Seven Goals of a Thriving Practice

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, your podcast co-host. The title of today’s episode is Seven Goals of a Thriving Practice. Well, buckle up. You guys are gonna really enjoy this episode. I would politely suggest that every one of our listeners could benefit greatly by adopting these seven goals of a thriving practice. Now, we’re gonna get to that in just a minute, but before we do, I have a couple of announcements to make.

The first announcement I have is coming up this fall. We have our fifth Annual Reducing Insurance Dependency Summit. So, it’s called the RIDA—it stands for Reducing Insurance Dependence Academy Summit—and it is five and a half hours. It is happening on a Friday this fall. It’s five and a half hours of content all related to helping you successfully resign from PPO plans.

Gary Takacs: We did the very first one of these in 2021, and every year our attendance has doubled. We didn’t know what to expect when we launched the RIDA Summit in 2021, but every year the attendance has doubled. Now, it’s a big lift. We had great attendance last year in 2024—an all-time record—but we anticipate it doubling again this year. We’ll have keynote presentations; I’ll be providing a keynote, Naren will be providing a keynote, and we’ll have others. We’ll have panelists who will share their expertise within successful resigning from PPO plans. Absolutely everybody that’s gonna be in that summit will have something to do with helping you successfully resign from PPO plans.

Here’s the great news—no tuition. You’ll be attending as our guest in appreciation for your listenership. You do have to register, so reserve your place now.

Go to RID.academy to reserve your seat now. That’s RID Academy, and you’ll see it there on the homepage. Reserve your seat now—you’re not gonna wanna miss this one. By the way, you’ll also get five hours of CE in that course. It starts at noon Eastern Time and finishes up at 5:30. We’ll have a couple of short breaks peppered in there. It’s five hours of content. Come join us—RID Academy.

Gary Takacs: The second announcement I have is we have a returning—in fact, for the fourth time—clinician to provide a top clinical tip. It’s Dr. Omar Khaled Montaser, and he’ll be joining us to share how to manage necrotic cases in an emergency visit. Dr. Montaser has some great information for you. We appreciate his continuous involvement in The Thriving Dentist Show, and we think you’ll really benefit from this tip.

No further ado—how to manage necrotic cases during an emergency visit.

Dr. Omar Khaled Montaser: Everyone, I’m happy to be, once again for the fourth time, a guest on The Thriving Dentist Podcast by Gary Takacs, followed by more than 10,000 dentists. It gives you insight about lots of info on dental practice management and dental tips in your daily practice.

I’d like to share with you today a clinical tip about an error that can cost you lots of patients—it can make you break your dental practice—which is how you manage necrotic cases in an emergency visit.

So, when a patient comes to you complaining of pain, or even not complaining of pain, and you diagnose the tooth and figure out that it’s a necrotic tooth with or without leakage, and you don’t have much time to do full root canal treatment today, the error is that lots of dentists open an access cavity, insert their number 10 K file, do some minimal shaping, maybe take a length using an electronic apex locator, and then do a DEF and temporary filling, and dismiss the patient.

Dr. Omar Khaled Montaser: The problem with this approach is that the patient will call your office maybe the next day or the day after, complaining of severe pain—maybe swelling as well. What happened is you caused a flare-up by mismanaging the case.

The tip is, if you don’t have enough time, you can open an access, but please do not insert any files. If you insert just a small file, you are actually pushing more bacteria and debris beyond the apical foramen, causing an immune reaction that will cause severe pain—maybe even swelling.

So, we can classify the approach into two options:

• If you have some time: The best thing to do, of course, is to do full treatment. If you can reach at least file size 25, you will do some shaping, introduce some hypochlorite, do some disinfection, and release some of the gases, debris, and bacteria. That way, you do a good job.
• If you don’t have time: Just open an access, maybe relieve the occlusion a little bit—especially if the patient has a capitis—and dismiss them. But please don’t just insert a number 10 K file, take a length, and let the patient go, because this will cause even more pain.

If you don’t have time, don’t insert small files. I hope this tip was beneficial to you, and see you on the next tip.

