Episodes

Your next new patient may not come from a bigger ad budget, but from fixing the leaks already costing you calls, trust, and booked appointments. In this episode, marketing expert Cameron LiButti breaks down a practical 90-day approach to patient acquisition for startup and early-stage dental practices. Instead of jumping straight into ads, social posts, or sponsorships, the conversation starts with diagnosis: understanding your local market, knowing who your real competitors are, evaluating you...

If a patient asked AI for a dentist like you, would it send them your way or skip over you? In this episode, we reframe dental marketing around a question every practice owner needs to ask now: can tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot find your practice, understand what you do, and describe you accurately? You’ll hear why AI visibility is different from Google rankings, why simply “showing up” is not the same as being recommended, and how outdated or inconsistent information can cost...

What if the brand that helped you grow is now holding your practice back? In this episode, Dr. Brittany Dickinson returns to share the honest evolution of her Chicago fee-for-service practice, from the success of Sugar Fix Dental Loft to a more refined identity, using her name. As her work shifted toward serious cosmetic and aesthetic dentistry, she realized her old branding was still pulling in high-anxiety and trauma-survivor patients, leaving her emotionally drained and physically taxed. In ...

Your most powerful marketing move this week may already be on tomorrow morning’s schedule. In this Monday Marketing Move, Dr. Jennifer Haddad shares a simple but high-impact system dental practice owners can start using right away: turning the morning huddle into a strategic review of every patient coming in that day. Instead of treating the schedule as a list of appointments, your team can look at each patient with fresh eyes. What treatment was previously recommended? What is still pending? ...

What if the strongest growth strategy in dentistry is knowing when NOT to treat? In this episode of The Dental Marketer Podcast, Dr. Jennifer Haddad shares how she built a small, referral-based practice in one of the most saturated dental markets imaginable: a medical building with 52 dentists on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Instead of seeing nearby dentists as competition, she views them as collaborators and has carved out a clear identity through biomimetic dentistry, a con...

The best referral strategy in dentistry may be the one patients feel before they ever talk about it. In this Monday Marketing Move, Dr. Delaney Spaulding shares how her practice earns word-of-mouth referrals by creating a patient experience built on trust, consistency, and genuine care, especially for people who come in with dental anxiety. Rather than relying only on online marketing, Dr. Spaulding explains how long-term team relationships, extra listening time, detailed patient notes, and ju...

What if the benefit your team values most isn’t a raise, a bonus, or a 401k? In this episode, Dr. Delaney Spaulding of Ross Bridge Dentistry shares why keeping great team members can be just as powerful as attracting new patients. When your team stays, patients stop “meeting strangers” at every visit, trust builds faster, treatment conversations feel more natural, and word-of-mouth becomes easier to earn. Dr. Spaulding also opens up about buying a practice at 27, navigating the pressure to pro...

If patients keep stalling on bigger treatment plans, the issue may not be the dentistry. It may be the way the conversation is structured. In this Monday Marketing Move, Dr. Jerry Burns shares a practical way to improve dental case acceptance by auditing how you present treatment, especially larger, higher-cost cases. He explains why recording consultations, with permission when needed, can help you and your team spot moments where the conversation jumps too quickly from diagnosis to treatment ...

Low case acceptance may have less to do with your treatment presentation and more to do with everything that happened before it. In this episode, Dr. Jerry Burns explains why case acceptance should be viewed as the amount of diagnosed treatment a patient schedules at the time of presentation, not simply whether they schedule anything at all. He breaks down how trust is built through every touchpoint in the patient journey, from your marketing and phone call to the welcome, office tour, exam, hy...

A big marketing budget can bring patients in, but active patient count tells you whether your practice is actually growing. In this Monday Marketing Move, Dr. Blake Hamblin shares why the number he watches most closely is not ad spend, new patient leads, or even monthly production. It is active patient count. For Blake, growth starts by building a “snowball” that gets bigger over time: more patients, better experience, stronger culture, more reviews, and a team aligned around clear standards. ...

Scaling a dental practice sounds exciting until it starts testing your leadership, your identity, your team, and the freedom you were trying to build in the first place. In this episode, Dr. Blake Hamblin opens up about his choice to “build in public” while pursuing a $10M–$12M vision, and why growth is about far more than top-line revenue. He shares how his real business education came from working inside a fast-scaling Dallas practice, where he saw how hours, patient volume, culture, and lead...

Sometimes the push you need does not feel like courage at first. In this Fail Forward episode, Brian Hanks shares the honest story behind starting Dental Buyer Advocates and the fear that kept him from entrepreneurship for nearly eighteen years. After walking into a meeting expecting to ask for a raise and leaving without a job, Brian was forced to confront the delay, self-doubt, and avoidance that had held him back. His story is a candid reminder for dentists who want ownership but feel stuck ...

