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Open peer-reviewed publications, orthodontic news, knowledge, and discussion

A New Way to Think About Gifting

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Gifting

I just finished one of the best business books I have read all year. The title is Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals and Strengthen Retention and the author is John Ruhlin

I felt what he spoke about in this book would apply to us as Orthodontists building referral networks as well as our daily lives and the people we interact with including our employees, spouses, children, other family and friends.

In this short book review, I will share with you my major takeaways and I would encourage you to get the book and dig deeper as he has many great stories to share how he used “gifting” to get in front of the right people and build lifelong business relationships.

1. Gifting must be done consistently and not during the typical “holiday” season.

I think many of us know that at Christmas everyone is buried in Chocolates, Cookies, Fruit Baskets and Fruit Cakes ( I hope these are not still being given out!)

His suggestion is to pick a different time of the year to thank our best clients, customers and doctors. One example he mentions is St. Patrick’s day as a perfect day to provide a client a gift. The card could say,” We are so lucky to have you as our patient!” This could be for the patient or family that sends you patients and raves about your office.

You can use your imagination for other holidays with “cute phrases” and maybe even a themed gift.

2. Speaking of gifts…they cannot be “tokens” of our appreciation or worse yet..gift cards. They have to be valuable, ideally customizable and something that individual would enjoy along with his or her family.

He tells the story of his college girlfriend’s dad, who had a reputation for being very generous, a natural giver. Her dad’s name was Paul and he was a well established attorney

John was a poor college student selling Cutco knives and asked Paul if he would be interested in buying a Swiss Army Knife for his clients for the holidays. Paul instead asking about the paring knives which confused John. He did not think too many of Paul’s clients would be in the kitchen doing meal prep.

Paul immediately shared with him that providing a gift for the spouse and the family would be more memorable and furthermore, provide the window to add to the knife set in the future.

I know at first the idea of a “knife set” sounds corny, but after you read through his book and the stories he shares, you will have a different mindset about the types of gifts you should be sending.

3. The final point I want to share is that the “gifting” has to be consistent. You have to develop a plan to gift those important people on an ongoing basis. Cannot be a “one and done” approach.

John has a company that works with businesses to help them with their “gifting” process. I am not saying we all need to sign up and get going with his company, but what I did learn was the need for a system to be put into place. Much like the other systems we have in our offices, this too, needs to be put into motion and automated in a way, so that those referring doctors and patients are consistently thanked in a very elegant and consistent way.

After reading this book, I got energized about the things we as orthodontists can control regarding our practices. We may not be about to control DIY orthodontics, but we can surely take charge of those important relationships that mean so much to our profession, our practice and our personal lives.

Licensed to Sell

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Licensing Ideas

When developing a new invention or product idea, partnering with an existing orthodontic company is often the smartest play to make it a reality.  As highlighted in the book One Simple Idea, licensing is the business arrangement where one party grants permission to another party to utilize or “rent” its intellectual property.

Why Licensing?

The licensing model is ideal for the practicing orthodontist.  Licensing affords the ability to generate passive income by collecting a royalty per unit sold, typically paid quarterly.  The average royalty across industries is reported around 5 to 7%.  However, in a highly specialized field such as orthodontics, it is not unheard of to secure a rate of 10% or higher.  Aside from receiving royalties, it is often possible to negotiate that the licensee pays the legal fees for the patents, while you as the inventor retain the intellectual property rights.

Most importantly, licensing allows you to tap into a corporation’s existing supply chain and distribution network to get your product to market faster.  Also, you will be capitalizing on the company’s sales and marketing teams, essentially getting them to work on your behalf.

Alternatively, creating a business to manufacture and sell the product yourself can be a risky endeavor.  Not only are you wagering your money, but the precious commodity of time.  Think of the potential headaches associated with managing overhead, inventory and fulfillment.  By licensing your patented concept, you can avoid the pitfalls often associated with venturing a business.

