David vs. Goliath: How Dental Startups Can Triumph Over Corporate Dentistry
August 10, 2024
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Are you an associate dentist contemplating the path to practice
If you’re an associate dentist and want to open a new office, hiring a dental consultant is one of the biggest decisions of the process.
But is it worth it?
Below, you will find a checklist of 40 Categories of Due Diligence to research startup dental consultants. This checklist will help you decide if you should include a dental startup consultant in your planning.
Bookmark this page. You will find this to be one of the most thorough resources for dentists researching startup practices.
In this article you will learn:
A dental startup consultant is only worth your investment if they will save you time, confusion, and money, proven with a track record of helping hundreds of startups.
Simple, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not so easy. It seems like every company has their hand out, trying to make a quick buck off our profession.
Let’s be candid: not all consultants create startup successes.
If you’re going to consider a consultant, the consultant’s guidance must be customized (not cookie-cutter) and trustworthy (based on opening hundreds of startups).
The Problem with Startup Consultants
Many consultants have questionable track records. Some even take kickbacks.
Others have high prices but small promises. Sadly, most dental consulting firms will try to sell you more of their services instead of recommending the best services for your practice model.
The confusion is worse when you realize that most consultants don’t actually specialize in startups. Instead, they collect fees from you and only later reveal their “startup” services are just a front for a typical consulting company.
If this sounds frustrating, then you and I agree.
Associate dentists deserve to know which consultants have a startup-specific track record, right? After all, this is a decision that will affect your entire life.
Your dental practice startup is bigger than a business deal. It’s more important than paying for cheap advice. This is about your entire future career, how you will provide for your family, and how you will impact your community.
That’s why you can use the 40 Categories of Consulting Due Diligence (below) to research if a dental startup consultant is right for your future practice.
These 40 Categories of Consulting Due Diligence will help you decide what to look for in a dental startup consultant.
#1 Integrity Gauge: Do they do what they say?
#2 Track Record: Have they helped at least 100 dental practice startups?
#3 – Save Time: Do they cut down your time or waste your time?
#4 – Save Confusion: What do they DO?
#5 – Save Money: Do they know the secrets to save you money?
Are you an associate dentist contemplating the path to practice
Opening a new dental practice is an exciting journey, but
Deciding between launching a new dental practice and acquiring an
Ask yourself if the consultant is one with a history of integrity and a proven track record of opening successful, values-based private practices.
Your future deserves nothing less.
If you choose correctly, you will get better results in less time, for a much lower cost than you can on your own.
This is when a consultant is worth the investment.
This is also the same reason patients come to you. They come for your expertise and experience, right?
Think about it: How strange would it be if a patient asked their neighbors to read their FMX?
Everyone knows that patients get better results with less time by going to someone experienced. Like you.
Opening a startup practice is like that.
You are a dentist, and you’re smart. I’m confident you do everything you can to be the best dentist possible. But did dental school teach you how to build a business from scratch?
I’m guessing no.
In this article, I am going to show you how to:
FIRST: Create a low-risk dental practice startup with the right plan and in the right town FOR YOU.
SECOND: Uncover the secrets of low cost while creating the clinical environment YOU DESIRE.
THIRD: Be proud to own a profitable practice by following a PROVEN process.
Can Opening a Dental Startup be Brainlessly Simple?
Step 1: Sign a lease.
Step 2: Buy and install dental chairs.
Done.
Just 2 steps is all it takes to “open”.
Obviously, that’s a joke.
If it were that simple, you and I wouldn’t hear so many stories of dental startups that struggle. Frankly, colleagues all over the country “own” startups and still work full-time for years in other practices.
Why? Because it’s more complicated than the noisy people on social media tell you.
It’s not their fault, they just haven’t opened more than 1 or 2 startups.
See, the problem is that it’s easy to “open” a practice. All you need to “open” is “chairs in a building.”
But don’t you want more than being “open”?
Of course!
You deserve to predictably have a profitable, customized practice that you’re proud to own.
