ROSS BRANNON

You're known and respected as a leader in the dental and marketing industry by some of the top names. What first brought you to working with dentists and orthodontists?

GRAIG PRESTI

Around 2010, I had been doing a little research on how the internet was changing how people were finding local businesses. Google really put a huge target on the Yellow Pages and print media’s back. They said, “We're going to kill print. We're going to make everybody just use Google to find local coffee shops, dentists, etc.”

At that point, people just had static websites, and there wasn't much to them. Google eventually found out that a lot of people were gravitating, using the maps and the local searches. That was where the entire internet ended up heading, when it came to finding local businesses. It became a specific way for dentists to put their business in front of prospective patients, and do it in a way with having a really solid brand and reputation online. Being found using phones, or geo searches, and not on their website, because essentially, the consumer data showed that people just weren't trusting websites, because they just contained stuff the business wrote. Reviews were different. Using Google was like going to a coffee shop and getting 15 referrals, but without having to leave your house.

We found that opportunity in there, and within that first year of business, we were able to help around 100 dentists have a fantastic year, and it continued to grow from there. Obviously, Google has only gotten larger since then when it comes to local searches. It was very much in its infancy at that time. The proprietary system that I built is tried and true. It's been a very successful thing, compared to what you would consider to be marketing for most practitioners.

ROSS BRANNON

What is Local Search for Dentists, and how does it help a dentist grow a practice?

GRAIG PRESTI

We are a full-service marketing agency. We will do all things digital, such as building websites and getting Google traffic. But what makes us very different than your typical agency in the space, is we actually only allow you to start with one particular program. It’s OFS website, which is like our local SEO Marketing Program, where we focus strictly on the Google My Business Page. We brand them as the go-to dentist in their zip codes that wants to attract certain types of patients. While other agencies in the space will try to sell you a big package, we focus on building the foundation of the house first. That is where everyone starts with us, and that’s why we’ve been so successful. We build the foundation of their brand first.

There’s one Google My Business Page, not five loads of good patient reviews, YouTube videos, blogging, everything that is off site that Google now promotes. You’ll notice, if you do a local search and type in dentist with your zip code, they don't show the website. They show all of their stuff. You literally don't even have to click off that page. That is where we really have lived for a long period of time. That will be a game changer for our practice, because now we have third-party verification from Google, your happy patients, and the social proof that goes along with it.

You're increasing your patient numbers, you're increasing your case acceptance, and you're increasing your rate of referral, because even referrals are Googling you. The three-pronged approach allows you to grow and scale your practice and actually choose patients that you want to work with, as opposed to just strictly insurance, or shoppers, or whatever. That's where we've been successful, helping them grow their businesses that way.

ROSS BRANNON

In essence, a lot of the companies in your space are overselling big packages that are more than what’s needed. You're starting small, building a foundation so they can grow into that big package and get their money's worth out of it when that time comes.

GRAIG PRESTI

That’s correct, and it allows you to ROI a lot faster. Because instead of spending $5,000 a month, you could be spending $500 a month, and we know it's much easier to ROI on an investment with marketing at that lower price than it is for the huge, gigantic package.

ROSS BRANNON

What difficulties do dentists face that you fix or help them avoid?

GRAIG PRESTI

I think the number is around 98.5% of dentists have multiple Google My Business pages on Google right now. Say you Google a dental practice. There's the practice name and the doctor's name and the hygienist’s name and the associate’s name. But there are all these inconsistencies. Names are spelled backwards, addresses are wrong, phone numbers are wrong, and since Google ranks you, they don't promote your business and patients can't find you. It looks bad, because I'm supposed to trust you to place an implant for thousands of dollars, but you can't organize your brand online into one page, with all the reviews on one page.

In our industry, we're the best at doing this. We basically get all those pages merged, get everything on one page, so you have this one pristine brand. We just want that one page. Every dentist should always want one Google My Business page. You always want that one brand being that prominent, pristine figure in your space.

ROSS BRANNON

What do you see as the unique complexities for dentists and marketing?

GRAIG PRESTI

Because there are so many people in the space offering “dental marketing,” it becomes confusing. A lot of dentists tend to avoid it, or they'll try it and have a bad experience. Either way, they’ll think they can just stick to insurance, or word of mouth, which is not going to be a good thing.

I actually think it's quite simple. You can essentially clean up your business page, get your reviews going, get your YouTube videos, get blogging. Use our system. You can pile in traffic on top of that using Google AdWords, and using it in a specific way. You don't have to spend $5,000 a month, you can spend $1,000 and still get a really good ROI, and increase your referral rate. I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

A lot of dentists avoid it because it can be big and scary, but really, it's just a two-to-three-step system. Google already does all the work for these local businesses. It doesn't matter if you're the local coffee shop, or the local dentist, everyone, especially in the post pandemic world, is using Google to dig up everything on businesses. There is no more going to the local barbecue restaurant, talking to your friends, and getting referrals. Google makes it super easy for us. All those people are living in the internet world right now.