Coaching in Action Segment

Naren Arulrajah: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Thriving Dentist Coaching and Action Segment. This is Naren, your co-host. Gary, I enjoyed that tip from our returning guest, Dr. Omar. If you enjoyed this tip as well, write a comment, go to the website, and let us know. And definitely do not forget to register for the fifth RIDA Annual Summit 2025 happening this fall. Go to the website—RID.academy. The tuition is on us—five hours of CE. It’s on a Friday, so don’t miss out. Go there, bring a friend, bring your colleagues, register ASAP.

I’m really looking forward to our conversation today, Gary, because I know this is one of the first topics you and I ever spoke about when we first met—which is, you have studied dental practices for 45 years, and in your experience, there are a few things common to the best.

Naren Arulrajah: And they tend to work on these goals that we’re gonna be talking about today—not all seven of them in every single practice—but most of the exceptional practices end up working on many of these. And of course, the best of the best work on all seven. The thing that I got from you is that they’re all interconnected. It’s almost like making an amazing dish—it’s not just one ingredient, this ingredient or the other. It’s not just about the temperature, or the cooking time, or the way you cook—it’s all of those things put together that make a great dish, right?

Same way, these seven goals have this unique ability to work together and create this unbelievable outcome—for patients, for team members, and obviously for the dentist in terms of their happiness and objectives. So, Gary, I’m really looking forward to it. Let me ask you this as I kick this off: have these seven goals changed? I know you’ve talked about this going back more than a decade ago, so have they changed in 2020?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, that’s a great question, Naren. Initially, I had defined six goals of a thriving practice. And for many years, when I was speaking live or working with clients at workshops and study clubs, I would talk about the six goals of a thriving practice.

However, about four years ago, I added a seventh goal. I guess I borrowed a chapter from our colleague, Dr. Stephen Covey. Yes, he talked about the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And later, a few years after he published that book, he published an entire separate book called The Eighth Habit.

Naren Arulrajah: Did the same thing—he added one extra after a few years.

Gary Takacs: So I followed in the footsteps of Dr. Stephen Covey and Robert Cialdini, and it really made sense. When you hear what the seventh goal is, it really becomes the frosting on the cake. It has evolved from six to seven.

Well, let me dive right in. I’m going to number these—not in order of importance—but just so I can remember to cover each one.

The first goal requires a little bit of amplification. I’m going to share it in two variations:

• Variation 1 applies to a solo-owner dentist practice, meaning your practice has just you as the dentist. That will apply to many of our listeners. Goal number one for a solo dentist practice is to have overhead no higher than 60%—ideally 50%.

Now, what is overhead? Overhead is all of the necessary expenses to run your practice, with the exception of any dentist compensation—your compensation.

• Variation 2 applies if you have two or more dentists in your practice. I’m going to use a different measure: EBITDA—Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. That’s a fancy way of saying profit. Whether that second doctor is an associate or a partner, it applies equally. For two or more dentists, we want EBITDA of at least 20%—ideally 30%.

Let me include how we factor in doctor compensation when calculating EBITDA. We figure doctor compensation as paying you 30% of the collections on your production. After paying the doctors, we want at least 20% profit on the total collections—ideally 30%.

That’s goal number one.

Goal #2 is to have a practice that provides financial independence—so you can go to work because you want to, not because you have to.

Goal #3 is to have a state-of-the-art practice with all the technology that makes dentistry fun for you and more effective for your patients.

Goal #4 is a high-performance team that you truly love and enjoy working with.

Goal #5 is to have patients you enjoy taking care of.

Goal #6 is to have a case mix that gives you satisfaction.

And Goal #7—the one that I added—is a practice that provides an effective work-life balance. An effective work-life balance. 

Those are the seven goals of a thriving practice, and I would suggest that every one of our listeners adopt all seven of those goals.

Gary Takacs: So, let’s go back and talk about each one of those. I’ve talked a bit about goal number one: as a solo practice, we want overhead no higher than 60%, and ideally 50%. Fifty percent is very difficult today—very difficult—but it is possible. Have you ever heard the saying, Naren, that if it’s been done before, it must be possible?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. I mean, I know a lot of practices personally who do more than 50% in margin.

Gary Takacs: I have a number in our client base, in our Thriving Dentist coaching base, that are solo dentists by choice—that’s the model they want—and we have overhead at 50% or less. It is possible. It’s not easy—not easy at all.

And again, if you have two or more doctors, we want to measure it differently. We want to have an EBITDA calculation: you pay yourself 30% of the collections on your production—that would be your compensation—and then you’d have a second form of compensation, which would be the profit that comes down to the bottom line. We want at least 20% profit.

