How to Make Every Year Your New Best Year!

Narrator: 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 have a great episode for you today. The title of today’s episode is How to Make Every Year Your New Best Year. I hope you’re as excited about this as I am, and, we’re gonna cover a lot of important things that you can go back and apply immediately in your practice. Nothing would make me happier than to have every year become your new, best year before we get into this episode, two quick announcements to make. First of all, we have a thriving dentist event coming up shortly after publishing this episode. This is a webinar, and this is happening on June 30th. And the webinar is all about technology. It’s titled, when Digital Dentistry Increases Production and Profits, we’re gonna talk about some new technology for diagnosis.

Gary Takacs: We’re gonna talk about 3D printing and other things related to technology. It’s a one hour webinar. It’s on June 30th. It starts at 6:00 PM Eastern Time. So that’ll be 6:00 PM Eastern Time. That’ll be 5:00 PM Central time, 4:00 PM Mountain, and 3:00 PM Eastern Time. So, one hour webinar. You’ll get an hour of CE credit. There’s no tuition. You are invited to attend that webinar as a guest of ours. Come join us. You’re to learn lots about how new technology will help you, increase production and increase your profits. Come join us. You do have to register. Go to thrivingdentists.com/events The next announcement is, I have a returning guest. You’ll recognize his name, Naren Arulrajah. He’s our co-host of the Thriving Dentist Show, and he’s gonna provide the Thriving Dentist marketing tip. And this marketing tip is why 2026 is the year to master local search for your dental practice. Well, Naren will unpack how to master local search. With no further ado, here’s Naren Arulrajah on why 2026 is the year to master local search for your dental practice.

Naren Arulrajah: The year to mask a local search for your dental practice. This is Naren, the founder and CEO of Ekwa Marketing and the co-host of the Thriving Dentist Podcast. And in my marketing today, I really want to go deep into local search. What is local search? Local search is somebody living in a particular community looking for a service locally. And we all know dentistry is all about local. Nobody’s gonna get on a plane. Maybe a few will fly two hours to come see you as a dental practice owner. But rather, they will drive from 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, depending on where you are located to come see you if they believe you are really good in solving their problem. So they go to Google My Map, Google Maps, which is, some people call it Google Business Profile. They go to regular search.

Naren Arulrajah: They even sometimes get results from Google AI o view or AI mode, which is the AI part of Google Search. Google today is AI search, regular search, as well as in Google Maps. So you need to make sure you are mastering all of this, especially for local content. Studies are showing that 60% of searches today, and that number continues to grow, has a local intent, meaning the person is specifically looking for a local business. And in many cases, like in dentistry, it’s more like 90%. Why? Because, like I kind of alluded to earlier, it’s a local thing. You go to somebody on a consistent basis, a local doctor you trust, and then you build a relationship, you bring your family, and then hopefully you stay with them for a long time, in many cases, even generations. So top three maps results, for example, gets most of the clicks.

Naren Arulrajah: Same thing with you showing up high on, regular search. So you have to make sure how you are going to show up at the top. So one of some of the keywords I might target are, zip codes, serial names, county names, even near me. Now, near me is a tricky keyword because if you, SEO is extremely good, like many of our clients rank for two 300 keywords and phrases at the top of Google Maps, regular Google search. Now, that means you are also going to pull in people who are two hours away. So when I type in a near me search, the people who are two hours away may be seeing you as number 10 on the search results. So your average search position might be a little bit messed up. So usually near me, it’ll always say it’s around 10 or 11 or something.

Naren Arulrajah: That’s because if you’re really good, you will be impacted by the fact that you are even attracting people from far away places. So my question to you is, what are you doing to really master local search? Are you paying attention to EEAT? Are you paying attention to NAP? NAP is huge. Like we have clients who we are managing literally a hundred plus NAP profiles. Of course, it’s overnight success, 3, 4, 5 years in the making. But we really need to zoom into this. You, we wanna make sure every website out there, whether it’s Yelp post research, has consistent name, address, phone number information. 

If you want us to audit your local search, book a marketing strategy meeting, go to ekwa.com/td . And it’s our gift to you. 

We spend six hours studying you and your competition and telling you exactly how well you are doing and your top competitors are doing. And of course, what are the root causes as to why you are doing well or not doing so well. So that way you not only get a report card, but you also get a strategy and a solution.

Naren Arulrajah: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Thriving Dentist episode, and this is Nare, your co-host. Hope you enjoyed that tip that I shared about how to focus on local search today. That includes AI search as well. And if anyone has any questions on you, want our opinion on how well you’re doing, or what you could do to improve, book that marketing strategy meeting, how give to you at ekwa.com/td Gary, I’m really excited about this topic because I know in your DNA you believe in growing, and I know you encourage every one of your clients, and we do have mutual clients to grow at least 10% a year. Now, of course, some clients tell you, Hey, I don’t want to grow. I’ve been there, done that. I want to maintain what I have, maybe work less. But most clients believe in growing because expenses do go up, right?