ROSS BRANNON

How hard is it to convince somebody that they need you, when they've likely been burned before by an expensive marketing program that didn't work, or didn't work as promised?

GRAIG PRESTI

It's not easy. We do hear horror stories. We all know someone who has been burned. But we try to take the emotional aspect out of that. We’ve been doing it a long time, and we stick to the basics of what works. We have the largest amount of procedural and marketing data in our industry, and we say, “Here's the hard data for what our clients see, what the consumer behavior is, and why what you did in the past wasn't even really marketing, and why this is actually a system.” We just stick to the data. If I went to a dentist, and they did some bad treatment on me, and overcharged me, I wouldn't avoid going to the dentist, I would just choose someone else.

ROSS BRANNON

What can a client expect when they sign up with you?

GRAIG PRESTI

On average, we're around a 10 to one ROI. You’re spending $1 to make $10. That's a very good ROI in the marketing space. The reality is, even if you’re getting a two-to-one return, you still should be doing it. But that is where we live, because we don't overspend. We’re not selling our clients things they don't need. That allows us to give you a really high ROI, and allows you to get it quicker.

Now, as far as timeline is concerned, that's more of a moving target, because everyone comes in with a different situation. If you have 15 Google My Business pages because you've piled through a bunch of agencies over the last three years, that might take a little longer to get straightened out. But if you've never done marketing before, and you don't have a huge presence within the first 30 days, you can see a return.

ROSS BRANNON

Who is your target client?

GRAIG PRESTI

We’re mainly after the solo to medium practitioner who is looking to attract more quality patients. The big DSOs in the space, and the big corporate practices tend to have their own marketing departments and do a lot of it themselves. They think they have it all figured out. We wedge ourselves into helping the solo practitioner, or partnership, fight in that market space where they don't have a $50,000 a month marketing budget, and we can spend $500 and still be effective. That’s where we live, and have been quite successful.

ROSS BRANNON

You’re a low-cost agency.

GRAIG PRESTI

I've heard from my team those other agencies can charge $10,000 to $15,000 just for a website. That’s out of control. There's absolutely no reason for that.

ROSS BRANNON

Do you find that too many dentists are working in their practice and not on their business?

GRAIG PRESTI

I think that's like gravity. That's like an undeniable truth. You see a lot of seasonal behavior where they’re busy. We saw that coming out of COVID, where we had these pockets of backlogs of people. But if you’re just living in your database, and don’t backfill into that, then the dip comes and you haven’t added anyone into the ecosystem. They've chosen another dentist, because you're not doing marketing. That's how you end up with slow months. That is inevitably what happens in a cyclical seasonal behavior. If you don't fill that funnel again, you're going to run out of people. That’s how you’re going to have back-to-back bad months, and a bad year in terms of in terms of revenue and cash flow.

Bear in mind, when I say “bad,” I mean “not as good.” There are always people out there seeking care. We've noticed one thing about the modern economy now: because we have massive inflation, and restricted goods and services and materials, we can't really build anything and people are being coming a little more patient than they were in the past. You could book someone out six weeks, and I really don't think that's a problem.

If you've tried to order furniture lately, you have to be willing to wait three and a half months to get a chair. You do not have a choice. The same thing goes for prospective patients looking for care. Obviously, these are not emergency people who have an absolute need at the moment. But if someone's looking to get implants, or something that isn't necessarily urgent, and you have that good brand online, and you look like the expert, they’re willing to wait to get the right treatment. We're all willing to wait to be treated properly. That's what I try to instill upon our ecosystem. I have clients who are booking people who want to talk about cosmetic work or implant work three months out, because they’re willing to wait for that quality. They don’t want to waste their time and money and energy running around getting bad advice, they’d rather wait for you to help them.

The other thing we're not factoring in what happens in a normal year. There can be a 20% attrition of your patient base every year, if you don't do anything, because people move, or die, or are neglected. If you're not replacing 15% to 20% of your patient base every single year through marketing, you're inevitably on a treadmill that might be going backwards.

ROSS BRANNON

Why would you say it's important for dentists to have a financial game plan, and the right advisors around them?

GRAIG PRESTI

If they don't do it, someone else will take the market share. It's that simple. If you look at the path of money right now, it’s moving up in dentistry. DSOs are consuming practices at all-time highs. I've been beating that drum for a while. You either decide to do it, or they just take your patients and your market share. That's how you get blindsided. You have to make the decision to do it for yourself, because otherwise, someone else will make the decision for you.

