started Dentaltown magazine in 1994. It's like, "Dude, look. We're both in dentistry. You want me to sign a nondisclosure. You might be thinking about it. You know what I do. I'm transparent. I'm a dentist I have a magazine. I'm not into lawyers. You don't have any contracts."
I see that with consultants. These consultants will say, "Well, if you want to work with me, you got to sign an eighteen-month contract." What if after a month I hate you and I don't agree with anything you say and my team says, "Get rid of her?" I don't want to pay for eighteen months. And I wouldn't want to work with somebody that didn't want to work with me. I really like that about your no contracts.
The number one contract violation is marriage. You love her. She loves you. Now, you need to get a lawyer? Why do you need a contract to love someone?
Ali: That does come before debt and taxes for sure. Just so I can add a point there, we don't have any contracts. Not only that, we offer a thirty-day free trial. Most dentists are so used to being in trouble or having a bad experience with digital marketing companies especially like SEO companies and PPC.
Some of the things that make us different is that we not only have no contracts, but we have a thirty-day free trial. You can try it out free. On top of that, some of the things that make us really different is that we don't exactly come in and say, "Hey, this is where you rank on Google. These are the clicks you got. These are the amount of calls you got. We come on strictly just list out the patients who book an appointment from our program.
We give them a list of patients who book an appointment. They take that list, and they tally it with their actual patients. If they hit their quota, then they pay us our fees.
Howard: You said so many profound things there. But the first thing you said is you threw out a slant word there, you said PPC. My homies study root canals and physics. What is PPC, pay per click? Explain that.
Ali: That's right. Right now, if you're a dentist for example, and you look up dentists near me. What you're going to do is you're probably going to see four links at the top that say ad next to them in green. Those are essentially ads that Google allows you to run.
If you run your ad there and someone clicks on that ad, you basically pay a specific amount for every click. Sometimes that click can cost you $2, sometimes it can cost you $40, just depending on how competitive it is and where you want to be placed. That's essentially what a pay-per-click ad is.
Howard: Do most of your clients in the competitive urban areas or do you have clients in rural areas of towns of five, ten thousand?
Ali: We do a lot of dental conferences from the MidWinter to the GNYDM to Anaheim in California. So we meet a lot of dentists. As a result, we have dentists who are in New York, Manhattan. We have a dentistry up in Leland. We have people in Belvidere in Illinois.
Howard: But those would be suburbs of Illinois. Those still would be in metros. Half of America lives in a hundred forty seven metros, and the other half lives in nineteen thousand small towns and villages. Is your business mostly the half in urban?
What I'm asking is, do people in a town of five thousand do this type of stuff or do they not need it? I imagine if I lived in a town of five thousand I would probably know at least a thousand on a first name basis. And I couldn't imagine there'd be a business in that town I didn't know. Is it mostly an urban play or is this even still rural?
Ali: It's actually both. Let's say you're in a rural area. A lot of times, you're going to be pulling patients from a very, very big target radius, not necessarily just from your town but surrounding towns as well. A lot of times when those people go online to look for a dentist and they do, you can leverage digital to target those people and draw them from the surrounding towns.
A dentist who wants a pull from a bigger target radius, especially from surrounding towns, will many times want to leverage digital because that's essentially where their patients are. Especially when you're using social media marketing, you want to let people know in surrounding towns that, "Hey, we exist over here and these are promotions we're running. This is what we do," etc., etc. because you're trying to draw from a larger target radius.
Howard: You're the same age as my oldest son. My dental office is older than you. You're twenty-eight and my dental office is thirty-years-old. And over thirty years, I can't tell you how many, you're so right, how many dentists in small towns say, "You know I had this one property but then I decided to build an office. I decided to put on the main road. And once I put it on the main road, I started doing a lot of dentistry from adjacent towns."
Guess what the the most common feedback was? I live in a small town eighteen hundred. I go to church with this dentist. I don't want them to see me without my teeth. I'm embarrassed I don't want to talk to you every Sunday at church when you know that all my teeth are fake. So, real estate is location, location, location. You're saying that they're getting on searching digital in rural areas going to adjacent towns. I think a lot of it is embarrassment or the one dentist in their small town has got a bad rep.
When you say $2 to $40 a click, dude, that's a huge variances. $2 in Parsons, Kansas and $40 in Manhattan or is it different times of the day? How do you get that big of a variance?
Ali: It actually depends. It just depends on your area. I have a dentist in literally New York or at least in Jersey right outside of New York, a very dense area. It's about $8 to $12 a click. I might have another dentist up in a rural area spending north of twenty-five. It just depends.
Rather than focusing on what you pay per click at Adit, we try to focus on what we pay per patient booked. We let the client know that, “Hey, it's our responsibility to figure out how many patients you're booking. Don't worry about the cost per click.. Let us go figure out how much it costs to acquire a patient.”
At Adit, we're all about what we call CPA, cost per acquisition, of a patient. As long as we can keep the acquisition of a patient below $150 that dentist should be ready to get as many patients as possible. So that's the idea. Rather than focusing on click, we focus on acquisition.
Howard: Will you analyze my ad today as dental?
Ali: Definitely, definitely. I would be more than happy to.
Howard: When I got here thirty years ago, there was no fluoride in the water and there were no dental schools. There were not any dental schools in adjacent states of Utah and Nevada. Now, my Phoenix has a metro, a dental school a Mesa, a dental school in Glendale. There's fluoride in the water. I was the idiot that helped put that in. Now, Nevada's got schools. Utah's got a couple of schools. It's gone from shooting fish in a barrel to really having to learn how to fish.
My website is todaysdental.com. If all my homies listening clicked my website, would that help my SEO?
Ali: Yes, it would on two sites. If people look you up on Google like they look up Today's Dental and they go to your website, it means that you have a lot of popularity surge. It means your brand is popular.
When someone goes to look up a key word you're targeting or let's say you're competing with someone else for a similar keyword, but your brand has a thousand searches every month and the other one doesn't. You're just more popular. Google likes to show those who are more popular, have a better reputation, and things along that matter.
Howard: I want them to go to my website because, dude, I've been taking this as serious as a heart attack. I got my MBA in 1998. I think my website is great. I thought I would like to have your feedback on it. I'm always going to dentist website because I get emailed all day long, and they have their website linked. It looks like the average website was bought at one of those Chicago MidWinter meetings five to ten years ago. They walked by a booth, gave them their credit card. About a third of them don't even have a picture of the dentist. They do have a picture of the dentist. It looks like a mug shot while you got arrested.
