Dental Sherpas

Many dental offices are struggling to retain or find employees in today’s post pandemic environment. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy talk through strategies to deal with this issue. Many times, employees think the owner puts profit before people. This mindset among your employees is poison. In this episode you’ll learn how to make sure that your communication with your team consistently wards off this damaging mindset.

We’ve identified 10 distinct phases that all dental practices move through while transforming into a business that outlives the owner/doctor and allows he or she to get out of the chair. Over the next few episodes, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy will discuss each phase, how to know which phase your practice is in and what you need to aim for to get forward momentum toward the next phase.

We’ve identified 10 distinct phases that all dental practices move through while transforming into a business that outlives the owner/doctor and allows he or she to get out of the chair. Over the next few episodes, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy will discuss each phase, how to know which phase your practice is in and what you need to aim for to get forward momentum toward the next phase.

We’ve identified 10 distinct phases that all dental practices move through while transforming into a business that outlives the owner/doctor and allows he or she to get out of the chair. Over the next few episodes, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy will discuss each phase, how to know which phase your practice is in and what you need to aim for to get forward momentum toward the next phase.

Most doctors, consultants, marketers, etc. focus almost entirely on growing production or top line revenue. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss how this narrow focus can certainly grow revenue but doesn’t necessarily equate to a better business.

Because most dentists build their practice from the ground up and know everything about everything, they become the central hub for all questions and processes in the practice. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss how this “doctor as the hub” approach can have a devastating effect on the practice’s potential and it’s long term value.

Many Dentists believe that the main thing that makes their practice valuable is production/collections/profit. While this can increase the value of the practice, it’s not the place to focus on to get buyers to pay a lot of money. To understand what drives the value of a business, including a dental practice, look at it through the eyes of an investor. In this mini-series, Dr. Lewis and Matt Kennedy teach you to do just that. They break down the 8 principles that will e...

Many Dentists believe that the main thing that makes their practice valuable is production/collections/profit. While this can increase the value of the practice, it’s not the place to focus on to get buyers to pay a lot of money. To understand what drives the value of a business, including a dental practice, look at it through the eyes of an investor. In this mini-series, Dr. Lewis and Matt Kennedy teach you to do just that. They break down the 8 principles that will e...

Many Dentists believe that the main thing that makes their practice valuable is production/collections/profit. While this can increase the value of the practice, it’s not the place to focus on to get buyers to pay a lot of money. To understand what drives the value of a business, including a dental practice, look at it through the eyes of an investor. In this mini-series, Dr. Lewis and Matt Kennedy teach you to do just that. They break down the 8 principles that will e...

As more and more sophisticated buyers enter the marketplace for dental practices, understanding how they evaluate your practice is critical. They are not buying your dental practice! They are buying the future profit your dental practice will produce. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy break down the ways these investor buyers are looking at your practice.

In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy do a deep dive on an offer to buy a practice sent in by a listener. They talk about the numbers but also the mindset of the buyer and the psychology it appears the potential buyer is using to make the offer seem more attractive than it might really be.

All business decisions in the practice need to be driven by data. But in today's episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss the danger in chasing the data but not capitalizing operationally on what the data is telling you. This is a boots on the ground discussion you won't want to miss!

Creating a business that allows you to get out of the chair and actually taking the leap of getting out of the chair are 2 different things. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss what keeps doctors stuck in the chair, even after they’ve built their practice to allow them to exit.

In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss the first things you should do once you’ve decided to re-engineer your practice and work toward getting out of the chair.

Most associate doctors struggle with evaluating potential practices to work for. Many times, they choose based on the guaranteed pay. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss some practical ways an associate doctor can determine which practices offer good opportunities and which don’t. Here’s a spoiler…a good opportunity has nothing to do with the guarantee!

With corporate dentistry gaining market share in just about every market in the US, doctors are wondering how to compete. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss the multiple associate model and why you need to understand it and consider implementing it.

Today’s episode is loaded with nuggets of wisdom from Joseph Snyder, Operational Specialist at Hawaii Family Dental.

In today’s Episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy reveal the 3 places they see doctors get stuck when trying to grow their practice. Knowing these danger zones will allow you to proactively create strategies to avoid them. Don’t miss this episode!

In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy talk about the daily huddle and how having a 3 step approach ensures it becomes an empowering time for your team as well as your company.

Have you seen pictures of the line of climbers waiting to summit Mt. Everest on a day with clear weather? Because there are so few clear weather days on the Summit, when one is predicted, every climber races to take advantage. This creates a bottleneck in what is called the Death Zone that puts every climber at incredible risk. The same can be said for following the old and crowded paths to practice growth. Most don’t create the one thing dentists are hoping for, time freedo...

