Stop Doing Everything: The Smarter Way to Build Your Brand [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 176]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy. 

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;02
Bob Ruffolo
What if the key to building a bigger brand wasn't doing more? It was getting much more disciplined about what only you should be doing. That's the lesson that Kurt Barrett learned over years of building and then eventually selling Act Dental. He realized that his best work came from a very small number of his strengths speaking, teaching, generating ideas, and connecting with people.

00;00;20;02 - 00;00;43;13
Bob Ruffolo
And the more he delegated, the more his business grew. That same philosophy shaped the way he built his brand, said try and do everything. Kirkenes team focused heavily on just a couple of things they knew they can do well, speaking and podcasting. They published more than 1000 episodes and built an audience of more than 125,000 unique listeners. In this episode, you'll learn how to focus your role around your great strengths.

00;00;43;14 - 00;00;59;22
Bob Ruffolo
Build the right team around you. Turn a small number of marketing activities into a consistent engine for trust and growth. Stick around till the end, because we'll break down when Kurt's most effective tactics for expanding his podcast audience and turning new listeners into subscribers.

00;00;59;25 - 00;01;18;17
Stephanie Baiocchi
You're listening to the Endless Customers podcast, brought to you by the team at impact. Endless customers is the proven system to become the most known and trusted brand in your market. If you want to learn the principles of endless customers and how you can implement them in your business, pick up a copy of Endless Customers, a national bestseller wherever books are sold.

00;01;18;17 - 00;01;40;00
Stephanie Baiocchi
Ready to start implementing endless customers in your business? Talk to impact about how our coaching program can help you implement endless customers to success. And if you want to experience endless customers in person, don't miss our upcoming event. Endless customers lie in Hartford, Connecticut, October 5th through the seventh, 2026. Registration is now open. And now on to the show.

00;01;40;05 - 00;01;42;22
Stephanie Baiocchi
Here's your host, Bob.

00;01;42;24 - 00;02;02;04
Bob Ruffolo
All right. And welcome back to the Endless Customers podcast. And we have a great guest today, somebody I've known for an incredibly long time. In fact, one of my very early clients here at impact, somebody I think we're all going to learn a lot from. He's built an incredible brand for himself. He's built an incredible brand for his business.

00;02;02;06 - 00;02;19;28
Bob Ruffolo
We're going to learn all of that today. And he's also sold his business, and he's going to share a lot of lessons from that journey as well. So I present to each and every one of you. Kirk Barrett from Act Dental. And you're still part of that dental as of right now. And you've had incredible journey.

00;02;20;01 - 00;02;22;20
Bob Ruffolo
Kirk, welcome to the show. Great to see you, my friend.

00;02;22;23 - 00;02;36;03
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. Good to see you, brother. It's, it's exciting to be on your show. You know, back in the day, you were the one that got me started when you created my Act dental logo that we still used today. I don't know how many decades ago that was, but.

00;02;36;10 - 00;02;38;04
Bob Ruffolo
We're talking about ten years.

00;02;38;07 - 00;02;43;02
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. Yeah. At least. At least. But it's been fun to be on this journey with you. And I'm excited to be here today.

00;02;43;04 - 00;03;05;10
Bob Ruffolo
One of the things I'll say, Kirk, is a lot of this audience knows Marcus Sheridan, my business partner, and they know how he's got this great personality and these gifts, and he shows up and and you have a lot of the same things that Marcus has and the way you influence your community and your audience and the way you bring leadership to that community is very similar to Marcus Sheridan.

00;03;05;10 - 00;03;26;08
Bob Ruffolo
Now you just happen to do it for dentists. And but it's one of the things I want you to know how much I've admired about you and your ability to bring thought leadership through phenomenal content for so many years with such great consistency, something you don't see a lot of leaders do. And it's something that a reason why I really thought you should be on the show.

00;03;26;13 - 00;03;31;13
Bob Ruffolo
Something we could all learn a lot about, but it's something I just have always admired about you.

00;03;31;15 - 00;03;45;05
Kirk Behrendt
Well, I appreciate that, buddy. It hasn't been the smoothest ride, but being an entrepreneur, that's what you sign up for. You know, and you start to learn these things about yourself. So, it's it's been fun, you know?

00;03;45;13 - 00;04;04;09
Bob Ruffolo
And and just one last thing I'll say about our personal relationship. I've learned a lot about running a company like impact. By having people like you have a lot of faith in me because you really. You gave us a shot to do a lot of work for you. And we worked together for a few years, and then we pause.

00;04;04;09 - 00;04;24;18
Bob Ruffolo
We started again. And, a lot of. We can't take any credit for your success other than probably doing your logo on your website and and teaching some HubSpot inbound marketing things back then. But in all reality, like you, you know, it was just an honor to have the opportunity to to work with you, learn with you. And and so thank you for giving me that opportunity personally as part of my career.

00;04;24;21 - 00;04;46;03
Kirk Behrendt
Well, thank you for helping us. I mean, there were a lot of things you did for us we couldn't do for ourselves. And I mean, part of the journey is finding the right people, you know, collaborating with them. It's impossible to be successful on your own. You weren't meant to be successful on your own. So, I think part of the humility that you have to have as an entrepreneur is like, I, I'm not good at things.

00;04;46;03 - 00;05;09;14
Kirk Behrendt
And I always tell people like, if I could go back, I have one major regret, you know, and it would be to figure out who I was in my career. Meaning like if I was 25 listening to this today, I would take every personality test under the sun, including disc, you know, Myers-Briggs, Colby, a index working genius, all of those things, and figure out what they are.

00;05;09;16 - 00;05;24;28
Kirk Behrendt
One of the first they took was a Colby, a index from Kathy Colby. Oh, yeah. Who's whose maiden name was Wunderlich. So she do a little bit about talent. And, she said, I'm going to tell you who you are. I don't know if you're short. I don't know if you're tall. I don't know, I have I don't even know what you look like.

00;05;25;00 - 00;05;47;08
Kirk Behrendt
She read my Colby a index to me, and I couldn't breathe. I was laughing so hard. And she said, you know, when people say you shouldn't chew gum and walk at the same time, you're one of those people. And she said, you're good at maybe three things, and and you suck at a lot of things. And so I went through that whole thing.

00;05;47;08 - 00;05;59;14
Kirk Behrendt
I went through strategic coach. I came back, told my team, and I said, my team, I go, you guys, I just went through this amazing process. I found what I suck at a lot of things. And they're like, wow, you had to take a course for that.

00;05;59;16 - 00;06;02;17
Bob Ruffolo
So that's not true.

00;06;02;19 - 00;06;23;05
Kirk Behrendt
Well, the point is, is like, you find out the things that you're really good at and or the things that you can do. And, and you got to stay in those lanes and then you got to find other people that can do other things like QuickBooks. I was okay at it, but I could get it right three hours a night after the kids went to bed.

