Most dental practices are spending more on marketing every year — and trusting patients less and less. There's a reason for that, and Seth Godin nailed it.

In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Troy pull apart the core ideas from Seth Godin's This Is Marketing and run them straight through the lens of dental practice growth. From the difference between publicity and public relations, to why Google Ads alone is quietly commoditizing your practice, this conversation is a wake-up call for any dentist who's ever wondered why more ad spend isn't translating into more loyal, referral-generating patients.
In this episode:

📣 Trust vs. Attention — Why attention is cheap and trust is scarce, and how chasing eyeballs is killing long-term practice value

🎯 Publicity vs. Public Relations — The critical distinction most dental marketing agencies completely ignore (and why it's costing you ideal patients)

🪣 The Funnel Reality — Casey Neistat got 1M views, 18K live viewers, 1K comments… and about 5 conversions. Sound familiar? Here's what that means for your practice

🔨 Google Ads Is a Hammer, Not a House — Why ads aren't the enemy, but making them your entire strategy is a slow leak in your practice's foundation

💬 The Referral Multiplier — One patient at a practice Jeff works with referred 23 people in 6 months. That's not luck — it's what trust-based marketing actually produces
The key takeaway? Generic marketing doesn't just waste money — it actively trains your market to treat you like a commodity. Differentiation isn't optional anymore; it's the only path to a practice that compounds.

Resources Mentioned:
📘 This Is Marketing by Seth Godin → https://seths.blog/tim/

📖 The Inside-Out Practice by Jeff & Troy — Get a free copy → https://opkie.com/free-book/

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.

📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

Free Copy of The Inside-Out Practice Book: https://opkie.com/free-book/
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

The dental hygiene shortage isn't waiting for permission to force change — and neither is the profession itself. In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Sarah break down the growing movement toward full practice authority for dental hygienists, what's driving it, who's pushing back, and why dental practice owners need to be paying attention right now.

In this episode:
🦷 The Hygienist Shortage is Real — 4 in 10 dental practices are actively hiring a hygienist right now, while 60 million Americans already live in dental deserts with little to no access to care
📋 Full Practice Authority Explained — The American Dental Hygienists Association has adopted new policies supporting expanded independent practice, including hygienist-led diagnoses, treatment planning, and patient evaluation without dentist supervision
🏛️ States Are Already Moving — Utah recently passed a law allowing hygienists to practice independently in hospitals and select care settings, and more states are following with pilot programs and expanded scope-of-practice legislation
⚖️ Two Sides of a Real Debate — Supporters argue independent hygienists can unlock preventative care in underserved communities; critics raise questions about oversight and the education gap between hygienists and dentists
🔭 A New Model is Emerging — From mobile clinics to community health centers to the "optician at Walmart" model, hygienists practicing independently could fundamentally restructure how dental care is delivered — and what a dental practice looks like

The key takeaway? The role of the dental hygienist is evolving whether the industry is ready or not — and the practices that figure out how to work with that shift will have a massive competitive edge.

Resources Mentioned:
📄 ADHA Full Practice Authority Policy → https://www.adha.org/advocacy/scope-of-practice/
🏛️ Utah Independent Hygienist Practice Law → https://www.beckersdental.com/staffing-issues/utah-passes-bill-expanding-hygienists-ability-to-practice-without-dentist-supervision/

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

Dentists might be the most important person in a sleep health journey — and most people have no idea.

In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff sits down with Dr. Mark Musso of Musso Family Dentistry in Garland, Texas — a 32-year dental veteran who has spent the last 16 years transforming his practice around airway, sleep disorders, and TMJ. Dr. Musso breaks down why sleep dentistry is one of the most underserved and misunderstood fields in all of healthcare, what dentists and parents need to start looking for, and why solving a "medical problem with a dental solution" requires a whole new kind of collaboration.

In this episode:
😴 Why snoring, teeth grinding, and mouth breathing aren't normal — they're just common — and the difference could be costing you (or your child) years of quality health
🧒 The surprising signs of sleep disorders in kids — including bed-wetting, ADD/ADHD-like symptoms, and poor focus — that often go misdiagnosed or untreated
👅 How tongue position and nasal breathing are the foundation of proper airway function, and what happens to facial development when they're off
🤝 Why the ENT-dentist-myofunctional therapist collaboration is the "one-two punch" that's changing outcomes for hundreds of patients in Dr. Musso's practice
🦷 How CBCT 3D imaging is reshaping what's possible in airway diagnosis — and why Dr. Musso believes it should be standard of care
The key takeaway? This is a medical problem with a dental solution — and if your dentist isn't looking for it, you might be missing the root cause entirely.

Resources & Contacts Mentioned:

Musso Family Dentistry (Garland, TX) → 972-472-2782 | drmusso@svcglobal.net

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

The dental industry is being squeezed from both sides — and most practices are solving it with the wrong tool. In this special episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Troy announce the launch of their new book, The Inside-Out Practice, and break down the framework that's helping private dental practices stop the leak, rebuild from within, and grow in a way that actually sticks.

In this episode:
📉 The Boiling Frog Problem — How dentistry got so comfortable with digital marketing that most practices never noticed the margins quietly disappearing
🪣 Leaky Bucket Math — Only 41% of new patients return for a second visit; get them to visit three, and retention jumps to 70–90%+
🧅 The 4-Layer Inside-Out Framework — Identity/Differentiation → Internal Systems → Community → Digital (in that order — not the other way around)
🏘️ The Digital Amplifier Trap — Why leading with "$79 cleanings" ads attracts the exact patients that are killing your margins, and how Google's personalization is making this worse
📖 The Book Itself — Written in fable format (think Lencioni, The Goal, Who Moved My Cheese?), designed to make these principles digestible and actionable for practice owners

The key takeaway? Digital marketing should be the amplifier, not the initiator — and until you fix what's happening inside your practice, more spend will only produce more of the wrong results.

