October 6, 2025 • 16 mins
Feeling trapped on the dental treadmill? That plateau between $1-2 million in practice revenue isn't just common—it's a critical crossroads in your ownership journey.
Dental practice owners typically hit this wall after establishing their core team (usually two hygienists, two assistants, and two front desk staff), then find themselves unable to push beyond despite working harder clinically. The fundamental problem isn't your clinical skills or work ethic—it's that you've reached the ceiling of what one dentist can physically produce while simultaneously trying to run a business.
I experienced this firsthand when my practice hit $1.8 million back in 2015. Despite efficient systems and block scheduling, growth seemed impossible without clinical burnout. I was constantly trying to squeeze in one more same-day patient while lacking the energy to handle the essential business responsibilities. The breakthrough came when I realized that most dentists don't actually own a business—they have a really good job. A true business continues generating revenue when you're not physically present, while most dental practices stop producing the moment the owner stops performing dentistry.
Breaking through requires four transformative mindset shifts: transitioning from dentist to owner, building a leadership team, systematizing operations, and developing problem-solvers within your team. By implementing these changes, I was able to bring on my first associate, reduce my clinical schedule, and unlock unprecedented freedom—taking 18 weeks off last year while my practice continued thriving.
The path beyond $2 million isn't about working harder; it's about working differently. Ready to stop being trapped by your practice and start enjoying the freedom of true practice ownership? Visit dentalpracticeheroes.com to schedule a strategy call and discover how our coaching can help you build the systems and leadership that create both profitability and freedom.
GRAB THE FREE PLAYBOOK HERE - Discover 30 proven strategies top-performing dentists use to increase profits, cut clinical days, and finally enjoy the freedom they originally built their practices for.
https://www.dentalpracticeheroes.com/playbook
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Etchison (00:02):
The very first milestone that you will pass as
a dental practice owner is the$1 million mark.
That's $83,000 a month.
It's a round number.
It puts you at a milliondollars a year.
Usually, at this point you'llhave two hygienists, you'll have
two assistants, you'll probablyhave two people at the front
and then it comes to where youstart to slow down.
(00:22):
Most owners will, and a lot ofowners.
They're going to get stuckaround 1.2 to 1.5.
Some people get to 1.8.
Some people make it to 2million, but somewhere between 1
and 2 million the practicestarts making enough to survive
and you're doing well, but by nomeans are you thriving.
(00:43):
You get stuck and you plateau.
Today I'm going to teach youhow not to get stuck between
this one and two million mark.
I'm going to talk about how ithappens, why it happens and what
you need to do as a practiceowner to get yourself to the
next level, because that nextlevel is a great place to be.
That's when you start enjoyingthe freedom like a true GPH
(01:03):
practice and you start backingyourself out clinically.
Let's get to it Now.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast, where
we teach dental owners how tothrive in their practices,
through practice ownership,through creating a team-driven
practice that allows them totake off a lot of time and do
what they love.
I am your host, dr PaulEtcheson.
(01:24):
I am the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and the owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago.
I want to teach you how to livean amazing life by first
foundationally setting up anamazing practice.
So let's get into it.
Let's talk about this plateaubetween one and two million.
Like I said, this is enough tosurvive.
(01:45):
Practices stay here for theirwhole career.
That's totally cool, but if youwant more, if you want to
thrive, you've got to pushthrough it.
For me, this was 1.8 million.
We hit that.
That was about 2015 when we didthat, and that was after we had
implemented block scheduling.
We were efficient.
We had a lot of systems inplace.
We were efficient.
We had a lot of systems inplace.
We didn't have a lot of systemsdocumented, but we had a lot of
(02:06):
systems in place and it waslike, no matter what, the only
way for me to crank more was toget more production per day.
I was busy from morning tillclose.
Every single day that I waspracticing, I was the solo doc
and it was like that thingbetween we keep pushing more and
more and more, try to fit onemore same day patient and we
were just running so hard onroller skates.
(02:28):
There were parts of it where itwas exciting and I was making a
lot of money and my team wasbonusing like crazy.
But honestly I'd go home and Iwas so just like completely
tired that I was like, is thiseven worth it?