00;06;23;11 - 00;06;34;15
Kirk Behrendt
But there were other people on my team that could do it incredibly well in a fraction of the time. So that's a it's a great example of like, you got to stay in your lane. Yeah. About what? Great value.

00;06;34;16 - 00;06;45;23
Bob Ruffolo
And I think that really connects what we're talking about. And let's go. We're going to go a little bit more about what you you know your history here in a second. And by the way, I bet you're on your Colby. You're a high quick start, right?

00;06;45;25 - 00;06;46;16
Kirk Behrendt
100%.

00;06;46;16 - 00;07;02;25
Bob Ruffolo
Yeah, yeah. Yep. Same thing. It's like. Yeah, it sounds good. Let's go. Right. Yeah. So, and Colby's everything you just listed, that's that's one of my favorites. And I think everyone, I've learned a lot about myself from that. But I think what you're saying is, you know, you have to know yourself. You have to know your strengths.

00;07;02;28 - 00;07;24;27
Bob Ruffolo
And in iOS terms, they call that as a as a visionary, in which you very much are, you know, find the things that you're really good at and give you energy and only focus on that and delegate the rest and the things that make you cringe and you hate doing. Chances are that somebody out there that loves doing that, and they hate doing the stuff that you love doing, and that's delegate and elevate.

00;07;24;27 - 00;07;43;24
Bob Ruffolo
And for you to build a brand like you have and put all the energy and all the focus and the things that you're really, really good at, you have to be able to say, okay, I'm going to put all my energy into this. I'm going to find people around me, whether they work with me or I bring them into my company as a contract or whatever it is, and they're going to take all the things off my plate I hate doing.

00;07;43;27 - 00;07;59;24
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. And you mentioned EOS. I mean, when we read the book traction as a team and we follow, I told my team, like, we're not going to try to do this, we're going to follow this. And so the book is Traction by Gina Wickman. It's probably one of those boring reads that you'll ever read, but it's more than most important.

00;07;59;26 - 00;08;12;09
Kirk Behrendt
Well, I mean, people read it and they go, oh, this is really boring. I'm like, well, it works. And so it was hands down the most impactful thing, you know? Sorry for the pun there. That was cool.

00;08;12;12 - 00;08;13;12
Bob Ruffolo
We'll take it.

00;08;13;15 - 00;08;39;22
Kirk Behrendt
It was the most impactful thing we had ever done as a business because we had been growing. But when we started doing that the first year, I think we had a 43% growth rate from year to year. Wow. And then we were averaging in the 30s after that. And really what traction is, is it's a it's a very clean, honest way to run a respectable, solid business that's built on core values, great communication.

00;08;39;25 - 00;09;02;19
Kirk Behrendt
And those things weren't super apparent to me before that. You know, I was I was the visionary trying to do everything. I got an integrator. His name was Barrett. He could do all the things I couldn't. He was completely opposite of me so I could go crazy and give him, you know, I, I have 20 ideas a day, but 17 of them are bad, you know, so he could sort them and go, this one's good.

00;09;02;20 - 00;09;08;15
Kirk Behrendt
And calm down while I get this one going, you know, type of a thing. So you're talking my language.

00;09;08;16 - 00;09;27;12
Bob Ruffolo
Yeah. Yeah. And, and by the way, a lot of the community of endless customers, they also do EOS. In fact, it's a great start with the OS. We actually say get your business right first. Get your business strategy right. Know who your target market is. EOS helps with that. Get your proven process down. Have a guarantee, know where you're trying to go.

00;09;27;13 - 00;09;51;24
Bob Ruffolo
Have a vision. Have people that have the same core values. Once you have a really well run business, then marketing becomes a lot easier, and that's when we can start adding seats to the accountability chart of a content manager and a videographer. And let's start really sharing what is special about our company with the world. And without that, marketing is hard, and it's very hard to market if you don't have a great business because you might have a leaky bucket.

00;09;51;24 - 00;09;59;06
Bob Ruffolo
You don't have things to share with the world the people are going to care about. You don't know where you're going. So confused. Marketing becomes a lot harder when you don't have a really strong foundation.

00;09;59;09 - 00;10;00;10
Kirk Behrendt
100%.

00;10;00;11 - 00;10;00;18
Bob Ruffolo
Yeah.

00;10;00;18 - 00;10;05;11
Kirk Behrendt
So. Oh go ahead. we should learn this from you. Like way back when, you know?

00;10;05;12 - 00;10;15;10
Bob Ruffolo
So we both learn things the hard way, right? It's the school of hard knocks. Yeah, I have a lot more graves now than I had back when we worked together.

00;10;15;13 - 00;10;18;03
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah, and I don't have any hair anymore, so that's okay.

00;10;18;06 - 00;10;39;21
Bob Ruffolo
I don't think I ever had a hair since I've known you anyways. Yeah. So. So let's switch gears here a little bit. So, we talked a lot about building a great business, but I want to make sure everyone here fully understands your background. And like us here at impact, we're coaches for helping companies to implement the endless customer system and help them win more customers come the most known trust and recommended companies in their market.

00;10;39;23 - 00;10;54;19
Bob Ruffolo
You are a coach for dentists, helping them have healthier lives, healthier practices. I'd love to hear how you got into that space, how you became so known. Give us the background and then we'll talk about how you built your brand on top of that.

00;10;54;21 - 00;11;09;24
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. So my start, you know, I come from lower middle class. I used to, you know, my my dad when I I'll never forget like I asked my dad for money. He's like, you know how you make money? I go, what? He goes, you get a job. And then I came to a one time. I'm like, I got to make more money.

00;11;09;24 - 00;11;25;06
Kirk Behrendt
He's like, you know what? I make more money. I'm like, what? He goes, you get another job. So I always had three jobs. My dad taught us to work type of thing. So one of the jobs I had in college because we had no money growing up was I worked at Applebee's, and so I was a three time employee of the month at Applebee's.

00;11;25;06 - 00;11;41;04
Kirk Behrendt
No joke. And I loved it. Like I absolutely loved it. And I had two guys that owned a dental laboratory come in, and they were part of this whole big thing they were creating in Milwaukee. And I asked him for a letter of recommendation. They said no, because I was getting ready to graduate, and they said, you're going to come work for me.

00;11;41;04 - 00;11;55;13
Kirk Behrendt
I'm like, I don't even go to the dentist. And they're like, no, you'd be great. They may be one of their salespeople. And they came up with an idea, and this guy was a serial entrepreneur. His name was Bob, and I loved him. He was great. He's like, I had this idea and we started the idea in three years.

00;11;55;15 - 00;12;14;10
Kirk Behrendt
We made it a $3 million company. Now it wasn't my company, so I was just one of his sales guys. I had a great time, but I saw him create something from nothing and it was amazing. Like it just lit my fire. And he was an entrepreneur, which meant he didn't really live by rules. He could create value.

00;12;14;16 - 00;12;29;24
Kirk Behrendt
I loved how he talked. I loved how he cared for people. And that kind of started my journey in dentistry. I got out of the city of Milwaukee, moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. I was looking for something else, and then I found a company that did this in dentistry, and I'm like, I'll give this a shot. It was amazing.

