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

Speaker 1 Look, we get it. You can hardly go anywhere or do anything these days without hearing about AI this or AI that.

Speaker 1 And if you're like most people, when it comes to AI, you're impressed, but you have a few concerns. But what if AI was used not as a tool to replace people, but as a way to help understand people

Speaker 1 better?

Speaker 1 AI from SurveyMonkey is designed to do just that, from crafting the perfect survey, which is harder than you might think, to analysis that digs deep, finds patterns, and surfaces trends quickly.

Speaker 1 SurveyMonkey's powerful suite of AI capabilities make it faster and easier than ever before to get insights from real people, helping you make confident decisions for your business.

Speaker 1 Try it today at surveymonkey.com slash Ryan.

Speaker 2 Being 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.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 we are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month

Speaker 3 taking the bs out of business for over six years in over 400 episodes you ready to start snapping next and cashing checks well it starts right about now right about now what's up guys welcome to right about now your number one marketing and business show on Apple Podcast.

Speaker 1 We thank you for that. If you're listening the first time, I'm Ryan Alford, your host.
I'm blessed to be here. I get to do what I love and love what I do.

Speaker 1 It's a benefit, and I don't take it for granted. We want to thank you for tuning in.
And, you know,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 We're going to bring it through the lens you may not expect, but I can just tell you,

Speaker 1 I respect the hell out of people that build their business the right way and understand

Speaker 1 human nature, behavior, and the principles of marketing better. Maybe they did.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 I always want to say, what's up, Doc? Yes. Thank you so much.
Thank you for asking me.

Speaker 2 I'm excited. Thank you, Ryan.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Damn, Doc, I'm like, I was looking through

Speaker 1 beautiful media. I mean, all,

Speaker 1 you know, you can't.

Speaker 1 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. I got it.

Speaker 1 Look, as a marketer, it was like a marketer's dream, like watching. And like you said, a lot of it wasn't even paid, you know, like PR and media, like it was brilliant.
Like how you've built it.

Speaker 1 Every touch point,

Speaker 1 luxury, every,

Speaker 1 I don't know,

Speaker 1 everything just felt right.

Speaker 1 That's the best compliment I can give you as a professional marketer.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I think one of the keys was starting a practice, and especially in such an elite place like Beverly Hills, which is one of the most competitive markets for what I do.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I think for me in Beverly Hills, coming with a niche was really important because there's so many famous articulate, well-marketed plastic surgeons.

Speaker 2 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 um 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 but they they they 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 the same thing we went in really heavy with one singular singular procedure.

Speaker 2 I do what's called a scarless nose, rhinoplasty.

Speaker 2 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, just like tearing a house down and rebuilding a brand new glass box.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like those restaurants have really small menus and they just get really good at that one type of burger.

Speaker 1 Riches are the niches, baby. That's what they say.

Speaker 1 But, you know, it helps when

Speaker 1 you're all so damn good at it. You know, like

Speaker 1 you got to have the goods, you know, because

Speaker 1 there's a saying in marketing, putting lipstick on the pig only lasts so long.

Speaker 1 But when you're the world's best at what you do and you're in a niche it's magic and you know judging by the clients you work with i'm going to ask you to name drop a little bit you know look it's good for the click you can call clickbait doc but i'm just telling you everybody likes the stars you know so uh who can you name that you that you've uh worked on yeah well i'll say 99 we cannot name because we have

Speaker 1 really really

Speaker 1 famous hotel but

Speaker 1 i thought you were talking about the payroll or something. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 No, no, but the ones, 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.

Speaker 2 Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' daughter, Sammy Sheen, she did her nose job with us, and we got to document the entire thing. She put it on the shows on two of the episodes.

Speaker 2 We've worked with a lot of other celebrities like Daniella Monet,

Speaker 2 Mia Khalifa.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 I spend a lot of time working with some of my friends on content that are really famous in the

Speaker 2 influencer space, not necessarily patients, but just close friends of mine like uh adam w and hannah stocking and king batch and you know some of the most famous influencers in the world that you'll see me in a lot of their videos so you know we have a lot of organic relationships a lot of really high-end celebrity patients and then you know just influencer friends that i 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 you 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.