I think mine is a very, very nice website. Again, how can you follow a Google ad clicked to my dentist listening to you right now that a patient was scheduled in their office. How do you know if someone called their office and scheduled a patient for Ali Jhaver to come in for a new patient exam?
Ali: This is essentially the meat to our program, the main part. What makes our program special is the technology behind it. What we do is when someone comes to your website depending on how they came, let's say I looked up Today's dental right now and I went to your site. I would see your regular phone number. So if I called you to book an appointment, it would just come in regularly.
However, if I went on Google and I typed in dentists near me or if I looked up dentists and specifically your city if I type in dentist Phoenix and I went to your site. Then, the number on your website would change based on how I came. So if I came in organically or if I came into an ad, the number would change. That number would forward to your regular line, so your friend doesn't see the difference. It would just be like a regular phone call. But in that way, we're able to see where the calls are coming from.
To take it a step further. we listen to those calls to make sure that the patient books an appointment. If they don't book an appointment, then we don't count that phone call or that patient. But with the moment they book an appointment, then we write down the patient's name and give it to you. That way you know, hey, not only did I book this patient, but this is where the patient came from. That's kind of what makes our program so special is we actually go in and actually listen to the conversations and write down the name of the patients who booked an appointment.
Of course, we track the forms as well. When someone clicks book an appointment, they actually fill out the form and book an appointment. That's just about what everybody tracks as well. So we track that as well.
But essentially, every month, we're not telling you, "Hey , this is where you rank on Google." We are tracking these things, but we're first focusing on, hey, these are the patients you booked this month. This is how many patients you booked last month. And this is how you are improving. That's what our whole program is predicated on.
Howard: How much does this service cost?
Ali: It ranges. We are not the cheapest guy on the block. We do a really good service. We usually range between about $600 up to a very high amount depending on how much you're expending. We have customers who are paying us north of $10,000, but they're spending so much money on advertising and they have multiple different methods. So it just depends, though we have a very cost-effective program for your average dentists where they can spend a few hundred dollars and see the results.
Howard: Is most of your premium clients that spend the most money orthodontists versus general dentists since their new patient is a $6500 ortho case?
Ali: Actually, my favorite dentists are the specialists like in [inaudible 0:15:09]. I don't know if you know but like All on 4s go for a lot of money. So our clients who spend the most money are usually those who target All on 4,s implant, dentures, full mouth reconstruction, implant dentists. These kinds of keyword dental implants near me, these keywords are worth a lot of money to some dentists. And there's so many people searching it that usually if we have a dentistry that does that along with braces and Invisalign, they're spending a lot of money.
Ali: Orthos definitely spend a lot of money. Your average ortho spends more than your average dentist for sure strictly because every patient is worth more. But I have dental practices who spend a lot if they're going for higher procedures.
Ali: [00:15:49] But it all comes down to reputation. One of the things I was telling a dentist this past week and it started us out here in Houston was that back in the day if you study dentistry you'd be all excited about putting your certificate on your wall and saying, "Hey, I went to this university. I went to this program.".
Ali: But today, what gets a patient to book an appointment is a review. It's the amount of reviews you have. And your star rating matters more to that person than where you studied or how long you've been practicing. So it's really dependent on a good online sales funnel, building a good website, building a good review foundation, having the right content, the right videos, the right graphics, the right press, and showcasing it the right way.
Howard: To prove that I called you to be on my show, you didn't call me. I follow you on Twitter at @aditadv, A-D-I-T, so advertising IT. What does IT stand for? Information technology?
Ali: Yes kind of like the technology element.
Howard: And then ADV for advertising. I'm going to retweet your last tweet, the PBG, Patient Booking Guarantee. If you're trying to get new patients, try out our services. We'd guarantee that you'll see new patients every month.
I just retweeted that to my twenty four thousand homies.
Ali: I added you on [inaudible 00:17:16].
Howard: Basically, oral surgeons are your number one client. Orthodontists are number two. And then who would be number three, general dentists or another specialty?
Ali: I wouldn't say number one or number two. I'd say they're our higher spenders. But our number one is definitely your general dentists.
Howard: No, I'm talking about dollars per month.
Ali: Dollars per month, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Howard: So oral surgeons will be spend the most with you per month, orthodontists two. Who would be three? Is it another specialty.
Ali: You have multi-practices.
Howard: Group practice.
Ali: Yeah. So group practice, we work with a few DSOs, and they spend a substantial amount. Then, obviously, the general dentist spends the least probably from that entire equation. But it's all okay. Some general dentists don't even spend, and they get a lot of patients just through their SEO. So it just varies based on.
Howard: You talked about social media marketing. It seems like since millennials are in love with Facebook, I mean, I'm reading stats like 15% of Americans take their phone to bed with them at night so they can check their Facebook before they go to bed and first thing in the morning. So they're always wanting to do Facebook. But it seems like Google AdWords and e-mail blast, even direct mail, is more effective than posting away on Facebook every day. Agree or disagree?
Ali: I disagree for sure. It depends on the area.
Howard: [00:18:45] Don't worry. The show's over. We're going to call this a wrap. I'm just kidding.
Ali: No, no, no. The reason I disagree is because print media is awesome. In fact, I recommend it to half my dentists. In fact, what we do is we use a different number just for the print media so they can compare it to digital.
Howard: A different phone number?
Ali: Exactly. A different phone number. Remember, I was saying we use different numbers to track where patients are coming from. We usually allocate another number just for the flyers. The reason I prefer social media in many instances, not always, but many instances over print is because in social media it really works well if you have a specific thing that you're promoting.
For example, if you're just trying to promote new patient exam, then yes, you should go the fly route because that's very much infospace. It's based on when someone needs to go to a dentist. So they'll hold onto your flyer. When they need to go, they'll pick up the flyer and they'll give you a call. It's based on a need.
But if you're trying to convince someone to do Invisalign or convince someone to do orthodontics or teeth whitening or something like that, then social media works really well because it allows you more face time. If you have good videos, good. One of the new products we just came out with also had to start us out this past weekend was short videos. So nowadays when a dentist signs up with us along with their website, they get a thirty-second short video that kind of showcases their practice that they can promote on social media.