Have you seen pictures of the line of climbers waiting to summit Mt. Everest on a day with clear weather? Because there are so few clear weather days on the Summit, when one is predicted, every climber races to take advantage. This creates a bottleneck in what is called the Death Zone that puts every climber at incredible risk. The same can be said for following the old and crowded paths to practice growth. Most don’t create the one thing dentists are hoping for, time freedo...

Have you seen pictures of the line of climbers waiting to summit Mt. Everest on a day with clear weather? Because there are so few clear weather days on the Summit, when one is predicted, every climber races to take advantage. This creates a bottleneck in what is called the Death Zone that puts every climber at incredible risk. The same can be said for following the old and crowded paths to practice growth. Most don’t create the one thing dentists are hoping for, time freedo...

Have you seen pictures of the line of climbers waiting to summit Mt. Everest on a day with clear weather? Because there are so few clear weather days on the Summit, when one is predicted, every climber races to take advantage. This creates a bottleneck in what is called the Death Zone that puts every climber at incredible risk. The same can be said for following the old and crowded paths to practice growth. Most don’t create the one thing dentists are hoping for, time freedo...

In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss why adding same day dentistry is so important and how to add it. This change to your mindset and your execution will yield dramatic increases in treatment acceptance and, in turn, productivity.

In today's episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss the value of having a professional CFO no matter how big or small your practice is with Dr. Lewis's CFO, Ben Hernandez of Skytale Group.

In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss an event that occurred in Dr. Lewis’s practice recently that gave him an opportunity to grow as a leader. Who you are as a leader is so important as you climb toward dental freedom. Today’s episode will challenge and inspire you!

Justin Coke brings a wealth of experience and wisdom to today’s episode. He shares some lessons he’s learned as he and his partners grew from one bootstrapped dental office to nine locations. You’ll also hear about how his experience as a patient led him to create different approach for his company. Please don’t miss this one!

The competition for associate doctors is fierce. Knowing what associates are looking for in a practice to join gives you a leg up on recruiting and retaining them. More importantly, it allows you to build a practice that attracts them. In today’s episode, Dr. Lewis and Matt lay out the Associate Matrix. This episode will lay out exactly what associates want and how to give it to them.

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy continue a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been...

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy continue a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been...

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy continue a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been...

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy continue a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been...

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy continue a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been...

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy continue a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been...

Getting to the place where dentistry becomes optional is hard. But staying there can be even harder. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy begin a series focused on how to stay out of the chair once you get there. To do so, you don’t have to apply yourself to everything in the dental office anymore but you do have to apply yourself to a few things. This series will cover the right things to monitor and apply pressure to from someone (Dr. Ced) who’s been th...

Is that offer to buy your practice a good one? With Private Equity backed DSOs aggressively trying to grow through acquisitions, dentists are getting offers sometimes weekly. And most dentists, in there current single doctor model, are counting on the proceeds of a sale to fuel a significant portion of their retirement. Understanding these offers and there implications to your future can be overwhelming. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy break d...

Many times when people get to a place where they don’t know what to do in their business, they stop. As a result, they might fail to reach their full potential. In this episode, Dr. Cedic Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss a personal story that forced Ced to develop a framework for what to do when he didn’t know what to do. He shared this framework with his team and it has since had a profound impact on the team and how he leads them. Apply this framework to your life and ...

A successful summit of Mt. Everest always includes avoiding mistakes that can prove fatal. Knowing what to avoid at all costs is either learned through years of experience or from the wisdom passed on down by people who’ve been up there. The same is true when building a practice where you are no longer the main producer…or what the Dental Sherpas call “climbing out of the dental chair”. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss the mistakes that must be a...

Most doctors are chasing new patients and operative production and their hygiene recall is something that gets done when their staff has nothing else to do. In this episodes, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy interview Dr. Sigurd Enoksen and discuss how hygiene recall is the backbone of his $6 million/yr. practice. Sigurd is one of the smartest guys in dentistry today and he drops incredible knowledge bombs throughout you won’t want to miss.

Did you know that 70% of the treatment presented in dental practices across the US doesn’t get accepted. This is a staggering number. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy are joined by Bobby Hansen, CEO of Treatment 24/7. Bobby shares insights from his days as a treatment coordinator in a high octane practice and how that experience led them to develop a better method of presenting treatment that dramatically increases acceptance. This podcast gets int...

You can have the best plan in the world but if you or your team don’t hold yourselves accountable to execute, the plan is really just a hope and a wish. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis, along with Matt Kennedy, get’s vulnerable and shares a leadership and accountability lesson he recently learned in his own practice. The insight gained is fantastic and well worth listening for.

This episode is special. In it, Dr. Ced Lewis and Matt Kennedy talk with Dr. James Anderson, CEO and Co-Founder of E-Assist. He also is a practicing dentist having built 9 practices over the years. He reveals how he struggled to build and lead a team until he was introduced to the concept of becoming a servant leader. If you're looking for a roadmap to becoming the leader your team needs, this episode is a must listen.