So, let’s use a multiple-doctor example to illustrate: a $2 million practice in collections. That means that after paying our doctors, we want at least 20% profit—at least $400,000 in profit—ideally 30%.

Gary Takacs: So ideally, that would be $600,000 in profit after paying the doctors an appropriate wage for being the doctor in your own practice. And I’m going to suggest we pay you at 30% of your collections on your production.

So, that’s goal number one. Now, are they even possible today? You know, our esteemed association, the American Dental Association, in 2025 says the average practice overhead today is 74%. If your overhead is 74%, you are working way too hard for too little. Way too hard for too little—you deserve better than that. So, goal number one has to do with your profitability.

This topic is very relevant today because of our rising expenses, Naren. Everything we buy in the practice is more expensive. Wages that we’re paying to our team members—especially hygiene wages—are escalating. And so, goal number one is something that most dentists are not achieving, or even close to achieving.

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Gary Takacs: Let’s go to goal number two—

Naren Arulrajah: I just had a question, Gary, and also a comment. I know this is the hardest, right? Reducing your overhead to less than 60%, ideally closer to 50%. Now, you solve it with your clients—I’ve seen it firsthand—through KPIs, meaning certain goals they set and hit, and also through systems. Like, there are certain systems that really, really help with this particular goal.

Gary Takacs: Well, in a really simple sense, we solve it two ways. We solve it through cost containment—making sure we’re not overspending on any overhead items. We just want to make sure the boat doesn’t have any leaks in it, right? But you are not going to get 60% overhead by saving a dollar on a box of gloves.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: So we solve it by a combination of controlled spending—very specifically—

Naren Arulrajah: The big spending. The big, big—yeah, the ones that matter.

Gary Takacs: Exactly. There are five expense categories that we monitor very closely for our clients, because those five expense categories represent 85% of all your expenses. If we get those right, then we also apply a growth plan. Because as you grow your practice—especially with the same team and the same hours—your profitability on those top-line dollars is extremely attractive. You’ve already covered all your fixed expenses, and the only expenses that go up are lab and consumable supplies. So, we solve it by cost containment combined with a very specific growth plan.

Naren Arulrajah: Gary, can somebody talk to you about it if this is an objective they have?

Gary Takacs: On any of these—you bet. Go to thrivingdentist.com/csm, which stands for Coaching Strategy Meeting, and set up a meeting with me on Zoom. I’ll be happy to look at your numbers, share tactics to start achieving these, and get you on the right track.

Goal number two is a practice that provides you the ability to have financial independence—so you can go to work because you want to, not because you have to. My definition of that is you have enough assets that would reproduce your income for the rest of your life—whatever that income is today.

So, let’s say your income today is $300,000—I’m just making up a number—then when you have assets that will produce $300,000 a year in return, without ever having to sell those assets, you are now financially independent. That income could come from stocks, savings, bonds, real estate—whatever it is that produces $300,000 a year without liquidating your investments. At that point, you don’t have to work; you’ve got it coming from somewhere else.

Goal number three is to have a state-of-the-art office and all the technology that makes dentistry fun for you and more effective for your patients. Now, yes, this does make it harder to have overhead that low. But you’re not going to get low overhead by having folding chairs in the reception room, 35-year-old dental equipment, and linoleum floors—patients will take one look and turn around. So I want you to have a state-of-the-art office. These goals are not mutually exclusive. You just need to invest in the right kind of technology—specifically the technology that allows you to do your more high-value services.

Naren Arulrajah: Can you stay on goal number two for a minute? Why is that goal important?

Gary Takacs: Well, because otherwise, you’ll never be able to retire effectively.

Naren Arulrajah: Is that a problem in dentistry—meaning, people can’t retire?

Gary Takacs: Let me share this: the ADA says that only 3% of dentists in the United States can retire at age 65 and not reduce their lifestyle. Wow. That means 97% are retiring with some lesser lifestyle. I believe you deserve to retire with the dignity you’ve earned. And we need to think about wealth—and maybe even generational wealth—for your kids and grandkids. You may want to give it away to charity; that’s fine. But the point is, you need something to give away.

Gary Takacs: Goal number four is a high-performance team you truly love and enjoy working with.