Speaker 2 It's not like mediocrity is easy. It's totally a good amount of work to be mediocre, but it's a lot of work to be great.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I think, you know, with business, it's 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?

Speaker 2 Then it's, okay, Elon Musk, that's it. No one else can talk.
Everyone, shut up. And that can't be how life works.

Speaker 2 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 i want to be the best scarless rhinoplasty surgeon to have ever lived and that's kind of the way that i approach it within that niche and so um 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 it's a privilege and it's an honor because they truly have the ability to go to anyone in the world.

Speaker 2 So when they come to us, you know, whether it's a billionaire, whether it's a Saudi sheikh, whether it's, you know, 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.

Speaker 1 Talking to Dr. Deepak DeGuer.
He is the world's best rhinoplasty surgeon. Talk to me, Doc.
Like,

Speaker 1 I like to get underneath the hood a little bit

Speaker 1 with how people tick. I'm trying to imagine, Doc, growing up.
Like, you're clearly competitive. You're clearly driven to excellence.

Speaker 1 So, I always like to unpack for our audience those characteristics or things you identified that you worked on.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And what are those characteristics you feel like that are that are uniquely yours?

Speaker 2 Well, I think, you know, I'm one of three siblings, my older sister, older brother, both definitely smarter than me, both definitely more,

Speaker 2 you know, charismatic. I think

Speaker 2 one thing I had was I had a little bit more

Speaker 2 dream power.

Speaker 1 Like, I think I just dreamed a lot.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I took that personally. And you almost create this competitive drive.
So when I look at my, you know, competitors in town, and

Speaker 2 I think one thing that everyone should learn, and this is what I did early on, is

Speaker 2 you have to be so wise about picking your competition. Do not compete with losers.
Do not compete with idiots. Do not compete with mediocrity.

Speaker 2 I picked, I literally looked around and 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.
These are enemies.

Speaker 2 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 jokovich and you look at nadal you know that energy they they hated each other at one point you know that this 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 other.

Speaker 2 They used each other's ammunition to get better and better and better.

Speaker 2 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 competition. I didn't go for the people at my level.

Speaker 2 I went the people at the top.

Speaker 1 Wendy to click, brilliantly said, Doc. I mean, it's so true, like that competitive.

Speaker 1 We can all say it's not.

Speaker 1 But I do say, and I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years, and I used to be really good at hiring people, then I seemed to get bad at it. And then now I'm back to good.

Speaker 1 I realize, like, the characteristics. If you don't like to win, I don't want you on the team.
Right. Like,

Speaker 1 but and what you just described a little bit, when you're talking, but you, you don't have to like create like boogeymen around the corner that don't exist.

Speaker 1 But if you don't like want to compete, like, that's just like one of our great human conditions, the opportunity. And not because you need to like,

Speaker 1 uh, well, I would, I would argue that you need to obsess about it to be the number one. However,

Speaker 1 it needs to be done healthily, healthy. I 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

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I feel like, yeah, I completely agree with you.

Speaker 2 And I completely sympathize and empathize exactly with what you said because it's the same for me as bad hiring, good hiring, bad hiring, bad back to good hiring.

Speaker 2 I think the team around you makes such a difference. And I think the problem is that, again, mediocrity doesn't look mediocre sometimes.

Speaker 2 Mediocrity can put itself in a nice facade, say the right things, right? But what is success?

Speaker 2 What's the difference between an NBA player who's the worst in the NBA or the NBA player who's the best in the NBA? They both practice their butts off. They both work out hardcore.

Speaker 2 They all have six packs. They all eat healthy.
They all train. They all work non-stop.

Speaker 2 So what's the difference?

Speaker 2 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's already on his way to the gym, right?

Speaker 2 So it's the stuff you don't see. And 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...

Speaker 2 So 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.

