WINTER 2022
When It Comes To Sustainability, We Must Work Together As An Industry To Drive The Change Dentsply Sirona
How to Find and Leverage Talent You Already Have Christopher Sortman, DDS
Stronger Together Dr. Sharon Parsons
Serving Dentistry With An Entrepreneurial Spirit Dr. Laura Mach
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Welcome
Welcome to The Future of Dentistry! We have fully relaunched our mission, vision, and website. Check us out at dentalentrepreneur.com. Thank you for all the stellar reviews, well wishes, kudos, and high fives. Ladies and Gentlemen in dentistry, this is our time!
Winter 2022 Editor & Publisher Anne M. Duffy, RDH
We created Dental Entrepreneur not only as a meeting place and educational hub, but also as a platform. Who would you like to share this platform with? Introduce us, so we can amplify their contributions. Let’s come together with an abundance mindset to elevate our profession. As Dr. David Rice says, “Together We Rise.”
Assistant Editor Julia Anabo Marketing Redwood Designs Director of Operations Nicki Mackey Website Bhakti Kulmala Director of Strategic Partnerships Jamie Falasz, RDH National Sales Michelle Watkins, RDH Editorial Board Mary Fisher-Day Travis Rodgers Barb Stackhouse Dr. Lucas Shapiro Dr. Dirk Fleischman Dr. Earl Douglas Dr. Tom Snyder Derek Champange Dr. David Rice
Sustainability is the word of 2022. There are many opportunities in dentistry to improve sustainability. From reducing single-use plastics to switching to glass syringes, to using biodegradable cups, we have room for improvement. What are your stories about striving for sustainability? We’d love to hear them! Thank you to DENTSPLY Sirona for opening this edition with a plan for the future. How appropriate! They are leading the way in setting and achieving reachable goals in sustainability.
Layout and Design Brian Rummel
Thank you to all our authors. Dr. Christopher Sortman discusses how to best utilize your in-house talent. Eric Swarvar celebrates the vitality of independent dentistry. Dr. Sharon Parsons examines the benefits of organized dentistry. Travis Rodgers provides highlights and strengths for marketing agencies. Dr. David Rice shows us the downside of the side hustle, and more!
Cover Photography HEIKE WITZGALL
Sustainability is not a passing fancy. It is here to stay. Let’s ask ourselves:
Winter 2022 Contributors Dr. Ernest A. Barbosa Dr. Steven Ghim Laura Mach Dr. Sharon Parsons Dr. David Rice Travis Rodgers Dr. Lucas Shapiro Dr. Chris Sortnman Eric Swarvar Editorial Office 12233 Pine Valley Club Drive Charlotte, NC 28277 704/953-0261 Fax 704/847-3315 anneduffyde@gmail.com Send materials to: Dental Entrepreneur Magazine 8334 Pineville Matthews Road Ste. 103-201 Charlotte, NC 28226
How can we be a change-maker? How can we grow together? How can we walk the walk?
Cheers,
Anne M. Duffy Publisher
Contents
WINTER 2022
SPOTLIGHT
6 When It Comes to Sustainability, We Must Work Together as an Industry to Drive the Change Dentsply Sirona Sustainability Committee
CULTURE 10 How to Find and Leverage Talent You Already Have Christopher Sortman, DDS
BUSINESS 12 Independent Dentistry is Alive and Still Thriving Eric Swarvar 16 Stronger Together Sharon Parsons, DDS 18 Choosing a Marketing Agency and System for Your Dental Practice Travis Rodgers 20 How to Keep Your Dental Practice Profitable Even as Inflation Rises Steven Ghim, DMD
INNOVATION 22 Serving Dentistry With an Entrepreneurial Spirit Laura Mach, DDS
LAUNCHPAD 26 Weighing In with Dr. A Luke Shapiro, DDS
IMPACT 28 Decision Making, Fill the Gap: Water Temperature in Lobster Tanks and the Dental Connection Ernest A. Barbosa, DDS 32 Why Side Hustles Kill Your Career David Rice, DDS
Spotlight
When It Comes to Sustainability, We Must Work Together as an Industry to Drive the Change Dentsply Sirona Sustainability Committee
T
he world is facing huge environmental, social, and economic challenges. More and more, sustainability is the center of conversation with a growing public desire for industry to do more, dentistry included. As a global leader in oral health, Dentsply Sirona is determined to take action and work alongside dental professionals worldwide to heed this call, do its share, and help drive the necessary change towards sustainable dentistry. “Sustainability is fundamental to our mission and vision,” says Jorge M. Gomez, Chief Financial Officer and chair of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Committee. “As a company, we support our customers to provide world-class dental care, while striving to integrate sustainability and lifecycle thinking into everything we do.” AMBITIOUS SUSTAINABILITY GOALS This past September, the company launched a sustainability strategy aligned to ten of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The approach includes three pillars that make up their new strategy, “Beyond. Taking Action for a Brighter World”.
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Coinciding with the release of the inaugural sustainability report, more than 7,000 dental professionals had a chance to learn about the strategy first-hand during this year’s Dentsply Sirona World event. One pillar, “Healthy Planet”, strives to mitigate the environmental impact of the company’s operations and sets ambitious goals. By 2025, they aim to reduce scopes 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 15%, reduce total waste by at least 15%, and reduce water withdrawal for manufacturing and warehouse operations by at least 15%. By 2050, the company wants to achieve zero net carbon emissions (scopes 1-3). FOCUS ON TRAININGS AND CLINICAL EDUCATION “Healthy Smiles”, the second pillar of the sustainability strategy, focuses on improving oral health quality and access around the world, supporting customers and fostering a healthy company culture. Through strategic initiatives and integral partnerships with organizations in local communities and around the world, Dentsply Sirona and its employees have proudly empowered the improvement of global oral health. Through conducting nearly 7,300 clinical education and training courses in 80 countries, more than one million dental professionals were trained in 2020 DentalEntrepreneur.com
alone. All of this brings the company closer to their goal to achieve 25 million healthy smiles by 2025. GOOD GOVERNANCE The final pillar of the company’s sustainability strategy, “Healthy Business”, puts the spotlight on responsible and transparent business practices and the effective integration of sustainability principles across all aspects of the business. Today, 50% of the board members are gender and/or ethnically diverse, with an average tenure of five years, while 60% of board committees are chaired by women. 91% of the board is independent. JOINT INDUSTRY EFFORT REQUIRED No matter how ambitious a sustainability strategy is, no one company can drive change all by itself. The dental industry at large needs to join forces and take action. To this end, we have partnered on a series of initiatives designed to move the industry forward. As a founding partner of the FDI World Dental Federation’s “Sustainability in Dentistry” initiative, we are working together with GSK, Procter & Gamble, Colgate, and TePe to create a Code of Good Practice, which will provide guidelines and objectives for achieving a sustainable procurement and supply process throughout the dental industry. This initiative aims to address plastics use in dentistry, identify potential solutions and strategies, and build motivation and commitment to reduce the CO2 footprint. Another goal is to develop tools and resources for dental practices and patients that are more environmentally sustainable. DentalEntrepreneur.com
INDUSTRY INITIATIVE Providing communities with access to oral health care is vital but ensuring there is infrastructure in place to sustain it, is also imperative. With this in mind, we entered a five-year partnership with Smile Train, the largest cleft organization in the world. In addition to funding life-changing cleft surgeries, the company helps Smile Train further develop state-of-the-art centers for treatment and offers free access to all Smile Train dental professionals to the complete clinical education curriculum. “The partnership with Smile Train will offer children around the world the chance to live a healthier life,” says CFO Jorge Gomez. “By equipping local healthcare teams with innovative technology and training on global treatment standards and best practices, the partnership will have an empowering impact on communities– providing access to the best possible cleft care, for years to come.” FURTHERING DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION The Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Council is a group of demographically and functionally diverse employees from around the world. The Council’s primary focus is increasing employee awareness of and engagement with the company’s D&I priorities. To help foster connections between colleagues around the world, the company established Employee Resource Groups, or ERGs, which are voluntary support networks for employees with shared backgrounds and interests. For example, DS Women empowers women to achieve their full potential, acts as a forum of support and growth through allyship and mentorship, and opens channels for talent development and resource sharing. BOLD (Black Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 7
