The Art of Attracting the Right Clients for Your Business with Dr. Deepak Dugar

0:00Being a yes man in life, it seems like it's the right thing to do when you're young entrepreneur. You just say yes to everything, every meeting, every moment, every dinner, everything. You just go to anything and you end up wasting so much time and energy. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up, guys? Welcome to Write About Now, your number one marketing and business show on Apple Podcasts.

0:39We thank you for that. If you're listening the first time, I'm Ryan Alford, your host. I'm blessed to be here, get to do what I love and love what I do. It's a benefit and I don't take it for granted. We want to thank you for tuning in. And, you know, I get to talk to people I like. I get to talk to people I respect. And sometimes I just get to talk to the best in the world at what they do. It's just the benefit of sitting in this chair. And I get to today, we're going to talk business. We're going to talk the business of science and medicine and surgery. We're going to bring it through the lens you may not expect.

1:18But I can just tell you, I respect the hell out of people that build their business the right way and understand human nature, behavior, and the principles of marketing better. Maybe Doc knows it, but let me just tell you, he does. He is a brilliant doctor. He is the world's best rhinoplasty doctor. He's in Beverly Hills. It is. Dr. Deepak Dugar. What's up, Doc? I always wanted to say, what's up, Doc? Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Thank you, Ryan. Yes. Damn, Doc. I'm like, I was looking through beautiful media. I mean, all, you know, you can't, I always say, you know, they say you can't hide money, but you can't hide good marketing and good PR and good, like, understanding.

2:12I got it. As a marketer, it was like a marketer's dream, like watching it. And like you said, a lot of it wasn't even paid, you know, like PR media, like it was brilliant. Like how you've built it, every touch point, luxury, every I don't know, everything just felt right. That's the that's the best compliment I can give you as a professional marketer. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think one of the keys was starting a practice, especially in such an elite place like Beverly Hills, which is one of the most competitive markets for what I do. So no matter what business you run, no matter what business you're starting up or continuing to dominate in, you know, the key is figuring out your angles and niches.

2:56I think for me in Beverly Hills, coming with a niche was really important because there's so many famous, articulate, well-marketed plastic surgeons. And so how do you even create a little wave, like a small one, not even a big one? And I think the way I figured that out was by going really hard into one singular procedure. You know, Tesla, when they started, people forget that Tesla started out as a roadster company. That was it. They sold one car. They were Tesla, Roadster. That was it. That was the entire company. That was their strategy. And then they perfected the concept of it. They never even released it.

3:28They perfected the concept of it to get the waves in the car world. And that's how Tesla became where it is today. But, you know, same thing. We went in really heavy with one singular procedure. I do what's called a scarless nose rhinoplasty. So traditional rhinoplasty, you make a cut at the base of the nose, lift up the hood of the nose, take it apart. You reconstruct it from scratch. It's like tearing a house down and rebuilding a brand new glass box. Like most modern homes today, they all look the same. Versus if you have like a beautiful French chateau, you don't tear it down. You just restore, refine, improve.

3:58And so coming at it from a more natural lens, scarless technique, all internal incisions, it got a lot of attention really fast, really early on. And I think that's probably one of the biggest success pillars I had. You know, one of many, but that was one of the biggest ones, was finding a little niche. You know, it's like those restaurants that have really small menus and they just get really good at that one type of burger. Riches are in the niches, baby. That's what they say. But, you know, it helps when you're also damn good at it. You know, you got to have the goods, you know, because, you know, There's a saying in marketing, putting lipstick on the pig only lasts so long.

4:37But when you're the world's best at what you do and you're in a niche, it's magic. Judging by the clients you work with, I'm going to ask you to name drop a little bit. Look, it's good for the click. You can call it clickbait, Doc, but I'm just telling you, everybody likes the stars. So who can you name that you've worked on? yeah well i'll say 99 we cannot name because we have a really really famous i thought it was on the payroll or something yeah yeah no no but the one you know the ones that have gone public like recently we were just featured on this bravo tv show called denise richards and her wild things charlie sheen and denise richards daughter sammy sheen she did her nose job with us and we got to document the entire thing and she put it on the shows on two of the episodes.

