Minal Sampat is a Bestselling Author, Speaker, Marketing Strategist, Entrepreneur, Registered Dental Hygienist, and an enthusiastic shoe lover residing in Washington State. Minal launched her first company by breaking a Guinness World Record, and her marketing strategies have been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Dentistry IQ, DrBiscuspid, and more, plus, she is on the Spring 2020 cover of the Dental Entrepreneur Woman Magazine. Minal published her first book, Why Your Marketing Is Killing Your Business, in January 2020. The book is an Amazon #1 Bestseller in 5 countries including the United States. To learn more about Minal, please go to MinalSampat.com, and join her Facebook group, Real Talk With Minal Sampat.
Name: Minal Sampat
Company: Director of Marketing
URL: MinalSampat.com
Title: Best-Selling Author I Speaker | Marketing Strategist
Transcript of the Conversation
Jordan Smith:
Hey everybody!
Welcome to the iProv Made Podcast where we help your practice run like a more profitable organization. With me as always, I’ve got my talented, smart, almost as good looking as me, co-host, RJ Martino.
What’s up RJ?
RJ Martino:
Well, we’ve got a better looking version of both of us in our guest Minal Sampat. Minal is just a light in the room and inspiring, someone that you can rally behind and a great speaker. That’s how she came to us. She was a reference from an audience member who said hey, I’ve been listening to a speaker, highly recommend it. But in addition to being a great speaker, she also knows our audience intimately. She is a Registered Dental Hygienist herself. She was married to a physician and she knows some of the struggles we deal in a day and day out. She is the best-selling author of ‘Why your marketing is killing your business’ and has become a quick friend of ours. So, I am excited to introduce everybody to Minal Sampat.
Jordan Smith:
Yeah. And I’ll tell you as a fellow marketer, we could have talked to her all day. So, again, like RJ said, I can’t hit on this enough. She was recommended by a listener. So if you like this content which I know you will, send us a referral. All we need is a name and we’ll track down the rest of it. But, without further ado, Minal Sampat.
RJ Martino:
Welcome to the iProv Made Podcast. I am here with my good friend and co-host Jordan Smith. Jordan, how are you?
Jordan Smith:
I am good. How are you?
RJ Martino:
I am very excited. I became friends with one of the most well-respected speakers in the Dental industry. And Minal Sampat has agreed to let us interview and take us much brain knowledge out of her and impart it into our audience. She speaks a lot to dentists but to a lot of other people. So, I am super excited to introduce my friend and this phenomenal speaker, Minal Sampat.
Minal Sampat:
Thank you so much for having me. This is going to be fun. I am super excited.
RJ Martino:
Well, you stay excited. One of the things that you see is your on-stage presence, your energy and I just love that. But in addition to just seeing you on stage, I also have not read but I’m dying to get into your new book. I am saying your best-selling book, it’s already got phenomenal reviews in the industry on Why Your Marketing is Killing Your Business. Has that been a good adventure for you?
Minal Sampat:
You know what, it’s my first book and it came out in January. So when I was looking, I am a marketing strategist. So the first thing was as a marketing strategist coming out saying that your marketing is killing your business and what are you going to do about it. Right? So the title was Why Your Marketing is Killing Your Business and what to do about it. So I think it grabbed a lot of people’s attention and to my surprise, within 24 hours it became a number one Amazon best seller in five countries. So, it just took us all by surprise. It’s my first book. I mean to be honest with you RJ, I was hoping that 20 people will buy it including my mom, you know. So, I was like hey guys, I wrote a book. Can you buy the book and then my team is messaging me in the middle of a conference going best seller in India, in America, in Australia and blah blah blah. I am like what is going on in the world right now?
RJ Martino:
Well, in addition to the book, in addition to you being a strategist, you are also a Registered Dental Hygienist and married to a physician. It seems to me like God formed the perfect person that can help the dental practice or private practice owners and put you on this Earth. So we are lucky to have you. We’re excited to get into all that you have to talk to our people about. We like to start and just kind of tell you our framework in which we look at building a profitable healthcare practice. Cuz that’s what we all are trying to do. And you know for us a lot of times, we talk about these baby steps. And you know, baby step one really is just looking at all the symptoms and usually we all talk about the symptoms, the problems with the business, about our people, about our marketing, whatever the symptoms are. Usually it starts there. But you gotta dig deeper because usually those symptoms are part of a deeper problem.
Step two for us is making sure that the person or the audience member is the type of person that takes accountability for the problem. They don’t just wanna throw money at it. They actually want to fix the core problem. The symptoms they’ve identified is the core problem and are they the type of person that takes accountability for the problem.
Step three for us is triaging. So, usually we can say, hey! Either your problem is you gotta corporate culture problem. That is, you haven’t built a vision for what the future looks like, either for yourself or for your people. And a lot of us as business owners we don’t do that. So we are big on building a corporate culture and a vision for the future.
Step five for us is building the strategy in the scorecard. How are we gonna accomplish the future vision? So we build the strategy in the scorecard. Step six is tracking that progress. How do you make sure that you’re tracking, you are on the right track, you are meeting weekly, monthly, quarterly goals? And then step seven is engaging the team. So that’s our seven step framework on how we go about fixing, growing a healthcare practice. What is your thought on, you know, overview, kind of elevator pitch on what you talk to your partners about?
Minal Sampat:
Oh, it’s pretty simple. I have all the practices that I worked with which is healthcare, in Dentistry, and Medical. I reduce your marketing budget by 20% and I increase your production.
RJ Martino:
So, it worked. Look, now my eyes get big. I heard, I am reducing my cost by 20% and I am increasing the production, all day every day. The very next question for me is: how? I even side eyed that you know, HOW?
