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:

It is a huge honor for me today to be podcast interviewing Dr. Kinnar Shah from Sydney, Australia.

Dr. Shah:

Good. Thank you for that, Howard.

Howard:

My brother, my little brother Paul, he was born when I was 17. I'm 53, so he's what, 36. He moved to Sydney two years ago and we grew up in Kansas and my mom and sisters are like, "When are you moving back to Kansas?" He's like, "Mom, you can't move to Sydney, Australia and then go back to Kansas." I've been down there a couple times, a couple of my boys each time. Oh my God. Every time I leave Sydney, I come back to Phoenix and think, "What the hell am I living here for?" I'm extremely jealous of you. Let me read you bio.

Dr. Shah:

Thanks.

Howard:

Dr. Kinnar Shah is based in Sydney and his passion and expertise as a dentist is in cosmetic, laser and implant dentistry. A transformational and a motivational speaker and the Principal Director of SmileConcepts, Personal Growth Events, Instaclicks, and Premium Ceramics. He is obsessed in teaching leadership, business, sales and communication skills to health professionals. He is walking the talk as an example in this field.

Practicing two and a half days per week has allowed him to work on and grow his practice seven-fold over the last three years. His marketing strategies allowed one of his practices, SmileConcepts, to drive 140 new clients a month. SmileConcepts is positioned to be the leading practice in Sydney and is the highest customer reviewed practice in Australia.

The strategies for such growth and presence are what Kinnar loves to teach with a passion. He believes every professional has the potential to do so and loves adding value for your growth. He starts by exploring the correct mindset, belief and attitude through to relationship building, influence, strategic and execution principles. Masteries of these skills will propel your success both personally and professionally.

Communication plays a role in all these factors. The way we communicate to ourselves and the way we communicate with others ultimately dictates the quality of our lives. Being a Certified High Performance Coach, a Certified Gallup Strengths Coach, and a NLP Business and Leadership Coach. He specializes in working with the innate strengths and talents of the entire team for the potential of higher success. He has coached and consulted numerous businesses in the last three years, to implement certain methods and strategies to double or triple the number of daily clients, get more employee engagement, deliver a client experience second to none, and ultimately having a better quality of life.

His favorite topic to teach professionals would be in high performance communication and sales, how to increase conversions and sales dramatically. Being active in the entrepreneur field, he understands unique challenges of today's business owners and entrepreneurs. His fresh perspective, innovative methods, and system blueprints will facilitate you and your business to higher levels.

Having been in the professional business field for 15 years, he is passionate about giving people the tools to be resourceful and effective. His favorite quote is "Don't let the good get in the way of great." Kinnar is currently authoring his book, "Your Life Is Your Biggest Occasion-R.I.S.E Up To It."

Kinnar, thank you so much for taking your time. It's 3pm here in Phoenix, Arizona on April 13th. What time and day is it in Sydney?

Dr. Shah:

Yeah, it's 5 past 8 in the morning here, Howard. It's a lovely day here. I feel like it's about to rain a wee bit, but it's always a lovely day in Sydney.

Howard:

It's already the 14th there. You're a day ahead of me.

Dr. Shah:

Correct. Correct.

Howard:

I've known I've been a day behind my entire life and now you're showing it. Kinnar, what do you think they don't teach you in dental school?

The truth is on these podcasts, only 5% of Americans have listened to a podcast, they mostly under 30. Every time I get an email from someone listening to this show at howard@dentaltown.com, they're usually a junior and senior in dental school to five years out. They only know what they know. They don't know what they don't know. You've been out 15 years. What do you think these young dentists don't know, that they need to know?

Dr. Shah:

My first point would be to,  I guess it all boils down to what life is all about. One of the biggest purposes of life would be, I would say in my opinion, would be the ultimate emotion being happy. When I ask everyone what's your ultimate emotion. I want to do this. I want to do that. What would that lead to? When I finally ask them, the answer always boils down to being happy. I believe happiness comes from pursuing a life or a career. Part of happiness comes from pursuing a life or career where you're successful in and you're contributing the most you can, in the best possible way.

What we don't get taught in university is how to become a successful dentist. Everyone knows that dentistry is a profession where it's quite intense. It takes a big toll on ourselves physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually I would say as well.

What I would encourage young dentists would be to firstly go into a habit of self-discovery. Find out what their passion is, what they truly love to do, how they can contribute to that, what their beliefs are on that, what their values around it. Be very congruent on how you're performing as a dentist, but congruent with your inner-self. That's the first advice I would give you because before you start in a journey of just providing clinical service out there, how can you get to know yourselves first? How can you be successful, because the ultimate aim is to get happiness out of what you're doing. I guess that sums it up.

Howard:

Kinnar, ever since I've been a dentist, every year I see 2 to 3 dentists commit suicide, every year. I've been a dentist for 30 years. The main thing is self-discovery and to be happy. Don't do things you hate for money or it's going to end in alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide.

Dr. Shah:

Sure. Sure. Dentistry's a wonderful profession. We get to serve so many people. One of the biggest psychological drives of human beings is to serve people. We get to serve people beautifully and help them with their health as well. However, again, because it's such a indulging profession, we need to be very careful on being congruent with the living our lives as well. How to make our success, our profession being very enjoyable, being very thoroughly enjoyable, on the way we perform it.

I totally agree with you with what you say that there's a lot of sadness and a high suicide rate, one of the highest suicide rates we have in our profession. I guess that that's where the pain factor of our profession is. Why is that? Why are we so caught up in this rat cycle? I believe one of the reasons is that people don't form a habit of self-discovery. I feel that's a very important thing to do.

Howard:

How do you have fast and effective rapport with another human in 60 to 90 seconds? What is that all about?

Dr. Shah:

Well, one of the things I sincerely believe in is that we as dentists have all taken an oath to serve, serve our patients, serve our clients. However, what is happening the recent industry is competition has increased dramatically.