Approaching Companies for Licensure

Orthodontic companies are hungry for exclusive products that will provide them with an edge over the competition.  Consider how many suppliers offer generic goods, whether it be brackets, wires or disposable items.  Now more than ever, corporations are actively seeking outside ideas due to a concept called open innovation.  Most of the mid-to-small size businesses do not have the resources to develop new products in-house.  Even if a company does have their own product development team, these engineers are not always attuned to the routine needs of the practicing orthodontist.  Moreover, many companies are eager to partner with doctors in hopes of an eventual endorsement (and if you aren’t willing to endorse your own product, you should consider going back to the proverbial drawing board).

The biggest hesitation often cited in approaching companies with an invention is the fear that they will “steal the idea.”  This trepidation is unfounded as companies do not want to embroil themselves in any legal or social media fiascos.  Filing a PPA, or provisional patent application, with the USPTO is a highly effective means for establishing perceived ownership of an idea, and is preferred over the pervasive NDA, or non-disclosure agreement.  Confidentiality agreements represent a gesture of professionalism between the parties and can act as a deterrent, but NDAs are notoriously difficult to enforce.  Furthermore, large companies will not be willing to sign your NDA simply because their product development teams could be working on a similar concept.  It may not be worth the risk to enter into this agreement from the corporation’s standpoint.  If anything, the company will present you with their NDA drawn up by their in-house counsel.

After the USPTO issues a filing date for your PPA, you can begin contacting orthodontic companies with your marketing sell sheet and video, as detailed in the previous article.  While the obvious channel is through your designated sales reps, also consider initial communication through websites, LinkedIn and Facebook Pages.  Personally, I have had good success at conferences such as the AAO Annual Session because you can get direct access to the decision makers.

When approaching companies, it is important to cast a wide net as the probability of getting a company to say yes often becomes a numbers game.  You will likely need to follow-up several times before getting a response.  While rejection is not uncommon, remember to thank the company for the opportunity and ask them for feedback on your product.  You will often get candid advice and valuable insight to improve your product or pitch.

Our collective ingenuity is essential for the evolution of the specialty.  By taking advantage of our intellectual property rights, we can help shape our own future.

If you missed the previous articles in this series, check out Inventing Our Future and Bringing Your Ideas To Market. Please leave any questions or comments either below or on the Ortho Cosmos Facebook Group.

Disclosure:

I recently licensed a product I co-developed with Dr. Richard Kaye to MidAtlantic Orthodontics (MAO). The ideas and concepts related to licensing have been adapted from best-selling author Stephen Key’s One Simple Idea and the inventRight consulting program, though I receive no compensation from them.  Also, only an attorney can give proper legal advice, which I am not.

Bringing Your Ideas to Market

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Idea Lightbulbs

Have you imagined the next great orthodontic technique or appliance?  Do you often dream up new ideas and concepts between patients?  Perhaps you enjoy inventing or entrepreneurial television shows like Shark Tank, The Profit or The Toy Box.  But how do you turn your ideas into reality?

Before we begin, let’s briefly review the common forms of intellectual property (IP) granted under United States law:

Copyright

A copyright affords the creator of an original work privilege to its use and its distribution, hence ‘copy’ ‘right’. In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. It is important to distinguish that copyrights protect the manner in which the information is distributed, not the ideas or concepts themselves.  Copyrights can be applied to many forms of media including television, film and music.  In orthodontics, copyrights are typically assigned to journal publications, textbooks, clinical photography, and content for presentations or webinars.

Trademarks

A trademark refers to a name, phrase, logo or symbol which uniquely identifies a brand.  The most conspicuous example in orthodontics is Invisalign®, which is obviously a trademark of Align Technology, Inc.  Marks with the encircled R, have been legally vetted and registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  Interestingly, marks designated by the superscript TM are informally claimed and are not on file with the USPTO.  These unregistered trademarks are more difficult to defend in matters of infringement.

Patents

While there are technically three types of patents in the United States, utility and design patents are the most applicable to our specialty.

In basic terms, a utility patent covers how an invention functions or is manufactured.  Utility patents protect an invention for 20 years and often take 2 to 3 years to issue.  The associated legal costs vary considerably, but can range from $10,000 to $25,000.

A design patent, on the other hand, protects the unique ornamental appearance of an invention only and is unrelated to its function.  Design patents are valid for 14 years and can typically be obtained for less than $10,000 in legal fees.

