Expert interviews

Great business leaders are not made in a vacuum. They have help along the way. Among his many roles, Robert M. Pick, D.D.S., M.S., is the principal of Progressive Periodontics & Implants, an Associate Professor of Surgery at Northwestern University Medical School, and CEO of the dental consulting firm, The Pick Group. In this clip, Pick explains how having the right mentors is critical to becoming a strong business leader.

Embezzlement can happen in any dental practice. Do you know how to spot it in yours? Pat Little, D.D.S., F.A.G.D., C.F.E., CEO and Founder of Dental Risk Concepts and Prosperident, outlines some key warning signs to help sniff out an embezzler in your practice. Step one is looking for cash-flow issues.

Scott Parazynski, M.D., is the only astronaut to have summited Mt. Everest. His career in the space program and taste for adventure have taught him a few things about managing risk, a subject he lectured on at the 2017 Hinman Dental Meeting. In this clip, Parazynski, who is also the CEO of Fluidity Technologies, explains how risky environments have taught him about risk management.

It's simple: All dentists want to increase patient flow and profits in their practices. What's complicated is achieving those goals. In this video, Kerry Straine, CPBA, CEO and President of Straine Consulting, walks dentists through the steps they need to take to achieve those goals. He says that for dentists, it all begins with establishing a personal budget that considers factors such as marital status and student loan debt.

Tim Sawyer is president of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, a company that works with medical professionals to help them connect with patients. From his experience, Sawyer says that many dentists are excellent clinicians, but poor leaders. To drive business growth in dental practices, dentists must set clear performance standards and hold their employees accountable.

Dentists are often confronted with making the choice of targeting new patients or existing patients with their marketing efforts. The right approach, according to Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development at eRelevance Corporation, is determined by the maturity of the dental practice.

There are certain indicators that will let you know it's the right time to add an associate dentist or a partner in your dental practice. Kerry Straine, CPBA, CEO and President of Straine Consulting, explains what those indicators are. In this clip, Straine also stresses what a potential associate dentist or partner must demonstrate before you can even consider them for the roles.

Do you feel like you're paying too much in acquisition costs to bring in new patients and retain old patients in your dental practice? You might be, but you won't know for sure unless you're tracking your return on investment, says Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development at eRelevance Corporation. In this clip, he explains where your efforts should be focused and how you should be tracking them.

According to Tim Sawyer, president of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, prioritizing the procedures that drive the most revenue in a dental practice is a problem for the practice leader, the dentist, to solve. This process begins with delegating anything that the dentist his or herself doesn't need to do. Then, it's a matter of fitting everything else that goes on in the practice around those core procedures.

Brandy Keck is a Brockerage Liaison at Carr Healthcare Realty. In this clip, Keck discusses the considerations that must be made before a dentist decides to relocate their practice. It might make sense, Keck says, if the price of relocation can be offset by increased productivity, or increase the potential sale value of the practice down the line. Landlords, Keck says, also sometimes offer dentists generous tenant-improvement allowances.

According to Tim Sawyer, president of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, prioritizing the right procedures in a dental practice is key to being profitable. In order to do that, dentists need to ask themselves what they can competitively offer in their market, whether that's Botox, Invisalign or sleep treatments. Then, dentists need to fill their schedules with those higher-profit-margin procedures or treatments.

Maybe you're having a difficult time keeping patients engaged with your dental practice. Maybe they're coming in once for an emergency procedure, then you aren't seeing them again years. It's possible that the issue is their commitment to oral health. Or it could be that your marketing efforts aren't effective. Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development at eRelevance Corporation, talks about refining your marketing message to keep your patients coming back.

Brandy Keck is a Brockerage Liaison at Carr Healthcare Realty. In this clip, Keck discusses one of the questions she most often gets from dentists: Is it better to buy or lease space? There is no stock answer, Keck says. The appropriate course of action depends on specific circumstances for each dentist. Here's an overview of what those circumstances are.

Leadership is an ability that some people believe dentists are naturally born with. According to Amy Morgan, CEO and owner of Pride Institute, this is a misnomer. She expressed that no matter what your personality style is, anyone can and should aspire to be a leader.

Larry Emmott, D.D.S., president of Emmott On Technology, explains that the biggest social media blunder dentists make is thinking the only thing available to use is Facebook.

According to Tim Sawyer, president of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, solving the problem of insufficient patient reviews is a matter of improving your leadership skills. It's up to you as the leader of your dental practice to establish procedures that will channel patients toward sharing their positive experiences on their web. Creating these procedures is easily accomplished with the help of modern technology.

Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development at eRelevance Corporation, explains how to make sure your dental patients receive your message and keep coming back for more.

There are so many important nuances to the negotiation of any dental practice lease or purchase. According to Brandy Keck, a Brockerage Liaison at Carr Healthcare Realty, it is imperative that dentists do their due diligence. This puts them in a powerful position when dealing with a potential landlord or seller. It also helps to avoid creating the uncomfortable experience of undercutting a landlord or seller with a lowball offer.

Kerry Straine, CPBA, is the CEO and President of Straine Consulting. In this video clip, he reviews the common cash flow mistakes he sees dentists making today. They include not having a formal budget in place for the year ahead, and not having a clear understanding of how much dentists will take from the practice in terms of profit. Straine provides effective approaches to resolve these issues.

Maybe you're a dentist who has finally decided to go into private practice. In terms of where you want your practice to be located, you've settled on a city or town, but not the property. According to Brandy Keck, a Brockerage Liaison at Carr Healthcare Realty, now is the right time to get a practice real estate broker involved. Do not go it alone when faced with the stresses of negotiating a lease or purchase.

Time and time again, social media and email marketing have proven to be effective ways of bringing in new dental patients and staying connected with your existing patient base. In this video interview, Tim Sawyer, president of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, discusses strategies for email and social media that produce results. The key, he explains, is targeting your message on both platforms to the precise audience you're trying to attract.

Brandy Keck is a Brockerage Liaison at Carr Healthcare Realty. In this clip, Keck discusses what market factors a dentist needs to understand before purchasing practice real estate. Often, Keck says, her company will recommend that dentists work with a demographics firm to understand the demand for dentistry in their respective markets. Other important factors include proximity to other types of dentists, as well as population-to-dentists ratio.

Randy Fine, LUTCF, present of Robert Fine Associates, discusses how dentists should offer a generous benefits package to retain talent in their practices. Fine explains that though there may be some sticker shock in the beginning about providing a 401-K or other attractive offerings to staff members, these benefits will keep morale high and keep the competition out. It will also save you the trouble of having to replace and retrain employees, which can cost you time and money.

Mayer Levitt, DMD, is president of the dental consulting firm, Jodena Consulting. Here he discusses how he has seen Facebook usage translate to an influx of new patients for dentists.

Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development at eRelevance Corporation, talks about the importance of elective-pay procedures for profitability in dentistry.

Randy Fine, LUTCF, present of Robert Fine Associates, discusses how dentists should take a look at their financial priorities, including insurance, estate planning, and investment opportunities, and put them in a specific order.

Mayer Levitt, DMD, is president of the dental consulting firm, Jodena Consulting. Here he discusses what dentists should do to create a practice that's admired by their patients and their peers.

Tim Sawyer, president of Crystal Clear Digital Marketing, discusses how you can use technological solutions to retain dental patients.

Blair Drenner, vice president of strategic business development at eRelevance Corporation, emphasizes in this clip how critical communicating effectively with your dental patients is.

Randy Fine, LUTCF, president of Robert Fine Associates, discusses how dentists should divide and allocate money for savings into short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals.