"Building Trust From Zero" with Greg Essenmacher, CEO of GNA Consult

How do you build trust with patients? What skills help move a provider/patient relationship forward? In this episode of Kinda Different, Matt chats with Greg Essenmacher, CEO of GNA consult. Greg and Matt explore what skills are necessary to build trust with patients, especially when that relationship hasn't started with a referral. They also discuss how dentists looking to start or do more full-arch dentistry need to reimagine their current workflows to be successful.

As always, listen in on Spotify/Apple, watch below, or read the transcript if you'd prefer!

You can find more about Greg and GNA Consult at the following places:
Website: https://www.dentalconsult4u.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gna-consult/

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Transcript
Welcome back to another episode of Kinda Different, your favorite dental podcast where we talk about innovation in dental care. We connect with some of the best and most amazing guests in this industry, and we talk about how all together we can make dental care more human. I'm Dr. Matt Allen, CEO and co-founder of DifferentKind, and your host for Kinda Different.
And I'm super pumped today to have somebody who I have respected from afar, just met for the first time a few minutes ago, but really excited to learn from him, listen to him, have a conversation with him today. He's looking around saying, hey, where is that guy? This is going to be fun, Greg.
Greg Essenmacher, who is the CEO and founder of GNA Consult, somebody who specializes in full arch dentistry, but I think really has a lot of interesting insights based on your work in that space around, hey, how do we most effectively communicate with people? How do we do that really well to provide them with the best patient experience? And obviously something that we care deeply about.
So Greg, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I'd love for you to just introduce yourself a little bit more to our listeners.
Oh, I so appreciate you having me on. No, I was doing the looking from afar. I was seeing like how far away you were looking from.
And now we're close together and we actually get to have a conversation. I was just being my silly self that I am. And those that know me know that, you know, dentistry is a serious business.
Full arch dentistry is a serious business. We have patients that come in all the time. And I talk about making sure that we have empathy, making sure that we're bringing feeling and kindness back into dentistry because it is serious.
But we can also be light hearted. We can enjoy what we do. Because if you don't enjoy what you do, bottom line, then don't do it.
Find something else to do, right? There's others that talk about that in the business side of dentistry. And so thanks so much for having me on.
You know, just a little bit about me is, you know, I've been in dentistry for 17 years and I've worked for two major manufacturers. I was one of the first employees at Neodent, you know, the value division of Strawman Group, I was so pumped to be a part of that experience. Really a full arch implant brand and did that for quite a long time.
And then a couple of years ago, you know, branched off because I was helping a lot of practices, small groups to really be able to, in a consultative way, to be able to build and grow the full arch aspect of their businesses. And I do that exact same thing now, whether it's in the full arch clinics because they want to do it more profitably, or if they're adding full arch as a vertical. And really the way to do that is through the patient experience and every touch point of that patient experience.
And thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it, Matt.
Awesome. Well, yeah, super, super pumped to dive in. Let's start in innovation.
And I think when a lot of people think about innovation, they immediately think about technology. But based on what I've heard from you and the conversations that we've had so far, I'm going to guess you probably agree with this statement, right? So first, I'm going to ask you a question that has an implicit, you know, yes, this is innovative, and then you can tell me why.
But I'm guessing you agree, right? So my question to you is, why is being person-centered innovative? And why does that help differentiate a practice that's looking to do, you know, full-arched dentistry or whatever?
Maybe they're just doing regular, you know, standard general dentistry. Like, why is that innovative and how does that help differentiate them?
Yeah, being person-centered or patient-centric, critically important, right? Dentistry in general, but I'll talk about what I know, which is full-arched dentistry. It's the lane that I live in.
It's really where I have lived, if you will, for the majority of the last 10 years that I've been in dental and certainly in the last two, two and a half years. And why I say that is because in full-arched dentistry, it's not so much about the product. Certainly, the product's important, what materials are you using for the prosthesis, you know, what implants are you using and all of that, and the skill level that you need.