Utilizing Provisional Patents

As one can see, obtaining patents can be an expensive proposition.  While your natural instinct might be to contact a patent attorney to prevent your idea from getting stolen, you may spend a small fortune on protecting an idea that ultimately no one is interested in.  If a product won’t generate enough sales revenue, the patents won’t be worth the investment in the first place.  Keep in mind that 97% of patents never make enough money to pay for themselves!

Taking this into consideration, obtaining “patent pending” protection for your invention is quite attainable through a more economical, DIY approach.  As detailed in the book One Simple Idea, you can perform a preliminary search yourself using Google Patents and Google Images to determine if your invention is truly unique.  This exploratory phase is referred to as a “prior art search.”  Also, if inventing an orthodontic product, remember to thoroughly check the suppliers’ catalogs and websites for similar items.

The next step is to create a virtual prototype, which is a preliminary 3D rendering or CAD file of your concept.  It is not necessary to invest in an actual working prototype, which can be quite costly.  Graphic designers and engineers can be reasonably hired through websites such as Fiverr, Upwork or Guru.  Be sure to have any freelancer you work with sign a non-disclosure and work-for-hire agreement first.

Once a representation of your product is made, develop a simple, one page “sell sheet” or video that explains its unique features and benefits.  These marketing materials will eventually be used to pitch corporations and assess the demand for your product in the marketplace.

Immediately prior to contacting companies, file a provisional patent application (PPA) for $130 with the USPTO.  This PPA can be written yourself in plain, non-legalese language, deferring the upfront legal expense.  Include graphics and visuals of your design as well as potential work-arounds.  While the USPTO reviews your PPA for completeness’ sake, no one actually reads it!  A provisional patent establishes a filing date and grants you “patent pending” status for a one year period.  During this critical time, you are able to shop your idea around to find an interested party that will want to bring your product concept to market.  From a business standpoint, this step is critical. 

In the final installment of this series of posts, I will discuss how to approach the orthodontic companies with your ideas.  I will also highlight the advantages of the licensing business model, and why it is a preferable approach over financing or venturing a product on your own.  If you missed Part I in this series, check out Inventing Our Future.

Kindly leave any inventing questions or comments either below or on the Ortho Cosmos Facebook Group.

Disclosure:

I recently licensed a product I co-developed with Dr. Richard Kaye to MidAtlantic Orthodontics (MAO). The ideas and concepts related to licensing have been adapted from best-selling author Stephen Key’s One Simple Idea and the inventRight consulting program, though I receive no compensation from them.  Also, only an attorney can give proper legal advice, which I am not.

Orthodontics: More Art or Science?

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Art vs. Science

When you consider the orthodontic specialty, do you consider it more art, or more science? An artistic process is often based on individual judgement and highly variable. It is necessary in a changeable environment and a unique service where all patients do not want the service performed in the same way. It is generally desired in a highly variable, high value business environment.

Low value, low variability business processes are best approached from a scientific process. This incorporates more systemization and standardization that lends itself to mass customization or mass production. These two processes leverage economy of scale. If a customer does not value a process significantly, turning that process into a standard system is the best course of action. This allows for more time and effort to be applied to the more artistic components of orthodontic practice.

Where does art add value for patients vs. where do scientific standards make sense to gain efficiency and predictability?

In an orthodontic practice, what aspects are an art? These are processes that are suited for an artistic approach that produce unique or tailored results. These include customer service, business development, smile design, and leadership training. Many other processes can be approached from an artistic standpoint in an orthodontic practice. Smaller practices tend to apply artistic systems to highly customize the experience, but as a practice grows, these systems become unsustainable. Taking an unbalanced approach with highly artistic processes in a practice is often not efficient nor effective when patients do not value the artistic value of certain processes within a practice.

In the converse, scientific processes can be standardized and mass produced in a predictable, reproducible manner. Creating a scientific process that systemizes certain aspects of orthodontic treatment greatly increases productivity and reduces variability. A consistent and effective bonding protocol is an example, where gaining almost 0% bond failure is highly desirable. Office systems to standardize the bonding process and reduce operator variability are highly desirable. This example shows how a technique sensitive process such as bonding should take advantage of the predictable and consistent standardization process to improve a practice’s performance. The risk as a practice grows and implements many standard systems, is that employees can switch to autopilot, and although that may benefit bonding technique, excessive systemization will discourage employee engagement in the areas that are best approached from an artistic standpoint.