Organization for Leadership & Development) aims to connect, foster, and grow a tight knit Black community and network of allies within Dentsply Sirona globally. The BOLD ERG also helps create and sustain a Black talent engine to prepare the next generation of leaders and provide opportunities for professional development. PRIDE, the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LBGTQ+) ERG, creates an environment that embraces and celebrates diversity in a wide range of sexual orientations, family arrangements, and gender identities. Currently, there are seven ERGs involving more than 1,500 employees. SUPPORTING WOMEN IN DENTISTRY The sustainability goals that Dentsply Sirona has set for itself also include a strong focus on achieving gender parity and gender pay parity within the next four years. The company goes beyond the internal diversity and inclusion impact and supports talented women in dentistry from around the world through initiatives such as the Smart Integration Award and Expert Development Program, which honor dentists and dental technicians with exceptional success stories and innovative ideas. This year, participants from close to 40 countries submitted entries to the Smart Integration Award, with new and inventive ideas on how to integrate digital technology into the practices and dental labs of the future. “With the Smart Integration Award, we are championing the next generation of women in dentistry
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– supporting them to become the leaders of tomorrow,” says Pamela Marklew, Vice President Global Clinical Education and Key Opinion Leader Management. “The innovative and inspiring ideas we’ve seen from winners are set to revolutionize the industry and improve experiences for both practice teams and patients.” The next Smart Integration Award will be presented in 2023. Another way in which the company supports women in dentistry is by investing in dental education programs and education centers around the world. With its “First to 50” program, the company aims to promote more opportunities to hear from women through dentistry-related speaking engagements. The program connects women to professional coaches to support their professional development and empower them to become strong public speakers – and also to help them build a community for women dental professionals, improve opportunities for networking, and share experiences at panel discussions and conferences. SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT PROGRAMS AND IMPLANT BUSINESS RELAUNCH Aside from education and training, innovation also plays a crucial role in increasing sustainability in dentistry. “By developing intelligent concepts that work intuitively and improve the predictability of treatment, we aim to refine the quality of oral care and enable specialists and general practitioners to focus on what they do best–creating healthy and beautiful smiles,” says Rainer DentalEntrepreneur.com
Seemann, Vice President Global Clinical Research. As part of its long-term, sustainable investment program, the company aims to further increase, year after year, its R&D spend. The company’s R&D investments have resulted in a relaunch of the implant business to better support dental professionals in creating healthier smiles. Dental professionals now have access to a complete ecosystem of digital solutions, including successful brands like Simplant, OSSIX, Atlantis, and MIS–offering a completely new way of practicing implant dentistry, with solutions from scan to crown. Comfort, safety, and easy application are at the core of the new DS PrimeTaper, a self-tapping implant that offers solutions for almost all clinical implant cases. “High-quality products and structured and seamless workflows are essential for successful implant treatments, as is clinical expertise,” says Matthew Coggin, Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy and Business Development Officer. “Our ecosystem of digital implant solutions will be supported by a global clinical education program that focuses on achieving clinical, technical, and practice excellence.” CEO Don Casey adds: “As a global leader in dentistry, Dentsply Sirona has a responsibility to go above and beyond to create a more sustainable future–empowering not only our employees, but our customers, partners, and peers to take action with us. We are proud to be involved with some key programs to help move the needle for sustainability in dentistry and ultimately secure our world for future generations, but this is just the beginning. It is our shared responsibility as an industry to continue to think beyond our current commitments to achieve a brighter future for all.” DentalEntrepreneur.com
Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 9
Culture
How to Find and Leverage Talent You Already Have Christopher Sortman, DDS
W
hen Amanda started working for me, I hired her as a dental assistant. I owned one office consisting of two admin, three hygienists, and two assistants. I noticed very early that she seemed driven and ambitious. So I asked her, “What are your goals and dreams?” She replied, “Well, I really love teaching, so I may quit assisting to go work for a local assisting school at some point.” Now, I had been thinking about opening an assisting school for quite some time, but had never found the right person to help me run it. “What do you think about helping me start a school?” I asked her. She was ecstatic. We started the school small and grew it to two locations and, hundreds of employed assistants later, it is a resounding success. People and the culture you create with them should be at the heart of your business. Without your staff, you don’t have a business. Finding good people who want to work is hard. However, by creating the right culture, staying away from work is the last thing on the minds of your team. Specifically, in the realm of DSOs (in which my business resides), the path to creating cultures is diverse. The culture you settle on ultimately will determine the team members you attract and retain. This will have a dramatic effect on the success of your business long-term. Ultimately, your
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business consists of three things: product (in my case group practice dentistry), customer (who the product is for), and producer/ mover of the product (your staff). If you have two right, but not the third, you’re going to have a rough time! For the sake of this article we will focus on staff. Without a good team culture, your customer and product will suffer. Fast forward a couple years from the start of the assisting school, Amanda was also assisting for general dentistry and feeling a bit bored. I asked her, “What would you like to be doing?” She replied, “You know, I really like surgery and I wish I could focus more on that.” Fortunately, we had just started a full arch implant center with a prosthodontist. Amanda gladly slid right over and started a full-time assisting job doing just what she wanted: complex full arch surgery all day long! One extreme of culture is an authoritarian model of leadership. Leaders sit on their perch and bark orders to those below. Teams in these cases do not typically have a say in whether they want to do the thing they are being asked to do. They typically are seen as ‘lower’ than management. When things go wrong, it’s not management that takes the blame, it’s the team who failed to do their job. Also, a level of respect is demanded from lower DentalEntrepreneur.com
level employees, regardless of whether it is earned or not. I know of offices who prevent assistants from talking to doctors unless they are spoken to. Division of duties is usually very hierarchical. Anyone above a certain pay grade is not expected to do anything ‘below them’ (such as clean up at the end of the day). Dental offices which operate like this can foster an attitude of fear and compliance in order to maintain order and discipline. The focus is on completing tasks, not on improving the system. McDonald’s is often used as an example of this type of systematization where anyone can plug into a roll and follow a checklist. This only works, however, when there is a corresponding personal mission and value given to the process of following this system. The U.S. Navy (where I spent the first three years of my dental career) is a good example of this type of culture. It works well because job security is not a huge concern. It’s very hard to lose your job in the military. In private practice dentistry, however, you are really only one day away from walking papers during any moment in time. The culture of compliance and fear gives people a sense of order and discipline but also means it’s hard to feel valued for your personal contributions. This can stifle innovation and personal growth, which could help to grow a business to new heights. After about a year or two of surgical assisting, Amanda seemed restless again. We decided that she should make a change to work closer to home. By this time I had two other offices in an adjacent town and they needed an assistant. She gladly accepted the position and became their go-to leader, helping that office grow from 250k per year in production when we bought it, to over a million just two years later. The opposing culture to authoritarianism is where each team member is an asset to be cultivated. In my business, we have a much more nuanced and egalitarian culture which sees no one as above another. I hire more for character and potential than I do pure skill set. When I interview someone, I’m more concerned with whether they are someone who brings 100% commitment to being their best self to our business. My first observations have to do with whether they are who they say they are. When someone is proven to have good character, I ask them what their hopes and dreams are and how I can help them to achieve their goals? This allows the individual to see that they can have control over their own destiny within our business. As they pursue their version of excellence, they bring innovation and ideas to the group. ConseDentalEntrepreneur.com
