by Karah Karah | Oct 25, 2017 | Prescriptions for your Practice
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When new generations come to work, it can be hard to adjust the way things are done in order to retain them. Gary Kadi is on the show and has some great insight on how to work well with millennials and build a practice that is engaged and effective. He also discusses why he stands against corporate dentistry and how he communicates more effectively with patients.
Gary really has found an interesting system to work with millennials that could benefit all practices. From a regular feedback and reward system, he has figured out how to speak the language of millennials that retains them and keeps them motivated. He also touches on why it’s so important to focus on preventative care rather than just reactionary care in order to truly protect the oral health of your patients.
Another big mission for Gary is his fight against corporate dentistry. He explains why this business model can become harmful to the dentistry industry as well as to the patients. He discusses what he is doing to save private practices and encourage the type of care that is patient-centered rather than board member-centric.
Key Quotes:
- “Millenials only want to work in a purpose-driven business, they don’t want to be working in a transactional business.”
- “They have a purpose, they have a bonus structure, they have a dream program and those layers are game-changers.”
- “People do business with people who have the same beliefs.”
- “The way to make money in dentistry is S – Salary, P – profit and F is freakin’ equity.”
- “Retaining the private practitioner retains the care, the quality care for patients.”
- “Our job is not just, you know, putting crowns on, but we’re here to create longevity and saving peoples’ lives and making a difference on the overall health of the patient.”
- “The minute you believe that you should find the chief complaint, the game is over from the start.”
- “We have to serve the patient from a preventative position not a reactive position.”
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by Karah Karah | Oct 18, 2017 | Legendary Leadership
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Insurance complications with patients and the lack of consistent reoccurring revenue are problems that most professionals in the dental industry face. Jordon Comstock, a natural problem solver, has found some simple ways to get rid of these common issues. His passion for leadership and a self-sufficient style of doing business is what got him to where he is today with many happy and successful clients in the dental industry.
Jordon shares his story and how he ended up working in the dental industry and found his passion for improving systems and processes. He also talks about key areas that are critical to building a more self-reliant and consistently profitable practice. Jordon sheds light on a few areas where dentists tend to miss opportunities for increased functionality, customer loyalty and profits.
The business that Jordon built, Boom Cloud, addresses many of the organizational issues that come with having a subscription-style practice. He talks about what services they provide to increase scalability and cut out the headaches that come with insurance billing and expired credit card payments. Overall he really plants a great idea that practices can easily avoid much of the hassle they currently deal with and gain more loyal and consistent clients.
Key Quotes:
- “I look for employees that are leaders, I don’t look for employees that look at me to be a leader”
- “Despite going through that year of hardship and challenge, I believed in my product, I believed in the concept and I just stayed persistent and I found ways to make money on the side and then all of a sudden we launched Boom Cloud a year later.”
- “You reap what you sow and sure enough that’s what happened.”
- “A critical component of self-reliance is getting other leaders involved and people that can lead different aspects of a practice.”
- “I do believe in the concept of reoccurring revenue, that that helps a lot.”
- “Dentists should be reliant on their own system, their own team, to grow and flourish.”
- “We’ve got the insurance companies that are policing the dentists but who’s policing the insurance companies?”
- “I believe in systems and processes. If we don’t have those, it’s very hard to manage things in any type of business.”
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by Karah Karah | Oct 11, 2017 | Maverick Mind Shifts
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Envisioning where you want to end up in life is the first step towards making it happen. Andrew Turchin did just that and built his business patiently and wisely so that he could end up exactly where he wanted to be. On this episode, he shares the hurdles and fascinating details that are a part of his story. They all helped him end up with a successful and fulfilling life in an unlikely place.
Andrew’s specialty and passion in dentistry is with reconstructive and cosmetic dentistry. He grew and sold a successful practice in NYC and is now growing a successful practice in the small tourist town of Aspen, Colorado. Training and retaining staff, as well as customers, is a common issue with local businesses, but he was prepared for the challenge – thinking out of the box to make it work.
