How to hire the right people and build a winning marketing team for your dental group

If you’re in charge of marketing for your dental group, you know that your primary job is delivering new patients. Building a well-oiled marketing pipeline marks the dividing line between enjoying the steady, predictable new patient growth you need in order to expand… or struggling to do things like pay your associates.

But marketing is also a team sport. Or it should be, anyway. By the time you need to be generating patients for five or so practices — let alone 25 — a one-person or part-time marketing department isn’t going to cut it. 

In fact, try to take on too much marketing alone and you’re pretty much guaranteeing two things:

1. You’ll run yourself ragged. 
2. You almost certainly won’t get the new patient results you need.

That means if you’re responsible for new patient growth for more than a tiny handful of locations, you’ll want to set about building a marketing team capable of delivering real growth. (Of course, you can also choose to outsource most of your marketing efforts to a trusted outside partner like, ahem, SMC.)

However, not all marketing teams are created equal. The choices you make when putting yours together — hiring for your key roles like ad manager — will play a huge part in determining whether you see full waiting rooms or just a quarterly statement that’s full of red ink.

Think I’m being dramatic? Well, maybe a little. But here’s a statistic that will shock you:

Did you know — and I’m not making this up — that hiring the wrong team member can cost you anywhere from five to 27 times that person’s yearly salary? That means that if you pay your newest marketing team member $100,000 and they prove to be a bad fit, you could be facing anywhere from $500,000 to $2,700,000 in not only lost hiring costs and compensation but missed opportunities, disruption to your organization, and severance.

In other words, you don’t just need to hire, but hire correctly — because the price of getting that decision wrong can be prohibitive. 

This guide will help you make the right hiring choices. Drawing on my 10+ years of experience building dental marketing teams while working in practices, as a DSO executive, and as director of business development here at SMC, I’ll guide you through the process of thinking about your hiring method and then interviewing candidates so you can feel confident making decisions.

Together, we’ll cover:

• What you need to think about before you start hiring, including whether you should build an internal team or partner with a marketing agency.
• How to create an effective interview process that will separate the wheat from the chaff.
• 9 specific questions you should ask to figure out if a candidate has real marketing chops. I’ve personally used these to hire great dental marketers.
• How to assess candidates after you’ve completed your interviews so you can make stronger hiring decisions.

After reading this guide, you’ll feel better prepared to make smart choices that will deliver real new patient growth at scale. My goal here is not to exhaustively explore every possible aspect of hiring, but to highlight key elements I’ve found to be especially valuable.

Excited to get started? Me too. Let’s dive in!

I. What should you think about before you start hiring?

Did you know that great hiring doesn’t begin with posting a job ad and interviewing candidates? In order to do those things successfully, you need to start by making sure your dental group is prepared to make the most of your new marketing team — and positioned to attract high-level talent.

Here are three questions you should think about before you start hiring marketers:

• Should you build an internal team or partner with an outside agency?
• Is your group culture strong enough to appeal to great candidates?
• Are your operations ready to handle an increased new patient load?

We’ll tackle each one in order.

Should you hire internally or work with a marketing company?

The first question many practice marketing leaders face when it’s time to start scaling up their teams is also a big one. Do you hire internally… or partner with an outside company?

The truth is, it depends. Creating an internal team gives you a long-term resource and allows you to begin to build up institutional knowledge as your team learns how to market to meet the specific needs of your dental group.

This is incredibly valuable. But it won’t happen overnight. You also run the risk of investing time and money only to find out — too late — that your team isn’t capable of delivering high-level results and then having to rebuild from scratch.

By contrast, working with an external dental marketing business is much more plug-and-play. Ask around and you should be able to find a firm with a good reputation and a track record of success that can step in and start boosting your new patient growth relatively quickly.

However, even the best marketers cannot guarantee results. You’ll also find that if your growth is hindered by internal operational issues, there is little that most marketing companies can do for you. 

(Note on that last point: At SMC, we do offer coaching that can address many operational problems, especially those around conversion and client retention.)

And if you choose to switch marketing companies mid-stream, you’ll have to go through a whole new onboarding process every time you do it — which often includes investing in a new website and other ancillary costs.

