Balancing Life’s Issues with CEO Wendy Kaufman on The Business Spotlight 

http://www.BalancingLifesIssues.com CEO Wendy Kaufman was on The Business Spotlight TV show in Dallas this week talking about how her national corporate training company with over 1400 trainers is influencing the culture of many companies to increase productivity.  Wendy has her Masters in Industrial Psychology and has more than 20 years doing Keynotes and training on everything from Leadership Training, Team Building and Emotional Intelligence to How to Live Take the Car Keys from Your Parent.  Her army of trainers speak and teach all over the country to increase the productivity of companies by delivering high value training that is very Edutaining.

Here is the transcript of the show:

Patrick:  Welcome to the Business Spotlight. I’m Patrick Dougher, and today’s show I think you’ll really find it an exception. Recently, I was listening to the radio and that song Cats in the Cradle came on and I thought, “Man, have I done a good enough job raising my son? Does he look at me and think ‘I want to be like him’? Is that going to be the right kind of character?”

Today’s guest is Wendy Kaufman. Wendy is the CEO and founder of Balancing Life’s Issues. She has literally created a group of over a thousand trainers around the U.S. that talk to corporations that speak for keynotes, trainings on the whole issues of balancing life’s issues. Wendy, thanks so much for being on the show.    

Wendy:  You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

Patrick:  I’m really excited about this show because I want to get into your story. When I think about the foundation of this, I’ve heard a little bit and I thought, man, you really invested. You paid a great price. Tell me about the start of this.

Wendy:  Certainly it has been that trials and tribulations of my life. I often joke about that in all of our sessions and certainly with my trainers. I do have a degree in industrial psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. I actually wrote my thesis on dual career relationships, and so even then I knew how hard it was going to be to make a relationship work. That was certainly 30 years ago.

I then took a little bit of a break, and I was a stay-at-home mom that did some part-time work and got divorced. At that moment, in time I remember thinking you have to go to work, you’ve got to raise the kids, and really, truly does your boss care, does your employer care and how hard that was. And that’s when Balancing Life’s Issues was founded.

I am thrilled at not just the success of all my trainers but the success that the companies know that they do care about their employees. They really care about their health and their happiness, and that’s what we do.

Patrick:  You worked with every size corporation, but the thing that was really interesting is the number of Fortune 500 companies that have brought you in to help their people balance their lives. As I understand it, you guys do everything from executive leadership training, team building, all the way to what else?

Wendy:  Anything you can think of. Elder care – when my dad was sick, I learned firsthand what it’s like to be in family generation, having kids in college, caring for someone who’s very ill, what was that like, and having to go to work with that. Anything from a traditional leadership class which you might think of, but also really thinking about how do I talk to my kids about sex, drugs and alcohol? How do I deal with an aging parent? How do I take the car keys away from my mom? These are things that people are worried about, and they need help.

Patrick:  Like I say, a lot of these came out of just your life and then you began to talk about it, people began to hire you to do more of that. But how did it spread beyond in a sense most corporations, companies that are CEO and founder, now they have over a thousand people that work with you, how did that happened?

Wendy:  I really have to say organically. I think that there were many things that were right and there were many things that were in place and certainly we are a country, we care. We have a lot of compassion and we have a lot of good feelings. People will say to me, “I’m worried about this. This is my passion. This is what I’m thinking.” We’ll create a seminar on it, and inevitably it sells. Employers will say, “Tell me what’s going to make my employee more productive.” Everything comes under the umbrella of engaging, educational, meaningful seminars.

Patrick:  That’s it.

Wendy:  Yes.

Patrick:  But when you even select somebody, I know that you have a selection process that’s unique. Tell me about that.

Wendy:  It’s interesting because it’s always important to know your knowledge base. I certainly look at credentials, schooling, education, and I value that. I certainly know how much I learned from my master’s degree. But quite frankly, I’m a mom to three and a stepmom to two more. That’s what taught me my parenting skills. I have a lot of certifications, but being a mom to five, that’s where I got it.