Speaker 2 I I want politeness because I do think it's important in a workspace for everyone to feel comfortable. I don't want people being

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 We let them see for a few minutes, give them some tasks, give them some skill sets live in the moment, and we see how quick or smart they are.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's just, but the problem is that the doers, the killers, they get dragged down sometimes energy-wise. There's energy vampires that happen at the workplace.

Speaker 2 And I think you got to really separate those people and try to give the winners the best team around them. Otherwise, their performance starts to draw away too.
That right there.

Speaker 1 Like, that's going to be a highlight clip, by the way, people, if you're listening, because like what Doc just described,

Speaker 1 he is a masterclass 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.

Speaker 1 Because it's not that you're, it's hard to have all type A's or like like all, but

Speaker 1 you can't, you will get brought down if everyone's not at least on a similar plane.

Speaker 1 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, will pull your A players down. They don't all have to be A's.

Speaker 1 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 pull your, like, so it's important. And look, it's, everybody's got a different skill.

Speaker 1 And so it's the blend of talents.

Speaker 1 but everybody needs to be on the playing level playing foot 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 to run or any business to run right

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 You know, you can't say yes to everything. You know, being a yes man in life, it seems like it's the right thing to do when you're young entrepreneur.

Speaker 2 You just say yes to everything, every meeting, meeting, every moment, every dinner, everything. You just go to anything, and you end up wasting so much time and energy.

Speaker 2 You got to be really selective in who you work with, what you do.

Speaker 2 Saying no to the wrong clients will save you so much time and money, and saying yes to the wrong clients will literally suck the life and energy out of you.

Speaker 2 So, it's really being selective, starting to get that confidence. I think young entrepreneurs get nervous of saying no because they're like, Well, any revenue is good revenue.

Speaker 2 And it turns out it's not true. There is such a thing as good revenue and bad revenue.

Speaker 1 Yo, I've learned that lesson.

Speaker 1 I still learn it every now and then from time to time. You know, even I can get, you know, lured in.
Oh, I can, I can, because here's what happens: you'll get the confidence that you can change them.

Speaker 1 You know, like, mine, like, I know that I know what problem I might be getting, but I think I can work my way through it. You know, like,

Speaker 1 no, it doesn't work. Uh, I would call it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'd call it be greedy with your energy. It's really, you know, like, that's what it is.

Speaker 1 It's not, it's not figuring, you know, like literally being greedy, just with your energy and where you apply it, because we only have some, it's a finite resource.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.

Speaker 2 That's so true. So true.

Speaker 1 Doctor, please,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Exclusivity, luxury,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 almost like just the whole ethos of a company that are built with both of those two attributes kind of built.

Speaker 1 It'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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 but maybe not when building your brand talk to me about your perspective on on luxury experience and well i think one of the biggest things with luxury experience is you got to have a funnel that

Speaker 2 weeds out

Speaker 2 the waste of time leads. And I think a lot of us think about funnels as like, oh, let me not lose a single lead.
Right.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 you know, youthful leads. You want quality leads.
You don't want to just want every lead.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I get it, at some point, there's a scale to those things when you sell your list or do things like that.

Speaker 2 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 a Chanel or Louis Vuitton, like straight up to the Hermes Birkin bag of what we do.

Speaker 2 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 we have a filter so in order to book an appointment with me first of all just to talk it's 500 to to to spend 10 minutes with me basically to get to do the consultation and that 500 i don't i don't i'm not trying to make a business off of 500 that's not how this works it's a 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 twenty to forty 000 on a surgery so it's okay and to let those go because a lot of patients will call me like oh will you 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 if you don't go to hermez 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 there's lots of surgeons out there so there's nothing disrespectful about it we tell the patients with grace like oh my god god bless there's so many good options out there for you do not worry however um to book a consultation with dr dugard is 500 and that is non-refundable and we make it it very clear.

Speaker 2 We're just very matter-of-fact. The other thing I've learned is you got to have employees who are comfortable talking about money.