Gary Takacs: I crafted that statement—let me repeat it: High-performance team that you truly love and enjoy working with. I put the word love in there intentionally. I didn’t say like, I didn’t say tolerate, I didn’t say put up with, I didn’t say, Oh, you should have seen the last one—she’s way better than her.

And I would tell you that goal has become more challenging in the current employment environment we’re experiencing everywhere, where it’s harder to attract and keep the best possible team members—but it’s more important than ever. I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

But goal number four is a high-performance team you truly love and enjoy working with.

Gary Takacs: Goal number five is patients you enjoy taking care of. You don’t have to love them, but I hope they don’t cause you to lose heart muscle and stomach lining. I hope that when you see so-and-so’s name on the schedule, it doesn’t make you get sick to your stomach.

Naren Arulrajah: So, what I’m hearing from that is you can choose who your patients are.

Gary Takacs: I had a client tell me one time—he said, “Gary, I’m really embarrassed to tell you this, but… remember, I’m the owner of the practice, Gary—but I had this one patient… man, I’m thinking of her now, and my blood pressure’s going up. When I would take home the daily schedule for the next day, after dinner I’d usually sit in my library with a glass of wine and look it over. And when I would see her name on the schedule, I caught myself once calling in sick.”

Gary Takacs: He owned the practice! Who was he calling—himself?

Gary Takacs: “Hey, hey, hey, hey, George—it’s George. I’m not gonna be able to make it tomorrow.”

Gary Takacs: And we laughed at this, but he said, “No, I’m telling you, that’s how dysfunctional this got. I would see her on the schedule and I would literally call in sick. And the team members got wise to it—they called me out on it. They said, ‘If you’re doing that, can we do that?’”

And he said, “I have to change my ways.”

Gary Takacs: Goal number six is treatment mix that gives you satisfaction. Dentistry comes in lots of different flavors—pick the flavors you like. You know, it’s still around—I don’t know if you have them up in Canada, Naren—but Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors…

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, yes—ice cream. That’s one of my favorites.

Gary Takacs: Thirty-one flavors.

Naren Arulrajah: Pistachio—I like the Baskin Robbins pistachio.

Gary Takacs: And some people go in and have vanilla, you know, so it’s perfectly fine. But pick the flavors you like. And by “flavors,” I’m talking about the treatment you enjoy doing.

I call the treatment you like your high-value services. They could be things like placing and restoring implants, adult orthodontics—maybe it’s Invisalign—maybe it’s complex restorative dentistry, maybe you’re doing sedation, oral conscious or IV. Maybe you’re treating obstructive sleep apnea with appliance therapy. Maybe you enjoy treating patients with TMD and TMJ issues.

Whatever those are, pick the ones you like so you’re doing the dentistry you enjoy—because you’re likely to be good at it if you enjoy it. And imagine your CE journey to master those clinical elements: if it’s something you enjoy, you’re going to look forward to your CE journey, taking hundreds—if not a thousand plus—hours of CE to really master those areas.

Gary Takacs: And finally, goal number seven—the one I added as an afterthought later—but I’m going to explain how important it is. It’s a practice that provides an effective work-life balance.

If you have a practice that provides financial success, but it comes at the expense of your family, your relationship with your kids, your relationship with your loved ones, your relationship with your extended family, your hobbies, your interests, your fitness—then it’s not success, in my opinion, if it came at the expense of those things.

And if you think for a minute that having a world-class practice and having work-life balance are mutually exclusive—in other words, pick one, but you can only have one—I’m going to tell you, no, that’s not the case. They are not mutually exclusive. You can have them both. And I can point to clients in our client base who have achieved an effective work-life balance.

And maybe that’s a reason to schedule a CSM, Naren—a Coaching Strategy Meeting—if you feel like you couldn’t be farther away from work-life balance. Schedule a Coaching Strategy Meeting and we’ll talk about things you could do to change that, because ultimate success is achieving that balance. It is a balance—it’s a teeter-totter—but it’s achieving that balance between work and life.

Right now, I believe our profession is suffering from an epidemic of imbalance—it’s all about work, and not so much about life. And if you’re thinking, I just can’t do that now, but someday I’m going to do it, I’m going to politely suggest that if that’s your perspective, someday may never come. You may get so into the habit of pushing it off that it never happens.

No time like now to start to achieve it.