Naren Arulrajah: You can’t pay your team the same amount of money you paid two years ago or last year this year. If you wanna retain them, and if they’re really good, you probably have to give them a raise, your rent, go up, your supplies go up, everything goes up. So if you are not growing, you are shrinking, meaning you will be working the same amount or more like, versus last year, but you’ll be taking homeless money. So, growth, I think, is good for the team, good for the owners, good for practices, and also it keeps things interesting and exciting. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation, Gary. And in this episode, we are gonna cover both the importance of practice growth, and also you’re gonna share some tips. I know you have been doing this for 46 years, so a thing or two about how to continue to grow every single year. Any opening remarks or opening comments you have, Kerry, before we jump in?

Gary Takacs: Well, you covered it. Naren and I’m gonna say guilty as charged. I’m passionate about helping dentists grow, and, very strategically and many of our clients, at least the clients that are growth oriented, which is the majority of them, we typically set a goal of growing by at least 10% every year. And, that goal, it’s cool to see when we achieve that and cool to see the difference that it makes, in their lives, but also, in the lives of the patients and team members in that practice as well. So, growth is something I really believe that practices are either growing or they’re dying. And now you might argue that, wait a minute, Gary, isn’t there a middle ground? What if they stay the same? Well, here’s my perspective on that. If you’re staying the same, and we were to graph that on a graph, the graph would look like a flat horizontal line mm-hmm . Right? Or another way to say that the graph would look like a flat line. Well, Naren, our colleagues that work in the emergency room, will sometimes look at a vital signs monitor, sadly, and see a flat line. What does that mean?

Naren Arulrajah: The person is dead.

Gary Takacs: The patient’s gone. Yeah. And so, if your practice isn’t growing, it’s dying. Mm-hmm . And I think if you’re a listener to the Thriving Dentist Show, I think you’re voting for the growing part, , you wanna make sure it’s growing, not dying.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. And, it’s kind of like a slow death, because you have less money to buy technology. You have less money to pay your people. So eventually you are dying because your competition doesn’t stay still. They are, they’re wanting to take every one of the patients you have. So when they’re investing and you are not, you are dying. ? I totally agree with that sentiment, Gary. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Let’s, let’s talk about some of the reasons why you’ve been doing this for four to six years, Gary, why you are so bullish or so pro-growth?

Gary Takacs: Well, I’m gonna rattle off four off four reasons why I am absolutely bullish and very pro-growth. First of all, growing is a way to hedge inflation, hedge inflation. Sometimes we’re experiencing higher levels of inflation. Right now we’re in one of those cycles. Everything is more expensive that you buy for the dental practice, absolutely everything. And, as a result, growth allows you to hedge inflation to counteract that. Because if we’re not growing, then that inflation is going to eat away, at the value of your practice. Also going to eat away at your profitability. So number one, is it’s an inflation hitch. The second reason is, you kind of made a comment about it, and I’ll amplify it, Erin, growth allows you to compensate your team members better. Now, I would like to suggest a mindset for all of our listeners and the mindset that I would like to suggest, this may sound a little bit contrarian, but stick with me on this.

Gary Takacs: The mindset that I’d like you to embrace is I would like you to figure out how to pay your team members as much as you can. Now, think about that, Aaron, instead of trying to figure out how we can pay as little as possible, I would encourage you to figure out how you can pay your team members as much as you can, of course, within standards, within some standards and some guidelines. Because if you can pay your team members as much as possible, then you’re gonna keep, you’re gonna attract and keep the best team members. And, Naren, our listeners at the Thriving Dentist Show have heard me talk about our seven goals for thriving practice. And, they’ve often asked me, Gary, what do you think the most important goal is? And I say, goal number four. That’s that we have a high performance team that we truly love and enjoy working with. And the reason why I think that goal is most important is if they don’t have that, I don’t think you get the other six goals. And if you do, it’d be kind of a hall of victory because then, you wouldn’t be working with people you absolutely love. So,

Naren Arulrajah: I’m just thinking of some of the clients you helped turn around get aid, like the ones who struggle the most. They don’t have a team. So, like, imagine you have a even a $600,000 practice, and you don’t have a de, a strong hygienist. You don’t have a strong office manager. Like you’re going to go in circles, right? Because now you are the office manager, you are the hygienist, you are everything, and you can’t do it. It just.

