Moderator: Welcome to today’s episode of True To Form with your host, President and Co-Founder of Crystal Clear, highly regarded speaker and two time Inc 500 Entrepreneur, Tim Sawyer. True To Form is a podcast that highlights leaders making headway in the aesthetic, anti-aging, and elective medical industry. Learn from the experts to discover the secrets of success and pitfalls to avoid when growing all aspects of your elective medical practice.
This week’s episode is brought to you by TouchMD, the all-in-one aesthetic technology hub that educates your captive audience in the waiting room and consult room, consistently captures and manages photos, provides digital charting and consents and allows patients to take their experience home to share what they learned with friends and family via the Practices Patient app. Please join me in welcoming your host, the authentic, the transparent, Tim Sawyer.
Tim Sawyer: Hello and welcome to True to Form – the podcast that connects you to the people, technology, and hot topics that shape the elective medical community brought to you by Crystal Clear Digital Marketing and brought to you by this week’s sponsor TouchMD, the leading all-in-one aesthetic technology hub. I’m your host Tim Sawyer. To our returning guest we say welcome back, and to our first time listeners we appreciate you joining us and encourage you to become a subscriber.
In the last episode, we spoke with Dr. Pauline Lee, a successful, millennial aesthetic dentist in which she talked about how Instagram has transformed the way she empowers and connects with patients. If you missed it you got to check it out. And with all that said, I am super excited for the first guest of 2020. He is a really cool guy and an interesting person. I encourage you when we get to the end and talk about places that you can find him on the Internet I encourage you to check him out. He is probably one of the funniest and more entertaining guys you’re going to meet in the space.
It is my pleasure to introduce today Dr. Edward McLaren, who is a Prosthodontist and Master Dental Ceramist. Dr McLaren is a retired Professor from both UCLA and the UAB School of Dentistry. He was a Founder and first Director of the Post Graduate Esthetic Dentistry at the UCLA School of Dentistry. He was a Director of the UCLA Center for Esthetic Dentistry, a full time didactic and clinical program for graduate dentists.
He is also the Founder and Director of the UCLA/LACC Master Dental Ceramist program. The post-graduate program is a full-time Master Ceramist Program for dental technicians featuring extensive experience with the newest esthetic restorative systems. At UAB he was Founder and first Director of the Advanced Dental Esthetics, Founder and Director of the Advanced Dental Esthetics, Restorative & Biomaterials Program, can’t wait to hear about that.
Founder and Director of 3-Year Advanced Ceramics and Digital Technology for Technical Program, Founder and Director of 1-Year Esthetic and Restorative Fellowship, Restorative & Biomaterials Program, Founder and Director of 3-Year Advanced Ceramics and Digital Technology for Technicians Program, and the Founder and Director of 1-Year Esthetic and Restorative Fellowship.
Dr. McLaren currently is the CEO of ArtOral America, a private teaching institute based in Park City, Utah. He maintains a private practice limited to prosthodontics and esthetic dentistry in which he did all of his own ceramics and I want to talk about that. Dr. McLaren is still actively involved in many areas of prosthodontic and materials research and has authored or co-authored over 95 articles. He is performing ongoing clinical research on various restorative programs. He has presented numerous lectures, hands-on clinics and postgraduate courses on ceramics and esthetics across the nation.
And I know he spends a lot of time abroad traveling internationally. He recently published a book, on ceramic techniques and features dental photographic art, entitled “The Art of Passion: Ceramics, Teeth, Faces, and Places” which sounds fascinating and we’re going to talk about the book and make sure everyone knows where to get it and how to get it. So with that being said Dr. McLaren welcome to True to Form.
Dr. Edward McLaren: Wow! That may be tired just listening to that. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here. And Tim, we met virtually a couple of times and I can’t wait to meet you. And I was so excited to meet your partner Tommy and I guess he couldn’t be here with us today but I’ve met him here in Park City a couple of times. And yeah, so I’m excited to be here and I’m really more excited for your readers and your clients to really understand about what you do too, and that’s what brought me to you and your Crystal Clear Digital Marketing and everything about what you do to help clients kind of grow their practices and you touched on a couple of things and I think the person that –.
