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 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 | Jan 3, 2018 | Bold Biographies
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Today’s episode is going to be a little different; instead of hosting an interview, I’m going to share an interview I recently did with Reese Harper from the Dentist Money™ podcast. The conversation we had really highlighted the message I want to spread about how to achieve high-performance days in our practices and what it takes to create the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of.
Listen in to hear my discussion with Reese about the habits that have helped me stay focused on my goals, make time for gratitude, and achieve my own epic life.
Key Quotes:
- “I think most people are really shortsighted because they want to get through the week, the day, the quarter, whatever it may be, and those building blocks may or may not build the superstructure they want for a life.”
- “It is clear to me that the achievement mindset really gets in the way of fulfillment because we’re always chasing that next goal, and it’s something that I really have to work at.”
- “High achieving dentists want to be like the hall of fame quarterback of their business, but they’re not taking care of themselves like a hall of fame quarterback.”
- “The demands that dentists I know put on themselves are extreme because they’re usually hardworking and kind-hearted, and so they want to be everything to their team and to their patients and to their families, and if you’re not devoting that time for self-care, that’s where we get into all those spirals that we hear about—substance abuse, suicide and things like that.”
- “One of the things where I see dentists taken a lot is marketing…We’re being oversold on marketing, so that really concerns me about dentists outsourcing too much of that and not really understanding where the ROI lives.”
- “When I was seven years old, I couldn’t have dreamt this life, and I want [my son] to not have those mental barriers.”
- “Deceiving yourself that the status quo is going to serve you is delusional, and so my challenge to listeners is when you come to that fork in the road, to choose courage over comfort.”
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