Welcome to episode 004 of The Dental Marketing Podcast. This week we talked with Dr. Howard Farran about some significant resources to help run your dental practices.
Dr. Howard Farran is the Founder & CEO of Dentaltown—an interactive online community where dental professionals, manufacturers, and service providers can come together and share knowledge.
He has practiced dentistry at Today’s Dental in the Phoenix metro area for more than 30 years. In 2017, Incisal Edge magazine ranked him among the 32 most influential people in dentistry.
Dr. Farran has lectured internationally on the business of dentistry since 1990, captivating audiences with his blunt, humorous, and practical insights into the industry’s most controversial subjects. His genuine passion for helping dentists provide faster, easier, higher-quality, and lower-cost dentistry to their patients is what drives him to this day.
In 1999, Dr. Farran released the timeless “Your 30-Day Dental MBA” series, which is available on YouTube and iTunes.
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
The Birth of Dentaltown
It was around 1994 when Dr. Farran saw Amazon go public. He couldn’t figure out what all the hoopla was about, but he kept an eye on it and continued watching. Around 1998, he finally realized that the online world was going to be huge.
He was on the ESPN website where they started this message board talking about football, and he was like, “Gosh darn, I wish I could be doing this with dentists and talking about root canals and fillings and marketing.”
After that scenario, he hired Ken Scott, and they started Dentaltown, which is now running for 28 years.
The Real Treat in Local Dentistry
Dr. Farran said, “within the realm of the United States competing against DSOs competing against insurance, what threatens local dentistry the most right now is the onslaught of inflation.”
He continued by saying, “I turned 59 this month. I hear no one talking about inflation unless they’re my age. I graduated from high school in 80, and in 81 interest rates were 20 and a half percent unemployment and inflation were double-digit.”
Other Topics We Covered on the Show:
What would he do differently if Dr. Farran had to do dentistry over again?
Dr. Farran’s thoughts about buying an existing practice vs. starting from scratch.
Welcome to episode 003 of The Dental Marketing Podcast. Today, I will discuss some dental marketing strategies to put your dental practice on the path of explosive growth to finish out 2022 and start of the new year in growth mode.
Tune in and discover simple marketing tactics you can start implementing right now to grow your dental practice over the comeing year.
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
Looking at The Economy
Nobody knows what’s going to happen, and if they say they do, they’re lying. I started my business 13 years ago, it was right at the end or the tail end of the great recession, maybe the hardest time to ever start a business.
We’ve seen a lot of economic ups and downs, then we went through Covid. I think a lot of us are still recovering from that. For heaven’s sake, every dental practice in America had to shut down for at least 30 days during Covid or, longer.
I do believe it would be practical advice to tell you that this is a good time to stress test your business. What I mean by that is, to look into everything and know your numbers. You need to know net profits, gross margins, and you need to have contingency plan for whatever may happen with the economy.
Long-Term Wins to Consider
Everybody talks about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and they always say, we’ll get you the first page of Google, that’s what everybody is focused on. The truth is it doesn’t matter if you are number one on a page, what matters is how many new patients are you bringing in every month.
SEO is going to be one of your best long-term strategies for visibility. My advice is to have as much visibility online as you possibly can for people that are actively looking for the types of dental procedures in the markets where you are.
The problem with SEO is since it is long-term, it would take a while, and you have to know what you are doing because Google is constantly changing its algorithms. However, it’s still worth it because the benefit is there. We see so many new patients leads come in from our SEO efforts way more than paid ads can provide.
Other Topics We Covered on the Show:
How you can start your dental marketing plan for 2023?
Ways in 2023 that you can get off to quick wins.
Some long-term marketing tactics you should be planting right now.
Welcome to episode 002 of The Dental Marketing Podcast. This week we talked with Drs. Steven and Barjesh Walters about how to run a successful dental practice.
They and their team are dedicated to providing the highest quality of dental care available along with outstanding customer service. The doctors has been providing exceptional dentistry to patients from northeast Ohio and beyond since 1989.