A thousand percent you have to have that. But it's so much more when engaging with the patient in that patient experience. It's about the why behind the what.
It's about the motivation of why now. Because you really have two sets of patients, you know, if I generalize, categorize, two sets of patients that come in for this type of treatment. It's the one who has been over and over, piecemeal.
They've got bridges and, you know, root canals and crowns and missing teeth and rotted out teeth, and they've just, they're really dentally exhausted. They've been through the wringer over and over and over again, and it gets to the point where eventually, you just have to say enough is enough, right? We're at that point now where really the best option for you is a fixed full arch solution.
And then you have the other set of patients, and these are the ones who haven't been to the dentist in 15, 20 years, you know, or maybe they've made some different life decisions. They might be in recovery now and have meth mouth, or whatever that case may be where there's an intense amount of fear, anxiety, shame when you're first engaging them, especially for those not so much in this referral network, a traditional referral network where a general dentist will see them, they send them over to the specialist for the surgical aspect, and then back to the general dentist for the restorative aspect. But the all-in-one, all-under-one-house solution, which is really the place where I live, and that's where it's a direct-to-consumer aspect, because there's no real trust built in in that engagement, right?
They don't know. They found you some way, some shape, some form, whether it's on pay-per-click or the SEO through your website, or through Meta, or TikTok, or YouTube, or television. So many different platforms.
It doesn't really matter. They found you, but there's no trust built. So that initial engagement, it's so different, a different engagement from that patient compared to, say, a new hygiene patient, or a new patient that you're trying to engage with initially, because you're just trying to land them in your hygiene chair and looking at lifetime value of that patient.
And so the engagement initially is different, whereas a new value hygiene patient is more of a one-to-two-minute engagement. You're getting some basic information. You're trying to get them in the door, 30 to 50 a month.
There's all the numbers on that side of the dental industry, which is not my wheelhouse. But when you're talking about a full-arch patient direct to consumer, this is a seven-to-nine-minute conversation on average. You're starting to use your empathy in the beginning.
You're assuring them they've called the right place without saying, we're the best, right? And answering the questions, acknowledging their questions, driving the conversation forward. In order to reduce the no-show rates and make sure they show up.
So there's a lot of pieces to that, but 100 percent. That is the technology, if you will, which drives forward and differentiates that patient experience for those full-arch practices.
Super, super interesting. It reminds me of a quote from one of the founders of Motivational Interviewing, Steve Rolnick. He said, every patient interaction is important, but the first five minutes of the first patient interaction are the most important, and the first 15 seconds of that first five minutes are the most important.
And so, especially in a case like where you're talking about, where, hey, you don't have this necessarily like longitudinal relationship with the patient, you haven't seen their kids, whatever, right? It's, hey, this is super, super crucial. And these skills, which are important in every single aspect, are kind of boiled down to this one, hey, can I trust this person or not?
And you obviously can't just say, yeah, you should trust me, or I've got a degree from Harvard on the wall. That doesn't matter to most patients, right? At least that's what we see in our data.
100% the clinical skill is important, but in our data, what we see is clinical skill is one of the least correlated metrics with like, hey, I received good value for what I'm spending on my care, which obviously in your case is a lot, you know, in these cases. So, you know, it is one of those things that comes out in the data as well, which I think is really cool. I want to hear from you in terms of, because you've been in this industry for a while now, and obviously are helping people bring this in and whatnot.
What's one of the things that you see with especially like new customers, new clients who are hoping to bring this into their practice or into their group or something like that? What's one of the kind of like misconceptions or things that you think need to change? Like, hey, if people could learn this earlier, before I worked with them, that would be awesome.
What's one of those pieces where you're like, hey, everyone kind of comes in thinking this, and it turns out to be really different? Because I think that that's a really, you know, it's innovation, right? It's change along that process.
And I'd love to hear your perspective on that.
Yeah, it's really how to engage the patient and get them and guide them into, you know, doing treatment and starting treatment. So guiding them to their brand new smile into a yes, right? So it's that differentiation when doing the direct to consumer marketing compared to a referral.