We are in a stage where especially for example, I have got a practice right in the middle of Sydney, right in the middle of Sydney City. I'm surrounded by not less than 200 dentists in a span of 2, 3 kilometers. Back in the day, there used to be a philosophy where a dentist would suggest or advise a patient to take certain form of treatment and they would happily accept it. Hence, that would allow us to serve our patients.

What's happening now in this industry is that competition is increased, there is obviously more supply than demand, which is always good. Competition is always good. I always discourage my fellow peers to have a scarcity mindset. I'm always telling everyone that there's enough for everyone.

However, more importantly than serving, there's one more factor now before it, which is converting your patients, so communicating and converting your patients. I feel the best way to do it is to learn effective methods on how to build deep rapport, deep and fast rapport with the patients. That allows you, for them to give them your time and trust you, so that then allows them so we can serve them in the best possible way.

Establishing a deep sense of rapport and a fast sense of rapport, possibly 60 to 90 seconds, is because nowadays ... I heard this great phrase the other week. It said something along the lines of, "Where information is becoming cheap, attention becomes expensive." It's one of those things that we have to build fast rapport with our patients finally so they can agree with our proposals, build trust in them and then they can carry on and take our treatment protocols.

Howard:

How do you actually get rapport with a patient in 60 to 90 seconds? What are tips? You also talk about spin questions for dentists. Is that ... Are spin questions to get deeper rapport with your patients, faster and easier?

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Yes. I usually teach a 5 step process on building fast, effective rapport. I call it the ABCDE of CPR, which is not cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but more about conversion principles and roots. These are the 5 techniques I teach.

A stands for attitude. One of the biggest things I've noted when I'm coaching fellow dentists is they're walking around or going into a consultation without the right form of attitude. One of the things I teach is the first thing we need to have is just the best possible attitude when we are presenting to our patients. How we come across to them because remember the attitude controls the mind, the mind controls the body. I'm always teaching conserving techniques on how to come up with the best form of attitude towards the patient. One of the things about attitude is, remember attitude is like trays, it's like serving trays where we serve ourselves upon to patients. One of the first thing ... It's no brainer.

Nowadays we all assess and undress and best guess each other. That's human nature and within a minute we are all doing that everywhere when we're meeting people. How do we as a dentist when we go into a consultation? How do we go and present ourselves in the best form of attitude? The first strategy [inaudible 00:11:43] others, lot of ways we can come across and prepare our minds to make sure that we are in the best form of attitude in front of our patients. Does that make sense?

Howard:

Absolutely. We've always known that your attitude determines your altitude.

Dr. Shah:

Correct. Correct. Absolutely. That's one of my favorite phrases as well. It's very important to note that many people talk about the way they need to ask questions and the way they need to address situations and problems of our patient, but it doesn't ... Remember the patient is ... People do business with people they like. It's period.

Nowadays even patients when I see, now we actually see about 180 new patients a month. I end up consulting at least 70 to 80 patients a month. The thing I've noted there is that pretty much the patients who are going through a process of I'm making sure that they come to like me. They will understand anything I say after that. I can suggest to them any treatment modalities or etcetera, but the first step is to make sure I come across to them with the best form of attitude. That's what the letter A stands for.

Then we've got the B, C, D, and E. Would I like me to continue with that?

Howard:

Absolutely. By the way, I just have one question so far. You said you had a lot of dentists within 2 to 3 kilometers of your office and all the Americans are wondering what a kilometer is. (laughs)

Dr. Shah:

Kilometers would be (laughs).

Howard:

Is America still the only country that's not on the metric system?

Dr. Shah:

True. True. True. Kilometer to mile, that's ... Yeah. That's true because you guys say "Fahrenheit" as well and we use the word "Celsius" here. It's always confusing in that respect.

Howard:

What's B? You said A was attitude. What's B, C, D and E?

Dr. Shah:

The second thing about B, B being body language, action speaks louder than words. First impressions are always powerful. I'm always telling dentists dress to impress. Back in the day, I had some of the dentists walking into the room with the white tunic or a lab coat. Nowadays, I encourage dentists to go in well dressed, maybe a nice shirt and tie and a trouser, mainly because, remember the intention of the consultation is to build rapport, is to make sure that you're ending up converting that patient, which allows you then to serve them.

The first part of anything is conversion. That will allow you to serve them. Statistically coaching just over 300 dentists so far, one of the things I've noticed is the conversion rate of dentists nowadays in Sydney, this is just me and my statistics and just asking around, is around 30 to 40 percent.

Howard:

Okay. Explain what a conversion rate is. There might be someone doesn't understand what you mean.

Dr. Shah:

Conversion simply means that the patient is accepting your treatment. You've gone around and diagnosed and go through a process of explaining to them what their issues are and how we are going to help them. When they say, "Yes. I want to. I accept what you're saying and please book me in for treatment." That's a converted case.

Howard:

What kind of conversion rate-

Dr. Shah:

Acceptance. I think you guys use case acceptance.

Howard:

What kind of case acceptance or conversion rate are you seeing with the 300 clients around Australia that you've worked with?

Dr. Shah:

The 30 to 40% I was mentioning there is medium to high end dentistry. I'm not talking about the general dentistry which patient comes in for a routine check-up or a hygiene or a couple of filings here and there. I'm talking about more intensive, few crowns, full mouth makeovers, implants, multiple implants, extra-

Howard:

Do you know what it is for the United States? The research I see is just for DK, just for DK. For every 100 cavities diagnosed, only 38 get converted to a filing.

Dr. Shah:

Oh, wow. Which is similar.

Howard:

That's for a filling.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah, which is similar. 30 to 40%. You're saying even in the general dentistry you're facing that.

Howard:

Absolutely. That's my pet peeve because every dentist wants asks question on what bonding agent do you use, what composite do you use. I'm like, "Dude, you don't even remove the decay 62% of the time. I don't care if you fill the tooth with butter and jelly and IRM, just get all the infection out. Why are you talking about bonding agents? You should be talking about conversion rates." That's why I'm so honored that you are on our show to talk to these guys that it's not the bonding agent, it's the conversion rate.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, clinical skills are absolutely essential. We both encourage so much clinical education and further growth in that. One of the biggest things and pain factors I've seen in dentists is that they go and spend hundreds and thousands of dollars in clinical service and still have conversion rates of 30 to 40%. This is where I fail to understand that, hang on, you spend so much money in learning a skill, which is amazing, but then you're not allowing yourself to serve your clients by using this skill, because your conversion rates are poor.