As an orthodontic practice grows. It is important to develop effective systems that lead to success. This requires an effort in the practice to determine which category of management those systems are best suited. This balance of an artistic and scientific approach allows for business growth while maintaining systems for quality treatment and a positive patient experience. These include the industrial standardized process, mass customization and art systems.

Industrial Standardized Processes

These processes are best used for work that is done best by doing it exactly the same way each time. Incorporating the type of consistency of a standardized process pays off big time because it reduces time spent on work that’s best done without a lot of variation, and reduces waste so that resources can be applied in other parts of the practice that can benefit from more creativity.

Technology often aids in making the process more standard and reducing human error. Following best practices of mass production can benefit a practice develop production systems for better performance. Often touted as a great example of this process is the Toyota Production system.  Production systems are very useful when implementing technology, but I caution that technology is the means and not the end.  We should always consider that we interact with people and the effect with have with them.

Mass Customization

Mass customization applies to work that is done in large quantities but cannot be made exactly the same way every time. This is a large part of orthodontic treatment. Where appliances, such as aligners, brackets or retainers, can be made in exactly the same way almost with industrial standards, except for the fact that each patient’s dentition is different and requires a custom design.  Tooth anatomy or dental arch form have some common threads amongst people, but each individual has a unique aspect that must be compensated for.

Our business relies on a biologic process. That innately prevents several parts of what we do from being exact. This is a great challenge in the clinical research we rely on to make treatment decisions. So many variables can affect the outcomes we would like to predict every time, that some customization to individual response becomes a reality in providing treatment. Orthodontic appliance manufacturers often play in this space. Bracket design, custom labial or lingual appliances, and aligner systems leverage incredible systems in mass customization. The growth of the 3D printing market offers most practices an added entry point into mass customization systems.

Art Systems

Orthodontics relies on working with people. That in itself adds so much variability that customer service interactions are more an art than a science. The challenge in orthodontic treatment is the high variability in physiologic response and the high dependance on patient compliance. Patient compliance, therefore, incorporates a high tendency for artistic systems since human behavior is not always predictable. These are areas of practice that have a high degree of variability and require custom approaches to leverage our humanity in making a connection.

How can art be trained? While the science of orthodontics can be taught by the literature and scientific body of evidence gathered over the decades, the art of orthodontics is more of a challenge. That is where master clinicians and KOL’s come in to lecture, teach, mentor and share their artistic talent on how they manage all the situations that are beyond the standards. Nurturing an artistic culture can be done by apprenticeship from a master clinician and another method comes from storytelling. With new technology, forums, study clubs, blogs, journals, webinars, live lectures, etc. more can be inspired to build on the art of orthodontics.

How do you measure success in an art system?

The simple, internally focused metrics for a scientific process, designed to make sure everyone executes it the same exact way, will not work for art. An artistic process has to rely on external measures of success. Artists need continual exposure to customer feedback, which prevents them from constructing their own idiosyncratic notion of quality.” Hall & Johnson

The artistic approach is a humanistic approach.  The journey is what matters in orthodontic treatment when it comes to the patient experience and their desire to recommend it to others.  The artist should be careful to avoid false patient experience assumptions and be careful of habituation by adapting to changing shifts in culture.

Orthodontics is both art and science.  The art is more human, while science is more machine.  As I have suggested before, our future is not so much human vs. machine, but human enhanced by machine. Like many areas of life, a good balance of both acts helps to design a model that gains in efficiency AND experience. We should design specific standard processes that are rather rigidly used all the way up to the final “artistic” act. This allows for efficiency to free up time for the artistic aspect. In the common case of service the efficient standards would aid in the actual interaction with the patient. By making the system as consistent as possible in the early stages, we’re able to minimize any unnecessary variability and bring us to the moment of more complex interactions in great shape.

Don’t Pull My Blockchain

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Block ChainWhat is Blockchain Technology?