Will your team culture attract high-quality candidates?

Assuming you decide you want to go the in-house route, next you’ll need to think about whether your dental group is in a position to attract excellent marketers. Obviously, pay is a major issue here, but not the only one.

Consider: Are you competitive when it comes to culture?

Now, when I say culture, I don’t mean free kombucha and snacks at the office. I’m talking about the things that really matter: friendliness, empathy, clear communication, flexibility, and opportunities for growth and advancement. 

More than ever, employees take these factors (and others like them) into account when they’re thinking about which job offer to accept. And who can blame them? Nobody wants to work for a business that makes them feel burnt out, undervalued, and like a disposable cog in a wheel.

If you want to stand out, think about your dental group’s:

• Management style. Do leaders support team members’ well-being and long-term growth?
• Flexibility. Do you offer benefits like remote work options, PTO, paid sick leave, etc?
• Communication. Does your group have open lines of communication and leadership that knows how to talk to people?
• Overall friendliness. Are people generally nice to each other? Do they make the effort to look out for one another?

Of course, depending on your specific role, you may or may not be in a position to set the cultural tone for your entire organization. Neither does a great team culture come together overnight — it demands both consistent, long-term effort from leadership and buy-in from the troops.

But do what you can, be honest about where your group is in its own cultural journey, and understand that culture can be either a major selling point or something you’ll have to compensate for if you want to bring in top talent.

Either way, you can’t ignore it.

Are your operations ready to handle more new patients?

I touched on this above, but it’s important enough to merit a whole section. Before you start marketing, are your business operations ready to handle an increased flow of new patient leads?

In other words, if your marketers start making your phones ring with new patient leads, are your call handlers capable of converting them into scheduled appointments at an 80 to 90 percent rate with a wait time of no more than 3 business days? 

Are your doctors prepared to make those patients — who, as marketing patients, are much more skeptical than those who come in as the result of a referral from a friend or loved one — feel confident in saying yes to their treatment plans? And is your whole team ready to offer the kind of in-office experience and ongoing follow-up that will ensure your new patients keep coming back for care in the future? 

All these things — along with any other operational issues that affect your ability to schedule patients in a convenient and timely manner — are important because if you don’t nail them down, then you’re going to end up wasting ad dollars by throwing away leads or failing to retain patients you’ve spent hundreds on acquiring in the first place. There’s no sense in turning on the marketing spigot until you’ve plugged the holes in your bucket.

Of course, once your new patient numbers do start to climb as a result of your marketing, you’ll find new problems in your operations. That’s a normal part of growth. But the more you learn how to address them now, the better prepared you’ll be to tackle any additional trouble that comes down the road.

II. How should you structure your interview process?

So, you’ve assessed your organization and decided you’re ready to start hiring. Excellent! Let’s talk through some of the key elements that go into establishing an excellent hiring process, like:

• Creating a job posting that attracts your ideal candidates.
• The essentials of conducting great interviews

What’s the secret to a great job posting?

You can find guides on structuring a job post all over the internet. So we want to get a little more specific and focus on one aspect of creating a job listing that may seem counterintuitive.

Ready for it? You want to write up a listing that is NOT designed to appeal to every possible candidate. In fact, you want to be specific, particular, and brutally honest in your post. 

Rather than sugar coating anything, you want to describe the position, workload, and expectations as clearly as possible. Ideally, your job post will give candidates an accurate sense of what they would be getting into — pluses and minuses both.

Obviously, you want to highlight what’s attractive about the role, including what is hopefully a competitive salary, strong benefits, and a healthy company culture that brings out the best in your current team. But you want to be just as upfront about the challenges involved — including things like (if relevant) long hours, performance expectations, and the typical stress levels you would expect your new hire to face.

Why mention the tough stuff? Because you’ll be able to weed out candidates who are not the right fit to tackle the difficult aspects of the role without having to interview them first. 

Those folks simply won’t apply. Meanwhile, candidates who are ready (and even eager) to tackle the position will understand that they’ve found a good fit for their skills and personalities.