Wouldn't it be fair to say that you should invest in you. Invest in your personal growth. Invest in your communication skills and how to go about making sure that you are hitting a minimum of 70% conversion rates. I would think 70 to 80% is a good rate to be at. That's almost double-fold from the current statistics I've seen and possibly you've seen as well.

Howard:

I think if you went from a 35% conversion rate to a 70% conversion rate, you would be twice as good of a dentist because I would want to send my granddaughter if she had a cavity and she went to the dentist. I think the best dentist would be the one who got the infection out, that removed the decay. That would be more important then if she used a composite from Ivoclar or 3M.

Dr. Shah:

Absolutely. Absolutely. You just rephrased what I was just saying there which is you can serve them. Once you convert them you can them. You can treat them. That's more important.

Howard:

That is great. It's more important to ... What'd you say it's more important to convert them, than ... You don't serve them until you convert them.

Dr. Shah:

Yes. The step before serving them is converting them. We've always , even the dentists right now back graduating from university are never taught these skills, which amazes me. I'm hoping at some point in the near future, this is a module they're taught purely on communication skills.

There's a lot to do with communication skills. There is what we call visual communication skills, which is body language. Body language constitutes 60 to 65% of your communication, so using gestures, using expressions, using ways, what I call micro-expressions, which is the "B" we are talking about right now. The A was for attitude.

The B we are right now is in body language. Again, people like people like themselves. People do business and people get treated and people enjoy getting treated with people like themselves. How do you go about learning these skills, especially body language skills with the patients? Right now I'm doing a mastery in something called micro-expressions, which is a phenomenal way of reading people's faces and body even before they come up with objections. Now we all face objections as dentists from our patients. The issue is how do we go ... Objections are fine. Objections are just telling us that the patient needs more information. How do we go about learning those objections before someone even verbalizes it? Does that make sense?

Howard:

Absolutely. They're telegraphing what they're thinking by their facial expressions.

Dr. Shah:

A lot of facial expressions, a lot of body expressions, hand expressions, leg expressions, so this is a module I teach in my seminars as well, which is phenomenal. I can spend two days on it. I at least spend about two hours on it because there's so much intensity and once again the statistics have shown that 60% of communication between human beings is body language. It is so much of an importance to study that, not only using verbal techniques, but how to use nonverbal techniques, which is what we call body language.

Howard:

You included attire in body language. Clothing. You mentioned clothing, so do you think you would have a higher connection rate and conversion rate if you were in a scrubs because you're a dentist with your loops and mask on or a suit and tie? What about clothing?

Dr. Shah:

Okay. One of the things ... See the issue here is that there's different personalities of patients we come across. One of the factors is all about positioning yourself as an authority, Now, you can only position yourself as an authority for a short period of time, couple of minutes or so. Then you need to get to the level of the patient to build that deep rapport. Everyone, like even human beings, when you meet a new person, no one likes being in a situation where they are ... somebody's more authorized than them. I always teach dentists that yes, the patients are coming to you. They are coming to an authority. You're an authority, but don't push it on them as much as you can. Don't go wearing your loops and masks and gowns.

Get to their level. The best way to do ... You can do that when you are treating them, but don't do that when you are consulting with them. When you're consulting, be just, like I say, "Dress to impress." You need to be clean shaven or you need to be at least trim and tidy. Make sure you're dressing well and presenting yourself in the most optimal way possible. No, especially if you're doing a cosmetics full mouth reconstructions. You can't do that kind of stuff and then come out with stains on your lab coat, or stains on your t-shirt or shirt. Yes. That's what I would say, so clothing does play a part, a little bit of a part, but see everything comes ...

You got to put everything together. You've got to put your clothing together. You've got to put your verbal skills together. You've got to put your nonverbal skills. You've got to put your posture together, how you're sitting in front of a patient. Are you slouching? Are you pulling ... Are you erect? Are you making sure that you're positioning yourself in such a way that the patient knows that you're listening to them, that you're present with them.

One of the biggest things I've noticed when dentists consult as well is that the mind is running a thousand miles per second, while they're not present with the patient. I always teach them the skill on how to be present, how to keep their inner mind a bit quiet. Get more engaged with the patient. These are the tools and techniques which I teach when we are talking about consulting with patients for the primary aim to convert them, so that you can serve them.

Howard:

That's not just patients, that's with staff and family. I see so many adults, their kid's sitting there asking them questions, telling them about something, while they're scrolling on their iPhone.

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Yes. That brings us back to that attitude we were talking about. How present are you with your patient? That's part of an attitude. How present are you? How engaged are you? Remember whenever you are talking to another human being, they always feel it. They know that we are engaged. They will know if our minds are not there. It shows in our bodies. As much as we can say, mind controls the body.

Howard:

You're going through the A, B, C, D, E.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. The C is the deeper one which is what I call the conversational skills. In the conversational skills is where that spin questions come in. The power and the art of asking questions to our patients, leading them to give us enough information and establish value, establish their need, so that we can give suggestions accordingly. This spins questions is kind of a formula I personally use with my patients and I've seen a huge success with it.

Spin questions comes from an author of ... his name was Neil Ratman or something like that, Neil Ratman. He's written a book. It's an amazing book. I learned those skills off him. There's a very standard way of asking questions. The spin stands for situation questions. P stands for problem questions. I for implication questions and N for need payoff questions.

Howard:

Say that one more time. That was pretty fast. S stands for?

Dr. Shah:

What we call situation questions.

Howard:

Okay.

Dr. Shah:

The P stands for problem questions. The I stands for implication questions.

Howard:

Okay.

Dr. Shah:

The N stands for need payoff questions.

Howard:

Need payer?

