Why “premium” marketing can hurt your practice growth, and how to fix it.

Summary

The video addresses a counterintuitive marketing strategy involving how businesses, specifically a dental practice, should present themselves visually and experientially to align with their target audience’s expectations rather than their own standards of quality or aesthetics. The speaker recounts a discussion with their photographer, who was concerned that the photos on a client’s website appeared of lower quality than the originals. The speaker explains that the photos were intentionally edited to look less polished and somewhat “worse” in quality to better resonate with the client’s target demographic, which is a non-luxury, lower-income patient base.

Key Insights

• Customer Perception Over Objective Quality: The core lesson is that marketing and presentation should prioritize what the end user (patient/consumer) perceives as better, not what professionals or marketers personally consider superior.
• Counterintuitive Approach: Making something objectively “worse” (e.g., photos with less natural color, lower resolution) may be necessary to align the brand with the values and expectations of the target demographic.
• Alignment with Audience Beliefs: Successful marketing reflects the audience’s beliefs and experiences. If a business serves a budget-conscious group, the presentation should convey cost-efficiency rather than luxury.
• Example of Spirit Airlines: Spirit Airlines boosted sales by amplifying its image as a budget, no-frills airline, making all additional services paid upgrades and signaling clearly to customers that this airline is the cheapest option. This transparency built trust and matched customer expectations.

Practical Application for Businesses

• Identify Your Audience: Understand deeply who you serve and what their values and expectations are.
• Take Ownership Of All Touchpoints: Consider every interaction point with customers, such as:
  • Parking experience
  • Surrounding businesses and plaza environment
  • Receptionist greeting
  • Office interior design
  • Staff demeanor and treatment
• Create Consistent Messaging: Each touchpoint should reinforce the same message—whether it is luxury, affordability, or performance—so the consumer immediately understands if the business matches their needs.
• Differentiate Through Alignment: When all elements align with the target audience’s expectations, the business differentiates itself clearly, making it easier for customers to identify and refer others who share those values.

Conceptual Framework

Conclusions

• Marketing effectiveness depends on alignment with the target customer’s worldview and expectations, not on objective measures of quality or professionalism.
• This approach may require intentionally designing an experience that seems “worse” by traditional standards to better serve and attract the intended customer base.
• Differentiation and word-of-mouth grow when customers instantly recognize that a business “stands for something” aligned with their values.
• Businesses should expand ownership of the customer experience beyond just the product or service, encompassing environment, interaction, and every customer touchpoint.

Summary of Recommendations

• Begin marketing by defining who your customer is and what they value.
• Audit all touchpoints of customer interaction to ensure consistent messaging.
• Embrace counterintuitive strategies if they better serve the customer’s needs.
• Use real-world examples (e.g., Spirit Airlines) to illustrate how embracing a clear, honest brand position can boost sales and loyalty.
• Recognize that your perception of “better” may be irrelevant to your audience, and adjust accordingly.

This mindset shift encourages businesses to move beyond conventional ideas of quality and aesthetics and focus on creating meaningful connections through authentic alignment with their customers’ beliefs and experiences.

00:00:00
So, last night our photographer reached out to me and um he had a concern and he told me that on the website on one of our clients websites, the photography was kind of bad. And he explained that the photos that he took were of better quality and looked better than the edits that I had intentionally made. That kind of makes the photography look a little worse. And I had to explain to him that it was done with intention and that sometimes what we think is better isn’t always what the end user, the patient,

00:00:42
the consumer finds as better. And it’s important to understand this because we have to lead with what they find better, not what we find better. All right? So this is a bit of a counterintuitive tactic and I find things that are counterintuitive very fascinating because it usually under there’s usually an underlying mindset a frame of how we show up that has to be undermined in order for us to understand the counterintuitive concept. So therefore counterintuitive concepts are when you understand it it becomes a very

