Five Business Lessons Every New Practice Owner Must Quickly Learn!

Gary Takacs: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, the Thriving Dentist Show podcast founder and co-host, and we are excited to bring you a new episode today. The title of this episode is Five Business Lessons. Every New Practice Owner Must Quickly Learn Five Business Lessons. Every New Practice Owner Must Quickly Learn. you’re gonna be excited to hear this episode and apply the information we’ll be sharing today. Before I get to that though, two quick announcements. If you’re a regular listener to the Prime Dentist Show, you know that we, often, put on virtual events. These are virtual means that you can attend from the comfort of your home and off or office. But, shortly after this episode is published, we have a virtual summit, the Thriving Nest Virtual Summit.

Gary Takacs: It’s May 28th, coming up on May 28th. And this summit is all about how dental practices can use AI to increase case acceptance and production in 2026. We’ve got, I’ll, I’ll be doing an opening keynote. We have different panel discussions that are gonna be part of that. It’s three hours long. It starts at 6:00 PM Eastern time, three hours in length. You’ll get CE credits, three hours of CE credit. If you stay to the end, you’ll get three hours of CE credit. So go ahead and do the time translation wherever you are, in the country. But it is from six to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Come join us. I’m putting the finishing touches on my opening keynote, and then I’m very excited. We’re gonna bring two different panels. These are experts, friends of ours, friends of the show, friends of the podcast, that are deeply knowledgeable about AI and case acceptance, and how AI is, making very many positive changes in dentistry.

Gary Takacs: Come join us, by the way. There’s no tuition for that. For that summit, just go to thriving dentist.com/events, E-V-E-N-T-S, plural, driving dentist show.com/events. and claim your seat. There’s no tuition, but you do have to register. Let me encourage you to register. The next announcement I have is, we have a returning guest with a Thriving Desk marketing tip. You’ll recognize his name and voice. It’s Naren Arulrajah, and he is the founder of Ekwa Marketing. and the title of his marketing tip is, What are the Biggest Mistakes Practice Owners Make with regards to the Dinner Dental Buyer’s Journey, the Dental Buyer’s Journey, Naren got some great tips here. No further ado. Here’s Naren Arulrajah, with what are the biggest mistakes practice owners make with regards to Dental Buyer’s Journey?

Naren Arulrajah: What are the biggest mistakes practice owners make with regards to the dental buyer’s journey? See, this is my marketing tip of the day. I’m Nareen, your co-host of The Thriving Dentist Show. The number one mistake is not even knowing what the dental buyer’s journey is. What is it? It’s helping people find you. In the old days, they would wait for a TV ad to, you know, think about the ad today. We Google it, we find it on our own, right? We don’t wait for information to come and land on our feet. This is why flyers and radio ads and TV ads don’t work because we are not waiting for that TV to show an ad. Rather, we go and find what we want. So, when they’re looking for what they want, are you the one they’re finding? If they’re not, you are not the one they’re finding, then you have lost the game.

Naren Arulrajah: So, help people find you and help them find you, not for one or two things, but for everything you do. So, that’s the first thing I’ll look at. Second is, after they find you, are you helping them like you? I’ll give you two tips. One is, the landing page should have videos, you know, videos that a fifth grader can understand. Videos that are short where you say, hello, welcome. Thank you for coming here. You know, look around, look at our cases, call my office. You know, simple language where they feel like they can relate to you. The last thing you want is for them to put you in the bucket of, he’s one of those doctors who’s smarter than me and who’s richer than me. So he want identify with me. If you want them to identify with you, talk in their language, welcome them.

Naren Arulrajah: Use short videos, and this video will work for you 24-7. Another tip I would give you is when your team answers the phone, are they building arapo? If they’re not, hey, that’s an opportunity to get them to like you. The last step of the marketing dental buyer’s journey is trust. One of the ways to get trust is Google reviews. Try to get 10 oh, more paragraph reviews every month. 10 oh more paragraph five style love letter reviews. It should become your routine. Just like you tell your patients to brush their teeth, this should be something you work on day in and day out. 10 more five style letter reviews. Also on the phone, one of the things you should teach your team is to credential the doctor. So they’re inquiring about implants, talk about the qualifications, talk about the experience, you know, so they know they didn’t make a mistake by calling your office for that particular service.