Dr. Shah:

Need payoff. Need payoff questions.

Howard:

Okay. Now, go through all those. What do all those mean? What are spin questions?

Dr. Shah:

Well, that's a 45 minute conversation right there.

Howard:

Well, you know what, I would let you go 45 minutes. You can take as long as you want. I am not going to cut you off.

Dr. Shah:

Okay. The situation questions pretty much means you're asking them questions regarding the present situation they are in. Pretty much to give you an example of that would be what's your current situation? Right? How is it affecting you? Those are the two big questions I ask. What's your current situation? Whenever I'm introducing myself to my patients, I'm always introducing along the lines of, "Hi, Mrs. Jones. I'm here to serve you. How may I help you today?" They will extend their issues to me, whatever the problem is. The situation question is somewhere I would ask along the lines of how is this problem affecting you? Is it getting worse at certain times of the day? The standard questions we all ask as dentists, so what I call situation questions. What is the current situation?

Then we move on to what we call the problem questions. The problem questions basically lays down how severe is this problem. How is this affecting you? Is this affecting anyone else? For example, when I'm doing smile reconstructions or smile makeover consultations, I get patients telling me that it seems like I'm not being socially accepted in the society. Some people feel like that, purely because that problem they have is affecting others as well. Or it feels like my partner has stopped paying attention to me and is always mentioning something about my smile.

It could be anything, but this is when we ask certain problem questions. How severe is it? Is it affecting anyone else? Is it getting worse or is it getting better? What makes it worse? What makes it better? Again this is a standard form of questions, but there's a sequence to it as you see. First we start with situation questions then we start with problem questions.

Then the implication questions is where most dentists stop at this. Some dentists who ask implication questions, some people don't even ask them. They stop at what we call P. They ask situation questions. They ask problem questions. Implication questions are questions where you ask your patients what would happen if you don't fix this. That's the next step. For example, the intention for that question is to surface their problem. You're bringing the problem back to their mind, so they understand the intensity of that problem.

Now remember the reason I'm doing this is so that I want them to be sure that this is something they want to treat. This is something they want to fix. You're bringing that question back about what would happen if you don't fix this problem? For example, for smile makeovers, they would say, "You know what, I keep on hiding my smile when I'm in front of my cameras. I pucker my lips and I don't smile at people." This kind of ... What would happen if you don't fix this? "I will still lack confidence," for example. Whatever it could be, you're resurfacing their problem. You're bringing it up to their heart and to their mind. Intentionally it's bad to say this, but you're putting them in a bad place. You're putting them in a place where it hurts.

The emotions are up, which is then why it is very important to finish them off with what we call need payoff questions. The need payoff questions takes them to a place where they feel happy about fixing this issue. The questions you're asking in the need payoff region is what would happen if you were to fix this problem. How would it change your life? How would it change your health? Are there certain kind of foods you would start to eat better? Would your chewing become better? Would you start enjoying your food better? Does that make sense, Howard?

Howard:

Absolutely.

Dr. Shah:

The reason I take them into this sequence is that within this sequence at the same time I'm watching their body language. I'm watching their expressions. I'm watching how they're reacting to the questions I'm asking. I'm also watching how emotional they're getting in this stage. I'm not offering any solutions yet. I'm not offering any treatment suggestions yet. I'm just creating a space where they can be open with me to tell me their issues, their problems and how I can somehow help them.

Howard:

You also talk about your 6 stages of key experiences that your patients go through. What are they going through?

Dr. Shah:

The 6 stages of key experiences is actually a subject where there are 6, in my opinion once again, this is my opinion and this is what I've observed over time. There are 6 stages a patient goes through with an experience with you and your team. It's not about just you in your consultation. It's 6 stages. The first stage is they hear about you, so what we call marketing. How are you positioning yourself and your business in the market? How are they hearing about you? Once they hear about you, maybe through Google or through a website, and remember your website is your online real estate. One of the things we need to focus on is your online presence. It has to be in the most optimal way. How do you go about positioning yourself and your website and your whole presence in the market as an authority? Does that make sense?

Howard:

Absolutely.

Dr. Shah:

The first step in this 6 steps is experience, because sometimes the patient hears about you. They come to your website and decides not to take any action. That's your first experience, so when I say the patient goes through 6 experiences with you, the first experience is always in marketing. They will make a judgement. They will establish or they will make a decision whether they want to carry on coming to see you or making contact with you in the first place. You could be the best dentist out there. You could have the best skills out there, but we are living in an era where people are googling nowadays everything. People are googling I want to get the best smile done, I want to get some implants done. What's the best way? Every kind of information nowadays is in the internet. Am I right?

Howard:

Absolutely.

Dr. Shah:

That leads to the second step. The first they made when they come to the contact of coming to your website, the second step they do is call your practice. How is your team positioned to answer the best possible way over the phone? Are they matching the vocal tone? Are they handling objections really well? Are they collecting enough data to make an assessment which dentist they can see in your practice? Et cetera. Et cetera. They are pretty much going through a process of what we call question answering.

The biggest step there, which is a very crucial step is that are they booking the patient in. The patient hasn't even seen you or your team. Are the patient feeling comfortable over the phone to get booked in. Now, here's another statistics how, we were talking about 30 to 40% of conversion rates before for dentists having conversion rate. Did you know there's also something called a telephone conversion rate? The telephone conversion rates again in practices I've seen is about less then 30%, 40%.

Howard:

In the United States, when you install software on a dental office computer so the incoming call can see if this number already in their practice manager information system to versus it's a brand new number and then is that person that called in ever scheduled for appointment. It's about 20%. 5 strangers have to call your front desk receptionist for one to get their butt scheduled in a chair and the dentist is still asking you what bonding agent he should use. (laughs)

Dr. Shah:

Wow. It's interesting.

Howard:

4 out of 5 call and don't even get in and then you tell 100 people they need a cavity and 38 get it done and then he'll still fly from here to Kathmandu to learn about the best wear rate on a composite. (laughs)

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Again those skills are important, but Howard, I want to ask you this. That statistic you just shared with me, where do you think they're hearing about you from? Is it still internet?

