What does the World Cup have to do with running a dental practice?
More than Shane Simmons expected.
While watching fans travel across the world to support their countries, Shane, CEO and Visionary of Crimson Media, started thinking about what creates that level of loyalty. These fans spend serious time and money following their teams. They know the players. They wear the jerseys. And they keep showing up.
Dental patients probably aren't going to start singing chants in the waiting room. But the way great teams build loyal followings has some surprisingly useful parallels for practice owners.
In Episode 85 of The Dental Practice Launch Podcast, Shane broke those parallels into five lessons for building a dental practice people remember, return to and recommend.
1. Fans Don't Only Show Up on Game Day
Sports fans don't forget about their team between games. They follow roster changes, watch interviews, read updates and talk about what's happening throughout the season.
Dental practices have a much smaller window with most patients.
For many offices, communication happens during two hygiene visits each year, perhaps with a few additional appointments when treatment is needed. Between those visits, the relationship can go pretty quiet.
That's a missed opportunity.
Social posts, videos, email updates, patient stories and community involvement give people reasons to keep hearing from the practice when they aren't sitting in the chair.
For a startup, that can begin before there are even patients to communicate with.
Shane recommends introducing the dentist and practice to the community before opening day. Talk about why the practice is being opened. Show people what the dentist wants the experience to feel like. Share a few personal details that make the doctor feel like someone they'll actually meet rather than another headshot beside a logo.
It's part of the omnipresence approach to dental marketing Shane frequently discusses. Patients encounter the practice in different places over time instead of seeing one advertisement and never hearing from it again.
Familiarity builds gradually.
World Cup fans don't become obsessed with a team after seeing one match. Dental practices shouldn't expect one touchpoint to build a relationship either.
2. Patients Follow People, Not Just Logos
A soccer fan may wear the crest, but the players give that crest a story.
The same idea applies to a dental practice.
Shane points out that the dentist and team are the "players." They're the people patients actually interact with, remember and talk about afterward.
That creates a problem when nearly everything patients see online is stock photography.
Perfectly lit photos of models in dental chairs might make a website look polished, but they tell someone very little about the dentist they'll actually meet.
Real doctor content can do something stock photography can't.
A dentist can explain why they chose the profession. Talk about what they enjoy about the community. Show how they approach a nervous patient's first appointment. Introduce team members. Answer a question that comes up constantly in the office.
It doesn't always have to be another formal video explaining what a crown is.
Shane gave a much simpler example during the episode: a dentist could record a video about the three things they love most about being a dentist in their community.
No new patient special. No hard sell.
Just the person behind the practice.
That kind of content also gives dental social media advertising something much stronger to work with than another generic promotion.
People get a sense of the dentist before they've ever walked through the door.
3. One Slow Month Isn't the Whole Season
World Cup teams don't necessarily need to win every group-stage match to advance.
A dental practice doesn't need every month to set a production record either.
Shane shared an example of a practice Crimson Media worked with that had a slower May than expected. The numbers caused some concern, but rather than immediately changing direction, the team stayed with the process.
June became a record month.
Had everyone reacted to May as if it represented a long-term trend, they could have disrupted something that was already working.
That doesn't mean ignoring bad numbers.
It means giving them context.
Instead of making a major decision from one month or quarter, Shane recommends zooming out and looking at six months or even a full year of data when appropriate.
The same perspective matters when measuring marketing.
Suppose it costs $200 in advertising to acquire a patient. That patient spends $99 at the first appointment.
Looking at that appointment alone makes the campaign appear to have lost money.
But if that same patient results in $1,500 in production over the following 12 months, the picture changes considerably.
The first appointment wasn't the full result.
This is one reason first-visit ROI can give dental practices the wrong impression about marketing. Patient value develops over time, and marketing decisions need enough data to account for that.
One match matters. The season matters more.
4. Home-Field Advantage Has to Be Earned
Playing at home feels different when the stands are full.
For a dental practice, Shane compares that crowd to Google reviews and patient referrals.
Imagine someone searching for a dentist and finding a practice with hundreds of strong reviews from people in the community.
That practice isn't entering the search alone.
Past patients are effectively standing behind it.
Reviews become particularly important when other marketing has already created awareness. Someone may have seen the dentist in a social ad, watched a video or noticed the practice at a community event. Later, when they're finally ready to schedule, they search Google.
Now they see what other patients have to say.
Shane's advice for generating more reviews is refreshingly uncomplicated: ask.
Automated review requests are useful, and he recommends having them. But a team member personally telling a happy patient that reviews make a real difference to a small local business can carry more weight.
The request doesn't need to sound rehearsed.
Tell the patient why it matters and ask them to share their experience.
That home-field advantage accumulates one patient at a time.
5. The Best Teams Know Their Numbers
Professional sports teams measure almost everything.
Coaches have analytics available during games to help decide whether a particular situation calls for taking a risk or playing conservatively.
Dental practice owners have access to far more data than they once did too.
The problem is that having data and using it aren't the same thing.
Shane believes two numbers in particular should be familiar to every practice owner:
What does it cost to acquire a new patient?
And:
What does the average patient produce for the practice over time?
Those numbers begin connecting marketing spend to actual business performance.
Other measurements matter too. Case acceptance, collections, referrals, patient retention and production can all reveal something different about what's happening inside the practice.
Without those numbers, growth can feel unpredictable.
With enough historical data, an owner can start answering practical questions with something better than instinct.
Can the practice afford to spend more on acquisition?
Is the current marketing producing patients whose long-term value supports that investment?
Does the office need more new patients, or would improving case acceptance and retention have a bigger impact right now?
The numbers won't make every decision automatically. They make those decisions less dependent on guessing.
Would Your Patients Wear Your Jersey?
Shane ended Episode 85 with one question for practice owners:
Would your patients wear your jersey?
Not literally, although a few probably would.
The larger question is whether there's something about the practice patients feel connected to.
Would they recommend the dentist without being prompted? Do they know the people behind the practice? Would they notice if the office disappeared and another dental practice took its place?
That kind of loyalty isn't created by a logo alone.
It comes from repeatedly showing up, giving patients people and stories to connect with, resisting the urge to panic over every short-term dip, earning a reputation in the community and using real numbers to make better decisions.
Those were Shane's five lessons from the World Cup.
Different field. Surprisingly similar playbook.
At Crimson Media Dental Marketing, Shane and the team help dental practices put many of those ideas into practice, from building visibility before a startup opens to creating marketing that keeps the dentist visible in the community over time.