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CHAPTER TWELVE

Irena Vaksman, DDS: A Small Practice Cuts Its Teeth on Social Media

There are a lot of people who list going to the dentist as one of the most frightening, unpleasant experiences they can imagine, but I’m betting that few of them are patients of Dr. Irena Vaksman, a dentist with close to a decade of experience who recently opened a private practice in San Francisco. I’ve never met Dr. Vaksman, and as far as I’m aware no one I know has ever had her poke at his or her molars. But I know that Dr. Vaksman’s patients love her, and her staff, and her spa-like office, and the amazing “movie goggles” they can wear to distract them during procedures, because they tell me so—on Yelp and on Facebook.

Some people might still think it’s a little jarring to see medical practitioners marketing themselves on social networking sites, but Dr. Vaksman is simply trailblazing where other doctors are eventually going to follow. When over half the adult population of online users are at least occasionally turning to online reviews and commentary to inform their health care decisions, it makes sense that the professionals providing health care should be there, ready to talk to them as well. According to a 2009 Pew Research Center report, 61 percent of adults look online for health information. Of those, 59 percent have done at least one of the following activities:

Read someone else’s commentary or experience about health or medical issues on an online news group, website, or blog Consulted rankings or reviews online of doctors or other providers Consulted rankings or reviews online of hospitals or other medical facilities Signed up to receive updates about health or medical issues Listened to a podcast about health or medical issues

Besides her information on Facebook, you can also find Dr. Vaksman on Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. She uses all of these channels to share information, educate the public, and make herself available to her clientele whenever they have a question, comment, or concern.

The Ideal Intent

According to Robert Vaksman, Dr. Vaksman’s husband, a lawyer who is also the business’s social media manager, his wife opened her practice with one clear goal: to provide the ideal patient experience. That experience would necessarily involve providing the most knowledgeable, current, and technologically up-to-date standards of dental care. It was also contingent on her ability to establish strong one-on-one relationships, possible only by taking enough time during every visit to build rapport, by getting to know her patients well, and by proving that she cared not just about their teeth but about their overall well-being. Yet in order to provide that outstanding care, she first had to get new patients in the door.

Using Social Media to Differentiate

As it so happened, social media, which provides the perfect platform for establishing close business-to-consumer relationships, was also the platform that would help Dr. Vaksman differentiate herself from the thousands of other already well-established dentists in the dense San Francisco urban area (as well as in the high-rise medical building where her practice is located). Besides establishing a presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, she became the first dentist in the city to offer a Groupon, and the experiment brought new patients to the five-month-old practice in droves. Unfortunately, the response was a little too good; Robert compares trying to handle the overwhelming flow of patients to drinking out of a hose. The practice was inundated with calls for appointments, and some patients who didn’t get the exceptional customer service that Dr. Vaksman intended to provide posted their frustration online. As Robert explained, “The significant volume immediately exposed our weakness on the front desk, which is a very critical point in our relationship with our patients, as we only have one shot at our first impression.” Yet what some businesses might have perceived as a negative social media experience, Dr. Vaksman and Robert saw as a fortuitous one; it gave them a way to quickly pinpoint where they needed to make adjustments to their staff and their appointment procedures. Small businesses often have an easier time reacting and adapting than big ones, but more and more it is becoming crucial for big businesses and brands to improve their response times and adapt quickly, too.

Handling Criticism, and Converting It

How a business or brand handles criticism in a public forum is more important than how it handles praise.

Dr. Vaksman seems to understand something that I brought up in the early chapters of this book—the complaining customer who uses social media is a better customer to have than a silent one. You can talk to a customer who bothers to complain. If you think it’s warranted, you can apologize. If you wish, you can explain yourself or ask for a second chance. At the very least, you can make it public record that you do not take anyone’s dissatisfaction lightly. The platform that gives consumers such tremendous power in the Thank You Economy also gives brands the chance to save customer relationships. You can see the end results of Dr. Vaksman’s engagement with dissatisfied patients on Yelp. Twice, people who complained about their experience posted updates announcing that Dr. Vaksman’s staff had worked to resolve their issues. The fate of Dr. Vaksman’s business rests on her ability to do a stellar job and to earn people’s trust. Based on the primarily glowing online reviews, and the evidence that she is successfully converting disappointed customers into happy ones, it looks as though she is doing both.