You’ll save everybody involved time and energy — most of all yourself.

What goes into conducting a good interview process?

First off, remember this — interviews are a two-way street. You’re trying to get a sense of a candidate, yes. But they’re also trying to do the same thing about you!

Again, this makes honesty essential here. Just like with your job posting, you want your interview process to be frank and upfront. The more you can open up a transparent, even vulnerable dialogue with your candidates, the better chance you have of finding someone who is not just a skills fit, but a cultural fit as well.

Second, consistency is king. Ideally, you’ll want to ask each candidate the same questions in the same order and then grade their answers using a 1-4 scale that is shared by all interviewers (if you’ve got more than one person doing interviews). 

The goal is to avoid having personality play too big of a role in the hiring process. A little of that is unavoidable, but as anyone who has ever hired can tell you, just because you’ve hit it off with someone doesn’t mean they’re the best fit for the job. 

By taking a consistent approach to each interview, you’ll be better poised to avoid bias, accurately compare candidates’ answers to questions, and introduce some degree of statistical rigor into your selection. 

Third, I recommend conducting three rounds of interviews with each candidate. Obviously, you don’t have to do this with someone who feels like a genuinely bad fit after an initial conversation, but for anyone in the maybe column, here’s what I’ve found to be effective:

• Round 1: Get to know each other. Make this conversation light and simple. Your main goal here is to establish rapport and keep an eye out for any glaring red flags.
  
• Round 2: Focus on cultural fit. If a candidate isn’t going to be a plus for your culture, their other strengths probably aren’t worth the trouble. Think about your group’s core values, then develop questions that will help you suss out whether a candidate fits into that mix.
  
• Round 3: Dive into skills. Here, you want to find out if a candidate has the raw chops. You’ll want to get into professional strengths and weaknesses, past job experiences, and even discuss case studies or offer problems to solve. (I’ll go over specific questions you can use in the next section.)

• Test project. After Round 2 or 3 is often a great time to add a test project into the mix. This can be an example of the kind of actual work that if hired, the candidate would perform as part of their job. (Best practice here is to pay each candidate for completing any test work, especially if it is something you may end up using whether you hire a candidate or not.)

If you feel the need to add another interview round, that’s fine (especially if you’re hiring for a more senior position). However, don’t string candidates along with endless interviews. You’ll quickly reach a point of diminishing returns while also irritating the folks you’re considering to the extent that you may miss out on top talent because they decide an exhaustive hiring process simply isn’t worth it. 

One note: Especially today, interviewing over Zoom can be a great option. If you do conduct Zoom interviews, ask each candidate for permission to record the interview (you may be breaking state law if you don’t get consent here).

You’ll be able to be more relaxed and present during the interview if you’re not worried about having to write down everything the candidate says in the moment — and you’ll also be able to view it later with any other colleagues who are involved in making hiring decisions. 

III. What questions should you ask candidates to get a clear sense of their skill level?

To state the obvious: Asking the right questions is a big part of great interviewing. Ideally, you want to push past the superficial stuff and gather information that will help you determine whether a given candidate has the chops to actually do the job that you’re hiring for — and do it well.

Below, I’ve included nine questions that I’ve personally used when interviewing candidates for dental marketing roles. All of them are meant to help you figure out how whoever you’re talking to thinks about marketing, including specific problems that most dental marketers will have to navigate in order to be successful.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to fit all of these questions into one interview (I certainly never do). In fact, a single case study question can evolve into a discussion lasting anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, so I often only have time to cover two or three questions during one session.

Instead, think of this section as more of a question bank from which you can pull ideas depending on the role you’re hiring for. For example, if you’re hiring for a more junior position, you may only want to use one or two, while if you’re interviewing candidates for a bigger job like director of marketing, you might incorporate most or all of them over the course of several rounds of interviews. 

Don’t be afraid to ask follow-up questions, either. Even if a candidate nails their first answer, a probing follow-up or two may help you get a clearer picture of whether the person in front of you has real depth and understanding — or is simply good at interviews. 

Question 1: Why do you love marketing? Which aspects of our business are you passionate about?