We’re looking for people to tell me, what is their experience with the topic? Quit smoking seminars – tell me when you stopped smoking. How much did you smoke? What was the story like? I want to be able to relate to the person in the front of the room. Tell me that you understand the world that I was in, and then I can make some changes.

Patrick:  What I’m hearing, though, is that you’re not letting anybody just get up and say something. They actually have to have what I call “the mantel of authority” that they purchased the wisdom firsthand, paid the full tilt – that kind of thing.

Wendy:  Now, Patrick, we have a totally different thing because now you’re talking about, I need the educational background, then I need the story – and here’s the thing – now I’m going to have to be able to deliver it.

When we find trainers, they’ve got to engage me, and they’ve got to engage me in 30 seconds or less. I can listen to their phone message and know whether they’re going to connect with an audience or not.

Patrick:  That’s really great. But the thing that I’m curious about is the things that you’re doing. I know you’ve done radio with other places, let’s put it that way. But you’ve done radio, you’re an article writer for a number of very top-notch and big name news organizations. What else are you doing?

Wendy:  When I blog or when I write, it’s always my story or my soapbox. It’s really this idea of, what is the message I want to give out? What’s going on right now? My big soapbox right now is if you’re going to talk about work-life balance, I want to know what your work-life balance is. I want to know what your family consists of. I want to know what your work consists of.

Unfortunately, like every career, we have a lot of people on the soapbox that have work-life balance with no families and maybe no career, so why am I going to listen to them?

Patrick:  I’d say you can only reproduce what you produced. I’ve known leaders that I literally had to say, “I can’t use you in this position because what you’re experiencing, what you’re walking in is chaos, so what are you going to produce in this body?”

Wendy:  That’s exactly right.

Patrick:  We’ve got to go to a break. This is the Business Spotlight, I’m Pat Dougher. We’ll be right back.

͂

Welcome to the Business Spotlight. This is the second segment, and we’re talking about Balancing Life’s Issues. If you’re a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, a CEO, or just somebody that works as an employee and you are spending way too much of your life’s energy on your business and your family is getting stepped on, then you need to listen in.

Wendy Kaufman, CEO-founder of Balancing Life’s Issues, tell me a little bit more about what you guys are doing to create the massive success you’re delivering to the companies around the country?

Wendy:  I’ve trademarked my five-bucket system, which is this idea that we now know what a balanced person looks like. We have done a massive amount of research over three decades, and so we know there are these five buckets.

1. Everyone needs to have some kind of family and friends. They’ve got to have a bucket of other people – we’re humans; we need to have socialization.
2. We have to have some sort of work, paid or not, it doesn’t matter, but intellectual stimulation.
3. We’ve got to take care of our bodies, our health.
4. We have to take care of our money because at the end of the day we worry a lot about finances. That’s really important.
5. The last bucket you can call community or spirituality, but it means we’re good people, that we care about people around us.

Everything we do is under those five buckets. All of our seminars – which are probably 400+ – come under those buckets.

Patrick:  When you talk about the different seminars, what kind of delivery mechanisms do you use?

Wendy:  How lucky are we today? We can do them on-site, we can do them on the phone, we can do them on the Web, we can do them via podcast, we can do them over the Internet, we can do them through the intranet – really whatever kind we want. I was with a client this morning, and we recorded it. I was with another client yesterday, and we did it like a radio show so everyone got to call in their questions.

If it’s an immediate response to something like the bombing in Boston or September 11^th which were very active, we need to have a platform where people can say, “I’m worried. I’m worried about my kids. I’m worried about my spouse,” and we provide that platform. The imagination sets no limits. I’ve done them in parks, on picnic tables. I’ve done them all over the place.

Patrick:  And your trainers all do the same sort of thing – hyper-engaged, very entertaining or “edutaining” is the word that I’d like to say.

