Ten years ago, Dentaltown.com was a feisty upstart online community that was ever so slowly gaining traction with dentists and dental professionals around the world. It was really beginning to take shape and it was getting stronger with every passing day. New members were finding out about the Web site from current members, signing on and starting discussions most dental professionals never had with their peers ever before. There was no fear; on Dentaltown.com, none of us were competing against each other for patients in the same area, and it was nice to finally be able to discuss our own practices with our friends and stop feeling so alone. Ten years ago, we were all just getting to know each other online, and the positive conversations and the help that we were all giving to one another were leading to some true friendships!

If I wasn’t working away at my own dental practice here in Phoenix, Arizona, I was working on Dentaltown.com with my team, to ensure it remained an impactful and viable online community. Back then, I was putting in 80+ hour work weeks. It was all I could do to even get a full night of shuteye. But, man, we were having a blast meeting new dentists from around the world, connecting them with dental manufacturers and service providers and turning this fledgling Web site into the strongest and largest online dental community the world had ever seen!

Then, out of the blue, two Townies (aka, members of Dentaltown.com) from opposite coastlines of the United States – Dr. Sameer “socalsam” Puri and Dr. Tarun “T-bone” Agarwal – came to me and told me the members really wanted a place to be able to meet each other in person, and that they wanted to help make that happen. I thought it was an awesome idea; I thought how cool it would be just to see all of these dental professionals get up from their computers, hop on a flight and come together in one room and meet each other for the first time – even though they’d known each other online for months, or even years. That idea formed the first-ever Townie Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada. We all expected the first meeting would draw maybe 100-200 people and it drew more than 450 attendees! Due to the hard work of Sameer, Tarun, volunteers like Dr. Glenn Hanf and our partners over the last 10 years it’s only gotten bigger and better. We turned this annual event – part dental meeting, part family reunion – into the best dental event in the world. I really can’t believe how far we’ve come.

This April, we are celebrating 10 years of the Townie Meeting and I’m personally inviting every single one of you to come and party with us. It’s going to be a blast! This meeting isn’t just for members of Dentaltown – as always, all dental professionals are invited! This year, as in every year, we’re heading back to Las Vegas. Why Vegas again? The American Dental Association surveys its members every so often and asks them where they’d like to have the annual session. The overwhelming response is Vegas. It’s America’s Playground, baby! It has more flights, more hotel rooms and more offsite activities than anywhere else in the United States. So keeping the Townie Meeting in Vegas every year makes it one of the easiest destination events for dentists around the United States.

This year, the Townie Meeting is going to be held at one of the hottest and newest hotels in Vegas – The Cosmopolitan. You’ve got to see this place to believe it. It’s breathtaking. It’s such an appropriate setting to celebrate a decade of the Townie Meeting. For the last 10 years Sameer and Tarun have listened to attendees, by reviewing evaluations and responding to comments about previous seminars and every year the presentation line-up just gets better and better and better. We’ve got an incredible line-up of speakers this year. I’m pleased to share the stage with the Madow brothers (on loving dentistry, having fun and prospering), Dr. Michael “Miguel” Melkers (on communication and comprehensive care), Dr. Frank Lauciello (on removable prosthetics), Tim Ives (on curing caries), Dr. Mike Barr (on Web site SEO), Dr. Dan Poticny (on CEREC), Dr. Uday Reebye (offering a hands-on bone grafting workshop with pig jaws) and so many more.

You really should try to arrive on or before Wednesday, April 25, so you can take part in some fun pre-Townie-Meeting activities with me and the rest of your pals. The Townie Golf Extravaganza tees off at 1 p.m. on April 25, so bring your clubs! To learn more about fees and schedules, visit www.towniemeeting.com. Later that evening, we’re holding the Wine & Cheese Welcome Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. It’s a nice, low-key time to reconnect with old friends, hang out with me, Sam and T-bone, mingle with some of the awesome speakers who are going to be presenting at the meeting, and it gives you the opportunity to pick up your meeting credentials early (so you can avoid the lines and have more fun).