So posting on social media is completely dead, by the way. So if you post on social media, it's not going to go. It's not really going to go anywhere. Facebook just updated our news feed to where you're not going to see those posts on your timeline. But when it comes to advertising and promoting posts and things like that, social media can be very effective especially because you can track which patients are doing what.
Howard: Explain the last thing. You said about Facebook. Basically, they just said that when you make a post it's only going to organically go out to what, like, 6.5% of your followers?
Ali: Actually , towards the end of last year, it's now zero. Facebook came out with a thing to where they're trying to make news feeds more personal. So if you post on your Facebook page, chances are it's not going to show. In fact, it's just not going to show on any of your followers' pages or news feeds.
Howard: Unless you boost the posts and give them money.
Ali: Exactly. Everybody is in it to make money. So if Facebook makes money, then I guess your ads or your posts are showing to people. But we don't usually recommend boosting too much. We usually focus more so on advertisements because we want to funnel that person into a specific way. So you want to funnel them into a way of booking an appointment. So we try to usually focus on running Facebook ads rather than boosting posts.
Howard: What is the difference between boosting a post to your followers and running a Facebook ad?
Ali: I'll give an example. Let's say something has happened in our office today. Someone came in. It was a really good experience. They left a quick video testimonial. So I put it on my page and then I boosted it for $15. So I might have mentioned, "Hey , so-and-so came in today. They had a great experience. Check out what she had to stay." And then they'll watch a video.
Whereas in a Facebook advertiser it would be a quick video about teeth whitening at your practice. Maybe this next two weeks when you come in for an appointment because you're offering a free teeth whitening and talking about a quick video that shows some of the before and afters and how it's improved. And in having a book an appointment where the person can directly click book now and book an appointment. And you run that advertisement to a specific one or two mile radius around your practice so that people who live in the neighborhoods around your practice see it and drive them to book an appointment.
That's kind of the difference between the two. One is more so focusing on getting people to book an appointment with a proper cushion versus the other one is more about promoting what's happening at your office. You see what I'm saying?
Howard: Yeah.
Ali: So the advertising route is definitely better or is what we've seen better results with for a dentist.
Howard: I'm such a horrible interviewer. I'm just going to give you a rant and then you tell me if there's any questions in there that came out and you can answer. How does that that sound?
Ali: That sounds fair, yeah.
Howard: This is kind of what I hear, believe, read, see, read on Dentaltown all day. Basically, what I'm hearing is this big funnel going into a leaky bucket with holes in it. The big funnel is like a hundred people landing on your website, but maybe only five will call the office. How do you fix that?
Howard: Then three people call your office, and your receptionist is answering the phone. They'll say, "Well, how much is a crown. She'll say, "$1000," Two people will hang up. One comes in. Three people call before they can convert one to come in. So then three people come in with a cavity and doctor tells three people they need a cavity. And only one person decides to get treatment. So you mean [inaudible 00:23:57] takes a hundred to get three to call, three to call for one to come in. Three have to come in for one to get it done.
And then once they're in the office in the bucket, there's holes over like you'll have eight people scheduled for a cleaning on an eight-hour-a-day with a hygienist. And two of them cancel or don't show or whatever. They have no systems to call them back. So they just lost 25% of that hygienist practice in one day.
Then by the time the dentist has five thousand charts, four thousand have not come back to the office one time in twenty four months. And with all that crap they like you said in the beginning, the banks will loan the money all day long because dentists only you have a 0.4% default rate at Bank of America, all the big banks that do bank financing because everybody needs a dentist like you said. And anybody can open up a dry cleaner, but you need eight years of college and a degree to be a dentist. So the supply and demand is jaded. And the average dentist makes $174,000.
What can you fix on that funnel? Because it's more complex than just hiring someone for SEO or pay per click because your website sucks. You need someone to analyze your website and get that fixed. So instead of a hundred people landing, they have three calls. Maybe if you have a hundred people land, you can get six to call. Then when they call if you're not recording the calls while you're back there doing a root canal, you don't know how Angela is answering the phone. Hello.
And then they ask a question and they answer. They're never trying to close a sell. "Would you like to come down? When would you like to come down?" They're never trying to close. And then when it's all done and said, the dentist says, "Yeah, I tried that marketing company. They suck." It's like, no dude, your website sucks. Your receptionists suck. Your treatment plan presentation sucks. You have no recalls.
To me it's amazing that the most mismanaged dental offices in America and docs make $200,000 a year and thinks he's in a competitive business when 80% of new restaurants go bankrupt in two years.
Ali: Right. They need to be careful. And I think a lot of it comes with the fact that [inaudible 0:26:11] in dental school. So that's what I hear from a lot of dentists. Unfortunately, it's poorly managed.
But to address your concerns, you're absolutely right. The number one problem we run into because we're guaranteeing patients book is that at the front desk isn't doing a good job. Essentially, nobody's getting paid, not the dentist and not us either.
So one of the things we really do focus on is listening to those conversations for the dentist. So when the front desk messes up or if they miss a phone call, that dentist is immediately getting a text message or email letting them know, "Hey so-and-so didn't pick up the phone call today. Is there a reason why this call was missed?".
And then not only in that way, but if the phone call is not answered properly where they're diagnosing on the phone, mentioning the wrong promotions, not pushing to get the patient to book an appointment. Then we also send that recording to the dentist via e-mail or text and let them know, "Hey, listen to this conversation? Can you please talk to your front desk about doing X, Y, and Z?".
We also help dentists out sometimes with giving them a script. So that way, the front desk can follow an idea of, "Hey, this is how we should answer a phone call. This is how we should do it. So essentially, a big part of what we do digitally speaking is also helping the front desk sell in that patient or not just sell but close that patient into an acquisition.
When it comes to the lead funnel, you're absolutely right. It's a big funnel of hundred people that drops to five and then one person books an appointment. That's why we don't bog the doctor down with, "Hey, we got a hundred people to your website this month," or, "Hey, we had ten phone calls this month.".
And that's exactly why we come in and say, "Hey, we got you these many patients booked," because we let us figure out that whole funnel and all the holes along that funnel and let our digital team which is proficient in that go in and deal with that and just let the doctor deal with the amount of patients that are actually booked via our marketing. That way, they're not dealing with that whole pipeline that whole funnel, all the holes along the way, and all of that.