Tim: Well, we do that.
Dr. Edward: Go ahead. I’m sorry.
Tim: Our listeners want to get to know you. So how does a prosthodontist go from practicing prosthodontics and then I used to dabble in a little bit.
Dr. Edward: Yeah.
Tim: At a point now where you’re clearly that you’re an entrepreneurial guy.
Dr. Edward: Yeah.
Tim: And so talk about the evolution of that. So were your parents either doctors or dentists or how did that all start for you?
Dr. Edward: Well, I mean, how it started for me was it was interesting. When I was growing up I loved sports, okay and I played football and baseball and I really thought I was going to be a baseball player. I wouldn’t like to be a football player but I wasn’t quite big enough to be a football player. And I was a pretty good baseball player. I actually got to try out with a couple of teams, Boston believe it or not, and the Angles and I was like the lowest [Indiscernible] [00:05:53] in history. And had a pretty good fast ball a little bit over 90 miles an hour, but I ended up having to have two elbow surgeries.
And there was a joke in baseball that when you can’t break the wet Sporting News with your fast ball you’re not going to make it, so didn’t do that. And so then I used to coach baseball in the summer, the kids in the summer. And I noticed that I wanted to be a surgeon. And because just getting to loving sports and wanting to do something in that area and orthopedic surgeon. But I noticed that the fathers that were orthopedic surgeons were never at the games. They were always in the OR which was great, but they were just so busy. And I noticed that the kids that had parents that we either dentists or orthodontists which help in working with kids because that was just fun for me, I mean, I thought it would be a great profession to go into, helped coach too, helped like assistant coaches but always had time to be at the games. I had more free time.
And so that was the initial idea, because I wanted to be a professional so I got into doing that, and then was going to be an orthodontist. And then the reason why I didn’t be an orthodontist it just wasn’t fun for me to bend wires. I mean, it was great, great thing that orthodontist do moving and straightening teeth and I really appreciate what they do and I work with them all the time but it just didn’t challenge me personally. And so I gravitated toward into prosthodontist which is doing big challenging cases working on occlusion and bites and things like that.
And then it just became natural. I was having so much fun working in that area and then just learning occlusion that’s a word for bite and then learning esthetics and then it just came along an opportunity to learn with a guy named Willi Geller who got about three million years ago it seems like he is the most famous dental physician on earth. And I learned to become a master dental ceramist and I do my own ceramics. And then as things evolved just to try and shorten the story as best I can UCLA shows up on my door about 25 years ago and they say, hey Ed, would you like to start and run the first Master Ceramic Program and first Esthetic Residency Program in the United States.
And I love to be in things that are cutting-edge, leading edge, unique so I said, sure. So we started the first program that was a Master Ceramic Program for ceramist, for the first graduate program in esthetic dentistry about 25 years ago now. And then there are little issues that came along with that, decided to try something even newer. University of Alabama, Birmingham came along and gave me the opportunity to upgrade it to a master’s program where they actually got a master’s degree. UCLA was not, it was just a graduate program and there were some issues there and don’t need to get into some instances just changed — deans changed and whatnot.
So went there for two and a half years and got started there and just got to a point was getting close to 16 just turned 16 I thought you know. There comes a time in life where you just want to move and do your own thing and you don’t want to answer to anybody else and kind of scale yourself. I love that business term ‘scale yourself’. So I decided it was time to start my own deal and move to Park City because I want to do some outdoor stuff and I’m now I’m working with several universities so I can do scale myself, do bigger things, teach individual process to graduate dentists. So it just grew and grew and grew. So here I am now. And then now one of the things that I have noticed though and like great having an opportunity to work with you.
