by Karah Karah | Apr 4, 2018 | Legendary Leadership
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Sometimes life can throw you curveballs, but it’s how you deal with them that makes all the difference. Dr. Steve Markowitz is a third-generation dentist whose unexpected leap into learning the business side of dentistry firsthand came during his first year of dental school. After a tragic accident left his father unable to practice, Steve stepped up to help keep the business running and learned key lessons that drove him to where he is today.
Now in charge of three multi-specialty group practices just outside of Boston, Steve has accomplished a lot in his relatively short career. In this episode, he shares the ups and downs of his journey through dentistry, as well as his tips on team building and leadership that will help guide you to a more successful practice.
Key Quotes:
- “Just be the best version of you. Let your patients know, and your team know, that it’s kind of an act that we’re doing, but it’s really important to be the best version of yourself when you’re in the building.”
- “I saw the business of dentistry before I even ever saw dental patients, and that was really eye-opening to me because I knew that there was a way to make the business of dentistry successful at the same time while I was learning how to take care of people.”
- “Anything I could get my hands on or listen to that made me a better person or a better leader, I would try and get it in my system.”
- “Too often in our profession, [leadership] just gets flat out ignored or people deny that leadership is even a job for them.”
- “The grind is exhausting. Always try to take a step back and remember why we’re here, why we’re doing this, so we can take really good care of each other and really good care of our patients, and then it becomes bigger than the grind.”
- “If I were to point to one fault in my career, it’s that I was way too independent and I thought work ethic was the supreme value, and I didn’t rely on resources and friends.”
- “Your dental license is really a golden ticket, and you can choose your own adventure and take it wherever you wish.”
- “Never let a patient see you sweat. Never let your team see you sweat. It’s only going to get them worked up. You are the captain of the ship … and if you’re stressed out and if they know something’s wrong, it’s going to make everything more crazy than it has to be and the results will not be as good as you want them to be.”
- “Nobody has gotten to where they are without help from someone else, and the sooner you can realize that and reach out to people and be willing to accept advice, the quicker you’ll be successful.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 28, 2018 | Hints for Happiness
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In this day in age, it’s so easy to get caught in the trap of comparing your life to what you see online, especially when it comes to social media. The problem is that people tend to show only the best parts of their lives, so we don’t see any of the hard times. But just as important as sharing our victories is sharing when we struggle, and in this episode, Dr. Matt Standridge does just that.
Now the owner of Yates Center Dental and the man behind the popular Ketodontist Podcast, Matt opens up about a time when things weren’t so good. He talks about his battle with depression, sharing his lowest point and what he did to get his life back on track. Listen in to hear his inspiring story, as well as advice for taking care of your mental wellbeing.
Key Quotes:
- “There are so many people that are growing their business, growing their practice, while tearing themselves down, which clearly isn’t a sustainable model.”
- “I was stressed out to the gills; I did not want to get up in the morning … I even had thoughts of suicide. … That’s when I started really doing a deep dive on myself and reconnecting with, okay, what was the point of all this?”
- “With the magazines and the forums and the boom of social media and everything, you see all this great work and all these people that show their best selves online, and that FOMO—that fear of missing out—it can really creep in.”
- “The most difficult thing when you’re really struggling as a professional, as a community leader, as a leader within your practice, is that you might be in a state of crisis, but you still have that feeling of obligation to show the world that everything’s okay.”
- “The thing is with meditation, you can’t be too idealistic about it. You’re going to have thoughts. If you do it when you’re tired, you may nod off. It’s all okay.”
- “Depression from what I understand is a lot like addictions. It can come back in a heartbeat if you let it, so it’s that being vigilant to keep it from rearing its ugly head again.”
- “It took a long time to finally get it through my thick skull, but you can’t be everything to everybody.”
- “There’s really power in talking about our victories, but also our fumbles and interceptions.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 21, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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It’s no secret that building a successful dental career is hard work. But when that hard work gives you the opportunity to create the career and lifestyle you want, there’s no question that it’s worth it. Just ask Dr. Josh Cochran.