Howard: A lot of my homies, they're dentists. They dream about silver diamine fluoride on a pulpotomy. So they don't really know what the funnel is. Describe what the funnel is when the average general dentist calls you. What does that funnel look like? Describe it. Explain that. And then after you fix that out, what are you doing to it? What does it look like after you work on that funnel?
Ali: Let's take your website, for example. Today's Dental looks amazing. It looks good. A website like this doesn't actually require any work. Maybe a little bit more about you It looks great. You have videos. You have everything there. Maybe we can add a book an appointment form here or there, and it will be great.
So what we would do is let's say you came to us and say, "Hey, Ali. I want you to do our marketing." What do we do and how do we do it? What we would do is on your website we would just add a book an appointment form.
Howard: I do have a book online. I have Open Dental. And so it has a click into my Open Dental website where you can schedule online and patients do that. Did you did not find? Does it need to be?
Ali: Usually, the general rule in digital behavior is that more actions required to complete a result or a behavior, the less likely that behavior is going to happen. So one of the things that we really focus on is that if someone's going to book an appointment, put the appointment form on every page. That way, they know right then, hey, I can book that appointment.
Howard: I sent you an e-mail. Will you reply all this stuff of that e-mail?
Ali: Yeah, of course. I'll give you a whole list of things that we should do. So we basically build that sales funnel for you. We build out that whole funnel. Then all the doctor has to do is they usually get an email when an appointment is booked. And they get the email on their inbox to let them know, "Hey, this person booked an appointment for this time."
So that's really our goal. Our goal is strictly besides just giving the doctor a patient list and letting our team handle the entire funnel, all the holes associated to it and everything like that. And the dentist knows that that's essentially what's going to happen that we're going to do the best job.
Howard: Did you give out your e-mail on your podcast?
Ali: Yeah.
Howard: If my homie wants to email you, what is your email?
Ali: My email directly is ali@adit.co.
Howard: I t bounced back because I put the C-O-M.
Ali: So it's ali@adit.co. So you can email me there.
Howard: I'm glad I did that mistake on the podcast, so my homies won't do it. Even after we talked about it, I did it. Basically, the point I'm trying to make to my homies listening is that you are holistic. You're not doing one thing. You're just not doing pay per click. You're just not that. You'll do website design, website development, reputation management, search engine optimization, I don't know what careers means, pay-per-click advertising, strategic partner, careers that's working for you, social media marketing, mobile app development get a report video. So do you think some dentists should actually build an app instead of just a shortcut to their online website or that mobile app development for dentists or is that other clients ?
Ali: So Adit does work with different verticals as well. We do a lot of medical. We do a lot of [inaudible 00:31:21], optometrists, lawyers, as well as stuff like that. We specialize in the online advertising process. So we don't just stick just to dental.
But mobile app I don't see it as too much of a focus for a dentist. Of course, you can build an app that gives your patients the ability to kind of messaging for an appointment especially for your current patients, messaging if they have any emergencies. Great for Orthos because a lot of times their child will have an issue with braces and you need them to kind of book at an appointment or come back.
An app is a great idea, but it's not necessarily a necessity. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it either. I would more so focus on just going on and getting those new patients. So we do the whole website part. We help you build the online sales funnel. We help you with the SEO showing up on Google, social media ads. We also help you with reputation management.
So we have an application called Pozative that sends out a text message to your patient after you leave the practice. So if you're an Open Dental, for example, the moment you mark that patient complete, they'll get a text message saying, "Hey, would you recommend us to your friends and family?" If they say, yes, they would recommend you, then it pushes them in Google, Facebook, or Yelp. And if they say, no, I wouldn't recommend your service, it pushes them to a form that they can fill out and it comes back to via e-mail.
So you're essentially able to build those reviews on Google, Yelp, and Facebook. Because earlier, remember, I was telling you that your reviews matter more than anything else period. So that's essentially why we focus on building those reviews.
Howard: Why do reviews matter? I want to ask. This is Dentistry Uncensored. I don't like talking about anything everybody agrees on. I want to talk about the four-hundred-pound ugly gorilla in the arena. And that is on Dentaltown, every thread about Yelp is totally negative. It's like when people are talking about Google AdWords or Facebook, it's all a discussion. But man, when they talk about Yelp, there is a lot of upset dentists with Yelp. Do you hear that?
Ali: Yelp has a very aggressive sales technique. So what happens with Yelp is that the moment they get you on the radar as a dentist that exists, they really want to convince you to advertise with them. So they're going to call you every day. If they get your mobile phone, it's pretty much over. And they're very [inaudible 0:33:40]. It's very crazy. So that's a big reason why dentists don't like them.
Second problem is that when you do advertise to Yelp, a lot of times you'll get clicks from people who are not necessarily looking for what you do. Let's say you come in as a dentistry and someone looks up Invisalign and you don't do Invisalign or someone searches Invisalign and your practice shows. A lot of times, dentists get calls them on Yelp for people who are not necessarily interested.
And the number one reason why everybody complains about Yelp is that once you have a negative review on Yelp, it's almost impossible, impossible to bury it. Yelp's algorithm for reviews is just about like crazy.
If I create an account and [inaudible 00:34:20] left a review for one of my clients, Yelp would probably not post it and filter it out. They have a very, very strong filtration process, which is why that you can always bet on them having a good restaurant reviewed so well. That's essentially the three reasons why Yelp doesn't work so well.
That's why we use Pozative to kind of help the dentists get reviews on Yelp from those customers who actually use Yelp. That way they actually stick. But, yeah, Yelp is definitely very, very difficult to work with.
Howard: So you think reviews are the most important?
Ali: By far. It's more important than where you went to school.
Howard: If a dentist said to you, "Ali, how do I get more reviews?" And where would you want these reviews? Do you want them on Yelp, on Google, on Facebook? Where's the sweet spot? Where's the best return on investment?
Ali: Actually, all three are really good. In fact, if you go on Facebook and you look up a dentistry as of very recently, you don't even see their posts. You just see the reviews first. So on the home page of a Facebook page for a location, the home page will show the reviews and not even their posts.
