Good Teeth × Wang Sihui | On How a Dental KOL Is Cultivated?

Editorial Department

2021-12-21

Wang Sihui, more commonly known as Wish in the industry.

A name carrying "gentle wishes"

I first met Wish in Shanghai.

She wore a hoodie, jeans, and a backpack. Her hair was curly, reaching her waist, and bounced as she walked, which was rather endearing. She spoke quickly but in a gentle tone, rarely interrupting anyone. When others were speaking, she listened intently with wide eyes, repeatedly brushing the stray hairs behind her ears with her hand, and then reacted quickly after listening.

People who speak quickly and logically fall into three categories: those who are straightforward, those who have a large enough information reserve to output quickly, and those who are naturally fast talkers.

It's quite a coincidence that Wish has all three of these...

Misunderstood KOLs

Even before we met, I had heard from friends that Wish was a KOL in the industry. Many friends had told me privately that Wish was perfect for being an "internet celebrity" and that she must really enjoy being one. But when we actually met, to be honest, I found it quite hard to connect the "famous" KOL with the "girl next door" in front of me.

There are generally two ways to label someone: one is simply through observation, hearsay, and private discussions—the cost is naturally low, the probability of cognitive bias is high, but it seems harmless, so most people are more likely to do this. However, if we truly want to understand someone, we often need eye contact and honest conversation. Choosing the latter is naturally more costly, and the results are uncertain. If economic theory hasn't made any major mistakes, then the latter is "uneconomical."

Therefore, Xu Zhimo's saying, "To gain it is my fortune, to lose it is my fate," a helpless statement from a deeply sentimental person, can also be applied to ordinary interpersonal interactions. I am relatively lucky to have had several such moments with Wish, where "eyes met eyes, truths met truths."

Once, while we were taking a walk, I asked her why others called her a "little internet celebrity," but she called herself a "little internet youth."

Wish describes herself as embodying the color cyan: cyan is a fusion of blue and yellow, representing her state of mind in her work, her thought process, and her natural way of working when connecting with multiple stakeholders. Cyan can integrate diverse values, ultimately leading to success for herself and those around her.

What Wish mentioned is known in financial terminology in recent years as "brand value network," and it has gradually become a major variable in valuing a company or an individual.

Wish at his New Year's Eve speech | Image source: Aha Business School

I think the term "young internet celebrity" reflects a certain discomfort she feels with the "internet celebrity" label. Is it a lack of confidence? Not really: Wish is often seen speaking confidently and eloquently on stage in many large settings. Or is it a desire to be different? No, outside the public eye, she often immerses herself in the lives of ordinary people…

Wish is much more humble than I expected. Perhaps it is in the effortless switching between the "spotlight" and the "behind the scenes" that he has become the KOL that everyone talks about today—someone they are willing to approach and learn from.

After getting to know her better, I started jokingly calling her the "Rebecca Li" of the dental world. Who is Rebecca Li? She's a top KOL in the fashion industry with millions of followers, and she shares styling tips, fashion insights, and lifestyle attitudes in a friendly, sisterly way, which makes her fans extremely loyal.

I laughed at her because Wish's current state is indeed very similar to Rebecca's: she works efficiently and lives passionately; she is clear-headed and lucid.

So, let's rethink what KOLs really are.

Originally a marketing concept, Key Opinion Leader (KOL) has been applied to various fields. Quite different from the "celebrity effect," it has gained increasing attention in recent years. KOLs have repeatedly demonstrated their influence and sales power through their fan engagement (not just the number of fans).

In the dental community, the most prominent KOLs are renowned medical experts. Although different scholars interpret the term KOL differently, they mostly focus on four key words: persuasiveness, trustworthiness, involvement, and influence. Renowned doctors become KOLs because of their education, qualifications, and case studies… But Wish is not a dentist.

From a dental novice to a dental KOL -

Wish doesn't even have a dental background. What kind of career path led her step by step to become a KOL in the industry? And how did she demonstrate such rare female power? Can this career development plan be replicated?