And this is how we’re in this room together there is virtual room or with Tommy is one of the things that I’ve seen the biggest challenge for me Tim or what I’ve seen with dentists is that you know I’ve got this amazing knowledge in my head, amazing skill in my hands and we all can get this by working hard, okay and just this passion. But what happens is I’ve never had a problem getting patients and I’ve never had a problem doing that and people get that hanging around me. And but I see dentists sometimes get frustrated and technicians get frustrated that they can’t do this. And then they end up let’s say selling it out maybe that’s a bad term but they sell out to mediocre, you sell out to, you just seem unfulfilled.
And what happens is they don’t take your course. They don’t partner with somebody like you that teaches them how to be an entrepreneur, how to have that right type of practice, how to be current, how to market to their patients, how to use social media effectively, how to be a good photographer.
Tim: I wanted to ask you something because you said this is interesting and I was given a talk the other day and it was somewhat provocative but you just said something that’s so pointing and I want to talk you about for a minute. So I was giving a talk and I said this whole notion of are you genuinely interested in growing your practice we were talking about leadership and things like that. And I said so I picked out this one woman she was probably in her 50s and I said how would you feel if I walked up to you and said you know you have kids, yeah, you have kids and I looked at you and I said you know I know you have high aspirations for your kids but in reality what’s going to happen is at some point they’re going to settle into a job they don’t really like. They’re going to marry someone that’s okay but you know it is what it is and they’re going to be able to pay their bills and probably live a life that’s not totally fulfilled, but they’ll get along and you feel okay about that. I said, how would you feel about me saying that, and I said obviously do you want to kill me. And she goes, I would want to kill you. And I said, well, when did that become okay for us.
Dr. Edward: Yeah.
Tim: Think about that and it’s so funny because we do – we pass that on. Think about all the energy we put into wanting everyone in our life to be great but and it’s just shifting priorities and not dialing in. So one of the questions that I had for you was do you see a shift now. So when you were running those graduate programs one was, were they popular, and do you see a shift now in new folks that are coming into the dental community wanting to have a different type of practice, where because you’re mentioning the frustration and not settling into mediocrity. How would they even start? Where would a dental student coming out get bump into someone like you who can mentor them and say hey, there is a little bit of a different way to do this.
Dr. Edward: Great question, okay. So the issue things that’s happening in dental schools and it’s been happening for years and you know this all they can do is teach them to be the safest beginner. And the requirements to get out a dental school I mean, the number of physical procedures that they actually do is less and less and less each year because one, they just don’t have the patience to do it and the cost to treat a patient actually is quite high. They actually don’t receive that much money anymore from patients so they hit the street who graduate from dental school barely, barely safe beginners.
So what happens is, is that they don’t get a sense of what it is to be an A plus practitioner to have that top sort of entrepreneurial practice. So the specific answer to that question is they’re going to have to look for someone to at least two sources, okay. I’m going to make this as simple as I can. A source like you, a marketing source, someone that knows how to teach them to be an entrepreneur, a businessperson. I hate to say the word businessperson, everybody is a businessperson whether they’re good, bad or in between, right whether they want to shop, they want to run boutique, okay. But to teach them to be an entrepreneur then they have to search out one of the mentors out there that is teaching the type of dentistry they want to do.
And they’re out there, the Frank Spears I would recommend, the John Koises, the [Indiscernible] [00:14:20], the Larry Rifkins who you interviewed, okay. And they’re all going to — you’re going to have to — the Michael Apperson in New York, he is a good source in New York. There is 10 or 20 places around the United States that people are offering through continuum programs. Some dental schools do have people that come in and teach. But they’re typically not the professor types, okay. Even though I was the professor type, I did things in reverse. I was in private practice for 16 years then 22 years in the university, so I brought this high-end concept to the university which became harder and harder and harder to do, one of the reasons I left.