Often, there are two kinds of consumer reviewers—the ones consumers write when they have a terrific experience and the ones they write when they have a terrible one. Any doctor who isn’t supremely confident that he or she is offering the best care available has no business on Facebook or Yelp, or even Citysearch or Angie’s List. Any bad service or mediocrity is asking to be exposed on those sites. And though some patrons might agree with reviewers that a restaurant serves lousy food, but return anyway because it’s cheap and the one most conveniently located for office happy hours, very, very few patients are going to put themselves in a doctor’s hands if the testimonials they read aren’t overwhelmingly positive, as they are for Dr. Vaksman. Social media is a perfect environment for medical practitioners smart enough, and good enough, to leverage what its platforms have to offer.

The Power of First to Market

How do I know about Dr. Vaksman, anyway? We live on opposite sides of the country, and I’ve never needed a dentist (knock on wood) during any of my trips to the West Coast. The national awareness her young business has attracted is a result of two important Thank You Economy truths that I frequently talk about: 1) the earned media value of being first to market is priceless, and 2) the quality of your fans and followers is vastly more important than the quantity.

It Takes Just One Customer

If Irena Vaksman had not established herself on all of those social media sites, Loïc Le Meur probably would never have mentioned her unless someone he knew asked him to recommend a dentist. But Loïc Le Meur is very interested in social media—he is an internationally known entrepreneur, the developer of the social software app Seesmic, and was ranked by BusinessWeek as one of 2008’s twenty-five most influential people on the Web. So when Le Meur found out that his new dentist had a social media presence, he thought that was worth writing about, and he posted some thoughts about it on his blog. Like most of Dr. Vaksman’s other patients, he was complimentary and pleased with the thorough care he received and with the office’s use of sophisticated, state-of-the-art technology. He did question, however, whether Dr. Vaksman was using her social networking sites properly, and whether she even needed them at all. After all, it’s not easy to keep up with multiple Web presences, and Le Meur wondered how much a dentist could find to talk about. Once again, when faced with criticism, the Vaksmans took the opportunity to open up a dialogue, and wrote in to explain their social media strategy and their plans for the future. The resulting conversation gave readers incredible insight into Dr. Vaksman as an entrepreneur and a medical professional. You can see the whole exchange at Loïc Le Meur’s website.

From there, TechCrunch picked up the story, and decided to feature Dr. Vaksman in an article about how small businesses are using social media. In addition, Robert Vaksman was invited to participate in the TechCrunch Social Currency CrunchUp later that month. All of that exposure happened because the Vaksmans weren’t afraid to try something new; they didn’t draw any lines in the sand.

It should be noted that being an early social media adopter isn’t the only reason Dr. Vaksman is getting so much attention. No one would have paid her any mind if the majority of the comments left on her sites weren’t incredibly positive. But they are, praising everything from the courtesy of her staff to the thoroughness of her cleanings and exams to her caring manner. Such good reviews probably explain why Facebook users make up approximately 19 percent of Dr. Vaksman’s website traffic. The combination of an unbelievable customer experience plus the power of word of mouth has led to what appears to be a very solid beginning for this young business.

Crawling Before You Run Is Okay

Looking over Dr. Vaksman’s sites, I’m in agreement with Loïc Le Meur—she could do more: offer more engaging, more creative content and add to the conversations about toothbrushes, toothpaste, cavities, root canals, braces, bad breath, oral cancer, tooth whiteners, and other dental topics that must be being discussed somewhere in the social media space. In his response to Le Meur’s post, Robert Vaksman says, “We fully intend to be more vocal on Facebook—and our other venues. Perhaps we should have done so sooner, but we wanted to first focus on building a great-looking, branded and conversion-friendly online presence.” I think walking before you run is a great strategy, but I look forward to seeing what happens for the business when the Vaksmans intensify the pace of their social media campaigns.

