Right About Now with Ryan Alford - The Art of Attracting the Right Clients for Your Business with Dr. Deepak Dugar

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan AlfordJoin media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential.Resources:Right About Now NewsletterFree Podcast Monetization CourseJoin The NetworkFollow Us On InstagramSubscribe To Our Youtube ChannelVibe Science MediaSUMMARYIn this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford interviews Dr. Deepak Dugar, a top rhinoplasty surgeon in Beverly Hills. Dr. Dugar shares his journey and strategies for building a successful practice in a highly competitive market. Key themes include the importance of niche marketing, focusing on quality over quantity, and creating a luxurious client experience. Dr. Dugar emphasizes the value of strategic pricing, organic marketing, and continuous improvement. His insights offer a roadmap for entrepreneurs, particularly in the medical field, on how to differentiate themselves and achieve excellence.TAKEAWAYSNiche marketing strategies in a competitive medical fieldImportance of quality leads versus quantity in client acquisitionThe role of competition in personal and professional growthBuilding and maintaining a strong team for business successCreating an exclusive and luxurious client experienceEffective marketing and public relations for brand visibilityMindset and personal growth as key factors in entrepreneurshipEstablishing a distinct brand identity to attract the right clientelePricing strategies based on market demand and service qualityContinuous improvement and commitment to excellence in practiceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Being a yes man in life, it seems like it's the right thing to do when you're a young entrepreneur. You just say yes to everything, every meeting, every moment, every dinner, everything. You just go to anything and you end up wasting so much time and energy. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cash in checks? Well, it starts right about now.

What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now, your number one marketing and business show on Apple Podcasts. We thank you for that. If you're listening the first time, I'm Ryan Alfred, your host. I'm blessed to be here. here get to do what I love and love what I do It's uh, it's a benefit and I don't take it for granted. We want to thank you for tuning in and You know It I get to talk to people I like I get to talk to people I respect Sometimes I just get to talk to the best in the world at what they do It's just the benefit of sitting in this chair and I get to today. We're gonna talk business

We're gonna talk to business of science and medicine and surgery We're gonna bring it through the lens you may not expect but I can just tell you I've I've respect the hell out of people that build their business the right way and understand human nature, behavior, and the principles of marketing better than maybe they did. The doc knows it, but let me just tell you, he does. He is a brilliant doctor. He is the world's best rhinoplasty doctor.

He's in Beverly Hills. It is Dr. Deepak Dugar. What's up, doc? I always wanted to say what's up, doc? Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

Thank you, Ryan. Yes. Damn, doc. I'm like, I was looking through beautiful media. I mean, all, you know, you can't, I always say, you know, they say you can't hide money, but you can't hide good marketing and good PR and good like understanding.

I got it, look, as a marketer, it was like a marketer's dream, like watching. And like you said, a lot of it wasn't even paid, you know, like PR and media, like it was brilliant. Like how you've built it, every touch point, luxury, every, I don't know, everything just felt right. That's the best compliment I can give you as a professional marketer.

Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I think one of the keys was starting a practice, and especially in such an elite place like Beverly Hills, which is one of the most competitive markets for what I do. So no matter what business you run, no matter what business you're starting up or continuing to dominate in, the key is figuring out your angles and niches.

I think for me in Beverly Hills, coming with a niche was really important because there's so many famous, articulate, well-marketed plastic surgeons. So how do you even create a little wave, like a small one, not even a big one? And I think the way I figured that out was by going really hard into one singular procedure.

Tesla, when they started, people forget that Tesla started out as a roadster company. That was it, they sold one car. They were Tesla Roadster, that was it. That was the entire company. That was their strategy. And then they perfected the concept of it. They never even released it. They perfected the concept of it to get the waves in the car world. And that's how Tesla

became where it is today. But, you know, same thing. We went in really heavy with one singular procedure. I do what's called a scarless nose rhinoplasty. So traditional rhinoplasty, you make a cut at the base of the nose, lift up the hood of the nose, take it apart, you reconstruct it from scratch. It's like tearing a house down and rebuilding a brand new glass box. Like most modern homes today, they all look the same. Versus if you have like a beautiful French chateau,

you don't tear it down, you just restore, refine, improve. And so coming at it from a more natural lens, scarless technique, all internal incisions, it got a lot of attention really fast, really early on. And I think that's probably one of the biggest success pillars I had, one of many, but that was one of the biggest ones, was finding a little niche.