Minal Sampat:
You know a part of this because you are in the field. So you understand this more than anybody because our world is changing very quickly. So that means that, you know, right now we’ve been through COVID, right, and we became into this virtual revolution where webinars are the new thing to do. And everyone is on Tik Tok now, who’s not on Tik Tok? Everyone’s on Tik Tok, everyone but you know I am talking to my clients and my practices who are still trying to leverage Facebook, forget Instagram, and LinkedIn and any of those. And, they are like what are you talking about Tik Tok. What do you mean I have to do Tik Tok now? What is going on here?
Because of the world that we live in and the technology that we have available, things have changed. Things are happening very rapidly. And it becomes harder and harder especially for healthcare professionals to say what is the right strategy for me. What are the right platforms for me? What is that I need to do at my end as a business owner, right? Because you have to understand that I am also a hygienist. So, I see patients. You know my husband is a physician and he is a practicing physician. His priority are his patients and, you know, for them to sit down and say now I have to worry about this business and this new Tik Tok thing where I have to make a video about some funny dance or I have to talk about Tiger King. What’s going on in the world?
So, you know, when I look at practices, when I look at their approach, the first thing I start with is saying forget all that, forget all that noise. Let’s not even get into Facebook. Let’s not even get into Google ads. I don’t want us to go anywhere. Our first step is going to be very simple. Who is your audience? And when I usually say who is your audience, I get a feeling that though I am a physician, I’m a dentist, I’m a GP, general practitioner dentist. So, I want to attract everybody from age 0 to age 70.
Well, that’s five different generations you wanna attract. I mean the way boomers attract and react to marketing is very different than millennials or Gen Z. Even the Gen Zs and the millennials react differently to marketing. The Gen-Xers who are the one with family and the homes right now, that should be the ideal target market. Usually we leave them behind. We are so focused on the boomers and the millennials but the Xers are the ones who have young families, are getting married, who have careers, getting out of debt, right.
Instead of that, I kind of start my strategy and say that we are going to actually build a new patient avatar. And when I say build it, I wanna know their hobbies, I wanna know where they are going out for happy hours, I wanna know how many kids they have, what cars they drive, where do they vacation, what is their name. I want you to name your avatar because as soon you name them, they become real. And now your marketing is not if I should be on Tik Tok, if I should be you YouTube, or if I should be on Google adverts.
If I want to attract Jessica who’s a 40-year-old mom, with two kids, a working mom who drives a minivan, who is making an income of about Two hundred thousand dollars, it’s a family income, to Four hundred thousand dollars and she needs a 5 pm appointment. Guess what, your marketing just started to happen for you.
Jordan Smith:
And now you are getting on thinking strategically instead of tactically.
RJ Martino:
Yeah.
Minal Sampat:
Exactly. And, you know, the overwhelming feeling is the first part that I get rid of. And that’s why I say my elevator pitch is I reduce your marketing budget by 20%. So, you know, the numbers we have like, one of my one location clients, cuz I work with the one and multi-locations clients, my one location client, just recently, we finished working with her and we were able to reduce her budget by $30,000 in marketing and increase her production by $200,000 within 9 months.
Jordan Smith:
Wow!
RJ Martino:
Wow!
Minal Sampat:
Another one doubled their new patient numbers within 6 months. So, things like that happen by not thinking I need to do everything that’s in marketing, but by doing the right thing for the right audience. If you attract Jessica, she will choose you because you are giving her everything that she needs. But, if you are trying to attract Jessica, and Sam, and Billy and Johnson and Margret and everybody else, they are not going to pick you because that’s just simply too many people.
RJ Martino:
So, what’s you are finding, I’m guessing because I get attracted to the elevator pitch cuz I hear reduction in cost and increase in production. What you described with the avatar feels like new spend but we are not spending money on right now. Are you seeing that the people are usually spending more than they need to?
Minal Sampat:
Absolutely. 100%!
RJ Martino:
So, they are spending their money on wrong things because they are trying to be everything to everyone.
Minal Sampat:
Yes, and no. So, they are trying to be everything to everyone but it’s not even being everything to everyone, it’s the shiny object effect. It’s the shiny object effect saying that you know what, just because Tik Tok is now popular and I must be on Tik Tok and start spending money on Tik Tok. You won’t believe how many people reached out to me in the last three years who want to get on Snapchat. And then I look at them and then I say Snapchat are teenagers. Are you trying to, are teenagers paying your bills? Like are they the decision makers.
Snapchat should be a tertiary strategy for you. That should be a strategy for you if you are orthodontic practice, if you are pediatric practice and you wanna get in front of young patients just so that you are keeping engagement with them. But, do you think a 14-year-old cares about their dentist and what they are doing on Snapchat. I mean you have to be super cool and really into Snapchat to really attract that 14-year-old’s attention.
Jordan Smith:
Or may from a retail as far as the cosmetic type of stuff. Cuz yeah, I mean; I agree with you. For all the listeners out there, I mean I think that’s a great point. Do just start slashing your budget, do it strategically. Figure out who you are going after and simplify the message. In our business with iProv, I can tell you how many clients, you know, we have to come in on day 1 and talk them out of big TV spend, just because they see their golf buddy advertising on the morning news. We say that might work for him but what you told us you wanna achieve that’s not a good use of your dollar, Doc. I’m sorry.
RJ Martino:
Well, you know, I wanna emphasize something Minal was talking about too is that I wanna be sympathetic and tell the audience that shiny object syndrome, that is common for all business owners. Dentistry, whether you are a private practice physician, if you are built as an entrepreneur as a business leader that has worked for you for a long time. And so, we are not saying that’s a terrible terrible thing. We want you to feel like it’s okay but also know the downside of doing that.