5:24We worked with a lot of other celebrities like Daniela Monet, Mia Khalifa. I spend a lot of time working with some of my friends on content that are really famous in the influencer space, not actually patients, but just close friends of mine like Adam W. and Hannah Stocking and King Batch and some of the most famous influencers in the world that you'll see me in a lot of their videos. So we have a lot of organic relationships, a lot of really high-end celebrity patients, and then, you know, just influencer friends that I get to have the privilege of being around and working with. And, you know, one thing that, you know, one of my mentors always told me is that, you know, the world is full of mediocrity, you know, and it's like, it's really easy to even get rewarded.

6:06You can get rewarded in this life for being mediocre. Most mediocre people, even in business, it's a good life, you know, because even mediocrity takes a certain amount of work. It's not like mediocrity is easy. It's still a good amount of work to be mediocre, but it's a lot of work to be great and it's an insane amount of commitment and excellence to be the best in the world at what you do and really want to be one of the best in the universe and i think you know business is tough because you really have to break down niches because you know what is the best businessman in the world is it the richest right then it's okay elon musk that's it no one else can talk everyone shut up and that that can't be how life works so it's got to be within your branding of business and how you do business that you become the best in your cycle so for me when i look at competitive energy i don't want to be like the best plastic surgeon in the world.

6:46I want to be the best scarless ranoplastia surgeon to have ever lived. And that's kind of the way that I approach it within that niche. And so, yeah, that's kind of how I think about what I do and how I put that mindset to it. So celebrities and all that stuff is just like, you know, it's a privilege and it's an honor because they truly have the ability to go to anyone in the world. So when they come to us, you know, whether it's a billionaire, whether it's a Saudi shake, whether it's, you know, one of the most famous celebrity children in the world who comes to us, you know, those moments mean a lot because it shows that the skill and craft has earned beyond just the marketing reputation.

7:19Talking to Dr. Deepak Dugur. He is the world's best rhinoplasty surgeon. Talk to me, Doc. I like to get underneath the hood a little bit with how people tick. I'm trying to imagine, Doc, growing up, you're clearly competitive. You're clearly driven to excellence. I always like to unpack for our audience those characteristics or things you identified that you worked on? I mean, I don't know that you can build grit and drive, but there's probably things that, you know, make Doc who he is. Like talk to our audience a little bit about what that journey was for you. And what are those characteristics you feel like that are uniquely yours?

8:08Well, I think, you know, I'm one of three siblings, my older sister, older brother, They're both definitely smarter than me, both definitely more, you know, charismatic. I think I'm I one thing I had was I had a little bit more dream power. Like, I think I just dream a lot. And I think I put that energy to like, you know, almost a competitive edge with my own mentality of how to be the best. I also take everything personally in a good way and bad way. You know, taking things personally in business is stressful, as you know, because then you take every pain point home with you at night and you're sitting there at the dinner table thinking about every pain point but it's also good too because it's like you know when you watch michael jordan in the last dance you know he's like everything they said he's like i took that personally i took that personally and you almost create this competitive drive so when i look at my you know competitors in town and i think one thing that everyone should learn and this is what i did early on is you have to be so wise about picking your competition do not compete with losers.

9:08Do not compete with idiots. Do not compete with mediocrity. I picked, I literally looked around. I was like, who's the best in the entire planet at this craft? I picked the three, four people and I said, that's my competition. And people think that's crazy. But what you do is you rise to their level to be able to compete with them. They always say, you know, don't let you, don't meet your idols, right? Because, you know, your idols become your enemies. That's only if you're really good at what you do, you know? And so I think the key was picking the right strategic partners. And these aren't partners.

9:38These are enemies. And these are not, you know, not really facetiously, but they are my competitors that I take personally. So when I see them do something, I say, I want to do it more. When I see them do something good, I say, I got to do it twice as good. And I think picking the right competitive partners to dance and spar with, and this is how, if you look at Federer, Djokovic, and you look at Nadal, you know, that energy, they hated each other at one point. You know, you see this camaraderie today, they're all hugging and kissing that didn't exist during the 15 years they were playing competitively against each other they used each other's ammunition to get better and better and better so that's my biggest you know success secret i think is i picked the best and most competitive people in the world to be my uh competition i didn't go for the people at my level i want the people at the top when did it click brilliantly said doc i mean it's so true like that competitive it we can all say it's not But I do say I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years and I used to be really good at hiring people.