ROSS BRANNON

If you don't hire a marketing company like Local Search for Dentists, you won’t need a CPA or financial advisor.

GRAIG PRESTI

Well, you'll need it when you'll need it. Here's why you'll need it: our clients sell their practices for more money and often earlier than the traditional dental model. That's the fact.

ROSS BRANNON

Do people hire you to get their valuation up for the SSL?

GRAIG PRESTI

Absolutely, or any sale for that matter. We don't always pick the buyer. If we can get more of the fee-for-service patients, that inevitably helps the bottom line. If we can increase that EBITDA, we can get that cash flow up, the valuation inevitably goes higher. Too many dentists don't pay attention to that, and when they say, “Hey, I'm going to put my practice up for sale,” then they're in tears, because they just found out they have to work another 10 years, because the money is not there to get the value for the business. People hire us all the time to get that valuation up, and in a lot of instances, it happens quicker than they expect.

ROSS BRANNON

It’s been said that within five years, the mom-and-pop dental office will be virtually gone. I think people would rather go to a mom and pop than a corporate dentist. Do you agree?

GRAIG PRESTI

Agreed. But here's the problem: they don't know the difference. If you actually study the DSO model, it is cloak and dagger, mom and pop. They may own a portfolio of 25 to 45 solo practices where they never changed the name. The dentist is still working in the practice as an employee. The patients have very little clue that it’s owned by someone else. You also see that happening where your primary care doctor is suddenly part of a system, but you still go to that doctor and you didn’t really notice anything. That is where the solo dentist will be all but gone from an entity perspective or ownership perspective. They will just be a part of the medical system.

ROSS BRANNON

So, people won't realize they're going to a corporate dentist unless they're actually going to an Aspen or a Heartland or something like that.

GRAIG PRESTI

Correct. That is a much different model than the DSO model.

ROSS BRANNON

What do you see as major challenges for dentists moving forward?

GRAIG PRESTI

I think the biggest challenge for dentists is actually having the courage to make business decisions and invest in their business. We still see too many folks come to us who are living off word of mouth, living off of insurance, and really low margin non-fee-for-service work. The people who want fee-for-service are going to someone else, because they're in front of them. Gone are the days where you could just live off referrals. Referral rates are at all-time lows. People are just jumping on the computer and digging up information. “I'm going to go on my phone and dig up a dentist in my zip code, and I'll make the decision based on what I see.” COVID conditioned us to do that. That's never changing. It's too easy.

ROSS BRANNON

2020 accelerated a lot of trends that are already in place.

GRAIG PRESTI

Absolutely, and that's not a negative. The path to getting more cash flow has never been quicker. I don't have to go to the newspaper, or to the radio, or to the Yellow Pages. I can hire Local Search for Dentists today, and start to market my practice tomorrow.

ROSS BRANNON

Your story as an entrepreneur is one of tenacity and perseverance. You've had both successes and drawbacks. Is there a piece of advice that helped keep you motivated through your career?

GRAIG PRESTI

As our company has evolved, we've created a culture of people, whether that is the people that work for me or the clients we attract. I view them as my motivation. It's not about me as CEO, it’s, “Let's provide a really good opportunity for our clients to be successful and a really good opportunity for our employees to have fun and make a good living. Let's continually rinse and repeat that every year.” That's really what motivates me.

ROSS BRANNON

What advice would you give to a new dental school grad?

GRAIG PRESTI

I wouldn't be so eager to go out and start your own practice right away, to borrow a whole bunch of money and then go into the marketplace. I think you can make a very good living working as an associate. I don't think it matters where you work, because you need to gain that experience. Just like in any other business, you have to pay attention. Work for a DSO or a corporation or a very successful private solo practice that needs an associate, and watch all of it. Take a few years, and then figure out what kind of business you want to have. Without doing those different things, you don't understand the business of dentistry, because they just do not teach you that in dental school. You don't understand the inner workings of how you pay taxes, how you save for retirement, how you manage your cash flow, patient recall. Plus, you’ll learn more about clinical. Studying those other practices is almost like having your own case study in a way, but you get paid to do it. Watch and learn. You’ll probably hate some of it, but experience is one of the best ways to learn, and hating it is a good thing.

You’ll make a good living, and you won’t get yourself so strung out by borrowing a huge amount of money, and then you’ll know exactly where you need to be in five years to start your own practice and what kind of lifestyle you want to have.

ROSS BRANNON

You’re opening a lot of eyes with your advice, thank you for sharing it.