It's like those restaurants have really small menus and they just get really good at that one type of burger. Riches are in the niches, baby. That's what they say. But it helps when you're also damn good at it. You gotta have the goods. There's a saying in marketing, putting lipstick on the pig only lasts so long. But when you're the world's best at what you do and you're in a niche, it's magic. And judging by the clients you work with,

I'm gonna ask you to name drop a little bit. Look, it's good for the click. You can call it clickbait, Doc, but I'm just telling you, everybody likes the stars. So who can you name that you've worked on? Yeah, well, I'll say 99% we cannot name because we're really, really high-profile famous clientele. I thought you were talking about the payroll or something.

Yeah, yeah. No, no. But the ones that have gone public, like recently we were just featured on this Bravo TV show called Denise Richards and her wild things. Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards' daughter, Sammy Sheen, she did her nose job with us and we got to document the entire thing and she put it on the shows on two of the episodes. We worked with a lot of other celebrities like Daniela Monet, Mia Khalifa. You know, I spent a lot of time working

with some of my friends on content that are really famous in the influence space. Not necessarily patients, but just close friends of mine like Adam W. and Hannah Stocking and King Batch and some of the most famous influencers in the world that you'll see me in a lot of their videos. So we have a lot of organic relationships, a lot of really high end celebrity patients and then just influencer friends that I get to have the privilege of being around and working with.

And one thing that one of my mentors always told me is that the world is full of mediocrity and it's really easy to even get rewarded. You can get rewarded in this life for being mediocre. Most mediocre people, even in business, it's a good life, you know, because even mediocrity takes a certain amount of work. It's not like mediocrity is easy. It's told, so there's a good amount of work to be mediocre,

but it's a lot of work to be great, and it's an insane amount of commitment and excellence to be the best in the world at what you do, and really want to be one of the best in the universe. And I think, you know, with business it's tough because you really have to break down niches because, you know, what is the best businessman in the world? Is it the richest, right?

Then it's, okay, Elon Musk, that's it, no one else can talk, everyone shut up. And that can't be how life works. So it's got to be within your branding of business and how you do business that you become the best in your cycle. So for me, when I look at competitive energy, I don't want to be like the best plastic surgeon

in the world, I want to be the best scarless rhinoplasty surgeon to have ever lived. And that's kind of the way that I approach it within that niche. And so, yeah, that's kind of how I think about what I do and how I put that mindset to it. So celebrities and all that stuff is just like, you know, it's a privilege and it's an honor

because they truly have the ability to go to anyone in the world. So when they come to us, you know, whether it's a billionaire, whether it's an honor because they truly have the ability to go to anyone in the world. So when they come to us, whether it's a billionaire, whether it's a Saudi Sheikh, whether it's one of the most famous celebrity children in the world who comes to us, those moments mean a lot because it shows that the skill and craft has earned beyond just the marketing reputation. Talking to Dr. Deepak Dugur,

he is the world's best rhinoplasty surgeon. Talk to me, Doc. I like to get underneath the hood a little bit. Sure. With how people tick. I'm trying to imagine, Doc, growing up, you're clearly competitive. You're clearly driven to excellence. So I always like to unpack for our audience those characteristics or things you identified that you worked on. I mean I don't know that you can build grit and drive but there's probably things that you know make Doc who he is. Like talk to our audience a little bit about what that journey was for you and what are those characteristics you feel like that are uniquely yours? Well, I think I'm one of three siblings, my older sister, older brother, both definitely smarter than me, both definitely more charismatic.

