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Practice Website: https://glomoderndental.com/

Email: rhondakalasho@glomoderndental.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.rhondakalasho/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dr.rhondakalasho

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Tools/Resources:

• HubSpotHubSpothttps://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjjuryZn42DAxXKB60GHWZzBfYYABAAGgJwdg&ase=2&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyeWrBhDDARIsAGP1mWSmA-wnuIpk3AgrP6Q4LOTx7tZpTWkt9X_vnRvjxA6TpHggzdgGerIaAoxFEALw_wcB&ei=6xJ6ZaSIDeGC0PEP-5GPaA&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAESV-D2LJrATp36pfi4qgGRCTKgaEIqiHzgIfDNWGIzDXafM7fx84q8a9o3MfxOBrhzqXvVlJtKltzCsaJOIqike632B7HWKepVIukxm2wCNCtob28pZUpKag&sig=AOD64_0lSViVPzY6D95mLKOsmbn2Bwj18A&q&sqi=2&nis=4&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjkqbaZn42DAxVhATQIHfvIAw0Q0Qx6BAgJEAE
• Trainual
• Pearl (AI software)
• TurboTax
• Google Ads

Companies/Brands:

• BBC
• MSNBC
• Forbes
• ZocDoc
• Invisalign

Terms:

• HMO
• Medi-Cal
• ROI - Return on Investment
• EBITDA - Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization
• Wet Dentistry
• OL - Oral Leukoplakia
• AI - Artificial Intelligence
• SEO - Search Engine Optimization
• PPC Ads
• LLC - Limited Liability Company
• S Corporation
• C Corporation
• W-2
• Cavitron
• Piezo

Locations/Establishments:

• UCLA
• UCSD

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What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Dr. Kalasho's journey from graduate to successful entrepreneur owning multiple dental practices.
• Understanding contracts and the importance of developing sound business acumen.
• Insights into partnerships and dental practice acquisitions.
• Using dental insurance as a financial safeguard while maintaining quality care.
• Implementing AI in dental practices: from patient care to insurance dealings.
• The role of tax planning and smart investments in building wealth.

Please don't forget to share with us on Instagram when you are listening to the podcast AND if you are really wanting to show us love, then please leave a 5 star review on iTunes!

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Michael: All right. It's time to talk with our featured guest, Dr. Rhonda Kalasho. How's it

Rhonda: going? Great. Excellent. I'm in Los Angeles. How can I, how can I fight this weather? We got sun.

Michael: I know we got, sun yesterday

Rhonda: Yeah. Oh yeah. You're, You're not far. got rain ever. There was car accidents everywhere. Cause nobody knows what to do. Yeah. Car accidents everywhere. Exactly. There's traffic. There's like a little splatter of rain and suddenly we don't have driver's license. Did it rain a lot in San Diego or no?

Yeah. It rained a lot. It rained a lot. My parents live out there. I live in Los Angeles, but I mean, we had a lot of rain yesterday, but we love it. I love it. I eat it

Michael: up. like a nice change of pace of everything. We all feel like we, what do we do? We got to shut down and everything like

Rhonda: that.

I'm that person that puts up the Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. So now it matches the weather.

Michael: That's awesome. So if you can tell us a little bit about your past, your present, how'd you get to where you are

Rhonda: today? Yeah, absolutely. I own, uh, multiple practices under one brand called True Glow Modern Dental.

Uh, I did end up owning, uh, an HMO practice straight out of residency, which I loved a lot, but, uh, I ended up, it was a partnership that didn't go well. And it's because I didn't really understand contracts at the time and, So I ended up, uh, just selling my shares of that and then purchasing my first office in Hollywood, in 2018, in 2020 I opened up my, uh, Beverly Hills location and now I'm opening up my Calabasas location. I'm pretty busy right now. I have two little ones at home. But what got me into practice ownership is, uh, I really thought that there was a market deficit in dentistry where it's essentially affordable care, but also at the same time, high quality. and I wanted to utilize some of my business background because I was an undergrad as an undergrad major, I was a business administration, major.

And then I picked up some of the prereqs before UCLA to finish up. To get into dental school, but I had a good business acumen before I began my dental journey. And I knew that there was, a really great market for potential of membership style dental offices, which don't operate like an insurance, but more like how you would see traditional memberships, businesses operating where you have a fixed monthly amount, and then you are given, Reduce fees or whatever for a service.

And so we were able to do that. Um, I also own my own dental laboratory. So my costs are, fixed in a way where I can produce high quality care, but at the same time, affordably for my patients as well. so we're, uh, kind of a niche brand of dentistry. we do have patients that still come in with insurance.

We concierge bill their insurance and the patient gets billed or gets paid directly. Um, that's part of my brand. I just wanted to grow and develop this, business perspective that I had even as an undergrad. and now, lo and behold, I actually really love dentistry. I'm still a wet handed dentist, so I do practice all the time. and you can see that on my Instagram page. I do some, uh, pretty crazy video, full mouth rehab cases. I learned that at my residency, which I did at UCSD. And I recommend everybody actually do a residency. Super important. All my, colleagues and associates that work under our brand have done residencies. that's what got me here. I love. Not only the practice of dentistry, but the business, of dentistry as well.

Michael: Nice. Okay. So it's good. Let's rewind a little bit. You said you immediately out of residency, you jumped into practice ownership. You owned HMO. Crazy me. Yeah. Why, Why did you do that?

Well, I

Rhonda: did go into, office kind of thing a little bit. I did that for like two months and it just didn't fit my style. I wanted certain equipment, I wanted certain things when I would work and it was just the bare bones. I remember being asked to do endo without a rubber dam and without all of a sudden it was just like, I was just kind of.