Well, let me rattle off those seven goals again really quick:

1. Overhead no higher than 60%—ideally 50%—for a solo dental practice; for two or more doctors, EBITDA of at least 20%, ideally 30%.
2. A practice that provides financial independence—so you can go to work because you want to, not because you have to.
3. State-of-the-art office with all the technology that makes dentistry fun for you and more effective for your patients.
4. A high-performance team you truly love and enjoy working with.
5. Patients you enjoy taking care of.
6. Treatment mix that gives you satisfaction.
7. An effective work-life balance.

Naren, I’m going to close out our Coaching and Action segment by doing something very bold…

Gary Takacs: I’m often asked in live audiences, “Gary, which of these seven is most important?” And I could honestly say that each one of these could be considered most important—I could make a case for any of them.

You know, Naren, you might know that I was on the debate team in college. Yes, I loved it. Our debate instructor would give us a topic, and we had to effectively argue it either way—argue for it or argue against it. And I could argue that every one of those goals is the most important.

But if you pinned me down and said, “Pick one, Gary,” I’m gonna say—drum roll, please… Goal number four: a high-performance team that you truly love and enjoy working with.

Let me tell you why—because I think without number four, you don’t get the other six. That’s why. But right behind it—like right on the heels, not even a millimeter behind—I’m gonna say goal number seven: an effective work-life balance.

Well, this has been fun. We’ve got some great questions that have been pre-submitted, and we’re gonna get into more texture and more color on these questions in the Q&A segment. Let’s hit pause here in the Coaching and Action segment and provide more depth on the Seven Goals of a Thriving Practice.

**Ready to achieve all seven goals in your own practice—without sacrificing work-life balance? Schedule a FREE Coaching Strategy Meeting with Gary and get a personalized action plan to thrive.

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Q&A Segment

Naren Arulrajah: Welcome back to the Thriving Dentist Q&A segment. Gary, it’s a really important topic we’re covering today—Seven Goals of a Thriving Practice. I have five questions for you, but before I jump into them, I want to piggyback on your last comment. You said the most important goal is a team that you enjoy working with, right?

Gary Takacs: Team you love and truly enjoy working with.

Naren Arulrajah: The team that you love and truly enjoy working with. To me, this is like an A-team. What are the keys—the things the ones who have an A-team do—that perhaps others don’t? Just rattle off a couple.

Gary Takacs: Well, first off, you’ve created a practice environment that allows you to attract and keep the best team members—attract and keep. And it’s harder than ever right now. We’re in an employment situation where, like anything in supply and demand, there are more job openings than there are good people applying for them—more than ever.

I’ve been doing this for 45 years. I remember a time—and some of our silver-haired and no-haired listeners will remember this—when you could put an ad in the newspaper (remember newspapers, Naren?) for a hygienist, and within about two hours of publishing that edition, you’d have six really good résumés. That’s not true anymore.

So you have to have an environment, you have to have a vision that attracts people who want to be part of your practice. Think of some employers who’ve earned that status. Trader Joe’s, for example, has a good work culture, and a lot of people envision a career there. I think Tesla—yes, the car maker, not just a “toaster company”—also has a reputation for attracting and keeping quality team members.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, I think they get like a hundred applicants for every person they recruit—it’s just so much demand.

Gary Takacs: Exactly. And we could name others. But if your office is just, “Hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work I go,” you’re not going to attract and keep the best team members. Who wants to be part of that?

You have to have a vision. You have to have a good onboarding process so you don’t just throw them to the wolves. Outside of dentistry, most companies have structured onboarding. In dentistry, too often, we hire someone and say, “Good luck.” That’s not going to work.

We have to have a team committed to successful onboarding—so instead of seeing that new person as a threat, it’s, “Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here. Welcome to the family.” We’ve got to have very specific activities that lead to team bonding.

Maybe we can do a future episode on this, Naren.

Naren Arulrajah: Let’s do a piece on that. I know you go in depth with your clients because this is an area a lot of people find hard to master—leadership.

Gary Takacs: Absolutely. I said in the Coaching and Action segment—it’s the most important goal. Without it, you don’t get the other six. Now, I’ll also say this—the concept of never having turnover is not realistic.