One thing I had was I had a little bit more dream power. Like I think I just dreamed a lot. And I think I put that energy to like, you know almost a competitive edge with my own mentality of how to be the best. I also take everything personally in a good way and bad way. You know taking things personally in business

is stressful as you know, because then you take every pain point home with you at night, and you're sitting there at the dinner table thinking about every pain point. But it's also good too, because it's like, you know, when you watch Michael Jordan in The Last Dance, you know, he's like, everything they said,

he's like, I took that personally. I took that personally. And you almost create this competitive drive. So when I look at my, you know, competitors in town, and I think one thing that everyone should learn, and this is what I did early on, is you have to be so wise about picking your competition. Do not compete with losers. Do not compete with idiots.

Do not compete with mediocrity. I picked, I literally looked around, I was like, who's the best in the entire planet at this craft? I picked the three, four people, and I said, that's my competition. And people think that's crazy, but what you do is you rise to the level

to be able to compete with them. They always say, you know, don't let you, don't meet your idols, right, because, you know, your idols become your enemies. That's only if you're really good at what you do, you know? And so I think the key was picking the right strategic partners. And these aren't partners, these are enemies,

and these are not, you know, not really, positiously, but they are my competitors that I take personally. So when I see them do something, I say, I want to do it more. When I see them do something good, I say, I got to do it twice as good. And I think picking the right competitive partners

to dance and spar with, and this is how, if you look at Federer, Djokovic, and you look at Nadal, that energy, they hated each other at one point. You see this camaraderie today, they're all hugging and kissing. That didn't exist during the 15 years they were playing competitively against each other at one point. You see this camaraderie today, they're all hugging and kissing. That didn't exist during the 15 years they were playing competitively against each other. They used each other's ammunition

to get better and better and better. So that's my biggest success secret, I think, is I picked the best and most competitive people in the world to be my competition. I didn't go for the people at my level. I went for the people at the top. We need to click brilliantly said doc. I mean, it's so true.

Like that competitive, we can all say it's not. But I do say, I've been an entrepreneur for 10 years and I used to be really good at hiring people then I seem to get bad at it. And then now I'm back to good. I realized like the characteristics. If you don't like to win, I don't want you on the team. Right.

Right. But like, but in what you just described a little bit of your talk, but you, you don't have to like create like boogeyman around the corner that don't exist. But if you don't like want to compete, like that's just like one of our, the great human conditions, the opportunity, and not because you need to like, uh, well, I would argue that you need to obsess about it to be the number one. However, you know, it needs to be done healthily, healthy. I think you would agree with that, even if sometimes it ventures across the line, but

competitive people typically get what they want, you know, like if they're channeling it the right way, sometimes they can totally go the other direction, but that's something I really respect and feel from you, Doc. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, I completely agree with you and I completely sympathize and empathize exactly with what you said because it's the same for me as bad hiring, good hiring, bad hiring, and I'm back to good hiring. I think the team around you makes such a difference. And I think the problem is that, again, mediocrity doesn't look mediocre sometimes.

Mediocrity can put itself in a nice facade, say the right things, right? But what is success? What's the difference between an NBA player who's the worst in the NBA or the NBA player who's the best in the NBA? They both practice their butts off. They both work out hardcore. They all have six packs, they all eat healthy,

they all train, they all work nonstop, they all have, so what's the difference? It's not the facade of the NBA player and seeing how tall they are, it's that at 4am the mediocre player is sleeping and at 4am Kobe Bryant is already on his way to the gym, right? So it's the stuff you don't see and and that's the problem I think with hiring, is that mediocre can look superior, really easily trick us. And then you really gotta get, so one thing I've been doing lately with hiring,

is I do what is called skills assessments. First interview is always for like the vibe, I want kindness, I want empathy, I want politeness, because I do think it's important in the workspace for everyone to feel comfortable, I don't want people being diminutive to each other. And then the second thing I do with the skills assessment where actually we put them to work.

We put them to work. We let them see for a few minutes, give them some tasks, give them some skill sets live in the moment. And we see how quick or smart they are. Because what I've found toxicity comes from is having really smart people around people who aren't as good at their job. And it's not their fault.

