Mastering Client Mindsets for Better Engagement with Dr. Chris Phelps

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Home Service Expert Podcast – "Mastering Client Mindsets for Better Engagement with Dr. Chris Phelps"

Release Date: April 11, 2025

In this compelling episode of The Home Service Expert Podcast, host Tommy Mello, a renowned entrepreneur and founder of a $200 million company, sits down with Dr. Chris Phelps, a distinguished dentist and marketing expert. Together, they delve into the intricacies of understanding and mastering client mindsets to enhance engagement and drive business success. Drawing from Robert Cialdini's influential principles of persuasion, Chris shares actionable strategies that have transformed his dental practice and can be applied across various home service industries.

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1. The Power of Mindset in Business Growth

Dr. Chris Phelps begins by recounting his journey from managing multiple dental practices to focusing on enhancing his primary business. He emphasizes the pivotal role that mindset plays in overcoming operational challenges and driving growth.

[00:00] "I stripped down that direct mail piece and rebuilt it, trying to add as many of the influence principles as I could. I literally sent it out to the same list I've been mailing to for 10 years. Doubled the new patient count."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

Chris highlights how a shift in mindset, inspired by mentorship from figures like Dan Sullivan, allowed him to sell his most profitable offices to focus on improving struggling ones. This strategic decision led him to realize the importance of influence and commitment in business operations.

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2. Influence Principles: Consistency

One of the cornerstone principles Chris discusses is Consistency, one of Robert Cialdini's seven principles of influence. Consistency revolves around the idea that once individuals commit to something, they are more likely to follow through.

[05:01] "There’s this principle called consistency. When people make a commitment, they follow through with their commitment."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

Chris illustrates how applying consistency within his team transformed their operational efficiency. By involving team members in decision-making processes and securing their commitments publicly, he fostered a culture of accountability and proactive behavior.

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3. Securing Commitment from Teams and Clients

Chris delves into practical methods for securing and maintaining commitments from both employees and clients.

For Teams:

• Choice and Involvement: Allowing team members to make choices in the process increases their commitment.

  [06:34] "I had to give them choices. What size ball do you want? Up to you. As long as the ball knocks down the pins, I didn't care."
  — Dr. Chris Phelps

• Public Commitment: Encouraging employees to write down and share their roles and responsibilities publicly enhances their accountability.

• Reminders and Scarcity: Regularly reminding the team of their commitments and introducing time-bound targets keeps the momentum going.

For Clients:

• Persuasion and Pre-suasion: Combining persuasion with pre-suasion techniques reshapes clients' mindsets before direct engagement.

  [13:07] "With clients, you need both persuasion and pre-suasion to influence their mindset positively."
  — Dr. Chris Phelps

• Environmental Changes: Adjusting the ambiance (e.g., scents, visuals) in client-facing spaces can significantly impact their receptiveness.

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4. Persuasion vs. Pre-suasion in Marketing

Understanding the distinction between Persuasion and Pre-suasion is crucial for effective marketing strategies.

[13:07] "Persuasion is tapping into present principles, while pre-suasion reshapes mindsets beforehand."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

Chris explains that Pre-suasion involves priming clients' minds to be more receptive to messages, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of persuasive efforts. For instance, altering the environment or sending preliminary messages that align with desired outcomes can set the stage for successful engagements.

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5. Implementing Membership Plans for Enhanced Conversions

Chris shares his successful experience in introducing membership plans, which significantly boosted revenue and client retention.

[27:19] "I added $1.4 million of revenue by implementing a membership plan by understanding and addressing clients' perceived barriers."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

By identifying that many clients hesitated due to the high cost of dental insurance, Chris designed an affordable membership plan that offered substantial value. This strategic pricing not only overcame the initial resistance but also built long-term client loyalty.

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6. Ethical Use of Scarcity in Marketing

Scarcity, when used ethically, can be a powerful motivator for clients to take action. Chris emphasizes the importance of honesty and transparency to maintain trust.

[39:20] "True scarcity is about genuinely limited resources and should be used ethically to avoid damaging trust."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

He recounts an experience where promoting a limited number of high-value gifts initially led to ethical dilemmas. Learning from this, Chris advocates for authentic scarcity by offering a fixed number of deals or gifts transparently, thereby maintaining integrity and client trust.

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7. Leveraging Social Proof and Authority on Websites

In the digital age, a well-optimized website can significantly influence client decisions. Chris outlines key elements that enhance conversion rates:

• Welcoming Messages: Personalized greetings and team photos create a sense of familiarity and trust.

  [51:51] "If they don’t like you, they’re not going to do business with you. A welcoming message and pictures of the team foster this connection."
  — Dr. Chris Phelps

• Social Proof: Displaying reviews and testimonials prominently reassures potential clients of the service quality.

• Authority Triggers: Showcasing credentials, awards, and expertise establishes credibility and positions the business as an industry leader.

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8. Strategies for Obtaining Client Reviews

Obtaining positive reviews is essential for social proof. Chris emphasizes the role of Reciprocity and Ease in garnering client feedback.

[62:41] "Give intangible gifts like time and empathy, and clients feel obligated to reciprocate through reviews."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

Key strategies include:

• Immediate Requests: Asking for reviews immediately after providing exceptional service captures the client's positive experience.

• Convenient Options: Offering multiple methods (text, email) for leaving reviews increases the likelihood of participation.

• Follow-ups and Reminders: Gentle reminders and making the process easy (e.g., QR codes) ensure that the initial commitment translates into action.

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9. Recommended Reading and Further Learning

Chris recommends several influential books and authors that have shaped his approach to business and marketing:

• Robert Cialdini: For foundational principles of influence and persuasion.
• Dan Sullivan: For insights into entrepreneurial mindset and strategic growth.
• Kathy Colby: For understanding personality assessments and team dynamics.

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10. Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode concludes with a powerful testament to the effectiveness of integrating influence principles into business strategies. Chris recounts how revamping a decade-old direct mail campaign with Cialdini's principles resulted in doubling his new patient count.

[69:46] "If you haven’t added any level of influence, all you have to do is add one thing and send it right back out to the same people and you'll get a better response."
— Dr. Chris Phelps

Key Takeaways:

• Mindset Matters: Both internally within teams and externally with clients, mindset shapes behavior and outcomes.
• Consistency and Commitment: Securing public and written commitments fosters accountability and sustained action.
• Ethical Persuasion: Utilizing principles like reciprocity, scarcity, and social proof ethically builds trust and drives engagement.
• Effective Marketing: Combining pre-suasion and persuasion with strategic membership plans and optimized digital presence enhances business growth.
• Continuous Learning: Engaging with influential literature and applying proven strategies is crucial for ongoing success.

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For entrepreneurs and home service professionals seeking to elevate their business through strategic influence and client engagement, this episode offers invaluable insights and practical strategies rooted in behavioral science and ethical marketing practices.

Transcript

[Chris Phelps]

I did a direct mail piece and I ran it to the same list of people for 10 years and I got a good return. But after I learned these principles and after I learned how to apply them and amplify these things, I stripped down that direct mail piece and I rebuilt it and tried to add as many of the influence principles as I could. And I literally sent it out to the same list I've been mailing to for 10 years. Doubled the new patient count. So no matter what you're doing, if you haven't added any level of influence, all you have to do is add one thing and send it right back out to the same people and you'll get a better response.

[Tommy Mello]

Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes. But I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes N O t e s to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today is a very special guest. I got him in the studio. Chris Phelps is here. He wrote the complete book on dental marketing, which you might be thinking, why was do I have a dental marketing company? But it's so much more than that. He's the CEO of the Chowdini Institute. He's the dental practice coach of Sunrise Dental Solutions, the founder and president of Golden Goose Scheduling, certified trainer at Ciardini Method of Influence, and he was also the president of Dental Membership Direct. Chris, it's a pleasure to have you here. Amazing book.

[Chris Phelps]

Thank you.

[Tommy Mello]

Tommy, just tell us a little bit about you and.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny, as you've already pointed out, and for our listeners, so that you can tell, I'm an entrepreneur who happens to be a pretty good dentist.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

And it's been a wild ride these last 21 years.

[Tommy Mello]

And you started working. When did you meet Robert Cialdini?

[Chris Phelps]

So I had, I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina and I in 2003 I joined my wife's dentist, which is kind of, you know, apprenticeship thing, that's what you do in dentistry sometimes. And had bought into his business and spent those first couple of years, we had a 10x growth over a seven year period, going to one location to four. And marketing was really the key. Right. Really stretching my marketing legs initially. But it came a time where.