Speaker 2 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.
Money is just a commodity.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And so that's number one and two is funneling them through quality lead generation.

Speaker 2 And then I think having the concierge ability to talk to them with a really respectful way and make sure they feel heard, make sure they feel listened to, and have people not overworked with the minutia of your business.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 There's a video guy making sure the video works.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And so I think the key is we have to look at our employees that way too. I don't want the video guy worrying about the audio guy's work.

Speaker 2 And I don't want the audio guy worrying about the video guys' work.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 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 of our luxury brands that we identify with.

Speaker 2 And we have, you know, hotel-infused scents in our lobby. And we have, you know, we have minimalistic,

Speaker 2 you know, restoration hardware, minimalized decor everywhere. So it kind of has this inviting feel, and you have like this cleanliness to it.

Speaker 2 So like you get that medical sense with like this calming sense as well. It kind of fuses together.

Speaker 2 And we kind of create this like holistic energy of concierge medicine where it's one level above whatever other office they've went to.

Speaker 2 And my whole thought is that if we put that level of attention into this, imagine how much attention I'm putting into the surgery.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yes. Doc,

Speaker 1 it's,

Speaker 1 I can't hit this enough for our audience. You know what? Doctor just really eloquently outlined a lot of key principles there.

Speaker 1 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 over doing something he's identified that he is and he's already worked to be the best in his practice he's establishing a look a feel and an experience that reinforces what he is doing as the best in the world.

Speaker 1 And he's creating these lovers

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 look, we all want a Ferrari, you know, or most of us, but you know what?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 to all people and it's the road to nothing in nowhere

Speaker 1 because you can't

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And 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.

Speaker 1 And, you know,

Speaker 1 but it's a business at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 This isn't a charity. It is.

Speaker 1 It is. And I think

Speaker 2 transparency is so important. I think for young entrepreneurs, the mistake is you want to be at the big dog day one and you have to work your way up.
You got to be the big dog in your world, right?

Speaker 2 So you can't just be the top dog.

Speaker 2 You can always be a big dog, but you got 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 much

Speaker 2 probably 60 70 percent less than they're charging but 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?

Speaker 2 I knew, listen, I'm Kobe. It's gonna let me work my magic over the years.
I'll get my skills set up and I'm gonna win my championships in a few years. But today, let me focus on being the best I can.

Speaker 2 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 Ron Flasty.

Speaker 2 Then it goes up to 10 to 12, then it went up to 15 to 18. Then I went up to 20 to 25, and then 20 to 30, right? So these price increases, I didn't just arbitrarily make them.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 So a Birkenbag doesn't just get to decide it's $30,000, $20,000 versus a Chanel, which is $15,000. It's the market demand.

Speaker 2 The market has said Chanel is worth $10,000 to $15,000 and Birken's worth $20,000 to $40,000.

Speaker 2 And so you have to listen as a young entrepreneur. entrepreneur to what your market demand is for you.

Speaker 2 You can't just make up these fake things either, but you got to give value and you got to make happy happy clients and focus on the clients, make them really happy, especially the first hundred, five hundred thousand.

Speaker 2 Really lean in to give them the best experience possible and then you'll find out if your service is even good or not.

Speaker 2 A lot of entrepreneurs just want to make money and they're not focusing on the value add.

Speaker 2 You 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.

Speaker 2 But, 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 all these clients.

Speaker 2 And they have this whole business plan as if they've done it for 20 years, but it's their first day.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 You got to be it to make them see it. And, and, 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.

Speaker 1 Two of my favorite, you know, be it to make them see it and inspect what you expect. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like two of my favorite, and like, I'm you literally when you were talking, I'm like, this, this guy's a living, breathing example of these two things.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 if you want people to think of you as a luxury, and if you're wanting to build that brand or whatever it is, we're using, you know, this is Doctor's brand and how he's built his practice.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 to see that and write that check. Like you got better.