As long time listeners know, CoHost Dr. Cedric Lewis has a multi-location practice with no partners. Our guest today, Dr. Josh Cochran, has grown his practice by adding partners. We're thrilled to do a deep dive into his philosophy and model in this episode.

In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss how critical the doctor’s role in treatment presentation and acceptance is.

Many doctors only look at and get excited about their restorative schedule. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss how to see the opportunity in your hygiene schedule.

It’s easy to see that to move out of the chair you’ll have to depend on associate doctors for production. What’s not easy to see is the return you are getting on your investment in those associates. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss this very important metric and how to use it to support and uplift your associate doctors.

In this episode, Dr. Ced Lewis and Matt Kennedy talk about the why’s and how’s of opening a second location and how to know if it’s the right move for you.

The term “Scale” is quite a buzzword in the business world today. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy define what “scaling your business” means to them and take a deep dive into how you can implement this concept into your dental practice.

Financial Intelligence is critical to your success today and in the future. In this episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Dental Wealth Coach Matt Kennedy discuss how to make smart financial decisions in the practice and in your personal world. Understanding how money works and becoming more efficient with every dollar has the potential to create a huge impact on your future.

Climbing out of the daily grind of the dental chair and creating a life where doing dentistry becomes optional is like climbing Mount Everest. It takes strategy and planning and must be done in stages. In today’s episode, Dr. Ced Lewis and Matt Kennedy lay out the 4 stages dentists must go through to create a practice that can thrive without you, the owner/doctor, being the main producer. This type of practice is predictable, profitable, valuable and a lot of fun to own.

Marketing doesn’t start with a campaign. It starts with making it easy for patients to get what they want from your practice. In today’s episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy talk about marketing for the dental practice and how to remove the barriers of entry your patients may be experiencing.

Backed by the deep pockets of institutional investors, DSO’s are aggressively making offers to buy practices. In this episode Dr. Ced and Matt talk about the different deal structures they are seeing and how to evaluate them.

Growing your dental practice doesn’t happen by accident. In this episode Dr. Ced and Matt are joined by John Christensen, the founder of Chrisad. John discusses the scientific, data driven approach to growing a dental practice as well as the dangerous approaches that will actually drive patients away from your practice.

Adding associate doctors to your team is a critical part of you getting out of the chair but it’s not easy. First, you have to have the patient flow to support them, otherwise you’ll end up splitting your income. But second, just getting them lots of exams doesn’t necessarily translate into high treatment acceptance and production. In this episode, Dr. Ced and Matt talk about helping increase their production by growing their clinical skills as well as their soft skill...

In this episode, Matt and Dr. Ced discuss the timing and process of adding associates to your practice.

Merry Christmas from the Dental Sherpas Podcast! In this episode, Matt and Ced the tension between growth in a practice and profit.

To get out of the chair you have to rely on your team even more than you do know. This means that you have to develop you leadership skills. In this episode, Dr. Ced Lewis and Matt Kennedy talk about this leadership transformation and how it is critical to successfully finding freedom from the dental chair.

Tracking your practice numbers is critical to your success. There are so many things you can track that it can be overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be. In today’s episode, maybe the most important in the series so far, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy discuss why tracking is so important and how it isn’t as complicated as you might think. You’ll learn the few simple numbers to track, what drives those numbers and how to use them to create the predictable patient ...

In this episode, Dr. Ced talks about how to attract associate doctors by having an attractive practice.

What is the engine that drives your practice? Knowing the answer to this question can dramatically change your practice and your future forever. Your Ideal Patients have raised their hands and told you what they want. In this Episode, Dr. Cedric Lewis and Matt Kennedy reveal what that engine is and why it is so powerful.

Knowing what is essential to track in your practice is critical to your success. It’s also critical to your mental well-being. In this episode, Matt and Dr. Ced simplify the things you need to track, discuss their importance and how to use these key elements to first diagnose small problems in the practice, and then how to use them to create change in the practice and the team to make sure small problems don’t grow in huge problems.

“The bottleneck is always at the top” Dr. Ced LewisUnderstanding the Owner’s Trap and how to break free of it is crucial in your journey to a place where doing dentistry becomes optional. In this episode, Matt and Ced break down the trap and how to move from being a practitioner to a leader.

In this first episode, financial advisor and dental practice coach Matt Kennedy and Dr. Cedric Lewis, founder and owner of 2 dental practices that will collect over $10 million this year, talk about the reason they started this podcast. Dr. Lewis (Ced) shares his journey from a 2 Op practice producing $28k per month to the multi-location, multi-doctor practices he owns and runs today. “The difference between me and you is I’ve just failed a lot more."

Matt and Dr. Ced ask the question, “Does your mindset really matter?” Turns out, the answer is a resounding YES! Success in your practice and in your life depends on it.