Especially when you're out of dental school you're, you're kind of still into the standard of care and you're really wanting to make sure that you're practicing that as such. And I remember the corporate setting was very much a patient push and making sure that they finish the treatment, make sure that they get the treatment done, make sure that you hit your quotas and all that.

And it's all respectable. That's fine. Everybody needs to be aware of numbers, but it became more of less. Quality of and more of just pushing dental treatment out. Um, I quickly ran away from that, but found a great office that I liked a lot. They did accept HMOs and HMO style Cal office. was nice and you can still be very profitable in that market. It's not like you need to be all fee for service to be profitable as a medical or HMO dental practice. It's just a different practice setting. but they're still very profitable practices. And so if people are out there looking at maybe buying in or buying, only a fee for service office.

Fee for service offices are incredibly difficult to maintain and hold because as soon as a patient gets insurance, they may leave you, um, as opposed to an insurance based practice, even in the worst times of economic issues

But for fee for service, you may find that if you're just collecting free for service, you'll have a lot of waxing and waning of the times and then you'll have these tides of Being really busy and then not being really busy.

and that could be really detrimental, but I got into the HMO practice, and then I was offered a partnership, um, because I expressed actually my, my goal of practice ownership. So that's how I got in so quickly. Um, so I, expressed that during my business, meetings with them that I wanted to get involved in as being a practice owner.

Um, so I quickly got into that. but the, the way that it was laid out was of course, I just kind of went and read the contract myself. I didn't have a lawyer read it over. I didn't. And so what ended up happening at the end is I put a lot of my own equity in it, but didn't get a good return.

and that's a pro, I mean, I always. Call my career as a, constant trajectory of falling forward because I'm constantly making mistakes. And I don't know everything that I'm doing every day. That is a hundred percent. This is the right way of doing it, but a part of building yourself as a professional and an entrepreneur is making mistakes and being okay with that, but you have to learn and learn why it was done and not reproduce the same mistakes.

Michael: Interesting. Okay. And it's interesting your, point on fee for service and insurance. I feel like right now, a lot of the practices we're trying to kind of transition out of insurance, right? We're saying, Hey, I want to drop all that because I can't, you know, they're, judging our, work, when we do that.

But when it comes to the other way around, how you mentioned it, Hey, if you start off fee for, so what do you recommend Rhonda? lot of the times we want to just start off hitting the ground running fee for service, and a lot of the times. Some people recommend, hey, get some assurances, then slowly drop them off.

And then completely go fee for service.

Rhonda: Yeah. Absolutely. I think if you build it, they will come depending on how you're going to build it. If you want to build it as a fee for service practice, you may want to just stick to it. It does create a fire under your butt to make sure that you're keeping your practice going.

Because if you kind of get into this. The cushion of insurance and insurance does offer cushion, although sometimes we deem them as being, subpar and they're not paying us or reimbursing as well at the end of the day. if it is an 800 crown, if you're taking two hours to do that, yeah, that's.

And this is for the new dentists. your, your chair time should be a thousand dollars an hour. If that's what you want to see it as. And that's just basic, right? Like just if you think about how much you're going to have to spend in overhead, dental overhead is incredibly expensive because hygienists get paid a lot.

Dental office managers get paid a lot. Dental assistants nowadays, especially in Los Angeles, their average salary is 23 an hour. That's average. So that's a lot. And by the way, they're very accustomed to getting, full benefits. So they do have our, in our practices, they have health insurance, they have gym memberships.

They have a lot of stuff that, that is given. 401ks. They have dependents that can get health insurance in our practice. We run it like a corporation and people are very accustomed to that. Even if you're a small dental office, you have to offer these kinds of things. So to that, you have to say that the overhead clearly is very expensive and a lot of your, third party payers, like your dental laboratory is a cost.

And the equipment and supplies is also a cost. So yeah, insurance paying you 800 is very low, but if you are, able to do a very nice quality prep, remove all the decay and all that in like 30 minutes, it's not that bad. And that's better than making, not making no money in that time.

there is a misconception also that. being really busy means that you are making more money. And those sometimes those HMO practices who are super, super busy, they're pumping out patients left and right. At the end of the day, the fee for service person who saw two patients as opposed to 15 patients is still making the same amount.

So it doesn't mean that you have to be very busy, but you just have to create this niche brand or a market for someone to want to pay a fee for service as opposed to going out with insurance. But if you're going to do insurance, a couple things it's good to build the practice, with insurance, if you have nothing there, but if your intention is to drop those insurances, then maybe not sign up for a lot of them because a lot of the times patients will.

Leave you as much as you are a great dentist and all of us love to pat ourselves on the backs and they'll go, we're so amazing. No, one's going to leave us, but I'll tell you, they'll leave you so fast. So as soon as you tell them, okay, so your copay is not 300 anymore, you gotta pay 2, 500 for this crown.

They're going to run like the wind, right? So like they're going to go to, they'll look to Yelp or something and try to get. Something better, but I'm saying that they're what you have to understand is if you're going to be a fee for service office, you have to provide a service that is very much, reflective of the amount you're asking this person to pay.

So you have for every beck and call, you have to offer 24 hour concierge service. You have to talk to them. you have to understand these people, 2, 500 for a lot of people for many people is a lot of money. And that's one crown, right? So if you're going to offer this kind of service to them and your fee for service and not offering any other benefits to them, even if it's payments that you're offering, they are paying this whole dollar amount rather than going through their insurance, which may be paid through their employer.

So you have to create your business models are completely different. So you have to be okay with it. You can meet the same bottom line. You can meet the same profits, but when your HMO got to go faster, you got to move faster. You can't just dilly dally, talk to the patients too long, blah, blah, blah. But you also need to treat them like people.