[Tommy Mello]

I.

[Chris Phelps]

Was bouncing too many things and sometimes no matter how much you can juggle, your cup always runneth over. So my passion was to be a dentist. I made that decision when I was in seventh grade. So I was still doing clinical dentistry on patients five days a week at the same time. I'm the CEO of the company, I'm running the operations, I'm managing a hundred people. I'm doing all the marketing for the four practices. And after my second son was born, I realized my wife kind of needed me at home and I had trapped myself in my own business. I couldn't be there. So I realized I had to take a hard look in the mirror and go I. My mindset was wrong. Right. At first, growth for growth's sake was, had not put me in a good place. So I changed my mindset and you know, one of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, said buy back your time. Right. Sometimes you have to subtract and multiply. So I did something nutty and I sold my two best offices, highest revenue, least amount of debt, and took over the two worst ones, freeing up myself from some old partners and could really get back to doing it the way I wanted to do it. But there's a problem when you take over your two worst businesses. They suck.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

So problems that were small when you've got three other businesses to go with it and three other partners. A struggling business is your investment. But when you're down to one business and one partner, that's a problem. So I had all these fires, like, why weren't my patients coming back for treatment? Why do I have to keep telling my team to do stuff right? Why, when the cat was away, the mice kept playing and not doing what they're supposed to do. My associate doctors, why would I pay for them to go to continuing education courses? And they didn't come back and use it. They didn't put it into practice to help our patients. So all these little things. And I couldn't put my finger on the root cause of the problem. And somebody from Strategic Coach invited me to a workshop, and Dr. Cialdini was the keynote speaker. Never heard of the guy before that. And in 90 minutes, he changed the course of my life.

[Tommy Mello]

And what year was that?

[Chris Phelps]

This is 14 years ago.

[Tommy Mello]

2010. Yep.

[Chris Phelps]

Right. So absolutely nutty. And I immediately was like, all right, what's this guy up to? I found his book, read the whole thing in, like, 24 hours. Found out that they did a course here in Phoenix once a year in July of all times, came out here in the heat and did two full days of the workshop training, trying to dive into the problems of those practices. And it left me with so many ideas on. Because what really the key with Cialdini was that he showed me one of the principles in particular was the root cause behind all my problems. Okay, one thing. So I was like, all right, if I can get to the heart of that thing, because this guy knows what he's talking about, then I might have a chance. And most everybody always asks me, what was the one thing? Right. Well, there's this principle called consistency. And the short answer of the principle is this. When people make a commitment, they follow through with their commitment. Right? So if you get people to commit, then they do. Well, suddenly, that was my light bulb. Well, why aren't they doing. In my case, what was I missing? I wasn't getting a commitment out of any of them to do anything. So I thought, all right, well, if I can change my strategy, get better commitments for my patients, for my team, for my doctors, everything should change. And it did. It changed big time.

[Tommy Mello]

Let's talk about that real quick. I want to take a deep dive into that. So let's talk about your team, and then let's talk about the clients. How to get commitment.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah. So with the team, it was more realizing there's two aspects of it. Number one, I needed to be able to influence them, not tell them. Nobody likes to be told anything. We learned that at an early age. So that's why when the cat's away, the mice will play. When you tell, when you coerce, when you intimidate, when you force people into something or they feel backed into a corner. When you give them choice and you influence them properly. When the cat's away, the mice don't play, okay? They do what you had influenced them to do. So I knew to use an example I pictured like I was gonna go bowling, right, with my team. And as the owner of the business, as the visionary, I had to pick the lane. I didn't wanna be on lane one and my team's bowling on lane four. That's not gonna help me or my patience. But we're all on lane one. And of course I've got the goals set, so I'm gonna pick the pins. But they need to have some control of the process. They need to be involved with it. If they're not, they, they fight it. Okay? So even if it's as simple, they make one little change to make it slightly more convenient for them or more efficient for them or whatever, you automatically get more of a commitment from them in the process. So I knew I had to give them choices. Right, so you want, what size ball do you want? 8 pounds, 10 pounds, 12? What size holes do you want? Small, medium, large? You want to bowl left handed, right handed, granny style. Up to you. As long as the ball goes down the lane and knocks the pins, I didn't care. So it's a two part system of their instinctive nature is number one. I had to clearly define the vision of what I wanted.

[Tommy Mello]

Right? Right.

[Chris Phelps]

The second thing is, and this is what's important and what a lot of people skip, they immediately go into telling, well, I went into justifying. If you don't give them enough facts and objective details to justify the change, it's going to be a lot harder for them to instinctively do that or they'll do it again while you're watching, but it's not consistent while you're gone. But if they know the context of why and the justification, automatically they're more likely to continue doing so. I had to do that. I had to justify that. Why? As I said, I had to ask their permission. They had to voluntarily commit. So once I justified why, I asked them a simple question, and this is a simple influence question you should ask anybody you're going to work with. How many of you agree with me that this is a problem? Okay, looks like all the hands are up. Great. Who's going to help me solve it? Because if the hands don't go up, what that tells me is that's okay, they see an elephant in the room. Well, instead of hiding from it, let's bring it up, let's talk about it now. Because if I don't, that's going to be a landmine that sabotages this thing down the road. If all the hands go up, great. Now they're Voluntarily committed to helping me get this done. And you automatically have a better chance get them involved with that process. So, hey, what's your role going to be in this? Here's some pen and paper. Because studies show what you write down, you tend to live up to. Right. So you get it out of their head and let's put it on paper. What's your part going to be in this change? Helping us reach this goal, whatever that is. And they have to see you're a part of the process, too. So I'm writing my stuff down. Here's what I think I can do to help you guys or directly or indirectly get to the goal or make this change. And now we use this. This aspect of consistency, which is getting public commitments out of people, which is extremely powerful. So everybody going around the room saying, all right, Tommy, what are you going to do? What's your role going to be? Let's tell everybody. Great. Now let's ask for feedback from everybody else. Does anybody else have any ideas for Tommy, here's what I think you could do. Write that down. Okay, great. Let's go to the next person. And then I tell them what I think I can do and I get their feedback. Great. I can do that. Sure. Now we've all written it down. I get them to sign it and then sign it.

[Tommy Mello]

I love it.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah. Because now they're committed. They know what their responsibilities are. They're signing that. This is what they're going to do. And you get your most creative, collaborative person on the team. We make a collage of it and we post it. Because what every study on consistency shows is this. Right. We all know by definition, you know, why do people do commitments? Why do they fall through with the commitments? Well, it's because they don't want to be perceived as being inconsistent in their stated thoughts, actions and beliefs. Right. There's no good word for people who don't do what they say they're going to do routinely. Liars, for instance, is not a good word. Right. So there's this external influence on us to not be like that. At the same time, there's an internal influence, which is why it's powerful. It's two sources. You don't want to look at yourself in that capacity. Right. So nobody wants to be inconsistent. But we all know people who say and do things but don't follow through. Were they all liars? Right. Were they all intending to fool us or mislead us? Well, the truth is, the studies show that's not the case. Most good People, it's an I got time problem is the mindset. They really intended to do it, but as time goes on, guess where you go when a thousand other things pop them into their life?

[Tommy Mello]

They don't prioritize, they don't calendar it, they don't.

[Chris Phelps]

That's it.

[Tommy Mello]

Eisenhower's matrix, right?

[Chris Phelps]

Exactly. So now they're thinking in their mind. They. They do intend to get to it, but the reality is they never will. So it looks like it never happens. So the way to combat this, what the studies show, was you just got to remind them of the commitments that they made, constantly reminding them of that commitment. So I post it where they see it every day. So it's the first thing they see when they walk in to the business and it reminds them, ooh, this is the priority and this is my part in this and what I need to get done. And the last piece of it is I got to get them to do a majority wins vote on not how long it's going to take us to reach this goal, but how long is it going to. I'm going to use scarcity and limit the time. How much time does it really take for us to start making progress towards this, to start taking action and because ultimately, because people are built, they're a tortoise or a hare when it comes to change. Some can change on the dime. Right. Others, they might get there, but it looks like they're not getting there. They just need more time before they're going to change because they resist change, they don't adapt to it quickly. So I have to give my team the commitment and allow them to choose their timeline for change of when we're going to start. Once I've gotten all those commitments, I can get out of the way. You've pushed the ball over the top of the hill and just let the momentum take its place.