What Dr. Vaksman Is Doing Right

She launched with good intent. Dr. Vaksman started her business with the express goal of providing the most personal, thorough, and technologically advanced care possible.

Shock and awe. Patients rave about the movie goggles they can wear. They rave about the soothing, spa-like atmosphere of the office. They rave about the twenty-third-floor view out the window. They rave about the tooth-by-tooth consultation they get from the dentist. There seems to be a lot to rave about.

Setting the culture. When the Groupon deluge of new patients revealed that some of the front-desk staff didn’t quite get how high her standards of service were, she replaced them.

If You’re Small, Play Like You’re Big

Dr. Vaksman is showing the marketing world that what works for the big boys like Best Buy can scale down to the little guys, too. Maybe your significant other isn’t your business partner and can’t devote his or her time to managing your social media so you can focus on what you do best. No matter—hire someone who can. It’s not too soon for small businesses to start hiring social media managers (or community managers, as I like to call them). My dad thought I was nuts in 1999 when I insisted that we needed to hire a Web developer; nothing in his experience told him that it would be prudent for a local liquor store to prepare for online commerce. Luckily, I didn’t have to pull my last card—the “We-just-went-from-three-to-ten-in-a-year, how-can-you-not-let-me-take-this-chance?” plea—because I was blessed with a father who trusted me and gave me an enormous amount of freedom to do what I thought was right as long as I could explain my reasoning. I think a lot of small businesses are having conversations like that right now. If you’re not going to be your own community manager, yes, it will cost you to get one. But you’re going to have to do it eventually, so you might as well start figuring out how to budget for it now. If you have ten or more employees, you might be able to save some money if you can figure out whose time would be better spent on social media. Look for the new angles, and find new ways to approach your marketing strategies. Innovate or die.

Even if you’re a small medical practice (or small business of any kind) and not living in the midst of a technophile environment like San Francisco, you should establish your social media presence. The customers in your area may be a little slower to get online than they might in other parts of the country, but they are coming. If people in San Francisco are talking to their dentist online, soon people in Kentucky will, too. In fact, they probably are already.

You never know, you know? You never know what platform is going to explode. You never know which customer is going to mean the most to your business. The only way to prepare for all eventualities is to take some chances, and no matter what, treat every customer, online and in person, as though he or she is the most important customer in the world.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hank Heyming: A Brief Example of Well-Executed Culture and Intent

What do you call a lawyer who tweets?

Smart.

Heyming is an attorney who has used social media tools to build his practice within a global law firm, grow his personal brand, and communicate with his clients and the startup community. There might be many blogging, tweeting, skyping, Quora-contributing lawyers practicing on either coast, but in Richmond, Virginia, Heyming stands out as an example of how implementing and acting upon proper culture and intent can reap great rewards in the Thank You Economy.

Taking Advantage of the Culture

Culture has a lot to do with Heyming’s success. He is fortunate to work for a company that appears to understand that we are living and working in a world where a culture of trust and transparency propels business forward. In Heyming’s words, Troutman Sanders, where he works, is “enlightened,” which is not a term most of us are used to hearing in connection with a global law firm. As we’ve discussed, lawyers are generally risk-averse and conservative when it comes to adopting any technological innovation that increases a company’s or brand’s exposure to outside commentary. While the new crop of law school graduates may find it totally normal to have their lives, thoughts, and opinions open for scrutiny on Facebook and Twitter, in general lawyers in their mid-forties and up are still leery of social networking sites, and it’s reasonable to believe that lawyers in their mid-forties and up are at the helm of a large number of big law firms. It’s probably even reasonable for many of them to be nervous about letting their employees speak freely online—even attorneys who know their stuff can make boneheaded mistakes in judgment like anyone else; they have been reprimanded, fined, and even fired for posting information about cases or complaining about clients and judges online. The culture at Troutman Sanders seems to be unusually trusting for a large law firm. According to Heyming, it actively encourages its attorneys to pursue creative and innovative ways to build their practice. I can’t say whether the firm has incorporated all of the cultural building blocks we discussed in chapter four, but if Heyming has as much freedom as he seems to have, the firm has got an impressive handle on trusting their employees, which is not a claim many companies in less conservative fields can say. I give them props for that.

