My friend Nina would once start every Facebook post with the same question:
Know what chaps my ass?

Pardon her French. And mine, because I’m gonna channel my inner Nina today in asking…
Know what chaps my ass?

When I get an email from a fellow marketing professional — one I happen to know has not-insignificant influence in this sphere — that just screeeeeeeeams bro.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since it hit my inbox yesterday, so I’m sharing it with you. The email read…

“Does the crowding in your lower teeth bother you?”
Every patient gets this question (or one like it) from the staff at a small dental office.
The answer is often yes, which leads to the next question:
“Would you like the dentist to walk through some options for how we can help?”
Again, the answer is almost always yes.
So when the dentist walks in, he’s ready to talk about Invisalign treatment. While he’s doing this, his staff does prep work to make kickoff simple for the patient.
This seamless process took time to develop, but it’s the primary reason why this dental office with only one dentist does $6.4 million per year.

Mmm, yes. A cool $6.4 million a year, and all that dental office’s staff had to do was lodge vain insecurity deep in their patients’ brains!

Hi. Can we not?

I was a metal-mouthed, brace-faced kid twice over, so I get it. Having straight teeth is cool. (So I hear, anyway. I stopped wearing my retainer about 20 years ago, and suffice it to say, this dental office would be all up in my crowded grill to invest in Invisalign today.)

But do folks with crooked teeth really need to be reminded of this particular flaw, especially when they’re already in a vulnerable position (leaned back in a chair wearing a paper bib, with somebody’s hands in their mouth, blinded by an overhead light)?

It plants a seed: “Oh, God. The dentist noticed it… Who else is noticing it?!”

And the seed grows into invasive weed of pressure to Buy the Thing™ to fix something broken.

Bruise-pressing. Shame-based sales. Consider my ass chapped.

Invisalign is a huge profit center. I get that.
But there’s…maybe a better way to market the offering.

Instead of, “Yo, snaggletooth! You look busted! Give us money!”
Could we seed interest subtly, over time, and sell success — not fear of failure?

😄 Advertise “the confidence to say CHEESE just in time for your family Christmas photos.”
😄 Sell “a smile so straight your high school sweetheart will rethink their life choices at your next reunion.”
😄 Hook them with the tantalizing realization of their dream of less food stuck in their pearly whites.

We can recognize the problem lurking just beneath our dream customers’ consciousness.
We can understand the feelings it brings up in them.

And we can choose not to dig into it.
We can help them see through it to the other side — with us as their guide.

It ain’t hard, but it does take intention.

By the way, your teeth look amazing.