When Wish first entered the workforce, she worked in the marketing department of Johnson & Johnson, where she began to explore the interaction logic between FMCG brands and their audiences. When she left Johnson & Johnson, Wish received more than a dozen offers from Fortune 500 companies in the FMCG field, but only one was from Invisalign, a brand in the oral care industry.

She joked, "Maybe it's because my birthday is September 20th, World Tooth Day."

But sometimes people are like that; they make seemingly accidental choices because of some strange similarities. As they move forward, they gradually validate their decisions. Every encounter in fate holds some subtle truth.

Regardless of her previous achievements, switching to dentistry meant she was practically a "newbie" in the field. To understand the market, she visited clinics one by one. Her cross-disciplinary background also brought many benefits; she tried to analyze problems using the mindset of fast-moving consumer goods and began experimenting with new approaches in the dental field.

I've heard some older dental professionals say, "The logic of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and the logic of dentistry are not the same." This statement is probably only half true. First, the speaker clearly doesn't understand FMCG logic; second, all business logic, at its core, is about people. The analysis of overlapping audience profiles has already been applied in many successful business cases.

We often see Tesla showrooms strategically located near Apple stores. The mobile phone market is increasingly driven by rapid consumption, and the decision-making processes for purchasing mobile phones and cars are clearly quite different. Rather than saying Tesla is "riding the coattails" of others' popularity, it's more accurate to say it's "targeting a precisely chosen demographic."

Cross-disciplinary collaboration is itself a process of reorganizing resources and cognitive connections.

Therefore, Wish clearly made full use of this advantage in her career planning. She was lucky to have caught the wave when Invisalign was at its most "unstoppable" in the Chinese market. The allocation of resources and manpower provided strong support to the professional managers involved. Wish also grew rapidly here.

By the time she left Invisalign in 2016, she had become a well-known "teacher." She also began sharing her cross-disciplinary marketing observations and strategies with doctors and clinic operators. Over the years, through online and offline teaching methods, she has taught tens of thousands of students.

I've joined different Wish learning groups several times. Unlike advertising groups or "silence is golden" groups, the interaction between teachers and students in Wish's learning communities is very active. Each course assignment, if I count carefully, can easily amount to tens of thousands of words…

Image source: Screenshot from WeChat group

I'd heard many of her successful case studies from others, including one from one of her loyal students. After taking her courses, this student found their niche in lower-tier markets and combined the strategies of pediatric dentistry and the Jingzhou model. In Binyang, Guangxi, a county with a population of less than one million, they achieved 1.72 million RMB in sales in a single month, even surpassing many clinics in Nanning…

But Wish herself often talks to me about her "mistakes" and the pitfalls she encountered. I asked for her permission, and I'm sharing them here:

Test 1: Can the Invisalign "myth" really be replicated?

In recent years, many manufacturers have approached Wish, hoping to replicate its "miracle," but they have only been able to look up to it from afar. After numerous interactions, she summarized several key points:

• Times have changed: Invisalign emerged at the right time, coinciding with the rise of consumer upgrading and public domain traffic. If we were to comfort a child who has fallen and say, "It's the times' fault, not yours," and let the child kick the floor to vent their anger, then for a long time the child wouldn't realize that it's because they are still young and running too fast that they are more prone to falling.

• Different market environments: Invisalign initially took a high-end approach, always showcasing itself in first- and second-tier cities with ample resources. If a new brand also positions itself as high-end but fails to capitalize on its resources and shifts its focus to third- and fourth-tier cities, adopting a "rural-to-urban" strategy, it would be better to target a "precise urban segment."

Can Invisalign's strategy of combining renowned brands with renowned doctors be replicated? The existing product category has entered a positioning phase, and the dazzling success of renowned doctors relies on the combined efforts of a large team. Just like Alibaba's "god-making" plan—Li Jiaqi—it was created with the full support of the entire group. If we must adopt a "follow-the-leader" strategy, we need to examine the company's own value network, assess its current connectivity, and then make a decision.

Legend has it that when Fuxi invented the qin and se, the qin was designed with five strings (later changed to seven strings), and the se was designed with twenty-five strings; only when both knew their pitches and wavebands could they play in harmony. Therefore, every brand has its own stage of development. If you have to force yourself to fit the mold and adopt the "most ideal" approach, the road ahead will be quite difficult.