It's very important. People also don't want to be treated like cattle, right? they're still paying whatever they're paying for that. So they're going to come in and they want to be respected in the time, but you have to be mindful of your time if you're doing HMO and even PPO.

But even PPO insurances don't pay well either, some of them do, some of them pay well, but you still have to. Make sure that you are being aware of you almost have a calculator in your head that your should not be wasted because the overhead is too much and you'll find yourself in a very bad zone your PNL statements where you're seeing your profits kind of dwindle.

So just making sure that you're aware of that and speed it up if you're HMO PPO fee for service you can kind of create a little bit more of a pampering effect. Yeah.

Michael: Interesting. So then, fee for service, like you said, pampering effect, HMO, or like Medi Cal, right? You'd really, or not Medi Cal, you'd really have to hone in on your efficiency.

Oh, yeah,

Rhonda: especially when they're first out of dental school, like you got, I remember three hours to do a crown nowhere in private practice is three hours for a crown going to be efficient for anybody, like anybody, not the practice, not the patient. The patient's experience is going to suddenly start to, I remember numbing the patient so many times in dental school because it would fade.

I would like, you know, and then they're like, ah, they're constantly moving. It's, It's just, you don't want to. You have to make sure that their experience and what they're feeling in that moment, all that is always in your mind. And this is, that's why dentistry is so hard. You're like a psychologist.

You're like a business owner. You're like their friend, but then also their doctor. And then you're sitting with multiple hats and still trying to work. in a kind of a bloody messy environment and work at the millimeter, you know, like, so is a tough job, but it's a, it's also one of the best fields, to be in.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So then if we fast forward a little bit more, you talked about your partnership, how it did not go well. and you mentioned that you put a lot of equity, but you didn't get a good ROI out of it. Right. Specifically, where did you feel like you missed the mark? Where you're like, yeah, if I would have seen that and you want to kind of give us advice or warn us about that.

Rhonda: Yeah. I think I wouldn't, what ended up happening is it was. I was the only one working there. Okay. So there was nobody else there. And so as I was building up this practice and bringing in all the things that I have done for my own brand, I was, buying dental equipment.

And leasing it out under my name and doing all this others and not under the corporation and not under the partnership. It was only for me. I was putting in all this dollars, all this money marketing was spent through me. I started my own Instagram page. I started the own Facebook page. I was doing so much and then bringing up this practice and its value.

And then when I was, uh, told to. Buy in, I was bought in at the practice value that I brought in. Right. so I put in the money and then bought myself back. Right. And so It didn't work when I got paid out because I got paid out before the money I put in.

So it was, I had built it up to what it was and it was just the way that it was laid out. It was really laid out in an unfair way. definitely just kind of taking advantage of a person just. That is maybe not of the nuances of contracts, especially between partners, but just as a pearl to people is that you have to make sure that you have a lawyer reading any agreement that you sign and that they can kind of give you the ins and outs of that and understand that even, you know, you're going to Google and all that kind of stuff.

it may be true because especially when you're first out of school, you don't have a lot of money to hire a lawyer or somebody to help you out with that. But even if you have maybe family member that may help you out for your charge to read some of the contracts is going to help. I just got a little, you know, I got a little too pompous and said, Oh, this is, it sounds great.

I can have 40 percent ownership and you never get really majority, but, uh, no, I didn't have, I actually had 11%. but I'm saying that sometimes it could be offered You're never really going to be offered a majority. Anybody who owns a practice should not give actually majority.

To a colleague or an associate, this is still your baby. This is still your brand and your corporation. you don't want to give a majority because you still want to hold, a lot of the, um, the voting rights and all that would fall ultimately onto you. You don't want your brand to be carried on by someone else, if you want somebody invested.

Into your practice because you never wash rental car, right? And you never put glass in a rental car. You kind of just give it to them as all beat up. But if somebody is going to invest in your practice and they've been with you for many years, giving them some sort of equity or practice ownership in the practice itself or in the corporation is actually a great idea. but, uh, they have to also be vested with you, uh, financially and in time, both monetarily and in time.

Michael: Okay. Gotcha. Interesting. So then right after that, you decided, all right, let's see, I'm going to start my own thing or were you, you worked for a private, right? You worked for a private practice?

I worked for

Rhonda: a private practice, uh, for a little bit, maybe like two months. And then I did for like another three, all together, maybe six months after graduating, I, uh, ended up getting into this partnership. but then as soon as my partnership was settled out and I got whatever I could get out of it, I used that money to buy a practice that wasn't doing well at all.

It was actually a bankrupt practice, a beautiful location, what I noticed about that practice is they had a really. Robust hygiene department, their patients were coming in regularly. They were seeing about, you know, six patients a day in hygiene and they had four hygiene days. but I noticed the doctor's schedule was dead because the doctor wasn't there.

So they had this essentially just a sitting body of water it's like, well, if you have a good hygiene department, there's no reason why a restorative. section of that practice should not be thriving as well because those patients are coming in regularly. You should be doing exams.

You should be following up with their care, but they were just coming in for cleanings and then just being off on their way and coming back in another six months. But was no doctor to sometimes even treatment plan them in that day. It's because that just that doctor does. Felt like dentistry was not for them.

they didn't like practice ownership at all. And, um, I, at that time had met a broker at a convention at the CDA conference. And he was, uh, like, you know, kind of kept in contact with me, gave me all these, uh, potential offices. This one was just cheap because of its, uh, you know, annual, salary that it was receiving and it's was very low.

Or even it wasn't, wasn't good at all, but it was a practice that I could buy relatively dirt cheap. And, but when I got in there, they had carpet, hate carpet in a dental office. If you guys have it, maybe get rid of it, but. it's so gross.