Gary Takacs: Can’t, it just kills you. Well, and the difference between a thriving practice and one that sort of stumbles along often is that the doctor or doctors and team members are all in the same boat, rowing in the same direction. And one of the ways to do that is to be able to pay them as much as you can. We have a budget, you have a budget for wages, right? If you’re in most of the country, our budget is 28% or less of your revenue for staff compensation. And that’s all in that includes payroll taxes, FICA food, unemployment insurance, all of that matching for war 401k contributions. If you’re on either coast, west coast, or East coast, or major inland city, like say, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, then your budget is 30%. It’s higher than the 28% because you have higher wages in those areas, right? So if you are growing, you have a bigger budget with which to pay your team, right? So this isn’t coming out of your pocket. It’s, it’s, if you have 20, 28% of a million versus 28% of 2 million ,

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, you can, you have 560,000 versus 280,000. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: You have a bigger budget to compensate your team. So another reason why I’m bullish on growth is it allows you to be able to pay your team members, or more. A third reason, is that when you grow, not only do you benefit from the income that comes from the practice, but you’re increasing the value of your practice. You’re increasing, you’re, you’re increasing the worth of your practice. And you should be always paying attention to the value of your practice, whether you’re selling or not. This is just something you figure out at the end, at the finish line. Think about it, doctors, I would suggest that for many of you, your practice either is your most valuable asset or one of your most valuable assets. There’s a couple other classes of assets that may fit in there. Depending on where you live, maybe your home is a very valuable asset. Maybe your commercial, if you own your building, maybe your building is a very valuable asset, but your practice certainly fits in the top three. And anytime we can increase the value of the p, let’s face it, Maren, a $2 million practice is worth a lot more than a million dollar practice. Agreed?

Naren Arulrajah: That is correct. Because.

Gary Takacs: What’s the value based on, what, how are valuations determined?

Naren Arulrajah: It’s, it’s a function of revenue and on net profit, depending on who’s buying your practice. So of course, either way, if you are making more revenue or more profits, your practice is gonna be worth more.

Gary Takacs: If you’re selling privately to another dentist that is purchasing practice, that practice is worth that. There’s a lot of variables. So this is very ballpark, but that’s worth somewhere around 90% of the average annual collections over the last three years. So if you have a million dollar practice, that’s worth around $900,000, but if your practice is a $2 million practice, what’s it worth? Now it’s worth 1.8. Yeah. 1.8. Take as long as you like now, and you’re pretty good at math, you’re gonna get this one right? Which one would you rather have? 900,000 or 1.8.

Naren Arulrajah: 1.8 million.

Gary Takacs: . And then there’s a third reason, which is going to altruism here. What’s the one, what’s the reason why most dentists would tell you they wanted to become a dentist? What’s the, what’s the most common help.

Naren Arulrajah: Help people to make a difference in the lives of others?

Gary Takacs: So when you grow, you have the ability to help more patients in your practice and more patients in your community achieve the benefits of great oral health, and you have the opportunity to improve more lives. So there’s four reasons I could probably rattle off quite a few more, but we’ll stick with those four. And I think they’re all pretty compelling. Wouldn’t you agree?

Naren Arulrajah: I totally agree. And I think the other reason is with bigger numbers, you can do more things. What ? A $700,000 practice was this $2 million practice. They can $700,000 practice can’t even imagine of doing certain things that a $2 million practice can do. Right? For.

Gary Takacs: Example, mayor, like if you’re a doctor that embraces technology Yeah. You now have a bigger technology budget. Exactly. If you’re a doctor that embraces continued education, you’ve got a bigger technology, you’ve got a bigger.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: But so you’re absolutely right. You have more resources and more resources give you more opportunities, right?

Naren Arulrajah: It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The bigger you get, the stronger you get, as long as you maintain it, the better you do. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: And that’s why every year, I, that’s why we titled this episode, we want every year to be your new best year. And, I have, I have clients in my client base as coaching clients, that, I’m just thinking of one off the top of my head, 14 consecutive years, 14 consecutive. We started working together in 2011, 14 consecutive years of every year being their new best year, and every year growing by at least 10%, at least. There we go, can.

Naren Arulrajah: Be done. We all know the rule of 72. That means they’re doubling every 70 years. You divide every,

Gary Takacs: Every 6.8 years, they double.

Naren Arulrajah: Double.

Gary Takacs: So in that example, they’ve, they’ve doubled and doubled again in the size of the practice. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: So four times bigger today than they were when they started with you.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: Let me ask you this, Gary. This is a question that comes from the people who have not grown consistently. And I understand where they’re coming from. The question is 10% annual growth as measured by collections even realistic? In other words, can you do it year after year, after year?