With a full marketing strategy, you can be like these doctors (watch and see how many of them had hundreds of patients in their first month!).
If you want a profitable dental startup, you need business systems, protocol, and policies—months before you open.
This is called your StartupMBA, and every dental practice startup should have theirs 100% developed before opening day.
Then, after you do all this right, you open your doors with a real business. You can end up on the news and the radio like this doctor did– and pay nothing for all that publicity.
And guess what happens then?
You become a respected practice owner, admired by your community—even in your first month. Your reputation can launch respectably. Not in an embarrassing way.
The reality is that you don’t need to struggle and learn through trial-and-error.
See, startups can be rewarding. And profitable. Without all the risks.
That sounds a little better than “chairs in a building,” right?
Frankly, the expertise behind each of the 13 Stages of the startup process is incredibly complicated, with hundreds of moving parts and countless things to know, negotiate, and understand. Can you learn it all? Sure, I suppose.
Just open a few hundred, and you’ll be ready. 😊
But we’re talking about your future, your career, your family, and your legacy.
This is not a time to “learn as you go” or figure things out slowly as you struggle to pay bills. You don’t want to gamble with all that’s at stake by pulling together a mishmash of online advice and group opinions from so-called “experts” who maybe opened one practice.
Sure, you’re smart—but the truth is, do you really have the time to learn everything you will need to know about building and running a business?
How many podcasts can you listen to and online articles can you read to be 100% sure you’re on the right path for each of the 13 Stages?
A Typical Mistake from Other Colleagues
Please don’t rely on family or friends who have opinions about dental startups—unless they have actually opened over a hundred startups.
This is what happened to a doctor who recently emailed me with his horrific experience.
The $45,000 Mistake
This associate dentist chose a local contractor who said he had dental experience. The dentist wanted to help out the “local contractor”. Guess what the dentist got in return? An extra $45,000 of overages. Worse, he had a delay of four months in opening.
Can you imagine?!
Four months of making payments on your loan when you should have income but don’t—because your practice isn’t open on time. Or on budget.
All because that doctor made honest mistakes, cause by doing this the first time. He simply tried to do the right thing and “stay local”.
But remember, your choice in contractors is only one decision. There are 13 stages, each of which requires a career’s worth of knowledge to run predictably.
Don’t Be Someone’s “Experiment”
Know this: many of the “expert” opinions out there are from people who have never even opened a startup! Some of the noisy online opinions are students still in dental school.
You don’t want to be an experiment. You want experience.
The Top Question is…
Here’s a question for you—if your patient wanted to save money by allowing his attorney neighbor to pull his tooth, would you be on board with that?
Of course not!!
Why not? I’m betting it’s not about the money. You want what is best for your patients. You want it done right.
When it comes to finding the right dental consultant, you want someone like you. It’s not about the money. It’s about doing what is right—and knowing how to do it right.
My name is Jayme Amos, CEO of Ideal Practices. Our team of experts has helped more dentists succeed in private practice startup ownership than anyone in dentistry. Hundreds of associate dentists all over the country have applied for our dental office consulting program—many of them now with practices that produced over $1 million in their first year.
It is what we do—and we do it well.
Just like how you care to do what is right and best for your patients, we want what is right and best for our clients. As a bonus, we have enjoyed saving our clients hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sound good to you? Keep reading to find out how.
Before we go any further, let’s examine why associate dentists like you consider a startup practice:
WOW.
Why wouldn’t an associate dentist want all that…and more!?
Probably because of the fear and risks involved.
Do these risks look accurate?
Those are real. Colleagues struggle with all of them.
It happens to good doctors who were told by a salesman that its “simple” to “open”. Wrong.
It happens to doctors who jump in because someone told them “the failure rate is so low.” Wrong. You will hear people like bankers say this alot.
It happens because people on social media say it’s easy even though they haven’t opened more than 1 practice.
But nothing complicated is simple the first time, is it?