Okay. But, but the, the lobby, I remember the chairs are like these dental, these like not dental school. They were like school, like schoolyard chairs. And then they were like propped up by magazines and, um, the front desk person didn't even acknowledge when I walked in there and it was like, just like the walls were blue.

It was just like such a. ugly thing. But I, had a vision and I had a goal in mind. I wanted to buy a practice. So this was for all intents and purposes, a great find. It had a great hygiene department. It needed a pick me up. and it's slowly, but surely over the years. And I went from, uh, that office 2018 to 2020 in the middle of a pandemic opening another one.

So it's fully doable to ramp up even a shitty practice, but you can still ramp it up if you have the vision in mind there. But so it was considered an acquisition, there's build outs and there's an acquisition. that one was an acquisition because it was still owned by someone.

But When I got in there, you have an option of actually keeping on the staff or you can, find new ones, right? Or you don't have to keep everybody on when you actually find yourself on the first day of an acquisition, you present everybody there with a letter. And generally they're not knowledgeable that the practice was even being sold. that's common practice, uh, that. we don't spook people out, right? When sometimes when even patients hear that there is a new practice that's coming in or owner that's coming in, they may leave you're acquiring a practice, a lot of the times they don't inform them until the practice is acquired and then you can send out a bunch of, emails or letters out to the patient and then to the staff.

So in my case, when I came in, I was not in love with the staff. I didn't like. That the front person didn't acknowledge that I was there, didn't even look up from her computer. I didn't like that the hygienist, uh, was not using cavitrons or was just basically using prophy cups. It wasn't like scaling or any of that.

I ended up just firing everybody and starting fresh. again I had a vision of someone when you walk the room, they're bubbly, they're happy. They are the first introduction to your practice before they even, even on the phone, you can hear them. You know, you want somebody that is going to drive in patients and that.

really somber person in the front plays a damper on the mood everywhere. It's like, try to DMV. Do you, everyone look happy? No, it's like you just, everyone's pissed because the person in the front is not the Walmart reader. Like I walk in and I love it. Right. I'm like, yeah, we're here. Okay. Like that's right.

Yeah. You're at a shop. Like That's what you want. And what I felt like this is definitely a branding issue. And when you're building a brand, this is stuff that you have to think about. You have to think about the smell. You have to think about the sights. You have to think about the colors.

These are all very much, uh, part of even dentistry, because dentistry is a small little business. So you have to know, you can't just pop in with ugly carpet and propped up, uh, chairs.

Michael: Yeah, it's interesting that you did that though, because I guess like advise, it's like, yeah, you know, here's the thing.

When you do an acquisition, a lot of the times the team may feel betrayed by their original doctor and saying, how come you didn't let us know this, we've been with you forever. We would have understood this. Right. so there's that trust that kind of like deteriorates. Then they kind of start having the fear, like, oh my gosh.

Who's this doctor? Who's this young doctor? I know more than her, right? Especially those older office managers. Like they're like, Oh no, no, no, no, sweetie, please can tell you how to do this. Right. And then they try to run it. But letting go everybody at once, how'd you do that? or could you have coached anybody like, cause the hygienist sounded like they were still really good cause they were keeping people on.

Rhonda: Yeah. so, for the front person, honestly, I just felt like she didn't even their AR reports cause you do a due diligence on the practice when you're acquiring it their. AR, which is accounts receivable, was very high. So they were collecting zero copay and just kind of letting the person know.

I mean, I did, I'll say this, I did give them a chance, right? Like talking to them, um, about maybe collecting copays before the patient comes in, talking about deposits and immediately they shut it down. If someone is not on. your same mindscape and they're not, actually thinking on your level and that they want to build this practice, they're going to be a plague on the practice.

So you should immediately just squash it, right? Because if that person is not like. Excited. Oh yeah. There's a new person here with all this energy wants to ramp it up and they're feeling it. They're like, yeah, okay, let's do it. Yeah, we definitely. there, and when you bring up, a report to someone cause I remember sitting next to this, the front office person was also there.

It wasn't, she didn't have an office manager. It was a very small skeleton practice. Actually it had no dental assistant. Um, so the person in the front actually, uh, worked as the dental assistant and the person in the front. So I wouldn't say I fired, but everybody, I mean, there wasn't really much of anybody.

There was an associate that popped up and did like an OL every 10 months, right? Um, like, which is a. You guys all know dental ever. You're on. Well, like a little tiny filling like every day and then didn't even take out all the amalgam. It was just like, I don't know what the hell I was looking at, but it didn't have a huge, practice.

It wasn't like I fired 11 people. I fired three people that were unnecessary. Right. That didn't meet the. And then when I, if I talked to the hygienist and I told, you know, look at the, there are studies on. arrest in their studies on laser. Do you? I'm going to pay for you to take some of these courses. I want you to learn how to do a laser debridement.

I want you to use the air polisher or whatever, all these other things that you can provide rather than a prophy cup. Maybe just learn how to scale a little bit, right? Because there's all this plasma this person's tooth. Use the cabotron, use the piezo. And oh, you know, I don't know, you know, I'm really good with this tool and literally how it holds one tool for every surface of the tooth.

And it's like, okay, if you're not ready, To change and be part of this, essentially look at where we are now. I had a goal in mind, right? If you weren't ready to hop on my back and I, and fly with me, I'm going to leave you on the ground. You're done. Right? Because then you're going to be a plague on my practice.

You're going to be a splinter and I can't move on. Right. I can't get to where I need to be. if you're trying to get from here to there with the same people it's not going to happen. And even when you get to there, you grow, you get more people So my practice has grown significantly from those three people I fired.