I think a lot of times we have this negative self-talk in our head that think I am just not cut out for this. You know a good business owner is so structured, knows exactly the target they are going after. We all are kind of guessing our way through this, and when you don’t know the exact path forward that’s when you go out and get a coach, someone like Minal who helps you to pass through that. It’s funny that as business owners we shy away from this idea of getting coaches in, even though that’s the business we are in, you know, nobody I don’t know teeth the way a dentist does. So what I do is, I hire someone that can help me through those problems. So, on the coaching side tell us what a before look like, before they start working with you, what are the people and what did they look like after. You gave a great example already on reducing the cost but physiologically do they know they even had a problem or usually you talk them into the problem?
Minal Sampat:
I never tell people they have a problem because clearly they have made it so far. So whatever they have done has got them to this point. You know, and with my avatars, while I do work with a lot of startups because we get to put up strategies in place right away. I also work with practices who have been practicing for many-many years. I don’t think anyone out of us is in a negative mind space because of the fact that you wanna do something.
I’m gonna give you a quote, when I was in college and I was deciding between going into dental school or going into marketing, I went and spoke to my career counselor and she told me something at that point and she said, you know, “I don’t know if you believe in fate but if you think you want to do something, you are already born with the power to do so.”
And I take that to heart and every time somebody comes to me and reaches out and says hey Minal, I am doing this. Can you help? When you say and you identify that you want help with something that means you can do it. It’s a simple fact. Otherwise you wouldn’t reach out to me. Otherwise you would not even think about the fact that you need help. So you have already justified yourself that there is something that you want to improve or not even improve, increase. I have some practices that will say we are doing fantastic, we are seeing a hundred patients a month, I want to take it to two hundred. Can you help us to level up and we talk about leveling up. So wherever you are in your journey right now as a practice owner, you are right. You are in the perfect place that you need to be and there are resources available for you.
So the before and after looks something like this. The before is the shiny object syndrome that we are doing too many. It’s also not knowing where the money is being spent. It’s also not knowing how we are leveraging that money and if we are actually seeing return on investment. And the most basic factor before is the overwhelming feeling of “holy crap! There is so much to do. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do, where do I start?” Okay!
Now, there are some things that I require of all my clients before I start working with them. My clients are required to have somebody inside their practice who’s going to be their marketing ambassador. I do not work with practices that cannot identify somebody who can become their marketing ambassador or cannot hire somebody who can become their marketing ambassador. Because in my world ideas are worth nothing if they are not implemented. I want to fly doesn’t mean I can just fly. I want to go ahead and become the most viral thing on Instagram, though that’s a great idea but it’s not implemented so it’s not gonna happen.
So you need somebody who’s going to implement it because as a strategist I don’t sell any product, I don’t sell you websites, I don’t sell you adverts, I don’t sell you anything. I am coming in completely unbiased and saying what is going to work for your avatar. How are we going to reach there and who is the doer inside your practice because my goal was after I finish my strategy and my training sessions with this doer and the practice owner, they are going to run with that. That’s my goal. My goal is to create marketing gurus inside dental practices.
Now, when I am able to do that the after looks like a happier practice owner because they don’t have to worry about what’s the most, you know, trending hashtag on Instagram right now. Or should I be spending google adverts? Who’s going to build my website? I need to put out this press release. I have to send an email to my patients. You don’t have to worry about any of that. Because it’s somebody’s job to do it and now they are trained to know how to do it. So it’s a peace of mind. So you go from this overwhelming feeling of what do I do, how do I do it, how do I see the results to being I am at peace, things are happening I don’t have to worry about it and guess what I am back to being who I am which is a healthcare provider to my patients. I am just worried about Mrs. Smith’s case. I don’t have to worry about anything else in marketing.
RJ Martino:
I love it. Well, you kind of hit on kind of one of our baby steps. It’s just, are these the kind of people that will take the ownership of the problem? Will you and the mirror factor that they are willing to name an ambassador, let go the reins of the horses and say hey, ambassador you’re empowered to do this. That says we got the right type of person in the place. So triaging where the problem is. Do you, are there certain things that make one client successful and the other one not. You can lead a horse to water and you can’t make him drink. So if our audience is thinking this sounds great. What differentiates the guys who succeed using your strategies versus the ones that don’t.
Minal Sampat:
There is a threefold answer to that. So the three things that I have seen are pretty much in common with all the successful practices and the practices owners is they are not micro-managers. That’s number one. Okay, you can’t have a marketing ambassador inside your practice, you can’t have creative people and then put barriers around them because that’s going to hinder creativity and hinder growth. You can’t do that. You can’t micromanage. If you are going to go ahead with something, you are going to go ahead with something.
The second one is the ability to almost be a chameleon. And what I mean by that is you have to own up and understand that you are a leader. So, before perhaps you were overwhelming where you were not communicating with your team. You were not able to communicate your goals, and your wants, and your expectations. That has to change. You have to become a leader. So you have to not be a micromanager. You have to be a leader where you are communicating effectively and clearly to your team members and what you expect from them. So this way it’s not well she said this he said this, well you never told me that and what about that email and you said this. No, I expect the new number of patients to double by this time. Here is somebody who’s going to help us. Here are the strategies, this is what we are going to do, this is what I expect from you and you, right? You create that delegation system.
The third one and again once more perhaps the most important one is the ability to implement. Don’t be scared. Because what happens is that if you’ve gone through the first two processes of making sure you are not micro-managing, so there is creativity happening at your end and you are delegating and you are communicating your actual wants and the results that you expect, then you have to be able to implement. We can talk about how many times you guys have talked about a website with a client which was supposed to be a 8-week project that turned into a 6-months project. It doesn’t happen. You know there is a, I think Mark Cuban, actually said micro-management is the death of creativity. I actually said that the death, you know, being not able to implement, going to just be exactly on the same spot where before. So if you are going to say that I want a new website and you are working on a new website and the deadline is 8 weeks, I’ll give you 10 weeks. By 10 weeks that website is going live. We are going live. So you have 10 weeks to make sure something, two additional weeks to make sure this project is done. You cannot, you know, try to be perfect in everything in your marketing. It simply is not going to work.