Naren Arulrajah: So these are the tips. So, just because you know what, the dental buyer journey is not enough, you need to review it with the relevant people. So our clients review a CEO with us. They review it once a quarter to see if it is improving the number of keywords, number of people seeing them. So more and more people are finding them for more and more of the things the practice does.

 The second thing they’re doing is on a monthly basis, they work with our team to improve their landing pages. They add videos, they add cases. Also, they work on Google reviews. They try to get 10 or more Google reviews. So make sure you have these meetings and these cadences set up, whether it’s with your marketing company or your team members, to continue to, you know, work on these three components of the dental bias journey. That’s my tip for the day. If you wanna understand how you are doing with regards to the net bias journey book, the marketing strategy meeting, it’s how to give to you ekwa.com/td. 

And, as soon as the marketing strategy meeting is booked, our team will spend six hours studying you and your competition. You’ll learn a ton. This is gonna be very personalized. I gave you generic advice. Now, what the marketing strategy meeting will do is give you specifics that you can act on and you can work on.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello everyone. This is Naren, your co-host, and the topic today that we will be covering is five business lessons. Every New Practice Owner Must Quickly Learn. This is a wonderful topic, and I do think this is, based on Gary’s 46 years of experience, and of course, the work Ekwa and Thriving Dentist does on our mutual clients. So you’re gonna get a lot of value from it. But before I jump into the topic, I hope you enjoyed the marketing tip. 

What are the biggest mistakes practice owners make with regards to the dental buyer’s journey? If you have any questions about your own marketing or how well you’re doing online, book that marketing strategy meeting. It’s ekwa.com/td.

It’s our gift to you ekwa.com/td

What are the five business lessons every new practice owner must learn? Number one, dentistry and business are two different skill sets. In other words, someone who is successful as a dentist doesn’t mean they’re gonna be successful as a business owner.

Naren Arulrajah: So are you mastering your business skills as well as your dental skills? So, that’s the first lesson. Second, leadership becomes your most important responsibility. See, when you are just a solo promo, it doesn’t matter what you are, right? Let’s say you just graduated from school and you are working as a dentist in one of the university’s dental clinics, right there. You don’t need to worry about other people hiring. 

Are they excited? Do they want to be there? The team, you just do your job. So you are kind of like a solo player versus when you are a practice owner, you have a team and they represent you. If they’re excited and they know what they’re doing, that’s a reflection on you. If they are not, again, that’s also a reflection on you. So one of the mistakes we see practice owners making is they are not focusing on leadership as much as they should.

Naren Arulrajah: Number three, cashflow MA matters more than production. See, you could produce a thousand dollars worth of dentistry, but let’s say after insurance adjustments, you only get $520 for all practical purposes, meaning for you to pay your bills, for you to take some profits home, you only have $520, not the thousand dollars you produced. So really starting to look at how much cash you generate for every time, every hour you work, how much cash is your hygienist generating for every hour she works, versus the cost of having that hygienist in your team. So really looking at cash flow from everything you do, it’s a very powerful way for you to focus on what’s important to create a thriving practice. Number four, see, as you grow, you will realize, you know, it’s all about systems. I’ll give you one example call.

Naren Arulrajah: The way the phone is being handled, the average dental practice only books one out of three new patients. So if you’re an average practice and you don’t have that system working really well, you’re gonna lose two thirds of all the effort you put into attracting new clients. So is that system on how the call is being handled optimized in your practice? Remember today, Suzy’s answering the phone, you know, perhaps later on in the afternoon, it’s Jim who’s answering the phone. So it’s not Jim’s fault or Suzy’s fault. It’s rather a system failure. If in that example, the call coaching is called, the call answering is not done perfectly. Number five, are you creating a growth mindset and action oriented mindset where everyone in your team, especially the key players, are looking to find problems and rather lean into it, versus just resign to it and just keep doing the same thing that doesn’t work?