Some things are outside your control. For example, if a team member’s spouse gets transferred out of state, they choose to move—you can’t control that. Or, if a female team member has a child and originally plans to come back, but once she holds that little bundle of joy, she decides to be a stay-at-home mom—that’s not something you can prevent.

In my opinion, those are acceptable reasons for leaving. We wish them well. But if someone leaves your practice to go work in another dental practice—that means you haven’t created the best environment to attract and keep the best team members. That’s what we need to fix, and fix proactively.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Let me jump into the Q&A segment. I know I have four left, so I’m going to go rapid fire and start with the first one. In your experience, which of the seven goals is the most difficult?

Gary Takacs: Without a moment’s hesitation, I would say that number one is the most difficult—overhead control. And I’m going to say that statistically, because of how few dentists achieve overhead at 60% or less—ideally 50%—or EBITDA of at least 20%, ideally 30%.

Naren Arulrajah: Let me ask you this—is it more difficult because it requires the most work, or because it requires a different way of thinking?

Gary Takacs: In a way, it’s the second one. But let me tell you this, Naren—can you even… is it even possible to achieve overhead of 60% or less, or EBITDA of at least 20%, if you’re a PPO provider? Is it—when you’re giving away 45 to 50% of your revenue to the fat cats at insurance companies?

Naren Arulrajah: Half of what you make is going to the fat cats at insurance companies?

Gary Takacs: It’s mathematically impossible. And given that the latest estimate, Naren, is that somewhere between 92 and 93% of all dental practices in the United States have a PPO model—have some PPO in them—statistically, it’s the most difficult goal if you just run the math.

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: If you’re that doctor giving away 45 to 50% to Delta, you have no chance at achieving it. You have zero chance, because you’re giving away nearly half your revenue. You can’t pedal fast enough. You can’t outproduce that. I’m an optimist—I like to think everything’s possible—but that’s not possible.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you. Let me go to question number two. Goal number two, which is achieving financial independence, really appeals to me. Can you provide more information about how to achieve this or work on this?

Gary Takacs: Yeah, I’d like to recommend a book—and the book I recommend is called The Number. It’s a very simple book by Lee Eisenberg. Amazon has it. It’s a book partly about financial planning, but it’s really more about the psychology of retirement in the 21st century.

One of the things Lee shares in that book is how to determine what your “number” is—how much you need to be able to retire without ever depleting the principal. Because if you deplete the principal, you could outlive your money—and we don’t want to get in a situation where you outlive your money. That’s not a good scenario.

So Lee talks about that, but more importantly, he talks about the psychology of retirement. The psychology used to be—in previous generations—that you went full speed until you hit 65, then you immediately slammed the brakes on and got the watch. You worked for one company for 40 years, got the watch, and that was that.

Today, it’s a very different environment. I know many dentists—clients past and present—who have told me their latter years in practice were some of their most enjoyable. If you’re funding things like a pension plan and you can keep contributing to it while working part-time—maybe three days a week—you’re not depleting your pension plan assets, and that greatly enhances your net worth and your pool of funds for financial independence.

I’d suggest talking to your accountant. If your accountant is not a member of the ADCPA—the Academy of Dental CPAs—I’d recommend going to adcpa.org. It’s a nonprofit of 24 independent accounting firms that collectively represent over 12,000 dental practices in the U.S. They really know dental practice. Your ADCPA accountant can recommend tools like pension plans, 401(k)s, investment strategies, and be a real partner in achieving financial independence.

Great question, and I’m glad you asked. Hopefully we’ve sparked an interest in making this a real goal. Because you’ll never get there if you don’t start.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. Let me ask you question number three—it strikes me that solid practice marketing has a great deal to do with achieving these seven goals. Part A, do you agree? Part B, what is your marketing advice in 2025?

Gary Takacs: Well, I agree 100% that marketing is a big part of this. Because if we don’t have new patient flow—remember I talked earlier about the importance of growth, Naren—we talked about that in goal number one, right? Getting your overhead down. We’ve got to combine it with good, prudent spending, cost control, but we also solve it through growth.

Every thriving practice needs quality new patients, because one reason is, if you practice comprehensive dentistry, you’re going to work yourself out of a job with your patients. At some point, you’re getting them all restored, which is great—we’ve got to celebrate that. And then, you know, they’ll have things that come up now and then, but you’ve already done the majority of dentistry, so we need new patients.

