Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
Mastering Nonverbals for Case Acceptance
Your body language might be sabotaging your case acceptance without you even realizing it. Imagine presenting the perfect treatment plan with flawless explanation—only to have patients hesitate and "think about it." What went wrong?
The answer lies in the subtle realm of nonverbal communication. Research shows our brains are 12.5 times more likely to believe body language over words, and a staggering 82% of first impressions depend entirely on nonverbal cues. These hidden signals determine whether patients perceive you as trustworthy and competent—or not.
Drawing from Vanessa Van Edwards' groundbreaking book "Cues," this episode breaks down five powerful techniques to transform your patient interactions. You'll discover the critical link between open hand gestures and trust, learn the "shoulder-to-earlobe rule" for projecting confidence, master the perfect balance of eye contact, practice the engagement-signaling "lower lid flex," and understand the charisma-building "first liker advantage."
Try incorporating just one new cue per day into your patient interactions and watch as engagement improves. These subtle shifts in body language could be the missing piece in your case acceptance puzzle, helping more patients say "yes" to the treatment they truly need.
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Now imagine you're in a consultation, you're presenting a treatment plan to a somewhat hesitant patient. Now you might be saying all the right things, you're explaining the benefits, you're breaking down the procedure, you're talking about what's going to happen if they don't do the treatment, but something still isn't clicking. What is it? They hesitate, they want to think about it and you feel like you blew the case. What if I told you, the issue isn't what you're saying, but it's the way that you're saying it. And, more importantly, what is your body signaling to the patient? In today's episode, we're going to dive into the hidden language of cues and how subtle body language, vocal tones and even the smallest gestures can make or break trust and ultimately, impact case acceptance. We're also going to break down the differences between males and females and how we can use different cues to signal warmth and competence, based on where we fall along the spectrum. This is one that you're not going to want to miss. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1:You are listening to Dental Practice Heroes, where we help you create and scale your dental practice so that you are no longer tied to the chair. I'm Dr Paul Etcheson, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach and owner of a $6 million group practice in the suburbs of Chicago. I want to teach you how to grow and systematize your dental practice so you can spend less time practicing and more time enjoying a life that you love. Let's get started. Time enjoying a life that you love let's get started. So welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm so happy that you're here with me today, hey, and if you like what you're hearing, would you tell a friend about it or leave a five-star review on whatever app you're using to listen to podcasts? It would really help spread the word and I would so much appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So today let's talk about cues. I want to tell you a story about an associate that I had at one time. Super nice person, great person didn't work out at my office. I know that she's working out at some other office. It just didn't work out. Let me tell you why. This was someone who I spent a lot of time coaching with. There's a lot of time mentoring with and a lot of it was communication-based and I would sit there and listen outside the room and I listened when she was talking to new patients and often, for some reason, it just came off. No matter what she said. It came off a little cold, like a little sterile, and my team noticed it too. They were like, hey, I don't think she's really providing the patient experience we're used to at here. I think you need to work with her. I think you need to talk to her about her new patient experience.
Speaker 1:And we did this, and she took a lot of notes and she tried ever, ever so hard, but the problem was it wasn't what she was saying. I could give her the words, but I couldn't teach her how to say them. So let me give you two examples here. I'm going to say the same statement, same words, but I'm going to say it two completely different ways and you can decide which dentist are you more likely to say yes to. So I'm telling the patient about what a crown is, that they got a crack in tooth and we need to get a crown on it, okay.
Speaker 1:So, hey, mr Jones, a crown is a protective cover, like a helmet for your tooth. And this tooth it's got a crack in it and it's going to get worse and we need to get a crown on this tooth before it breaks completely. Okay, all right. So that's the first one. A crown is essentially a protective cover, like a helmet for your tooth. Now, this tooth here, it's got a crack in it and it's going to get worse. We need to get a crown on this tooth before it breaks completely.