‘Blockchain’ technology, which powers things like Bitcoin, has become the hot new thing as of late. The buzz around the technology has gotten so out of hand in fact, that some companies have seen huge increases in their share price just by adding the words ‘Blockchain’ to their company name. Naturally, this has spilled over into the world of orthodontics with many claiming that block chain technology is going to be the next big wave of innovation across the specialty without much understanding about what the technology is or does. I thought it appropriate to take a step back and have a very basic discussion about what Blockchain is and what types of problems it is designed to solve before everyone starts getting drunk on the Kool-aid.

Block Chain is merely a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography to form a ledger. Each block will typically contain a link (has pointer) to the previous block, a timestamp, and relevant data. The encryption used with Blockchain is just like any encryption that we currently use to secure private information, and it is designed to allow for secure digital identities to sign off on any transactions or changes to the digital ledger. The private encryption keys that facilitate these secure digital signatures are vulnerable to theft and hacking, and should be kept secure the same as you keep your password secure. However, these digital accounts are only half of the equation.

In order for a new ‘block’ to be added to the ledger, the request needs be approved and validated in some fashion. In Blockchain, this validation is accomplished through a distributed network of ‘nodes.’ These ‘nodes’ are simply terminals that have administrative privileges to verify changes to the ledger, and any new blocks are simultaneously broadcasted to all the ‘nodes’ in the network for verification. The network of ‘nodes’ then verifies new blocks (as well as confirms the record of previously verified blocks) through a consensus protocol wherein no single user is implicitly trusted to verify all transactions. This is the unique value of Blockchain technology. By having a decentralized ledger, where blocks are distributed across the network and verified by consensus, the ledger is less corruptible and more inherently resistant to modification because any changes to the ledger would require the consensus from the ‘nodes’ for validation.

Blockchain technology also requires that there be a form of incentive for the ‘nodes’ to want to participate in the validation of each block. During the validation process, each ‘node’ is responsible for solving a series of specialized math problems to commit new transactions to the Blockchain through a process that is often referred to as mining. Without the participation of ‘miners’ the ledger the chain cannot continue. 

What Value Can Blockchain Offer?

People have begun to look at any process with a growing list of records as something that can benefit from the implementation of Blockchain, but this is not the case. The need for a Blockchain system at all presupposes a degree of mistrust that can be resolved by creating a decentralized ledger. Without inherent mistrust, there is not much value in converting entire industries over to different record keeping protocols. Bitcoin provides a compelling solution for financial transactions because it allows for secure verification of transactions and circumvents potential issues of corruption that can arise from centralized of control over financial systems.

It is also important to note that Blockchain does not actually make any private information contained within the blocks any more secure than achieved by good encryption practices. This is a common misconception, but the consensus protocol is for preserving the security and integrity of the chain/ledger itself and not private data within.

To answer the question of whether Blockchain technology provides a compelling solution for a particular industry, we must first identify areas where there is a lack of trust and then determine in what way miners can be properly incentivized to maintain the integrity of the chain. Otherwise, it is nothing more than current solutions being repackaged under a different name and served up as VCbait.

Invisalign Brick and Mortar, Inc.

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Invisalign StoreSan Francisco Invisalign Store

Invisalign has made huge announcement today that they will be opening a physical store in San Francisco to allow prospective patients and curious minds the ability to interact with and experience their product. They will also be offering patients to have their teeth and bite scanned with an iTero Element to see an Outcome Simulation of their smile. If they would like to move forward with the next step in treatment, they will be connected with an experience Invisalign provider to have their care professionally managed and will be able to choose from special financing packages Invisalign will be offering.

Amazon, Warby Parker, and other eCommerce driven companies have branched out to integrate physical spaces to a broader, omni-channel strategy to connect with their consumers. As it has been described to me, the concept they are piloting is similar to Bonobos’ Guideshops providing customers an opportunity to ask questions about Invisalign outside of a doctor’s office and for the instant gratification of signing up with a local provider of their choice right in the store.

