This transcript is auto-generated and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.
Tyler Jorgenson (00:02.087)
Welcome out to business Ninja entrepreneur radio. I am your host Tyler Jorgensen. And today we’re going to be talking about business. We’re going to be talking about persuasion and we’re going to be talking about good dental hygiene with the legendary Dr. Chris Phelps, who is not only a highly successful dentist, has went from one to four practices and does amazing stuff there, but is also the CEO of Chaldini Institute. And if you don’t know about
Chaldini and about all his work. We’re going to cover some of that today. So you’re in for a real treat. Welcome out to the show, Dr. Phelps. Absolutely. I’m excited. It’s kind of unpack exactly your life and your experience and what led you here. And I want to start at the very beginning. When was that first moment of your life that you realized you were an entrepreneur?
Dr. Chris Phelps (00:36.63)
Hey, thanks Tyler, thanks for having me.
Dr. Chris Phelps (00:53.762)
Ooh, that’s a good question. So believe it or not, it was when I was in dental school and had always been an employee in jobs before, never had any inkling of starting my own business or doing whatever. And it was my freshman year. you know, me as an undergraduate student versus me as a dental school student, as my wife will tell you, because she was there for both, is a tale of two cities. Me as an undergrad doing the bare minimum to get through.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday class at eight. I was probably there on Wednesdays, taking classes where if I scored higher on the final, that was my score for the semester to get the A, right? Because for me, it was a hoop to jump through that I would, information I was never gonna use to get to where I really wanted to be, right? Once I was in dental school, I was like, all right, enough of that. This is the show, right? This is what I’m here for. So I need to learn this and I need to learn all of it.
Tyler Jorgenson (01:25.847)
You
Dr. Chris Phelps (01:50.062)
The difference was going from about a 15 hour semester course load to a 40 plus hour a semester course load. It’s a lot of stuff, right? And so my process to really learn it to that level of expertise is I would listen in class. I would kind of highlight if I felt like the professor said key things or on the slides that they showed us, I’d make notes if they made some inflection off the cuff about whatever. I kind of speed read and that when I look at a read paragraphs, I highlight keywords in the paragraph.
And then can just go back and read my highlights to summarize it. Well, I condensed all of that for my test to 15 pages of front and back notebook paper. So you can imagine that took some time, but then I condensed it again to 10 pages and then I rewrote it and got it down to five. So that was my process. I condensed every test in dental school down to five pages front and back. And I did well, okay. Cause I knew this, I could literally picture what page on my notes, the answer.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:33.025)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:48.545)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (02:49.804)
But one of my classmates comes up to me and he asked me for tutoring because he sees I do well. And I was class president at the time. And I’m like, yeah, of course, man, I’m happy to help you. But it’s a lot of stuff. I don’t know what to tell you. Now I did feel bad for the guy because I saw him putting in the hours of effort in the library. He just wasn’t getting the result. So I realized he didn’t understand what was important. It was too much information. He couldn’t get to the heart of it. Right. So the best way I could help him.
Tyler Jorgenson (03:14.048)
Right.
Dr. Chris Phelps (03:18.254)
and the least amount of time we had before the next test. was like, I made him a copy of my five pages of front notes. Said, here you go, man, put your time into this. He was like, that’s it? I’m like, this is what I do and I do okay. So put your time into this and we’ll see how you do. And after that test, he was going from averaging 68 to 74 per test. He got a 94 on the first test. And he was like, man, that was amazing. Thank you so much. He’s like, can you help me with the next test? I’m like, of course I can. I wouldn’t made him another copy. Next test, he got a 92.
Okay. Like fantastic, man. He’s like, dude, this is like a lifesaver. And he hands me 10 bucks and he says, thanks for the tutoring. And then he hands me another 10 and said, can I have the next test? And I was like, yeah. So he leaves my apartment and I turned to my wife, Amber, I’m like, I just made 20 bucks studying. She was like, you did? Yeah, it’s crazy. He just paid me. Wow. So next thing I know flash short, a couple of nights later, there’s a knock on my door at the apartment. It’s.