Speaker 1 Obviously, your practice, the technology got better, your learning and education and doing it hundreds and thousands of times, how many surgeries you've done. Obviously, it was improving.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the outward display of that, which is, I'm going to transition, Doc, for you into like what you have done on the marketing level visually or with PR and press, you know, because I know you haven't spent a ton in the nature in the traditional sense.

Speaker 1 But how do you think and how did you think about marketing and building that luxury brand?

Speaker 2 Well, my space is very visual. So you have to think about what space you're in for business, you know, depending on what type of market you're in.
Mine was very visual.

Speaker 2 And so what I found from day one is that I could spend a huge ad budget on Facebook ads or Google ads from day one with mediocre content.

Speaker 2 Or I could figure out how to make really good content in my space. And what makes good content for me is different for every business.

Speaker 2 So for me, you know, this kind of podcast clip, patients usually don't care about this in my world, right? And it depends on your business. In your business, this works really well.

Speaker 2 My world, what they care about is they want to see a beautiful girl's before and after picture. That's a picture of the girl.

Speaker 1 You're saying I'm not pretty enough, dog.

Speaker 1 The problem is, you're too good looking.

Speaker 2 There's nothing to approach.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, yeah, you're right. No, carry on.

Speaker 2 So, for me, it was how to create these beautiful.

Speaker 2 So, my entire mission for the first three to four years of my practice was to get the most beautiful patients who I can transform them in such an amazing way that they looked even more beautiful after, but even the before was beautiful.

Speaker 2 So if you have the before beautiful and then the after is even more beautiful, it's almost like, huh, that's insane.

Speaker 2 Because if you take someone who's not beautiful and make them beautiful, it's kind of like, all right, well, that's what plastered is supposed to do.

Speaker 2 But if you take someone who's already beautiful and you make them even more beautiful, you say, oh God, this is art. This is incredible.
It's like drinking a fine bottle of wine.

Speaker 2 It's like drinking a first-grilled chateau,

Speaker 2 you know, a Mouton Rothschild from 1982 versus you drinking a regular, you know, $20 bottle of wine from Napa. And you're like, oh, wow, this is art.

Speaker 2 Like, you realize, like, wow, this is an expansion of my entire vision of what I could be with my life, right?

Speaker 2 When you drink that wine, when you have that caviar, when you taste that gold-rated steak, and you say, oh, my God, I didn't know steak could taste like this, right?

Speaker 2 These are the moments where you unlock your brain to what the most beautiful parts of life are. It's almost like the movie The Matrix, where the guy's eating the food in the Matrix.

Speaker 2 He's like, I know the steak is fake, and I know it's fake, but I still like it, you know, and that's what the life is about. We got to enjoy.
It can't just be about problems.

Speaker 2 One of my favorite quotes is like, Life cannot be about problems every day. And it can be.
Like, we got to enjoy life.

Speaker 2 And that's what I found is that when people come to me, they're not here for problems. They're here to have fun.
They want to look better, feel better. Like, this is a luxury good.

Speaker 2 So you have to understand your business really well. The core of my business is people want luxury and they want to feel and look even better.
They're not coming to me for some sad problem.

Speaker 2 And so knowing that I wanted to juxtapose my marketing to present that. And so I used the best before and afters I could use to show them what my results were.
I didn't spend any money.

Speaker 2 I had a zero marketing budget for the first five years of my practice. I got organic PR.

Speaker 2 I had a couple of patients who randomly came to me and they're like, hey, you know, I work for e-news or hey, I work for variety and I would love to do my surgery with you with or without any participation.

Speaker 2 And if I do do my surgery, would you allow me to write about it? And I was like, of course. And then, even those, you got to deliver and you got to make them want to write good things about you.

Speaker 2 So for me, it was just organic PR. Also, being in Beverly Hills, being social, you know,

Speaker 2 I take a large part of my time to do the best socializing in LA.

Speaker 2 Like, I would tell you, if you know, you talk to anyone in LA, the best socializing aspects in LA, I'm a member of all of them, whether it's Burn Streets Club, Soho Malibu, Nobu Malibu, you know, all the.

