463: Dalton Handy | Building a Robust Marketing Department Tha…

Making sure potential patients can find you online and optimizing your website is an often overlooked essential first step.
Utilizing a CRM like Hubspot can help keep all of your patient communication and followup in one place.
Sending out email newsletters to remind the community that your office is up to date and spreading helpful information is a great way to stay in touch. Be sure not to overwhelm your email list though!
Try to make your office and website have a unique twist, ensuring an office across the country couldn't directly copy you.
Always provide options for contacting your office. Making it hard for patients to call, text, or email will be a big point of friction.
If you're running a private practice, think about how you can set yourself apart from DSOs! You may be able to add more of a personal touch than most dental organizations.

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Episode Transcript (Auto-Generated - Please Excuse Errors)

Michael: Alright, it's time to talk with our featured guest, Dalton Handy. Dalton, how's it going? Uh, pretty good.

Dalton: Michael, how about you?

Michael: I'm doing pretty good, man. Thanks for asking. If you could tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you

Dalton: are today? I. Yeah, so I've been in marketing for eight years now.

I started my career coming out of the University of Denver in, in a slightly lesser known field of marketing operations. So it's all like the systems and processes that make marketing work, right, to be able to prove value and to get a feel for everything. So I started my career there. Um, I'm now here at Tempe, which is my third startup where I, I really think that I thrive, right?

This is where I am able to build, I'm able to really see the impacts of my efforts, um, and I'm more connected with, with our users as well than I have been at a much larger corporation. So this is the second time that I've built a marketing department within, within a startup, and so far it's been going really well.

Gotcha.

Michael: So, real quick temp me

Dalton: is what? Temi is a dental staffing community, so we help offices find placement with assistance as well as hygienists for both temporary, multi-day and permanent placement services as well. Gotcha.

Michael: So before the other two startups that you worked at, was it in the industry, dental industry,

Dalton: or No.

Great question. Not in the slightest. I've spent a lot of time in cybersecurity and then the other startup that I was at was actually a highly verticalized software company. So they specialized in software for, um, portable toilet vendors, roll off dumpsters and septic pumpers. So it was very specific.

Really cool company there, and that's where I really discovered my passion for startup marketing and being able to have that a lot bigger connection with, with your customers and have a lot more fun with what you're doing as a marketer too. That's where I really found my passion for it. And so even though it's kind of a funky industry, I'll, always be forever, but grateful.

Yeah. Nice

Michael: man. So you've been in marketing for a minute now, right? And it's cool that you're working in a company that like, you know, is revolved around our industry, right? The dental industry, of course. But when it comes to, you said you created systems and processes that make marketing work down to us.

Okay, cool. What

Dalton: is that? Yeah. So one of the key things that you'll note, uh, as particularly as you get into bigger companies, bigger corporations, you're gonna have a lot of different systems. But from a marketing perspective, one that's gonna be crucial is your marketing automation platform, right? So you're gonna do a lot of things outta this platform.

One's gonna be sending your emails, you can build landing pages, you keep track of all your contacts and your database in that, and then you can also, you know, implement. Uh, all of your website tracking so you can see who's on your site when, what pages they're engaging with, collect data via forms, and then connect all of those activities together, right?

So as soon as somebody fills out a form, cool. Now we're going to direct them over to the right sales representative, but also we're gonna send them. A text, an email, you know, whatever that might be that is in line with their previous action and then make sure that they've got the right communications going their way.

So that's really the hub of, uh, any marketing operations person is going to be focused heavily on that system. But then they're also gonna be working with all of the other arms of marketing. So whether you've got, you know, your trade show, people that are sending leads one way, great. You're gonna be working with them to make sure that they can prove R o I.

On their adventures. Uh, you're gonna be working with the paid media folks. Obviously, all, all your branding people, your email marketers, you really help tie everything together. So it's a, it's a really cool way to start your career, I think, because you get so much exposure to all of those different types of marketing.

Ah,

Michael: okay. So then how can we, I guess, funnel that into, Practice, right? Meaning like we got our front office, we have our dentist, our practice, and I know you said that's one of your area of expertise is where you build a marketing department. So could you in this real quick amount of time, like build us a marketing department for the practice?

Dalton: Yeah, I think so. You know, even as somebody who hasn't done that specific niche, I think there are quite a few things that you can do right off the bat, right? And there are varying levels of automation platforms that I would start with, right? If you've got the platform and you've got access to the right tools, then you can start to build from there.

So that's always kind of my step one. In fact, when I started at temp me, even during the interview process, I made it abundantly clear. Hey guys, when I start, we're gonna buy HubSpot. That's gonna be like the first thing that we're gonna do, and then we'll go from there. so, you know, looking at those, those tiers, right?

So on, on the very top, like enterprise end, you've got things like Marketo. You know, Salesforce has Pardot, part O, whatever you wanna call it. and then HubSpot is great. It scales up and down as you want. so that's, that's usually a go-to start, or a starter kind of, um, automation package. So, Getting that system in first, right?

Making sure that you've got everything centralized and you're gonna need one person that's dedicated to this, right? Typically, it's not gonna be somebody that is already an office manager that already has, you know, their, their plate is entirely full. But what this person should be able to come in and do is, number one, let's work with an agency.