Gary Takacs: Great question. I think I’m stretching the boundaries of the way some of our listeners are thinking. Is that even possible? Mm-hmm . But, years ago, one of my, to this day, most influential mentors, he’s gone now, but, still I hear his voice in my head, Dr. Roma Reed, Dr. Rome Reed said, Gary, if it’s been done before, it must be possible. Must be possible. Now, , we just had something happen in athletics that was considered impossible, right? Do what that, what that event was in athletics that happened about two weeks ago, that, was considered impossible. The winner of the London Marathon Sebastian Sway, ran the London Marathon in one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Sebastian sway one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds world record. It was considered by nobody has.

Naren Arulrajah: Been,

Gary Takacs: It was considered by sports psychologists that you could not, by a human being, could not run, couldn’t carry the pace, have the lung capacity, leg capacity, whatever it is to go under two hours. And sure enough, he did it. He did it, by the way, the second place finisher, also, a fellow Kenyon, ran it in 1: 59, 41 11 seconds behind. So two marathoners beat it. Well, they interviewed Sebastian Highway afterwards, and, incredible athlete. And, he said, do you think that there’s any more gas in the tank? He said, no, there’s more, I think we, I think I can run 1 58, so we’ll see where that ends up. But this was the equivalent, if you happen to follow running, this was the equivalent of Roger Banister beating the four minute mile. But this was over 26.2 miles. Right? Imagine that. But the reason I’m saying that it’s been, what’s gonna happen now? N what’s gonna happen? What’s your prediction now in marathons? Do you, do you think this is gonna be, 

Naren Arulrajah: I think dozens of people are gonna break it within the next five years.

Gary Takacs: I agree. It’s a new standard. It’s been done before. It’s proven. It’s been possible. So yes, I can honestly say that 10% growth per year is absolutely possible, because it’s been done before. It’s been many times in my client base, it’s, it’s me. Right? Now, at some point, strategy comes to mind in strategic planning because a practice may be grow beyond the bounds of what a solo dentist working, say, a four day a week schedule can do. Right? And then we may have to look at where that goes from there. And, but a doctor might decide, I really don’t wanna have an associate. I don’t wanna have a partner, but then we still wanna grow that practice to hedge the inflation. And so maybe we, if we, I don’t wanna,

Gary Takacs: If they’ve reached what is conceptually capacity for a solo dentist, say working a four day schedule, then we look at more modest growth per year after that just to hedge the inflation, right? But you may have to make strategic decisions about perhaps an associate doctor. And maybe we need, our hygiene has grown to the point where we need at least a part-time doctor to help us with hygiene checks. So, yeah, it may take a different format, but maybe that’s part of the growth and excitement of continuing to develop your practice,

Naren Arulrajah: Right? One thing, I don’t wanna give away too much of your secrets, but I have seen you in action, Gary. So most practices, when they come to you, at least for two to three years, they have no problem growing 10% with the same team and same hours. And what is like, many of them don’t do the amount of hygiene that you recommend. Many of them don’t do those. Even within hygiene, those bigger cases, those, like the more complex hygiene cases, right? So there’s so much on the table. I have seen, like you, having no issues helping people grow 10% for several years before they have to, like, add staff or like add new people.

Gary Takacs: Well, Naren, you’ll, you’ll remember this. I won’t use the doctor’s name out of confidentiality, but you’ll remember because this client, I referred to Ekwa, mm-hmm . As a marketing resource, wonderful. I would say late mid-career, late mid-career, right? I believe he was 48 or 49, at the time we started working at, and he specifically became a thriving dentist client, because his practice had plateaued, had plateaued. Oh,

Naren Arulrajah: I remember this.

Gary Takacs: He plateaued at 1.5 million, and he had been stuck there for the last three years. He said, it’s not a bad place to be stuck. Remember solo dentist, nice, strong hygiene department, right? But adjusted production and collections were right at $1.5 million. He said, the reason I’m becoming, I know there’s more gas in the tank. I don’t know what to do to get there. I don’t know what I can do to get there. And I need your help to do that. And in our first year of working together, I’ll, I’ll ask you to do the math Maren, but you went from one five to one nine, same team, same hours, same everything, right? On the big things that were influencing his practice. So he went from, he had, he had a $400,000 increase in production and collection,

Naren Arulrajah: So almost 25%.

Gary Takacs: Yeah. It’s 26.66 repeating, right?

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: And he was plateaued. I know at 1.5, and I.

Naren Arulrajah: Remember the comment he made. He is like, I’m working less, I’m less stressed. Yeah. Doing 1.9 than I was doing 1.5 .