And I don’t want to get into the bad and I don’t want to blame anybody but they just didn’t – they wanted to dumb down everything and I didn’t do that anymore. So that was fundamentally one of the reasons I left. So they need to do those two things. They need a source like a Crystal Clear Marketing somebody to help them build their practice, help them find and target the right patient group. But they need to also get that clinical mentor. Now the other thing too what I love about what you do and start to focus back on what you do they need to expand their skill set too. They can’t just come out of school and what their professor taught them that’s 20 years old and a lot of it is 20 years old.
I highly recommend that they learned some of these procedures, crossover procedures albeit be safe. For instance, not necessarily maybe fillers certainly something like Botox, esthetic procedures, simple implants for general dentists and do some of the basic surgical procedures, partner with their surgeon friends, their plastic surgeon friends. And I realize I appreciate the surgeons are going to be concerned about that. I feel they feel like maybe okay, somebody is walking on their territory but I would see this a different way. I would look at it as the surge that the general dentist does the real simple stuff, a wrinkle or two here or there.
And then as the patient gets more concern hey, you could do a little bit more. You could do a simple facelift that they’re helping their patient feel better about themselves. There is unbelievable science that when a patient feels better about themselves, a person feels better about themselves they do better in every area of their life, right. They do better through a salesperson, they sell more, they move up the corporate ladder more, their businesses are better, they’re letter in their relationships. It’s black and white science. Actually we all feel better that way. We get out of bed, we work harder, we do more. It’s I think the number one disease on earth is not cancer, it’s not heart disease, it’s self-worth. When people have better self-worth, when they feel better about themselves the planet is better. We don’t want rockets at each other.
Tim: Yeah, we have a lot of problems with that. Let me ask you this because again, we bring up a lot of good points and you’re triggering some really interesting thinking here. And that is – so from a mindset perspective you talk about mindset, right the dentist or the dentist comes out and they’re beating the street and it’s a new dentist and they’re trying to build their practice so and they’re obviously they’re insurance based, right that’s how 90% or even more of the folks get it going is they get into network and they start taking insurance. One of the conversations that’s interesting to me and I’ll take it out of dental for a second and talk about dermatologist.
So I have a dermatologist friend who came to us and said, she had just launched a skin bar and bought a laser device and want to get it to more esthetics. And then so we have the conversation about getting the right type of patient which is you can target that on the Internet fairly linear. And then after we went through the entire cycle of how we were going to do that. She said to me well, don’t forget those Tim. I’m seeing 20 patients a day, traditional dermatology patients, I need to get that number to 30.
Dr. Edward: Okay.
Tim: In the same conversation referenced and as you know traditional dermatology is the bane of my existence.
Dr. Edward: Correct.
Tim: So how from a mindset how did they — it’s scary, right so how do you go from but this pays the bills to I can be Larry Rifkin, right.
Dr. Edward: Right.
Tim: I can be Ed McLaren, how does that go down?
Dr. Edward: I was really trying to watch Larry Rifkin’s podcast. I apologize, I didn’t, I didn’t get a chance [Indiscernible] [00:19:35] but I can answer that question because I know Larry very well and I know Bob very well and they tell me how they evolved into what they do today over the years, and I stayed at Bob’s house. When I first moved to Beverly Hills years and years ago he let me stay in his house. I stayed there for two or three months. So I got to hear the whole story and I can tell you my story is not that dissimilar before I went to UCLA. And this is what I would recommend to young dentists, okay.
So when you have to have a wish everybody would – every consultant would tell you and if you got to put down a vision what your end zone is going to be, what do you want it to look like, okay. And then there is a process to get there that’s very common in coaching somebody would tell you, okay. So yes, you’ve got to pay the rent, you’ve to pay all this stuff, okay. You got to pay your – take care of your responsibilities. But one of the things you want to make sure you don’t get yourself into in a personal expense environment is buying the Ferraris and the Maseratis and all the stuff before you can do it before you’ve got that the excess.
