This week on Winning In Business, Angus Pryor the #1 Google-ranked dental marketer in Australia will be sharing with you the third and last part of someone has to be the most expensive, why not make it you with Andrew Griffiths.
Angus: Someone has to be the most expensive, why not you? Can you tell us about the case study perhaps the dentist, but maybe it’s another one. Or someone who’s kind of the before and after, which is something dentists are really good at by the way.
Andrew: Yeah, sure. Let me use an example that’s is probably closer to my heart is service-based industry. So I moved to Cairns a commercial driver, obviously by trade. I worked for a Japanese company for a few years. I’ve got decompression sickness. when I was putting pontoons out on the reef and I transitioned into, a sales and marketing role with them for about five years. When I left that job, I started my own marketing company, and for me what I’d done, a bit of poverty mentality.
It snuck back into my little world as new business, had been in business for a few years. And I started a marketing company that was really set up around helping small businesses. And I set it up in an industrial area. I had lots and lots of clients, but they were all, they couldn’t afford a marketing company. They were all the cheap end of town. And I was really really busy making no money you know,. that was really the thing. A bit of a turning point for me was I did write a book called 101 Ways To Market Your Business way way back then.
And I wrote that as a time management tool, simply because I was seeing all these customers that were never going to pay, and this was a spiralling down. And I thought if I can give him a book, it’ll work. And anyway, that happened. But I realised, that was all happening. And it was like, go, go, go. And then I had a terrible situation where I was working crazy hours and it was, I wasn’t getting where I wanted to go. Wrong kind of clientele and the rest of it.
And my sister very sadly died quite suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 35, which is quite unheard of. And, and it really shook me and I was not particularly healthy at the time. And, like I could see that my own life was going to end up in a sense, you know workaholic, never exercising, just stress, stress, stress, not making any money. And I decided something had to change. And that’s what I made the decision that, okay, to start what I needed to do was, I’m charging a hundred dollars an hour.
I need to be charging $300 an hour because I’m good at what I do. I’m great at what I do. But I realised that if I just put my prices up to $300 an hour into my existing business, like I’d lose all my customers, but I’ve still got the same message in the marketplace. So nothing really changes, except I’ve tripled my prices and I’m probably going to end up just going broke. So what I did I made a very conscious move and I decided I needed to change my location because I was in the wrong location.
So I changed my business name to one that was more appropriate. I moved my office into a high rise building that was filled with lawyers, accountants, dentists, banks. All these other people that are perfect, engineers, architects. I was in the basement. I spent a lot of money fitting out this office, changed the name. Everyone started wearing suits and ties like the people around us.
And we put our rates up to 300 and 400 and $500 an hour rate. Which is again, this is a long time ago and the business really boomed. And the whole reason, now I’m not saying you’ve got to close your practice and change the name and move. But what I am saying is you can’t just put lipstick on a wombat is a line that I use in the book. And that just means just, if you just kind of, you can’t just triple your prices and not change anything else. Because odds are you need to make some fairly dramatic changes in the business.
And I had that with my dive shop as well, where it wasn’t making money. It was a dismal era. And I literally transformed it by shutting it down and starting again. Right through to changing the name and changing the business and total refitting and changing the gear and getting rid of dive instructors that refuse to wear a shirt and trousers and all of that kind of stuff.
So what I’m saying here is to make the transition, what you need to realise that things have got to change within your business too, so that you can tell a better story about what it is you do. In my book, I have rules that you’ve got to follow to do this. I’ve got 12 rules, and then I’ll have a process a 12 step process, 10 step process rather, which has step one, come up with a plan. What, why do you want to do this? Why do you really want to change it? Step two, create a figure and step two, we’ve actually developed a plan about transforming. Step three, you’ve got to get everyone on board. like if you’ve got a very resistant receptionist who goes, I don’t like change, I don’t like this, he or she needs to be brought on board.
Otherwise they’re going to bring the whole ship on down. You’re going to work out how you’re going to get there. How are you going to be the best? What does that really mean? And this is a conversation around if we’re going to be the best and we’re going to really start to charge what we’re worth, how the hell are we going to do that? What does it really define? What does that mean to be the best? What does it mean to each of us? How do we define that? And that’s being the best with all, all the different bits and pieces.
So then do something big and bold. Maybe change the name of your practice. Maybe it’s a refit. Maybe it’s a refit. Maybe it’s move. Maybe it is because you’re in the wrong place and you’re going what have we set up practice in the wrong place? Maybe I don’t know, depends on who you are. Number six, tell a bigger, bolder story. Tell this new story. Number seven, get creative on your pricing. We live in a world that’s more receptive to creative pricing and if it’s more. Subscription stuff, things like that. create extraordinary experiences.