quently, leaders are built from within. One day Amanda pulled me aside and said, “I think I want to be an office manager someplace. Would our assisting school still be good if I worked for someone else? I don’t want to harm our relationship.” I said, “Give me a chance to find you a manager position.” Soon after, we bought and remodelled a practice within a short drive of her new home (she had recently gotten married and moved). The office manager in the practice we purchased decided to step down, immediately saying it was time to retire. “I got a spot for you!”, I announced to Amanda. She was absolutely thrilled and she’s currently helping us implement our standard operating procedures there right now! When someone struggles in their job, or when someone really wants to grow, we strive to find new jobs for them within our company. With seven offices and an implant center, there is a lot of opportunity for growth. We have repeatedly taken individuals who were performing at a low or mediocre level and elevated them to success by finding them a job they were better suited for. As Gino Wickman says in the book Traction, “the employees have to G.W.C.: Get it, Want it, and be Capable of it.” Since I’ve created a business which is focused on using good talent when I find it, we either find a new position that they ‘GWC’ with, or we create a new position just for them. This enables our company to morph and grow as we strive to utilize the best resource we have: our team members. The next time you have an employee who is about to leave for one reason or another, ask them what their dreams are and use that to grow and expand your business. By taking their concerns to heart, giving them a new role and letting them do what they do best you are ensuring a culture where people know they have freedom and mobility. Your turnover rate and growth will both benefit tremendously! Christopher Sortman, DDS graduated from University of Michigan Dental School in 2002. He completed his AEGD in Okinawa with the US Navy in 2005. He is currently CEO of Strategic Blue, an emerging west Michigan DSO. He can be reached at Drsortman@sbdental.com
Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 11
Spotlight Business
Independent Dentistry is Alive and Still Thriving Eric Swarvar
I
have always understood that dentists are clinicians first. Beyond that, there are several other roles we will discuss later that must be portrayed. But no dentist has construction manager as a common job title. Even if you are familiar with the other roles of starting a dental practice. From securing lending to real estate negotiator, certified public accountant, insurance credential specialist, architect, dental equipment specialist, information technology specialist, marketer, and human resource manager. The information contained in this book is from accumulated experiences of hundreds of dental start-ups as seen from the professionals within the industry. I have seen successful and mediocre start-ups with a few failures. I am removing my sales hat to offer this guidance to give back to the industry I love. My goal is to provide a systemic approach and limit the stress of doing a successful dental start-up. Opening a dental practice takes sacrifice, hard work, and chutzpah. All this is needed just to open the doors. This process takes a present, conscious mind, the willingness to learn, lead, and trust business advisors. It is imperative that you define your terms of success. Do not turn to social media or your peers to seek out what this achievement
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looks like. A successful practice in one part of the country is not the same for the other. I have read so many obstinate statements of glory on social media that are implausible to apply as a standard for a business. Set your own standards and goals. Before you can execute any major undertaking, you should have a vision and before you have a vision, you should have clarity for your project. A clear mind is a focused mind. Clarity, vision, execution! Clarity, vision, execution! TO GAIN CLARITY IN OWNING A DENTAL PRACTICE, REVISIT AN OLD QUESTION AND ASK A FEW NEW ONES. Why did you become a dentist? This is a question that is ambiguously subjective and can lose its will with every passing day. Think back to when you decided to be a dentist. Are you fulfilling your vision that you had of yourself in dental school? If not, how have you strayed and is it for the better or worse? What are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? Your professional goals need to serve your personal goals. When you decide to start your own business, goals have to be sacrificed DentalEntrepreneur.com
My goal is to provide a systemic approach and limit the stress of doing a successful dental start-up. in the short-term to meet your long term-ambitions. However, the more personal goals you sacrifice, your ambitious mindset will deteriorate. Are you willing to sacrifice finances, time, and some relationships?
• Or downhill mountain biking • Climb Mt. Everest In other words, do not make a decision you can’t unwind.
IF YOU ARE PLANNING A DENTAL START-UP, DON’T: • Plan a wedding • Plan a divorce • Get pregnant
All goals need to be written down. If you do not write out your goals, they are just a thought. A thought can easily become a moving target and you will compromise your vision just to make yourself feel better. Always write down and display your objectives and evaluate them. It is important to have daily, monthly, yearly, and BHAG (big hairy audacious goals), generally a 10+ year goal. Review each goal with the equivalent time set, except the BHAG; review that daily.
• Probate a will What is your vision for entrepreneurship? • Build a house • Be your own boss • Move • Control your own schedule • Buy a sports car • Buy a second home
• Build equity in a business through time (wealth building strategy)
• Quit your associateship
• Create a higher income opportunity than an associate position
• Pick up skydiving
• Build wealth by being a business owner
DentalEntrepreneur.com
Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 13
• Freedom and flexibility in ownership • Practice freely from corporate oversight • Become an elite clinician • Own multiple practices • Become a land owner, landlord, or developer • Create high income and be complacent BUILD YOUR TEAM OF ADVISORS Once clarity is established, it is time to build your team of trusted advisors. Trust is the foundation of all positive relationships. This conjunction is bilateral and driven by communication. Just like a dental practice is a business designed to generate a profit, no one is going to take on a client if it is not a benefit to them. Fair market value for goods and services is important, however, if you marginalize these partners down to the dime, their incentive to work on your behalf is abated. Just like in dental work, cheap is cheap. The financial lender is equipped to administer all relationships and assist with keeping the project on time. The lender is the conductor of the network and can introduce you to trusted vendors. Real estate representatives are paid by the landowner. An accomplished agent will assist in researching a favorable location and negotiate on your behalf to get the best rent and tenant improvement allowance (T&I). The appropriate dental equipment company (DEC) can consult on designing the office layout based on input from the dentist and experience from the designer. The DEC can assist in site checks during the construction phase of the project. This is important to ensure the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing for the dental equipment is duly located during construction. This invaluable service should be considered in the price of the equipment. A quality CPA firm is familiar with the intricacies of running a dental practice as a business and is the dentist’s closest confidant on the business side of dentistry during their career.