The owner of Dr. C Family Dentistry, Josh saw his share of hardships as he worked to build his practice from scratch. In this episode, he shares the most important lessons he learned along the way, as well as what he’d do differently if he had it to do over again. Listen in to hear how he overcame the major struggles he faced on his journey to success, his advice for dentists still building their careers, and what makes it all worth it in the end.
Key Quotes:
- “As I’m building a business, I’ve learned how important core values are. … I don’t care how attractive an applicant looks, or a vendor to work with; if their values don’t meet mine, I’m just not interested.”
- “Dentistry is like a clay you can mold to fit what you want, your life how you want to live it.”
- “I went in with private practice doctors who were fantastic doctors—great with their patients, great with staff members, just the nicest people—but they didn’t have a model for growth and success, so I was kind of like that appendage attached to the practice, and not actually part of the practice.”
- “If you can find a corporate gig where your morals aren’t feeling compromised, I think that’s the quickest path to success right out of school, and you’re going to do better financially.”
- “As long as the practice you’re working for is patient-centered and not profit-centered, I think you can be very successful right out of school.”
- “If you want the results, you have to be comfortable with the labor it takes to get there. … People ask me, ‘how do you work a three-day work week.’ Well, I started with 28 days a month.”
- “Really figure out what you want—how you want your life to be, what your focus is—and then you can find the path to get there.”
- “Customers, they want it all: the low price and the good service. And if you can differentiate yourself from the dental market by providing both of those—and convenience, as well … you’re going to be successful.”
- “You’ve gotta trust your gut when you’re interviewing people and when you’re working with people, but you also need to be real clear about what your values are. That way, when someone starts to not follow your vision and your values, you can identify it and talk to them.”
- “You don’t know what you don’t know. And so if you connect with other dentists in like an open forum where you can just chat … you’re going to see what else is going on out there, and you can get a really good feel for what’s available to you and where you want to go.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 14, 2018 | Prescriptions for your Practice
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With April drawing nearer, there’s one thing that’s sure to be on all of our minds: taxes. Understanding financial reports and navigating the tax code can definitely feel daunting, especially with recent changes to consider. But thankfully we have Jonathan VanHorn back on the show to share his insight.
The founder of Dentist Metrics and the man behind the Start Your Dental Practice podcast, Jonathan has helped dental practices all over the country grow their businesses by gaining control of their finances. In this episode, he discusses common financial mistakes he sees dentists making, his advice about what to look for in an accountant, and what dentists should know for the upcoming tax season.
Key Quotes:
- “The biggest mistake I see [among dentists] is people not really understanding what a CPA does.”
- “You need to know what [your CPA is] is going to be doing for you from an accounting perspective, what they’re going to be doing for you from a tax perspective if they offer something like financial planning … et cetera, et cetera.”
- “I’m of the very strict belief that if you had the absolute best dental CPA from a technical perspective, and you had the absolute best general CPA from a technical perspective, you’d have no difference in taxes.”
- “There are general CPAs out there that would do just as well as a dental CPA, and would likely probably cost less, but the problem is, it’s really hard to figure out who those are if you don’t understand the tax code.”
- “I think if you are a single practice owner, and you try and set up a DSO for owning a single practice under the guise of qualifying for Section 199A, you’re moving from aggressive to gambling.”
- “One thing that is completely consistent in the tax courts is that the IRS does not like the reclassification of income. They are not fans of that, and they are well known for trying to cut through that like hot butter.”
- “Everything you do in front of the IRS has to have a valid business reason—it has to be substantiated in some fashion, and ‘I was gonna save more money in taxes’ is not a valid reason.”
- “I think Dental Success Network is going to be something that’s going to be a powerhouse for years to come.”