00;12;29;24 - 00;12;49;17
Kirk Behrendt
So it was the number three company in the country at the time that did, you know, coaching, consulting for dentists. And so I was just a 24 year old kid begging for a job. I couldn't even rent a car. I'm like, give me this job. Like, I'll be good at this job. And, so they gave me a territory I had I had a great time, I learned a ton, and I worked my tail off.

00;12;49;17 - 00;13;08;17
Kirk Behrendt
And long story short, dating my wife. We went to see the movie Jerry Maguire. I was probably 27. Wow, Bob, I bawled. I cried through the whole thing because it spoke to like where I was at. We were going more and more and more clients like it was all about more and more clients. I was like, no, let's go deeper with clients.

00;13;08;18 - 00;13;24;29
Kirk Behrendt
Like it hit me and she's like, why are you crying? I'm like, I don't, I don't know, it just hit me. And so she's like, my wife said to me, coming out of the theater, she's like, why don't you do this on your own? I'm like, are you serious? And so, so I gave it a shot. And I, you know, the whole crux of our business.

00;13;24;29 - 00;13;45;27
Kirk Behrendt
The dentistry is an incredibly noble profession, incredibly strong profession, you know, really, really good, good people. The challenge with dentistry is this dentists learn how to do dentistry, but they don't really love the business side of things. And it's an extremely profitable business. One thing people might not understand is that as a dentist, you can make an incredible living.

00;13;46;04 - 00;14;01;09
Kirk Behrendt
You can make a lot of money, you could create a lot of value for people. You could work reasonable hours if you get the formula. Right now, I've been surrounded by a lot of my mentors. I had a lot of mentors. I didn't even know what a mentor was when I went, but like, I was assigned like three of them.

00;14;01;09 - 00;14;17;10
Kirk Behrendt
When I got this first job, they took me like one of them took me to church. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know, like maybe go to Bible. I thought it was great, you know? So, it was just cool to be surrounded people like that. And it gave me it gave me the motivation to, like, really help people.

00;14;17;10 - 00;14;42;12
Kirk Behrendt
And really, at the end of the day, as I look back in the journey, I'm 56 now is, you know, we're all in search of work that's meaningful. And what was happening to me along the way is I would help one dentist and they go, dude, you understand? Like, I got my life back. I had one, one woman come to me and she worked the front desk of her father's office, and she goes, I want you to know something like, you probably prevented my dad from committing suicide.

00;14;42;12 - 00;14;44;26
Kirk Behrendt
Now, that was heavy. That's probably the heaviest one. No.

00;14;44;28 - 00;14;52;02
Bob Ruffolo
No, I ask you, I've heard that dentists have most professions. They have a very high suicide rate, don't they?

00;14;52;04 - 00;15;21;02
Kirk Behrendt
It is. It is a very high suicide rate. But when you look at the data, it's not abnormally high, like way out of the park. Yeah. Compared to other professionals like MDS. So there is a high suicide rate, but it's not like a major, major epidemic. Now, don't get me wrong. Our industry is challenged with a lot of, you know, mental health challenges, as a lot of them are, and a lot of the experts or people that have been in the industry for a long time explain it like this.

00;15;21;03 - 00;15;38;28
Kirk Behrendt
You know, dentistry is an amazing profession to get into, but it's one that you can't pivot. Meaning if your child is going to be a dentist today, I mean, it's going to be about a half $1 million worth of educational debt to get there. That's probably going to be another million, million and a half to own your own business.

00;15;39;00 - 00;16;00;18
Kirk Behrendt
So by the time you do that, lost wages plus the investment, you're talking three, $4 million investment. If you don't like it at the age of 35, that's the hard pivot. That's hard to watch. So I tell people like follow but here's here's here's the caveat. Like, if you get the formula right, you understand why you're taking those courses.

00;16;00;18 - 00;16;22;10
Kirk Behrendt
I do love dentistry. And then when you come out and you practice the way you dreamed, that's the cat's meow. What I find is the most unhappy people in our profession are not practicing the way they wanted to. So they're working evening hours. They're under the guise of a lot of insurance. They don't practice the type of dentistry they want to do.

00;16;22;14 - 00;16;45;05
Kirk Behrendt
They don't like the people that are around. They're not making the type of money. But like, that's my what part of my job as a coach is to, one by one, start lining up those expectations with reality. Now, do we ever get them there? Perfectly. But no. But if I can get you there 95% of the time, if I can cut your workweek by one full day and improve your income by 25%, that's a good move in a year.

00;16;45;06 - 00;16;45;28
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

00;16;45;29 - 00;16;46;05
Bob Ruffolo
Yeah.

00;16;46;05 - 00;16;47;07
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah, that's.

00;16;47;07 - 00;16;48;01
Bob Ruffolo
A lot, I think.

00;16;48;01 - 00;16;48;27
Kirk Behrendt
Stress relief.

00;16;48;29 - 00;17;11;26
Bob Ruffolo
There's a lot of lessons here. And we're going to go into personal branding. But I mean this is a foundation here. Yeah. One you can see Kirk is very clearly passionate about what he does. And you can see he very much cares about the people he serves. So, you know, step one, find that if you're going to build your personal brand and build a successful company, who are you serving?

00;17;11;29 - 00;17;41;02
Bob Ruffolo
And why do you care so deeply about them? Because that will show up like it's showing up with Kirk right now. In this video, you can see how much he cares coming, the way he's presenting himself. Amazing. And then, you know, having the the, will to go out on your own and change something that you saw that was broken, like why or why, you know, going back to Jerry Maguire movie, why are we just trying to bring on hundreds and hundreds of clients?

00;17;41;04 - 00;17;59;21
Bob Ruffolo
Well, we can go deeper. And that's like you're calling in your purpose. These things are the foundation of of great marketing and great branding. So. So please keep going. I just want to call back, as people are saying, okay, we're watching this story when we start getting tactical. Well, there are some actionable things you could do right now.

00;17;59;27 - 00;18;05;22
Bob Ruffolo
Find something you care deeply about, a market that needs to be served. And go, just go for it.

00;18;05;24 - 00;18;30;12
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. And, you know, on that topic, as far as building a personal brand, we talk about it day in and day out. The number one piece while we have a service, we do dental coaching. You know, we've been acquired and we also have merged with other companies. We continue to build a suite of services and products. But our number one play for the future, and I think everybody listening to this is trust.

00;18;30;13 - 00;18;52;06
Kirk Behrendt
Like I think trust is the ultimate play on any brand. Number one, the core values aspect is really important. You're going to build a personal brand. People got to trust you. Dentistry is small. It's very small. Everybody knows everybody. And so you you do someone wrong. Everyone knows about it. And so part of building a business and I'm a big Gary Vee fan.