I now I'm 50 employees deep, right? And every one of them is very much attuned to our mission and our practice philosophy. And we, we really spend a lot of time in making sure that everyone is on the same page.

Michael: Okay. So that's interesting. That's really, really good then. So. I know you mentioned that, oh, how long have you been in practice

Rhonda: ownership for?

Uh, 2018.

Michael: How many years? 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Five? Five years. Five years. Man, how many practices do you have currently? Like working and running?

Rhonda: Uh, now three. Yeah. Three. Los Angeles. Los Angeles. No. Oh, well, Beverly Hills. They're all in Los Angeles. So I just stick in this area. Um, they're Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Calabasas.

Jeez.

Michael: And that's such a saturated. So how did you do it? Why? here? Like

Rhonda: why? I like torture. It's nice. It was, It was terrible. Yes. You said saturated. Absolutely. In my building alone on the same floor, I have four dentists.

Michael: Yeah. It was great. So then me ask you, why did you decide to do that? How did you make it grow so much so fast to where you're like, we're three and I think you're on another build out, you said, right?

Rhonda: I'm on another build out and then, yeah, I'm on a build out right now. I'm actually in the middle. I got permits for it yesterday, so I'm super excited. So that I have a team that's going to come in and just do our same look. We have a systems always we try to reproduce it and then I have a projection for 2025 is an acquisition.

So I'm currently just looking at potential acquisitions as well.

Michael: these aren't build outs like ground

Rhonda: up. No, they're not The next one is going to be an acquisition because, uh, these buildouts in Los Angeles, the thing is that you can't really own buildings in Los Angeles. They're either grandfathered in, they're incredibly expensive.

Like we're not talking about like, I'm sure Nebraska parts of it is expensive, but like, you know, there's some parts like Arkansas, whatever people are going to buy these massive buildings. Right. And that's amazing. I love that. I'm married to this city. Okay. Because I married my husband's out here.

My family's out here. I would love to get into more of a less saturated environment. I bet you, I can kill it somewhere else. Right. But I am now getting tortured and killed here, but I've grown to realize, um, what is needed in this kind of market and facilitate a growth.

Um, and a lot of it has to do with. front loading, a lot of marketing right off the bat and then getting a good SEO, doing PPC ads, um, doing even mail marketing campaigns. You're kind of just throwing everything out there and then seeing what sticks because a lot of times you may have mail marketing not work out, but in some locations it works out because the demographics still checks her mail in Hollywood.

Mail marketing for me does not work. Right. But PPC campaigns and local ad campaigns with Google works out for me, having my, website, really honed in on keywords and all that kind of stuff and having good SEO that's going to manage. the traffic that's coming in is really important for Hollywood for Beverly Hills.

There's an older demographic there's a bunch of homes around there. these male marketing campaigns and even being in magazines or whatever it is, those tend to actually work. we still, of course, run our Google. Everybody still uses Google or we're going to, uh, aside that we're talking about other things.

Facebook. It's still working with that. Calabasas is the same. These locations are, if they're mostly have homes around you rather than apartments and stuff like that, because I think the apartments, it's a very transient, uh, living situation. You may have some people coming in for a couple of months and leaving mail marketing campaigns don't always work out. these, uh, physical, uh, news articles and whatever it is, may not be working out, but, uh, I also have found, um, being in Hollywood, I was reached out a couple of times by magazines, right? And so like our lure, BBC, MSNBC, I was on Forbes for Hollywood's, they called me the most stylish dentist.

I don't know. Okay. But I think it sounds like I was a stylish dentist, but I think they were talking about practice when you were getting into the article, but like the style, the brand was there and it was recognized by Forbes, um, as being a nice office, a nice dental office, and then offering some services to patients that were.

Really high tech. But anyhow, we digress on that. But I'm saying that these are some things that I was reached out to. And then my online presence grew because they put me in online articles, right? So they kind of all just fueled each other. And it, and sometimes some people Are not as lucky in that area to find out what works right away.

But you want to try different marketing strategies. Um, not every practice is going to feel a good strategy with one as opposed to another. I remember when I was in Orange County. So my first, uh, practice location was up there. HMO one, but That one did really well with like those, but this was a couple of years ago.

I don't know, but those apps where you can kind of make your own appointment like ZocDoc and, Oh yeah. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. So they were doing really well there with that. Same with Hollywood because there's are like techie, uh, younger generations, right? Like, so you may want to look, put yourself on one of those platforms where they can get onto your, appointment scheduler and put themselves in there because people don't want to call.

Some demographics don't want to call you. Right. And so like there's a younger generation who completely functions a hundred percent on their phone. They emailed a text. They don't even have laptops, right? They're all, everything's on their phone. So even optimizing your website to look good on a cell phone is also incredibly important.

You can hop onto different dental offices and you'll see that maybe their website for the phone is not easy. It's like a mess. You have to shrink it really low, move it up this way. It's like, you can't find their number because it hasn't been optimized for mobile. these are some things that you definitely want to look into your practice to make sure that you are marketing to the right group.

Who's your demographic that you're trying to aim for? And, uh, what keywords are you using for your SEO? If you're doing primarily Invisalign, where do you rank on the Invisalign when somebody puts Invisalign in? I'm picking on Arkansas. I don't know, but there's a line Arkansas, right?

Like I want to go to Arkansas too.

Michael: You're like, man. Okay. So that's interesting. When it comes to this, you said you front load a lot at the beginning of marketing. I guess specifically, how much did you front?

Rhonda: Yeah. A lot, uh, 15, 000, um, in marketing the first month.

Michael: Uh, every month for or just the first month,

Rhonda: every month for almost like a year.