Another of my classmates has like been scrolling the library for looking for every advantage he can. And he goes, hey Phelps, so I hear you got these notes. And he hands me 10 bucks and says, I want to copy. Well, that guy became my biggest referral source. And next thing I know, I had over, know, flash forward, I had 70 members of my class on the payroll.
Tyler Jorgenson (04:33.623)
Ha ha.
Dr. Chris Phelps (04:35.694)
Blew the curve out of the water. The top 10 % hated me because I made them work a lot harder to be in the top 10 % than they would have the other schools. But that was my first business, right? Seeing a problem, solving it for myself, and then realizing that this might be a solution for everybody, others as well. Maybe others might appreciate the time I put into it to shorten their curve. And if you look at the businesses I built in dentistry, they all follow that model.
Tyler Jorgenson (04:45.793)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (04:53.121)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (04:57.537)
You know, yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (05:02.229)
Yeah, it makes sense. A lot of the entrepreneurs that we interview on the show and a lot of that I talked to have a similar story of schooling, right? Where there’s a phase of the schooling where they’re just trying to pass. Maybe they weren’t in it for, you know, whatever, for whatever reason. the problem solving and finding efficiencies, right? I feel like that’s a real entrepreneurial symbol, right? That this is consistent across everybody. And so
Dentistry is such a phenomenal or interesting market because so many dentists end up working for themselves, but are not entrepreneurial. And so it’s a really tough challenge where they own a practice, but they don’t know how to think, act around the resilience of an entrepreneur. like what’s your experience there and how do you help dentists? We’re going to start there. We’re going to go into other stuff, but how do you help dentists think more like an entrepreneur?
Dr. Chris Phelps (05:38.702)
Yes.
Dr. Chris Phelps (05:58.306)
Yeah, well, I realized looking back on it now, there’s three root causes of that problem. Okay. And it happens to be from three different parts of the mind. So from an IQ standpoint, IQ is your learning capacity, your storage capacity, right? It’s your, you were trained on, your experience wisdom to date. Nobody taught us how to be an entrepreneur, right? Dental school had zero time for that. They taught you how to be an employee as an associate. And that was it.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:15.147)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:20.183)
Mm-mm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (06:25.582)
So there’s a conflict there. They literally have no training and expertise in the matter. There’s a conflict in the personality side of the mind because most dentists like to interact with people and be social, but they didn’t anticipate the idea that most patients hate us. We’re not their favorite place to go. Not they hate us directly. They hate the experience. The whole aspect of lack of control, being in their mouth, whatever.
Tyler Jorgenson (06:45.216)
Yeah.
No, no, it’s by, yeah.
Dr. Chris Phelps (06:56.706)
And so they weren’t, they don’t even have the personality to manage those kinds of situations, number two. So they’re not trained, they don’t really have the personality for it, managing people and that kind of thing. Cause they’re used to being by themselves, right? Not having to work with others. We’re for the most part, you’re a wolf pack. You’re a solo wolf in essence, right? A lone wolf. You don’t get to a pack until you get out there. Nobody taught us what to do with that either. And then the third thing is kind of comes from
Tyler Jorgenson (07:01.995)
Right.
Tyler Jorgenson (07:16.725)
Right.
Dr. Chris Phelps (07:24.268)
what’s called the Colby side of the mind or your cognitive side of the mind. Instinctively, not, they’re built. The people, it’s kind of funny, Kathy Colby started this assessment and she told me that 90 % of medical professionals have the same Colby profile. They’re instinctively built. Like what kind of car are they is the same. And it’s because they were the perfect profile to be successful in the education system. But once they got out of it’s a totally different strength set that’s needed.
Tyler Jorgenson (07:46.079)
Yep. Great students.
Dr. Chris Phelps (07:52.012)
Right, so now you got Ferraris that are driving off roads and they’re wondering why they’re hitting so many bumps. So we’re not instinctively built to do the job on top of that. So add those three together. We’re in trouble.
Tyler Jorgenson (07:55.019)
Yep. Yep.
