RevUp Dental

Is your dental practice stuck growing? It's not your dental skills holding you back, it's what's happening under the hood. RevUp shows you where you're losing patients and fixes it with proven systems, training and marketing that makes you money.

Blog By:
Nick Fotache

Every dentist is interested in attracting those high-value cosmetic cases—the smile makeovers, full-mouth rehabs, and comprehensive Invisalign and veneer packages. These are the kinds of treatments that can range from $15,000 to $25,000 or more. And the good news is, the patients looking for this level of care are out there.

The challenge? Many of them aren’t calling your practice.

It’s not because you’re not a good dentist. You might actually be one of the best. But that’s not what high-ticket patients are buying. They're not choosing you based on your margin preps or your CE credits. 

They’re choosing based on one thing: how your practice feels. Let’s talk about that.

First Impressions: Ritz-Carlton or Strip Mall?

Picture this: you’re a patient who’s finally decided to fix your smile. You’ve been thinking about it for years, maybe it’s for a wedding, a career move, or just because you’re tired of hiding in photos. You’re ready to invest $20,000 into this.

So you start searching, and one practice pops up. But when you pull up, it’s sandwiched between a Chinese takeaway and a coin laundromat. The sign is faded. The branding feels like it was DIY’d in PowerPoint. You walk in and it smells like antiseptic and stale coffee. The receptionist barely looks up. 

Still feeling excited?

Of course not. That emotional high you were riding? Gone. Because nothing about the space matches the transformation you’re about to invest in. You don’t feel like you're about to experience something life-changing, you feel like you're rolling the dice. And when you’re about to spend the equivalent of a car down payment, you need to feel safe, inspired, and confident. 

If your dental practice doesn’t give off that energy from the moment someone drives up or even from the moment they land on your website, they’re gone. 

Patients associate high cost with high experience. That means if you're offering premium services, your practice needs to reflect that value at every touchpoint. From the first Google search to the initial phone call, to the moment they sit in your chair—every interaction should reinforce the sense that your care is worth the investment.
Your Website Might Turn Patients Away

Google and your patients prioritize high-quality content over flashy design. A simple, even slightly outdated dental website can still perform well. What matters most is having real patient testimonials, educational content, and positive reviews. 

A well-optimized website can outperform newer, trendier designs if it focuses on user experience, valuable content, and SEO.  A great-looking website doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t encourage potential patients to take the next step and call your office.

Patients are emotionally driven. They don’t care about your “comprehensive dental care for the whole family” tagline. They want to see people like them, real patients, who were unhappy with their smile and came out the other side glowing. Happy and confident. Smiling with their whole face.

If your website doesn’t reflect that kind of transformation and energy, those patients are likely to move on. And no amount of SEO or Google ads will fix that.  

Here are some key features of a successful dental website that builds trust with potential patients and will help you book more cosmetic cases:
In-Depth Landing Pages for Cosmetic Services These pages are designed to build trust by explaining cosmetic dental treatments in a friendly, easy-to-understand way. When patients feel connected, they’re more likely to book an appointment.

You’re Not the Hero, Your Patients Are

Here’s a hard truth: no one believes you when you say you’re amazing.

Why? Because every practice says the same thing. Everyone claims to offer “exceptional care,” “state-of-the-art technology,” and “a friendly, knowledgeable team.” It’s not different. It’s background noise.

You know what patients do believe? Other patients.

When someone is considering a significant investment in their smile, they’ll do what everyone does in 2025: check Google, watch videos, and read reviews. If they find hundreds of 4.9-star reviews, stories from real people who’ve gone through your smile transformation process and loved it, that builds real confidence.

But if they see just a handful of generic reviews and no faces, they’ll keep looking.

It’s not complicated. It’s social proof. And without it, your practice fades into the background.

Think about how you shop on Amazon. You don’t pick the product with the flashiest ad. You go with the one that has the most five-star reviews, the most real photos, and the most compelling customer stories. Patients make decisions the same way, especially when emotions are involved.

They’re not just looking for straight teeth. They want reassurance. They want to know: “Is this the right place?” “Will I be happy with the results?” “Will I regret this?”