and security should take place. Human resource (HR) is generally an afterthought for most and associated with firing an employee. However, HR should be a strategy to build and scale your practice with the appropriate human capital. Outsourcing HR has become affordable and is important to build the team you desire. Butts in chairs are what drives revenue. Despite the style of practice you choose, you need to let people know you are open for business. Collaborating with a marketing firm that meets your needs is important. Marketing tends to get overlooked and dismissed by many small businesses. Do not make this mistake. Having a website, mailers, and a sign hung is not marketing. Marketing is an ongoing effort involving the full scope of business. From production to selling goods, greeting a phone call to dismissing the patient, soft skills should be taught and reviewed with team members to create the type of environment you desire. These are the subtleties that build brands. Mark Cuban said it best, “Marketing dollars do not build brands. Product satisfaction and execution does.” This process should be an exciting and enjoyable venture. Two weeks before opening and the first two weeks after are always the most stressful. Do not schedule a hard date for an open house or a ribbon cutting during this time. I can assure you the odds are not in your favor to hit the target date. If you desire an open house or grand opening, schedule this event 2-3 months after your soft opening. This will allow you to work out any flaws, create a positive patient experience, and begin to create a working relationship with your team. To learn more, the book, The Dental Start-up is available in paperback or Kindle on Amazon. Eric Swarvar, Dental Industry Extraordinaire Located in Flower Mound, Texas Eric not only specializes in dental start-ups, he also assists his current client base in modernizing, updating, and adding technology to their practice for the benefit of their patients’ care. Eric also enjoys providing mentorship for college-aged young adults and speaks annually at his alma mater’s college of business. Founder of the 2 Hour Dental Start-up
A general contractor (GC) is only as good as the subcontractors they use. The subcontractors know how a GC builds their reputation. It is not necessary to select a GC that is specific to building dental spaces, but it is important. It is also significantly helpful if the lender, DEC, or real estate broker is familiar with the GC you are using. Since electronic health records (EHR) are the standard in dentistry and the dentist must comply with HIPAA regulations, selecting a medical/dental information technology company to partner with and manage your network is key. This is a relationship the dentist should consider long-term. Ransomware is a real problem for small businesses, and the appropriate maintenance
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www.linkedin.com/in/eric-swarvar
DentalEntrepreneur.com
March 17–19 | Atlanta, Georgia
Business
Stronger Together Sharon Parsons, DDS
A
s a past President of the Ohio Dental Association, I have received many questions, complaints, and comments. Some of the most common are “Why should I pay those dues?”, “What does organized dentistry do for me?”. I know that as entrepreneurs, we need to spend our money wisely. There are a multitude of organizations all clamoring for our support. Early in my career I used to ask the same questions. One common misconception that I encounter is that the State Dental Board and the State Dental Association are interchangeable. The State Dental Board is appointed by the Governor of your state, generally made up of dental professionals, and has as its mission the governance of the practice of dentistry and the protection of the public. The American Dental Association is the national arm of the tripartite that makes up organized dentistry, an association made up of dentists who pay yearly dues to belong. Its mission is to help dentists succeed and support the advancement of the health of the public. The American Dental Association, your State Dental Association, and your local dental society are not a part of the government and cannot set policy or make laws. What they can do is advocate for you. As entrepreneurs and small business owners, we cannot form a union that speaks for all of us and is stronger than we all are
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separately. But if we all joined an organization that had a political action committee to advocate for us, wouldn’t that be something greater and stronger than each of us separately? That is exactly what organized dentistry does. ADPAC is one of the strongest PACs in the country and each of your states has its own PAC to address issues in your state. Once I became active in organized dentistry, I discovered the multitude of things that were done not just for members but for all of dentistry. There are so many potential problems that are taken care of before they rise to the surface and affect our professional lives. We must be an enviable profession for so many to want to try to control us, tax us, and take a piece of us! At this point in time, insurance companies and other government entities are constantly trying to change the way that we practice and the way and amount that we get paid. No one has our best interest at heart more than we ourselves do. We need to advocate for ourselves and the only way that we can do that is to band together. The powers that be will not listen to an organization that represents less than half of the profession. That is why the AMA is not so strong any more. If we do not have over half of all dentists as members, we lose our power, our seat at the table. You can sit back and let everyone else pay their dues, just not you. But at the end of the day, who else will do this for you? Who is DentalEntrepreneur.com
there if organized dentistry goes away? And how much money do you spend a year on coffee or the latest gadget? If you still are not convinced, or you just don’t care about advocacy, look at all of the other benefits that membership brings you. Other than maybe Dental Entrepreneur, where can you meet with other like-minded entrepreneurs where no one is trying to sell you something? Where independent dental offices are treasured and their success is everyone’s goal? I have a lifetime of colleagues that have become friends and allies. I save lots of money every month on different insurance products. In my state, we have a buying club that saves money on dental supplies. I have access to contract advice, the latest science on materials and the coronavirus. These are just a few of the many things that are under the umbrella of organized dentistry. Since organized dentistry is made up of us, it is only as good as we make it. Like everything else in life, it changes as we change. It is now more diverse than ever before, but if people from diverse backgrounds are not a part of it, it cannot grow and change in the ways that represent us all.
did get involved for what seemed like the wrong reasons. However, looking back on my path in organized dentistry, I have to admit that I did make a difference, a much bigger one than I ever imagined I could. The power of one, as it spreads through a group, becomes a movement. We are all capable of this. We are definitely stronger together. Please join if you haven’t done so already.
Dr. Sharon Parsons graduated from the Ohio State University College of Dentistry in 1981. She currently owns a group practice in Columbus, Ohio. She is a member of many professional organizations including the Pierre Fauchard Academy, the International and American College of Dentists and The Academy of Operative Dentistry. She was the recipient of the Lucy Hobbs Humanitarian award and the Icons of Dentistry award.