And then the thing is is likewhen you have a practice that's
doing well, as dental practiceowners, at some point we need to
run our business.
(02:48):
We need to do the things thatare not clinical.
And when you're producing atthat level of dentistry which I
think 1.8 million down back thenis like, I mean, the equivalent
of shit, I don't know 2.5nowadays.
It's so weird to talk about howmuch money has lost its value
since I started practicing 13years ago.
This is making me feel old toeven talk about it.
Like how my grandpa would be,like you know what a nickel
(03:09):
would buy.
You used to buy a box ofCracker Jacks for a nickel or
some shit like that.
But anyway, you need to findtime to do this as a practice
owner.
You got to run your practiceand you just don't have the
energy to do it when you arepracticing at that level.
Do it when you are practicingat that level.
So you get stuck there.
You don't have a leadershipteam, your systems are patchy,
they're inconsistent, they'renot documented and the owner
(03:30):
becomes the bottleneck.
You become that bottleneckbecause you're making all the
decisions just like you were,you're taking on a lot of the
responsibilities, just like youalways have, and you're stuck
and you're not going to be ableto push past it.
The only way to push past it iseither one you got to put in
more hours, you got to put inmore grind.
That has a ceiling as well, andthat is the fastest way to burn
(03:51):
out.
The other way is to startputting in the principles in
your practice of scaling.
Start scaling.
So what are the shifts thatrequire the breakthrough to the
next level?
You need to make a mindsetshift from dentist to owner.
You need to stop trying toproduce your way to growth.
You need to learn how to run abusiness.
Most dentists, most dentalowners, we don't have a business
(04:15):
.
We have a really good job.
The difference between abusiness and a job is that a
business will continue to makeyou money even when you're not
there.
It doesn't require you all thetime.
You're not trading time fordollars.
You are, as a dentist,producing.
You are trading time fordollars.
If you stop producing, thebusiness stops making money.
So that's not a business,that's a job.
(04:37):
So you need to startimplementing the things that are
going to take you to the nextlevel, which is documenting your
systems, building yourleadership team and starting to
expand your team.
So the second mindset shift weneed is from lone leader to
leadership team.
We need to empower others toshare the responsibility so that
we can focus on the things thatgrow our practice.
(04:58):
Now there's a great idea Ialways thought was really cool,
and this is from MikeMichalowicz.
This is from his book Clockworkand essentially he's talking
about the QBR.
The queen bee role Talks aboutthe queen bee in the hive.
What is her job in the hive?
She lays the stinket eggs.
Every day she's laying eggs.
That's how she grows the hive.
(05:18):
That's why she's so important.
She's the only one in that hivethat can lay the eggs, so she
has to lay those eggs.
Now what happens when Bart thebee comes into the queen's
chambers and wants to talk tothe queen about hey, I think
there's some pollen over here tothe northeast.
We're going to take a team.
Do I have permission to do that?
Queen Bee?
And she's like yeah, bart, gofor it.
And then the next day, bettythe Bee comes in and she's like
(05:38):
I really think we should get abee changing station in the
bathroom.
Can we get that?
Queen Bee?
Can we afford it for the hive?
And she's like yes, yes, betty,please.
And then Bobby, bobby the beecomes in and Bobby the bee is
super pissed off because Bobbythe bee just found out that
Benny the bee has more PTO thanBobby and Bobby has been at the
hive much longer than Benny andhe wants to talk to queen bee
(06:01):
about it.
But before he talked to queenbee, he told all the other busy
bees about it.
So everybody's pissed off nowbecause that person's got so
much PTO and the queen's justsitting there like dude.
I just want to lay my eggs.
Can somebody take care of thisstuff so I can lay my stinking
eggs?
I don't care about this, I onlycare about laying my eggs.
(06:21):
And does this sound familiar?
Does this sound like what yourpractice is run like.
This is the thing is you need tohave a leadership team around
you that can insulate you fromthese day-to-day fires, because
you need to start focusing yourtime on the things that grow the
business, and you can't do thatwhen you're handling every
single fire.
So you've got to build aleadership team.
You got to set the expectations, you've got to train them, show
(06:44):
them how to do it, but then yougot to get out of the way.