It's just, but the problem is that the doers, the killers, they get dragged down sometimes energy wise. There's energy vampires that happen in the workplace. And I think you got to really separate those people and try to give the winners the best team around them. Otherwise their performance starts to draw away too. That right there, like that's going to be a highlight clip. By the way, people, if you're listening,

cause like what Doc just described, he is a master class in by the way people are listening because like what doc just described He is a master class in hiring the right people and blending together because not just the hire it's the blend of the team the makeup of the team because it's not that you're it's hard to have all type A's are like all but You can't you will get brought down if everyone's not at least on a similar plane. Like it's just, it doesn't work because they will, your B players will pull, you know, I'm B let's call them D players will pull your A players down. They don't have to be A's. You need A's and B's like your D's are going to pull your A's down.

Your C's are going to be like, so it's important. And look, it's, everybody's got a different skill. And so it's the blend of talents, but everybody needs to be on the playing level, playing foot field of how at least great in what they are and what they do within the skillsets that are needed, you know, for your office run or any business to run, right? That's right. that's absolutely right.

And then I think the other big thing that I've learned too over the years, I'm sure you know this for sure Ryan, is you gotta say no. You can't say yes to everything. Being a yes man in life, it seems like it's the right thing to do when you're a young entrepreneur. You just say yes to everything, every meeting, every moment, every dinner, everything.

You just go to anything and you end up wasting so much time and energy. You gotta be really selective in who you work with, what you do, saying no to the wrong clients will save you so much time and money, and saying yes to the wrong clients will literally suck the life and energy out of you. So it's really being selective,

starting to get that confidence. I think young entrepreneurs, they get nervous of saying no, because they're like, well any revenue is good revenue, and it turns out it's not true. There is such a thing as good revenue and bad revenue. Yo, I've learned that lesson. I still learn it every now and then from time to time.

You know, even I can get lured in. Oh, I can, because here's what happens. You get the confidence that you can change them. You know, like, I know what problem I might be getting, but I think I can work my way through it. You know, like, no, it doesn't work. I would call that, yeah, I'd call it be greedy with your energy is really, you know, like that's what it is.

It's not, it's not figure, you know, like literally being greedy just with your energy and where you apply it, because we only have have some it's a finite resource right right so true so true doctor please uh I really want to get down on a couple topics here that really relate to how you've built your practice that I think could be learning lessons for audience. It's around a few different themes. Exclusivity, luxury, and almost like just the whole ethos of a company that are built with both of those two attributes kind of built. It's an interesting, weird place, especially, you know, it's one thing you can say, Oh, Prada and like these brands are something that are, you know, 30, 40, 50 years old, whatever they are that have built that over time. But for like new businesses,

the idea of exclusivity is like, just like what you just said, Oh, any revenue is good revenue. Like, Oh, I got to get it. But maybe not when building your brand. Talk to me about your perspective on, on luxury experience. Well, I think one of the biggest things with luxury experience is you've got to have a funnel that weeds out the waste of time leads. And I think a lot of us think about funnels as like, oh, let me not lose a single lead, right?

When you're starting out, you create these funnels and you have these, you know, and you want every single lead. You don't want to lose a single one. You're getting mad at your employees if they missed that email on that one, and they didn't get the right phone number on that one. Versus worrying about the high level useful leads.

You want quality leads. You don't want to just want every lead. And I think that's what a lot of young entrepreneurs get wrong too, is they want to create these massive email lists, these massive things. And again, at some point, there's a scale to those things when you sell your list or do things like that.

But in a medical space, especially for luxury concierge branding where I'm trying to create myself as the Hermes of what we do in our business. Not even a Chanel Louis Vuitton straight up to the Hermes Birkin bag of what we do. This is the Rolls Royce, this is the Birkin, that's the branding we took from day one. So the concept is we want quality leads.