Gary Takacs: Well, he said it, and maybe he didn’t say it to you, but he said it to me. He said, what’s crazy, Gary? I feel less stress, right? Working Now, if you would’ve told me before that, hey, well, we’re gonna go, you’re gonna produce and collect one nine, you said, I would’ve thought that would make me more on itch, more stressed. You said, in fact, I’m feeling so much more under control. The next year that we worked together, it went from one nine to 2 3, 2 3. So think about that difference. It was, this is production collection. This practice grew by about 16% mm-hmm . On the previous year, performance. So it was that point where he started to come into strategic decisions about, well, do I wanna stay solo as a solo dentist or do I wanna bring an associate doc, perhaps support? But look where that practice was able to go to. And this doc, like so many of our listeners, very, altruistic loves to help people. And part of the motivation for the growth was, is to be able to help more of his existing patients and more people in the community enjoy the benefits of great oral health. That was as much driving,

Naren Arulrajah: I still remember he was able to pay his people better too, because he was making an extra $800,000. I remember, like, his office manager got like a, like a significant bump, and she earned it because she was part of the story of going from 1.5 to 2.3.

Gary Takacs: So, the simple answer to your question, is that even possible? The answer is absolutely.

Naren Arulrajah: Mm-hmm . Yeah, you have done it. Of course, there needs to be strategy and you need to know what you’re doing. But this is not like something that’s a big deal for someone like you, Gary. Especially because of your experience.

Gary Takacs: If we have any listeners near him that are aspiring to run a marathon, don’t set one minute, 59 second and 30 59, minutes and 30 seconds as your first goal.

Naren Arulrajah: First goal. Yeah, exactly. , yeah. That would, that would end up in disaster. Disappointment or disaster. One of the two.

Gary Takacs: Near the Kenyan that was in second place.

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah.

Gary Takacs: His, that was his first marathon, the one that ruled 1 59 41.

Naren Arulrajah: Was.

Gary Takacs: His first. Now granted he was a track and field athlete. He had done a number of half marathons, but that was his first full marathon in some ways. I don’t wanna take anything away from Sebastian Sway. But in some ways that’s even more impressive. Imagine.

Naren Arulrajah: He is second and third .

Gary Takacs: Yeah, that would’ve been the world record if it wasn’t Sebastian. But, hats off to both of them. . Yeah, that’s awesome. Don’t, don’t, don’t set that as your first goal if you’re gonna start running marathons. ,

Naren Arulrajah: . Let me get into some details here. What are some specific strategies you use with your clients so that each year is their best year yet? Yeah.

Gary Takacs: I love this question, Naren, because it’s, it’s one thing to set a goal, but now you have to put some things in place to make it happen. Let’s stick with that marathon example. LLL. Let’s say someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking, I would like to, work on, I enjoyed running earlier in my life. I like to get back into running. I like to set a goal of running a half marathon. Well, if you haven’t run in a while, you don’t go out and run 13.1 miles without some training. You put that training in place. So yeah, you gotta put some things in place. And, the first thing that I would look at would be something like, look at your mix of services, your clinical mix of services.

Gary Takacs: One of the seven goals of a thriving practice is to do more of the kind of dentistry you enjoy doing. So, could we add to your menu of services something you would like to begin providing in your office that maybe isn’t being provided today? I call those high value services. It could be something like cosmetic dentistry. It could be something like, aligners, Invisalign, or Aligner orthodontics. It could be something that I think all of our listeners could add, rather specifically, and rather simply oral conscious sedation. Oral conscious sedation. If you wanna add oral conscious sedation, go out and take the docs dental organization for Conscious Sedation course. Take their Level one Anxiolysis course. You’ll be fully trained to introduce conscious sedation to your practice. By the way, all of the Docs courses are available in two formats. They’re in live format where you can go out and attend the course, and have the instructors there live, or they’re also available virtually, which is kind of cool ’cause it makes it even more accessible. And you can start adding oral conscious sedation, which will allow you to treat those patients, that have anxiety or apprehension very comfortably. And these are the kind of patients that wanna have all of their dentistry done in as few visits as necessary. What’s that gonna do to your production, Naren, when you, it’s.

Naren Arulrajah: Gonna, you just, you don’t need like a hundred new patients to, even do an extra hundred thousand. You probably need like, what, 10, 15?

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Yeah, you could, you could grow that. Yeah. So one thing I would do is, think of these not necessarily in order, I’ll, I’ll number ’em, but they’re not necessarily in order. But maybe look at your range of services. Pick something that you’d like to start adding, and then develop your competencies to be able to successfully add those to the practice. The second thing that I would do is I would, look, make sure that your scheduling team member knows what your daily goal is. It has a daily goal and knows how to schedule you to that daily goal. Now, this sounds very rudimentary, Naren, but you would not believe how many times in my coaching, I’ll ask a doctor’s scheduling coordinator, Hey, what’s the doctor’s goal? And we’re usually on a Zoom meeting, and they’ll look at me and they’ll say, I’m not really sure , I used to be this, but I’m not really sure. And if that team member doesn’t know what your daily goal is, Aaron, how can they schedule you to goal?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah, because they don’t know. So they can’t,

Gary Takacs: Well, they’re just filling in names on a, on, right?