Be prepared to let go of all old clients because this is people, start panicking Angus. When they go, Oh my God, I’ll put up my prices and I’m losing my old clients. Well you got to lose them to make room for the new ones. And that’s where most people panic. And then of course the last one is stay true to course. This process and this model works, but it’s not going to find the path.
Angus: So if people, we’ve convinced them at the start of this interview that they want to do this, they can see what all the benefits are. They’re happy to go through the process. Apart from just not following the process, what are the potential stumbling blocks for people when they’re wanting to implement this and then, for whatever reason, things are just not working?
Andrew: Well, and it’s a great question. And it comes back to that point again, where am I before? People can only stay where they’re at cause they comfortable with it or increase their prices. All the third tier is aimed to really be the most expensive. So somewhere along the path and that’s where people might want to you know, you can do elements of this at least put up your rates but what I see is what brings it unstuck is hanging on to limiting beliefs. And the limiting beliefs are the things like people who can’t afford to pay this.
Angus: No one will pay this.
Andrew: No one, no one will pay this. You’re so right, this no one thing. I can’t do this cause every other dental practice, my thing with the dive shop was I to run it like every other dive shop, fishnet plastic crabs have to be on the wall. Your dive courses had to be $300, $295 for a dive course. They’re still $295 35 years later.
Now tell me that that works, right. Like when you look at that., So that limiting belief, and that’s why you’re so right. This is a book about mindset where I talk a lot about that. Resistance with team is certainly, that’s why you’ve got to get your team on board. They’re going to go well, when they go into changes, what’s in it for me? And that’s an important thing because what is in it for them? What’s in it for them is a lot.
Number one is it’s a more stable business. So their business, the jobs more secure, you tend to deal with a nicer calibre of people, I think is generally a part who appreciate you and what you do, you’re attracted to that kind of customer. There’s a confidence in a business that is built on substance. There’s less panic and less urgency with stuff.
There’s a wonderful sense of satisfaction in knowing that you’ve work for a great business When I remember oh you work for them? Oh wow, okay, like we all know what that’s like when someone says to us oh I’ve worked there and it’s a bit dodgy. It’s like, as opposed to I worked there and we go, well they’re great. Like there’s a big, there’s a big difference. between those two things.
So, and that’s in a world where it’s very important for people to see names of quality businesses on a CV, that becomes more important. So you’ve going to bring your team on board. That’s another part of it as well. And then for me really the last part is that the panic that can come from going okay, to make this transition, we have to lose things.
And we have to lose customers that no longer serve us or patients that no longer serve us or staff members that no longer serve us or premises that no longer serve us. Or whatever partners sometimes that no longer serve us, there’s, you know I’ve worked with many businesses where old partner, young partner sometimes doesn’t work.
Angus: Look, of course, you know, I’ve sat here and interviewed you, but the truth is I really love this book and I’m a person that reads a lot. I think I’m right in saying, this is the 50th book that I’ve read this year. I read a book a week for the last three years, and I absolutely love this. Partly because I think the premise is you’re right on the money and that’s great.
But the second thing is this is a highly practical implementable book. It’s not just sort of whole bunch of philosophy and good on you. This is actually stuff you can implement. And of course the viewers are deeply ingratiated to you that all of your examples about those touch points related to a dental practice. So that’s something that they can implement straight away. One final question, Andrew, where do these people get hold of your book?
Andrew: Very, very easy. Thank you very much, Angus. I got to say that’s, that’s a very glowing kind of a bit of feedback, which I really appreciate from someone who reads so many books and that’s clearly why you’re so successful at what you do.
Angus: I just call it as I see it, but I loved it. I mean I told you, I would say, I read the first half of the book within about two days. Very compelling reading.
Andrew: Yeah great. Thank you. Amazon, Booktopia I encourage that if you’re in Australia, Booktopia support Australian company on that, but it’s available for Amazon. Kindle books, not available just yet, but it’s on its way, or you can buy it from my website as well. I’ve got the hardcover version that you’ve got there Angus I have on my website, that’s a limited edition one, but again, come to my website andrewgriffiths.com.au. You can go to, all the other stores. If you go, if you have a local bookstore, they can order it in as well. So it’s very easy to get hold of.
Angus: Good stuff, well thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Someone has to be the most expensive, why not make it you. Thank you so much Andrew.
Andrew: Thank you Angus, it’s really nice chatting with you too. Thanks everyone for tuning in.