[Tommy Mello]

Okay, so commitment. Now let's talk about the client side.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah. So with clients, again, commitment's a big part of it, but really you need the best one, two, punch. You need persuasion, and you need persuasion. So persuasion is about which of Cialdini's seven principles are present in a situation that you could tap into, bring to the surface in your communication attempts. That automatically is going to influence that person to receive your message in a totally different light and be more willing to say yes to it. Okay. Pre suasion is what principles are present and other things that you can tap into that happen before they get to you in that moment. So outside of this moment, that changes their mindset. So pre suasion is all about reshaping mindsets. Because one of the things I didn't realize was that just how powerful mindsets are and how much that was hurting. Yes.

[Tommy Mello]

And a lot of that is just getting them to view through a different lens.

[Chris Phelps]

This. Well, think of it this way. So like the example I always give is, let's say I have a new patient that came to my business for the first time and she's there 30 minutes early, right? Do her paperwork, whatever. Well, she just gets off the phone, having a knockdown, drag out, tearful fight with her husband. Okay. Divorce on the horizon, not sure what's going to happen with the kids. It's ugly. She hangs up. She's here. She cleans herself up because she's there for the appointment. She has a good experience. And I come in and talk about her dental needs. Where's her mindset at right now? Is it in her mouth at all or is it in that car? Yeah, right. So that's what I realized was that in any given situation, when a potential person with sales or whatnot, or in my case, patients are coming into this moment, they're all coming in with a mindset already established. And if you don't do anything to refocus that mindset based on what you want to talk about and get them to recommit to do value statements based on what you want to talk about, then the mindset they're coming in with is directly competing with what you want to talk about or distracting them from what you want to talk about. And in both cases, the door to yes is already shut. And unless it's a top of mind pain situation, it's hard to get it back open.

[Tommy Mello]

So how do you do that?

[Chris Phelps]

Well, so there's all kinds of things that affect our mindset, right? The good news is they're fickle little things. Okay? You can reshape them as needed. So one of my favorite things to do is, of course, you can change the context of their environment. So the sights, the sounds, the smells around them can change that mindset. So for instance, if I've got somebody who may be coming in as a new patient and they're uncertain about their situation, it can look like a standard medical reception office, or it could look like you just walked into somebody's living room, little fireplace there, pictures of all the teams and their families all over the place. So you get that sense of, wow, this, this is like a home. This is not a medical reception office. That doesn't seem right. The Smells. Right. You know, they have a smell now called the Disney smell for a reason, because it creates a mindset. Like in our world, do you want to come in and smell like. If you're like a 70 year old patient, let's say they had bad experiences with dental offices as kids. And there's something in our industry we call the dental smell. And it's a very unique thing that if you say that to most older people, they know exactly what you're talking about. It's the kind of smell that just sticks to you no matter where you go for days. Okay, well, if you come into an office as a new patient in your 70 and you smell that, you're going to flash back to all those negative experiences versus if you come into the office and it smells like fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Huh? Now, I don't know about you, but when I grew up, cookies came out of a bag. But on special days when grandma was there or mom was in a good mood, right out of the oven. So again, family is the mindset I'm trying to create in that moment in the environment. When they're in the chair, we let them watch tv, but we control the content because the worst thing they can do is watch CNN or Fox News. Ten minutes before I get in there and they're saying, holy crap, the stock market's down, Bitcoin's down. And then I come in and go, oh, by the way, you need two crowns. And they're like, the hell I do. I just lost all this money in the stock market. So it totally creates the wrong mindset. Versus if I have come in and put on fixer upper right. Here's a program where people have something at the start of the show where they think has no value, but what do they do? They invest time, money, and expert advice. And what comes out on the back end with that investment? A beautiful house. A beautiful house. Metamorphosis, change, rehabilitation, renovation. That's the mindset you're pre programming? Almost. That's what pre suasion is you're priming the pump for. Yes. To get them in a mindset that's going to be more receptive to what you want to ask and say yes to it before they ever get to you.

[Tommy Mello]

I'm curious. Let's just real quick. If I wanted to do pre suasion in a home service, whether I'm a plumber, H vac, plumbing, garage doors, could be gutters, landscaping, pest control, pool service, I don't really control the four walls. I'm Going into that's their home and their space. Is there any advice you'd give just off the cuff?

[Chris Phelps]

You can pre swayed them by sending text images. If you can send pictures, images, create mindsets, you could text them questions. So asking commitment questions before you get to them can automatically create a better mindset to make them more receptive. In the pre suasion book, Cialdini talks about the study where they surveyed random grocery shoppers at a random grocery store on a Tuesday. And they asked them, they're like, hey, we're with this soft drink company. We'd love for you to try this new soda. Can I get all your personal information so I can ship you a free case of this? And then you just tell us what you think? And of course, the majority of people were like, I'm not giving you my personal information. Right. The next part of the study, they didn't ask them the main request. They started out by asking a commitment question first. So they walk into the store and a different group of researchers say, hey, we're just doing a little market survey to all of our customers. Quick question. Do you consider yourself to be adventurous or not? Yes or no. And when you ask somebody a question where the answer kind of has a yin and a yang, where society is going to view one part of the answer as positive, but the opposite of that word as a negative, well, automatically. Because if you're not adventurous, then what are you? You're boring.

[Tommy Mello]

None of it.

[Chris Phelps]

You're boring. You're boring, right? And nobody wants to be associated with that. So what your brain does is it starts searching back through its memory banks. And all it needs. It's crazy. Is one piece of evidence to justify the yes to the good answer. So it's like, well, that was that one time at band camp or the one time in college, right? Yes, I'm adventurous. So 100% of the people said, yes, I'm adventurous. Okay? But guess who they are now in this moment?

[Tommy Mello]

Adventurous.

[Chris Phelps]

And guess what adventurous people like to do. They like to try new things. Try new things. And guess what? Then the next group of researchers, 20 minutes later, ask them, try this new thing. Right? And overwhelmingly, the majority said yes. So if you could persuade them with a question in a text before. Hey, I'm on the way. Quick question. What do you think about this? What are your thoughts? Are you this or that? Automatically, you got a better chance.

[Tommy Mello]

So I like when he was in here, I used to be a server, and I used to have a lot of ways I didn't realize I was influencing. But when he tried, when he'd say, listen, well, here's one peppermint, and the tip went up a little bit. Then here's two peppermints. But when you walk away and you say, for my two special guests, I'm really excited you came to visit me. Remember, my name's Tommy. I left you a couple extra mints each here that the tip actually doubled. It was more than double, I believe.

[Chris Phelps]

It was way more than doubled. And he actually, he actually went around to each one of them. He said, and just for you, here's an extra one. And just for you, here's an extra one. And just for you, like really making the time to point out one on one, this is for you, this is for you.

[Tommy Mello]

And that's gifting.

[Chris Phelps]

That's reciprocity.

[Tommy Mello]

Reciprocity.

[Chris Phelps]

Giving a gift of significant value automatically creates, if it's significant to them and meaningful and ideally customized for them. In this case, personalized, just for you, incites in them an obligation that they feel like they have to give back in kind. And just, just like the opposite of the word consistency, inconsistency here. What do you call people who don't give, who just take, take, take all the. Exactly. No positive word.

[Tommy Mello]

So there's so many things I want to ask, and I'm just going to probably be adhd, as the listeners are used to doing. Number one, I've always. So I was on a podcast with Grant Cardone and he asked me what's more important, sales or marketing? And I think marketing is. I think you're marketing right now. When we meet each other. When you meet a significant other.

[Chris Phelps]

Yep.

[Tommy Mello]

Talk to me about what your thoughts are on each of them and in order of importance.

[Chris Phelps]

To me, it's the same analogy as which is more important, pre suasion or persuasion. And the truth of the matter is, as I said, this is why I didn't realize how important persuasion was. If the mindset's already a no when they get to you, there's no conversation.

[Tommy Mello]

Even if they come to you. And it's a demand. I mean, dental's a demand. I book the appointment, there's spring breaks on your garage door, your hot water heater is leaking.

[Chris Phelps]

Well, that's different. Again, if it's top of mind pain, that's one thing. In my world, only about 20% of the population of customers are pain. Right. 80%. We're talking about what they need, not what they want.

[Tommy Mello]

Right.