You will gain some great insight from Andrew regarding the importance of beginning with the end in mind as well as “dreamscaping.” He emphasized the unconventional method he developed his skills, as well as the important process of gaining confidence. He later shares how you should not be afraid to ‘toot your own horn’ along with great tips on how he gets his team motivated and involved.
Key Quotes:
- “We try to report leading indicators and get people excited – Take good opportunities to say, “You did a great job!” and “Awesome!” and people just do it more. It’s just positive reinforcement.”
- “Life does guide people where they should be if you’re listening close enough.”
- “I’ve taken plenty of courses, don’t get me wrong, but my best knowledge has been practicing in the practices of those people that people end up taking a continuum with.”
- “I truly believe in somebody being right there either chair-side or a phone call away to help people through the process and to learn that way, versus sitting in a lecture and thinking you’re going to go back and reconstruct someone’s mouth Monday morning.”
- “You can either focus on that failure or you can make it a success.”
- “I’m not very shy so I’ll tell people who I think I am and what I think I can do for them and I’ll do that every day.”
- “Focus on your zone of genius or unique ability as much as possible.”
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by Karah Karah | Oct 4, 2017 | Bold Biographies, Prescriptions for your Practice
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Being self-employed and running your own business can bring some incredible rewards. It also tends to bring many dilemmas and issues your way that other people may not understand. There are things that entrepreneurs tend to sabotage themselves and their business with that can easily be managed and avoided.
Peter Shallard, the “Shrink for Entrepreneurs” is here to share some insight on common issues entrepreneurs have and how to fix them.
On this episode, Peter tells us his story on how he ended up working mainly with self-employed entrepreneurs and why he loves what he does. He sheds some light on issues like self-sabotage, perfectionism, over-optimization syndrome, and discomfort avoidance. Peter explains how these issues can negatively affect your success and how to avoid thinking and acting in ways that bring on these problems.
Key Quotes:
- “The problem with self-employment has always been that it’s this very lonely place to sometimes be because you’re doing an incredible amount of work and you’re wrestling with problems and challenges that other people by nature of what they do just can’t quite connect with or understand.”
- “There are a huge number of small business owners that have an execution problem.
Who just don’t have the capacity or focus to take action on all the good ideas they have.” - “The self-sabotage kind-of kicks in because the human brain isn’t really that well optimized for operating in a state of kind-of social isolation.”
- “Perfectionism is a danger because it’s a false narrative, sort-of a self-deception, that we tell ourselves as a way to sort-of keep ourselves in the comfort zone and prevent ourselves from having to do work we fundamentally find scary.”
- “It’s more comfortable to be working on something than it is to finish it and put it out there in the world and find out, Oh this didn’t go quite as well as we thought it would go.”
- “Entrepreneurs learn and get the best kind of insights and experience from executing.”
- “There’s nothing of value or substance created in the business world without somebody leaning into discomfort and uncertainty and doing courageous work to make it happen.”
- “We’ve almost gotten so comfortable that we believe it’s bad to feel uncomfortable.”
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by Karah Karah | Sep 27, 2017 | Bold Biographies, Legendary Leadership, Magnificent Marketing
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In this episode, Dr. Dave Bender (Fishers, Indiana) shares his entrepreneurial journey with us and explains how he balances both managing his three dental practices with living a healthy, active lifestyle. 
His early-set goal to own multiple practices was challenged with the difficulties of clinical dentistry, but he shares how his bigger vision for what he projected his business to become was the driving force for his success.
Dave carries with him a powerful message that can transform the way we run our practices. His progressive thinking coupled with his early childhood influences pushes him to always “be comfortable with being uncomfortable”.
In this episode, he shares how his experiences in corporate dentistry at Heartland Dental surprisingly counter the attitudes shared by most practicing dentists. He describes his continuing education courses with Heartland Dental as a value that he, otherwise, would not have experienced in a smaller practice. He later explains how he was unhappy with starting an associate driven practice because of the demanding high capital it required. He now thrives, in multiple aspects, with a co-partnership business model.
Key Quotes:
- Let us live so when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry. – Mark Twain
- With my early struggles – I was forced to be a better marketer, I was forced to run my practice a better way.
- I was forced to do whatever it took to make the patient experience what it could be so that they would tell their family and friends – and that’s honestly how we grew.