So we have a filter. So in order to book an appointment with me, first of all, just to talk, it's $500 to spend 10 minutes with me, basically, to get to do the consultation. And that $500, I'm not trying to make a business off of $500, that's not how this works. It's a quality lead generator,

where if you're not willing to spend that, then you're probably not going to be comfortable spending 20 to 40,000 on a surgery. So it's okay to let those go because a lot of patients will come like, oh, will you do a free consult or what happens if I don't do surgery? Can I get the money back? And listen, I understand, listen, if you don't go to Hermes, you don't go to Rolls-Royce, if you don't have the budget for it, and that's totally fine, there are lots of options, there's lots of surges out there. So there's nothing disrespectful about it,

we tell the patients with grace, they'll go, oh my God, God bless, there's so many good options out there for you, do not worry. However, to book a consultation with Dr. Dugard is $500, and that is non-refundable. And we make it very clear, and we're just very, matter of fact, the other thing I've learned is,

you gotta have employees who are comfortable talking about money. Money is such an awkward thing for the average person because they're not trained in sales. But when you're in sales, you have to be very comfortable talking about money. Money is just a commodity. It's just something you use to get what you want out of life.

So it's not some weird, scary thing. It's like no one wants to talk about sex with their kids. It's not one of those. It's just money. It's just pieces of paper that you collected and now you spend it on something you want. So it should be a good thing. It should be an exciting moment to spend your money

on something like me, because I'm an exciting moment for most people in their lives. And so that's number one and two, is funneling them through quality lead generation. And then I think having the concierge ability to talk to them in a really respectful way, make sure they feel heard, make sure they feel heard,

make sure they feel listened to, and have people not overworked with the minutiae of your business. Every business, how much minutiae is there? Look at your current podcast, there's a giant TV behind you, someone has to make sure it works. There's an audio guy making sure the audio works, there's a video guy making sure the video works.

There's seven, eight people doing minutiae right now for Ryan to be able to do what he does, which is deliver a message to the person listening right now. And so I think the key is we have to look at our employees that way too, is I don't want the video guy worrying about the audio guy's work, and I don't want the audio guy worrying about the video guy's work. Everyone's got to take care of their thing so that the luxury person who is selling can just talk, just focus on that client eye to eye, give them confidence and influence

in a way that makes them feel at home. And then we took a lot of inspiration from hotels and from some more luxury brands that we identify with. And we have hotel infused scents in our lobby. And we have minimalistic restoration hardware, minimalized decor everywhere. So it kind of has this inviting feel and you have like this cleanliness to it.

So like you get that medical sense with like this calming sense as well. It kind of fuses together. And we kind of create this like holistic energy of concierge medicine where it's one level above whatever other office they've went to. And my whole thought is that if we put that level of attention into this, imagine how much attention

I'm putting into the surgery. Yeah, yes. Doc, I can't hit this enough for our audience. You know what, doctor just really eloquently outlined a lot of key principles there. But he's gatekeeping and he's creating a filter for getting the right audience that's his audience by the things that he's doing, by the brand he's created, by the access to him. This isn't about being, you know, taking advantage or

like overdoing something. He's identified that he is, and he's already worked to be, the best in his practice. He's establishing a look, a feel, and an experience that reinforces what he is doing as the best in the world. And he's creating these lovers that both signal to people what he is and what he isn't, and what their practice is, and what they can expect, but also what you're going to pay. Because look, we all want a Ferrari, you know,

or most of us, but you know what? But we're realistic if we can't write that check, you know? And so you stop before you even go into the dealership. And so it saves time for his people, his time, because you're establishing, and that principle of what he's doing is certainly applied to luxury in this sense, but it really can apply to anything

because a lot of people wanna be all things to all people, and it's the road to nothing and nowhere. Because you can't. It is, and it's like, but you're doing it, doctor, and it's not to be pretentious or to be whatever. It's just you've earned the right because you're the best in the world at what you do and you're providing an experience that matches what you're talking about. I think there's a lot to learn there.