Jordan Smith:
Perfection is the enemy of progress.
Minal Sampat:
Absolutely. It absolutely is. So that’s the kind of, you know, the three things that I’ve seen in my practices.
RJ Martino:
That’s great. I feel like you could unpack that a lot but not micro-managing, being a good leader, a great leader, communicate, ability to implement. There is so much there that we agree wholeheartedly with. Is that what, if they just said I wanna do that, is that what we will find in the book more of how to do those things? Cuz the idea of being a good leader is okay, I can do that. But what does that mean or the ability not to micromanage, you think, yeah! I wouldn’t micro-manage if my people just did it correctly. Well, I don’t wanna micro-manage.
Jordan Smith:
And sometimes, they think being a good leader just coming down and setting down the matrix but you know we are saying that you gotta, tell me what your vision is like, sell me your vision. What does this thing look like not just a quarter from now if we hit our goals but three years from now? How does that impact everybody in the whole organization, right?
RJ Martino:
So, I mean you are, I think, I am very interested in what’s in that book and I think as an audience member if you are trying to figure out what makes someone successful using one of those programs, you will find more of that in the book. In addition to like some of the things you talked about, how do you integrate into someone’s practice? You said that you got that person but like on a regular recurring basis you got the ambassador that you are working with. Are you going back and reporting to physicians or to dentists and is that important to you as it is important to them, plus how that goes on going for you?
Jordan Smith:
Yeah. First thing I got to say that yeah, I am about that book. I want you to work for me kind of, what does that look like?
Minal Sampat:
Absolutely. Well, thank you. Yes, the first question, this is in the book, chapter 5 it says teamwork not micro-management is all about, all of this stuff. And secondly, yes, you know I like to bring onboard as many people as available if they are open to that. So it’s an open invitation to my clients to be on all of my strategy calls. All of my strategy calls are recorded. They are all video calls. They are also all shared screen calls and they are all sent to them. So, there is nothing that’s missed. None of its cookie cutters.
So I actually, you know we go through the same process of, they are going to fill out a questionnaire so I know what their goals are, we are gonna have a very open conversation about my expectations from them and their expectations from me. So that our goals are always aligned. And then I actually create a team accountability system. So this is something where the practice owners and the team members are able to see everything that’s being worked on during any time of the day. So it’s all done online and there is an accountability system. So the practice owners are involved in it throughout, even if they are not on the strategy calls with me, they simply just log on and they exactly see what’s going on. They can see the campaigns which I am working on. We also create a benchmark, obviously we wanna see the result, something like you said which immediately caught my eye RJ was, how are we tracking this? What’s actually working and what’s not? So right, we create different benchmarks on what happens. And at the end of the day, the practice owners become my friends. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I don’t think I have one client that hasn’t turned into a friend and has not been in contact with me.
RJ Martino:
That’s great.
Minal Sampat:
And you know, I think the reason for that is because it’s a very open communication system. If something is not working at their end, they will tell me and if it’s not working at my end, I tell them and it’s a very open relationship. So you can go online and look at everything we are doing. You have the ability to see all the work. There is no such thing as a blanket or you know this is what we are working. There is no he said she said because everything is recorded, everything is on the platform. They can track everything; they can see everything.
And you know the strategy calls, I work, I don’t believe in contracts, maybe it’s my millennial way of living life. I don’t do that. I don’t believe in those things so I come up with how much time you are going to need from me in strategy calls and that’s what we work on and my strategy calls are 2 hours long. So we discuss whatever plan I come up with, we work on the strategy calls, and like I said my goal is after my strategy calls are finished, you can run with it. Now my clients have the option of keeping a routine basis on a very low fee where I chat with them on a monthly basis and 95% of them do that because once again we are friends now. And we are collaborators and it’s like, hey Minal, I am doing this campaign. What do you think about it? What cool ideas but guess what I don’t have to train you on how to implement a campaign. I don’t have to train you on, you know, how do you research the best hashtags. How do you leverage social media?
I mean I have formulas, I’ve formulas for finding your super-powers, I’ve formulas, I have five ways to connect. I have all these formulas that they already know. So they just have to plug the campaign into the formula and then they succeed with it.
RJ Martino:
Well, love that. Love the concept. I think a lot of audience members are thinking yes, this is great. I love if we can just put you in here. But I have already got somebody else who’s running the marketing, you know, at applying some of that stuff you are talking about. Can you talk about somethings that you watch that are key performance indicators that they might not be looking at? And I know that I am putting you on the spot here but you know, I am trying to think through as an audience member, I love this but I’ve already got a guy. What could I do now? Talk about, let’s talk about just start on the key performance indicators or maybe we can even talk more directly about their other applicable strategies or tactics that could do right now on a KPI them saying I don’t do it. I got a guy. How do I hold him accountable or what KPI should I be watching?
Minal Sampat:
Well first of all, I love working with the marketing people. That’s why I love the marketing field. I’m one of those marketers that like working with other marketing people. So when somebody comes in and says I have a marketing company, I’m like YES, somebody who speaks my language. I love this. We can do this together. I don’t believe in competing. I don’t believe in having a unique factor kind of thing. I think the teamwork is the best way to get results for clients. So that’s the first thing.
Now, the second thing is if they are already doing marketing with a digital company like yourself or if they have somebody doing internal marketing, that means they have some knowledge. That means they are doing something right. That’s why they are there for you. So, I would never put them under the bus and say well, you know, it’s like the website thing you get, how many clients call me, well, this person says that my website sucks right now because it’s not loading in the exact amount of time or I got this SEO person saying I suck at SEO, right?
RJ Martino:
You’re in their shoes right now.