[Chris Phelps]

And that's the disconnect. So, like, pre suasion if the door's already shut, you'd only have. It's hard to persuade. So it's a lot more important from that aspect. I feel like marketing and sales is the same. If your marketing's not down and you can't get a customer, how do you get a sale? You can't.

[Tommy Mello]

My mom used to answer phones in 2010 and through 2012, and she'd go, thank you for calling a one garage door service. How make your day better today. And she used to be so empathetic. And she'd go, thank you, honey. I can't even imagine what you're going through today.

[Chris Phelps]

Nice.

[Tommy Mello]

And I used to run these calls back. Then she started working for me a few years into the business and they were laid down. They come give me a hug. They didn't know she was my mom. But the way we took the call. And now the software will actually send out a text message of the technician. And I say, post a picture of your family. Tell them what you like to do. Family, occupation, recreation, material things. If you love Harley's, if you got a dog, post your dog. If you got babies, post the babies and put it on there because they want to get to know you a little bit. And then always offer something on the way. So we call them up, I'm stopping off at 7:11 or stopping off at Starbucks. Can I grab you something?

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

And then we walk up with a smile, and we don't ring the doorbell. We knock the door because friends knock the door. There's all these little things, but I'm like, you know, I've had a lot of thought about you coming into here. It just, you know, I don't work with everybody on the podcast, but probably one out of 25. What does. When you get involved with the Cheddini Institute, how does that even work?

[Chris Phelps]

Well, there's a couple of ways. Number one is it's deepening your education first, right? Getting you familiar with what's above and beyond the books. And that's how do we activate these principles? Meaning if they are present in a moment, how do you turn them on? Like a light switch? And then once present and you've activated them, how do you amplify their power? As I said, giving a gift is important, but the type of gift you give is even more important. So there's ways to amplify that situation and take it to another level. How do you. Once you've deepened your own knowledge. Now, it's. Sometimes you may understand a topic, but people struggle with the application piece Implementation, Yeah, implementation was key. Right. So I found a lot of people struggle with that application and implementation part. So teaching people how to use these things. And for me it was learning through examples. Right. So when I saw the behavioral science examples, that's what gave me the ideas to try that on my patients and the people that were coming to my businesses and my team at the front desk and the doctors that I had. And I found those examples transcribed and it helped me create my influence systems that I use as well. So learning, knowledge, deepening and application is key. So we help in that aspect. Some people have time for that.

[Tommy Mello]

They just want to just go right to the top.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah, they're just like, just come solve it for us. Okay, we can do that too. Right. So it's a combination of those two things. You're learning versus do you just want somebody to take care of it for you?

[Tommy Mello]

So yeah, you're just cutting straight to the top, the implementation, that's it. And if you just want to go through a course, where does one sign up?

[Chris Phelps]

So they can come right to the website cialdini.com there's an online portal, you can purchase the product and you get instant on demand access with 10 hours of Dr. Cialdini teaching you those activators and amplifiers.

[Tommy Mello]

And as CEO of the, I guess us based in how many countries?

[Chris Phelps]

So right now, last I counted, we've got representation in over 30 countries.

[Tommy Mello]

And what is your day to day?

[Chris Phelps]

So it's a lot of talking, a lot of zoom calls. Luckily I'm used to talking to a lot because, you know, talking to my patients every day. So it's a lot of talking, it's a lot of spreading the word of influence. Because really, I mean, we're targeting obviously organizations, right, who need to be more influential in what they do. We're targeting individuals, we're targeting, I'm trying to catch them while they're young. So like with ASU University, we just did a celebrated Cialdini day on this past two days ago and the goal there was obviously to celebrate his career, but is through the business school. And we're going to make it to where the business school students are leaving as certified practitioners of persuasion. So I can't even imagine like if I had been trained like that in college with this stuff behind me, how much further my career would have gone and how much faster, what advantages would it have given me back then? So trying to spread influence to not only the US but all countries in those aspects, from the university aspect early on to whatever stage they are in their business careers.

[Tommy Mello]

One of the questions I have is, you were able to add $1.4 million of revenue to the practice by implementing a membership plan. We sell memberships as well.

[Chris Phelps]

Nice.

[Tommy Mello]

My conversion rates 17. It's not what I want it to be. Some of the guys call it a protection plan. We give. We're going to save you money by getting this done today. We come out each year, we lubricate, adjust, tighten everything. We protect everything. We own the system after this, I got one guy converting at 70%. And now we got tools to record the technician out in the field and actually examine their calls with a scorecard so we could see who has the most reviews, who has the most this, who has the most that, study what's working. But talk to me a little bit about membership plans and how you were able to convert those.

[Chris Phelps]

Well, it started when I got an opportunity to go to a active, independent living retirement community. A patient was in my chair, and we had given her a great experience, and just organically, she just asked me. She was like, hey, you ever thought about coming out to communities and do a talk? I was like, tell me about your community. She goes, well, you know, we got about 3,500 homes of people my age, active, independent living people. And I was like, okay, so it'd be okay if I came out and did a talk to your whole community? She was like, yeah, we'd love that. I organized that. And I was like, okay, let's do that. The challenge was, now I got to give a talk. And I'm thinking, all right, well, nobody wants to come hear about dentistry, so what's going to be my hook, right? What can I use to get people in the door? And this is actually when I just come back from Napa Valley, California, for the first time. So I get these folks out, and I realize 60 of them came out for a seminar, for a wine and cheese seminar with dental education. You can't get to Napa, so I'm going to bring Napa to you. Join me for the top five dental reasons affecting the aging population, and enjoy some of Napa's wines on meat. And so I get these folks out, and I realized during the seminar when I asked them the first question, just curious, how many of you have been to the dentist for any reason in the last year? 10 out of 60 people raised their hand at this first talk, and I was like, oof. I think, good. How many of you have dental insurance? Okay, the 10 who'd been to the dentist have insurance. Hmm. Now I'm starting to get it. How many of you would have gone had you had insurance? The other 50 raise their hand. So automatically. You know, there's a lot of power when you ask your target market questions and they tell you what they use to decide. Right. It showed me this barrier. Our culture is, you don't have insurance, you can't go see a doctor or dentist for any reason. So when these folks retired, because my parents were in the same boat at this time, that's the first thing they lost. They kept medical, but they lost dental.

[Tommy Mello]

Right.

[Chris Phelps]

And now they go from abundance mindset, money's coming in every month to a scarcity mindset. I've only got a certain amount and it's gotta last. Yeah. So they hang on to it. Well, so then, and this is the point, to make membership plans work, you have to know what people are going to compare it to. In this case, I knew they were going to compare it to buying their own insurance policy.

[Tommy Mello]

Right.

[Chris Phelps]

Which at the time was too expensive for their mindset. So I had to lower that barrier. So I knew at the time it was going to cost them $600 a year for their own insurance policy. Okay, well, I was just guessing at the time. I didn't know what the number was. I just cut it in half. Said, you know what, I'm gonna make this a dang good value. It's 300 bucks for the year. Two cleanings, two exams, all your X rays come in for an emergency exam. Doesn't matter. Right. So for literally less than 30 bucks a month.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

Okay. And you'll get a 10% discount off anything we do kind of thing. And so that was when I went back the next month. I created the plan. Cause I saw that as the barrier. I presented that and got so much acceptance. Because in contrast, automatically what they would pay, they knew they needed it, but they didn't want to pay for that. But half the price of their mind. Now it's a good value. And that's what. And it was still a slow roll. Like the early pioneers were the ones who in the community tried it out. Because another barrier I realized was that they think too good to be true. It's too good to be true. Sounds great. What's the catch? So it was those early pioneers. I told my team these folks had to have the best experience ever. We cannot have bad word of mouth marketing. And as soon as they went back, they told everybody, it's legit, it's as good as they say. And next thing you know, momentum Builds.

[Tommy Mello]

This is the one thing Robert really specifies is you got to use these influences for good.

[Chris Phelps]

Correct.

[Tommy Mello]

And I think a lot of people, they need to read that part.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

Because it's easy to go down this rabbit hole of taking advantage of people.

[Chris Phelps]

Well, I know as a, as their dentist, as a dental expert that if they go, they choose the reactive mindset which is what they were doing, choosing not to go unless it hurt, they're in pain, whatever that was going to cost them more time, money. Because of that and visits versus if I could just influence them to get that preventative work done, the cleanings, the whatever, it would save them more time, money and pain down the road. So that's one of our rules for ethics. Objectively, like if it's truly a win, win for both sides, even though there can be some cost to both sides, but if it's really in both our best interest to do this, then why should we both lose?