Ali: So it goes to show you that reviews is critical in all three mediums. Obviously, Yelp is nothing but reviews. The same thing goes for Facebook, and obviously Google matters a lot too. But for me, Google is the most important simply because that's where most patients are looking for a dentist.
So the better your reviews, the more people are going to see who are actively looking for a dentist. Whereas these people on Facebook are not actively looking for a dentist, they might come across your Facebook page through an advertisement or by already going to your website. And the same thing goes for Yelp. So Yelp doesn't have as many people looking for a dentist on it, not nearly as much as Google. So if I had to bet, I'd put my money on Google.
Howard: You know what I've noticed in the last like just two years? I always observe all the other monkeys around me and see what they're doing and they're on their smartphone. I always ask them. "What app are you on?" And then I'll say like, "What apps have you been on today or whatever?" But their searches or switched to the voice. Instead of typing something to Google, they hit that microphone button and doing it all voice-wise. Have you noticed that?
Ali: Yeah and that's actually been a big trend in 2017. Google actually lost a lot of market share to Bing strictly because a lot of people go into Siri, which is using Bing as a default search engine for searches. So it's had actually two effects. One, Google has lost a little bit of market share which makes Bing a little bit more strategic for dentists to use.
Ali: Second, it's created the search terms to be a little bit longer so now less people might for example in Houston, less people might search dentist Houston or dentist near me and more people might be searching which dentist is close to me or best reviewed dentist near me. Or, hey, what is the best dentist in my area? And more long phrase searches like that are becoming more and more popular because of voice automation or voice searches, Siri and Bixby and all of those things.
Howard: If a dentist said to you, "I want to increase my reviews," because you say it's so important. So tell my homies how they can increase their reviews.
Ali: Back in the day about three years ago or five years ago, everybody was all about putting a poster in their office and then giving out like a gift card for like $5 dollars. If someone comes in and say, "Hey, if you'll give us a review, we'll give you a gift card," which is not really the right way to do it, but that's what many dentist were doing.
Nowadays, a lot of technology has taken over. So you can use an application like Pozative. For example, let's say you see a hundred patients in a month. You need to make it a point to where you're getting ten to 15 of those to leave you a review. The way you do that is and this is what I like to do best.
[00:38:13] Let's say you're using Open Dental. The moment the patient gets to your checkout counter, you mark that patient as complete in your system. So they'll get a text message right then and there while they're at your counter. And you just ask them, "Hey, you just got a text message. Would you mind leaving us a review?" And then let that whole sequence of the review part happen.
If you wait until the patient walks out of the practice, it's pretty much over. And the reason is is because now they have all these distractions around them like taking the dog out, going to the library, grocery shopping, all these kinds of things where they're like, okay, they get the text message. They're like, "Okay, I'll do this later.
And so rather, you should be focused more so on getting that person leave a review while they're still at your practice by using technologies like Pozative which sends them a text message and gets the whole sequence going on their mobile phone.
Howard: Is that what you use, Pozative?
Ali: Exactly. Pozative. It's spelled P-O-Z-A-T-I-V-E. It's our application. You can actually get to it from our web.
Howard: You made Pozative?
Ali: Exactly. So Pozative is our application. We built it out. If you go to our website, it's actually on the menu. And again, it's spelled P-O-Z-A-T-I-V-E dot-com.
Howard: And the menu to everyone listening who's over 50 is that three horizontal things that looks like a big Mac. I just learned. I was always on websites wondering. I can't even find anything. And then I just found out like six months ago that freaking hamburger Big Mac thing is the menu. So it says About Us, Case Studies, Services, PBG, Contact, Pozative. There it is.
Ali: So the two programs were talking about today is PBG, which is our Patient Booking Guarantee program, and then the second in the application we use with that is Pozative, P-O-Z-A-T-I-V-E dot com.
Howard: P-O-Z-A-T-I-V-E. And the first one is PBG, Patient Booking Guarantee. I would not have gone with that. I think most Americans prefer a PBJ, peanut butter and jelly. I'd try to find that guarantee. What word could you switch a guarantee that starts with a J?
Peanut butter and jelly. I got to tell you. This is too much information for your ears only. But I'm 55, so I just had my second colonoscopy Thursday. And then when I got home, they texted me to leave a review. My first thought was, "I don't know if I want to leave a review for the whole city that I just had a colonoscopy." I just thought it was weird. I mean I don't know.
Ali: Yeah, yeah. It's definitely difficult to get a review for them because they are definitely dealing with that.
Howard: It's very hard for erectile dysfunction doctors to get reviews. I bet not very many men say, "Yeah, it was a great experience," but, anyway. So Pozative and peanut butter and G. Good. Peanut butter and grape jelly. That's what you ought to call it. Peanut butter and grape jelly. See, I'm trying to give a mnemonic device to remember it.
Patient Booking Guarantee and Pozative. Now, are these two separate fees or is this part of the same company or what?
Ali: So what we do is whenever we build any new tech or any new ideas, it's always for our clients for free. So, Pozative is actually free. If you're a dentist, you can actually go and sign up for it absolutely free and use it.
You can sign up online. Sync your Google and Facebook account and you can use it completely free. There is a premium version if you want to use more than fifty text messages a month. Let's say you want to send out more than fifty text message invites for review every month. Then there's a premium version. But that premium version is free when you sign up for the Patient Booking Guarantee. Otherwise, you can pay for it on Pozative.
But Pozative is free. So you can sign up and use it completely free. So today if you wanted to log in right now and send me a text message about Dentaltown and your Facebook page to get a review, you could literally log in right now, create an account, sync it, and send me a text message within ten minutes.
Howard: So a lot of the podcast people are young. It blows my mind. I always say, "Please send me an email, howard@dentaltown.com and tell me your name, where you're from, your country." About 5% are trying to get in dental school. A quarter are in dental school. The vast majority are under thirty. About once a week now, someone is saying, "Hey, you keep saying everyone is under 30." I just got an email last night and it said, "Dude, I'm as old as you and I'm from Alaska.
But a lot of these young kids that they ask on Dentaltown, I'm just going by the questions they ask on Dentaltown under marketing and social media and they say, "Should their practice name be their name?" If you are going to open up a dental office, would you be Ali Jhaver Dental or would you be Houston Cosmetic Invisalign Dentist?