Make sure that your website is well optimized, right? Anybody who's looking for you, is gonna be able to find you, whether that's from an s e o perspective or from a pay-per-click perspective at, you know, at minimum on Google, those are the low hanging fruit. Making sure that the people who are looking are able to find you.

Then what you do is you can take all that information, process it through your platform, and make sure that you're following up with people appropriately. Right? Everybody hates it. If you submit a contact form, you know you're interested in the business, you're potentially gonna buy something, spend money, and then you don't hear back.

You know, it's a bit of a slap in the face, right? So that's one of the nice things about these platforms is you schedule those. Automatically to, to go out. As soon as somebody submits the form, you know, you're gonna set a reminder for maybe the marketing person, maybe the office manager to put in a call, Hey, let's get you on the schedule.

You know, what does, what does that really look like? So that would be kind of my, my beginning of that. In addition to, I. You know, putting together some simple things, a newsletter, some content pieces, just to, just to really show people that your practice is at the forefront of dentistry. Um, that you're really staying up to date, you know, obviously on all your CE and things like that.

but that they're not going to somebody who is I. Posting, right? Mm-hmm. I, I don't, that, that's not the practice that I want to go to. I want to go to somebody who is, who's really on top of their game, and I think that you can really highlight all of that through your various marketing efforts. Email is a great one because it's free, right?

You can, you can always email. there's a bunch out there. My, my recommended cadence on email too is typically gonna be two to three times a week at absolute max. I would probably, for a practice. Once every two weeks. Something like that would be more of the max that I would go to. Just to stay in touch, stay in front of people, make sure that they're getting useful information, but not overwhelm 'em with any, any information that you've got going on.

Michael: Yeah, interesting. So HubSpot and Pardo or Pardot you said, right? if I just got it, I'm listening to this episode. Okay, I got HubSpot now what do I do? Right. Kind of thing.

Dalton: Yeah, for sure.

Okay. So there's quite a few sections within, I'll use HubSpot, the As the example. That's what we use now. I think it's, it is great for, Many levels of business. So there's gonna be your marketing hub and there's a sales hub For our perspective, you know, obviously a lot more, uh, focused on the marketing hub.

So you've got a few different sections. One's gonna be all your contacts, so this is gonna be people that are already in your system, existing patients, things like that. Uh, and then it's also gonna collect the new folks that as they come in, so you'll wanna set up a few normal fields just to track the things that are relevant to you, right?

So, Uh, you know, for example, when somebody hits our website and fills out a form, we wanna figure out are you representing a practice? Are you a hygienist? Are you an assistant? You know exactly who are you? So you set up a few custom fields to get that right information so that you can speak to people as they want to be spoken to.

Right? That's always gonna be any, uh, goal with any marketing effort. So you set up, you know, your foundations there and you can build some basic workflows, right? So if you've got your website, you put a form on the website. Okay, cool. As soon as that form is filled out, you can create what's called a workflow to say, great, I'm gonna shoot them a text saying exactly this.

I'm gonna shoot them an email saying exactly this. You can use some customization tokens as well. So basically what that'll do is if they give you their first and last name, great. Let's use that in the email just to show that you know, we're listening and, and we care. Uh, and then you've got, you know, default values.

Then you can also connect that to any other, many other systems that you've got. So, for example, if you use Slack, internally or something like that, you can send an alert to say your office manager to follow up with that person and, and place a call so you can place all their information there.

Those would be my, my number one steps, and then you'd start to build out some email templates, probably some landing page templates, things that you can reuse time and time again as you launch different initiatives. Gotcha.

Michael: Okay. So it's a lot we can do with that, right?

Dalton: Yeah. It's, it's really, we use it certainly as like our, our centralized hub for all things marketing.

and then, you know, as you get all of that data coming in, then you can say, okay, cool. How much are we really getting out of our Google ads? Right. And you can start to kind of go deeper and dive into how successful, uh, all of your channels are, are so far.

Michael: Hmm. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So it's really good for like tracking as well and everything like that.

Dalton: Yeah, most definitely. And particularly, you know, on the email side, it's great. You can take a look at any email, you're gonna see your open rate, bounce rate, click rate, click through rate. You can see what links are being clicked on, what isn't all, all that good stuff, um, just baked right there into the app.

Michael: Gotcha man. Awesome. Okay, so then let's talk a little bit more about, business when it comes to dentists. So like, what can a practice owner, a dentist do today to improve their marketing or their business?

Dalton: I think number one is always gonna start with the website, right? That's an area where people are always gonna pop to anytime they're considering, you know, joining or coming to your practice, as a patient.

So that's, that's always where I wanna start, number one, making sure that it's at least up to date, you know, with the right information, hours, all that good stuff, but also that it has a welcoming atmosphere. I think. one thing that is, Always a little bit tricky is overusing stock imagery, right? Mm-hmm.

I think that that can be something that's a little tricky. It's not gonna necessarily give people the feeling of safety and comfortability, uh, as they come in and check out your practice. And then you also wanna make sure I. Every conversion point is optimized, right? So if I'm coming to your website as somebody who's considering, being a patient at your practice, I wanna make sure that once I decide, cool, this looks great, that I can get in touch with you as quickly as possible, I.