- The difficulties we had in the first couple of years forced me to be better and more intentional about our growth process.
- In 2013, I started an associate driven practice and that was a major mistake.
- Some will be good, a few will be great, but only one will be the best.
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by Karah Karah | Sep 20, 2017 | Wealth Wisdom
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By the time he was thirty-five years old, Mike Michalowicz had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Then, after becoming an angel investor, he lost his entire fortune and started all over again. Driven to find better ways to grow healthier, stronger companies – he created innovative strategies to help businesses thrive.
The author of various impactful business books, including Profit First, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, The Pumpkin Plan, and Surge, Mike carries with him a powerful message that can transform the way we run our practices. In this episode, he explains why traditional accounting hurts businesses and shares insight into his profit-first system that will help turn reactionary choices into sound business decisions.
Key Quotes:
- The fundamental formula for accounting—sales minus expense equals profit—is crushing businesses because profit is not the first consideration.
- If you really care about your clients, you’ll really focus on profitability, so that you’re not selling unnecessary things, and you’re not just selling to survive. You’re selling resources that people truly need and caring for them.
- In our business, if we simply wait to see where and when there’s money, we’re in this binge mentality.
- If we intentionally restrict our money supply available to run our businesses, then we are forced to run frugal operations, as we should – helping our businesses grow faster and stronger than ever.
- As money starts accumulating in our profit reserve, it becomes tempting to borrow that money. You’ve got to remove the temptation of borrowing from it by getting it out of sight and out of mind.
- Instead of using a system that makes us change who we are, use a system that works with who we are naturally.
- If you’re really serious about being profitable, then set up a new checking account. It’s going to be your profit account.
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by Karah Karah | Sep 13, 2017 | Wealth Wisdom
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Brady Frank learned early on in his dental school studies that he was interested in transitions and owning multiple practices. What he didn’t know was that he would discover a huge market for dentist-owned DSOs and a strategy that would help many dentists upgrade their practices, remain in control, gain multiple revenue streams and provide incredible opportunities for everyone they work with.
On this episode, Brady goes into detail to explain the transition process and how it is an incredible opportunity that dentists should be getting in on. He goes over the definitions of DSO, DDSO, equity harvesting, value-added practice and much more. The idea is to share the risk and the reward with co-owners while expanding practices using high-level scalability techniques.
Brady stresses the importance of taking control of your business future in order to not let your future business control you. Other important concepts to note are the win-win mentality, the ability to acquire good debt to pay off bad debt, working with real estate and creating your own private equity firm. With the right systems in place, it’s possible to do so much more with your practice than you ever thought was possible.
Key Quotes:
- A dual entity approach is that which allows a dentist like yourself listening to continue to have control over his organization while adding “Partners” (Co-owners).
- For every dollar that comes into the DSO, it is valued at a much higher appraisal than the clinical practice.
- In dentistry we have such an incredible opportunity to buy wholesale investments.
- We’re taking next level investment strategies and applying them to a niche market.
- We don’t want just you to win, it needs to be the other dentists involved in your organization to win. Or else it’s just a sham.
- If we aren’t in control of our business futures, it’s our business futures that control us.
- Dentists through various models can actually venture with each other to grow in regions that they previously would’ve thought impossible to grow in.
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by Karah Karah | Sep 6, 2017 | Magnificent Marketing
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The Relentless Dentist is back after a brief hiatus. This episode is all about what has been going on behind the scenes and what you can expect from the relaunch of the show. There will be a focus on bringing unique information and outside perspectives that can help you revolutionize your practice.
The list of things that have been in the works over the past summer include a new book and another podcast launch. Be sure to stay tuned to hear more on these new tools and get ready for a fresh, interesting and motivating new season of the Relentless Dentist.
Key Quotes:
- I’ve gotten emails as to do we still exist? Are we still podcasting?
- I want to make sure that we’re providing you with the best information on how to build an epic practice and an epic life.
- The same kind of myths are passed around [The dental community] – those become limiting beliefs.
- The thought that you should do things a certain way, one size fits all, is a little bit troubling to me.
- I think dentistry is kind of stuck.
