N: Welcome to another episode of the less insurance dependence podcast that shows this I Naren, your cohost. Today’s topic is The Time is Now For the Mouth Guard Project. The Time is now for the Mouth Guard Project – before I jump in, I have a quick announcement. The announcement is we have an MBA coming up, which is the 3 part MBA the ten elements of a thriving practice jly27th, 28th, and 29th – 9 hours of CE it is 7 to 10 pm on July 27th, 28th, and 29th and Garry will go through the ten elements and the 24 systems and most importantly you will get 11 exercises to work on during this 3 part MBA – so you not only learn all these things but you also learn how t apply it in your practice – so if you haven’t already attended the MBA or if you are thinking about it this is good Time. We may have a few seats left by the Time this podcast comes out when it does, you know; if you are interested, please sign up! Gary lets jump in. I know you are a big fan of the mouth guard project because I know the story behind it and how you were introduced to it, and I also know the impact the mouth guard project has no life smile and why don’t we jump in and why don’t you tell us about the mouth guard project, please.
G: Hey, before we even do that, let’s recognize the festive week that we are in; in the week of publishing his podcast, in fact, the very day this lies insurance dependence podcast comes out – July 1st is Canada day! And later in the week is the four h of July – so Naren, we are kind of celebrating your country Canada, on Canada day on July 1st, and of course, my country the US for 4th of July coming out so let’s both of us take a minute to wish all of our listeners very happy Canada day – and a very festive and happy July 4th hope your holidays include Time with family and friends as well.
N: Thank you, Gary. I also want to extend my wishes to the American friends and the Canadian N: friends, both of them, happy Canada day and happy 4th of July.
G: You bet, so now let’s talk about the mouth guard project – this mouth guard project, pardon my enthusiasm around this, but it has absolutely been just an amazing project not only in my own practice but in every practice that has done this project, and we are in the baseball season, and I will use a baseball analogy, and the analogy that I am using is that when it comes to marketing – I will kind of use the baseball analogy here – when it comes to baseball marketing sometimes we do something and it is single, it is a base hit, and sometimes we do something ad it is a double, better than a single the runner got us at 2nd base – it is a doubt, and then sometimes we do simple marketing, and it is a triple and occasionally we will hit a home run and then let’s also recognize sometimes we do something in marketing and we strike out!
N: Ha-ha, yes
G: I have had my share of strikeouts in marketing where you know, before working with EKWA, I thought marketing was a bit of a mystery – t was like throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what stuck, and I always felt like it was kind of dark science. Now I feel like it is a bright science, and we know exactly what to do to not only attract a number of new patients that we want but the quality as well, but sometimes we do something marketing-wise, and it is a home run. Now on occasion sticking with the baseball analogy, every once in a while, we do something, and it is a grand slam! Now, if you are a baseball fan, you know how cool a grand slam is, and so this mouth guard project is a grand slam for everyone that has done it, for every practice that has done it – so here’s the concept. You are going to volunteer to make an NFL quality mouthguard for your local high school football team. You are going to make these at no cost and simply do it as a marketing slash community service project; it’s a custom-fitted mouthguard, and it is deeply appreciated by the coach, by the players, and most importantly, by their families. And if anyone thinks that I want a practice full of 16 and 17-year-old boys, that would be – no. (laughs) now Naren, with all due respect, we take care of those 16 and 17-year-old boys; we are happy to take care of those boys.
N: It’s just that you don’t want a room full of them (laughs)
G: Naren, you are a marketing genius – is it wise to build a practice around 16 and 17year old boys who do I really want?
N: Yeah, absolutely it is wise because Gary, you know I have two girls who are in that kind of age group so of course with them come the parents, and of course the aunts, the uncles especially football is almost like a –
G: in many towns, it is like what brings the town together – it is what brings everyone together, and so everyone gathers around it. Its parents, its grandparents, its aunts and uncles, and it is the faculty at the school it is the alumni of the school, and you are right if you pick the right school Friday night lights – you know that movie
N: Yes
G: Friday night lights it is a big deal! It is a big community – and there is a simple axiom that I would like you to remember. People love supporting businesses that do good.
N: Right
G: People love supporting businesses that do good, and you are making an NFL quality mouth guards for their boys protect their teeth; that is an easy cause to rally around, isn’t it, Naren
N: Absolutely, and it reminded me of the office hours that we had yesterday with your clients, and our mutual client and I don’t want to name him, and he said you asked everyone at the end of the meeting what is your intention of the mount – and he said I want to get back in the community and start doing good and it just came from the left field. We are talking about something else, but that was at the top of his mind
G: And I love that intention, and if you knew this client, we would leave him nameless because we did not ask his permission, but if you knew this client, he has a heart the size of the state of Texas, and he admitted to us, last year he was like all of us, kind of entrenched in dean with Covid 19 and all the challenges around it and he said I am getting back on y horse and I am looking for projects that we can do in our community to support some great community causes. And the reason we titled this episode the Time is now is that the Time to make these mouthguards are in the summer when the teams are preparing for the fall season; by the way, this mouthguard project can be adapted to any contact sport. I am suggesting that you start with your local football team. This is a great place to start, but think about it, if you go around the seasons, it could be done for wrestling in the winter, for basketball, it could be done for soccer, it could be done for lacrosse, Naren you and the country of candy there is a perfect adaptation for youth hockey.
N: Yes
G: Any contact sport, any sport that involves contact, these mouthguards are a great project. Now I want to walk through a little bit of details. We are going to provide you with a resource that is invaluable as a listener to this podcast – it is a great resource. But I will kind of walk through it a little bit for just a minute. So the way we do these mouthguards is in our case, our local high school team has 64 boys on the varsity football team – so the coach will divide the team into two groups, and one group will show up on a Tuesday night. We stay open from 5 to 7 pm, they don’t take appointments, they can just come in any time within that 2-hour window, and with 32 boys coming in on Tuesday night, that is essentially impression night, impressionorama, so we convert our office too – everyone in the office is used to take impressions, I recommend that you require at least one parent to come because you need to have, they need to sign a liability release, but really that allows us to do some marketing, tap the parent there. Then we are going to take impressions of the boy’s mouth, and I recommend that your team stay that night until all of the impressions – all 32 if you are following our model, all 32 are poured up in the form of stone models, and then everyone can go home after that. Rinse and repeat the same
One of Gary's most significant achievements as a dental practice management coach is transforming his own practice, LifeSmiles, from one that was infected with PPO plans, no effective marketing strategy, and an overhead of 80% to a very successful dental practice that is currently one of the top-performing practices in the US.
As CEO of Ekwa Marketing, Naren has over a decade of experience working with dental practices and helping them attract the ideal type of patients to their practices. It is his goal to help dentists do more of the type of dentistry they love with the help and support of effective digital marketing.