Whether I wanna pick up the phone now, I'm 30, that's never the answer for me, right? I wanna ha have multiple options. So, uh, you know, whether it's a text line, incorporating chat onto the website or just filling out a form, Hey, this is what I'm looking for, this is when I'd like to come in, that type of thing.

And then even if somebody gives me a call back, I'm, you know, that understand about that. but making sure that people can really get ahold of you is something that. Is absolutely essential and is often actually overlooked. Right? We, we put so much time and effort into making a beautiful site that really speaks to the core of who we are, what makes us special, all those things.

And then it's easy to forget, oh wait, we're here to generate business From this site. Yeah.

Michael: For you personally, right now, let's just say you got on Delton, got on the website, practice looking for somebody, some pops up right on Google. Would you search on Google or how would you look? Go about?

Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. That'd be, that'd be my first go-to. I'm gonna look at dental practices around me, right? 'cause I want something that's, you know, close proximity. So we moved two years ago to, to this specific area of Denver that we live in. And so it's exactly what I did was I hopped on Google Maps, actually is is another thing.

And that's, its home, it's own whole area of ss e o. Um, but yes, Google and Google Maps are gonna be the primary way that I would try to find a new practice.

Michael: Okay, so you went on Google Maps, and then you clicked on the first one or the first couple, right? And then how would you want it to go from that point on?

Would you, what is the first things you're looking at? What are the things where you're like, all right, I'm gonna contact now, or I'm gonna save it for later. Lemme look at somebody else. What made you wanna save it for later? And look it for

Dalton: somebody else? I'm looking for a little bit of familiarity, right?

I wanna hit your site and understand, a practice halfway across the country couldn't have this exact same website, right? So actually one of the things that stuck out to me about the practice that I go to. They had this really cool, uh, initial picture on their homepage of, I think it was everybody that works at the office just decked out in their Bronco gear, right.

They'd say, you know, they're, they're all about the Broncos there. Yeah. And, uh, so I was like, okay, cool. I get, I get, you know, a little bit of something about who they are without even having to read anything. And so I think, you know, being able to put, put out who you are, and that's something that we're trying to do.

Temp me too is, is highlight some of the things that culturally make us special because there's inherent familiarity and comfortability that lies within that. Um, but I, I think that be personal, show who you are, show what makes you special, those are absolutely something. There are things that anybody can do and can tap into to make people feel comfortable and, and excited about, you know, coming to your practice.

Gotcha. So

Michael: you got on that website and immediately you booked something or were you like, let me look, let me look at. Other stuff.

Dalton: I checked a couple others around just to, you know, do my due diligence. I'm the kind of person who, if I'm going on vacation, I'm gonna make a spreadsheet that has all of the different options and then rank on different variables.

Right? That's, that's how I do my decision making. It's never one and done. Um, but that one really stood out to me, right? I, I felt like I understood what they were about and so I circled back after maybe looking at three or four more. Also, obviously checked the reviews, right? That's always a huge thing, uh, making sure that primarily your Google reviews are in good shape.

Uh, there are a num number of ways that you can incentivize people to get those reviews, but also responded to is a good thing to look at, right? That's, that's somebody that to me is on top of their business and really caress, right? Negative reviews will happen. There's always gonna be, you know, some.

Patient that you can never make happy, right? Mm-hmm. But responding to those reviews in a kind way that shows compassion, understanding, and that you're just caring about your business is, is always a great look.

Michael: Yeah. And so the three to four that you were checking out that you're like, nah, they don't fit, but this is like your due diligence, what was the things where you were like, actually, what was the one outta the, the four that you were looking at where you were like, And you know what I mean?

Like the bounce rate was super fast where you're just like, nah, I don't want to

Dalton: get on this one. Yeah. I think the ones that I would've pointed to like that were ones that looked like something I could have made, you know, in a week. I exclusively stock imagery. There's nothing that points to this office being special.

it is really cut and dry. And then certainly anybody that had less than like 4.4, 4.5 stars on Google with the, with their reviews at a good volume, that was always gonna be a huge concern.

Michael: Do you check more on Yelp or on Google?

Dalton: I check more on Google personally. Yeah. Okay, gotcha.

Interesting. Yelp is always interesting, right? There's, uh, different components to basically any rating or review site, whether it's Capterra for software or Yelp for, you know, basically anything. there's always a pay to play component, so I'm naturally a little, little skeptical, right? I think the overall rating is usually gonna be in good shape, but I also understand that the order in which things are presented to me isn't necessarily gonna be, I.

In the order of quality, uh mm-hmm. You know, the one through 10 isn't gonna necessarily be reflective of that quality.

Michael: Yeah, that's true. That's true. And so then on the, on the website that you went with the Broncos, everybody, right? Like in the ones that you decided to, that's it. How did you contact

Dalton: them?

Ooh, that's a good question. I'm not sure I remember. Uh, I believe that I filled out their contact us form. Okay. And that's what

Michael: you like?

Dalton: Yeah, that's, that's what I like. 'cause then I can, you know, drop a line, particularly if I'm, you know, buying software or something like that, I can drop a line to multiple different options.

