Free Report #3

Joint Venture With A Photographer

Smile: You Are Going To Love This Joint Venture Promotion With A Photographer!

You Will Learn How You Can Afford To Give Each of Your Families In Your Practice A Gift Valued At $119 (or more)…that costs you little or nothing.

One of the best ways to grow your dental practice…or any business for that matter…is through referrals. Word-of-mouth referrals cost you nothing…yet referrals provide the best qualified new customers. Getting patients to refer has always been a challenge for most dental professionals. When patients do refer friends, neighbors, co-workers, or family members, a good referring patient may only refer two or three new patients in a one year period. If you are not getting as many new patient referrals as you need, you might need to try doing joint ventures with business owners.

A joint venture between business owners is a win-win proposition. Each business owner derives some benefit. Actually, a joint venture is a win-win-win…because the clients or patients enjoy a substantial benefit as well.

Joint ventures are sometimes called host-parasite relationships. In nature, there are many host-parasite relationships where a parasite is able to actually “live off of” the host animal without causing any harm to the host. In fact, the parasite usually provides some sort of benefit in return. I remember a long time ago watching a television program on host-parasitic relationships in nature. A crocodile, the host, will open its mouth and birds, the parasite, come and pick tiny bits of food from between its teeth. The birds get an easy free meal and the crocodile gets a free hygiene cleaning. Win-win.

The word parasite may have a negative connotation to some, however, in a good joint venture both parties come out ahead. A better term may be host-guest relationship. And most good joint-ventures are reciprocal in nature…that is today’s host may be tomorrows guest…and visa versa. Every business owner would love to have some business owner refer all of their clients to their business. To receive referrals from another business owner, you must be willing to refer your patients or clients to that business in return (reciprocation).

How You Can Give Each of Your Families In Your Practice A Gift Valued At $119…that costs you little or nothing.

This Joint-Venture Marketing Strategy with a photographer can give your practice a whole year's worth of new patient flow.

When To Do It.  You Can Start As Early As July.

Each year around the holidays, many dental practices like to think of nice things to do for their patients. The whole world is in the giving mood. One of the problems of giving a gift during the season is that your gift may get lost in the shuffle. So many people are giving gifts, that yours may not get noticed. This program can start any time, usually as early as July and you should plan on finishing in October or November. Your gift will definitely be noticed. (Most of my clients have ran this program in December).

True gift giving should, of course, come from the heart. And the best gifts are those that truly are given that are personal. This program will show you how to give a meaningful gift that will gladden the hearts of many for years to come.

If you have 1,500 families of record on your data base of files, even a relatively modest gift of just $10 would cost you $15,000. There are not too many professionals that are willing to spend $15,000 a year during the holidays. And there aren’t too many things that you could get for $10 that would be meaningful. This program allows you to give a quality gift to many of your patients that will cost you $10 or less…and should really cost you little or nothing.

Don’t freak out and think that this is going to cost you thousands of dollars. Most of your patients won’t sign up. You can also put any stipulation on the offer that you want. For example, you could offer the family portrait and sitting free to anyone who has their teeth whitened.

Each year many families think about having a family portrait taken. The problem is that many put it off and don't think about it until it is too late. It takes time to get a photo session scheduled, get the proofs back, and to get them sent to families and friends in time for the holidays. This program is great because you are helping to remind your patients to get this done early. You can run this profitable joint-venture with a photographer where you both will benefit substantially. You are both in the business of dealing with smiles. Here is how the program would work.

A photographer agrees to give a free or discounted sitting that includes a 8' X 10" portrait. The dentist designs and sends to all of his or her patients a coupon good for a free family portrait sitting and free 8' X 10" picture. This is also a good time to remind patients to come in for treatment. Remind them that if there is anything about their smile that they don't like, that they can schedule an appointment before their portrait sitting. You may want to add a special promotion on teeth bleaching or some other cosmetic service at this time.

A personalized gift such as a family portrait can usually run between $70 to $120 or more. Your patients are going to think that you are the greatest dentist on earth. Yet remember, it is going to cost you no more than about $10. And it may even cost you a lot less-maybe even nothing. More on this later.

When you send out certificates to your families, include one or more additional certificates. Tell your patients that they can give one to a friend. What a nice way to introduce a prospective patient to your practice. This will increase new patients coming to your practice.

When you send out the certificates to each of your patients, you are offering each of them a gift with a $70-$120 face value. Each of your patients will appreciate your kindness and generosity-even those that don't schedule a portrait session.

One or two Saturdays are set aside for the event. Patients call the dental office to schedule a sitting appointment. If the dental practice has a reception area large enough to accommodate taking pictures, this would be the ideal situation. If your office won't accommodate, you can always use the photographer's studio. You may also consider prefer using your own home. It would be a great opportunity for you to meet hundreds of patients and prospective patients in a non-threatening environment. If those options are not feasible, try renting a conference center at, a local hotel.

How the dentist benefits: Even if you cannot take the photos in your office, each participating family will have several positive exposures with your practice. They should phone to schedule their sitting. When the proofs are done, your office can call to schedule (in your office) a viewing of the proofs. A separate day is set apart for families to come in to select their free portrait and to order any additional photos. Almost everyone orders additional photos!