Howard:

Well, the thing that's so tough about the United States, I hate the term United States of America because just like in Europe, you can't compare Germany to Greece, you can't compare Italy to Portugal. I mean the United States is a monster huge country with a third of a billion people.

Dr. Shah:

Sure.

Howard:

You can't compare New York City to Alabama or Alaska to San Fran. It's all over the board. It's from A to Z. In fact, the funniest thing I hear from people say, "Oh yeah. I visited your country." I'm like, "Really, where did you go?" They go, "I went to New York City to the Greater New York Dental Meeting and I was there for 5 days." I'm like, "Dude, if you think Manhattan is the United States of America ..." I mean that is like 0.00 ... That is not a very good representation of America, you know what I mean?

Dr. Shah:

Oh yeah.

Howard:

The United States in all reality is about 11 or 12 countries flying under one flag. Do you know what I mean?

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Yes.

Howard:

It's a really broad place. Just like I've been to your country so many times. You can't compare Perth to Sydney.

Dr. Shah:

No, you can't. I was just going to say that.

Howard:

Or Adelaide to Melbourne.

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Similar to Australia, it's huge. Actually I was there-

Howard:

Same size as the United States.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah.

Howard:

Did you know the United States, Australia and China on square kilometers is the same size?

Dr. Shah:

Wow, okay, because I was looking the other day-

Howard:

They're all 3.6 million square miles.

Dr. Shah:

I was looking at the other day United States extrapolated over ... Oh, sorry, Australia extrapolated over United States and you guys seemed to be about 20% bigger.

Howard:

Well, if you include Alaska, it's 20% bigger, but if you don't include Alaska, it's the same size and it's the same size as China.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah, wow, okay. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Again coming back to the question which was you say that out of 5-

Howard:

5 incoming calls to get one scheduled in the chair and then you schedule 100 of them in the chair, they'll only remove the decay on 38% of them.

Dr. Shah:

Wow. Wow. Then that's the next step, so we were talking about telephone conversions. Telephone conversions to booking in to see you with the patients, so that was the second step of the patient experience. I tell patients there are 6 areas where you can lose a patient. 6 areas where you can lose a patient, the first one being obviously internet marketing and how you're positioned, how your website is positioned on Google.

The second one is your telephone conversation skills. How is your front desk team competent enough to answer and book [inaudible 00:38:15] in. How is the training going with them? Are you providing training to them in the first place? You're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on clinical education and mastering your skills, yet you're failing to serve a huge amount of population. Would you agree?

Howard:

Absolutely.

Dr. Shah:

That leads to the third part of the experience, which is now the patient's walking into a practice. How is your practice looking? How is your customer service? Customer service is a very big thing I teach. I believe next to clinical skills, it's customer service. People will ... You know that quote, People will forget what you do. People will forget et cetera, et cetera, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Your customer service, there's techniques we can teach our fellow peers and professionals to provide 6, 7 star customer service.

The reason I end up seeing around 200 new patients a month in my practice, I would personally say, that the number one reason would be related to customer service. My training in customer service has to be optimal with my team's. We're not perfect. We're not the best, but we strive to be the best. We strive on a daily basis. What kind of habits are dentists building in the practice to provide the best customer service? Also the look and feel of a practice, wouldn't that matter as well.

I've seen a couple of practices, when I go into the practices, they've got Reader's Digest or National Geographic magazines displayed in their reception or in the lounge, what I call the lounge area. The patients are there for a purpose. If you were to educate them, educate them into different kind of procedures. I have so many patients coming in to my clinical rooms telling me I never knew I could straighten my teeth with these clear aligners. What is this clear, plastic things you're wearing on your teeth? People are not even aware of that, so this is a perfect opportunity for dentists to educate them while they're waiting in the lounge or relaxing in the lounge before their clinical appointment.

The third step is that how you're presenting to them, when they're coming to your practice, which leads to the fourth step, which is you as a clinician, you as a dentist, us as a dentist, which is what we spoke about before the ABCDE, the 5 steps everyone needs to know. The 5 steps which will give you an optimal way to convert your patients to clinical treatment allowing you to serve them. That is all the 5 steps, so again you can lose a patient in this fourth step which is you, which leads then, Howard, to the fifth step when you're taking your patient outside to your treatment coordinator. The treatment coordinator's going through payment plans, treatment options, scheduling appointments, answering any last minute questions, using certain form of techniques to make the patient feel comfortable and going ahead with the treatment. Again, after the first four steps you can still lose a patient on that step.

Finally, the last step, which is following the patient after, what happens when the patient leaves your practice. How do you follow up? Do follow up then via email? Do you give them a call? Do you have a routine? Do you have a system in place so that you ... allows your team to give ... because it's hard to keep track sometimes. That's another thing we talk about which is tracking, tracking of your new patients, tracking of your existing patients. Tracking of patients with treatments which arr incomplete. To run a business, to run a, what I call, to be a dentepreneur, that's that word we use, to be a dentepreneur.

Howard:

I love that word.

Dr. Shah:

We actually have a Facebook group recently opened which, I would love it if you'd give a shout out to everyone there. It's a Facebook group, a group of dentists. We just opened a few months ago. It's a private group where the group is called Dentepreneurs. The intention of that Facebook group is to make sure everyone contributes and add value to each other. How do we add value, as dentists, as professionals, as peers? How do we add value to each other for everyone's success, so all of us can serve, all of us can grow successfully. It's an awesome group. Yeah. It'd be awesome if you can give a shout out to that, Howard.

Howard:

Absolutely. You can shout out posting it on Dental Town too. Dental Town has 210,000 dentists from every single country on Earth. It's amazing. It started in 98. I mean, 210,000 dentists. In fact you should do a course sometime on it, the online CE course we put up 350 courses. They've been viewed over 550,000 times, over half a million views.

Dr. Shah:

Wow.