See how they get back to me. To me, that's gonna be indicative of their performance as a business. And then go from there. Right. Maybe some, some offices weren't gonna be, Weren't going to be accepting new patients, anything like that. Of course, if that's the case, you'd expect a notice, you know, on the website that Hey, don't waste your time here, we're full.

Um, but then go from there in terms of, you know, responding to any emails that they send me, they expect a phone call, that type of thing.

Michael: Gotcha. Because sometimes, like when, I remember when I was working in the practice, like we would get a form filled out and they told us they wanted us. To call you guys.

Yeah, and I don't know if that was the best thing. Would you prefer that or would you prefer like a text message or an email? What would you prefer

Dalton: as an individual? I would prefer a text. I. As a marketer, my recommendation would be to hit 'em with everything you know, is, is an automated email, an automated text, and then a phone call after a little while.

Right. Just to, just to give people the options with the understanding of, Hey, I'm not gonna overwhelm this person over the course of a period, but I'm gonna make sure that as they get their information that they're hearing back from me through whatever channel they might be, uh, most accessible via.

Michael: What would be like the time period? So let's just say you hit 'em back with an email first. You don't hear from them and I don't know specific Then do we hit them back like the next day with a text and then if we don't hear them the third day, we hit them with a call? Or is it more like all in a 24

Dalton: hour period?

Uh, typically I'd get all of them within a 24 hour period, and then that'll kick off usually a sequence. So, A good example is right now, if you come to the Temp Me website and you fill out the form there, say, say you're a hygienist and, uh, you're interested in that number one within five minutes, actually it's, it's much closer to one minute, which is the target.

you'll get a text and you'll get an email just saying like, Hey, here's the link to download the app. And also here is an opportunity to speak with one of our onboarding representatives if you have questions about it. Here's, here's where you go to download or to schedule that. Then we'll, uh, we'll wait a day and then we'll send you, Hey, just checking in.

We saw you had the interest, you know, is now a good time to chat? Anything like that. And we'll also have a call or two placed at that point from our onboarding representatives. And so that's sequence, we'll, we'll spread out a couple texts, a couple emails across about a week. There are a lot of studies that show particularly on more of the outbound, right?

So it's not somebody coming into your website and filling out a form. But on the outbound side, it takes anywhere from like seven to 12 touches really to get somebody to pick up the phone or to accept that call, right? It, it takes time. It takes. Persistence as well. So I would encourage people to not give up.

Right. There's a good reason that somebody filled out that form in the first place. Maybe they found something else, maybe they haven't. But, a flurry of touches almost immediately is great. And then some persistent touches as well.

Michael: I like that. Okay, good. And then you mentioned make yourself culturally different, and then you mentioned temp me.

So what culturally makes temp me

Dalton: special? I. That's, that's my favorite question. are a super values driven culture, and by that I don't mean that we have anything just like plastered on the walls. Granted, we do have our values on the walls, but but the current space that we're in, we actually took over from a bank that had, the slogans put on the walls right there.

like an owner, you know, be empowered. You know, these really kind of vague things. ours. We're developed when our company was like five people, and they sat down and said, Hey, what makes us special? And so they came up with this list of five core values. And so those are things that we incorporate into everything that we do.

Uh, we hire by them if we ever need to part ways with somebody. We do that, buy the core values, right? So we go through and, and analyze is this person a fit based on our core values? And then we ensure that, all of the actions that we're taking are in alignment with those values. That serves as such a strong, guidepost, north Star, you know, whatever you want to call it.

And then our, our founders are extremely invested in those values and making sure that, you know, everybody else is as well. Um, so between that and then setting extremely high goals and, you know, giving a, a direct pathway toward reaching those goals is a great start for building the culture that you, that you want to see.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. So what are Temp me's core values?

Dalton: Yeah, so number one is called it's your ship. Uh, what this really means is, Hey, we put a lot of faith in our hiring efforts. You've joined our team. We feel like you are the absolute best person to do exactly what you do. Go run with it. You don't need to ask for, for permission, uh, even when things don't go, uh, as perfectly as you'd think.

Learn from it, move on. Right? We want people to be empowered to make their own decisions. Of course, in a practice, you know, sometimes that can, I could see that going a little sideways, but for most of the day-to-day stuff, right? You're trained, you know what to do, go make it happen. Second one. Uh, hard work doesn't have to be serious for me.

This is super different than work hard, play hard, right? Mm-hmm. To me, in like a tech setting, work hard, play hard is going to be, you know, you're going to really kind of hate what you do from like eight to six, but then we might throw a killer happy hour where everybody just gets super messed up, right?

Like That's what work hard, play hard sounds like to me. Uh, don't get me wrong, we have great happy hours. Uh, that's, that's all fun too. But, For me, this is, Hey, we spend so much of our lives working, we should enjoy what we're doing. Both the output that you have as an individual, as well as the people that you're working with, right?

You're spending so much more time with your coworkers than you are, you know, even some of your best friends in a lot of cases. That they should be people that you enjoy. So if you're not enjoying those things, number one is, is that a you thing or do we need some to make some changes at, at a cultural structural level?

So that's one of my favorites honestly. number three is, is leave it better. So this one's I. Super practical. Hey, you walk into our kitchen at the office, uh, if you see a paper towel or something out, even if it's not yours, throw it away. Right? There's a, there's a percentage of people that make the world worse than they found it.