[Tommy Mello]

That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think what I'd be asking, and I've got a really good FP and a financial planning and analysis team that actually could build out pivot tables and understand the ROI of what, how? Because I think a lot of people talk to me about service agreements and maintenance agreements and protection plans is they don't know how to price it in a way that they're sure that they're not going to lose.

[Chris Phelps]

Yes.

[Tommy Mello]

And there's some science behind. It's really math equations.

[Chris Phelps]

It is. For me it was what was my overhead per chair per hour cost in my practice. So at any given time you got so many chairs people are sitting in, those chairs cost you money no matter what. So there's a burden cost, there's a burden cost. So what's the burden cost there? Well, if I, and I know they're in the chair twice, what's times two. So as long as I'm some multiple above that, even though I'm not getting my full price of what I would charge them to be in this chair, I'm not losing money. But for me, the preventative was one thing. We make our money on the dental work.

[Tommy Mello]

Right?

[Chris Phelps]

Right. But when you get somebody who has a membership plan with a Costco style model, there's a reason why Costco shoppers spend on average 247% more per trip than Walmart shoppers and they pay for the right to do it. Why? Because the more I buy, the more I save. Why would I spend money elsewhere when I save here? And so I realized that was the key, we got more treatment acceptance. So traditionally, somebody would come in and I'm going to present $4,000 to them on the work that they need. Okay. Two fillings, two crowns. Let's say most people, if you just present that straight up and they compare that to the wants in their life they'd prefer to spend, are gonna go, yeah, I can't do that. So let me just start with something. I'll do the two. The smallest thing. Let me do the two fillings. Maybe they'll get to the other stuff, but more than likely they don't in this case, when they see this plan is $4,000. Oh, but after your 10% discount as a plan member, you say 400. It's only 36. Wow, 400 bucks. Wait, didn't you say this plan was 400? And it includes all my cleanings and other things. Everything else I need is done for the year, taken care of. That's right. Huh? All right, I'll do it. And now they do it all.

[Tommy Mello]

Hey, guys. Hope you're enjoying the episode. Quick question. Can you take the day off work on a random Monday? Most home service owners can't. They're always one slip up away from losing customers or damaging their reputation. Meanwhile, Kevin O'Leary is out closing deals on Shark Tank, collecting luxury watches and traveling the world, all while his teams consistently make him money. How the heck does he manage to do it all and lead multiple companies while you're stuck running one business and answering work calls at night and on weekends? It's not luck. And it's not because Kevin works harder than you. When an interviewer asked him how he builds teams, he shared this simple formula. Set goals, let the team go after them, and then, most importantly, get out of their way. No secrets, no billionaires, only playbooks. Just a simple approach that most business owners refuse to follow. Get out of your employees way. Listen, I get it. It's hard to let go. I used to do everything in my business too. But here's what I've realized over the years. You can't delegate your family time. You can't delegate your faith. But you can delegate all those day to day tasks that steal your time. That way you can focus on scaling your business and enjoying your life. If you want to remove yourself from the machine so that it runs without you, come to Freedom 2025 to learn how Kevin O'Leary himself will break down his framework for building a teams that teaches you to scale your business without being buried in the day to day. Plus the early bird Offer is still live, which means you can get 20% off VIP tickets and exclusive bonuses worth over $5,246. Go to freedom event.com and lock in your ticket. Now that's freedom event.com. now back to the episode. Talk to me a little bit about the seven principles. I know we don't have enough time in this podcast to hit all of them in depth.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

But let's just go through, like, King Scarcity, you know, reciprocity.

[Chris Phelps]

So we talked about reciprocity already, Right? Somebody gives you a truly significant gift of value. The obligation is there. You feel the need to get back in kind. But it's really about you showing people that you like them. Okay? People tend to reciprocate if they know you like them, meaning if we like something about them and tell them we like them. Or if your customers, when they're done, like, this was huge with my patients, ask them to take a picture of me afterwards. Let's take a picture together. Because who do we normally take pictures with? Enemies.

[Tommy Mello]

Family or friends.

[Chris Phelps]

And family. Right. So now that's who you are. So showing them that you like them is key if you can find connections with them. We like those who are like us. Okay. Who have connections, commonalities, similarities. That's the kind of stuff people are looking for. Protects you on the back end. You don't lose them. It protects the whole experience for them. Social proof is a big one right now. It's one of the most powerful influencers in online marketing, and that's just the evidence of the masses. Oftentimes we look to the evidence of what others or many others are doing to show us or tell us what we should do.

[Tommy Mello]

Reviews.

[Chris Phelps]

And that's exactly what reviews are. But the idea is, like, it's evolutionary. Right. There's a reason birds flock together, that animals herd, fish school together because they've learned if they step out from the crowd, bad things tend to happen. We're no different. So even though we want to be unique individuals, we different than everybody else, we still want to be unique individuals that are part of a community. So if a tribe, Right, If. If we see those people moving in another direction, there's a big pull on us to do the same.

[Tommy Mello]

Yep.

[Chris Phelps]

Unity is the newest principle. Kind of falls in line with that. That's all about the tribe. It's not a you versus me situation. It's a we situation. You're not like me. That's what liking is. You are me. We are of the same. The same culture, the same religion. The same sports fan. And if the tribe is all about it and you're part of that tribe and the tribe's asking, it's hard to say. No. Authority. We look to credible experts, trustworthy experts to tell us what we should do. Because truthfully, we don't have time to be an expert in everything. So we need true people, true authorities with that expertise and trust to tell us what we should do, not false authorities, which we see everywhere, that have no credibility, have no real expertise, and aren't really trustworthy. Consistency. We talked about that one. If people commit, they do, especially when reminded of the commitment. And the last one, of course, is scarcity. This is probably the one that's been abused the most unethically against us in all aspects. But true scarcity is about resources. And if resources are dwindling or about to run out, it is a powerful motivator for you to get up and go do something about it. You want it more and you'll do more to get it. That's what scarcity does to us.

[Tommy Mello]

Good. So an example of scarcity, for example, and I don't know if this qualifies, but we can lock in this price for 72 hours. We had 12 price increases in the last year from our manufacturer Y. One of the things we know is inflation's real gas prices are high.

[Chris Phelps]

Totally.

[Tommy Mello]

Middle east is not exactly dialed in right now. So if I were you, here's what I say, here's what needs to be done, here's what you should do. And if you were my mother, here's what I'd be telling you to do.

[Chris Phelps]

Yes.

[Tommy Mello]

And I always give options, because if you're not giving options, you're giving ultimatums.

[Chris Phelps]

Totally.

[Tommy Mello]

And you choose what's right for you. Well, just you tell me what's right for you and we'll do that. But what else could we use for scarcity that's morally and ethically correct?

[Chris Phelps]

So here's the trap you get into, right? And I've found this out the hard way. So I decided to leverage scarcity and try to do a new patient reward. We called it a gift, but it's really a reward because you had to come into the practice to get it right. And it was to get a, at the time, a Sonicare electric toothbrush. And at the time, you couldn't really buy them online. And if you went to, like, a Target retail store to buy, it was $150. So it was a significant gift. And. But I could get it buying it in bulk for 40 bucks. So, yeah, would I pay 40 bucks to get my ideal client in the door who paid my full fees but no insurance and whatnot? Yes, only on days that ended. Why so. But then I tried to limit the number. Use scarcity. I said, all right, new patient special this month. Good for the first 15 who respond, because I wasn't sure if anybody would respond. So I only bought 15 toothbrushes because I was curious. I didn't want to buy too many. So my intent was just to give away 15. Well, the 15th one was sold within or given away in two weeks. It was that popular. I was like, dang. So my team told me it was the last one. So I made a big deal with this patient that she got the last one. And patient number 16 now comes up and goes, hey, Doc, I heard you're talking about that toothbrush. That's why I'm here. I saw that in your mail piece. Yeah, I want a toothbrush. And I was like, dude, I'm so sorry. I just gave out the last one. Well, my lead assistant at the front just happened to be there and heard this. And of course, her job is to keep supplies on hand. So guess what she noticed from the supply closet a couple days ago.

[Tommy Mello]

She bought more.