When the photos are finished, your staff can call to let people know that they are ready. They must come to your office to pick up the photos. That is a minimum of three or four contacts with your off ice...some of them in your office. That is several opportunities to make a good impression and do a soft sell on your practice.

How the photographer benefits: As mentioned above, almost no one will just take their free 8' X 10". They are all going to buy something. The average package purchase will probably be between $79 to $200. The photographer will make between $50 to $100 per family.

You will need to find an open-minded photographer that is looking for new clients. There may be several established photographers in your area and you can find them in the Yellow Pages. Unfortunately many established photographers may not be willing to give a free or discounted sitting. They may not be able to see the financial benefit of having a couple hundred or more families. If the photographer shoots 200 families and makes just an average of $50 gross net per family, that would be $10,000 for just a couple of weekends. If you talk to someone who doesn't see the potential of an easy $10,000.00, then move on.

You may find an amateur photographer that shoots an occasional wedding that would jump at the chance to make an extra $10,000 fast. (You can negotiate to share part of the proceeds if you want). Photographers that are just getting started are probably more open minded than the established one, and may be every bit as skilled. Also, you should consider looking through your Patient Interest Card file to find a patient that enjoys photography. You could be helping launch someone's career. Another option would be to simply buy your own photography equipment and learn to take the pictures yourself. Many dentists already have expensive digital cameras these days. Learn to use it to take family portraits. This could be a fun project for you and your whole dental team.

Helpful Marketing Tip: Have the photographer take additional black and white photos of some of your patients for use in your advertising campaigns. Instead of using canned photos of models in your brochures, ads, etc., use actual pictures of your patients. (See the program on "Celebrity" Endorsements in month one)

Don't just use glamorous patients. Most people aren't stunningly attractive. Use some patients that look ordinary. When others see your ads or brochures with people that they know, they will feel more comfortable coming to your dental practice. Be sure to get and keep a written release giving you permission to use their photo.

Marketing Strategy Variation: You can have everyone participating make a donation to some worthwhile charity. Many people are leery of "free" offers. Others may feel uncomfortable accepting something that is free because it may make them feel like a cheap skate. By having them make a small donation to some charitable organization, everyone can feel good about your promotion.

If you decide to make a donation to some group like a local high school band that is trying to raise money for new uniforms, that group will likely help promote the event and make the ticket sales. This will broaden your potential for new patient exposure tremendously.

Program Review:

Step One: Select a photographer. Negotiate the deal. You may have to pick up the cost of the film. Film, processing, and the 8' X 11" should only run about $8 to $10 per family. You may want to split that cost with the photographer. However, since the photographer stands to make a bunch of money, you can usually get him or her absorb that cost. You may have to front the cost of the film and processing.

Step Two: Pick a time to run your promotion. As stated above, the sooner before the holiday season that you start the program the better. However, we have had a lot of our clients start this program in December. If you send your free portrait & sitting offer out in December, you will probably have to wait to begin doing the photo sessions in January. This works out pretty good since the photographer and your patients are all pretty busy the holiday season. And many photographers are pretty slow in January and are thus more likely to be willing to do a joint venture. Depending on the weather in your area…you may want to wait for spring or summer. There is no bad time to take the photo sessions. The photographer may want to compress all of your patients into one or two weeks at the same location. On the other hand, they may be willing to honor the offer all year long.

Step Three: Pick your location. The photographer may have some special places that she or he prefers to use…such as their studio or some outside settings. Here are a couple of other suggestions if applicable. Consider having the photo shoot at your office (indoors or outdoors). This is a great way to introduce family, friends or neighbors of your patients to your office location. Some dental offices have very attractive waiting rooms that are large enough to handle taking portraits.

If you don’t have enough room inside your practice, perhaps outside your office will make for a natural setting. Many dental offices and medical complexes have nicely landscaped areas that will serve quite well.

If you practice is not suitable, consider having everyone over to your house. Most dental professionals have above average lifestyles with nicely decorated homes. This can be a great way to get to really get to know many of your patients on a more personal level.

Step Four. Design and mail your coupon with a cover letter to all of your patients. Make sure that the coupon/certificate has a face value of between $79 to $119. That is what it would normally a good photographer would charge for a sitting and a 8' X 10". Include extra coupons to make it easy for your patients to invite friends to participate. Be sure to include an offer to have a cosmetic smile evaluation, teeth bleaching, etc.

Give each of your patients several additional certificates. Let them hand them out to all of their family members, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. What an easy way for your patients to introduce their friends to your beautiful smile services…a free family portrait and discount whitening offer.

Step Five. (Optional) Joint venture with some group or organization. Have families make a small donation to the worthwhile group. The group will then help sell the sittings.  

Step Six. Repeat this every year. Make it an annual event that will generate several hundreds of smiling new patients for your practice.

Need Help Implementing This Program? Please feel free to give me a call. There are many variations on how you can effectively run this promotion.

Free Christmas Card Link  Here is a link to our Free Email Christmas Card that you can email to your patients.  Phone for Details.  CLICK HERE

Phone 1-801-616-3554.

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