But now in terms of marketing, we're way past that. We're at like 30, 000. It's still going to grow. It's not going to get smaller, but you have to think about it as your ROI. You're spending that much and you have to think, okay, how much am I spending per patient to come in? if you spent a 15, 000 and let's say that the person, the patient came in and the price on their head was 150, but they came in.

And they spent 2000, they spend a thousand, whatever it is, you have to be able to know your, your numbers of the practice and, and be able to decipher if some of those marketing campaigns are helpful. And you have to also make sure you train your staff and be part of your systems to ask the patient, whoever is calling, how did you hear about us?

Because that is going to be key for you not to overspend marketing. Oh, Google. Okay. Well, let's put a tick on Google. website referrals. At this juncture, I'm actually now, this is what also people need to understand. You can get really high in marketing, but you don't need to spend that amount every single month.

Right? There's some points where you're noticing you're getting 50 new patients. Okay. That's amazing. A month for practice is great. 50 new patients is wonderful. Should I fall back on my marketing? Maybe not. Just don't spend more. Okay. And then what we found is we're getting new patients, but mostly now it's referrals.

So I'm actually haven't spent more on marketing in the last year. It's just been kind of the same. So over time, when your brand develops and your practice develops, you may not need to spend this money all the time. You may not need to add more fuel to the fire. it can carry on in itself by creating the environment that a patient will want to come back and see you guys and maybe refer a family member because referrals are above all the best.

They are the best. That's why reviews. You always want to make sure your reviews are very good. you really want to get everyone involved and gamify your reviews and gamify your practice so that everybody in the practice is aiming towards making sure that your ratings online is always at its best.

and it's because this unfortunately in our society will hurt you the most. And it doesn't matter who you are, what your name is, blah, blah, blah. one time I referred, I know he's an excellent doctor. He's amazing actually. he's on a study club with me and does all this stuff.

I was referring him over to someone and I went on his Yelp and I'm like, Oh no. I know. He's really good. What are these on there? Right. And then like, I was like, Oh my God, that's his reviews. And then it makes you even question if this guy is good. Right.

And you're like, no, he's awesome. What is that? And then, uh, you know, that's going to make your practice suffer. And it's also going to, uh, definitely create a taste in someone's mouth when they come into your practice that they immediately think you're going to be bad, but have to always maintain those reviews.

You always have to put a positive, self out there, even if you're having super crappy day, which a lot of us do, obviously we, this is why also this practice lifestyle is stressful because you can have a crappy day, but you have to walk in and be all smiles. It is good. No one is dying next door. You know, like, Oh, like, you know, you want to be really, I didn't come inand, and give that kind of persona.

And it really helps build up those reviews and just make sure that you are constantly also asking for them. You don't want to just assume they're going to leave you a review because the person who's going to leave you the reviews that when you don't want leaving a review, but the person who was like, you guys are awesome.

You should ask them. Even as the dentist, I don't know why we think we're above that. We're not above that. This is still, this is your practice, right? this is what you spent your money and your time and your blood and your self, your all that on. And if someone is, saying, wow, and giving you some credence on your practice, they love it.

Then ask them, you know, I know it's going to take a lot of time out of your day. I really appreciate if you just do that. Um, if you don't want to, no problem, but I just like, it really helps us out and humble yourself. you should always humble yourself in life and in your practice and in your chair is nothing that glorified you above anybody else.

You know, stoop down to always look at the patient when they're talking to you, not at their mouth, but in their eyes. sit at their level. Don't stand above them, bring them up when you're talking to them, not lay them down. You, these, this is never have a opinion of yourself.

You certainly just always to just level yourself up with your staff and with your patient. And I parent promise you, these reviews are going to read for themselves because now you are. You're real. you're not fakely asking, Hey, you want to leave us a review?

And like you were just a dick to them the whole time. Now you're asking for, right? so make sure you keep up with that the whole time.

Michael: Yeah, I like that authenticity, right? So then when it comes to, you mentioned there's something, you do, you have a system that you like to reproduce.

When it comes to these practices, what is it?

Rhonda: Yeah, so the systems are and they can vary between different offices, but systems it's such a word that's so loaded because a lot of times like we have systems and what does that mean? Right? What is the system? So a systems is. the time a patient calls your office and even before that, how did you get that call?

How did that call get intercepted? how did the person answering the phone answer that phone? How are they put into your scheduler? How are they followed up with? These are systems. So the step by step by step by step of getting a patient ultimately in the chair in your office.

going over your treatment plan and now appointing them for the treatment because you have to appoint them. You can't just say, I got you in the chair. I did a profi and now you're gone. That's not how you need to reappoint them. an order for that patient to be successful and in your chair and having, and I don't want to, I'm going to just divert a little bit, a patient. value comes from their recare and recall and reemergence of them back into your system. One person comes in and you never see them again. That was not a successful new patient encounter. That patient goes on an inactive list. That patient is essentially Lost. You spent marketing dollars on them.

You spent all the time on them. You paid the hygienists to see them. You did saw the assistant. You spent the time with them and it's lost, right? You need to create a systems. where a patient that sits in the chair reappoints themselves for either follow up cleaning or follow up care or whatever it is and stays within your practice, right?

And so they stay within your active patient pool. Uh, we consider like active patients, someone who's been at least in within the year or 18 months or whatever it is. So keep mindful of that. This patient needs to be seen for recare. don't call it recall because recall sounds like something's wrong with you, right?

So I would recommend that you say recare appointment rather than a recall appointment. and then I give that that's credit to UCLA's Dr. Goldstein practice management class, because I remember that was a, one of the slides on his, uh, I never appreciated that until practice where I remember saying, we'll see you on recall.