Each year, the opening party (the highlight of the meeting) has a special theme. In years past we’ve had the Townie Prom, Townies in Space and an ‘80s theme. Who can forget the Toga party at Caesars Palace a few years back? This year, the party’s on Thursday, April 26 and (drumroll, please) our theme is James Bond. Come dressed up as a villain (Jaws, anyone?) or a Bond girl – or even as 007 himself. Last year we saw some great costumes and this year we hope everyone brings their A-game! I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Fifth Annual Townie Texas Hold’em Poker Tournament, which starts at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, April 27 in the exhibit hall (have you ever seen a poker tourney on a dental show floor before?). These poker games are pretty amazing and all the players have a great time (even when they’re losing, but especially when they’re winning).

I want to thank Sam and T-bone for having the guts and vision 10 years ago to take a risk and create this meeting for all dental professionals to enjoy. Join us as we celebrate 10 years of the Townie Meeting at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. I truly think that if you’ve never been to a Townie Meeting before, you will find it is unlike any other dental meeting you’ve ever seen. Go check out www.towniemeeting.com and learn more about what else we have in store for you. See you in Vegas!

 

After one of my recent lectures, I was shooting the breeze with a few doctors and we got on the topic of retiring in this putrid economy. One of the docs said, “Y’know guys, I went to a funeral the other day and I thought about that phrase, ‘Nobody on their death bed ever says they wish they would have spent more time in the office.’” This elicited some hearty chuckles, but I thought, “Are you freaking kidding me? That’s exactly the opposite of what every meaningful person ever said on their deathbed.”

I mean, do you think Mother Teresa would have said, “Man, I wish I didn’t spend so much time working in the orphanage. I wish I didn’t take so much time caring for the sick and the dying, and raising money for my mission of hope,” on her deathbed? Most spiritual leaders say the way to serve God is to serve your fellow man, and the more you serve your fellow man, the more you serve God. Guys, you’re health-care providers! You’re not out there selling something someone doesn’t need. When you’re doing dentistry faster, easier, higher in quality, lower in price, you’re serving your fellow man. You need to stop thinking about when you retire, and think more about how you can better serve your patients!

OK, spirituality aside, you’re all aware by now that we’re in the middle of an economic contraction. Things aren’t looking too good. In fact, things aren’t going to look any better until we have at least one balanced budget. It bothers me when economic Neanderthals constantly claim the U.S. economy is growing one-and-a-half to three percent a year when the national debt is more than $15 billion. Things need to get worse before they get better. When I was a freshman in 1980, interest rates were around 21 percent. If we endure another round of inflation, a 21 percent interest rate will probably be the absolute minimum (which if you have an adjustable rate loan with floating interest, you’d better tie that sucker down ASAP). And you’re thinking about retirement? Guys, here’s the bottom line: It’s time for an attitude adjustment.

One of the ideas you have to get rid of is you’re not going to retire at 55. You’re probably not going to retire at 60, or even at 65. But even more – why would you want to?! The most fun and exciting people I meet when I go out and lecture are dentists who are 70 years old and they’re still going strong; they still love what they’re doing. Sure they might have cut back from five days to three or four days a week – but they’re still really into dentistry. The days they do work, they make a hell of a lot more money than they would on the interest of their retirement savings account. When you’ve been a dentist that long, you know just about all there is about your patients’ mouths. You’re pumping money into your 401(k) in hopes to retire by 60, but that’s working against you. Seriously. Yes, it’s pre-tax savings, but right now we’re seeing the lowest tax rates in 100 years, and it’s a certainty that when you pull the money out in 10 or 20 years, the tax rates will be twice as high. A 401(k) doesn’t make sense.