Howard:

It's a neat place. When we were going through the ABCDE's, we went to A-attitude, B-body language, C-conversational skills, then we jumped over to what is the dentist's conversation, but what is the patient thinking of it. You went through the 6 stages of key experience of your patient, but what was the D and the E and is there an F?

Dr. Shah:

(laughs) The D is pretty much what I call ... It's derived from the NLP part of, which is the Neuro-linguistic Programming in which is a part of a coaching process I've done. D stands for discovering their dominant sense, which is generally everyone has got 3 crucial senses, what we call visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

Howard:

Visual ... They have 3, visual, audio, and what?

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. Visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

Howard:

Now that's the 3 deals of NLP?

Dr. Shah:

No, no. This idea or this system came from NLP, from my training in NLP.

Howard:

I think there's probably a lot of viewers who don't know what NLP is or what it stands for or what it's all about. Can you explain NLP and then go into visual, auditory and kinetic?

Dr. Shah:

Sure. Sure. NLP stands for Neuro-linguistic Programming. Pretty much what it means is that our nervous system, our language skills are all programmed into us. It's all programmed from the external stimulus, which is what we see in our lives, what we experience in our lives.

There are certain patterns in how we run our actions from. If myself and you are in a similar situation, we will react differently to it, purely because of how our perceptions have been shaped previously in life. That's the study of what we call Neuro-linguistic Programming. It's an amazing study and I encourage all dentists at some point to do this system.

I'm actually in the next couple of months doing a training for dentists in NLP. I'm organizing a program specifically for dentists in Neuro-linguistic Programming. It allows a person basically to go intensely into a self-discovery process, so why do they behave, why do they act the way they do. Why do they speak in the certain way they do? Why do they ... One of the things, I mean ... Anthony Robbins, Tony Robbins is big in this as well. He's one of my mentors. I love that guy to bits. He's done some phenomenal teachings in NLP, as well.

Howard:

Yeah. We did a podcast with Tony Robbins a month or two ago, didn't we, Ryan? Tony Robbins?

Ryan:

Yeah.

Howard:

Big fan of Tony, just an amazing man.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. He's amazing guy. Yeah. He's quite big in NLP as well. Coming back to that-

Howard:

Well, he told me that you were quite big in NLP.

Dr. Shah:

No, no, no. I'm his "follower." (laughs) Yes.

Coming back to the D part of it, which is discovering the sense. We all receive information from the outside, mainly in pictures, sounds and feelings. These are the 3 main ways, we as human beings receive information. The other ones being gustatory, which is food and olfactory, which is smell. Putting those two aside, mainly we receive information on a daily basis by 3 things, pictures, sounds and feelings. Now, we all process that information, but one of that sense is dominant in us all. Now the reason I bring this point up, why it's so important to pick this sense up in your patients, only there's a certain system and certain process to pick this point up, which is to find out are they dominant visual, are the dominant auditory or are they dominant kinesthetic. You can then apply your verbal skills and sometimes your environmental skills to build deeper rapport. We're still on that subject of building rapport in 60 to 90 seconds. How fast can you establish rapport?

There are certain methods you can use especially certain words you can use. For example, just to share an example for visuals, I would be using words like bright. I would be using words like sharp, crystal clear, words like that. Does that make sense?

Howard:

Yes.

Dr. Shah:

For kinesthetics I would be using words like how does that feel to you. They are more into texture. Anyone with a dominant sense will make decisions first with their dominant sense. It's a very crucial thing in my opinion to know and I've used this very successfully, in my consultations. It's a very easy process to learn as well, just needs a bit of practice.

Howard:

Then, so we'd be at E.

Dr. Shah:

E's energy.

Howard:

E is energy.

Dr. Shah:

E is energy.

Howard:

By that you mean, Red Bull?

Dr. Shah:

Yeah, natural Red Bull. I call it the natural SEO.

Howard:

Now, Australia used to be part of the British Empire, so is it predominantly a tea drinking country or are they coffee drinking?

Dr. Shah:

I still have my Masala tea everyday.

Howard:

You're tea drinking. You went to Glasgow. Australia has 5 dental school. Why did you go to Glasgow, Scotland for dental school?

Dr. Shah:

I bit of history about myself, Howard. I was actually born and raised in Africa.

Howard:

Where abouts?

Dr. Shah:

In Kenya.

Howard:

I've been to Kenya. That's the Serengeti.

Dr. Shah:

No, that's Tanzania.

Howard:

Well, isn't Serengeti at the other end of it, touch Kenya?

Dr. Shah:

It does. It does. It does. Our biggest national park is Maasai Mara, which is ... I've noticed that you've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

Howard:

Yes. The most interesting thing about Africa, so I know where this story's going to go is when you had the Roman Empire and people learned about the Silk Routes, that-

Dr. Shah:

Yes.

Howard:

For the Silk Routes, most traders would only go 20 miles, so all the trade had a family living every 20 miles all the way from London all the way to Calcutta. All your sugar and cinnamon and all the things they traded had to have an Indian family every 20 miles along that road, so if you're Indian from Kenya, your great ancestors were on the Silk Route.

Dr. Shah:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm third generation Indian born in Kenya. My great grandparents came from India. I was born and raised in Kenya. I studied in Glasgow. Somehow I ended up there. It was a trend at that time.

Howard:

Do you know Imtiaz Manji?

Dr. Shah:

Sorry?

Howard:

Do you know Imtiaz Manji, the founder of the Scottsdale Center or the Spear Institute in Scottsdale?

Dr. Shah:

No. No, I haven't heard of him.

Howard:

He's one of the biggest names in American dentistry. He's from Kenya too.

Dr. Shah:

Right. I've heard of the Spear Institute, a phenomenal institute.

Howard:

Yeah. That was founded by Imtiaz Manji, whose roots go back to Kenya then Vancouver, Canada and then Scottsdale, Arizona.

Dr. Shah:

Well, I'll make it a point to get connected with him.

Howard:

He and you did not climb Kilimanjaro. The fat guys did. Go figure that, huh? Go figure that.

Dr. Shah:

Not yet. Not yet.