Now the third mindset shift isyou need to change from reactive
to systematic.
Everything starts to run onprocesses, not on personalities,
and this is how we do it.
You need to tell your team forevery situation.
This is the way that we do it.
These are the goals of thispart of the system.
(07:06):
This is how it affects thewhole.
This is how it's in line withour goals, with our mission.
All this stuff.
You start to build all theseprocesses and all these systems
in your practice, and this isexactly what we walk our clients
through when you reach out tous for coaching.
We teach you how to do all ofthese things so that you can
enjoy a DPH practice, so thatyou can thrive and take a ton of
(07:27):
time off and start to live abetter life.
So if that's something you wanthelp with,
dentalpracticeheroescom, set upa strategy, call with me, we
will discuss.
But once you start deciding howwe do things and the way that
things are done by creatingthese systems, it becomes very
obvious to you when somebodydoesn't do it the way you're
supposed to because you saidthis is how we do it.
(07:48):
If you don't do it this way,you did it a different way and
we're going to talk to you aboutwhy you're not doing it the way
that we wanted you to do it.
And it helps you when you startto onboard people into proper
systems and I can tell you fromhaving a systematized practice.
I get new employees come in allthe time to our practice and
they say man, I cannot believehow well this place is run.
(08:08):
It's not me, there's nothingspecial about me.
It's that I put in the time tobuild the systems and build the
leadership team.
This is what makes a practicefun to work at, because a
practice like that it mightsound like it's very over the
top, maybe it's very controllingof the employees.
It's not.
The employees will appreciatethe order and the fairness that
(08:30):
is created by having asystematized practice, and not
that we do it for this reason,but your bank account is going
to appreciate it too, becauseyou're going to become way more
profitable.
The fourth mindset change thatyou have to do you need to
create problem solvers out ofyour team members, and you do
this by stop being the answerperson.
When people bring something toyou and they say, hey, what
(08:51):
should we do, you know, likethat Queen Bee, like, hey, queen
Bee.
They say, hey, what should wedo?
You say, what do you think Iwould do?
And they go I don't know.
I mean that's why I'm askingyou what kind of dumb question
is that?
And then you go I know, butwhat do you think I would do?
I mean asking you and you say,well, I want you to do what you
(09:12):
think is best, and if it worksout, great.
And if it doesn't, we'll talkabout it and try to see if we
should have came up withsomething different.
And you say that a few times toa few people and you don't say
it mean like it's kind ofsomething that you laugh about.
I mean you're being polite, buteventually they stop asking you
questions.
It's one because they know thatyou're not going to help them,
but two, because they know thatyou trust them and that you want
(09:34):
that sort of behavior.
You need to encourage thatbehavior and say somebody really
screws something up.
Still, you want to recognizethat they didn't bring it to you
and they made a decision andthey did what they thought was
best for the practice.
Maybe it wasn't the bestdecision.
You don't want to shame themfor it, but recognize people for
taking that risk and doing thethings that they think is best
for the practice.
You cannot scale if you'remaking every decision, so you
(09:58):
need to encourage that in yourteam.
So these were the changes thatI did in my practice when I
brought on my first associate.
And when I brought on my firstassociate, I went down to three
days.
It gave me the time to continueto step into that business
owner role, to continue to workon the business and do the
systems, do the training, do thedocumentation, lead my leaders,
(10:20):
teach my leaders how to lead.
And I've had a lot of bad daysas a dentist.
I've never had a bad dayworking with my team, so that's
all I can say about it.
Maybe you might have adifferent experience, but I've
had bad dental clinical days.
Bad things have happened andthey really stress me out.
This team stuff I get stressedout too from it.
But the thing is is thatthere's always solutions for
(10:42):
team issues and they're alwaysrooted in communication.
I know you guys get sick of mesaying it, but so many of our
issues are communication relatedand if we could just bring
these conversations into thelight so that they happen and we
can have them with the rightmindset and with empathy and
compassion, all these problemssolve themselves.
(11:03):
So what happens when we get past2 million?
Most people that get past 2million are bringing an
associate.
I know there's somebody outthere like I'm a solo doc.
I'm doing 2.4.