The thing is, having a successful dental practice startup CAN and DOES happen. And all you need is a proven process.
Next, I want to show you how to cut out the risk and enjoy your very own dental practice. I will even throw in a few case studies from our clients achieving over 100 new patients in the first week.
Building a dental office from scratch takes time, effort, and money.
And a LOT of decisions.
You have to find a location, get funding, decide on a floorplan, choose equipment, furniture, and decor, hire, train, and manage a team, determine your budget, come up with a business plan, implement marketing—the list goes on and on.
Our team of experts at Ideal Practices has seen the downside of doctors who try to navigate the dental startup process alone. They don’t reach their potential profits in a desirable timeframe. They have to deal with delays, change orders, permit problems, denials for funding, going over budget, flaws in their floorplan, miscommunications, and hiring the wrong team members. And they often have to compromise their vision. Sadly, too many end up bankrupt.
How do we know about so many poor doctor’s decisions? Because we have received countless emails from panicked and frustrated doctors who have run into problems. Problems that have cost them tens—even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Problems that have caused delays in opening their practice for eight months and longer.
Problems that could have been avoided.
Don’t be one of those doctors!
Call Ideal Practices BEFORE you make an irreversible mistake. Let us guide you through the process so you can be another one of our proud, incredibly happy doctors.
Our team reserves 10 free Strategy Calls per month for Associate dentists who want to explore this process. Jen is the #1 Startup Strategy Advisor who has spoken with hundreds of associates researching the startup process.
If you would like to apply for one of this month’s strategy calls with Jen, complete the form here:
Want a taste of what we can do for you? Take a look at what Dr. Alexis has to say about her new dental practice and working with Ideal Practices.
With the knowledge and experience of over a decade of opening dental practices, Ideal Practices developed a proven process—the 13-Stages Timeline.
If you follow the 13 Stages completely and in the right order with hundreds of practices of experience behind you, it takes all the risk out of opening your practice. With the hundreds of doctors we have worked with, NOT ONE has failed. In fact, they all consider themselves successful—and many have multi-million-dollar practices.
This detailed timeline brings you from idea to GRAND OPENING DAY with 100 new patients in your first week.
As you can see above, the FIRST stage is the Vision Stage.
In the Vision Stage, our team of experts conducts an in-depth phone interview with our high-level consulting clients.
During this call, we help you answer things like:
This is about customization. Nothing cookie-cutter about it.
Once we explore these answers together, we deconstruct your vision and REVERSE ENGINEER your customized plan.
This is why the Vision stage comes first. Everything comes back to your vision. This allows us to lower your risks while ensuring the startup process—from idea to opening day and beyond—is enjoyable and smooth for you.
What you DON’T want to do is tackle the stages out of order. For instance, DO NOT look at real estate or try to get funding before you are ready.
Learn if you should pay off your dental school debt and read about our silver platter strategy to get bankers begging to fund you on the terms we help you develop.
Keep reading to learn how to get your vision call and customized business plan.
With so many decisions and things to pay attention to, there’s no end to the number of mistakes you can make. Some tremendously expensive. Some irreversible. Especially when it comes to subtle legal language, vague contracts, and unexpected surprises.
As an example, here are just a few scenarios doctors have emailed me about when “going it alone” with a mishmash of “expert” advice have dealt with…
The frantic doctor says:
Understand this:
Dentists who try to learn while building their practice often make irreversible mistakes.
Instead of planning, they become reactive. They don’t have an accurate understanding of their budget, so they overspend. Or underspend.
Those doctors lose control.
Rather than having their practice open for them with profitability in the first weeks—on time and on budget—they open their door to…what?
They have open doors.
And lots of stress.
And their bank account is disappearing before their eyes.
Those struggles are heartbreaking. They can’t focus on their practice the way they want because they have to keep their associate job for months. Often longer. All because they have an underdeveloped, under-planned practice that takes years—if ever—to reach its potential.
Sometimes they fail completely and end up bankrupt.