Naren Arulrajah: So it’s like, I can see a patient that’s gonna make you a thousand or a hundred. They don’t know the difference because there’s no goal for them to work towards.

Gary Takacs: Name. They don’t know. So make sure your scheduling coordinator has a current daily goal. And then furthermore, go a step farther and make sure that individual knows how to schedule you to goal. So, sit down with your scheduled coordinator and show how different mixes of procedures would look on your schedule when you might be able to put something in a side column without being stressful, where something needs to be scheduled specifically in one column because of the intensity of that kind of treatment. So scheduling mechanics is another example. That’s another way that we can get to your daily goal. A third example is double down on adding same day dentistry on days that you’re under goal, same day dentistry. So look at where we could add treatment, maybe a patient coming out of hygiene where we can do some fillings, maybe some auxiliary procedures that could be done by team members like whitening.

Gary Takacs: So if we’re below our goal, we can sort of have some strategies, some go-to strategies on how we might be able to reach goal today instead of just at the morning. Oh, well, today’s not gonna be a good day. Well, if you’re having your morning huddle, when we do it at 6 45, that’s not the end of the day. It’s the start of the day. Let’s figure out what we can do to make something out of our day to serve the patients that we have the opportunity to serve today. And then I’ll bring it back. This is also related to scheduling. If you’re going to set your goal to grow by at least 10%, factor in what that means daily in terms of what your daily goal needs to be adjusted to achieve that. And remember, it’s total office, so it’s not just doctor, but includes hygiene as well. So you put all those things together and next thing you’re, you’re, you’re far exceeding what you thought you could do. And actually it was pretty manageable along the way. Very manageable. Is that making sense there?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Gary. This is, gold. I know. I know you, I’ve seen this in action. So, by the way, would you be open to people booking a meeting with you, Gary, if they are really serious about growing?

Gary Takacs: Oh, absolutely. It’s my favorite topic, love to create. You’ve heard me say it before, but I truly believe dentistry rocks, and I believe dentistry rocks. ’cause we have the ability to change people’s lives every day. Well, if we have the ability to change people’s lives every day, would changing more lives be even better? Yeah. Yeah. Hundred Percent.

Naren Arulrajah: Especially if you do, like, all your clients do world class dentistry. So if you’re one of those experienced dentists who’s really good at what they do, I of course help more people, right? Why not?

Gary Takacs: Well, now I’m gonna, I’m gonna turn the roles around. I’m gonna ask you a question, Darren, because some of our listeners might be thinking, okay, this is all good. Well, and good. This, I’m understanding the concept. I’m understanding the idea of if it’s been done before, it must be possible. I understand that I need to work with my schedule and coordinator to have a daily goal, but we need to look at adding same day treatment, expand our services. But what if the issue is they don’t have enough patients? What if they have hit the wall and they don’t have enough patients? Can you imagine that being a possibility, Naren? Possibility?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Get it.

Gary Takacs: So let me ask you a specific question. Having successful marketing in place is critical for practice to have sustained growth. What is an appropriate marketing budget? This is a two part question. What is an appropriate marketing budget? And where should question number one? Question number two is, where should our listeners invest their marketing dollars for the best results in 2026?

Naren Arulrajah: Great question. So let me start by talking about the concept of a marketing budget. A lot of practices that are insurance dependent, think they’re not doing any marketing, but in actuality, they are doing marketing. Why? Because they do a thousand dollars in dentistry after adjustments. They only collect 600, so their marketing budget is 40% in that example. And actually it’s even higher because as Gary, insurance companies are paying less and less and less when you are on a PPO plan. So, Aaron, just.

Gary Takacs: For our listeners benefit, we’re seeing some PPO plans have actually cut their fees, and it’s over a 50% discount today,

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: 50%.

Naren Arulrajah: That means they’re spending 50% of every dollar they produce in the form of a, what do you call a marketing fee? That’s, that’s, that’s not, you’re not writing a check to their PPO plan, but that’s really what you’re doing. You’re literally like, they keep the money, they keep 50% and give you 50%.

Gary Takacs: Now, can you imagine if there was a sales person that was able to get past the guard at the gate in a dental office, and, reach the doctor and say, doctor, I’ve got something that’s gonna be great for you. We’ll provide you with patients, and all you have to do is pay us 50% of every dollar of dentistry you do for as long as that patient’s in your practice. I would politely suggest that any dentist would kick that salesperson out of their office immediately. You’ve gotta be kidding me. Pay you 50% on every treatment I do on that patient forever. And yet, that’s exactly what they’re doing with those PVO plans. That’s exactly what they’re doing.