00;18;52;06 - 00;19;06;23
Kirk Behrendt
I don't love the language, but Gary Vee says this. You know, if you think about building your brand for 100 years, not that any of you are going to work for 100 years. Think about it like I'm going to build this brand last for 100 years, not one year like 100. You're going to do everything right. You're going to do it the right way.

00;19;06;23 - 00;19;22;07
Kirk Behrendt
You're going to build the right team. You're going to take good care of customers, you know? And so I like that angle on it of doing it the right thing. And so we talk about it all the time. That trust is really our product. And I'll add one more thing, Bob. I'm not a doom stare. I'm an optimist.

00;19;22;07 - 00;19;25;02
Kirk Behrendt
I think trust is going to plummet in the next five years. I think.

00;19;25;04 - 00;19;29;02
Bob Ruffolo
It has been plummeting. I mean, it already. Rapid decline.

00;19;29;05 - 00;19;37;22
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. I mean, you're going to look at social media go, I don't even know if that's really him. Like, you know, you in I think in.

00;19;37;25 - 00;19;42;15
Bob Ruffolo
By the way, this has really you on the the screen right now. Right. This is me okay. Okay. You know.

00;19;42;17 - 00;20;02;07
Kirk Behrendt
At the end of the day, people are going to still do business with people they care about. People don't buy products. People buy people. I think it's important to understand. So when you're building a brand, you can have a great product and you should. But at the end of the day, we're going to buy people, you know, there's a reason that chick fil A, you know, the average chick fil A does 4 or 5 times a, you know, a year.

00;20;02;07 - 00;20;22;20
Kirk Behrendt
What the average McDonald's does is they bite people. The chicken sandwich isn't that great? I mean, it's good chicken sandwich. Great company. Yeah. It's also not open on Sundays. Do you know what I mean? It's a value based organization. And you got kids that are all in and making sure you feel good when you go through the drive through, you go to the McDonald's across the street from the chick fil A, buy me.

00;20;22;20 - 00;20;38;29
Kirk Behrendt
They go, what's up? I said, what's up? They go, what's up? Like I'm like, oh, I'm old. Okay. Sorry about that. You know, like it's, I think it's it's you just got to have a lot of clarity around how you want to create value. So, like, building a personal brand starts with the whole idea. What's our goal here?

00;20;38;29 - 00;21;02;03
Kirk Behrendt
It's not me. Like, the other thing I would say about personal brand, like I. The last thing I ever wanted to do was like, be famous. That is, that's a terrible goal. Like, I, I wanted to build a brand, add some value, but I also wanted to be the old guy eventually who, like, had zero. You know, your challenge is building a business is to become irrelevant as a leader eventually.

00;21;02;04 - 00;21;18;25
Kirk Behrendt
Meaning I got to build leaders that create other leaders, that create other great leaders and get the hell out of their way. And that's when it becomes fun. So there's a lot of components to that. And ten years ago we started the podcast and people were like, oh, you got to sell a bunch of stuff. I'm like, no, that sounds terrible.

00;21;18;27 - 00;21;36;21
Kirk Behrendt
Our goal has always been one thing tell the truth, you know, create some trust, create a trusted brand. And it's amazing how people listen to it year over year. And then they call you. Sometimes people listen to it for five years before they even call you, but they're like, man, I'm ready now. And I've been listening, so I trust you.

00;21;36;21 - 00;21;41;15
Kirk Behrendt
So if you're going to build a brand, make sure you're pointed in the right direction. Don't you agree?

00;21;41;17 - 00;22;00;03
Bob Ruffolo
You know, the the most foundational principle of the endless customer system is trust. We've been talking about since the previous book. They ask, you answer now it's it's in the evolution of of endless customers. You're right. That trust is a massive decline because we don't know who to trust. We don't know what brands to trust. We don't know what people trust.

00;22;00;03 - 00;22;22;07
Bob Ruffolo
We don't know politicians to trust. We see things on TV, in our media, our news, and everything's biased. Everything's gotten angle, everything's got an agenda. And it's really hard to decipher through that. I think there's also some skills we're building as humans that we can kind of cut through the noise a little bit, that maybe we have these skills that we didn't even have ten years ago, but it is a at a rapid decline.

00;22;22;09 - 00;22;41;05
Bob Ruffolo
But you couldn't be more true when you said that people do business with people they know, like, and trust. When I feel like I know you, I feel like I like you, and I feel like I trust you. You become the only game in town. And and that's something you've done really, really well. But it doesn't just go from winning business.

00;22;41;08 - 00;23;16;19
Bob Ruffolo
I loved what you said about the dental community is small, and if you do a bad job for one person, they will go tell ten people who might tell another ten people who tell another ten people. And that is not the place you want to be coming from. That's great advice. Build the business that you know is going to last a hundred years and that help that that mindset is like, I will make different decisions today if I know this is not about making a quick buck, this is about really building something that can endure for a long period of time.

00;23;16;19 - 00;23;33;21
Kirk Behrendt
So yeah, on the on that note too. So one of our core values is give greater than get. And so a lot of where that came from was my father. You know, you never keep track of what you get back. But when I got started in this building, a personal brand, the second podcast I did was with a guy named Howard Friend.

00;23;33;21 - 00;23;52;26
Kirk Behrendt
Now, Howard's crazy, but he's always had my back, probably one of the most influential people in dentistry. And he said to me at one time, he's like, listen, kid, if you could remember one thing, he goes, don't hold your cards to your chest like, oh, pay me if I tell you. Tell dentist that. Like, give him everything. Help them with everything.

00;23;52;28 - 00;24;10;09
Kirk Behrendt
Help young kids, help everybody. Just give, give, give, give. Because in that they're going to go I like this guy. I trust this guy. And number two, they can't do it on their own anyway. So when they're ready they're going to. So we've always done that even with dental students. Now that wasn't a big stretch for me. That made sense.

00;24;10;09 - 00;24;27;19
Kirk Behrendt
So like my team from day one, we always like whenever we have just give greater gift, we have dental students who sit through our stuff for free. We, you know, we give back money to clients. If you know, if in a case where expectations are met, we got to do the right thing. So yeah, I had another friend of mine.

00;24;27;19 - 00;24;43;00
Kirk Behrendt
His name was Doctor John Cranham. He's like, listen to me. You do all your lectures, you do those for free locally. If you can sleep in your own bed. I'm like, really? He's like, absolutely like you give to your community. If you got to get out of your bed and leave your family now, you charge for that. And I've done that since day one.

00;24;43;01 - 00;24;57;29
Kirk Behrendt
And it's genius like how you just follow your value system. Now, the other thing, he's got to get clear about a value system, building a personal brand. You guys have done that. You know, I tell people about core values all the time and they're like, all right, all right, get to the good stuff. I'm like, that is the good stuff.

00;24;58;02 - 00;25;19;10
Kirk Behrendt
So, it's it's interesting, but, building a brand, you learn a lot of things of what to do, what not to do. You're going to make some mistakes along the way, too, and you got to be vulnerable. There are a lot of times I screwed up and I was the first one to call. I'm not good at a lot of things, but one of the things I am kind of good at is when we screw up, I want to be the first one to call anybody.

