Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Radical Podcast - EP 12 - Ryan Interviews Dr. Rich Constantine

Episode Date: December 7, 2018

In this episode, Ryan Alford sits down with Dr. Rich Constantine, aka Dr. C, to talk about his viral dance videos, the marketing machine that has evolved, and some of the key experiences along the way. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here's your host, Ryan. Hey guys, this is Ryan Alford with the Radical Company podcast. Super excited about today's podcast. I'm with a good friend and client, Dr. Rich Constantine. You may know Dr. C, as he's now known. I might call him Dr. I might call him C. I might call him, damn it. I don't know what I'm getting mad at him.

But Rich really appreciate you being on the podcast. Appreciate you having me, man. Cool. we've got a lot of topics we want to get into with Rich. We want to keep it conversational. It's been a whirlwind four months for Dr. C. You know, as most people that are probably listening to the podcast or follow at any of our other content, they know that Rich has been a client of mine across a couple of different agencies for right at probably two years,

at least in a consultive role on his marketing, doing videos and different things. And then the summer happened and everything blew up. Rich had a little piece of content go viral, and you may not have seen it or a song by Drake. But Rich did what he does well, actually. I'm jealous, to this day, of his dance skills. You know, I don't mind saying that man to man. but did the in my feelings it was the fillings challenge actually over the summer was late July and 150 million views later just on Facebook you know the world's changed a lot

and Rich I mean I'm going to walk back to that a minute you know a lot of our listeners you and I have have been through this on you know a lot of talk shows we did Steve Harvey we'll get into all that, but walk, I mean, walk through a little bit for kind of people listening, kind of what's, what happened, you know, over the summer.

Like, I know, you know, you and I talked about getting your content out there more. I'll take the credit for giving you a tripod, like video stuff. But, in all fairness, and saying, hey, you're going to get your image out there.

But, talk. Talk through kind of just where this all started and, you know, we'll bring it full circle with everything else. Yeah, I think it was a real crash course because, you know, we had talked in the past about the importance of Instagram. I had only been a Facebook guy in the past. And, you know, I knew what kind of you had advised me to do. I would take a picture when it was convenient, something that, you know, we thought was interesting or fun around the office. but it was, you know, there was no rhyme or reason to when we took a picture or posted it.

There was no schedule on how we did things. You know, fast forward to the day, you know, that the girls in the office encouraged me to do the challenge. And I didn't even intend to post that, but I set that phone up and I filmed myself doing the dance So no one would see me. And the girls put it on our social media accounts. And then you called me that evening and said, hey, man, have you seen this? I didn't know what you were talking about. And I was like, ah, it's not a big deal.

I'm going to keep watching this movie. I'm watching. And maybe I'll talk to you tomorrow. You call me the next morning. You say, yeah, I think you need to take a look at this. And from there, it just took off. and I had no idea what could have come from that and you really you really helped navigate navigate through all that because I wouldn't have had a clue well it was

interesting you know just to give a little more background you know I was the ad man on Riches page you know we had started working together for a while but just we're ramping up we had done a really nice branded video piece for you we had talked about doing some other videos. We've been coaching on the channel. So I was already an admin on the page. We'd run some ads. We've done a couple of different things. And so

my phone started peeinging immediately. It was a Thursday. I mean, this was like right on coming to a weekend. My phone started pinging because I get notifications, like when people like something or comment. And it was like what is going on? I didn't even know that it was your account.

My phone, I think it was in another client. I don't know what was going on. And that's when it was like, three o'clock or four o'clock and I was like okay Houston we have a not a problem but something's happening here and you would message me I think I sent you a text or something and you know you'd said yeah I was gonna post this video and I was like yeah well yeah it's like after you'd post it or something I don't remember every every second of it all I remember is the notifications going and like we need to get together to get our arms around this yeah and I

At that point, I still didn't know what you meant. I got arms around what? I posted a video. Some people were watching it. What's the big deal? Yeah. Well, the big deal was we had a million people that had engaged with it by the next morning. And some of our numbers that have come since then make that even seem a little small now,

as funny as that seems. But when you're a dentist in Greenville, South Carolina, and you have a million impressions or engagement within 24 hours of anything, and no offense to the dental community, there it's. But nonetheless, we had to get our arms around it. And, you know, it kind of went into that mode. We met, you know, that morning, and I'm like, you know, this is something, you know, like, do you want to run with this thing?

