Question from a reader: I read this article online you wrote in 2008 or so. Do you still do things the way you advocate in this article? It seems to be different than what I’ve heard you speak on lately.

 

Change is good. Change is necessary! I get a couple emails a quarter from docs I don’t know referencing this article “Simple Marketing Strategies for a Successful Orthodontic Practice” http://goo.gl/2jtZTJ and it is fun to revisit the past and see how we used to do things. To answer your question as to us doing things the way we did back then…

Yeah…. NO, I don’t do that crap any longer! In fact it’s funny to look back at how PCD (Primary Care Dentist) focused I was. I was very good at getting PCD referrals and I still say that for a person starting out your best source of referrals is to work the PCDs. Just don’t be depending on them for your livelihood because referral patterns change more than weather and with less cause! Also, Invisalign was just coming out with Invisalign teen and there wasn’t near as much penetrance as there is now so I wouldn’t advise that these days though I went all in on clear aligners at the time of this article. I guess if nothing else this article shows how much we have changed over the years.

‪Belief Possession is the cancer that kills most in our profession. Most believe that if they change what they do then they are admitting they were wrong and that they failed. 1) That’s not the case and 2) So what?

‪I have zero Belief Possession and do what I do now because it’s the best way I know I know how to do it for now. Let me find a better way and I’ll change again, and again, and again…