DentaltownUK Winter 2017 - 9

The first questions most get asked are: "What
is your background? What made you get into this
business?" These are soul-searching questions with
an important and sharp business edge. So, let me ask
you: Why are you a dentist?
Some of the most successful pitches on Shark Tank
come from the most passionate people who've created
something that directly relates to their background.
Parents create dolls to help build self-esteem in young
girls. A nurse invents a new method to calm babies. A
teenage environmentalist creates clothing out of plastic
bottles. But just as in business, passion isn't enough
if your background doesn't give you the foundation
you need to be taken seriously. The most successful
investments on Shark Tank-and in the business world
outside of prime-time television-are made in those
with the right background and the right passion. Not
one or the other. You must have both if you're going
to make it, and because you're most likely a dentist
if you're reading this, then your background is taken
care of. Focus on passion.
Everywhere I go, there's always a dentist asking
me right off the bat, "Well, should I specialize in
endo?" My response is always the same: I don't even
know why you're a dentist, but I would hope that you
specialize in endo only if that's your passion. Same
for any specialty. All of you have the background of
a dentist, but you need to find your passions. Because
if you love what you're doing, you're never going to
work another day in your life. And if I'm going invest
in you (or your patients), and you're just doing this
for money, I know where you're headed: Burnout.
Depression. Disease. You're going to quit.
But if this is your passion, no one can stop you.
This isn't the world of opening dry cleaners or owning
pizza franchises; you're competing in the world of
dentistry. When you look around at the competition,
you're looking at people who went out and earned an
undergraduate degree, then a dental degree. People
who have already spent eight years in education before
they even get to call themselves "doctor." Like you,

your competition is coming out of dental school with
hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. (Debt is just
the investment you've made in yourself. You better
believe you're worth it.) If you think you're going
to survive all of that and then enter the profession
without passion, you're dead wrong.
If you're not the secret sauce of your practice,
then get out of practice now. And no, I don't mean
go out there and earn some more letters to throw
behind your name. Patients don't care about the
alphabet soup trailing your name. Those details are
not what patients invest in, and they sure are not the
things I'd look for if I were a shark looking to take
an investment-sized bite of you.
Here's what I'd invest in: If you put two doctors
in front of me-the best dentist on Earth who has
an average chairside manner, and an average dentist
who has the best chairside manner on Earth-I'm
going to throw all my money behind the latter. For
30 years, when I ask new patients who come to my
office, "Who did your crown?" they never remember.
So, I ask, "Well, did you remember waking up on the
sidewalk, feeling like your mouth had been jackhammered and that you were going to have to pick the
doc out of a police lineup for what he did to you?"
Patients don't remember exactly what you did, but
they will always remember how you made them feel.
Every one of those patients is a potential shark. Sure,
they're not likely to invest a million dollars into your
practice-but you can easily achieve a million-dollar
practice if your patients are constantly impressed with
your passion and how you make them feel.
Like the entrepreneurs on Shark Tank, you've only
got a few moments to make people believe in you.
They already know you're a doctor-they're sitting
in your chair, aren't they? So don't bother trying to
impress them with your acronym collection or your
latest certificate. Impress them with your passion
and show them you care, and you'll have all the
investment you'll ever need to measure success in
more than one metric. n

dentaltownuk.com \\ WINTER 2017

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DentaltownUK Winter 2017