And, you know, we kind of just put an action plan. I said, you know, because, you know, once things go viral, it kind of happens in a moment and the news cycle will catch up with it pretty quickly but we kind of lit the fire a little bit you know I worked most of that weekend just like pinging all the news outlets and I think by Monday

it was Monday we did Good Morning America and then Inside Edition after that for people listening you know like I think it would be interesting for them to know and I know that it was a surprise and you weren't ready for no one's ever ready for it But, like, what was going through your mind?

Like, you know, once we met, and I was like, here's what this means. Here's what we need to do. We kind of started mapping out that plan, though. Was it like, I know it was excitement, but what was kind of the mindset? It was, yeah, it was super exciting. All the, you know, all the, I'm not as much of an attention guy. So it was a little bit concerning because I didn't really, I was nervous about, you know, putting myself.

out there because I it was just weird to me that people were so into it I guess yeah but at the same time when you have that amount of interest in anything that you do that's something positive you know you want to make the most of it and that was that was something that you guys really helped me because I didn't know I didn't know how to make something good out of something silly yeah so but don't The whole experience was great, people, family, friends, seeing me on news outlets that I never thought I would be asked to be on, especially for something like that. Yeah. Well, what's interesting, you know, like, I've been in marketing for 17 years, and I've never, I've been at agencies working with big clients.

and it prepared me for knowing what you're supposed to do in certain situations. But viral and the real-time moment of all of those things requires you to kind of like condense, you know, it's kind of like it couldn't speak more about today. Like everything's condensed, everything's now. But it was like this culmination of PR, marketing, like next steps that kind of got us into. It also became like controlling the message a little bit. bit because let's face it and you know let's just get this out there you're good-looking guy and but you're a married guy and you know you're doing a dance and you know the message could have

gone a lot of different ways real quick not that it wasn't already and it's not that a lot of your fans of course you know we're human beings we're sexual creatures and all this so let's not put that you know and act like that's not there but I think the importance of what we were able to do was really to control the message and spin it towards the positivity and the fun of dentistry. And yeah, he's a good looking guy. And yeah, we're dancing to pop culture and to tunes and all that. But this isn't a sexual message. This is about raising awareness that dentistry doesn't have to be boring, that we can turn this into a positive. And I feel like, you know, that, that, that, that, that, really worked in our favor. Yeah, I'm super thankful, you know, for the way that you guys were

able to help me do that because when we did the dance, you know, it's for our patients. We do fun stuff like that around the office because we get it. People don't look forward to coming to the dentist a lot of time. A lot of time they have anxiety because they don't know how they're going to be treated. They don't feel like they're part of a family that wants to take care of them. And that was really why we did the dance in the first place. And then, you know, we saw all the comments on Facebook and you're like you know the attention is great but we don't know if we want that kind of attention yeah um but you know let's try to use let's try to use this um this um attention this this platform to to really communicate the message and do some good things and um you guys have you know been integral

and helping me do that yeah um so to that end you know i know i know um you and Trish both lost a parent to cancer and that was really important. You were already, you guys were already active in the community in that regard, but talk, you know, to, you know, the foundation, kind of the passion behind that and, you know, kind of where that kind of kind of came in play with what we were doing. Yeah, so the more time we've spent here in Greenville, let me back up, when we first moved here within, a year of having moved here, we both lost a parent within that first year. And it was tough, but the great thing was that our parents got to see what Greenville was all about and why we were so happy to relocate here from our hometowns, which was really special to us that they kind of saw what we saw in Greenville. And after we lost them, we wanted to find a way to honor their

memory and be involved in the community here. And just as our parents were in our hometowns, and Green Goals such an amazing place as far as cancer research goes, because we have such top-knots facilities here, you know, that really helped with that. And so we looked into ways that we could, you know, contribute to that.

And before it was just, you know, us donating some time and then, some money to some of the local organizations that put on events. But then when this happened, you know, it allowed us to move up in our timeline what we've always wanted to do. And that was to create something of our own to help give back. So smile on cancer was born. We, you know, kind of everything that will kind of walk through like some of the process,

you know, the viral video happens. And, you know, we decided. to keep doing the dances and doing the content to kind of keep it out there. I think we averaged what I think is a Facebook record. 10 million engagement on like every average of every post, even to this day, again, for a dentist in Greenville. And so we keep the content going. We start smiling cancer immediately as the benefactor or a large percentage benefactor of

