Dental Practice Hero with Dr. Paul Etchison

Business Of Dentistry Podcast

This week I am joined by Dr. Paul Etchison, host of The Dental Practice Heroes Podcast, and author of Dental Practice Hero: From Ordinary Practice to Extraordinary Experience. Paul comes from Illinois, and studied in Chicago. After finishing dental school, he worked for a specialist who owned several practices. There he got the chance to learn a ton of things, and after about two and a half years, he started thinking about creating his own business. The next step for him was taking Dr. Scott Leune’s Breakaway Practice Seminars and gathering as much information as humanly possible. He then started looking for a location for his office, found the perfect spot and grew the business really fast. Fast forward to six years later, they now have almost 3 million visits every year and still counting! Key takeaways: Success narrowed down to effort and dedication Devoted to creating an exceptional practice culture Some of the marketing strategies they’ve used Burnout and coming up with a solution Why he become an author Links: The Dental Practice Heroes Podcast Dental Practice Hero: From Ordinary Practice to Extraordinary Experience Book Breakaway Practice Seminars Productive Dentist Academy Want to receive our podcast on a weekly basis? Subscribe to our newsletter! Success narrowed down to effort and dedication Paul’s recipe for success is simply putting in the effort to make sure you get top-notch results. With the right effort and the right intentions, you can grow a solid, thriving practice. What’s also important to him is communication: he makes sure he constantly talks with his team about everything they need to look at in order to improve the patient experience. They regularly get together and discuss what systems they can create in order to constantly boost their business. Paul is aware that patients usually have a lot of choices when it comes to getting their dental care. That’s why he strongly believes that dentists need to be more consumer-focused, they need to truly understand their patients’ needs. What classes helped him improve his communication and his general leadership abilities? Mostly The Productive Dentist Academy Classes and The Breakaway Practice Seminars. He is always trying to pick people’s brains to find out how they are doing it. Devoted to creating an exceptional practice culture When he started his business, he wanted to create a different culture. He had previously studied a lot of marketing and business, and he brought all his knowledge to the table. One of the things that he realized early on and that helped him be different from other practices was the fact that he knew that you can make the customer like your product by doing the right things. In business, every single little thing matters. And these small things can influence the subconscious of your customer in a way that will make them come back to you over and over again. Because he wanted to create a great patient experience, in the beginning, he micromanaged every touchpoint they had with the patient. That later proved to be not the greatest idea in the world, and he eventually became burned out. In order to create the culture he wanted for his practice, he didn’t start googling “How can I have a contagious culture?” and just followed the steps. It all came naturally. His dedication towards creating an outstanding culture ultimately paid off. Some of the marketing strategies they’ve used What are some of the marketing strategies they’ve used to grow their business? One of them was choosing to have the practice open in the evenings on Mondays and Wednesdays. They sent out emails telling people they were open late, and of course, this resulted in a great amount of enthusiasm from their patients. Another thing that helped them a lot was making sure their Google reviews were the best in the area. Paul mentions that if someone is looking for a dentist,