Explain this magic along with hard work....
Nice vette by the way.
Yes it was but I really like my M5 more.
1. I graduated with no debt which helped out immensely. Actually this is not totally true because I got married the same month I graduated so I "inherited" my wife's $70,000 debt (yes small potatoes compared to dental school debt)
2. I worked as associate for one year and then went and bought my first practice. It was a busy practice so I immediately hired one of my classmates as an associate. This way I doubled my production and rarely had to close the office if I wanted to go to a continuing ed.
3. I realized that I knew nothing about managing a practice so I hooked up with Jim Pride from Pride Institute (he's dead now) and got he got me up to speed really fast on how to manage a practice. It took about two years. The secret is staff management BTW. I doubled my production again and I was 6 years out of school.
4. I made myself available for every health fair, boy scout merit badge college, street fair, school presentation etc. I worked very hard and got my name out in the community as much as possible. I did a lot internal marketing and made sure that my patients also referred other people to me by taking very good care of them (seeing them for after hours emergencies for no charge etc)
5.I constantly reinvested in my office, my staff and myself with upgrades in my equipment and continuing ed
6. Since I didn't have to close the office because I had an associate I was able to take a lot of quality continuing ed. I did the Pankey continuum and Masters Series, I did all the Frank Spears courses including working with him in his office, I got about 80-100 hours a year in CE every year since I graduated. Quality CE will pay off if you are willing to implement what you have learned.
7. I nutted up and put my ass on the line all the time changing my practice into the type of practice I wanted. I had to stand firm and keep the staff from freaking out every time I raised fees or introduced some new protocol that made the office more productive. I also constantly sought out new and better ways of doing things and worked hard to improve my skills.
8. I paid off my debt quickly and was able to invest in some aggressive funds very early in my career. Some bit me in the ass but some I was able to ride out and they paid off pretty well. (Right now my "retirement" is from one of my earliest investments. It will pay me a really really good salary every year until I turn 65, my other investments and 401K will have kicked in years before this one taps out.)
9. About 7 years ago I started doing nothing but full mouth restorations, implant supported dentures etc. I turned all my general dentistry duties over to my associated and cherry picked my cases from our pretty large patient population. Eventually I had built up a good enough reputation so that I was getting referrals from Oral surgeons, orthodontists and other dentists. I worked on a bunch of dentist's wives too.
10. About 2 years ago I sold half of my LLC to my associate for twice what I paid for my original practice and he became my partner (bad bad idea
)
This did not work out like I had hoped and I realized that I needed to get out so I sold him the other half of the practice last year.
11. I was going to take some time off and then open another practice. I went to talk to my accountant about how much money I could put together for opening a new office and he told me that if I wanted to I could "retire". So I decided to take a break from dentistry and think about it. While I was enjoying my "retirement" I got a call from one of my dental school instructors who asked me if I'd like to teach at the dental school he is the dean at now. I thought "why not" so thats what I'm doing for now.
jk 
when you're paying for an $80k car in cash, it's a good indication that you're doin aiiight.