what comes from the notoriety and the fame and all of that. Around, you know, we had continued the PR effort and we ended up talking with Steve Harvey's producers. I remember you and I had a call with Iantha Jones

to start. You know, she had reached out to us through the social channels, just loving the message and all that. I mean, what goes to your mind? I mean, you know, again, I mean, you've been out there and you've been marketing and you own your business so you've been successful but I think even successful people it what was the mindset of okay Steve Harvey wants me to me on the show like

what's the thought process well it was wild because you go from a guy that is self-conscious doesn't want the three team members in his office watching him dance so he sets up his camera in his office and dances alone to then realizing that you may be on national television and being asked to do the dance again. So you really have to have to really get your game face on and realize what's happening. Because if Steve wants to dance, we're going to dance, right? But, you know, being a business owner and having, you know, all of that and then this on top of it, you want to get everything right and it's important to have the right people around you to help navigate through all that.

And when you don't have any experience in any of that and you don't want to miss out on any opportunities, it gets a little bit overwhelming. You know, the foundation was just a thought and you guys really helped Trish and I put it together. and not only put it together, but put it together in a short amount of time so that we could get it out there and make the most of it because, you know, you're getting ready to go on national television. Hey, let's mention the foundation, which is what we want this all to be about. Yeah. And to talk about the experience with Steve, I mean, people who watch the episode, I mean, another, we had five million engagement, like just posting the episode alone. And so a lot of people have seen it. But what did you think of the overall experience, you know, being on Steve? It was amazing.

You know, a lot of the stuff we saw out there is stuff we've only seen in movies and on TV. You had spent some time out there before, so you were able to show us around in a short period of time. But the show itself, although I was really nervous. IANtha and the whole crew there, and even Steve himself, were just super, super nice. They made us feel way more important than we were. We really felt like we were someone famous. I was really impressed. I mean, I've been in the business, and I'm not doing the Steve Harvey show with clients every week either.

But I was really impressed with their team. And, you know, even if it was, you know, a viral moment, or even if they saw the bigger, you know, presence of Dr. C and the foundation, they made us feel important, you know, and I was very impressed with that overall, and I thought Steve was great, and they followed the narrative, you know, the positivity and the story and the foundation. I mean, they were first class. Yeah, and just to give you guys an idea, they flew us out there, they put us up in a nice

place. We had transportation to the studio, gave us our, you know, our own little room there for the pre-shel and people walking in and out, you know, kind of prepping you on what you're going to be asked and making you feel comfortable. It was just, it was just a really, really cool experience to have. Well, your agent did say, this is Dr. C, motherfucker. You know what we're doing? We need the primo room. No, they didn't, I didn't, we didn't have to do any of that.

They just did it themselves. No, but that was a fun trip. We got to tour Hollywood a little bit and we went up to the conservatory and nothing else. We made another great video. Always got arrested for it, but... Hey, hey. Don't we go? Flying the drone over the Griff of the conservatory?

That's not legal. Apparently not. Apparently not. But they let us get away with it. Well, I told you, I said I'd like to ask for forgiveness and not permission. Yeah. And that's what we were doing. It did.

You made that video look. Hot, though. Yeah, I do. But, you know, I think that's actually an interesting turn. I think, you know, radical company being, you know, our agency podcasts and talking, you know, trying to blend in the marketing. What's been, and related to your stuff, I think what's been new, and, you know, we were trying to get you in that mental headspace before the dance that made it all happen. But it's the content headspace. I mean, you now know the content word.

And thinking about every moment, much like this podcast that we're filming, we've got on live stream, we're doing all that, thinking about every moment as an opportunity to capture a degree content. And I think that's been a learning process. Oh, yeah. And it's still definitely a work in progress because, you know, I'm never been, I'm never going to be a guy that documents every single moment. And I don't think you have to be that. But now I catch myself when Tush and I go to an event or go to something, we're like, maybe we should just get a couple pictures, you know, just to have. I saw some pictures last night, actually.

Yeah. I was like, why didn't we have one or what it was me or somebody up there taking some photos? Yeah, well, I posted it and I was like, I hope he's, I was proud of me. I'm proud and disappointed. It's a little like a moment where we needed a videographer there, but that's okay. What he's talking about is last last night we had the Greenville Givers game gala that's for Special Olympics at the High which is a really good event with lots of great people there so yeah but they have a good turnout for that yeah like it was

yeah it was a good turn out I don't know this is the first time we were invited by a friend of ours to attend there was a first time there but I don't have to have it every year or not. So let's talk about some of the transition of, you know, where we've gone. I mean, let's just be raw about the dancing portion of it. I mean, let's just talk about it. Like, you're a good dancer, but you're a dentist, and you want to be taken seriously. Right.