[Chris Phelps]

She goes, oh, Doc, I saw we were low. Hey, they just came in. We got a whole bunch in the back. And she said that right in front of this patient after I just said we didn't have any. So now I'm like, oh, man. Do I give it to him or do I not? Right. So of course I gave it to him. Because for me, in that moment, it was about now. I got to protect the experience.

[Tommy Mello]

Right?

[Chris Phelps]

Now, if he knows we have a whole bunch and we'll give it to him, we're being the meanie, so to speak, and keeping it scarce. Right?

[Tommy Mello]

Right.

[Chris Phelps]

He's going to go tell everybody those guys can't even give away a toothbrush. So I did. But ethically, I violated one of our rules.

[Tommy Mello]

Right?

[Chris Phelps]

It's not the truth. We don't deal with half truth. It's got to be the whole truth. So if I say I'm going to give away 15 to leverage scarcity, ethically, it's got to be 15, because let's rewind. If patient 15 didn't leave, if they went to the bathroom, which is at the front desk, and after I just made this big deal about them being the last one to get it, if they come out and see 16 getting the toothbrush, what are they going to think?

[Tommy Mello]

I hear that Commercial all the time of who's the guy that does it. It's about this sleeping and it's all natural. And it says, and right now, Huckabee has told us to give away the first 500 bottles. And it's been the same thing for the last three years.

[Chris Phelps]

Exactly.

[Tommy Mello]

There's no way that's real.

[Chris Phelps]

No.

[Tommy Mello]

And that does bother me. It does.

[Chris Phelps]

And I don't buy it. No. People pick up on that stuff. Right. Because we. Scarcity has been abused too much in marketing. Okay. But here's how you can leverage in a good way. So I knew I was going to keep running to this ethical trap. It wasn't going to be true. So how do you get around that? So I realized when I started asking my customers was it really the Sonicare that they wanted the name, the brand or the category. They just want something. An electric toothbrush. And based on my conversations with them, they had no clue what a Sonicare was. Not really. They just wanted the category. So. Okay, so I made it. The next month. I only bought 15. Offer good for the first 15 that respond. Same thing. Two weeks gone. Well, once I ran out and the patient came in and said, oh, I'm here for that. Great, we're out of Sonicares. We gave away those already. But would you like an oral B electric toothbrush? Now? How many of those can I give away?

[Tommy Mello]

As many as you want.

[Chris Phelps]

As many as you want. So what I recommend, if you're going to do any kind of special or make, don't just limit the time, limit the number of the deals. That's how you amplify scarcity. Only 4. So instead of saying $500 off for this month only, only 4 $500 off specials are available. Get yours before somebody else does. And if it's going to be a repeat offer like I did with the Sonicare, I say only giving away 15 each month.

[Tommy Mello]

Yep.

[Chris Phelps]

So that way I can still use the special, but be true and only give away a certain amount per time.

[Tommy Mello]

So one of our best campaigns that we're bringing back. And it's true, but not to the full extent. We said we're buying back because we were really. We needed training doors.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

In our training center. You just walked.

[Chris Phelps]

Oh, yes. Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

And I want my guys to train. We don't need new doors to take them up and down and damage them. So we'll. We gotta buy back. We'll buy back your door. Not every one of them fit in our training center. Not every one of them get used.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

But we'll give you a credit as a buyback. And we, We. We show the video of the training center and say, we need more doors to train on.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

And quite frankly, there's a lot of things we could give those two, if they're the right size, wounded warriors. We could give them to elderly. We could actually use those doors for, you know, nonprofits. I don't want to be that company or that. That guy or that CEO that does things that really aren't above board.

[Chris Phelps]

Well, eventually the public gets wind of it.

[Tommy Mello]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

And with today's social media and how fast work and spread and go viral, to me, it's. Anytime you start saying, you know, not checking the box off, is this objectively ethical? Then you start getting into the gray area, and there's danger in the gray.

[Tommy Mello]

I call that. In my first book, I called it creative justification. And a lot of people can create justification even for theft. And it's a slippery slope because you start avoiding the good voice and the bad voice takes over on everything.

[Chris Phelps]

Totally. Well, again, it puts you on a mindset. Right. I mean, they've done studies where you can literally play a video game for 10 minutes as a hero or a villain and then go to a room and you have a choice. And that choice could either reward somebody that's coming after you or punish them. And what do you think the people who played as the hero, reward versus.

[Tommy Mello]

And then the bad guys.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah, Right. So that's what mine said, man. And if you. Once you start on that path, that's who you are.

[Tommy Mello]

What's more important with. I call them my internal clients, but employees, and I call them co workers. Is it the reward or is it the one on one? Like, what I start with is, listen, let's focus on your dreams, your goals, which you want out of this. And, you know, it might not only be money, but what's the best way to get the most out of your team? Obviously, they got to believe in you. The product themselves. Yeah, but what else. What other tips could you give as far as motivating your internal team?

[Chris Phelps]

Well, once you've got them committed, as you've done on the front end, that's first. Right. So how do you keep it going, so to speak? And it's this idea based on a study where you don't want to say, hey, congratulations on your progress. Focusing them on the progress lets them look to the past. It lets them think, you know what, I can take my foot off the pedal. I'm doing fantastic. So they did this in Like a weight watcher study kind of thing, where a weight loss study, if you will, where they told them that they had had great progress. And then on the end they said, why don't you get something on the way out for yourself? And to the left was a thing of candy and to the right was a thing of apples. Well, when they were told you've made great progress, they wanted a reward. They wanted the reward, they wanted the candy. They actually set themselves back as a result, versus if they just changed that word from progress to congratulating them and reminding them, you're doing a great job. Thank you for this commitment. Overwhelmingly, they chose the apples.

[Tommy Mello]

But you did talk about commitment. But getting people to buy in is. I guess you're absolutely right. Where I've learned a long time ago, I'm like, I told somebody, one of my mentors, I'm like, I've realized I've lost control because they're my ideas. Unless I could pull them in to help them create the idea. And sometimes I probably have used unethical influence. I find somebody they're influenced by.

[Chris Phelps]

Sure.

[Tommy Mello]

A favorite person. Like it could be a mentor, it could be a consultant. And I plant a seed and I say, why don't you tell them this? This, they'll come to me. It's their idea. And I don't know that's unethical or not, but it's another way of getting what I wanted.

[Chris Phelps]

Sure.

[Tommy Mello]

And I used to do this quite a bit with, with my coo, but. But how do you feel is the best way to motivate them to get involved and be part of it?

[Chris Phelps]

Well, again, they, they have to voluntarily choose to help and being and do what they say they're going to do. They have to be involved in shaping it to, to some capacity. The more they're able to shape it, the more the committed they are to it. There has to be accountability. Right. Meaning this conversation is going to go away. We're going to keep talking about this. We're going to keep checking up on it. Ideally, they should make that commitment to more than you. It should be in a group setting. The more people that know you said you were going to do something, the more influence there is on you to do that thing. And then of course, with that reminder, congratulations on the work you've done towards this commitment.

[Tommy Mello]

I love this stuff. One of the largest problems we're having in the company right now is time management. It seems like, like you said, you're firefighting all the time. Another meeting, another this, another that, you know, I'm putting out all the fires.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

What do you find the best way to help your team with time management?

[Chris Phelps]

The best way I did it was trying to change their mindset from always being reactive, proactive to proactive, meaning we're going to schedule time for you to schedule these things and plan out how you're going to use your time.

[Tommy Mello]

Schedule time to schedule time.

[Chris Phelps]

Schedule time to schedule time. And when they do that, then now they're committed.

[Tommy Mello]

I'm curious, what, what is the. Have you guys done any studies on the people that actually apply these principles and they do it well and they're committed?

[Chris Phelps]

Yes.

[Tommy Mello]

What's the, the roi?

[Chris Phelps]

Well, I mean, it depends.

[Tommy Mello]

There's a lot of different things all over the place.

[Chris Phelps]

Right. So a group of stem cell clinics I consulted with and created influence systems for. Right. All across the country. And by implementing these influence systems, the revenue increased 50% across the board at every clinic. So obviously a very good return for what they paid me for that service. Yeah. In dentistry, for instance, when I work with dental practices, their average increase for those that put these things into practice and use them is anywhere from 15,000 to 50,000 more in revenue a month with no change in overhead. It's almost like when they start putting it into practice, you've taken it from just feeding them fish to now they've learned how to fish and they just extrapolate and do better from that point on. So, I mean, for some of these people that have put this stuff into practice, that's why Cialdini calls them small bigs, small things that can make a huge impact. Popular cruise company, for instance, with one email adding a little pre suasion to it to make them more. The person who opened it more receptive to the scarcity message of a $500 offer that was going to run out at the end of the year. The cruise company made so much money off of the extra people that were on that ship that they said they could buy another boat.