Speaker 1 I'm coming and hang out with you, Doc. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I'll show you the best 24 hours in LA you can see.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, from a social standpoint, I also made it a point, make your friends your clients and make your clients your friends, depending on who they are.

Speaker 2 So, you know, on any given week, I'm taking someone from Dubai, Saudi, India, Kuwait, I'm taking them to dinners. I'm taking, you know, my patients from London and Paris out for lunches and brunches.

Speaker 2 And you create a lifestyle that mixes with work. So it doesn't feel like work all the time.
And also, you genuinely want to spend time with these people. So part of my marketing was social.

Speaker 2 And I think people don't realize how important that is. You know, sometimes you'll see a business entrepreneur who gets to the next level before you and you're like, how the hell did he do that?

Speaker 2 I'm spending so much on ads. I'm spending so much on this.
How did he get there? And it's because he was at the right dinner or he was at the right lunch and he was at the right table.

Speaker 2 And so I think a lot of entrepreneurs forget to, you spend a lot of time going to these useless dinners and these useless, you know, meetups and you sit in the corner and you find someone to drink with or you start talking to some chick or something.

Speaker 2 Instead, what you should be focusing on is how to create your own own socialization stratosphere that you can utilize and leverage the people at your table to get you to the right table yeah it's not what you know it's who you know baby yeah yeah but it helps when you're the world's best and you know people yeah yeah because if you're sitting with a saudi sheikh and then he introduces you to the Qatari Sheikh, like these connections is what life is about.

Speaker 2 And I think that's where, you know, being told, you know, just like anything, like, who's the best plumber in town? It's all subjective.

Speaker 2 And so if Tommy's the best plumber to you and you tell Jim, he's the best plumber, and then Tommy's the best plumber to Jim, too.

Speaker 2 And so, it's who tells, who talks about you is more important than what's being said almost.

Speaker 2 And that's where I feel like my marketing was really organic and tried to put more social influence into my marketing than I did dollar spend.

Speaker 1 A lot of key learning lessons there. I mean, we all, everybody wants to do it behind the keyboard.
It just doesn't all happen there. And it's still a people-human world.

Speaker 1 And people do business with people. And they talk about your business with other people when they like you.
And you build community outside of the Facebook group.

Speaker 1 You know, like there's nothing wrong with a Facebook group, but let me just tell you, you get at the right dinner table, magic happens.

Speaker 2 That's right. That's right.
And you mean you were having dinner when you're in LA next time. That's for sure.

Speaker 1 Exactly. I'm seeing it, Doc.
I think we get down. I think we got a lot in common.

Speaker 1 You know, Doctor, when I'm talking to a guy that's successful like you,

Speaker 1 arguably,

Speaker 1 not really arguably, we'll just call you. We know you're the world's best, but world's best.
Where does,

Speaker 1 where's the, it's always about the journey.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 where are we headed and what gets you excited when, you know, some people would say you're, if you're at, you're close to the top of the mountain, you know, if you're not there, you know, where is the top of the mountain?

Speaker 1 What's the next mountain?

Speaker 2 Well, I think, I think one of my favorite things is I use a lot of comparisons to basketball because I think it's so fitting in my life, but like the day you win the championship, you're the championship player.

Speaker 2 The next morning, you start all over.

Speaker 2 You start all over. And so I think, you know, accolades are fun to look back on, to remind yourself that that was a good day or that was a good year, but it has nothing to do with the future.

Speaker 2 So whatever I've done up until yesterday was my rewards for yesterday. I got to go earn my reward tonight.
I have not earned my reward for today yet.

Speaker 2 And so every day you got to earn the reward, the privilege. What an honor to be good at something, to be great at something, and to be able to do it well and to help people along the way.

Speaker 2 And you got to do it every day. So, whatever treats I want today and tomorrow, I got to earn those today and tomorrow.

Speaker 2 And so, I always look at life as like, you know, you never get too privileged, never get too comfortable, always want the journey, always enjoy the stress.