00;25;19;11 - 00;25;38;01
Kirk Behrendt
Oh, yeah, and go, listen, I am so sorry. Let me listen. And people will light me up. I'll get an earful. And it doesn't always go perfectly, but they certainly appreciate the fact that I called and I was I didn't defend myself, I didn't go, you were wrong. I was just like, okay, tell me your tell me your thoughts.

00;25;38;01 - 00;25;39;10
Kirk Behrendt
Tell me, tell me your.

00;25;39;14 - 00;25;58;16
Bob Ruffolo
This is such a masterclass for the the community on how to build the most known, trusted and recommended company in your market. For someone that. Now, Kirk, you know, I'm not even sure if you've read the book Endless customers. We've never done endless customers coaching with you. The reason why you're on this podcast is because you live these principles every single day.

00;25;58;19 - 00;26;16;07
Bob Ruffolo
You're you're bringing a totally different perspective, although you're saying a lot of the same things that the audience knows. But this is how you build a great business. This is how you build a great business, is exactly what Kirk is teaching us. So let's go a little bit more. So. So you were at the other company down Arizona.

00;26;16;08 - 00;26;36;28
Bob Ruffolo
You said you got the blessing from your wife to say, give it a shot, go live your dream, start your own business. So you decide you're going to start a dental coaching business and was just you. And then how would you scale the business and how did your role change? Obviously focusing on your strengths, but how did your role change over the years that got us to today?

00;26;37;00 - 00;26;55;26
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. So, I was 27 when I started it. Bernie Villa, Diego, God bless your heart. It was my first client. Just like you. You need people to believe in you. I'll never forget he wrote me a $35,000 check. Bob. I had no money. I had a Toyota Camry that had 171,000 miles in one window. That worked, and it was barely moving.

00;26;55;26 - 00;27;11;07
Kirk Behrendt
And I remember bringing the check back to our studio apartment, and my wife is like, we got a deposit that I'm like, I just need to look at it for one more day. Like, I couldn't believe another human being would believe in me. And my first thought was, I don't care about the money I got to do right by Bernie.

00;27;11;07 - 00;27;27;06
Kirk Behrendt
And so I spent spent a lot of time helping Bernie. But what Bernie did was help me like he trained me on certain things. So the business was small, you know, being I was a solo, so I just kind of did it on my own. And that was good because I started to make money and I started the law, how to create value.

00;27;27;08 - 00;27;43;23
Kirk Behrendt
But then I wanted to have a family and I realized I can't do everything. And so I had a friend of mine who's like, you can't do everything. You got to start. You gotta start giving things away. And I brought in somebody who could do coaching, and I'm like, wow, she's better than I am. And she was. And so I got that freed up 50% of my time.

00;27;43;24 - 00;28;05;24
Kirk Behrendt
Then I hired a sales person. Well, that freed up another 50% of my time. Then I hired a, you know, somebody to answer phones. While that freed up, like 20% of my time. So you learn things along the way about how to open it up. And we kind of kept it small for a long time. The turning point was when I got invited to a meeting and it was called the Seattle Study Club Symposium.

00;28;05;24 - 00;28;24;00
Kirk Behrendt
It was 2009, I believe that was here. It was in I think it was at Scottsdale, Arizona, and they had a speaker showcase. Now in our industry, building a brand like one of the things you have to do as an, as an expert that helps people is you gotta you got to get out there and speak. Of course, like you got to be recognized as an expert.

00;28;24;00 - 00;28;40;03
Kirk Behrendt
And, you know, I always wanted to I never had a chance to. And I'm like, if I can do this, well, there's a chance. And so they had a 20 minute speaker showcase. I did my thing. I went up there, I went crazy, I almost passed out. I was so nervous. I ran to the bathroom right after. No joke.

00;28;40;05 - 00;28;55;17
Kirk Behrendt
I was so nervous I was going to throw up because there was probably 3000 people in the room. Whatever. A guy comes in and he's. I'm in a urinal. He's in the urinal right next to me. No joke. He's like, dude, that was amazing. I'm like, can you just give me a minute? I can tell you. He's like, I want you to come and speak to my study club.

00;28;55;17 - 00;29;18;01
Kirk Behrendt
So it's a network of 220 study clubs from all over the world. And so in that moment, I, I mean, on that day, I probably booked nine lectures. And that is, you can imagine building a brand. So you go to city, city after city, it's well prepared. These people care. You bring a value based message, like my goal was to bring value, not to make money.

00;29;18;04 - 00;29;39;26
Kirk Behrendt
And at the end of every one of those lectures, somebody inevitably 1 or 2 of them come up and go, hey, that was great. Can you coach my practice? And I'm like, yes, we can help you. So, so speaking was really the main that was the main impetus for like how this got going. You know, Sarah was, you know, number one, you got to have an amazing partner in life.

00;29;39;26 - 00;29;45;03
Kirk Behrendt
And so Sarah was very supportive in all this as we had kids and everything like that. So Fridays.

00;29;45;03 - 00;29;46;11
Bob Ruffolo
For kids, right.

00;29;46;14 - 00;29;50;00
Kirk Behrendt
For kids or 25, 232118. And so.

00;29;50;02 - 00;29;52;22
Bob Ruffolo
I see him on Facebook all the time. Beautiful family. Yeah.

00;29;52;23 - 00;30;11;03
Kirk Behrendt
Well, thanks. But that's how we got started. And it grew and grew and grew. And as I was out there again, I'm going to go back to, you know, knowing yourself, your unique ability or, you know, knowing what you're really, really good at, it's usually 2 or 3 things, you know, on the working genius if you're familiar with working genius.

00;30;11;05 - 00;30;31;23
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah, yeah, I'm an I, you know, I'm an ECG. So like, you know, I can invent and I can galvanize. So like my I love being in front of an audience. I love creating things I'm not good at, like details type of thing. So I wanted to stay in my lane. And the more I could be in front of people, the bigger our business grew and the more fun I had.

00;30;31;24 - 00;30;54;24
Kirk Behrendt
You know, I was enjoying doing all those things. So that's really how our business grew and it grew a lot. So I had, you know, the back end infrastructure was really important. That's why the iOS system was was so critical for us before that. It was a little messy, a little clunky. We I still had a great team, but really, it didn't really start like clicking until we had the traction operating system.

00;30;54;27 - 00;31;15;02
Kirk Behrendt
The traction operating system had all of the frameworks that we were desperately missing. Like, I'm going to bore people if they don't know this, but the IDs system is one of the most important things we were able to identify, discuss, and solve issues quickly on things. You know, you talk about the L10 meeting that changed our meet. Our meetings sucked before we did El ten.

00;31;15;04 - 00;31;32;20
Kirk Behrendt
Now, if you don't have an L ten, there's no me. We we say no agenda, no addenda. Like you can't. You can't happen to have an L ten like it's out of bounds. Like you got to come prepared. Don't waste everybody's time. And there's got to be a list of things that we're going to discuss. Data points and all that.