Wendy:  I love that.

Patrick:  When you put on these things, what’s the net effect? What do the people really get out of that experience?

Wendy:  That’s my real point of contention. Is there something that you’re going to walk away doing differently? If it’s nutrition class, it may be something as simple as switching from whole milk to almond milk that can make a world of difference. It can be one simple, small takeaway that can truly change your life. Maybe it’s a relationship one, which has been popular now, about just being a nice person. It sounds so easy to be a nice person, but all of us have complicated mornings.

I have a sick dog. My oldest son is very worried about that. My younger son couldn’t find a job. Then my husband will come home and say something that may tweak me. How am I going to be nice when all this is going on and my boss wants ten new proposals? We really teach people how to handle that with the real life that’s happening at the same time.

Patrick:  I’m sitting here trying to think of all the things that you guys are delivering. It sounds like when you get into a company, they have the ability to bring you back over and over and over again, don’t they?

Wendy:  Yes. That’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for relationships like we have with our clients where we’ve been there for 25 years. I’ve watched their families, I’ve watched their children grow up, I’ve watched them get married, go off – all the processes that have happened in their life transitions, we’ve been there. It’s a relationship. It’s a place for employees to say, “I’m worried about this. Can you help me?” We can work through their employee assistance program, we can work through their work-life provider, or we can work directly with the client – whatever the client’s wants.

Patrick:  That’s excellent. When I think about what you guys are creating, it’s funny but you don’t have to touch everybody or you don’t have to change the whole culture. In my past, I watched a company change its whole dynamics and its whole culture with just 10%. Have you seen that?

Wendy:  Oh, absolutely. I’ve even seen it with less. I’ve seen it with being able to identify the Debby Downer or the real Negative Ned, the cynic in the room. We love those cynics in the room; bring it on.

The best thing about what we do is we do get a good do-over every day. I have to tell you, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I am still as naïve and hopeful as I was 30 years ago, that people change. They want to change. They want to feel happier.

Isn’t it amazing that one of the most popular courses at Harvard is about unhappiness? We now know, what do we need to do to feel happier? And we can teach people that skill just the way they’re doing in other countries, by the way. We’re playing catch-up here in America.

Patrick:  Where else are they doing this sort of thing? That’s news to me.

Wendy:  I came from a trip in China, and I was amazed at how astute they were on the philosophies of positive psychology and happiness. They’ve studied in England. There’s a country in the faraway Himalayans called Bhutan which is governed on happiness. We are really playing catch-up in this country, and there are organizations that we’ve partnered with to make sure that we’re teaching our kids to be happy. What’s more important than that?

Patrick:  How would you partnership with other organizations? How does that come about?

Wendy:  Maybe it’s a book series, a tape series, or a guest speaker for a company. It’s really about, what’s going to make the employees the most engaged when they’re at work? Whoever we need to partner with to get them there is what we do.

Patrick:  Awesome. As we go into this next few segments, one of the things that you’re going to enjoy is we’ll talk more about the ideal client for Wendy Kaufman. Really, you should be listening for, do I fit in that box or can I get one of Wendy’s trainers in our company? Because balancing life’s issues, well quite honestly, I think our culture has been warped as we look at where things are right now.

This is Pat Dougher. The Business Spotlight is all about you telling your story in the marketplace. We’ll be right back.

͂

Welcome back to the Business Spotlight. I’m Pat Dougher. Today we’re talking about Balancing Life’s Issues. Wendy Kaufman is a CEO and founder of Balancing Life’s Issues, and she’s bringing a great deal of information about how you can get the right bricks in the right place, the right rocks in the jar.

Wendy:  Yes, everybody knows that one. That will work. I never want to say “the right” because I often really joke that I’m the most perfectly imperfect person, and I look for that. I look for the mistakes I’ve made because certainly they’re the ones that have gotten me to the next level.