So you want to be thinking about creating that any excess that you create is reinvesting in yourself. Great businesses will tell you that. How they became great businesses is any excess was gone to the business first to create the ideal business. So where I’m going with that’s to say okay, so you allot three and a half days or four days to the 20 patients a day or 30 patients a day. And now you allot one day, one day to your personal business growth, to the ideal practice. And dentists will tell me well, you know like I spent 3000 to go to Frank Spears or 10,000 to go to this or 8000 to go to that.
And I say, well, okay, so once you’ve done a couple of those, why don’t you take the Friday instead of doing something why don’t you do that as a personal CE day. Why don’t you take a patient that couldn’t afford the $2000 veneers or $3000 veneers and just do it for the lab bill? So if the lab bill was the best lab person in your town that you know charged 500 bucks for the veneer or 300 or 1000 there are people that charge a $1000 for the veneer, for the lab bill. Why don’t you do it for that? Take some beautiful pictures, get 10 cases, start posting the 10 cases so just cover your costs, start posting the 10 cases, get with Tim, get Tim on board, cover the cost for Tim, start marketing to that group of patients that can afford the $2000 or $3000 veneers.
So get the 10 cases start getting the marketing, invest in yourself and then eventually that patient will show up that will start paying you the $3000 of veneer. But you have to remember Zig Ziglar you got to have the tomatoes on the shelf first before you can sell them. It’s a famous quote from Zig Ziglar.
Tim: You know what’s funny I’m listening to that and I’m saying to myself that sounds so simple but I also know that most really great ideas are fairly simple and it’s a shift, it’s the mental shift.
Dr. Edward: So relating to your it’s very simple, related to a young plastic surgeon or a young dermatologist if they don’t have the patience they’ll pay for the higher end procedures but they’ll hold the insurance stuff so two days a month do the higher end procedures for absolute costs that you get some phenomenal pictures of. That is a brilliant idea that you see that you wouldn’t pay $10,000 bucks for. But now here is the deal though. They have to do a video for you. They have to do a testimonial.
When you go do a lecture they show up at the lecture and do a little marketing for you that’s how I did it. 25 years ago that’s how I was – when I first started and somebody had told me to do that that’s how I got the idea not an originally idea I thought hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’m running around spending $3000, $4000 a month learning all this cool stuff, now I need to do some of it.
Tim: Yeah, it’s funny, like that’s a great fun then and I hope that our listeners can and it’s applicable by the way to dermatology like you said plastic surgery, even the Med Spas, right if they’re trying to introduce a new treatment or procedure I love the idea of hey, let’s do some at cost, get great photos, start doing up and then –.
Dr. Edward: And then just in fact I was going to get – I’m going to get some stem cells and a guy who I didn’t sort of trusted first he has been doing this. He ended up getting the NFL and he basically did it that way. He did a couple of free NFL guys and he got I should put you in touch with this guy too. I think he’d be great for and at first –.
Tim: I would love to talk to a stem cell guy would be great.
Dr. Edward: Yeah, well, then this guy, he is all of a sudden dial in with the whole NFL and the FDA came to him and he just because he did a couple and got for you guys NFL for free, he is a smart guy, super smart guy. So that’s an amazing way to get going. I’d at least just cover your costs and so just breakeven but the key is get the video, get some video, you don’t hire a video guy for 300, 400 bucks a day, you know.
Tim: Yeah and I think like I said the biggest piece is it’s having the discipline and then also I would in my experience and I’ve been to Yankee dental and spoken all those conferences. I was a faculty on the Yankee dental for a while and big groups, it was the – what’s interesting Dr. McLaren is the message that I was bringing and so I was bring that message to plastic surgeons and this is the early days of the Crystal Clear plastic surgeons, cosmetic dermatologists, Med Spas, orthodontists and it all resonated.
But when I gravitated or migrated over towards general dentistry at Yankee I spoke and I do a lot of public speaking for an hour and thought I gave the best out of my life and I was not connecting with these folks on any level whatsoever. And so on two fronts and I would like you to address these and then I want to hear about your courses.