Tyler Jorgenson (08:05.173)
Yeah. Now you didn’t fit the mold perfectly. You already thought and saw things a little differently. You were a little bit different than the other dentists, which is probably why you grew so quickly in those first few years of coming out and doing your own thing. You know, what was the first big challenge that you faced as a practice owner and entrepreneur and how’d you overcome it?
Dr. Chris Phelps (08:25.89)
the big challenge was going from that first office, initially getting established, like most things, getting your, you building my patient base within another doctor’s patient base. Cause I joined my wife’s dentist. We’ve been her dentist since she was 14. And he was, I was very fortunate because he spent his money on my marketing ideas to get myself patients and opportunities. And then I was fortunate enough to be able to capitalize on those opportunities. without him doing that, it would, it would not have been successful.
Tyler Jorgenson (08:38.561)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (08:48.331)
Nice.
Dr. Chris Phelps (08:55.982)
Okay, me with the ideas and him willing to invest in my ideas, right?
Tyler Jorgenson (09:00.203)
That’s a big lesson in partnerships and mentorship, right? Is the person actually has to be willing to invest in the person they’re trying to bring up, not just say, well, I’m going to bring on an associate and they’re going to make me money. that’s, that’s really neat. That’s rare.
Dr. Chris Phelps (09:11.82)
Yes. Yeah. He even told me and he even tried to undersell it. I was like, so, you know, what do think about me coming in with you when I graduate? And he goes, well, I’ve had associates in the past and I’ll never work out, but you’re welcome to come try. Right. Yeah. How’s that for winning endorsement? And of course, what I heard was, you’re saying there’s a chance. but that’s really what it was. He stepped back with the other guys, did nothing in marketing to get new opportunities and just thought his patients would go to the new guy.
Tyler Jorgenson (09:25.815)
Well, nice of them. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right.
Dr. Chris Phelps (09:41.932)
Well, this principle of scarcity kicks in, in our persuasion world where when you make yourself a scarce resource and pull back from people, all it does is make them want you more and pay more to get to you. So that’s all they do is just wait for the old guy, right? And no, but new guys starved. So yeah, we marketing and him letting me spend my money on my ideas, solve that problem, which he didn’t even know was happening.
Tyler Jorgenson (10:05.269)
Yeah. And so how’d you overcome that? Like, I mean, you started growing, you got the first bit office, but like, what was the challenge of getting into the other practices?
Dr. Chris Phelps (10:14.862)
Well, the challenge was the second one because transitioning an existing business to a new culture and a new leadership style is one thing. And in essence, you buy somebody’s business, you’re buying their problems on top of that. So you managing those things. Uh, the second office we did was a brand new cold start office from scratch. So there are no biases. There are no problems already in place. You can do whatever you want with it. Oh, wait a minute. Do we have the systems for that? Are our systems replicatable? Are they repeatable?
Tyler Jorgenson (10:25.431)
That’s right.
Dr. Chris Phelps (10:45.537)
Uh-oh, same marketing. do, all right. People just found us through referrals and other things. How do we get them to come into this new place? How does that happen? Um, we started big too. Like, you know, we, we upfitted like six of our seven rooms of chairs and equipment. So that chair is costing you money, whether anybody’s in it or not. So how do we fill those things as fast as possible? in that case, I did two things, obviously.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:00.448)
Hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:05.045)
Yep.
Dr. Chris Phelps (11:13.184)
I’m a, I don’t know until I try. That’s the way I learned is trial and error. it’s messy, but it gets me where I need to go. So with marketing, I was just doing everything that we could afford in marketing. had the budget and profitability from the first office to fund the marketing for the second one, which was also key. Most doctors, they get out of school, they get money for the equipment and a little working capital to pay their people, but they have no money for marketing and they don’t loan for that necessarily. So they get stuck going in network.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:37.547)
Right.
Dr. Chris Phelps (11:41.998)
So least we had a budget that I could use for marketing. And I hired somebody with a lot more wisdom than I did. I hired a dental consultant to come in and say, Hey, I need systems for new practice. I’m not saying I’m going to use them a hundred percent because I usually, but I need a framework. need something to start with. And then I can modify it from there as needed. So.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:01.983)
Why is it that so many times people, and not just in dentistry, but why is it that so many times that once somebody becomes a professional in something, they have a harder time accepting support, like reaching out to a consultant?