00;31;32;20 - 00;31;54;28
Kirk Behrendt
Not just a not just a complaint session. So there's things that you learn along the way that help you with this. And then ultimately you're able to give more energy to things that matter. So ultimately, the two biggest things that helped on the marketing side, because, Bob, I still have the original website you created for me, and it's great, but like, I really haven't done a lot with it, you know, was our speaking and our podcasting.

00;31;54;29 - 00;32;10;16
Kirk Behrendt
And so we really we've really put all of our eggs in only those two baskets and our social. I would tell you, it's not even that great. I mean, we do have some followers. I'd love for it to be better, but we we also weren't the the company that was trying to do everything. We had to.

00;32;10;16 - 00;32;13;25
Bob Ruffolo
Figure focus on a couple of core things and do it better than anyone else.

00;32;13;28 - 00;32;15;20
Kirk Behrendt
Don't you agree? Isn't that exact?

00;32;15;24 - 00;32;33;27
Bob Ruffolo
Yeah. I think you have to have some diversification, because if one channel goes away, you don't want to lose your entire channel. Like if you built your entire business on Google, say, if you were like BuzzFeed or a company like that and you're dependent on website traffic coming from Google, that's pretty scary right now as people have lost all their website traffic.

00;32;33;27 - 00;32;55;19
Bob Ruffolo
So I think you have to have some diversification, but doesn't mean you have to do everything. Go pick a handful of things and do them really, really well and forget the rest. I'm all for that now. Things I want to say, Kirk, is when we did first meet, and a little bit of impact history. At the time we were an inbound marketing agency.

00;32;55;19 - 00;33;13;22
Bob Ruffolo
There was no endless customers. I was friends with Marcus Sheridan. We were not business partners then. So we were not even doing this cancer. We weren't doing any coaching was we were an agency. We were an inbound marketing agency. And many of our clients would buy packages from us and we would write content for them. We'd publish it and do the whole SEO thing.

00;33;13;22 - 00;33;44;27
Bob Ruffolo
And then everything else that went with the inbound marketing playbook. And there are some clients that hired us because they had no marketing team. We were their outsourced marketing department, and it was our job to create content for them that would rank and hopefully get them business. We were not very good at that. And then there's other clients like you that we would supplement what they were doing from a marketing plan, like a website, like a logo or, and maybe we'd, we'd give you some feedback on your content and we'd help you execute things at a faster rate.

00;33;44;29 - 00;34;02;03
Bob Ruffolo
Those clients were always more successful. Why? We got out of the business of being over here and getting the business of being over here. But even on top of that, one of the things I always admired with you was the the amount of content, the quality of the content and the consistency of content you are putting out.

00;34;02;08 - 00;34;26;07
Bob Ruffolo
You were one of the only clients that we ever worked with that was doing video at that level, at that level of consistency back in like the mid 20 tens. I think we met probably around 2015, and you were incredibly consistent with the content of you showing up with energy, with education, that people just would just fall in love with you.

00;34;26;10 - 00;34;34;01
Bob Ruffolo
How did you get into doing that? So consistent. And what would you see back then that that got you so ahead of everyone else?

00;34;34;04 - 00;34;55;17
Kirk Behrendt
Well, I'll give Chris Savage, who is one of the creators of Wistia, a lot of credit for this. So this is way back when Wistia was first getting started. So we were doing conferences and, we would I would hire experts to come speak at her conferences. So we did a marketing conference one year, and I'm like, I'm going to see if I can get Chris Savage.

00;34;55;23 - 00;35;11;10
Kirk Behrendt
So he gave me his fee. I'm like, we got him. So he's our keynote speaker. Yeah, well, I pick him up from the airport. Obviously. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's savage. And he's a kid. He's a good kid. So I totally took him to my office the night before. I'm like, I'm totally going to like, you know, soak up his brain.

00;35;11;10 - 00;35;24;25
Kirk Behrendt
So I took him to my office. I go, hey, do you mind if I show you our business before you speak to our conference? And he's like, yeah, no problem. So I take him and I show them around the office and I show my marketing plan. I show them what I'm doing. I'm, I'm like to market this, right?

00;35;24;27 - 00;35;42;09
Kirk Behrendt
He goes, okay, okay, stop, stop stop, stop. I go, what? He goes, you're making this way too hard. I go, why? He goes, you want the secret to marketing? I go, what? Give it to me. He goes, spend the rest of your life talking about what you care about. You're trying to talk about all this stuff that matters and you don't care about.

00;35;42;11 - 00;35;56;08
Kirk Behrendt
Like, if you spend the rest of your life talking about things you care about, you're going to attract other people that care about the same things. Your least favorite customers don't care about what you care about. He hit me in the heart rate. I go, but I don't know where to get started. My videos are crappy. He goes, that's where you start.

00;35;56;14 - 00;36;17;28
Kirk Behrendt
Start crappy, make crappy videos, get really good at crappy videos. It's kind of like the Mr. Beast, you know? Mr. Beast tells everybody, just shoot 100 videos. They're going to suck, you know? But by the time you get to the 100th one, they're not going to suck anymore. He's like, just start crappy. Because they were crappy. They were really crappy.

00;36;18;02 - 00;36;36;01
Kirk Behrendt
And I was like, admiring his videos. He's like, oh my gosh, if I showed you the beginning. So I would tell anybody listening. Number one, he gave me really two pieces, three pieces of advice till they weren't number one. Don't be talking about crap that you don't know about, like talk about only the things you care about. So I've been staying in my lane of talking only things I care about.

00;36;36;01 - 00;36;47;07
Kirk Behrendt
Number one. Number two start crappy, stay crappy. But don't, don't, don't be satisfied with it. Every time you do a video. And you know this, every time you do a video, it's a little bit better than the last.

00;36;47;10 - 00;36;48;14
Bob Ruffolo
Of course. Yeah.

00;36;48;17 - 00;37;09;04
Kirk Behrendt
And once you do. 400 of them. You know, we've done over a thousand podcasts. The first one was a disaster like the by. By the time we got to the 100th one, they were okay. Do you know by 400 you're like, oh these are oh they're all right. You know, you learn things along the way. And then the last thing you shared with me is like, it's better to be consistent than good.

00;37;09;06 - 00;37;25;20
Kirk Behrendt
And so he's like the more and man, that is the best one because I was trying so hard to be good. And especially with podcasting, if you're gonna do a podcast, he's like, do one a week and just it's, it's going to be and don't go to two, you know, until you've got it right where you need to be.

00;37;25;21 - 00;37;48;25
Kirk Behrendt
And he says, like, you just be consistent. It is amazing to me, Bob, how many people have come to us just because of being consistent? Like, yeah, you know, and so if I could tell you and building a brand, those were the three biggest, you know, pivot points from a marketing standpoint, all of our marketing today is still we got to talk about things that we care about.