Naren Arulrajah: So let’s say you have a problem with answering your phone. Are people just, that is the way it is? You know, these all bad patients, we’ll only book one out of three. Or do they know how well they’re doing and what are they doing to lean in to get better? So are you creating that growth mindset and action oriented practice this way? You are not carrying the whole load of the entire practice alone. Rather, you have a team of people who are working with you. Gary, buying or starting dental practice is one of the most exciting moments in a dentist’s career. You and I know that because we have those examples. I still remember a client last year, he bought his first practice and he went from being an employee to making half a million dollars. Of course, he had to invest some money to buy that practice, and that changed his life, right?

Naren Arulrajah: And then of course, doing it right, you know, picking the right practice to buy or the right way to start a practice. These are all reasons why some succeed and others don’t. But regardless, it’s a very exciting moment in the life of a dental practice owner or a dentist. But many dentists quickly discover that clinical excellence alone is not enough when you’re a practice owner. Running a practice requires leadership systems, financial awareness, and all the other things we just talked about. Today. I wanna talk about the first five business lessons that I alluded to, that almost every new practice owner learns the hard way. So my first question to you, Gary, is what is the first lesson new practice owners usually discover?

Gary Takacs: Well, therein that first lesson is that dentistry and running a business are two very different skill sets. Very different skill sets. In reality, your training, your education, thinking about dental school, dental school trains, dentists to diagnose and treat patients, and the science of dentistry. your dental school education didn’t really train you on how to run a business, how to run a business. It taught you your clinical skills and your craft. But, you know, being a clinical dentist and running a business are two very different skill sets. Once you become an owner, you’re responsible for finances, for leadership, for hr, for systems, for marketing, all those things become, you know, part of your job, you know, as the owner of practice. and in reality, the sooner you master those other elements, the greater the pathway to your success.

Gary Takacs: driving practice owners are committed to learning business skills, just as serious as they are about pursuing their own clinical knowledge and their expansive expansion of their clinical knowledge. One of the suggestions I would have for any practice owner, new practice owner, would be, to treat that responsibility of learning the business side of dentistry. Treat it as seriously as you do in terms of following your clinical CE. For example, I might suggest that for every hour initially, as you become a practice owner for every hour of clinical CE you take, you take an hour of business or practice management ce. Now, that’s becoming more available today. Like for example, you know, I made the announcement at the beginning of this podcast, our Thriving Dentist Summit, you know, coming up in May, that’s three hours. and by the way, I think you’ll find the tuition very fair. Naren remembered what the tuition was for a bi for our AI summit coming up in May.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, it’s zero. Gary, we are not charging anything.

Gary Takacs: You’re there as a guest of ours. so there’s three hours of CE right there. But I would suggest that you, when you pursue your education, both clinically as well as on the business side, initially maybe for the first three years of practice ownership, take one-to-one for every hour of clinical CE you take an hour, of business or management, ce. and I think you’ll find that’ll be a fast track for you to start to master the business side of dentistry. And we’ve got a lot of free resources for you, that’ll make that process, you know, very affordable for your budget. But you really, you know, nothing takes the place of spending time on it, you know, and devoting resources, devoting your time, resources towards developing the business, part of your practice. and I think that once you start doing that, you’re gonna find that the mystery of running your practice will start to become unlocked. And you’ll, you’ll, you’ll get very comfortable, with running your practice very quickly, as you compliment your knowledge, just like you compliment your clinical knowledge. and think of that as a one-to-one match, at least for the first, three years of practice ownership. You might wanna continue that.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary, for that first lesson, right? Understanding that the business is very different from being an excellent dentist. So you have to also become an excellent business owner, someone with all the skills you need to succeed there. Question number two, Gary, is what leadership lessons, we talked about the second key to success being leadership. What leadership lessons surprise new owners or those who are struggling, with dentistry as a practice