One award that my company got, I joked that I need to thank my ex-husband because if it wasn’t for my divorce, I don’t know if I would’ve done that. I really look forward to the mistakes that I’ve made. I think we learn from, not just our mistakes, but from everybody else’s mistakes.

Patrick:  I think what’s also really important is that you’re coming out there as a human, not as a “Barbie” or a doll kind of thing, a plastic figurine that has this mask. You show up and this is me. This is the way I always am.  

Wendy:  I think what’s interesting about that is we want to be reminded – certainly I know I want to be reminded – about how one little thing can change everything.

When I was first divorced, I had three little kids, very little money, and people would say, “You don’t have time to date.” The best thing I did was start dating early on. It was bartering for people to watch my kids for half an hour, to take a ten-minute break to meet my husband who I love and adore now.

It doesn’t take a lot to make our lives better. It’s not about that next big paycheck. It’s really about, have you volunteered at a soup kitchen one day a month? Have you done one small thing that’s truly going to open up every door for you? Have you lost five pounds? Have you started exercising? One small change that’s going to make everything fall in place.

Patrick:  That is so important because it doesn’t have to be herbal liposuction where one pill changes you. It’s really about that step that enters you on the journey, right?

Wendy:  So true.

Patrick:  I know we’ve talked a little bit before and I know you do a lot of work for the Fortune 500. What are some of the things that they should expect from you? Maybe I should stop and say it this way. Who is the ideal client? What should they expect?

Wendy:  It’s interesting because that’s been a journey for me. I used to think it was just big clients with a lot of employees. We’ve recently done a session for just a father and a son company where they just were not connecting. It’s this teeny, small two-person.

Monetize Your Mind with Bob Bare & Patrick Dougher on Content Creation Tips from Patrick Dougher on Vimeo.

Great show with Bob Bare and Patrick Dougher on content creation and all the ways to make more money from your creativity.

Here are some of the takeaways I had from this recording:

• Make sure your Title has the Keywords that your audience is searching for.
• Make sure you stay on subject and be brief. (I encourage 110 seconds or less)
• If your doing a “How To” video you are not as restricted on time but keep on point.
• Edutaining will keep them more involved.
• Google wants your video embedded in your site as long as the video is consistent with your keywords.
• People want real content not a sales pitch.
• “How To” videos can be extremely targeted to a very narrow niche.
• VSEO is a new term that is being coined to emphasize the power of Video on SEO.
• Video’s should be transcribed.

v

Patrick:  Welcome to the Business Spotlight. I’m Patrick Dougher. You’re really going to enjoy the show. From time to time over the last several months we’ve had a guest appearance from Dr. Mary Swift of http://www.dallascosmeticdentist.us/ . .

They are in the high-end cosmetic dentistry arena. In fact, Dr. Mary Swift has been the 2011-2012 Cosmetic Dentist People’s Choice Award winner in the DFW Area. It’s really fun to have another one of their dentists, Dr. Terrel Myers with us today. Dr. Terrel, thanks so much.

Dr. Terrel:  Thank you for having me.

Patrick:  I’m really excited about this interview because you have seen the dental industry change tremendously. You’re award-winning. You tend to work with the who’s who of Dallas. You work with some very extremely successful people, don’t you?

Dr. Terrel:  Yes. I’ve been very blessed in that area.

Patrick:  I’m excited for you. I want to know more about your journey, because you’ve seen the industry change so much. Tell me about your journey as a dentist.

Dr. Terrel:  It’s interesting. I started when I was a junior in high school and I decided I wanted to be a dentist. My dentist talked me into being one. So I went to dental school and I was fortunate going through that. I was honored to be the top one clinician in my dental class. We were taught a certain philosophy of dentistry that most schools weren’t teaching and I liked that philosophy.

As soon as I got out of dental school, I actually joined the Air Force for two years, and then started my practice here in Dallas. Six months into my practice, I went down to the L.D. Pankey Institute to advance dental education. That’s where I got all my advanced training in full mouth rehabilitation. That was the best thing I ever did in my life.   