There's a large percentage of people that leave it about the same, which is cool too, right? You know, you're not, you're not leaving a negative impact or anything. But then there's a small percentage of people that actually leave the world better than they found it. And I like to apply this to conversations, you know, and, and any type of interaction in addition to the actual, like physical cleaning of any space.

I hope that your day is two to 5% better 'cause we have this conversation, right? I, I hope that I can bring a little bit of, uh, something interesting, something fun, you know, make your day just a little bit better because we've had this conversation and I think that that's really consistent throughout our organization as well.

number four is gonna be find a way or make one. So this comes from kind of the Hannibal Barka quote of, uh, taking the elephants, uh, over the Alps to Sack Rome. I could not say the Latin version. Uh, it's out there. It's, you know, if, if you're really curious, I'm sure you can Google it, but for this is, Hey, we, we don't give up at the first thing.

Right? You know, there are a lot of cool things about our platform just from a tech perspective that, you know, took multiple iterations and somebody saying, you know what? I'm not gonna give up on this until I find it. that is able to really help you achieve that next level of success, right? So we wanna make sure that people are diligent, that they're not easily dissuaded, that type of thing.

And then the last one is true believer. So, we want people to be on our team that really believe that we can achieve our goals, right? We want to change the way the world works, uh, not just for dentistry, but for for other verticals as well. And. That doesn't happen if you don't believe that it can.

Right. So this kind of ties into a lot of like Steve Jobs philosophy in quotes. but yeah, you have to believe to be able to succeed. So those are the five.

Michael: Okay, good. That's real. I like that. I like that a lot, especially, um, I like all of 'em, but I like to leave it better than or leave it better. Right.

Dalton: Yeah. And actually that one comes from a really cool story. So, um, one of our co-founders, Kerry, he grew up, well, actually both of our co-founders grew up in northern Michigan, but, uh, Kerry spent a lot of time traveling around the country with his mom in like a, an old station wagon. so Carrie and his mom and family would take a lot of these road trips and one time at a gas station.

Kerry goes to throw his water bottle away, you know, physically throw it at a few yards or whatever. He misses and tries to get in the car. His mom says, no, Kerry, what are you doing? Go pick it up. And so he's said, fine, mom, you know, whatever. He goes, picks up the water bottle, puts it in there, and he comes back to the car and his mom says, no.

Carrie, you're not done yet. There were, you know, a half dozen other pieces of trash right there while you're picking up your water bottle. You could have done that and you could have made the world a better place. Uh, you know, even if so slightly. And that's the kind of people that we are. So that's exactly where this core value comes from, is, is Carrie's mom and being, you know, one of those people that really strives for better and that, you know, leaving no impact isn't good enough.

We have to leave a good impact.

Michael: Yeah, I like that man, real quick, who's the founders of Tempe?

Dalton: Yeah, so Carrie Game and Ed Thomas are the, uh, are the partners that are now running things, but we also were founded by a 30 year hygienist, Debra Simmons, who actually came to them with the idea, right? She's like, Hey, this system isn't working.

You know, she, she was a hygienist as well as an office manager, and so she is like, man, I, I see the need for this. You guys, you know, are, are entrepreneurs. You've built businesses before. There's gotta be something here. Right? And so they, they worked it all out from there. Ed took it to Carrie. Carrie thought it was a terrible idea at first, actually.

And then, uh, they sat down and I think they, they stayed on the phone for like eight hours that night. Just hashing it out, you know, talking about, well, what if we did it this way? 'cause I think the original idea was I. More of a scheduling app, right? Mm-hmm. Of like, you can have one shared schedule that a bunch of people hop on, that type of thing.

And, uh, that, that wasn't gonna necessarily be the way, but now they settled on, you know, our, our current concept and really just have run with it from there. So, Deb isn't as involved in our business currently, but I, I know that she retained her stake and is, uh, still invested in the business, which is, which is really cool.

Michael: Gotcha. So currently, what is it right now? Temp me. Yeah,

Dalton: so a easy way to think about it is Uber for dental staffing, right? Uh, if you're in office, you go on, you post a shift that you've got coming up. Say, you know, your hygienist is taking a long weekend. She's gonna be out Thursday. It's Monday. Cool. I'm gonna post that, and it's gonna go automatically out to all of the relevant hygienists in your area.

So, they'll get notified via their phone. It's all through the app. They get notified, they can either accept it, they can counter offer, which is a pretty cool feature, or they can just leave it be, we don't have any minimums or anything like that that they need to meet to operate through our platform.

All the payments handled through the platform and, and everything like that. So it's really a quick, easy way to find the people that you need to keep your practice moving along. Is this

Michael: like available everywhere, everywhere right now or is it more, you know what I mean, like rural Texas?

Yeah.

Dalton: So right now we're doing, uh, good amounts of shifts in 22 states, uh, every week. and then, you know, some rural areas have great coverage. Others not so much, right? It's always gonna be dependent on whether or not there are enough people to build a marketplace there. So if there's. Three offices and 10 hygienists in, you know, 25 mile radius.

That's probably realistically not gonna be something that we can have a huge solve for unless, you know, people are really willing to expand their radius within the app and you know, they're driving 50, 75 miles, whatever that might be, to pick up shifts at an office. So we definitely do have much easier success in the metro areas, but it's not exclusive to the metro areas by any means.