Naren Arulrajah: Right? And the reason I brought that up is because I want you to realize you are spending money on marketing, either consciously or subconsciously you’re spending a large amount of money, especially if you’re dependent on insurance. So I did some research to prepare for this question, Gary. So I asked Google has the world knowledge. I looked at some papers, and this is what I found. So let’s assume you’re not an insurance driven practice that’s spending 40 to 50% on marketing, but rather you are choosing to spend that dollars wisely with some good marketing companies. An established practice that wants to grow steadily, let’s say single digits, 3%, 4%, 5%. What I found is should be spending around three to 5% minimum three, but ideally 5% just to kind of grow like one to 3%. If you want double digits. The research is saying you have to spend five to 8%.

Naren Arulrajah: And if you’re a startup or a scratch practice, because you’re starting from zero new patients, at the very least, you have to spend eight to 10%. It could even be much higher, especially in the early days, right? Because if you’re doing only like, 300,000 in revenue and, you have like, 300 active patients and you want to get 700 more patients, you may have to spend a lot more. Now, I’ll give you some good news. Now, we have been working with clients for the last 19 years. We mean core marketing, the company I founded, and we use search engine optimization. The good news is search engine, opt engine optimization. Once you pass the one year mark, and assuming your company knows what they’re doing, it would cost you 10 to 20% of other types of marketing. So our clients never spend more than 2%.

Naren Arulrajah: We even have clients who only spend 1% of their revenue. So I do think if you can get into that top 5%, your marketing budget could be one to 2%. 2% if you’re growing, and 1% if you’re maintaining, but of course, it doesn’t come quickly. You have to like invest the time, especially in year one to really rank for a hundred keywords, really dominate your local market. But once you’re dominating, maintaining and expanding on that doesn’t cost as much, and the incremental benefit is a lot higher for you. So that’s kind of the scientific answer, Gary, based on my research, in terms of, how much to spend now, where I would put that money, like I said, local SEO, that includes AI search, local search, Google Maps, or Google Business Profile, that’s where I would put most of that money, because that seems to be the best.

Naren Arulrajah: Now, if you, if you can’t rank for a hundred or more keywords, you’re not gonna get to see any benefit because the way all this organic search works is, Google makes so much money from ads, so they make it really hard. So once you get into that top 5% of business owners in your community in terms of how many times you show up, that means at least a hundred or more times. Keyword could be, dentist near me, A keyword could be, Invisalign, Chicago, Invisalign. So these are the kind of keywords that you wanna rank for, and you wanna rank for at least a hundred of them. If you do that, your marketing budget would be significantly less than all of your competitors. So that’s one thing I would focus my budget on. Other thing I would focus on is getting reviews.

Naren Arulrajah: Now, nobody can do this for you. You have to do great dentistry, and then you have to come up with a methodology to get your dentist to write what I call paragraph reviews. Gary teaches that we share that with our clients, and you want to get at least 10 or more five star paragraph reviews every month. And that shouldn’t cost you a dime. Just you have to inculcate a mindset and a methodology to make it happen. Of course, you can use ads, but use it sparingly knowing that it’s 10 times more expensive. So it could be used strategically for certain high value procedures in certain times of the year when you are, like, when you have some open slots. But I wouldn’t keep spending 10 times as much every month for the rest of my practice because it can be millions of dollars spent on ads.

Gary Takacs: Well, I love the way you started with helping our listeners understand, that those insurance adjustments really are a marketing expense, and you’re, you’re actually, spending a crazy amount of money that could be, you could get much better results, with, your own, your own marketing run. If they wanna set up a marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa, where would they go for that?

Naren Arulrajah: The link would be ekwa.com/td . Yeah, it’s, it’s an, it’s a 60 minute meeting. We spent six hours preparing for it. We look at your competition, we look at you, we’ll tell you where things are, and we’ll give you both a report card and a, and a game plan for you to dominate organic marketing and for you to have this unfair advantage. And then, of course, you can take that information and, either act on it or think about it. So definitely, I would find out where you stand. That would be my step, one Gary,

Gary Takacs: And I’ll, I’ll vouch for that. I often refer my clients who are looking for really great marketing support to Ekwa, and we see fantastic results.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you. Gary, let me ask you the last question I have for you, which is the fifth question. If a practice is, let’s say, plateaued, I know you shared an example of this one client we both know and who went from 1.5 million to 1.9, and then the next year, 2.3. So let’s say this practice owner is in the same situation, is plateaued, maybe 1000001.2, whatever it is, what is the first thing you recommend they do to get the practice to grow? Again, I would say I’m biased because I know you, and we have a lot of mutual clients, but I would say without any hesitation, talk to Gary because you need to know what you’re doing. Otherwise, this could backfire and it could end up alienating your team and getting the good people to lead. So you have to do it in a way where everybody wins and everybody’s on board, and there’s a little bit of a science and a little bit of an art of the way you do get, you do this, Gary. But, that would be my recommendation, but what would you recommend? Well,