Patrick:  When you talk about full mouth dental restoration and cosmetic surgery, what are some of the procedures now that people are doing in that area?

Dr. Terrel:  The biggest thing that we’re seeing more now are porcelain veneers and implants. That’s been to the biggest changes in the last 15-20 years. We’re doing a lot of porcelain veneers, implants, crowns, and bridges. 

Patrick:  Have they changed the technology much in those areas?

Dr. Terrel:  Considerably. A few years ago we would take impressions and core models and send that to the lab. Now our computers actually scan the tooth. The computer program will make a three dimensional model and make the crown on that so we never have to take an impression of the patient anymore. It’s phenomenal.

Patrick:  I know that in your practice there are a lot of things that you’re doing that are fairly unique. A lot of dentists will say have a certain method for connecting to them. You spend a lot of time right up front with people.

Dr. Terrel:  In the training at the Pankey Institute, they teach us that it is so important to make a correct diagnosis, and you have to gather a lot of information to make a correct diagnosis. So we spend two and a half hours on our initial examination. That’s gathering x-rays, medical history, and models.

Getting to know the patient is so important because the cross that I wear here is the cross of life. We have to know our self, know our patient, know our work, and then apply our knowledge. That’s the four legs of the cross. My patients have become my family. That’s why I’ve been so blessed in having patients that have been with me 30-35 years. I’ve got several families that I’m treating three generations – grandfather, parent, and children now. That’s exciting to me. I love that. They’ve been some of my best referrals.

Patrick:  I wouldn’t doubt. Anytime that you can build a practice like yours that’s pretty much 100% referral based. But then the fact that you spend so much time up front with them is key.

Dr. Terrel:  Often I’ll have patients say, “Can you refer me to an internist or a cardiologist or someone that would treat me like you treat me? Because you take the time to listen to me.” I get that a fair amount of time. People will ask, “Refer me to someone that will treat me like you do.”

Patrick: As we get into these next few segments, one of the things that I really want to talk about is I want to learn more about some of the current technology because the coolest thing in doing some research on you and knowing the Swifts in the way that they do things is technology is paramount with their practice. They stay up on things. 

Dr. Terrel:  Yes, they do.

Patrick:  And I know that that means that you stay up on things and the current technologies of cosmetic dentistry is just groundbreaking. Dr. Terrel Myers with Dallas Laser Dentistry. We’re pleased to have him on the air today and you would want to get to know him more.

~

Patrick:  Today it’s Dr. Terrel Myers of Dallas Laser Dentistry, 2011-2012 Cosmetic Dentistry award winner for the last few years that Dr. Mary Swift has been. Dr. Terrel works with Dr. Mary Swift. He’s been on the show many times and we’re always thankful to have him back. Thank you so much again.

Dr. Terrel:  You’re welcome.

Patrick:  I want to get into what makes you and your practice so special. You’re doing a lot of things. The technology in the cosmetic stuff in dentistry is different from the way it used to be. Isn’t it?

Dr. Terrel:  Definitely different. With managed care, we’ve seen a decrease in quality overall in dentistry. Dentists are seeking less expensive labs to make the crowns. I read a review  two or three years ago that insurances were getting to ask to replace crowns every three to five years. I’ve got crowns that have been in the mouth 35 years that are still functioning as good as the day I put them in.

Patrick:  Wow.

Dr. Terrel:  That’s because if you take time to do it right the first time, you don’t have to take time to do it over. That’s where a lot of my training has been. One of my mentors, Dr. Pankey, used to quote Michelangelo a lot. One of his favorite quotes was “Perfection is no trifle, but paying close attention to many trifles make perfection.”

A lot of what we do is pay very close attention to a lot of little details that takes more time. Like I said previously, my exam takes two and a half hours. A lot of dentists only spend 15-20 minutes on an exam. But we gather a lot of information so that we can make a proper diagnosis.