You guys

Michael: vet like everybody or like what is the vetting process? So when it comes to all this,

Dalton: Yeah, great question. So every person that's on our platform, every professional that's on our platform has been vetted. So from a hygienist perspective, uh, to sign up, you're gonna need to enter, you know, all your basic information, you're gonna enter your licensure information.

So we'll check that, make sure there are no derogatory marks on the record, that everything's up to date, current, all that good stuff. And then we'll also require a picture of the state id. to, you know, make sure that you are, who you say you are. All, all things match up between kind of the three main areas there.

Then for the assistance, it's super similar except for, licensure for assistance varies wildly state by state. So we take that on a state by state basis. You know, I think Minnesota and Texas are great examples of, they operate super similarly to hygienists for the most part. If you're gonna have, you know, a license, we can pop on, check it out, all that good stuff.

Florida, our home state is super different. It's, there are three routes. You can have six months of on-the-job training, you can graduate from a program or you can pass a certification course. Right? So in those, different ways, we have to evaluate each of them. So you may have to submit some additional documentation, things like that.

And then we do ongoing verification as well. So at the end of every shift, that's worked through our platform, both parties. So the office and the professional are gonna rate one, another, one to five and include comments, right? So anybody who is consistently receiving poor remarks, uh, poor scores, you know, hey, they really don't know what they're doing, anything like that.

We'll have conversations with that person. Try to really get to the bottom. Is this an unreasonable ask from the office or is this person, you know, not really cut out to, be utilizing our platform? In which case, you know, we do have to restrict their access. Hmm. How often does that

Michael: happen, Dalton? Like where you're like, ah, you, I don't know how you even got on this platform.

Dalton: It's pretty rare. to the, I don't even know how you got on this platform. Never happens. The, that's, you know, that, that'd be the super extreme end of it. But I think the, Hey, your, your skills aren't quite up to where they need to be is probably less than one to 2% of our platform. So, you know, sometimes things come up, right.

We're all humans, they're, life is hard. There's gonna be. All these external things that can impact somebody's ability to do their job, but ultimately we, we have to, you know, prioritize patient care and making sure that patients are well taken care of, regardless of who, who's in the office that day.

Mm-hmm. So when it comes down to make those tough decisions, that's, what we signed up for, honestly.

Michael: Yeah. Okay. And this is for all like associates, hygienists, assistants, and everything? Or is it just right

Dalton: now? We've got hygienists and assistance currently, and then we should actually be rolling out associates in kind of, uh, we'll call 'em beta states here in the next 30 to 60 days, we'll call it.

So there are other considerations on the associate side, right? So you've gotta have matching. I. insurance. Right? So that's, that's one whole thing that has to be in place. We're expanding our background checks as well for that side, and then ensuring, you know, that we're, we've got all of the malpractice insurance and everything that's rolled up to the associates before we roll that out.

'cause, you know, missing some of those things would be, yeah, really rough. That's, that's not what we're trying to do. So that's the only reason that we haven't rolled those out already. But we're super excited to bring that functionality. We do permanent placement services for all three of those groups already, though.

Michael: I was gonna ask you that, like has it ever happened to where it's like, man, I love this person and they love us. Like, can we just keep them or

Dalton: all the time. Yeah, all the time. I mean, it's, we're, we exist because there's a staffing shortage, right? Mm-hmm. a lot of the time, uh, that's going to happen.

And so we just ask for our buyout fee, which is typically a couple thousand dollars. If you compare it to when I have to go hire somebody from my team, if I work with an external agency or anything like that, I'm gonna pay 20% of their salary. Our fee is significantly less than that. You know, it's, it's, you know, three grand or whatever.

it's, it's gonna be a much easier burden, but then it's all free and clear that office, that professional, uh, they're gonna be tied to one another. That's a W two employee moving forward and they're good to

Michael: go. Yeah. Nice. So what, what are, if I can ask, what are like the major, maybe top three major cities that are utilizing Tempe right

Dalton: now?

Tampa is a huge one for us. So that's, you know, we're born and raised in South Florida, so that one makes a ton of sense. Uh, and then there are quite a few others that are spread throughout the country. Atlanta is also very big for us, New York there I. Honestly, quite a few where we're doing really great business.

You know, I think people have really latched onto the concept and understood, hey, this is a new way to really get into what we call skill sharing, right? Mm-hmm. So, uh, even though the concept is very similar to gig work, we really shy away from that term because to, to us, that is somebody that is not necessarily specialized in the field that they're working, I could take my car, sign up for Uber, join kind of gig work right now. Uh, if, if that's something that I wanted to do, I could not start practicing hygiene or become an assistant, nor should I, but, uh, you know, we wanna recognize that these people have very specific skill sets that they have worked for.

years to develop. And so in, in utilizing our platform, they are truly sharing those skills with the greater marketplace. And we wanna be very cognizant of that. So I think people understand that, um, they're excited to have a little bit more freedom with how they work, uh, ability to gain extra income, things like that.

And then of course, offices need their staff to keep going. And as we've seen post covid, they're just. Quite frankly aren't enough dental staff to go around. So this type of skill sharing model I think is a great way to help bridge those gaps.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Nice. I like that. And then how does this kind of compare, or what would you say is like the, ' cause there's others, right?

