The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering Client Mindsets for Better Engagement with Dr. Chris Phelps
Fri, 11 Apr 2025
In this conversation, Dr. Chris Phelps shares his journey in dental marketing and the principles of influence that transformed his business. He discusses the importance of commitment within teams, understanding client mindsets, and the techniques of pre-suasion to enhance client engagement. Phelps also emphasizes the implementation of membership plans as a successful strategy in his practice, while addressing the ethical considerations of using influence in business. He also delves into the seven principles of influence, the role of scarcity in marketing, and how to optimize websites for better conversion rates. Don’t forget to register for Tommy’s event, Freedom 2025! This is the event where Tommy’s billion-dollar network will break down exactly how to accelerate your business and dominate your market in 2025. For more details visit freedomevent.com For more information about Dr. Chris Phelps, visit https://www.thephelpsinstitute.com/
Chapter 1: How did Dr. Chris Phelps transform his marketing strategy?
I did a direct mail piece and I ran it to the same list of people for 10 years and I got a good return. But after I learned these principles and after I learned how to apply them and amplify these things, I stripped down that direct mail piece and I rebuilt it and tried to add as many of the influence principles as I could.
And I literally sent it out to the same list I've been mailing to for 10 years, doubled the new patient count. So no matter what you're doing, if you haven't added any level of influence, all you have to do is add one thing and send it right back out to the same people and you'll get a better response.
welcome to the home service expert where each week tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing sales hiring and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business now your host The home service millionaire, Tommy Mello.
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode.
Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert.
Today is a very special guest. I got him in the studio. Chris Phelps is here. He wrote the complete book on dental marketing, which you might be thinking, why would I have a... dental marketing company, but it's so much more than that. He's the CEO of the Choudini Institute.
He's the dental practice coach of Sunrise Dental Solutions, the founder and president of Golden Goose Scheduling, certified trainer at Choudini Method of Influence. And he was also the president of Dental Membership Direct. Chris, it's a pleasure to have you here. Amazing book. Thank you, Tommy. Just tell us a little bit about you.
Yeah, well, you know, it's funny, as you've already pointed out, and for our listeners so that you can tell, I'm an entrepreneur who happens to be a pretty good dentist.
Yeah.
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Chapter 2: What is the focus of the Home Service Expert podcast?
But if they know the context of why and the justification... automatically they're more likely to continue doing. So I had to do that. I had to justify that why. As I said, I had to ask their permission. They had to voluntarily commit. So once I justified why, I asked them a simple question. And this is a simple influence question you should ask anybody you're going to work with.
How many of you agree with me that this is a problem? Okay. Looks like all the hands are up. Great. Who's going to help me solve it? Because if the hands don't go up, what that tells me is that's okay. They see an elephant in the room. Well, instead of hiding from it, let's talk about it now. Because if I don't, that's going to be a landmine that sabotages this thing down the road.
If all the hands go up, great. Now they're voluntarily committed to helping me get this done. And you automatically have a better chance. get them involved with that process. So, hey, what's your role gonna be in this? Here's some pen and paper because studies show when what you write down, you tend to live up to, right? So you get it out of their head and let's put it on paper.
What's your part gonna be in this change, helping us reach this goal, whatever that is. And they have to see you're a part of the process too. So I'm writing my stuff down. Here's what I think I can do to help you guys or directly or indirectly get to the goal or make this change.
And now we use this aspect of consistency, which is getting public commitments out of people, which is extremely powerful. So everybody going around the room saying, all right, Tommy, what are you going to do? What's your role going to be? Let's tell everybody. Great. Now let's ask for feedback from everybody else. Does anybody else have any ideas for Tommy? Here's what I think you could do.
Write that down. Okay, great. Let's go to the next person. And then I tell them what I think I could do. And I get their feedback. Great, I can do that. Sure. Now we've all written it down. I get them to sign it and then... Sign it. I love it. Yeah, because now they're committed. They know what their responsibilities are. They're signing that this is what they're going to do.
And you get your most creative, collaborative person on the team. We make a collage of it and we post it. Because what every study on consistency shows is... this, right? We all know by definition, you know, why do people do commitments? Why do they fall through with the commitments?
Well, it's because they don't want to be perceived as being inconsistent in their stated thoughts, actions, and beliefs, right? There's no good word for people who don't do what they say they're going to do routinely. Liars, for instance, is not a good word, right? So there's this external influence on us to not be like that.
At the same time, there's an internal influence, which is why it's powerful. It's two sources. You don't want to look at yourself in that capacity, right? So nobody wants to be inconsistent. But we all know people who say and do things but don't follow through. Were they all liars? Were they all intending to fool us or mislead us? Well, the truth is the studies show that's not the case.
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Chapter 3: Who is Dr. Chris Phelps and what is his background?
And I found those examples transcribed and it helped me create my influence systems that I use as well. So learning knowledge, deepening, and application is key. So we help in that aspect. Some people don't have time for that. They just want the answer.
They just go right to the top.
Yeah, they're just like, just come solve it for us. Okay, we can do that too, right? So it's a combination of those two things. You're learning versus do you just want somebody to take care of it for you?
So, yeah, you're just cutting straight to the top, the implementation. That's it. And if you just want to go through a course, where does one sign up?
So they can come right to the website, cialdini.com. There's an online portal. You can purchase the product and you get instant on-demand access with 10 hours of Dr. Cialdini teaching you those activators and amplifiers.
And as CEO of the, I guess, U.S.-based, in how many countries?
So right now, last I counted, we've got representation in over 30 countries.
And what is your day-to-day?
So it's a lot of talking, a lot of Zoom calls. Luckily, I'm used to talking to a lot because, you know, talking to my patients every day. So it's a lot of talking. It's a lot of spreading the word of influence, because really, I mean, we're targeting obviously organizations, right, who need to be more influential in what they do. We're targeting individuals.
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Chapter 4: How did Dr. Phelps overcome business challenges using influence principles?
And they just extrapolate and do better from that point on. So, I mean, for some of these people that have put this stuff into practice, that's why Cialdini calls them small bigs. Small things that can make a huge impact. Popular Cruise Company, for instance, with one email adding a little persuasion to it.
To make the person who opened it more receptive to the scarcity message of a $500 offer that was going to run out at the end of the year, the cruise company made so much money off of the extra people that were on that ship that they said they could buy another boat.
This is why it's so exciting. One of the things I walked in, and unfortunately I had another obligation, but I sent three of my guys to your event with Robert. And I'm never going to miss another one. I noticed you were talking a lot about website and reviews. What's important on a website? What helps conversion rate? What helps people buy now?
Or at least the conversion rate when they do the click-through and now they're actually... taking the offer.
They're doing the action. Yeah. So in this kind of case, you have to start with why do people say no to us? Okay. So one reason is there's no relationship. And Dr. Niter, one of our chief trainers, came up and did the research on this. It's called the core motives model of why people do what they do. And so if there's no relationship, people don't say yes.
If there's uncertainty, any kind of questions are down in their mind, they don't move. It's safer for them to do nothing than to choose. And lack of motivation, no urgency. So when somebody, especially in marketing, they're looking at your advertisement, if they don't respond from the ad directly, there's some uncertainty automatically present holding it back.
If there's something favorable about it, that's when they go to your website to look for more info. And if that satisfies their search, then they pick up the phone. So uncertainty in advertising is the number one thing you've got to overcome. So to do that on a website, what the research shows is we need three principles to help us.
Number one, if they don't like you, they're not going to do business with you. So all the research now is showing that you need some kind of welcoming message.
Picture the team.
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