Dr. Edward: Do it.
Tim: So the two fronts were I was speaking to the importance of creating – if you wanted to matriculate into cosmetic dentistry that that is an elective procedure meaning there is a retail component. And because of the retail component we have to create a compelling argument for why you should do it, why you should do it, not just do it but do with you and there is also a self component to that, right which is you got to encourage them to come in, you got to follow up, they won’t decide on the first day. And the second piece was creating a world-class experience for those people and someone who is looking to spend two, three, five, $10,000 on that were 50 in some cases on a treatment they’re not the same person that responds to dental office can I put you on hold.
Dr. Edward: Correct.
Tim: And those people wanted to kill me. So how do we help those folks understand that it’s not – I know it’s I feel like I’m rubbing them the wrong way by talking like that or talking about those issues. And so I just wanted someone who has been in their shoes to encourage them that it is serving that consumer is a little different. Can you speak to that?
Dr. Edward: Well, I mean to start with the first thing I would say that you’re absolutely right serving that consumer they’re very, very different consumer. They are the types that are going to pay 300, 400 bucks for a haircut. They’re going to buy, they want the Gucci bag. They aren’t necessarily people making $500,000 a year or 250 or 300. They might be making $80,000 to $120,000 a year. But they’re proportioning a fair amount of that income for something that they extremely value whether it’s a Mercedes that’s $60,000 or $70,000 or a facelift if it’s plastic surgery. It’s really fascinating as you know because you’re in this business of doing this of what people apportion their money for, right. Conversely, and I’ll answer the question more directly in a second; conversely when you find somebody that’s very wealthy, what they don’t spend money on that you would be surprised that, jeez often that happen.
Tim: You have [inaudible] [00:28:55] free.
Dr. Edward: Yeah, that they’re upset that they had to pay five bucks for something, you know. So I mean, I would have to – I have those same issues too when I go in and talk to people too. Part of it, it depends on their mindset too when they come in the room and you have to start with people that come in with a real negative mindset and absolutely insurance based practice that they’ve only came from where I only diagnose what the insurance is going to pay for. I mean, you got to get them starting to ask to open their mind and asking more questions as you know what somebody would tell you to — anybody — you’re in the communication business along with what you do with the marketing business too.
So I try and get them to ask them what happens with that patient, why do you think that they don’t do it, and then they’ll always say, well they don’t care about their teeth and they don’t care about this and they don’t care about that. So I always try and pose it with my patients I can just relate with that. I said, well, if there is ever a concern, please let me know. And one of the things that I do with the patient, this is how I’ll start out when I get to the let’s say marketing aspect of what I do when I’m talking to my base, if I have enough time to talk about how I would tell a dentist to advise the patient that was — let’s say a patient that’s not asking about esthetic dentistry, that just came in and say hey, I’ve heard that McLaren is a good dentist and I maybe like to treat him to treat me and kind of tell me what’s going on, okay that kind of thing.
All right, so I didn’t get that, I used to get that at UCLA, haven’t got that here yet because I’m just new here, okay one patient I did. All right. So what I would typically do is normal stuff you would say hey, listen do you have any concerns? Yeah, I’m concerned about this tooth that tooth up here. And I’ll say if I notice some obvious esthetic concerns I said, have you noticed that you maybe have a little bit of wear on your teeth and there is a little bit of staining on your teeth, things like that. And sometimes they’ll say yes, sometimes they’ll say no. And I said, well, let me show you and I won’t ask this. I’ll say let me show you here on the edges of your teeth here, you see there is a several little chips here, I want to show you these chips, it’s not usually a question. There is a little bit of yellow at the gum line there and there is a little bit of this and there is a little bit of that.
And I said, what I like to do and I’ve already got this queued up. I want to show you another patient that I have or had and I want to show you what I did for them, okay just want to show you that, okay. And that’s not a question either. And I said, would you mind if I take a picture of your teeth and it’s really cool what we can do with Photoshop today or program on Photoshop, I can do a little digital manipulation, I can show you what modern dentistry can do for you. Would you mind if I can do that? Universally, the response is going to be.