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by Karah Karah | Mar 7, 2018 | Legendary Leadership
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One of the most important aspects of running a successful practice is putting in the time and effort to be a good leader. Dr. Tim McNamara is a shining example of this, and his success in dentistry is a testament to the strong focus he puts not only on creating a great customer experience, but also on leading his team so they know exactly how to deliver that experience.
After more than seven years doing business consulting in the healthcare field, Tim went from helping hospitals mitigate risks to starting his own dental practice. His unique path into dentistry—along with his ability to see obstacles and turn them into opportunities—has given him a fresh perspective on the industry that we can all learn from. In this episode, he shares what it takes to be a great leader, the lessons he learned from his consulting career that still help him today, and his tips on how to shorten the learning curve on your own path to building your dream practice.
Key Quotes:
- “What you have in a business is risk, and how you control that risk is everything. And then how you lead your people to implement those controls will dictate what your revenue is.”
- “It’s funny to me because everyone talks about secrets in dentistry. … The secret is you. If you just spend some time on leadership and understanding your business, that’s the secret.”
- “When I opened, I did so kind of with this wild idea that demographics matter, but that the dentist and the systems probably matter a little bit more.”
- “The best way to grow is, yes, boost marketing, but turn the customer service experience on.”
- “What I’ve noticed in most dental clinics is lack of leadership.”
- “We need a place where people can ask real questions without getting beat up for it. And so what do we do? We create a community.”
- “I judge a lot of my practice and how it’s operating by how well I sleep at night and how little stress I have at home.”
- “All of my breakthroughs have come when I stopped being so frickin’ independent and realized that there is help out there.”
- “Your advice should be coming from people who are in your exact same situation, that actually stay awake late at night in the fetal position, and that have figured out how to get out of the fetal position.”
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by Karah Karah | Feb 28, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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There are many roadblocks presented when developing a dental career. From financial struggles to battling introversion and depression, Dr. Russell Kirk shares his journey through all of it. He talks about his valuable experience in the military, how he learned humility, anger management, leadership, and how to prioritize the important things in life.
In this episode, Russell speaks in-depth about his military career and how valuable it was to his dentistry career and education. He also shares some struggles and issues along the way and how he overcame them and learned valuable lessons from each. Russell emphasizes the importance of a strong work ethic, self-responsibility, being open to criticism, and accepting help. Through developing these traits and practices he has become happier and more successful in his life and career.
Key Quotes:
- “There’s a lot of, a lot of learning to do as soon as you get into practice.”
- “The older I get, the smarter my parents and grandparents were.”
- “Anything worth doing isn’t going to be easy. If you can outwork the other person, you can sometimes outwork talent.”
- “The educational opportunities in the military are really robust.”
- “Early in the game I liked to blame everyone else that things weren’t going right, and it was pretty frustrating, and now I realize that at the end of the day it’s all on your shoulders.”
- “A lot of us have similar stories and there’s variations but the underlying theme is, it’s a tough profession and life is tough but there are other people out there and we’re trudging along and doing okay.”
- “You get out here on an island by yourself and it’s easy to get discouraged and it’s easy to get frustrated then you go to a meeting or have a conversation like this and you come away with a little bit quicker step.”
- “You have to stop being the victim and start being accountable for everything in your life.”
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by Karah Karah | Feb 23, 2018 | Prescriptions for your Practice
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This is a very special episode with an exciting announcement that has been hard to keep quiet until now! You’ll hear some familiar voices in today’s discussion, as we have The Dentalpreneur, Mark Costes, and The Dental Hacks, Jason Lipscomb and Alan Mead, joining me to share the big news.
We’ve teamed up with some of the most well-respected names in dentistry to create something that will help dentists take their practices to the next level. Listen in to learn all about it now!
Key Quotes:
- “That’s what makes dentistry exciting for me, is just watching people innovate and then taking that information back and putting it into my practice.”
- “The people that you want to learn from are the people who are literally in their offices learning.”
- “When I start self-leadership, the team is easier to lead, and when the team is easier to lead, the practice reaches new levels.”