Awesome, I bet you hate yourlife.
That's a lot of dentistry forone dentist to do.
So the way to scale past it in away that's not going to burn
you out is you bring on anassociate.
(11:24):
You put that associate into asystematized practice so that
they can do well.
You make sure all the elementsare there for your associate to
be successful and then you justreap the rewards of it.
You have more time, you havemore freedom you might go from
once you have an associate.
I remember my first year havingan associate, I took eight
weeks off, okay, and my secondassociate, I was taking 12 weeks
(11:46):
off.
Last year I took 18 weeks offof the practice.
Like 18 weeks I didn't evenshow up, and I'm actually
recording this from a hotelright now because I haven't been
in my practice in 25 days,which is awesome, but it's just
a testament to what can happenwhen you scale your practice.
But it's just a testament towhat can happen when you scale
your practice.
So here's your tacticaltakeaways for this episode.
Number one identify yourbottlenecks.
(12:08):
Where are you still the soledecision maker in your practice?
Number two build a leadershipteam.
Remember that queen bee role.
Protect yourself from handlingthe day-to-day things by
building a leadership teamaround you so that you can focus
on your queen B role, which, asfar as I'm concerned, it should
be on anything that grows thebusiness Building systems,
(12:30):
training your team,communicating with leaders,
communicating with your team.
Number three systematize yourpractice one area at a time.
Maybe work on scheduling, maybework on case acceptance, maybe
work on phone skills, maybe workon your cancellation policy, or
maybe sign up for one of ourcoaching programs and we'll take
you through all of them andwe'll provide you with all of
(12:51):
the ones so that you don't haveto start from zero.
Number four invest in yourselfas an owner.
Read, learn, take courses, joina group, hire a coach all these
things.
Invest in yourself.
One of the best things you cando is invest in yourself in this
manner, because these are thethings that you'll have for the
rest of your career.
The earlier you do it, thebetter.
(13:14):
And number five stop chasingproduction.
Focus on scalability, not onchair time.
You need to do the things likedialing in your systems, not
another crown.
You don't need to squeeze inanother crown.
You need to find something thatscales.
That's not another patient.
So, like I said, the $1 to $2million plateau, that's totally
(13:35):
normal, but it is not a prison.
Breaking through it requiresshifting your identity from a
dentist to a business owner.
So I want you to ask yourself amI running my practice or is my
practice still running me?
I think chances are for most ofus.
Our practices are still runningus, but that doesn't mean that
we can't get out of that.
We just got to put in a littlebit of extra work.
(13:57):
And it's not that we need togrind harder.
We need to work smarter and dothe things that take us to the
next level.
That is how we scale and I hopeyou can start reaping the
rewards of having a veryfunctional high profit practice
that runs without you very soon.
Thank you so much for listeningto the podcast.
Thank you for taking time outof your day to spend it with me.
(14:18):
I really appreciate it andwe'll talk to you next time.
The very first milestone that you will pass as
a dental practice owner is the$1 million mark.
That's $83,000 a month.
It's a round number.
It puts you at a milliondollars a year.
Usually, at this point you'llhave two hygienists, you'll have
two assistants, you'll probablyhave two people at the front
and then it comes to where youstart to slow down.
(00:22):
Most owners will, and a lot ofowners.
They're going to get stuckaround 1.2 to 1.5.
Some people get to 1.8.
Some people make it to 2million, but somewhere between 1
and 2 million the practicestarts making enough to survive
and you're doing well, but by nomeans are you thriving.
(00:43):
You get stuck and you plateau.
Today I'm going to teach youhow not to get stuck between
this one and two million mark.
I'm going to talk about how ithappens, why it happens and what
you need to do as a practiceowner to get yourself to the
next level, because that nextlevel is a great place to be.
That's when you start enjoyingthe freedom like a true GPH
(01:03):
practice and you start backingyourself out clinically.
Let's get to it Now.
You are listening to the DentalPractice Heroes podcast, where
we teach dental owners how tothrive in their practices,
through practice ownership,through creating a team-driven
practice that allows them totake off a lot of time and do
what they love.
I am your host, dr PaulEtcheson.