Ali: I would go with the name. I wouldn't do Houston Cosmetic Invisalign Dentist. I do something that I can brand behind. For example, I really like a name for one of my dentists here in town. They're called Bella Smiles, her practice. I love that name for her. So I like names and the reason is a couple of reasons.
Howard: When you say like names, not the person's name.
Ali: Not the person's name. Sorry, sorry. Like a different name for a company.
Howard: But explain why you don't like the person's name because everybody loves their own name.
Ali: Absolutely. The reason I wouldn't go with your name is because I always think big. So if I want a practice around multiple dentists and then move on and open up a second practice and a third practice and a fourth practice, then I need to have the flexibility.
Howard: When you look at the website, the first thing you said about my website is you said there should be more about me, right?
Ali: Exactly.
Howard: And that's why I didn't name it Howard Farran and that's why I don't want me as the man on the website. I'm thinking big. I called it Today's Dental because it seemed like most people who wanted dentist wanted today. And that was the problem as they were afraid of the dentist. So I like the names like Gentle Dental. They're afraid of the cost, but I didn't want to be like Discount Dental. But the last thing I want to do is sell me. I want to sell them to come to the office. So you can scale, leverage, have associates. So that's why I went with Today's Dental.
So you say don't go with your own name because you got to think big. Then also, I think it's a transferrable. If you are Ali Jhaver for fifty years and then I come and buy your practice for a million dollars, I don't want to hear every day, "Well, I want to go to Ali." I mean it's Ali. Dental. Where's Ali. It's like, okay, it's now me.
Ali: And a dentist is willing to pay more for your practice is because it's based on you. So that also helps as well and definitely. It's easier for the person to transition, easier to sell, more money as well on your buyout, and so definitely. That's exactly why. I wouldn't do it based on name.
And a good reference is digital marketing companies. There's a lot of digital marketing companies that build around one person. But in our company, it's not built around me. We have a lot of people who are very smart. Essentially, I'm not even the smartest person. I have much better people on my staff who understand digital better than I do. So for them to be able to take Adit to that well, it can't be on my name. It needs to be on the company name. So it's essentially the same thing. You want to build an organization and not necessarily just yourself.
Howard: Smart matters. I asked Ryan yesterday. I said, "Do you want me to buy a smartphone." He goes, "I don't want a smartphone. I want a smart dad." I said, "Sorry, Ryan.".
Another controversial thing people are always asking on Dentaltown, by the way, I wish you would go in there and answer some of these marketing questions. I think it would be great marketing for you because in your signature area you'd say Ali Jhaver, CEO of Adit, your contact information. There's a lot of activity.
So the most activity is in implants. I t's implants. Then I think it's cosmetic dentistry. And then third is marketing and practice management. So they're always asking.
Another one that they're always asking and sorry to be throwing these questions all out of left field on your but price. Price Butt. Price. They think all their marketing has to be on the cheapest guy in town. Cleaning, exam, and x-ray for $99 . The guy across the street is doing that. So should I do it for $49? The next guy is going, "Okay, I'll do it for free." Then the last guy is like, "Hey, I'll pay you $20 if you let me clean your teeth." How much does price matter in all this on your advertising and marketing?
Ali: It really depends on your demographic. In some areas , you'll be catering to a very insurance-based population to where price doesn't really matter. So if you do go for price, you might even lose those patients. In other areas where you might be in a lower demographic area, a lot more cash patients, price everything.
Generally speaking, from the beginning of time when it comes to marketing, just traditional marketing until date, price has been a very big factor. For example, when you see an advertisement by Domino's, half of it is focused on a $5 pizza. So it's always focused around a price promotion because it needs to give that person something to move on. When someone sees your advertisements, price promotion is what gets people to actually make that move, which is what you want them to do.
Price is very, very important. If you're running a new patient exam and you're running it for $90 and your competitor is running it for $30, you have to figure out either to drop the promotion and just focus on accepting all insurances or you need a price match at $30. But there's no point in running a $90 promotion if someone's running it cheaper than you.
You always have to have a competitive edge. So if you're trying to compete on price but you're not the cheapest, then you need to change your ads. If you are competing on price to draw the patients in and then live off the treatments and other, then you need to be aggressive on where you price. So it really does depend on your competition and your demographic.
Howard: It sounds bad to say this. I mean it's not like you're bad for saying. But it seems like the most successful ones do a bait-and-switch. And I don't see a problem with that in bait-and-switches. Like in Phoenix, they'll advertise complete dentures for $499 when most people are charging $1200 for one arch, $2500.
But when you go in there, $499 is this really cheap acrylic with really cheap teeth and they show it to you. But then for $999, then they have the nicer acrylic, the Ivoclar fancy teeth. And then if you want this over one implant in the middle of the lower jaw like the Australians do it, then it's $2000. And then if you want two implants like most Americans do it, so they'll show up all the way up to a $25,000 arch of All on 4. But they got everybody to come in and hear the pitch by advertising a $499.
And you know who does it the best? What's the big denture clinic, a clinic that has like 100 locations? They go in there and find out what everybody charges for an extraction. And they have the lowest extraction fee in their market. They'll go in there. If the cheapest guy in town is pulling a single tooth for $150, they'll go $99. Because in their mind, who in the hell needs a tooth pulled that doesn't need a gazillion dollars' worth of work. Do you need a tooth pulled today?
When you have a tooth with so much decay and gum disease that it needs extracted, you'd probably need a whole lot of dentistry. So that's kind of the bait-and-switch. You're saying I'm going to get them in there by the $99 dollar . And now I'm going to get a full mouth rehab case out of them, which could just be a denture but it could be implants. It could be all kinds of things.
Ali: I wouldn't exactly promote extraction because someone who's looking for a $500 extraction is probably really cheap. And they're going to go really price conscious on everything. I would rather focus on getting general things like getting them in the door offering a free teeth whitening, a cheaper price on a new patient exam, and then definitely upselling.
When it comes to dentures, you're absolutely right. A lot of people do the bait-and-switch. My thing is this. If someone's looking up the price for implants or dentures, they generally know what they're looking for. They've been to a dentist. They probably got a consult. And they're pretty educated on what they're looking for.
So my thing is this. If you're going to go and sell that, sell exactly what it is. Go for top of the line, If you're going to do a price promotion, focus on the top of the line the right way. For example, if you're selling implant dentures or if you're selling implants, you need to mention the crown or mention without the crown and give out your price.
o you want to kind of be very clear on what you're doing because those patients generally know what they're looking for. So if you bait-and-switch, they're just going to be like, "Well, I thought it was this." And they're going to leave and waste your time on the chair.