That's been a struggle a little bit for you, hasn't it? Yeah. It has been. I, you know, you don't want to be the, you know, the dancing bear at the circus when you're trying to be the ringmaster, you know? Yeah. Or the lion, I guess. But, you know, you at the same time, you need to open, you know, I find that I need to open

my mind up to, you know, keeping that level of interest up. It doesn't necessarily have to be the dancing, but. I think the reason why I don't like the dancing is because I'm just, I may have rhythm, but I don't have the confidence in my dance skills, and I don't want to just be this dancing dentist. I'd rather be the good dentist that people know does good dentistry and treats his patients well that can dance. So it's one of those. And that's been the balance, you know. It's like you can't abandon the Ferrari.

that got you there. But, you know, and we've been taking that turn, you know, back to more of the lifestyle side of things. We started just to ask Dr. C. We got episode two coming out, I think, today. We've had good response to that. But there has been that balance of, you know, and I think it's mainly, honestly, is that we've delved into it with more.

I think it's the perfectionist than you a little bit that probably is the dancing, because all of your dances have been so kind and so great. It's like I think it's tough for you to not practice or like know like what exactly your steps are going to be because it's... Well, yeah. I mean, everything that, you know, everything I've ever been good at was, you know, practice, practice, practice, sports,

you know, anything you do in dentistry, any instrument I ever played, you practice, practice, practice, and then you do it. Yeah. So, This whole, you know, opening yourself up, putting yourself out there, spur of the moment kind of stuff is all kind of new because you don't know how it's going to come off

and your word is going to come off wrong or how you don't want it to. But at the end of the day, I think I probably care more than the people that are watching. That's what you tried to teach me. So I'm trying to get better at that. I mean, I asked this, and we didn't pre-plan this, so I get a, like, you know, strategically head and wink nod because, you know, I need an answer that is a certain one, but no. If Dancing with the Stars called for next season or even the next, would you consider it? You'd consider it.

I consider it, but I would lean more towards a no. And the reason being is anything that would take me, away from what I care about most which is you know my life and and really my practice and my patients you know I didn't do this asking for that and so I don't think that would be something that I would necessarily want to do a lot people are going to think I'm crazy for saying that that's that's just how I feel about things but we'd make them we'd make them make you say no right Yeah. In case any of the producers are listening, you know, we can be persuasive around here.

But, you know, we need to know how we're getting Trish out there and staying there. And we need to make sure our sponsors are listening. So, I mean, you know, back to kind of the story. I mean, how's the business? I mean, you know, you do all these things. We talked about all these things. how's business, you know, like how's the practice? The practice is great.

The crazy thing with all this was, you know, two weeks before, two or three weeks before this happened, I bought the practice of an older dentist in Greenville that I was thinking about slowly, you know, slowing down and maybe didn't want to do the business portion of dentistry anymore. And so, you know, he and his team and all his patients merged with my office. And so we not only had the influx of all that, then we had all the new patient calls from the video.

And a lot of people, you know, think that, you know, thousands and thousands of people from all over the country are calling. Those weren't, you know, real patients. Those are just, you know. The reality is you have one dental office in Greenville. Exactly. And so if everyone that watched the video, if there was a million people in Greenville, they'd only watch the video, then whatever.

But it's safe to say that business has been good. Oh, yeah. It's definitely a business in it. And it's been a very positive thing for it. What, um, where do you see? I know that you've gotten more, you know, I want to keep it away from every technical aspect of dentistry. But talk a little bit about like, where you see you kind of taking the practice as far as your specializations and those kind of things.

Yeah. So one of the great things is, you know, being a general dentist is you can kind of, you can kind of conform your practice once you have a, you know, full patient load towards, you know, the procedures that you enjoy doing more. And with this recent popularity and the merger of the two practices, I find myself being able to schedule more of the procedures and to advertise more the procedures that I like doing more. And those are, you know, the smile makeover aesthetic cases, but also the implant surgeries and prosthetics that I enjoy so much. the enjoyment comes from basically, you know, two different, two different sides there. There's the, you know, changing a patient's life, you know, by giving them the smile that they've always wanted or, in some cases, giving them the ability to chew that they have not had for so long.