00;37;48;29 - 00;38;05;26
Kirk Behrendt
Number two, we're going to shoot a video and we're going to hope it's better than last week's. And it is. And now I have a guy named Andy who does it. Make sure make sure all that happens. And number three, we're going to be incredibly consistent. Even if it's not working we're going to be consistent. Then we're going to figure out what works and be consistent that way.

00;38;05;27 - 00;38;09;04
Kirk Behrendt
So anything you would add to that?

00;38;09;06 - 00;38;17;01
Bob Ruffolo
What would I add to that? We do it twice a week. We batch film hours.

00;38;17;04 - 00;38;35;10
Bob Ruffolo
Yeah. I, you know, I think the, the thing that's, you know, is that you have to know your audience, right? And you have to solve for your audience. And, you know, also add to that, too. I was thinking, as you were saying this, with what you do and with what we do is very similar. I mean, we help businesses implement a system.

00;38;35;10 - 00;38;54;09
Bob Ruffolo
You help dentists. I have to imagine that no one hires you after the first time they hear you. Maybe once in a while you get that. But this is often a long term purchase, and, you know, you may have a first interaction with them and conversation and it's like, oh, not right now. I got too much other stuff going on.

00;38;54;09 - 00;39;11;10
Bob Ruffolo
And and then, you know, a few months later, you touch back or they check in with you and, and for someone to buy what you do, it's going to be a big shift in their lives, a big shift in their practice. And they have to be ready for it's got to become a priority. And when it is, you're ready to go and things are, you know, we kick things off.

00;39;11;12 - 00;39;33;20
Bob Ruffolo
Same thing with us. The podcast is the content that goes in between every single week that you're delivering to these people, keeps you top of mind, gets them further educated. Get some more bought in, get the get some more ready so they can kick this off, maybe sooner. So I think that's another thing I would add to this conversation is, is how this really fits in.

00;39;33;23 - 00;39;52;12
Bob Ruffolo
I mean, podcasting is nurturing. Podcasting is building a relationship. Podcast is earning trust week over week over week over week. So you again, you've become the only game in town. That's probably why I would add, after hearing, you know how you guys are doing over there.

00;39;52;15 - 00;40;13;08
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. The other. Yeah, it's so true. And the other thing with a podcast, as you are, you know, you can multipurpose the content. So it's not just the podcast. So it goes out as an audio. Then we have audio snippets, then we have video clips. Then you have, you know, the full video episode. So you can actually use it in so many different ways.

00;40;13;08 - 00;40;44;24
Kirk Behrendt
I think at one time we counted 13 different ways. We use one podcast, you know? So, they also live evergreen so people can go back and listen to them. It's amazing how people will listen to episodes from a long, long time ago. They show up on a search. It's really weird. I don't know how any of it works, but like, I do know that, you know, when you're looking for specific content on things and you know the other thing, too, in a podcast, when you say you got to know your customer, too, you got to know yourself too, because I am not the expert.

00;40;44;24 - 00;41;03;23
Kirk Behrendt
So I have spent a lifetime in this great profession of dentistry. I my lane is really the business of dentistry, but I have hundreds of friends that are in the technical side of things. You know, they talk about a statics, they talk about occlusion, they talk about, you know, all these different modalities in dentistry. And those are my friends.

00;41;03;23 - 00;41;18;09
Kirk Behrendt
And so I'll just have them on and talk about them. I want them to talk about their products. And we do a lot of crossover episodes. And I don't, you know, I don't ever want this to be about me. Like, I'll have you know, you on my podcast and I want you to sell your stuff and create value.

00;41;18;09 - 00;41;32;21
Kirk Behrendt
So, like, I think the world gets better when you truly live by your value. Systems give greater than get I we don't look at like we don't try to monetize our podcast or anything like that. Yes, a lot of business comes from it, but I want people to win by being on our pockets.

00;41;32;23 - 00;41;51;06
Bob Ruffolo
And that's one of the cool things about podcast too, is you get to show who you hang out with, and when you start doing that, it's like, oh, they've they've got some pretty cool guests going on there, doing some pretty cool things. Like it's it gives extra credibility to your firm when you bring these, these thought leaders from the outside, it's like, oh, Act Dental and Kurt, they're all connected to these, these really brilliant people who I also follow.

00;41;51;06 - 00;42;17;04
Bob Ruffolo
That person, that person, that person are all on the show. Like that's my community. So it gives extra credibility when you do that. So, Kirk, before we wrap up the episode, I do have a question for you. Please, let's get really tactical here. So we've got this podcast doing really well. And by the way, can you give a little background on how the podcast performs in terms of what what you guys see as metrics that you track and, and outcomes you see from the podcast?

00;42;17;06 - 00;42;37;19
Kirk Behrendt
So before Apple changed the algorithm. So it used to be the download thing, you know. So the download thing was amazing. So if you don't even think about podcasting, what a lot of people would do is they would follow our podcast and they would hit the automatic download button, and then Apple crushed all that. So people were just following and then hitting automatic downloads.

00;42;37;19 - 00;42;56;08
Kirk Behrendt
So it would be fans and thousands and thousands of downloads a week like it was. It kept climbing and then they changed the algorithm. I'm like, what happened? And so and what I know about myself today is I still listen to a lot of podcasts, but I don't download any of them. Not one of them, unless it like really hits.

00;42;56;10 - 00;43;26;18
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah, I just stream it from its natural source. And so right now, the only thing that matters to us, the metric that matters the most to us is unique listeners, because unique listeners ultimately show us how many unique devices are listening to the podcast all over the world. Now, we are not a company that needs a million. You know, our our product that especially on the coaching side, it's a it's a larger fee, you know, higher value type of thing.

00;43;26;18 - 00;43;41;24
Kirk Behrendt
So we don't need a ton, you know. And we also have a you know, our business model is very much a subscription model. Mr.. Model meaning like I don't need to harpoon a whale every single month. We just got to add one more or two more clients a month, and it adds that much more to our revenue base.

00;43;41;24 - 00;44;00;03
Kirk Behrendt
And we got to retain the clients for long term. So you can understand that's a much more stable, long term business for yourself. And if you're ever intending to sell your business. Mr.. Our businesses are the ones to by because they're predictable revenue for a long time. So we knew that going in that we needed to change to an MRR model years ago.

00;44;00;03 - 00;44;26;07
Kirk Behrendt
And we did it and it was scary and it absolutely works. So, to answer your question, the single most important metric for us right now is unique listeners. So currently we have we have 125,000, you know, all over the world, some of them in Japan. And we don't need a million. But if we can go from 125 to 130 5 to 145, you know, in the next few years by doing it the right way, we're crossing it.

00;44;26;10 - 00;44;42;20
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. On what we need the other side of things. I think sometimes people. Yeah, that's the other thing I would say about a podcast. You got to know why you're going into it. There are a lot of my friends that have podcasts. Well, they monetize the podcast, meaning they have ads that run throughout it. We don't need the revenue of the ads.

00;44;42;21 - 00;44;43;16
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah, I.