I was at first very timid to stick my toe in the water and get involved. I did not think that I could make a difference. I probably DentalEntrepreneur.com
Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 17
Business
Choosing a Marketing Agency and System for Your Dental Practice Travis Rodgers
A
few weeks ago, as I was looking to remodel a few rooms in my house, a wave of nightmares came flooding back into my mind as I thought about all the “do it yourself ” projects I started and failed at around my house over the past ten years, so I decided to pay a little extra and hire an expert. Choosing a good marketing platform or marketing partner is the same kind of decision. You can do it yourself, you can completely outsource it, or you can find a middle ground based on your time, skillset, and budget. Just like remodeling your house, a marketing budget can get out of hand quickly. Make sure you know what type of marketing is most needed and what works best for you and for your community and demographic. Is it SEO, Facebook, email marketing, Instagram, events, or video marketing that drives the best result. Make sure whatever provider or system you use, that it has real time data analytics and tracking that integrates with your practice management system so the marketing agency can “prove” their results. If you are a “do-it-yourself ” marketer, there is only one tool for you and that is HighLevel. After evaluating and implementing almost every CRM and marketing automation tool in the industry, I
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have found that there is no tool more flexible and innovative than HighLevel (GHL for short). https://www.gohighlevel.com Wahi considers themselves an outsourced Marketing Department for dental practices. They are an “all-in-one” marketing automation software tool that is fully integrated and customized for dentists to increase patient inflow, follow up sequences, and powerful analytics to measure ROI. They also do web design, SEO, and social media. https://getwahi.com/ Wonderist Agency is a full-service marketing agency. They are known for their quality service and eye-catching design that helps practices tell their story through branding, websites, and photo/ video. They reach your target audience through SEO, social, PPC, and finally, they capture leads in a CRM that triggers automated follow-up through powerful drip sequences. https://www.wonderistagency.com Marketing32 is an agency and tool that is known for their top notch SEO. If your goal is to rank higher and make sure your online advertising is followed up on with a workflow and sequence to drive the patients to book patients from SEO and online advertising, this is the platform to consider with their integrated analytics. https://www.marketing32.com
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Driven Dental Marketing is a high-touch agency and software tool that specializes in implant marketing. They are one to consider because of their all-in-one marketing automation tool, content, and domain expertise. https://drivendentalmarketing.com/ Energize Group is a top choice if you are looking for a comprehensive marketing automation and analytics solution that converts leads to new patients. They are one of the more experienced agencies and they back up their results with data and a lot of real world experience working with dental practices. https://energizegroup.com/ Crimson Media Group is a full service agency that has domain expertise in Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and SEO with high quality content development and analytics to track the success of your marketing campaigns with them. https://www.crimsonmediagroup.com
Travis grew up in Silicon Valley, so technology has always been a huge part of his life. He is passionate about building custom dental software solutions that make an impact on dentists, dental teams, and patients. Over the past two decades Travis has invented many dental software programs like DrDDS Innovations, OneClick Referral, VeriDent, Scout Analytics, RecordLinc, Luv Dentist, and more. Travis runs a dental software incubator and is considered to be among the leaders in dental innovation and technology. Travis has been called “The #1 Entrepreneur in Dentistry” and is affectionately known as “The Dental Technology Guy”. More about DrDDS at www.DrDDS. com More about Travis at www.TravisRodgers.com
One of the reasons I was remodeling my front rooms of my house is that I was a little embarrassed by my ten year old carpet and styling of the room. The same goes for your marketing and your website. If you are embarrassed by it or it isn’t generating new patients, it is time for a change.
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Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 19
Business
How To Keep Your Dental Practice Profitable Even as Inflation Rises Steven Ghim, DMD
W
hether you’re talking about groceries, rent, or a new desk, inflation over time is normal. Due to COVID-19 and other factors, however, inflation rates have been putting many business professionals and customers–including dentists and dental patients alike–in tighter economic situations. As a result, you must take action in your practice to ensure that your service quality and availability stay high, so people continue to accept and receive your care and services. HOW BAD IS IT, REALLY? According to the Federal Reserve, inflation projections remained between 5.3 and 5.5 percent in 2021. But consumer prices are currently rising by nearly seven percent compared to 2020, which is the fastest pace in almost 40 years. While the Federal Reserve anticipates relief in 2022 with rates dipping back between two and 3.2 percent, some economists assert that it will take the entire year for rates to come back down closer to the two percent norm. Other economists worry that inflation will keep rising and stay at eight percent or more through 2022.
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In your office, you shouldn’t be surprised by staff who request raises or quit to go elsewhere–they need more money just to pay basic expenses. Basic supplies that support your services, such as PPE, will cost more. Patients may worry they cannot pay or need more payment options, or they may put off their visits altogether. HOW TO KEEP YOUR DENTAL OFFICE IN THE BLACK As MGE Management Experts, Inc. points out, most dental offices operate best if they can keep overhead categories within specific limits. For payroll, for instance, that’s 22.5 percent of revenues, including payroll tax. When overhead costs increase, revenues must grow without raising costs to stay within these percentage limits. If you’ve already been as efficient as possible and can’t slash expenses by streamlining anymore, other measures may become necessary. MGE identifies three key routes to bumping up the amount of money your practice brings in:
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“If you’ve already been as efficient as possible and can’t slash expenses by streamlining anymore, other measures may become necessary.”
INCREASE THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE COMING INTO YOUR OFFICE You might be able to get creative or take advantage of options like referral programs to increase your caseload. But, this can be challenging. You have to ensure that you and your staff take on a level of work that remains reasonable in terms of burnout risk, especially if your office is smaller. If you and your team all work long hours, then the additional pay for those hours must be less than what you make from the new patients.
your model so that a smaller percentage of your revenue comes from those reimbursements. Although you might lose some patients by refusing to work with their insurance provider, it probably won’t be the sky-high number most dentists fear–MGE asserts it’s usually no higher than 30 percent. Typically, you can make up that money by continuing to provide top-of-the-line care to full-fee patients who have adjusted to your inflation-based prices. Most dentists can actually maintain revenue levels after dropping plans and don’t need new patients to bridge income gaps if they’re getting paid appropriately.
RAISE YOUR FEES
ACT NOW TO PROTECT YOUR PRACTICE
Patients may not resist rate increases as much as you expect, given that they are seeing and expecting price hikes everywhere else, too. It's critical to do market research to understand their current situation and find the ceiling of what they still can pay. Communicating well in advance about the increases and why they happen can make them more palatable. The current recommendation from MGE is to raise fees by as much as ten percent. Stage this increase gradually, so people have a chance to adjust and plan financially.
Inflation rates won’t stay near the ceiling forever, but until they decrease to a more reasonable level, protect your practice. Effective marketing strategies and a careful approach to your insurance and fees will allow you to sail through the choppy waters. After things settle, if you continue with those ways of doing business, you’ll be in a much better position for the extended future, too.
RETHINK YOUR APPROACH TO INSURANCE Participating in Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) can be enormously helpful to patients because it enables them to apply their insurance to your services. But right now, many insurance companies are reimbursing dentists less than before. If the majority of your business is PPO-based, you may have to rework DentalEntrepreneur.com
Dr. Steven Ghim is a cosmetic dentist who also provides general and comprehensive dental care. Ghim has over 20 years of clinical experience and his private practice office is fully digital, ultra-modern, and serves the adult patient. He also serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
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Innovation
Serving Dentistry With an Entrepreneurial Spirit Laura Mach
I
n Iowa where I live and practice, 2018 ended the same way it always does…dark and cold. But for me, the year was dark in more than one way. I was the owner of a very successful dental practice, but I was unhappy and secretly hated going to work. Being the boss and worrying about all The Things had really started to wear on me, sucking the joy out of what could have been a very fun and enjoyable journey. I was in a position I had anticipated to be satisfying. I had pictured being in this place for well over a decade, but now that I was there, I realized it wasn’t that great. Fortunately, the following year I discovered, through life coaching, that I was the one person responsible for how I felt, not the practice or my employees or my family. This meant that I, alone, could change what was happening with my dissatisfaction and stress at work. The coaching turned my practice and my life around. After seeing just how transformative this coaching was as a dental practice owner, I noticed that there was a gap in the market for other dentists to discover and apply such life changing information. In this article, I tell my story of how my initial dark year turned into a movement that is now changing the lives of many.
my role, and the need for what I do, is very clear. All I had to do was sign up with some insurance plans, get my dental license and be nice to my patients to create a viable practice. (On the other hand, creating something more profitable and more enjoyable took considerably more work, but that's not the focus of this article.) When I saw that there was a coaching gap in dentistry, when I dreamed of filling that role, I entered a more entrepreneurial realm. I was going to create something from nothing, I wanted to serve my fellow dentists but there was no blueprint, no franchise I could buy, or even a mentor who could tell me how they created a life coaching business for dentists. When I first dreamed about having a successful life coaching practice for dentists, I pictured how fun and amazing it would be to hop on my computer a few hours a day, inspire others, and then go pet my cat. I didn’t really consider what I was going to need to do (and feel) in the meantime. This included the following emotions: discouragement, overwhelm, despondence, shame, and the occasional sprinkling of exhilaration. Why are there so many feelings associated with being an entrepreneur? Because nobody is telling you what to do or how to do it. You, yourself, are creating this new entity from just your passion and your dreams.