So yes, marketing’s an important part. And I would say today, in 2025, as we’re recording this, in my experience the most effective marketing is organic search engine optimization.

Organic means that we’re not paying Google. Search engine optimization means when someone types in, you know, crown and your community—crown Scottsdale, crown Phoenix, or toothache Phoenix—you want to appear on page one of a search, because today nobody ever goes past page one to find a product or service. And you want to be as high as you can on page one. Ideally, we want to not pay any money to Google to do that. Organic means we’ve earned it in the performance of our website and other criteria. Google sees you as an answer to “crown Phoenix” and provides you as a solution—as opposed to paying Google money.

You can pay Google money in the form of Google Ads, but they’re not as effective as organic. But that’s what I would do—number one. Now, you may need more than that depending on your appetite for new patients, and there are other things to consider. I would probably consider Google Ads after that.

And you could include some creative things as well—things like maybe making mouthguards as a community service/marketing project for your local high school football team, or maybe your local youth hockey club. You make mouthguards for the kids participating in youth hockey, and that aligns you to a community of people who see you as someone who has given first, and they want to support what you’re doing.

Naren, you’re an expert at marketing. What would you add to—I listed three things really quick: organic SEO is my first choice by far, probably pay-per-click number two because Google’s so prominent today, and number three, getting creative about connecting with different audiences in your community that would be a long-term game plan for you.

Naren Arulrajah: I agree with that, Gary. I think the other tip I would give is—find out where you are with marketing. If marketing is key to all these goals, and you want to achieve these goals or at least make progress on these goals, if you are not attracting the ideal patients in the right number, you are going to struggle. So lean into marketing.

I would recommend doing—or getting somebody to do—a marketing review. We do it at no cost. It’s ekwa.com/msm, just to see—are you dominating Google? If not, what do you need to do to dominate Google?

I do think, like you mentioned, Gary, SEO should be the foundation because it is the lowest-cost way to attract the highest-quality patients. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do the other things—absolutely, you must—but as a top-up, as a way to enhance your foundation. Because you don’t want to spend—with ads, you might be spending $5 for every $1 you could spend on SEO to get the same patient. With PPO—which is technically a marketing plan—you’re spending $30 for every $1 you spend with SEO. So you want to cut the more expensive options and really lean in on the lowest-cost, most effective option.

Gary Takacs: Well, that’s a good point, Naren, because many dentists—when I ask the question as a client, “How much are you spending on marketing today?”—have said, “I don’t spend anything on marketing.” And as I get to learn more about them, I discover they didn’t actually answer that question accurately, because they’re a PPO provider.

They’re signed up with 15 or 20 plans, and I like to train my clients to think of their adjustments—the insurance adjustments, the difference between your usual fee and your contracted fee—as a marketing expense, because you’re paying Delta to provide you patients.

A client I recently asked that to—he’s a new client—I said, “What are you spending on marketing now?” He said, “Nothing, I don’t spend anything on marketing.” And I introduced this idea of starting to look at your adjustments, and it turned out he was spending $600,000 a year on marketing. He was spending $50,000 a month on marketing.

Naren Arulrajah: But he wasn’t seeing it as marketing because he was…

Gary Takacs: Right. I said, “You could spend a fraction of that—you could spend $15,000 a year on organic SEO. And you know, doc, take as long as you like—you could continue to spend $50,000.” And he immediately got that.

Naren Arulrajah: $50,000 a month or $600,000…?

Gary Takacs: $50,000 a month—$600,000 a year. And he immediately got it. He goes, “Got it. I’ve never looked—no one, my accountant’s never told me that’s a marketing expense.” And the accountant’s technically right, because you’re not writing a check to Delta—it’s even worse. Delta takes the money before you ever got it.

And now you’re spending $15,000 a year instead of $600,000—what happened to goal number one right there with that change?

Naren Arulrajah: Yeah—$600,000 extra in profit, right?

Gary Takacs: This is a strong solo dentist practice, but man, he was paying through the nose—paying a tax. I love using the word “tax” to think of insurance adjustments. We all hate taxes, right? It was a tax that he was paying to Delta.

Ah, well—thanks, Naren. Good feedback on marketing for sure.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you. Gary, let me ask you question number four—the last one I have. Is it possible to achieve an effective work-life balance in a solo dental practice environment?