Speaker 1:Which one of those sounded more confident? Which one are you more likely to trust? Which dentist? I mean same dentist, they were both me, but one. You know it sounded unsure. There was a lot of like tone, inflection that was going up, like this is a crown, it's like a helmet for your tooth, instead of like it's like a helmet for your tooth. The pitch went up instead of down. So that is just a great example of how that tone, that inflection going up sounds like a question, going down Sounds like a statement. Going up Sounds unsure. Going down Sounds very sure. So this is just a short example and this was the stuff that I just couldn't teach to this person.
Speaker 1:And recently I read a book by Vanessa Van Edwards. It's called Cues. Now, cues not like the letter, like C-U-E-S, and it's a great book and I loved her first book, captivate. But I didn't read this book because I was like, ah, it doesn't sound that cool. But when I started reading it I was like, oh, my gosh, this is so applicable to dentistry. Like this is this, is it? This is what I could not teach to this associate.
Speaker 1:I could not get her treatment acceptance up and why she was often getting like negative reviews from patients because they weren't feeling the warmth, they weren't feeling the competence that came from this person. Now, I have no doubt she was very competent. It was just she couldn't convey it to the patient and it had nothing to do with the words, it had all to do with the nonverbals. So one thing that the research shows and this came from the book is that our brain is 12 and a half times more likely to believe nonverbal gestures over the words. Now, if you listen to this podcast, you know that I am big on the words. I'm so big on verbiage. I love, love, love hearing from other dentists Like how do you explain this to a patient, because that has always been really helpful to me. But what I'm realizing after reading this book is that it's just important to train how to say it versus what to say.
Speaker 1:Another stat from the book 82% of first impressions are dependent on non-verbals. 82% first impressions and you can make a first impression just like that. How many chances do you get to make a first impression? Well, it's a first impression, guess? The answer one yeah, you only get one. Make it count.
Speaker 1:So we are sitting there in the dental chair, we're talking to patients and we're supposed to be trustworthy, we're supposed to show competence. If our body language and the tone in our voice is not matching our words, something goes up in the patient's head, an alarm goes off that says something is not right. I don't know what it is, but I don't trust this person and I don't want to do what they're saying. Now, I'm not saying we're supposed to be tricking our patients into saying yes. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that if we want our patients to get healthy, we have to say things in a way that makes them say yes to treatment. We need to treatment plan ethically. You know, don't make things up, but we need to present it in a way that they can say yes.
Speaker 1:So in this episode I want to go through five cues that are going to help your trust in your case acceptance, and you can turn around and use these with your patients today. And then I'm going to break down, males and females, what you can try differently, and it might not even be males and females. It might be like the masculine versus the feminine. All right, let's talk about the first one the power of your hands. What should we be doing with our hands?
Speaker 1:You guys remember Talladega Nights when Will Ferrell's like talking, his hands keep coming up. He's like I don't know what to do with my hands. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do with my hands so often. Sometimes, when I'm uncomfortable, I don't know. I'll stick them in my pocket. Do you leave a thumb out you, your back? Sometimes it feels good to cross your arms. That's not good posture, it's not good body language. But have you ever been in a social situation where you've been unsure and you don't know what to do with your hands? Yeah, me too. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt super confident and you were thinking about what should I do with my hands? Probably not. You weren't even thinking about it.
Speaker 1:So, these damn hands on both sides of our body, connected to our shoulders, what the hell do we do with them? One of the things that, if you look at these TED Talks and these very effective TED Talk speakers, you will see a lot of hand gesturing, a lot of open hand gestures. So what they're doing is they got their palms up to the ceiling and they're sticking them out like listen to me, this is going to change everything. That's what they say, and they're gesturing with their hands. So when you want to communicate to a patient, get those hands moving. Get them to where the patient can see them and get them moving, because one of the things that's evolutionary is that when we can see someone's hands, they are not a threat to us. So we don't want to hide our hands. We want our hands out in the open, we want to be gesturing with them, and I think one way that often doctors will hide their hands is if they've got a router sheet or a clipboard or some people might have the old school charts is they're sitting there and they got it in front of them and they're kind of hiding behind that. So notice that, these little cues that you might be sending to your patients, that you might not be thinking anything of and they might be deep down subconsciously to help you feel better in a nervous situation, but you need to stop them because they make a difference. So next time you do a treatment plan. Be conscious of your hands. What are they doing? Don't hide them and get those gesturants going. You'd be all like my Italian in-laws man. We're throwing the hands up everywhere. What's going on? You know that's my wife's family, that is how they actually talk, first generation immigrants, and but they're cool, they're good to me, all right.
