Dental Practice Success Story From a Small Town Dentist
In this article, you'll be reading a big dental practice success story from a small town dentist named Ginger Bratzel. In here, you'll see how she struggled from being a small town dentist whose practice has not been doing too well from the beginning.. to a successful small town dentist with her own system in her dental practice.. with our help! And this is something we focus specifically at our dental practice website!
Here's her success story....
My name is Ginger Bratzel, and I am a small town dentist from Socorro, New Mexico, and were located south of Albuquerque in a farming type community. Socorro is a little town, it's about 8000 people. And I'm proud to say that it is my hometown, and that is why I came back here in Socorro. I practiced dentistry so that I can build a career in my hometown. I wanted to help my patients, know the business to help the community, and also I wanted to raise my family here because I love being here; animals are a big part of my life, I have some livestock (goats, cattle) and I wanted to live out here and this is what we do. But I just didn't fall into this situation, I built this situation. About 14 to 15 years ago, I purchased a practice that was 20 plus years old from an older dentist that was retiring, and I am ashamed to say that it was a typical small town dental practice. It was not very profitable, and it was high on stress! The patients were getting care, but they were under the impression that they got a different level of care. They thought that because they were just small town people, and they're not in Hollywood or New York, they were getting a "patch and fill" kind of dentistry and extraction type dentistry (which is not true), and they just don't know any better! So they didn't take what they wanted, what they needed and also what they desired. They just took what there was. And so, I built a practice... but then on the 2nd month that I was on the practice, either I had to fire or I lost a hundred percent of the staff! So think of the situation: I'm in a small town, my home town and everybody knows me, and I lose everybody! How am I supposed to go on and build the practice? You know, I have some relationship with them from being a hometown girl, but I don't have a professional relationship with them. So, we struggled and built that practice up, built a super-star team and we were going through it. But it didn't go fast. There was a lot of knocks on the road, and I made a lot of mistakes. But I was working under the assumption, as most people do in dentistry (which was totally wrong), that they call it the "7-year rule", that you can't be profitable and you won't be really successful in any business until about the 7th year in your practice. So you just need to knock it out and do your dues, pay your dues and you'll have that opportunity. So there were times like my dental assistant got paid more than me! Think about that: I'm the doctor, and I had 100% of the debt, I had 100% responsibility, and I had 100% of the risks... and my 20-year old dental assistant that I trained, who was a waitress before that is getting more money from me. I mean, that's just screwed up, right? So that's what the consultants were telling me, you just keep working hard and eventually you'll find it. And so I said "That's beat and that's just plain not true... and who says I can't start on the top?". So I looked at what the other dentists are doing and I have seen what kind of marketing they were doing, what kind of practices they were building... and 97% of them were all the same! And I said to myself "That's them... and this is me... and I built my own practice... and I built it for me, my family, and I built it for my patients!". And I just didn't understand it, at that time, that I was building the best practice for them so they know what they we're getting into and I was giving the best care of dentistry (so no more "patch and fill" dentistry; no more extraction type dentistry... I was giving them the best, and I built the practice on my terms!) So I went about building this "dream team", and I wasn't getting them, I had to create them (and they're not boring and they're creative). And we built a high-tech dental office in a small town environment, and we wanted it to be special! We needed to specialize in things nobody else specializes into, and as I am going through building this, researching about all these top dentists and all these top practices, what was 99% that was out there were made by people from the cities. And I had to look at that and say that we just can't do that... that we're going to have to change this and do this. So I had to develop my own system, my own success and my own rules about how we're going to go about this. And as I went through and did this, I started getting the attention of a lot of doctors. And not just small town doctors... I had doctors from L.A.,New York, Chicago and Boston... asking me "How are you doing this and that?". And I told them "Well, I got my own systems and I can do this!" And they asked me "Can we come to your office and see what you're doing?". And I said "I don't know... that's just a lot of people to try and train!" You see, I wish that I had the system way back then that was custom-made for successful small town dentsits. And I went about that and I thought about that, and we developed the system. That's because that's what we had to do, build a "recipe" and a script. Not only did I need something to follow, I needed the blueprint.. I needed something for my team to know (I mean you're sharing a vision in creating this). And as we were going through, I need something for them to follow. So, I teamed up with one of my mentors, an awesome guy, Ed O' Keefe, a "millionaire dental-maker" (that's what I would call him) and he knows dental marketing. So we talked and he said "You know what, let's do something specific for this small town dentist, because wouldn't it be nice if there would be no need to go through those struggles?" And so we created, the first of its kind, a small town dental success system especially for small town dentist. So wouldn't it be nice to know how to get new patients in a small town... and do it effectively and economically.. and have success with it? And it's because the systems that work with other people doesn't work with us. What about finding and building a "super-star" team? Like I told you earlier, I had to let go or lost this so called team in the first two months. So I had to go about developing it and building it. So we wrote a recipe card on how we're going to do that.. like "how are you going to make hygiene profitable?". Most people ( and not just the people from small town ), think that most patients are not so concerned with these area.. that the patients are not concerned about tissue management, not concerned about other issues... and I beg to differ, because you know we did that in our office in a matter of three months.. and we were averaging about $797 a day, and in hygiene production! And I had a superstar hygienist in a matter of three months... and turned that around, then I was doing $3,000 per day (and that's with one hygienist!). Now, I would beg to differ that most of the small town dentists can't make $3,000 daily. So, how's this hygienist doing it? The answer to that is "We wrote a system, we got the recipe!" and we can show you how to do that, too! We also went through and talked about how you can attract non-price sensitive patients, because you know what, you have one thing small town people don't have money, and I beg to differ... because you just don't know where you're looking, and you got to look at the right place! So these people are not price-sensitive; they want value, they want the best they can do for us and they don't have insurance involvement (most of them don't have insurance). Let's count it that most people, in any town, go look people with the insurance and hope to get the most out of them. And I say "You know what? Go find the people you want the dentistry... because that's where you need to be looking!" There are also hidden dangers in small town practices... and we went through and identified them to make sure that you don't fall in the same pitfall. So, whether you've been practicing 5 months, or 15 or 25 years, you need to cut that slack out of your life! It's because we want to build systems (remember that I told you we made the recipe cards) which is stress-free for the doctor and also stress-free for the staff where it could be repeated. And you don't need all the hassle in your life.. because you got the staff in there... and if you just empower them and you train them... and that's the biggest thing! You're going to make them accountable and you got to train them to do it. And they can have the success that you want to have for your practice. And you know what, I love it at the end of the day when they're jumping up and down and they have created all of that for me. And I just sit there and I roll along with that big wave of success because they are the ones who are doing it!