For orthodontists, I am including the details of the pilot that Invisalign has provided below:

The rest of this post is available only to orthodontists and orthodontic residents registered with the Ortho Cosmos

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Inventing Our Future

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Invent the Future

If you believe that we have to “save the specialty,” we as orthodontists must continue to innovate. Consider that many of the greatest developments in orthodontics have come from within the profession.  It was forward-thinking doctors who introduced the Straight-Wire® Appliance, direct bonding of brackets and lingual braces to name just a few breakthroughs.

As we face new competition from corporations, we must rekindle this spirit of innovation within the specialty. In many ways, we ourselves have become “numb” to our own practices – accepting of two-year treatment times, jabbing wires and squealing handpieces as just another day at the office.  We must remember that the appliances, instrumentation and products we use on a routine basis play a role in the total patient experience. The challenge is for us to see these from the patient perspective and to recognize them as areas where we can improve the overall experience of orthodontic treatment.

While innovation has been critical to the evolution our specialty, it is not something that is emphasized in our educational upbringing.  In an attempt to bring a new idea to market over the past year, I set out to learn about the process of product development.  Along the way, I realized how I could protect and monetize my creativity through securing intellectual property.

In the coming weeks, I hope to share how you can turn your ingenuity into innovation that can advance our specialty. I will detail a method of how you can get your orthodontic product ideas into the right hands to get them to market.  I will also explain how you can create a secondary stream of passive income by capitalizing on the licensing business model, an ideal scenario for the practicing orthodontist.

Disclosure:

I recently licensed a product I co-developed with Dr. Richard Kaye to MidAtlantic Orthodontics (MAO). The ideas and concepts related to licensing have been adapted from best-selling author Stephen Key’s One Simple Idea and the inventRight consulting program, though I receive no compensation from them.  Also, only an attorney can give proper legal advice, which I am not.

How To Make Your Patients Members of AA

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Admirers

I know what you are thinking….why on earth would I want to make my patient’s members of AA..isn’t that for people with a drinking problem?

Well, we are not talking about Alcoholics Anynomous here.

We are talking about making your patients members of the Ardent Admirers Club!

So what is an Ardent Admirer?

A look at the dictionary and you will learn that ardent is an adjective and means passionate, loyal or enthusiastic. Admirer is a noun meaning follower, supporter, fan or disciple.

So if you put the 2 together, you get a passionate supporter or a loyal disciple or an enthusiastic follower.

Would any of those descriptions make you happy if they described your patients?

Would you like to know how to get your patients to be members of your practice AA?

In my book, It’s All About Millimeters; How Small Changes Can Make a Big Impact on Your Business and Your Life, I devote an entire chapter to this topic, but for purposes of this article, I am going to summarize it here for you.

There are 3 essential things (what I call the Three E’s) you need to do to get your patients to be passionate, loyal enthusiastic supporters and disciples of your practice.

#1 Provide exceptional experiences.

You don’t need to rent out a movie theater or spend thousands of dollars to provide a huge party (although those are certainly experiences that most patients will appreciate and enjoy). What I am talking about here is the day in and day out experiences they have with your office, with you and your team.

Are you doing the little “millimeter” things that make a big difference and provide exceptional experiences while in your office? What about your follow-up care? How is that being handled in your office.

Something as simple as a thank you card, care card or just making sure to ask each and every patient as they check out, “how was your appointment, did you get all your questions answered and is there anything else we can do to serve you and your family better?”

Why wait to find out via a negative review that they were upset with their appointment or felt their needs were not addressed.

#2 Focus on education

We are so used to our terminology and our big “doctor” words, but our patients do not have our vocabulary. When we present diagnostic findings and a treatment plan, it is imperative that we educate our patients in their language and in a way they will understand the dental problems they have, the proposed treatment plan and what will happen if they delay or decline treatment.

You and your team need to be compassionate and understanding on their need to process this information. Many times we are in a hurry to get to the next patient or we just assume they understand what you just told them. Many people will be overwhelmed and can’t make a decision because we either confused with them with too many options or too much technical details or we did not emphasize the gravity of their situation and the need for immediate action.

Provide the right education in a language and environment that is non-threatening and inviting and you will soon find many of your patients becoming passionate about their dental health and especially the care they are receiving from you and your practice..