Dr. Chris Phelps (12:17.506)
Yeah. Well, I think part of it is, it might be embarrassment, right? They’re afraid to ask for help. As I said, dentistry, we’re kind of conditioned, especially in school, to be solo people. And that person sitting next to you, that’s your competitor. That’s not your colleague. And it’s isolating as a job as far as that. So not being able to ask for help is key. Most of them, especially with a brand new startup, again, they don’t have the money to put towards that. Even though they need it and they might want it, they don’t have the funds.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:21.281)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:27.414)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:47.851)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I think that that lone wolf thing carries through that, that world a lot. I want to, let’s shift a little bit and see, you know, one, I will get to how you became involved with Chaldini and that sort of thing. but for those, the uninitiated, if you can just summer summarize kind of what Chaldini Institute is and the work on persuasion that you guys do.
Dr. Chris Phelps (13:13.164)
Yeah. So Dr. Robert Cialdini wrote a, he’s a professor of marketing and psychology at Arizona State University. He wrote a pioneer book over 40 years ago called influence the psychology and practice. Not many books I can think of off the top of my head that are that old, but have never been more prevalent and relevant than they are today. Okay. And what he did in his research was just go study. He went outside of the lab and went out into the field and studied what the best of the best people were using to persuade us.
Tyler Jorgenson (13:42.603)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (13:43.382)
and looked for patterns. Is there something everybody’s tapping into, whether there was a name to it or they realized it or not? And that’s what he discovered was that there were six psychological principles they were tapping into, and now we have seven in total. And that’s what he went back and did his research on, to prove these things, what they were, and then doing all kinds of studies to test, well, how do you activate these things? How do you turn them on like a light switch in a situation? And how do you amplify them? And then it was the research of Daniel Kahneman.
and his pioneer work, Nobel Prize winning economist who kind of measured the fact that we’ve got kind of two levels of our brain, like system one and system two, kind of like an iceberg above the water and the iceberg below the water, subconscious versus rational thought. And not many things, what Kahneman proved, reaches rational thought level. Most of our decisions is in that system one, right? It’s under the water, subconsciously. Well, guess where our principles of persuasion play in that subconscious realm?
Tyler Jorgenson (14:31.104)
Mm-mm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (14:40.396)
So what it did for me was it showed me the actual things people are using to make the majority of their decisions. And what I was doing was making my strategies around the excuses people told me after they said no.
So when I backed it up and started ignoring what they said no, because we’ll rationalize anything after we’ve done it, doesn’t mean that was behind the decision. When I started making strategies using these principles, then suddenly it wasn’t about the money anymore. It wasn’t about their insurance coverage. It wasn’t about the other barriers that we kept hearing anymore. So these principles of persuasion are powerful in getting people to move your direction. So yes, your requests, what have you. And what we focus on at the Cialdini Institute is teaching that to people.
Tyler Jorgenson (15:17.11)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (15:23.086)
but most importantly, how to ethically leverage these principles for your specific situation. Because people do and have leveraged these against you, whether you realize it or not, unethically, right? But there is objective solid criteria you can use ethically to leverage these things and make this a win-win for you and your customer or the person you’re interacting
Tyler Jorgenson (15:34.432)
yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (15:47.041)
Do you have a favorite one of the seven principles?
Dr. Chris Phelps (15:51.042)
By far for me, and it was the consistency principle, which is in essence, if you get people to make a real commitment, they do, right? So flashback, I sold two of my best highest producing offices. I take over my two worst ones, because I needed to free up some partners to be happier elsewhere. So me and the original guy took over the debt on the old plate on the worst ones and let the other guys have the profitable ones. And
Tyler Jorgenson (15:59.831)
Hmm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (16:18.284)
I had all these problems in these practices. That’s why they were the worst ones. And when I had multiple businesses, you could kind of ignore or procrastinate it. When you consolidate, you can’t. And I couldn’t put my finger on the root cause of the problem. And that’s when I heard Cialdini speak for the first time at a keynote address. And when he went through this principle, I was like, this is my problem. This is the root cause. If people commit, they do. So why aren’t my patients returning for treatment? Why is my team, why is it when the cat’s away, the mice play?