And we talked about that referral, the differentiation a little bit, which means it's really about the team staff structure when you're getting into full arch. And let me give an example of that. So many of the clinics, and I call them clinics, dental practices, I just happen to call them clinics because I think they are, they're medical clinics because they're getting a medical procedure when you start talking about full arch therapy.
What they're really looking at is many times they're typically saying to me and once they engage me or we have conversations through a discovery call that's gratis, we'll talk about and they'll share that those that are doing treatment planning for full arch, well, Becky, Susie, Jose, they've done treatment planning in my practice very well for a long time. It'll be PPO based or it'll be insurance based or they've done some big cases before and there's such a differentiation between these full arch cases where you're using third party financing companies, where you're really getting at the motivation and not the product itself because dentistry is really about you have a need, we have a solution, here's what it looks like and then the detailing of that treatment plan with seven line items. It's these seven different codes, the dental codes that create the solution for you.
In full arch, it's just not that. If you lay out 17 different line items for a full arch treatment therapy for a patient, their eyes are gonna roll in the back of their head, their eyes are gonna go to the bottom right-hand corner of what is the total cost, and at that point, the way the presentation happens, you pretty much lost them. And that's one of the misconceptions is that it can be done.
And yes, it's a bigger number and a bigger treatment, but it can be done the same way. And it really is a completely different concept and approach in order to be successful at it. And some, the biggest challenge for me, when they do reach out to me, engage with me, and a lot of this, by the way, a lot of the free content, they can really just get on all my socials, I put out a lot of free content on this, is really, they'll get lucky in the beginning because it's patients that may already be in their records or patients that they know, which is great.
A lot of times it is if they're just adding this as a vertical into their existing practice, right? And so they have this misconception that this is going to be fairly easy, it's just a transition, but they're really just going into the pool of patients that already have trust. And that's really what it is because if it's a referral type of situation, there is this already built-in trust and it's a transfer of trust.
If it's a direct-to-consumer situation where they're going out into the public and saying, hey, I do this, come see me, I'm the best to have this done, there's no trust built. And so with that, you have to earn that trust from the patient. And that really starts with that initial inquiry.
And that's really where some of the misconception and where dropping the ball because it's almost like, well, I don't understand. We have the product, we have the skill. As you said, the Harvard degree on the wall, why aren't you saying yes to this treatment?
And they're spending five, eight, $10,000 a month on this marketing specific for Full Arch. There's six months down the line. So they're $40, $60,000 into the marketing spend, right?
Or even if they're spending half that, doesn't even matter. They have zero revenue to show for it, right? And then you add on top of that all the education and training that they went through, plus the lost production, while they're away getting that training, plus all the equipment that they purchased, they're hundreds of thousands of dollars into this thing.
Nothing to show for it. So these are some of the things that I see and some of the misconceptions, especially in the beginning, because in the beginning, the margins really aren't as high because you're still in the learning phase. But because there is such high dollar amounts, it's, well, yeah, I can make a lot of money at this.
And so really looking at own personal motivation of why you'd be in this in the first place, too.
Yeah, totally. That makes a lot of sense. Super interesting, man.
I love it. I love it. Excited to...
let's pin some of that, because I think we can come back to it in, as we talk about making dental care more human in just a minute. Even if we're talking about technology and full arts and lots of big cases, I think there's a lot that we can still do there that makes dental care more human. But I want to spend just a moment helping people understand a little bit more about you.
The general way I think about this is we can all learn something about you on your LinkedIn or wherever socials that you live. And there's plenty that we don't know, based on just looking at that stuff. I think we've already learned a little bit about you just in terms of how we started and some of the silliness that you bring and kind of the levity, which is awesome.
But I would just love to know something that you feel specifically, this could be totally in your personal life, doesn't have to be professionally, however you interpret this question, but when someone asks you, go out for a drink and be like, hey, what are you most proud of? I would love to hear how you answer that question right now. What are you most proud of in your life?