Gary Takacs: Oh, wow. What a great question. I think that was a very thoughtful question, and I’m gonna answer it very directly. Yes. And how can I answer it so, so quickly? Because I have clients in my client base that, by choice, have chosen the solo practice model. By choice—they’re not interested in associate doctor, they’re not interested in a partnership, not interested in, you know, multiple doctor practice. They wanna have a solo dentist. One, one of—I’ll leave the name nameless, you’ll understand why I’m about to say this—I asked her, I said, why is the solo dentist model so compelling to you? And she said—we’re on a Zoom call and she looked right at me, you know, through the screen—“Gary, I don’t play well in the sandbox with other dentists.” And I complimented her.

Gary Takacs: I said, wow, your self-awareness is fantastic. I find her extremely pleasant. She’s fantastic. She said, I don’t play well in the sandbox with other—I said, well, then don’t even think about an associate doctor or a partner. Yeah. And she has a practice that has achieved all of those goals. She works three days a week clinically—normal days, normal eight-hour days, not three twelves, you know, right? She’s working three eight—she’s working 24 hours a week clinically. Now granted her work isn’t over then—she’s a solo dentist practice, so she has some admin work she has to do, right? But she literally has a three-day clinical work week. And she absolutely—she’s achieved all of these seven goals in that model. It’s harder. I would tell you if she was open to it, if she didn’t give me the answer, well, I’m just not that excited about it—she might’ve said that—I would have said, can I make the case why having an associate or a partner might be a faster track for you on this?

Naren Arulrajah: The only goal that’s hard is that overhead call, right, Gary, in this model.

Gary Takacs: Well, if she’s very productive.

Naren Arulrajah: The other six calls are possible for both, you know.

Gary Takacs: Well, actually a hard one is goal number four—when you’re a three-day-a-week dentist—giving your team members enough hours. Oh, number four could be a hard one, because, you know, that’s it.

Naren Arulrajah: Saying attracting and retain a team might be hard because they need more hours.

Gary Takacs: Well, I mean, your clinical hours are 24 hours a week—that’s not gonna be your team member hours, ’cause they, right, they have morning huddle and end of the day, it might be more like if they’re only there the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday that she works, they’re not there Thursday doing other things, then that’s gonna be probably more like 26, 27 hours a week, right? And some people need more than 26, 27 hours a week, right? So that could be the most difficult to achieve, you know, in that model, right? But no, you can be productive enough in three days, you know, with the right mix of high value. Remember all of these seven goals, if you think about ’em, they all intertwine. It’s kinda like an ecosystem where something in one area impacts something in another area. Got it.

Gary Takacs: And they’re all important. And you start putting all those together. But yes, you can achieve this. And by the way, she’s not a one-off, it’s not just her. I have a number of clients that have chosen the solo dentist practice model working three days a week and achieving all of these goals. So it absolutely can be done. I think it’s easier to do with a second doctor, ’cause then you can have more coverage. I think an ideal model is to have two doctors, whether it be an owner doctor and associate, or owner doctor and a partner—it could be done either way—where you’re open five days a week. And I like the hours of 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Monday through Thursday, 7:00 to 2:00 on Friday. Have one doctor work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday—so that doctor will be working 27 hours a week clinically—and have one doctor work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, have the overlap day on Wednesday. Have the other doctor work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday—that would be 25 hours a week clinically. And that’ll allow you to reduce your overhead ’cause you’re producing a lot more, you know, with two doctors. I think that model is ideal.

Gary Takacs: By the way, if any of you would like to talk to me about that model, it’s like my favorite topic on the planet. Talk to me about that. Schedule a CSM and I’ll talk to you about that—when do you know you can add an associate, how do you know whether you wanna go an associate or partner? They’re all viable answers, but there’ll be one answer that’s right for you. 

If you’d like to figure out what that is with my help, schedule a CSM—go to thrivingdentist.com/csm—and love to talk to you about that. Well, Naren, this has been a really fun episode. It’s a topic I’m passionate about. Thanks for your contributions to the topic. Also want to take a minute and thank our listeners—you know, we appreciate each and every one of you at Thriving Dentist Show. Thanks so much for the privilege of your time. 

And just to circle back as a reminder, be sure to go to RID.academy and register for the 2025 RIDA Summit coming up this fall. It’ll be time very well spent. Until then, thanks again for the privilege of your time.