#3 Practice Excellence

As Aristotle stated, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

The habit of excellence starts with leadership and leadership starts from the top. That means as doctors we need to start building our leadership muscles and provide additional training on leadership to our employees if we expect excellence to be a habit in our practices.

Excellence is a by product of strong leaders who understand that there is no other way to live your life both professionally and personally.

Operating with a mindset of excellence in everything you do for your patients will have patients following you to the ends of the earth.

Everyone loves to follow a strong leader and especially if that leader is also providing them and their family with excellent dental care.

This summary of the “Three E’s” that will start you on your journey to achieving patients who become “AA” members of your practice.

What You Need to Know About Millennial Moms

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Millennial Moms

It has been widely reported that moms control 85% of household purchases and have a U.S. spending power of $2.4 trillion. Within this segment are tens of millions of millennial moms. In fact 83% of new moms are millennials, according to a study conducted by BabyCenter and they give birth to about 9,000 babies each day.

These new moms spend over eight hours online primarily searching or browsing for parenting advice. They turn to social media, reading product recommendations from other moms. Forty-six percent of millennial moms trust the recommendations of other parents, compared to 39% of generation X moms.  These younger moms are happy providing their opinions and recommendations, and are more likely to do so, citing themselves as key advisors among their circle of friends.

Seventy-four percent of millennial moms report they are sought out more often than other friends as advisors on a wide range of topics, and have an average of 24 close friends in which to share product recommendations. Aware of the power millennial mothers have in affecting each other’s purchasing decision, forward thinking companies often connect with those who have a strong digital influence to promote their services or sell their products.

For example, companies such as Invisalign have Gabrielle Reece, millennial mom and influencer actively promoting the Invisalign brand on social media platforms.

Experts who study “millennial moms” and their purchasing habits understand there are 5 important considerations when communicating and connecting with millennial moms.

1. Make the experience about them and their children. Millennial moms want personalization and a relationship with the brands they support — especially for their children.

2. They love brands that get technology

New service brands like Plated and Blue Apron that deliver healthy meals while making life easier for them are extremely popular for these moms. Our use of technology, such as iTero scanners, Invisalign, Sure Smile, CBCT and 3D printing are all a very important part of this appeal to these moms.

3. Millennials expect a seamless experience from the brands they do business with.

Make appointments seamless by offering online scheduling, after school or early evening appointments for those working moms and busy school and sports schedules. Millennial moms prefer to minimize trips to our offices and this is where technology helps support their desires.

4. Businesses should use social media to educate and provide a platform for millennial moms to learn more about your practice.

Invite happy and enthusiastic moms in your practice to post on their social media platforms or post reviews on various sites such as Google and Facebook. Research shows these moms are heavily influenced by their friends and other influencers on social media.

5. Millennial moms are influenced by brands that are community focused.

Think of brands like TOMS shoes that donate a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair purchased. Something as simple as sponsoring teams, other fundraising events in your community or even setting up your own fundraising events, are all important to these moms.

Understanding this very important demographic will be imperative if we are to continue to grow our practices and provide what these consumers and their families desire.

Seven Strategies for Success in a Digital World

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A Unique Value Proposition

The digital world is flexing it’s influence across the marketplace and professions can see the potential effect. When products and services become ubiquitous, there is a challenge in remaining relevant. Corporations, economy of scale and technology buy-in change the culture in orthodontics. There is a general fear that this will commoditize our specialty and bring down the opportunities to a generation that is feeling the increasing costs of education and capital investments in building a business.

A large body of knowledge is being gathered and used strategically with the power of data. Our knowledge database once controlled by the few who put in the time and effort to educate themselves and train as professionals and specialists, to a cloud-based, digital knowledge data set available to many.

In the industrial age, production became exact and cheap. In the digital age, a process can become exact and basically free. This is what has affected so many industries and professions. The correlation into the orthodontic specialty depends on the premise that orthodontic treatment can become exact, which is rarely the case. Although treatment data can augment and facilitate treatment modalities, a repeatable and scalable process is much tougher when you treat a broad range of malocclusions. Assuming a subset of orthodontic cases can be treated repeatedly and exactly, the interesting part is that as things become cheap and virtually free, there is a greater interest in what is unique. Hence the role of a unique value proposition.

