Summary
The video discusses the critical importance of owning assets rather than renting them, particularly in the context of digital marketing for dental practices. While there are exceptions where renting is pragmatic (such as unaffordable ownership, depreciating assets, or labor which cannot be owned), ownership provides security, control, and independence that renting cannot guarantee.
Key Insights
- Ownership vs. Renting: Owning assets is generally preferable because it ensures long-term control and avoids dependency on external parties.
- Exceptions to Ownership:
- When ownership is unaffordable (e.g., real estate like office space).
- When dealing with depreciating assets or labor (which cannot be owned but rented).
- Common Pitfalls in Digital Marketing:
- Many dental practices enter contracts with marketing agencies that lead to renting rather than owning digital assets, such as websites, marketing funnels, ad accounts, and creative content.
- This creates a dependent relationship with the agency.
Risks of Renting Digital Marketing Assets
- Loss of Access: If the relationship with the marketing agency ends or deteriorates, the practice may lose access to crucial marketing assets.
- Litigation and Disputes: Clients have faced lawsuits when agencies refuse to transfer ownership of marketing funnels, advertising accounts (e.g., Meta, Google), or websites.
- Significant Business Impact: Example given where a practice went from acquiring approximately 22 patients and 90 leads per month to only 1 patient per month after severing ties with the previous marketing agency.
- Barriers to Transition:
- Agencies may refuse to transfer websites or charge exorbitant fees.
- Creative content such as photos might be copyrighted under the agency, preventing the practice from using its own images.
- Software ecosystems and marketing funnels may be locked or inaccessible.
Recommendations for Practices
- Ensure Ownership of All Digital Assets:
- Website
- Marketing funnels
- Advertising accounts
- Creative content (photos, videos)
- Have Ownership Explicitly Defined in Writing: Contracts should clearly state that the practice owns all created assets.
- Avoid Dependent Relationships: Work with agencies or partners who build assets for you to keep and control.
- Future-Proof Your Practice: Ownership enables flexibility to switch vendors or agencies without losing critical business tools and momentum.
- Beware of Agencies That Resist Transfer of Ownership: Such resistance is a red flag indicating a desire to keep clients dependent, which can harm long-term growth.
Conclusion
Ownership of digital marketing assets is paramount for sustainable business growth and autonomy. Practices should prioritize clear ownership agreements to avoid dependency traps and costly disputes. Working with partners who empower you with asset ownership fosters a healthier business environment and protects your marketing investments.
Quantitative Data Table: Patient and Lead Impact Example
| Metric | Before Severing Agency Relationship | After Severing Agency Relationship |
|---|---|---|
| Patients Acquired per Month | 22 | 1 |
| Leads per Month | 90 | Not specified |
Core Concepts
- Asset Ownership: Full control and legal rights over marketing materials and platforms.
- Dependent Relationship: Reliance on a third party for critical business functions without ownership rights.
- Digital Marketing Assets: Websites, funnels, ad accounts, creative content.
- Future-Proofing: Creating conditions that protect business continuity and growth potential.
Keywords
- Asset Ownership
- Digital Marketing
- Marketing Funnels
- Advertising Accounts
- Client-Agency Relationship
- Dependency Risk
- Litigation in Marketing
- Dental Practice Marketing
- Content Ownership
- Business Growth Strategy
00:00:00
It’s almost always better to own your assets than it is to rent your asset. Now, of course, there’s exceptions. You maybe want to rent because you can’t afford to own it yet. So, for example, your office space rather than buying the real estate. And maybe you have a depreciating asset, so it makes more sense to rent in the short term than to actually outright own that whole thing. Or maybe it’s because it’s like human labor. You can’t own it. So, you rent out that labor by paying them for that
00:00:28
labor. But when it comes to digital marketing especially, I’ve noticed that a lot of dental practices get into contracts and negotiations and they end up making deals where they end up renting assets from the marketing agencies rather than owning it. And with a little bit more work and a little bit more research, they could have found someone who could have done an equally good job while that practice maintains ownership of all the assets they made. And it might not sound like a big deal because as long as you
00:01:02
work with that agency, that marketing company, whatever, you have access to those assets. But you have to realize that that creates a very dependent relationship. And if for whatever reason you decide to leave or they decide to leave or they decide to change course or whatever it is, you are going to be left stranded without the assets if that relationship doesn’t work out. And ownership is the way to get around it. Now I have seen a lot of clients uh who’ve come to me from past agencies and
00:01:34
and they were getting into litigation with the past agency because one, the agency wouldn’t give them the marketing funnel. they wouldn’t transfer over the advertising methods that they had set up for them on Meta or Google or whatever. They didn’t have access to those accounts. They were renting advertising from that group. And so what happened was they were getting I think it was like 22 patients uh a month uh something like 90 leads per month were coming in. And they purchased that practice. And
00:02:06
when they purchased that practice, the company they purchased it from severed ties with them. And now they were left with about one patient a month. So they went into this huge litigation because ownership, it wasn’t clearly defined what the scope of the ownership was. I have many instances of clients coming. They had a website with a past uh company and the company refuses to transfer it over and so we have to rebuild from scratch. it takes a long time or the the other company makes them pay an exorbitant fee to export that
00:02:39
website and and and so on. Like there’s many cases where they come over their uh whole in software ecosystem is shut down because the other company wants to create barriers of leaving or photo content like the photos that they used are copyrighted under that company. So now the practice can’t use the own use photos of themselves. So there’s many crazy cases of ownership being at the center of a lot of issues. So whenever you’re working with someone, do the work of determining who who has ownership.
00:03:17
And frankly, you should have ownership of everything. You should have ownership of your website, of your content, of the marketing funnels, of the creatives that people make for you. You should have that in writing and really futurep proof yourself. Don’t create a code don’t create a dependent relationship where you’re dependent on a different entity in order to grow and to get patience. Instead, build an asset. Get ownership of all the things. Work with people who are going to build stuff for you that you get to
00:03:48
keep and that’s going to help you move on into the future. Right? Right? And if you’re working with a type of company or agency that is too insecure to give you ownership of things and to help you grow and to help you eventually leave them, I think you might be working with the wrong kind of people who want to keep you in a dependent relationship and prevent you. And as the longer that relationship goes and the more assets and some costs you build in with them, the harder it is to eventually leave.
00:04:17
And that is not a sort of relationship with companies or with people that we should seek to get into. So are you working with a group of people who are building ownership or building assets that are in your ownership? That is the key criteria I would look for when you’re working with a group of people. Um, and it’s going to make a tremendous amount of difference in how you see even business and growth uh moving into the future. All right, hope this was helpful and I’ll see you guys in the next