Patrick:  Don’t you go ahead and put together a plan or something?

Dr. Terrel:  Yes.

Patrick:  When somebody has gone through this process with you, what are your next steps? Tell me a story of a client, somebody who has been through it. We’d walk through the process.

Dr. Terrel:  I had this one young man come in. He was at that time probably about 28, maybe 30. He hadn’t been to a dentist in several years. I had treated his wife and she had been trying to get him to come see me for four or five years and he was scared to death. When I did see him, he had some severe problems. He couldn’t smile and was very introverted. We ended up having to lose several front teeth and he had to go through some gums treatment, orthodontics, and jaw surgery to move his jaw properly. He couldn’t afford to do all that, so we did that over a five-year period to allow him to be able to do that.

Part of my training is making a thorough exam and then evaluate what will need to be done over a lifetime. If you’ve got a plan, you can work that plan but you don’t have to do it all at once. You know where you’re going. You got the end point.

That’s what we did with him. We allowed him to do it over a five-year period and he completed everything. The next year, he made the front cover of a business magazine for what he had done. He bought that in and he said, “Dr. Myers, I wouldn’t have been on this cover or in the position I’m in with this company if it hadn’t been for you allowing me to smile, which I couldn’t do before.”

Patrick:  That’s a huge testimonial. But it also shows the painstaking works that you do and planning that you guys do that makes such a huge difference. That’s the thing that I really wanted to bring out. I know that with technology there are changes, speed, and process and some of the other things and that’s cool. But what you’re talking about is life-changing and that’s where it really comes down to.

I remember I was about to go to the oil field to pay for college one summer. I had two days before I went out there and I went into the dentist. He opened up and he goes “One, two, three, four, five.” He was counting extra holes in my head from like a long way’s off and I was like, “Oh God, it’s going to be bad,” because you’ve got eleven extra holes in your head we can do over the next three weeks, so you’ve got two days, because you’re not going to feel for days, nothing.” So off we went! It was an adventure.  

Dr. Terrel:  But now we have nitrous oxide and we have things that make it a lot more fun.

Patrick:  That’s an interesting thing. Are there risks involved in nitrous oxide, to be honest?

Dr. Terrel:  Very little risk. It’s one of the best things that have allowed my patients to have the comfort and relaxation. We use stereo headphones so that they can tune us out and just enjoy.

Patrick:  So you really put them in a bit of a state. They’re resting and then you’ll go to work and do your thing.

Dr. Terrel:  And they’re clear headed before we leave, so it’s very safe.

Patrick:  I think a lot of us remember the Three Stooges thing where somebody had a little bit too much happy gas. As we go into this next segment, we’re going to be talking more about the ideal client is for Dr. Terrel Myers. This is the Business Spotlight. You’re going to love this next segment. We’ll be right back.

~

Patrick:  Welcome back to the Business Spotlight. Today we’re talking with Dr. Terrel Myers. He works with Dallas Laser Dentistry in Mary Swift’s office. Having them back on the show is always a fantastic experience. Dr. Terrel Myers has been a dentist for a number of years and tends to work with the who’s who of Dallas. Thank you, Dr. Terrel.

Dr. Terrel:  Thank you for having me.

Patrick:  I really am excited about this segment because we’re looking at who your ideal client is. We’ve got what I call a social media expert way beyond expert and top 1% in LinkedIn. Lucinda Ruch is on the show today. Thank you so much, Lucinda for being on the show as well.

Lucinda:  Thanks for inviting me.

Patrick:  We’re going to talk about your ideal client, how you’ve tended to attract them, and then Lucinda I know has got some really good information on how to encourage the clients that you have to send more clones or people like them. 

Dr. Terrel:  My practice is health-based and somewhat nutritionally-based, so my patients are usually very health-oriented. Most of them watch their weight, they floss every day where they’re supposed to, and they want a healthy mouth. I think a lot of my patients are in the boomer category and most of them want to continue to look younger and stay healthy.