Howard: Is there a nicer way of saying bait-and-switch because I like bait-and-switch? But just the words, bait-and-switch, I mean it's like saying I like something bad. Is there a nicer?
Ali: Would you just say your advertising needs a hook?
Howard: Your advertising needs a hook.
Ali: Exactly. What's the catch? What's the hook? Well, not the catch. What's the hook?
Howard: What's the catch?
Ali: That's how patients usually come in. They're like, "Hey, what's a catch? Why are you giving me such a good promotion on this?" That's probably not the right way, but definitely.
Howard: And what you say price is everything, is there a median household income level that you're thinking at a certain median household? Basically, there's three hundred and twenty four million Americans living in a hundred million homes in the average median household income. Google, what is the average median household income in the United States?
Ali: I think it's like something in the 60s or 40s, 60s, I think. But here's my thing. Rather than focusing on the income, I'd focus on the insurance. So if people have insurance and not worried about the cash, they're not worried about the promote. They're more so worried about going and finding someone who accepts their insurance. So nine times out of ten when a patient looks for a dentist, they're looking for a dentist who accepts so and so.
Howard: So if I'm searching a dentist near me who takes Delta Dental, then Delta Dental that should be on your website, right?
Ali: Bingo. Yes. And if you don't accept Delta, then you should not be targeting that keyword. When we advertise for a doctor, we actually get their list of insurance that they accept and don't accept.
Howard: So 2016 real median household income was $59,000. So it just went over 60. Median household income means everybody that lives in a house throws their paycheck in a pot and that's what the median household. And you got to do median. You can't do average because average would include people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And those extremes really throw off the number.
I only like the median and mode numbers. I hate average numbers. And what I hate about newspapers is no one ever puts the country. They'll say, "Sure, there were five million implants placed." Okay. Any particular place? Was that planet Earth? Was that North America?
And that's another thing that really bothers me a lot is Dentaltown has got a quarter million dentists from every country on earth, and they're always sending me e-mail. And they always have the address, but not the country. So I got to cut and paste the address, throw it on Google Maps, and say, "Oh that's another one." I mean how would I not have known that the city of [inaudible 00:53:57] was in the Netherlands? How am I supposed to know that? It's like nobody puts the country on their website.
Ali: I think you would have because you're dealing with so many international dentists. But locally speaking, I don't think that's usually a problem verification. But that's an interesting problem. You know Dentaltown is all over the world when you have that as a problem. That's for sure.
Howard: Yeah. Well, speaking of that, what markets do you serve?
Ali: We definitely serve the Canadian market. We do focus on mostly Americans and Canadians, but we are open to any area where the primary language is English.
Howard: So it's huge in Australia , New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland.
Ali: Exactly. We have a few customers actually in England.
Howard: What you're doing, you know where I'd be focused on if I was you is the countries where advertising is illegal. Because when you go to countries like Hong Kong and Romania where they have all these ancient rules, there's no direct mail. There's no signage. And then the old man just thinks that if the industry doesn't advertise, they don't realize there's a thirty-year-old punk ass kid across the street crushing it on Facebook and Instagram. And the old man is telling me. "I don't know how he does it.".
Howard: It's like, well, your advertising laws are specific. You can't have a sign. You can't have direct mail. You can't do all these things, but they were all written before the advent of pretty much the internet and smartphones and Facebook. And you get these young kids. So what you do is you ought to Google list of all the countries where it's illegal for dentists to advertise where they speak English. And talk about a competitive advantage when all your peers think nobody is doing this and all the laws are against you and then you're doing it all digital.
Ali: [Inaudible 00:55:59].
Howard: What's that?
Ali: A big part of Canada is still like that actually. So you know how in Canada dentistry is very much based on you can't say. You can't market. You can't promote that you're better than someone else. They have a lot of laws there for their dentistry association.
As a result, a lot of dentists especially areas like Winnipeg and other areas around the country actually think advertising is illegal. So when our customers come out and market, they kill it because nobody else is doing anything. So, yeah, you have a very good point.
Howard: So on your website, you have that YouTube video that patient booking video.
Ali: Yeah.
Howard: Do you want Ryan to splice that in this interview?
Ali: Yeah that would be great.
Howard: Yeah, I really like to have video and it's done well. By the way, if you're listening to this and you have a podcast, I don't know why you do a sound only. Yeah, you're crushing on iTunes. But my gosh, uploading that video on the Facebook, Facebook will push it out.
YouTube. Isn't YouTube like the second biggest search engine behind Google?
Ali: It is especially because YouTube is going to be integrating a lot of TV, television. I don't know if you've been watching all these ads for YouTube.
Howard: Yeah during a Super Bowl last night.
Ali: Yeah. So it's just becoming a TV network. It's becoming an audio network kind of like Apple iTunes and Spotify. So it's replaced that as well as a search engine. YouTube is really taking over. It's impressive.
Howard: So you've mentioned something earlier that Apple uses Microsoft search Bing. Some dentists on Dentaltown have asked. They say, "Hey, these pay-per-clicks on Google are two to forty bucks. If everybody is competing on Google, wouldn't it be a unique selling proposition to go where nobody is looking on Bing or Yahoo?
Ali: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Howard: What percent of the searchers for a dentist do you think are on Bing or Yahoo?
Ali: For a dentist, it's probably less than 15%.
Howard: Yeah but 15% is huge.
Ali: One five, yes, it is huge for sure.
Howard: So that's for Bing and Yahoo or just Bing?
Ali: I'm just throwing out a guesstimate. This is not a real number by any means.
Howard: Well, this is actually a legal deposition.
Ali: I better be careful there. But if you look a search in the year 2017, 65% or 68% was Google and then the rest was everything else. But for dentistry from my experience in doing this, I'd say about 10% to 15% of searches are on Bing and Microsoft. It's not that advantageous, but you're right. It's usually half the price. So if it's costing you a specific click on Google, it's probably costing you half of that on Bing and Yahoo.