Competitors, yeah. So well, what makes it different, I guess?

Dalton: Yeah, great question. I think we can break it up into both sides of the marketplace. Right? So which side are you more curious about? Offices or professionals? Ooh, both. I. Okay, uh, let's start with offices. One cool thing about our platform is offices don't have to pay to sign up and there's no monthly fee.

We only pay on the, or we only charge on the temp side when we actually help you get a fill. So we only charge after that connection has been made. That individual has confirmed that they're gonna work at your office, all that good stuff. So, From an office perspective, it's a great additional tool to have in case you ever need any type of staffing.

we also process all the payment through our platform, so certainly as opposed to, some competitors, but primarily, you know, more old school ways of like cutting a check or anything like that. You don't have to worry about any of that, which is obviously a huge positive for our professionals as well.

They get their money via direct deposit. In the latest at like four days, they also have the option to get express pay. So as soon as the hours are confirmed by both parties, they get paid out. They have to pay a small fee, you know, to tell the banks to hurry up is essentially what that fee is. that's a huge perk there.

another perk for our offices is that they can post up to five shifts without having to pay anything. You don't even have to enter your credit card information. So, You can really get a feel for if this is gonna be something that's gonna be beneficial for us as well as, you know, the, the provider quality is extremely high, particularly as compared to, you know, more traditional temp agencies where, you know, most of the, most of our providers do have a current full-time job.

There are people that are at the absolute peak of their profession that are just looking to pick up a little bit of extra work around the sides. So with that, you know, you're getting somebody who can come in, who's gonna take great care of your patients, who's gonna be, you know, more than likely a joy to work with around the office and is the epitome of a professional.

So those are kind of the, a few of the key areas that we offer for the offices. You know, there's tons of ancillary stuff like it's. Extremely easy to use, right? Mm-hmm. It takes about 45 seconds to post a shift that, that you've got open. as well as we've got some market rate guidance baked into that.

So based on your area, we're gonna kind of suggest are you at a hundred percent of the market value rate? Are you under, are you over? That type of thing, which really, you know, is a nice little coaching tool for offices to know what they really should be posting yet. 'cause sometimes it doesn't feel like it should be that high or that low, it's a great way to keep people in line.

On the professional side, it's, it's all about freedom, right? Mm-hmm. So we don't mm-hmm. Have any restrictions or anything like that, uh, baked into our platform. Professionals can use us, they can use other apps where whatever's gonna make the most sense for them is highly encouraged by us. Right? There's no minimum.

So if you want to work a shift that pops up on your phone, then great. Grab it. That's amazing. We're excited. We'd love to have you. Uh, but if it doesn't make sense for you to not work or to pick up any temp shifts for six months, a year, whatever that might be, then cool. Don't you know that we, we don't feel like we have, uh, any foot to stand on to tell people what to do.

And so we, we really want people to be able to make their own way in life, and we really like to break it down into more solid terms around the money that they can make. So, Across the nation. You know, a temporary hygienist full day shift is gonna net you 400 to four 50 bucks. So hey, you pick up one shift a month.

Cool. That's a car payment. You know, that's saving up for a vacation. These are really tangible things that we believe and see make a big impact on people's lives, and that's part of the reason why we do what we do is to see that impact and, and to see them be able to live a little bit better life.

Just because they work through our platform is, is really cool.

Michael: Yeah. Nice man. Okay. Awesome. So really, really great benefits. Features too. But benefits, right when it comes to professionals and also the office.

Dalton: Absolutely. And I should add one more thing is we put a huge emphasis on high touch with high tech.

So, you know, the platform is high tech. It's easy to use, it's great it operates, you know, as, as it intended, all that good stuff. But we've got a ton of real people that make temp me work. So whether that's. Uh, professional that's coming on. There's a team of onboarders that are just dedicated to making sure that all of their questions are answered, right?

We understand that this, you're using us full-time, part-time, whatever, this is still employment, right? This is where your money is coming from. We understand that that's not always gonna be the most comfortable thing to just sign up for an app and start accepting shifts. Right this, there's a lot at stake.

It feels like there's a lot at stake, so we wanna make sure that you hear from real people, that you have the opportunity to voice Any questions, concerns, anything like that? I. And then it's also very much true of our customer success team. It's a large team of some of the kindest, most helpful human beings that you've ever encountered in your life, so you can access them.

We've got very expanded hours, even though we're on the east coast. Uh, typically, you know, you can, you can reach us from seven to seven is, is typically what we say. And then, you're gonna be able to reach them by text, by email, by phone. There's a bunch of ways to make sure that you get what you need.

And I think that that's actually a huge differentiator for us in the marketplace.

Michael: So I like that, man. Yeah. it does come down to that like, we want convenience, we wanna reach out to people, we wanna be able to fill out that form. Text, you know what I mean? But when it comes to us wanting to complain or do or find somebody, we're like, I wanna speak to a human.

give me, you know what I mean, kind of thing. And so, or when we're having a hard time with something, sometimes we're not all tech savvy, right? Yeah, absolutely. So we do wanna speak to, to a human right instead of like, um, zero now and then talk. So I like that, man. Interesting. Now these next questions are just to get into the head of someone who isn't totally involved on the clinical side of dentistry, uh, every day.