00;44;43;19 - 00;44;45;02
Bob Ruffolo
Think the business behind it, yeah.

00;44;45;08 - 00;45;05;11
Kirk Behrendt
We have the business behind it. So like our revenue comes from people trusting the podcast and listening to the podcast and wanting more. Now we will have some of our, you know, success partners on there occasionally, but we want to be very careful that it's not full of ads because I hate listening to a podcast now, that's that's a style choice.

00;45;05;12 - 00;45;21;10
Kirk Behrendt
But there are friends of mine and they're like, you're crazy, man. We make a lot of money on our advertising. I'm like, go for it. That's the cool thing. You know, the cool thing about business is that you can it's a it's a free landscape. You can paint it however you want. So, so to answer your question, unique listeners.

00;45;21;11 - 00;45;38;20
Bob Ruffolo
Okay, so unique listeners. And over the years, especially recently, where are you seeing as the biggest unlocks to gang the podcast in front of more of your ideal audience? That would be relevant to our audience. So let's get a little tactical, little technical here.

00;45;38;23 - 00;45;43;21
Kirk Behrendt
So social, social and then events. So, so social.

00;45;43;24 - 00;45;51;03
Bob Ruffolo
Like what are you guys actually doing on social that helps get more eyeballs or I guess ears on the on the podcast.

00;45;51;06 - 00;46;10;26
Kirk Behrendt
Let me get super, super specific and I'm happy to send you one of these. So, a great guess that I have is name is Ushi odi. I consider him the premier health expert in dentistry, so he's everywhere. He I mean, you he's amazing. Good friend of mine. So. And he's also like a social media giant. Yeah. So we'll do an episode.

00;46;10;26 - 00;46;43;19
Kirk Behrendt
We do episodes all the time. I create clips for him. I send it to him in Instagram and add him as a collaborator. Now, as you can imagine, he's a big social influencer. He loves seeing himself talk about now. He's a really humble guy, but he loves. I create marketing for him. He's like collaborate. Absolutely. So he hits the collaborate button, which is a post from our company on our podcast interviewing him about his thing, and he is sharing it everywhere, as you can imagine.

00;46;43;19 - 00;47;13;24
Kirk Behrendt
So back to the give greater than get. I don't want my face, my, you know, ugly face everywhere. I would rather have Ushi Uchis, a good looking guy. He's got like 4% body fat. He's good looking dude. He's smart, intelligent. I'm just on there like his sidekick going, that's amazing. You know, type of thing. So that by that hands alone, I think one of the posts that we did in a collaboration post and again, if you don't know what collaboration is, Instagram gives you a ability right to.

00;47;13;26 - 00;47;14;22
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. And so.

00;47;14;22 - 00;47;16;29
Bob Ruffolo
It says multiple brands. Yep.

00;47;17;01 - 00;47;27;14
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah. And so basically I, I mean I hope and say this he hits the yes button and it instantly becomes a post of his that's right type of right. Is that correct.

00;47;27;15 - 00;47;27;24
Bob Ruffolo
And then.

00;47;27;25 - 00;47;28;09
Kirk Behrendt
All.

00;47;28;11 - 00;47;31;03
Bob Ruffolo
Oversee it as if it came from him. That's correct.

00;47;31;05 - 00;47;51;05
Kirk Behrendt
Instead of being in front of 5000 followers, us posting on ourselves, we're now in front of, you know, 28,000 followers just because he said yes to it. So that's, you know, don't build the brand on your own. Now, I'm not looking. The other thing is, I'm not looking for a take, you know, and I'm not looking to use him because he would see right through that.

00;47;51;05 - 00;48;03;27
Kirk Behrendt
Like, I love him. He's a dear friend of mine. Like I want him to be ultimately successful. It's honest. It's authentic. I want him to build his brand. And he. And if he was on here, he'd say, and I'd use his voice. He'd be like, man, you guys are great. That's how he talks. He's like, I love it.

00;48;03;27 - 00;48;20;17
Kirk Behrendt
Because every time I'm on your show, like, great things happen. I get more requests for this and that. So it becomes a, you know, a a a a, you know, this, this alternate energy that we create together. You know, it's, it's we're both in a position of give greater than get. So to.

00;48;20;19 - 00;48;24;11
Bob Ruffolo
11 your powers combined makes everything go ten times further.

00;48;24;12 - 00;48;44;24
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah yeah. Be super specific and tactical. That is probably the number one play on increasing unique listeners because as you can imagine, those people watch those clips and go, what the heck is the best practices, chef? I've never seen that. Let me watch the rest of the episode. And so now they hit the subscribe button and now we're getting new subscribers we didn't have.

00;48;44;26 - 00;49;01;27
Kirk Behrendt
That's great. And the other thing I would say about this, because you would know more about this, you're also getting like minded people. He's in dentistry. Yeah. He's one of the most followed people in dentistry. I'm in dentistry. I'm not one of the most vital people dentistry. So we're getting like minded customers that are in the same industry that care about the same things.

00;49;01;27 - 00;49;19;13
Kirk Behrendt
They're usually good people. Values usually align. And so it's it's a wonderful way, you know, you can't do this on your own. Do it authentically. Do it honestly. Help other spend your time helping other people succeed. What did Zig Ziglar say? That and you'll be crazy successful yourself, you know.

00;49;19;19 - 00;49;44;06
Bob Ruffolo
So that is a great spot to wrap up this episode. Kirk, you gave so much great information today. So really, thank you again. Thank you for for being such an important person in my life. What you've done for this company in my career. And thank you so much for coming on now. If anyone wants to pick your brain on anything after this, maybe it's about what you guys do at Act Dental or if it's about anything we talked about podcasting.

00;49;44;07 - 00;49;46;16
Bob Ruffolo
How can someone get in touch with you after this?

00;49;46;19 - 00;50;05;25
Kirk Behrendt
Yeah, you can just reach out to us. I mean, my personal email is Kirk dental.com or, you know, our company now we're one larger organization, one big ecosystem called Smile Source. But you can still check out our website at dental.com. You know, follow us on social. I'm always here I love I love doing this stuff. I love helping people.

00;50;05;25 - 00;50;07;12
Kirk Behrendt
So reach out to me anytime.

00;50;07;13 - 00;50;09;12
Bob Ruffolo
Well, you're an inspiration, buddy.

00;50;09;14 - 00;50;15;07
Kirk Behrendt
Well thank you brother. You are too, man. I'm grateful for you. And thanks for thanks for doing what you do.

00;50;15;09 - 00;50;31;18
Bob Ruffolo
I appreciate you being on today. Everyone. Well, that's been another episode of the Endless Customers podcast. I hope you learned a ton today about building your personal brands. Have build a podcast, just like Kirk has. So, until we have our next episode, we will see you there.

00;50;31;21 - 00;50;37;22
Stephanie Baiocchi
If you liked this episode, please take a minute to leave us a review. Thanks for checking out the Endless Customers podcast.