Howard: Now, I want you to put on your psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist hat. Every time I sit on an airplane and it's a complete stranger, I always ask questions like, how would how would you describe like a lawyer? And then I'll [inaudible 00:59:15] I'll say like a physician and then I'll say a dentist. How would you describe the average dentist? No one ever says down to earth, humble, nice guy, want to go fishing with that guy. It's always arrogant, condescending, talks down, all that stuff like that.
So when they get a negative, oh my god on Dentaltown, it's like they blow an aneurysm. And I'm sitting here like, dude, look at your monthly numbers of production clutch and net income. Look at your yearly income. So your yearly incomes has been going up every year for five years. You get one negative review. Now, you're out there standing on the ledge ready to shoot someone or yourself. What would you tell a dentist when they call you up bawling and crying and ready to throw in the towel because someone said that they weren't a God who walked on water?
Ali: It's a numbers game at the end of the day. You can't sit there and be upset about one patient. The only issue is that you probably had a thousand good happy patients but that one upset patient. The problem is you're not leveraging the other nine hundred and ninety nine really happy patients.
So if you get a negative review I see it all the time. You just got to bury it. You got to go and get another a hundred reviews that are great that bury that negative review. It's a business at the end of the day. Everybody can't be happy. If everybody's happy, it just usually means you're not growing or you're not seeing enough patience. It's almost impossible to make every patient absolutely happy with your service and you. So you just have to leverage the numbers. You have to go and get all the happy ones to leave you a review. And that's why.
Howard: The same thing. You say if all your customers are happy, you're not growing. If you're not failing, you're not winning. I mean Henry Ford, his first stab at a car, bankruptcy. Look at these venture capitalists. How many of the companies do they invest in go to complete zero?
Ali: Many. Most sometimes.
Howard: Yeah. You have to fail forward. And when people sit there and think , know they anchor to the one guy who said they were bad because they're a social animal. And I always tell them to go back to your last Thanksgiving dinner. What percent of your own family, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews are completely bat shit crazy?
Ali: None on my side.
Howard: You're young. You're still kissing their ass. But the bottom line is people are crazy. M y last horrible review, a lady comes in who just wants to talk to me. I talked to her for an hour. I convinced her. Well, I can't really all do the x-rays for free because I don't know what I'm talking about here. So we'll take your FMX. The hygienist measures your gums." I talked to her all this stuff.
Then she says she basically wants it done for insurance only. I tell her that's illegal. I can't do that. She storms out all upset and then writes me and asks for review. I mean she wasted an hour of my time. But she had the crazy eyes. And it didn't bother me because I was just happy I wasn't her. I mean, obviously, she has a lot of challenges, a lot of issues. And I'm sure anybody reading that is thinking, "God, Howard, that's a mean guy." But that's just life. A lot of people are crazy. In fact, Ali seriously, I'm probably the only normal person you'll ever meet in your entire life.
Ali: Says every dentist, right?.
Howard: That's what's great about coming on my show. You finally get to meet the one normal person living on Earth. I cannot believe that we've already gone five minutes over. So is there anything that I wasn't smart enough to ask you that I should have asked you? Did we cover it all?
Ali: No, we covered it pretty much all the way. Thank you so much again for having me on this podcast.
Howard: Again, did you call me or did I call you?
Ali: No, you called me.
Howard: I called you. I was just really glad you came on the show. I think a lot of dentists they really, really want more new patients. This is going to be very interesting to them. I also hope you'd go on. Look at this. This is today. A guy is writing about a Yelp review and he says, "By the way, I search on Dentaltown for Pozative." And there it is right there. It's on all those threads.
Ali: All right. I better get in on that conversation then.
Howard: So they're already talking about you. Basically, so we covered it all. So what of my homies what if they want to talk to you? What's the consultation fee?
Ali: There is no consultation fee. You're more than welcome. And not only that, our services are free for the first thirty days. So just come on in, if you have any problems, concerns, if you need any advice, it's always free. We know our staff is very dedicated. We love digital, so we love talking about it. If you ever need anything, feel free to reach out.
You can check us out again at adit.co, A-D-I-T dot C-O or you can give us a call. You can email me directly.
Howard: What that's call number?
Ali: 1-855-whyadit. That's W-H-Y-A-D-I-T. Or you can call our local line at (832) 583-9783. So you can call us either way.
Howard: And your email?
Ali: And my email directly is ali@adit.co. That's A-L-I @ A-D-I-T dot C-O. Or you can e-mail us in general at info@adit.co. So either way is fine.
Howard: You got this website at adit.co. That's nice. That's sweet. Four letters, A-D-I-T and then dot C-O. Six letters. That's sweet. They got nice contact information there.
So last and final question, how long has it been since the hurricane in Houston? How long ago was that?
Ali: It hit us, I think, in October or September actually. So it's been about five months. But the city is doing great. Don't get me wrong, there are still pockets that have been destroyed. I have a lot of friends whose complete first floor is completely bare bones right now and they're waiting for a tile guy and the sheet-rock guy to come on in. But the city has bounced back. It's bouncing back pretty well. So I'm happy. It was pretty bad for a lot of us in the office.
Howard: You were born in Houston, weren’t you?
Ali: Yeah, yeah. I was born in Houston. I've never seen that kind of rain in my life. It's pretty crazy.
Howard: We had one of those. I mean, obviously, we're in the desert and nothing like it, but every once in a while. I lived there for thirty years. And it was our niece's wedding. Remember that wedding? And we’re in the desert and it rained so hard that I actually went out on my street, laid down on my belly, and was paddling down the street. And then when I went to these creeks where I've never seen water in them before or after and it was unbelievable. So it was just one of those once in a hundred-year storms.
Ali: They say once in five hundred years. There were streets in Houston that were underwater by twenty feet, that's pretty crazy.
Howard: That is crazy. I'll tell you what. But seriously, the only reason this show is a success is because I'm able to get on rocking hot guests like you. Ali, thank you so much for giving my homies an hour of your time today, and I hope you have a rocking hot day.
Ali: Likewise. Thank you so much for having me. I really do appreciate it, Howard.
Howard: By the way, if you're listening to this on iTunes, you're cheating yourself because if you're on YouTube you'd see two of the most handsome bald beauties. We look like Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley. I mean we are just the two most handsomest bald heads in all of dentistry. And to that.
Ali: Got to get on the video.
Howard: Yeah. You got to check us out on YouTube. Have a rocking hot day, Ali.