10:37Then I seem to get bad at it. And then now I'm back to good. I realize like the characteristics. If you don't like to win, I don't want you on the team. Right. But like and what you just described a little bit, I mean, you're talking, but you you don't have to like create like boogeyman around the corner that don't exist. But if you don't like want to compete, like that's just like one of our the great human conditions, the opportunity and not because you need to like. Well, I would I would argue that you need to obsess about it to be the number one. However, you know, it needs to be done healthily healthy.

11:12I think you would agree with that, even if sometimes it ventures across the line. But competitive people typically get what they want. You know, like if they're channeling it the right way, sometimes it can totally go the other direction. But that's something I really respect and feel from you, Doc. Yeah, I feel like I completely agree with you and I completely sympathize and empathize exactly what you said, because it's the same for me as bad hiring, good hiring, bad hiring. I think the team around you makes such a difference. And I think the problem is that, again, mediocrity doesn't look mediocre.

11:49sometimes mediocrity can put itself in a nice facade say the right things right but what is success what's the difference between an nba player who's the worst in the nba or the nba player is the best in the nba they both practice their butts off they both work out hardcore they ball they all have six packs they all eat healthy they all train they all work non-stop they all so what's the difference it's it's not the facade of the nba player and seeing how tall they are It's that at 4 a.m., the mediocre player is sleeping. And at 4 a.m., Kobe Bryant is already on his way to the gym. Right. So it's the stuff you don't see.

12:23And that's the problem, I think, with hiring is that mediocre can look superior, really easily trick us. And then you really got to get to one thing I've been doing lately with hiring is I do what is called skills assessments. First interview is always for like the vibe. I want kindness. I want empathy. I want politeness because I do think it's important in a workspace for everyone to feel comfortable. I don't want people being diminutive to each other. And then the second thing I do is a skills assessment where actually we put them to work. We put them to work. We let them see for a few minutes, give them some tasks, give them some skill sets live in the moment.

12:55And we see how quick or smart they are. Because what I found toxicity comes from is having really smart people around people who aren't as good at their job. And it's not their fault. But the problem is that the doers, the killers, they get dragged down sometimes energy-wise. There's energy vampires that happen in the workplace. And I think you've got to really separate those people and try to give the winners the best team around them. Otherwise, their performance starts to draw away to that right there. Like that's going to be a highlight clip, by the way, people who are listening, because like what Doc just described, he is a master class in hiring the right people and blending together because not just the hire, it's the blend of the team, the makeup of the team.

13:33because it's not that you're, it's hard to have all type A's are like all, but you can't, you will get brought down if everyone's not at least on a similar plane. Like it's just, it doesn't work because they will, your B players will pull, you're not even B, let's call them D players. We'll pull your A players down. They don't have to be A's. You need A's and B's like your D's are going to pull your A's down. Your C's are going to be like, so it's important. it. And look, it's everybody's got a different skill. And so it's the blend of talents, but everybody needs to be on the playing level playing field of how at least great in what they are and what they do within the skill sets that are needed, you know, for your office run or any business to run.

14:22Right. That's right. That's absolutely right. And then I think the other big thing that I've learned too over the years, I'm sure you know this for sure, Ryan, is you got to say no. You can't say yes to everything. Being a yes man in life, it seems like it's the right thing to do when you're a young entrepreneur. You just say yes to everything, every meeting, every moment, every dinner, everything. You just go to anything and you end up wasting so much time and energy. You got to be really selective in who you work with, what you do. Saying no to the wrong clients will save you so much time and money.

14:51And saying yes to the wrong clients will literally suck the life and energy out of you. So it's really being selective, starting to get that confidence. And I think young entrepreneurs, they get nervous of saying no because they're like, well, any revenue is good revenue. And it turns out it's not true. There is such a thing as good revenue and bad revenue. Yo, I've learned that lesson. I still learn it every now and then from time to time. You know, you and I can get lured in. Oh, I can. Because here's what happens. You get the confidence that you can change them. You know, like I know I know what problem I might be getting, but I think I can work my way through it.

15:28You know, like, no, it doesn't work. I would call it work. Yeah, I can't be greedy with your energy is really like that's what it is. It's not it's not figure like literally being greedy just with your energy and where you apply it, because we only have some it's a finite resource. Right. Right. Right. No, it's so true. So true. Doctor, please. I really want to get down on a couple of topics here that really relate to how you've built your practice that I think could be learning lessons for our audience. It's around a few different themes. I'm an exclusivity, luxury, and almost like just the whole ethos of a company that are built with both of those two attributes kind of built.