Yeah, I appreciate that question. And I can tell you that what I'm most proud of today is when I show up authentically. And I'd love to tell you that I'm showing up authentically 100% of the time.
That's not true. I do my best to show up authentically. So I've lived part of my life when I didn't show up authentically, Matt.
I'll just be completely honest, right? So I grew up and I knew that, you know, I was different than a lot of people, right? I fall into a small percentage, you know.
I like boys, but I didn't admit that, right? I got married to my high school sweetheart. We got married 13 months later.
My son was born and I was drowning it in alcohol, right? We were divorced a year and a half later. I was a raging alcoholic and drug addict until the age of 33.
That's where my career started when I got sober. That's really what my story is. And then once I did get sober, I started trying to identify what my authentic life is.
But there were many times even then, working for others, thinking I had to camouflage myself or mask myself or change pronouns and all of that, not because they said I had to, but because I thought I needed to in order to move up the corporate ladder, in order to adjust and modify for an industry. That's just not true. But that's what I assumed to be true.
And so what I try to do today in my consulting business, in my personal life, and the guys that I work with in recovery, and all of that is to show up as my authentic self. And do I fall short? A thousand percent.
I am not perfect in any way, shape, or form. But I try to call myself out for it. And I have created a close group of friends and business colleagues in dentistry who literally will call me out when I'm not showing up authentically.
And I try to give back because I really have been blessed with all of that because I have some self-awareness. Not always, trust me.
It's not always.
And so when you say, what am I most proud of? That. I mean, that and my son, he's amazing.
We have a great relationship. And of course, you know, I'm still waiting for grandbabies. John, if you listen to this, where are they?
He's been married for 14 months. Let's go get off the Schneid. I've been waiting.
But I mean that went truly because the human side of dentistry, you precluded that we're going to have a conversation about that. That is, this is one of the industries where I've chosen now to show up more authentically. And I know a lot of others who do so as well.
And that is a risk, right? That is a risk to do. It's a risk because I assume there is a risk, right?
My business is thriving. The people around me are thriving. But there still is this imposter syndrome that comes up.
And I think the same to be true because there's a fear of whatever you built could all come down in a moment, right? And it is. And so I so appreciate the question and the platform for me to just really share who I am.
And so anyone who's listening can come up and say, hey, you know, I really appreciate that you were your authentic self in that moment because there will be times when I will shy away and I may not be my authentic self. So thank you for the platform and opportunity to ask such a bold question.
I love it, man. I appreciate your, you know, just willingness to, you know, yeah, answer that question, you know, with authenticity there, right? So I love it.
Those are the kinds of things that, you know, I'm definitely like an extroverted person, but I'm a person who, you know, loves to go deep, right? And so having, you know, going to a conference and having 10, two-minute conversations, like, hey, good to see you, you know, like that doesn't do a lot for me. But to have one, you know, conversation today like this, where it's like, hey, like we can talk about something really meaningful, even if it's for a short amount of time, you know, it really fills my bucket.
So I really appreciate that. And yeah, thanks for sharing. It's helpful.
Yeah, absolutely.
Awesome. Well, let's close up here just talking about making dental care more human. You know, obviously our company is called DifferentKind, and that was intentional, right, in terms of how we think about it.
And you've already mentioned a couple of these words, right? Different and kind. And so I would just love to kind of hear how you think specifically, you know, you're making dental care different, and how you're making it kinder for practices, for patients.
You know, I think there's a lot of ways that we can construe that. But we'd just love to hear, you know, hey, this is really what I think I, you know, uniquely bring to the industry as Greg.
Yeah, thank you for that question, too, and I love it. And because of the name of your company, because of the name of the podcast, it does just set the table for somebody to share as I did authentically, right? That's important.
And what I also do is that when I'm meeting with and as I continue to grow in this space, you know, with my consulting business as the things that I do, building trust with founders, CEOs, you know, what I learned, what I was going to say what I learned, but what I am learning is that they're human just like I am, and their patients are human as well. And they're trying to protect their business, but they're also trying to do right by their team members and trying to build culture. And culture is a word, I'm sorry, I'm going to say it.