Starting with Good Intent

Heyming has created and spread his own culture as well. His passion is guiding and advising startups from conception to money-making maturity. When he moved to Virginia from Southern California, he was frustrated by how small and diffuse the entrepreneurial community was. At first he complained about it; then he decided it was up to him to nurture a solid network of local entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that would help him foster a thriving client base. So during his free time, he started offering pro bono or sharply discounted advice to startups. An entrepreneur himself, he knows how vulnerable young companies are as they try to gain their footing. “Once a company is up and rolling and has a few rounds of financing under its belt, it can typically throw a stick and hit a lawyer/accountant/consultant. But, when they are just starting out and are cranking code in their parent’s basement, they barely have money for ramen, much less advisors. This is where I see an opportunity to both build the ecosystem and, ultimately, help myself…I am a firm believer in ‘doing it right.’” He adds, “Today, this ecosystem is dependent on social media and connectivity. The founders I work with live and breathe Twitter and Skype, so I live and breathe Twitter and Skype. I work when they work—even if that means doing a Skype video conference at 11:30 at night so we can talk to the team member in Hyderabad.”

Culture + Intent = Word of Mouth

Heyming insists that it does not take a lot of time to offer fledgling startups his services, and his investment is quickly paid off once the companies get financing and he can start charging them like regular clients. The reward he has earned from his work has far outweighed any risk he might encounter by spending resources on companies that may never fly. In fact, his larger paying clients, many of whom started out as small startups, generate 90 percent of his workload even though they make up only 30 percent of his client base. Some of his clients are venture capital funds, and they, too, recognize that it’s in their best interest for Heyming to help grow their entrepreneurial community. Everybody wins: Troutman Sanders, which gives their attorneys free rein to build their practices as they see fit; Heyming, who gets to make money doing what he loves to do in a way that he loves to do it; the startups who just need a break; and the venture capitalists looking for their next investment opportunity.

Of course, there are startups that never go anywhere, but Heyming has no reason to think of the time spent with clients who don’t make it big as a bad investment. Entrepreneurs are idea people, and they usually have more than one; they often come back to him with new ventures. At the very least, idea people love to talk to other idea people, which means the word of mouth from entrepreneurs whom he tries to help often brings him new business.

In addition to the word of mouth spread by his current and former clients, paying and nonpaying, Heyming builds business by tweeting and blogging. He says he is contacted almost weekly by founders and investors who are inspired or intrigued by something he wrote.

What One Lawyer Can Do, Anyone Can Do

Overall, the details of Heyming’s path to success in the Thank You Economy are not that different from those of any of the other business owners or companies we spoke to for this book. He succeeds because he doesn’t draw lines in the sand when faced with the unfamiliar or unproven; he gets that at its core. Work is always about giving—efficiency, entertainment, relief, free time, peace of mind, opportunity, comfort—to other people; he cares deeply about his clients and recognizes that their success is his success. I think when Heyming describes the practice of law by saying “at base our practice is built around relationships,” he could be talking about any field or industry, including yours.

The Big Picture

No one is perfect, and I see ways in which each of the companies I’ve profiled could adjust and improve their social media initiatives. Then again, I’m well aware that there are things I could do to improve my own efforts. Sustaining relationships and leveraging social networks is challenging work. Yet the thing that strikes me about the individuals who are leading the companies and brands profiled in this book is their excitement. They work like animals, and the economy is still wobbly, but when they talk about their work, you get the definite sense that all they see are doors of opportunity flying open every day. It’s as though social media has given all its users an equal platform on which they can build not just their careers, but their dreams.