Speaker 1:Next thing, number two, we're talking about the shoulder to the earlobe rule. You know this is a confidence cue. What is the distance between my shoulder and my earlobe? There's a direct link between confidence and the distance between those two. Now I think of a nervous person. A nervous dentist wants to shrink in. They're raising their shoulders. They're kind of creating a small presence. They're getting smaller. They're bringing the shoulders closer to the earlobes. The confidence dentist is someone who keeps their shoulders relaxed and back they're naturally lowered, which that expresses that expertise, that control, that you know what you're doing and you know what's best for the patient. So it's a tiny little adjustment Keep those shoulders back, sit up straight and make sure that there's a long distance, as long as possible, from your earlobes to your shoulders. All right, number three I'm going to open up with a story.
Speaker 1:I have somebody I know that I like a lot, really nice dude, very cool. I've been golfing with them, I've had really great conversations with them, but there's just always been something about him that irks me, and I don't know what it is. I, for some reason, I feel uncomfortable, like I get nervous around this person, and I couldn't figure out what it was. When I read this in this book I said my God, this is what it is Eye contact. This person makes way too much eye contact. Now, you may have never thought of this before.
Speaker 1:When you're listening to a speaker, you are to be making eye contact as the listener, but when you are talking, you are not to make 100% eye contact. You're supposed to look away, formulate your ideas and look every now and then, like looking about half of the like, maybe 60% of the time, you're making eye contact because you're looking away to think Now this person, when they talk, they never break eye contact. Now that I said this, you're going to catch it in people, because when somebody's speaking to you and they don't break eye contact, it feels a lot of pressure and you might be like me, thinking in the back of your mind look at their eyes, look at their eyes, make eye contact. Pretend you're listening, look at both eyes at the same time. Or look at the left eye, look at the right eye. Can they tell that I'm looking at one eye versus the other? What am I even listening to? Do you do this? So here's the hack Try to practice making eye contact at the end of your sentences, like, okay, we're looking away.
Speaker 1:A crown is like a helmet eye contact, you know it protects your tooth from breaking eye contact. So it's like you're thinking you're looking away and you're not looking down. When you're thinking You're looking over, You're looking to the side, you're looking over the person's shoulder, you're looking. You know you don't look down Down, looks non-confident. So practice making eye contact. Now, these are things that are going to be hard to think about if you're trying to act natural when you're talking to the patients, but they are things that you can practice when you're not talking to patients so that you can be better when you are talking to patients, because it's hard enough to listen and be engaged and act naturally. And now I'm going to give you all these things to think about.
Speaker 1:All right, number four this is called the lower lid flex, and who doesn't love a good flex? So what this is. I want you to picture like you're kind of squinting but you're not looking into the sun. You're just kind of squinting a little bit. You're closing your eyes a little bit. Now imagine the expression. What would happen to your eyes if I was telling you something right now and you were just nodding your head and you go oh, yeah, he's right, yeah, he's totally right. Think about what's happening to your eyes, not really like enthusiastic. Yeah, all right, that is the lower lid flex. It's just a slight lower lid comes up a little bit and it's like you're really engaged, you're confident and you're really engaged on what that person is saying. So try doing that with a little bit of nodding when they're telling you stuff, like you're really thinking about it. You're sorting out all this information. Yeah, yeah, okay, mr Patient, wow, yeah, tell me about, like tell me about, the dentist that took your tooth out and put his knee into your chest. Yeah, okay, this is wow, this is so interesting. So another thing you can do is when you're listening is kind of tip your head to the side that was another interesting cue I read in the book is like almost like you're putting your ear one ear up so you can focus, you're like yeah, combine that with a lower lid flex.