STARTING A MOVEMENT? GET READY TO FEEL ALL THE FEELS
THROWING SPAGHETTI AGAINST THE WALL
Launching a coaching or a consulting business from scratch is very different from starting or buying a dental practice. As a dentist,
The first little steps that I took in creating something from nothing were very similar to what I would picture from a movie
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in the 80s featuring an inventor. Sitting in my basement lab, a lot of smoke blew up in my face. I started a YouTube channel where I posted helpful videos with messages I had for my ideal client. The channel never really took off, I think to this day I have fewer than 150 subscribers, but I got practice being helpful despite not getting much traction. I also had some crash-and-burns on social media. I had to learn the hard way, the balance between being helpful in someone else’s space (Facebook groups) and coming off as needy or pushy to those for whom I had a message. Ugh. The smoke from some of those early mistakes is still dissipating in the basement… Eventually I started a podcast to get my message out, and it grew slowly over time until it wasn’t slow anymore. I had reached a critical mass where enough of my people had found me, and now the podcast is a steady, reliable asset. Like throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, the podcast has stayed up on that wall now for over two years. After the podcast grew, I gained traction and authority, which allowed me to sell my services to those in my target market. I coached clients one-on-one, helping them work through their own thoughts and feelings about their practices and their lives! Eventually my reach was wide enough that I was able to launch a group program, where women who own practices meet together, supporting one another and learning the principles as a team. My first group coaching is now a year old, and continues to gain momentum as a place where women can learn to get back to loving their practices. BEING WILLING TO FAIL My life coaching instructor and mentor taught me another helpful principle that I found myself needing over and over. She taught me that the cost of achieving my dreams, of building that coaching practice, was my willingness to fail and try again. My willingness to feel like a failure was the tuition I had to pay in order to build the dream. If I wasn’t afraid to fail, I could keep trying until I found the magic mix of content and medium that reached the right people. Think about it! Picture your own creation: whether it be a product or a service, becoming the best and most awesome entity you could imagine. Everybody wants it! Now ask yourself, if you knew you could have that perfect business, would you be willing to feel some uncomfortable emotions to get there? If I said, you can have this dream business, all you have to do is be willing to feel discomfort, shame, disappointment, and worry, would you be DentalEntrepreneur.com
willing to feel it? Of course you would! Emotions are temporary, and honestly not as bad as the energy we put into avoiding them. Picture a second thing in your mind. Envision a task or an initiative you have been meaning to do for the growth of your baby, but that you have been putting off. Why have you been putting it off? Could it be because it might not work? And if it doesn’t work, what's so bad about that? I will tell you: you are worried about how you feel after you try. So what if you weren’t afraid of that feeling of failure? You would just do the initiative! I found that once I embraced the yuck of facing failure, it diffused the fear and allowed me to try things that I would not have tried before! WHERE WE ARE GOING ISN’T BETTER THAN RIGHT NOW As a brand new coach, fresh out of certification, I felt anxious to get going. I saw examples of coaches who had grown their business quickly. I immediately started comparing my baby to theirs. My coach told me something very important: “Where they are on their journey is not better than where you are on your journey. Their present situation does not feel better than your present tense.” When I get all angsty or get to comparing myself to others, I try to remind myself that when I get to where that other person is now in my business progression, I will still be me and I will still have feelings and thoughts that are very human. I will not be crossing the magic entrepreneurial bridge into nirvana. That bridge does not exist! We will always be striving for the next step, the next level because of the nature of being entrepreneurs. The dentists you serve are so lucky you are here on this journey for them. Keep building, keep trying, and remind yourself (and them!) that the time to enjoy the journey starts now.
Dr. Laura Mach is a former dental assistant, practicing dentist, dental practice owner, and certified life coach. She teaches women who own their practices how to have a more satisfying, less fear-filled experience with practice ownership. She has a podcast, Love Your Practice, on iTunes and Spotify and hosts a membership mastermind for women owners. She also lectures on the benefits and practicalities of treating transgender patients. You can find her at LoveYourPractice. net and drlauramachdds@gmail.com
Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 23
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Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 25
Launchpad
Weighing in with Dr. A Luke Shapiro, DDS
I
had the chance to sit down with Dr. Franklyn Aguebor @iamdr_a. His content is super fun to follow on social media and he is already doing big things in the dental field, less than 5 years out of school.
SO TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF. I was born in Nigeria and moved to the states at six years old. I went to college at the University of Georgia and was practically raised in Georgia. I went to dental school at Augusta University. It was a very slow-paced environment in Georgia, so it wasn’t exactly my vibe. I needed a faster environment and had always liked NYC. I had lived there for a year as a child. NY was the only city I applied for a residency program–only Bronx-Lebanon. I put all my eggs in one basket but felt confident. After completing one year of residency, I had the pleasure of knowing many of the attendings in the residency program on a more colleague-based level and their level of trust and confidence in me was at a much higher level than when I started the program. The job search environment wasn’t too bad because I had connections and recommendations from the residency program directors. Even with that, working under somebody, I immediately knew I wanted to do my own thing. I thought, “Why can’t I do this same thing? Ownership is very possible.” Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I created an LLC and found a location. I just jumped in and started to make it happen. It’s now been about three years and currently on year four with my own practice–I finished my residency in 2017 and obtained my practice in 2018.
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DID YOU HAVE A MENTOR? I had a number of mentors, whom I asked many questions during the process. I learned plenty from their advice, but I always wanted to put my own spin on it, which I did. HOW DID YOU START INSTAGRAM AND RAPPING? I started working at my practice in January of 2019. While I was still creating the office, I was working for someone else from 9-5 and then would work at my practice from 6-10 pm. I became the “late-night dentist” which was helping to build my clientele. I thought, how else can I get more patients as this new dentist? How can I make this faster? I tapped into several advertising agencies, and I would try them for some months but wouldn’t get much from it. I thought there must be another way. I’m a little silly and a little funny, so I thought I could do a little something. My assistant at the time knew somebody who could help me record and make videos. I met with the videographer named Yusef and was basically like, “hey, let’s shoot a video.” The first video was executed perfectly, and it was a hit from the very beginning! We just kept getting hit after hit. I realized, marketing internally is more genuine to the public and feels better. I enjoy doing it too, so there was more passion. The thoughts, ideas… I made sure it related to the public and I wanted to show we were fun. AND HOW DID YOU GET INTO RAPPING? When I was 15-16, I would always rap. My cousin had a studio, so I would always lay down tracks for fun. I thought hmmm… maybe I could create a track in regards to something dental. My first song was Justin Bieber’s “Popstar”. I remixed it, and called it “Doctor, Not A Popstar”. I recorded it and came back to film. DentalEntrepreneur.com
When Yusef and I meet, we align, we sit down, and knock it out and it is solid! From then on, I just wrote lyrics to whatever was thrown at me. It always has to make sense with dentistry for me.