Patrick:  It’s important to them, isn’t it?

Dr. Terrel:  Important for their business. One of my patients and a good friend of mine came in. He owns an insurance company. He says, “I’m the oldest one there.” And he’s not really that old but he said, “I got to look as young as the guys that I’m working with.” He’s having a lot of work done.

I’m looking for patients – the ideal would be the ones that want to stay healthy because if they’re taking care of their body, they’ll take better care of their teeth and what I do lasts longer if they take care of it.

Patrick:  One of the things that are interesting is the correlation between dental health and actual physical health. There is a correlation, isn’t there?

Dr. Terrel:  Hip bones connected to the leg bone. It’s all connected. In fact, just a few years ago, the orthopedic surgeons found out that a lot of their failures were because of undiagnosed periodontal disease or gum disease. So we had to pre-medicate some of these patients or get their gum condition under control before they do hip replacements. Definitely there’s a link to cardiovascular disease also with gum disease. 

Patrick:  That’s awesome. Lucinda, are there some other things that he can do to attract more people like the ones that he’s got?

Lucinda:  You’re in a great situation. You’ve got all these accomplishments. You’ve always been a leader, ahead of the game. Did you know that you’re in the top 1% on LinkedIn in cosmetic dentistry?

Dr. Terrel:  No, I didn’t.

Lucinda:  I bet you didn’t. Yes, you are. The second thing is if you think about how LinkedIn operates, it’s an easy way to collect referrals because when they click on you or when they give you a recommendation, their picture with their smile that you just artistically put together for them is right there next to yours.

So if you think about you out on LinkedIn, think about looking down the list and you’ll see your patients there. The opportunity you have is to go invite your patients that you’ve already collected their testimonials over on your real website and in your office, invite them on LinkedIn and get them hooked up. That would be like a whole photo gallery of successes.

Patrick:  Even with the whole recommendation thing with being able to write additional updates, wouldn’t that be a useful tip as well?

Lucinda:  Oh yeah. You’d want to do that. When they’re leaving your office and they’re still smiling so pretty because you’ve just reconstructed them, I would just send them home with the instructions. “Here’s how you give me recommendations on LinkedIn.”

Then when they do that it’s out there on their profile so all of their networks sees it. It would be a great way for you to leverage your work into their network and their cohorts see it, because they’re all into image. Out of the 200 million out there on LinkedIn the demographics is that right age you were talking about – that baby boomer, got to get the cosmetics going now – and the demographics of the income. The average income over six digits, so that’s right down your alley of what you’re trying to attract. It’s ideal for you.

Patrick:  I know you also have some tips and techniques and things that you’re going to give him afterwards, right?

Lucinda:  Yes, and some special ones.

Patrick:  If people want to connect to you, I believe they’ve got it on the screen or they will your information. Will you share what you’ve given to Dr. Terrel Myers?

Lucinda:  Sure. I’ll share the top 10 for businesses, but I have a special set for you.

Patrick:  Very good. That’s one of the things that’s really important. In bringing a guest expert on, the show is about you. It’s about my guest. It’s about taking the time to really highlight and create some useful ways for my guest to tell their story. Bringing a guest on always adds value, always increases the response of the marketplace to everything that we’re doing here and everything my client is doing.

As we go to this last segment you’re going to love this part because it really is how to connect to Dr. Myers – you don’t want to miss that – and the things that he does that make the real difference in your life. We’ll be right back, this is Pat Dougher.

~

Patrick:  Welcome back to The Business Spotlight. I’m Patrick Dougher. My guest today is Dr. Terrel Myers and we’re talking about cosmetic dentistry. It’s really about reconstructing everything that makes your smile what it should be. Thank you, Dr. Myers.

Dr. Terrel:  You’re welcome. Thank you for having me.

Patrick:  I want to get into how people connect to you. But you have a real process and a system that people walk through in you creating the perfect smile for them. Wouldn’t that be correct?