It's hard to almost unpack that enough for people because I think entrepreneurs are so instinctively, they try to be altruistic you know a little bit and you know but it's a business at the end of the day. This isn't a charity. It is. It is. And I think transparency is so important and I think for young entrepreneurs the mistake is you want to be the big dog day one and you have to work your way up. You got to be the big

dog in your world right? So you can't just be the top dog. You can always be a big dog, but you gotta do it in your way. Like I didn't start charging this much money when I started out, because I do believe there's such a thing as called market demand. So even though I was looking at the biggest guys

in the world as my competitors, I wasn't pricing like they were 10 years ago. I was pricing in my world, much lower. Probably 60, 70% less than they're charging, but I still use them as my competitive drive to want to be better than them one day. I didn't say it has to be today, so I didn't beat myself up mentally

and go home sad every day that I'm not as good as the Michael Jordan at the time. I knew, listen, I'm Kobe, it's gonna let me work my magic over the years, I'll get my skills set up, and I'm gonna win my championships in a few years. But today, let me focus on being the best I can, and I stayed my price point,

and I stayed my filters based on where I was. So, you know, there was a time where I was charging five to $7,000 for Onplasty, then it goes up to 10 to 12, then it went up to 15 to 18, then went up to 20 to 25, and then 20 to 30, right? So these price increases,

I didn't just arbitrarily make them. What happens is the market dictates your pricing based on how good you're getting, the results you're getting, and what the world says you're worth compared to the metrics of everyone else that's offering the same service, right? So a Birkin bag doesn't just get to decide

it's $30,000, $20,000 versus a Chanel, which is 15,000. It's the market demand. The market has said Chanel's worth 10 to 15 and Birkin's worth 20 to 40. And so you have to listen as a young entrepreneur to what your market demand is for you. You can't just make up these fake things either. You gotta give value and you gotta make happy clients

and focus on the clients, make them really happy, especially the first 100, 500,000. Really lean in to give them the best experience possible, and then you'll find out if your service is even good or not. A lot of entrepreneurs just want to make money, and they're not focusing on the value add. You've got to be good at your craft first,

good at your business, good at your service, and then you can figure out about how to increase your pricing. But I meet so many young entrepreneurs who want to just, you know, oh, well, I'm just going to charge this much and I'll take on these clients and they have this whole business plan

as if they've done it for 20 years, but it's their first day. And I think knowing where you are, what stage you're in, you've got to listen to what stage you're in as well. You got to be it to make them see it. And look, you aren't necessarily number one day one, but you obviously had a luxury vision in mind And look, you aren't necessarily number one day one,

but you obviously had a luxury vision in mind and a world class goal in mind. It's two of my favorite, be it to make them see it and inspect what you expect. Two of my favorite and like, literally when you were talking, I'm like this guy's a living, breathing example of these two things.

And if you want people to think of you as a luxury, and if you're willing to build that brand, or whatever it is, we're using, you know, this is Dr's brand and how he's built his practice. It could be whatever attribute you want it to be. But I can tell you what, you have to live it and breathe it if you want people to see that and write that check. Like you got better, obviously your practice,

the technology got better, you're learning and education and doing it hundreds and thousands of times, how many surgeries you've done. Obviously it was improving. But the outward display of that, which is I'm going to transition doc for you into like what you have done on the marketing level, visually or with PR and press,

because now you haven't spent a ton in the traditional sense. But how do you think and how did you think about marketing and building that luxury brand? Well, my space is very visual. So you have to think about what space you're in for business, depending on what type of market you're in. Mine was very visual.

And so what I found from day one is that I could spend a huge ad budget on Facebook ads or Google ads from day one with mediocre content. Or I could figure out how to make really good content in my space. And what makes good content for me is different for every business. So for me, this kind of podcast clip,

patients usually don't care about this in my world, right? And it depends on your business. In your business, this works really well. My world, what they care about is they want to see a beautiful girl's before and after picture that's there. A picture of her- Are you saying I'm not pretty enough, dog? Ah! The problem is you're not too good looking.

There's nothing to appreciate. Yeah, you're right. Carry on. For me, it was how to create these beauties. My entire mission for the first three to four years of my practice was to get the most beautiful patients who I could transform them in such

an amazing way that they looked even more beautiful after, but even the before was beautiful. So if you have the before beautiful and then the after is even more beautiful, it's almost like, huh, that's insane. Because if you take someone who's not beautiful and make them beautiful, it's kind of like, all right,

well, that's what plaster is supposed to do. But if you take someone who's already beautiful and you make them even more beautiful, you say, oh God, this is art. This is incredible. It's like drinking a fine bottle of wine. It's like drinking a first-grilled Chateau, a Mouton Rothschild from 1982,

versus you drinking a regular $20 bottle of wine from Napa and you're like, oh wow, this is art. You realize, wow, this is expansion of my entire vision of what I could be with my life. Right, when you drink that wine, when you have that caviar, when you taste that gold rated steak and you say, oh my god, I didn't know steak could taste like this.