Gary Takacs: On that? Well, my first response to that is, I think the first thing that surprised me is that leadership is actually a skillset. It’s actually a skillset. And it’s something that, they may or may not have had past experience with, you know, in their own life experience. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. But leadership becomes your daily responsibility once you own a practice. I will say this very boldly and very bluntly, the trajectory of your practice will largely be determined by the development of your leadership skills, where your practice goes, where you take your practice will largely be determined by the development of your leadership skills. Does that ring true from your experience? Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: I agree, Gary, because, you know, we have clients who do 5 million in revenue, and we have clients who are struggling with 600,000. And what I notice is the bigger they grow, what differentiates those who are successful, meaning they’re doing well financially and clinically, and at the same time enjoying themselves, is leadership. They tend to be great leaders. They tend to be able to find the right people, bring them on board, inspire them, and manage or lead them effectively. So everyone wants to succeed, wants to thrive. And I, and we, I know we, you and I can think of a lot of mutual clients who fit that bill, right? Like they’re exceptional leaders. Of course. Course leadership is not something you go to school and learn. Of course, they learn, you know, through your coaching and, you know, just reading books like Good To Great. And, you know, even books like Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I do think if you don’t master that, you’ll never be a great leader. Like, just the basics. And, but many people don’t work on leadership and therefore they struggle, they go in circles. And those who do,

Gary Takacs: you know, have a more natural skillset, in leadership. Some do,

Naren Arulrajah: Yes,

Gary Takacs: Most don’t.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: because of their highly technical training, they’re, they’re, they’re trained more like an engineer.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: If you look at them, remember the DISC personality styles? Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Dominant, the detail oriented,

Gary Takacs: Yeah. The dominant personality styles for dentists are S and c. Yeah. which you have the engineer personality and can you name very many engineers that also lead companies?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I mean, Elon Musk, I’m sure you all can think

Gary Takacs: . One comes to mind is Elon Musk. Yes.

Naren Arulrajah: He is an engineer. Quadruple. Right. He is like the, you know,

Gary Takacs: Engineer. It’s not just squared. Yeah. It’s

Naren Arulrajah: Like .

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: The part of

Gary Takacs: Quote, for the most part. Yeah. leaders and CEOs of companies, you know, are not the engineer personality. Yeah. Not the engineer. In fact, you know, I think of Steve, the late Steve Jobs. On one hand he was a, he was a multi, talent, talented

Naren Arulrajah: Person. Yes, of course.

Gary Takacs: although it, you know, according to some, his leadership style was very caustic .

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah. I think he grew, I think the people who met him when he was young versus the ones who Yeah. Met him when he was about to pass away. I think they have a totally different experience of, he developed

Gary Takacs: Some humility there. Yeah. and became a lot more likable. Yeah. But, there were some that said he, you know, he ruled the early days of Apple, where an iron fist. yeah. But the point is, what I’ll make for our listeners is that you can learn to become a leader. Mm-hmm . You can learn to become a leader. And if you feel like, well, that’s just not in my skillset, I would say, you know, change your mind and say, but I can learn it. I can learn to, yeah. That is my skillset.

Naren Arulrajah: And I mean, it’s kind of like clinical dentistry, right? Like, yes, you go to school, read all the books, eventually you get in with a patient and you learn. That’s when the real learning starts. Same thing with leadership. Maybe you read a book or you learned from Gary, and now you have to apply it. When you apply, you’re like, okay, it’s kind of working, but not really. So go back and figure out what you are doing, right? So just have to keep leaning in, otherwise you don’t grow as a leader. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: And you can develop it. But again, where you take your practice, the trajectory you take your practice to will be largely determined by your leader. It’s almost like your leadership skills are a governor, a governor. And what I mean by governor is kinda like a governor on a go-kart, you know, that controls the speed. You know, a governor is a device on a go-kart that controls the throttle and only allows it to go so fast. Your leadership skills are that same process. The more you develop your leadership skills, the more unlimited your potential is. If that is something that you plateau at and you quit developing, that your practice will plateau. as well. I would like to suggest a couple of books. You’ve named a couple Naren. I’ll, I’ll repeat those. Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Affected People Required Reading.