Tim: Yes.
Dr. Edward: Your cost for that. So no, no, no, no charge, absolutely no charge. It can take me two, three minutes to take the picture and when the assist hygienists clean your teeth on the way out hey, what I’ll give you a little thumb drive with the pictures, I’ll email it to you, we have your email. Okay, what I just said, I’ll email you kind of a before and after. And then you just let me know if something like that ever interest you, okay. And so that’s how I would approach that. And then invariably at some more people would come back and say God, that’s really kind of cool of what we can do. And I said, well great, next time you’re in this is how I would start with somebody at zero interest.
Next time you’re in just let me know and we can talk about what some options might be. So that’s how I would recommend to you and I would be happy Tim to give you a couple of Photoshop smile designs before and after to help talk to your audiences on how to get them because these are simple little things to just start developing. It’s just marketing. It’s just simple one-on-one marketing. And if they’re angry about that some people just have so much brain damage that [indiscernible] [00:33:37] you can’t help them, right.
Tim: You can’t help them. That is again a really, really good – really I love you take a linear approach so you’re very creative, very succinct and you have no fear and I can sense that and I love that about what you’re accomplishing. And it’s so valuable for all others in this not just our dentists and quite frankly not just new dentists. And so but before we wind down that I have one thing.
Dr. Edward: I’d like to add one thing to that to help you because obviously you’re coming from a businessperson perspective and I’m sure some of these dentists who sit in there going who is after you, why are you telling me this, okay. And then sometimes you got to challenge people a little bit, you got to go listen guys, we got hundreds of clients and I can tell you we got the metrics of what works. I don’t know why you’re here man, I can just tell you – I can tell you what works, I can give you some tools, if you want to try, I’m great.
If you don’t want to try that’s okay too. I want to help you grow your practice. So if you don’t listen, cool, no problem. And if you ever want to try and grow because obviously you’re having an issue, you’d like to not be an insurance dentist this is not insurance stuff, love to help you with some tools. Let me know that’s how I finish.
Tim: Yeah. And you and I have been around as long enough to know when someone — and we experience it a lot at shows, right. When someone gets frustrated with the message, it’s very seldom that they — in other words, I know it’s not directed at me, I know they’re sitting, they’re going I wish this could be true.
Dr. Edward: Yeah.
Tim: Right, in other words, you paint a picture and in their mind depending upon their background and not bringing more skill set or whatever there is no way that people can actually do that. And then I know that’s just frustration and I get it, I’m like listen I can give you the info. But I do want to move on because I want to give you an opportunity before we wind down. Number one, we got a couple of minutes. I want to talk about ArtOral America.
Dr. Edward: Great.
Tim: So where is that going on? First of all, what is it? Who would be your target audience to attend and when is the next one?
Dr. Edward: Well, great. Thank you for allowing me to talk about it. Yeah, so basically what I decided to do UCLA I was teaching programs for dentists, I was teaching programs for technicians, I’m a master dentist ceramist too. And I teach – I taught to dentists minimalistic adhesive dentistry, minimalistic prosthetic dentistry and it’s actually teamwork between dentists and technicians and others digital aspect, we were teaching digital things too. So now I just move that into the private arena. So I love Park City because I wanted to get into the outdoors and see a little bit and I thought this would be a fun place to be near Salt Lake City because it’s sort of Central America, not Central America but the Central United States, okay.
Tim: Yeah.
Dr. Edward: So the website is aoadtg.com, so ArtOral America DTG because I’m partnering with this laboratory group Dental Technicians America so aoadtg.com. So I’m teaching live patient courses probably the best thing I do where we take a patient start to finish who needs minimalistic restorative dentistry, it’s a three-day course. We prep on the morning of the first day, we carry it all the way through in cement and there is a hands-on component for dentists where there is the simulate on a specially prepared type it on and we do adhesive preparations, we do block-outs, buildups, they cement too in a simulation mode. Then I cement the veneers or onlays and things like that and go through color and photography and all that. Then I have the same course for technicians, a different course where everybody makes veneers for a patient.