I always tell Indians are not made for labor. Give us your taxes. We'll do them. (laughs)

Howard:

Was Kenya part of the ... It was a part of the British Empire, was it? Or was it?

Dr. Shah:

It was. It was. We got independence in 63.

Howard:

What was the country next to it that was part of the British Empire. It was Kenya and ...?

Dr. Shah:

We've got Kenya. We've got Tanzania. We have Uganda. We've got Ethiopia, all this and it's all the east Africa [crosstalk 00:52:15].

Howard:

Those are all British Empire?

Dr. Shah:

Yeah, most of them. Yeah.

Howard:

You moved to Scotland just for dental school or did your family move there?

Dr. Shah:

No, no. Just for dental school, see the trend back in the day was to send everyone to England and I never got accepted anywhere in England, so I ended up getting accepted to Glasgow by chance.

Howard:

Well, at least you didn't hit rock bottom and end up in Wales. (laughs)

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. (laughs) It's actually a funny story because I-

Howard:

I'm just kidding. That's a joke.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah, I know it is. It's a funny story. I didn't even know whether I wanted to do dentistry. It was one of those trends back in the day that you ... My dad's a doctor, so you'd follow that line of science.

I ended up in Glasgow and then my brother, who was business partners with me here as well, he did his dental degree in Sydney here. He's two years older than me, so when I graduated he gave me a call and said, "Kinnar just come over here and you know what, we'll build dreams together." I said, "Fine. Let's, you know, fair enough, let me come there," so finished my dental school in Glasgow and I moved straight to Sydney 15 years ago.

Howard:

Since you've got there 15 years ago, some very huge things happened on the supply and demand. The government did not like how long Australians were waiting to get in to the dentist. They didn't like the fact that there weren't dentists in rural Australia, so they opened up their doors to foreign trained dentists and they let in a lot. Didn't they let in like thousand?

Dr. Shah:

Thousands. Thousand. Absolutely, which is not a problem. I don't have an issue with that. Here's the issue. The issue is that, which we are talking about all this time, that gone are the days where you can just suggest something to a patient and expect them to accept it. You need to learn the correct rapport building and communication skills to first convert and do case acceptance, before you can serve them. These skills are so important, which is where your point comes in. There's so much of supply now that I feel that every dentist needs to learn these skills to not only allow themselves to grow, but allow themselves to serve more people.

Howard:

One last shout out to Glasgow, I'll be lecturing Glasgow June 24th and then in London June 17th, but I only got you for a few more minutes. Tell me about your new book you're writing, "Your Life Is Your Biggest Occasion-R.I.S.E. Up To It." I see that R.I.S.E. stands for something because it's R period, I period ... what does R.I.S.E. stand for?

Dr. Shah:

The book is all about again ... it's all about how to be successful in any business or any entrepreneurship you're involved in. The RISE stands ... The R stands for relationship building skills. It's basically, I describe in there how to build relationship building skills, which is what, again, what we have spoken about, but much more in detail.

The I stands for influencing skills, so how to use certain language patterns to get your message across more effectively. There's a certain verbal language patterns we can all use. Again the reason for influence or the other word for influence is persuasion. We all need to, we are on a daily basis, I'm always influencing my kids. I'm also persuading my kids to do everything. We are always daily involved in influencing and persuading people. Even if you have got an idea to share it with someone, you're influencing them for them to believe or listen to your idea. There are certain influencing skills I go about describing in that book.

The S stands for strategic skills. I'm a big believer in strategy, so there is one thing about having ideas, but there's one thing about putting them into a strategy, so you can finally E them. The E stands for executing. You can finally put some action towards it, because no success starts with action, otherwise it's all talk.

That's what the book is all about, which are the principles of relationship building skills, influencing skills, strategic skills and finally execution skills. I'm writing a book, not necessarily for dentists, however it applies to pretty much everyone. My belief is if anyone can master these four areas in their life, they can be very successful in whatever they do, including contributing to the society.

Howard:

There's a lot of DSO's in America. We have a Heartland Dental, that has 1,500 offices. We have Pacific Dental, that has 500. Singapore actually has a publicly traded dental chain. Do you remember the name of that off the top of your head?

Ryan:

Q&M.

Howard:

Yeah, Q&M. Good job, Ryan.

Dr. Shah:

Yup.

Howard:

There's some big chains in Australia. Isn't there one called 1,300 Smiles or?

Dr. Shah:

Are we talking about corporates here?

Howard:

Yeah, corporates.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. There're quite a few corporates here. Quite a few corporates [crosstalk 00:57:42]

Howard:

What's the big one? Is it 1,300-

Dr. Shah:

There's 1,300 Smiles. There's Dental Corp. Dental Corp is one of the big ones as well. I can't remember the names of the others. There're about a good 5 of them.

Howard:

Again, it sounds like you're saying, "Don't worry about big corporate dentistry. Don't worry about competition. Don't worry about foreign trained dentists moving in your market." You're saying it's really just more about your own game. You're saying it's more of a golf game. Worry about your own game. It's not a boxing match, where you're competing with the guy across the street.

Dr. Shah:

Absolutely. It's always about your own game. People get carried away. People sometimes feel that external circumstances dictate how they lead their lives, which is not. It's a simple philosophy of just focus on yourself. Focus on your own growth. Focus around the people around you. Focus on your own contribution and if you keep on focusing on the right stuff, it's an abundance market we are living in. It's an abundance mindset. I always believe that more energy can be spent on one's self than worrying about what's popping out there. There are a lot of dentists who complain, what we spoke about before, there're a lot of international dentists who are coming here. I said, "So what? You know? You be the best version of yourself. Make sure you invest in yourself and nothing can stop you. You're an unstoppable machine. Nothing can stop you."

Howard:

I love it when people think in hope, growth and abundancy and I hate it when they think in fear and scarcity.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's enough-

Howard:

You've just got to think in abundance.

Dr. Shah:

There's enough for everyone. There's enough for everyone. Don't ever forget your ultimate purpose or your ultimate passion in life. Carry on, be driven towards it.