Don’t let that happen to you.
Call Ideal Practices BEFORE you make an irreversible mistake. Let us guide you through the process so you can be another one of our proud, incredibly happy doctors.
Our team reserves 10 free Strategy Calls per month for Associate dentists who want to explore this process.
Jen is the #1 Startup Strategy Advisor who has spoken with hundreds of associates researching the startup process.
If you would like to apply for one of this month’s strategy calls with Jen, complete the form here:
Maybe the heading here should be more like, “The Benefits of Partnering with Ideal Practices,” as I can’t speak for all dental consultants.
But here’s another dose of tough love: many dental consultants out there attempt to lure in dentists with a menu of options.
They offer every kind of dental consulting services possible, including startups, buying or selling existing practices, bringing on associates, finding an associate position, relocation, and even taking over the entire management of dental practices.
Maybe that works for them.
I think it sounds like a diluted, disservice to good-hearted dentists.
Instead, at Ideal Practices, we specialize in dental practices startups.
That’s it. Just startups. Customized private practice startups, not cookie-cutter corporates.
It’s not a hobby or side job. It’s something we have done more than anyone in dentistry.
It’s not one of a dozen services. Our team members have been building successful dental practices for over a decade. And this is why we only accept a handful of clients each year—so we can focus and be 100 percent responsive and available to each of our high-level consulting clients.
Would you like to be one of the next success stories?
If you want your dental practice startup to follow your vision, everything must be customized to fit your vision. No compromises allowed. This is your practice. Your future. Your career. Why should you compromise?
Let’s explore this together. I want you to be one of our proud, incredibly happy clients.
Our team reserves 10 free Strategy Calls per month for Associate dentists who want to explore this process. Jen is the #1 Startup Strategy Advisor who has spoken with hundreds of associates researching the startup process.
If you would like to apply for one of this month’s strategy calls with Jen, complete the form here:
Is it best to go to a specialist?
Consider this: Can one dentist specialize in everything? I mean, it’s just a mouth with teeth and gums, right?
But how good could a dentist be at endo if they only did a couple of cases a year and all their CEs focused on implants?
Capable, maybe. Specialist with predictable results? Not so much.
If you require perio surgery, would you want to go to a periodontist—or someone who tried it one time?
Because of our expertise, experience, knowledge, and contacts, we have saved our clients time, confusion, and money. Often, we save them much more than our fees, all while reducing stress, frustrations, and disappointments.
Here are just a few recent wins we’ve created with our clients:
Let’s get you results. Let’s get you startup-specialized results.
As an associate, the business game is not yours. You go to work, take care of patients, and go home. Someone else takes care of those details.
And someone else determines the patient experience.
Someone else is responsible for the types of patients the practice markets to and attracts.
Someone else hires the team and sets the rules.
The location, the floorplan, the design, and the patient experience were all decided on by someone else.
YOU CAN build a practice that holds true to your vision. No compromises.
That’s exactly what Dr. Gerry found out.
He wanted to serve the less fortunate. It was his vision. His dream. While many people told him he should focus elsewhere if he wanted to have a successful practice, we embraced his vision. We even made sure his location included a bus stop in the “not-so-desirable” part of town.
Why? Because it was meaningful to him. And that’s why our team built him a custom plan for this very specific customized practice model.
Dr. Gerry’s practice shows how customized planning led to success in his dental practice.
Dr. Gerry was proud and profitable, with over 300 patients in his first few weeks. He grew to a production of a million dollars within his first year.
If he had followed others’ “expert” advice, this would not have been possible.
Be like Dr. Gerry. Be proud of your practice because it matches your values in the community you want to serve.
Makes sense, right?
This isn’t about cookie-cutter. It’s not group consensus. It’s about your fulfillment, your desires, your future, and your control.
When we understand, create, and build your vision, our team of experts at Ideal Practices helps you reverse engineer the model of practice that is right for you. Not what some guy said on a podcast. Not what someone on the other side of the country said on Facebook.