And then the patient was like, Is it like, wrong, like something is wrong, like it's recalled, like, right? So, like, no, no, we just need to re carry, right? And so it's re carrying, the vocabulary is also important. Anyways, these are all part of systems, right? The vocabulary, the way you speak, the way you point them, the way you follow up with them.

And it needs to be laid out. in a way where it's not printed and in a binder and put somewhere collecting dust. Welcome to 2023. Everything is online, right? Everything is online. Choose whatever system you want to do, but make sure it's accessible to everyone and that everybody knows your systems from the front office to the back office.

Everyone needs to be aware of the way that your practice runs and how you would handle certain situations. Because once you, as a business owner, Leaves or moves away or whatever not leaves like physically leaves this practice and now comes into a perspective where I'm at where I'm mostly Managing I need to make sure people are aware of how to handle a situation without calling me a hundred times,

Michael: right?

Yeah, gotcha. So you created this systems how like you just record every single thing you're doing and you're like, what's working? And then pivot To do better and better and better, or?

Rhonda: Absolutely. And how many times I've been asked, like, can I have a layout of your manual?

And I would say, honestly you need to look at your practice, from a specific, It's, not subjective, it's really objective the way that you should be looking at your, practice. Like, so you need to handle each and every practice needs to be done differently. And so if one thing works in one practice may not work in another, but make sure you are understanding what worked.

What marketing tactics worked, uh, how your systems are, the way that you walk a patient to the back, do you have a routing slip, because that's part of our system. Some people don't have routing slips, where it says next visit, where it says when the last cleaning was. These are part of systems.

Does a routing slip work for you? Do you want your assistant to write your notes? If they want to write your notes, you have templates for them. These are specific things that may work for practice to practice, but see what works for you and get that written down somewhere. That's accessible. And not only in your head, it needs to be transcribed because it's going to be ultimately in order to scale and not only to scale, you can remain in your own practice, but maybe over a couple of years, add more dental chairs, maybe by the building, whatever it is, you don't have to go into multiple practices.

There is some dentists. that are very near and dear to me, which I love, and they're killing it with one practice, giant location, like one location. It's huge. Right there. They see as many patients as I do, but just in one location. And so they've scaled. their practice, their one practice to an extraordinary size and they have, worked their systems to what works for them.

Michael: Gotcha. Interesting. Okay. So then the systems is tailored to like the practice, obviously, right. But at the same time. I guess it's more like we have to start documenting everything right now and then kind of continue to pivot and pivot. Yeah.

Rhonda: There's a lot of like, HubSpot may have something, but like also there's something called training all that also has like an online app, um, that you can do.

There's a lot of sites that you can actually create, uh, like leaderboards. For your practice, and that's really good because you can put quizzes on there, like when you're training someone, how do you train them? Do you physically have to train them? Like, because some people learn differently, you may need to, um, Train them, physically show them, show them pictures, show them video, and then maybe take a quiz at the end, like, you know, so yeah, there is a lot of systems that you can look into that may fit your practice, different pricing and all that kind of stuff, but I would recommend is online stuff, app, you can even right now, you can find a bunch of developers that can develop stuff just for you. I utilize a lot of AI in my practice. and, with the development of AI, I've utilized AI where a lot of people have never even thought to use AI, but I've gotten people who develop AI to specifically build stuff for my practice that I think that has helped. I've paid them out and it's just mine. It's not anybody else's. You can't actually go buy it, but I thought this is what I need. And with the cloud based systems, like, so I used to have All my practices were on a server and we were using, but they're now cloud based systems, like, I'll use a different word besides systems but practice management systems, So practice management systems, sometimes it used to be on a server. Now you'll find a lot of them on the cloud. The cloud based servers are a lot better because you can really build. softwares within them that can function for your practice and specifically for them. And you can get the coding and all that kind of stuff.

You can find them on like squad help or whatever. Um, but you'll, you can find people who are really good in development and build stuff for your practice. Um, and then that goes into even apps. Maybe you can make an app for all your videos and your, web, information, like your employee handbook and stuff can be on there too.

Michael: What have you created with, so far

Rhonda: for your practice? So far I have a robot that calls all the dental insurances that are, because we're out of network and we still have concierge dental. So the concierge style. So even if they have dental insurance, we tell them, sure we'll get a breakdown for you and send it out.

Right. It's our fees, but we are still helping them out to get an accurate breakdown. That's, also part of our brand. We are a hundred percent here for the patient's experience. So we're not going to be like, you want to call them. You want to call your insurance?

Like, like, so part of that too, although they're like, Oh, that's annoying. I thought your fee for service. Yeah. But like I said we have to maintain a brand and then, a part of ours is patient centered and making the experience as easy as possible to make that appointment. If they have dental insurance, we get the breakdown for them immediately.

They know exactly what they're out of pocket. It's going to be. I have a now a, robot that will do that. cause a lot of the stuff is online right now. Um, like the breakdowns are online. And then if we have any questions, uh, then physically we can call some of them, but I've removed a lot of that responsibility of being on the phone for hours on end for the front office is now completely removed.

So now they don't waste their time. They're now we're seeing they're now, Wasting their time with other things, but because that like weight on hold for, you know, getting someone across the world to answer your call about a downgrade is the most mind numbing and it is costly for the practice.

So if I upfronted some fees, got some developers to build that out and it's, been working out really well. We've had it for now. About six months.

Michael: Oh, wow. Yeah. Interesting. That's cool.

Rhonda: Oh, yeah. We also have like a robotic dental assistant that gives the post op care.

Um, it, it can be programmed to go into the room, um, and it goes and walks over to the room. It's like a little robot and then it can give the post op so that they, the post op is given accurately. and then the, on the back of that robot is all the. the goodie bag and everything that is post their procedure, everything that they need for that. it's really laid out well for them. And so that the assistant, you're not like, you didn't tell them that post op, like you didn't tell them to take this bed. It's like, so now you're again, streamlining it. It's now scalable. It's now systems in place that I know that this person is going to get this information.