Minal Sampat:
All of that exists. That’s all scare tactics. So I don’t believe in scare tactics. Now if you are working with a digital agency, I am going talk to you in a very real language here. The bottom line always comes down to are you seeing results. That’s it. There is nothing else. There is no other KPI that matters except are you seeing results. You are working with a digital company and you have again had a very clear expectation with the marketing company that you are working with and said I want to be on this to that and hopefully that marketing company was not a company that said I will get you on Google on day 1. If they say that to you, don’t work with them.
But, if you are working with an incredible, hardworking marketing company or marketing person and you had these honest conversations and your goals are I need to be on, I wanna start making sure that I show up, you know, Google maps, in the Google stats. Here what it is and they are communicating with you throughout, are you seeing results. So if your expectations was I need to see results in one year, where are you in that one year? And what is the conversation you are going to have with this marketing agency or person to say where you are in relation to those results. That’s the bottom line. There is no other KPI. I know people come up with all these very, almost confusing and very things that sound great into KPIs, you need to have these 5 KPIs and 10 KPIs, are those great? Of course, all of those are great. I am a daughter of a person who owns, I’m gonna give you a little story, can I have time for a little story?
RJ Martino:
Yeah, love it. Great.
Minal Sampat:
Okay! So, you know, I was born in India. I grew up in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. And St. Thomas is, have you guys been to St. Thomas?
RJ Martino:
Oh! It’s beautiful. That is like, I mean, beautiful. That is, you leave heaven. I don’t know what allowed you to leave. That is crazy.
Minal Sampat:
We’ll get into that another day. But, I grew up in St. Thomas, my family still lives there. So, my parents live there, my siblings live there. I go there all the time. All that fun stuff, right.
Now if you’ve been to St. Thomas, especially the listeners and viewers, you remember that we have the beaches but we also have something else. We have jewelry. That’s our biggest economy, right, St. Thomas. Now, my parents own a jewelry store on one street called the Main Street. Main Street has over a hundred jewelry stores. The entire street is filled with jewelry stores and my parents have a competition to their left, to their right, in front of them, and to their back. So all the listeners out right now, take a minute, close your eyes and imagine that you are on the one street and you are sharing your walls with your competition.
RJ Martino:
That’s a nightmare. It feels like. I mean I’m scared to death.
Minal Sampat:
So how does a patient choose you? How does a customer come into my parent’s store? Now my parents told and my dad first told us that he is going to open a jewelry store and we thought he had lost his mind. I mean, we were convinced that he had lost his mind because who would do this to themselves. Fast-forward to today, we don’t have one, not two but three jewelry stores and an online e-commerce business. You can find them on Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, you know you can purchase, it’s become a big thing. So, how did they survive? Right. And there surviving was not just saying what are my KPIs. There surviving was, did I make money today. Did I actually grow? Did I see results? Right.
So, your KPIs should be if I am working with this person on these things and these are my goals and this is the realistic, important, real listed timeline to see this result, where are we with that. And that’s it. And if you are not there, then have a conversation and say what happened. I mean, clearly if COVID happened, the results are going to be different.
RJ Martino:
So that’s a, I mean you are, every audience member that I speak to you are speaking their language too which it’s not working. So, when we look at the next thing which is we talked about engaging the team. Once you’ve worked out where you wanna go, what’s a realistic timeline, they then look, and I think they are so much negative speak of “oh my people don’t want to do new stuff. You know, I don’t wanna to have to make them do new things but it’s not working. I just know internally.” So, how do I go about talking and engaging my team in getting buy-in from them. For, I think it’s very normal for them to have that negative self-talking, my people don’t want this. Do you see that, you know, what have your clients in the past done to get buy-in from their team?
Minal Sampat:
So I’m gonna speak their language again. As a healthcare provider, when I have an hour to see my patients and in that hour to see my patients, I’m supposed to actually provide the care, talk about preventions, make sure that they have their next appointment scheduled, make sure that their X-rays are taken, make sure this is done, that is done, this is done, and now on top of that you want me to come here and talk about reviews and gathering reviews? What? Hold up. I already am seeing two patients; we are running late. So now I am seeing those two patients who are running late, now you still want me to do that?
That’s always going to happen. Because you see you have people who are natural leaders and who are going to want to do something more and then you have people who are doers, who want to do their job and they are focused so much on their job like I have hygiene friends who have zero interest in marketing. Zero interest. They are like, give me my patient. I wanna talk about plaque and build up. Like I wanna talk about perio. That’s what I wanna talk about.
So, it’s very important that if you have team members and I actually have a whole talk, I do a 6-hour workshop and presentation on this called Squad Goals and in my Squad Goals presentation the first thing that I start with is very simple. What is your team like? So individual team members, what are they good at? Your individual team members, what are their passions and what are they good at?
Let’s say you have Janet. Janet is a hygienist, right. She loves hygiene. She loves talking about perio. Well make her your perio prevention ambassador. If you have Sarah and Sarah has this obsession with social media. Every time you turn around, she is on her phone doing Tik Tok video. Make Sarah your social media content developer. If you focus on what they naturally like and what they actually love to do, then you don’t have to worry about this ‘oh I hate doing this’. Cuz if somebody told me, “Hey Minal, don’t buy shoes. Let’s not look at shoes.” We can’t be friends. There is no way you and I are going to be friends because I love shoes and that’s what I do, like that’s my incentive for myself. But, you have to find common grounds with your team members.
Now you may have some team members who hate everything and I’ve heard that, they are just not onboard with this, they can’t do this. Well, I am not a psychiatrist so I can’t help you change their personality. At the point, if you are thinking about marketing and you are expecting your team members who absolutely hate marketing to do marketing then hire a marketing ambassador. Don’t give people things to do that they are not going to want to do anyways because they are going to suck at doing it. They are going to suck at doing that and on top of that it’s not going to bring you results. Because when you do a crappy job on something it shows up as a crappy job on something. Right? Think about making a Pizza and you forgot to add the sauce because you hate making pizzas. Like it’s not gonna turn out right. So just simple stuff like that.