Amazon to buy props if needed. 2022 is going to be an amazing year and I’m excited! As long as one person laughs, I’m happy with that. If it gets someone to go to the dentist, I’m happy! It is all full circle.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SONG OR VIDEO YOU DID? Hmmm that’s a tough one. I would have to say, “Teach me how to floss it”. That one in general, I had a whole lot of my patients come together. They got excited and were like, “yea, let’s do it!” There was so much energy and we had so much fun. We were there for five hours filming, but no one would complain because it was pure fun. And that is how all my video shoots are; pure fun. Yusef lets us know we need different angles, redos, etc. Throughout the entire time, it is so much fun filming. We were there from 6-11 pm and nobody complained! The good dynamic amongst everyone keeps me focused. WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM YOU FOR THE FUTURE? Everything is a surprise. I have a couple things brewing. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and then go on
Dr. Lucas Shapiro is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, where he received his Doctor of Dental Surgery. He completed his post-doctoral orthodontic training at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. He currently practices orthodontics at Lemchen Salzer Ortho in NYC. He started the Instagram page @futuredentists, works with the educational organization @ignitedds and has an orthodontic tiktok page @drshap.
Impact
Decision Making, Fill the Gap: Water Temperature in Lobster Tanks and the Dental Connection Ernest A. Barbosa, DDS, JD, MBA, BSBE
A
fter achieving a dream 20 years in the making, opportunities are opening, signaling the next phase of my professional career. Plans for this phase of my career will create the most productive step, providing everything for the rest of my life. Embracing my blessings while at the same time looking for what is lacking seems hypocritical. However, I am at this point due to the decisions I made. Decisions are a part of life and are made several times a day throughout life. Dentists make decisions every day in the business of dentistry and the treatment of patients. Decisions vary in importance to one’s life, some affecting a wide range while others are not as important with little impact on anyone’s life. The choice of which opportunity I take will affect the remainder of my life. Therefore, the right decision is important because the selection effects will ripple through the rest of my life.
goals. I want to share some of the fundamental decisional theories employed in making decisions for consideration by the reader.
Fortunately, education and experience provided situations to shape and hone the process of series decision-making. Business school taught fundamental analysis. Experience taught me to set milestone short-term goals in enhancing achieving long-term
Dental students receive an introduction to tooth preparation during the first few days of pre-clinical instruction. The number of burrs, diamonds, and hand instruments is overwhelming. Believing the purpose of the course was learning to use all the tools
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LEARNING FROM BUSINESS CASES The case method is used in business schools to teach concepts. For example, a famous case used in many graduate-level programs is the Prelude Corporation case. Prelude, a lobster supplier, wanted to become the preeminent lobster supplier in America. The following discusses the development of decision analysis, and the case is important in forming a foundational understanding. DECISION FRAMING
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available on every preparation, I decided to illustrate to instructors that I understood how to prepare teeth. I tried to exhibit having command of each device and tried to use every one of the tools on every preparation. That approach was wrong. Critical to entering clinical training, students had to exhibit skills demonstrating a level of competence before entering the clinic. Remembering those days in pre-clinical lab are cringeworthy and especially overlooking the most obvious path to competence. At that time, I forgot the importance of three things: 1) understanding the problem, 2) setting goals, and 3) how issues link to objectives. My college courses taught the vital issue to solve a problem was understanding the problem. Understanding the problem is difficult as complexity increases. Experience changes understanding because experience changes perspectives and reveals previously unknown knowledge. I prepare teeth differently today than I did in dental school because of the experience years of preparing teeth provide. Prelude's teaching points analogously illustrate the process of achieving a goal like mine in dental school of "preparing a tooth”. For several weeks, “prepping the tooth” meant I used every burr, diamond, and hand instrument available. My preparation initially took hours. Imagine the unfortunate patients enduring crown preparations taking hours to finish. At some point, I realized, after a kind word from an instructor, that patients do not tolerate lengthy procedures. Treating patients in the clinic required the ability and skill to prepare teeth quickly, with relative comfort for the patient. Experience from the pre-clinical instruction revealed that besides preparing teeth, time was an essential factor. The instructor’s guidance helped disclose the information I needed to change my preparation method to include the time involved in the preparation. IDENTIFYING THE ISSUE: BUSINESS CASE ANALYSIS Business school graduate programs teach decision theory. After practicing for several years and buying and selling a few practices, I felt successful. However, I wanted to go to a higher level than what my experience provided. So I decided, contrary to expert advice, to get an MBA. Business classes used business cases to teach business theory. One case illustrated that the smallest “gap in knowledge” provided the solution to the problem. In that business case, Prelude Corporation wished to become the preeminent lobster supplier in North America. Like the choice of burrs and diamonds that I had to deal with in dental school, the managers of Prelude had boats, crew, lobster traps, and lobster tanks to deal with. Like my goal of preparing the tooth, Prelude contemplated bringing more lobsters to the market. Using the analogy of Prelude helped me make decisions by recognizing options, not only in patient care but in businesses. In this case, Prelude managers looked at each process of the lobster DentalEntrepreneur.com
industry. Then, much like I wanted to use every tool available to me for tooth preparation, Prelude evaluated every tool for catching lobsters. First, the managers asked a good question, how does Prelude achieve its goal of preeminence? The pertinent question in dental school was what do I need to know about preparing a tooth to gain the skills to advance to clinical training? Then the managers asked what was preventing Prelude from reaching that goal. Analogously, I wanted to prepare a tooth by not considering time; my goal was not attainable. Pursuing the correct milestone is critical to arriving at the goal. One must comprehend the endpoint. Otherwise, one does not know how to achieve a destination. SETTING THE CORRECT GOAL Understanding a problem is essential. Equally important is understanding the goal. Then by linking the two together, goals are achievable. Furthermore, it is critical to know that dreams are adjustable as new information becomes available. Imagine the unfortunate patient having to endure a tooth preparation without regard to the patient's comfort.
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ADJUSTING GOALS: WHAT IS A GAP Initially, Prelude considered increasing the size of the crew and the number of boats in the fleet in pursuit of dominance in supplying lobsters. Increasing the size of the catch was initially assumed the answer because Prelude thought the catch size was the key. However, the managers lost sight of the fact that the “size of the catch” is not the same as “bringing more lobsters to market.” Likewise, the fastest method of preparing a tooth is not the same as considering patient comfort during the preparation. Prelude eventually realized, through analysis, that bringing more lobsters to market was achievable by increasing the survivability of the lobsters. At the time, the survivability of lobsters was generally low throughout the lobster industry. Prelude’s analysis revealed that the number of lobsters brought to market alive was the key. Thus, Prelude Corporation set a milestone that increased the survivability of the lobsters. The gap preventing achieving the goal was the water temperature in the lobster tanks. Maintaining the proper range of temperature filled the gap by providing water the lobsters tolerated. Thus, Prelude brought more live lobsters to market and achieved preeminence. PRELUDE’S GOAL VERSUS MY GOAL Prelude achieved the goal of becoming the preeminent lobster
YOUR PARTNER TO PROSPER Propel your practice with Patterson. Supporting your success is central to our purpose. We provide the products, technologies and services you need to modernize, grow and keep your practice running smoothly. Whether you’re exploring a purchase, implementing a new technology or optimizing it for improvement, our experts will offer you unmatched support.
supplier by correctly identifying the issue of survivability and linking that to water temperature. As I started to treat patients in the clinic, I learned that diamonds generated substantial frictional heat, causing patient discomfort. The new information impacted the path to my goals. First, I limited the number of instruments used in tooth preparation. As a result, the appointment time decreased, and patient satisfaction increased. Realizing that some diamonds create more frictional heat than others was a milestone. Limiting the time for treatment and not creating pain-inducing heat during the preparation was like Prelude, realizing survivability linked to water temperature. MY CAREER OPPORTUNITIES: SAME PROCESS MORE OR LESS Opportunities require decisions anticipated to have lifelong effects. My analysis is complex, accounting for years of experience of accomplishment and failure. Although I love my life now and am grateful for my many blessings, I want new career adventures and challenges. Fortunately, there is no pressure to decide, and there is time to evaluate every option. Assuredly, the process described above will form a portion of the decision-making process. I hope this article has helped even one person’s decision process. If you have any questions, criticisms, let me know. I am always learning.