When they see a wall of real patients vouching for your work—laughing, smiling, sharing their stories—that hesitation fades. That’s what drives big case acceptance. Not your credentials. Not your scanner. Not a discount offer.

Many dentists understand the value of patient testimonial videos, but they’re unsure where to start:

- How do you train the team? 
- What should the patient be asked? 
- Where’s the best place to film? In the operatory or the waiting room?    

These are common questions that can make the process feel overwhelming.

We’ve broken it all down in a recent article on Dental Practice Marketing Strategies. It walks you through every step of the process, from setting up the right environment to guiding the conversation naturally. Most importantly, it covers how to motivate your team and make it easy for them to confidently request and record patient video testimonials.

Before-and-Afters: Stop Showing Teeth, Start Showing Transformations

Your before-and-after gallery isn’t just a place to show off dental work. It’s where you sell the dream. 

But most dentists are doing it completely wrong. Cropped close-ups of dry lips and retractors? No one wants to see that. You’re not selling composite work, you’re selling confidence, self-worth, a reason to finally smile in photos again. 

If your gallery is full of isolated teeth with no faces, no emotion, and no story behind them, you’re not inspiring anyone. You’re just giving off clinical vibes. And that doesn’t bring cosmetic cases.

Now imagine a different approach: a gallery that tells a story with every image. A patient who once avoided smiling, now lighting up the room. In the “before” photo, their expression is guarded. In the “after,” they’re radiant—head high, smiling fully, and exuding confidence. 

That emotional transformation is what connects with future patients. They don’t care about the margin on tooth #8. They care about how your work will make them feel. The transformation should be emotional, not just technical. Show them what’s possible, not with a dental chart, but with a face that says, “This changed my life.” 

Dr. Detrik gets this better than anyone. His before-and-afters don’t just show dental results, they show emotional transformation.

Check out some examples below:

In the “before,” patients appear hesitant. In the “after,” they’re open, confident, and smiling with genuine joy. He doesn’t crop out the emotion, he captures it. Patients see those photos and think, “That could be me.” That’s the power of doing it right. It’s not about showcasing your skills, it’s about showcasing how your work makes patients feel. 

Here’s a full interview we did with Dr. Detrik that you might find valuable. He goes into detail about his process for capturing powerful before-and-after photos and how that ties into building a successful fee-for-service practice. 

If the Phone Call is Bad, Nothing Else Matters

Let’s say your website looks amazing. You’ve got clean branding, real patient stories, before-and-afters that actually make people feel something. So a patient sees it and thinks, “This place gets it.” So they call. And then… they’re met with, “ABC Dental office, please hold,” followed by two minutes of silence. 

Or worse, the person answering sounds like they just woke up. Just like that, the impression is gone. All the effort you put into building a premium online presence can unravel in seconds.

That first phone call is often the first real human interaction a patient has with your practice. It needs to reinforce everything your brand promises. If your website communicates calm, high-quality, elevated care but the front desk sounds rushed, unsure, or disengaged, it creates a disconnect that’s hard to recover from. 

You can’t sell a $10,000 cosmetic case if the first impression feels like a $10 experience. A great phone call should feel welcoming, and confident. It’s where trust begins.

Why Top Practices Book More Patients

Many dentists believe that the most successful practices, the ones that book a ton of cosmetic cases and bring millions in revenue, are simply better at marketing, with large budgets for Google Ads and SEO. But that’s not true. We know this because we listen to more calls in a month than most dental receptionists will handle in a lifetime, including calls from some of the top dental practices across North America.  

The reality is that these practices have something else in common: better teams managing their phone calls. Top-performing receptionists book around 80% of their calls, while the average receptionist books only about 30%. 

This is such a real problem in many dental offices so we’ve put together a free guide on how dental receptionists can create a meaningful first impression that drives bookings and long-term patient loyalty.

This guide covers powerful discovery questions and techniques your dental receptionist can use over the phone to engage patients inquiring about services like dental implants, Invisalign, teeth whitening, emergencies, children's dentistry, and more. It’s not just about the marketing; it’s about how the team connects with patients and converts those calls into appointments.