(01:24):
I am the author of two books ondental practice management, a
dental coach and the owner of alarge group practice in the
south suburbs of Chicago.
I want to teach you how to livean amazing life by first
foundationally setting up anamazing practice.
So let's get into it.
Let's talk about this plateaubetween one and two million.
Like I said, this is enough tosurvive.
(01:45):
Practices stay here for theirwhole career.
That's totally cool, but if youwant more, if you want to
thrive, you've got to pushthrough it.
For me, this was 1.8 million.
We hit that.
That was about 2015 when we didthat, and that was after we had
implemented block scheduling.
We were efficient.
We had a lot of systems inplace.
We were efficient.
We had a lot of systems inplace.
We didn't have a lot of systemsdocumented, but we had a lot of
(02:06):
systems in place and it waslike, no matter what, the only
way for me to crank more was toget more production per day.
I was busy from morning tillclose.
Every single day that I waspracticing, I was the solo doc
and it was like that thingbetween we keep pushing more and
more and more, try to fit onemore same day patient and we
were just running so hard onroller skates.
(02:28):
There were parts of it where itwas exciting and I was making a
lot of money and my team wasbonusing like crazy.
But honestly I'd go home and Iwas so just like completely
tired that I was like, is thiseven worth it?
And then the thing is is likewhen you have a practice that's
doing well, as dental practiceowners, at some point we need to
run our business.
(02:48):
We need to do the things thatare not clinical.
And when you're producing atthat level of dentistry which I
think 1.8 million down back thenis like, I mean, the equivalent
of shit, I don't know 2.5nowadays.
It's so weird to talk about howmuch money has lost its value
since I started practicing 13years ago.
This is making me feel old toeven talk about it.
Like how my grandpa would be,like you know what a nickel
(03:09):
would buy.
You used to buy a box ofCracker Jacks for a nickel or
some shit like that.
But anyway, you need to findtime to do this as a practice
owner.
You got to run your practiceand you just don't have the
energy to do it when you arepracticing at that level.
Do it when you are practicingat that level.
So you get stuck there.
You don't have a leadershipteam, your systems are patchy,
they're inconsistent, they'renot documented and the owner
(03:30):
becomes the bottleneck.
You become that bottleneckbecause you're making all the
decisions just like you were,you're taking on a lot of the
responsibilities, just like youalways have, and you're stuck
and you're not going to be ableto push past it.
The only way to push past it iseither one you got to put in
more hours, you got to put inmore grind.
That has a ceiling as well, andthat is the fastest way to burn
(03:51):
out.
The other way is to startputting in the principles in
your practice of scaling.
Start scaling.
So what are the shifts thatrequire the breakthrough to the
next level?
You need to make a mindsetshift from dentist to owner.
You need to stop trying toproduce your way to growth.
You need to learn how to run abusiness.
Most dentists, most dentalowners, we don't have a business
(04:15):
.
We have a really good job.
The difference between abusiness and a job is that a
business will continue to makeyou money even when you're not
there.
It doesn't require you all thetime.
You're not trading time fordollars.
You are, as a dentist,producing.
You are trading time fordollars.
If you stop producing, thebusiness stops making money.
So that's not a business,that's a job.
(04:37):
So you need to startimplementing the things that are
going to take you to the nextlevel, which is documenting your
systems, building yourleadership team and starting to
expand your team.
So the second mindset shift weneed is from lone leader to
leadership team.
We need to empower others toshare the responsibility so that
we can focus on the things thatgrow our practice.
(04:58):
Now there's a great idea Ialways thought was really cool,
and this is from MikeMichalowicz.
This is from his book Clockworkand essentially he's talking
about the QBR.
The queen bee role Talks aboutthe queen bee in the hive.
What is her job in the hive?
She lays the stinket eggs.
Every day she's laying eggs.
That's how she grows the hive.
(05:18):
That's why she's so important.
She's the only one in that hivethat can lay the eggs, so she
has to lay those eggs.
Now what happens when Bart thebee comes into the queen's
chambers and wants to talk tothe queen about hey, I think
there's some pollen over here tothe northeast.
We're going to take a team.
Do I have permission to do that?
Queen Bee?