RJ Martino:
Oh yeah. Well, I agree and they are not going to get better at it because they don’t enjoy it.
Minal Sampat:
Then why are you giving things to people that they hate doing? So find out what they are good at. Number one, find out what they are good at. So if Janet loves making baskets and her hobby is like scrapbooking and stuff, great. Give her all the books to make it for your coffee table inside your practice where you are showing off your culture. Number one, find out what they are passionate about and give them that task. Number two, give them the time to do it because when I am seeing my hygiene patients and you wanna add three more things to my plate, you are pissing me off at this point.
Now, as a hygienist, I am not going to compromise care for my patients. If I need 50 minutes with my patients and those 50 minutes are going to my patients. So whatever this thing you want me to do it’s not going to get done because it’s in the back burner. So, instead provide them the time. So if you are expecting somebody to do more than what they are expected to do already, give them the time to do it. And again it’s a very realistic approach to looking at it and saying how would I react. You are a dentist and if you were to fill cavities on two patients at one time, you can’t do it. If you are a physician, it’s the same issue. So put yourself in those shoes and find out what people are interested in. So I actually run team meetings and team workshops around Squad Goals where we see a huge amount of positivity come out of it because the team members appreciate it. They also understand that they now have the time to do the additional work, also the time to make more money doing additional work and the owners are happy, the practice owners are happy because, “hey, my team is onboard and Minal likes social media and she is so good at it. And she is actually doing a good job.” So, finding the balance.
RJ Martino:
Yes. I love that. And you know, I think that the audience from the ones that I’ve spoken to is, you know, as business owners and the audience is made up of business and we all think we know we all are little bit different that we are hungry. We are willing to risk it because we want the reward and we have this negative devil on our shoulders that says our people don’t want more work. They wanna do less. They don’t care about business growing. They just wanna be in and get out and so we think this isn’t going to succeed cuz my people don’t want it. Inevitably, when you do talk to the employees with the Squad Goal process that you go through. What you’ll learn is that your people want the same vision. If you sell them the vision of a growing organization, they want that. They wanna a happy boss. And a happy boss means a growing company. They wanna help get you there. But they usually aren’t really given instructions on how to be successful. So I love that you bring those people together because you’re right, the relationships get better cuz you are like, no, we all do have the same goal. We all want the same continued growth and be successful. But we gotta get in alignment on what it looks like to get there. So great feedback.
Jordan Smith:
And we’ve all been part of organizations unfortunately where you come in and it seems like the directions shift day to day, week to week, month to month and those are just chaotic places to work. So I love getting everybody on the same page and saying, you know, whether it comes from top down or the bottom up, let’s figure out what this thing looks like, what success looks like for everybody.
Minal Sampat:
You know in the opposite part of this is when you don’t even allow the team members to have a seat at the table. You may have people who are incredible at what they are doing and you will have no idea because you didn’t allow them a seat at the table. If you don’t provide that opportunity to your own people, how are you going to know that what they are good at and how they can help you?
And there are many times where I have seen, you know, this is another approach, so many times I have seen there are people who like to have a system. I love systems. Systems are great. Systems are in place. So think of a chipotle line. You go to chipotle, you pick out what kind of burrito bowl or burrito you want and you walk through the steps and there is a system to it. I like that system. That’s a great system but that system works for chipotle. That system does not work for healthcare practices.
Here’s why.
There are some people who are so good at what they are doing that they can finish that in two hours. Then there are others who will take five hours to do it. So if you create this protocol in the system and you are thinking that everybody is the same, then clearly we are not the same. You are actually hurting yourself. Instead, if you give a task, and again, you know, my book goes deep into this, chapter 5, I think chapter 5 is the entire conversation, Chapter – 5 is so in-depth into it so how do you actually train your team members to do this, how do you actually, what are the steps that you take, and I provide the exact steps on doing that. But, you know, end of the day, the one thing I’ll tell you is that find common ground. So I am again one of those marketing people who does not believe in the unique selling factor cuz everything here is about what makes you different. What makes you different. I don’t believe in what makes you different. I don’t think that’s a way, that’s a good approach especially if you are trying to attract patients. Patients don’t want to go to a different healthcare provider. They don’t want to do that. What they want is they want to find a common ground with you. So if you are someone, here’s an example I’m gonna give you a contact example now just so that I get the point across right.
I am a hygienist. Now typically on a website if you were to go to the meet the team page, you are going to find, ‘Hey, meet Minal Sampat. She is our hygienist. I am a pediatric hygienist. She has been seeing the patients for xyz. She went to school here. She grew up here. She likes long walks on the beach.’ Right? That’s my profile on the regular website.
Now what if my profile says this instead, ‘Hi, Meet Minal Sampat.’ I am being me on video or I wrote it down. ‘Hi my name is Minal. My name is Minal Sampat. I was born in India. You know one of my favorite things to do is to laugh. I love to laugh. I love to smile big. I am a happy person, I’ve always been. But when I look at my photos of growing up in India as a child, I am not laughing big. My smiles are not there. You see I was very ashamed of the black spots on my teeth. The reason I am a Pediatric Dental Hygienist is because I don’t want any child to ever feel like they can’t laugh loud. I don’t want them to ever feel that they can’t show off their teeth. And that is why I am a Pediatric Dental Hygienist. I look forward to seeing your family.’
Which content do you think worked better?
RJ Martino:
Oh! I was just sucked into the video. I mean what a great way to really get to know somebody and feel like a personal connection which is what we want.
Minal Sampat:
Do you think that mom is going to care if I went to Webster or Howard?