Objective: Yeah, this seems generic. But it’s important because you want to hire someone who isn’t just qualified, but actually has the desire to do the job.

What to look for in an answer: Pay attention to body language and enthusiasm, as well as how specific and concrete a candidate’s answer is. Then dig deeper by asking a follow-up question, something like: “Let’s say you’ve got some free time to brush up on your marketing skills. What is it that you do?”

Perhaps they’re reading their five favorite marketing sites, analyzing traffic patterns of websites for fun, writing on their personal blog, or optimizing their LinkedIn profile. The particulars are less important than exploring whether this is someone who is genuinely interested in their craft.

Question 2: What is an innovative new marketing strategy that you’d like to implement while in this position?

Objective: Your goal here is to see how up-to-date a candidate is when it comes to new innovations in the marketing field.

What to look for in an answer:

• Can candidates name one or more innovative marketing tactics?
• Do they appear fluent in how these tactics can be implemented?
• Are they open to trying new strategies?

For example, a candidate might say something like:

“I’m really excited about the prospect of creating an experiential marketing campaign, where we can get in front of potential new patients out in the community. I’ve looked into several different strategies, including one where a dental group brought branded trucks to a festival and did limited exams and cleanings to the attendees.”

Question 3: A patient left a negative review of our practice on a social media site. How do you respond to the patient?

Objective: You want to understand how a candidate deals with negative comments. For better or worse, this is something any marketing strategy has to take into account and have a plan to deal with.

What to look for in an answer:

• Do candidates feel comfortable talking about the issue of negative attention?
• Are they able to produce a plan for converting negative attention to positive branding?
• Do they see a negative post as an opportunity rather than a setback?

A candidate who’s prepared to deal with bad reviews might say:

“I would take the opportunity to respond to the patient in a respectful way (that is HIPAA complaint), tell them that we want to be accountable, and ask how we can best accomplish that. I would also try to politely move the conversation offline.”

Question 4: Tell us about a product or service that you successfully marketed. What was your strategy?

Objective: Your goal here is to get insight into how a candidate thinks about creating and implementing a marketing plan.

What to look for in an answer:

• Do candidates have past experience coming up with marketing strategies?
• Do they enjoy talking about strategy?
• Is the strategy they discuss a sound one?
  

For example, an experienced candidate might say something like:

“I was charged with introducing a new service at a dental conference in Orlando. We created a strategy that involved physical signage and giveaways at the conference center, along with an Instagram account that shared the next location where customers could find our product. We integrated the campaign with general conference IG stories through the use of hashtags. It was a lot of fun.”

Question 5: In the case of the product/service that you successfully marketed, how did you measure the impact of the campaign?

Objective: Use this question as a follow-up to Question 4 that can help you understand how a candidate uses data to evaluate success.

What to look for in an answer:

• Do candidates point to ways of measuring customer awareness, online and off?
• Do they demonstrate a good facility with metrics?
• Do they demonstrate an interest in quantification and data?

For example, a good answer might include:

“Our team tracked mentions/hashtags of our service throughout the conference to see how many conference attendees were engaging with the product, as well as visits to our website and attendance at the giveaways. We also looked at sales after the conference, mentions on social media, and any increase in engagement through other channels like email.”

Question 6: Tell me about a situation in which you had to market a product/service with a team of people who had very different ideas and values. How did you make it work?

Objective: Disagreement is a normal part of life. But not everyone handles it well. You can use this question to see how a candidate deals with people who work or believe differently than they do.

What to look for in an answer:

• Do candidates show an ability to bridge differences?
• Are they open-minded?
• Can they grapple with and manage disagreement?

A skilled candidate might say something like:

“I worked on a team with several people who came from very different backgrounds and disagreed on many things. I bridged this gap by encouraging us to sit down and define our goals together — and then focus on achieving those goals rather than on our personal differences.”

Question 7: Tell me about a marketing campaign you conducted that wasn’t successful. What did you learn from that?

Objective: Even the best marketers fail sometimes. Use this question to better understand whether a candidate is able to own and learn from their failures — or sees them as something to hide.