Speaker 2 You know, Kobe Bryant famously said, you know, the victory was not the trophy, it was the 4 a.m. sleepless nights.

Speaker 2 It was the extra two workouts a day that he never knew if it would matter or not, but he put them in anyways. Like that's truly what winning is to me.
And so I like being good.

Speaker 2 And every surgery, you know, just like no matter what business it is, whether you're serving a bowl at an evergreen or whether you're building construction buildings and building high-rises, every building, every patient, every food, every meal, that's the fun for me.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, I have three surgeries the next day and three surgeries the day after that. Those patients don't care how many good surgeries they've done.
They don't care if Ryan says I'm the best.

Speaker 2 They don't care if 100,000 patients say I'm the the best. They need the best on their nose that day, right?

Speaker 2 So, this tech CEO that I'm doing on Monday, who's one of the most famous CEOs in the world, no one cares. He doesn't care how famous I am or how great I am.

Speaker 2 He wants his breathing to be the best breathing he's ever had in his life. And so, you've got to keep winning, keep winning, keep winning, championship after championship.

Speaker 2 And you only get to celebrate that one singular success. You don't, you don't celebrate the whole life.

Speaker 1 It's a lot.

Speaker 1 Doc,

Speaker 1 you're obviously brilliant, but I have not ever ever heard it quite put together the way you did. And if

Speaker 1 you, you'll go as far, you're already way up the ladder, but you'll go as far as ever if you can look at every day as winning the championship. Like, I think that's what we do.

Speaker 1 We kind of put these artificial stopping points of, okay, I got like you, I mean, you're the world's best at what you do. So you'd be easy to go, okay, I'm the world's best.

Speaker 1 And not that you'd suddenly start not doing good surgeries, but like, but if you can realize and think about every day as an opportunity to be better and you can truly be challenged within the day and not the broader time period, that's a really great recipe for success.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Doctor, I mean, I really love that.
Where can everybody keep up with all you're doing with your practice? And, you know, obviously a lot of wisdom to share in business as well.

Speaker 2 Yeah, my pleasure. So my website is scarlessnose.com, like scarlessnosecarnose.com.
And my name is Dr. Deepak Dugar, D-U-G-A-R.
I'm on Instagram at DeepukDugarMD.

Speaker 2 I'm on TwitterX, and I'm on TikTok under the same name, Deepak DugarMD. Love to share.
If anyone has any questions, just shoot me a DM and anywhere. My team is amazing.

Speaker 2 We get hundreds of DMs some days, depending where in the world and what I posted and what people liked. But shoot us a DM.
We'll always respond.

Speaker 2 We try our best to get through them all as best as we can.

Speaker 1 It's a pleasure having you on, Doctor. I look forward to continuing the relationship.

Speaker 2 Yes, sir. I'll see you in LA soon.
We'll go to NoBoo.

Speaker 1 I love that. Hey, guys, you're to find us.
RyanisRight.com. We'll have highlight clips, links to all of the content.

Speaker 1 No, it won't be pretty people and beautiful women, but it will be drops of wisdom and knowledge from Doctor, the best in his field, and we appreciate him. We appreciate you for making us number one.

Speaker 1 We'll see you next time. Right about now.

Speaker 3 This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Speaker 3 Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 Look, we get it. You can hardly go anywhere or do anything these days without hearing about AI this or AI that.

Speaker 1 And if you're like most people, when it comes to AI,

Speaker 1 you're impressed, but you have a few concerns. But what if AI was used not as a tool to replace people, but as a way to help understand people better?

Speaker 1 AI from SurveyMonkey is designed to do just that, from crafting the perfect survey, which is harder than you might think, to analysis that digs deep, finds patterns, and surfaces trends quickly.

Speaker 1 SurveyMonkey's powerful suite of AI capabilities make it faster and easier than ever before to get insights from real people, helping you make confident decisions for your business.

Speaker 1 Try it today at surveymonkey.com/slash Ryan.