Why do I have to keep telling them to do their job? Why don’t they just do their job? Why am I paying for my associate doctors to go get education and they don’t come back and use the education? They don’t start new services and whatnot. Well, I didn’t get a commitment out of any of them to do any of that. Once I learned how to get better commitments, everything changed.
Tyler Jorgenson (17:05.611)
Yeah, that’s interesting. And I, you know, I love in that the commitment and consistency is the commitments like starting small, right? If they make a small commitment, they’re more likely to make the larger commitment later. And it’s kind of in sales and marketing, right? It’s, know, you want to get a bunch of micro or smaller yeses before going for the big one. I, what’s so fascinating to me about what Chaldini Institute has done in all this work is it wasn’t written specifically for marketing, but it’s like, but the marketers, you know,
They always say marketers are in everything, but we we’ve all latched onto this and we, and entrepreneurs have, have seen it as this amazing way to understand their, their customers better. and when you guys are working in, you know, in the Institute now and you’re working with people, I’m sure you’re not just working with businesses and entrepreneurs. You’re looking for anyone who’s looking to make lasting change or and create persuasion. What are some other examples of people that are coming into Chaldean the Institute?
to learn from you guys and like maybe give a couple of case studies.
Dr. Chris Phelps (18:07.874)
Yeah. mean, obviously sales is a big one. we get people in walks of sales, online sales, direct sales, retail sales, marketers alike, which is all about how to more effectively change your communication. Example there in my own dental practices, I had a direct mail company doing my direct mail for my practices for 10 straight years, mailing to the same list. And it was effective. Well,
Tyler Jorgenson (18:13.995)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (18:21.207)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (18:29.877)
Hey, give me a second. We’re gonna pause for a second.
Dr. Chris Phelps (18:41.57)
Yeah, you lost your video.
or I lost your video.
Dr. Chris Phelps (18:50.632)
your cameras are reading.
Tyler Jorgenson (18:52.704)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (19:13.047)
My dog has this amazing ability to like step on off buttons on power strips, even though they’re like protected. So all right, we are good. So we’re at like 1930. I’ll like, like I said, at least we’re not live. The team can edit it all up. Yeah. So you were, uh, do you, if you recall where you were at, can just carry from there.
Dr. Chris Phelps (19:24.782)
hehe
Dr. Chris Phelps (19:37.71)
So let’s use direct mail as an example for marketing. So when I had a company that was doing all my direct mail for my practices for 10 straight years, mailing to the exact same list, and it was effective. But I was just learning persuasion at the time. I hadn’t really communicated with this. And I started looking at my piece, realizing they really hadn’t leveraged any of the principles in the messaging in this piece, right? And the offers, none of it, the headlines.
So I stripped the whole thing down myself and rebuilt it with a different direct mail company, telling them what to put in, what pictures to use, everything, sent it right back out to the same list I’d been mailing to for 10 years, and it doubled the response. Okay. So what that showed me again, the power is again, if your marketing is not grabbing people’s focus and attention, you can’t persuade them. But putting in the right headlines, the right messages,
to grab that attention, now you got a chance, right? So marketing is very effective. People that manage other people or have to influence people to move down a path. Like we get a lot of people in HR and managers and those kinds of things, because you can ethically influence people to do their job without having to tell them. And what’s crazy is when you influence them to do their job, when the cat’s away, the mice don’t play, so to speak. So I always say, look, if your job entails,
interacting with other people to any capacity inside your company or out, then the skill of persuasion is an important one you need to
Tyler Jorgenson (21:09.015)
Yeah, absolutely. So what do you recommend? Uh, if you’re a business owner and you know, entrepreneur or practice owner and you wanting to get better at that, where do they go? Okay.