Gary Takacs: I’ll, I’ll, I, thanks for the kind words, and I appreciate that. And if anybody would like to schedule a coaching strategy meeting with me, maybe around the topic of growth, just go to thrivingdentists.com/csm  and I’ll be happy to share some thoughts with you about that. But, let me answer the question directly. Is I would start by having a longer team meeting, not just the usual one hour meeting, but, and maybe extend that to a couple of hours. And I would talk about with the team, Hey, we really wanna create some growth in the practice. We’re doing well, but we’d like to be able to grow. I would frame it around, helping more of your team members or more of your patients enjoy great oral health. If you think about it, that’s a great way to lead your team because it is altruistic, it is helpful.

Gary Takacs: Most team members also have the same helpful spirit that most doctors do. And then put your heads together and talk about where the opportunity lies, to grow. It could be a practice, for example, that hygiene isn’t, where we should be in a, in a really strong general practice. We like to see total hygiene production at a third 30, 33% of total office production. So it could be that the hygiene department is maybe only producing 20% of the office. So the gap there gives us kind of a window to look through for what we might grow. And if that was the case, maybe we don’t have enough hygiene hours to support the activation base. So maybe it’d be as simple as, well, I say simple, but it’s not easy hiring quality hygienists today. But it is possible.

Gary Takacs: So maybe we don’t have enough hygiene support to grow the practice. Maybe within hygiene, maybe it’s a subset within hygiene. Maybe we’ve got good hygiene for everyday, prophylaxis, appointments. But we’re not doing much in the area of conservative period therapy. Maybe there’s an opportunity to really grow the practice when it comes to conservative period therapy. So what I have found in terms of stimulating growth, when doctor and team members, or could be doctors and team members are all in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, the power that we get from that is so much greater than one doctor trying to, pull the wagon, all by himself or herself. Does that make sense, Naren?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. So what I heard you say is, get everybody on board, give them the why. And of course, the bigger why is helping more people, and of course, I know you will get into this. When you work with clients, Gary, you create a bonus plan. So when the practice wins, everybody wins. So it’s not like, oh, doctor keeps all the spoils and the other people are just working harder for no reason, right? So, or.

Gary Takacs: Pro proactively answer the question, what’s in it for me? Meaning the team members, what’s in it for them? We can talk about that. And when you have let’s say it’s a doctor and six team members, when we have seven people who know your practice, who care deeply about your practice working on this together, the power of that is geometric other than trying to pull the wagon by yourself. So that’s where I would start, because then we get a lot more buy-in. Doctors, if you haven’t discovered this already, this is worth listening to this episode by itself. When a team member has buy-in, whatever it is that you’re doing in your practice, it could be a piece of technology. Let’s say you wanna implement a piece of technology in your practice, and the team member is interested in implementing technology.

Gary Takacs: You’re halfway there, , because now that team member wants to implement it as well. Same thing here. If we wanna grow, let’s frame it in a way that motivates your entire team to come together with ideas and concepts and implementation. And sometimes it’s, it’s not exotic, it’s just sort of closing the gaps in your practice, closing the gaps. And all of a sudden, you put those gap closures, you start stacking those on top of each other and it makes a geometric result in your practice. But I think, and maybe this deserves some mention here, it also has to come from your mindset. You’ve gotta believe that it’s possible. I don’t know him, I would like to know him. But Sebastian Howe, I know that when he was at the start line at the London Marathon, he thought there was a possibility that he could go under two hours, right?

Gary Takacs: He did . So you’ve gotta have the mindset that it’s possible. So maybe the first place to start, doctor, is with your own mindset. If it’s been done before, it must be possible. Well, this has been a fun episode there. I hope we’ve given our doctors lots to think about. But how to make every year your new best year part of what this can do, Naren, so often I experience, I encounter Dentist at different stages of the career that kind of hit plateaus. And they feel burned out. And if you’re constantly working on improving your practice, the likelihood that you’re feeling burned out goes down dramatically. Goes down dramatically. And if you’re striving to make every year your new best year, then I’m gonna suggest if you do that every year in your practice, you’re gonna have an amazing career. And, here’s to all of our listeners having an amazing career. You deserve it. Well, I hope we’ve given you lots of useful information. On that note, Naren and I, wanna thank you for the, courtesy of your time, privilege of your time. We do, we do truly believe that the time we get spent with you is our privilege. So thank you for the privilege of your time. Here’s to making 2026 your best year. Yet we look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.