16:21It's an interesting, weird place, especially, you know, it's one thing you can say, oh, Prada. And like these brands are something that are, you know, 30, 40, 50 years old, whatever they are that have built that over time. But for like new businesses, the idea of exclusivity is like just like what you just said. Oh, any revenue is good revenue. Like, oh, I got to get it. But maybe not when building your brand. Talk to me about your perspective on on luxury experience. Well, I think one of the biggest things with luxury experience is you've got to have a funnel that weeds out the waste of time leads.

16:56And I think a lot of us think about funnels is like, oh, let me not lose a single lead. Right. When you're starting out, you create these funnels and you have these, you know, and you want every single lead. You don't want to lose a single one. You're getting mad at your employees that they missed the email on that one and they didn't get the right phone number on that one, right? Versus worrying about the high level, you know, youthful leads. You want quality leads. You don't want to just want every lead. And I think that's what a lot of young entrepreneurs get wrong too, is they want to create these massive email lists, these massive things.

17:23And again, at some point there's a scale to those things when you sell your list or do things like that. But in a medical space, especially for luxury concierge branding, where I'm trying to create myself as the Hermes of what we do in our business, you know, not even Chanel or Louis Vuitton, like straight up to the Hermes Birkin bag of what we do. This is the Rolls Royce, this is the Birkin, that's the branding we took from day one. So the concept is we want quality leads. And so anyone, you know, we have a filter. So in order to book an appointment with me, first of all, just to talk, it's$500 to spend 10 minutes with me basically to get to do the consultation.

17:55And that$500, I'm not trying to make a business off of$500. That's not how this works. It's a quality lead generator where if you're not willing to spend that, then you're probably not going to be comfortable spending$20 ,000 to$40 ,000 on a surgery. So it's okay to let those go because a lot of patients will call them like, oh, we'll either do a free consult or what happens if I don't do surgery? Can I get the money back? And listen, I understand. Listen, if you don't go to Hermes, you don't go to Rolls-Royce, if you don't have the budget for it, and that's totally fine. There are all lots of options.

18:26There's lots of surgeons out there. So there's nothing disrespectful about it. We tell the patients with grace, they go, oh my God, God bless. There's so many good options out there for you. Do not worry. However, to book a consultation with Dr. Dugard is$500 and that is non-refundable. And we make it very clear. We're just very, matter of fact, the other thing I've learned is you gotta have employees who are comfortable talking about money. Money is such an awkward thing for the average person because they're not trained in sales. But when you're in sales, you have to be very comfortable talking about money.

18:52Money's just a commodity. it's just something you use to get what you want out of life so it's not some weird scary thing you know it's like you know no one wants to talk about sex with their kids it's not one of those it's just money it's just pieces of paper that you collected and now you spend it on something you want so it should be a good thing it should be an exciting moment to spend your money on something like me because i'm an exciting moment for most people in their lives and so that's number one and two is funneling them through quality lead generation and then i think having the concierge ability to talk to them in a really respectful way and make sure they feel heard make sure they feel listened to and have people not overworked with the minutiae of your business every business how much minutiae is there like look at your current podcast there's a giant tv behind you someone has to make sure it works there's an audio guy making sure the audio works there's a video guy making sure the video works there's seven eight people doing minutiae right now for ryan to be able to do what he does which is deliver message to the person listening right now.

19:46And so I think the key is we have to look at our employees that way too, is I don't want the video guy worrying about the audio guy's work. And I don't want the audio guy worrying about the video guy's work. Everyone's got to take care of their thing so that the luxury person who is selling can just talk, just focus on that client eye to eye, give them confidence and influence in a way that makes them feel at home. And then we took a lot of inspiration from hotels and from like some more luxury brands that we identify with and we have you know hotel infused scents in our lobby and we have you know we have minimalistic um you know restoration hardware minimalized decor everywhere so it kind of has this inviting feel and you have like this cleanliness to it so like you get that medical sense with like this calming sense as well it kind of fuses together and we kind of create this like holistic energy of concierge medicine where it's one level above of whatever other office they've went to.