Dr. Chris Phelps (21:19.128)
Well, definitely start with a book, right? Influence of Psychology and Persuasion is a, there’s an audio book for that. For those of you who like to listen to your books as you’re traveling or exercising or whatever you’re doing. If you like what you hear automatically, there’ll be plenty for you to start with right there, right? But if you’re ready to go deeper, obviously that’s what we do at the Institute. We have online trainings that on demand. So it’s not like you’re stuck to a schedule. You can learn it on your pace, so to speak. And I’m really excited. We’ve got a new mastermind.
coming out that I’m starting where probably, you know, knowing the principles is one thing, but the biggest challenge people have is the application. Like, what do I do with it? Okay, I see it here in this moment, but how do I tap into it? What if I got multiple principles? What order goes where, right? What’s the sequence? So in the mastermind, that’s where we’re really going to focus on teaching application for all of these different topics.
Tyler Jorgenson (22:11.159)
I love that. yeah, so I mean, you still have the dental business, are you still a practicing dentist or is that all passed behind you?
Dr. Chris Phelps (22:21.1)
Yeah, that’s funny. So I still treat patients on Tuesdays for a couple of reasons. Number one, because my wife said I can’t stop being her and the kids dentist. Number two, because I have other dental support. So going back to I solve problems and then I make companies out of them. So I have a dental call center. I have a software company that deals with the same called dental membership plans. I have a coaching consulting business for the business side of dentistry.
Tyler Jorgenson (22:24.075)
Awesome.
Tyler Jorgenson (22:29.719)
You
Dr. Chris Phelps (22:47.414)
All my colleagues, it’s kind of funny if my fingers are in somebody’s mouth, we call that wet finger dentist, then you automatically lose credibility in anything you’re talking to them about, right? So I also maintain my license partially for the street grid, the credibility.
Tyler Jorgenson (22:58.134)
Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (23:03.221)
Yeah, no, if you’re gonna have businesses in that space, it does. I mean, that’s principle four, right, authority, right? It keeps your authority high because you’re still working and walking the walk and that’s a big deal. What, you as you mentioned, like, multiple practices, multiple businesses that you just listed and you’re being CEO of Cialdini Institute.
Dr. Chris Phelps (23:11.374)
authority.
Tyler Jorgenson (23:30.429)
Is there such a thing as work-life balance and how are you balancing all of this?
Dr. Chris Phelps (23:34.286)
Yeah, that’s a good question. So on the surface, it may look like I do a lot of things and I balance a lot of companies. And I will say for the most part, that’s not true. I’m really good. And, you know, I’m a follower of Dan Sullivan and the entrepreneurial time system and making sure that I don’t half-ass two things. I whole ass one thing. So set the time to focus on one area and protect that time.
which makes me more productive and then frees me up the next segment of time to focus on the next thing, the next company, the next whatever. So I’m really good at just scheduling my time well and focusing. The other thing I do is I don’t do all these things at one time. I really try to focus and build a company and get it independent of me with the right management team and people that run the day to days, because that’s not my strength. And then that frees me up to go do the next company and then build that team.
Tyler Jorgenson (24:28.055)
That makes sense.
Dr. Chris Phelps (24:28.812)
And then that builds and frees me up to now focus on Childeany Institute and the next project. So.
Tyler Jorgenson (24:33.291)
Yeah. What of all the things you got going on, I mean, you mentioned the mastermind. Is that what you’re most excited about coming down in over the next year or so?
Dr. Chris Phelps (24:43.188)
It is. We’ve had this whole series. We’ve been talking about small bigs, like these small little things you can do that can have a huge impact on your outcomes. And so that’s when people really see the power. Like me, I drank the Kool-Aid when I took those two struggling practices. And in three years after using my practices, my laboratory of putting these principles into practice and trying them out, I had those two practices doing more in revenue, profitability, and free time for myself than when I had four. Okay.
Tyler Jorgenson (24:50.102)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (25:11.511)
Hmm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (25:12.268)
And then I sold one of those and thought, can I do more with one than when I had four? And the answer is yes. And I did that in the years of 2009, 2010, and 2011. So right after the housing crisis and one of the worst economic climates we’ve been in, a huge economic uncertainty, not unlike what we’re feeling today, by the way. So I see a lot of parallels and these practices each are having million dollar revenue growth three years straight.
