My name is Joe Lai and I’m with Kirkpatrick and Lai Orthodontics. We create beautiful smiles by straightening kids’ and adults teeth. The services that Clay and his team provide would be something like how to get more customers into my business and get the message out that I’m the best orthodontist in Tulsa. He does that by social media, through videos and pictures. The goal our business coach gave us is to have top mind awareness. He also showed us how to reach out and create that bond with my referring doctors. He helped me get somebody in the house to go out, meet doctors and helped me kind of continue building that relationship while I do the work. We worked on the website. That is so majorly important. We get several patients through our website and he’s taught us that there’s a certain way that you want your website to look, and certain content you want to have because you need a call to action.
We didn’t have that before. So, now we get seven or eight new patients just through the website alone. I would just say Clay and his team are over the top. I mean, nothing is too big, nothing’s too grand for Clay and his staff and his team. I mean, he says boom. He really means it. I mean they overdeliver really, to be honest with you. They come up with ideas that are just top notch and if you don’t like something, great we will move on and figure out something that works for your style and identity. But, I would just say the biggest thing for Clay and his team is, they over deliver. They have helped kind of create that culture also for your business that hey, we gotta get things done in a timely manner. He holds me accountable to do certain tasks, so we can create things in a timely manner.
There was a sense of urgency that he creates. It’s just through his enthusiasm. He’s always on the go, so it kind of puts you on that same mindset of hey, let’s get this done. Let’s work hard, but also have fun with it. When I went to orthodontic school, we got zero training in marketing. Actually, when I got out of school 18 years ago, it was kind of taboo to actually do any marketing. The most you could do is put your name in the yellow pages, but now it’s pretty common knowledge and pretty mainstream to go ahead and get your name out there. Tell everyone about your story, who you are, and what you’re about. If you don’t do that, it’s a leg of your business that you’re lacking. You will end up behind because you can be the best orthodontist or the best whatever, but if people don’t know that, then you won’t get the customers coming in.
I meet with my business coach on every Friday at 11:00. To be honest with you, in the beginning, I wasn’t that thrilled with it. Coming in every week just kind of seemed like a lot. For me, I find the marketing aspect interesting. I enjoy it. I love working with Clay. That is mainly the reason why I’ve kind of built a relationship with him. I think it got to a level now where we’re pretty good friends. To me it’s enjoyable. I really enjoy the creativity and how when you put the energy into it, everything comes back and it works. I’ve worked with Clay and his team for about, I think it’s about three years, and every year it’s has gotten better. We have grown every year.
I’ve been trying to get my wife and her pediatric dentist office and our partners with Clay for a while. I just saw that they were kind of getting stagnant in their practice, and times were kind of getting slow for them. They needed more referrals, and I knew that Clay could definitely help them out by even just one thing. That would be just changed to the website, and just by doing that you can get patients very easily. Another thing too is that they needed to change their culture and their mindset of how to bring in patients, creating a brand as well for them, and giving them more of an identity. Really for anybody that’s coming out of school or just starting new with a business of any sort, be it medical or anything of that nature, I would highly recommend Clay as a business coach to help you create that business model.
We’re trained to do what we’re trained to do, but we’re not trained to do the business aspect, the marketing, or how to deal with patients or our staff. Clay can pretty much do all of that, but what I liked the most about Clay and his staff is that everything is in house. I don’t have to go to one place to do my website and somewhere else to do my videos. I don’t have to go to another place to shoot photographs somewhere else to do web content or team coaching. Clay pretty much is the total package. He’s a really great mentor. So, if you’re new and starting a business and you want to avoid all the pitfalls, I would definitely hook up with Clay and his team. If someone’s not using Clay and his team to help build the business, they’re missing out on a lot. There are so many details and so many aspects of creating a business, and a business coach really makes it simple. It makes it fun and you learn so much in a short amount of time. I think Clay is the best entrepreneur, business coach, marketer, you name it. This guys has got it all going on.