They are proud to have been selected by their peers among Northern Ohio Live Magazine’s Top Dentists in the greater Cleveland area. They’ve been in Cleveland Magazine’s annual “Dentists of Cleveland” since its rating started in 2009. The Consumers’ Research Council of America also selected them among America’s Best Dentists in Restorative and Cosmetic Dentistry.
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
Being Successful in the Business for so Long
Drs. Steven and Barjesh Walters started becoming successful in their practice when they hired a consultant and worked with people who taught them the business aspects of the practice, such as how to systematize things, how to bring new patients into the practice, and how to monitor the numbers and the profitability of the business.
The other side of that was continuing their education—getting up to speed with many of the specialty services they provided in their practice.
Tips for Finding Quality People
Dr. Barjesh mentioned that they are so reliant on their team, which is wonderful, and due to that, they succeed because their team is involved with hiring new team members.
Without some key team members, they would not have seen their growth over the last ten years. It is also finding people who buy their practice’s vision and want to carry that out with them.
Other Topics We Covered on the Show:
Why did Dr. Steven and Dr. Barjesh Walters decide to start their own practice?
One of the biggest mistakes they’ve made in their practice over the years.
Dr. Steven and Dr. Barjesh gave some tips to make a marriage work while working in the same place.
Dr. Steven talked about his specialization, which is IV sedation.
They also shared a little bit about family practice.
How To Stay Connected with Drs. Steven and Barjesh Walters
Want to stay connected with Drs. Steven and Barjesh Walters? Please check out their social profiles below.
Welcome to episode 001 of The Dental Marketing Podcast. This week we talked with Dr. Jignesh Patel about his journey to success in the field of business dentistry.
Dr. Jignesh Patel is the owner of the Dental Center of Jacksonville. Dr. Patel began his career at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale and has since settled in Jacksonville with his wife. Throughout his career, he has extended his skills to provide exceptional dentistry, refusing to settle for anything less.
Dr. Patel’s philosophy of practicing dentistry is putting the patient first. Too often in the healthcare community, patients are not recognized as people and are simply treated for the problems that arise in the scope of the practice. Dr. Patel believes it is vital to value the patient’s feelings, background, interests, and challenges so treatment can be tailored individually with care and compassion.
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
Dr. Patel’s Thoughts on Dentistry being Recession Proof
Dr. Patel wouldn’t say dentistry is recession-proof. He continued by saying that patients make every decision in their life depending on their financial status. Whether they want to purchase a car or a house, it all must be factored in with what is urgent.
In dentistry, it is about what could wait and what needs to be done. Can the patient postpone it for six months or eight months? Ultimately, anything that is delayed treatment can become worse, like a small cavity becoming a big cavity.
He also mentioned recession does affect the industry. Nobody walks into the dental office and says, “Hey, I’m just here to know what I want to do”. They want to get their mouth fixed. Just like anything in our body, we don’t want it to go bad. Ultimately, finances are a huge deciding factor, and retention does put a big hamper on what they want to do.
About Corporate Dentistry
When it comes to corporate dentistry, Dr. Patel said it has absolutely outgrown and tripled in numbers. He could basically speak for his corporation, which was a very small corporation at that time. In his fourth year with the corporation, they went from five offices to 15 to 20 offices in town. That just tells us the percentage was almost threefold, and that was six years ago. Nowadays it’s even worse. It’s more.
He goes on to say corporations are unfortunately taking over a significant amount in the private sector of dentistry, and there is a significant amount of new influx of dentists moving to Jacksonville or any big metro city. There is a significant need for dentists, and there is a shortage in rural areas. It’s just unfortunate the industry is not having those offices open in those particular areas where there’s a huge need.
Other Topics We Covered on the Show:
The cosmetic side of dentistry and recession.
Dr. Patel’s journey to owning a dental center.
What is the thing Dr. Patel might change in the last six years of experience in running this practice?
What is responsible for getting Dr. Patel this far in the field of dentistry?
Dr. Patel’s thoughts on a fee-for-service model versus accepting insurance in the practice.
How To Stay Connected with Dr. Jignesh Patel
Want to stay connected with Dr. Jignesh? Please check out his social profiles below.
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