E34: Podcast: Nick Raithel on how to promote your dental practice by writing a book
Hello and welcome to Ascent Dental Radio. A program dedicated to the balance between the clinical aspect of health care and the business of health care. And now here is your host, Dr. Kevin Coughlin.
Kevin: Welcome. You’re listening to Ascent Radio. My name is Dr. Kevin Coughlin, owner of Ascent Dental Solutions. I want to give a special thanks to Mr. Doug Foresta and his company Stand Out and Be Heard. Without his expertise in podcasting and the production of this podcast, this could not occur.
Today, we have a special guest. This is Mr. Nick Raithel. Nick has a claim to fame and the excellent background in how to help the dental profession and health care profession in general promote themselves, their business and their expertise by using the written word.
The ability to use books to convey a message and to improve a marketing strategy. Nick is owner and CEO of the company Content Corps. Nick has been at this for many, many years and has written the book in how to create a 7-hour book.
Nick, thank you so much for taking time from your busy schedule to talk to our profession about this unique way and how to improve a marketing strategy and a message that most of us in health care profession don’t think about. Thank you so much for joining us. Give us a little bit of background about your company and how you got started.
Nick: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me here, doctor. It’s a pleasure to be on your show. I really have a lot of respect for that. I think you’re really helping out our profession in terms of just educating and empowering people. So for starters, just thank you for that. Keep up the good work.
With respect now to what you were asking with kind of my own background and my sort of service, my offerings, what we’re doing really with the 7-hour book is we have a system that allows any dental professional to create their own professionally published book. And with that book, establish their authority, establish their credibility and really position themselves apart from other dentists in their market.
Kevin: I could tell you that I wished I knew about your expertise and your company. As you know, I’ve published three books. One of them; Your Tooth is Killing Me, the other is Business, Processes and Procedures Necessary for a Successful Dental Career and the third one Just Enough to Be Great in Your Dental Profession. And the hours, the time, the drudgery of producing these three books, I would say, most in the health care profession would say it’s not worth the time and effort.
But with your process and procedures, you’ve streamlined it to make it much simpler, much more efficient and effective. Describe a little bit about how that’s done.
Nick: Absolutely. One of the biggest things people don’t know is that working with us, doing our system, only requires a grand total of seven hours of your time. That’s it. And with that, you’re not doing any work beyond just talking to us over Skype or the phone in a series of conversations. That’s it.
So you don’t have to do any of the writing or any of the review that would normally be required in doing a book. You’re certainly not sitting alone, as many book producers know, alone at a desk having to write anything for hours and weeks on hand. You don’t do any of that. You just talk to us over the phone or over Skype, we walk you through some questions — a framework we have — and your book gets created from there.
Kevin: Nick, once that book is created, how does it get out into the public? Are you using an outside publishing or does your company take care of that also?
Nick: We take care of it through various publishing services we have partnerships with.
Kevin: And would Amazon be one of those services or do you use other services?
Nick: Depending on the author, Amazon could definitely be one of those services, but we are unlimited in that respect.
Kevin: For those listening that may not be familiar with what it takes to be an author, although you’ve really created a very effective and efficient means, I can tell the listeners that not hundreds, not thousands, but multiple thousands of hours were spent developing my books. And I can tell you that that time and energy probably could be much better spent using Content Corps and Nick’s process and procedures.
I can also tell you that — well, why don’t I let Nick — about the advantages of having a book with your name and you’ve published it, the affect that it has on credibility, speaking engagements, what it means to our patients base when they see that their dentist or health care provider has the expertise in which to put something in print.
Nick: Sure. Kevin, I think that a good place for listeners to start with this is to understand that a book makes you more than just another dentist. More than just another health care professional. With a book, you have a chance to take the knowledge, the experiences, any insights you have that make you unique and the unique way in which you see the world and show that to people. Do you ascend above the competition?
Kevin: I could tell you Nick, that I’ve had the privilege to listen to you on other podcasts and one of the take-away messages that I never really thought about, but when you’re forced to talk about a subject, whatever that subject is, in our case it’s health care or dentistry in particular, you actually learn more about the subject. You become engaged. I believe you become more of an expert.
I know during my research and listening to my thoughts and writing down those thoughts, you actually become, not only more engaged, but more knowledgeable about the subject. Do you find that?
Nick: Yeah, I definitely do find that. I think that frankly, one of the best ways is to understand your business, if you view your dentistry as a business per se, or just to understand it as a craft. If you’re looking at dentistry as a craft and you’re a professional practicing that craft, one of the best ways to do it is a book. Because it forces you, as you’re saying Kevin, to kind of get outside of your head and look at it from different perspectives and really understand it better so you can communicate it better.
Kevin: One of the quotes that stuck with me when I was listening to you is what’s perhaps one of the most important assets we have as health care professionals and dentists in particular. Your quote was really, I thought, astounding. You basically summed it up by life experiences are probably our best property, our best asset. And when you start to write a book or use your particular system to write and publish a book, those life experiences are re-engaged, they’re re-ignited.
I can tell the listeners that a day doesn’t go by that I don’t get an email or a phone call regarding questions about a book. What did I mean by this, did this really happen? Et cetera. And it’s opened a whole venue of contacts and networks that I didn’t even realize or understand.
And I can tell you that from my own personal experience, not only does it give me great pride, but you touched on it; the patient base and the team members of my business, which are close to a 160 employees in 14 different offices here in the Massachusetts area, it does give you that extra credibility that I think deep down they’re saying, “Jeez, he could have been doing so many other things and he took the time to write his thoughts down to provide education and mentoring for new generation and the existing generation out there.”
When you do this, I don’t want to put you on the spot, is there an average fee or cost from start to finish Dr. Smith or Dr. Jones connects with your company Content Corps, what is the length of the process? I know you mentioned that through Skype or phone call it’s roughly seven hours of speaking and then your team takes those words and puts them into a book. How long is the process from your company after you’ve received the content to complete the project?
Nick: Certainly. As I’m sure you would imagine, it’s really going to vary depending on the client themselves. The very first step though is for us to determine if someone who’s thinking about this, if what they have in mind and their ideas really are a fit for our system. Because a lot of people do want books and a lot of people really should go out there and create books, but what they’re thinking may or may not be a fit for our system. So we always just want to make sure that it is and that begins with a simple 20-minute conversation which people can schedule by visiting our website www.contentcorps.net.
Kevin: And is there a charge for that 20-minute consult?
Nick: No, that’s completely complementary. We want to hear your idea and there’s absolutely no fee for that.
Kevin: Are you comfortable giving a range of what individuals could expect in an investment? I know that time is roughly seven hours, but an investment for the individual to create this book?
Nick: That’s the kind of thing that, again, is really going to depend on the individual themselves and if it is a fit. So I would encourage anyone who’s curious about that, just to kind of go to our website and have a look and see if it’s something they might be interested in. And then from there, if it was, we would again determine if it was a fit and go from there.
Kevin: Nick, with your expertise and background, is there a general number of pages that seems to be the best? We know in the podcast industry that roughly a 20-minute podcast is considered ideal because it’s the average commute time in a car for most people in the United States. But for a book, is it 50 pages, 100 pages, 150, 200?
Nick: It does depend on the person themselves and their own specific goals. I think above all, that is what this comes down to. This comes down to goals. What are your goals in producing the book? And then from there the number of pages will be determined by the content that will be used to produce and to fulfill those goals.
Kevin: That’s a nice segue. I know when I first started for the listeners, so many times I’m asked, “Why? Why did you do the book?” And I teach at Tufts School of Dental Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts and I teach practice management. These young men and women are getting prepared to graduate and they really don’t have business experience, business acumen. They’re not sure how to apply for a job, what to look like in the job.
I continue to do the same course over and over again and one of the students and faculty said, “You really should put this in a book.” And I said, “You know what, this is a very efficient and effective way to get the message. Because in a 90 minute lecture, sometimes you can’t cover all the basis.”
Nick, as we’re getting close to coming to an end to this podcast, you’ve mentioned your website, is there a phone number that you’d like to share with our listeners?
Nick: I think the website really is the best place to start. With that website www.contentcorps.net, I think that’s the best place.
Kevin: As far as a response time for our listeners if they’re webbing into your company today, this week, you get back to them within 24 hours, within a week? What’s the turnaround?
Nick: We have a very quick turnaround. So if you’re filling it out, we’d be getting back to you quite soon.
Kevin: I know as we come to a close, something that sometimes we’re a little uncomfortable talking about or a little outside our comfort zone, but when we do podcast, when we do webinars, many times those are difficult areas to monetize. There are ways to monetize them and I learn week after week with my expert Doug Foresta on Stand Out and Be Heard. But with the book, it’s a very easy way to monetize because you can sell those books or you can use them for marketing purposes, which also generates a stream of income. Would you agree or would like to expound on that?
Nick: I would and I would say that not only are you selling the book, not only are you using it in your marketing, but a book really can be kind of your gateway into other things and other ways of monetizing. For example, using a book to launch your speaking career, using a book to launch your coaching career, if you want to get into coaching; dental coaching or business coaching. You can really use it to create many new avenues of revenue for yourself.
Kevin: Nick, I can’t thank you enough and I thank the listeners again. And special thanks to Mr. Doug Foresta and his production of this podcast. You’ve been listening to Ascent-Dental-Solutions and this is Ascent Radio. My name is Dr. Coughlin and our focus is on knowledge, development, training and education.
Mr. Nick Raithel and his company Content Corps and The 7-Hour Book, I strongly recommend to our listeners to consider his expertise and consider taking the time to put your thoughts down in writing and I think you’ll enjoy it and hopefully you’ll enjoy it as much as I did. Nick, thank you so much for taking your time. I appreciate this evening’s podcast with you.
Nick: Thank you so much for having me, doctor. It’s been a pleasure.