Right, these are the moments where you unlock your brain to what the most beautiful parts of life are. It's almost like the movie The Matrix, where the guy's eating the food in The Matrix. He's like, I know the steak is fake and I know it's fake, but I still like it, you know? And that's what the life in the matrix. He's like, I know this steak is fake, and I know it's fake, but I still like it. You know, and that's what life is about. We gotta enjoy.

It can't just be about problems. One of my favorite quotes is like, life cannot be about problems every day. And it can't be. Like, we gotta enjoy life. And that's what I found is that when people come to me, they're not here for problems. They're here to have fun.

They wanna look better, feel better. Like, this is a luxury good. So you have to understand your business really well. The core of my business is people want luxury, and they wanna feel better, feel better. Like this is a luxury good. So you have to understand your business really well. The core of my business is people want luxury and they want to feel and look even better. They're not coming to me for some sad problem. And so knowing that, I wanted to juxtapose my marketing to present that.

And so I used the best before and afters I could use to show them what my results were. I didn't spend any money. I had a zero marketing budget for the first five years of my practice. I got organic PR. I had a couple of patients who randomly came to me and they're like, hey, you know, I work for E-news,

or hey, I work for Variety and I would love to do my surgery with you with or without any participation. And if I do do my surgery, would you allow me to write about it? And I was like, of course. And then even those, you gotta deliver. And you gotta make them want wanna write good things about you.

So for me, it was just organic PR. Also being in Beverly Hills, being social, you know, I take a large part of my time to do the best socializing in LA. Like I would tell you if you talk to anyone in LA, the best socializing aspects in LA, I'm a member of all of them, whether it's Bird Street's Club, Soho Malibu,

Nobu Malibu, you know all the- I'm coming to hang out with you, Doc. Yeah, welcome. I'll show you the best 24 hours in LA you can see. And so, you know, from a social standpoint, I also made it a point, make your friends your clients, make your clients your friends, depending on who they are.

So, you know, on any given week, I'm taking someone from Dubai, Saudi, India, Kuwait, I'm taking them to dinners. I'm taking, you know, my patients from London I'm taking someone from Dubai, Saudi, India, Kuwait, I'm taking them to dinners. I'm taking, you know, my patients from London and Paris out for lunches and brunches. And you create a lifestyle that mixes with work, so it doesn't feel like work all the time. And also, you genuinely want to spend time with these people.

So part of my marketing was social. And I think people don't realize how important that is. You know, sometimes you'll see a business entrepreneur who gets to the next level before you, and you're like, how the hell did he do that? I'm spending so much on ads, I'm spending so much on this, how did he get there? And it's because he was at the right dinner,

he was at the right lunch, and he was at the right table. And so I think a lot of entrepreneurs forget to, you spend a lot of time going to these useless dinners, and these useless meetups, and you sit in the corner, and you find someone to drink with, or you start talking to some chick or something, instead what you should be focusing on is how to create your own socialization stratosphere that you can utilize and leverage the people at your table to get you to the right table.

Yeah, it's not what you know, it's who you know, baby. Yeah. But it helps when you're the world's best and you know people. Yeah, because if you're sitting with a Saudi Sheikh and then he introduces you to the Qatari Sheikh, like this connection is what life's about. And I think that's where, you know, being told, you know, just like anything, like who's the best plumber in town, it's all subjective. And so if Tommy's the best plumber to you and you tell Jim he's the best plumber, then

Tommy's the best plumber to Jim too. And so it's who tells, who talks about you is more important than what's being said almost. And that's where I feel like my marketing was really organic and tried to put more social influence into my marketing than I did dollar spend. A lot of key learning lessons there. I mean, everybody wants to do it behind the keyboard,

it just doesn't all happen there. And it's still a people human world and people do business with people and they talk about your business with other people when they like you and You build community outside of the Facebook group, you know, like there's nothing wrong with the Facebook group, but yeah Let me just tell you you get at the right dinner table magic happens that's right that's right and you mean you're having dinner when you're in LA next time that's for sure exactly I've seen it doc I think we get down I think we got a lot in common what um what you know doctor when I'm talking to a guy

that's successful like you arguably did not really arguably what is call you we know you're the world's best, but world's best, where's the, it's always about the journey. And so where are we headed and what gets you excited when, you know, some people would say, if you're close to the top of the mountain, you know, if you're not there, you know, where is the top of the mountain?