20:41And my whole thought is that if we put that level of attention into this, imagine how much attention I'm putting into the surgery. Yeah, yes. Doc, I can't hit this enough for our audience. You know what, Dr. just really eloquently outlined a lot of key principles there. But he's gatekeeping and he's creating a filter for getting the right audience that's his audience by the things that he's doing, by the brand he's created, by the access to him. This isn't about being, you know, taking advantage or like overdoing something. He's identified that he is, and he's already worked to be the best in his practice.

21:24He's establishing a look, a feel, and an experience that reinforces what he is doing as the best in the world. And he's creating these lovers that both signal to people what he is and what he isn't and what their practice is and what they can expect, but also what you're going to pay. Because look, we all want a Ferrari, you know, or most of us, but you know what? But we're realistic if we can't write that check, you know? And so you stop before you even go into the dealership. And so it saves time from his people, his time, because you're establishing. And that principle of what he's doing is certainly applied to luxury in this sense, but it really can apply to anything because a lot of people want to be all things, all people.

22:14And it's the road to nothing in nowhere. Because you can't, it is. And it's like, but you're doing it, doctor. And it's, it's not to be pretentious or to be whatever. It's just you've earned the right because you're the best in the world at what you do and you're providing an experience that matches what you're talking about. It's in. I think there's a lot to learn there. It's hard to almost unpack that enough for people because I think we're entrepreneurs are so instinctively they try to be altruistic, you know, a little bit. And, you know, but it's a business at the end of the day. This isn't a charity.

22:52It is. It is. And I think transparency, transparency is so important. I think for young entrepreneurs, the mistake is you want to be the big dog day one and you have to work your way up. You've got to be the big dog in your world, right? So you can't just be the top dog. You can always be a big dog, but you've got to do it in your way. Like I didn't start charging this much money when I started out because I do believe there's such a thing as called market demand. So even though I was looking at the biggest guys in the world as my competitors, I wasn't pricing like they were 10 years ago. I was pricing in my world, probably 60, 70 percent less than they're charging.

23:26But I still use them as my competitive drive to want to be better than them one day. I didn't say it has to be today. So I didn't beat myself out mentally and go home sad every day that I'm not as good as the Michael Jordan at the time. Right. I knew, listen, I'm Kobe. It's going to let me work my magic over the years. I'll get my skill set up and I'm going to win my championships in a few years. But today, let me focus on being the best I can. And I stayed my price point and I stayed my filters based on where I was. So, you know, there was a time where I was charging five to seven thousand dollars for round class.

23:55Then it goes up to$10 to$12. Then it went up to$15 to$18. Then it went up to$20 to$25. Then$20 to$30. These price increases, I didn't just arbitrarily make them. What happens is the market dictates your pricing based on how good you're getting, the results you're getting, what the world says you're worth compared to the metrics of everyone else that's offering the same service. Right. So a Birkin bag doesn't just get to decide it's thirty thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars versus a Chanel, which is fifteen thousand. It's the market demand. The market has said Chanel's worth ten to fifteen and Birkin's worth twenty to forty.

24:28And so you have to listen as a young entrepreneur to what your market demand is for you. You can't just make up these fake things either. You've got to get value and you've got to make happy clients and focus on the clients, make them really happy, especially the first hundred, five hundred thousand. and really lean in to give them the best experience possible. And then you'll find out if your service is even good or not. A lot of entrepreneurs just want to make money and they're not focusing on the value add. You've got to be good at your craft first, go to your business, go to your service. And then you can figure out about how to increase your pricing.

25:02But, you know, I meet so many young entrepreneurs who want to just, you know, oh, well, I'm just going to charge this much and I'll take on these clients. And they have this whole business plan as if they've done it for 20 years, but it's their first day. And I think knowing where you are, what stage you're in, you've got to listen to what stage you're in as well. You've got to be it to make them see it. And look, you aren't necessarily number one day one, but you obviously had a luxury vision in mind and a world-class goal in mind. Two of my favorite, you know, be it to make them see it and inspect what you expect.

25:37Yeah. I like that. One of my favorite – and like you – literally when you were talking, I'm like this guy is a living, breathing example of these two things. And if you want people to think of you as a luxury and if you're willing to build that brand or whatever it is, we're using – this is Dr.'s brand and how he's built his practice. It could be whatever attribute you want it to be. But I can tell you what, you have to live it and breathe it if you want people to see that and write that check. Like you got better. Obviously, the technology got better. You're learning and education and doing it hundreds and thousands of times, how many surgeries you've done.