What happens when the practice you built is forced to stand without you? In this powerful reunion episode, Michael reconnects with Dr. Ashley Joves nearly 10 years after her startup journey began with Smile & Co still in the dream stage. Ashley reflects on how her definition of success has changed from building a standout dental brand, hosting events, creating unforgettable patient experiences, and growing a loyal community, to recognizing the person she has become through the hard seasons of b...

If patients leave unsure about the plan, treatment acceptance has already started slipping. In this Monday Marketing Move, Dr. Sachin Soni breaks down one of the most overlooked moments in the treatment conversation: making a clear recommendation, then giving the patient space to respond honestly. Instead of asking narrow questions like “Do you want to go ahead?” he suggests using more human language like, “So tell me, what are your thoughts?” to uncover hesitation around cost, fear, pain, or t...

What if the most valuable dentist in the practice isn’t the highest producer, but the one patients trust the most? In this episode, Dr. Sachin Soni shares a powerful way to rethink value as a trusted dentist who earns loyalty, drives referrals, supports the team, and strengthens the practice. Sachin argues that dental school often teaches clinicians to chase clinical excellence, while the industry pushes sales and production, but very few dentists are taught how to become genuinely valuable to ...

What happens when a busy, productive practice still can’t pay its bills? In this Fail Forward episode, Dr. Rasheeda Johnson shares the hard lesson that changed how she runs Dentcare Now: never let one person hold the entire revenue cycle. After discovering delayed claims, missed billing, and broken cash flow, she and her partner rebuilt the practice around documented workflows, specialized support, and clear checks and balances. Her takeaway is simple but powerful for any business owner: people...

Choosing between a startup and an acquisition is not just a business decision, it is a vision decision. In this popular rerun episode, Michael sits down with dental consultant and former Bank of America dental-division banker Mike Dinsio to unpack what it really takes to step into practice ownership with more clarity and fewer surprises. Drawing from thousands of dentist financial reviews, hundreds of tax returns, and 400+ transactions and startups, Mike shares what lenders look for, why loan s...

Identifying the correct problem and implementing a sustainable solution is often where practices fall short. In this Fail Forward episode, Sandy Pardue shares a lesson every dental practice owner and leader needs to hear: knowing the answer is not the same as creating lasting change. Reflecting on her early consulting years, Sandy explains how she once believed that identifying the problem, giving the right tools, and training the team would be enough, until she realized implementation is where...

What if the biggest barrier to treatment acceptance isn’t your clinical skill, but the way patients feel before they ever meet you? In this episode, Dr. Kevin Faist shares how his background in psychology shaped the way he thinks about dentistry, trust, and patient behavior. After graduating at the top of his class and entering a Chicago DSO, he quickly learned that great dentistry doesn’t matter if the wrong patients are walking through the door. A painful lesson from low-cost promotions taugh...

Sometimes the biggest threat to cash flow isn’t empty chairs, it’s not believing in the value of your services. In this Fail Forward episode, Sadie Stewart shares the story of a dental practice consulting engagement that felt, at the time, like a painful professional setback. Despite improving collections, tightening systems, and supporting the team through serious cash flow challenges, one deeper issue kept holding the practice back: a generous owner dentist who wasn’t ready to change the disc...

When dentistry slows down, patients open up and better care becomes possible. In this episode, Dr. Brett Kessler shares how recovery reshaped his identity, leadership, and approach to dentistry after getting sober in his third year of practice. He opens up about the core values, mindfulness, coaching, and preparation that helped him face fear in every arena, from starting a practice from scratch to completing five Ironman races and stepping into leadership roles with the Colorado Dental Associa...

What if the setback that feels like the end is actually the opening you needed? In this Fail Forward episode, Aaron Boone, CEO and owner of MVP Mailhouse, shares how being cut from an NFL Europe roster almost ended his football career until one unexpected call put him back on the plane and eventually led him to become team captain, lead the league in touchdowns, and win the World Bowl. He connects that same “control the controllables” mindset to business, from navigating COVID’s impact on direc...

You might think the secret to more case acceptance is all about your fees, your marketing, or amazing treatment presentations, but what if it’s actually about the way you make patients feel during your conversations? In this episode, Dr. Sasha Rutnam, with over 30 years at the chair (including 25 as a practice owner in Sydney) breaks down why trust and genuine connection are the real drivers behind patients saying “yes” to your recommendations. Dr. Rutnam shares candid lessons from both private...

Struggling with staff productivity and morale in your dental practice? It might be your micromanagement that's causing it. This episode of Fail Forward features Nishant Pandit, who candidly shares how his overbearing approach to management eventually dented his dental practice's performance. Discover how shifting from micromanagement to empowering staff created happier employees and increased efficiency, with Nishant's anecdotes providing a roadmap for those grappling with management issues. Tu...