Culture is a word that's thrown around a lot, you know, and when I start to build trust with some of these founders, with some of my clients to a person, usually fairly quickly, they will open up to me and say, look, I know I need to be a better leader. Can you help me with that? And I know for myself, right, I've been going through a self-discovery phase and a learning phase, and I'm doing my best to.
At the same time, I also know that I hold myself to a standard to do results-based, right? Numbers-based, profitability, cash flow, EBITDA. Because if I'm not delivering on that, then the amount of income that I'm generating from them and what they're paying me for is also not going to get there.
But I also know that the way that the team feels, right? Do they feel supported? Do they feel like they can be their authentic selves?
Do they show up to work as their best selves, right? All of these pieces, which is not necessarily my strength. Now, I built teams, absolutely.
Did I fall short at times? Absolutely. You know, driven by numbers and for whatever reason, because I'm human, right?
So in order to show up in these practices, what I'm learning is that it's okay for me to say, you know what? This is not my strength. This is not, I can take you so far in this area.
So a subject matter expert bringing someone in, I've done it with one of my clients in the Pacific Northwest, where I know somebody who we lovingly, jokingly say, you're the touchy-feely people management person. Like I need to bring you in for this, whether it comes out of what I make or whether it's separate, whatever the case may be, and it's helping and then we collaborate and talk. Another situation is where somebody's really good at scaling to multiple practices.
I have done it, but it's not necessarily my wheelhouse because I'm focused on other aspects of a particular business where literally year over year, it was 73% growth in revenue. It was increasing average arch price by 36% or 37%. The number I always miss by one or two.
These are incredible things that I've done and I want to continue to focus on that because more competition is coming into the direct area. And so I don't want to lose focus of that as well. Knowing that I alone can't do it, and if I show up that way and I model that behavior, then it gives permission to the owner founders to be that way.
And if they can show a little bit of that vulnerability, it allows the team members to show, okay, I don't have to be perfect. I just need to show up as my best self. And I didn't learn that.
This isn't something that I created. But long ago, and I talked about, you know, it's being sober, that Don Miguel Ruiz and the Four Agreements is foundational for who I am, right? It talks about be impeccable with your word.
Don't make assumptions. Don't take things personally. That's the most difficult one for me, by the way, because everything's personal to me.
It just, I don't know, maybe it's the Detroit in me. It could be, I don't know. And then the last one is always do your best.
And always do your best. Some days, your best, you are the king of the hill, and you can move mountains. And some days, your best is just simply showing up and not kicking the catacot across the street.
It just is, and it sounds cruel, and I would never like support animal cruelty. But some days, your best is literally just dragging yourself there and being physically present. And what it means of doing it differently for patients in a different kind of way in dentistry means that other team members, if you allow them to know you well enough, and other colleagues in dentistry, and all, right, it's all inclusive, is that if you allow them to know you a little bit, they can also support you when your best isn't necessarily above your baseline, and they can support you through it.
And that's what I found to be true in dentistry, is that in this industry, because I've been in rental car, and then I've been in the food and beverage industry, and I've been in a few other industries, is that in this industry, we have it in spades if you surround yourself people with it, but you have to show up that way for others first. And that's what I try to do, and that's where I can really bring most value, but you can't really sell that on a placard or on a flyer to somebody as a consultant, but that's, I mean, that's kind of like the value add. And I believe that's really where a lot of clinicians and that's where the branding and whatnot can really be different and how you can differentiate with teams and how we can do dentistry different in our practices.
I love it, man. This is so great. There's so many, like, I want to have a two-hour podcast with you, but, you know, got to, you know, in the interest of keeping it, you know, commute length, right?
I have one more question for you that we're gonna switch from, like, I love the last two answers that are, you know, so much bigger philosophical...
I got so touchy-feely there. I said I wasn't touchy-feely. What have you done to me, Matt?