Gary Takacs: Absolutely. Another one is the book Good To Great by Jim Collins. I absolutely recommend that book. But I’m gonna add two others. specifically related to leadership. One is called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni, Five Dysfunction of Team. You may have heard about that. It’s widely referenced as a skill building leadership book. and it helps you avoid those five dysfunctions. So, the book, the title’s fantastic. And the next book that I highly recommend is a book called Traction by Gina Wickman. And it’s a book all about the entrepreneurial operating system, EOS, and he provides a leadership framework that you can follow. So there’s four books that if you were just to read and apply what you’ve learned in those four books, your leadership skills will massively increase, and you’ll find yourself much more effective. But leadership, it has to be something you exhibit every day, every day. and when you start to embrace it, watch your practice soar, because it’s a really cool thing to experience. For sure.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Let me go to question number three. What financial lessons? I know you touched on cash flow and the difference between production and cash flow. But what financial lessons do you think new owners or even existing owners should master?

Gary Takacs: Well, there’s, there’s a fundamental one that I wanna start with. Production numbers alone, do not tell the full story, right? I think most like dental society meetings, when you meet with your colleagues, doctors sometimes play a game of bragger poker , and they talk with one another about one number. And the number they talk about is my production. and, you know, that’s kind of where, you know, what they measure. It’s a measuring stick to use against your colleagues. But production numbers don’t tell the full story. So, for example, if you’re, your production number is your usual and customary fees, in other words, the number you put in for your practice production is what you’re producing according to your, usual and customary fees. UUCR, usual customary, reasonable fees. But in fact, you’ll participate with insurance companies and the average insurance adjustment’s 45%. then your production for a given procedure might say a thousand dollars, Naren. But what has that office actually collected then? If the adjustment was 45%, what did

Naren Arulrajah: They, $550? $550.

Gary Takacs: So your adjusted production’s five 50 mm-hmm . So, and that’s the number that’s real. That’s the number that can hit your bank account, right? You know, they can go to the bank account. so, you know, many dentists celebrate production and they’re celebrating it falsely because it’s an artificial number. and a lot of times doctors don’t realize that, there’s two ways to enter your fees into your practice management system. you can enter your UCR fees, your usual customer reasonable fees, and then the software will automatically adjust when they get the EOB from the insurance company to show you what your adjusted production is. Only, you know, only 10% of the practices in the country enter their fees in that way. The other 90%, Naren, this is Dentrix Eaglesoft, open Dental, enter their adjusted fees. So in the example that I gave about a thousand dollars fee, but your, you know, your adjustment was, 45%, they’re gonna enter five 50.

Gary Takacs: Five 50. So 90% of dentists enter that fee, and they don’t know what they’re writing off. Does that, does that make sense, Darren? Yes. Gary. It doesn’t appear to them. They don’t see it. So then they wonder, I’m, I’m producing like, heck, how come I’m not making any money? And the reason is because of those 45% adjustments, I like all of our listeners to think about that adjustment as a marketing expense. And now some of you’re gonna listen and say, well, wait a minute. How’s that a marketing expense? Because you’re paying Delta to provide you patience. You’re paying 45% for the lifetime of that patient in your practice, and that is a tax at the time. This is airing, we’re close to our tax date. Yes, April 15th. That’s a day of pain for many dentist practice owners. But think of that Delta fee as a tax.