Therefore, don't just copy from the PPT. There is no ideal way to play, only the way to play that suits you.

The second pitfall: Should we make Mercedes-Benz products, or Mercedes-Benz windshield wipers?

Another pitfall that Wish often cites as a mistake is its unclear positioning. A manufacturer targeting lower-tier markets once wanted to enter the high-end market by developing a new product line. Initially, Wish assessed that the company had abundant resources and seemed like a promising project.

But a few months later, she made a new discovery: because the brand occupied resources in the low-to-mid-end market, despite changing the product line and marketing methods, it became too large to manage, and the company's personnel structure was difficult to adjust to new demands. It easily fell into a situation where product positioning and the original market positioning were confused.

Positioning isn't decided on a whim, but rather through a rational algorithm based on thorough internal and external research. Should we be like a Mercedes, or the windshield wipers on a Mercedes? Both require overcoming the obsession with "face."

She's a KOL and a teacher.

What exactly should a teacher be like in the modern sense?

She needs two kinds of experience: success or failure, she needs to review and reflect on the lessons learned, and then apply those insights and conjectures to the next round. Finally, she needs to put effective methodologies into a "replicable" framework. She also needs effective communication skills, tailoring her teaching to different students, explaining things clearly and understandably. Teaching isn't about personal glory, but about ensuring students gain knowledge. Furthermore, she needs to be a "sharing personality," open and honest, sharing everything she knows and is unsure about. Through teaching and learning, she builds a close connection with her students.

Naturally, from a "newbie" crossing over into dentistry to becoming a KOL, Wish is simply using a down-to-earth teaching method to restore the true nature of marketing and operations: it involves scientific planning, yet is also subject to multiple factors; it requires professional foresight, yet is also a matter of luck; every successful case is difficult to replicate, but what can be replicated is the methodology to increase the probability of success, and the grounded approach behind that methodology…

No one becomes a KOL overnight, not even Wish. It takes gradual accumulation, reviewing each session, and deliberate practice.

Become a Hyperlinker -

Wish has recently started writing a book.

Having worked in the industry for eight years, she wants to share her experiences—what she has seen, what she has accomplished, and what she hasn't—with more people.

Hyperlink

Why "hyperconnector"?

Wish once shared an interesting question with me: should dental clinics adopt a "special forces model" or a "regular army model"? This question stemmed from her observations focused on offline practices. Many doctors with their own patient base open their own clinics, and they have to handle management, operations, and treatments all on their own, essentially training themselves to be "special forces."

This model seems fine for a clinic with 4 or 5 chairs, but when the clinic wants to expand its management scope and develop a regional chain, it finds that it is difficult to replicate the independent "special forces" doctors. Only then does it begin to explore and cultivate a "regular army." Behind every successful doctor is a successful team.

Therefore, this book is written for three groups:

• Clinic owners: This course teaches business owners what competency models other than dentists should possess, enabling them to develop clear career plans for each member of their team.

• Dentists: Helping dentists better understand how to connect with other professions, enabling them to focus on medicine while collaborating more effectively with their teams.

• Clinic Operators: Helping readers learn how to break through career ceilings, leverage their clinic's and their own strengths, and better connect with the market.

When Wish first mentioned writing a "reference book," I initially thought it would be obscure and difficult-to-use theories, and I immediately questioned its potential marketability. It wasn't until I saw some sample pages that I realized it not only included mental model derivations and practical delivery tools, but also specific case studies from her experiences over the past few years.

Flying close to the ground, the book reflects the person.

There are patterns to follow in the career planning of hyperlinkers.

If [successful cases]

It can easily lead to "survivorship bias".

So some people openly share their "pitfalls and experiences."

Or it may be a mirror reflecting our learning of "rational attribution".

I also wish you all a happy learning experience and significant growth.

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The experience and voices of ordinary people are weapons in themselves.

It doesn't have to be theorized before it can inspire and encourage people.

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—Xiang Biao