Um, of course, there's some times where you were like, you know, maybe the robot was taken up the assistance giving the, the post ops. Yeah, sure. That happens. But, everybody still knows what to say. Right.

Michael: Interesting. That one's interesting. you kind of like humanized the automation process there,

Rhonda: even x rays now, uh, they're read by AI in our office.

So you can get a second opinion on that. And,

Michael: do you use the software? Like

Rhonda: Pearl is amazing, but like that's I'm saying, you can start using, AI, you know, like This is the future. So you gotta be in for the ride. and developing some of this stuff.

And being on it with what's out there of course, like you have to be mindful of your spend. These things aren't cheap. So if you're still okay doing what you're doing and your, practice numbers make sense, then continue to do what you're doing.

I certainly don't want to give the wrong impression to someone that's saying like, Oh, I can pay for this. And then you find yourself spending 10, 15, 30, but these are very expensive stuff. That you're bringing to practice. So don't spend like that, you have to know your practice numbers, work with your bookkeeper also your, um, some financial advisor as well.

those are very helpful. Um, especially because we make good money you certainly can be in a high tax bracket. And if you're not planning your tax as well, and your investments, you can find lot of. your, uh, spend because it's the most expensive thing you're going to spend in your life is taxes, the most expensive thing you're going to buy.

So you, you have to make sure that you can't just be like, Oh, TurboTax. Why I want to know why, uh, why TurboTax sometimes is that some of our conventions. If you're a dentist and you're using TurboTax. yeah, but you're definitely not getting any. And it's like, look, I'm not talking about refunds and stuff.

I'm saying, you should be using, utilizing the tax code to your advantage and constantly investing. Right. So build your wealth. And wealth building is not about having liquid all the time. when you're building wealth, you have to be okay with being in the lowest of the low with not having a lot of liquid because there's probably a lot of people in this audience right now that have more liquid money than I do right now.

Because right now my money is tied. My money is tied in my investments and my money is tied somewhere else that when you're an entrepreneur and you're building your wealth and you're building this brand or whatever it is this kind of uncomfortable situation where you're finding yourself.

Asking for loans and paying these high interest or whatever it is and leveraging yourself through loans and funding tax exemptions and blah, blah, blah. This gets very complicated, very nuanced, very scary, really quick for some people who may be really turned off by this kind of stuff.

So if you're going to get into the business realm. You have to understand that it gets very, very sticky, very scary. And there's a lot of times where you may not have a lot of liquid cash available to you, but that's part of building your wealth, you know, so you're going to find yourself in the slums, but then you find yourself in abundance, but you shouldn't just live in abundance.

You know, I'm very pro not buying right when you graduate dental school, that really fancy car. you need to really tame yourself and slowly start to take off everything that you do in your life, make sure it makes sense with taxes. Because your taxes are negotiable.

This is something that was said in our mastermind meeting because I'm part of a dental mastermind and also get them maybe with dentists that are like minded as you. If they have a single practice, great. Hang out with them. Uh, if they're multi practice, hang out with them. You can pick each other's brains.

Everyone is here, including me and you to spread some knowledge and to, and some life into this field that's just become so sterile over the years, and stagnant and they don't teach us this in dental school. But taxes, yeah, they're negotiable, you can have an excess of an amount and you can take that money and you can now go and invest in something else.

Go invest in real estate and associates who are hearing this podcast. you don't need to be the business owner. have a lot of associatepreneurs within my practice. I have these little business people that work in my practice that are not so little, they have a lot of real estate and real estate is like a fixed savings accounts, like a forced savings.

you can get equity out of it at any time. It's always going to increase in value. Every rare situation. Yeah. We've had. Times in our past where real estate has dwindled, I think for a dentist who's producing relatively well, you should be fine keeping that for 10, 15 years, and then maybe taking equity out of your house to buy something else and transcribing that into multiple real estate earnings or whatever it is.

But real estate is wonderful. You can do dwellings, small dwellings, where you're renting it out and all this kind of stuff. but what I'm saying is, does it make sense for your tax exemptions? Does it make sense for your overall, Tax credits and reliabilities that you have to pay. Right.

So, just make sure that you're not okay with the fact that maybe 50 percent of your income is just going right. so, you are a dentist, but dentists, Don't be under the impression that a dentist is just some W 2 employee. A dentist is a small business owner.

And if you're even, if you're an associate, you're a small business because you should have already had an LLC. You shouldn't be paid to your personal account. You should be paid to your LLC. You should create a, or of an S corp. You should be creating an S corp. For yourself or a C corp, whatever works for your benefit, but you should be a small little corporation, right?

Because you, for all intents and purposes work at multiple practices, you are meeting the AB five rules for what a worker is considered or employee is considered. And you're very well, an independent contractor. Maybe some corporations are going to only W to you. Okay. Well, then you have to make sure that you're getting.

Then the right return on your taxes so that you can take that money and now invest it somewhere else. So you can still reduce your, um, liabilities, your tax liabilities.

Michael: Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. This is all wonderful, useful, super duper useful information. Rhonda, thank you so much for being with us.

It's been a pleasure, but if anyone has any questions or concerns, where can they reach out to you? You

Rhonda: can email me. always check my email. So it's just my first and my last name. Um, do you want me to spell it? It's going to be in the show notes below. My last name at G L O modern dental. com. you can just email me.

Michael: Awesome. So that's going to be in the show notes below also her social media platforms and everything else. And I want to thank you so much for being with us. It's been a pleasure and we'll hear from you soon. Thank you.

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