RJ Martino:
I didn’t even hear that. I didn’t even think about it, you know. There was no question in my mind that this is who I want seeing my child.
Jordan Smith:
Yeah.
Minal Sampat:
Well, that’s what I mean when you try to find common ground. If you already have content, your content should not be your accolades and, you know, we can talk about all of it, each individual accolade that all of us have, right. It’s really not about the accolades but it’s about how you connect with people. And if you wanna connect with people, you have to find a common ground with them. What is it that keeps them up at night? What is it that they are worried about?
You know how my family succeeds in St. Thomas. They don’t do any marketing. And first of all my parent’s jewelry business, it’s called Golden Star. It sounds like a Chinese restaurant. Right?
Golden Star!
But if you were to ever go online and Google Golden Star Virgin Island or Golden Star USVI St. Thomas, right, you are going to see reviews on Trip Advisor and Google. Majority of the reviews say “oh man, every time I go to the Golden Star, I feel like family. You know what I wanted to buy something more expensive and Sam told me don’t buy that right now. I think this is the better option for you because it’s a cheaper option. Who does that? You know every time I go to St. Thomas, Veena brings me a home cooked meal because she knows I hate eating it the cool food. Those are the reviews. That is the success of my family. What is the common ground? If you are able to find common ground with your consumer, your patient, your customers, your clients, you are always going to be successful because they relate with you.
So forget about how we are so different. Nobody wants to be different or connect with you to be different. They want to know if I can talk to you like this. Can I connect with you? Are you the hygienist who’s right for my kid? Yes, you are. I’m gonna do that?
Jordan Smith:
I love that. And that’s you know, everybody heard it or said it in different ways which it’s why you do what you do and specifically what. And that’s what you are talking about there which I love. So, well, speaking that, I wanna get into our final round of questions. This is where we give the listeners a little bit of insight on you, and your success and how you got to the point where you are. So we now have been providing a lot of big content with them but I think if I am listeners out their too, I am also curious a little bit more about you. So yeah, just kind of, and this is the hard question but what have been kind of if you think about it like a dish. What are kind of the big ingredients that you picked out throughout your career that have helped you to get to this point? What’s kind of the recipe for success, if you could narrow that down?
Minal Sampat:
Common ground, super power, authenticity.
Jordan Smith:
I like that.
RJ Martino:
What is, can you expand, super power is one that caught me like, common ground you just talked about. Let’s find common ground. Now we built a relationship personally, emotionally, kind of first. Then, we said super power that’s the first time that stuck out.
Minal Sampat:
To me superpower is actually knowing what you are good at and knowing what you are not good at. You know, I always say it’s empowering to know what you are good at but at the same time, it’s enlightening to know what you are not good at. And my superpower is not what I am good at. My super power is knowing the difference between what I am good at and what I am not good at. That has been a key to my success. My team members are better at what they do than I am. Because every single person on my team is hired for a specific job and a specific project that they have to do which I suck at. I am horrible at that. I will have clients call me, Minal, I want to do this and I am like hold up! I am going to connect you with Ronda. She is on my team and she is so much better at it then I am.
So I understand what I am good at, I know I am good at, and that’s my superpower, knowing the difference and that has really been a big part of my success. Because I know when to delegate and to delegate it to people who are better than me at it.
RJ Martino:
And then the third one, we had common ground, super power, what was the third one?
Minal Sampat:
Authenticity.
RJ Martino:
Yeah, that’s hard to do, especially if sometimes you are trying to sell something. Any tips for physicians who are trying to be the best business owners that they can be but at their heart, they are dentists. You know, I didn’t sign up to be a leader or a marketing expert or financial expert. Can you talk a little bit about some of the struggles on being authentic?
Minal Sampat:
Being authentic is very hard, especially, when we live in the world of scripts. And you should be treating and planning this way and you should be treating and planning that way. And you need to have a protocol to call your patients after one week. And if they don’t answer, this is what you should leave for them and this what you do it, right. We live in that world.
What I have realized is that people are smart. When somebody is trying to sell something to me, I know they are trying to sell it. When somebody is trying to think that they are going to take an advantage of me, there are times that I have been taken advantage of, absolutely. Many times, I have been taken advantage of. But guess what happens after I’ve been taken advantage of, I don’t care for you anymore. I don’t trust you anymore. See authenticity is important because if you actually talk how it is, like today it’s been a real conversation. I mean my show on Facebook is called Real Talk with Minal Sampat.
RJ Martino:
Which is, isn’t it on a timely basis too, to do that?
Minal Sampat:
So, yeah it’s on my Facebook page, Minal Sampat, you can friend me, you can follow. I have also have a Facebook profile Real Talk with Minal Sampat. It’s also on YouTube. It’s easy to find. But you know, talking about authenticity is I say like it is.
I will have clients call me and I have had that and they will say, Minal I have amount of new patients. I need your help in marketing. I will tell them you don’t need my help in marketing. You actually need a consultant coming in because your expenses are too high. In your overhead, before we get into marketing, you have to worry about that. And they will be shocked and say I can’t believe that you didn’t take my money, right. But guess what happens when they are ready to spend their money, they call me up because they already trust me.
So authenticity to me is trust, it’s building a trust and I’d rather be poor in one month where I know that I just lost that big client but know that, that client is always going to say good things about me. And when they are ready to sign-up with me, they are going to sign-up with me. There is a reason all my clients are my friends. It’s not because I was trying to sell them, it’s because I am part of their journey. I am a part of their tribe. And you know if you are to ask anybody in our network, what you have to say about Minal. The first thing they are going to say, she is just real. She just tells you as it is. She is just authentic about it. And that’s my brand. That’s who I am.