Tyler Jorgenson (25:33.623)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Dr. Chris Phelps (25:41.772)
when in the history of dentistry, more dentists went bankrupt during those three years than ever before. Right? So what it showed me was not only are these things timeless, they are independent of economy and any other barrier you think is why people are saying no to you out there today.
Tyler Jorgenson (26:00.671)
Yeah, interesting. I want to unpack just a little bit on that idea of small bigs. I’m sure you work on this with a lot of the people you coach and mentor, but just teach our listeners a little bit about the power of small bigs and what they should be looking for.
Dr. Chris Phelps (26:13.762)
Yeah, so we’ll start with unity. I just dropped this little nugget with a group the other day and they blew their minds. But if you’re making appointments with people for any reason on the phone, at the chair, once they’ve made the appointment, in theory, the unity principle should kick into play. They’re now part of the family. They’re not against you. It’s not you versus me. They are you, right? They are of your unit, your family. So use unitizing language with them. We, us, our partnership together.
So in my world, a patient’s called, made an appointment. Great, Mr. Smith, we got you down for this Tuesday at three. Hey, before you go, is there anybody else we can make an appointment for?
Tyler Jorgenson (26:52.982)
Hmm.
Dr. Chris Phelps (26:54.296)
people get so stuck in their own mindset that they forget there is other people that they could help and invite. And when you say it in that way with we, we’re now on the same team, they’re more apt to help. And almost now we’re taking every potential marketing phone call instead of just getting one person potentially out of it, we may get more. And at one of my call centers, my agents were using this and the record is they got 10 new patient appointments scheduled from one phone call by asking that question.
Tyler Jorgenson (26:59.873)
Right.
Tyler Jorgenson (27:21.302)
Wow.
Dr. Chris Phelps (27:23.83)
Now compound that. What do think that’s going to do for your ROI?
Tyler Jorgenson (27:28.321)
yeah. Yeah. If you take a cost of lead and, and then you can divide it by two, right? Every time or by 10 that’s wild. what, yeah, to me, all of these things that we do in life, all of these things that we do in business, it’s not just about making money and building businesses, but it’s about creating a life that you actually love living. What’s one item on your personal bucket list that you’re going to accomplish in the next 12 months?
Dr. Chris Phelps (27:55.214)
Um, well, big thing is my, I’ve got a son that’s rising senior and graduating. So my focus is, uh, there’s some new, uh, entrepreneurial training programs for youth more so than ever. Uh, I know he wants to be an engineer, but I know he wants to be an entrepreneurial engineer. Um, so trying to get him education and training that looking back, I wish I could have had, you know,
Tyler Jorgenson (28:09.975)
Okay.
Dr. Chris Phelps (28:18.19)
I stumbled into it organically and fumbled my way through it and then had to go figure it out. I would like an easier path for him if possible. So making sure I’m getting him plugged in this year is going be important. And then of course we’ve got a ton of family trips planned because this will be his last year at home with us. So just trying to enjoy that last year with him and the family is going to be important.
Tyler Jorgenson (28:20.609)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (28:38.775)
Cool. One place you’re going you’re most excited about.
Dr. Chris Phelps (28:41.816)
But we got an Alaska cruise coming up. So, yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (28:43.703)
There you go. That sounds awesome. If people want to learn more about you, Dr. Phelps, where should they go?
Dr. Chris Phelps (28:49.752)
Probably the easiest way is just to email me directly at chris, so C-H-R-I-S at childini.com. And of course, childini is probably one of the most, one of the hardest words to spell and pronounced for a lot of people. But hopefully we’ll put that in the notes or something. Yeah.
Tyler Jorgenson (29:00.919)
Right.
Tyler Jorgenson (29:04.893)
yeah. It’ll be everywhere. Absolutely. Awesome. And so, yeah, if you’re looking to learn more about what they do over at Childini Institute and their trainings, you really should check out what they’re doing with the mastermind coming up. you can go to, childini.com, but we’ll also put all the links and, Chris’s email in the notes. Chris, thank you so much for coming out on the show and sharing your story with us to all my business, just wherever you’re listening, watching, or tuning in, it’s your turn to go out and do something.