00:01:18
good lesson for us to move forward. So anyways, why did we take the extra steps to make these photos look intentionally a bit worse? And uh I won’t show you these exact photos for privacy, but um they looked a bit more blue. I changed it so that it wasn’t a natural look anymore. And overall, the quality was also a little diminished. And it goes back to understanding that the people we seek to serve don’t want the same things that we necessarily do. And it we have to start with understanding what they want and

00:01:55
presenting ourselves in a way that shows that we align with those beliefs. We align with those ideas of what they want so that we can create marketing. can create a meaning that aligns with what they believe and therefore cause forward movement, cause alignment, and cause decision-m where we create a win-win. Otherwise, we’ll present ourselves in a way that is out of alignment with what they believe is better and that gets us nowhere. So what the photographer believed to be better was a better resolution, better

00:02:32
lighting, natural aesthetic. And what we were trying to create was a better for the end patient. And now this is an office that isn’t high-end. It’s an office that isn’t isn’t luxury. It serves a generally poorer demographic. And as a result, we need to engage in that lens and and align with that belief. So it’s counterintuitive in that why would you make something worse? This is what I’m trying to get at. So for example, the example that I gave him was that I cheap out on certain things. For

00:03:09
example, certain foods I will cheap out on. Sometimes I just don’t see the value. Um well, I can see the value, but most of the times I choose not to um engage in that sort of food stuff. And so if I showed up to a restaurant that looked like Nou, that sounded like Nou, and the experience was like Nou, I’m not going to believe that I’m in that restaurant to get a val like a costefficient meal if my if what I find to be valuable is cost efficiency when it comes to food. So it actually hurts the business to

00:03:47
show up as nou to show up better to show up as more premium right wouldn’t we love to be more premium sure but for the customer for the patient for the person who who is engaging with that that’s not what they were looking for and that’s not what the practice that’s not who the practice was serving. So it had to be starting with their perceptions of what was better and aligning with it. That is the counterintuitive work that sometimes we have to engage with that our understanding of better doesn’t matter

00:04:23
as much as their understanding of what is better and how they want to be served. So a famous example of this is Spirit Airlines. And he asked me how can you compare a dental practice to Spirit Airlines? All the buying psychology of people is always the same. All right. So, Spirit Airlines for a long time, they had a they had a problem. They couldn’t get sales. They lowered their prices and they were going to be the cheapest available. And the counterintuitive action that they took that actually boosted their

00:04:54
sales was exemplifying or sorry amplifying how obvious of a cheap airline they were. So everything required an upgrade. If you wanted extra leg room, it required an upgrade. Did you want to bring a carry-on? That’s an upgrade. So that when people engaged with that or even their uh planes were older models. So when people engage with this system all those touch points all those events that they come into interaction with the event of asking if they want to upgrade to just bring on a carry-on. It

00:05:34
signals to that person that hey you are experiencing budget and this is what it looks like and you are we are giving them confidence that if you want to save money this is the place to do it and this is what it looks like. All right. So how can we create an experience? How can you create an experience in your office that aligns with those beliefs? First you have to start off with who is it that you’re serving? What do they believe? Then you have to identify all the different touch points that they can

00:06:06
come into contact with when it comes to your office. Expand what you take ownership of as it relates to their experience of you. Can you take ownership of the plaza that they experience when they park their car and walk into your office? Can you take ownership of who you’ll be next to in the actual plaza? All right. All those different touch points, how the receptionist greets them, what the interior looks like, how the doctor treats them, all these are different touch points. And we get to

00:06:39
play with those. We get to play with those elements and design them so that it creates a meaning that oh this is luxury. Oh, this is high performance. This is cheap. So much so that the people who align with those beliefs and who want those beliefs connect with it instantly. They get it. Or if they don’t connect with it, they know someone else who connects with that because now you’re you’re differentiating. You’re actually differentiating when you align all those different touch points. And people will

00:07:15
understand, oh, this practice is for this. I might not I might not like it, but I know a friend who does. And that’s how we create word of mouth. You have to start standing for something. And it doesn’t start with what you think is better. Counterintuitively, you may have to make things worse for your perspective, but better for your customers. All right, rant over. See you in the next one. Thanks.