And then we have a what’s called the digital dental team course where we use all digital processes where we scan, make the veneers with scanning so people that are a little bit more in a digital versus analog procedures so all kind of cool stuff and we’re getting going. And then I’m partnering with your partner as getting going we’re going to be starting to add some marketing aspects to this and probably every course we will have a lecture or two on how to market to patients to be able to get them to accept these procedures. And social media skills so yeah, I’m really excited moving forward on all this stuff. Courses will probably they’re going to be based here but I’m negotiating with four right now centers around the United States so we could be a little bit mobile.
One is going to be in Southern California. I’m negotiating by four but looks like a probably two so one in the Central United States, one on West Coast, one on the East Coast so people don’t have to travel so far and looks like we’ll have one in Mexico too so –.
Tim: Well, make sure that you as time goes on you keep us in the loop. And I know Audrey is listening and we would be thrilled to have an opportunity to promote them through our social media channels and email marketing and –.
Dr. Edward: Yeah, that brings your plastic surgery friends out there in fact, I’ll touch base with Tommy where I’m down in Mexico in two weeks doing a live patient course. In fact, he even I’m surprised I didn’t think of this earlier what’s his idea is that maybe we can partner with the plastic surgeon friend that wants to teach a little just absolute, absolute, absolute basic Botox that we can do in three or four days or at least give a lecture on it or start something like that. So yeah, so I’m just excited to be able to lift up. I want to take dentistry from the middle to make it higher that’s what I’m going to do.
Tim: That’s awesome. And do you have Dr. McLaren an email address that our listeners could get in case some want support getting there?
Dr. Edward: Yeah, all of my students used to call me The Doc so I doc and that is the email so thedoc@artoralamerica.com, thedoc@artoralamerica.com that’s where you can email me. And I have the websites aoadtg.com for the courses and more and more courses will be added. And I have a basic website as my name edmclaren.com where I keep all of my articles, my book and some DVDs but I don’t keep the courses on there. And I think I’ve written 96 articles now something like that I did about 50 from on there so –.
Tim: Well, I’ll tell you what. I could literally and we are going to continue this conversation I hope if you allow us would love to have you, we have more time love to have you back on the program and we’d love to find ways that we can continue to work together. We’re super excited about 2020 at Crystal Clear as we expand deeper and deeper into the dental community and to be just to have access to people like you and Dr. Rifkin and let our listeners get exposed to the simple ways that they can go about growing their practice and grow in the direction that they want to grow because at the end of the day because we’re all wired for growth, right in all ends.
Dr. Edward: I love to and throw out an idea here too since you got a portal here maybe we can put together a team of about five ish or 10 ish people that once a month we maybe do a Q&A session, a live Q&A in an interactive podcast or something like that that we can answer end users questions and maybe take questions for the future would be very interesting doing that.
Tim: We would love to do that. And we can do that easily via GoToWebinar. So I want to once again first of all, thank everyone for joining us today. I want to thank Dr. McLaren for taking time out of his busy schedule great, great tips and tricks and simple things that we can use, and this is [Indiscernible] [00:42:00] as well and start growing it back to the direction that they want to grow, and I think that’s the biggest take-away for me. So thank you Dr. McLaren, thank you to our listeners, and we’ll see you next week guys, have a great day.
Moderator: Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of True To Form brought to you by TouchMD, the all in one aesthetic technology hub. To learn more about your podcast sponsor visit touchmd.com. And to learn more about your podcast provider, Crystal Clear, visit crystalcleardm.com. Also be sure to subscribe to the show on all your favorite music apps including iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud and tune into stay up-to-date with the newest episodes. Thank you for listening.
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