And she's like yeah, bart, gofor it.
And then the next day, bettythe Bee comes in and she's like
(05:38):
I really think we should get abee changing station in the
bathroom.
Can we get that?
Queen Bee?
Can we afford it for the hive?
And she's like yes, yes, betty,please.
And then Bobby, bobby the beecomes in and Bobby the bee is
super pissed off because Bobbythe bee just found out that
Benny the bee has more PTO thanBobby and Bobby has been at the
hive much longer than Benny andhe wants to talk to queen bee
(06:01):
about it.
But before he talked to queenbee, he told all the other busy
bees about it.
So everybody's pissed off nowbecause that person's got so
much PTO and the queen's justsitting there like dude.
I just want to lay my eggs.
Can somebody take care of thisstuff so I can lay my stinking
eggs?
I don't care about this, I onlycare about laying my eggs.
(06:21):
And does this sound familiar?
Does this sound like what yourpractice is run like.
This is the thing is you need tohave a leadership team around
you that can insulate you fromthese day-to-day fires, because
you need to start focusing yourtime on the things that grow the
business, and you can't do thatwhen you're handling every
single fire.
So you've got to build aleadership team.
You got to set the expectations, you've got to train them, show
(06:44):
them how to do it, but then yougot to get out of the way.
Now the third mindset shift isyou need to change from reactive
to systematic.
Everything starts to run onprocesses, not on personalities,
and this is how we do it.
You need to tell your team forevery situation.
This is the way that we do it.
These are the goals of thispart of the system.
(07:06):
This is how it affects thewhole.
This is how it's in line withour goals, with our mission.
All this stuff.
You start to build all theseprocesses and all these systems
in your practice, and this isexactly what we walk our clients
through when you reach out tous for coaching.
We teach you how to do all ofthese things so that you can
enjoy a DPH practice, so thatyou can thrive and take a ton of
(07:27):
time off and start to live abetter life.
So if that's something you wanthelp with,
dentalpracticeheroescom, set upa strategy, call with me, we
will discuss.
But once you start deciding howwe do things and the way that
things are done by creatingthese systems, it becomes very
obvious to you when somebodydoesn't do it the way you're
supposed to because you saidthis is how we do it.
(07:48):
If you don't do it this way,you did it a different way and
we're going to talk to you aboutwhy you're not doing it the way
that we wanted you to do it.
And it helps you when you startto onboard people into proper
systems and I can tell you fromhaving a systematized practice.
I get new employees come in allthe time to our practice and
they say man, I cannot believehow well this place is run.
(08:08):
It's not me, there's nothingspecial about me.
It's that I put in the time tobuild the systems and build the
leadership team.
This is what makes a practicefun to work at, because a
practice like that it mightsound like it's very over the
top, maybe it's very controllingof the employees.
It's not.
The employees will appreciatethe order and the fairness that
(08:30):
is created by having asystematized practice, and not
that we do it for this reason,but your bank account is going
to appreciate it too, becauseyou're going to become way more
profitable.
The fourth mindset change thatyou have to do you need to
create problem solvers out ofyour team members, and you do
this by stop being the answerperson.
When people bring something toyou and they say, hey, what
(08:51):
should we do, you know, likethat Queen Bee, like, hey, queen
Bee.
They say, hey, what should wedo?
You say, what do you think Iwould do?
And they go I don't know.
I mean that's why I'm askingyou what kind of dumb question
is that?
And then you go I know, butwhat do you think I would do?
I mean asking you and you say,well, I want you to do what you
(09:12):
think is best, and if it worksout, great.
And if it doesn't, we'll talkabout it and try to see if we
should have came up withsomething different.
And you say that a few times toa few people and you don't say
it mean like it's kind ofsomething that you laugh about.
I mean you're being polite, buteventually they stop asking you
questions.
It's one because they know thatyou're not going to help them,
but two, because they know thatyou trust them and that you want
(09:34):
that sort of behavior.
You need to encourage thatbehavior and say somebody really
screws something up.
Still, you want to recognizethat they didn't bring it to you
and they made a decision andthey did what they thought was
best for the practice.
Maybe it wasn't the bestdecision.