What would you ton like to see more from a dentist?

Dalton: You mean just from a, a business perspective or specifically if I'm visiting the dentist, things like that. Let's do both. Okay. from a business perspective, I think that I'd like to see. More particularly private practice owners, really tapping into that sense of community that, I think a lot of us grew up with. Right. You know, I think about the dentist's office that I went to, growing up. I grew up in a small town, and so I went to the same dentist for basically my entire, you know, childhood life, you know, from three to 18 or or whatever it age it is.

You start going to the dentist, I don't even know. Really tapping into that from a marketing perspective, I think is extremely powerful. And I think that that's one of the areas that private practices can win in a market, you know, that we're all aware is, is largely being consolidated by, by DSOs. So that's one thing from a business perspective that I would absolutely love to see.

from a, you know, patient perspective, I really don't have any complaints, man. I, I think about, you know, all my, all my experiences. I walk in. Everybody at the front desk is extremely happy, welcoming, friendly. The booking process is smooth. You know, there's so many tools out there. If you go to a trade show these days and just wander the exhibit hall for a little bit, you're gonna just be inundated by all these platforms, tools, whatever, to make your business run more smoothly.

And I think. Plenty of offices are taking care of that. And then, you know, I, I hop in the chair and there's all this new equipment and tech and things, uh, not to mention, hygienists are just some of the most lovely people you've ever met in your life, right? Mm-hmm. It's, it's always gonna be somebody that, uh, Remembers my name, remembers my story is, is chatting with me even if I can't, you know, actually verbally respond.

So maybe that's, maybe that's one thing is better understanding of, uh, patients not being able to respond. Right. But I think that's pretty much a common joke in the, in the dental industry at this point. So, yeah, no, I really have no complaints. I, I think that dentistry is in a, is in a really interesting, uh, challenging place, right?

With, I think there are a lot of market factors that are making this. Industry tougher to be really successful in than it has historically been, but in my personal experience, that hasn't dissuaded anybody from doing right by their patients and treating people exceptionally well. Gotcha. Okay.

Michael: And then right now this can be, you can answer from either right, general population, patient perspective, or business, but pick one right now.

What do you dislike or hate about dentistry?

Dalton: Right now, I, I, I honestly hate that there aren't enough people in it to maintain the existing model that we've had. Right? I think there's a lot of discussions too. Increase the number of schools and increase the output in terms of dental staff as we move forward. But that's gonna take a while to really get to that point. So I think that's one of the things that's most frustrating for me is that this essential service isn't well enough staffed. Obviously that's, that's why we're here. But, uh, I think on a more personal level, that's frustrating to me to see. I see it in education as well.

Right. My, my wife has been a teacher now she's working on her PhD in education, so I, I see those very similarly of this group of really good people that are giving services that help us as a community, as as a country, you know, however you want to expand that haven't. Had the experience that's necessary for them to stay in that profession.

And so to see, you know, a large exodus for whatever those reasons may be is really sad to me. And, and I hope that, you know, we can kind of right this ship there through, I. Models like ours through getting more people into the profession, things like that. So that not only, is it easier to be in dentistry, but also it remains, possible for people to own small private practices.

Right. Because I think from, you know, just my personal experience that. Was something that made the whole dental experience way better for me, even as somebody who had expanders, retainers, braces, you know, all these really not fun things as a teenager, knowing that I was with Dr. Doherty and Carbondale, uh, and you know that I knew him and I knew the family.

All of that good stuff. I, knowing that I was in good hands was very reassuring to me. So, you know, I really wanna see that that model be sustainable and you know, people to be able to get into owning their own, you know, family practice.

Michael: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. And then, right now, what do you love about dentistry?

Dalton: Oh, the people. I mean, honestly, that's one of my favorite things about, dentistry. Absolutely. Anytime that we go to a trade show, the vast majority of people that we speak to are just some of the most pleasant, welcoming, friendly people you've ever met in your life. They seem to, you know, be.

Enthusiastic and just all of these really positive traits. It's amazing. And certainly speaking to our users, I get the exact same impression that these are people that care deeply about other people. Uh, these are people that want to make a positive impact and are also just really passionate about what they do.

I think all of those speak wonders to this particular group of people.

Michael: Nice. Awesome. Dalton, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure. But before we say goodbye, can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Yeah,

Dalton: for sure. You can find me on LinkedIn primarily is gonna be, you know, the most business one.

You can find me on Instagram. I don't post much, but uh, you know, if that's something that you're really into, I think my handle is handy Dalton. So, uh, you can find me there or if you have any questions about dental staffing or you know, wanna continue any of this conversation, you can certainly reach out to me directly via.

dalton@tempme.com. Temp me is T e M P m E E. So, uh, always happy to, you know, reach out and connect with people in the, in the dental space though. Awesome.

Michael: So guys, that's all gonna be in the show notes below. And Dalton, thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from

Dalton: you soon.

Awesome. Thank you Michael. I really appreciate it.

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The Dental Marketer Podcast

The Dental Marketer

463: Dalton Handy | Building a Robust Marketing Department That Works in Your Practice!

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