I love it, I love it.
I want to dive into the philosophy and the, you know, psychology and all of that stuff. But I want to get really practical for one minute as we close out here. So we've talked a lot about trust today, and you mentioned that kind of seven-to-nine-minute conversation, or, you know, whether that's a one-to-two-minute conversation, that first conversation with the patient, right?
What is one thing that, you know, maybe you're in that situation yourself. You go to visit a new healthcare provider, right? And, you know, they do something in that conversation that builds trust with you.
What is something that you feel like works for you, or that you coach, you know, your practices that you work with to say, hey, this is probably the most crucial thing in that first conversation that you can do to build trust. Just make it real practical for our listeners to say, hey, if you get anything out of this, like, here's one thing you can go do tomorrow.
Yep, I can break it down. So I'm big on acronyms, and it's E-A-Z, so it's easy. E is empathy, showing empathy.
Know it, understand it, learn it, and everybody shows empathy different ways. So you don't have to do it the way that Greg does it. You don't have to do it the way that Matt does it.
Do it what's natural to you, and that's one. Second is assure. Assure them they're calling the right place, and you do that by acknowledging what they've asked or said to you.
Answer their question, doesn't always mean directly, right? But answer their question, and then ask another question to drive the conversation forward. And then Z, don't put them to sleep.
Talk with a little bit more energy than they do, because most of them don't have the energy. But if they're like me and they have a lot of energy or had a lot of caffeine, flip it and calm them down a little bit. And then obviously you're asking for the appointment and getting them on the books.
So E, A, Z, it's easy. That's really what I look for. And it's interesting when I have engagements, you said, when I go in for other appointments, when somebody shows empathy, and then they're literally acknowledging what I say and answer, I'm like, that's literally what I teach.
Like, don't coach on me. And I think it's funny. But when I do, I recognize it instantly.
And I feel heard. And I feel like somebody is actually caring about what I have to say. Because most of the time, we forget sometimes that we have all the answers.
We've been there, done that. And it's so critical not to minimize the fact that this is new to them and sometimes scary. And they might have some apprehension or they might have shame around it.
And so just those three simple pieces. And again, if you want to find more information, literally on my LinkedIn page, you can find it on my company page. Just go and grab all the content.
There's so much on there and it's free. Literally educate yourself, educate your team. I'm big on giving away free content because you can do it yourself.
You literally can do it yourself. And I think there's so much to be learned on that. I'm a big fan of giving away.
Awesome, man. Well, that was a really nice segue into like, hey, I'm sure people are going to want to get in touch with you, going to want to learn more. Where do they go to do that?
Where are the best places to get in touch with you? Please share that with us.
So Greg Essenmacher, there's not a whole lot of Essenmachers. If you can spell it, you know, I learned how to spell it when I was a little, little kid to the Mickey Mouse theme because of the spelling, but I'm not going to sing for you today. I could, but I won't.
So LinkedIn, Instagram, GNA Consult is the name of the company. But also if you, if you just, I mean, literally text or call me, you know, the industry has my number, 602-743-5262. Love to hear from you.
You know, discovery calls are, you know, gratis. You know, let's just talk about where you're at, what you're looking to do, and then we can move forward from there. Lots of free content.
I love to talk to people. I love talking dentistry, especially full arch. That's my lane.
That's my jam. Thank you so much, Matt. I really appreciate the time and the platform and just having the heart and opening it up because you got a little extra out of me today, so I like that.
Well, you know, hey, I feel energized and ready to go for the rest of the day. We're just so grateful that you took the time to join us here, Greg. Thank you so, so, so very, very much.
Look forward to seeing you in person, hopefully, at some events this year. And yeah, for all the listeners out there, if you are interested in getting in touch with Greg, please don't hesitate to reach out to him. And I look forward to maybe having you back sometime where we could have a deeper conversation, where we could go for two hours, something like that.
Greg, thanks so much. Hope you have a great time.
Honored. Thank you.