Gary Takacs: there’s a lot less expensive ways. If you haven’t already scheduled a marketing strategy meeting, I’d recommend setting up that meeting with Ekwa. You’ll spend a fraction of that and get a much better result. So yeah, you have to learn about, you know, monitoring key numbers. We have specific KPIs that we measure for all of our clients, and we have benchmarks against those KPIs, and we manage those. and, you know, once we do that, the practice of the numbers can come into alignment. I would like to suggest a resource for any of our listeners. I’m a huge fan of the Academy of Dental CPAs, academy of Dental CPAs. I believe their website, if you could check it, Naren, I believe it’s Academy of Dental cpas.org, ad cpa.org. Would you check that as I’m, commenting on that? I think yes. cpa.org, it’s a nonprofit. but this is a collection of,

Naren Arulrajah: That is correct. Gary apa.org. That is correct.

Gary Takacs: Apa.org. There are 24 independent accounting firms that work exclusively with dentists. They’re located all over the country. They banded together in the form of that association. They represent over 12,000 practices. And you’d be very well served to work with an A-D-C-P-A practice, because they will help you understand the numbers related to running a dental practice. but just remember, when it comes to financial lessons, production numbers alone, do not tell the full story. Another comment that I’ll make near this is something that I did some research on that I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do a course coming up on this. and sadly, the American Dental Association reports that, the average dentist, in terms of the number of dentists that are able to retire at age 65, able to retire at age 65 without reducing their lifestyle is 3%. Think about that. Does that make you as sad as it makes me?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, Gary. It does. Definitely. I mean,

Gary Takacs: Think about a dentist that has practiced for 30 years. I’m just making up a round number. 30 years. and if you graduated from dental school at 27 years old, maybe you didn’t become an owner right away, but maybe you became an owner at 30 and you practiced for 30 years. We’re now talking about what age Naren, if they graduated at 27, became a practice owner at 30, they practiced for 30 years. How old are they? 60 years old. Mm-hmm . Again, assuming a thriving practice, and let’s say you decide to be a solo practice, you’re gonna have about $1.5 million a year running through your practice. 1.5 million. Now, do that for 30 years. How much is that, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: If you do that for 30 years times 1.5, it’s 45 million. Gary,

Gary Takacs: You’ve got 45 million. Yes. Your mileage may vary. Could be higher than that, could be lower than that, right? You’ve got $45 million passing through your hands, right? And only 3% can retire without adjusting their lifestyle. Retirement.

Naren Arulrajah: That’s, that’s not

Gary Takacs: Fun. There’s components. So there’s no reason why you can’t create a retirement somewhere between eight and $10 million, from that business flow. Does that make sense there?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes.

Gary Takacs: There’s no reason, but do you need some guidance? You know, an A-D-C-P-A can, you know, set you up with a financial planner, can set you up with the right tools, like a pension plan, maybe set you up with some simple tools like budgeting. You know, and there’s no reason why any one of our listeners should be able to, any one of our listeners should be able to, achieve financial independence, go to work. ’cause they want to, not because they have to. Alright, I’ll get off by soapbox on that , but I

Naren Arulrajah: Appreciate

Gary Takacs: That, Gary. Check them out.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, for sure. That’s a great resource. Ad cpa.org. And Gary mentioned, if anyone needs help to attract the right kind of patients, again, the marketing strategy meeting link is ekwa.com/td. Now, Gary, let me go to question number four. What operational lessons become clear early? What I’m trying to get to is, we talked about systems. I know you’re famous for your 24 systems. And, what are some of the common reasons from a systems perspective, people or practice owners struggle?

Gary Takacs: Well, you hit the punchline, Naren. What operational lessons become clear early? Having systems. Having systems. Mm. If you systems create consistency, if you don’t have that, then every day is a new random problem. Every day is a new random crisis. Mm-hmm . And, you know, you do not wanna run a practice for 30 years every day dealing with a random crisis every day. That’s, that’s something that will drive you to an early grave for sure. But, without systems, every day becomes reactive. Team members need to have the discipline of systems. They need to have the support structure of systems. They need to have the boundary of systems. They need to have systems to support your team. They allow your team members to excel. We have 24 documented systems, that literally you put those in place in your practice and your practice is on the trajectory to develop a thriving practice.

