YO! Three pressure points every dentist and practice leader feels are: how to grow without losing your life, how to manage multiple offices without drowning in busywork, and how transparent to be with practice financials. Here’s the playbook.

Success Without Losing Yourself

Balance expanding a dental business with being present at home. Remember, comparison is the thief of joy. Use a North Star, not your neighbor’s Instagram.

• Define your target income to support the life you want (not the life someone else posts).
• Write your identity declarations (e.g., “Dad of the Year”), and list the behaviors that prove it (family dinners, 1:1 kid time, weekly date nights).
• Schedule your life in 15-minute blocks. Remember, every time you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.

Multi-Site Leadership Without the Chaos

You want to feel productive, not just busy. The answer is systems, scorecards, and sequencing.

• Rules of the house: live your core values and define roles/responsibilities for each seat.
• Scorecard discipline: Track adjusted production, collections, case acceptance, new patients, and doctor hourly.
• Be Sherlock, not a firefighter: If “new patients” are low, diagnose why—call answer rate, call conversion, scheduling, capacity, or hygiene availability.
• Coach with timers: invest deeply in underperformers with 30/60/90-day milestones. Meanwhile, over-communicate appreciation to your superstars so they don’t feel invisible.

Financial Transparency That Builds Trust (Not Drama)

Transparency lives on a spectrum:

• Full view (my preference): share an easy, visual scorecard tied to the P&L—adjusted production, collections, supply costs, rent, team compensation (we group assistants/hygiene/front/doctor pay). We bonus from profitability, so the team sees how systems affect the bottom line.
• Middle ground: share revenue/collections/new patients plus targeted expense lines the team can influence (e.g., supplies).
• Teach where profit goes: taxes, debt service, capital equipment, reserves. Kill the myth that $1,500 for a crown = $1,500 under the mattress.
• Helpful benchmarks: Many groups target ~50% total team compensation when doctor pay is included (or ~25% for non-doctor team compensation). Calibrate to your reality.
  

Key Takeaways

• Choose a North Star: define income, identities, and non-negotiables—then schedule them.
• Run the system, not the swirl: core values → clear seats → scorecard → root-cause diagnostics.
• Coach with clarity: 30/60/90 goals; celebrate wins; move the seat if needed.
• Share the score: transparency (full or focused) turns opinions into ownership.

Want scripts, checklists, and whole conversations on dentistry, leadership, practice growth, and systems? Listen to the Dental Lighthouse Podcast.