Speaker 1:Number five the first liker advantage they talked about in this book, this study that looked at popular high school kids and this is what they found why were these kids so popular and why are they so charismatic? And what they found was that a lot of these really popular charismatic kids, they liked everybody. They like more people, they are more accepting and they're more. They just have more friends because they like more people. So be the first to like your fellow patient, be the first to smile big, the first to greet enthusiastically, the first to engage and stick your hand out and say how you doing. Mr Jones, hi, I'm Dr Edgerton, so nice to meet you. Welcome to the practice. Now. I promised you we would talk about the difference between males and females.
Speaker 1:Now in this book, vanessa Van Edwards, she talks about what is charisma and in her opinion, charisma is warmth and competence. How can you convey warmth and competence? The thing that she mentions between the sexes is that often males are better at communicating competence but not so good at communicating warmth. In females it comes very natural to communicate the warmth but not so much the competence. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm saying you can. There's a spectrum here, guys. Okay, if you find yourself lacking on communicating warmth, you might want to use some more warmth cues. If you find yourself lacking on the competence side, you might find yourself trying to use more competence cues. You're trying to make up for something that naturally doesn't come to you.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the male dentists who need to convey more warmth. They can smile more. Men don't smile as much as women, right? So smile more, get that enthusiasm. You're going to use those open hand gestures because you know that communicates that warmth there. And you really want to vary your vocal tone. You know men sometimes speak very monotone and especially they don't have a lot of enthusiasm in their voice. You want to bring that enthusiasm out. So you want to use that vocal instrument up and down and you want to use pitches and you want to use it for hesitation. Then you'd bring it down, like when you make that big point. You know you want to use your vocal tone. And another thing is leaning in slightly when the patient is talking. This shows that you genuinely care. It shows that you're being attentive. So, guys, try that out.
Speaker 1:All right For the ladies we naturally will communicate warmth, but we need might need a little help on the competence. Okay, not saying you're incompetent, just saying like communicating it through body language. So what we can do is we can lower the pitch of our voice slightly. I'm not talking about like you're going to be like the tall dude from boys to men, baby I'm so sorry baby and they're not like that guy. Okay, you don't have to get that low, but using a lower voice can have you communicating with a little bit more competence. People with higher pitch voices they do these studies and they show something in our brain says this person doesn't know as much as someone else who has a lower voice. Okay, so you just know that a trap that women can get into is nodding too much. So you want to avoid that excessive nodding when the patient's telling you things or when you're explaining treatment plans, because that can undermine your authority when you're speaking. So avoid that nodding.
Speaker 1:The eye contact thing Women typically will look down more when speaking, when explaining things and, like I said, looking down immediately gives less perceived authority. So make sure that you've got that eye contact down, make sure it's not too much. But when you look away, you're looking off to the side or over. You're not looking down. And the last one take up more space. You know sitting upright. You know sitting up right. You know expanding your posture, like you're like a big peacock, like you're spreading out your feathers. You're taking up more space. You want to be big. You know how, like when you the bear attack, you're supposed to make yourself big. Get as big as you can. Okay, I'm not saying like you got to sit up and like, just take up a little bit more space, as much as you can. These things matter.
Speaker 1:And if you really want to read more, man, this was such a good book. I thought it was such an interesting read. It really blew me away. Accused by Vanessa Van Edwards.
Speaker 1:I think these are the sort of things that if you record your case presentations, you're going to see these things.
Speaker 1:And now that I gave you some things to kind of think about, maybe you'll catch yourself doing these. And if you want more case presentation, training man, in the Hero Collective you get all the training videos and there's so much information on case presentation, not only for you as the doctor or the hygienist or the clinical team, but also a lot for your front desk team. So check that out on the website dentalpracticeheroescom. Now, when you go into your practice today, I want you to pay attention to just one of those cues I shared with you. Watch how your patient interactions change and, if you want more practice, try incorporating one cue per day into your interactions and see if you feel like your patients become more engaged. Thank you so much for listening today. I so appreciate you taking me with you to do whatever you're doing, whether that be driving to the office, working out or just doing things around the house. I hope you have a great week and we will talk to you next time.