[Tommy Mello]

This is why it's so exciting. One of the things I walked in and unfortunately I had another obligation, but I sent three of my guys to your event with Robert.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

And I'm never gonna miss another one. I noticed you were talking a lot about website and reviews. What's important on a website?

[Chris Phelps]

What.

[Tommy Mello]

What helps conversion rate, what helps people buy now? Or at least the conversion rate when they do the click through. And now they're actually taking the offer. They're doing the action.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah. So in this kind of case, you have to Start with why do people say no to us? Okay, so one reason is there's no relationship. And Dr. Nider, one of our chief trainers, came up and did the research on this. It's called the core motives model of why people do what they do. And so if there's no relationship, people don't say yes. If there's uncertainty, any kind of questions are doubt in their mind, they don't move. It's safer for them to do nothing than to choose. And lack of motivation, no urgency. So when somebody, especially in marketing, they're looking at your advertisement, if the, if they don't respond from the ad directly, there's some uncertainty automatically present holding it back. If there's something favorable about it, that's when they go to your website to look for more info. And, and if that satisfies their search, then they pick up the phone. So uncertainty in advertising is the number one thing you got to overcome. So to do that on a website, what the research shows is we need three principles to help us. Number one, if they don't like you, they're not going to do business with you. So all the research now is showing that you need some kind of welcoming message. Picture of the team, picture of the team, a statement from the team, a video welcoming people. We like those who welcome us and we want to do business with those who welcome us. The next two things principles we can use to attack uncertainty is social proof and authority. Okay, so the social proof, instead of having your leads or your reviews somewhere randomly on your website, it needs to be one of the first things people see. So now we show that right above the website address at the top of your website. The first thing they should see as we read top down should be how many reviews do you have and what's the rating? Next thing welcome message. Next thing you're going to see is the authority triggers, like signs of your expertise, your training, your credentials, any awards that you've won. And then you can have more testimonials because each one speaks to your trustworthiness. Oh my gosh, years in service, right? Serving this community. And I like to do that in five year terms, by the way. Five plus years serving this community, 10 plus years, 15 plus years. So that way you don't have to keep doing it. But if you're only five, five and a half years, guess what? Five plus sounds better.

[Tommy Mello]

I love this. There's so much I have to learn. I'm a good student though. Home service companies give me a few ways that you would use the different Steps of influence.

[Chris Phelps]

Well, you got to show evidence that this is not your first rodeo. Right. They need to know that you've done this, whatever you're recommending on lots of people and they've had good results. So automatically just sharing stories. Stories. The other thing I would do is if you've got multiple options, make sure people know that. Oh, and by the way, this is our most popular. This is what the majority of our customers choose. So it's great to give your own personal recommendation. That's authority. But when they know that that's what everybody else has done too. Most studies show 15 to 24% increase in that thing. That's key. We talked about the scarcity. Hey, $500 off for the first four who respond and then for every other person who responds. Well, I'm sorry I ran out of the $500 ones, but I do have a hundred dollar gift card I could give you. Remember, stop using coupons. People don't like discounts and coupons. Those are entitlements. Repackage it as a gift certificate or a gift card.

[Tommy Mello]

You're telling me coupons aren't good?

[Chris Phelps]

I like to repackage them because we feel entitled to discounts and coupons. There's no influence in an entitlement. But if we're given a gift as a gift certificate, if it's repackaged, if it's a physical gift card, I, I had gift cards to my own practice that I gave people for that very reason. You get a gift card first. Hey, thank you for bringing us. Just, here's a gift card from us to you. No matter what happens, we just appreciate you for bringing us out. And then, oh, I can use that towards this thing at the end that you said I need. Yeah, of course you can. Oh, wow. Thank you so much. So again, if you were going to give them $500 off anyway, give it to them first as a gift card and then let them choose to use it for your service later.

[Tommy Mello]

The gift card is actually really interesting. And you think the conversion rate are you, are you big into ab testing things and you study a lot of this stuff. You study case studies and different things.

[Chris Phelps]

You have to.

[Tommy Mello]

You know, there's a book by Chet Holmes, he passed away, where he would do these massive case studies and one of the companies he worked with other carpet companies and he said, you know, what's your average carpet sell? They told him it was a lot industrial. And so they did this massive case study and they figured out that actually carpets actually make your workplace A lot healthier. They actually absorb the germs. But after six months, they spread germs like crazy. You get sicker.

[Chris Phelps]

Gotcha.

[Tommy Mello]

They proved this. And the average time you'd go to get your carpet clean, they said, was like 1.8 years. After this study came out and they educated their client, they switched to six months, which was three times the frequency, which was amazing.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

And I love using this type of thing. You've got a million other things. Is there anything else real quick for the home service people listening? There's a lot of business people listening just in general, but.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah. Well, you were gonna ask, like, what. How do you know the best gift card or amount or what to give? So one of my favorite things and one of my best promotions ever was to let other people's giveaways be my gift. Pairing what you're doing and what you could give them with other services that are not competing with you, but might have value to that person is important. So for me, like, I looked at the maid industry and I realized that they had competed so much on price that they were now trying to use the foot in the door strategy. They're giving away an hour to two hour cleaning of your home, hoping that you'll appreciate this reciprocity and hoping that you'll bring them back and pay them. So when I saw that with these companies, I just reached out to one of them, said, hey, I see you're giving this away. You're committed to giving this away. Can I give it away for you? Right. And they were like, of course. Can I promote you to people in my. My customers. Right. My people, they're like, fantastic. Yeah. And thus was born my clean teeth, clean house promotion. Come in. And as my gift to you, we'll send somebody to clean your. Your home on top of that. So.

[Tommy Mello]

So there was no. Nothing out of pocket for you.

[Chris Phelps]

Zero. But I get the benefit of giving them. I call this scratch two things off your list. Wait, so I can use Tommy in a one. And not only do I get my garage door fixed, but they're going to. Somebody's going to clean my home. Somebody's going to do my mobile dry cleaning. Somebody's going to bring me dinner.

[Tommy Mello]

The only. The only apprehension I have about that, and this is a big commitment issue I have, is when I do an affiliate deal with somebody at all, like, they're your client. Imagine if those cleaning people came in, they did a horrible job, they tried to gouge them.

[Chris Phelps]

Yes.

[Tommy Mello]

So I make them sign this document saying if at any Time. You make my. But you can't really give a refund on $0, so how do you protect that?

[Chris Phelps]

I vet the heck out of them.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

So I. Not only does the whole team gets the house cleaned, I surveyed, like, 10 of my patients I trust to be the beta test, and I asked them all the same question. So this actually came up with a nail salon place because I wanted to get some gift cards from different, you know, guy services versus women services versus family things. And I'm like, well, yeah, who doesn't like getting their nails done? Women do it. So I sent my team. As my reciprocity gift to my team, I said, hey, ladies, I picked a place across the street. I'm buying your nails. Go get them done. And all I want to know is, I told my lead assistant is, is this a place you would refer? Whatever your criteria is, I don't know what that is, because I don't really think about nails, but would you send somebody here? So after the first place, you know, 14 of my team members, I just paid for their nails to get done. Well, so what do you think? She was like, no, not this place. Sterilization's not good. It's sketchy. We think we're gonna get a fungus. The work isn't that good. And the communication was terrible. It's like, okay, so not that place. Next month, I pick another place. How was it? And she was like, nah, not this place either.

[Tommy Mello]

Dang.

[Chris Phelps]

Third month, I pick another place. Now I'm thinking, crap, now I'm paying for nails every month.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

And this one, my team members like, this is the place. Metal sterilization bins. They actually have a sterilizer. They showed us that. Building trust. This is the place we all recommend. Social proof, the consensus. All right, if the consensus says, this is it, I said, don't leave. Send the other team home. Now I go and I talk to the manager, and I was like, hey, nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Phelps. I'm here to pay for my team. Let me ask you, was that a. Was that a good day for you? That was that good that I brought all 14 of them here? Is that a normal day for you? And he's like, dude, this is amazing. Thank you so much. Hey, my pleasure. So I'm reminding them that I'm the one that already gave him a gift of the business.