Dr. Barbosa dedicates his time to business issues affecting dentistry and, as a recent graduate of law school, will focus on legal matters affecting dentistry, Patent Law, and Tax Law. After receiving degrees in Biomedical Engineering and a Doctor of Dental Surgery, Dr. Barbosa received admittance to medical school. However, a cancer diagnosis caused numb fingers after the chemotherapy, and Dr. Barbosa switched focus. After owning many dental offices and other businesses, Dr. Barbosa recognized the gap in knowledge requiring pursuing the MBA. Dr. Barbosa maintains his dental license and is awaiting licensure as an attorney in Texas and admittance to the Patent Bar. He continues to Dream Big.
VISIT OUR VIRTUAL BOOTH TO TALK WITH A REPRESENTATIVE TRUSTED EXPERTISE. UNRIVALED SUPPORT.™ 21PD103459 (1/20)
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Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 31
Impact
Why Side Hustles Kill Your Career David Rice, DDS
S
ide hustles…they’re the latest shiny object on social media…and they will kill your career!
If your mom and dad were anything like mine, somewhere in your childhood you heard, ‘you can be anything you want’. Do you want to know what I love about that? As crazy as dental school is, you’re doing it! Which begs the question: If that’s true, if you can be anything you want, why am I telling you that having a side hustle is a bad idea? There’s a difference in you and I achieving anything…and you and I achieving everything at once. Think about what you’re learning in class. Think about the science behind it. Know there’s that level of science behind the power of one word that I want you to take from this piece: FOCUS Your ability to focus on one goal at a time will define how successful you become. Re-read that. Focus is about one goal at a time. That means, in life, you can absolutely have multiple goals.
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You can be wildly successful with each goal. You just need to know you’ll achieve those goals far better, and far faster, when they come sequentially rather than simultaneously. FOMO Be honest. Fear of missing out is a major driver in chasing a side hustle. It’s easy for you and I to get caught up in what other people are doing. It’s especially easy to scroll on IG or in a FB group and believe someone is crushing it with something–anything–outside of clinical dentistry. Take a breath. Observe for a little while. Then ask yourself. Are they really crushing it, or are you just as or more successful at keeping your eye on the prize? Next, do a little homework outside of dentistry. Google the most successful people in history. Research how they began rather than the snapshot once they achieved success. What you’ll consistently find is consistency. They dug deep in one lane. They assembled 10,000 hours as Malcolm Gladwell wrote. Picasso painted. Shakespeare wrote. Legends learned to shut out distractions and master.
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RECIPE
3. You have the ability to turn it into your primary goal.
Everything above is nice to know. Making it happen is need-toknow. So if I were having this conversation with my younger self, here are the 4 MUST DOs I wish I’d known.
4. You have the structure, money, and team in place to make it your primary goal.
If you want to be a clinical dentist #1: 1. Prioritize it. I know you have to do the dental school thing by day. Do it well. Tuck your phone away. Trying to capture the perfect pic for a free set of scrubs isn’t worth it. Seriously…you’re making someone else millions of dollars for a set of scrubs. Use your down time to recharge. Do things you love to do. Sleep! 2. Go slow. The data literally shows 10,000 hours being the magic number for mastery. You don’t need to cram those hours into 4 years. Do what you need to do to graduate. Add 20 minutes/day on top to work on one specific skill that helps you. 3. Be consistent. Think McDonald’s. Although they don’t make the best burger (at all - lol), they sell over 50 million burgers a day. How? They don’t side hustle. They focus on a very short list of items they sell. Focus on being a little better tomorrow than you are today–every day–and you’ll win BIG! 4. Say no thank you. Those 3 words will propel your success. What you think you need to say yes to today because no one will ask you tomorrow–I’ve done it a thousand times–it just isn’t true. People respect people who respect themselves. People respect people who are focused on what they want. Only say yes to actions that directly feed your goal. EXCEPTIONS As they say, there are exceptions to every rule. So if I’m you, knowing what I know, here goes: 1. Passion projects. You have downtime. Per number one above, this is a great time to do what you love. So if you love a side hustle as a passion project, if it fulfills you, and it does NOT derail your singular goal, do it.
5. That’s actually why and how I started igniteDDS. I wanted better for you as a student and as a new dentist. It was a passion project I invested time in during my downtime ONLY. Every other moment had to be about my primary goal: my dental practice. 6. I took it slow. I stayed consistent. I learned to say ‘no thank you’ until I had the structure, the money, and the team to turn it into my primary focus. CHALLENGES 1. If you’re going to dental school to be a dentist, drop the side hustle and focus 2. If you’re going to dental school with a different dream, email me. I am happy to show you the wins, the work, and the structure to make it happen Till then…Together We Rise
David Rice, DDS, is on a mission to improve our profession by leading the next generation of dentists to grow successful lives and practices. The founder of igniteDDS, Dr. Rice speaks to over 35 dental schools and residency programs a year on practice building, team building and wealth building. Dr. Rice is a private practitioner, educator, author, and mentor who connects students, young dentists, and professionals from diverse dental-related businesses - “fueling passion beyond the classroom.” https://ignitedds.com/user/david_rice/ @igniteDDS
2. Future goal. There’s a difference between achieving anything and achieving everything all at once. Remember that from earlier? If you see a second goal in your future; if you see that becoming your primary goal, make it a passion project today. Invest small amounts of time in it until…
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Dental Entrepreneur Winter 2022 33
FALL 2021
Winter 2022
The Mint Door
We Help New Dentists Become Better Leaders David Rice, DDS
Laura Schwindt & Karen Tindall
Refuse to be Vanilla Renata Jabuka
What is your more? Jill Meyer-Lippert
Dentists with a Finger in Every Pie Gathered in ”DTx Hayata Dair” Sayna Behkar
The Obstacle is the Way Summer Kassanel
Menopause - The New Hot Topic Kelli Swanson Jaecks
The Most Important Technology Decision You Will Make As a Dentist
Weighing In With Anthony Baroud Lucas Shapiro, DDS
Travis Rodgers
DeW Winter 2022
De Fall 2021
Index of Advertisers ADS Dental Transitions South……………………………………………………………....................................24 Henry Schein Nationwide ......................................................................................................................................35 Patterson Dental.....................................................................................................................................................2,3 Patterson Dental......................................................................................................................................................30 Studio 88.................................................................................................................................................................24 Tooth Fairy..............................................................................................................................................................31
34 Winter 2022 Dental Entrepreneur
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