Dr. Terrel:  Yes.

Patrick:  So what’s the process?

Dr. Terrel:  As we have them in for a complete examination, we take records and models. And then through their health history I find out – I usually say on a scale of 1-10, if 10 were ideal, where would you put your smile? Then I ask where would you like for it to be?

Patrick:  11-15 on a scale from 1-10.

Dr. Terrel:  From that we take their models and I will send it to a laboratory and they do what we call a diagnostic wax set. They’ll make their smile pretty on the model.

Patrick:  It’s actually something that you can hand them, they look at, they can see this is where you’re at and this is where you could be.

Dr. Terrel:  Exactly. On the model. If they liked that then we prepare the teeth and we will make temporary crowns from that model. That’s their trial. We can work out their aesthetics and their phonetics and their function. Phonetics is the way you speak and the shape of the front teeth, the angle, and how far back or how far out determines a lot of speech sounds. The Ss and Fs and Cs are all determined by where the front teeth are located. The upper teeth are supposed to follow the lower lip line.

Those are the things we look at. It gives them a chance to actually wear their crowns and then we can make any adjustments because it’s out of plastic. Once we work all of that out and it’s comfortable and it looks good to them, we take another set of models and we send that to the laboratory and they duplicate that into the permanent crown.

One of my mentors used to say, “In the old way, we would send a bunch of work to the lab and come back and it’s kind of like Christmas. You’d open it up and you didn’t know what you were getting.” Sometimes they liked it and sometimes they didn’t. This way we can actually work it out and they can make any changes. They know once we get to that point, that’s what the permanents are going to look like and they’re going to like it.

Patrick:  Have you seen anybody literally get that first set on and almost faint from the difference?

Dr. Terrel:  Yeah. I’ve had one patient that just really could not smile. We went through this process and even with the temporaries, it was just “Wow, that’s what I’ve always wanted.” The plastic and porcelain is different. The light reflects better. When we changed it to the permanent, she got tears in her eyes. Just wow.

Patrick:  She smiled more after that.

Dr. Terrel:  Could not wipe the smile off her face.

Patrick:  You could [25:03 inaudible] from the happy gas all you want. The smile is still going to be plastered on there.

Dr. Terrel:  It is good.

Patrick:  That is awesome. I bet you’ve done that several times, haven’t you?

Dr. Terrel:  Several times.

Patrick:  It’s the real difference and I hear it in everything you’re saying. One, you care. Two, you treat them like family. Three, you spend the time to create a plan and a system, and then you work with them to implement it.

Dr. Terrel:  Several years ago, we were talking with one of my patients and he said, “I’ve spent more money on my teeth than I ever thought I would ever spend on just about anything.” He said, “It wasn’t until we finished that I understood what you just went through. The time that you took, the care that you took, you’re actually underpaid for the hours you spent with me.” That’s often the case I get. People will say, “I didn’t understand the fee until afterwards of what you do.”

Patrick:  All I can say is, I understand. Most people don’t understand the value of video until after they get a thousand links back to it. I get that. Going forward, do you see any real significant changes coming in dentistry?

Dr. Terrel:  I think social media is one thing that is we’re seeing more and more. I’m inundated with e-mails and letters from different businesses trying to motivate us to buy into certain social media or get our business into Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

A lot of our continuing education now is how to handle social media. I think that’s going to be the major change in the future, along with all the new technology that we’re seeing now. The computers have just changed our world.

Patrick:  The old styles of marketing have really fallen away. I hate to use the Yellow Pages or some of these other media. Today one of the reasons why this show is aired in DFW in Houston and then it’s aired all over the Internet is I know that video is the future for marketing your business. It’s kind of the new Yellow Pages because Google loves video. They love YouTube. They love the video that we create.

This is Patrick Dougher. The Business Spotlight is about business owner telling their story in the marketplace and then us promoting that business everywhere from then on. See you next time on The Business Spotlight.