[Tommy Mello]

Right.

[Chris Phelps]

The next thing I'm going to do is use liking and praise and say, oh, and by the way, I just want you to know, this is the third place My team has been. This is the only place they would refer people to. They have nothing but high. We're going to give you Google reviews. They had nothing but high things to say, so well done. He's like, wow, thank you so much. Hey, my pleasure. Now I'm gonna ask commitment questions. Let me ask you, could you use more new clients? Cause if he said no, that's the end of the conversation.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah.

[Chris Phelps]

But if he says yes, you see, I'm already walking him where I want to go, right. I want him to give me the gift card for free, but I have to show him that it's not really gonna cost him anything either. So now I'm like, yeah, well, are you marketing? Yes. Are you giving away as a Coupon? Yes, yes. 10% off or whatever. I was like, well, how much is that in dollars? That's about five bucks. I said, okay, can I give that away for you? And he's like, what? Yeah, I want to promote you to my patients in the future and past. Doesn't matter. Can I give this away for you as a gift card? And he was like, that's amazing. Thank you.

[Tommy Mello]

Hey, so a $10 gift card or five to $10 gift card?

[Chris Phelps]

It was. Yeah, his. And in this case, it was a $5 one because that's what he was already giving away. I get the benefit of the gift for the patient and the reciprocity that generates the business wins because it only costs them when the person shows. And I want the. In my mind now, the customer wins because it really is a fantastic experience. This is a place we really believe in people should go.

[Tommy Mello]

This is genius. This is genius stuff. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, Chris, what's the best way to do that?

[Chris Phelps]

Easiest way is just create.

[Tommy Mello]

Chris chini.com Chris chowdini.com One other question, and then I got a couple closing questions. This is it. This is it. So what have you found the best way to get reviews from your clients?

[Chris Phelps]

You know, I keep beating the. So here's the best way to get the commitment. It's going to be a commitment, but the truly, it starts with reciprocity. So when we think of reciprocity and gifts, we think of physical, tangible things. You give somebody like the gift card or cash or whatever. What's actually even more powerful are the intangible gifts you give people your time listening to them. That empathy like your mom did on the phone, that's a gift to people who don't normally receive that. A favor. Right. Things you can't quite Put your hand on. But these, to me, are the most powerful gifts. And so when you know you've given somebody something like this, when they genuinely thank you or praise you for what you did when they didn't have to, even if it meant nothing to you, and even if they just paid you for it, what they're trying to tell you is they still feel obligated to do something else. So a lady comes in my practice. I squeeze her in during lunch. She had broke her front tooth. I had the whole thing fixed, looked phenomenal. In 20 minutes, no shots, no pain. I was happy. She paid my full fee. I thought we were done. I'm walking out, she stops me and she goes, no, seriously, you don't know what you did for me today. What do you mean? She goes, I'm in real estate and I make my money off closings. And I was so embarrassed by my front tooth breaking off that I was gonna have to cancel my three closings this afternoon until next month. And I called other dental offices and they couldn't get me in for two weeks. You got me in today because my headline was, call today, get in today. Okay, I lived up to it. No pain. She goes, this is the best experience I've ever had. Of course, I'm looking at the front like, she didn't pay. Right. That's all I needed. But the act was she still. It wasn't enough. She wanted to do something. So I was like, well, you're welcome. Would you mind helping me out? Would you mind doing a five star Google review that would go. Telling that story would really help us out here. And literally two minutes later, Google alert hits. Boom. New review. Thanks, Cindy. So listen, for these intangible gifts. When you give this service, you're already giving it away. You've already done it. Yep. So strike while the influence iron's hot. Because especially if they're older, there might be a barrier. They may not know how to do it right. But if you let them do it.

[Tommy Mello]

Yep.

[Chris Phelps]

Like, so if you're my mom, who's 74, no way in hell she's doing that on her phone.

[Tommy Mello]

Yep.

[Chris Phelps]

Unless you help her. Now, if the today's not the moment, this is where the commitment comes in. Two questions you got to ask. Hey, so when you go to do that review later, are you going to do that on your phone or a laptop or desktop computer? This or that? Choose automatically. By answering the question, they're making more of a voluntary commitment. They're more likely to do it. I'll do it. On my phone. Okay, great. What would make this convenient or easier for you? Should I send you a text link to do it or would you prefer an email? Oh, I need a text. I don't check emails or whatever. Oh, great, then I'll send you a text. Thank you so much. Hey, you're welcome. And if possible, the last piece of the puzzle is. Oh, by the way, here's a little postcard or a Google 5 star sticker or something like that. Thank you so much. Like we slip it in their hygiene bag. So when they get home that night because they've been distracted all day and had time to do it and probably forgot about you, when they drop out their toothbrush and toothpaste from that bag, what comes out? Thank you for the five star review with a QR code that can take them right there when they actually have the time to do it. Make it convenient, remind them of the commitment that they made. Is the last piece. Maybe that's a text later. Hey, if I don't see it, can I text you later? Can I email you later? Whatever. But find some way get permission to follow up and remind them of that commitment.

[Tommy Mello]

Yeah, there's software that automates that. One of the things I always ask is I just want to make sure, Chris, did we give you five out of five services I promised earlier? We start with that, we end with that Y. And if there's anything I could do right now to make sure. And then we got a QR code with a picture of our family.

[Chris Phelps]

Nice.

[Tommy Mello]

And I say, I want to show you as I'm cleaning up here, Chris, a little bit. This is my daughter, this is my wife. This is my son. This is my dog. Tell you why I do this, Chris. To give them a life I never had. Thanksgiving comes around. We're going to have a great Thanksgiving turkey. Going to give them a Christmas I never had when I was a kid. When you leave a review, if I did a great job, people call and they ask me by name if they see a picture. Basically, this is me, a way to giving my family the best life that I never had. Would you be willing to do that for me? And if you say that correctly, they do it right then and there.

[Chris Phelps]

Totally.

[Tommy Mello]

And you got to leave a review for the person, not the company. That's what people don't understand.

[Chris Phelps]

Oh, yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

Chris, if you had a book or two to recommend, obviously Chaudini's, your book, the Complete book on Dental Marketing. Is there any other books that really you think the listeners should be aware of?

[Chris Phelps]

Geez, there's so many books. Well, books that have impacted me. Anything by Cialdini, My. My Trifecta of mentors. Anything by Dan Sullivan. Yeah, right. Is critical. No, in my mind, nobody understands the mindset of the entrepreneur better than him. And everything out of that. He preaches gold. And something most people may not know about. A book from Kathy Colby, another Phoenix resident, by the way. K O L B E. You've heard of personality tests and assessments and IQ tests? Well, Colby measures a completely different. I have a part of your mind and who you are, and it's set by the time you're age 7. It doesn't change your entire life. So when it comes to man team management, communication, I haven't found anything objectively better because it actually gives me predictive value. Now I got something I can work with for today and tomorrow. So Anything by Kathy Colby. Those three, they were instrumental to my business success.

[Tommy Mello]

I love this and we talked about a lot of things. I got a hell of a lot of notes to implement. Maybe we didn't talk about something. I'm going to let you close this out.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah, I mean, obviously we didn't talk about too much marketing, but all this affects marketing, right? Every bit of it. It's kind of interesting. You know, I did a direct mail piece and I ran it to the same list of people for 10 years. Okay. Had a company design it for me and I got a good return. It was great. But after I learned these principles and after I learned how to apply them and amplify these things, I went back and finally stopped being lazy. And I stripped down that direct mail piece and myself and I rebuilt it and tried to add as many of the influence princip as I could. Authority, social proof, the welcoming, liking, scarcity, messaging in there. You're not going to get them all in, but as many as you feasibly could in an advertisement. And I literally sent it out to the same list I've been mailing to for 10 years. Doubled the new patient count. So no matter what you're doing, if you haven't added any level of influence, all you have to do is add one thing and send it right back out to the same people and you'll get a better response. And the more of those things you can add and find to add, you only got one way to go.

[Tommy Mello]

I love it. Well, Chris, this has been one of the best podcasts because I should have spent three hours like this. Could have been a three hour podcast. But looking forward to tonight.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

And thanks for doing this brother.

[Chris Phelps]

Thanks man.

[Tommy Mello]

Appreciate you.

[Chris Phelps]

Yeah.

[Tommy Mello]

Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy I with you. How I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 garage door service. So if you want to learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.