- We’ll be consulting with and featuring some of the top minds in dentistry.
- I realized I really, at that moment, had accomplished everything that I set out to do. I also realized that I felt like a hunger to do so much more.
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by Karah Karah | Apr 5, 2017 | Legendary Leadership, Maverick Mind Shifts
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I met Dr. Jason Campbell at the Voices of Dentistry Summit in Nashville, TN. He has a fascinating story and is engaged in groundbreaking work with patients at his clinic, Cosmetic and Family Dentistry, in Prescott, AZ. From an early age, Jason’s always wanted to be a dentist. Since genetic problems with teeth plagued him from the beginning, he brings a sense of passion to working with patients who present unique challenges.
Jason is a general dentist, but he’s also engaged in complex surgeries and reconstructive dentistry. It wasn’t until he was 14 years old that he was able to get the reconstructive surgery he needed. This allows Jason to relate to patients with challenging cases that other dentists can’t or won’t touch.
Jason is an expert in biomechanical problems and can often bring people relief with minor treatments. He trains doctors to identify underlying causes that often generate a host of symptoms that can lead to an improper diagnosis. He specializes in helping dental refugees who haven’t found success in resolving tooth-related illnesses. In this episode of Relentless Dentist, we’ll talk about how Jason is leading the pack in transforming the practice of dentistry. He’s helping patients who feel like there are no hope and training other dentists to follow in his footsteps.
Key Quotes:
- I feel like there’s this third thing in dentistry that we’re missing – interventional care.
- Dentistry is an act of charity. Charity brings good things into your life.
- You hear of interventional medicine, but you don’t hear that term a lot in dentistry.
- In dentistry, there really are only three things that we contend with. If we can help people avoid these three elements, we can stop 99% of dental problems.
- Inflammation systematically increases your risk for type II diabetes. It increases your risk for pancreatic cancer.
- When you have these three issues: biomechanical problems, acidity problems, and inflammation – that’s what really causing tooth issues.
- You have to start peeling back the symptoms to get the cause to determine what’s the best course of treatment for the person.
- There’s life beyond dentistry.
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by Karah Karah | Mar 29, 2017 | Bold Biographies, Maverick Mind Shifts, Prescriptions for your Practice
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Today’s episode is a little different. Instead of me interviewing our guest, Dr. Bilal Saib of The Passionate Dentist podcast, we interview each other about the highs and lows of our careers and the joys of podcasting.
Dr. B is a fellow dentist and podcaster based in North Carolina. He’s also a frequent missionary to the West Bank, where he performs free dental work in communities in need. In this episode, we talk about how our shows have given us a greater sense of community with other dentists, and dig into our careers.
Dr. B and I talk about the lack of confidence among dentists, which is exacerbated by our tendency to only talk about the good things happening in our practices. We discuss the self-reflection that goes into building your own practice and learning how to manage a team, and how it’s made us better people. Dr. B also shares some of his experiences with missionary work, a unique but meaningful challenge he feels compelled to undertake.
Key Quotes:
- When you decide to own dental practice, you have to step up to the plate and do what is required of you.
- The thing that makes us more fulfilled and makes our practices grow is the psychology of you, the owner, and there’s nothing more powerful in psychology than confidence.
- What the practice requires of me has made me such a better person.
- I go on mission trips because I’m sharing my gift. And my gift is all these little tidbits of things that are lined up perfectly to create this perfect environment.
- I chose to have a low volume, high-quality practice even before I started my practice.
- Dentists are sometimes so benevolent that we forget the time and energy that we put into our education, hiring and firing staff, and patient relationships – there’s a lot of equity there – either because we come from humble beginnings or because we come from a place of give, give give.
- One of the first questions I ask dental students is: “why did you choose to become a dentist?”
- The first check I ever wrote myself was $100. It was a symbolic gesture of my three year anniversary.
- You learn a lot from practice management because when you have a busy practice, you learn what you want and you learn what you really don’t want. And there’s huge value in knowing what you want.
- Don’t treat insurance patients differently than non-insurance patients. Don’t cut your quality short. Do your very best with every patient, even if they’re on insurance.
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