So to the practice owners who are trying to sell, remember that selling is important cuz you are in the business. I totally get that. I understand that but it’s also important to have trust. Because if you can build trust before you sell, just how I can talk about me growing up in India and having bad teeth and not smiling loud, when I build that trust, that mom is going to come to me. That did not involve a Google ad, a beautiful website and all these reviews, that just involved me being authentic. Focus on that.
Jordan Smith:
Yeah I love it.
RJ Martino:
Great!
I’ve got one last question here. And I want you to close your eyes and imagine you are in front of a new group of dentists and physicians. People just like you when you were starting. So they are brand new. They are battling their way through their fears, worries, doubts, and struggles. Trying to find the footing on the new business. What is the strategies you would recommend that they would focus on, on a daily basis? What is the best strategy to make sure they are a success?
Minal Sampat:
So, number one strategy, I am so excited you asked me this question because I work with a lot of practices that are opening up right now. The first thing I want you to understand is the definition of a brand. Okay. When you start a business you are going to get a lot of information coming at you saying, you have to work on your logo, you have to work on your colors on your website, you have to do this. What is your business card going to look like? All of that is a to-do-list. That is not your brand. You shop on Amazon. Amazon could be called something else and you’d still shop there. You have drinks at Starbucks, their logo could be from green it could be purple. Doesn’t matter, you are still going to go there. Right.
Your logo, your color, the definition all of that is a to-do-list. It’s like having a child. Having a business is like having a child, okay. When you have a child you have to name your child. Because you have to call your child by name. You spend some time finding the perfect name that’s great. But your child is not defined by their name. I know a Jessica, you know a Jessica, somebody else knows a Jessica. All those Jessica’ are different because they have a personality.
Your brand is your personality of your business. This is a different thing. So follow me along here. This is important. We focus so much on building a patient avatar. I want you to focus on building a practice avatar. When somebody thinks of your practice, what are the traits that they think about. Your business is a living entity. What else are they going to think about? The success for my business, the success of my parents, the success of all my clients is because when a client, a patient walks out, they know exactly what that practice is and what they stand for. Right. So in that same way, your brand is what does your practice stand for? What are they known for? And your brand is nothing more than what other people are saying about you. That’s your brand.
Your colors, your logos. Don’t spend so much time, put a deadline, put a deadline on it and say two weeks from now, I’m gonna have my logo. I’m gonna have my name. I am going to have a basic website. Go for it. Go for it. Done. Be done with it. Focus your energy and your time into building a practice that has a personality, that has a culture, that if a patient were to walk in, they are going to be like this is awesome. This is where I belong. This is where I can keep coming up even though your logo is purple, or green or orange. I don’t care. I am going to keep showing up here. That’s my strategy for you. Your brand is what other people are saying about you. Give them something good to say.
RJ Martino:
I love that and you know, if I am working for a dentist who can tell me that the story they tell me, the way they describe, I can get behind that. I can say yes I want that too. But even as a marketer, if I came in and you can tell me that you tell me a story of what as you described that the brand, the personality. I can get behind that. It makes my job so much easier than trying to guess if you like this shade of red or this shade of red. Knowing that’s not where you spend your focus, you spend it on what the personality is. I don’t know if I could have said any of that as well I know if anyone else could. I was just enthralled by this. So great great advice.
Minal I know people are listening and want more information, talk about how can they get in touch with you? Tell them the best way to find out where you are speaking next, or just how to get in touch with you?
Minal Sampat:
Sure, you know, my website is minalsampat.com which is MINAL SAMPAT. If you go to my website, you will actually see my live show information there. You will see where I am speaking there as well. You will have the links to my book there. So if you want to purchase it. You know the website is great. Go learn about my business, go learn about me. But I wanna connect with you. The way you are going to connect with me is, become my friend on Facebook. Like seriously, just go to Facebook, Minal Sampat. Right now my cover photo is, I was recently on the cover for dental magazine for their spring issue, so the cover you will see me in the magazine color. That’s me, that’s my profile picture. Send me a friend request. Send me a message. You know, I believe in relationships. So let’s be friends. And everything else will fall into place.
Jordan Smith:
I love that. And you know for the listeners out there who might think okay we’ve heard that. She really does mean it. So this has been a huge pleasure. Minal Sampat, Bestselling Author, Speaker, Marketing Strategist, Dental Hygienist, Wife, Entrepreneur, Shoe Enthusiast.
RJ Martino:
A Great Friend.
Jordan Smith:
We love it. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
Minal Sampat:
No, thank you so much for having me. It’s been great. Thank you!
Jordan Smith:
Thanks Minal.
RJ, Minal Sampat, like I said before kind of in the intro, we could have literally spent all day speaking with her and she is just the type of person that you think she would actually let us do that.
RJ Martino:
Well it’s what is so interesting with all of our guests who I think, man I don’t know if they got time for me people like Minal, they will take your call. They will help you through the problem and they don’t expect anything in return. But inevitably, we find those kinds of people, you realize these are the kind of people that I wanna work with. So I agree with you. I could have spent all day with her.
Jordan Smith:
Well I’ll tell you, we’ve already sent our friend requests, she has already accepted them. If you have questions, find her on Facebook, reach out to her.
RJ Martino:
I think one of the places I’d go off is to Facebook and watch her Facebook lives. She’s got great Facebook lives. The book, I am half way through it already and it’s just very good messaging that we all need to be reminded of and that is quality not quantity.
Jordan Smith:
Yup! Absolutely. So anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed it. Like we talked about in the intro, Minal was introduced to us by an audience member. All we got was her name. We did the rest as far as tracking her down and twisting her arm to be on our little podcast. So if you got anybody, people, topics, you hear speeches, you’re watching YouTube videos, anyone you would like to hear more from and take a deeper dive with, leave us a comment. Let us know.
Like, subscribe, follow.
Hit the bell. All the buttons you can hit just go ahead and hit them. I will be super appreciative.
RJ, until next time.
iProv Made Podcast out!