You need to find a way to keep working and the way to do that is to keep enjoying what you do. Look at Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. He found a way to sell all of the big brand names like Sony and Hitachi and Coca-Cola with a low-cost distribution model. He had multiple myeloma at the end of his life. Instead of lying around feeling sick, he’d fly from his office in Bentonville, Arkansas, to Houston, Texas, to get his chemotherapy treatments, and then fly back to Bentonville to continue working. The man died a billionaire – and he died at his desk doing what he enjoyed doing. He saw his work as a mission.

Another attitude you’re going to have to beat is running your practice the way you’ve always run it. In this great contraction you need to have lower prices. You’re going to have to increase your marketing and add new products and services.

Every time the Earth goes around the sun, you give your staff another dollar-an-hour raise, and you end up raising your prices five percent. You have to knock that off. In this contraction, you need to freeze wages, and maybe the next time our planet goes around the sun, you’re going to have to lower your prices five percent. This means you might even have to go back and join dental insurance plans. People are going to buy only what they really need or really want to buy. If they can’t get their dental work taken care of with some supplemental insurance help, they might not do it (they’ll even shop their treatment plan around to other dental practices and go with the cheapest office).

Marketing-wise, if you don’t have an awesome Web site by now, you’re not even trying – hell, you’re not even paying attention. You should be search-engine optimized so you show up on the first page of Google results, you should be buying Google ads, you should have a Facebook page, and you should be buying Facebook ads.

You should be adding new products and services. Get a 3D CBCT machine and start placing single root form implants. Go to an orthodontics course and learn how to do simple ortho. Learn Invisalign. There’s a bunch of sleep dentistry groups that treat sleep apnea and snoring. Go sign up to make all the mouthguards for your high school football team. Do something!

It’s also important you start lowering your costs. So, quit doing gold. If an insurance company is only going to give you $1,000 for a crown, you can’t afford a $250 gold bill for a full gold crown. This is challenging to people because they believe in phrases like, “Treat other people like you want to be treated.” I have seven restorations in my mouth and they’re all gold. But I can’t do that for all of my patients. I’m not getting a raise from the insurance company and the price of gold has doubled. I can’t do full gold. Neither can you. So instead of a lab bill, invest in CAD/CAM technology.

Right now, I feel really bad for people who work in the luxury business. The sales of Fairline yachts, Cadillacs, Porsches, high-end steak dinners, Louis Vuitton purses and Barker Black shoes are going to plummet. You’re even going to see the profits of midlevel restaurants like Chili’s and Olive Garden shrink while the profits of Taco Bell and McDonalds grow (a $5 lunch looks better than a $15 lunch to just about anyone these days).

That being said, I live in Phoenix, Arizona – one of the most saturated markets in dentistry – and I could give you the names of almost 100 dental offices in my backyard that have gone under. They were part of two groups. One group was the high-end, cosmetic, metalfree practice that would replace all your fillings with tooth-colored restorations. They dealt in bleaching and veneers – and now they’re gone. They quit doing bread-and-butter dentistry like root canals and crowns; they didn’t know how to make a denture, they didn’t pull teeth, they couldn’t dig out a wisdom tooth, they couldn’t do minor orthodontics. Everything was elective, and patients elected to do something about their yellow, crooked teeth some other time.

The other group of practices that went under was start-ups. Start-ups went under because new-patient flow is down coast-to-coast. Even practices that are flat or growing five or seven percent every year are still facing low new-patient flow. It used to be you’d open a practice, do some marketing, buy an ad in the Yellow Pages, do some targeted direct mail and you’d fill your office up with patients. That’s not working anymore. Practices that have been around for 15-20 years and have good word-of-mouth referrals, solid reputations and high marketing budgets are going to take most of the patients in the area.

This contraction isn’t letting up any time soon, gang. It’s time we all realized we’re in this for the long haul and we need to remember to return to our core competencies, stop thinking about retiring at 55 or 65 and make it a point in this new year to lower your costs, increase your marketing, add something new to your dental armamentarium and lower your fees.