- “Sometimes in your practice, you’re the smartest guy in the room, and to perpetually not be the smartest guy in the room is a really good way to level up your life, your practice, and all those sorts of things.”
- “Once you see someone else reach new heights, it’s almost simple for you to do the same.”
- “A big part of our quest is to create an empowering and safe place.”
- “We’ve really gone through meticulously and thought about all the pain points in our own private practice journey and created a support system so that you can be in the number one position once and for all.”
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by Karah Karah | Feb 21, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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As academics, it can be easy and even quite enjoyable to continually be feeding ourselves new knowledge but if we never put that knowledge into practice, it means nothing. Dr. Justin Bhullar joins us on the show to share his journey of pushing through some tough obstacles to arrive where he is today. His optimism and work ethic are inspiring and he has lots of great insight on learning, improving and leading that you can learn from and implement into your own practice.
Justin explains how he turned his pain points and weaknesses into strengths and motivators. He also emphasizes the importance of the people you work with and how to take your leadership to the next level. Justin leaves us with the powerful idea that we should plan to fail and explains how that mindset will lead to resilience and strongly affect our ability to learn and grow.
Key Quotes:
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by Karah Karah | Feb 14, 2018 | Maverick Mind Shifts
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On this episode you will get to sit in on Dr. Dave Maloley’s presentation from the recent Voices of Dentistry Conference. His powerful message is all about what it means to have a relentless mind that pushes past crippling challenges and allows you to live your best life. Dr. Dave shares some valuable insight on how to ask the right questions, how to set goals that mean something and how to take control of your life and your practice.
He shares his story and how his success, and more-so his huge failures, led him to where he is today. The idea that you can live your best year ever and continue to recreate that is a central theme to his encouraging and inspiring message. He emphasizes the importance of good leadership and relentlessness as you take specific actionable steps to make the necessary mind shifts and changes in your life.
Key Quotes:
- It was at that moment that I realized that the epic life I’m always talking about on the podcast, I was living that epic life.
- I sat down, I broke my life into 16 different categories and I wrote down exactly what I want.
- I really believe that we can engineer, after I executed that, we can engineer our best year over and over and over again.
- This is about accountability and accountability taken to the extreme is intensely powerful.
- I thought about all the time I spent complaining about my team and it was always just a reflection on me.
- My practice is not limited by its opportunity, my practice is limited by its leader.
- If you talk to people at the end of their days, they’ll tell you that life is all about relationships.
- It’s okay to be selfish so that you can give more.
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by Karah Karah | Feb 7, 2018 | Prescriptions for your Practice
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Getting a dental practice up and running is one matter, finding the right staff and systems is a whole different matter. When faced with various issues concerning billing, insurance and staffing, Dr. James Anderson found effective solutions that not only worked for his business but for many other dental practices around the country. Today his company, eAssist Dental Solutions, is providing truly helpful solutions to dentist offices and he is here to share his journey and top tips to running an effective and stress-free practice.
James talks about how he got started in dentistry and discovered (the hard way) some key problems that bog down dental offices everywhere. He shares the most basic and important ways that an office should be handling insurance, billing, customer service and more. He also gives some helpful tips and tricks for getting the most out of insurance and serving your clients and practice to your best ability. James talks about eAssist’s core values and really casts an inspiring vision for how office management and accountability should work.
Key Quotes:
- “I wanted to be a physician because I wanted to serve mankind.”
- “I just set a goal every year to build a new practice.”
- “I really didn’t want to build a big DSO at all. I wanted to give people like me, who wanted their own dental practice, a turn-key practice.”
- “In the end the hardest thing was always finding someone in the front to manage the practice.”
- “They hope that they don’t have people that are following up properly because after 12 months or 18 months, depending on the insurance plan, they don’t have to pay you legally. It’s called a timely filing issue.”
- “You know you have a problem when someone says, “We love your office doc but, no offense, your billing is all messed up.” “
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