And so many people don't realize the possibilities in dentistry today just because they've never, been taught or exposed to those things so those are the two things that I enjoy doing the most and I hope to do to do more now that we have you know so many people watching this what um about Trish how's Trish yeah she's good she's been a trooper through it all I mean back to some of the things we said I mean yeah I think you know the first couple weeks it would be you know it was it was silly it was fun but then you know some of those comments on Facebook, I think it'd be hard for anybody to see so many people objectifying your

loved one in a certain way. You know, as guys, you know, we, you know, blow up a little bit when somebody, you know, whistles at our girl or something like that. But, you know, once we started, you know, kind of digesting and realizing what this all was and what it could be, we're getting a little bit more used to it and more comfortable in our new skin. But we're surrounded by great people, great friends and family. So it makes it so much easier. Vito. So we've got to talk about Vito.

Vita is the man. I love that. I didn't think, like I grew up with dogs, big dogs, and my mom mainly took care of him. And when we got this dog and Trisha said she wanted a dog, I was like, you know, okay. he'll probably the dog will probably like Trish and just gonna be a pet in the house I I don't know what I'll do if something happened to that guy like he's the he's the first guy I see in the morning he's always happy to see me when I come home it was a great decision what's it's great in Rhodesian Ridgeback yeah Rhodesian Ridgeback and he's

he's five months old and very curious weighs 50 pounds how big is he gonna get I I think he's supposed to get, I think his dad was getting close to 100 pounds, but when we tell people that and then they look at his paws and how long his legs are already, they laugh. So he might be pushing one 10, I don't know. Oh, good grief. He's definitely motivated about food to do anything. Like most of us. Kind of like his dad.

Oh, me. Well, let's kind of wrap it up, but I'll, you know, you're, you know, you're, Being in a fitness, so I mean, you know, I think people will be curious, especially listening. You know, routine, like your history with fitness, like where you want, you know, any goals down the future. Like, you know, talk about the importance of fitness and kind of, you know, how that's played a role with you and your life. Yeah, so, you know, just being involved with sports in my whole life and then playing college athletics, Trish and I, both. you know we we are so used to setting aside part of our day

for that because we always had to that now it's like you know if we're not doing that there's something missing yeah it really helps keep us balanced with all the other things we have going on in our lives and don't get me wrong sometimes it gets too busy or you know

you skip a day and that day turns into a string of days but really, you know, getting to the gym early in the morning and getting that knocked out is really when I have my most productive days and I'm the happiest. The solo lifting sessions by myself are probably almost like therapy sessions because, you know, you're getting in doing something for yourself, doing something good for yourself. But every now and then I like mixing it up and doing, you know, group classes and some of the places right here in Greenville because there's so many good ones.

Yeah, we're due for our metabolic session. Yeah, we are. I know. I keep dodging you. I was here as far as I didn't see you. Yeah, I was going to start calling you at 5.30. I don't know if you goes right here to getting you up anyway. Yeah, he gets up at 5.

That's his time. So what's just riding the train with Dr. C? I mean, where do you, you know, like, what's your ideal headspace for where you'd love for it to go? You know, I mean, is it, and I know we're kind of planning all those things out. We're talking with, you know, for people listening, we are working with some new sponsors. We're talking with us. So things are starting to head in some different directions, but I love to know, you know, what your thoughts are. So it's funny you say you're riding a train because that's what I'm doing because you're driving it.

But I think it's just the extent. of just seeing what comes of it. This is all so new to me that, you know, I have no idea what we can make of it, but I'm open to, you know, putting in the work and doing whatever we can to see where it can go. At the end of the day, I live in Greenville. I'm a dentist. You know, that's who I am. That's what I do. And that's where I plan to always continue to do. But if we can do some great things in this. addition to that, you know, I'm all for it. Well, Rich, it's been a fun ride, man. I'm just excited and appreciative of you as a friend and as a client. And I really appreciate you. I know people are going to be fascinated to kind of hear the story, kind of the backstory, and we'll have to just keep telling it.

Yeah. This is Ryan Alford for the Radical Company podcast. Really appreciate Dr. Rich Constantine coming on today. Follow everything that Dr. C. is up to on Facebook, on Instagram. You can find them easily by Googling them. We've also got

Dr.DRR. constantin.com. Links to all of the content. Links to merchandise. We didn't even talk about merchandise, but boy, we've got some good ones. You want your Christmas ornament.

And with that, I've only got three words to kind of close out. Just keep smiling. Just keep smiling. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.