Resources Mentioned:
The Inside-Out Practice (Free Copy) → https://opkie.com/free-book/

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

The People Problem: Why Hiring and Retention Is the Real Growth Strategy for Dental Practices

You can have the best marketing, the latest technology, and a beautiful office — but without the right people, none of it works.

In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Sarah dig into one of the biggest pain points in dentistry today: hiring and retaining quality staff. From hygienist shortages to the role of workplace culture, they break down why people are the foundation of every successful dental practice — and what dentists can do right now to build a team that actually wants to stay.
In this episode:

🔍 40% of dentists are actively trying to hire a hygienist or assistant — and 9 out of 10 say it's very difficult to find good candidates
📉 Hygienist salaries are up 33% over the last 10–15 years while dentist salaries have dropped 10–15% — making "just pay them more" an increasingly unsustainable solution
🔄 Turnover is up significantly since 2020, and replacing an employee costs far more than retaining one — in time, training, and lost productivity
👥 Over 63.7 million Americans live in a dental health professional shortage area, meaning demand for qualified providers isn't slowing down anytime soon
🏆 The practices that win won't just be the ones that grow the fastest — they'll be the ones that build teams that actually want to stay and grow together

The key takeaway? Culture isn't a perk — it's a strategy. The practices that invest in people early are the ones that scale, retain patients, and thrive long-term.

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

The Old Dental Marketing Playbook Is Dead — Here's What Actually Works Now

The days of set-it-and-forget-it dental marketing are over. In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Sarah break down why the strategies that built practices a decade ago are now quietly killing them — and what the most successful independent practices are doing instead to attract, convert, and keep their ideal patients.

In this episode:
🔄 The Marketing Shift — Why dentistry is returning to its roots with community-first strategies, and why the overreliance on Google Ads and PPOs is a slow leak most practices haven't noticed yet
💬 Referrals Are Your Most Underutilized Asset — How to identify your best patients, ask for referrals the right way, and use "golden trigger" moments to make it feel natural — not salesy
⭐ The Review Revolution — Why a handful of detailed, genuine reviews now outweigh hundreds of generic 5-star ratings, and how negative reviews are actually shaping patient trust more than positive ones
📱 Social Media & Video Testimonials — How one practice captured six video testimonials in a single day — and why a short iPhone video builds more trust than any Google review ever could
📊 The Metric That Actually Matters — Why patient lifetime value and retention beat new patient acquisition every time, and how speed of follow-up directly impacts how long patients stay
The key takeaway? The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing — it builds trust, and right now, trust is the only currency that's appreciating in dentistry.

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

AI isn't coming for your dental chair — it's coming for your X-ray reads, your scheduling, your patient follow-ups, and your implant placement success rate. In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Sarah break down exactly how artificial intelligence is reshaping modern dental practices, from diagnostics to patient trust to the business side of running a practice.
In this episode:

🔬 AI-powered diagnostics are now performing at levels comparable to trained clinicians — acting as a second set of eyes on every scan
🦷 Predictive AI can identify problem areas before they become cavities — giving dentists a powerful new tool for preventative treatment conversations
📈 Case acceptance and patient trust are rising when AI is used in treatment presentations — Sarah shares her own firsthand experience
🤖 Practice efficiency wins: AI is automating charting, scheduling, documentation, patient outreach, and review requests — the stuff no one went to dental school for
🏆 Implant placement success rates are improving with AI augmentation — and every percentage point translates directly to the bottom line
The key takeaway? AI isn't replacing the dentist — it's making the dentist the smartest, most trusted person in the room.

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🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen.
📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth

Drilling and filling may soon be a thing of the past — and the innovations replacing them are more exciting than most patients (and dentists) realize.

In this episode of the Word of Mouth Podcast, Jeff and Sarah break down the wave of biological and tech-driven treatments reshaping modern dentistry, from peptide therapy and platelet-rich fibrin to laser dentistry, 3D printing, and AI — and why dentists who position themselves around these innovations now will have a massive competitive edge.

In this episode:

🦷 Peptides in Dentistry — How treatments like Curodont (developed in Switzerland 25+ years ago) are helping dentists remineralize enamel, stabilize implants, fight bacterial infection, and regenerate periodontal tissue before a filling ever becomes necessary

💉 Platelet-Rich Fibrin (PRF) — Using the patient's own blood to accelerate healing, a technique already widely adopted in surgical medicine now making its way into dental practices

⚡ Laser Dentistry — Minimally invasive procedures with faster healing and reduced discomfort, directly addressing dentistry's biggest PR problem: pain

🖨️ 3D Printing & AI Diagnostics — Technologies making it easier for patients to make informed decisions and for dentists to deliver better outcomes (with a full AI deep-dive episode coming soon)

📈 The Business Case — The digital dentistry market is projected to reach $13.7 billion by 2033, and dentists who leverage these innovations for positioning — whether for wellness practices, family dentistry, or cosmetic dentistry — are the ones who will win

The key takeaway? Retained patients cost 5x less than acquiring new ones — and dentists who lead with innovation, education, and biological treatment aren't just doing better dentistry, they're building better businesses.

Resources Mentioned:

Curodont (peptide remineralization treatment) → https://professional.vvardis.com/

Digital Dentistry Market Report → https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/digital-dentistry-market-to-reach-us-13-7-billion-by-2033-expands-amid-rapid-technological-adoption-and-precision-care-demand----persistence-market-research-302723484.html

🔔 Subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss an episode. 🎙️ Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and wherever you listen. 📞 Interested in talking with Opkie? Book a call here for a free practice market analysis: https://opkie.link/Word-Of-Mouth