Better than Free

I recently read a book by Kevin Kelly, called The Inevitable. In this book, Kelly reviewed technological forces shaping our future. One of those forces, is how in the digital age, whatever can be copied, can be copied for free. “When copies are superabundant, they become worthless. Instead, stuff that can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable…what can’t be copied? Trust, for instance. Trust cannot be reproduced in bulk. You can’t purchase trust wholesale. You can’t download trust and store it in a database or warehouse….” Trust becomes branding and it leads to authenticity. Authenticity is one of these factors that cannot be copied or faked. The other strategies I found relevant include immediacy, personalization, interpretation, embodiment, patronage and discoverability.

A unique service cannot be cloned, copied, mass produced… it’s better than free. And if you can compete with free, you can compete with anything.

Immediacy

The digital age requests for companies to move away from saving time and efficiency for the business, but to save their consumers’ time. Provide a service within reasonable time and faster becomes better. This unique value proposition is not easy and we all can feel the pressures in delivering results that are faster.  Saving treatment time with efficient treatment options and implementing same day starts are two examples of delivering immediacy. Faster is realtime and realtime doesn’t come cheap and certainly not free.

Personalization

Personalization leads to a custom offering. Another concept that is important to consider is avoiding entering a market with a generic service. Not providing a unique patient experience and memorable journey, becomes easily copied and therefore fraught with risk. Taking on the challenging treatment, custom treatment plans, providing unique results, and offering unique experiences with personalized service, become very valuable sources of personalize care.

Interpretation

Software = free, instruction manual = $5,000. This is where the expert advice from interpretation helps in gaining success. Professional training and expertise has a unique value and will become key to the new digital future. In health care, we have this distinct advantage. The dynamic is changing for many, where simple treatment methods are becoming easily reproduced. Another change is coming from the value of those who can best travel the new digital world. In many ways, we are not racing against the machines. Instead of human vs. machine, our value will be heightened when we can work with the machines.  The real need for an expert becomes valuable and better than free.

Authenticity

Truth and security lead to authenticity. As stated earlier, you cannot copy and easily build trust. Trust comes from years of reputation.  It provides safety and safeguards to consumers. Take as an example free software. Easily accessible and copied a tremendous number of times, but the dark net of piracy is fraught with viruses and damaging software that adds risk. In this example, trust brings peace of mind. Risk to any aspect of our lives adds value to those who can build on the trust that comes from a favorable reputation. Your branding becomes key at this stage where it is invaluable in generating a unique value proposition to lower cost solutions.  After all, you can only sell what is true.

Embodiment

The concept of embodiment pivots on the body’s experience that goes beyond the digital realm. In this strategy, you are making the digital into a special experience. A great example of this is the fact that people pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars to attend events in person that can be streamed for free. So many musicians and bands earn most of their living these days from concert performances and not from music sales. In orthodontics, it is so critical to maintain a great patient experience. The journey in the process becomes far more important than the destination.

Patronage

Patronage is a strategy based on building a fan base. There are some unique factors that have to be in play when you want to leverage patronage. People have to care about supporting a real person. A corporation or nebulous provider cannot leverage this factor. Fans want to pay creators and artists because it allows them to connect with people they admire. This is challenging and not easily copied, since it means the provider must be at the center of the patient experience. This provider must also have an appeal and charisma that goes beyond the service we provide. Finding connection is key to this strategy.

Discoverability

The strategy of discoverability is predicated on the fact you have to be discovered. You must be able to be found. Being found is valuable since you don’t want to be the best kept secret out there.  Discoverability often relates to the story you are weaving online.   Being visible through online search engines and review sites are two examples. This strategy is dependent on many other efforts to develop word of mouth and online relevance.

The next time you start relating to the demise of Kodak or the music industry’s pressures from digital music sales, take into account that many others have succeeded after disruption by finding ways to offer services that are better than free.  Kelly states, “success no longer derives from mastering distribution.”  We can no longer count on copy protection, technical tricks, hoarding or scarcity.  Knowledge and technology are democratizing, so developing skills and services that cannot be easily replicated becomes paramount. Most of those succeeding in this new reality are using the seven strategies of immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, embodiment, patronage and discoverability.

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