Gary Takacs: One that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction. The resource I’d like to suggest for you on that is our coaching, at the risk of sounding self-promotional. It’s our coaching. If you’d like to learn more about it, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm. 

We’d love to help you create those systems, create that consistency that your practice will thrive on. That’d be an in, that’s a meeting with me on Zoom. I’ll be happy to, you know, share insights with you on that. There’s no cost for that. It’s one-on-one with me. And, love to share with you how these systems can create a really positive reality in your practice, and give you operational certainty instead of random struggle.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Go to that link, thrivingdentist.com/csm, and you will learn a ton. Last question. What is the fifth lesson new owners eventually realize?

Gary Takacs: Naren, I’m gonna state it in a sentence. Creating a growth mindset and an action plan to achieve growth is critical. Growth is, and this is just a math lesson, Marin, every dental office, will experience inflation every year. Sometimes it’s higher than others. And if we stay the same and inflation continues, inflation means our costs go up. We’re in a cycle right now where inflation is very high. I wish there was an index to measure dental office inflation. We don’t have that. The closest we have is the CPI, the consumer price Index. but every year your expenses go. Right now we’re experiencing sky high wage inflation. The wages we’re paying, our team members are going up dramatically. And if you’re not growing, if you’re staying the same, Naren, what is inflation doing to your financial success?

Naren Arulrajah: Inflation means, you know, if you don’t, if you don’t increase how much you’re making, you’re gonna go backwards.

Gary Takacs: You’re going backwards. Yeah. You’re absolutely going backwards. Mm-hmm . and that’s not the recipe. You wanna be improving that every year. Yes. So you have to have a growth mindset, and you have to have, it’s not a critical mindset’s critical. We gotta start there. Yeah. But now you have to have a specific action plan to achieve that. One of the goals we use with our clients, if they, you know, they can set this themself, but they’ll often say, Gary, what do you think an appropriate growth would be? And my answer is, 10% a year. 10% is measured by collections as measured by collections. ’cause now we’re going to measure it in the same way every year. And that’s in a year, whether we’re adding additional providers or not, we might be adding a hygiene day or another hygiene day. At some point, we might be adding another associate doc.

Gary Takacs: Even in years where we’re not doing that, we want to grow by at least 10%. And the reason why I benchmarked that at 10%, Naren, is because that will likely outstrip any inflation. And now we’re moving in the right direction. So, I’m gonna recommend two past episodes of Thriving Dentist Show that talk about growth in particular. and the first one, is titled The Five Biggest Barriers to Practice Growth, NEN, would you put those links to those podcasts in the show notes? So, of course, the past private dentist, thriving Dentist episodes. Yes. We’re

Naren Arulrajah: Gonna include all the, all the resources. So if anyone is interested, go to the show notes. You’ll get access to all the resources we are going through in this session. This

Gary Takacs: Part, the second one is an episode we did more recently, about the role of community engagement, community engagement, in practice growth. So both of those are specific growth oriented episodes. and, those are there for you. give those a listen and start to embrace the idea of a growth mindset. Well, Naren, this conversation has been a lot of fun. I am a huge advocate of entrepreneurship and dentistry. And what that means is I’m a huge advocate of dentists owning their practice. However, you know, let’s, let’s remember that, once you become a practice owner, you also have to learn how to manage it, how to, how to manage it. It’s a leadership journey as well. so, you know, embrace the things that you learned in this podcast episode. I wanna encourage you to, you know, go to the show notes.

Gary Takacs: The show notes are on thriving dentist.com. just click the podcast. You’ll see this one at the top of the page. and if you scroll down, you’ll see the different links to the resources that we presented. I’ll bring it back full circle. Come join us, in May, for our Thriving Dentist, workshop on ai, how ai, can help you increase case acceptance and production. That’s May 28th. Come join us for that one. Just go to thrivingdentist.com/events   and go grab your seat. On that note, thank you for the privilege of your time, Naren, and I look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.