What to look for in an answer:

• Are candidates overly discouraged by failure?
• Are they able to learn from failure?
• How do they creatively implement these lessons?

A good answer might sound something like this:

“I spent a lot of time and energy working on a campaign that failed to produce results. After looking at our data and reaching out to customers, we learned that we had defined our customer avatar poorly — and were targeting the wrong people. We adjusted the language of our campaign, targeted to a new audience, and then experienced greater success the next time.”

Question 8: You’ve been asked to create a new branding campaign for an existing product or service that has weak sales. What do you do?

Objective: This is closer to a case study (especially if you flesh it out with some more details) and is a great question to ask if you’re looking to build up marketing for a location that has been struggling (or just want to be prepared for any future trouble).

What to look for in an answer:

• Do candidates see leading a rebrand as an interesting challenge?
• Do they have experience in rebranding?
• Do they have creative ideas for rebranding?

Here’s what a good answer could sound like:

“I came on to a brand that had released a faulty service, irritating many of their customers. We rebranded by creating a bright and cheery new ad campaign that signaled the change in the product. We acknowledged to customers that the product had had issues and was being reformulated, and we communicated throughout the new campaign/rebrand. Customers gave us a chance, shared their satisfaction with friends, and the new brand became successful.”

Question 9: We have two competing design ideas for the homepage of our website. The CEO, along with half the company, likes one idea, and the COO, along with the other half, likes the other. Which one should we use?

Objective: This question (which like Question 8, verges on being a case study) has a ton of depth because it gives a candidate the chance to share not just how they think about important design questions, but office politics. You’ll especially want to use this question (or one like it) when hiring for more senior positions.

What to look for in an answer: A good candidate will respond to this question by asking questions of their own (like, for example, who the target audience for the homepage is). Follow up by answering their questions with hypotheticals and seeing how they work through the problem.

• If they do pick one side or the other and give you a reason, ask them what the goals are for the homepage. Then, ask them how they’d determine which homepage meets those goals best. 

• From there, tell them that Homepage A performed well based on one metric, and Homepage B performed well based on another metric. This way, you can assess how they make decisions when it’s not possible to get data that’s conclusive, and they have to choose between two, imperfect variations.

While it might seem like this question is all about design, what you’re really doing is understanding how candidates approach a conflict of interest. Do they prioritize what either of the two company leaders thinks, or do they go to the data for their answers by suggesting A/B testing, user testing, and customer interviews? 

The best candidates introduce logic and marketing methodology into their answers while removing opinions. I also like when candidates suggest that you should be constantly tweaking and improving your homepage, rather than always doing a complete redesign every nine or 18 months.

IV. How should you assess candidates after you’ve finished interviewing?

Once you’ve completed a round of candidate interviews, how should you think about narrowing down the field?

My big three factors:

• Look closely at candidates’ work samples. This can include portfolio pieces of actual work that they’ve done for past employers, and/or test projects that you’ve assigned them as part of your interview process. Think about how their samples line up with how they’ve described their abilities during interviews.
  
• Get references. Don’t skip this stage. Take the time to ask your candidates for references and reach out to each with the following questions:
  • How do you know the candidate?
  • Have you worked with them before?
  • How would you describe their strengths and weaknesses?
  • Do you know if the candidate has ever been promoted before?
  • How would you rate their communication skills?
  • Do you know why the candidate may have left a previous position?
    
• Look for red flags. If a candidate doesn’t have all the skills you need, that’s not necessarily a deal-breaker — if you’re willing to help them develop or if your team can compensate in other ways. But if something feels off on a deeper level, don’t ignore that. Investigate further, discuss with your team, and think about that candidate in the context of your team culture. Are they a potential net negative there?
  

Ultimately, I suggest gathering data, scoring your interviews as neutrally as you can, using case studies or test projects, talking things through with your HR team or leadership, inviting feedback, counter-arguments, and criticism… and then trusting your gut to make the final call.

You won’t bat 1.000. Nobody does. But you’ll consistently see more hits than misses, save your team time and money, and put yourself in a position to deliver marketing wins.

Start growing your revenue right now👇