What they did in one practice is irrelevant for your vision, your town, and your desire for your future.
Everything is filtered through your vision. Your dream. This allows you to open a successful practice you can be proud of—even in the first month.
Let’s get you a proven path that leads to predictable results, builds your future and reputation, brings you rewarding profits, and gives you complete control in your practice.
Like Dr. Lauren.
Dr. Lauren’s vision was for a boutique practice that grew fast.
She had 209 patients within days of opening her doors.
Watch her story in this video. Listen to her say, “The phone won’t stop ringing.”
I will personally work 1-on-1 with you to create a customized plan to match your desires for private practice ownership.
How does that sound?
I want you to be another one of our proud, incredibly happy doctors.
Our team reserves 10 free Strategy Calls per month for Associate dentists who want to explore this process. Jen is the #1 Startup Strategy Advisor who has spoken with hundreds of associates researching the startup process.
If you would like to apply for one of this month’s strategy calls with Jen, complete the form here:
Once we know your vision, our team reverse engineers your customized dental business plan based on your vision. We put in all the hard work. And this business plan dictates everything else that follows.
Notice, we have not yet talked to banks, studied demographics, looked at real estate, discussed budget, or talked with vendors. Vision and business plan come first. STAGE ONE.
Oh, wait…
Maybe you have talked with a bank.
You think you can skip this step because the bank said you don’t need a business plan?
WRONG.
Read that again.
The days of being able to hang a shingle and work out of your house or make a good living in any building in your neighborhood are long gone. Today’s startups require much more than a cheap “approval” letter from a bank.
(Besides, they’re non-binding, so ask yourself why banks make such a big deal about them.)
Want the hard truth?
Whether or not the bank requires a business plan, having a successful dental practice startup requires it. While dental school didn’t teach you about building a business plan, it is one of the biggest indicators for long-term success.
How do we know?
Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that ALL our high-level dental consultants have a business plan—one that is customized to their vision. Think maybe that has something to do with the fact that none of our clients have failed and all of them are successful—many of them collecting over a million dollars a year?
You bet!
Your customized business plan is your chart for success. It projects your finances, budget, marketing plan, break-even point, and much more…
At Ideal Practices, we have a team of experts ready to help you through each of the 13 stages. We will bring you from idea to opening day and beyond, including our StartupMBA program.
Our StartupMBA program, created by our Senior Startup Advisor, includes one-on-one assistance, guidance, support, and training to equip you as a business owner. All your systems, policies, protocol, hiring, and marketing are PRE-made.
How good would it feel to have THAT as your startup?
The President of Ideal Practices has assisted over 600 dentists build business plans and secure the necessary funding for startup practices. (The amount needed is determined by your vision and business plan, not what the bank thinks you need.)
We have the “Picasso of Floorplans” on our team. He has created over 600 customized dental floorplans, and he can work magic to bring your vision to life. It’s not about squeezing every last drop of profit out of the world’s smallest operatories. That doesn’t bring happiness in practice ownership.
Let’s make your floorplan a piece of art, designed by the guy with more dental startup floorplans than anyone in dentistry.
Your success is our success, and we ensure you have all the right tools and information needed as we guide you along the path to becoming a highly successful dental practice owner.
Our 2-day Startup Blueprint Course is taught by the country’s top experts in dental startups. The information provided is invaluable and proven to lead to success.
Some of the topics include:
But don’t delay, we only accept 24 applicants into the course twice per year.
Still not convinced?
Call Ideal Practices BEFORE you make an irreversible mistake. Let us guide you through the process so you can be another one of our proud, incredibly happy doctors.
Our team reserves 10 free Strategy Calls per month for Associate dentists who want to explore this process.
Jen is the #1 Startup Strategy Advisor who has spoken with hundreds of associates researching the startup process.
If you would like to apply for one of this month’s strategy calls with Jen, complete the form here:
Here’s to you and your IDEAL future,
Jayme
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