What's the next mountain? Well, I think one of my favorite things is I use a lot of comparisons to basketball because I think it's so fitting in my life. The day you win the championship, you're the championship player. The next morning, you start all over. You start all over. So I think accolades are fun to look back on, to remind yourself that that was a good day or that was a good year, but it has nothing to do with the future. So whatever I've done up until yesterday was my rewards for yesterday.

I got to go earn my reward tonight. I have not earned my reward for today yet. And so every day you got to earn the reward, the privilege. What an honor to be good at something, to be great at something, and to be able to do it well and to help people along the way. And you got to do it well, and to help people along the way. And you gotta do it every day, so whatever treats I want today and tomorrow,

I gotta earn those today and tomorrow. And so I always look at life as like, you know, you never get too privileged, never get too comfortable. Always want the journey, always enjoy the stress. You know, Kobe Bryant famously said, you know, the victory was not the trophy, it was the four a.m. sleepless nights,

it was the extra two workouts a day that he never knew if it would matter or not, but he put them in anyways. Like that's truly what winning is to me. And so I like being good, and every surgery, you know, just like no matter what business it is, whether you're serving a bowl at an evergreen, or whether you're building construction buildings

and building high rises, every building, every patient, every food, every meal, that's the fun for me. And so I have three surgeries the next day and three surgeries the day after that. Those patients don't care how many good surgeries I've done. They don't care if Ryan says I'm the best. They don't care if 100,000 patients say I'm the best. They need the best on their nose that day, right?

So this tech CEO that I'm doing on Monday who's one of the most famous CEOs in the world, no one cares, he doesn't care how famous I am or how great I am, he wants his breathing to be the best breathing he's ever had in his life. And so you gotta keep winning, keep winning, keep winning, championship after championship, and you only get to celebrate that one singular success.

You don't celebrate the whole life. It's a lot. Doc, you're obviously brilliant, but I have not ever heard it quite put together the way you did. And if you, you'll go as far, you're already way up the ladder, but you'll go as far as ever if you can look at every day is winning the championship. Like, I think that's what we do. We kind of put these artificial stopping points of,

okay, I got, like you, I mean, your world's best at what you do, so you'd be easy to go, okay, I'm the world's best. And not that you'd suddenly start not doing good surgeries, but like, but if you can realize and think about every day as an opportunity to be better, and you can truly be challenged within the day and Not the broader time. That's a that's a really great recipe for success

Thank you doctor. I mean, I really love that. Where can everybody keep up with all you're doing with your practice and you know Obviously a lot of wisdom to share in business as well. Yeah, my pleasure So my website is scarlessknows.com, like scarlessknowscarknows.com, and my name is Dr. Deepak Dugar, D-U-G-A-R. I'm on Instagram at DeepakDugarMD. I'm on Twitter X, and I'm on TikTok under the same name, DeepakDugarMD.

Love to share. If anyone has any questions, just shoot me a DM, and anywhere on my team is amazing. We get hundreds of DMs some days, depending where in the world and what I posted and what people liked. But shoot us a DM, we'll always respond. We try our best to get through them all as best as we can.

It's a pleasure having you on, Doctor. I look forward to continuing the relationship. Yes, sir. I'll see you in LA soon. We'll go to Nobu. I love that. Hey guys, you're here to find us. Ryanisright.com will have highlight clips,

links to all of the content. No, it won't be pretty people and beautiful women, but it will be drops of wisdom and knowledge from Dr. The best in his field, and we appreciate him. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. We're right about now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford,

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