Howard:

Since you went to dental school in the United Kingdom, does that mean you're a big cricket fan or soccer? What is your favorite sport living down under?

Dr. Shah:

Snooker.

Howard:

Seriously.

Dr. Shah:

No, I'm kidding.

Howard:

Okay.

Dr. Shah:

Soccer. We call it football. Back in the United, we call it football there. I'm a big Man United fan.

Howard:

You call it football, though?

Dr. Shah:

Well, in Australia it's called soccer, but inter-

Howard:

In the United Kingdom-

Dr. Shah:

Internationally it's called football. I also prefer to call it football.

Howard:

Do you think, and I was wondering, not to get off topic, but we are out of time. The American football, the way they play, the big issue is concussion. Concussion, concussion, concussion.

What I find very interesting in reading that research is that soccer players are bouncing a soccer ball on the front of their head and that it actually is a big issue for soccer or what United Kingdom calls football. Americans are thinking about it as the NFL, their version of football, but it's really a huge issue in soccer. My question to you is this. Do you think it is even possible to get the world's soccer community to stop using their head during a soccer game?

Dr. Shah:

(laughs) No chance.

Howard:

Yeah. That's true, isn't it?

Dr. Shah:

No pain. No gain.

Howard:

Yeah. When they talk about concussion, the bottom line is when you see an American football player with a helmet on diving over a wall of people to get one inch on a ball, that ain't ever going away. If you go-

Dr. Shah:

It's a primal instinct.

Howard:

Oh my God. Trying to go to Brazil or Africa and tell them the can't use their head in a soccer game. You might as well ... You'd probably have better luck asking them to cut off their head.

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Yes. They might come back with the metaphor for you that,  "Are you a dentist? Try doing dentistry without a drill." (laughs)

Howard:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey thank you for accepting my invitation and come on this show. I think the world of you. I'm a big fan of yours. I love what you're doing. I'm trying to help my homies ... I'm trying to get them ... They're always focused ... If you ask them, what keeps you up at night, they're like, "How to get rid of sensitivity during a filling." I'm like, "Dude, if that's your question ... "

Dr. Shah:

Yes.

Howard:

There's just so many ... By the way, the answer to that is a self-etching in my opinion.

Dr. Shah:

Yes.

Howard:

I got rid of all my sensitivity with Clearfil SE about two decades ago. Thanks for, what I call this is the ... I guess they call it in America, and I don't mean to belittle it, but they call it the soft knowledge. They call how to do root canals, fillings and crowns the hard knowledge and they call this the soft skills.

Dr. Shah:

Yes.

Howard:

I think the soft skills are more important when it takes 5 people to call your office before one comes in. I think in America, if the Fire Department only put out 38% of the fires, the town would run them out of town. They'd fire every last fire department. They're expected to put out 100% of all fires and to try to catch every bad guy and then here's a dentist and he can only catch 38% of the cavities drilled, filled and billed. 62% walk out the door.

Dr. Shah:

Yes. I wish dentists can understand that it's a skill we need to invest in. It's not difficult. It's easy, couple of pointers here and there. We've done dentistry for God's sake. We've come to a state in life where we're very clinically experienced. These kind of skills are very easy to learn, but you need to invest in them. You need to invest yourselves. I mean, don't pretend that your skills are optimal. If they were optimal and if you're not measuring ...

Measure is a big thing. Measure your statistics because sometimes dentists don't realize this, until they understand that they're only converting 30, 40%. I always, when I'm coaching dentists, I'm always telling them first you need to realize where you're going wrong, before you can invest in yourself. Realize that your conversion skills are so and so, so measure them. If I were to take last six months of new patients, how many patients did you convert? Get some statistics. It's your business for God's sake. It's your establishment. It's where you're serving, on a daily basis. The least you could do is know how you run your business.

Howard:

Last, but not least, how many dentists are in Australia these days? Australia?

Dr. Shah:

We're around 10% of you guys, so around the 20K mark. I'm guessing you are around the 200K mark.

Howard:

There's 211,000 humans alive in the United States with a dental degree. About 125,000 are general dentists that work 32 hours a week or more and about 30,000 are specialists that work 32 hours a week or more. There's actually 211,000 that have a dental degree. My point being, I'm trying to, I like to find talent in the other continents and bring it back home, so if you ever want to break into these 211,000 dentists, do an online CE course.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah.

Howard:

I know you're from Australia, but America starts and ends with an A too. You can share it over here too.

Dr. Shah:

Yes. Absolutely. I was there actually last year. I was with Brendan [Bouchard 01:04:50]. I was getting trained with Brendan [Bouchard 01:04:53]. That's where the high performance fortune comes in, so I'm a big fan of his as well. I was in America three times last year. Yes. Thank you for that invite, Howard. You have been amazing. You're a legend, yourself.

Howard:

I'm only a legend in my own mind. (laughs)

Dr. Shah:

Well, the mind starts first, doesn't it?

Howard:

Oh. All right. That was my lame joke. Europe is the only continent that doesn't start and end with an A, but hey on that note next time I see my brother Paul in Sydney, I'd love to have dinner with you and have a beer.

Dr. Shah:

It would be my honor if you could do that. Anytime when you're in Sydney or in Australia just holler at me and I will take care of you.

Howard:

His name's Paul Farran. I think he's the only Farran down there in Australia, so you just Google Paul Farran, Sydney. He might be your neighbor.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. I will connect with him on Facebook as well. Thank you for that, Howard. Thank you for this opportunity. What you're doing is amazing. As much as Dental Town is a place where I've not paid much attention to, but the statistics show that you've done a phenomenal job in building a community, which is adding so much value to it. Thank you for doing this podcast. I was listening to a couple of podcasts before that we're just amazing. Thank you for this.

Howard:

All right, Buddy. Well, I can't wait to have a beer with you and we'll invite a kangaroo to join us.

Dr. Shah:

Yeah. The exit is Namaste.

Howard:

Namaste. All right, Buddy. Thanks very much. Namaste.

Dr. Shah:

Thank you so much. Thank you.