You don't want to shame themfor it, but recognize people for
taking that risk and doing thethings that they think is best
for the practice.
You cannot scale if you'remaking every decision, so you
(09:58):
need to encourage that in yourteam.
So these were the changes thatI did in my practice when I
brought on my first associate.
And when I brought on my firstassociate, I went down to three
days.
It gave me the time to continueto step into that business
owner role, to continue to workon the business and do the
systems, do the training, do thedocumentation, lead my leaders,
(10:20):
teach my leaders how to lead.
And I've had a lot of bad daysas a dentist.
I've never had a bad dayworking with my team, so that's
all I can say about it.
Maybe you might have adifferent experience, but I've
had bad dental clinical days.
Bad things have happened andthey really stress me out.
This team stuff I get stressedout too from it.
But the thing is is thatthere's always solutions for
(10:42):
team issues and they're alwaysrooted in communication.
I know you guys get sick of mesaying it, but so many of our
issues are communication relatedand if we could just bring
these conversations into thelight so that they happen and we
can have them with the rightmindset and with empathy and
compassion, all these problemssolve themselves.
(11:03):
So what happens when we get past2 million?
Most people that get past 2million are bringing an
associate.
I know there's somebody outthere like I'm a solo doc.
I'm doing 2.4.
Awesome, I bet you hate yourlife.
That's a lot of dentistry forone dentist to do.
So the way to scale past it in away that's not going to burn
you out is you bring on anassociate.
(11:24):
You put that associate into asystematized practice so that
they can do well.
You make sure all the elementsare there for your associate to
be successful and then you justreap the rewards of it.
You have more time, you havemore freedom you might go from
once you have an associate.
I remember my first year havingan associate, I took eight
weeks off, okay, and my secondassociate, I was taking 12 weeks
(11:46):
off.
Last year I took 18 weeks offof the practice.
Like 18 weeks I didn't evenshow up, and I'm actually
recording this from a hotelright now because I haven't been
in my practice in 25 days,which is awesome, but it's just
a testament to what can happenwhen you scale your practice.
But it's just a testament towhat can happen when you scale
your practice.
So here's your tacticaltakeaways for this episode.
Number one identify yourbottlenecks.
(12:08):
Where are you still the soledecision maker in your practice?
Number two build a leadershipteam.
Remember that queen bee role.
Protect yourself from handlingthe day-to-day things by
building a leadership teamaround you so that you can focus
on your queen B role, which, asfar as I'm concerned, it should
be on anything that grows thebusiness Building systems,
(12:30):
training your team,communicating with leaders,
communicating with your team.
Number three systematize yourpractice one area at a time.
Maybe work on scheduling, maybework on case acceptance, maybe
work on phone skills, maybe workon your cancellation policy, or
maybe sign up for one of ourcoaching programs and we'll take
you through all of them andwe'll provide you with all of
(12:51):
the ones so that you don't haveto start from zero.
Number four invest in yourselfas an owner.
Read, learn, take courses, joina group, hire a coach all these
things.
Invest in yourself.
One of the best things you cando is invest in yourself in this
manner, because these are thethings that you'll have for the
rest of your career.
The earlier you do it, thebetter.
(13:14):
And number five stop chasingproduction.
Focus on scalability, not onchair time.
You need to do the things likedialing in your systems, not
another crown.
You don't need to squeeze inanother crown.
You need to find something thatscales.
That's not another patient.
So, like I said, the $1 to $2million plateau, that's totally
(13:35):
normal, but it is not a prison.
Breaking through it requiresshifting your identity from a
dentist to a business owner.
So I want you to ask yourself amI running my practice or is my
practice still running me?
I think chances are for most ofus.
Our practices are still runningus, but that doesn't mean that
we can't get out of that.
We just got to put in a littlebit of extra work.
(13:57):
And it's not that we need togrind harder.
We need to work smarter and dothe things that take us to the
next level.
That is how we scale and I hopeyou can start reaping the
rewards of having a veryfunctional high profit practice
that runs without you very soon.
Thank you so much for listeningto the podcast.
Thank you for taking time outof your day to spend it with me.
(14:18):
I really appreciate it andwe'll talk to you next time.
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