How I Accidentally Became A Dental Marketing Expert

Read Time: 1 Minute, 40 Seconds

What's up! I hope everyone is handling the back to school blitz well.

This week, I'm getting personal. A lot of you ask how I ended up working with dental practices, so here's the real story.

It Started With My Accent

In 2012, I landed my first agency job at an large ad agency in New York. Fresh(ish) out of college, small town Kansas kid, ready to conquer the world.

During training, they assigned all the new hires to different verticals. When they got to me, the manager said: "You have a southern accent, so you're getting dental practices in the South."

My reaction? I didn't really care. If anything, I was glad it made me stand out from all the other newbies who were New Yorkers. But if 99.9% of the people I have met in my life have never mentioned an accent. In New York though, I guess the drawl stands out.

Turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

Why I Crushed It

Being a small town kid was actually my secret weapon. While other account managers were trying to impress practice owners with big city sophistication and fast talking, I was just myself. A clueless kid that wanted to help.

Disarming. Authentic. Someone they could relate to.

Practice owners would say things like: "Finally, someone who doesn't talk down to me" or "Thank you for taking the time to actually listen to me.”

The results spoke for themselves. I led the floor in partnerships and retention every quarter I was there.

The Move That Changed Everything

After a year in New York, I moved to Indiana to start Alpha Dog. I knew I wanted to open my own agency, and I had family and in-laws in Indiana, where I had just finished up school a few years earlier. And compared to where I grew up in Kansas (Brewster, Population 120!), South Bend was a massive city with plenty of opportunity.

Alpha Dog didn't start as dental-only, but my first handful of clients were dental practices. I gave them sweetheart deals through cold calling and cold emails, leveraging the relationships I'd built in New York. I knew I would crush it in dental and I wanted to make sure I got off to a hot start.

Within six months, I realized something. I enjoyed working with dental practices more than any other business type. And probably more importantly, I was much better at driving business to dental practices than any other vertical.

Why I Made Dental Marketing My Obsession

It comes down to one thing. The stakes.

Getting someone into a pizza shop or car wash is a $20 transaction. Getting a new patient into a dental chair? That's thousands of dollars in lifetime value.

Every campaign matters. Every optimization counts. Every new patient can literally change a practice's trajectory.

I love the high stakes. I love that our work directly impacts whether a practice thrives or struggles. I love that practice owners can see exactly how our marketing translates to revenue sitting in their chairs. I perform better when the stakes are high and this allows me to chase that high constantly.

Over A Decade Later?

What started as a random assignment based on my accent became the foundation for everything I do today.

Sometimes the best career moves are the ones you never planned.

Talk to you next week.

-Kyle

Email Me

Pick My Brain

My Podcast 👇